DavidFields

That's right, enough of one cartridge. That is why, if the robbery is successful, the number of robbers will grow; more recently, North Korea and Iran have joined the club of nuclear states. How about the fact that the Taliban will see in nuclear weapons the possibility of defeating the targets? I am sure if the West allows itself to be intimidated and shows weakness, the enemies will immediately use every opportunity to strike at the weak point of the West (in fear)

Yes, but it doesn't take a lot of nuclear weapons to blackmail. You need to understand that Putin's main and most effective weapon is not nuclear missiles, but the most ordinary fear. Thanks to fear, he is in power for a long time. Based on fear, he assumed the success of the invasion of Ukraine. With the help of fear, he will carry out his further expansion, if successful in Ukraine.

I believe the US can offer some precedent here?

Wow! This thread is brutal. I go do my Spanish class and make dinner for my family and then I find myself three pages behind already!
So again I say what do we mean by "democracy"? Rule of the people. And what is the "demos"? How narrowly do we draw it? The block? The neighborhood? The region? The nation?
And so we come to the key Russian reason for the attempted genocide of Ukraine. They see it as a wayward region of the greater Russia that is not a "proper" nation and should be brought to heel. Same as Ukraine sees DPR/LPR separatism. Which is why in March Lavrov exploded when asked if he would accept independence for DPR/LPR as an end state. He said "that would mean we lost Ukraine". Impossible for a boyar from Muscovy to accept that Kievan Rus was outside their dominion.
Now personally I believe in democracy. I want to see a pluralistic, democratic Ukraine within the EU and NATO. And I wish the EU had better tools to deal with semi-democratic regimes in the neighborhood like Hungary, Poland and the UK.
But that does not mean that local criminal warlords in Donetsk or Luhansk or Sevastopol can create their own pseudo countries out of thin air. A rigged plebiscite in Kherson or Melitopol does not make them part of Russia instead of Ukraine.
Just look at history. In 2003 the party of the regions lost power. But they got it back 2-3 years later.
It is hard. Personally I would love a world where we all speak Esperanto and national differences get watered away. Which is why if we could have Russia and Ukraine in a kind of EU or UN where we could allow people to be RUssian or Ukrainian or both it would be better. Like in Northern Ireland people were British or Irish or both.
 
But then the real world intervenes. Russia invades Ukraine. Brexit happens and an English nationalist Tory party takes control in the UK. so we fall back on national identities. 
 
So fundamentally I agree with NamEndedAllen above. The battlefield gets a big vote. Unfortunately war decides the fate of nations. If Russia had crushed Ukraine in February and March then future historians would look at Putin's essay / vomit of last year as very incisive. Oh there is no Ukrainian nation. But look at what we have seen. From five days in when we saw the ordinary people in Ukraine Russian speaking or Ukrainian speaking filling glass bottles with petrol instead of submitting, we knew, the Ukrainians will never be conquered. 200k soldiers can never subdue 44 million risen people.
 
(I am thinking here of Jim Larkin "the great appear great because we are on our knees, let us rise").
 
If / when Ukraine wins this thing our goal, in my opinion, should be victory. Total victory. Ukraine back to 1991 borders in NATO and in the EU. And frankly I could not give two sh*ts what Russia thinks about that. Someone said many pages back (with no disrespect intended to Liechtenstein) that Russia should have as much say in the future security architecture of Europe as Liechtenstein gets. I agree with that sentiment,
This is war. This is the premier league. Russia is mobilizing now. No more "special military operation". And we in the West need to reciprocate. No more "off ramps" for Putin. No more "referendums" in areas that Russia has carved out and driven the Ukrainian population out of and installed planters in their stead. No.
We need to win this. And end Russian imperialism.
And I would argue not just in the Donbas and Crimea but also Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abhkhazia.
Then, if in 20 years time a peaceful group of people want to discuss decession of Donetsk and they have  peaceful democratic process to want to do that maybe we can talk then. But now? Under military threat of Russia? No way.

If we mean what we stand for then this isn't about what we want, it is about what the populations within those regions want - we cannot go back-sies on democracy because we don't like the result. 
And now we get down to it. What is democracy? What is a "region" with a right of secession? What is a "population"? What is the franchise? We get into gerrymandering discussions here.
To take the case of Northern Ireland. What gave the six counties the right to secede from the rest of Ireland? (in reality it was military power through the gun running to Larne and the British Army mutiny in the Curragh). But what is the franchise? Whole of UK (which would have lost)? Whole of Ireland (which would have lost)? Whole of Ulster (which would have lost)? On a county by county basis (which would have shown four counties in favor of secession)? So what we ended up with was four Protestant counties and two subject Catholic counties making a six county statelet which was (just about) large enough to be viable and with a (then) inbuilt 66/33 Protestant majority. i.e. it was an entirely illegitimate project.
So when we move to Ukraine. What was the mandate behind Donetsk or Luhansk having any legitimacy as a separatist region? There is none. The majority of the population in both oblasts wanted to stay in Ukraine. There was no problem until Russia sent it in agents provocateurs to stir up trouble because they could not accept being defeated in the Maidan. So I do not see that Donetsk, Luhansk or Crimea have any legitimate right to secede. And when you add to the fact that the Russians have engaged in ethnic cleansing to clear out the Tartars and plant Russians in Ukraine to generate an artificial majority, the fact that the pro Ukrainian parts of the population fled from Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea how do we say we can have a fair poll today. Like take Crimea, do Russian settlers who moved in get a vote because they live there now? And the family who's house they live in who are refugees in Kiev don't get a vote?
No.
This is not a question of pseudo independence referenda (and why would Ukraine subject to this if Russia is not going to allow Buriyta and Chechnya and other regions secede). Yes, if people in Donbas want to have Russian language rights and the right to send members of Parliament to Kiev they should (after a period of weeding out traitors who should lose their Ukrainian citizenship).
 
You have some places like Scotland for example which entered a voluntary union with England in 1707 or whatever and therefore can have a natural justice right to undo that (it is still a separate country with a separate legal system). Greenland is hundreds of miles from Denmark. And even there whether they have a right to secede or not is an open question. But what gives the Donbas the right to secede from Ukraine? To my mind, nothing. And sorry, regardless what the current quisling "government" there says or the remains of the population that currently inhabit that place.
 
Have they a right to citizenship in Ukraine or to leave peacefully to Russia? Yes. Have they the right to live in peace? Absolutely. The right to raise their kids in Russian language schools? 100%. Have they the right to declare themselves independent of Ukraine and ask Russia for "protection"? Hell no.

It is, Cedric. As a simple matter of historical fact.
Fortunately the census results out today show that the days of Rhodesia on the Bann are numbered.
See for example - https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2022/09/22/northern-ireland-census-results-analysis/
However the thread has had enough problems staying on message today, so I will just leave it there. However I would be more than happy to get on to another thread with anyone here who wants to trash out this subject in more detail. But let's keep the focus on Ukraine.
 
By two cents on Donbas and Crimea. And here for I think the very first time I find myself in disagreement with The Captn.
 
We have as a matter of international law to respect current international frontiers. Which is why Kosovo is such an unfortunate precedent. This is why despite all the brutality we (the West) ultimately recognize for example Russia's sovereignty over Chechnya or Assad's sovereignty over the Kurdish part of Syria. If we are to say that Donetsk or Luhansk or Crimea or any other part of Ukraine (Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson, where would it stop?) have a right to secede from Ukraine because of some local plebiscite then where do we stop? How do we keep international order?
 
We would first of all have the Basque region of Spain or Catalonia seceding. Problems in Corsica and Brittany, in Sardinia. A free republic of Texas. It would undermine the international order.
 
My opinion is that Ukraine needs to be supported by the West to regain all of its internationally recognized frontiers. That includes Crimea and the Donbas. And yes, we will have a NATO naval base in Sevastopol and the Russians will hate that. But Sevastopol is not a part of Russia no matter what they say. It was Ukrainian and they had a lease on the naval base. Now that they have made an enemy of Ukraine why should Ukraine tolerate a Russian naval base there?
And I know that some of you can (in good faith and reasonably) argue that this would be unacceptable for Russia. That they might resort to nuclear weapons. But that in my opinion is not rational. Are we going to fold every time they declare somewhere to be a part of Russia that objectively is not? And where do we draw the line if we are going to fold to nuclear brinksmanship? Crimea? Donetsk? Luhansk? Kherson? Mariupol? Kharkiv? Odesa? Transnistria? Kiev? Warsaw? Berlin?

Long enough until the gas/coal/electricity bills land in European mailboxes and people will riot on the streets, demanding to take the sanctions back.
That's IMHO the plan. I fail to see any other use. I also fail to see it succeeding.

You can see what such people will do, when UKR troops were liberating Kharkiv oblast. They just fled to their beloved Russia, whith which they identified themselves. Of course, some pro-Russian part of population will remain, some will return from Europe and western Ukraine (yes, they, hating all european and ukrainian fled to the west, not to Russia). But Secretary of National Security Council Daniliov, answewring on the question of journalist "How we get along with people, whith wich we didn't leave together already 8 years?" said: "This is not about WE get along with them, this is about how THEY get along with us. This is fundamental thing. If someone is not satisfied our laws and other things, we don't keep anyone - the world is large"   

All very fraught questions.  I was thinking about the constitutional questions when I saw this post and it did occur to me that there is no universal rule that says that if a province/state/oblast or whatever has a majority of people in it in favour of secession then that gives it a right to secede. Clearly the situations vary hugely from place to place but there is a danger of coming at this from an anglocentric perspective. The UK has obviously taken the view that Scotland and  N. Ireland  do have such a choice having either held referenda or legislated for them. Similarly Canada has, by implication, the same view regarding Quebec. The approach of, say, Spain is significantly different when it comes to Catalan independence.  There are  plenty of constitutions  that declare a country to be indivisible, France for example.
Even in the UK I suspect that UDI for, say, Yorkshire might get short shrift from HMG.
I guess the question comes down to whether the Ukrainians feel that:
(a) They can occupy the territory
(b) That there will either be no significant partisan/insurgent hostiles or that if there are they can be suppressed.
If the answer to both of these is yes then 'welcome back to the Ukraine, your rights as citizens will be protected but secession will not be tolerated.'
Not sure it would end well but it might look a runner from Kyiv? Way out of my military history depth here I might add.
 
 
 

🤨
Correct me if mistaken, the constitution of Ukraine does not allow for secession. While I don't know how reintegration will occur, I'm not sure why Ukraine needs to suppress democracy or such off the top of my head since you can't secede.

Any indication what the Russians bill was? Someone should consider using some precision munitions on a grouping of Russians with that competence level. They can't have may of them left.

This is the thing that angered me the most about the Russian attack on Ukraine. Ukraine, with very little help, was making the transition from a badly run country to a truly decent one. That is just about the hardest thing to do in the entirety of human history. Our utterly failed attempts to even get a good start on the process in the middle east being exhibit A. For Russia to try and abort that process is pretty much the greatest crime imaginable. 

So, my thesis is that the Russians are trying for a speed run of Japan's WWII strategy right now. Phase 1 was a replay of Pearl Harbor but aimed at Kiev - an attempt at a decisive victory that hinged on the opponent giving up. Phase 2 was the incremental march in the Donbas; a grinding attritional campaign that mirrors the fight in the Solomons. Phase 3 was the loss of strategic initiative and transition to static defense against an adversary who can attack on two axes; the Hollandia campaign and the Marianas campaign. All throughout, the quality of Japanese equipment and training faded while the quality of the USN improved. Japanese strategic thinking ossified to a policy of inflicting suffering while dying.
If we think of war as communication, it took the annihilation of the IJN, the undersea blockade, the firebombings *and* two nuclear weapons to break through to the one person we had to communicate our resolve to. When Hirohito decided for surrender, the war ended (though this was a close run thing).
I think what no one has identified in Ukraine yet is how to communicate to the Russian equivalent of Hirohito that our resolve is such that the war should end on terms unfavorable to the Russians. We also aren't sure that there is a decision maker in Russia who could end the war. If Putin signaled surrender, would it stick? The Ukrainians don't have signaling tools equivalent to what the Allies had either, which is tricky.

I don't think is reasonable to compare nation building in Afghanistan / Iraq to Ukraine.
In the middle east at every level of society from the bottom to top their was always be going significant resistance or ambivalence due to either self-interest, ignorance or flat out cultural aversion to change. And it doesn't matter how hard you try as soon as you use airpower to a significant degree there is mistakes. The longer troops are on the ground more mistakes. Lots of mistakes over a long period of time slowly but surely adds up to looking like you simply don't care - fail. Cultural change isn't especially fast and to suggest that Iraq / Afghanistan are only 60?! or so years away from organically morphing into modern democracies so lets fight a war and do it in 20 is ludicrous. 
The Ukrainians on the other hand were already clearly starting to walk the walk to be a functioning part of the Western world which is probably not an insignificant reason they were invaded in the first place. I have not even bothered checking Zelensky's Ukrainian popularity but Western leaders trust them enough to give them stupendous amounts of weapons and an indeterminable look at our Intel capabilities. There is a clear and obvious enemy to be beaten. Partisan style warfare after major hostilities seems unlikely unless of course criminal gangs being criminals count as freedom fighters. Ukraine will have their own trouble with corruption and waste when the war finishes but their start point prior to invasion isn't anything remotely like Afghanistan/Iraq.

They have and probably the cause are operational concerns (logistic problems like integration of new equipment and replacements, flank security, defining goals, etc). Which is to say real world military operations do not quite work like operations in Gary Grigsby's War in the East.

Cast The Capt out as insufficiently pure!
 
The revolution always eats its children.

The Captain is making the cost benefit analysis that you can be sure is also being made not just in London, Paris and New York but also in Kyiv. Should the war continue to go in Ukraine's favor and should it take back everything to the 2014 line, it's going to have a choice. The choice will be either to continue a much harder war for terrain it may decide it doesn't need or an immediate settlement within NATO and the EU. If that choice takes the potential for nuclear weapons off the table, all the better. That is very much *not* status quo ante. That's a Ukrainian victory of great import...if not a total one. And it's not one Zelensky will ever articulate until the day the Russians sign the document.

Agreed, engaging in the same sort of deal making EE alleges France and Germany are doing is the easy way to throw American goodwill out into the trash. Mind you, there's a very good reason why the UK has taken a almost opposite position to France and Germany, largely to do with wedging EE from France and Germany. And indeed, its been long standing policy to be more aggressive with Russia than France and Germany simply to reassure the Eastern flank of NATO. 
Also, frankly, the West needs to ignore Putin and Russia. Things like hitting the nuke button, or that Russia is on the verge of chaos, or that Russia is gonna collapse. This did not come to pass due purely to Russia being a bastard, had the West been more forceful in 2014, maybe Putin might not have betted the farm in 2022. Russia has time and time again, acted like complete lying scum, deception, with near abandon in Europe assassinating opposition, hacking, damaging Europe and the world via hybrid warfare, etc. This action, the annexation of Ukraine must be placed into context as a huge, huge attack on the West. This idea that we need Russia to be a gas station for the West or in between us and China is stupid as hell, (and it was just as stupid when the head of the German Navy said it out loud and got fired for it) implying Russia just didn't try to destroy NATO and the EU in one go, collapse the international order, and show the U.S as a declining power unable to do anything, anywhere. 
Now, you have said some variation of this over and over, and up until now, I've been sorta confused about it, tbh, I think i got it now, and frankly its stupid as hell, same stuff as Merkel and cooperation co and discredited as such. Nothing about Russia since the collapse of the USSR has ever indicated a viability in Russia being a gas station, or a puppet? and absolutely not a small dime player to bounce off China, and everything about this attitude expressed is actually a validation of Russian Nationalist worse fears. RU Nat worst nightmares are not collapse of the Federation, it isn't, Russia does not have a fear of the dismemberment of its nation by force, the nuclear triad assures its existence. Its the destruction of Russian superiority and the degeneration of Russia into a puppet state, in both mind and body, that is the worse nightmare for Russia and those nationalists. 
One, nothing about Putin's rise to power, the maintenance of Russian power since 1991, the use of hybrid warfare, indicates any willingness on Russia's part to enter a "puppet state" willingly. As long as its nuclear weapons are there, Russia has no fear of invasion. 
Two, the use of hybrid warfare to counter the EU, the threat posed by the EU in Ukraine and not NATO (it has never, ever been NATO) are because the cultural values that the EU brings are direct threats to Russian power, not in body, but in the mind. The nukes will keep Russia safe physically, but the sneaking influence of the EU is much harder to oppose. 
Three, the reason why we did not expect the full scale invasion of Ukraine has precisely to do with NATO and the EU and our confusion with the goals of Russian hardliners, nationalists. Again, there is no risk to Russia from NATO. What is the risk is the encroachment of EU values with Ukraine turning away from Russia and towards the EU, and the disappearance of the Russian mir, the abandonment of its subject peoples and the turning of Russia from a  regional/world-ish power to insignificant backwater. 
Four, Russia is the superior nation and people, and Ukraine, and its people are supposed to aspire to Russia, be grateful for being part of Russia, and certainly not supposed to wave ****ing EU flags, and liberalize gays and weak values like feminism and blah, blah. 
The Donbas means nothing, only worth to Russia for its value in forcing the Ukrainians to heel. And Crimea may be worth something to Russia, but letting "poor old Russia" keep a island is not going to smooth stuff over and make them grateful for Western benevolence and be suddenly okay with snatching their slaves and freeing them. 
The goal has always been the restoration of Russia as a great power and the Russian people as a great people and part of that goal is the subjection of Ukraine and its people. Hell, one should say that the only way for the Russian Empire to exist, to flourish is with Ukraine under its heel first. 
If you want to spare Russia from collapse, you need to stop supporting Ukraine and let Russia take it over, cause otherwise, it will be the success of Ukraine that drives the Russians over the cliff. 
There is no point in accommodating Russia cause what Russia wants is opposed to everything the West stands for, in both physical power and mindset. And we only barely made it to this point, cause that bastard Putin figured he was a viper that snuck in and got too greedy and the West got lucky. Trying to turn Russia into a gas station got us to this point. 

I also think that the whole idea of mobilization is more intended to intimidate the West than for real military benefit

I won't engage anymore in the conversation as it was a couple of pages ago but this is actually a difficult and interesting  question. Some points: 
1. Donetsk and Luhansk populations have already dropped and will spike downward in any sovereignty change. 
2. Minsk Agreements are a dead letter.
3. Ukrainian politics in every other oblast will have a powerfully anti-Russian unity for a long time to come.
4. Oligarch influence is diminished (look at Kholomoisky). 
5. Speaking Russian and a fierce Ukrainian identity is now a routine thing.
Should Ukraine take back those oblasts, you are going to see a significant voluntary return to Russia of the fiercest NovoRossiya elements and a very different Ukrainian political culture than those that remain knew before the war. You will also likely see a tidal wave of investment that was completely absent in the years Russia ran it. It won't necessarily be easy but there are lots of reasons to see why it could successfully be reintegrated into the state.  
 

Since it the season for nonsensical annexation referenda, I think Poland should hold a vote on annexing Belarus. I think it is 80/20 they could win an honest vote since it would effectively put them in the EU. I am 100% sure they could win the farcical "on line voting" publicity exercise I have in mind. Who knows, with some well placed bribes the Belarusian army might decide to take orders from Warsaw, and that would be that.

We need to be very careful here, before the thread is torn in half by opposing camps, fighting needlessly over a definition. 
Im not denying @kraze et al's anger (I'm 100% comfortable calling it hate, and agreeing that it's fully justified) but I'm also extremely leery of approaching racism -  @Butschi
did a nice note there.
But I don't see fighting over the differences as relevant to this thread.  
It'll just disrupt the flow of thought, news and analysis that has made thread so great (such an addiction for me!). 
It's the classic online debate war,  where if in theory one side wins, ok yay, well what do you get?  A parade?  Trumpets? Cake? (Mmm caaake).  After we're done laying waste to pages of potential useful insight, well then what? It'll be a wasteland, not the vibrant jungle we have now. How can we talk further without everyone having a rhetorical knife behind their back, waiting to go stabbby-stabby on posts they disagree with?
That's not a discussion thread, that's an arena. 
As we all know and all say to each other -  opening another thread is free and easy!  Go, create and God bless. And I'd actually read that thread. 
But one doesn't poop where one eats 
Except for my useless cat. She sh*ts everywhere.
 
 
 
 

well in both cases you have had Russian PMCs get hammered by US weapons... there is that.  
How That Massive Battle Between US Troops And Russian Mercenaries In Syria Went Down - Task & Purpose (taskandpurpose.com)

The impression one gets from the Ukrainian forces right now is that they are pretty sure that significant help isn't coming for the Russians. Given that assumption, there's no reason to take big risks. They are taking a bite, chewing it up, swallowing and taking another. There is a lot to be said for that approach. The Russian economy is going to get ever grimmer, the wear and tear on Russian equipment will get worse, the forces West of the Dnieper hungrier still and always, every day, there are fewer and fewer Russians to hold the line. That strategy also has one big benefit...it lowers the chances that Putin panics and does something truly catastrophic.

Incursion? What incursion? I can't see anything.