How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[NamEndedAllen]

53 minutes ago, poesel said:

I'd like to repeat: 'the' Germans were not denazified after WWII. Some heads were chopped off, some went into prison. But for the great majority, it was 'don't ask, don't tell'. Or a bit more precise: 'shut up in public'.

The prospect of prosperity and freedom (in this order) enabled the following generations to lose that mindset. Adults do not change their mind (a lot), you have to wait until they die for their ideas to die with them.

Russia lacks any positive democratic experience, so I guess that process takes longer than in Germany. That is, if it ever starts...

If you try to speed that up by shooting the people with the wrong mindset en masse, you only make their children angry and the process doesn't start at all. It is quite infuriating, but nothing but patience and time does work (IMHO).

Btw. same goes for the other side, too. I mean those who seek revenge (rightfully, no doubt). But some injuries can't be mended, ever. The hate only dies with the person.
It's a small miracle that France & Germany stopped shooting at each other for long enough so that nobody alive holds a grudge (at least not enough to start a war).

Sorry, sounds a bit morbid that my solution is just to wait until everybody dies.
And no rule without exemptions: the Balkans and Israel/Palestine. These guys can hold grudges over hundreds or thousands of years. So let's hope Russia doesn't join that club.

Good long term perspective. And panzermartin pointed out correctly that the USA was strongly fixated on standing up a West Germany that would aid it in the long and bitter Cold War. Also, both the USSR and the USA grabbed as much specialized technology and military matériel as they could along with German scientists and high ranking military who were versed in such. 
 

I point this out because most of us have no illusions that Ukraine or anyone else is going to invade Russia, defeat it, and then carry out the sorts of post WWII plans that rebuilt Germany and Japan. That makes it difficult to use as comparisons the two world wars that ended in total defeat and unconditional surrenders. Speculation here mostly revolves around long distance constructive engagement with hypothetical new ruler or rulers to either:

a) “manage” Russia and/or several splinter states from afar,  or

b) reform and guide Russian culture to a better place with healthy relationships to world society

Are their reasonable, realistic historical analogies to this sort of outcome?

[dan/california]

49 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

About the war -

From the perspective at the beginning of Ukraine’s northern counteroffensive, is the Ukrainian military’s ability to sustain and develop the offensive and exploitation this long and this successfully surprising? 
 

As each new Russian temporary line is breached, what forces remain farther to the Russian rear? Do we know any correlation of forces? With so much of its combat power tied down in Kherson Oblast, what can Russia bring to stop the Ukrainian advances? Apart from rain. Does it have fire brigades sufficient for this? Or all the major population areas/transportation junctions strongly held by Russian regular units and tough fake republics’ units? Please, for the moment let’s leave out nuclear weapons. I’m curious about the conventional warfare at present.

After the carnage of the past months and the reports of so much of the fake republics’ forces being used and disposed of as cannon fodder, are their thick *manned*  defensive lines throughout those occupied territories, right up to the Russian borders?

 

We know almost nothing about what Ukraine has in reserve still, or where they are. All indications are that the line around Lyman the The AFU is finishing off as we speak is virtually the last of the Russian's decent forces in Northern Luhansk. Almost everything behind that is three day mobiks, and pieces of pieces of broken units the Russians are trying to reassemble. I don't think either kind of unit is going to do decent job of doing all the digging in two weeks that should have been worked on for the last six months. . My two cents is that the mud is a bigger drag on Ukrainian advances that the Russians at this point. The biggest question in my mind is do the Ukrainians have a third attack up their sleeve somewhere on the Southern front. I have read reports of intensified shelling in various areas down there. They may just be keeping the Russians honest, or they may decide it is too muddy up North for either side to do much more and throw the dice one more time before the mobiks can arrive and at least attempt to dig in. Or maybe they want to Himars them into bloody shreds first and attack when the ground is frozen, and the whole first wave of mobiks has trench foot. Analysis is worth what you paid for it.

Edited September 29, 2022 by dan/california

[dan/california]

No claims about the reliability of the source, but I was expecting this soon.

[BletchleyGeek]

47 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

I point this out because most of us have no illusions that Ukraine or anyone else is going to invade Russia, defeat it, and then carry out the sorts of post WWII plans that rebuilt Germany and Japan. That makes it difficult to use as comparisons the two world wars that ended in total defeat and unconditional surrenders. Speculation here mostly revolves around long distance constructive engagement with hypothetical new ruler or rulers to either:

a) “manage” Russia and/or several splinter states from afar,  or

b) reform and guide Russian culture to a better place with healthy relationships to world society

Are their reasonable, realistic historical analogies to this sort of outcome?

Thanks for saying out loud the bit part, Allen.

The last few days in this thread have made me quite uncomfortable as folks were fantasizing about breaking up the Russian Federation as if if they were playing Paradox Interactive's Europa Universalis, where you invade a country like France and partition it into bits like the Duchy of Brittany and the Principality of Burgundy to ensure that it doesn't come back to eat you... or giving a nation the treatment of vampires in the traditions of the Southern Balkans, where vampires are gone only when you pretty much cut them up into teeny tiny bits and set them of fire. All this talk of obliterating this and that without even pausing 1 second to consider the enormity of what is being proposed and the means necessary to carry it out may be okay for a couple posts, but after days of writing in circles, honestly it is a bit tiring.

Hobbesian man-eats-man anarchy isn't a good state of affairs in international relationships (I think).

Edited September 29, 2022 by BletchleyGeek

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, Grigb said:

Sorry for interrupting a lovely conversation about a deeply relevant topic but we have an interesting UKR rumor

WarMonitor's topo from yesterday.

So interesting (and telling) that the RU isn't showing any ability to organise defences in this sector beyond holing up in a few towns.

You'd think a hedgehog approach would make some kind of sense for them, delay and attrite while they get their act together. But artillery to bracket the gaps is essential to making that work, and that's not much in evidence here (except on the Ukrainian side).

It really looks like Russia has staked everything -- and concentrated all its remaining forces -- on holding the 'land bridge' (they know Kherson is going to fall eventually), angling for a cease fire using everything from nukes to kidnapped children as bargaining chips, and brazening out a 'win' that way.

See, I have gathered in the land of Novorossiya!

******

For avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying this is going to WORK.  But reducing this province in a winter offensive is going to be a new challenge for Ukraine and its allies. 

Dropping the Kerch bridge and blowing the Donetsk rail / roadway lines and starving them out isn't going to be enough, I think.

Edited September 29, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[akd]

oh man, even better than the sleeping one

 

 

[sburke]

Lest anyone forget, the indigenous people of the Americas are still dealing with the forced migrations and "reservations" they were moved to.  As recently as 1976 the US was still doing forced sterilization of native women according to our own General Accounting Office.

Government admits forced sterilization of Indian Women - Timeline - Native Voices (nih.gov)

 In Vietnam we dumped chemical defoliants resulting in a vast unknown quantity of birth defects in the Vietnamese and our own troops.

Barbarity is not unique to Russia.  Humanity's track record for treating each other humanely is spotty at best.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

derashizied

Define that term.  What are you proposing exactly?

What does derashizied mean?  And how would you propose doing it?

[FancyCat]

 

 

 

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

 

 

 

Bleep me but it is tempting to give Kaliningrad the little green men treatment. Poland could just "not see" an AFU brigade or two... Complete with a "referendum" in 48 hours or so.

And yes I know it would widen the war, but, but,.....

[Vet 0369]

On 9/27/2022 at 3:58 PM, Aragorn2002 said:

The pro-Russian and anti-Europe course of that particular person has played an important role in the growing aggression of Putin and perhaps even in the German attempt to appease Russia.

Before Biden appeared few Europeans considered the US an ally anymore. So blame Germany/ Europe all you like, people, but the US is most to blame for the war in Ukraine.

OK, one political statement here and I don’t make any others on this vein.

I’m a Moderate Republican (original ideology of strong Federal Government, weak State Government), and I couldn’t, and still can’t stand the Jackass Trump. I felt his speeches were straight out of “Mein Kampf.” However, this war wasn’t because of his policies. I actually agree with his threat to the “free-loaders” in NATO to start paying their fair share commitments or he’d pull the U.S. out of NATO. That didn’t cause the war.

In 2014, when “the little green men” from Russia invaded Crimea, and the “vacationers from Russia” helped the Separs, Obama didn’t want to deal with the invasion, despite our treaty that required the U.S. to protect Ukraine from a foreign invasion, so he assigned the portfolio to Biden to handle. Biden did NOTHING, so as far as I’m concerned, this war results from the messages that The Obama Administration (failure to adhere to our treaty commitments), AND the message sent by the European NATO members that failed to live up to their commitments to NATO!

TLDR there is more than enough blame to go around, so how about stop with the childish “I know I did, but so did you” BS. No one can change the past, so everyone has to strive to learn from it and change themselves so they don’t repeat it.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Incorrect, culture was a key platform of both the Nazi and Japanese state and recognized as such by those they oppressed and the victors of WW2, https://blog.oup.com/2020/07/the-dividing-line-between-german-culture-and-nazi-culture/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statism_in_Shōwa_Japan

In Japan, widespread reforms on every level of Japanese society were dictated by the occupation authorities: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconstruction

Germany, what is Denazification if not the modification of German culture? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification

 

As we can see throughout history thru the many deportations of national and ethnic groups in both Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, and now, with the deportations of Ukrainians into Russia without the ability for them to leave (loss of passports) or the ability (loss of funds), combined with being sent into remote regions of the country, a key aspect of Russian control over her lands and people is Russification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification

What kraze references when speaking about "Russian ethnicity" is referring to this process of erasing the culture of the original person and people. 

 

 

And like i linked earlier, the process of ending Ukrainian language and teaching which is ongoing in the recently occupied regions of Ukraine are part of Russification, and so is kidnapping kids, 

 

Reposting again, 

 

Acting like Russia has a point in speaking up for Russian speakers the_Capt, acting like there is a risk of ethnic tensions that suggest maybe the Donbas needs to break away, is ignoring the very long history of Russification that now results in significant portions of Ukraine with Russian language speakers, and whom Russia now wages war upon to cynically "defend" them. 

 

 

Ok, so again, what exactly are you saying.  It appears that it is that Russia has a history of genocide - both cultural and physical?  And that somehow justifies...something?  You seem to be in line with kraze's direction, or are you just FYI-ing?  I can pretty much read between the lines - not a lot of nuance here, so let me respond:

Ok, I am going to call you out on this because this is just dumb, and frankly a bad direction this thread has been going since you and few others got particularly vocal.

1.  You are being pointed and vague at the same time - you pull out weird "facts" but place no context nor really any conclusions.  This is the playbook of many extremist organizations - "I am not saying anything racists but here are some statistics about [insert whoever], just saying"

2.  The "facts" you do pull on are a) pulled from Twitter echo chambers, and b) taken in isolation.  For example, if we are going to reach back into the early 20th century, or 19th century, find me a European power that did not have a history of genocidal behaviour.  By your logic we need to scrub Belgium because of the Congo, Spain for South America, UK, France and the US for North America, and  more than a few other really bad examples of behaviour that Europeans outgrew - including the Ukrainians themselves - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-1919-pogroms-ukraine-and-poland-one-hundred-years-later.  Cherry picking facts and stringing them to somehow make you argument for you is a long standing tactic by extremist organizations.

3.  You dance around it but you are in fact setting up conditions and in effect lobbying for a Russian genocide - as a solution to a genocide.  That is beyond a bad idea - it is phenomenally immoral.  I am sure as you are a Twitter expert on genocide you know the pre-conditions really well.

- Treat an entire society as a homogenous group. "They are all the same, no exceptions"

- Reinforce narratives that re-frame that society as culpable and non-human - plenty of that going on here.  Main effort here is to assign blame on a society, which you have now frames as homogenous and less than human.

- Frame a problem that can only be solved through the removal of the now-subhuman, blamed, homogenous society.

- Pretend to pursue policies that attempt to find way to do this with less violence, largely to reinforce a veneer of legitimacy - "we should deport them all".

- Find reasons why that won't work "they will still want to invade us in 5-10 years, no matter what"

- Deductively lead yourselves to the Wannsee Conference solution set - but hey you tried.

WTF?!

Firstly none of what you, or anyone that seems to be promoting line this is supported by international or humanitarian law - we can (and should) hold a nation state responsible for warcrimes and illegal invasions.  We do not arrest every Russian who crosses a border after the war and charge them for it.

Second, this narrative is monumentally stupid to promote, knowing that it will never gain traction - in fact it will do the exact opposite with respect to western support to Ukraine.  It will sour support to Ukraine when they need it most.  Nor does this nonsense reflect what we have been seeing from the Ukrainian government itself.

Three, it is monumentally immoral because to go through with whatever the hell this "de-something" is, which according to kraze includes the complete destruction of the Russian state - without a safety net, very likely leading to humanitarian crisis - but "who cares:, denying democratic rights to anyone who sniffs of pro-Russian indefinitely, the erasing of a Russian culture (if there is one, oh ya I forgot a sub-strategy of setting up a genocide is to try and pretend that "they are not really a people"), and a punishing the Russian people individually for the rest of time by the sounds of it.  Why? Because the effects of the actions you are promoting are going to negatively impact children who have not even been born yet. It is why we do not do this, the effects ands stakes are that high.

Oh but Russia did this to Ukraine!!  Yes, they did, or at least tried.  And those directly responsible will be held to account.  Russia as a state must be made to pay reparations.  Further Russia will continue to suffer sanctions and the full extent of legal punishments until the make up for this useless war.  However, nothing supports the full spectrum punishment of the entirety of the Russian people for decades - that is not how this works.

Do you honestly think that the mainstream western public are going to join you on whatever revenge fantasy is being cooked up here?  One shot of a starving Russian child and all that good will will evaporate, because people in the West want Russia to pay, but not kids who can't vote, nor pay taxes - I will note that kraze or anyone else spewing this nonsense have offered zero ideas on how to avoid Russian children also being held accountable for actions they literally have no say in - oh, wait don't answer that, I have a pretty good idea what you want already.

I am past asking you guys to stop - I am asking you go somewhere else.  Internet is big and full of other places where you can sell this drivel. 

[Vet 0369]

16 hours ago, Butschi said:

Everything after the "but" is true but the legal aspect is not that simple. Like Japan, our constitution allows using the Bundeswehr only in defense. However it also allows Germany to enter alliances for mutual security. So we can also defend our partners. And because of that our supreme court has ruled that we can also take part in other missions of these alliances because it would not work to just gain all the benefits without the duties involved. That allowed the Bundeswehr to deploy in Yugoslavia, for instance. But these kinds of missions cannot be decided by the government alone but have to be decided in parliament. Still, this whole business is somewhat of a grey area and many legal experts say the constiution needs to be changed to have this on a firm basis.

@Butschi, thank you for that info. I thought that might be the case since Marshall was Chief of Staff to the U.S. Army, and McArthur reported to him, that would have been a unified position of the U.S. Government For the reconstruction of both countries.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

a) “manage” Russia and/or several splinter states from afar,  or

b) reform and guide Russian culture to a better place with healthy relationships to world society

Are their reasonable, realistic historical analogies to this sort of outcome?

Yup.  Serbia is the closest example to Russia and, as I stated, it is doing pretty well historically speaking.  Still lots of rough edges, but the recent tensions with Kosovo shows that Serbia has fundamentally changed for the better.

Other examples are the former Warsaw Pact countries, the Baltics, the Balkans, and Georgia.  Of all of these only the DDR was "occupied" in the sense that it didn't pursue it's own independent path.  The rest of these countries had minimal experience with democratic principles because of Russian and/or Soviet domination.  Not all are shining beacons of democratic principles, or have times of stumbling, but they are all headed in the right direction.

I am less familiar with other parts of the world, but Vietnam has made some very interesting changes over the years.  South Korea is better than it has been, Taiwan as well.  Mongolia is doing quite well from what I can tell.

There's a huge variety of good/bad stuff in the mix of countries I just mentioned, but the point is all of these nations had pretty dismal track records of Human Rights and, in the case of the Balkans, genocide (let's not forget Serbia wasn't the only one guilty of atrocities).  Nobody occupied them to set them on a better path.

As I look back the primary problem with the West and Russia is that the West didn't ask much of Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed.  It pretty much let it do its own thing, as it did with the other countries mentioned.  Nothing was done to dissuade Russia from continuing on with its history of mass murder and crushing internal dissent with violence.  Therefore, it didn't change because it didn't see the need to change.

This is where Russia today and Serbia are quite different.  Serbia lost and lost big time.  By the time Serbia had recovered it found its neighbors were more than a match for them in every way.  NATO played a critical role in this being the case.  Therefore, even if Serbia's government wanted to wage a war of revenge it wasn't practical any more.

And finally, a country I have not mentioned yet is Ukraine.  One of the primary reasons Russia has interfered and invaded Ukraine is because it was headed down the road to responsible government.  Nobody occupied Ukraine and forced it to be more democratic and less corrupt, it's done this on its own.  Most impressively it's done it despite massive efforts by Russia to undermine it, this war being the clearest example of that.

The answer to the question "can Russia be reformed without occupying it?" is a definite YES based on historical precedent.  The question "will Russia reform?" is a very different question and one we can not answer.  My hope is YES, but that depends on a lot of things in the air now landing in the right spots.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, akd said:

oh man, even better than the sleeping one

 

 

Heh.  Training was so quick that they didn't even have time to teach the Mobiks how to identify the enemy.  Awesome

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

51 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

...Trump...

Wow, this thread certainly went to hell quickly (sorry to single you out)!

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, FancyCat said:

 

 

 

OK, back to Russia Collapse Discussion™

One of the things Russia is doing is ensuring that if there's systemic regional instability that there's nobody there to enforce Moscow's will.  In some places this won't matter, for example Finland isn't going to walk into Russian territory just because it can.  Which is why Russia knows it is safe to withdraw forces from there.  But what happens in the Caucuses, Central Asia, and the Far East?  Maybe no external force is gearing up to go into previously Russian territory, but the people there won't have to worry about a Prague Spring situation.  If they revolt they're going to have a much easier time of it.

This is going to be interesting for Kaliningrad in particular.  It's already completely isolated from Russia, now it doesn't have anything much of military defenses.  Nobody is going to march in there proactively, but if some group declares independence it's pretty much game over as Russia won't have any way to react.  Especially if it throws open its borders and invites its neighbors in to help get it onto its feet.  I'm not talking about NATO forces, as that would be unlikely.  No, I'm talking about foreign aid, investment, advisors, etc.  Once those make it in Russia's ability to muster a counter will be far harder.

Steve

[JonS]

13 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

There's a huge variety of good/bad stuff in the mix of countries I just mentioned, but the point is all of these nations had pretty dismal track records of Human Rights and, in the case of the Baltics, genocide (let's not forget Serbia wasn't the only one guilty of atrocities).  Nobody occupied them to set them on a better path.

Should that have been 'Balkans'?

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

WarMonitor's topo from yesterday.

So interesting (and telling) that the RU isn't showing any ability to organise defences in this sector beyond holing up in a few towns.

You'd think a hedgehog approach would make some kind of sense for them, delay and attrite while they get their act together. But artillery to bracket the gaps is essential to making that work, and that's not much in evidence here (except on the Ukrainian side).

A hedgehog defense requires a number of things which Russia lacks.  You mention artillery, and that is certainly one of the big ones.  But more important than anything is a workable plan.  I doubt Russia has one.  And even if it does create one that is militarily sensible, it doesn't have the command and control to pull it off.  Units will be moved here and there without any sense of what their mission is or their part in the big picture.  All failings that have been evident since the beginning of this war.

The lack of ground forces at all, not to mention ones with combined arms capabilities, is the real nail in their coffin.  When a Mobik or other scratch force is tossed into a village and told "defend" their first question has to be "with what?".  If it doesn't come to their minds right away, it will as soon as Ukraine hits it with combined arms attacks.

 

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

It really looks like Russia has staked everything -- and concentrated all its remaining forces -- on holding the 'land bridge' (they know Kherson is going to fall eventually), angling for a cease fire using everything from nukes to kidnapped children as bargaining chips, and brazening out a 'win' that way.

Yes.  They had hoped to hold Kharkiv through dumb luck, I think.  I'm sure senior leaders talked themselves into believing that they could ignore this area for several fantasy reasons because an accurate assessment would cause them to drink even more heavily.

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

******

For avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying this is going to WORK.  But reducing this province in a winter offensive is going to be a new challenge for Ukraine and its allies. 

Dropping the Kerch bridge and blowing the Donetsk rail / roadway lines and starving them out isn't going to be enough, I think.

Russia doesn't care about the "two can play at that game" at this point.  It's in survival mode right now.

Steve

[keas66]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup.  Serbia is the closest example to Russia and, as I stated, it is doing pretty well historically speaking.  Still lots of rough edges, but the recent tensions with Kosovo shows that Serbia has fundamentally changed for the better.

Other examples are the former Warsaw Pact countries, the Baltics, the Balkans, and Georgia.  Of all of these only the DDR was "occupied" in the sense that it didn't pursue it's own independent path.  The rest of these countries had minimal experience with democratic principles because of Russian and/or Soviet domination.  Not all are shining beacons of democratic principles, or have times of stumbling, but they are all headed in the right direction.

I am less familiar with other parts of the world, but Vietnam has made some very interesting changes over the years.  South Korea is better than it has been, Taiwan as well.  Mongolia is doing quite well from what I can tell.

There's a huge variety of good/bad stuff in the mix of countries I just mentioned, but the point is all of these nations had pretty dismal track records of Human Rights and, in the case of the Baltics, genocide (let's not forget Serbia wasn't the only one guilty of atrocities).  Nobody occupied them to set them on a better path.

As I look back the primary problem with the West and Russia is that the West didn't ask much of Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed.  It pretty much let it do its own thing, as it did with the other countries mentioned.  Nothing was done to dissuade Russia from continuing on with its history of mass murder and crushing internal dissent with violence.  Therefore, it didn't change because it didn't see the need to change.

This is where Russia today and Serbia are quite different.  Serbia lost and lost big time.  By the time Serbia had recovered it found its neighbors were more than a match for them in every way.  NATO played a critical role in this being the case.  Therefore, even if Serbia's government wanted to wage a war of revenge it wasn't practical any more.

And finally, a country I have not mentioned yet is Ukraine.  One of the primary reasons Russia has interfered and invaded Ukraine is because it was headed down the road to responsible government.  Nobody occupied Ukraine and forced it to be more democratic and less corrupt, it's done this on its own.  Most impressively it's done it despite massive efforts by Russia to undermine it, this war being the clearest example of that.

The answer to the question "can Russia be reformed without occupying it?" is a definite YES based on historical precedent.  The question "will Russia reform?" is a very different question and one we can not answer.  My hope is YES, but that depends on a lot of things in the air now landing in the right spots.

Steve

I mean I agree with your points to a degree - but there is one big difference between Russia and all those states who are now working towards more Western ideas of Democratic institutions . Russia has Nukes - and until those are removed how are we ever going to convince the Russians really to start playing nice again ?

[BletchleyGeek]

24 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Other examples are the former Warsaw Pact countries, the Baltics, the Balkans, and Georgia.  Of all of these only the DDR was "occupied" in the sense that it didn't pursue it's own independent path.  The rest of these countries had minimal experience with democratic principles because of Russian and/or Soviet domination.  Not all are shining beacons of democratic principles, or have times of stumbling, but they are all headed in the right direction.

I am less familiar with other parts of the world, but Vietnam has made some very interesting changes over the years.  South Korea is better than it has been, Taiwan as well.  Mongolia is doing quite well from what I can tell.

There's a huge variety of good/bad stuff in the mix of countries I just mentioned, but the point is all of these nations had pretty dismal track records of Human Rights and, in the case of the Baltics, genocide (let's not forget Serbia wasn't the only one guilty of atrocities).  Nobody occupied them to set them on a better path.

That's honestly a rather strange analysis Steve.

All the - I'd say - "solid success" stories are to no small part a result of their integration into the Common Market and etc. provided by the European Union. I think that this thread has gone in quite a few orbits around how wrong/right was the Ostpolitik that the EU implemented to integrate, in some sense, the Russian Federation. Something that if anything, after recent events, seems to me way, way far removed from what will be possible in the near future.

Vietnam as you say is an interesting case study where making amends on past misguided, ideologically-driven political-military interventions and the existence of a common enemy/rival (China, which let's remember, invaded Vietnam too, in an example of "big fish eats eat small fish" international relations) has certainly resulted in a non-alignment and economical partnership that has greatly benefited Vietnam. Still, I would say that nobody would say that Vietnam is a democratic country, and questioning the Party line in any way - even if you happen to be a double citizen from a Western country - gets you thrown into a dank dungeon in Hanoi.

South Korea wasn't occupied, but I think it is fair to say that it is sovereignty was kind of "closely monitored" for decades, until the corrupt military dictatorship there collapsed in the late 1980s. So not really a beacon of freedom and liberty because of good relations with the West, but rather in spite of. Hence the rather - at times - dubitative approach of South Korea to jump ship with the USA and Japan (with whom South Korea still has some beef to cut).

Can't say much about Mongolia, to be honest.

And regarding Serbia... not only was bombed by NATO (and the aerial campaign of 1999 is matter of great debate how effective was at actually destroying the Serbian army capabilities) but the West changed de facto the recognised international borders and still has, what I can't help describing as a garrison on Kosovo. The process of integration with European Union requires nation states to trade off sovereignty for prosperity (and I would argue future liberty and freedom too, thinking that also Spain and Greece had military dictatorships in place which were great friends of the USA, at least after 1956 in the Spanish case).

Another interesting case study is Iraq (or Afghanisthan)... probably as providing a counterexample to the kind of political-diplomatic engineering that I was referring to in my post.

Edited September 29, 2022 by BletchleyGeek

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, JonS said:

Should that have been 'Balkans'?

Damn, yes!  Tired and I still smell of hydraulic fluid.  I'm going to blame that combo

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Damn, yes!  Tired and I still smell of hydraulic fluid.  I'm going to blame that combo

Steve

 

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, keas66 said:

I mean I agree with your points to a degree - but there is one big difference between Russia and all those states who are now working towards more Western ideas of Democratic institutions . Russia has Nukes - and until those are removed how are we ever going to convince the Russians really to start playing nice again ?

Nukes are a big problem, for sure.  But they don't get trade deals or economic assistance.  They don't help domestic revolts where there's no resources to squash them.

As I said, this was the problem with the West's response to Russia after 1991.  They largely allowed Russia to be Russia.  Cripes, look how long and hard it was to ban Russia from the Olympics for systemic doping?  Nukes didn't keep them in the game, corruption and a lack of will in the West generally did.

Nukes also didn't keep the US from retaliating against Russia for the treatment of its diplomatic mission to Russia.  And don't even get me started with the multiple "wetworks" operations in the West that went completely unpunished.  The list goes on and on and on.

Russia should have been given more North Korean options when it did things that it shouldn't have.  The West didn't do that, but indications are that is what the West will do this time around.

Steve

[Vet 0369]

Sorry folks, try as I might I can’ delete those miskeyed posts what I wanted to say was:

 

LOL , “Airplane,” one of my most favorite movies of all time! I worked for the FAA for 20 years.