Offline

4y

So how do we think the other non-NATO post-Soviet states will react to this?

phil trout

4y

Watch in horror, I’d imagine. Not like Latvia and Estonia are particularly well equipped to defend themselves or their compatriots.

phil trout

4y

Watch in horror, I’d imagine. Not like Latvia and Estonia are particularly well equipped to defend themselves or their compatriots.

Offline

4y

Right but they're NATO so should be safe for the short-medium term

Talking more about Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, even Central Asia

Offline

4y

Right but they're NATO so should be safe for the short-medium term

Talking more about Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, even Central Asia

krishna bound

4y

Georgia specifically is definitely going to be insanely worried especially about South Ossetia. Armenia & Azerbaijan are definitely more complicated imo (i could be wrong on this for complete transparency) - Russia and Armenia have pretty good relations and Russia would have to drill all the way through Georgia first to get there, and also sabotage existing diplomatic relationships with them - I mean Russia literally armed Armenia and Armenia would then be using those arms against Russia. Armenia is also right on the border of Turkey (in NATO - also not a s***post when bringing them up for once) and provoking Turkey in any manner related to Armenian territory by Russia is probably one of the stupidest things they could possibly do. Similarly, any invasion of Azerbaijan would be really egregious - the military power that arm and help Azerbaijan are pretty powerful, and also include Israel; Israel itself has bases in Azerbaijan. I don't think Russia would want to light a powerkeg there, but if they really are just like "fuck it, we're f***ed anyway, let's go all out", they will almost certainly create an actual quasi-world war by trying to go through those Caucasus countries. Central asia countries like Kazashstan, etc. though? Their best bet against invasion is probably just their environment/landscape currently. There isn't a lot else beyond hopes that it wouldn't fulfill any theoretical motivation from Russia; afaik there hasn't been any talk of Central Asia in regards to Russia recently, but yeah South Ossetia/Georgia 100% deserves worry (imo).

krishna bound

4y

as usual the people in the government will be fine just as they are elsewhere (look at Syria as a good example of this). The vast majority of people who actually live there are screwed though. Usually sanctions are lead almost solely by the US and everyone else just follows but may push back (look at the initial push back and forth on Nordstream originally - Germany denying US influence for a bit); any notion of that is completely gone now, the EU will levy sanctions to the same tune as the US with little wiggle room. The Russian economy is already and has already been terrible for years and most of the population does not live well compared to contemporary surrounding countries. The economy getting crippled even more there is unimaginable no less for a country of their scale and size. Virtually any international project with any actor other than like, China and ME/South Asia countries (none of which bolster the same economic trade-off as US/EU except China) is just dead in the water now. They definitely consolidate domestic power and pose a challenge to global hegemony, but it's in light of them destroying more or less their own stability. I mean even if they completely take all of Ukraine, they can't actually economically or logistically support expanding out the country. Ukraine does not add anything to their economy except more mouths to feed and supplylines to maintain, and they can barely do this for their own country already - and this is on top of having to them recover from being essentially outcasted in terms of sanctions. At that point the country will essentially just become completely and solely dependent on China, which is anything but a win for Russia themselves.

ARCADE GOON

4y

Putin, and United Russia, are and always will be a product of Boris Yeltsin's CIA backed coup and Slavic anxieties brought on by NATO bombings in Yugoslavia and Kosovo making Russians reach for anyone that can provide security against the west while still being willing to tax the oligarchs.

It's not a matter of "yikes, both sides are bad here" because you cannot have one without the other. Putin is a product of NATO aggression and without NATO being a persistent threat to the security of Russia, United Russia would be gone in a single generation. The communist party of Russia is still the strongest party outside of United Russia, even after decades of United Russia anticommunists astroturfing. Despite making some concessions and scheming required to survive post-coup, to call them controlled opposition is mostly a defeatist take and doesn't reflect the actual political sentiments among the Russian people. I suspect without the alienation and paranoia that comes with constant western containment and aggression, leftism and Soviet nostalgia will begin to outpace United Russia's appeal toward stability and security

Offline

4y

I wasn’t even talking exclusively about further Russian military action, but rather the reaction in those countries to this conflict.

For example, I agree Georgia is the most at risk of Russian invasion or at least some sort of pressure (I think Moldova is pretty close behind - they’re both small, pro-Western but without any organizational links, and already have Russian military province on what is theoretically their land). But perhaps in Georgia public support for NATO and EU will increase even more, or the leadership will start begging to be allowed in to preempt Russian action (if I was a Georgian politician I’d be begging for membership tbh). In Moldova maybe this will cause support for unification with Romania to rise.

I don’t have the best grasp on Armenia/Azerbaijan either but right now there’s Russian peacekeepers in the disputed region, but at the same time Azerbaijan has close ties to Turkey and Armenia is somewhat close with France and Greece (meaning both are grasping away from Russia). No idea how they will react to this. Armenia especially is hard to read, I believe they’re trying to normalize relations with Turkey, they had a quasi-color revolution in 2018 but remained close with Russia, I saw some Armenian oligarch/politician wants to federate with Russia. Azerbaijan is a bit simpler to understand, they have to balance Turkey and Russia without drawing the ire of either.

Central Asia too, those are basically all dictatorships, will this make them reinforce ties with Russia or to be warier? I guess Kazakhstan has reinforced ties as Russia helped crush the protests.

I’ve even seen that Finland is considering joining NATO.

krishna bound

4y

I'm not a geopolitical expert so a lot of this is just conjecture just like anything else, but yeah I get what you mean. If Georgia took action to join NATO though I think honestly that would raise tensions. You now have Iran talking about NATO threats more and supporting Russia. If you suddenly consolidate every country in NATO (i.e. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Finland) while meanwhile non-NATO countries either join a mirror NATO counter-alliance (Russia, Iran, etc.), you're almost certainly going to get an actual war because someone within those alliances is going to attack someone else, and it'll either force NATO action or prove NATO was symbolic and didn't matter this whole time.

In terms of other things, I would really guess countries like central Asia & Armenia closer to Russia may just closen relationships to Russia instead of anything else, namely not just to deter invasion but to build counter-NATO support. How this then effects countries like Georgia bordered by these countries though is really a hard question though especially given the issues in Ossetia already. The geopolitical placement of Turkey here as well creates serious questions, and also the fact countries liek Israel (which are super-war hungry, especially against Iran) have bases in Azerbaijan. Like if there's a threat like this going up esp. with Iran threatening NATO, you don't think Israel will use this as an excuse to attack Iran? That would almost 100% happen.

Offline

4y

Oh no I don’t think Azerbaijan is anywhere near joining NATO (nor that they want to). Only a few countries, all already western-leaning if not aligned, might display greater interest (which of course doesn’t mean they actually join).

Paradoxically, I think NATO actually keeps Turkey in check a bit in that it stops it from going full pan-Turkist in its foreign policy, but nevertheless it supports Azerbaijan, which brings it into tensions with Armenia and Iran, and then we talked about it a couple days ago, but from there the Israeli links with Azerbaijan and Turkey. It’s even more of a mess in the Caucasus than the Balkans.

Probably the best bet for somewhere like Georgia is to try to remain broadly Western-oriented without pissing off Russia, walk a fine line.

I agree though that the prospect of tying together all these disparate tensions is very dangerous.

Also curious if you have any thoughts on the idea that a successful Russian campaign would inspire/serve as a model for others - people mention China/Taiwan, but I’m thinking especially Serbia/Bosnia.

krishna bound

4y

I don't necessarily think Azerbaijan will join NATO or anything but I do think it's worrying Iran is now talking about joining forces with Russia to resist NATO expansion (whether or not it's just talk or not, let's see, probably is). While I don't honestly worry about Iran, I worry about a country like Israel which fanatically wants to go to war with iran by any means possible using this as an excuse to provoke a situation; moreso because of the Israel-Azerbaijan military relationship and the fact Azerbaijan is sandwiched between Iran, Armenia, and Russia. I don't really worry about Turkey themselves, I don't think they're going to go full Ottoman or anything, but I do think their geopolitical location and being in NATO brings up questions of if Russia wants to control as much NATO border as possible what they will do with Georgia, and with Armenia being a Russian proxy (well not really but at least someone closer to Russia's sphere of influence), I think that's a valid question. Georgia will definitely remain western-centric but I think they really are going to have to think a lot about their next move. If someone like Finland joins NATO, I really think given the Ossetia situation Georgia would consider it, which is really dangerous.
For other campaigns, I really would love to say I know the answer but I can really only guess and i think it's up in the air. I don't really think China/Taiwan is as much of a given as people think tbh. Personally I think China cares too much about fostering their current upward growth and maintaining their burgeoning capitalist class to be pursuing things which could disrupt international influence and economics. However at the same time China & Western economies are virtually symbiotic and neither can pull away from each other w/o completely stunting their individual economic trajectories, so who knows if they'd call the bluff; I'd still lean on probably not. To be honest I don't think China actually thought Russia would invade.

they only just now are pulling evacuations while every other country in the world did in advance. I think they genuinely may have thought Russia was bluffing and that's why they defended them initially.

krishna bound

4y

I don't necessarily think Azerbaijan will join NATO or anything but I do think it's worrying Iran is now talking about joining forces with Russia to resist NATO expansion (whether or not it's just talk or not, let's see, probably is). While I don't honestly worry about Iran, I worry about a country like Israel which fanatically wants to go to war with iran by any means possible using this as an excuse to provoke a situation; moreso because of the Israel-Azerbaijan military relationship and the fact Azerbaijan is sandwiched between Iran, Armenia, and Russia. I don't really worry about Turkey themselves, I don't think they're going to go full Ottoman or anything, but I do think their geopolitical location and being in NATO brings up questions of if Russia wants to control as much NATO border as possible what they will do with Georgia, and with Armenia being a Russian proxy (well not really but at least someone closer to Russia's sphere of influence), I think that's a valid question. Georgia will definitely remain western-centric but I think they really are going to have to think a lot about their next move. If someone like Finland joins NATO, I really think given the Ossetia situation Georgia would consider it, which is really dangerous.
For other campaigns, I really would love to say I know the answer but I can really only guess and i think it's up in the air. I don't really think China/Taiwan is as much of a given as people think tbh. Personally I think China cares too much about fostering their current upward growth and maintaining their burgeoning capitalist class to be pursuing things which could disrupt international influence and economics. However at the same time China & Western economies are virtually symbiotic and neither can pull away from each other w/o completely stunting their individual economic trajectories, so who knows if they'd call the bluff; I'd still lean on probably not. To be honest I don't think China actually thought Russia would invade.

they only just now are pulling evacuations while every other country in the world did in advance. I think they genuinely may have thought Russia was bluffing and that's why they defended them initially.

Offline

4y

I think any Chinese action is a couple decades away if it happens, and I think in the meantime they’ll try diplomatic or at least peaceful means of unification, but I think the possibility of military force will be there at some point. As for the web of alliances s***, all very true and scary about how it can spiral out of control (including to countries we haven’t even mentioned).

Not directly related, but something that sprang to mind while thinking about this stuff is how deep some of these rivalries go. Let’s take Turkey and Iran, which are broadly opposed to each other: in the same rough geographical positions, we have the Ottomans vs the Safavids, the Ottomans vs the Timurids, Byzantium vs the Seljuks, Byzantium vs the Sasanians, Rome vs Persia, classical Greece vs Persia… of course not to say that Turkey is directly inheriting the beefs of classical Athens, but probably something along the lines states of a certain size and power in certain geographical positions are very likely to compete with each other regardless of other factors (in this case some sort of Aegean/Anatolian state vs an Iranian Highlands based state). Similarly, in one form or another Turkey and Russia have been engaged in competition for roughly the past 400 years straight with only a brief interlude of good relations soon after the foundation of the USSR and the Turkish Republic. Just an insane scale of conflict both over time and space.

Should mention that despite what I wrote, I’m not a geographic determinist, although it definitely plays an important role. Or I could be reading way too deep into it tbh

ARCADE GOON

4y

Putin, and United Russia, are and always will be a product of Boris Yeltsin's CIA backed coup and Slavic anxieties brought on by NATO bombings in Yugoslavia and Kosovo making Russians reach for anyone that can provide security against the west while still being willing to tax the oligarchs.

It's not a matter of "yikes, both sides are bad here" because you cannot have one without the other. Putin is a product of NATO aggression and without NATO being a persistent threat to the security of Russia, United Russia would be gone in a single generation. The communist party of Russia is still the strongest party outside of United Russia, even after decades of United Russia anticommunists astroturfing. Despite making some concessions and scheming required to survive post-coup, to call them controlled opposition is mostly a defeatist take and doesn't reflect the actual political sentiments among the Russian people. I suspect without the alienation and paranoia that comes with constant western containment and aggression, leftism and Soviet nostalgia will begin to outpace United Russia's appeal toward stability and security