More specifically, someone who has kept a close eye on the Ukraine-Russia situation essentially ever since problems began escalating in Crimea. I'm currently writing a short story (I suppose one would label it political sci-fi) set some 50-100 years into the future, and both the Israel-Palestina and Russia-Ukraine conflicts play an important role in establishing the chain of events leading up to the actual story. These are sensitive topics with a lot of emotional load on both sides, and I would like to do my best in representing them fairly.
Unlike what I usually write, my goal with this story is to test my ability of commenting on social and political issues through writing. I've always been fascinated by writers that manage to both write a great story and convey their thoughts and opinions coherently through the story, and it's something I've wanted to try my hand at for some time. As to not make a fool of myself, I need to have the facts down!
I don't really have a lot to offer beyond a lot of gratitude, but I'll buy you three months of TL+ or a few drinks if you happen to live somewhere I might go to for an SC2 event (probably limited to Europe)
What I'm looking for:
Everyone is biased, but I would really appreciate if you could keep your opinions toned down. I need a somewhat objective view (where possible) of what has happened and is happening in Ukraine. If you could give me a run-down of the events leading up to the Ukraine crisis as well, that would be even better.
A few hours of your time. I'll contact you via TL but it would likely be a lot easier to chat over Skype or IRC. I'm not looking to create a peer-reviewed analysis on the intricacies of the Ukraine crisis, but I'd like to at least iron out the wrinkles, so to speak.
A personal opinion on what the conclusion/consequences will be. How will people look back at the event fifty or a hundred years from now? Given the setting of my story, that's an interesting question that I would like some input on.
(BONUS) An interest in science fiction. It makes everything easier!
Let me know if you're interested via PMs or comments and I'll get back to you. Preferrably, also tell me why you know stuff.
On a partially related note, at least in terms of historical fiction, which I believe is the genre you would be interested in, a buddy of mine's father wrote an interesting, albeit tome like interpretation of what would have happened should the South have won the American Civil War.
It is called Democracy's Missing Arsenal, don't know if that is your cup of tea or not, but thought I would put it out there.
I followed the situation initially, but haven't of late. I think you may find VICE's coverage of the situation informative. They have done 70 some short bits from the start of the war on wards. May help with your research.
I suggest you find multiple people and not just one because the gamut of political prediction, especially in IR, varies from person to person based on their biases and the information available to them.
On September 18 2014 22:55 itsjustatank wrote: I suggest you find multiple people and not just one because the gamut of political prediction, especially in IR, varies from person to person based on their biases and the information available to them.
^ I've met some Ukrainians from the local diaspora who have really odd ideas about what's going on and they believe themselves to be experts... Yet they're the people you should be weary of because they're very opinionated, as will most people who have a stake in this conflict will.
On September 18 2014 22:55 itsjustatank wrote: I suggest you find multiple people and not just one because the gamut of political prediction, especially in IR, varies from person to person based on their biases and the information available to them.
^ I've met some Ukrainians from the local diaspora who have really odd ideas about what's going on and they believe themselves to be experts... Yet they're the people you should be weary of because they're very opinionated, as will most people who have a stake in this conflict will.
I don't know, wouldn't it be best to find someone who actually lives there in case you want to learn about cultural undercurrents?
On September 18 2014 22:55 itsjustatank wrote: I suggest you find multiple people and not just one because the gamut of political prediction, especially in IR, varies from person to person based on their biases and the information available to them.
^ I've met some Ukrainians from the local diaspora who have really odd ideas about what's going on and they believe themselves to be experts... Yet they're the people you should be weary of because they're very opinionated, as will most people who have a stake in this conflict will.
I don't know, wouldn't it be best to find someone who actually lives there in case you want to learn about cultural undercurrents?
It's actually really good to have but if you were to have only one perspective you definitely want an external observer rather than someone who's in the middle of the action because if we know anything, it's that people are really shit at introspection. The internal observers will perhaps have a lot more information about the undercurrents, but they'll also most likely be more biased, whereas the external experts will be able to give you perhaps a more objective assessment of the situation, but may very well be confused about the details and the deep trends that perhaps have old, obscure roots. Then again there certainly are people who live in Ukraine right now and have a very solid understanding of what's happening and the various currents that are influential, but unless you know who those are, it's hard to tell if they're being straight with you or if you're being spoonfed one side's propaganda.
Well if you handle the events of Israel - Palestina conflict already I think you're good. That conflict has a lot more history in it than Ukraine crisis.
you should contact praetorial, he's probably one of the most informed TL people you could find (top 5 nationally in competitive analytic speaking on current events). Not sure if he's still around on TL, but facebook or something could help.
On September 18 2014 22:55 itsjustatank wrote: I suggest you find multiple people and not just one because the gamut of political prediction, especially in IR, varies from person to person based on their biases and the information available to them.
^ I've met some Ukrainians from the local diaspora who have really odd ideas about what's going on and they believe themselves to be experts... Yet they're the people you should be weary of because they're very opinionated, as will most people who have a stake in this conflict will.
I don't know, wouldn't it be best to find someone who actually lives there in case you want to learn about cultural undercurrents?
There is definitely a language barrier there. Most Russian-speakers don't have as much of a reason to learn English as Europeans do. Those who do are usually those who left their country, which alone tends to speak volumes about their political tendencies. Frankly, the most of the individuals of Russian/Ukrainian descent who are strongly pro-Russia living in the US that I know are either the spouses or the children of those who actually wanted to leave the country. EU members are more likely to speak English for obvious reasons, and so in an English-speaking world you will get more of that perspective.
As for the OP: The Ukraine Crisis events themselves are listed in a straightforward enough manner on any timeline. The more important question to ask is, why did said events occur?
On September 18 2014 23:07 Skynx wrote: Someone call nunez, master of Ukraine crisis on TL :p
Joke aside I wish I had necessary knowledge, I love sci-fi and also love witnessing peoples writing process.
*deadly stab*
people from east of poland need not apply.
there was this one tl'er who seemed informed, kukachoo... kukarachoo... kukakukachoo... or something. but he stopped posting about the same time i started creeping him.
Are you a lazy writer? You can use: "Ukraine became an independent state in 1991. One thing led to another, and the air liner was shot down by unknown military force in 2014."
"Adolf Hitler's application to art school was denied at the age of eight. One thing led to another, and the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan."
It's hard enough to predict things even 10 years into the future, much less 50-100...
For example, that timeframe extends past the death of Putin (currently 61), and it's impossible to currently know for sure who would succeed him and what their policies would be - or if Putin even continues to rule until his death or elder years instead of choosing to step down, being voted out, or even being overthrown/pressured out (unlikely, but possible). And the direction of Russian policy directly affects events Ukraine.
The Mideast is even more uncertain. Will there be an internal left-wing Israeli backlash against the right-wingers who have courted international criticism over the invasion of Gaza, or will some Palestinian group be able to seriously retaliate, either in Gaza, the West Bank (perhaps terrorist attacks on settlements), or Israel itself, thus stifling potential Israeli peacemakers? Will Assad (if he stays in power) or the military in Egypt see increasing tensions with Israel as beneficial, distracting their own populations from their autocracy, or decide that they can't risk over-extension and instead make tacit peace with Israel, enraging the radical Islamist groups? Perhaps the most interesting question - will there be another Arab Spring in 50-100 years (or even sooner) and will it be any more successful in establishing democracy in the Middle East? And if it does, would democratic governments make the Arab states more or less willing to confront Israel?
Basically, the smartest people in international relations have been grappling with these questions for decades and are still constantly surprised. Even major events like the fall of the Soviet Union and the Arab Spring were surprising to many experts.
On September 19 2014 18:40 IAmWithStupid wrote: Are you a lazy writer? You can use: "Ukraine became an independent state in 1991. One thing led to another, and the air liner was shot down by unknown military force in 2014."
"Adolf Hitler's application to art school was denied at the age of eight. One thing led to another, and the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan."
Here are some good articles, though not all of them are on those particular conflicts.
I don't see any point in writing on those topics right now, as most facts are unclear. You'll probably be able to write a more informed piece in 20 years or so.
On September 20 2014 03:27 opisska wrote: I am surprised that so few people are willing to admit that they are experts on everything. It surely looks that way in the GD forum
Though we may be experts, we are also very, very modest.
On September 20 2014 03:27 opisska wrote: I am surprised that so few people are willing to admit that they are experts on everything. It surely looks that way in the GD forum
Harder to say you're an expert when you have to then deliver the merchandise!
It seems to me that anyone that keeps a weather eye to the news should be able to give you a basic rundown of the chain of events. At the risk of quoting Nietzsche, there isn't much disagreement of the facts, only the interpretation.
On September 19 2014 18:26 zatic wrote: Half the people in the old Ukraine thread were already writing fiction exclusively, just let them do the job.
Thats why I keep out of it.
I tried my best but I only had 45 minutes and that wasn't enough to track what I read through. This is all I can give you right now, I have no time for analysis. Maybe tomorrow, I don't know yet. This post is incompletely and kind of useless because of that but its better than nothing, right ....
I never particularly focused on Ukraine/Russia/NATO post 1991 but it certainly had me interested for a few weeks so I played the old resources game, which is really hard without access to real information. But I am not sure if thats what you are looking for, I kind of do this .. my way . I will try to get everything I looked through, you will have to read through most of it yourself (or the synopsis/intro of the papers at least).
Here we go.
I started with dependency, most importantly energy (except electricity per se, which is generated through solid fuels/oil/gas but for me its hard to make a correct correlation as to which amount goes into it). As eurostat has not updated with EU-29 stats, assume that most of it is EU-28 unless stated otherwise.
Primary energy imports As you can see Russia still comfortably tops the crude oil import and provides about 1/3 of gas like Norway. As more than half of the consumed energy comes from outside Europe, the EU has long tried to adopt new strategies like this one.
Main points are getting a more efficient energy grid and better resource sharing between countries, as well as transparent oil prices , more renewable energy etc. This is no longer a issue of providing enough energy to fuel the economy but more importantly this has always been a real security issue for the EU since its beginning and now gets the attention in the press/population it always had inside the EU. It will be fun to see what the new (proposed, not ratified yet) EU-commissioners will do - Spain got energy/climate but more importantly Slovenia's ex prime minister Alenka Bratušek will be responsible for the energy-union. But I think I am getting off track.
So we know that the EU wants to get independent from Russian resources , and so do they. But this is not going to happen in the next 5-10 years, most likely not even after that. Going to take a while, if ever. That alone makes things complicated because the most fun thing is that as long as the EU depends on Russian exports and Russia has not expanded its pipelines/infrastructure towards the east, this co-dependency actually makes it easier, not harder, to deal with Russia. Fun stuff. Love me some realpolitik.
Okay I am kind of running out of time here, terribly sorry, the rest is for you to read ..
Some of the better papers I found (biased but good if you are able to read without inadvertently adopting every opinion you read).
If you want a crash course on public relations, russian style, I urge you to read this speech from Putin on March 18, 2014 - on the height of the crisis. http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6889
It's very hard for us europeans to give an objective rundown of what happened in ukraine, because our medias are just making up everything about it on the theme "Poutine is Hitler#2, he's evil and everything he does is wrong, always". So to have good info on the subject is pretty hard, and even when you have the info it's hard to share it because everyone is basically brainwashed on that subject. When you always hear that Poutine is evil, russia is evil, and its repeated for years on every media, trying to explain it's not that simple is well...not simple. And most of the time you end up being categorized as a "conspirationist".
It's even worse as a frenchman, Russia was always one of our historic allies (I'd even say friend) country, but since Sarkozy we're basically USA's dog and we have no foreign policy anymore while this was a very strong France's strenght before. Now France prefer not honouring contracts we passed with Russia and putting thousands people in unemployement, this is crazy. I have some notes about the ukraine crisis, I'll try to translate and share this weekend.
You need to start way way earlier than the current crisis, even earlier than 1991. Actually to fully understand the conflict you probably need to start with Kievan Rus in the middle ages and then go from there. The way Russia views Ukraine is hugely important due to it being a very central part of the birth of Russian culture/nation and then it's several hundreds of years of non-existence. Crimea adds to the problem as it was never really a part of Ukraine (given to them in 1954 when no one could see the end of the soviet union, see how hard it is to predict even 50 years?) and it's central importance to Russia.
Then you have nationalistic Ukrainians after independence, collaboration with Nazis, the sense of betrayal from Russia from what they basically consider (considered?) to be Russians.
On September 19 2014 18:26 zatic wrote: Half the people in the old Ukraine thread were already writing fiction exclusively, just let them do the job.
and the other half was banned and censored.
the people whose voices should've be heard, the ukrainians and the russians (eastern europeans in general actually), were disproportionately moderated against in both that thread, and the airplane disaster thread.
it was a disgrace to teamliquid, and you're making jokes like that. shame on you.
On September 19 2014 18:26 zatic wrote: Half the people in the old Ukraine thread were already writing fiction exclusively, just let them do the job.
and the other half was banned and censored.
the people whose voices should've be heard, the ukrainians and the russians (eastern europeans in general actually), were disproportionately moderated against in both that thread, and the airplane disaster thread.
it was a disgrace to teamliquid, and you're making jokes like that. shame on you.
And you really need to not bring this into my personal blog on writing science fiction with a proper basis in fact
On September 19 2014 18:26 zatic wrote: Half the people in the old Ukraine thread were already writing fiction exclusively, just let them do the job.
and the other half was banned and censored.
the people whose voices should've be heard, the ukrainians and the russians (eastern europeans in general actually), were disproportionately moderated against in both that thread, and the airplane disaster thread.
it was a disgrace to teamliquid, and you're making jokes like that. shame on you.
And you really need to not bring this into my personal blog on writing science fiction with a proper basis in fact
EPT
