EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 691
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28690 Posts
On March 03 2017 07:19 LegalLord wrote: That there "will be consequences" if Sweden joins NATO? A reasonable statement of fact. Airspace violations and the like? I'm not a fan, I think it sends the wrong message. What will the consequences be? Be as specific as you can. | ||
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 03 2017 07:40 Liquid`Drone wrote: What will the consequences be? Be as specific as you can. It would mean that Sweden would be dealt with not as a neutrally aligned nation, but as a NATO-aligned nation. | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7909 Posts
On March 03 2017 07:19 LegalLord wrote: That there "will be consequences" if Sweden joins NATO? A reasonable statement of fact. Airspace violations and the like? I'm not a fan, I think it sends the wrong message. Not "consequences". "Military consequences". Don't play stupid. If I tell you: "if you talk to my wife, their will be consequences", will you understand that I'm not threatening you and that of course there will be consequences, because you too will now be friends? That's basically your understanding of the Russian comments. So you have no problem with Russia militarily threatening Sweden if they want to join a defensive alliance with the rest of Europe and the US? And you think the end of the EU and Nato would be a great idea? I mean are you mind bogglingly naive or what is it exactly? Putin wants to restore the "greatness" of Russia. That means, doing what Russia has always done, dominating and bullying its neighbours. Finland and the Baltic States are fucking terrified by Russia today. And without NATO, they would probably all four had had an ukrainian like treatment. A popular TV series in Norway today depicts life in a close future under russian occupation. I don't know, LL, I just don't get you. Seems to me you are just completely trapped by your ideas, too ego commited because you have been defending them like crazy and will never budge an inch despite everything and everyone explaining you in detail why what you say is ridiculous. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28690 Posts
But we've never been part of their perceived sphere of influence. Baltic states and other eastern european countries feeling entirely differently is also very understandable. Even if Putin genuinely wants to recreate the Soviet Union, we wouldn't be part of that. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28690 Posts
On March 03 2017 07:50 LegalLord wrote: It would mean that Sweden would be dealt with not as a neutrally aligned nation, but as a NATO-aligned nation. By which you mean what? I'm genuinely curious, because my understanding of that is basically 'the consequence would be that Russia behaves nicer towards them' after they join, but that doesn't sound like there 'will be consequences'. My impression has been that for countries within Russian sphere of influence, Russia perceives wanting NATO membership as a way of forcing Russias hand - once NATO membership is granted, the country in question is off limits. But they're also willing to gamble (correctly) that NATO is not willing to wage war against Russia over countries that are not NATO members. I don't see it as even remotely likely that Russia would invade Sweden if they pushed for NATO membership, thus I'd assume Sweden would join and then they'd be both off limits and not particularly interesting. But then it's really weird how Sweden keeps complaining about Russians probing their electronic defense. | ||
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On March 03 2017 11:07 Liquid`Drone wrote: By which you mean what? I'm genuinely curious, because my understanding of that is basically 'the consequence would be that Russia behaves nicer towards them' after they join, but that doesn't sound like there 'will be consequences'. My impression has been that for countries within Russian sphere of influence, Russia perceives wanting NATO membership as a way of forcing Russias hand - once NATO membership is granted, the country in question is off limits. But they're also willing to gamble (correctly) that NATO is not willing to wage war against Russia over countries that are not NATO members. I don't see it as even remotely likely that Russia would invade Sweden if they pushed for NATO membership, thus I'd assume Sweden would join and then they'd be both off limits and not particularly interesting. But then it's really weird how Sweden keeps complaining about Russians probing their electronic defense. It would mean that in any venture that involves Russia & friends vs. NATO, Sweden would now fall on the side of NATO. It would be treated as a nation which cannot be negotiated with on the same terms as it would if it were neutrally aligned. Certainly it's not a friendly proclamation - but it is far from a declaration of war of any sort. Nothing about any country being or not being part of NATO has much of a role on it being off-limits. For all the fuss made about the Baltics, they simply aren't under much threat of being invaded. Because there's nothing interesting there. Why they make such a fuss about it, is simply a mix of a particularly strong strain of anti-Russia sentiment and that it's beneficial to them to have troops stationed in their own country from abroad (servicing American personnel is lucrative, for one). You could complain about softer forms of interference - news coverage, funding opposition, or cyber ventures - but those are quite common tools of the trade in all cases NATO or non-NATO (hell, if the Russian hacks matter is to be believed, which at this point it probably should be, this goes as far as the US). Realistically no one would even consider possibly going to war over that. And a real military invasion was never going to happen either. And also a less obvious truth is this: NATO would never take a country over which a war could actually arise into its alliance, because that's not going to end well. There are indeed countries over which war would happen, even if they were in NATO. Ukraine is likely to be one of those. A real problem of NATO alignment is simply how it tends to push nations into whatever pro-US policy is recommended by NATO at the moment. If Sweden were to say, we're part of NATO now, that implies that they're fully on board with everything NATO will do as an alliance, which always has a tendency not to be friendly towards Russia. And they will be treated with the kind of treatment that that entails. And of course, it is true that NATO isn't actually particularly united a front here - Turkey, for example, isn't as anti-Russian as one would like - but it's close enough that if Sweden were to join formally, it could not expect friendlier treatment. Indeed, the core of all this is probably relations between the US and Russia. If we have to be perfectly honest, the US is the center of the entire alliance and without the US, the alliance is meaningless. And what the US says and does will have a disproportionate effect on how peaceful anything is in the region. If there is a NATO-Russia council, a set of agreements to keep troops off the borders with bilateral inspections as such, agreements to keep aggressive rhetoric to a dull roar, this is going to be much more peaceful than drills on the borders and with US rotating troops, highly aggressive rhetoric, and forward nuclear deployments from both sides. More than anything else, which one is the norm will have to do with US actions in the area. Well we've reached a point in post-Cold-War history where there is a realization that there isn't going to be a meaningful peace between Russia and the US. At best they can be lukewarm, and at worst they will be full-blown adversarial. If they're adversarial, the US will leverage its NATO nations as a tool against Russia. That is not lost upon Russian policymakers, so they quite rightly see NATO as unfriendly. Why things aren't pleasant isn't an easy question to answer, but it can be simplified by saying that the US does a lot of meddling and "regime change" in East Europe, including attempts in Russia - not too friendly an act. If we take this from a "who's right" perspective, let's look at this first from the perspective of the most modern conflicts (say, Ukraine, Syria, and Georgia, the most significant ones involving Russia within the past decade). Russia sent troops into Georgia, took Crimea, and defended a dictator in Syria. That much, at the very least, is quite objectively true. But perhaps it's important to also look at it from the other side. For the Georgia conflict: Who helped start a "color revolution" that put Saakashvili (an interesting figure to say the least - known for eating his own tie in public, somehow ended up a minor official in Ukraine later on, wanted in his own country of Georgia for criminal charges) into power? Who actually attacked in that conflict? In Ukraine: again a coup of a (deeply unpopular, but still democratically elected) president with clear signs of foreign influence. The new government has some very unfortunate ties to paramilitary groups that are genuine, unquestionable fascists (the "support Hitler conspirators and wear Nazi regalia" kind of fascist paramilitary groups), while themselves obviously not giving a rat's ass about democracy and caring only about looting the government the same as their predecessors. And Syria... well this is probably the easiest one to justify, in that what was the "moderate opposition" was often little more than support for terrorists out of geopolitical convenience. All of these concerns are very genuine, yet quite well ignored when trying to build a narrative against Russia. Hell, just look at the hoopla raised around Aleppo for obviously anti-Russian purposes when the result was far from the narrative of Russia being an evil human rights violator. And even for the Baltics, perhaps it could be mentioned that the ethnic Russians that live there do often claim that they are treated as second-class citizens, and that it took the reality of a Trump victory (and the reality of what that could possibly mean) before they started to think that maybe they should be nicer to actual citizens of their country. Taking a "historical" perspective would be an even bigger rabbit hole. We could talk about who supported whom back in WWII, who participated in the Holocaust, who funded the Whites in the Russian Revolution, the fact that there was a British-US plan to invade the USSR as soon as Nazi Germany was defeated (that was abandoned for being unfeasible, not out of goodwill), and if we want to go even more time back we could find a whole lot more. Historically people weren't very nice to each other; this much is a fact and singling out Russia would be disingenuous here. Indeed, if one wants to paint Russia as being the "evil one" in all this, one might want to ask why the "freedom fighters" being supported from the West tend to be overwhelmingly either Western-educated (and perceived as working explicitly for foreign interests) or obvious scummy people (who have a strongly anti-Russian and/or anti-Putin history). Supporting people who disrupt church services to shout vulgarities and dress provocatively... yeah, great people to court as freedom fighters. Same with disgraced crooks who are former oligarchs. Or defectors to ISIS painted as "moderate opposition." Disdain for Russia can often be described as rabid and illogical. There is little that can be done to change that at present. The discussion over the past few pages represents an unpleasant string of such rabid idiocy, and it's so pervasive that often it seems that there is no point in trying to contradict it. At the very least, I can say that it isn't my job to do so. (The EU and my criticisms thereof are a separate issue. Will get back to those possibly tomorrow, possibly later.) | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
Recently, I have come to realize that this is getting valuable in today's world. It seems to me that people are getting more and more divided in their stances and people hold opinions that superficially seem utterly absurd - be it pro-Russians, Trump supporters, preachers of doom due to Muslim invasion ... and most of those people are actual idiots who are just easily swayed by what sounds worth rallying behind. But this things must have come from someone capable with actual independent thinking and observing how such thinking works is critical for the understanding of today's world and to asses whether something can be done about it. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
Also, I'm curious: are you talking about this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine On March 03 2017 17:10 opisska wrote: It's really interesting to see how your facts are not even all that different, and far from being wrong, they are just cherrypicked in a very systematic manner or just viewed from a very specific angle. I mean, the same could be said in reverse. I could talk about why the "Putin kills journalists" or "Russian news is all propaganda" or "Russia is just expanding its evil empire" issues are being misinterpreted at best - but it would also be a pointless gesture in an attempt to convince a crowd that is unlikely to think otherwise. All facts are cherrypicked. The only problem here is that RT and Sputnik are literally the only "view" you have into "the other side of the story." Which are occasionally ok but entirely uncredible. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10768 Posts
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Biff The Understudy
France7909 Posts
On March 03 2017 17:37 LegalLord wrote: Ever heard of war plans that are kind and friendly to the nation that they are the target of, especially in the middle of a nuclear war? War plans are all ugly things, seldom meant for viewing, and hardly a statement of intent given that they're not generally supposed to be released and that invasion plans of one's own allies are common. From what I can gather, most plans that involve nuking Austria work under the presumption that Austria's territory was previously occupied by NATO due to demilitarization making it difficult to resist such an entrance. Also, I'm curious: are you talking about this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine I mean, the same could be said in reverse. I could talk about why the "Putin kills journalists" or "Russian news is all propaganda" or "Russia is just expanding its evil empire" issues are being misinterpreted at best - but it would also be a pointless gesture in an attempt to convince a crowd that is unlikely to think otherwise. All facts are cherrypicked. The only problem here is that RT and Sputnik are literally the only "view" you have into "the other side of the story." Which are occasionally ok but entirely uncredible. LL, I would agree with all you said if Russia was a democracy with a reasonable leader. It happens to be that Russia is governed by Putin, who is a ruthless dictator surrounded bya bunch of kleptocrats. You can't just ignore that and look at the situation as if it didn't matter. I work with people coming from former USSR. A huge majority want to emancipate from Russia's sphere of influence, because the country has nothing to offer but bullying and corruption. Look at who governs Chechnya today. And when they do, they can expect the russian tanks in their street the next day. It happened in Ukrain, in Georgia. Call me naive but if when a small neighbour country reposition himself and wants to get out of your sphere of influence, you send your tanks and invade it, you are probably not really a positive force in the world. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
The moral is that war plans are just that, war plans, everyone with a sane military planning has them and they are not an argument for someone being more evil than someone else. Also being "neutral" is a pretty pretentious stance - look we do not like to fight for our values, let someone else do it but please, no blood here thanks. | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5630 Posts
On March 03 2017 17:37 LegalLord wrote: Ever heard of war plans that are kind and friendly to the nation that they are the target of, especially in the middle of a nuclear war? War plans are all ugly things, seldom meant for viewing, and hardly a statement of intent given that they're not generally supposed to be released and that invasion plans of one's own allies are common. From what I can gather, most plans that involve nuking Austria work under the presumption that Austria's territory was previously occupied by NATO due to demilitarization making it difficult to resist such an entrance. Also, I'm curious: are you talking about this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine The problem is making a neutral nation a target in the first place, not not being kind to a target of a war plan. I mean, the same could be said in reverse. I could talk about why the "Putin kills journalists" or "Russian news is all propaganda" or "Russia is just expanding its evil empire" issues are being misinterpreted at best - but it would also be a pointless gesture in an attempt to convince a crowd that is unlikely to think otherwise. All facts are cherrypicked. The only problem here is that RT and Sputnik are literally the only "view" you have into "the other side of the story." Which are occasionally ok but entirely uncredible. I don't know how one can misinterpret Putin killing journalists who dig too deep or his political enemies. It is what it is. Russian news is mostly propaganda (not to say that Western media do not lie; but there's certainly more pluralism). It creates an alternative reality in which the USSR did not closely collaborate with Nazi Germany to start WW2. In which the Red Army liberated lands conquered by Germans so that they could be rebuilt and prosper, and not to treat them like colonies. Russians are being taught alternative history, where key facts are being ignored. This is meant to create a context: those ungrateful Eastern Europeans turned away from us, after all we have done for them, and now they blindly hate anything Russian. On Russian TV you have talk-shows like these, where they invite people to play the "evil Pole" that says outrageous things about Russia/the USSR or their people, such as Tomasz Maciejczuk (first video) who said that "Russians live in shit" or Jakub Korejba (second video) who called pro-Russian separatists and their sympathizers "imperialist scum" and such (more examples in the spoiler). Those very same people then write pro-Russian articles for Sputnik and other such outlets after they leave the studio... + Show Spoiler + All this is meant to feed into the already existing siege mentality. Edit: And here's an example of a host of a Russian talk-show claiming that Poland seriously considers partition of Ukraine, which was in reality seriously discussed on Russian TV and Polish TV only reported on that... | ||
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
Helena Horton from The Telegraph • 3 March 2017 • 8:40am Polish MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke started an argument by stating his controversial views. He said: "And of course women should earn less than men, because they are weaker, they are smaller, they are less intelligent, and they must earn less! That's all". Source | ||
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Dav1oN
Ukraine3164 Posts
They always invite some american/polish/syrian/ukrainian dude to flame him entire show. Sometimes I even wonder what kind of crap they are throwing. But what u talking about siege mentality is truth. The same thing with opposition, they are puppets, the real opposition just has no tools. Leader of their real opposition Nemtsov was killed nearly a year ago in a center of Moscow, and no guilty found, no evidence or video from cameras, simply nothing. So basicly u should avoid federal channels at all cost cause u don't wanna touch the clownade. Last video, hairy guy Alexei Venediktov is a chief editor of Radio Echo of Moscow should be consisdered as real opposition though, he talks smart things, but he also pretty much powerless | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18055 Posts
On March 03 2017 19:10 maybenexttime wrote: The problem is making a neutral nation a target in the first place, not not being kind to a target of a war plan. Why? Neutral countries are only left alone if it is convenient to the warring parties. You'd think both world wars so far would have taught everybody that lesson. NL, NO and BE thought they could remain neutral (BE twice), but were annexed for their strategic reasons. I can't see much strategic reason for a nuclear annihilation of Austria, but presumably the battle plan was a bit more involved than just sending nukes to Vienna and twiddling thumbs and laughing evilly. | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5630 Posts
On March 03 2017 19:44 Acrofales wrote: Why? Neutral countries are only left alone if it is convenient to the warring parties. You'd think both world wars so far would have taught everybody that lesson. NL, NO and BE thought they could remain neutral (BE twice), but were annexed for their strategic reasons. I can't see much strategic reason for a nuclear annihilation of Austria, but presumably the battle plan was a bit more involved than just sending nukes to Vienna and twiddling thumbs and laughing evilly. I would say that there's a difference between being a target of hostilities and being a transit country for the Red Army. The idea of nuking Vienna was to decapitate Austria in order to grant the Warsaw Pact troops a safe passage. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18055 Posts
On March 03 2017 19:56 maybenexttime wrote: I would say that there's a difference between being a target of hostilities and being a transit country for the Red Army. The idea of nuking Vienna was to decapitate Austria in order to grant the Warsaw Pact troops a safe passage. Errr, that's exactly why NL and BE were invaded in WW2: so the Germans had an easy route for blitzing into France. | ||
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Laurens
Belgium4547 Posts
On March 03 2017 20:48 Acrofales wrote: Errr, that's exactly why NL and BE were invaded in WW2: so the Germans had an easy route for blitzing into France. To be fair, Germany first asked us if they could pass through. Our king refused. Are we still neutral at that point? Hard to say. edit: my bad, that's WW1 | ||
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