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Nilbop posted:You're going to have to explain what you understand this sentence to mean to me. Once a country in the former Soviet Union enters NATO/EU they are almost certainly not going to leave it, it is a one-way trip.
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Apr 3, 2018 00:38
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Nilbop posted:Is somebody seriously arguing for placating Putin after 2 blatant assassination attempts on British soil and 2 invasions of friendly allies within the past decade? Ardennes posted:Once a country in the former Soviet Union enters NATO/EU they are almost certainly not going to leave it, it is a one-way trip.
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Apr 3, 2018 00:44
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mobby_6kl posted:Yeah, about that... Noticed I said former Soviet Union (and to be honest also the Warsaw Pact), there is a reason Hungary and Poland are still in the EU even if they took a hard turn toward authoritarianism (money).
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Apr 3, 2018 00:46
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Fair enough, I had to look up the latest polls and especially last year the Eastern members were surprisingly supportive of the EU: http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/15/post-brexit-europeans-more-favorable-toward-eu/ I guess the Brexit disaster might've helped there. But I still don't think it's a one way street. Plenty of people are mad about the migrant quotas, straight bananas, etc. to vote for leave if somebody were dumb enough to put it up for a referendum. Especially with some foreign help. All despite being huge net receivers of funds and none of the refugees actually wanting to go there of course.
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Apr 3, 2018 01:09
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Ardennes posted:Once a country in the former Soviet Union enters NATO/EU they are almost certainly not going to leave it, it is a one-way trip. The simple reason for that is being in the EU and NATO is better than being in the remnants of the Soviet sphere. I'm not sure what you were trying to say with this, it's literally beneficial for every nation to join the EU (including us in the UK) and it's beneficial for every state worried about Russian encroachment to be in NATO.
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Apr 3, 2018 02:22
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Ardennes posted:Once a country in the former Soviet Union enters NATO/EU they are almost certainly not going to leave it, it is a one-way trip.
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Apr 3, 2018 06:24
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Ardennes posted:Once a country in the former Soviet Union enters NATO/EU they are almost certainly not going to leave it, it is a one-way trip. Yeah and why would a former Soviet country possibly want to enter NATO/EU? If they want to, should Russia be given free reign to take a chunk out of that country? Should NATO/EU just refuse to have anything to do with that country?
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Apr 3, 2018 08:22
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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suck my woke dick posted:Yeah and why would a former Soviet country possibly want to enter NATO/EU? If they want to, should Russia be given free reign to take a chunk out of that country? Should NATO/EU just refuse to have anything to do with that country? Obviously. We need to keep 'compromising'!
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Apr 3, 2018 09:24
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The fact that a country sees the accession of another into the EU as a "loss" is telling of their goals. The EU is happy to make deals, it is a huge trading partner, a security partner, the best place on Earth to make profit, arguably, and an entirely non-threatening entity that is almost absurdly averse to military aggression. The many partners and friends of the EU certainly do not see the integrations of states into the EU as a loss, to the contrary, it opens them so many opportunities. Only a country that has hostile intentions (anywhere on the scale from bullying to conquering) towards a member would find its membership sttus a zero sum game outcome.
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Apr 3, 2018 10:30
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Ardennes posted:Once a country in the former Soviet Union enters NATO/EU they are almost certainly not going to leave it, it is a one-way trip. Given how long the process of joining is, if Ukrainian politics is as volatile as you claim they'd never be able to join. Plus volatile internal politics is kind of a no-go to join the EU as it stands anyway. I don't think the whole war thing happened because Ukraine was about to join the EU though. Pretty sure they wanted some dastardly poo poo like a closer trading relationship. Without properly taking into account the risk of nuclear war and how many American tanks would be involved, obviously. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Apr 3, 2018 |
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Apr 3, 2018 10:42
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Newsflash: Fourth Reich stooges seal the fate of honourable Catalan freedom fighter by sending him back into the clutches of his post-Franchist enemies.
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Apr 3, 2018 11:26
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steinrokkan posted:The fact that a country sees the accession of another into the EU as a "loss" is telling of their goals. The EU is happy to make deals, it is a huge trading partner, a security partner, the best place on Earth to make profit, arguably, and an entirely non-threatening entity that is almost absurdly averse to military aggression. The many partners and friends of the EU certainly do not see the integrations of states into the EU as a loss, to the contrary, it opens them so many opportunities. Only a country that has hostile intentions (anywhere on the scale from bullying to conquering) towards a member would find its membership sttus a zero sum game outcome. You have to look at the wider historical picture and switch your frame of reference to understand why Russia seems weirdly hostile to EU. Like, from EU citizen's PoV EU is pretty much a pretend-to-be-war-averse trading block which just tries to keep Russia at arm's length and which loves to squabble over Euro policies. Still, Russia seems to be eager to gently caress with EU. Buh? What's the big deal here? For last several centuries Russia has consistently been in conflicts with continental European powers, generally several times per century. We're speaking of three larger conflicts with European involvement during the last 100 years, Napoleonic and Crimean Wars in 19th century, something like 8 wars in 18th century and so on. This kind of this does play part in risk assesments of individual countries. From their point of view, EU is another coalition of European powers, and those have been bad news for Russian foreign policy interests. Even worse, this coalition now sits uncomfortably close to Murmansk, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Black Sea, Baltic Sea and Southern Russia. Russian go-to in those cases has been to somehow create a buffer zone of allied or neutral nations in Eastern Europe, Baltic and Balkans. This has sometimes meant war to prevent another war. Sometimes not. The problem with this is that last Russian dominance over Eastern Europe was so bad time for those involved that they understandably don't give a flying gently caress about Russian policy concerns, because Russia certainly wasn't a very good guest, so they align themselves rather with Europe and United States. From Russian point of view this means those countries are actually joining this inherently suspicious European coalition out of their own volition, and now they're like 120 km from Saint Petersburg. There's currently no feasible way to force or persuade the countries to reject the lucrative trading block, and military power against them is too risky and would probably lead to the very scenario they want to prevent by maintaining at least some sort buffer zone between  I absolutely do not blame Eastern Europe for joining NATO and EU. It's completely understandable and absolutely their - and EU's and NATO's - prerogative to pursue that. In the same time, I think that inability to at least try to look at Russian policies from their point of view does not lead to any better understanding of the situation. I am not certain there is any solution that all parties would find completely acceptable as is - and I side with minor countries here and am perfectly willing to tell the current right-wing patriarchal Russia to gently caress off - but being able to at least look at your significant risk source and determine it's potential responses to different scenarios is sort of necessary.
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Apr 3, 2018 14:16
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Nilbop posted:The simple reason for that is being in the EU and NATO is better than being in the remnants of the Soviet sphere. I'm not sure what you were trying to say with this, it's literally beneficial for every nation to join the EU (including us in the UK) and it's beneficial for every state worried about Russian encroachment to be in NATO. Well you explained it yourself, that is what is motivating the Russians in the first place especially since they can't compete with the economic advantages of the EU. A Buttery Pastry posted:Dig deeper please. What is it Russia seeks to achieve, on a fundamental level? Ukraine not being an EU/NATO member is a means to an end, it is not a true goal in itself, so what is the end for which that is a means? At very least keeping NATO ABM and nuclear SRBM away from Moscow, but more generally that Ukraine is important to the Russian economy (even still) and Ukrainian entry to the EU would put them in a disadvantage since Russia can't compete with EU funds, technology and its single market. Orange Devil posted:Given how long the process of joining is, if Ukrainian politics is as volatile as you claim they'd never be able to join. Plus volatile internal politics is kind of a no-go to join the EU as it stands anyway. I think NATO entry was probably more of the issue than the EU. I think there is an argument to make at least that the Ukrainian government probably would have weakened without the war in Donbass, but the war in Donbass would "locked" Ukraine outside both the EU/NATO. It is also kind of why the Ukrainian war probably doesn't want the war to end either, it would mean a bunch of Russian/Russian-speaking voters readded to Ukrainian politics.
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Apr 3, 2018 15:05
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Ardennes posted:Well you explained it yourself, that is what is motivating the Russians in the first place especially since they can't compete with the economic advantages of the EU. So the fact that their country is a shithole is motivating Russians to invade neighbouring allies and threaten non-aligned states?
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Apr 3, 2018 15:12
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Nilbop posted:So the fact that their country is a shithole is motivating Russians to invade neighbouring allies and threaten non-aligned states? In a sense, and arguably this has been happening since the 15-16th centuries after the consolidation of Moscow over its immediate neighboring city-states.
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Apr 3, 2018 16:10
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El Perkele posted:For last several centuries Russia has consistently been in conflicts with continental European powers, generally several times per century. We're speaking of three larger conflicts with European involvement during the last 100 years, Napoleonic and Crimean Wars in 19th century, something like 8 wars in 18th century and so on. This kind of this does play part in risk assesments of individual countries. From their point of view, EU is another coalition of European powers, and those have been bad news for Russian foreign policy interests. Even worse, this coalition now sits uncomfortably close to Murmansk, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Black Sea, Baltic Sea and Southern Russia. Russian go-to in those cases has been to somehow create a buffer zone of allied or neutral nations in Eastern Europe, Baltic and Balkans. This has sometimes meant war to prevent another war. Sometimes not. Ardennes posted:At very least keeping NATO ABM and nuclear SRBM away from Moscow, but more generally that Ukraine is important to the Russian economy (even still) and Ukrainian entry to the EU would put them in a disadvantage since Russia can't compete with EU funds, technology and its single market. Germany: A prosperous and productive state, that through prudent policies ensures stability and order. Sweden: A prosperous and compassionate state, seeking to be acknowledged as a role model to the world, ushering in a new world order built on humanism.
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Apr 3, 2018 17:21
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Sweden: A prosperous and compassionate state, seeking to be acknowledged as a role model to the world, like really guys we are the best, just the very best, can we please tell you some more about how good we are, please??? Amended for accuracy.
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Apr 3, 2018 17:46
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El Perkele posted:For last several centuries Russia has consistently been in conflicts with continental European powers, generally several times per century. We're speaking of three larger conflicts with European involvement during the last 100 years, Napoleonic and Crimean Wars in 19th century, something like 8 wars in 18th century and so on. This kind of this does play part in risk assesments of individual countries. From their point of view, EU is another coalition of European powers, and those have been bad news for Russian foreign policy interests. Even worse, this coalition now sits uncomfortably close to Murmansk, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Black Sea, Baltic Sea and Southern Russia. Russian go-to in those cases has been to somehow create a buffer zone of allied or neutral nations in Eastern Europe, Baltic and Balkans. This has sometimes meant war to prevent another war. Sometimes not.
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Apr 3, 2018 19:19
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BabyFur Denny posted:That is not a reasonable argument to make considering that even Germany out of all nations managed to make peace with their neighbours. What? No they didn't. Their neighbours forced Germany to make peace with them. They were occupied for decades remember.
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Apr 3, 2018 21:12
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lollontee posted:What? No they didn't. Their neighbours forced Germany to make peace with them. They were occupied for decades remember.
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Apr 3, 2018 22:03
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Hambilderberglar posted:So the only way to make Russia a productive member is to occupy them for decades. What's the projected survival rate for Barbarossa 2.0 in an NBC environment? How so? Nobody ever tried to compromise with Germany until the Cold War. Quite the opposite, the rest of Europe from Cardinal Richelieu onwards was quite happy to do everything in its power to prevent a German national state from emerging. Which arguably was the ultimate cause of both European Great Wars.
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Apr 3, 2018 22:41
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Are you even serious right now? Chamberlain: notorious for being uncompromising towards Germany.
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Apr 3, 2018 22:45
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I for one am eagerly looking forward to see lollontee now move from defending Putin's right to annex the Baltic states to defending Hitler's right to lebensraum in the 1930s. You see, if Chamberlain hadn't given in to Hitler, and screwed over a small Eastern European country to please a bellicose dictator, then we likely would have ended up suffering some sort of awful war. We're just lucky that appeasement worked so well really. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 3, 2018 23:00
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Orange Devil posted:Are you even serious right now? Who else? Blut posted:I for one am eagerly looking forward to see lollontee now move from defending Putin's right to annex the Baltic states to defending Hitler's right to lebensraum in the 1930s. Hmm yes. Pity there wasn't anything else behind WW2 beyond chamberlaaids stupidity, I guess that's the end of the argument yeah
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Apr 4, 2018 00:06
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So, uh, Europe needs to tell Russia that Russian foreign policy sucks and nobody cares how much that makes Russia sad, make sure there's always some well-armed allied troops nearby, and wait three generations until Russia Stronk stops being the primary Russian foreign policy concern...? suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 03:34
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BabyFur Denny posted:That is not a reasonable argument to make considering that even Germany out of all nations managed to make peace with their neighbours. Germany made peace with its neighbors by effectively colonizing their economies and sucking up all their young people as Gastarbeiter. Yes
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Apr 4, 2018 04:15
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I don't really buy the idea that Russia needs to be especially vigilant about the rest of Europe because of it's history of warfare with Europe. The truth about European history is that just about every country was knocking the poo poo out of each other constantly but between the age old enemies of Germany, Italy, France, Britain etc. we've mostly learned to deal with each other without massing troops on the border here in the 21st century. Russia, for its part, didn't really stand out in an unusual way for most of it's history prior to the revolution, it partook in alliances or engaged in war with a wide variety of other European nations to pursue it's own interests and contain the ambitions of other countries in exactly the same way as the rest, it was part of those alliances and coalitions against the likes of Napoleon, Hitler, Wilhelm II or Charles XII, and honestly has a pretty good track record in actually winning the big wars. Sure it's never been able to fully overcome it's strategic drawbacks, particularly concerning easy access to the Atlantic or Mediterranean, but again that's the story for every European nation except maybe the UK since it's in all of the nation's vested interest to prevent any one other country from running roughshod over the rest. Maybe you could argue that the experiences from World War 2 specifically are justification enough for the Russians to be extremely vigilant about western encroachment, I can see that to some degree, but then even somewhere like Poland seems to buy well enough into the value of a European coalition effectively led by loving Germany (not to mention the way Germany seem unusually cosy to Russia theses days).
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Apr 4, 2018 06:10
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Whether you think they should be or not, Russia is especially vigilant because they made an honest effort to play nice with the west in the 90s and ended up in one of the worst political and humanitarian catastrophes in modern times for their trouble. That's basically the root cause of all this poo poo, and not some orentalist bullshit about the inherently warmongering slav.
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Apr 4, 2018 09:22
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icantfindaname posted:Germany made peace with its neighbors by effectively colonizing their economies and sucking up all their young people as Gastarbeiter. Yes
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Apr 4, 2018 09:38
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Cerebral Bore posted:Whether you think they should be or not, Russia is especially vigilant because they made an honest effort to play nice with the west in the 90s and ended up in one of the worst political and humanitarian catastrophes in modern times for their trouble. That's basically the root cause of all this poo poo, and not some orentalist bullshit about the inherently warmongering slav. The Soviet Union did this to itself through decades of economic and political stagnation, through decades of massive, unaddressed corruption and unsustainable military spending (sounds familiar?). You can rightfully blame Europe and the US for not helping Russia get out of that situation, but it dug that hole all by itself.
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Apr 4, 2018 09:43
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:The Soviet Union did this to itself through decades of economic and political stagnation, through decades of massive, unaddressed corruption and unsustainable military spending (sounds familiar?). You can rightfully blame Europe and the US for not helping Russia get out of that situation, but it dug that hole all by itself. Maybe you should read up on what actually happened in Russia in the 90s before you say poo poo like this?
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Apr 4, 2018 10:05
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Cerebral Bore posted:Maybe you should read up on what actually happened in Russia in the 90s before you say poo poo like this? Why don't you just tell us how exactly the West is at fault for Yeltsin's rise to power?
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Apr 4, 2018 10:39
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:Why don't you just tell us how exactly the West is at fault for Yeltsin's rise to power? It ... literally rigged the election to have him win? Like, Clinton admin people literally admitted to doing this
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Apr 4, 2018 11:49
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We also applauded him when he had the opposition killed.
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Apr 4, 2018 12:12
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Are we the baddies?
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Apr 4, 2018 12:22
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icantfindaname posted:It ... literally rigged the election to have him win? Like, Clinton admin people literally admitted to doing this How exactly did Clinton help Yeltsin gain power when he wasn't even inaugurated till 1993? By 1993 the Soviet Union had already dissolved, Yeltsin had established his power and the Russian economy had halved(?) in size. Did Clinton's administration travel through time?
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Apr 4, 2018 12:32
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:How exactly did Clinton help Yeltsin gain power when he wasn't even inaugurated till 1993? By 1993 the Soviet Union had already dissolved, Yeltsin had established his power and the Russian economy had halved(?) in size. Did Clinton's administration travel through time? Yeltsin's re-election in 1996 was rigged by Yeltsin himself using money released by the IMF on the US' request.
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Apr 4, 2018 12:42
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Shibawanko posted:Yeltsin's re-election in 1996 was rigged by Yeltsin himself using money released by the IMF on the US' request. There was much more shady western stuff going on in 1996 than just IMF loans. Supposedly, Yeltsin was working directly with american campaign advisors during that election. But that's not the point. The point is that by 1993(or 1996) Russia was already a burned out wreck and it did that to itself.
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Apr 4, 2018 13:08
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Yeltsin... He was the good guy.
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Apr 4, 2018 13:10
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:There was much more shady western stuff going on in 1996 than just IMF loans. Supposedly, Yeltsin was working directly with american campaign advisors during that election. But that's not the point. The point is that by 1993(or 1996) Russia was already a burned out wreck and it did that to itself. The question here is whether the international community helped or poured gasoline on the fire.
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Apr 4, 2018 13:15
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