Quote (fender @ Nov 8 2022 09:38pm)
give me your best, totally mature and informed, realpolitik take on the situation then: why did russia invaded ukraine? what is their justification? what would they achieve "winning" this war?
I've posted several times why i think it happened, I'm not gonna go too in-depth but it basically boils down to:
1. Security, Russia is a funnel from west -> east. Ukraine is extremely important choke. Major invasions on Russia have opened from that path.
2. New world order, Europe/US was far more accommodating of Russia prior to china's explosive rise, because there was no serious threat to American hegemony. Look up reactions to Georgia 2008, they openly talk about not provoking Russia and preferring good relations with Russia instead of NATO expansion of Georgia. Now there is a serious threat to American hegemony in the name of china, and Americans have decided that they can't pull Russia away from china and that Russia will inevitably align with China. Henry Kissinger talked about this openly recently, but his view is that Russia can be pulled from China and that they have to do it now or it will be irreversible.(he criticized US-leadership for not trying harder to peel Russia).
3. East/South Ukraine is like 70% of ukraine's GDP. Besides the massive production facilities/capacity there is a fuckton of raw untapped materials. There is a large economical incentive. Remember most conflicts have been caused due to economical reasons (Iraq, American coup of Iranian democracy list is endless)
4. When talking about legitimacy, besides being historical land (1922 Lenin Novorossiya, 1954 Crimea), Russia knows that the areas of Kharkov, Donbass, zap, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odessa although they may not be Pro-Russian 100%, they aren't 100% pro-Ukrainian either. These areas if taken by Russians are "friendly"-enough. This has been proven in zap, kherson, dontesk (there has basically been 0 insurgency).
5. Crimea. Russia needs to hold a land bridge to ensure Crimean security situation.. Furthermore they need to to hold east part of Kherson, so dams can't be to dry out Crimea (the first thing Russians did was blow up the dams).
7. Russia can't watch Donetsk be slaughtered forever. They can't allow the Russian language to be banned in Ukraine and the marginalization of Russians because this is a country on their doorstep, and a country they want in their sphere of influence. This line of thinking is found everywhere, "my backyard", think about the Monroe doctrine.
There are far more reasons, these are just a couple. So saying it is because "hurr durr putin" is stupid is my point.
This post was edited by ownyaah on Nov 8 2022 01:03pm