Russia begins moving troops into eastern Ukraine

[Dill]

(03-18-2022, 06:16 PM)hollodero Wrote: Dill Wrote:Regarding the bolded, remember what I am questioning is whether Putin was "always" what he is now, and always aiming to expand Russia to former Tsarist dimensions or whatever. Most of the bolded matches statements and behavior since 2014. Certainly not pre-2007.

Well, you also claimed Putin isn't Putin any more and that he has changed within the last 2-3 years. Which, overall, I doubted. The expansionist ideas came clear after the Krim annexation at the latest, but imho they were visible long before that. Putin always tried to increase his power and influence, by the means that he deemed to be at his disposal at the time. Eg. creating vassal states like Belarus and other dictatorhips he supports, or the Georgia war in 2008. If he was like that from the very beginning of his tenure, it's hard to tell. He's in power since 1999, a long time not to change at all. It could be that he changed drastically and "lost it" so to say, I just don't really see it, I rather see someone finally following through on long-held plans and goals.

 Sorry my response is a late, Hollo. I have been pecking away at this for a week now, as I think much analysis I am seeing on tv submerges social causation driven by material circumstances under the discussion of Putin's personality/character. Now I have to break the response into three parts. So here is Part I:
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What I argue is that there has been a change in Putin’s behavior and public reasoning, which has become pronounced over the last few years, perhaps going back to 2018. Before he was rational, pragmatic and a political “realist,” in the polysci sense that he took determination and protection of national interest as his primary goal, with special attention to 19th century style balancing of power blocs. If anything, the primary goal of his first two terms in office was to ally with the Atlantic powers—first the US and then France and Germany. His alliances were acceptable so long as useful to them, and when Russia was easily discarded post-2003, that increased his concerns about a unipolar world led by a US which still regarded Russia as an adversary (e.g., as expressed in his Munich conf. speech in 2007). Remember the neo-cons were in charge of US foreign policy during Putin’s first two terms, and their point man, VP Dick Cheney, told staff members that the US goal was not just to break up the USSR, but Russia itself, so that it could never again challenge the US.

Where you see “long-held plans and goals” leading to the invasion of Georgia and the theft of Crimea, I see a train of events linked primarily to justified concern over NATO expansion—nothing “special” about Putin’s pushback here. It should be expected of any Russian leader. I understand why the US would not allow missiles in Cuba during the Cold War, and why it would never have allowed Canada or Mexico to become Warsaw Pact signatories even if they were “free” to do so. So I don’t find much mysterious in Putin’s actions in Georgia and Ukraine (in 2014). The goal was to signal NATO and the EU—STOP!! A warning which they ignored.

Georgia for example—you’ve offered no evidence of any previous “plan” to incorporate it into Russia. Why didn't he complete that incorporation in 2008, striking when the iron was still hot? As I recall in 2008, when NATO signaled willingness to admit Georgia (bordering already troubled Chechnya and Dagestan), Saakashvili, responding to attacks on Georgian soldiers after a separatist had been killed, then invaded South Ossetia, thinking NATO would back his play. It did not. In response, Putin briefly invaded, and recognized two new mini-republics to help buffer Georgia, and greatly weakening it. From the Russian point of view, that was a successful management of the problem. You mentioned the creation of “vassal states” like Belarus, and Ukraine under Yanukovych would also count. But these follow P’s rather easy acceptance of the Lithuania, Lativia and Estonia as NATO members. That the expansion did not stop, that NATO and the EU continued to encourage Ukraine to join them was understandably worrisome from the Russian POV.

As for the annexation of Crimea, again, this seems driven by events within the country as much as anything else—Yanukovych is booted in favor of pro EU (but not especially competent) Turchynov, the legislature proposes a law stripping the Russian language of its official status. Following the Ossetian precedent primarily Russian Crimea wants to secede and Russia recognizes the “will of the people.” The Russians already have base there, so they don’t have “invade.” And the top Ukrainian officer in Crimea defected to the Russian side. The only “plan” I see here is a Russian version of the Monroe Doctrine, and Putin reacting to events AFTER the Y’s ouster.

The current invasion departs from the precedents of 2008/14. Rather than biting of a small chunk of a country and weakening the rest, Putin has sought to actually invade the whole (though keeping the whole may not be his intent). And he has greatly miscalculated risks and costs.