Russia begins moving troops into eastern Ukraine

[hollodero]

(03-26-2022, 12:57 PM)Dill Wrote: Part III  I know you don't want to "flood the thread," but this post deals with application of theory, and I already had it worked up, so I'm going to post it anyway.

Didn't mean to tell you not to. I rather explained why I won't address you at full length. Especially since I can't give iron-clad evidence that my perception of Putin was correct at all times.

(03-26-2022, 12:57 PM)Dill Wrote: Can you cite some evidence of expansive tendency, in Putin's statements or behavior pre-2007?

I don't know what was in his head before 2007. I think he hardly had the means back then. However, there was a policy in place that aimed for Russia being a counterweight to the west (Primakov doctrine), which includes aiming for more influence and hence power. But that is an interpretation. As I interpret the creation of vessel states as a form of expansionism.

(03-26-2022, 12:57 PM)Dill Wrote: Is there an alternative to reliance on “inductive inferences” in policy and diplomacy?

Maybe not, but this was about journalism and finding the truth. That there's no alternative way to state the truth doesn't mean this way is the correct one. I do refute the notion that every autocratic system is bound to end up in an isolated leader that gets bad advice. It's not a law of nature. Imho.

(03-26-2022, 12:57 PM)Dill Wrote: “Might” have been a what??? Why isn’t “Terrorism” itself as the Atlantic West defines it, a “wonderful reason” to seek alliance in dealing with the international problem? Remember that Chechens actually invaded nearby Dagestan in 1999, and Chechnya was already subdued before Putin sought the Bush alliance. Remember the Moscow apt. bombings of 1999 and the Moscow Theater massacre of 2002. To think of this alliance as a “propaganda choice” negates recognition of this violence as a real, serious problem, challenging the stability of a Russian state with some 20 million Muslims inside its borders, armed and some with cultural affiliation to the Taliban and other nefarious groups, not to mention the risk to former Soviet states still counted as part of the Russian “near abroad.”

I disagree that I was neglecting violence from the Chechnyan side. First off, they fought for independence, which sometimes the world approves and sometimes it does not. But for sure, the means the Chechnyan separatist leaders chose are to be condemned in quite some instances, no doubt. But that doesn't mean that Putin was the good guy fighting evil terrorists, imho. Russian troops, in response, devastated Grosny and other cities like they do in Mariupol now, probably at least 70.000 civilians got killed, Putin then installed a brutal autocrat in sham elections, that commits severe human rights violations up to this day, along with the Russian troops. Now I can see how the war against Chechnyan rebels can be seen as a part of a war against terror, or as necessary even to preserve Russian unity; but that does not justify everything done in the name of said war against terror. And if Putin uses this global fight against terrorism as justification for all that, then I'd say it's propaganda.