Keep those questions coming! My Ask.fm account: http://ask.fm/akarlin88
I don’t always answer immediately, but will come around to it eventually. And repost them here.
Incidentally, it’s also a great way to fulfill a blogging quota. 😉
Specifically, I refer to honesty in relations between strangers. This expresses itself in such behavior as the maintenance of clean public spaces. The impulse to punish bad behavior, even if doing could potentially rebound against yourself. Thanks to this, Anglo-Saxon societies work much better at the micro level, enabling distributed self-government that is both organic and effective. This is impossible in most of Russia. Trying to recreate Anglic systems leads only to nepotism and chaos. You need a “power vertical” to get anything done, and hope that the Tsar is a clever, competent guy who has the nation’s interests at heart and isn’t too psychotic.
Seriously, humans are adapted to Earth, down to the nutrients and minerals we take in, and the microbiota we rely upon. All else equal, life in space will be extremely uncomfortable, frugal, expensive, and precaurious. I doubt it is sustainable in principle in terms of EROEI in the absence of massive energy subsidies from Earth.
While I enjoy space exploration in sci-fi as much as the nerd in the neighboring cubicle, I do not think unaugmented homo sapiens is capable of being a space ape longterm.
It is clear that Putin has chosen the frozen conflict route.
There are good arguments to be made for this approach. Supporting the LDNR might be expensive, both economically and diplomatically, but it’s still a lot less expensive than outright intevention (which appears to have seriously been on the cards up until April 2014). We have to assume that Putin and his team carried out an informed Weighted Average Decision Matrix (or something like that) analysis of the situation and the policies we’re seeing now came out ahead, though perhaps by a thin margin.
The military power of the NAF continues increasing. It now has 40,000 well-equipped troops and (reportedly) 450 MBTs. A year ago, it had no more than 20,000 troops, with just a few dozen MBTs. More importantly, it is a *real* army now, with centralized C&C, whereas a year ago it consisted primarily of independent militias. These can be adequate in defense, but you cannot carry out coherent, large-scale offensive operations with that kind of structure. Prosvirnin and Co. say the purging of the most recalcitrant militia leaders is “proof” that a zrada is nigh. But it could just as plausibly be interpreted as rational, consecutive steps to increase the NAF’s military power. I do not think these changes could have been possible without Russia’s support. Ultimately, why would Russia bother with upgrading the NAF if it planned to give it all back to the junta anyway?
In the meantime, with any luck, the Ukrainian economy will continue to degrade, and Poroshenko finds himself trapped between a rock (the Minsk Accords) and a hard place (the Maidan absolutists and the hardliners of the Far Right), and we will see a collapse into complete chaos, which may finally convince the Western powers to give up on Ukraine and create many other opportunities. But it’s also quite possible that the system will manage to pull through. That is the risk Putin took when he decided against military intervention last April.
Broadly speaking, I support a Europe of independent nation-states. I do not see a problem with extending the common economic space across the Eurasian steppes, in a gradual, unforced way, and at a pace with which its constituent peoples are comfortable with. But I see no point in any grander constructs.
‘We have to assume that Putin and his team carried out an informed Weighted Average Decision Matrix (or something like that) analysis of the situation and the policies we’re seeing now came out ahead’
If that is indeed how Russia makes its foreign policy, then it is probably unique in so doing!
with any luck…. we will see a collapse into complete chaos, which may finally convince the Western powers to give up on Ukraine and create many other opportunities
I don’t think that the Kiev regime will collapse or that the West will give up on it. The Ukraine will become poorer. Several additional millions of people will leave it for Russia and the West. But the regime will pull through. They will blame everything on Russia, Putin agents and the Soviet legacy and most will believe this. People are sheep. Propaganda works.
Unfortunately I don’t think that Russia could do what the US did with the Maidan. I don’t think it’s even trying. If the junta loses power, it will be through war, not staged “revolution”.
Cold War II will continue for at least as long as Putin is in power. And as long as it continues, more rounds of war in the Ukraine will continue to be possible.
Seconded.
Ukraine is in many ways like Russia in the 1990s and that Russia showed that even an incompetent, corrupt pro-West government can prevail.
“We have to assume that Putin and his team carried out an informed Weighted Average Decision Matrix (or something like that) analysis of the situation and the policies we’re seeing now came out ahead”
In the US, when it comes to Middle East policy anyway, we do a Weighted AIPAC Decision Matrix, commit our blood and treasure, and then just hope for the best.