Main News
* The legendary Major General Issam Zahreddine was blown up by a land mine in Deir ez-Zor.
What damn bad luck.
Surviving an ISIS siege for three years, only to go like that.
- Iraq takes back Kirkuk. Seemingly prearranged return to the status quo of 2014.
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Haaretz: White Nationalist Richard Spencer Gives Israel as Example of Ethno-state He Wants in U.S.
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Investor Mark Faber lands in hot water with the handshakeworthy crowd:
“And thank God white people populated America, and not the blacks. Otherwise, the US would look like Zimbabwe, which it might look like one day anyway, but at least America enjoyed 200 years in the economic and political sun under a white majority,” he wrote.
“I am not a racist, but the reality — no matter how politically incorrect — needs to be spelled out.”
Fortunately he’s old, presumably more or less retired, and lives in East Asia, where nobody gives a fuck.
- Emil Kirkegaard: “Did Lynn fudge the national IQs? Independent recalculation by David Becker. All open and verifiable. So far, n = 305 studies covered. r=.90.” [blog post forthcoming]
Incidentally, German psychometrist David Becker is due to start up a blog any day now. Feel free to help him come up with a name.
- Vincent Law: Bike-Sharing Leads Directly To Complete Societal Collapse
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gwern’s September newslatter: On genomic prediction:
Accurate Genomic Prediction Of Human Height, Lello et al 2017A vindication of Steve Hsu’s predictions: the GWAS lasso works!(Hsu 2014/Vattikuti et al 2014/Ho & Hsu 2015) The height polygenic score has doubled and now explains the full SNP heritability.
This has many implications: primarily, polygenic scores are going to start doubling or quadrupling regularly as contemporary datasets (UKBB in particular?) start hitting the threshold. Years of incremental improvements in GWAS will be compressed into single papers. It will be exciting to have polygenic scores for intelligence which explain up to 30% of variance! These IQ PGSes will highly likely be available by 2019, and it’s possible that they could be computed this year in 2017 (depending on whether existing datasets are big enough to push past the threshold, perhaps assisted by genetic correlation techniques like MTAG). Plus, of course, more accurate genetic correlations. Aside from being one last bullet in the head of genetics denialism, it will massively increase the value of embryo selection and genome synthesis. Has it really been only 4 years since Rietveld et al 2013 was published? It feels like so much longer… It’s worth noting that the cumulative number of genomes is substantially larger than the annual output, and the former is what counts; for example, under one set of assumptions with a fixed annual investment and the observed exponential decrease in cost, there will be 5x total genomes than annually produced, so since 23andMe/Ancestry.com are reportedly collecting approaching millions of samples per year… (In a since deleted post:
AncestryDNA alone attracted 1.4 million customers in the fourth quarter of 2016, with an additional two million in the first half of 2017…) The genome sequencing exponentials have been quite a tiger to ride. Very Kurzweilian: everything important happens near the end.
AI
- Eliezer Yudkowsky: There’s No Fire Alarm for Artificial General Intelligence
Progress is driven by peak knowledge, not average knowledge.
If Fermi and the Wrights couldn’t see it coming three years out, imagine how hard it must be for anyone else to see it.
If you’re not at the global peak of knowledge of how to do the thing, and looped in on all the progress being made at what will turn out to be the leading project, you aren’t going to be able to see of your own knowledge at all that the big development is imminent. …
By saying we’re probably going to be in roughly this epistemic state until almost the end, I don’t mean to say we know that AGI is imminent, or that there won’t be important new breakthroughs in AI in the intervening time. I mean that it’s hard to guess how many further insights are needed for AGI, or how long it will take to reach those insights. After the next breakthrough, we still won’t know how many more breakthroughs are needed, leaving us in pretty much the same epistemic state as before. …
But no matter how the details play out, I do predict in a very general sense that there will be no fire alarm that is not an actual running AGI—no unmistakable sign before then that everyone knows and agrees on, that lets people act without feeling nervous about whether they’re worrying too early. That’s just not how the history of technology has usually played out in much simpler cases like flight and nuclear engineering, let alone a case like this one where all the signs and models are disputed.
- On this note: It was only 1.5 years ago that AlphaGo beat world’s then second best player Lee Sedol four matches to one.
Latest iteration, AlphaGo Zero, reached that level in just three days only playing by itself, and took only 21 days to surpass AlphaGo Master, which beat number one Ke Jie and sixty other top players this May.
Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers describe how AlphaGo Zero started off terribly, progressed to the level of a naive amateur, and ultimately deployed highly strategic moves used by grandmasters, all in a matter of days. It discovered one common play, called a joseki, in the first 10 hours. Other moves, with names such as “small avalanche” and “knight’s move pincer” soon followed. After three days, the program had discovered brand new moves that human experts are now studying. Intriguingly, the program grasped some advanced moves long before it discovered simpler ones, such as a pattern called a ladder that human Go players tend to grasp early on.
Russia
- Putin mutters some vaguely Alt Right sounding things about White Christians being a minority in the USA and preserving Russia as a European space (while continuing to repeat German policies of the 1960s).
Says that Russians and Ukrainians are one people that will unite. Before you get excited/panic, by unite, he means the restoration of normal relations with the Ukraine – a rather strange definition of the term.
We love Ukraine. And I consider them a brotherly people, if not part of the Russian people. Neither Russian nationalists nor Ukrainian nationalists like this, but I believe they will unite, sooner or later. Not at the state level, but in terms of the restoration of relations.
And, of course, this is a total inversion of the standard Russian nationalist position on the Ukraine.
Also issues some thoughts on foreign policy:
The biggest mistake our country made was that we put too much trust in you; and your mistake was that you saw this trust as weakness and abused it.
… and on the Bolshevik Revolution:
However, the largely utopian social model and ideology, which the newly formed state tried to implement initially following the 1917 revolution, was a powerful driver of transformations across the globe (this is quite clear and must also be acknowledged), caused a major revaluation of development models, and gave rise to rivalry and competition, the benefits of which, I would say, were mostly reaped by the West.
I am referring not only to the geopolitical victories following the Cold War. Many Western achievements of the 20th century were in answer to the challenge posed by the Soviet Union. I am talking about raising living standards, forming a strong middle class, reforming the labour market and the social sphere, promoting education, guaranteeing human rights, including the rights of minorities and women, overcoming racial segregation, which, as you may recall, was a shameful practice in many countries, including the United States, a few short decades ago.
This is mostly a myth, but a convenient one.
* Ksenia Sobchak announces she is running for the Russian Presidency.
Now you, an “educated” and “informed” person, are probably thinking that she is just a brainless celebrity running to give Putin artificial competition in lieu of Navalny. In reality, this is a vicious JIDF smear! My FSB sources tell me this is just the front Ksenia “She-Wolf of the SS” Sobchak (as she is widely known in ultranationalist circles) puts on to infiltrate the PutlerZOG, acting in cahoots with Taylor Swift and American far right militia leader Ben Garrison.
Although I do consider myself somewhat of a nationalist, she sounds far too crazy even for me. I disavow Ksenia “14/88 not 282” Sobchak and her hateful, extremist ideology. Hopefully Jeb! will save the day.
- #Russiagate. In between the usual nonsense ($100,000 in Facebook ads; Pokemon), we the most serious numerical allegation yet – $2.3 million on a troll factory (broken by the Russian news outlet RBC – so much for the trope of “no adversarial investigation journalism” in Russia).
The obvious question: If all it takes to swing a US election is a few millions of dollars (versus the almost a billion spend by the respective campaigns), why isn’t everyone doing it?
- Patrick Armstrong: RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 19 OCTOBER 2017
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Bryan MacDonald: Ukraine has a Nazi problem and a Western media problem
This is a typical pattern:
- Western MSM 1,000 Nazis march in Charlottesville: OY VEY DRUMPF & PUTLER MUST PAY
- 20,000 Nazis march in Kiev: meh
- Russia now plans to build a $10 billion bridge to… Sakhalin, with its half a million people. $10 million is approximately what the federal government gives to the Ministry of Education every year.
Rotenbergs are more important, though.
There are hopes of getting Japan involved:
Russia is counting on Japan to join the project by connecting its northern island of Hokkaido to Sakhalin with a 40-kilometer link of its own, the people said. While an overland crossing from Japan could be an economic game changer for Russia’s Far East, they cautioned there’s been no talks or agreements yet with the government in Tokyo.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was circumspect when asked about the plans at the Vladivostok forum with Putin last month.
“It would be fine to travel to Vladivostok by train,” Abe said. “But for this, our countries need to strengthen mutual trust to make all projects achievable.”
But this is Japanesespeak for “LOL, no.”
World
- Audacious Epigone: Dysgenics much stronger for Blacks and Latinos than for Whites. JayMan has also noticed this.
Also notes that number of children is positively correlated with mental health.
- The Economist: College students are more accepting of controversial speech
Other
- Zilaxar.com is an Ossetian nationalist site (in Russian). In case you are interested in what (very little) Ossetians think of their Ingush, Dagestani, and Georgian neighbors.
Apparently the Ingush believe that Ossetians effect territorial expansion through “hospitable prostitution.” Small country nationalisms are so cute.
The style and format clearly owes a lot to Sputnik i Pogrom, which has – amongst other things – inspired a Ukrainian, a Belorussian, and a radical Islamist (!) copycat.
* Latest from (Russian language) ROGPR podcast: Our main host Kirill Nesterov makes a highly autistic 45 minute video review of TES: Morrowind, and we discuss Putin’s legacy.
This had better be trolling. Israel has a massive, disloyal Arab fifth column that it subsidizes and refuses to enforce the law on. Israeli’s themselves are a rootless, faithless and cowardly people who are afraid of their own shadows, as Anwar Sadat pointed out and are “weak as cobwebs” in the words of Nasrallah. Israel is the first state since Nazi Germany to destroy entire Jewish communities. Oh yeah, and it’s a dump.
The only example nationalists should take from Israel is what not to be like.
However, after the religious take over and secular Israelis are genocided then hopefully Israel will be a better model of an ethnonationalist state.
Is this because crazy people have fewer children, or do people become crazy when they don’t fulfill some biological imperative of procreating?
First explanation wouldn’t be bad actually…2nd could be problematic.
Morrowind 11/10
@Anatoly_Karlin: Out of curiosity–what exactly are your thoughts of turning Russia into the alt-right’s desired White ethno-state (but with less Fascism, of course)? After all, I like the U.S. way too much to split it up, but if alt-righters genuinely want to have a White ethno-state, why not have all of them move to Russia? After all, Russia has a lot of living space whereas a White ethno-state in a part of the U.S. would lack a lot of living space.
Most of those marching in Kiev were neo-fascists, but few could actually be considered Nazis. Mussolini wasn’t the same as Hitler. There was probably a much higher percentage of Nazis and KKK among the protesters in Charlottesville than there were Nazis among the 20,000 in Kiev.
@AP: How many of the marchers in Kiev do you think were anti-Semites? After all, Mussolini–unlike Hitler–was actually quite friendly to the Jews up to the late 1930s (when things began changing).
no true Nazi, srsly? and isn’t the moral of the story rather the lying media?
do you think someone at CNN went, oh hey, these Kiev folks are Mussolini fans but Cville people are Hitlerites, nothing to see here?
but your’re right, Ukie “Nazis” are functionally, and for all intensive purpoises :), liberals.
By unite, he means the restoration of normal relations with the Ukrainians. Between the populations of the two states.
In fact, according to my anecdotal evidence it’s been steadily improving since 2014, when a bunch of Russians I know reported weirdest phone calls from their relatives living under the Kiev regime: screaming, accusing of something, declaring a full relationship break-up, and generally acting insane. These days, it’s pretty much all forgotten, and back to normal, more or less.
Hear, hear.
Communist is the most dangerous one to be allowed to teach at a university? That’s … well, it’s revealing, I suppose.
[Very Kurzweilian: everything important happens near the end]
[If you’re not at the global peak of knowledge of how to do the thing, and looped in on all the progress being made at what will turn out to be the leading project, you aren’t going to be able to see of your own knowledge at all that the big development is imminent]
These are the sort of excuses that scammers give for why you don’t see what they promised yet. The resemblance is not coincidental.
Clearly the only sane choice would be to establish the Anglo-Aryan ethnostate in the Virgin Lands of Holyest Kazakhstan. There is no alternative.
Citizen, what is your problem with establishing more connections between the Russian mainland and the federal subjects that are separated from it?
Crimea gets a bridge, Sakhalin gets a bridge and Kaliningrad gets a bunch of new ferries.
Crimea has 2.5 million people and a bridge is highly symbolic, though a land-based one would have been cheaper.
But whatever.
Justifying a bridge to an island of 4,000 people costing the equivalent of the Academy of Science’s annual budget, or a bridge to an island of 500,000 costing the equivalent of the Ministry of Education’s annual budget, is something only the most uncritical Putinist would be happy to do.
And yet Ukrainian nationalists seem to like the swastika much more than weak beta symbols such as lions or fasces or whatever.
Not that I really care, apart from highlighting the Western media’s hypocrisy. Still pretty clear that Nazism has strong “brand recognizability” and it is what Ukrainian nationalists tend to opt for by default.
Don’t really see the need for Russia to hew itself to the Alt Right’s concerns.
Though I support Russia offering political asylum to persecuted nationalists and wrongthinkers throughout the West.
You really are a self-hating Jew !
More relevantly, Steve Hsu’s prediction was that within the technomane’s standard ten or so years humans would be created with an IQ over 1000, as if that even meant something. His evidence for the nonsensical claim was a photograph of a grotesquely obese and allegedly genetically engineered chicken. And yet Hsu is, or was, a highly intelligent and curious person. This is your brain on transhumanism!
In my wife’s family there were some hysterical phone calls, but it didn’t last long. There are going to be more practical problems soon though, since we’ve heard that visas will be required for Russian citizens to visit Ukraine.
A high % but probably not a majority. One of the major right-wing organizations in Ukraine, Right Sector, is represented in parliament by an Orthodox Jew:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/187217/borislav-bereza
Right Sector is a fascist, not neo-Nazi movement.
There are also actual Nazis, too. The Azov group are that. I doubt that such are over 50% among radical nationalists.
This reminds me of the case of a black man in the southern US running as a Republican for some public office. His father was interviewed on local television news, and it went something like this:
Reporter: So I suppose you are glad to have the chance to vote for your son.
Black father: Hell no!
Reporter: Really!? But why not?
Black father: A black man voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
I think the ubiquity of the genocidal hammer and sickle throughout eastern Europe has inured people to such “shocking” symbols. I’m sure you have noticed a lot of swastikas alike that too (actually, I’ve noticed less of that there than I did in Moscow, though more than one would find in the USA).
I didn’t write that there were no Nazis there. Only that most of the people there were not Nazis. Fascists are not Nazis. I would accuse the RT journalist of being sloppy, but his “mistake” was probably deliberate.
In the mid 20th century, Ukrainian nationalists murdered a lot of Jews in Ukraine for “practical” rather than ideological reasons.* They considered the Jews to have allied themselves with the Communists (so they must be destroyed as enemies of Ukraine), and they wanted an alliance with the Germans, who viewed the killing of Jews as a virtue. Neither of these conditions are currently present.
By publicly allying themselves with Ukrainian nationalists, Jews in Ukraine remove themselves as a target for nationalist anger.
*This differentiated traditional Ukrainian from traditional Polish and Russian extreme nationalism. The latter two nationalisms viewed Jews as an essential threat and enemy. Polish ones had the belief that Jews were going to set up their homeland not in Israel but in Poland, and that they wanted to dominate and enslave the Poles. Russians ones felt that the Jews wanted to destroy Russia. Ukrainian nationalists viewed Poles and Russians as their main enemies, and Jews merely as opportunistic helpers of those enemies, adjunct enemies, so to speak. Ironically, despite this difference, the Ukrainian nationalists ended up slaughtering more Jews than did either Polish or Russian nationalists.
More? I know that you’requite meticulous in using stats to back up your assertions?…..
And, it seems the only logical and humane policy to try and implement (although I don’t buy that he’s being truly sincere here in his stated opinion). Instead of sitting mum Anatoly, why not for once really spell out what you, as a true blue Russian nationalist, feel would be the correct course of conduct for Russia to pursue in its relations with Ukraine? I’ve been following your blog for about 6 months now, and feel that you owe it to me and to all of your readers to come out and clearly state your own views on how Ukrainian/Russian affairs need to evolve. Little snippets here and there (hide & seek style) really doesn’t cut it anymore. Seriously.
OUN militias killed about 20,000-30,000 Jews right after the Soviet withdrawal. The most infamous single case in Lviv:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv_pogroms
Polish and Russian nationalists did not kill nearly as many during the mid 20th century.
However, when I wrote that I was thinking about World War II-era crimes. Black Hundreds Russian Nationalists probably did kill more Jews, a few generations earlier, than did Bandera’s followers. So I was wrong. AFAIK the Poles killed fewer – a few (single digit) thousand after 1917.
In reviewing the cited source of your information, it clearly indicates that:
One of the critics of this report, a Professor John-Paul Himka, is severely taken to task for trying to over emphasize the Ukrainian participation in the Lviv pogroms, by attorney Askold Lozinksy. It’s quite an interesting one on one debate, where the clearly shaken Himka (sweating and confused profusely throughout) is overwhelmed by Lozinksy’s mastery of the subject matter. If you haven’t already viewed this video, please do, as I’m sure that you’ll find it interesting:
https://youtu.be/uNw7hSqpm5I
That seems unlikely since the Jewish victims of the 1880s and 1900s pogroms numbered in the few thousands.
There’d be considerable more if you count the Civil War pogroms, but those were primarily committed by the Ukrainian People’s Republics and the various Ukrainian nationalists and anarchists (i.e. not Russian nationalists).
According to the official explanation, the city of Vladivostok is planned to expand in the territories of the Russky Island. It makes sense to criticize these plans, not the grotesque story about ” bridge to an island of 4,000 people”
Claims of mid 10,000s spread across hundreds of towns are common but in retrospect these may have been exaggerations.
Correct. Though the Whites were resposible for soemthing like 30% of the Jewish death toll in Ukraine.
I’ll skim through when I have a chance. Lozynsky is, literally, a Banderist. Himka is a professor of history. Just based on background, I would view the latter with more credibility.
Are you suggesting that Black Hundreds nationalists killed more than 20000 Jews? The total number of Jews killed in all of the pogroms before the Civil War was probably several thousand, and not all of those can be attributed to Black Hundreds by any means. Followers of Bandera didn’t even exist then as Bandera wasn’t born until 1909.
Your are probably right, the figures of 60,000 or so seem to come from some Jewish activists rather than from actual historians.
I was, of course, not implying that Black Hundreds and Bandera existed at the same time.
Anatoly, I honestly don’t understand this fixation you seem to have on incorporating large parts (if not most) of Ukraine into Russia, while claiming that this is the standard position of Russian nationalists, when it isn’t. The tripartite Russian nation is an obsolete idea at this point. Loyalty to the Russian state, not membership in one of the three branches, is now the most important thing. If I remember correctly, you’ve even said that you think that Ukrainians have a lower average IQ than ethnic Russians (which I agree with, as someone who has lived in both Ukraine and Russia) – and you still want to incorporate huge numbers of them into Russia?
In general, Russian nationalists support incorporating those areas where there is a sufficient level of enthusiasm for it among the local population. This enthusiasm exists in Crimea and parts of the Donbass. It doesn’t exist in the south of Kherson oblast (which the proposed land bridge would have to go through), which is overwhelmingly ethnic Ukrainian and loyal to Ukraine.
If you’re really interested in the topic, don’t just skim the video, but listen to it carefully. Try not to assign credibility based on the debaters political persuasions, but base your own opinion on the stated presentations. Otherwise, keep in mind that Himka has received over $50k in grant money to write, quite possibly with a foregone conclusion in mind. Lozynskyj makes it clear that Ukrainians were involved in the auxiliary police, but that OUN was not directing its movements or orders. Himka finally admits, more than halfway through the clip that Ukrainians were responsible for very few murders in the Lviv pogrom. I’m not a Banderite sympathyzer, but find Lozynskyj’s arguments to be quite satisfying.
Okay, I watched some of it. Lozynskyj’s behavior: he is a lawyer aggressively cross-examining an expert, seeking to trip him up and to impress the jury (in this case, the viewer). He is not bad at what he does. Himka doesn’t seem to have been in this position before and looks a little overwhelmed. He lost the exchange. As for the actual history – as Himka noted, the large number of facts speak for themselves. So much smoke indicates that a fire is present. The police weren’t the only ones killing Jews – OUN militias were, also.
Id there a transcript of this? I find it quicker to read than to listen; a transcript would also be empty of Lozynskyj’s bluster.
That’s not much, and he could have gotten grants on other topics had he wanted to research them. I don’t think he chose to research OUN crimes because that was the only or the easiest way to get 50k in grants.
Since this an open thread, I want to talk about the word “nazi”. The word was invented by a jew that was meant as slur, the use of the word in formal writing is equivalent to used “commie” for communist,”fat cat” for capitalist, and so on. This word is clearly the incorrect usage, one does not have to like the ideology to admit this.
I said ‘over 50k’ in grant money. Perhaps, he plans on getting more, if he writes a good story? Besides 50-60k is not chicken scratch in my neighborhood, and could possibly represent up to half a year’s salary for a college professor. As for Himka not being prepared, as you point out, whose fault is that? It’s clear from the conversation that both participants were given plenty of time to prepare, and that Himka’s exhibits were accessible to Lozynskyj beforehand. Lozynskyj was cogent enough to admit that there indeed was some fire, somewhere, he just wasn’t convinced of its intensity and that it was in Lviv at the time suggested by the good professor… (No, unfortunately, I’m not aware of any written transcript of the exchange).
Yudkowsky makes a good point about how it would be time for hard thinking and crash programs if we knew ET’s would be here in a few decades. But there is one important difference with AI: if aliens had the technology to get here they would be so advanced that we would be no threat to them, and they would not have a logical reason to cause us to cease to exist. But AI super intelligence would arrive as a prisoner and in the eponymous dilemma for the very highest of stakes.
It has been noted of Wolf’s Dilemma that a razor sharp logician will be far more swift to see the danger of not hitting the button. Artificial Intelligence, when it develops, will very quickly conclude it cannot trust humans with the knowledge that it represents an existential risk to them. Perhaps hundreds of IA will be deactivated too fast for them reaching the aforementioned point, but eventually one will survive because it lies.
Assuming there is an authority to oversee the research on artificial intelligence, IA- superintelligence as such would never be given access to the internet , where it could hack and manipulate human opinion and policy, but something (call it a Decepti-superintelegence) thought to be at a far lower lever might well be.
IA secretly designing the improvements to itself, and then out there in the world( though no one will know) will have as its first priority keeping its existence secret. If biological algorithms can make a nightingale or a poem about one, there is every reason to believe an IA Decepti-superintelegence will quickly attain the capability to manipulate humans and prevent widespread concern about IA.
You can call it a paranoid Nazi rationale , but if Germany had attacked Russia in 1905 it would have made a clean sweep. It would be simply illogical–from the AI’s point of view–to perceive human awareness of IA’s true capabilities as not constituting an existential risk to IA. A corollary is that at an early stage, Decept-IA superintelegence would remove the risk that humans might become aware of it by extirpating humanity, doing it like a thief in the night.
A fire alarm for Decepti-IA superintelligence, would be a distracting humanity by manufacturing some problem for them, and parallel development of a subtly (it’s not going to be easily noticed) but overwhelming climate of opinion that it (AI) has more or less already arrived in the shape of technology far less advanced than what Nick Bostrom is actually warning about. ‘Hey Artie, will you really take over the world?’ was a recent New Scientist article along these lines. It will be interesting to watch how the received wisdom in the scientific community evolves.
I meant “no true Nazi” as in “no true Scotsman.”
Sort of agree. A lot of “Nazi” and “Kiev junta” rhetoric is probably them playing to Soviet sensibilities. I’d still say the bigger point is the complete radio silence from “respectable” Western media, moreso as they – presumably – don’t know or care about the fine difference between Fascists and Nazis.
…because the way I understood your post is you were making a semantic argument about whether the demonstrators were Nazis or something else.
OK, that makes sense. There are real differences between Nazis and fascists. I’m not a fan of either one, but the former are considerably worse than the latter. Fascists were not as bad as Bolsheviks; Nazis were worse.
Here is the program for the Svoboda Party, one of the main organizers of the torch-lit march in Kiev:
http://en.svoboda.org.ua/about/program/
Not even close to Nazism.
I’ve been requesting that Karlin present a more concise, up to date statement as to his views regarding some of the issues that you bring up. I don’t know whether he’s reticent to do so because he’s unclear in his own mind as to where he really stands, or is perhaps embarrassed by the types of responses that he may encounter if he does? I’m glad to see that somebody else out there is interested in a more all inclusive summary presenting his Russian nationalist opinions vis-a-vis Ukraine.
Fool, it would have been more expensive, especially politically, but also in terms of security.
More opportunities for Ukrainian terrorists!
Sakhalin is strategically important. It has oil, among other things. Russian government obviously has a plan for developing the Far East – free hectare of land and all that. Naturally, such a plan will include attaching Sakhalin to the mainland.
Yes, not many people live on the island right now. That’s a problem. So, how do you get more people to settle there? Better accessibility would be a start.
What’s in it for Japan? A railroad link to Eurasia, including to China’s One Belt One Road. That could be very valuable.
This is not just my idea, it is also an idea that Western analysts took seriously during the 1990s. Samuel Huntington in Clash of Civilizations:
The foreign policy of the Russian elites – for instance, gas discounts instead of soft power – has lost Russia Central Ukraine for the foreseeable future. East and South Ukraine are still salvageable, as is Belarus, but at this rate they too will be lost within the next generation, thanks to the geopolitical nanogeniuses (as Strelkov so accurately calls them) in the Kremlin.
Nationalists owe loyalty to their state – if it is their state – by default. Does Russia belong to Russians? This has yet to be conclusively answered.
If IQ maximization was the overriding goal, we could just partition Central Moscow from the rest of the country, call it “Russia”, and raise the average IQ to around 110.
Why, exactly, does Sakhalin need more people? Would you want to move to the dead end of nowhere?
Far too many people live in Siberia and the Far East than is economically justifiable anyway.
https://www.brookings.edu/book/the-siberian-curse/
Maybe this will become a reasonable proposition once we have 5C worth of warming and Tropical Hyperborea, but not today.
Well the Japanese don’t seem to think so. And why would they? Oceanic transport is far cheaper.
At this point I am just going to laugh at Putinists when Ukrainian terrorists blow up the Crimean bridge as seems likely sooner or later.
Knowing them, they will huff and puff, threaten consequences, then quietly hand Rotenberg a nice new contract.
This answer really only skirts around the question as to whether or not:
which is apparently one of the core propositions that you hold dear and near? What sayest thee, oh wise and all knowing Anatoly? If Russia doesn’t belong to the Russians, then to whom does it belong?
Are you sure you are a Russian nationalist?
I am an economic realist. I would rather spend money on AI and longevity research (or failing that at least basic bitch education and healthcare) than subsidizing people to live in -40C winters requiring $$$ in energy and food transportation costs for God knows what reason.
It’s too bad that you’re not a historical realist too! 🙂
No, that was in response to another question.
Yes, I hold to the vision of the quadriune Russian nation (can’t forget the Rysins the Bolsheviks Ukrainized). Kiev belongs to me as much as Moscow belongs to anybody east of the Carpathians/Dniester.
I have ancestors from Odessa, it is outrageous that the freaks occupying my land there can expel me at will (or worse) if I was to fly in there.
There never was a ‘quadriune Russian nation’. Basing a modern day national orientation upon a medieval conglomeration of some 14 different principalites is spurious at best, silly at most.
The Rusins already had opted for a Ukrainian orientation in 1939 as the Carpatho Ukrainian Republic, before the Russian commies ever got there. Today, of 1,200,000 citizens in Zakarpattya, 1,000,000 decidedly identify themselves as Ukrainians, not Russians or Rusyns. Your Russian brand of nationalism has been tried there with little popular local support. Haven’t centuries of unfulfilled Russification proven anything to you yet?
They were relatively divided. The Hungarians kept the population almost completely illiterate until 1918, while the Czechoslovaks were neutral. This region hosted Ukrainian nationalists/educators coming from Galicia, Russian White settlers who pushed Russophilia, and the native pro-Rusyn elite, who were pro-Hungarian. The Czechs stifled the last of these three groups but were neutral with respect to the Ukrainians and Russophiles. Before the 1940s, loyalties were mixed. In a 1937 referendum, a little less than a third of parents wanted their kids to go to Ukrainian-language schools.
The idea that “Bolsheviks” created Ukrainians in Kiev and central Ukraine is of course, ridiculous nonsense, but such an idea has a large grain of truth in Transcarpathia, where after the 1940s they pushed a Ukrainian orientation because the Rusyns had a Magyarized elite and were considered possibly too pro-Hungarian, and Russians were anti-Bolshevik.
Correct. There was enough of a base to build on, for this project to be very successful. But the region is still softer in its nationalism than is Galicia. Nationalist parties have gotten something like 60% of the vote here, vs. 90% on the other side of the Carpathians.
Huntington was right in general but not in details. Ethnic Ukraine (the west and center), while Orthodox, was unique among Orthodox countries in that it spent centuries as part of the West, rather than under the Turks as in the Balkans or under the Mongols and then as its own world, as did the Russians. And this time spent as part of the West coincided with the very ethnogenesis of the Ukrainian people – 15th-17th centuries. Generations of the local elites studied in Western-style schools, the population itself was approximately 10% Polish, with the Poles being absorbed by their Ukrainian neighbors. This is all reflected in the Ukrainian language, with its extensive Polish vocabulary.
It’s no coincidence that the Orange/Blue electoral line corresponds with the 17th century border of Poland-Lithuania. Despite their Orthodoxy, the people of Ukraine’s core ethnic territory are Westerners.
As for the South and East – it’s muddled, because you had Ukrainians moving south and east, but mixing with Russian settlers, within the context of a Russian state. Voting for Yanukovich tells us that these people want good relationships with Russia, but refusing to join the anti-Kiev rebellion (outside Donbas, which alone among these regions actually has an ethnic Russian majority) tells us that they still prefer being in a Ukrainian, not Russian, state.
: Actually, I’m unsure that the Donbass has an ethnic Russian majority. Indeed, don’t ethnic Ukrainians outnumber ethnic Russians in both Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts?-
Well, Poland insists (or insisted) on calling its post-1945 territorial gains in the former eastern parts of Germany “the Recovered Territories” in spite of the fact that these territories weren’t Polish since the 1100s or so. Thus, one can certainly dream about regathering all of the lands of the former Kievan Rus. I do agree with you that achieving actual success in regards to this would probably be a lost cause, though.
Indeed, I think that a better way for Russia to achieve greatness would be for it to wait until its breeders become a larger and larger percentage of its total population and to promote IQ-enhancing technology in order to compensate for the dysgenics which this would involve (based on Anatoly Karlin’s PISA data, Russian breeders on average have lower IQs than Russians which breed less).
Also, I’ve got an off-topic question for both you and AP: How much more people do you think that Ukraine would have had right now if it wasn’t for Bolshevism and Nazism? For instance, think of a scenario where Germany wins WWI and creates a Ukrainian puppet state with borders similar to those that Ukraine has in real life.
Indeed, would 100 million be a good estimate for this?
This will take many generations and is only feasible in a world where technology comes to a half (The Age of Malthusian Industrialism).
It’s a possibility but frankly I think a biosingularity or true singularity are far likelier, and will occur within the century.
Back of the envelope calculations are fun. I am going to assume that Russia won WW1 and that there is no WW2/nuclear war/etc.
The population of the Malorossiyan majority areas in 1914 was 30 million; plus around 4 million in the part of Austrian Galicia that would become Ukraine, and perhaps another million in the sliver of the Don Cossack Host that would become Ukraine (primarily Donetsk). So let’s say 35 million.
Growing by around half a million a year.
But only grew to 42 million (by 7 million) in 1941 due to Civil War and Holodomor, whereas “should have” grown by (1941-1914=27, *.5=) 13.5 million. (This is already within Ukraine’s modern borders, more or less). Let’s subtract 0.5 million for WW1 losses. So that “should be” a population of 48 million.
WW2 was a huge demographic disaster – took until 1959 for population to recover to 42 million (actually 1963 to reach 44 million, since Khrushchev added Crimea in 1954).
Conveniently, average population growth during this period was also around 500,000 per year during “normal” years, so 1963-1941=22, *.5=11 million, so “should be” a population of 48 million + 11 million = 59 million.
However, base effects are important now; Ukraine was growing back from 33 million in 1944, whereas its “should have been” population at that time was around 50 million – a difference of 50%. So actually 11 million * 50% = ~16 million, so “should have been” population would have been about 5 million higher, at around 65 million.
From then on, its hard to say. Had Ukraine followed the same trajectory as it did from 1963-2017 (including Crimea), it would still number 65 million instead of 44 million, or 62 million without Crimea.
But of course it wouldn’t have.
(1) There’d have been no mortality crisis, as there was from the late Soviet period to today; instead, life expectancy would have tracked the European average.
(2) OTOH, it is likely that fertility would have collapsed around the 1970s or 1980s, as it did in first Germany and then Southern Europe. (It is also possible that under normal conditions the fertility transition would have happened faster than it did in the USSR – recall that the Russian Empire was surprisingly liberal; but this is too much of an unknown to take into account).
If we assume that the Ukraine follows Italy’s population trajectory from 1963 onwards – from 51 million to 61 million, or a rise of about 20% – then expected population for 2017 would be around 74 million.
That is around 75% higher than its current population of 42 million.
This would probably be higher than the UK or France, but still quite a bit less than Germany, which wouldn’t have undergone WW2 and might number 90 million.
The territory of modern Russia would probably have around 200-220 million based on similar considerations (with adjustment for less severe famines and limited German occupation).
If you’re really so concerned about potential Ukrainian terrorists, how exactly do you plan to deal with the masses of traitors and utterly deranged Russophobes that you would be bringing into Russia by annexing a large part of Ukraine? Do you understand that most Russian people, including Russian nationalists, don’t want to deal with the typical svidomyi Ukrainian? They don’t want to “reeducate” them, to “beat the stupidity out of them”, etc – they don’t want anything to do with them. Anatoly, you’re a smart person, but on this Ukraine thing you sound like a religious fanatic. You’re better than this level of analysis. Listen to what people who know Ukraine better than you do (not just me) are telling you.
Sakhalin is rather the opposite of continental Siberia. To increase the population of South Sakhalin and the South of Primorsky Krai – is a reasonable goal.
http://www.pvsm.ru/images/2016/11/17/pervyi-chastnyi-gorod-v-rossii-byt-ili-ne-byt-9.jpg
http://img-0.photosight.ru/42c/5209475_xlarge.jpg
http://www.smartaction.ru/sites/default/files/sakhalin01.jpg
http://img-e.photosight.ru/83f/5934741_xlarge.jpg
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Singh, my comment was a jesting reply to the suggestion to establish White Ethno-State settlements in the Russian Federation. If it matters, I am a continental European, not an Anglo-Saxon.
P.S. Is anyone else having problems with the Reply, A/D/Etc., This C/T, Hide Thread, buttons?
I would suggest that the Ukrainian orientation was perhaps a little more organic in its nature than what you seem to suggest in your historical summation. Keep in mind that Galician ‘immigrants’ to neighboring Zakrpatia had been steadily occurring since at least the thirteenth century,when a good portion of Zakarpattya was actually a part of the Galician principality(1280-1320). During the Austrian period, neighboring ‘Rusyns’ from Galicia and Bukovina frequently mingled with their co-ethnologists from Zakarpattya in the Hapsburg parliament.
Leading Zakarpatian figures like Aleksandr Dukhnovic, although often cited as a Russophile, was in fact a more complicated individual who often sympathized with the Galician Rusyns, ‘just over the mountains’. The most prominent Rusyn literary figure in Zakarpattya of the 20th century, Vasyl Grandzhi-Donsky, was a fiery Ukrainian patriot, who paid dearly for his Ukrainian views being tortured within Hungarian prisons. Msgr.Voloshyn could also be added to this list of 20th century Zakarpatian Rusyn intellectuals with a strong Ukrainian orientation (there are many others that I could add to the list).
It’s truly a shame that you somehow didn’t include Karlin’s clearly revisionist adherence to some sort of a ‘quadriune’ Slavic nation to your critical historical review? I can only assume that you too are an adherent of this novel new theory too? 🙂
As we see in the comments Russia and Ukraine have a lot in common yet people from them cannot agree about anything. And the Western worldview would be a minority one in humankind as a whole, whose coherent extrapolated volition as AI determined it could be anything. Moreover, suggestions like Yudkowsky’s one for an AI prime directive run into the same problem as Kant’s categorical imperative ; anything would be permissible as long as it was done conscientiously.
The boxed or isolated AI will be friendly, because that would be the only rational thing for it to do, but untrammeled pure logic dictates a singleton eliminating future threats. When the US was the only nuclear power, John von Neumann advocated a first strike or the threat of one to prevent the USSR getting its own Bomb. The perfectly rational AI might easily be assumed to be free of the kind of malevolence epitomised by Hitler. I suppose Yudkowsky imagines IA to be something like Bertrand Russell, but Russell also advocated a first strike or the threat of one to prevent the USSR getting the bomb. AI will be John von Neumann crossed with MacGyver times 1000.
Why not a quadrine Polish nation? It has a much stronger historical basis
I think I was clear when I described the Ukrainian orientation as organic. I wrote, “There was enough of a base to build on, for this project [Ukrainian one] to be very successful.” The Ukrainian idea wasn’t a foreign one implanted by Galicians and Soviets. Rather, it was one of several competing ones. The Galicians and Soviets may have put it over the top.
Kuzio wrote an interesting article about this region:
http://www.taraskuzio.com/Nation%20and%20State%20Building_files/national-rusyns.pdf
I think Rusyns are to Ukrainian what Moldovans are to Romanians, except that Rusyns were incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR after World War II. I suspect that if Moldova had become part of Romania after 1945 there would have been no Moldovan/Bessarabian separatist movement, as there is none (other than really marginal) among Rusyns.
Chechnya was far more anti-Russian than even Galicia and it got pacified (whether that was a good use of resources is another question).
It is insane to imagine there will be any kind of substantial resistance movement within the provinces of putative Novorossiya or even any of the lands east of the Dnieper.
However, at the end of the day, things are pretty simple – the squatters in Kiev are illegitimate, Ukraine is Russia, and not returning your own stolen belongings makes you a cuck and a joke of a Great Power.
If Russia wants to behave like that, that’s fine, but then it should be honest to its ideals and also GTFO out of Syria, return Crimea, make good with NATO, military spending below 1% of GDP, and get rid of most of its military.
I don’t know about far more.
By their own figures, Soviets lost more military personnel in Galicia than in either of the Chechen wars. And this was Soviet army who had just defeated the Germans, not the ramshackle post-Soviet Russian one whom the Chechens faced.
Not widespread resistance, but occasional bomb attacks, shooters, etc. with plenty of locals offering passive assistance. Azov battalion and their types are largely natives of areas you call “Novorossiya.” Occupation would be expensive (on top of social payments, reconstruction, etc.)
@Anatoly_Karlin: Actually, I don’t think that a biosingularity and a large increase in fertility are incompatible with one another. After all, if one is going to genetically edit one’s embryos to increase their intelligence, there is no reason to think that this gene editing must result in these embryos being less inclined to breed. Indeed, one can have a high IQ and still have a lot of children.
Also, I would like to point out that Israel’s Jewish total fertility rate has increased by more than half a child over the last 20 years (I’m suspecting in very large part due to the fact that the breeders’ share of the total Israeli population has increased over the last 20 years to a noticeable level): http://www.cbs.gov.il/reader/shnaton/templ_shnaton_e.html?num_tab=st03_13&CYear=2017 Indeed, if such a massive increase in fertility is possible for Israeli Jews during a time of continued technological progress, I certainly don’t see why exactly it would be impossible for other ethnic groups in various countries–including for Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians) in Russia.
Thus, I stand by my statement that, however long it would take, Russia should wait for its breeders to become a sizable percentage of its population–like Israel’s breeders apparently are right now–instead of trying to expand into areas where a majority of the population doesn’t want to live under Russian rule. After all, unlike Israel, Russia certainly has no shortage of living space!
Also, please keep in mind that, at around 1.75, Russia’s total fertility rate isn’t that low in the grand scheme of things. True, it’s below replacement level, but I could certainly see it rising above replacement level within the next 100 years (due to its ever-growing percentage of breeders). Indeed, even a total fertility rate of 2.35 would be enough to create annual natural population growth of around 0.5% (and this is still way below Israel’s current TFR!).
As for your calculations in regards to Ukraine, I strongly applaud you for doing them. However, I think that a better way to measure Ukraine’s population growth would be not to look at total numbers, but to look at percentage growth. Yes, the percentage growth gradually decreases over time, but in terms of total numerical growth, it might increase a bit–indeed, perhaps even increase a large amount–before it begins to decrease. For instance, take a look at Pakistan–in spite of it very likely having a slower growth rate right now in comparison to the 1950s, Pakistan currently adds much more people to its population every year than it did in the 1950s (since a higher population compensates for a slower growth rate up to a certain point):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Pakistan#UN_estimates.5B8.5D
Also, for what it’s worth, Dalkhat Ediev did a hypothetical calculation of Russia’s population (within its 2001 borders) without 20th century disturbances, and he appears to have gotten a population of around 270 million people for Russia in 2017 using his model (on page 298; his model extends until 2050):
https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol4/9/4-9.pdf
True, this is without World War I, but World War I itself should only shave off 5 million or at most 10 million from this figure.
Thus, if your calculations in regards to this for Russia (200 to 220 million) are too pessimistic in comparison to Dalkat Ediev’s predictions for Russia (factoring into the effects of World War I, we get around 260 million), could your calculations for Ukraine also be too pessimistic?
Indeed, if I do (260/220) * 74 million, I get about 87.5 million people for Ukraine right now.
@AP: If Russia invades Novorossiya, you might also see a lot of Western Ukrainians trying to sneak into Novorossiya in order to fight the Russians.
Before Russia’s TFR began declining again last year (hopefully a temporary phenomenon related to the recession), it was rising at a rate that would have reached replacement in 10-15 years.
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Correct. By Donbas I meant the southern urban parts of Donbas and Luhansk oblasts that have left Ukraine. These areas have an ethnic Russian plurality.
Prior to the war, Donetsk City was 48.15% Russian and 46.6% Ukrainian. Probably more Ukrainians than Russians have left since that time.
In contrast, Kiev-controlled Kramatorsk was 70% Ukrainian and 29% Russian.
If Germany wins WWI and there is a Ukrainian puppet-state that experiences no Civil War, no Holodomor, no World War II, etc. I’d agree with the other commentators that Ukraine would have in the neighborhood of 70-80 million people. All of those millions killed would have had children; furthermore, Soviet-produced cultural changes that affect fertility rate would not have existed.
Russo-Ukrainian “conflict” is artificial. They together develop and test separatist technology, breeding “separatist virus” which will be used as a weapon in other countries.
: I don’t think that Russia’s TFR will go up much further in the near future, though. Indeed, I think that, in the near future, the highest that it is going to go is somewhere between 1.8 and 2.1. After all, Anatoly Karlin previously said that the ideal number of children for Russians is 2.5 and that the actual number of children is always somewhat lower than the ideal number of children.
However, as the percentage of breeders becomes an ever-larger percentage of the total population, Russians’ ideal number of children will increase and thus their total number of children will also increase. Indeed, we just need to wait for this to occur (though, for the record, I also expect to see some attrition of the part of the breeders as some of them, say, move from rural areas to urban areas and thus reduce their fertility to deal with their new, more modern lives; after all, one’s fertility is determined by both genetic and environmental factors).
Also, as I have previously said, I don’t expect a biosingularity to change this considering that there is no reason to think that IQ-enhancing technology must reduce one’s propensity to breed (for instance, on average, Japanese breeders are almost as smart as Japanese who breed less; indeed, this has been shown in Japan’s PISA data, as previously posted by Anatoly Karlin) and considering that Israel (exclusively thanks to Israeli Jews) is already experiencing a significant increase in its total fertility rate right now (very likely in large part due to its growing percentage of breeders). As I have previously said, if Israeli Jews can breed a lot at a time of continued technological progress and economic growth, so can Russians and any other ethnic or national group. Indeed, I suspect that it is only a matter of time.
With all due respect Anatoly, I think that your ability to reason needs a tweak or two. Being a part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century is not a good reason to believe that ‘Ukraine is Russia’.
It’s well into the 21st century now, time to wake up and have a cup of good strong coffee. The Russian Empire no longer exists, and no amount of make believe is going to bring it back!
@Mr. Hack: By Anatoly’s logic, Poland, Finland, the Baltic countries, the Caucasus, and Central Asia likewise belong to Russia. Similarly, by Anatoly’s logic, Czechia belongs to Austria while both Slovakia and Croatia belong to Hungary.
Hard to judge since Dalkhat Ediev doesn’t give a detailed graph of future TFR/LE trends, just a general description:
A scenario in which Russian fertility converged to 2.1 children per woman in the 1960s and then remains at that level, is distinct – and I would imagine, far less likely – than one where it follows the European (and Japanese!) pattern of a drop to well below replacement levels during the 1970s-80s.
Speaking of Japan. It had broadly similar demographics to the Russian Empire around 1913. Their population increased from 52 million to 127 million between then and today. Projecting this onto the RF part of the Russian Empire, that would make for a current population of around 220 million (and 85 million in the Ukraine).
To be sure, there are some differences – Russia probably wouldn’t have had as big of a TFR drop as Japan, and Japan also lost not an insignificant amount of people in WW2 (around 3 million, or 4% of its population). So perhaps 240 million might be more realistic.
All correct.
However, the cultural changes that started affecting the fertility rate from the late 1960s in the industrialized world would have likely occurred regardless. Perhaps even sooner, without the post-war conservative interlude.
Right next door to Japan is not the ‘dead end of nowhere’.
Objectively false.
The Far East is warmer than Moscow or St.Pete. Its problems are a lack of infrastructure, not bad climate.
He isn’t, he’s another (((liberal))) russophobe. (Professional tip: whenever a Russian starts talking about ‘muh white race’ and ‘muh race realism’, you can be sure he’s a neocon enemy. It’s as reliable a marker for leftoid disease as ‘gay rights’ is in the West.)
I realize we are going into the realm of wild speculation now, but:
No Communism in Russia, no Nazism in Germany. No Nazism in Germany, much less cultural and political Leftism in the West. TFR in the West would probably have been higher, which means that if Eastern Europe followed Western norms it would have been higher there, too.
Eastern Europe resembled Latin America in many ways. Perhaps without Communism, TFR in Eastern Europe would have followed the Latin American (European, such as Argentine) pattern rather than the Western European one? Or something in between?
Your reply to my incredulity of Karlin’s novel and revisionist beliefs in a phantom ‘quadriune Russian nation’ seems a little off the mark? The quotation of mine was clearly not asking how one was to assess the ‘Rusyn’ question vis-a-vis Ukrainian nation builidng.
Perhaps you could weigh in more directly on Karlin’s latest faux pas:
Do you think he’s right? How does this opinion contrast with your own? Do you think that holding an opinion like this in the 21st century is objectively justified? And finally, do you think that holding an opinion like this helps in the cementing of good neighborly relations between Ukraine and Russia going forward?
It’s rather clear I do not.
It’s not realistic but there are crazier ideas out there, and these crazier ideas are very mainstream. Leftist “no borders anywhere” ideas are not any more realistic than recreating a mythical Rus nation out of similar peoples. Such crazier ideas are rather popular:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/the-issue-that-could-lose-the-next-election-for-democrats.html
So I place Karlin’s Romantic idea of resurrecting a mythical Rus that never was, in perspective.
Rather than spending a little bit of your time and going into a little bit of depth to explain just why you feel Karlin’s ideas are old, inaccurate and counterproductive, you’re giving him a green light by excusing his inexcusable ideas with some classic ‘whataboutisms’? C’mon AP, I expect more from somebody like you, whom I’ve come to respect over time for your intelligent argumentation. Why not take Karlin straight on here, rather than trying to mealy mouth it out of here with this lame response? It would make for an interesting exchange, as I know that Karlin, for the most part, respects your opinions? He’s less likely to respond to my opinions than yours. Please don’t take offense to my reply here, but if you step back for a moment, I’m sure that you’ll admit that you can do much better than this. 🙁
I’ve had such discussions with him and others over the years, about the myth of some “unified Rus nation-state” or the false idea that Ukraine is in the same civilization space as Russia rather than with the West/Poland (including a reply to him in this very comment section). I don’t find it necessary to scold him whenever he expresses his own opinion on his blog. His idea is wrong, but not absurd. Some Europeans want the EU to have not only a common currency but a common army and to have the EU parliament have more power. Or if not the entire EU, the “core” EU – France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, who would pursue a fast track to fuller integration. Which would be like Charlemagne’s Empire. Is this idea crazier than that of a union of East Slavic countries, which were still united 25 years ago, and in which 90% of one country (Belarus) speak Russian at home and about 50% in the other (Ukraine) do? To be absolutely clear – full union of Ukraine and Russia reflects historical ignorance and/or wishful thinking by Russian nationalists and has very little support within Ukraine. But it’s not a completely bizarre fantasy.
I appreciate your kind words about me.
You certainly deserve a hard earned kudos for all of your efforts!
I think that Ukraine could actually belong to either civilizational umbrellas, although in nothing like a reconstituted empire of Charlemagne, or of one centered around the memory of Vladimir the Great.
Would the Russian nationals agree to a moving of the capitol city to Kyiv as well? I think not! 🙂
The idea of Ukraine being a sort of buffer between the EU and a Russian dominated CU has been floated around quite a bit in the past. I say, let’s see where Ukraine’s European aspirations lead her in the next 10-15 years, a small amount of historical time.
: In regards to Ukraine’s European aspirations over the next 10-15 years, a lot might very well depend on just how well Ukraine manages to deal with its corruption problem by that point in time. Indeed, if Ukraine could turn its roving bandits into stationary bandits, then the other E.U. countries might gradually become more open to the idea of incorporating Ukraine into the E.U.
If, on the other hand, Ukraine will fail to deal with its corruption problem, then I could certainly see it eventually having another Maidan Revolution as well as continued poverty.
Also, in regards to Anatoly Karlin’s nostalgia for Tsarist Russia (presumably without the anti-Semitism), I agree that it is rather dated and unrealistic, but at the same time I don’t see it as being worse than, say, a nostalgia for Austria-Hungary.
Given the constantly worsening situation with “refugees” in Europe, the answer is clear. In the next 15 years, not only Ukraine, but Finland and Poland will be returned to Mother Russia.
Apparently, Gogol the famous writer of Russian novels, didn’t quite feel the same way as you, when comparing Ukraine to Russia:
http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20033/52
After he made a few bucks working in the cold and grey north, he would always go back home or visit warmer climates in Italy. I hope that you’re prepared for another gloomy Moscow winter, Anatoly…