As I have pointed out, the jokers who dominate today’s “Russia debate” such as Molly McKew have much less Russia expertise even than La Russophobe, the old bete noire of the Russia bloggers.
Suffice to say that her entire shtick consists of inventing ever more and more deranged Russiagate conspiracy theories is something that even Masha Gessen recognizes it.
Molly McKew, who identifies as an “information warfare expert,” has said that, back in the day, Soviet intelligence designed a “ninety/ten” approach in order to “embed” its agents in political communities: ninety per cent of what they produced mirrored what they saw, so that they could blend in before starting to sow discord. This idea makes so much sense that it doesn’t seem to matter that McKew offers no source for it or, indeed, any credentials for her own expertise. She is the C.E.O. of a company called Fianna Strategies, which seems to be a tiny Washington-based lobbying operation that has worked for the opposition parties in Georgia and Moldova. McKew’s “information warfare expertise” appears entirely self-styled, yet so great is our need for a rational interpretation of incomprehensible events that recently she has published extensively in Politico and appeared on Slate’s Trumpcast. Russians, meanwhile, have laughed parts of their anatomy off over her coverage of the Gerasimov Doctrine, which is a thing that, well, doesn’t exist.
But so far as I know, La Russophobe – “Kim Zigfeld”, or whoever she was – never did get a teaching gig at Georgetown University. Even though she, unlike McKew, actually had some minimal knowledge of Russian.
Global imperialist insurgency, okay.
Then again, considering that the US will in all likelihood be highly hostile to Russia for at least the next couple of decades, perhaps the progressive triumph of ideologues in American Russia Studies isn’t such a bad thing (for Russia).
What happened to La Russophobe? She seems to have disappeared from circulation. Strange considering that anti Russian hysteria has reached heights since the trumpster’s election.
Perhaps it wasn’t a person but a psychic entity that reached criticality and blew apart, seeding the West with fragments of its soul, like how Morgoth dispersed his might and malice into the very earth after his final defeat and annihilation.
It was probably a media project which receives some funding from the US State Department.
I guess they can change their funding after some years. And the people or person who writes to the blog, is maybe working in “China media projects” or something new.
Really, “Russia studies” in academia, should be just cared by language, literature and history departments.
I don’t understand why it would be a separate department. So Professor who is an expert in Russian history. Or Professor who is expert in Russian literature/language/philology.
I thought you were going to write about this amasing factoid about 40% of Russians not having access to toilets and electricity…It originated on (state-funded) Radio Liberty and was retweeted by multiple “Russia experts”, including former US ambassador.
Generally any department in college whose name ends with “studies ” (environmental, gender..) is a con intended at sucking as much money from student fees as possible.
As I have pointed out, the jokers who dominate today’s “Russia debate” such as Molly McKew have much less Russia expertise even than La Russophobe, the old bete noire of the Russia bloggers.
What happened to the adjectival form of “Russia”? I’m not blaming you, I’m just pointing out this annoying trend. I guess it happened because:
– journalists and talking heads want to sound Pentagon-ish and situation roomy
– Twitter made people stingy with letters
– Search engines prefer “China” to “Chinese” and “Russia” to “Russian”.
It’s still annoying as hell.
To me it makes sense. After all, we’re not talking about actual Russian experts, as in ‘experts from Russia’. Russia experts are simply individuals, who have chosen Russia as their object of study.
Anybody can be a Russia expert, but only select few of them are actual Russian experts.
So it’s kind of like the difference between Cool Whip and real whipped cream? “Legally Molly, we can’t call you an ‘expert on Russia’ or a ‘Russian expert’ so we’ll label you as a ‘Russia expert’ to avoid a lawsuit from the dairy farmers”.
“Russian expert” – refers:
1. A person is Russian (by nationality) and also expert (their field of expertise can be anything)
2, A person is expert about topics of Russian language/philology.
“Russia expert” – refers:
–
It’s the same for any country. E.g.
“Donald Smith is an English expert. He was born in London and has a PhD in neurology from Oxford University.”
“Akito Mishima is an English expert. He has been studying English philology for 30 years in Tokyo university.”
“Juan Lopez is an England expert. He knows everything about England and helps Argentinian students to find the best schools in England.”
The eternal taig
No, “an expert on England” is one possibility, “an expert on English” (the language) is another. “A Russia expert” is just pidgin English. A “Russian expert” is either an expert on the language or an expert from Russia.
Seems improbable
Ironically, the old Fianna Fail would have had far more sympathy with Russia under Putin than the globohomo institutions Molly McKew works for.
This form of sentence (“[name of country] + expert”) refers to people who are (for their career) experts about a country.
Here are Japan experts:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/expert-list/Japan
India experts:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/expert-list/India
Is English your first language Dimitry?
“Japan expert” and “India expert” sound subliterate. They sound like someone who doesn’t speak English fluently or is trying to sound like he’s familiar with military / intelligence community / diplomatic corps shop talk.
A “Russia expert” sounds less bad than “Russia bloggers” or “Russia debate” or “Syria policy” though.
No surprise that the pretentious Tom Nichols considers McKew a worthy source.
Meantime, her overall knowledge of Russia is minimal when compared to actual experts on that nation – as in people having a well above average knowledge of Russia, regarding subjects which include history and foreign policy issues, as well as some other matters.
What about “Russia hand” and “China hand”? These people are Americans with knowledge and experience about Russia and China, respectively.
In contrast to Kim Zigfield, our resident, self dubbed “Independent Foreign Policy Analyst’ (and Russia expert) Mike Averko seems to be experiencing a renaissance of sorts, recently commenting that:
Because he’s inherently the modest sort, he’s hesitant about disclosing where he’s secured his latest paying gig?…I think he has his own blog over at the ‘Oriental Review’ now. Kudos Mickey!
You do the stupid yet again, oh cowardly anonymous crank. Once again, the title which you’ve a hard-on for isn’t self dubbed, as you erroneously and repeatedly state.
I am going to take the opposite view, unlike the rest of the commenters. “Russian” is not to be dispensed in Putler-approved ways. My fav example: BBC still calls Skripal a “Russian spy”. “Russian” is to be used only wit what’s worse. For example, you got low-scale storms, hurricanes, and Russian something. Homicide, Holocaust, Russian something.
No, seriously. The woman claims to be an expert on the government and the country, but hopefully not on the populace at large. For propaganda purposes, it is important to separate Hitler and his Nazi party, from well-meaning #resist Germans. The evil Reich vs the accomodating dirndl.
Yes, that doesn’t sound odd. That’s been around long enough that it isn’t jarring. The other examples I mentioned seems to be one of those linguistic fads people eventually mock in comedies; the same way old movies have Walter Mathau saying things like “this arrangement isn’t working out, compatibility-wise”.
I wonder if Molly even knows about the two ways to translate “Russian” into Russian? One means an “ethnic Russian” and the other means “a citizen of Russia”. I wish we had that in English as well. Having the right words for ideas can make an enormous difference.
Looks like a different Molly McKew, who isn’t as well known:
http://unimelb.academia.edu/MollyMckew
The one under discussion at this thread doesn’t seem to have any sort of an academia.edu reference unlike:
http://www.academia.edu/37358188/Michael_Averko_Consistency_and_Reality_Lacking_on_Crimea
Anatoly, who do you think is worse–Molly or Affirmative Action Kremlinologists?
Could mean those who rightfully say they’re more adept than her, while getting the shaft, or perhaps an instance like the African-American chap, who had an anti-Russian leaning WaPo article, which the not so pro-Russian Shaun Walker called one of the dumbest articles concerning Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trust ?
🙂
I miss George Kennan–he was a genuine expert on Russia. He spoke and read Russian fluently, liked the Russian people, and had diplomatic service in Russia. Yeah, I know it was the USSR, but I think Kennan saw beyond that and understood, as best a Westerner could, the culture of Russia.
Come on, Russophobia is the global warming of the 20’s. This enterprising lass McKew is just getting in on the ground floor. Frankly I don’t think it will be as big of a bonanza as climate change but only because the West is both hollowing out and disintegrating, which will hit academic BS vendors hard.
Stephen F. Cohen is excellent.
You obviously aren’t familiar with Akarlins (much more interesting and ironically far more mature) content that he put out nearly a decade ago now.
A slap in the face to every fundamental scientist on the postdoc treadmill. Still, could be worse, at least it’s not tenure.
He was also entirely dedicated to inflicting maximum damage upon Russians and causing the eventual defeat of USSR.
He believed in the indirect approach, acting through Yugoslavia as proxy and backing the Unaligned to block the integration between Second and Third World. This is most evident in the eventual outcome for key Unaligned countries once the USSR threat was gone (Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia).
Fortunately, such patient and thoughtful adversaries are gone, replaced by PC, female and minority quota imbeciles who grew up with neocon media excrement and university courses.
Could you be any nerdier ?
Most of the shitty oriental despotates that the USSR assisted during the Cold War were very ungrateful.
I am sure it bolstered their pride to see America and the Soviet Union fighting to court these insignificant and dysfunctional countries.
The self described conservative (more like neocon) SE Cupp is a journo’s version of McKew.
No surprise to see Cupp on CNN, along with David Gergen.
All of which were, and continue to be, a net cost to their patrons with the possible exception of Yugoslavia. Losing the Warsaw pact and the most developed, European parts of the former ussr, who’ve gone on to become hard-core anti Russian, was the really serious, and totally preventable, loss.
Sorry, I thought that because you’ve never been able to concretely pinpoint the source of your sobriquet, it was indeed ‘self dubbed’ (what other alternative is left?).
But the real reason of my comment was to share the good news of you finally being able to secure a job where you’re being paid for your vast knowledge and ‘fact based’ opinions, as the incredibly erudite ‘Russia Expert’ that everyone in fact knows that you are. Once again you disappoint, unable to identify who your current employer is, being the extremely modest type. Don’t keep us in the dark and share the good news with us,…this is the time to toot your horn, Mickey!
Its actually a promising development.
Presumably, if Russia posed a serious threat to America, you would get someone who actually knew what they were talking about in order to counter-act a serious threat.
The fact that the Megaphone turns to people who lack the professional qualifications to appear on the nuttiest Alex Jones segment means Russia is not serious strategic threat to American national security. It appears that the Russian threat level is somewhere on par with football hooligans and Heavy Metal fans, just fodder for the anxiety-prone tin-foil hat crowd.
Lobbyist Twitter must be its own interesting sphere. I wonder how it compares to Congressional Twitter.
“Russia expert” is just fine. Think of it as shorthand for “self-proclaimed ‘expert’ on Russia (/sarc)”. IMHO, it is a rather sophisticated rhetorical use of English. Of course, such usage has the disadvantage of being something up with which purists such as yourself will not put.
How pathetic when an ever so sleazy svido troll like yourself carries on like an SBU wannabe.
I already answered your bogus hard-on, concerning your bizarre fascination with a certain title that isn’t self dubbed. Meantime, you remain an anonymous coward, who doesn’t reveal his actual identity for obvious reasons.
BTW, there’re few analysts/journos and people in general, who disclose their $ arrangements in this kind of a format – you being one of them.
“Russia expert” is alright, it’s the many other failures to use the adjectival form that sound stupid. One example from Michael Tracey just now on Twitter: “These are the in-house talking points of all the think tanks promoting Russia alarmism.”
Me buy many, many Russia dolls. You buy? You like Russia food? Russia food good! Russia lady pretty! Me no like Russia alarmism! Ugg Russia expert! Me Ugg! Ugg strong! Ugg smart!
For the record, you actually never did reveal who first awarded you with the title ‘Independent Foreign Policy Analyst’. You can, however, do so now and once and for all clear up this controversy. 🙂
And also for the record, I’ve never requested that you ‘disclose the $ arrangements’ of any of your bogus blog commitments, only that you reveal who might be paying you (not how much). After all, it was you who recently stated that you were being paid for your endeavors:
So who’s paying you for your opinions related to ‘history, foreign policy, sports and media’ anyway?
I am an American. No people on earth are (or should be)more our natural friends than the Russians. They are sometimes thuggish, they make their letters backwards, they may be confused about the dates of Christmas and Easter, some of them drink too much, they appear to be only happy when they are miserable, but they are, as we, children of the soil and emnity between us is only the product the almost unbelievably stupid elite products of our elite universities.
How was this huge and serious defection of nations to the West to be averted? Russia was a total basket case of serious problems in the early 90’s that required that it concentrate on itself and not totally fall apart too.
You’re quite the boring troll, as you rehash what has already been addressed.
Not that I really care to know, as a rhetorical counter –
What’s your actual name?
Who pays you?
Try substantively refuting my commentary, as opposed to repetitiously boring sleaze attacks. Let us know when you land a relatively high profile to high profile appearance, in addition to getting academically referenced.
Recall a certain Harvard educated, JRL and Forbee promoted individual, appearing as “The Russia Hand”.
Yes, haven’t we already agreed that usage is acceptable? I’m talking about things like “Russia alarmism”.
Actually nothing at all has been ‘addressed’. You have a sleazy habit of avoiding topics and then later trying to pretend that they’ve already been ‘rehashed’.
You’ve chosen to become a public figure and even author your own blog (that doesn’t seem to get much if any traction, BTW), I have not, so my name and where I work I prefer to keep private. Nobody ever forced you to assume a public appearance.
I’m not trying to repeat any sleaze about you, unless of course, you consider that getting paid for your propagandistic views are somehow an underhanded slam? So what is it then, do you indeed get paid for your writing antics, or not? You’re the one who recently indicated that you do?…
If it is alarmism about Russia, the country, then “Russia alarmism” seems to be the phrase that is both most concise and most clear. “Russian alarmism” could mean a trait that Russians possess. “Alarmism concerning Russia” would be correct but maybe too wordy for some.
Why do you think you have the right to demand things from other commenters? Get over yourself, boomer troll.
Shiite
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DopAHCDzFTI/maxresdefault.jpg
https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/images/105927/94/1059279422.png
Things will get worse, much worse than they are now. The US is rapidly moving towards a regime where SJWs dominate every lever of power, what that means is that their hatred for all things white will dominate global politics.
The future Russia studies will be about Russian “white privilege”, BLM being suppressed in Russia, Russian not having transgender toilets, etc. I am not joking about any of this, if one looks at how rapidly things have been accepted by the US, it will not be too long before Russia becomes a target of all of these things (even BLM, as the African numbers start increasing in places like Moscow).
It could have been averted by returning Russian Orthodox Church centre to Kiev, equalising Russsians, Ukrainians and Belarusians as inheritors of Rus’ and creating a Russian analogue to United States of America.
Naturally, the Bolshevik/Soviet ideology would have none of it. Baltics and Warsaw Pact would have been totally irrelevant in that case.
Perhaps he should hook up with Molly.
More boring inaccurate BS from you – the opposite of substantively refuting fact based commentary.
What’s the matter with you? Your 1990s era Chevy Lumina, with over hundred thousand miles has finally crapped out?
Once again, let us know when you get academically referenced, as well as having articles at high profile to relatively high profile venues, along with live guest appearances.
This is what I’m thinking too. The NY-DC-CA-London axis Blue Empire that Karlin and I have been talking about is just Trotskyist Communism, and this includes SJWism and anti-Russian hysteria.
Powerful Take: What we are witnessing right here is Peak American Empire. It has spread via its “crown colony”, EU, uninterrupted from Ireland all the way to Kharkiv, not to mention interests in East Asia and the Middle East. This is exactly where the British Empire was between the Second Boer War and WW2.
WW3 is likely not gonna be fought with bombs, but a mass, global cyberwarfare. A big war always gets fought once a technological breakthrough happens. I’m still uncertain what digital warfare will look like.
And the Gilets Jaunes is probably one of the first rounds of a colonial uprising in the EU.
Once the American Empire “falls”, which won’t be a big bang event but a gradual retreat from each ally (re-negotiation of trade, pullout of troops, termination of mutual defense alliances, and likely some local branches of Corporate America divested/nationalized). America even if run by SJWs, will still be one of the eminent economic powers, influence the Five Eyes, and will maintain some type of neoliberalism.txt lobby group especially in European capitals.
In fact, the morphing of America into a Trotskyist, weakened but still a top 2 nation and a gradual retreat from its allies has just started: The US has effectively pulled out of Turkey and the process has started for South Korea.
Post-American Empire will likely be some type of Westphalian balance. China has too many countries that will try to contain it: India and Japan for starters, with Russia joining in at some point.
US gov Russia experts can’t speak Russian, US gov China experts can’t speak Mandarin and think China will be doomed due to its reliance on imported soy beans. USA looks weaker by the week and the retirement of the cursed boomers and replacement by less talented gen X and Y seems linked. USA might go on being hostile to Russia but it’s increasingly a toothless and pathetic hostility. Tangling with the Chinese using undertalented spooks and floating brothel of a navy has them busy.
Believe me, my 1990’s Chevy Lumina is doing far better today than you are Mickey. You’re from that era too, a washed up has been, who’s in no demand. At least Kim Zigfield knew when it was time to hang it up and try something new – you’ll probably still be around 10 years from now croaking about Russia and Putler’s greatness (Putler will probably still be running the Russo-Mafia sate from his wheelchair). 🙂
The church issue wasn’t even on the drawing board in the early 1990’s. In my opinion, Putler shouldn’t have gone off of the deep end in 2014. Even had Ukraine pursued a Western EU course, Russia’s influence was much greater then, than it is today or in the foreseeable future. Putler crapped in his pants and overreacted totally messing up Ukrainian/Russian relations for many years to come. Looking back, it looks like the West actually did foresee this and used this to its own advantage by supporting Ukraine, playing upon Putler’s paranoia.
BBC, Academia.edu; Counterpunch, Global Research, Sputnik, et al.
In contrast to Zigfeld, cowardly backing out of a live BBC appearance where its anonymity would’ve been respected. Much easier to launch gutless lobs from far away as an anonymous crank – much like yourself.
Faulty Comments Highlighted and Debunked:
That particular church matter was already an issue in the 1990s, with Svidos seeking to clip the UOC with loose ties to the MP.
As for the other part of your screed, what’s evident today might very well prove to not be as noticeable in the future. Kiev regime controlled Ukraine with its reliance on IMF loans is a mess.
Looking back, an internationally brokered power sharing agreement for Ukraine was violated with the coup like circumstances that ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected president, followed by a series of anti-Russian actions, which are noted towards the end of this article:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/twisted-history-against-russia-and-serbia/5390154
As a result, Crimea has reunified with Russia, with civil war like circumstances in Donbass. Yeah, Kiev regime Ukraine is looking good with its current president in the 8%-12% popularity range, with his greatest opponent polling under 25%.
A cynic could say that Putin’s mistake in 2014 was not conquering much more of Ukraine. Theoretically speaking, Putin could have sent in Russian forces to capture all of Novorossiya after Yanukovych was ousted.
Of course, the question would have been whether Putin would have been prepared for what was to come afterwards–specifically extremely crippling Western sanctions and possibly massive protests in the parts of Ukraine under Russian rule.
Number of college students studying Russian collapsed in the late 90s:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_325.59.asp
Since Russia Didn’t Matter Anymore, employment prospects for students of Russian had dried up, and the quality of students diminished too.
Another problem, which had always existed to some degree, but became especially acute around that time was that Russian studies had turned into grievance studies – grievance against Russia.
‘We struck thousands of targets’: IDF chief of staff on Israel’s ‘near-daily’ strikes in Syria
https://www.rt.com/news/448685-israel-syria-strikes-eizenkot/
On the matter of Israel, Syria and Russia, from what has been labelled as Russia’s hardline:
https://www.memri.org/reports/high-ranking-retired-general-leonid-ivashov-pro-israeli-lobby-permeates-all-administrative
Russians are Pajeets?
The only 1990s American vehicles that I have semi-trust in are pickup trucks.
One of Putin’s biggest blunders is that he didn’t turn Russia’s oil money into being a technologically advanced economy, but just coasted along with the oil wealth until military adventures became the only way to defend his country from delusional (((Anglos))).
Even if we speak in nominal terms, Russia’s economy is the size of Italy and South Korea. There’s no reason for Russia not to be a mid-sized technological powerhouse with a couple of world-leading civilian sectors and/or international brands by now. Russia should’ve been to the IT development world what India is right now, since that’s by far its biggest strength. Doing so would mean more functional, and serious, Russia-Western relations.
Other civilian industries Russia has the ability to really be competitive on the world stage are automotive, commercial aviation, and heavy machinery in general, especially with its existing military know-how.
“No surprise that the pretentious Tom Nichols considers McKew a worthy source.”
Pretentious is exactly what Mr. “Expertise” is.
Karlin might be a crypto-pajeet.
Are you referring to Crimea or Donbas?
As for Crimea, even Gorby would have taken it in those circumstances.
With Donbass, the Russian government had only two options involving moderate levels of bloodshed: letting the Donbass rebels get slaughtered, or occupying Donbas outright. The first option would have been very unpopular in Russia, and the second would have been risky economically. So indeed one can reasonably criticise the Russian government for pandering to popular opinion and for cowardice.
On the other hand, the reasoning was presumably that a simmering conflict in Donbas makes it harder for Ukraine to join NATO, which is ultimately what this is all about. Whether or not NATO
expansion is actually a threat to Russian security is ultimately irrelevant, since everyone
who could conceivably hold power in Russia believes that NATO is a threat and will act accordingly. To ignore that is reckless.
He got the sanctions, and instead of street protests he got very unpopular opinion polls in Ukraine regarding Russia and himself. If he had maintained his cool, found a much more amenable Ukrainian presidential candidate to back in the next election cycle (I mean really, Yanukovych? Only Averko finds him attractive), Russia and possibly even Ukraine would be sitting in much better positions today.Instead, Putler played his hand like a nervous amateur and we have what we have today.
The whole Donbas mess was hatched with the approval of Putler within the Kremlin. If he hadn’t initially provided the inspiration for it and a greenlight, it never would have occurred. It wasn’t well thought out as is obvious in its ‘frozen conflict’ status. Ukraine may still join NATO, even sooner than before, as more Ukrainians now support inclusion. Donbas and Crimea could just be amputated, and Ukraine emerges as a stronger unitary state.
The annexation of the Crimea was even a stupider move. Everything was fine and dandy in Crimea and there was no reason to resort to such hysterics. Putler had just signed his 50 year lease there and nobody was threatening to rescind the contract. The Russian language reigned supreme and there was no possibility of creating a new Banderstan there. Stupid, stupid is stupid, that’s my opinion of Putler.
I’m not demanding anything from Averko. He’s stated that he’s being payed by somebody for his sub-par ideas – I’m just wondering who it is that’s supposedly paying him? I’m not even asking him how much he’s supposedly getting paid.
So, have you been paid by any of these rags for any ‘published’ articles, or have you mostly busied yourself with providing commentary in the comments section? If not, you’re nothing more that a self glorified commenter, that’s all. Providing free opinions over the internet is like the old proverbial adage:
Only in your case, Mickey, I doubt that you’re even getting paid a penny! 🙂
Doubt and lie all you want as an anonymous cowardly troll.
You appear to be jealous on top of constantly not being able to substantively refute my fact based commentary.
Cowardly idiots like yourself wondering is somewhat comedic.
You fail to successfully refute fact based commentary that debunk your tripe.
Another distortion on your part regarding Yanukovych.
Crimea’s reunification with Russia was a reasonable move given what happened in Kiev after the overthrow of Yanukovych in conjunction with the examples of northern Cyprus and Kosovo. The likes of yourself are hallucinating to believe that Crimea actually prefers Kiev controlled Ukraine over Russia.
The situation in Donbass is a civil conflict along the lines of the US Civil War and for that matter the America Revolutionary War. The aforementioned last two conflicts saw foreign involvement in support of the respective side seeking to break from the given entity seeking to maintain control.
I’ll grant that the move against Kiev regime controlled Ukraine is stronger in Crimea than Donbass. At the same time, there’s a popular enough mood in Donbass against the Kiev regime. The overwhelming majority of the Donbass rebels are from the former Ukrainian SSR as has been noted by Serhiy Kudelia and Paul Robinson, among others. Even Nadiya Savchenko has acknowledged that they’ve legit gripes with the Kiev regime.
So says your dumb ass self.
Some of the faulty thinking in Kiev regime controlled Ukraine shouldn’t be completely overlooked – a matter relating to this piece:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/01/06/croatian-scenario-shortcomings-for-ending-donbass-conflict.html
For sure.
http://www.takepart.com/video/2015/02/27/beluga-white-whale-russia-hunt-gayane-petrosyan-film-cove-blackfish/
No one denies this. The ruble stops here.
As I said, there probably would have been a few hundred to a thousand killed fighting against the new Ukrainian government, ending in Donbass being not much worse off than neighboring regions in Ukraine. Alternatively, the Russian government could have invaded, maybe a few hundred to a thousand people would have been killed in the process, and Donbass would be somewhat better off than neighboring parts of Ukraine, while Russia would be worse off.
This is apparently true, but not obviously relevant. More relevant perhaps is the frozen conflict. So long as their is a territorial dispute in a country, it seems unlikely that country will be admitted into NATO, since then NATO might become obligated by treaty to intervene.
That is rather dubious but ultimately irrelevant. Even assuming the Ukrainian government was likely to honor the lease, there is no reason to think that the Russian government trusted the new Ukrainian government to keep the lease, and so the backers of the new Ukrainian government had no reason to think that the Russian government wouldn’t take Crimea. This was the least surprising event in the whole bloody affair. Everyone acting surprised is either a fool ior a knave. Moreover, the annexation has been largely a success. An almost bloodless takeover mostly approved of by the local population.
Donbass, however, is a nightmare.
Ill-informed or just a liar?
https://abload.de/img/rusm7bkbq.png
Here it is, all in a nutshell (all taken just from this thread), the Mike Averko playbook on how to conduct a discussion at a blog with somebody who’s obviously getting the better of the discussion. What boring Tripe, Mickey. Don’t you really have anything netter to offer the world other than this kind of useless harangue? No wonder you’ve been unable to find a publisher or a website host willing to shell out any money to support your idiotic brand of russophilism.
Is there some kind of history between you two? Good lord you come off as bitter and resentful.
Yeah, he’s a frustrated Svido who can’t make the Kyiv Post as an author of an article. Anonymously hurling insults and lies is the best that he can do.
Irony of ironies, just received notice for the most recent payment of such. Don’t get your panties in a knot, you anonymously dull coward of a fool.
What lies? I keep my comments lazer focused on quotations of yours.
So, who’s sending you a ‘notice of payments’ (whatever that’s supposed to be), on a Sunday afternoon to boot. What a pile of BS! 🙂
Don’t make any purchases before the rubber check bounces! 🙂
I’m just trolling the world’s greatest ‘Russia Expert’ and ‘Independent Foreign Policy Analyst’. Feeling a little under the weather today, and staying in, I have some time on my hands – what better way to keep my spirits up? 🙂
You further reveal what an idiot you are.
Such is your pathetic life.
Maybe read a book or practice your Ukrainian or something
My Ukrainian is just fine. So why are you starting to troll me now, Adam? Also, having a slow day at the office? 🙂
(monkey see, monkey do?).
Mickey, quit picking on me you brute. Not too becoming of a real, genuine rootin tootin ‘Independent Foreign Policy Analyst’ now, wouldn’t you say? 🙂
You’re the quintessential Svido, which explains you’ve such a hard-on for me.
Au contraire, the man is offering sane advice, which explains your comeback.
Mickey, don’t look to me to help you fulfill your strange, perverted pleasures. You live in New York City, you should be able to figure something else out…
Look AP & Mr. Hack
The survey of avg partners per female 18-34 had Ukraine above 12. Most of EU is 4-7.
Most people view Ukraine as a violent Slavic Hell hole, with above average & easy/cheap women.
Can you please stop turning every thread into a Ukraine vs the World fight? You’re front runners for proving some ancient relation between Hindu Nationalists & Slavs.
They do the exact same thing but thankfully remain ignorant of this blog, for now.
Are you kidding (smoking some strong weed or what)?…
Among other things, you can’t even get right where I live yuh dope.
I agree.
The logical endpoint is that Russian nationalist Dzugashvili will become responsible for the Holocaust.
The chances of a Blue candidate coming to power were close to zero even if Russia had not taken Crimea, and absolutely zero if it had. (And if Putin hadn’t taken Crimea, there’s a significant chance that he’d have been toppled in a color revolution by now).
That is on account of demographics. AP, whom you respect, has himself explained that a few times.
Part of me thinks that if Putin got “color-revolutioned”, the (((eternal Anglo))) would have really sorely miscalculated in that case.
Even if Navalny gets into power, even his presence won’t be able to negate anti-Russian hysteria, which has little to do with Putin but more to do with domestic SJWs and the neocons. The Bershidsky-style liberals will eventually get even more disillusioned with the West as they in levers of power find themselves facing the same hostility towards Russian national interests as Putin did. The West will pretty much reject everything the Bershidsky/Navalny crowd proposes, whether its visa-free travel, free trade agreements, end to military aggression/encroachment etc.
Once the liberal ruling class of “color revolutioned” Russia sees their entire agenda collapse in front of their eyes while being in power, they’ll adopt even more hardcore Putlerism than Putin himself, including fully aligning with the LDPR nationalists who will inevitably participate in some fashion in that government.
Instead of dealing with Putin, the West by now would’ve been dealing with an disillusioned, isolated Bershidsky/Navalny-type establishment aligned with the LDPR, going full rambo on both ethnic Russian nationalism and fully opposing the West everywhere, running an Iran-style autarkic economy embargoed from the West, with the full-spectrum support of the entire Russian population even if living standards reduce to Ukrainian levels when this happens.
This would’ve likely spelled the end of the West as we know it.
Your underestimating the PC, female and minorities.
The Russian economy was steady, Putler had just finished his debut as the impresario of the winter Olympics, his popularity in Russia was at an all time high. There was no need to invade Ukraine and annex Crimea in the brutal manner that he did. He had plenty of time on his hands and could have waited to perform his dirty deed if the Ukrainian government had indeed rescinded its newly signed Sevastopol lease agreement. Besides a few squawks here and there by a couple of Ukrainian politicians trying to appeal to a far right constituency, there was no serious movement afoot to rescind the lease agreement. If they had, then Putler’s motivations for the invasion would have been less suspect in world opinion. Now he’s the world’s #1 badguy, even Trumpster is starting to think twice before he even shakes hands with the little monster.
The Russian economy was steady, Putler had just finished his debut as the impresario of the winter Olympics, his popularity in Russia was at an all time high. There was no need to invade Ukraine and
annex Crimea in the brutal manner that he did. He had plenty of time on his hands and could have waited to perform his dirty deed if the Ukrainian government had indeed rescinded its newly signed Sevastopol lease agreement. Besides a few squawks here and there by a couple of Ukrainian politicians trying to appeal to a far right constituency, there was no serious movement afoot to rescind the lease agreement. If they had, then Putler’s motivations for the invasion would have been less suspect in world opinion. Now he’s the world’s #1 badguy, even Trumpster is starting to think twice before he even shakes hands with the little monster.
Put yourself in Putins shoes, you have a naval base that Russia had longer than the USA existed handed over to the USA (don’t bother arguing this, this was always going to be the end result with Ukraine becoming a US puppet).
Besides all this geopolitical stuff, there are far more important matters in play here. The US is already anti white and is becoming fanatically anti white at frightening speed. What that means is the Ukraine will have this anti white ideology sooner or later, there is no way it can now escape its doom as it has done a Faust. It will mean that mass immigration, anti white education/entertainment and all the usual stuff will increasingly become the norm. Whether Russia will eventually succumb to the third world hordes is any ones guess, but at least the people of Crimea have a fighting chance at survival, staying within Ukraine means they have zero chance.
Since you preclude me from commenting on the irrevocable nature of US domination of the Black Sea (?), I’ll only reply to your ‘anti-white’ hysteria regarding Ukraine. Take a close look at both Poland, Hungary and even Romania and then come back to the discussion, sanely. All white, and about to remain so for quite a long time to come. Besides, a small controlled quota for outsiders (of any color) is a normal, good thing, unless you plan to build walls around every single country in the world. LOL!
Economy was going down either way due to falling oil prices, which West couldn’t be blamed for in this case. And humiliation of being unceremoniously booted from Crimea, and pro Russians getting repressed and jailed with no response, would have lost Putin another twenty percentage points. So his approval rate would be at forty percent by 2016 or so, at best. Nationalists in particular would absolutely hate him, instead of just being ambivalent about him. Not a good place for someone like Putin to be in, as shown by the experience of Nasser or Milosevic.
But as I pointed out, I’m not so convinced that the Russian fleet would have been ‘booted out’. Russian language and cultural rights were never in any danger of losing ground, with only one Ukrainian high school that offered classes in Ukrainian at that time there (I actually met and befriended a guy who went to that school). Also, I don’t think Putler would have lost 20% points because of things going on in Ukraine. The status quo would have been just fine, and would have provided Russia with no unnecessary sanctions. As I’ve already stated, if the status quo in Crimea would actually change, Putler could have played the role of Hitler, with his anschluss like move.
I meant he would have lost 20% points due to the inevitable recession, when his approval ratings were already at a relative low of 60%.
A recession that would be blamed on him, not on the West.
In the event, Crimea boosted him by 20%, and made his approval ratings invulnerable to the economic downturn.
Inaction on the Ukraine probably wouldn’t have had a big direct impact (though they certainly would have completely deflated the minor boost from the Sochi Olympics), though as I said, it would have completely destroyed his status amongst Russian nationalists. Considering the sad experiences of Nasser (assassinated by an Islamist), or of Milosevic (overthrown by nationalists), that’s a risky strategy in its own right. They might not be electorally very important, but we have super high passionarity (as you must have noticed from your own Euromaidan). Liberals aren’t going to charge into a hail of bullets for gay rights.
A Crimean Anschluss would have rapidly become impossible. The bloodless takeover of Crimea was only possibly due to the temporary incapacitation of the Ukrainian government in the critical early months of 2014. At this point, Russia could have also overrun most of Novorossiya, if it wanted to. Attempting a Crimean Anschluss just months later would have been a far bloodier affair and would have invited far more Western sanctions than it actually got to date.
This does make some sense. Whether it was worth it or not is something that pundits will debate for some time to come.
Says Hackler.
In such circumstances it makes sense to move boldly. The writing was on the wall regarding Sevastopol’s eventual fate, but the new Ukrainian government was unsteady and had no army to speak of. If Crimea was going to be taken this was the time to do it.
Preventing genocide of Russians there was of course a nonsense excuse.
There was the rather widespread (and correct) belief that the lease extension was the illegitimate act of an illegitimate government.
Correct. But the Blue parties would have had a solid 40%-45% of the vote and the rest of the country would not have been very much anti-Russian. NATO would not have been able to pass in a referendum. In terms of attitude toward Russia, Ukraine would not have been a Serbia or Belarus but would have been similar to a place like Greece. A friendly state within the EU orbit.
It had a democratically elected president. In comparison, the way he was overthrown constitutes a much greater form of illegitimacy.
The parliament that ratified the lease extension was not democratically elected. It was the result of mps elected on party lists switching parties and joining the people their voters voted against.
The US Congress and Senate vote on matters that aren’t voted on by the population at large – something similarly found elsewhere in a number of countries.
At the time of the vote in question, which country had declared its (the Rada) decisions like the one under discussion here) as illegitimate?
How is such a process more illegitimate than overthrowing a democratically elected president, right after he signed an internationally brokered power sharing arrangement with his main opponents?
Also correct, though the advantages you speak of are, IMO, fleeting and largely irrelevant.
The thing about NATO is that while even many people in Eastern Europe opposed joining it (that is, outside Poland/Baltics), it’s only about the 20th issue in terms of importance, so in practice there’s minimal political cost to it. Especially considering two additional critical factors: (1) Elites are much more pro-NATO than the general public; (2) Since the 1990s, EU expansion has been functionally linked to NATO expansion anyway.
Greece, or Bulgaria, sort of make the point. Relatively Russophile populations; meager reflection of that in actual state policy.
To continue on this train of thought:
With families estranged due to the events of 2014 or Ukrainians not even wanting Russian investments or seeking economic opportunities in Moscow, the situation is much more dire than I thought it’d be. Neither Georgia nor Taiwan ever got to this level. This type of fanaticism will probably last quite a while.
And I’ve heard multiple times how Ukraine is becoming another Poland but just a couple of decades behind. Read more about the assassinated Gdansk mayor. Given how globohomo he is plus Karlin’s observations of Bucharest, it seems that the future of Central-Eastern Europe is a big fat question mark, and if they fall to the Blue Empire, there’s no way that Ukraine doesn’t do either.
This would be a borderline slow-motion downfall of the entire Western civilization if this occurs.
You misunderstood. In Ukraine people didn’t vote for the individual mps but for parties, and seats were distributed according to vote totals. In Ukraine voters had picked an “Orange” parliament. *
After Yanukovich took power the parliament flipped without voter approval due to individual MPs, who were supposed to represent the parties the voters chose, being bribed or coerced to join the enemy party of Yanukovich. It was a coup of the legislative branch.
Slavs are tougher and more stubborn than Taiwanese or Georgians.
Would most Russians give up Crimea in exchange for sanctions going went away and oil prices surging? I doubt it.
You are right but I wouldn’t consider it to be “largely irrelevant.” A Russia-friendly Ukraine within EU’s orbit would have been a large addition to the Russia-friendly states – Ukraine has four times Greece’s population. Just as adding Ukraine to Visegrad would in the long-term significantly add to Visegrad’s importance.
Grabbing Crimea may have been worth it, but maybe not.
And when Yanukovych was overthrown, some of the remnants of the party that he was affiliated with flipped, in a scenario of non-democratic like activity, favoring violently extreme nationalists (as evidenced by the disproportionate number of Svoboda appointed people under the Yatsenyuk-Turchynov regime).
Thereafter, Svoboda as a force by itself dwindled – as its agenda was adopted by some others, not otherwise associated with extreme nationalism.
An article relating to this:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/01/15/ukraine-cult-of-stepan-bandera-not-detail-but-cornerstone.html