If your only model of explanation is based on something to do with some exterior sinister cloak and dagger forces you’ll completely miss the point and never be able to understand the events.
Which reflects the above. The events in eastern Ukraine are not driven by Russian troops or spies. I doubt Putin-land even desires it very much. It is an internal Ukrainian division which has grown over the last decade or more. Also seen in the tit-for-tat events of the so-called Orange revolution, the election of Yanukovitch, the recent Maidan uprising, the so-called Russian Spring, etc. It used to be nobody gave a damn what language you spoke; nowadays you’re likely to get beaten up for speaking the wrong language in the wrong part of the country.
I think it would work, although it would require a historic commitment by the rest of the EU and a will to go way out of your comfort zone; but it’d leave the EU stronger and relevant again. The alternative is a divided Ukraine and probably Belarus too.
Your assertion that you have evidence that Medvedev’s popularity would not go up tremendously at the very moment that Russian troops were under attack by a foreign army under the orders of that nation’s president.
You, in no factual way are entitled to presume and assert that Russian public opinion to support Medvedev after Russia had been attacked was solely or primarily because he went further across the proverbial proportionality line that was set by the EU in the EU’s ‘difficult’ judgment.
If you must quote Medvedev then quote Medvedev in context. He sees the actions he sent the military to do as defensive and to punish the aggressor:
You have no support for your case that the citizens of Russia would support their leaders had they in fact initiated the assault into Georgia and then Georgia attempted to stop Russian aggression as the originating invading army.
Of course we all know that had Russia been attacked, and Mededev didn’t respond at all, his popularity would have soared. It was the attack, and not the response to the attack that boosted his popularity. That makes total sense.
Evidently, Mr. Medvedev thought the decision to invade was worthy of singling out and commemorating, and did so in order to boost his popularity (until Putin undermined him, but that’s another story).
I bet he does, and that is entirely compatible with stating that the “tough, solitary” decision to punish the aggressor boosted Medvedev’s popularity. There’s no dilemma here.
That’s not now, nor has it ever been, my case, though it’s not inconceivable; support for national leaders has been known to increase once bullets are being fired, even if it was aggressive action (like the U.S. in Iraq; Bush got a nice 13-point bump in approval rating when the invasion began).
What we do know is that Russian leaders didn’t have to initiate an assault into Georgia. The situation was a powder keg, all Russia and South Ossetia had to do was toss matches at it (which Georgia joined them in doing) until it exploded, then they got the outcome they wanted, without having to fire the first shots. Win-win, frankly.
It’s really strange that you can’t see this: you write that Medvedev’s popularity would go up just from being attacked, and you have a situation where Russia is contributing to serious escalation of a crisis (and preparing a counter-attack), and where they have policy goals that aren’t being met through negotiation…why can’t you see that trying to provoke an attack is thus in Russia’s best interests?
I am addressing this discrete set of events characterized by some of the citizenry of Ukraine taking over government buildings and requesting Russia to invade. Why might they be doing that? Simple, it worked in the Crimea. These individuals desiring secession are using the Crimea as a model. What’s the most important element for the result in the Crimea? Why it’s none other than Russian troops and provocateurs. Without them the Crimea would currently be a very angry part of Ukraine; not a part of Russia with “97% approval”.
That said, I thank you for your placing these events in context. I had not thought of the last 10+ years in that way you do but I see it as orthogonal to what I said.
If Medvedev did not respond *‘at all’ *to the massive artillery and tank attack by Georgia he would not have been doing his job as President to defend the soldiers he commands. So we cannot know what Russian public opinion would have been if their president did nothing about the shedding of Russian blood under a foreign attack.
Every people with national and patriotic pride would demand a response to a foreign attack> So there is no factual basis to conclude that patriotic people can divorce themselves from supporting their president if he justifiably responds but then orders a deeper disproportionate response to the attack that perhaps went too far.
That FACT means there is no credible means to establish as XT’s CNN dude has done that the Russian people greatly support their presidents when they start wars. All that can be stated as fact in the case of the unjustified Georgia massive attack resulting in the deaths of Russian soldiers is that the attack immediately provoked the people of Russia to support their President along with the response that he felt justified to make.
It is a fact that the Russian people supported Russian ‘self-defense’ and a Russian retaliatory counter attack. There is no evidence from the 2008 open hostilities that Georgia started that supports any notion that the prople of Russia have established a ‘tradition’ of supporting their leaders when they ‘start wars’. Russia did not start the 2008 war in Georgia. The EU Commission confirms that Georgia launched the heavily armed assault on South Ossetia which led to started the ‘open hostilities’ directly between Russian and Georgian Forces known as the Five Day War.
From the EU Commission: “when Georgia started to apply military force”
Many here are arguing in essence that the Russian people would be justified at first to support their President when Russian soldiers were attacked and a counter-offensive was launched, but they had to figure out within a few days time what the EU Commission ‘difficultly’ assessed a year later that Russia’s response was not proportional.
Have any Americans ever supported their president for starting an air and ground invasion to remove a government that was not committing any threats to any nation or people at the time the invasion was launched. I believe Human Action just brought that up a few posts ago.
On 04-09-2014 at 01:49 PM Human Action points out that Americans give their President an approval bounce when he ‘starts a war’.
Perhaps XT’s CNN dude meant to be speaking about Americans and their President’s … when it comes to ‘starting a war’.
I take your answer to be then that Russia was justified to invade Georgia up to a specific but very limited point where the matter of a proportionality kicked in. I believe you are saying that Russia was justified to invade Georgia until Georgian advances and attacks had been stopped.
What changed on August 7 that your argument is only concerned about Russia’s actions before August 7?
This part was directed at John Mace, but I’ll chime in a bit:
No, they are not. You, and only you, have raised the issue of Russian people being justified in feeling one way or another about it. No one else is arguing the morality of the Russian people.
Ah, progress! Follow me here:
People, be they Russian or American, have a tendency to stand by their governments during wartime (at least at first, see the Vietnam War). Batistuta informs us that the phenomenon even has a name and a scholarly definition.
Therefore, a national leader can have a perverse incentive to engage in war, particularly if the circumstances can be arranged so that they didn’t order the first shot, and the war will be short and decisive.
Given 1 and 2 above, Russia’s actions in the South Ossetia crisis can be credibly argued as an attempt to engage in war.
Correct.
The Georgian offensive against South Ossetian militia, which also struck Russian troops, began. Since we are discussing the causes of that offensive, only events that precede it are germaine.
Now, I promised to wrap up this hijack soon. I’ve laid out my case, with supporting evidence in the form of the EU report, the NYT article, and the rally 'round the flag effect. Your rebuttals are focused instead on claims that aren’t being made, such as that an attack by itself wouldn’t increase Medvedev’s popularity, that Russia alone is to blame for the war, and that the Russian people were wrong to support Medvedev. Because of this, minimal progress is being made. I’ll let you have the last word, but my posts to this point make my case to my satisfaction, so I feel this is a good point to return to the Crimean crisis.
Under your theory of leaders having perverse incentives to engage in warfare, is there ever the possibilty that a defensive and retaliatory response is nothing more than that?
Today at 08:33 AM Human Action wrote that the abive correct.
Understanding that the act of sending Russian forces into Georgia was a justified defensive measure sometime in the morning/afternoon of August 8, it is quite implausible to suggest that Russia started the ‘open hostilities’ between Russian and Geogia. Since Georgia initiated a major heavy armed assault on the territory of South Ossetia there is no doubt that the EU Commission found that it was Georgia that started, launched and is fully responsible for the outbreak of open hostilities between Russia and Georgian armies. Open hostilities is the phrase the EU report’s authors use for the term war.
This sub-plot is relevant because it illustrates the extent of negative western reporting and commentary about Russia.
You have not come close to defending XT’s CNN dude’s claim that Russia now has a ‘tradition’ of starting wars to cover up domestic problems. Russia did not start the 'open hostilities, (Five Day War) in Georgia on August 2008.
I respectfully disagree. That said, I don’t expect you to see things my way, given that a) it’s you, and b) you’re still ignoring my actual argument, after a few pages of back-and-forth.
It was rumoured that he was in Donetsk a few days back. That’d set an interesting legal problem for those legal sharks that seem to think illegality matters a damn thing. Anyway, the guy is a useless corrupt nobody. A captain that abandons ship should be fed to the sharks. Even Stalin knew that. It doesn’t matter that all the others are also corrupt; doesn’t make this guy any better.
Yes. The Ukrainian people have enough problems as is, and it’s still their brothers. Russia should show greatness not pettiness. Btw. they started handing back Ukrainian naval vessels from Sevastopol.
Nothing inherintly wrong in demanding overdue payments, but it is curioius that Russia never demands that Ukraine pay its bills whenever there is a compliant (i.e. pro-Russian) government in Kiev. It is only when the Ukrainian authorities start acting independently of Moscow that Russia suddenly remembers that the bill is past due.