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So what about the German right-wing conspiracy that got busted? On one hand, they seem pretty crazy with conspiracy theories and actually believing that the German people would support a coup. On the other hand, they don't seem like random nobodies but the kind of people you would want on your coup if you were to do a coup.
Link to news story: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63885028
Some random thoughts:
Was this conspiracy realistic? Or was it just a big larp? (Are all coups big larps?)
How strong were the Russian connections? Are the arrests a blow to Putin?
Why do the conspiracy thing when you can just do normal politics in AfD and actually get power the true and tried way [insert reference to well-known, democratically successful German right wing leader]. Or if you insist on conspiracy, you can at least march trough the institutions, it seems like the better option? And if you really need power nownow, why not just take the exit option (e.g. move to Russia and make your own auth-right comune there?)?
I'd be happy for someone who has an actual take or an interesting perspective on this to create their own top level thread.
I don't currently have the wit to write up anything worth reading, so here's my research-free quick take for the purpose of just adding one more German perspective, based on having known some people from that and adjacent subcultures, and having lurked in some of their channels. No claim of factual correctness, but here's how I see it:
Eins (1.). No, they're all LARPing. How far they'd take it in the end is hard to tell, but these kinds of subversives are all either delusional, dumb or putting on a performance for their ego's sake. I won't even attempt any armchair psychology of the types involved, but the ones I knew were all very eager to be special, to be seen as special, and to embrace beliefs that enhanced their special status even if only in their own minds. The german conspiratorial milieu is also full of Bauernfänger (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bauernf%C3%A4nger) peddling anything from crystal therapies to unlock the power of your mind to novel covid cures. I mean to say they're a credulous bunch.
As for chances of success: Though they overtly deny it, they must know on some level that the people do not have their backs, and wouldn't even if they were to conquer berlin and every state capital on top of it. Old Germans hate change, and young and new germans hate wrongthink in general and right-wing think even more so. An armed revolution in favor of everything most of the population despises, which all institutions are sworn to oppose and that only a tiny conspiratorial segment of a small and politically marginalized part of the people actually desires? Even delusions can only carry you so far. Most of them, I suppose, revel in the aesthetics of being a serious revolutionary, but would never have gone through with it.
Zwei (2.). They're there, at least this subculture is strongly pro-russian, anti-american, anti-NATO and so on. But whether this is purely a grassroots artifact of cold-war era pacifist activism or at least partially an astroturf by Putin himself, I cannot say. Money flows from Russia to certain German organizations, as others have noted, so it wouldn't be entirely surprising.
Drei (3.). Firstly refer back to 1. for one large cause. It's just the kind of people who want to be special.
Secondly, again refer back to 1. again, most of them must have known that they could never succeed, and this lack of ideological prospects extends to parliamentary politics as well - the German right will not get much further than it already has; not within our lifetimes. Going into politics for the right means fighting not just an uphill battle, but committing to a sisyphean struggle just to keep the overton window from snapping left so hard that it leaves even the last conservative out in the cold. That's a bleak thing to dedicate yourself to, and it seems to me that some people require a more colorful political vision, no matter how unlikely its implementation.
As for institutional capture, I must repeat: Most Germans reflexively and thoroughly hate anything smelling of right-wing wrongthink, in a way that even American wokes have not yet come close to. Yeah, you guys over the pond have the crazier issues with your trans and your blackbodies, but post-war Germany has mastered the science of mental inoculation against political deviancy. There is no chance whatsoever of capturing any institution that matter, nevermind of reversing the long-accomplished capture by the left of all institutions that do. This isn't even an unequal fight; it's a non-fight.
Exit is not an option. They want to either be special, to see themselves as heroes who overthrow the oppressive regime that's selling out Germany while keeping the people in ideological lockstep, or they actually believe this and want to save Germany. Creating a new society isn't on their agenda.
And, let's assume that it were on their agenda: As with all ideological crusaders, they don't want to move out into the cold to put theories they themselves believe in in so far as psychologically necessary, which they cannot implement without substantial manpower and material, the failure of which would not only embarrass their ideology but also them personally. Let me rephrase this: they don't want to move out of what is one of the comfiest, cushiest countries in the world to try their hand at building a nation out of thin air, ego and delusions. No matter how serious they are about their beliefs, there must be at least some small part of themselves screaming at the madness of giving up material paradise for what is barely even a pipe dream. But as prefaced, I don't think this is even an option for them.
Eh, my coffee is drained and I still don't think I've been able to say anything of value. I keep trying to find something of value in the German right, something more to stop the leftward slide of the country than inertia and a little friction with reality, but so far I've been mostly disappointed. Hardly surprising given Germany's history and the last 75 years of everything that can be done to weaken the right having been done, and mostly successfully so. These kinds of failed nonstarter revolutionaries are, IMO, not to be taken seriously. They receive outsized media attention because anything that mobilizes people against the right and anything that discredits the right always receive outsized media attention in Germany. Don't read too much into the particulars of this case; it's not that significant.
Thanks for your take. I think you're mostly right. I'm still confused by the social rank of some of the revolutionaries, but I just need to lower my opinion of people in general.
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Easy to march through the institutions if they're occupied by trad-liberal democrats who believe in the impartial rule of law and freedom of speech.
Hard to march through the institutions if they're fortified by ideologues.
Imagine trying to march through the institutions of Nazi Germany! You can't get anywhere in governance or education unless you're a Party member. You have to swear an oath of loyalty to the fuhrer to work in the civil service or army. Political crimes (interpreted broadly) get you an extremely quick trial in a People's Court and are punished severely, often fatally. Any media power you have will be totally drowned out by the Propaganda Ministry, who dominate the airwaves. Teachers work for the National Socialist Teachers League, all unions are amalgamated into the German Labor Front.
If you somehow manage to make progress, you've got the Gestapo breathing down your neck. They don't bother with judicial review. You just disappear. Alongside them are the Abwehr and SD, competing to perforate your skull. And finally, you have the SS who are a parallel army under total control of the Party, ready and eager for massive purges of political enemies like you.
Obviously modern Germany is not quite as locked down as Nazi Germany. But it's not a welcoming environment for anyone who wants to contest state ideology. Marching through the institutions is like storming a castle - far easier when the gates are down and the battlements are unmanned.
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This thing is not so exceptional, in Russia are also people who claim that 1991 dissolution of USSR was illegal and Soviet Union still exists.
https://www.rferl.org/a/flouting-law-in-nostalgia-s-name-russia-s-growing-movement-of-soviet-citizens-/29962523.html
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So "larp" is colloquial and sloppy. With things like these, that seem to have little chance of success and members that are quite detached from reality, it's often inferred that the reason these guys are loading up on guns and talking about coups is not that they actually want to do a coup, but instead more that they want to be the kind of person who does a coup. Hence the "larp". I guess there's danger in psycho-analysing people through the news though. Still, I would imagine that ex-special forces guys know a thing or two about coups and wouldn't plan something that's obviously doomed to fail. But maybe I'm just overestimating the jarheads.
Seems like the likely scenario.
I guess I just assume people are rational and intelligent and that people with strong political convictions take reasonable steps to reach their political goals. I just need to downgrade that prior, when I read it aloud I myself realize it's stupid.
There are more strange stories about German soldiers coming out these days.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-ex-soldiers-sentenced-for-planning-mercenary-force-in-yemen/a-63540736
"Christian fundamentalists" following advice of fortune teller? To join a war between Muslim factions? The whole thing as described in news makes no sense (maybe German definition of "fundamentalist" is one who visits church more frequently than twice per year?)
Wait, what? Are they going to prosecute Germans who're fighting in Ukraine?
I guess the thing about the idea of liability is that, while the consequences aren't perfectly-guaranteed, it's really not worth the risk at all. I would guess they might not go after German volunteers in Ukraine unless it's universally-applied as such.
As Eetan pointed out, that article seems rather...vaguely-worded.
There's been thousands and thousands of volunteers from Western countries. Probably under 10k, overall though.
In March, Russians almost killed perhaps 500 westerners in a cruise missile attack; luckily, the missile aimed at the actual barracks building was apparently one of the few that got shot down by air defence. (this was said by the soldier in the recent video interview posted to the main page)
Russian MOD is saying so far they believe they've killed 300 Americans. (I'm wondering what time will tell)
Yeah, I'm thinking there probably aren't consequences, it's all who/whom as usual.
Sure, Western countries "aren't at war' with Russia, but somehow, billions of dollars in weapons and lots of qualified military personnel end up fighting Russia in Ukraine.
Mhmm. Could be a bit more egregious, the West could just start sending entire military units over, volunteer soldiers signing up, equipment and everything just gifted. Next level after that is Russia's "polite men".
I figured the logical next-step from a certain five sided building would be to get a law passed, reasonable and neutral on its face, the Lafayette Law. The Lafayette Law would enable the Secretary of State to maintain a list declaring countries friendly or unfriendly, and allow US servicemen in time of peace to apply for a leave of absence to serve in the military of any friendly country that is at war, provided that the serviceman can demonstrate a personal family connection to the country. Arguments in favor will be that it is to maintain discipline, asking Ukrainian-descended servicemen to sit on their asses at an Air Force base in Wichita while their cousins are getting murdered is a tough ask, better to create a formal pathway for them to take leave rather than have them desert. Historically, tie it to Lafayette and Pulaski and Von Steuben, the foreigners without whom the American Revolution would have failed.
No big deal, how many Ukrainians are in the US marines anyway? And how many will want to take leave? Well, when the Pentagon writes the actual regulations, they decide that having a Ukrainian fiancee counts as family connections. And after all, who doesn't meet online these days? Especially a guy on a remote military base? And hey, it is only fair, that soldiers who fight in Ukraine get to keep advancing their seniority, might even get promotions because you've seen how they function in action.
So you get 10,000 marines volunteering to fight in Ukraine, who all have online LDRs with some Ukrainian chatbot with pretty pictures to back it up. And because the process above takes months, there is no one moment when Russia really has credibility to say this is an escalation. Just one squad at a time, soldiers keep showing up.
Well, that's one way of preventing an AI catastrophe - slowly but surely escalate a regional proxy war into less proxy war, then to an actual war between big powers..
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If such law would be passed I bet that you would not even need a chatbot - I expect that there would be enough interest on both sides (ranging from treating it as actual relationship to very thinly disguised prostitution).
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That is typical proxy war, NATO is definitely not fighting directly.
Also, they cannot be at war. At most in "a special military operation". After all, Putin said that it is not a war :)
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If you're going to get into semantics about it, Russia isn't "at war" either. So it seems kind of silly of you (or anyone else) to complain about people taking sides.
Though, as George S Patton and Robert A Heinlein both famously observed, someone who buys it in a police action (or "special military operation") is just as dead as someone killed in a war.
De-facto, Russia is at war.
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Your auth-right commune might get sent wholesale to siege Popasna or reinforce the line near Bakhmut or whatever. Alternatively, denazified via prison rapes or set on fire by Chechens. Also the climate is terrible. Other than that, a decent idea.
This isn't the first time Europeans bust a conspiracy with a surprisingly competent military prepping and an inane, politically doomed premise. I guess it's a package deal – if you really reject democracy, you cannot recognize how it recruits people to defend itself.
Russian law makes father of multiple children exempt from draft, so if these auth-right going to have trad-level TFR instead of 1.2 there's no problem
This assumes that 1) the russian state honors protections given to non-russians and 2) these auth-right are going to have a trad-level TFR(American tradcaths are 3.6, which seems like it's more of a lower bound because of poor quality data, Haredi have a fertility rate of 6.6, Amish probably have a fertility rate of 5.5-ish, average American church attending christian is just above replacement. I can't find great data, but Afrikaners, Cossacks, and UGCC[Ukrainian Catholics, arguably the most conservative Catholic eastern rite subdivision and notably more religious than the country as a whole] look broadly similar or slightly higher. So say 2.5 as a reasonable lower bound on trad level TFR. My read is that these people weren't mostly religious right, they were extreme libertarians trying to justify themselves with historical revisionism, and that probably has a fertility rate closer to the German average than to replacement, let alone the above replacement conservative Christian bounce.)
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Russian law also makes it illegal to deploy conscripts and other non-volunteers outside of Russian borders especially since Russia is not in a state of war. Some guardsmen thought they had legal case and went to court over it.
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That is putting significant faith in Russian state following laws. To say nothing about fact that laws can be changed and that Putin’s mobilization decree has a secret clause.
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Would anyone who accepts Russian citizenship be delusional enough to think they'd not get mobilized in case of war ?
Also, would authorities care to suppress a bunch of foreign weirdoes who move to some rural area, bother nobody, engage in no political activity and pay their taxes ? It's not really something threatening. Or would it be that e.g. police would try to shake them down for bribes, and if they don't play ball try to set them up as subversives ?
Yes. No matter how rural the area is, there will be local authorities there that see the weirdoes as rich foreigners, their new cows to milk. And if they try to avoid interacting with the authorities, they're a great target for the FSB. Moving further into the forest? Sounds like trying to locate a secret military base!
I'm not saying it can't be done, but I've seen this work only in literal Siberia, where the FSB isn't willing to brave the clouds of mosquitos/metres of snow to investigate some religious nutjobs.
Given the SANCTITY OF GOF, you want literal Siberia. And hunting rifles and potatoes.
Hunting rifles? Might be hard to get your hands on one if you're an outsider.
If you're a Russian citizen, aren't they shall-issue ? Do they make special rule for people who have immigrated recently ?
Also, if you live in the ass-end of Siberian rural area, buying illegal weapons and keeping buried in the woods for those true emergencies is probably fairly low risk.
Citizebs need to own a shotgun license for five years before they can apply for a rifle license. Both require a background check and a psych evaluation. Non-citizens can bring their firearms with them from abroad for organized hunts, but can't buy firearms in Russia unless they promptly export them.
Rural Siberians own unlicensed rifles for poaching, but I doubt they will sell them to trad nutjobs.
Would depend entirely on relationships. Also, money speaks. Trad nutjobs who generally wouldn't be seen and who treated the locals with respect, didn't make any trouble and had money from remote work might persuade e.g. some guy who aged out of poaching to sell weapons.
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I thought Russia was more or less shall issue for shotguns, but center fire rifles were only available after a trial period?
In any case, I highly doubt the rules are enforced as written.
They have a sort of 'shotgun' that balistically is close to a rifle or something like that. IIRc.
In any case, shotguns can be used up to 50m with the right ammo, which is enough for hunting in woods.
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A somewhat tangential comment: to my understanding, yes, shotguns are easier to acquire than rifles for civilians--apparently to the point that even the Kalashnikov Concern makes what are essentially pistol-caliber carbines that are regulated as shotguns thanks to legal compliance shenanigans you normally only see in America.
Hard to say if even shotguns are easy to get for a hypothetical trad-cath transplant from Germany, though.
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Well, as a piece of anecdata in fitting with Dase's Cheems Heuristic, I recently saw a video seemingly taken by a mobilized Russian where he documents his troop having to sleep in conditions roughly equivalent to what WWI soldiers had to deal with: unfit for humane habitation, albeit probably not immediately deadly (this being some sort of unlit, damp, and cold barracks or other, definitely looked disgusting). The man taking the video made it very clear he did not expect this.
So yes, I imagine Russian citizens have indeed been getting a brutal dose of reality when they get caught up in the mobilization, and while the results aren't necessarily anomalous compared to historical records, it really ain't pretty.
But this is talking about more "normal" Russians, I'm presuming more urban Russians who have never been too far from civilization. Dase might be talking about something different.
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I think that everyone knows about the Russian draft and the tradition of dedovshchina is the reason(well, one of the bigger ones) that you haven’t seen anyone try to negotiate with the Russians to set up a semiautonomous zone in rural Siberia somewhere.
a) Does Russia even have universal conscription anymore ? Outside of war ?
b) things can happen without you being aware of them. Indeed, the most interesting things happen usually without much fanfare.
I think everyone kind of knows that the russian draft falls hardest on rural areas and people who are not ethnic russians.
But is it because the people are the least motivated to run away, or because the authorities are the most brutal due to the relative powerlessness of rural ethnic minorities ?
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Yes, but conscription-dodging is a national pastime for lower middle class and higher Russians.
Is that specific to ethnic Russians? Are non-slavic ethnicities able to dodge the draft the same way, given equivalent resources?
I'm legitimately curious, given that I know ethnic discrimination is widespread in Russia and the Russian army is disproportionately minority.
That's not specific to ethnic Russians, but a higher proportion of certain ethnicities is working class. Plus, they usually have a healthier population pyramid.
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Another reason is that local degenerates will simply rob you or set your property on fire or poison your livestock if you keep showing off with how trad and industrious and put-together you are. Many such cases with naive folks who tried returning to their farming roots. You can only do it with a reasonably large community that can afford security, and at that level you're perceived as a threat to the authorities or local mafia.
It's very much a shame.
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Huh? Putin is letting random foreigners set up auth-right comunes?
Russian politicians, albeit not Putin, have gestured in the general direction of this and it doesn’t seem exactly unprecedented for the Russian state to allow local communities to govern themselves however they want so long as they are sufficiently pro-Putin.
Of course there are obvious conscription related reasons not to want to move to Russia right now. Unless you really want a Ukrainian washing machine I guess.
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I was gesturing at the exit idea. Updated post to clarify.
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