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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32274 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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wanting your security concerns to be respected w/re to a country which is on your border and <300mi from your capital isn't demanding someone pretend you're a superpower, but pretend you're a country with any sovereignty whatsoever

It so happens that Poland also borders Ukraine and in its vital security interests is reducing Russian influence there. And yes, this directly conflicts with Russian interests. You cannot satisfy both. To say nothing about Ukrainian security concerns which are far more serious than Russian one, given that Ukraine invading Russia was absurdity and Russia continues invasions and threats of invasions.

Demanding that only Russian security concerns should be treated seriously is absurd. Maybe it should be treated more seriously from realpolitik perspective if they would actually be superpower.

And it so happens that basically everyone in that region except Russia has security concerns in direction almost exactly opposite from Russia. For obvious reasons.

But security concerns people somehow only mention Russian security concerns.

Ukraine isn't Spain

I was claiming that Russian demands are not satisfiable, after getting what they demanded they would be more powerful and escalate demands. So blocking and neutering them was a good step, if cooperation was not viable.

its satrapies

You seems to be confused about relation between USA and Poland. It does not mirror USSR and PRL.

are you under the impression that Russia is not far more unfucked now under Putin than before he came to power?

I am claiming that trying to fix Russia would be far more worth it than vastly increasing scale of a war. And that Putin has not really focused on unfucking Russia and its systematic problems.

Large part of improvements were due to horribly bad start and high oil/gas prices.

No one, not even Russia, is demanding only Russian security concerns be addressed. Two countries can have security concerns in the same area and can have goals which are mutually exclusive and yet that doesn't mean either side's "concerns" or interests are illegitimate. Your comment was an attempt to frame Russia's repeated warnings and security concerns as not just counter to Poland or whatever else, but illegitimate and to be ignored.

Russia has a long history of abiding by its agreements and its demands are entirely reasonable. I cannot say the same for the US or its satrapies. This situation is not one of an expansive Russia, but one of an expansive US repeatedly encroaching on Russian regional interests over the last 30 years, including entering fake agreements (Minsk Accords) which it never even intended abiding by and instead using it to buy time to build a military. Claiming that Russian demands are "not satisfiable" given nearly 100 years of satisfactory agreements with Russia which have been tossed recently specifically because of US violation and encroachment is plainly ridiculous.

But security concerns people somehow only mention Russian security concerns.

pretty much any communication, speech, or press release by Putin or the Russian government mentions other's security concerns; this is a flatly ridiculous claim to the point where it makes me think you are not engaging in good faith or don't have a clue what you're talking about

And that Putin has not really focused on unfucking Russia and its systematic problems.

What pro-russian or at least neutral, non-Western sources of information do you use to form your opinion about this topic?

even a passing understanding of the situation in Russia before Putin and after Putin, even during wartime, proves this to be a ridiculous belief and claim

Russia has a long history of abiding by its agreements and its demands are entirely reasonable.

Since when? With whom? Definitely not for 100 years in Russia-Ukraine relations or Russia-Poland relations.

I cannot say the same for the US or its satrapies.

You seems to continue being confused. Poland is not satrapy of USA, has distinct priorities, relations, situation, pathologies, peculiarities and context.

To repeat: Poland is not satrapy of USA. Even Belarus is not really a satrapy of Russia.

This continued assertion makes me think you are not engaging in good faith or don't have a clue what you're talking about.

its demands are entirely reasonable

Not at all, its attempts to recolonize Poland (see say https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-unveils-security-guarantees-says-western-response-not-encouraging-2021-12-17/ - not a great source but as starter example may be fitting) are not reasonable at all and they can fuck off. There is a reason why Poland send hundreds of tanks into Ukraine within first months of war. And I really like irony of tanks made on order of USSR blocking now Russian imperial ambitions and killing Russian soldiers.

pretty much any communication, speech, or press release by Putin or the Russian government mentions other's security concerns

I was referring to commentary on internet that keep to referring how we should care about Russian security concerns - and very often not mentioning security concerns of others. I admit that official Russian communication tends to be more subtle.

not only is having "distinct priorities, relations, situation, pathologies, peculiarities and context" not mutually exclusive with being a satrapy, it was a major driver of debacle to Persians trying to control their explicit satrapies in history from which the word comes from

Poland is a satrapy of the United States, likely one of its most ardent ones in Europe besides the yapping lunatics that are the Baltic states.

Since when? With whom?

for the last 100 years with the US, Europe, China, Japan, OPEC, most countries in the world, in agreements on missiles, nuclear weapons, bioweapons, trade, exchange, and a wide variety of other agreements including in these exact conflict with France and Germany which have already admitted to using this agreements specifically for duplicitous reasons

to be honest, based on your comments here and to others in thread I do not think this will be an interesting and worthwhile discussion

good luck

just to take some examples....

for the last 100 years with the US, Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact#Secret_protocol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

Japan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Neutrality_Pact#Soviet_denunciation

bioweapons

https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/07/23/mysteries-of-the-soviet-biological-weapons-program/

I mean, post-1972 they were violating their own commitments to the Biological Weapons Convention — a treaty with no verification methods, but still a treaty. They were also completely convinced that the US must be doing their own BW work and violating the treaty themselves. Why? Because it’s what they’d do. (A nice illustration of the errors of assuming the enemy thinks like you do.)

I could go further but I will go to sleep now. But

Russia has a long history of abiding by its agreements and its demands are entirely reasonable.

is deeply hilarious claim and blatant lie. Especially when covering last 100 years and covering Europe - what includes Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. And so on. Are you REALLY going to claim that Russia was abiding by its agreements with them for last 100 years? And its demands are entirely reasonable?

Are you now going to claim that mass murder and large scale deportations were entirely reasonable or deny USSR-led mass murder and deportations? Or stop responding? I am kind of curious. Any of this variants is going to be hilarious.

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