The U.S. Might Position Heavy Weapons In Eastern Europe

Isn't it funny how Rick and Pachard fall for that line just like they fell for half a dozen others in this thread?

You know, because I say that they're poor allies, you're not entitled to infer that I consider them fascist, and much less claim that I've directly said so. This whole discussion would be a lot more productive if this kind of misrepresentation wasn't going on.

That said, they have unfortunately been in bed with fascists, using them for their own ends for some time.

The Ukrainian government formed in 2014 came to power after a wave of unrest against Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russian policies. It was promoted by foreign governments interested in expanding their sphere of influence, and the fascist groups were at the forefront of much of it. There are questions that can be asked of its legitimacy on such grounds.
Since then it has been quite comfortable with having fascists in its midst - allowing them to run ministries of state, and allowing them to operate in a military capacity in eastern Ukraine outside of the chain of command, apart from any control or accountability, leading to the crimes highlighted earlier. And the forces directly under the control of the government have been acting savagely as well. See this and this - indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas of Eastern Ukraine causing enmity toward Kiev, leading to support for the pro-Russian side.

YMMV but personally I have much more fear of Nazi groups than what passes for communists these days in Europe. And these are people involved in a civil war - so it's a much more acute problem.

But the fascist groups were pushing for tighter integration with countries like Ireland, France, and Sweden, which must be because those countries are already fascist.

Somebody really needs to put a bullet in Putin.

On another note, I'm amazed at how people are claiming they never said the things they said in the first few pages. More amazing still, Ramen's apparent eagerness to celebrate a column of Russian tanks parading down Pennsylvania Ave.

See, here is the problem with your position. It is framed on the idea that Russia will do as it pleases regardless of our reaction. I tend to agree. What I can't fathom, is how you go from that to conclude that the US is provoking Russia. If we agree that the US can't control the message inside Russia, should we not agree that this frees the US to look instead only to the interests of ourselves and allied countries?

Polonium would be nice.

Right, so there's no problem with fascism.

So the problem is fascism. Gotcha.

As far as interference by outside powers causing legitimacy issues, both sides have been neck deep in that for the last two decades. The Orange Revolution against voter fraud, corruption and intimidation had direct ties to Yanukovych's relationship with Russia. Not only was he protecting a series of kick backs for resources from corrupt Ukrainian officials, two ethnic Russians attempted to blow up his opponent Viktor Yushchenko during the election, and Yushchenko was successfully poisoned while he was running, leaving him permanently disfigured!

Yushchenko has also declared that he knows who poisoned him, and he will take appropriate measures. There is also an ongoing investigation into a foiled election-night plot to blow up an area one kilometer in diameter in central Kiev and kill many members of Yushchenko's leadership team. Two alleged Russian gangsters, believed to have connections to Russia's security services, have already been arrested. Seven pounds of plastic explosives were found wired to their car.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2005-03-01/ukraines-orange-revolution

It's amazing how often this works with you - two groups are fighting, one side starts fighting dirty, the other protects itself, and you say they are both equally at fault. Bullshit.

Yes, there's fighting going on. No, the Ukrainians and the militias backing them don't have smart bombs. This is going to be resolved the old fashioned way - and that means civilian casualties. But those links are ridiculous in context about what we've already discussed - the separatists are hiding their weapons in civilian areas in order to cause civilian causalties. There have been large scale demonstrations against that, by the Russian speaking eastern Ukrainians against the people supposedly fighting for them. I'm sure the shelling coming from the Russian border is not helping.

Of course you do. LOL.

What civil war? There's a war supported by Russian interests for Russian purposes. This is to reestablish Russian dominion over what areas Putin thinks he can.

And the most dangerous dictator in the region by far is Putin. It isn't even close.

I don't believe for one minute that Russia's response is completely independent from our actions. I am not saying that they don't react to what we do, but that if we're going to pretend we're sending them a signal, we should be honest about our knowledge about the context in which they see our actions. We know that since the early 90s, the possibility of Western/NATO expansion into Eastern Europe and military US/NATO presence at its borders has been the one central hot button issue for Russia.

Since everything seems to get lost in this thread, let me reiterate that I am not saying that means we shouldn't move equipment or even troops to our Eastern allies. I am saying we should stay aware of the whole situation, which includes knowing that this is the one thing that Russia has consistently regarded as the major potential for provoking them, rather than kid ourselves into believing we are sending them a message of peace.

And where are we being dishonest? I'm pretty sure we want them to know that we will not allow military action against front-line NATO allies.

Aww, the poor EU and NATO didn't gain more natural resources military/economic allies when the Crimeans told them to fuck off and voted for a referendum to join their ethnic people. Now they're blustering for their electorate to make up for their lack of competence.

Better luck next time, imperialists.

Everything Russian in nature is propaganda, while the west expresses nothing but virtue and integrity.

We are being dishonest IF we pretend that positioning military equipment in Eastern Europe is a signal to Russia that we don't want to escalate, and "the least we can do". We know that Russia sees it at crossing the line that has been in the sand since 1992. We disagree with that, but that doesn't change the nature of the signal to Russia.

It's also the case that Russia has sunk so much political capital over the years into opposing NATO expansion and influence into Eastern Europe that, regardless of whether leadership believes such expansion to actually be a threat, 1) being human beings they are subject to the sunk-costs fallacy and 2) after two-plus decades of political propaganda at home decrying such expansion as a threat to Russia, there are real political costs to changing gears, even if the security threat is imaginary.

It doesn't really matter whether or not Putin believes that the proposed U.S. actions are a threat and escalation; he's going to act like they're a threat and escalation no matter what he believes, and it's his actions that should primarily matter to a consideration of U.S. policy, not his beliefs.

Round and round we go, Packard continues to discuss something nobody else has said or even intimated.

Here is one instance where I see you saying it:

All of that is 100% false in my opinion.

How is it false? You have suggested (correctly) that any move will be seen as escalation. We could do nothing, I suppose, but I find that response unacceptable. Do you recommend one less gun, to demonstrate a lower level of escalation?

No, I didn't say that. Anc did, and I disagreed with him.

First of all, let's make sure you understand this truly: I do NOT recommend a different course of action, as far as installing equipment is concerned. I agree, albeit unhappily due to an unhappy situation, with this course of action. What poisons it is pretending the situation is completely different than it is.

So the following is not what Packard says we should be doing. It is what Packard considers would give us the right to say we're trying to send the signal to Russia: "We want to refrain from escalation as much as possible."

We could indeed do nothing. We could move more troops to just outside the former SU sphere of influence. We could suggest negotiations for a different system of treaties, that would keep Eastern Europe in a state of Western protection, but remove it from NATO proper. We could see whether there is a third party that could mitigate, perhaps even a joint Western/Russian UN force in the region. We could formulate a specific ultimatum, saying we will move equipment there unless Russia does X.

All of those would clearly communicate "We're trying to keep this small." What we're considering doing now doesn't.

One thing we should be doing, I think, is make it very explicit that we know and understand Russia's position on this, and acknowledge that publicly. Express that we are uneasy about this escalation, call for talks that go with it immediately to discuss under which circumstances it might be de-escalated. And of course, that also applies to the representation of this move within Western media, as they are very much received in Russia. All of this very different to casting this move itself as a friendly signal.

In fact, in one report linked further upthread, Russia, for all its considerable faults, did just that. By saying, "we'll respond, perhaps even with nuclear force, if you do MORE than this", they are posturing massively, even ridiculously so, but they are also redrawing the line to accomodate. They're not saying, we will do this in response to what you have done; but we will do something if you move one inch more in the future. This is very little indeed, but it is more helpful in this bad situation than several alternatives would be.

Okay, I'm done with dancing on a pin head. Either you are trolling, suffering strange side effects from medication, or Demiurge was right about something being lost in translation.

I'm astonished that you could infer that from what I posted.

I am also beginning to conclude that we shall, alas, get no further in this thread.