Ukraine Invasion: Part 47

[MagicFox]

Welcome to thread 47. Thanks as usual to all for the information, guidance and solidarity.

**
Agreed thread guidance:

A. The agreed purpose of the thread is for the sharing of information and commentary on current events

B. If you post a link please tell us where it leads/give a precis of the content

C. Discussion and debate is welcome, but please keep it respectful

Thanks Ducks

Report from the Polish Institute International Affairs: pism.pl/publications/ukraine-strategic-futures

Ukraine Strategic Futures

08.03.2024
This policy paper is based on a closed seminar attended by over a dozen of leading security and strategy experts from Europe and the United States. Upon the initiative of the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), they gathered in Warsaw in June 2023 to examine the advantages and disadvantages of different models of providing security for a fighting Ukraine.

Thanks magic, 15 years on mnet and I still haven't figured out how to @ them.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/09/politics/us-prepared-rigorously-potential-russian-nuclear-strike-ukraine/index.html

A really interesting article about US preparations for a nuclear strike in 2022.

Agree with this about how Americans consider national identity. Two factors that contribute to this have been the growth of the Federal government's role over time and the frequency of interstate relocation. Almost five million Americans move to a different state every year. In states that see a lot of inward migration like Texas and Florida, most people are not native to that state.

That's why you see so many New York delis and pizza restaurants in Florida.

@Igotjelly thank you for sharing this. With the passage of time, it will be very interesting to see what really did go on behind the scenes, and perhaps how close some things really were.

Do the EU have to accept to some extent in any major conflict it makes sense for armies to be more co oridnated? Every country obviously has its own military and foreign policy objectives but in terms of Russia isn't there any agreed foreign policy objective? I know we have NATO and we engage in joint exercises but should this co operation at a military level be more formalised and entrenched?

If there is ever some doubt of the US not participating in some sense in wars on on the European continent then surely the idea of an EU(+UK) defence force becomes more tangible.

I do think currently we are seeing some weaknesses with NATO in terms of joint support of Ukraine and our will is being tested. If we fast forward a year or two and we are Russia effectively gaining sovreignty over parts of Ukraine I would see this as major failure of the West and despite soaring rhetoric about standing by Ukraine and doing what is necessary we could be left with the unpalatable sense that the greatest militaries on Earth could not provide the training and hardware necessary to halt a rather third rate Russian military.

In future this may lead Russia to do something stupid like attack Finland and at that point we would really see how far NATO ties to and I fear the nuclear question will read its head again. At that point we would really have to call Russia's nuclear bluff which in my opinion they have used with some success in Ukraine and have a decisive European and hopefully US response that would shut down Russian ambition once and for all. We need to make it clear though that we absolutely support NATO members and European security and this involves a continued and full bodied support of Ukraine.

Sorry for the typos

Very much agree with this and I do think there are discussions about exactly how to solve this problem going on now - I just hope they bear good fruit

@MagicFox .

It's the long term thinking. I fear this war may last for a number of years and we have to get used to a new geopolitical reality; one in which a despotic Russia has gained some partial success in Ukraine at great cost to itself.

I think there are two alternarives.

The West and particularly Europe commit in the long term to providing Ukraine with such training and military hardware as necessary for the ultimate defeat of Russia and the reclamation of Ukrainian sovreignty. This will be hard, expensive and require a large amount of political will but in in my opinion should be th pressing foreign policy objective for this decade.

The alternative is to allow Russia at some point de facto sovreignty over parts of Ukraine and the world will have allowed a forced change of border in Europe and we should reflect on the long term consequences of this. Russia could.remain a militarized state for some time and it may be that the solidity of the Russian regime relies on continued victory against imagined foes. A hypothetical incursion of a weak NATO state would remain a possibility as I think Ukraine would demonstrate that NATO has its weaknesses and there may be doubt to its commitment to the absolute defence of Eastern European states.

It could be that by snoring up defensive forces in these states we causes alarm in a paranoid Riussia which would cause a reciprocal build up of border forces. There could even be an imagined suspicion in Russia that NATO may invade to cause a collapse of the Russian regime and we are indeed in dangerous territory. We would effectively have another cold war where Russia knowing its military is ineffectual in many ways bronzes increasingly reliant on its nuclear threat and the threshold for nuclear weapon use in Russia will be slowly but progressively reduced.

We also have the situation that Russia may believe nuclear sabre rattling would be enough to persuade NATO from decisive action of it does say invade Finland or a Baltic state and ambiguity in support of Ukraine may convince Russia to take this gambke. It is already apparent Russia is willing to dispose of many of its young men in military ventures of limited use so I wouldn't underestimate the ruthless mindset of Russia when it comes to its own people at least.

I think the former alternative has to be grasped for a peaceful world for our children. We have also not considered the long term ambition of China and the diminishing of NATO and the West as a power to be reckoned with (at least in terms of policing the world) leads us into an uncertain new world where military might once again becomes a national priority as Ukraine may unfortunately show that antagonistic military action leads to success and the world ultimately will not react hard enough to prevent it.

Let's support Ukraine not just for Ukraine but for a stable future.

Sorry for the typos......

Yes, excellent post. I think you'd find that report from the Polish Institute of International Affairs I posted earlier interesting as it lays out these kinds of scenarios and the pros and cons. The upshot of their gaming of the scenarios was that the safest option long term is for Ukraine to be in NATO but I think they're imagining a western portion of Ukraine here. This removes some of the grey areas for escalation that a 'fortress ukraine' scenario might exacerbate.

I think you lay out the dangers well. Russia attacking a nato state would be catastrophic: all war gaming concludes it ends in nuclear use so that has to be avoided at all costs. But, as you say, the danger arises not only from fanning Russian paranoia and increasing likeliness but also from Russian confidence if 'victory' is achieved in Ukraine.

China is an unknown. I do think they've played a role (and could play a role) in responsible signalling re nuclear threats and use. I think that Europe is also important for China and perhaps Europe has to navigate between China and the US carefully here. We seem to be moving into spheres of influence. This is what russia wants obviously.

I also think that this Cold War (if it stays that way) has characteristics that we've not dealt with before eg while all this is going on we also need to up our defence massively not only to potentially fight/deter a hot war but to protect our undersea cables and other infrastructure that can be attacked in novel ways - cyber etc

Here's the link to the report just mentioned again: pism.pl/publications/ukraine-strategic-futures

A reminder of the new thread: Ukraine Invasion: Part 48 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/5024628-ukraine-invasion-part-48