March 2, 2023
"The West continues its attempts to push everyone and everything."
Said Sergey V. Lavrov, quoted in "Live Updates: Blinken and Lavrov Meet For the First Time Since Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine/Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia briefly spoke one on one during a Group of 20 summit, U.S. officials said" (NYT).
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64 comments:
This is such bad policy. We should talk to our enemies and opponents. Isn’t that what diplomacy is supposed to be about?
It’s all the same sickness displayed in a myriad of fuckups…
"We came, we saw, he died." -- Hillary Clinton
The Russian dude is not wrong.
Regression to the mean is an Althouse theme...
Back when everyone fought Hitler, there were black vs. white moral rules.
Back when the west fought Stalin and Mao, there were dark gray vs. pale gray rules.
Back in Vietnam, some said "my country right or wrong" and showed blind patriotic loyalty.
Now, no one on the left or the right is 100% behind the US or anyone anywhere. The left hated the "oil imperialism" of G. W. Bush. The right hated Obama's ventures in Ukraine and elsewhere. Now the internal US hard left wants a revolution, while the right washes its hands of the slimy DC establishment and mocked government authority on Jan 6. Military recruiting is down because no one wants to die for the US, and they don't have to, as the draft and the notion of public service were phased out almost 50 years ago.
Your ethical choices today: gray, gray, gray, gray, gray, or gray. Or Spam, Spam, Spam, and Spam. Or, which global organized crime boss (be they capitalists, unions, greens, or woke) do you want to follow?
"Stop pushing other countries around," said the country that invaded its neighbor.
Hopefully this is the start of negotiations to end this travesty before Ukraine gets thoroughly destroyed.
He ain’t wrong.
In the East, we're selective. We have high standards in deciding exactly who to try to push and we don't just try to push, we try to flatten.
Tom T. You’ve missed some developments over the last 30 years.
what ever happened to the Ukraine? Used to be on the news all the time.. All about "US" Winning
Now you hardly hear about it; and when you do; it's:
Ukraine war live updates: Situation ‘critical’ in Bakhmut as retreat contemplated
I thought we were Winning? I thought they said, it'd be EASY??? Now it's Yet Another American loss
"In the East,"
???
The Russian oligarchs are running a kleptocracy in the largest country on earth filled with half of the earth’s natural resources. And that makes the Dem Mafia drool over Putin’s gig and are determined to take it to over…for Democracy of course.
We couldn't knock over Assad in Syria and yet our government officials think we can knock over Putin in Russia. WTF?
The current administration talks exactly like a bully telling China not to meddle in Ukraine where we are the primary meddler, yet here we are a year later still slow-walking any help to Ukraine that would be decisive. It’s as if Joe is channeling the Johnson administration’s “calibration engagement” and replaying Viet Nam mistakes heedlessly. Those tanks we promised a month ago won’t even be sent until next year. I’m anti war in this case because our government won’t articulate a definable goal in Ukraine and our CiC has demonstrated an inability to act transparently or even do what he says. Sanctions didn’t stop Russia and have had little effect. Not at all what Joe predicted. I’m so tired of the bluster and bullshit I don’t support pouring endless resources out on frauds like Zelenskyy and Biden. Their questionable personal financial relationship also makes me hesitant to believe any statement by either man. Giving Chyna the opportunity to troll as as “peacemaker” just emphasizes the geopolitical stupidity of our most progressive POTUS ever.
CuriousG, our host is channeling the voice in Lavrov's head.
The policy is regime change in Russia. It may not have started that way but it appears to be evolving into exactly that.
The pandemic got rid of Trump. Putin’s fear of a creeping NATO and subsequent invasion can get rid of Putin.
A crisis is an opportunity to do things…
That both sides could lose. The MSM in the West has done the impossible - cast Russia as a semi-sympathetic antagonist.
Russia was pushed into this by us, on purpose. Think of the last 20 years. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria,, Egypt, Sudan. We have become the bad guy and that is not a talking point.
Not to mention I don’t trust a word out of any government entities mouth, not one.
It was all fun and games when we were denying Russian inspectors entry due to sanctions, and enabling our allies in Ukraine to strike Russian nuclear sites.
Blinken got the job by paying Joe Biden a million dollars for a no show teaching job at Penn, when Blinken was in charge of that same "Penn-Biden Center" where classified documents were found, and where Hunter Biden had a key and run of the place.
""The West continues its attempts to push everyone and everything.""
Right. Unlike the East.
In international relations, tu quoque is not a fallacy.
It would be nice to have a reasonably well defined end game for our military excursions/supplies.
It would be nicer if our orders to the troops reflected that end game.
In 20 years will we leave Ukraine because this can not go on forever.
""Stop pushing other countries around," said the country that invaded its neighbor."
Remember when we picked the new leaders of Ukraine after a violent coup in Maidan in 2014 that actually was armed, and actually was everything that they tell us J6 was and more, and after storming parliament, and driving the elected president out of the country, while attacking his motorcade with military style weapons, we immediately recognized the anti-Moscow government we installed in Kiev?
John McCain was there in Maidan Square cheering on the violent protesters. Can you imagine if a senior Russia official was there at J6 cheering on the protests? It didn't happen, but the first rule of fascist propaganda is to accuse the other side of whatever you are doing that normies won't like, and so they had to make it seem as if Russia was behind J6, given that we were the ones behind hyper nationalist and anti-Russian govt in Kiev.
Kiev apologists justify this by saying that Yanukovych was not carrying out the will of the people. Well, there are always elections, but neocons don't ever trust important issues to the voters of any country, do they.
Oh yes, there are elections where the new leader "won in a landslide," but millions in Donbas did not vote at all, probably due to the violent coup that they had just seen overturn the last election.
Enigma said it all. There's a nostalgia for those days when everything was black-and-white, when we were right and the other side was wrong. That moral certitude is hard for some people to shake. American power was associated with righteousness during WWII and (for most of us) during the Cold War. Since then, things have been much less clear. The connection between our power and righteousness has been a lot less certain, but for some people the habit of seeing everything in black-and-white terms when thinking about international relations hasn't gone away. True, Putin is terrible, but our zombie Cold Warriors have done a lot to create the current crisis.
It is typical diplomatic posturing. If you are in a weak position, then claim you are being bullied to gain advantage from that. If you are in a strong position, then brush off the complaints of those you are bullying as weaklings or unimportant to justify your actions. It is nothing new. During the conflict between the Roman Republic and the Asia Minor power of Pontus, Mithridates IV of Pontus went from aggressively attacking his neighbors, who were all Roman client states which brought the Republic into the war, then when that didn't work out he let his neighbor pillage his lands so he could claim to be the wronged party and play the victim. The victim game did work for him, as the Romans were put in the awkward position of violating their treaty, which gave Pontus some breathing room until he was ready to go to war again. The Romans would win that war, but they did not enjoy the experience.
Ukraine news arc:
- Hunter Biden paid exorbitant funds by Ukrainian energy firm for board seat with no active participation and clear references to benefits of being connected to Biden family.
- We need to impeach trump for him asking Zelensky to look into possible Biden-family corruption with his government/country, during a call about military aid funding from the U.S.
- Trump impeached over Ukraine while Biden plays high ground and Ukraine tacitly backs that Biden is clean and clear.
- Biden elected and starts drawing weird and inconsistent red lines around Ukraine/Russia
- Russia invades Ukraine
- Biden immediately begins unparalleled executive action to punish Russia and begin actively supporting Ukrainian war efforts
- Biden ramps up efforts to support Ukrainian war efforts to include funding, banking actions, SIGINT, provision of arms, and public complete alignment against Russia to the point of basically saying we are at war with Russia.
Did I capture that arc right?
Let me reintroduce the word QUAGMIRE to this conversation. One of you keyboard warriors can try and make the case we are not in a quagmire already. Go on. I’m waiting.
Back when everyone fought Hitler, there were black vs. white moral rules.
Not so. Back then, many people argued that all Hitler wanted was a small piece of a neighboring country, and indeed that he was entitled to it because Germany had been mistreated by the great powers. Good thing no one would make such arguments today, right?
gilbar, war is a thing that can change, and it can change very quickly, swinging from one extreme to the other. We do know that the Russians have called up a large number of troops to bolster their armies, but it appears that these troops are poorly trained, poorly supplied, and poorly equipped. There's also no indication that the Russian military leadership has gotten much better. That said, if you throw enough bodies at a military objective you can usually make progress - something the Russians are familiar with in their history - but it can be extremely costly. Eventually, you do run out of reserves. You can win a war that way, but you need to meet the objectives before everything collapses.
Could the Ukrainians be losing? I suppose. They were definitely going to lose, then they were losing but not instantly, then they weren't losing, and then they were on the offensive and going to retake Crimea no problem. I'm not sure why I should take the word of "experts" anymore, especially ones that are not privy to all the facts on the ground - hint, no one is privy to all the facts on the ground - especially on a subject like war when propaganda and misinformation and disinformation are common tactics. I suppose this sort of war correspondence in the day of the Internet is interesting, but I don't think it works any better than, say, WWII reporting which was often wrong and confused.
Serious Question: When was The last time the US won a war?
The American people want wars that end quickly.
The Military Industrial Complex wants wars that take a long time.
Guess which one we're continuing to get?
Push? As in directed artillery attacks and rolling in tanks until accepting annexation?
I'm all for diplomacy, but Lavrov deserves ridicule for that remark.
Sebastian said...
""The West continues its attempts to push everyone and everything.""
Right. Unlike the East.
The problem is not that Russia is ruthless, dishonest, ruthless, and evil. They have always been bad.
The problem is that the US is now also dishonest, ruthless, and evil.
We used to stand for good things.
But starting with Johnson and running all the way through the third term of Obama we have just been a gangster country stomping around 3rd world counties and not really doing what we said we were doing.
We are openly supporting a dictator in Ukraine who has jailed all political opposition and uses openly neo-nazi paramilitaries to kill political opponents in eastern Ukraine.
Joe Biden will lose the Ukraine war and abandon Ukraine after he gets his 10%.
People in DC will get rich.
Thousands of little people will die in the war and be abandoned after the corrupt regime makes some cash.
Then they will go start a new war somewhere.
People in Europe froze to death this winter because Joe Biden bombed the Nord Stream Pipeline. This is now an open secret. Everyone knows the United States did it.
You can't even deny these things because the biden regime was so bumbling and stupid about it.
The United States are not the good guys anymore. We will not be again until we cast off this illegitimate corrupt evil regime.
Tom T. said...
Back when everyone fought Hitler, there were black vs. white moral rules.
Not so. Back then, many people argued that all Hitler wanted was a small piece of a neighboring country, and indeed that he was entitled to it because Germany had been mistreated by the great powers. Good thing no one would make such arguments today, right?
Germany was mistreated after both wars. That is what happens when you lose a war.
Our policy should be to prevent war because once you reach that point there is no good outcome.
It is pretty clear that the Biden Regime did everything in it's power to start this war and is doing everything they can to keep it going.
We are giving weapons to neo-nazi's and a ruthless dictator that jailed his political opponents.
We need a government that prevents wars. Like Trump did.
But I think everyone knows why the Regime mailed in 20 million votes for Biden now.
They want war and famine and the corruption that results. They have been doing this since the fall of the soviet union.
First time meeting in over a year.
Who wants peace again?
Too much money to be made...
gilbar: "Serious Question: When was The last time the US won a war?"
The number of wars won is inversely correlated to the volume of ribbons and medals awarded to military leaders.
Corollary (taken from Israeli military operations assessments): The side with the simplest uniforms always wins.
Additional corollary: The side concerned about the number of mens restrooms with tampax dispensers always loses.
The Slavic Spring is a progression from the war on Serbia where we invaded and carved out a new nation, Kosovo, in the heart of Europe. The Chinese stood down. The Russians stood down. Obama's World War Springs with bipartisan support was a step too far.
Back then, many people argued that all Hitler wanted was a small piece of a neighboring country
Back then, Hitler had built a mighty and modern war machine for the expressed purpose of conquest. He had the mobilized the entire population of Germany to get behind him on his ideas and ambitions.
What is Putin going to conquer Europe with?
Has Russia moved west until they are on NATO's doorstep? Or is it the other way around?
You can't even deny these things because the biden regime was so bumbling and stupid about it.
The United States are not the good guys anymore. We will not be again until we cast off this illegitimate corrupt evil regime.
Notice how most of this stuff happens when Democrats run things ? Biden, et all, are just so inept that we see what they are doing.
Bennies for babies, augmented girls, hacked boys, DIEversity to tamp down commotion. Spring forward in global "warning".
The US has been doing a long series of regime change operations for decades that keep resulting in civil wars, societal and economic collapse, horrible devastation and death for the countries we are supposedly trying to help become free and prosperous.
We did another such op in Ukraine in 2014. It started a civil war and the Russian invasion last year was a further consequence. When Russia invaded Ukraine, western leaders thought they could turn that into a regime change in Russia via sanctions and a network swarm attack on Russia. Once again they were wrong.
We never seem to learn. Our best and brightest have no humility, it seems. Or maybe they are getting what they want and they're willing to have the people in these countries pay the price for it.
Are the Russians the good guys? No. But they are behaving in a predictable and widely predicted way. Nobody made a serious effort to prevent war in the run up to the invasion, quite the contrary. Where were our diplomats? Where were our anti-war liberals?
Serious Question: When was The last time the US won a war?
Grenada.
The part about Putin now being right on NATO's doorstep is the funniest thing. How stupid does a person have to be to not spit their coffee on hearing that one.
"But starting with Johnson..."
You mean the assassination of JFK.
Think of the last 20 years. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria,, Egypt, Sudan.
What did all these countries have in common? They were client states of the USSR and then economic partners and regional allies of Russia. Maybe the cold war never really ended. We built a machine we couldn't or wouldn't turn off.
Why have we treated Russia so much differently than China? I don't know, but we have and the policy we adopted toward China was created by a different generation than the one we adopted when the USSR collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down.
"but it appears that these troops are poorly trained, poorly supplied, and poorly equipped."
Lay off the copium pipe there. Russia has spent months training these soldiers, most of whom are ex-military called up, and volunteers. Russia has thousands of tanks, plenty of ammunition, modern weapons, hypersonic missiles that could easily take out our Patriot batteries, which seem to be delayed getting there for some reason. The army you are describing is the army of Ukraine, a country that should have negotiated, rather than getting seduced into this war by the United States, and over what, exactly?
This war is being fought because Kiev refused to allow Donbas, Crimea, and Lugansk the same degree of autonomy that Quebec enjoys in Canada. Neither could Kiev accept the kind of peaceful dissolution of a non natural country formed by a now collapsed empire, such as what happened in Austria-Hungary or Czechoslovakia.
We have screwed over Ukraine in a major way, it's been catastrophic for them. If Ukraine could have what Russia offered them at the outset of the war, the entire world would demand that they take it, except for a tiny cabal of neocons.
I was listening to the CBS news on the radio. They said that Blinken told Lavrov this and that. I was wondering what Lavrov said in reply. CBS didn't say. They made it sound as if Blinken delivered a soliloquy. I'm not persuaded that it was a soliloquy.
n.n said...
Slavic Spring is a progression from the war on Serbia where we invaded and carved out a new nation, Kosovo..
wow! i'd actually Forgotten about Kosovo! Which is sad, since i had friends that served there!!
So, as i recall.. The Kosovoians were people that lived in Serbia.. BUT didn't WANT to be in Serbia
(kinda a LOT like some people in the Ukraine now; eh?)
And so the US Army (and US Air Force) went in: GUNS BLAZING, to FORCE the Serbians to let the Kosovo people be Kosovo people. We CARVED OUT an Entire New Country (the 'newest country in europe'?), because.. We WANTED TO.. And, That was GOOD!!! because.. We WANTED TO!!
comparison/contrast with the Ukraine and Donbas, anyone? Any One at All?
ANYONE??
Which policy was the wiser? The one we adopted toward China or the one we adopted toward Russia?
Have we botched them both?
(kinda a LOT like some people in the Ukraine now; eh?)
Sort of, kind of, except there was no [successful] coup as prelude to a civil war, and there is evidence that Muslims were attacking Christians et al, of which the cause and effect remains forever viable in controversy.
Then there are the other wars during the gay 90s that were also of no consequence, including Somalia, sustaining the first Iraq war under a ceasefire etc. A testbed for Obama's World War Spring to come.
China or the one we adopted toward Russia... Have we botched them both?
What difference, at this point, does it make?
Well, other than the sequestration of deficits cum debt in labor and environmental arbitrage, and empathetic support through democratic dictation of capital depletion through progressive prices.
The feminine-adjacent, morbidly obese male with multiple comorbidities has brayed his last handmade tale.
---You mean the assassination of JFK.
Go ahead, Tim, tell us all about that one.
tim in vermont, if the Russians had well-trained, well-equipped, well-supplied troops, well-led troops, they would have won the war within a month. They don't have any of those things, as has been well documented by reports and results. The Russian military has been so thoroughly corrupted and hollowed out that it can barely deal with an enemy that had a barely functioning economy, a slew of internal problems, and gaping holes in its military abilities. This second wave is going to be more of the same, just in larger numbers and lower quality. Larger numbers against a worn-down opponent can work, but it is a sign of desperation, not of competence.
A well-functioning military does not recruit in prisons for fresh troops, and then send them out on suicide missions, barely trained and equipped. You can't fix severe supply problems in a year. The Russian military is large but it is poor quality. Could they still win? Sure. This is The Ukraine we are talking about here. It is a miracle it has lasted this long, but the longer miracles last the less it seems like a miracle.
Of course, all of this would have been unnecessary if Trump or, for that matter, anyone competent was still President. Putin would not have invaded The Ukraine if he thought there would be any serious blowback from the United States. Joe Biden is a corrupt blowhard buffoon, now senile, who has been consistently wrong about every foreign policy issue for five decades, and from what we can tell his entire strategy pre-war was, well, whatever dude. The only reason he is all gung-ho for The Ukraine now is the rest of NATO amazingly grew a spine suddenly and were all enthusiastic to come to their defense, and Biden, being the unprincipled man he is, then jumped on the bandwagon. I find it amusing that people think Biden was paid off to support The Ukraine. I am quite certain he took extensive bribes from Ukrainian interests, but the idea that he would actually follow through on any promises after he had the cash in hand is laughable.
gahrie said...
Serious Question: When was The last time the US won a war?
Grenada.
fair enough! i'll give you that one.. Which reminds Me... Panama! How could *i* forget Panama?
I knew one of the 82nd Airborne, that Jumped into Panama
gilbar: "Serious Question: When was The last time the US won a war?"
Starting from 1999 Kosovo operation, US always wins a war, then always loses peace.
US record of ruling regimes destruction in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine is 4-0.
US record of installing functional new regimes is 0-3, with Ukraine still pending.
Granted, to build a functional new political system is much harder than breaking a dysfunctional old one. Maybe not possible, even.
“ Tim, tell us all about that one.”
Why don’t you tell me how that wasn’t the moment that Johnson took power.
Let’s wait a few months static, I am sure that the same people who have been lying to you about Trump for seven years are telling you the truth about Ukraine, Chuck believes every word they write, so you have that going for you.
For the last few decades The West (led halfassedly by the USA) has acted like it has fallen under the control of Trotskyites bent on permanent worldwide revolution--which may well be the case. (Trotskyism in culture, of course; economics is less susceptible to rhetoric.)
OTOH, Putin chose to enlarge and militarize the conflict and has unleashed forces in both countries that nobody can predict or control--as always happens in war.
As a historian, I recognize that everything we think we know about the current conflict is the result of selective perception and transmission, spin, and outright lying from all parties involved, and that a clear picture will take decades or centuries to appear if anyone is left to care.
"Blogger Lurker21 said...
...True, Putin is terrible... "
Putin is not responsible for the ( I don't even know how many ) people killed in the Middle East by our actions. Nor the millions of refugees created.
In fact, he has been a more benign agent for good than we have for at least 20+ years.
All these things we have been doing around the world, all these wars to make the world safe for democracy...is it working?
tim in vermont: I do take your point. I don't trust the media either and I know they lie to me intentionally. However, it cannot be disputed that the Russians have performed very poorly, and I am very skeptical that they can fix that in the short term given the level of corruption and disarray in their military. I have a suspicion that a lot of the Russian military budget for the past decade for new equipment and maintenance and training is currently invested in real estate and foreign bank accounts of the military elite. When you have bad leaders, that can be rectified if you have enough time to get rid of the chaff, but I'm not sure they have anything but chaff and I'm not sure they have enough time.
I would normally think that Biden was in cahoots with the military-industrial complex to extend the war so to increase spending is a conspiracy theory, but given the conspiracy theorists are doing really well recently it is quite possible, if not likely. He's never turned down graft before.
Static Ping said:
"Of course, all of this would have been unnecessary if Trump or, for that matter, anyone competent was still President. Putin would not have invaded The Ukraine if he thought there would be any serious blowback from the United States. Joe Biden is a corrupt blowhard buffoon, now senile, who has been consistently wrong about every foreign policy issue for five decades, and from what we can tell his entire strategy pre-war was, well, whatever dude."
I would like to suggest something to you, and that would be this: Zelensky like as not has every scrap of evidence about what Biden and all his cronies in Congress have been up to. If I were in his shoes, a Ukrainian patriot, I'd certainly do some thinking about how much leverage such information could give him with the creatures now running the US. We know that Zelensky tried getting information to Trump, only for his envoys to be stopped by the various actors in the US government that prevented such a thing from happening.
I don't know WTF has been going on in Ukraine; I don't know what kind of person Zelensky actually is. I do suspect that he's not stupid or suicidal. I further guess that one of the first things he should have done, upon coming to power in Ukraine, would be to gather evidence. Having done so, I believe he is likely making use of it, and he's basically told Biden and all the rest that if Ukraine falls... So do they.
Y'all think the Panama Papers were explosive? I suspect that what's available to Zelensky would make that look like a minor kerfuffle.
Based on Biden's track record, I was certain he was going to let Ukraine dangle out there. Watching things, over the course of the last year? I'm morally certain that Zelensky has something the people in power. What? Who knows? But, that's the only thing that makes any damn sense out of this crap, at all.
Tree Joe, above, got it exactly right.
If you missed his comment, go back and read it.
And if you disagree, tell us why and how he's wrong.
takirks, it is certainly possible. However, it must be something really juicy. The United States media will bury any story that makes Democrats look bad, and Biden taking millions of dollars in bribes is a non-story as far as they are concerned. The Democrats would never impeach or remove him for this or pretty much anything, and the DOJ will refuse to investigate it, unless they wanted to get rid of him anyway. What leverage would they have? Biden is corrupt and has been obviously so for 50 years, he has been credibly accused to sexual assault and misconduct, he has said racist things, he has plagiarized so blatantly that is almost funny, he lies about everything all the time such that it is unclear if he knows what is true anymore, he is showing obvious signs of senility, and he's incompetent. They don't care. What would be required for Biden to be beyond the pale that wouldn't immediately be blamed on Trump?
I still think this is Biden the Idiot latching onto whatever shiny his poo-poo brain has become enamored with. It is not a good sign.
I have been regularly and genuinely impressed by Lavrov. He is exceptionally good at his job. And thereby makes a challenging opponent in international geopolitics.
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