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Shady Ray

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Everything posted by Shady Ray

  1. Shady Ray

    Russia

    Meh, he's not really in the mix anymore in any consequential way wrt foreign policy (at least in any way more than any other of the 705 MEPs) and he has kind of built his current brand on this kind of positioning re Russia. He is married to American author/hawkish ex-WaPo commentator Anne Applebaum, so if the missiles actually started flying over Warsaw, he'd have the luxury of avoiding the hardships of war by taking one of the many opportunities that have been offered him in the US (Harvard, AEI, etc). Although, he actually had a really strong position to become a major player in the larger European diplomatic scene in 2014 when Catherine Ashton was finishing her term as EU Foreign Policy Grand Poobah, but he got caught on tape saying a bunch of shit that didn't play well in the big leagues of European diplomacy about the Polish relationship with the US being worthless/used some racial slurs for Africans, so that opportunity kind of fizzled out for him and Italian Federica Mogherini got the gig. Which was a shame, as until that time he had a ton of backing for the post, even in Western Europe. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/22/poland-foreign-minister-alliance-us-worthless The diplomats/politicians actually involved in influencing negotiations/policy over here are pretty formal, releasing general statements for/against something, but generally speaking they keep it pretty bland and boring, even on Twitter. Which is a shame sometimes, because I would love to see some wild ass Trumpian shit from time to time. "LOL at these Finns and their forced austerity proposals for the OG Democracy! They are just jealous of our relaxing way of life with their sunless days and the unavailibility to view bare titties on Meditteranean beaches year-round! SAD!" --Greek PM
  2. Just imagine that obituary: "Immediately after surviving the crash of his beloved Cessna, Joe was immediately struck and killed by a Metrolink Commuter Train." Dude must be living right.
  3. Whoah whoah whoah...take it easy, man. That sounds just like something a holocaust denier/Friends of Auschwitz contributor would say. I got my eye on you, pal.
  4. Oh yeah, he is running. Already trying to out-Evangelical even the most batshit crazy of the Evangelicals: I mean, regardless of one's position on Israel, I think we can all agree that there are, in fact, "more important tasks of the Sec of State than standing for Israel." His entire speech at the Zionist Organization of America last month was completely insane. He literally says that Americans must “renew our commitment to putting America and Israel and our values first,” and says that American support for Israel “a perfect expression of American patriotism because it demonstrates our ability to recognize and defend our own democratic interests and our values with absolute moral clarity.” He also basically calls Biden an anti-semite: No one says this kind of wild-ass shit unless they are going to try and win a Republican nomination. For more Pompeo hits: https://zoa.org/2021/12/10444659-at-zoa-gala-secy-pompeo-gave-the-greatest-most-pro-israel-speech-ever-delivered-by-a-public-official/
  5. Shady Ray

    Russia

    And now a full court PR press on the issue through the national German press, as a whole slew of NS2 stories have suddenly come out in the evening before the big discussions. Some context here. The Greens' big domestic play here re derailing NS2 was to split "Boomer Olaf Scholz" from the younger, wayyy more left-wing/idealistic "Young Socialists of the SPD" ("Jusos"). The longtime head of the Jusos is a 32 year-old dude named Kevin Kühnert. However, Kühnert was actually just elected as General Secretary of the full SPD, so he has a massive amount of power over the SPD party apparatus, as well as the following of the young lefties in the party. He essentially has more power in the Party now than anyone but Scholz himself...he acts essentially as the Party whip, the resource allocator to candidates AND to the grassroots across Germany, and as the voice of the SPD Parliamentary faction all rolled into one. Kühnert has kept really quiet on this topic as it has played out, and there was a question as to whether he might actually split from Olaf, as even by Jusos standards, he was a hard-core leftie when coming up. Welp, Kühnert just came out in an interview saying that regardless of what happens this week, it is the official position of the SPD -young and old- that Nord Stream 2 is a done deal and that it is time for "political and legal peace" on the issue. He goes on to say that opening the pipeline "is the position of the vast majority of Germans" and that opening up the pipeline "does not constitute a concession to Putin" and that "the moment it goes online does not mean that the German Government has made a statement regarding Russian government policies." He closes by saying, "Diplomacy offers alternatives to simply shutting down gas pipelines and the German Government has made its position clear with respect to human rights violations in Russia and our support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine." Looks to me like the Germans don't anticipate this week going well and they are laying the groundwork to move ahead with the pipeline regardless of what happens, as no one in the new government has ever been so unequivocal on NS2. Link below...only thing I could find was in German. Focus is one of the two big boys in German periodicals. https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/ende-des-zoffs-mit-putin-waehrend-baerbock-bockt-spricht-spd-general-kuehnert-klartext-zu-nord-stream-2_id_36685321.html
  6. Shady Ray

    Russia

    Aaaaand just now...right on cue as though they were reading this thread. Berlin ain't even going through the motions of playing ball anymore, invasion or not. Concern among some big European nations about economic fallout raises the risk of a split with the U.S. on how strongly to hit Russia with fresh sanctions if it invades Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter. ... European nations also fret that Russia would likely retaliate, possibly even cutting crucial gas supplies to a continent already grappling with record high energy prices. The bulk of any EU-wide response would also have to be unanimously agreed by all 27 member states, a group with differing views on Russia in general. ... One former official with ties to the current U.S. administration said a point of concern is how much Germany, which has just completed the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, would be on board. The recent departure of Angela Merkel as German chancellor after 16 years has also left a gap in terms of a European leader who can both navigate the EU into an agreement and engage directly with Putin, the person said. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has not started pumping gas and is still awaiting regulatory approvals from Berlin and Brussels. Article is paywalled, but full version is quoted below. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-09/europe-frets-about-economic-hit-if-russia-is-sanctioned-heavily
  7. Shady Ray

    Russia

    That is a valid point. I don't think they view NATO as having any form of true power here, as they are still very much stuck in the mold of Great Power Politics, but I could see your point in them using the forum to create havoc within the Alliance.
  8. Shady Ray

    Russia

    Yeah, he is right. Particularly on anything involving potential military conflicts. The Germans will generally defer to the US on Security Policy, until it impacts the ability for Big German Industry to thrive and dominate within the European block, of course. That’s why you saw the typically-deal-making Merkel remain completely immovable on discussions with the US on NS2, despite a massive amount of pressure by the US to kill it. And that’s why even behind the scenes at the moment you see Scholz starting to be somewhat soft regarding honoring Merkel’s summer 2021 “compromise” with Biden which said “if Russia invades, NS2 is off the table”. In the periphery political gossip, it is now becoming a loootttt more “Clintonian” ….”well, yeah, but it depends on what the definition of ‘invasion’ is”. A full-on invasion, yeah…but if they have the chance to pawn this off as indirect Russian activity through lets say the Donbas republics, or a limited action, they’ll welch on killing it. That’s why Scholz took it from your girl.
  9. Shady Ray

    Russia

    IMO, this has the potential to be the most significant week of diplomatic discussions relating to European Security since the end of the Cold War, or it could fizzle out by tomorrow night, with an all-but-inevitable breakdown obvious. Schedule for the week: Tonight, Geneva: A previously unscheduled “working dinner” has just been announced between the two lead negotiators, Wendy Sherman, US Deputy Sec State, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov. Really wish I knew what brought this late addition to the agenda about... Monday, Geneva: Bilateral discussions between the US and Russia. Leading the discussions on the US side will be Deputy Secretary Sherman and for the Russians, Deputy FM Ryabkov. Wednesday, Brussels: NATO-Russia Council (NRC) Meeting between, well, NATO and Russia. The last meeting of the NRC was in 2019, and in the time since then the entire mechanism of the NRC has collapsed to non-existent. This will be a completely inconsequential circlejerk. Thursday, Vienna: Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will meet in Vienna. This will be the US, European allies, Ukraine, Russia and various other ex-Soviet republics. This will also be PR event generating nothing in the way of diplomatic substance. Late January, Locations TBD: Direct one-on-one discussions between Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and between Putin and Macron, respectively. The official dates have not been announced for either of these, apparently out of respect for the meetings this week, per German media. Ultimately, IMO, the NRC meeting on Wednesday and the OSCE meeting on Thursday are pure diplomatic window dressing and have been pushed and agreed to by the US purely so as not to further embarrass the NATO Alliance or the EU Commission, both of which are throwing absolute fits right now for being “cut out” of discussions involving European security. But truth be told, the Russians could not give less of a fuck about the opinions/statements of NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg (and truth be told, neither could the German and French governments, respectively). Really surprised to see the Russians even sending Ryabkov to Brussels for the NRC meeting…I figured he would bounce after meeting the US on Monday and they would then use that as a Middle-Finger Salute to Stoltenberg by sending an even lower underling in the unofficial hierarchy of the Russian Foreign Office. I assume that is being done completely out of respect for the US’ own NATO relationship, as the Russians genuinely view Stoltenberg as a clueless technocrat without even a modicum of actual decision-making authority. Anyway, the real “meat and potatoes” with respect to first steps on a possible path towards de-escalation will happen tonight/tomorrow in the bilateral meetings bw Russia and the US. It is the only game in town.
  10. If you haven't stuffed your face with Turkish street food after an evening of pounding maß after maß in a dark German bierhall, have you ever truly lived?
  11. It is really complicated. The older generation (equivalent to our boomers, and the bulk of our Gen X) generally cannot vote here, as they are not German citizens, since they came as part of the Gastarbeiter Program (either as the worker himself, or as the young child of the worker). Germany traditionally has made dual citizenship of immigrants very tough if the original citizenship is from a non-EU country/Switzerland. Even if they have lived here for 60 years, they still aren't eligible to vote. Unless they relinquished their Turkish citizenship in favor of German citizenship, which hardly any of them do. The younger ones born here can vote in Germany, as they are citizens so long as their parent was lawfully in Germany for 8 years prior to their birth. And the Turks recognize dual citizenship through birth to a Turkish parent, so they can vote there also. But this is all changing under the new government, which is going to allow a major liberalization of dual citizenship regulations.
  12. After the war, Germany was completely unable to manage the rebuilding of the country due to labor shortages. At the same time, the German economy was taking off in the Wirtschaftwunder ("Economic miracle"), which was the explosion of the German economy as it transitioned to a market economy from the immediate post-War years. As you can imagine, the numbers of capable men had been decimated. At the same time, unemployment in Greece and Turkey was through the roof. So under the Konrad Adenauer government, the Germans created the Gastarbeiter (Guest Worker) program. Originally, the intention was for it to just be a program for the Greeks, but the Turks really pushed to be included, which ultimately they were. The program ran from 1955 to the mid-70s and actually ended up including some Arab countries as well, such as Morocco and Tunisia. But for the most part, it was Greeks and Turks. Long story short, the Greeks ended up going home for the most part, while the Turks just stayed. German cities have huge Turkish populations as a result. They are in the third and fourth generation now, and their integration has been difficult to a large extent, but ultimately, Turks in a German city is generally as German as Apple Strudel. I don't go a single day without interacting with a half dozen Turks in any given capacity. Estimates are that there are approx 8-9 million out of a total German population of approx 80 million.
  13. This guy fucks...er, fussballs. I, good sir, am also in.
  14. Shady Ray

    Russia

    Biden admin weighs offering Russia cuts to U.S. troops in Eastern Europe U.S. troop cuts in Poland and the Baltic would have to be matched by Russian moves in the area. The U.S. is also working to get Stingers for Ukraine. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-admin-weighs-proposing-cuts-us-russian-forces-eastern-europe-rcna11080 Edit: Interesting that they are floating this in exchange for reductions to Iskanders in Kaliningrad. The Russian's won't agree to that unless the systems in Poland / Romania are removed, IMO.
  15. Exactly. The Turks have their hands in every pie, so to speak, and they are constantly leveraging each and every one to get results in another. It really is fascinating to watch and you are right - it is underappreciated. On top of your accurate point regarding their possession of Europe's balls in the Turk's vice re refugees, they also have a potent leverage point that is unique to Berlin, which is the massive Turkish diaspora here. Quite literally, Ankara can create more headaches for a German Chancellor than Paris ever could. That is therefore a huge amount of influence over the EU, at large. I mean hell, Erdogan literally comes to Germany on campaign stops during Turkish election cycles and is greeted like a king, or should I say Sultan. He can say the word and have tens of thousands of nationalist Turks on the street, and, he often tells the diaspora how to vote in German elections (or, alternatively, whether to withhold votes from parties who he feels are out of line), which he often does. This doesn't impact the national scene (yet...but with the new dual-citizenship law coming under the new government, which will double the turkish vote at least) as their aren't enough eligible Turkish voters (1-2mm estimated), and the diaspora isn't a pro-Erdogan monolith. But at the local level, he can impact critical municipal races in places like Berlin or in the Rhine-Ruhr conurbation. He is uniquely positioned to cause major, major headaches in Germany and he is not afraid to use it. Erdogan gave Merkel absolute fits for 15 years and her visible discomfort/meekness when dealing with him in person was often commented upon here. Dude is as wiley as they come.
  16. Heh. You know this. On a somewhat related note, I live within just a few blocks from the building where a certain future-dictator with a funny little mustache lived in the early 19-teens. In fact, I regularly walk right by that building when I am taking the dog out for our evening stroll. Anyway, the Turkish diaspora here absolutely love Recep. They really, really do. A few weeks ago, I was out for that stroll on an early Saturday evening when I reached this very building, when a huge Turkish wedding party was letting out down the way. One used mid-2010s German luxury car after the other, all in a row, honking and blaring Turkish music, all immaculately clean with Turkish flags hanging off of one side, and flags of Recep flapping from the other, all of them with the pre-shaved version of Erdogan, as though to throw down the ultimate 'stache vs. 'stache showdown on that very block of Schleißheimerstraße. That little Austrian fella would have never imagined what would would have happened to his beloved Munich, Hauptstadt der Bewegung.
  17. Dear lord. This man is as pathetic as one can get in politics, which is truly saying something. You can hear his voice cracking at the end as he sees Tucker Carlson kicking his already miniscule chances of being president into bolivia.
  18. Yeah, I saw Xi gave him a call, which is a big tell towards the idea that things are trending towards fizzling out. The Chinese know that whomever came out on top of this deal was not going to be some pro-western democrat, as is often inferred to be a possibility by our Western media, so I think they - in typical Chinese "we do not interfere in the internal affairs of others" style - were holding off to see who they'd be dealing with.
  19. I guess since the bodies are piling up, the question now is whether that infamous Consulting Services Agreement between Tony Blair and Nursultan is assignable to Tokayev. I wonder if Tony is paid by the word, or rather the size of the massacre he needs to help spin as "just part of KZ progress." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/24/tony-blair-advice-kazakh-president-protesters Fuck Tony Blair. Edited to include correct link.
  20. Yeah, even as someone who is much more willing to lend a skeptical eye towards regime change movements as potentially containing elements of Western interference, I completely agree with you here. If we were involved, it would have looked much different and - at least as it appears now - would have been much more effective, as this thing looks to be fizzling out as quickly as it came, at least for the time being. My outside tea-leaf reading is that it is most likely an internal power struggle between the ascending Tokayev "clan" and the all-but-removed from the scene Nazarbayev family dynasty, with Tokayev now positioning himself to take over vast segments of the economy held by ol' Nursultan. And this is being done with Vlad's support. And, just for shits and giggles conspiracy theories: while I would probably rule out foreign interference completely (with the exception of Russia itself, which I could completely see as being well aware of what was about to go down and using it to re-assert internal control over a KZ that had in recent years enjoyed a bit more neutrality and friendliness towards the west), if there WAS foreign interference, I would have to go with that (formerly)Mustacheoed Man of Mystery, that Sultan of Sexiness, the one, the only Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since we have such a large contingency of Turks here in Germany, our news is actually pretty plugged into Erdogan's daily shennaniganry. Last month, there were articles and reports all over German news about Erdogan and his increased push towards Pan-Turkic nation-building. In fact he really stirred the pot by posing with this picture last month, which was all over our news: With the KZ being virtually the geographic center of the turkic world, and Erdogan fully seeking to gain leverage over the Russians in Idlib, in my opinion he would love to capitalize on existing tension in KZ by exploiting organic protests to essentially "Syria-ize" KZ. Now, the Turks are way too fucked at the moment to project this type of ambitious idea of full pan-Turkic world, but relatively speaking, they do have the historical, ethnic (and strong existing contacts) in the region to make hay, even if they can't exert actual control. Basically an "oh, you exploit existing chaos on my border, well I'm gonna do it on yours" type of shit. And you made a great point earlier about KZ being a nominally muslim country. One thing that really struck me as odd (albeit probably limited in importance) was that there were multiple beheadings of the police officers yesterday. That was confirmed by all of the big outlets in Europe and the US. While definitely not dispositive of anything, that doesn't sound like Kazakh behavior, but it does sound like Erdogan's type of folks in other regions. Again, I don't really subscribe to this...occam's razor and all, but Erdogan has much more incentive to intervene in this way than any other "foreign powers"...but as I said, this is probably inter-KZ shit that you right said none of us are ever going to fully be able to analyze as outsiders.
  21. True, but I think it is important to point out that authors of media pieces who claim that Russia wants to recreate the USSR are woefully uninformed or have other motives for making such a generalized statement. It is a much more complicated geopolitical circumstance. Russia essentially views its ex-Soviet neighbors as being one of four classifications. In order of Russian desirability: 1. Most reliable: Strongly dependent upon Russia; deeply interconnected with Russia (e.g. Belarus) 2. Generally reliable, albeit with some economic ties to potential Russian adversaries like China, Turkey, and even the West (such as Western energy cos in KZ), but still strongly intertwined with Russia and thus susceptible to Russian influence above all others; ideologically consistent with Russia to a large degree; stable and predictable working relationship with Russia. These would be KZ, Armenia, the other Central Asian “Stans” (although I hate that phrase, as it connotes a region with homogenous geopolitical goals/challenges/alliances, which they are not) 3. Drifting away from traditional relationship with Russia towards deeper ties with “unfriendly” regional/superpowers (Ukraine, Georgia towards NATO; and Azerbaijan towards Turkey) 4. Outright opponents (the Baltics) Russia has no desire to gobble these up into a reconstituted USSR. Russia is not economically capable of doing that, and God knows Russia doesn’t need any more sparsely populated land with poor, uneducated (and particularly non-Russian) inhabitants. Honestly, it can barely exploit its existing resources effectively, it can't project efficient management of other, non-Russian lands. Let’s take “non-KZ” Central Asia, for example. It would be political suicide to annex the remaining Central Asian Republics. You are talking about millions of people who - if annexed - would A) immediately result in billions and billions of Rubles in fresh, new obligations JUST to keep the peace/normalize living standards…Rubles that Russia simply does not have, and B) immediately result in hemorrhaging of popular support in Putin’s base of support in the Russian provinces. The provinces give Putin the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things because he is seen as a proper “Russia-first Make Russia Great Again nationalist”, but the one spot that he is vulnerable there is the perception that Moscow gets all economic benefit, while infrastructure, pensions, etc in the provinces remain low priorities to the Central Government. If provincial Russia sees the state extending itself into former Soviet republics on a formal basis, with obligations for new cash outlays, they would be much, much more likely to join in with certain urban elites who are prone to anti-Putin alternatives. If Putin were to annex Central Asian countries, he would immediately be responsible for millions of people in areas with GDP per capita in the area of 1,000 USD per year (except for KZ, which is close to Russia GDP per C-wise at around 10k p/a). KYRGYZ = 1,100 USD, Tajikistan = 850 USD, Turkmenistan = 7k USD, Uzbekistan = 1700 USD). That doesn’t even consider the geopolitical tensions that would occur on the “far side of the Stans” with a bunch of potential Muslim extremists now in his new USSR, which Putin has no appetite for. It would immediately pave the way for a widespread increase in popularity of Islamist parties in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, who would bog down Russian security forces at a time when they absolutely cannot afford that, as well as immediately exporting their islamist efforts straight into the Caucasus. This would be geopolitical suicide and Putin knows that. He wants stability on his underbelly…not massive geopolitical shifts. Status Quo Forever is his motto here. Russia has no resources/appetite to assume these responsibilities. Honestly, same goes for non-Crimean Ukraine, but that is a different story with very different geographic and geopolitical objectives. With respect to KZ itself, again, he has no desire to annex this, or to seize its ethnic-Russian enclaves. Unlike Crimea, those ethnic-Russian areas are completely worthless to Russia. They contain no resources and are essentially the shittiest parts of KZ. The only use Russia would have in them is as an irritant that it could turn on and off if the government in KZ every became hostile to Russia. But by slicing the Russian areas back into Russia, it would immediately turn KZ into a hotbed of anti-Russian vitriol, causing it immeasurable problems. Russia absolutely doesn’t want that. It would also immediately strain ties with China, which Russia is working very hard to strengthen in light of its potential geopolitical isolation on a global stage. What Russia wants - if it can’t influence and dominate a country's policies completely - is to at least have a friendly ally on its borders, and it will even tolerate a neutral neighbor so long as there are no signs of it moving towards hostile, as per Ukraine. Once a place hits Category #3, it will get some form of the Little Green Men and internal tensions in the form of ethnic Russian agitation in the local Russian population. And in my opinion, Russia won’t let Category 4 occur again without direct intervention militarily with the intent not to occupy indefinitely, but rather to break apart and foment continuous chaos within its borders in order to prevent it from becoming unified in its hostility towards Russia, thus keeping it from entering NATO or hostile trade associations. (it was too weak at the time the Baltics came in to NATO to stop that). But there really isn't a case to be made where Russia wants to re-assemble the USSR by invading and annexing those places wholesale.
  22. I don't think Nazarbayev was. He is ten years older or so, but they would not have been contemporaries during Putin's KGB years. Nazarbayev took over KZ when he was really, really young. Like late thirties or early 40s if I recall correctly. Putin at that time was nothing at all. I think their relationship was basically just built on Nazarbayev running KZ for the first 20 years of Putin’s time at the top. Edited to clarify, when I said way, way back, I meant that more in a comparative sense...both had been at the top of their respective countries for decades now (Nazarbayev for 10 years under the soviets, and 30 years post-USSR; and Putin for approx 20 now), which are critical to one another, and from what I understand, that relationship is actually very good and very deep, unlike Putin and Lukashenko, who actually don't get on that well, at all.
  23. I honestly don't know that they could do that without pulling pressure off Ukraine, so Russia is going to be much more inclined to support an immediate crackdown now with hopes that it will essentially fizzle out and be like Belarus II, Central Asian Boogaloo. It is also worth noting that KZ is an area where China and Russia have legitmate tensions, but at the same time, many of the cities currently up in flames are closer to China...specifically Xinjiang province, where the Chinese are worried about the Uyghur population. One of the big reasons KZ moved its capital from Almaty to Astana (Nur-Sultan) was based on its proximity to China, and therefore, and concerns at the time regarding a demographic shift that was occurring towards a Chinese population. This has all kinds of possible implications geopolitically. 2022 gonna be absolutely wild.
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