General Geopolitics Flashpoints

Welcome to our Community
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Feel free to Sign Up today.
Sign up
M

member 1013

Guest
I put my dude on ignore a while ago haha.

I agree on Russia and Ukraine, that's going to pop off first. Russia has a weird foreign policy of defending Russians living abroad. This is similar to China's "Active Defense" Military Strategy in that any provocation Russia deems a threat to ex-pat Russians falls within their doctrine. I believe they used this to back the separatists in 2014 and will use it again. Strategically they must have Ukraine. The process that started with annexing Crimea to strengthen their Black Sea Fleet, continued with its expansion and the addition of more hulls. Taking Ukraine completely builds nationalist momentum to accomplish their other Eurasianist goals. They will more easily be able to project power into the Mediterranean, which I'm assuming helps as much with military deterrence as it does with energy transport to Europe.

I can't imagine the US actually getting involved but Turkey is making noise like it's going to do something, and if I'm not mistaken there are a couple other Caucus States in NATO, so I guess it's possible for Russia to bite off more than they can chew. But most countries are either in the 4th wave of the Pandemic or their economies are too depleted to actually fulfill their mutual defense obligations- especially since Ukraine ain't in NATO. ...and Erdogan has a habit of trying to have his cake and eat it too. I wouldn't put it past him to promise to come to Ukraine's aid and then... not.

This is the smart play on Russia's part and timing is perfect. I think Ukraine falls before 12/31/21 and Russia faces some hard sanctions from without, but bolstered nationalism within.

@Lars what do you think? Am I close?
Like @The Welsh Wimp says I don’t think they will take the entire country, but yes.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
The crazy thing about Myanmar is that it's basically what Trump tried to do after the election here. As I understand it, though, the landslide winner and stateswoman Suu Kyi- was the incumbent and has been actively working to demilitarize the country. Min Aung Hlaing, C-in-C of the military, obviously doesn't want the country demilitarized, and was making the same kind of pre-emptive election fraud claims Trump tried.

At stake is $350M from the IMF the country got without restrictions, but ostensibly to combat COVID-19, and participation in China's Belt and Road Initiative.

EDIT: Ah, in reading more- apparently Hlaing is responsible for the military's ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims (surprise), and he's been under investigation for all kinds of war crimes as well as corruption. So... he HAS to be in charge or he's fucked, same as Trump.

Maybe kneeblock @kneeblock can elaborate more?
This is it more or less exactly. Suu Kyi has been under fire for the past few years for failing to condemn or address the Rohingya genocide and the main reason is due to her control over the nation being tenuous at best. The military has been feinting a coup for awhile and finally pulled the trigger. There's the external pressure, but there's also the fact that the military is so woven into civil society still in Myanmar, so the civilian government has sort of served at their whim rather than the other way round. The IMF is a less significant fiscal partner than China, which has led to thoughts that they will have to be the ones to take the lead on any application of pressure to change things, but the Myanmar military elite is used to making the population subsist on very little while using resource restriction to control favors and make their patronage network even more robust. Thailand and Indonesia have tried to make inroads to discussion but mostly on the basis of shared political structure rather than any formal trade or ideological relationships. So far it's been a mixed bag.