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Ukraine V

Just started reading this:;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0141983132/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

So far, so interesting. The early period of Russian history is treated relatively sparsely - the book is 351 pages long, and at p.94 we're already in the 1830s. Probably just as well, given the number of names and places thrown at you, and the strange and wonderful squabbles with Mongols on the one side and Poles and Lithuanians on the other. However, a theme is already emerging, something not that far removed from the old US idea of Manifest Destiny. In 1472, a prince of Moscow married a daughter of the Palaeologus family, the family of the last Byzantine Emperor who had fallen in the taking of Constantinople by the Ottomans some years previously. Thus, there was the feeling that the princes of Moscow were the successors to the Byzantine emperors, and thus of the Romans (the Byzantines always saw themselves as Romans). Then there was Vladimir, the prince of Kyiv, who had accepted Orthodox Christianity. The two elements, religion and royalty, intertwined, combining Great Rus' with Little Rus' (Ukraine). You begin to get a feeling as to where all this is heading...

P.S. Found a talk by the author:

 
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IMF and Ukrainian Authorities Reach Staff Level Agreement on a US$15.6 Billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangement

How Ukraine is economically funded and supported after the war will be as important as the military funding and support to fight the invasion.

The IMF aims “to support the Ukrainian authorities [to] anchor policies that sustain fiscal, external, price and financial stability, and support the ongoing gradual economic recovery, while promoting long-term growth in the context of post-war reconstruction and Ukraine’s path to EU accession.”

The objectives are sound, but if those policies require spending cuts, privatisation and deregulation, then Ukraine’s commitment to invest in its own human capital via increased social spending might be compromised.

The EU is generally seen as a good thing, but if the cost of joining the EU is that Ukraine has to sign up to the conditionality of the Eurozone with it’s deficit ceilings and debt to GDP ratios, Ukraine could find its own ability to manage it’s own economy compromised in much the same way as the Greeks.

We should show as much care for the plight of the Ukrainian people after this war, as we do during it.
 
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ks.234 said:
IMF and Ukrainian Authorities Reach Staff Level Agreement on a US$15.6 Billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangement

How Ukraine is economically funded and supported after the war will be as important as the military funding and support to fight the invasion.

The IMF aims “to support the Ukrainian authorities [to] anchor policies that sustain fiscal, external, price and financial stability, and support the ongoing gradual economic recovery, while promoting long-term growth in the context of post-war reconstruction and Ukraine’s path to EU accession.”

The objectives are sound, but if those policies require spending cuts, privatisation and deregulation, then Ukraine’s commitment to invest in its own human capital via increased social spending might be compromised.

The EU is generally seen as a good thing, but if the cost of joining the EU is that Ukraine has to sign up to the conditionality of the Eurozone with it’s deficit ceilings and debt to GDP ratios, Ukraine could find its own ability to manage it’s own economy compromised in much the same way as the Greeks.

We should show as much care for the plight of the Ukrainian people after this war, as we do during it.
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I'd be willing to bet a large majority of Ukrainians would be very willing to sign up to that horrible Greek package (EU+NATO), neo-liberal warts and all. That 15 billion from the IMF might come in handy, too.
 
I'd also wager a bet that the Ukranians would take neoliberalism over Putinism - who wouldn't? - but NL is a dying art: it's slowly being unwound as the State and business grow closer together. The question is...what will replace it? (a topic for another thread). As for Greece, it currently tops the EU's Q4 economic growth table. I'm sure Ukraine would welcome some of the same once it gets rid of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
 
PsB said:
I'd be willing to bet a large majority of Ukrainians would be very willing to sign up to that horrible Greek package (EU+NATO), neo-liberal warts and all. That 15 billion from the IMF might come in handy, too.
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It isn’t a Greek package, it’s the IMF. The Ukrainians might have no choice but the accept the conditionality attached to the loans, but if, and it is an if at this stage though the press release gives clues, the conditionality is the usual commitment t to privatisation, deregulation and spending cuts, the Ukrainian commitment to improving social spending will be compromised.

Of course the 15 billion will come in handy, but it isn’t a gift, it will come with conditions, conditions the Ukrainians will just have to accept.
 
Kirk said:
I'd also wager a bet that the Ukranians would take neoliberalism over Putinism - who wouldn't? - but NL is a dying art: it's slowly being unwound as the State and business grow closer together. The question is...what will replace it? (a topic for another thread). As for Greece, it currently tops the EU's Q4 economic growth table. I'm sure Ukraine would welcome some of the same once it gets rid of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
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First of all it should be noted that it is you and PSB who have brought up neoliberalism, there having been several complaints about it being brought up in this thread previously.

If the Ukraine adopts the Euro it will have no choice but to adopt neoliberalism, and while neoliberalism might be better than Putinism, that is a very low bar indeed. If you want to improve public services, social justice, address issues of wealth inequality, as Ukraine has said it does, then neoliberalism is an ideology that is against public spending, social provision and for wealth disparities.

What evidence do you have that neoliberism is a dying art. State and business growing closer together are a sign of neoliberism thriving and growing, not dying out.

You mention Greece and its economic output has improved, but at what cost. The recent Greek train crash was caused by cuts to the rail service made necessary by the conditionality of the bailout, and we have seen first hand the damage to public services in the UK since neoliberalism.

Do we really want to help the Ukrainian People, or do we just want to help military, and then walk away thinking “job done”?

The Peace will have as many hawks, vultures and opportunists circling around Ukraine as the War
 
ks.234 said:
It isn’t a Greek package, it’s the IMF. The Ukrainians might have no choice but the accept the conditionality attached to the loans, but if, and it is an if at this stage though the press release gives clues, the conditionality is the usual commitment t to privatisation, deregulation and spending cuts, the Ukrainian commitment to improving social spending will be compromised.

Of course the 15 billion will come in handy, but it isn’t a gift, it will come with conditions, conditions the Ukrainians will just have to accept.
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No, I was talking about the Greek package. I was specifically responding to the part in your message #4004 where you said "Ukraine would find its own ability to manage it’s own economy compromised in much the same way as the Greeks". We've been around these arguments many times before: you are most probably referring to the way the EU constrains the ability of member states to run large deficits because the "control" of the currency has been taken away from them by the euro/ECB and because the EU is at heart a neo-liberal project. Separately, you have been at least somewhat sympathetic to the view that NATO by its actions may bear some responsibility (exact percentage to be determined) in certain events that led Russia to invade Ukraine.

The Greeks are indeed recipients/members of the EU + NATO combo package. While they have expressed frustration at times with both parts, there is a consensus in Greece today that membership in both the eurozone and NATO is to be preserved. My simple point is that the Ukrainians would sign up to the same tomorrow morning if they could (they can't, yet). Greece is in a dramatically better situation than Ukraine in part because of its membership of those two organizations. Bringing up Greece in a Ukraine thread as a way of complaining that the EU would constrain Ukraine's ability to manage its affairs is bizarre: Ukraine's GDP and infrastructure are literally shot to bits, key parts of its territory are occupied and/or destroyed, but Ukraine's economy is being kept afloat at the moment by many billions in cash from the EU and the US (not to minimize contributions from other corners, of course).

As for the IMF, it's in the business of providing loans. Like all lenders, it ties conditions to those loans. If those conditions are unacceptable, I'm sure the Ukrainian government has a few channels at its disposal these days to complain effectively.
 
ks.234 said:
First of all it should be noted that it is you and PSB who have brought up neoliberalism, there having been several complaints about it being brought up in this thread previously.
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See previous post: your criticism of the EU in post 4004 is most definitely based on your frequently expressed view that the EU's ideology is essentially neo-liberal. No idea why you say I brought it up. I haven't made that one up, as demonstrated in your next sentence:
ks.234 said:
If the Ukraine adopts the Euro it will have no choice but to adopt neoliberalism, and while neoliberalism might be better than Putinism, that is a very low bar indeed. If you want to improve public services, social justice, address issues of wealth inequality, as Ukraine has said it does, then neoliberalism is an ideology that is against public spending, social provision and for wealth disparities.
(...)
Do we really want to help the Ukrainian People, or do we just want to help military, and then walk away thinking “job done”?
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Don't you think that's maybe just a tad simplistic? Talk about dealing in black and white...
ks.234 said:
The Peace will have as many hawks, vultures and opportunists circling around Ukraine as the War
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Hmmm, ISTM those birds are everywhere, all the time. There will also be some fairy Godmothers, some well-meaning people and organizations that will want to help in a disinterested way.
 
On a slightly different note, a depressing view from the excellent Mark Felton:


I do realise that military spending is the most useless type of spending, expensive toys that require a lot of maintenance and which serve no useful purpose other than to destroy other people's expensive toys. And it's understandable that, with the end of the Cold War, governments should cut back on military spending, as did a succession of UK governments as detailed here. I guess nobody anticipated a Putin. Can as cash-strapped UK raise its game? Certainly not in the short term. But it's clear that it needs to. Given the potential unreliability of the USA (a second-term Putin-admiring Trump might pull out of NATO completely), I can only hope that someone, somewhere in the UK Government is thinking hard about this.
 
I won’t argue either side but if the British armed forces were up to it, are you proposing a conventional war against Russia? Do you think that if they had the resources Putin would not have invaded? IMO the UK needs a defense policy not an attack policy, we can’t afford it.
 
tones said:
I do realise that military spending is the most useless type of spending, expensive toys that require a lot of maintenance and which serve no useful purpose other than to destroy other people's expensive toys.
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Their purpose is to convince others that your expensive toys will destroy all theirs and if that doesn't work, then it's there to go mediaeval on them.

The closest parallel to defence spending is an insurance policy. You can make savings but it's not until you need to actually call on t do you know if you've spent wisely.
 
Alex S said:
I won’t argue either side but if the British armed forces were up to it, are you proposing a conventional war against Russia? Do you think that if they had the resources Putin would not have invaded? IMO the UK needs a defense policy not an attack policy, we can’t afford it.
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I personally would never propose a war of any kind. The people who start wars are never the ones that get hurt by them. My point is that we need to be ready for such eventualities. It saddens me deeply that this should be the case, but in a world of Putins and Xis, determined to recover by force what they believe to be theirs as of right, we need to have something with which to deter them.
 
es.klopfte said:
Another missile strike on Zaporizhzhia this morning - I've been to that shopping centre across the road many times, nothing military about that part of town at all:

https://twitter.com/GoncharenkoUa/status/1638495589888401408

https://twitter.com/sternenko/status/1638492002303062017

If anyone would like to help, I'm running a fundraiser in aid of Zaporizhzhia, and many thanks for your kind and generous donations so far:

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zaporizhzhia3
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Thanks Vitaly. Sadly "just" another example of Russian reckless use of missiles to hit, well, just about anything in Ukraine it seems. While they can target and hit power station transformers when they want, it seems they really don't care a lot of the time. Horrific.

Thanks for the heads up on the fund raising, perhaps those contributing the most to the to bickering here will donate in equal measure ;) well we can hope.
 
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