It’s not a hard sale but it’s pretty much impossible in that kind of timeframe. EU is not a fast moving institution. They could come up with some kind of ceremonial moniker for it but no way would the articles be negotiated quickly and not during an invasion.
Turkey is not even a candidate and never really was a serious candidate. I think they pretended to begin the process to stop the US nagging. Nobody really took it seriously, not the EU, not Turkey.
Except they’ll be flying Russian aircraft against Russian aircraft. It’s would be more like as if the Poles in WW2 had been given BF-110s to fly against the FW-109.
As with NATO membership, not while the war is in progress. While it would be a nice surprise if they did, I’m sure Zelensky knows this. When they decline the request he’ll just say “ok, but then the least you can do is keep sending arms” (which is what he really wants).
In D-Day, nobody had any illusions why all those Allied troops were massing next to Nazi-occupied territory, only the specifics of when, where and how the attack would come needed secrecy. Here, Russian commanders had every reason to believe they were only being used for geopolitical posturing and nothing more.
It’s an old tactic.
Though that doesn’t preclude it being true.
Once you pretend to be mad it is hard to persuade people of your sanity thereafter. If it is a bluff, it may help him in the short term but in the long term it may come back to bite him.
That’s what makes this situation so unusual. This is not a great way to start your officers and troops off as they’re launched into the biggest land war in Europe in 80 years. There’s enough confusion and fog of war as it is once things kick off without “pre-gaming” it for your own army. Some of Putin’s generals seem to have been caught off-guard here.
This war showed the deficiencies of the Russian armed forces. On the websites of military enthusiasts, even people who have no sympathy for the Russians showed respect for soldiers and some equipment such as submarines, jets or missiles. Now, even the most passionate Russophiles are silent.
You didn’t do anything. The stress was already there.
It made the British leave the union and factionalised EU worse than in decades before, with various blocks trying to determine policy, from austerity-crazy Northerners, “Club Med”, the Visegrád Group which predates them joining the EU, …
Not counting Turkey – we can shelf that one until E. is gone – there are four official candidates right now: North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, and Serbia. How would you explain letting Ukraine join right away to them? Then there’s the pesky matter of legislation: There’s no way that Ukraine is compatible with EU legislation right now. How do you let them enter the common market, without them being able to comply with food and work safety standards, and so on?
Give them an exemption? So why don’t we give one to the British? I mean, we could, but would they do the same? If so, what’s even the point of the EU, if you can have the benefits, but not any obligations?
Sure, it could be done. It would be not as radical as letting the 31 United Mexican states plus Mexico city join the United States of America, but certainly very, very challenging.
They were shockingly accurate. Which says some interesting things about them. It seems that even after 20 years of the war on terror, they are still better at their cold war era job than at the new one.
Rouble futures, CME, March contract.
My, the PM even got the financial market slang right…
They were shockingly accurate.
As Bret Devereaux said in his post about the conflict:
NATO – and especially US intelligence – was remarkably effective at predicting what Putin had planned before he did it, down to predicting the day the assault would begin.[…]it goes to show that while organizations created to spy on the Soviet Union struggle to spy on terrorists and the Taliban, they are very good at spying on the Russian Federation.
So that country is so corrupt and riddled that badly with grift (like what happened with contractors for the US supplying equipment for Iraq & Afghanistan but a thousand times worse), they can’t even get proper equipment to the front lines?
Tbf, tracking troop movements with satellites and placing HUMINT sources in governments is probably easier than trying to keep track of a very loose and paranoid network of paramilitaries, terror cells and self-radicalising lone wolves.
Ironically, this is something that most could’ve predicted mostly because the Russian Federation has had a hard time modernizing even their airforce which has been the primary beneficiary of spending. For example, they couldn’t fund one of their own air frames so they essentially crowd funded it between known purchasers which should’ve been a signal that the Federation doesn’t have the funding capability to furnish a modern army. Putin has been trying to focus on small effective forces which in theory should be able to punch above their weight but as we’re seeing now that project is far from complete.
If the news is to be believed, the Russian army is already dusted off the TOS-1 which is basically a tank that shoots thermobaric missiles (it’s classified as a heavy flamethrower) so there’s likely going to be some mighty big craters in Kyiv and other cities soon.
But that’s being asked and that would make it a hard sale. It’s an impossible request, same as Putin’s latest ones.
The more reasonable one “Sure, we’d love to have you and we will help you in a special partnership until you fulfil minimum requirements” is another matter. One that I support fully.In my view, the European Union should accept every democratic European country – including Russia – which wants to join by their citizen’s wishes when criteria have been met. And these criteria can be negotiable and stretched, sure. But to invoke a cliche: You can stretch only so far.
You might want to tell that the European Union so they can update their web site. Turkey applied in 1987. The seriousness or lack thereof of current talks aside, the same reasons for them not getting to join right now apply currently to Ukraine, too.
