iemanja
iemanja's JournalForeign policy experts agree with Biden's opposition to a no-fly zone.
These experts are nearly unanimous in their opposition to the establishment and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Respondents reject a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone because they fear it raises the risk of escalation, including the likelihood of a Russian nuclear attack against Ukraine or NATO countries.
When asked whether the United States should respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, just 7 percent of respondents agreed. Large majorities supported other U.S. policy responses, including sanctions against the Russian government and its leaders, resettling Ukrainian refugees in the United States, sending military supplies to Ukraine, banning oil and gas purchases from Russia, and deploying more military forces to the region.
The only U.S. policy response less popular than a no-fly zone was a more general military campaign against Russian forces. Support for cyberattacks against Russian forces was also quite low, with just 29 percent of respondents backing the idea. Overall, the message is clear: IR experts are generally unwilling to support U.S. policy responses that Russia may perceive as escalatory.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/16/poll-no-fly-zone-ukraine-zelensky-speech-biden/?utm_source=PostUp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Editors%20Picks%20OC&utm_term=40407&tpcc=Editors%20Picks%20OC
Full poll can be viewed here: https://trip.wm.edu/user/pages/03.data/our-surveys/snap-polls/Snap-Poll-17-Report-No-Fly-Zone.pdf
Biden likely formed his view by talking to experts. His position is an informed one.
I was wrong about the Russian oligarchs
I thought the economic sanctions might pressure the oligarchs to get rid of Putin. I didn't fully realize that they are only able to enrich themselves and keep their wealth at Putin's pleasure.
I recently watched the documentary Citizen K on Amazon Prime. It's about the oligarch Mikhail Khordorkovsky. He became extremely wealthy during the immediate post-Soviet years by seizing much of the nation's oil supply. But when he became critical of Putin, he was imprisoned. Released ten years later, he moved to London, where many such oligarchs live, or, more accurately, lived. Putin has had murdered a number of the disgraced oligarchs living in London. We know this from news accounts, but I wasn't fully aware of how important these men had been in Russia. The killings included, for example, Boris Berezovsky, who had big one of the big seven oligarchs of the post-Soviet, early Putin years. Khordorkovsky remains alive, so far.
Putin's major fear seems to be not the oligarchs turning on him but assassination by someone close to him. All the pictures we've seen of him sitting at the far end of an extremely long table in meetings is about not getting close enough to anyone to allow them to kill him. It's not about COVID because when he recently met with a group of flight attendants, he sat near them, as this picture shows.
It's going to be very difficult to get rid of Putin. He's a mean sod who knows how to protect himself, whether through imprisoning critics, murdering them, or keeping himself safe from assassination. He must go down, but how?
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