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James_Miller comments on Calibrating your probability estimates of world events: Russia vs Ukraine, 6 months later. - Less Wrong Discussion
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Garry Kasparov has made the following Tweets:
Putin is probably trying to calculate what's the most he can take consistent with keeping the probability of a major war with the United States below some level. If the U.S. is unwilling to fight, Putin will take all of the territory of the Soviet Empire + perhaps Finland, a country that used to belong to Russia.
Putin probably knows he might have a limited time to act because the U.S. might get a hawkish President (Hillary Clinton, any Republican but Rand Paul) or Germany might re-militarize.
I find the opposing interpretation to be more credible, good write-up of it here.
In this conflict Germany wants negotiate a deal that accepts a Russian Crimea in exchange for Ukrainian control of the rest of Russia and the US oppose such a deal. Germany has a stronger interest in keeping the Russian gas pipelines active than it has in whether or not Russia controls Crimea.
Defending an EU country like Finland would have a completely different priority. I doubt that Germany would have a huge problem with Russia taking over Belarus either. Minsk is anyway badly governed.
Bismark might be a better comparison then 1938-39.
I don't think the key problem is US unwillingness to fight but the unwillingness to engage in diplomacy make a deal that gives Russia officially Crimea in exchange for keeping the rest of Ukraine under the control of Kiev.
Currently, he only seems interested in territories inhabited by ethnic Russians, who are happy to be (re-)annexed to the country they consider they homeland.
I doubt he is much interested in taking, say, the Baltic republics or cis-Dniestr Moldova, as he would have to rule there with an iron fist on an uncooperative population.
Are they, or is this a part of military propaganda? (I ask seriously, I don't know.)
Well, they are certainly Russophone. Whether they do indeed have a preference for being annexed to Russia, I can't say for sure, but it seems plausible, at least given the evidence available on Western media:
The Crimean status referendum showed overwhelming support for joining Russia, but this referendum occurred under military occupation and there are credible allegations of fraud, thus it is not very strong evidence.
Less controversially, the former president Viktor Yanukovych, who had a pro-Russian platform and whose removal sparked Russian intervention, had his electoral base in the Donetsk oblast, where he previously served as governor.
The population in question is not homogenous. Some would like to be annexed, some would not, some care much, some little.
Seems like a correct, though absolutely useless remark.
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Love that broad brush you have.
But whether the locals do or do not prefer to be annexed is besides the point, isn't it. Unless you think it should be a new standard in international relations that 50%+1 preference for annexation is a valid casus belli. What a beautiful world that would be to live in.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
<p>
From your link (sans references):
However, there are far more self-identified nations than there are existing states and there is no legal process to redraw state boundaries according to the will of these peoples.[43] According to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the UN, ICJ and international law experts, there is no contradiction between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, with the latter taking precedence.
But again, that's not even my point. My point is a Kantian point: do you want to live in a world where self-determination of [group] in [country] is sufficient grounds for boots on the ground? This is not even a question about what the US or Russia had been or is doing, but about our preferences.
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I'm saying we live in a world where a right to self-determination has been recognized for something like a century now, even if it does not come with an automatic invasion authorization from the UN Security Council. So far, I'm not sure if it's been all that bad although as an American, I cannot sympathize with those who might want to exercise said right inasmuch as there is no other country to which people like me might want to form.
The right to self-determination seems to me to have been "recognized" as propaganda, but practically never practiced.
It was used post WW1, but only because there were two big multi-ethnic empires to be broken up. No-one proposed treating the victors similarly; their constituent nations which wanted independence had to fight for it, like Ireland did in 1920-1922.
Very few significant new nations have claimed statehood in the century since then on the basis of this principle without armed struggle. And when there's a civil war or rebellion and one side wins independence by military and political means, I don't give much credence to abstract principles.
Using Wikipedia's list of sovereign states by date of independence for the last century, the only states in the first half of the list (from 1973 to the present) that were established peacefully along ethnic lines are Czech and Slovak republics in the post-USSR breakup of Czechoslovakia. Most other Soviet states became nations despite being multi-ethnic, or fought bloody civil wars as in Yugoslavia. So did almost all African and Asian colonies post decolonization.
I admit I didn't have the patience to read all the linked articles on that list, and its older half (1914-1972), but at least its first half doesn't contain a single example of a part of sovereign nation breaking away on the basis of self determination without a major war. The older half probably might have some examples, but I expect them to be very few.
?!
A lot of former colonies are now self-governed and a lot of them became independent without armed struggle. That was what the principle of self-determination was about. The British lost their empire over the principle.
It wasn't really about giving the Scottish or the Basques a right to hold a referendum to get independence.
On the other hand the principle of immutability of borders as written down in the Hague Conventions isn't that well respect either. The borders of Ukraine changed frequently since the Hague Conventions was made and I don't see a real reason why they should now be immutable when a majority of Crimeans doesn't want to belong to Ukraine.
The Soviet states also did became nations in a way that did violate the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union without a war.
If it has not been practiced, then it cannot be harmful as Ilya claims. So which is it: do international abstractions have no force and no consequences, in which case it doesn't matter at all, Kantian or otherwise, which abstractions are mouthed? Or do they matter at least a little bit? In which case you don't seem to have demonstrated any harm from the abstraction - fighting bloody civil wars is not a new phenomenon.
Source.
Currently that is all he is openly or semi-openly taking action on. As for what he is interested in, he is on record as calling the collapse of the Soviet Union "a major geopolitical disaster of the century". It seems clear that he wants to restore all of that territory. All else is tactics.
Ruling with an iron fist on an "uncooperative" population (if they don't actively fight, what will their "uncooperation" get them?) is what Russia does. It did that through the years of the Soviet Union, and before that under the Tsars, when it was described (by the Soviets, no less) as "the prison of nations". Plus ça change, plus c'est le même chose.
Prediction: within five years, there will be separatist unrest in all of the places you mentioned, fanned (but not openly) by Putin.
<politics, usual mindkill caveats apply>
Yup, should have erected a fence vs misbehavior early. The West did not because the West cannot coordinate. Oh and Obama is sadly an empty suit, and didn't lead at all. I don't have a particular axe to grind vs Obama, I really wish he wasn't what he turned out to be.
</politics>
No. Bluffing is a key part of US foreign policy. If you frequently bluff than you don't have fences.
Obama also gets something from the conflict. EU nations who are angry at the US for NSA spying don't act on that anger because the have to show strength in the conflict with Russia and an EU US conflict would produce weakness. It increases the chances of getting an EU-US free trade agreement.
I really don't think it's a coordination problem. I think it's a will problem.
The Cold War ended with economical victory of the West, and memetic victory of the Soviets. The economical defeat led to collapse of the Soviet empire. The memetic defeat results in the lack of will we see today.
It was a huge strategic mistake after the fall of communism not to use the opportunity to expose the crimes of the regime, and to remove the important people from power, just like it was done with Nazis. For example in Slovakia, the communists still have the power; they have to compete for it in democratic election and sometimes they lose, but they still have the advantage of decades of unopposed brainwashing on their side, and the skills and contacts of the former secret service. These days, Slovakia is technically a member of EU, but our government is communist, the prime minister is openly pro-Russian, the majority catholic church focuses on fighting homosexuality and liberalism, and some of my "friends" on facebook still insist that Ukrainians are attacking themselves, Russians are only trying to protect the innocent victims, and the evil Americans are spreading propaganda to start the war because that's all those evil mercenaries ever do, unlike us, peaceful Slavic brothers. So... this is one EU country, which happens to share a border with Ukraine. We will not be helpful, because we are already conquered memetically.
You can't just go in an remove important people from power. That would have needed a military invasion at a time where it wasn't clear who controls which nuclear weapons.
I think you overstate that case. A lot of former Soviet countries like Poland aren't pro-Russian. Poland has 38 million citizens while Slovakia has 5.5.
Given Russian/Polish history, if communist propaganda were strong enough to make Poland pro-Russia, the communists would have taken over the world.
Poland was Eastern-bloc, yes. It was not a part of the Soviet Union since WW2 wound down.
The same is true of Slovakia. It was part of Czechoslovakia.
I use Soviet country to mean, a country which political structure is build on Soviets as opposed to a representative democracy.
I'm aware of Slovakia's origin, having visited Czechoslovakia. I'm not sure where I implied anything different.
Sorry for being pedantic.
(why the downvote, whoever? Was it belief I was lying about visiting Czechoslovakia? Believe it or not, the country did exist under that name during my lifetime. Was it suspicion of my being sarcastic in my apology? I was not.)
Which memetic victory? Marxism/communism/Soviet ideology pretty much imploded after the fall of the USSR. Look at what China did. I think it was a total memetic loss for the Soviets.
First, whose mistake and who would have been doing the removing?
Second, it depends on the country. I think that in Russia the old Soviet "important people" were effectively removed. The new political elite is not the old political elite.
In my country, our mistake, of course. People were too idealistic during the "Velvet Revolution". We thought that just publicly ending the evil regime is enough, that we can just forgive everyone and have a fresh start. And that the bad guys will be happy for being forgiven (instead of e.g. executed for their crimes) and they will live peacefully.
Yeah... they just waited for a year or two to make sure there is no will to punish them... and then they returned to the power. Since most of the judges or policemen or people in any position of influence except for parliament (because all our attention was focused there) were former communists, it wasn't even difficult. They just had to wait for hedonic adaptation, and blame all the problems on lack of socialism, and then win one election. Then they removed all their opponents from the public media and used the media for propaganda. And used the loyal secret service against political opponents.
I don't know about situation in Russia. Just saying that it's not enough to remove the visible people in parliament. It is also important to remove communists from the justice and secret service. Otherwise, you get new faces, connected to the old less visible people.
And yet the current head of the EU is a not-quite-repentant former Soviet apologist.
I would disagree, many of the former soviet republics are full of old communists or those who were ascending the party ranks right at the end.
First, I explicitly said "Russia", not USSR.
Second, of course there are a lot of old communists. In the Soviet era if you wanted to make any kind of a career you had to be one. LOTS of people were communists. What do you think happened to the rank and file of the CPSU? Answer: nothing, they're still around and still ambitious.
What happened to the rank and file members of the Nazi party after WWII?
Nothing much, I think. Of course, a lot were killed during the war, but those who survived went through denazificaton and remained normal members of the German society.
Thank you for proving my point.
Samuel Huntington would be cheering if he were alive because he predicted that this is what would happen. We would have a multi-polar world and that a great deal of that polarity would be based on ethnicity and he used the Slavic countries as a prime example. The downside is he predicted a lot of small scale conflict under this system which we are seeing.
Absolutely, not only is there a Will problem you have a classic war weariness quotient in the US and UK and the EU to be perfectly blunt as we showed in Libya no longer has the resources to meaningfully put up a fight in a large scale and meaningful way. How the EU continues to actually make its NATO commitments is interesting because all in all Europe needs to re-arm itself to a certain degree and I think that program needs to happen right away. Not only is Austerity a terrible disaster but so is the EU military situation. One might also notice the silence from Ban-Ki Moon on this.
Yeah, yeah. It's always 1939, the bad guy du jour is always Hitler. Assad is Hitler, Putin is Hitler, Saddam was Hitler, Qaddafi was Hitler.
The warmongers really need to get a new routine, people aren't falling for it anymore.
But perhaps it really is always 1939. Or, to be even more glib, what you are saying sounds to me much like:
OK, let's be serious. Let's say that "being Hitler" means going on an ever-increasing campaign of conquest against neighbouring countries that results in a very damaging war. We could note that this kind of behaviour was very common prior to the Napoleonic Wars (Napoleon, Frederick the Great, Charles XII, Louis XIV, Wallenstein, Philip II, Suleiman I, etc etc). Since the Napoleonic Wars, there have been a number of international frameworks more-or-less explicitly devoted to prevent "Hitlers," and which have had some success. However, IR is basically anarchy, which means that when actors fail to abide by the rules of those international framework, forcing them in line means war.
There haven't been a lot of "Hitlers" in recent years. But at least part of the reason that the people you call "warmongers" nipped the likes of Saddam, Milosevic, Galtieri, etc in the bud. For example, Saddam was definitely on the Hitler path in 1991, and what stopped him was western military intervention. And not only did this intervention stop him, but it acted as a warning to other leaders who might be considering more bellicose action, and helped reinforce the rules and norms of our peaceful international framework.
But this commitment is forever being tested, because leaders get glory through war. Consider that the fame and popularity of American Presidents has been shown to be higher the more Americans who die in military combat in their term in office (!) and then multiply that for more bellicose societies such as Russia. A peaceful world requires constant vigilance.
In the current case, it's clear that Putin is engaged in an aggressive campaign of conquest against his neighbours (not merely in Ukraine). It's not clear where this will stop. It's clear that every victory strengthens Putin's domestic position and emboldens him for the next step. This is the classic "Hitlerian" path, and everyone from Hillary Clinton to Prince Charles has noted it. That doesn't mean the West should necessarily intervene (maybe the costs are greater than the benefits) but it's pretty obvious why the comparison is so widely made. I'd say the 'routine' that no-one is falling for is the Panglossian one that Putin isn't a predator - with each new Russian outrage, it becomes harder and harder to sustain.
I haven't heard the (potential) interventions against Qaddafi and Assad justified on the same grounds. There, the justification is usually a combination of (1) humanitarian and (2) preventing failed states, which is rather different.
...AND end up on the losing side of history.
That's an important addendum because sometimes you go on an ever-increasing campaign of conquest against neighbouring countries that results in many damaging wars, establish a successful empire, impose a Pax Romana, and, basically live happily ever after. People who succeed at this aren't usually called Hitlers.
Okay... that has also declined a lot recently. I don't see the result being any different.
But you also have to remember that there is not the history between the US and these other regimes the way it is between the US and Russia. Putin is an old communist and he remembers the old days, he remembers them very well and he wants them back. Putin and his cronies chafed in the 90's under Pax Americana and now they have their chance to shake up the international order rather than conform to the American lead way of doing things and I think he is of the opinion that if it doesn't happen now there won't be another chance for a generation.
Genghis Khan was Hitler, Julius Caesar was Hitler, Hernán Cortés was Hitler. Adverse selection in the political process often favors leaders who really enjoy taking other peoples' stuff. Also, comparing some aspects of Putin to Hitler (as Kasparov did) doesn't mean you think Putin=Hitler. Putin, thankfully, doesn't seem to enjoy killing for its own sake.
Neither did Hitler. He always had extrinsic goals to be achieved by killing. Often those were quite admirable goals if you accepted extreme partisanship for the German people at the expense of everyone else. (Not always; he suppressed domestic opposition ruthlessly, but it was nothing in comparison to his treatment of non-Germans and no different from most other states at the time.)
1938: "Just give him the parts of Czechoslovakia he wants. Yeah, annexing a part of other country is wrong, but a minority speaking his language lives there, so, uhm, he kinda has a good reason. More importantly, we have a good reason to believe he will stop there. Just let's not be the bad guys who fight over nothing. Everything will be fine when he gets what he wants, he is a reasonable guy."
2014: "Just give him the parts of Ukraine he wants. Yeah, annexing a part of other country is wrong, but a minority speaking his language lives there, so, uhm, he kinda has a good reason. More importantly, we have a good reason to believe he will stop there. Just let's not be the bad guys who fight over nothing. Everything will be fine when he gets what he wants, he is a reasonable guy."
The analogies are much deeper here than merely "he is a guy we don't like, therefore Hitler". Things that happen inside Russia are also very disturbing -- I am trying to ignore politics, and I usually don't care about what happens in Russia, but some news still get to me -- Putin's supporters are openly nationalist, racist, homophobic, pretty much everything you associate with fascism, he has a strong support of the Orthodox Church, journalists who criticize him are assassinated. (Someone living in Russia would be more qualified to write about this.) The only way he could lose an election would be against someone who is even more like this. Winning a symbolic war against the West will only make him more popular.
To test how strong is this analogy, we should make bets like: Conditional on Putin successfully annexing a part of territory of Ukraine, what is the probability of Russia attacking another country within 1, 3, 5, 10 years? Which country will it be?
But Russia still has a "democratic" political structure, everyone off course knows that it's not like this in reality and only one party exists. But soon in 2018 there'll be new president elections and that's last term for Putin. Uncertainty that's what we will get for sure
I'm living in Russia however I don't watch TV and read newspapers, but I can say for sure, that Russian Invaders are proclaimed heroes, and NATO guys as Evil. And It's not a surprise for me that on the other side of the Globe opinion is exactly the contrary. My personal view of the problem is that Putin and Obama are both worth each other, they are strong leaders and will they never stop if there is a chance to gain more power. Situation in Ukraine is imho this - Ukranian side completely entangled in their own problems, and they thought that it was Russia who they must blame and gone comletely nuts, then West gave them weapons and so on
Too much globalization (russialization in this case) is hard to contol, Russia has enormous territory, we already got Crimea which is a port, and got unfriendly response from the world. I expect things to calm down for next 4 years I assume probability of 5% of the invasion to any other country
As someone in America, I can tell you the idea of calling Obama a "strong leader" sounds hilarious.
All of these things also apply to the other examples I mentioned, and many other countries besides. People said the same things about Saddam, Qaddafi, Assad, etc. Putin is of course saying similar things about his Ukrainian enemies to what you are saying about him. (Admittedly, they make it easy for him.)
There is no shortage of historical examples of historical revanchism, yet the "Hitler in 1939" analogy utterly dominates. So why rely 100% on one analogy. Why insist on using the example that is the closest stand-in for "evil psychopath who cannot be reasoned with, but must be destroyed utterly?"
Probably because you're in the midst of a media driven two-minutes hate. History begins and ends with Hitler, 1939!
(Seriously, your standard for being Hitleresque is being racist, homophobic, and nationalistic? It might be a fun exercise for you to write down a list of 100 historical leaders, determine how many were/were not racist, homophobic, or nationalistic. This will give you your Hitler/non-Hitler ratio. Do you think the ratios of Hitlers : non-Hitlers is greater or less than 1?)
This situation is optimized for media, but exactly in the opposite way. The whole attack is divided into many incremental steps. Each small step is not enough to evoke a military response from the West. Then there is a pause, until media stop paying attention and find something else to care about. Then another small step.
(Remember the first step? Russian soldiers without uniforms in Ukraine territory, not yet openly fighting anyone, just carrying weapons and looking intimidating. So, what are you going to do about it? First, there is no war yet, and second, they even deny being Russian. Calm down, everyone, calm down, nothing to see here. -- A few steps later it's obvious there are Russian troops there, but we already kinda knew it for months, so why the sudden overreaction today? Calm down, everyone, calm down, nothing new is happening here.)
This is how you overcome the Schelling point -- by doing a calculated very small step, and then calling your opponent irrational if he wants to react.
This Yes, Prime Minster video is relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX_d_vMKswE
Dividing something in many incremental steps that each are newsworthy generally means that the whole things gets more media attention than if you do everything at once.
Wikileaks for example didn't release all the cables at once but purposefully spread them out over a time to give them more media attention.
Not just being nationalistic, not just being expansionist, but actually taking territory.
I would guess that more than half of all rulers in history took others' territory, or tried to and failed. And being nationalistic goes without saying ever since the invention of nationalism.
The specific tactic of nibbling on your neighbors one bit at a time, varying your speed depending on international reactions, was used by Hitler but also by many others. Calling a common behavior Hitleresque isn't useful.
There are good reasons for comparing Germany in 1938 with Russia in 2014, but I don't think these are among them.
And more than half of all the rulers in history would find themselves really really out of place in the modern world if they tried to do the same things they did in their historical contexts, and we would rather not have to deal with them.
A rather low bar to get over, there.
I don't think Hitler was very unusual among rulers of, say, the post-Napoleonic epoch of 1814-1945. He was just first unusually successful (making many enemies) and then unusually thoroughly defeated and occupied (allowing those enemies to make his name particularly infamous).
Would you mind tabooing what you mean by "racist" (and possibly also "nationalist" and "homophobic") and why your definition is bad, there is currently a long debate in another thread on this very subject.
Things like the Nashi movement, and laws against LGBT people.
Yes, there is the irony that Nashi is officially an "anti-fascist" movement. To understand this, it is necessary to know the connotations these words have in the former communist countries, as propaganda shaped them for decades. Shortly: anything associated with former Soviet Union and her satellites is "socialist", and anything associated with West is "fascist". It's like yin and yang for everything; e.g. collectivism is "socialist" and entrepreneurship is "fascist", but also being ethinically Russian or at least Slavic is more central to the concept of "socialist", and the idea of human rights (other than the right to live happily and obediently under a socialist government) is kinda "fascist", because it goes against the power of the collective.
So a person who doesn't think about this too deeply (you know, most of the population) can identify themselves as "anti-fascist" and mean: "I hate entrepreneurs, homosexuals; and everyone who is not ethnically Russian/Slav should go away from this country". Having read a few articles about the Nashi, this is more or less the meaning they use.
(This is a point I would like to emphasise as often as possible -- though usually I don't, respecting the LW's attitude to politics -- that the ideas of "left" or "socialism" in former Soviet countries are so completely unlike their versions in the West. It is just a result of successful propaganda and suppressing the flow of information that makes most leftists in the West believe otherwise. If you take a typical Nazi, reduce his hate of Jews by 80%, and convert him using the chronophone to a post-Soviet culture, this is what passes as "left" here.)
Looking at the article, I don't see what specifically you're considering "racist". It would help if you stated your definition. Ok, it would help even more if you didn't through around words commonly used by SJW's to mean "anyone I disagree with".
You mean like the laws every country had until maybe a couple decades ago?
So are the Russian creating an overarching recreational organization and bringing all private clubs under its control?
Better.
To taboo the SJW-like words, here is what I mean: worship of physical power, enthusiasm about war, emphasis on reproduction of purebloods, agression against people different from the norm.
Britain tried embracing foreigners even ones who had no interest in assimilating. This was the result.
Those are just two different ways of judging people by their ethnicity instead of by their individual actions.
My idea would be something like: Do whatever you want as long as you follow the law. When you break the law, go to jail.
Except that in this case the police and social workers weren't willing to enforce the law for fear of being called "racist". More generally, the law is only as strong as the will and ability of people to enforce it.
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Yes, Nashi is impressively scary. Kudos for reading up on them.
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I hesitate to make 1938-1939 comparisons because the world situation is far different now than then especially because of globalization. I do however agree with Kasparov the longer Putin gets away with this the more emboldened both the Kremlin and his troops will be. The problem here is two fold: The US is war weary after 10 years of doing Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama going to the country to put boots on the ground is a dicey decision and economically now isn't a great time to do that.
However, I think there are some deterrents you could do:
If I were President Cowan I would have already moved 30K troops into German for a little german vacation. I would also move some assets into place in the Gulf of Alaska. You know just routine troop movements and it would look very threatening and it might make Putin start thinking twice. The best way to get an enemy to stop doing something is to get them worried because then their own fear will either make them do something stupid that you can exploit or they will cease and desist. I might also start an economic war by asking the FED to dump a few billion Rubles into the world economy just to see what happens. Frankly, its time to get Machiavellian.
Do you really think that if your two problems were absent -- if the US were not war-weary and if the economy were doing great -- then the US would be ready to put boots on the ground in Russia?
To quote a fellow named Vizzini, You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" X-D
I think it would look pretty silly and would give Putin a mighty political gift. He'd point a finger at your troops and yell that the American warmongers are preparing to invade Mother Russia -- and that's all he would need to really unite all the population behind him.
I don't think the Fed has a few billion Rubles. And my guess as to what would happen is that Putin will close the taps on the oil and gas flowing into Europe, Germany in particular. Frau Merkel would be most displeased, I would think.
Yes I think in a different scenario the US would be more hawkish on Russia without War weariness and better economic conditions. This is basic war theory.
You are right, Putin could certain point at increased troops in Germany as the West getting ready for war and it might lead to mobilization, however, as Putin is in no mood and Russia is in no economic condition for a protracted war with the West I think it would have the correct provocative effect. I don't think Putin would slow down but it would make everyone at the Kremlin think twice. I would keep them there for about 3 months and then send them home.
The Fed has a few billion rubles because all global trade accounts must balance and the Federal Reserves keeps vast quantities of every trading partners currency so that trade accounts will balance, they can re-buy American debt in local currency, and for stability of global markets. So yes, you could dump a few billion rubles by re-buying certain amounts of American debt from China and paying for it in Rubles.
What is this I don't even
Basically, the Fed as apart of the global central banking system keeps various currencies on hand for global trade purposes. Ergo you could dump those back in the market.
Does it, now? Actually keeps "currencies on hand"? Or maybe we're talking about FX swap lines?
Can you provide a like to e.g. a Fed balance sheet that shows "a few billion rubles"?
I cannot say/find information on what exactly they keep on hand these days. However, the currency swap lines can be created literally at will which they did during the 2008 crisis. Also, if you look at the case of Leo Wanta, who armed with 2.7 Trillion dollars destabilized the Soviet economy with FX swaps in Brussels between 1989 and 1991.
Yes, but when you have an FX swap line, you don't own the foreign currency, you only have a facility to get some in exchange for yours. In your example, for the Fed to attempt to devalue the ruble it would have to get it first from someone (likely, the Central Bank of Russia), effectively buying it for dollars -- thus defeating the entire point of the exercise.
The case of Leo Wanta doesn't seem to support your claims.
You can trade American debt for Rubles from a Russian trading partner like the EU. Also, I would google more general information about Leo Wanta. Your reference doesn't actually talk about what he did.