Most liked posts in thread: World war 3....

There is wonderful irony about being attacked with weapons your own country has helped produce. No morals in war though, only rich people and dead foot soldiers.

 

Hi Bronco, I will try to reply later was busy these days.

 

A very good article/interview in the New Yorker, in which -- amongst other things -- the interviewee argues very well why this whole grumble about expanding NATO is a red herring. Modern Russia is old Russia; it has always been this way: from the long era of the Tsars, through the Soviet period, to the dictatorship of today. That is something that all of us with personal experience of it have always known, but much of the rest of the world has refused to believe.

"I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had NATO not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before NATO existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today.

I would even go further. I would say that NATO expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in NATO? They would be in the same limbo, in the same world that Ukraine is in. In fact, Poland’s membership in NATO stiffened NATO’s spine. Unlike some of the other NATO countries, Poland has contested Russia many times over. In fact, you can argue that Russia broke its teeth twice on Poland: first in the nineteenth century, leading up to the twentieth century, and again at the end of the Soviet Union, with Solidarity. So George Kennan was an unbelievably important scholar and practitioner—the greatest Russia expert who ever lived—but I just don’t think blaming the West is the right analysis for where we are."

Another interesting point concerns the "West" -- just what *is* the "West"?

"The biggest surprise for Putin, of course, was the West. All the nonsense about how the West is decadent, the West is over, the West is in decline, how it’s a multipolar world and the rise of China, et cetera: all of that turned out to be bunk. The courage of the Ukrainian people and the bravery and smarts of the Ukrainian government, and its President, Zelensky, galvanized the West to remember who it was. And that shocked Putin! That’s the miscalculation.

[Interviewer] How do you define “the West”?

The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. “Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is. And that West, which we expanded in the nineties, in my view properly, through the expansion of the European Union and NATO, is revived now, and it has stood up to Vladimir Putin in a way that neither he nor Xi Jinping expected."

Much more in the article; it is well worth reading.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukraine-stalin

RCB

 

Highly unlikely. An attack on Britain would trigger the full force of NATO in response. Putin doesn't want a war with NATO, because he'd lose it.

 

I can't see how that will happen. Putin has already bitten off way more than he can chew invading Ukraine. The Russian army is proving to be poorly led, under equipped and heavily filled with minority ethnic soldiers whose commitment to fight for the Russian motherland is questionable, to say the least.



In a months fighting the Russians have failed to fully capture and occupy a single major city. There are reports of their forces being pushed backwards outside Kiev by the Ukrainian army, which has spent the last eight years since the invasion of Crimea preparing for a full scale Russian invasion. Ukraine is clearly getting great intelligence reports, presumably from NATO, which has enable them to target and kill six Russian generals. Home advantage is a big factor here - it's much easier to defend a city than overrun it:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60860548.amp

Edit - now reported that seven Russian generals have been killed. Astonishing.

Military equipment is pouring in from the west, which will eventually allow Ukraine to target the long range missile capability that is currently causing so much damage to their towns and cities.

And Ukraine is huge. Capturing the whole of it is a massive task. Even if Russia does succeed in fully occupying Ukraine, which looks highly unlikely on current evidence, the Ukrainians won't just give up. They will retreat to country areas and wage guerilla warfare for as long as it takes, bottling up Russian troops indefinitely, just as the Afghans did.

Russia's ability to expand and rearm its military will be severely hit by reduced oil sales, severe economic recession and lack of previously-imported western components as the sanctions start to really bite.

Would Russia really take on a war on two fronts with all the odds stacked against them. I doubt it.

 

Ukraine is being obliterated with missile attacks yet some in the media seem fixated with this Azov' regiment. I see it mentioned regularly by folk with a Russian bias. Not sure why.

 

Help supply weapons then get paid to rebuild the mess. Win win.

 

Do you have Twitter? It doesn't take long to find non-media images and videos.

Of course they'll just be crisis actors and providing biased reporting anyway.

 

Next you'll be telling me that those two Russian's who visited Salisbury weren't really going to see the Cathedral!

 

BTW as of this moment Al Jazeera are still only reporting that the video was sourced and verified by the NYT, they do not have any independent verification.

BBC Reality Check have worked out exactly where it was filmed, got an idea as to when it was filmed and even the identity of one of the main protaganists in a detailed report with video stills, street views and satelite imagery.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61025388

 

Surely it's up to Ukraine whether or not they want to join NATO. Why should Putin be allowed to determine whether another sovereign country chooses to join a defensive international alliance? Why is it any of Russia's business what Ukraine chooses to do?

 

2014? Aren't you getting your timelines mixed up? Ukraine became independent in 1991. I think you're referring to the supposed agreement at that time which Gorbachev subsequently denied occurring.

2014 is the year that Russia annexed Crimea and held an illegal, rigged referendum in Donbas, plunging the region into chaos and war. Even if there had been a clear agreement if the type you stated, these actions by Russia would have rendered it null and void. Having seen part of their country annexed and another thrown into civil war by Russia's actions, who can blame Ukraine for wanting the security of NATO membership to deter Putin's obvious designs on the rest of the country?

 

Adds s

OK. So which of Putin's demands are reasonable?

 

I repeat, which of Putin's demands are reasonable?

 

Do you really think if Russia attacked us, which they won't in my opinion, that there would be no grounds for intervention from our NATO allies?

I'm not sure of your agenda in appearing to loosely defend Russia's right to invade a neighbouring country and commit shocking atrocities against thousands of innocent people.

Are you Russian by any chance?

 

Just like he can't say which of Putin's demands are reasonable.

 

Does anyone really believe the BBC propaganda machine Dave? One of the most biased media organisations ever to have graced this earth.

 

In previous seasons, I considered getting a City shirt, replacing a number on the back with a big letter Z, to denote my pen-name of Zonnebloem.

I am now so glad I never did this.