What a difference 6 months makes.

AMERICA IS WEAK, THIS IS ALL THAT PANSY OBAMA'S FAULT, PUTIN IS A REAL LEADER AND HAS ENORMOUS BALLS!!!!!!!!!!!

fast forward....

Ukraine's relationship with the EU has never been closer, a majority of Ukrainians now strongly prefer the "west " (except for the separatists Putin is bussing into the east.) Every other eastern bloc nation is scrambling for closer links to the EU to avoid Russian shenanigans. Putin hasn't gained anything in eastern Ukraine, and after the airliner incident likely isn't. He does have Crimea, but he had military bases and ports there previously, nothing significant gained there. He has drawn the ire of the EU, who are mostly helpless (I'm sure he is shaking in his boots lol), but they are Russia's primary trading partner. He also has most of the EU frantically looking for an alternative for Russian oil and gas.

Putin has gained nothing in Ukraine, but seems to have lost some pretty strategic relationships. Russia wasn't acting as a "strong" state with this excursion, but a weak one that, seeing its power slipping, was blindly lashing out with no fore thought.IMO the US did well to rattle sabers , do what we could economically with sanctions, and then watch that shit blow up in their face.

7/19/2014 10:53:39 PM

Yes, how things change. In 6 months time, liberals and conservatives alike now want us to invade Russia, starting a nuclear war and turning the earth into an apocalyptic hellscape.

[Edited on July 20, 2014 at 3:28 PM. Reason : ]

7/20/2014 3:26:40 PM

Quote :

"Putin hasn't gained anything in eastern Ukraine"

Except for, you know, Crimea

7/20/2014 3:34:12 PM

^^hmm, I was only aware of the usual neo-con suspects calling for invasion. Since you were claiming Obama is weak and not respected earlier in this thread, what course of action would you have taken?

^the only strategic benefit to Crimea is it's access to the sea. Russia already had access to the ports and pretty large barracks on Crimea, he gained nothing that he already didn't have. Except now he's having to ship fuel and food to keep the area stabilized (ie. it's costing him extra money).

Things can still change here in the near future, but right now, it seems like this has been a pretty big blunder by Putin IMO.

7/20/2014 5:48:56 PM

Quote :

"^^hmm, I was only aware of the usual neo-con suspects calling for invasion. Since you were claiming Obama is weak and not respected earlier in this thread, what course of action would you have taken?"

He is/was perceived as weak and not respected. That wasn't a call for him to do anything, that's just more or less the truth. Bush had a hunger for blood and the world knew that, but Obama doesn't appear to have the stomach for any ongoing conflicts.

7/20/2014 6:42:19 PM

I must not be spending enough time in the echo chamber. Ask bin laden, al zawhri and the other umpteen terrorists that have been killed about Obama's bloodlust. I'm not necessarily a fan of those policies but the point is, Obama gave some fore thought to what a more involved military approach would have been in this situation, even in the face of people not respecting him, and seems to have made the right choice.

7/20/2014 8:53:53 PM

Whether it's accurate or not, and whether it's his fault or not, is a seperate issue but the fact is that Obama is viewed as being weak.

7/20/2014 8:56:28 PM

Viewed that way by who? It's a bullshit right-wing meme they try to throw on every democrat that doesn't knee jerk react to every other foreign policy situation with a full-scale invasion. They use it because it works with the "tuff American" retard crowd.

Surely the vast majority of TWW can see through that petty BS.

The real point I'm making here though, is that the Neo-con crowd was wrong, yet again.

[Edited on July 20, 2014 at 9:31 PM. Reason : B]

7/20/2014 9:16:00 PM

Fucking barbarians

http://mic.com/articles/94556/the-malaysia-airlines-crash-in-ukraine-just-went-from-bad-to-worse

7/21/2014 5:13:13 PM

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698917/It-time-stop-appeasing-Putin-resolve-Cameron-Hammond-warns-EU-veiled-dig-Merkel.html

7/22/2014 9:35:09 AM

putin the great siberian shirtless reagan

7/23/2014 10:15:56 PM

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/29/strelkov-girkin-still-in-donetsk-but-not-borodai-antyufeyev-negroid-race-bezler-tanks/

Have you heard about this guy Girkin (aka “Strelkov”)?

Quote :

"but notably mentioned that his men had killed four mercenaries operating Ukrainian tanks near the Russian border – “from the negroid race,” as he put it. In total, he says his forces have killed 165 American mercenaries, and 139 Polis"

Apparently the same guy who said the downed passenger plane was full of corpses and detonated above Ukraine in order to blame the rebels. And apparently he's a former LARPer.

[Edited on July 29, 2014 at 1:09 PM. Reason : ]

7/29/2014 1:05:42 PM

and this is pretty interesting
http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/28/the-warped-world-of-anti-ukrainian-russian-fantasy-novels/

7/29/2014 1:11:48 PM

Russian 'Humanitarian Aid': What We Know And Don't Know So Far
http://www.rferl.org/content/russian-humanitarian-aid-ukraine-chronology/26527309.html

Quote :

"Following the statement on Russian President Vladimir Putin's website, which claimed that the Russian convoy would be sent in collaboration with the Red Cross, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine had agreed to "all details.".... The Red Cross told RFE/RL that the aid convoy was not theirs and they did not know what was in it. "We don't yet know entirely what's in it. We are waiting to clarify some practical details before moving forward with this aid convoy," Ewan Watson, a spokesman for the Red Cross, told RFE/RL. "At the moment it is not an International Red Cross convoy, inasmuch as we haven't had sight of the material, we haven't had certain information regarding the content, and the volume of aid that it contains." He said that the ICRC was not informed by the Russians that it had left until after it departed."

Quote :

"Heading toward Luhansk from just outside Moscow, Russian authorities said the 280 trucks carrying 2,000 tons of food, medicine, medical equipment, sleeping bags, and power generators would arrive in the embattled eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk by the morning of August 13. While Russian news agencies reported that the trucks were coming from Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry, Russian bloggers quickly pointed out that the automobiles appeared to be repainted versions of green Russian military trucks."

[Edited on August 12, 2014 at 2:36 PM. Reason : ]

8/12/2014 2:35:23 PM

Invasion has begun?
http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/08/14/live-on-twitter-journalists-confirm-invasion-has-begun/

8/15/2014 10:23:26 AM

Lol trojan horse

8/15/2014 11:06:13 AM

Looking like the shit might be starting

Kiev says forces shelled Russian armour inside Ukraine
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/15/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSKBN0GF13120140815

8/15/2014 12:51:59 PM

Ukraine is not part of our defense pact and putin knows it. Theres no risk in going in.

8/15/2014 1:47:44 PM

Full scale invastion beginning? Moscow is continuing to deny involvement.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html

Quote :

"A top Ukrainian army officer said a "full-scale invasion" of his country was under way Thursday, as a U.S. official said up to 1,000 Russian troops had crossed Ukraine's southern border to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels. U.S. officials said Russian troops were directly involved in the latest fighting, despite Moscow's denials."

8/28/2014 11:42:16 AM

Quote :

"the only strategic benefit to Crimea is it's access to the sea."

That's a very strategic benefit militarily and commercially.


Think the Russians are going to try and do what they did in Crimea. Slowly take over eastern Ukraine until all sides acknowledge in practice it's now Russian territory (although not officially as the western world parade the illusion Crimea is still Ukrainian, but who's the power on the ground?) The difference is Crimea is far more defendable than eastern Ukraine as there's a peninsular chokepoint between Crimea and Ukraine.

[Edited on August 28, 2014 at 12:26 PM. Reason : /]

8/28/2014 12:18:49 PM

Obama in press conference just now: uh, next week I'm meeting with people. uh, in Estonia. uh, i will affirm our commitment to our European allies. next week.

8/28/2014 4:27:48 PM

So for the war buffs on here, what are our real military options when it comes to Russia? I know it's not Iraq or Libya, but if we wanted to metaphorically fire a shot across their bow, what would that look like and does Russia possess any real ability to stop us from doing so?

8/28/2014 5:55:54 PM

NATO would take out anti-aircraft installations

8/28/2014 6:51:45 PM

Quote :

"So for the war buffs on here, what are our real military options when it comes to Russia?"

First off, soft power is important, but the application of hard power will beat the application of soft power almost all the time. You can talk a lot of words, you can make idle threats, you can pass a couple sanctions, but it will never defeat boots on the ground implementing reality. When it comes to geopolitics I'm very de facto, not de jure (which means Crimea is Russian now, go to Crimea and what do you see? Russian control) Which is a lot of the problem in regards to Western Civilization in 2014 trying to implement their will in foreign policy but no one listens. Europe and the U.S. combined are Pontius Pilate nowadays. Talk a lot, have a lot of power, but stay out of the messy decisions and not get your hands dirty. And that's why 200000 people are dead in Syria and a rogue fraction in Iraq are trying to redraw borders as part of an pan-Arabian Peninsula Civil War going on with the two sides being headed by Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively, and the UN won't even touch the issue of multiple states instigating a conflict that could spillover (and has spilled over) in any practical manner. And unlike Ukraine, there's no Security Council permanent member veto excuse for inaction in the Arabian Peninsula.

To your question, after Crimea earlier this year, they should've installed a multinational (which would be largely North American/European most likely) peacekeeping group in central Ukraine as an initial step. Not put them in eastern Ukraine, not have them advance on Crimea or to the Russian border, just have them there to serve warning and let hostilities simmer down and also "monitor" the Ukrainian government and "the Ukrainian separatists/rebels" (plus Russians). At the very least, the Russian partisans in eastern Ukraine would've been less trigger happy making sure not to kill the wrong people and that Malaysian Airlines flight possibly would've never been shot down. It could not be a UN group because the Russians would veto, it'd have to be either the EU or NATO (heavy overlap), more likely NATO since Russian lapdog Cyprus is in the EU but not NATO.

[Edited on August 28, 2014 at 7:02 PM. Reason : /]

8/28/2014 6:52:52 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/nato-plans-more-visible-presence-in-eastern-europe.html?_r=0

Quote :

"LONDON — Caught off guard by the crisis in Ukraine, NATO plans to create a “spearhead” rapid deployment force and a “more visible” presence in Eastern Europe to assuage concerns about Russian intentions, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general, was quoted as saying on Wednesday. The United States, Germany and other key alliance members have signaled that they have no plans for any substantial new NATO military presence in the region and have been careful to avoid escalating military tensions with Moscow. But with NATO leaders scheduled to meet next week in Cardiff, Wales, the alliance appears eager to show a united front and to demonstrate the ability to respond quickly at a time when Russia stands accused of menacing Ukraine. The plans described by Mr. Rasmussen seemed an attempt to balance those pressures. In an interview with correspondents from six European newspapers, he said that while the proposal anticipated the prepositioning of supplies and equipment at new bases, it would not infringe on the alliance’s agreements with Russia, which have prevented substantial NATO buildups in the lands that joined the alliance after the collapse of the Soviet Union. NATO’s strategy in response to Russian pressure on Ukraine has been to conduct more exercises, aircraft patrols and the like. Mr. Rasmussen suggested that the alliance now plans to augment those measures by increasing its preparedness to send more troops to Eastern European bases if necessary. “We will adopt what we call a readiness action plan with the aim to be able to act swiftly in this completely new security environment in Europe,” he said. “We have something already called the NATO response force, whose purpose is to be able to be deployed rapidly, if needed. Now it’s our intention to develop what I would call a spearhead within that response force at very, very high readiness.” He continued: “In order to be able to provide such rapid reinforcements, you also need some reception facilities in host nations. So it will involve the prepositioning of supplies, of equipment, preparation of infrastructure, bases, headquarters. The bottom line is, you will, in the future, see a more visible NATO presence in the east.” “It can be on a rotation basis, with a very high frequency,” he said. Mr. Rasmussen added that the plan was designed to address the fears of newer NATO members that Russia might intervene militarily to protect large ethnic Russian minorities, such as those in the Baltic states. Along with Poland, the Baltic countries — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have indicated that Russia’s recent maneuvers in support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine have left them feeling vulnerable. “The point is that any potential aggressor should know that if they were to even think of an attack against a NATO ally they will meet not only soldiers from that specific country but they will meet NATO troops,” Mr. Rasmussen said. “This is what is important.” The notion of new permanent facilities would be certain to draw fierce protests from the Kremlin. The Guardian, one of the newspapers that published the interview with Mr. Rasmussen, quoted unidentified NATO sources as saying the Cardiff summit meeting next week would seek a compromise formula, avoiding the word “permanent.” Asked whether NATO would permanently deploy forces under its flag in Eastern Europe, Mr. Rasmussen was quoted as saying: “The brief answer is yes. To prevent misunderstanding I use the phrase ‘for as long as necessary.’ Our eastern allies will be satisfied when they see what is actually in the readiness action plan.” Mr. Rasmussen, a former prime minister of Denmark, became NATO secretary general in 2009. In October, he is to step aside and Jens Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, will take over. Most of Mr. Rasmussen’s tenure was focused on the war in Afghanistan, rather than the alliance’s original role: the defense of Europe against a potential Soviet attack. But with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its support for separatists in Ukraine, the alliance is now struggling to return to its earlier roots. Since Mr. Putin’s strategy for Crimea and Ukraine began to unfold in February, however, the alliance has been casting about for a response in a new era in which, Mr. Rasmussen said in an interview in Washington in July, “Russia doesn’t consider NATO a partner; Russia considers NATO an adversary.” In the interview published on Wednesday, Mr. Rasmussen said: “Russia is a nation that unfortunately for the first time since the Second World War has grabbed land by force. Obviously we have to adapt to that.” “It is safe to say that nobody had expected Russia to grab land by force. We also saw a remarkable change in the Russian military approach and capability since, for instance, the Georgian war in 2008. We have seen the Russians improve their ability to act swiftly. They can within a very, very, short time convert a major military exercise into an offensive military operation.” In the latest crisis, he said, “we have reports from multiple sources showing quite a lively Russian involvement in destabilizing eastern Ukraine.” At a time when defense budgets are shrinking and Western appetites for military campaigns have been blunted, Mr. Rasmussen seemed to acknowledged the limits of NATO’s role. “You see a sophisticated combination of traditional conventional warfare mixed up with information and primarily disinformation operations,” he said of the most recent Russian operations. “It will take more than NATO to counter such hybrid warfare effectively.”"

Poland and the Baltic states after the Georgian conflict in 2008 wanted an EU Eastern Europe Military Command established for what they perceived as the Russian threat, and the Germans and other states in Western Europe, not really wanting to do it, called the Poles and Baltic states paranoid.

[Edited on August 28, 2014 at 7:08 PM. Reason : .]

8/28/2014 7:05:27 PM

While I don't disagree with you on the limits of "soft power", I think we've always seen that hard power has it's limits as well. We've spent the better part of the last two decades parading our actual army around the Middle East, and how much good did that really do in the end? You talk about the death toll in the Syrian civil war, but that pales in comparison to the death and destruction our own military has wrought in Iraq and Afghanistan, with really nothing to show for it in the end. Both places are will be back to square one after we leave.

8/29/2014 12:48:37 PM

Quote :

"And that's why 200000 people are dead in Syria and a rogue fraction in Iraq are trying to redraw borders as part of an pan-Arabian Peninsula Civil War going on with the two sides being headed by Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively, and the UN won't even touch the issue of multiple states instigating a conflict that could spillover (and has spilled over) in any practical manner."

You think the US and UN militaries not acting is the reason Iraq is in the shit it is today?

8/29/2014 1:14:55 PM