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Ukraine May Have To Rearm With Nuclear Weapons Says Ukrainian MP
An anonymous reader writes "USA Today reports, "Ukraine may have to arm itself with nuclear weapons if the United States and other world powers refuse to enforce a security pact that obligates them to reverse the Moscow-backed takeover of Crimea, a member of the Ukraine parliament told USA TODAY. The United States, Great Britain and Russia agreed in a pact 'to assure Ukraine's territorial integrity' in return for Ukraine giving up a nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union after declaring independence in 1991, said Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament. ... Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the commitments in the agreement are not relevant to Crimea because a 'coup' in Kiev has created 'a new state with which we have signed no binding agreements.' The U.S. and U.K. have said that the agreement remains binding and that they expect it to be treated 'with utmost seriousness, and expect Russia to, as well.'"
Your friend in the Antichrist,
Kim Jong Il
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the commitments in the agreement are not relevant to Crimea because a 'coup' in Kiev has created 'a new state with which we have signed no binding agreements.'
Pay no attention to that signature on the dotted line.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Sure, give 'm nukes. What could possibly go wrong?
OTOH, why is this on Slashdot? It's only a Ukranian MP with a wacko idea, probably meant to show his supporters that he's the strong man they seek. Wikipedia sums up his party, Udar, as "UDAR tends to avoid sensitive and polarising subjects and focuses instead on popular topics".
Don't think they could do it in time. Sad though it is, the sensible thing would probably have been not to get rid of them in the first place.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There's an existence proof that it can be done in four years, if someone is willing to devote sufficient resources to it.
I guess he's just going to walk down to the corner nuke store, then? Maybe while he's out he can pick up an aircraft carrier or two.
The best bet for Ukraine at this point is to cut its losses and relinquish Crimea. Otherwise, there'll just be decades upon decades of ambiguity and bickering which will effect trade and traffic and complicate international agreements--new and old. For example, Ukraine could never join NATO (not that it should) if it claimed Crimea, because NATO requires member states to be in complete control of their territory.
Half of Ukraine's electricity is from nuclear power. That have 13 reactors now, and plan to add 11 more.
Ukraine's strange love for nuclear power
Missile
Ukraine is capable of producing advanced intercontinental range ballistic missiles, and its missile industry is second only to Russia's among the former Soviet republics. The linchpin of this industry is the former Yuzhnoye Scientific Production Association, arguably the preeminent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) design and production facility in the Former Soviet Union, whose capabilities are matched only by a handful of U.S. and Russian missile enterprises.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Never underestimate a bunch of fanatics. And even the *threat* of them having nukes could easily be enough to start WWIII.
I think we've all gotten complacent with the idea that another World War couldn't happen. They thought the same thing in the 20's (anyone remember the Kellogg–Briand Pact?). But it can not only still happen, but I think people would be surprised at how little it would take to actually set it off. That's why diplomats have to treat shit like this very carefully.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
You do understand that Ukraine has enough expertize and know-how to make nukes within a few months? You do realize that Ukraine power supply is 50% nuclear?
There are nations in this world that can build nuclear weapons within months, if they wanted to. They simply choose not to. I would name Ukraine as one of these nations.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
We should all be thankful that people in the relevant positions in Ukraine have shown much restraint so far and trusted or hoped that diplomatic and economic means would be brought to bear. Once a shooting war starts in the Ukraine, the casualties will quickly accumulate. There's a large civilian population there, several large cities. The population is very polarized. Oh and Russia is pushing more soldiers, armor, mines, etc into the Crimea by the hour.
"Just start the war already?" Because you are bored? What a horrendous sentiment.
It does seem a silly statement, and a gift to Putin. He can use that as a replacement for the equally silly current justification for the invasion.
Timoshenko is from Lviv Mafia. Yanukovich was from Donetsk mafia. In the current Ukrainian government there are 2 mafia Oligarchs. Couple of years ago Ukraine sold Kiev AA defense rockets to Georgia, leaving Kiev without AA defenses. Ukrainian military thought they just went missing. I am sure nothing like that will happen to their Nukes - right?
1) Rollback Ukraine to previous "territorial integrity", possibly with some bargaining over the structure of a new government.
2) Russia annexes Crimea after their puppets declare independence and the remainder of Ukraine joins EU (and possibly NATO), starting a new cold war. Ukraine gets screwed over in this case because they don't really have any guarantee that NATO would back them up any more than the current coalition fails to.
We are the 198 proof..
Not because we are bored. Because the war has already started on the Russian side, and all the Ukraine is doing now is losing. There is no way to avoid the war any longer. The invasion has happened. The only question is when Ukraine is going to fight -- when it can be confined to Crimea and the east, or when they are fighting an existential fight in the west?
You fucked up, Flounder -- you trusted us!
A more sane alternative would be millions of armed drones - cheaper, faster, mobile, able to strike fear anywhere in nearby Russia and destroy their entire fleet by wave skipping (you lose about half of those, but they still hit at the waterline and sink the ship).
Nuclear weapons are so last century.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
But fuck, even Poland at least tried to fight back when the German blitzkrieg rolled in.
"Even Poland?" What does that mean? Poland had a huge military, which is why Germany had to take them out before tackling France. They fought back very well. They were just not of the same caliber as the German officer corps, and were slightly behind in the tech race. The "horses verses tanks" scenario is highly overblown. Poland's infantry and artillery were adequate for the time, but no one really expected Blitzkrieg to work as well as it did. If Poland had a Guderian, it could have turned out very different.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Actually some Ukrainian posts have fought back. There's not much more they can do since they largely disarmed themselves at the urging of the US (and a guarantee that we would defend them). The US has broken its side of the agreement, why would Ukraine keep it's side?
Also, was Poland disarmed like this before Germany invaded?
I think the main reason other countries aren't intervening is that right now, Ukraine isn't defending itself. Military outposts in Crimea are surrendering without a fight to the Russians. It's hard to justify sending our troops over there when Ukrainian troops aren't willing to fight.
The other more fundamental issue is that sending troops into the Ukraine will basically be the start of WWIII, and this war would be between powers that are nuclear states. The literal and figurative fallout could be on a scale yet unseen.
That doesn't mean we always let Russia get away with whatever they want to do. If they continue to seize territory from other nations we have to put our foot down at some point. But is Crimea important enough to risk what could devolve into a nuclear war? No, probably not. But we also have to watch and make sure that they don't continue grabbing small territories.
Something else to keep in mind, is the area under dispute. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea. See, it's not exactly "Ukrainian" at all. It is an autonomous republic. The demographics? 50% Russian, 25% Ukrainian, and the balance are mostly Tatars. How and when did Crimea become "Ukrainian" anyway? Oh - that was an administrative move, made by the old Soviet, which stuck Crimea in with the Ukraine. Administrative. Crimea never has been "Ukrainian". So, if an AUTONOMOUS Republic wishes to remove itself from association with a nation that only has administrative ties to it - why not?
I stand with Crimea and Russia on this issue. The current regime in the Ukraine are a bunch of racist assholes. Among their first actions upon assuming power, was to outlaw the Russian language in any formal or official documents. Crimeans speak Russian, not Ukrainian. Screw the president, and screw the capital - Crimeans decided that they don't want to be "Ukrainian" any longer.
Not very many nations are willing to assist another nation in the suppression of an AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
> Would they actually launch a nuke at their neighbor?
As a last act before being completely overwhelmed by a superior force... what do you think?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I already posted this above:
Something else to keep in mind, is the area under dispute. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea. See, it's not exactly "Ukrainian" at all. It is an autonomous republic. The demographics? 50% Russian, 25% Ukrainian, and the balance are mostly Tatars. How and when did Crimea become "Ukrainian" anyway? Oh - that was an administrative move, made by the old Soviet, which stuck Crimea in with the Ukraine. Administrative. Crimea never has been "Ukrainian". So, if an AUTONOMOUS Republic wishes to remove itself from association with a nation that only has administrative ties to it - why not?
I stand with Crimea and Russia on this issue. The current regime in the Ukraine are a bunch of racist assholes. Among their first actions upon assuming power, was to outlaw the Russian language in any formal or official documents. Crimeans speak Russian, not Ukrainian. Screw the president, and screw the capital - Crimeans decided that they don't want to be "Ukrainian" any longer.
Not very many nations are willing to assist another nation in the suppression of an AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Don't forget Poland was fighting a two front war. Germans on one side, Russians on the other.
Or... maybe they didn't give them all up?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
This isn't the first time that international bodies have promised to protect a country's borders in return for it withdrawing from some territory, or giving up arms... but when it is time for those same international bodies to act they do not.
Another recent example is when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 to UN sanctioned, internationally-recognized borders. A short while later, Hezbollah started threatening Israel again, claiming it was occupying some fictitious piece of land that was never part of Lebanon. Instead of the UN and international bodies backing Israel's claim that it had fully withdrawn from all of Lebanon, they publicly referred to this piece of land as "disputed territory". This taught us two things:
1. All it takes is one idiot to claim ownership of some land, and regardless of the facts that land becomes "disputed".
2. International guarantees are utterly meaningless.
Countries are better off retaining their weapons and enforcing the peace themselves. Regardless of how much political pressure you're under, ignore it, because at the end of the day you cannot outsource your citizens security.
And on the flip side: the international community should shut the !#@ up until they gain a record of walking the walk instead of talking the talk. It's criminal to play with other people's lives in this way.
with security guarantees from a Western power, when those guarantees are broken so easily?
This has implications for many other conflicts. For example Israel/Palestine - the US offered Israel security guarantees due to the vulnerable borders it would have after a withdrawal, and I'd expect the Palestinian leaders want some protection from extremists who reject peace with Israel and would assassinate any leader who agreed to it (as happened in Egypt after it signed a treaty with Israel). Now, I can't imagine either side respecting such a guarantee, which makes a peace agreement that much further away.
The same is true with regard to India/Pakistan (another nuclear weapons situation), Bosnia, Kosovo, and many other areas of crisis.
The lesson is, don't make promises if you (and all your successors in office) don't plan on keeping them.
I have not listened to a single report from American media on Ukraine - I use local sources, primarily the Euromaidan groups, but also Ukrainian newspapers/sites and even Russian ones (RT is horribly, horribly biased, but by looking at what propaganda they're spreading you can figure out what Russia is trying to do). The Maidan sources are biased as well, but you would think "our troops are fighting to the death against the Stalinist invaders!" would make better agitprop than "our troops are surrendering their weapons uncontested".
So if I'm somehow reproducing Republican propaganda, well, a broken clock is right twice a day. I also have a very hard time believing that the Republican Party has any measure of control over a foreign country's military, particularly at an outpost level. And I think there's some serious flaws with assuming the Republicans want more Russians in the country to kill - with the way things are currently going, it seems most likely to end with strong diplomatic sanctions and jack shit else, which is at odds with your supposed Republican desire to kill a bunch of Russians.
If we attack *now*, while Russia is still claiming that they have not sent troops and that the forces in play are merely "pro-Russian activists", there's at least a chance to resolve this without starting a war directly with Russia, and without just letting them take land just because they want it. But we cannot justify military action while Ukraine does not defend themselves - and to be honest, Ukraine may not be able to justify fighting unless they have allies willing to join in the fight.
...Poland had a huge military, which is why Germany had to take them out before tackling France.
This statement doesn't make any sense, and unfortunately nullifies your entire argument. Invading Poland was the plan all along (to reach the USSR eventually). Why would Hitler start by invading France if the lebensraum was on the East?
I don't have a sig.
Never underestimate a bunch of fanatics. And even the *threat* of them having nukes could easily be enough to start WWIII.
The "fanatics" in this case being in Moscow, which as repeatedly threatened its neighbors with attack, including Ukraine. And now it is back to seizing territory as has previously occurred to many of the neighbors of Russia (nee Soviet Union) in the last century: Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania. Now they try again with Ukraine.
Russia threatens nuclear attack on Ukraine - 12 Feb 2008
Russia threatens to aim missiles at Czech Republic, Poland if US installs defence shield - 20-02-2007
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Im quite stunned, that I can still be stunned, by the general american disconnect from the world.
Uranium is mined in Ukraine, space rockets are made and launched in Ukraine.
When you think Soviet Union and Nuclear missiles, think that this was tech from the Ukraine arm of the Soviet Union.
Yellow Waters - never used to be listed on the map - you may find it now.
The comments it'll take 15-20 years to re-arm is a nonsense.
The Ukrainian people are hugely ingenious engineers --- those rockets that took apollo to the moon. You think that rocket motor was an American design?
That the Ukrainians managed to stand in peace to pull parliament out the clutches of nigh on dictatorship, their old, young, couples got out of bed in the dead of night and cold to stand before armed police is testament to their resolve calm and control.
Only a fool would consider their capacity to not pick up a gun as a lack of commitment.
A large swath of Ukraine is already radioactive due to Russian carelessness, so why not?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Not because we are bored. Because the war has already started on the Russian side, and all the Ukraine is doing now is losing. There is no way to avoid the war any longer. The invasion has happened. The only question is when Ukraine is going to fight -- when it can be confined to Crimea and the east, or when they are fighting an existential fight in the west?
I'm guessing you are not in the military. This isn't CoD. No sanctions have even been enacted yet. You can bet military planners are planning and war gaming as always, but who is going to fight this war? Are you signing up?
The Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Is it going to be bloody? Absolutely, and that's terrible.
But, as has often been said, all that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Russia, under Putin, is a threat to the fragile world near-peace we currently have, as demonstrated by their words and by their actions. Their aggression cannot go unchecked, because otherwise we're looking at a full-blown world war in a decade's time or so. And Russia still has enough nuclear weapons to do some absolutely massive damage.
So which is better? A shooting war in Ukraine, or a global nuclear war? Peace would be far preferable to both, but I do not see a diplomatic solution working. Even an independent (non-Ukrainian, non-Russian) Crimea doesn't seem a possibility, with the way Russia is preparing to fake the votes.
And once Crimea flies the Russian flag, what do you think will happen next? Will Putin be satisfied with one conquest? Or will he keep waiting for the next opportunity to seize a bigger empire for himself?
I'm not saying this because I'm bored, but because I can see where things are headed. The path before us is littered with bodies no matter which path we take. I just want us to look at the long game - a war now would be violent but short, while waiting just makes the near-inevitable war bigger.
I hate to Godwin these things, but there are far too many similarities to 1938 to avoid at least bringing it up.
Relevant in that discussion would be how much of that is in Crimea and possibly eastern Ukraine and how much of it are Russians / willing to leave so to say.
World War I started over basically spilled milk. All Putin has to do is announce that the USA is here to spread gayness and he would have the popular vote to go to war.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Fanatics are on both sides. Throwing more nukes into the mix is going to make an already bad situation 100x worse.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
America, the UN, and the EU are not going to sanction Russia. They simply aren't. They are no more sanctionable than America is.
Not only can they easily get around pretty much any sanction, the act of sanctioning them is still an Act of War under international law, which would give Putin a casus belli to invade even more countries, which he is obviously itching for.
The troops are on the field. The question is simply how well dug-in does Russia get to be in Crimea before they launch their attack.
-Aesop Russia has been far too ham fisted and has massively overreacted, however valid their concerns.
I would, I would also rig every single asset to be blown to hell if the nuke did not work. Oh you want me to surrender? sure, let me just push this button here while we sign the surrender papers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
" So, if an AUTONOMOUS Republic wishes to remove itself from association with a nation that only has administrative ties to it - why not?"
Theoretically interesting, but not entirely representative of the current situation, since:
a) In the past, the Crimean Tatars had been forcibly deported and Russians moved in, and
b) The presence of foreign Russian military has a non-zero effect on what the autonomous republic "wishes", in particular the scuttling of a ship to block a port and military personnel removing identification from their uniforms.
"The current regime in the Ukraine are a bunch of racist assholes."
The Crimean Tatars are familiar with the concept.
> If we attack *now*
Does the "we" include you?
That means they dont need a nuke. they just need a very large explosion and some spent fuel. The big boom is not as effective as heavy radiation poisoning of the enemy forces. load it all in a plane and blow it up upwind from the enemy... the wind will spread it the rest of the way.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No-one would do that except maybe some comic book villain.
Assume "Paper" is a treaty guaranteeing "Territorial Integrity". Then:
Rock beats Paper
Nuke beats Paper
Nuke beats Rock
Nuke loses to Nuke (MAD)
Who would ever play Paper?
You are oversimplifying to a dangerous degree.
There is at the moment no legitimate Ukrainian government. Putin is a vile authoritarian asshole, but he is right about one thing: Yanukovych's de facto removal from office was a coup.
Yanukovych can still make a claim of legitimate legal authority to invite Russian troops in.
And some part of the population in Crimea wants them there.
So, an "invasion"? Not clear.
As for "an existential fight in the west", it's doubtful that Putin wants to absorb all of Ukraine. Keep in mind that Ukraine is a synthetic state, based on the "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" set up by the USSR...which was created with a bunch of ethnic Russians exactly to keep Ukrainian nationalism in check. All in all, letting Crimea go back to Russia might be in everyone's best interest...but only if it's handled in a legitimate way. Right now, nothing happening over there has any legitimacy.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
"I wouldn't want to start a gunfight with Russian soldiers when I'm outnumbered and cut off from reinforcements. "
Why? it worked out so well for Napoleon and Hitler.... oh wait....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They were never going to win the war. They were outnumbered, outclassed, outmanuevered even before the USSR got involved. It wasn't a Civilization-style cavalry-versus-tanks thing, but it was still not a war that they could reasonably expect to win.
They fought anyways. And even once the standing army had fallen, they fought a resistance.
Yes, if Germany had ignored them, they would have been a threat on their flanks. And given some time, they could be a pretty tough opponent. But Germany was geared up for war, and Poland was not.
Germans planed blitzkrieg on Poland and then wanted move on France. It didn't go as fast as planned. Poland surrender after 27 days fighting Germans on one front and Russians on the other. France for comparison give up after 44 days (10 May - 22 June) . Poland before WWII had a pact with UK and France to support Poland in case of invasion. They did not do a thing except to declare war on Germans and a couple naval blockades. "United States, Great Britain and Russia agreed in a pact 'to assure Ukraine's territorial integrity'" - I hope I am wrong but there are similarities. Now it is up to US and UK to act.
You're missing some history.
Invasion of Poland, Fall 1939
In September 1938, after signing away the Czech border regions, known as the Sudetenland, to Germany at the Munich conference, British and French leaders pressured France's ally, Czechoslovakia, to yield to Germany's demand for the incorporation of those regions. Despite Anglo-French guarantees of the integrity of rump Czechoslovakia, the Germans dismembered the Czechoslovak state in March 1939 in violation of the Munich agreement. Britain and France responded by guaranteeing the integrity of the Polish state.
German forces moving into Poland was an act of war to France and Britain so France had to be neutralized before German forces moved into Russia.
The Crimea is the new Sudetenland, and it is Russia that is accumulating territory.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You may recall it was the Russians that invaded.
Do you have any limits to the extent you would permit Russia to seize additional territory? Western Ukraine? Poland? Finland? Malta? Scotland?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If someone throws nukes I can tell you what will happen.
Iran will nuke the shit out of Israel and Iraq. N korea will nuke S korea. China will nuke N korea and a few areas that have been bothing them some even in their own country. Israel being nuked will also start a couple of other countries to decide that throwing something at europe is a good idea. Putin will wipe the Ukrane off the map, as well as afganastan just for good measure, and maybe even throw one at japan because of that old "we hate japan about those tiny islands they claim" disagreement.
Obama will go on TV stating that everything is ok, and he will talk to Putin. within 30 days we will be living in caves, eating our neighbors, and fighting in thunderdome for gasoline.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I suggest you also read history books, as it seems you know absolutely nothing about WW-II... let me guess, American public education?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Russia has never invaded another country without provocation and destroyed its leadership like the US did with Iraq.
You mean like Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and maybe a few others?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
"Ukraine may have to arm itself with nuclear weapons if the United States and other world powers refuse to enforce a security pact that obligates them to reverse the Moscow-backed takeover of Crimea"
I don't know much about international law, but the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances (the "security pact" referred to by the Ukrainian Parliament member) doesn't appear to obligate the US to do anything in this situation, other than "seek immediate United Nations Security Council action...if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used."
Additionally, the Budapest Memorandum is more of a diplomatic "gentleman's agreement"; it is not a treaty confirmed by the Senate. When it comes right down to it, it doesn't seem to me that the US is obligated to do squat. Sorry Ukraine!
>That's why diplomats have to treat shit like this very carefully.
Only if the complaintant has nuclear weapons, or strong pacts with nations that do have nuclear weapons and have pledged to threaten to use them on their behalf. There is much wisdom in the MAD strategy - we buy a measure of peace with the threat of making the results of war truly horrifying. If Russia believes they can easily annex part of Ukraine using conventional weapons without invoking a prohibitive response from the US or Great Britain, then why should they not? (I'm talking geopolitics here, not morality.) On the other hand if Ukraine had nukes there would be a very real threat that a retaliatory strike would poison choice parts of Russia, making Russia far less likely to invade in the first place.
The problem primarily arises when nukes find their way into the hands of unstable actors. Or alternately when two Powers misjudge each other's actual position in a game of nuclear brinksmanship, as happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Russia has put the US and Great Britain in a very uncomfortable position - if we fail to convince them to back off we risk undermining decades of disarmament treaties around the world that depend on our promises of defense, and if politics alone can't solve the problem we may very well end up in another game of nuclear brinksmanship.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
They can surely make Nuclear Devices fairly rapidly. I doubt they will be able to weaponize them within a reasonable time-frame. (reasonable being: the time it takes Russia to steamroller the whole country and seize any facilities).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I don't give a flying fuck who invaded. Starting a nuclear war over some local pissing contest is NOT an option.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The problem primarily arises when nukes find their way into the hands of unstable actors
WTF do you think Ukraine is? Giving nukes to an unstable country with a openly hostile relationship with its nuclear neighbor is FUCKING INSANE.
Would you support Russia just handing over a shitload of nukes to Cuba? North Korea? Iran? You know, to protect them from U.S. invasion?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
So where do you plan on living after blowing up all of the infrastructure in your own country?
I don't ebay has an option for that.
Although drawing comparisons to the thirties is overdone, this is a rare case where it makes sense. It is coincidence that I have been rereading "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" in the past few weeks, but it is impossible not to draw parallels between the history of the Sudetenland and the current situation in the Crimea.
Because the next time the US requests a country to surrender its nukes, that country will remember this example?
The old President and his cronies stole a big chunk of Ukraine's cash on hand. They're in the process of applying to the IMF for emergency loans. They will be lucky to keep the lights on in their government offices. Spending billions on a nuclear program is not feasible.
Okay, you just lost me there. None of that makes sense.
Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, and even if they did, they'd have only a handful of fission weapons. They probably wouldn't use them immediately - Iraq is not a threat, and Israel is enough of a threat to not want to start a war with unless they have an advantage.
China will not nuke North Korea - that's like saying the US will nuke Canada. They'll probably also stay uninvolved at first, making a move on Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands (or whatever you want to call them, that's just the only name I remember) once the US is sufficiently occupied elsewhere. Japan might get nuked over the islands, but not likely.
North Korea is probably smart enough to hunker down and sit this war out as well. If they're dumb, they'll wait until the US moves troops out of South Korea before invading and promptly getting their asses kicked. They'll do some heavy damage, but they'd end up dead. China might then retaliate, but with the US out of Korea that's not a sure bet.
Israel will also do little - maybe take care of Syria, or if they get invaded they'll murder whoever tried, but they've got no horse in this race.
In your "everybody with nukes must use them" spree, you forgot Pakistan and India. I don't know how that one would turn out, but they don't seem to really want to conquer the other, just threaten them.
And in any case, even if every nuclear country except US and Russia got together, they still wouldn't match our arsenal. If you want a good metaphor, imagine nukes as guns. India and Pakistan are in a Mexican standoff with handguns. Israel has a PPK up its sleeves. China's eying everyone with an old SKS. North Korea's got a starting pistol they slapped a cheap round into that will probably hurt them more than whoever they shoot it at, and Iran has a kit of parts they haven't assembled yet. Meanwhile, America and Russia have .50-caliber machine guns ready to sweep the room. That's basically the worlds' nuclear powers right now.
I too agree w/ the Russkies on this. Crimea had always been Russian, and was turned over to Ukraine by Nikita Krushchyev. Under the Soviet regime, it didn't matter, since there weren't really independent republics, but once the Soviet Union came unravelled in 1991, that was the time for the Crimea to become a part of Russia.
Sevastopol has already declared itself a federal subject of Russia. Good idea would be to merge Sevastopol into Crimea, and declare the entire area a part of Russia. Similarly, a good idea for Russians still in the rest of Ukraine would be to move either to Crimea or back to Russia, while Ukrainians in Crimea, or Russia could move back to Ukraine. While this may sound draconian, fact is that since 1991, ex-Soviet peoples have been gravitating towards their native republics. For instance, Kazakhstan was 47% Russian in 1991, today, it's only 23% Russian, and 65% Kazakh. Why? Russians have been returning to Russia, Kazakhs to Kazakhstan and so on.
Similarly, Ukraine would be in a much better situation if they gave up all claims to the Crimea, in return for a population exchange. Let Ukraine be a 100% Ukrainian country, and let the Crimea be another republic within Russia, including Sevastopol. Russia can also stop subsidizing Ukraine's economy at all, and just guarantee Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov rights of passage into the Black Sea. Although if global warming happens, shouldn't that be good news fro Russia's Arctic Sea ports, such as Murmansk, Archangelsk and so on?
What makes you think they would?
This is all posturing and nothing more. It's almost all brought upon by Russia.
Lumpy
Obama will go on TV stating that everything is ok, and he will talk to Putin. within 30 days we will be living in caves, eating our neighbors, and fighting in thunderdome for gasoline.
Don't forget the strongly worded letter! He'll firmly community organize their asses.
m
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
Hmm...South Ossetia sound familiar? That would be the last time Russia decided it wanted part of its neighbors' territory.
Last I checked, the Russians pretty much got their way that time.
And it's looking like they're going to get their way this time too.
So, when does someone stop them from "grabbing small territories"?
Because we can ALWAYS say "well, it's just a small bit of territory. We can't go to war over every small bit of territory..."
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I wouldn't want to start a gunfight with Russian soldiers when I'm outnumbered and cut off from reinforcements.
There is another explanation for the Crimean's lack of resistance. Most of them are ethnic Russians, who speak Russian, and are perfectly happy to be under Russian control.
I fully agree, Russia/USSR has always created a provocation first before invading.
Well the large reason for that is that Ukraine BELIEVED the rest of the world when they promised to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine in order to convince Ukraine to give up the nuclear weapons they inherited from the Soviet Union. As a result of that belief, the Ukrainians don't have much of an army.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
and maybe a few others?
Moldova, Georgia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany.
Russia has had a treaty to use former Soviet military bases in Crimea, Ukraine, but Putin is now claiming that treaties with Ukraine are void. Russia doesn't have permission to occupy Crimea as it has, nor threaten to annex Crimea. Russia is also threatening a broader war on Ukraine having mobilized its army some time ago. It looks like you're the one that is out of touch. Sorry.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
They have a prior agreement to be in Crimea to secure their naval base in Sevastopol. They certainly don't have any prior agreement to blockade and assault Ukrainian army bases and barracks and border posts.
This isn't even to mention the uniformed troops with no identification patches, which everybody knows are Russian (by their own numerous admissions when asked), but which Russia refuses to acknowledge outright. That alone is a war crime.
"Some part of Crimea wants them there"?
You mean the part that is 100% false and this has been shown via evidence?
http://news.slashdot.org/story...
Because there is no chance they already have a few cores sitting in storage like Japan?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
All nukes are theoretically 'dual purpose'. But you run them differently to produce Plutonium for weapons. Full tilt for a short time, then reprocess the fuel extracting plutonium.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Ukraine is 77% Ukrainian and 17% Russian. If one removes Crimea from Ukraine, that Russian % figure goes even lower
Soviets didn't attack right away. They basically sat and waited for Germans to steamroll over the most efficient Polish units in the west, and only went in in two weeks, after it was mostly all over (indeed, the official pretext for Soviet occupation was that Polish government "ran away, abandoning the country"). Consequently, Soviet units didn't see much resistance when they entered - Polish military was already disorganized and demoralized, lacking orders from the central government, and being unclear over whether Soviet troops are there to help them fight off the Germans.
What I think isn't getting talked about is that this is a much broader political threat. Ukraine gave up it's nukes under the assurance that the interested parties would protect it from each other. Russia has now reneged on that treaty, and the MP is reminding the US, Great Britain, and the world that we have an obligation to intervene.
It might be tempting to simply let Russia get away with this and avoid the threat of renewed nuclear war (cold or otherwise), but if we do that we also tell every other nation that has disarmed, or is considering disarming, that we cannot be trusted to honor our obligations under those treaties, severely undermining decades of work on disarmament.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I don't give a flying fuck who invaded. Starting a nuclear war over some local pissing contest is NOT an option.
Russia clearly considers it an option for many policy issues, hence the threats, and now the invasion.
A discussion of a Cold War Soviet war plan found after the end of the Cold War:
This Is How the World Could Have Ended
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If only there was a nations, with atomic weapon capability (even a crude capability), in need of money, disdainful of the international community, and without much in the way of scruples. The Ukraine could get a nuke weapons capability sooner. They don't have to build their own first generation of nuke.
You are oversimplifying to a dangerous degree.
There is at the moment no legitimate Ukrainian government. Putin is a vile authoritarian asshole, but he is right about one thing: Yanukovych's de facto removal from office was a coup.
The illegitimate government of the United States I suppose should dissolve itself and place itself under its rightful leadership of the Queen, until such as time she and the British Parliament deign to grant independence?
What can we say about gross abuse of office (theft of $35 billion?) and the use of security forces as assassins of Yanukovich's opponents? How could Yanukovich have been removed "legitimately" under such conditions?
As for "an existential fight in the west", it's doubtful that Putin wants to absorb all of Ukraine. Keep in mind that Ukraine is a synthetic state, based on the "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" set up by the USSR...which was created with a bunch of ethnic Russians exactly to keep Ukrainian nationalism in check. All in all, letting Crimea go back to Russia might be in everyone's best interest...but only if it's handled in a legitimate way. Right now, nothing happening over there has any legitimacy.
Ah, but the letter of the law does not count with Crimea, eh? Where is Russia's right of armed intervention enshrined in law? If Crimea wants to join Russia the let it hold a referendum under conditions of peace, and without Russian coercion. Where is the logic that disorder from Yanukovych's misrule should award Russia with Crimea?
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Can you say "Manhattan Engineer District"?
Sure you can.
If noone ever explained this to you before, it took the Manhattan Engineer District (AKA Manhattan Project) took about 3.5 years to go from committee meetings to the facilities that produced the first three nuclear weapons.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Your view is very simplistic.
1. To be fair, with the exception of Romania, all of those countries were part of the Russian Empire not too long (20 years) before they had military conflicts with the USSR.
2. In the end, Poland actually gained territory before and after WWII. Before, Poland got a chunk of Czech territory, after it got part of Germany. Ukraine got a chunk of Romania. Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania became independent countries, which had either never existed (in this case how do you assess what terrirtory is "theirs"?) before or had been absorbed by their neighbors (not just Russia) long time prior.
3. Romania was an ally (probably unwillingly, but still) of the Nazi Germany and there were many Romanian soldiers fighting on the Eastern front against the USSR.
Anyways, my point is that history is not black and white.
Clearly they're asking US & UK (both nuclear powers) for help.
I suspect, having plenty of people who remember living behind the Iron Curtain, that residents of countries like Ukraine would rather emigrate than go back to Russian rule.
Communism wasn't evil, but the communists were - maybe they're not communists anymore, but why would anybody believe that things will be "better this time"?
So, you'd have no problems with Russia picking up bits and pieces of various countries, including, say, France, Germany, and the UK?
Personally, I doubt anyone will do anything this time. Or next time. We'll wait till the choice is "stop them or they're across the Rhine"...and then it'll get ugly. 1940-style ugly.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You forgot Poland in 1939.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
A nuclear device in the back of a truck is one hell of an effective weapon.
Didn't Russia beat Napolean with this kind of strategy?
Maybe some state could send an ambassador to negotiate with the Putin and then declare "Peace for our time!" a reality.
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
No, because Ukraine didn't burn Crimea before the Russians moved in.
Because we can ALWAYS say "well, it's just a small bit of territory. We can't go to war over every small bit of territory..."
Sure, but have they grabbed enough territory total to make the cost in millions or billions of lives that would be ended in going to war with Russia worth it? I'm not sure they have.
At the same time, they're starting to run into countries that are NATO allies. When they look at annexing a NATO ally, now the question ls theirs to answer. Is the possibility of nuclear war worth annexing a slice of Poland?
Not only that, but economic sanctions are actually a good response to Crimea. The Russian economy isn't terribly strong, and the Russians are doing a fair amount of damage themselves by threatening foreign investments. If a lot of foreign money pulls out of Russia, you could see a situation in which the Russian people themselves throw Putin out of office in 5-10 years. There are some comparing to Nazi Germany, but Russia isn't exactly the economic machine that Germany was. Russia can still be thrown off balance pretty easily.
It's easy to say we should make a stand on principle, but we'd be talked about a very expensive stand on principle, one that itself might destroy the US economy and end the United States as a super power. But hey, if you think dragging Russia down with us is worth it...
Contrary to what your propaganda sources claim there is not the slightest doubt that Putin has violated public international law and basically all existing treaties between Russia and the Ukraine. It also doesn't take much intelligence to see who's the bad guy here, namely the one who sends masked soldiers as thugs into a peaceful neighboring country claiming they are there for "protection", besieging army bases and threatening & beating up inhabitants who do not speak Russian. The act is particularly evil, because the Russian and the Ukrainian speaking people in the Ukraine never had any problems getting along with each other, and now Putin's thugs are creating unrest in order to destabilize the new government in Kiev.
It's a fucking disgrace and you know it.
The ethnic Russians in Crimea seem quite eager with going back to Russian rule.
Yeah. And where do you plan on living after that? Or do you think that western Europe is going to open its doors to millions of immigrants?
You mean an irrelevant red herring. Wikileaks cables have nothing to do with polling the population of Crimea, which is 60% ethnic Russian. As for Putin's meddling, that's a perfectly valid subject, so long as you aren't throwing stones in a glass house. That's the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, wife of PNAC neocon Robert Kagan, openly bragging about how the U.S. has spent $5 billion supporting "pro-west" capitalists to give Ukraine "the future it deserves".
In front of banners for fucking Chevron and ExxonMobile. A scene that you would have laughed out of the room if you were Tom Clancy's editor for one of his ghostwritten books.
Not because we are bored. Because the war has already started on the Russian side, and all the Ukraine is doing now is losing. There is no way to avoid the war any longer. The invasion has happened. The only question is when Ukraine is going to fight -- when it can be confined to Crimea and the east, or when they are fighting an existential fight in the west?
If Ukrainian forces attack Crimea it will likely bring the Russians in force and they will probably take over half the country unless the whole of NATO goes to war with Russia at which point yes we are talking about at the very least a world wide economic disaster the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression and World War II.
A few weeks ago the Ukrainians were ruled by a Russian puppet president. Putin's reaction to the overthrow of that Kiev government has been fairly limited to just Crimea. If the price of freedom from Russian domination in the rest of Ukraine is giving the people of Crimea a referendum on Independence or joining the Russian Federation, then the West should focus on making sure that it is a free and fair election and keeping the peace in the rest of Ukraine.
Oh and then the US should just go after Assad hard in Syria with a tenfold increase in arming all rebels that can be vetted. Because if Putin wants to keep Crimea, ain't now way he should be allowed to keep his man in Syria.
And what other chance Iran has to avoid US invasion? It is coming sooner or later.
Putin should allow Czechnia, Dagestan and Inguchechia to vote about their independence of Russia. After all, neither of these parts of Russia has more than 4% ethnic Russians (whatever that means, they don't print ethnicities in passports like they did in the Soviet Union, right?).
And the Duke of Edinburgh has a claim to be Czar of Russia.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Idiot, Russians are there because Stalin put them there and moved Tatars away. I hope that one day you get treated same way.
Well, if you want Taters back in Crimea, where does it end? Would you be willing to return Turkey to the Greeks, and send all Turks back to Turkestan, or the ex Soviet 'stans'? Or send all Arabs throughout North Africa back to Arabia, since Arabs weren't the native people anywhere from Egypt to Dakar before the Islamic conquests. Or return Spain & Tunisia to the Phoenicians? Or the Jews ran Medina before Mohammed: how about asking Saudi Arabia to hand that over to Israel?
Yeah, Stalin deported the Taters to Uzbekistan, and that's their home: there is no reason for them to go back to the Crimea. The Crimean Khanate is dead: get over it! Uzbekistan is a pretty underpopulated country, and can easily keep them. Or else, send them a little north to Kazakhstan, where they'd have more space
It's interesting how both Russians and Ukrainians, who were famous for anti-Jewish pogroms, are now competing for being more philo-Semitic.
Them being ethnically russian has absolutely zero bearing on intentionally driving up tensions between people in a single region, as you note yourself in the second sentence. This isn't an "ethnic cleansing" like Armenia. Just as there are peaceful middle eastern folk who live freely in Israel, there are peaceful Russians who live freely in Ukraine.
I don't know how someone in such a position can't even pronounce Kiev properly though, that's pretty fucking sad from a cultural perspective. That part of things (and US involvement in general) is indeed a fucking insult/joke. However, I certainly wouldn't be able to tell you what the right answer/response is here.
Ukraine has a strong military, for reasons I can not explain the media has been representing them as not being a match for Russia. Raw equipment and manpower does not win a conflict. There are far more factors to consider. Russia has a total military strength of ~775k. Of that 57% of them are 1 year conscripts (publicly pledged not to be used in combat last year).The other 334k professional soldiers and officers (how many do you think are required to keep the conscripts under control), what percentage do you really think they can commit to Ukraine's 129k+ personal force plus their 1 million reserves (who all had 18-24 months service). Do you think Russia will abandon the defense of the entire country to invade Ukraine? Because thats what it would take. Do you really think Russia can call up their reserves when draft dodging and desertion have them 225k men under their legally required minimum strength? Perhaps thats the plan spread Russia thin, militarily and politically.
Certainly Crimea is an import port for Russia and they don't wish it to fall under control of an oppositional government. For the past decade China has been courting many Latin American countries. When political change comes to Cuba and the US were to sense Chinese influence there is no question America would militarily intervene due to the significant geopolitical consequences. I think the best policy is to deescalate the situation and let the people of Ukraine and Crimea vote for their futures and let the world respect their choices.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
Not saying it's pretty, but I really only see two options. Either we accept that they will have nukes, or we honor the commitments under which we convinced them to give up their nukes. Every moment that we hem and haw and drag our feet about evicting Russia as out treaty demands makes it that much harder to keep nukes out of the hands of Ukraine and even less stable actors. If we can't be trusted to respond on a reasonable timescale, then why would any halfway sane government give up their ability to defend themselves?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
[bookmarked]
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How do explain Russia taking over key pieces of infrastructure without violence? I would hazard to guess most Crimeans didn't resist because they didn't oppose it.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
It's never simple...
Oh wonderful, civilian uprisings are coups now.
Yes they are. Perhaps you need to learn the definition of coup, a military coup is only one type, what has happened in Ukraine fits the definition of a coup to a T.
They can surely make Nuclear Devices fairly rapidly. I doubt they will be able to weaponize them within a reasonable time-frame. (reasonable being: the time it takes Russia to steamroller the whole country and seize any facilities).
Assuming (hopefully) that the current situation on the ground is going to be static for a while and doesn't become a shooting war, then yes the Ukrainians can and probably should build a few dozen nukes with some delivery capability as a deterrent.
"You may recall it was the Russians that invaded."
How can they invade if their fleet is stationed there since forever.
"Do you have any limits to the extent you would permit Russia to seize additional territory? Western Ukraine? Poland? Finland? Malta? Scotland?"
Wrong example countries. The 2 countries were 'engaged' in sowjet times and while drunk, the 'groom' made a gift of the Crimea to the Ukraine, albeit his fleet was stationed there.
Since then the engagement was broken and the groom just wants his present back from the bride.
Who gets to decide if the new government in Kiev is legitimate or not?
But - you don't advance any argument that Ukrainians have any right to dictate what the current population should do. Your points are worthy of notice, but they have no bearing on the current situation.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
N. Korea shares a border with russia, and have far too much to lose selling a warhead to Ukraine, while Ukraine is not short on nuclear engineering ability and would gain little from having the warhead earlier because they certainly cannot trust a N.Korean design to be at all reliable
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Preposterous. Our American Civil War doesn't have diddly to do with international law.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
As a matter of fact, yes, I do look to RT among other sources for my news. I positively HATE to get all my propaganda from one source, exclusively. But, I have a suggestion for you. You might browse the wikipedia, to learn something of the history of Crimea. Crimea has never been Ukrainian. France, or Spain, or Italy have about as much claim on Crimea as the Ukraine has. Or, maybe Brazil. I didn't go to RT to learn the history of Crimea - it's available through a number of sources.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Amen to that. All those who have wargasms whenever conflict arises have the opportunity to ship out and become foreign fighters. The jihadist do that in Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. However it much more expedient to be a chicken hawk and send kids barely out of high school to be killed and maimed in war and after the fact complain about high taxes.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
How to explain it? There isn't much mystery I think.
Careful planning, speedy operations, overwhelming force, and generally achieving at least tactical surprise against a population with no viable means to either fight or defend itself. Even the Ukrainian military garrisons were greatly overmatched.
The Russians seem to have learned from their experiences in Georgia.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
What a marvellous idea. You are about to lose and fate of country population is going to depend on victorious army goodwill (or at least basic decency). That's just PERFECT moment for last, monumental fuck you.
There's no way Putin could want non-Western Ukraine because term West lost its past meaning as countries opposed to Soviet Union. Russia has re-aligned with cold war West now and can arguably be considered part of it. Besides, Ukrainian and Russian are off-shoot of same original people. There's no way Europe and US wouldn't treat them as another kind of Russian since it's kinda true. There would be no point for them to take a side here other than to troll Soviet Union, which doesn't exist anymore.
Greeting your invaders with flowers, salt, and bread doesn't always work out. Ukraine has been through that before.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Now, you see, this is the sort of shit which makes me REALLY wary of any Russian actions.
It's the sort of post that's drenched in pro-Russian propoganda that I draw parrallels to something that would come out of Rush Limbagh or Glenn Beck.
1) Except they didn't outlaw the Russian language. Someone proposed the bill and it got vetoed. But hey, you could twist that to be a major slight against the ethnic Russians.
2) You "side with Crimea and Russia?" Whoa dude. Whoa. While I'd LOVE to see a real actual vote by the people (or even their representative) about what they want to do, I'm not really sure I can trust the Crimean parliment because of all the armed foreign troops deciding who gets to go in and vote.
3) You are desperately trying to spin it that the Russians are helping the suppressed Crimean people. No dude. Just no.
Yeah, this is the sort of nationalistic bullshit which scares me. It's not so bad when the bad guy spews bullshit. But when he gets true believers that eat it up, you've got a bad situation where people get stupid and start launching things at each other.
Hey, if they really want to be Russian again, good for them. But the Russians troops would have to stop holding a gun to their head before I trusted anything come out of the region.
The moment Russians think that Ukraine is seriously trying to build a nuke, it WILL become shooting war. And not just to capture Crimea and (maybe) eastern part of Ukraine, but to unconditional surrender of whole country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
If we are talking ex Soviet, then their controls are all in the Kremlin. I recall that President Kravchuk in 2000 had wanted Ukraine to get rid of all its weapons: in fact, AFAIK, all the nukes in Ukraine & Kazakhstan had been relocated to Russia. Which makes sense - it would be inane for one country to host missiles whose controls are based in another, particularly when they are no longer even allies.
North Korea hardly has a border w/ Russia - their entire border is w/ China
The difference here is that the Ukraine already knows what it's like to be under Russian rule. I could imagine that they'd be pretty desperate for that to not happen again.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
True, but there's a third ingredient Ukraine doesn't have: money.
Russia occupies Romania/Crimea to protect their citizens - May 1853
Russia occupies Crimea to protect their citizens - Feb 2014
Old tactics that didn't work back then may work now, especially since USA is neutered by an ineffectual leader.
The results of war are already truly horrifying. The only thing that nukes bring to the table is the fact that they'll kill the politicians too. Which, unsurprisingly, is enough to prevent open war.
But then you can't really complain about their goal to have more powerful weapons.
The thing is we come back to the question of what really is a country, what makes a nation a nation? Well there can be two situations:
The first and oldest is just the ability to act as one, the strength such that nobody can realistically question your status. This is what you see with something like the US. Even if another nation doesn't like the US, or doesn't think it should be valid, they can't question that it is because they can't do anything about it. They can't attack or threaten the US's status in any way, the US is in control of its territory because nobody can say otherwise. Obviously this is the kind of thing that changes sometimes, and countries have indeed been conquered, reformed, etc, etc.
The other is international recognition and protection. There are a number of countries with little to no military, they couldn't hold off an attack from even a fairly small force, yet they are secure as countries. The reason is that they are recognized by international treaties, and thus the big boys, as being countries. They agree they are sovereign and won't interfere, and further often agree to defend them if someone does. Iceland is like that. They have no real military, but they are a NATO member, due to their strategic location. So they have some NATO bases, and the commitment of all NATO members to defend them if they are attacked.
Now, as this applies to Ukraine. They've been invaded by Russia. Russia has sent in troops, who are not wearing any identification, to take over Ukrainian military bases in Crimea. They really can't do much about it. If they fire on the Russian soldiers. Russia will just use that as an excuse to go all out on an invasion (Russian soldiers have been trying to provoke them in to firing) and Ukraine lacks the troops to push that back.
So they have two choices for independence: Either the international community steps in and helps, or they get more powerful weapons, the kind Russia doesn't want to fuck with.
Thus regardless of if you think the US or other countries have any specific obligation to them, that is the general state of things.
Oh you mean like Pakistan?
If you are about to die (or your country is about to dissolve), what would stop you from trying to get a parting shot off at the enemy who is destroying you?
So, by the same logic, the Republic of Texas should be allowed to secede, since they never agreed to be annexed by the USA.
I have regular access to both Russian and American news sources. I am an American, and most people would consider me a rather hawkish conservative. But I do have a Russian wife, and many of my closest friends are Russian or Ukrainian.
I have no love for Putin.
But the situation in Ukraine is *not* what you think it is if you're following the US media. It may be that Russian influence is causing problems in Crimea, but you should also know that that portion of the country is hugely ethnic Russian, and strongly in favor of Russian rule.
Furthermore, the new Ukrainian "government" has really staged a revolution, and hardly can be said to have popular backing. The leaders of the new government are a bunch of thugs, with *strong* ties to neo-Nazi fascism and came to power through violent means.
The old government in Kiev was corrupt, and needed to go. The president had signed an agreement and a plan was in place for an orderly transition to a more democratic government. The "revolutionaries" couldn't wait for the indicated time, and basically jumped the gun with a coup. Putin is right in that regard.
While I wish Russia would stay out of it, and I am not really sure that Russian "sympathesizers" in Crimea don't have official backing from Russia, I can also see the point of wanting to inject some stability in a region where there are both cultural ties and geopolitical considerations for Russian security.
The best thing would be if everyone would back off a bit, and an formal vote -- with international observers from both the West and Russia -- were held. My guess is that there are actually a couple of votes needed. One to elect a new government (or possibly confirm the existing one, transforming it from an "illegal" government formed by forceful coup into one that is democratically elected), and possibly one for Crimea to determine its fate as either a part of Ukraine, a part of Russia, or possibly as an entirely new state.
I have never been more angry with US media than I have with their handling of this Ukrainian situation. Their handling is extremely biased, to the point of completely yellow journalism. I highly recommend paying attention to other sources. The Russian media is of course hardly objective -- it is state controlled after all, and you can't watch Russian news without seeing Putin on screen talking at least 30% of the time (I think Putin secretly wanted to be a TV star). But, I've found information made available via BBC to be far more objective, and trustworthy, at least in this matter, than our local American media.
Do the research, and try to get the facts. Do not trust US media to give it to you clearly. I don't understand the reasons for the bias, but I guess a combination of post-Soviet bias combined with the fact that "bad" news sells, and what could be worse news than a highly aggressive Russia threatening Europe?
They knew damn well that they are not going to win alone. They were pinning down and bleeding majority of German army waiting for French and British forces to roll in from west. Maybe WW2 would be over in several months if only supposed allies had guts and basic decency to honour their obligations.
I guess they could just do like the U.S., and illegally invade an entire country.
Hi, you're young and don't know how the world works. That's okay. In the 1990's, The United States went to war with Iraq to save US's pal Kuwait from an Iraqi invasion. That war _literally_ never ended. There was a cease fire (and repeated attacks from Iraq on American forces during the cease fire), but a cease fire is not a peace treaty. The US was well within its rights to go into Iraq at any time, with UN or NATO buddies or solo.
So, when the party leaders refute their politics and "turn over a new leaf" - it's all better, then?
Uh oh.
A thing to consider, pal. Large parts of Americas belonged to various European countries. Can the Queen retake the land those pesky rebellious took away from the Crown?
Let's compare, say, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which collapsed and was absorbed by it's neighbors in 1795 with USA which was created in what, 1776? How does one country (or rather an union of two but it's semantics at this point) have any less right to it's land than a country that was ESTABLISHED around that time? By a coup, no less!
Most of the countries, with the exception of Romania, regained their independence from Russia at the end of WW1. Well, okay Finland, Estonia and Latvia weren't, strictly speaking, regaining independence but rather claiming it, but they lived in the various empires which occupied their lands as separate nations, with their own language and culture, and they lived there for quite a while, evident by names of places only in their language and their presence was also noted in neighboring countries' historical documents. If that's not a reason enough to acknowledge their claim to their land, I don't know what is.
Poland and Lithuania are countries with somewhat well-documented histories living in their lands for at least a thousand years. Kinda foolish to assume that they lost the right to their lands when numerically superior force occupied them.
And your last point is pure gold of Westerner/Russian thinking (I doubt using word Allies would sit well with any of the groups at this point). Really, Romania DARED to fight Russia? They DARED to try and take back the territory Russians have taken from them? Preposterous!
Same stands for a whole Eastern Front. Everyone remembers Germans invading, but while Germans were driven out, Russians, under the guise of 'liberation' essentially did the German thing but were not forced to leave. Cause, of course, West were fucking grateful that Russians kept throwing troops to the Jerrie meat grinder thus making life easier in the Western Front.
History is definitely not black and white. It seems though that you claim it's completely opposite.
Ask any of the people who were in semi-adult-and-above age during WW2 which did they prefer, knowing both - Russians, or Germans? I didn't remember anyone mentioning a whole lot of people fleeing to Soviet Union when Jerries struck... Must be yank propaganda though.
Oh and nuclear weaponry is not the answer. I'm not gonna go full armchair-general here, but one would think that in order for the nuclear weaponry to have it's effect of deterring any invaders, you actually need to have some on hand, not just a capability to build them, since I doubt Russians would just sit by and watch Ukrainians do the construct-a-nuke. Also add to that the uneasy possibilities of shitfest rivaling whole twentieth century if West would as much as step on Ukrainian soil to help them, and you have a nasty stuff brewing for the world. Or at least the region.
And not shilling, go educate yourself. Vice News has some good coverage, split in 5 pieces, on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The most important things to note:
1) The Russian forces are not wearing insignias, or identifying themselves as Russian military. They either refuse to identify themselves at all, or identify themselves as being from the non-existent "Ukrainian Self Defense Force."
2) They Russian units are surrounding and/or capturing Ukrainian military installations. They are not moving to their bases, they are taking over Ukrainian bases. The Ukrainian commanders have been keeping things very cool, to avoid Russia being able to say they were provoked, so there hasn't been any violence, but it is a military attack on military targets, make no mistake.
3) Speaking of provocation, the Russian military has been trying it. They've been moving in and taking over Ukrainian bases, then withdrawing, only to do it again later. They are trying to goad the Ukrainian military in to firing on them.
4) Russia has been importing other non-governmental groups like Serbian Paramilitary forces to do, well who knows, but it isn't likely anything good.
So no, it is nothing like the US in Japan. Now if suddenly troops showed up in Maizuru and blocked off the military port there, troops wearing American uniforms, speaking English, armed with American weapons but wearing no insignias, no identifiers, and refusing to answer questions. If they blockaded the base, and then later went in and took it over, well ya, I'd be saying that the US was invading Japan and that it was clearly underhanded and illegit.
Having bases in a country doesn't mean free run to do as you please.
Scotland?
They wouldn't dare invade Scotland.
And we have these too.
Stick Men
Cayman islands.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
True, it was the USSR's hunger for land that contributed to the fall of Poland. In the end that hunger led to the deaths of tens of millions of Russian's, but the USSR felt at the time the lives of tens of millions of Russian's was a fair price to pay.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
You seem to confuse Marxisim and Communism.
Communism means everyone helps everyone else, community ownership of the city and the infrastructure. Everyone is equal.
This is of course horrible, dastardly, and evil in the eyes of republicans, how DARE you take my riches and give them to someone who is poor, help help repression of the rich!
Marxisim is far closer to what we have here in the USA. It is class based, the RICH have different rules to live by than the workers do, and they also live differently than the poor. The poor must never have enough to be elevated out of their class, and the same goes for the working class, they must NOT be allowed into the ruling class, but Marx talks about how you pacify both classes by allowing one here and there to be elevated by the way of lottery. Thus it gives the image of hope to them where there really is none. Marx talks about how the rich and working should help the poor to keep them from revolting and rising up.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They could order from anyone who has ICBMs. 32 minute delivery or it's free.
Normal war is horrifying for the participants - nuclear war is potentially horrifying for many generations afterwards, and the fallout cannot be contained to your neatly demarcated battlefields.
Not that I disagree with your own assertion though - nothing like having to risk personally paying part of the price to cool off the aspirations of those arm-chair generals who get to call the shots. Not enough to stop them completely of course, but enough that they're slightly less likely to throw away millions of lives at something that may eventually claim their own children. Hey, now there's a thought - how about mandatory front-line service time for the children of any politician involved in approving a war of aggression (or military action - no loopholes), beginning as soon as they're of legal age to join.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It looks pretty certain now that Russia is going to get Crimea and not have to fire a shot doing so. But I'm betting the price is going to be the rest of Ukraine. I don't care if they speak Russian, even in Russia-friendly Eastern Ukraine the idea of Russia stealing part of their country is not going to sit well with them.
I don't think nukes are necessary, Putin isn't really prepared for a shooting war with Ukraine's substantial army. In 10-20 years I'd be surprised if Ukraine hadn't mostly left Russia's sphere of influence and was reasonably integrated with Europe. And at that point I don't think nukes are relevant as any war would be WWIII nukes or not.
I stole this Sig
My claim is that not that the Ukrainian state has an overt right to dictate, but that the Russian state does not have a not-quite-covert right to dictate.
Two to three weeks ago it was plausible that a majority of those living in Crimea would vote to join Russia.Today, it would be hard to prove that the result would not be because of the Russian state's thumb on the scales.
Dirty bombs are not military weapons. The effect is too slow. Even if you managed to poison advancing infantry divisions, they'd still kill you before they died.
Ezekiel 23:20
You do understand that Ukraine has enough expertize and know-how to make nukes within a few months?
They sure do. Now, where's their stash of weapons-grade fissile material?
Ezekiel 23:20
Yes, but as some others observed, you'd first have to switch a to much shorter refueling cycle (two months or so?). It's difficult to pull that off in a "public" reactor without someone noticing.
Ezekiel 23:20
So, if an AUTONOMOUS Republic wishes to remove itself from association with a nation that only has administrative ties to it - why not?
I don't see it as much different... as France deciding to invade Quebec, if Canada chooses to ban use of the French language on any signage or official documents, and refuses to allow Quebec independence and such.
Associations that are ORIGINALLY administrative become more complicated over time.
A lot of the US states only had administrative ties with the federal government. Seceding was still not permitted.
Contrary to your propaganda I think there is actually significant doubt as to whether he has violated international laws.
Well, soldiers operating without proper identification is a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Conventions and its subsequent modifications(the "Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977."). For example, from Article 37:
1. It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy:
[...]
(c) the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status;
Also the use of the Night Wolves violates article 43:
3. Whenever a Party to a conflict incorporates a paramilitary or armed law enforcement agency into its armed forces it shall so notify the other Parties to the conflict.
a quick check on the web :
Russia and North Korea share a 17 km border along the Tumen River. The border was created when Russia gained the territory of Outer Manchuria from China in the treaties of Aigun and Beijing in 1858 and 1860. The border area was regarded as peripheral within Russia for much of its history, regaining some importance during the Korean War as a transport route of weapons and aid from the Soviet Union. According to a Wikileaks cable from 2009, the border appears to be lightly militarized. No Chinese or North Korean troops are visible from the Russian side. There is an unobtrusive Russian outpost off to the side of the border, with a fairly large radar array.[1]
By "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.
-Manifesto of the Communist Party
How about we sweep away the communists/marxists/stalinists/feminists/national socialists/maoists instead and save ourselves the effort of digging graves for another hundred million innocent people.
After what the Russians did at Chernobyl?
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Russia is both wealthier and less corrupt than Ukraine today, though. Ukraine is no paradise, it's a mess.
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Wait, how and when did Crimea become "Russian" anyway? Oh yea, when Stalin kicked the Tatars out and moved the Russians in.
It's SEMI-autonomous which reflects the fact that historically it hasn't been either Russian or Ukrainian for long periods of time.
As for racist assholes, I think you're believing too much of Putin's propaganda about nazis and fascists, which were only a small part of the protests and government. As for removing Russian as an official language (hardly "outlawing" it) that was indeed provocative, and intended to poke a finger, but is it really racist? Given that Tymoschenko herself is a native Russian speaker from a Russian speaking town in eastern Ukraine who is a very prominent figure in the anti-Yanukovych camp, so is she racist or a Russian traitor or...?
If Crimea wants to leave, then a legal referendum could help with that. However the current one is not. You may argue that the "coup" wasn't legal but that doesn't mean Russia gets to pick and choose with breaking of laws is allowed (those in its favor) and which can not (those opposed to Russia). Having only 10 days to set up and hold and election by itself is a ridiculous farce. Given the presence of foreign troops, with citizens being blockaded within their barracks, hospitals being overrun by troops, journalists being hassled, houses of Tatars being marked specially with paint, there is no possible way this will be a free and fair election.
It'll be a Realpolitik country, like Finland was during cold war. Western leaning, but ever cautious about never saying the wrong thing to annoy it's neighbor, and making sure the neighbor gets the good trade bargains, and so forth.
It's not posturing, Russia has legitimate interests in the Ukraine such as a warm Water naval base, several natural gas pipelines and I could easily see how Russia would use military force to protect those interests from outside interlopers. Unfortunately using military force to protect those interests from the host nation is going to require a level of brinkmanship that is likely to be beyond even a former KGB Colonel's.
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Russia has a treaty regarding its military bases, not the entire province. Any family living outside those bases enjoy some smaller protections in some regions according to the treaty, but outside those regions they are just visitors. Right now though there are people who seem very obviously to be Russian soldiers w/o insignia who are occupying many places which are clearly not a part of the treaty. Of course Putin denies these are Russian soldiers. If they aren't Russian soldiers then the only alternative is that these are illegal militants and Russia theoretically should be opposed to them and instead supporting rule of law.
Similarly the US has a base in Guantanamo, but it does not have any rights whatsoever outside the borders of that base.
Yes, I do realize that. The problem is that Russian has two distinct words denoting Russian ethnicity/self-identification ("russkiy") and citizenship ("rossiyanin") which does not exist in English. The soldiers in the videos use the word that denotes citizenship. Not to mention various other slip ups (some have even named the place of origin where their units are normally stationed; heck, there was one guy from Pskov VDV who was openly wearing a cap with it inscribed!).
Anyway, at this point, believing that tens of thousands of troops, all dressed in brand spanking new Russian digital camo (which was only adopted a few years before and not used by any other ex-Soviet republic), carrying the best gear that Russian army has at its disposal (Pecheneg, AS Val etc), and riding around on BTRs with Russian flag colors on the tips of their exhausts, are some kind of "spontaneously organized local self defense force" requires going so far beyond Occam's razor that it's not even funny. Anyone who seriously believes that there are no Russian troops in Crimea is either not familiar with the facts, or plainly retarded, or is intentionally misrepresenting the issue.
Perhaps you can use those in the upcoming Scottish war of independence...
It may be that Russian influence is causing problems in Crimea, but you should also know that that portion of the country is hugely ethnic Russian, and strongly in favor of Russian rule.
This is kind-of-almost true, but the majority of the Crimean residents do not support it (yet). At least according to the following study.
In Ukraine, as well as in Russia majority of respondents wants both countries to be independent, but friendly - with open borders, without visas and customs houses (in Ukraine – 68%, in Russia – 59%). In Ukraine with numbers have decreased since November, 2013 by 5%, in Russia – increased by 4%. Integration with Russia into a single state is supported by 12% of respondents in Ukraine, and during recent years this number has decreased from 20% to 9%, but after Maidan – increased by 3%. The main part of supporters of this idea of unification with Russia is in the East (26%) and South (19%), while the smallest part is in the Center (5%) and West (1%) of Ukraine. By regions majority of integration with Russia in one state is in Crimea (41%), Donetsk district (33%), Lugansk district (24%), Odessa district (24%), Zaporizhzhya (17%) and Kharkiv (15%) districts, but even there support to the current status of relations with Russia - as two independent and friendly states – prevails.
Among Russians the desire to have Ukraine and Russia as two independent and friendly states (with open borders, without visas and customs houses) prevails as well as among Ukrainians (68% and 63% respectively). Integration into one state is supported by 9% of Ukrainians and 32% of Russians. There is direct dependence between desire to unite with Russia into a single state and age of respondents: among youth up to 30 years old 5% want this unification to be realized, among people of 30-54 years old – 11% support that, and among people older than 55 years – 17%.
It is obvious, that among supporters of joining the Custom Union, there is more people supporting unification with Russia (26,5%), than among those, oriented on joining the EU (1%). However, even among supporters of entering the Custom Union majority wants to preserve the status-quo in relations with Russia (69%). Among people, having negative attitude towards Maidan, only 21% wants to unite with Russia into a single state. Among supporters of political parties the highest percentage of people, who wants join Ukraine to join Russia, is among communists’ electorate (35,5%), but even in this case majority consider that Ukraine and Russia should be friendly independent states (63%). Among Party of Regions voters 28% support unification with Russia.
In Russia 16% of population support unification with Ukraine into one state.
Many of those countries broke away too, and were only subject nations for a relatively short period of time (ie, the passed back and forth over time as the history of European wars went on). At the time of WWI, Soviet control of those countries was relatively weak as they had their own internal problems to finish sorting through, and in WWII most of those countries had been considered independent. USSR took the opportunity to claim some of countries after the war as its own.
The Baltic nations (or the land under them) had been part of Swedish empire for as long as they were a part of the Czarist Russian empire, so they were never really Russian any more than they were Swedish. Whenever they got a chance to get away from Russia or USSR they did so.
And yes, many of those countries did some minor allying with Germany during WWII, often grudgingly, but this was because they feared Stalin more than Hitler, because they remembered their bad history with Russia but Germany was an unknown. But Russia used this as a context for taking over the countries and subsequently punishing them (ie, the Tatars were kicked out of Crimea as punishment for alleged collaboration with Nazis).
Russian foreign minister Lavrov has accused Ukraine of violating treatries by not allowing in Russian citizens. So it seems to ignore the treaties on one hand but complains when the other side isn't abiding by them...
(Sort of a silly argument by Lavrov, given that there's effectively an existing state of occupation by either Russian soldiers or pro-Russian separatist militants, so Ukraine would have to be really really stupid to let in even more Russian citizens to undermine the state.)
What a marvellous idea. You are about to lose and fate of country population is going to depend on victorious army goodwill (or at least basic decency). That's just PERFECT moment for last, monumental fuck you.
I'm not sure victorious army goodwill is something the Russian Army is known for, I have a Polish friend who learned Russian sitting under the muzzle of a soviet tank and he didn't see any victorious army goodwill.
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Putin has actually denied that they're Russian soldiers. So either he's outright lying, or he's confused, or they're technically not soldiers but still under effective control and budget of Russian military, or he's telling the truth. However the most far-fetched hypothesis seems to be that he's telling the truth, and that there was a highly organized and equipped set of separatists just waiting and ready to go.
Openly hostile? Ukraine has not been trying to aggravate Russia, it just happens that Russia is pissed because they're not best friends any more and that Russia's crony is no longer in power. Ukraine was not openly hostile; maybe some of the protesters were, but the protesters were formed from a broad cross section of people with various feelings. I think most Ukrainians before and after this crisis would vastly prefer to remain friends with both east and west instead of being forced to choose just one.
Ever heard of MAD?
"far-fetched". Understatement of the year, and we're still in March.
He's lying.
He is outright lying (not the first time). Anyone who saw the available video material and who understands Russian well enough to follow the conversations can reach only one conclusion here, since the soldiers in question are readily admitting that they're from Russia on numerous occasions. This is without even getting into how they're equipped (forget the uniforms; if they're hastily organized self-defense units, where'd they get AS Val from?)
And it just so happens that you parrot the exact train of thought that Putin and co. keep repeating. I'm sure you formed your opinion through careful thought and research and are not a shill.
You'd be suprised just how cooperative people get when there are guns figuratively and literally pointed at their heads.
I still remember the 'spontaneous' Libyan insurgents carrying H&K G36 rifles. That was a riot.
Nah. Its totally bogus. They even had vehicles with Russian Army plates. A lot of them identified themselves as Russian and some units were even identified.
This is just Putin being heavy handed as usual. He did not even bother trying to actually make this an actual covert operation.
That one was actually explainable.
The equivalent of what we are seeing in Crimea, OTOH, is if Libyan insurgents were also sporting flecktarn camo, and carrying MG4 and G28 in addition to G36. Oh, and riding around on Boxers with black-red-yellow stripes painted on them.
you should also know that that portion of the country is hugely ethnic Russian, and strongly in favor of Russian rule
Sudetenland redux. Perhaps parts of New York should secede from the US and join Israel. Or parts of Chechnya could split from... oh nevermind.
Crimea has a lot of Russians because it has a Russian military base in there.
The old government in Kiev was corrupt, and needed to go. The president had signed an agreement and a plan was in place for an orderly transition to a more democratic government. The "revolutionaries" couldn't wait for the indicated time, and basically jumped the gun with a coup.
Sure. Still it is no excuse for invading a country.
Furthermore, the new Ukrainian "government" has really staged a revolution, and hardly can be said to have popular backing. The leaders of the new government are a bunch of thugs, with *strong* ties to neo-Nazi fascism and came to power through violent means.
Allegedly the new Crimean Prime Minister put there by Putin isn't all roses either.
It is just an imperialist power grab pure and simple.
That would be a problem if they are invading, however they are operating in a country where they were invited.
The Russians weren't invited by the Ukraine. I know the Crimea Republic is autonomous, but they aren't considered sovereign and hence, can't just invite Russian military troops in. The Ukraine can however, but they didn't.
Also, the Night Wolves are apparently engaging in a bit of "supplies" smuggling through the Ukraine from the previous link I posted.
No. States do not have the right to succeed. That argument was settle internationally when Lincoln sent Sherman to South Carolina to burn down their houses,kill their livestock, and rape their women. What Crimea is doing is wrong.
States have the "Right" to seceed. And the parent country has the right to invade and bring them back. Who wins? Whomever is able to fight off the other, that's who wins. There's no morality here in either situation.
> Ukraine are a bunch of racist assholes
No, historically the secessionists are the racists. You are siding with slave holders. You, and your Republican kind, are disgusting. Your time has passed. Just give-up already on the right to own other humans.
I think this topic is a little too important for the same old stupid trolling. Save that for the Microsoft story.
This is called manufacturing a casus belli. It is done quite often.
Who do you think provided the technical expertise for North Korea to design their missiles?
I'm not so sure about the coup. Because it really is not clear. First off, you can not trust one word that Yanukovych says, period. He basically engineered his own election by many accounts; of course whether that is true or not is debatable as well. Second, he was losing badly in negotiations when many of his MP allies were deserting. Third, he left quickly which surprised many in government. Yes things didn't follow all the rules (the rules were written to give president most of the power and to make sure parliament couldn't mess this up).
My theory is that he knew the end was coming. If he lost the elections later in the year (almost certain to happen) he'd have been exposed to a lot of recrimination and prosecution for various misdeeds (all that missing money). So he cut and ran. He wasn't going to stick around for an impeachment.
The constitution is a piece of paper. There is theory versus practice: the theory is the constitution, and the practice is what actually happens on the ground. The parliament reverted to an earlier constitution from last decade. Which is more legitimate than the other? The one he got rid of in order to consolidate more power or the one he replaced it with? Yes at one point there were enough parliamentary votes to bring in the new constitution that is true.
Yanukovych was not the entirety of the government. He has no authority to ask Russians to invade on his behalf. Even if he was still in office he did not have that power as a single person, even with the greatly expanded presidential powers that were added to the constitution while he was there. What he says now is irrelevant. You either assume the current government is legitimate or illegitimate, Yanukovych is out of the picture.
So maybe it was a coup. So what? It gives no extra power to Putin, except an excuse to use his military (I say "his" purposely, most people in his government appear to be his assistants rather than his limits to power). A coup gives no extra legitimacy to Yanukovych either.
Some part of the Crimea wants the Russians out of there too. There is no basis in any treaties for Russia to put troops outside their bases and surrounding zones in Crimea, the treaties are clear where the boundaries are. Going all the way up to the gates of Ukrainian military bases are most certainly not allowed in the treaties. It's clear that this will end badly. Tatar houses are being marked with the same symbol that Stalin used before deporting them, as an attempt by some people there to intimidate the minorities. No way are these pro-Russian fascists going to be singing kumbaya with their former neighbors (yes, people on both sides can be fascist), there are signs this could play out like the breakup of Yugoslavia.
They mine the plutonium out of Chernobyl and separate it with PUREX then they make the nukes. Or just make a 'dirty bomb' with chunks of Chernobyl radioactive waste. They have rockets to launch the material if they want to. Ukraine still manufactures Tsyklon aka R-36.
Yes, but it is enough to have Poland reserve some troops for the east instead of committing them all to the west. You can't just ignore Russia leaving its armies on your borders. Both sides were anxious to grab at least some part of Poland.
Many in Crimea, especially in cities, are closely allied to Russian military personnel there. Families, girlfriends, etc. They get most of their business from Russian military, etc. In other parts of Ukraine the ethnic Russians aren't as fervently pro-Russia.
There appears to be one or more gaps in your knowledge.
COLLABORATION, TERROR AND RESISTANCE
There are various reasons suggested for Vlasov’s sudden conversion. His brother was shot in the civil war for alleged anti-Bolshevik conspiracy; he had given his elderly parents a cow as a present, and they were punished for it as ‘rich peasants’; he is reported to have been shocked by the sight of Ukrainians greeting the Germans with flowers, bread and salt, which awoke in him a realization of how unpopular Stalin was.
As you can see what I wrote was history, nothing to do with the Bible. Now, if you want to address some likely additional gaps in your knowledge, try this link.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
That sir is Stalinisim.... we will bury you....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The 'spontaneous' rebellion also enjoyed NATO bombardment of Gaddafi's motorcade when he was attempting to flee to Egypt.
It was a propped up coup. Worse of all they used Al-Qaeda and the bozos who usually destabilize South Algeria in the coup and gave them weapons. That is going to bite Europe in the ass eventually. Especially because South Algeria is the *other* source of natural gas into Europe other than Russia via pipeline. Other than that the only option is ship from Niger by boat or some other less cost effective means like that.
An all out military conflict between Russians and Ukrainians is unlikely. They're like Uruguay and Paraguay, culturally speaking. So it's almost pointless to discuss in an all out war. In my opinion Russia would win but would have to deal with counter-insurgency for years. Ukrainians have experience with guerrilla warfare going way back to WWII.
Russia's armed forces have improved a lot in the last 10 years or so. They're a lot more modern and better equipped now. Looking at the TV images of Russians and their equipment in Crimea right now and compared the badly trained, poorly dressed and trained Russian troops from TV images of the Chechen Wars, the difference is huge. Russians are getting modern communications equipment, better fighting vehicles, new tanks and aircraft. Ukraine hasn't upgraded almost anything since the fall of USSR. One funny (or sad?) story about Ukraine's military is how they were trying to fix their only submarine. At some point the submarine had to be welded to a bridge in the port, or it would sink. Eventually, they repaired the sub, but with the help of Russians because a pro-Russian president was in power back then.
I don't think Kiev is serious about developing nuke weapons again. Ukrainian government is broke and the military is in pretty sad shape. There were pretty much no new aircraft, tanks, or ships for the last 20 years. They just keep using the old rusting USSR equipment.
As is, they will probably lose their independence.
There is no basis to say that. Russia does not claim the territory of the "mainland" Ukraine. Worst case scenario is if Russians instigate another revolt, this time in Ukraine's eastern province where pro-Russian forces are strong.
They throw away the elected government (yes, it was corrupted, but elected) through a revolution, which means the former constitution does not apply anymore. And that constitution tied Ukraine together. Once it is no more, there is no more legal grounds to retain a part of the territory that want to separate.
I hope ukrainians will manage to sort this mess, but it does not smells good.
The 'spontaneous' rebellion also enjoyed NATO bombardment of Gaddafi's motorcade when he was attempting to flee to Egypt. It was a propped up coup. Worse of all they used Al-Qaeda and the bozos who usually destabilize South Algeria in the coup and gave them weapons.
I do think that the rebellion was spontaneous enough. There's no denying that Western countries heavily backed the rebels, including aerial support and spec ops teams on the ground though. Or that many rebel factions were hardline Islamist, and some aligned with al-Qaeda.
That is going to bite Europe in the ass eventually. Especially because South Algeria is the *other* source of natural gas into Europe other than Russia via pipeline.
Well, they're building a pipeline to Azerbaijan (which doesn't go through Russia) for a reason. And then there's also Turkmenistan. And then there's shale gas, of which, ironically, Ukraine of all countries is likely to have a boatload of (and shale formations are in western parts of the country).
Also, Iran, which would be quite willing to export gas to Europe, except for that whole sanctions thing. It will be interesting how the perspective on Iran might suddenly change now, though.
No, that's communism: chapter 2, proletarians and communists, of the communist manifesto. There's plenty of other good stuff in there too if you take a look, equal liability of all to work (slavery), confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels (wow), centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State (delightful), and so on and so forth. Stalin may have been the one to most prominently implement it but he was just playing it by the book.
The communist book.
Strong military is important, but you can't have a strong military without a strong economy. The Ukrainian economy has been doing pretty badly, and Ukrainian military has been suffering from underfunding. They haven't received any new equipment for decades, so all they use now is Soviet built tanks, ships, aircraft (most of which don't fly by now), etc.
Ukraine will not afford to develop own nukes on its own, so it's all empty posturing IMO.
no, they get the nuclear fuel from Russia to put in their made-in-Russia reactors. that they mine natural uranium is of no import, they have not the facilities nor expertise to enrich uranium or extract plutonium
Honestly, I don't think nukes are enough to stop a US invasion of Iran.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Oh good. Let's name a ship the Lusitania and ship some nukes over. That'll go well.
... they lived there for quite a while, evident by names of places only in their language and their presence was also noted in neighboring countries' historical documents. If that's not a reason enough to acknowledge their claim to their land, I don't know what is.
Does any of that apply to the Ukrainian claim to Crimea? Ukraine never fought for it, Ukrainians never lived there, nobody speaks Ukrainian in Crimea.
Ask any of the people who were in semi-adult-and-above age during WW2 which did they prefer, knowing both - Russians, or Germans? I didn't remember anyone mentioning a whole lot of people fleeing to Soviet Union when Jerries struck... Must be yank propaganda though.
Yup yup. Ask any of the jews which they prefered...
And yes, many of those countries did some minor allying with Germany during WWII, often grudgingly, but this was because they feared Stalin more than Hitler, because they remembered their bad history with Russia but Germany was an unknown.
Define "minor allying". Czechoslovakia was an industry powerhouse for the Nazis manufacturing a big chunk of German weaponry. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and others were supplying troops by the hundreds of thousands. I don't think they did so grudgingly, more like they had no other choice having been in the German zone of control.
(ie, the Tatars were kicked out of Crimea as punishment for alleged collaboration with Nazis)
One may argue whether such large scale deportation was an adequate response to that (adequate by the 1944 standards, not modern day standards. USSR was still at war then) , but the Tatar collaboration is well documented and is not alleged in any way.
And it is apparent if you simply take a look at the map.
Quite a bit of it is in eastern Ukraine, where Russians are a minority.
That's revisionist bullshit. You don't need a treaty between two nations to make the act of war illegal. US forces that were shot at were violating Iraqi air space and were firing on Iraqi forces. That's an act of war, alright, but not on the part of the Iraqis.
Not only was the invasion illegal under international law, but under U.S. law as well, since the congressional authorization was conditional, and the conditions were never met.
You must be an old one indeed to have learned to dissemble so smoothly.
Play Command HQ online
And is as legitimate as it gets.
Yanukovych's de facto removal from office was a coup.
His own party has voted against him after he tried to sell Ukraine to Mr Putin.
A coup is something of much smaller scale, not result of a massive nation wide protest.
And some part of the population in Crimea wants them there.
Some population in Kaliningrad wants Germans there.
Some population in Kuril islands wants Japanese there.
Some population in Siberia wants Chinese there.
And oh, some population in USA wants Russian there too. Shall they?
So, an "invasion"? Not clear.
That's what illegally sending troops into foreign country is.
As for "an existential fight in the west", it's doubtful that Putin wants to absorb all of Ukraine.
There is no doubt he wants as much of it, as he can grasp. He claimed USSR collapse to be a "big tragedy" and from time to time whines about territories lost by collapse of russian Empire back in 1918.
Keep in mind that Ukraine is a synthetic state, based on the "Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" set up by the USSR...which was created with a bunch of ethnic Russians exactly to keep Ukrainian nationalism in check.
The biggest country in Europe with 44 million citizens (about 80% of them Ukrainians and "whopping" 17% Russians) is "synthetic" eh?
Are you Russian, my friend? Because I've only heard BS like that coming from pro-Putin Russians.
If you check Russian history books, they only fought defensive wars yet somehow kept rapidly expanding their territory.
Being provoked is a new trend from 2008.
I think a lot of nations are watching very closely. We have the conflict in the Mideast, where Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran are often cited to be nuclear hopefuls. Israel is/was expected to give up their bomb if/when a proper security structure is in place.
Then there is the potential conflict in the South China Sea, where China just unveiled a military budget that it's neighbors can't even hope to match conventionally some day. So we have Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and possibly Indonesia eyeing "other alternatives".
And we have the standoff between India and Pakistan, both of which were hopefuls for a nuclear disarmarment, should a peace deal be reached at some point. I don't need to mention that China, just like Russia, being nuclear capable and having had a war with India and still some territorial disputes, will make it impossible for India to give up it's nukes. Especially when treaties like the Budapest Memorandum are not worth the paper they are written on.
We also have some very old rivalries in South America. Brazil is expected to have enough material and the scientific resources to make a bomb. There are also rumours. Putting regional rivals such as Argentina and Venezuela on edge. And even though Venezuela is nowhere near nuclear capability, the mere chance is probabely making the Colombians uneasy.
Have I missed anything?
No, it's not 'Putin's thugs', it were the ultra-right-wing (read: nazis) among the current Ukraine's rulers who started the mess. The first thing they did was dismissal of the language law. Do you really believe this fact as well as pro-fashist parties in the government should get applause in Crimea or in Eastern Ukraine?
If the former Soviet segments blast each other into oblivion should we care? The Arab nations are a similar issue. If they happily continue murdering each other, as has been there norm for many centuries, just why should the US give a fig?
their was a coup/revolution as such all such treaties are null and void
No, that need not be the case, especially if most of the signatories to the treaty weren't involved in the revolution such as is the case with the so-called "Budapest Memorandum".
Why is the revolution is recognised in Kiev but one in Crimea isn't?
For me, because the first one isn't being controlled by a former KGB officer. Russia can elect whoever they want to higher office. But I still think they're a bit crazy to have elected Putin. And his fingerprints (as well as his motley army of henchmen) are all over the second "revolution".
Neither did Iran, Syria, and North Korea due to years of crippling sanctions but they all managed to pursue nuclear weapons programs.
Every day Ukrainians in the Crimea are resisting; violence between pro-Ukraine and pro-Russia groups is becoming a daily occurrence, for example.
The Ukrainian troops in Crimea aren't responding with force because a) they're not batshit insane and b) they know full well that Russia wants them to start shooting so that it can respond.
The longer the Ukrainians just sit there, the bigger a fool Putin looks and the lie about "protecting Russians in Crimea" becomes thinner and harder to maintain.
Holodomor: 1932.
Operation Barbarossa: 1941.
Are you claiming that Stalin had a tardis?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
None of what you say is news to me and I'm also not basing any of my assessments on any US media, because they total shit. (Well, I do sometimes take a glimpse at the NY times web pages which are not too bad.) I'm also not from the US.
It is an undeniable fact that Putin is about to annex Crimea in violation all treaties with Ukraine and international public law. It is also a fact that Russia has no track record of protecting minorities in their own country, in fact they suppress them brutally and Moscow's streets are roaming with all kinds of thugs and Neo-Nazis. Putins alleged "reasons" for protecting the Russian speaking population of Ukraine are ridiculous and entirely made up. Moreover, it is a fact that Crimea was occupied by foreign enemy forces and you must be a complete moron if you think that about 16000 to 30000 "pro-Russian self-defense forces" suddenly emerged from the Crimean population, incuding Russian military trucks, Russian combat fatigues, Russian arms and specialized Spetznaz equipment.
The way you depict the political situation is also not quite right. You've fallen prey to propaganda in Russian media, which works even if you think it doesn't (like advertisement). Everybody knows that about 60% of the population on Crimea speaks Russian, but doesn't mean that they want to join Russia. In any case a referendum is staged and meaningless, even the decisions of the Crimean parliament are not worth the paper they are printed on as long as it is occupied and controlled by Russian troops. It's not as if Russia had free elections, it is essentially a dictatorship run by cleptocrats and former KGB officers.
You also seriously underestimate Putins efforts if you think all those "pro Russia" cheers are honest expression of feelings. He can literally spend billions of dollars on the Crim to assure the right outcome and will still make a bargain. Perhaps there is a slight real majority for becoming a part of Russia there. We will never know because the whole situation and the referendum has has "FSB" written all over in huge letters. Until now the situation was halfway decent but it's getting uglier each day. The Ukrainean minority on the Crimean peninsula is already starting to suffer and it's also not so easy to flee.
You are right if you think that Putin has no partical interest in the Crimea per se, though. All he wants is to keep the Black Sea Fleet were it is, access to the ports and consequently keep Ukraine out of Nato, and he will do anything to ensure that, even if it means that he has to invade Ukraine as a whole and install another puppet regime there. The people in Kiev know that, of course, and that they would loose any direct confrontation, hence the restrained reaction. That being said, he is right in one thing: The Svoboda party is a bunch of Nazi thugs. But as mentioned before, it's not as if there weren't any Nazis in the Duma ...
Crimea also has no electrical generation capabilities of it's own, it relies on Ukraine for 100% of it's power and 82% of it's fresh water.
We'll see how this plays out though, the Crimean Tatars won't accept the Russians without a fight.
vi? Who's that?
You don't have to start a war when you send troops in. We should've put a stop to this in Georgia, we should've deployed vast amounts of equipment and troops and rolled them right up to Russia's border with Georgia to make a point way back in 2008. We should do the same now.
We should be matching their deployment in Crimea with our own in Ukraine along Russia's borders and give them a far more simple option - we'll back off and withdraw, if you back off and withdraw. Right now just letting them take Crimea without question means they'll keep on doing it, just as they saw they got away with it in Georgia.
Even if not the Ukraine, we should be bordering troops around the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast with an explicit threat that annexation of Crimea will be met by Western annexation of Kaliningrad Oblast.
Right now Putin has nothing to love because our counter-threats are pathetic. Make it clear that for every bit of territory he gains through annexation he will lose some somewhere else and it's a much more clear cut choice for him.
We don't have to start a shooting war, we just have to match his non-shooting tactics in kind such that in the same way nuclear weapons and the MAD principle make nuclear war meaningless, threatening to match each Russian annexation with a Western annexation would make annexation pointless.
It doesn't take long before all those small territories we just let him have start to stack up as much larger land masses. Let him take Crimea and Eastern Ukraine will be next.
Yes, 3.5 years while under no international scrutiny or interference, with a near to unlimited budget as you can get, and without the threat of your infrastructure being destroyed at any moment in time.
No country in the world enjoys those advantages today.
I don't give a flying fuck who invaded. Starting a nuclear war over some local pissing contest is NOT an option.
What is to you a "local pissing contest" is to the Ukrainians a foreign invasion.
How would you feel if Putin had decided that Alaska should really go back to Russia and sent troops there? That is exactly what has happened in the Ukraine.
The thing is it will get ugly whatever you do. Let's imagine a scenario.
Russia decides that since the rest of the world hasn't done an awful lot, it will invade eastern Ukraine on the pretext that there are ethnic Russians being threatened. It turns out that the Ukrainian army isn't quite as crap as Russia imagined, in reality the Ukrainian army is mostly professional whereas the Russian army is mostly conscript. Additionally, the Ukrainians are defending their territory so their army is more "committed" to the cause. The Polish, being friends of Ukraine and still never having forgiven Russia over what went on with the Soviet Union start providing some support, too. Inevitably, just through sheer force of numbers and the bullheadedness of Putin, the Russians begin to overrun the Ukrainians, and their posture is that Ukraine is fighting back so they have the right to keep going until Ukraine stops. As the Russians move west, Poland starts providing actual troops who are now in combat with Russian troops.
Russia manages to push this back though, and decides to give Poland a bloody nose under the justification that they sent troops. Since the west imposed more sanctions, seizing assets of Russian oligarchs, the Russian economy is starting to falter and Putin thinks that the west won't do anything militarily despite Poland being a NATO member, and he feels he doesn't have an awful lot to lose but a lot to gain if he can make Poland fear Russia, so he continues with the intent of crippling the Polish military but not actually permanently invading Poland. However, he's miscalculated, and NATO lives up to its treaty obligations. The US, UK, France, Germany and various other countries mobilize to defend the Polish. The Russian army at the Polish border is rather war-weary by now and is facing well equipped NATO troops and gets pushed back into Ukraine. NATO intends to finish the job and reset the borders to their pre-war conditions, with Ukraine no longer under occupation. They don't have any intent of pushing into Russia. However, Putin is now facing the ignominy of his miscalculation, and decides that defeat isn't acceptable and attacks NATO forces with tactical battlefield nuclear weapons. Many NATO troops are lost, and there are serious civilian casualties in areas caught by the blast on the Polish/Ukrainian border. Now the nuclear taboo has been broken, NATO needs to make sure the Russians can't come back, so destroys a few key strategic targets in the supply chain for Russian troops with tactical nuclear weapons. Russia now feels very vulnerable, and Putin in an effort to scare NATO from fighting further attacks a few strategic targets in the west with strategic nuclear weapons...and NATO replies in kind.
Fortunately a cease fire is hastily brokered before it gets completely out of control, and only a few strategic nuclear weapons are used. But in the meantime, the United States has lost most of its Gulf Coast refining capacity to nuclear strikes (amongst other strategic targets), there are millions dead and a humanitarian crisis in the United States and Europe of catastrophic proportions. Just the injured in the Gulf Coast alone are more than all the resources of the entire healthcare system in the United States can deal with, so the injured are left to fend for themselves. To make matters worse, the Russians detonated a high altitude burst destroying all electronics and communications over a large proportion of North America and Europe meaning just keeping the uninjured supplied with food becomes a challenge due to the loss of working vehicles of all types and the destruction of the electricity grid and communication systems. On top of that, the soot injected into the stratosphere causes a "decade without a summer", leading to poor crop yields to add to the problems of food distribution. Progress of industrial society in Europe, the US and Russia is set back by decades.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Expertise and know-how counts for little. Essentially every country in the world either has that or could acquire it in short order. What matters in reality is stocks of highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium. Ukraine (probably) has neither and does not have the infrastructure to produce either on a short timescale.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Yes, it's a synonym for crazy.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
And if we had adopted that view when the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, we'd likely be living in a nuclear wasteland today. Not every invasion warrants a world war, and not every aggressive leader is the next Hitler.
I shudder to think what the world would look like today if Putin had decided that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a sign that President Bush was the next Hitler.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It's a local pissing contest. It's been going on for decades now, and this is just the latest round. If you think the Ukrainians are just a bunch of innocent noble heroes, then you obviously don't know the first thing about that country. There are no heroes in this story, and attempting to create them through willful delusion will only make things worse.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It would have made zero difference, and in fact would have probably made things worse.
Russia backed a pro-Russian Ukraine government, and are now throwing a tantrum when they were deposed.
Had the Ukraine nuclear weapons, Russia would have come in harder and faster than it already did, using the excuse of safe guarding the nuclear weapons. Saying you are going to develop them, only asks Russia to please come invade the rest of our country, as we are giving you a convenient excuse you can use with the rest of the world.
The Crimean Tatars were all deported, and the ones who've returned are nowhere near enough demographically to mean squat
I'll agree with all that but part of it is also that Crimea seems to be siding with Russia. I was reading an old thread on militaryphotos.net (they're really good at collecting photos of military actions and giving commentary on what exactly is being shown) dealing with the Kiev riots, and from months ago, the Crimea parliament said that Kiev better quell the rioters because it would come or go with Russia. This shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody watching the situation.
I think your scenario fails around the Polish factors.
The rest is plausible.
Yeah, uh-huh. And to really throw people off, this was never mentioned. In stead they sent the only slightly credible they could find among their little junta and had him lie to the UN.
And actually, just before the invasion, Blix et al were reporting that compliance was materializing. But you know, "too little too late" because the generals already had their battle hardons on.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Astroturfing.
ignore the neo-fascist coup in Kyev, and worse, encourage fascist to violate the NPT and arm themselves with nukes, lovely
You don't have to invade the Crimea to query the validity of the government in Kiev. The easiest way to avoid the "neo-fascists" arming themselves with nukes is to withdraw from the Crimea.
Calling what's happening in Crimea an occupation is like saying the US is occupying Japan, Jordan, Saudi and dozens of others due to Okinawa and its other military bases- the Black Sea Fleet has been stationed in Sevastopol even before there was a Ukraine. Further, Russia's military presence in Crimea is in line with the terms agree upon by Russia, Ukraine, The Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Semi-Autonomous Special Region of Sevastopol.
Bullshit. The terms agreed by Russia and Ukraine do not include laying siege and threatening assault on Ukrainian military bases, which is what Russian troops are doing.
Incidentally, what the fuck is this mythical 'Autonomous Republic of Crimea'?
Plopping down missile systems on Russia's doorstep and trying to encircle it is an act of aggression.
Building strong defences is an act of aggression only to the paranoid.
Some of us remember who crushed the fascist when Europe turned a blind eye last time, and what it cost us.
Who the fuck turned a blind eye last time? And yes, it cost us the world's largest and greatest Empire.
Now, fuck off with your blatant propaganda. Maybe this works in Russia but the rest of us have the advantage of an education.
Given the attitude of Russians to gay people, I'd say propaganda is alive and kicking there.
You don't need propaganda everywhere for a world war, just enough success within the aggressors. Or do you expect the rest of the world to lie down and roll over?
I haven't seen evidence that the population wants to be part of Russia.
Why should they have to abandon their homes because of some international treaty with a government that no longer exists.
Who is making them abandon homes? Must be something the UK media isn't reporting. I hadn't heard of any ethnic (or nationalistic) cleansing taking place.
Incidentally, the treaty still exists - it's with the nation, not the government of the time.
it is hardly surprising that the Crimea is running with open arms to Russia
You say 'running with open arms', I say 'prodded with bayonet equipped guns'. Funny how things can look differently depending who you believe.
They are effective deterrents. "Withdraw or lose Moscow, St Petersburg, Sochi and all of your naval bases"
Crazy is hard to fight without craziness.
The Taliban was probably demographically significant in Afganistan, but they gave our next-door neighbors, Russians all kinds of hell on earth in Afganistan; never underestimate a motivated minority.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
"Local pissing contest" is an easy title to give something very far away. If you're Ukrainian, that "local pissing contest" is "a invasion by a huge, hostile power that used to have dominion over your country in order to seize a large and important piece of your country". If you're Russian, it's "the fascist take over of an allied neighbour with the implied threat to life and livelihood to millions of your ethnic brothers and former countrymen".
If you're American, how would you feel if Mexico invaded Puerto Rico? British- Argentina invading The Falklands? Australian- erm...Indonesia and Christmas Island? (I may need to learn more about Australian geopolitics...)
My point is, if your country was the one being invaded you might be reaching for the nukes too.
What about western backed snipers shooting during the riots and demosntrations? Aren't they violating any law?
"Propaganda" is a thing western does better, many comments here are the proof. Whay would USA do if Russia prompted for violent demonstrations in Puerto Rico? or any 90% americans populated land? What If Russia faked spring revolutions in Canada, Mexico, Japan and any other USA allies??
Why are Crimea elections out of law? While violent coup d'etat in Ukraine is not?
You say : "Crimea has a lot of Russians because it has a Russian military base in there." That's plain false, misleading and truthless. Crimea Was russian until mid XX century, when it was given to Ukraine under the soviet union era.
Building strong defences is an act of aggression only to the paranoid.
Except if it is done by nations not aligned with USA, like Iran, Korea, etc.
I hope they don't. I currently live and work in England! :-)
Stick Men
Well the Americans in WW-II pretty much pulled off the whole thing, plus the whole "invent nuclear weapons" things in about that amount of time.
Being that the whole "invent nuclear weapons" bit is already done, and the Ukraine has the physicists to fill in the middle bits, yeah 4 years is probably a good bet.
Problem of course is that they have about 4 weeks, not 4 years to pull this off so....
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Okay, you just lost me there. None of that makes sense.
Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, and even if they did, they'd have only a handful of fission weapons. They probably wouldn't use them immediately - Iraq is not a threat, and Israel is enough of a threat to not want to start a war with unless they have an advantage.
China will not nuke North Korea - that's like saying the US will nuke Canada. They'll probably also stay uninvolved at first, making a move on Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands (or whatever you want to call them, that's just the only name I remember) once the US is sufficiently occupied elsewhere. Japan might get nuked over the islands, but not likely.
North Korea is probably smart enough to hunker down and sit this war out as well. If they're dumb, they'll wait until the US moves troops out of South Korea before invading and promptly getting their asses kicked. They'll do some heavy damage, but they'd end up dead. China might then retaliate, but with the US out of Korea that's not a sure bet.
Israel will also do little - maybe take care of Syria, or if they get invaded they'll murder whoever tried, but they've got no horse in this race.
In your "everybody with nukes must use them" spree, you forgot Pakistan and India. I don't know how that one would turn out, but they don't seem to really want to conquer the other, just threaten them.
And in any case, even if every nuclear country except US and Russia got together, they still wouldn't match our arsenal. If you want a good metaphor, imagine nukes as guns. India and Pakistan are in a Mexican standoff with handguns. Israel has a PPK up its sleeves. China's eying everyone with an old SKS. North Korea's got a starting pistol they slapped a cheap round into that will probably hurt them more than whoever they shoot it at, and Iran has a kit of parts they haven't assembled yet. Meanwhile, America and Russia have .50-caliber machine guns ready to sweep the room. That's basically the worlds' nuclear powers right now.
Meanwhile Britain and France still have enough nukes to destroy most major cities of either Russia or the US, at least an M16 or AK74 in terms on anologies!
You don't get it. Mass murderers always have a pretext. Hitler had some justification or other, but we still hanged his generals for invading Poland. Starting an offensive war is a crime against the peace, even if you can find a piece of paper that says you were already at war.
"No one has ever argued that Saddam was co-operating with the inspectors."
The inspectors themselves argued this. You have been lied to. You should look into it and find out who lied to you and why. A lot of people died because of this.
Play Command HQ online
Oh.. Sochi..
Such loss.
Also politically uncorrect "Fine, only paraolympics is still running."
Spot on. Any person with half a brain can see that the situation is not all black (Russia) and white (Ukraine). Don't even start me on the US mass media.
Please take your pills :)
Right. Just like how the United States has been invading Japan and Germany for the last 70 odd years, because people who are obvious U.S. personell are seen outside of U.S. military bases.
There are treaties that say where those soldiers can go freely, which does not cover all of Crimea.