I know we have a lot of smart people here and I'd like to get some opinions on where this crisis is going to go, and what response can we expect from Washington and NATO if Russian tanks start rolling in.
Evidently Odessa may be part of the Russian plan as well, and could be in the early stages of Russia's annexation strategy.
I came across this article "The Self Defense of Odessa".
"Odessa has a serious case of the jitters... In Odessa itself, a pro-Russian demonstration on Sunday night turned violent: Some of the participants attacked the car of a TV crew and turned it over. Each day brings a new rumor about possible Russian intervention."
This is the first I've heard of Putin pushing this far west, and it makes the situation all the more scary given Odessa's strategic importance: Ukraine's only remaining port. Could be used as a launching point for aggression via the Black Sea.
"Odessa, with its strategically crucial port and its proximity to the pro-Russian stronghold of Transnistria in the neighboring Republic of Moldova, could well be a tempting target for the forces of Vladimir Putin.
Is Putin simply waiting for all the pieces to fall in place, including Odessa, before rolling into Ukraine? With Odessa possibly under threat could he be looking to split the country in half, or even push into the entirety of Ukraine? Kiev's aggression/efforts to take back those cities currently occupied by Russian and pro-Russian forces, could be the pretext enough for Putin to escalate beyond simply protecting Russian speaking citizens, claiming the whole government must be dealt with. Odessa under threat, to my admittedly non-expert eyes, suggests that there's a lot more to their intentions than the territory already seized, Crimea, and the Eastern cities already occupied.
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I've listened to ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine voice serious concerns about the anti-Russian rhetoric coming out of Kiev and elsewhere. I've heard the obvious concerns of Ukrainians about Russian hostility. How do these concerns change? How can the nation continue?
I just don't see it.
Ethnic Russians seem to have legitimate concern about growing nationalism. The recent change in power was not a democratic process. There are signs that hint of America's involvement in that process.
I'm not trying to put Putin in a positive light, but trying to understand how the typical Ukrainian and typical ethnic Russian-Ukranian might be viewing recent events.
He'll wait for relations with the West (particularly Europe) to normalize before moving on Ukraine and Moldova.
Ah well the next "Redline" will be his limits, of course. Then the next one & the one after that...
Majority Ukrainians, particularly in the west, identify not as Poles or Germans or Russians, but as ethic Ukrainians. We have our own language and culture. Consider the fact that Ukraine has been under control by one faction or another for centuries. The epicenter of Ukrainian culture and the nationalist movement even has three names, Lviv (Ukrainian), Lvov (Russian) and Lwiw (Polish). Not only were Ukrainians persecuted and killed during Soviet rule, the language, culture and religion were prohibited. Absent an oppressive force, of course there would be a rise of nationalism. Unfortunetly, this doesnt jive with Putin's view of Eastern Europe.
Ukrainians don't hate Russians. They are our bretheren. But that doesnt mean we'll accept the same fate - which is perpetual corruption and totalitarianism via oligarchs.
I know there's been fear from ethnic Ukrainians for a long time of their culture being swallowed up by so many ethnic Russians. I remember a report about how there was significant concern about the language being lost as there are so many Ukrainian youth in so many parts of the country who rarely speak it in favor of Russian.
In any event, since the nationalistic view of ethnic Ukrainians is unlikely to abate, and since ethnic Russians have become the majority population in many cases, it is difficult to see how these two parties are going to end up seeing eye-to-eye together. IMO what is needed for a peaceful resolution is a good dose of democracy - fair elections. Unfortunately that could mean Ukrainians losing their grip on certain parts of their own country - not exactly what they'd like to see.
That's my understanding of it anyway.
A meaningful response would have been full economic sanctions following Georgea and drawing a line in the sand then. Then expidite Nato expansion into Moldova, Estonia, etc.
We did nothing. Less than nothing. Missed our chance by taking a 10 year excursion into the desert.
My grandmother escaped from it during WW1 she told us stories about some buried city being unearthed and some poisonous gases killing people from it besides that she was as American as can be to me
living in Astoria drinking piels beer smoking benson and hedges and getting me into the mets when I was a kid
But besides the other 75% Italian was the culture that took over the household
Now I am in cali and far removed from it all
I know there's been fear from ethnic Ukrainians for a long time of their culture being swallowed up by so many ethnic Russians. I remember a report about how there was significant concern about the language being lost as there are so many Ukrainian youth in so many parts of the country who rarely speak it in favor of Russian.
In any event, since the nationalistic view of ethnic Ukrainians is unlikely to abate, and since ethnic Russians have become the majority population in many cases, it is difficult to see how these two parties are going to end up seeing eye-to-eye together. IMO what is needed for a peaceful resolution is a good dose of democracy - fair elections. Unfortunately that could mean Ukrainians losing their grip on certain parts of their own country - not exactly what they'd like to see.
That's my understanding of it anyway.
It's tough to have fair elections when a neighboring country buys elections so that they can set up a suckass puppet regime that completely unravels the constitution in a span of 4 years.
The division between the east and west is overstated. It can work absent provocation from the Kremlin.
Agree - it has worked for many, many years.
The problem is with how things are changing now. With that provocation can we go back to how things were? Not so sure about that.
Russia is no longer a global power; they're a regional power. Russian's are great strategists but shitty operators; when someone calls his bluff, it's game over.
Step 1 of restoring the USSR.
Again, who's gonna stop him? The UN? The 'this is not your mother's ' USA?
This is purely an emotional response, obviously.
This is purely an emotional response, obviously.
After the Jews probably no people on Earth suffered as much between 1930 and 1945 as did the Ukrainians. Without question some Ukrainians did some awful things during WWII, but what put them in that spot to begin with was the horrors of Soviet rule and the rapacity of the Nazi invasion.
I'm not sure how that could be described as "fighting back". There was no need to hold territory there. That was a stupid decision by Georgia.
Putin doesn't have the means or the troops to fight any type of protracted war. Russia is a disaster internally. Our mitary would wipe them out in any conventional engagement and China would not. One to their aid.
We wouldn't enter int
They extract resources inefficiently and are running out of the natural resources that made their future bright. The one area that has quite a bit of mineral and natural wealth has a large power eyeing it and, IIRC, has a lot of ethnic Chinese living there (Siberia).
What's the one thing the USSR did (other than use Stalin-style Marxism to maintain power) better than many others? Project power to make it look like you have power.
Fool others into thinking you are doing things differently (look at the agricultural statistics that were announced, and that were actually reaped during even late-era USSR announcements) than what you actually have happening. It worked better under a centralized system, but it still can work today.
Second, Putin is a god send to Oceania...extending its run 50 to 100 years ( not its wealth necessarily...its potential global advantages)
1) China has to play nice with us as does Europe while we "contain" behavior and put up with a lot of tier 2 incursions that do nothing to change their economic situation and in fact cause them to spend more
2) when they get rid of him and his acolytes in 20 they will come this way to counter China.
Logical Russian economic response - Cut off gas supplies into the pipelines running across the Ukraine.
Now you have not just the Ukraine, but the whole of Western Europe with an energy crisis of such massive proportions that no temporary band-aid can bridge the problem.
2. If he indeed wants to recreate the Warsaw Pact and Iron Curtain, I think the expansion movement would hit the wall at the borders of Poland. A significant part of it is the capabilities of the Poles, but I also think a threat to Poland would produce a significant shift in public opinion in both the US and, to a lesser degree, in Western Europe. And a Russia moving against Poland would have less capability than the Russia moving against Ukraine.
3. The unknown in my mind are the Baltic states. Here NATO comes into play, but I have no confidence that Europe would act. And there just aren't as many Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians in the US as there are Poles.
Nationalism is a wonderfully useful little tool to create short-term movement in a declining society. The effects, however, are often very transitory before the players fall out.
Ideology, like Stalin-style Marxism, plays a much longer-term role, and they have nothing like that that people look fondly upon.
unfortunately and fortunately I doubt he gets any push back as long as he does not threaten Poland or Germany (we probably now would consider and have too much capital tied up in Poland and the old Czech)...and as long as he does not build a Navy that goes beyond small and or once every three years excursions past the Bosporus ...and does not disturb our sense of balance in the Artic/Bering/North Seas
Our prime interest is non expansion and proliferation of nuclear....and the above our secondary interests
The one area that troubles me is anything further in the Caspian nations/ethnics (Azer, Armenia, Turks, Kurds, the rest of Georgia) as that affects keeping Iranian and Iraqi oil bottled up)
The one area that troubles me is anything further in the Caspian nations/ethnics (Azer, Armenia, Turks, Kurds, the rest of Georgia) as that affects keeping Iranian and Iraqi oil bottled up)
But wouldn't incursions into that sector open up a hornet's nest that could result in the death knell for his admin and the Russki economy?
On the plus side, the whole episode has shed light on what a very rational and more importantly, reasonable, player China could be if they really ever wanted.
Sergey Glazynev threatens scorched earth response.
Is anyone at Moody's awake?
what will be left would be solidly Ukrainian, solidly in the EU/US camp, and probably into plurality, likely to win a long run game on socio economic terms.
Putin, angry little bitch that he is, may realize this and try to take all of Ukraine.
but giving him just that part, the russian 'speaking' part, the (what, donesk or something?) could be (ok, while a cave in terms of borders policy, and certainly unfair in historic terms)...but maybe/could be a winning move for the west and freedom in the longterm.
Is this similar in Ukraine? Are there a decent amount of Ukraine Nationalists in the "Russian-speaking" areas? If so, it may not be prudent to divide the country.
Again, I have NO CLUE about Ukraine, it just reminded me of ireland.
the last election mirrored the language divisions
the idea with division would be to buy time for plurality and western economics to work their magic, and provide time for the locals to sort though some of the contradictory untruths that are being put forward, the recent vestiges of the old currupt regime to go away and the russian speakers in [new east ukraine nation in orbit of putin] to finally realize that the few russian speakers left in (west ukraine) are, in fact, fine, better off then they are.
and time for ukraine to develop a stronger media to combat putins bullshit
however, I would guess that the russian speakers in west ukraine would be fine. that is the difference.
we- plurality
they-suckality
democracy is NOT 'majoritocracy'. plurality is a key component in a democracy, and must be in the law.
this is why our original concept. i.e. that rights are for INDIVIDUALS not for GROUPS is so important. and why, even our own, slide into 'identity politics' or 'rights for groups' is so disfunctional at ground level.
and why it takes so long in places where people rally under flags other than the unified flag of a nation together.
Or am I asking a ridiculous question here?