Now the Long Knives are poised right in the back of Ukraine:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26400035

Fucking brilliant approach, this. First the attempt to play divide and conquer in Ukraine pretty transparently crashed and burned with the retun of Ukraine's Benazir Bhutto to political influence. Then, the Russians decide evidently that they really did move in Russian Army soldiers into the Crimea. Because the proper instinct when a risky gamble fails is to raise the stakes. This is not going to end well by any means. Now I'm wondering how long Lucashenko will have a country to rule as dictator, and what might happen with Round II with Georgia. If Tsar Vladimir I of the House of Putin succeeds in this kind of thing, that will only encourage him to expand his wars of aggression further because Ukraine is rather larger than Georgia, and this would permit Russia to begin aspiring to regain aspects of the old Tsarist boundaries. I sincerely expected Russia would use Central Asia for this kind of thing, not Ukraine.

The EU wouldn't give a damn about invading Muslims in Kazakhstan, but invading an EU state? That's not going to lead Russia to do anything but decide to engage in still-larger wars of aggression in the long term.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/europe/ukraine-politics/

And one of the chambers of the Russian legislature just approved this request. Hoo, boy.

Shit got real-er:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26403996

The Ukrainian Army is now on full combat alert. The prospect that the centennial year of the First World War will see the first large-scale conventional European war in decades has risen exponentially.

Comments

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

that's your argument against obamacare

No, it is my evidence of a fundamental contradiction between is being said and what is actually believed.

These premises are mutually exclusive.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Risk is a gross over-simplification but otherwise yes.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I don't really see myself as much of a true anything, except maybe an ass. ;)

That said, I actually agree with you. My primary beef isn't with politics per se, it is with the lack of consistency,

If we are going to play the role of leader, beacon of freedom and democracy, we need to be holding ourselves to a much higher standard than we currently are and take a more active role. Diplomacy is not beanbag, things like military strength, trustworthiness as an ally, and perceived seriousness matter. Sadly there seem to be a lot of talking heads who think otherwise.

Likewise if we are going to adopt the notion that American Exceptionalism is passe, just "another regular geopolitical player" is exactly what we are and there's no shame in acting like it.

The contradiction comes from trying to have it both ways.

As 404 and Geezer were saying above, don't go rattling your sabre if you aint gonna draw and don't draw unless you are serious about stabbing someone.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Except of course, that there are no Death Panels in the actual ACA. Ergo, no policy. Which puts it firmly in the paranoid delusion category, right along with Obama taking everyone's guns.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Again, knowing that a policy is political poison does not mean that there is lack of desire or trying.

There is such a thing as being properly paranoid.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Only an idiot rattles a saber in the expectation that it has to actually be used. Using brinksmanship as the prelude to war is the sign of an incompetent policy incompetently adopted. Real power is in the ability to create the impression of force, actually using it leads to the pattern whereby a bunch of Pakistanis wanting to die as holy martyrs forestalls the might of a superpower by simple willingness to die while the 'draw the saber' types keep obliging them.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

'Xactly.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You mean like when conservatives cheered Rick Perry for boasting how many people he used the government's power to execute? Seems the prospect of using the government as an engine of death really isn't the issue. 3:)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Poland hasn't been 'Soviet' territory since 1941. Perhaps you meant 'Belarus.'

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Something can always go horribly wrong when states try to carve up their neighbors busy experiencing a revolution. Just ask Saddam Hussein how well invading Revolutionary Iran worked for him.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Right, because Bush did so much to deter Putin's invasion of Georgia. Oh, right, it's not cowardice when the cocaine addict from Connecticut does it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

With what army? The US Army of 1939 was a joke because Americans thought soldiers were un-American menaces to a real Republic and annihilated the soul of any state that had a peacetime standing army. Don't forget that isolationism was real, white, and conservative prior to 1941 and often wore Jew-hating guises.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

What says the US Army can fight something that hasn't been softened up for it and isn't willing to surrender en masse because it might have to do some fighting? This isn't Iraq, this isn't fighting Saddam's army that went under when others shot at it. This is the kind of scenario that leads to a general nuclear exchange when put into the hands of human beings. Going into this expecting either 1991 or 2003 is a good way for the Yellowstone Supervolcano to be pre-empted in wiping out a significant portion of North America.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Reasons that are as usual neither spelled out nor described in any fashion indicating familiarity with either Russia, Ukraine, or Tina Fey-er the woman from Alaska who won't shut up.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's nice that they were opposed to something. Now what's their actual alternative? Saying mean words to Russia ain't doing jack shit here. Sanctions means Europe and Ukraine have a long, cold winter ahead of them. War means the US Army is up against a very different enemy to the Mahdi Army and Saddam Hussein's paper tiger. It also means the obvious risk that a general nuclear exchange follows.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The reality is that Russia would risk a nuclear exchange over Crimea for the same reasons Kennedy was willing to risk one over Cuba. And unfortunately for you, this is a world where we're talking a major war against a Great Power with real nukes. Not a few aluminum tubes that existed on lied about satellite pictures.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Any assessment saying that the west has been "soft" on Russia has pretty much ignored the entire slate of policies for years -- and is yet more partisan whargarble.

So instead of invoking the armchair brigade, here is a better and much clearer view from someone who is actually an expert on such matters:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/columns/2014/03/03/cold-war-over-russia-isn-zero-sum/Df9VSHeJFpKUz3tRKDjUXJ/story.html

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

What argument do you think you are having right now?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm pointing out that 'we' in 1939 means 'not the United States.' Essentially, your argument, since you invoked alternate universes, requires Americans to have an army large enough *to* invade Nazi Germany in 1939. Such a United States would have turned into a military dictatorship in the 1930s, or at least that's what actual Americans of the time believed. If you're going to invoke trite analogies, at least use semi-relevant ones like Saddam Hussein and Kuwait (never mind that the 1980s was a long lesson in how superpower backing and infinite logistics were useless in Iraqi hands).

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

*Gestures upward*

The point is not that a GOP President would prevented this. The point is that once again "the smart guys" have been caught with their pants down by a situation "nobody" saw coming. There are quite a few pundits that owe Palin an apology right now but somehow I don't think she's going to get em.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Yes, Putin seems to be willing to take such risks however. He is also no Saddam, I can't recall any large miscalculations, so far at least. If he was born a century before, he could be another Stalin, for whom carving up neighbors actually worked out pretty well... at least by his reckoning.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Some ideas that have already been proposed.

* Don't go to the G-8 meeting in Sochi
* Pointedly have a G-7 meeting in Poland Finland or Latvia.
* Open US oil and gas exports to eastern Europe, expand our offshore exploration and drilling efforts in the process, send American drilling crews to help Poland and Western Ukrain exploit thier domestic reservs thus robbing putin of his non-military leverage.
* Conduct some small but visible exercises with the Poles and Lats.
* Ask Poland if they still want US military aid and bases, if so build them.
* Find out what the Germans, Fins, and Poles are planning, if anything back them up with real and visible material support.
* I'm guessing that the NSA already knows where Putin and his cronies keep their offshore bank accounts, if not they damn well should, it'd be a shame if something were to happen to that money.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Who says they can't?

Your dodging the question and moving the goalposts.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Again, what are you going on about?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And all of this deters Russia's pattern of invading NATO candidates how, exactly? The only way to stop military aggression is by using actual soldiers. Otherwise, NATO needs to not bluff moving itself to Russia's frontiers if it's going to be incapable of backing that extension up. BTW, Finland needs no foreign help to stand off Russia. It was the only stand to send Comrade Mustachio's bully boys running in 1944. It's had a record stemming all the way back to 1917 of being Russian military kryptonite. Read some history books.