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

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I figure that if you're going to claim that stronger words would deter Russia here, it's worth pointing out that when Russia invaded Georgia Bush did jack shit about the invasion. So claiming that the USA has lost a spine, at the very least, should not be correlated with the idea that the loss was somehow new.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

What the fuck are you going on about?

After Putin gobbled up Ossetia the idea that he might go after other former soviet states didn't seem like all that much of a stretch. Of course the suggestion that he might do just that was met with laughter and derision.

Now here we are.

The point being how many times does "smart diplomacy" have to get caught with it's pants down before it stops being smart? Likewise for "idiots" and flashes of insight/non-idiocy.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The idea that he'd go about it by just marching an army into it the way he has here very much is a stretch. Even Stalin didn't pull land grabs that were this blatant.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

And yet here we are. What's your point?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That a stopped watch being right twice a day does not mean that it's right any more than twice a day.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The argument is not that Putin necessarily could have been stopped, but more that the idea of coddling him as opposed to being firm opposition was the wrong idea. The response to noting that Putin's aspirations went beyond, that Ukraine was going to be a target, that reset button diplomacy was the wrong idea, that Russia was probably our top geopolitical rival, all were met with derision.

Those opposed to Obama's Russia policy were right, and have been for years.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

By hitting them where it hurts, namely the wallet and the ego, without the actual requirement of bombing anyone. Just a second ago you were accusing me of being too aggressive, now I'm not aggressive enough? make up your mind. Likewise weren't you just saying that "only an idiot rattles a saber in the expectation that it has to actually be used"? how does that square with your assertion that the only way to stop military aggression is by using actual soldiers?

PS: I am fully aware of Russia and Finland's shared history. In fact, their reputation as "Russian military Kryptonite" is exactly why I think we should be cozying up to them in the first place.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And then Ukraine and the EU have a long, cold winter in 2015. We should not be too aggressive or not realistic enough. We should be realistic and recognize that extending NATO's boundaries was the mistake. We're not willing to back up that extension, so it's the worst of all possible worlds.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Predictably, you seem to have forgotten W's response to the Georgia invasion.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Or we learned from it.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Unlikely. But it's easier to make noise in the cheap seats where there are no consequences.