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Author Topic: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?  (Read 11576 times)

Vic Van Meter

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #15 on: 01 Jul 2015, 15:00 »

I think the current meta-game is that the US will let Russia fuck with it's satellites to a certain level in exchange for staying out of the way a bit when it comes down to it in a few of the upcoming Middle East reshuffles.  Thus has it -always- been between them trading various satellites and no-go zones.

There's going to be a lot of nebulous double-think upcoming when the US starts teaming up more and more with Iran and gets more away from the Saudis.

And nobody external is ever assassinating the head of a country with that many nuclear weapons, absolutely never, ever, happening. That is suicide for everyone.

But in general the amount of overall world givings a shit about Russia have about 100% to do with the current oil prices.  Prices are in the toilet, the Russian economy is in the toilet because of it, and they are currently getting slammed in international courts for illegally appropriating corporate assets.

The long game of getting away from Russian gas addition by the EU will eventually limit their current fear of pissing off the Russians.  IE Germany, etc won't go past certain lines of sanctions or raising trouble because they currently buy too much fuel from Russia.  Another decade or two of renewable energy development and the Russian blackmail systems gets less effective.

It's not a coincidence that the push the last 15 years to get the US oil independent with internal fracking is going to coincide with us finally telling the Saudis to go to hell.  The same will happen for Europe and Russia.

I also like your observations Vic Van Meter, some good thoughts!

It really is just a huge generational divide.  Putin was born in 1952.  John McCain was born in 1936.  Xi Jinping was born in 1953.  Seyyed Ali Khamenei was born in 1939.  They lived through the Cold War; their worldview is built a certain way.  It's just a way that means very little to people born even as early as the 1970s.  The current generation is growing up knowing two things:

1.  They can connect with people around the world and see that other people are the same as they are, either just as kind or just as horrible as people in their own neighborhoods, and...

2.  The government doesn't run our countries, our businesses run our countries.

That makes the world much different.  A land grab, which used to mean so much in the great dystopian Risk game played during the Cold War, in reality means very little.  The only thing it's really worth in the modern day are sea rights and oil drilling rights, and even then oil prices are dropping largely because the world is trying to eradicate fossil fuels for environmental and domestic political reasons (when your conservatives want nothing but energy independence damn the cost and your liberals want to turn your country into a giant wind farm, the only unquestioned loser is a foreign fuels company).

That's why modern winners are generally commercial and industrial giants that profit on the inter-connectivity of the modern world, so we tend to be governed by large business interests.  They've learned to cross international borders, turn court systems to their advantage, and waged a marketing campaign that has far better production values than anything a political party can bring to bear.  That's fundamentally changed how the world works.

Right now, we talk about the US and Russia, but the most powerful "nation" in the world right now is the European Union.  Iran and the US may finally get some kind of deal done and begin working together, not because they stopped hating each other but because the EU sanctions are now the best leverage the US has in the world.  Iran's not afraid of our nuclear weapons or our aircraft carriers, they're afraid of being locked out of the money pool.  Predictably, the people who are working against the deal are a smaller group of very conservative people on both sides who refer primarily to the Cold War period and use that terminology and worldview.  The people working for it are younger and are looking at the world in a more evolutionary way.  Right now, Iran has more in common with the US and even the hated Saudis than it does with its own self thirty years ago.  There are far too many common interests (ISIS, oil rights, the stability of newly Shiite and mutual ally Iraq, Israel and Hamas jerking them around on their leashes, you could even say that they have a lot in common with equal religious rights considering how many persecuted Shiites live around the Middle East) for the US and Iran to feasibly be ignoring each other.  It's like two guys who fought over a girl in middle school still trying to give each other a cold shoulder when the girl's married someone else, they're in college, and they have the same mutual friends who keep inviting them out to do the things they both like to do.

On that note, it's also important to note how crazy that generational gap is in some of these countries.  Look at what the Ayatollah says compared to how young Iranians speak.  It's like having Pope Benedict's Vatican acting as the supreme leader of Denmark.  I have friends from my college days (exchange students) that often talked about how weird it was to have that divide.  Imagine if to go from a major city to the suburbs, you had to suddenly act like someone completely different.  It was going from tank tops and jeans in Tehran to having to don a full veil in some of its outlying suburbs.

Who knows, one day we'll be the elder statesmen who can't figure out someone's new way of looking at the world.

But back on the topic, the reason I bring this all up is that the last holdouts are the original contestants, Russia and the US.  And it's weird to think about Ukraine as a proxy war between the US and Russia when it seems like, to someone removed from the situation, the US is barely involved, the EU is actually about to make a bigger "land grab", it looks like a bunch of arms companies are about to have the "don't piss off the Russians" qualifier removed from their sales guidelines, and Putin is actually opening the door to foreign fossil fuel competition by making Russian companies akin to how we used to see OPEC (ironically because OPEC, specifically the Saudis, are attempting to screw American alternative oil company innovations by making them comparatively too expensive).

People running by the old playbook tend to play well to the news that doesn't really know better, but it looks to me like the US is going to end up being a pitbull on a leash in a chainlink fence around the EU and Putin is shooting his country's economic standing in the foot with a gun the EU gave him.  So, weirdly, the major political winner here may end up being the EU.

And I know that accusing the EU of being successful at anything is akin to heresy, especially in the EU, but while everyone was watching China, Russia, and the US, the EU might be becoming the world's real superpower.  Commercial interests dominate it, they combine to form the world's largest economy, and while Putin may have just opened a new market in traditional US powerhouse industries, the EU has plenty of fuel companies, they'll own almost the entire Baltic coastline, and they make a ton of the weapons that US companies retail.  If it wasn't for Tsipras's little economic suicide bomb stunt going on in Greece and the upcoming UK referendum on leaving the EU, I'd imagine they'd be doing nothing but patting themselves on the back.

But make no mistake, Putin is helping them do it and the US government has decided to just sit back and try not to get too involved.  Neither of the "major players" here are going to "win."  Russia is going to end up less influential and trusted by its neighbors, the US will end up less influential in the region, and the EU might gain a Ukraine without a Crimea and own the highway to it (and quite possibly Moldova considering it'll be sandwiched completely between two member states).  US and EU companies will make a lot of money.  The best thing Putin will get is Crimea and possibly some of Eastern Ukraine, unfortunately for him the poorer end.

That all changes if Putin actually does attempt to invade.  If the gloves come off, Russia will be beset from all sides.  The US would come from the East and the rest of NATO from the west.  When Putin made the statement that it would be ridiculous to attack NATO, it doesn't have much to do with equipment or rationale.  It's that the Russian army is in no way going to be able to defend both ends of his country from a conventional attack.

Putin's old and out-of-touch with the modern pulse of the world, but even in his old-school worldview he's outgunned.  I highly doubt he's going to force everyone's hands in this matter.  Honestly, though, he lost as soon as Yanukovich was ousted.  Everything from Maidan on out is consolation and damage control, and it hasn't been very delicate.

All I can say on behalf of the United States is that they were smart enough to do nothing.  You can screw yourself by that playbook.  Putin could have played that same card and used the oil card sympathetically on an EU member state (which is how you do it these days).  Instead, he's kind of screwed.  If the EU manages to get its shit together and moves quickly, they can essentially shut Russia out of Europe.  At the very least, they've got to be kicking themselves for not accepting Turkey for EU membership when they did; they could have run gas and oil straight up through Turkey from the Middle East and sanctioned Russia into oblivion.

I guess everyone's still a little new to this game.
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Nicoletta Mithra

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #16 on: 01 Jul 2015, 15:38 »

I don't think it'd be a smart move to oust the Russian oil. The russian economy depends a lot on selling oil to Europe. If we stop buying it, the Russians will see us as responsible for the crash of their economy - and not without reason. In the end that will lead to war, even if Russia can't win it - because they loose as well when they don't and in war they at least feel as if they can do something about their situation.

I'm repeating myself: There can't be peace in Europe against Russia, it's only possible with Russia.

Also, while I think it plays some role, it's not so much about 'outdated' worldviews informing policy making. Having studied history, it seems to me that this model is brought up again and again: Yet in the end interest that are held and ways to pursue them remain largely the same: Only the veneer in which we dress them change, in my opinion.

The 1. point is really nothing new. It's just a bit simpler do do so nowadays. But how many people really do connect? It's a minority. And even if they do, few people generalize their experiences. It can be seen when it's about Christians: The new anti-religious atheists know from experience quite often that not all theists are Westboro fanatics. Yet they apparently love to talk and argue as if all Christians were.

The 2. point is peobably nothing new at all. A working economy is of very high importance for any state's survival. Those that control the economy have always had proportional influence. You can easily see that already in the crusades, especially the fourth, which ended exactly where the economic interests were fulfilled: In Konstantinople.

I personally rather do buy some Russian oil, enjoy friendly trading relations with them and have a peacful Europe, then not buying the oil, be 'free of Russian influence' and be on the brink of a war, because Russia crashes.
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Lyn Farel

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #17 on: 02 Jul 2015, 01:20 »

It's not a coincidence that the push the last 15 years to get the US oil independent with internal fracking is going to coincide with us finally telling the Saudis to go to hell.  The same will happen for Europe and Russia.


Not necessarily.

Oil fracking is highly polluting and that is one of the reasons that for now it's strictly forbidden in several EU countries.

Which may be subject to change someday though, but there is nothing certain in that regard.
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Lyn Farel

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #18 on: 02 Jul 2015, 01:41 »

@Vic:

Moldova and even Georgia have already expressed interest in EU application... And I can understand why Georgia did so (pretty much like the Baltic Countries, but also we often forget how countries like Slovenia have gone from poverty and third world economy to a booming modern country)... But that is exactly what is pissing Putin to no end. He is completely surrounded, and directly at his doors. I can understand why he sees it as a direct threat, and why all this military muscle flexing and nuclear rearmament is happening and showcased with such... desperation.

Turkey is a delicate matter and while it was hotly debate 10 years ago, now that they have elected Erdogan and go the way they are going, nobody bothers with the debate anymore, Turkey basically decided the way they want to go for themselves...

Though oil pipelines are not excluded to still go through, the main issue being that Russia doesn't like it and applies pressure against it, especially since Iran is getting closer to a removal of economical penalties...

There is also the fact that while we look at the real reasons behind it as you nicely explained, there is still a hefty dose of ideology and politics that have to play a certain lever, especially for Putin who is de facto the leader of the traditionalist world and has to cater at least a minimum to the people he represents. I don't think Putin cares for that ideology, but the realities of politics and representation literally demand that he doesn't forget it. While it is the sugarcoat of it, the things that are shown in the media and the justifications for everything as usual, I think that ideological conflict goes deeper since it's basically a clash between traditionalist views (which are a wide majority in the world) and postmodern views.
« Last Edit: 02 Jul 2015, 01:46 by Lyn Farel »
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Makkal

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #19 on: 02 Jul 2015, 02:18 »

More news:

Anti-American Sentiment Surges in Russia

Quote
That protest movement has long been quashed, but state television and senior politicians continue to demonize the United States against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, where Washington is frequently portrayed as seeking to establish military bases as part of a plan to encircle Russia.

The feeling is mutual. A Gallup poll this year found negative American sentiment toward Russia at a post-Cold War high, with 70 percent unfavorable and 24 percent favorable.

In a fiery broadcast last year, Dmitry Kiselyov, a presenter on one of Russia’s top TV shows, reminded viewers that his country was the only one in the world capable of “turning the United States into radioactive dust.” Mr. Kiselyov also stated on prime-time television that Russia reserved the right to a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States if it thought its sovereignty was in danger.

The message that the United States has become Russia’s avowed enemy was further reinforced last week when the head of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said in an interview with a Russian government newspaper that Washington “would like it if Russia did not exist as a state at all.”

Russia Blasts Finland Barring Parliament Speaker

Finland and Russia are not getting along well these days.

Want to Escalate US/Russia Tensions? Arm Ukraine

Quote
United States-Russian military tensions are exploding. On June 23 the Pentagon announced plans to station hundreds of tanks, howitzers and other armor in the Baltics and throughout other East European NATO countries. Russia meanwhile is increasing its forces in Belarus and speeding up the deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, the heavily armed Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania.

While both the United States and Russia should step back from the brink, many Obama administration officials are pushing for a dangerous escalatory step: the shipment of billions of dollars of lethal weapons to the post-Maidan government in Ukraine.
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Tiberious Thessalonia

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #20 on: 02 Jul 2015, 03:31 »

Inb4 everyone in this thread perishes mysteriously in automobile accidents. :/

Mysterious umbrella stab wounds.
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Vic Van Meter

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #21 on: 02 Jul 2015, 07:29 »

I don't think it'd be a smart move to oust the Russian oil. The russian economy depends a lot on selling oil to Europe. If we stop buying it, the Russians will see us as responsible for the crash of their economy - and not without reason. In the end that will lead to war, even if Russia can't win it - because they loose as well when they don't and in war they at least feel as if they can do something about their situation.

I'm repeating myself: There can't be peace in Europe against Russia, it's only possible with Russia.

Also, while I think it plays some role, it's not so much about 'outdated' worldviews informing policy making. Having studied history, it seems to me that this model is brought up again and again: Yet in the end interest that are held and ways to pursue them remain largely the same: Only the veneer in which we dress them change, in my opinion.

The 1. point is really nothing new. It's just a bit simpler do do so nowadays. But how many people really do connect? It's a minority. And even if they do, few people generalize their experiences. It can be seen when it's about Christians: The new anti-religious atheists know from experience quite often that not all theists are Westboro fanatics. Yet they apparently love to talk and argue as if all Christians were.

The 2. point is peobably nothing new at all. A working economy is of very high importance for any state's survival. Those that control the economy have always had proportional influence. You can easily see that already in the crusades, especially the fourth, which ended exactly where the economic interests were fulfilled: In Konstantinople.

I personally rather do buy some Russian oil, enjoy friendly trading relations with them and have a peacful Europe, then not buying the oil, be 'free of Russian influence' and be on the brink of a war, because Russia crashes.

That's what I'm trying to tell you, though.  The entire thought of Russia perhaps being on the brink of war because their oil interests are about to be ousted, it doesn't actually matter.  They have access to nuclear weapons, massive arms technologies and a colossal standing army... and technically speaking none of these are worthwhile cards.  Putin's actual cards include having a currently existing oil infrastructure, and he just threw that one in the pot and let anyone else who has a hand come to play.  And they will.

What's Putin going to do?  Start a war in the Baltics with NATO?  Nuke Kiev?  Think that's going to end on a positive note for his country?  He wrote himself into a corner, and there isn't a single thing he can do about it that's going to end up as a surefire gain.  His military options might be vast and varied, but none of them will win him anything.  At issue here is that the rulebook was fundamentally re-written with the advent of the world economy in the modern world.  You've described the scenario perfectly, but I don't think you realized the crucial detail.

Essentially, the US and EU can and have dealt significant damage to Russia without firing a shot.  They did it by using Crimea as a context by which to cripple Russia's economy.  They're calling Putin's bluff, knowing they have the military superiority, by crashing Russia out of Europe and taking what actually matters.  Customers.  With fewer people to sell to in the world and with fewer goods he can use as leverage, Putin's in danger of bleeding out his own country.  Before, he could at least say that gas supplies had relatively inflexible pricing and he'd have that as a way to force his neighbors to reckon with him.  With the Saudis dropping oil prices and the EU having a plethora of sellers interested, that's not a tenable position.

In essence, Putin is trying to intimidate nations but he's actually fighting corporations, and he doesn't have the ammunition or position to do that.  He has what he needs to try to fight Poland or Ukraine, not Shell or Vector.  They don't care if there's anti-American sentiment (which is sort of ironic, considering America's basically holding up its hands and following Europe's bouncing ball at this point).  In fact, arms companies will actually make money based on polls showing the Russians as angry and fixing to invade.

It doesn't matter that Putin would have to be absolutely stupid to launch that attack, they just need to paint him with the correct paint.  All Putin's done at this point is taken off his clothes and made sure to raise his arms so they could make sure he had full coverage.  It's a tactical blunder, and it's based almost exclusively on not understanding what's going on in the world around him.  Re-taking Crimea is a good move in the sense of the 1960s, it's an invitation to be taken advantage of today.

And the Russian people, in the end, will be the ones that pay for it, as they have been paying already.  If there's one group of people that these corporate interests don't give a toss about, it's what happens to the Russian people after they take over former Russian markets and crash the currency.  Once the wind blows through and more reliable situations exist in Russia for these corporate interests, they can always re-speculate in Russia and make money all over again.

@Vic:

Moldova and even Georgia have already expressed interest in EU application... And I can understand why Georgia did so (pretty much like the Baltic Countries, but also we often forget how countries like Slovenia have gone from poverty and third world economy to a booming modern country)... But that is exactly what is pissing Putin to no end. He is completely surrounded, and directly at his doors. I can understand why he sees it as a direct threat, and why all this military muscle flexing and nuclear rearmament is happening and showcased with such... desperation.

Turkey is a delicate matter and while it was hotly debate 10 years ago, now that they have elected Erdogan and go the way they are going, nobody bothers with the debate anymore, Turkey basically decided the way they want to go for themselves...

Though oil pipelines are not excluded to still go through, the main issue being that Russia doesn't like it and applies pressure against it, especially since Iran is getting closer to a removal of economical penalties...

There is also the fact that while we look at the real reasons behind it as you nicely explained, there is still a hefty dose of ideology and politics that have to play a certain lever, especially for Putin who is de facto the leader of the traditionalist world and has to cater at least a minimum to the people he represents. I don't think Putin cares for that ideology, but the realities of politics and representation literally demand that he doesn't forget it. While it is the sugarcoat of it, the things that are shown in the media and the justifications for everything as usual, I think that ideological conflict goes deeper since it's basically a clash between traditionalist views (which are a wide majority in the world) and postmodern views.

For sure, and I should point out as to the above, I'm in no way saying that what you're describing isn't what people think nor that it's far from a political football.  You don't even have to look outside your own country, no matter what it is, to know that "traditional values" and looking backward to earlier times plays well with certain segments of the population (a.k.a. the baby boom).  You can gain political power in your own nation this way.  That doesn't mean it's a good idea to see the world that way, because global power in the age of ICBMs, air superiority, and of course the ability to crush your enemies economically has made the physical distances of borders and locations almost completely irrelevant.

By that, I mean you can see many people having an aneurysm over whether or not to move weapons into the Baltics.  It's a purely symbolic move on the part of anyone involved in doing it (though it is exactly the kind of thing weapons manufacturers make money on) and it represents no actual additional threat to Russia.  However, that's what people are focusing on.  They're not focusing on what happens if domestic and friendly nations' companies move in on Russian markets and take advantage of their weakness.  That's the real threat to Russia, here, because Russia can piss off its neighbors enough to guarantee it will lose a fight with BP.  And then Putin will need to somehow convince his neighbors that his oil is worth trusting him over because it's (hopefully) cheaper.

That hearkening for simpler times completely exists, and it's a sentiment that has some kind of exploitation in every nation on the planet to one degree or another.  I don't deny it's there or that Putin has to handle it.  The problem is, I actually do think Putin buys into that philosophy.  Nobody who didn't would sell his economic position to suit a land grab of Crimea; it's not in keeping with a realistic view of the global situation, to put it as mildly as possible.

China's actually conducting what looks like an experiment in that field at the moment at Senkaku.  A lot of people think China's trying to claim them for themselves, and in a way they are.  However, they know that surrounding the islands with warships weakens their position economically by making them look, well, like Putin.  Xi isn't quite that rash, though.  China is trying to say that the islands belong to Taiwan, which it claims but doesn't actually claim (they're pulling a long-game of trying to reconnect lost economic ties and re-unify, the latter of which is anathema in Taiwan but the former is very appealing).  The tactic currently seems to be to treat the situation the same way, trying to essentially drive Japan off of Taiwan's land.

And that's how you guarantee a win.  At the very least, Japan has to defend its own position on the islands to the world and has to perform some manner of development (as they've started to do).  If Taiwan ever gains control of the islands, even closer economic ties benefit them.  If they can force a negotiation, they can come out with some kind of personal rights over the island.  They might even be able to muscle out a deal.  However, key to the approach is to make sure they're seen as being big-stick people without ever using it.  Never be more trouble than you're worth; China thrives on industrial exports and forms a very vital link in the world's supply chain.

It's a tough balancing act, but Xi Jingping seems to be pulling it off.  China is just threatening enough to make sure everyone notices, but not threatening enough to make everyone worried.  Best yet, they use their people as an asset to foreign companies, not governments.  By allowing access to their population and the lucrative market they comprise without making that look like something that could vanish over an argument, they've got real-world economic power.

Shame about Turkey, though.  Just from an economic perspective and with the changing conditions in the Middle East, the EU could call the hand and win all the money in the pot.  Like I said, though, the situation in the Middle East is fluid, to say the least.  It's funny to think that the worst problem Putin has on his hands isn't America or the EU, it's the Saudis trying to put the strangle on the same oil companies that are looking to snatch up his business.
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Nicoletta Mithra

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #22 on: 02 Jul 2015, 17:22 »

Well, Vic, I simply don't agree with your analysis. Even if Russia has nothing to win when going to war, they might yet do it if they have nothing to loose by going to war and their economy is crashed due to no one buying thier oil.

And maybe Putin might not hit the 'true enemy', the corporations if going to war. Yet it will be disastrous for the people of Europe if he does. It might not 'matter' to you and some corporations, but it will very much matter to the people of Europe.

Also, I think you give a bit too much credit to 'the corporations'. Yes, they have influence, but that's nothing really radically new, nothing surprising and it doesn't mean that some old way of politics stopped working, because it's nothing new, really. it's oversymplifying the situation in my book to look at this purely from the economic perspective. Geostrategic advantages are as real today as they were when the traders of Venice re-routed an entire crusade to end in Constantinople.

Anyhow, maybe we should simply agree to disagree.
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Louella Dougans

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #23 on: 03 Jul 2015, 09:41 »

The Baltic states have a large population of people who are Russian, but are not full citizens. This is a problem.

The Narva Strategy, is to use those ethnic Russians in an attempt to take control of the city of Narva, and hold a "referendum".

The idea behind it, is to gamble that the NATO countries will be unwilling to commit to defending Narva, or unable to commit before "facts on the ground" are established.

It is intended to call the NATO bluff, because, if they do commit to defending Narva, then the ethnic Russians are deniable. The Kremlin has No Idea Whatsoever as to how those ethnic Russian citizens of Baltic states were able to obtain Russian-army issue hardware, and not just export-model hardware which is what you'd expect "military hobby enthusiasts" to possess. If NATO does not commit to defending Narva, or does not commit in time to prevent the "facts on the ground" being a "democratic referendum establishing the Narva city-state", then it shows that RUSSIA STRONK, NATO PUNY, USA IRRELEVANT, and then Russia can do whatever it wants in the east of Europe, and the EU will just have to live with being a Russian puppet state.



In any case, the bigger issue is this:

A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, unilaterally redrew its borders by military force, and the UN did absolute bugger all.

The UN is a bust. It's gone League of Nations.
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Nicoletta Mithra

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #24 on: 03 Jul 2015, 14:12 »

In any case, the bigger issue is this:

A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, unilaterally redrew its borders by military force, and the UN did absolute bugger all.

The UN is a bust. It's gone League of Nations.
You refer to the USA, no?
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Morwen Lagann

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #25 on: 03 Jul 2015, 22:55 »

Pretty sure our borders haven't changed since Alaska and Hawaii became states.
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Makkal

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #26 on: 04 Jul 2015, 03:17 »

The United Nations Security Council's big five are the USA, the UK, France, China, and Russia.

Ukraine Says Russian Generals Lead Separatists

Hardly shocking.

Quote
The dossier reports that Ukrainian intelligence services believe there are just under 9,000 Russian regular army soldiers currently deployed inside Ukraine, organized into 15 battalion tactical groups. That estimate could not be independently confirmed. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

The Ukrainians also contend that Russia continues to pour heavy weaponry into Ukraine, an accusation often echoed by senior U.S. officials. Those weapons include tanks, armored personnel carriers, and anti-aircraft missile systems similar to the one that accidentally shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 over Donetsk last year.

On Capitol Hill, there’s bipartisan support for giving the Ukrainian military defensive weapons, given the Russian actions, but the Obama administration has made clear they have no intention of going beyond the limited non-lethal assistance that is currently being provided.

Possibly 9,000 or so Russian troops led by Russian generals along with tanks, carriers, and missile systems, working alongside native separatists.

I expect that the Obama admin will provide 'lethal assistance' at some point, but want to come off as calm, collected, and non-aggressive right now. I do wonder how the presidential elections will spin current events with Russia.
« Last Edit: 04 Jul 2015, 03:40 by Makkal »
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Nicoletta Mithra

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #27 on: 04 Jul 2015, 05:49 »

Pretty sure our borders haven't changed since Alaska and Hawaii became states.

And at least in the case of Hawaii it was quite the typical unilateral (as unilateral as it is with Crimea) annexation. Luckily for the USA, the UN didn't exist by then. Similar is true for USAmerican territories like parts of American Samoa. Manua was annexed in 1904, then added to American Samoa. Swains Island was annexed in 1925 - that's in both cases after the annexation of Hawaii, by the way.

Anyhow, the USA has a long history of agressive foreign policy, acquiring the major part of its current landmass - some more, some less forcefully: The Florida acquisition 1810-19, Texas Annexation 1845 and Mexican Cessation 1848 make up for hughe swathes of the continental territory of the US. And it didn't quite stop there, as pointed out above. Even today the US is very keen to control geostrategically important places through a network of military bases. One only has to take a look at the percentage of Okinawa covered by US military bases - against Okinawan wishes. But hey, Japan agrees with it, no? the question is how much of a choice they have in the matter.

I dislike the portrayal of Russia-USA as one where Russia is this really bad expansionist Empire while the USA is somehow managing to be neither bad nor imperialist nor expansionist. To cite John T. Flynn:
"The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims, while incidentally capturing their markets; to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples, while blundering accidentally into their oil wells."
« Last Edit: 04 Jul 2015, 05:52 by Nicoletta Mithra »
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Silas Vitalia

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #28 on: 04 Jul 2015, 14:13 »

There aren't really any countries that weren't formed out of whole cloth by violently taking things from people who were in the way and forcing those people to accept their new overlords, until enough time passed to form some national identity.  Too many glass houses to throw those expansionist stones, especially in Europe :)

While we all have faults and certainly much blood and shame on our collective hands, I will in general hold the record of the capitalist democratic western nations against Russia in most things.  People weren't running across the Berlin Wall from the West to get into the soviet union. People aren't in rafts from Miami heading into Cuba, etc.

I think we can fully admit our own faults (which are many), and still quite comfortably condemn the current soft-war shittery Russia is conducting across its borders in supposedly sovereign nations.


Regarding Okinawa, our (US) fleets and bases in the area are the only thing standing between China becoming even more overtly aggressive in Southeast Asia and Japan rescinding it's nonviolent constitution and re-arming for conflict.  While it sounds counter intuitive a US military presence in Southeast Asia is a stabilizing force.   

People love to criticize our controversial global military presence but without our military security blanket many of the nations harboring our military would suddenly find themselves needing to arm themselves and under aggressive pressure from nearby rivals.

If we aren't there, then it's just Iran and Saudi Arabia staring at each other over the strait of Hormuz. If we aren't there then South Korea, Japan, and China have no reason not to be shitting on each other in an even more hostile manner.   Maybe some people will get their wish and we leave, and we'll just see how it goes.

This doesn't mean that things are not completely ridiculous on many fronts; the military industrial complex is an awful thing and I'm sure most of those bases around the world are completely unneeded and wasteful.  But there are many hot areas of the planet where some of the nations involved are unreasonable and seem to only respond to the threat of force backing up international norms.

I struggle with some of these things because I try to be an optimist and hope that people are rational and cooler heads can negotiate and be civil but the world is a terrible, violent, awful place.  Our military is often the very wrong tool for most situations which we have been very, very misguided in its use especially the last 15 years or so,  but sometimes it is the least bad tool for preventing more awful things.







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Lyn Farel

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Re: Is It Time to Assassinate Putin?
« Reply #29 on: 04 Jul 2015, 16:15 »

Not to belittle the importance of US bases in Okinawa (Japan is still ok with those because it's always better than nothing with China), but the Japanese army is actually quite developed. Their navy is one of the first in the world, and their military equipment is top tier. I think if China or Russia were to go after Japan, they would be for a very nasty surprise. The only thing that the japanese do not have is nuclear power.

The real problem I have with NATO is its inability to learn that smashing down regimes like in Iraq, Afghanistan (it's better here but still), or Lybia, leaves huge voids that prove to be real fertile ground for terrorist organizations. That and the short term support they like to offer to dubious organizations out of realpolitik: England arming Arabia against the Turks, the US arming the Afghan mudjaidins against the soviet, and both of them (UK, US) making their 'allied targets' to not forget and focus on their religious beliefs to a point where they were told to use them as a total doctrine... Guess from where comes the current wave of islamist terrorism now? The mistakes done in the middle east by interfering with religion and beliefs as a support for war and resistance, which worked perfectly on the short run, but proves disastrous now). Well, they seem to have learned eventually considering their reluctance to go in Irak/Syria or Lybia, but the devil is out of the box.
« Last Edit: 05 Jul 2015, 02:42 by Lyn Farel »
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