He doesn't need to. Yanukovych can retire to a country home in east Ukraine or Russia, and they simply need elections free from US and EU interference, and whoever the new Party of Regions candidate is will win.
UDAR, Fatherland, and Svoboda will split the pro-EU vote (as they did in the most recent elections), and the Party of Regions will wind up winning again.
Given free elections, Putin doesn't even need to rig anything, the PoR actually is the dominant political party in Ukraine (which is why the opposition overthrew them - they knew they couldn't win). Yanukovych came to power when the opposition controlled things, if anyone doesn't remember...
Picture a small yappy poodle (Britain) hiding behind a rottweiler (US), who is tied to a tree staring down a bear (Russia) with a sore head, who has been baited for the last 20 years by the rottweiler.
Meanwhile an old German shepherd dog (Germany) sits inside on the rug in front of the fire, pricks his ears up, listens and goes straight back to sleep.
Why is he underestimating England? At this point England is basically:
a) an English speaking financial center
b) an English speaking media source
Does it count for anything else? Both of those are only relevant now because of English becoming today's lingua franca, mostly due to the US. Even in Europe they're second fiddle to Germany/France.
> You underestimate England and have a very recent view of history
Ok, I'll bite:
1. It was a joke.
2. I'm British. UK or Britain, but not "England". Please. We don't have an English Army. We have an English football team, but that is a different story, and "the Germans always win".
3. The British Armed Forces strength (especially its navy) has been severely depleted in the last 20 years. They currently only have two aircraft carriers, HMS Illustrious and HMS Ocean. Illustrious was refitted to cover for Ocean whilst in refit (still ongoing), and then would be decommissioned afterwards (sometime this year). The Royal Navy decommissioned the awesome but expensive Harriers [ii]. They (we) have no fixed wing aircraft carriers anymore [iv]. This is all due to the Strategic Defence and Security Review [i] in 2010 in order to save £38 billion. David Cameron went to town and stripped the British Armed Forces to its bare naked minimum as part of this review and stated that:
"From a strategy over-reliant on military intervention to a
higher priority for conflict prevention. From concentrating
on conventional threats to a new focus on unconventional threats.
And from armed forces that are overstretched, under-equipped and
deployed too often without appropriate planning to the most professional
and most flexible modern forces in the world, fully equipped for the
challenges of the future."
So, in summary, Britain doesn't have the capability to defend itself without the US backing it. It can't even service its own Vanguard submarine Trident II missiles. The UK is a mouth piece. It is that little child that repeats everything the teacher says - in that annoying "I told you so" voice. However, out in the playground he gets bullied and has the seven shades of shit knocked out of him until the teacher steps in.
Amusingly Margaret Thatcher (another Tory) stripped the Navy back in 1980/1981, only to find out that she needed them after all. When they needed to go to the Falklands, she didn't have ships. The fascinating story from behind the scenes can be read in full here:
The UK is still one of the wealthiest and, yes, best-armed countries on Earth. Few even have one aircraft carrier - China, which everyone sees as a world power, just got a refitted Ukrainian one. (Humorous coincidence there).
I guess that still isn't a big enough military for you.
You didn't NEED to go to the Falklands at all, it was a splendid little war for you though.
You didn't NEED to go to the Falklands at all, it was a
splendid little war for you though.
Did I say I agreed with it? Um, no I didn't.
Did I say I think we should have a huge military budget? No.
I purposefully avoided stating my opinion.
What I was said was that the UK it it's current state is unable to respond militarily in this conflict. David Cameron decided that Britain would be focusing on "unconventional threats". I.e. terrorism and not "big bad" Russia.
I was simply drawing parallels between the Tory government in 1981 and the current Tory government in 2014.
I think Putin's Crimea grab shows he understands exactly what he can get away with. The UK and Germany seem both reluctant to do anything harsh, and I don't see France doing anything different.
The UK's position is particularly shameful. Their goal is to "protect the city". They're afraid a pullout of Russian money would hurt the stock market and it'd certainly pop the housing bubble. It's all highly cynical and quite corrupt.
I think it was an act of panic on his part. He's popular in Russia because he's a strong man and he makes Russians feel powerful.
Yanukovych was Putin's boy in Ukraine and they kicked him out on the ass he rode in on. If Putin can't even keep his puppets in power in former SSRs then what kind of strongman is he?
Now Putin needs to 1) make this look like a victory without 2) too many negative international consequences. Given that he controls Europe's natural gas he actually has a lot of leverage to get a decent deal, so my bet is that he'll be able to get some sort of change in political status for Crimea.
That may seem kinda pointless given Crimea lacks any sort of strategic importance but remember that Putin's goal is not to gain a better strategic or political position for Russia but rather, to not look impotent to his domestic audience.
Exactly the problem with dictatorships. You can't have the ruler "look bad" even for trivial stuff, and he'd rather send thousands or tens of thousands of people to their death, than be embarrassed himself.
We can argue whether Russia is a dictatorship or not, but I'd say it's a lot closer to one than to democracy, especially when opposition leaders and protesters are arrested, and everyone else in the Parliament votes for whatever Putin says, out of fear for their lives, and elections are being robbed like there's no tomorrow, while Putin gets to interpret the Constitution as he's being allowed to rule virtually forever in Russia.
If Russia had a functioning democracy and Parliament, it wouldn't matter that Putin was "embarrassed" and made to look like a fool (which I don't think anyone thought that, at least not from outside of Russia, but it seems to be more of a thing in his mind).
My question has been this all the long. Really, why is this uprising democratic in nature as many Western news sources claim? They drove off an elected government. One of the heroines of this movement is a monster who was similarly driven out of power in the preceding Orange Revolution (or whatever)
If anything its only an issue because Putin has not decided to play ball like the others want. He went his own way in Syria and came off as the side with the sensible alternatives. He is not drawing red lines in the sand only to have other countries ignore them, heck he ignores them.
You have a large country on your borders with a very large military do the freak out twice in ten years, yeah I would be concerned. Better yet, since there are many ethnic groups that share similarities across borders, if not merely separated by past Soviet political games, there are some valid concerns to be addressed. Let alone there are Russian military bases are there by treaty and lease in Crimeria, there is also a large contingent that has been trying to align with Russia since the Soviet Union broke up.
So its not all cut and dry as many in the West would like. Considering the US recent history with Libya, Syria, and drone assassination programs, its not like we have the moral standing to chastise them
You are GRAVELY misinformed and you are destroying all nuance because you are in such a rush to change the subject to condemning "the West".
Tymoshenko was NOT driven out during the Orange Revolution. She was one of its leaders. But since you seem to support the Orange Revolution, why was that democratic in nature?
Since you claim that ethnic Ukrainians were prone to carry out a pogrom against ethnic Russians, provide any evidence for that claim.
Russia has a port in Crimea and there are some Russian-aligned people there, that is fine, actually the US position was that Putin should pull back to his bases.
Somehow you missed the part about marching a large army into Ukraine and how that violates existing treaties and the sovereignty of Ukraine.
The existence of drones does not invalidate all treaties.
If your problem with drones is violation of international law, you must at least oppose other violations of international law. It doesn't make sense to be selective.
By the way, according to the Russia-Ukraine treaty Russia does have a right to be in Crimea, and the head of state of Ukraine asked Russia for assistance, further bolstering their legal right to be in Ukraine.
This whole situation has really highlighted what gossip rags our media are. 90% of the news articles on the subject are just using it as a proxy for the same-old domestic political narratives. I read a George Will column this morning that blamed Putin's invasion on Obamacare.
I looked into my crystal ball and came up with some predictions:
1) Russia will annex Crimea, and we won't do a thing about it.
2) The pro-western government in Kiev will survive, join the EU, and possibly NATO
3) A month from now, we'll have pushed our cultural/economic borders 500 miles to the east of where they were in 2013, right up against Russia's, and maybe our military borders as well, while depriving Russia of their last remaining european client state. Without lifting a finger. While Russia had to mobilize to salvage one of their most important ports and keep the situation from being a total loss for them.
4) Columnists will write opinion pieces about how Putin is the real winner here, because of his toughness, the set of his jaw and the captivating, cold stare of those blue-gray eyes.
I agree in the longterm that Russia is simply not in a position to be the world power it wants to be, and this doesn't change that; indeed, it is likely to be a step backward for them in the longterm as the world begins taking the idea that Russia is essentially a rogue state very seriously, and adjusting their economics to this reality, which Russia is not going to like.
However, in the short term he is still being very successful in making the West look feckless with its total shock that this happened and complete unpreparedness for it. It is simply not a credit to our foreign policy wonks that they are apparently so narcissistic that it appears they are unable to comprehend the idea that Putin would actually do this, despite the fact our foreign policy wonks would never see it as a good idea. For an ideology that is ever-preaching "diversity" it seems to have a really hard idea with the idea that there are people who do not merely have beliefs that superficially differ from it, but that profoundly differ from it.
"look feckless".. so you agree with the idiot columnists?
If we were Russia, we would absolutely see it as a good idea to make sure we controlled Crimea. It's like 70% Russian-speaking, was part of the Russian empire until the 50s and indirectly Russian from then on, and Sevastopol is one of the most important military locations in the world to them, as well as a historic Russian city.
Of course they're going to make sure they keep Crimea. But that's all they're keeping, as opposed to the whole Ukrainian nation being under their influence. That's a loss for them, and people who don't track US domestic politics for a living can see that.
Russia's not a 'rogue state', they're just looking after their interests here. The US has used a lot more military force for a lot worse reasons, and recently.
'"look feckless".. so you agree with the idiot columnists?'
Oh, sorry, my mistake. The West has been a well-oiled machine in response to this, with clear goals and a strong, unified message that clearly indicated their preparation for this.
Could you refresh my memory on what that strong, unified message is again? Wading through the diplospeak pretty much seems to come out to "Uhhhhh.... whatever, dude."
As far as preparation.. I'm sure, if necessary, we have an extensively prepared joint military plan with our allies to fight over the Black Sea. I'm also sure we're not going to do that. What else do you want? You think different messaging would change those facts? I'm prepared to snort and chuckle.
No, I'm talking about messaging, on purpose. Generally speaking, getting the messaging right is significantly easier than getting a military response somehow set up.
Yes, different messaging would indeed be helpful. Not being so surprised would be helpful. In particular, having a clear message for the Ukranians would be helpful. Certainly something better than what, say, the Syrians got. Or the Iraqis that stood with us. Or the Afghanis that stood with us.
I recognize that the correct answer to things is not a military one, by all means, but vague promises that we still have no intention of keeping despite their vagueness, such as "Vice President Biden just spoke with Prime Minister — the Prime Minister of Ukraine to assure him that in this difficult moment the United States supports his government’s efforts and stands for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and democratic future of Ukraine." [1] No, we don't. He can't count on us for anything more expensive than words, at least in the short term. I'd appreciate it if we stop assuring people of how we're going to help them, only for us to just hang them out to dry later when they actually think we're serious. We've done an awful lot of that in the past decade.
That whole message is damn near meaningless when unwrapped from the diplospeak. I had to search for anything that even resembles a statement of what actions we might take, which is what I quoted, and even that is basically meaningless (certainly very unspecific, and in diplospeak that's not an accident). We can't even muster up a sufficient level of concern to do more than broadly promise consequences... we certainly don't have anything like a plan to actually impose even the faintest of economic sanctions for this. (My browser reports that the word "sanctions" doesn't even appear in that text.)
Perhaps something more concrete will come out later; if so that would support my thesis that we were unprepared.
(Of course, unpacked from the diplospeak, the only alternative other than "Uhh... whatever." that that could translate to is a declaration that Russia is welcome to the Ukraine, it's fine with us. "Uhh... whatever" is the charitable reading of this statement....)
Well, on public diplospeak, people don't want to tie their hands in the future with clear public statements, so they're going to deliberately say nothing while the real action happens in private.
On preparation.. well, my opinion is that there are a lot of potential situations that can happen in the world, in order to have a 10-country-coordinated gameplan for every possible situation, kept up to date between the countries as governments change.. you're not going to have a script for this. What they can have is exhaustively updated briefs and intelligence on as many relevant players/interests as possible and really good communication between allies, both enabling leaders to 'wing it' as effectively as possible.
That's still not what's relevant here. To make sense of the situation you have to put these pieces of the puzzle together:
* Putin is the 'charismatic leader' of a military powerhouse in financial decline.
* He has been actively radicalizing his citizens through a well-oiled fully state controlled propaganda machine.
* He believes he has Europe in his pocket through the oil supply and massive proceeds from corruption stashed away in European assets (and so far he's been right.)
* He seems increasingly divorced from reality and reports are circulating he seems to be fed propaganda as truth by his close advisors; something with seems the Occam's Razor-explanation for his decidedly strange public statement just hours ago.
* He has started to attempt to expand his empire to return to his Empire's old glory.
As far as Crimea is concerned: only a bit over 50% Russian-speaking and only 23% support(ed) joining Russia.
They have also been watching Russia state news which shows propaganda such as:
* Kiev protests as all paid by the West (definitely not true)
* hundreds of thousands fleeing to Russia (no activity at the border)
* spontaneous pro-Russian takeovers (masked men using Russia military vehicles)
* mass Ukrainian defections (disarmament at gunpoint)
* massive pro-Russia protests (brought in buses by the unemployment agency and disappearing completely after 60 minutes)
You can take a look at my twitter list at https://twitter.com/mtrimpe/lists/ukraine for more information (just ignore the EastOfBrussels, UkraineInEurope and Opinieleiders; they're pro-West propagandists but still find some good stuff occasionally.)
Of course we do our fair share of this, even though I'm pretty sure there's still an order of magnitude difference, but that wasn't my point.
My point was that the real story here is understanding is that we have someone with both the means and the motives to trigger a world war showing signs of destabilising. That risk is the real story here.
"As far as Crimea is concerned: only a bit over 50% Russian-speaking"
Citation needed. I think it would be indeed not easy to find anyone living in Crimea for whom Russian is not the main communication language (and yes, that includes Crimean tatars).
Disclaimer: I've spent around six weeks in Crimea over a few years. Sevastopol and south coast mostly.
> However, in the short term he is still being very successful in making the West look feckless with its total shock that this happened and complete unpreparedness for it. It is simply not a credit to our foreign policy wonks that they are apparently so narcissistic that it appears they are unable to comprehend the idea that Putin would actually do this,
What military advisers were unprepared for this to happen? I'm betting they (US military) planned for this months ago as a hypothetical if the Ukraine moved closer to the the EU.
I was actually debating whether to mention Belarus, and edited it out to preserve space and get my point about dumb US political writing across. Thanks for chipping that in :)
As far as joining the EU.. I think political concerns will rule the day as France/Germany/UK will have a compelling reason to consolidate the 'ukraine is not russia' fact on the ground. But who knows, I didn't get any guarantees with that crystal ball, it could be that concerns about a flood of ukrainian guest workers stop it from happening. Maybe they find a way to have a slower economic integration to lessen the shock, or maybe I had things flipped and Ukraine will join NATO before the EU. I'm reasonably sure, though, that the US/UK/FR/DE will be working together to marry Ukraine into the alliance some way or other.
>I read a George Will column this morning that blamed Putin's invasion on Obamacare
Not sure about your reading comprehension there.
"Large presidential failures cannot be hermetically sealed; they permeate a presidency. Putin's contribution to the miniaturization of Obama comes in the context of Obama's self-inflicted wound — Obamacare, which simultaneously shattered belief in his competence and honesty, and may linger as ruinously for Obama as the Iranian hostage crisis did for Carter."
Oh, he seems to understand it well enough. Iraq '03 and Libya '11 have been excellent examples of 21st Century Power. (I'm omitting Serbia '99, as it was, formally speaking, 20th century, but that example was very spectacular, too.)
See, I was going to say that Putin isn't far behind. After all, apparently the US is still learning these same lessons.
one of the really annoying things one starts seeing in the American press when being away from the country for a while is the tremendous inability to see the same patterns at home as abroad. It's quite amusing and also quite disturbing.
I think they were. You have to look at the situation the US was in a the time. Long quagmires are politically untenable in the US and Afghanistan is the most tactically difficult terrain in the history of the world. Additionally my enemies really aren't states so much as a political movement who survives largely through the tacit support of the surrounding population. I need an easy war and I need a place to kill terrorists and expose the indifferent to the effects of their violence. Whether or not that was the stated purpose that was the effect of the Iraq war. I would argue that excluding the real dollar cost it was probably one of the most successful wars in American history.
As for Libya well to be honest it is no longer in America's interest to ensure stability in the middle east. In fact given the long reach of unhappy middle eastern people its our job to make sure they express that unhappiness right at home. The Libyan people are doing that right now.
> Whether or not that was the stated purpose that was the effect of the Iraq war. I would argue that excluding the real dollar cost it was probably one of the most successful wars in American history.
Wait, what? Al Qaeda was [surviving] "largely through the tacit support of the surrounding population" [of Iraq]? Saddam was not a major terror sponsor. But the net effect of this little experiment in nation-building is at the very least 100k dead civilians, and the build-up of insurgencies movements throughout the region, who have by now good weaponry and plenty of veterans. Oh, and fantastic PR for the western world, too.
I didn't discuss Saddam because he was largely irrelevant to our strategic goals. The supporter I'm referring to is the ordinary citizen who helps to facilitate and fund the jihadi. Those 100k civilians were the medium for the message.
If those insurgents are largely focused on local state control that is a net win for the United States in my opinion.
There was no insurgency in Iraq before the invasion. The net result of which was triggering a bloody civil war, fuel hatred of the West for decades, destabilize the whole area and reinforce Iran. I don't see how this furthers the US' strategic goals. My understanding is that the only message that has been taken home is that the Bush administration had as little understanding of the country as it had regard for the rule of law.
Putin: goes into Crimeea, doesn't kill anyone, doesn't steal anything. Openly supported by the population.
Media: "Bad guy, aggressor, doesn't understand power, etc."
Nato/US: goes into Irak, kills millions, destroy country, steal all resources, then goes into Libya - does same thing; working on the same in Syria. Planing the same for Iran.
Drone-ing hundreds of children in Pakistan and Afganistan.
Media: "Liberators,spreading democracy."
Most people inside the US don't understand the perception of the US from the outside. This is one of the reasons why Ukraine will be completely lost by the US and become a place where Russia and the EU can have a lot of common ground and realize a closer relationship.
The whole thing is rather pathetic with Russian officials waving around a piece of paper saying Yanukovych asked our military to come take charge and save us from Nazis. Meanwhile Yanukovych's former aide states that is unlikely. Sad.
Sure, the United States and the European Union have no inclination to send troops to defend Ukraine, but they have economic weapons that could severely undermine Russia’s tottering economy.
No, they don't. Germany, for instance has a huge energy deficit and gets about a third of it's energy from Russia at a discounted rate primarily through the Nordstream pipeline.
The low debt load and the fact that Europe depends on it as a source of energy means that the economic ball is more in Russia's court than the EU's.
The US can block all trade between Russia and itself, and all that would do is hurt vodka sales.
63 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 166 ms ] threadCan you imagine the riots? He then has the Russian troops there to force it to happen and end it with violence that might start a civil war.
Because that's what he seems headed towards:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/putin-ukraine-unconsti...
UDAR, Fatherland, and Svoboda will split the pro-EU vote (as they did in the most recent elections), and the Party of Regions will wind up winning again.
Given free elections, Putin doesn't even need to rig anything, the PoR actually is the dominant political party in Ukraine (which is why the opposition overthrew them - they knew they couldn't win). Yanukovych came to power when the opposition controlled things, if anyone doesn't remember...
Meanwhile an old German shepherd dog (Germany) sits inside on the rug in front of the fire, pricks his ears up, listens and goes straight back to sleep.
a) an English speaking financial center
b) an English speaking media source
Does it count for anything else? Both of those are only relevant now because of English becoming today's lingua franca, mostly due to the US. Even in Europe they're second fiddle to Germany/France.
Ok, I'll bite:
1. It was a joke.
2. I'm British. UK or Britain, but not "England". Please. We don't have an English Army. We have an English football team, but that is a different story, and "the Germans always win".
3. The British Armed Forces strength (especially its navy) has been severely depleted in the last 20 years. They currently only have two aircraft carriers, HMS Illustrious and HMS Ocean. Illustrious was refitted to cover for Ocean whilst in refit (still ongoing), and then would be decommissioned afterwards (sometime this year). The Royal Navy decommissioned the awesome but expensive Harriers [ii]. They (we) have no fixed wing aircraft carriers anymore [iv]. This is all due to the Strategic Defence and Security Review [i] in 2010 in order to save £38 billion. David Cameron went to town and stripped the British Armed Forces to its bare naked minimum as part of this review and stated that:
So, in summary, Britain doesn't have the capability to defend itself without the US backing it. It can't even service its own Vanguard submarine Trident II missiles. The UK is a mouth piece. It is that little child that repeats everything the teacher says - in that annoying "I told you so" voice. However, out in the playground he gets bullied and has the seven shades of shit knocked out of him until the teacher steps in.Amusingly Margaret Thatcher (another Tory) stripped the Navy back in 1980/1981, only to find out that she needed them after all. When they needed to go to the Falklands, she didn't have ships. The fascinating story from behind the scenes can be read in full here:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/01/falklands-war-that...
This would have been a very different tale without US support [v].
[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defence_and_Security_...
[ii] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15876745
[iii] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/oct/19/uk-can-no-lo...
[iv] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/oct/19/david-camero...
[v] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_Falklands...
I guess that still isn't a big enough military for you.
You didn't NEED to go to the Falklands at all, it was a splendid little war for you though.
Did I say I think we should have a huge military budget? No.
I purposefully avoided stating my opinion.
What I was said was that the UK it it's current state is unable to respond militarily in this conflict. David Cameron decided that Britain would be focusing on "unconventional threats". I.e. terrorism and not "big bad" Russia.
I was simply drawing parallels between the Tory government in 1981 and the current Tory government in 2014.
Yanukovych was Putin's boy in Ukraine and they kicked him out on the ass he rode in on. If Putin can't even keep his puppets in power in former SSRs then what kind of strongman is he?
Now Putin needs to 1) make this look like a victory without 2) too many negative international consequences. Given that he controls Europe's natural gas he actually has a lot of leverage to get a decent deal, so my bet is that he'll be able to get some sort of change in political status for Crimea.
That may seem kinda pointless given Crimea lacks any sort of strategic importance but remember that Putin's goal is not to gain a better strategic or political position for Russia but rather, to not look impotent to his domestic audience.
We can argue whether Russia is a dictatorship or not, but I'd say it's a lot closer to one than to democracy, especially when opposition leaders and protesters are arrested, and everyone else in the Parliament votes for whatever Putin says, out of fear for their lives, and elections are being robbed like there's no tomorrow, while Putin gets to interpret the Constitution as he's being allowed to rule virtually forever in Russia.
If Russia had a functioning democracy and Parliament, it wouldn't matter that Putin was "embarrassed" and made to look like a fool (which I don't think anyone thought that, at least not from outside of Russia, but it seems to be more of a thing in his mind).
All Great Powers fear losing face, democracies are not immune, as a glance at television news or newspaper opinion pages would show.
I am no military strategist, but isn't Crimea kind of important to Russia's navy?
I think if anything you're confusing strategic significance with symbolic significance. This invasion is about symbolism, not strategy.
If anything its only an issue because Putin has not decided to play ball like the others want. He went his own way in Syria and came off as the side with the sensible alternatives. He is not drawing red lines in the sand only to have other countries ignore them, heck he ignores them.
You have a large country on your borders with a very large military do the freak out twice in ten years, yeah I would be concerned. Better yet, since there are many ethnic groups that share similarities across borders, if not merely separated by past Soviet political games, there are some valid concerns to be addressed. Let alone there are Russian military bases are there by treaty and lease in Crimeria, there is also a large contingent that has been trying to align with Russia since the Soviet Union broke up.
So its not all cut and dry as many in the West would like. Considering the US recent history with Libya, Syria, and drone assassination programs, its not like we have the moral standing to chastise them
Tymoshenko was NOT driven out during the Orange Revolution. She was one of its leaders. But since you seem to support the Orange Revolution, why was that democratic in nature?
Since you claim that ethnic Ukrainians were prone to carry out a pogrom against ethnic Russians, provide any evidence for that claim.
Russia has a port in Crimea and there are some Russian-aligned people there, that is fine, actually the US position was that Putin should pull back to his bases.
Somehow you missed the part about marching a large army into Ukraine and how that violates existing treaties and the sovereignty of Ukraine.
The existence of drones does not invalidate all treaties. If your problem with drones is violation of international law, you must at least oppose other violations of international law. It doesn't make sense to be selective.
I looked into my crystal ball and came up with some predictions:
1) Russia will annex Crimea, and we won't do a thing about it.
2) The pro-western government in Kiev will survive, join the EU, and possibly NATO
3) A month from now, we'll have pushed our cultural/economic borders 500 miles to the east of where they were in 2013, right up against Russia's, and maybe our military borders as well, while depriving Russia of their last remaining european client state. Without lifting a finger. While Russia had to mobilize to salvage one of their most important ports and keep the situation from being a total loss for them.
4) Columnists will write opinion pieces about how Putin is the real winner here, because of his toughness, the set of his jaw and the captivating, cold stare of those blue-gray eyes.
However, in the short term he is still being very successful in making the West look feckless with its total shock that this happened and complete unpreparedness for it. It is simply not a credit to our foreign policy wonks that they are apparently so narcissistic that it appears they are unable to comprehend the idea that Putin would actually do this, despite the fact our foreign policy wonks would never see it as a good idea. For an ideology that is ever-preaching "diversity" it seems to have a really hard idea with the idea that there are people who do not merely have beliefs that superficially differ from it, but that profoundly differ from it.
If we were Russia, we would absolutely see it as a good idea to make sure we controlled Crimea. It's like 70% Russian-speaking, was part of the Russian empire until the 50s and indirectly Russian from then on, and Sevastopol is one of the most important military locations in the world to them, as well as a historic Russian city.
Of course they're going to make sure they keep Crimea. But that's all they're keeping, as opposed to the whole Ukrainian nation being under their influence. That's a loss for them, and people who don't track US domestic politics for a living can see that.
Russia's not a 'rogue state', they're just looking after their interests here. The US has used a lot more military force for a lot worse reasons, and recently.
Oh, sorry, my mistake. The West has been a well-oiled machine in response to this, with clear goals and a strong, unified message that clearly indicated their preparation for this.
Could you refresh my memory on what that strong, unified message is again? Wading through the diplospeak pretty much seems to come out to "Uhhhhh.... whatever, dude."
As far as preparation.. I'm sure, if necessary, we have an extensively prepared joint military plan with our allies to fight over the Black Sea. I'm also sure we're not going to do that. What else do you want? You think different messaging would change those facts? I'm prepared to snort and chuckle.
Yes, different messaging would indeed be helpful. Not being so surprised would be helpful. In particular, having a clear message for the Ukranians would be helpful. Certainly something better than what, say, the Syrians got. Or the Iraqis that stood with us. Or the Afghanis that stood with us.
I recognize that the correct answer to things is not a military one, by all means, but vague promises that we still have no intention of keeping despite their vagueness, such as "Vice President Biden just spoke with Prime Minister — the Prime Minister of Ukraine to assure him that in this difficult moment the United States supports his government’s efforts and stands for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and democratic future of Ukraine." [1] No, we don't. He can't count on us for anything more expensive than words, at least in the short term. I'd appreciate it if we stop assuring people of how we're going to help them, only for us to just hang them out to dry later when they actually think we're serious. We've done an awful lot of that in the past decade.
[1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/02...
That whole message is damn near meaningless when unwrapped from the diplospeak. I had to search for anything that even resembles a statement of what actions we might take, which is what I quoted, and even that is basically meaningless (certainly very unspecific, and in diplospeak that's not an accident). We can't even muster up a sufficient level of concern to do more than broadly promise consequences... we certainly don't have anything like a plan to actually impose even the faintest of economic sanctions for this. (My browser reports that the word "sanctions" doesn't even appear in that text.)
Perhaps something more concrete will come out later; if so that would support my thesis that we were unprepared.
(Of course, unpacked from the diplospeak, the only alternative other than "Uhh... whatever." that that could translate to is a declaration that Russia is welcome to the Ukraine, it's fine with us. "Uhh... whatever" is the charitable reading of this statement....)
On preparation.. well, my opinion is that there are a lot of potential situations that can happen in the world, in order to have a 10-country-coordinated gameplan for every possible situation, kept up to date between the countries as governments change.. you're not going to have a script for this. What they can have is exhaustively updated briefs and intelligence on as many relevant players/interests as possible and really good communication between allies, both enabling leaders to 'wing it' as effectively as possible.
"so are you russian or ukrainian?"
she answered the following:
"that's an interesting question. i was born in kiev, i speak russian. some day they told us, you're not russian anymore, you're ukranian."
* Putin is the 'charismatic leader' of a military powerhouse in financial decline.
* He has been actively radicalizing his citizens through a well-oiled fully state controlled propaganda machine.
* He believes he has Europe in his pocket through the oil supply and massive proceeds from corruption stashed away in European assets (and so far he's been right.)
* He seems increasingly divorced from reality and reports are circulating he seems to be fed propaganda as truth by his close advisors; something with seems the Occam's Razor-explanation for his decidedly strange public statement just hours ago.
* He has started to attempt to expand his empire to return to his Empire's old glory.
As far as Crimea is concerned: only a bit over 50% Russian-speaking and only 23% support(ed) joining Russia.
They have also been watching Russia state news which shows propaganda such as:
* Kiev protests as all paid by the West (definitely not true)
* hundreds of thousands fleeing to Russia (no activity at the border)
* spontaneous pro-Russian takeovers (masked men using Russia military vehicles)
* mass Ukrainian defections (disarmament at gunpoint)
* massive pro-Russia protests (brought in buses by the unemployment agency and disappearing completely after 60 minutes)
I'm interested, what was this statement? Thanks
You can take a look at my twitter list at https://twitter.com/mtrimpe/lists/ukraine for more information (just ignore the EastOfBrussels, UkraineInEurope and Opinieleiders; they're pro-West propagandists but still find some good stuff occasionally.)
Shaun Walker from Guardian, who's been the most thorough reporter so far, is working on one too (https://twitter.com/shaunwalker7/status/440865355767234560) which will probably be the best source of info on it.
My point was that the real story here is understanding is that we have someone with both the means and the motives to trigger a world war showing signs of destabilising. That risk is the real story here.
Citation needed. I think it would be indeed not easy to find anyone living in Crimea for whom Russian is not the main communication language (and yes, that includes Crimean tatars).
Disclaimer: I've spent around six weeks in Crimea over a few years. Sevastopol and south coast mostly.
What military advisers were unprepared for this to happen? I'm betting they (US military) planned for this months ago as a hypothetical if the Ukraine moved closer to the the EU.
4) Russia still have their Belarus.
As far as joining the EU.. I think political concerns will rule the day as France/Germany/UK will have a compelling reason to consolidate the 'ukraine is not russia' fact on the ground. But who knows, I didn't get any guarantees with that crystal ball, it could be that concerns about a flood of ukrainian guest workers stop it from happening. Maybe they find a way to have a slower economic integration to lessen the shock, or maybe I had things flipped and Ukraine will join NATO before the EU. I'm reasonably sure, though, that the US/UK/FR/DE will be working together to marry Ukraine into the alliance some way or other.
Not sure about your reading comprehension there.
"Large presidential failures cannot be hermetically sealed; they permeate a presidency. Putin's contribution to the miniaturization of Obama comes in the context of Obama's self-inflicted wound — Obamacare, which simultaneously shattered belief in his competence and honesty, and may linger as ruinously for Obama as the Iranian hostage crisis did for Carter."
one of the really annoying things one starts seeing in the American press when being away from the country for a while is the tremendous inability to see the same patterns at home as abroad. It's quite amusing and also quite disturbing.
As for Libya well to be honest it is no longer in America's interest to ensure stability in the middle east. In fact given the long reach of unhappy middle eastern people its our job to make sure they express that unhappiness right at home. The Libyan people are doing that right now.
Wait, what? Al Qaeda was [surviving] "largely through the tacit support of the surrounding population" [of Iraq]? Saddam was not a major terror sponsor. But the net effect of this little experiment in nation-building is at the very least 100k dead civilians, and the build-up of insurgencies movements throughout the region, who have by now good weaponry and plenty of veterans. Oh, and fantastic PR for the western world, too.
If those insurgents are largely focused on local state control that is a net win for the United States in my opinion.
Nato/US: goes into Irak, kills millions, destroy country, steal all resources, then goes into Libya - does same thing; working on the same in Syria. Planing the same for Iran. Drone-ing hundreds of children in Pakistan and Afganistan. Media: "Liberators,spreading democracy."
No, they don't. Germany, for instance has a huge energy deficit and gets about a third of it's energy from Russia at a discounted rate primarily through the Nordstream pipeline.
The low debt load and the fact that Europe depends on it as a source of energy means that the economic ball is more in Russia's court than the EU's.
The US can block all trade between Russia and itself, and all that would do is hurt vodka sales.