Ukraine

I thought that I would post a link to the text of the treaty to denuclearize Ukraine.

http://www.cfr.org/arms-control-disarma ... 994/p32484

The treaty does not require the US or NATO to provide military assistance to Ukraine.

The Russian occupation of Crimea is an obvious violation of the treaty.

The incitement of the demonstrations by the US and EU that overthrew the legal government of Ukraine were also a violation of treaty commitments.

Am I sounding like a damn liberal?

namelessfly wrote:This is a repeat of the Libyan revolution. The French and the Britishwere angry because Daffy Gaddaffy had given lucrative oil and gas contracts to the Chinese, so they incited a rebellion. When Gadaffy started kicking rebel asses, they conned Obama into taking down Libyan air defenses to impose a No fly Zone. The French and British then started flying close air support for the rebels without even warning the US.

Ach, we knew that already, so it's old news over here.

Going back to Ukraine, have a wade through this:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=209742

SUBSIM has a much more international footprint than this forum. You might find the various points of view and theories interesting.

Mike.

Thank you for posting the link.

One of the problems with Americans is that we are to preoccupied with our local and national issues to notice what is going on elsewhere in the world. There was almost zero coverage of the turmoil in Ukraine until the final few days before the government was overthrown. This information vacuum included FOX News which is "right wing.". Liberals in the US will ignore the fact that Obama stirred up this fecal storm because they support Obama. Conservatives will ignore US incitement of the coup and even possible responsibility for the sniper murders because they support a strong US military and oppose communism. To few understand that Russia is now less communist and more capitalist than the US. The down side is that backing down in Ukraine will embolden Putin.

Michael Riddell wrote:

namelessfly wrote:This is a repeat of the Libyan revolution. The French and the Britishwere angry because Daffy Gaddaffy had given lucrative oil and gas contracts to the Chinese, so they incited a rebellion. When Gadaffy started kicking rebel asses, they conned Obama into taking down Libyan air defenses to impose a No fly Zone. The French and British then started flying close air support for the rebels without even warning the US.

Ach, we knew that already, so it's old news over here.

Going back to Ukraine, have a wade through this:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=209742

SUBSIM has a much more international footprint than this forum. You might find the various points of view and theories interesting.

Mike.

namelessfly wrote:Thank you for posting the link.

Not a problem.

"Oberon" and "Skybird" are the ones to look for, though there are a few others who are taking it seriously as well. A nice leavening of black humour too!

For a Russian perspective, here's the "Russia Today" news page on the crisis:

http://rt.com/trends/ukraine-turmoil/

Here's Al Jazeera giving a Middle Eastern perspective:

http://www.aljazeera.com/category/country/ukraine

The BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26270866

Mike.

I have been exploring these international sites for different perspectives.

While I am amused by Governor Palin's comment about Putin wrestling bears while Obama wears Mom-Jenes (Palin still wears low riding hip huggers that look fantastic on her), the paradigm of the US vs aggressive Russia is to simplistic. US news including FOX News is unwilling to concede that Obama incited the rebellion that created the crisis. This is just like Egypt, Libya and Syria except Russia is not in the mood to be screwed with. It is arguable that Nato can defeat Russia's conventional forces but this is so close to their backyard that it would go nuclear. In spite of arms reduction treaties, the launching of the 1,000s of Russian warheads against the 100s of US urban targets would in the absence of any ABM capability result in 10s of millions of prompt fatalities.

Obama stuffed a pair of rolled up socks into the front of his Mom-Jeans to delude himself into thinking that he is macho then went and interrupted Putin who was kicking the crap out of a bear to pick a finght. This will not end well.

Michael Riddell wrote:

namelessfly wrote:Thank you for posting the link.

Not a problem.

"Oberon" and "Skybird" are the ones to look for, though there are a few others who are taking it seriously as well. A nice leavening of black humour too!

For a Russian perspective, here's the "Russia Today" news page on the crisis:

http://rt.com/trends/ukraine-turmoil/

Here's Al Jazeera giving a Middle Eastern perspective:

http://www.aljazeera.com/category/country/ukraine

The BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26270866

Mike.

namelessfly wrote:the paradigm of the US vs aggressive Russia is to simplistic. US news including FOX News is unwilling to concede that Obama incited the rebellion that created the crisis.

I wouldn´t say for certain that USA(or EU) created the mess, but they most definitely sponsored a big chunk of it.

Something might have happened even without their interference, but it would likely have been a very different event, and probably much more local.

namelessfly wrote:It is arguable that Nato can defeat Russia's conventional forces but this is so close to their backyard that it would go nuclear.

Russia is extremely unlikely to go nuclear.
They consider their nukes a necessity against the only nation ever to use nukes in war, not a tool.

It´s also unlikely that NATO would even dare trying to go in guns blazing.

And it´s terribly difficult to predict how such a war would proceed. Think Afghanistan was troublesome? Trying to fight Russia offensively would likely be magnitudes worse.

Obama must be pretty powerful,
to be so able to incite a rebellion that
otherwise would not have happened!
(Unless this "O did it!" theory is mistaken, of course.)

HTM

namelessfly wrote:[snip - htm]
US news including FOX News is unwilling to concede that Obama incited the rebellion that created the crisis.
[snip - htm]

You better go watch the Victoria Nuland video and read the transcript offer intercepted phone call. CIA provided training, logistical support and advanced computer and communications technology toArab Spring rebels so it is ikely they did the same to Ukraine.

ObviouslytheUS can not conjure upa rebellion where there are no convicts but theUS can inflame andenable existing conflicts.

This is such an established method that Iam amazed that you would even argue it.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Obama must be pretty powerful,
to be so able to incite a rebellion that
otherwise would not have happened!
(Unless this "O did it!" theory is mistaken, of course.)

HTM

namelessfly wrote:[snip - htm]
US news including FOX News is unwilling to concede that Obama incited the rebellion that created the crisis.
[snip - htm]

Russia is extremely unlikely to go nuclear.
They consider their nukes a necessity against the only nation ever to use nukes in war, not a tool.

It´s also unlikely that NATO would even dare trying to go in guns blazing.

And it´s terribly difficult to predict how such a war would proceed. Think Afghanistan was troublesome? Trying to fight Russia offensively would likely be magnitudes worse.

Assuming someone cast a magic spell and took nukes completely out of the picture, an offensive war with Russia could be "easily" won.

The challenge with Afghanistan was that we were trying to fight nice: going out of our way to avoid harm to civilians (yes there were civilian casualties but there would have been exponentially more if we hadn't been working so hard to avoid them), trying to do regime change, trying to do nation building etc.

Of course to do fight Russia successfully would require a total war scenario, the like we have not seen since WWII. NATO would need to put all of it's military and industrial might toward this one objective. They would need to destroy every military installation, bomb Russia's industrial capacity into the stone age and firebomb the cities. Millions of civilians would die, tens of millions would be refugees. Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has allowed its conventional forces to deteriorate badly so that they would be unable to stop such a determined assault. Deteriorated however does not mean non-existent. Russia forces would still be able to mount a defense sufficient to cause enormous casualties, closer to WWII levels than the Iraq/Afghanistan levels we have seen lately. Offensive forces have deteriorated similarly but like the defensive forces are still significant enough to do damage. While our better maintained would be able to stop most of the counter-offensive some would get though. Expect damage to many European cities, industrial areas etc and some to North American ones as well. At the end of the day we would "easily" win, but the butcher's bill would be horrendous.

biochem wrote:Assuming someone cast a magic spell and took nukes completely out of the picture, an offensive war with Russia could be "easily" won.

The challenge with Afghanistan was that we were trying to fight nice: going out of our way to avoid harm to civilians (yes there were civilian casualties but there would have been exponentially more if we hadn't been working so hard to avoid them), trying to do regime change, trying to do nation building etc.

Of course to do fight Russia successfully would require a total war scenario, the like we have not seen since WWII. NATO would need to put all of it's military and industrial might toward this one objective. They would need to destroy every military installation, bomb Russia's industrial capacity into the stone age and firebomb the cities. Millions of civilians would die, tens of millions would be refugees. Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has allowed its conventional forces to deteriorate badly so that they would be unable to stop such a determined assault. Deteriorated however does not mean non-existent. Russia forces would still be able to mount a defense sufficient to cause enormous casualties, closer to WWII levels than the Iraq/Afghanistan levels we have seen lately. Offensive forces have deteriorated similarly but like the defensive forces are still significant enough to do damage. While our better maintained would be able to stop most of the counter-offensive some would get though. Expect damage to many European cities, industrial areas etc and some to North American ones as well. At the end of the day we would "easily" win, but the butcher's bill would be horrendous.

Uhm, that´s pretty much a perfect example of NOT an easy win.

And you greatly underestimate local defense forces. As they would be utterly useless more than a day or two away from their home area, but they´re still nasty to run into for an attacker.

Also, how are you supposed to keep your troops with logistics? If Nato starts building up huge supply caches, uh yeah that would be a gigantic tip-off and an easy target for Russian special forces.


And more importantly, exactly where would your ground forces be going? Moscow? You really think that would end the fighting?
Not a chance.

And unlike the folks elsewhere using Russian or Soviet equipment, it is quite a different matter when it´s used as it was designed to be used.

I very much doubt you could get further than a highly destructive stalemate.