Putin/Ukraine/and other actions

[SanteeFats]

How do you feel about the Russian invasion of not only the Crimea but Ukraine in general??? Mine is that Putin is out to restore some of the old SSR's. I think he is a stone cold killer and does not care about anything but his legacy. He did lead the KGB after all and it appears widely known they are not adverse to killing and torturing people. If he can add a couple-three satellites back to Russia he will live on in history and help restore any smirches on the USSR's non-existent honor. IMHO.

[aphex1973]

I think that anyone who actually believed that the cold war was over simply because the old Soviet political system collapsed was deluding themselves. With specific regard to Ukraine and Crimea, Russia has been angling for a renewed role in global economics and political/military influence for a while now. With a southern port in the Black Sea and close regional access to the Mediterranean via the Bosporus, they will be much better positioned to accomplish this goal. Putin is a Russian leader pure and simple. His actions are in line with Russia's historical struggle to secure access to a warm water sea port. I personally feel that the man is a frighteningly intelligent, cold, calculating and ruthless individual with designs on establishing a hegemony of states to counter EU, US and Chinese interests, much like the Soviet domination of satellite states in the days of the USSR. I don't see Putin as being overly introspective or concerned with what "the west" thinks of him. He has and will continue to inflame long established ethnic tensions and exploit social and political unrest in order to achieve his goals.

[Lemo]

Aphex1973, good point! Except I disagree with last words about exploiting tensions. Russia is not inflaming national tensions. Unlike America in Russian territory Russia is not financing different NGO in USA, that are "educating" Indeans to hate white people. Same as they are not doing it among black-skinned people of US. Russia is not financin separatists movements in Europe or is not giving weapon to rebels in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Ukraine this interetnical situation was so tense that violence sparkled very easy, when far-rights felt their streinght. Then their violence (approved and directed by government) resulted in separation of Crimea and antimaidan rebel in Donbass.

Originally Posted by SanteeFats

How do you feel about the Russian invasion of not only the Crimea but Ukraine in general??? Mine is that Putin is out to restore some of the old SSR's. I think he is a stone cold killer and does not care about anything but his legacy. He did lead the KGB after all and it appears widely known they are not adverse to killing and torturing people. If he can add a couple-three satellites back to Russia he will live on in history and help restore any smirches on the USSR's non-existent honor. IMHO.

That is only illusion because you don't know what kind of people Americans put to power in Ukraine.

And it is also because there is no such tradition to ask how much peoples were killed by Obama or Bush or Blair, Merkel and the rest of the leaders of the "free world".

BTW. Putin wasn't leading KGB. He was leading FSB. If all this KGB, FSB, Putin, Stalin, Soviet, Russian blurs together, than why to ask questions?

[aphex1973]

Originally Posted by Lemo

Aphex1973, good point! Except I disagree with last words about exploiting tensions. Russia is not inflaming national tensions. In Ukraine this situation was so tense that violence sparkled very easy, when far-rights felt their streinght. Then their violence resulted in antimaidan rebel in Donbass.

Lemo... I appreciate your response. I am hardly an expert regarding regional tensions in Europe, so I appreciate your description of the situation. I would like to clarify that regardless of my opinion on Putin, I am not an apologist for American or European expansionist policy. What is occurring in the Ukraine is, in my opinion, simply a continuation of the 19th century imperial struggles for dominance in the region after the weakening of the Ottoman Empire and its eventual collapse in the early 20th century.

I hope that you continue to add your thoughts and opinions to this thread. I would be intrigued to hear them.

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by Lemo

Russia is not financin separatists movements in Europe or is not giving weapon to rebels in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Ukraine this interetnical situation was so tense that violence sparkled very easy, when far-rights felt their streinght. Then their violence (approved and directed by government) resulted in separation of Crimea and antimaidan rebel in Donbass.
That is only illusion because you don't know what kind of people Americans put to power in Ukraine.
And it is also because there is no such tradition to ask how much peoples were killed by Obama or Bush or Blair, Merkel and the rest of the leaders of the "free world".


Putin wasn't leading KGB. He was leading FSB. If all this KGB, FSB, Putin, Stalin, Soviet, Russian blurs together, than why to ask questions?

Okay I am off on him on leading the KGB but:
For 16 years Putin served as an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly.
I must admit I did not know the USA put any one in power in the Ukraine, I am not saying they didn't I am just aware of any such.

And it is also because there is no such tradition to ask how much peoples were killed by Obama or Bush or Blair, Merkel and the rest of the leaders of the "free world". This confuses me. What tradition is there for the above and what does it have to do with this thread topic. Do you have any statistics for this???

[Lemo]

As for "tradition" I didn't mean it literaly, sorry for confusion. It is just my bad English. I mean there is long story of demonising Putin and white out other leaders (Obama included )) ).

For example look at those numbers of killed in Ukraine:
Maidan - 100+ officialy killed. 800+ are missed in internal clashes by some maidan volunteers.
2 May Odessa massacre 38 killed officialy, 130+ unofficialy.
9 May Mariupol massacre - 30+ are killed.
Korsun massacre - 9 killed.

Enters Putin.
Crimea - 2 killed by nationalist sniper during provocation.

But who has image of mercyless leader with no value for life, is it Ukrainian government or Putin? It is Putin. Any Western and some Russian newspaper will say that. When they are writing about Putin they are allways mentioning humans right violations in Russia. Even when those are not real.
But when press writes about Obama are they mentioning something like this? AFAIK no. I think I've read in Western newspaper that dronestrikes in Pakistan region are oftenly kills civilians. And that 70% of killed are civilians (I can be wrong). Hundreds if not thousands were killed for the few last. It is much more than Russia killed in Dagestan during Spetsnaz operations against terrorists Jihadists + Crimea. But Putin is still criticised much more than Obama.

So I mean that if press was more into reminding about sins of Western leaders, wasn't covering atrocities of their puppets in 3-rd world countries like Ukraine now, than comparing to them Putin wouldn't look like stone cold killer.

Originally Posted by aphex1973

What is occurring in the Ukraine is, in my opinion, simply a continuation of the 19th century imperial struggles for dominance in the region after the weakening of the Ottoman Empire and its eventual collapse in the early 20th century.

I hope that you continue to add your thoughts and opinions to this thread. I would be intrigued to here them.

Now I had to say something supa dupa cool )).

As for Ukraine, yes this is true, all those things a centuries old. Western part was under control of Austria, Poland and Hungary. Center and East were an ally or under control of Russia. Some time enemies. Crimea was ruled by Turks and Tatars who were raiding Ukraine for loot and slaves. There is still a strong historical influence of this in East and West. As a result, East and South are pro-Russian, West is pro-Western, very rusophobic and nationalistic too, Center of the country, well so so.

[hslc]

Putin, was , is and allways will be KGB-fact, thats all we need to know, yes he is a killer, Russia only works with a strong man in charge, he-(putitn) wants to be and will be the new Stalin, will we have to fight him ! probbably.

[scoundrel]

Before WW1 there used to be an Austro-Hungarian province, called Galicia, which covered territory spanning the area which is now the eastern part of Slovakia, a large part of southern Poland and that part of western Ukraine which used to be inside Poland before September 17th 1939. In the past, the overlordship of provinces such as Galicia was plastic, and war was waged, as Count von Clausewitz put it, as diplomacy by other means, in order to decide who would gather the taxes in such provinces. It would appear that the Russian Federation is reverting to the 19th Century and aspires to be the Prussia of our era, seizing territory from her neighbours by force. Its called "waging aggressive war".

The charges in the indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive war are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
~ Nuremberg Tribunal: 1946.

[Brecht]

How would the US react if, say, Mexico or Canada were to join a Russian-led military alliance?

[Nobody1]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Its called "waging aggressive war".

'Two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead.' (Carl von Clausewitz)

The good commander determines his battlefield. Yes. But how to fight successfully a nuclear armed giant like the United States, the actual puppeteer on Russian borders ? And what are Putin's weapons of choice ?

Putin's best weapons here are not tanks, planes, soldiers or missiles. His best weapons are vast amounts of money and gold, huge reserves of fossil fuels and lots of reliable international trading partnerships. In this regard, Moscow has internationally far better opportunities than Washington.

Washington is an easy opponent here because it constantly shoots itself in the foot. It completely fails on vital things like diplomacy, trade or geopolitics. It even fails totally at warfare.
Washington's best weapons are the biggest military in the world and the related extortive gunboat policy , a globally hated and despised all-pervading Stasi machinery and a few printing presses in New York which spit out the increasingly worthless USD.

On Putin's battlefield, these are completely useless toys. A ever-increasing number of US military and foreign policy defeats proves this. This is the price of an isolationist policy, based on arrogance, threats, embargos and naked force. Putin will exploit this colossal weakness mercilessly with international solidarity and generosity. Sun Tzu and Peter the Great would be proud.

Quote Obama : 'America is exceptional.'

Quote Putin : 'All men are created equal.'


Checkmate.