wahoo
2901
Probably already posted but Robert Kagan has a very scary piece on what comes next. He points out that the threat level to NATO has increased exponentially and you can see Russia trying to Crimea the Baltics.
"he most immediate threat will be to the Baltic states. Russia already borders Estonia and Latvia directly and touches Lithuania through Belarus and through its outpost in Kaliningrad. …
One likely flash point will be Kaliningrad. The headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet, this city and its surrounding territory were cut off from the rest of Russia when the Soviet Union broke up. Since then, Russians have been able to access Kaliningrad only through Poland and Lithuania. Expect a Russian demand for a direct corridor that would put strips of the countries under Russian control. But even that would be just one piece of what is sure to be a new Russian strategy to delink the Baltics from NATO by demonstrating that the alliance cannot any longer hope to protect those countries."
Full piece: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/21/ukraine-invasion-putin-goals-what-expect/ TRIGGER WARNING FOR SCARY as HELL
Melitopol has fallen; only a couple cities left by the Azov coast.
Also, people should stop assuming that things are clear-cut in a war situation. To quote Brett again, radar cannot tell the difference between a nuclear-tipped cruise missile and a conventional missile. All you need is a series of misunderstandings and mistakes and overly testosterone-fueled world leaders for a situation to escalate to a disaster. That kind of escalation becomes much more likely in a situation where forces are engaged in hot conflict and with no effective dialogue.
The world literally almost had nuclear war break out because of what was essentially a weather rocket (see the Black Brant incident - one of the least known but by far most serious nuclear scares), years after the cold war had ended. How anyone could be confident that there would be no nuclear escalation if US and Russian troops were engaged in a shooting war is beyond me. I’d rather that we not take that risk.
Oh yeah. The SWIFT thing also pisses me off no end, but I can understand why Germany does not want to take action that would immediately close off heating supplies of their country at risk in the middle of winter. Of course, they should never have put their country in this kind of position in the first place, but that’s another discussion.
jpinard
2905
When I created this thread, I never thought things could get this horrible with Russia. This is so incredibly depressing.
Timex
2906
Part of me agrees here, but part of me says that the exact same rationale will play out if Putin were to attack a NATO country.
You’ll have people say, “Well we can’t attack Russia, that will start a nuclear war!”
In the face of the potential for nuclear war, I think there are a lot of people who will be willing to sacrifice literally everything else.
The NATO alliance IS a commitment to defend NATO countries up to and including a nuclear war, whereas no such commitment exists with Ukraine. It’s hardly surprising that we would acknowledge that distinction.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, @Timex but I do think you are. Ukraine was never a red line, because they’re not part of NATO and not part of EU. A NATO country is. That’s the entire point of the alliance - if NATO does not act vigorously to defend a NATO country, then the alliance is dead.
Red lines don’t come any clearer than that.
There is no doubt that there are cowardly country leaders/governments who’ll think the way you state, and wtf knows what kind of insane fool the US might elect after Biden, but at the end of the day, I’m very sure that every European country realizes that if Putin comes knocking, we stand together or we fall individually. There’s no two ways about it.
Keep in mind that for half of Europe, Russian occupation is only a generation in the past. A lot of people know what is at stake.
I mean, one can suppose that NATO countries will abandon NATO in the face of Russian aggression, out of fear of precipitating a nuclear exchange; but once you grant that proposition, there really isn’t anything left to talk about anyway.
Timex
2910
Yeah, I know exactly what you’re saying. It’s logically correct. The implication that you lay out, that if they allow a NATO country to be invaded and do not defend it, signals the end of the alliance, is definitely true.
I’m just not so sure that the alliance won’t end.
On a separate note…
One thing that will be interesting, is that we’re going to get to see first hand in the coming days/weeks/months what it means for a REAL imperial power to take action on the global stage, when they have a military that is in the upper echelons of military force.
In the past few decades, people accused the US of imperialism. Certainly, America’s military adventurism was a mistake (one of the three classic blunders!), but I think it may shock some folks to see the differences between what America did, and what a country like Russia does.
When the “bad guys” were under heel, it was easy to lose perspective and see the many flaws of the US as the worst there could be. But what we are about to witness with Russia’s actions is going to draw some very clear distinctions between what America is, and what a county like Putin’s Russia is.
JoshL
2911
I have to imagine that if you put the question to the American public, “should we start a nuclear war for Lithuania”, the answer is going to be, “is she on American Idol?”
It is pretty hard to blame more Russians for not protesting. Russian windows seem to be super dangerous, and there is a lot of bad Russian tea.
When I was leaving Russia the border agent took my passport and disappeared for what seemed to be an hour (probably really only 10 minutes). I don’t get easily rattled, but I got nervous AF. Russia is a scary place.
vyshka
2913
Would love to see a Pentagon briefing on what the current status is versus tweets supposedly from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. Hopefully they are faring as well as the Ministry says, but my guess would be not.
Look at the bright side, It could be worse Trump could still be President, and we could have a new Covid variant. Remember, it is always darkest before it goes pitch black.
Russian humor is really dark, I wonder if Ukrainian humor is the same?
schurem
2915
Fucking A. That does not exonerate uncle sam from any of his misdeeds, but you are awfully right imo.
If anything, even darker. Ukraine has a truly godawful history. They have been fucked, raped, looted, fucked and raped for centuries. I bet they have a rather grim sense of humour indeed.
Scotten
2916
I’ve read 2 things that are somewhat interesting and maybe a case for optimism: 1) the sanctions that will be dropped are going to be worse than SWIFT cutoff and 2) Apparently we have some serious cyber weapons to deploy. We’ve been hacked and ransomware’d far too long by Russia and I welcome this.
KevinC
2918
Aaaand… the major US indices all ended up today. It’s completely unimportant, but just reinforces A) why I hate the “Look what the markets did in this thin slice of time!” bullshit and B) that Doocy can go fuck himself with a volatile high explosive.
This whole thing is an argument for the infinite expansion of NATO or something like it. The more committed countries in it, the better.
But muh gas prices! Grrrrr!
