Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Ed Anger]

It's time for the USA to go full isolationist again.

Yes. Build SDI too. Brilliant pebble the fuck out of low earth orbit. Wheel Jerry Pournelle back into JPL.

[jimmy olsen]

It's nothing. NATO is still primarily a defensive alliance. What's the point of having a country join if you wouldn't be willing to fight a war for them? Which is probably a question the Baltic states will be considering.

The Baltic States are a completely different situation. They are a part of both NATO and the EU. There would 100% be a war if the Russians invaded them.

[Razgovory]

It's nothing. NATO is still primarily a defensive alliance. What's the point of having a country join if you wouldn't be willing to fight a war for them? Which is probably a question the Baltic states will be considering.

The Baltic States are a completely different situation. They are a part of both NATO and the EU. There would 100% be a war if the Russians invaded them.

Is it?  If we aren't willing to go to the mat for Ukraine, are we really going to fight for a few miles of Baltic sea front?  Putin could rebuild the whole Soviet empire and I don't think we'd do shit.  It's sickening.

[Kleves]

Well, I think we can all at least agree that now is the perfect time for drastic cuts to the US military.

[Queequeg]

It's nothing. NATO is still primarily a defensive alliance. What's the point of having a country join if you wouldn't be willing to fight a war for them? Which is probably a question the Baltic states will be considering.

The Baltic States are a completely different situation. They are a part of both NATO and the EU. There would 100% be a war if the Russians invaded them.

Is it?  If we aren't willing to go to the mat for Ukraine, are we really going to fight for a few miles of Baltic sea front?  Putin could rebuild the whole Soviet empire and I don't think we'd do shit.  It's sickening.

Stability-instability paradox.

[Ed Anger]

It's nothing. NATO is still primarily a defensive alliance. What's the point of having a country join if you wouldn't be willing to fight a war for them? Which is probably a question the Baltic states will be considering.

The Baltic States are a completely different situation. They are a part of both NATO and the EU. There would 100% be a war if the Russians invaded them.

Is it?  If we aren't willing to go to the mat for Ukraine, are we really going to fight for a few miles of Baltic sea front?  Putin could rebuild the whole Soviet empire and I don't think we'd do shit.  It's sickening.

Thanks Obama.

[Razgovory]

Well, I think we can all at least agree that now is the perfect time for drastic cuts to the US military.

Well, if you'd rather we could raise taxes.

[Kleves]

Well, if you'd rather we could raise taxes.

Sounds good to me. 

[Sheilbh]

Well, I think we can all at least agree that now is the perfect time for drastic cuts to the US military.

Of course that doesn't really matter. It's not that we lack resources it's that we're bickering among ourselves (thanks Snowden ) and there's no will, or even much interest.

It's depressing how much this has been on the news in this country and how little discussed by politicians. At the same time we've had a national debate on airline prices during the school holidays

[Razgovory]

Well, I think we can all at least agree that now is the perfect time for drastic cuts to the US military.

Of course that doesn't really matter. It's not that we lack resources it's that we're bickering among ourselves (thanks Snowden ) and there's no will, or even much interest.

It's depressing how much this has been on the news in this country and how little discussed by politicians. At the same time we've had a national debate on airline prices during the school holidays

It's pretty fucking shameful.  I'd actually support military action if that's required.  If we are going to just stand by while Russia gobbles up countries we may as well pack it in and disband NATO.

[Ed Anger]

I favor staying out of it. And disbanding NATO. And going isolationist.

Enjoy your Russian neighbors, Euros.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Here's a question to ponder.  Let's assume that Obama is a particularly weak leader when it comes to foreign policy, which I think is not much of a stretch.  What would a president better at foreign policy do that Obama isn't doing? 

I'm drawing a bit of a blank here.  Huffing and puffing more strenuously isn't going to work if the enemy knows you're bluffing, and that you can't really project your power.  Unlike Russian presidents, American presidents are not dictators, and they can't just gear up the country for a potential war with a nuclear power if their populace is overwhelmingly skeptical.

Ukraine is not a direct military ally of the United States so you obviously couldn't immediately jump to saying "an attack on Ukraine is an attack on us." However, as President I would state that the memorandum signed between the Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. when we disarmed Ukrainian nuclear weapons stockpile contained promises by both the United States and Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. I would say that any military action against Ukraine would be a violation of this agreement, and that as the United States had entered into this agreement with the understanding that Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty would be respected, that Russia violating that entitled Ukraine to extraordinary support from the United States. Namely, since Ukraine had essentially been violated it would be entitled to like compensation in the form of what it had given up: nuclear weapons. I would then offer Ukraine up to 50 nuclear weapons and something akin to the Minuteman III missile (which could hit anywhere in Russia from anywhere in Ukrainian territory) to launch said weapons.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Additionally we're supposed to have rapid response forces for a reason. I wouldn't go into Crimea but if I was President we'd have thousands of guys already landing in the non-Crimean parts of the country after (what I presume) would be very quick signing of a BSA or something with the new government in Ukraine. Considering the bald faced way Putin is doing this he can't hope to cry foul if we say it's just a form of "military assistance for a friendly government" we would of course say it has nothing to do with Russian presence in Crimea, in fact we would say "just like you're trying to help out, so are we."

Now at that point I'd expect we'd see a referendum in Crimea to join Russia, whatever, that happens.  But it also means Russia goes any further into Ukraine and they hit our troops, which means war with the United States. (Obviously thus it matters not how many guys we rush into Ukraine, just that they get there, they are human trip wires and I doubt Russia today would trip them any more than Khrushchev was willing to cross the quarantine line.)

My plan to renuclearize Ukraine would be a punishment for Putin taking Crimea, and if he wanted to move his troops out of Crimea and decline to accept independent Crimea as a part of Russia we'd be happy to take the nuclear weapons back--right after admitting Ukraine as a full member of NATO.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The real reason we can't do shit about Putin is we aren't ready, ever. During the Cold War, so essentially pre-Clinton, if there was a non-Warsaw Pact country on the borders with Russia we'd have gotten insanely involved a long time ago to the point that any Russian involvement in that country would be an act of aggression. The whole point of Cold War mentality is you need to position your pieces on the board so that your opponent can't act without acting aggressively, and since you can't act aggressively directly to your opponent without triggering a nuclear war you are limited in how you can act at all. We weren't perfect in how we handled the Cold War in situations like this (for example we didn't see the Soviets rolling into Afghanistan until it actually happened), but a country like Ukraine with important natural resources, technically European, no way such a valuable "square" is left essentially with no NATO pieces in place, because any empty square is ripe for the Russians to roll into. At which point your only response is aggression against Russia, which doesn't work for the same reason Russian aggression against NATO forces doesn't work.

[Razgovory]

Ukraine was a Russian ally up until a month ago.  Hard to place NATO units there.