Ukraine's European Revolution?

[Razgovory]

This is the same Russian army that sells it's weapons to Chechen militants.

Spellus, the ship that Russia is harmless has already sailed.  The Russian army has already moved and secured the Crimea.  What is needed now is a United Front, both the US and Europe need to stand together to prevent further occupation of Ukraine and work out a timetable for withdrawal of Russian forces currently in Crimea (barring of course those at the naval base).

[Ed Anger]

The partisan campaign in the 1950's was all that successful...  And you are right, it's not the 1930's.  Maybe there won't be any partisans at all this time.  Maybe Ed's right.  Maybe we should leave the Euros to their own devices.  If they won't stand up for each other, why should we stand up for them?

I welcome your conversion to Edism Brother Raz. 

[Ed Anger]

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

Enjoy your Russian neighbors, Euros.

Wait until they get to Normandy! 

Kampfgruppe Hawkins will bleed them dry in the Hedgerows.

[Sheilbh]

Across Ukraine, NOT just in Crimea.

Here we go, from the Guardian:

"In connection with the extraordinary situation in Ukraine, the threat to the lives of citizens of the Russian Federation, our compatriots, and the personnel of the armed forces of the Russian Federation on Ukrainian territory (in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) ... I submit a proposal on using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine until the normalisation of the socio-political situation in the that country," the statement said.

Edit: And it's been unanimously approved by the Duma.

[Grey Fox]

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

Enjoy your Russian neighbors, Euros.

Wait until they get to Normandy! 

That's never going to happen, they set foot in germany & France is nuking Moscow into oblivion.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's not the cold war, and even then you had to show a willingness to fight.

No it isn't, but a conventional clash with Russia, lead by the same type of paranoid Soviet type who felt desperately the need to preserve "face" over all other things would still almost certainly lead to a ruinous nuclear exchange. I'm not saying you shouldn't have a willingness to fight, I'm saying when ran correctly you can box Russia in without fighting.

There are obvious limits to it, but basically you position yourself so that Russia has to cross certain lines to get what it wants, and you make it known you will go to war if it crosses those lines. This is exactly the playbook Kennedy ran during the CMC, it wasn't a situation where he had considered going to war with the Soviets if they crossed the quarantine line--the ships already had their orders, if a Russian ship had tried to breach the quarantine the ships in the Caribbean had orders to attack. We spend many billions of dollars on rapid response capability, why aren't we ourselves landing forces to "assist" the Ukraine and prevent internal violence? Put them on the border with Crimea and you've got yourself a line that Russia I can 100% guarantee will not cross. It's not just that we (the West) is unwilling to do anything about Putin we also are just insanely slow in how we respond to situations. Look at how quickly Putin has acted and how slowly we have in every situation like this.

I'm not advocating a childish stance of "war with Russia" but I also don't understand why we're letting Putin rebuild the Soviet empire and doing nothing to stop it. There are ways to stop Russian expansionism without lobbing missiles at Moscow, it's the same way Russia and ourselves checked each other in the Cold War. The moment Yanukovych fell the United States should have fast tracked a large aid package and signed a hasty bilateral security agreement. You could even make it a "temporary" agreement that wouldn't require approval of Congress by making it something where Obama just says "during this difficult period of transition, I've made a personal agreement with Ukraine to provide military assistance for the next  60 days and on the request of the Ukrainian government we will use our forces to defend against any uninvited incursions into Ukrainian territory by any other foreign powers."

America was a lot more aggressive with Russia during the Cold War when Russia was far more powerful, so it's puzzling a much weaker Russia slaps us around like a spitting kitten.

[Sheilbh]

No it isn't, but a conventional clash with Russia, lead by the same type of paranoid Soviet type who felt desperately the need to preserve "face" over all other things would still almost certainly lead to a ruinous nuclear exchange. I'm not saying you shouldn't have a willingness to fight, I'm saying when ran correctly you can box Russia in without fighting.

All true. But I'd add that willingness to fight for a country if there was a crisis should be a key criteria for NATO membership. There's no point expanding NATO sympathetically because we like the Georgians if we're not willing to take Article 5 seriously.

It's not just that we (the West) is unwilling to do anything about Putin we also are just insanely slow in how we respond to situations. Look at how quickly Putin has acted and how slowly we have in every situation like this.

Yep. As I say last night was the first statement I can think of from Obama and it was 'hastily organised'?

[merithyn]

Russian ambassador to the US has been recalled.

[Berkut]

I am with OvB.

And so far, this is more evidence that Obama is a weak president.

His response seems to me to be motivated by a desire to be "respond" without actually doing anything, or having any idea what to do if he did want to do something.

He is letting Putin drive the action, as usual.

You know, if he doesn't end up getting Russia into a ruinous war, Putin is going to go down as one of the greatest national leaders of his time, maybe of all time. He has punched WAY above Russia's actual weight consistently, and the West has just rolled right over and asked for another each time.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't like to complement Obama because I view him as a political opponent but I think he's done a decent job on domestic policy as a President. I don't agree with the core concept of the ACA but I think it made some really good reforms and will ultimately be a net-positive (and in may ways already is.) I agree with him on raising revenue, especially from the wealthiest Americans. I'm glad he appeared to be following a free trade path with traditional trading partners (although I question his sincerity in that now.) I'm a pro-business guy who doesn't believe every problem is solved with bigger government spending like Obama does but on the balance as a Republican he's been one of the "least" offensive to me, on domestic issues, Democrat Presidents of my life time. It makes it shocking the vitriol so many of my fellow conservatives have toward the man.

Anyway, what I did notice about Obama is his Achilles heel was that his background lead him to genuinely believe the best way to run everything is through consensus building. The ACA probably could have been better if he hadn't tried to build consensus with Republicans who were only interested in defeating it for partisan political reasons. And in fact for all his consensus building he watered down his own bill in areas it shouldn't have been watered down to build consensus with conservatives and not a single one of them ended up voting for it. So he compromised and got nothing in return. Over the years, and it took basically 3 years and 10 months of his first term and arguably maybe longer, Obama realized with an opponent that has diametrically different goals from you and who has no interest in compromise you can't focus on consensus building. I think he's gotten a lot more done in spite of the GOP Tea Party wing that controls the House by deciding that it's no longer time to limply struggle to build an unbuildable consensus. Harry Reid also showed some teeth in this regard by nuking the shameful filibuster practice in the Senate.

But in foreign affairs Obama is still right there where he was in Year 2 of his Presidency, he thinks the only way you can or should act is through broad built consensus. But the reality is as a Great Power sometimes you have to either act independently or stop being a great power. Even the weakest Cold War Presidents like Carter at least recognized this. Obama doesn't, and I'm not sure he ever will. I'm not sure Obama recognizes fundamentally that it could be a serious problem for the United States if the Soviet Empire is rebuilt. I think he has a 1930s isolationist type view of the situation over there and is only minimally involved because he knows there's going to be domestic pressure (limited) on acting to curb Russian expansionism.

[lustindarkness]

Well shit the bed.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Russian ambassador to the US has been recalled.

The Russian Senate asked Putin to do this in response to Obama's comments on the Ukraine. It's a typical Putin ploy, hardcore Putinistas who are extreme nationalists call for something that Putin may or may not go along with but if he does he can couch it as just being something required of him by political concerns.

It just shows how far we've fallen, we have been so spineless toward Russia they're confident they can essentially rebuke Obama for not bending over with a big enough smile on his face.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I was 100% opposed to our active involvement in Syria, but something I said back during the Syrian crisis is that while Obama never should have drawn a line in the sand (almost literally, since he actually used the word "red line" that Syria cannot cross) once you do there are long term consequences to your power in the world if you don't do anything else about it. That's why you don't do that sort of thing lightly, it'd be the equivalent of Kennedy letting Russian ships just sail past the quarantine during the CMC. When you show yourself toothless your warnings have no weight. Most American Presidents during the Cold War understood that part of their stewardship as President was of American credibility with the Soviets. I'd say all of our Cold War Presidents tried to avoid (successfully) any serious direct conflict with the Soviets, but all of them were careful to make sure that the Soviets knew there were lines they could not cross and that there would be serious consequences if they did. Kennedy understood that and best exemplified it in the CMC but I don't think any American Cold War President would have, for example, made a red line comment on Syria then done nothing when it was violated.

[OttoVonBismarck]

So right now I'm saying there's basically a 5% chance Crimea remains part of Ukraine then I'd say it's 50/50 on whether independent Crimea becomes outright part of Russia or a South Ossetia type "independent" state. I'm also forecasting a greater than 50% chance Putin moves into more of Ukraine, possibly a large portion or all of the eastern half of the country and we do absolutely nothing in response.

[Sheilbh]

A tweet from the Guardian Moscow correspondent watching the Duma:

You spend years trying to dissuade people to talk in Cold War stereotypes and then you watch a parliament session like this. No words.

I think one of those stereotypes that the West has adversaries who will look to take advantage of our divisions and weaknesses and, over the last 15 years, focus on terrorism. Hopefully this will at least change the focus in foreign policy circles a bit.

The Ukrainian navy's withdrawn from Crimea to Odessa.

There were pro-revolution demonstrations in Kharkiv today. They were beaten by thugs.

Zhirinovsky's on hand in Crimea and literally handing out packets of money to a crowd chanting 'Russia! Russia!'

Earlier there were also large anti-fascist (anti-revolution) protests in the Crimea.