War with Russia
Discussion
AreOut said:
well maybe they hoped he would go guns blazing all the way to Kiev and struggle there for years (like USSR in Afghanistan) which would eventually deplete Russia economically politically and in many other ways...
Maybe not. The suggestion that the EU and NATO would want Russia to invade a neighbouring country and push it's border closer to a EU and NATO members state is ridiculous.Of course they do.
Perhaps I should have written "extending the EU/NATO immediate border from EST, LAT, LIT and POL (via Kaliningrad) to include a border with Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and at the same time create a direct border with Poland which would increase the vulnerability of the Baltic states of being cut off by a Russian action through Belarus".
But I guess if I did, you wouldn't have the opportunity to comeback with a pedantic point and thus avoid addressing the question of why would the EU/NATO deliberately provoke Russia in to an invasion of Ukraine.
Perhaps I should have written "extending the EU/NATO immediate border from EST, LAT, LIT and POL (via Kaliningrad) to include a border with Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and at the same time create a direct border with Poland which would increase the vulnerability of the Baltic states of being cut off by a Russian action through Belarus".
But I guess if I did, you wouldn't have the opportunity to comeback with a pedantic point and thus avoid addressing the question of why would the EU/NATO deliberately provoke Russia in to an invasion of Ukraine.
spaximus said:
Everytime politicians play these games someone dies.
GRR Marton said:
The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are.
stevesingo said:
Foreign policy is all about securing the long term future of nation states, that it affects other states, so be it. We have our foreign policy and Russia has theirs. The frustrating thing is the UK keeps making a pigs ear of it.
What would be better?I will take your assurance. I didn't realise you held a position in the Kremlin.
There is no evidence that EU/NATO deliberately attempted to poke Russia in order to elicit a response.
There was a gross underestimation of the response from the Russians and consequently a slow and inadequate response from the EU/NATO to indicators and warnings leading to the limited Russian incursion in to Crimea and the Donbass. By the time the EU/NATO realised Russia's intentions, there was no political will to go to war with Russia.
Classic Gerasmov doctrine executed in an opportunistic manner.
If you look at the above graphic, Russia is holding it's neighbour states in phase 1 and edging in to phase 2 at times. In the non military measures we already see formations of coalitions and unions (Belarus is the greatest example) and political opposition. All Russia's Neighbour states which have ethnic Russian populations have Russian nationalist political parties, heavily backed by Russia.
In the Military measures we have Information warfare everywhere (it is worth noting that Russia see information warfare and a military tool not a non-military tool). The deployment of Iskander medium range ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad falls nicely in to the military strategic deterrence measures and, could be argued Strategic deployment, likewise Exercise ZAPAD 17, partly conducted in Belarus, but mainly within Russia.
There is no evidence that EU/NATO deliberately attempted to poke Russia in order to elicit a response.
There was a gross underestimation of the response from the Russians and consequently a slow and inadequate response from the EU/NATO to indicators and warnings leading to the limited Russian incursion in to Crimea and the Donbass. By the time the EU/NATO realised Russia's intentions, there was no political will to go to war with Russia.
Classic Gerasmov doctrine executed in an opportunistic manner.
If you look at the above graphic, Russia is holding it's neighbour states in phase 1 and edging in to phase 2 at times. In the non military measures we already see formations of coalitions and unions (Belarus is the greatest example) and political opposition. All Russia's Neighbour states which have ethnic Russian populations have Russian nationalist political parties, heavily backed by Russia.
In the Military measures we have Information warfare everywhere (it is worth noting that Russia see information warfare and a military tool not a non-military tool). The deployment of Iskander medium range ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad falls nicely in to the military strategic deterrence measures and, could be argued Strategic deployment, likewise Exercise ZAPAD 17, partly conducted in Belarus, but mainly within Russia.
Halb said:
What would be better?
The EU intent to broaden economic influence and NATO intent to contain what is perceived as the greatest long term threat to the status quo are fine by me. The execution of that should be better thought out.Therein lies the issue. EU and NATO are multinational organisations represented by democratic societies. Politicians in democratic societies only think of themselves, and the free (but politically partisan) media are only to quick to try and bring down individuals. So, getting politicians to grow a spine and then getting all those politicians to agree across two (sometimes conflicting) multinational organisations is not exactly agile.
Putin, of course, does not have such worries. Singular state, with a pseudo democracy and a state manipulated press makes for agility. And if he gets it wrong, manipulate the press.
More military planning and war gaming in second order effects of EU/NATO political action would be the only way to improve the likely outcomes.
ATG said:
QuantumTokoloshi said:
Cobnapint said:
JagLover said:
This
Russia seems to make a convenient bogeyman for the establishment as it is too weak to be any threat to us.
Yes, because Putin is definitely didn't invade Crimea and isn't fRussia seems to make a convenient bogeyman for the establishment as it is too weak to be any threat to us.
king about in Eastern Europe, Eastern Ukraine, Syria, the US elections, or paying for biased news outlets in the UK like Sputnik or RT. We are imagining it all. It isn't happening.it is not like EU and the US fermented revolution in Ukraine or spent 5 billion dollars "supporting democracy" is it? Damn Russians, getting nervous about their eastern border, not like they have been invaded that way before, costing over 40 million lives, geez such weirdos ! NATO would never move eastwards, Putin is clearly showing aggression.
Influencing elections? Not like the Uk and US will invade a country on a false premise, throwing it into decades of violent civil war, only an autocratic warmongers would do that, must have been Putin influencing the elections. Clear aggression by Russia in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, the sneaky vodka drinkers.
Finally, shall we talk "Russian cyberwarfare" I leave you with a single word, Stuxnet.
Yes, Russia is the certainly the problem, and we need to prepare for invasion, just in case our SLBM's are not enough to turn most of the planet into glass
Edited by QuantumTokoloshi on Friday 26th January 15:46
stevesingo said:
spaximus said:
stevesingo said:
Sleep walked might have been a little strong, but certainly see what the obvious outcome would be. As for testing Putin's resolve, why would they? Intent?
I suspect they wanted to see if he could be provoked into something worse than the action he took. I think they hoped that the people of the Ukraine would want to join and then throw out the Russian leaning government when told they could not.spaximus said:
This is one huge chess game and as I see it Putin is winning. In Syria he backed Assad, the West backed rebels who turned out to be Isis and when Putin and Assad started wiping them out with some pretty heavy duty weapons, the West turned down the rhetoric as they wanted Isis destroyed but not really by him.
Everytime politicians play these games someone dies.
Putin wisely waited and was opportunistic, in that it was a complete mess and the West in their half arsed effort, with the help of Saudi and Turkish meddling made a complete horlicks of it.Everytime politicians play these games someone dies.
Foreign policy is all about securing the long term future of nation states, that it affects other states, so be it. We have our foreign policy and Russia has theirs. The frustrating thing is the UK keeps making a pigs ear of it.
You ask what could have been worse, well he could have attacked a NATO member under some pretence of them being involved in the Ukraine in some military way pushing to see what NATO would actually do when faced with such an event. They all know a nuclear war would not happen but history has shown that some aggression is accepted. Look at Cyprus for an example of an invasion being condemned but not retaliation from others who might have helped.
I think they hoped he would not have support to take any military action in the Ukraine which would have bolstered the separatist movement. What it did show is Putin would protect Russian interests without hesitation.
spaximus said:
It is my view that the West has deliberately tried to weaken Russia in many ways. Economically the oil price has fallen and some could wonder if this drop has been manipulated as Russia needs cash to build up any military action.
Why? More likely it is just about economics. Admittedly, military power gives economic options, but they are high risk.spaximus said:
You ask what could have been worse, well he could have attacked a NATO member under some pretence of them being involved in the Ukraine in some military way pushing to see what NATO would actually do when faced with such an event. They all know a nuclear war would not happen but history has shown that some aggression is accepted. Look at Cyprus for an example of an invasion being condemned but not retaliation from others who might have helped.
Ptin attacking a NATO state is a stupid suggestion. There were and maybe are several NATO states supporting Ukrainian military in the fight against russian separatists. I've not seen any evidence Russia is about to attack anyone because of this. This is not the playground where if someone does you a bad deed, you immediately punch them.Putin is not daft. There is no way he would attempt similar with a NATO member, well not now since the 2016 Wasaw summit which saw the deployment of multinational NATO troops in the bordering states. He might have got away with using UN right to protect in Ukraine, or even the Baltic states, but to attempt such a thing now would be much more dangerous to Putin and Russia.
It would require Russian soldiers to engage with US and UK troops in Poland, UK and Danish in Estonia, Canadian, Spanish, Italian, Slovenian, Poland, Czech Republic and Albanian in Latvia, and German, Norwegian, Dutch, Czech Republic, Belgian and Luxembourg in Lithuania.
On their own the Baltic states would have perhaps struggled to persuade NATO members to get off their arses if there was some kind of military action br Russia. Now, there would be much louder voices around the table.
The likelihood of NATO Article 5 being triggered is now much greater in the event of Russian aggression, and that is the reason behind the deployments
spaximus said:
I think they hoped he would not have support to take any military action in the Ukraine which would have bolstered the separatist movement. What it did show is Putin would protect Russian interests without hesitation.
Putin doesn't need domestic support in the way NATO member state governments do. Imagine Portugal trying to convince the Portuguese people that it is a good idea to wade in against Russian military in the Baltics or Poland. Putin owns the press, he can generate all the domestic support he wants and at the same time manipulate the Ukrainian ethnic Russians to believe they will be much worse off under a pro EU government through information operations. AreOut said:
I very much doubt Russia would attack NATO member but there were (and still are) plans about taking over Ukraine, I guess they might have let Turkey conduct operations in Syria just to have a precedent for Ukraine...who knows we'll see.
That is exactly the type of shaping operations Gerasmov doctrine works on, bolstered by the information operations.Paint the Kurds in a bad light, supply "intelligence" to the Turks in order to manipulate perception. Portray the Kurds as terrorists in the Western media, encourage the Turks to have a go. Then, hey NATO didn't stop the Turks!
AreOut said:
I very much doubt Russia would attack NATO member but there were (and still are) plans about taking over Ukraine,....
Apart from Crimea which is its own side-situation, what plans are there for Russia to invade and 'conquer' Ukraine ?(I'm not that good at reading Russian, so couldn't find any of their top-secret military strategy papers to read on-line
)Cobnapint said:
dudleybloke said:
I have a feeling Ukraine will be in the news again soon.
I hope I'm wrong.
In what way? You think he's going for phase 2 of his land grab?I hope I'm wrong.
There's been an obvious political solution on the table for nearly four years now - but it involves recognising the reality that is Russian sovereignty in Crimea, and adopting a fig leaf of federal autonomy for Eastern Ukraine. It's not Putin that's the obstacle.
Cobnapint said:
It's not 'self determination' though is it?
Is the determination of Putin and his armed forces. Nobody in Crimea seemed that bothered about being under Russian control until Putin told them that's what they wanted.
The majority of people who lived there were Russian, wanted to be Russian, regarded themselves as Russian, and regarded the concept that they weren't Russian as a borderline (pun intended) absurdity. Is the determination of Putin and his armed forces. Nobody in Crimea seemed that bothered about being under Russian control until Putin told them that's what they wanted.
True, people put up with the absurdity, which didn't much effect their everyday lives, particularly if they lived in Sevastopol and spoke Russian. But it was a balancing act that couldn't survive regime change in Kiev and the political and financial intervention of the US, EU and others.
Crimea is now (again) part of Russia, as much as Texas is part of the US, or Tibet part of China. Rightly or wrong - evidently, I'd go with rightly, but that's a pretty academic argument that isn't particularly relevant either way.
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