Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
A few points about Russia's revised security doctrine.
1) Putin may be bluffing, but the scary thing is that a) he may use battlefield or 'tactical nuclear weapons', and b) there would be no response in kind from anyone else with nuclear weapons, which might encourage their wider use, eg China, India, Pakistan, NATO.
2) Nuclear Deterrence has been a so-far durable component of the international law of armed conflict, though it has been put under strain by Israel's refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Pact, while the logic of deterrence in the context of the Middle East suggests Iran must have a nuclear capability to deter an attack from Israel, which is also part of the Saudi Arabian defence argument.
3) Putin lists the conventional weapons that could be used for an attack inside Russia as the casus belli for the use of Nuclear Weapons as weapons of defence, but this would demolish the already fragile concept of 'Proportionality', weakened by Israel's retaliations against HAMAS and Hizbollah which are not, and never have been proportionate, though no State should be basing their defence policy on what Israel does, given that Israel's defence policy is a proven failure -citizens of Israel are no more secure now than they were at any time since 1948.
4) Putin does not offer international, or even regional talks to clarify Russia's new security policy in an effort to establish both a dialogue, for example with China, India and NATO, whereas in the past tensions were dialled down, by Nixon with the various SALT treaties, and since the 1990s when States, such as South Africa and Ukraine, agreed to decommission their nuclear arsenals. China and India may actually approve this if it means they can 'go it alone' though one wonders if this makes the world a more dangerous place. International Law has always been more of a moral and 'juristic' system, rather than the norm. The UN Charter has been the foundation of international law since it was founded, but has always been undermined by self-defence claims which have failed to deal with States that violate it.
Thus, the acquisition of territory by force is illegal in international law, but clearly this has not deterred Israel from acquiring territory by force, in 1948 and 1967, nor has it deterred Russia from its attempt to acquire territory by force in Ukraine, and so on.
5) Lastly, it was the breakdown of the Concert system of Diplomacy that enabled the Empires to go war in 1914, and the weakening of the League of Nations after it that enabled Germany to, initially, to run riot in Europe before brute force ended that experiment.
The political rhetoric of dangerous men such as Xi, Putin, Modi and Trump when realised in military policy can only mean war, just as Netanyahu and HAMAS rejected peace in 1993 and have dedicated themselves to the slaughter of men, women and children; the displacement of millions, the destruction of their homes, their hospitals and schools, their mosques and their churches, their playgrounds and cinemas, and the most basic infrastructure.
With nobody there to say No to Putin, who is going to stop him? Or should the rest of the world just say, go ahead, take Ukraine, take the Baltic States, take Poland, and so on -or make them vassal states of the last Christian Empire. Etc.
The madder it sounds, the more it might be made real.
Vladimir Putin warns west he will consider using nuclear weapons | Vladimir Putin | The Guardian
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ben
Was this written in Moscow before being emailed to the Libertarian institute? Putin's Special Military Operation was not supposed to last more than a couple of weeks or months at best. Instead the 'operation' revealed a clapped out military with a dysfunctional leadership -how many Generals has Putin had to replace? Russia thinks it can throw men into the field, but has had to recruit soldiers from Asia to help because apart from the Russians of fighting age who left for Georgia and Armenia and other places, the pool of fighting men inside Russia is dwindling.
The bigger question, and the one the West/NATO cannot verify, is the 'battle readiness' of Russia's nuclear arsenal. Given the wretched state of its conventional armaments, who knows if the Tactical Nuclear Missiles ordered to attack targets in Ukraine can even be wheeled out of their silos -and work? If the conventional weaponry is anything to go by, Putin himself might think he holds the Nuclear Ace, while on the ground the Generals know so many bits and pieces were sold in the Yeltsin years when Russians were impoverished, the truth is too bad to tell the Boss.
Look -Begin vowed to destroy the PLO in Lebanon, and failed. Netanyahu thinks he will destroy HAMAS and Hizbollah, and will fail at both. Putin thinks he can annex the Ukraine as part of his vision of a Christian, Russian Empire and a Euro-Asian trading bloc, and he will fail -are 30 million Ukrainians going to wake up one day soon and be Russians? Israel may have defeated the Arabs in 1967 and extended their sovereignty over the West Bank -how has that evolved since then? Maybe ask 2 million Palestinians, or ask 30 million Ukrainians what they want.
Libertarians really are morons. First decide all Govt is wrong, then try to figure out what happens next and whistle a happy tune. Pathetic.
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Although it is too early to say what the Trump Presidency will do with the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, this article speculates on what we know so far.
What is striking is that all of the proposed concessions are made by Ukraine. The US might increase arms to Ukraine if Putin shows no interest in ending the war, but there does not appear to be any attempt to reverse any of Russia's territorial gains, even though all of them are illegal. In any peace treaty, both sides concede something, maybe even a lot. But in the proposals seen so far, it looks to me like the Trump team is the one conceding -to Putin.
During the Cold War, one aim was for one side to make the other pay heavily for transgressions of the status quo. By not forcing any concessions from Russia, Trump is giving Putin a free pass. Something just ain't right here.
I am not sure Ukraine will get NATO membership, but if it does not, how will Ukraine be capable of self-defence against a Russian President who doesn't think Ukraine should be independent of Russia? I don't think Trump has a coherent plan, so this grim war I think will rumble on for some time yet.
Trump's plan for Ukraine comes into focus: Territorial concessions but NATO off the table
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
What is striking is that all of the proposed concessions are made by Ukraine. The US might increase arms to Ukraine if Putin shows no interest in ending the war, but there does not appear to be any attempt to reverse any of Russia's territorial gains, even though all of them are illegal. In any peace treaty, both sides concede something, maybe even a lot. But in the proposals seen so far, it looks to me like the Trump team is the one conceding -to Putin.
Sounds like another previous agreement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
No doubt Putin's 'concession' will be some kind of promise not to try to take the rest of Ukraine, but will that be worth any more than Hitler's word?
We shouldn't be surprised given that Trump has generally tended to blame Ukraine for the war rather than Russia. Territorial concessions and Ukrainian neutrality were what Putin was demanding before the invasion, so the obvious implication is that he was in the right to demand these things.
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Fair points, to which one adds Trump's previous form with Ukraine. Does not look good, unless there is an unexpected event in Russia -?
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
Well, this is still biden's weak assed fault. Putin (& iran & the chicoms, etc. ) all sniffed out biden's total hapless weakness and took whatever advantage they thought they could get out of it. The chicoms are apparently the smartest because they haven't been caught up in ground fighting, but they are still the most dangerous.
Re: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are...oh, they're here...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Paladin
Well, this is still biden's weak assed fault. Putin (& iran & the chicoms, etc. ) all sniffed out biden's total hapless weakness and took whatever advantage they thought they could get out of it. The chicoms are apparently the smartest because they haven't been caught up in ground fighting, but they are still the most dangerous.
Can someone translate this into English? It makes no sense to me.
