[tomder55]

Clueless Joe thinks his threats of sanctions will deter Russia . History says not .

The US and EU slapped severe sanctions on Russia after they seized Crimea .The hit on Russia's GDP barely moved the needle;a 1.5% hit . It did not reduce popular support for Vladdy. It did not force Russia to return the peninsula to Ukraine. It did not help any internal opposition to Putty .It did not hurt his core oligarch compadres . It did not address the issues of self determination . It did nothing to signal NATO resolve because he knows NATO will never back up sanctions with the threat of meaningful miliary force.

What it did was advance a greater Russi-China economic cooperation . Russia is divesting itself of dollars in favor of Yuan
.Why are Russia and China ditching the U.S. dollar? - Russia Beyond (rbth.com)


In reality what is happening is a greater Moscow -Beijing -Tehran axis while NATO has demonstrated again and again that it is a paper tiger .NATOs last military intervention in Afghanistan ended in an embarrassing disaster . NATO has demilitarized to the tune of more than half it's tanks since 2000 .

• Chart: Nato capability reductions & cost cutting. A step too far? | Statista


The willingness of NATO to intervene short of symbolic sanctions is at best mixed. UK evidently wants to give defensive weapons ;but had to fly around Germany . Germany ;dominated by Greens pukes worries about offending Russia,their gas station.

So how effective are sanctions ? I would like to see the example when they meaningfully reversed a nations behavior . I can think of one when the world united to pressure South Africa to give up it's nukes .
There was a decade of sanctions against Saddam Hussein in Iraq . Those failed . Sanctions against Iran have failed to deter their nuclear program. Sanctions against the NORKs have not stopped the Kim regime from developing nukes and intercontinental ballistic missiles . Decades of sanctions did not dislodge the Castros in Cuba . Sanctions against Serbia did not compel them to abandon Kosovo (military intervention did ) Sanctions did not prevent Myanmar military takeovers .
Further the unintended consequences of sanctions is that they most often hurt the people in the country you are trying to protect.

Sanctions will not work and military response by NATO is a non-starter .

So where to go from here ?
Russia's stated goal is the protection of Russian populations in border states. They also want a buffer against NATO expansion up to their border . There is a significant ethnic Russian populations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions .
One possible solution is to grant autonomous zones for these regions .
Another possible solution is what happened during the Cold war when the 1955 Austria State treaty secured Austrian independence with the provision that it did not join NATO. Austria became a stable and free buffer state between WARSAW PACT and NATO nations

[Athos]

So where to go from here ?
Russia's stated goal is the protection of Russian populations in border states. They also want a buffer against NATO expansion up to their border . There is a significant ethnic Russian populations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions .
One possible solution is to grant autonomous zones for these regions .
Another possible solution is what happened during the Cold war when the 1955 Austria State treaty secured Austrian independence with the provision that it did not join NATO. Austria became a stable and free buffer state between WARSAW PACT and NATO nations

Russia did not threaten to invade Austria in 1955.

I hope there are more solutions than you suggested. It reads very much like Neville Chamberlain in 1938.

[tomder55]

no all the Russians did was occupy Austria for a decade until the 1955 treaty .

Show me the leader in NATO who has the balls . How many Americans are you willing to sacrifice for a European nation none other are willing to defend except perhaps Poland ? How many of them are clamoring for Ukraine to join NATO ? answer ZERO . Why don't they want it ? Because they would then be obliged to defend it .

Clueless Joe talks tough and carries a wet noodle. So do all the aniti -Putin putzes in Congress .Their tough talk is all demagoguery .

Wait until the weather gets cold and Putin stops the spigot of Russian gas exports to all those Green Euroweenies .

Zelensky pressed Clueless on membership during his visit to the White House in September. “I would like to discuss with President Biden here his vision, his government’s vision of Ukraine’s chances to join NATO and the time frame for this accession, if it is possible,”
President Biden Meets with Ukrainian President Zelensky | C-SPAN.org

It would be folly to allow it !

[tomder55]

Speaking of Chamberlain like ...... Clueless had a presseer today indicating that Putin's success is inevitable and that a "minor incursion ' by Russia would receive a lesser penalty.

[Athos]

no all the Russians did was occupy Austria for a decade until the 1955 treaty

Irrelevant. Russia has not occupied Ukraine for a decade. What they did was invade Ukranian territory and are threatening to do it again.

Show me the leader in NATO who has the balls . How many Americans are you willing to sacrifice for a European nation non......................................to defend except perhaps Poland ? How many of them are clamori.............ng for Ukraine to join NAT would then be obliged to defend it ........................................ Joe talks tough and carries a wet noodle. So do all the aniti -Putin putzes in Congress .Their tough talk is all demagoguery

What you are suggesting is do nothing short of war. Are you ready to go to war? You have no idea what the planned sanctions are. Maybe it would be best to stop the appeasement talk which only encourages Putin.

Zelensky pressed Clueless on membership during his visit to the White House in September. “I would like to discuss with President Biden here his vision, his government’s vision of Ukraine’s chances to join NATO and the time frame for this accession, if it is possible,”

Wouldn't you want the same thing if you were Ukraine with a war-monger on your border?

It would be folly to allow it !

Folly for who?

[tomder55]

So who is the appeaser ?..... me or Clueless Joe ? I suggest diplomatic solutions that are well short of invasion . Joe made a statement that said a minor incursion is acceptable . Stinkin Blinken is on a mission that will end up with talks with Lavrov tomorrow . Is Joe's proposal on the docket , or did Joe blunder with his mouth as he oft does?

MSN

Hunter Biden's pay masters were horrified

Folly for who?

It would be folly to allow Ukraine admittance into NATO . NATO is ONLY a US guarantee of European security so they can go about their economic interests.

The real issue is Russia's security depends on a buffer states zone ;as has been true since the 17th century. NATO has already chipped at that buffer since the Soviet breakup. Make no mistake. It is existential to Russian security.

We were ready to exchange nukes over Cuba . This is no different . Kennedy negotiated a deal with Khrushchev where they removed the nuclear threat from Cuba in exchange for us removing the nuclear threat from Turkey. That is how diplomacy works . Nothing appeasing about it .

[Athos]

It would be folly to allow Ukraine admittance into NATO . NATO is ONLY a US guarantee of European security so they can go about their economic interests.

The real issue is Russia's security depends on a buffer states zone

What do you do if Russia invades Ukraine?

[jlisenbe]

What do you do if Russia invades Ukraine?

Great question. Perhaps we should also be asking what we should be doing NOW before an invasion happens.

[tomder55]

What did GW Bush do when Russia invaded Georgia ? Nothing .

What was the international response to Russia invading Georgia ? What was the EU response ? EU leaders led calls for a ceasefire that favored Russian interests. French President Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated ceasefire terms that Moscow largely violated without consequence.The US under the new emperor regime called for a reset in relations with the Kremlin.

What was the reaction to Russia annexing Crimea .Mostly the world yawned until the Russians downed the MH17 passenger airliner. Then the sanctions began.

I don't know if Russia will invade. My own opinion is that Putin needs a face saving way out like Khrushchev was given.

[tomder55]

So Putin and Madura in Venezuela are in active talks .

Maduro, Putin talk after diplomat hints at military activity | WVNS (wvnstv.com)
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov led the Russian delegation at the talks with the U.S. in Geneva, on Jan. 13 . He spoke of the possibility of deploying military assets to his country’s two allies in the Western Hemisphere. That would be Venezuela and Cuba .

Look at a map of US ports on the Gulf of Mexico coast .


Now look at the larger Gulf Coast .region and note the choke point established by the two nations All shipping commerce coming in or out of the Gulf including through the Panama canal must pass through this choke point.

Russian and /or Chinese military assets here and you may appreciate what Russia thinks of NATO troops a couple hundred miles from Moscow Maybe we could or maybe we could not defend US commerce through this choke point

[Athos]

I don't know if Russia will invade. My own opinion is that Putin needs a face saving way out like Khrushchev was given.

Agreed.

I think Putin has a gigantic national inferiority complex. Guys like that usually back down. My 2 cents.

[tomder55]

I think Putin has a gigantic national inferiority complex.

I think the whole nation has an inferiority complex. But we did rub their face in it with our triumphalism after the collapse of the Soviet Empire .

Remember this nativity?



Fukuyama, argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the end of history in that universal Western democracy was to be the norm . That was before jidadistan ,tribalism ,and the reemergence of totalitarian dictators said 'hold on ;not so fast'

[Athos]

universal Western democracy was to be the norm . That was before jidadistan ,tribalism ,and the reemergence of totalitarian dictators said 'hold on ;not so fast'

And before the Republican Party decided to bail out and become the Trump Cult.

[tomder55]

you mean a nation considers its own self-interests instead of bowing to the dictates of unnamed unaccountable international bureaucrats?

[Athos]

you mean a nation considers its own self-interests instead of bowing to the dictates of unnamed unaccountable international bureaucrats?

No. I mean the Republican Party that has given up its once admirable principles and groveled at the feet of a madman who has nothing but his own sick self in mind.

[jlisenbe]

groveled at the feet of a madman who has nothing but his own sick self in mind.

I think we just found out why it is that dems lying out the whazoo doesn't bother you but Trump's typical hyperbole does.

[Wondergirl]

Trump's typical hyperbole

Hyperbole???? (Ummmm, exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally)

[jlisenbe]

exaggerated statements

Exactly correct.

You have not posted an opinion on the lies we have documented told by Biden and Clinton. Care to?

[Wondergirl]

You have not posted an opinion on the lies we have documented told by Biden and Clinton. Care to?

Why would I?

[tomder55]

This post isn't about Trump. If Trump were President, then he would've deployed Patriot batteries manned by US "advisors"; and the US Navy would be demonstrating in the Black Sea exercising "freedom of navigation". The US would've already shipped massive amounts of anti-tank armaments like MANPADS....and Putin already knows that Trump had no problem wasting a couple hundred Russian troops if they got in the way.

Trump's time had no effect on the failed predictions of Fukuyama. His thesis was knocked down by Samuel Huntington in "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”

It was internationalists like Bubba, GWBUSH, the emperor, Evita, and Clueless Joe who led us into 30 years of war. But they did not have the resolve to win it. Trump on the other hand tried to end foolish foreign engagements while at the same time building our military strength. The internationalist of the world love little interventions while at the same time they gut the military capabilities of their nations.

Clueless Joe in a rare moment of candor and mental acuity told us something that is self evident and something that Putin figured out a decade ago. The west will never risk blood and treasure defending Ukraine .The Europeans threaten "massive economic sanctions " if Russia does a full scale invasion. However ,the scale of the west response will be in proportion to the scale of Putin's aggression .

Joe told us that Wednesday ,Yesterday Ukraine and the hawks in the west squawked ;and the administration spent the rest of the day doing damage control spin.

He was telling a truth . A 'minor incursion' is acceptable to the Europeans . Any talk of massive retaliation would quickly be knee capped by the likes of Germany who depends on Russian gas because their windmills don't get the job done.

That will be considered a green light by Putin to carve out the territory he wants .

So if the west is not willing to fight for Ukraine then why even consider the addition of Ukraine into NATO? If NATO doesn't invoke rule 5 when a member state is attacked then any pretext of legitimacy of the pact is exposed as a fraud..... Or it is US to the rescue with cold war numbers of troop deployments backed up by the US Air Force .

We do not have the troop strength to make that commitment and to honor our ones in East Asia at the same time . The difference is that the defense of our allies in East Asia is of much greater strategic importance to us .The defense of Western Europe is only necessary because the eunuchs in the west don't have the testicular fortitude to defend themselves .