Graham wrote:
What are those for, if not for this sort of thing?
NATO is not authorized per se to engage in conflicts outside the treaty territory. This would need a decision by all NATO members and quite possible a mandate from the UN in order to get NATO allies to agree on it.
Graham wrote:
He’ll do anything except actually engage NATO forces. Firstly because he’d lose, secondly because his whole approach is based on his belief that we’re more scared of war than he is. If he suddenly finds that’s not the case, he won’t know what to do.
The whole thing has started because he sees NATO and it’s expansion as a threat to his borders. Put NATO Forces into Ukraine now and he WILL attack them and with this also the deterrent of not attacking NATO member countries will be gone. He will also see himself confirmed in his mantra that Ukraine is a NATO staging ground and he will rally whoever dissents in their military behind them.
Graham wrote:
If we don’t do something unexpected, something that ‘breaks the rules’ now, then he’ll take all of Ukraine in the next few years and then it’ll be wherever he fancies next. We should have stopped him taking Crimea, and we should stop him now.
He can not take any of the NATO countries as this would trigger a defence case for NATO and he knows that. The moment he does, he will face the whole NATO force against him. My prediction would be that he annexes Donbass and then will try to force some of the former satellite states which are not NATO back into a full union with Russia. He can not take Poland or the baltic states without a massive NATO response and this would almost certainly mean nukes.
On a different note, is any of this having any impact on flying atm? Most airlines have now cancelled travel to and from Ukraine, given the safety issues (downing of the Malaysian airliner) in that region previously. Any TFR’s etc in the neighbouring countries?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
NATO is not authorized per se to engage in conflicts outside the treaty territory. This would need a decision by all NATO members and quite possible a mandate from the UN in order to get NATO allies to agree on it.
That doesn’t stop one or more members acting unilaterally. Putin won’t see it any differently, so long as the states involves are all NATO members. It also doesn’t stop NATO changing its rules and admitting Ukraine as a member.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The whole thing has started because he sees NATO and it’s expansion as a threat to his borders.
No – that’s his pretext, his excuse. He knows NATO isn’t interested in attacking Russian borders. The whole thing has started because he wants to restore the glory of the Russian empire, rebuild a Russian sphere of influence in Europe and go down in history as the man who stared down the west and made Russia great again. If you believe that he feels threatened by NATO, you’re buying his line.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Put NATO Forces into Ukraine now and he WILL attack them
No he won’t, because if he did he’ll get an absolute pasting and then won’t know what to do next. The social media coming out of Belarus suggests that Russian troops are usually drunk and spend most of their time either selling their diesel or using the proceeds to buy more booze.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
My prediction would be that he annexes Donbass
I agree with that. Then he’ll take the rest of Ukraine and the Russian border will move a long way west. Then he’ll start saying that Poland as a NATO member on his border is a threat to his security, rinse and repeat.
Have the Ukraine Government asked for troops to go in? If not it would be a violation of their democratic rights.
The best thing could be to split the Russian forces. Offer military aid to Georgia, Chechnia and increase the troops in the NATO member countries adjacent to Russia and Belarus. It would also not take much for the people of Belarus to rise up against its leadership IMO.
Sanctions will bring economic pain to the countries delivering the sanctions, as much as to Russia, perhaps even more so if the sanctions are to be really effective. Are the populations of the UK, EU, USA ready for that?
Nuclear power may be the answer in the future, but it takes a long time to build and commission a nuclear power station.
And then there’s Bitcoin. Aren’t a large proportion of Bitcoins mined in Siberia?
gallois wrote:
Have the Ukraine Government asked for troops to go in? If not it would be a violation of their democratic rights.
I’m pretty sure they’d be keen for it to happen.
gallois wrote:
It would also not take much for the people of Belarus to rise up against its leadership IMO
They’d be crushed by the Russian military if they tried that. It’d be great for Putin, he’d be able to say he was going in to restore order and do some more ‘peacekeeping’.
gallois wrote:
Sanctions will bring economic pain to the countries delivering the sanctions, as much as to Russia, perhaps even more so if the sanctions are to be really effective. Are the populations of the UK, EU, USA ready for that?
That’s why if they’re to have any effect they need to be ‘outrageous’. They need to get people going “you can’t do that, that’s illegal!”. It needs to mean rounding people up and deporting them, as well as seizing their assets and totally freezing Russia out of international trade and co-operation. Every wealthy Russian needs to be driven out of London, sent home to complain to Putin how his action have ruined their lives. Nothing short of this will dissuade Putin from what he’s doing.
But it won’t happen, because their money is too embedded in the levers of power in the UK. Boris Johnson actually played tennis with the wife of one of Putin’s ex-ministers in return for a £160,000 donation to the Conservative Party.
So it’s not the population that doesn’t want the consequences, it’s the leadership.
@Graham if you note, I wrote split Russian troops, before I wrote about an uprising in Belarus. Putin would have to split his and Belarussian troops in order to halt a rebellion there. He would have to take his troops from somewhere else.
Every military that has fought on different fronts or even had to deploy troops against, threats on more than one front have come unstuck.
This IMO would be no exception. The Russians would need to delay trying to take the whole of the Donbas region, which would allow the Ukraniens to bolster and train its military.
Any delay would also take us further into Spring and less demand for Russian gas. If they pull many of their troops out of the Donbas region in order to provide a dererrent to the other areas, that would leave Crimea and the Donbas weakened, perhaps enough for the Ukraine to move back into these areas.
Graham wrote:
If you believe that he feels threatened by NATO, you’re buying his line.
Russia has maintained this since the east expansion of NATO, using the same logic that Kennedy used when he blocked the Cuban Missiles from being stationed there. Russia always maintained that they are uncomfortable with the fact that NATO, despite of what was said to the Soviet Union at the time, indeed did expand to the East. That is not really Putin’s line, it’s a line they had from the start of the NATO eastern expansion. They want a buffer between them and NATO, as the WAPA states used to be. I think they actually had trouble at the time with both East Germany and others who realized that the “socialist brotherhood” existed mainly to have them be the battlefield if NATO would come to arms with Russia.
Don’t underestimate the Russian paranoia about invasion into their territory. They had it happen several times, last in WW2. That is the mindset the whole thing is based on.
Graham wrote:
The social media coming out of Belarus suggests that Russian troops are usually drunk and spend most of their time either selling their diesel or using the proceeds to buy more booze.
Underestimating an adversary is dangerous. Ask Napoleon and Hitler, they know first hand. Drunk they may be and doing black market, but heaven help anyone who tries to attack what they look as as the Rodina.
Graham wrote:
The whole thing has started because he wants to restore the glory of the Russian empire, rebuild a Russian sphere of influence in Europe and go down in history as the man who stared down the west and made Russia great again.
That is definitly his goal, I agree. He knows however he can’t get back what NATO in his view has already “occupied”. He can however try to absorb some of the other former Soviet republics, foremost of them of course Ukraine, which he does not even reckognize as a nation…
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Underestimating an adversary is dangerous. Ask Napoleon and Hitler, they know first hand. Drunk they may be and doing black market, but heaven help anyone who tries to attack what they look as as the Rodina.
They didn’t underestimate the Russians, they underestimated how far it was to Moscow and failed to look at the long TAFs. Also as I think @gallois is suggesting, you cannot do something like that at the same time as other military operations.
If it comes to a shooting war between Russia and NATO it will be very one-sided. The Russian army is still largely a conscript one. For small operations you can bluff it by using only the elite units and special forces, but it’s very different if you need to put a couple of divisions in the field
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Russia always maintained that they are uncomfortable with the fact that NATO, despite of what was said to the Soviet Union at the time, indeed did expand to the East. That is not really Putin’s line, it’s a line they had from the start of the NATO eastern expansion. They want a buffer between them and NATO, as the WAPA states used to be.
Irrelevant what Russia wants or what it feels about ‘NATO expansion’. NATO is a free-choice military alliance that countries may apply to join and are free to leave. Putin may view it as a sphere of influence, but it isn’t, not in the same way he envisages his. Perhaps if he wasn’t so aggressive the countries immediately to his west wouldn’t be so desperate to join? NATO nations on his doorstep pose no actual threat and he knows that, they just mean he can’t invade them. Talk of a buffer really means Russian client states. He’s a fairly smart cookie – he’s not paranoid.
Graham wrote:
Either:1) Admit Ukraine to NATO overnight and deploy a serious military force. Not ‘military assistance’ but a major warfighting deployment – multiple armoured and infantry divisions along with the necessary air support. Stick the best trained and equipped military units in the world on the Ukrainian borders, facing off with the Russian conscripts, and then see what he does.
or
2) Arrest and deport every Russian from every EU and NATO country. Seize (not freeze) every last cent of their assets. Cut Russia off from every little bit of international trade and international cooperation. Make them like North Korea.
I’d agree with most of this. I wouldn’t deport ordinary Russian citizens or seize ordinary citizens assets. Ivan who married a European and moved to Italy where he owns and runs a small cafe isn’t our enemy. But sure all the oligarchs who have benefited from Putin’s ‘generosity’, yes. Cutting off all their international banking yes. Exporting gas is of no use if you can’t get paid for it.
Ukraine could be admitted to NATO on a ‘Temporary emergency’ basis. Give Putin exactly what he doesn’t want….NATO on his border. Then make it clear that Ukraine loses it’s temporary emergency admission once the threat from Russia is gone. It goes back to being an applicant.
I’d also immediately remove Russia from G20.
As for what the Russian Generals would do? I don’t know. The video where his top advisors were paraded out and made to support the invasion was enlightening. Those who tried to even hint at caution pretty much ended up shaking in their boots while being forced to give full commitment.
Having said that I don’t believe Putin would use his nuclear weapons unless the west tried to bring the fight into Russia itself. Putin only cares about his own position. He knows if he uses nuclear weapons, that he’s getting a retaliatory strike and he’s personally done for. Even if he were to survive, he’s never lead Russia again. But if he stops the war and retreats he’ll put out his fake news about how he taught the west a lesson not to mess with Russia and continue on his leadership.
No – that’s his pretext, his excuse. He knows NATO isn’t interested in attacking Russian borders. The whole thing has started because he wants to restore the glory of the Russian empire, rebuild a Russian sphere of influence in Europe and go down in history as the man who stared down the west and made Russia great again. If you believe that he feels threatened by NATO, you’re buying his line.
Indeed. I saw the speeches by him yesterday. Rather amazing the way he picks pieces here and there, all facts and truths to 95% at least, and then writes his very own history and reality that has nothing in common with the real history and the real reality.
He will stop at nothing as long as he sees some way he increase his power and influence. He will achieve it because no one in the west is able to stop him. He can play his game in peace, creating new rules as he see fit.
In the news now that Ukraine will consider arming the population. I mean, the country is being invaded, and they have to stop and think if perhaps they should arm it’s citizens. Nuts.
The Russian army is still largely a conscript one. For small operations you can bluff it by using only the elite units and special forces, but it’s very different if you need to put a couple of divisions in the field
Taliban forces were nothing but under educated peasants fighting against the cream of what the west could cook up. That didn’t go so well, for the western forces.
