Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[JMA]

I read once that the purpose of NATO was to keep the Germans down, the Americans in and the Russians out. That is why the frontline countries like Poland wanted to be part of NATO. Now it looks looks as if the only thing still standing of that three legged stool is the Germans down part. The Americans have left and NATO doesn't look as if will keep Russia out of anything. So I think if this continues NATO is finished. NATO may already be finished even if everYthing stops right where it is for a few years.

NATO is finished. The US have lost the will and collectively NATO will not be able to counter the Russian movement westwards taking one step at a time slowly.

Germany does not have a military worth much and that is correcty so but they should be contibuting their 2% of GDP to NATO and not using it on a sub-standard military.

The states that most want NATO membership are those who are most at risk from Russian expansionism... but sadly the US and original members of NATO have lost the resolve for any possible military confrontation with anyone let alone Russia (even if its military has limitations).

Germany and other thought they were being smart thinking they could create stability through economic interdependence with Russia over Russian energy imports. In the wake of Crimea this has proved to a massive miscalculation of epic proportions. Initial German embarrassment is slowly turning into anger. See: Germany's Merkel Gets Tough on Russia. But with 350,000 German jobs depending on trade with Russia one should not expect too much other than Frau Merkel behaving like a jilted lover.

That is a brilliant achievement, if it happens, by Vlad, one for the ages. A relatively weak country achieves with the deployment of less than 100,000 troops the fragmentation of a military alliance many times stronger in just a few weeks with only a handful of shots fired. I can't think of an equal in history.

Not brilliant, merely astute. The signs have been there since before Georgia but nobody was listening. From the fact that most Americans and Europeans crap themselves when the N-word is mentioned means they believe Russia would use them. Nobody believes anyone else would. So as long as Russia marches westward one bite at a time with pauses so as not to cause Europe to act in unison there is nothing to stop them.

Have mentioned the Russian approach of 'two steps forward and one step back' before. They threatened the whole of Georgia and settled for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The US (Bush) claimed victory in saving the rest of Georgia. Russia are hoping to take Crimea and maybe more and let Obama claim vistory when they step back from taking the whole of Ukraine.

This geo-strategic game is not that difficult if your opposition is incompetent.

Now with NATO broken up what can be expected to happen? We can only guess at what. Our imaginations can't span the breadth of the possibilities, our modern imaginations anyway. But if you went back some hundreds or thousands of years you might be able to come up with something.

One slow deliberate step at a time... first wrap up all the non-NATO territories... then test NATO. The US can see this coming and I guarantee you that they are figuring out how to get out of NATO before they have to act in accordance with Article 5. That will open the door for Russia.

One thing I think will happen, and will happen quickly, is that France and Great Britain will be joined in the nuclear club by several other European nations. I'm guessing Poland and Sweden first, then who knows? They really have no other choice if they want to stay sovereign. They will only be able to depend upon themselves and if that be the case, they need nukes. Israel came to the same conclusion as has North Korea. It won't be hard. They have the money, the brains and the need.

Yes indeed and they would be crazy not to.

This will not end well if Vladie-buck's adventure isnt frustrated.

He is too smart for Obama and Frau Merkel.

You think this 'Geneva Deal' was anything more than a device to ward off meaningful sanctions?

[Stan]

You think this 'Geneva Deal' was anything more than a device to ward off meaningful sanctions?

Mark,
The Kremlin has always found time to attend such deals and meetings and it has always been doubtful that much would come from said. However, now that the Ukrainian govt. has openly stated that they will consider more autonomy to eastern regions, they just literally opened Pandora's box.

It may have sounded like a small concession, but Vova will read it anyway he desires.

09 May is Victory Day. I sure hope the Ukrainians get 10s of thousands of foreign troops real soon, or they will be looking a a huge version of Estonia in 2007.

[wm]

Have mentioned the Russian approach of 'two steps forward and one step back' before. They threatened the whole of Georgia and settled for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The US (Bush) claimed victory in saving the rest of Georgia. Russia are hoping to take Crimea and maybe more and let Obama claim vistory when they step back from taking the whole of Ukraine.

While some similarities exist between the operations in Georgia and those in the Crimea, I think what the US was hoping to attain is very different from what Russia suspected was going on.
In my opinion, getting Georgia as a NATO partner was not really about NATO. Rather it was about getting US foreign bases. to be prepared for Iran. I believe US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq had a similar goal. Georgia in NATO has positives that are lacking in Uzbekistan (site of former US used Karshi-Khanabad AB) and Kyrgyzstan (site of currently used Manas AB), Unlike the recent and current arrangements in these two very tenuously available locations, having Georgia in NATO would have provided a treaty tie as well as seaborne access for forward basing. However, the pieces retained by Russia after its incursion into Georgia placed Russian control in such a way as to easily cut off forward-based Western forces in Georgia that might seek to invade Russia.
With the loss of Georgia as a meaningful US foreign basing option, the Russians perhaps looked at the next place the US could forward base in preparation for an invasion of Russia. Lo and behold, the Ukraine, and particularly Sebastopol in the Crimea popped up. What other meaningful combinations of sea- and airport capabilities exist on the Black Sea? Putin mentioned this issue in the post from Kaur

Needless to say, first and foremost we wanted to support the residents of Crimea, but we also followed certain logic: If we don’t do anything, Ukraine will be drawn into NATO sometime in the future. We’ll be told: “This doesn’t concern you,” and NATO ships will dock in Sevastopol, the city of Russia’s naval glory.

But it isn’t even the emotional side of the issue. The point is that Crimea protrudes into the Black Sea, being in its centre, as it were. However, in military terms, it doesn’t have the importance it used to have in the 18th and 19th centuries – I’m referring to modern strike forces, including coastal ones.

But if NATO troops walk in, they will immediately deploy these forces there. Such a move would be geopolitically sensitive for us because, in this case, Russia would be practically ousted from the Black Sea area. We’d be left with just a small coastline of 450 or 600km, and that’s it!

It may be the case that the Russians and Americans are both thinking along the same lines: trying to win the 21st century version of The Great Game, with Russia viewing occupation of selected parts of Georgia and the Ukraine as necessary steps to pre-empt US options. However, I don't think so.
I'm inclined to believe instead that the two nations are actually operating from different places and with different goals. For Russia, that goal is protection of Mother Russia by building out its control over buffer states (a return to Warsaw Pact-like thinking). For the US, the goal is putting itself in a position to take down Iran if/when that becomes necessary (a forward basing strategy similar to its 1950-90s efforts in Germany).

Since neither side is likely to believe the other, the problem will continue.