Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[OUTLAW 09]

JMA---took the time to find via the Russian nationalist sites at least 12 videos taken in eastern Ukraine in the last two days and all had individuals walking around using cellphones.

And you cannot tell me that the NSA does not know what is going on?

And if so why not release the paraphases of the conversations if not the entire conversations and translated for the world media to listen to and understand?

[JMA]

JMA---took the time to find via the Russian nationalist sites at least 12 videos taken in eastern Ukraine in the last two days and all had individuals walking around using cellphones.

And you cannot tell me that the NSA does not know what is going on?

And if so why not release the paraphases of the conversations if not the entire conversations and translated for the world media to listen to and understand?

To be honest I think the US is in disarray.

Obama has gone missing, Kerry seems to have imploded and now they are going to trot out Biden - yes, hilarious isn't it - to reassure the Ukrainians that the US will do nothing...

What ever happened to Al Haig - the 'I'm in control here' guy?

Crazy guy but he had style.

I imagine he would handle the situation like this...

Haig flies into Moscow overnight and insists on taking in some of the sights before meeting with Lavrov... When he finally meets with Lavrov he says: "Forgive my indulgence Secretary Lavrov but I had to use this visit to take in the sights of Moscow because unless you withdraw your troops beyond 100 miles of the Ukraine border within the next 48 hours Moscow will end up as a pile of radioactive rubble with Red Square as Ground Zero. I will be leaving now and taking my embassy staff with me. Good day to you sir."

Oh for the good old bad days... sure beats the wimps of today.

[Stan]

What ever happened to Al Haig - the 'I'm in control here' guy?

Crazy guy but he had style.

Hey Mark,

The General indeed had style.

Responsible for the continuation of the Vietnam War, invasions of Cambodia and Laos, a coup in Chile, sent me and many soldiers in 82 on a boondoggle in an unmarked C130 into Nicaragua with strange people (agents), and, almost single-handedly turned America into Britain's enemy during the Falklands War.

However, he may very well have been the right man for the job now

[omarali50]

Stan, Great comment.

Carl, It seems to me (from a very low personal knowledge base, I admit) that Russia is not a viable superpower now and will not be in the days to come. Poor Ukraine (lets not forget how hopelessly incapable Ukraine is as a "soveriegn" state at this time) and a few other similarly weak and divided countries around Russia will no doubt find themselves in a lot of trouble, but Russia just does not have the capacity to take on Western Europe or the system to finance such a capacity in the future.
Too naive?
About China, I think they are very much capable of becoming a great power, but would they really want to invade Guam and Hawaii? They would have to cross Japan first. Even the Mongols couldnt do that.

[Stan]

Stan, Great comment.

Thanks !

But, at the end of the day, I agree with Mark on any number of issues. General Haig at least backed his words with action.

That said, I blame Obama's advisers (much like I blamed Clinton's during the Genocide) for strongly worded Bravo Sierra with no immediate action. Symbolic movement of aircraft and personnel would not even fool Africans. With 3 years to go, Obama's administration wants to go out on a Democratic Party high note of actually doing something his party has yet to ever accomplish. Sad he chose to try his hand with Putin.

I hope he's good at poker

Carl, It seems to me (from a very low personal knowledge base, I admit) that Russia is not a viable superpower now and will not be in the days to come. Poor Ukraine (lets not forget how hopelessly incapable Ukraine is as a "soveriegn" state at this time) and a few other similarly weak and divided countries around Russia will no doubt find themselves in a lot of trouble, but Russia just does not have the capacity to take on Western Europe or the system to finance such a capacity in the future.
Too naive?

Not naive per se, but an underestimation of what Putin is capable of, even if his military are not up to snuff. They, in shear numbers, are more than capable and whatever losses will be yet another reason for Putin to rant to the Duma about military reform and financing. Something he often never gets.

Unlike Obama, looking for a sweet exit from political life, Putin is all about saving face and not looking like the shrimp he is. If we were to have handled him like a former African dictator, we would not be having this conversation and he would be long gone, eaten by crocks.

[OUTLAW 09]

Stan---from Interfax this evening----seems he is focusing on the eastern flank now.

18:21 Russia to take measures in case NATO force configuration changes - Grushko (Part 2)

[davidbfpo]

Via Twitter:

We are seeking a translation on this video from the Donetsk Oblast which Kyiv Post (https://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukr...es-343380.html) described as showing "a man who identifies himself as a Russian lieutenant colonel organizing police officers shortly after pro-Russian separatists stormed and took control of the police station in Horlivka.

Link to YouTube (short clip):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DinMf_7dQK4#t=57

Elsewhere named as:

Lt. Col. Shulzhenko

[carl]

Carl, It seems to me (from a very low personal knowledge base, I admit) that Russia is not a viable superpower now and will not be in the days to come. Poor Ukraine (lets not forget how hopelessly incapable Ukraine is as a "soveriegn" state at this time) and a few other similarly weak and divided countries around Russia will no doubt find themselves in a lot of trouble, but Russia just does not have the capacity to take on Western Europe or the system to finance such a capacity in the future.
Too naive?
About China, I think they are very much capable of becoming a great power, but would they really want to invade Guam and Hawaii? They would have to cross Japan first. Even the Mongols couldnt do that.

Omar:

Russia is weak. But that weakness is only exposed if they are opposed. A boxer with a glass jaw will never lose if nobody ever throws a punch at him. That is not to say that they don't have some strength, as Stan says, but some strength is not winning strength. If we don't throw a punch so to speak, their glass jaw is no weakness.

I didn't mean to suggest they would invade Guam and Hawaii. If they sank a bunch of ships, took 10,000 Americans sailors off sunk ships prisoner, killed most of our tankers and C-17s and then proposed negotiations, why who knows where that would lead? Just because reparations and territorial demands are out of style (maybe not so much lately) doesn't mean they won't come back.

[Dayuhan]

Russia is weak. But that weakness is only exposed if they are opposed. A boxer with a glass jaw will never lose if nobody ever throws a punch at him. That is not to say that they don't have some strength, as Stan says, but some strength is not winning strength. If we don't throw a punch so to speak, their glass jaw is no weakness.

This isn't a boxing match... more like a potential bar brawl. It's also a bar brawl where the protagonists have pistols in their waistbands, only in this case the pistols fire nukes, which makes throwing punches at jaws a prospect that could lead to all sorts of unpleasant places.

The US managed the Cold War by not throwing punches at jaws, but by containment, isolation, trading space for time (as The Curmudgeon aptly put it) where necessary, and letting the antagonist rot out from the inside, with a bit of occasional help. This isn't the Cold War - Russia hasn't anything like the global network or capacity that the Soviet Union had - but Russia's poorly managed and vulnerable economy is still a weakness, and there's no reason a similar strategy can't work again. It will take time, of course... but it really necessary to start swinging punches at jaws, given where that can lead?

Of course that strategy can only work if Europe is on board and actively participating... but since the threat is to Europe in the first place, you'd think they's at least be willing to discuss it.

[Dayuhan]

There are the Europeans, writ large. They are sort of a theoretical concept, easy to turn your back on, those greedy selfish ingrates.

Then there are the Poles, the Czechs, the Ukrainians, the Estonians etc. Those are actual people who do need our help, the Ukrainians, now-and may need our help, now too (I was going to say later but no, now is better), everybody else. It is harder to turn a back to them, "Sorry Stash, the Russians ain't as bad as you remember."

There's a difference between turning your back on people and sexpecting them to do their share... especially when their cooperation is a necessary part of whatever is to be done.

Poles, Czechs, and Estonians are NATO members and should take up their perceived needs with NATO, not with the US. Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova are in more ambiguous circumstances, but still IMO they are best off presenting their own perceived needs (not for us to be telling them what they need) to NATO, not to the US directly. Obviously the US will be a large part of the discussion with NATO, but opening a bilateral channel is just one more way of encouraging the rest of Europe to avoid participation. That would be a mistake, because in the long term it's economic issues that will bring Russia to heel (as they did for the Soviets) and European participation is essential to that. No reason to let them slip into the old "let the Americans deal with it" groove.

The Soviet Union was contained, and ultimately collapsed, without lighting off WW3. Russia can be dealt with the same way. The containment of the Soviet Union involved territorial concessions, especially in the early stages, that were rather unpleasant for the people involved, though a good deal less unpleasant than WW3 would have been. Those concessions didn't mark the end of American power, they weren't a terminal slide that ended in the loss of Hawaii and Alaska. They may not have been a good thing, but they were a necessary thing, and at the end of the day the Cold War was won despite them, without resort to a direct confrontation that could easily have gone nuclear. That can be done again, and it's likely to be easier this time around: today's Russia is not the Soviet Union and lacks many of the capacities the Soviets had. The US is not sole guarantor of the security of everyone everywhere. A major contributor, yes... but if we try to do everything everywhere for everyone we'll be broke in a decade and unable to do anything for anyone, including ourselves.

[wm]

Hey Mark,

The General indeed had style.

Responsible for the continuation of the Vietnam War, invasions of Cambodia and Laos, a coup in Chile, sent me and many soldiers in 82 on a boondoggle in an unmarked C130 into Nicaragua with strange people (agents), and, almost single-handedly turned America into Britain's enemy during the Falklands War.

However, he may very well have been the right man for the job now

As I remember things, General Haig learned his foreign policy practice from Henry Kissinger, the guy who brought us detente and SALT. Haig left the SACEUR position in July 1979, retiring into the private sector until recalled to be SecState in 1981. One wonders how much involvement he had in shaping the MRBM/IRBM "double track" decision announced by NATO in December of 1979. His actions in 1982 regarding the Falklands and Lebanon were not exactly "get tough" positions either.