Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Too much criticism of Putin going on around here I believe.

Putin has only made his move because he believes he will get away with it. That directly means that the US and the EU misread the developments in post-Soviet Russia and now do not have the stomach for a confrontation which will have a negative impact on their – mainly the EU countries individual economies.

Putin made his move in Georgia in the last months of Bush 43’s presidency and now in the year of the mid-term elections. This is more a strategic weakness of the US than genius on behalf of Putin. I will state further that I would have expected the US to pull out of Europe some time ago given that they were funding more than 70% of NATO’s costs.

What is quite obvious is that there was individual and collective incompetence among the US and EU countries in failing to read the warning signs of a Russia morphing into a criminal dictatorial state massively funded by oil and gas revenues. Obama was warned by McCain, Romney and Palin yet was too clever by half. The Germans blinded by the commercial opportunities post-Soviet Russia offered convinced themselves that a commercial inter-dependence would ensure stability. Britain was in no position to do anything other than accept their London financial system being used to launder the Russian oligarchs ill gotten gains. In fact it would be hilarious if it were not so tragic.

It is clear than the US, rather like post-WW2 Britain, has lost the appetite for foreign adventures and entanglements. So better the US stays out of it and let the Europeans deal with trouble their own back yard. This must include the State Department especially that Nuland woman of “f*** the EU” infamy and the CIA.

The EU’s options are limited in options as the sanctions route will be too painful to bear for the sake of the peoples in the sights of an expansionist Russia. You can hear the Germans saying that the self-determination and freedom of the peoples of Crimea, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania etc is not worth the pain of sanctions and the possible loss of 350,000 jobs dependent on Russian trade. When the crunch comes the new supposedly self-styled ‘moral’ Germans will revert to type.

We can complain all we like about Putin but the bottom line is that it has been a massive miscalculation by the US and Germany and other EU countries, which has offered this option to Russia. Putin has exploited obvious weakness… no genius in that.

The two nations Europeans need to keep an eye on are the Germans and the Russians – with historical justification – and both need to be emasculated to prevent history repeating itself. Germany whilst economically strong would not frighten Luxemburg militarily but this is not the case with Russia.

In response to this recent Russian military aggression Russia should be reduced to the level where they will never be able to embark on military adventurism ever again. Sadly there are not enough political ‘balls’ across the whole of ‘western’ Europe and North America to put Russia firmly and finally in its place.
Sorry, we obviously live on different planets. Putin chose the lesser of two evils, that is not a gain but limiting his losses.

The deal in 1990 was, that the west did not destroy the buffer in Russias west. With the events the last 12 months it became clear that we, the west had not remember this part of the deal.

You still sell the affair as if Russian forces have occupied a part of a NATO or EU country. A realpolitiker would remember the Bismarck quote in respect to Serbia and the worth of a Pommeranian Grenadier.

Your "In response to this recent Russian military aggression Russia should be reduced to the level where they will never be able to embark on military adventurism ever again. Sadly there are not enough political ‘balls’ across the whole of ‘western’ Europe and North America to put Russia firmly and finally in its place."
is pure hyperventilation, sorry. The reaction of the former Bundeskanzler Schmidt, who was the main architect of the NATO double track decision in 1979-1982 and who was very pragmatic and a really hard bone when it mattered, should tell you the opposite.

Re economic sanctions: The west is the economically stronger fighter and, in addition, is able to perform an asymmetric economic war. Why your unelegant brute force approach? In my book that means self-inflicted pain, that can easily by avoided.