Ukraine: military (Aug '14 to mid-June '15) closed

[Dayuhan]

AP--with this announcement today from Russian FSB officer Girkin--- Putin has a choice---cross over and provoke a war with the Ukraine and far more serious sanctions or pull back and lose his reelection.

Do you honestly think he will negotiate his way out? He has been offered a number of times from the West an exit ramp--did he take those offers?

I think you're missing the point on the "exit ramp" suggestion. First, you don't offer it to Putin, you offer it direct to the separatists in the field. They've been at it for a while, they're tired, a lot of them are dead, they haven't had the support they expected, they have issues with each other. You're offering them a chance to go home to their families without penalty, and some superficial "autonomy" concessions (official language status, whatever else would not compromise Ukrainian sovereignty).

More important, you know they are not going to accept the offer. Ok, a few individuals or units might, but Putin and his puppets certainly won't. That's not the point. The point is to undercut the narrative of direct threat to ethnic Russians that you say the Russians are trying so hard to build. It's hard to claim that you have to intervene to protect ethnic Russians when the ethnic Russians have a generous offer of re-integration on the table.

It's a propaganda move. Given your focus on propaganda I'd think that would be obvious. Of course the offer won't be accepted; that's not the point. The point is to undercut the narrative and the pretext, and to sow some doubt among the cannon fodder out in the field.

Russia has made two serious attempts to move in their "peacekeeping Brigades" ...

1. they made the UNSC move claiming they were moving together with a IRC humanitarian plan which the IRC promptly stated they had none and the UNSC shot them down

2. yesterday there was a serious move on the Ukrainian border when a large Russian military convoy moved extremely close to the border again claiming "humanitarian peacekeeping together with the IRC"

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/08/0...ion-escalates/

Even more detail on that Russian "peacekeeping" attempt yesterday---notice AP/Dayuhan when the diplomatic tone gets hard Russia pulls back---not that they will stop and they are still looking for that "humanitarian option to invade with but forceful tones and the word war muttered still does get into Putin's head...

Again, the whole point of the "exit ramp" proposal is to undercut the argument for that "humanitarian option to invade".

You say here that there have been "two serious attempts" to move in, both of which have pulled back. You also say that "when the diplomatic tone gets hard Russia pulls back". If that's true, and that if mere words can get them to pull back, that would suggest a high degree of uncertainty and indecision, even fear. Why else would they pull back from a course already decided on?

If the Russians pull back over nothing more than a change in diplomatic tone, they are running scared and the current approach is working. I'm actually not convinced that this is the case, but you're making some fairly convincing arguments that it is.

Economics is in fact a verifiable weapons system---and the US with their Counter Threat Finance group is getting it right and it is hurting Russia--when the dust settles finally you will notice a shift in the Russian stance.

I agree. I've said from the start that the preferred response would be multilateral, economic, and graduated. Economics is realistically the primary relevant weapons system for the US in this fight, because everyone in the picture knows the US isn't going to war over the Ukraine no matter who sits in the White House.

The Ukraine has bluntly told Russia that any peacekeeping move by their troops is an act of war and will be seen as such and they will call the UNSC, the International Court and effectively stop all gas and oil leaving Russia for the EU effectively cutting their hard cash inflow by over 40% and the more serious threat of a Ukrainian Army guerrilla war voiced yesterday out of Kiev on the Russian Army LOCs is a really effective threat and it is being seen by the Russians as a serious threat.

True, and it's also pretty clear that the West will support the Ukraine with more aggressive sanctions. That leaves Putin with an unpleasant choice to make. The ball's pretty much in Putin's court, and we'll see what he does. The threats are on the table, he has to calculate the costs and benefits either way. I do hope the Ukrainians refrain from direct moves into urban areas where high collateral damage is inevitable. A bunch of dead ethnic Russian civilians will make intervention a lot easier for Putin.

Right now the US is in effect fighting a two front war---the Ukraine and over Iraq--and because we are a declining power we cannot engage both fully thus we have not been focusing verbally and sanction wise on the Russian moves the last three days. One must constantly engage the global public when Russia makes a move--if there is no worldwide comments against them then Russia interprets that as a positive response for what they do---has always been that way even in the CW days.

Can't really buy the two-front war argument. As above, we all know the US isn't going to war with Russia over the Ukraine, and the US is very unlikely to put ground troops back into Iraq. The constraint in Iraq is US public opinion, not declining power, and the reluctance to push another nuclear power to the wall in open conflict in their own front yard goes all the way back to the 50's. MAD still matters.