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Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

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Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#321

Post by christkv »

I've been thinking about what can the Russians do?

Seize a part of Ukraine and force the Ukrainian government into a peace treaty that hands over the territories. What those territories are is hard to predict.

Overthrow the government and put a puppet one in its place. This would require some sort of occupation to keep that puppet regime in power, and the Russian forces would be constantly harassed and attacked by guerrilla style tactics (as in Iraq but probably better trained and equipped).

Unless Russia has additional hundreds of thousands of troops they can't effectively occupy a country as big as the Ukraine. That leaves limited objectives.

They also have a limited timeframe before the ground thaws, limiting operational activities with heavy equipment to be along roads. The famous mud country side of eastern Europe is staring soon and will continue for some months making major tank manoeuvres more difficult.

If you are in the Ukraine.

- Ensure you have at least 1 week of food and water. - Make a bug out bag if you need to leave at a moments notice (including basic medical supplies). - Have an escape plan that DOES NOT include major roads to get out of the city. - Cash is king and anything else of value you can trade for supplies. - If you have a Dacha (or a friend has one) that might be a good place to wait it out if you have to get out of the city.

Be safe

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#322

Post by jb1991 »

ricardobayes wrote: post #116
querez wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think China is still pretty neutral about the whole thing. Putin payed respects to China (e.g. at the Olympiads), while (at least afaik) no western nation tried to get China onboard with sanctions -- or at the very least, they didn't send their presidents over to talk to Xi.

Gotta hand that small remark to Putin, he upheld the tradition of no war during Olympics. Olympics were actually created to act as a pressure release valve in ancient Greece, which constantly fought wars between the Greeks, Spartans and Persians.

> Gotta hand that small remark to Putin, he upheld the tradition of no war during Olympics

Putin hardly cares about that tradition.

"In 2008, Russia launched a military intervention into disputed regions of Georgia in eastern Europe. The conflict unfolded at the same time as the opening ceremonies at the summer Olympic games in Beijing—with Putin, then prime minister and Russia’s leader in all but name, in attendance alongside US president George W. Bush, who did not look pleased. Six years later, Putin had an opportunity to repeat the trick, during the 2014 Winter Olympics hosted by Russia. At the time, the pro-Russian government of Ukraine was collapsing, with protestors demonstrating against Ukraine’s withdrawal from ties with the European Union. The night before the games’ closing ceremony, Putin took part in a lengthy meeting with his security team to plan an intervention in Ukraine."

https://qz.com/1203504/2018-winter-olympics-russia-probably-...

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#323

Post by Lio »

pyuser583 wrote: post #129
chrischen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previous World Wars were not one-sided. Pretty much the majority of the developed world (probably all of the developed world?) is against Russia right now.

Even China isn’t happy.

I don't think this is the case. China has refused to call this an "invasion" and said that it will buy Russian wheat to break sactions.

I don't know what China's plan is but it's clear they have one and that it involves backing the Russian invasion.

https://www.ft.com/content/55d86391-2d05-4eb4-869c-83a7878b8...

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#324

Post by techdragon »

hef19898 wrote: post #226
awb wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Yes, countries prefer weak neighbors. A powerful alliance on your border is a potential threat (or deterrent to expansion). No in the sense that the US only has 90k troops in NATO countries, or about 10% of Russia’s standing military. So it’s not like troops are messing at their border or enough to threaten an invasion. It’s very much a deterrent. Also no in that the US, Russia and China are nuclear power…

Well, the Cuban Missile Crisis might have word regarding enemy troops close to the US mainland.

Yea, but you have to factor into your analysis the fact that at the time Soviet nuclear weapon design was leaning more towards inaccurate but with enough boom it doesn’t matter, so their weapons were on average larger and this limited their effective ballistic missile ranges. So Cuba, while a provocative encroachment, was from the Soviet side a necessary escalation of their military forces to counter things like the deployment of intermediate range ballistic missiles, such as the Jupiter, in Turkey and Italy.

Also … While the “Cuban” part of the crisis can be viewed as instigated by the Soviets, it would be awfully foolish to ignore the fact that they were reacting to the US/NATO moves to deploy missile forces in Europe… by accepting the request from Cuba for nuclear weapons to defend their country from America, which they only asked for after the failed invasion effort in the Bay of Pigs.

It’s never just as simple as “they started it”…

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#325

Post by 2143 »

mopsi wrote: post #284
2143 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> modern army and it was a total massacre You don't get it. Look, nobody has any doubt that USA is very powerful. But that doesn't mean they must annihilate the world. And Russia is no slouch. Diplomacy is the need of the hour. As somebody who lives far far away from Europe and North America (in a country that's supposed to have no skin in this game), I don't want to get killed because Uncle Sam wants to show who's b…

> Look, nobody has any doubt that USA is very powerful. Russia obviously doubts. All that power is useless if you are afraid of using it. Russia conquered Crimea in 2014 without firing a single shot in the best spirit of Sun Tzu because everyone else was so deathly afraid of what might happen that it utterly paralyzed them. Congratz on being far away. I live next to a strategically important rail bridge that will get…

> Russia obviously doubts

You still don't get it. Do you doubt that Russia is powerful? Hence, the diplomacy.

> strategically important rail bridge

That's kind of the problem isn't it? Strategic assets near Russia (I think it's safe to assume the aforementioned bridge isn't in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is concerning to them.

Every country involved is protecting their own interests.

I have no sympathy for any of the governments involved. On any side.

However, I hope that you and your family would be safe.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#326

Post by darebak »

ed_balls wrote: post #223
nomercy400 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Russia cares. They have a growing, energy-hungering neighbor (China) buying their gas in the east, and a Europe committed to reduce their gas and oil usage in the next 10 years in the west.

They care deeply. China is >10x in pretty much everything. They don't to be a vassal state of China. Russia has lost the independence twice - threat from Asia and threat for united countries between Moscow and Berlin. I'd speculate the whole action is to force the West to a new deal with Russia, so they can balance China.

>threat for united countries between Moscow and Berlin.

Are you talking the PLC or the Nazis?

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#327

Post by sgift »

ckastner wrote: post #190
csomar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This keeps getting repeated but both parties having nuclear weapons means a nuclear exchange is possible. You just need one crazy party.

It's not a question of "possible". It's a question of "probable". Me being old enough to buy lottery tickets means that me winning the lottery three times in a row is possible . The probability of that is very low. There is nothing to suggest that the probability of a full-scale nuclear exchange is now higher than before. In fact, given that all major powers have already ruled out a military response, the probability…

> It's not a question of "possible". It's a question of "probable".

Let's just say the topic of "probable" hasn't the best track record right now and still hope for the best.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#328

Post by starfallg »

xroche wrote: post #303
jl6 wrote: post #121

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rus Russia’s exports are >50% oil and gas products. The biggest retaliation the West can make right now is a commitment to a rapid exit at unprecedented speed from the oil economy, in favor of renewables.

> The biggest retaliation the West can make right now is a commitment to a rapid exit at unprecedented speed from the oil economy, in favor of renewables. You can't exit from the oil economy with renewable such as wind or solar due to their non-predictability. If you want to stop importing Russian gaz, you need nuclear energy.

You can with storage systems albeit with lots of constraints. Having nuclear is important to guarantee baseload, but we can't rely on that solely either. With current gen nuclear tech, well also run out of fuel within a few generations.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#329

Post by hef19898 »

watwut wrote: post #267
DocTomoe wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness, unlike Poland in 1939, Ukraine is not a country that managed to wage war against almost every single of their neighbours in the 20 years before the bigger fish came taking a bite. That doesn't make Hitler any less a criminal - it just explains how his casus belli sounded more believable back in the day. If we are comparing history, let's get the whole picture.

Hitler was actually quite open about his "conquest for living space" project and goals. It was believable only if you wanted to believe and afaik, they did not believed him at the time. They mostly thought they are not ready for the full scale war yet, but that is different calculation.

Pretty funny how open people sometimes are about intentions and goals, and still nobody believes them. Personally, I think people like Xi and Putin can be taken, when it comes to strategic goals, taken by their word. Which is scary in itself, also scary that nobody seems to do exactly that.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#330

Post by hypertele-Xii »

hef19898 wrote: post #182
ricardobayes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next up is Finland. Also not a NATO member.

But also a country with a history of coming to terms with the USSR, and notably one that didn't receive a NATO membership invitation guarantee (working of Wikipedia). Ukraine and Georgia did, both also want to join NATO. Finland has no such plans (again, working of Wikipedia).

Having just watched the Finnish president and prime minister address the situation, the press' pressing questions about joining NATO were continually downplayed, as is customary.

Finland is almost militantly neutral, since that was the original condition to independence in the first place. On the other hand, Russia just voided the Minsk agreement with Ukraine to attack, so...

Imagine being Russia's border neighbor, man. It's seriously stressful.

But if any country is prepared for russian invasion, it's Finland.

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