I guess I disagree that cutting off gas supplies to European industry would present just inconvenience. Inconvenience would be something like problem with Polish apples in 2014 (or so). That is, maybe it would be inconvenience for Western Europe, if by that term you exclude Germany, which is Central European country. But I believe you assume Germany as part of the Western Europe. In that case, I believe halting its industry would be a significant blow to whole EU. As far as I know, European economy is not in such a great shape lately.
But let's say you are right and Russian counter measures would be "just inconvenience". How much inconvenience is average Western European ready to accept for Ukraine ? Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm of impression that nobody in Western Europe would sacrifice much of their disposable income for Ukraine or Ukrainians... or if not for solidarity with Ukrainians, then to simply hurt Russians.
Basically give putin what he wants ,this time and then wait until he decides he wants more of the East European countries to himself,
Putin should have zero say about how sovereign states go about their normal business from development to defense ,
They are not Russian
Fred Kaplan has a productive take on the proposed Russian treaty:
Not as a NATO program, no. The US military does do some joint training with them under the State Partnership Program. Currently 89 nations are in the program, Ukraine has been partnered with California's National Guard since 1993 and routine exchanges happen between the two. Similarly during the 2008 Ossetia clash, some members of the Georgia Guard were in Georgia under the same partnership program. It's mainly a mentorship/advisory program with occasional unit-level exercises.
"Peace at all costs", how'd that work out in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I think they are done with the west's promises after the cold war. This is not going to be solved with ink but with blood.
Russia isn't "scared' of NATO expansion , theyre pissed at it limiting their ability to push their neighbours about ... , If NATO ( or an eu member ) had wanted they'd have taken Kaliningrad in the 90s ... It probably wouldn't have been difficult.
And I don't think that NATO had much to do with the Ukrainian military before the Russians invaded - I think what their rattled about now is the Ukrainian army and it's abilities are improving , not to an invade Russia level but to a "it won't be a walk over " level... Short sharp wars with obvious gains are great for home moral - expensive and undisguisable loses ,not so much ... Plus Putin wants to see how far he can ratchet up the pressure before something breaks - and that's the start point the next time ...
To be fair I'd trust the Americans, Russians and Chinese fairly equally.
Yes and asking china to stop using coal fueled power stations is also causing gas prices to rise
The west has been a leader in climate change, human rights social inclusion and peace at all costs its lost its way now it cant defend itself or keep warm in winter at elevated cost need to wake up.
Russia wont stop at Ukraine it will want east germany back or we ill stop buying your BMWs
RT doesn't refer to itself as state media of course they don't the rest of the world does.
https://www.rt.com/russia/543861-us-pmc-chemical-provocation-ukraine/
Whack propaganda no just the usual shite from rt
Care to actually link to the story?
It looks like some whack propaganda you got there. RT doesn't refer to itself as "Russia state-controlled media".
Yes, the Germans decommissioning their reactors was a strategic mistake. I wonder though how many European citizens care enough about Ukrainian independence to tolerate higher energy prices? Very few I suspect.
I know it's too late now but I wonder if the US should have aimed to have a Nato that included Russia in the 1990s.
Funny how all the talking points about inflaming Russian insecurities manage to leave out the massive desire from those former Soviet counties to align with the west to protect themselves from Russia. It wasn't a case of NATO coercing them into the alliance, it was a existential necessity for them.
Europe should call Putin's bluff. They should sanction him and Russia now. Quit forestalling the needed transition away from Russian gas. Height of foolishness for the Germans to decommission their reactors and leave themselves on the hook to Putin.
I don't think they can. I meant neutral in return for getting control of all/most of their territory back. I'd imagine they'd never get Crimea back though. Almost any outcome would be preferable to being invaded and losing half/all your territory though. They're in an awful position with no committed ally.
How can Ukraine ever be independent when they have russian troops inside their own borders ,the so called separatist forces in East Ukraine are full time russian military and intelligence forces ,
How can they ever be neutral under occupation
I wonder if Russia would accept some form of "finlandization" of Ukraine where it is guaranteed to be neutral.
Basically that Nato expansion has furthered the insecurity that drove its expansion. It strengthened the hardliners in Moscow. The article also says that Russia's annexations and invasions of its neighbours was driven by a desire to bring them in line but has usually backfired by making them more hostile and Pro Nato.
@Gatling here is an excerpt:
Russia is behaving like a bully toward Ukraine. But why? What happened to the dream of Europe whole, free and at peace at the end of the Cold War? How did we get from that hopeful new dawn to the sobering prospect of military invasion in 21st-century Europe? The short answer is this: security delusions on all sides paved the way, delusions that are now on a dangerous collision course.
Russia’s security delusions are easiest to grasp. Thinking military force can create genuine security and influence in neighbouring states is delusional. Recovering under Russian president Vladimir Putin after a decade of crisis, Russia began rebuilding its power capacities across post-Soviet space.
...
The security delusions of the Nato West are more difficult to recognise. After the Cold War, the alliance decided to expand not disband. Nato’s “open door” policy allowed former Soviet republics like the Baltic States to join the alliance. Veteran Soviet security officials, like the conspiratorial-minded Putin, were forced to accept that their Cold War enemy was now at the border. Nato, of course, did not see it this way. It argued that all states have a sovereign right to choose their own defence orientation. Further, they claimed, Nato is not a threat to any power. Rather, it is a civilisational alliance advancing security and freedom.
Critics, most prominently an aging American diplomat George Kennan, saw Nato expansion as a fateful error and predicted it would strengthen the hand of hardliners within Russia. He was right. The insecurity that Nato expansion was designed to address only redoubled insecurity as Russia rebuilt its power and reacted.
A self-fulfilling security dilemma took hold. Nato expansion was justified by the very insecurity it produced. By 2008, Russia publicly asserted that Nato membership for Georgia and Ukraine were its defensive red lines. Nato radicalised matters when in April 2008 it declared, in defiance of Russia, that those two countries would one day become members of the alliance.
Claiming Nato is not a threat to anyone is a delusion. Nato does not get to define Russia’s security perception. Presuming that expanding a military alliance to the border of an insecure great power advances security is delusional. Unilaterally exiting arms control agreements with Russia – like the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty the US left in August 2019 – is reckless behaviour.
Admitting Ukraine into the Nato procurement system, training its troops, building Nato-standard infrastructure, and supplying advanced weapons to its forces without grasping that this may inflame Russian insecurity is also delusional thinking. It is living solely within one’s benevolent view of oneself.
The West appears trapped by its fixation on the principle that all states have the sovereign right to choose their own military orientation. They cite articles from past security agreements. But they ignore other articles asserting that security is indivisible. Security requires responsibility and that begins with acknowledging collective sources of insecurity. The coronavirus pandemic has made clear the importance of qualifying individual free choice: we all have responsibilities to the collective good.
Many in the West are also fixated with Munich and appeasement, Yalta and spheres of influence. This desire for historically selective moralised analogies betrays a desire to purify the present into simpleminded categories of good and evil. More disturbingly, it also propels desire for righteous action. Violence is soon easily justified.
What does the article say ,
It's behind a pay wall
Media will devote barrels of ink and terabytes of space to the minutia of COVID statistics. The presence of a disease which kills fewer than 1% of its victims justifies lockdowns, school closures, and internment of healthy individuals, all in the effort to reduce the viral spread and save a few thousand people.
Yet a single thermonuclear bomb could incinerate 10 million people or more and reduce our cities to ash, in pretty much the time it takes to have your shower this morning. A thermonuclear missile could be launched from central Russia and strike Liverpool or Cardiff or Dublin Airport 15 minutes later. And Russia alone has 7000 of those missiles. All of them are pointed at cities you know, and quite possibly at several Irish targets. And no one in the media deigns it worthy of a mention. Far better to obsess over a 1.5 degree temperature rise over the next 50 years, or the new strain of the not-so-deadly virus we’ve gotten used to, than the nuclear annihilation of our spouses, children, parents, friends, towns, cities and countries.
Excellent opinion piece in the Irish Times today on this topic:
Biden has said the US will not send troops to defend Ukraine in the event of an invasion. Putin will smell this weakness and take advantage now before a change of president and policy in 3 years. The day the US left Afghanistan the real victory was for Russia, China, Iran, NK etc...In the face of bullies any step backwards spells the end.
2022 could be the worst year in history.
As these events unfold in Eastern Europe, Iran is now deemed mere months away from becoming a nuclear power, which is likely to precipitate a war with Israel and the Middle Eastern Sunni powers (KSA and the UAE) going nuclear to deter Iran.
And in the Far East, China might make a bid for Taiwan.
We are absolutely at a pivot moment in history.
At the very least, we should recognize that the febrile concern about Climate Change has been overwrought — the real existential threat is a deliberate or accidental nuclear exchange that will turn us all to radioactive ash or blackened skeletons. This could happen at any moment given the way in which nuclear arsenals are rigged to launch on warning, on hair trigger alert. Once launched, there is no abort option.
We must get rid of nuclear weapons. We are teetering on the abyss and amazingly it seems no one thinks a thermonuclear exchange could happen. I think to myself, how can it not happen, given enough time and tension in the world?
The problem I have with sanctions as the solution is that it presumes that everyone is a purely rational actor and will react in the intended manner. The citizenry will survive all sorts of terrible deprivations for the national cause (You didn't see many people on the receiving end of the strategic bombing campaign either Allied or German crying for peace), and the people who are making the decisions are the least affected by them.
It seems rare that sanctions have ever had a particularly notable effect in achieving a desired endstate.
An exchange of sanctions would upset and inconvenience western Europe, but it would push Russia the rest of the way into the dark ages.
If the gas stops flowing at their end, they are goosed. Its literally all they have. 85% of their exports are oil, gas and raw metals. Even the great Russian wheatfields only make up 3% of income. Its a timebomb of an economic mix.
Many thanks for that. I was under the impression Trump was buddies with Russia but now you mention that it makes sense. Then again Trump talked out of both sides of his mouth so I shouldnt be surprised!
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Such an arrangement is well within the scope of Putin's means.
But if West introduce these terrible sanctions, don't you think Russia can fire back with similar, crippling sanctions ? If Russia stops gas supplies, it will have negative impact on its revenues, but on the other hand it will also seriously slow down German industry and probably in the rest of Central Europe. And lets face it, German economy is the most important one in the EU. USA probably wouldn't suffer that much, but we are in EU and I don't see how such development will be good for us. In other words, neither we in EU, nor Ukraine have much gain from ruined Russian economy, and we can all suffer from European industry brought to halt.
This is exactly what needs to happen ,
This idea Putin needs to appeased is laughable ,he's nothing more than a common garden bully ,
After putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 he even tried to stop Ukraine being involved in the Minsk treaty's which his forces repeatedly broke
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