If Putin attacks, it'll be the end of him. Russia has no capacity to stand up to NATO in military or economic means. You'd have to think that in certain respects, there are many in Washington who would relish Putin blundering into an expanded conflict in Ukraine. Bleed Russia, destroy their economy, turn the EU away from Russian gas permanently.
The question is...would the US put up with this if the tables were reversed?....I'd guess not
Look at the sh!te haemorrhage they had over missiles in Cuba
but yes, Biden is the clearly weakest president that the USA has ever had!
The weakest president in the history of the United States of America
Why wouldn’t Putin take the piss?
it’s not even funny with Biden anymore it’s dangerous
A lot of mirth and derision on view in here today, but here's the facts.
1) These type of tests could be performed anywhere, in any open ocean. Russia has control of millions of square kilometres of it to use in the Arctic, the Black Sea and the Pacific.
2) At least 10 major trans-Atlantic communications cables traverse the Celtic Sea shelf. Also a concentration of the NATO SOSUS network, thousands of undersea microphones that track non-NATO submarines.
The concentration of communications cables is....in a route about 240 kms off the south coast of Ireland.
3) If you believe Russia is interested in a status of neutrality, or that they aren't seeking to find weak spots in the defence umbrella of the European continent (be that NATO or not), or indeed that they aren't seeking to divide it politically, then you're a fool.
We could do a china and claim everything from the coast of Galway to off the east coast of America ,hit everything flying or sailing with a large tax
is it time to tool up lads? a lot of our fishermen would be handy enough in a fight.
When I was in Russia, I still remember passing a military base, with a checkpoint outside. It was in the minus 4-5c at least, with a slight breeze, so even colder than ambient temp. I was in a heated vehicle, dressed like a polar bear, and still cold. At the check point there was a soldier stripped to the waist washing himself from a basin of water, no problem. I asked another soldier about it, and he said, " He's from Siberia, and for him its a nice spring day". And then you remember it was the Russian winter which defeated both Napoleon and Hitler.
I hope that the tests aren't too loud or our defence force members monitoring them, will have us broke!
The simple fact is, that nobody knows right now what is going to happen. The facts on the ground mean that it there is a very real threat of it happening though, in particular:
Given all of the above it is more than prudent to at least prepare for an attack.
As for the question of when people will accept that they're not going to invade? Ultimately. if and when they move the troops away and back to their bases. Failing that, the thawing of the land in eastern Ukraine in a few weeks time, will make it a good deal more difficult to conduct a land invasion so that should also ratchet down the pressure.
As for what could possibly spark the war? I have every confidence, that should he wish to invade, Putin can engineer a scenario where he can claim plausible deniability about being the aggressor whilst achieving the same overall goal as some kind of defensive act. If that's too much like hard work he could just send his troops in without any insignia (again) and claim not to know anything about them.
You make it all sound so easy in hindsight and heap blame on the US/Europe and attribute nothing to Russia/people who've been in charge there since the Soviet breakup as usual.
Now maybe US/Western policy towards USSR (and then Russia) during and immediately after the breakup of the former was wrong, but I really don't believe it was as simple to ensure a better outcome (e.g. a democratic Russia and Ukraine that are both now EU members) as you say.
The USSR suffered what was mostly an internal crisis, the US/Europe was never IMO in a situation where they could direct an "amenable" Russia to extent you suggest and ensure democracy emerged, EU membership followed on etc etc. The US was much more cautious in the face of the USSRs collapse I think and took quite a hands off approach (apart from private companies making money out of the new situation as always) where main US govt. effort was to stave off a complete economic disaster, and also prevent nasty NBC weapons and know-how from leaking out around the world.
I don't know how well a much more interventionist approach trying to direct what kinds of state & systems would emerge in Russia would have gone down with people/leaders there. Might have backfired very badly. The EU Eastern exapansion effort with the much smaller former Warsaw pact countries that should have been all far easier to set on the "right" path from athe US/Western European point of view has not been entirely successful even with full NATO and EU membership and all the billions & other goodies poured in by Germany/the Western EU contributor states. A few of the test subjects are quite close to falling to autocracy now and maybe even end up de facto exiting the EU in future if they continue on the path they are on a few more years.
The alleged purpose of the EU - and NATO too, apparently - is to make conflict less likely
I think you misconstrue the EU here, a main underlying purpose is to make conflicts between the members almost impossible. Other than that, it hasn't had a strong remit to alter likelyhood of war and peace in the wider world outside its boundries (it had/has difficulty coming up with a common foreign policy, it does not have its own military etc).
Most people have nothing against Russians. Many people have something against the crooks who run Russia, and their politics. They could be a great power, but the country is completely mismanaged by Putin and his cronies, and they are reduced to threatening the west with cutting off gas supply and moving troops around the country. With proper leadership, they could be a rich country that attracts foreign investors and is able to work with its neighbours.
If they attack Ukraine, Putin is not only a crook, but stupid.
🤣
Come back to me the next time oil prices dip and tell me how healthy the Russian economy is.
If you're referring to the US, that country has never defaulted, and likely never will - it's literally the safest government-issued debt that one can buy. There's a reason why institutions and countries (including Russia) queue up around the block to buy Treasury Bills.
The Russian Federation has already defaulted once in 1998, and the lesson they learned and can't afford to run deficits because they need to prop up the ruble with foreign currency reserves when oil prices hit the skids. This nearly led to a death spiral in 2014 when oil prices bottomed out below a break-even threshold for the economy, the ruble tanked, and both the Russian government and firms burned through foreign currency reserves to meet debt obligations. Its economy is an undiversified resource trap.
Their borrowings (both on and off-balance sheet in the public and private sector) are low because they don't have access to foreign borrowing markets due to Putin's dunderheaded geopolitical moves, and even if they did, the Russian economy has a history of hilariously misallocated capital and low productivity.
The Russian economy has dropped out of the top 10 largest economies in the world to be replaced by South Korea (a country one third the size in population with none of the resource advantages of Russia) and that's with the advantage of spiking energy prices of the last couple of years.
Don't talk to me about economics, because you're talking pony on Russia and I'll pull rank on you all day.
Alot of the troops currently deployed are from actually Siberian based units , something the Americans could learn from , various American mountain units were /are based in low laying areas close to sea level
Not so much, they are used to sub zero temp's in that part of the world , they are not as affected as people from the west might be. But then again, armies are generally trained to fight in any conditions. Think Siberia regiments.
@Elmer Blooker Most people still have a vision of Russians queuing up in the snow for hours for a cabbage, it’s a form of racism really when you think about it.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Russophobia now racism 🙈🙈
Actually Elmer is there any crime in Russia ,no drugs ,no gangs ,no street robbery , larceny from vehicles and trains.
Nothing ?
People should google “looted trains LA” and see the decline of the US right in front of them.
I don’t think many people realise that so many dollars are being printed that there is 40% more $US in existence then there was a year ago. Not a good sign.
Most people still have a vision of Russians queuing up in the snow for hours for a cabbage, it’s a form of racism really when you think about it.
@[Deleted User] Russia wanted to join the EU and NATO in the 1990s. This is well known and even referenced in this thread quite a few pages back. Your willingness to have other Europeans potentially die for Ukraine is touching...
Not true unfortunately putin mentioned it in two speeches at the time ,that's all it was sound bites neither the Russian government or Putin were making plans of any kind to actually join nato ,
Typical Putin stuff ,my name is Vlad and I'm your friend,a day later I'm Vladimir your master
Russia to conduct missile tests in Irish-patrolled waters 240km off south-west coast (via @thejournal_ie) https://jrnl.ie/5660829
Accusing me of whataboutery just let’s you hypocritically ignore the beam in your own eye. You and your ilk wouldn’t be remotely happy if the Warsaw Pact had won the Cold War and Russia was now stationing troops and weapons in Mexico and Canada and trying to bring them into the Pact, having previously brought all of Europe into it, leaving the US alone.
Russia wanted to join the EU and NATO in the 1990s. This is well known and even referenced in this thread quite a few pages back. Your willingness to have other Europeans potentially die for Ukraine is touching. Put on a tin hat and off you go to the East to fight for Ukrainian freedom.
Just how and where and when did Putin want to join the EU. Enough of the US whataboutery let's stick to Russia
Make war more likely?
So Putin get to tell other countries how to run their economy.
Yeah OK.. Tell my you aren't a shill without telling me your are a shill.
Economic activity and customs union bring around peace and prosperity. The complete opposite of what Putin is offering or wants. He doesn't want a strong prosperous peaceful EU because his own people will see more and more what Putin is actually offering at home.
If the EU and NATO were serious about securing longterm peace, stability and prosperity, they should have made it a top priority to bring Russia and Ukraine into both organizations, or disbanded NATO altogether and used every trick in the book to bring both Russia and Ukraine into the EU in the 1990s, when Russia was amenable.
But this was not done, because the US didn’t want to lose its influence in Europe and the Franco-Germans didn’t want to lose — or even share — leadership of the European project. Russia’s reaction was completely predictable with just a rudimentary knowledge of history and geography.
The alleged purpose of the EU - and NATO too, apparently - is to make conflict less likely, not more likely. If the admission of Ukraine to either the EU or NATO makes war more likely, then no, it should not be admitted to either.
big thing you want to worry about, is trajectory and where the missile lands....
US were pointing towards the US with high apogee, so it would more than likely burn up if something happened, and was easy to recover any pieces left
depending on the missile will depend on what direction Russia will be pointing...
Rest assured, there will no doubt be a huge allied presence watching also
The Casa will probably be watching from the hanger in Baldonnell
And they can f o too. Both of them have plenty of water surrounding them to do what the want.
US were testing hypersonic missiles in the same area late last year... it's not territorial waters
That's gas. It actually comes down to his predecessors little hand puppet demonstrated to Putin that the US is actually infallible and it has a big huge gapping hole in its armour.
Social media and ficke idiots on it. It's own citizens and others from other countries are easily manipulated with daily bombardments of propaganda.
Like much of the stuff on here about how Ukraine is at fault and Russia has every right to take half its country.
Putin found that and easily injects nonsense across platforms on a daily basis and has been doing so for a decade. Its a wonder you have the likes of mick Wallace out there batting for Russian interests and the entire Republican party.
If countries want to join a union to have capability to defend themselves rather than being singled out then its up to them. The end.
Should Putin get to decide who wants to join the EU?
Lads like this out waving flags for the ships of Cork to come in and rescue them.
Wouldn't last a wet week in poverty in Russia. Outside of 'connections' you are on your own over there.
You quite literally live in a paradise in comparison. It really is a hilarious thing to witness 'Irish' people twist and contort into pretzel shapes to defend Russian actions at every turn and pull out the whataboutery stick at every single opportunity.
A wet week, you wouldn't last a wet week.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w3.vanillicon.com/v2/3694d3d768784d2dd89108859b666f01.svg)
