Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/russ ... 00688.html

Morally, I'd love to see the US and NATO intervene; but the problem isn't a moral one, it's a logistical one. You're not going to win a war against Russia, IN RUSSIA. It's literally in their front yard. Whereas the US will have to go 5,000 miles just to show up to the dance.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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Ukraine is participating in a NATO program, but they are not a NATO member hence NATO countries aren't obligated to defend them. If Russia invaded Poland that would be different, as it is a NATO country. There are a lot of Ukrainian-Americans and Canadians of Ukrainian heritage, the current deputy prime minister of Canada is Ukrainian and speaks Ukrainian.

The "separatist" elements in eastern Ukraine are some Russian loyalists and also thought to be Spetsnaz special forces troops from Russia. Biden was on the phone to the president of Ukraine, remember he's the guy who was a standup comedian and won the Ukrainian presidency. It could turn into another proxy war where we support Ukraine and Russia supports Belarus.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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TFG’s weakness has emboldened Putin. I’m afraid Biden’s response will have to be a strong one if just to send a signal. I don’t support military actions. But I also don’t pretend to understand geopolitical “Art of War” tactics necessary to avoid WWII Germany-style expansionism by demagogues.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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The Russian Bear likes to play games to test its opponents and so Putin can beat his chest. Putin wants to weaken NATO and the EU, though they are militarily and economically stronger that Russia.
NATO fighter jets were scrambled ten times on Monday to intercept an unusually high number of Russian military aircraft in the skies of Europe and the North Atlantic. The UK responded with Typhoon fighters while Belgium, Norway, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey also scrambled jets to protect NATO airspace.

Six groups of Russian jets were intercepted in the space of six hours, with NATO warning that the Kremlin-controlled aircraft were flying under the radar and posing a risk to civilian aircraft. It comes with relations between Russia and the West at an ever-deteriorating low point after London, Brussels and Washington all slapped new sanctions on Moscow.
NATO said the Russian planes included Tu-95 Bear bombers which were spotted by radars off the coast of Norway on Monday.

The two aircraft were intercepted by Norwegian F-16s but continued to fly south over Belgium and the UK, prompting both countries to scramble jets. Norway's air force was later back in action to shadow two Russian Tu-160 Blackjack bombers over international waters. Further south, Russian planes showed up on NATO radars over the Black Sea, prompting Romania and Bulgaria to launch their own planes.

And Italian fighter jets were also deployed, intercepting a Russian Il-38 maritime patrol plane. The patrol plane was escorted by fighter jets over the Baltic Sea as it flew in and out of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, NATO said.

The various operations were masterminded from control centres in Germany and Spain, according to NATO brigadier-general Andrew Hansen. He warned Moscow that the operations showed the alliance's 'readiness and capability to guard Allied skies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year'.

NATO said the 'unusual level of air activity' was a potential risk to civilian planes because Russian pilots often fail to make themselves known. 'Russian military aircraft often do not transmit a transponder code indicating their position and altitude, do not file a flight plan, or do not communicate with air traffic controllers,' NATO said. It was also confirmed that none of the Russian aircraft ever entered the airspace of any NATO nation in Europe.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -jets.html

This has intensified over the years and Russian fighters play chicken with NATO aircraft.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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I think Putin is playing the long game, and he's playing it the Russian way. For the past decade Putin has been KILLING IT!! He rarely has a setback and typically gets away with whatever he wants.

He has HUGELY improved relations with Germany, and he's getting away with the pipeline. Hell, he's even providing the German navy with navigation software.
He has near complete control over Belarus, and I expect Belarus to re-join Russia in the next 5 years. He has been fueling extremists in Poland, and dividing that country very well.

Biden's best weapon is the same weapon Obama so skillfully used against Putin when the whole Ukraine crisis started. Financial blocking of Russian oligarchs, and the oil weapon. Obama nearly crashed the Ruble, and Putin backed off.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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That implies lowering of oil prices and hurting Russia’s main energy revenue source.

Or possibly Biden can play the long game and invest in renewables to reduce consumption of petroleum oil altogether. That will well and truly screw Putin’s oligarchs and may lead to his downfall. Unless he dies first of “medical complications”.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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Frontsight wrote:Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?1
You mean, again? More than it currently has? Between Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Russia's had a solid occupation on for seven years now. Russia has been carving Russian-speaking enclaves out of former SSRs since Moldova.

Budapest Agreement notwithstanding, it would require significant Turkish support to reinforce Ukraine in any meaningful way, and Putin realized early on that Erdogan was a fulcrum with which western opposition could be split, so long as he had a lever of sufficient length. He's been levering for years now. Otherwise you're going through Romania or Poland, and Poland hasn't had the best relations with Ukraine over the past century. That said, they're both EU and NATO.

Putin isn't going to grab more of Ukraine. He's got plenty to consolidate as it is.

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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Agreed the US won't go head to head with Russia, major powers use proxies. Belarus used to be called White Russia, it was the most loyal of the Soviet republics and even had its own seat at the UN. The US will provide arms and technical advisors to help plan operations to counter Spetsnaz troops and a Russian arms buildup.

TFG delayed arms shipments to Ukraine and the blow back in the media got lost in the midst of the pandemic. They have Javelin antitank missiles to combat the Russian tanks in eastern Ukraine. Like with the Russia's adventurism into Afghanistan, Putin will have to feel heavy losses to force a withdrawal. Syria is another proxy war for Russia, they've always supported the Assads going back to the Soviet era.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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CDFingers wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 2:51 pm Lesson learned, eh: "Never get involved in a land war in Eurasia."

"We have always been at war in Eurasia."

One more whine about California gun laws and I'm gonna give out the back of my hand. ;-)

CDFingers
You seem to have forgotten.

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Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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Things seem to be going less than swimmingly between Russia and Ukrain. Seems US is considering sending naval support.
The United States is considering sending warships into the Black Sea in the next few weeks in a show of support for Ukraine amid Russia's increased military presence on Ukraine's eastern border, a US defense official told CNN Thursday.

The US Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea, but a deployment of warships now would send a specific message to Moscow that the US is closely watching, the official said.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/08/politics ... index.html

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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Stiff wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:35 pm Russia is just as reluctant in attacking us as we are in them. TFG withdrew our troops from Syria because keeping them there limits what Putin can do.

If we put just one BCT there, it raises the stakes for any Russian invasion.
I greatly supported the withdrawal from Syria, just not the way the Cheeto-in-Chief did it. A phased withdraw was the only thing that made any sense; which is why Trump skipped that and did it in two days.

But Syria seems to have been a power play by Erdogan. There was a call between Erdogan and Trump where it has been said that Erdogan threatened Trump's assets in Turkey, and two days later we were out of Syria. I don't know if any of that has been confirmed, but it sure the hell sounds like Trump to me.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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F4FEver wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:22 am Far better to equip and participate in this 'proxy war'. The US military is NOT gonna go toe to toe with the Russian military..altho the outcome, if the conflict stays conventional, 'may' be favorable..the 'big heat' would pretty much be inevitable.
NO ONE is going to beat Russia IN RUSSIA!! Ukraine is literally their front yard...they will fucking crush NATO on the Ukraine border.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: Should the US intervene if Russia/Belarus invades Ukraine?

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featureless wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:12 am Things seem to be going less than swimmingly between Russia and Ukrain. Seems US is considering sending naval support.
The United States is considering sending warships into the Black Sea in the next few weeks in a show of support for Ukraine amid Russia's increased military presence on Ukraine's eastern border, a US defense official told CNN Thursday.

The US Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea, but a deployment of warships now would send a specific message to Moscow that the US is closely watching, the official said.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/08/politics ... index.html

Show the flag and US military strength in support of the Ukraine. We've been doing the same thing in the South China Sea as China seeks to take over that area.
Dozens of troop carriers and missile launchers sit on flatbed wagons lining up along tracks running through southern Russia, in a region bordering Ukraine. Tanks are parked in columns beside the railway, which runs parallel to the M4 highway. Military trucks rumble past, heading toward the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, close to the border.

Ukraine and Western countries accuse Russia of sending troops and heavy weapons to support proxy fighters who seized a swathe of the eastern Donbass region in 2014. Moscow denies it is part of the conflict in eastern Ukraine and says it provides only humanitarian and political support to the separatists.

The recent deployment of hardware close to Ukraine’s border, captured this week on video seen by Reuters, is what a source close to both the Kremlin and to pro-Russian separatists said was a deliberate show of force at a time of rising tensions between the former Soviet states.
A senior U.S. administration official said they believed Russia’s mobilisation was meant to test Zelenskiy and also perhaps challenge the resolve of the administration of President Joe Biden, who pledged “unwavering support” for his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week.

Ukraine is no military match for Russia and it sits outside the NATO alliance. Kyiv lost its Black Sea region of Crimea to Russian troops in 2014 without a fight. Ukraine turns to the United States and the European Union for support against Russia, but beyond sanctions it is unclear what it can expect from its Western allies. Many years of lobbying for NATO membership have yet to bear fruit.

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the threat of further economic sanctions by the West looms if countries deem Russia responsible for stoking the conflict. Russian state banks and oil firms have been hit hard with U.S.-led sanctions, and, while reserves remain healthy at $575 billion, they could take a significant hit if the punishments are harsh.

Ukrainian security chief Oleksiy Danilov told Reuters he believed Putin was using the military build-up to distract Russians from an internal opposition movement led by jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, ahead of September parliamentary elections.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukra ... SKBN2BW1SX

Shades of WWII, when Hitler used the protection of the Sudeten Germans who lived in western Czechoslovakia, as a pretext to invade that country.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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