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How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

steve_bank said:
I doubt there would be any pragmatic realists around Putin who would say no., as we observed with Trump. Republican congressional lap dogs.

It was reported Trump floated the idea of invading Venezuela and had to be talked out of it. His attempts to use the military for politics including seizing voting machines.

What limited Trump was the courts doing the right thing, even Trump appointees, and a republican governor refuting his request to manufacture votes.
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Our checks and balances held. The Russians have no such checks.
 
steve_bank said:
What limited Trump was the courts doing the right thing, even Trump appointees, and a republican governor refuting his request to manufacture votes.
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Yeah, i think he really screwed up with appointing judges. People at his elbow slipped a name in front of him and he signed the paperwork. I REALLY wanted a reporter to ask, "Sir, I have a list of ten names, here, three of them are people you appointed as Federal Judges. Do you think you could pick those three names?" Never mind man, woman, camera, can you recall your own appointments?
Normally, his method would have had him pick people he knew, that already owed him a favor (or probably, lawyers that he owed money to), that looked like a judge Central Casting would send down.
And he'd made it clear in the interview, i do this for you, you'll do right by me in the future, right? Right? If a case, say, comes up where, I dunno, a sitting president calls for martial law...?

I suspect he'll be more involved in the process in the next term.
 
Purges are about to begin. Or actually, not a purge, but "a necessary purification".



:oops:

EDIT: Here is the full speech (1 hour 20 minutes) with subtitles, if anyone is interested in ravings of a madman. I only watched the beginning, but the arguments Putin used are strikingly familiar. Terrorist attacks in Donbas, chemical and nuclear weapons, western media not reporting things properly, etc. etc.
 
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Jayjay said:
Purges are about to begin. Or actually, not a purge, but "a necessary purification".



:oops:
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Yeah, Nicht gut. The question is whether he can institute this purge or not. Or will the people rise up against him. And whether he has enough thugs to put it down ruthlessly, while maintaining the pressure on Ukraine. Lukashenko put down his people’s revolt. But he wasn’t involved in a foreign bloody war while doing so.
 
One comment in there that hits the head of the nail, this isn't a "We're winning" speech. What is also telling, is that Putin is providing a tell in that the word of Ukraine and the sanctions is out on the streets of Russia. And, to me, it sounds like Putin is planning on seizing property and assets of Russians who are abroad (as well corporate entities that left Russia), likely the only way to temporarily deal with default issues. This speech also seems to provide a second tell, China isn't going to step in much to assist (or the price tag was too high).

If Putin does absorb all of that, he is approaching a point of no return, at least one that doesn't involve a dissolution of him and his government. The good thing is that Russia has been isolated economically and it is feeling the pressures quickly and harshly. BUT, with isolation comes risk as well. If Putin is out of his mind, there is no end to what he could do. If Putin was of right mind, this would already be over with.
 
Pooti-Poot said:
people will be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors....
I am convinced such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen
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MAGAots and the grifters radicalizing them already talk in terms of 'patriots' and 'traitors'. How far are many of them from the second line above? (yes, I know there are some already there)
 
No-fly zone? Not so fast. It's essentially the US and/or NATO fighting Russia, because of how it would be enforced.

Mariam Jalloul on Twitter: "@AOC explaining that a no-fly zone would effectively making the US a direct participant in the war against Russia. Could result in a full-fledged war in Europe. (vid link)" / Twitter


NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein - shows ranges of nuclear-bomb effects on a location on a map. You can choose which location.
  • Fireball size
  • Ionizing-radiation effects -- 500 rem: likely fatal over 1 month, survivors have a 15% chance of cancer.
  • Thermal-radiation effects (visible light, IR) -- 3rd degree burns: often painless from destroying pain nerves. Can cause severe scarring or disablement, and can require amputation.
  • Blast damage:
    • Heavy (20 psi) -- heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished; fatalities approach 100%.
    • Moderate (5 psi) -- most residential buildings collapse, injuries are universal, fatalities are widespread. The chances of a fire starting in commercial and residential damage are high, and buildings so damaged are at high risk of spreading fire.
    • Light (1 psi) -- glass windows can be expected to break.
    (mixture of my summary/paraphrase and the site's text)

    Many large cities are sprawling enough for that an attack on their centers would not have much effect on their suburbs. But the nuclear powers have enough bombs for multiple hits on their opponents' cities:  List of states with nuclear weapons
 
Keep in mind MAD means Mutually Assured Destruction. For Putin et al that would mean no more high living. I believe he has a daughter.

A MATO response in Ukraine would not necessarily mean crossing into Russia.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
One comment in there that hits the head of the nail, this isn't a "We're winning" speech. What is also telling, is that Putin is providing a tell in that the word of Ukraine and the sanctions is out on the streets of Russia. And, to me, it sounds like Putin is planning on seizing property and assets of Russians who are abroad (as well corporate entities that left Russia), likely the only way to temporarily deal with default issues. This speech also seems to provide a second tell, China isn't going to step in much to assist (or the price tag was too high).

If Putin does absorb all of that, he is approaching a point of no return, at least one that doesn't involve a dissolution of him and his government. The good thing is that Russia has been isolated economically and it is feeling the pressures quickly and harshly. BUT, with isolation comes risk as well. If Putin is out of his mind, there is no end to what he could do. If Putin was of right mind, this would already be over with.
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According to the reporting Putin dd stockpiled a large amount of cash reserves to withstand sanctions. His problem is being disconnected from the international banking system especially SWIFT. He can not make the loan payment even if he has the cash.

He saidy esterday anyone who does not support his war should get out of Russia, perhaps another tell.
aid for yeas we are winning by citing artificial metrics when reporting on the ground showed the opposite..
 
As to people who have come and gone in Ukraine and nearby, I neglected to mention  Attila the Hun. The Huns were some Central Asian people who went into eastern Europe around 370 CE, and Attila emerged as their leader there, ruling 434 - 453 CE. He led expeditions into Persia, the Balkans, France, and Italy, and his armies were much feared in the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire, even if he never succeeded in conquering cities like Rome and Constantinople.

The Huns may also have been the Xiongnu (Hsiung-Nu) Central Asian nomads mentioned by Chinese chronicles.

Let's see who overran Ukraine and nearby land over the last 5,000 - 6,000 years:
  • Proto-Indo-European speakers: Yamnaya, from Samara area in the middle Volga River
  • Scythians, from Sintashta, just E of the S Urals
  • Celts, from W Europe
  • Goths, some Germanic tribes, from Jastorf, in Denmark and nearby
  • Huns, from Central Asia
  • Slavs, from SE Poland / SW Belarus / NW Ukraine
  • Magyars (Hungarians), from S Urals
  • Turks/Tatars, from Central Asia
  • Mongols from Central Asia
 
steve_bank said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
One comment in there that hits the head of the nail, this isn't a "We're winning" speech. What is also telling, is that Putin is providing a tell in that the word of Ukraine and the sanctions is out on the streets of Russia. And, to me, it sounds like Putin is planning on seizing property and assets of Russians who are abroad (as well corporate entities that left Russia), likely the only way to temporarily deal with default issues. This speech also seems to provide a second tell, China isn't going to step in much to assist (or the price tag was too high).

If Putin does absorb all of that, he is approaching a point of no return, at least one that doesn't involve a dissolution of him and his government. The good thing is that Russia has been isolated economically and it is feeling the pressures quickly and harshly. BUT, with isolation comes risk as well. If Putin is out of his mind, there is no end to what he could do. If Putin was of right mind, this would already be over with.
Click to expand...
According to the reporting Putin dd stockpiled a large amount of cash reserves to withstand sanctions. His problem is being disconnected from the international banking system especially SWIFT. He can not make the loan payment even if he has the cash.
Click to expand...
Russia isn't completely disconnected. Some banks are left deliberately outside the sanctions so that Russia can make payments like this and on the other hand continue to receive payments for gas from Europe.
 
Copernicus said:
This is what really scares me. Are you up for a game of Russian Roulette with nuclear weapons? How do you know what is in Putin's mind? We can all speculate, but do we want to risk a nuclear apocalypse on the basis of a bad guess? Too many Americans are now thinking along these lines. It's utter madness.

I admit that I've seen similar reasoning coming out of Russia--that they can have a limited incursion into NATO countries under certain circumstances and that NATO would not dare risk nuclear retaliation, especially with Russia having those hypersonic missiles that could take out the US before we knew they were coming. IIRC, that one came from some deputy minister of defense. There are clearly people there who think they can get away with the same kind of dangerous calculation.

Let's imagine that NATO troops start advancing into Ukraine to try to rescue them from the atrocities they are suffering. What would you think, if you were sitting in the Kremlin and saw that? How far towards Russia would those troops be moving? Would they stop at Ukraine's border? That would be sufficient to trigger a nuclear retaliation. Do you think it would be a limited strike just to send a message? I don't.

The US and Russia are not the only nuclear-armed powers in the world. China has ICBMs, too. Russia has nuclear-armed submarines, in case their a ability to strike from land is wiped out. And both sides have
wikipedia.png
MIRVs. A nuclear exchange is not going to be survivable. I'd rather not trust in speculation over how sane Putin is, especially when the risk being proposed assumes he is more sane than we are.
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NATO could very legitimately declare safe corridors for civilian evacuation from Ukraine. Call it Dunkirk. It would be a very large area of western Ukraine which would be declared a safe evacuation zone along with arteries.

Everyone seems to think that the Russian Pig is going to declare armageddon and that all the lieutenants are going to follow those orders lockstep. That isn't going to happen. NATO needs to push just as hard as the Russian Pig is pushing. Call it an escalation in the propaganda war and a legitimate mission to save innocent Ukrainian lives.

I don't get all the fear mongering that the Pig is going to go nuclear. He isn't going to go nuclear and he knows that but he also knows he has NATO buffaloed into believing that he would. Wake up already! He's fucking Hitler and we're allowing him to do it all again.
 
T.G.G. Moogly said:
NATO could very legitimately declare safe corridors for civilian evacuation from Ukraine. Call it Dunkirk. It would be a very large area of western Ukraine which would be declared a safe evacuation zone along with arteries.

Everyone seems to think that the Russian Pig is going to declare armageddon and that all the lieutenants are going to follow those orders lockstep. That isn't going to happen. NATO needs to push just as hard as the Russian Pig is pushing. Call it an escalation in the propaganda war and a legitimate mission to save innocent Ukrainian lives.

I don't get all the fear mongering that the Pig is going to go nuclear. He isn't going to go nuclear and he knows that but he also knows he has NATO buffaloed into believing that he would. Wake up already! He's fucking Hitler and we're allowing him to do it all again.
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I understand the feeling that we should be able to do something more immediate to stop the carnage in Ukraine, but baseless speculation about what is in Putin's mind, what he is capable of doing, and what he will do is not helpful. We just don't know, and the risks that you are willing to take are simply morally unacceptable and unjustified. I think that the US and its allies are doing their utmost to help, and a conflict between NATO and Russia would definitely not be helpful at this time or any time in the future. Don't confuse self-destructive impulses with bravery. Sometimes it takes more courage not to start a war.
 
lpetrich said:
No-fly zone? Not so fast. It's essentially the US and/or NATO fighting Russia, because of how it would be enforced.

Mariam Jalloul on Twitter: "@AOC explaining that a no-fly zone would effectively making the US a direct participant in the war against Russia. Could result in a full-fledged war in Europe. (vid link)" / Twitter


NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein - shows ranges of nuclear-bomb effects on a location on a map. You can choose which location.
  • Fireball size
  • Ionizing-radiation effects -- 500 rem: likely fatal over 1 month, survivors have a 15% chance of cancer.
  • Thermal-radiation effects (visible light, IR) -- 3rd degree burns: often painless from destroying pain nerves. Can cause severe scarring or disablement, and can require amputation.
  • Blast damage:
    • Heavy (20 psi) -- heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished; fatalities approach 100%.
    • Moderate (5 psi) -- most residential buildings collapse, injuries are universal, fatalities are widespread. The chances of a fire starting in commercial and residential damage are high, and buildings so damaged are at high risk of spreading fire.
    • Light (1 psi) -- glass windows can be expected to break.
    (mixture of my summary/paraphrase and the site's text)

    Many large cities are sprawling enough for that an attack on their centers would not have much effect on their suburbs. But the nuclear powers have enough bombs for multiple hits on their opponents' cities:  List of states with nuclear weapons
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Why do people persist in the bizarre assumption that a nuclear war would target civilian population centres?

The vast majority of any genuinely plausible nuclear attack would target military bases. While a some of these (particularly naval bases) are located in cities, and many others have had towns grow up around them, most are fairly remote - particularly the high priority targets such as radar installations and ICBM launch sites.

I seriously doubt that there are many plans that entail directly targeting civilian populations, other than as a punitive second strike option that would be deployed only in the most extreme circumstances - and which the planners would know many subordinate units would refuse to enact absent a very clear casus belli.

It's a big leap from "They bombed our antiaircraft batteries" to "so let's kill as many of their civilians as possible, secure in the knowledge that the retaliation to our doing so will kill our families".

Immediate escalation to genocide just isn't credible. The nuclear option isn't the only nuclear option, far less the only military option, in response to a US or NATO attack on Russian military units in Ukraine.
 
Jayjay said:
Purges are about to begin. Or actually, not a purge, but "a necessary purification".



:oops:

EDIT: Here is the full speech (1 hour 20 minutes) with subtitles, if anyone is interested in ravings of a madman. I only watched the beginning, but the arguments Putin used are strikingly familiar. Terrorist attacks in Donbas, chemical and nuclear weapons, western media not reporting things properly, etc. etc.
Click to expand...

He's going full on Stalin.
 
Jayjay said:
steve_bank said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
One comment in there that hits the head of the nail, this isn't a "We're winning" speech. What is also telling, is that Putin is providing a tell in that the word of Ukraine and the sanctions is out on the streets of Russia. And, to me, it sounds like Putin is planning on seizing property and assets of Russians who are abroad (as well corporate entities that left Russia), likely the only way to temporarily deal with default issues. This speech also seems to provide a second tell, China isn't going to step in much to assist (or the price tag was too high).

If Putin does absorb all of that, he is approaching a point of no return, at least one that doesn't involve a dissolution of him and his government. The good thing is that Russia has been isolated economically and it is feeling the pressures quickly and harshly. BUT, with isolation comes risk as well. If Putin is out of his mind, there is no end to what he could do. If Putin was of right mind, this would already be over with.
Click to expand...
According to the reporting Putin dd stockpiled a large amount of cash reserves to withstand sanctions. His problem is being disconnected from the international banking system especially SWIFT. He can not make the loan payment even if he has the cash.
Click to expand...
Russia isn't completely disconnected. Some banks are left deliberately outside the sanctions so that Russia can make payments like this and on the other hand continue to receive payments for gas from Europe.
Click to expand...
What I saw in a report is that the west is creating an artificial default by denying banking connections. I don't think Russia can do a maoneytrasfer from any bank to pay the loan. It has to go the international fincial services.
 
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