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

I was wondering today idfStalin wrote any books or paers that may have influenced Putin. He is doing just what Stalin did. perhaps minus Siberian Gulags and slave labor for dissidents..
 
This is a good try.



Text here.

www.theatlantic.com

I Have a Message for My Russian Friends

The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me. That is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in Ukraine.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
 
Bad news for Herr Putin. Sounds like China is starting to get annoyed about the Ukrainian situation. Once China starts to tire of the craziness of Putin, it will be over for the Russians. China is not a good guy country either. But they are very conscious of their image in the world and they mostly work in their own best long term interest. Europe and the US are far far greater and more important trade partners for China than is Russia. China won't do any favors for the US. But they are starting to get annoyed at Putin's incompetence:

 
bilby said:
Copernicus said:
Interesting reply. You spent the whole time looking at anything but the effect on human beings
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Literally every part of my reply was about the effect on human beings.

What you appear to object to is my failure to be emotional rather than analytical.

Which has nothing to do with nuclear (or for that matter conventional) weapons.

That the use of ANY weapon against a person is horrific IMO goes without saying; But that doesn't mean it's not something I think about - it just isn't relevant to the current discussion, because it's not something that distinguishes nuclear weapons from other weapons.

People burned to death by conventional weapons don't feel any better about their fate than those incinerated by nuclear weapons.
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I'd say the critical difference is the one you raised in the earlier post.
bilby said:
The most significant tactical difference is that a single aircraft could do the work that previously required about a thousand.
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A single plane or missile can do what it'd take an air force to accomplish. We can shoot down lots of planes, but tactical missiles would be much harder. There is a deterrence to trying to bomb Europe, but a single missile can accomplish so much more with almost no risk to your military, excluding the escalation aspects of it.

And as I noted before, a tactical nuclear strike wouldn't need to be responded to with a tactical nuclear site, as we have plenty of conventional weaponry to punish the heck out of Russia. But back to the main point, the issue with nuclear is the simplicity of the damage. One missile could change the direction of our species on this planet because regardless whether we respond to a nuclear strike with nuclear or not, the toll of the escalation will be devastating.

We have no idea what is going on with Putin. Hopefully the military does, though I have my doubts.
 
Putin is a psychpath. Remember when Chechen rebels took over a Moscow movie theater full of viewers they used as hostages? Instead of negotiating, Putin just gassed everyone in the building, killing them all.
 
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From the CNN site today it appears Putin is nearing a meltdown as the economy deteriorates. Desperate Draconian grasping at straws to maintain his position and control the population.

Apprently major companies like MacDonald's and Starbucks are a significant part of the Russian economy. There is a run on IKEA products.

From an interview this morning, LGBQ is labeled 'pro western', and you can image what that will translate to. 'Enemies of the state'.

The cats out of te bag and peole know the reality in Ukraine.
 
In WWII firebombing by the Brits and Americans was a choice.

When Hitler switched to terror bombing to try and break the Brits including fire bombing 'Bomber' Harris head of the RAF wnated torespnd in kind. Initially Churchill opposed it but eventually acquiesced.

We fire bombed Japon and from the post war reports of Japanese survivors it was far more horrific than the nuclear bombs. Japm dosytibuted war production in population venters made of flimsy wodden structires.

Post war Gneral LeMay who orchested the bombing campaign said if the war had gone the oter way he woud have been chared with war crimes.

The Ame cans experimented wit ways to start fires. One involed attaching incendiaries to bats. Drop the bats and the assumption was they would roost in buildings.

You could say we responded in kind. The Japanese floated fore bombs on balloons designed to start forest fires in the continental USA.

The difference I would say is n Ukraine there is no military value to the destruction. It is about terror and genocide and vengeance. Analogous to Hitler's resorting V1 and V2 rockets when oter tctics failed to provide results. His 'Vengence' weapons.
 
steve_bank said:
In WWII firebombing by the Brits and Americans was a choice.

When Hitler switched to terror bombing to try and break the Brits including fire bombing 'Bomber' Harris head of the RAF wnated torespnd in kind. Initially Churchill opposed it but eventually acquiesced.

We fire bombed Japon and from the post war reports of Japanese survivors it was far more horrific than the nuclear bombs. Japm dosytibuted war production in population venters made of flimsy wodden structires.

Post war Gneral LeMay who orchested the bombing campaign said if the war had gone the oter way he woud have been chared with war crimes.

The Ame cans experimented wit ways to start fires. One involed attaching incendiaries to bats. Drop the bats and the assumption was they would roost in buildings.

You could say we responded in kind. The Japanese floated fore bombs on balloons designed to start forest fires in the continental USA.

The difference I would say is n Ukraine there is no military value to the destruction. It is about terror and genocide and vengeance. Analogous to Hitler's resorting V1 and V2 rockets when oter tctics failed to provide results. His 'Vengence' weapons.
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I don't think Putin wants to kill Ukrainians in an act of genocide. Slavs be slavs. Hence why Putin has sold the "Nazi" angle, because Russians don't want to kill Slavs.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
steve_bank said:
In WWII firebombing by the Brits and Americans was a choice.

When Hitler switched to terror bombing to try and break the Brits including fire bombing 'Bomber' Harris head of the RAF wnated torespnd in kind. Initially Churchill opposed it but eventually acquiesced.

We fire bombed Japon and from the post war reports of Japanese survivors it was far more horrific than the nuclear bombs. Japm dosytibuted war production in population venters made of flimsy wodden structires.

Post war Gneral LeMay who orchested the bombing campaign said if the war had gone the oter way he woud have been chared with war crimes.

The Ame cans experimented wit ways to start fires. One involed attaching incendiaries to bats. Drop the bats and the assumption was they would roost in buildings.

You could say we responded in kind. The Japanese floated fore bombs on balloons designed to start forest fires in the continental USA.

The difference I would say is n Ukraine there is no military value to the destruction. It is about terror and genocide and vengeance. Analogous to Hitler's resorting V1 and V2 rockets when oter tctics failed to provide results. His 'Vengence' weapons.
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I don't think Putin wants to kill Ukrainians in an act of genocide. Slavs be slavs. Hence why Putin has sold the "Nazi" angle, because Russians don't want to kill Slavs.
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I agree. Genocide has been diluted in meaning these days. What Putin wants is to annex more land to Russia, and rest of Ukraine to be his client state (though he may have given up partially on that). Bombing civilians is his way to force Ukraine to accept those terms, not a goal in itself.

A more accurate term might be ethnic cleansing, that is to force Ukrainian-speaking people move out of the areas that he will annex, which is what happened with Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk after 2014. Putin doesn't literally want or need to kill the people like Hitler did, or put them in re-education camps like China is doing with Uyghurs in Xinjiang province. It's just that he doesn't care about violence to civilians to achieve his goals.
 
ZiprHead said:
Putin is a psychpath. Remember when Chechen rebels took over a Moscow movie theater full of viewers they used as hostages? Instead of negotiating, Putin just gassed everyone in the building, killing them all.
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And he would not have done that if he knew they could respond with enough military strength to annihilate him, his cities , his military and his country.
 
Genocide does not take Putin to explicitly call it genocide. It is the intent. Putin said explicitly Ukraine does not have a right to exist.

Ethnic cleansing is a euphemism for genocide.

United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect

Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
www.un.org

The word “genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It consists of the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix cide, meaning killing. Lemkin developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust, but also in response to previous instances in history of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people. Later on, Raphäel Lemkin led the campaign to have genocide recognised and codified as an international crime.
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Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide​



Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in par Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
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steve_bank said:
Genocide does not take Putin to explicitly call it genocide. It is the intent. Putin said explicitly Ukraine does not have a right to exist.

Ethnic cleansing is a euphemism for genocide.
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In Putin's world view, most countries don't have a right to exist. In his mind, there are only a few sovereign nations in the world: Russia (of course), USA, China, India, and maybe a few others. All others are subservient to them. It might seem odd to us, but he probably doesn't think Germany or France or any other country in Europe are real nations either, just extensions of United States.

I wouldn't throw around the word "genocide" lightly, because that's what Putin does. In his crazy speech last wednesday he justified the war with prevention of "genocide" against Russians living in Ukraine. There is no reason to drop down to his level. Indiscriminate killing of civilians and war crimes are bad enough on their own that they don't need to be embellished as a genocide.
 
ZiprHead said:
Putin is a psychpath. Remember when Chechen rebels took over a Moscow movie theater full of viewers they used as hostages? Instead of negotiating, Putin just gassed everyone in the building, killing them all.
Click to expand...

No. They used an anesthetic gas. The idea was to knock everyone out, not kill them.

The result was a lesson in why you have anesthesiologists and careful control of the administration of the anesthetic. It didn't help that they weren't careful in extracting people from the theater, it's suspected that some of the dead were from poor handling rather than the gas.
 
The Recount on Twitter: "Rep. @Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks out against “broad-based” sanctions:

“This war, our sanctions could lead to famine in places like Sudan, which imports half of its wheat from Russia. The Russian people did not chose this war, and the Sudanese people certainly did not.” (vid link)" / Twitter

H.R.6968 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Suspending Energy Imports from Russia Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
with vote
Roll Call 70 | Bill Number: H. R. 6968
D: Y 220, N 2
R: Y 194, N 15, nv 2
Ttl: Y 414, N 17, nv 2

The only Democrats to vote against this bill were Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush, because they don't like sanctions that would cause trouble for ordinary Russians.

The Republicans included MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, Madison Cawthorn, and Andy Biggs.

H.R.7108 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
with vote
Roll Call 78 | Bill Number: H. R. 7108
D: Y 222
R: Y 202, N 8, nv 2
Ttl: Y 424, N 8, nv 1

The Republicans included MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Andy Biggs.

Yet again, I marvel at right-wingers' Russia-loving.
 
For Russians against Ukraine war, Putin has a cruel warning : NPR
In comments on Wednesday, Putin lashed out at Russians who — the Kremlin leader argued — were "mentally" aligned with the West amid the Ukraine crisis. Putin said their true aim is to work with "the collective West" to destroy Russia from within.

"The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths," Putin said.

"I am convinced that such a natural and necessary cleansing of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to respond to any challenges," he said in remarks that more broadly addressed Russia's efforts to counteract Western sanctions.
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He also alluded to the oligarchs who have opposed his war.
Two of the wealthiest Russians have spoken out against the invasion of Ukraine: billionaires Oleg Deripaska and Mikhail Fridman, both of whom keep residences in London.

Indeed, disloyalty — rather than wealth — was very much on Putin's mind in his "cleansing" speech on Wednesday.

"I do not in the least condemn those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera, who cannot make do without foie gras, oysters or gender freedom, as they call it," said the Russian leader.

"The problem, again, is that many of these people are, essentially, over there in their minds and not here with our people and with Russia."
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The speech:
Совещание о мерах социально-экономической поддержки регионов • Президент России - in Russian, of course
Soveshchaniye o merakh sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoy podderzhki regionov • Prezident Rossii
Meeting on measures of social and economic support for the regions • President of Russia
 
An amoral dictator like Putin knows and exploits the underlying empathy of the west. We really don't want war in Europe and consideration is given to side effects.

The question is one of those so called moral conundrums. Do we allow Putin free rein in Ukraine because it may cause famine someplace?

IMO if WWII was fought like we do today putting everything under a high power moral microscope, we today would likely be goosestepping and saluting pictures of Hitler.

When the breakout from Normandy stalled, Eisenhower ordered the carpet bombing of a path through the French countryside. Indiscriminate.

In the news the question of Russia using low yield, tactical, nukes if Putin is up against a wall. What do we do then? Does Europe capitulate out of fear? There are unforseen moral consequences to not being aggressive.
 
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