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

These days, we don't trust Russia because Russia has never been a team player
I actually agree. Russia is not a team player. Not YOUR team player. The team which invaded Iraq, which bombed Yugolsavia, the team which supported ISIS in order to topple Assad. The team which does not care about democracy when it suits them (Arab Spring)
Speaking of which, dumbass Assad does not get it, the only reason he was attacked by the West is ..... Russia and Iran. He should had cut ties with Russia and would have been fine as the rest of arab world.

It isn't clear where barbos got his ideas about history from, but they are largely skewed by the propaganda that he's been exposed to. Part of the problem is that history books were routinely rewritten during the Soviet period to reflect official doctrine, so a lot of the history of his country is still more accurately depicted in Western sources that preserved the true record. Here he confuses Serbia with Yugoslavia, and the Iraqi-dominated ISIS with the domestic Syrian rebel forces that were trying to overthrow Assad. ISIS was trying to overthrow all of the surrounding governments. Russia's main interest in that country was in keeping their naval base open there, giving them a naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea. Without Russia propping him up, Assad would probably no longer be in power.

And don't forget that your team also started WW1 and WW2.
And I don't mean Germany alone. I mean the whole damn team including WW1 "winners". So excuse me if I don't trust west's judgement when it comes to anything other than internal affairs.

Here, barbos ignores the  Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which actually started WWII by giving Hitler the freedom to invade Poland without having to worry about hostilities with Stalin's Soviet Union. The two countries just divided Poland, bringing France and Britain into the war. Stalin thought he was so in tight with Hitler, that he actually got caught flat-footed when Hitler took the blitzkrieg to his half of Poland. The US stayed out of it until Pearl Harbor and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war against the US for declaring war on its ally, Japan. The Soviet Union was actually on our "team" at the time the US joined the war, because we were supplying it with weapons and other supplies through Lend-Lease and other programs. Although barbos may know of these facts, he conveniently forgets them during his attempts to vilify the West and distract from Putin's naked aggression in Ukraine.

Another interesting historical fact of relevance here is Crimea. Crimea was originally part of the Ottoman Empire, but Russia annexed it by treaty after a successful campaign against the Ottomans. Russia had also annexed Ukraine, Belarus, and part of Poland through military conquest. After the Russian Revolution, those captive territories all broke away and declared independence from Russia. Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, and Crimea all became autonomous republics within the Soviet Union that were officially separate from Russia itself. Crimea was its own Soviet Socialist Republic and apart from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic. IOW, neither territory was part of Russia per se during the Soviet period, but that was a sham, of course. Russia dominated the Soviet Empire while paying lip service to the equality of other national territories within its borders. After WWII, Stalin basically deported or murdered the indigenous Crimean Tatar population and moved in Russians and Ukrainians to occupy the peninsula. Crimea was downgraded from an autonomous republic to an oblast. A few years later Crimea was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR by Khrushchev, which only made sense, given the land bridge from Ukraine to the peninsula. To this day, however, Russians have treated Crimea as if it were historically part of Russia. It was never fully a part of Russia. It was only occupied territory that had been forcibly annexed by the Russian Empire.
 
Biden just said Putin will likely invade. Sanctions rarely work. It seems to me that they would have to be so severe as to be utterly devastating to the Russian economy, and they should be advertised well ahead of time and include such things as entire freeze in all Russian owned assets in the United States, a complete cut off of virtually all trade, including agriculture, and sanctions against anyone buying their oil. Nordstream 2 should be halted immediately and even halt further shipments of nordstream 1. Whatever, the sanctions cannot just be to Putin and his cronies, but to the entire Russian economy.
 
Merkel had temporarily halted Nord Stream 2 over the Ukraine situation, but the current German government seems to be retreating from that position. Germany has invested heavily in it and is the end point for the pipeline. Their economy will be the primary beneficiary of the pipeline, and it needs the energy supplies more than many other countries. They know that Russia can, and probably will, use their dependency on Russian energy supplies to pressure (and possibly blackmail) them in the future, but they are in a difficult spot. A third of their energy supplies already come from Russia.

There is generally less support in Europe for economic sanctions, because the economic ties between Russia and individual EU members are closer. So it is much easier for the US to impose damaging sanctions in areas like banking and currency transactions. Sanctions against individuals don't work effectively, because Russian criminals, oligarchs, and corrupt officials have learned how to use proxies and other means to get around them. Moreover, Putin has been planning for this a long time, especially while Trump was a useful tool for Putin during his presidency. The 2014 invasion happened before Trump, and this one is threatening to happen after Trump. During the past 5 years, Putin is said to have put plans in place to cushion the shock of any economic sanctions that the US could bring to bear, at least for a while. So the threat of sanctions don't seem to scare him all that much.

I don't think that Putin thinks much beyond winning the military victory over Ukraine. It is difficult to see how a prolonged occupation of that country will work out well for him. If Russian troops leave, the local population is likely to revolt. If they stay, he is going to experience a lot of local resistance to keeping troops there for a long time. It will be a real mess, not to mention the international repercussions. The invasion will only help to strengthen the NATO alliance.
 
But the problem for Putin is that he has eliminated all opposition at home. He only hears the things he wants to hear. He will invade Ukraine but like Stalin and other Russian dictators won't feel resistance at home for some time. But it will come and he will leave.
 
History mostly bores me. Usually about a bunch of men starting wars with each other.

The history that I was taught was that the US entered WWII after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The US joined WWI after the Germans kept attacking submarines and was trying to get Mexico to join forces with Germany.
Wow, I am "impressed". The average american I think thinks that US fought Soviets in WW2 and won.
That'd be an interesting poll to run. I doubt it'd be that many thought the US fought USSR though. If nothing else, pop culture helps remind us the Nazis were the bad guys.
Sure, but commies are bad too, so US fought both. Just ask people on the street.
 
History mostly bores me. Usually about a bunch of men starting wars with each other.

The history that I was taught was that the US entered WWII after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The US joined WWI after the Germans kept attacking submarines and was trying to get Mexico to join forces with Germany.
Wow, I am "impressed". The average american I think thinks that US fought Soviets in WW2 and won.
That'd be an interesting poll to run. I doubt it'd be that many thought the US fought USSR though. If nothing else, pop culture helps remind us the Nazis were the bad guys.
Sure, but commies are bad too, so US fought both. Just ask people on the street.
I really have no idea who you think the 'average' American is.
 
I really have no idea who you think the 'average' American is.
'average' American elected Trump. that's all you need to know about average American
The average American elected Biden.
Yes, barely and it's spelled Manchin :). And before that they elected Trump.
Manchin was elected to represent the state that ranks 41st in size and 40th in size of population, and near the bottom on most other metrics. So, you think most Americans live in WV?
 
My guess? He will invade late Friday.
Because he knows western governments leave office at 4pm and don't come back until Monday morning?
I think that Zipr is just making a joke about the fact that late Friday is when people in the US tend to switch their attention span to snooze control mode as far as major news events go. Of course, that doesn't make sense in terms of Russia's time zone differences. Russia has 11 time zones.
 

Deluded American with a german last (and first I think as well) name is unhappy about german reactance to harrras Russia with the same vigor US has.

This dumbass thinks that Nord Stream is not finished.
Also dumbass forgot about "Fuck the EU" incident.
 
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