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

[zorq]

Aupmanyav, why are all of Russia's borders with NATO countries basically unprotected now? You keep insisting that NATO is such a dire threat to Russia that they were compelled to commit hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers to violence. But, the threat NATO poses is so small that Russia's borders with NATO are now nearly completely unprotected?
Please explain this terrible threat that NATO poses to Russia that also leaves Russia utterly confident that NATO will not attack.

Quite simple. If NATO attacks, it is WW III. Nuclear weapons will be used, and therefore NATO will not attack.

So you agree that NATO poses absolutely no threat to Russia and therefore NATO expansion can not possibly have provoked Russia to violence.

 

[aupmanyav]

So you agree that NATO poses absolutely no threat to Russia and therefore NATO expansion can not possibly have provoked Russia to violence.

Why is then US concerned about China's bases in South China Sea? They are not attacking US. Then why the QUAD or SEATO?

 

[zorq]

So you agree that NATO poses absolutely no threat to Russia and therefore NATO expansion can not possibly have provoked Russia to violence.

Why is then US concerned about China's bases in South China Sea? They are not attacking US. Then why the QUAD or SEATO?

I don't understand how your question is related. Please explain it to me.

 

[aupmanyav]

I don't understand how your question is related. Please explain it to me.

Again, simple. It is fortifying one's county's position. Whether it is Ukraine, Russia, China, Western countries (and India) in South China Sea or Chinese encirclement of India by bases in nearby countries, India's concern about Maldives, SriLanka, Indian help to Iran for Chabahar port, Chinese help to Pakistan for Gwadar port, Chinese base on Coco Island of Myanmar, every country tries to fortify its position. It is like playing chess, not giving opportunity to opposition to attack while doing so.

 

[zorq]

So Russia was provoked to violence by a the expansion of an alliance that posed no threat to them becasue... they felt threatened by that alliance's strong defensive capability? You aren't making any sense.

 

[Henry-Finland]

Belarus sends tanks to Russia, to Kursk / for the Russian army.
Can't Russia repair old ones at the needed pace?


Painting by Kaj Stenvall

 

[steve_bank]

So you agree that NATO poses absolutely no threat to Russia and therefore NATO expansion can not possibly have provoked Russia to violence.

Why is then US concerned about China's bases in South China Sea? They are not attacking US. Then why the QUAD or SEATO?

Not just the USA. The issue is a threat to freedom of navigation.

China arbitrarily redrew their maps claiming what was international waters to be part of China. And the airspace above

 

[steve_bank]

View attachment 47201

The old Cod War rhetoric.

 

[bilby]

View attachment 47201

The old Cod War rhetoric.

Þorskastríðin, as they were known in Iceland.

Iceland basically won because of their threat to leave NATO, which would have had serious implications for the defence of the GIUK Gap.

 

[aupmanyav]

Not just the USA. The issue is a threat to freedom of navigation.
China arbitrarily redrew their maps claiming what was international waters to be part of China. And the airspace above

China has not attacked any ship or aircraft, except the collision with a Philippine boat. That should be settled by diplomatic means. I do not know what did they do about it. Talking about Chinese claims is fun. They claim half the world because once the Quing dynasty ruled there.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Ukraine war: Russia widens evacuations to second border region - BBC News

Some 11,000 people are evacuated from Russia's Belgorod region following reports of "enemy action".

www.bbc.co.uk

Russia is evacuating residents from a second border region, as Ukraine continues its surprise week-long offensive inside the country.
Some 11,000 people in the Belgorod region have been moved, Russian state media reported, because of "enemy action" near the border.
Belgorod lies next to Kursk - where Ukrainian troops launched their surprise attack into Russian territory last Tuesday.
Ukrainian forces have since advanced up to 18 miles (30km) inside Russia - the deepest incursion into the country since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv claims thousands of troops are involved.

Daaammmnnn...

It should be noted that an area that has been evacuated of Russians is a much easier area to flatten.

 

[Elixir]

They claim half the world because once the Quing dynasty ruled …

Kinda like Putler’s claim about Ukraine.
When China claims India, you gonna talk about it?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The distance from Kursk to Moscow is 526 km 327 miles.

Not much farther than Seattle to Spokane.

Must be uncomfortable for Moscovites.

Why? The distance from Columbus Ohio to Washington DC outer-belt is about 6 hours... it is another 6 hours to reach the center of DC. Resistance would increase substantially at an exponential level as they approached Moscow.

People are reading way too deeply into what Ukraine is "achieving" in Russia.

There have been videos of Russian citizens around d Kursk upset and afraid,

Can't be too afraid, there aren't enough Ukrainians and they aren't committing war crimes.

 

[steve_bank]

Not just the USA. The issue is a threat to freedom of navigation.
China arbitrarily redrew their maps claiming what was international waters to be part of China. And the airspace above

China has not attacked any ship or aircraft, except the collision with a Philippine boat. That should be settled by diplomatic means. I do not know what did they do about it. Talking about Chinese claims is fun. They claim half the world because once the Quing dynasty ruled there.

Actually they have. Philippine fishing boats for one. Chan declared international fishing waters as their own. They claim a Japanese isl;and. It is all about resources, a pre WWII frame of mind. Japan needed oil, so in part they went to war to get it.

The US and others make a point of transiting the disputed waters and air space. China gets on radio and warns to get out.

The Chinese navy plays chicked with ships.

China wants control on trade, not exactly a secret. They use free trade to their advantage, but they do not really want free trade.

A China and Russia apologist. Given what China and Russia do and say, where do you think India would be if the USA and western alliance lost power and China controlled Asian trade?

Something America bashers do not seem to consider.

China is giving low cost infrastructure loans in Asia knowing their will be defaults, then they seize the assets. Like port facilities.

 

[ZiprHead]

Evidence?

Not making Russia a member of NATO, not fulfilling the promise that NATO will not expand in countries which were part of USSR.

When was this promise made???

Russia did promise to leave Ukraine alone in exchange for their nukes.

 

[steve_bank]

Russia joining NATO? You must be joking. NATO arose as Russia was clamping down and taking East European states. Putin is trying to do to Ukraine what the Soviets did to Hungary, East Germany, Lithuania, and Poland.

Putin is a continuation of the Soviet anti west politicos and authoritarian rule. Russia and China have been and are antithetical to the NATO concept.

 

[Henry-Finland]

Update from Ukraine | Awesome! Ruzzia can't stop the Ukrainian Army Attacks | Big Win!​

-SU-34 destroyed
- probably four Russian airfields were hit
- map of how far UA are in Kursk

 

[pood]

Evidence?

Not making Russia a member of NATO, not fulfilling the promise that NATO will not expand in countries which were part of USSR.

Talk was floated during the Yeltsin years of Russia having an association with NATO, not a full membership. Nothing ever came of it. As to the rest, NATO never promised not to expand into those countries which were once part of the USSR, and that fact was confirmed by Gorbachev. You are dead wrong on all counts.

 

[Henry-Finland]

Is Russia Planning the Unthinkable?​

As the 25 year anniversary of the Moscow Apartment bombings nears, famed Russian historian and author David Satter explains why Ukraine is right to be alarmed that Moscow may plot false-flag operations, to discredit Ukraine and the West, in order to distract from Ukraine's successful incursion into Belgorod and Kursk Russia. These operations, if they were to happen, could include Russian-organized attacks on a nuclear power station, on a Russian school, or some other heinous crime that Putin would execute to preserve his power.
In this conversation with the Kyiv Post's Jason Smart, the depths of Vladimir Putin's evil, something that many Westerners struggle to believe could be true, is examined carefully - leading to some interesting conclusions of how what happens next, could change the course of world history.

According to his author's bio on Amazon, "David Satter is one of the world’s leading commentators on Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is the author of four books on Russia and the creator of a documentary film on the fall of the U.S.S.R. In May, 2013, he became an adviser to the Russian Service of Radio Liberty and in September, 2013, he was accredited as a Radio Liberty correspondent in Moscow. Three months later, he was expelled from Russia becoming the first U.S. correspondent to be expelled since the Cold War.

David Satter is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. He is also a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and an associate of the Henry Jackson Society in London. He has been a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He teaches a course on Russian politics and history at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced Academic Programs and has been a visiting professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and a visiting fellow in journalism at Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan.

David Satter’s first book was Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, which was published in 1996. He later made a documentary film on the basis of this book which won the 2013 Van Gogh Grand Jury Prize at the Amsterdam Film Festival. In addition, David Satter has written three other books about Russia, Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State (2003), It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past (2011), and The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin. His books have been translated into eight languages.

 

[pood]

Let’s be clear about NATO. It has never invaded anyone. It is a defensive alliance. Each member is obligated to come to the aid of any other member that is attacked. Thus it was that NATO participated officially in the Afghan war after the attack on the U.S. — because it was obligated by treaty to do so. NATO did NOT participate in George W. Bush’s imbecilic invasion of Iraq, though some NATO members did, though not under the purview of NATO. Adolf Putin did not attack Ukraine because of NATO. He did it because in the megalomania of his dotage, he imagined himself restoring the Russian empire and going down as a Great Man of History. Like Trump, he is utterly delusional and a menace to all civilized people.