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

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The threat is not to Russia, but to Putin's grip on power.

Absolutely. And that genie is out of the bottle and Putin knows it, as does every dictator or strongman that has ever lived.

 

[TV and credit cards]

This article provides some color as to the propaganda barbos has to wad through at home. There are examples of what the media broadcasts today and after the annexation of Crimea.

Russian propaganda is rising in volume and vehemence. The themes of Western conspiracy and loathing are everywhere.

But there are things we do know about Russian media — there is a Kremlin hand on the tone and volume buttons.

Ruling party members of the Duma vie with one another to make ever-more outlandish and inflammatory comments.

Alexy Gromov, one of the most trusted members of Putin’s inner circle, “defines the direction and limits of the government censorship and propaganda [and] makes instructions and directives for leading media outlets.”

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

State media in Russia reminds me of how the allies treated the fact that they had broken enigma in WW2. The allies couldn't use it unilaterally or the Germans would catch on. It absolutely helped win the war but they had to be careful to not lose their advantage.

That's Ruskie media in a nutshell.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Germany kept attacking submarines???

More like, German submarines attacked supplies we were sending to England.

You're correct: I worded my post incorrectly. Sleep deprivation.... The Germans kept using submarines to sink both merchant and passenger ships, including those carrying American citizens. (See Lusitania, see Housatonic, for starters).

Or this link: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/america-enters-world-war-i

Yeah, that's much more like it. Except it was ships carrying military supplies to England that were being sunk. We were the ones in the wrong, shipping them on passenger ships.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Russia can do whatever it wants within its own borders, including precautionary measures against fascist regime in Ukraine.

Ukraine isn't going to attack Russia. Your theory doesn't pass the laugh test.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Russia can do whatever it wants within its own borders, including precautionary measures against fascist regime in Ukraine.

Ukraine isn't going to attack Russia. Your theory doesn't pass the laugh test.

Yea, Ukraine won't attack. But I'm sure that there are some little green men attempting to attack Russia from Ukraine. Putin has become very predictable lately.

 

[Toni]

Germany kept attacking submarines???

More like, German submarines attacked supplies we were sending to England.

You're correct: I worded my post incorrectly. Sleep deprivation.... The Germans kept using submarines to sink both merchant and passenger ships, including those carrying American citizens. (See Lusitania, see Housatonic, for starters).

Or this link: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/america-enters-world-war-i

Yeah, that's much more like it. Except it was ships carrying military supplies to England that were being sunk. We were the ones in the wrong, shipping them on passenger ships.

Uh, no, we were NOT in the wrong.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Maybe Russia should be invited to join NATO.

Love this idea! However, it could be a small problem for Russia to qualify. The eligibility requirements to join NATO:
1. functioning democratic political system based on a market economy;
2. fair treatment of minority populations;
3. a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully;
4. They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.

I think that #1, 3, and 4 might be a challenge for Russia to adhere to!

That means the US should be made to quit NATO.

 

[RVonse]

The US does not want "a war with Russia". Nobody WANTS a war with Russia. Ukraine certainly does not want war with Russia.

The problem here is that it seems like Russia wants a war with Ukraine, for the express purposes of annexation of territory.

Then, Russia cries in bad faith to their people "Help, I'm being oppressed!" In the same way as a drug dealer may steal your money and then telling other passers-by that you are trying to rob them rather than accept the truth that they robbed you.

Nobody is trying to, and the gaslighting can go to hell. Putin is gaslighting you Barbos. And you are gaslighting us in turn. Take the blinders off and accept it: Russia is aggressing. They can either stop doing that or they will have started a war.

The military industrial complex wants a war with Russia.

 

[RVonse]

So war is the solution?

Education is the solution, but you don't want to be educated, do you?

An education from you is exactly what I am requesting. Please explain to me why an invasion of Ukraine by Russia is justified. I’m not even disagreeing with you. I truly don’t know what your support for this is based upon. You just keep ranting that we are all ignorant and have swallowed propaganda. Ok. I will indeed admit ignorance. I do not know why war is the appropriate response here. Please explain.

You are assuming and very fixated on it that I advocate an invasion.
What is the reason for this fixation?

Anyway.
Countries invade other countries all the time. US invaded Iraq - illegaly. Yugoslavia- illegally. Syria - illegaly. Afghanistan was legal, I can give you that.
Why can't Russia invade Ukraine?
There are way better reasons/justifications for Russia to invade Ukraine than US had for invading Iraq. I would prefer education but you clearly don't want to be educated. So consider invasion as a last option.

I posted a video earlier with prof. Mearsheimer. You should really watch it. In fact watch his other videos they are great regardless whether or not you agree with him.

I’ve read Mearshimer’s book and enjoyed it thoroughly. Missed the video. Too lazy to go through 15 pages of posts to find it. I agree there are lots of good reasons to go to war. I’m no pacifist. I’m a combat veteran in fact.

But it is good to know you are not advocating Putin’s invasion. I am much relieved. But what then are you saying to the OP question posed: How should the West respond to a Russian invasion of Ukraine?

it seems to me that there are several options:

1) Accede to Putin’s demands and remove all NATO elements from Eastern Europe, and cease all FMS to Ukraine and others.
2) Do nothing at all, and tell Putin it’s none of our business, have at it.
3) Issue a strongly worded condemnation.
4) Minor economic sanctions
5) Major economic sanctions (cutoff nordstream, and all trade, and freeze all assets.)
6) Arm Ukraine
7) Send advisors
8) Send NATO forces into Ukraine to fight alongside them.
9) Launch a full scale attack on Russia through the Baltic states (that’ll show ‘em!)

Feel free to add others. Obviously some of these are not mutually exclusive.

But let us know what you prefer.

9a) Die the horrible death from radiation fallout, the end result of the nuclear war with them. No one left on earth except the life forms less than 5 lbs or so, because Musk did not have time to evacuate to Mars.

Personally, I prefer choice 1. Everyone gets to live and Russia need not be so paranoid anymore about weapons right on their border.....just like how the US felt during the 1960's Cuba missile crises.

 

[skepticalbip]

Maybe Russia should be invited to join NATO.

Love this idea! However, it could be a small problem for Russia to qualify. The eligibility requirements to join NATO:
1. functioning democratic political system based on a market economy;
2. fair treatment of minority populations;
3. a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully;
4. They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.

I think that #1, 3, and 4 might be a challenge for Russia to adhere to!

That means the US should be made to quit NATO.

I'm O.K. with that. NATO accomplished it's purpose quite a while ago. NATO was formed to protect a Europe that had been devastated during WWII from the USSR that had built up a massive war industry and was expansionist. There is no longer a USSR and Europe has rebuilt. The E.U. has three times the population of Russia and Russia's economy is comparable to that of Italy.

Which raises the question, is there any reason that the U.S. should still be a member of NATO and be obligated to intervene in European disputes?

 

[SLD]

Maybe Russia should be invited to join NATO.

Love this idea! However, it could be a small problem for Russia to qualify. The eligibility requirements to join NATO:
1. functioning democratic political system based on a market economy;
2. fair treatment of minority populations;
3. a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully;
4. They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.

I think that #1, 3, and 4 might be a challenge for Russia to adhere to!

That means the US should be made to quit NATO.

I'm O.K. with that. NATO accomplished it's purpose quite a while ago. NATO was formed to protect a Europe that had been devastated during WWII from the USSR that had built up a massive war industry and was expansionist. There is no longer a USSR and Europe has rebuilt. The E.U. has three times the population of Russia and Russia's economy is comparable to that of Italy.

Which raises the question, is there any reason that the U.S. should still be a member of NATO and be obligated to intervene in European disputes?

I agree that as a starter, for Russia to join NATO and the EU, it would have to first dump Putin. It might happen, and rather suddenly if he’s not careful, and if we play our hands right. it would also need to radically reform its democracy, giving much greater local control and cleaning up corruption.

As for NATO, the truth is the US needs it now more than they need us. United western democratic governments, including NATO, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and maybe India, could be the biggest force for world peace and prosperity ever seen. China would be seriously contained. Iran would be thwarted. Anyone who attacks the United States would have to deal with a combined might of about 1.3 billion people.

 

[Copernicus]

I think that talk of Russia joining NATO makes no sense at all, especially since its original purpose was to stop Soviet expansionism and is now to stop Russian expansionism. After 1991, it seemed to have become somewhat irrelevant, because Russia was not perceived as much of a hostile threat to US and European security as it does now. Ironically, John Mearsheimer, perceived now as somewhat supportive of Putin's America-bashing anti-NATO stance, was one of those who warned against potential Russian aggression, and he certainly isn't supportive of Russia's expansionist policies today. If it were ever possible for Russia to join NATO, then there would be no real need for NATO to even exist. Right now, it has a lot of recently joined members who are only members as a form of insurance against the threat of Russian dominance. And it is Vladimir Putin's rise to power that is motivating fear of Russian expansionism. He has managed to save NATO from dying out in a puff of irrelevance.

As for China, I don't see any possibility of Russia joining forces with the US to help contain China's expansion, even though that might seem logical to some US academics like Mearsheimer. Why would that be in Russia's interest? Russia has closer historical ties to China, and it likely sees China more as an ally in opposing the dominance of Western liberal democracies. Let's not forget that Stalin felt quite comfortable in allying with Hitler, before Hitler stabbed him in the back and drove him into an alliance with the West. Autocratic regimes don't make friends easily with liberal democracies.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

People shouldn't be throwing stones in Putin's direction considering the state of their own houses. Not every member of NATO has clean hands themselves.

The US only needs NATO if the US has a desire to violate principles 3 and 4 of the four principles.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The military industrial complex wants a war with Russia.

True that.

 

[Elixir]

Autocratic regimes don't make friends easily with liberal democracies

Autocratic regimes can be very fluid in their ideology when the actual autocrat is personally threatened.

 

[Copernicus]

People shouldn't be throwing stones in Putin's direction considering the state of their own houses. Not every member of NATO has clean hands themselves.

The US only needs NATO if the US has a desire to violate principles 3 and 4 of the four principles.

It's true that just about every country has done bad things in the past, especially the US and Russia. Yet people like us still feel a moral obligation to criticize bad behavior when we see it, like what we see playing out now with Russia's aggression against its neighbor. Even with all of that historical baggage that we carry around. What would the world be like if everyone whose country has behaved badly in the past just stopped criticizing other countries, including their own, for bad behavior? Do you think that the world would become a better place?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

In that case there is no reason for Russia to be kept out of NATO.

 

[Copernicus]

The UK, with US backing, is claiming that Russia is plotting to replace the current Ukrainian leadership with another pro-Russia politician. The most likely candidate, according to them, would be  Yevheniy Murayev, a politician from Kharkiv who has favored Moscow's annexation of Crimea. Murayev himself denies this, claiming to be banned from Russia.

Source:

UK accuses Kremlin of trying to install pro-Russian leader in Ukraine​

A Russian-backed coup would certainly be a preferable alternative to a military invasion of Ukraine for Russia. Despite all of the saber-rattling, Putin realizes that it would be difficult to claim that an invasion of Ukraine was somehow provoked by Ukraine and/or the West, although that seems to be the best pretext they can come up with.

ETA: I have to admit that the plot sounds pretty hare-brained, if there is any truth to it. It's probably more likely that the intelligence service that came up with this was victimized by a Russian scam. The only way such a plot could work would be after an invasion.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Maybe Russia should be invited to join NATO.

Love this idea! However, it could be a small problem for Russia to qualify. The eligibility requirements to join NATO:
1. functioning democratic political system based on a market economy;
2. fair treatment of minority populations;
3. a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully;
4. They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.

I think that #1, 3, and 4 might be a challenge for Russia to adhere to!

That means the US should be made to quit NATO.

I'm O.K. with that. NATO accomplished it's purpose quite a while ago. NATO was formed to protect a Europe that had been devastated during WWII from the USSR that had built up a massive war industry and was expansionist. There is no longer a USSR and Europe has rebuilt. The E.U. has three times the population of Russia and Russia's economy is comparable to that of Italy.

Which raises the question, is there any reason that the U.S. should still be a member of NATO and be obligated to intervene in European disputes?

Changing the name doesn't get rid of the fact that they're nuclear armed and expansionist.