tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.comments2023-11-05T01:40:27.910-07:00FOGG OF WARAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08399019375564825616noreply@blogger.comBlogger295125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-7290348702437005482014-11-17T09:25:13.520-08:002014-11-17T09:25:13.520-08:00Edit: Thanks to Andrew for pointing out that my pr...Edit: Thanks to Andrew for pointing out that my previous "anti-Sunni" text should have been "anti-Shia/government" with respect to Fallujah.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08399019375564825616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-45398256966789870962014-07-27T17:47:20.150-07:002014-07-27T17:47:20.150-07:00The story we often hear is that Putin and his gang...The story we often hear is that Putin and his gang think that Russia was treated "unfairly" in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Really? Really? What a bad distasteful joke piled on top of an outright and naked lie.<br /><br /> Truth is the Russian communists were scared shitless that the Western powers were going to hold them and communism itself accountable for their 70 some years of tyranny and criminality. But it never happened, Bush 41 treated them with kid gloves. (Gorbachev's own transcripts from them Malta summit show this.)<br /><br /> After WW II we tried and executed the Nazis for their crimes against humanity. But we conveniently ignore that that horrible war started with a deal between the communists and the Nazis.<br /><br /> Maybe someone can tell us how many communists went to the gallows for the decades of throwing their own people into the Gulag. Just where were the individuals and communism held accountable for the slaughter of the Polish Officer Corp in the forests of Western Belorussia or the 60,000 Polish civilians who were marched into the labor camps in 1940 never to return? So tell us who was held accountable for the slaughter in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. How many Eastern Europeans disappeared into unmarked graves during the nearly 50 years of Russian military occupation? Where is the justice for them?<br /><br />If the Russians so consider the communist period such a "black mark" on their history why do so many former KGB and party apparatchiks hold positions of power today? Why do journalists and artists who dare question Putin and his thugs end up in jail, dead or simply disappear? Why do statues of Lenin and Stalin still dot the landscape? Why does a military honor guard still stand at the entrance to Lenin's tomb? Why is his tomb even still there? <br /><br /> The communist period was just a different form of Russian imperialism with Tsars and Dukes replaced with Commissars and political officers. Putin is now just trying to do the same thing with his own batch of oligarchs armed with 21st century propaganda and technology.<br /><br /> The Russians didn't get treated "unfairly," they got handed a "get out of jail free card".<br />JWMJRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11330556524852443926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-54621122796304592042014-05-26T09:34:43.171-07:002014-05-26T09:34:43.171-07:00Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia was meant to...<i>Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia was meant to remind Georgia that Russia was still in charge of the area, and it would not tolerate more encirclement</i><br /><br />Allow to propose an alternative or additional theory:<br /><br />When the Georgian/Russian conflict lit up in 2008, Georgia was in the process of trying to force the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to reintegrate. The end result of that conflict was to ensure that the breakaway regions remain separate.<br /><br />This means that Georgia has an ongoing territorial dispute. NATO is not going to allow a country with an ongoing territorial dispute to join the alliance, especially when that dispute involves Russia (even second-hand).<br /><br />With the de facto seizure of Crimea and the possibility of Russian-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine, Russia's actions in Ukraine have created an ongoing territorial dispute. As long as that dispute is in existence, Ukraine joining NATO is off the table.<br /><br />I expect that the primary reason for Russia's seizure of Crimea was domestic politics (rather than Sevastopol vs Novorissiysk), but I do expect that it was also about creating facts on the ground that prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-5254099722549713172014-04-01T20:52:45.003-07:002014-04-01T20:52:45.003-07:00It definitely at least temporarily happened. I thi...It definitely at least temporarily happened. I think of course the idea is to slap them on the wrist and bring them back in later.<br /><br />If Russia cares, it's in the wrong way, I fear. Russia's own "self-talk" here is that the EU is deaf to them, isn't cooperating, that NATO is encroaching on them, and so they have this story of victimization for themselves (a la the Germans in the 30's) about how bad everyone else has been to them. I think kicking them out of the G8 and severing ties certainly will stoke that self-talk...<br /><br />...but at the end of the day I think the self-talk is reverse-justification for what they're already planning to do. I don't think Putin cares much about this kind of acceptance and I don't think the Russian public will get bent out of shape that the West doesn't like them anymore. I really do think Putin sees the G7 types as rivals and doesn't really plan to cooperate with them beyond what's convenient for the moment (where the US might get quite bent out of shape because it sees the other 6 members as close allies).<br /><br />So in short I'd lean towards "doesn't care" but if anything I think it's likely to make the Russians feel more empowered/justified to be unilateral. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08399019375564825616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-79769692021686394572014-04-01T20:44:21.568-07:002014-04-01T20:44:21.568-07:00So I ran across an article in the Globe the other ...So I ran across an article in the Globe the other day that implied in passing that they kicked Russia out of the G-8 in response, and went back to being the G-7. I have seen no reference to it anywhere else, but admittedly haven't been looking. Did that actually happen? If so, do you think that's actually a sanction that will mean something to Putin?Charles Hopehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17673209470354488997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-56237473688112697192014-03-28T07:51:37.447-07:002014-03-28T07:51:37.447-07:00I'm kindof surprised you're using the Arab...I'm kindof surprised you're using the Arab Spring as an analogy. I sat back and thought about it for a bit but I'm still thinking that it just doesn't come all that close. I also don't particularly exalt the Arab Spring--leaving morality out of this, there is a clear difference in what's going on, and why one is a threat to the long-term international order. <br /><br />Reasons:<br />1) Russia invaded another country, with troops and guns, claimed the territory. Nobody invaded these Arab Spring countries. Letting countries run around invading each other and gobbling up land is a bad thing. One can point to a hundred different little locations all throughout Europe in which there are concentrated ethnic minorities, and a precedent for peace/stability _has to be_ that "no, you cannot just invade a country because it has some concentrated ethnic minorities that happen to be a majority in your country."<br /><br />2) There was no separatist movement in the Arab Spring. This was about internal regime change. Violent regime change has its own set of problems, but it's a completely unrelated set of problems from separatism and re-drawing the map. Generally the peaces of Westphalia / Waterloo outline non-separatism as the thing to squelch, specifically because a precedent of separatism allows #1 to happen.<br /><br />3) These were people that were legitimately being oppressed in awful ways: y'know, torture, murder, all that. Go look these dudes up, I mean they were _bad news_. International Law has a somewhat fuzzy line on this, but generally there are certain standards a government has to meet in order to be considered legitimate and "not butchering your people wholesale" is one of those, so when you start butchering your people wholesale, you've crossed a line that's "generally accepted" one in which your people overthrowing you is thumbs-up.<br /><br />4) If instead of the Arab Spring you started looking to stuff like Kosovo or South Sudan to bring separatist movements into the picture, we're also talking about extenuating circumstances for these ethnic minorities that are "somewhat" clearly outlined in international law: namely that the ethnic majorities of those countries were butchering / oppressing those people and after some time of trying to solve this in other ways, separation turned out to be the only real solution. It's not 100% clear where the line on this is, but it is very clear that Crimea wasn't close. <br /><br />It's not at all clear that a majority of Crimeans even wanted to join Russia! 58% of Crimeans are of Russian heritage, but just because someone is of Russian blood doesn't mean they'd want to leave Ukraine for the brutal oligarchy/kleptocracy of Russia. Let's not stereotype Russian ethnics too much here. The other 42%--Ukrainian and Tatar--while the same rules apply to them, they're not going to have much incentive to want to jump ship. What I'm saying is it's not actually totally clear that you had even a majority--much less an overwhelming one--wanting to join Russia.<br /><br />So if Crimea was being systemically oppressed by the Ukrainians and then tried to leave but the Ukrainians started butchering them and then Russia came in to _actually_ save people, then we might be looking at something that was not clearly, obviously, shamelessly pure territorial aggression, but since it was clearly "Russia coming in, unprovoked, with military, to take a strategically key piece of land when its neighbor was unstable, and then forcing a sham referendum with guns pointed at voters to make it seem half-legitimate to its brainwashed public," then yes, I'm going to call it Russian aggression, because it's Russian aggression.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08399019375564825616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-15389711071967994382014-03-27T20:40:29.755-07:002014-03-27T20:40:29.755-07:00I think it's more complicated than internation...I think it's more complicated than international support vs. not. During the early days of the wars in Libya, Egypt, and Syria, the oppressed party that overthrew the government represented a small majority of the population (55-65%) and created significant bloodshed, whereas in Crimea, the vast majority are of Russian heritage, and the transition was nearly without violence. Why do we exalt one as the "Arab Spring", and view the other as Russian aggression?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13759434386358224916noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-30330474717245200222014-03-03T14:53:25.617-08:002014-03-03T14:53:25.617-08:00Also a hell of an observation--I hadn't put mu...Also a hell of an observation--I hadn't put much thought into Turkey as I just assumed they'd be distracted and somewhat disinterested in the outcome... but that need not be the case at all.<br /><br />I also agree that, even with anti-ship missiles, Russia would balk at a CVN group showing up past the Hellespont.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08399019375564825616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-71928363895202662602014-03-03T14:32:58.417-08:002014-03-03T14:32:58.417-08:00Great post, Erik! Some thoughts I've been hav...Great post, Erik! Some thoughts I've been having on this issue:<br /><br />I don't put much stock in the rumor about the new Russian anti-ship missiles. Frankly, the same has been said about just about every iteration of Russian/Soviet weaponry, and every time the end product has fallen dramatically short. <br /><br />In terms of overall balance of power, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is currently comprised of only four major surface combatants (One CG, one DDG, and two FFGs), all of which are antiques. <br /><br />In my opinion, Russia is betting that we will not risk the political backlash of escalating to an armed conflict. They also will not fire the first shot in any case, and can take up the cry of US imperialism if we intervene.<br /><br />This does hearken back to the Syrian conflict where Putin threatened to deploy the Black Sea Fleet against any US forces attempting to intervene. He had no where near the power to back it up (A single American destroyer squadron could destroy them in an afternoon, to say nothing of a full carrier strike group or three), yet we still backed down and this encouraged further Russian aggression in the region.<br /><br />What I'm most curious about, though, is how Turkey will react. They're something of a sleeping giant in the region, and have a very large, modernized military. They've been content to sit on the sidelines in the Syrian conflict, even when hit by a gas attack within their borders by the Russian-backed Assad regime, but they've always had very close ties with Ukraine and the Crimea in particular. <br /><br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12501489598686743463noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-2099952252257772022014-03-03T05:39:38.282-08:002014-03-03T05:39:38.282-08:00Excellent thoughts!
1) Obviously we need to consi...Excellent thoughts!<br /><br />1) Obviously we need to consider this... I just don't think Putin is gambling on not spurring a military response if he's actually planning on annexing anything and re-drawing the map. It's something the Euros are (for excellent reason) still super-sensitive about. I really believe he has something more sophisticated going on.<br /><br />2) This was interesting enough that I decided to just go ahead and look it up--no news of movement yet but if what you're saying is sufficiently well-known, it would be an obvious telegraph that something is coming so it'd wait for the last minute.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08399019375564825616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-16365568924197926312014-03-02T21:41:44.343-08:002014-03-02T21:41:44.343-08:00A couple of thoughts:
1) I think Russia is dreami...A couple of thoughts:<br /><br />1) I think Russia is dreaming bigger than an independent Crimea -- I think the goal is to separate the Russophonic east as well, if Kiev doesn't otherwise fold.<br /><br />2) I find it highly unlikely that the US will intervene militarily. However... are any CVN groups currently anywhere near Russian waters? If so, watch for them to bug out. My impression is that Russia has some anti-ship missiles that the US can't reliably stop. If the US Navy shares that impression, getting the CVNs far away from Russian shores will be a precondition to any US military intervention. (So, any US military intervention would presumably be US Air Force assets operating from NATO/V4 bases.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-32201047573468886612013-08-17T15:54:15.509-07:002013-08-17T15:54:15.509-07:00Interesting reading. If Hollande keeps it up in Fr...Interesting reading. If Hollande keeps it up in France, I don't know how much more of it the Germans will take.<br />In Europe, potential partners for the UK would be the Visegrad group (Poland, Czechia and Slovakia) and Italy. They all support the UK on certain things, but sadly none of them are interested in directly confronting the EU like the UK does.APKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14781369698883457968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-90207659765721102912013-04-03T02:13:24.239-07:002013-04-03T02:13:24.239-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.way2 collegehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15002354364018973597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-67126304074460601012012-10-30T10:35:22.687-07:002012-10-30T10:35:22.687-07:00Nothing so far in Romney's campaign suggests h...Nothing so far in Romney's campaign suggests he's targeting the F-35 specifically--it may be a "dead item" at this point. To be fair, it was pretty darned expensive (at over $200M a pop compared to $67M for the F-22).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08399019375564825616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-64426297160416258582012-10-30T10:28:38.635-07:002012-10-30T10:28:38.635-07:00does the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) have a differ...does the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) have a different future under the two potential administrations? That program makes big waves in both government and private sector spending...Ryan Halehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16522938789951184657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-72157095233653306502012-09-27T20:50:58.351-07:002012-09-27T20:50:58.351-07:00Excellent Analysis. I wonder to what extent the i...Excellent Analysis. I wonder to what extent the internal politics in China mandate will drive further conflict with outside parties including the USA.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12225762985803215454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-74148319277185714092012-08-20T17:14:49.627-07:002012-08-20T17:14:49.627-07:00Alright, here's where I show my ignorance--I _...Alright, here's where I show my ignorance--I _think_ I fixed it for Part IV--does it work?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08399019375564825616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-70656852780316299562012-08-20T07:08:39.805-07:002012-08-20T07:08:39.805-07:00You know you're a Great Power when: people con...You know you're a Great Power when: people consider your reaction to otherwise unrelated civil conflicts half a world away.Andrew Cloughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16396078934805156025noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-65085317481067252642012-08-19T22:16:11.639-07:002012-08-19T22:16:11.639-07:00You should fix your FeedBurner account too.You should fix your FeedBurner account too.Ryan Lackeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12398780958838174020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-83346446694598695472012-02-10T17:48:06.753-08:002012-02-10T17:48:06.753-08:00It's interesting, however we don't use the...It's interesting, however we don't use the terms Western Europe or Eastern Europe since the end of cold war. These terms are very vague, biased and even offensive, as they are used as (racist or diminishing) slurs, terms. Don't use them, unless you want to be perceived as an ignorant. Europe is re-uniting to fast to maintain this divide. Now we speak either about Europe as a whole, the European Union or specific countries. What you call V4 is actually not Eastern Europe but Central Europe.xxxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00386299048586727085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-70631579483349187062011-11-28T11:21:40.591-08:002011-11-28T11:21:40.591-08:00Kosovo is Serbia! It was, it is and it will be for...Kosovo is Serbia! It was, it is and it will be forever the heart of serbian nation! On the map shown here is the flag of self-proclaimed "Republic of Kosovo", a "state" made by terrorists "KLA" and NATO occupation forces. The goal of NATO bombing Serbia in 1999. was a brutal strike over sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia. Hence, I ask from the web administrator of this blog to remove this false map which hurts my national feelings because it shows my country crippled without our holy land, without out foundation stone, without our Kosovo and Metohia. Remove the flag of so called KOSOVO and be honest to yourself and to serbian people.Bloggdanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06640290319019619313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-27569344871603059852011-10-30T18:35:27.755-07:002011-10-30T18:35:27.755-07:00That should be Sunni.Also, I'll note that Al-Q...That should be Sunni.Also, I'll note that Al-Qaeda, a Sunni group which has the re-establishment of the caliphate as a goal, should not be expected to be chummy with Iran. <br /><br />In fact, according to <a href="http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/mborouje/PDFs/Joint20Experts.pdf" rel="nofollow">Ambassador James F. Dobbins, Former Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Representative to the Afghan opposition in the wake of September 11, 2001 </a><br />Iran financially supported our invasion of Afghanistan. This is actually pretty mundane: they just kept paying the Northern Alliance fighters whom they'd been supporting in pre-9/11 Afghan civil war.armorsmith42https://www.blogger.com/profile/07278742409654932803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-60018872454754127722011-10-30T18:32:20.700-07:002011-10-30T18:32:20.700-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.armorsmith42https://www.blogger.com/profile/07278742409654932803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-13566870947622551222011-09-30T01:03:20.364-07:002011-09-30T01:03:20.364-07:00"To keep the Middle East broken up and fractu..."To keep the Middle East broken up and fractured..."<br /><br />Do you mean "to keep our enemies in the Middle East broken up..." ?<br />Or is it actually our strategy to promote societal division? I should think and hope it isn't, as that seems like it would mean we'll continue to have to keep watch on it.armorsmith42https://www.blogger.com/profile/07278742409654932803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-681148865964431927.post-79790317905180448462011-02-09T04:49:57.359-08:002011-02-09T04:49:57.359-08:00I don't think anyone's arguing that histor...I don't think anyone's arguing that history wouldn't have been different if Lincoln hadn't been elected president. The victory of one political leader over another wouldn't ordinarily inspire secession, unless there was already something going on. In the same way, there was almost no evidence in the Gulf of Tonkin incident to show that we were being fired on -- not enough to start a war. <br />If Lincoln hadn't been elected, I'm sure South Carolina would have found something else to be upset about -- causing a, slightly different, Civil War.Ryan Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16327463942802669245noreply@blogger.com