...? Finland and Sweden are "in the way", so to speak.
Russia Discussion
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...? Finland and Sweden are "in the way", so to speak.
These are all policies the US gets more out of than it gives.
Britain had moved a lot of troops in Scandinavian countries in 1945 specifically to stop the Russian expansion machine. There wasn't going to be an easy invasion in that area. Why fight the British when they could take countries that weren't protected?
No.
Check the Norwegian map on google for Kirkenes. It's my hometown. Norway still doesn't have any defense to speak of until you reach Tromsø, and it wouldn't be nearly enough to stop Russia. Northern Norway would easily be taken. On top of that southern Norway were busy with the Nazi-resistance so wouldn't have been able to mount any challenge against Russia if Russia decided to conquer us.
This has been local history and knowledge for the people in Kirkenes since that time, and it's still a big questionmark for those in southern Norway how much we trust the Russians to be good neighbors.
In either case, people to people exchanges are a good thing for all parties involved, except of course the dictators in autocratic regimes
Found your Soviet liberation monument... does the port freeze in the winter?
No. Think we have the northernmost port that doesn't freeze or something like that. Was someone arguing it as a reason why russia could have a interest in taking over the town (and a big portion of the 10k in Kirkenes and the surrounding area are Russians as well). But when it came down to it, they drove off the nazis away, went home and have enjoyed a very friendly welcome whenever they want to visit (less strict rules for people originally from Kirkenes to visit Russia and same for those from that area of Russia and over to Kirkenes). Funny thing is how much southern political figures talks negative about russia until they have the yearly-ish visit to Kirkenes where they have to admit they've been nothing but a good partner for us in the northern region.
Generations ago. Iran Contra was in the 80s, as was Panama.
A generation, not multiple. The fallout from both continued into the 2000s, and many people involved in Contra were re-hired by Bush Jr and IIRC some have found positions within the Trump admin (and also the Hillary campaign team).
The blockade of Cuba is ongoing. The (known) stuff in Colombia was in the 1990s. I forgot to add an attempted coup against Chavez, 2002.
That's an eternity in the modern political age. The U.S. has completely different leadership and social norms from even a decade ago.
Forgive them. They're unaware of your rule that once a new administration moves into the White House, all sins of the previous ones should be automatically erased from memory.
Well that's how it works I'm afraid. Obama had nothing to do with Bush's policy and Trump has nothing to do with Obama's.
Does that apply to Russia then? Once Putin leaves, it'll be a clean slate and Russia will have nothing to answer for. Good to know.
Obama era policy
Of course. I wouldn't expect the international community to burden Russia's next leader (especially if he is a Democratically elected one) with Putin's crimes.
John Bolton (Reagan, Bush 2) and Eliot Abrams (Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2) have both been considered for prominent roles by Trump. Mattis was promoted by Obama. Kelly was promoted by Obama. Elaine Duke was Dep Sec of Homeland Security under Bush 2 and Obama both...and promoted to Sec under Trump.
Obama continued with Bush's sec def, he continued with troops in Afghanstan and Iraq, he expanded intervention in other ME countries, he made expanded, continued, and codified Bush's war on terror, but he reached all those conclusions completely independent of the previous admin apparently...
Its pointless. If you truly believe that foreign policy is redrawn completely with every admin, there is no ground to debate with you since we probably won't agree whether the sky is blue.
Trump didn't hire either Bolton or Abrams so the comparison has no credibility.
Obama keeping on Bush's secdef had nothing to do with his own policies but rather to throw a bone to the opposition party that he is willing to work with them on policy. The Iraq war was ended under Obama and Afghanistan was severely curtailed after the initial build up. When I say foreign policy is different I don't mean it has been changed to conform with the political views of our resident forum leftists. It has however been reoriented to fit the political platform that each candidate ran on.
This is a pretty daft post. I said repeatedly it's not fair. It is the reality. Are you incapable of understanding the difference between fantasy and reality? Fantasy = everyone should be equal. Reality, Alexander Skarsgard that dreamy sob. Fantasy, Ukraine can chart its own course freely. Reality, Russia, those nasty sobs...
If you were unable to get that point, from my mini novel, sorry it was too complex for you. Feel free to return to whatever tra-lalala unicorns and butterflies world you live in.
You can stick your head in the sand, but that doesn't change reality. Ukraine gets to plot its course, only to a certain point. The moment they do something that their bigger brother feels threatens their national security, they cannot freely choose this path without consequences. For people who don't seem able to understand the difference between stating a fact and stating an opinion. My opinion is that is not a good situation, Ukraine SHOULD be able to plot their own foreign policy. Reality is they cannot without consequence because of their much larger and stronger neighbor who will view it as a threat to national security. That's the world we live in. Every country that lives next to a much larger and powerful country has to chart its foreign policy with this in mind.
The Canadian example is perfectly sound. The government type is irrelevant. If the government is anti-US, the government won't be tolerated. Period. Even more so if it is "commie".
The historical Russian identity is absolutely relevant. It gives you understanding into the mentality of the people, what they are willing to accept, and what they are willing to support. We're not talking about those other places, but I think you will find that these Ethnic Russians with close ties to their Russian heritage share the sentiment as well. If they didn't we wouldn't have Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic in Eastern Ukraine forming Nova Rossiya.
There's no sticking of heads in the sand. I just thought your point wasn't particularly compelling since its grounded in an archaic interpretation of international relations that is rejected by most in the present. Even if you were to use your logic towards Russia and Ukraine, you could easily say the U.S. as the world's most powerful state could enact similar pressures onto Russia both militarily, economically, and/or technologically to put them back in their place as an economy that is smaller than California. After all, the U.S. is the world's most powerful state and has interests to remain so, right ? Unfortunately, this sort of myopic reasoning completely misses the nuances of what is taking place at the sub state level in each country, as well as for broader changes in rules and norms that are currently taking shape across much of the world.
Also, Russian identity is no more relevant in Ukraine than American white identity movements are relevant in repelling other outside groups from making America a more heterogeneous country. Ultimately, the will of the people at the substate level takes precedence.
As for the Canadian example - its pretty limited since you are dealing with two contrasting systems and there are no contextual similarities between U.S. views on Canada and the Russian relationship with Ukraine.
Russia has enough nukes to wipe America off the map, military intervention is off the table. The US does use economic pressure against Russia, and no doubt the likes of NSA use their technology against them where they can. But as the recent election cycle showed, the Kremlin is also tech savvy enough to respond effectively in that arena.
No, because your post involves 3 paragraphs about why Russia is justified and at least morally equivalent (if not superior) to NATO in its actions, due to NATO's past transgressions and also Russia's defensive interests.
I am speaking against both those notions. Not because I will utter the words and the world will conform to my wishes, but especially as far as Russia's defensive interests because I think that argument is taken as too de facto and I don't agree that it makes much a difference to Russia if their sphere of influence borders Germany or just Belarus. It didn't seem to matter much when the Wermacht marched from Western Poland and Romania all the way to St. Petersberg, Moscow and Volgograd. It is especially irrelevant in the age of nuclear deterrent, much as I agree that the Cuban missile threat in the 60s wasn't a game-changer at the time.
In any case, I guess I now know who the resident realpolitik theorist of the Caf is. Hope we don't see you making any more moral arguments around the CE forum, that might get you kicked out of the realpolitik club.
The US doesn't use more than a tiny fraction of its capabilities. It could bring Russia to its knees from within days if it wanted to.
Eh. Is all of this really related to the Russia investigation.
And yet Russia was allowed to interfere in the US election practically free of consequence and now have a sympathiser in the white house.
I won't be chilling out anytime soon. On an actual serious note, don't come into this thread to stir the pot if you don't have anything substantive to offer.
Let's get back on topic.Well hypothetical dick waiving contests is not something I would call substantive either.
Now that I can agree with!
Nice! Personally, even though I despise current regime in Russia - I think U.S. is the last country out there that can moralise someone playing geopolitical games, interfering, intervening, and holding other countries sort of hostages. Funnily enough, U.S. doing exactly that currently as we speak (just last week Trump threatened smaller/poorer nations publicly) and less said about past goings the better, hence I can't understand your strong position on this as you outright are refusing to accept some valid points.
Edit: anyway I guess we have another thread for this, pardon for the off-topic.
Putin does not run Russia - there is a group behind him, he is just the public face of the regime to appeal to the masses.
If we look at US foreign policy since 2001 we might say the same.
If we look at the UK who do MI6 report to?
As one website I occasionally look on said, it's all corrupt gangs of insiders that run the show, they just have good PR machines.
If we look at US foreign policy since 2001 we might say the same.
If we look at the UK who do MI6 report to?
As one website I occasionally look on said, it's all corrupt gangs of insiders that run the show, they just have good PR machines.
Obviously Putin's in a position where he has to cater to the competing whims of many powerful figures within the country who are mostly behind the scenes, but Putin himself is one of those powerful figures and likely the most influential. To say there are people behind him is fair - to suggest he has no power whatsoever is a tad ridiculous.
This is some weird ass historical revisionism.
Stalin and Churchill famously divided Europe up between them, and Stalin held to the deal. Churchill even said so in his own autobiography, that Stalin held to the deal on everything they agreed on.
The idea that Stalin was an internationalist is absolutely false. Internationalism is the spread of Communism internationally by any means necessary. Stalin was a nationalist, he disbanded the Communist International. He didn't believe in expanding Communism. He didn't think communism made sense for any other country. When Greek communists rose up in Greece and had a very strong position to actually win, Stalin didn't help them, because 1) Greece was under the British sphere as per the Churchill agreement, and 2) He didn't believe in exporting communism.
At the end of WW2, when the Soviets occupied most of Eastern Europe, did they reclaim the portions of Poland that Poland took from them after the Russian civil war? Nope. Did they actually impose communist governments on ANY of the occupied countries? Nope. The communist governments came later, as a result of the US, French and British renegging on the agreement to disarm and de-industrialize Germany. The three western powers occupying Western Germany turned West Germany into their ally, and Stalin saw it as breaking the deal they all had regarding Germany as per Yalta, and he began to fear the imposition of pro-Western governments in the occupied territories. In reaction to this, YEARS after the war ended, the late 40's and early 50's he imposed communism. The Truman doctrine figured heavily into this as well.
Now, we shouldn't pretend that these were free countries, they were not. However, they were not overtly communist. They were typically coalition governments, with a dominant communist center that was pro-USSR. Once Stalin decided to impose communism governments in these countries, they became 100% communist, subject to the requirements of Moscow. Communism being imposed officially at the state level in Eastern and Central Europe was reactionary.
The history of the cold war, if you study history in a non-biased manner, is really a story of Russian/Soviet reactionary moves. Iron curtain, was reactionary to the west breaking the wartime pacts. WARSAW was in reaction to NATO. Cuba was in reaction to Turkey. There are very few incidences where the USSR was acting first, but rather reacting to a strategic situation they were behind on.
The amount of detail to really adequately explain and describe this aspect of the cold war could fill a book(s). The pretty simple fact is, internationalism in the USSR pretty much died when Stalin took power, and the Red Scare of the 50's and onward, about a communist world wide revolution supported by the USSR was a CIA fabrication to justify their own funding and military spending. It's really very interesting how a narrative can be shaped via control of the narrative.
I actually doubt that the US would beat the Russians if the US were to militarily intervene in say Ukraine. To quantify that, I think if the US committed to total war it would win eventually, simply due to demographics. However, a conflict would not be total, and the US would not be able to justify or sustain the rate of casualties it would take fighting Russia, on Russian turf. In a high tempo operation, the US would lose more people in a month, than it did in 10 years in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. People here consider THOSE casualty rates horrifying.
US military power is predicated on air superiority, complete air superiority. A few weeks of high tempo combat in Ukraine, and neither side would have many aircraft left to effect proper close air support, which is part and parcel with US infantry doctrine. All you need to do to see the difference in infantry doctrine between the US and the rest of NATO is to watch some youtube contacts from Afghanistan. US troops call in massive air support whenever they have contact with a couple of sheep herders on a hillside a kilometer away. All the other NATO countries can rarely rely on this level of support, so they are forced to rely more on actual infantry vs infantry engagements. The US has adopted this posture because 1) It can, and 2) It minimized the casualty risk on its own infantry forces. In effect, the US infantry doctrine is basically, move to contact, smoke the enemy out, and then schwack whatever shoots at them with overwhelming artillery and air support, then go count body parts (if there are any). The rest of NATO, all tend to have to shoot their way out of these situations far more regularly.
A high tempo engagement in Ukraine would result in massive air losses on both sides. We only need to look at the Israeli aircraft losses in Yom-Kippur to see what a high tempo air conflict would look like. Yea, it was 40+ years ago, but the relative effectiveness of aircraft and surface to air defenses/manpads is about the same. The losses incurred by surface to air weapons would be horrendous, and then you have the US slogging on the ground against another military force that is slogging on the ground. There is no absolute air superiority to prevent a high rate of infantry casualties. Likewise, we can look at the Israeli Hezbollah war a decade ago. The Israelies initially penetrated quiet effectively, but they quickly became completely combat ineffective and paralyzed operationally because their Merkava MBTs got shredded by Hezbollah fighters ambushing the Israeli tanks with RPG-29's and other modern Russian issue ATGM's that HAVE NOT been seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, OR Syria against coalition forces. Any such engagement would be incredibly costly in terms of blood and loot, and simply not justifiable, in the short term or long term. Short term, Russia would win, because victory for the US would require a much broader escalation, and that would be politically impossible to justify.
In short, the cost of victory would be so high, the US would never consider it in the first place. If you actually think the US could do to Russia what it did to Iraq in the opening nights of Iraq 2, you're insane and have absolutely no fecking idea what you are talking about regarding military capabilities of modern surface to air defense systems.
USSR support of JFK during his election, and their support of anti-western groups wherever America and NATO were active, and their support or non-Soviet communist governments suggests they were more than simple reactionaries. I don't think it's revisionism to suggest they would have invaded and taken more countries if they had the ability to do so. They were closer to the empires that had just fallen than any other form of governance.
You seem to be one of the many people who think of Scandinavia as one small country or think that British troops would have fared better in the cold in Finnmark. There is no need to discuss local history of my hometown with someone who knows feck all about it.
Finnmark, the region the Russians liberated from the Nazis, is large fields of snow and cold as feck. Its in fact so big that you can fit most of Southern Norway into the region. 48.5k square feet of freezing cold and far between the few village sized cities. The most British stuff we had up here was some fishers after the war. Again, there is nothing to defend Finnmark that would have a actual effect if the Russians decided to take over. Our king was in hiding and our government were a bunch of cowards who gave up on governing. Our military in and of itself is small, and back then it was as I mentioned 300 Norwegian soldiers and thousands upon thousands of Russians that worked for the liberation of the region I've lived in half my life.
"British sending some troops to Scandinavia" meant feck all for the perceived protection of Northern Norway. And even then the focus was fully in the south for Norway and its allies. Our alliance (excluding Russia) would have less troops, further to go to get the troops in position and would have had it much harder to repel the Russians in the north than the Russians would have to take the rest of Norway.
Keep in mind that we're talking about the kind of climate at times that made it impossible for the Germans to take over Russia. The kind of climate the more extreme-cold trained soldiers from the US come to visit, just to be made fun of by the local kids (aged 13-18) when they think it's too cold.
If the Russians during that time wanted to take over Norway, or even just today, Norway down to Tromsø would be taken fast as feck and would be insanely hard to recapture.
This is simply put stuff you have zip zero knowledge on and shouldn't even try to discuss as long as your arguments run around 'brits had troops in Scandinavia, hurr durr".
This is something I agree with to the fullest.
While I write these things I think it's also important to keep in mind that it doesn't make any action Russia do into something we accept or agree with, only that we trust them and value them as neighbors up in my region because they've proven through this part of history that they wouldn't take that opportunity to take us.
Norway is more allied with the US, and I have no problem with that. We have culturally more in common with the US than we do with the Russians. But we're geographically in a position where we have to take the power and proximity of the Russians into account when doing stuff internationally. It helps that we due to their liberation of Finnmark created a good partnership with the people in the north of Norway. Any party that would actively talk shit about Russians in historical context would lose almost all votes in Finnmark immediately due to how strong our history is with them.
When the nazis gave up on Finnmark (due to the Russians driving them away) they had built roads we still use today, but had also burnt down most houses. Russians not only helped us with liberation but many also helped us rebuild our region and to us (who are from or live in the region) we feel we owe the Russians to remember what they did for us.
Russia today couldn't touch Norway. Not because Norway is strong enough to reject them, but it would be geopolitical suicide. And it was the same story in the aftermath of WW2 as well. Fine, the British troops weren't invisible super soldiers, but they did have the backing of the only nuclear power at the time. Russia engaging those soldiers in combat would have brought a new level of hell on them. This was a time when even pacifists like Bertrand Russell were wavering on their ideals from fear of the bombs. Reckless territorial ambition would have been suicide.