look at the civilian casualties in the Chechen war. look at the all the political opponents of Putin who have been assassinated or poisoned with dioxin. look at the apartment bombings in Moscow. look at the crackdown on media, internet. look at the installation of new laws making it a crime to "insult" Russia. Putin is following in the path of Herr Hitler.
Putin stopped the Chechen war. There were causalities before Putin came to power, Yeltsin is responsible for these casualties, but Yeltsin is still loved in the West and called "good democrat". You have not named any name, you are just making statements without any proves. Do you have any proves that this has anything to do with Putin? Some people believe that JFK was killed by Mossad agents, and that they did 911, to involve USA in wars for Israel. But there is no prove for these allegations, and these theories are still called "conspiracy theories". The same with the theories that you are hinting to. Do you have any proves that this has anything to do with Putin? You have not named any media, you are just making statements without any proves. You have not named any laws, you are just making statements without any proves. Associating somebody with Hitler is not a valid argument, it is just an attempt of character assassination. BTW, wishing death to a public person is a violation of the rule of this forum.
suggesting someone is suicidal, is a personal attack. if you like I can report it and we will find out.
The US can't defend eastern Europe or Ukraine. If the Russians really wanted to take the Baltic states, Poland, Finland, Ukraine and Moldovia they could, nothing the US could do about it. My guess is though the Russians don't want to take any country, just gain economic, political and culture means to manipulate those countries as Russia needs so they can't threaten Russia or be using by greater powers to do so. Russia want buffers in the West and South of Europe so it can put all it can into blocking the Chinese in Central Asia and the Fast east, to a lesser extent Russia is also worried about Japan.
If asked to protect these nations from hostility, the United States most certainly could "Do something about it" and probably would, to the detriment of Russia....if not the removal of the country from the world stage. Putin likely does not wish to begin a new world war (which he would be doing), if only because he knows it would be the end of everything he is attempting. Should the western alliances decide to do so....they could decimate Russia quite handily.
Putin's domestic policies are miserable failures, hence the tactic of inciting Russian nationalism to focus attention elsewhere. McCain was right when he said Russia was a gas station pretending to be a super power, or whatever the statement was exactly. So, yes, Hitler's policies are an accurate analogy. However, $1 billion is just a political gesture; it doesn't go anywhere re real defense, so I wouldn't gush over that just yet. The U.S. public is increasingly going isolationist, which will almost inevitably lead to bigger wars overseas. The 'elites' can stave that off for a while, but not forever. Europe would be doing itself a favor if it re-armed its own militaries as much as possible now; it will be harder in the future to do so. We're in a Depression here, as far as the real domestic economy goes. nobody wants to admit that, and social programs like Social Security, food stamps and the like make it somewhat invisible to the Burb Brats and 'Wall Street', but those are getting harder and harder to fund; they, like wages, lag far behind the 40 years or so of inflation. I just drove by long lines of waiting people at the weekly food bank truck that sets up on Saturdays yesterday; the news media never finds that 'newsworthy', and this is in Texas, whose politicians have been bloviating endlessly over how 'well' the Texas economy is going compared to the rest of the country ...
Generally true. However, Putin would take other countries in a heartbeat if he thought it viable; he's already proven that beyond a doubt. Most imperialistic empires start out small, after all, taking small weaker neighbors one by one. Given Russia's history, it never mattered what sort of domestic policies it ever had, they've always been expansionist, whether under Czars or 'Communists', or the likes of Putin. I don't see that ever changing, even if Putin gets tossed over. It's been an historical constant for centuries. I'll add that wars in the future will more resemble WW I than WW II, precisely because of not only nukes but the massive destructive powers of modern conventional arms. Both preclude the concentrated massing of troops and materiel that characterized the fluidity of WW II battles and offensive drives.
Putin would like Estonia, Georgia and Lativa. More to protect his oil exports than anything territorial. Western territorial expansionism has saved Russia a number of times, it works. However they don't want a long border with another great power. They want nutural or pro-Russian buffers. I think the Russians have learned the lessions of Sweden, Poland, Germany and France. Don't have a border, have a buffer. I can't say I have any idea of modern military tactics or detailed military strategy. I do think however that it will come down to command and control, rather than any weapon or tactic. One thing is for sure the Russians far out do any European military in numbers and military production. So if the Europeans want to protect themselves they need to improve.
So what happens when Russia cuts of all oil and gas supplies to Europe and Turkey, mines the Bosphorus and Skagerrak strait? Starts blowing up Norwegian and British oil rigs? What is the US going to do about, nothing it can't do anything. The Germans would likely block US efforts to move supplies to Germany so they keep their gas and the US is forces to find another way. This other way will take months to sort out by which time the Russians will me all over map. Sure the US has a couple divisions in Germany and the UK has some brigades, but they can't be resupplied without going through Germany. The best the US could do is retreat back to the GIUK gap, France and the Mediterranean to plan the counter attack. Of course there is little doubt the US could force the Russians out, however it would take years of fighting. The US just can't defend eastern Europe currently.
No, Europe is still far from being self sufficient about its defense. If we think to the necessary capability to project power, today UK hasn't got carriers in service [have you read well? The Royal Navy hasn't got carriers in service, incredible!] and the coming new carriers [Queen Elizabeth Class] don't promise to be extraordinary. Having abandoned the CATOBAR configuration [because of costs] those carriers will need F35B and they will be comparable with the Italian Cavour [which is in service]. With Italy, only France can deploy naval battle groups. Underwaters, the nuclear British subs are still at the top. Last German U-boats [acquired also by Italian Navy] promise well [silent propulsion a part, they have got also systems able to use missiles to hit air target when they are underwater] and they are embedded in battle groups as escort. In the air there is still a lot to do: the fact that the Eurofighter project and the parallel one [the French out, they have developed he Rafale] have absorbed a lot of money have put EU governments [and we are also in a bad economical period] in the position to have to limit F35 program. So in case of war against Russia, we could send our stealth ["our", a construction site is just here in Northern Italy] planes to attack them ... but preying that anti-stealth Russian systems don't work ... otherwise ... no money to substitute them!
There is very little doubt that pretty much all EU and NATO countries would be allied with the United States against a Russian land grab (especially after requesting our assistance), and once Russia was on it's knees any resources would become available to the rest of Europe. United States forces could place a couple dozen carrier groups in the black sea, Eastern Russian coast, Atlantic seaboard, and commit military power to many NATO countries as well as advanced missile defense and offensive capabilities. This could take place over the long term (years)....or if critical within months. Short of Russia enacting a full scale invasion and using nuclear options there is literally no way they could succeed, let alone survive.
Me either; I got the WW I vs WW II comparisons from military analysts' essays. This was an observation made back in the 1970's, and when you go back and look at OB's and deployments, that was what was being planned on, both NATO and the Soviet deployments, delay and then Operation Reforger following up.
That would be the easiest and preferred situation for Putin, no doubt, but the success of that depends on how the locals take to being sat on and extorted. As we've seen in Ukraine, when the locals object, they get occupied. Europe has already been reducing its dependence on Russian gas, quite substantially, but still have a long way to go yet. This is causing some real problems for Putin, since he needs to sell all he can to keep up his military budget and his cronies in style. Ironically, this instability may also tip the Russians over into war as well, given his domestic situation. All those deals the papers make out to be huge are relatively small potatoes, and spread out over decades, and still dependent on multinationals like Exxon to succeed to boot. The '$90 billion' deal for instance is over 20 years, less than $5 billion a year averaged. This isn't even equal to the size of the pet food industry in the West, much less make up for the loss in declining European sales. It doesn't look good at this point.
The new UK carriers will be very cheap though and far more capable than Cavour or the Invincible class. The main issue isn't the F-35B, but the Merlin AEW helicopter. That is the real problem. The UK also does have the best AAW ship in Europe with the Type 45 and the still rather capable Type 23 and HMS Ocean. The main problem is France and Italy both have navies based in the Mediterranean, it would take some weeks to get the UK, France, Italy and Spain's ships together and operating. Also underwater operations are very hard if you are dealing with one country, dealing with 4 different countries trying to do the same thing it would be almost impossible. As we saw in WW2 with ABDA. The Europeans need to increase training with each other, but they don't have the budgets to do so. Norwegian submarines are poor, the Germans only have 6 submarines or 2-3 operational, Dutch submarines are ok. So that means 22 submarines in the North sea, sounds good if they were all part of the same countries navy.
A little off-topic, but the French had to bum rides for their ground forces and deployments to Mali from the U.S., threatening to take Putin's offer to ferry them over to extort a ride, and then some French officer or diplomat or somebody made the absolutely hilariously pompous announcement that 'France stands alone at the front in the war on terror' or something to that effect a while back. Mali is now safe for the Red Chinese to buy the rest of it up now. Go France! lol ...
Yes. I don't see any diplomats in Europe with the genius of a Bismarck or the cunning of a Kissinger to put together that sort of unity in the EU, though. The UK is about the only country in Europe with the operational level people with the practical skill sets to coordinate and make an effective force out of all that at the moment that I can see, but that's an opinion based on little fact, just hunches about the rest of the EU member govts.. Brits don't seem thrilled by the EU and the feeling seems mutual from the news that reaches over here, and nobody seems to be wild about Merkel, either.
France alone will not go far ... If you remember which kind of civil units [cargo] the Royal Navy had to use to project its power in occasion of the war of Falklands ... you will realize that in general EU fleets are simply unsuitable for similar purposes. Reality is that today the only Navy on this planet really able to project a considerable force is the American one. Actually I was not making reference to the eventuality of an invasion or a wide landing, I was making reference to strategical operations during a conflict. Europeans have lost the curious habit to conquer far lands ...
I think the EU and NATO is much of the issue. The US safe guards mean the UK spends less and less on defence than it should as well as the US government not wanting the UK to improve its capabilities to challenge the US control of the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. I have been saying for years that we need to improve our independent capabilities to combat the Russians in the North Sea. People just said I was stupid and the Russians are no threat, they have changed their tune now. As for the UK being the only country with skills, I am not so sure. We haven't operated independently of without the US since Suez. I still think the Royal Navy is highly capable, it just doesn't have the independent experience of the US to control large numbers of ships at once. The Falklands was for the most part an ill thoughtout campaign and badly put into action, dispite the UK navy on paper being far superior to Argentina. In case you haven't noticed the UK is very good at turning bad campaigns and even defeats into great victories like Rorkes drift or Dunkirk, the Falklands is no different. So I don't think the UK or any European nation has the skills need to form a joint operations taks force and make it work, and I don't think any single European navy could defeat the Russian navy. I would likely say the Royal Navy should not even bother trying to fight the Russians on its own. It should sail to Halifax to joinup with the Canadian and US fleets to plan the counter attack. As for the EU it depends where you live and what business you are in and people don't like that Germany now has economic control of the EU, it isn't really Merkel.
Nonsensical comment given Britain's traditional high military burden and the severe negative effect it has on its economy
The UK current spends 1.9% of GDP on defence. 3.65% in 1990. What do you mean traditional high military burden? What severe negative effects on the economy?
The UK has a history of above average burden rates. This has had negative growth effects, with the shortage of scientists and engineers skewed towards the inefficient military sector
