The way I see it China does not want to sanction a breakaway. Can you say Tibet?
It looks like Russia may be invading eastern Ukraine now. While this thread has mostly degenerated into a den of 1980s era Russia apologists who are unashamedly regurgitating Kremlin propaganda what we’re simply seeing is Putin continually going to seize territory as he pleases.
I don’t think it’s worth it to fight over Crimea or even Ukraine, but a genuine fear is that weakness breeds strength in your enemies. Strength breeds overconfidence. Maybe Putin is an astute student of history and will rein himself in, but for me the true fear is he would make moves against Poland or one of the Baltic states and I don’t actually think the U.S. would allow that to happen without us actually entering a state of true war.
That’s why the job of the United States is to put some sort of speed bump in the form of economic/political pain in Putin’s way to let him know that there is a line he can cross that would lead to war. It’s not good for him to be aware of that line only after it has happened. I’d like to see us shift lots of troops into Poland, the Polish like us and would be glad of the troop presence and it’d shift the historical German “trip wire” deployments into Poland where they will be more relevant. We do have the resources for this by the way, with our vastly reduced overseas deployments even with planned Pentagon cuts we can certainly put a decent force in Poland and that should probably be the direction we take.
Or for the Taiwanese to start asking embarrassing questions.
I think China is genuinely disinterested. I think abstaining perfectly represents their position of wanting to continue building strong economic ties with the U.S. and I doubt they care enough about Russia’s desires for the economic backwater of Crimea so much that they want to take a strong pro-Russian stand on the matter. Philosophically they probably support the concept of reuniting parts of “greater Russia” with Russia itself, as that follows some of their local political positions in regard to “greater China.” But I think the Chinese don’t feel any need to come down on either side.
Overt support for Russia gives them nothing, and opposition to Russia gets them entangled in something they have no interest in.
The PRC is going to try and stay on the sidelines as long as they can.
There’s been an official press conference for tomorrow’s Crimean referendum. The report by The Guardian’s Shaun Walker is quite telling (and says a lot about the whole ‘Ukraine is governed by fascists and this referendum will challenge them’ bullshit)
So a Hungarian fascist as one of the observers, with a British fascist supporting the action from the sidelines. God help Ukraine.
I said Good Day, Sir!
My goodness. How did that happen with the complete breakdown of law that you talked about and fascists in charge of the government?
Cite?
cite:
cite #2:
Did you forget or something? Why ask for cites on your basic stance in the thread?
The illegality under some set of laws is completely irrelevant. If the laws are contrary to the will of the people, or of a workable solution then they can be disregarded until changed.
Legitimacy of the referendum is what we should have tried to accomplish. By making it fair and representative. I thought I had made that clear in my previous post that this is what I think should have been done.
No. Do you want me to repeat what I said? “Protesting lawless behaviour is only good when the laws are good and just. Whereas breaking bad laws - that is laws that are not wanted by the people - is neutral at worst.” That is what I said.
Laws against invading nations (if such exists) are simply nonsense. It’s way outside the scope of what a juridical system can deal with. Laws without a power to enforce them are just impotent letters on a paper. I think most people, also outside warlord Africa, would agree that there can exists no such meaningful laws and that many invasions have in fact been quite necessary. US invasion of Afghanistan for instance. French invasion of Mali. Soviet invasion of Nazi Germany, US invasion of Imperial Japan.
So what do you think of the international observers that Russia has invited, described above?
Link to article: Religious banners, Russian propaganda and ragtag militias herald Crimea vote | Ukraine | The Guardian
The Russian borders are what they are because the USSR collapsed internally, not because of any European power.
The sad fact is the EU is completely dependent on Russian natural resources for its survival, and this means what it means in terms of balance of power. Militarily speaking, Russia could really roll until the Atlantic unchecked. In fact they could just cut the gas and eastern half of Europe couldn’t even fuel their Armies.
The EU is just an extension of NATO. EU is completely dependent on the USA for its protection. But USA is getting out of Europe. They dont have the means to protect us anymore. US power has seriously eroded since the cold war.
Putin knew very well all these facts when he de-facto annexed Crimea. He knows EU is powerless. He knew USA would not intervene beyond sending their CIA advisors or whoever to influence.
What? Is it wrong to return the good-wishes, Sir?
Not in my culture. But if I’ve offended you, have a horrid weekend.
Better?
Sorry, but that is ludicrous. Germany is quite addicted to Russian fuel, but hardly going to crumble if they have to pay more from a different supplier. And saying “natural resources” is grossly overstating Russia’s exports. It’s gas and oil.
Also, nukes. Europe has nukes. And American military bases.
Redfury: It’s a joke. You say “Good day, sir” to indicate you are done talking. If the other person tries to talk again “I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!”. I was playing on your "end of hijack"s.
It’s plainly obvious that I’ve been talking about constitutional law. But that wouod be context. I praised the work of Ukraine’s police to arrest right wing extremists and needed to diss it on entirely out of context reading of my arguments posted many times on this thread.
I’ll keep it in mind.
This entire crisis can be laid firmly at the door of the West and NATO. In 2008 NATO made it clear to Ukraine that it “will” be allowed to join NATO At that time Putin indicated that this would be the last straw. NATO, despite assurances to Russia that it would not, has continued to expand eastwards. Putin saw the hand of the West in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he also believes that Western influence has been busy in Russia financing and encouraging his opponents. He’s in all probability right.
We could have made an ally of Putin and Russia, the opportunity was there as also was a willingness on Putin’s part to act with us rather than against us That opportunity has been squandered by the militarists and expansionists in NATO and Western capitals. They made this bed for us and now we are forced to lie in it.
No need for you to repeat it. It is on the last few pages of this very thread. Allow me to recap:
Laws against one country invading another does seem to exist, though. And be enforced, if spottily. You seem to be arguing that Russia can invade the Ukraine because no laws exist, or should exist, or shouldn’t matter because previously, some nations have gotten away with it so now others are entitled to as well. You seem a bit unclear on that point.
I’d also point out the examples of Afghanistan, Imperial Japan and Germany, all of which got invaded because they did not respect interantional agreements about armed actions in another country. Didn’t work out so well for them.
Meknows. I was just extending it a bit. Guess it works best leaving Monthy Python alone.
Good night, Sir!