What I’m saying is that “reaching out” makes it less likely there will be a successful coup. Russian generals don’t need Western guidance about what’s in their own best interest.
IANA economist, however, if Russia decided to go beyond a matter of weeks, would they have any more trouble financing a long war than Hitler’s Germany?
I certainly don’t think that we should do nothing.
I’m just pointing out that it’s a pretty delicate balancing act. Avoiding nuclear war is a pretty high priority, as that would pretty much mean the planet is done and worthless.
This was in response to the idea that Putin isn’t going to run rampage because there aren’t any “good options”.
I guess you misread my point. I didn’t say that we shouldn’t do anything about it, I was asking how far we are willing to go to defend it.
I think that Russia has a whole lot less to lose, so while I would call the US’s bluff to use nukes, I don’t know that I would call Russia’s.
That’s a bit less of defending NATO territory, and more an act of aggression against them. I don’t know how things play out if we defend Lithuania from Russia, but I would be very worried about how an escalation like that would work out.
Really, if we are going to do that, we may as well just lead in with a nuclear strike.
What would we do if Russia tried to turn our generals against the civilian government of the US? Do you think that we would have any better luck succeeding in the effort than they would?
To defend NATO, we are all in…IMHO. Whatever it takes.
Why would Russia have less to lose? I don’t think nukes should or would be a first resort, btw. And we wouldn’t be using them, we’d be fighting conventionally. And Russia has far more to lose, and in a way far less to lose in terms of raw military strength. They have thousands of planes and tanks, true…but not that many modern ones. And their pipeline for new ones is extremely small. Look at how many T-14’s they have managed to build, or Su-57’s. Or how many of their troops are still conscripts.
The shoe on the other foot scenario would be an American POTUS ordering an unprovoked invasion of Russia. If an insane US president gave a suicidal order, which is what an order like that would be, then yes, I would hope that our generals would launch a coup against such a POTUS, while also coordinating with Russia to let them know what’s going on so that they won’t launch.
Wheat seems like a product that can easily have delivery issues.
I’m told that bribery is popular in Russia and, I suspect, the heads of the remote territories are going to be more loyal to the guy paying their wage than the guy who’s the official leader of the land.
Except we pretty much did just that for 40 years or so during the Cold War.
While I partly agree in general that a lot of sanctions are more about saving face than accomplishing anything positive, I’d say the Iran nuclear deal was a success story for sanctions. The carrots in the deal for Iran were the lifting of sanctions basically and without them there would have been absolutely no reason for them to come to the table.
Do you realize what a serious breach of security that would be? He would see everything! He would see the big board!
Lifting of sanctions was part of it, but there was also a plan to allow Iran to move forward with civilian nuclear power projects, which had been completely stymied for years. That was a major concession that went beyond the typical economic sanctions.
But again, my point is: The government of Iran had no problem with just continuing the status quo of living under sanctions. The people making those decisions were not the people bearing the brunt of their impact.
This seems like an unfalsifiable statement given what happened. There were sanctions under Iran for a long time, the regime lived under them, then they negotiated and gave concessions in exchange for the easing of sanctions, now they live under renewed sanctions. So what was the scenario that would show that the government does care about sanctions? Would they have to have immediately capitulated at some point?
EDIT: does instead of doesn’t
It’s a drain on their economy, and a drain on public moral, both of which puts additional pressure on their people. They certainly can just grind through it…look at North Korea…but it seriously hurts their ability to do much. Look how long the Iranian’s have been working on getting a nuke. Not only do they have fine scientists, but they have had help from both China and Pakistan…and still they don’t have a nuke, though they have been able to build a fairly respectable missile program. But it’s stifled their ability to do much else and certainly made the regime unpopular with many Iranians.
In reality all Putin has to do is survive long enough for the next US elections. When Republicans sweep back into power in preparation for Trump’s reelection two years later, any significant US sanctions will be dropped at best and outright support for Putin at the worst.
Just to clarify, I’m agreeing that sanctions on Iran prior to JPCOA were effective. What I’m saying is that to argue that they weren’t effective, one would have to have a benchmark for evidence that would indicate the sanctions were effective.
As it is, it’s true that for many years Iran muddled through sanctions and it’s also true that during the Obama administration they negotiated and made concessions in exchange for the easing of sanctions. I don’t think simply saying that the sanctions weren’t effective because Iran muddle through them for so many years is a complete analysis.
As an aside, I think it can be a bit dangerous to try to draw too many conclusions about a country like Iran taking forever to develop nukes. There’s sometimes a bit of a dance where countries are afraid of some kind of more extreme response (I’d assume short of invasion, but bombing or assassinations or the like) if they go full throttle towards a nuke, but want to have enough of a program that other intelligence can pick up that they have a relatively quick breakout time if there was a crisis and they decided to ramp it up.
I think the most likely next move for Russia if NATO directly attacks a Russian city, is for Russia to detonate a nuclear bomb somewhere isolated enough that it doesn’t cause any casualties, but visible enough so the whole world can see it. After witnessing this, NATO backs the fuck off immediately and basically gets out of Russia’s way.
I agree that it’s more complex, and also varies from country to country as to how effective…or not…sanctions are. It also matters if the country being sanctions is able, for a variety of reasons, to get other countries to ignore or circumvent the sanctions.
Maybe. I can see both sides of this. On the one hand, they could be doing just what you say…trying just hard enough to have a program in place in case they need it but not wanting to rock the boat too much and cause another country to do something…precipitous. However, the fact they keep getting caught doing stuff, and the consequences of this have seriously hurt them, so I think that at some point fairly long ago they would have pushed through and simply built one. North Korea did, after all, and nothing bad (aside from draconian sanctions, that are somewhat mitigated by China but still hit hard) wrt invasions or bombs have happened to them. Of course, Iran doesn’t really have a China as a shield, so there is that.
There is more to the Iranian sanctions than meets the eye.
When Iran had their Islamic revolution and humiliated the US and the Carter presidency there were some outstanding deliveries of tanks and jets that had already been paid for under the Shah’s regime.
Ever since then then Iran has been trying to get the money back by arresting some innocent traveler and holding them hostage on some trumped up charges. Obama did some deals to get US hostages back. Currently British national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held like this for years.
Sanctions should be a diplomatic tool of last resort. Isolating countries means that they take desperate measures to get around the restrictions of being a financial pariah. North Korea is heavily into cyber theft. Which is probably goes into financing their missile program. All the while the poor people who live in those countries have a miserable life full of privations.
Russia could have been handled better after the collapse of the USSR. Putin clearly, never got over the humiliation and wants to go down in history as the great man who restored Russia’s rightful place in the world as a respected and feared superpower.
Putin has a lot of money in the bank and a huge, well equipped army. We will see whether he can carry Russia with him on this mad escapade.
Sanctions may make a dent in his bank balance or those of his supporters. Running an expensive army and trying to control a big country like Ukraine will probably run it down a lot faster.
Start shelling St. Petersburg from the Gulf of Finland. An attack on a NATO member is an act of war on all NATO members.
wouldn’t it be so much more productive (and peaceful) to “neutralize” the person in charge?
I am always reluctant to compare people to Hitler, but I see a similar constellation here … you take out the man and then start talking with the next generation…
thoughts?
If you mess up, Putin has nukes and knows where you live.
Our best bet, on the assassination front, would probably be something like a Jack Ruby situation: Some random guy with a gun and a love for Ukraine just happens to be there at a moment when he sees Putin out without much security and decides, “Fuck it.”
sure, but the same is true if you start shelling St.Peter or other “all in” scenarios mentioned above … so I’d discount that argument
why not get a small group of 3-5 committed ace-snipers in there … you just need a clear line of sight for a couple of seconds… might take days/weeks/months (depending luck) … but you will eventually get there …
a rather low price to pay vs. the other SHTF scenarios mentioned above
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