We can not fucking do any fucking thing militarily versus Russia vis-a-vis Ukraine.

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Tue Mar 4, 2014, 01:11 AM - Edit history (3)

The world is not a fucking comic book or inspirational film about bullying, or about high school football teams that beat the odds.

Absent the use of nuclear weapons to obliterate Russia's ability to project military force (and the consequent destruction of many American military assets along with most large American cities) there is not a god damned fucking thing we can do to make Russia leave Crimea via military force.

Everyone talking about Munich and resolve and diplomatic memoranda and our national "face"... grow up. Really. Grow the fuck up.

We cannot sensibly militarily confront Russia in the field for any reason short of the very existence of the USA. Actual existential threat.

Because a real conflict with Russia would be like shooting ones self through the head in hopes the bullet goes out the other side of your head and hits the bad guy. The response to existential threat is, itself, an even worse existential threat.

There are things we cannot do. Perpetual motion machine. Trisecting an angle with only compass and straight-edge. Imposing our will through military force in keeping Russia out of some contiguous real estate.

Similarly, there is nothing Russia can do to prevent us from annexing Tijuana that does not end up with Russia being nuked. That's the catch... that does not end up with Russia being nuked.

It sucks, but for folks who missed the cold war, that's the name of the game. Either side can do anything short of what the other side considers worth getting nuked over.

Our nations are self-designed, as regards each other, to be doomsday devices. The trip-wire nature of the thing is intentional, because neither is going to back down versus the other so the losing side would always make the "stand your ground" play and go for the big gun. And that is why even trivial US-Russia military dust-ups are out of consideration... we all know the ending.

Could economic power encourage Russia to stay in its boundaries? Perhaps. Military force from the USA? No. In an extreme instance we maybe could have another proxy war where one side has boots on the ground and the other side supplies weapons to some other side. (e.g. US in Vietnam, USSR in Afghanistan)

The US military is not going to shoot a Russian soldier, asset or location. And visa-versa.

The logic of nuclear arms precludes dealing with nuclear powers with the means to reliably deliver those bombs here (unlike Pakistan and North Korea and such) like we deal hapless non-nuclear states. Russia is not Iraq or Syria or Grenada or Panama.

It is Russia.

Since we and Russia got nukes we just flat don't allow a situation where US and Russian soldier are in armed opposition, let alone either side dropping any bombs on the other's territory or military assets.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. putin lover.

[L0oniX]

8. ...and Obama hater.

[NuclearDem]

57. You would say that, Comrade Warren.

[brush]

77. What does your post mean?

The OP is pretty spot on. We certainly can't get in a military game of chicken with the Russians to see who blinks first.

Putin has to be dealt with but not with "boots on the ground".

I want the planet to survive a few more millennia — sans nuclear attacks and nuclear retaliation attacks.

[Warren Stupidity]

78. It means that everyone not with the war party

is a Putin loving commie rat bastard etc.

Haven't you been paying attention?

[brush]

79. Just wanted to be clear

that you didn't mean the the poster was a Putin lover.

Thanks for adding what you did in this post. I didn't understand your first post mean the opposite of what it seemed.

[bvar22]

80. Try this:

They are evil dictators who kill their own people !
If you're not FOR the WAR in
Vietnam
Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya
Syria,
[font size=5]The Ukraine[/font]

you're WITH
The Communists
AlQaeda
The Terrorists
Saddam
Qaddafi
Assad
[font size=5]PUTIN!!![/font]

Evil Dictators!
Freedom Bombs!
Booga...Booga
USA....USA...USA

[/font]

Same people
Same Shit
Different Bag

[lostincalifornia]

2. No shit

[FarCenter]

3. It is not true that the Americans have never fought Russians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_Siberia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Bear_Expedition

[cthulu2016]

5. The OP is about the post-nuclear world, but

But I'll add that qualification to the OP

[dannward]

17. My dad's uncle died in AEF Siberia

My father's uncle, Lt. Albert Francis Ward, was killed in the Siberian expedition. As you note, most Americans don't know the history of the AEF.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. There you go again...

injecting reality into the conversation.

Folk, this is reality, not a game of Risk.

[Scootaloo]

32. Risk? Some people are in full Red Dawn mode!

[L0oniX]

6. One is either for democracy or isn't. There are democratic ways to remove a president.

A mob takeover is not democratic. Is the US for democracy or not?

[JaneyVee]

9. One can be for democracy and against war.

Like our founders.

[L0oniX]

11. Ukraine's president was democratically elected.

Like him or not he should only be removed democratically. I wish we could have removed Bush by force without democracy but that's not how we doing things. You can't be for freedom and democracy and then back rebels who oust a democratically elected president by force. Just my opinion. Cheers.

[JaneyVee]

13. Oh ok, I thought you were advocating for US military intervention.

[L0oniX]

14. No way ...peace all the way.

[JaneyVee]

15. !

[sabrina 1]

20. There's a reason why people choose coups over elections. The Ukraine election was coming up in

a year. Yanukovich had agreed to make it earlier.

If the 'protests's were widely supported across the country, they would have waited. They couldn't wait because they knew the people might not elect who they wanted.

Ukraine appears to have a problem with corruption in their government. Not just this one. And not just the Ukraine. In Iceland, eg, when Wikileaks leaded information on the corruption in the banks, they also revealed corruption in the government. Iceland acted on those leaks, arrested the crooked bankers and the crooked politicians. But since the rest of Europe and the US chose NOT to do the same, we will never know the extent of the corruption throughout Europe, although we do know some of it.

Coups rarely end well for a country. Elections provide a better chance to get more honest leaders. Ukraine's Kiev government is already being called illegitimate in other parts of the country. Anyone too blind to expect this is certainly not fit to lead a country. The only way this new government can control the country now is by FORCE.

It should surprise no one that McCain was over there egging on this coup. That should have been enough to warn the world that nothing good was going to come of this.

[Scootaloo]

33. I think you got that backwards...

Seeing as our founders concocted a bloody revolution in an effort to evade taxes, and then came up with a government system expressly designed to be undemocratic for people who were not white male landowners of means and education.

[Cheese4TheRat]

38. Actually the Boston Tea Party was in protest to the lowering

of tariffs on British Tea. The high tariffs allowed our fledgling tea industry to be competitive.

You might say our for fathers were against a NAFTA/TPP model of "free" trade.

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. He was impeached and fled the country.

Characterising it as a "mob takeover" is wilful denial of fact.

[2banon]

22. Yeah, that's what's weird, he could have stayed.

why didn't he?

[Spider Jerusalem]

27. Because he knew he'd be put on trial for ordering violence against protesters, probably.

Prison and possible execution vs life as a guest of Russia in some dacha somewhere; not a hard choice.

[joshcryer]

51. The trial would've been about his theft of billions as a rich oligarch.

As opposed to him ordering protesters killed, he very likely made sure there was no connection to him with that order being made.

He couldn't cover up his billions. The only way to keep it up was to align with oligarch filled Russia.

[sabrina 1]

29. Half the country and Crimea are calling the 'new' government illegitimate. Huge anti Kiev

demonstrations are taking place now in the South and Eastern parts of the country. How will this government control this kind of unrest? There is only one way, by force. And if they do that, there will be a civil war there. The idiots are not doing anything to unite the country either. Passing laws already trying to change the language law already in place has incensed large parts of the population. It doesn't sound like these 'rebels' are too smart.

We have no business there. The EU, Russia and Ukraine are going to have to work this out. They could start by making sure the neo-nazi contingency remains very far in the background.

All the sound and fury here means nothing. The EU is not as anxious as some here to go charging to war with Russia. They get at least one third or more of their oil from Russia and have to consider the ramifications if they were to start any conflict there or even to try to impose sanctions.

If you're going to play chess, you need to have good strategy which means being able to anticipate what the result of your moves might be. I believe the EU is far more aware of what might happen if they listen to the Neocon Warmongers here. The world doesn't need a third world war, although the neocons are probably salivating at the thought. It will be Western Europe and the US against the rest of the world. China has already weighed in on Russia's side. We don't have many friends in Latin America or the ME.

We should leave it to those whose business it is and stop running around the world talking about 'punishing' world leaders, it makes us look like ignorant bullies and sure hasn't solved many problems so far after 13 years of neocon wars.

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. He was removed by a vote of 328 to 0.

That looks fairly "legitimate", from here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26304842

And the law changing the status of Russian was actually vetoed by the new president, in case you weren't paying attention.

[sabrina 1]

43. You left out quite a bit that took place before the 'vote'. Thanks, but coups are not democratic

and never end well. The very FACT that these morons even tried to pass such a law, which btw, people here were denying yesterday, maybe they should stop watching the Corporate Media and find some actual news sources, shows how unfit they are to be part of any new government.

Of course parliament had to vote to end the violence, but when so much violence with outside influences, and don't even bother to deny it, causes so much unrest, and it did and it has and will continue to do so, there is no legitimacy there. Which is not up to us, it will be determined by the WHOLE country, not just the protesters in Kiev.

[Spider Jerusalem]

44. "Violence with outside influences"?

You mean like what Russia is doing? Is Russia not an outside influence?

[sabrina 1]

70. An interesting thought, all this violence has given Russia an excuse to

'protect Russian nationals'. I hadn't considered it, but until the fall of the government, the proposal of laws bound to anger a large part of the population by the new government, Russia had no excuse to increase its troop presence in Crimea.

Who knows, maybe this has all been in the interests of Russia? Seeing the IMF and World Bank Reps arrive almost as soon as the Government fell was bound to anger those who did not support being enslaved to the policies of Austerity. Brilliant, so you think Russia was behind all this knowing the EU would jump in to put the country under the thumb of the IMF, wait to see the opposition to Ukraine ending up like Greece and all the other failed economies forced to accept Austerity?

It's a bit of a stretch, but who knows? One thing is certain, so far Russia is definitely taking advantage of the situation and if the goal was to place Ukraine under the EU's austerity programs, and it was NOT Russia who instigated the overthrow of the government, whoever planned it doesn't seem to have considered the advantage it might provide to split the country politically.

I doubt it, but anything is possible. Playing chess on other countries' territory by powerful interests isn't new.

[malaise]

54. That simple

It's almost hilarious watching one side cheering on protestors seizing buildings but now condemning 'militia' on the other side for doing the same thing.

What I love is how it's protestors and militias and not mobs of both sides.
When you reach my age you laugh and then scream because the gullible are still buying the bullshit.

[Progressive dog]

83. So you are against protests. nt

[L0oniX]

85. Oh ...your still here.

[Progressive dog]

86. So you are against protests and

don't want to admit it.

[L0oniX]

88. Seeing shit that isn't being said? Hmmm... You don't live in Colorado do ya?

I imagine there's some excellent weed there.

[Progressive dog]

89. You called them mobs,

remember?

[L0oniX]

90. Oh you equate mobs as being protests? Protests are usually organized somewhat.

what ever.

[Progressive dog]

92. No, You equated the protests in Ukraine with mobs

and are now trying to pretend you didn't.

[L0oniX]

93. Some people are always trying to start shit.

[Progressive dog]

95. Yes they are, probsbly too

much RT and Fox news.

[fujiyama]

7. Thank you!

It's like these people are living through a half century vacuum between the beginning of WWII (where conveniently it's forgotten we won it by dropping two fucking nuclear bombs) and the end of the Cold War (where the shadow of annihilation hung over the world due to the superpowers having such weapons).

It's been a very difficult and long road to get both countries to reduce these stockpiles, but they still exist and both countries have a lot.

So no, there won't be a shooting war. That's just fucking nuts. It didn't happen in the fifties, or the sixties, or even the eighties during the reign of Reagan.

So sorry Dr. Strangelove proteges, you won't get your war.

[freshwest]

18. +1,000. As good a rant as the OP. Thanks. n/t

[amandabeech]

26. The European war was not won by dropping nuclear bombs.

There are many people here on DU who will argue until the next millennium that the allies did not have to drop those two bombs on Japan to get it to surrender.

Just a small point.

[Cheese4TheRat]

40. Dresden received the equivalent amount of explosive force through carpet bombing.

The citizens simply died through different means.

[MillennialDem]

60. So what, the reason for Hitler's defeat was ultimately his lack of ability to

knock out Moscow early in the war, then his inability to keep the Red Army from pushing into Berlin. The US and UK only hastened the loss or made it inevitable rather than just "extremely likely".

[Cheese4TheRat]

72. I was merely pointing out the amount of ordinance dropped that was non nuclear.

You can kill just as many without the bomb as with, and we did.

[starroute]

48. No, the European war was won by the Russians

The US showed up late to the party and carried maybe a quarter of the load at best. Meanwhile, the Russians were breaking the back of the German military at a heartrending cost.

[MillennialDem]

61. It's not even that much for the US and UK

Something like 80-85% of the German casualties were caused by the Soviet Union.

In fairness though, Soviet Union not Russia. Many Ukranians and Belarusians (and many, many others) rather than just Russians.

[Katashi_itto]

10. Well said.

Bunch of morons on DU who think going toe-to-toe with Russia is a doable thing.

[L0oniX]

12. It's the Dr Strangelove club. They have their own Star Chamber too I guess.

[backscatter712]

81. Gotta protect those precious bodily fluids!

[ManiacJoe]

16. That is not entirely true.

A limited conventional assault, similar to what was done in the Gulf War I, is an option available to the USA. Our logistics would dictate that it be a limited mission. Its success would be judged by how much military damage Russia was willing to absorb, and they have lots of room for absorption and short logistic lines.

Pressing any attack into Russia after Crimea would not work well. However, both nuclear powers are smart enough to stay away from WMDs.

"Trivial US-Russia military dust-ups" happen quite frequently.

[fleabiscuit]

23. Jesus Christ on a crutch.

Normally I might think that is the most ignorant thing I have read today, but unfortunately it isn't thanks to the current crop of nutfucks in the Republican House and Senate.

I think the Russians just did a "limited conventional assault." Next!

[TheKentuckian]

31. No it isn't you are missing the underlying plot that this isn't Iraq

and a direct act of war against Russia carries a seed of existential risk of escalating to the World War III.

Your calculation depends real heavily on Russia sucking it up and us not crossing a precise line. A lot of risk, foolhardy.

You are way out of context, we can't do shit and may as well get on with our strongly worded letter. Europe will keep buying their oil, we'll pout and wring our hands, and life will go on as it has.

How were we held accountable for Iraq? Exactly.

Russia MIGHT have to exercise it's UN veto and maybe a G8 protest shunning and that will be it. I'll give you the outside chance of a good old fashioned proxy war, perhaps Syria but I would deny that as well if at all possible, damn stupid waste of blood and treasure for a pissing contest.

[Ed Suspicious]

46. A new proxy conflict coming to a theater near you. One could easily see that happening.

[dionysus]

34. yeah.. how bout we don't test that theory, Joe?

[sabrina 1]

36. Are you serious? 'Our logistics would dictate that it be a limited mission'. And Russia would just

sit there and watch our 'logistics' falling on their troops. Russia DOES have weapons to adequately defend itself. It would have to be more than 'limited logistics' to win any fight with Russia.

I sure hope we have people in charge who are not so stupid as to confuse Russia with a disarmed Iraq and who note that even a disarmed Iraq could not be defeated with more than limited logistics.

[Scootaloo]

39. Wow. I've got to second Fleabiscuit. That's pretty ignorant

Our "limited conventional assault" against Iraq had a few things going for it.

1) It wasn't just us. We had actual and consistent international backing.

2) Iraqi forces had just crawled out of a decade of war with Iran that left them in a stalemate position. Not exactly a great condition. Also the entire Russian army was equipped with shit Russian hand-me-downs from the mid-70's.

3) Almost the entire Iraq army was occupying Kuwait, and there was only one road out - they were sitting ducks (look up some images of Highway 80 to see what I mean - I'd post some but I've been accused of "appealing to emotion" when I do )

4) Saddam really, truly was not expecting the US to do anything. we'd been patting his ass so long and had told him before that we didn't give a good ratshit about Kuwait - and truthfully we didn't give a good ratshit about Kuwait, Kuwait was well-fucked by the time we got involved; because some Iraqi soldiers engaged Saudis at the border and rolled across Saudi territory.

5) Iraq had absolutely no way to hit us back. They could hit Israel with scuds, but that doesn't actually count.

6) We were able to institute a no-fly zone in northern and southern Iraq easily because, you know, Iraq's not very big.

Absolutely none of this applies at all to the situation in Ukraine vs Russia. None. We'd be going at it unilaterally - the EU isn't with us, nor is the rest of NATO even. Russian military forces are current and fresh. Only a small portion of that force is represented in Crimea. we've certainly made enough noise about it, and our bad habits in recent years likely have the Russians on alert just in case. And Russia can hit us back and will do so effectively - likely in as much a "limited" scale as we hit them with (it won't feel very limited, i assure you). We will further be unable to exert any territorial control over Russia due to, first, Russia being huge, and two, the fact Russia can shoot back.

So... yeah, you might as well be drawing comparisons to the Falklands or the War of hte Roses or something for all the relevancy this has.

[2banon]

96. Well Said, Scootaloo

[Cheese4TheRat]

42. Sure glad you aren't involved in national defense.

Any shooting war between two nuclear powers will end in a nuclear exchange, especially if we are involved, because the first nuke is always the hardest, and we leaped that hurdle almost 70 years ago.

[Ed Suspicious]

45. Dear god, this is fucking scary that Dems are all riled up to kick off some mutually assured

destruction. Playing with fire. What's the result of that? ManiacJoe is an apt moniker on this train of thought.

[Ed Suspicious]

47. I just cannot get over how much that sounds like something Bill Kristol would say.

[mazzarro]

50. This is truly a maniac thought - if I may say so -- n/t

[ManiacJoe]

52. I have to hand it to you folks. These responses are a riot!

You all make it sound like a land invasion into Russia is the goal of any military options.

Glad you all are not in charge!

[Katashi_itto]

53. You watch to many movies.

[Warren Stupidity]

58. You need to be in the first wave.

[L0oniX]

67. Calling Dr Strangelove ...Dr Strangelove ...wanted at the ICBM launch pad.

[Capt. Obvious]

71. Um, do you remember what happened last time?

They coordinated with selective nuke strikes and the missiles were a helluva lot more accurate than we thought. They took out the silos here in the Dakotas, key points of communication.

[NuclearDem]

74. Yeah, I remember. That was the time I had to piss in the radiator.

[mr blur]

91. Team America, World's Police, eh?

Ra! Ra! USA!

[MannyGoldstein]

21. Who's yer daddy?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

25. You afraid of saggy man boobs?

[MannyGoldstein]

64. I scream in terror when I see them

Every morning while shaving.

[chrisa]

66. I always pretend that's a picture of a mother about to feed her cubs.

"Kids, dinner's here! We're having 'idiot' for supper!"

[joshcryer]

24. We could lend intelligence.

[Warren Stupidity]

69. we would have to have some first in order to lend some.

[2banon]

97. ROFL! Amen to that!

[Junkdrawer]

28. But we sure as hell can start a Cold War over this and enrich the MIC even more...

"Nothing we can do" Bah...

[jtuck004]

30. "...that does not end up with Russia being nuked "// that does not end up with Russia AND

the U.S. being nuked.//

But yeah, what you said.

Besides, we just spent over $5 billion unseating this elected fella, and we know, with dead certainty, that Russia is going to do EXACTLY what Russia did. We didn't really think the Russians were just gonna watch Russian supporters and Russian bases be distributed amongst a bunch of, well, whoever they are at the moment, them? There was a lot of support outside our efforts, and we played along with that.

And our analysts didn't give this a billion percent probability? Oh please.

So we will play with trade sanctions and crap for a while, I guess. But it seems so silly to think about war when this is nearly the most likely thing that could happen.

I wouldn't be surprised if the administration figured that Putin was better in charge than what's his name. And this distracts from a lot of talk about jobs and cutting social security and stuff. Heck, we get into a war with someone there will be an illusory boost to the economy, maybe it won't look like it is in the crapper for a third of the population over the next couple years. We've spent more American lives for less than that before, I think.

[alcibiades_mystery]

35. War with Russia over the "autonomous region" of Crimea

War with Russia on account of the "Budapest Agreement," a document nobody on this board even heard of before two days ago.

Some people done lost they minds.

[Junkdrawer]

37. War is exciting and shit...As long as you can watch it on TV half a world away....

That's the way far, far too many in this country have been trained to see war: Carnival.

[angrychair]

49. Words have meaning.

you walk on a very thin line between advocating against arbitrary military action and sanctioning unfettered military action by an aggressive nation. Since there is nothing we can do or else we "get nuked" as you put it, than Russia has de facto sanction to overtake all of Ukraine. What's a little more. Nothing we can do anyway. Hell, while Russia is at it, Poland was part of the USSR so heck, lets get the band back together again. I mean, nothing the U.S. can do or else we 'get nuked'. So why not Romania next. Then Slovakia. Then Hungary. Nothing we can do, else we 'get nuked'.

See how that plays out. Might not be what you meant but it is what you said. Thread that needle with care.

Secondly, M.A.D. doesn't quite work the way you imply. M.A.D. only works as long as both sides agree to play the game. If one or the other stops playing the game, M.A.D. doesn't work anymore. Has Russia stopped playing? Only time will tell.

Lastly, I can't say this hard enough, that Ukraine is an independent nation. It is not a rebellious republic. Having Russians in Ukraine or a treaty with Russia does not give Russia a blank check to enforce their will on the people of Ukraine. They are an ethnic minority (17% as of a 2012 census). Ukrainians comprise more than 77% of of the ethnic makeup of the country. Crimea is not historically Russian land. It belonged to the Tartar and Ukrainians until Stalin killed and relocated all of the Tartars from Crimea.

There is no case yet for conflict with Russia in Ukraine. I am in NO WAY advocating for armed conflict. That is foolish. At the same time, you have to realize when you have stopped being an advocate for peace and become an envoy for servitude.

[Junkdrawer]

55. It begins...

Next step:

Russia isn't deterred by the threat of nukes, so what should we do? How can we make that threat real? Hmmmm.

[pampango]

56. Obama and European leaders seem to know this. Besides relying in the military to respond

plays to Russia's strengths. Their military is their strength and this is happening right next to them. It makes more sense in the long run to use a diplomatic, economic, financial response to their takeover of Crimea. Thankfully, that is what American and European leaders seem to be negotiating on.

[Warren Stupidity]

59. The EU is dependent on Russian energy supplies.

Economic sanctions are pretty much a non-starter.

[pampango]

62. You're right. And Russia gets most of its export earnings from oil and natural gas.

There is certainly no "free lunch" option for economic sanctions by Europe against Russia. Other than travel restrictions or financial sanctions on certain Russian power brokers and their overseas accounts, economic measures aimed at Russia's main exports will hurt Europe, too.

Europe can pretty easily agree fairly quickly to travel and financial sanctions specifically targeted at certain individuals. In the longer run, if things don't improve or get worse, they will have to decide if tougher economic sanctions are worth the pain to themselves or not.

Democratically-elected politicians are leery of asking voters to sacrifice unless there is a really, really good reason. I think things would have to get a lot worse in Ukraine for these politicians to think that voters would back them.

[Warren Stupidity]

68. The markets today seem to have voted for "meh" w.r.t. Crimea.

Since we are governed by banksters, that is the foreign policy we will pursue.

[pampango]

76. The "meh" may be that things have not spun out of control; it looks like Putin may just want Crimea,

and the military base they already had, rather than a wider war in Ukraine with no obvious limit. Putin wants the Feb. 21 agreement observed, but does not see a role for Yanukovych in it.

Who knows what things will look like in an hour, a day, a week but, for now it seems that there is some hope that it will be contained. The oligarchs (east and west) who make money buying and selling oil and natural gas may be a little happier today than they were yesterday.

[jeff47]

75. Except they're in a good position at the moment.

It's been a mild winter in Europe (temperature-wise), so they've got lots of Russian natural gas stored up. And we're moving into spring, so Europe's usage will go down further.

Meanwhile, our fracking fanatics would be thrilled by sanctions. They'd have a fantastic reason to allow exports, and ship the gas to Europe by winter.

[Demo_Chris]

63. To add, this 'conflict' is a predictable Russian response to Western meddling in the region...

But no, there will be no war.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

65. Exactly who is saying that we are?

Certainly very few, if any, actual DUers. Speaking for myself, I've been one of the most outraged people out here as it relates to Russia's actions towards Ukraine, and I certainly know there is no way in hell we should engage Russia militarily.

And yes, you might have a few conservative war hawks who might be hinting at it, but I think even those on the right know that going to war with Russia would be an unmitigated disaster.

I just wonder how much of the whole "No way are we going to war with Russia!" is reflexive thinking when anyone raises the spectre of doing something as it relates to Ukraine. Note that something includes a lot of things that aren't a military response.

And no, we shouldn't and we won't intervene militarily with Russia over Ukraine.

And yes, we should do something for Ukraine.

[jeff47]

73. You skipped an important detail.

Similarly, there is nothing Russia can do to prevent us from annexing Tijuana

Russia didn't sign a treaty that promises to protect Mexico.

We signed a treaty promising to protect Ukraine. It was in the treaty where Ukraine gave it's ex-Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia.

Which means if Russia really presses the invasion, we may get drawn into a war.

Russia isn't going to use nuclear weapons unless its existence is threatened. So a Gulf-War-I-style situation where Russia is only thrown out of Ukraine would probably not escalate.

However, cutting Russia off from the world economy would probably be effective, and not carry nearly as much risk.

[librechik]

82. FGS--War is obsolete. Impossible. Archaic. Over. Defunct. IT CAN NO LONGER BE .

It must be stopped immediately. There can no longer be any rational discussion of its judicious use here and there.

After 1945, any other reality is just delusional. Can we all just agree on that before we move along?

I'll wait right here along with most everybody else on the planet. Make it fast, we have emergencies we need to take care of as a united species and you warniks are holding us up.

[mythology]

84. The same also applies in the other direction

Russia doesn't want a military conflict with us for the exact same reason. The location of Ukraine doesn't change the fact that we can nuke them, and they can nuke us, which is why neither of us will nuke the other. Putin doesn't want nuclear war.

Let's consider all of the times in which one country has nuked another. Oh yes, it was when only one country had them. India and Pakistan, the U.S. and both Russia and China have engaged in various levels of conflict where both sides had nukes and yet none of those have resulted in nuclear weapons being used.

Personally I think if a reasonably sized NATO force moved into Ukraine, Putin would back off. But doing nothing, like was done when Russia took part of Georgia, only encourages this to happen again. The next first steps should be diplomatic and economic, but to preemptively rule out military action is to effectively cede Crimea or any other area that Russia or another country with nuclear weapons wants.

[Mr Dixon]

87. IMO

As I understand it the Ukraine government was overthrown and I dictator is currently in command, which is the reason Russia got involved can anyone confirm this?

[Rex]

94. Sadly, we have a warmongering crowd on DU.

They lust for blood and profits.