"War in Europe is not a hysterical idea" Topic

"Over and over again — throughout the entirety of my adult life, or so it feels — I have been shown Polish photographs from the beautiful summer of 1939: The children playing in the sunshine, the fashionable women on Krakow streets. I have even seen a picture of a family wedding that took place in June 1939, in the garden of a Polish country house I now own. All of these pictures convey a sense of doom, for we know what happened next. September 1939 brought invasion from both east and west, occupation, chaos, destruction, genocide. Most of the people who attended that June wedding were soon dead or in exile. None of them ever returned to the house.

In retrospect, all of them now look naive. Instead of celebrating weddings, they should have dropped everything, mobilized, prepared for total war while it was still possible. And now I have to ask: Should Ukrainians, in the summer of 2014, do the same? Should central Europeans join them?

I realize that this question sounds hysterical, and foolishly apocalyptic, to U.S. or Western European readers. But hear me out, if only because this is a conversation many people in the eastern half of Europe are having right now. In the past few days, Russian troops bearing the flag of a previously unknown country, Novorossiya, have marched across the border of southeastern Ukraine. The Russian Academy of Sciences recently announced it will publish a history of Novorossiya this autumn, presumably tracing its origins back to Catherine the Great. Various maps of Novorossiya are said to be circulating in Moscow. Some include Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, cities that are still hundreds of miles away from the fighting. Some place Novorossiya along the coast, so that it connects Russia to Crimea and eventually to Transnistria, the Russian-occupied province of Moldova. Even if it starts out as an unrecognized rump state — Abkhazia and South Ossetia, "states" that Russia carved out of Georgia, are the models here — Novorossiya can grow larger over time…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

the russians seek to establish a new hypoboria stemming for the CAUCUSES, the epicentre of cro magnon man.

Not impossible … but an old school NATO/Europe vs. Russia big bash is a bit remote, IMO …

link

Since German Eurofighter readiness is about 8%, they may not be much help.

'Britain and France are still heavy spenders, but not enough to make up for what the rest of European NATO members are not doing.'

Combined the UK and France spend as much as Russia.

I quite agree with the thrust of that article.

NOW is going to the last chance to avoid a far larger--and extremely dangerous--war.

Putin's world is National Socialism in all but name only, complete with drum beating Nationalistic fervor, exaggerated nostalgia for an age now passed, and an undercurrent of racism.

With all the glaring similarities between 1938--if not 1939--the difference is that in a world with Nukes, and a West increasingly decadent, there is hardly a certainty that any last minute Western Alliance would eventually overcome a resurgent Russian Reich which--again--has more Will than actual military might.

To paraphrase the wisdom of Berlin after 1942, "Enjoy the Peace. The War will be terrible."

TVAG

Sorry, the Cold War and WW2 are over. I know many on this side of the pond do miss them so. Yes the Russians might take Ukraine and the West will probably do very little about it. it is in their sphere. We would do the same to Mexico if it had a large percentage of Americans and started to engage in anti US rhetoric and flirt with China or the Russians.

Sure Bernhard, and we'd gobble up a Provence or two eh?

I doubt Europe would go to war even if the Russians rumbled an armoured corps into the Baltic States.

A Finnish military report written several years ago had the same conclusion.

Look at all the even openly provocative actions by such pitiful regimes as the North Korean one (including sinking of a South Korean corvette) yet the Western allied response is largely meaningless.

The West only does war against low lying fruit. It bashed Iraq and Afghanistan cause they were "easy" from a conentional perspective. The true centres of terrorism, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, were let off scott free because there was too much risk in reducing them to rubble.

you all sound like you want the apocalypse

Since there's war in Europe right now, it certainly isn't a hysterical idea.

It's the direct result of the weakness, cowardice, and duplicity of the West, especially we in the US.
-Kle.

Putin did mention recently that they have nucs to remind us all … I guess … I say tighten sanctions in the short term, IMO …

Ya'll can have your war if you promise go come live in the irradiated rubble with us afterwards

Putin claimed he could take Kiev in two weeks in an interview yesterday.
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Rod Robertson

I have to go with Tame Thy Swans on this one. For a bunch of people supposedly knowledgeable about history, perhaps we can stop a minute and consider how Napoleon and Hitler fared on the Russians' home turf.

Pan Marek:
I believe in this case the Russian Hordes are moving West rather then French or Germanic Hordes moving East. We are concerned with a Russian invasion of Ukraine which by the nuclear disarmament treaty of 1994/5 (I can't quite remember the date) would require the US and major European powers to come to Ukraine's aid in the event of an invasion. Of course Russia was a signatory to the treaty too, but no one expects them to honour that treaty given recent events.
Rod (Chicken-Little) Robertson

McKinstry,

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, that article is a load of cockwash. They take end-of-day serviceability rates, not start-of-day serviceability rates. At the end of any flying day, MOST jets will be 'unserviceable' due to a variety of aircrew complaints ranging from 'I heard a bit of a rattle' to 'The system failed to function when the ON/OFF switch was set in the OFF position'. Most of these will then be sorted out in a matter of minutes by the night-shift. In wartime, most of these 'problems' will simply be ignored or will be dealt with in a rolling 24 hour programme of rectification, in line with 24 hour ops.

The article was written very much with an agenda in mind – buy more fighters. I can't help but agree with the thrust of the agenda, but their statistics are transparently ballhooks.

Rod- We're getting into Fez territory, but note that the
agreement(?) of '94 was not a treaty.
I fully support beefing up defenses of full NATO partners, and perhaps military aid to Ukraine, but Mr. Rauch's analogy to Mexico applies- its their traditional sphere of influence and WWIII is not an option.

Pan Marek:
The Budapest Memorandum was not a treaty because the US Senate would have refused to ratify it. It was however a binding agreement; although somewhat vague on what action must be taken in the event of an attack on Ukraine's sovereignty. The US, Britain and Russia committed themselves to defending Ukrainian sovereignty in return for Ukraine signing the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in Autumn of 1994. China and France followed suit later in separate accords. Should they not come to Ukraine's aid then the agreement is null and void and Ukraine is legally free to produce and use Nuclear weapons once again. And that is a very frightening prospect.
Rod Robertson

Belarus is not the Soviet Union of 41-54.

It will be a series of short, sharp seemingly connected battles interrupted by supply problems, casualty rates, wear and tear of equipment and World Press 'spinpropaganda'/disinformation manipulations by all sides.

The drone footage will be great, though….and we'll argue about afv's and equipment shown.

a…"Seven TV-Seasons' War".

unless Ebola makes a appearance.

this should be blue fez stuff.

NATO is a paper tiger.

Ebola seems to be a growing, and very serious concern, especially since the entire staff (excepting perhaps one, or two people) of at least one medical treatment center died.

Supposedly, they are trained in protocols to avoid exposing themselves to the disease, as were the Americans who have recovered, and yet they still got it.

So, apparently, it is a bit more contagious, and deadly than some would have us believe.

Seems very similar to the situation in the Ukraine, where it appears this issue is being ignored as well, while things spiral out of control.

Mako11

link

An updated analysis of the Ebola epidemic.

Rod- We're getting into Fez territory, but note that the agreement(?) of '94 was not a treaty.

Weasel words. When a person or nation makes a promise, they should keep it.

I fully support beefing up defenses of full NATO partners, and perhaps military aid to Ukraine, but Mr. Rauch's analogy to Mexico applies- its their traditional sphere of influence

Yeah, spheres of influence – that's the stuff. Who cares what the people who live in those places think? Who cares if we're allied to people? We should just tell the PRC that they can have Taiwan and Korea, they are in their "traditional sphere of influence" so that means the locals don't matter.

The UK shouldn't have complained about the partition of Poland either, much less started WW2 over it – Poland was in both the German and Soviet spheres of influence, after all. What's one more little partition and genocide between civilized men, after all?

and WWIII is not an option.

Not for cowards and backstabbers, like the US and Britain, no.
-Kle.

NATO is a paper tiger.

[ebola] … it is a bit more contagious, and deadly than some would have us believe.

Not for cowards and backstabbers, like the US and Britain, no.

WOW … what was that song, popular during Vietnam ? "The Eve of Destruction", IIRC …

…Of course Russia was a signatory to the treaty too,…

That resonates with 1914, and Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality. And Germany was a signatory of that neutrality agreement….

Lots of 'West won't bother'.

So, what is the answer then?

Not for cowards and backstabbers, like the US and Britain, no.

So in order to uphold moral standards, we have to turn the world into a radioactive wasteland by going to war with Russia over Ukraine?

And Europeans were hypocrites in WWII – they didn't declare war on Soviet Union for invading Poland too and then helped Soviet Union wage war on Finland.

And the cherry on the top was simply letting USSR take over Poland and rest of Eastern Europe.

So much for morality – WWII was typical Great Power politics and stopping one that had got too big for its pants.