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Index »
Regional/Local »
Europe »
Europe
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Page: Previous 1, 2 |
NoEnzLefttoSplit
Gender:
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Posted:
Feb 6, 2022 - 4:44pm |
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westslope wrote:
Sanctions have not worked to date except to make both the USA and Russia poorer. Additional sanctions will not work. 20 million Russians died during WW II. Without that enormous sacrifice, the Allied powers may not have achieved victory in WW II.
The Russians make all kinds of silly mistakes, no doubt, but they are tough. When I think of tough, I think of British soldiers and I think of Russians. I almost think of Israeli soldiers cowering in the corner. (OK I exaggerate; Israelis slide into the tough category quite easily.) This toughness is something we should benefit from; why alienate such a potentially valuable friend and ally?
This is so sad. US multinationals should be making a killing in Russia right now. Russia can be so useful to the USA and the rich west in general in helping resolve some thorny conflicts, particularly in the Mid-East. Russia could have been or could be extremely useful in resolving some situations with military force where western armies dare not tread or act.
your sense of geopolitics is making you myopic. Russia started opening to the west but balked at the opportunity to install anything like the necessary political reforms and legal framework to do it, instead favouring its robber barons who are gutting the country. The only thing propping it up is its oil and gas exports.
Russia could (and in my opinion) should be part of Europe. Instead its leadership is chasing some form of Slavic brotherhood but Putin is in no way as popular as one might suspect. Which is another reason why stoking up an imaginary conflict with the West is right in line with his playbook. It's not the west he's trying to intimidate, but rather unite his own people.
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Red_Dragon
Location: Dumbf*ckistan
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Posted:
Feb 6, 2022 - 4:35pm |
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NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
If you removed this purported US leadership and took away German war-guilt and had left the decision to the EU 27 (minus Germany), Nordstream would never have got to the planning stage.
You live there, right? Is this still a real thing?
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NoEnzLefttoSplit
Gender:
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Posted:
Feb 6, 2022 - 4:33pm |
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Ohmsen wrote:
If you removed this purported US leadership and took away German war-guilt and had left the decision to the EU 27 (minus Germany), Nordstream would never have got to the planning stage.
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westslope
Location: BC sage brush steppe
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Posted:
Jan 24, 2022 - 6:01pm |
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R_P wrote:Sanctions have not worked to date except to make both the USA and Russia poorer. Additional sanctions will not work. 20 million Russians died during WW II. Without that enormous sacrifice, the Allied powers may not have achieved victory in WW II. The Russians make all kinds of silly mistakes, no doubt, but they are tough. When I think of tough, I think of British soldiers and I think of Russians. I almost think of Israeli soldiers cowering in the corner. (OK I exaggerate; Israelis slide into the tough category quite easily.) This toughness is something we should benefit from; why alienate such a potentially valuable friend and ally? This is so sad. US multinationals should be making a killing in Russia right now. Russia can be so useful to the USA and the rich west in general in helping resolve some thorny conflicts, particularly in the Mid-East. Russia could have been or could be extremely useful in resolving some situations with military force where western armies dare not tread or act.
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R_P
Gender:
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Posted:
Jan 24, 2022 - 5:09pm |
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westslope
Location: BC sage brush steppe
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Posted:
Jan 24, 2022 - 4:41pm |
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kurtster wrote: bump ........
Yup, the relationship has been rocky. It always struck me that the Ukrainians wanted super expensive transit fees. They have resorted to stealing Russian gas too.
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kurtster
Location: where fear is not a virtue Gender:
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Posted:
Jan 24, 2022 - 4:08pm |
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kurtster wrote: 2 January
And a further thought. Perhaps it is the EU bowing to Putin since y'all are getting your nat gas from him instead of us. Don't want to offend him. He could cut off your gas at the turn of a valve. Just like he has done repeatedly to Ukraine. And the pipeline runs right through Ukraine ... Hmmm. Maybe Putin is simply thinking about the security of his pipeline ... bump ........
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westslope
Location: BC sage brush steppe
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Posted:
Jan 24, 2022 - 3:22pm |
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Ohmsen wrote:
European news media (not only the corporate ones) are all going berserk on this topic since weeks.... perhaps, this is because they're all being "owned"?!
The Americans have never treated self-determination, security buffer zones and 'respect' too seriously when it did not suit them. Perhaps some of the Europeans have forgotten their own history, forgotten the unanticipated and absolutely horrific consequences of the punishing terms of the Treaty of Versailles? Perhaps some Europeans dismiss 'self-determination', and believe that making former Warsaw Treaty members part of NATO would not generate consequences. Perhaps some Europeans believe that speaking the Russian language is a colossal waste of time? Speak white! Whatever that is.... It is hard to trust the strategic judgment of any nation in Europe after the Libya fiasco.
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westslope
Location: BC sage brush steppe
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Posted:
Jan 24, 2022 - 11:30am |
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Ohmsen wrote:Good article. But frankly why on earth would the Russians invade the rest of the Ukraine? Why are these scholarly Americans not bothering to listen carefully to what the Russians are saying? Because feverish American imaginations recall the glory days of the Cold War with the Soviet Union before the 1990s?
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kurtster
Location: where fear is not a virtue Gender:
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Posted:
Jan 2, 2022 - 4:38pm |
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Ohmsen wrote: Natural gas is one of the cleanest burning fuel sources we have. It is pretty close to benign. Left to seep out into the atmosphere it is a dangerous toxic greenhouse pollutant. Perhaps the best bridge fuel that we have to work with. And then there is abiotic oil and all that comes with it. We have more oil than we know what to do with. What happened to Peak Oil that we were scared to death with about only 10 years ago ? To the other point. Yes, it is all about language. Controlling the language and word definitions, controls the conversations had / allowed, ie, censorship ... And a further thought. Perhaps it is the EU bowing to Putin since y'all are getting your nat gas from him instead of us. Don't want to offend him. He could cut off your gas at the turn of a valve. Just like he has done repeatedly to Ukraine. And the pipeline runs right through Ukraine ... Hmmm. Maybe Putin is simply thinking about the security of his pipeline ...
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Lazy8
Location: The Gallatin Valley of Montana Gender:
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Posted:
Dec 24, 2021 - 7:56am |
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Ohmsen wrote:
So the people of the Ukraine (and the path they want to follow) are irrelevant here? All that matters is the bargaining positions of their powerful neighbors?
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steeler
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
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Posted:
Dec 24, 2021 - 7:07am |
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Ohmsen wrote:
Did you hear that too? Russia is concentrating its troops on the border with Ukraine? The west is getting nervous? Russia presents a list of demands?
The Guardian puts it this way:
Russia has put forward a highly contentious list of security guarantees it says it wants the west to agree to in order to lower tensions in Europe and defuse the crisis over Ukraine, including many elements that have already been ruled out.
Whoa these Russians, ey! What are they actually imagining? Just asking for 'things' here!
Hey, psst, what are they asking for?
The demands include a ban on Ukraine entering Nato and a limit to the deployment of troops and weapons to Natoâs eastern flank, in effect returning Nato forces to where they were stationed in 1997, before an eastward expansion.
Like right now? They want what the West promised back in 1990? What was the condition of the Soviet Union for reunification? That NATO is not expanding to the east?
Yes, hey, well that is absolutely unreasonable. Where are we going? Just imagine the other way around, that the West demands that Ukraine not join Russia and that the Russians station missiles there in the direction of Europe!
No no. OUR demand that Ukraine should join the West, of course, has no alternative, and it is also noble, democratic and good. THEIR demand that Ukraine join Russia ... oh wait, they donât even demand that. They are simply demanding that Ukraine not join NATO. So they ask less than we ask the other way around.
Ah!
Why is our demand noble, just and good, and their demand bad, ugly and mean? Did anyone understand?
But the Kremlinâs aggressive proposals are likely to be rejected in western capitals as an attempt to formalize a new Russian sphere of influence over eastern Europe.
Oh, that's because of the aggressiveness. If the Kremlin is demanding that our missiles point another direction, then that is aggressive. If we station our missiles in Ukraine and point them at Russia, then that is peace policy. Oh no, wait. Stability policy!
I find it extremely remarkable that nobody's head veins burst when they state that the Russians are the bad guys if they want the West to keep its promises.
Some may say, there were no such promises from the West at all. Yes, of course, that is the western reading. The Russians thought it was so absurd that NATO would work its way forward that verbal announcements such as of Genscher and then US Secretary of State Baker were sufficient.
Wikipedia about it.
( Source.)
Does the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea have any effect upon this analysis?
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Jiggz
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Posted:
Dec 24, 2021 - 6:46am |
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Ohmsen wrote:
Did you hear that too? Russia is concentrating its troops on the border with Ukraine? The west is getting nervous? Russia presents a list of demands?
The Guardian puts it this way:
Russia has put forward a highly contentious list of security guarantees it says it wants the west to agree to in order to lower tensions in Europe and defuse the crisis over Ukraine, including many elements that have already been ruled out.
Whoa these Russians, ey! What are they actually imagining? Just asking for 'things' here!
Hey, psst, what are they asking for?
The demands include a ban on Ukraine entering Nato and a limit to the deployment of troops and weapons to Natoâs eastern flank, in effect returning Nato forces to where they were stationed in 1997, before an eastward expansion.
Like right now? They want what the West promised back in 1990? What was the condition of the Soviet Union for reunification? That NATO is not expanding to the east?
Yes, hey, well that is absolutely unreasonable. Where are we going? Just imagine the other way around, that the West demands that Ukraine not join Russia and that the Russians station missiles there in the direction of Europe!
No no. OUR demand that Ukraine should join the West, of course, has no alternative, and it is also noble, democratic and good. THEIR demand that Ukraine join Russia ... oh wait, they donât even demand that. They are simply demanding that Ukraine not join NATO. So they ask less than we ask the other way around.
Ah!
Why is our demand noble, just and good, and their demand bad, ugly and mean? Did anyone understand?
But the Kremlinâs aggressive proposals are likely to be rejected in western capitals as an attempt to formalize a new Russian sphere of influence over eastern Europe.
Oh, that's because of the aggressiveness. If the Kremlin is demanding that our missiles point another direction, then that is aggressive. If we station our missiles in Ukraine and point them at Russia, then that is peace policy. Oh no, wait. Stability policy!
I find it extremely remarkable that nobody's head veins burst when they state that the Russians are the bad guys if they want the West to keep its promises.
Some may say, there were no such promises from the West at all. Yes, of course, that is the western reading. The Russians thought it was so absurd that NATO would work its way forward that verbal announcements such as of Genscher and then US Secretary of State Baker were sufficient.
Wikipedia about it.
( Source.)
Smells like a diversion to me.....
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