Amen on that.
Posted on 08/14/2008 7:47:12 PM PDT by SeafoodGumbo
This email Rich Lowry received from a friend makes a lot of sense.
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Rich, I have advocated not pushing NATO membership for Ukraine or Georgia against Russian objections, but if Russia detaches the two breakaway provinces from Georgia, I think fast induction into NATO should be the centerpiece of our response. In the short term, Rice should include a visit to Berlin in her travel; that is where the obstacle to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia resides; she should convince them that Russian alteration of international borders through violence must have strategic consequences for Russia. And I don't mean expulsion from the G8 or boycotting the Olympics. I mean something more like ... losing Sevastopol.
The Russian Black Sea fleet is based at Sevastopol (as it has been for eons) under a 20-year lease that expires on 2017. The Ukrainian government has made it clear that Russia can forget about renewing the lease. Sevastopol is on the Crimea peninsula, which is majority ethnically Russian (unlike Abkhazia or South Ossetia, which are not actually Russian) and many leading Russians have said they will never give it back. Fast-tracking NATO membership for Ukraine and stationing significant NATO forces there, and making clear that the defense of Ukraine's territorial integrity is their role, will guarantee that the Crimea stays Ukrainian and that Sevastopol passes from Russian hands within 10 years. There may not be a suitable alternative deep-water port on the Black Sea large enough to base Russia's Black Sea fleet. Russia's ability to dominate the Black Sea and project force into the Eastern Mediterranean could be turned back to the 18th century.
We are not going to go to war over the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In our rash recognition of Kosovo, we embraced the principle that justice and self-determination can trump the territorial integrity of sovereign states; in so doing we killed the Helsinki Accords (under which the Soviet empire in Europe was liquidated without any revision of borders) and can no longer stand on them. When the Russians now say "justice" and "self-determination" they are slapping us with our own text.
But there is another dimension to this — the balance of power. Russia knows that its invasion of a democratic U.S. ally and forcible alteration of its borders is a heavy strategic blow to the United States: it makes a mockery of the value of an alliance with us. Russia must be made to see that its action will be answered by an even more grievous strategic blow. The loss of Sevastopol — Russia's equivalent of Norfolk — is the perfect punishment. And what a great new base it would make for the U.S. Sixth Fleet.
Ukraine, Georgia — welcome to NATO.
Amazing that we would have to explain this to Germany.
Europe had better wake up to the New Cold War. And, to be fair, so had OUR electorate.
Ping for your consideration.
>I think fast induction into NATO should be the centerpiece >of our response
Sounds like a bad idea to me. Making threats you can’t back up is a dumb idea. Europe would never go to war over anything.
...good idea. Unfortunately we don’t even come to the aid of our current allies. So who cares if Ukraine joins NATO? It’s not like we’re going to do anything if Ukraine is attacked (other than let the UN handle it...)
Booting them from the G8 is just step one.
Fast-tracking Georgia and Ukraine is a GREAT idea. I’m sure Putin understands chess: denying him Sevastapol is roughly like a direct threat to his queen.
The loss of the Black Sea would be a huge blow to Russia. The Black Sea has long been important to Russia because it has focused them on their greater goal of full and free access to the Mediterranean Sea. Russia does need to be punished: removal from the G8, denial or expulsion from the WTO, European and American boycott of their Olympics (announced now - maybe we hold a counter event), and of course, the advancement of NATO (think Armenia or Azerbaijan want in?).
To help Ukraine in Sevastopol, we’d have to go through the Bosporus, controlled by Turkey.
I’ve seen comments that the Turks won’t let our aid-bearing naval vessels through the Bosporus.
Not that it’d be a surprise. I assume that Incirlik is off-limits, too.
We can and should help the Ukrainians in other ways. Historically they were the people the Soviet Union victimized the most. The loss of their warm-water ports in Sevastopol is, quite frankly, a strategic defeat for the Russians I would categorize as far more provocative than any silliness in South Ossetia, and the Ukrainians have a world full of guts even to mention it. Putin absolutely cannot allow that to take place, but he has nine years to solidify his position and he obviously feels he can cow the Ukrainians into cooperation within that time.
He may be right. NATO is on the wane and his own power is waxing. His ultimatum to the United States to choose between him and the Georgians is based on a concession on our part that he will rule Europe, little more.
Hurrah for "soft power"! Europe will defy him to the very last diplomatic note, that much is certain. They may even chastise him in their editorials, at least until the editors can figure out a narrative that places all of the blame on the United States. They're working on it, and they'll have plenty of help from the NY Times.
I note with considerable amusement the recent consensus among European intelligentsia that a unipolar world is intolerable, and that the world would be better served by a sort of Great Powers multipolarity that existed prior to, say, 1914. Welcome to your world, folks - this is what it looks like.
Time to reread Ezekiel Chapters 38 & 39.
Magog, Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal correspond to areas between the Black and Caspian Seas. .... also including part of Iran and Turkey, extending to the upper reaches of Siberia and the Urals. The Midrash calls Gomer Germania and that is also the way the Talmud refers to Gomer
A rabbinic view from the Artscroll Commentary on Ezekiel states:
The Gaonim had a tradition that these controls were indeed located in Russia... One tradition passed down from the Vilna Gaon states: Then the Russian navy passes through the Bospores (that is, on the way to Dardanelles), it will be time to put on the Sabbath clothes (in anticipation of the coming Messiah).
Other nations part of the Magog confederacy are to include Persia (Iran). Also Cush, a place possibly refering to the Mesopotamian countries of Syria and Iraq, while other portions of Scripture indicate Ethiopia is more directly referenced as Cush.
Put, is mentioned, not as Libya (which would have been named Lub), but Somalia which borders Ethiopia. Followed by Gomer.
The last name is Togarmah, which is present day Armenia.
Interestingly, not one single Arab nation is involved in the Magog invasion, which many believe is a pretribulational event.
(some notes from Footsteps of the Messiah pp106-110., by Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Ariel Ministries copyright 2003)
for your notes..
I would suggest that our US Naval fleet should engage in Military exercises in the Crimea Sea and camp out there.
>>>...fast induction into NATO should be the centerpiece of our response.
agree.
angela merkel, the chancellor of germany helped create this mess by rejecting.
Russian media is claiming that Ukraine is preparing for war with them. Somehow I don’t think that we will get the chance to bring Ukraine into NATO. I hope I’m wrong but if we let Russia take the Crimea, it will be the official beginning of the end of the West.
Ukraine began military training against Russia in the Crimea
It started several weeks ago.
Russia responded by invading Askhazia and Ossetia and then they raised the stakes by occupying and threatening not to leave Georgia.
So now Ukraine puts Sevastapol on the table and Poland agrees to the missile defense shield.
Russia should leave Georgia and consider the trade off of getting Muslim infested Abkhasia and puny South Ossetia while Georgia and Ukraine enter the NATO.
They will not lose the black sea, thats the whole pupose for this ruse, they were gonna lose sevastopol when ukraine made nato status anyway, they need poti, thats what this is all about, they aint leaving.
Read post 19, Russia has to maintain a warm water port and Poti is gonna replace sevestopol.
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