Posted on 03/08/2014 7:29:55 PM PST by Kartographer
Did somebody say de-escalation?
Earlier today, photos were distributed showing the latest military convoy reinforcements heading into the Crimea, accompanies by a Police car demonstrating Moscow license plate numbers, most likely providing further support to the pro-Russian forces in the peninsula.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Ukraine’s military will be hampered by mass defections, betrayals, and massive surrenders of units to the divisional level.
oh, yeah.
And didn’t we agree to protect them if they agreed to go ‘ nuke free ‘?
Yeah, we did.
Ukraine winning instead of losing
You really see Russia losing a conflict with Ukraine? I know Russia’s military isn’t what it used to be but reports I have read indicate the Ukrainian military is in shambles compared to Russia.
Not rooting for the Russian’s by any stretch but I just don’t see them losing that fight.
I’ve wondered if border countries will get involved without even trying. Throw Poland in the mix and things get really interesting.
Forget the Russians - we couldn't win a war with Ukraine. And by win I mean outlast. Ukraine couldn't conquer either Russia or the US, but it can outlast either in a war for something it holds dear enough. Whether the Crimea is that something remains to be seen, but there's more than territory involved - there's history in terms of the Holodomor and other Russian mass killings of Ukrainians. This Russian invasion is simultaneously a chance to build an enduring national myth (such as the one about the colonials being oppressed* by King George) and an opportunity to bleed the Russians dry over all of the previous times the Ukrainians' forebears were slaughtered** during the Russian suppression of Ukrainian revolts.
* Relative to the rest of the world at the time, the Founding Fathers wouldn't know oppression if it smacked them upside the head.
** This was the basis for both Irish and Scottish separatism. The former is complete, whereas the latter is only a matter of time. Think about how the Scots still commemorate the Battle of Stirling Bridge and the Battle of Bannockburn after all this time, while mourning the Battle of Falkirk, despite the Union of the Crowns having produced a Scottish king to rule all of Britain, King James I.
Speaking of Poland,
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-02-21/polish-minister-tells-protest-leader-you-will-all-be-dead/
nice,huh?
In attritional terms, we won in Vietnam - we killed an estimated 1.2m NVA and VC in exchange for 58K GI dead. We won every major battle and most of the minor ones. In terms of facts on the ground, we lost - the RVN is a historical relic, replaced by the DRV. We decided the war wasn’t worth the cost and left.
My acquainted Ukrainian woman told me her cousin and classmate were murdered in Kiev recently. They were not protesters; they were murdered in their homes by gangsters with weapon behaving like occupants on seized land. Police is dysfunctional.
Just look at the sort of troops and their actions in Georgia a few years back, or Russians troop actions in the Hungarian invasion in the 60s: tanks and other armored vehicles will roll over the demonstrators, crowds and individuals will be shot out of hand just because.
The Ukrainian military is a joke, so no help there.
This follows a pattern of our government. particularly since Obama. Send in Community agitators to disrupt in order to turn the fate of that nation to the NWO. The people that run Obama are behind it.
The confusing part for most of us is that neither side is worth a tinker’s damn.
Thing is, they are really not too successful after looking at Egypt and Libya.
a) their mil has been restructured away from conscript dependence toward a more professional one;
b) the Afgans were already armed and had a culture of war, aka ‘fighting season’;
c) one of Russia's largest military bases is just over the boarder and;
d) supply lines are very short, unlike in Afghanistan.
Whatever the Ukrainians want, they are not going to get - no matter what they try. Russia will keep the Crimea at all costs - it is their only warm water port.
The crisis could conceivably be solved by giving the Russians a ‘99’ year lease on the port and making Russian an official language.
More like Code Pink helping the MB overthrow Mubarik in Egypt.
It might be a viable stalling tactic to hold off until the cavalry shows up, but there is no cavalry to ride in and save them. The best they can do (lousy tactic) is to bloody Putin's nose and get the world even more irate (more nasty letters and phone calls) when he shows them he's serious.
Europe has a long tradition of vicious wars of attrition, the most recent of which ended in the late 90's, during the partition of Yugoslavia. Ukraine's Stepan Bandera gave the Russians a run for their money in the decade or so after WWII, packing it in only after the Soviets conducted mass killings of the Ukrainian rebels' civilian supporters, destroying the guerrilla force after the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. Unlike the Afghans, the Ukrainians fought the Russians for over a decade without any foreign aid.
With the EU wimped-out - there is no help there, nor can they expect any from the United Obama States. The European political climate has radically changed from the 90s when they could expect aid overt or covert aid against the Soviets.
WWII is long past, Bandara is gone, as are the arms available at that time. Any attempt to take up arms against the Russians today will have the same result it did in the past. The media will slobber over the horrific mass killings and move on. The Russians do not care, as long as the Crimea remains under their control - same for the gas pipelines.
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