Posted on 02/03/2015 6:15:19 AM PST by Kaslin
Among Cold War presidents, from Truman to Bush I, there was an unwritten rule: Do not challenge Moscow in its Central and Eastern Europe sphere of influence.
In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in their barracks.
We saw the Elbe as Moscow's red line, and they saw it as ours.
While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.
That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.
For President Obama is being goaded by Congress and the liberal interventionists in his party to send lethal weaponry to Kiev in its civil war with pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk.
That war has already cost 5,000 lives -- soldiers, rebels, civilians. September's cease-fire in Minsk has broken down. The rebels have lately seized 200 added square miles, and directed artillery fire at Mariupol, a Black Sea port between Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea.
Late last year, Congress sent Obama a bill authorizing lethal aid to Kiev. He signed it. Now the New York Times reports that NATO Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove favors military aid to Ukraine, as does Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. John Kerry and Gen. Martin Dempsey of the joint chiefs are said to be open to the idea.
A panel of eight former national security officials, chaired by Michele Flournoy, a potential Defense Secretary in a Hillary Clinton administration, has called for the U.S. to provide $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, reconnaissance drones, Humvees, and radar to locate the sources of artillery and missile fire.
Such an arms package would guarantee an escalation of the war, put the United States squarely in the middle, and force Vladimir Putin's hand.
Thus far, despite evidence of Russian advisers in Ukraine and claims of Russian tank presence, Putin denies that he has intervened. But if U.S. cargo planes start arriving in Kiev with Javelin anti-tank missiles, Putin would face several choices.
He could back down, abandon the rebels, and be seen as a bully who, despite his bluster, does not stand up for Russians everywhere.
More in character, he could take U.S. intervention as a challenge and send in armor and artillery to enable the rebels to consolidate their gains, then warn Kiev that, rather than see the rebels routed, Moscow will intervene militarily.
Or Putin could order in the Russian army before U.S. weapons arrive, capture Mariupol, establish a land bridge to Crimea, and then tell Kiev he is ready to negotiate.
What would we do then? Send U.S. advisers to fight alongside the Ukrainians, as the war escalates and the casualties mount? Send U.S. warships into the Black Sea?
Have we thought this through, as we did not think through what would happen if we brought down Saddam, Gadhafi and Mubarak?
America has never had a vital interest in Crimea or the Donbass worth risking a military clash with Russia. And we do not have the military ability to intervene and drive out the Russian army, unless we are prepared for a larger war and the potential devastation of the Ukraine.
What would Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon or Reagan think of an American president willing to risk military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia over two provinces in southeastern Ukraine that Moscow had ruled from the time of Catherine the Great?
What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy and a disaster. And we are in part responsible, having egged on the Maidan coup that overthrew the elected pro-Russian government.
But a greater disaster looms if we get ourselves embroiled in Ukraine's civil war. We would face, first, the near certainty of defeat for our allies, if not ourselves. Second, we would push Moscow further outside Europe and the West, leaving her with no alternative but to deepen ties to a rising China.
Given the economic crisis in Russia and the basket case Ukraine is already, how do we think a larger and wider war would leave both nations?
Alarmists say we cannot let Putin's annexation of Crimea stand. We cannot let Luhansk and Donetsk become a pro-Russian enclave in Ukraine, like Abkhazia, South Ossetia or the Transdniester republic.
But no one ever thought these enclaves that emerged from the ethnic decomposition of the Soviet Union were worth a conflict with Russia. When did Luhansk and Donetsk become so?
Rather than becoming a co-belligerent in this civil war that is not our war, why not have the United States assume the role of the honest broker who brings it to an end. Isn't that how real peace prizes are won?
Putin is enough of a chess player to know the difference between the Ukraine (non-NATO member) and Poland (NATO member), more so than Hitler who did not know the difference between Czechoslovakia and Poland.
The real threat to Europe is not from Russia invading, it is from the Muslims subverting Europe from within.
These guys keep wanting us to believe that Putin is crazy and that we submit to his desires or he invades the West, or if you point out that he doesn’t have the muscle for that, then they claim that he will nuke us all if we don’t end sanctions, or try to interfere at all with his empire building.
Russia is between 14% and 18% Muslim, and located in a bad place, with china encroaching, and secession forces internally, they have their hands full. That is why Putin is always bluffing and guffing, he doesn’t have much to work with.
Would Estonia be the red line? Or even Poland. Putin would love to make NATO irrelevant dejure as it may now be irrelevant as fact. So far he's absorbed nothern Georgia and the Crimea at the cost of some Disney passes for the elite. I have no doubt Poland will fight but when Bammy pulled their missle defense off the table it sent Putin a clear message.
Yawn
Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday ruled out any German supply of weapons to Ukraine, but emphasized that Europe must stay united against Russian aggression.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/world/german-chancellor-rules-out-weapons-aid-to-ukraine.html?_r=0
So much for NATO to the rescue. LOL
On a separate note regarding the NATO map that you posted above (#37), I don’t think Turkey will hold NATO’s southern flank much longer. In fact, I don’t believe that Ankara can be counted as a dependable ally even today. Recep Erdogan is taking Turkey in a bad direction, and it appears that a lot of Turks want to go there with him. While this change will have implications in the Black Sea, I am more immediately concerned with its impact in the Middle East.
And that NATO posted map. Post a NATO map from 1991 and then lets see who is on the march. And its sickening to hear an American call themselves a “NATO soldier”.
I hold no allegiance to NATO, and it is not the patriotic duty of an American to support a coup on behalf of the EU, in Ukraine. This is how much the war insanity has taken over our nation.
You are so correct. Some of these people truly miss the cold war. That’s all I can come up with. This is such a waste of time and resources for the US to be working to achieve the economic goals of the EU. And its sickening to see people try to cast it as nearly treason if you do not fall into line with the Kiev coup. Notice how he keeps saying “your side” as if not siding with the coup makes one a Russian?
The fact is that some of you seem to want to recreate the Cold War, you just need a few years to get Russia back up to speed.
“This is not your grandfather’s Red army.”
A point I have been trying to make since this all began.
The Russians haven’t been sitting still for the last 12 years. They have been upgrading hardware and bringing new systems online, and adding a whole bunch of tech.
Cooperative programs with China have produced real results, and the “Decentralization of Command from officers to NCO’s has been going on longer than that.
They don’t have the tech or amounts anymore to take us on heads-up and “Win”, that would require nukes. It’s all about forcing “political” solutions.
NATO isn’t conquering countries, it is a voluntary alliance to defend itself from Russia.
The way that you equate America and the Soviet Union is true radical leftist nonsense.
Both Obama and Psaki have admitted now that they “Arranged Regime Change” in Ukraine, resulting in an illegal coup.
How did they think Russia was going to react to it, especially after the coup leaders threatened to “wipe Russians from Ukraine”?
Russia is nothing like what they used to be, they still depend on poorly trained, poorly equipped 1 year draftees.
They have a few small units that they have been trying to train and equip but you are over blowing their overall effectiveness.
The Old war machine had 7 Airborne divisions and massive amounts of Air Assault and bridge building units and tank Divisions, a military built on attack and conquest that doesn’t exist today. If they attack NATO, their military will be quickly destroyed, leaving Russia exposed to it’s internal and Eastern problems.
Russia isn’t anywhere close to the world power that it used to be, some estimates have their actual Army size at about 244,000 men, and in the attack against the West, they would be destroyed pretty easily.
Russia isn’t going to attack NATO. That’s nonsense.
As I have stated, many times, For the Obamunists, Ukraine is a part of a much bigger geo-political game, focused on SYRIA...
Germany has the most to lose here, but they also have enormous potential gains.
If Merkel isn’t thinking about Konigsberg and Memel, I’m sure there are some who are. There even may be a few thinking about Breslau.
This is deep, deep geopolitics, and the children in DC should stay the hell away from it.
Well NATO isn’t going to attack Russia, so what is your complaint?
We have no reason to give Russia Ukraine without making them pay, or to submit to them anywhere.
You just got through trying to convince us that we must submit because they are so powerful militarily, which isn’t true, it is a ridiculous call to submit to them.
“History is full of cocky leaders who thought they knew how things would turn out, but were tragically wrong.”
As Wolf Blitzer plainly noted on CNN yesterday, it is now PERSONAL between Obama and Putin.
Given what we already know about Obama’s personality and childish spitefulness, that’s a damned scary thought.
How are “We” submitting to “them” regarding a civil war started on their own border by the Obama administration?
Well my anti-American friend, we didn’t invade, they did.
Quit this defense of Russia’s right to own and enslave nations.
As Putin fights openly, you work behind the lines for him here, pushing his propaganda.
We need to be throwing up roadblocks, sanctions, and anything we can do to stop Putin, the last thing we need at these early stages of the resurrection of the Evil Empire, is to give him a free hand.
You mean the actual invasion that they are conducting on our NATO borders?
You seem confused on whose border is being threatened, and who is conducting a war to do it.
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