added to the fact that up until WW2, wars were still fought primarily over land.
The domination or air combat in modern warfare effectively neutralizes the historical advantage Russia always had against invading armies: winter.
Hitler army didnt have a vast technological edge the West holds over Russia. Also Hitlers Germany didnt have a vastly larger economy to fund their army. Hitlers army also had 1/3rd the population in which to draw troops. The combined economy of the EU + US is nearly 34 trillion dollars vs Russia's 2.6 trillion. Population wise it is 700 vs 143 million. And the one of the biggest and probably most important. Hitlers army had Hitler directing it while the West has qualified commanders.
So many differences.
Crimea will cost Russia NOTHING unless we make it happen. It's really that simple. As of a few days Russian oligarchs dumped billions upon billions of dollars on foreign companies. They basically moved their money into safe investments.
What we have done is give a few travel restrictions on some bureaucrats that don't care and stopped a few politicians from moving their $320 that they have locked in with their Disneyland gift card. It's laughable and nobody is being punished. I'd invade too if all I was going to do was lose some coupons to Home Depot.
I think Russia signed a new energy deal the other day too. That makes this an even bigger joke.
Yeah, Germany and Russia just signed a $7 billion dollar deal.
This is a giant tabloid joke at this point.
You underestimate the Ukrainians and, especially, the Poles.
Russia already has a port in the Baltics and nobody gives a shit. The Black Sea fleet is even weaker than the Baltic fleet if I recall correctly. In case of war the Baltic fleet would be at the bottom of the sea in minutes.
It's just he first step in sanctions. I believe there are currently 9 individuals on a no-business list, meaning not only can they not travel, they cant' withdraw any money using Visa or Mastercard, or anything related to US companies. But that's just 9 "jerks" as labeled by the US
Next step--oil can no longer be traded in dollars from Russian oil producers.
That would be pretty harsh.
U.S. analysts told TheBlaze that the sanctions announced Monday against seven of Russia’s wealthiest oligarchs and politicians may not be enough to stop Putin. Some Russian leaders have even joked that these are insignificant measures from a weak U.S. administration.
“There is no doubt that Russia has been thinking long and hard about how to disrupt U.S. power and the value of the dollar in the global market,” a U.S. defense official said. “We’re mindful but I don’t think we’re mindful enough. One thing is certain the greatest threat to our stability is not a conventional war but the destabilization of our economy by an enemy.”
For the past five years, Putin has promised that he would take America’s role as the leading global financial mammoth away, vowing to create alternatives to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In 2011, he criticized the U.S. debt load, saying the “U.S. is living way beyond their means and shifting a part of their weight of their problems to the world economy.”
“To some extent [the U.S. is] living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar,” Putin said.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported a significant drop in foreign central banks’ Treasury bond holdings at the Federal Reserve. Analysts said they believed the drop was a result of Russia shifting Treasury bond holdings out of the Fed and into offshore accounts so it would be able to buy or sell its portfolio if the U.S. and its European allies imposed economic sanctions over Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev made Russia’s intentions for economic warfare very clear, saying, “an attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States, which would cause the end of domination of the United States in the global financial system.”
Glazyvev said Russia could stop using the dollar, creating its own payment system with “our partners in the East and South.”
Yea, you don't want to go to far down that path. Russia doesn't have debt like we do. They can do more to harm us economically than the other way around.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...-could-signal-the-beginning-of-world-war-iii/
On a side note, is anybody getting out of the stock market? I am starting to get a little nervous about my investments. I could see this thing blowing up and killing the 5 year long bull market we have been riding.
Yea, you don't want to go to far down that path. Russia doesn't have debt like we do. They can do more to harm us economically than the other way around.
Unless it were in the heart of winter. I figured the lack of ice makes a Black Sea port more important for both military purposes and commerce, making control of Crimea that much more significant to Russia.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/97-ships-stuck-in-ice-near-st-petersburg/432622.html
You're quoting Glenn Beck's website now?
Yea, you don't want to go to far down that path. Russia doesn't have debt like we do. They can do more to harm us economically than the other way around.
Yes those HARSH sanctions Obama put on Russia, the same ones Russians are laughing at?
Oh the hardship 11 people have been sanctioned over a huge chunk of land being stolen.
You realize that this has absolutely nothing to do with Obama (not everything in the world does). The US isn't Russia's trading main partner, so it doesn't matter what we do. The EU, however, is. The EU's sanctions are the ones that matter, and the US just goes along with the EU's sanction level for consistency. For the time being, the EU is content with token sanctions because Crimea is kind of a unique case--a territory that was Russian until just 60 years ago that was given to Ukraine in an administrative reshuffle.
What I meant is that sanctions, if escalated, can be devastating.
Unless it were in the heart of winter. I figured the lack of ice makes a Black Sea port more important for both military purposes and commerce, making control of Crimea that much more significant to Russia.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/97-ships-stuck-in-ice-near-st-petersburg/432622.html
So I'm right, there aren't any real sanctions against Russia.
I was wondering about that comment as well. Russia really don't have a port in the Baltics--one that is serviceable, anyway.
The reason they have cherished the Baltic states for so long is because Riga has the only port that doesn't freeze over. This is what they want, and why Latvians maintain legitimate concern over any local Russian aggression.
Fucking Putin has always ordered his annual "military exercises" on that border. Think Fat Korean dictator and their annual shenanigans with the South.
So it has started, ethnic cleansing.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140319/188544777/Crimean-Tatars-Will-Have-to-Vacate-Land--Official.html
The whole Crimean Tatar population was deported to Russia's concentration camps in 1944. Almost 50 % of them died during just a few years in slavery.
I've heard arguments saying that Crimea has always been Russian. It's complete rubbish. While being a part of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, the Crimean Tatars where the majority in Crimea for the most part. Only after the genocide in 1940's have the Russians been the signifant majority there. 150 years ago almost no Russians lived in Crimea. The ethnic population there was murdered and replaced with Russians, yeah, it's always been Russian. :\
Latvians are not as concerned as Ukrainians primarily because the Latvian ecomony is better than the Russian economy which is better than the Ukrainian economy.
Just from talking with someone I know who's parents immigrated over from Estonia, and still has a lot of family back there, saying that in these countries ethnic Russians are actually treated as second-class citizens, denied social & economic opportunities open to the rest of the population. It's not so cut & dry thinking only corrupt rabble-rousers are the cause of the succession movements. When combined in the Southern nations like Ukraine or Moldova, the economies are so much weaker that the conflicts intensify.
They're still worried about Russian aggression but they don't have the same level of internal problems that enable Russian aggression.
The grand moral is, treat others fairly and fewer conflicts arise.
Since the Soviet Union forcibly settled Russians en mass in these formerly sovereign nations and did the same things (and much worse) when they were in control I can understand the local resentment even if I don't agree with whatever discrimination they are subjected to on principle.
Latvia is also part of NATO and that's a line Putin won't cross.
Russia signaled concern on Wednesday at Estonia's treatment of its large ethnic Russian minority, comparing language policy in the Baltic state with what it said was a call in Ukraine to prevent the use of Russian.
Russia has defended its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula by arguing it has the right to protect Russian-speakers outside its borders, so the reference to linguistic tensions in another former Soviet republic comes at a highly sensitive moment.
Not yet. And, TBH, I hope there never will be. That Crimea is it and that Putin thinks he's made his point, backs off, and things don't have to escalate. Because at the end of the day, even if we win (and we likely will), the reality is that nobody really wins from these sorts of conflicts.
So I'm right, there aren't any real sanctions against Russia.
I don't know about Latvia but the only discrimination Russians in Estonia are subject is the fact that they can't obtain citizenship without a knowledge of the Estonian language. Tens of thousands of people were deported to slavery from the Baltic republics and replaced with hundreds of thousands of Russians during Soviet rule. Another form of ethnic cleansing. Now Russia is pissed because these countries are free of further russification.
Russia giving the finger to Estonia, again:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/19/us-russia-estonia-idUSBREA2I1J620140319