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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
Vlad strikes again
Russia took back Crimea when Obama was president, and also lit the fuse on the separatist movements. Now Vlad has taken another bite out of Ukraine under another Democrat president. To be fair, Bush the Dumber watched helplessly as Russia grabbed a piece of our new ally Georgia.
Is anyone else amused at how the left is employing the same Bush-Cheney Iraq War taunts? Comment threads are full of lefties calling anti-war conservatives anti-American and pro-Russia. One more example of why arguing partisan politics is a time suck. Handing out torches and bullhorns in a nuthouse would be more productive.
Russia has made its move - Now What?
$ Germany has stalled firing up Nordstream II. The original Nordstream--which runs through Ukraine--is still online.
$ Our heating bills will go up, some immediately, some later, depending on what kind of contracts your utility company has locked up.
$ Gas prices will go up.
$ Mineral-dependent products could see a slowdown.
$ Take a look at Russia's Export Partners and tell us how effective Biden's "severe" sanctions will be ("Hey man, I'm not kidding! These are serious, and that's no malarky!")
But most important of all... What say you?
Suppose countries didn't want to trade for worthless rubles anymore
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice bank account you have there, Russia. Be a real shame if something happened to it.
Cue John Malkovich running out of Oreos and crying "give me my money."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that anything 'went wrong' SF; this move by Putin was pre-ordained. He made this pretty clear over a decade ago [as well as in his "Festivus" speech on Monday (airing of grievances, Seinfeld)], but only foreign policy nerds really took notice at the time. "Isn't that cute, Pooty-poo wants to get the band back together?". Well, that band sucked...you couldn't dance to 'em.
ReplyDeleteAnd when nothing happened for a few years? Yawn....move on to the next shiny object.
Putin's long-term strategy is not incumbent on who resides in the White House; the only calculus on his part would have been to choose the right time when NATO was less galvanized than in years before.
His next move, I believe, will be one of two choices: he'll either capitalize on the fact that he has close, overt troop presence in the two puppet states, and carve out a land bridge along the coast to link them with Crimea; or, he'll sit and wait.
It's untenable for U.S. and NATO forces to stay forward-deployed for the long term, especially if there's no tangible threat. Once these forces pull back, and western nations congratulate each other on containing the menace, he strikes. Maybe the land bridge....maybe Kyiv.
Sanctions are always a paper tiger...always; and Putin and his cronies have had more than enough time to insulate themselves from it's deleterious effects. The only realistic bulwark against Putin's aggression, is military force.
So, while partisans play the lazy game of political opposition for the sake of political opposition, none of the chattering class is going to offer up their son or daughter to contain Russian aggression....especially when it's against nations that most Americans couldn't find on a map.
Western European nations have always been very bottom-line realist when it came to sanctions. And who can blame them? Putin knows Germany, Netherlands and UK will not stop their imports.
DeleteThe Europeans can also be feckless and sneaky. Remember how they talked a big game about Iraq sanctions, then found ways to sneak around them.
All of this points to how amateurish our foreign policy establishment has become. Not a Marshall or Kennan among them, and Kissinger is off working for communist China...
DeleteIf the Western powers had any coherent policy and strategy toward Russia, I could never discern it. And now we have Democrat summer soldiers screaming for war with Russia like Bush Republicans did for war with Iraq a generation ago.
What disturbs me is how it has become taboo and politically untouchable for any elected politician to even talk about dealing with Putin. He's a bad man and he and his cronies de facto run Russia like a large and dangerous crime syndicate. But we deal with all kinds of bad people. The Saudi regime is horrible. They butchered that poor man like a hog in their Istanbul embassy...
Anyway, I like your analysis and I think your pessimistic conclusion will end up being what we see.
@SF - "What disturbs me is how it has become taboo and politically untouchable.....
DeleteExactly. Our national history is littered with the corpses of despots we've crawled into bed with....much less had diplomatic dialogue with.
Here's the wild card...though tried and true throughout history, will Putin use these 'opportunities' even though he knows [and we know] they're false?
DeletePro-Russian citizens in 3rd Ukrainian oblast of Kharkiv (Ukraine's 3rd city after Kiev & Donesk) call for Putin to "rescue" them from Ukraine by sending in Russian Army "peacekeepers".
https://tinyurl.com/43tb8xju
He's going to take all he can get.
DeleteWe can strongly speculate he has already calculated where the red lines are.
ReplyDeleteBecause of Biden’s weakness, and the FACT that the Russians only respect strength, like Reagan and Trump were, they'll test you and do what they did yesterday
I absolutely believe that Biden is trying his best to copy what he learned from former President Obama. And that’s exactly why he picked people like like Susan Rice, and Some of Obamas generals and others. And therefore he is leading this country to disaster.
ReplyDeleteBetween him and his Puppet Master George Soros, we are on a fast track to Disaster
These are the same people involved in spying on Trump, corrupting our nation…
Which "Obama generals" did he "pick?"
DeleteAmerican interests in Ukraine are...?
ReplyDeleteI thought so.
+++
DeleteAlso, in my mind, Nato membership is a large factor, so different story with Poland and the Baltic states.
Finland is a special case. Vlad, like Barbara Streisand, has only just begun, I think.
US and Europe foreign policy is a mess.
@SF - Yep. But there's a strong and historic pull to either be in the NATO orbit, or Russia's. Even Finland and Sweden are thinking on their alliance options [they've served alongside us in Iraq & Afghanistan over the years, so they're 'almost NATO'].
DeleteI admire how Finland has walked the thin line. They are in a geographically precarious position. What saves them and the Baltic nation from immediate Putin attentions may be the fact Russia already has access to the Baltic Sea.
DeleteBefore Putin's "Festivus speech" (Excellent observation by CI) I was not aware Finland was once part of the larger Russian world/empire?
DeleteYeah, I wasn't either until a few years ago. It's become one of the more fascinating parts of 20th century history for me personally; the Winter War, the Continuation War, ownership of Karelia, etc....
DeleteWhat this proves is that the U.S. and the paper it writes its agreements on are worthless.
ReplyDeleteUkraine had the third largest Nuclear arsenal in the world. Five thousand big ones. The Budapest Memorandum, three powers- US, UK, and Russia signed a Security Assurances Agreement. In return, Ukraine would give up its nukes.
so much for that.
Gaddafi learned the lesson, now the Ukraine. Don't give up your nukes.
Our US government needs to learn to stop over-promising. Bush-Cheney gave Georgia all kinds of warm words, then stood by helpless as Vlad took a bite out of them. Russia still controls South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
DeleteI'm not certain that a small nuclear arsenal would deter Russian aggression, given the proximity of the two opposing forces. But I do know that the U.S. isn't in any position to deter that aggression either...militarily at least. I'll let Col (Ret) Nightingale say it better than I, over at Small Wars Journal:
Delete"The G. W. Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden Administrations, the US Department of Defense, and our Congress have been derelict in their duties to provide America with ready and peer defeating ground combat unit capabilities. Rather - we have a ground combat armed force so woefully ill-equipped to fight and win against our peer level threats, such as Russia, that the National Strategy/Policy question is: What they have been focusing on, if not such a vital national military capability? A safe bet would be that one or all of these are their exclusive focus (es): Domestic politics? Their re-election? Increasing their personal celebrity and wealth? Not their concerns or interest?
Apparently, current and past US Administrations, the US Department of Defense, nor our Congress have Defense Capability and Continuity Offices with the job of ensuring that the US Armed Forces retain a peer threat defeating advantage in ground combat systems and units. Or if they have, they are so far down in the basement as to never see daylight.
The Russians will employ this impressive force to invade across Ukraine’s borders. Our DOD and Armed Forces Lessons Learned offices are about to see how far our ground combat forces are from being fully capable of defeating a Peer, such as the Russians will use imminently.
Biden did DOD and the Nation a great favor, albeit inadvertently, by avoiding any armed conflict with Russia. We now have time to fix what’s broken but will we actually get to it?"
https://tinyurl.com/4wafzhht
Alaska has not been attacked save a small effort by the Japanese some time ago. Something to be said about having some nukes.
DeleteWhen was Alaska threatened to the point where nukes were the deterrent?
DeleteAlaska was once a Russian possession as was Ukraine.
DeleteSure was. Doesn't answer my question.
Delete** Please Read **
ReplyDeleteTo our blogger buddies. Please don't feed the trolls. I have replied to see if the "Commenters" are interlocutors or just cut-and-paste bots.
Thank you for your cooperation.
SF,
DeleteThat's the way to go!
I like to give fair warning to our friends who post here. I hate to see good comments go when I have to zap the bot or troll they responded to.
DeleteSee my comment below on Louise. She is a real person, and is welcome here, with AOW's OK.
DeleteI say that for the last 14-15 years between Obama and Biden we have given them the silent nod and now Americans and people around the world are shocked? I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteimo, we have never crafted and executed a solid, coherent policy vis a vis Russia since the cold war ended.
DeleteI completely agree. We dropped the ball, and this is the result of that.
DeleteSF,
Deletewe have never crafted and executed a solid, coherent policy vis a vis Russia since the cold war ended
Indeed! And both Republicans and Dems are at fault on this.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteDeleted for childish name-calling.
DeleteYes, you can post here, but keep it on topic and please, try to up your game and provide some thoughtful, intelligent commentary.
Slobbery "Trump Good! Obama bad!" is boring, can be found millions of times all over the innerwebz, and adds nothing to the good conversation we have here.
And by the way, Biden has picked his advisers from the Obama years and those who DO HAVE. the same leftists policies from Obamas era. Even Antony Blinken is a has-been from Obamas Administration.
ReplyDeleteBlinken's not a general.
DeleteAnd please tell us how this bears upon 30 years of Western diplomatic failure with Russia.
DeleteI think that Biden's entire purpose for drawing our attention to Ukraine has been to distract the nation from his abysmal job performance. The man can't even give a coherent speech anymore. He needs to resign.
ReplyDeleteVP Giggles would be even worse.
DeletePerhaps... but she is not mentally incapable of executing the duties of her office, and I don't want the White House staff getting used to taking direction from Jill Biden.
DeleteShe has even less l'audace than Sleepy Joe.
Delete** Update **
ReplyDeleteLouise is a live person, a veteran and a conservative. Let's welcome her, and please feel free to respond to her comments.
Wasn’t General Austin active under Obama?
ReplyDeleteYes, and I share your disdain for him. If you've read this blog much, I routinely excoriate him, Milley and the rest of the pampered pentagon princes who couldn't win a war against a pre-school daycare center.
DeleteThe reason I become impatient with people point to Obama:
- He hasn't been president in 6 years
- Many of our problems, including foreign policy, are the result of bipartisan bungling.
- Pointing out every bad Democrat policy (and they are legion) while never critically scrutinizing Republican policies is looking at the world half-blind.
Id wish that you’d Tell that to the Trump Hating Brigade
DeleteI often do in many threads. Here's my Disqus comment history:
DeleteSilverfiddle Disqus Feed
It's actually 5 years, but isn't it fair to say that this is Obama's 3rd term?
DeleteEd, of course that is a valid and reasoned opinion.
DeleteOkay, let’s take these one at a time.
ReplyDelete“Russia took back Crimea when Obama was president…” Russia did not “take” Crimea. When the democratically elected of Ukraine was overthrown in 2014 the people of Crimea held a popular vote and, in accord with the “Right of Self Determination” which is part of the charter of the United Nations, voted to separate themselves from a Ukraine which was being governed by a government which they distrusted and despised.
They included in that vote a request to Russia to be accepted into the Russian Federation, much as Hawaii and Alaska requested to be accepted as states in the United States, and the Russian Government (not Putin) accepted their application.
Before you claim that Russian troops in Crimea corrupted and coerced the popular vote, those troops were there pursuant to a treaty between Russia and Ukraine having to do with a naval base at Sevastapol, very similar to military agreements which the US has had with some 70 countries worldwide for several decades. The troops were few in number and were confined to the base in Sevastapol during the vote.
“Now Vlad has taken another bite out of Ukraine…” At the same time that Crimea voted independence, so did the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, in 2014. They went unrecognized until this year until the Russian government (not Putin alone) recognized them as independent republics under the UN “Right of Self Determination,” just as the US did for Kosovo when it separated from Serbia in 2008.
They threw in the UN policy of “the responsibility to protect” the people of those new republics, who were being murdered by Ukrainian military forces. A little shaky, perhaps, but no more so than the US claim of using R2P for the purpose of destroying Libya and assuring the slaughter of its leader.
Russia is providing military assistance to the two new republics at their request, just as we provided military assistance to Kosovo in the form os a massive and prolonged bombing campaign. Russia’s assistance is much more benign than ours was, although it may not remain that way.
“…as Russia grabbed a piece of our new ally Georgia.” My nephew is a colonel in the US Army and has served in Georgia for a bit more than two years. He will tell you without reservation that there is not one single Russian soldier in that peaceful and happy nation, and very few in either of the two breakaway independent republics which Georgia tried and failed to occupy. Failed because Russia prevented Georgia from doing so and, having assured that failure, returned to Russia.
I compare Russian actions to ours, by the way, not in the vein of "we are just as bad," but to say that both Russia and the US are acting on principles embraced by the United Nations. And maybe to ask why we condemn actions done by others which we do ourselves.
DeleteThe comments here starting at 6:35 am today pretty much cover it.
DeleteSlaves (hysterics) never appreciate the words/actions of their Masters.
DeleteJayhawk,
DeleteYou can dress it up however you want. Russia now owns Crimea, and we can see for ourselves what they are doing right now in Ukraine.
Russia caused those regions to break away from Georgia. You can quibble all you want, but Georgia no longer controls them, and Russia is to blame.
Did kyev vote for "independence" too?
DeleteIt's Trump's "Beyond the Law"...
ReplyDeleteOne should bear in mind Lacan's lesson here: accepting guilt is a manoeuvre which delivers us of anxiety, and its presence signals that the subject compromised his desire. So when, in a move described by Kierkegaard, one withdraws from the dizziness of freedom by seeking a firm support in the order of finitude, this withdrawal itself is the true Fall. More precisely, this withdrawal is the very withdrawal into the constraints of the externally-imposed prohibitory Law, so that the freedom which then arises is the freedom to violate the Law, the freedom caught into the vicious cycle of Law and its transgression, where Law engenders the desire to "free oneself" by way of violating it, and "sin" is the temptation inherent to the Law-the ambiguity of attraction and repulsion which characterizes anxiety is now exerted not directly by freedom but by sin. The dialectic of Law and its transgression does not reside only in the fact that Law itself solicits its own transgression, that it generates the desire for its own violation; our obedience to the Law itself is not "natural," spontaneous, but always-already mediated by the (repression of the) desire to transgress it. When we obey the Law, we do it as part of a desperate strategy to fight against our desire to transgress it, so the more rigorously we OBEY the Law, the more we bear witness to the fact that, deep in ourselves, we fell the pressure of the desire to indulge in sin. The superego feeling of guilt is therefore right: the more we obey the Law, the more we are guilty, because this obedience effectively IS a defense against our sinful desire.
-Slavoj Zizek, "Anxiety: Kierkegaard with Lacan"
Damn... you beat me to my "punch". :(
Delete:P
DeleteIs it not that showing mercy is the ONLY way for a Master to demonstrate his supra-legal authority? If a Master were merely to guarantee the full application of the law, of legal regulations, he would be deprived of his authority and turn into a mere figure of knowledge, the agent of the discourse of university. (This is why even a great judge is a Master figure: he always somehow twists the law in its application by way of interpreting it creatively.) This goes even for Stalin himself, a figure which we definitely do not associate with mercy: one should never forget that, as the (now available) minutes of the meetings of the Politburo and Central Committee from the 1930s demonstrate, Stalin's direct interventions were as a rule those of displaying mercy. When younger CC members, eager to prove their revolutionary fervour, demanded instant death penalty for Bukharin, Stalin always intervened and said "Patience! His guilt is not yet proven!" or something similar. Of course this was a hypocritical attitude - Stalin was well aware that he himself generated the destructive fervour, that the younger members were eager to please him - but, nonetheless, the appearance of mercy is necessary here.
- Slavoj Zizek, "La Clemenza di Tito, or the Ridiculously-Obscene Excess of Mercy
The above is also a "proof" that Trudeau is no 'Master'. He's a slave to the University Discourse".
DeleteHe must "twist" a wartime measure preventing treason to apply to the "mischief" of snarling traffic.
Deleteala "Portia" in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice".
Delete...only to condemn, and not "mercifully free" the subjects of his powers.
Delete“But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangmen and the bloodhound look out of their faces.
Delete-Nietzsche
Good Lord it is happening! Russia is invading eastern Ukraine and on their way to Kyiv! It is morning in Moscow where Putin just announced this.
ReplyDeleteRead here ...
L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace. ;)
DeletePatton.
Deletela seule solution ce gouvernement ne quittera pas à paris ce gouvernement ne se cachera pas dans la peur ce gouvernement va rester se battre et vaincre peu importe comment peu importe que cela coûtera il faut combattre avec chaque homme chaque fusil lance ou ep tout ce qui tombe sous la main et que celui qui osera montrer sa peur sache que la terreur et pire encore il faut arrêter trente mille traîtres ils doivent être arrêtées demain convaincre les ennemis nous devons montrer de l'audace encore de l'audace est toujours de l'audace pour sauver la france GEORGE-JACQUES DANTON
Deleteh/t to beamish.
DeletePatton was audacious enough to misattribute that quote to Frederic the Great. ;)
DeleteA Patton story...
DeleteOne of the bravest men I saw in the African campaign was on a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were moving toward Tunis. I stopped and asked him what the hell he was doing up there. He answered, 'Fixing the wire, sir.' 'Isn't it a little unhealthy up there right now?' I asked. 'Yes sir, but this goddamn wire has got to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?' And he answered, 'No sir, but you sure as hell do.' Now, there was a real soldier. A real man. A man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty appeared at the time.
My favorite military joke...
DeleteThree navy leaders from three different countries are arguing about who has the bravest soliders.
The British navy leader says "I'll show how brave my soldiers are! John! Climb to the top of the mast of this ship and dive head first into the water!"
"On it, sir!" John replies.
John does exactly as his leader requested - he climbs to the top of the mast and fearlessly dives head first into the water before climbing back up.
The French navy leader says "Ha ha ha, you think that's brave?! I'll show you what brave is! Michael! Climb to the top of the mast, dive in head first, then swim under the ship and emerge on the other side!"
"Got it, sir!" Michael replies. He does exactly as his leader requested - he climbs to the top of the mast, dives in the water head first, then swims under the ship and emerges on the other side.
"Pfft." The American soldier says. "Paul, climb to the top of the mast, dive in head first, swim under the ship three times, climb up and do 25 push-ups!"
Paul immediately replies "Go fuck yourself I'm not doing that!" and stays put without moving an inch.
The American navy leader smiles at the British and the French. "And THAT, boys, is BRAVERY."
** Reminder ** Do not feed the trolls. Any comment you make in response to them gets deleted along with their comment. We take care of it when we see it. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteSorry Silverfiddle. I did not believe he was a troll, but I get it. I typically allow these comments for debate. I respect your wishes. Again, sorry.
DeleteThe permanent and complete band of that particular troll comes directly from the blog's proprietess.
DeletePlease don't take my comment as a scold. It's just when I take down a trolls comments I hate for our blogger buddies comments to go down with them
:)
Delete30 years of foreign policy stupidity, incompetence, hubris, and plunkish, unimaginative thinking has brought us to this point.
ReplyDeletePutin is totally responsible for what he is doing, no one else. However, given that, a little self-reflection on our part has to happen, as well as accountability for the fools and boobs who failed to manage the post Cold war.
^ +1
DeleteWell said, SF.
Putin's timing was impeccable. He waited until a small-minded pedantic rule-follower was sitting in the office @ 1600 Pennsylvania Ave before "breaking all the rules" surrounding Ukraine.
DeletePutin criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for failing to implement the protocol, and referenced an obscene song lyric to demonstrate what he wanted.
Delete"Whether you like it or don't like it, bear with it, my beauty," Putin said.
Russia experts noted that Putin appeared to be quoting from "Sleeping Beauty in a Coffin" by the Soviet-era punk rock group Red Mold.
"Sleeping beauty in a coffin, I crept up and fucked her. Like it, or dislike it, sleep my beauty," the English translation of the Russian lyrics reads.
Unfortunately, Joe Biden forgot to take his Viagra in response...
@Silverfiddle Many are of the mind that it is NATOs fault and the incompetency of Biden and what happened in Afghanistan. I believe it is a combination of many things, not only Putin, but many who in the past placated him, like Obama. Obama literally gave him Crimea. So of course, with another useful democrat idiot in office and the weak sanctions around the world not limited to our own, it's a joke to Putin. The man is just not a narcissist but a psychopath.
DeleteElizabeth,
DeleteI won't argue your point, but I will say if we hang all the blame on one simple scapegoat, it prevents us from getting to the root of the problem, and that is the problem I have with Red Team-Blue Team partisan political arguments.
I gotta give credit to you Lefties. You warned us Republicans that if we voted for Trump, we'd get inflation and wars!
ReplyDeleteOh wait s minute, that didn’t happen, did it!
Here is one source.
ReplyDeleteWay to GO Joe!
ReplyDeleteIt only took you 13 months to:
Lose Afghanistan
Lose Ukraine and peace in Europe
Have oil over a hundred bucks a barrel
Gave us inflation over 7%
Crashed stock market
You Gave Our Free Masks when the end of the pandemic was just about over,
Thanks Joey, Im sure that Putin Loves You!
This country doesn't have the political will to confront Putin.
ReplyDelete--or the CCP, or the Mullahs of Iran, or......--
"Sī vīs pācem, parā bellum" (If you want peace, prepare for war)
Unfortunately, the powers that be think that peace through strength is bending over and grabing your ankles and soft power is giving your enemies everything they want.
+1
ReplyDeleteThe news cycles from Ukraine are full of reasons why everyone should own an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine.
(Ukrainian civilians have only had the right bear arms for less than a week)
Not 'a' magazine. One is none.
DeleteMultiple magazines.
I would caution against putting too much stock in 'news' articles. War is messy and confusing. If a pundit tells you they know what's going on, they are lying.
DeleteAR-15 vs. tank? Give me some RPGs, TOWS and a couple of Sidewinders.
Delete