Putins a thug. China worries me a lot more than Putin. I think Putins trying to bring back his KGB glory days of Soviet imperialism, but its too late. Putin, I dont know if NATO has the stomach for military conflict with you, but large-scale military conflict isnt the only option anymore. Sanctions can bring states to the bargaining table. You paying attention to Iran? And we won (depending on your definition, I suppose) Kosovo with air power alone, which military doctrine previously said was flat-out impossible (see rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1365/MR1365.ch8.pdf , and muse.jhu.edu/journals/ins/summary/v027/27.3stigler.html , to name a few). And an air war (consisting mostly of strikes against ground targets) has more leeway in not leading to a ground war, consensus on it can be achieved a hell of a lot easier than ground conflict, and the resources required are significantly less than ground conflict making an air war MUCH easier to sustain over an extended period. And besides, do you really want an Afghanistan in Ukraine and beyond? Ukraine isnt Crimea, and trying for all of Ukraine would be a bad idea. That kind of occupation (eventually) kicked the Soviets ass, demoralized its army, and drained their resources, and you dont have near the resources that the Soviet Army did. For one thing, you dont have guaranteed access to the personel and materials that the Soviets did, because the now-independent or semi-independent states that used to be under direct Soviet control wont necessarily give you those resources. You dont have the puppets the Soviets did that allowed you to pressure the west in multiple regions -- Irans engaged with western Europe and the U.S., you dont know which side will win the Syrian civil war, and as far as I know the rest of the former satellite states dont need you like they once did. North Korea? Give me a break. China worries me much more. An very large and increasingly strong economic force in Asia, increasing business ties with U.S. companies, and significant raw material resources. Theyve not had a large organized opposition movement since Tienanmen Square, as far as I know. I dont think the sanctions necessary to significantly change their foreign and domestic policy and/or foster civil unrest are economically feasible now. And in an extreme-case scenario (very unlikely), what if they made a move for Russias huge natural resources in Siberia? Could Russia, in effect, fight a two-front war? As far as I know, theyve never had to nor do they have the military capability to (see above). And what would the west do? To the best of my knowledge we dont have any sort of mutual defense agreement with Russia whatsoever (Id be very surprised if we did). On what basis, then, could the West intervene on your behalf, and would they even consider it? Basically, dude, I think youve already overplayed your hand or are close to it. Almost all of this is off the top of my head, so I may be wrong about a number of these things, but I feel my chances of being at least generally correct in my facts are good enough that Im willing to use them in a discussion/argument.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:52:02 +0000
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