No Ukraine war threads on first page?
- Thread starter nottyboi
- Start date
Professor Nina Khrushcheva explains Putin and the Russian dilemma nicely.
You can go to the last paragraph if you like. I have been saying this for 20 years or so. Czar is always right.
Terry Glavin: The brutal reality of what's needed to end the Ukraine war — Coffins, with Russian soldiers in them
It’s a brutally unpleasant way to describe what it will take to turn the tide against Russia in the Kremlin’s savage war on the Ukrainian people, but the advantage the proposition holds is that nothing else seems to be working, certainly not the “convening” that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly amusingly proposed last March as the unique talent Canada could bring to the cause of ending the war.
Coffins will have to do, with dead Russian soldiers in them.
That was the remedy prescribed by Eliot Cohen, the Johns Hopkins University professor and former counsellor for the U.S. State Department, last Feb. 23. It should tell you something about Cohen’s prescience that he made that observation in the hours before Vladimir Putin’s full-force invasion began. “Only one thing, in fact, can cause Russia to rethink and even abandon its program of conquest: coffins.”
It’s nearly impossible to arrive at an accurate death count, but the estimates from a variety of sources suggest perhaps 20,000 dead Russian soldiers so far, and an almost equal number of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. It’s a horrible thing to say out loud, but it has to be said. There haven’t been enough Russian coffins.
It has taken an unforgivable amount of time for the leaders of the NATO countries to wake up to the fact that Putin is at war with all of us, aided and abetted by China’s Xi Jinping, and some NATO leaders are only now shaking themselves from their torpor, and from the hubris of their diplomats and foreign-policy “experts.”
The good news is that finally, maybe, the European Union and the G7 countries appear to be listening to what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been saying all along: Close the skies. And no, that does not mean a no-fly zone, enforced by NATO. It means more Javelin missiles, more Stingers, and more advanced air defence systems to augment Ukraine’s own S-300 batteries.
U.S. President Joe Biden this week promised to deliver two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems before Christmas. Even Germany, which until February couldn’t quite decide whose side it was on, is suddenly coming through with at least one of the four Iris-T SLM systems German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised back in June. This is to the good.
The heightened urgency, if that’s what you could call it, was prompted by the barrage of missiles the Kremlin launched at several Ukrainian cities and towns this week, including the capital, Kyiv, knocking out power to almost a third of the country. It was a show of terror after Russian forces were routed from Ukrainian territories in several embarrassing turnarounds, and nearly lost the 19-kilometre Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia.
And again, Putin leaned into veiled threats to deploy nuclear weapons. And again, the NATO capitals were all in a flutter about it, with the same old appeals against “provocation” and “escalation” and boring entreaties to imagine the horrors of nuclear war. As if allowing Putin to get away with his barbarism in Ukraine would somehow dissuade him from pushing the red button or threatening to do so in the future, the next time he wants to get his way, perhaps with an invasion of NATO’s Baltic states.
But that’s the pattern. And it’s why the war has dragged on. It’s instructive to remember what Zelenskyy said in his address to Parliament back in March: “Can you imagine when you call your friends, your friendly nation, and you ask: ‘Please close the sky, close the airspace, please stop the bombing. How many more cruise missiles have to fall on our cities until you make this happen?’ And they, in return, they express their deep concerns about the situation.”
He said the same to the U.S. Congress, and to the Parliament in London, and that’s more or less what everybody did. We all expressed deep concerns.
And now, the global food supply is as frail as a spiderweb, Europe is battening down for a horribly cold winter and looking at inflation in the double digits. Fuel and fertilizer prices are going through the roof across the Maghreb, the Levant, Latin America and Africa. And the financial markets are convulsing.
Although British and American intelligence officials say there’s no evidence at all that Putin is readying Russia’s nuclear arsenal, it may well be a bad idea to call Putin’s bluff. The problem is that the arguments against doing so are either embarrassingly ill-informed, a jumble of platitudes about peace and the superior virtues of diplomacy, or just plain lame.
Anders Ostlund of the Centre for European Policy Analysis is one of smarter observers of the existential struggle Ukrainians are putting up in defence of the democratic world, and he’s as clear-eyed as anyone about what it will take to bring Russia to heel. Coffins, yes. But that won’t be the end of it. “There will be no end to the barbaric madness as long as Russia is around. The Russian state apparatus needs to be destroyed,” Ostlund says, “the Russian Federation dissolved, (and) Russia demilitarized for this to stop.” The sooner the NATO countries, the European Union and the democratic bloc at the United Nations stop pretending this isn’t so, the better.
Terry Glavin: The brutal reality of what's needed to end the Ukraine war — Coffins, with Russian soldiers in them
It’s a brutally unpleasant way to describe what it will take to turn the tide against Russia in the Kremlin’s savage war on the Ukrainian people, but the advantage the proposition holds is that nothing else seems to be working, certainly not the “convening” that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly amusingly proposed last March as the unique talent Canada could bring to the cause of ending the war.
Coffins will have to do, with dead Russian soldiers in them.
That was the remedy prescribed by Eliot Cohen, the Johns Hopkins University professor and former counsellor for the U.S. State Department, last Feb. 23. It should tell you something about Cohen’s prescience that he made that observation in the hours before Vladimir Putin’s full-force invasion began. “Only one thing, in fact, can cause Russia to rethink and even abandon its program of conquest: coffins.”
It’s nearly impossible to arrive at an accurate death count, but the estimates from a variety of sources suggest perhaps 20,000 dead Russian soldiers so far, and an almost equal number of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. It’s a horrible thing to say out loud, but it has to be said. There haven’t been enough Russian coffins.
It has taken an unforgivable amount of time for the leaders of the NATO countries to wake up to the fact that Putin is at war with all of us, aided and abetted by China’s Xi Jinping, and some NATO leaders are only now shaking themselves from their torpor, and from the hubris of their diplomats and foreign-policy “experts.”
The good news is that finally, maybe, the European Union and the G7 countries appear to be listening to what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been saying all along: Close the skies. And no, that does not mean a no-fly zone, enforced by NATO. It means more Javelin missiles, more Stingers, and more advanced air defence systems to augment Ukraine’s own S-300 batteries.
U.S. President Joe Biden this week promised to deliver two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems before Christmas. Even Germany, which until February couldn’t quite decide whose side it was on, is suddenly coming through with at least one of the four Iris-T SLM systems German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised back in June. This is to the good.
The heightened urgency, if that’s what you could call it, was prompted by the barrage of missiles the Kremlin launched at several Ukrainian cities and towns this week, including the capital, Kyiv, knocking out power to almost a third of the country. It was a show of terror after Russian forces were routed from Ukrainian territories in several embarrassing turnarounds, and nearly lost the 19-kilometre Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia.
And again, Putin leaned into veiled threats to deploy nuclear weapons. And again, the NATO capitals were all in a flutter about it, with the same old appeals against “provocation” and “escalation” and boring entreaties to imagine the horrors of nuclear war. As if allowing Putin to get away with his barbarism in Ukraine would somehow dissuade him from pushing the red button or threatening to do so in the future, the next time he wants to get his way, perhaps with an invasion of NATO’s Baltic states.
But that’s the pattern. And it’s why the war has dragged on. It’s instructive to remember what Zelenskyy said in his address to Parliament back in March: “Can you imagine when you call your friends, your friendly nation, and you ask: ‘Please close the sky, close the airspace, please stop the bombing. How many more cruise missiles have to fall on our cities until you make this happen?’ And they, in return, they express their deep concerns about the situation.”
He said the same to the U.S. Congress, and to the Parliament in London, and that’s more or less what everybody did. We all expressed deep concerns.
And now, the global food supply is as frail as a spiderweb, Europe is battening down for a horribly cold winter and looking at inflation in the double digits. Fuel and fertilizer prices are going through the roof across the Maghreb, the Levant, Latin America and Africa. And the financial markets are convulsing.
Although British and American intelligence officials say there’s no evidence at all that Putin is readying Russia’s nuclear arsenal, it may well be a bad idea to call Putin’s bluff. The problem is that the arguments against doing so are either embarrassingly ill-informed, a jumble of platitudes about peace and the superior virtues of diplomacy, or just plain lame.
Anders Ostlund of the Centre for European Policy Analysis is one of smarter observers of the existential struggle Ukrainians are putting up in defence of the democratic world, and he’s as clear-eyed as anyone about what it will take to bring Russia to heel. Coffins, yes. But that won’t be the end of it. “There will be no end to the barbaric madness as long as Russia is around. The Russian state apparatus needs to be destroyed,” Ostlund says, “the Russian Federation dissolved, (and) Russia demilitarized for this to stop.” The sooner the NATO countries, the European Union and the democratic bloc at the United Nations stop pretending this isn’t so, the better.
Putin needs to declare the war over and that he's won and very soon.
The only problem is that Ukraine keeps taking back that land.
Of course they won't, but its not like Putin was ever going to do anything Ukraine would accept.
So then it becomes whether Putin can declare he won, keep the news of losing more land out of the media and hide the conscription.
All of which means he'd be thinking he can keep control the situation and won't have to resort to firing nukes.
Ironic that the very Russian insecurities and fears have again triggered their inherent brutality that will lead to their demise... again.
As long as either side thinks they can achieve their goals militarily, they won't sit down for negotiation.
OCT 13 2022
Biden administration asked Saudi Arabia to postpone OPEC decision by a month, Saudis say
www.cnbc.com
.....................................
“Other OPEC nations communicated to us privately that they also disagreed with the Saudi decision, but felt coerced to support Saudi’s direction,” he said. “As the President has said, we are reevaluating our relationship with Saudi Arabia in light of these actions, and will continue to look for signs about where they stand in combatting Russian aggression.”
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden said there would be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia’s oil production cut, which the kingdom is carrying out in coordination with other OPEC members and non-OPEC allies like Russia. Many in Washington saw this as a snub and a blatant display of siding with Moscow.
................................
Biden administration asked Saudi Arabia to postpone OPEC decision by a month, Saudis say
Biden administration asked Saudi Arabia to postpone OPEC decision by a month, Saudis say
Notably, Biden's request would have delayed the decision until after the U.S. midterm elections.
.....................................
“Other OPEC nations communicated to us privately that they also disagreed with the Saudi decision, but felt coerced to support Saudi’s direction,” he said. “As the President has said, we are reevaluating our relationship with Saudi Arabia in light of these actions, and will continue to look for signs about where they stand in combatting Russian aggression.”
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden said there would be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia’s oil production cut, which the kingdom is carrying out in coordination with other OPEC members and non-OPEC allies like Russia. Many in Washington saw this as a snub and a blatant display of siding with Moscow.
................................
WWIII is trending on twitter tonight.
Though more people are interested in Marvel movies.
Though more people are interested in Marvel movies.
Funny,
I said so many years ago that Sweden, Finland, Austria, and Ireland should be part of NATO and Why the hell are they not?
Two have joined, and now Ireland thinking about it more. It may be useful to have Switzerland as neutral(although I heard a few deeper alliance rumours) but the others are just naive.
Listen to the Czar. Russians are a threat. Have been since before all of us were born.
Ireland examines neutrality stance after Ukraine war: minister
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is forcing Ireland to rethink its long tradition of military neutrality, the country's European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne has told AFP.
Public opinion may not be ready for membership of the US-led NATO alliance yet, Byrne said in an interview during a visit to France, even though there is no doubt as to where Irish sympathies lie.
"Russia invading Ukraine, totally against the UN charter, against the basic principles of territorial integrity, put the Irish people very firmly, instinctively on the side of right there," he said.
"We're not neutral when it comes to an invasion like that, but we're neutral when it comes to joining a military alliance," he said.
Irish neutrality has sometimes caused consternation among its EU allies and elsewhere, but Byrne said there were strong historic reasons for its stance.
"For a lot of our history, as an independent country, we were overshadowed in our own minds by the British attempt at conscription in 1918," which sparked angry protests from Irish nationalists and became a factor for the country's independence in 1922.
"I think that's partly where Irish neutrality comes from. Our neutrality has been characterised by non-membership of military alliances," he said.
"Public opinion is not in favour of Ireland joining military alliances. But also I think the public is seeing now that defence is different to offence," Byrne said.
Ireland is currently concerned that submarine cables carrying trans-Atlantic internet traffic may be vulnerable to attack, which could cause havoc for European networks -- a worry exacerbated by recent explosions destroying part of the Nordstream pipelines for which Western governments have blamed sabotage.
"We've seen what happened at Nordstream. The submarine cables are partly in Irish waters," Byrne said. "We have to defend our cables, we have to defend ourselves."
"In Ireland we probably need a new conception of what defence is, a new concept," he said.
One way forward could be submitting the neutrality question to a Citizens Assembly, an Irish institution where members of the public examine important issues together with experts, preparing legislative change.
"The Taoiseach (Prime Minister Micheal Martin) has said he may decide to hold a Citizens Assembly on that issue so that the public can think things through," Byrne said.
Although there are currently no concrete plans for such a move, it could become "part of a wider debate on how to defend ourselves".
Previously non-aligned countries Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in May in response to Russia's attack on Ukraine, and their accession protocols were signed in July.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine itself have also applied to join the alliance.
I said so many years ago that Sweden, Finland, Austria, and Ireland should be part of NATO and Why the hell are they not?
Two have joined, and now Ireland thinking about it more. It may be useful to have Switzerland as neutral(although I heard a few deeper alliance rumours) but the others are just naive.
Listen to the Czar. Russians are a threat. Have been since before all of us were born.
Ireland examines neutrality stance after Ukraine war: minister
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is forcing Ireland to rethink its long tradition of military neutrality, the country's European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne has told AFP.
Public opinion may not be ready for membership of the US-led NATO alliance yet, Byrne said in an interview during a visit to France, even though there is no doubt as to where Irish sympathies lie.
"Russia invading Ukraine, totally against the UN charter, against the basic principles of territorial integrity, put the Irish people very firmly, instinctively on the side of right there," he said.
"We're not neutral when it comes to an invasion like that, but we're neutral when it comes to joining a military alliance," he said.
Irish neutrality has sometimes caused consternation among its EU allies and elsewhere, but Byrne said there were strong historic reasons for its stance.
"For a lot of our history, as an independent country, we were overshadowed in our own minds by the British attempt at conscription in 1918," which sparked angry protests from Irish nationalists and became a factor for the country's independence in 1922.
"I think that's partly where Irish neutrality comes from. Our neutrality has been characterised by non-membership of military alliances," he said.
"Public opinion is not in favour of Ireland joining military alliances. But also I think the public is seeing now that defence is different to offence," Byrne said.
Ireland is currently concerned that submarine cables carrying trans-Atlantic internet traffic may be vulnerable to attack, which could cause havoc for European networks -- a worry exacerbated by recent explosions destroying part of the Nordstream pipelines for which Western governments have blamed sabotage.
"We've seen what happened at Nordstream. The submarine cables are partly in Irish waters," Byrne said. "We have to defend our cables, we have to defend ourselves."
"In Ireland we probably need a new conception of what defence is, a new concept," he said.
One way forward could be submitting the neutrality question to a Citizens Assembly, an Irish institution where members of the public examine important issues together with experts, preparing legislative change.
"The Taoiseach (Prime Minister Micheal Martin) has said he may decide to hold a Citizens Assembly on that issue so that the public can think things through," Byrne said.
Although there are currently no concrete plans for such a move, it could become "part of a wider debate on how to defend ourselves".
Previously non-aligned countries Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in May in response to Russia's attack on Ukraine, and their accession protocols were signed in July.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine itself have also applied to join the alliance.
Attachments
No. The political fallout from loss is so great for both sides that military feasibility is not the determining factor.
It's all-in win-or-die.
I disagree.
Military feasibility is always a factor in determining negotiating position.
