Poking the bear
Yesterday, the Obama Administration issued a warning to the Russians to stay out of Ukrainian affairs. So this morning we awake to pictures of armed soldiers with no patches on their uniform at two airports in the Crimea. From the Washington Times;
But Thursday’s events and the grim warnings from powerful U.S. lawmakers that Russia ultimately will invade Ukraine just as it did Georgia in 2008 demonstrate that the Obama administration, whether it likes it or not, is at odds again with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the global stage.
Analysts say there is little the U.S. can do, other than issue strongly worded statements or pursue some economic sanctions, if the situation deteriorates.
For now, the White House is sticking with statements.
“We strongly support Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and we expect other nations to do the same and so we are closely watching Russian military exercises along the Ukrainian border,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Thursday.
That was yesterday, today, troops at airports, and ships in the Black Sea, says Fox News;
A Reuters eyewitness at the scene said the men were dressed in full battle gear and carrying assault rifles and machine guns. They were reportedly moving freely in an out of a control tower.
On Thursday, masked gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades and sniper rifles seized the parliament and government offices in Simferopol and raised the Russian flag over the parliament building.
Ukrainian officials sharply denounced the move. Ukrainian police cordoned off the area, but didn’t confront the gunmen.
The more that this administration tries to do in regards to this action, the weaker they will appear on the world stage. Putin’s gonna do what Putin is gonna do. We’ve already made it clear that we don’t approve, and that’s all we can reasonably do. It was charitable of the Washington Times to call some US lawmakers “powerful” but we’re really powerless in this whole thing. What are we going to do? Drone Putin?
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Foreign Policy
I am just glad that President Obama got reelected. Now he can demonstrate to Putin how flexible he is as Putin is ramming it to him from behind. He should be sure to include being Putin’s bitch when he writes his biography.
obamao, the dickless wonder…
O’Bummer should be contacting Kennedy Uzomba and Commander Phil Monkress at All Points Logistics.
Serious situations call for serious people.
Yep.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=39985#comment-1143563
Putin’s just putting the old Empire back together again. Is anyone really surprised?
Look, our awesome President told the Russians not to mess around in Ukraine. I am sure that Putin is listening and everything will be fine. Now, does anyone want to buy a bridge??
Oh great, another “red line” in erasable ink. Yawn.
MAJMike: actually, Putin may be merely trying to undo a historical oddity re: the Crimea.
The Ukraine has traditionally not had much influence in the Crimea. Since it became part of the Russian Empire in the 1770s, Russia – not the Ukraine – had primary influence in the Crimea. Today, the population is nearly 60% ethnically Russian; less than 25% is Ukrainian, and the remainder is Tatar/other. Throughout Russian/Soviet history back to the late 19th Century, there have always been far more Russians in the Crimea than Ukrainians.
However, in 1954, the Soviet Presidium under Khrushchev ordered the Crimea transferred from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR. This was likely an ill-advised move, if for no other reason than as noted above the population was far more Russian than Ukrainian. This was a point of contention between the Ukraine and the Russian Republic after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
This may just be Putin’s/Russia’s way of settling an old score.
Obama and Kerry did not poke the Bear i nthe eye, they kicked him square in the balls thinking that he would do nothing. Amateurs of the most dangerous kind.
Quick, wake up Uncle Joe and John Kerry-Heinz so they can chime in as well.
Kerry couldn’t get his calls received. Biden is a moron and the Russians knew he was before even we did. As for The Emperor, he is of no consequence to Putin. None. Putin will do what he will. After all, some number of Ukrainians have fomented tremendous upheaval in a nation next to Mother Russia and one whose Crimea is heavily populated by Russians, some of whom have taken control of a gov’t building. Funny thing that. Those inside need food and water…
I trained in Ukraine in 1995 on the first of the “Partnership for Peace” exercises that allowed U.S. troops into the former Soviet countries. Also trained in Romania. In both countries, we found the people to be down to earth and friendly. They were very welcoming and seemed to really like America. I feel very sorry that they are more than likely going to go under the Russian boot again.
I feel even sorrier that our feckless leader has not got the stones to back up his rhetoric. The world is getting dangerous as hell again comrades. Our lack of foreign policy is allowing all of the worlds bad actors to come out of the woodwork. When Uncle Sam is found to be a paper tiger, bad shit happens. Ask Jimmy Carter.
Current administration: Weak and Worthless.
Must be a b!tch to be POTUS and be blatantly ignored/laughed at by other world leaders . . . .
I could well be wrong, but I don’t think Russia will use this as an excuse to “retake” the Ukraine. Dominating them commercially suits their purposes at present.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Russia uses this as an excuse to occupy the Crimea under the auspices of “restoring order”, though. As I noted above, historically the Crimea’s been more Russian than Ukrainian for well over 100 years (and maybe since it first became part of the Russian Empire in the 1770s). Khrushchev giving the Crimea to the Ukraine in 1954 was a historical aberration. Such aberrations often cause serious problems decades later.
If you want to mess with the 1st Team…you’d better be ready. I know we are NOT ready. I’m sure they know as well.
@15 It also causes serious problems when you have a ruler (Putin) who is determined to restore Russia to it’s former glory. I would put nothing past him. And Obama making empty threats is not even a blip on his radar. Not in his grand scheme of things.
@15: The Crimea was touted as “the jewel of Russia” for centuries. You’re right; they are more Russian than Ukrainian. Putin will take Crimea and put it under Soviet……..I mean Russian control and security, just like he did with those two states in Georgia.
Obama can’t do anything, and doesn’t want to do anything, because he is, and always has been, Putin’s bitch.
As @12 says: The world is getting dangerous as hell and we have a metrosexual in charge. I hope we survive him.
2008 Georgia all over again. Is anyone surprised? It’s the same pretense that Hitler used to invade Poland.
@15 A little lebensraum for the Russians of the Ukraine so to speak?
NO ONE is listening to anything coming out of the Beltway … not even the citizens of the USA!
On a serious note,
I know I come off as a clown on most occasions w/ my comments on posers and such; but I also observe.
While I may not agree w/ many of Putin’s policies and politics, I find it very difficult to not only like and admire the man, but respect him as well.
He may be a strongman, I understand that. And his leadership style is heavy-handed and unorthodox. But it is very effective.
When you look at many of Russia’s past socio-economic issues and where they are today….staggering. I understand Obama is weak, I do. And Putin and his “lackey” struggled in the face of unipolarity and Bush. But folks, those days are over.
I would actually like to read Putin’s book (if ever written and published) on leadership.
Just an observation.
Green Thumb: agreed. Much like Germany’s Bismark, you might not like the man or the actions he directed – but those actions were/are effective as hell for their nations.
Those who underestimated Bismark almost uniformly regretted it. IMO, the same is true of Putin.
Bobo, VOV: negative. More like a return of territory that was historically (well, during the 20th century) and ethnically Russian, but which was forcibly transferred to another nation for nothing more than political expediency 60 years ago.
In contrast, the seizure of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union was a grab for empire, essentially without camouflage. Like the occupation of the Balkan States occurring shortly afterwards, the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland was a grab of territory populated overwhelmingly by non-Russian inhabitants. Very little to none of that territory was ever ethnically Russian. Lithuanian, Belorussian, or Ukranian – yes. But those nationalities are all distinct from Russian.
At least, I’m guessing that’s exactly how the Russians see it today. Nicki, if you see this – your thoughts?
Green Thumb, Putin is an old style dictator who is merely getting all of his ducks in a row before he re-launches the USSR with better branding. (New and improved communism!!!)
The economy appears to be entirely run by the Russian mob with government cover. Anyone who makes money over there and somehow does not pay tribute to the government either goes to jail or dies. (Great story on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago about an American business man who made a fortune over there and then ran afoul of Putin).
And I will end by saying his leadership style is effective in the same way leadership is effective under any dictator: you get with the program or you get eaten by hungry dogs.
Putin has designs on more territory and he is not shy about using force to get it as displayed in 2008. Any pretense will do. He is going to strip off the Crimean part of Ukraine if not take the whole country.
WHAT CAN B. HUSSEIN 0BAMA DO, just look at how he’s maintained the US Military… no,… wait.
WELL, LOOK AT HIS WORLD IMAGE,…. UH-OH, fucked there, too!!
JUST LOOK AT HIS TEAM OF EXPERIENCED EXPERTS,… *OOP!*, we’re fucked on that front, too!
WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, I KNOW, assemble a platoon of the “badasses” we’ve profiled here, Giduck, Monkress, Willian Derek Church, Bernath, Tiemann, Kubichek, Bensch, Banks, Wadsworth, Mark Hans Smith, Anthony goddard…
YEAH, THAT’LL have the Russkies quaking in their boots!! HEY, they can just jump on top of William Derek Church once he’s jumped in the water and paddle their way over there, YEAH!! OOH, Better yet, Dennis Chevalier SAYS he’s a ballbuster of a pilot, HE can fly them over there!!
Shorter Green Thumb: “He made the trains run on time!” (As famously said about another brutal dictator, Mussolini, in his day.
Calypso Facto: the fact that both were dictators doesn’t negate the fact that they were effective, and worthy of study.
One doesn’t have to agree with – or even like or admire – an individual to learn from what they did.
Wait – what?? I thought the Soviet Union was dead. Or was that just my imagination?
Hey, are we back in the Cold War again? Will everything GET BACK TO NORMAL NOW???
I knew that, one day, I would go to sleep at night, and in the morning, I would wake up and everthing would be like it was. And here we are.
I’m not being snide when I say that, either. I may get tired of Vlad’s inflated ego. Yeah, he is a hunk, but dude, wear a shirt once in a whle, okay? But he grew up in the Cold War era before the end of the Soviet Union, and while he may not want to run the entire Soviet bloc again, he has an agenda and that is to keep all the Russias (Federation of Russian States) under one government, like it used to be. I don’t think he’s interested in confiscating Eastern Europe again, though.
Geez, we have an incompetent ass in the White House, China is building up its military, Russia is on the prowl, and the global polisci atmosphere begins to smell of the Cold War. And unless I’m mistaken, Vlad sees the AQs and their ilk as imminent threats and is taking action accordingly.
Deja vu all over again. Time for a song.
I’m never opposed to learning something from a situation, Hondo, but we do have to be careful not to glamorize the visible “efficiency” of dictatorship over its hidden cost in human suffering and loss of liberty. (Is that you, Thomas Friedman?)
Our Federal government already borrows too much policy from the totalitarian handbook.
Would those of you in Colorado please scan the skies now and then. I heard that there were Russian paratroopers in Cuba. Thanks.
We aren’t going back to the fashions of the 1950s-60s, are we?
I may be an old lady, but that doesn’t mean I want to dress like one.
Calypso Facto: apples and oranges, amigo. One can study a nation’s foreign policy quite independently of its internal governance. One can also study other nations’ internal governance (and their differences) to see what differences population norms, education, religion, etc . . . , have on their willingness to follow dictatorial leadership – as well as how that dictatorial leadership attained and maintained power, and how well (or how poorly) it served that people’s long-term interests. As is the case with all knowledge, it can be either used to achieve good ends or abused to achieve evil ones. What constitutes good and evil is an entirely different discussion. In your last comment above, you moved from the former (study of how other nations are led, and how they conduct their foreign affairs) to the latter (whether their leadership is “good” or “evil”). Doing so implies a connection that may or may not exist. Frederick the Great was a dictator; ditto Louis XIV of France. Ditto the Shoguns of Japan. All were far more absolute in their power than either Mussolini or Putin. That’s true of many other past absolute dictators as well. Yet most are not regarded as examples of evil. I personally find absolute dictatorship an abhorrent concept. And yet, in and of itself it’s neither categorically evil nor good. It’s merely a form of leadership/government that may or may not work for a given people/nation having specified social norms during a particular set of circumstances. (Remember: the Roman Republic adopted it in times of great peril.) In fact, one can argue that a truly enlightened despot that is (1) extremely capable and (2) respectful of human rights is the perfect form of government. Indeed, Christian Heaven is essentially based on precisely that concept. Of course, get the wrong individual for a despot, and it becomes the Christian Hell. Or Nazi Germany, or Stalin’s USSR, or . . . you get the picture. In fact, that’s my primary personal objection to absolute dictatorship as a form of government. Choose the wrong dictator, and “hell on earth” becomes a distinct possibility.… Read more »
PH2 – miniskirts? Lotta leg in those ’60s styles….
Re Obama – the man seemingly has no grasp of the fact that making a threat you are powerless to back up is foolish and weak. And exposes you to all around as such.
@31 No Red Dawn here today, thanks. And since we’ve all been stocking up since the gun grabbers went to town last year, I think they would have a bit bigger welcoming party since the “last time”.
Russia is now admitting they have invaded Crimea:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10668357/Russia-admits-that-it-has-moved-troops-in-Ukraine.html
@35. Well, stay alert. Any Nicaraguans in civies show up in your area lately? They claim they’re Mexican but say “Managua sucks” and they’ll give themselves away.
@32. Oh, Lord. Please, of please, let the bee figure make a return. And plaid, And pedal pushers. And if it’s not too much, a few Sky King reruns.
Well so much for the talking heads and military “experts” of the American msm, because not only have there been a plethora of news footage and pics from foreign media outlets showing Russian troops are in Ukraine-The Russian government has finally come out to CONFIRM IT. Indeed, that IS the 810th Separate Naval Infantry Brigade out there that seized those airports with the SPETZNAZ. The personnel that secured those key pieces of infrastructure likely did so in preparation of follow-on forces to arrive within a 72-hr window. That’s why those two airports and coast guard base were seized. The parliament building and government HQ were symbolic institutions that needed to be captured so that the local population knew who “was in-charge.” It’s only going to continue escalating, especially after the interim Ukrainian government has begun mobilizing their military. Sounds like we have some fun times ahead, yes?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10668357/Russia-admits-that-it-has-moved-troops-in-Ukraine.html
From the article:
Russian troops have moved into Crimea in what Moscow is calling a mission to “protect Black Sea Fleet’s positions” but which the Ukrainian government has denounced as an “armed intervention.”
The Russian foreign ministry said Friday that it had informed the Ukrainian government that armoured units from the Black Sea Fleet base near Sevastopol had entered Crimea in order to protect fleet positions.
“The Ukrainian side was also passed a note regarding the movement of armoured vehicles of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, which is happening in full accordance with the foundation Russian-Ukrainian agreement on the Black Sea Fleet,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its website on Friday afternoon.
In the same note the Russian foreign ministry said it had declined a Ukrainian request for “bilateral consultations” on events in Crimea because they are “the result of recent internal political processes in Ukraine.”
Unconfirmed reports were emerging late on Friday that a convoy of armoured vehicles were moving up the Sevastopol highway toward Simferopol, the regional capital.
Old Trooper: predictable.
Look for a “temporary” occupation of the Crimea, followed by a “referendum” on whether the Crimea should remain part of the Ukraine. If so, that referendum almost certainly won’t need to be rigged to get a “return to Russia” outcome. And it will provide the Russian Republic a valid argument that returning the Crimea to Russia is “the will of the people”.
If the Russian troops move beyond the isthmus separating the Crimea from the rest of modern-day Ukraine, however – all bets are off.
Additional info on the mobilization of the Ukrainian military, excerpt:
The sound of Kremlin sabre-rattling is being clearly heard in Kyiv as 150,000 Russian troops, hundreds of tanks and planes perform military exercises close to the Ukrainian border. Forces in Russia’s Western and Central sectors have been placed on “combat ready” alert, and the sectors’ air wings have been mobilised to fly patrols.
Ukraine has warned Russia that any straying over the border during the manoeuvres will be considered as an act of agression, and warnings over Russian intervention in Ukraine have echoed in several Western capitals. Kyiv has also said any Russian troop movements from Moscow’s Crimean naval complex will be considered an aggressive act as well.
http://www.euronews.com/2014/02/27/russian-armed-forces-alert-prompts-ukrainian-mobilisation/
Like I’ve said before, I heard that Vladimir Putin was once heard off camera comparing dealing with B. Hussein 0bama to playing chess with a pigeon. He was alleged to have said “The pigeon knocks all of the pieces over, defecates on the board, and then struts around like he’s won the game!”.
Ahhh, the theoretical benevolent despot (philosopher king) … the imaginary unicorn of politics.
I already agreed with you that study for knowledge’s sake is worthwhile. My comment about not glamorizing was directed at the “admire”, “respect”, “effective”, and “staggering” [improvement under Putin] remarks of Green Thumb. As Hayek noted long ago, the yearning for effectiveness and efficiency are often the leading edge of the descent into tyranny. Study away, dispassionate scholar, but don’t be tempted by the allure of the dark side!
@38: “Sounds like we have some fun times ahead, yes?”
Make sure your seat back and tray table are in their upright and locked position.
Calypso Facto: we could argue the “imaginary” issue – Frederick the Great, Louis XIV, and Rome’s Sulla come to mind as exemplars, albeit none are perfect exemplars. But perfect this side of the grave is rare in anything.
My problem with absolute dictatorship lies not in the fact that it is inherently good or evil; it is neither. Rather, my problem with absolute dictatorship is the fact that you’re literally betting everything on the actions of one man.
Historically, that’s been a losing bet. And the penalty for losing in this case is steep indeed.
@31 and @35: Yes, no Red Dawn yet, but even worse, now that Patrick Swayze is gone, command of the Wolverines has passed to Charlie Sheen and the Russians are reported to have an antidote to tiger’s blood. 😀
@44: Roger. And the chances of finding a benevolent successor once the totalitarian structure is in place are even smaller. It’s not the nature of those who are ruthless enough to rise to the top in such an environment to have the best interest of the populace as their foremost concern.
@45: All the Russians would need are a suitcase of coke and some hookers.
In all seriousness, we voted for this. Obama ran a campaign as either a starry-eyed pacifist who just wanted to buy the world a coke, or as an isolationist.
Throughout the Bush years, the anti-Americans imagined that if not for that American “cowboy” diplomacy, the earth would be a peaceful and genial place and they pushed for a non-interventionist (which is to say, isolationist) foreign policy.
Well, this is what isolationism looks like. Not the paradise that the anti-Bush fools imagined, but a Hobbsean world where life is nasty, brutish and short, and where “the strong do as they will and the weak do as they must.”
I repeat: This is what the American people wanted, which they demonstrated when they elected (and then reelected) Obama.
Russian Troops in Armored vehicles have been photographed in the Crimea heading to its capital.
And MSM has no coverage.
Cannot make Obummer look bad.