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US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

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LynahFan said:
Only 1 was ever built, meaning it’s more likely that you saw an AN-124 (4 engines rather than 6), but if you really did get to see it, that’s very cool. Even the -124 has more cargo capacity than a C-5 (our largest transport), and the -225 can carry almost 50% more than a -124. Insane.
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It probably was a 124. I've seen it in Bangor before. They like Bangors runway, 2 miles long and no traffic. Its bigger than a C-5 which use Bangor for practice all the time.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
Something I've been thinking about as we see the EU basically "Avengers assemble!" the last 48 hours. How bad is Brexit now that we can look back in perfect 20:20 hindsight? Even though the UK has tried to (and to some extent successfully) position itself in a place of leadership and power with the reaction to Russia, I'm wondering just what impact their leaving is going to have.

I suspect a united Europe like we haven't seen since WWII is taking its first steps. You could even argue it's more united now than it was at any point before, during, or after WWII. And part of me wonder how much of this coming boom the UK will miss out on. It seems like such a spectacular self own now even more than it was a a year ago.

Anyways... UK and France have been brilliant at dragging the rest of Europe on board. Germany and Italy have looked particularly incompetent and self-serving. It's just amazing how much the playing field has shifted.
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Somewhere, an editorial is being prepared to discuss how Brexit was good because now when Ukraine joins EU the UK won’t be flooded with 90k Ukrainian plumbers.
callback to the infamous polish plumber crisis when Poland was being admitted.
 
Drew S. said:
I hope we announce a no fly zone by the end of the day. Apparently Russia has killed scores of civilians today by bombing random neighborhoods.
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Apropos of nothing I was reading Clausewitz, and before he gets to the whole "politics by other means" thing his first book (of 9, and the only one I've ever been able to get through) goes on and on with what he calls symmetries. His argument is that people and states are essentially lazy, and they try to do a job with the least exertion and expenditure as possible. So, it's human to underestimate your opponent, underprepare, and thus underperform. But because war is not just a single stroke but a series of actions, after a repulse you then start ratcheting up the effort and the violence.

This is exactly what military people were predicting would happen. At first Russia half-as-sed it. They sent in armor columns with NO infantry support which even a limp-wristed pacifist socialist like me knows is suicide. Reality isn't Civ -- you need combined arms, support, and resupply. You need air support and arty, if only for suppression.

But, now, Russian realizes they underestimated, so they are bringing up their field artillery and are going to pulverize Kiev. The US, which actually tried to do surgical strikes, killed more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians (this will be called genocide in a few decades). The Russians aren't going to even try. So the second wave of attacks will be far more violent and bloody and unrestrained.

I'm sure Russian field commanders also realize this is "come back with your shield or on it," so we are either going to see atrocities or entire Russia brigades surrendering.
 
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Drew S. said:
I think we'll be in there by the end of the day. Russia isn't giving us a choice.
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"We" aren't going "in there." At the absolute, absolute most, some EU countries may reflag aircraft and crews and have them fly for Ukraine. But even that would probably be too great a risk.

Here is the horrible, horrible reality. Russia has already lost. If every Ukrainian resistance fighter quit now, Russia would have lost. Their economy is in for the one of the worst crashes in western history. Their military command and training has been exposed as ludicrously terrible, which means even if they survive intact a huge purge of officers and strategists is coming. Putin is now the most pathetic and derided figure in the world, eclipsing Dump and even Kim Jong-un.

Every near abroad country not under Putin's control will be looking to hook up with defensive treaties with the US. Every regime that depends on Putin's dark shadow (Kazakhstan, Belarus, Syria) and every authoritarian regime that has built relations with Russia because of its perceived strength (Iran, China, Turkey on alterative side of the street Thursdays) now just sees a melting ball of smelly goop to be stayed away from.

We don't have to do anything. Putin just irretrievably destroyed all of his influence and might worse than the USSR did in Afghanistan. This is a regime-crippling level disaster. All we need do is sit back and wait.

That isn't good news for the people of Ukraine, because we aren't going to do much more to help them. Because we don't need to. Russia decapitated itself just as surely as Austria did in 1866.
 
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Russell Jaslow said:
Is this really going to do anything? Is it just a Band-Aid for Russia's economic woes?
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Capital flight. You do what you can.

But I have read measures like this are only effective in a very short term -- a matter of weeks. If you think people fight hard to protect their lives just watch how hard they fight to protect their wealth.
 
The other thing that will be interesting is the offramp and what happens after that.
Like, I don't even want to predict what russia will take as an offramp. I've seen everything from giving up Ukraine on NATO/EU, ceding the newly claimed territories, etc. Whatever.

I'm more curious how Ukraine wants the west to handle peacekeeping after Russia pulls out. WIll NATO be authorized to run flights and defense until Ukraine can build itself back up? Military bases, if only temporary? Certainly a massive influx of antiaircraft along the border. And how delicate is that going to be...?
 
Man, the west is just pulling out of these companies hard. When they finally reopen the stock markets, it's going to be an absolute bloodbath.

@JavierBlas
BREAKING: And wow!!! After BP, the deluge. Shell announces it's exiting all its joint-ventures with Gazprom, including its 27.5% stake in the Sakhalin-2 LNG facility. Shell carries those JV at $3 billion valuation on its books, and it's warning of impartments #Ukraine
 
dxmnkd316 said:
Something I've been thinking about as we see the EU basically "Avengers assemble!" the last 48 hours. How bad is Brexit now that we can look back in perfect 20:20 hindsight? Even though the UK has tried to (and to some extent successfully) position itself in a place of leadership and power with the reaction to Russia, I'm wondering just what impact their leaving is going to have.

I suspect a united Europe like we haven't seen since WWII is taking its first steps. You could even argue it's more united now than it was at any point before, during, or after WWII. And part of me wonder how much of this coming boom the UK will miss out on. It seems like such a spectacular self own now even more than it was a a year ago.

Anyways... UK and France have been brilliant at dragging the rest of Europe on board. Germany and Italy have looked particularly incompetent and self-serving. It's just amazing how much the playing field has shifted.
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You can add "An EU dominated by Germany" to the list of things Iron Tits Thatcher was wrong about when she was wringing her shriveled little hands over Wiedervereinigung. Economically yes, but not yet politically or militarily.
 
Turkey reclassifies the conflict as a war, enabling them to enact the articles of the 1936 Montreux Convention that permits it to limit naval transit of its Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits during wartime.

Turkey interprets the treaty as allowing Russian military ships to rebase but not to sail out.

Erdogan would be well-placed to broker a truce, since Turkey has vital economic interests in both countries. It should be said, both Russians and Ukrainians can't stand Turks. So, you know, fair.
 
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