Russia Vs. America; Here we go again kids!

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
Thanks PoSM.

Belarus has just told the American ambassador to leave the country.

No Cold War huh?

sounds pretty cold to me!
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
Serbia's government recently collapsed leaving open the possibility for Russian backed hardliners to take power, Macedonia's collapsed today. What do you think Russia will do?

Today Abkhazia will/is making a plea to the Russian parliament for backing of their claim for independence.

NATO is drawing up the first stage of requirements for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO.

Ukraine has rationalised the process in the way it pays Russian energy companies for gas opening the way for the supply through 2008 of gas.

Power pays power plays power.
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
Russian generals have begun discussing military action against Ukraine if they join NATO and Kiev has vowed to defend its sovereignty.

the US is yet to make any response as far as I'm aware.
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
So, about that Cold War thingy I was chatting about a few months back.

So, what do you reckon will happen first, an arms race between the US and Russia centering on the Western European target, Russian nukes in Cuba or proxy wars in Eastern Europe?

Oops, two of those have already happened! However, this time it's not proxy war, Russia is bombing and the US is openly backing. The arms race in Europe is (actually a race for strategic bases and governments) well under way and the Russian defense minister has already visited Cuba along with a bunch of Russian planners and engineers.

See, the thing is, is that the first time around, the Cold War wasn't about ideology anyway (you can tell by the way Communist China and Communist Russia had nuclear missiles pointed at each other and the way Communist Mao befriended Capitalist Nixon and Kissinger) because ideology doesn't and never will mean shit. It's about power and control, just as this cold War will be...., IS about.
 

nicho

Sacré bleu!
what s your take on georgia agains t russia right now ?

nicho

p.s.: how are the olympics going ?
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
The simple strategic foundation is that South Ossetia cannot beat Georgia without Russia and Georgia cannot beat Russia without the US.

Now, I don't have a full picture of geography and access routes like highways and train lines, but I'm assuming that Russia already has a shit tin more military assets in the region than the US does (Us has about 130 mil staff at an air field and embassy staff) and get get more there a hell of a lot quicker than the US can! The Russians just repaired the train line through Abkhazia and still have troops in the region from the previous heat between Georgia and Abkhazia.

Secondly, the US is already heavily tied down in Iran and Afghanistan, they don't have the ground forces/assets to spare for a serious regional conflict in Eurasia.

What started this and where to from here? Still not sure what started this, have the feeling that Georgia were suckered into invading South Ossetia. The US is pretty muched fucked on this one though. The Russians can flood Iran with weapons and destabilise the Mid East just as it was coming under control for the Yanks. The US can push Ukraine towards NATO, but then Russia turns off their gas in winter, effectively taking 25% of heating away from Europe. Russia is in a pretty commanding position as far as I can see right now. However, I have not done nearly enough reading and thinking to have a credible opinion right now, position may radically differ in a day or two (standard political arse coverer!).



Olympics? Had some friends over and watched it on the TV and and looked out the window (through the haze) to see the lights and fireworks come off the stadium. Was pretty cool to watch, glad nothing went wrong! Fark the protesters too! No matter what I think of their cause, they get to go home, I've got to live through the farking repercussions, just like when that idiot tried to grab the torch from the girl in the wheel chair in France!!
 

nicho

Sacré bleu!
The simple strategic foundation is that South Ossetia cannot beat Georgia without Russia and Georgia cannot beat Russia without the US.

Now, I don't have a full picture of geography and access routes like highways and train lines, but I'm assuming that Russia already has a shit tin more military assets in the region than the US does (Us has about 130 mil staff at an air field and embassy staff) and get get more there a hell of a lot quicker than the US can! The Russians just repaired the train line through Abkhazia and still have troops in the region from the previous heat between Georgia and Abkhazia.

Secondly, the US is already heavily tied down in Iran and Afghanistan, they don't have the ground forces/assets to spare for a serious regional conflict in Eurasia.

What started this and where to from here? Still not sure what started this, have the feeling that Georgia were suckered into invading South Ossetia. The US is pretty muched fucked on this one though. The Russians can flood Iran with weapons and destabilise the Mid East just as it was coming under control for the Yanks. The US can push Ukraine towards NATO, but then Russia turns off their gas in winter, effectively taking 25% of heating away from Europe. Russia is in a pretty commanding position as far as I can see right now. However, I have not done nearly enough reading and thinking to have a credible opinion right now, position may radically differ in a day or two (standard political arse coverer!).



Olympics? Had some friends over and watched it on the TV and and looked out the window (through the haze) to see the lights and fireworks come off the stadium. Was pretty cool to watch, glad nothing went wrong! Fark the protesters too! No matter what I think of their cause, they get to go home, I've got to live through the farking repercussions, just like when that idiot tried to grab the torch from the girl in the wheel chair in France!!

Meanwhile Putin and Bush hug in Beijing thinking "shit what's his next move"!
Well that wheelchair woman apparently rode in a dog shit in Pairs and the french guy kindly wanted to help her by cleaning her wheels!
We French people always get misunderstood!

I hope you took heaps of pictures of the fireworks
 

Hobzai

Likes Bikes
Secondly, the US is already heavily tied down in Iran and Afghanistan, they don't have the ground forces/assets to spare for a serious regional conflict in Eurasia.

The Russians can flood Iran with weapons and destabilise the Mid East just as it was coming under control for the Yanks. The US can push Ukraine towards NATO, but then Russia turns off their gas in winter, effectively taking 25% of heating away from Europe.
Hear, hear, Johnny. Russia can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants in their region of the world. The surrounding republics are heavily dependent on Russian energy exports and the US is heavily dependent on Russia not messing with the Middle East.

Since effectively re-nationalising it's energy sector, Russia is able to wield an "oil sword", albeit a smaller one than Saudi has. Maybe it's an "oil dagger". :) They are the world's largest exporter of natural gas and the second largest exporter of oil. Given the volatility of oil markets at present, the Russians can send the cost of crude into the stratosphere simply by mentioning the word "embargo".

Ivan's going to get his way on this one, maybe even as far as annexing Georgia entirely or bombing it back to the stone age if he so chooses.
 

Hobzai

Likes Bikes
http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-a...g-regime-change-in-georgia-20080811-3t5d.html

LOL ROFL.... oh, stop it, please, you're killing me here. :D

"The United States has accused Russia of seeking regime change in Georgia as it pushed the UN Security Council to call for a ceasefire in the widening Caucasus conflict.

In highly contentious exchanges with his Russian counterpart Vitaly Churkin reminiscent of the Cold War, US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told the Council today that Moscow was seeking "regime change" in Tbilisi and waging "a campaign of terror" in Georgia."

Hello kettle, this is the pot - you're black.
 

axertes

Likes Dirt
This happens just as I'm writing a proposal for a research project on the subject 'The causes of tension or conflict between East and West since the end of the Cold War, and whether they contribute to a resurgence of polarity in the current era'.

Johnny, if you referenced your stuff you'd pretty well do half my project for me.

I'll post up my proposal when it's complete, as it's a short one (1000 words-ish).

Edit:
Ivan's going to get his way on this one, maybe even as far as annexing Georgia entirely or bombing it back to the stone age if he so chooses.
Doubt it. The idea, or at least excuse behind South Ossetia is that the inhabitants are of the same ethnicity (Muslim, speak a different language, Turkic origin etc.) as neighbouring North Ossetia: a Russian Oblast. Georgia denies its existence calling it 'Tskhinvali region'.

Russia did a pretty dirty trick at the end of the Cold War by giving all Ossetians Russian passports, so even in news reports now they can say 'Russian Citizens' were killed.

Because I can be subjective on here, as opposed to my project, as far as I can see Ossetians are the good guys and Georgia are the bad guys, but the Ossetians are turning to Russia as they already have a foot in the door there. Russia are then bad guys too because they're exploiting the situation, quite possibly because an important gas pipeline for Black Sea trade runs through South Ossetia. I mean, they weren't very sympathetic to other Muslim separatists the Kosovars, assumedly because their old bedfriends Serbia were the ones to lose out.

Not so sure about Abkhazia.

Wasn't Stalin from Georgia?

Edit 2: yep. Born "Ioseb Besarionis Dzhugashvili" in Georgia. Funny how they left him off the list of 'notable Georgians' in the Wiki article I read the other day.

Interestingly, the google search for that information found this intereting snippet, although it may not be credible. Jelena Musijenko of Auckland wrote to the NZ Herald stating "Why South Ossetia people are named "separatist", but not "fighters for independence of Ossetia"? Ossetia was 'gifted' by Stalin to Georgia."

Edit 3: OMG the Russians accused Georgia of "ethnic cleansing". Gee guys, you never backed the Serbs in the Bosnian wars now did you? Srebenica, nah, had nothing to do with it. Duly added to the pool of meaningless buzzwords, to which the US has just contributed "regime change" and "campaign of terror" as pointed out by Hobzai.

Edit 4:
Ok, here's the proposal. Kinda crap, I did a rushed "fuck assignment's due in 12 hours" job. I welcome criticism or ideas. As I said, I know it's not very good so I won't be offended by criticism.

Topic
The causes of tension or conflict between East and West since the end of the Cold War, and whether they contribute to a resurgence of polarity in the current era.

Definition
With the end of the Cold War came the abrupt transformation of Cold War East-West polarity. The following ‘post-Cold War era’ was characterised by a reversion to multipolar international relations. The current era, that is the one following the post-Cold War era, lacks clear definition. Scholarship and media are dominated by discussions of globalisation and terrorism, and the era is often given descriptors such as ‘a globalising era’ or ‘the post-9/11 world’. The research project I propose will try to determine whether in the current era there is or will be a resurgence of East-West polarity, what the causes of this are, and what the consequences are or could be.

Significance
East-West polarity dominated much of the international relations of the Cold War era. Based on this historical precedent, a resurgence of East-West polarity would also have a significant impact.
On the day of writing this proposal it is reported that tens of thousands of Russian troops have entered the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia (BBC 2008), Russia has bombed a Georgian military airbase near Tbilisi (BBC2008, CNN 2008), that Russia’s Black Sea Navy is blockading Georgia (CNN 2008) and that the US has warned that Russia’s actions could have a “significant long term impact on U.S.-Russian relations” (BBC 2008, CNN 2008). The coincidence of the selection of research topic and these immediate events are chance, but it demonstrates the topic’s currency.

Questions to be explored in the paper
Are the following events caused by or do they contribute to a resurgence of East-West polarity?
• The conflicts in the Balkans
• The Chechen wars
• The conflict in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
• The rise of the EU as a powerful bloc and eastward enlargement of its membership
• The proposed US missile shield with infrastructure in Czechia and Poland
• The increasing importance of Central Asian energy to European states
• The discovery of significant natural resources in the arctic near Russian Siberia and Russia’s claim to them

Are the following valid explanations of historic events since the end of the Cold War, and a possible resurgence of East-West polarity?
• Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations model
• Pan-Slavism

Could the UN’s ability to intervene in aforementioned events be impeded by Russia’s Security Council membership and veto power, and could NATO become an important entity as it was in, for example, the Bosnian War?

Regarding energy resources in Central Asia:
• What states beside Russia are stakeholders in Central Asian energy resources, either as consumer, producers, or have other economic interests?
• Are Central Asian energy resources or infrastructure a significant cause of conflicts such as those in the Caucasus?
• Do they significantly affect relations between states dependent on this energy such as Ukraine, and those with interest in it such as Russia?

If energy resources are depleted in regions such as the Middle East in the future:
• Could Central Asian energy resources or infrastructure become proportionately more important?
• Might states beyond Europe and China become dependent on this energy?
• Could this be a source of increasing East-West polarity?

Limitations
• The term ‘East’ has been used to describe Russia and its sphere of influence such as Belarus, and ‘West’ has been used to describe either NATO, the EU, or individual ‘western’ states such as Poland or the U.S.
• Because of the potential broad nature of the topic the research will be limited to the aforementioned ‘East’ and ‘West’. Relations with China may be of particular importance to the subject on an international level, and for Australia, but will not be focused upon, with the exception of China’s possible dependence on Central Asian energy resources.

Methodology
Of particular importance to methodology are the immediate nature of the events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as mentioned beforehand in the ‘Significance’ section. This immediate nature will limit research to news media such as newspapers and credible internet news sources like BBC and CNN. Events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia will not be given any more attention than other ‘events’ described in the ‘Questions’ section, and special care will be taken to avoid inaccuracy or media ‘hype’, as for example the events described by BBC and CNN may be proven inaccurate or of diminished relative significance by the time this proposal is read by the Supervisor, or even by the time it is proofread and submitted.
For all other less immediate events and theoretical analysis research will be focused more on scholarly journal articles and books, either from internet databases such as EBSCOhost or online book sources like Ebrary, or from hardcopies. News media such as newspapers and credible internet news sources will be used secondarily, or where journal articles or books are not available.

List of References
BBC 2008, ‘Georgia Pulls out of South Ossetia’, BBC News, 10 August 2008, viewed 10 August 2008, < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7552012.stm>
CNN 2008, ‘Violence in 2nd Georgian breakaway territory concerns U.N.’, CNN.com International, 10 August 2008, viewed 10 August 2008, < http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/10/georgia.russia/index.html>
 
Last edited:

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
Unbelievably, it looks like this may be on:




Obviously a complex issue, and if you're cynical you'd say it's a prime way for Putin to paper over increasing internal discontent with invading someone in an orgy of patriotic mucus (not my fault if you don't get that reference). Also hard to see how this doesn't totally f*** Biden if Putin does invade. If the US does nothing it looks weak, intervenes and potentially gets bogged down in a fratricidal war with seemingly limitless potential for fubar.

Thoughts?
 
Unbelievably, it looks like this may be on:




Obviously a complex issue, and if you're cynical you'd say it's a prime way for Putin to paper over increasing internal discontent with invading someone in an orgy of patriotic mucus (not my fault if you don't get that reference). Also hard to see how this doesn't totally f*** Biden if Putin does invade. If the US does nothing it looks weak, intervenes and potentially gets bogged down in a fratricidal war with seemingly limitless potential for fubar.

Thoughts?
send in Joe Rogan
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
I would put probability on China also kicking off on the eastern front possibly with the borders on India or Taiwan.
Unlikely. The capability ratio in the Taiwan Strait still matters to China and is not shifted by what's happening in Ukraine. US has already signalled that it will not get militarily involved in Ukraine (Brits have already sent weapons and trainers - Sweden has signaled that it will join NATO, etc.), so it won't do anything to alter the balance in the Pacific, which still weighs heavily enough in the favour of the US (Japan, ROK, Australia, Canada, etc.).

Ukraine has been steadily preparing for asymmetric warfare, which would be very costly to Russia, given that Ukraine is very familiar with Russian doctrine/strategy/tactics and has fought them in guerilla warfare previously. We should hope that conflict doesn't actually occur as the suffering will be immense and long term.

Putin is a cancer, the likelihood of Ukraine joining NATO is very low. Plus, NATO doesn't seek countries to join, countries must request membership. NATO is also a defensive alliance, if Putin is concerned by it, it can only be due to his desire to increase Russia's sphere of influence westward.

I don't know enough to have a valid opinion, but I get the feeling that if things had been done differently during the Clinton years, we may not be in this situation. But, who knows, maybe history could have found a way to make things even worse if NATO hadn't expanded into the Baltic.
 

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
We should hope that conflict doesn't actually occur as the suffering will be immense and long term.

Putin is a cancer, the likelihood of Ukraine joining NATO is very low. Plus, NATO doesn't seek countries to join, countries must request membership. NATO is also a defensive alliance, if Putin is concerned by it, it can only be due to his desire to increase Russia's sphere of influence westward.

I don't know enough to have a valid opinion, but I get the feeling that if things had been done differently during the Clinton years, we may not be in this situation. But, who knows, maybe history could have found a way to make things even worse if NATO hadn't expanded into the Baltic.
Agreed. A mass scale conflict there would be horrific and any "victory" that would result would be so pyrrhic it would be meaningless.

I understand why Russia would be alarmed by the Ukraine joining NATO, and nixing it as a possibility should be a simple thing. Russia's other demands (all US nukes are removed from Europe and all foreign troops removed from former Soviet bloc but now NATO countries) are farcical.

I don't feel the negotiations made in the 1990s between the US and Russia that allowed Baltic states to decide whether they wished to join NATO, stay with the motherland or remain neutral could've inflamed much beyond pissing off Putin and his desires for empire building. Russia was a bankrupt corpse led by a drunken idiot in the 90s, it's unsurprising countries like Romania and Poland gave them the finger, especially the latter.
 

birddog69

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Unbelievably, it looks like this may be on:




Obviously a complex issue, and if you're cynical you'd say it's a prime way for Putin to paper over increasing internal discontent with invading someone in an orgy of patriotic mucus (not my fault if you don't get that reference). Also hard to see how this doesn't totally f*** Biden if Putin does invade. If the US does nothing it looks weak, intervenes and potentially gets bogged down in a fratricidal war with seemingly limitless potential for fubar.

Thoughts?
Look at the media companies linked. Straight outta' mainstream. Doing the job they have always done so well. Manufacturing consent.
 

PINT of Stella. mate!

Many, many Scotches
Look at the media companies linked. Straight outta' mainstream. Doing the job they have always done so well. Manufacturing consent.
You've got an Australian Public Service Broadcaster essentially owned by the Australian Taxpayer, A British broadsheet turned internet news source that's always been famously left wing and is owned by an independent private trust and a liberal American broadsheet also owned by an independent private source completely unrelated to either of the former entities.

I'd say that's a fairly broad range of sources there but I'm sure your mate Davo on Facebook is much better placed to inform us what's really happening, eh? :rolleyes:
 
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