The Glade 4.0

I think there's something to this line of criticism - after all, that's exactly what happened with Georgia, so it's reasonable to conclude that Putin is probably counting on the same thing happening here. In addition, it's been a common cultural belief among Russians since at least WWII that the West is soft and weak by comparison to them. However, I think there are a few important counterpoints:

First, the simple reality is that the US and the EU care less about what happens on Russia's doorstep than Russia does. The perceived weakness of our foreign policy in that arena is to a large extent just a reflection of that fundamental asymmetry of interests, not of any particular policy failure.

Second, from the perspective of a Russian nationalist like Putin, US/EU policy in Eastern Europe and other parts of the former Soviet sphere of influence has been infuriatingly aggressive, not invitingly weak. Since the Cold War ended, NATO and the EU have expanded steadily eastward, literally to the borders of Russia in some places, and in recent years, the US has established bases and fly-over rights in several former Soviet republics on Russia's southern borders (near Afghanistan) as well. Of course, the expansion of NATO and the EU has been voluntary and, for the most part, democratic, but in a pure realpolitik sense, it's an increase in Western power coming at the expense of Russian power.

Third, Russia, like any major power, has its own long-term agenda to play out, in some ways irrespective of the US/EU policy footing at any given time. Putin's ultimate foreign policy goal is to re-establish Russia as the dominant player at the center of a political, military, economic and cultural empire / alliance. He essentially wants a new Warsaw Pact, centered on Russia, to rival the US, the EU and China as one of the "poles" in an increasingly multipolar world. Keeping the Ukraine within the Russian orbit is crucial to that vision, so when the pro-Russian Ukrainian government was toppled by a pro-EU protest movement, Putin was strongly motivated to take aggressive action to stem the tide and make the Ukrainians (and anyone else who might be getting ideas) think twice about trying to leave the Russian sphere of influence. The relative strength or weakness of the western response - which no one thinks will involve going to war - is very much a secondary concern in that analysis.

And finally, there's a shit-ton of historical and cultural baggage between Russia and the Ukraine that makes a lot of their rational calculations take a back seat to gut-level responses on both sides, further limiting the relevance of US/EU policy and reputation in the build-up to (and possibly the resolution of) the crisis.

If it were December instead of March, I'd agree, but at this point, if the Russians shut off the gas for a few months, the impact on Europe is likely to be measured in % of GDP, not loss of lives.

So Ukraine sovereignty isn't our problem but freezing Russians are?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

No basically you are **** if you do and **** if you don't. Also if you were paying attention, it is not the Russians that would freeze, it is the Europeans. Putin's chess > Obama's chutes n ladders.

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He could also place a national priority on a US energy boom, green-lighting, and prioritizing, immediate energy inflows to Europe. This would work as a long term solution, as it would weaken Russia's stranglehold on the EU's response, and thrust the US back into the power player role for the geo-political long-game.

Listen, I'm not an interventionist; but I'm all for "peaceful politics" as it concerns our best interests. A global power vacuum has been created during the Obama Presidency. We had better rush to fill it before it gets filled by other actors, most of whom we'll regret having allowed to do so.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

The EU/NATO is pretty much completely unable to intervene militarily or take any effective action on its own. France, Britain, and Germany are not going to "lead the charge" if it comes to military intervention. It won't. We don't need Ukraine, just like we didn't need Georgia.

It has nothing to do with not being able to afford it (we can; we just have to stop wasting money on domestic spending, and spend it on defense which is what tax money is actually for, first and foremost) it has nothing to do with it not "being our business" (it is; we are one of the largest and most powerful countries in the world and every international even that occurs is our business, even if only peripherally), and it has nothing to do with "not being the world's policeman" and all the other silly little platitudes.

This is a valuable lesson for the world, in several respects:
1) The US will come save your *** from Saddam Hussein. The US will not come save your *** from Russia, unless there's a good reason. The reason is that we avoided nuclear war for 45 years or so, and discovered we liked not getting Chicago or Los Angeles or Atlanta nuked.
2) The single superpower world was always temporary. It's lasted almost 25 years, and it's now about over. China and Russia were not going to put up with it forever.
3) We should not trust our access to space to another country we are likely to find ourselves in conflict with
4) Hard power is hard power. Russia can take Ukraine if it wants. We could stop them, but it isn't in our interest to go to war over Ukraine. Sanctions, G8 and all that bullshit are not going to stop them. They're a large country with lots of resources. It is not a matter of "we don't need them but they need us". Neither side "needs" the other.. or both do, depending what you mean by need, but "**** Russia" is not a strategy.
5) Ukraine is learning a hard lesson. 1.8 billion is not a defense budget for a country of that size, especially with a large and grouchy neighbor. It's a police budget - and that was exactly what Ukraine planned; use its military for internal stability and pretend no credible external threat existed. They may learn that lesson at the cost of their nation.
6) That might be a good thing. For one thing, we might finally come to accept the reality that international law, soverignty, the existing nations, and their territorial integrity are not givens. "International law" is a joke. It's law to the extent other countries can and will make you obey it.
7) It also might clue the rest of Europe in that they are not in a halcyon age of safety where only token defense spending is needed and they can buy votes with their defense dollars, depend on the US for defense, then ***** about US defense spending and strategies.

This situation has the potential to be a major wake-up call and work nicely to our benefit - as long as we recognize that our concern here is "what outcome is best for us" not "STOP TEH RUSSIANNZZZZ!!" It isn't a matter of "sit here and pretend it doesn't concern us" either. It concerns us, even if it's only a matter of how can we play the second and third order effects to our benefit.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Maybe they might start rethinking their oil policies.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

We should build and fire up some nuke reactors, and then funnel their power into endothermically creating nice high energy density hydrocarbon chains to ship over to the EU on boats. Hell, we could even claim carbon credits for binding up all that carbon, so it's even a green initiative!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I just think it's funny that Palin and Romney were right.

As for what to do...depends a lot of things, but if we are going to jump into something, there are a lot of other places that need help more than this.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Insert something about broken clocks being right something something

Yeah. Better to vote into office folks who can't even manage that.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

What were they right about?

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In time, this too shall pass.

Better than voting for someone that gives a public speech about how it's his job to not give a **** about me.

Because someone who pays you lip service by telling you they give a **** about you (but actually doesn't) is better?

Actually, yes. With that guy, you have a small chance of something positive happening. With the guy that says its his job to not care about you, you have no chance. Romney didn't say that was his opinion. He said its his job, implying that any other President that does care about poor people is neglecting his duty. It also wasn't a gaffe. It was a prepared speech, leaving no room for "heat of the moment" or "didn't understand what I was saying" excuses.

Finally, you don't have to vote for Obama. Vote for a third party. Don't vote for the guy that says he doesn't give a **** about you, like pretty much all rural and working class conservatives did. The fact that they did anyway is frankly terrifying, it suggests they're all brainwashed and/or just plain stupid. Or worse than that, that they all hate Obama so much that they're willing to vote for "doesn't give a **** about me" simply because he's the only vote that has a chance of preventing Obama's election.

The fact that you think anyone is brainwashed, or stupid, or that anything Romney said was "terrifying" speaks volumes about the degree of myopia in your worldview. Rural and working poor voting for Romney did so because they realize that a government that leaves them alone is the best they can hope or ask for. Government ham fisted one size fits all policymaking is vastly worse for.rural areas than urban.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The "establishment" manipulating people to believe in a false dichotomy when it comes to Presidential elections is a common topic here, I'm not sure why you think it's so far out there. The degree of government intrusion is not really an issue here, in fact you just confirmed what I originally said. The only rational reason to vote for a candidate that straight up tells you he doesn't give a **** about you is because you think the alternative is worse. That means if brainwashing/stupidity/manipulation is not the answer, the only real choice left is that radicalization and factionalization has reached the point that 25-33% of the country hates Obama so much that they would rather put "It's my job to not care about you" into office rather than be stuck with Obama. That is extraordinarily terrifying.

A "good outcome" is a relatively peaceful transition to population self governance. If that means Crimea needs to govern themselves, ok.

So, how do we get there?

For the most part, Ukranians have just spent the entire winter demonstrating that they will not be governed by a group that does not represent their interests. Now Crimea is scared, and doing the same.

There has been no armed conflict with Russia. There has been no civil war. Yet. So what do they need us for?

The only real problem I have with the situation is our leadership. If you are not able or unwilling to act, shut the **** up. This administration has repeatedly opened their mouth and had their bluff called (red line anyone?). It weakens them (and us).

My wife tends to be one of those people with my kids that frequently chews on the kids for smaller things - stop that, be nice, do you want a time out? do you want a time out? do you want a time out? Sometimes, she is ignored. I open my mouth far less frequently and only when I am serious - and the kids know it. They listen.

I know it's a terrible analogy, but it's the best I could come up with.

Do nothing.

Europe needs to learn if it wants power and heat it needs to provide itself - build more nuke plants. They also need to learn that they get to defend themselves, have real armies. They also need to learn that if they crack down on their people they will protest and it will invite a foreign power in so they will have reason to not make protests illegal or dick over their people.

People only change when there is a reason to and not being invaded by Russia is a fairly good reason to change.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Oh yeah, I remember cringing at that one. It struck me at the time as sacrificing policy nuance for the sake of political point-scoring. Romney's position on Russia (once you looked past his own political point-scoring bromides about backbone and strength and blah, blah, blah) was actually pretty clear-eyed - Russia isn't an enemy or even necessarily a threat, but it is often an adversary and a roadblock in international affairs that wants to increase its influence at the expense of ours. And as for Obama's part, I don't think it was just politics; I think he really did underestimate the degree to which Russia is a revisionist, aggrandizing actor rather than one content to accept middle-power status and focus on economic growth within the confines of the existing (i.e., US-led) order.

So I guess I have to say I agree - Romney got that one right, and Obama got it wrong. As for Palin, though, I'm pretty confident she couldn't find Ukraine on a map, let alone reach a considered opinion about Russian involvement in its affairs. To the extent she mouthed off about Russia and the Ukraine, I'm sure she was just repeating talking points and channeling knee jerk anti-Soviet/Russian instincts.

There is no establishment capable of manipulating presidential elections, no matter how much people try to pretend that's the reason they can't have their dream candidate. As for the rest no, I didn't confirm anything. You are assuming that the government caring about people is something desireable, or that they ought to want. It isn't. The government not caring means lack of interference and lack of tacation to fund interference, by a population with little representation, except in the aggregate. A farmer in Georgia and a Montana rancher have little in common except the inapplicability of one's issues to the other, and needing to band together in the face of population-based representation.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I disagree. Both Democrats and Republicans, at all levels of government, actively work to implement rule changes that supress any canidate that doesnt have their backing. Changing signature requirements, changing filing requirements, even up to the shenanigans in Ohio recently. Third parties are a real threat to establishment candidates, because they eat the margins the two parties are different in. Id say 6% of voters decide the election. 47% are going to stick with the sports team mentality. If a third party takes that margin, then both R and D have to take hard turns to ensure their core turns out in force. That was evident in the last presidential election.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

The Dem/Rep/independent demographic polls would say different. Romney cleaned up with the indy vote, but his "base" stayed home for a myriad of reasons. This shows once again that the Party's problems are they are too wishy washy and milquetoast for the people who are supposed to be electing them. I'd rather see them straiten up their act because any third party of the likes I would be interested in would probably split more Republican voters than Dems.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

The problem with this argument is Ukraine could defend themselves. They had nuclear weapons (a lot of them), but they were convinced to give them up in the name of nuclear non-proliferation. In return, we promised to help them ensure their security from any invaders. Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.

So yeah, I think it is our problem. We made it our problem when we signed that treaty. I don't think we should ignore treaties we sign because it would be inconvenient for us and we're tired of intervening in world affairs. Obviously we don't want to start WW3, so I'm sure we'll do whatever we can to settle this diplomatically. But we can't just ignore it and say "not our problem," because it is our problem.