Russian vassalization of Ukraine

[exploited]

[Kane]

Ex, why do you continually conflate intelligence with rationality?

What about Putin tells you he's a rational actor? His willingness to invade countries at the cost of the greater economy? Crimea is hardly an investment, it's an added liability. It only serves to improve his standing among Russians. Temporarily. Until the true costs are weighed.

Say the troops are massing on the Eastern border to annex several Eastern Ukrainian regions. If he does this is it merely just another calculated response to Western/NATO aggression? And why then does nearly every other nation on this border heartily oppose any annexation whatsoever? Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, etc? Are they all Western Puppets?

[The Comrade]

[exploited]

[The Comrade]

why do you lie/make up random numbers?

novorossysk will be ready for part of the black sea fleet by 2014, with additional ships moving there as the base is finished.

it's not going to take 20 years before the black sea fleet can move there.

and don't you think that russia could have...ya know....negotiated a slight extension on their basing rights? oh no, you're right invading the ukraine was the only justifiable response.

and now that you want to discuss strategy? okay

1. as explained before, they could have negotiated. or occupied their military base only. or moved it for 2 years until their other one was ready. or any number of things that didn't involve an invasion.
2. fight NATO in the mediterranean? you think turkey, a NATO member, is going to let russia through the bosphorus strait? or an even better question, do you think russia has enough ships to pull a suicide run through it before they're all sunk? the black sea fleet is not an offensive naval power. it's smaller than the baltic and north fleet, it's old, and it's designed to suppress other ships from entering the black sea. its power projection is limited to the black sea, and after that it's purely defensive.

[Spider]

[exploited]

[The Comrade]

[gla22]

Where’s Ukraine? Each dot depicts the location where a U.S. survey respondent situated Ukraine; the dots are colored based on how far removed they are from the actual country, with the most accurate responses in red and the least accurate ones in blue. The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want U.S. to intervene.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mon ... intervene/

[Spider]

Don't understand the map. Whats with the dots out in the middle of oceans?