Political Crossfire Forums

Let's say that we find out that Putin's recent incursion into Ukraine is a prelude to further land grabs. After Ukraine and previous Georgia he moved on to other former Soviet Union countries would you see it as acts of aggression by Russia? Is so, would you see war as a possibility to stop Putin? Would you support the war?

March is my favorite month, its the easiest time of the year to identify the proles.

War with Russia would be disastrous for the world. Risk is incredibly high right now with EM economies already fraught with increasing levels of political instability (Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, etc) and with slowing growth (Venezuela is in the dumps due to policies enacted, China is grappling with debt and a huge network of shadow banking, India is dealing with HUGELY inept political leadership, etc). Economics is the name of the game and Russia is learning that the hard way, with the Rouble dumping along with their equity markets after this Ukrainian excursion into Crimea. Shit, the Russian Central Bank just took action to try to stem the drop in the Rouble...all because of Ukraine.

That said, I think somebody has to do something. Our leverage over Russia in economic terms is paltry, the best we can do is hit them with expulsion from the G8. Europeans can have a far greater impact on Russia via sanctions BUT...most of Europe is still in the shits. So they don't want to rattle their brittle economies all that much either...which is something Putin may have already calculated. If Putin goes whole hog into Ukraine he does one thing and one thing only...

He tests the degree to which the EU is actually a union. If Economics trump this invasion aggression in the future is not hard to imagine. He has been poking and prodding nations within his sphere to determine what kind of a response he'll get internationally speaking. I call this the penultimate test that will tell him whether he can press forward...or show him just how united Europe is. As it is, actors in the market have spoken and their money doesn't appear to be on Russia.

I support war on Russia if Russia moves to go beyond the Crimea and into greater Ukraine. War sucks, is terrible, and will throw our current geopolitical set up into total chaos. Not a single country on the planet will go untouched in economic terms. But I want to make something perfectly clear:

What happens in Ukraine matters here. We're already feeling the economic effects - commodities are on the rise, gold is being used a hedge, safe havens in the form of treasuries are being utilized, and risk is sliding off the table for safety instead. Furthermore, this isn't a replay of either Afghanistan or Iraq. We haven't been attacked, this is true. But a country attempting its own hand at self determination is being punished in its genuine aim to do so by a foreign aggressor - I have said this before and I'll say it again: What good is Democracy if we aren't willing to stand up and defend it? I am not talking about a pre-emptive strike to contain or instill democratic notions where there once were none. No, this is not Iraq. I am talking about defending the right to seek proper political representation. While we suck here at home when it comes to agreeing on how to best proceed towards ameliorating our domestic concerns the choice here appears to be, at least IMO, crystal clear.

The ball is in Russia's court.

Obama doesn't have the balls. There will be no war.

Considering Romney mentioned this exact scenario playing out during the debates in 2012, he's now looking like a genius.

MSNBC eating crow:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rothman-msnb ... -warnings/

Yeah...so smart he could win an election...oh wai...

His losing had nothing to do with his take on Russia. But it shows how smart he is. I guess hindsight is always 20-20. People thought Obama was smart and he turned out to be a moron. They thought Romney was an idiot and he turned out to be a genius.

Oh well, such is life.

this doesn't make russia our number one foe, it makes russia europe's number one foe. by default, being the only superpower, any bad guy is "our foe".

Russia taking all of the Ukraine would be very bad, I wouldn't support war, but I would support the U.S. giving assistance/ support to EU nations to thwart Russia's advances. I think Russia has a legitimate claim to parts of the Ukraine, the eastern portions that are predominantly Russian themselves including Crimea.

Absolutely not...

It's Europe's problem, not ours.. Damn it I am tired of us spending trillions and losing thousands of lives playing cop. And again Russia has done this a few times before, in 1956, 1968 and 2008 and nothing happened.. Besides Obama being in office this time(so the 24/7 haters can pretend this time it happened because who is in the WH and it never happened before so they get to call him names) why is this different?

We yell at them, we do some sanctions against Russia, and that should be it...

Nope. Russia doesn't want all of Ukraine anyway. Putin really really wants the Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine if he can get it. He's not going to want another seperatist region in his lands by v taking the west of the country.

I don't think most Europeans will act due to oil as it presently stands. That being said Russia needs its customers as much as its customers need its oil, so it needs to tread very carefully..