Israel pulled out of Gaza completely from Gaza in 2005 and not 2011.
no. they didn't. they signed legislation to begin removal in 2006, but did not actually leave until 2011.
By your logic the occupation of Iraq ended in 2007
From where are you bringing this?!!
Israel completed its evacuation from the Gaza Strip, including dismantling all the settlements there and evacuating the settlers to Israel and withdrawing the military back in September 12, 2005.
Just a temporary change of topic, I've been keeping an eye on this thread but haven't had a lot of time to comment.
Russia, Ukraine and sanctions.
Are going to get us nowhere.
If anything we are just making the situation worse, backing Putin into a corner and relentlessly attacking him is not going to help. If the past is any indication he WILL eventually strike back. Most likely with more then words and pointless sanctions.
I've been trying to think of it from Putin's point of view, granted he is FAR from perfect, in fact he may well be insane, but I can imagine he's sat back and watched the U.S. go into Iraq on VERY shaky grounds. Fight in Afghanistan for many years with shit all tangible gains and now going back to Iraq, at least in some small way. Why shouldn't he be doing the same thing? Looking from the outside, the West is weak. Probably as weak as it was in the 30's. Speaking as a former soldier, watching defence cuts, decades of wars with heavy casualties and no actual results, liberal governments concerned with cutting as much from the budget as possible, and a general population that is war weary. Not to mention sitting back and watching the war in Georgia and Syria while taking no action what so ever.
I can see the similarities between Hitler in the 40's and Putin now. We all know Hitlers plan if he had encountered resistance from the British or French in the Sudetenland? He planned to withdraw. He was playing a weaker hand and he knew it, although it was stronger then the Czech's he was counting on the fact that the Allies would do nothing, which we didn't. Shamefully. Even the invasion of Poland which brought the Allies into the war didn't get any offensive actions from us, despite the fact the German border was held by only a token force. Inaction is not a good idea.
Russia, China and Iran haven't cut the guts out of their defence budgets and shrunk their forces to the level where they are basically a glorified home guard. Last I looked there were less the 60 000 U.S. personal in Europe, most of whom are non combatants. The British Armed Forces have shrunk to 200 000 personal, most of whom will also be non combatants, even the Bundeswehr has shrunk to around 150 000. The Russian Federation currently has around 800 000 active and 2 million reserve personal, they also still have a draft so they will have a fairly large pool of trained civilians to draw on should it come to that. Which at this rate it probably will.
I would love to know what would happen if we actually took some god damn action of our own for once, rather then always being dictated to by outside forces. . . I grow tired of always being the reactionary. Ask the Ukraine if they would welcome NATO peace keepers. A multinational force in country on a limited term, say 12 months, may give the Russian's pause for thought. At the moment they are most likely counting on the fact we won't act, we didn't when they annexed Crimea. . .
Maybe I'm just cynical, or maybe it's been to long since the human race has fought a real war.
@CaloNord whats your opinion on defence spending. Because it seems like on the one hand you are critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also critical of the west not doing anything in Syria and Georgia, while at the same time you are coming across as being critical of military cutbacks.
Given that countries like the UK, France, and the USA have nuclear weapons (as well as the possibility of producing chemical and biological weapons if it came to it), why is it so bad that Britain for instance only has an armed forces of 200,000? Its an island (or multiple islands if you want to get technical) surrounded by countries that it hasn't been at war with for 69 years. Its had terrorist attacks recently of course, but as far as I know they haven't followed up with any kind of military response specific to any of them (besides 9/11 of course). Its also still one of the larger spenders on its military.
Here is Aus, it's not so much defence spending being cut as it is being spent on the wrong things. The idiot F-35's we're buying from the Arsenal of Democracy don't do what the pamphlet says they will, the plans and specs were apparently stolen by China before it even flew and we won't get any until 2018, when we receive 4. Only 54 to go after that. . . That set us back 11.5 billion dollars, it's inferior to many Russian aircraft that fly now and will be obsolete before we get them. They are meant to be in service for 20 years. 11.5 Billion that could have been spent on something that works. I was all for buying SU-34/27's from Russia, which they probably would have sold us back in 2002. We could have had them straight away, they have better specs then the F-35, easier to maintain, not to mention a fifth of the price.
When we speak of 200 000 personal people get the idea that means 200 000 people who fight in the field, which is not the case. We're talking around 20 000 actual combat troops. The rest serve in a support role. If Russia is interested in rebuilding it's little Eastern Bloc by force, with the armed forces depleted to the levels they are at the moment we might not be able to stop them. Say they do take the Ukraine and we go to war on their behalf, is the U.K. going to send EVERY single combat capable soldier it has, which would still only give them 20 000 in the field? Russia's little 'exercise' on the border is around 22 000 strong. I'd say they'd have been drawn from the Western Military District which has the 6th Army and 20th Guards army as well as a variety of support, SAM, Airborne and special forces units as well. No one has firm numbers but each army has at least 2 division around 8~10k men each as well as support battalions. We're going to be VASTLY outnumbered. Even if France and Germany come along to. . .
The entire EU moving as one would have a hard time assembling an army that would actually be capable of fighting. Not to mention the EU has a hard time getting anything working during peace time. You've also got language barriers, jurisdictions issues, the French won't want to serve under British or German commanders, the Germans won't want to go where the British want them to, besides, who speaks French?! Meanwhile, the Russian's will have overrun the Ukraine in a matter of days and can set about digging in and getting comfy while we all try to work out what the hell we should be doing and who gets to break the news to the French that a German will be in charge of their units. . .
It would also be a critical mistake to dismiss the Russia army because of it's reputation from WW2 of sending vast masses of untrained troops to their deaths. This is certainly not the case anymore. They are well trained and much better equipped then they used to be. Just because that SU-27 has worn paint and is a little dirty doesn't mean it isn't perfectly capable of blowing the bejsus out of your shiny new Eurofighter.
But all of our military weakness comes from defence budget cuts and size cuts to save money, political idiocy having faith in the fact that since the end of the Cold War we really won't need this army anymore. I would also say in the case of Britain a great deal of the defence budget goes into the Navy, they have a fondness for floating things, being an island nation that makes sense. Won't be much help in a land war in Europe though. . . I'll dig up some actual numbers and information when I get ten minutes spare.
Thank you SO much for tolerating my rants. I love you guys!
Besides my dear Elminster, I'm critical of everything these days. :P
In an age where containment policies are being backed by nuclear weapons and unmanned ground and air vehicles why would anyone be preparing for a land war in Europe?
This talk of military budget cuts is almost always fear mongering. In the recent sequestration troubles in the US many hawkish Republicans such as Lindsey Graham and hawkish Democrats including the president (who was formerly in favor of cutting defense spending while running for office in 08) were all up in arms over budget "cuts" that would be catastrophic for our national defense. The thing was: with those budget cuts we would spend MORE money on defense in 2013 than we had during 2006 http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/02/news/economy/defense-cuts-commentary/
If you will have operational F-35s only two years after the US Navy I can't see it being that bad. They are paying 12.4 billion Crikey Pesos (which, according to google, is 11.5 billion Murican Pesos) which includes training and facilities.
So, according to the previous article, the 6.1% increase in one year is 2.3 billion Crocodile Duneros. That means if spending holds (it never holds, it will rise at *least* at the rate of inflation) then the entire project (all 12.4 billion Antipodean Shekels) in less than 6 years, leaving three more years to spare before the planes become operational. That is still a big increase in military spending.
And besides, you guys have both Gladiator and Wolverine to defend yourselves. The planes are basically for show.
If all else fails we can just order Iggy Azalea to screech the enemy to death.
But that is the problem with the entire project, it's much overdue, over budget and from what I hear highly under performing. Still, we made do with the F-111 for nearly 5 decades. How much worse can it be? :P
"Earlier, Kiev said it had headed off an attempt by Russia to send troops into Ukraine under the guise of peacekeepers with the aim of provoking a large-scale military conflict, a statement Moscow dismissed as a "fairy tale"."
Apparently, some Russian soldiers got dressed up like Aid Workers and tried to stroll right on in. . . Which is both low, illegal and immoral. But also clever. . .
They seem determined to start a war but they are trying to find a way to pawn the responsibility off onto Ukrainians. . .
When we speak of 200 000 personal people get the idea that means 200 000 people who fight in the field, which is not the case. We're talking around 20 000 actual combat troops. The rest serve in a support role. If Russia is interested in rebuilding it's little Eastern Bloc by force, with the armed forces depleted to the levels they are at the moment we might not be able to stop them. Say they do take the Ukraine and we go to war on their behalf, is the U.K. going to send EVERY single combat capable soldier it has, which would still only give them 20 000 in the field? Russia's little 'exercise' on the border is around 22 000 strong. I'd say they'd have been drawn from the Western Military District which has the 6th Army and 20th Guards army as well as a variety of support, SAM, Airborne and special forces units as well. No one has firm numbers but each army has at least 2 division around 8~10k men each as well as support battalions. We're going to be VASTLY outnumbered. Even if France and Germany come along to. . .
The entire EU moving as one would have a hard time assembling an army that would actually be capable of fighting. Not to mention the EU has a hard time getting anything working during peace time. You've also got language barriers, jurisdictions issues, the French won't want to serve under British or German commanders, the Germans won't want to go where the British want them to, besides, who speaks French?! Meanwhile, the Russian's will have overrun the Ukraine in a matter of days and can set about digging in and getting comfy while we all try to work out what the hell we should be doing and who gets to break the news to the French that a German will be in charge of their units. . .
It would also be a critical mistake to dismiss the Russia army because of it's reputation from WW2 of sending vast masses of untrained troops to their deaths. This is certainly not the case anymore. They are well trained and much better equipped then they used to be. Just because that SU-27 has worn paint and is a little dirty doesn't mean it isn't perfectly capable of blowing the bejsus out of your shiny new Eurofighter.
But all of our military weakness comes from defence budget cuts and size cuts to save money, political idiocy having faith in the fact that since the end of the Cold War we really won't need this army anymore. I would also say in the case of Britain a great deal of the defence budget goes into the Navy, they have a fondness for floating things, being an island nation that makes sense. Won't be much help in a land war in Europe though. . . I'll dig up some actual numbers and information when I get ten minutes spare.
Thank you SO much for tolerating my rants. I love you guys!
Besides my dear Elminster, I'm critical of everything these days. :P
If Putin has grand plans to invade Ukraine he's done kind of a garbage job of it. At the moment at least the pro-russian militia in Ukraine look like they are losing and are now in favour of a ceasefire, though Ukraine is having none of that. Besides all that as I understand it he's angered major business people in Russia because of the sanctions. All for what? Crimea? Prior to all this it was one of the poorest part of the Ukraine.
Plus a war with the rest of Europe would be really bad economically for Russia. The EU is Russia's largest trading partner by far, and obviously it buys a large amount of oil from Russia. The latest round of sanctions look like they are having a noticeable impact for both the EU (particularly food exporters) and people in Russia. So I can't imagine a war would make the situation better.
As for Russia's military spending, it actually has some degree of justification to it. Russia is the largest country in the world. It also borders 16 sovereign states, most of which are land borders. If you take the total amount they spend on their military and divide it by their geographic size it works out to be about $5100/square kilometre, or if you prefer it based on manpower its 0.04 personnel /sq kilometre. By comparison the UK spends $235,000/sq kilometre and has about 0.84 personnel /sq kilometre. On top of that there are about 140 million people in Russia, which is roughly 2.3x the amount of people in the UK, and they've had extensive problems with terrorism in places like Chechnya and Dagestan. Given their size and the fact that (unlike say Canada) they can't rely on another country for a good portion of their defence, having 800,000 active personnel makes sense for them.
I mean sure Russia might invade the Ukraine, but if it does so what? Who is going to oppose them on a moral ground? In (approximately) the last 60 years, even just focusing countries that are relatively close to it, the US has invaded Cuba, Grenada, and Panama, its sponsored an insurgency in Nicaragua, backed the El Salvador "government" (military dictatorship) during their civil war, and its installed governments in Brazil, Guatemala, and Chile. Its hardly an example of a country that hasn't used force to expand (or maintain) its influence on its neighbours.
Plus a war with the rest of Europe would be really bad economically for Russia. The EU is Russia's largest trading partner by far, and obviously it buys a large amount of oil from Russia. The latest round of sanctions look like they are having a noticeable impact for both the EU (particularly food exporters) and people in Russia.
As much as people like to complain about it, this is actually one of the greatest benefits of globalization. Not wanting to break mutually beneficial relationships is a great deterrent to war.
And besides, you guys have both Gladiator and Wolverine to defend yourselves. The planes are basically for show.
While Hugh Jackman is Australian the actual character of Wolverine comes from Canada. Australia can have the actor, we'll take the character with the awesome claws and regeneration.
re: Ukraine Isn't the whole thing one gigantic mess? Russia/former USSR gets afaik verbal consent that NATO won't encroach too close on its borders back in the day. Take a look at a NATO member state map and try to square that with the preceding sentence.
Take also in account that Russia has its Black Sea fleet stationed on Crimea.
Not to forget that foreign politicians were regular guests of the Maidan protesters aka what the hell were McCain, Kerry, Westerwelle and many more doing down there? I thought applying for NATO membership was a sovereign decision by a sovereign state and not something done due to bankrolled peer-pressure?
In such a situation even the USA would take measures to protect their investment, especially if it would concern one of their fleets and/or be right across the border.
Or take the whole flight MH17 fiasco, everyone's accusing the russians, yet they were the first to come forward with radar data etc. They even were nice enough to state that US surveillance satellites such and such should also have data for this area. Haven't heard a peep from the US government since then. Ukraine air traffic controller data was also not made public.
Or that media spin on the separatist with the teddy bear. At least in my country's media they pushed it like this: "separatists rob corpses of flight MH17 victims" unfortunately for those sellouts unedited/original footage shows that said separatist lays the teddy bear down where he got it from and even says a prayer afterwards.
Moreover the blackbox data analysis hasn't been completed by the Dutch Safety Board, yet some ukrainian official goes public sprouting nonsense about definitive findings.
The latest weirdness is that whole Red Cross + Russia thing. On the one hand they want humanitarian aid down there, the guys with the most manpower and immediate access would be the russians. But as it looks kinda dumb to involve the russians with humanitarian aid when you accuse them of being like Hitler/the villains, you instead funnel everything through the red cross, which still gets aided by the russians. All of that just to make yourself feel better and mislead the homecrowd reading the tabloids.
Brace for impact Europe. If it comes to it the Russians will push to the Channel coast before NATO stops imposing sanctions on everything that moves. If it comes to military action I highly doubt NATO's ability to do anything in a hurry.
I had a few interesting thoughts, the cracks in NATO are now starting to show up. Is Putin's end game to keep leaning on NATO, poking and prodding until the alliance breaks up? It's never going to do anything useful, Poland is upset NATO doesn't have any bases in it's territory and is feeling somewhat abandoned. NATO has said it can't fight a conventional war in Eastern Europe and might not even try, even if they do invoke article 5. . . Only a handful of the 28 member nations are spending the stipulated 2% GDP on defence, most only spend 1% and rely on the US and UK to put in extra effort. It's not an alliance that is working out that well at the moment. . .
I also think that Russian convoy dropped off most of it's supplies at the airbase it stayed in for several days as journalists have said most of the trucks they've been shown inside of are mostly empty. If they plan to launch a full scale invasion they will need a massive amount of logistical support for the 40 000 troops now on the border. It's difficult to move masses of supplies to a forward airfield without arousing suspicion. . . the perfect cover. They can be moved easily and much faster by air if it comes to it. . .
I think we might be underestimating Putin's intelligence, I don't think he's stumbling around in the dark randomly blundering and mindlessly escalating. . . he's up to something. I just haven't got all the pieces of the puzzle. . .
Maybe Putin is just an opportunist taking advantage of the political shambles that represents Western democracy these days.
The UN, like it's predecessor the League of Nations, is ineffective and NATO is a dinosaur.
Putin is making comparatively insignificant territorial gains which just act as a smokescreen for the real battle which is being fought at a political level. In a Europe where incumbent governments are showing increasingly socialist tendencies and minority right-wing parties are rapidly gaining support (cf. the recent European Elections) party leaders are being forced to come down off their comfortable seat on the fence and actually make decisions.
Europe is in the middle of a massive conflict at the moment fought between nationalists and socialists.
Europe is in the middle of a massive conflict at the moment fought between nationalists and socialists.
I presume you're not from Europe? Europe as a whole is a mess, you've got an opaque and nearly invisible - in the news - European parliament and secretaries/ministers going to the European commission in order to circumvent the national legislative process.
Not to mention the too-big-to-fail banks and them holding everyone else hostage - with politicians going along with it. Or the inability to stop tax dodging and eradicating European tax havens (e.g. Luxembourg, Sweden), the latter causing European countries to miss out on an estimated 10 billion (10^10) euros in taxes.
There is no massive conflict between nationalists and socialists, that reduces everything to a simple black-and-white story, which it isn't.
Guess what, that Russian column that crossed the border (Apparently) was partially destroyed by Ukrainian artillery. NATO has totally backed down from it's 'INVASION WILL BE SEEN AS AN ACT OF WAR! DO NOT CROSS THE BORDER.' and called it an 'Incursion', other then that they haven't done a single thing. EU foreign ministers are preparing tougher sanctions. Because those are clearly going brilliantly. . . They need to stop fart arsing around and start preparing. He isn't going to stop. . .
@10thLich Actually I am from Europe (the UK) and see the possible departure of Scotland from the UK, and the UK from the EU as potentially watershed moments, but that's just from my restricted perspective.
@dunbar Yeah, those will be interesting. But the same goes for Catalonia down in Spain, and the Ukraine. Imo from the outside, the underlying problem in each of those regions seems to be, that they don't feel represented by the current governments. Simplified: Catalonia doesn't want to prop up the rest of Spain with their money, Eastern Ukraine wants stronger ties with Russia/doesn't want the current government, which came to power after a coup.
For Scotland, well, dunno if its sour grapes that they've had to join the UK after being financially crippled back in 1690 due to a failed colony in panama during the Union of Crowns, or that they feel left out in the cold with Downing Street being in London and all.
But even if those are not the reasons for Scottish independence and one takes a look at the current Wikipedia page for it, why does the current UK government and the ruling parties that constitute it, don't take the wind out of the SNP's sails by throwing them a few bones?
They campaign amongst other points for: - nuclear disarmament and instead investing that money into education, healthcare (didn't the NHS have problems anyway, due to cut services etc.?) and housing. - my oil reserves, not yours. Dunno if there's cronyism at work in the UK, I guess it's not much better than anywhere else. But if that's the case and Scottish companies get passed over in favor of e.g. English, Welsh, or even international companies, then it's no wonder that they've got a burr under their saddle about it.
Granted, those are the two easiest points where they can be accommodated, but ultimately those would be in the self interest of the whole UK.
The remaining points could be grossly simplified as "we're not represented enough in UK politics".
And that's the point where nearly everyone, maybe except those from Switzerland, worldwide, should be in agreement regarding not being represented in politics.
Take the USA viewed from the outside. They've got a two party system, with parties arguing over who's right or not, an election system where only those with money or backers with strings-attached can mount successful runs for nearly any kind of office and a corporate lobby-army which throws enough money around that they could probably eliminate poverty in the USA in a heartbeat.
Not that Germany for example is any better. You've got 16 federal states with the southern ones propping up the poorer states (e.g. those formerly belonging to the DDR). A capital city (Berlin), which is so poor due to e.g. mismanagement (e.g. that nonstarter of a new Berlin airport) that it's like a barrel without a bottom regarding monetary funding from the remaining federal states.
Then you've got legal scandals in the past few years where judges, federal prosecutors, politicians of those federal state governments, and experts colluded to put federal state tax inspectors and one man (Gustl Mollath) into psychiatric clinics because they asked the wrong kind of questions.
I can't even bring myself to describe how I feel about what is happening in Ferguson. I am active on a political blog and I can easily say I have never been so livid about anything in my entire life. What is happening in Ferguson MO is centuries of our great national sin being let out of it's putrid prison and spilling into the streets. It's more than a national shame, it lays waste to everything we claim to stand for and reveals it to be a mirage.
What great national sin? Slavery? Spin a globe then stop it and point to a random country. At some point in the past, that country engaged in slavery so what makes the United States any different? Almost nothing...but I will get into that in a minute. Suppose your father robbed a bank and went to prison for it. Does that make you a criminal? No? Why not? The answer is simple--you didn't commit the crime. Now suppose your grandfather murdered someone. Again, you bear no culpability for this because you didn't commit the crime. This same logic applies to slavery--no person alive today is guilty of having owned a slave and therefore has no culpability about slavery whatsoever. The only people who feel guilty about it are the ones who, for unknown reasons, have concluded that they *should* feel guilty about it even though this is completely illogical and irrational. Back to the previous point...slavery in the United States is different in only one way--the country was founded on the principles of freedom and equality and slavery is the very antithesis of these values. No, our predecessors should never have engaged in the practice of slavery but then we weren't around to tell them what horrible mistakes they were making. Fortunately for us we do not engage in that behavior any more--only people who choose not to learn anything repeat the mistakes they made in the past.
Perhaps you meant "institutionalized racism". Ah....now that is a completely different issue and is one that still rears its ugly head from time to time. Although I can come up with plausible reasons why some people rationalize discriminating against other people based only on their skin tone all of those reasons are either irrational, illogical, or both. This sort of nonsensical behavior is bad enough when done on a personal level but when you set up an agency, such as a local police department, which is supposed to comport itself with more dignity yet it degenerates into acting like thugs then the problem is made worse. The police are supposed to protect and serve all people in the community, regardless of what they look like, not harass them, target them, or push them around. Ideally, police departments should mirror the demographics of the local community; it is the failure of Ferguson, MO that theirs does not.
Incidentally, while many people have their attention focused on Ferguson and the shooting which happened there a handful of young men similar to Mr. Brown have been killed in Chicago. Strangely, no one seems to be commenting about them whatsoever. Why? Is Mr. Brown more important than those other young men? Is it merely because he got shot by a police officer? What about other young black men who have been killed by police officers yet whose names do not make the national media? Why are they less important? Is it because the initial eyewitness accounts of their shooting were not making the claims "he was shot in the back" or "he was shot while holding his hands up in the air to show that he wasn't armed"?
If Mr. Wilson had been wearing a body camera to record events and that video had been released to the public then things probably wouldn't have spiraled out of control like they have. Video supporting his version of events would have resulted in his exoneration while video showing him gunning the man down in the street would have resulted in his incarceration while awaiting trial.
My advice would be for the Ferguson PD and the Missouri National Guard to stand down and let the citizens vent their frustration. Sure, there are going to be few who take it too far and riot or loot a store or two but if they don't let the vast majority of them calmly walk the streets with their hands in the air then this present problem will get buried and fester until, like a volcano, it explodes again. The next explosion, though, will be worse. Much worse.
My advice would be for the Ferguson PD and the Missouri National Guard to stand down and let the citizens vent their frustration. Sure, there are going to be few who take it too far and riot or loot a store or two but if they don't let the vast majority of them calmly walk the streets with their hands in the air then this present problem will get buried and fester until, like a volcano, it explodes again. The next explosion, though, will be worse. Much worse.
Interesting points. My advice would be to arrest the police officer who shot the guy six times including in the top of the head and give him a trial to determine if he's guilty or not. There is obviously a question of whether he did something wrong, so charge him and bring it to trial.
The media is successfully spinning this so that it's become primarily a racial issue. The real danger here is police brutality, the militarization of their force, and the fascist undertones of their activities.
Comments
Israel completed its evacuation from the Gaza Strip, including dismantling all the settlements there and evacuating the settlers to Israel and withdrawing the military back in September 12, 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4235768.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/international/middleeast/18gaza.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Russia, Ukraine and sanctions.
Are going to get us nowhere.
If anything we are just making the situation worse, backing Putin into a corner and relentlessly attacking him is not going to help. If the past is any indication he WILL eventually strike back. Most likely with more then words and pointless sanctions.
I've been trying to think of it from Putin's point of view, granted he is FAR from perfect, in fact he may well be insane, but I can imagine he's sat back and watched the U.S. go into Iraq on VERY shaky grounds. Fight in Afghanistan for many years with shit all tangible gains and now going back to Iraq, at least in some small way. Why shouldn't he be doing the same thing? Looking from the outside, the West is weak. Probably as weak as it was in the 30's. Speaking as a former soldier, watching defence cuts, decades of wars with heavy casualties and no actual results, liberal governments concerned with cutting as much from the budget as possible, and a general population that is war weary. Not to mention sitting back and watching the war in Georgia and Syria while taking no action what so ever.
I can see the similarities between Hitler in the 40's and Putin now. We all know Hitlers plan if he had encountered resistance from the British or French in the Sudetenland? He planned to withdraw. He was playing a weaker hand and he knew it, although it was stronger then the Czech's he was counting on the fact that the Allies would do nothing, which we didn't. Shamefully.
Even the invasion of Poland which brought the Allies into the war didn't get any offensive actions from us, despite the fact the German border was held by only a token force. Inaction is not a good idea.
Russia, China and Iran haven't cut the guts out of their defence budgets and shrunk their forces to the level where they are basically a glorified home guard. Last I looked there were less the 60 000 U.S. personal in Europe, most of whom are non combatants. The British Armed Forces have shrunk to 200 000 personal, most of whom will also be non combatants, even the Bundeswehr has shrunk to around 150 000. The Russian Federation currently has around 800 000 active and 2 million reserve personal, they also still have a draft so they will have a fairly large pool of trained civilians to draw on should it come to that. Which at this rate it probably will.
I would love to know what would happen if we actually took some god damn action of our own for once, rather then always being dictated to by outside forces. . . I grow tired of always being the reactionary. Ask the Ukraine if they would welcome NATO peace keepers. A multinational force in country on a limited term, say 12 months, may give the Russian's pause for thought. At the moment they are most likely counting on the fact we won't act, we didn't when they annexed Crimea. . .
Maybe I'm just cynical, or maybe it's been to long since the human race has fought a real war.
Given that countries like the UK, France, and the USA have nuclear weapons (as well as the possibility of producing chemical and biological weapons if it came to it), why is it so bad that Britain for instance only has an armed forces of 200,000? Its an island (or multiple islands if you want to get technical) surrounded by countries that it hasn't been at war with for 69 years. Its had terrorist attacks recently of course, but as far as I know they haven't followed up with any kind of military response specific to any of them (besides 9/11 of course). Its also still one of the larger spenders on its military.
When we speak of 200 000 personal people get the idea that means 200 000 people who fight in the field, which is not the case. We're talking around 20 000 actual combat troops. The rest serve in a support role. If Russia is interested in rebuilding it's little Eastern Bloc by force, with the armed forces depleted to the levels they are at the moment we might not be able to stop them. Say they do take the Ukraine and we go to war on their behalf, is the U.K. going to send EVERY single combat capable soldier it has, which would still only give them 20 000 in the field? Russia's little 'exercise' on the border is around 22 000 strong. I'd say they'd have been drawn from the Western Military District which has the 6th Army and 20th Guards army as well as a variety of support, SAM, Airborne and special forces units as well. No one has firm numbers but each army has at least 2 division around 8~10k men each as well as support battalions. We're going to be VASTLY outnumbered. Even if France and Germany come along to. . .
The entire EU moving as one would have a hard time assembling an army that would actually be capable of fighting. Not to mention the EU has a hard time getting anything working during peace time. You've also got language barriers, jurisdictions issues, the French won't want to serve under British or German commanders, the Germans won't want to go where the British want them to, besides, who speaks French?! Meanwhile, the Russian's will have overrun the Ukraine in a matter of days and can set about digging in and getting comfy while we all try to work out what the hell we should be doing and who gets to break the news to the French that a German will be in charge of their units. . .
It would also be a critical mistake to dismiss the Russia army because of it's reputation from WW2 of sending vast masses of untrained troops to their deaths. This is certainly not the case anymore. They are well trained and much better equipped then they used to be. Just because that SU-27 has worn paint and is a little dirty doesn't mean it isn't perfectly capable of blowing the bejsus out of your shiny new Eurofighter.
But all of our military weakness comes from defence budget cuts and size cuts to save money, political idiocy having faith in the fact that since the end of the Cold War we really won't need this army anymore. I would also say in the case of Britain a great deal of the defence budget goes into the Navy, they have a fondness for floating things, being an island nation that makes sense. Won't be much help in a land war in Europe though. . . I'll dig up some actual numbers and information when I get ten minutes spare.
Thank you SO much for tolerating my rants.
Besides my dear Elminster, I'm critical of everything these days. :P
Also this talk of military spending being cut is nonsense. Australia boosted its military budget by 6.1% this year http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/australia-boosts-defense-spending-6-1/
This talk of military budget cuts is almost always fear mongering. In the recent sequestration troubles in the US many hawkish Republicans such as Lindsey Graham and hawkish Democrats including the president (who was formerly in favor of cutting defense spending while running for office in 08) were all up in arms over budget "cuts" that would be catastrophic for our national defense. The thing was: with those budget cuts we would spend MORE money on defense in 2013 than we had during 2006 http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/02/news/economy/defense-cuts-commentary/
2006- which was the height of the Iraq war
If we are spending more after "withdrawing" from Iraq than we were when we were occupying a huge desert nation filled with countless violent groups you will be hard pressed to convince me that this is some sort of calamity. Keep in mind that this is a government that spent more than the next 13 nations combined http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/
According the Pentagon the Marines will get it a little earlier (2015) but the Navy won't get it until 2019. The Aussie Air Force will have them operational in 2021 http://www.airforce.gov.au/Technology/Future-Acquisitions/F-35A-Lightning-II/?RAAF-ZRnYQhJUh1u0e44uR32olOT1rt+Ym4K3
If you will have operational F-35s only two years after the US Navy I can't see it being that bad. They are paying 12.4 billion Crikey Pesos (which, according to google, is 11.5 billion Murican Pesos) which includes training and facilities.
So, according to the previous article, the 6.1% increase in one year is 2.3 billion Crocodile Duneros. That means if spending holds (it never holds, it will rise at *least* at the rate of inflation) then the entire project (all 12.4 billion Antipodean Shekels) in less than 6 years, leaving three more years to spare before the planes become operational. That is still a big increase in military spending.
And besides, you guys have both Gladiator and Wolverine to defend yourselves. The planes are basically for show.
If all else fails we can just order Iggy Azalea to screech the enemy to death.
But that is the problem with the entire project, it's much overdue, over budget and from what I hear highly under performing. Still, we made do with the F-111 for nearly 5 decades. How much worse can it be? :P
"Earlier, Kiev said it had headed off an attempt by Russia to send troops into Ukraine under the guise of peacekeepers with the aim of provoking a large-scale military conflict, a statement Moscow dismissed as a "fairy tale"."
Apparently, some Russian soldiers got dressed up like Aid Workers and tried to stroll right on in. . . Which is both low, illegal and immoral. But also clever. . .
They seem determined to start a war but they are trying to find a way to pawn the responsibility off onto Ukrainians. . .
Plus a war with the rest of Europe would be really bad economically for Russia. The EU is Russia's largest trading partner by far, and obviously it buys a large amount of oil from Russia. The latest round of sanctions look like they are having a noticeable impact for both the EU (particularly food exporters) and people in Russia. So I can't imagine a war would make the situation better.
As for Russia's military spending, it actually has some degree of justification to it. Russia is the largest country in the world. It also borders 16 sovereign states, most of which are land borders. If you take the total amount they spend on their military and divide it by their geographic size it works out to be about $5100/square kilometre, or if you prefer it based on manpower its 0.04 personnel /sq kilometre. By comparison the UK spends $235,000/sq kilometre and has about 0.84 personnel /sq kilometre. On top of that there are about 140 million people in Russia, which is roughly 2.3x the amount of people in the UK, and they've had extensive problems with terrorism in places like Chechnya and Dagestan. Given their size and the fact that (unlike say Canada) they can't rely on another country for a good portion of their defence, having 800,000 active personnel makes sense for them.
I mean sure Russia might invade the Ukraine, but if it does so what? Who is going to oppose them on a moral ground? In (approximately) the last 60 years, even just focusing countries that are relatively close to it, the US has invaded Cuba, Grenada, and Panama, its sponsored an insurgency in Nicaragua, backed the El Salvador "government" (military dictatorship) during their civil war, and its installed governments in Brazil, Guatemala, and Chile. Its hardly an example of a country that hasn't used force to expand (or maintain) its influence on its neighbours.
Isn't the whole thing one gigantic mess?
Russia/former USSR gets afaik verbal consent that NATO won't encroach too close on its borders back in the day.
Take a look at a NATO member state map and try to square that with the preceding sentence.
Take also in account that Russia has its Black Sea fleet stationed on Crimea.
Not to forget that foreign politicians were regular guests of the Maidan protesters aka what the hell were McCain, Kerry, Westerwelle and many more doing down there? I thought applying for NATO membership was a sovereign decision by a sovereign state and not something done due to bankrolled peer-pressure?
In such a situation even the USA would take measures to protect their investment, especially if it would concern one of their fleets and/or be right across the border.
Or take the whole flight MH17 fiasco, everyone's accusing the russians, yet they were the first to come forward with radar data etc. They even were nice enough to state that US surveillance satellites such and such should also have data for this area. Haven't heard a peep from the US government since then. Ukraine air traffic controller data was also not made public.
Or that media spin on the separatist with the teddy bear. At least in my country's media they pushed it like this: "separatists rob corpses of flight MH17 victims" unfortunately for those sellouts unedited/original footage shows that said separatist lays the teddy bear down where he got it from and even says a prayer afterwards.
Moreover the blackbox data analysis hasn't been completed by the Dutch Safety Board, yet some ukrainian official goes public sprouting nonsense about definitive findings.
The latest weirdness is that whole Red Cross + Russia thing. On the one hand they want humanitarian aid down there, the guys with the most manpower and immediate access would be the russians.
But as it looks kinda dumb to involve the russians with humanitarian aid when you accuse them of being like Hitler/the villains, you instead funnel everything through the red cross, which still gets aided by the russians. All of that just to make yourself feel better and mislead the homecrowd reading the tabloids.
I don't have words.
I have finally HAD it.
The revolution will not be televised.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-23/putin-has-exposed-nato-s-weakness
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/ukraine-crisis-shows-up-cracks-in-nato-a-970248.html
Brace for impact Europe. If it comes to it the Russians will push to the Channel coast before NATO stops imposing sanctions on everything that moves. If it comes to military action I highly doubt NATO's ability to do anything in a hurry.
I had a few interesting thoughts, the cracks in NATO are now starting to show up. Is Putin's end game to keep leaning on NATO, poking and prodding until the alliance breaks up? It's never going to do anything useful, Poland is upset NATO doesn't have any bases in it's territory and is feeling somewhat abandoned. NATO has said it can't fight a conventional war in Eastern Europe and might not even try, even if they do invoke article 5. . . Only a handful of the 28 member nations are spending the stipulated 2% GDP on defence, most only spend 1% and rely on the US and UK to put in extra effort. It's not an alliance that is working out that well at the moment. . .
I also think that Russian convoy dropped off most of it's supplies at the airbase it stayed in for several days as journalists have said most of the trucks they've been shown inside of are mostly empty. If they plan to launch a full scale invasion they will need a massive amount of logistical support for the 40 000 troops now on the border. It's difficult to move masses of supplies to a forward airfield without arousing suspicion. . . the perfect cover.
They can be moved easily and much faster by air if it comes to it. . .
I think we might be underestimating Putin's intelligence, I don't think he's stumbling around in the dark randomly blundering and mindlessly escalating. . . he's up to something. I just haven't got all the pieces of the puzzle. . .
The UN, like it's predecessor the League of Nations, is ineffective and NATO is a dinosaur.
Putin is making comparatively insignificant territorial gains which just act as a smokescreen for the real battle which is being fought at a political level. In a Europe where incumbent governments are showing increasingly socialist tendencies and minority right-wing parties are rapidly gaining support (cf. the recent European Elections) party leaders are being forced to come down off their comfortable seat on the fence and actually make decisions.
Europe is in the middle of a massive conflict at the moment fought between nationalists and socialists.
Europe as a whole is a mess, you've got an opaque and nearly invisible - in the news - European parliament and secretaries/ministers going to the European commission in order to circumvent the national legislative process.
Not to mention the too-big-to-fail banks and them holding everyone else hostage - with politicians going along with it. Or the inability to stop tax dodging and eradicating European tax havens (e.g. Luxembourg, Sweden), the latter causing European countries to miss out on an estimated 10 billion (10^10) euros in taxes.
There is no massive conflict between nationalists and socialists, that reduces everything to a simple black-and-white story, which it isn't.
Yeah, those will be interesting. But the same goes for Catalonia down in Spain, and the Ukraine. Imo from the outside, the underlying problem in each of those regions seems to be, that they don't feel represented by the current governments. Simplified: Catalonia doesn't want to prop up the rest of Spain with their money, Eastern Ukraine wants stronger ties with Russia/doesn't want the current government, which came to power after a coup.
For Scotland, well, dunno if its sour grapes that they've had to join the UK after being financially crippled back in 1690 due to a failed colony in panama during the Union of Crowns, or that they feel left out in the cold with Downing Street being in London and all.
But even if those are not the reasons for Scottish independence and one takes a look at the current Wikipedia page for it, why does the current UK government and the ruling parties that constitute it, don't take the wind out of the SNP's sails by throwing them a few bones?
They campaign amongst other points for:
- nuclear disarmament and instead investing that money into education, healthcare (didn't the NHS have problems anyway, due to cut services etc.?) and housing.
- my oil reserves, not yours. Dunno if there's cronyism at work in the UK, I guess it's not much better than anywhere else. But if that's the case and Scottish companies get passed over in favor of e.g. English, Welsh, or even international companies, then it's no wonder that they've got a burr under their saddle about it.
Granted, those are the two easiest points where they can be accommodated, but ultimately those would be in the self interest of the whole UK.
The remaining points could be grossly simplified as "we're not represented enough in UK politics".
And that's the point where nearly everyone, maybe except those from Switzerland, worldwide, should be in agreement regarding not being represented in politics.
Take the USA viewed from the outside. They've got a two party system, with parties arguing over who's right or not, an election system where only those with money or backers with strings-attached can mount successful runs for nearly any kind of office and a corporate lobby-army which throws enough money around that they could probably eliminate poverty in the USA in a heartbeat.
Not that Germany for example is any better. You've got 16 federal states with the southern ones propping up the poorer states (e.g. those formerly belonging to the DDR). A capital city (Berlin), which is so poor due to e.g. mismanagement (e.g. that nonstarter of a new Berlin airport) that it's like a barrel without a bottom regarding monetary funding from the remaining federal states.
Then you've got legal scandals in the past few years where judges, federal prosecutors, politicians of those federal state governments, and experts colluded to put federal state tax inspectors and one man (Gustl Mollath) into psychiatric clinics because they asked the wrong kind of questions.
I could go on, but I leave it that.
Thoughts? Should NATO and the EU provide aid to Ukraine?
I do not much care for the suburb not but a 10 minute drive from me appearing on the national news, becoming a national household name.
Suppose your father robbed a bank and went to prison for it. Does that make you a criminal? No? Why not? The answer is simple--you didn't commit the crime. Now suppose your grandfather murdered someone. Again, you bear no culpability for this because you didn't commit the crime. This same logic applies to slavery--no person alive today is guilty of having owned a slave and therefore has no culpability about slavery whatsoever. The only people who feel guilty about it are the ones who, for unknown reasons, have concluded that they *should* feel guilty about it even though this is completely illogical and irrational.
Back to the previous point...slavery in the United States is different in only one way--the country was founded on the principles of freedom and equality and slavery is the very antithesis of these values. No, our predecessors should never have engaged in the practice of slavery but then we weren't around to tell them what horrible mistakes they were making. Fortunately for us we do not engage in that behavior any more--only people who choose not to learn anything repeat the mistakes they made in the past.
Perhaps you meant "institutionalized racism". Ah....now that is a completely different issue and is one that still rears its ugly head from time to time. Although I can come up with plausible reasons why some people rationalize discriminating against other people based only on their skin tone all of those reasons are either irrational, illogical, or both. This sort of nonsensical behavior is bad enough when done on a personal level but when you set up an agency, such as a local police department, which is supposed to comport itself with more dignity yet it degenerates into acting like thugs then the problem is made worse. The police are supposed to protect and serve all people in the community, regardless of what they look like, not harass them, target them, or push them around. Ideally, police departments should mirror the demographics of the local community; it is the failure of Ferguson, MO that theirs does not.
Incidentally, while many people have their attention focused on Ferguson and the shooting which happened there a handful of young men similar to Mr. Brown have been killed in Chicago. Strangely, no one seems to be commenting about them whatsoever. Why? Is Mr. Brown more important than those other young men? Is it merely because he got shot by a police officer? What about other young black men who have been killed by police officers yet whose names do not make the national media? Why are they less important? Is it because the initial eyewitness accounts of their shooting were not making the claims "he was shot in the back" or "he was shot while holding his hands up in the air to show that he wasn't armed"?
If Mr. Wilson had been wearing a body camera to record events and that video had been released to the public then things probably wouldn't have spiraled out of control like they have. Video supporting his version of events would have resulted in his exoneration while video showing him gunning the man down in the street would have resulted in his incarceration while awaiting trial.
My advice would be for the Ferguson PD and the Missouri National Guard to stand down and let the citizens vent their frustration. Sure, there are going to be few who take it too far and riot or loot a store or two but if they don't let the vast majority of them calmly walk the streets with their hands in the air then this present problem will get buried and fester until, like a volcano, it explodes again. The next explosion, though, will be worse. Much worse.