Sorry we in the West are a total laughing stock.
Well, armoring up considerably is the simple „stupid“ option. Cut health care, education etc… and ramp up defense (or offense, pun!) budgets.
Europe is just way ahead concerning human development. Our „morons“ prefer to sort things without sending young men and women to die in war. Even if they’d like to, „educated“ people will tell them to go fight themselves…
The laughing stock is true though, but we are in the more difficult position. Like playing chess with (or is it against) a pigeon. West makes a great strategic move, rational and all. East (pigeon) will jump up, walk all over the board, throw around all figures, then poop on them and say „I won“.
I think that is worth committing to EuroGA folklore.
Snoopy’s pigeon poop chessboard analogy.
I love it :-)
The other version is: Never fight with a pig. You both get covered in sh*it and the pig loves it 
And it keeps on rollin….
Graham wrote:
Or an elaborate bluff to make the Russians think we’re interfering, but that’d be a risky game if you take @Mooney_Driver’s attitude to things.
To make it clear, my attitude is that what Russia is doing is an abhorrent act of state terrorisem which cannot and must not be tolerated. Period. There is no other option than the end situation going back to where they were before, status quo ante as they call it, Russia out of Ukraine and Ukraine a sovereign country.
All I have been saying is, that with the threat of nuklerar war, implied or expressed by Mr Putin, whatever is done has to be done with the diligence to avoid giving him any reason to start bombing Europe left, right and center. If he attacks any NATO territory, a NATO reply is absolutely clear and necessary, BUT, it would not in that case be rendering military assistance to Ukraine, at least at first.
The important thing now will be to calm the situation down, to stop Putin from making more and more irrational threats, which may well involve his own people and military. It will also be beneficial to get all parties to the negotiating table, possibly in Geneva, as Belarus clearly is party in this whole thing and therefore, despite the Minsk accords, not suitable.
The way commentators are going, also out of former Soviet staff analyzing, things are not going as planned for Mr Putin. He has definitly not counted on the resistance and probably thought he can just drive to parliament building in Kiew and arrest the government. Wrong. Question will be how long they can sustain their attacks there. In the opinion of one of the commentators I saw today they suggest that if they can’t secure Kiew within the next 2-3 days, the Russians will be looking for a way out. While I think that is optimistic, I suppose that there must be growing unease with this “adventure” as some Russian military advisors appear to have called it within the general staff at Mosocw and on location. This is not a repetition of walking into Krimea as they apparently thought.
China’s distancing by lack of support is indeed important.
China does not wish to piss off the West as they depend on it for trade. Without US and Europe, their economy will suffer massively, up to a stand still. So they will not assist whom they consider an inferior previously useful fool alianating just about everyone.
China may well have gotten a different message too: Taiwan is as much off the table as it’s ever been for taking by force. They can see openly what the West is now doing to Putin in terms of sanctions, which would kill the Chinese economy within a very short time if applied to them. Had Putin succeeded and gotten away without too bad sanctions, Taiwan would have been a question of months if not days.
The Chinese may be instrumental in getting Putin to back down, as they can talk to him on a base of “friendship” and it would be in their interest. Not only does the upheaval of financial and economic markets damage them but the longer it goes on, the less they can keep on looking at the Russians as allies without being implicated themselves.
dublinpilot wrote:
But all eyes were on China to see if they would stand by Russia and also veto it, or distance themselves by abstaining.
Ok, I knew about that but I didn’t interpret it quite as positive. China also abstained after Russia invaded Crimea. I’m sure China doesn’t like Russia’s war in Ukraine but that doesn’t mean they will take any action against Russia.
Denmark, Finland and Sweden are now also about to close their airspace to Russian flights.
Are there any international waters in the Gulf of Finland or is there a special treaty about air traffic? If not, then Kaliningrad may become isolated.
Are there any international waters in the Gulf of Finland or is there a special treaty about air traffic?
I believe there is, because currently aircrafts fly from Sank Petersburg to Brussels and from Kaliningrad to Murmansk via that path. Germany is the key player to close their airspace to close the traffic to Europe to Russian operators.
From openseamap, there is indeed as escape on the baltic sea from russia teritory. I don’t believe that german airspace will anything to do with russia, once almost all other european country will have closed their own.
The latest fear would be that this crazy guy raise atomic bomb alert, that is going to trigger implication of other countries in the military conflict. I know all air force did raise their alert level, but intercepting an atomic missile is another game…
