LFHNflightstudent wrote:
well… either that or you show him very clearly the level of pain he can expect if he does make that move…
In order to survive to inflict that pain on him, he first needs to point that gun away. Even if he gets pain because he killed you first, it won’t help you very much in the end.
Old bull and young bull anyone?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In order to survive to inflict that pain on him, he first needs to point that gun away. Even if he gets pain because he killed you first, it won’t help you very much in the end.Old bull and young bull anyone?
Sure if this were a real gun, which it isn’t. The principle of MAD still applies. The sanctions the west CAN put on Russia have the potential to be very effective in particular on his inner circle (who do like to travel and spend money outside of Russia). No man is protected from the global ramifications of their actions these days in the long term, Russia isn’t exactly Syria either where despite years of civil war the same dictator respectable leader still rules on (in at least part of the country). The Russian nation has a real sense of unity and greatness which requires a form of central leadership for that to function. Take that ability away by inflicting so much pain the house crumbles and things go south very, very quickly…
Airborne_Again wrote:
I rather think it is to keep an illusion of the influence and grandeur from the old days when the UK ruled an empire and France at least ruled lots of colonies
The nukes have to belong somewhere. There are no NATO nukes, just nationally-owned nukes placed at the disposal of NATO. NATO is theoretically a single command structure, but when it goes full crazy most countries will defer to their own command structure. See Pristina airport.
It is the done thing in most of Europe to let the US carry the entire NATO burden. Trump had a valid point: “this is mostly about protecting European countries, so pay your way”. The UK has always seen it differently, wishes to make a proportional contribution as agreed, and there is no reason that shouldn’t include possessing some of the nukes. Besides, our experience has shown that it is useful to retain sole capability – we have pre-NATO experience of waiting longer than we’d like for the US to get involved, and NATO is of course yet to be tested in a proper shooting war.
In any case, whether you think it’s right or wrong, it is about remaining at the top table. Were the UK to move towards unilateral nuclear disarmament then as surely as night follows day the permanent seat on the UN security council would go.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Although we all know that it was the USA and the Soviet Union who won WWII
Certainly they were the dominant players, in terms of land forces in the European theatre, by the end. But almost everything post 6th June 1944 was a pretty much a formality, and your statement somewhat disregards the situation in summer 1940: France defeated, everyone else in Europe either conquered or ‘neutral’ and basically collaborating, Britain stood totally alone with neither the US nor Russia having any intention of getting involved. Britain resisted to the point that even Hitler, notoriously over-ambitious, abandoned his invasion plans and it was nine months after Sealion was scrubbed before Russia became involved. Another six months after that for the US. Even then, both only actually became involved because they were themselves attacked.
We Brits are grateful to our allies for the role they played in the latter part of the war, but there would have been nothing left to get involved with if we’d not held out on our own for quite a while.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
“Thankfully” (sarcasm intended) the problem does not arise at this stage as Ukraine does not fulfill the conditions to be taken into NATO. Which is why the civil war in Donbass may hold the key to NATO being able to tell the Russians, it can’t be done anyway, what are you talking about. For now. He however can take that home and claim he stopped the threat of Ukraine becoming a NATO member.
I don’t know. He wants a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO. The question of whether it meets the criteria at this moment in time is irrelevant. He wants a guarantee it cannot happen ever, and I can’t see NATO doing that because the dominant powers within NATO are not generally in the business of making promises to dictators of rogue states on international matters that are nothing to do with them.
Graham wrote:
Britain stood totally alone with neither the US nor Russia having any intention of getting involved. Britain resisted to the point that even Hitler, notoriously over-ambitious, abandoned his invasion plans and it was nine months after Sealion was scrubbed before Russia became involved.
Certainly Britain managed to keep off a German invasion, but to that’s not the same thing as having won the war. If the USA and the Soviet Union had not become involved the best the UK could have hoped for was to remain independent outside of a Europe controlled by Germany. And it was not the USA that declared war on Germany, Germany declared war on the USA… (One of its more stupid moves.)
Yes indeed.
Poland is not a threat to him, because he has got Belarus as a buffer zone
You mean, like Belgium 
In reality, the West has absolutely zero, zilch, no interest of any sort whatsoever in invading Russia. The “recent history” (WW2) reasons for doing that (e.g. the ideology of “living space” – Lebensraum), or the elimination of the enemy (meaningful only in WW2 i.e. in the pre-nuke era) are completely gone. Even without nukes, invasion of Russia would be an unimaginably massive military challenge, as Hitler found out. Just the length of the supply lines would be awesome. The place is a dump, much of it barely habitable, with most of the population below any definition of the “poverty line”, and absorbing it into the Western sphere would make the trillion-DM absorption of the DDR look like small change. Putin must know that too.
I rather think it is to keep an illusion of the influence and grandeur from the old days when the UK ruled an empire
Negative; the empire was gone before the UK got its first nuke. The reason for the independent nuclear deterrent is a long standing conviction that no US president will actually launch nukes on behalf of another country. It’s realpolitik – Pearl Harbour, etc. France clearly agrees.
One of its more stupid moves.
He made many. If he stayed on the mainland, avoided Russia, he would have ended up with all of current Europe and nobody would have bothered to do anything. There is a lesson there.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Certainly Britain managed to keep off a German invasion, but to that’s not the same thing as having won the war. If the USA and the Soviet Union had not become involved the best the UK could have hoped for was to remain independent outside of a Europe controlled by Germany
I don’t believe that’s the case. When Britain declared war on Germany, it intended to defeat it militarily – not just remain unconquered. Britain had supremacy over Germany in the air and at sea before either the US or Russia became involved. It would have taken longer to get back onto the mainland, but it would have happened eventually. The Atlantic Wall was just too long and too difficult to defend, with the length of the supply lines and the resources needed to occupy these countries.
Airborne_Again wrote:
And it was not the USA that declared war on Germany, Germany declared war on the USA…
Germany declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor. Japan and Germany were allies and I don’t believe US public/political opinion considered the attack to be nothing whatsoever to do with Germany. The die was cast after Pearl Harbor and I doubt whether that declaration made much material difference to the timing of the US entry into the war in Europe. In any case, Hitler’s declaration amounted to little – he wasn’t in a position to really attack any US forces, and it would be another two and a half years before US boots were on mainland European soil.
Peter wrote:
If he stayed on the mainland, avoided Russia, he would have ended up with all of current Europe and nobody would have bothered to do anything.
As above, I don’t think the Brits were content to let him have mainland Europe. He expended considerable energy trying to force peace terms upon us, and our reaction to those overtures led to something approaching a domestic political crisis in May 1940 – many felt we should do a deal. In the end we kept telling him to get stuffed, he kept bombing us, and we eventually gained air superiority. Other European countries (naming none) were certainly happy to let him have whatever he wanted so long as they themselves were not occupied.
Fantasic joke from Scholz in his joint press conference with Putin:
He says he doesn’t think he or Putin will have to face the issue of Ukraine’s Nato membership while they’re in office.
pause
[looks at Putin] "I don’t know how long the president intends to stay in office.
I don’t think the Brits were content to let him have mainland Europe. He expended considerable energy trying to force peace terms upon us, and our reaction to those overtures led to something approaching a domestic political crisis in May 1940 – many felt we should do a deal. In the end we kept telling him to get stuffed, he kept bombing us, and we eventually gained air superiority.
The political will was there, but the ability of the UK to do a “D-Day” on its own would depend on how quickly Hitler consolidated his position. Had he not wasted time on Russia, N Africa (why???), and SE Europe, he could have made even the actual D-Day impossible. I don’t believe the UK, which by mid-WW2 was as poor as a sewer rat (and remained so until the 1970s) would have been strong enough to do a land invasion. It took the might of American industrial production to achieve that. Also, in the long run, without US help, the UK could not have defended its ~3000 miles of coastline.
Of course this is all nonsense really because we know WW2 was always going to end in the summer of 1945 – unless one assumes the Manhattan Project didn’t happen, but that was going ahead regardless of Pearl Harbour.
Other European countries (naming none) were certainly happy to let him have whatever he wanted so long as they themselves were not occupied.
They had no option… it’s known as “neutrality”
Peter wrote:
The political will was there, but the ability of the UK to do a “D-Day” on its own would depend on how quickly Hitler consolidated his position. Had he not wasted time on Russia, N Africa (why???), and SE Europe, he could have made even the actual D-Day impossible. I don’t believe the UK, which by mid-WW2 was as poor as a sewer rat (and remained so until the 1970s) would have been strong enough to do a land invasion.
Why he did those things? Those were his plans for expansion. He didn’t really intend or want to fight the Brits and always assumed that we would do a deal with him when faced with the threat of invasion. He hoped to co-exist with Britain and that they would carve up the world between them.
Germany had the upper hand on European soil but in the air and at sea it was rather different. After the Battle of Britain the aerial battle was only going one way, and whilst the Germans caused massive problems with British shipping in the Atlantic that was really just a U-boat problem (largely defeated my mid-1943) and the Royal Navy was enormously more powerful than the Kriegsmarine at all stages of the war. The Kriegsmarine stared the war a very distant second and lost about half its strength in the invasion of Norway – thereafter they were never really able to challenge the Royal Navy in any theatre and Germany actually found herself fairly effectively blockaded. There were a few ‘neutral’ countries (e.g. Sweden) that through accident of geography could continue to supply Germany, but apart from that she was hemmed in.
I would cite two important things that turned the tide of the war and meant Germany could never win, and both happened before the US got involved. Firstly the breaking of German naval Enigma, secondly Churchill’s decision to attack the French fleet in North Africa shortly after the French surrender. The former probably swung the Battle of the Atlantic and the latter meant the Germans would never really challenge the Royal Navy at sea again.
Peter wrote:
Also, in the long run, without US help, the UK could not have defended its ~3000 miles of coastline.
I understood the consensus to be that the Atlantic Wall was much harder to defend than the UK coastline. Certainly the fact that they gave up on Sealion suggests this.
Graham wrote:
He wants a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO. The question of whether it meets the criteria at this moment in time is irrelevant. He wants a guarantee it cannot happen ever, and I can’t see NATO doing that because the dominant powers within NATO are not generally in the business of making promises to dictators of rogue states on international matters that are nothing to do with them.
He wants that guarantee for as long as he is around, which will be for the forseeable future. He also knows that while the CW in Donbass continues, criteria are not given. So all he basically has to do to keep Ukraine out is to see to it that this conflict doesn’t stop. Which he has been doing for the last years.
NATO won’t give him this guarantee, that much is also clear, even if he was not behaving the way he does. Yet, NATO has had to realize that Russia is no longer a discountable quantity and that it will not tolerate something they regard as a “cuban missile crisis” in their own front yard now as much as the US did not tolerate it then.
Peter wrote:
You mean, like Belgium
Exactly.
If you look at cold war “war game” strategy books e.t.c. which at the time played out conventional WW3 scenarios, those who knew the Russians then ALWAYS had them operate in this fashion. Canon at the time was an attack onto NATO with massive ground forces from East Germany with the objective of reaching the Rhine within a forthnight or, in the opposite case, NATO attacking Eastern Germany and being stopped by the Red Army into a trench war way off the border to Russia.
The Russians are still traumatized by how close Hitler came to conquer Moscow in WW2 and they keep a rather strong traditional yarn about prior invasions, all the way back to when Alexander Newski fought German knights on the frozen Lake Peipus in 1242. Newski was sainted in the 1500’s and the battle was made an epic movie in 1938 by no other than Sergei Eisenstein with a dramatic score by Sergei Prokoviev. Clearly, the time of the movie in the eve of a likely invasion by Germany was not a coincidence.
Graham wrote:
He says he doesn’t think he or Putin will have to face the issue of Ukraine’s Nato membership while they’re in office.pause
[looks at Putin] "I don’t know how long the president intends to stay in office.
Even more so as he knew darn well that Putin understands and speaks German like a native.
