Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Russia has absolutely zero interest in taking the Baltic states, I have no idea why you or anyone keeps stating this.
Because Russia kept them under their thumb for 50 years not that long ago. Because Russia is unhappy about the Kaliningrad enclave being an enclave. Because seaports directly on the Baltic are much strategically preferable to St. Petersburg tucked in the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. Because Russia, under much attention from the press, declared her intent to "review the legality" of the 1991 decision to grant them independence. Or perhaps because Putin has declared that Russia has a right to intervene with force to protect Russian-speaking people everywhere.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are all part of NATO, Greg. Have been since 2004. That's the issue. A resurgent Russia now wants its old playthings back. The problem is, as they are now part of NATO, we are treaty-bound to protect them. So if Russia does invade the Baltic states, we'll have to go to war.. and this won't be a bulls****y little war like we had with Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam, this would be more akin to the big one ..WWII. Russia is a nuclear power with a robust military.
So why not just get Russia into NATO and be done with it? That was actually kicked around in the late 90s, early 00s. The only problem with that is that you have to conform to certain democratic standards to be a part of NATO, standards Russia never has and never will confirm to. So that won't work.
Then there is Turkey...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7
What you have here is more antagonization of the Russian Federation,
for no good reason.
Comically, the USS Donald Cook was already shut down by the Russians
near Crimea in 2014 and had to high-tail out of there, with no communications.
This time, the USS Donald Cook was carrying Polish helicopters in some ridiculous
"show of strength" (laughable) a mere 60 kilometers from one of the top Russian
naval bases, Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad is already protected by a 600 kilometer
electromagnetic jamming dome which can render any electronic device inoperable.
We would think that America learned its lesson in Syria where the dome was used,
if they didn't learn from the 2014 knockout of the same ship, but when the objective
is to antagonize and create a potential false-flag environment, the aims are not
military, but political.
No one shut down anyone; where do you even get this from? You honestly think a destroyer is concerned about a plane? The only concern is if there is pilot error or a malfunction and the plane crashes into the ship.
In a combat environment, a plane would not be sent anywhere close to a destroyer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7
Meanwhile, anti-aircraft equipment is being sent to the "rebels" in Syria with
an eye towards more provocations against the Syrian Air Force and its Russian
allies. US jets have been providing air cover to protect ISIS in Syria for months.
Moronic guests on Fox News ( I heard one yesterday) claim the US would "annihilate"
Russia in a war. Anyone who believes this couldn't possibly be more wrong.
America's entire ICBM arsenal is devoid of offensive capability against Russia today.
The missiles would drop to the ground like dead crows over the Arctic sky.
Anti-air is being sent to protect Russian assets, mainly from a rogue Syrian pilot, that is all.
You are 100% incorrect regarding the ICBM arsenal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by burdell
He may have talked tough but what did he do about the 241 murder victims in the Beirut barracks?
He decided to sell weapons to Iran in turn?
Quote:
Originally Posted by burdell
I shudder to think what may have happened had there been some trigger happy yahoo in the White House during the Cuban missile crisis.
Kennedy in my opinion was an idiot putting the US at such risk. The US stationed missiles in Turkey, yet freaks out when the Soviets decided to put them in Cuba. So the US essentially wanted to do something, but goes nuts when someone else wanted to do the same thing.
Things turned out fine, and the US and Soviets got what they wanted; but what if the Soviets decided to proceed? What would be Kennedy's next steps and options? Have a full on war with the Soviets because we think we can station missiles in Turkey, yet a sovereign nation, Cuba, cannot decide what it wants on its own territory? Pretty lousy excuse for a war, basically the US trying to tell another country what it can do with its own territory.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,350 posts, read 54,496,641 times
Reputation: 40804
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheWiseWino
Well since we originated NATO that's a bit disingenuous. At the end of WW2 we thought it was a pretty good idea to rebuild western Europe and invested a pretty penny do so, of course there was a pretty good return on the investment seeing how Europe became our biggest trading partner. So it made pretty good sense to form an alliance to protect the investment. It still does.
Since we were so instrumental in putting Europe back on its feet with our people and our $$$, isn't it about time they carried more of the load?
Because Russia kept them under their thumb for 50 years not that long ago. Because Russia is unhappy about the Kaliningrad enclave being an enclave. Because seaports directly on the Baltic are much strategically preferable to St. Petersburg tucked in the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. Because Russia, under much attention from the press, declared her intent to "review the legality" of the 1991 decision to grant them independence. Or perhaps because Putin has declared that Russia has a right to intervene with force to protect Russian-speaking people everywhere.
The Soviets kept them under their thumb, not Russia. And it was a Georgian who annexed them; so might as well state Georgia kept them under their thumb if we want to assign ethnicities now.
Russia is not unhappy about Kaliningrad at all, it has a special air corridor to there and even has assigned it a special economic status.
The declaration to review the legality is nothing more than BS from some extremist, and used to appeal to the nationalist who make up the third largest political party; every country has some political idiots blabbering on about stuff. Putin rattling off nationalistic things is for internal political reasons; I have no idea why anyone would think there is any seriousness in Russia invading the Baltics.
And even with Putin stating this; and? Is it wrong now to intervene not only for Russian speakers, but for anyone to protect them? Is this not what the US does all the damn time? Is the US not a model country to emulate?
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,350 posts, read 54,496,641 times
Reputation: 40804
Quote:
Originally Posted by boxus
He decided to sell weapons to Iran in turn?
Well, he did manage to forget about that too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boxus
Kennedy in my opinion was an idiot putting the US at such risk. The US stationed missiles in Turkey, yet freaks out when the Soviets decided to put them in Cuba. So the US essentially wanted to do something, but goes nuts when someone else wanted to do the same thing.
Pretty much the way I felt about it but no one asked me at the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boxus
Things turned out fine, and the US and Soviets got what they wanted; but what if the Soviets decided to proceed? What would be Kennedy's next steps and options? Have a full on war with the Soviets because we think we can station missiles in Turkey, yet a sovereign nation, Cuba, cannot decide what it wants on its own territory? Pretty lousy excuse for a war, basically the US trying to tell another country what it can do with its own territory.
I'm not a fan of most of these asinine 'ours is bigger than yours' games we've been involved in but have to believe things could've been much worse had Kennedy had an itchy trigger finger.
Have we had any good excuses for any of the wars we've been involved in since WW II?
Barack does not have the balls to pull the trigger. Putin does this because Barack is a wimp.
Wow. Brilliant assessment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by godofthunder9010
The old Soviet Union always treated the Baltic as their own private lake. No doubt they want to reassert their control over the Baltic. Trouble there is that Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all NATO members. And Baltic nation but Russia is a member of the EU. We're there because we're always the ones doing the heavy lifting on our military treaty obligations.
I do think that Europe needs to stop relying so heavily on the USA to do everything for them. They have the money, the means and the tech to take care of their own problems.
Until we shut down NATO, they will never take charge of their own defense.
Why would they. Europe loves being on the defense dole.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WaldoKitty
It was provocative. Just as provocative as us having ships in that location.
In any case, the Navy should have painted those Russian birds with a target lock. They would have left fast enough. The Navy no doubt has orders not to.
Of course, if we had real leadership in the White House, these sort of situations would never happen. But alas, the "community agitator" is simply out of his league on the world stage. The Russians no longer respect the US Military.
Who cares? Why should they respect our military anyway? You'd take this country to war with Russia over Europe?
Would the Europeans go to war for us?
Hell no!
The Russians want hegemony over their hemisphere. We DEMAND hegemony over ours too...and we enforce it at gunpoint. Ask Chile or Guatemala.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheWiseWino
Well since we originated NATO that's a bit disingenuous. At the end of WW2 we thought it was a pretty good idea to rebuild western Europe and invested a pretty penny do so, of course there was a pretty good return on the investment seeing how Europe became our biggest trading partner. So it made pretty good sense to form an alliance to protect the investment. It still does.
No it doesn't.
Protecting Hamburg and Copenhagen is too damn expensive in a nation that claims it doesn't have enough money to fix Detroit or New Orleans.
We stood them up. Now is the time to remove the training wheels on the bike.
Quote:
Originally Posted by burdell
Since we were so instrumental in putting Europe back on its feet with our people and our $$$, isn't it about time they carried more of the load?
I have not heard of any buzzing by recently from US forces, but I guess that does not mean it does not happen, but I am sure it would have been on the media somewhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leisesturm
Which media? Radio Moscow maybe, but CNN... you can't even get coverage of Olympic events unless the U.S. medals in them and you expect them to report on provocative military actions involving our Navy aircraft?
"Not Much said about things that affect us Americans on a Hugh level the Government controlled media is influencing us the way they want us to be influenced ...to make and turn us into sheep being led to slaughter the Government sets up these false flag shootings to get an outcry of support to do away with guns our second amendment right.The Russians owned this ship´after it was zapped and then the Unarmed SU-24 Bombers flew around it mocking this 1.7 billion dollar modern wonder of a warship, The Russians are a very resourceful intelligent,patient peoples,and showed a lot of restraint I for one Commend them for a great show of pride and strength kudos to you Mr Putin"
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
