Realcent.org

Thing are about to get interesting. Russia's parlement just approved invading Ukraine.

Actually Crimea - which is a self-governing semi-independent subdivision of Ukraine and which by treaty houses one of Russia's largest Naval Bases - invited them in. So while much is being made of this, so far I believe Russia isn't violating any sovereignty that I'm aware of.

If Russia entered Turkey from the rear... would Greece help?

SQUAWK!!!

beauanderos wrote:If Russia entered Turkey from the rear... would Greece help?

A little Greece helps; too much just makes a messy situation worse...

Russia can't go in directly and invade Ukraine. Invited to the Crimea with open arms, no problem. Time passes on.

Ukraine decides to go with the West, Crimea decides to succeed from Ukraine and become Russia. Putin wins the Crème Land and continues to pressure the Breadbasket of Europe. It only takes a turn of the natural gas valve to make Ukraine shudder.

Or Ukraine decides to stay with Mother Russia and Crimea stays Put(in). Putin continues to win the Breadbasket of Europe and the Crème Land.

No Brainer.

none of this will happen, because Obama drew a line that the Russians won't cross

It has been said that Russia is cutting ties with the US and its ambassador is being recalled. I wonder what this will do to the markets. It can't do any good.
ED

Notice how this accelerated after the market closed on Friday? The Boys are up to their usual games.

silver wrote:It has been said that Russia is cutting ties with the US and its ambassador is being recalled. I wonder what this will do to the markets. It can't do any good.
ED

The Russian house passed a resolution authorizing Putin to do that, but it hasn't happened (yet).

The Ukrainian interim government apparently doesn't recognize the Crimean interim government, which doesn't help things.

What a mess. World wars have started over less.

The simple solution is for Ukraine to sell Crimea to Russia for enough cash to retire its sovereign debt. Of course that will never happen, it makes too much sense.

IdahoCopper wrote:The simple solution is for Ukraine to sell Crimea to Russia for enough cash to retire its sovereign debt. Of course that will never happen, it makes too much sense.

That does make too much sense to ever happen.

68Camaro wrote:

beauanderos wrote:If Russia entered Turkey from the rear... would Greece help?

A little Greece helps; too much just makes a messy situation worse...

Exactly what I was thinking...

From: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/worl ... e/5922731/

Meanwhile, protests broke out in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Saturday after thousands of people gathered to press for a referendum on seceding from Ukraine, carrying Russian flags and banners expressing support of pro-Russian protesters in Crimea.

Love it when my view is validated

Question?

Why does this matter to us?

I remember targeting my MMIII crowd pleasers all over Ukraine. It wasn't that long ago.

Soooo?

Certain urban phrases I am unfamiliar with. Thogey, I'm guessing your "crowd pleasers" are weapons of direct significant destruction, specifically of the missile type and not those other definitions I saw in the Urban Dictionary? Talk about a spectrum of meanings! Then again, I could be very wrong on my thoughts here. Anyone else want to venture a guess?

Here is a rather lengthy (355 pages or so) and dated (1999) publication of the Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research on Ukraine:

http://www.css.ethz.ch/publications/pdf ... u_ZS-2.pdf

See if I can find something better.

Stocks down. Oil, gas, and PMs up this morning.

Minuteman 3.

Russia has had control of the Crimea for 250 years and it was a strategic error on Russia's part to let it go when the Soviet Union dissolved. So Putin is correcting someone else's error. But it's not as simple as that because as usual there have been hundreds if not thousands of years of ethnic cleansing between the various factions, and Russia has been a part of that, as have the Western Ukrainians (who are more akin to the Slavs, and many of whom were allied with the Nazis - thus the Russians consider them that still and still will not forgive what the Nazis did in WWII) and the Crimeans (who were historically Tatars, many of who were forceably removed by the Soviets - leading to the current Russian majority there).

So there is no denying the ugliness of the business. But it's been going on for hundreds of years, and we should restrain our reaction. If the Ukrainians didn't want Russia they should have jumped on the European/NATO bandwagon - there can be no neutrals in that area.

68Camaro wrote:Minuteman 3.

Russia has had control of the Crimea for 250 years and it was a strategic error on Russia's part to let it go when the Soviet Union dissolved. So Putin is correcting someone else's error. But it's not as simple as that because as usual there have been hundreds if not thousands of years of ethnic cleansing between the various factions, and Russia has been a part of that, as have the Western Ukrainians (who are more akin to the Slavs, and many of whom were allied with the Nazis - thus the Russians consider them that still and still will not forgive what the Nazis did in WWII) and the Crimeans (who were historically Tatars, many of who were forceably removed by the Soviets - leading to the current Russian majority there).

So there is no denying the ugliness of the business. But it's been going on for hundreds of years, and we should restrain our reaction. If the Ukrainians didn't want Russia they should have jumped on the European/NATO bandwagon - there can be no neutrals in that area.

I see what you are saying. That area of the world has a long, bad history. However, I get the impression that all this discussion of the complex cultural history between the Ukraine and Russia is being used the distract us from the simple fact that Putin is invading and occupying a soveriegn nation. The Russians have the right of transit through the Crimea to and from their naval base, but they do not have the right occupy the area and even surround a Ukrainian army base.

One fact that is not complicated is that the U.S., along with GB, is a guarantor of Ukrainain territorial integrity (including the Crimea). Unfortunately we have very little power to enforce such a treaty. When future historians to identify when exactly the U.S. lost its superpower status, I suspect that many will argue it was March 2014, when the U.S and Western leaders responded to clear aggression with a serious of increasingly peevish speeches.

http://news.yahoo.com/ukraines-territor ... ZJUDM2MV8x

. . . . on December 5, 1994, Ukraine, Russia along with Britain and the United States signed an agreement in which the three powers guaranteed the territorial integrity of the former Soviet republic in exchange for Kiev giving up nuclear weapons.

The Black Sea peninsula is currently under de-facto occupation by pro-Kremlin troops, a situation which has been embraced by the local Russian speaking population fearing Kiev's new authorities.

However, under the terms of the 1994 so-called Budapest memorandum the three major powers affirmed their commitment to respect the independence, sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine. It was signed three years after Ukraine became an independent state.

Good info I'll dig into that tonight. I didn't know we had signed up to that.

But I was reminded as I did my mini review of world and especially European history this week (on my phone while the wife had all her TV shows on) was that the history of the world is UGLY, and no matter what BS the statesmen may spew there is no such thing as sovereignty without a defense capable of maintaining it (or friends who will stand by you).

johnbrickner wrote:Certain urban phrases I am unfamiliar with. Thogey, I'm guessing your "crowd pleasers" are weapons of direct significant destruction, specifically of the missile type and not those other definitions I saw in the Urban Dictionary? Talk about a spectrum of meanings! Then again, I could be very wrong on my thoughts here. Anyone else want to venture a guess?

Here is a rather lengthy (355 pages or so) and dated (1999) publication of the Center for Security Studies and Conflict Research on Ukraine:

http://www.css.ethz.ch/publications/pdf ... u_ZS-2.pdf

See if I can find something better.

Stocks down. Oil, gas, and PMs up this morning.

I'm sorry,

These are crowd pleasers.

68Camaro wrote:Good info I'll dig into that tonight. I didn't know we had signed up to that.

But I was reminded as I did my mini review of world and especially European history this week (on my phone while the wife had all her TV shows on) was that the history of the world is UGLY, and no matter what BS the statesmen may spew there is no such thing as sovereignty without a defense capable of maintaining it (or friends who will stand by you).

+1 Secretary of State Kerry seems to mistakenly believe that humanity is more "civilized"today than it was in the 19th century. The reason why the developed world has been relatively stable since the the late 1940s is the U.S. rise to superpower status along with the general increase in freedom around the world. During these 2+ generations it was generally understood that no aggression would go unchallenged. Now that the U.S. is pulling back and "leading from behind" we see that the old tendency toward thinly veiled aggression has returned. . . if it ever left.

Also, I don't believe that the 1994 agreement obligates the U.S or G.B. to use military force in the Ukraine's defense as some have suggested. (Of course if the Ukraine had joined NATO it would be a different story.) However, I do think that the Ukraine deserves a more concerted effort than its been getting thus far. But at the end of the day Camaro is right; national sovereignty (or personal freedom for that matter) means nothing without the willingness and ability to defend it.

Thanks for the clarification and nice pics.

Putin backs troops off of the Border and does not invade the rest of Ukraine; PMs are down and the S & P sets a new record saying in effect, nothing happing here folks, move on, everything is normal. So this "little" act of political maneuvering with troops is just small potatoes on the international scene and not worth getting involved in? Or is it because Ukraine's energy pipelines going to Europe are controlled at the source by Russia and the EU doesn't want to piss Putin off?

The strategic energy, natural resources, farmland, and water "wars" are still in the early stages. Rus is looking to win this one and won't let the resource that Ukraine is go without a fight, political with force as needed. I suspect most of what we will see in the future will be the turning of the political screws (you'll join or it hurts) but, actual land grabs in out of the way places while the big boys have their military resources committed else where may become more common.

Interesting is watching how China continues to obtain hers diplomatically as "good business deals". Military not needed yet. Yet more interesting will be watching what sides the little guys pick as things get hotter.

johnbrickner wrote:Yet more interesting will be watching what sides the little guys pick as things get hotter.

I also think that's going to be interesting. My Russian teacher lives in Latvia and I was talking with her a little last Saturday about this. Interesting times.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-0 ... th?page=18

Well now that's interesting. I love the quote at the end by the Estonian foreign minister, who basically says, "yes, that's all true, but it's regrettable that it was leaked." It does suck when people know the truth. I've found this story on several news websites, but when you look at or listen to Fox, CNN, NY Times, etc, all you hear is crickets. According to RT (if you can believe them), "(American) State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she had nothing to say on the issue, ITAR-TASS reported. However, she did accuse Russia of leaking the tape, stating that “this was another example of how the Russians work.” So, if that information is correct, we have an American state department spokeswoman accusing the Russians of playing dirty for... exposing a shred of truth about a murky situation. Nice. Truth is treason in the empire of lies.

I'm not exactly sure who or what to believe, but I do know that I believe virtually nothing the MSM says and I believe virtually nothing the government says (that would include foreign governments as well). Interesting times in which we live.

Hawkeye wrote:

johnbrickner wrote:Yet more interesting will be watching what sides the little guys pick as things get hotter.

I also think that's going to be interesting. My Russian teacher lives in Latvia and I was talking with her a little last Saturday about this. Interesting times.

Hawkeye I gotta ask, what did she say?