Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News The long and winding road to Dumbass

It’s not for me to say if article 51 applies or not.
I think your comparison is not a good one. The Iraq invasion would be a better one. Article 51 is about nations not individuals vs. internal state policing.

My opinion, which seems to fascinate and anger, of the sanctions were not well thought out. Grabbing reserves of sovereigns is a radical departure, looks desperate, crooked and ultimately undermines our reserve currency status of the dollar. As I’ve also said- Neocons move fast and break things as a messianic ideology. Here’s a good article on why their theft of sovereign reserves may have been a good idea:

April 14 interview of Sergey Glazyev, Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU)

‘In the first phase of the transition, these countries fall back on using their national currencies and clearing mechanisms, backed by bilateral currency swaps. At this point, price formation is still mostly driven by prices at various exchanges, denominated in dollars. This phase is almost over: after Russia’s reserves in dollars, euro, pound, and yen were “frozen,” it is unlikely that any sovereign country will continue accumulating reserves in these currencies. Their immediate replacement is national currencies and gold.‘

I’m effect, the theft of sovereign reserves will give pause to any country thinking of using dollars as a store for its balance of payments reserves. This conflict has more than one dimension. The same lack of thought, I’ve argued, is becoming apparent with the commodities market as it looks like it’s going to hurt the Natosphere while benefiting our ‘peer competitors’. All to satisfy a minority of Russophobes. If I must live in an Empire, it would be nice if it were lead with competency, imo.

I've been wondering why the Soviet Union collapsed and why Russia and Ukraine ended up on "opposite" sides.

This is an interesting explanation.

There were nukes in both Ukraine and Russia, but Ukraine agreed to give its missiles up in exchange for a guarantee that Russia would not invade and annex it. Ukraine has also not joined NATO, apparently on the shared NATO/Ukraine desire to not provoke Russia.

Now Putin's stated reason for invasion/annexation is fear that Ukraine would join NATO and the U.S. would base missiles there. (This also brings up the question of why Russia and NATO are adversaries in the first place).

Seems to have been some kind of breakdown in diplomatic negotiations...

According to the NPR article, the thing of landing on opposite sides after the USSR break up appears to have been rooted in disparate fundamental ideological objectives - democracy vs greed and power. Ironically, greed did not dominate in the countries that pursued democracies (at least not in the beginning).

Greed and power still seem to dominate dramatically in Russia.

It's pretty obvious to me that Russia feared for its life and had every right(perhaps a duty) to annex Ukraine.

But by annexing Ukraine, Russia has moved its border closer to the very NATO firepower it's hoping to distance itself from. And now that Sweden and Finland are in line to join NATO due to Russia's aggression they will find themselves under even more international pressure.

Not From China or India though...those will remain fast friends and boosum buddies throughout the conflict. Once the annexation is complete and Russai's economy returns to normal, Russians will be struggling to find enough consumer goods to spend their newfound wealth on. They need not fear. Chinese workers will supply them with all the goods they need and call centers in India will provide consumer services in broken Russiaan.

All's well that ends well is what I always say...

Hard to have this conversation if certain realities are rejected if it doesn’t affirm a narrative. I have no dog in this fight as I said before.

The Bucharest summit, where NATO pledged to bring Ukraine into its organization, with the follow on Madan coup seems to be interpreted as a threat from the Russians.

The rejection of NATO and the US to enter into any security agreements between Russia and the EU doesn’t help.

Our supporting far right ultra nationalist in Ukraine to assist with peeling them away from Russia’s sphere of influence sure couldn’t have helped.

The expansion of NATO up to its borders and then installing a missile ‘defense’ shield can’t help.

US unilaterally pulling out of arms treaties just prior has gotta be nerve wracking for them.

Etc etc. all previously posted with citations, btw.

Simply put, Russia views this as an existential threat (I can imagine how we would react to similar shenanigans on our borders from an unfriendly foreign government ) whereas we are using a moral imperative argument. A not very convincing one for me, when you consider that line having been used in the past by our country for our own crimes of aggression.

We all deeply sympathize with Russia and hope they will find time to bomb the sh*t out of us too because we certainly deserve it.

Maybe we should bomb ourselves?

Quite a few former USSR member countries joined NATO after its dissolution in 1991. Why wasn't Russia one of them? Ukraine still isn't a NATO member, either.

Why are Russian missiles aimed at other countries, and why are missiles in other countries aimed at Russia?

Why are there so many enemies among humans?

Mostly because Russia is a dick.

Yes Chunks, the US is also a dick and should eat s*** and die. Twice.

I remember there would be a peace divide to NATO could be disbanded after the Soviet breakup.

What a sucker I was

You mean you've been breathlessly waiting for NATO to be disbanded since 1991?

And now you feel cheated?

Does anyone care about how Ukraine feels about this invasion?
If Ukraine IS a sovereign nation (which most seem to agree it is) does it not have the right to align itself with whoever and whatever it wants?
In this case, it's obvious that they felt more aligned to democratic ones.