What would Putin do if...

Ghost of Cutten said:
NATO massed its forces on the eastern border of Poland and Romania, put several carrier battlegroups and submarines in the Black Sea, and then got invited by the Ukraine government to come in and secure their territory against foreign armed forces? My suspicion is - he would do nothing, then pack up and go home. He will not risk WWIII over Crimea - or even risk permanently losing the Sevastopol naval base, which could be vaporised in a few hours along with its fleet.

Putin is bluffing and needs to be re-raised all-in.
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I'm having a hard time imagining NATO doing anything in the first place.
I hold NATO in higher esteem than the UN, but only by a little.

I also can't think of any time off the top of my head Putin backed down from much of anything significant. Feel free to remind me if I've just forgotten.
 
Lucrum said:
I also can't think of any time off the top of my head Putin backed down from much of anything significant. Feel free to remind me if I've just forgotten.
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He backed down when Obama told him to on the nuclear issue.
 
Tsing Tao said:
So what you're saying is that we'd risk WWIII over it, but not Putin? You don't know the Russian mindset very well, that much is painfully obvious.

The time it would take for NATO to mobilize (for a contingency they have admitted they did not plan on) would be greater than the half-life of this event. The Russians beat NATO to the punch, end of story. It's a lot easier to deter behavior than it is to reverse it once done. The Russians can sit on the black sea and then go "let's talk it over". Stall, delay...it's over.

I also find some of the comments from Kerry rather hilarious. He was saying how "invasion of another sovereign nation over false pretenses is very 19th century and not how civilized nations behave." Ah, I see. So invading Iraq over bullshit about WMD, that's ok. Trying to invade Syria under some horseshit story about how they hit their own people with chemical weapons, that's ok.

It's ok when we do it, but we don't want others doing it.
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This is precisely correct...
 
...Mr. Obama and the West must act, rather than merely threaten, because it's clear Mr. Putin believes the American President's words can't be taken seriously. After the 2008 invasion of Georgia, President Obama pretended the problem was Dick Cheney and tried to "reset" relations with Moscow. Mr. Putin has defied the civilized world on Syria and Mr. Obama rewarded him by making Russia a partner in phony peace talks. Mr. Putin gave NSA leaker Edward Snowden asylum over U.S. objections, and he got away with that too.
***

In the brutal world of global power politics, Ukraine is in particular a casualty of Mr. Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" on Syria. When the leader of the world's only superpower issues a military ultimatum and then blinks, others notice. Adversaries and allies in Asia and the Middle East will be watching President Obama's response now. China has its eyes on Japanese islands. Iran is counting on U.S. weakness in nuclear talks...

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304026804579413900968932702?mod=trending_now_1
 
Which members of "NATO" would be contributing troops for this show of force? The French? The Italians? The Germans? Seriously?

Putin can cut off gas to europe and destroy their economies. Putting carriers etc into the Black Sea woudl be madness. They would be within reach of Russian missle batteries, not to mention subs, and would be totally destroyed within the first 15 minutes of a real confrontation. What do you do then? Say "Nevermind?"

This episode, like the one in Georgia before it, exposes the shallow thinking behind bringing these countries in Russia's backyard into NATO inthe first place. Or we really going to war over some tiny coucntyr most of us couldn't find on a map? thankfully, Ukraine is not in NATO, but that clearly is the intent here.

How would we react if Mexico decided to enter a defense pact with china and gave them military bases, etc?

Putin has all the cards here, plus his poosition is not at all unreasonable. The europhiles in Ukraine overthrew a democratically elected president, withour backing. How does that square with international norms?
 
AAAintheBeltway said:
Which members of "NATO" would be contributing troops for this show of force? The French? The Italians? The Germans? Seriously?

Putin can cut off gas to europe and destroy their economies. Putting carriers etc into the Black Sea would be madness. They would be within reach of Russian missile batteries, not to mention subs, and would be totally destroyed within the first 15 minutes of a real confrontation. What do you do then? Say "Nevermind?"

This episode, like the one in Georgia before it, exposes the shallow thinking behind bringing these countries in Russia's backyard into NATO inthe first place. Or we really going to war over some tiny country most of us couldn't find on a map? thankfully, Ukraine is not in NATO, but that clearly is the intent here.

How would we react if Mexico decided to enter a defense pact with china and gave them military bases, etc?

Putin has all the cards here, plus his position is not at all unreasonable. The europhiles in Ukraine overthrew a democratically elected president, with our backing. How does that square with international norms?
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The WSJ article I posted was just for another perspective.
At the moment at least I'm far more in agreement with you.
Not that it matters what I think. My "representatives" in congress don't care what I think. And worse, Obama doesn't care what congress thinks. And even worse yet, Obama doesn't know how to think.
 
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