It’s really not like there’s not enough malfeasance on the part of Putin otherwise. Messing with our democracy in 2016 and 2020 is reason enough to lower the boom. Russia needs to suffer. Not just a few oligarchs but the whole damned country needs to feel the pain for attacking our democracy.
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Yesterday I posted about this and @cervantes made a good point. It had the flair of an Aesop tale. Think of Rump calling wolf too often. We as spectators and commentators assumed Rump was lying when it’s actually possible that he wasn’t. I know that would be odd but…
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I think it’s a step-wise approach. He offered Putin both the carrot and the stick. If Putin takes the carrot, we talk and see what we can do. If he doesn’t, then even more powerful sanctions and other actions come. Along with personally targeting oligarchs, I understand blocking the selling of Russia’s bonds would be a powerful blow.
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Putin is in a very complicated position. He hates the US and wants to bring back the USSR to something like it was in the 60’s and 70’s. He is increasingly unpopular at home and economic sanctions are only going to make that worse. The oligarchs are going to get hit the hardest and Putin may have trouble controlling them if they start losing their mini-empires. Trump was in Putin’s pocket but is also so clueless he would not have known how to deal with Putin if that had not been the case. Biden and his team understand Putin and Russia and know how to apply pressure without going too far. It will take time and patience but the USA and Russia have to come to some kind of reconciliation of differences that prevents war. It may not be possible with Putin in charge but it must be pursued.
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“Step wise approach”
You mean like these steps?
Annex Crimea
Invade Donbas
Interfere in US 2016 election
Interfere in US 2020 election
Appeasement in the 30s was a “step wise approach”. It failed.
The hammer needs to come down on Russia NOW!
“Prevents war”
Russia would actually require an effective military. They can’t even make any significant gains against Ukraine in Donbas.
Russia scares me almost as much as Bolivia. In other words, they are a paper tiger.
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I get it, but we’re just recovering from four long frustrating years of Trump behaving like Putin’s vassal. Biden is righting the ship. For example, we’ve already begun sending significant military payload to Ukraine to impose a cost on Russia if they choose to invade.
Biden understands Putin went after him personally. Not just in terms of trying to thwart his election, but in attacking his only remaining son viciously, repeatedly, and scurrilously. I, too, want to see the hammer brought down on Putin yesterday, but I’m willing to give Biden some time and room to maneuver. He’s got to get our allies back on board as well, to maximize the bite on Putin, after four years of abuse from Trump.
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Military intelligence.
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A paper tiger with nuclear weapons.
Which Putin would probably use if he believed he could get away with it.
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But he can’t get away with it. Nobody (states) can.
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I really doubt it. He wants his USSR back, but he seems much more content to have a nice Cold War, with little proxy battles with us in places like Syria, just like in the good old days, but no direct conflict.
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Yup. Gets very little coverage here, but some of the German-language sites have been much more interested in the toys coming through the port at Odessa.
If Russia really is only back to 2014 levels, when Ukraine only had 5-6K Battle-ready forces and had to rely on militia… Won’t go well for him.
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California is a bigger country than Russia.
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But they forgot that you need guns to project power, and they took everyones’ away, so a toddler with an AR could take over the state.
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A lot of this may be for local consumption – keep the Ukranians off balance and keep up support from his own MAGA types. Putin isn’t stupid and seems to be capable at short-term tactics but strategically he seems to be causing himself and Russia more harm than good.
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With him, too opaque to tell. He did use that 2014 buildup to actually invade, after all. But a later massive buildup in Belarus fizzled out into nothing. So this could be more saber-rattling, or could be prelude to doing something.
The one thing I believed from the testimony yesterday from all the intel folks was that nobody, except Putin, knows what the next move will be.
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Yes, deescalate due to inconclusive intelligence on Russian bounties for dead Americans.
Then start paying for dead Russians in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
Seems fair.
Sure seems like a lot of Putin critics are getting either very sick or very dead, imprisoned or not.
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This will definitely adversely effect Putin, who has other problems. I think though that the US overestimates the ability we have to effect Russia economically. During the 4 years of trump, the rest of the world escalated existing plans to get out from under our thumb - we are seriously disliked by most of our “allies” and many feel that we are simply the best choice they have.
The key to world domination is the Middle East and China pretty well has that covered now. China and Russia executed military exercises in the South Seas together 2 years ago. If China decides that Russia is a better partner than we are, we’re toast no matter how many banking sanctions we throw around. We told China not to buy Iranian oil (they had been, just covertly) and for the first time they just came out and told us to screw our sanctions, we had no power there. China recently entered into a 25 year contract with Iran and several other countries.
The Washington insiders Biden listens to seem to think that this is a war that can still be won, but that ship has sailed. China’s economy has overtaken ours which was severely effected by trump’s trade sanctions and China and Russia together have a much larger economy and a much larger military and allies like India that will pick them over us.
All Empires die.
Even if true hardly compares with the billions we spent to kill thousands of Russian service men in Afganitsan back in the 1980’s