Will There Be A War?

[ProfessorFarnsworth]

Hi Professor! Good to see you.

Thanks.

On topic: It seems the Russians are locking down the Crimea border in anticipation of the referendum.

[El]

I do think the world is losing interest. It's how people are. And no, I do not have any faith in the media. They do not tone things down, they refocus.

Well I mean, what normal person is interested in war? That's not a natural part of the human condition at all, its taught nonsense.

But we are. We are interested in conflict, we are interested in drama.

Yes, but this is conflict and drama that involves actually learning about and understanding another country and culture and their history.  There's backstory which we haven't been spoonfed, so it's less interesting because we understand it less.

[ZEGH8578]

Prof, Russia may not even annex the land. I know I'm playing a bit of devils advocate here, and that can be risky amongst aspies, my friend actually yelled at me on the bus because i pointed out that Ukraine counts this as an invasion, "BUT THEY ALLREADY HAD BASES THEEEEEEEEEEEERE!!!!" "i know, but ukraine counts it as an invasion" "WTF ARE YOU STUPID!?" "dude, im not ukraine... "

But the _official options_ are independence or annexation, and officially Russia proposes and supports both. Independence would of course be a fake farse as with Abkhazia and Ossetia, but they are not annexed into the federartion (even if they are as good as)

[ProfessorFarnsworth]

But my position is that, why bother letting Crimea be independent and risk constant outside interference, when annexing makes it so if anyone tries anything, it'll be seen as an attack on Russia directly? So annexing it would be a more appealing option to further enforce its security. Not to mentioned as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of shale gas within the region of Crimea borders which becomes Russian resources upon annexing.

But I can see the alternative of independence being a compromise option if Russia feels it's under too much pressure. Problem is, Russia has its gas exports to leverage against the EU, so the EU doesn't really have a position of threatening Russia with significant sanctions enough to warrant that. The U.S isn't in too much of a position to threaten Russia either, considering how aggressive Russia can retaliate economically.

That's probably why Russia will be rather bold about their moves. They're not in a position to be severely threatened right now (at least not enough for the west to risk doing so) and they know it.

[ZEGH8578]

But my position is that, why bother letting Crimea be independent and risk constant outside interference, when annexing makes it so if anyone tries anything, it'll be seen as an attack on Russia directly? So annexing it would be a more appealing option to further enforce its security. Not to mentioned as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of shale gas within the region of Crimea borders which becomes Russian resources upon annexing.

But I can see the alternative of independence being a compromise option if Russia feels it's under too much pressure. Problem is, Russia has its gas exports to leverage against the EU, so the EU doesn't really have a position of threatening Russia with significant sanctions enough to warrant that. The U.S isn't in too much of a position to threaten Russia either, considering how aggressive Russia can retaliate economically.

That's probably why Russia will be rather bold about their moves. They're not in a position to be severely threatened right now (at least not enough for the west to risk doing so) and they know it.

I agree, it's just that I keep seeing people bangin them war drums, making paralels to the first similar event that comes to mind "omg its WW3!" but these kinds of events happen often. Peru made incursions into Ecuador twice after allready annexing half their landmass back in 1941. Nobody gave a shit (except heartbroken Ecuadorian and Peruvian berieveds). No world wars erupted
Ukraine is not allied with anybody, it stands alone. Russia is a VETO nation breaking UN Rules. Have we seen this before? Oh yeah, every damn day since USA has been a UN member.

Even if Russia were to pour into Ukraine, full force, it doesn't mean a cataclysmic domino effect, ala Hitler. I've seen on other forums, especially in Lithuania, there are "kremlin-trolls" causing ruckus on the internet, Russians are warned against travelling there, and Lithuanians in general are made into bad-guys. This worries people, and again, they associate with the next similar thing they know. Russia is notorious for dick-waving gestures, hell they once moved _thousands_ of MBT's to the Norwegian border, scaring the piss out of the frontier guards there. We can't lose our cool. We have to see reality for what it is NOW, not freak out over what it might turn into, in the worst possible scenario.
Hell, worst case scenario is that Obama nukes Moscow, Moscow nukes America, and China nukes everybody.
Ghouls roam the earth

[RageBeoulve]

Every time this happens its a dice roll, man. All it takes is enough of the right(or wrong) people being in a bad mood at the wrong time and that's it. I mean, tons of people die. Currency fails. Humanity loses several generations of progress...

Its a shitty thing to be playing around with.

[ZEGH8578]

I mean, tons of people die. Currency fails. Humanity loses several generations of progress...

bottom line of it

[RageBeoulve]

Every damn time, and its already happened lots of times. Its silly to think we're somehow "safe" from that in our super duper advanced version of "democratic society".

[odeon]

All the bad things happen elsewhere.

['andersom']

But my position is that, why bother letting Crimea be independent and risk constant outside interference, when annexing makes it so if anyone tries anything, it'll be seen as an attack on Russia directly? So annexing it would be a more appealing option to further enforce its security. Not to mentioned as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of shale gas within the region of Crimea borders which becomes Russian resources upon annexing.

But I can see the alternative of independence being a compromise option if Russia feels it's under too much pressure. Problem is, Russia has its gas exports to leverage against the EU, so the EU doesn't really have a position of threatening Russia with significant sanctions enough to warrant that. The U.S isn't in too much of a position to threaten Russia either, considering how aggressive Russia can retaliate economically.

That's probably why Russia will be rather bold about their moves. They're not in a position to be severely threatened right now (at least not enough for the west to risk doing so) and they know it.

I agree, it's just that I keep seeing people bangin them war drums, making paralels to the first similar event that comes to mind "omg its WW3!" but these kinds of events happen often. Peru made incursions into Ecuador twice after allready annexing half their landmass back in 1941. Nobody gave a shit (except heartbroken Ecuadorian and Peruvian berieveds). No world wars erupted
Ukraine is not allied with anybody, it stands alone. Russia is a VETO nation breaking UN Rules. Have we seen this before? Oh yeah, every damn day since USA has been a UN member.

Even if Russia were to pour into Ukraine, full force, it doesn't mean a cataclysmic domino effect, ala Hitler. I've seen on other forums, especially in Lithuania, there are "kremlin-trolls" causing ruckus on the internet, Russians are warned against travelling there, and Lithuanians in general are made into bad-guys. This worries people, and again, they associate with the next similar thing they know. Russia is notorious for dick-waving gestures, hell they once moved _thousands_ of MBT's to the Norwegian border, scaring the piss out of the frontier guards there. We can't lose our cool. We have to see reality for what it is NOW, not freak out over what it might turn into, in the worst possible scenario.
Hell, worst case scenario is that Obama nukes Moscow, Moscow nukes America, and China nukes everybody.
Ghouls roam the earth

The "OMG it's WW3!". Don't know how many times I heard that claim already. As long as I can recall. Cold war, middle east, every major incident that had a chance to really escalate since 1970 brought a tension like that. I know that as a little kid, I sometimes was very scared, because of it.

[odeon]

As a kid there was sometimes reason to be scared, too. Remember that 70s book, "The Day After"? The threat was somehow more real then.

[ZEGH8578]

As a kid there was sometimes reason to be scared, too. Remember that 70s book, "The Day After"? The threat was somehow more real then.

You're from the seventies? 

My mother recalls the fear of nuclear war that they had, that I've never actually felt, despite the last "peak" being during the 80s. I was busy playing with sand and drawing with crayons.

One thing that is weird to think about, is that during my childhood, it suddenly came a period where we couldn't eat anything from the woods anymore. We could before - but suddenly we couldn't! Because they were radioactive! (chernobyl, for those not getting it) Creepy shit!

['andersom']

As a kid there was sometimes reason to be scared, too. Remember that 70s book, "The Day After"? The threat was somehow more real then.

You're from the seventies? 

My mother recalls the fear of nuclear war that they had, that I've never actually felt, despite the last "peak" being during the 80s. I was busy playing with sand and drawing with crayons.

One thing that is weird to think about, is that during my childhood, it suddenly came a period where we couldn't eat anything from the woods anymore. We could before - but suddenly we couldn't! Because they were radioactive! (chernobyl, for those not getting it) Creepy shit!

Odeon is from the sixties.







So am I.



The Chernobyl fear was totally different from the underlying and ongoing fear of the decade before.

[ZEGH8578]

As a kid there was sometimes reason to be scared, too. Remember that 70s book, "The Day After"? The threat was somehow more real then.

You're from the seventies? 

My mother recalls the fear of nuclear war that they had, that I've never actually felt, despite the last "peak" being during the 80s. I was busy playing with sand and drawing with crayons.

One thing that is weird to think about, is that during my childhood, it suddenly came a period where we couldn't eat anything from the woods anymore. We could before - but suddenly we couldn't! Because they were radioactive! (chernobyl, for those not getting it) Creepy shit!

Odeon is from the sixties.







So am I.



The Chernobyl fear was totally different from the underlying and ongoing fear of the decade before.

Oh, I know, but that's sortof the closest I get to remembering anything similar, a sort of palpable global threat

I also remember the dissolution of the Soviet Union as something I actually found noteworthy: People had always been correcting me, especially my dad, whenever I said "Russia" he went "Nono, it's called The Soviet Union" and I always wondered where the hell Russia was, in that case.
Finally, there WAS a country called Russia, and it had been in the fucking Soviet Union this whole time!

By now, I know much more, and it irks me that my dad STILL corrects me, I'm all "and then the Russians would - " "No, no, it's the Soviets!" "DAD. THE RUSSIANS. FROM THE RUSSIAN SSR, OF THE SOVIET UNION. THE RUSSIANS AS OPPOSED TO THE KAZAKHS AND THE LITHUANIANS. THE RUSSIANS, DAD." "Okay okay o_o"

[odeon]

I was studying at the uni when Chernobyl happened. As physics students, none of us was particularly worried but me and a mate wanted to sell umbrellas wrapped in tinfoil to the public. There was money to be made.