Putin is ready to use nuclear weapons and his first goal will be to Warsaw
http://onpress.info/putin-gotov-primenit-yadernoe-oruzhie-i-ego-pervoj-celyu-budet-varshava-mirovye-smi0011854
Topic: World War III - page 10. (Read 34342 times)
Russia in the Kaliningrad region have held large-scale exercises
В Калининградской области провели масштабные учения по высадке десанта
На полигоне Хмелевка проведено зачетное тактическое учение группировки разнородных сил Балтийского флота.
http://lifenews.ru/news/140021
В Калининградской области провели масштабные учения по высадке десанта
На полигоне Хмелевка проведено зачетное тактическое учение группировки разнородных сил Балтийского флота.
http://lifenews.ru/news/140021
Oh, this "missile defense" again %)
It's all nothing more than scam, another attempt to steal some taxpayers money and get a place to deploy some middle-range missiles.
similar to how Israel intercepts rockets from gaza
It's not similar at all. Iron Dome is proposed to intercept homemade Qassam missiles and sometimes it is also able to intercept "Grad" missiles. It's a different level of complexity, incomparable with the interception of ICBMs. It's like trying to compare two cans with a mobile phone.This is also why it is important for us to have weapons systems that are capable of intercepting and destroying these missiles before then can reach the US. We already have some weapons systems in place for this but it does not protect us from all attack vectors.
There is only one issue, this so-called anti-missile shield simply won't work because at the current level of technology it's impossible to intercept even old soviet ICBM. Soviet missiles were made taking into account the possibility of such a system installation by suggested enemy, russian missiles have some additional technologies to make it even more difficult. Also there are quasi ballistic missiles in service... Which are even more difficult to intercept because their path is unpredictable even at start of trajectory.It's all nothing more than scam, another attempt to steal some taxpayers money and get a place to deploy some middle-range missiles.
Russia May Still Have An Automated Nuclear Launch System Aimed Across The Northern Hemisphere
The Dead Hand was a computer system that could autonomously launch all of the USSR's nuclear weapons once it was activated, across the entirety of the Soviet Union.
Dead Hand was a weapon of last resort. It was created to ensure that even if the Soviet leadership was wiped out, a nuclear response could still be launched against the West and NATO in retaliation.
After Dead Hand was activated by Soviet military officials, "the first thing it does is check the communication lines to work out if there's anyone alive and in charge of the Soviet military," Alok Jha, author of The Doomsday Handbook, told National Geographic. "If they're not alive, it takes over."
If Dead Hand did not detect signs of a preserved military hierarchy, the system would perform a check for signals of a nuclear attack, such as a change in air pressure, extreme light, and radioactivity.
If the system concluded that a nuclear strike had taken place, Dead Hand would proceed to launch all of the remaining nuclear weapons from all of the silos throughout the Soviet Union at targets across the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-dead-hand-system-may-still-be-active-2014-9
The Dead Hand was a computer system that could autonomously launch all of the USSR's nuclear weapons once it was activated, across the entirety of the Soviet Union.
Dead Hand was a weapon of last resort. It was created to ensure that even if the Soviet leadership was wiped out, a nuclear response could still be launched against the West and NATO in retaliation.
After Dead Hand was activated by Soviet military officials, "the first thing it does is check the communication lines to work out if there's anyone alive and in charge of the Soviet military," Alok Jha, author of The Doomsday Handbook, told National Geographic. "If they're not alive, it takes over."
If Dead Hand did not detect signs of a preserved military hierarchy, the system would perform a check for signals of a nuclear attack, such as a change in air pressure, extreme light, and radioactivity.
If the system concluded that a nuclear strike had taken place, Dead Hand would proceed to launch all of the remaining nuclear weapons from all of the silos throughout the Soviet Union at targets across the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-dead-hand-system-may-still-be-active-2014-9
Pretty
This sounds a lot like a dead mans switch. This is also why it is important for us to have weapons systems that are capable of intercepting and destroying these missiles before then can reach the US (similar to how Israel intercepts rockets from gaza). We already have some weapons systems in place for this but it does not protect us from all attack vectors.
It's all because ruSSia is a evil empire and jail for nations.
It's all because of this. The real creators of War
Russia bases high-tech nuclear sub closest to Norway
http://barentsobserver.com/en/security/2014/09/russia-bases-high-tech-nuclear-sub-closest-norway-05-09
I found this CNN article interesting (and funny):
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/04/opinion/rothkopf-putin-nato-summit/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/04/opinion/rothkopf-putin-nato-summit/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Russia May Still Have An Automated Nuclear Launch System Aimed Across The Northern Hemisphere
The Dead Hand was a computer system that could autonomously launch all of the USSR's nuclear weapons once it was activated, across the entirety of the Soviet Union.
Dead Hand was a weapon of last resort. It was created to ensure that even if the Soviet leadership was wiped out, a nuclear response could still be launched against the West and NATO in retaliation.
After Dead Hand was activated by Soviet military officials, "the first thing it does is check the communication lines to work out if there's anyone alive and in charge of the Soviet military," Alok Jha, author of The Doomsday Handbook, told National Geographic. "If they're not alive, it takes over."
If Dead Hand did not detect signs of a preserved military hierarchy, the system would perform a check for signals of a nuclear attack, such as a change in air pressure, extreme light, and radioactivity.
If the system concluded that a nuclear strike had taken place, Dead Hand would proceed to launch all of the remaining nuclear weapons from all of the silos throughout the Soviet Union at targets across the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-dead-hand-system-may-still-be-active-2014-9
The Dead Hand was a computer system that could autonomously launch all of the USSR's nuclear weapons once it was activated, across the entirety of the Soviet Union.
Dead Hand was a weapon of last resort. It was created to ensure that even if the Soviet leadership was wiped out, a nuclear response could still be launched against the West and NATO in retaliation.
After Dead Hand was activated by Soviet military officials, "the first thing it does is check the communication lines to work out if there's anyone alive and in charge of the Soviet military," Alok Jha, author of The Doomsday Handbook, told National Geographic. "If they're not alive, it takes over."
If Dead Hand did not detect signs of a preserved military hierarchy, the system would perform a check for signals of a nuclear attack, such as a change in air pressure, extreme light, and radioactivity.
If the system concluded that a nuclear strike had taken place, Dead Hand would proceed to launch all of the remaining nuclear weapons from all of the silos throughout the Soviet Union at targets across the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-dead-hand-system-may-still-be-active-2014-9
Pretty awesome system. I bet America also have the same system like this. What if there is an error on the computer. Oops. Sorry Europe and Merica.
Russia May Still Have An Automated Nuclear Launch System Aimed Across The Northern Hemisphere
The Dead Hand was a computer system that could autonomously launch all of the USSR's nuclear weapons once it was activated, across the entirety of the Soviet Union.
Dead Hand was a weapon of last resort. It was created to ensure that even if the Soviet leadership was wiped out, a nuclear response could still be launched against the West and NATO in retaliation.
After Dead Hand was activated by Soviet military officials, "the first thing it does is check the communication lines to work out if there's anyone alive and in charge of the Soviet military," Alok Jha, author of The Doomsday Handbook, told National Geographic. "If they're not alive, it takes over."
If Dead Hand did not detect signs of a preserved military hierarchy, the system would perform a check for signals of a nuclear attack, such as a change in air pressure, extreme light, and radioactivity.
If the system concluded that a nuclear strike had taken place, Dead Hand would proceed to launch all of the remaining nuclear weapons from all of the silos throughout the Soviet Union at targets across the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-dead-hand-system-may-still-be-active-2014-9
The Dead Hand was a computer system that could autonomously launch all of the USSR's nuclear weapons once it was activated, across the entirety of the Soviet Union.
Dead Hand was a weapon of last resort. It was created to ensure that even if the Soviet leadership was wiped out, a nuclear response could still be launched against the West and NATO in retaliation.
After Dead Hand was activated by Soviet military officials, "the first thing it does is check the communication lines to work out if there's anyone alive and in charge of the Soviet military," Alok Jha, author of The Doomsday Handbook, told National Geographic. "If they're not alive, it takes over."
If Dead Hand did not detect signs of a preserved military hierarchy, the system would perform a check for signals of a nuclear attack, such as a change in air pressure, extreme light, and radioactivity.
If the system concluded that a nuclear strike had taken place, Dead Hand would proceed to launch all of the remaining nuclear weapons from all of the silos throughout the Soviet Union at targets across the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-dead-hand-system-may-still-be-active-2014-9
Army of the Russian Federation will hold large-scale exercises near the border with Kazakhstan
http://www.newsru.com/russia/03sep2014/uchenia.html
The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation proposed to include the United States as the main enemy
http://www.interfax.ru/russia/394742
Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces to Hold Major Exercise This Month
http://www.newsweek.com/russias-strategic-nuclear-forces-hold-major-exercise-month-268056?piano_t=1
http://www.newsru.com/russia/03sep2014/uchenia.html
The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation proposed to include the United States as the main enemy
http://www.interfax.ru/russia/394742
Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces to Hold Major Exercise This Month
http://www.newsweek.com/russias-strategic-nuclear-forces-hold-major-exercise-month-268056?piano_t=1
Russia to review military policy towards NATO
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/09/russia-amend-defence-policy-towards-nato-20149285529631717.html
If Putin goes nuclear
by Tom Nichols
I don’t miss the Cold War, but apparently Russian President Vladimir Putin does. Either that, or he’s now clinically insane.
There aren’t a lot of other explanations for Putin’s nuclear chest-thumping in the past week or so. So far, it’s vintage Putin: swaggering braggadocio about Russia’s nuclear status that isn’t actually linked to a specific threat, but with enough dots to connect that any foreign observer can take his meaning. Like the mobster he is, Putin never directly threatens, but instead talks in circles, sort of the way a loan shark explains the many ways you could have an “accident” if you don’t pay up.
This isn’t as new as it looks. The Soviet and later Russian militaries have always been obsessed with nuclear weapons — yes, even more than the Americans — but mostly, in the last few decades, to compensate for the pitiful state of Russian conventional forces. Apparently, nuclear deterrence has now reverted back to Cold War dice-throwing.
(And by the way, I took a raft of shit was subjected to serious academic criticism for saying in my first book two decades ago that unreconstructed “Sovietism” in the Russian Armed Forces was the biggest threat to post-Cold War peace. I would gladly take an apology from the scholar who led that attack back in the 90s, but he’s dead.)
So what, exactly is Putin on about? Let’s look at this seriously for a moment, as if Putin isn’t a gangster or a lunatic. Is there actually a strategic logic to the use of a nuclear weapon anywhere in this current crisis?
Russian commentator Andrei Piontkovsky thinks that Putin, at least, believes there is. As Paul Goble reports:
Clearly, [says Piontkovsky], Putin does not seek “the destruction of the hated United States,” a goal that he could achieve “only at the price of mutual suicide.” Instead, his goals are “significantly more modest: the maximum extension of the Russian World, the destruction of NATO, and the discrediting and humiliation of the US as the guarantor of the security of the West.”
To put it in simplest terms, Piontkovsky continues, Putin’s actions would be “revenge for the defeat of the USSR in the third (cold) world war just as the second world war was for Germany an attempt at revenge for defeat in the first.”
(To read Piontkovsky’s interview in Russian, go here.)
If Putin is the old-school Soviet thug I now think he is, then his notional plan will look something like this:
1. Provoke a crisis within the current crisis. There are rumors, for example, that the shootdown of MH17 was actually supposed to be the shootdown of a Russian airliner that could then be used as a pretext for invasion. That’s a little too clever for me, but imagine a sudden Russian lunge toward, say, Odessa, and the US and UK take the recent advice of Ben Judah in the New York Times and send troops to hold the airport there. Now we have exactly the NATO-Russia standoff for which Putin has been striving for months.
2. Get some Russian soldiers killed. Make sure it looks right on RT, preferably with Ukrainian soldiers using Western weapons. (Or better yet, with NATO soldiers returning fire on innocent Russian “peacekeepers” and “aid convoys” or whatever idiotic ruse Putin uses the next time.)
3. Use a nuclear weapon. NATO shatters as everyone west of Warsaw loses control of their bladders.
I’m not saying this is a good plan, but it might be the one Putin and his cronies are considering.
Of course, this is pure crazy talk on many levels.
First, I can’t figure out how even Putin thinks he secures the future of Russia by becoming the first nation since 1945 to use nuclear weapons. If the Russian president’s goal is to make the world forget about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, place a permanent stain on the word “Russia” for all time, and united the entire planet against his still-poor, still-weak country, then he is not only unhinged, he’s just plain stupid.
There are other considerations, of course. Exactly what does Putin think he’s going to hit with nuclear weapons? A NATO base in Poland, perhaps? A UK submarine pen? A US ICBM base in Wyoming? This is one of those ideas that probably sounded good after that fourth vodka at 3 am in the Kremlin, hanging out with the boys and getting a shoulder rub from Alina Kabayeva.
Indeed, you can almost see it: jackets open, ties loosened, cigarette smoke hanging in the air, the clink of glasses, the generals and the spooks sitting around smugly talking about NATO having a collective pants-browning over the display of Russian nuclear might.
Unfortunately (for them) it’s not 1974. It doesn’t work that way. No matter how Putin’s team or his courtiers in the Russian media try to spin the story, the first use of a nuclear weapon is still the first use of a nuclear weapon. Russians, raised on the idea that only the bad guys would ever use nukes first, will know exactly what happened. And then they will wait for the cloud of fallout to hit them — as it will within a few days if the target is in European NATO.
And some of them — especially the smarter ones who are already trying to get the hell out of Russia — will wonder why their lives and futures are being sacrificed for the sake of the memory of a country that ceased to exist while they were still toddlers.
How any of this helps Russia is beyond me. Even if the exchange stops at one weapon — and I don’t think any U.S. President needs to retaliate by adding yet more poison to the planet, but that’s just me — Russia will forever be contained by the international community as the Worst Country In The World.
Of course, if Putin thinks the exchange will stop with one weapon, then he’s the most confident gambler since Hitler in 1936. (I’d also bet that the Chinese are probably rooting for Putin to get off the leash and go nuts, because it will allow them to finally get the stink of Mao Zedong’s crazy off of them and make it stick forever to Moscow.)
If the exchange doesn’t stop at one weapon, then the rest is irrelevant, and you and I will likely not be sitting here calmly reading and reflecting on international affairs.
Putin isn’t going to live forever, and after using a nuclear bomb his successors will have two choices: either revert to complete Soviet-like isolation and self-sufficiency in world that will forever hate Russia (and live off pickled herring and apple juice for another century) or abjectly throw the Russian Federation on the mercy of international opinion, and engage in prolonged atonement that would almost certainly require demilitarization of the Russian state and war crimes tribunals for the surviving leaders and generals.
I used to think the chance of any of this was about zero. But of course, that’s the problem with “about zero:” it’s not actually “zero.” Anything that’s not impossible has a finite chance of happening. Putin’s provocations might have only a million to one shot of producing a nuclear event, but if he tries those provocations a million times…well, you do the math. I keep waiting for cooler heads to prevail in Moscow and thought this might have reached some kind of resolution over the summer. But that was 2500 Ukrainian deaths — and one innocent airliner — ago.
Still, I’m used to Soviet…er, sorry….Russian leaders talking about nuclear weapons, and so I’m assuming this is business as usual, circa 1980. But the fact that Putin is willing to throw away Russia’s future for the sake of a Soviet past means that this crisis is not close to being over. It also means that there is no way to deal with this crisis through negotiation: if Putin is so locked in the past that he thinks he can make nuclear threats, he’s not likely to change course now.
I also worry about one more thing, on our side rather than theirs. Putin is taking huge risks based on the idea that Barack Obama is the weakest American president in modern history. The Kremlin has plenty of reason to think so, especially after the graceless powder we took in Syria a year ago. There is no question that President Obama is among the least, uh, decisive leaders the White House has had in a long time, but even weak Presidents can only be pushed so far.
I worry that Putin, like other Soviet — sorry again, Russian, I mean Russian — leaders thinks that America is as leader-centered as Russia is, and will not understand that at some point the American foreign policy establishment will create a response that will totally surprise the Kremlin. That’s how major wars get started, but it’s not clear that Putin knows this, or cares.
copyright and source:
http://tomnichols.net/blog/2014/09/01/if-putin-goes-nuclear/
by Tom Nichols
I don’t miss the Cold War, but apparently Russian President Vladimir Putin does. Either that, or he’s now clinically insane.
There aren’t a lot of other explanations for Putin’s nuclear chest-thumping in the past week or so. So far, it’s vintage Putin: swaggering braggadocio about Russia’s nuclear status that isn’t actually linked to a specific threat, but with enough dots to connect that any foreign observer can take his meaning. Like the mobster he is, Putin never directly threatens, but instead talks in circles, sort of the way a loan shark explains the many ways you could have an “accident” if you don’t pay up.
This isn’t as new as it looks. The Soviet and later Russian militaries have always been obsessed with nuclear weapons — yes, even more than the Americans — but mostly, in the last few decades, to compensate for the pitiful state of Russian conventional forces. Apparently, nuclear deterrence has now reverted back to Cold War dice-throwing.
(And by the way, I took a raft of shit was subjected to serious academic criticism for saying in my first book two decades ago that unreconstructed “Sovietism” in the Russian Armed Forces was the biggest threat to post-Cold War peace. I would gladly take an apology from the scholar who led that attack back in the 90s, but he’s dead.)
So what, exactly is Putin on about? Let’s look at this seriously for a moment, as if Putin isn’t a gangster or a lunatic. Is there actually a strategic logic to the use of a nuclear weapon anywhere in this current crisis?
Russian commentator Andrei Piontkovsky thinks that Putin, at least, believes there is. As Paul Goble reports:
Clearly, [says Piontkovsky], Putin does not seek “the destruction of the hated United States,” a goal that he could achieve “only at the price of mutual suicide.” Instead, his goals are “significantly more modest: the maximum extension of the Russian World, the destruction of NATO, and the discrediting and humiliation of the US as the guarantor of the security of the West.”
To put it in simplest terms, Piontkovsky continues, Putin’s actions would be “revenge for the defeat of the USSR in the third (cold) world war just as the second world war was for Germany an attempt at revenge for defeat in the first.”
(To read Piontkovsky’s interview in Russian, go here.)
If Putin is the old-school Soviet thug I now think he is, then his notional plan will look something like this:
1. Provoke a crisis within the current crisis. There are rumors, for example, that the shootdown of MH17 was actually supposed to be the shootdown of a Russian airliner that could then be used as a pretext for invasion. That’s a little too clever for me, but imagine a sudden Russian lunge toward, say, Odessa, and the US and UK take the recent advice of Ben Judah in the New York Times and send troops to hold the airport there. Now we have exactly the NATO-Russia standoff for which Putin has been striving for months.
2. Get some Russian soldiers killed. Make sure it looks right on RT, preferably with Ukrainian soldiers using Western weapons. (Or better yet, with NATO soldiers returning fire on innocent Russian “peacekeepers” and “aid convoys” or whatever idiotic ruse Putin uses the next time.)
3. Use a nuclear weapon. NATO shatters as everyone west of Warsaw loses control of their bladders.
I’m not saying this is a good plan, but it might be the one Putin and his cronies are considering.
Of course, this is pure crazy talk on many levels.
First, I can’t figure out how even Putin thinks he secures the future of Russia by becoming the first nation since 1945 to use nuclear weapons. If the Russian president’s goal is to make the world forget about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, place a permanent stain on the word “Russia” for all time, and united the entire planet against his still-poor, still-weak country, then he is not only unhinged, he’s just plain stupid.
There are other considerations, of course. Exactly what does Putin think he’s going to hit with nuclear weapons? A NATO base in Poland, perhaps? A UK submarine pen? A US ICBM base in Wyoming? This is one of those ideas that probably sounded good after that fourth vodka at 3 am in the Kremlin, hanging out with the boys and getting a shoulder rub from Alina Kabayeva.
Indeed, you can almost see it: jackets open, ties loosened, cigarette smoke hanging in the air, the clink of glasses, the generals and the spooks sitting around smugly talking about NATO having a collective pants-browning over the display of Russian nuclear might.
Unfortunately (for them) it’s not 1974. It doesn’t work that way. No matter how Putin’s team or his courtiers in the Russian media try to spin the story, the first use of a nuclear weapon is still the first use of a nuclear weapon. Russians, raised on the idea that only the bad guys would ever use nukes first, will know exactly what happened. And then they will wait for the cloud of fallout to hit them — as it will within a few days if the target is in European NATO.
And some of them — especially the smarter ones who are already trying to get the hell out of Russia — will wonder why their lives and futures are being sacrificed for the sake of the memory of a country that ceased to exist while they were still toddlers.
How any of this helps Russia is beyond me. Even if the exchange stops at one weapon — and I don’t think any U.S. President needs to retaliate by adding yet more poison to the planet, but that’s just me — Russia will forever be contained by the international community as the Worst Country In The World.
Of course, if Putin thinks the exchange will stop with one weapon, then he’s the most confident gambler since Hitler in 1936. (I’d also bet that the Chinese are probably rooting for Putin to get off the leash and go nuts, because it will allow them to finally get the stink of Mao Zedong’s crazy off of them and make it stick forever to Moscow.)
If the exchange doesn’t stop at one weapon, then the rest is irrelevant, and you and I will likely not be sitting here calmly reading and reflecting on international affairs.
Putin isn’t going to live forever, and after using a nuclear bomb his successors will have two choices: either revert to complete Soviet-like isolation and self-sufficiency in world that will forever hate Russia (and live off pickled herring and apple juice for another century) or abjectly throw the Russian Federation on the mercy of international opinion, and engage in prolonged atonement that would almost certainly require demilitarization of the Russian state and war crimes tribunals for the surviving leaders and generals.
I used to think the chance of any of this was about zero. But of course, that’s the problem with “about zero:” it’s not actually “zero.” Anything that’s not impossible has a finite chance of happening. Putin’s provocations might have only a million to one shot of producing a nuclear event, but if he tries those provocations a million times…well, you do the math. I keep waiting for cooler heads to prevail in Moscow and thought this might have reached some kind of resolution over the summer. But that was 2500 Ukrainian deaths — and one innocent airliner — ago.
Still, I’m used to Soviet…er, sorry….Russian leaders talking about nuclear weapons, and so I’m assuming this is business as usual, circa 1980. But the fact that Putin is willing to throw away Russia’s future for the sake of a Soviet past means that this crisis is not close to being over. It also means that there is no way to deal with this crisis through negotiation: if Putin is so locked in the past that he thinks he can make nuclear threats, he’s not likely to change course now.
I also worry about one more thing, on our side rather than theirs. Putin is taking huge risks based on the idea that Barack Obama is the weakest American president in modern history. The Kremlin has plenty of reason to think so, especially after the graceless powder we took in Syria a year ago. There is no question that President Obama is among the least, uh, decisive leaders the White House has had in a long time, but even weak Presidents can only be pushed so far.
I worry that Putin, like other Soviet — sorry again, Russian, I mean Russian — leaders thinks that America is as leader-centered as Russia is, and will not understand that at some point the American foreign policy establishment will create a response that will totally surprise the Kremlin. That’s how major wars get started, but it’s not clear that Putin knows this, or cares.
copyright and source:
http://tomnichols.net/blog/2014/09/01/if-putin-goes-nuclear/
75 years ago, World War II started. It took Germany about the same time to reach Warsaw that the Russian army needs to reach Kiev.
Finnish PM says Russia trying to irritate with airspace violation
(Reuters) - Russia is trying to irritate Finland by its repeated violations of Finnish airspace, Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said on Saturday, while playing down suggestions that the Nordic country was edging closer to NATO.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/30/us-ukraine-crisis-finland-defence-idUSKBN0GU0R820140830
(Reuters) - Russia is trying to irritate Finland by its repeated violations of Finnish airspace, Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said on Saturday, while playing down suggestions that the Nordic country was edging closer to NATO.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/30/us-ukraine-crisis-finland-defence-idUSKBN0GU0R820140830
Vladimir Putin: 'I Can Take Kiev In Two Weeks If I Want'
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09/01/putin-russia-kiev-ukraine_n_5747362.html
^ with "peacekeepers" of course
Russia-led military bloc ready to send peacekeepers to Ukraine
http://rt.com/politics/183644-russia-csto-peacekeepers-ukraine/
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09/01/putin-russia-kiev-ukraine_n_5747362.html
^ with "peacekeepers" of course
Russia-led military bloc ready to send peacekeepers to Ukraine
http://rt.com/politics/183644-russia-csto-peacekeepers-ukraine/
Russia Playing Politics With Alleged Submarine Confrontations
Confrontations—and alleged confrontations—between the Russian armed forces and those of the United States, Europe and Japan have been on the uptick in recent weeks. The encounters have paced a general decline in relations between Russia and the West over events in the Ukraine.
This month Russian media have reported two alleged anti-submarine warfare operations undertaken against American and Japanese submarines. The confrontations are reminiscent of similar events during the Cold War, in which submarines of the Soviet Union, the United States and her allies played a constant cat-and-mouse game against one another.
This time however, the rationale behind the incidents appears more complex, undertaken by Russia as often for internal reasons as for making a larger point to the international community.
According to Russian state media, on Aug. 7 a foreign submarine was allegedly expelled from Russian-controlled waters in the Barents Sea. A Northern Fleet spokesman stated that Russian anti-submarine forces, consisting of surface ships and an Ilyushin Il-38 Maymaritime patrol aircraft had chased off what was presumed to be a U.S. Virginia-class attack submarine.
A spokesman for European Command later denied that the event took place, saying that no U.S. submarines had been operating in the area.
The incident—as well as an incident a week earlier, in which a U.S. Air Force RC-135 V/W Rivet Joint aircraft was harassed in international airspace over the Baltic Sea—appears meant to send a message to Russia’s neighbors. The message to pro-NATO countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, is that Russia is more than capable of successfully confronting the U.S. presence in Europe and ejecting American forces if necessary.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Russia came a report last week about a similar incident involving a Japanese submarine. A report in the Russian business daily Kommersant, citing a source in the Defense Ministry, said Russian anti-submarine warfare units had forced a Japanese Oyashio-class submarine to cut short a patrol near the border between the two countries.
The alleged incident occurred in the La Perouse Strait, known to Japan as the Soya Strait, a narrow passage between the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin. The La Perouse Strait is a mere 43 miles across, and depth at the strait is approximately 60 meters. Japan claims an international water boundary of a mere three miles at the strait, instead of the usual 12, allegedly to allow nuclear-armed American warships crossing the strait to skirt and not enter Japanese waters.
The La Perouse Strait has been an important defensive bastion for Japanese submarines since the Cold War, when it was feared that Soviet forces would launch an invasion of Hokkaido from Sakhalin. In wartime, two or three Maritime Self-Defense Force submarines would guard the strait to prevent an amphibious invasion.
The Oyashio-class diesel attack submarines are older members of Japan’s submarine fleet, having been superseded by the newer Soryu class. The submarine involved would have been from the Maritime Self Defense Force base at Yokosuka.
On Wednesday, according to ITAR-TASS, the Russian government took the unusual step of denying a confrontation had actually took place. “The Japanese submarine detected in the La Perouse Strait on Wednesday did not violate international law and did not cross the Russian state border,” a source at the Russian General Staff reported. Why the story of a confrontation came to light in the first place is unknown.
The incident took place while Russian forces, including 1,000 ground troops, five Mi-8AMTSh armed transport helicopters, and 100 military vehicles staged an exercise on the Russian-held southern Kuril Islands. The southern Kurils, four islands seized from Japan by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, are still claimed by Japan. Japan, where the islands are known as the Northern Territories, has tried to get Russia to return the islands for decades without avail. Japan protested the exercises, calling them “totally unacceptable.”
Japan also recently imposed sanctions on Russia for its part in events in the Crimea. The exercise, as well as the reported encounter with the Japanese submarine, are likely signals to Japan that Russia is still in control of the southern Kurils and can be a complicated neighbor, to put it mildly.
Another, more direct reason for these events is to divert attention within Russia from negative news harmful to the government of Vladimir Putin. Unlike the Cold War, in which the Soviet government did not have to compete internally with the Western narrative of world events, the Russian government must do so. The controlling relationship between Russian state media and Moscow makes it possible for the Putin government to promote alternatives to negative news and events.
The alleged expulsion of the Virginia-class submarine from the Barents Sea likely had another purpose as propaganda. The news broke in Russia on a Saturday, when it could dominate Russian news for the weekend. The following Tuesday, 12 August, was the 14th anniversary of the sinking of the Russian cruise missile submarine Kursk. Kursk sank with all 118 hands aboard in the Barents and the rescue effort by the government of then-president Putin was later criticized by many as inept. The anniversary was marked in Murmansk, Kursk, and several Northern Fleet bases with commemorative events.
Russia Today, in reporting the alleged expulsion, said “Such actions by the NATO undersea fleet have led to a number of navigation incidents in the Arctic”and then quoted a source in the Russian navy as stating that that, “A collision with (sic) U.S. nuclear submarine, Toledo, was one the main explanations of the Kursk submarine tragedy in 2000.” The net result was that the anniversary of the Kursk sinking was overshadowed by an incident that illustrated Russian strength.
Similarly, the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 by Ukrainian separatists—and likely Russian complicity in the event—must now compete for attention against news reports of Russian forces defending their borders against American intruders. Creating incidents in which Russian strength is on display, offers a more positive alternative to reports of Russian ineptitude and involvement in the Crimea.
Confrontations between Russian and U.S., NATO and Japanese forces at sea will likely continue for the duration of the Putin administration. A major concern is that, aside from projecting the bellicosity of the Putin regime, such a confrontation could spark a major incident at sea. However, in an ironic twist, such events provide the West with an opportunity to study Russian military forces and detect strengths and weaknesses, as well as collect technical information on Russian equipment.
http://news.usni.org/2014/08/26/russia-playing-politics-alleged-submarine-confrontations
Confrontations—and alleged confrontations—between the Russian armed forces and those of the United States, Europe and Japan have been on the uptick in recent weeks. The encounters have paced a general decline in relations between Russia and the West over events in the Ukraine.
This month Russian media have reported two alleged anti-submarine warfare operations undertaken against American and Japanese submarines. The confrontations are reminiscent of similar events during the Cold War, in which submarines of the Soviet Union, the United States and her allies played a constant cat-and-mouse game against one another.
This time however, the rationale behind the incidents appears more complex, undertaken by Russia as often for internal reasons as for making a larger point to the international community.
According to Russian state media, on Aug. 7 a foreign submarine was allegedly expelled from Russian-controlled waters in the Barents Sea. A Northern Fleet spokesman stated that Russian anti-submarine forces, consisting of surface ships and an Ilyushin Il-38 Maymaritime patrol aircraft had chased off what was presumed to be a U.S. Virginia-class attack submarine.
A spokesman for European Command later denied that the event took place, saying that no U.S. submarines had been operating in the area.
The incident—as well as an incident a week earlier, in which a U.S. Air Force RC-135 V/W Rivet Joint aircraft was harassed in international airspace over the Baltic Sea—appears meant to send a message to Russia’s neighbors. The message to pro-NATO countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, is that Russia is more than capable of successfully confronting the U.S. presence in Europe and ejecting American forces if necessary.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Russia came a report last week about a similar incident involving a Japanese submarine. A report in the Russian business daily Kommersant, citing a source in the Defense Ministry, said Russian anti-submarine warfare units had forced a Japanese Oyashio-class submarine to cut short a patrol near the border between the two countries.
The alleged incident occurred in the La Perouse Strait, known to Japan as the Soya Strait, a narrow passage between the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin. The La Perouse Strait is a mere 43 miles across, and depth at the strait is approximately 60 meters. Japan claims an international water boundary of a mere three miles at the strait, instead of the usual 12, allegedly to allow nuclear-armed American warships crossing the strait to skirt and not enter Japanese waters.
The La Perouse Strait has been an important defensive bastion for Japanese submarines since the Cold War, when it was feared that Soviet forces would launch an invasion of Hokkaido from Sakhalin. In wartime, two or three Maritime Self-Defense Force submarines would guard the strait to prevent an amphibious invasion.
The Oyashio-class diesel attack submarines are older members of Japan’s submarine fleet, having been superseded by the newer Soryu class. The submarine involved would have been from the Maritime Self Defense Force base at Yokosuka.
On Wednesday, according to ITAR-TASS, the Russian government took the unusual step of denying a confrontation had actually took place. “The Japanese submarine detected in the La Perouse Strait on Wednesday did not violate international law and did not cross the Russian state border,” a source at the Russian General Staff reported. Why the story of a confrontation came to light in the first place is unknown.
The incident took place while Russian forces, including 1,000 ground troops, five Mi-8AMTSh armed transport helicopters, and 100 military vehicles staged an exercise on the Russian-held southern Kuril Islands. The southern Kurils, four islands seized from Japan by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, are still claimed by Japan. Japan, where the islands are known as the Northern Territories, has tried to get Russia to return the islands for decades without avail. Japan protested the exercises, calling them “totally unacceptable.”
Japan also recently imposed sanctions on Russia for its part in events in the Crimea. The exercise, as well as the reported encounter with the Japanese submarine, are likely signals to Japan that Russia is still in control of the southern Kurils and can be a complicated neighbor, to put it mildly.
Another, more direct reason for these events is to divert attention within Russia from negative news harmful to the government of Vladimir Putin. Unlike the Cold War, in which the Soviet government did not have to compete internally with the Western narrative of world events, the Russian government must do so. The controlling relationship between Russian state media and Moscow makes it possible for the Putin government to promote alternatives to negative news and events.
The alleged expulsion of the Virginia-class submarine from the Barents Sea likely had another purpose as propaganda. The news broke in Russia on a Saturday, when it could dominate Russian news for the weekend. The following Tuesday, 12 August, was the 14th anniversary of the sinking of the Russian cruise missile submarine Kursk. Kursk sank with all 118 hands aboard in the Barents and the rescue effort by the government of then-president Putin was later criticized by many as inept. The anniversary was marked in Murmansk, Kursk, and several Northern Fleet bases with commemorative events.
Russia Today, in reporting the alleged expulsion, said “Such actions by the NATO undersea fleet have led to a number of navigation incidents in the Arctic”and then quoted a source in the Russian navy as stating that that, “A collision with (sic) U.S. nuclear submarine, Toledo, was one the main explanations of the Kursk submarine tragedy in 2000.” The net result was that the anniversary of the Kursk sinking was overshadowed by an incident that illustrated Russian strength.
Similarly, the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 by Ukrainian separatists—and likely Russian complicity in the event—must now compete for attention against news reports of Russian forces defending their borders against American intruders. Creating incidents in which Russian strength is on display, offers a more positive alternative to reports of Russian ineptitude and involvement in the Crimea.
Confrontations between Russian and U.S., NATO and Japanese forces at sea will likely continue for the duration of the Putin administration. A major concern is that, aside from projecting the bellicosity of the Putin regime, such a confrontation could spark a major incident at sea. However, in an ironic twist, such events provide the West with an opportunity to study Russian military forces and detect strengths and weaknesses, as well as collect technical information on Russian equipment.
http://news.usni.org/2014/08/26/russia-playing-politics-alleged-submarine-confrontations
MERKEL, UKRAINE AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR
When Nazi-Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Wehrmacht swept through Ukraine with only little resistance from the Soviet Army, which had been severely weakened by Stalin’s purges and military incompetence. In their wake followed SS and the Einzatsgruppen, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians either because they were Jews or Communists or “sub-humans” such as mentally ill and mentally handicapped. Ukraine suffered heavily during the Second World War, probably most of all Soviet republics.
Yet interestingly, the tragedy of the Second World War is generally only connected to the suffering of Russia, and time and again used as an argument to explain why the country feels “threatened” and “in self-defense” feels the need to invade neighbouring countries and set up puppet states. And this explanation, however false, is echoed by many in the West: we have to understand the Russians, they have suffered so much, they had Napoleon and Hitler, you need to give them a break and stop judging, they are just different.
Of course the argument is a completely faulty one. First of all, Russia itself is an imperium that has been created by conquest and subjugating other nations. Some of them, notably Siberian people,did not survive the onslaught and are extinct. Others are still recovering from decades of intense Russification. Also, many of the deaths during the Second World War are the result of decision of the “Genius” Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, who was not such a genius at all but who just didn’t care for one minute whether 10,000, 100,000 or a million people would die. For instance, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers died in the Finno-Russian war for… nothing. The argument was used in Soviet times and it was faulty, and it is faulty now again. Russia is an aggressor and has a long history of aggression.
What is very peculiar right now is that the Second World War is again used in relation to the Ukrainian-Russian war. We need to understand Russia, because it feels challenged and it suffered so much during the Second World War. It is one of the explanations why Germany is so meek towards Russia: the guilt issue plays a major role: we Germans are still in “pay back time” because of past horrors.
But what about Ukraine? Is there no “pay back time” when Ukraine is concerned?
How is it explainable that exactly on August 23, to the day 75 years after the signing of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact which carved up Europe between two dictators and caused so much suffering, Chancellor Merkel urges Ukrainian President Poroshenko to compromise, adding that the country still has the possibility to join Putin’s Eurasian Union. Asif he ever indicated that wish, and while knowing that Yanukovich’ decision to do so was exactly the reason why the Maidan movement started!
Somehow the sense of guilt does not result in a special “German approach” towards Ukraine and an extra urge to help the country to defend itself against an external aggressor. Somehow Merkel doesn’t think in the case of Ukraine that past suffering by the its people makes it more urgent to help them at the moment when another aggressor (and not ”just an aggressor” but the legal heir to the same Soviet Union with which her country carved up Europe 75 yearsago) invades its neighbor like a thief in the night.
As the heir of a formerly totalitarian country that caused so much suffering in this region, she should in fact be particularly sensitive to the needs of Ukraine, a country that stands up against it’s dictatorial neighbor that thinks it can just carve out pieces of land in complete violation of all international laws and agreements that shaped the post WW2 period.
It is a shame she isn’t. Maybe somebody should give her a wake-up-call.
Robert van Voren
When Nazi-Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Wehrmacht swept through Ukraine with only little resistance from the Soviet Army, which had been severely weakened by Stalin’s purges and military incompetence. In their wake followed SS and the Einzatsgruppen, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians either because they were Jews or Communists or “sub-humans” such as mentally ill and mentally handicapped. Ukraine suffered heavily during the Second World War, probably most of all Soviet republics.
Yet interestingly, the tragedy of the Second World War is generally only connected to the suffering of Russia, and time and again used as an argument to explain why the country feels “threatened” and “in self-defense” feels the need to invade neighbouring countries and set up puppet states. And this explanation, however false, is echoed by many in the West: we have to understand the Russians, they have suffered so much, they had Napoleon and Hitler, you need to give them a break and stop judging, they are just different.
Of course the argument is a completely faulty one. First of all, Russia itself is an imperium that has been created by conquest and subjugating other nations. Some of them, notably Siberian people,did not survive the onslaught and are extinct. Others are still recovering from decades of intense Russification. Also, many of the deaths during the Second World War are the result of decision of the “Genius” Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, who was not such a genius at all but who just didn’t care for one minute whether 10,000, 100,000 or a million people would die. For instance, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers died in the Finno-Russian war for… nothing. The argument was used in Soviet times and it was faulty, and it is faulty now again. Russia is an aggressor and has a long history of aggression.
What is very peculiar right now is that the Second World War is again used in relation to the Ukrainian-Russian war. We need to understand Russia, because it feels challenged and it suffered so much during the Second World War. It is one of the explanations why Germany is so meek towards Russia: the guilt issue plays a major role: we Germans are still in “pay back time” because of past horrors.
But what about Ukraine? Is there no “pay back time” when Ukraine is concerned?
How is it explainable that exactly on August 23, to the day 75 years after the signing of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact which carved up Europe between two dictators and caused so much suffering, Chancellor Merkel urges Ukrainian President Poroshenko to compromise, adding that the country still has the possibility to join Putin’s Eurasian Union. Asif he ever indicated that wish, and while knowing that Yanukovich’ decision to do so was exactly the reason why the Maidan movement started!
Somehow the sense of guilt does not result in a special “German approach” towards Ukraine and an extra urge to help the country to defend itself against an external aggressor. Somehow Merkel doesn’t think in the case of Ukraine that past suffering by the its people makes it more urgent to help them at the moment when another aggressor (and not ”just an aggressor” but the legal heir to the same Soviet Union with which her country carved up Europe 75 yearsago) invades its neighbor like a thief in the night.
As the heir of a formerly totalitarian country that caused so much suffering in this region, she should in fact be particularly sensitive to the needs of Ukraine, a country that stands up against it’s dictatorial neighbor that thinks it can just carve out pieces of land in complete violation of all international laws and agreements that shaped the post WW2 period.
It is a shame she isn’t. Maybe somebody should give her a wake-up-call.
Robert van Voren
@ Nemo1024 "WWII was started under the pretext of Yugoslavia"
dude, WWII started when Germany and Soviet Russia attack Poland:
The Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
btw - "started without a formal declaration", as same as today Ukraine.
dude, WWII started when Germany and Soviet Russia attack Poland:
The Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
btw - "started without a formal declaration", as same as today Ukraine.
Ex-soviet jack booted thugs will NOT stop until they are goosestepping across Europe.
One well placed NUKE will end their reign of terror.
Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Finland,
these will provide the manpower against Russia in the coming war,
while all russia has to throw back are enslaved siberians and brainwashed chechens.
This is a modern MONGOL invasion by modern MONGOLOIDS.
Finland once whipped Russia's ASS by itself, with no help.
A united Europe could do it without breaking a fucking sweat.
@ Nemo1024 "WWII was started under the pretext of Yugoslavia"
dude, WWII started when Germany and Soviet Russia attack Poland:
The Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
btw - "started without a formal declaration", as same as today Ukraine.
dude, WWII started when Germany and Soviet Russia attack Poland:
The Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
btw - "started without a formal declaration", as same as today Ukraine.
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