Putin warning...

[Kursk]

Originally Posted by Osem

Neither do I. You didn't notice the then??

Just to explain further, it wasn't an entirely serious comment.

My mistake then, sorry.

[Osem]

Graciously accepted.

Originally Posted by Kursk

My comment was intended in more general terms at the press manipulated British public and I include myself in that . Since childhood, we've been fed this 'dangerous-Rusky-threat-they-want-to-nuke-us-all' rubbish. The (certainly modern day) Russians are not our enemy nor do we need to starve them back into the 1950's imho.

There we will have to disagree, as most of the people running today's Russia are of that Cold War era (as am I).

The Russia of the 50s-80s was driven by the tremendous losses they suffered in WW2 (a reasonable percentage at their own hands), and were willing to destroy everything rather than be 'conquered' again - unfortunately, quite a few in the West thought the same way (the MAD doctrine, the Air-Land War plan that involved nuking the Fulda Gap when all the Sov armour was driving through, etc.).

Originally Posted by Kursk

A curious comment from the normally informed and articulate contributor that you are. I doubt very much that Hugh feels our exchange in this thread has been some form of one-upmanship. Gawd.

totally agree - we are having an informed, enjoyable, discussion/debate.

[Kursk]

Originally Posted by Hugh

There we will have to disagree, as most of the people running today's Russia are of that Cold War era (as am I).

So, you see no alternative to continued sanctions even though you know who is at the helm and that there is impending crisis in Russia at least partially because of those sanctions?

And isn't it true that in the face of being conquered any country with the wherewithal, including our own, would choose annihilation?

People / Governments have tried to reason / be reasonable with Putin (and let's not kid ourselves, Putin is just the old Nomenklatura in a nicer suit and with better PR), and he doesn't play that game - it's difficult to be reasonable with an unreasonable opponent (as I'm sure you've found on this forum ).

But who, in over 3 generations, has tried to invade Mother Russia?

Anyhoo, have a great Christmas, and best wishes to you and yours.

Счастливого Рождества

[Osem]

I can see perfectly well where Russia is worried about the expansion of the EU but they are fixated on the past and really can't expect to carry on threatening/annexing former soviet states militarily without the sort of economic repercussions they're now experiencing. As usual, those who really suffer as a result of all the power games are the general population.

Who is Putin frightened of being 'conquered' by? If the peoples of other states decide their future lies elsewhere how does that amount to a major threat unless Putin is worried his own people will decide they'd like some of the same. That's their prerogative isn't it? I reckon Putin needs to maintain a high level of suspicion and doubt regarding the west as a device by which he can manipulate public opinion at home.

Anyway I'm shortly going to be having a beer or three and not threatening any of my neighbours...

(unless they try to steal my roasties that is....)

[Kursk]

Gentlemen, God rest ye and.........Merry Christmas .

And that's my last word on the subject!

[Osem]

I've unilaterally decided to annex the stuffingballs...

[Taf]

Posted as I received it from a Malaysian friend:

Paul Craig Roberts – Russia To Unleash Ultimate Black Swan Against The West


December 20, 2014 GOLD, KWN Eric King

Today Dr. Paul Craig Roberts warned King World News that the Russians are going to unleash what he called the "ultimate black swan" against the West. Dr. Roberts also discussed how a terrifying series of events would then bring the Western financial system to it knees as the banking system completely collapses.

Dr. Roberts: “I was listening to the news today and there were all these self-righteous people just happy as
all get out that they had finally stomped Russia into the ground and ‘Russia is now finished,’ and Russia was broken and ‘would soon be an American vassal state where it belongs.' And I was listening to this rot and got to thinking, ‘How can people be so utterly stupid?’ But they are, and they are just as stupid in Washington.

And in the meantime, as part of this process, Eric, we may see Russia unleash black swans that bring down the Western house of cards….

“Suppose the Russian government says, ‘Well, since the attack on the ruble is political and you guys are attacking the ruble and causing us so much trouble, we are just not going to pay off the next traunch of our debt that comes due early in 2015.'

Well, the European banking system would collapse because those banks are terribly undercapitalized. Some of them have loans to Russia that almost absorb the entire capital base. So the Russians don’t even have to default. They can just say, ‘We’re not going to pay this year. We will do it later. We’ll do it when the ruble stabilizes.’ (Laughter).

You can understand the impact of such a decision by the Russians on the West. And given all the linkages and the interconnections — when Lehman Brothers went down it had just about as much adverse affect on Europe as it did the United States.

What would come from that? Who knows? There are all kinds of derivatives and credit default swaps everywhere. We know these derivatives now are some multiple of the world’s Gross Domestic Product. And nobody really knows who all the counterparties are. If the European banks start going down, who knows what the impact on this pile of derivatives would be? But the whole Western system is a house of cards. It’s not based on anything other than market manipulation. So it doesn’t take much of a push to knock it down.

The biggest black swan of all, Eric, if the Russians get thoroughly angry, all they have to do is call up the European governments and say, ‘We no longer sell natural gas or any other form of energy to members of NATO.' The consequence would be the utter and total collapse of NATO. Not even a puppet state like Germany is going to let the people freeze to death, let the factories be closed down, and let the unemployment rate hit 40 percent. It’s just not going to happen — it would be the end of NATO.

So whenever the Russians want to destroy NATO, that’s all they have to do. Just call up the puppet Merkel, call up the puppet Hollande, the puppet Cameron, and say, ‘You guys really enjoy being in NATO, well let me tell you what, we no longer sell energy to NATO members.’ That’s the end of NATO and that’s the end of the cover for American power.

That would set off so many black swans. Every banking system would probably collapse because if the German banks are faced with German industry closing down, what the hell is going to happen to the banks? So all the cards are in Putin’s hands. None of them are in Washington’s hands. Putin is going to reorient Russia to the East. Then you are going to see Russia, India, and China, take over the leadership of the world. That will start in 2015.”

Except that's not happening - the Russian Central Bank is helping companies with foreign debts....

http://www.usnews.com/news/business/...ies-meet-debts

And European countries exposure to Russian Government debt isn't as bad as the article makes out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/bu...isis.html?_r=0

Largely because of Raiffeisen and Bank Austria, a unit of the Italian bank UniCredit, Austria is the eurozone country most exposed to tumult in Russia. The maximum potential loss is about 4 percent of Austrian gross domestic product, according to Oxford Economics.

French bank exposure to Russia is about 2 percent of G.D.P., according to figures from 2013, while for Italy the figure is about 1 percent. For Germany, Spain and most other eurozone countries, the exposure is well below 1 percent of G.D.P.

In a report in October, the Bank of France estimated that the country’s largest banks had loans and other investments in Russia of 47.3 billion euros, or $59.2 billion, at the end of 2013, a substantial sum but far less than their exposure to Western European countries like Switzerland or Belgium.

“If you compare those exposures to exposures to Greece at the worst of the crisis, banks are much less exposed to Russia,” Mr. May of Oxford Economics said.

I think you may find Natural News (the source of the original article) is just a slightly more civilised version of sites such as National Enquirer or WND, with stories such as "Tetanus vaccines found spiked with sterilization chemical to carry out race-based genocide against Africans".

Here is a much more even-handed article (imho) from the Economist on the subject of oil and gas exports from Russia, showing how stopping these to Europe could really damage Russia much more.

[Osem]

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he is defying house arrest to attend a protest in central Moscow.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30635874

Apparently he's been rearrested en route to the demonstration. Not exactly a surprise...

[Osem]

Russia's tactics of military deception explained:

Russia's annexation of Crimea last year caught almost everyone off guard. The Russian military disguised its actions, and denied them - but those "little green men" who popped up in the Black Sea peninsula were a textbook case of the Russian practice of military deception - or maskirovka.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31020283

Maj Gen Davis calls the first convoy "a wonderful example of maskirovka" because it created something of a media storm. TV crews breathlessly followed the convoy, trying to find out what was really inside the green army trucks which had been hastily repainted white. Was this a classic Trojan horse operation to smuggle weapons to rebel militias? And would the Ukrainian authorities allow the convoy in?

Lorries part of a Russian humanitarian convoy are parked not far from a checkpoint at the Ukrainian border some 30 km outside the town of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky in the Rostov region, on August 20, 2014. The Russian humanitarian aid convoy - a classic case of maskirovka? "All the while at other border crossing points controlled by the Russians - not by the Ukrainians - equipment, personnel and troops were passing into Eastern Ukraine," says Davis. He sees the convoy as a clever "diversion or distraction".

The fog of war isn't something which just happens - it's something which can be manufactured. In this case the Western media were bamboozled, but the compliant Russian media has also worked hard to generate fog.

The trouble is nobody believes them any more...

[Gavin78]

Russia isn't helping them self by testing different countries airspace will be interesting to see what EU support the UK would get if Russia continues to do this

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Gavin78

Russia isn't helping them self by testing different countries airspace will be interesting to see what EU support the UK would get if Russia continues to do this

Precisely none I'd hope, this comes squarely under NATO's remit.

[heero_yuy]

Russia's ambassador to Britain was summoned to the UK's Foreign Office on Thursday to explain why two Russian bombers were flying over the English Channel this week, a representative of the office said.

Two Russian bombers "caused disruption to civil aviation" when they flew near, but did not cross into, British airspace on Wednesday, the Foreign Office representative said.

Two UK Royal Air Force jets intercepted the bombers, both capable of carrying nuclear weapons, south of Bournemouth, England, over the English Channel, a UK defense spokesman said Thursday.

The British jets escorted the bombers for about an hour-and-a-half until the bombers left the area, the defense spokesman said.

Linky

Aparently they also had no transponders on them ( or turned off ) so could not be identified by civil avaiation.

It only takes a moments misjudgement to provoke a potentially dangerous crisis.