Originally Posted by lljadw

To have the right does not mean that it is wise .
And, why should NATO admit Ukraine, a poor and corrupt country as a member ?

Having the right to apply for membership of NATO doesn't necessarily mean they will be accepted, that said I suspect the Ukraine could have the human rights record of North Korea and their size and location would get them in.
Although wasn't Georgia trying unsuccessfully to join when Russia invaded?

The bit I don't understand is why Russia is so frightened of NATO being in neighbor countries as Russia's size makes them pretty much safe from invasion anyway.

The tensions between the US/NATO and Russia aren't only about Ukraine. The tensions have implications for Finland and Sweden. If Finland and Sweden want to join NATO is a question for these two countries to decide, not Russia.

Ukraine is free to apply for a NATO membership, will they be a member? Probably not now, but who knows in ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. Who knows what happen if Belarus get a regime change.

Originally Posted by MontyB

Having the right to apply for membership of NATO doesn't necessarily mean they will be accepted, that said I suspect the Ukraine could have the human rights record of North Korea and their size and location would get them in.
Although wasn't Georgia trying unsuccessfully to join when Russia invaded?

The bit I don't understand is why Russia is so frightened of NATO being in neighbor countries as Russia's size makes them pretty much safe from invasion anyway.

The Russians do not care about who is in charge in Kiev, but they are paranoide about Ukraine joining NATO:they fear that the result of this would be that NATO nuclear weapons would be installed in Kiev .
And, is their paranoia totally unjustified ?
Look at Belarus, a dictatorship ,and no member of NATO and EU .
The reaction of NATO and EU is : we do not accept your presence in Europe ,we do accept only countries with our political system,and we start sanctions against you and we say that not Lukachenko,but someone close to our ideas is the legitimate president of Belarus.If Tsihanouskaja was president,would Belarus not be de facto a member of NATO ?
The reaction of Lukachenka was to expected :he opened his borders so that thousands of illegal Muslim immigrants could go to the EU .Something he diid not do when the West did not attack him .
If NATO and EU are doing such things against Lukachenko, why would they not do it against Putin ?
What would have been the reaction of US if Mexico and Canada were communist states ?
We know US reaction when there were reports that Soviet nuclear weapons were present in Cuba .

Originally Posted by lljadw

The Russians do not care about who is in charge in Kiev, but they are paranoide about Ukraine joining NATO:they fear that the result of this would be that NATO nuclear weapons would be installed in Kiev .
And, is their paranoia totally unjustified ?.

I am not entirely certain this is about Russian paranoia as much as it is about Putin's dictatorial goals, even the dumbest of Russian politicians must know that moving into Ukraine will push the remaining non-Russian aligned former eastern-bloc countries into the NATO sphere of influence and due to the nature of the moves against the Ukraine NATO will use it as a chance to get closer to Russia by accepting them in order to "safeguard" their sovereignty.

The idea that Russia won't tolerate a NATO state on its borders is a bit of a fallacy when Norway, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are already there and Turkey isn't far off with Pro-Western Georgia bordering both Turkey and Russia, as such I don't believe this is a NATO thing as much as I believe it is a Russian land grab.

Essentially Putin knows that aggression plays well with the home audience much in the same way western leaders know that the exact opposite is true so they are both just playing to their audience.

It might be a huge problem for both warring parties if this turns hot. The Russian and the Ukrainians have more or less the same equipment. Maybe we will see how effective the Russian active protection system Arena is toward NLAW and Javelin missiles. I am very skeptical to these kind of protection systems.

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

It might be a huge problem for both warring parties if this turns hot. The Russian and the Ukrainians have more or less the same equipment. Maybe we will see how effective the Russian active protection system Arena is toward NLAW and Javelin missiles. I am very skeptical to these kind of protection systems.

I have grave doubts about the quality of the Ukrainian military I think they suffer from being very "Eastern Bloc" in that they are more about keeping the population in line and holding parades than fighting a war as such they lack the air capabilities to defend the country properly and the fighting quality of their ground forces don't seem a whole lot better.

Russia, for the most part, is not a hell of a lot better but as long as it controls the skies it really can't lose.

What this war would boil down to is Ukraine's 150 ageing Russian supplied aircraft vs Russia's 4500 aircraft and to me that just isn't a winning formula, it doesn't matter how many tanks, men or anti-tank weapons they have, once control of the air is lost the fight is over.

Ukraine doesn't have a chance in a full shooting war. But Ukraine can make Russia bleed. It is hard to speculate how and where Russia attacks. I think we will see something similar as how they did it in Georgia. Intervene and pull back after destroying the majority of the Ukrainian armed forces. Huge parts of Ukraine has open terrain, which isn't working well for the Ukrainian to have an asymmetric approach to the Russian forces especially when the Russian pretty fast get the air supremacy. Will a war achieve what Russia wants? Probably not, rather the opposite.

I wonder how many blue on blue accidents we will see if this starts. Both sides have more or less the same vehicles and with a distance it can be hard to tell if the T80s are Ukrainian or Russian: The Russian armed forces have invested a lot in electronic warfare, the backside of it is; they are reducing their own ability to communicate and jamming their own radars with EW.

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

It might be a huge problem for both warring parties if this turns hot. The Russian and the Ukrainians have more or less the same equipment. Maybe we will see how effective the Russian active protection system Arena is toward NLAW and Javelin missiles. I am very skeptical to these kind of protection systems.

IF it turns hot,for which there are no proofs and which is unlikely.
1 WHY should the Russians invade Ukraine today ? During 25 years they let Ukraine alone ,thus why would they attack now ?
2 Russia is to weak : you can't occupy a country as Ukraine with 30 million inhabitants,if you have only 100000 men available . And more will not be available, as the Russians have a shortage of manpower .
3 An occupation means an occupation for generations and meanwhile there will be a guerilla war .Think on what happened in Afghanistan (2 times ) and Iraq .

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

Ukraine doesn't have a chance in a full shooting war. But Ukraine can make Russia bleed. It is hard to speculate how and where Russia attacks. I think we will see something similar as how they did it in Georgia. Intervene and pull back after destroying the majority of the Ukrainian armed forces. Huge parts of Ukraine has open terrain, which isn't working well for the Ukrainian to have an asymmetric approach to the Russian forces especially when the Russian pretty fast get the air supremacy. Will a war achieve what Russia wants? Probably not, rather the opposite.

I wonder how many blue on blue accidents we will see if this starts. Both sides have more or less the same vehicles and with a distance it can be hard to tell if the T80s are Ukrainian or Russian: The Russian armed forces have invested a lot in electronic warfare, the backside of it is; they are reducing their own ability to communicate and jamming their own radars with EW.

You don't find this whole thing to be a little bit 1935-38ish though?
We had Hitler picking off minor states and regions (Rhineland, Sudetenland), returning "German speaking" populations to German control by methods of subterfuge and threats and now we have Putin doing the same thing with "Russian speaking" populations in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Just as Hitler learned that no one wanted a fight when he reoccupied the Rhineland which encouraged him to move on the Sudetenland and that lead to Poland, Putin learned the same from the Crimea, now it's Eastern Ukraine, If I were Poland I might be a little worried.

Part of me thinks it may be time we bit the bullet and committed troops to the defense of the Ukraine otherwise we will just have to face Putin elsewhere in Europe and who knows if he is forced to back down on this it may just be the end of his career as dictator as I doubt the Russian people will be pleased with him either way (body bags or weakness neither are a good look for political strongmen).

Originally Posted by MontyB

You don't find this whole thing to be a little bit 1935-38ish though?
We had Hitler picking off minor states and regions (Rhineland, Sudetenland), returning "German speaking" populations to German control by methods of subterfuge and threats and now we have Putin doing the same thing with "Russian speaking" populations in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Just as Hitler learned that no one wanted a fight when he reoccupied the Rhineland which encouraged him to move on the Sudetenland and that lead to Poland, Putin learned the same from the Crimea, now it's Eastern Ukraine, If I were Poland I might be a little worried.

Part of me thinks it may be time we bit the bullet and committed troops to the defense of the Ukraine otherwise we will just have to face Putin elsewhere in Europe and who knows if he is forced to back down on this it may just be the end of his career as dictator as I doubt the Russian people will be pleased with him either way (body bags or weakness neither are a good look for political strongmen).

Maybe we can compare it with Czechoslovakia, but the comparison is pretty week. There was a Czech unit resisting the Germans, but the ethnic Ukrainians will defend their country. What they can achieve is creating a threshold to make any military intervention by the Russians expensive. I don't think we will see any military action before and during the Olympic Games.


I would be more worried if I were in any of the Baltic states. The West could implement the economic sanctions now.