I don't think the USA would tolerate political interference in Canada such as those perpetrated by the West in the Ukraine.

Putin has them snookered. If the West get too cocky both Russia and China can implode the US $ by selling off their interests in equity markets and bonds.This is where the West may consider a nuke exchange to suppress disention at home and steal more energy/resources.

When all else fails the oligarchs go to war.

Tom Clifford wrote..."and Europe, unable to respond coherently to Russia's aggression, presents a golden opportunity for Moscow to rattle its sabers."

Careful there...Europe has a notorious history of while playing one tune of peace and civilized world we seek song, on the other it act in absolute tyrannical control of others via acts of war through the messy side of a gun barrel or monetary strangulation...

Its all about 'win' and 'talk' only exists if it leads to same end result as winning at war...but this is Russia! not Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan...so nuclear retaliation is real and current...yep, they must be crazy to start self-and-all annihilation...but when theres nothing to loose and final result is Russia in the 'image' ow western Europe...somebody just might push that button...or just as worse create a separate economic block that can provide all products and services needed in our current world that does away with Europe\Us\Un etc and usdollar standard in every form and manner...

Just accept the fact that Crimea is Russian's in Ukraine territory whom want to go back to Russian governance...nothing wrong here...we all should support this before we risk another genocidal tribal act by Ukrainians againt Russians in Ukraine while under the protective cover of Nato and American war planes over Ukraine...
sam

The thing that makes Russia even more difficult to handle for the West is that most of the world agrees with Putin's respect for traditional family values and most view Western political correctness as unintelligible.

What are you on about Progressive Pat?
Putin and 'family values'?
You must be joking?

The rest of the world recognizes Putin for what he is...a tyrannical dictator!

Where is his family values when he detains/jails people for daring to speak out against the state?
What of the 'Pussy Riot' women who were detained without trial for so long....merely for singing anti-government songs in a church for goodness sake?
How do their families feel about Putin's 'family values'?

Many Russians apparently just disappear after they dare to speak out against Putin's government. The phrase 'sent to the Russian Front' is still alive and well in Russia.
Yep, real family man...

The reason the world is in debt to Putin is that he alone, of all the word's leaders over the last 15 years or so, has offered a check on the random but always self-serving projection of US power.
I say good on him and well done. Now it's up to the US and the EU to deal with him. I suggest he will deal. What he won't do is be pushed around like some failed-state puppet.

The rumours that Putin has invaded Ukraine is incorrect.

The Crimean Parliament has declared independence from the rest of the Ukraine, and a few patriotically minded individuals have simply crossed the border with some hunting equipment (guns camo and armoured vehicles) to lend support to their fellow Russians.

Putin was surprised, but given the strength of feeling, welcomed the Crimean his countrymen back to Mother Russia.

Almost the same thing could have been said of Mr Hitler, another well known, power hungry megalomaniac? The breathtaking speed with which he conquered much of Europe, is legendary; as is the love he engendered in the hearts of seriously misled Germans!
Ditto Colonel Putin and too many clearly deceived or serially misguided Russians!?
The real danger here is a nuclear armed Ukraine, with its own share of sabre rattling nationalists and virtually nothing left to lose, using its final, use it or lose it, option?
Rhrosty.

It may be a case of the law of unintended consequences, but all posters should keep strictly in mind the sequence of events- it was not Putin who initiated the crisis, he has been reacting to perceived threats to national security ( NATO encirclement and, immediately, the Black Sea Fleet).

Well said Halduell and Leslie. It is alarming how much misinformation has infiltrated the Australian media and being faithfully parroted by many commenters on OLO and other websites. Some basic facts:

1. Putin did not "invade" Crimea. Russia was entitled to maintain 25,000 troops there under a 1993 agreement with the Ukraine.

2. Crimea has no historical links to the Ukraine. It only became part of Ukraine in 1953 when Khrushchev gifted it to them, in a very different geo-political environment to today.

3. Ukraine had a democratically elected government that was overthrown in a coup d'etat orchestrated by the Americans, as Nuland's infamous taped conversation makes very clear.

4. The real objective of the coup was to eventually force the Russians to give up their Sevastopol naval base.

5. Ukraine has no nuclear weapons. They were given up in 1993.

6. A deal was made between the then USSR and the USA that the Americans would not use the collapse of the Soviet Union to advance NATO into the former parts of the western USSR. The Americans broke that agreement.

I might add that Kerry's recent statement that countries don't invade others of a false pretext in the 21st century must rank as the most hypocritical statement of 2014 to date. Recall Iraq's weapons of mass destruction anyone?

I am afraid that this latest effort by OLO on the Ukraine does not add to our knowledge. One would be better served by reading Paul Craig Roberts' website for a frank evaluation of what is going on.

This is not to be taken as praise for Putin or anyone else. I am however, heartily sick of the BS that passes for "analysis" in the Oz media.

you blokes need to read more widely.

There is another much more important factor here. Russian Gas. All you lefties who carry on about the US oil interests seem to have overlooked the Russian gas interests in this so called crisis.
There is an excellent article in Forbes that makes an accurate assessment and concludes Putin is so restricted and likely to lose any military conflict and is now likely to lose big time in the gas stakes.
Putin is terribly exposed and so is the Russian economy.

Pat wrote " that makes Russia even more difficult to handle for the West is that most of the world agrees with Putin's respect for traditional family values"...
suseonline wrote"What are you on about Progressive Pat?
Putin and 'family values'?
You must be joking?"
Think Pat cottoned onto western europes expected approach here from what I hear in private discussions...feminize Russia and control then monitor from birth to death...policy like we have here...very appealing to all women Ive noticed worldwide...and once gripped difficult to extract oneself out...eh? if dont understand, Ill try to get some videos from different countries of women interacting with men and children...if you like...
sam

Putin has a long history of bullying Federation members into energy based politics. The Ukraine in particular being at the receiving end on many occasions since 2008.

This trend indicates a primary strategy based on energy rather than being military or territorial. Joint exploration discussions with Israel and Turkey would seem to endorse this perspective.

If true, Putin will do whatever he can militarily to prevent dissident states aligning themselves with the EU, one of Gasprom’s biggest customers, whilst ever there is a risk of federation states engaging in price discounting and increased supply to the EU.

Putin has worked hard to put the EU out of the “energy security” business and has them over a barrel. It looks like he is prepared to keep things that way.

Added to this he now has the USA offering discounted surplus hydrocarbon fuels to Europe, even more reason to keep his federation allies very close.

http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/4150

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/05/13/us-russia-kremlin-idUKTRE54C4BY20090513

When I said above that Russia "has offered a check on the random but always self-serving projection of US power", I misspoke. The correct word is calculated, not random.
The US uses its power projection in a very calculated way to neutralise any possible chance of rivalry, and they have become very good at it. Or they have become very good at it in its initial stages. What is left in the wake of their projection is another matter. Consider the basket cases that are now Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia.
Chaos follows in their wake on such a predictable basis that one has to wonder if that was the objective all along.
I worry that Ukraine will follow this same road into sectarian violence, civil war and dismemberment.
And other than securing Crimea, what can Russia do? They don't seem to be very practised at fielding agents of chaos, but rather they deploy their army, even if sometimes without uniform insignia in place. Perhaps the best place for them to meet the now loosed dogs of war is at the border, not across it.
One reply to Suseonline, posted Friday, 7 March 2014 10:18:49 AM.
Yes, family values. Pussy Riot staged a perhaps normal by western standards but vulgar by Russian standards protest on the high altar of Russia's main cathedral. While this idea of a living, holy cathedral has lost all resonance in the West, it still means a great deal to Orthodox Christians in Russia.
Their protest was considered grossly inappropriate and manifestly offensive, and they got sent to jail for a couple years to think again. Good. Family values.
They are out now. Also good.

To understand the reasons for the present conflicts we have to know where the true world power centres originate.

It was Pres Dwight Eisenhower who warned us in the early sixties about the power of the Military Industrial Complex. This group is actually the Banking Military Industrial Complex that Webster Tarpley describes works like atrophism ie the way a plant reacts to light. They all act in unison to attain mutually acquired power.

Today we have a situation in which the financial with the industrial world have almost complete power over our Govts. Neither of or parties here will stand up to bankers or their interests. Russia used to be totally independent but joined the BIS in 1992 ie central banking cartels so they could trade internationally.

Russia and China however did not fully submit to the power of these banking cartels. This is why the conflicts exist. It has nothing to do with freedom and democracy but subjugation of the planet under their "New World Order".

There are now only a few countries that do not have a central bank controlled by this cartel. They are Syria, Iran and North Korea. Iraq and Libya used to be independent.

So the situation is that their whole central banking monetary system looks like falling apart and they could lose all their power.

After hundreds of years of power these oligarchs will not relinquish it easily and may choose nuclear war to subdue Russia and China.

A hint of Plagiarism?

Good article and inspired. Partly inspired by what I wrote:

In this article Tom wrote:

"Putin has obtained parliamentary approval for troop deployments not just in Crimea, but Ukraine as a whole...The Russian parliament, in its full rubber-stamping capacity..."

I commented on OLO on Monday, 3 March 2014 4:45:41PM http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16071&page=0#279017 :

"On March 1, 2014 Putin received Russian parliamentary (rubber stamp) approval permitting him to deploy Russian invasion forces anywhere in Ukraine - not just Crimea."

More standing on the shoulders of mild-mannered Pete-plantagenet rather than plagerism :)

Pete

Wow, the old SPA is alive and well.

Here's a suggestion: if it's so right for KGB Colonel Putin and his agents in Ukraine to demand that the people of Crimea should be able to express their preferences in a referendum, why not apply that principle to all of Mother Russia ? That ALL groups and peoples in the Russian Federation can - simultaneously with a Referendum in the Crimea - participate in a Referendum across Russia, to express their preferences for either staying under the heel of the neo-Tsarists OR of setting up their own independent states ?

After all, 'Russia' is made up of hundreds of ethnic groups, many big enough to set up states bigger than some Western European countries.

As well, now that Russia has more or less gone back on all treaties and agreements with Ukraine, what might happen if - before any Referendum - Ukraine revokes all dual citizenship, so that only people with Ukrainian-only citizenship can vote in such a Referendum ?

Just trying to help :)

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Hey Joe, I would reckon any Russian who tried to be as helpful as you, just might disappear, suddenly, without trace.

One of the only peaceful means, in the hands of the west, that could succeed, is to apply punitive sanctions on the Russian Oligarchs. Da?
Colonel Putin tends to cheery pick his version of international law? He rattled his Sabre, demanded the west stay out of internal domestic issues, respect Russian territory, and sovereignty, when he was invading Chechen, and or, re-annexed Georgia? Da?
By any reading, he is now doing exactly that in Ukraine, and almost as logical as France invading Canada, to protect the interests of Quebec's french speaking Canadians?
This is because the west patently doesn't posses the testicular Fortitude to stand up to him, and wait for him to blink! Da?
He will blink soon enough, if his actions, cause Russian Oligarchs to lose millions or billions!
Other than that, it seems the Ukraine may have extremely large shale gas and oil resources, and ought to be helped, ASAP, to develop those reserves; create complete energy self sufficiency; and indeed, compete with Russia, for European energy markets!
All of which, is very much in Europe's interests, given, Russia holds them by the short and curlies, due to their energy dependency!
Rhrosty.

Hi Hasbeen,

Not being a Crimean Tartar, I wouldn't know what that felt like. But what's the bet that things like that will start happening in the next week ?

What Putin needs is an Incident, something outrageous, which will give him an excuse to invade all of Ukraine. Perhaps his agents will put on Ukrainian uniforms and blow up a pre-school, or hospital, something like that, and perhaps in Odessa. Because he won't stop at the Crimea. Like every imperialist, he will want every bit of the Old Empire back again, right up to the borders of Hungary and the Czech Republic, and including all the Baltic states. Maybe Poland as well.

The problem with running a Mafia state is that you can't pull back - once you've waved your fist, you have to use it, or you're finished, rubbed out in your turn, to be replaced by the next capo. It's the same with patron-client state-control systems everywhere. Look at Mugabe - he dare not retire, the only way is to die in office, one way or the other.

So I hope that, yes, the Ukrainian government cancels all dual-citizenship and invites all Ukrainians who wish to vote in a Referendum, to re-register as single-citizenship Ukrainians: those who want to remain as Russians in the Crimea and Donetsk &c. would thereby be barred from voting in any referendum held on legally-Ukrainian territory, which the Crimea still is, because they would not be Ukrainians.

And when Mother Russia holds a Federation-wide referendum on the same issue, those Russians now in eastern Ukraine can vote in that one. Alongside the Bashkars, Volga Germans, Chechens, Yakuts, Kazakhs, Bulgars, and the multitude of other groups within the tight embrace of Russia.

What's sauce for the goose, ......

Joe

General Martin Dempsey has said that the present Ukrainian Govt is illegal and everyone needs to take a deep breathe to stop this situation from escalating.

>>By any reading, he is now doing exactly that in Ukraine, and almost as logical as France invading Canada, to protect the interests of Quebec's french speaking Canadians?<<

France does not have in Quebec a military wharf, a strategically important and only warm water base for France’s naval fleet (like Sevastopol is for Russia).

So now they're disappearing people ? Throwing people off rooves, firing over crowds, disqualifying citizens from voting - these weren't enough ?

Chapter 1 in a very horrible saga, aided by useful idiots even In Australia.

Joe

I think I got it wrong, suggesting that Putin needs an 'Incident' to invade Ukraine.

No, I don't think he will need one, he will invade all of Ukraine, in a week or two, and push right through to Moldova. No excuses, no reasons, no 'Incidents'. It's his, and his useful idiots will sing his praises.

Then he will engineer trouble in the Baltic states, get his agents and thugs to occupy key buildings in border towns, hold another 'referendum' and incorporate those regions into the old Tsarist empire as well.

Then Poland.

Imperialists don't stop, it's a bit like riding the tiger. Surely we've learnt that horrible lesson from the First World War ? But even the British acknowledged the 'winds of change', and the French too. Eventually even the Portuguese.

Imagine that: that Portuguese ex-fascists were more 'progressive' than so many of Putin's useful idiots.

Jo

Joe, I've made a copy of your latest comment to check your predictions against the reality of the next few weeks. I note you are careful not to provide a timetable. Was that an oversight or based on a wish we will have forgotten your predictions with the passage of a little time?

Another question: do you apply the same analysis to the thrashings of that failed empire known as the USA. Check out William Blum's books for a catalogue of American invasions, support for coups, undermining democratically elected governments etc. It is quite an impressive list, even when you restrict it to post 1945.

The apex of hypocrisy in this context was Kerry's widely reported comment that nations don't behave this way in the 21st century. Funny were it not so disastrous for those nations on the receiving end of American displeasure.

Thanks James,

As for a timetable for when Putin invades those nations on the receiving end of Russian displeasure, only Putin knows for sure, but I'm willing to suggest a tough time-frame:

* within the next month, the Tsarists will invade all of Ukraine; as a sort of mopping-up exercise, they may also invade Moldova, a sovereign nation like Ukraine;

* within the next couple of months, Putin will find another terrorised group of Sudeten Russians in one or more of the Baltic states, pleading with him to liberate them.

* within perhaps a year, the Tsarists will be making trouble for Poland. They may have another go at Georgia too, and if they are stupid enough, Azerbaijan.

Surely one lesson we should have learnt from the First World War is that imperialists don't stop ? In a world of non-imperialists, there is no limit for them - perhaps, until they start to bump up against China's ambitions in Central Asia.

But I live in hope of uprisings across 'Russia', amongst the many republics which have felt the Cossack knout and lived with the Stalinist gulag.

What a despicable example of the bankruptcy of 'socialism'.

Joe

The other side of the coin:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-look-at-the-crimea-crisis-from-the-perspective-of-the-kremlin-a-960446.html.

Thanks Joe. Your timetable duly noted.. You didn't answer my second question. Too uncomfortable perhaps?

I can highly recommend an article by Israel Shamir. You can find it at www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38023htm.

You might like to copy it for rereading at the end of your proposed timetable and compare who has the better view.

James,

Your second question ? Irrelevant - two wrongs don't make a right.

And are the Yanks still in Iraq ? Will Putin ever leave the Crimea ?

I rest my case.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Hi James,

I don't think Putin will invade through eastern Ukraine. His blitzkrieg will be right across the south, through Odessa, to Moldova and "Transniestria", with a pincer movement from the north to Kiev and Lvov. This will cut Ukraine off entirely from the sea, and from the rest of Europe.

Then he can engineer an 'Incident' with Lithuania, perhaps some shocking attack on peaceful Russian-speakers there or some sort of border 'Incident' between Lithuania and the Kaliningrad enclave.

Something like that. $ 100 says he'll do the first by the end of April and, if the international 'community' is feeble enough, the second by, say, the end of June.

Then Poland, maybe by the end of their summer. Wanna bet ?

I'm watching to see which way Kazakhstan goes. If its government buckles, Putin has open slather to all those central Asian republics.

Cheers,

Joe

Joe, you have a rich and varied imagination. Unfortunately you appear to have fallen victim to the neo-con view of the world busily perpetrated by the US and Uk governments and their media mouthpieces.

You might like tho listen to a very interesting interview with Paul Craig Roberts which you can access either via his website or an English website www.snippets-and-slappits.blogspot.ca it is true kind of frank and informed talking you almost never hear on the Oz media (or read for that matter). All the more valuable because Roberts has impeccable conservative credentials (ex Reagan administration assistant Treasury Secretary; Wall St Journal et al.)

I am not a betting man, but if you are right I will make a donation to a worthy cause. I trust you will do the same if you are wrong.

James

Hi James,

Yes, you can send your first $ 100 to the Hamlyn Fistula relief Fund. I'll match it and that will mean one complete operation :)

Cheers,

Joe

Hi again James,

Perhaps you're right, since Putin hasn't invaded Ukraine yet. So maybe I've been too hard on him, and on reflection, on all imperialists.

After all, in Africa or India or Ireland, the answer to the question, "What did the British ever do for us?" can be answered with a string of innovations, in education, health, infrastructure. What might have happened WITHOUT the benefit of British rule is too awful to think about.

I can now see the merits of imperialism - for example, if we look at Ireland today, a 'country' whose denizens all speak English or an inferior version of it, and who mostly watch English TV, barely forty miles across the sea from the rest of the UK, in an economic mess (as it has been for most of the time since its 'liberation'), surely the question must arise -

* wouldn't 'Ireland' be better off back under the English ?

After all, it's never really been a country, just a melange of fighting, feuding, bare-arsed bandit tribes, who believe in rocks and trees as gods, living on potatoes.

We don't hear of the constant attacks by backward Irish, mostly extreme nationalists, against peaceful English people trying to help them out of their morass of ignorance. Those English have no protection from attacks, but if everybody knew the truth, they would all concede that English liberation and re-integration of 'Ireland' back under the Crown is the most logical, positive and peaceful way for the population there.

How's that sound ?

Cheers,

Joe

Still a week to go, James :)

I wonder how the left will explain all this away:

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/europe/european-far-right-backs-putin-over-crimea

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-ames-europes-far-right-is-embracing-putin-2014-4?IR=T

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11241676

And since a lot of the European far-right's grievances have to do with Muslim immigration, that might be a slight problem for the left too, how to blindly support all three - Putin, the far-right AND the Islamists.

But after all, they are all anti-US, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi James,

Well, April is over, and the Crimea has been invaded and incorporated into Old Russia. The Luhansk and Donestsk regions seem to have been over-run, the Russian flag is everywhere, the TV stations have been seized and now run Russian programs. Hmmmm, I wonder if you could call that 'invasion' ?

Either way, I'll send off my $ 100.

So where to now ? Will the Tsarists try similar tactics in Mariupol and Odessa, and then 'incorporate' southern Ukraine into the old empire as well ? My suspicion is that they had more trouble in eastern Ukraine than they expected, in that the central government of Ukraine manifestly did not, and perhaps could not, provide them with any pretext to launch a full-scale invasion. Devilishly cunning of them.

But my bet is Putin will still push on, seize southern Ukraine, and perhaps north-east Ukraine as well around Kharkiv, within a month or so.

What do you reckon ?

Cheers,

Jo