Does Putin think America is weak?

[Red Baron Farms]

Why the U.S.? There are much closer powers/allies, than US!
We could take him down in days! Mostly, because he would not hide.

You are right about that, but the US has ties with those closer powers. So we will get dragged into it eventually anyway, if it escalates.

Putin is simply a Colonialist (colloquial: Imperialist). His MO is no different than the tried and true "Pax Britania" style colonialism practiced between the 15th to 20th century. Establish an interest, foment unrest, use the unrest as an excuse to use military force, establish a protectorate, and undoubtedly in this case, eventually dominion followed by an attempt to annex.

For me the real question is this...Is the interest that was established by the West the same sort of eventual colonialism? In other words, will we use this unrest as an excuse to establish dominion with military force as well? If so, we are no better than Putin.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Russia has nukes. We can not take it down in days because of that fact.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Russia has nukes. We can not take it down in days because of that fact.

So back to cold war politics? Brilliant!

 

[Dog Town]

Russia has nukes. We can not take it down in days because of that fact.

Read for comprehension, I said Putin! I thought the words, HE would not hide, was enough.

 

[thaiboxerken]

So back to cold war politics? Brilliant!

It's a fact that Russia has nukes. That makes it very hard to just declare war on them. That may be "cold war politics" but it's a reality that can not be ignored.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I love, how you ignored the rest. And for the record: YES!

The rest of it wasn't worth commenting on. Between then the UK, France, Italy and Germany can deploy a handful of aircraft. The bulk, just as in previous conflicts, would be American.

To give an idea, in Desert Storm the US deployed around 400 fighter craft. Russia has over 700 fighter aircraft. They also have modern Anti-aircraft weapons, and considering that even those without such systems have been effective at taking down US and Allied aircraft...

They also have their own versions of AWACs, Command aircraft, not to mention jet powered bombers that can easily reach European Countries and their airbases.

They also have accurate cruise missiles with a 3,000km range, missiles that can carry a large warhead than the US cruise missile.

They also have a sub fleet capable of doing serious damage to the US Carrier fleets.

Considering that the US couldn't even take down Iraq in 2 days, you are talking through a hole in your hat.

Oh, and don't forget that they also have 1,800 active nuclear warheads!

 

[Cain]

I searched the thread and so no mention of a clip from The Daily Show (included in the article below). It's a long-standing problem: the right contends Obama's a push-over whilst also saying he's a "my-way-or-the-highway" autocrat. They love the strong man Putin (despite the fact Bush peered into his "heart" and saw a good man):

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/jon-stewar...-way-too-153700247.html?bcmt=comments-postbox

 

[Dog Town]

Oh, and don't forget that they also have 1,800 active nuclear warheads!

Whoosh...

 

[BenBurch]

Arrogance much. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia has a relatively modern military and a well trained and equipped one. Their pilots won't be running away and leaving the skies to the US as happened in Iraq.

And if even 30% of their land based ICBMs work...

 

[Travis]

Not that I want this to ever become a big shooting war but I thought I'd put my thoughts on this.

The rest of it wasn't worth commenting on. Between then the UK, France, Italy and Germany can deploy a handful of aircraft. The bulk, just as in previous conflicts, would be American.

To give an idea, in Desert Storm the US deployed around 400 fighter craft. Russia has over 700 fighter aircraft.

The majority of which are older aircraft that would not be a match for US F-15's or F-18's let alone the newer F-22's or SuperHornet.

They also have modern Anti-aircraft weapons, and considering that even those without such systems have been effective at taking down US and Allied aircraft...

The only way those systems work is to pulse the radars and hope satellites don't pick up the missile systems. A wave of cruise missiles + B-2's could knock out most of them and clear paths for other aircraft to follow.

They also have their own versions of AWACs, Command aircraft, not to mention jet powered bombers that can easily reach European Countries and their airbases.

Yeah, we'll see just how long they stay in the air.

They also have accurate cruise missiles with a 3,000km range, missiles that can carry a large warhead than the US cruise missile.

They are also notoriously inaccurate and unreliable.

They also have a sub fleet capable of doing serious damage to the US Carrier fleets.

I'd love to see them try and get through a modern AEGIS net.

Considering that the US couldn't even take down Iraq in 2 days, you are talking through a hole in your hat.

America didn't take down an entire country in 2 days! Wait.....could anyone else have?

Oh, and don't forget that they also have 1,800 active nuclear warheads!

Unless Putin is suicidal those won't come into play.

To be honest the only bit of the Russian military that scares me are the tank corps. They have some pretty good tanks that they never exported so their battle effectiveness against the M1 Abrams is purely speculative but the Russians do have a history of making pretty rugged tanks.

 

[squealpiggy]

If baracco barner is our president why is he getting involved in Russia, scary

 

[jimbob]

Ah, the Ron Paul viewpoint.

Just subsitute Czechoslovakia for Crimea,Germany for Russia,and the UK for the U.S. and you have a perfect statement for the Appeasers in Britian in 1938.
It amusing to see Ron Paul,who makes such a big thing about individual liberty, carrying the water for Putin.

And that the Crimea had voted to be part of Ukrane in 1991.

 

[theprestige]

So back to cold war politics? Brilliant!

If you can think of a better diplomatic model for engaging belligerent nuclear powers, you will probably win every future Nobel peace prize, as well as every Nobel peace prize already awarded.

You'll have to do better than "rolleyes", though.

 

[theprestige]

Read for comprehension, I said Putin! I thought the words, HE would not hide, was enough.

Would not hide from what, exactly? And why wouldn't he hide from it?

 

[Corsair 115]

Unless Putin is suicidal those won't come into play.

On the other hand, he'd be an idiot if he let another major power simply attack his nation and potentially defeat it without resorting to the nuclear deterrent. That is why the nuclear deterrent exists in the first place. The idea was that the Cold War wouldn't turn hot because it meant a good chance of the nukes flying and both sides being devastated, and neither side was insane enough to want that.

 

[Darth Rotor]

To answer the exam question that is in the title to this thread:

Does Putin think America is weak?
No, he's not an idiot.

Does he think that America has limits to its power?
Yes.

He's not taking much of a risk, see also Georgia. Not that big a risk to make that move.
See "Geography" among other topics.

It's another Russian tragedy, IMO, that the opportunity to become a no fooling democracy and partner with the rest of Europe has not been taken under his leadership, which has lasted across a couple of decades.

 

[quadraginta]

If you can think of a better diplomatic model for engaging belligerent nuclear powers, you will probably win every future Nobel peace prize, as well as every Nobel peace prize already awarded.

<snip>

Doing everything possible to justify the Soviet Union's pathological paranoia in their own eyes is hardly the pinnacle of diplomacy.

Our policy with regard to them was limited to chest beating intended for domestic consumption. God help a politician who let themselves look "weak" toward the Commies. We can't have any idea what else might have worked, because we never tried anything else.

Nothing's changed much, though. The Right Wingnuts are still trying to get mileage out of the McCarthy era.

 

[AlBell]

...

whatever comes out of this has to be a European solution to a European problem.

Like the bang-up jobs they managed with WWI and WWII?

 

[theprestige]

Doing everything possible to justify the Soviet Union's pathological paranoia in their own eyes is hardly the pinnacle of diplomacy.

Our policy with regard to them was limited to chest beating intended for domestic consumption. God help a politician who let themselves look "weak" toward the Commies. We can't have any idea what else might have worked, because we never tried anything else.

Nothing's changed much, though. The Right Wingnuts are still trying to get mileage out of the McCarthy era.

And the Left Wingnuts are still convinced that the worst thing about the Soviet Union was Joe McCarthy.

Leaving aside that particular partisan slapfight, though, the fact is that Vladimir Putin is a belligerent oligarch who aspires to national greatness; is armed with nuclear weapons and backed by a large (relatively) modern army; and enjoys an acute awareness not just of the limits of Western power, but also of the limits of Western willingness to use that power to oppose him.

How do you propose to engage him?

 

[quadraginta]

And the Left Wingnuts are still convinced that the worst thing about the Soviet Union was Joe McCarthy.

Nah. They have only ever been convinced that the worst thing about Joe McCarthy was Joe McCarthy. Foreign diplomacy was unrelated to that.

Leaving aside that particular partisan slapfight, though, the fact is that Vladimir Putin is a belligerent oligarch who aspires to national greatness; is armed with nuclear weapons and backed by a large (relatively) modern army; and enjoys an acute awareness not just of the limits of Western power, but also of the limits of Western willingness to use that power to oppose him.

How do you propose to engage him?

At this stage I'm still working on whether we need to engage him.

Aside from a resurgence of the Domino Theory and a bunch of thinly or not so thinly veiled references to Chamberlain by the usual chickenhawks I haven't seen very many compelling arguments.

Tell me again, what was different about Georgia in '08? How did we choose to engage Putin then?