Posted on 03/09/2022 11:06:36 AM PST by ransomnote
Poland has officially offered to turn over its entire fleet of MIG-29 fighter jets to the US free of charge to be deployed in Ukraine to fight Russians. Meanwhile, Pentagon has warned that if Poland sends jets to Ukraine, it would mean that NATO is at war.
According to the statement by Polish authorities:
The authorities of the Republic of Poland, after consultations between the President and the Government, are ready to deploy – immediately and free of charge – all their MIG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America.
At the same time, Poland requests the United States to provide us with used aircraft with corresponding operational capabilities. Poland is ready to immediately establish the conditions of purchase of the planes.
The Polish Government also requests other NATO Allies – owners of MIG-29 jets – to act in the same vein.
The Pentagon said that Poland’s offer to give MiG-29 fighter jets to the U.S. so they can be passed to Ukraine raises serious concerns for the NATO alliance and the plan is not “a tenable one.”
16000 Foreign Fighters Arrive In Ukraine From All Over The World To Fight Russia - GreatGameIndia
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a statement that the prospect of jets departing from a U.S. NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace contested with Russia in the Ukraine war is concerning. He said it’s not clear to the U.S. that there is a substantive rationale for it.
“To my knowledge, it wasn’t pre-consulted with us that they plan to get these planes to us,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, who told lawmakers she learned of the proposal as she was driving to testify about the Ukraine crisis before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Watch video below:
I guess this is the problem with everything being connected and everyone having a high-resolution camera in their pocket: no way to covertly get those planes across the Ukrainian border.
Why not just offer them to Ukraine? Why put the US in the middle?
That makes no sense.
If Poland wants to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia, send the planes and tell the US to buttinski-out of the conversation.
They aren’t stupid.
They can’t because they are in NATO.
Hey, these are niceties. Who gives a damn at this point. The aggressor in this case is at fault.
With nuclear armed forces, everyone should give a damn.
Somebody in the U.S. State Department obviously gave a damn. Being offered the planes for free, delivered to Germany, nobody would touch that deal for free aircraft. Their bluff was called and they folded. Poland gave a damn.
No two nuclear powers have ever just gone at it because it is suicide. Nobody wins. Back a nuclear power into a corner, threaten its existence, and they seem to have a right to self-defense, including the use of nukes in an extreme case of self defense. See the International Court of Justice, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996, p. 226 at p. 266:
B. By eleven votes to three,There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any comprehensive and universal prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons as such;
[...]
[I]n view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake;
I responded to a claim that "Sending weapons is not the same as being in the war." A neutral party sending weapons no longer has any claim to the rights of a neutral nation. They are fair game for targeting as a belligerent party to the war. You may now claim that is a nicety, but to the people being bombed or nuked as a result, it would be somewhat more than a nicety.
If the United States wants to be a party to the war, sending fighter jets to Ukraine is one way to do it. Declaring a no-fly zone and attempting to enforce it is another way.
See also, International Law Studies, Volume 73, Annotated Supplement to The Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, Chapter 7, The Law of Neutrality,
7.2 NEUTRAL STATUS[...]
Art. 2 is binding between a belligerent nation which is a party to Hague III and neutral nations which also are parties to the Convention. Parties include the United States and many of its allies, the fonner-Soviet Union, and five of the internationally recognized or self-proclaimed pennanent neutral nations e.g., Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland.
12. Tucker 202-18, esp. n.14. Impartiality obligates neutral nations to fulfill their duties and to exercise their rights in an equal (i.e., impartial or non-discriminatory) manner toward all belligerents, without regard to its differing effect on individual belligerents. Tucker 203-05; Hague XIII, Preamble and art. 9. Abstention is the neutral's duty to abstain from furnishing belligerents with certain goods or services.
[...] A nation may be neutral, insofar as it does not participate in hostilities, even though it may not be impartial in its attitude toward the belligerents. Whether or not a position of nonparticipation can be maintained, in the absence of complete impartiality, depends upon the reaction of the aggrieved belligerent.
By the way: What do they say about one country simply invading another country? I mean: As Russia has done now in the Ukraine?
Is that likewise a "no-no?"
Regards,
How much do you pay for gas? And it hasn’t even started.
What do they say about one country simply invading another country? I mean: As Russia has done now in the Ukraine?Is that likewise a "no-no?"
Yeah, that is rather a no-no, legally. Practically, when an offender is a member of the UN Security Council with veto power, there is no real enforcement mechanism. For others, such as the former Yugoslavia, the UN could authorize NATO to bomb them into submission for 78 days. There is no UN enforcement mechanism against a member of the Security Council as they can simply veto anything that comes before the Council. Israel has also shown that a nation with an ally on the Security Council who will cast a veto on their behalf also enjoys practical immunity from United Nation enforcement actions.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-1
Article 2 of the United Nations Charter begins,
Article 2The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
[snip]
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kbpact.asp
The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 stated,
ARTICLE IThe High Contracting Parties solemly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.
ARTICLE II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific
Of possible interest, the term war has generally been replaced by the term armed conflict. The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) covers conflicts between nation states, and between between a nation state and non-state actors, or between non-state actors. This better covers involved non-state actors such as the breakaway territories of Ukraine (or formerly of Ukraine), or terrorist groups.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/vwTreatiesHistoricalByDate.xsp
The documents of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) are officially published by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), not to be confused with with organizations such as the American Red Cross. All of the Hague Conventions and Geneva Conventions, and more are downloadable in PDF form at this one link.
Regarding the Russian assertions about a buffer zone, the United States policies contained in the Monroe Doctrine and the Polk Doctrine may be of interest to current ongoing discussions.
The below is from Black's Law Dictionary, 11th Ed., 2019,
Monroe Doctrine. (1850) The principle that the United States will allow no intervention or domination in the Western Hemisphere by any non-American country.• This principle, which has some recognition in international law (though not as a formal doctrine), was first announced by President James Monroe in 1823. Cf. POLK DOCTRINE.
"The Monroe doctrine is a policy which the United States has followed in her own interest more or less consistently for more than a century, and in itself is not contrary to international law, though possible applications of it might easily be so. But it certainly is not a rule of international law. It is comparable to policies such as the 'balance of power' in Europe, or the British policies of maintaining the independence of Belgium or the security of our sea-routes to the East, or the former Japanese claim to something like a paramount influence over developments in the Far East. Apart from other objections, it is impossible to regard as a rule of law a doctrine which the United States claims the sole right to interpret, which she interprets in different senses at different times, and which she applies only as and when she chooses. Nor is the doctrine, as Article 21 of the Covenant described it, a 'regional understanding,' for the other states of the region concerned, that is to say, the Continent of America, have never been parties to it and indeed have often resented it." J.L. Brierly, The Law of Nations 314 (5th ed. 1955).
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Polk Doctrine. Int'l Law. The principle by President James K. Polk that the Monroe Doctrine (dating from 1823) remained sound and that the United States would oppose any European interference in North America. Cf. MONROE DOCTRINE."In his annual message of December 2, 1845, President Polk, referring to our dispute with Great Britain as to the Oregon territory, and to the possible intervention of European powers in consequence of our annexation of Texas and possibly of other territory southward, sought to give President Monroe's announcement on the subject of colonization the meaning popularly but erroneously conveyed by the expression 'no more European colonies on this continent.' But, in so doing, he restricted its application to North America, saying that 'it should be distinctly announced to the world as our settled policy, that no future European colony or dominion shall, with our consent, be planted or established on any part of the North American continent: It is obvious that President Polk, in pronouncing against the establishment of any 'dominion' by a European power — a term which includes the acquisition by voluntary transfer or by conquest of territory already occupied — asserted something quite different from Monroe's declaration against 'colonization.' He asserted something which should be cailed the Polk doctrine rather than the Monroe doctrine; and it was, perhaps, the consciousness of this fact that led him to restrict the new doctrine, which was to be maintained by us without regard to other American powers, and not merely by each of those powers 'by its own means,' to the North American continent." John Bassett Moore, "The Monroe Doctrine: Its Origin and Meaning," in 1 The Collected Papers of John Bassett Moore 334, 338-39 (1944).
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