But guess who really ends up paying.
Posted on 03/04/2014 7:15:57 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The usual voices are arguing against any “excessive” American reaction to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
After all, Crimea only became part of Ukraine in 1954. True. And many people there are Russian-speaking and not loyal to Kiev. Also true. And given the geography, we have no military options and neither does the Ukrainian government. Right again. And nothing we can do through sanctions will matter as much to Putin as gaining the Crimea and destabilizing the new, pro-European government in Kiev. Correct.
So why should we do anything? Why throw the Russians out of the G-8, and seek trade and financial sanctions on Russia, and undertake any of the steps that analysts have proposed in the last few days?
There are several powerful arguments for why we must act, even if Putin keeps the Crimea.
First, we don’t know how far he will go — and he probably doesn’t know either. Whether he will seek to break Ukraine in two or place a pro-Putin government in power may depend on the costs we impose. Whether he will in the coming months and years seek to destabilize the Baltic nations — which were also once part of the USSR — may depend on what we do now. It’s wrong to assume Putin has an elaborate plan for 2014 and 2015 that he will follow religiously, and logical to believe that Putin takes advantage of opportunities and weighs costs and benefits.
Second, there is more than Putin to think about. Tyrants in places from Tehran to Beijing will also be wondering about the cost of violating international law and threatening the peace and stability of neighbors. What will China do in neighboring seas, or Iran do in its tiny neighbor Bahrain, if actions like Putin’s go without a response?
Before Obama, there was a sense of world order that relied in large part on America. When Saddam invaded Kuwait and claimed it as his own, we pushed him out. We intervened in the Balkans to restore peace there. Over the decades, we set rules — like “no Soviet missiles in Cuba” and ”no Cuban troops in Africa.” We did not enforce them all by massive military action, but by combinations of large and small military moves, covert action, sanctions, and diplomacy — in any case, we acted. Often it took a long time to achieve our goals, and often we did not achieve the direct goal, but firm responses by the United States and our allies raised the costs of such actions, and thereby deterred nations from copying or repeating them.
The combination of zero action on Syria despite our own declared “red line” and the weakening of the American military sent a dangerous message, and not just to Putin. That makes it all the more important that we make Putin and Russia pay today.
Some actions will be symbolic, like removing Russia from the G-8 (where it should never have been invited anyway), but the symbolism is useful: Russia is a second-rate state, a dictatorship whose economy and demography suggest further decline. We need to hurt the Russian economy and especially those who have gained (or perhaps stolen) the most from it, the oligarchs and Putin himself. This may help restrain future adventurism by Russia, and will be a warning to other leaders and elites. We need to help protect Poland, Georgia, the Baltic states, and the government in Kiev from Russian political and economic pressure. We need to revive NATO, which was after all largely formed to restrain Russia.
All this is important for American interests even if the Crimea situation is viewed as nearly irreversible. In fact, if we think Putin will keep the Crimea, it’s even more important that we make him pay as high a price as possible for his aggression.
How can we make Putin pay?
Send him a bill?
Tell him to stop what he’s doing or else?
Draw another movable line?
Putin is stitching the USSR back together and obamA is giving him thread.
Putin is taking advantage of the power vacuum which is in place... now that the US has a wimp for a President.
Thanks “O”!
The reality may be very simple, the Soros Puppets in Washington DC want to “Greece” the Ukrainians.
A myopic treatise that ignores entirely what the European Union has become.
In any military conflict in which one might become involved you would have to be pretty damned stupid not to consider the motivations and direction of all the parties involved.
Who and what the EU is today is every bit as relevant here as who the Ukrainians and Russians are.
Well, number one, they receive all the natural gas they rely on for heating from Russia. Since Germany has decided to close all their nuclear power plants, they would freeze if Russia cut them off.
But guess who really ends up paying.
Neocons - why do they write such drivel? Stand with Putin.
Unless you are ready to go in there and kick his ass face to face, you can’t do anything at all.
The man is not concerned with sissy western civilization, and neither is anyone else.
We have pissed away respect, strength and fear of that strength, and that is all there is to it.
Russia has been in Crimea for 3 and a half centuries, and has outright owned it for 2 centuries. It is mostly ethnic Russian population. It is Russia’s warm-water commercial and naval access to the mediterranean. It doesn’t get any more “strategic” for Putin.
Meanwhile, Obama probably had to find Crimea on a map. The choom gang in the Whitehouse is only concerned about his image, and growing America’s welfare state. Besides, its all white people killing each other if a war starts there. Who cares about that?
Obama’s only concern is to get this out of the news as quickly as possible.
Our politicians found it more important to buy votes and stay in office using our tax money and the resources of the USA.
We really can’t afford to “do anything”. We are 17.3 trillion dollars in debt with a baseline budget that spends one trillion dollars more per year that our government receives in revenue. Our politicians have said with their actions that under no circumstances will spending be cut.
The current generation, our parents and grandparents let our government get out of control. No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.
We might want to learn some new languages.
Putin is not a soviet. What he’s stitching together is the Russian empire. Putin’s a tsar, and has assumed the traditional tsarist task of defining and defending the Christian frontier. I can see why that’s not important to Elliot Abrams, but it is to me.
Why must we be the only ones making him pay?
Pay for WHAT???
For not allowing the New World Order to be born on Slavic Orthodox soil? For not just sitting there and allowing George Soros, Monsanto, and the US state department to walk off with the Ukraine??
Does anybody actually believe it's possible for Soros to be on the right side of anything??
Unfortunately a lot of people on the right appear to be basically clueless on this one.
If we try and make him PAY here is what Moscow is contemplating in response.
- dump the dollar as a reserve currency
- stop payments on all loans to American banks
- encourage Russian citizens and others to fire sale any T-bills they hold
Checkmate.
In a nutshell why running up huge debts is lousy national security strategy.
If things get really hot, turn the Black Sea into a huge lake, then let’s see ‘em get their fleet out of there.
Obama has violated the U.S. Constitution since the day he was inaugurated, why would he expect Putin to respect any international agreements? What could possibly give him the moral authority to do so? That is, assuming he had the stones to demand any adherence to those agreements?
It’s none of our concern. I don’t see how making Putin pay improves the situation with our tyrannical, out of control government. How do we make Obama pay for destroying this country? That’s a more interesting question.
Unfortunately, a lot of people on the right also seem to be unaware that sometimes there IS no “right side.”
Putin vs. Soros. To channel Kissinger, it’s too bad they can’t both lose.
The first and necessary step in stopping Russia is to replace the white house resident with a constitutionally elected man of Godly character.
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