Putin puts troops in western Russia on alert in drill 1.1

[Ravenblade]

Not hard but again no proof either.

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Not really. I think Putin should just strangle all "opposition" so they wont destabilize country. I also think Yanukovich should have done the same. And I totally support China's desicion in 1989. I don't like this pesky between-gotherments period you see, too many losses.

If the DDR police would have shot the own protestors then there would have been losses, civilian losses, since they didn't revolution went through without blood. A bloody revolution is always caused by lack of moderation from one side because any reaction will always trigger a similar-sized reaction, it only gets bloody when the one side starts to spill blood first, it's not a symptomatic condition which pre-exists.

That said, some food for thought: ideas like the internet can only come into existence in societies which are not controlled by fear and autocratic regime culminating ultimately in self-imposed isolation. Using the internet to defend such means making such societies become true is always ironic because in the end you are sanctifying the removal of the means allowing you to say it, it's literally cutting the branch you are sitting on.

[Morry]

That would be an interesting philosophical discussion, however, it's completely unrelated to the discussion.

Shit =/ I found out that my english is not good enough to write big wall of text with all that I wanted to say, so I'll try to be more brief.
a) Without strong new gotherment, major foreign help and overwhelming people support revolution will result in losses. Of life, of production, territories and quality of life. See statistics of USSR in 80s and Ukraine/Russia in 90s-10s, Russia only now started to achieve USSR parameters of economy, Ukraine (even before Maidan) was still way below.
b) There is no sign of new gotherment in Siberia, there is no sign of majority of people there to go against Putin and there is no foreigners ready to get new country in the fold (how it was with several ex-USSR states in Europe).
c) The majority of people don't give nor shit, nor fuck, nor anything. We like to live our little happy lifes, fuck our wives/GFs, sprout childrens and pursue American/Russian/whatevers Dream. BUT! With proper propaganda we can be moved around and rally support to whoever used such propaganda. Even if our lives is not very bad, we can be convinsed otherwise, we can be told that our nathional security is threataned in Iraq, or that Crimea should be ours, or that proud German people should not be scattered in neighbor countries. And knowing the results? I think it is more moral to take out this propagateurs who preach about nesessity of actions than letting them to carry on and cause more losses.
IMHO, ofc.

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If the DDR police would have shot the own protestors then there would have been losses, civilian losses, since they didn't revolution went through without blood. A bloody revolution is always caused by lack of moderation from one side because any reaction will always trigger a similar-sized reaction, it only gets bloody when the one side starts to spill blood first, it's not a symptomatic condition which pre-exists.

a) DDR had strong foreing power nearby who wished for the people of the republic more or less the best. China/USSR/current Siberia does not have one.
b) Revolution usually became bloody when one or both sides express hate and intolerance to each other. Iirc there was no hate in DDR towards BRD, on the contrary people wanted to escape there from USSR. During Maidan hate was easily noticable.

[Cybran]

This is how the Ukrainian soldiers treat "suspects". There are close captions in English as well.




And this is how the "liberated" cities look.

[Ravenblade]

[...]
a) DDR had strong foreing power nearby who wished for the people of the republic more or less the best. China/USSR/current Siberia does not have one.
b) Revolution usually became bloody when one or both sides express hate and intolerance to each other. Iirc there was no hate in DDR towards BRD, on the contrary people wanted to escape there from USSR. During Maidan hate was easily noticable.

The foreign power being the USSR under Gorbachev who not only let Hungary off the hook. But this was far from over though because our then-government disapproved of glasnost and perestroika. They really wanted to quell this uprising Prague Spring style and had the chuzpe of asking Gorbachev for help who literally gave them a life lesson. Seeing they would have to get their hands bloody themselves - they already prepared for it actually - they in the end did not do it even though they already called the protestors being troublemakers and terrorists in TV.
Point being: Each uprising follows its own dynamics based on mentality, culture and historical background. Using extreme forces is usually a very desperate measure which serves no other purpose other than protecting your already fragile and questioned powerbase. Of course you could surgar-coat it as protection and restoration of public order but it's usually a slippery slope leading to a path of eventual escalation. In the end it's only something which dictatorships are doing and unless you want to expose Yanukovich as dictator you should be happy he simply left the country instead of insisting on letting the tanks roll as well.

[Independent voter]

What would happen if the U.S. moved troops into Poland, Latvia and Estonia?

[Morry]

Point being: Each uprising follows its own dynamics based on mentality, culture and historical background.

True.

Using extreme forces is usually a very desperate measure which serves no other purpose other than protecting your already fragile and questioned powerbase.

Also true.

Of course you could surgar-coat it as protection and restoration of public order but it's usually a slippery slope leading to a path of eventual escalation.

And not questioning this one.
But in my opinion the main problem would be not a crowd of protesters themselves. It's the people who stand beyand them gotherment should worry about. Without igniters and leaders crowd can be calmed with negotiations, promises and acquiescence. So (again it's only my opinion) by removing leaders of the rebellion and using heavy propaganda it is possible to go through use extreme force with small enough losses, like it was in China.
As for

In the end it's only something which dictatorships are doing and unless you want to expose Yanukovich as dictator you should be happy he simply left the country instead of insisting on letting the tanks roll as well.

Well... If he had go for the dictators way and rolled tanks in simultaniously executing opposition and getting control over media I think he could nip in the bud revolution for good. Not democratically? Yes. Morally wrong? Most likly. Less lives/property loss than in current scenario? I belive so.

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What would happen if the U.S. moved troops into Poland, Latvia and Estonia?

There are already NATO bases in this countries. And if you think troops movement en masse - russians would probably see it like war preparations.

[Barnabas]

What would happen if the U.S. moved troops into Poland, Latvia and Estonia?

For what? Donetsk is gonna surrender in a couple of days at most. Russia seems to be distancing themselves after the airplane crash so I doubt the rebels will get any assistance.

[fumblz]

I doubt the rebels will get any assistance.

It does seem to have died down these past few days. Hopefully putin keeps his tail between his legs long enough for Ukraine to retake control of their country.

[Tierbook]

http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/0...terloo/375500/
doesn't seem like they will last much longer.... as far as civilian casualties goes though does that count the 300 on the plane?

[Deleted]

as far as civilian casualties goes though does that count the 300 on the plane?

No, they don't.

[mmokri]

It does seem to have died down these past few days. Hopefully putin keeps his tail between his legs long enough for Ukraine to retake control of their country.

Like Serbia over Kosovo?
NATO should come and defend minorities then. Oh wait... NATO is USA lapdog.

[Shalcker]

http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/0...terloo/375500/
doesn't seem like they will last much longer.... as far as civilian casualties goes though does that count the 300 on the plane?

If you would check actual rather then declared Kiev "advances" they are pretty modest. Certainly not enough to declare that rebel defeat is imminent. They still haven't taken Saur-Mogila despite many weeks of trying.

Kiev forces advance around defended cities/villages, take something deep inside that is not defended, and that opens their supply lines to artillery and MLRS strikes, essentially making those advance forces surrounded. Once their supplies run out they are as good as destroyed.

That is already happening to their forces surrounded near Russian border - they are running out of ammunition. And once last Ukrainian forces near border either surrender or flee to Russia, rebels can go on counter-offensive.

[Morry]

Celebrating rebels defeat is a bit premature. As Slavyansk showed - Ukrainean army can't take relativly big city without encircling it and shelling it first. And latest news from both Donetsk and Lugansk indicate that rebels hold their ground. For now.

[Ravenblade]

[...]
And not questioning this one.
But in my opinion the main problem would be not a crowd of protesters themselves. It's the people who stand beyand them gotherment should worry about. Without igniters and leaders crowd can be calmed with negotiations, promises and acquiescence. So (again it's only my opinion) by removing leaders of the rebellion and using heavy propaganda it is possible to go through use extreme force with small enough losses, like it was in China.

I still remember watching the images from the communist view on TV in early summer of 1989. They showed the protesters as brutal and vile aggressors. Back then we didn't know better plus you know: Soviet propaganda was very very filtered and skewed and even today we still don't really have all the facts other than that it started out as protests. So basing what your proper course of action should be on what happened in China based on sketchy yet Soviet-filtered details isn't really acting as good example here.
An uprising does not happen out of thin air. They happen because an affair or an issue cannot be brought forward on administrative levels through their representatives and when the mood finally turns after the system showed some cracks. You don't really know ahead about the level of unrest, if the people are finally tired of your lies and see through it then all your heavy propaganda will only act as comical entertainment. The DDR tried that too they were just really timid with using full force because they knew that the underground dissident movement would gain additional momentum and support, they even had people in their own police forces rather willing to switch sides than opening fire saying they won't attack their own people - that is something which is often overlooked and disregarded. What if Chinese officers had thought the same way back then saying: Regardless of your ideology I won't fire upon people of my own nationality?

As for

Well... If he had go for the dictators way and rolled tanks in simultaniously executing opposition and getting control over media I think he could nip in the bud revolution for good. Not democratically? Yes. Morally wrong? Most likly. Less lives/property loss than in current scenario? I belive so.
[...]

You may believe it all the way you want it's not a fact though. In the case of Ukraine the situation as is: They barely escaped a worse catastrophe at Maidan but the damage to the trust of the people there was done and contrary to belief not all protesters were fascists. That's what propaganda made them in simplifying their groups reducing them just to violent fringe groups. I know some who went there myself and they insist they went there on their own and their small group's "leader" (if you could call that) was sometimes just a normal dude, a colleague sometimes. They all went there for what they believed to be yet another demonstration for a change, they had nothing to do with the fringe groups inciting or goading other people and forces into violence. If the government had opened fire at everyone after removing what they thought were the leaders they may have triggered a worse scenario at the end. There is nothing which would constitute a sure belief in a certain better or worse outcome though because simply there is no real precedent for it seeing the Tiananmen Square massacre as poor reference for "good results".
Nobody then had the foresight to foresee it would take over 1000 more dead civilians in Eastern Ukraine and neither it's right to blame it all simultaneously on them because that would be too easy to absolve the militants on both sides by blaming the people who erroneously hoped this event would be peaceful and for a better future. It's more or less a result of years of gross failures in the grand strategy from all sides. All the years of mismanagement, ignoring the issues and growing dissent and the failure of taking into account greater implications. Both sides now in open conflict hoped back then it will just go away and just keep seething under the surface forever without overboiling.

[Shalcker]

You may believe it all the way you want it's not a fact though. In the case of Ukraine the situation as is: They barely escaped a worse catastrophe at Maidan but the damage to the trust of the people there was done and contrary to belief not all protesters were fascists. That's what propaganda made them in simplifying their groups reducing them just to violent fringe groups. I know some who went there myself and they insist they went there on their own and their small group's "leader" (if you could call that) was sometimes just a normal dude, a colleague sometimes. They all went there for what they believed to be yet another demonstration for a change, they had nothing to do with the fringe groups inciting or goading other people and forces into violence. If the government had opened fire at everyone after removing what they thought were the leaders they may have triggered a worse scenario at the end. There is nothing which would constitute a sure belief in a certain better or worse outcome though because simply there is no real precedent for it seeing the Tiananmen Square massacre as poor reference for "good results".
Nobody then had the foresight to foresee it would take over 1000 more dead civilians in Eastern Ukraine and neither it's right to blame it all simultaneously on them because that would be too easy to absolve the militants on both sides by blaming the people who erroneously hoped this event would be peaceful and for a better future. It's more or less a result of years of gross failures in the grand strategy from all sides. All the years of mismanagement, ignoring the issues and growing dissent and the failure of taking into account greater implications. Both sides now in open conflict hoped back then it will just go away and just keep seething under the surface forever without overboiling.

I think if Yanukovich would use force we'll basically see reverse of current situation - Western Ukraine revolting and being hammered with artillery, US/EU supporting Western rebels and Russia supporting legitimate government, basically European repeat of Syria.

Ukraine would still keep Crimea in that case though, and their economy would not be collapsing as our planned support was many times higher then anything delivered by IMF so far...

[Ausr]

For what? Donetsk is gonna surrender in a couple of days at most. Russia seems to be distancing themselves after the airplane crash so I doubt the rebels will get any assistance.

Think it's funny that they're crying out for Russian 'peacekeepers' to help them after they couldn't pull it off.

[Shalcker]

Think it's funny that they're crying out for Russian 'peacekeepers' to help them after they couldn't pull it off.

They did it from the very start and never stopped, regardless of their successes or failures.

[Ravenblade]

I think if Yanukovich would use force we'll basically see reverse of current situation - Western Ukraine revolting and being hammered with artillery, US/EU supporting Western rebels and Russia supporting legitimate government, basically European repeat of Syria.

Ukraine would still keep Crimea in that case though, and their economy would not be collapsing as our planned support was many times higher then anything delivered by IMF so far...

This is a possible scenario as well, yes, which would also show that putting down an uprising violently doesn't really end in less bloodshed either.
Civilian losses are not a matter of formulaic calculation, they usually happen based on the intensity and regions of the conflict especially when the one inferior side is provided with the means to continue the fight and does so from heavily inhabited areas. The result is something incalculable by itself since it's usually an open-ended situation until a situation is found with all sides agreeing to a peaceful solution. It would be in Ukraine's own best interest really to stop shelling their own buildings and infrastructure lest they have to rebuild from money they apparently lack now. There's also the matter of the current losers, the civilians themselves, who in total are not homogeneous and adamant to join the Novorossiya experiment but certainly are pro-Ukraine, they want an end to that fighting, and even whilst being shelled by their own people would blame the separatists too. It should be pretty clear it's not a clearcut minority vs. majority situation anymore when both are supposed to suffer the same way under a military solution when a non-military solution might have been arduous and subject to iteration but definitely better than dieing to bullets or unguided rockets.

[Deleted]

Nobody is saying all of them were fascists (forgive me fascists, for comparing them to you). The MAIN force however was. There was a deal: a restoration of the Constitution and early presidential elections (NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 2014). Did it stop these fuckheads attacking? No.
And as so, the new government came to power by force with the help of "fascists".

[Ravenblade]

Nobody is saying all of them were fascists (forgive me fascists, for comparing them to you). The MAIN force however was. There was a deal: a restoration of the Constitution and early presidential elections (NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 2014). Did it stop these fuckheads attacking? No.
And as so, the new government came to power by force with the help of "fascists".

This would be a first if even admitted by those who opposed the Maidan, I have seen it more often to either ignore them or throw them under the rug. It wasn't called Euromaidan for no reason. The initial protests were indeed peaceful and primarily consisted of younger generations who as usual have a significantly different opinion than the older one who grew up under different times and yearn for ye olde hammer and sickle coming back again (similarly to some people asking for the wall to be rebuild even a decade later). As common with these protests the longer they last they either gain momentum through more support of even the most borderline of fringe groups or lose interest when they are ignored. Government started the crackdown (Berkut) and the already volatile situation in which things escalated and got turned away from its peaceful origins and ended in a full-blown riots mainly carried what was since referred to as "fascists". At that point the control changed and even supporters of pre-November 30th Maidan got attacked (remember the image of Klitchko being "fire-extinguished" for trying to mediate and prevent another violent outcome between rioters and police?) You can dispute validity of the protests, whether they were in the rights, whether the whole dealings on government level with EU and Russia were wrong, it doesn't justify what it became, what it was referred to since and certainly does not invalidate the reasons for which people - some I know of myself who even have part Russian roots too - originally went there.

As for the temporary government being the result of those right-wing agitators. I fully agree that this was a bad situation, Ukraine was a de facto anarchic state at that time. However Putin himself said that Yanukovych has no political future basically saying he is out of the picture and he won't come back. Under these circumstances ending a quasi-anarchy with a newly elected government was still the lesser evil of both. It's certainly not what the originators of the Euromaidan had in mind but it is what they have to work with now if they haven't decided to leave Ukraine, I know some have already decided to do that even if they rather would not.