But when others take the attitude of being skeptical of an "optimal solution" involving one country seizing control of another by military force in one particular war, they're probably racist.

If Crimea falls then all the dominos will fall.

Russia already is on the Black Sea and has a huge naval force just for that area, that's why I don't know what he's talking about

The Black Sea Fleet is stationed in Sevastopol under an agreement with Ukraine, afaik. Maybe after the breakup of the USSR the infrastructure to station their navy in Russia didn't exist and they didn't want to build it?

Maybe, but it looks like they already made other plans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiysk.

It wasn't like Ukraine kicked Russia out of Sevastopol.

Anyway, that could be a reason why Russia wants to take Crimea, but let's not pretend poor Russia somehow doesn't have access to warm water.

Just means that the water doesn't freeze over in the winter. Murmansk and other remote ports (e.g. Valdez, Alaska) exist due to their ability to remain ice-free in the winter.

So while the Russians have to move through the Bosphorus to further access the world markets, their base in Sevastopol allows them to better project their power in the region.

Just saw your last posts, Russia is indeed on the Black Sea but as earlier noted their Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol, before they signed their recent treaty with Ukraine extending their lease, some analysts felt that their resources would be better spent building elsewhere as the fleet @ Sevastopol is nothing special, but IMO it seems there is a historical attachment to a city that has housed the Russian Navy since Catherine the Great.

Washington Post

Honestly? A lot of people. Not exactly it being ww3, but this specific scenario has been thought to be a potential major flashpoint for years. Its not like the east/west divide in Ukraine is anything new. Sure its not quite on N/S Korea flashpoint levels but the potential for a major, escalating conflict has always been there.

lol. Let me know when we find that the Ukranians were owning the ethnic Russians as slaves, or when Crimea was actually a part of Russia until it violently decided to secede.

Nice call, wp

I looked up the history of Crimea and it appears Stalin ethnically cleansed the area many years ago. Just an interesting side note.

Have the odds gone up for the US to slap Assad around a bit more? Pretty sure the Iran agreement is also more tenuous today than it was two weeks ago.

Lol palin said in 2008 that Russia would invade Ukraine if Obama was elected

Outside of some perfunctory bombing, I'm not convinced the US really has a strong military option in either place, due to war weariness and compromised operational ability in those areas due to ongoing commitments in Iraq/Afghanistan. And just as it's not like the US is going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, Russia would have lodged a protest but probably would have done nothing if Obama had chosen to topple Assad.

Personally, I think the stronger play from Obama and Kerry would have been to offer to arbitrate a peace settlement in Ukraine rather than make nebulous remarks about "consequences" for Russia.

I just want republicans on the record as to what we should do here, so we can laugh at them when they blame Obama for doing exactly that. "Yeah he did what we want, but just ooohhhh... the mendacity... I hate him so much."

Hopefully the GOP will support a significant short term aid package to the Ukraine.

Top lawmakers, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon and Senate Armed Services Ranking Republican James Inhofe.
said Thursday that the world would be better off if the Cold War was still on—and if Obama wasn’t cutting the defense budget.

I'm not saying it would be smart, I just think the domestic appetite to do something aggressive will increase; in Syria because people who wanted to do more in Syria now have an extra reason to condemn Assad as Putin's puppet in the region and cast aspersions on the wmd removal process, and in Iran because powerful interests in the US/Israel have wanted a narrative/pretext to bomb Iran for 30 years.

The Russians already think the US helped cause the protests to begin with, I don't think they'd be interested in having a peace settlement brokered by the parties who they perceive helped start the instability in the first place. I agree the talk of "costs" and "consequences" is a little bit silly, but he can't say nothing either. Of course you're right, the US is ultimately not going to do anything, but it's marginally less bad to express grave concerns and do nothing than express no concerns and do nothing, at least domestically.

My favorite republican meme is "Obama projects weakness, which caused Ukraine to happen." It's so quantifiable!

God you're an idiot if you that is what you think he meant.

Russia is still invading another country against the wishes of ruling parliament. WTF has this to do with Iraq and Afghanistan? The cute part was that Russia didn't even try diplomacy. Our business is that you're invading a country out of nowhere. Your neighbor country. How is invading Ukraine your business? Well invading sovereign countries sure should be condemned. Because if it isn't, Russia can dictate the policy and threaten every other nation near it. Also that is the weakest defense I have heard. You can do a straight up genocide by using that excuse.

Armed people in the streets>Foreign troops in the streets. You do realize that those armed people are Ukrainians right and not some white house clowns? Janukovich escaped the wrath of his own people. Should US send troops to protect him?!

1. Have a military base on the country and loose contracts to allow semi-legal movement of troops. Issue passports to Russians on foreign soils. Have your puppet run the country and make deals to tie it even closer.
2. In case your puppet gets toppled, create propaganda where all others are fascists or western puppets. Make sure to broadcast how Russians in the country are going to mauled. Remember to jail your own opposition! Create new legislation which allows Russia more easily to add lands to its territory.
3. Take control on strategic military targets, cut off communications. Take control of air space and local parliament, excuse is to defend your citizens.
4. Elect your own puppet in control of taken parliament while the vote is held on gunpoint.
5. Make the puppet ask for your military invention, obviously defending Russians.
6. Take control of territory officially for "request"
x. Take more territory for negation purposes or just straight up coup to get a friendly puppet government. Another option is to have a "vote" in Crimea which obviously predated a "soft" ethnic cleansing where Ukrainians and Tartars escape Crimea. Not too hard to figure out what the vote results will be.

Russia didn't even try any diplomatic solutions. Why? Because this pre-meditated. I can't believe that they are allowed just to do that. Possibly even escape of Janukovich was a plan since his propaganda value is now higher in Russia than he is worth in Ukraine.

Every nation next to Russia should form a military alliance since it's quite obvious that Russia can pull this **** out of nowhere if they get away with it. They have the necessary tools to cause political unrest inside a country or just to wait to happen, stage a crisis, "centralized" media and no opposition in a country. Sounds actually quite fascist.

But by all means, keep sipping RT and other reliable news sources. I'm sure that Russia is doing a noble work of getting rid of fascists. Every other country outside their influence sphere (in other words, those who had to be afraid of their military intervention) happens to be wrong. Every other news source is biased! And how is this their business anyways?

I'm angry. I'm scared. I live next to a country that can invade its neighbors if it so wishes. You can probably scour the posts on this thread and notice how my tone changes as the situation progresses.

US operational capability is very very strong right now. The region happens to be close to both the command centers of both Centcom and Eucom.

It just so happens we've been ramping up assets in Turkey and North Africa in response to the Syrian crisis as well. USS Nimitz has been off the coast of Syria for months. Ukraine is within F-16's combat radius from the Incirlik Air Force base in Turkey (with refueling).

All the military assets are in place to wage a conflict of any scale in the region. The question is one of will, not capability.

Btw, half assed solutions and dillydallying is not going to work here. It's what Putin is counting on. Once he gets 15000 or however many troops he can spare, stationed around Crimea, he's in a position to make basically no concessions.

It's time to make a decision: support the provisional government or not? If so, they've already asked for European and NATO help and we have treaty obligations. It's time move in.

We elected the wrong President!

Thanks. Posted it after watching the dirty Soviets lose their **** in Rocky IV. Felt good doing so.

Hmm International law. Whats that?
Is that the thing you use to put Africans in prison for violating?
That don't apply to China, the US, and Russia, Oh and Israel.
Great

Send in Grizy, imo. hes ready