Middle East and N.Africa v.21- WorldWarSyria

[Mr Fixit]

8 hours ago, Celestial said:

Finally, why so much empathy and consideration for Russia's hurt feelings? Russia has been a bad actor from the very first moment it has emerged as a great power under Peter I. Someone mentioned that Russia has been "invaded so many times". Actually, it was invaded only twice since the Romanovs took over. In 1812 by Napoleon, in 1941 by Hitler. In WW1, it was Russia who first declared war on Central Powers. On the other hand, ALL Russia's neighbours have been its victims during its imperial history: Sweden in 1700, Finland in 1939 and 1941 (yes, in 1941, it was the Soviet Union who started the Continuation War by launching several air raids against Finland on 25 June 1941), the Baltics in 1939, Poland and Romania too many times to counts, the Ottoman Empire several times, Persia as well, Afghanistan too and even China. There has not been any neighbor of Russia who has not been a victim of Russian aggression at one point or another. So, exactly, why the crocodile tears over Russia's anxieties?

This just disqualifies you from any rational discussion. This, as you say, is pure claptrap, if you feel the need to go back hundreds of years to Russo-Turkish wars or the war with Sweden 300 years ago? Do you not see how petty this all feels? Not to mention, you seem to be one of those historical revisionists who shift the blame for WWI on someone else (probably Serbia and their Russian allies). 

I can play the game of silly historical examples too. Let me paraphrase you:

"US has been a bad actor from the very first moment it has emerged as a great power. ALL US neighbours have been victims during its imperial history. Canada in 1812, Mexico in 1840s, let's not even talk about Cuba or Haiti. They occupied Phillipines in 1898 and became a colonial power. They purposefully broke up Columbia and supported independent Panama for their interest in the Panama Canal. And that's just 19th/early 20th century."

Don't you see how random and silly all these examples are? 

[The Marquis de Leech]

7 hours ago, Celestial said:

Excuse me for asking, but when had Russia acted in good faith towards.. well, anyone? The nonsense about NATO breaking its promise not to expand eastward is downright insulting.

What legal and moral right does Russia have to pretend such a thing, anyway?

One wonders how the US would have reacted to Mexico and Canada joining the Warsaw Pact.

[Horza]

So Estonia is a dagger pointed at the heart of Russia?

[Mr Fixit]

See what I mean? See how the topic on the Middle East gets inevitably steered into Estonia, Finland, Russo-Swedish war from 18th century? That's just the basic MO not only on this forum, but in the mainstream media as well. Always change the relevant subject at hand and just drone on and on how Putin and Russia are gonna invade Jupiter unless we stop them. 

And that's the whole point; it's the foreign policy equivalent of ad hominem. Just how people try to attack others all the time on personal grounds so if it sticks, it makes a recipient of the message disregard what the target of ad hominem actually says. That is exactly why we hear so much about Estonia and Jupiter and Alpha Centauri. Because the point is to a priori disqualify what the other side has to say by continually bringing up unrelated topics. If Putin went on TV tomorrow and said that Earth is round, there'd a bunch of "pundits" condescendingly saying that you can't believe a thing he says because "Ukraine, Estonia, Jupiter". 

That's no way to discuss anything. And it's intellectually dishonest.

 

[Celestial]

16 hours ago, James Arryn said:

More food for thought;

 

Stalin was one of the earliest leaders to express significant concern about Hitler/the Nazis. . 

 

If that is the case, why did Stalin completely ignore the Nazi menace before Hitler came to power? In fact, he even facilitated Hitler's ascent and it was obvious even to those contemporary to the events, despite Soviet attempts at concealment. For instance, in 1932, Constantin Titel-Petrescu, the president of the Romanian Social-Democrat Party, published an article called "Hitler's communists" where he lambasted the German Communist Party for its unwillingness to cooperate with the German Social-Democrats in the fight against Hitler and predicted that Hitler might come to power as a result of this policy.

In 1932, the KDP was completely under Moscow's control. If KDP hadn't undermined the Weimar Republic, then Hitler might have never become chancellor. Then, all the "significant concern" and all the rah-rah-rah about anti-Hitler alliances would not have been necessary.

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This all making sense because as any student of history can tell you, destroying communism in general and the Russians (Slavs/Bolsheviks, etc.) in particular were Hitler's openly expressed principle ambitions.

Not the only ambitions. Hitler's also openly expressed his ambition to destroy the Versailles Treaty and eliminate French military power, which he saw as the main culprit for that treaty.

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Stalin reached out over and over again to other great powers, but was continually rebuffed, as those nations anticipated and were quite happy with the idea of the Nazis and Soviets going to war. Some thinking they preferred th Nazis to the Communists,mother thinking that either way, letting them weaken each other with war would make everyone else a winner.

That is fundamentally false. Germany and Soviet Union going to war meant a total disruption of the Versailles status-quo, which was very favorable to France and UK, and the entire Eastern Europe falling under the control of Germany/Soviet Union, a prospect not at all enticing to France and UK, which had alliances with many of those countries.

If you seriously believe the bolded part, please explain why the western allies would provide security guarantees to Poland, thus putting themselves in the way of Germany and opening the door for war, when German advance eastward was a much bigger threat for Soviet Union than for them.

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This all came to a head with the Munich Accord,  Soviets (and Czechs) were excluded from even participating, with the result being an armed and expansive Nazi state expressly aimed eastward.

We already had this discussion in last October, as you might recall. At Munich, Chamberlain accepted Hitler's requests, but it went no further than that. It was perfectly possible for Czechoslovakia not to accept the Munich agreement, as UK was not going to enforce it by force of arms. Here's a reminder: Soviets constantly instigated Czechoslovakia to resist German pressure, but were constantly dodging Benes' questions whether they were willing to provide military support. Previously, Soviet emissaries like Aleksandrovsky (the soviet ambassador in Prague) kept telling Benes to stand firm, but on 28 september 1938, Benes asked for military aid from Soviet Union and received no reply. On 30 september, Benes again sent an urgent message to Moscow asking bluntly, in the wake of Munich agreement, whether Czechoslovakia should capitulate or fight. There was no answer. Only on 3 October, after Benes accepted the Munich diktat, came the Soviet answer: it said that Czechoslovakia should never have yielded and Soviet Union would have supported 'in any circumstances'.

Basically, the Soviets were urging Czechoslovakia to resist against Germany, but when the moment came to put their money where their words were, all the bombastic rhetoric about standing up to Hitler disappeared like a fart in the wind.

And the Soviets did more than that. On 20 May 1938, Benes received reports that German troops were concentrating at the border and declared mobilization. This action infuriated the Germans and is likely that it strengthen Hitler's desire to finish off Czechoslovakia. Czech historian Igor Lukes asserted that, following this event, Hitler rewrote the Operation Green directive, the very first sentence of which now read, "It is my unalterable intention to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the nearest future".

 

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So, with the Nazi clearly on the warpath, and the other powers clearly fine with that so long as it was directed towards himself, Stalin initiated the Molotov-Ribbentrop discussions that ended in their treaty. I really wonder what you feel the soviets should done.

We had this discussion in October when I provided you the answer. Long story short: conduct the August negotiations with France and England in good faith and not with the hidden intention to annex Poland and more.

[Celestial]

Edited

[Mr Fixit]

Please change the subject. 

Moderators, I implore you to either shut this thread down or warn the posters to stick to the subject.

[Mr Fixit]

ETA: Playing nice.

[Celestial]

Edited

[Celestial]

9 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

One wonders how the US would have reacted to Mexico and Canada joining the Warsaw Pact.

We know how the US would have reacted. Cuba did not formally joined the Warsaw Pact, but was firmly allied with the Soviet Union and was a major security threat to the US. Yet, America did not react as obnoxiously as Russia did and that was at the height of the Cold War.

US attempted an invasion of former Cuban rebels, but gave up when it became clear they did not have enough local support. Later, US merely forced the Soviets to withdraw their nukes from Cuba and that is as far as it went.

Russia, on the other hand, supported its rebels at all costs and is fueling a permanent war in Ukraine. Moreso, they also annexed a chunk of Ukraine by force of arms... something which the US never did.

 

[Mr Fixit]

ETA: Playing nice.

[The Marquis de Leech]

And I suppose it never occurred to you that Washington didn't "give up" on Cuba through the kindness of its heart (indeed, the CIA tried to kill Castro for decades), but because it knew full well that an invasion of Cuba would lead to most of North America, Europe, and Asia glowing in the dark?

Mr Fixit is right though - can we get this topic back to Syria? 

[DireWolfSpirit]

3 minutes ago, Mr Fixit said:

Please change the subject. 

Moderators, I implore you to either shut this thread down or warn the posters to stick to the subject.

I questioned whether Russia was appropriate subject (outside the Syrian occupation) several pages ago and was met with some schizo commentary about making crude ignorant comments so I decided I wouldnt post again unless it was on the M.E. specifically. Instead of trying to get the thread closed, you could easily just do the same. Stop making posts about Russia (outside a M.E. context) it's just that simple.

Back on topic- Here's an interesting article on the arming of Syrian belligerents.

Who is supplying weapons to the warring sides in Syria? - BBC News

BBC.com › world-middle-east-22906965

Jun 14, 2013 - Russia. Russia has continued to supply the Syrian military with weapons and equipment ... Until now, Qatar is widely believed to have been the main supplier of weapons to the rebels.

 

 

[Celestial]

6 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

And I suppose it never occurred to you that Washington didn't "give up" on Cuba through the kindness of its heart (indeed, the CIA tried to kill Castro for decades), but because it knew full well that an invasion of Cuba would lead to most of North America, Europe, and Asia glowing in the dark?

 

First and foremost, that is moving the goalposts. You asked "how would US react", not what motivated US to react as it did. It's not my fault the answer is not to your liking.

Second, the bolded part is speculation and quite a shaky one. In 1961-1962, the Soviet Union greatly lagged behind US with regard to means of delivery of strategic nuclear weapons. If it came to a nuclear exchange, Soviet Union could have inflicted some damage on the US, but, in turn, it would have been totally exterminated.

Before that crisis, American superiority was even more pronounced. In 1953, the nuclear potential of the United States totaled 1,169 warheads with a combined 73 MT. In 1957 the United States already possessed nuclear capabilities at 5.543 warheads with a combined 17,500 MT.This potential was sufficient to create in the USSR the continuous destruction zones with total area of 1 5 million sq. kilometers and a continuous zone of fire with a total area of 2 million sq. km. Radioactive contamination of the area with the level of external exposure of more than 300 rad a day after the explosion could significantly exceed the 10 million sq. kilometers, and in practice it meant that the territory of the USSR could turn into a radioactive desert. The nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union at that time was several orders of magnitude smaller.

In addition to that there was the problem of delivery. It just so happened that a lot of countries wanted to join the evil military block NATO. The Soviet Union also had allies, but only in the countries to which the Red Army was able to reach out a hand of fraternal international assistance. Therefore, the US not only could use its strategic bombers (and later missiles), but could also use its tactical weapons to hit the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the Soviets needed strategic means of delivery, which were both in short supply and of inadequate quality. In late 50s, the Soviet Union had two means to attack US:

1. The Tu-95 bomber. But, for the American air-defens, Soviet "Bear" was an ideal target: flies not too high and not too low, the aircraft radar signature with four huge propellers was great (EPR of about 100 square meters), the possibility of avoidance maneuvers of the "flying barn" with a wing loading about 460 kg / sq.m. almost zero, the hope that the Soviet ECMs can suppress US radars, it was not more. To this we must add the creation in September 1957 of the joint command of air defense of Canada and the United States (NORAD). In practice, this meant that the bomber had to spend about 2.5 hours in the radar field of radars installed in Canada before he crosses the border of the United States Air Force. In other words, the chance of Tu-95 delivering a decisive blow to the US was inexistent.

2. The ICBM 8k-71 and its modification 8k-74. It had enough flight range and interception was impossible. Yet it was still not adequate: to use it as a weapon, it was almost impossible: a gigantic structure (a launch weight of 270 tons) to refuel liquid oxygen, the preparation for the launch was 7 hours, the starting position was an area the size of a spaceport (turned in the future in what is today called the cosmodrome "Plesetsk"). The first real war ICBM became was Ianghel's 8K-64 (SS-7 Saddler according to NATO classification). It became combat ready in February 1963. The two-stage ICBM with a fully autonomous (ie absolutely fail-safe) control system to refuel long-stored fuel components and had a time of preparation for the launch of about 30 minutes. It was a real weapon, and it provided the Soviets the first real chance of destroying the US. After the Cuban crisis.

The elimination of US nuclear monopoly took almost 18 years (1945 to 1963), and up to the mid 50s the American superiority was absolute. In this situation, the United States did not use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union or its allies - even in those years (Korea, 1950-1953), when the so-called "Cold War" raged in the form of large-scale armed conflict in which the Americans lost 44,000 people dead and missing. Attention to the question: how would Soviet Union have behaved if it had in his hands 10 years in a row a unique superweapon which its enemy did not? How many union republics would have counted in this situation the fraternal family of Soviet peoples? How many nuclear deserts would appear on Earth?

So, you were saying?

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Mr Fixit is right though - can we get this topic back to Syria?

Yes, that's my final comment on the issue.

 

 

[Horza]

I agree that the thread should be about the middle east, with any discussion of the outside powers involved limited to the regional context; I'm just dubious that there are enough participants of either persuasion who can talk about events in the region without barracking for their side.

 

 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

13 hours ago, Celestial said:

Excuse me for asking, but when had Russia acted in good faith towards.. well, anyone? The nonsense about NATO breaking its promise not to expand eastward is downright insulting.

What legal and moral right does Russia have to pretend such a thing, anyway? Those countries which joined NATO were all acquired by Soviet Union by force of arms and deceit. By signing the Atlantic Charter in 1941, the Soviet Union agreed to respect the principle of self-determination, a pledge it reiterated during the war. Later, when the Red Army entered Eastern Europe, the Soviets literally pissed on their former pledge, installed their puppet government in half of Europe and pillaged those countries dry, while exterminating any opposition. When a thief is forced to give back what it had once stolen, does he get to put conditions?

Soviet Union claimed they liberated Eastern Europe from Nazism, thus those countries should be grateful to them. Here is some food for thought: the Soviets became part of the anti-Hitler camp because Hitler turned on them on 22 June 1941.  Before that, the Soviet main concern was how to convince Hitler to divide Europe with them, to feed Germany oil and grains, to send the Fuhrer congratulations on his birthday and goose-step with German troops in Brest-Litovsk. Maybe also share experience on how to murder Polish prisoners. If Hitler had not broken the agreement, what did Soviet Union intend to do? Keep helping Hitler to drown Europe in blood and sell him rare steel alloys, so that the armor of the German Panzers be even tougher, perhaps?

Yes, but geopolitics do not revolve all that much around moral and legal rights anyway at the end of the day. 

Russia is a very aggressive and paranoid country, and has been for a long time. Using a temporary period of weakness inside a country like that to expand one's military presence into their backyard while simultaneously attempting to turn their client states and allies against them, is not a good recipe for friendly relationships. 

So it seems rather clear that NATO hasn't been interested in seriously seeking a reconciliation with Russia after the Cold War, regardless of if some politicians have been publicly proclaiming that or not. If that has been the right thing to do or not is a bit of a different discussion, but personally I think that this old rivalry is starting to look a bit out of place in the modern world with its new global political situation and challenges. 

I am no means a Russophile like certain people in this thread, and I do agree that Russia is a rather unpleasant country and that one should be careful about trusting them with anything (as many Eastern Europeans learnt the hard way during WW2). However, if we are bringing up historical examples like you've done in your replies I would also mention that Germany was the main rival of the West from the founding of the Second Reich all the way up until the end of World War Two, yet is totally friendly with these countries today. So rivalries aren't set in stone. 

Sweden also fought against Russia a lot during the 18th century, that is true, but it should also be pointed out that pretty much everyone fought with everyone back then. There were wars going on all the time. France, Spain and England still manage to get along pretty well with each other nowadays even though they spent several centuries basically bathing in each others blood, for example...

Anyway. Maybe we should move on to Syria or something.  

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

 

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

To get back to the point of this thread:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-arms-export-embargo-european-parliament-eu-wide-arms-export-embargo-uk-a6895226.html

 

Personally I think it's a step in the right direction, though it isn't legally binding, the Saudi Arabian campaign in Yemen is just ridiculous in its carelessness at this point, not to mention that Al-Qaeda is their de facto ally there.

 

[Celestial]

Speaking of misbehaving allies:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-weiss/its-time-to-kick-erdogans_b_9300670.html

Turkey has become a liability for NATO, to be frank. Some way to punish rogue members should be devised, because Turkey's adventurism is really pushing tensions towards the edge.

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To get back to the point of this thread:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-arms-export-embargo-european-parliament-eu-wide-arms-export-embargo-uk-a6895226.html

 

Personally I think it's a step in the right direction, though it isn't legally binding, the Saudi Arabian campaign in Yemen is just ridiculous in its carelessness at this point, not to mention that Al-Qaeda is their de facto ally there.

Saudi Arabia is one of those states which should have dumped a long time ago. I can understand joining hands with an obnoxious regime in face of an existential threat, but, since the end of the Cold War, America and Europe no longer face such a threat and the rationale for tolerating such abusive regimes is no longer valid. How is Saudi Arabia better than Iran or N.Korea?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

If you could push out members, then a NATO membership would look really meaningless. So NATO will be stuck with the Mad Bull from the Bosporus. I am somewhat glad, that Erdogan has little to no leverage over the US. While he has quite some leverage over the EU with the refugees. This won't go down as one of the proudest hours of the EU and their defense human rights.