War in Ukraine

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Originally Posted By: Sam2000
Originally Posted By: Mystic
How come antiqueshell did not say I was a government agent? How does he know I was not NSA?


He should have a hard time proving that you are a member of any intelligence agency.


Hey Sam2000, a really clever agent would be so clever nobody would suspect him. You never really know the real story of anybody you come across at an internet website. And if you think you know everything there is to know about some mysterious stranger at an internet website, that is not very clever, now is it?

Lack of knowledge is not knowledge. It is lack of knowledge.
 
Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
History is written by the victors, that doesn't make it accurate or truthful, and indeed MANY times what you read in their, uh hum, "history books" are utter falsehoods or more accurately should be called LIES.

And none of them were more bleedingly obvious than those written by the Soviets back in the day. A plausible lie is a lot different than a real whopper, and somehow they never got that over there. Or, more likely, they understood it, and the people were just in on the joke.

Since that system has been destroyed, plenty of the truth behind these whoppers has come out. And it has worked both ways. We in the West were alarmed about some pretty nonsensical things, but a lot that went on there was worse than we imagined, particularly during Stalin's years.
 
I think it has been pretty well documented that during Stalin's reign some 20 million Russians were put to death. During the reign of Mao in China supposedly some 40-80 million people were put to death. And of course in Cambodia about one third of the total population was killed.
 
Originally Posted By: Mystic
China right now seems to want to try to push Vietnam around. I think they would be wiser to go after those Japanese islands. Because China already in the not so distant past got pushed back hard by Vietnam.


Not quite, Japan has US standing guard in Okinawa (which Japan "claims" those islands are part of, and Okinawa was an independent nation prior to Japan colonizing it right before WWII). US wouldn't want China to be one stone throw away from its Okinawan base.

Now Vietnam, they might have pushed back China in the early 80s (or got "punished" by China, depends on who you ask), but their navy is relatively small compare to China and is the easiest one to push around unlike Philippine (protected by the US) or Japan (see above). I highly doubt if Vietnam and China go to war with each other, we'll send in reinforcement to help out Vietnam. Most of our Vietnam war vets would not like that idea, especially since the same government is still in power today.

Anyways, the idea of China being in an alliance with Russia is absurd. China got [censored] at USSR helping out Vietnam during the China / Vietnam war and all the land grabs up north in Siberia, as well as splitting out the "outer" Mongolia from its former territory. It just doesn't have the power to wrestle with the bear yet, but IMO a war between them is very possible in the next 50-100 years.
 
Originally Posted By: LazyPrizm
It reminds me of that quote (wrongly) attributed to Collis P. Huntington, "Whatever is not nailed down is mine; what I can pry loose is not nailed down".


Sadly, that's the reality in geopolitical politics, and that's the reason we have Hawaii, UK has Falkland Island, etc. This is especially the case on islands that has no population.
 
I think a war in the future may be possible for China and Russia also. Russia has nuclear weapons of course and a powerful military but the population of Russia is in serious decline and Russia actually has a fairly weak economy. Some have said that the Russian military is like an egg with a hard outer shell and a soft interior. As Russia continues to decline and China becomes stronger I think there could be a war. The main deterrent Russia has is its nuclear weapons.
 
Originally Posted By: Mystic
Hey Sam2000, a really clever agent would be so clever nobody would suspect him. You never really know the real story of anybody you come across at an internet website. And if you think you know everything there is to know about some mysterious stranger at an internet website, that is not very clever, now is it?

Lack of knowledge is not knowledge. It is lack of knowledge.


I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but I'm quite sure you're not in the intelligence business.
 
I had a girlfriend who was a hairstylist. She had completed this Sam2000 Class. Weird, it was the same as your user name.
 
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China has nukes as well, partly courtesy of the USSR from back in the days of fraternal socialist brotherhood.
You say that those capitalist pigs are protecting the wayward imperialist government of the province of Taiwan and preventing the peace-loving people of that island from joining their motherland?
We'll give you something that will make them think twice!
We'll give you some state of the art jet fighter designs you can build as well.
The era of fraternal socialist friendship between the PRC and USSR didn't last very long, though.
There have since been ongoing armed border conflicts going back to the late 'sixties.
 
I think the main thing that prevents war between Russia and China is that both have nuclear weapons. But Russia is getting weaker and weaker all the time. The population of Russia is actually in decline, and they have very poor health care and a lot of problems with alcohol abuse and drugs. And the economy, aside from the natural gas and oil, is really not very strong. It is actually predicted that by 2050 will be a serious decline in the Russian population.

China seems to be getting stronger although I don't know if their economy is really as good as some think. As Russia declines I think China might be tempted to do something, but again Russia has nuclear weapons.

Few people seem to know that China has actually taken over large land areas, including Tibet and Uyhger (not sure of spelling).
 
China seized control of Tibet in 1951 and abolished the government of Tibet in 1959.
During a period when communist agression was widely regarded as a serious danger in the West, and China was very weak by any measure, the West did nothing.
This horse fled the barn decades ago.
I think you're right in considering any Chinese agresssion against Russia as very unlikely.
Russia is growing weaker economically and has been suffering declining population for years. The flow of Westerners and their capital into the country seeking opportunity has come to a virtual halt and the resources in the ground won't last forever, particularly with continued bad management. Any incentive any Russian entrepreneur might have had to develop new sources of resource supply has been elminated by the examples of others having had their newly developed sources of wealth stolen from them under the Russian legal system as currently defined by the Kremlin.
OTOH, does anyone doubt that a tactical nuclear strike would be a likely option if an invader really had Russia's back against the wall?
As long as the Chinese believe this, their desire to seize Russian territory as a source of resources will be tempered by their desire to maintain Beijing in its present, unincinerated form.
I also think that the Chinese economy has been built on unsustainable levels of public and private debt and is headed for a major collapse, although I could be wrong.
An interesting question is how China will deal with the insane regime to its south, which now has crude nuclear weapons and is completing its very own aircraft carrier.
 
The debate about whether China really owns the "East Turkey", Mongolia (at least the "Inner Mongolia" since "Outer Mongolia" is now an independent nation), and Tibet can go all the way back several hundred years ago in the Qing Dynasty. Back then the Manchus, who was also considered foreigners to the Hans Chinese, invaded and conquered all these lands and not until this dynasty's collapse, controlled all the above mentioned area (and a lot of the land in Siberia that is now part of Russia). After the near 100 years worth of war and political unrest within China, the Manchu population has now fully integrated into the Hans and you really couldn't tell them apart anymore (other than some special treatment for minorities similar to affirmative action).

The same is happening in Tibet, "East Turkey", and inner Mongolia, where the ethnic population is "integrating" with the Hans and/or declining as a percentage of the total population depends on who you ask and who's opinion you trust. I think after 100 years you can't tell them apart anymore just like the difference between Manchus and the Hans today.

Why are the Hans doing this? because in the last 2000 or so years there are wars between the Hans and all these "foreigners" all the time, and eventually the only way to make peace with them is to melt them away by absorbing them into the Hans.

I don't think a full scale "till each other is annihilated" kind of war will happen between Russia and China, but a lot of small scale conflict, supporting the independence of regions and then merge back into another nation like the Crimea, would happens a lot in Siberia, Outer and Inner Mongolia, East Turkey, and eventually the borders would be redrawn many times.

This IMO wouldn't happen in Putin's watch, but his successor after his death. By that time China could be a very powerful nation due to the population and size of economy (as well as the amount of resource they pour into military R&D) and Russia's economy and military budget would have shrunk by a lot.
 
As far as China and Russia goes, they've been conducting joint military exercises for years now.

But at the moment, the talks to buy gas has stalled. Russia wants to diversify, which an agreement with China would do. She wishes to wean herself off Euro energy money. if it can do that, then the European relationship becomes less important. And the Euro market is stagnant as it is.

China is kind of in the catbird seat as she can demand lower prices. And has been pushing it lower and lower.
 
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http://news.yahoo.com/gazprom-china-russia-sign-30-gas-deal-100029787--finance.html

The agreement calls for Russian government-controlled Gazprom to supply state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. with 38 billion cubic meters of gas annually, Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov told The Associated Press. That would represent about a quarter of China's current annual gas consumption of nearly 150 billion cubic meters.

The contract is worth a total of $400 billion, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told Russian news agencies. That figure is greater than the GDP of South Africa. Gas is due to begin flowing to China as early as 2018.
 
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I thought I would share this. This is the greatest piece of reporting that came from and about the pro-russian separatists. Explains well where the militias came from, how they are trained, and how they fight.

Very refreshing piece very different from the sickening Russian (and Ukrainian too) official news propaganda.

Linky: http://www.theatlantic.com/international...ukraine/374411/

Quote:
Artur Gasparyan, a 24-year-old native of Spitak, Armenia, was recruited in Moscow in May to fight in eastern Ukraine. Now back in the Russian capital, he spoke with Mumin Shakirov (see original in Russian here) in detail about his experiences.
 
In the meantime, there are widespread rumors that Russia may intervene very soon.

http://johngaltfla.com/wordpress/2014/07...ne-any-day-now/

The civilian shelling may be even the false flag provocation that Putin orchestrated. He did that just before the war in Chechnya. He was the head of KGB and responsible for bombing a Russian civilian apartment building to provide a reason for Russians to invade Chechnya.
 
The massive (undeclared) Russian intervention is happening right now. Russians are caught sending heavy duty military equipment (with people manning it of course) AND shelling Ukrainians from ACROSS the border. Funny how we know about it from people posting videos to youtube and blogging about it.

There are a couple of bloggers with only access to youtube and google earth that do a better job that the military intelligence:

https://twitter.com/MiddleEast_BRK
http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.com/
 
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