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NATO Nato 'unprepared' for Russia threat, say MPs
onecitizen
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Nato is poorly prepared for an attack on a member state from Russia, an influential group of MPs has warned.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28577904
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28577904
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Neville?
Jupitus?
Scofield?
The Greek?
Regarding the Ukraine, Putin may well try another throw of the dice.
According to the Independent, Merkel wants to sell the Crimea (and "devolution" in Eastern Ukraine) to Russia for gas guarantees
Would not surprise me.
Thats 'politics' in action.
Or what the West did in Libya (fair enough it wasn't actual Americans the paid to start a revolution) The West has too much experience of this game so I think we could hold our own against the Russians quite well at something like this. It's not something we need to really worry about
Since it's request of NATO troops to be stationed in Poland was refused, it has adopted the policy that if no one else will watch our back we will do it ourselves.
A new 'Cold War' and decades of willy waving on the horizon.
Ukraine is down to an American backed coup in which far right thugs overthrew a democratically elected president. Crimea was leased to Russia for their military base. Only a fool would allow far right western thugs to take it over. So no bloodshed in Crimea and a vote for the people. The rest of Ukraine isn't quite as lucky and yet few, if any, western governments question Ukraine and it's killing of it's own people. All we get is Russia is bad, Russia is dangerous. Ask yourself why that is?
Very true the West is recognising a Government in Ukraine that was put in place as the result of the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government. Also Ukraine stopped the canal to the Crimea which could have resulted in catastrophe for many of the farmers that depended on it. If this action had been by Russia the West would be apoplectic with indignation.
See? It worked! Most countries had been cutting defence spending. If you're in the defence business, this is naturally going to hit profits. Especially when you've got the latest whizzy weaponry to flog plus the old stuff to make room. Somebody needs to buy F-35s and they will be flyable soon, honest.
So now there's a new (or old) enemy, it's back to writing those huuuge cheques for equipment, training, servicing, spares, consultancy etc.
The West stupidly lowered its guard as soon as the Cold War officially came to an end, making cuts after cuts. Did Government's really not anticipate that some nutter like Putin may come along who wants the old Soviet Union and Cold War back?
I've been saying for months, either the EU forms a major defence force on top of Nato or it risks being gobbled up by Russia and China as and when they are equipped enough to take Europe on.
I don't think Europe can count on American back up all the time either through Nato so we should spend the necessary money to deter A holes like Putin and China as they are bound to want more and are prepared to bully their way into getting what they want more and more. It is so obvious to see and work out!
Why would Russia try and take on Europe?
It has land, it has energy, it has it's own industry, what would it wish to take over Europe, or any other country, for?
Over the past 6 months, there has been much talk about the strategic proximity between Russia and China, made even more proximal following the "holy grail" gas deal announced in May which would not have happened on such an accelerated time frame had it not been for US escalation in Ukraine.
And yet little has been said about that other just as crucial for the "new BRIC-centric world order" relationship, that between Russia and India. That is about to change when yesterday the Russian central bank announced that having been increasingly shunned by the west, Russia discussed cooperation with Reserve Bank of India Executive Director Shrikant Padmanabhan. The punchline: India agreed to create a task group to work out a mechanism for using national currencies in settlements. And so another major bilateral arrangement is set up that completely bypasses the dollar.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-31/russia-and-india-begin-negotations-use-national-currencies-settlements-bypassing-dol
This is one of the reasons Russia is being painted as the enemy. The same happened when Gaddafi was going to trade oil for gold and Saddam when he switched to selling oil in Euros. That's why they had to be toppled, to protect the dollar.
It doesn't have as much productive agricultural land as you might think - given that a big chunk of the steppe is now outside Russian control I.E. The Ukraine!
Russian "industry" is moribund; bought up after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist party by the first wave of ex-Soviet oligarchs, they failed to spend anything on re-investment....and Russian industry is moribund; there's barely a working factory, and NONE at anything like full production - it doesn't actually make anything that Russians want to buy!
It's one of the reasons that the Kremlin wants its hands on the Donetsk Basin in the Ukraine - it's industry is still relatively healthy in comparison to Russia. Still poor - but healthier than the Russians'!
So why haven't they invaded then? All they've done is protect their interests in Crimea and objected to the American backed takeover of Ukraine. There's no evidence of Russia doing anything hostile to other nations is there? They have energy, so are hardly broke, or likely to be. On the other hand, Europe is likely to be cold this winter thanks to western intervention in Ukraine. Maybe they'll be forced to import energy from America, or can use the proceeds of fracking in Ukraine under the guidance of Hunter Biden. After all, more and more American states are banning fracking, the energy companies need somewhere to operate don't they?
Because it has a control freak mentality im, esp the likes of Putin. I mean why did Russia invade Germany, and have loads of European countries as satellite states?
The Poles probably have good reason to fear aggressive Russian intentions and as a fellow NATO country we have some duty to support them.
Sometimes I feel grateful I live in stable, out of the way and very complacent Britain:)
Yep. And a lot of it's produce was exported to Russia. Now it's Russia's bestest friend, it'll have to export it's agriculture to the EU instead. Just what the EU needs. Another CAP member..
But that has been changing and is probably why other nations/trading blocs view Russia as a threat. They're happy if Russia imports, but not when it's exports compete with their own goods and services. Gas is an obvious example. EU imports lots of Russian gas. US is building LNG export terminals. Russian gas bad! US gas good! PAK FA bad! India should be buying 150 F-35's instead.
Not really. It has factories but more mineral resources. Again one of the biggest industrial customers from those factories was Russia. Take Poroshenko's enterprise, Roshen-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roshen
Before Russia stopped its imports in July 2013, 40 percent of the company's grosses came from Russia
Ever seen that brand in the UK?
Which is a free peoples god given right and duty! if the government wishes to act tyrannical and not do what is in the peoples interest then the people have the right to remove that government from office by any means necessary.
All fine in theory, but in practice, notice how governments tend to take away the people's ability to remove those in power? Kind of the argument about..
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed
Which could be a militia called up to support the government or to protect the people from the government. Some groups do seem to want to take this to extremes though..
The right to bear arms was designed to protect the people against government the USA got those rights from the UK's own constitution and that right is still indeed statute law here in the UK but was stripped away by past governments. Now Ukraine is talking about implementing the right to arms for the people in its own constitution, you never know how much you might need it until its gone.
I hear what you are saying its no coincidence that governments take those away to have more control, there was stories going about that Thatcher took the semi autos away in 88 through fear of an uprising over taxes etc is it true? who knows.