Crisis in the Ukraine

It isn't the Cold War era anymore, as much as it makes for scary stories. Russia is far too intertwined in the global economy to get too stupid on this. A week and a half ago, sanction discussion spooked global investors and $60 billion disappeared overnight from Russia's stock market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/business/why-russia-cant-afford-another-cold-war.html

 

Putin is going to end up in the icy Neva River Rasputin-style if the oligarchs get fucked too hard.

 

Damn those countries for abandoning Mother Russia! Iron Curtains are awesome!

 

I believe she was Carlton Banks.

 

They lost 27 million in a war and built an Iron Curtain to make sure it never happened again.

We lost 3,000 on 9/11 and forever changed our foreign policy --- including the invasion of two countries --- to make sure it never happened again.

In other words, at least they had a legitimate reason.

 

If you pointed out that cuts were to pre wwii levels, you were insanely wrong. But feel free to keep on celebrating that. Even with the proposed cuts, the US will still spend more than all other major powers - combined. Pre WWII, the air force didn't exist and the marine corps had just over 20K people. Today, the marine corps plus air force have more people than the entire pre wwii US military had, in total. This isn't even close. This is insane.

 

Talk to Hagel

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/24/hagel-cuts-would-reshape-military-after-longest-war/

 

Well, this really should not be too hard.

In 1940, America had 458,365 military personnel total (Army, Navy, Marines).

The cuts will bring the ARMY down to about 440,000-450,000, the Marines to 182,100. And you still have the Navy (317,000) and Air Force (330,000) and Coast Guard (42,000).

The total number of active military personnel will still be WELL OVER 1 million, more than twice as many as our military had in 1940.

No department will be anywhere near its 1940 levels (unless you count 440,000 army personnel to be "close" to the 269,000 we had in 1940)

Can we be journalists and end this "cutting the military to pre-WWII levels" nonsense once and for all?

 

I was wondering where Carlton went.

 

Which was their own self-interest. They didn't give a damn about the rest of the Eastern Bloc except for being the buffer and so they could claim they were spreading Communism. Forced Communism, but still Communism.

They also didn't give a damn about their own people, allowing millions to starve to death and die in camps during their purges. The 27 million that were killed in the war were just a rounding error to Stalin.

 

But what about the narrative?

 

Absolutely true.

Likewise, we don't give a damn about any of the Eastern European nations in NATO, except that their presence in NATO pisses off Russia and removes its buffer of allies.

We act in our self-interest.** Russia acts in its self-interest.

Which is why it's so maddening when we pretend to be surprised and outraged when they do so.

Everything from an insane nuclear buildup to siding with terrible Middle East nations to fighting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to sticking our noses in other nations' business is something that the USA and Russia have each done ad nauseum for decades, and often in abominable ways. The only difference is we always have some noble excuse for it, while it's evil when Russia does it.


** except the damn Law of Unintended Consequences keeps biting us in the butt (see Iran, 1953 and Afghanistan, 1979), where stupid things done many years ago are haunting us to this day.

Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, speaking to the mujahideen:

"We know of their deep belief in God, and we are confident their struggle will succeed. That land over there is yours, you’ll go back to it one day because your fight will prevail, and you’ll have your homes and your mosques back again. Because your cause is right and God is on your side." Allahu Akbar, indeed.

This photo should hang in the Oval Office as a constant reminder to our leadership to butt out of other nations' business: