Turkey to claim Crimea from Russia: The next WW3?

[Ender]

I have this really awesome strategy for avoiding the battlefield. It's called not joining the military.

Mines called Public Affairs.

 

[Insanity]

So.. no one ever answered... Battlefield 4 or not, anyone?

 

[Attom]

So.. no one ever answered... Battlefield 4 or not, anyone?

Nah. I'm sure this will have decent server stability.

 

[Insanity]

Nah. I'm sure this will have decent server stability.

Touche

 

[Wing]

Probably only one of the possible ways they will institute another draft is if we are in a total war situation, as in, essentially the whole nation is moving solely for war in terms of outfitting soldiers, mass mass productions of supplies and equipment, etc. Not like where we have now, where a few years ago we were in a double war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the most part, you could manage to go about your day never hearing about it.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

If the banana fortress ever fails, then I think we'll definitely need a draft.

 

[Arisalin]

I want to join the military anyways. A draft doesn't scare me much. A War that's bad enough to cause a draft does though.

 

[Loco]

Not like where we have now, where a few years ago we were in a double war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the most part, you could manage to go about your day never hearing about it.

Sad, right?

 

[Ender]

If the banana fortress ever fails, then I think we'll definitely need a draft.

The Guatemalan Invasion of Venezuela ended with the near death of the Banana Fortress

 

[Galavant]

The Guatemalan Invasion of Venezuela ended with the near death of the Banana Fortress

The restoration of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth would solve all of this.

 

[Vulpes]

If the banana fortress ever fails, then I think we'll definitely need a draft.

I don't get it, but it sounds mildly racist

:CIsee

 

[jpchewy01]

I don't get it, but it sounds mildly racist

:CIsee

It's a reference to a joke made earlier in the thread.

 

[Tara Bronwyn]

Well my grandma did always say the Russians are land thieves ( no offence Russian people.) Which seems to be the going theme in this.

 

[Livgardist]

Well my grandma did always say the Russians are land thieves ( no offence Russian people.) Which seems to be the going theme in this.

Crimea. Königsberg. Karelia. Off the top of my head, and excluding half of Europe, and being from a country with roughly 600 years of history of war, conflict and hostility with the country... I'm bound to agree with your grandma. :CIsee

 

[BLADE]

A reasonable inquiry: are all Americans thieves by proxy given the horrific history and policy of the United States as regards Native Americans? Are all Swedes thieves and murderers because their own native policy as regards the Sami is possibly even worse? Are all Frenchmen/women personally to blame for the rapine of the Basque, the Bretons, the Burgundians? Are all Englishmen forever imprecated by the barbaric inaction and callous inhumanity displayed by its ruling class during the Great Irish Famine?

While you lot ponder that:

''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''


''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ''X,'' defined America's cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.
''And Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia,'' said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ''It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.''

As a supernational conflict of kleptocratic elites, I take no sides here --the Russian government is awful, as is the Ukrainian government. I hope the Tatars and sundry innocent people on both sides are not harmed by the conflict, such as it might be or has become. But this isn't really a land grab by the Kremlin or just something that done happened out of the blue because Ivan is evil. The West does not have a moral interest or high ground here, and frankly even sanctions would distract us from areas where we need the Russians. But that's a reasonable area of disagreement --the extent of sanctions, etc. and not some moral lathering about how awful the Russians are.

...Königsberg...

This one stumped me, since Kaliningrad was stripped from the Third Reich in accordance with international reparation mores and standards (and via agreement amongst the Allies) and then gifted to the Soviet Union which did the brunt of the fighting against Hitler.

I should also point out that the last war between Russia and Sweden happened in 1809. And neither of those states at the time much resemble what Russia or Sweden are today.

I honestly don't know why people bring up stuff like that. I have Holocaust survivors in my family, and both of my grandfathers fought as infantrymen in World War II, but I don't have any personal animus against Germans nor any reason to stereotype them as land thieves or Jew-Gassers (Jew-Gasser is however, an excellent flatulence reliever for that awkward post-Seder lull.)

It's frankly both depressing and mystifying. Do you, Livgardist feel any sort of personal animus towards Russia? If so, why?

I mean at least as an American I have the excuse of decades of occasionally truthful Cold War propaganda.

What's your deal? Frankly what's everyone else's? As awful as this situation as, as terrible (in all senses of the word, because man is he tacky) as Vladimir Putin is, what is this tendency to apply a Manichean paradigm to the situation?

Putin is not eternal. Conflict is not eternal. I think Russia has a natural home in Europe, living in harmony with its neighbors. Certainly, I don't blame Russians --whom opinion polls, etc. indicate are quite against this move-- for what an autocrat has done on their behalf. They are our brothers and sisters, just as those in Islamic World, or in the Horn of Africa or anywhere in the world where a petty tyrant in human form or a petty tyrant in the form of poverty, disease, ignorance, or yes, truculent nationalist has taken root.

tl;dr

I reiterate my initial set of questions. Some of you seriously need to slow your rolls, rhetorically speaking.

 

[Blaxican]

A reasonable inquiry: are all Americans thieves by proxy given the horrific history and policy of the United States as regards Native Americans?

Heeeelll yeeeaaaah. Death to America!

 

[BLADE]

Heeeelll yeeeaaaah. Death to America!

[YOUTUBE]H0kJLW2EwMg[/YOUTUBE]

P.S. I'll totally split America's gold filings with you, dude.

 

[Tara Bronwyn]

However it's like a near constant thing with Russia. They get bored and take over the nearest country, much like Prussia when it existed.

 

[jpchewy01]

However it's like a near constant thing with Russia. They get bored and take over the nearest country, much like Prussia when it existed.

You hold one of the strangest understandings of European History I've ever seen.

 

[Ender]

When did this thread get serious? Did it?

:CDumb