I'm thinking Kosovo, Ukraine or Georgia.

More specifically they could instigate and support a Serb crackdown on Kosovo independence, put direct pressure on Ukraine or take direct military action against Georgia. Does anybidy else see this as a possibility?

The motive would be to reassert their status as a major power along their periphery while the USA is tied up in the Middle East, near Presidential Elections and the EU is still economically vulnerable and militarily unable to oppose them in these countries.

All three of these nations are in precarious positions in regard to Russia and their are realistic achievable objectives that should not cause a direct confrontation with the USA.

Does any of this sound reasonable?


-DA

Very good call on this one Darth. Almost exactly one year before the event. Who says military intellegence is an oxy-moron (all of the time)?

Check Six

 

Rocky

I do agree: exactly 70 years after, history seems to repeat.
West powers wants just to prevent any war with Russia, at any price if it is paid by others: so Georgia, with the Franco-Russian peace agreement, would soonly make the same end of 1938-'39 Czechoslovakia.

Then, the Czechs had to cede Suedetenland to Germany (and a small town to Poland) and a few months after to accept the secession of Slovakia (and ceding Ruthenia to Hungary) and the German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia.

Today, our Suedetenland is Ossetia, and our Slovakia is Abkhazia.

 

In my opinion, we will have just to wait for a second Russian move, on the same path as Germany with Poland.

And the move will be over Ukraine and Moldova.

Crimea was ceded to Ukraine just in the '50ies (Kruschev was an Ukrainian, and made this gift to his country) but it does not host any Ukrainian ethnical majority, and instead Sevastopol is still today the base of the Russian Black Sea fleet.

More, East Ukraine is strongly "Russified", both as language and religion, dividing this area from the Central and West Ukraine (which e.g. is Catholic or under a separate Orthodox church from Moscow Patriarchate).

And do not forget the rebel region of Transnistria, in East Moldova: it hosts the remains of an old Soviet Army, and it is inhabited by Russian settlers not by Moldovans (who are Romanians).

We could think that Ukraine (Moldova) maybe will still not be a NATO member: but I hardly imagine a Russian "invasion" without a Polish direct intervention in Lviv, and a Romanian one in Chisinau.

 

And we have another front on the Baltic.

Strong and discriminated Russian minorities live in the small Baltic states: an excellent casus belli for Putin, following Georgian example.

And the temperature is rising high and fast between Poland and Russia, two centuries-old enemies, and considering the Russian enclave of East Prussia (Kaliningrad, the former Koenigsberg).

 

So, let me say it: Ossetia is the new Suedetenland, and Sevastopol is the new Danzig.

And the war might be unavoidable between Russia and NATO: just let's hope that main European continental powers (Germany, France and Italy) will have the right mood to fight, and not making as France in 1939-'40.

In the end, we should just decide if preparing for the war by now or wait for the next Russian attack...but unfortunately I really do not see any will to fight for freedom (Georgians/Ukrainians today, we tomorrow) neither for economical reasons (we depend on Russian oil and gas) in the Western Europe, not at all to fight a real war, with mass mobilisation etc. I would even be doubtfull about UK willing to fight today, I do not see any Churchill nor any Eden.

There is one analogy that does not fly, Czecheslovakia never bombed an "ethnic German" city during a night time suprise attack.

If Russia is supposed to continue operating like this, they will need a whacko blowing up ethnic russians.

 

Hi FT, it's interesting that the Transnistria issue is never ever mentioned in the press, even though it is very similar to the Georgian episode. The people in Transnistria were also issued Russian passports, they set up their up administration, gov't offices, etc. There must have been some sort of backroom agreement on this issue, otherwise I'm at a loss to explain the generalized sense of injustice over the Georgia incident and the indifferent shrug that the Transnistria affair elicited.

 

You are also very astute in bringing up the quarrel between the Ukrainian and Russian orthodox churches. They have been 'at war' for years now. Their monks will virtually attack each other on sight. They seem to know what the stakes are.

 

You are very right to mention Lwow (Lviv); I frankly cannot imagine a direct intervention in Lwow. Admittedly, many Poles speak with nostalgia about Lwow, once a great Polish city, and the city looks like a mini replica of Krakow. But any 'rescue' mission would not be welcomed by the Ukrainians who do not wish to become a province in Poland any more than they wish to be a province in Russia again.

 

The Poles are not foolhardy enough to attempt such a move, but this is not to say that such a move could not be manufactured as a pretext for Russia to move into the Ukraine. Remember that the Germans did the same before movintg into Poland, creating an 'incident' in Gliwice to justify invasion to 'protect' the German minority. I do not believe that the Russians have designs on Poland but many see Ukraine as a province of Russia and to be honest, much of Russia's cultural heritage can be found in the Ukraine.....

 

 

One of the reasons Chamberlain agreed to Hitler's accession of the Sudetenland was many honest people at that time believed that Germany/Austria had a moral claim to that region. The artificial creation of Czechoslovakia out of the wreck of the Austro-Hugarian Empire did not adequately take in to account the desires of the people  who were Germanic in that region. By 1938 the problems resulting from the Treaty of Versailles were obvious to almost everyone.

 

It has been announced in the past couple of days Russia is increasing it's yearly military budget from $60 B to $100 B. I suspect one area in which were are going to see some quasi-military encounters with Russia in the not to distant future is the Arctic Ocean Basin where Russia has claimed large areas, thought to be rich in oil and gas, as its own. 

Very true. The idea met with little resistance at the time. Lord Runciman of the UK even stated that:

"Czech officials and Czech police, speaking little or no German, were appointed in large numbers to purely German districts; Czech agricultural colonists were encouraged to settle on land confiscated under the Land Reform in the middle of German populations; for the children of these Czech invaders Czech schools were built on a large scale; there is a very general belief that Czech firms were favoured as against German firms in the allocation of State contracts and that the State provided work and relief for Czechs more readily than for Germans. I believe these complaints to be in the main justified. Even as late as the time of my Mission, I could find no readiness on the part of the Czechoslovak Government to remedy them on anything like an adequate scale ... the feeling among the Sudeten Germans until about three or four years ago was one of hopelessness. But the rise of Nazi Germany gave them new hope. I regard their turning for help towards their kinsmen and their eventual desire to join the Reich as a natural development in the circumstances.^{[7] (Wikipedia)}