Should We Send Troops To The Ukrain?

[Bobbisox1]

Just listening to Tobias Elwood, the threat of war in Europe is very real this morning

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-russia-crisis-bombs-will-drop-on-ukraine-minutes-after-putin-gives-order-armed-forces-minister-says-12541735

[davebro]

TTT //I work in a bank//

When? You're always on here! PMSL

[Khandro]

Absolutely not! Are Dianne Abbott, Jeremy Corbin & I the only sane people in this crazy world? & that is something I wouldn't have thought I'd find myself saying in a million years.

[ToraToraTora]

dave, I'm not a 9 to 5 er

[ichkeria]

“ I said that, PP just dished out his usual insults.”

Apologies ;-)

[ichkeria]

“ Are Dianne Abbott, Jeremy Corbin & I the only sane people in this crazy world?”

A coalition of the hopelessly deluded more like

[Khandro]

The American-led West are the threat!

Russia, after making an orderly withdrawal from the former East Germany, was promised that NATO would not advance further eastwards, which is exactly what they are doing, why is that? All they have to do is keep their word and there is no conflict.

Weak political leaders under threat at home, e.g. Biden, Macron & Boris Johnson play the old self-serving political game of first scaring the population, but try to look tough, telling them that they will save them from their peril.

[jno]

the Russians have been stress-testing their economy for years. They seem to think they can withstand western sanctions.

How about sanctions in the other direction? How will western Europe manage if cheap - or all - Russian oil vanishes?

[ToraToraTora]

good old jno, loyal to 5C at all times.

[jno]

just answer the question, TTT

[davebro]

Ordinary folks just want to get on with their lives peacefully. It's the top knobs that are the problem. Anyone who seeks power should be automatically excluded from having any.

[ToraToraTora]

jno "How about sanctions in the other direction? How will western Europe manage if cheap - or all - Russian oil vanishes? " - many other sources me old china, we are already doing deals with Norway for example. Sanctions will hurt them more than us.

[ichkeria]

Of course if Russian had “vanishes” so does Russian gas revenue.
While Europe particularly Germany, with its obsession with getting rid of nuclear energy, has handed the Russians a powerful lever in the form of the Nord Stream pipelines, long term it’s a loser for Russia as Europe will be forced to look the other way for its energy.
It’s true that Russia too would also look elsewhere - ie to China. But frankly that may be no bad thing.

[jno]

Putin thinks Russia will cope, TTT thinks it won't. I wonder who's right?

[douglas9401]

"How will western Europe manage if cheap - or all - Russian oil vanishes?"

They'll suspend their green agenda temporarily and drill wherever there's oil, ignoring the roars of polar bears and shrill teenagers I expect.

[ichkeria]

“Gas” vanishes

The problem for the UK in fact would not for not be supply (it would be for other countries)
It would be price

[ichkeria]

It’s a mistake to think of Putin as some wily operator.
He’s a bully and quite possibly a sociopath with it.
The big worry I’d have is that his pretty obsessive self isolation during the pandemic has sent him over the edge.
Of course were that to be true it would be his undoing

[jno]

it would indeed be price, and that's on top of the soaring price caps already in sight. There's been some talk of getting more US oil, but the US is not a charitable institution. Britain paid off its WW2 war debt to the US in 2006 after a mere 60 years or so.

[jno]

ichkeria, I'd have said much the same of Stalin. But...

[ichkeria]

“ Putin thinks Russia will cope”

How do you know?
Assuming he hasn’t in fact gone crazy then he must know that he couldn’t
No one really knows the extent of any sanctions but actually sanctions aren’t the thing he has to worry about most. It’s the consequences of his actions on the ground

[jno]

I don't know, ichkeria - but if he doesn't think they can cope, then there'll be no war - until he thinks they can cope. You may think Putin a sociopath but I don't see him launching a war until he knows he can win; he'll remember Afghanistan.* The Russians have always wanted to shore up their defences and surround themselves with compliant buffer states, which I assume is why they want Ukraine under their thumb in the first place.

* Then again, the Americans didn't remember Vietnam when getting involved in another land war in Asia.