Quote Originally Posted by bordering View Post
Thread seems full of posturing and gung ho war fever

Let's get real we have about 72000 in the Army that's from the pay corps , logistics , the number of front line troops is a lot less can't find their number can you? so our on the ground contribution is small. Our airforce can fly missions & bomb Russian troops in Ukraine but in Russia? that's world war 3

Our economic sanctions nowhere near comprehensive and are ineffective

At the UN 4 countries voted with Russia & 35 abstained on the posturing motion of condemning Russia

Russia is used to sanctions & now holds the whip hand in gas supplies to Europe. It has set up a huge deal with China for gas so Europe's reactions & green policies are driving its population into fuel poverty.

NATO posturing and the build up of biological weapons- [why does Ukraine need them?] that threaten Russia are major reasons for Russian action.


Russia has always wanted buffer states to protect its western borders...


The real politik is that this is a boots on the ground war - no one wants serious escalation,

My solution? Ukraine's independence is guaranteed by UN & NATO & Russia , it becomes a de- militarised neutral state & the real issue the massive untapped resources of Ukraine are for another discussion

Or we can have gung-ho posturing- it might make you feel good it might destroy us all
Can certainly understand why the West do not want to engage Russian forces directly and risk a NATO v Russia war and, obviously, Ukraine is not a NATO member and so they have no treaty to expect NATO to do so. That said, I do think that history may not be too kind to the West if it allows Russia to effectively destroy Ukraine.

There is undoubtedly an element of gung-ho from some quarters regarding the West' s current stance but I disagree that those who might support direct military action are all doing so from purely gung ho reasons. What Putin is doing is clearly wrong both morally and legally and at some point someone has to stand up to his brinkmanship because he will not be content with Ukraine if he succeeds there and he poses a far wider threat.

In 1939, Britain was certainly not equipped from a military perspective to fight a war with Germany but Hitler's invasion of Poland led to a declaration of war after the well meaning policy of appeasement failed. Granted, Britain had a treaty with Poland then as NATO does not now with Ukraine, but would you say Britain was wrong to declare war on Nazi Germany then?

You are dead right about the military strength of the UK being measley in comparison to Russia and many European countries have drastically cut back on military expenditure since the end of the Cold War but America has not. NATO is pretty toothless without US support but with it NATO is still a very formidable force and certainly one that the Kremlin (if not Putin) would be very wary of. Surely both sides would be acutely aware of the consequences of such a war and the scale of deaths and destruction it would entail and would therefore wish to avoid one. This is also not about NATO aggression towards Russia itself, it is about defending the sovereignty of Ukraine against Putin's unwarranted "special military operation". In these circumstances the gamble would be that threat of such an escalation might lead to the Kremlin agreeing to withdraw from Ukraine. Doubtless any agreement would prohibit Ukraine joining NATO but the aim would be for Russia to withdraw and Ukraine to be guaranteed its sovereignty even if it lost some of its territories in Luhansk and Donetsk to Russia.

Putin has spun the line that he had acted partly because NATO has threatened Russia by allowing more Easterly countries to join since 1997. It is true that Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria have all joined for example, alongside Croatia and Slovenia but Putin is just angered because these are all ex Communist Bloc countries and some of them used to be part of the USSR and he wants them back. They undoubtedly wanted to join NATO because they wanted to protect their recent independence and did so for defensive purposes not because they wanted to attack Russia.

As Ukraine is not a NATO member article 5 cannot be triggered and so I cannot see Biden or other key NATO country leaders agreeing to implement a no fly zone or anything that might lead to putting NATO at war with Russia. There may be very good reasons for this but as Putin ramps up his attacks on Ukraine it clearly does not sit well with an increasing number of people that the West does not to do more to prevent it. War should always be avoided if possible but surely sometimes you have to fight for what is right once all other options have been exhausted.