[US News & World Report] Russia's ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, recently warned Sweden that if it joined NATO, Russia would respond with "counter measures." Unfortunately, this was not an isolated threat. It is part of a pattern of earlier threats issued by senior Russian leaders to Sweden and Finland to bully them to comply with Moscow's wishes over their alliance choices. Stockholm and Helsinki must not underestimate these threats and should make more of an effort to deter Russia from carrying them out. Deterring Russia will require greater political attention to this problem and more defense capabilities against this unconventional military threat.
Would NATO step up to protect either country if the Rooskies attacked?
Tatarintsev made it clear that these threats come directly from Russian President Vladimir Putin. The ambassador specifically warned that "Putin [himself] pointed out that there will be consequences," if Sweden or Finland try to join NATO. What kind of consequences are the Russians threatening? According to Tatarintsev, Russia's response will be "of the military kind." These threats are very troubling because Russia is being very explicit that if Sweden and Finland move closer to NATO membership, Russia's response will be a lot more dangerous than simple diplomatic criticism. Moscow has already demonstrated it is willing to overreact to misperceived threats to Russia's security.
#3
....OTOH, the Finns have handed the Sovi Russians their asses twice in living memory, and if there's one thing the Russians don't forget, it's who's capable of doing so. They won't go after the Finns anytime soon. Sweden is getting ready to reintroduce limited conscription (without much in the way of protest/complaint, it should be noted) and even in their current condition they can hand the Russians a bloody nose they won't soon forget.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/09/2015 7:56 Comments ||
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#4
What of the Malmo population of Sweden?
How do the Muzzies in the north react to this?
How do the Ruskies react to a northern version of Chechnya?
Sweden can't defend itself. Literally cannot defend itself. The Russians could take Sweden in a day. Apparently, so could the Ruritanians. How did Sweden get this way? Ingrid Carlqvist explains.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Sweden is being conquered by moslem immigration.
Russian troops are a secondary worry
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/09/2015 0:32 Comments ||
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#2
Sweden is being conquered by moslem immigration.
Nope garth. Muslims are like maggots. First you have to be dead.
#3
But they have a social welfare system that is the envy of every Lefty in America, who don't live there among the 99 percent white population with an embedded Lutheran heritage which despises corruption that is rampant among the ranks of same said Left.
[AmericanInterest] The following is written testimony delivered to the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services on August 5, 2015. Click here to watch the hearing live.
Thoughtful analysis from a well-respected history professor, who argues that the danger of President Obama's deal goes well beyond the impact of ayatollas with nukes... and that the non-nuclear impact will be greater and more debilitating. Long.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Technically, Iraq was won, then thrown away similar to winning WWI only to have to return again in WWII because the corrupt, petty, tribal, and incompetent locals and a similar American administration.
#2
IMO Brooks is making a mistake grouping these events.
Vietnam was a limited war in the context of a global cold war.
Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are parts of bigger war.
On 9/11 2001 the there was a massive attack on American soil. The attacker did not observe any limits when selecting targets.
Without these attacks there would have been no conflict and Western defeat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran.
The US could afford to lose the Vietnam war because it was a limited war. The US and NATO could not and cannot afford the 9/11 war and yet the 9/11 war is lost.
The world now knows that a massive attack on the US will make the US & the West docile, submissive and obedient. Such an attack is a winning move, not a mistake.
#3
Democrat Defeat. They and their base actively undermine and perform sedition to cause defeat in the jaws of victory
Posted by: Frank G on the road ||
08/09/2015 14:07 Comments ||
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#4
Youse got it backwards EH, if we had avoided the Vietnam fiasco by revisiting Hanoi and Haiphong during their their last offensive none of this other shitery would have happened.
[Dawn] By far the biggest threat we have faced is that of violent extremism. And while the highly successful ongoing military operation has defanged most of the militant networks in Fata, the poisonous ideology that gave birth to them continues to circulate unchecked in our classrooms, mosques, madressahs and the media. Despite the resolve expressed in the National Action Plan, little has been done to crack down on the purveyors of a violent extremist ideology.
Other long-term reforms remain largely ignored. Our public educational and health systems have virtually collapsed. The population continues to grow at an unsustainable rate. Our shortfall in energy generation is hobbling industrial growth. The violent insurgency in BaloÂchisÂtan, and the state's ruthless attemÂpts to quell it, go on claiming innocent lives. And sadly, Sindh is still controlled and strangulated by a cynical, venal PPP leadership.
As you can see, I'm back in my doom-and-gloom mode. But if we are to indeed put Pakistan on track towards peace and prosperity, some serious decisions need to be taken, and a consensus evolved. And while the military has taken the lead in the anti-terror campaign, it obviously cannot deliver on the economic and social fronts.
One problem in reforming the madressah system as well as our school curricula, where deemed problematic, is that such a step would lead to an immediate confrontation with our clerics and religious parties. Over time, their street power has increased, even if their representation in our assemblies has not. Musharraf, at the height of his power, backed down when it came to reforming the madressahs.
So how to evolve a consensus on this divisive issue? In a country that has been tending to move towards fundamentalism since Ziaul Haq, no politician wants to take on our clergy. With the space for rational debate shrinking rapidly, we seem stuck in our trajectory.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/09/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Our herd instinct developed as lower animals transformed into humans over thousands of centuries. Without it our ancestors could not have banded together to fight off wild animals or help each other harvest crops. Our species still needs cooperation and a strong group instinct ‐ in fact we need it more than ever before. But the downside is that in places where critical thinking is unusual, herds are readily manipulated by political leaders and demagogues. The "groupthink" phenomenon has been pretty well documented, I think. I don't think humans have ever traveled in herds. If they did then we're unique among the anthropoids. Apes, of which we're a glorified variety, function in families and clans in the wild. I think we're unique in that we evolved into tribes and eventually into nations. There is a superset of held belief held at each level.
Pakistan's political scene reinforces this dismal truth. Just look at the nonchalance of Imran Khan and his followers after the judicial commission issued its report last month. A patient sifting of the evidence had decisively repudiated their claims of systematic mass rigging in the 2013 elections. But the heroic kaptan and his herd were unapologetic. Imran was made to look foolish by the results. All he has to do is ignore the fact. Short Attention Span Syndrome will kick in and it will be as though it never was.
During their dharna carnival last year, they made Islamabad grind to a halt. Perched on his container, Cricketer Khan, together with the jet-setting cleric, Tahirul Qadri, had demanded fresh elections and promised to make milk and honey flow. They vowed to eliminate corruption but neither had a plan. Their groupies didn't ask for one.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/09/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Found this on Jerry Pournelle's site, FWIW:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded—here and there, now and then—are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
Of course it does. But apparently Germany promises to protect Israel, though the method of that protection is not made clear. And in the meantime, Germany is in discussions with Iran to sell them all sorts of things (Jobs! and profits!!) in exchange for Iranian oil.
Bored with meaningless diplomatic intrigues? Follow the money.
#1
The German & European political class have some experience crafting non-violent suicide pacts, namely the Euro. Their endorsement of this madness is no surprise.
In reality a nuclear Iran is a strategic nightmare especially for non-nuclear Germany.
Iran does have a history of responding aggressively to diplomatic outreach by Germany which Iran correctly interpreted a gesture of weakness.
In 1984 German foreign minister Genscher was the first Western visitor in Teheran after 1979.
Iran responded with exploratory aggression against Germany.
[PJ Media] Spoiler Alert: I will now reveal the actual contents of the Obama administration's proposed agreement with the Tehran regime. Here it is:
In exchange for pretending to halt its nuclear bomb program for one year, Iran will be given the funds it needs to take over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Once that is done, the bomb program will be able to proceed on a greatly expanded scale, without credible threat of interference.
It is in this light that the deal needs to be evaluated.
All of the critiques of the deal which point out that its text would allow Iran to develop an atomic bomb ten years from now are true enough, but miss the barn entirely. What matters is not what it says it will allow ten years from now, but how its acceptance will affect the balance of forces between Iran and its opponents one year from now. Because it is the balance of forces, and not the text, that will determine what either side is able to do.
Obama's agreement has been compared to both the failed North Korean anti-proliferation accords and the Munich Agreement. While there is a superficial resemblance to the North Korean agreements, since they also fecklessly allowed an outlaw nation to develop nuclear weapons, Munich is in fact the much better analogy. The reason for this is that the North Korean regime is bordered on all sides by stronger powers. It is thus contained. There is no credible threat that North Korea can conquer Russia, China, Japan, or even South Korea. The Norks can yell and scream and wave their bombs around, but they are not going anywhere. Iran, on the other hand, is surrounded by weaker powers and is very much on the march. This is why the Munich comparison is so apt.
The problem with the Munich Agreement was not merely that it encouraged Hitler, but that it enabled Hitler. By giving away Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain not only silenced Hitler's domestic opposition, he threw away 35 Czech divisions and handed the Germans control of the superb Czech armaments industry. Furthermore, he exposed Poland's entire southern border to Nazi attack, thereby rendering that country indefensible. With Poland thus offered for sacrifice, the Soviets saw no reason why they shouldn't cut a deal with Hitler and take their share. The stage was thus set for war, and not only war, but war with a Nazi juggernaut that had been greatly empowered.
We face a similar situation today with Iran. As a result of the American withdrawal from Iraq, the decisions of the current administration to use its influence to support the installation of an Iranian proxy regime in Baghdad and to refrain from opposing the Iranian proxy regime in Damascus and its forces in Lebanon, and the planned U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the way is now clear for the establishment of a new Persian Empire stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Hindu Kush. The Tehran regime does not need atom bombs to accomplish that goal. But they do need money. By releasing $150 billion within a year, freeing up their oil industry for unlimited exports, and opening up the world market to their purchasing agents, the Obama treaty will give the Iranians the stuff they need to prevail.
But won't the treaty at least significantly delay Iran's acquisition of a nuclear arsenal? Not at all. Here is why.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[US News & World Report] Russia's ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, recently warned Sweden that if it joined NATO, Russia would respond with "counter measures." Unfortunately, this was not an isolated threat. It is part of a pattern of earlier threats issued by senior Russian leaders to Sweden and Finland to bully them to comply with Moscow's wishes over their alliance choices. Stockholm and Helsinki must not underestimate these threats and should make more of an effort to deter Russia from carrying them out. Deterring Russia will require greater political attention to this problem and more defense capabilities against this unconventional military threat.
