were exaggerated. Or rather, the information in the Western press was essentially propaganda.
I think it’s worth acknowledging that I swallowed it, only to be corrected by a number of readers. The Ukrainian rebels were tougher than I expected, Russian support seems to have been more significant and the Ukrainian military was simply not up to the task. They couldn’t win the street fighting.
This means that Russia still has a strong negotiating position with regards to Ukraine’s future: their preferred option, of course, is federalization and forbidding NATO expansion into the Ukraine.
Meanwhile we must continue to keep an eye on sanctions. The risk here is real sanctions being imposed on Russia, Russia retaliating with a gas shut off and an economic collapse in Europe. Note that the key player here is actually China, who can easily keep Russia afloat if they choose to (China is printing far more money than the Fed was at the height of its unconventional monetary policy.) The West keeps assuming it is the only game, and that it controls the money spigots: shut them off and they can crush anyone. That is no longer true. The question will be “what does China want to keep Russia afloat, or alternately, from the West, to cut them off.”
In my opinion, while China and Russia have some differing interests, those pale compared to their need for each as allies against the West. The American Foreign Affairs and security establishment has been clear that they want to pivot against China, whom they see (correctly) as the largest threat to American hegemony. For China to allow the West to crush Russia would be a colossal mistake, especially when the cost of keeping them alive is not that significant a world awash with printed money.
As for Europe, they are being fools and they will pay the price for it. Satraps of a self-interested and cruel hegemonic power are never treated well, and Europe does not need to be a satrap, yet chooses that path against their own self-interest.
So be it.
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Ghostwheel
I’m curious as to what extent people here believe the European leaders might have actually been blackmailed or, quite literally, bribed to acquiesce to the US position.
Compound F
A lot of bail-out money went to European banks. My sixth sense is that europe is between a rock and a hard place finance- and energy-wise, and the douchebags in Brussels are gambling on the “hegemonic” Monopoly money plan, whereas Putin has actual resources, albeit peaking resources, actual resources much desired around the world at a time when Western debt-dollar discipline looks dubious. Oops.
OldSkeptic
It is complex. There are ideological reasons, career reasons, monetary reasons, ‘pressure’ reasons.
Ideology is a combination of believing in the Washington order, that its continuation is more important than (say) your own country’s self interests. Plus there is a hierarchical element to it. You may be the boss of your country, but the President is your boss.
Career. Big one this. Wiki leaks show some great Australian examples. Bob Carr (NSW Premier then federal Foreign Minister) was recorded as going regularly to the US Embassy telling all on Labor internal politics. Another was a defence minister going to them to ask them for help him become Labor leader.
So there are definitely career noddy points for ‘following the line’ . This will also applies to the military and national security organisations. Sticking to Australia, what is the chance of an Australia firstist’ becoming head of the military…yeh right…zero.
The tentacles of the US are deep indeed, being against them will mean you don’t get far. However if you stick by the script doors will open.
Monetary: Of course there is direct and, more common indirect bribery. Indirect is where if you do your job well for them then lucrative rewards will follow in consultancy, speaking engagements, etc, etc.
Pressure: Of course there will be blackmail, both hard and subtle. Every now and then someone gets thrown to the wolves just to show others what can happen to you if you step out of line and the ‘protection’ stops, Strauss-Kahn being a classic example.
Stay with the program and your affairs, porn, paedophilia, use of prostitutes, corruption, etc, etc, will just be ignored.
What you think they spend all that money on the NSA (etc) just to catch terrorists? Nope a major function is to collect dirt and/or make sure the satraps stay on the program.
So it is multi-faceted and very, very effective. Another thing they are good at is talent spotting potential leaders and getting their hooks into them early, bit of financial help, opening doors for them, spotting weaknesses and so on.
Quite brilliant when you think about it.
Compound F
Maybe “paper-for-oil” broke its ankle, and the orthopedic surgeon only takes payment in bling.
OldSkeptic
Ian, there was little street fighting. The Ukrainian Army (UA) stopped outside towns and then shelled them. Only the neo-nazi militias tries to go into the towns for terror attacks…and got very quickly shot to bits.
The real fighting was done in the countryside. The Federalists (NA for short) applied true 3rd generation warfare tactics (manoeuvre warfare) against them, repeatedly running rings around the UA forces, cutting them off, forcing them into cauldrons and either slaughtering them or forcing them surrender.
We haven’t seen anything like this since France in 1940. In fact I’d argue the NA have done far, far better. Though the Wehrmacht was heavily outnumbered by the French and British the ratio against them was nothing like what the NA faced, which was 10:1 or even 20:1.
Arguably this is the greatest conventional military victory in recorded history. Even more so in that the NA has no airforce and the UA used their’s until they had non left, the NA shot them out of the air..
That implies incredibly skilled anti-air ‘traps’ and tactics, to be as successful as them is not just an issue of pointing your shoulder mounted anti-air missile at a plane whizzing past, you have to set things up really carefully.
Even better than Hezbollah, which fought superb defensive war but had the advantage of well dug in positions and a long preparation time to set up their supply dumps and C&C systems. The NA had to create all those on the fly, during battle. Plus the NA repeatedly showed themselves as masters of the attack as well as the defence.
The NA’s mastery of artillery was, in my mind, probably decisive. Though they had far less, what they had they used masterfully.
Let’s not forget the role of their SAS type people (Recon and sabotage as they call them). Tiny fast mobile teams that went everywhere and could find and target UA forces, plus do some damage as well.
The combination of the two meant whole groups of UA forces suddenly being eliminated by massive artillery attacks before they even saw the enemy.
The NA’s mater of movement was awe inspiring. While the UA stuck to roads the NA were totally mobile across all terrains (as manoeuvre warfare requires).
So this was not a guerrilla type defence in the cities, this was superb conventional warfare, at a level never seen before.
OldSkeptic
Ghostwheel , sometimes the bribes can be huge. Various article about how the Ukrainian oligarchs have ripped of $3.1 billion in IMF money….
Others will be jealous…..lol.
Celsius 233
OldSkeptic
Arguably this is the greatest conventional military victory in recorded history. Even more so in that the NA has no airforce and the UA used their’s until they had non left, the NA shot them out of the air.
So this was not a guerrilla type defence in the cities, this was superb conventional warfare, at a level never seen before.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You’re enthusiasm is duly noted; but your statement’s accuracy is questionable.
History is rife with accounts of insurmountable odds being overcome; the Viet Minh and the Viet Cong come to mind.
We don’t really know the game on the ground because we’re not there.
I’m likewise impressed with what was accomplished by the Federalists and hope their success continues, but will be looking for first hand accounts of who, what, when, and how.
Cheers
Ian Welsh
I tend to see it as not just about maneuver but morale. The Ukrianian military was simply not willing to push forward and take the necessary losses.
As for the NA, their core leadership were some of the best ex-Russian military guys around, and a lot of their troops were seasoned Russians as well.
It does suggest that the very best Russian units are FAR better than the West, which tends to sneer at the Russian military, thinks.
grayslady
Well, the Russian military has been at it a lot longer than most so they should have learned a few things. It was because Russians have such an excellent military that I knew we were insane to go into Afghanistan. (Russians realistically assessed their losses in Afghanistan, licked their wounds and cut out.) If there are better fighters than the Russians it may be the Afghans, but US political and military leaders (and probably a fair share of our insecure populace) have always been desperate to prove American military force is superior to that of “those godless commies”. In my observations, invading armies are always at a disadvantage against people defending their homes and livelihoods.
OldSkeptic
Oh I don’t underestimate the morale factor at all. The NA were defending their homes, that is always a heck of a strong motivation for people, videos and interviews of them all constantly showed very high morale amongst them.
But, given the disparity in numbers, without exemplary skill they would still have lost, or at best would have been ground down into a guerrilla war in the rubble of the towns and cities, while the UA simply stood off and bombed/shelled them to dust. From the Ukrainian Govt point of view that would have been a good outcome, basically ethnic cleansing of the areas and in the end they would have won.
But the NA had the skills to take the battle to the countryside, using superior manoeuvre tactics to take on and crush a greatly superior force. Time after time we saw them cutting off UA forces. Now that may seem am obvious thing to do (and it is) but it is not easy to pull off.
You have to know where they are, you have to get your forces into position, with some holding them on the front, while other encircle. You have to hold off any attempt at a breakout or reinforcements coming in to aid them. You have to maintain your own supply lines, if you run out of ammo/fuel before they do then your encirclement can turn out to be a reverse trap.
All your technical skills have to excellent, plus all the time you have no air support and they do (which just from a recon point of view should have been decisive for the UA).
Wiping out the UA air force takes more than just firing stuff at them randomly. It needs carefully thought out flak/anti-air missile positioning, with no radar warning it also means very fast reflexes and excellent technical skills.
And you have to build all your C&C, logistics, training, repair, etc systems from nothing in a few months while under intense attack at all times.
And all in 6-7 months to achieve a shattering defeat. Not taking away anything from the Vietnamese, but it took them decades to do the same and they had a high component of 4th generation (ie guerrilla) warfare to impose attrition, at a very high cost to them, on the US.
Note that attrition was only suffered by the UA, the NA forces, particularly at first, could not survive any serious losses, even one battle that went wrong early on would have crippled, maybe ended them. The temptation for the NA to stay on the defensive to avoid losses must have been immense, but instead they went on the attack right from the beginning, constantly intercepting UA convoys of forces and imposing serious losses (and gaining lots of equipment).
The key strategic battle was the southern cauldron. The UA tried to do an end run round the south to shut off the border and do a broad encirclement of the NA forces. The NA took a tremendous risk by basically putting everything they had into it, to stop the advance then encircle them. This is why there were so little resistance at first to the UA pushes in Donetsk (etc), because everything the NA had was in the south at the time.
That was gutsy, they stayed there to finish the encirclement and the crushing of the UA forces , even though the temptation to move north must have been immense, though if they had they probably would have lost in the end, by freeing large numbers of UA forces. By staying and smashing the UA there they closed a flank, gained huge amounts of much needed equipment and set the scene for their later push south west.
Only then did they move north again and, if you look at the maps achieved 3 or 4 major encirclements of UA forces in very short order. At the point the game was over, the UA had basically lost its army, plus its air force was gone.
All this in 6-7 months…wow, as I said, one for the history books. Not even Rommel managed that, at worst he faced 2:1 British superiority when he ran rings around them in North Africa. Not 10:1. And he had an excellent air force.
The UA/NA ratio closed over time, at the beginning it was at least 20:1, as the NA grew and inflicted huge losses the gap closed, but even at the beginning of the southern cauldron it was at least 10:1 against them.
OldSkeptic
Grayslady, yep. For an example look at the Georgian war. The US/Israeli armed/trained forces ran for their lives when the Russian tanks came over the horizon….oops.
As for equipment, we in the west always go on about our equipment. And some of it is very good, unfortunately quite a lot is just PR (like the M1 tank) and in fact is pretty crap.
The Russians have always been good at ‘good enough’ equipment, that is also reliable, cheap and easy to fix, not something you can say about much western kit with its insane complexity (and cost). Plus, it seems to me they are better balanced in their force composition.
We tend in the west to go for an ‘all the eggs in one basket’ approach too often. A classic example is our air-air fighting doctrine. It is heavily reliant on AWAC support, take them out (plus the tankers) and then they will be in real trouble, even more so as the F-35 gets introduced (if it ever does of course) .
So anyone that underestimates the Russian forces is an idiot.
Loved Dimtri Orlov’s article ‘How can you tell whether Russia has invaded Ukraine? “, http://cluborlov.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/how-can-you-tell-whether-russia-has.html
“You be the judge. I put together this helpful list of top ten telltale signs that will allow you to determine whether indeed Russia invaded Ukraine last Thursday, or whether Thursday’s announcement is yet another confabulation. (Credit to Roman Kretsul).
Because if Russia invaded on Thursday morning, this is what the situation on the ground would look like by Saturday afternoon.”
……
“10. Kiev has surrendered. There are Russian tanks on the Maidan Square. Russian infantry is mopping up the remains of Ukraine’s National Guard. A curfew has been announced. The operation to take Kiev resembled “Shock and Awe” in Baghdad: a few loud bangs and then a whimper.”
OldSkeptic
Old article (August) by still gives a good idea of how the US ‘deep state’/neo-cons really think…and what makes their dreams drippingly wet. By Herbert E. Meyer who served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/how_to_solve_the_putin_problem.html
I wont parse it all, but the factual/ logical mistakes and the incredible ignorance of Russian politic are epic. Just one, Putin more than likely would be replaced by a far more aggressive person than him….in Russian terms, over the Ukraine, he is a moderate and very cautious and careful.
Note also, Meyer wants the Russian Oligarchs to stage a coup, end democracy there and come onto the western side….but insults them totally….wow, how to win hearts and minds eh?
The racism, arrogance and hubris is breathtaking.
“Russia’s oligarchs are among the most pushy, self-indulgent, thoroughly unpleasant bunch of billionaires in history; the old phrase nouveau riche doesn’t come close to evoking their ostentatious behavior. All they care about are their yachts, their private jets, and the blonde-bombshell-shopoholic mistresses they stash at their multi-million-dollar condos in London, New York, and on the Riviera, and like to flash around at swishy restaurants.
Are they really willing to give up all this for — Donetsk? Or for Riga, or Tallinn? Are you kidding?”
“Simply put, we should make clear to the Russian business executives and oligarchs who are the target of Western sanctions that Putin is their problem, not ours. These people may lack the spark of political genius or the high-minded patriotism that drove our country’s Founding Fathers — but they aren’t stupid. It won’t be long before a bunch of them get together for a quiet conversation — perhaps in a Moscow board room, more likely on a yacht anchored off the Cote d’Azur — to, um, decide what might be best for Russia’s future.
Since subtlety doesn’t work with Russians, the president and his European counterparts should also make absolutely clear that we have no interest whatever in how these people solve their Putin problem. If they can talk good old Vladimir into leaving the Kremlin with full military honors and a 21-gun salute — that would be fine with us. If Putin is too too stubborn to acknowledge that his career is over, and the only way to get him out of the Kremlin is feet-first, with a bullet hole in the back of his head — that would also be okay with us.
Nor would we object to a bit of poetic justice…. For instance, if the next time Putin’s flying back to Moscow from yet another visit with his good friends in Cuba, or Venezuela, or Iran, his airplane gets blasted out of the sky by some murky para-military group that somehow, inexplicably, got its hands on a surface-to-air missile.”
Ian Welsh
The USSR’s army was made up of ill trained conscripts. The best units were very good, but most of it wasn’t very good at all. What it had was quantity, and plenty of it.
OldSkeptic
True Ian. But their ‘elite’ units were excellent. Everyone generalised the ‘bad conscripts’ to their entire forces, forgetting that their top notch ones were still a large and very significant force.
Partly it was doctrine, strategic depth of forces were important to them. On the attack the sprearhead would be their good units with the poorer conscripts following on, mopping up and holding ground.
The USSR signed up to manouervre warfare early on, not long after WW2. But you need the extra forces to mop up bypassed and cut off enemy forces. If you use your best ones for that then it slows down your advance.
The ‘follow on’, poorer quality ones were fitted for that role, replacing the elites (eg) surrounding a cut off enemy, enabling these to push on again. Plus you always need boots on the ground to hold territory that you have gained (ensuring safety of supply lines) and to give you depth to avoid a possible counter encirclement.
So it was quite clever and they had a clear strategic/operational/tactical doctrine worked out.
Plus, in the defence, even poorly trained troops in good positions will give the best attackers a hard time, enabling you to marshal your elite ones for a focused counter attack.
Oh they learned from WW2 and, within the limitations of their resources, what they came up with was pretty clever.
Dan Lynch
+1 on what Ghostwheel said about blackmail. Why do you think the NSA spies on European politicians?
I admire Putin’s foreign policy smarts but his weakness seems to be economics. Russia recently passed a 3% sales tax and increased their VAT. Regressive taxes will shrink their economy and perhaps do far more damage than the Western sanctions. IMHO Russia needs to take a cue from China and print money to invest in domestic manufacturing and agriculture so they don’t have to rely on Western imports.
www.MythFighter.com
Ian, instead of mainstream media propaganda you should read
http://www.Cassad.net &
http://www.ColonelCassad.com for the latest news & analysis on Ukraine that details the military situation accurately
as
well as ex-NATO US military intel analyst http://VineyardSaker.blogspot.com
as well as ex-NATO German military intel analyst http://www.MoonofAlabama.org
The Russians & East Ukraine were part of the Mongol Empire for 220+ years the smart Russians/Ukrainians learned Mongol tactics
http://winterpatriot.com/node/921
It became quickly obvious that the militia were very effective by inflicting a disproportionate number of casualties on the junta forces and capturing arms, ammunition and heavy equipment including some tanks. The militia were organised into what is known as Saboteur-Reconnaissance Groups (SRG’s).
These are lightly armed and very mobile. They survive by not remaining in one place long enough to attract enemy artillery.
But how were they so effective against a trained army that far outnumbered them? In battle reports, a criticism kept recurring. The junta battle formations would advance without protecting their flanks and would find themselves surrounded by the NAF and in the middle of what became ‘killing fields’. But how could SRG’s do this?
Well, the SRG’s acted together in formations and these formations went undetected (it seems) by the junta forces till it was too late.
There was a very simple tactic that the Mongols used very effectively against the Medieval Europeans time and time again and it appears to me that the NAF employed the same simple tactic with the same devastating results.
The Mongols would send a group of warriors against a walled town or city and attack the gates. The local lord’s forces, who were forewarned of the Mongols’ advance, had barricaded themselves inside their siege proof walls.
The local forces would rain down arrows, spears and anything they could find onto the Mongols below.
After a short while the Mongols would turn-tail and would scamper off and over the nearest hill.
The local lord seeing this would order the drawbridge lowered and would set off with his troops in pursuit of the Mongols confident he had them beat.
All went well until they rode over the hill where the Mongols had prepared a three sided trap with a much larger force.
The forth side was closed behind the arrogant and stupid lord’s forces and a massacre ensued after which the Mongols rode into the city and took uncontested possession of it.
I think this is exactly what the NAF have done with the junta forces.
The NAF would engage the junta army with a SRG and then retreat causing the Kiev knuckleheads to follow in hot pursuit stretching their supply lines, leaving their flanks unprotected and into the killing field set for them.
They did this time and again. These traps became known as “cauldrons”. All this was done with very few men.
It was often remarked that the NAF forces were made up of middle aged men. “Where were the young men who should be along side them fighting for their land and families?”
They were in Russia. Many families which included young men were evacuated to the Rostov area of Russia where, once their young families were safe, they were trained by the Russian armed forces to return to Novorossia when the time came.
It was all part of an overall strategy that proved costly but devastatingly effective during WW11.
While Russian forces with little equipment and ammunition held on for interminable months of siege in major Russian cities such as Leningrad and Stalingrad, the Soviet government was training and equipping divisions of troops in the east.
When the siege defenders were almost done (and hence maximum damage and exhaustion extracted from the Germans) the fresh divisions stormed westward and overran the German army.
The same strategy was employed in this Ukrainian civil war but in a much more limited and condensed way.
When the time came to go from the SRG/Mongol tactic to the WW11 offensive strategy, Strelkov was relieved of command to make way for a whole new command group that had been trained along with the newly trained Novorossian volunteers.
Alexander Zakharchenko and Vladimir Kononov took over and announced the arrival of 1200 trained volunteers to the ranks (I think it is safe to say that there are many more than 1200 and that there are even more on the way).
These volunteers were trained in operating tanks and artillery. The offensive was about to begin.
The junta forces have all been drawn to the east of Ukraine and have been decimated. By the time the offensive is complete, there will likely be no Ukrainian Army or other “punitive” forces in effective existence.
This will leave the way open for the Novorossians, like the Mongols before them, to stroll into Kiev without resistance.
The US had finally twigged to what was about to go down and started scrambling to save at least some territory in Ukraine.
All sorts of people started to say that federalisation of Ukraine wasn’t such a bad idea, after all, including Angela Merkel most recently.
Tsigantes
European satraps…
Writing from Athens.
DeGaulle warned that NATO was the US Trojan Horse in Europe and so it has proved.
After the 1989 dissolution of the USSR, NATO should have disbanded. Instead it ‘re-invented’ itself. How? We know about the new out-of-area missions, the adoption of new principles such as the so-called ‘humaitarian’ warfare and the Ignatieff-UN ‘responsibility to protect’.
But is that all? Consider the simultaneous post-1989 transformation of the EEC into the EU, starting from the formal re-unification of Germany in 1990.
Germany’s first “act” was to recognise breakaway Croatia, thus precipitating the Yugoslav war, and the subsequent break-up of Yugoslavia into 7 statelets, one of them a US-protectorate – Kosovo – which is home to a huge US base, and policed at the expense of European taxpayers in the form of a massive EULEX presence. The 2 main boulevards in Pristina, its capital, are called George W. Bush and William Clinton respectively.
The Yugoslav war destroyed the 2 founding principles of the EEC / EU: 1) ‘never again’ war in Europe and 2) the invioblity of borders.
In 1991 the Treaty on European Union was signed at Maastricht, the EEC became the EU, with the establishment of a neo-liberal single market based on competition between states, and with a commitment to the development of monetary union In 1997 the Warsaw Pact countries started the EU accession process, breaking the 1989 pact with Russia. The Lisbon Treaty made NATO membership mandatory for all new EU members. By 2004 and 2007 all ex-Warsaw Pact countries were now EU countries.
This simple timeline is a rich retrospective source:
http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/1990-1999/index_en.htm
http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/2000-2009/index_en.htm
http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/2010-today/index_en.htm
1999 the Eurozone is established and 9/11/2001 commits NATO / EU to the nebulous ‘War on Terror’ and thus NATO/EU participation in Afghanistan and Iraq. RTP and ‘humanitarian’ warfare commits the EU to undeclared war on Libya.
The 2008 crash introduces the IMF, Troika and Austerity to the EU and in the process destroys its remaining pillars – Equality of nations, the French-German structural axis and the Social Pact protecting EU citizens’ economic and social rights (the 4 Freedoms)
The result: an EU run by the one country no other European country historically likes or trusts – Germany – with an Ossi ex-Stasi Chancellor Merkel and a Wessie career spymeister , Scheuble, in charge of finance. Scheuble trained as a lawyer and has no economic knowledge or experience.
(And this harks back to the unilateral US decision post-1945 to rebuild Germany as an economic power – today stronger than ever – at the expense of the Allies, who at the 1953 London Conference agreed to forego reparations in order to realise this goal. Why did the US not chose instead to leave German industry in ruins and invest in developing new industrial bases throughout Europe so as to strengthen and equalise the continent? A question.)
Meanwhile, with most Germans totally opposed to war with Russia and ditto German industry, with Germany and indeed Europe’s economy and future at stake, it is time to ask how independent is Germany? The German press the last 6 months has been full of leaked / ‘placed’ articles and blog posts hinting at Germany’s missing sovereignty, and leaks of a 1945 US secret pact with Germany in which the US is Germany’s ultimate arbiter for 90 years. Trith? Who knows. Yet it explains a lot. Including Germany’s unilateral offer to Ukraine during spring / summer 2013 for associative accord with the EU. (With fully worked out details, including cessation of all trade with Russia, projected IMF participation, austerity, 100% shutdown of all industry – chiefly affecting the east, ie Novorussia – all of which took time to prepare and was hardly off the cuff.) Thus precipitating the war in Ukraine. Croatia anyone?
Meanwhile Monsanto reached its GMO deal with Ukraine in Dec. 2013, just before the coup – using Ukraine as a backdoor into an EU (and Russia) that is anti-GMO. This was followed by the Greek EU presidency permitting discussions on GMO at the commission in March-April. Surprise.
Again, how independent is Germany, with 21 US bases on its soil plus the US European Command and a permanent presence of 300,000 US soldiers?
And how independent is Europe if it suddenly decided to secede from NATO and the US alliance?
US Nuclear sites in Europe:
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/Nuclear_Volkel_Uden_Netherlands.html
US and NATO bases in Turkey:
http://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.gr/2013/05/the-geneva-talks-exercise-in-futility.html
Key NATO bases in Europe:
http://www.wri-irg.org/taxonomy/term/393?page=9
No. of NATO bases per country:
http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/04/16/how-far-will-nato-dare-to-ramp-up-its-military-presence-in-eastern-europe/
And what about the mysterious 1987 initiative to include Turkey in the EU? Leapfrogging 15+ European states not inside the EEC to do so. Where was the logic? Neither Turkey nor Europe see Turkey as a European state, though technically a small part of Turkey is in Europe not Asia. Neither culturally nor historically nor geographically. Who proposed that?
Equally mysterious, more alarming, why has the UK ceased having any independent foreign policy since Tony Blair? This is truly the Elephant in the room. Despite Thatcher’s friendliness to Reagan, breaking the Tories traditional froideur toward the USA, she protected Britain’s interests. What happened?
And whose idea was a United States of Europe? Not the Europeans. The original 12 signed up to a trade bloc, and absolutely NOT eventual loss of sovereignty and self-determination as ‘regions’ inside a non-democratic Federal structure [ruled by Berlin?]. Spain as a region? France as a region? Please.
There are many more questions and European anomolies.
As for European support for war in Ukraine / war against Russia, it is – apart from UK, Poland & the Baltics – nil. This should be clear from the list of allies and their contributions: of the EU countries only France, Italy, Germany will support it to the extent of sending neutral supplies (bullet proof vests etc) and no weapons. The UK is on board of course.
Sanctions are being discreetly bypassed, ignored, unwound, and even South Stream is back on the cards through the back door. Greek fruit is again being sold to Russia.
More or less the same for the war on “ISIS” which the EU wants to stay out of.
The EU are locked into an existential nightmare vis a vis its former patron whose dimensions I hope are a bit clearer with this post.
Easy Al
Speaking about the Chinese support of Russia, here is what Chinese President, Xi Jingping, told Putin today in Dushanbe, Tajikistan:
“I am ready to maintain further contacts with you to strengthen mutual support and expand openness between our countries, so that we could always draw from each other’s support, jointly face external challenges and achieve our grand development and revival goals”.
You can read the news at http://thebricspost.com/china-russia-to-jointly-face-external-challenges-xi/