So, looks like everyone's favourite Cold War Warrior, bear wrestler, topless combat-trouser-modeller, friend to Nigel Farage and general all round manly man may be the next best hope we have for a worldwide (or at least Europe-wide) conflagration the like of which has not been seen since the 40s. You’re all aware of the shenanigans (if one may call it that) in the Crimea, which managed to provoke the West into a frenzy of apathy, due to a combination of some deft “facts on the ground” created by the ever-canny Putin and the fact he sells us all our gas and we don’t want to piss him off.
The latest instalment, courtesy of Kern, is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26919928We do have a treaty with Ukraine, so if they do get invaded properly, I can’t see us doing nothing about it. There will be enormous pressure from the Central and Eastern European NATO members for us to do something, so they are reassured that we’ll step in if they’re next. That or they may end up taking things into their own hands. I can’t see how we can sit back and do nothing at all if there is an actual, honest to goodness invasion. Then again, maybe the takeover of Ukraine will be another Sudentenland-esque approach which allows our fearless leaders to back down without looking like spineless cowards.
It's worth quoting my opening post here:
Quote:
Up until now, Russia had been our best bet for kicking off World War (huh!) 3. Now, however, the once great opponent who met our watery capitalist eyes over the Iron Curtain with a steely communist gaze is a broken shell of its former mass-tractor producing self. Its armed forces are barely functioning, for all the supposedly good kit they have knocking about, and they can barely pay the manpower that they still have. Moreover, if diplomatic push with their effete capitalist running dog foes comes to potential military shove it's entirely unlikely that Mother Russia would actually man up and break out the armoured divisions or the MIRVs. The majority of their wealth derives from selling us fuel, and there's a gravy train they can't afford to derail, for all of Putin's Cold War Warrior rehetoric.
Oh how wrong I was. Then again, a lot has changed in the last few years, and clearly Putin is muchly enboldened by the war-weariness of the main Western protagonists, the massive economic hold he has over Europe (and the scads of cash he's made out of us), and his cast iron position as, effectively, a popular dictator-for-life in Russia
Poor show Pakistan and North Korea, poor show. I had such great hopes for you both.