We Are ONE Event Away From WW3...

I don't think there's really much mystery about Putin. He is essentially a modern Czar with a Czarist point of view, albeit one that makes him more cautious by virtue of his experience in the Cold War KGB. As a Czar, he is concerned with asserting Russian dominance over all of Eurasia, and with ensuring that Russia has a permanent seat with the other "great powers" when it comes to world affairs. Taking land bit by bit via incrementalism is the quintessential, historic Russian strategy. Putin is no different in this way than were the Romanovs before him. The Communists (really Stalinists) who succeeded the Czars for about a century were in some ways certainly more aggressive, and the true believers among them probably really did sort-of believe in a worldwide Communist revolution and resultant, uhh, "paradise".

But for Putin, it's all about reclaiming Russia's status as a great power. Given the catastrophic drop in the Russian birth rate under Communism, as well as the subsequent diaspora of so many Russians following the Soviet collapse, what does he have to work with? Answer: petrodollars and panslav nationalism. That's why he liquidated the oligarchs and nationalized the Russian oil and gas industry, and why he ahem, "allies" himself with Russian biker gangs. Those sectors, along with the military as well as the remnants of the old Soviet bureaucracy, are Putin's real power base.

While today's Russia has definitely come back from the brink of the abyss, Putin knows better than anyone that it is still in no position to fight a protracted conventional war with pretty much anybody. Russia would almost certainly lose in a straight up conventional fight with any other major power in any location other than on Russian soil, and even then I don't think Russian victory would be a foregone conclusion. Nuclear war is of course another matter. But there's only so far he can push nuclear brinksmanship. Beneath that he has to have a truly strong nation and economy, otherwise he's just a bigger version of North Korea.

Now, if Putin's military reforms and buildup had proceeded the way he envisioned prior to 1) the global oil glut, and 2) Western sanctions over Ukraine and the Crimea---both of which have contributed to a significant economic recession in Russia---well, at the end of that process, ie, in another couple of decades, a Russia with thoroughly modern weaponry top to bottom, along with a Russia that might have recovered much of its lost population in another generation, okay. That's another story. Right now, though, Russia to my eyes looks like more than a paper tiger, to be sure, but less than a true superpower. Putin is playing a dangerous game with forces both inside and outside his country, one with an unpredicatble outcome.

Hello 
is anybody able to explain this to me?

I am very confused

Today I saw a women (and a syrian group of people) crying in front of White House holding a picture of Assad looking like hitler. I was heartbroken so I went online to try to understand what she was crying about

so I opened google to see who Assad is and why is the lady so upset with him

and I read

US denies Assad has role in Syrian peace. SSyrian President Bashar al-Assad will never be part of peace negotiations to halt the brutal civil war, US officials have vowed, adding they were taking every step to bring an end to his rule.

- So I thought that's good

www.skynews.com.au...

and then later today I was flipping between chanels and I stop at sbs news and I see assad saying he will step down when people will stop voting for him

so I thought what the hell did I just hear . people voted for him ?

and I came to this 

President Asad obtained 10,319,723 votes, or 88.7% of the valid votes. That means that 65% of the registered

voters chose Assad.

I don't understand ..this is an overwhelming amount of votes for some you don't like

this is the next article I came across
I read this article and comments and I still can not understand what it is saying

news.yahoo.com...

what is going on here ? can anyone help me to understand ?

a reply to: williamjpellas

I personally think, that russia is a superpower. Not on par with the US but for sure the biggest military power in Europe. With Erdogan more on his side than the EU russia is a significant player in europe, middle east, north africa and parts of asia, from a military point of view.

And the envisioned/started modernization of the russian military is exactly what was hit by the ukraine "uprising", cutting all the ropes between the significant ukrainian arms and engineering works with russia. That russia would takeover krimea residents supporting it or not (they do), was a no brainer. They couldnt let it fall into nato/EU hands. And with the only EU association agreement ever that includes military cooperation, the time has come.

But than, I think with F22 and F35 the US will lose its airpower as we know it. Stealth was good when it was secret and no enemy thought about it. Today several technologies exist that render stealth nearly obsolete, leaving aircraft with significant compromised performance, specially the f35.

a reply to: MimiSia

"am I wrong for seeing this as a major issue that can lead to a global one?"

I think russia dont want, cant afford it to become a global war at this time. Also time is what makes the european people think. Europeans that are in any way interested in politics know that europe would be the killing-field. But as there is nothing to gain for europe, they now already got a bankrupt and corrupt ukraine bonded to them, there is nothing to fight for. Krimea is now russia and nothing besides full on war on russia can change that, and that war would devastate at least continental northern europe. Russia on the other hand is quite happy with the way things are going. They got Sevastopol harbor forever and everything points to the eastern parts getting some kind of independence, leaving a nice part of power to the russian influence. This influence is getting bigger and bigger with every aid convoy and refugee fleeing to russia (coming back if peace is made), with every teacher etc. that doesnt get paid anymore by kiev.

a reply to: Geomand

thank you so much for your reply is nice to hear a reply that is rational and calm to the point and real unbiased and short and sweet

a reply to: HD3DSURROUNDSOUND
When ships of the Russian fleet head to the Scandinavian countries do not look as this is not the battle ,look within ,
Time you see the war it would have started

Don't worry about the nukes, worry about the chemicals inside them

a reply to: Geomand

it is not easy living with each other on one boarder. I explained this elsewhere. I gave an example to people here. my country has Historicaly always have hungarians .30-40% of our people speak fluently Hungarian . 30-40% of our parliament seats is Hungarian political party. before I left there was an election for next president .second runner up was an hungarian origin politic. chances of him winning was 40win-60loose. I live 1.5 hours away from the Hungarian boarder. my town has got hungrien schools and often people automatically speak to you first in hungrien . I can't!! i often wished I could say to them to ef of out of my country I said it behind their back. when it came for scheduled cleaning of our housing complex assigned to us .I always missed the floor I was supposed to wash if there was a hungrien living there. as kids we always use to bicker and punch eachother . my great parent and great great parent live in my country same years as this guys. i have no right to be aggresive or ask them to leave. to be honest I can admit it would be extremely unfair if suddently because of my agreesion my country would freeze this people's assets. it is not the fault of hungrien president what is happening in my country . but I can see how he would be upset with our behavior .europe is jampacked. we live on top of each others head . there is no space for houses in the city, also because our boarders are still very freshly painted with an invisible imaginary paint. it is very difficult to resolve this type of issues and it does not help if people breath on your neck to get a move on... it just adds to hostilities if nobody got mixed in things could resolve them selfs. if you have 2 people fighting you need a person the break them up. but sensibly not press one on the neck and gently push the other one away. it would look like u are favoring one of us. it is very complex issue that requires unbiased involvement .if my country promised Hungary they would give them an acces to highway so the can connect to polan or czech rep with can not suddently just cut it of

No we are not...

Our fate is already sealed...We have 3..maybe 5 years before we see the ELE that people have been talking about for the last 2000 years...

Fukushima sealed our fate and we don't even know it....

It has nothing to do with skin color or political or religious agendas...

WE...as a SPECIES....on a planet in the middle of some universe, have just unleashed the final deathblow.....

Look at the food chain and see what is happening....Orcas, seals, plankton.....It will not happen overnight and it WILL not be broadcast on CNN or MSNBC...........

Good luck too all..........

ISO

a reply to: isofakingwetoddid

hey hey don't disappear
can you please tell me what you mean by what u said? sounds interesting

a reply to: MimiSia

I will try to enlighten you. I don't know if you're aware of the history the US has with Russia since WWII but it spanned decades. In that time there has been a race between the US and Russia to build the most supreme military in the history of the world. That builds tension in and of itself. In 1983 Russia was spying on the US and reacted to a war simulation the US was carrying out. Russia was 1 approval away from launching enough nukes over the Arctic Circle to end the world as we know it. Why? Because Russian satellites malfunctioned. There are other examples of this kind of reaction from Russia if you care to search them out. Recently a controversial figure has sought asylum in Russia and was granted it by Russia against the request of the US. What if we had done that to them? Russia continues to fly long range bombers right up to the edge of our international border. If the US did this to Russia it would be considered an act of aggression. Just this week an interview is released with Putin saying they are willing to consider nuclear force over the Ukraine situation. What sane person says something like that, let alone the leader a country like Russia? What would Putin say if Obama made that statement about the Ukraine conflict? Make no mistake - it's not the US who is afraid of Russia but Russia who is afraid of the US. That kind of insecure reactionary paranoia is why Russia makes people nervous. Is that clear enough?

a reply to: neptune13

a reply to: neptune13

I guess

this is purely my opinion I can give physical evidence to my statement

I am just saying if Obama was worried about Russia he would not allow them this year to flight above your country as part of scheduled exercise
they would not allow Russia to do sub and navy drills around you
normaly they overlook it but it was discussed that it would create tensions so USA agreed to do so
USA has scheduled flight drills above Russia
nothing has been canceled

what you are also not mantioning is NATO who is violating rules too

the thing is something will always be violated in drills every day but it is not broadcasted

I can tell you this month china violated all Taiwan air space agreement

china will say yes ok sorry Taiwan will say it is ok but don't let that happen again

the following is something I don't have proof to it is purely an opinion

the problem is getting overblown
media overblows stuff you know why because they know u will go buy a newspaper tomorrow if it says Putin missing
millitary drill was violated by Russia (even if it means it was a 1 meter out of usual violation) and they will keep making money from gossip that always turns of to be nothing the same goes for Russians

Obama and Putin seem to be relaxed yet we are all tense

but that is just my opinion if you all sit on the edge of your chairs all day I don't care if you do or not

this I can again prove

I was talking to someone here and I said i am in AU sitting at uni in a class international students
to my right was a Russian to my left was an American

and we all talk laught at eachothers jokes cheer each otherny clapping

following I can not prove about u guys at ats it is an assumption

yet you sit behind ur computer miles away from eachother and it feels like u are ready to kill each other

this I can give provide proof to

there are no news about obama or Putin or Ukraine or any type of violations here

only about Isis and Syria and Israel
so what is going on? as the second bigest USA Ally and importer of USA goods there
would be news here if there was a serious threat that Russia is violating some ruled with USA but nothing

our news is here how Russia and USA need to come to negotiating table with Assad but USA is not doing much about it

and there is a huge cyclon somewhere and both russia and USA are sending help there

Russia USA are coming to an agreement how to effectively solve war on terrorism and how they can strength cyber security

there is no bad news here
I can start Skype to prove that

now Personaly to yourself


however I want to thank you dearly
you are the only person who has given a perspective from Americans point of view without labeling me Russia propaganda
I am just giving a perspective as an Europien about Ukraine because I come from Europe

I want to find out about historical relationship between you and Russia because
at no point do I remember you waging war against eachother
no american army fighting with Russia on Russias soil
no Russian army fighting with America on America's soil

buth I am neither Russian nor American
so I would not have a clue
I am sorry you guys are facing such difficult times of worries and I wish you well to find solutions to your problems

a reply to: neptune13

with the 1983
incident my only comment is thanks god there was a Russian who was racional enough to not label America as a threat

at the end of a day he was thinking a nuke is firing at his country during severely deterioted relationships between USA and Russia plus he thought USA will seek revenge for a plane that killed more then 269 people as a result of soviet shot down because the plane strayed into soviet airspace and it was not meant to be there

at the
end of the day he gave USA the benefit of a doubt and risked Russian people being nuked

things could have sadly gone so wrong

we can all agree that technology will always need a man in case something goes wrong
no technology had been 100% flawless that is why we don't rely purely on technology

so let's hope this never happeneds again

a reply to: neptune13

the problem is NATO soldiors are mostly Americans (min 7000soldiers) they are sitting on Russia's boarder ready to fight

is there 7000 Russian soldiers sitting on America's boarder ready to fight

We in Europe are kindly asking NATO not to take closer step to Russia but it is like nobody is listening

We don't need our boys and your boys fighting with Russia but fighting against terrorism and to protect woman and children against religious extremism.

as a female I can tell you there is maybe 1% of females in EU that are worried about Putin
I am more worried some extremist will come and overtake Europe and that boys is a real possibility !!!!!!!!! I am bisex f can u imagine what they would do to me ?

a reply to: neptune13

with the asylum are you talking about Snowden ? or who ?
that is a very interesting comment
I would like to know more

do you know about JFK relationship with someone from Soviets? I would love to hear some theories on JFK assasination

Network (1976)

Source

a reply to: Daedal

that was hilarious
I love the first 5 sec of the clip where it is raining and the guy without umbrella is calm as flock and the guy with umbrella is running around like mad man : D

what is the moral of the story? I don't get it? but it is I funny as it is..

originally posted by: MimiSia
a reply to: Daedal

that was hilarious
I love the first 5 sec of the clip where it is raining and the guy without umbrella is calm as flock and the guy with umbrella is running around like mad man : D

what is the moral of the story?

I don't get it? but it is I funny as it is..

No moral really. I would suggest watching the whole film sometime, it's an oldie but goodie.

a reply to: neptune13

Definition of an asylum seeker

The United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, as amended by its 1967 Protocol (the Refugee Convention), defines who is a refugee and sets out the basic rights that countries should guarantee to refugees. According to the Convention, a refugee is a person who is outside their own country and is unable or unwilling to return due to a well-founded fear of being persecuted because of their:

race
religion
nationality
membership of a particular social group or
political opinion.
Asylum seekers or refugees and migrants have very different experiences and reasons for moving to another country. Migrants choose to leave their home country, and can choose where to go and when they might return to their home country. Asylum seekers and refugees, on the other hand, flee their country for their own safety and cannot return unless the situation that forced them to leave improves.

a reply to: Daedal

I read the plot but I don't get what it is about

a reply to: HD3DSURROUNDSOUND

Everybody is critisazing the dictatorship of communism

yet no one bothers to learn benefits of communism

benefitof.net...

we are in a very strange position
like my situation my parents come from communistic era

they worked hard and with a bit of luck they are now own sucessful co i EU

I see them overindulge in things they did not have as youngsters
but at the same time they balance it out with donation to cancer children and rescuing abandoned animals
they love good food and expensive wine but they still eat love eating sardines with onion on bread (the simple old school food) much better

my relationship remains artificial with them because from they experience from childhood they are non stop pressuring me to be the perfect girl so I can find the best hubby. I was threaten to loose connection to them if I did not continue perusing my master deg. If I walk out in trackies without make up to throw out rubbish I get a lecture about what was I thinking ? what will the neighbors say about me? I dislike that type of behavior (plus I am bi and not looking to find a hubby to take care of me ) so I came here to find out what people think about this current crazy world