Thanks for your response. I am not in Russia. I am very familiar with the region and have been there a few times, and had a long time side girlfriend from there so most of my perspective is colored by that. I personally take Afghanistan off the table for discussion because it is a unique area and I agree with you that the Soviets failed in fantastic fashion in Afghanistan and likely would again. However I believe the Ukraine is different. Culturally and geographically it is different and had a different financial significance for the Russians. I do not doubt there would be flares of insurgency inside the Ukraine if it fell to the Russians and those insurgencies would be crushed and brutally so at first. Over time there would likely still be some insurgent activities but the Russians would have political and financial interest in keeping the region. I also agree with you that there are a strong number of people in the Ukraine that hate the former USSR and Russians as well. However I think it would be more of a situation like in Ireland than Afghanistan. The financial incentives for Russia are strong. I could see Russia for now just taking the areas that are pro-Russian..... it is a huge win for Putin. He gets to "save" those that view themselves as Russian and that will appeal to the citizens of Russia.... he gets to tell his people that Russia is still a world power taking land from others and he has minimum back lash.
Here's a couple of links discussing potential Russian strategy and how the Ukrainians are preparing to fight an insurgency along with how the US could help. Sorry behind paywalls but will post relevant parts. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/16/putin-strategy-ukraine-united-states-needs-one/ Opinion: Even if Putin doesn’t seize all of Ukraine, he has a larger strategy. The U.S. needs one, too. "But is Russia really planning an all-out attack on Ukraine? Putin himself might not know his final objective. His challenge to Biden might be a political “reconnaissance in force” across a front much broader than Ukraine, precisely to develop better cost-benefit analysis of his options. Will the West show lack of resolve, and where? Will it start to fragment, with members attaching lower priority to some territories or issues than Russia does? Consider Russia’s options from its decision-makers’ perspective. Totally annexing Ukraine might not be what they want or need. Putin could order Russian columns to approach Kyiv, making its vulnerability obvious, as Russia did with Georgia in 2008, nearing Tbilisi before withdrawing on its own timetable to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Toppling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and hoping for (or assisting) a Moscow-aligned leader to appear are eminently feasible. Stakes this high are risky for Putin, but he might be willing to gamble out of a fear that Russia’s long-term prospects are weaker than today’s. He thus might be induced to act from relative weakness, not strength. Even so, that doesn’t make him any less dangerous in the here and now. Consider Russia’s options from its decision-makers’ perspective. Totally annexing Ukraine might not be what they want or need. Putin could order Russian columns to approach Kyiv, making its vulnerability obvious, as Russia did with Georgia in 2008, nearing Tbilisi before withdrawing on its own timetable to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Toppling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government and hoping for (or assisting) a Moscow-aligned leader to appear are eminently feasible." https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/us/politics/russia-ukraine-biden-military.html U.S. Considers Backing an Insurgency if Russia Invades Ukraine Conversations about how far the United States would go to subvert Russia in the event of an invasion have revived the specter of a new Cold War. "But Biden administration officials have begun signaling to Russia, which has massed about 100,000 troops at its borders with Ukraine, that even if it managed to swiftly capture territory, Mr. Putin would eventually find the costs of an invasion prohibitively expensive in terms of military losses. “If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force, U.S. and NATO military assistance — intelligence, cyber, anti-armor and anti-air weapons, offensive naval missiles — would ratchet up significantly,” said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO. “And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.” He pointed to American support for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion there in the late 1970s and 1980s, before the rise of the Taliban. “The level of military support” for a Ukrainian insurgence, Admiral Stavridis said, “would make our efforts in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union look puny by comparison.” Both Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have warned their Russian counterparts in recent telephone calls that any swift Russian victory in Ukraine would probably be followed by a bloody insurgency similar to the one that drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. In discussions with allies, senior Biden officials have also made clear that the C.I.A. (covertly) and the Pentagon (overtly) would both seek to help any Ukrainian insurgency. ... "Administration officials interviewed this week said that plans to help Ukrainian insurgents could include providing training in nearby countries that are part of NATO’s eastern flank: Poland, Romania and Slovakia, which could enable insurgents to slip in and out of Ukraine. Beyond logistical support and weapons, the United States and NATO allies could also provide medical equipment, services and even sanctuary during Russian offensives. The United States would almost certainly supply weapons, the officials said. Since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, successive U.S. administrations have taken pains to limit military support to Ukraine largely to defensive weaponry. The United States has provided about $2.5 billion in military aid to Kyiv, including anti-tank missiles and radar that enables the Ukrainian military to better spot sources of artillery fire. The assistance has also included patrol boats and communications equipment. The United States is also moving toward providing Ukraine with battlefield intelligence that could help the country more quickly respond to an invasion, senior administration officials said." ... “Given the right equipment and tactics, Ukraine can dramatically reduce the chances of a successful invasion,” a former Ukrainian defense minister, Andriy P. Zagorodnyuk, wrote in an op-ed for the Atlantic Council on Sunday that reads like an instructional manual for how the United States can support an insurgency. “By combining serving military units with combat veterans, reservists, territorial defense units and large numbers of volunteers, Ukraine can create tens of thousands of small and highly mobile groups capable of attacking Russian forces. This will make it virtually impossible for the Kremlin to establish any kind of administration over occupied areas or secure its lines of supply.” But it is difficult to know whether Ukrainians would be willing to start an insurgency campaign that could drag on for years or even decades. Some Ukraine experts point to Crimea, where there has been little armed resistance since Russia invaded. And Mr. Putin could limit his siege to the eastern parts of Ukraine, which lean more pro-Russian than the west." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/world/europe/ukraine-russia-civilian-training.html Training Civilians, Ukraine Nurtures a Resistance in Waiting Eastern European nations have drawn a lesson from America’s wars of the last decades: Insurgency works. Ukraine’s training of volunteers has become a factor in the standoff with Russia. "Ms. Biloshitska is one of thousands of Ukrainian civilians who have signed up to learn combat skills in training programs created and run by the government and private paramilitary groups. The programs are part of the country’s strategic defense plan in the event of a potential invasion by Russia — to foster a civilian resistance that can carry on the fight if the Ukrainian military is overwhelmed." ... So Ukraine has drawn a lesson from the United States’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan of the past two decades, when guerrillas provided enduring resistance in the face of vastly superior American firepower. “We have a strong army, but not strong enough to defend against Russia,” said Marta Yuzkiv, a doctor working in clinical research, who signed up for training this month. “If we are occupied, and I hope that doesn’t happen, we will become the national resistance.” ... Civilian defense is not unfamiliar in Ukraine; volunteer brigades formed the backbone of the country’s force in the east in 2014, the first year of the war against Russian separatists, when the Ukrainian military was in shambles. This effort is now being formalized into units of the newly formed Territorial Defense Forces, a part of the military. Last year, the Ukrainian Army began weekend training for civilian volunteers in these units." ... But skeptics say that this is partly bluster, and that the Ukrainian command could hardly count on a flood of veterans becoming insurgents. ... “Expect a fast storming,” he said. “We won’t have much time.” He described how the volunteers might resist based on the tactics of Islamist militias in Aleppo, Syria. The volunteers should use their knowledge of their own neighborhoods to move close to the Russian soldiers, leaving too little separation to call in airstrikes or artillery, he said.
Like you I'm not Russian or Ukrainian, never been to either country my experience is from second hand from knowing people from those countries or who have lived there. I'm not claiming expertise but from what limited knowledge and recent history I don't see Russia being any better at putting down insurgencies than the US. If anything they might be worse at it. I'm not claiming an insurgency will be easy and it certainly will be bloody. Even the Ukrainians are admitting that they are planning for an insurgent strategy only because they can't win a straight up battle with the Russian military. At the minimum they will suffer many casualties and much of their country devastated. As we seen with ongoing problems the Russians are having with other parts of the former Soviet Union it's obvious that many don't want a return of the USSR and are willing to die to keep it from coming back. It's also one thing for the Russians to be dealing with places like Dagestan that are still part of Russia and have a relatively small population versus holding a country with a relatively large land area, a third of the population of Russia itself and has been independent for almost 30 years.
Experts make prognostications about future events all the time. Sometimes they are correct, sometimes they aren't. Just 6 months ago we were told/read all types of things about how it would go in Afghanistan after we withdrew. Very often those prognostications were far far off the mark. My opinions are only my own but based on looking at all the factors, I don't think the Ukrainian people would effectuate a meaningful and sustained insurrection. I think comparisons to Afghanistan or the northern caucuses are poor ones. The circumstances are very different.
related https://www.powerlineblog.com/archi...he-only-good-pipeline-is-a-putin-pipeline.php JOE BIDEN: THE ONLY GOOD PIPELINE IS A PUTIN PIPELINE POSTED ON JANUARY 20, 2022 BY PAUL MIRENGOFF Joe Biden has withdrawn U.S. support for a pipeline project designed to deliver Israeli natural gas to Europe. Biden thereby reverses a decision made by the Trump administration. The Biden administration tried to justify the reversal of U.S. policy on the basis of its interest in “renewable energy.” But the obvious effect of the decision is to strengthen the stranglehold Russia has on Europe’s energy supply. In this regard, it’s worth noting, as we often have, that Biden supports the Nord Stream 2 pipeline system that stretches from the Baltic Sea to Germany. David Harsanyi reminds us that Biden waived sanctions on companies behind the project, including one run by Putin ally and former Stasi agent Matthias Warnig. No focus on renewable energy when it comes to defying Putin’s interests. This decision, too, reversed Trump administration policy. Yet, Democrats, their media allies, and various dupes insisted that Trump was a tool of Russia. If any recent president fits that description, it’s Joe Biden, who yesterday essentially invited a Russian incursion into Ukraine. The runner-up administration is Barack Obama’s, which nixed a missile defense system to protect Eastern Europe from Russia and promised to be even more “flexible” after the 2012 election. And let’s not forget about Senate Democrats. Last week, as Harsanyi points out, they resorted to the “racist” filibuster to sink a bill by Ted Cruz bill that would have sanctioned companies associated with the building of Nord Stream 2. To be fair, Biden’s decision on the Israel-to-Europe pipeline doesn’t just help Putin. It also greatly benefits Turkey and its thuggish, anti-West president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He had been complaining that the pipeline bypasses Turkey. Biden thus puts the interests of Putin and Erdoğan ahead of those of Israel and Greece, among other friendly nations. Finally, let’s remember that Biden nixed our own Keystone Pipeline. As far as I can tell, his administration has never supported a pipeline project other than the one that will enormously benefit Vladimir Putin.
Blinken tells Lavrov US committed to 'swift response' to further aggression against Ukraine https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/blinken-lavrov-geneva-meeting-ukraine/index.html excerpt: (CNN) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a meeting in Geneva, Friday that Washington is committed to a "united, swift and severe response" if Moscow commits further aggression against Ukraine. The two top diplomats ended their hour and a half bilateral meeting Friday, during which the US tried to convince Russia to de-escalate the situation at the Ukrainian border where Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops and shown signs of a potential invasion into Ukraine. At a news conference following the meeting with Blinken, Lavrov said that the US had agreed to send written answers to all of Russia's security demands. Blinken will also hold a news conference following his meeting with Lavrov. more
Power Line - Media Bias/Fact Check (mediabiasfactcheck.com) Overall, we rate Power Line strongly right biased based on story selection that always favors the right. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to the use of poor sources that have failed numerous fact checks, as well as rejecting the consensus of science when it comes to climate change. The Jerusalem Post - Media Bias/Fact Check (mediabiasfactcheck.com) Overall, we rate The Jerusalem Post Right-Center biased based on editorial positions that favor the right-leaning government. We also rate them Mostly Factual for reporting, rather than High due to two failed fact checks. US informs Israel it no longer supports EastMed pipeline to Europe - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com) The US no longer supports the proposed EastMed natural-gas pipeline from Israel to Europe, the Biden administration has informed Israel, Greece and Cyprus in recent weeks. State Department officials conveyed the new position to the Foreign Ministry, a diplomatic source in Jerusalem confirmed Tuesday. The Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the matter. The reversal of position from that of the Trump administration was first reported in Greece earlier this month. Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former energy secretary Dan Brouillette expressed US support for the pipeline when they were in office. But Washington informed Athens it was reversing course from the Trump administration in a “non-paper,” a diplomatic term for an unofficial, or off-the-record, communication this month. “The American side expressed to the Greek side reservations as to the rationale of the EastMed pipeline, [and] raised issues of its economic viability and environmental [issues],” a Greek government source told Reuters. “The Greek side highlighted that this project has been declared a ‘special project’ by the European Union, and any decision on its viability will logically have an economic impact,” the official said. The EastMed pipeline, meant to transfer natural gas from Israeli waters to Europe via Greece and Cyprus, was announced in 2016, and several agreements have been signed between the three countries on the subject. The three states aimed to complete the €6 billion project by 2025, but no financing has been secured for it. The US Embassy in Jerusalem said that the Americans “remain committed to the energy security and connectivity of the Eastern Mediterranean.” Among the proposals the US supports is the EuroAsia interconnector linking Israeli, Cypriot and European electricity grids, “allowing for future exports of electricity produced by renewable energy sources, benefiting nations in the region.” The interconnector “would not only connect vital energy markets, but also help prepare the region for the clean energy transition,” the embassy said. The US Embassy also said this is “a time when Europe’s energy security is – more than ever – a question of national security,” and as such, the US is “committed to deepening our regional relationships and promoting clean energy technologies.” The US Embassy in Greece made a similar statement last week, saying Washington still supports the 3+1 mechanism of meetings between Israel, Greece, Cyprus and the US. Claims over natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean have been a point of contention with Turkey in recent years, with Ankara saying it should be part of the EastMed project. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took the opportunity of the US withdrawing its support to say: “[If Israeli gas] would be brought to Europe, it could only be done through Turkey. Is there any hope for now? We can sit and talk about the conditions.” He also noted his recent phone calls with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog and said engagement with Israel had improved. Turkish state media channel TRT last week aired a documentary opposing the EastMed pipeline titled The Pipe Dream, which includes footage of State Department Senior Advisor for Energy Security Amos Hochstein discussing the matter before he was appointed to his current position. Hochstein said he would be “extremely uncomfortable with the US supporting this project” because of its environmental implications. “Why would we build a fossil fuel pipeline between the EastMed and Europe when our entire policy is to support new technology... and new investments in going green and in going clean?” he asked. “By the time this pipeline is built we will have spent billions of taxpayer money on something that is obsolete – not only obsolete but against our collective interest between the US and Europe.” Hochstein said the project was not financially feasible. It would cost more than €6b., he said, adding that international financial institutions no longer are committed to investing in fossil fuels. The pipeline plan was “totally driven by politics,” but “multibillion-dollar deals should be driven by the commercial side,” Hochstein said. “This idea came up in 2016, but no movement has been made except for signing some contracts, MOUs [memorandums of understanding] and the big hoopla of politics... Some ministers in the region are talking about the EU supporting [the plan]; they agreed to a feasibility study on the project. That’s a big difference,” he said. “This is politicians talking, but there’s [nothing] there,” Hochstein said. “This project probably will not happen because it’s too complicated, too expensive and too late in the arch of history.” Gabriel Mitchell, director of external relations for the Mitvim Institute for Regional Foreign Policy, said Israel’s relationship with Greece and Cyprus, which has grown very warm in recent years, does not depend on the EastMed pipeline. “The cooperation between the parties has expanded beyond the narrow scope of an undersea pipeline project, incorporating multiple fields and interministerial cooperation,” he said. Regarding Israel’s future in exporting natural gas, the EastMed was never its only option, Mitchell said. “The story of the EastMed pipeline should serve as a reminder that these projects require a high level of commercial, technical and political feasibility,” he said. “As one door potentially closes, others could open that present a different but no less important set of commercial and geopolitical opportunities.” “The EastMed pipeline’s feasibility issues were well-documented, but in the end, it may be other energy initiatives – such as the EuroAsia interconnector – that become the tripartite relationship’s flagship project,” Mitchell said. Reuters contributed to this report.•
one is strongly right and usually not factual one is right-central and is usually factual you seem to like nonfactual sources
He sounds like someone opposed to spending American blood and treasure on a territorial dispute thousands of miles away. Not to mention starting WWIII with a nuclear power. You can't justify going to war, so you accuse those that disagree with you of treason.
