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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Al-Nusra Chief Killed by Rivals in Syria
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Page 6: Politix
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Caribbean-Latin America
Colombia: Road Rage
[StrategyPage]
FARC and narcos and Venezuela melting down, oh my!
Posted by: Squinty || 04/17/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The government also expects a large minority of demobilized FARC fighters to return to crime. ThatÂ’s what happened when 30,000 anti-leftist militias agreed to disband in 2006. The government studied that development intently and has a number of new ideas to avoid the recidivism.


Ooooh Ooooh! I know! How about "kill them"?
Posted by: Frank G || 04/17/2014 13:10 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Belmont Club: Complete Fiasco
The original article is good, but I wanted to emphasize this particular bit in the comments:
It's a fair question and deserves a straight answer.

Basically, I think the Ukraine is tactically lost. But it is lost because Obama is strategically losing. If he can repair that weakness by:

1) going all out in energy development and taking steps to facilitate the export of natural gas to Europe;
2) removing hostaged issues like the supply line to Afghanistan and the Iranian and Syrian negotiations;
3) removing the impositions which prevent economic dynamism; and
4) building advanced defense systems.

Then he will win the strategic game and in due time, Putin will withdraw. Win the strategic war and you can pick up the islands at leisure.

If you want more pressure, lean on Cuba or Venezuela. Venezuela for preference. If you bring more energy online Russia weakens.

All of this would have been familiar to Ronald Reagan or George Kennan. None of this is rocket science. The only reason Obama can't think of it is that he believes he's too smart to learn from those old fools; that the ideas which spring to his mind, are for that reason, incomparably brilliant, even when they downright imbecilic.

All you really need to get back the Ukraine is let America be America.
I imagine we're about three years away from even being able to head back in the right direction.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 04/17/2014 14:13 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  but, do you think he wants to win?
Posted by: Count Galeazzo Turkeyneck8904 || 04/17/2014 14:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Count, as with everything this regime (Zero's) has done since day 1 the question is; "How do you define win?"

In any area, but particularly foreign affairs, if your goal was to reduce the USA to 2nd tier status and support socialism, what would you do differently from Zero's policies?
Posted by: AlanC || 04/17/2014 15:18 Comments || Top||


Europe
Edward Lucas on Ukraine
I hope I'm wrong but historians may look back and say this was the start of World War III

We are soon to face a bleak choice. We can chose to surrender any responsibility we have to protect Ukraine and the Baltic states -- almost certainly Putin's next target -- from further Russian incursion. Or we can mount a last-ditch attempt to deter Russia from furthering its imperial ambitions.
And the crowd we have now running the show from our side will, undoubtedly and after initial inept jockeying towards "a last-ditch attempt", overswing the pendulum.
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 04/17/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  responsibility we have to protect Ukraine and the Baltic states

Huh?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/17/2014 1:33 Comments || Top||

#2  UKRAINE:FORMER HOME OF AN INDIGENOUS SS Division and a plentiful source for Germsn extermination camps.
Posted by: borgboy || 04/17/2014 1:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Correction from #2: German Extermination camp guards.
Posted by: borgboy || 04/17/2014 2:06 Comments || Top||

#4  The Ukraine is very likely in 'Emergency Triage Level' BLACK (terminal). Strategies and resources would be better spent with the region's newer NATO members.

I too am concerned about a regime "last-ditch attempt and overswing."
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/17/2014 2:46 Comments || Top||

#5  Per the Cuban-American treaty the US "shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control" over Gitmo while recognizing "the continuance of the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba".

If the US declared Cuban sovereignty over the territory null and void and annexed the territory there would be zero change in the de facto political status.

Still such a move would send a clear message to all political actors in the world.

It would link the Budapest Memorandum and US guarantees not to invade Cuba, the annexation being a restrained reaction to Russia's Crimea move.

Russia and her allies would be put on notice. The risk of escalation would be minimal.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 04/17/2014 5:54 Comments || Top||

#6  I thought we won WWIII when the USSR collapsed.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 04/17/2014 7:28 Comments || Top||

#7  The west then copied the USSR and collapsed.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 04/17/2014 11:51 Comments || Top||

#8  Elmert has an interesting idea but I still think it would be better to nuke Iran.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 04/17/2014 12:05 Comments || Top||

#9  I suspect that will be the end-state for Iran Ebbang. But it will likely not be at the hands of the U.S.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/17/2014 12:09 Comments || Top||

#10  OK, how is Ukraine the heart of the West? I was gonna try to read this article but you lost me right there.

If you look at this situation from the Russian point of view, they've been invaded from the West at least three times in the previous two centuries. They had one hell of a time with Napoleon who actually sacked and burned Moscow. They lost vast tracts of territory to Kaiser Wilhelm and then there was Hitler. Can you blame them for being paranoid?

Sure, Stalin was as bad as Hitler if not even worse. And Putin is obviously cut from the same cloth.

But the Warsaw Pact was a buffer zone. It gave them a little bit of time and space in case it happened again. I don't believe their army is all that powerful. It never has been. If Hitler hadn't been overextended he would have conquered Russia.

Now we're talking about bring NATO right up to the Russian border. I think Putin has a great fear of allowing that to happen.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 04/17/2014 12:20 Comments || Top||

#11 
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/17/2014 12:22 Comments || Top||

#12  And those bases were just randomly located, not put up for containment reasons precisely because Russia did want war at the time most of those bases were built. Cute graphic though.

Having said that we have provoked by extended NATO and such provocation against a powerful ex-enemy who was not entirely beaten but more or less conceeded was abject stupidity. Started back in the 90s but nobody has really had a reasonable Russia policy since the wall fell.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/17/2014 14:19 Comments || Top||

#13  Putin logic isn't that complex, basic zero-sum gain:

You continue to screw with me and my port in Tartus, I take Sevastopol along with the entire Crimea. Any questions ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/17/2014 16:43 Comments || Top||

#14  Now we're talking about bring NATO right up to the Russian border. I think Putin has a great fear of allowing that to happen.

A consequence of Putin's aggression will be NATO right up to the Russian border. Consequences are a bit*h.
Posted by: Squinty || 04/17/2014 17:55 Comments || Top||

#15  but the question is where will that border be? east or west of what is currently Estonia?
Posted by: abu do you love || 04/17/2014 21:32 Comments || Top||

#16  I think Putin would be happy with the border being along the west coast of France, abu. :-(
Posted by: Barbara || 04/17/2014 21:50 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2014-04-17
  Al-Nusra Chief Killed by Rivals in Syria
Wed 2014-04-16
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Tue 2014-04-15
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Mon 2014-04-14
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Sun 2014-04-13
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Sat 2014-04-12
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Fri 2014-04-11
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Thu 2014-04-10
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Wed 2014-04-09
  Netanyahu instructs government ministries to cease cooperation with Palestinians
Tue 2014-04-08
  Rebels claim gains in Aleppo and Qunaitra
Mon 2014-04-07
  Army Begins Removing Hizbullah Checkpoints in Baalbek, al-Hermel
Sun 2014-04-06
  Iraq forces kill more than 40 militants near Baghdad
Sat 2014-04-05
  German AP Photographer Shot Dead in Afghanistan
Fri 2014-04-04
  10 Insurgents Killed in Logar
Thu 2014-04-03
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