COUP IN KYIV?

... reports surfaced that Russian troops had traveled farther north into Ukraine from Crimea.

The only nation that has had cause to invoke the NATO charter after being attacked, is America. Right after 9/11, when NATO allies began flying fighters over New York.

and that's one of the reasons, why the OSCE-observers will be monitoring there.

At least they can chain themselves to a lamp-post in protest over a Russian incursion.

The West is blinking in disbelief – Vladimir Putin just invaded Ukraine. German diplomats, French Eurocrats and American pundits are all stunned. Why has Russia chosen to gamble its trillion-dollar ties with the West?

Western leaders are stunned because they haven’t realized Russia’s owners no longer respect Europeans the way they once did after the Cold War. Russia thinks the West is no longer a crusading alliance. Russia thinks the West is now all about the money.

Putin’s henchmen know this personally. Russia’s rulers have been buying up Europe for years. They have mansions and luxury flats from London’s West End to France’s Cote d’Azure. Their children are safe at British boarding and Swiss finishing schools. And their money is squirrelled away in Austrian banks and British tax havens.

Putin’s inner circle no longer fear the European establishment. They once imagined them all in MI6. Now they know better. They have seen firsthand how obsequious Western aristocrats and corporate tycoons suddenly turn when their billions come into play. They now view them as hypocrites—the same European elites who help them hide their fortunes.

Once Russia’s powerful listened when European embassies issued statements denouncing the baroque corruption of Russian state companies. But no more. Because they know full well it is European bankers, businessmen and lawyers who do the dirty work for them placing the proceeds of corruption in hideouts from the Dutch Antilles to the British Virgin Islands.

We are not talking big money. But very big money. None other than Putin’s Central Bank has estimated that two thirds of the $56 billion exiting Russia in 2012 might be traceable to illegal activities. Crimes like kickbacks, drug money or tax fraud. This is the money that posh English bankers are rolling out the red carpet for in London.

Behind European corruption, Russia sees American weakness. The Kremlin does not believe European countries – with the exception of Germany – are truly independent of the United States. They see them as client states that Washington could force now, as it once did in the Cold War, not to do such business with the Kremlin.

When Russia sees Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal outbidding each other to be Russia’s best business partner inside the EU (in return for no mention of human rights), they see America’s control over Europe slowly dissolving.

Back in Moscow, Russia hears American weakness out of Embassy Moscow. Once upon a time the Kremlin feared a foreign adventure might trigger Cold War economic sanctions where it hurts: export bans on key parts for its oil industry, even being cut out of its access to the Western banking sector. No more.

Russia sees an America distracted: Putin’s Ukrainian gambit was a shock to the U.S. foreign policy establishment. They prefer talking about China, or participating in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Russia sees an America vulnerable: in Afghanistan, in Syria and on Iran—a United States that desperately needs Russian support to continue shipping its supplies, host any peace conference or enforce its sanctions.

Moscow is not nervous. Russia’s elites have exposed themselves in a gigantic manner – everything they hold dear is now locked up in European properties and bank accounts. Theoretically, this makes them vulnerable. The EU could, with a sudden rush of money-laundering investigations and visa bans, cut them off from their wealth. But, time and time again, they have watched European governments balk at passing anything remotely similar to the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which bars a handful of criminal-officials from entering the United States.

All this has made Putin confident, very confident – confident that European elites are more concerned about making money than standing up to him. The evidence is there. After Russia’s strike force reached the outskirts of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, in 2008, there were statements and bluster, but not a squeak about Russia’s billions. After Russia’s opposition were thrown into show trials, there were concerned letters from the European Union, but again silence about Russia’s billions.

The Kremlin thinks it knows Europe’s dirty secret now. The Kremlin thinks it has the European establishment down to a tee. The grim men who run Putin’s Russia see them like latter-day Soviet politicians. Back in the 1980s, the USSR talked about international Marxism but no longer believed it. Brussels today, Russia believes, talks about human rights but no longer believes in it. Europe is really run by an elite with the morality of the hedge fund: Make money at all costs and move it offshore.

And as far as ICBM's are concerned, if you are serious in having a mindset to 'demand' an immediate strike, knowing the retaliatory consequences, I am not surprised that no-one takes your views very seriously.

The US can bluff and bluster all it likes, but if anyone convinces Ukraine or even a shrunken 'new' Ukraine to sign up to NATO, it will be the equivalent to Obama strolling up to Putin's door and sh*tting on the doorstep.

In Russia's mind, Ukraine in NATO and the EU mean missiles on their border, the enemy at the gates.
Just think how you would react if the tables were turned and, say, Cuba wanted to cement their friendship with Russia by putting missiles on their soil, a stone's throw away from your back yard?

We are not talking about farm subsidies or point scoring over who gets the important decisions about what expenses they can fiddle....we are talking about the distinct possibility of big, hairy men smelling of vodka and borscht, rumbling right across Ukraine and not stopping until they drive into and demolish Walter's outdoor privy.

The US Military, in this particular scenario, would be a reasonable nuisance to Putin, but would suffer a very quick humiliation if they got into this, and there's no way that the White House has the stomach for that at the moment.
This isn't an Iraq.

In your first paragraph, the word 'they' refers to the French, I assume?

oralloy wrote:

Sometimes I think it would be beneficial to replace NATO with something that protected the UK and Eastern Europe, but didn't bother to protect anything in between.

To quote Lord Ismay: NATO's founding purpose back in 1949 was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down".

However, oralloy, why don't you want e.g. Poland as a country in Central Europe and bordering Russia to be protected?
Or the northern European countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania? (They not only border Russia but do have actually some understandable fears right now)

I consider them part of Eastern Europe, ...

Pro-Russian protesters have stormed a Ukrainian naval base in western Crimea.

Several hundred unarmed protesters attacked the base at Novofedorivka, which is now under almost complete control of Russian forces.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops surrounded by Russian forces have been ordered to battle stations at Belbek airbase.

Russian forces, including snipers and armoured personnel carriers, have advanced and an ultimatum to surrender has just expired.

The Belbek base commander told the few dozen troops still there to shoot in the air if they were attacked.

He said he had been waiting for days for orders from Kiev but told the BBC still none had been issued.

Ukraine's military chiefs deny this, saying each unit in Crimea has been issued with clear orders on what to do if attacked.