@Finn dAbuzz,
Finn dAbuzz wrote:Since I don't think there is any chance the passenger jet was deliberately targeted (as opposed to being mistaken for a Ukrainian government airship) It seems the only real question to be answered is whether or not Russian Special Forces were on-site assisting the rebels or actually pulling the trigger themselves.
True that they weren't intentionally trying to down a passenger jet. But it seems likely that the rebels were just shooting at everything in the sky without first checking to verify whether or not they were aiming at legitimate targets.
Finn dAbuzz wrote:If the US, and especially the Europeans recognize Putin as the very real threat he is, they will do the following without further dithering:
Provide the arms the Ukrainians have requested and need to defend their land, since it is clear no other nation is prepared to assist them militarily. That they have be denied these weapons thus far is not only a disgrace, it's just plain stupid as it encourages the sort of aggression Russia has engaged in with impunity and which led to this tragic disaster.
The reason Mr. Obama is hesitant about weapons is because it would take a
lot of weapons (and a lot of training in how to use the weapons effectively in a modern army) to bring Ukraine to the point where they could fend off Russia.
If we aren't willing to bring Ukraine all the way up to the level of a core NATO country, then weapons won't do much good, and might even cause harm if they give Ukrainians false confidence.
Personally, I'd go for it and bring Ukraine all the way up to the level of France or Germany. But I can see why Mr. Obama is hesitant.
Regardless of weapons, we should be giving Ukraine far more economic aid than we are presently giving them. If the current government in Kiev collapses, Russia will be right there ready to pick up all the pieces, so we should be doing everything we can to ensure that Ukraine starts to succeed as a country.
There will likely be a downside in that a lot of the money that we send to Ukraine will flow directly into the pockets of oligarchs. But it is still the most potent thing that we can do to keep Ukraine out of Putin's hands.
Finn dAbuzz wrote:Impose tough sanctions that can damage Russia’s economy. These flea bite sanctions against a few oligarch pals of Putin and the manufacturer of the missile system believe to be involved in this disaster have no meaningful impact. In fact Putin and his cronies have mocked them.
The problem with sanctions is, they
can't damage Russia's economy, at least not unless we convince China to also stop buying Russian gas and oil. Fat chance of that happening.
We can do much more on the "military buildup" front though:
We could bring Georgia into NATO and station US troops there to help protect them.
We could drastically build up our troop presence in Poland and Romania.
We could station 10-20 tactical nukes in Poland and another 10-20 in Romania. We're in the process of upgrading the tactical nukes that we lease to NATO, so it would be the perfect time to shuffle the storage sites a bit.
We could establish a US Naval base on the Black Sea. Nothing too significant, but perhaps 3-4 of those new "littoral" frigates and one attack submarine.
