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Tullaryx
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Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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Jowy Atreides wrote: |
Turkey has the second-largest number of troops in NATO, actually.
Seems that the war is essentially over. Now we've just got to see what the repercussions will be. |
But not in Western Europe where any major land engagement between Russia, its allies and NATO will end up being fought at. _________________
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Jowy Atreides
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Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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That's fine, but your statement wasn't based on the condition that we were talking about Western Europe. You just said that those 3 are the largest in NATO, which isn't true.
Where do get the idea that Russia wants to fight with NATO? |
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Ujitsuna
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Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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Jowy Atreides wrote: |
Where do get the idea that Russia wants to fight with NATO? |
Since the end of the cold war, NATO has been wanting the fight with Russia by the seems of things. |
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Yvl
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Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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While there is a ceasefire, the Russians seem to have a pretty big problem finding their way out of Georgia. Maybe they're just lost? _________________
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Tullaryx
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Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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Jowy Atreides wrote: |
Where do get the idea that Russia wants to fight with NATO? |
Never said they want to fight NATO, but if a fight does begin it will most likely be fought in Western Europe with countries like Poland, Germany and Ukraine becoming the battlefields. It's been the case in the first two world wars I don't see it changing if a third one starts. _________________
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Starslasher
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Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:40 am Post subject: |
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Jowy Atreides wrote: |
How do Azerbaijan and Turkey play a role in this conflict? Turkey plays a role as a member of NATO, but not much else. |
One of the main reasons that the US and Europe were defending Russia was because of the pipeline that runs through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, as given in this paragraph:
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ashington's embrace of Saakashvili, like its earlier embrace of Shevardnadze, appears to have been based in large part on oil. The United States has helped establish Georgia as a major energy transit corridor, building an oil pipeline from the Caspian region known as the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan) and a parallel natural gas pipeline, both designed to avoid the more logical geographical routes through Russia or Iran. The Russians, meanwhile, in an effort to maintain as much control over the westbound oil from the region, have responded by pressuring the governments of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to sign exclusive export agreements and to construct natural gas pipelines through Russia. (See Michael Klare's Russia and Georgia: All About Oil.) |
(Source: http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/18497)
Otherwise, Tull explained that rather nicely. _________________ Guardian of Greenhill & Devoted Protector of Oulan
Bork! Bork! Bork! |
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Jowy Atreides
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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I just wonder what Russia would do to that pipeline if they were to take over again. What's the fear here?
Also, sorry for the slow response. Didn't realize anything new was posted. |
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Tullaryx
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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Jowy Atreides wrote: |
I just wonder what Russia would do to that pipeline if they were to take over again. What's the fear here? |
I'd say war would be a very high probability if they tried to take over that pipeline. The US has a longstanding policy that an attack on its strategic (military, economic, energy, etc...) infrastructure and those of its allies is tantamount to war. Russia knows this and Europe knows this. One reason the Soviets invaded Afghanistan was to acquire a major staging base for their troops to bypass Turkey if they ever have to move to capture the Persian Gulf oil fields. If they had succeeded then I'm guessing we won't be here to discuss this.
While European countries like France and Germany get a substantial amount of natural gas from Russia and from the pipelines they control, Central European and Baltic nations like Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine get even more of their gas from Russia. The Georgia BTC pipeline was created to lessen their dependence on Russia for their gas. If it was taken over by Russia for whatever reason then they pretty much threaten not just Central Europe and the Baltics but all states west of it.
While the two nations are of different ideologies, Iraq under Saddam Hussein is a good example of how the West would react. Saddam wanted Kuwait's and Saudi Arabia's oil fields. The moment he made his move pretty much the US and every nation allied with it formed a coalition to drive them out. Russia is not Iraq and a war to drive them out of those pipelines would be more costly but one that is probably being discussed in every government office west of Russia. _________________
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Jowy Atreides
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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So Russia attempts to take this pipeline and starts a war with the United States, and possibly NATO. What's their gain there?
Oh, by the way, it seems that Russia has recognized the independence of both breakaway regions. This may just be in retaliation for Western recognition of Kosovo, which Russia has yet to do (fearing that Chechnya may do the same). Or, if Georgia attempts to regain control of these two regions, Russia may go beyond the whole "we're defending Russian citizens here" to say that Georgia is invading not one but two sovereign countries, and who knows what they'll do beyond that.
Interesting stuff. |
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ViktorFan
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, how could I forget that USA didn't start the war in Iraq because of the oil!
But back on topic: I wonder why the people who demonstrated today vs the Russian's decision to admit (I'm not sure if that's the right word) Abchazia and South-Ossetia hold signs in English language and not in Russian. Of course it wasn't done for the US-TV-cameras ... |
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John Layfield
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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I cannot really see the difference in the "irresponsible actions" (thanks GWB) of Russia as regards South Ossetia and Abkhazia and NATO's ever-so-slightly, teeny-weeny irresponsible actions towards Kosovo. But that's just me. _________________ One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine. |
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Jowy Atreides
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I think they're roughly the same.
As mentioned earlier, I'd like for these countries to stay together, but, if there's really no chance of that happening, then they should and ought to be independent. But, at the end of the day, people of different ethnic backgrounds will just have to learn to get along, if they want to remain relevant in the 21st century. |
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Tullaryx
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:41 am Post subject: |
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Jowy Atreides wrote: |
So Russia attempts to take this pipeline and starts a war with the United States, and possibly NATO. What's their gain there |
It's not just possibly. If NATO is to survive as a group they will go to war with the US against Russia if the pipelines are forcibly taken over. Most likely, it will be the Europeans going to the US to do something about it. That's how it's always been handled in the past and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
As for what would Russia's gain would be, well for one the control of pipelines and two they could gamble and think with the US stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan they wouldn't be able to mount a serious force to push them out of those regions. With the oil and gas being an important natural resource for the region Russia knows that the US will not resort to nuclear weapons to augment it's thinly-stretched conventional forces.
All this is really simple. One just has to look at the world history and know stuff like this has happened many times in the past. One just has to look at the motivations of the nations involved and past histories between those nations and try to come to a logical conclusion as to what may occur. Just have to keep emotions and personal feelings out of the equation and the answer will present itself. _________________
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Jowy Atreides
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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What I'm getting at is that Russia doesn't want a war with NATO. Even when the Soviet Union was around, they always chose proxy wars over direct conflict. |
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Tullaryx
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Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: |
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Well, I just answered your question about what would happen if Russia took over the pipeline. It's plain and simple war is what would happen. I just gave a tad more detail to explain how and why such a war could occur. Whether or not it happens will depend on the leaders of the two sides. Cooler heads will make it that no war will happen. Better yet that Russia will not take over pipelines that doesn't belong to them.
But if Russia does do something that threatens the strategic safety of the rest of Europe, which is what forcibly controlling the BTC pipelines and the news one being put up, then do you honestly believe countries that rely on those resources will just sit back and let Russia do its thing. They won't and it doesn't matter what the Iraq thing has done to US reputation around the world. If Western and Central Europe thinks they're economies is being held hostage by the Russia government's control over all the pipelines leading out of the Caucuses and the Caspian Region they will look to the US for help both diplomatically and militarily. That is what NATO was designed to do.
In the end, I'm not calling for war, but what people want and what actually happens are never ever the same. I don't see it going nuclear but a protracted ground war could begin that could trigger a worldwide conflict with nations picking sides.
Also, the Soviet Union was never aversed to going to war with NATO. They always saw their superior numbers in men and tanks as an advantage NATO could never match. What always held them back from rolling through the Berlin Wall and into Western Europe was a clause in NATO's mission statement. A clause which the European's endorsed and which said that if West Germany ever fell to a Soviet ground advance and the rest of NATO was threatened of being pushed to the sea then the US will be authorized to use battlefield tactical nuclear assets to stop the Soviet advance. Such an act would then force the Soviets to respond in kind which then snowballs into both sides using citykillers on strategic targets which also happens to be close to major metropolitan areas.
So, if it looked like the Soviet Union didn't want to go to war with NATO it wasn't because they were afraid of NATO and its military forces but the consequence of what a Soviet success through the Fulda Gap and West Germany would force. _________________
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