War in Ukraine

That is funny, any time I hear a Dem screaming about Putin and Russia I think of the hate Romney got for that, turns out he was very right.

 

Medvedev was in office then, albeit as Putin’s puppet. Things went south very soon after that. McFaul’s book is a very good read.

 

Donetsk and luhansk "recognized". One step closer....

 

Said it previously, next step is a Russian controlled corridor between the Donbas and the Crimea. Don't think that Putin will go further though. The defacto annexation of the Eastern Ukraine combined the continued presence of Russian troops along the rest of its border with Ukraine may satisfy Putin enough that he will not launch a full scale invasion. While his ultimate goal may be to reincorporate Ukraine back into Russia as it was under the Soviet Union and Czarist empire, I don't think he will take the risk of an invasion gone bad at this time.

 

Keep an active ear open for the Russia and Putin apologists and excusers like Tucker. True traitors all.

 

I'm not so sure. Maybe on the offensive side, they are, but not on the defensive side. I would be surprised if countries like Russia and China could not turn off the power to a third of the U.S. in a matter of hours. Our industrial facilities and utilities (power generation, water treatment, etc.) are built for convenience, not maximum security. Many of them not only allow remote monitoring of the factory's performance, but they allow remote control of the setpoints in the factory.

 

That Colonial pipeline hack was certainly an eye opener.

 

yep. We can inflict tremendous damage to their infrastructure if we wanted. We also have the ability to stop attacks. Problem is there would be damage before that attack stops. Kind of like if you have a burst pipe in your house. You can turn off the water but lots of damage before you're able to remember where the shutoff valve is to your house.

 

A cyber war would not be pretty and it is something I think about frequently.

I imagine we have quite a stockpile of 0-days for offensive purposes. For example, Stuxnet was a collection of 0-days and it was going to work one way or another. The one thing I also think about is non-state actors. These countries have a lot of state cyber capabilities, but what about non-state actors? How many massive bot-nets are in the hand of private entities? How many non-state actors will join the cause and run concurrently with state-level attacks? How many non-state actors have already penetrated control networks and installed backdoors? When the state-level attacks start, how many civilian entities join the cause? Hopefully, it never comes to that.

 

Yeah I don't think anyone is disputing that. The problem is what do we do after he has taken it? Imo, you can't let him threaten the Baltic states and Poland or things get real bad from there. The best case scenario is after taking Ukraine there economy is trashed. I don't think Putin survives politically if that happens.

 

So … where are all the “no way russia invades” people now?

 

Regarding a corridor, looks like hundreds of miles of land between Crimea and the east. That would take a lot of manpower.
It wouldn’t be like establishing a corridor between Gainesville and Ocala.

 

inb4 the “Putin is on a peacekeeping mission, Biden is weak, this is none of the U.S. business anyway, let’s discuss the topic of adoptions” talking points roll out.

 

While this is almost six years old it probably still reflects Trump's opinion on the Russian incursion into Ukraine and how he feels about Putin's strategy.
Trump says he may let Russia keep Crimea
and let's not forget this

And if some of the conservatives are going to remind us that sanctions against Russia increased after Trump took office keep in mind that he had little choice since Congress including most members of his own party voted to increase the sanctions by an overwhelming margin leaving the Donald with no alternative to do so.

 

Technically they've only mildly escalated the conflict that's been ongoing since 2014. If it stops there, whoever those people are, they would be correct.

 

Just read an article about a non state hacker who was able to wreck havoc on N Korea's net...

One American Hacker Suddenly Took Down North Korea’s Internet—All Of It (forbes.com)

 

I'lll bet Putin draws the line there. If they take The Ukraine, they get a breadbasket and massive amounts of mineral wealth as well as a large swath of the Black sea coast.

 

Biden may be weak but he has limited options here IMHO, Putin isn't peacekeeping he's taking back par of Mother Russia(some residents do want this BTW).

I don't know too many Americans who want to get into a shooting war with Russia over the Ukraine.

 

I disagree with this concept. Those "rebel controlled" territories are UKRAINE. Russia just illegally recognized them as independent and sent troops in. This is an invasion. Call a duck a duck.