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Post by pieter on Aug 2, 2017 10:26:23 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Aug 2, 2017 10:34:21 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Aug 2, 2017 12:33:49 GMT -7
Two rather old block with new combinations arrived on stage in recent years.
One one side you have NATO allied with other Western and non-Western Non-NATO states, like Sweden, Finland, Ukraine, Georgia (in the Caucasus), Australia, New Zealand, Israel, South-Korea and Japan.Sunni Arab states like Jordan, Saoudi Arabia, the United Arab Emorates and Kuwayt tend to be pro-Western and thus NATO allies. On the other side you have the Russian Federation has old ties with China, Syria, Iran, North-Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan. In new friendly relations the ties between Ankara and Moscow, Turkey and Russia seems to have improved. And the Turks seem to favor the Russians above NATO today. Turkey's NATO officers, generals, pilots and other military personel is under threat after the Coup'd etat of 2016. Many top and middle level Turkish military personel is in Brussels and Washington today. They asked for political asylum. Tensions between NATO partners Germany and Turkey and the Netherlands and Turkey grew. The US state department, the Pentagon and the White House will be worried about the present close ties between the Turks and the Russians.
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Post by pieter on Aug 2, 2017 12:33:59 GMT -7
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Post by karl on Aug 2, 2017 15:31:52 GMT -7
Pieter
A great amount of material has been presented and all very interesting. If perhaps a bit of patience shall my self respond.
What is occuring with response of NATO is to bolster confidence for those effected Baltic States and Poland. But, for what end? The forces of The Russian Federation are not threatening western Europe, for in this stead, for the reason of these states fore mentioned, is the loss of thousands of euros in lost trade with Russian industry by such sanctions placed and signed by The American President Trump, and to what end? Simply for some implied fear from the Polish Goverment from memories of over a war of over 70 years in past?
Let us think of reason and reality, for no other reason then above, NATO, meaning military forces paid with the sweat off the brow of working European people, what then is reasonable?
If the Polish Goverment is suffering from such unrest with the military forces of the The Russian Federation, then perhaps they needs be to foot the pleasure of placing their new born military forces first in line in the Baltic States. If then, Poland needs back up for the reason they are not able to deal with the preasure, then ok, if the Americans are so intent upon this excursion of non-sense, let them instead take up the slack. For this is their show, not ours.
All it would take, would be some nervous young technition to misunderstand wording of an officer, and accidently shoot down a Russian aircraft to start an international incident because of faulty reasoning.
For as with all of above, let us though consider in empathic understanding of the corporate thinking of The American President Trump:
For a trade off with Russian Putin, then in the matter of a resolution to NATO forces build up on the Russian border. A trade off in concessions for what ever would be to the advantage of The US. This would entail an important issue of Mr. Trump that would be to the advantage to both sides of the table and with this, take the European States off the hook with the cost of fielding such numbers of respectively owned combat equipment and personnel.
If the above is valid.
Karl
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Post by Jaga on Aug 2, 2017 16:35:58 GMT -7
Pieter,
I agree with Karl, there is a danger but hopefully not that great as some people worry about Russia, especially due to a friendly stance by the current US administration.
The CNN video about Russia in Arctic and the complex built there was impressive. I do agree that what is going on with Russia in the Arctic suggests that Russia wants to be dominant there.
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Post by pieter on Aug 3, 2017 13:33:47 GMT -7
Dear Jaga and Karl,
I partly agree with Karl. It was not 70 years ago that Poland was dominated and under pressure of Sovjet Communism, but it was until 1989. Stalin had installed his Polish Stalinist puppet masters in Poland, and afther the Stalinist era (1948–56), despite some independence, Polish communists remained loyal to the SovjetUnion, the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. After the collapse of the SovjetUnion, the Russian Federation became the dominant power in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose confederation of 9 member states and 2 associate members that are located in Eurasia. Members of CIS are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan and Ukraine are asssociate states and Georgia is a former member state.
The CIS has few supranational powers but aims to be more than a purely symbolic organization, nominally possessing coordinating powers in the realms of trade, finance, lawmaking, and security. It has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime prevention. Furthermore, eight of the nine CIS member states participate in the CIS Free Trade Area. Three organizations are under the overview of the CIS, namely the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union (alongside subdivisions, the Eurasian Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Space, which comprises territory inhabited by over 180 million people), and the Union State. While the first and the second are military and economic alliances, the third aims to reach a supranational union of Russia and Belarus with a common government, flag, currency, etc.
The Polish–Russian relations have a long history but are often turbulent, dating to the late Middle Ages, when the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Muscovy struggled over control of their borderlands. Over centuries, there have been several Polish–Russian Wars, with Poland once occupying Moscow and later Russia controlling much of Poland in the 19th as well as in the 20th century, damaging relations. Polish–Russian relations entered a new phase following the fall of communism, 1989–1993. Since then Polish–Russian relations have at times seen both improvement and deterioration. According to a 2013 BBC World Service poll, 19 percent of Poles view Russia's influence positively while 49 percent express a negative view.
However, since the Russian annexation of Crimea, over 60-80% Poles are worried over the future conflict with Russia, giving the fact Russia still maintains control in Kaliningrad, and the pro-Russian Belarus.
Modern Polish–Russian relations begin with the fall of communism – 1989 in Poland (Solidarity and the Polish Round Table Agreement) and 1991 in Russia (dissolution of the Soviet Union). With a new democratic government after the 1989 elections, Poland regained full sovereignty, and what was the USSR became 15 newly independent states, including the Russian Federation. Relations between modern Poland and Russia suffer from constant ups and downs. Among the constantly revisited issues is the fact that Poland has moved away from the Russian sphere of influence (joining NATO and the European Union) and pursuing an independent politic, including establishing a significant relations with post-Soviet states; for example, Polish support for the pro-democratic Orange Revolution in 2004 in Ukraine has resulted in a temporary crisis in the Polish–Russian relations. Occasionally, relations will worsen due to remembrance of uneasy historical events and anniversaries, such as when Polish politicians bring up the issue of Russia apologizing for the '39 invasion, the Katyn massacre. (Many Polish citizens and politicians see as genocide, but Russian officials refer to it as a war crime rather than a genocide) or for the ensuing decades of Soviet occupation; in turn Russians criticize Poles' perceived lack of thankfulness for liberation from Nazi occupation (despite later being taken into Soviet occupation). During the 1990s, assistance granted by Polish government and civilian agencies to members of the Chechen separatist movement had been met with criticism by Russian authorities.`
Issues important in the recent Polish–Russian relations include the establishment of visas for Russian citizens, US plans for an anti-missile site in Poland, the Nord Stream pipeline (Poland, which imports over 90 percent of oil and 60 percent of gas from Russia, continues to be concerned about its energy security which the pipeline threatens to undermine), Polish influence on the EU-Russian relations and various economic issues (ex. Russian ban on Polish food imports). Since the fall of the Soviet Union, with Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus regaining independence, Polish–Russian border has mostly been replaced by borders with the respective countries, but there still is a 210 km long border between Poland and the Russian Kaliningrad exclave.
Creation of parallel Polish and Russian dialogue centres was decided during President Medvedev's visit to Poland in December 2010. The Polish Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding supports cooperation of youth. Russia has created Foundation The Russian-Polish Center for Dialogue and Understanding , which doesn't cooperate with the Polish Centre and its director Juri Bondarenko presents controversial opinions about Russian-Polish relations. The Foundation has organised a trip for Polish children to Russian-annexed Crimea being aware the visit breaks Polish law.
Russian intelligence and influence operations in Poland
The 1997 textbook Foundations of Geopolitics by a controversial Russian sociologist and philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, among other things, dwells upon the Eurasianism, and within Dugin's plans, Poland (as well as Latvia and Lithuania) would have a "special status" within the Eurasian-Russian sphere of influence. In 1996, Poland's Prime Minister Józef Oleksy resigned because of his links to Russian Foreign Intelligence Service agent Vladimir Alganov. In 2004 Polish intelligence recorded Vladimir Alganov talking about bribery of top Polish politicians.
Russian military exercises have practiced attack against Poland. Exercise Zapad in September 2009 practiced a simulated nuclear attack against Poland, suppression of an uprising by a Polish minority in Belarus, and many operations of offensive nature.
Cheers, Pieter
Source: Wikipedia
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Post by pieter on Aug 3, 2017 13:54:43 GMT -7
Russian invasion in Ukraine (Photo: social networks) Only 57 percent of Russians say that their country should be satisfied with and continue to live within its current borders, while nearly a quarter – 23 percent – say that Moscow should use all means, including military force, to bring under its control the former Soviet republics, although 65 percent disagreed, according to a new Levada Center poll. At the same time, the new survey found, only one Russian in ten – 10 percent – says that Russia does not have the right to annex what are now foreign territories to its own and that it must act according to international law governing any such border changes. Eight percent said they supported Russia keeping its current borders but incorporating Belarus, another eight percent said they backed Russia’s expansion to include all the former USSR, “except the Baltics,” and yet another eight percent said that Moscow should include the Baltic countries as well. Smaller shares of the Russian population favored lesser expansions in the borders of their country: Four percent wanted to join Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to Russia, three percent only Belarus and Ukraine, and one percent only Ukraine. According to the pollsters, “10 percent of the respondents found it difficult to answer this question.” With regard to the justification for such territorial expansion, nearly half of all Russians – 47 percent – said that Moscow does not have the right to invoke the mistreatment of ethnic Russians in these countries. But at the same time, 34 percent said Russia was right to “defend its own” by annexing Crimea. At least three things about this poll are disturbing: First, 24 years after the disintegration of the USSR, large numbers of Russians have not accepted that as final and thus form a major base of support for Vladimir Putin’s revisionist and revanchist foreign policy as now in the case of Ukraine. Second, the poll suggests, by its granularity in terms of what borders Russians would like to see, that this is not a superficial attitude but one that among significant portions of the Russian population is a matter of almost existential concern, a reality that underscores that these attitudes are going to be a source of problems for the Eurasian region and beyond for a long time to come. And third – and this is perhaps the most worrisome thing of all – many in the West seem to be taking such attitudes in stride, as somehow natural given what Russians have gone through. Just how outrageous that is becomes obvious if one imagines how the international community would react if any other country on the face of the earth had a population with similar views. No one would tolerate such attitudes in another country, and everyone would mobilize to oppose them and it. Failure to do so in the case of Russia will not create conditions under which these views will somehow “go away with time,” as some commentators suggest. Instead, that failure will only encourage those who think that Russia has the right to do what no one else does. That in turn will encourage the worst elements in the Kremlin, including in the first instance Vladimir Putin, to continue to violate the international rules of the game, and reinforce such attitudes and the vicious authoritarianism they support within Russia and where Russian forces may go.
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Post by pieter on Aug 3, 2017 14:03:08 GMT -7
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