Message from @Josh M. -OH
Discord ID: 516390071880908810
Lol they basically might declare a state of war and then not do anything aggressive
I swear to god if Ukraine joins NATO and triggers a mutual defense clause causing US to go to war w Russia
What's Russia's excuse for what they did?
Crimea belongs to Russia
Their public statement
@NateDahl76 It's possible, but even just making invoking that legal distinction might have far-reaching implications...
Ukraine is already West aligned post coup
@Sam Southern - TN NATO won't take Ukraine in, at least formally, because they don't want to incur an Article 5 obligation, the need to declare war if a member state is attacked (or portrayed as being attacked).
Ya that’s what I’m talking about lol. Who makes the call on letting in nations, US and who else?
The whole membership.
Ukraine couldn’t join NATO quick enough
Hm, I was hoping it’d be a smaller group of nations. Does it have to be a consensus, or is it a simple majority?
Look out for larger and larger shipments of ever more significant weaponry, though, combined with a further racheting up of sanctions.
@Sam Southern - TN I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it has to be a consensus.
NATO members vote with big guys having veto power. Although in this case with Russia being aggressor state they cant veto
US should veto for sure then. Let’s hope trump doesn’t cuck and fold
If it even gets that far
For sure, but there's a significant number of countries that are wary of the risk of open conflict with Russia, including some whose long-term economic strategies are entwined with Russian economic interests, the most prominent being Germany.
Germany wouldn’t hesitate to go against Russia tho, especially if merkel thinks they can depose Putin and put some globohomo shill there in his place
Still get the pipeline and no Putin
Merkel will be out before Putin, and she's thirsty for that Nord Stream 2 gas.
Merkel would be hesitant if she isn't sure USA will support. They won't be the aggressor
Russia can cut off the natural gas to Europe and they will freeze this coming winter and start to really miss nuclear energy, plus I doubt if we can sanction Russia anymore than we already do
@Josh M. -OH That, too, but we can definitely count on the "deep state" (or whatever other term you want to attribute to it) to try to force the President's hand.
@TylerHess Russia could, but going ham in that way would only give more hawkish European leaders a pretext for forcibly diverting their gas orders from the Russia to the U.S.
Russia isn't doing much to prove any neocons wrong. They're loving Russia's instigating.
NATO and co will probably make some noise but do nothing substantial besides condemnation, unless they send more hardware to Ukraine or up our own Artic or Black Sea patrols. Maybe do a provocative joint training exercise which in all honesty could risk providing Russia with data on our capabilities which would outweigh any intimidation factor.
Without natural gas exports, the Russian economy collapses. Without natural gas imports from Russia, many EU countries would suffer greatly. The advantage goes to Russia here because Putin is not accountable to voters and European leaders are
NATO will warn Russia not to crush Ukraine, but it won't go to war over Crimea
EU is looking for an excuse. Brits too obviously and neocons in US
Chomping at the bit for Russia.
@TMatthews I generally agree, but Putin *is* responsible to Russians, though not directly in the sense of the polls. Instead, like a monarch, he simply has to make sure that there's never a critical mass of people willing to take to the streets, whereas other European leaders have to deal with less latency on their ends (the possibility of being voted out).
Although as long as Russia doesn't start lethal activities they're pretty safe to do whatever. Not sure what they hope to gain though.
They can't do much which is part of their hysteria. Thats why they've taken their anger out on client states of Russia like Syria and Iran.
Defcon hasn’t changed.
@TylerHessthey want to get their pipeline down there and get a hand in the Mideast. They need friends.
Syria as well
@Josh M. -OH They're not trying to gain anything in this situation. They have every incentive to avoid escalation. However, the Ukrainians, and particularly Poroshenko himself, have numerous incentives to escalate, as it will force the U.S. and E.U. to step up their intervention, and possibly provide the latter with a pretext to invoke emergency powers, and delay the elections (which he's unambiguously poised to lose).
If the French are rioting over gas prices, any disruption to natural gas would cause synergistic effects