Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:

Going to annex Canada

quote:

Russian forces gathering on the border with eastern Ukraine may be poised to invade, the White House warned on Sunday, as the government in Kiev said that the prospect of war with Moscow was continuing to grow after the annexation of Crimea.

Speaking after Nato’s top commander in Europe voiced alarm about the size and preparedness of the Russian troop buildup, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Tony Blinken, said President Vladimir Putin may indeed be readying further action.

“It’s deeply concerning to see the Russian troop buildup on the border,” Blinken told CNN. “It creates the potential for incidents, for instability. It’s likely that what they’re trying to do is intimidate the Ukrainians. It’s possible that they’re preparing to move in.”

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In Washington, a top White House aide said it’s possible that Russia could invade eastern Ukraine.

Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that Russia seems to be trying to intimidate Ukraine by massing thousands of troops along the border.

Blinken said the United States is looking at providing military assistance to Ukraine.

However, he said “it’s very unlikely to change Russia’s calculus and prevent an invasion.”

quote:

The American government conducted a major intelligence offensive against China, with targets including the Chinese government and networking company Huawei, according to documents from former NSA worker Edward Snowden that have been viewed by SPIEGEL and the New York Times. Among the American intelligence service's targets were former Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Chinese Trade Ministry, banks, as well as telecommunications companies.
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According to a top secret NSA presentation, NSA workers not only succeeded in accessing the email archive, but also the secret source code of individual Huwaei products. Software source code is the holy grail of computer companies. Because Huawei directed all mail traffic from its employees through a central office in Shenzhen, where the NSA had infiltrated the network, the Americans were able to read a large share of the email sent by company workers beginning in January 2009, including messages from company CEO Ren Zhengfei and Chairwoman Sun Yafang.

"We currently have good access and so much data that we don't know what to do with it," states one internal document. As justification for targeting the company, an NSA document claims that "many of our targets communicate over Huawei produced products, we want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products." The agency also states concern that "Huawei's widespread infrastructure will provide the PRC (People's Republic of China) with SIGINT capabilities." SIGINT is agency jargon for signals intelligence. The documents do not state whether the agency found information indicating that to be the case.
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The agency also stated in a document that "the intelligence community structures are not suited for handling issues that combine economic, counterintelligence, military influence and telecommunications infrastructure from one entity."

Casimir Radon posted:

What are the odds of Snowden pulling a David Carradine?

Oxford Comma posted:

What are the regulations for enlisted members of the armed forces to speak on issues? Can they do it, just not in uniform?

quote:

In the Army such activity is proscribed by AR 670-1 Ch. 1-10.j.

"Wearing Army uniforms is prohibited in the following situations:
(1) In connection with the furtherance of any political or commercial interests, or when engaged in off-duty civilian employment.
(2) When participating in public speeches, interviews, picket lines, marches, rallies, or public demonstrations, except as authorized by competent authority.
(3) When attending any meeting or event that is a function of, or is sponsored by, an extremist organization.
(4) When wearing the uniform would bring discredit upon the Army.
(5) When specifically prohibited by Army regulations."

quote:

UCMJ Article 88: “Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

psydude posted:

Didn't that one guy who went to the Ron Paul rally in uniform get burned? I remember it prompted all sorts of briefings about political activity in uniform. Then again, if you show up at a Ron Paul rally you're probably tubo stupid by default.

Oxford Comma posted:

What am I looking at?

quote:

Russia has amassed enough forces on Ukraine’s border to reach Moldova’s vulnerable Trans-Dniester region, NATO’s top military commander warned on Sunday.

Moscow has mobilized a “very, very sizeable and very, very ready” military contingent on Ukraine’s eastern boundary, Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Philip Breedlove told a conference in Brussels.

He said he was worried the troop build-up could pose a threat to the mainly Russian-speaking separatist region, whose local pro-Russia leader has already appealed to Moscow for an annexation similar to the one carried out in Crimea.
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Breedlove said NATO was very concerned that the region was, in Russia's view, was the "next place where Russian-speaking people may need to be incorporated."

"There is absolutely sufficient (Russian) force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Trans-Dniester if the decision was made to do that and that is very worrisome," he said, according to Reuters.

quote:

Vladimir Putin may have moved against Ukraine because the Russian military is dependent on Ukraine’s military industry if the Kremlin leader is to achieve his plans to launch a broader world war, a conclusion that if true both suggests the directions of Putin’s next moves and the best ways in which Kyiv can counter them.
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Specifically, the Kyiv analysts say that the article suggests the following conclusions. First, they say, “it seems that the Russian leader is seriously preparing for a third world war,“ given the size and nature of Moscow’s recent purchase orders from its own military-industrial complex.

Second, they conclude, the idea that “Ukraine’s defense industry depends on Russia “is wrong.” On the contrary, the Russian military industrial complex at the strategic level “is highly dependent on Ukraine” and its military industry for key production. Without that production, Russian firms cannot deliver what Putin seeks.
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There are three reasons the original Sovershenno Sekretno article was ignored or dismissed out of hand. First, a month ago it seemed highly improbable to many that Putin was actually interested in prosecuting a wider war and challenging the West so openly. Now, those possibilities seem far less far-fetched.

Second, the enormous detail offered by the article concerning the way in which the Russian defense industry actually works and how dependent it is on plants in Ukraine and other neighboring countries overwhelmed many readers who have forgotten that Stalin located the defense industry in this way to tie the country together.

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U.S. officials think that Russia recently obtained the ability to evade U.S. eavesdropping equipment while commandeering Crimea and amassing troops near Ukraine's border.
The revelation reportedly has the White House "very nervous," especially because it's unclear how the Kremlin hid its plans from the National Security Agency's snooping on digital and electronic communications.

One interesting fact involved is the presence of Edward Snowden in Russia, where he has been living since flying to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.

In August, primary Snowden source Glenn Greenwald told The Associated Press that Snowden "is in possession of literally thousands of documents ... that would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it."

Courthouse posted:

A quick peek at a map would suggest such a move would have to include eating most of Ukraine, including parts where Russians are in a marked minority(?)

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The State Duma has passed a motion suggesting that the US and EU extend the freshly introduced sanctions to all Russian MPs rather than a limited group of officials, defying western pressure just hours before Russia and Crimea signed a federation treaty.
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In a speech MP Mikhail Markelov (Fair Russia) called the move by the US State Department, President Obama and the European Union “an absurd attempt”, and suggested that the US punished all lower house members. “As long as they stress that MP Lyudmila Mizulina is on the blacklist, they should also impose sanctions on all 436 MPs who voted for the law that protects our children from gay propaganda,” Markelov noted.
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Deputy Markelov also said in his Duma speech that Russian politicians cannot be intimidated by Western sanctions as previous examples of their application demonstrate that such measures are hardly effective. “They tried it before in Serbia, Belarus, Syria. But these nations have not lost their dignity, have not lost their identity, they remain united and independent countries,” the deputy said.
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Commenting on the parliamentary motion an Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that everyone in Russia was tired of sanctions adding that the western measures only caused irony or even sarcasm. He refused to answer the question if Russia planned any reciprocal steps.

quote:

In my view, our sanctions should also target Rosoboronexport, a state-owned Russian arms exporter that has been supplying the Assad regime and has become a Grand Central Station of corruption. (The Pentagon has inexplicably been buying Mi-17 helicopters from Rosoboronexport to supply the Afghan military, despite numerous alternative options.)

Asehujiko posted:

The Netherlands specifically asked the EU to not sanction Putin himself because we "need" him for our PM's nuclear summit vanity project Gotta justify shutting down half the country for a week somehow.

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Britain, once the workshop of the world, has been selling respectability. Investor visas – just one hop away from citizenship – cost a mere £1 million (a self-respecting tycoon spends more than that on a birthday party). Libel lawyers deterred anyone from asking hard questions about where the oligarchs’ money came from or what their ulterior motives might be. Obliging bankers and accountants helped clients run rings round our money-laundering laws. Having an oligarch as owner, patron, or guest had the social cachet of attending one of Gatsby’s parties.

Everyone loved them. Schools like the one in Belgravia were able to charge £5,150.00 per term for a 3-year-old in nursery. Its headmaster was not alone in rubbing his hands in glee: Russian money was cascading down to ordinary people. We were all supposed to be grateful as it went into saving a football club, endowing a college or sponsoring a gallery.

The oligarch became everyone’s new best friend, an Establishment fixture who smiled from the pages of the glossies, and waved from the Ascot Royal Enclosure. Their extravagance, especially in a period of austerity, reassured: someone, at least, still believed in the UK economy. The billionaires dazzled with their Russian exuberance: an oligarch’s bash made Elton John’s look like a vicar’s tea party; an oligarch’s yacht made the Queen’s Britannia look like a tug boat.

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Scrambling to contain the damage, the Socialists on Monday announced they would join forces with the Greens and the Communist Party in a bid to block any FN advances.

MrYenko posted:

I could also see how sanctioning a first-world (second?) country could be more effective

Best Friends posted:

One thing I'm wondering about is the demographics of Ukraine's military. The rate of defections from the Navy seems to indicate that possibly most of their soldiers* come from Russian areas.

quote:

Not the rich people who run Russia though. Just like how blocking Hennessy to North Korea probably matters more than blocking food.

quote:

The editor of Beregus.ru, a portal that has promoted attention to the Russian Far East and highlighted the opportunities and dangers Russia faces there and along the Pacific littoral, notes today that all talk about "the returning of Alaska to Russia"began "as a simple means of information war," but "now people are talking about this as a real [possibility]."

"Russia needs Alaska," the editor says, and it also needs "the part of North America settled by Russians," an area that extends down to the middle of what is today the US state of California. But it is not just Russia which needs these areas, he adds; so too does the indigenous population of this enormous area.

"What have the Anglo-Saxons done for the native population?" the editor asks rhetorically. They have 'barbarously destroyed" it in order to steal the wealth of these people and enrich themselves. Despite that, the Americans "even today shout about the rights of numerically small indigenous peoples!"

"Russians today live in Alaska and in California,"he continues. And these are "not emigrants of a new wave but the descendants of their glorious ancestors" who came and developed this coast. These people are trying to preserve their Orthodox faith and their Russian culture."

Courthouse posted:

Barroso has announced the US and EU are hatching plans for reducing European dependence on Russian fossil fuels, G7 energy ministers to meet next week.

So... drill baby drill? Presuming they aren't talking more solar panels I take it we are looking at more fraking? Just how long term would reducing reliance on Russian gas be, taking into account the EU economic situation?

Trabisnikof posted:

Or maybe instead of it being because Ukraine is foolish and naive it is because they are poor as poo poo with weak civil institutions? Thus, they don't have enough money for a large military and all the kickbacks.

Besides, even if they somehow kept their Soviet Union era force sizes, do you think they would have been able to stop what the Russians did (which remember, occurred right after revolution in Ukraine)? Or is your argument that Yanukovych would have been able to maintain power with a larger military more reliant on Russia (since building your own stuff costs a lot more than buying Russian made goods)?

quote:

A new classified intelligence assessment concludes it is more likely than previously thought that Russian forces will enter eastern Ukraine, CNN has learned.
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“This has shifted our thinking that the likelihood of a further Russian incursion is more probable than it was previously thought to be,” one official said.
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U.S. military and intelligence officials have briefed Congress on the assessment.

As a result, Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee late Wednesday sent a classified letter to the White House expressing concern about unfolding developments.

An unclassified version obtained by CNN said committee members feel “urgency and alarm, based on new information in the committee’s possession.”

The committee said there was “deep apprehension that Moscow may invade eastern and southern Ukraine, pressing west to Transdniestria and also seek land grabs in the Baltics.”

Otto Skorzeny posted:

quote:

The English-language Baltic Timesreported that the Lithuanian intelligence service, the VSD, has warned that its Russian counterpart and other Russian security services “were acting most aggressively against Lithuania.”

In Latvia, the daily paper Neatkariga quotes the country’s security police chief as saying Russia has intensified its “soft power” efforts “through information campaigns, as well as through cultural, educational, and other similar instruments,” the paper said.

Estonia’s defense minister, Urmas Reinsalu, has called on more Estonian citizens to join the Estonian Defense League (Estonia’s version of the US National Guard). He told Estonian Public Broadcasting, “The Ukrainian crisis shows that the idea that defending the state is the problem of professional military only is outdated.”

Estonia’s national defense plan calls for membership of the Defense League to be expanded to 30,000 by 2022, more than double the current 14,000. An informal online poll conducted by the daily Postimees last weekend yielded more than 8,000 responses, with 32 percent saying they would seriously consider joining, 14 percent saying they might do so in the future, and 36 percent saying they would not. Twelve percent said they were already members. 

There is no shortage of advice on what the West should do next. In an editorial, the Baltic Times urged the Atlantic Alliance to “step up and offer Ukraine accelerated NATO membership,” which—it said—the Ukrainian prime minister had already requested in private meetings with NATO officials. “Ukraine is a worthy and willing candidate for NATO,” the paper said. “The NATO community needs to stand and rectify the wrongs of Yalta and Bucharest.” The latter reference is to the 2008 NATO summit in the Romanian capital in which France and Germany blocked an attempt by the Bush administration to offer fast-track membership to Georgia and Ukraine because of Putin’s objections. “Ask the Poles, the Czechs, the Hungarians, the Baltic nations, and other East European recently admitted NATO members,” the editorial continued. “They’re willing to defend Ukraine if only to experience freedom from fear themselves.”

Estonia’s president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, called on the European Union to take a tougher stand against Moscow in defending shared values. Speaking in Brussels, Ilves said the EU should join the US in a united stand, and praised the Americans for showing more spine.

“This border change means a major loss of trust in Europe as a player and NATO ‘being back in business’ discussing Article 5. We can no longer think that there are unthinkables of a certain type—countries do get invaded,” Ilves said.

He did not, however, put forward any concrete steps for hardening the European position.

Ultimate Shrek Fan posted:

Didnt someone actually get in trouble for violating opsec on the forums?

quote:

...it hasn't come cheaply. Renewable energy has been pushed so relentlessly, in a country not blessed with renewable resources, that the bill is getting enormous. This year, German consumers will spend about 23 billion euros propping up solar and wind power, up from 13 billion euros just two years ago. That comes through a government-mandated surcharge on electricity bills for residential consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. While the government once said the surcharge would never exceed 35 euros per megawatt hour, this year it will top 60 euros per megawatt hour. Big, energy-intensive firms are exempt from the renewables surcharge, which is the reason that European Union competition officials are looking into the question of unfair state aid for those firms. Meanwhile, regular households and small and medium sized businesses have little choice but to pay the higher bills.

That, in turn, appears to have taken its toll on an economy that lives and dies by exports. IHS, the energy consultancy, said in a recent report that German energy policies have cost the German economy 52 billion euros since 2008 because of the impact higher electricity prices have had on smaller firms. Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's energy minister, and the man in charge of making the Energiewende happen, raised eyebrows earlier this year when he warned of the risk of "de-industrialization" if Germany continues on its current path.

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If Putin decides to send in his troops, he has a narrow window in which to act. The winter of 2014 in Russia and Ukraine was relatively mild with little snow, while the spring is early and warm. The soil is drying rapidly, meaning that it will soon be possible to move heavy vehicles off of highways and into fields in southern areas of Ukraine close to the Black and Azov Seas. A key date is April 1, which marks the beginning of the Russia's spring conscript call-up, when some 130,000 troops drafted a year earlier will have to be mustered out as replacements arrive. This would leave the Russian airborne troops, marines, and army brigades with many conscripts that have served half a year or not at all, drastically reducing battle readiness. The better-trained one-year conscripts can be kept in the ranks for a couple of months but no longer. Otherwise they'll start demanding to be sent home, and morale will slip. As a result, Russia's conventional military will regain reasonable battle-readiness only around August or September 2014, giving the Ukrainians ample time to get their act together.

gfanikf posted:

What are the regime protector units in the case of Russia? I mean Saudi National Guard is KSA's version (or is it the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment?). I'm just wondering the specific units in the case of Russia, because I've never heard of their "Republican Guard" variants before.

quote:

Units massing on #Ukraine border are also "regime preservation" force; Putin won't have them that far from Moscow 4 long without good cause.
Eric Morse ‏@eriq49 @20committee Other than Kantemir what elite units have been identified on border to date?
John Schindler ‏@20committee @eriq49 2.GMRD, 4.GTD, multiple VDV units
...
Moscow's best army units (elms of 2nd GMRD, 4th GTD + VDV) are camped out on #Ukraine's border: soon it's time to execute or head home.
Hans de Vreij ‏@hdevreij Like the Kantemir and Taman divisions (brigades is a better word, I read somewhere) @mhikaric
John Schindler ‏@20committee @hdevreij @mhikaric exactly....they are currently expanding back to division size
Michael Cecire ‏@mhikaric @20committee yep - also bringing forces all the way from places like Moscow/Aprelevka @hdevreij

quote:

WASHINGTON—Russian troops massing near Ukraine are actively concealing their positions and establishing supply lines that could be used in a prolonged deployment, ratcheting up concerns that Moscow is preparing for another major incursion and not conducting exercises as it claims, U.S. officials said.

Such an incursion could take place without warning because Russia has already deployed the array of military forces needed for such an operation, say officials briefed on the latest U.S. intelligence. (Follow the latest developments on the crisis in Ukraine.)

The rapid speed of the Russian military buildup and efforts to camouflage the forces and equipment have stoked U.S. fears, in part because American intelligence agencies have struggled to assess Russian President Vladimir Putin's specific intentions.
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The U.S. believes Russia now has nearly 50,000 troops in position for possible operations, including those participating in the declared exercises along the Ukrainian border and those already inside Russian-controlled Crimea, officials said.

U.S. and Western officials previously have said there were 20,000 Russian forces along Ukraine's border, in addition to those inside Crimea, estimated at as many as 25,000.
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Another senior military official said the Pentagon was increasingly worried that the Russians have moved into place additional supplies including food and spare parts that could both support an exercise or a military incursion into Ukraine. Putting in place the logistics support could allow Russian forces to sustain themselves if they were to cross into eastern Ukraine.

"They are positioning logistics. That is necessary for the exercise but could also be used for further aggression if they choose to go," the senior military official said. "They have in place the capability, capacity and readiness they would need should they choose to conduct further aggression."
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Military officials said the camouflaging has further complicated U.S. efforts to assess the size and scope of the military forces being put in place.

"They have moved into concealed positions," said a senior military official.

The official said concealment could be aimed at obscuring images taken by American spy satellites.

Kung Fu Fist gently caress posted:

the way thats written it seems like they estimated 45k troops, and now theyre at 50k

quote:

The most conservative American assessments, apparently based on satellite data, say that Russia has massed between 40,000 and 50,000 troops within striking distance of Ukraine, including those already in Crimea. That total has apparently risen from 30,000 only a week ago.

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Nato has appointed Jens Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister leader who once opposed the transatlantic alliance, to lead it when Anders Fogh Rasmussen, its current secretary general, steps down later this year.

In his youth Mr Stoltenberg, now 55, objected both to Nato and the European Community, two organisations that he eventually came to support, and as a long-haired teenager he threw stones at the US embassy in 1973 after Washington's bombardment of Haiphong in North Vietnam.

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His early radicalism is an initial red flag: While serving as a minister of industry and energy, he joined a 1995 bicycle rally from Oslo to Paris to protest French nuclear-weapons testing. His defenders might object that many a responsible European politician—think Joschka Fischer —spent his youth in Europe's far-left fever swamps.

Fair enough. But with Mr. Stoltenberg, it appears that his radical notions have been merely diluted with age—but not altogether discarded.

In 2006, during Mr. Stoltenberg's second premiership, Norway's State Pension Global Fund divested from three U.S. companies— Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Honeywell - because they help produce nuclear weapons. "One-hundred percent of [companies] found guilty of serious or systematic human rights violations . . . are American," the U.S. ambassador to Norway complained at the time. "Is it reasonable to believe that among the pension fund's 4,000-plus companies from all over the world, the process has revealed that only American companies are unethical?"

Then there is Russia, which has once again emerged as NATO's chief adversary in Europe. In his first term as premier in 2001, Mr. Stoltenberg declared that "under no terms will Norway allow any foreign military activities on its territories," according to an account of his remarks published by the Nordic press, adding that "his country had never allowed military bases or nuclear weapons on its territories as it can be regarded as a threat to neighboring countries." He didn't specify which neighboring states he had in mind, but perhaps that was unnecessary, since he was speaking to an audience at the Russian Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy.

quote:

A majority of Germans, according to two recent opinion polls, are opposed to significant new sanctions. In addition, one poll suggests that a majority of Germans sympathize with Putin’s desire to protect Russian national interests in Crimea.

At the same time, profound skepticism of the United States after spying revelations by Edward Snowden last year has added to the pressure here. For a vocal minority, the breach of trust exposed by U.S. eavesdropping on the German leader has cast doubt on any initiative advocated by Washington.“A positive image of Russia has grown in Germany, which is a mixture of culturalism and admiration of Putin as the strong man standing up against the U.S.,” said Stefan Meister, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
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In a mid-March poll for the German public TV network ZDF, only 26 percent of those asked supported economic sanctions beyond the limited visa bans and asset freezes already imposed. A poll published last Saturday by the German news magazine Der Spiegel, meanwhile, indicated that 55 percent of respondents showed either a lot of or some “understanding” for Crimea being part of a Russian zone of influence.

Those numbers suggest the more nuanced view of Russia in Germany, where the misdeeds of Moscow are still colored by World War II-era guilt and a deep-seated sense of pacifism. On the political right, voices are warning that tough measures might not work even as they damage the German economy. On the left, meanwhile, there are voices that share Moscow’s contempt for the new Ukrainian government, which contains far-right elements, anathema in modern Germany.

iyaayas01 posted:

lol

Remind me again why NATO is still a thing?

Casimir Radon posted:

I don't think Russian children have much of a future.

Citations: Youtube

quote:

Not only do ethnic Muslims account for 21–23 million of Russia’s total population of 144 million, or 15 percent, but their proportion is fast growing. Alcoholism-plagued ethnic Russians are said to have European birth rates and African life-expectancy, with the former just 1.4 per woman and the latter 60 years for men. In Moscow, ethnic Christian women have 1.1 children.

In contrast, Muslim women bear 2.3 children on average and have fewer abortions than their Russian counterparts. In Moscow, Tatar women have six children and Chechen and Ingush women have ten on average. In addition, some 3 to 4 million Muslims have moved to Russia from ex-republics of the USSR, mainly Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan; and some ethnic Russians are converting to Islam.

psydude posted:

Yeah WTF is up with people in the West white-knighting Putin?

psydude posted:

And it's common knowledge that even allied governments spy on one another, so it's safe to assume that the intelligence agencies of developed nations have been aware of some of these capabilities for quite some time.