Putin may be right. The rising tensions could be used as preparation for the conflict in that part of the world.

But according to my calculations - NK is just a distraction. The main target in the coming months will be Iran, so this is just preparations for that. It will be harder for China and Russia to intervene on behalf of Iran with all the noise happening around NK - both countries have to shift strategic and military attention to an entirely different part of the world - away from Middle East. Also NK definitely has WMDs but Iran doesn't, so Iran is a much easier target for US military.

11 minutes ago, gk10002000 said:

I did not threaten anybody.   And uh, yes, the US, as well as France, the UK, Russia, China and one or two other countries can target any country on the earth.  That is what intercontinental ballistic missiles do.

Targeting is not the same as directly threatening. Threatening is the same as using them, threat in itself is an act of terror - you spread terror to achieve your aims - be it either military, political, economic, or regional or global domination. And it leaves a deep and lasting impact in global mentality the more this kind of rhetoric is being heard the more other countries rush to obtain the same weapons - so they can also use them as either a means to threaten others like America does, or deter a potential American threat or attack.

In case with Russia since it doesn't have a preemptive strike in doctrine and doesn't throw words around like American politicians do - like Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and others in the past - Russia clearly states that it reserves the right to use them if Russia comes under major attack threatening country's existence. Even then Russian doctrine states that  in case of direct foreign military invasion - Russia will only use nukes if it cannot defeat the invading force via the conventional means - it clearly states that nukes are an absolute last resort in any type of military confrontation. Which in my opinion is a very cautious and conscientious approach to wielding WMDs, in stark contrast to the rhetoric coming from Washington all the time, and considering that Washington does have a preemptive strike in its doctrine.

7 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

Really? LOL

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/12139943/Russia-simulated-a-nuclear-strike-against-Sweden-Nato-admits.html

 

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-threatens-nuke-attack-u-s-nato-enter-crimea/

 

http://abcnews.go.com/International/russian-television-warns-nuclear-war-amid-us-tensions/story?id=42773541

 

https://www.thelocal.no/20161031/norway-will-suffer-russia-makes-nuclear-threat-over-us-marines

 

This is the last time I'm replying, I will put you on ignore after this. In all these cases Russia is simply quoting its own military doctrine - and each country already has a copy of it - it's like saying Russia has a military doctrine - and therefore it's a threat... Russia does not have a preemptive strike but can potentially use them if Russia's sovereign territory is invaded - so this is not really a threat... Rather a deterrent because NATO's build up is obviously threatening Russia's sovereign territory. They have guns missiles pointed at Moscow and other Russian cities, and troops ready to be deployed on Russia's territory. I don't understand how Russia telling them not to invade its territory can be interpreted as a threat directed at them.

1 hour ago, CaptHaddock said:

The Kwantung Army by the summer of 1945 was stuck in China without transportation to return to Japan.  No doubt the Japanese leadership was surprised at now quickly and completely they collapsed when the Russians came into the war, but the surrender was inevitable even before then.  The Americans had completely destroyed the Japanese Navy and Air Force along with more than sixty cities even before Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  After the war the US Strategic Bombing Survery, an investigation conducted by the US Air Force, concluded that Japan would have surrendered soon even without the a-bomb attacks or the Soviet declaration of war.

 

In fact, in June, 1945 the Japanese, communicating through the Soviet government with which it was not yet at war, indicated to the Americans that it was willing to surrender as long as the emperor system could be maintained.  Truman, against the advice of nearly all of his advisors, refused claiming that only unconditional surrender was acceptable.  Then, in August Truman accepted the Japanese surrender on the condition that the emperor be retained.  There is a lot of evidence that, rather than saving American lives, the atomic bomb attacks increased US casualties since Truman kept the war going long enough to drop the two bombs, which, at the time, constituted 100% of the US nuclear weapons inventory.  The reason the US dropped the Nagasaki bomb so quickly after Hiroshima was that they wanted to use the plutonium bomb quickly before the Japanese could organize a surrender.

 

Truman was eager to demonstrate the power of the a-bombs so that he could threaten Stalin with them which he was doing by March, 1946.  And the Americans have been threatening ever since.

We can have endless arguments both ways. Anyway here's a link:

http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/

"In recent years, however, a new interpretation of events has emerged. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara - has marshaled compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan’s surrender. His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the atomic attack. It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and why, the Second World War came to its conclusion.

6 minutes ago, gk10002000 said:

What you wrote is NOT true.  America does not routinely threaten to use nuclear weapons, and it certainly is not the onky country that has threatened to use them.  Goodness.  The North Korean nut has threatened that repeatedly, never mind some of the other big players over the decades.

You have explicitly and publicly threatened Iran with Nuclear annihilation and you have also threatened North Korea. Which means potentially US can target any country on this planet with their Nuclear Arsenal - there's no other way to interpret the message. This is well within your routine means of potentially achieving your goals of supremacy around the world.

Concerning the topic - which I think is laughable, I don't understand how this ever made the headlines. Russia is right there in the region. Maybe Americans should stop flying around the coast of California... because I don't understand how Russians flying near their own border is any of Yankie business to begin with.... If anybody is ever desperate for attention it's always the Americans... and this topic and headline proves it once again... The real question should be why the Yanks keep poking in that area with their dirty fingers and noses when their country is clearly on the other side of the planet...

The Soviets were the one's who forced Japan to surrender in 1945. The Soviets destroyed( literally annihilated) the Japanese Kwantung 1 million strong Army in Manchuria in 1945. The impact on the Japanese moral after the complete annihilation of their one and only army which was sworn in by the Samurai code to fight to the death for the Emperor was equivalent to 100 Hiroshima bombs. So the Soviets inflicted more material damage to Japan in just 2 weeks than the Americans did in 4 years. A few days after that Japan capitulated. Just in case if some of you smart ass kids didn't know about this :)

If America needs a mercenary Admiral as a replacement for their Pacific Fleet - I'll take the job. I'll be 1000 times better than the guys currently running your military - and this is not even a joke. I want to be paid in bitcoin though, don't want your dollars. I can immediately start protecting American lives by teaching your Navy personnel how to sail properly.

And for the love of humanity the next time one of your Navy Cruisers or Destroyers goes on a mission into foreign waters, please take some time to actually teach them how to sail. It really is becoming harder and harder to BS the world like America is a force to be reckoned with, isn't it?

46 minutes ago, Richard W said:

The iceberg wasn't trying to avoid collisions and was hiding (90% under water), and got rammed.  It seems that American warships go about with their transponders off, and get rammed.

 

However, the last incident, at least, was in busy waters, and so 'open waters' might be very wrong as a description of the location.  Perhaps the English Channel might be a better comparison - where collision is a very real risk.

 Well if it happened in busy waters - and you are right here, there's a definite difference here. Busy waters is anywhere near a major city and major port or a well known merchant sea routes - these are usually really well marked on the charts - everybody knows where they are and everybody plans ahead. I had to sail through a few Merchant ship routes - you usually have visually when you get close 5 to dozen tankers or cargo ships going in both directions - it's the route they always use. So if you set course through one of these routes, turn off the lights, and go to sleep - then you will definitely hit something, it's highly likely. But generally for a captain nothing is ever an excuse - that's why they get all the training, and should have plenty of experience dealing with all of these potential hazards at sea. What I'm talking about here is elementary level of knowledge of international sailing - Captain and all of the crew are supposed to know all of this by heart. So if they did get hit in busy waters - that just shows that the Captain and the crew are acting worse than amateurs and should never be allowed to sail again imo.

America is literally collapsing in front of our eyes :)

4 collisions of military ships in such a short period of time? Things are much worse than what they are telling you. :)

I was a skipper myself with crew of 7 in Mediterranean. Did lots of daysailing, nightsailing. Colliding with another vessel is pretty hard to do in open waters even if you tried - because you have to find a vessel first - sometimes it doesn't happen. But it's possible that's why 24/7 watch is necessary - we did a crew rotation 24/7 - one person on the deck watching the course and steering, and one more back-up guy half way sleeping on the deck who would help the guy on the deck in case course adjustment was necessary or in case of an emergency - the rest of the crew were sleeping at night - we took turns 2 hours each at night to make sure somebody was on the deck at all times. Whereas our backup guy was usually a volunteer who is used to half conscious sleeping at all times - his job was to give extra hand in emergency and also wake up every hour or so to make sure that whoever was doing their turn on the deck didn't fall asleep, And that's the main task when you are doing international sailing - maintaining 24/7 day-night watch, and even amateur crews can do it really well :) So I don't understand how a military ship with all the equipment on board, and much more crew on board( one guy on the deck at all times is pretty much all you need to avoid any collision) could screw this up so badly - this is really bad. Even then I myself as a skipper was trained to take a dozen different precautions, evasive actions when necessary - and it helps because the captain of the other vessel is also equally trained to take all those actions... that's why nothing ever really goes wrong, so most of the time two vessels never come to dangerous proximity, and are just happy to see each other, exchange messages on the radio for fun and so on.

Funny debate here. US troops had about zero chance of getting as far as USSR territory let alone capturing Moscow back then lol. The other around - for sure. Soviets could have gone all the way to lamanche and got themselves entrenched there, had they any desire to do so. US forces were more likely to successfully invade Mars than USSR with that army that they had back then.

Nukes weren't going to help the Americans either - nukes in those days had lower yield than some conventional payloads these days - that wouldn't even put a dent in the Soviet armies stretched across millions of square km in continental Europe back then..

Whatever Trump thinks. It's clear that any chance of restoring relationship with Russia is now lost for good. If I understand Putin correctly.  No matter how the relationship develops in the future, Trump is now officially permanently on Putin's bad side. If he was going to play with Russia - he should have never pretended like he was going to be a friend... because his actions now make things much worse. And this is probably bad for both countries.

Good ole days. When Russians say that they mean the good ole days when the British were fighting the American colonists for the control of America - good ole days those were indeed - that was during the Russian Golden age. In those good ole days when the British destroyed the American farmland entirely - and the whole population was starving. The American colonists who lived mostly on the East Coast continued fighting only because the Russian Imperial Fleet at that time was supplying the wheat and other supplies to them so they don't die from starvation -  we are talking about tons of wheat and flour. Russia is an old country so you should ask what "good ole days" mean. In Russian time scale Ivan the Terrible was ruling Russia not that long ago - but in the American time scale - that was before our world existed apparently. :)

I think that it may very well be a good time to evacuate Asia. 2018 will be a hot period in this region.

For Trump it's a win-win. Guam voted against him - he doesn't care if Kim strikes that place, probably secretly wishes for it. If this happens Trump will definitely serve to the end of his term and likely get re-elected. All of West Coast will vote for him next time if Guam gets nuked. It's brilliant.

Second. He hates Japan, China, and probably Korea all the same - he spoke about it in detail many time since the 70s - he believes they have been receiving a preferential treatment over the US industry and were never interested in returning the favour to America . North Korea is an obvious excuse to provoke a very explosive situation in the region - so at the very least it would tank the Asian economy - for countries like China, Japan and South Korea( especially if major cities indeed get hit by Kim - imagine what would happen to Samsung corporation for example - the key competitor of Apple inc) - that's pretty much all of Asia at the moment. If that happens - then it would make it easy for him to deliver on his promises to make America great again - if Asian economies tank, so will the European economies - and America would look much better in comparison - so this is a brilliant strategy - and Trump doesn't even have to do anything. The strategy is to provoke Kim to do it all for him. For US it's a lossless situation no matter how the situation develops - for everybody else in the region it's a huge potential mess. For Trump and US provoking Kim is like killing 6 hares with one stone. In absolutely the worst scenario if Kim doesn't attack anybody then America can at least pose around like it's still an important player in the region for a few more years. If it's such a win-win-win situation for America, why should they stop provoking Kim?

2 hours ago, Morch said:

 

As soon as he made the statements - all these accusations disappeared, in fact immediately people started saying - oh no, this guy is even worse than Hillary.

 

I don't know that Trump was widely accused of "being Putin's agent or employee". At least not by serious commentators. However, the investigation into Russian interference with the recent US elections is ongoing, to the chagrin of some. Far as I recall, it was said that findings will be presented (probably not to the general public) beginning or middle of January. And no, many of those who opposed Trump already thought he'll be "worse than Hillary", so not much of a shift there.

 

Trump is issuing such statements pretty often, with the effect that people tend to forget the last one before the next kicks in. Could be a calculated tactic, could be an uncontrollable urge to express himself, or a bit of both.

 

Of course - that's why he it did right at the time CIA was accusing Russia and Trump of this and that. Then the public was very confused how to interpret this giant onslaught on Trump and his legitimacy as president - if he wasn't accused, it was the growing public perception. And he fixed it with just a couple of tweets - the media and the public made a giant 180 degree turn and instead of saying he was secretly colluding with the Kremlin - that he was gonna be the madman who'd start WW3 - but it totally stopped the onslaught on his legitimacy. And he did it right before Christmas, the New Year and his eventual inauguration - so this will definitely be forgotten rather quickly. How much does it cost to make a couple of tweets? But how effective it is...

4 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

Actually, didn't Russia lose territory in the wake of WW1? 

Well many historians agree that WW1+WW2 was basically the same war just started and then continued later, it wasn't resolved until the end of WW2. So that doesn't really break the pattern. It started in the beginning of century 1914, and ended right before the middle. And if you check Russian expansion - that included Eastern Block and half of Germany itself, that kind of confirms the pattern yet again - that was the largest westward Russian expansion in history. The bigger the invasion of Russia - the bigger is the Russian expansion in the aftermath -  I think that's the pattern.

17 hours ago, onthesoi said:

 

How many times has Russia been occupied over the centuries?

 

 

Occupied - never, it's too large to be occupied completely. The closest call was when the  head of Poland Sigismund Vasa the third conspired with Russian Boyars to help him invade and become the new Tsar of Russia. They largerly succeeded and Sigismund fought his way to Moscow and was proclaimed Tsar with backing of majority of Boyars. Half of the country didn't recognize the new Tsar and then immediately rebellion began and he was quickly booted out of the country.

That was the first of the pattern of large Western invasions of Russia. The Polish did it first - they took Moscow but couldn't keep it - this was in beginning of 17th century

In the beginning of 18th century the Swedish Empire landed in mainland Russia and launched 5 or more attacks and fought  a major war with Russia with intent to eventually take Moscow, they also failed.

In the beginning of 19th century Napoleon went to Moscow - and we know what happened.

In 20th century Hitler went to Moscow and that also ended in disaster.

The Russians interpret the current events as another in the series of the usual pattern of the West to invade Russia in the beginning of every century. The Russians don't believe that the West is ever up to any good - it's easily confirmed by history and facts, when we have such an obvious continuous pattern of Western countries constantly invading Russia strictly at the beginning of every century - it's what the Russians expect and prepare for. And as history shows each such unsuccessful western invasion always ends up with the Russian territorial expansion.

I think it's just theatrics on part of Trump. He's an actor/tycoon. He is making statements to appeal to the patriotic crowd at home. Just before he made the statements there was wild speculation that he was Putin's agent, employee and such. As soon as he made the statements - all these accusations disappeared, in fact immediately people started saying - oh no, this guy is even worse than Hillary.

His intentions to take on Putin could be as serious as this:

"The Russian military has always suffered from issues. Look how they have actually performed over the centuries. 

Against Napoleon - poor; Crimea - poor.  1905 whipped by Japan; WW1 poor prior to collapse due to revolution; WW2 poor but received massive allied help. 

They are good when opponents invade their country and are unprepared for the serious conditions of their winter. They relied on throwing waves of manpower at the opponents regardless of their own losses."

About Napoleon - French losses vs Russian losses were 3 to 1, if you count just the regular and not peasants and militia then I think it's 4 to 1. Out of 700,000 troops of Grande Armee - the largest and mightiest standing army ever assembled in Europe to that date - only about 20,000 soldiers returned home. The Russian regular army had only 200,000 troops for example and they defeated a much larger force and took much fewer casualties. If this is poor then what is good in your opinion? Napoleon invasion of Russia is the biggest military humiliation for Europe in history that some people still can't get over.

Crimea - Russia single handedly fought against 3 Empires about the same size as Russia itself - French, British and Ottoman - in resources and manpower, technology each one of them could match Russia on its own. They fought over a few years and the French/British/Ottoman losses were 2 to 1 against the Russian losses though mostly due to disease. Russia chose to abandon the fight because Austro-Hungarian Empire - another Empire with resources and manpower about the size of Russia threatened to join against Russia as well. So Russia figured it was pointless to fight a war alone against 4 large Empires on European continent. Later they won all the territory and status of Crimea back through diplomacy. Though it was a defeat, their performance in that war given the odds they were fighting against was nothing short of spectacular imo. Their enemies never managed to capture Sevastopol by force.

WW1 - wasn't poorer than anybody else. The Russian Brusilov Offensive was the largest in history to that date and also the most successful in WW1, it proved to be decisive for the Western Front. The Germans lost the Battle of Verdun because of the Russian Brusilov Offensive in the East. Poor - maybe, not all of it was poor - the Western Allies didn't perform that much better, the Russian efforts were decisive in that war, without it the Central Powers would have won the war on the Western front.

WW2 - not poor but actually really impressive if you study it more carefully. And they didn't rely much on allied aid either. 99% of Russian weapons used in that war were made in Russia itself. And the common misconception of Russia just using manpower is also commonly thrown around but is actually wrong and doesn't give an accurate picture of what happened. Every battle that Germans won on the Eastern Front was also because of their numeric superiority which they exploited quite thoroughly during the first year of the war, they didn't actually perform that much better than the Russians. When Russians regained numeric superiority just before the battle of Moscow - they won every single battle after that all the way back to Berlin.

Just some info for you, I hope this doesn't get deleted. lol

It could be just one of those Trump things. He toyed around with Romney nomination and only to ditch him at the last moment and nominate somebody completely different. Let's wait till he gets into office and then we can see what he's actually going to do. I hope they can work it out and improve relations as each side declared they wanted to.

He might be just playing to be a tough guy against Putin at the moment to make sure the Opposition - establishment, etc don't try to do something stupid and provoke a confrontation with Russia before Trump gets into office. Statements like this actually defuse the tensions in the last month before Trump gets into office. He keeps ball to himself to make sure the Establishment and Obama don't get to play it themselves.

15 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

That's not the point.  Russia annexed Crimea illegally.  I'm not sure why many don't understand this.  Sure, there are some there who'd like to be part of Russia, and some who'd like to stay with Ukraine.  That decision is not up to Russia.  It's up the population of Ukraine.  A nationwide vote should have been held.  But it wasn't.

 

Only those in support of the annexation use ethnicity as a reason.  But it doesn't fly.  I'm not sure what you are ranting on about.  Sorry, but doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not ranting and everybody except you I guess can tell that. I'm laying out clear thoughts and facts so you can finally understand what happened there and in Europe as a whole before - you need to see in the whole context of events before and after USSR break up. The fact that Europe and US are using double standards is obvious, and the Russians understand it very clearly. People did vote in Crimea and something like 85-90% wanted to split from Ukraine since a very long time ago, since they had no business being in Ukraine to begin with - this Union with Ukraine was FORCED upon them against their will. The fact that nobody in the west is willing to recognize that is a clear demonstration that nobody in the West has any principles at all. If you say Crimean reunification with Russia was illegal then Reunification of FRG with GDR was also illegal and Merkel should give East Germany up and let it be a separate sovereign state, as it was such recognized by every country in the world.

Also Crimea declared independence just before they voted to join Russia, so technically we are looking at exactly the same case here legally. And a few days before that there was a coup in Ukraine where the government was seized by a group of people who declared the Ukrainian Constitution void, so Crimea was under no obligation to follow any regulations of the Ukrainian constitution - the new government in Kiev had nullified it themselves. There was nothing illegal about the Crimean declaration of independence.

37 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

Because that territory belongs to Ukraine.  If you apply that logic, all of Europe would be contested right now!  Scotland has a long history with the UK.  A bit different from Crimea which is actually part of the sovereign country of Ukraine.

If everybody is against Crimea being with Russia. Then why was everybody in Europe and Western world was supporting the reunification of East and West Germany? Wasn't the ethnic cultural and so on criteria used in that case? So why is everybody against the re-unification of Crimea with Russia when it's the same ethnic criteria and the territories were split for less period than that of GDR and FRG( the two Germany's). This logic sounds very Un-European and hypocritical to me. Somebody should advise Merkel and Washnigton about it. It's actually Gorbachev and the Russians who chiefly supported and enabled the reunification of Germany - so the current western stance and attitude on the Crimean issue is actually a huge slap in the face of Russia and the Russian people. The West keeps demonstrating that it likes to use double standards towards different countries and has no principles at all. And the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was illegal in every aspect of international law just as was the division of FRG with GDR.

34 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

It's my personal experience and I'll PM anybody with the contact info for my guide.  Research the history of Moldova, and Transnistria.  Not hard to figure out why ethnic Moldovans are not happy with Russia.  No trolling.  Just the facts.

 

Sorry you can't read the article.  Plenty of others like it on the internet.

It's your job to verify any of that information. Since you haven't actually done so, I don't understand why you are posting it here and forming your entire logic based on some gossip and rumours, false information from the streets of some foreign country as if it was some given fact.

4 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

What has corruption got to do with what I said?  For sure, it's massively corrupt.  I actually had 4 different tour guides.  2 for my time in Moldova, a different 2 for the trip to Transnistria.  None had any good comments about Russia.  Perhaps you read this:

 

https://www.ft.com/content/66a08912-aeba-11e3-a088-00144feab7de

 

 

 

Perhaps you should apologize for that misinformation to promote ethnic hatred you are dissiminating here - it's beyond trolling imo. Criminal offense in some countries actually.

Can't read the article - the heading speaks about "State" property nothing to do with ethnicities or individual property.

26 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

I was in Moldova recently.  Hired a guide for 4 days to drive us around, including a day/night in Transnistria.   The guide has relatives in Crimea.  Been living there for a long time.  They had their property taken and given to ethnic Russians.  Same thing they are doing in Transnistria.  Ethnic Moldovans are being treated poorly.

 

No wonder many don't want to live under Russian rule. 

This story sounds like a pretty laughable account I've ever heard. Moldova is even more corrupt than Russia, and people are far more poor and destitute. Of course you couldn't find a guy on the street who would just make stuff up because of his personal ethnic hatred against ethnic Russians and with full knowledge that some foreigners would be more than happy to buy into these crap stories.

They had their property "Taken"? That sounds like nonsense.

"Taken and given to Ethnic Russians" - that sounds like nonsense multiplied by 100... lol