Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Catfish]

re Skybird, but i quoted this before:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-b...-leaders-early

READ THE DOCUMENTS
Document-01-U-S-Embassy-Bonn-Confidential-Cable
Document 01

U.S. Embassy Bonn Confidential Cable to Secretary of State on the speech of the German Foreign Minister: Genscher Outlines His Vision of a New European Architecture.
Feb 1, 1990
Source
U.S. Department of State. FOIA Reading Room. Case F-2015 10829

One of the myths about the January and February 1990 discussions of German unification is that these talks occurred so early in the process, with the Warsaw Pact still very much in existence, that no one was thinking about the possibility that Central and European countries, even then members of the Warsaw Pact, could in the future become members of NATO. On the contrary, the West German foreign minister’s Tutzing formula in his speech of January 31, 1990, widely reported in the media in Europe, Washington, and Moscow, explicitly addressed the possibility of NATO expansion, as well as Central and Eastern European membership in NATO – and denied that possibility, as part of his olive garland towards Moscow. This U.S. Embassy Bonn cable reporting back to Washington details both of Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s proposals – that NATO would not expand to the east, and that the former territory of the GDR in a unified Germany would be treated differently from other NATO territory.

Document-02-Mr-Hurd-to-Sir-C-Mallaby-Bonn
Document 02

Mr. Hurd to Sir C. Mallaby (Bonn). Telegraphic N. 85: Secretary of State’s Call on Herr Genscher: German Unification.
Feb 6, 1990
Source
Documents on British Policy Overseas, series III, volume VII: German Unification, 1989-1990. (Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Documents on British Policy Overseas, edited by Patrick Salmon, Keith Hamilton, and Stephen Twigge, Oxford and New York, Routledge 2010). pp. 261-264

The U.S. State Department’s subsequent view of the German unification negotiations, expressed in a 1996 cable sent to all posts, mistakenly asserts that the entire negotiation over the future of Germany limited its discussion of the future of NATO to the specific arrangements over the territory of the former GDR. Perhaps the American diplomats missed out on the early dialogue between the British and the Germans on this issue, even though both shared their views with the U.S. secretary of state. As published in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s official 2010 documentary history of the UK’s input into German unification, this memorandum of British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd’s conversation with West German Foreign Minister Genscher on February 6, 1990, contains some remarkable specificity on the issue of future NATO membership for the Central Europeans.

The British memorandum specifically quotes Genscher as saying “that when he talked about not wanting to extend NATO that applied to other states beside the GDR. The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” Genscher and Hurd were saying the same to their Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze, and to James Baker.[8]


[... the official State Department version of Secretary Baker’s assurances to Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze just before the formal meeting with Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, contains a series of telling phrases."
“A neutral Germany would undoubtedly acquire its own independent nuclear capability. However, a Germany that is firmly anchored in a changed NATO, by that I mean a NATO that is far less of [a] military organization, much more of a political one, would have no need for independent capability. There would, of course, have to be iron-clad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward. And this would have to be done in a manner that would satisfy Germany’s neighbors to the east.”


" this American transcript of perhaps the most famous U.S. assurance to the Soviets on NATO expansion confirms the Soviet transcript of the same conversation. Repeating what Bush said at the Malta summit in December 1989, Baker tells Gorbachev: “The President and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process” of inevitable German unification. Baker goes on to say, “We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.”



" Thus, in this conversation, the U.S. secretary of state three times offers assurances that if Germany were allowed to unify in NATO, preserving the U.S. presence in Europe, then NATO would not expand to the east.
The Soviet leader responds that “[w]e will think everything over. We intend to discuss all these questions in depth at the leadership level. It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable.” Baker affirms: “We agree with that.”


There is a lot more of inconvenient stuff in these documents.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

I'm fairly certain we're in WWIII.5; even China's premier Xi is backing away from his recent showcase-staged chumminess with Putin...and it doesn't help that negotiators name is Blinkin, which is what we're doing... bottom line: why does communism need to expand to be successful??

I thought after having read about this DEFCON Scala
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON#Levels

I would guess the American forces is at DEFCON 3-Roundhouse.

A nuclear war is not imminent-Yet.

Markus

[Catfish]

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...&postcount=161

Even i do remember what Genscher and Reagan have said in front of TV cameras, no need to "dig in the archives". Some have short memory.

So do I, well, almost, but there have been the rethorical returns by some people time and again that the promises back then had not happened and that there are no recorded files on it, was never said, had never happened . I recall it from some political magazine on TV where the comment ofr the narrator from the off expklcilty explained the detailed im0plicaitons of that there would be no movement of NATO to the East.



Instead it was something else that has not happened, maybe some people mistake these two things. There were no WMDs found in Saddam's garden despite the claim that one knew that they were there and that one knew where they are.


True only is that these reassurances were verbal only, not fixed in signed treaty. Which was naive by the Russians to trust on. But exploiting that trust is what has brought us to where we are today. Who wants to insist on that the outcome today justifies that behaviour back then?

Putin wa snot always like he is today. In his very early years of rteign, he was welcomed, admired an dbgreeted a lot in Europpe and the US alike, and many saw him as the new Peter the Great bringing Russia closer to Europe. There was a starting situation with potential, but one let the window of opportunity closing, even more, one helped to leave it open as short as possible only. Now, this plays no role anymore, Russia must be seen as a hostile today. The cold war is back, and it is more unpredictable than back then. But it must not have come to this.

When holding such hopes, it was stupid to betray them that easily. I do not free Putin of the responsibility for political assassinations, annexations and occupations. Still, his change, his motivations can be explained, and personality and psychology is just one part of the picture, and I think not even the most important one. And Europe and the US is anything but innocent in what has brought us to today's pass. The West was too convinced of itself.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

re Skybird, but i quoted this before:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-b...-leaders-early

READ THE DOCUMENTS
Document-01-U-S-Embassy-Bonn-Confidential-Cable
Document 01

U.S. Embassy Bonn Confidential Cable to Secretary of State on the speech of the German Foreign Minister: Genscher Outlines His Vision of a New European Architecture.
Feb 1, 1990
Source
U.S. Department of State. FOIA Reading Room. Case F-2015 10829

One of the myths about the January and February 1990 discussions of German unification is that these talks occurred so early in the process, with the Warsaw Pact still very much in existence, that no one was thinking about the possibility that Central and European countries, even then members of the Warsaw Pact, could in the future become members of NATO. On the contrary, the West German foreign minister’s Tutzing formula in his speech of January 31, 1990, widely reported in the media in Europe, Washington, and Moscow, explicitly addressed the possibility of NATO expansion, as well as Central and Eastern European membership in NATO – and denied that possibility, as part of his olive garland towards Moscow. This U.S. Embassy Bonn cable reporting back to Washington details both of Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s proposals – that NATO would not expand to the east, and that the former territory of the GDR in a unified Germany would be treated differently from other NATO territory.

Document-02-Mr-Hurd-to-Sir-C-Mallaby-Bonn
Document 02

Mr. Hurd to Sir C. Mallaby (Bonn). Telegraphic N. 85: Secretary of State’s Call on Herr Genscher: German Unification.
Feb 6, 1990
Source
Documents on British Policy Overseas, series III, volume VII: German Unification, 1989-1990. (Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Documents on British Policy Overseas, edited by Patrick Salmon, Keith Hamilton, and Stephen Twigge, Oxford and New York, Routledge 2010). pp. 261-264

The U.S. State Department’s subsequent view of the German unification negotiations, expressed in a 1996 cable sent to all posts, mistakenly asserts that the entire negotiation over the future of Germany limited its discussion of the future of NATO to the specific arrangements over the territory of the former GDR. Perhaps the American diplomats missed out on the early dialogue between the British and the Germans on this issue, even though both shared their views with the U.S. secretary of state. As published in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s official 2010 documentary history of the UK’s input into German unification, this memorandum of British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd’s conversation with West German Foreign Minister Genscher on February 6, 1990, contains some remarkable specificity on the issue of future NATO membership for the Central Europeans.

The British memorandum specifically quotes Genscher as saying “that when he talked about not wanting to extend NATO that applied to other states beside the GDR. The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” Genscher and Hurd were saying the same to their Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze, and to James Baker.[8]


[... the official State Department version of Secretary Baker’s assurances to Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze just before the formal meeting with Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, contains a series of telling phrases."
“A neutral Germany would undoubtedly acquire its own independent nuclear capability. However, a Germany that is firmly anchored in a changed NATO, by that I mean a NATO that is far less of [a] military organization, much more of a political one, would have no need for independent capability. There would, of course, have to be iron-clad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward. And this would have to be done in a manner that would satisfy Germany’s neighbors to the east.”


" this American transcript of perhaps the most famous U.S. assurance to the Soviets on NATO expansion confirms the Soviet transcript of the same conversation. Repeating what Bush said at the Malta summit in December 1989, Baker tells Gorbachev: “The President and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process” of inevitable German unification. Baker goes on to say, “We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.”



" Thus, in this conversation, the U.S. secretary of state three times offers assurances that if Germany were allowed to unify in NATO, preserving the U.S. presence in Europe, then NATO would not expand to the east.
The Soviet leader responds that “[w]e will think everything over. We intend to discuss all these questions in depth at the leadership level. It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable.” Baker affirms: “We agree with that.”


There is a lot more of inconvenient stuff in these documents.

I had not forgotten that you did. But that finding dates back to 2017, it seems, and it now has surfaced once again, done by an American and dug out from a British archives.



Thats two sources now.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Truth being told I think it now is indeed about more than just Ukraine joinign NATO or not. Its a factor, but not the only one.

[mapuc]

The wolf is coming. Once Again Biden say Russia will attack Ukraine/Kyiv within the next couples of days.

I still say Russia will invade Ukraine or part of it after 20th of Feb. If they decide to do so.

Markus

[Catfish]

The two usual suspects umm provinces Donezk and Luhansk have declared a general mobilisation, against "military attacks".

There's the pretext. "Seit 5:45 wird jetzt zurück geschossen"

Still the russian percentage is only around 40 percent in both, so russians there are a minority.
Maybe Trump can build some hotels there, i hear he is in negotiations.

[Skybird]

Yes, it does not look good. Add to the mobilization the raise in firefights and mortar duels, the car bomb, and the explosion at the pipeline. Sounds staged to me, all of it.


Still, it is an insane adventure Putin embarks on. He needs a successful mother of all Blitzes victory, cannot afford to get drawn into an ongoing quagmire. Back home his power erodes not so much from the outside, butinside, and if the Europeans can bring themselves to indeed reacting united and determined, the economic fallout will be crushing for Russia. No breaking its spine, but doing an awsome lot of damage and pain.

However, Germany will suffer dearly, too. And stockmarkets and inflation... Wel, it will not become pleasant. Not at all.

If this becomes a hot war indeed, then we all will be very severly affected one way or the other. Economically, energy-wise, financially. We all will pay, and will still do so in years to come.

I would not be concerned about what gets thrown at the Germans, since they have asked for it since many years, see my post in the Germany thread today. But these Germans pull me down with them as well, so... My biggest concern and fear these days is not the war itself, or the pandemic, or heating, or anything, but the inflation - and the increaisngly disinhibited, totalitarian policies or plunder and expropriatiton it will make governments to bring forward. I mean they already do it via their complices in the central banks, but they will worsen the pressure by factors.

[Jimbuna]

Beijing's Foreign Minister said that Ukraine had the right to safeguard its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. The Russian President has amassed close to 200,000 troops on Ukraine's northern, eastern and southern flanks, according to US officials. Defence analysts working for the Atlantic Council organisation warned that the Kremlin had completed preparations for a large-scale offensive operation.

They said that Russian forces could "likely execute a further invasion of Ukraine with less than twelve hours of unambiguous warning."

With an invasion looking increasingly imminent, China's top diplomat used his appearance at the Munich security conference on Saturday to warn Mr Putin against following through on his expansionist ambitions.

Wang Yi affirmed Ukraine's right to safeguard its territorial integrity and urged a diplomatic solution to the escalating crisis.

He called the Minsk Agreement the "only way out" and urged all parties to come together and solve the crisis peacefully.

Mr Yi also said that Ukraine should not be a frontline for competition among major powers.

The Minsk Agreement refers to a diplomatic accord signed in February 2015 in the Belarus capital by representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the leaders of two pro-Russian separatist regions.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...out&li=AAnZ9Ug

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine's Russian-backed breakaway eastern territories have ordered military mobilisations amid a deadly escalation in fighting.

Men of fighting age in the self-declared people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are being put on stand-by.

US President Joe Biden says he is convinced Russia will invade Ukraine, an allegation Moscow denies.

Western nations have accused Russia of trying to stage a fake crisis in the eastern regions as a pretext to invade.

International monitors report a "dramatic increase" in attacks along the line dividing rebel and government forces.

Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and four injured by shelling on Saturday, the first deaths to be reported in weeks.

Mr Biden's Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, said Russian forces were beginning to "uncoil and move closer" to the border with Ukraine.

In the German city of Munich, US Vice-President Kamala Harris told a security conference that if Russia did invade, the US and its allies would impose a "significant and unprecedented economic cost", targeting its financial institutions and key industries, as well as those who aided and abetted such an invasion.

Echoing her remarks, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that, in the event of an invasion, his country would "open up the Matryoshka dolls" of strategic Russian-owned companies and make it impossible for them to raise finance in London.

Mr Johnson had talks in Munich with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was visiting for the security conference against the advice of President Biden, who had said it might not be a "wise choice" for the Ukrainian leader to be out of his country at this time.

The US estimates there are 169,000-190,000 Russian personnel massed along Ukraine's borders, a figure that includes separatist fighters in Donetsk and Luhansk.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60443504

[Skybird]

Olympics closing ceremony tomorrow.

[mapuc]

I got this fear that Russia will do more than just invade Ukraine. From hearing and reading the news from Russia and Ukraine-gives me the feeling Russia are planning on doing more than just Invade Ukraine.

In the news days ago it was said that Russia may response military to NATO's and EU's answer to Russian demands.

Today Saturday Russia will have a huge nuclear exercise.

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I got this fear that Russia will do more than just invade Ukraine. From hearing and reading the news from Russia and Ukraine-gives me the feeling Russia are planning on doing more than just Invade Ukraine.

In the news days ago it was said that Russia may response military to NATO's and EU's answer to Russian demands.

Today Saturday Russia will have a huge nuclear exercise.

Markus

They will flex muscles against NATO and will send new weapons to Kaliningrad and Belarus, Georgia and Moldavia, maybe even tactical nukes into forward positions again - oh wait, they already did that, since longer time, so not, I think there is not much more they can do except indeed attacking border and territory of a NATO member and seeking confrontations in international waters and air space, or pressing into national airspace, like they do since longer time now. They could also refus eintenraiton cooperaiton on othetr topics and issues, from fighting Islam to fighting global warming.

But risking a real unlimited war with the US and NATO? No. Biden made the point some days ago, saying if Americans and Russians start shooting at each other, then its becomign a world war.

And lets be clear: Russia cannot afford nor maintain such a huge war even if it stays conventional, which is not certain.



Not even China does take them as an equal anymore. Russia has ores, Russia has energy, and Russia has military, but Italy's GDP is bigger than the Russian military budget, I just red. The one and decisive thing that Russia does not have is: a higher developed producing economy. Oil he cannot dleiver to europoe any ore, cannot be that easily redircted to asia, the infrastructure mostly is missing. And when it got build, maybe evcen Chian ahs started moving away from fossil fuels: then Russia had investements and expenses, but no profits. They have a huge braind rain, and the experts they have mostly work in the gas and oil business. Well...


The Sovjet Union lost the cold war not militarily, but economically. War with NATO, Russia economically cannot afford.

Plus it likely would break Putin'S neck at home, with public opinion, and maybe even from within his inner circle. It wil aleaey difficult enoguh for him to justify a war aaginst the Ukraine. I am not certain that he will succeed with that. I see a realistic chance that if he does not deliver the mother of all super-fast Blitzkrieg victories, it will bring him into deep trouble at home.

[mapuc]

What if Putin thinks he would win a lot by using tactical nukes in Eastern Europe-Hoping that the fear of a nuclear war will make NATO withdraw from Poland, Bulgaria, Romania a.s.o.

NATO will rather give in than fight a nuclear war.

I could be wrong-Just a crazy idea I got-Putin use one small tactical nukes in some eastern country.

Markus