Cold War 2

Cold War looks hot to me.

Pucker up, lads, I hate the smell of shit.

 

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning......."

 

Thats alright. They will warm up when they start shooting civilians again

 

Looking grim now ,why don't the Ukrainians just give Russia the Crimea ,its populated mostly by Russians . Theres going to be no winners here.

 

But if it is too cold, get some warm wooden pallets and lie on them.

 

Bradford and Pakistan spring to mind on that point:biggrin:

 

If we go to a real humdinger of a war can I write off all my debts?

 

Is there any oil in the Crimea? I don't reckon there is, cos if there was we and the yanks would already be there, 'peacekeeping'...

 

It looks like Russia will take back the Crimea, presumably the Crimea reaches as far as the Polish/Romanian border.

 

I wonder what route the gas supplied by Russia to the UK takes.............


.........about a week ago I said it was a dangerous situation........

 

maybe not the right way but could it help prevent civil war until settlement achieved.

 

Have you noticed how the UK and most of Europe seem to depend on dodgy Arab regimes for oil, or dodgy Russian ones for gas?

Without energy independence, you're always going to have to toady up to someone you don't like.

It's a hard call this. Suppose Putin invades the Crimea, which he may well do, to split Ukraine and gain geopolitical influence, but more importantly to safeguard the warm water access for the Russian fleet. He will use the old chestnut of protecting indigenous Russian peoples (Sudenten Germans, anyone?). It won't be entirely untrue either, as probably most of the Crimea would sooner be Russian.

What is the West actually going to do? Give him a diplomatic rap over the knuckles? There isn't much else they can do. But if Russia gets well pissed off, they may turn off the gas. Now who has the upper hand? Or they might just double the price. What are you going to do about it?

On the other hand, the Russians aren't really best mates with the Chinese, and if they want to piss off the EU and the US, I can't see exactly who they think they'll be trading with. They may have more to lose than to gain in this little piece of brinkmanship. Their previous isolationist stance didn't do them a whole lot of good, did it? Queues in food and clothing shops while the West went on a shopping binge.

 

The main origin of the current struggle is a tug-of-war between the EU and Russia over the Ukraine. So when the chips are down, who do you support and where do your loyalties lie - the EU or Russia?

 

Ah well, here goes the neighbourhood...