Thursday, March 13, 2014

Kerry: "There Will Be a Very Serious Series of Steps on Monday.”

Secretary of State John F. Kerry is in the final stage of training for the Hustle Up The Hancock April 13 in Chicago.  Mondays are especially heavy training days in his routine.  He's serious about this.

Oh.  Wait.  I need to read the complete article.  Here it is.

Well, this makes more sense.  He's not running stairs; he's talking about what will happen if Russia grabs up Ukraine because of a phony referendum to be held in Crimea this Sunday.  Crimeans will vote whether they want to (a) become part of beloved mother Russia, or (b) be invaded, crushed and destroyed before becoming part of beloved mother Russia.

The U.S. and Europe on Monday would then unite to impose sanctions on Russia, Kerry told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Thursday during a hearing on the State Department's budget.
Kerry responded carefully, saying “we have contingencies – we are talking through various options that may or may not be available.”
“Our hope is not to create hysteria or excessive concern about that at this point in time,” he said. “Our hope is to avoid that, but there's no telling that we can.”
If I was Vladimir Putin, I'd be quaking in my сапоги.  Kerry has contingencies, and also various options that may or may not be available.
U.S. authorities are closely monitoring the number of Russian troops in Crimea, as well as their movements, he said, noting that Moscow is allowed to have a total of 25,000 troops in Crimea.
Allowed by whom?  By the US?  Seriously?  And what will the US do if Putin deploys, say, 30,000 troops to Crimea?  Demonstrate the same courage and leadership as the Obama administration regarding the "red line" and the civil war in Syria, probably.

Vladimir Putin understands that "there will be a very serious series of steps on Monday" is as much a threat  to him as this

Good luck, Crimeans.

37 comments:

Chip S. said...

What Gus is sayin' is, the WH's contingency plan is back to back screenings of Battleship Potemkin and The 39 Steps.

Those are both very serious, and will keep the prez from becoming bored.

Michael Haz said...

Very serious steps. As in "be careful, or we shall be forced to send you $2 billion dollars."

Chip S. said...

I haven't heard the audio, but I find that it makes more sense in an Elmer Fudd voice.

Vewwy seweeous

Chip Ahoy said...

I wish we could all hold hands and give Kerry the support he needs in these perilous times

JustsayNO wins the internets, class A snark there, boy, I don't care who ya are.

Icepick said...

I still don't see why Ukraine is any of our Damned business.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Sadly this will not be enough of a hard lesson, to remind us and the rest of the world, that the only thing thugs and dictators respect is strength.

A weak US is a heavy price to pay for a fantasy of 'love peace and understanding', which in the end, can only be achieved when and if the other guy believes you can fight for it if you have to.

rcocean said...

I see no evidence that its a "Phony referendum" or that the people of the Crimea - most of whom are Russians, are against union with Russia.

Do you know the history of the Crimea? "The Native Crimeans" were ethnically cleaned during WWII. Some were allowed back afterwards, but most people there are Russians. Its never been full of Ukrainians.

rcocean said...

There seems to be a certain kind of American -cough - McCain -cough, that wants run around the world getting into fights and disputes when they can't even tell you the history of the place were supposed to get worked up about. Nor can they explain why for years, they didn't give a damn, or how if we "lose" its going to effect us.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

If we were economically as well as militarily strong and had the leadership representing it, Putin might not be pulling this play for Crimea.

A weak US quickly turns into the pain and suffering of peoples around the world.

We have been blessed and with that blessing comes responsibilities. When we turn our back, people get hurt.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Reagan showed how it's done. And the world was made better for it.

Obama is setting back the clock.

chickelit said...

@Lem: I think rcocean's point is that the Ukrainiane ethnic cleansing took place in the 1930s and 40s under Stalin. The time to act was then. Now, left to their druthers, would the Ukrainian forces try to ouster the Russians in Crimea? As retribution? We used to intervene in these sorts of ways before the genocide (with the exception of Africa). The Crimea is strategically important to Russia. What is our interest in blocking the Russian Navy from having a warm water port? It was an old Cold War dream, sure, but could we hold that fort?

bagoh20 said...

"We have been blessed and with that blessing comes responsibilities. When we turn our back, people get hurt. "

Yes, and an appreciation for this is the primary difference between whatever I am and a libertarian.

Revenant said...

Allowed by whom? By the US? Seriously?

I believe he's referring to the treaty between Russia and the Ukraine that followed the break-up of the USSR.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Peggy Noonan..

A great question for the future: Will Mr. Putin ever respect an American president again? He knows our political situation, knows we're a 50-50 nation, would assume we're blocked from consensus barring unusual circumstances such as a direct attack. He's not impressed by our culture or our economy. He might also make inferences from America's demographic shifts. If we are a more non-European nation than we were 30 years ago, might he think us less likely to be engaged by—and enraged by—unfortunate dramas playing out in Europe? Mr. Putin, as Henry Kissinger says, is a serious strategist acting on serious perceived imperatives. He would make a point of figuring out the facts of his potential foe.

Revenant said...

Reagan showed how it's done. And the world was made better for it.

Yes, we all remember how Reagan's boldness and determination prompted the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Oh wait, they stayed until after he was out of office. And all we did was toss some weapons and money to the local rebels. And that was in a nation that vehemently hated the USSR, whereas Crimea is fairly pro-Russian.

But no, I'm sure that if a Real Man was in office we would even now be sending troops to a warzone 5000 miles away, against an enemy 0 miles away from said warzone, on behalf of a populace that likes us less than the enemy.

Because that would be the "right" thing to do. Where "right" is defined via some secret technique that doesn't account for loss of human life and assumes all problems are best solved with a gun.

chickelit said...

Why care if he respects us? We will bury him.

We're certainly not going the Barry him....

Michael Haz said...

Yes, we all remember how Reagan's boldness and determination prompted the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan.

We remember how Reagan's boldness drove the Soviet Union out of Eastern Europe without firing a shot. And how his boldness regarding Star Wars caused Gorbachev to declare the Soviet Union's defeat in the Cold War, again without firing a shot.

Revenant said...

We remember how Reagan's boldness drove the Soviet Union out of Eastern Europe without firing a shot.

Then you remember incorrectly. The Soviets didn't exit eastern Europe until the Bush administration. Also, beware the post hoc fallacy -- that the USSR's empire fell apart starting in '89 doesn't imply that it fell apart because of actions taken in the 80s.

This is something I can never understand: many of the same people who freely admit that socialism and Communism don't work will, without pausing for breath, turn around and claim that Communism would have lasted indefinitely if courageous Americans hadn't stood up to it.

"Socialism doesn't work" isn't just a political talking point. Socialism REALLY doesn't work. Any socialist nation will either collapse or cease to be socialist without anyone having to do anything about it at all. Hell, if we hadn't single-handedly funded the USSR's modernization of its infrastructure during WW2, it probably would have collapsed sometime in the 60s.

And how his boldness regarding Star Wars caused Gorbachev to declare the Soviet Union's defeat in the Cold War, again without firing a shot.

I'm curious what you're referring to when you say Gorbachev declared the Soviet Union had been defeated.

Chip Ahoy said...

I'm sorry, Lem, any article that begins with "wake up call" begins at disadvantage but leading directly to "tugging at attention" is too banal an understatement whatever follows cannot be serious with as start bad as that

chickelit said...

@Revenant: You can argue that socialism is thermodynamically unstable and will collapse on its own, but there are barriers associated with that collapse. Reagan "catalyzed" the collapse -- made it happen faster.

Icepick said...

Okay, we won the Cold War. An outstanding achievement, to be sure. And then, after the USSR broke up, we sent in our economists and financiers and raped Russia financially in the 1990s. Harvard's endowment grew considerably.

Since Putin came to power I can think of Russia getting involved militarily in two countries. In 2008 they got involved in a war with Georgia when Georgia violated terms of a fifteen year long agreement and attacked areas under Russian protection. And now in Ukraine, where western governments supported the overthrow of an honestly elected government in order Romans Ukraine hostile to Russia, thus jeopardizing Russian military bases in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, we have been overthrowing governments in Iraq, Libya, Egypt (by withdrawing support for the old regime... Twice!), supported the overthrow of the government of Honduras, I believe it was, supported the dismemberment of two nations, tried to get another government overthrown in Syria, and on and on.

Oh, and in2008 on of our Presidential candidate favored militarily aiding a nation that started a war with Russian forces, and that Senator has just today expressed his disappointment that we aren't threatening to start WWIII over Crimea.

So, which nation has been acting like an aggressor?

Icepick said...

I'll crib from my own comments elsewhere:

I don’t understand why NATO, having achieved all of it’s strategic wildest dreams regarding the USSR now feels compelled to expand right up to the Russian border.

What is NATO’s goal with Russia? To see it break down into even smaller pieces?


...

I’m not seeing what purpose is served by provoking Russia, which we have surely done and are doing.

...

A lot of the evil in the 20th Century happened because of collapsed empires. Why are we doing everything we can to collapse two more?

...

We are treating every single international issue as though if anyone else any where “wins” anything, we must lose, and therefore we most oppose everyone on everything, unless they are deeply tied to us. (That is a reference to the NATO powers plus Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.)

Not everything is a zero-sum game.

Icepick said...

And two comments from Dave Schuler:

First:



My point in my remark is that I see no evidence that the United States respects the interests of regional superpowers. If you make a table and put Russia’s foreign policy interests in one column and the U. S. responses to Russia’s attempting to pursue those interests in the other, the U. S. response nearly always opposes Russia’s actions whether the U. S. actually has an opposing interest or not. IMO the U. S. just doesn’t think that any other country is allowed to have foreign policy interests distinct from ours.

You can do much the same exercise with China, Iran, India, Brazil, and so on.


Second:



In the specific case of Ukraine, while I fully support our standing up for liberal democracy and national sovereignty, there is no democracy or sovereignty to defend in the instance of Ukraine. The freely and legitimately elected president was ousted by a violent mob. Yes, he was a murderous, criminal shmuck. That’s beside the point. Liberal democracy when it’s convenient is a pretty poor excuse for liberal democracy. The fundamental requirement for a liberal democracy is the rule of law.

Similarly, the autonomy of the Crimean Republic and Russia’s long-term lease on its base in Sevastopol put an asterisk on Ukraine’s national sovereignty. It’s sovereign other than those exceptions. Paper it over how you may that’s not sovereignty and the Ukrainians are painfully aware of it.

Basically, there is no side to stick up for in Ukraine but we’re acting as though there were and I’m not really sure why.


Icepick said...

And ultimately I would ask Lem and the other people hot and heavy for direct confrontation and military action in Ukraine* against the nation with the world's largest nuclear arsenal:

What is your goal? To see Russia itself as utterly destroyed as the USSR was?

We have treated the Russians like shit since the collapse of the Soviet Union, complete with sending over Harvard economists to wreck their already shaky economy after the break-up. Do you really believe that they are to be allowed NO sovereign rights of their own? That they must have NO expectation of security on their borders?

We are the people supporting violent overthrow of governments that border Russia. We are the country supporting nations that go to war with Russia. We are trying to strip away military bases that have belonged to Russia since before our current Constitution was enacted. By what right do we now tell them they MUST cede this territory?

Russia has interests. That is independent of any government they have. The Tsars were interested in Crimea and so were the Soviet Premiers. The current President of Russia has those same interests. And any competent government is going to pursue those interests regardless of its make-up.

* Because nothing other than military action is going to get the Russians out of Crimea.

Revenant said...

@Revenant: You can argue that socialism is thermodynamically unstable and will collapse on its own, but there are barriers associated with that collapse. Reagan "catalyzed" the collapse -- made it happen faster.

The method that he chose -- dramatically ramping up military spending and taking an aggressive military posture -- did, indeed, hasten the collapse of the USSR.

... and the USA. The financial collapse of the United States is driven progressively closer every year by our endless deficit spending. Sure, after eight years of Bush and five of Obama Reagan's comparatively meager $1.7 trillion contribution to the national debt look pretty minor. But it probably brought economic collapse five years closer than it would have been otherwise. I doubt it shaved much more than five years off the USSR's lifespan -- by the late 70s the place was a basket case.

chickelit said...

@Revenant: Reagan was also a political reaction to Carter's foreign policy.

Trooper York said...

I think Icepick is absolutely right. This is not our fight. If there is an election and the Ukes decide to join Russia then that's that. Most of the ones in the Crimea seem to be ethnic Russians.

I think the idea of respecting regional superpowers is a very smart one.

That was what the Monroe Doctrine was all about back in the day.

Our greatest President said:
"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities."

Icepick said...

Russia is not the existential threat that the Soviet Union was. The USSR was the proponent of international communism. Russia is the proponent of Russia.

The only way Russia becomes an existential threat is if we provoke them into using their nukes.

So I propose we don't provoke them into using their nukes.

Revenant said...

Reagan was also a political reaction to Carter's foreign policy.

I don't see that as an endorsement of Reagan's foreign policy. After all, Obama was elected in response to Bush; anyone think he's done a good job of looking out for the USA?

Icepick said...

A weak US is a heavy price to pay for a fantasy of 'love peace and understanding', which in the end, can only be achieved when and if the other guy believes you can fight for it if you have to.

This assumes that what is happening around the Black Sea is because of anything we've done. Not everything happens because of what the US, and in particular what the White House, does.

It seems clear at this point that at least some of our diplomatic corps pushed for the overthrow of the Ukrainian government. At the very least the Russians believe that. There isn't any (good) evidence that our efforts impacted what happened in a material way.

There is well over 200 years of historical record, though, that shows that the rulers of the Russian empire have a great deal of interest in Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. Sevastopol was founded back around 1783. The Russian Empire and its successor states have based their Black Sea fleet in that area for a long time. They will NOT walk away from it now no matter what we do.

deborah said...

"Crimea and Punishment"

Bastard.

rcocean said...

"A great question for the future: Will Mr. Putin ever respect an American president again?"

This shit again. Who gives a damn, this isn't a schoolyard. Why this Putin obsession on the part of our elites? Yes, he's someone authoritarian. The Chinese are ruled by a COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP. They're occupying Tibet. But our elites are Okey-dokey with that.

But Putin, well...

rcocean said...

Great comments Icepick.

ricpic said...

Both sides know that Russia has swallowed Crimea. I expect Kerry and Obama will tout it as a great success on their part if the Bear doesn't take anymore bites out of Ukraine.

Methadras said...

John Kerry: I am going to get so mad. Mad, I tell you if things don't happen like we want them to. This will make us upset and we will then do stuff. And then the stuff we will do will only be after they do stuff and then our stuff will happen because it will make us mad and stuff.

Putin (in russian): LOL!!! Fuck you, Kerry.

Kerry (who doesn't know russian): Thank you Mr. Putin for your warm welcome.

Kerry (who later has it translated for him): Oh, why you dirty Slavic scoundrel. We are going to get so mad at you and stuff. You watch out buddy because if you do something, then we will do something and then we will have to talk about it and... (At this point Obama gives Kerry a note) Yes, we will draw a red line and if you cross it, then we will consult Syria about it and then draw another red line. Yeah.

Trooper York said...

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

In this case Obama's sloth and incompetence is working for us. His inabitlity to respond to world events is in our favor so we don't get drawn into a conflict that we have no business butting our Schnozzola in the first place.

Thank you President Obama.

Heck of job Brown guy.

Trooper York said...

If Nipsey Russell were alive he would say that is racist.