Comments by "Jim Luebke" (@jimluebke3869) on "The Beginning of the Fall of Crimea" video.

Checking in 4 months later -- "This is still Russia's war to lose" - Peter Zeihan
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@189Blake The front line is apparently incredibly fortified now. There's a fairly good chance it's not going to move anywhere at this point... either eastward, or westward. We should probably follow suit, helping fortify things like the Estonian border. Who says defense contractors need wars to get business? Just the pragmatic fear of war is enough, and that's probably never going to go away.
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@POLITICS_IDEOLOGY_SOCIAL-fu5yl Has Crimea fallen yet?
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a) The Russians suffer one of the most humiliating withdrawals in military history b) The Russians suffer one of the most humiliating defeats in military history You forgot c: c) The Russians pull out the nukes. and d: d) Negotiated peace
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He makes an extremely clear outline of two alternatives that the Russians will never accept. Which leaves us with two alternatives that he leaves out completely: a) Russian nuclear strikes (plural) at strategic points in Ukraine, including population centers b) A negotiated peace settlement
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@northernstar4811 Russian nuclear scientists are (or at least were) pretty good -- I suspect that this can be minimized. Not a great option, but all it has to be is the least-bad option, for it to be selected.
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@northernstar4811 If Russia were more famous for being concerned for the safety of its soldiers, (or civilians, or anyone else for that matter) I'd give more weight to that argument. Personally I think that a strategy that would work (and just as importantly, that the Russians would understand to be an effective strategy) is to trade land for time to develop insurmountable defense-in-depth. Let Putin have the eastern provinces, which have been drained of (presumably) their most Ukraine-friendly residents anyway. Then stuff Poland, the Baltics, and Romania full of the kind of armaments that have been so effective against Russia until now. You don't have a slippery slope when the next step is astronomically more painful and difficult. If you want to get out of this situation minimizing not only the death and destruction we're seeing now, but also the risk of planetary-level death and destruction that is very much on the table, this is the way to go. Add to this the opportunity to split Russia off of China, and you're also serving our national strategic interests. Give Russia a chance to develop a sphere of influence that includes newly independent or augmented countries like Tibet, Greater Mongolia, East Turkmenistan, and maybe even Manchuria, and you'll have a Russia that's too busy in the East to be troublesome in the West.
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@ChucksSEADnDEAD The situation is disastrous all around. Is there anything humanitarian in keeping it going? "We have to burn this country down to save it"?
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