Quote:
Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b
Does Putin actually want a war? They'd end up with a pyrrhic victory at best.
I like Sting's take on this: "It's such an ignorant thing to do, if the Russians love their children too."
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No...not exactly a "full-blown war" in the old Cold War sense if you will, I think Putin is just applying the old Soviet playbook of war by proxy against the "evil Western Imperialists", much the same way we (the West, that is) played against the Soviets during the Cold War. Problem is, you have to be careful not to gamble too much when rolling the dice, which some are afraid Putin or some idiot is going to do at some point, which is not without historical precedence.
Putin's not stupid enough (I think anyway) to want an all out war, but he and his inner circle really do miss the glory days of the U.S.S.R. and they've also got a bit of a chip on their shoulder in regards to the U.S. for various reasons, real and imagined. So none of this is surprising, it's just a question of how much he thinks he can control the situation.
To whit, here's an interesting article from Daily Beast (no, I'm not a fan of the site, but the article is interesting, take it with a grain of salt of course):
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...le-defeat.html
Everyone knows the Pentagon has been watching this mess. Now it seems, the rumors are confirmed they are "dusting off the old books", according to this article, make of it what you will:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/dempse...ry?id=24713043
And to top it all off...it seems Putin's decided he's riding the tiger now and he's not getting off:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...usaolp00000592
The Russians are transferring heavy artillery rocket launchers (Anyone know more about these or what model they might be, BM-9P140 Uragan perhaps?), and more APC's and MBT's to the separatists, and it seems they're building up Russian troops along the border, AGAIN.