(April 10, 2014 at 4:22 pm)Insanity Wrote: What I actually see happening is NATO and Russia will make scary faces at each other, call each other a few names. Then in 6 months to a year this will be just forgotten. Just like when North Korea has its little tantrums and starts threatening everyone.Russia isn't like North Korea at all. Russia is a military (and nuclear) superpower.
Russia did actually annex Crimea, and this is very similar to what Germany did to Austria, the Sudetenland, and so on before WWII broke out. Putin is playing a very dangerous game of chicken with NATO right now, just like Hitler did with the rest of Europe. (I'm not saying that Putin is a new Hitler -- I am saying I think its the same type of gamble)
The threat, as has been mentioned, is that NATO refuses to concede to Russia: 'give them a finger and they'll take the whole hand' as they say.
I saw on the news today that NATO has sharpened its tone toward Russia.
I find it hard to believe that the population of Crimea and Ukraine would like to live under a Russian dictator like Stalin or the Tsars of old Russia. That is what Putin is becoming.
Especially Ukraine has suffered terribly under Russian rule in the past. There has to be something bogus about that referendum in Crimea. Its well known that Putin isn't above using agent provocateurs, busing in loads of Russians to demonstrate, and so on.
