Putin: Russia could sink United Kingdom warship without triggering 'world war'
washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-nationa...
washingtonexaminer.comPosted Jul 1, 2021, 5:36 AM UTC
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washingtonexaminer.comIdk they seemed pretty scared to even drop the warning rockets they claim
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Must have bad eyesight they missed the warning shots pretty badly
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Says so much at how low Russian training and technology have fallen from when it was a serious power.
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it the first time I hear of missing a warning shot, it's not supposed to go anywhere by definition, no?
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Russia claimed they targeted the ship causing it to go off path. They didn’t drop any rocket that the ship could see
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I mean they were pretty professional about not aiming the gun near the HMS Defender and firing.
Could have just as easily called that reckless.
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Lol they did it pretty far away, look at the videos. Their are procedures in place to make warning shots clear. Not whatever was seen in that ridiculous video
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And he is not wrong. Russia shoot down civil aircraft and nothing happened. Russians are at war with Ukraine and everyone is like "separatists".
Just because NATO might have better army or more GDP does not mean starting war with Russia would be anyhow beneficial and I doubt public opinion would be OK with war against Russia.
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Russia shoot down civil aircraft
That’s the difference, they shoot at things that can’t shoot back. Fighting in Ukraine is one thing. Firing at a British ship is a completely different ball game. If that was a Ukrainian ship I’m sure they would have shot at it. But they didn’t because it was British. Russia is all bark and no bite.
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See Turkey shooting down a Russian jet as a good example of Russia being spineless when it comes to NATO.
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Didn’t a few hundred Russian “mercenaries” attack a US position in Syria and get demolished, and Russia sat there and took it like a bitch? Though having plausible deniability over them what always part of their plan, I imagine. Still I don’t know how Russian military families put up with the stress of knowing the sons can be easily thrown into a meat grinder so Putin can feel like he a real player on the world stage.
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Yep, battle of Khasham
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Because they were mercenaries and not Russian soldiers?
Pretty certain you have to willingly join them, military families in Russia wouldn't have that concern. Especially when it was pretty much just a rag tag militia without any air support that would exist in a real war between Russia and NATO.
Not even counting the obvious nuclear escalation that would probably lead to on the battlefield in such engagement.
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Sanctions happened which strains the Russian economy heavily to this day, as well as the current re-armament of the Baltics, Poland and Romania. They also lost their influence in Georgia and Ukraine for good.
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Sanctions are not war.
Also sanctions hit Russia so hard that Russia doesn't show any signs on changing its policies.
I don't know about what re-armament of Poland do you write about because army budget stay at the same relative high level for many years.
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You are aware that war is not the only policy in the world? Unless you are some bloodthirsty warlord. Most countries try to avoid war as the first way.
The sanctions weren't intended at changing all of Russian politics at once. That's not even the idea of sanctions? It crippled the Russian economy who was strongly dependent on EU exports, especially when it comes to electronics. Also Russia didn't dare to launch another big offensive in Ukraine since then and has been lobbying hard to get the sanctions off. Putins popularity has dropped a hard time too. Not every policy is aimed at an aggressive war that overthrows a system.
Militarisation doesn't mean pouring more money in, it's about the flow of money. More money doesn't mean a better military. Poland has been reducing its bureaucracy and is modernising its equipment. They had mainly outdated weaponry of the 80s because they completely relied on the US. Now they are selling off the old system to buy modern tanks, anti aircraft systems, fighter jets and drones. The amount of money doesn't say much, it's important where that money goes and what it's invested into. Same with Romania who asked Turkey and Israel to modernise its army while the Baltics got more NATO troops stationed. Also if I remember correctly the Swedes re-introduce mandatory military service due to Russias aggression while Estonia and Lithuania have increased their army personnel.
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You are aware that war is not the only policy in the world?
I think it is obvious about what type of war they talked about when they say "world war".
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NATO members didn't sign a treaty saying they'd go to war with any country that committed a crime by shooting down a civilian aircraft. They did however sign a treaty saying they'd go to war with any country that launched a military attack on any other NATO member.
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they'd go to war with any country that launched a military attack on any other NATO member.
yea, if that country would ask NATO for help, and they would agree that it was military attack and not just for example of "oversensitive act of self defense"
If there is will for war they would say that shooting a plane is reason to denounce war with Russia, If you want war you can even stage some fake attack.
But if there is no will then they can say that sinking ship was not act of war but just mistake on both sides that every included party is willing to resolve in peaceful way...
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There isn't really any context in which an intellectually honest person could say attacking and sinking a warship unprovoked isn't an attack.
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Politics/War isn't about honesty.
Why start war if it will cost billions or hundreds of millions, human lives or worse: losing election.
You can even call it an attack, but not every attack mean war.
starting war is just way to deal with problem, but you can deal these problems diplomatically.
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If Russia was at war with Ukraine, there would be no war nowadays, Ukraine would have been crushed.
The fact that the war is still going is proof that it really is mainly separatists.
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Separatists would be crushed in 2014 if Russia didn't help.
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If Russia was at war with Ukraine, there would be no war nowadays, Ukraine would have been crushed.
Countries conduct limited wars all the time. Being in a war doesn't mean that your aims are unlimited and that you are willing to engage in unbounded use of force and expansion of the war.
By your logic, the US was never at war in Korea (well, by some technical definitions, the US wasn't, since there was no formal declaration of war, but that's not in the sense that you're raising). After recapturing South Korean territory, the coalition moved to take North Korea. When China sent major Chinese forces in to push coalition forces out of North Korea, General MacArthur wanted to expand the war to China and use nuclear weapons against China. Truman nixed it and then removed MacArthur when MacArthur refused to drop the point. Does that mean that there was no war? Of course not. It just means that there were bounds on what the US was willing to do in prosecuting that war. The principal goal was in ending the invasion of South Korea. Invading North Korea in response was a secondary concern.
Similarly, Russia has been militarily-involved in Crimea and Donbass. Russia has not made a total military commitment -- even in terms of conventional forces -- or aimed to take over all of Ukraine, but that doesn't mean that Russia has not been engaged in a war.
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So Putin doesn't always poison people, sometimes he just threatens to blow them up.
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Not only threatens, he already blew up people.
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I believe he's right but it would be over for Russia. Say goodbye to the English channel and Mediterranean Sea. While China is taking away South and Central Asia it will completely isolate Russia with declining markets as NATO/EU and China expand theirs. They would slide back into the 1990s. Already now there are more Roubles outside of Russia than inside, neither the political elite nor most of the people believe Russia will become as dominant as the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire used to be. If they do it and get completely isolated it will be the nail in the coffin and Russia will be just another big but poor country.
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It would lead to retaliation, assuming they also didn't loose several planes or ships making the effort. Good luck sailing through the channel, or via Gibraltar in future at the very least.
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Cope
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Why this clown shows up here so often?
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He makes it sound trivial to sink the ships. No doubt Russia could have done it, but the black sea would have also been littered with the debris of planes and ships taken out by Defender and Evertsen in the process - two very capable destroyers.
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One torpedo from Kilo-class sub would enough
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If it can get close, and the torpedo can do the job its designed to do (in the face of actual countermeasures), that might just be a silly way to lose a Kilo-class submarine.
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Nope, i use it as a reality of russia, no attempts to offend. Nowadays russia is a pseudo-empire, where moscow / the face of it. Just like that. When russia will fall to 4-6 countries as it should be - I’ll see if there a sense of it, but now - it’s a reality.
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First great divide line - Ural Mountains. Second - southern, Muslim parts. Another - Far East (but I think that they will connect to China and Japan). Other parts will be created by logistics thoughts, because russia haven’t normal roads and connections between its parts. It’s a continuation of soviets rot.
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how is saying that sinking one warship would not start a WWIII is fantasy world?
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Because he is mumbling about situation of pure moskovite piracy and terrorism (near annexed Crimea), in a world of cyber and economical wars - non of that are great in moskovia. Wa are all saw how moskovites muzzles was smeared on the ground in Karabakh. Such act will lead to a millions of apologies and crawling on moskovites knees, and, I hope to total isolation and the end of russia. That’s why this mumbling - ill fantasies about being masculine leader - is a delusional fantasies of ill dictator.
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oh, Ukrainian, sorry I didn't know
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Awesome) By your words, my nationality somehow correlate with fact that moscovia - is a total looser in modern world?)
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“I don’t think that we would have been happy, either, with this development, but at least we would know what we were fighting for — our territory and our future,” Putin said, acknowledging the Kremlin also doesn’t want a real war.
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It's interesting for theory-crafting that Putin is openly discussing the ramifications of sinking a British warship in disputed waters after a Defence Minster bombastically threatened to outright sink the British next ship to try it. Especially with the assessment that Putin is all about testing boundaries, and the speculation that a NATO member might be attacked as the next test.
I hate to say it but I think he is right. It would be an Article 5 trigger, but Article 5 doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means; it merely obliges a member to take "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area." Would sinking the Defender in the Black Sea threaten the security of the North Atlantic area? At face value, no.
I'm sure our friends would be sympathetic, make some noise and maybe virtue signal some diplomatic moves, but no European partner would go beyond that.
The only country that demonstrably has our back is the USA. Or do they? With 'call me Irish' Joe in the White House? Trump was a solid friend of the UK, but even he wouldn't go to war if it could be avoided.
The GRU could have detonated a nuke in Salisbury and no-one would go to bat for us, to avoid escalating the situation. It would be "sorry" from Europe, and "suck it up" from America.
Deterrence is a house of cards, no-one really knows where the red lines are drawn. A land invasion of an Eastern NATO member seems an obvious choice, which is why the UK is happy to forward deploy in the Baltic and push conventional threats as far from home as possible.
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Sadly the difference is that Europe or Nato does not want a war, and Putin is ok with that. The price of human life in Russia is close to null :(
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Nato does not want a war
Why does NATO and Europe started so much wars then?
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Hmm. Maybe.
The Germans sank the RMS Lusitania and it was a major factor in producing US popular support to enter World War I.
And more-generally, I'd say that a considerable proportion of US conflicts have resulted from a naval confrontation of some sort.
Iranian naval mines damaging a US warship and Operation Praying Mantis.
The [USS Kearney incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Kearny_(DD-432\)) didn't lead directly to US entry into WW2, but Roosevelt's Fireside Chat response:
http://www.usmm.org/fdr/kearny.html
Many American-owned merchant ships have been sunk on the high seas. One American destroyer was attacked on September 4. Another destroyer was attacked and hit on October 17. Eleven brave and loyal men of our Navy were killed by the Nazis.
We have wished to avoid shooting. But the shooting has started. And history has recorded who fired the first shot. In the long run, however, all that will matter is who fired the last shot.
America has been attacked. The U. S. S. Kearny is not just a Navy ship. She belongs to every man, woman, and child in this Nation.
Illinois, Alabama, California, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arkansas, New York, Virginia -- those are the home States of the honored dead and wounded of the Kearny. Hitler's torpedo was directed at every American, whether he lives on our seacoasts or in the innermost part of the Nation, far from the seas and far from the guns and tanks of the marching hordes of would-be conquerors of the world.
…but it was clearly not far from it (and that speech was, as I understand it, an input in Hitler choosing to declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor). And, of course, the actual entry was produced by the Attack on Pearl Harbor, whose target was American warships.
The Vietnam War's proximate cause was the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The Spanish-American War resulted from the explosion on the [USS Maine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1\)).
The shelling of Fort Sumter was the initiation of the American Civil War; while this itself was not a conflict with a ship, but rather a sea fort, it was done to preempt having to shell resupply ships whose arrival was imminent (and whose arrival actually partially occurred during the battle). "Ships from Fox's relief expedition began to arrive on April 12…As landing craft were sent toward the fort with supplies, the artillery fire deterred them and they pulled back. Fox decided to wait until after dark and for the arrival of his warships."
The Chesapeake-Leopard affair was one of the factors that produced American public support for declaring war on the British Empire in the War of 1812.
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Putin desperately needs to be poked with a "special" umbrella.
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No risk of war, it's all theatre.
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It could but it didnt and UK knew Russia is reasonable enough not to do it even if it trespassed in its territory.
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Russia are a decent land power. On the seas and in the air though they are totally outclassed by NATO forces. Putin and Russia are being eclipsed by China now.
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and this is why nuclear weapons should he banned
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I totally support denuclearization of all NATO members.
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But not the other nuclear powers?
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If the population of democratic countries desires to ban the nuclear weapon their governments should obey the will of people - that's the essence of democracy.
If authoritarian leaders decide to keep the nukes they should keep them - case that's is the essence of authoritarianism.
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If the population of democratic countries desires to ban the nuclear weapon their governments should obey the will of people - that's the essence of democracy.
I don't think there is a majority for unilateral nuclear disarmament among any of the NATO countries though is there?
If authoritarian leaders decide to keep the nukes they should keep them - case that's is the essence of authoritarianism.
The primary role of any government is defence, that likely translates into maintaining nuclear weapons until there is either multilateral disarmament, or a viable defence mechanism (the latter seems unlikely).
Or to put it another way... No thanks.
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If it did start WW3 and it remained as a conventional war bets are more likely that NATO would emerge victorious. Britain alone has double the GDP of Russia these days and the armed strengths of the USA, UK, France, Germany and Italy combined is substantial. I think the only way Russia would stand a chance against the entirety of NATO in a conventional war is if China decided to forgeo their largest trade relationships with the USA and EU in order to also fight against the West.
If Russia started a nuclear war then Putin is right NATO would not emerge victorious, but neither would Russia, the whole world would lose.
Edit: typos.
China don't have the navy to carry a fight into Europe (and vice versa). Sure, if Russia allowed them to march 1 million men and their machinery across the entirety of Russia but the logistics would be awful and that's a whole heap of faith Russia would need to have to invite the Chinese in to that extent.
But the US, Japan, Australia, and Korea have plenty of firepower in the Pacific to bottle up China too. Getting past the straits of Malacca or through the first island chain for China’s navy would be a suicide mission. By the time they’d reach Hawaii, they could not even come close to taking the islands (also it should be noted that American citizens own probably about half of all weapons in the world, including military arms. Private citizens in the US have more guns than all of the European NATO states combined).
Russia is a paper tiger. It’s not a real match for even the Turks in a conventional fight, let alone Britain, France, or the other major European powers. The US isn’t even a comparison, it would be a humiliation, as American bombers raze St. Petersburg and Moscow to the ground. Russia’s tip of the spear might be advanced, but most of its forces are Soviet era relics. Without nuclear weapons, Russia has no real power.
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I'm not convinced that the US doesn't have first-strike capability against Russia today, though that's only germane to a "Russia initiates" case if Russia tries for a limited nuclear war, that "escalate to de-escalate" thing that they were going on about a few years back, and then there is a full response from us. If Russia goes all-in and moves first, then, yeah, the US gets pretty boned.
The US has been putting a lot of resources into things that either have first-strike application or are only really suited to first-strike. The super-fuze on the W76-1 is pretty purely a first-strike tool. The BMD build-out — especially considering the limited scale, which makes it unsuitable for use to defend against a first strike — major expansion of the stealthy bomber fleet with the B-21s (which permit a strike to be landed without prior warning), and upgrading SOSUS (the detection of submarines being useful to destroy an opponent's second-strike capability relying on SLBMs). I've linked to a paper, The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of US Primacy paper a few times before that talks about the implications of of these, and that was well before some of this had been rolled out. Whether-or-not it has been achieved today, I expect that that means that the US believes a first-strike capability to be achievable.
...but knowing that Russia could escalate it to a nuclear war would mean that NATO would not risk the conventional war and just let it slide - that was kind of his point, right?
No point NATO existing if it won't defend itself. If Russia wants to chance it that's on them.
NATO is an obsolete construct that will get disbanded as United Europe grows stronger and USA sphere shrinks.
...and same can be said the other way round. That's the nature of the weapons of deterrence
But NATO isn't chancing anything. The UK was conducting innocent passage through Crimean waters. The UK doesn't recognise them as Russian, but even if they did, they were still simply conducting innocent passage through an established shipping channel. It's not NATO's fault if Russia decide to see a provocation.
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But then you could easily say the UK could sink a Russian ship in response and play the same game. It's basically a game of chicken.
if history teaches us anything then the West will blink first, not that it makes me happy
I dunno, one of the closest examples too all out war I can think of was the Cuban missile crisis and in that case it was the Soviet Union which blinked first.
Except the UK would be alone. Nato is suposoed it be a defensive alliance, right?
Yes, if you attack a NATO member, they will act in defence of that member. It's the whole point of NATO.
Yes, and if Russia sank or attempted to sink a British vessel while it was conducting innocent passage through an established shipping channel - which was the case last week regardless of whether you believe Crimea to be Ukranian or Russian territorial waters - that would be grounds for the UK to invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty. Because the UK did not attack anyone, Russia would be attacking the UK.
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