Could we have done anything about Russia/Crimea? Should we have?

[Kadarin]

As for the OP, could we have done anything? Of course, we could have. We could have had boots on the ground in less than 12 hours. Should we have? Definitely not.

That just sounds simplistic. Sure, we could have had boots on the ground in Crimea, but boots alone don't mean much when you're facing heavy armor. This is not counting the fact that the US military wouldn't have the support of the general population or local Crimean government.

 

[piasabird]

Let Russia do what it wants. They tend to kill a lot of Muslim Terrorists. I would rather terrorist be occupied with Russia!

 

[smackababy]

That just sounds simplistic. Sure, we could have had boots on the ground in Crimea, but boots alone don't mean much when you're facing heavy armor. This is not counting the fact that the US military wouldn't have the support of the general population or local Crimean government.

The term "boots on the ground" generally (to my knowledge, at least) doesn't mean just literally troops, but a physical presence of military force in an area, as opposed to aerial assault.

And, I merely meant we could have mobilized and fortified the borders of Crimea against a Russian "occupation" with relative ease. I answered the question of 'could' and the question of 'should' with only a 'no' and not much explanation. And, I do agree, the wouldn't have had the support of the general population or the Crimean government, which is one of the reason I said 'no'.

 

[JEDIYoda]

we could have mobilized and fortified the borders of Crimea against a Russian "occupation" with relative ease.

No we could not have....but go ahead and continue to be an armchair General....

 

[Pr0d1gy]

We did, we spent $5 billion dollars having the democratically elected Ukranian government dismantled and overthrown. What more should we have done? I'd call that round an unmitigated success in every sense of the word for everyone except Obama, and I only say that because now the right wing can call him soft for not starting WW3. pfft idiots

 

[mrcharles]

this is exactly right.

 

[Craig234]

We could have not recruited new NATO nations closer and closer to Russia, as we promised we wouldn't.

 

[maddogchen]

i'm surprised we are not arming the Ukraine in a proxy war like we usually did against the Soviets. The Russians are arming and providing their own troops.

Let this be a lesson to all these rogue nations developing nuclear arms. Never give up your nuclear weapons like Ukraine did!

 

[ThinClient]

Could we have? Yes.

Should we have? No.

We are not the World Police. We need to pull back entirely and mind our own business.

 

[Craig234]

i'm surprised we are not arming the Ukraine in a proxy war like we usually did against the Soviets. The Russians are arming and providing their own troops.

Let this be a lesson to all these rogue nations developing nuclear arms. Never give up your nuclear weapons like Ukraine did!

Our illegal invasion of Iraq sent that message loudly.

 

[NetWareHead]

We could have acted fast, parked the 6th fleet off the Crimea

That would be impossible. An aircraft carrier would have to transit the Turkish straits. And the Montreux Convention forbids non-Black Sea powers (aka, US Navy) from transiting warships greater than a certain tonnage limit through the straits. This means no 6th fleet will ever operate in the Black Sea and off of Crimea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits

 

[NetWareHead]

Yeah, the Russians have ballistic missile submarines ("nuclear sub" just means that the sub is powered by a nuclear reactor rather than diesel engines) that are followed around by American SSNs that would send them to the bottom of the ocean if they ever tried to surface and launch.

Russians boomers don't need to surface to launch.

You seem to be remarkably confident of ability of US Navy SSNs to find AND sink Russian boomers before they are able to launch any of their birds. Each boomer carries 16 - 20 missiles and each missile is armed with multiple warheads; each representing a city or other military target, All you need is one missile to slip past to kill millions of people.

Assuming all naval strategic nuclear forces were to be neutralized, we have not even begun to speak about the other two legs of Russia's nuclear trident...

Again, the age old cliche of "the only way to win is to not play" applies and once again we have the principle of MAD which is still relevant after the cold war.

 

[Auric]

Lest we forget that geopolitics determine the degree of territorial independence, which Ukraine has practically never had. So, given a realignment to the West and the essentially non-negotiable strategic importance of Crimea, it was only a question of how Russia's continued military presence would publicly play out, and thus how to manage perception and minimize pretext for intervention. It's unlikely that even the most optimistic US/NATO projections figured otherwise. So, the only realistic thing that could have been done was immediate and public reaffirmation of treaties/leases/security/safety. But obviously that holds less credibility as soon as conflict breaks out in Kiev and Russia had little to lose in trying anyway.

 

[norseamd]

That just sounds simplistic. Sure, we could have had boots on the ground in Crimea, but boots alone don't mean much when you're facing heavy armor. This is not counting the fact that the US military wouldn't have the support of the general population or local Crimean government.

Attacking an enemy is far more risky than occupying empty territory. Which is why it might have made sense to move infantry and other military units into the Crimean Peninsula right away to prevent the Muscovites from conquering the area.