• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Eastern Europe: Belarus Hijacks Plane to Arrest Journalist

Fishbelt Deac said:
Here's a good article outlining Russia's demands and thought process: https://www.justsecurity.org/79771/...e-lessons-from-the-past-can-guide-a-response/
Click to expand...

Based on his experience, this guy should know what he is talking about. Yet, he says "North American Treaty Organization." What the hell is that? His article is just a stream of empty generalities. He looks to be completely allergic to specifics. I'm afraid this opinion piece is not much help. It just tells a weak president, whose weakness is being exploited, not to be weak. Well, thanks a lot genius.
 
allergic to specifics is amazingly tone deaf. Well done.
 
While the NATO typo is sloppy, the article has actual bullet points of what to do, aka "specifics."
 
Fishbelt Deac said:
While the NATO typo is sloppy, the article has actual bullet points of what to do, aka "specifics."
Click to expand...

You mean these?

Don’t let Moscow set the terms or play the aggrieved party when in fact they are the aggressor attacking their neighbor and threatening war generally.

Don’t race after them with successively more favorable proposals or unilateral gestures of “good will.”

Don’t accept Moscow’s lies and historical fabrications simply to create a “good atmosphere.”

Don’t get rushed into a bad deal. (Signal determination not to do so. And mean it).

Don’t do deals with Moscow over the heads of the most interested countries. (Importantly, the Biden administration seems to have internalized the old Polish saying understood and appreciated throughout Central and Eastern Europe: “Nothing about us without us.”)

Do address real Russian concerns, e.g., military transparency, if that’s what the Russians eventually agree to discuss.

Do respond to reasonable ideas. (There were some buried in the Russian draft treaties, such as arms control measures, amidst more numerous, extravagant demands).

Do turn around good ideas that might emerge in the talks quickly.

Do supplement negotiations with sticks, e.g., sanctions prepared to launch (that the administration appears to have prepositioned in coordination with the Europeans), sending weapons to Ukraine now (underway, though more might be done), and preparing additional rapid U.S. and other NATO deployments to NATO’s east and letting the Russians know it (again, some is being done but perhaps not enough).

Do be prepared for a moment (or moments) of truth. The Russians may well walk away from the talks. Or threaten. Or provoke. Or otherwise create a crisis or make a military move that they think will force the U.S. side to offer additional concessions to defuse.
Click to expand...

These are not particularly specific. They are general recommendations about negotiating, which are no doubt motivated by a genuine fear of Biden's lifetime record of incompetence in matters of foreign policy. Now augmented by weakness and senility, which Putin knows well and would be a fool not to try to take advantage of.

If he wanted to be specific, he could for openers have laid out the Russian proposals - actually their wish list - and analyzed them.
 
If you expect a 1000-word open source essay to lay out detailed classified US negotiating tactics and points...I don't know what to tell you.
 
I didn't expect anything. The guy is just dealing in generalities, about negotiating among others, based on his fears of Biden incompetence. He is right to be worried. The whole Biden stumbling and bumbling and bad decision making invite aggression and miscalculation.
 
sailordeac said:
I didn't expect anything. The guy is just dealing in generalities, about negotiating among others, based on his fears of Biden incompetence. He is right to be worried. The whole Biden stumbling and bumbling and bad decision making invite aggression and miscalculation.
Click to expand...

Are you avoiding extradition in a Eastern European nation run by one of Putin’s little bitch boys, or not? I can never remember.
 
sailordeac said:
Another fact-free post.

Run for office as a Democrat. In that life being fact-free could be advantageous for you, at least in the primaries.
Click to expand...

That’s why I was asking dude. I’m genuinely curious if you live in Putinland.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top