Author Topic: British troops will not fight in Ukraine if Russia invades says defence boss  (Read 1183 times)

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By Chris Hughes

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has secretly told armed forces chiefs that our troops would not go into battle to help save Ukraine if Russia invaded.

The Tory has seemingly washed his hands of the region, claiming that the sacrifice of parts of Ukraine to Moscow would not be important to the UK.

It would mean that Britain had failed to honour a 1994 agreement to assure Ukraine’s security in exchange for it giving up nuclear weapons.

Insiders said Mr Hammond made the remarks during a meeting with the UK’s top armed forces chiefs.

A source told the Mirror: “This is an astonishing stance – especially since publicly the Government wants Russia to fear a robust response from Britain if sanctions don’t stop Vladimir Putin.

“Perhaps most importantly it seems he believes it’s OK for Britain to turn its back on Ukraine despite us signing assurances we wouldn’t.”

Sources said Mr Hammond told the top brass – including Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Nick Houghton – that Britain failing to take part in military intervention in Ukraine would “not affect our world standing”.

Mr Hammond has been slated for slashing defence numbers. Cutbacks will reduce the Army from 120,000 soldiers to 80,000 by 2020. Experts think the cuts have helped convince Russian President Mr Putin to consider grabbing land.

A UK Government spokesman said: “Our stance on military intervention is clear and long standing. We believe the situation in Ukraine should be dealt with through diplomacy and mediation in the relevant international ­organisations such as the UN.”

Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday said Britain was ready to pay the economic price of imposing tougher trade sanctions on Russia over its “bullying” in Ukraine. US President Barack Obama also accused Mr Putin of failing to “lift a finger” to persuade pro-Russia militants in Ukraine to defuse the crisis.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-troops-not-fight-ukraine-3468093#ixzz32n09inBI
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Offline sinkspur

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The US won't do jack either, so why should the Brits?

Obama is slowly opening to door to every thuggish tyrant in the world to expand his sphere of influence.
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

SPQR

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Two World Wars on the European continent from 1914-1945 had endure and they are sitting out this one. There is high risk that meddling in Ukraine affairs will start World War III. Anyways, the EU  are more interested in making money these days than making new wars.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2014, 05:00:33 am by Trigger »

Offline PzLdr

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Going to war with Germany in 1939 to save Poland cost Britain its Empire. It also cost the Poles their freedom when Churchill and FDR threw the government in exile under the bus because they needed Stalin [and his millions of troops] to beat the Germans. Britain is now far weaker than it was in 1939 [so is Russia], but they don't have the stomach, or resources to redeem their pledge. So they'll follow the lead of our boy king, Joffrey, and do nothing, except maybe snappy hash tags.
Hillary's Self-announced Qualifications: She Stood Up To Putin...She Sits to Pee

SPQR

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For those who do not know what the Tizard mission to the United States was. In 1940, Dr. Edward "Tizard" Bowen had all of the scientific advancements the British made up to September 1940. , There were blueprints and circuit diagrams for rockets, explosives, superchargers, gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks, and even the germs of ideas that would lead to the jet engine and the atomic bomb. But the biggest prize of them all a cavity magnetron which improved radar capability. This one device helped win the Battle of the Atlantic and the victory of ONS5. The reason why the British could not build it themselves is because most of the war economy was busy making other materials. The United States manufactured these new radio sets in the North East Factories.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2014, 04:00:39 am by Trigger »

Oceander

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The reason why it cost Britain its Empire because The British had to agree to the Atlantic Charter of 1941.

Both Nations had to agree to eight points

1.no territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom;
2.territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned;
3.all people had a right to self-determination;
4.trade barriers were to be lowered;
5.there was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare;
6.the participants would work for a world free of want and fear;
7.the participants would work for freedom of the seas;
8.there was to be disarmament of aggressor nations, and a post-war common disarmament

Churchill did not like this agreement with the United States because Britain had to give up their colonies for aid but he had no choice. The United States also gained technological advances from the Tizard "package"

There was also the "little" matter of a multi-billion dollar loan that the US charged interest on - for the first time in the history of US-British relations - that effectively sucked much of the economic oxygen - what was left after the depredations of the hard-core socialist labor gov'ts - from the British economy:  essentially, the US made it too expensive for the Brits to maintain their empire.  Seems a bit of a running theme there, as Reagan essentially forced the USSR to spend itself into exhaustion and collapse.

SPQR

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There was also the "little" matter of a multi-billion dollar loan that the US charged interest on - for the first time in the history of US-British relations - that effectively sucked much of the economic oxygen - what was left after the depredations of the hard-core socialist labor gov'ts - from the British economy:  essentially, the US made it too expensive for the Brits to maintain their empire.  Seems a bit of a running theme there, as Reagan essentially forced the USSR to spend itself into exhaustion and collapse.

Also, the British wanted some surplus warships as part of Lend Lease

Offline evadR

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In the future, nations will think twice before making deals with Euroweenies and duplicitous Amerikans.
November 6, 2012, a day in infamy...the death of a republic as we know it.

SPQR

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In the future, nations will think twice before making deals with Euroweenies and duplicitous Amerikans.

You can make deals with the EU but with certain ones. You can make deals with Eastern Europeans.

Oceander

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Two World Wars on the European continent from 1914-1945 had endure and they are sitting out this one. There is high risk that meddling in Ukraine affairs will start World War III. Anyways, the EU  are more interested in making money these days than making new wars.

Actually, if one wants to use WWII as a template for prognostication today, it's more likely that sitting on the sidelines while Putin dismembers Ukraine will lead to the next European-wide conflict because that simply demonstrates passivity and a lack of resolve, precisely what the British and other European gov'ts demonstrated to the Nazis when they accepted the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

In fact - although I think the recent election results in Ukraine suggest that the results may not be as they were in 38/39 - the parallels to that period of time are growing more ominous:  Hitler started off with the Anschluss Österreichs (the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany) and then began agitating as the "advocate" of ethnic Germans living in Czechoslovakia - the so-called "Sudentenland" areas - which quickly became a "crisis" in which various "solutions" like federalizing Czechoslovakia, with more autonomy to the Sudentenland regions, to a plebiscite on whether the areas should be ceded to Germany, to simply transferring the regions to Germany without giving the residents any say-so.

The parallels:  Putin started off with what was tantamount to the anschluss osterreichs of Crimea and is now, through his proxies, agitating for either autonomy of the eastern regions within a federalized Ukraine, to a plebiscite on whether the eastern regions should secede from Ukraine and allow themselves to be annexed to Russia.  And just as the European gov'ts in 1938/39 accepted the inevitability of the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia before that came to pass, the European gov'ts of today have accepted the inevitability of the dismemberment of Ukraine before it's actually come to pass.

The nationalism & cult-of-personality that enveloped Hitler do not seem to be fully replicated today with Putin, although he has been banging the nationalist drums for quite a while and a rather thinly-veiled Russian nationalism has been on display in the eastern regions of Ukraine.

Who knows, perhaps in the end Putin will fall well short of achieving what Hitler achieved simply because he - Putin - lacks the charisma, for want of a better word, that Hitler had.

Oceander

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Also, the British wanted some surplus warships as part of Lend Lease

They wanted/needed a lot of stuff, both to rebuild their military as well as their society; that wasn't the novelty of the situation; what was unprecedented was the fact that the US charged Great Britain interest on the loan, and it was that interest component that so badly hamstrung the British.  Speaking of which, that loan was finally paid off in the early 2000s I believe - or about 55 years.  I believe that the interest rate was 2%; however, under the rule of 72s, that still means that the British ended up paying more to the US in interest than they paid in principal.  (divide 72 by the percent value of the rate of interest - i.e., 2 in this situation - and you get roughly the number of years it takes for your money to double; so at 2% interest, the total amount paid on the loan would be twice the original principal in about 36 years, give or take).

Oceander

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In the future, nations will think twice before making deals with Euroweenies and duplicitous Amerikans.

Those nations that are both smart and have enough oomph of their own to not be wholly dependent on the goodwill of the US will still make rational deals with the US - deals that will factor in the risks of American default - and nations that are smart but lack sufficient oomph are more likely to deal with the devils closer to hand than the US, such as the Chinese and the Indians (who aren't always the saints they're sometimes made out to be, at least by implication).

SPQR

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Actually, if one wants to use WWII as a template for prognostication today, it's more likely that sitting on the sidelines while Putin dismembers Ukraine will lead to the next European-wide conflict because that simply demonstrates passivity and a lack of resolve, precisely what the British and other European gov'ts demonstrated to the Nazis when they accepted the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

In fact - although I think the recent election results in Ukraine suggest that the results may not be as they were in 38/39 - the parallels to that period of time are growing more ominous:  Hitler started off with the Anschluss Österreichs (the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany) and then began agitating as the "advocate" of ethnic Germans living in Czechoslovakia - the so-called "Sudentenland" areas - which quickly became a "crisis" in which various "solutions" like federalizing Czechoslovakia, with more autonomy to the Sudentenland regions, to a plebiscite on whether the areas should be ceded to Germany, to simply transferring the regions to Germany without giving the residents any say-so.

The parallels:  Putin started off with what was tantamount to the anschluss osterreichs of Crimea and is now, through his proxies, agitating for either autonomy of the eastern regions within a federalized Ukraine, to a plebiscite on whether the eastern regions should secede from Ukraine and allow themselves to be annexed to Russia.  And just as the European gov'ts in 1938/39 accepted the inevitability of the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia before that came to pass, the European gov'ts of today have accepted the inevitability of the dismemberment of Ukraine before it's actually come to pass.

The nationalism & cult-of-personality that enveloped Hitler do not seem to be fully replicated today with Putin, although he has been banging the nationalist drums for quite a while and a rather thinly-veiled Russian nationalism has been on display in the eastern regions of Ukraine.

Who knows, perhaps in the end Putin will fall well short of achieving what Hitler achieved simply because he - Putin - lacks the charisma, for want of a better word, that Hitler had.

World War II was an extension of WWI.The League of Nations had fallen apart  before it had started .The onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to prevent any future world war. You are correct about Czechslovakia. It delayed the inevitable. Give this crisis two months and its going blow up into a full blown war.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2014, 03:43:09 am by Trigger »

Oceander

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World War II was an extension of WWI.The League of Nations had fallen apart  before it had started .The onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to prevent any future world war. It delayed the inevitable. Give this crisis two months and its going blow up into a full blown war.

Then the extension here appears to be the imminent collapse of the EU, which was also supposed to bring Europe together and bind the various nations so closely together that the rivalries that had led to conflict in the past would be smothered by everyone's joint economic self-interests.  Considering that the tensions that Putin seeks to exploit have their root in the geopolitical rearrangement of Europe after WWII, the current crisis can also be seen as, essentially, the extension of WWII.

SPQR

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Then the extension here appears to be the imminent collapse of the EU, which was also supposed to bring Europe together and bind the various nations so closely together that the rivalries that had led to conflict in the past would be smothered by everyone's joint economic self-interests.  Considering that the tensions that Putin seeks to exploit have their root in the geopolitical rearrangement of Europe after WWII, the current crisis can also be seen as, essentially, the extension of WWII.

I would agree to that. There still too many unresolved issues that remains in the Europe especially in Eastern Europe.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2014, 03:49:06 am by Trigger »

Offline evadR

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It was my understanding that the Ukraine made a treaty/deal/understanding with the US and certain Euro-nations that they would give up their nuclear arsenal for protection from invasion.
I'm wondering how that worked out.
November 6, 2012, a day in infamy...the death of a republic as we know it.

SPQR

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It was my understanding that the Ukraine made a treaty/deal/understanding with the US and certain Euro-nations that they would give up their nuclear arsenal for protection from invasion.
I'm wondering how that worked out.

Ukraine did give up their nuclear weapons .Many Ukrainian and international leaders believe that if Ukraine hadn't removed its nuclear weapons that Russia would've been deterred from entering into Ukraine. But Russia still would of wanted the Ukraine anyways. Russia wants to reform the old Soviet Union.

Offline MACVSOG68

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It was my understanding that the Ukraine made a treaty/deal/understanding with the US and certain Euro-nations that they would give up their nuclear arsenal for protection from invasion.
I'm wondering how that worked out.

IIRC, it was with the United States, the UK, and Russia.  I don't believe it was a treaty but rather a written understanding that all three nations would protect the borders of Ukraine.
It's the Supreme Court nominations!

Offline evadR

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IIRC, it was with the United States, the UK, and Russia.  I don't believe it was a treaty but rather a written understanding that all three nations would protect the borders of Ukraine.
That's how I remember it.

There is an intense power vacuum in eastern Europe and Putin is determined to fill it.

The smell of weakness emanates from Obama like an oozing septic field.  The Euroweenies are not much better.
November 6, 2012, a day in infamy...the death of a republic as we know it.

Oceander

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IIRC, it was with the United States, the UK, and Russia.  I don't believe it was a treaty but rather a written understanding that all three nations would protect the borders of Ukraine.

It was an MOU (memorandum of understanding) not a treaty, so we aren't looking at a violation of actual treaty obligations by the US and the UK, but the US and the UK are definitely demonstrating that their words aren't worth the paper and ink used to write them down.

SPQR

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It was an MOU (memorandum of understanding) not a treaty, so we aren't looking at a violation of actual treaty obligations by the US and the UK, but the US and the UK are definitely demonstrating that their words aren't worth the paper and ink used to write them down.

We have a Memorandum of Understanding with Ukraine on Nuclear Security Cooperation.The Daily Mail notes reports “if Russia has invaded Ukraine then it would be difficult for the US and Britain to avoid going to war.”According to the Daily Mail, Kiev has asked that the agreement be honored as it claims its borders have been violated.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/28/fact-check-could-a-little-known-international-agreement-force-u-s-britain-into-war-with-russia/
http://mfa.gov.ua/en/news-feeds/foreign-offices-news/23270-zajava-mzs-ukrajini-shhodo-prijnyattya-verkhovnoju-radoju-ukrajini-memorandumu-porozuminnya-j-miru-ukr--ros
« Last Edit: May 29, 2014, 04:26:28 am by Trigger »