It wouldn't be a surprise to see the ECB refuse to send a Cricket team to Pakistan later this year as the world is turning on anyone close to Russia and won't want to be seen giving revenue to a country who will pass turnover on to Russia for energy.
I can’t disagree with any of the opinions expressed. I’m disturbed and worried about Putin’s belief in the Russian fist. Here we have a man who imprisons and kills political opponents, supports extremist regimes in Syria and Belarus and claims parts of other countries as his own (Crimea). He allows gangster Oligarchs to rape the country of its resources and doesn’t blanch at infecting English cities with nerve agents purely to vent his spite. All on all this is a bad man and a bad regime. It seems that history is repeating itself. Think of Hitler and Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. In each of these cases it was justified by German speaking people being oppressed by regimes in power. I do not want WWIII but I worry about what happens if naked military strength is not challenged. Where will he stop? The current strategy of isolation and material support for the Ukrainian resistance is probably the right one for now, because it highlights that there is a price to be paid for aggression. I worry most about what could happen if Putin succeeds in a short time and cheaply. We cannot afford for Putin to win, because it threatens us all.
India initially didn't criticize Russia because Ukraine had been selling arms to Pakistan and Russia to India, but a Pakistan-Russia deal might bring India out against Russia.
The maritime border is in the Bering Strait - with the closest separation being ~2.7 miles. People have crossed between the countries swimming (Lynne Cox in 1987), dogsled (Max Gottschalk in 1913), sea kayak (3 teams in 89), on foot (Karl Bushby & Dmitri Kieffer in 2006) and in a Land Rover in 2008. So, depending on the time of year there is a physical border between the two countries over the frozen sea in the middle of the Diomede Islands. Given that it is currently early March, that is quite possibly there now.
Thanks mate. Not my intention. Just spent a lot of time having these kinds of debates and presenting them formally. Never my intention to belittle or come across as an enlightened head-in-the-sky academic. But I won't apologise for my own opinion and my opinions will always come with receipts. Given the costs involved, though, I'll always talk about war seriously.
Respect your opinions but, despite your credentials there's a huge caveat. There are no absolutes here. No one knows which way the Russian population are going to jump under the burden of sanctions and casualties to their troops and no one knows what's going on in the head of Putin. All anyone has to work on is what they personally feel are probabilities.
There might well come a time when instead of countries sending Ukraine money, weapons etc they send troops.
So once we intervene in a country he expects us to stay forever does he, or was 20 years not enough? I was thinking something was missing in this debate but now i can rest easy knowing Piers Morgan is on the case. Hopefully we'll get comment from Matt Le Tissier before the day is out.
I use to follow him, it was like seeing a car crash on the motorway, you know you shouldn’t look but you couldn’t help yourself but I came to my senses, I absolutely despise the bloke.
He gets involved in everything. I'm still certain he ended KP's England career and Strauss wouldn't select him just because he knew it wound Piers Morgan up.
Can't do with him at all, mainly ly because I'm not sure what his real opinion is on anything. He just says whatever he thinks will get him a reaction.
Any publicity and all that. Hew likes to be the pantomime villain and will take the other point of view just to play devil's advocate.