Ukraine's future

This is definitely tricky due in large part to the country being divided in its own views. The western part is more pro-Europe. But the eastern part has always had strong ties to Russia. So opinions across the country will vary wildly. It could be a powder keg.The worst case scenario would be civil war. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that.

It's actually also tactical not just because of the access to the ocean, but because it is the only port that Russia can leverage during winter. All their other ports in the north become frozen. So losing Crimea would cause them to lose a huge tactical advantage by potentially bottle-necking their navy.

I doubt this could ever escalate into a world war. To be frank, the notion of world wars is probably no longer likely due to the global village and the fact that so many countries have their economies intertwined.From the USA perspective, the folks here are VERY war weary. The last thing they want is to get into a conflict with the likes of Russia. That isn't some backwater country that we can easily take over. That is a massive military with nukes. So any large scale escalation is remote.

I would tend to agree. And honestly, if all this had occurred during the previous administration, we likely would have ended up attacking the wrong country.

Funny you should mention that. I was actually considering starting a thread about this, but the primary reason I held off is I was waiting for more details. Our 24 hr media has a tendency to jump the gun, so I didn't want to start a discussion until I had something more concrete.If you look at the current coverage, CNN has already broken out their fancy 3-D CGI and MSNBC has already stepped on its own foot when one of their anchors, Krystal Ball (hippie parents anyone??) let a prank caller onto the air claiming to be a Sgt. in the Ukrainian Military.On a side note, has anybody locked down the nuke plants in the Ukraine? They blew one sky high just from a safety test in the 80s. God only knows what might happen to them in a civil war!