US Will Cut Russia Off From Tech, Resources If Putin Escalates, US Official Says (reuters.com) 277
Russian President Vladimir Putin can do a lot more damage in Ukraine and the United States is prepared to respond by withholding technology and resources if he does, deputy U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said on Wednesday. From a report: Such measures were not announced on Tuesday as part of a round of sanctions unveiled by President Joe Biden to punish Putin for recognizing two breakaway regions of Ukraine as independent and deploying troops into the regions to "keep the peace." "President Putin clearly has the ability to do much more than he has done so far," Adeyemo said in an interview with CNBC.
In response, the Biden administration could deprive Russia of a vast swath of low- and high-tech U.S. and foreign-made goods, from commercial electronics and computers to semiconductors and aircraft parts, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. "The key thing that President Putin needs to consider is whether he wants to ensure that Russia's economy is able to grow, that he has the resources he needs to be able to project power in the future. If he chooses to invade, what we're telling him very directly, is that we're going to cut that off.
In response, the Biden administration could deprive Russia of a vast swath of low- and high-tech U.S. and foreign-made goods, from commercial electronics and computers to semiconductors and aircraft parts, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. "The key thing that President Putin needs to consider is whether he wants to ensure that Russia's economy is able to grow, that he has the resources he needs to be able to project power in the future. If he chooses to invade, what we're telling him very directly, is that we're going to cut that off.
In other words (Score:3)
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The world may just split into democracies versus dictatorships. Cold War 2.0.
The Soviet Union couldn't keep up with the West's technology back then, but this time they half embrace capitalism such that things could turn out different. However, dictators tend to over-meddle in industry out of a control-first habit and slow down real progress. We'll see...
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Wake up, it was always state capitalism since Stalin.
No real Scotsman?
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The problem with crying "no true scotsman" is that then that becomes a thought-stopping cliche even to cases where in fact it is totally correct to say that the thing in question is not a valid example of the concept being discussed.
But to address the specific question of whether the Soviet Union was socialist, it is correct that what the Soviet Union actually practiced was "state capitalism" because the state controlled the means of production and the state was run by Communist party members generally and
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My initial reaction to the FP was that it was silly and wouldn't lead anywhere, but the resulting discussion does seem somewhat interesting. However no mention of kleptocracy yet (or anywhere else in the discussion, currently at 70 comments) and I think that's a much more accurate description of the state of Russia today.
And since I'm always searching for humor, I think the joke is that many, perhaps most, of the fire-sale purchases of Soviet industries were funded with foreign currencies borrowed from fore
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The world may just split into democracies versus dictatorships. Cold War 2.0.
In the past, authoritarian governments have been unstable generally speaking. Often struggling to transition power to a new generation. This strife stunts a nation's economic growth, and thus their influence on the world. Democracy has been historical more resilient. Healthy democracies can reliably transfer power without bloodshed or long-term economic disruption.
It's a sort of natural selection. We see more of what works because it survives. I believe the ratio of democracy versus dictatorships is changin
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But that transition can be really rough. North Korea seems to manage it by being more or less a family dictatorship meaning there's little question as to who the next person in line is, although we don't know how dangerous the jockeying among family members is for position. We do know that its gotten occasionally bloody in Saudi Arabia, which being a royalty structure is actually a family dictatorship, so even that's not a real guarantee unless you're talking something highly managed like post-Restoration
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Because what I've been seeing would actually be the clash between "official" dictatorships and the Wall Street money dictatorship to see who rules the world.
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The world may just split into democracies versus dictatorships. Cold War 2.0.
Communism is gone, and the communists all turned into fascists. I didn't see that coming.
Meanwhile the fascist countries turned into democracies.
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At least he's not buddies with Putin, unlike a certain orange person.
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Speaking ignorance on geopolitics, don't believe every hyperbolic narrative conservative media tries to paint.
The U.S. is now energy independent [axios.com]
It's elusive no more. The U.S. produced more petroleum than it consumed in 2020, and the numbers were essentially in balance in 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Also with more and more renwables coming online year over year demand for NG and oil is going to keep decreasing.
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Decreasing maybe, but will never reach zero since renewables don't offer an excellent source of hydrogen, which allows for the mass production of ammonia when become fertilizer to feed the world's hungry.
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Oh for sure we'll never reach 0 hydrocarbons, they are far, far too useful for plastics, fertilizer and other industrial processes. They're so useful that it honeslty is kindof a travesty that so much of them just gets gets literally burned for heat.
If you cut the amount used for heating, electricity and transport you've probably cut the demand by 3/4 i would imagine and importantly cut down enormously the amount that just gets released to atmosphere.
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When gas is at $5 a gallon and everyone is complaining how expensive their heating bills have been, I don't think any of us give a flying fuck if we are energy independent or not because clearly it isn't benefiting the general population. I'm sure the corporations that are part of the energy sector are doing fine though.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Informative)
> What makes you think a certain orange person was ever buddies with Putin sweetheart?
He keeps praising Putie. He just did again. [npr.org]
> That orange person warned Germany, and NATO, of the dangers of relying on Russian gas
Don's a nationalist, he doesn't like to rely on ANY outside nation for anything. He was just extending his nationalist thinking to Germany.
> [Joe] destroyed the US fracking industry and turned energy into an expensive basket case.
Exaggeration. US oil is priced on a global market such that US output doesn't change prices much.
And until we break our oil habit, world events will keep jerking our energy prices around. Don't drive a car where the gas gage moves faster than the speedometer if you don't like gas prices. Most big vehicles are phallic. If you drive an unnecessarily large vehicle and complain about gas prices, you are a hypocrite who deserves to have your wallet BJ'd by the pump.
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Trudeau? The guy who won an election fair and square?
Meanwhile Trump announcing he's on Putin's nuts. https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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Canada is a democracy, you fool.
It goes without saying that Trudeau has been winning his own riding in Montreal.
With regard to the party he leads, the Liberals won a majority government in 2015 and minority governments in 2019 and 2021.
If voters dislike the Liberals as a party they can vote for a different party to control the House. If the Liberals dislike Trudeau's leadership, they can pick a different Prime Minister. And if the voters of the Papineau district specifically dislike Trudeau, they can vote f
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
Canada is a democracy, you fool.
It's hard to tell when just the other day they were putting in emergency powers to freeze the bank accounts of anyone who dares associate with anyone who protested against them
No one ever said that a democratic form of government had anything to do with civil liberties.
Just look at the United States: Slavery was legal for over a century, and institutionalized bigotry of all stripes (racism, sexism, discrimination based on sexual orientation, on religion, etc.) still runs rampant, and where all manner of civil liberties are infringed upon. But it's always been a democratic republic because eligible voters who, broadly, are drawn from the people at large, vote on their representatives.
Part of the trick is that while it's good to protect civil liberties, it's clear that there is also room for limits to those protections for various reasons. Freedom to practice religion is fine, but if your religion involves human sacrifice, you aren't free to do that. Freedom from search and seizure is fine, but when there is sufficient cause for it, or exigent circumstances, that freedom may have to be limited in the interests of stopping crimes before they occur or catching criminals red-handed.
In the US freedom of speech and assembly have limits, such as limits on the time, place, and manner in which they're exercised. An organized march down a public street during the day, having coordinated with local government to ensure that traffic is not impeded, that emergency responders can be present, that peace and order are maintained -- that's fine. Disorganized chaos in which people park trucks in streets for weeks, idling engines and blaring horns at all hours? That's not, and the American First Amendment does not protect it, and does not protect people who do it from being prosecuted for all manner of civil offenses and crimes that they might have engaged in in the process.
Canada's civil liberties are broad, but in some ways not quite as broad as in the US. And again, the state has the power and responsibility to enforce the law, and to maintain peace and order so that everyone can fairly enjoy their civil liberties without it being at the expense of others or in unlawful ways.
Seizing property and financial resources used for unlawful acts -- including funding from third parties -- is pretty normal. It's done all the time.
as well as threatening to kill the protesters' pets.
Bullshit. If pet owners are arrested, the pets can't be left on the street -- it's irresponsible and inhumane. They'd be put in shelters so that the owners can get them (or if incarcerated themselves, can make arrangements for them). I suppose it's possible that a really irresponsible pet owner who gets arrested might fail to ever make sure their pet is seen to eventually resulting in the shelter putting them down for lack of room or ill health, as with any other sheltered animal, but I would blame the pet owner for that exactly the way I would blame them if they moved and abandoned their pet to its fate.
If you even thought for a second that that was really a threat, you clearly don't have a good grasp on reality.
Re: In other words (Score:2)
It's a no win situation, but doing nothing is a bad option.
Also, 'if it escalates' - it just did escalate already.
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Germany under Hitler showed a new dictatorship can cruise quite successfully on the momentum of its industrial and scientific base for years, if not a decade, before lack of freedom encroaches cumulatively in slowdown.
Keep that in mind for China, riding high, and will have such for years even if the West cut them off, before dictatorship collapsed as an economic power under its own weight. Next up: Tiawan
It's the same as the middle east with oil: hard western cash powering a sheen of success in the face o
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It was a lot of people with a lot of guns and bombs.
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It was also the fact that they killed or drove out a bunch of really smart scientific people (anyone with a Jewish or other suspicious background). Hilbert said it destroyed the German math program.
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It was also the fact that they killed or drove out a bunch of really smart scientific people (anyone with a Jewish or other suspicious background). Hilbert said it destroyed the German math program.
OK- I don't want to minimize the... ickiness of that.
However, all available evidence suggests their math program was still going just fine.
For all the smart Jews they killed or drove out in terror, there were plenty of smart people in Germany to continue developing advanced technologies right up until the bitter end.
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However, all available evidence suggests their math program was still going just fine.
What evidence? I was citing Hilbert, who made his judgement on the state of the math program in the 1930s, before the war got bad for Germany.
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Jet-powered aircraft, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, every synthetic performance enhancer you can think of, nuclear power. It goes on and on.
Hilbert should hardly be considered an unbiased source based on what he went through. And not to mention that his closeness to the purges probably influenced his per
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It's possible that you could argue that they were reaping the benefits of becoming more free and united (economically speaking) than they were under monarchy for hundreds of years (the Weimer republic saw some good growth too).
Regardless, it is probably logical conclude that a good king (or fascist leader) can get at a minimum equally good results to a democracy, because in theory the king could implement the exact same policies that led the democracy to success.
The problem with monarchy is when a bad king
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Upon M finding it unusual Russia gave a medal to 007 for saving Silicon Valley, the Russian diplomat said, "Why? After all, where would Russian technology be without it?"
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Russia is already punching way above its weight in technology, whether you measure that weight in population or national income. The idea that they can improve on that by becoming *more isolated* is pretty far fetched.
If you look at the reasons why Russia is so good at things like aerospace, it is because of an emphasis on refinement over innovation. Their virtues as a tech power mirror American vices as a tech power. Where Americans routinely abandon things that work perfectly well in order to pursue clea
More aid for Ukraine first (Score:3)
Meanwhile, keep sending in the javelins and Brimstones and other goodies the Ukrainian military can use to kill as many Russians as possible. The more standoff, the better.
Considering the Ukrainian military killed nearly 3,000 Russian troops while it was wholly outclassed, the upgrades in weaponry and training over the last few years, and the subsequent transfer of newer technologies such as counter battery radar, should make the death toll much higher.
When Cargo 200 trucks start arriving in Russia en masse, then the people of Russia will see how wonderful their dear leader is as the country falls to pieces and its soldiers die for nothing.
After all, no secrets at risk there. (Score:2)
Meanwhile, keep sending in the javelins and Brimstones and other goodies the Ukrainian military can use ...
After all, there's no military tech secrets at risk if they're captured by the Russians. Since the Afghanistan withdrawal they have all the reverse-engineering samples they need.
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The Chinese didn't need to wait for the end of the Kosovo War to get their hands on F-117 parts.
This is backed up by evidence that current Russian drones are using US navigation computers, and German motors.
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That isn't to say they couldn't develop the capacity.
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It won't result in a standoff. It'll result in Russia obtaining more American weapons tech.
Also, the objective in war is to force the other side into submission. The winner is not the person with the highest "score" but the person who captures the enemy flag. You can kill a million Russians but if the Russians win then Ukraine lost.
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Depends on what your objective is. In some cases it is total annihilation.
In this case, Ukrainians will never submit. They've already prepared for an insurgency if Russia decides to fully invade, in which case Russia will have the same failure it had in Afghanistan. Endless attacks on troops and related personnel, body bags piling up every week, doesn't sit will with any public.
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Just cut off the internet and phone communication totally with Russia. That would at least make some of them pretty annoyed when they can't download the latest movies easily.
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Why *if*? (Score:4, Insightful)
Putin's already gone too far - but we keep saying "hey, if you move one inch more, you're gonna be in trouble, mister! Hey, stop moving. Alright now, that's it - you move one more time, you're really in trouble! HEY HEY HEY! NO, NOT ONE INCH MORE! Okay, if I see you move again, you'll regret it!..." and on and on and on.
Just fucking kick Putin's ass with extreme prejudice already!
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International politics are almost never as nicely black and white as you apparently want them to be :)
Putin's pretty much with his back against the wall internally and externally, so there's not a whole lot anyone can do about this now, and he'll most likely take Russia down with him, but that's not going to stop him either.
Re:Why *if*? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just fucking kick Putin's ass with extreme prejudice already!
Just kick Putin's ass already? Tell me there, how stupid do you think that would be to try? Putin has access to one of the largest nuclear weapons stock piles on the planet. And you just want to "kick his ass."
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Joshua's reponse: Nuclear war. A strange game, the only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
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I live in a "primary" strike area so at least I won't suffer.
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...Just fucking kick Putin's ass with extreme prejudice already!
Russia is a nuclear power.
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An all out war with fucking Russia? Christ. Do you have any fucking idea what that would entail, even if it didn't go nuclear?
Those dudes aren't Iraq. You think shit was bad when we had uncontested air superiority.
We continue to escalate economically, so you're full of shit about there not being a response. But it seems like you want a military one, and I just can't fucking imagine how you think that would turn out. All we can do in terms of "punishment" is to continue
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It's a crumbling behemoth they can barely afford.
In an all out conventional war, there's no question who would win- eventually.
The cost of doing so would be obscene though, simply because they can shoot our planes out of the sky. We will only obtain air superiority through winning the war of attrition, because we can afford it, and they can't.
And no, it wouldn't be easy. US jets are not immune to Russian AA systems.
As to whether or not it would be inevitable? No arg
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The U.S. military would easily gain uncontested air superiority over Russia in a conventional war.
No one believes that.
And if you would look on a map, you would perhaps grasp your misconceptions, regardless of the quality of the planes.
Erm ... how high does an AWACS actually fly? And how high a Suk? In an conventional air war - attacking Russia - no one has a chance against Russians.
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It's easy to love violence when it's on TV.
Impotent threat (Score:3)
taiwan is not china! (Score:2)
taiwan is not china!
Cut Russia off from the financial system (Score:2)
It would be pretty simple to isolate Russia financially - just remove them from the clearing system. International commerce with Russia would grind to a halt.
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... just remove them from the clearing system. International commerce with Russia would grind to a halt.
Only a speedbump, while international commerce diverts to other systems. Such a move might well finish off the Dollar as the world's reserve currency, though, as well as US leverage on international banks.
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Only a speedbump, while international commerce diverts to other systems. Such a move might well finish off the Dollar as the world's reserve currency, though, as well as US leverage on international banks.
Russia's share of the world economy is about 1.95% https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info] (and I'll just note that AFAIK the "clearing" discussed is SWIFT a Belgian company).
Russia can move to putincoin (Score:2)
Russia can move to putincoin
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It would be pretty simple to isolate Russia financially - just remove them from the clearing system. International commerce with Russia would grind to a halt.
No, it really wouldn't, which is why they're not going to do it.
There's precedence when in 2012 Iran was removed from SWIFT (which is what's being discussed).
Same situation as Kosovo (Score:2)
I think Russian population in Ukraine should have the right of self determination, based on precedent of Kosovo which NATO countries occupied and then recognized as independent even though ot had no legitimate claim to statehood.
I wouldn't support Putin invading the rest of Ukraine, provided they dont allow NATO missiles to be stationed there - see Cuban missile crisis for precedent.
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Well I doubt Ukraine wants Russian missiles stationed next door either. So if Russia withdraws permanently and permanently pulls troops a long way from Ukraine, then maybe they have a leg to stand on about trying to control the actions of an independent, democratic country.
In the mean time, Putin can go fuck himself.
Also, Ivan, "self determination" isn't generally a military invasion from a foreign power.
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cont... 4500 nukes. Do you really want to put them on hair trigger alert by denying them early warning of hostile launch?
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I think Russian population in Ukraine should have the right of self determination
Putin's problem is one of communication.
Is Putin trying to conquer all of Ukraine and possibly other countries as well? Or is he just trying to stabilize a region that everyone agrees needs stabilization?
He hasn't clearly stated (or demonstrated) what he is trying to accomplish. Biden (according to his speech) clearly thinks Putin is trying to conquer as much territory as he can.
I doubt it (Score:2)
The 'high tech goods' are made in China and they will sell Putin whatever he wants.
They're neighbors of the Russians too and they don't even have to look out their bedroom window to see Russia.
He's already invaded (Score:2)
Already factored in (Score:2)
Putin already knew this would be the response of the West, and factored it into his plans. This will do nothing.
I don't know if anyone is paying attention (Score:2)
Also fun to watch the entire Republican party become pro-Russia overnight. I guess we like communists now.
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Also fun to watch the entire Republican party become pro-Russia overnight. I guess we like communists now.
Ironically, Russia is not communist.
Temporary costs for permanent gains (Score:3)
The cost of a decade of slow growth in Russia is nothing compared to the permanent gain of a significant portion of Ukraine.
Once Putin dies and is replaced and the sanctions are lifted, Russia will be better off than if he had not taken Ukraine.
There should be no tech to cut (Score:2)
Russia and China are enemy societies (cue incoming IRA FSB shills whinging) not societies with enemy governments.
The West has already chosen to pay the entire CCP war budget and more from US trade thus dooming Asia for the hideous mistake of detente, but can do without Russia.
EUSians seeking business with Russia are traitors we cannot punish because capitalism trumps freedom but we can at least mitigate their ability to fund the NeoSoviet threat.
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Europe? Russia is the second largest oil exporter to the USA.
Slow adult speaking (Score:2)
It didn't have to be this way, but since Biden gave the go ahead to approve the Russian Nordstream 2 pipeline months ago
I'm a bit confused here and maybe you can clear this up. What does Biden have to do with a pipeline between Germany and Russia?
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What Trump mostly accomplished was to get a lot of Germans to side with Russia over this. People who believed that notion are not up to date on geopolitics.
I mean even the situation with Russia has had the German government really struggle to suspend the project. Which is currently under "re-evaluation", meaning that it's still not definitely off the table.
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Nevermind the fact that Germany did not want the US to impose sanctions and Biden dropping them was in the pursuit of repairing the diplomatic relationship Trump had damaged. Also the fact that the sanctions did not slow down the construction, the pipeline being close to 95% completed by the time the sanctions were dropped. It's also very US-centric to assume the pipeline is just a US/Russia issue, it ignores the interests of all the acountries such projects actually effects.
https://www.reuters.com/busine [reuters.com]
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It's a shame that it takes a war for something like this to happen.
I never liked the idea of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by expanding on natural gas usage.
Yeah, sure, if you burn it most of the heat energy comes from the hydrogen atoms in the methane, making it better than crude oil based fuels and coal in comparison. But since there's seemingly a lot of methane leakage during extraction and transport, this is n
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Sanctions were waived after rounds of negotiations, and severe kickback from the EU.
Personally, I think it was a bad call, but the concerns between the damage it was doing to US and German relations was real, and the President has to weigh shit like that. Just like I supported Trump's sanctions in the first place, even though they might have been unwise.
I get the impression you aren't looking for nuance though, since you just accused the President of acting li
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I am a libertarian myself so I think the U.S. has pretty much had nothing but a string of idiots in top positions of power going back for quite some time now.
So we can predictably ignore your opinion, since you have none.
You are right there is nuance to be found here, sadly such nuance is well beyond the ability of the current diplomatic ranks to comprehend.
Courtesy of the previous administration who made it a pretty big goal to completely remove nuance from the state department. It was become a party apparatchik/loyalist to the Trump regime, or be fired (most simply got fired).
Re:We got nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah energy is a concern for Europe, people have been foretelling this for years, especially since the Crimea takeover in 2014. France listened and is doubling down on nuclear and has become quite an energy exporter. Germany questionably soured on nuclear but is going hard on renewables.
Natural gas usage in these countries is only going to go down over time. If the US and other nations need to subsidize Germany and some other countries energy for some years I imagine that is what the plan is. Russia has no real other exports to fall back on outside of energy, so while it may hurt the European countries who need that gas, slowing the import of Russian gas will hurt them more. Energy is almost 50% of their total exports.
Also let's look at GDP's for comparison.
US: $19T
Germany: $3.7T
UK: $2.6T
France: $2.5T
Canada: $1.7T
Russia: $1.6T
Suffice it say, outside of their miltary Russia is not a power player on the stage of international trade. They are a one trick pony, which is a shame for a country that had an educated populace and industrial sectors. So far they have failed to keep up in aerospace, have not come close to attaining Putins goal of getting into the commercial airliner business.
Russia has for sure gone insular to make itself more sanction-proof but they are not immune, certainly not forever and the NATO countries can lean on eachother far far more than Russia can lean on it's limited and fairly poor allies. They can look to China but Russia will be subserviant to China in any trade relationship with China having close to 10x the GDP that they do (almost $13T).
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In 2013 Russian GDP was $2.3T, last official are 2019 $1.5T https://tradingeconomics.com/r... [tradingeconomics.com]
Romanian GDP/capita https://www.macrotrends.net/co... [macrotrends.net] is about 20% higher than Russian GDP/capita https://www.macrotrends.net/co... [macrotrends.net]
In 1989 Romanian GDP/capita was little more than half that of Russia (I picked Romania as an example as they are the poorest in the EU).
I believe Putin is acting on the implications of this data.
Re:Theme of the hour (Score:5, Insightful)
So because "liberals" say it it's automatically not true? Cant argue with that logic!
The world is concerned because they are a nuclear power and are threatening aggressive territorial expansion in the 21st century. Gee, why would anyone care?
Canada is a player, like Russia but again, not nearly on the level that China or the US is. Canada gets a boost in their global trade power because they have such tight trade relations with the US, 75% of Canadian exports are to the United States. The world at large is not that concerned with Canadian trade power (sorry Canada). Canada is also a stable democracy with a highly educated populace and capable of diversifying itself and in fact does.
Proof of Russia's expected projected GDP? In a world where they are heavily sanctioned and demand for their top 2 exports is expected to decrease over the next 10-25 years? What are their diversification plans?
Maybe stop seething about Biden on every issue. There is plenty of actual things to criticize him and his administration for that you don't need to make things up.
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Amazing. People "saying the same thing" == "conspiracy".
"All these poeple keep saying the earth is an oblate spheroid, this message has been crafted to some deeper truth they do not want you to know"
"All these poeple keep saying if i eat 4500 calories per day I will gain weight, this message has been crafted to some deeper truth they do not want you to know"
Nobody "knows" the geopolitical situation 100%, we infer from the available information. You can call me a tool of my head masters but don't pretend f
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All over mandates that should have been removed.
Are you an epidemiologist? How do you know the mandates should have been remove
Re:We got nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Honestly if you wanted to imagine what a Russian sleeper agent would do if made president of the U.S., you it would be about the same path Biden has taken.
That's rich. Just yesterday The Former Guy called Putin a "genius" [yahoo.com] for the effectiveness of his belligerent invasion of a sovereign country.
Five years ago he called out to Russia specifically [usatoday.com] to aid him against his domestic election opponent.
Four years ago he divulged highly Classified intelligence secrets to Russian leaders [reuters.com], in the Oval Office .
Biden may have made some mistakes along the way, but has kept NATO largely cohesive against the Russian threat. You want an actual Russian asset (the jury is out on whether he's a willing conspirator or just a useful idiot), look to Mar-A-Lago.
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Is was Trump after all, that put sanctions on Russian gas pipelines to begin with - sanctions that Biden lifted...
You have the facts completely backwards. Trump vetoed the sanctions against the pipeline, and congress overrode his veto. [cnsnews.com] Biden expanded the sanctions, he did not lift them.
Trump lifted sanctions on Russia [independent.co.uk] whenever he was not bound from doing so by congress. He offered to recognize Crimea as Russian territory [politico.com], he denied that Russia was behind cyberattacks and election interference [forbes.com]. He delayed implementing sanctions on Russia after they poisoned Sergei Skripal [cnn.com]. All sanctions that were implemented agains
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It used to be Apple, but apparently the Russians offer better compensation. Probably because of all the treason.
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I suspect he's just a common or garden variety idiot. He is utterly, blindly partisan, believes everything Trump says and hates the democrats as if it is axiomatic that he should so. Sad thing is, he's most likely doing this for free.
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Germany uses natural gas for half of its house hold heating. Simply turn the gas off every other day and the problem is solved. More seriously, the short term demand for heating could be provided by Norwegian fuel oil. It's certainly not the easy way to go about it.
The easiest way is to let Russia do whatever it wants. If Russia wants to get involved is Ukraine's affairs and arm rebels in civil war, it costs Germany almost nothing to stay silent about it. Europe can collectively choose to bar Ukraine from j
Germany needs to restart there nukes! (Score:2)
Germany needs to restart there nukes!
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Why am I not surprised to see you carrying water for the Russians and trashing the US?
I can see why an Apple fanboy would be attracted to authoritarian regimes, but treason is a step too far.
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Biden signalled all kinds of weakness: the Afghanistan withdrawal,
You're telling me the man in this picture is Biden? https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
Speaking at the White House, Mr Trump said the Taliban had been trying to reach an agreement with the US for a long time.
He said US troops had been killing terrorists in Afghanistan "by the thousands" and now it was "time for someone else to do that work and it will be the Taliban and it could be surrounding countries".
Art of the deal.
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Trump wasn't in charge when we left and was well known (and criticized ) for reversing course. There is little reason to believe the withdrawl would have been handled as poorly as it was under Biden.
Even sticking with that deadline, Biden could have done a much better job or just said "Fuck it" once the our people and allies started getting murdered (or disappearing). Biden had no truble saying "fuck it" to the wall and our pipeline with Canada.
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I keep hearing this "the generals wanted a slower drawdown" and they wanted to keep Bagram but I have not seen any corroboration, especially after the Biden admin pushed the withdraw date by about 6 months and Bagram was evacuated in July (also I have read contrary reports is the military did not want to evacuate people from Bagram because it could not secure the highways between Kabul and base, Bagram being around 70km from the city)
Either way Biden did what he said, he got us out and we are out. Obama di
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of course this was modded down.
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Russia has virtually no money invested in Europe or the US, has a very low national debt and sells virtually everything to China (where most of the tech is made). Russia has a weak economy, but the only country that can impact it is China.
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There are many times when I wish that the US didn't get involved in conflicts that don't involve us, but this is significant. Putin sends his troops across the border for the second time in eight years into a sovereign nation to kill their people and take their land. The US sits by and watches it happen both times and the only penalty we impose both times is financial sanctions and a possible export restriction, but somehow we're the bully?