My view of the war

[fathertime]

So,the world is moving away from the US Dollar eh ?

That would explain why the Russians are desperately trying to buy US Dollars and not Chinese Yuan.

Never let the facts get in the way of the fantasy eh ? 

What you presented probably won't matter very much when compared to these new large multi billion dollar deals.   That said, I can understand that some Russians are concerned about the value of their currency, although it seems to have stabilized for the moment.  This particular article did not mention anything about the Yuan, but it may well be getting purchased too, if available.   These are some of the boomerang long term consequences that Putin was speaking of, when fiance is used as a weapon.  We shall see how it plays out. 


Fathertime!   

[fathertime]

Don't believe the hype.  The dollar is here to stay for at least a decade or two more.  Don't believe the hype about China either.  Their problems are too numerous to mention.  Success for one thing brings higher wages, which is part of the reason American companies are bringing manufacturing back home.  Of course it also allows their new middle class to purchase the better American products.  I see mostly upside.

Perhaps you can mention a few of these problems you believe China has.  One problem I can see is that they own a lot of our debt.  The world is a big place, when we can no longer buy their products somebody else might, albeit for less than what we are paying.   China has been trying to spend their money wisely by investing in resources, since they have the money to do it.


Fathertime!

[lordtiberius]

China may start a war with Japan.  But the truth is they need us more than we need them. As for problems in China, take your pick.  Protests in Hong Kong, billionaire flight, no rule of law, slave labor, shall I continue?

The US dollar is strong not because we are so awesome.  Its because the rest of the world sucks.  The American Russia lovers will never leave America for the prison state.  They maybe hipocrits but they aren't mad.

[Anotherkiwi]

People who are "tuned in" and "aware" of the mans personality understand his motives and goals. For a person who lives in another country and not "tuned in" to American principles and values it is confusing as to why many Americans seethe at the plastic man.

Believe me, this foreigner has learnt an awful lot about American politics from this forum over the last few years!  However, like Gator, you're missing the point that I'm trying to make.

Apart from the die-hard Russophiles on here (nearly all of whom are Russian-born), the remaining members are all united in condemning Putin for the invasion of Ukraine and all the attendant consequences (Crimea, MH17, Donbas...), and I don't seriously think that anyone with at least a few brain cells could be unaware that he must ultimately be held responsible for one of the more despicable acts of reasonably modern geopolitics.  In contrast, as nearly all the American posters continue to point out, Obama has done nothing.

While Americans can rant until the cows come home about the lack of progress under his Administration, the evils of Obamacare, and everything else that might possibly be laid at his door, you cannot, in any sincerity, say that any of Obama's policies or decisions have imperilled the very existence of another country, or caused hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to have their lives uprooted (or, in the worst cases, ended).

So WHY, for crying out loud, do you treat your President so much worse than the megalomaniac ruling from the Kremlin?  So, he's a weak President, maybe the worst you've had (at least for a long time) if posters here are to be believed.  SO WHAT?  He keeps to the rule of law - no part of your country has yet descended into total anarchy and, as has been pointed out in this thread, you only have to suffer him for another couple of years.  Do you really think that the US will collapse and disappear in that time?

[calmissile]

Believe me, this foreigner has learnt an awful lot about American politics from this forum over the last few years!  However, like Gator, you're missing the point that I'm trying to make.

Apart from the die-hard Russophiles on here (nearly all of whom are Russian-born), the remaining members are all united in condemning Putin for the invasion of Ukraine and all the attendant consequences (Crimea, MH17, Donbas...), and I don't seriously think that anyone with at least a few brain cells could be unaware that he must ultimately be held responsible for one of the more despicable acts of reasonably modern geopolitics.  In contrast, as nearly all the American posters continue to point out, Obama has done nothing.

While Americans can rant until the cows come home about the lack of progress under his Administration, the evils of Obamacare, and everything else that might possibly be laid at his door, you cannot, in any sincerity, say that any of Obama's policies or decisions have imperilled the very existence of another country, or caused hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to have their lives uprooted (or, in the worst cases, ended).

So WHY, for crying out loud, do you treat your President so much worse than the megalomaniac ruling from the Kremlin?  So, he's a weak President, maybe the worst you've had (at least for a long time) if posters here are to be believed.  SO WHAT?  He keeps to the rule of law - no part of your country has yet descended into total anarchy and, as has been pointed out in this thread, you only have to suffer him for another couple of years. Do you really think that the US will collapse and disappear in that time?

No, but I worry that while he is doing nothing, Ukraine might collapse!

[Anotherkiwi]

No, but I worry that while he is doing nothing, Ukraine might collapse!

Agreed, but you can hardly hold that totally against him.  There are many countries in Europe, for example, that have already been castigated by members here for doing nothing.  I would also hazard a guess that, whatever he may want to do in private, he is quite probably hamstrung by the consensus he would have to reach with all of Congress and the Senate as to what course of action he might be allowed to propose - and it's pretty obvious, despite their rousing reception of Poroshenko, that the members of the US government are a law unto themselves, and that their self-interest (or that of their major donors) is far more important than saving a country on the other side of the Atlantic.

[cc3]

 China has been trying to spend their money wisely by investing in resources, since they have the money to do it.

...and by heavily investing in their military, as well.

[fathertime]

...and by heavily investing in their military, as well.

Well they have the money we continue to transfer to them for making all of our stuff for us.  The difference between what we import and export with China is ghastly.    I can see why they would want to have a strong military, they have some potential disputes coming up,  and don't want a distant foreign nation to think they can run roughshod over them and their interests.  It is a good move on their part.   


Fathertime!   

[lordtiberius]

Why don't you move?

[fathertime]

Why don't you move?

Why aren't you fighting in Ukraine?


Fathertime! 

[cc3]

Invading and seizing most of Siberia and the Russian 'Far East' will require tremendous expenditure of money, men, and material...especially when the two sides start slinging tactical nukes at each other.

A comment in the "Harvard International Review":


    Wilson F. Engel, III, Ph.D. Reply to Wilson   
    July 17, 2014 at 1:17 am   

    The United States Should Support the Immediate Chinese Annexation of Siberia

    The global paradigm for nations, established over two centuries through the Congress of Vienna and the Treaty of Versailles, was maintained after World War II through the stewardship of the United States in partnership with its conquered
    enemies Germany and Japan. During this nearly 70-year stewardship, imperial expansion was held in check by fiat. Africa exited from colonialism, Russia and China emerged as nation states, and the Middle East, Central Asia and, some say, the whole world were stabilized during a time of Islamic extremism.

    At this writing Russia has broken the 200-year-old grand strategic paradigm because the United States has abandoned its role as steward for the global polity and economy. By seizing the Crimea with impunity, threatening Ukraine and Central Europe, cutting military deals with Venezuela and Argentina, rattling its sabers in the Black Sea and the Arctic, arranging for military basing and a new canal in South and Central America, driving a deal to reopen a listening post in Cuba, and driving tough military bargains throughout Central Asia, Russia has reopened the prospect of military imperialism with profound implications for all nations. Ironically, China supported Russia’s occupation of the Crimea in the United Nations and signed historic accords including an unprecedented 30-year gas deal with Russia. If seizing global real estate for reasons of national interest were to become the prevailing trend, as it did under Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, the world would see the demise of democracy and the global reinstitution of the lex talionis. The biggest losers would seem to be Western Europe and the United States, but with one simple maneuver, perhaps this need not be so.

    Game theory suggests that the most dangerous global ploy would be a Siberian land grab by China, whose people have been infiltrating that region quietly for decades. China’s actually occupying Siberia could ignite a nuclear war between China and Russia where no other nation would likely come to the aid of either combatant. Both nations might try to neutralize the United States by a preemptive nuclear attack, but more likely each would hold open the possibility of a temporary nuclear alliance with the United States to crush its opponent.

    Times have changed, and so apparently have the interests of the United States. There are both World War II and Cold War precedents for this strategy. During the height of the Cold War, the United States refused the USSR’s direct request to use nuclear weapons against the Peoples Republic of China. Back then, the United States had a global role. Why should our newly isolationist United States be at all concerned now? The fallout from a Russia-China nuclear conflict might crash the global economy and transform civilization. Probably such a conflict would not end civilization, but it would certainly clarify the fundamental competition that has set Russia on a whirlwind global spree.

    Realistically, if a nuclear conflict can be avoided, the benefits of China’s stewardship over Siberia would outweigh the benefits of continued Russian stewardship of that landmass. Russia’s apparent unconcern about developing Siberia’s vast, unpopulated landscape and about the surfeit of unexploited resources of Siberia is a problem for a world hungry for both.

    But why should China be satisfied with only Siberia? In fact, history can support China’s reestablishing suzerainty over much of what today is called Russia. Of course, the United States would directly benefit from a threat for Russia from the East, and Russia has gravitated away from Europe to Asia anyway. Consequences would include near-term security problems for Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, India and the Arctic, but Russia might become so focused on the Chinese threat in the East that it could not be very seriously threatening to the West, the North or the South.

    The United States, having relinquished its role of global steward without a fight and having been given a breather by a conflict between Russia and China, might take the time to continue to disarm–but more rapidly than it has done so far, to abandon its Navy’s reach across the world’s oceans because that now formidable force is all but useless under current policy, to halt all pretense
    to achieving a ballistic missile defense, and to allow China–which will this year by some measures become the largest political and economic entity on earth–to acquire the room and resources it needs to support its new role as the dominant force in Asia and the world. No single move by the United States offers greater strategic advantage at lower cost—to China.

[lordtiberius]

Why aren't you fighting in Ukraine?


Fathertime!

For the same reason, you aren't fighting for Russia.  Why don't you move?

[fathertime]

For the same reason, you aren't fighting for Russia.  Why don't you move?

I don't think it is for the same reason.  I'm not that interested in Russia.  YOU are  obsessed 24/7 with this conflict.  Why again haven't you fought for Ukraine and your 'family'?


Fathertime!   

[AC]

While Americans can rant until the cows come home about the lack of progress under his Administration, the evils of Obamacare, and everything else that might possibly be laid at his door, you cannot, in any sincerity, say that any of Obama's policies or decisions have imperilled the very existence of another country, or caused hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to have their lives uprooted (or, in the worst cases, ended).

So WHY, for crying out loud, do you treat your President so much worse than the megalomaniac ruling from the Kremlin?  So, he's a weak President, maybe the worst you've had (at least for a long time) if posters here are to be believed.  SO WHAT?  He keeps to the rule of law - no part of your country has yet descended into total anarchy and, as has been pointed out in this thread, you only have to suffer him for another couple of years.  Do you really think that the US will collapse and disappear in that time?

Actually Kiwi no he does not keep to the law.  He has violated his oath to uphold our Constitution on numerous times, which is why there are whispers that Republicans may impeach him.  Richard Nixon was impeached for similar violations of the Constitution -- namely using the IRS to target his political enemies. 

[AC]

Agreed, but you can hardly hold that totally against him.  There are many countries in Europe, for example, that have already been castigated by members here for doing nothing.  I would also hazard a guess that, whatever he may want to do in private, he is quite probably hamstrung by the consensus he would have to reach with all of Congress and the Senate as to what course of action he might be allowed to propose - and it's pretty obvious, despite their rousing reception of Poroshenko, that the members of the US government are a law unto themselves, and that their self-interest (or that of their major donors) is far more important than saving a country on the other side of the Atlantic.

There you are completely wrong.  With a strong leader in office, our Congress would be united in their willingness to help Ukraine.  Since it's not Obama, look for our Congress to take the lead and take action on this issue in January 2015 as soon as they start.

[BorisS]

We were never and will never directly fight for Ukraine. Lip service, sanctions and some minor arms aid, yes. Actually, though they will never admit it, NATO officials and their member government are breathing a sigh of relief that Ukraine wasn't in NATO. The will to fight for a country that most people see, rightly or wrongly, as an historical appendage of Russia just isn't there. The real action starts in the Baltic States and Poland...

[Boethius]

I believe that had Ukraine been a NATO member, Russia would never have invaded Crimea, nor sent troops to help destroy the Donbas region.

[calmissile]

We were never and will never directly fight for Ukraine. Lip service, sanctions and some minor arms aid, yes. Actually, though they will never admit it, NATO officials and their member government are breathing a sigh of relief that Ukraine wasn't in NATO. The will to fight for a country that most people see, rightly or wrongly, as an historical appendage of Russia just isn't there. The real action starts in the Baltic States and Poland...

You are correct for this moment in time.  However, with the new congress, I think we will see changes in our policy toward Ukraine.  There are a number of congressmen that are pro-Ukrainian but could not do anything because Senate was ruled by the Democrats.  Things will change in January. 

[calmissile]

I believe that had Ukraine been a NATO member, Russia would never have invaded Crimea, nor sent troops to help destroy the Donbas region.

Agree

[BorisS]

I believe that had Ukraine been a NATO member, Russia would never have invaded Crimea, nor sent troops to help destroy the Donbas region.

You may be right but we will never know...

[Boethius]

True, but let's look at Estonia.  Cyber attacks and holding a border guard hostage.  No invasion, despite the "threat" to the Russian population by introducing language laws.

[BorisS]

You are correct for this moment in time.  However, with the new congress, I think we will see changes in our policy toward Ukraine.  There are a number of congressmen that are pro-Ukrainian but could not do anything because Senate was ruled by the Democrats.  Things will change in January.

Most of us are personally way to close to this. It colors our perception of the importance of Ukraine to Western nations. Direct American or European military intervention in Ukraine will not happen. More aid...maybe.

[BorisS]

True, but let's look at Estonia.  Cyber attacks and holding a border guard hostage.  No invasion, despite the "threat" to the Russian population by introducing language laws.

The feeling in Russia that Ukraine is "theirs" is much different than their feelings about the Baltic States. You know that better than most. Plus an excursion into the Baltics makes the Germans' hair stand up on the back of their necks. Never a good thing...:-)

[AC]

You are correct for this moment in time.  However, with the new congress, I think we will see changes in our policy toward Ukraine.  There are a number of congressmen that are pro-Ukrainian but could not do anything because Senate was ruled by the Democrats.  Things will change in January.

   If Urkaine can hold-out til then I believe there will be a huge change in US foreign policy.

[Brasscasing]

  If Urkaine can hold-out til then I believe there will be a huge change in US foreign policy.

I'd suggest this is why Putin's orchestrating the current troop build up in Russian held Ukraine. The Kremlin's probably thinking the same thing.

It's possible there may be a "winter offensive" to short circuit any logistical application to US policy changes.

Brass