Posted on 08/23/2008 2:20:08 PM PDT by lizol
I very much hope that vulnerable governments would act now in August (or even better have already acted) to lay in an emergency supply to last two weeks to a month. Maybe even more if they could afford it.
In a very real way it can be regarded as national security because IMO you are right that Russia terrorized their customers to ensure their obedience.
I don’t think we’re seeing the whole board here. Putin is playing a larger game. I think its about World War and Putin looks to be the king pin of the new Axis against the West. He knows he will lose the war but he calculates it will end in a stand off ... with Russia regaining a lion’s share of its old empire. Perhaps even more.
Think Russia and Iran together as energy dictators and you begin to see the larger picture. Russia is helping Iran so it can dominate its Mid East neighbors, order them around on oil output and who they sell to and at what price
“For me, the last few days illustrate that the Kremlin never learned the lesson about the end of the Soviet Union. It is not military power that makes a country great but the investment in education, society, its people’s freedom, civil rights and wealth (as in West Germany after the WWII). If a political regime built on naked power is very brutal, it can survive more than 70 years. But at the end it will fall, because it is hollow inside. “
But the end can come very far in the future and aside from the Mongols and Vikings, nobody ever “conquered” Russia.
I think your most improtant point is about what happened immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union.
THAT wsa the time for the U.S. to make its move - to make a move to drawn the nations of Eastern Europe and Russia into an economic, political and military alliance. But Bush I. Clinton, and Bush II were prossible the most incompetent triad of Presidents to ever succeed one another in office.
As for the EU and western Europe - forget them. They are the ELOI in The Time Machine. As long as they fed, and clothed and medicated and permitted to fornicate in peace, they would galdly give up any peace. Look at their response to a handful of hostile, arrogant Muslims in their very mdist - threatening them, demanding their bizaar customs be legitimized, raping their women in front of them.
Their solution is to cover their heads, enact strict gun laws and abolish the death sentence.
He's a gambler. If he gets the right President, he's a genius. If not, he's an idiot.
btt
There is definitely a bigger picture developing here and it's not pretty except that there will be increasing volumes available.
OTOH SA is working on a plan to sell more to China. They want to pool their money to develop a pipe line through the mountains to the Pacific coast to provide easy access for shipping to China--a current friend of convenience to Russia (enemy of my enemy) but a long term competitor I think.
As Russia's population continues to die off without sufficient replacement, China's population would naturally expand into the increasingly empty Siberian area so rich with natural resources... OTOH that won't help us or Eastern Europe much.
I'm running on, sorry. I was on my way to bed and I'm probably getting associational.
[Think Russia and Iran together as energy dictators and you begin to see the larger picture. Russia is helping Iran so it can dominate its Mid East neighbors, order them around on oil output and who they sell to and at what price]
It’s pretty obvious that’s what Putin has in mind, but it is pretty ham-fisted old Soviet kind of thinking. I don’t see how he pulls it off given current global economic networks.
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