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America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

economist.com

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Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#151
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those countries you mentioned are totally free to buy only from the US. Building a pipeline will not prevent anyone from buying gas from the US as long as it is competitive. The sanctions are mostly trying to strangle competitor/adversary and prop own industry using political means rather then market forces.

If gas supply based on that pipeline is controlled by a single state actor, that's the definition of not being competitive. The question is, why are people willing to prop up a monopolistic supplier in that manner instead of seeking real energy independence. Because Russian gas is cheaper right now? That's penny-wise, pound-foolish. The first puff is always free!

> That's penny-wise, pound-foolish.

but if you can pick up the penny(-wise) now, and let somebody else pick up the pound(-foolish), you make bank and leave before the going gets tough.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#152
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to say... Russians invasions are acts of war, squarely and simple, but they do so without any tinfoil "geopolitical conspiracy" in mind. There is no bigger "grand plan" to them than to an 8th century Viking raid: more subjects, loot, and territories to use to stage further invasions. Danes cared more for how tasty the British were, before they started to care about the British throne and court politics in the big…

The conquest of Crimea was probably more about providing a distraction for domestic audiences than anything else?

The "conquest" of Crimea was a response to an implied threat to a natural gas trade with Europe in the followup of a western-sponsored coup.

(to be even more specic, Crimean events were mostly about regaining the control of the Black Sea Fleet naval base, while Donbass events were about reacting to a hostile coup, but the two things are closely related)

It was also an object lesson to all the minor powers in the region: you cannot take US money to have a small victorious colour revolution anymore. Not in Russia's backyard.

edit: oh wow downvotes, I am so surprised /s

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#153
post #117
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the answer the euro? Only 19 out of the 28 european union members use the euro. So I don't think the euro (a 19 year old currency ) is the answer. Unless something changes, then in the future it might be one of the answers. > you won't even have to worry about the brits messing with it... The brits never adopted the euro as their currency, so they never messed with it to begin with. > Stable, inflation proof,…

> the near term, it's more likely the EU will break apart and the euro discarded That's not likely at all.

The EU is more likely to break apart than it is to become the world reserve currency.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#154
post #52
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why would the United States be the one to decide if Germany is allowed to build a pipeline to Russia or not?" Because America provides defence for Germany, and Russia has 1000 nuclear warheads pointed at Germany, the US and others, and they are an antagonising state, actively trying to disrupt the governments in Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, etc. All these issues are quite fundamentally related, so it matters…

What is this protection that the US provides other than ensuring the US would be drawn into a war between the EU and Russia? France has enough nukes to provide MAD protection.

France won't fire nukes over Russia annexing a Baltic country. US might actually do something about it as they showed many times they are willing to go to war to defend their interest.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#155
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"United States have no geopolitical strategy, but a lot of self proclaimed geopolitical strategists." I once have heard this position from US ambassador in Kazakhstan on a private reception event. The guy told people he expected a visit to a *stan country to be like a visit to a warzone. He was learning martial arts, hostage negotiation, and been mentored by multiple self proclaimed experts on "warlord politics" of t…

> Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions. The people of Georgia, Crimea, and the rest of Ukraine would beg to differ.

Which of the following statements are true:

- Crimea became part of Russia before Texas became part of US

- Crimea became part of Russia before (around the time) US independence

- Kievan Rus' is older than Aztec Empire

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, the point is not to overthrow the government in any real sense, but rather to make it incredibly costly and perhaps outright infeasible for the government to actively use state-organized violence against its own people , as dictatorships everywhere are wont to do. Combine an armed populace with a strong tradition of being loyal to the Constitution and its principles first and foremost, even in the context of a…

The federal government is light-years ahead of whatever private citizens can get their hands on; 71% of americans are overweight or obese; 30% of americans have some kind of chronic pain. If a shooting war broke out between the federal government and private citizens, the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them like they were made of thin air. I think that the best way to exercise the second amendme…

Fighting against your own government isn’t like fighting against a foreign power. You have the advantage of asymmetric warfare, and also the advantage that the military will not follow orders to just “steamroll right in through” citizens. Egypt has F-16s, but that didn’t stop the government from getting overthrown when the military decided to stay neutral. Libya had advanced Soviet weaponry, but Gaddafi was overthrown and killed by rebel forces.

Unless you’re willing to level your own country (which for practical reasons even tyrannical dictators are not), fighting armed citizens is nothing like fighting a foreign war. (Also, the track record for advanced nations losing wars in places like Afghanistan with vastly inferior weapons is significant). The Syrian civil war also started with a civil uprising, with armed civilian guerrillas fighting government security forces. Again, there were defections when soldiers refused to fire on citizens, and that led to establishment of the Free Syrian Army, comprised of defectors from Assad’s regime.

Here is how it played out when Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan. The Pakistani military was armed with modern US made aircraft and weapons, launched Operation Searchlight, which killed at least 300,000 Bangladeshis. Civilians took control of arms depots and started shooting back. That precipitated Bangali units of Pakistan’s military to mutiny and start fighting for independence. Military assistance from India helped win the war, but that started many months later. Without being able to take control of those arms depots to begin with, Bangladesh never would have been able to start the war that led to independence. (The American Revolution, by the way, played out more or less the same way. Guerrilla attacks at first, seizing weapons and supplies, creating a more formal militia, and then getting assistance of a foreign power.)

It’s not some crazy NRA fantasy. We have numerous examples of despotic regimes with modern weapons and aircraft being overthrown in civilian uprisings. I come from a country that exists because of such events. The Second Amendment is there to preserve that option. Had Bangladeshis been armed like NRA wingnuts in 1970, hundreds of thousands of innocent people might have been alive today, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi women may not have gotten raped by the Pakistani military, etc.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#157
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them... Even assuming that they could do this (which is plausibly quite wrong, as defense tactics can be very effective), what's the incentive? The people who serve in the National Guard are citizens themselves (who have sworn to uphold the Constitution) and every bit of effective defense makes it that much easier for them to defect while keeping plausible…

Their incentive would be a manufactured one, painting the citizenry as part of some conspiracy/extreme party etc. Just look at how many Republican news outlets continuously portray the other side as extreme and crazy and dangerous. Just having possession of armed weapons makes absolutely no difference to a modern, well equipped American military force. We’re talking about Armored Personal Carriers and Tanks rolling t…

> We’re talking about Armored Personal Carriers and Tanks rolling through cities, all communications being monitored or cut off.

Assad literally used tanks against the civil uprising, and wasn’t able to stop it. (And doing so caused part of the army to defect.) Gaddafi was killed by the National Liberation Army, which initially armed itself by capturing tanks and weapons from military stockpiles.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#158
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t in the US or NATO interest for Germany to be dependent on Russian oil. Current US policy, to the extent that we have policy today, is a whole other matter.

Why is becoming dependent on US-supplied liquefied natural gas any better? If Germany has two or more reliable suppliers of natural gas (Russia and US), neither one can extort them by threatening to flip the switch.

[deleted]

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable Russian doctrine is that the satellite countries are buffers to be used as needed, like Kleenex. It's 100% certain Russia will annex Baltic countries whenever it pleases. To say otherwise just makes you "a useful idiot", as Lenin is credited with saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

If Russia annexes any Baltic states it's liable to trigger nuclear war. All the Baltic states are NATO members.

Russia could have annexed the Baltic states when they secceded in 91, but chose not to. From their perspective, they had enough of empire and grew tired of propping the periphery. There was no need for these states to join Nato, and they could have remained as independant partners benefitting from trade with 2 blocks. The fact they chose to move away from Russia has more to do with corruption than logic.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#160
post #115
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had 200,000 US soldiers in Germany until reunification, and still have 40,0000. Germany saves money maintaining a significantly smaller military force. The benefit to Germany is such that US presidents use the idea of moving US troops to, say, Poland as a prod to encourage the German government to spend more on defense: https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/w... In response to Trump’s threats…

40000 and not 40,0000. Much is for the US and their military adventures, not for NATO or NATO-related things. It supports the US war machine. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, North Africa, ... Much of that has nothing to do with defending Germany, defending the US or defending NATO... The US and its allies/friendly countries currently outspend Russia approximitely fifteen times. If Germany would spend 2% of its GPP on milit…

Obviously since Germany isn’t currently under attack, German bases are used for other operations. But the German government doesn’t seem eager to get the US military out of the country, and has reacted negatively to Trump’s signaling in that direction.

Recent events have convinced me that I was at least partly wrong about my previous view of the United States having bases all around the world. Europeans love to complain about America, but when Trump threatened to pull out of NATO, in the face of an ascendant Russia, the European reaction certainly wasn’t “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Likewise in Asia, while the Taiwanese and Japanese have always been warm to American military support, the growing power of China has definitely sparked discussions about America’s continued commitment to obligations in that region.

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