US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#121

Post by peter422 » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

cpursley wrote: post #107

gambiting wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted them and I'm Polish - I see Ukrainian people on our streets every day, I hear their stories and their suffering all the time, my family is housing several refugees already. The stuff that Russia is doing to that country is making my blood boil. If anything, I'm incredibly upset that EU is not doing more to tighten the screw on Russia. If we are unwilling to send our militaries to fight Russia in Ukraine,…

Y'all need to be realistic about the energy situation or you'll have bigger problems than Russia.

Well why stop at Ukraine? Why not let Russia have all of Europe is everybody is so dependent on them for energy?

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#122

Post by vogre » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

ReptileMan wrote: post #21

And what exactly will convince Russia to sell it except lifting of sanctions?

1) Money. "Kaliber" missiles are expensive, need more money to build them.

2) Poitical gains. It will be very hard for US to push other countries for sanctions when they can't hold their own.

3) Resilence of production. It's much better for economy to have your factories running and ports working.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#123

Post by jltsiren » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

88840-8855 wrote: post #18

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I, as an European, hate EU government for taking a self destructive way of introducing various sanctions that affect lives of the EU citizens in a very negative ways, without doing anything to help their proclaimed goals. At this point I am not sure if they are stupid, evil, corrupt or they just despise and hate their citizens. Or maybe all of that. You Americans are least have a pragmatic government that at leas…

The European response to the war is populist and, as you say, self-destructive. But economies and people can only suffer to a limited extent. EU will return to Realpolitik soon. Let's face it, the whole bashing of Russia as a "regional power" was idiotic and wrong on the same level as starting the Ukraine war and believing they would win it within a week. Edit: stop downvoting. How silly are you?

The EU will not return to anything, because it can't do anything on its own.

There are East/North European member states that are genuinely concerned that Russia could attack them next. They advocate for stronger sanctions. And while it's not said aloud, they believe the sanctions should be in place until there is (at least) a regime change in Russia. For them, the real issue is not the war in Ukraine but Putin. And if the economy crashes as a result of the sanctions, it's a small price to pay for safety. That's Realpolitik for them.

Then there are West/South European member states that are safe from Russia and mostly just see the economic consequences of the sanctions. They are economically stronger and have more political influence. But if they try to force the issue and lift the sanctions too soon, it could well be the end of the EU.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#124

Post by jacobolus » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

corrral wrote: post #84

tenpies wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to understand the utter diplomatic and geopolitical incompetence of the current US adminsitration. You're talking about the same administration that literally admitted in the open to be executing cyber attacks on Russia[1]. The fact that they haven't made most of North America glow in the dark is an utter miracle. And to make my point clear, the issue isn't that they're conducting cyber attacks - that's a gi…

I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how well Biden's administration has walked the tightrope on Ukraine. And though I'm very liberal by US standards, I'm not terribly partisan when it comes to foreign policy—I think Obama's foreign policy was largely disastrous, and have a lot more good things to say about Trump's than I thought I would when his term started (admittedly, more about intentions & gestures than a…

Obama had the problem that he was a young guy who came in with big ambitious promises and good intentions but inherited a complete shitshow from his predecessor (both the wars and an economic crisis). His opposition was intransigent and did everything they could to undermine the USA for their own narrow political interest, and his party got bashed up in the 2010 midterm elections. He then let himself get pushed around by the US military establishment.

But if we compare to the Bush Jr, Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan administrations (let alone the Vietnam war era), it can’t really be called “disastrous”.

Trump’s foreign policy was largely symbolic and incoherent, if anything focused on corrupt self enrichment, breaking up US soft power to aid Russia (he backed out of various treaties, halted diplomacy around the world, wanted to pull the US out of NATO, ...), symbolically opposing China to appeal to anti-Asian racists, making up nonsense about Latin American immigrants to appeal to anti-Latino racists, continuing middle East aggression (and the Muslim ban etc.) to appeal to anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racists. His antics (on top of the Bush Jr. wars) further pissed away America’s global reputation. To the extent things went okay it was largely down to incompetence and uncoordination.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#125

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

cpursley wrote: post #51

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I, as an European, hate EU government for taking a self destructive way of introducing various sanctions that affect lives of the EU citizens in a very negative ways, without doing anything to help their proclaimed goals. At this point I am not sure if they are stupid, evil, corrupt or they just despise and hate their citizens. Or maybe all of that. You Americans are least have a pragmatic government that at leas…

You're getting downvoted by Americans with big fat paychecks in the Bay Area and other coastal cities on the energy self-sufficient North American content. Like it or not, Europe runs on Russian gas/oil/grain for the time being. The current crop of EU officials are probably not evil, but they are incredibly incompetent. By any object measure, the sanctions have filled the Russian Government's coffers and made Europe…

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Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#126

Post by vogre » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:00 PM UTC

gautamdivgi wrote: post #119

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tell India (traditional non-aligned country) not to buy from Russia This is an odd one to include given it's almost administration policy at this point to look the other way while New Delhi goes out of its way to buy Russian oil.

And Europe isn’t buying Russian oil? You have NATO members still on Russian energy. Why bother about other countries?

Funniest part is that US and Europe buy Russian oil from India.

Because Indians are able to remove all evil totalitarian molecules from it.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#127

Post by rich_sasha » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:00 PM UTC

dxhdr wrote: post #62

Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT has only strengthened their ties to India and China. Russia is still invading Ukraine, and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home. At some point you have to consider whether this level of diplomatic incompetence is intentional.

Since RUB exchange is so constrained, its "market rate" is also meaningless.

I too can issue a currency, set its value at 1,000,000 USD per unit and declare monopoly in trading it.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#128

Post by VWWHFSfQ » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

dxhdr wrote: post #62

Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT has only strengthened their ties to India and China. Russia is still invading Ukraine, and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home. At some point you have to consider whether this level of diplomatic incompetence is intentional.

> diplomatic incompetence

What other mechanisms does the world have to try to stop Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Boots on the ground?

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#129

Post by yks » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #105

tshaddox wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that Putin ought to be allowed to invade any country he wants without resistance because resisting would only increase the death count? Or is there something specific about Ukraine?

No, the situation in Ukraine is so much more nuanced. There's a lot of history there and Ukraine is't an innocent bystander in this situation. It's fair to say Russia has been provoked in many ways and although I'm not sure an invasion is justified, it isn't all together unexpected based on how they've been treated regarding this over the last 10 years or so. The breakdown in diplomacy with Russia is the worst part.…

Invasion started in 2014, when diplomacy was okay. Russia kept rotating their knife in Ukrainian back all this time, you can't with a straight face victim blame Ukraine here.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#130

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #73

sha256sum wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note the money drip from Afghanistan has been cut off, with manufacturers looking for more ways to drain tax money away from domestic projects and into the war machine, a status quo since at least Vietnam.

It is literally the exact opposite. Escalating the war in Ukraine by going "all in on sending howitzers, MLRS and other heavy equipment" is exactly what the defense companies want . It's genuinely amazing to see the mental gymnastics here to come to the conclusion that buying fewer weapons is exactly what the defense contractors are lobbying for.

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