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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

#141

Post by Scoundreller »

Meekro wrote: post #79
Spooky23 wrote: post #19

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.

If you have the LNG infrastructure in place, you could change your suppliers at the flick of a switch.

Doubly so if you own the ships too.

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

#142

Post by pm90 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #118
jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> ...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 through cities, all communications being monitored or cut off. The arms may make it hard for the occupying force as there will be more shootouts but retributions will keep most of the populace under control.

The dynamic of Armed militias being a deterrent to a military occupation made sense in the 18th century but don’t make much sense today.

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

#143

Post by eru »

baybal2 wrote: post #109
linkregister wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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?

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

#144

Post by barrkel »

headcanon wrote: post #66
sschueller wrote: post #2

For the rest of the world this is a good thing. Why would the United States be the one to decide if Germany is allowed to build a pipeline to Russia or not? Image if it was Germany that used sanctions to prevent the US from building a pipeline to Mexico. Would you be ok with that?

The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. Part of this is ensuring regional powers are either allied (in the case of NATO countries or Saudi Arabia) or contained (in the case of Russia and Iran). It is a fundamental rule of Geopolitics that every country assert itself to the best of its abilities with the strengths they have. One of Russia's biggest strengths is natural resources…

Dependence goes both ways. Russia was reduced to (or built from the ashes as) a resource extraction economy; it's extremely dependent on Europe paying for its gas.

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

#145

Post by redis_mlc »

headcanon wrote: post #66
sschueller wrote: post #2

For the rest of the world this is a good thing. Why would the United States be the one to decide if Germany is allowed to build a pipeline to Russia or not? Image if it was Germany that used sanctions to prevent the US from building a pipeline to Mexico. Would you be ok with that?

The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. Part of this is ensuring regional powers are either allied (in the case of NATO countries or Saudi Arabia) or contained (in the case of Russia and Iran). It is a fundamental rule of Geopolitics that every country assert itself to the best of its abilities with the strengths they have. One of Russia's biggest strengths is natural resources…

> 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

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

#146

Post by barrkel »

redis_mlc wrote: post #145
headcanon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. Part of this is ensuring regional powers are either allied (in the case of NATO countries or Saudi Arabia) or contained (in the case of Russia and Iran). It is a fundamental rule of Geopolitics that every country assert itself to the best of its abilities with the strengths they have. One of Russia's biggest strengths is natural resources…

> 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.

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

#147

Post by macintux »

barrkel wrote: post #146
redis_mlc wrote: post #145

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.

That was probably true 4 years ago. It's not at all obviously true today.

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

#148

Post by bluecalm »

sschueller wrote: post #2

For the rest of the world this is a good thing. Why would the United States be the one to decide if Germany is allowed to build a pipeline to Russia or not? Image if it was Germany that used sanctions to prevent the US from building a pipeline to Mexico. Would you be ok with that?

I live in Poland and I am ok with US bullying others around because it increases stability even if we all have to pay for it. The problem with that pipeline is that Russia will get a way to cut off Ukraine and Poland without cutting Western Europe (their biggest customers). This increases chances of them invading rest of the Ukraine or maybe even Poland in the future.

Without big bully to prevent countries doing deals that decrease stability in other countries we have no recourse. Sadly it's too late for that particular project to be stopped. Previous administration missed it or didn't intervene on purpose. It doesn't make any sense to put sanctions on Russia because of their land grab in Ukraine while allowing them to build a pipeline that destabilizes the region even further.

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

#149

Post by bluecalm »

wavefunction wrote: post #8
sschueller wrote: post #2

For the rest of the world this is a good thing. Why would the United States be the one to decide if Germany is allowed to build a pipeline to Russia or not? Image if it was Germany that used sanctions to prevent the US from building a pipeline to Mexico. Would you be ok with that?

US opposition to a pipeline to Russia is confined to a small group of people who are strangely very friendly to Russia on all other matters. There is no widespread or popular opposition to Germany building a pipeline to Russia in the United States. This doesn't really treat with the dollar-denominated world economy but I wanted to point this out to differentiate the current irrational foreign policy of the US governm…

Why would there be a widespread anything about an issue in countries on a far away continent? It's administration job to care about geopolitics and long term consequences of decisions like building a pipeline. People not involved in politics won't because it doesn't influence their everyday lives directly. It's not possible for them to make a rational judgement about it anyway as they have very little information about the issue.

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

#150

Post by Animats »

Whether China's yuan should be freely convertible to other currencies is something the PRC has struggled with for years. A freely convertible yuan would increase China's influence on the world financial system, but it would also increase the influence of the world financial system on China. And it would require much easing, if not elimination, of China's exchange controls.

A decade ago, a freely convertible yuan was seen as likely. But China has backed off from that. Xi Jinping's "China 2025" is about autarky - reducing China's dependency on the rest of the world.

So, the yuan as a world currency isn't really happening yet.

Euros, though...

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