311–320 of 326 posts
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Actually, people of Crimea are happy to be part of the US. But I guess you will never learn this from Western mass media.
Actually, people of Crimea are happy to be part of the US. This is either a typo or some next-level tinfoil hattery...
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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.
Russia's war with Georgia and annexation of Crimea rather vindicates the Baltic states' decision to join NATO. Russia has made it manifestly clear that it wants the right to interfere in any country's politics that hosts a sizable Russian minority, and that it is willing to bring in the tanks should the host country refuse.
It was a conflict initiated by Georgia but actually they were asked by US to start it.
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> Russia may attempt to assert itself to a greater extent in the next few decades, possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. This is in the book that forecasts that Japan will attack the US in 2050 except that it'll be all space-borne battlestars and lasers and hypersonic weapons. Among other preposterous scenarios. Riiiight. > It is advantageous to them to have Western Europe dependent on its oil an…
It's really not so far-fetched to think Russia would annex a Baltic state sometime in the future. They've shown they have the capability and political will to annex similarly prepared countries' territories. It all boils down to what they believe NATO's response would be.
Why would Russia need several bankrupt dying states? To feed and develop them like in Soviet times getting nothing but hatred in response? Ditto for Ukraine BTW.
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Sorry to be a pedant, but the UK's military capability is at an all time low. We have made awful purchasing decisions across the army, navy and air force, as well as failing to recruit enough people. There isn't a part of the UK military which isn't in crisis. We are not the force your post suggests we are.
Awful purchasing decisions from the US , uniformly. The deeper into this rabbit hole one goes, the stronger the smell of rats. One truly wonders who was persuaded to give away the entire fleet of carrier-borne aircraft to the US Marines - and how...
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Yeah, on top of the issues of infrastructure around payments/settlements/collateral management/kyc laws that often go ignored in these discussions as well as the high correlation of lowering (euro)dollar usage globally with lower global growth rates… ideally you'd have higher growth rates with lower (euro)dollar usage if there was any serious alternative. Fundamentally speaking, I think non CB backed cryptos (combine…
I would expect cryptocurrency to ascend in a series of hops, “chaos is a ladder” style. Every time a central bank somewhere takes home their toys, crypto will click forward.
If you were getting a paywall like me, just delete all your economist.com cookies and block all javascript.
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Look at the context (Crimea, 2020). If we are choosing between ancient greeks and russians then the language/culture/identity of the people should matter.
This is not about Ancient Greece/Rome/Russia/etc. My comment was: you cannot cherry pick which moment in History, a country's borders are convenient to you. I remember talking to a colleague from Poland that was proud that X centuries ago, Poland (or whatever the country/nation was called at the time had conquered big parts of then-Russia, even conquered Moscow. If we all think like that then a WW3 (Romans, Nazis, Mo…
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There is no contract about it. Tanks? Not sure that this is our biggest concern right now.
"There is no contract about it." You are disingenuously arguing against the wind. Yes, there is, a kind of contract. When nations agree to targets, and they did a long time ago, its material. That it's not technically part of the treaty is relevant, but not so important. The 2% target was established long ago, there's a renewed 'agreement' since Trump took office, but it's along the same lines: European states will w…
Which are in the future. The target is for 2025.
> remains America provides defence for Europe
The fact remains that NATO is not an US security organization where other Nations buy protection. Trump may think that, since he knows the Mafia from his real-estate business.
Nobody has asked German citizens yet, if we want to invest 2% of the GDP into defense and where it should be invested.
Basically a military & governments have decided that for us, which is entirely undemocratic and a fully un-controlled process.
It's great that the military-industrial complex can on its own decide how much to spend, without any outside interference. This leads to a situation, like in the US where roughly a trillion USD is spend on military, which is an insane amount of money.
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…
Why? They rolled tanks into a chunk of balkanised land already and nobody lifted a finger. I think anyone that spends some time considering that shudders to imagine how bad it could get with absolutely nothing happening.
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…
That would be less inconceivable than what they've already done in Ukraine.