Posted on 01/12/2006 7:57:12 AM PST by sergey1973
"When United States made her case to international press? US just go and do things"
Are you sure you support the tenets of Free Republic?
"The Communists are gone"
BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHA - tell that to Europe when they had no gas last week in record freezing temperatures while dachas are toasty warm with gas sold at one tenth the "market price".
"What you need is an American President with real keen strategic vision and particular insight into Russia"
Like Reagan "Mr Putin - Turn on that GAS!"
With the Russians, you get about 1/6th of the planet, immense resources, and a ...," NO RESPECT FOR CONTRACT LAW!
(Just like the 2 contracts Ukraine had at $50 thru 2009)
"Well, most in eastern/southern Ukraine never bit into them to begin with."
Tymoshenko is now in charge of the opposition,
BWAHAHAHAAHA
Co tam slychac. Sergiej?
"First and foremost, why should Russia continue to supply Ukraine with gas at a price one-quarter of that paid by Europeans?
[...]
Critics protest that Russia was contractually obliged to deliver $50 gas to Ukraine for the next five years. However, none of the Western commentators have seen the full text of the August 2004 contract: only selected parts were published. And even from those it seems clear that the $50 discount price applied only to gas to be supplied in exchange for transit fees, about 15 billion cubic meters. Ukraine did not have carte blanche to take as much gas as it wanted.
Few Western commentators mentioned that the August 2004 deal was connected to a Ukrainian government pledge to develop a joint consortium, with Russia and Germany, for the management and development of the pipeline infrastructure. Yushchenko dropped that commitment once he took office. Fewer still reported that the deal was also connected to the rescheduling of the $1.6 billion that Ukraine owes Russia for unpaid deliveries from 1997-2000. Also in August 2004, as a political gesture Putin waived the VAT on energy exports to Ukraine -- worth another $1 billion to Kyiv."
Ahh the Soros fluffer has arrived. Figured you'd be here soon enough to defend your master's minions.
A socialist like yourself will never understand Ronald Reagan. Reagan always believed in a free market and paying one's bills.
Critics protest that Russia was contractually obliged to deliver $50 gas to Ukraine for the next five years. However, none of the Western commentators have seen the full text of the August 2004 contract: only selected parts were published. And even from those it seems clear that the $50 discount price applied only to gas to be supplied in exchange for transit fees, about 15 billion cubic meters. Ukraine did not have carte blanche to take as much gas as it wanted. Few Western commentators mentioned that the August 2004 deal was connected to a Ukrainian government pledge to develop a joint consortium, with Russia and Germany, for the management and development of the pipeline infrastructure. Yushchenko dropped that commitment once he took office. Fewer still reported that the deal was also connected to the rescheduling of the $1.6 billion that Ukraine owes Russia for unpaid deliveries from 1997-2000. Also in August 2004, as a political gesture Putin waived the VAT on energy exports to Ukraine -- worth another $1 billion to Kyiv."
There is an old, tired and ugly history between the Russians and everyone West or East of them.
But with the Americans, there is nothing but the Cold War, the end of which saw the fall of the USSR and a considerable liberation of the Russian people. Russians grouse, but very few would vote back in the Communists. They COULD, you know. But they don't.
With Russia, it's not a question of talking with some little child and telling them what to do. That won't work. You've got to get the cooperation at all levels, but going in there and working. It will be miserable for a long time, but it will bear fruit in the end, if we do it.
Siberia has more resources than anywhere else in the world. They are underdeveloped, unexploited and being gradually, inexorably, sucked into the Chinese economic machine. Russia needs America to economically organize Siberia, so that Russia can keep a good grip on it and the Americans and Russians can both profit from it. ===
I absolutely agree with you on it. I presume that Putin too. But russians want this cooperation on thier terms. Or at least terms of equality. And Russia always very suspicious to disrespect.
If America will respect Russia then Russia will return favor and America will have very loyal friend. Russians was always loyal toward they thought as friends.
See this issue on Ukraine. Russia supported Ukarine for 14 years with subsidized gas. WHY? Because russians cherished ukranians as closed kins and friends.
Now situation changed. Ukranians continue to be kins but they are not friends anymore. So nomore subsidized gas. Even Russia attempts to charge Ukarine even more because she want the return of those 14 years of wasted resources.
So if Unites States wisely will go and befriend Russia then United States will have so strong ally on Euroasian continent which USA interests in Euroasia will be secured as never before.
What USA needs is to treat Russia equal. But problem is that both sides are stubborn.
But again I agree that Russia needs America to defend Siberia and Far East. I may tell even more. Russia will not afraid to accept americans there since she knows that America will not do territorial expansion and will not separate those lands from her. Ever. In contrast Russia will never trust to China with that.
ping
Hi Sara--for now gas is flowing OK to Ukraine and E. Europe. Hopefully this crisis will encourage alternative source of energy exploration and transit so Gas can't be used as the political argument.
Nothing to spin. First part, about the $50- a different interpretation of the contract. Dropping joint consortium- if it's not in Ukraine's interest, good. Putin waiving off anything- an attempt to buy the 2004 pres. elections, nobody was twisting his arm.
You are absolutely right about the territorial expansion bit. Siberia was once China. The Chinese know this. The Russians know this. Rising China won't let a little fief like Taiwan go without risking a nuclear war. And already Chinese immigrants are flooding into Siberia, while Russia's population is dwindling. The raw materials in Siberia are being torn up at the roots and used to build the Chinese economic machine.
There is no reason to hate China for any of this, but there is good reason to remember the realities of history and to suspect that Siberia is a prize piece of former Chinese territory that stands as a vast lebensraum for 1.2 billion people.
It is obviously true that the US has no territorial ambitions on anybody. If the Americans did, Canada would have been devoured years ago. So yes, bringing the American Army itself into Siberia is never going to be a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia. By contrast, the simple immigration of completely peaceful, unarmed Chinese peasants into Siberia IS a threat, a potentially mortal threat, to Russian territorial integrity.
America already respects Russia. The Americans and Russians do joint space projects. Everyone knows that the Russians still have a vast nuclear arsenal.
The trouble is, where do we go from here?
Respect is not enough.
Americans and Russians need to cooperate with each other concretely. It cannot simply be a matter of the Americans ceding to Russia everything the Russians want in exchange for friendship. Russians have to strive to comprehend what it is that worries Americans, what are the American vital interests that Russia can help with, so that the Americans can reciprocally help the Russians?
The answer is so obvious that it is missed. Russia is a huge energy producer, dependent on nobody for this most crucial resource. Russia isn't dependent on anybody for other key strategic resources like titanium either. America has no titanium, and America IS dependent on foreign oil. This makes the American economy more precarious, and forces the Americans into an aggressive forward posture in the Middle East in particular, a place that Americans are dying not to be and wouldn't be but for the energy needs.
Can Russia sell oil to the Americans? Not easily, given the pipeline and oilfield locations and distance from the sea. But oil is fungible, so if the Russians sell to Europe and Japan, this takes pressure off of Middle Eastern oil which then can be sold to the Americans.
Alright, so, what could Russia do about the Middle East?
What Russia could do is take the same side as the Americans in the struggles there. From a Russian perspective, the American presence in the Middle East is about oil. The Americans are trying to secure their own access to oil, and radical and dangerous states (Iraq, Iran, Syria) are threatening that. In Soviet days, it made perfect strategic sense for the USSR to support all the regimes in the Middle East that opposed the US, in order to keep American oil supplies insecure. But the USSR is gone and the Cold War is over. And yet Russia continues to support these quite odious regimes, following the same strategy: to try and prevent a Pax Americana in the region by which the Americans would thereby solidly secure their source of oil and have something like (though not quite) the energy security of Russia.
The Russians understand that America achieving its objectives in the Middle East would vastly improve America's strategic position in the world, and they reflexively work against it.
But Russians have to ask themselves "WHY?"
Why is it good for Russia that Russia should have a secure energy supply but that the American oil supply be precarious (thereby making the Americans more aggressive than they otherwise might want to be)?
It was in the interest of the USSR that the USA fail, but it is actually in the interests of RUSSIA that the USA succeed, be very secure, very prosperous, and very supportive of the status quo.
Russia is not going to knock the USA off the pedestal at the top of the world right now. The US has almost twice the population of Russia.
But the Russians COULD be the lynchpin in bolstering American security and vested interest in the status quo. And in return for that, the Americans have every incentive to vouchsafe Russian security, to invest heavily in the Russian economy, and to get as many American operations into Siberia as possible to compete with the Chinese for those resources.
Everyone who deals with the Americans will tell you that they are better to deal with than either Europeans or Chinese, because Americans respect contracts, and in particular they are willing to work out 50/50 cuts that are fair, and then stick to it so everyone makes a profit. The French and British, and Chinese (and Russians) are always trying to negotiate hopelessly lopsided contracts in favor of themselves. Russia WANTS America as the business partner developing the resources of Siberia, not China, because the Americans will actually invest in infrastructure, etc., and consider it a cost of doing business. The Chinese will just cut down the trees, tear up the minerals and leave...or settle there...neither of which is good for Russia at all after the quick cash gains.
So, what could Russia and America both do?
Russia could step back from Iran. Iran is not vital to Russia. It was vital to the USSR in trying to thwart the Americans, but thwarting the Americans, as Russia, doesn't accomplish anything other than to extend the hostility between the USA and Russia. An unstable USA was good for the USSR. But a stable and prosperous America is good for Russia. Russians have to get their minds around this. America is not only not their enemy, it's the only HONEST ally they can get. The Chinese have designs. The Europeans have to be dealt with, but can't be trusted. They have their own territorial designs on the former Warsaw Pact.
America, it is true, does intend to reshape the Middle East in its image, to make it much more stable and thereby secure the US oil supply and incidentally reduce the risk of terror attacks. Russia should do the opposite of the USSR and actually HELP the Americans here. Side with the Americans on Iraq - there's no vital Russian interest there. Side with the Americans on Iran. Provide the Americans intelligence. Help the Americans thwart Iranian nuclear ambitions. Make the US as secure as possible in the Middle East.
And in return, agree that the USA will safeguard Russia. China, in the East, is a threat. So are the Muslims throughout the near abroad.
In Chechnya, the movement there are frank terrorists, and Georgia turns a blind eye to this. America should be on the Russians' side there, given the enemy. Problem is, the Americans are still hostile to the Russians because the Russians are on the opposite side in the main theater of American alarm: the Middle East.
Iran is an Islamist despotism. Russia has no interest there, really. There's no ideological familiarity. Russia doesn't need the oil. And Russia doesn't need a nuclear Iran there either, unless the purpose is to make the Americans weaker in the Persian Gulf. That IS the purpose, but it is a foolish overhang from the Cold War USSR. America and Russia should naturally be advancing each others interests.
Suppose Russia weren't supporting the Iranians, and hadn't stood against the US in Iraq. What in exchange? For starters, the US would support Russia in Chechnya, and in particular stand with the Russians against the unacceptable terrorist operations unfettered out of Georgia. The Americans would assist the Russians in those Pacific Ocean pipelines too. And, of course, a defensive alliance with the Americans to protect the resources in Siberia, with American companies pouring in the infrastructure to exploit those resources: this is the big economic prize.
Russians are stubborn and difficult people.
But so are Americans.
No two nations on Earth, were they to wake up and see the commonality of interests each has, would be better suited to make a linked and steadfast guard, set for peace on earth (to use a Kipling expression). Like England and France figured out in the 19th Century that their continued, hereditary enmity made no sense, and became the closest allies in Europe, the Russians and the Americans need to wake up and see the same thing...and remember that we are NOT, in fact, hereditary enemies. Russia has fought Germany in terrible wars. And Austria. And France and England. And China. But not America. Precisely because we were so matched in strength we glared each other down but did NOT fight.
Which means we do not have a history of the blood of our respective peoples on each other's hands. It is probably too much to expect Americans and Russians to start loving each other, but it is not too much to ask them to wake up and smell the coffee, and realize that they NEED each other really rather desperately, and then taking positive steps to get out of each other's way in areas of VITAL interest, and to ally for mutual defense.
Americans, too, have this Cold War hangover and many still see the Russians as The Soviets, etc. We both need to knock it off, for our mutual self interest.
"However, none of the Western commentators have seen the full text of the August 2004 contract:"
reference please
"A socialist like yourself will never understand Ronald Reagan"
Ever hear of the YAF - no , i didn't think you did.
Gary, you never responded to my question on what it is like to betray your fallen comrades in Viet Nam who were killed by agents of Moscow. How do you rationalize your rabid support of Moscows depostism?
"However, none of the Western commentators have seen the full text of the August 2004 contract: only selected parts were published"
reference pls - do you think we accept this just because its on a .ru site?
"With Russia, it's not a question of talking with some little child and telling them what to do. That won't work."
Reagan crushed the Kremlin's nuts with $10 oil and we will do it again.
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