Posted on 05/31/2022 9:12:17 AM PDT by SpeedyInTexas
“The Clinton/Obama cabal has been agitating for war with Russia for years. To what end escapes me.”
The United States has had a well known policy to attempt to destabilize and weaken Russia and create “regime change” for over a decade. This war is just a continuation of that policy.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
Overextending and Unbalancing Russia
Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options
Rand Report 2019
This brief summarizes a report that comprehensively examines nonviolent, cost-imposing options that the United States and its allies could pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress—overextend and unbalance—Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. Some of the options examined are clearly more promising than others, but any would need to be evaluated in terms of the overall U.S. strategy for dealing with Russia, which neither the report nor this brief has attempted to do.
Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages.
Liar, it was four days, not a month,
I don’t believe one word of this report, there has been no reliable war reporting since all this began by the west.
1. Russia does her own thing, she's not under our control, not tied into the Dollar, doesn't follow our lead may it be vaccines, LGBTQIA, climate change, etc. Russia is a cultural, economic and political “outlier.” That makes Russia an easier and/or favored target for some. When looking for a scapegoat, and in politics that is common practice, Russia is an easy target for the masses.
2. Russia is our ONLY true competitor in the energy sector. As much as the world talks about CO2 reduction, bla bla bla, the world runs on fossil fuels. THE ENTIRE WORLD is controlled by merely two actors: the US ~2/3rds of the word, and Russia ~1/3 of the world. If you look at Germany, they get their energy from us and Russia. France, us and Russia. UK us... Think of it this way, even if you have a French firm Fina or Total, an Italian Agrip, Dutch Shell out there, they are operating on ground where the real power broker in the background is the US or Russia. Saudi Arabia = US. Iran = Russia. Syria = Russia. Iraq = US. Venezuela = Russia. Kuwait = US. UAE = US. The entire world runs on US or Russian fossil fuel, and Russia is our #1 competitor.
The US is truly amazing in this respect. We have the ability to delete and rewrite history, literally. However, there is such a thing as the truth, and in our willingness to pursue our economic interests, we have a talent of aiding true shitheads because the enemy of your enemy is your friend. In Syria where we tried to tear them away from under Russia, we actually ended up aiding Islamic nut jobs, folks that were cutting off heads. Today we find ourselves backing neo-Nazi’s in the Ukraine, and in the 80s we backed a group called Al Qaeda, as we did Saddam. When it comes to meeting our short term political/economic objectives, we will hop into that bed and like the most eager whore go to work with the nastiest folks out there (Noriega, Marcos, China today...)! Eventually it's all just forgotten, no movies, not taught in schools and rewritten in Wikipedia...
Speaking about rewriting history, Google: “Russian Covid Vaccine Wikipedia” And just like that we made it disappear.
Furthermore, just like we talk about the Oligarchs in Russia, the West is run by a few Oligarchs that influence the policy makers and bureaucracy. What do you think the World Economic Forum or Bilderberg is about? Democracy and a free competitive market? Freedom, sovereignty of nations?What happens when Russia gets pissed a fews years past and throws some of these Western Oligarchs and their interests out because they were actively subverting the interests of the Russian government and its agenda?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/putin-wants-push-microsoft-out-russia-battle-us-n674781
They made their own vaccine, brought it to market before us by a good three months, and sold it for ~ 1/2 the price: Sputnik V.
So while the US wants to see no evil in China, where we have our slave labor, avoid certain taxes, EPA, OSHA and labor laws, we are very quick to point out any issue we have or wrong we see in Russia. One serves our oligarchs, the other doesn't. Jeff Bezos isn't happy if you address trade with China, nor is Apple, HP, Google, GM... Why do your think “big tech” teamed up against Trump?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/22/politics/donald-trump-china-tariffs-trade-war/index.html
3. The Cold War lives on at least in the minds of some and it has helped create a self fulfilling prophesy. The DoD, DoJ etc. are bureaucracies which inculcate certain attitudes that die slow. The Russians remained the enemy and even when I was in the Army it was obvious who was still the “bad-guy” even though they had all but declared themselves as defeated in the early 90s, opened up to the West and basically tried to extend the olive branch to us. Many of the block heads that were still living in the past might feel vindicated today, but they are likely to stupid (sorry to say it that way) to realize that they likely helped CREATE the situation we have today. We basically treated them as the enemy, even as they we opening up to us, even helping us after 9-11 (giving us intel, letting us use their bases, in some cases heavy lift aircraft...).
***Basically, there are three factors which lead to this: a cultural divide and them not being in sync with Western culture (attitudes, values, fads...), economics (they are our #1 competitor), and Cold War attitudes that were institutionalized.
What is done, is done. We guaranteed that we will be at each others throat with Ukraine. Now we really should consider them as a threat, an antagonist that will ankle bite us at every opportunity hereon out.
Thanks for the very detailed post. I concur with your thoughts. The cold war mindset is an anachronism the entrenched pols in both countries won’t let go of to the detriment of the world. Reagan and Trump were the only presidents in my lifetime that wanted to change the paradigm and advance the human condition (maybe Kennedy, I don’t know as I was 6 when he was assassinated). I just lament what could have been (visa vie the US and Russia) under Trump and now the world is so broken. It’s a deep hole to dig out of.
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