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The Geopolitical Consequences of the Ukraine War
americanthinker ^ | 4/1/2022 | Alexander G. Markovsky

Posted on 04/01/2022 8:21:55 PM PDT by bitt

On March 21, 2022, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, speaking of the Ukraine-Russia war, said: "there's going to be a new world order out there, and we have to lead it." The President did not elaborate on what this “new world order” would look like. What is the United States strategic aspiration, what it seeks to achieve, what it seeks to prevent?

As Yogi Berra observed, "If you don't know where you are going, you will end up someplace else." That is exactly what is happening.

Over the last thirty years, the inability to deal with Russia’s security concerns specifically expressed by Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin eventually exploded into a military conflict.

Incensed by Putin's audacity, America and the allies, in the collective rush to impose punitive economic sanctions, challenged the cohesion of international order by seeking remedies, which negate the functioning of the global economic system.

The current system is based on respect for contracts, sureness in the banking system, inviolability of private property, and economic interdependency. The scope of economic sanctions violated every aspect of the established order. America has weaponized the dollar as a tool for achieving political ends. The combination of constant threats, freezing foreign assets without a search warrant, and arbitrary expropriation of private properties without due process ostensibly for the global public good invokes memories of Bolshevism and raises the issue of power and legitimacy.

When existing arrangements are fundamentally altered, a new order must emerge as a practical accommodation to reality.

Regardless how the war ended, the new reality is that the sanctions seriously weakened Russia's economy and greatly enhanced China's geopolitical position. Isolated from the world economy, Putin performed a “reverse Nixon” and played the “China card.” Instead of peeling Russia away from China’s orbit, Biden forced Russia to

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: russia; ukraine; ukrainewar
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1 posted on 04/01/2022 8:21:55 PM PDT by bitt
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To: LucyT; Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; ...

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2 posted on 04/01/2022 8:22:13 PM PDT by bitt ( <img src=' 'width=50%> )
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To: bitt

Still ignoring the elephant in the room.

Using the Gold standard to stabilize the Ruble is going to do more damage to the US dollar than Brandon can.

The non-Russian West is in for a VERY rough ride.


3 posted on 04/01/2022 8:37:44 PM PDT by Don W (When blacks riot, neighborhoods and cities burn. When whites riot, nations and continents burn)
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To: Don W

West can be East,
depending on where you stand,
and which way you are looking.


4 posted on 04/01/2022 8:40:41 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (Get out of the matrix and get a real life.)
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To: bitt

“Furthermore, by forming a coalition against Russia, Biden unintentionally, indeed contrary to his intention, is dividing the world and risking to upend American standing among the countries opposing sanctions or clamming neutrality.”


Biden had/has intentions? The guy rarely knows where he is, sometimes can’t even tell his sister from his wife, can barely walk up the stairs to AF One without tripping, and craps his pants. He’s too busy trying to survive from day-to-day to have any higher level thoughts. If he has any, they are centered around lining his, his brother’s and Hunter’s pockets, and not getting caught at doing so.

As for the article itself - you ALWAYS have to consider 2nd and 3rd order consequences. It is one thing to seize the assets of some poor schnook walking through an airport with $25k in cash, but to seize hundreds of billions from a sovereign nation and cut them off entirely from the international economic system is quite another. The hubris of thinking that they could get away with that one scot-free is immense. The author is correct, it has accelerated the move to create an alternative - or a complete replacement - world reserve currency. If that happens, we can no longer export our inflation and our economy will soon make today’s crappy one look like great in comparison. It will simply destroy the economy. Not to mention that we’ll soon end up in a war not of our choosing with those hostile enough to us to form that alternative/replacement currency, one of revenge against us for 3/4 of a century of economic imperialism.


5 posted on 04/01/2022 9:38:14 PM PDT by Ancesthntr (“The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.” ― A.E. Van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: bitt

Russian security concerns are that Russia wanted to keep threatening countries around it. And they want to keep absorbing nations on their border like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and Ukraine


6 posted on 04/01/2022 9:53:08 PM PDT by Cronos
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To: Don W

The gold standard is not going to stabilise a currency in the modern world. It’s like you claiming a barter system is better than currency.

In fact, there was not more stability when the Gold Standard was created in the 1870’s. There were periods of booms and busts on a cycle of every 3 to 7 years. And a gold standard will not work for a modern economy, simply because the modern economy has grown in value much greater than the value of all the gold ever mined in the world.

The gold standard produced economic stability because it restricted monetary growth. If Argentina had been on the gold standard, successive socialist governments would not have been able to ruin the country with unaffordable debt-financed social programs. The virtue of the gold standard is also its weakness. If you take the United States, there is not enough gold in the world to provide the monetary backing for the dollars needed by the economy.

A gold standard has not been workable since the beginning of the last century, but it took two World Wars and the greatest economic collapse in history to drive that point home.


7 posted on 04/01/2022 9:59:32 PM PDT by Cronos
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To: bitt

Scott Ritter’s update on the war situation is utterly captivating. Pretty sure he knows what he is talking about. If not, then I’m sure some freepers will straighten him out.

https://rumble.com/vz4nx4-gonzalo-lira-in-conversation-with-scott-ritter-30-march-2022.html


8 posted on 04/01/2022 10:31:35 PM PDT by Karl Spooner
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To: bitt

Government told us we all need to sacrifice for Ukraine. And they’ll be needing a lot more of your money.


9 posted on 04/01/2022 11:00:38 PM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: bitt

a prudent US administration would:

- stop provoking Russia by meddling in Ukraine

- lift sanctions on Russia, sit down and talk to them and try to the extent possible, to resolve tensions including withdrawing US troops from Europe.

- drill, frack and mine our own resources be it metals, rare earths, oil and natural gas to the greatest extent possible and encourage our allies to do the same.

- stop the reckless spending of money we do not have thus going deeper into debt and causing massive inflation

- require all essential goods such as PPE, antibiotics, military components, etc to be made in the US or at the very least in an allied country.....ie NOT China

- gradually raise the tariffs on China from the current 10% to 20% and let big business know it was going to go higher and higher and higher so you’d better get out of China

The current administration is doing all it can to destroy America. The only question is whether its incompetence or deliberate.


10 posted on 04/02/2022 3:03:47 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: bitt

This is about Russian regime change. The globalists will replace putin with an awesome leader.. maybe a black or latino woman. Or maybe someone who can dance as well as their puppet zelensky.
The sanctions were rolled out as easily as worldwide covid lockdowns and Obamacare.
The Ukrainian people are pawns. They will sacrifice as many as they have to to for their control.
They are calling tik tok people into the white house for more propaganda.


11 posted on 04/02/2022 3:18:28 AM PDT by momincombatboots (Ephesians 6... who you are really at war with. )
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To: Cronos; bitt

So, gold is the cause of all chaos and not the in-creep of socialism/communism?
Sounds oddly Keynesian to me.


12 posted on 04/02/2022 3:57:38 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Joe works to diminish US credibility around the world as the world looks to the US for leadership.)
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To: bitt

.


13 posted on 04/02/2022 4:16:58 AM PDT by sauropod (So may we start? When can we start?)
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel; bitt

Cletus, I didn’t say “gold is the cause of all chaos” — did you actually read what I said.

My points were:
1. returning to the gold standard is not the cure-all for all evils
2. when economies were under the gold standard, they still had recessions and more importantly the Great Depression.

Does this mean that the gold standard was bad? Not for its time. It worked in a pre-industrial age and badly in the industrial age, but by 1960 it was outmoded.

Taking an example - communism - it can work in a kibbutz or a monastery - small groups of like-minded people. It may even have worked in a Neolithic farming village. But it is hopelessly useless in any economy beyond the feudal.

I find it interesting that the monasteries and kibbutzes that did/do have INTERNAL communism function as macro-organizms. The kibbutz buys and sells as an individual does.

But back from that deviation - we can’t return to the gold standard in our complex economy, it just won’t work. This would be like 18th century Europe returning to a barter economy - doable, but with a massive shrinkage and simplification of economy. I personally follow (as much as I can understand - which isn’t much) the Hayek school of economics


14 posted on 04/02/2022 4:48:24 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: FLT-bird
To your points
  1. "Meddling in Ukraine" - Ukraine doesn't want to be incorporated as Małorossiya, as "little russia", assimilated into Russia. I don't understand why you think this is provocation to Russia?
    1. "talk to them" - you can talk to Russia, not to a Putin who wants to rebuild the Tsarist Russian empire
    2. "withdrawing US troops from Europe" - the US gains by having the war fought "there", not on US soil. NATO magnifies America, and American influence, especially in Europe, but also worldwide. The US would lose a lot of trade as various wars would cut it off from resources.

      Look at the list of US allies vs Chinese or Russian allies. And yeah, they grumble, they complain, but they follow and the US retains its premier status in the world


  2. "drill, frack" -- yes
  3. "made in US or allied..." - to keep the allied countries, you can't have the withdrawal of troops

  4. "raise tariffs on China" -- yup

15 posted on 04/02/2022 4:57:42 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: dragnet2

I’m in Poland. The USA and Americans don’t need to “sacrifice” for Ukraine.

The US already does a lot for Ukraine by keeping up the pressure.

Have you noticed the voices of support for the USA from the EU, from the UK, France, Germany? Even those critical of the USA have become pro-USA.

As I said above, Americans don’t realize just how dominant the USA is — it has allies in every corner. This is not “fear” that keeps people in line, but countries actually WANT to follow the USA.

Look at Germany and Japan - erstwhile enemies, now staunch allies.

The USA is NOT going to lose its superpower status anytime this century.


16 posted on 04/02/2022 5:00:38 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: Cronos

Riiiiight. Watch MSNBC much? /s


17 posted on 04/02/2022 7:00:33 AM PDT by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Cronos

The once free US is no more - at least for now. Many of us hate our own Government much more than the damn Russians or Chinese. Our greatest enemy is within our borders.


18 posted on 04/02/2022 8:24:08 AM PDT by ohioman
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To: bitt
If sustained, the sanctions on Russia will create a powerful Russia-China alliance that affirms the power of China and gives America a rival that sooner or later will diminish her economic power and lay low her influence over world affairs.

On the other hand, the United States and Western Europe, without cheap and reliable energy, easy access to raw materials, will face profound and insidious economic and political vulnerabilities.

Russia doesn't have the infrastructure to deliver large quantities of raw materials to China. Of course they will buid them, but it will take time.

We have easy access to an immense amount of raw materials in the United States and Canada. That we don't exploit them is a political decision that can be reversed.

The countries that have allied against Russia represent about 60% of the world's GDP. How many Chinese firms will risk that to do business with Russia?

As far as the "reliable system of international trade" goes, the author sounds like Jeffrey Sachs who wants a return to globalism where the profits of financial elites take precedence over trading with the enemy. Such a return is unlikely.

19 posted on 04/02/2022 9:54:14 AM PDT by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens" )
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To: logi_cal869

No, I’ve been to thise countries and met the people there. And also watched Putin want his lebensraum.


20 posted on 04/02/2022 11:39:03 AM PDT by Cronos
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