Forgall posted:

Do you think the same is true of the policies that caused crisis of 2008, current austerity in Europe etc?

El Scotch posted:

If I put 'the' in front of every country, then can I do it?

Orange Devil posted:

The Netherlands

Majorian posted:

3 - NATO may have a renewed sense of purpose, but this crisis has highlighted an equally troubling problem in the alliance: how far are its more powerful member-states willing to go to defend its less-powerful ones? At what point will France, Germany, and even the US consider a situation severe enough to warrant invoking Article 5?

Majorian posted:

That's all a possibility, but I think Russia is banking on German, French, and UK voters continuing to be parochial tards who would rather watch Ukraine burn than see their energy bills go up a cent.

And unfortunately, they're probably right.

Typo posted:

I'll take western European style plutocracy over Russian style oligarchy any day of the week.

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

Belarusian man names Lukashenko in ice bucket challenge: You won't believe what happens next!

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts...campaign=buffer

quote:

Russian journal claims Finland wants to join Russia

Scapegoat posted:

So mightypeon and co will just ignore the findings as western lies and keep blaming Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin posted:

Obama can't play that game because the US still cares about its credibility. If Russia were to parade on TV proof of US involvement, then it would be a blow to the US. Putin on the other hand clearly doesn't give a gently caress either way, so he can issue these ridiculous denials.

Maarek posted:

They're not. Almost no one believes them.

eigenstate posted:

Yet what if... what if you were to mash every single MH17 conspiracy into one? Not just those three, but several more I wasn't even aware of before today? What would it look like? Who could tackle such a momentous task? Could it even be done? I'll leave you to decide...



But the answer is "yes": http://irenecaesar.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/malaysia-airlines-mh17-zio-nazi-cia-mi6-mossad-mivd-terrorist-act-in-ukraine/

Mightypeon posted:

(one Reason is that some air bases have about 8% of the intended mechanics )

Brown Moses posted:

Don't forget, the Dutch report also shows the holes in the flight deck floor point downwards, so it would have to have been flying above it at a pretty sharp angle.

TeodorMorozov posted:

Earlier when Krim was Ukrainian he must pay 15% income taxes in hryvnia.
Now circumstances changed and he must pay 13% income taxes but in roubles to Russia. That are significantly more expensive.
So this so called patriot bitching only because he wont pay taxes to country that he is calling "My country".
That's all about money $$$ you know %)

TeodorMorozov posted:

You can lol if you want but 13% taxes in rubles is really more expensive than 15% in hrivna.

sum posted:

Who do you blame for the destruction caused by the Gaza War?

Majorian posted:

I don't think the wedge between the EU and Russia will last long, though. Cheap fuel, unfortunately, sways votes in places like Germany and France.

Forgall posted:

Are those from any particular party?

Dolash posted:

urope's indifference to a nation drawn by their best traits is weirdly galling. I almost wish it really had been "Amerimaidan" and Ukrainians had specifically yearned for the American way of life, since for their faults America has a lot of pride tied up in being seen as an inspiration and attacking people for that would be seen as an attack on American pride. Right now America's support for Ukraine is limited by how far Europe is willing to respond to an attack by proxy on their values, and it turns out that's not very far. Unless that value is money, of course, which makes the sanctions almost as offensive as the Russian incursion.

Majorian posted:

But I'm not arguing for Ukraine to be left at Russia's mercy. I'm arguing for Ukraine to be neutral.

3peat posted:

- For the last few days we've had some more floodings, we had so many this year I lost track. And yet again, the worst hit was the south-west region. Huge amounts of water came down from the mountains, causing roads and houses to be buried under 2 meters of mud. So far there's 1 dead (he was buried in his car by mud) and several others have been taken by the waters and are missing. Roads are closed, cities and villages are cut off and are running out of food, etc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6140TdsMNM

- How Hillary Clinton sold fracking to Romania and Bulgaria http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron?page=1

Article quoted by HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

A similar, but more modest proposal was made after the meeting, director, co-chairman of the Central Staff of the ONF Stanislav Govorukhin. He believes that it is necessary to limit the display of American films in Russia and increase the proportion of European, Korean and Iranian cinema.

"I think it would be good to limit the Hollywood movie on Russian screens, but not at the expense of Russian cinema, we produce about 60 pictures, but due to a movie, filmed in countries with a rich cinematic culture - Turkey, Korea, Iran, Japan, the European cinema "- quoted Govorukhina ITAR-TASS.

"And then we look only Hollywood movies and rarely Iranian cinema," - he added.

In this Govoruhin stressed that "it should be a soft policy, but I have no idea how to do it practically."

Nintendo Kid posted:

Perhaps he means quebecois : canada :: russians : ukraine

Flaky posted:

You keep saying this, but it isn't true. In 1936 France would easily have crushed Germany because German remilitarisation was nowhere near complete. They had ample casus belli to do so faced with the remilitarisation of the Ruhr industrial region. Just reasserting French soveriegnty and commitment to her treaties in this way would have lifted the scales from the eyes of the German people, toppled Hitler and saved the world a lot of trouble.

How sanctions are hastening the world without the West posted:

Sanctions are forcing large volumes of trade and finance out of the ambit of traditional networks, weakening western control over such flows.

Western sanctions are having an unintended effect. They are accelerating the birth of a parallel ecosystem where countries not allied to the West are able to operate without the constant threat of sanctions. Free of western control, this alternative platform is gaining traction at a surprisingly fast pace.

It is worth mentioning at the start that western companies have a huge exposure in the Russian market. In contrast, Russia is primarily an exporter of commodities such as oil, gas, metals and minerals which are in great demand – especially in Asia’s ravenous markets. Bottom line: while western consumer and capital goods can be replaced by Asian manufacturers, Russian commodities are the lifeblood of economies in both Asia and Europe.

SWIFT move

The move towards a non-western world is happening most rapidly in the area of finance. This is hardly surprising because financial flows are easier to reroute – and replace – than say, a shipment of coal or an oil tanker.

Among the dozens of sanctions directed against Russia, the most extreme one was proposed by the UK, which pressed European Union leaders to block Russian access to the SWIFT banking transaction system. The Belgium-based SWIFT, which stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is the financial world’s very arteries.

Restricting Russian usage of SWIFT would no doubt disrupt financial and commercial activities in the country, but according to Richard Reid of the University of Dundee in Scotland it may carry a longer-term downside. “Large chunks of Russian international payments flows would move to much less well monitored and measured financial channels and thus be beyond sanctions at any future point,” he told Bloomberg News.

Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel swiftly rejected the British proposal as too extreme, the damage has been done. It is now abundantly clear to Moscow that the US-UK evil twins are not content with symbolic sanctions but are really out to destroy its economy. Anticipating this blow to its financial jugular, Russia had in July drawn up a law that would create a local equivalent of SWIFT.

The sanctions have also highlighted the synergy between Russia and China. Vesti Finance says sanctions aimed at restricting Russian access to finance will have almost no sense, since Russian companies will find the necessary money in China. And the Chinese are keen to increase the impact of the renminbi and turn it into the world’s reserve currency.

De-dollarisation

The move to a parallel payment system is happening in tandem with the ditching of the US dollar on which the entire US economy – and hegemony – pivots. The dollar’s status as the reserve currency is due to it being the only currency accepted in the petroleum market, which is why it’s also known as the petrodollar.

That’s about to change as Russia and other emerging powers are planning to drop the petrodollar and end the dollar’s reserve status. But because the dollar’s dominance is so overwhelming in the petroleum trade, it would require someone really big to take it down.

That heavy hitter is Gazprom. Kommersant reports the Russian oil company has started shipping oil from the Arctic and the tankers will arrive in European ports this month, with payment to be received in rubles. Gazprom will also deliver oil via the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline (ESPO), accepting payment in Chinese renminbi.

Finance portal Zero Hedge says, “Russia is actively pushing on with plans to put the US dollar in the rearview mirror and replace it with a dollar-free system – or a de-dollarised world.”

Citing the Voice of Russia, Zero Hedge says the country's Ministry of Finance is ready to greenlight a plan to radically increase the role of the ruble in export operations while reducing the share of dollar-denominated transactions.

As Zero Hedge says, “The further the west antagonises Russia, and the more economic sanctions it lobs at it, the more Russia will be forced away from a US dollar-denominated trading system and into one which faces China and India.”

Worth mentioning is that the Siberia-sized $400 billion gas contract with China – which Moscow and Beijing had haggled over for a decade – finally got inked in May 2014, after westerns sanctions kicked in.

Military: That sinking feeling

It is a pointer to the paucity of strategic thinking in France and Germany that they are so easily swayed by the US-UK combine to welch on military contracts already inked with Russia. The built-in penalties aside, the breach of contract is guaranteed to alarm other buyers.

If Germany and France are planning to drive away their weapons customers, then they are doing a pretty good job of it. But look at it this way: perhaps that’s precisely what the US and UK have been planning all along – to attract disillusioned buyers.

As part of its military modernisation, Russia had hired Germany’s Rheinmetall to build a modern military training facility. But under pressure from the US, Germany cancelled the $134 million contract. Strategy Page says Russia may turn to China to get the training centre built as China has obtained – or rather purloined – the technology and built its own.

“The growing list of sanctions against Russia has hit the Russian arms industry particularly hard because new Russian weapons depend on Western suppliers for some of the high tech components needed,” says Strategy Page. “China is taking advantage of this by pointing out it has become a major producer of high-end electronic and mechanical components, and can probably replace Western suppliers now unavailable because of the sanctions. While Russia does not buy a lot of foreign weapons it does buy a lot of high-tech components (especially electronic ones) from the West. A lot of these items are dual use items that China and other East Asian countries also manufacture. China backs Russian (moves in Ukraine) and is hostile to sanctions (which it has been under for several decades). Beijing believes it can replace enough western suppliers to Russia to create about $1 billion a year in additional business for Chinese firms.”

Similarly, India is watching – with a mix of amusement and dismay – France kowtow to the US and letting its $1.6 billion Mistral deal with Russia sink. France has been a reliable supplier of quality combat systems and has never welched on a deal with India. However, that was in the past when France had opted out of NATO.With Paris now syncing its foreign policy with the warlords in Washington, India’s military should be cagey about ‘Made in France’ technology.

Loss-loss for the West

As the US and EU fumble around in the dark, there is considerable activity in countries allied to Russia. As well as market-led movements (food exporters from Asia rushing in to fill Russian supermarket shelves) there are strategic moves afoot. For instance, the US and EU have a monopoly on wide body aircraft and also dominate the middle categories. The sanctions are just the push required to expedite aviation joint ventures, particularly between Russia and China in wide body aircraft and Russia and India in mid-size airliners.

The concept of a "World Without the West" was first articulated by American academics Steven Weber, Naazneen Barma and Ely Ratner. “By preferentially deepening their own ties among themselves, and in so doing loosening relatively the ties that bind them to the international system centred in the West, rising powers are building an alternative system of international politics whose endpoint is neither conflict nor assimilation with the West,” they say.

So in effect, by not playing by the rules and systems set by the West they are creating an alternative arrangement in which they neither enter into conflict situations with the West nor enter into subservient alliances (like those offered to South Korea and Japan).

Years from now, westerners will ruefully look back at the sanctions as the tipping point that ushered in a world without the West.

Dolash posted:

One of the real lessons of this crisis and possibly quite a few crises of the last few years is watch out who you're inspired by. European and American freedom sounds nice on paper, all that stuff about Democracy, rights and transparency, and if you ask them they'll happily tell you how they're inspirational beacons of freedom for all the world. Try and follow their example though and watch them throw their hands up and start shouting about spheres of influence or the limits of treaty obligations.

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

It is now a crime to refuse to recognize Crimea is no longer part of Ukraine.


https://www.facebook.com/NVPoklonskaya?ref=br_tf

OddObserver posted:

So yesterday Italy froze some assets (Villas) owned by some Putin buddies/oligarchs/judo partners. Today, someone introduced a law in the Russian Duma providing for compensation of such as things from the state budget. Among arguments: complaints that it infringes on sovereignty of Russia for a lawsuit against Russian citizen to be decided by foreign courts.

Willie Tomg posted:

This morning on the way to work I was reading Netanyahu's statement that Arab nations are the final solution to the Palestinian question

Maarek posted:

Except not all of them even want to separate

Sergiu64 posted:

They call themselves Russian too.

Cliff Racer posted:

Then what about state governments? "Harrisburg" and "Albany" do stuff to their populations all the time. Probably doesn't hold up as well in places like Mass and WA where the capital is also the largest city though.

quote:

Elections in Syria: Washington Pressured Several Countries to Prevent Syrian Expats from Voting

quote:

Elections in Syria: Washingtonians Pressured Several Countries to Prevent Syrian Expats from Voting

Ardennes posted:

Admittedly it does sound quite familiar, but I wonder how Serbia is going to manage entry into the EU at this point. I guess Brussels needs a "victory" since expansion has slowed with a lack of targets and faith in the EU has plummeted in much of Europe. I could see Serbia enter the EU and if economically it doesn't work out, a fierce counter-reaction.

Admittedly, more open markets in Western and Northern Europe is a good thing for a country with cheaper wages but if demand continues to slump like it is it may end up muted.

Ardennes posted:

Of course the EU and especially the Eurozone is in bad shape already and even Germany looks like it will go into recession. (Arguably, The entire Eurozone is designed to benefit Germany in the first place.)

Ardennes posted:

Right now, at least yields on European bonds are down thanks to heavy subsidization of purchases but ultimately the Euro crisis was only really suppressed not stopped.

MeLKoR posted:

OK, at the risk of looking like a fool I usually unplug the laptop and other expensive electronics because it has happened occasionally (or at least has been reported), for everything connected to power outlets to get fried when a home is hit by lightning. I don't know under which specific circumstances this happens or if the lightning has to hit something in particular, it doesn't happen every year but it does allegedly happen once in a while and according to the news reports the the electric company will refuse to cover these incidents with their power surge insurance because it's not their fault.

SaltyJesus posted:

Are houses and apartment buildings not grounded over there? It's a pretty standard feature.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

I'll never get why so many nations have official languages. Of all the things a government could worry about, language is one of the dumbest. Of course, the whole nationalities having a specific government attached to them is pretty crazy too.

SaltyJesus posted:

Ardennes posted:

Oddly enough there are nations that can use multiple official languages to represent their diverse populations, it is pretty neat stuff.

Killer-of-Lawyers posted:

I also think it comes dangerously close to defining a specific nationality as being that nations nationality