dagblog - Comments for " The New York Times doesn’t want you to understand this Vladimir Putin speech The Russian leader delivers an important foreign policy address we should consider. The Times botches it badly "

The ruble is tied to an oil

trkingmomoe — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 03:09:31 +0000

In reply to Brezhnev & Kruschev weren't

The ruble is tied to an oil budget of $96 a barrel. Oil is now around $85-82 dollars a barrel. It 's value is falling with the price of oil. They are facing inflation and higher interest rates. I think interest rates right now are around 8% or 9%. The free fall may stabilize because OPEC is cutting back on production to keep oil from falling too far. Russian business is under pressure because they have to buy dollars and euros to pay debt. Sanctions are making it hard to borrow in euros and dollars. The ruble has been falling since the beginning of the year. Russia now faces inflation. The demand for oil is down.

Western Russia is in a drought because of global warming and that has stopped the exporting of food and wheat. They have been importing wheat to keep up with the demand. They have had several years of extensive wild fires in Siberia. Siberia has been very warm and this has also effected winter wheat and other cool weather cash crop production. They are a major producer of hard winter wheat that is used in bread.

You're absolutely right about

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 22:25:24 +0000

In reply to America's critics make the

You're absolutely right about believers in imperialism, though American interventionists would not appreciate the label

Great point about Congo,

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 22:22:18 +0000

In reply to Good link. Most people are

Great point about Congo, where horrific violence continues despite the official end of the war. Talk about a subject that doesn't get enough press. People have such a skewed attention span for violence. In the US, it's something like this:

1 dead American* = 5 dead Europeans/Canadians/Israelis = 25 dead Mexicans/South Americans = 100 dead Arabs**/Kurds/Persians/Indians/Asians = 10,000 dead (Sub-Saharan) Africans

* divide by 10 if the killer and victim are different races, divide by 50 if the killer is a foreign terrorist

** divide by 10 if the victim is Palestinian and the killer is Israeli

America's critics make the

artappraiser — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 20:16:43 +0000

In reply to Otherwise tranquil global

America's critics make the same error as America's champions when they magnify our ability to transform the world, for good or for ill.

When I read this, I thought: where's the goll darn "Like" button? I'm gonna steal it, it's what I always want to say but end up writing a gazillion other words. I kind of like to take it just a bit further and call those kind of critics believers in imperialism.

Good link. Most people are

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 19:22:00 +0000

In reply to Otherwise tranquil global

Good link. Most people are ignorant about the state of wars and casualties - I'd imagine most couldn't name the bloodiest recent conflict (Congo with 5 million killed) along with Sudan at 2 million, both ended about 10 years ago. The Mideast death toll from the last 13 years is max about 1.2 million including all the different countries - Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine...

If you go to this link & click on most recent, you see what hopefully is a winding down. It's still not pretty, but we don't have simultaneous Angola + Vietnam + Cambodia + East Timor wars of large scale & atrocity. Displacement is still a problem, but we're much better able to cope with humanitarian crises than we were at the time of Ethiopian displacement.

I was hoping the EU could set up a "Tier 2" or mirror system to handle the Arab Spring gracefully, but that naïve notion faded pretty quick. Still, as minorities try to find their rights within historic national boundaries and ingrained political structures, we'll continue to have flareups - but most of these will likely not be anywhere close to the monstrosities of the 1920-1970 period, including several great wipeouts of 10 million+ in China most people don't have numbers or names for.

Another list of the worst historical wars here - again you have to scan down quite a ways to get the first recent one - Congo.

Otherwise tranquil global

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 18:07:54 +0000

In reply to What I note as interesting is

Otherwise tranquil global society? What global society do you live in? At the end of the Cold War, we indulged in a brief dream of "tranquility," but Bosnia and Rwanda and Somalia put an end to that fantasy without any help from America. We are gradually moving toward a more peaceful world, but progress comes in fits and starts, and the US is just a single actor in that complex drama.

America's critics make the same error as America's champions when they magnify our ability to transform the world, for good or for ill. The Sunni-Shiite split that is tearing apart the Middle East, for example, is not an American invention. The Iraq War may have catalyzed the chain reaction, but societies in which a dictator from a minority social group violently suppresses a majority social group are inherently unstable. Sooner or later, they will explode, and the best we can do is to try to mitigate the genocidal consequences.

Brezhnev & Kruschev weren't

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 18:05:21 +0000

In reply to WHY ?

Brezhnev & Kruschev weren't hard-nosed on agreements? And the whole whiny tone of how Putin's being demonized falls flat if you think of the West inviting Stalin or any other Russian leader besides maybe Gorbachev to join an expanded G-8 - would not have happened. Someone forgot the US boycott of Brezhnev's Moscow Olympics in 1980, and ignored the world's gleeful participation in Putin's $40 billion show-off in Sochi - not our fault that he wasted any good will by then invading / annexing Crimea.

Aside from pointing fingers at our obviously botched Mideast foray, I don't think Putin adds much interesting in his long speech. He hasn't done anything to help Russia transition to civil society - quite the opposite - and his relationship with ex-CIS countries is the bullying old master controlling their gas imports & much more (even Lukashenko of Belarus now expresses concern about Putin/Russian hegemony, which is an interesting turn).

The US of course was always alpha male - there just happened to be other alpha males. Now Russia's more of a neighborhood bully - certainly no big threat to the EU outside of energy reserves, and even that threat is being somewhat successfully hedged.

What I don't find is any interesting way of confronting the problems the US botched - Russia was just as ham-handed as us in Afghanistan, and Putin's method of killing hostages in standoffs isn't very persuasive as a way of negotiating with Muslims, whether Chechnya, Iraq or Islamic State. He was funneling troops and weapons into Ingushetia a decade ago, so it's not like his support for Ukrainian separatists was a lesson learned from our involvement in Syria or Libya.

Anyway, Putin finds himself in somewhat of an impasse as the ruble is diving, he's blowing his energy windfalls, his behavior is killing off foreign investment, his budget focus on military and police while cutting social programs is sure to bring internal unrest, and typical Russians will soon be very tired of money spent propping up the shriveling Crimea and on fighting in Donbas (see below). Hope he has a good speech to explain that - easier to talk about your neighbor's drinking problems than your own.

http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-osce-/26681576.html

The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) says it is "very concerned" after its monitors witnessed columns of military equipment moving through territory in east Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists.

In a statement issued on November 8, the OSCE said its monitors had observed "convoys of heavy weapons and tanks" in the rebel-held city of Donetsk and nearby Makiivka.

It comes hours after the AP news agency said its reporters had seen more than 80 unmarked military vehicles near Donetsk on November 8.

The OSCE report also came a day after Ukraine's military accused Russia of sending a column of 32 tanks and truckloads of troops into the country's east to support pro-Russian separatists fighting government forces.

Russia has denied backing the rebels with fighters or arms.

"More than 40 trucks and tankers" were seen driving on a highway on the eastern outskirts of Makiivka, the OSCE monitors said.

....

Hmmm? I take it you didn't

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 17:44:16 +0000

In reply to I take you didn't read the

Hmmm? I take it you didn't read this long rant where I noted I read the 1st half, and then later noted I'd skimmed the rest.

Any particular stupidities in it you think I didn't demolish? would be happy to have a 2nd go at it - like beating 1st graders in chess.

What I note as interesting is

Beetlejuice — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 16:45:33 +0000

In reply to It is only one article to

What I note as interesting is people attacking the speech, but never taking a closer look to see what it says and offers as possible solutions. He did touch base with numerous US follies that have back fired and caused ripples in the global security fabric such that it created tears allowing chaos to seep into an otherwise tranquil global society.

I take you didn't read the

Beetlejuice — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 16:39:58 +0000

In reply to You're right, of course -

I take you didn't read the speech, eh ???