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Post by artraveler on Sept 21, 2019 13:10:34 GMT -8
Iran, North Korea, China and Russia
Iran and North Korea, to be sure, are more of regional threats to the United States, however, disruption in their parts of the world presents a threat to the US. China and Russia are major powers with the ability to influence events in regions far from their regional sphere of influence.
The recent attack on Saudi Arabia oil production facilities by either, Iran or Iranian funded terrorists, can and should taken as an act of war. Why, when the GDP per capita of Iran ($20,100) is so much less than the Saudi Arabia ($52,000) and is a sure loser in a war would the leadership of Iran sanction the attack? Iran spends about 2.6% of its GDP on defense while Saudi Arabia spends over 8% and has the backing of the US arsenal.
We can look for the grizzled hands of China and Russia behind Iran, but it takes on the form of, “let’s you and him fight”. Neither of the major powers offering support to Iran or North Korea is willing to take on the US in a fight. But, disruption, misinformation, and subversion are not off the table as long as they can have a measure of credible denial. Great power politics has never changed.
It has always been what we used to call school yard bullies. Someone pushes and gets pushed back because the result of a fight is uncertain; there is no deterrence. It is the same in the school yard of power politics. Even if one power is perceptibly stronger the other may take them on because they view themselves faster, more intelligent, or more motivated. And sometimes it works, for a short time.
The problem for the school yard thug is they don’t know when to stop. The best example on the world stage is, of course, the National Socialist German Worker leader Hitler. He bullied the French, Czechs, Poles, Austrian, English and even the Soviets with impunity. Hitler assumed they would not fight back and until 1 September 1939 he was correct. The French by themselves had a larger more mechanized army, more tanks with 75 mm guns and an air force larger and at least as skilled as the German air force. Yet, in a very short time they quit like a torn sail.
After Pearl Harbor Hitler declared war on the US. Less than two years later American and British long-range bombers were bombing German cities day and night. The arsenal of America was never in danger from German or Japanese aircraft. They never built four engine bombers. By the end of the war American GDP exceeded the combined GDP of all the axis at their peak.
It has been almost a generation since the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam. Like many of our military actions we won the war and lost the peace. Remember, “shock and awe”? I guarantee the senior military leaders of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea paid close attention. China and Russia, being more knowledgeable, took the lesson to heart and for a time were suitability deterred from adventurism in their regions of influence.
Iran and North Korea took another lesson and opted for asymmetric war. They were not as deterred as they should have been, and for the last 15 years, through three administrations they have played cat and mouse with a great power reluctant to use its power. They found that they could use Bush’s decency and bully Obama and kill Americans by proxy. And so, it has been since 1979 when the peanut farmer passed on the opportunity to solve this problem by declaring war and destroying the Iranian regime. So, here we are 40 years later still paying for peanut heads’ failure to do his constitutionally mandated duty. The can has been kicked as far down the road as possible. It is time to demonstrate what deterrence really means.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 21, 2019 13:58:43 GMT -8
Obviously, any response to the attack on a Saudi oil refinery should be launched by Saudi Arabia, though it's reasonable for the US to make sure they need we support them here. Sanctions of some sort that can deprive Iran of the money their attack (and various other recent attacks) cost everyone else would also be desirable.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 15, 2020 16:26:10 GMT -8
This story is all over the internet. Putin Changes Government StructureIn my opinion, Putin is one of the more intelligent world leaders. Friends have pointed out to me that Putin is not a nice guy. I generally respond by saying something like, "True, but please tell me when Russia has ever been ruled by a nice guy." Of course, nobody can identify such a time. It will be interesting to see how this actually works out.
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Post by artraveler on Jan 15, 2020 17:02:07 GMT -8
Or any nice girls. Cathrine was a real ballbuster
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 15, 2020 17:08:48 GMT -8
Yes, I believe she had her Russian husband, Paul smothered. That's what happens when you bring a German princess into the family.
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Post by timothylane on Jan 15, 2020 17:36:18 GMT -8
Peter III had antagonized a lot of Russians when he pulled out of the Seven Years War when Russia and its allies seemed to be on the verge of finishing off Prussia. Actually, it was worse: as a strong admirer of Frederick II of Prussia, he not only made peace without gaining anything for all that effort, but sent troops to assist Frederick. Undoubtedly Catherine knew about the coup that overthrew him (it's doubtful that he was the father of the future Tsar Paul, who thus would not have been an actual Romanov and was probably heir to nothing except maybe Anhalt-Zerbst), but it might have happened anyway.
She withdrew her troops from Frederick but didn't rejoin the alliance against him. Later they combined with Maria Theresa (who probably had no use personally for either and was allied to Poland, but never mind) in the First Partition of Poland. (She was still Tsarina during the Second and Third Partitions. The latter was in 1795, and Paul inherited the throne in 1796.)
One of her lovers, incidentally, was the notorious Grigory Potemkin, he of the Potemkin villages with their fake fronts (a very similar plan was used in Blazing Saddles).
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 15, 2020 20:53:19 GMT -8
This is a brief piece on the fiasco that is Afghanistan. USA pisses away billionsIn such ventures, there is always a combination of stupidity and venality. On the one hand, most Americans simply have little grasp of how the rest of the world works and foolishly think they can convince the rest of humanity to become Americans. On the other, plenty of our leaders are more than happy to profit off the ignorance and naivety of the "democratize the world" types and soak the US government, i.e. the tax payer, for everything they can. Trump demonstrated how a drone strike, which costs little and requires few to arrange, is much more effective than positioning ineffective troops in a 5th-world country. We need to get out of Afghanistan, but the military-industrial-diplomatic-finance-intelligence complex would lose too much money. After almost twenty years of abuse, it would be like getting a dope addict to quite using.
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Post by timothylane on Jan 15, 2020 21:00:40 GMT -8
What has especially frustrated me about Afghanistan is the way our troops keep getting killed by "friendly" fire from the Afghans we're training. What will happen there when the Taliban takes over again is going to be very tragic. But that's what a lot of Afghans want, and there's a limit to how much we can do for those (mostly women who want a future other than misogynistic slavery, I suspect) who don't.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 15, 2020 21:37:53 GMT -8
More importantly, the USA has squandered trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives and tens-of-thousands of American injuries for less than no visible gain, other than that of the military-industrial-financial-diplomatic-intelligence complex.
By doing so, America has put itself at risk to our one truly capable foe, the PRC. People like Kissinger have soft-pedaled the threat of China thereby made millions of $$$ through their China connections and screwed the USA while doing so.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 16, 2020 8:54:29 GMT -8
VDH had a interesting sort of “round up” titled Energy Paradoxes Put Europe in a Precarious Position. It’s refreshing just to read the writings of a clear head. But there isn’t much in here we don’t already know. Still, it’s perhaps long past time that we disengage from Europe and leave them to their own fate. I understand that they are sort of our “cradle of civilization.” There is sentimental value there. There are great works of art and cathedrals. But Europe is like the bad neighbor you move away from. If we could make Trump our dictator (and there are positives to this), he could institute a plan whereby all the discontents can be given a first-class ticket to Europe. And we need to somehow purge our country of the Leftists.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 16, 2020 10:25:11 GMT -8
The fact that Europe buys gas and oil from Russia is not surprising given geopolitics. I recall the USA getting on Europe's case back in the late 1970s/early 1980s because of the huge gas line the USSR was building to supply natural gas to Western Europe. Even later, one particularly oleaginous ex-Chancellor named Gerhard Schroeder, became the head of a Russian pipe-line project (Nord Stream) the moment he stepped down from his office. So don't expect honor from these people.
Recently Russia has completed or is about to complete a couple more new gas lines which avoid the Ukraine and will increase Russia's supply of natural gas to Europe.
A friend in Europe tells me that the state of the German military is pitiful. Much of the equipment does not work and sits rotting at various bases. This happened under the female German Defense Minister who has just replaced Juencker as head of the EU. Another case of the Peter Principle at work? Apparently, the only military of any consequence in Europe is that of Great Britain.
At the risk of repeating myself, with the USA's new energy independence, we could sail away from the Middle East and all its pathologies. But there are at least three things keeping us there. 1) Israel, 2) Saudi Arabia and 3) The desire to keep China out of the area. I think the last may be the most important reason.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 16, 2020 10:37:46 GMT -8
It’s an odd position for an American to admire the Russians for their industry and despise the Europeans for their delusional Utopian duplicity. I shouldn’t say that there would be any Schadenfreude in regards to both Islam and the Russians preying on the Europeans. But honesty compels me to say there would be plenty of that.
Israel surely knows they are always only one presidential election away from an evil, anti-Semitic monster such as Obama. Saudi Arabia can go to the devil. But I'd be all for loaning Israel all the nukes and patriot missiles that they can use.
As for the Chinese, I think they represent the ideal of the Left: Complete one-party state control in a totalitarian surveillance state that is anti-religious and hates Westerners almost as much as they do. To me, this problem is similar to the one in Europe. Can you actually oppose a force that, in practice, is so much like yourself?
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Post by timothylane on Jan 16, 2020 11:28:41 GMT -8
The willingness of Europeans to depend on Russian oil and gas while they let their militaries (such as they are) run down should be considered whenever anyone (usually a globalist or a Never Trumper, though those are heavily overlapping groups) complains about Trump's demands regarding NATO.
The French probably also still have a functional military. They occasionally use it to assist former French colonies in Africa, usually against radical Submissionists. That's something Germany certainly couldn't do. The last I heard, a year or two back, they had about 125 tanks -- and that may have included those no longer functional. Israel could beat the crap out of them, which some might find appropriate if by chance it happened.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 16, 2020 12:03:20 GMT -8
I agree completely. Unfortunately, the Saudi's have their tentacles spread throughout our government. They have ex-government officials on their payroll and our banks love their money. That is why we won't leave them to their fate.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 16, 2020 12:12:14 GMT -8
I still wonder if this “religion of peace” nonsense from George W. Bush was a factor of political correctness, geopolitical pragmatism, or being bought and paid for.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 16, 2020 12:41:11 GMT -8
Why not all of the above? Of course, point 3 makes points 1 and 2 easier to rationalize.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jan 16, 2020 13:11:32 GMT -8
Okay. And “yes” on the rationalization factor.
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Post by timothylane on Jan 16, 2020 13:13:28 GMT -8
I would agree that all 3 reasons apply, but I would also point out that there were -- at least initially -- genuine concerns about the danger of jingoistic passions getting the better of people. "Liberty steak" (hamburger) and "liberty cabbage" (sauerkraut) were problematic. This becomes even more so when it involves attacking people of certain ethnicities. Who wanted to repeat the Nisei internment camps? Just imagine rejecting such World War II commanders of German background as Eisenhower and Nimitz.
As late as 1990, a Texas laundry in the Houston area that had named itself Baghdad sometime in the past because it seemed like a nice, exotic name had problems from people who misconstrued the name. (A friend of mine spent the autumn on 1990 doing an installation there. It gave him an excellent point for observing unfortunate incidents in the lead-in to the First Gulf War, and also the Texas gubernatorial race. Clayton Williams started with a big lead over the Mouth That Roared -- and kept botching things up until she finally won, though not by much. Too bad he didn't have a 3-month attack of laryngitis. He came home at the end of autumn trying to race home ahead of a major snow storm.)
Instead, we ended up with "freedom fries" and "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". And the usual hate crimes against . . . Jews. Many of them by the Muslims we didn't target. Such things happen. It's one thing to confuse the religion of Submission (islam) with a religion of peace (salaam). It's another to encourage the Submissionists to come in ever larger numbers. We're paying the price for that now.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 23, 2020 21:36:30 GMT -8
The link is to a short piece which explains how the Obamanation and his European partners betrayed America and the West by bringing about the treaty with Iran. It was always a sham. Lies and more liesThere are always elites who will betray us for something as straightforward as money. One cannot help but wonder how much anti-Israel sentiment was also behind the deal. This is another reason Trump is so hated. He does not play the elites' game and is hitting them in the pocket book.
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Post by timothylane on Jan 23, 2020 21:55:04 GMT -8
It wasn't just money. The Black God preferred Iran to Israel, Jordan, Egypt (except during the brief period when the Muslim Brotherhood controlled it), and Saudi Arabia -- no doubt precisely because they shared his hatred of America. (Too bad for him they saw him as an American anyway).
In addition, his eminence grise Valerie Jarrett was born in Iran and wanted to favor it over the other powers in the Middle East.
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