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US Politics - or: How I Learned to Love the Atomic Don


Martell Spy

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It's clear that Putin would not, under ordinary circumstances, invade the Baltic States. He knows that is a red line for NATO and will invite a reprisal from the United States that Russia cannot counter.

However, Trump's election has thrown all of those calculations up into the air. Putin will be reappraising what he thinks he can now get away with and where he can push and cause issues and where he cannot. Invading the Baltic States is a significant escalation that forces Russia to risk a lot for questionable gain. In fact, Russia could invade and fully occupy Ukraine for far more gain and less risk of drawing in other countries. If that went off without a hitch, he might then look at the Baltics.

Putin's plan is to make Russia a superpower again. He cannot do that without dramatically expanding his country's economy, population and resource base. As a result, absolutely everything is on the table. But that doesn't make anything inevitable. There are indications that Putin's adventure in Syria has exposed some weaknesses in resourcing and equipment (particularly that terrible aircraft carrier) that he may wish to reassess before taking further risks.

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http://voxeu.org/article/ending-too-big-fail

Interesting stuff on Financial Regulation

Quote

Simply declaring TBTF illegal and forbidding government bailouts may be popular, but it lacks credibility. TBTF is a classic problem of time consistency – a future government facing a crisis will renege on the promise not to bail out private creditors. If necessary, it will change the law, as the US Congress did when it approved the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program in September 2008. As a result, today’s SIFIs and their creditors have a clear incentive to take risks that raise the chances of a financial crisis.

The Republican plan would seem to be to simply send all failing institutions to bankruptcy court mainly. It isn't credible.

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Just now, Werthead said:

However, Trump's election has thrown all of those calculations up into the air. Putin will be reappraising what he thinks he can now get away with and where he can push and cause issues and where he cannot. Invading the Baltic States is a significant escalation that forces Russia to risk a lot for questionable gain. In fact, Russia could invade and fully occupy Ukraine for far more gain and less risk of drawing in other countries. If that went off without a hitch, he might then look at the Baltics.

Yeah, really don't think Putin would just try to outright invade the Baltic States. That doesn't mean though, he might not try to play other games.

And what games he decides to play, may very well depend on his expectations of the response. Uncertain expectations are not helpful here. Saying, "eh maybe we'll do something or maybe we wont" by Trump isn't helpful here.

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5 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yeah, really don't think Putin would just try to outright invade the Baltic States. That doesn't mean though, he might not try to play other games.

And what games he decides to play, may very well depend on his expectations of the response. Uncertain expectations are not helpful here. Saying, "eh maybe we'll do something or maybe we wont" by Trump isn't helpful here.

Hell, given our buddy buddy with Russia going forward, maybe the US will help him invade the Baltics. That'd be fun.

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Just now, Mexal said:

Hell, given our buddy buddy with Russia going forward, maybe the US will help him invade the Baltics. That'd be fun.

Could be. Particularly if Trump gets a great real estate deal there.

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22 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well, if Mexico did decide to do such a thing, its their decision, whatever Washington might decide.

If we don't want Mexico to ally with China, it might behoove us to be fair to them and to work with them. And not do shit like, oh I don't know, threaten to make them pay for a wall they don't want.

It seems to me that the Trumpies think that each action Trump takes happens in a political vacuum.  Ex. The contention that pissing off NK has no effect on nuclear proliferation or increases the probability of nuclear war.  Something they deeply believe, and desperately want others to believe.  It's like the 1% doctrine in reverse.  Call it the 110% doctrine.  If there is not a direct cause from a given action then that action has no culpability.

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Trump says "I don't like tweeting"

Quote

“Look, I don't like Tweeting. I have other things I could be doing,” Trump told Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt in an interview taped Tuesday and broadcast on Wednesday morning’s “Fox & Friends.” “But I get very dishonest media, very dishonest press. And it's my only way that I can counteract.”

I continue to be in awe over how much of a dumbass you had to have been to have voted for this man.  

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7 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Trump says "I don't like tweeting"

I continue to be in awe over how much of a dumbass you had to have been to have voted for this man.  

Because the rest of the media is so dishonest he had to talk to the 'fair and balanced' folk over at Fox.  :rolleyes::rolleyes:

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

It's clear that Putin would not, under ordinary circumstances, invade the Baltic States. He knows that is a red line for NATO and will invite a reprisal from the United States that Russia cannot counter.

France and the UK are nuclear powers. If they wanted, they could threaten Russia with MAD to protect NATO members even if the US looks like its gotten too squishy under Trump. 

I don't think they want to do that, particularly the UK, but underestimating France and the UK's commitment to eastern European countries is how world wars get started.

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57 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yeah, really don't think Putin would just try to outright invade the Baltic States. That doesn't mean though, he might not try to play other games.

Putin doesn't actually have to invade the Baltic states. He can just get Trump to unwittingly destabilize the entire world and they may reconsider their relationship with Russia. 

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14 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Lol, we seem to be going around in circles here. The point is, he had big plans for Russia beyond vodka, and the article quotes him at a conference bragging about all the contacts he'd made among generals and the rich and famous and 'other people' in Moscow, yet he keeps insisting he was avoiding doing business in Russia.  He has an extraordinarily selective memory, even when talking about matters that are very easy to fact check.

LOL - think we totally agree.  He is a lying liar who lies and lies about lying.

14 hours ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Sure it's sensible to register trademark for a product one wants to sell. What's far from sensible is reflexively lying about having done business in Russia when it's so easily demonstrated that Trump did in fact sell his vodka there.

Yes, agreed.

14 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Even though she is being forced to serve in a male prison? It seems to be cruel and unusual punishment to me.

I think she should serve her time in a women's prison.  And for the record, and not that it matters, my own definition of cruel and unusual is a lot narrower than I think it is for some people here (though extended periods in solitary do count in my mind - we are social creatures)

 

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2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Putin hasn't said the fall of the Soviet Union was a tragedy?  Putin isn't working to restore Russia to the position it held as the Soviet Union?  Doesn't Putin's ambition to push Russia back to its heights of power necessarily imply he wants the old Soviet Republics back in direct Russian control and the Warsaw Pact back in Moscow's hegemony?

No, actually it doesn't. Fall of Soviet Union resulted in a decade during which Russia was a semi-failed state, and economy, life expectancy, standard of living and general personal safety took a nosedive. It is perfectly reasonable for an average Russian to consider that a tragedy.

Second, why do you think that Russia needs to conquer the Baltics to become a superpower again? It is geographically the largest country in the world, with the second strongest military, well-educated population and every imaginable natural resource within its borders. There is no logical causal relation between "We want to be a superpower" and "Let's annex Estonia!" If Theresa May said that she wants UK to be a superpower, does that automatically mean she wants to re-colonize India?

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10 minutes ago, Gorn said:

No, actually it doesn't. Fall of Soviet Union resulted in a decade during which Russia was a semi-failed state, and economy, life expectancy, standard of living and general personal safety took a nosedive. It is perfectly reasonable for an average Russian to consider that a tragedy.

Second, why do you think that Russia needs to conquer the Baltics to become a superpower again? It is geographically the largest country in the world, with the second strongest military, well-educated population and every imaginable natural resource within its borders. There is no logical causal relation between "We want to be a superpower" and "Let's annex Estonia!" If Theresa May said that she wants UK to be a superpower, does that automatically mean she wants to re-colonize India?

Good points well made.

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Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Putin doesn't actually have to invade the Baltic states. He can just get Trump to unwittingly destabilize the entire world and they may reconsider their relationship with Russia. 

I think I might have been accused of being a simple nationalist or whatever. But, that isn't the case, at all. If it were the case, I''d would have voted for Trump with his "America First" stuff.

In my opinion, the breakdown of international cooperation, and the rise of ultra nationalist parties is a potential problem. The world is getting smaller and we have to learn to cooperate with each other. Global warming being an example.

It would seem to me, that in Trump's and Putin's view of things, the powerful nations just wheel and deal with each other and smaller nations get caught up in whatever deal people like Trump and Putin make. So it's kind of like, Putin says, "Give me the Baltics and I'll let you have your way Mexico". Well, I think that is terrible. It seems to me something like late 19th Century Foreign Policy.

And even if I took a completely US centric view of things, I think I'd would argue that Trump's policies are terrible for US interest in the long run. It seems to me that many of the people that bought into "Make America Great Again" are under some kind of delusion that the United States will be able to achieve the kind of economic and military power it had in the 20th Century. That is not going to happen. Russia, China, and India, and other nations, are going to become more powerful relative to the United States going forward. That just needs to be accepted. In future, the United States might very well wish that it had chosen a foreign policy based on international cooperation and observation of norms, than on the raw reliance of economic and military power ie the Trump/Bolton view of the world.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Putin doesn't actually have to invade the Baltic states. He can just get Trump to unwittingly destabilize the entire world and they may reconsider their relationship with Russia. 

The Baltics loath the Russians. There is no way they would voluntarily get back in bed with them.

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