Trump and Russia - a very tangled web

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@Adamantium (to save quoting the block). I generally agree with what you're saying, but as far as nuclear war serving no interests I would say that will not necessarily prevent a nuclear war. It's perfectly feasible that enough rhetoric and bluster, chest-puffing and the like can create a "vacuum" where winning is all that matters, other issues be damned. In that type of altered reality, a nuclear weapon could be seen as the answer. In that environment, where the populace is incensed, it doesn't matter how wise and smart the leader is he could be forced into the situation for his own political survival. It's kind of like the Republicans using divisive rhetoric for the last 20 years, and then they end up with Trump-- much to the dismay of moderate Republicans who helped fan those flames for their own personal interests, now those flames have gotten so high they can't control them anymore and voila the Trump fire took over their party.

Putin likes Trump because he wants peace with Russia which would mean the lifting of sanctions on his country, simple as that. What more do you think it really means other than vague spooky assertions that he'll make Trump his puppet which is wholly ridiculous, you know our policy of interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries and ultimately regime change is something that is very unpopular in a lot of countries right? One thing is clear is that Russia and China and a bunch of others do not like or respect Hillary Clinton and her brinkmanship risks nuclear war. It doesn't need to be in anybody's interest or even what they want to do, when tensions are raised this high it could only take a spark which could be simple misunderstanding or false alarm.

People figure Trump will have a good relationship with Putin based off on who has had good relations in the past and a lot of people have tried to liken Trump to Silvio Berlusconi who coincidentally was probably the Western leader who Putin has been closes to as far I know. Benjamin Netanyahu is a friend Trump, Netanyahu is someone that has forged good relations with Putin. Diplomacy is one of the biggest reasons I support Trump rather than the soft-trending-hard power leveraging we use to get our way with other countries.

Europe is in for some changes next year by the way, big league!

That was not intended as any kind of slur-it's not that Putin longs for anything Soviet per se, but rather for the empire, the status as a global power and the absolute authority at home. These he very much does want. The tricky one of those is the empire.




This is a rubbish argument, I'm sorry. The former imperial territories don't want to be back under Russian domination. They looked to NATO for protection. This is not a surprising outcome or a sign of relentless American hegemony.
The supposedly alarming NATO troop movements on Russia's border have never been anything but symbolic in size. Such NATO forces in the Baltic are obviously inadequate to mount either an attack on Russia or a serious defense of those territories. They serve only to put American and other NATO lives on the line to make the promise of joint NATO defense fully credible. No NATO or Russian commander believes or has ever believed that those movements represented any kind of threat or challenge to Russia except in promising to prevent Russia from retaking it's former imperial territory.

Unsurprising, given the history of the region, yes.

No such thing is obvious. America did not engineer the Arab popular uprisings of the "Arab spring" but had to respond to them. The idea that the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the response to unrest in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria was somehow logically leading to an American attack on Russia makes no sense.

I don't think that's accurate. He joined the war because Assad came to him for help and the Americans were so used to disregarding (rather than scheming against) the Russians that they ignored Putin's signals of an intent to intervene. His intervention makes sense as a way of demonstrating the effectiveness of his military rearmament and reorganization programs and as a way of demonstrating to allies and enemies his intent to be a great power again.



This really is rubbish. There is no evidence that Clinton "loves intervention" or "loves drone strikes." She inherited the Bush wars and had to deal with Islamist terrorism in Africa and the Middle East.

It's true that Obama not only continued but increased the number of drone strikes, but it's also true that there is almost no informed dissent about this in the US. Many people say they are against such killings, but things get complicated when you ask them what alternative is better.

You think Trump's "Bomb the sh*t out of them" and "carpet bomb them" is somehow less warlike than a few hellfires and mavericks launched of Drones? We are out of the real calculation and into rhetorical posturing if that's the argument.

No one loves drone strikes, but if some ISIS or Al Qaeda guy is discovered in Yemen or Somalia or Afghanistan or Pakistan and the option exist to kill the bastard, most Americans are behind that--and it seems like a much better option than sending a huge mechanized force into the country and engaging in house to house urban combat. Doing nothing while these guys plan attacks against us is not an option.



You understand nothing about Americans, I fear. The people and nation are far more resilient and ingenious than these tawdry fantasies begin to imagine. I usually only hear such stuff from the "coming race war" nutters. No such catastrophic future for the US exists. American power is not about to evaporate and American influence around the world is not about to go away. It will be interesting to see the consequences of Duterte's rejection of America and embrace of China in the coming months.

America is not Britain and there is no rational basis for drawing a parallel between the loss of empire in decolonization and the changing environment the United States is facing in the present. The idea that American power will be winding down in any significant way is fanciful. The days of a single superpower are over and the return to a multipolar great power world is certain, but every indicator suggests that among those great powers America will be the primus inter pares for many years to come.

They will have to acknowledge Putin, though. Probably just acquiescing to all his demands and retreating to every Russian display of saber rattling is not a good idea.

Phew there's a lot there to get into, I have limited time, perhaps I will post more later. In the meantime

I know enough to say the gulf between the desires of American people and that of their government is immense. The people certainly aren't thinking in terms of geopolitics and empire, but the government certainly is. If you have some time I recommend The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski, at one time a very important person in the American apparatus. Written in the late 90s there is lots of interesting info in there and many spooky predictions, but more importantly it's a window into their mindset.



I get the impression you think the American government is a lot more reactive than it is proactive. I'm not so sure the Arab Spring was entirely organic, Syria certainly, was deliberately destabilised by America and its allies long before we heard about barrel bombs, or how yet another Hitler has appeared in the middle east and must be removed.



Why not? Are you thinking petrodollar or no petrodollar, America's military might will somehow sustain it? Armies can collapse over night, the Soviet Union's army disappeared in the space of a year, it took Russia 10 years to make anything approaching a serious military force. There is little reason to assume that America is a special country somehow immune to collapse or disaster. America has nukes? so what? So did Russia, still Russia ended up plundered and squalid, existing hand to mouth at the whims of the international community.

Sorry, Mikah, I am now also a bit pressed for time.

I don't believe the strength of the US economy is based on maintaining dollars as the standard currency for energy exchange. Am I correct in thinking this idea is what you are suggesting?

I think the tales of economic doom for the US based on this idea are like the Y2K panic: the dark fantasy is based on elements which are real, but they are spun into something not connected with Reality.

Ron Paul has a bunch of weird ideas about this and sometimes the "bring back the gold standard" people play with it as an excuse for their strange fetish, but we're wandering into tinfoil hat territory, there.

Why is the gold standard tinfoil territory? We've had fiat currency since Richard Nixon's Shock measures in 1971 and our nation has coincidentally fallen into a long decline with no signs of turning around. Ron Paul doesn't support a return to a gold standard either by the way or even necessarily end the Fed, he wants competing currencies which only requires the repeal of federal legal tender laws which would allow people to choose what medium of exchange they want to use. So it can be gold, silver, platinum, bitcoins, oil, whatever, that's their right.

Bitcoin is already supported by whoever has the technology.

Disclaimer: I am quite interested in Russia and European military affairs, but I am not terribly interested in currency as a topic, so I can't sustain much dialog about it. My understanding is that fiat currency is preferable because it promotes stability and affords governments greater flexibility in response to crisis.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... han-a.aspx

It's not allowed to be used as legal tender, what's neat about this competing currencies idea is that all that is necessary to enact it would be a very simple piece of legislation that allows it. This would allow people free choice for their medium of exchange and protect them from the debasement of the currency. The Fed is a private banks and other private banks would be allowed to print currency. I suppose that would make the unlimited printing of 'free money' by the government would be a lot harder but what that essentially is is a hidden tax because when they create this new money then what you have in your pocket becomes worth less. A lot of the times when they do this the money does not flow into the economy right away so the immediate pain is not felt, a lot of this money we spent bailing out Wall Street is just sitting in the banks but that cannot continue on forever. Fiat currency encourages the banks to take risks as they are 'too big to fail' and will get bailed out regardless.

It would one thing if these people were actually Keynesians who believe saving in good times and spending in bad but they're not, these are corrupt bought and paid for politicians really only support spend spend spend and funneling money to their friends and donors in good times & bad. People would be a lot better off saving and investing than the rabid consumerism, people should hoard some their money as the public and private debt is astronomical. It does not seem like a sustainable economic system in the long term, the debt most definitely will become an issue in the coming decades as interest will become our single biggest budget expenditure but I guess.

I actually agree with a lot of Jacoby's arguments here. Competing currencies are how you got company stores in the past in many rural parts of America, though. A company can just pay you in their coin, only recognized by their stores, so your every decision is tied at the hip to them. It's a good way to keep you trapped.

A simpler answer, supported by many economists, is to restore something akin to the Bretton Woods agreement. As it's based on a bundle of commodities, gold only being one, it requires significantly less austerity-esque forced repayment of debts than restoration of the actual gold standard. Meanwhile inflation targeting, which has definitely been a failed policy making the market beholden to often-bad predictions by the central bank, goes away.

Again, you betray a profound misunderstanding of the people of the United States. A great many Americans are ignorant of geography, history, political philosophy and economic reality. They don't understand supply chains, trade routes or alliances. But a great many Americans are highly accomplished scholars with deep knowledge and expertise in every field of study. And there are many Americans who live somewhere between profound ignorance and deep knowledge.

By in large, they want economic power. They want to be able to travel and buy things. That means low fuel cost and cheap imports. Do they immediately think through how fuel costs are kept low or cheap imports are available? Mostly not. But do they want to live without the trade routes and CENTCOM or the Pacific Fleet? No, they certainly do not.

Nor for that matter do Europeans who have lived under the protection of the United States since the end of the second World War. Like Americans, most of Europeans are profoundly ignorant of how much of their social liberty and economic success is possible because they have been defended by American arms and strategy.

America doesn't want Empire in the way Europeans did and do. They want an economic system that affords them cheap travel and goods. As long as their partners don't interfere with that, everything is fine.


This is an oversimplification, just as your portrayal of an entirely reactive Putin is absurd. Of course Americans make strategic plans and execute them-though this is complicated by four year executive cycles (or 3 year + a campaign year) but when you describe Secretary Clinton as primarily responsible for situations that she had very little influence over until they had been developing for many years, like the war in Iraq, then of course what Obama and Clinton were doing was reactive. They had to deal with a highly dynamic existing situation.

Likewise, to propose that the US in some abstract way or Hillary Clinton in particular are the primary authors of the situation in Syria is ridiculous. The Americans are not some magic Puppet Masters, pulling strings behind the scenes and forcing all those Arabs in the street to dance to their tune. If they had that kind of power, Iran would still be an ally. Do you think Boris Johnson is responsible for the political crisis in Kenya? The Brits created that situation and have a hand in it ever since. As that situation is now in his portfolio, Boris MUST now be responsible for Al Shabab's attacks in Mandera! But that's not how it really works, is it?


The strength of the US economy is not contingent on oil being traded in dollars. The Soviet Union's army did not disappear in the space of a year. Russia always maintained a core force and they were fighting in one place or another for much the time since the end of the Soviet Union as anyone from the Caucasus could tell you.

It is very hard to take a modern nation of great economic power and make all of that power evaporate quickly, even in the great chaos of world wars. The old Dutch money still keeps the Netherlands strong. The old British money still keeps the UK strong. Unless you are suggesting that the US is about to be bombed into dust or occupied by a foreign power, there is no realistic possibility that the immense wealth in the hands of Americans is going to disappear anytime soon.

And there is a strength in the culture, too. Consider Japan, about as defeated and destroyed as can be imagined and yet quickly returned to a position of relative strength and power because of their culture.

The Soviet empire was doomed because it was a lie. Many of the people within it's borders wanted to be free. There are a few nutters here and there in the US who want to leave the Union and carve out their own little racially or ideologically pure sh*thole nations, but the vast majority of Americans love their national ideas and nation.

No economic shock is going to change that and no economic shock is going to remove the spirit of pragmatic curiosity and invention that helped turn a 19th century agrarian nation into a 20th century industrial superpower, the United States is still a leader in scientific and technological innovation and there are strong cultural reasons why this will remain true into the foreseeable future. The EU looked like a true competitor and the US failure to complete the Superconducting Supercollider ceded that field to CERN.

China will rise, but this doesn't mean that America is some kind of soap bubble that will pop.

Really, you saw America go through a severe economic shock in 2007. It took years to recover. Did you notice the sudden collapse of American power in those years?

I didn't think so.

The portrait of sudden American dissolution you portray belongs to the world of fantasy like the Turner Diaries and the Y2K preppers.

Peak oil. Petrodollar loss. The Second Coming. The end is nigh! (But don't hold your breath.)

Last edited by Adamantium on 21 Oct 2016, 9:59 am, edited 2 times in total.: typo, and missed sentence!

I'm not sure Trump appreciates that destabilizing the middle east is not a mistake when you look at the chessboard rather than the individual frames.

What's so ridiculous about the notion of Putin trying to sink the puppet strings into Trump? Putin is ex-KGB; it was his business to control others through either mental or physical manipulation.

Very interesting to see this article written by English conservative Charles Moore in terms of the title of the thread:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10 ... was-in-th/

Putin was a KGB agent yes, he reached the rank of major, I don't know what he was involved in exactly (not really researched all that much yet) from what I've read he was involved in a lot of monitoring and data collecting. I know he is an excellent german speaker which is obvious as he was stationed there for a long time, anyway, he was burning as many files as he could in Dresden when the wall was coming down because a rather rowdy crowd were outside intending to come in and have a nosy at what they had in there. Putin doesn't seem the torturing type to me but he would definitely toss some nukes our way if the situation called for it, just like the guys sitting in our offices would.