Continuing along the path that everyone expected. Lifting sanctions amounts to rearming Russia. They may as well be shipping them weapons and ammunition directly.
Continuing along the path that everyone expected. Lifting sanctions amounts to rearming Russia. They may as well be shipping them weapons and ammunition directly.
US weapons contain substantial EU components; if the US starts shipping Russia anything containing EU components, then the EU supply chain will mysteriously break down. Assuming it even gets that...
US weapons contain substantial EU components; if the US starts shipping Russia anything containing EU components, then the EU supply chain will mysteriously break down. Assuming it even gets that far.
The US already imposes substantial export restrictions on any military hardware containing US components, so it's not unreasonable to assume the EU will do the same and outright forbid the US export anything with EU components to Russia.
If the US ignores that and ships to Russia anyway, then the NATO manufacturing base will schism -US's arms exports to the EU will collapse, US exports to other countries (e.g. Japan) will be shaken, and come to think of it exports from other countries (e.g. South Korea's increasing exports of tanks and artillery to Poland) might be shaken too, since the import route is heavily reliant on international shipping and maybe an antagonistic US would make that a problem where inside-the-EU shipping wouldn't.
Everyone's military hardware will get more expensive, though - less joint production means each faction's individual costs are higher and their economies of scale are lower. That will hurt exports to non-EU/US countries through simply being more expensive and thus less competitive.
The military-industrial complex knows all this, so I imagine they would push back on exporting to Russia in the first place. Russia has an economy the size of Italy (or Mexico), it's just not worth the lost sales.
This is excellent context that I had not thought of, thank you for sharing. Everything you said makes sense. Trump doesn't operate in a logical fashion. Do you believe the military industrial...
This is excellent context that I had not thought of, thank you for sharing.
Everything you said makes sense. Trump doesn't operate in a logical fashion. Do you believe the military industrial complex would be able to resist Trump should he ignore all of the realities you presented?
The mendacity of Trump should not surprise anymore, but the fact that he still talks about the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” while continually acting like Putin’s employee is just mindblowing. And...
The mendacity of Trump should not surprise anymore, but the fact that he still talks about the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” while continually acting like Putin’s employee is just mindblowing. And I’ll never get over the fact that there are millions of Americans waving Trump flags and calling themselves patriots while they watch him commit treason.
There are a lot of actions occurring that indicate the current admin doesn’t expect to be accountable to voters.
All of this has had me thinking about something I've kicked around before. Before I go farther I'm not endorsing any of this, but I do think you have to look at possible outcomes and be real about...
All of this has had me thinking about something I've kicked around before.
Before I go farther I'm not endorsing any of this, but I do think you have to look at possible outcomes and be real about them to better understand what could occur.
So what does a US/Russia alliance mean for both countries, and of course, the rest of the world?
There's the obvious US centric concerns, like if that means we're going to dive into dictatorship/oligarchy fully, but on a global scale it brings up some very interesting questions.
Europe is the obvious one, as there's some nuclear capability there, but if the US leaves NATO just how far does Russia's expansionism want to go? I know there's a nationalist level to Putin's push, but from a pure strategic standpoint Crimea/Ukraine made some sense because it secured the all valued warm water port.
Obviously there's some other level of "war is good for keeping me in power" from a ton of directions, but Putin isn't going to live forever, and I'm not sure what the plans are beyond Ukraine if the US just says "have at it". Clearly Europe will support Ukraine and it's very possible that will do enough, but if the US starts trading with Russia again the strategy of running out the clock is pretty much done, and Ukraine is looking at being Europe's meat grinder for an indefinite period.
Since even if Trump becomes "lord trump" or whatever, he too will eventually pass (statistically sooner than Putin), and it brings up the question of what does the US successor do if Trump gets this enshrined, be it by coup or just done in the 4 years he's got. Culturally the US does not align with Russia, but a much more pragmatic (not ethical) US view at some point might have been "you do you, we'll trade with whomever"
The problem is I am FAR from skilled enough to even begin to properly research any of this, but I also haven't really found a good breakdown on even the beginning of the hypothetical, and it's looking more and more like it might need to be discussed.
Russia doesn’t have a good economy. It’s mostly based on oil which the world is trying to move away from. I wonder how much “big oil” is behind trump’s actions. There are a ton of sociopaths in...
Russia doesn’t have a good economy. It’s mostly based on oil which the world is trying to move away from. I wonder how much “big oil” is behind trump’s actions.
There are a ton of sociopaths in power who will burn the world down so they can have ten years of higher profits.
Edit: actually the influence probably goes the other way. Trump tries to kill clean energy all the time because Putin’s economy is weakened by it.
I don't think that makes much sense in this context. If Big Oil was controlling Trump, he would support Ukrainian interventionism. After all, the US and Russia are competing oil producers. The war...
I wonder how much “big oil” is behind trump’s actions.
I don't think that makes much sense in this context. If Big Oil was controlling Trump, he would support Ukrainian interventionism. After all, the US and Russia are competing oil producers. The war in Ukraine was a godsend for the US LNG industry.
The more Russia is sanctioned, and the less Russian oil people buy, the better for US oil producers.
Don't think most of that matters in the long term here. Russia's economy is currently heavily impacted by western sanctions, which in this hypothetical the US is not only out of, but...
Don't think most of that matters in the long term here. Russia's economy is currently heavily impacted by western sanctions, which in this hypothetical the US is not only out of, but endorsing/encouraging trade with Russia.
Further Russia's bigger "value" on a global stage has always been their military and willingness to use it. They've literally spent 50+ years opposing the US as best they can in many countries, and the idea that "fuck it, we're not going to compete in that way anymore" could occur would be pretty major. Cuba at the minimum probably benefits, and I suspect there's a whole lot of other areas that have been stuck in proxy struggles.
I also am curious what it means for China and their SEA/Ocean/Africa expansions, as they've kinda gotten to gobble things up mostly uncontested while the US and Russia rip each other apart. India also might become a much bigger player in the coming years in such a setup.
Continuing along the path that everyone expected. Lifting sanctions amounts to rearming Russia. They may as well be shipping them weapons and ammunition directly.
Probably won't be long before he is directly selling weapons to Russia.
US weapons contain substantial EU components; if the US starts shipping Russia anything containing EU components, then the EU supply chain will mysteriously break down. Assuming it even gets that far.
The US already imposes substantial export restrictions on any military hardware containing US components, so it's not unreasonable to assume the EU will do the same and outright forbid the US export anything with EU components to Russia.
If the US ignores that and ships to Russia anyway, then the NATO manufacturing base will schism -US's arms exports to the EU will collapse, US exports to other countries (e.g. Japan) will be shaken, and come to think of it exports from other countries (e.g. South Korea's increasing exports of tanks and artillery to Poland) might be shaken too, since the import route is heavily reliant on international shipping and maybe an antagonistic US would make that a problem where inside-the-EU shipping wouldn't.
Everyone's military hardware will get more expensive, though - less joint production means each faction's individual costs are higher and their economies of scale are lower. That will hurt exports to non-EU/US countries through simply being more expensive and thus less competitive.
The military-industrial complex knows all this, so I imagine they would push back on exporting to Russia in the first place. Russia has an economy the size of Italy (or Mexico), it's just not worth the lost sales.
This is excellent context that I had not thought of, thank you for sharing.
Everything you said makes sense. Trump doesn't operate in a logical fashion. Do you believe the military industrial complex would be able to resist Trump should he ignore all of the realities you presented?
The mendacity of Trump should not surprise anymore, but the fact that he still talks about the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” while continually acting like Putin’s employee is just mindblowing. And I’ll never get over the fact that there are millions of Americans waving Trump flags and calling themselves patriots while they watch him commit treason.
There are a lot of actions occurring that indicate the current admin doesn’t expect to be accountable to voters.
All of this has had me thinking about something I've kicked around before.
Before I go farther I'm not endorsing any of this, but I do think you have to look at possible outcomes and be real about them to better understand what could occur.
So what does a US/Russia alliance mean for both countries, and of course, the rest of the world?
There's the obvious US centric concerns, like if that means we're going to dive into dictatorship/oligarchy fully, but on a global scale it brings up some very interesting questions.
Europe is the obvious one, as there's some nuclear capability there, but if the US leaves NATO just how far does Russia's expansionism want to go? I know there's a nationalist level to Putin's push, but from a pure strategic standpoint Crimea/Ukraine made some sense because it secured the all valued warm water port.
Obviously there's some other level of "war is good for keeping me in power" from a ton of directions, but Putin isn't going to live forever, and I'm not sure what the plans are beyond Ukraine if the US just says "have at it". Clearly Europe will support Ukraine and it's very possible that will do enough, but if the US starts trading with Russia again the strategy of running out the clock is pretty much done, and Ukraine is looking at being Europe's meat grinder for an indefinite period.
Since even if Trump becomes "lord trump" or whatever, he too will eventually pass (statistically sooner than Putin), and it brings up the question of what does the US successor do if Trump gets this enshrined, be it by coup or just done in the 4 years he's got. Culturally the US does not align with Russia, but a much more pragmatic (not ethical) US view at some point might have been "you do you, we'll trade with whomever"
The problem is I am FAR from skilled enough to even begin to properly research any of this, but I also haven't really found a good breakdown on even the beginning of the hypothetical, and it's looking more and more like it might need to be discussed.
Russia doesn’t have a good economy. It’s mostly based on oil which the world is trying to move away from. I wonder how much “big oil” is behind trump’s actions.
There are a ton of sociopaths in power who will burn the world down so they can have ten years of higher profits.
Edit: actually the influence probably goes the other way. Trump tries to kill clean energy all the time because Putin’s economy is weakened by it.
I don't think that makes much sense in this context. If Big Oil was controlling Trump, he would support Ukrainian interventionism. After all, the US and Russia are competing oil producers. The war in Ukraine was a godsend for the US LNG industry.
The more Russia is sanctioned, and the less Russian oil people buy, the better for US oil producers.
Don't think most of that matters in the long term here. Russia's economy is currently heavily impacted by western sanctions, which in this hypothetical the US is not only out of, but endorsing/encouraging trade with Russia.
Further Russia's bigger "value" on a global stage has always been their military and willingness to use it. They've literally spent 50+ years opposing the US as best they can in many countries, and the idea that "fuck it, we're not going to compete in that way anymore" could occur would be pretty major. Cuba at the minimum probably benefits, and I suspect there's a whole lot of other areas that have been stuck in proxy struggles.
I also am curious what it means for China and their SEA/Ocean/Africa expansions, as they've kinda gotten to gobble things up mostly uncontested while the US and Russia rip each other apart. India also might become a much bigger player in the coming years in such a setup.
Mirror: https://archive.is/cU6kA