US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Biden is currently in Saudi Arabia begging for more oil production, meanwhile he's blocking measures to increase North American oil production. So, instead of fixing our own problem with inflation, we're asking one of the worst regimes on Earth for help and enriching Russia with higher prices simultaneously. Even if you support greener energy, like I do, this policy makes no sense other than to appear greener than you are.
The US consumer could easily handle food inflation and energy inflation if we weren't also dealing with inflation on a bunch of other fronts -- from policy-induced labor shortages and policy-induced supply chain problems. But since we've got multiple compounding problems with inflation, we're pushing everyone towards an unnecessary recession.
And of course the background here is a Fed that is whipsawing from creating trillions of dollars to destroying trillions of dollars and giving markets whiplash in the process.
Now everyone is in too deep with costs so high, there is limited ability to back out and save face and spin the story without it looking like the massive screw up with huge costs and limited benefit that it has been. At the end of the day, we are going to get a global recession and mass food insecurity and starvation in the global south for what?
If you are asking what the west nations got in exchange of making the economy dependent on cheap oil and gas from Russia, the answer is pretty simple. They got money. Politicians got political credits at the time from being anti-nuclear, and infrastructure wise they gained short terms budget savings by not replacing existing heating infrastructure that depend on burning gas. The cheap oil also helped keeping air traffic and shipping traffic cheaper, and the cheap artificial fertilizers created from Russian natural gas made food production cheaper.
At the end of the day we traded independence in exchange for cheaper fossil fuels, and we went into dependency without having a backup plan.
BTW, what's with all the politicians telling people to buy electrical cars so they don't have to worry about high energy price, as if they didn't know how expensive or unpractical those cars are for ordinary American families? I somehow find that stance insulting.
Trump and Jens Stoltenberg of NATO argue on camera (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpwkdmwui3k>). Who turned out to be right? Who turned out to completely, totally, 100% wrong?
We see incompetent people around us every day, but sometimes we forget that there are incompetent politicians as well. The big difference, and what bothers me the most, is that they never admit their mistakes because of all the political party BS that is often the main priority and goal.
It feels bad to us to have these ridiculous politicians who spend 95% of their time on theatrical in fighting as the US has for the last ~15 years but in terms of first order effects, it doesn't really matter. Like the risk of something like a kinetic civil war is still roughly zero in the US.
But the problem is, no one actually believes that there is any need to do things like have a cohesive foreign policy or actually administer the government, people view the job of the politicians as to just repetitively engage in the kabuki theatre of dunking on the other team over over and again.
Which was fine when the world was basically peaceful and we could just lord over everyone with our massive military and totally dominant currency which were built up in the previous era. The problem is that this system is going to fail spectacularly when there are actual complicated geo political issues to deal with and I think we are in the early stages of witnessing right now.
Someone else made the observation that we are effectively trying to deal with this problem but cancelling Putin over twitter, because canceling people on twitter is one of the primary modes of governance in the US right now. That may sound hyperbolic but I think it's actually pretty accurate, a lot of the sanctions on Russia were companies self sanctioning after getting attacked on twitter.
It turns out saying mean things on twitter is not particularly effective against tanks and artillery.
Anyway, interesting times.
To us people on the outside, listening to US people denigrating each other on the web, it seems to us that it's 50-50 whether the US will be involved in a Civil War or a big peer-to-peer International War first.
Increasing local oil production will do little - the barrel prices are not exactly high, but the price at the pump is high - why? Refining. And that's all controlled by oil companies. I wonder why? Perhaps they're just ginning for extra profit?
$120/barrel is pretty high. Not the highest it's ever been, but close, and about twice as expensive as crude was from 2015 to early 2021.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/oil-price?op...
How?
Which is kinda beside the point because it’s refinement that’s the biggest issue right now.
Oil companies use any crisis to get more rights in the future. Biden can use wartime production laws to force oil companies to produce more.
Oil companies right now just don’t want to produce more. It’s not that they can’t. They have no reason to do more work to make less money.
And what investments they do make, like the Keystone XL pipeline, are blocked by the government.
Would you invest in that?
Is that meant to demonstrate economic strength?
* Russians have massive amount of brain drain. Most of tech employees have left, leaving only people extracting oil, people who turn it into fertilizer and gasoline and supporting roles.
* They can't build military tech because of sanctions. Starting to use 1950s and 1960s tanks.
* They've privatized and violated tons of foreign companies (for example Renault gave away 68% of car manufacturer Avtovaz to the state). Nobody in their right mind will bring money there in the future.
* They can't import smartphones, tech or luxury cars (things that keep russian upper middle class happy).
> Cutting Russia off from SWIFT has only strengthened their ties to India and China
There has been both strengthening and weakening. Russia depends on China, not the other way around.
> and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home
It hurts both ways. This is normal. Appeasement would be a better choice?
Yeah, you just keep believing that. Western media was happy to report the mass exodus at the beginning of the war, but for some reason didn't notice that the vast majority of them have returned by now. Undoubtedly, some will be better prepared next time and will leave for good, but that definitely won't be 'most of tech employees' because there's nowhere for them to go. It's really hard to emigrate to the West (you have no idea how difficult it is even for those working in IT), and neighboring countries can't soak up that many (I'm from one of them).
Pope Francis says Ukraine war was ‘perhaps somehow provoked’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/14/pope-francis-u...
"The pontiff warned [..] against what he said was a fairytale perception of the conflict as good versus evil"
"We need to move away from the usual Little Red Riding Hood pattern, in that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad one [..] something global is emerging and the elements are very much entwined."
Of course, one could argue Ukraine has a right to self determination, but we effectively egged them on and on. And now here we are - Ukraine is getting destroyed in a war of attrition, more or less a proxy war.
One could argue that, but that would be their eagerness to ignore and dismiss important details of Ukraine's founding legal documents that made their independence possible in the first place.
If one reads the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Ukraine from 1990 [1], one will find it in Chapter IX: "The Ukrainian SSR solemnly declares its intention to become a permanently neutral state in the future, which does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three non-nuclear principles: not to accept, produce or acquire nuclear weapons".
Ukraine's constitutional sovereignty has always been and still is predicated on respecting these conditions, but a whole lot of politicians, foreign and domestic, want you to believe otherwise because it serves their political goals.
[1] https://zakon-rada-gov-ua.translate.goog/laws/show/55-12?_x_...
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Blood-Tales-Sisters-Grimmer/dp/08...
Geopolitics aint no fairy tale. It's gang warfare writ large.
He mentions in the article that an unnamed world leader told him Russia would get upset at NATO being so close to their border. Putin has publicly mentioned this multiple times before the war with Ukraine.
Finally, Ukraine has the right to join any alliance it wants and for Russia to invade over that is bullshit. If you want to bring up promises about not joining NATO then we must talk about promises not to invade. Russia has already done this before in 2014
In geopolitics, nobody has any particular rights. Whoever has the bigger stick and better propaganda gets their way.
One could argue that there’s no reason to have sanctions on Cuba, that Palestinians should also have the right to self determination, that America doesn’t have the right to interfere in the developing world.
That’s not how the world works, regardless of right or wrong.
IMO - the west could have prevented this war. Regardless of what Ukraine wants, an agreement that NATO will not expand eastwards for 60 years in exchange for Russia not invading. That was all we needed.
Why does it matter if a NATO country is on the border anyway? In the age of ICBMs, stealth bombers, and drones is the real concern that some large NATO force would march over the border for a land invasion of Russia?
Sometimes it's because exactly what is obviously the reason.
No, it doesn't have this right to join ANY alliance, as it may violate one of the conditions (military bloc neutrality) under which their sovereignty was granted to them by the USSR, which Russia is a legitimate successor of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31746866
That's not quite true, as an engineer in Russia, I'm not witnessing massive exodus (yet?)
Russia is ahead of the west both in ballistics & air defense using mostly off the shelf consumer chips that are very easy to smuggle in via 3rd parties.
> Starting to use 1950s and 1960s tanks.
Retrofitted tanks that get the job done. These are being sent to the rear for policing (occupying) operations as well as given to the Donbas separatists.
> Renault gave away 68% of car manufacturer Avtovaz to the state
Pretty sure that was on Renaults own volition. The Chinese are more than glad to take up the slack.
This is an absolutely absurd claim. I will say that it is flat-out FALSE.
I doubt this will continue.
The West has clearly demonstrated that their sanction and Russo-phobia will target not just politicians and oligarch, but normal people as well. Students being expelled, employees and artists fired, hospitals not treating them, etc.
Ordinary Russians aren't safe/welcome in the West, and they know it. Going home is their only choice (or praying that Russia collapses soon and Russo-phobia ends... sounds like a gamble).
* Electronics can be imported via China and Kazakhstan. Thousands of kilometers of line of contact, plenty of T62's in good condition, why not give them to separatists? It is not as if Ukraine has anything better to offer. Cruise, ballistic missiles on the conveyor and in the air. Every day and night.
* So? You are not planning to restart the business in the near future as a result of your position? Bye. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have all already announced their return. Asian cars it is. Although, cars are still very expensive.
* Lol. Again, China and Kazakhstan. It's been cheaper to order from China than ever before (or since 2016 as I remember). Aside from that, phones and other electronics are available in store at prices even lower than before due to market rate prices. GPU's are literally more accessible than three months ago.
What hurts is inflation, but it's everywhere. Also, it's kinda annoying not to be able to pay for some services that I usually use through russian bank's credit card. I guess I'll need to travel to another country in order to get a regular card, many russians did that already.
They have 260+ captured Russian tanks, for one thing. Ukraine has asked supporting countries to instead send howitzers, anti-air guns/missiles, and multiple-launch rockets. By the end of this war Ukraine might end up with the largest tank army in Europe. https://oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenti...
By most reports Ukraine (and Russia for that matter) are both much more limited by supply of trained tank crew than lack of physical tanks. Hundreds of Russian tanks requiring 3 crew members were already being driven by crews of 2 (in some cases untrained), and therefore combat ineffective right from the start.
Russia has lost an estimated 1000+ tanks in 3 months of war, and now has all but stopped doing maneuver operations, whether because they are scared to lose more or have run out of supply. From what I understand Russia’s tank production has entirely stopped for lack of microchips and other components.
> Cruise, ballistic missiles on the conveyor and in the air. Every day and night.
The rate of Russian use of long-distance missiles dropped off dramatically after the first couple months of the war. They wasted their missiles blowing up hundreds or thousands of militarily irrelevant civilian targets (apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, etc.). External experts don’t have perfect knowledge of Russian supplies, but the most plausible inference is that the Russian military is running out of whatever stores they were willing to use here. (Presumably there is still some reserve, but missiles getting used are not being obviously replaced.)
What the Russian military does have a lot of compared to Ukraine is artillery and artillery ammo, and unguided rocket launchers. Pretty much all of the stockpiled 152 mm (Soviet caliber) artillery ammo in Europe was already sent to Ukraine and Ukraine has almost run through it all, but Ukraine doesn’t yet have enough 155 mm (NATO caliber) howitzers to replace the 152 mm artillery that is out of ammo. Hopefully they will get hundreds more NATO howitzers in the coming weeks and months.
As Ukraine officials beg for help, and ask for half of US army armor 4th month into the war, you guys keep inhaling copium, dreaming in your beds about Russia "being destroyed" in Ukraine. I wouldn't expect anything less from western propaganda enjoyers tbh. Also taking oryx stats seriously, that's fun.
While some parts were definitely messy, and it really is a tradegy donbass and crimea situation had to be resolved this way, you'll soon be aware about the real situation in Ukraine, no matter how bad you want to believe the lies.
"The rate of Russian use of long-distance missiles dropped off dramatically" I offer you to check Ukrainian telegram channels, like "труха" for example (2mil followers) which will gladly tell you about this "dramatic decline".
“It’s unfortunate those pesky Ukrainians had the audacity to exist, which forced us to invade their sovereign country, shell their cities to rubble, and mass murder their civilians. Just like we were forced to mass murder Chechens, Georgians, and Syrians. And might have to mass murder Poles, Finns, Lithuanians, Romanians, or Kazakhs in the future.”
Sounds like they're already on the outskirts of Moscow and don't actually need the $40 billion.
Maybe we can get some of that back?
Why would they try to go to Moscow? They don’t have the logistical capacity to pull it off and it would be in nobody’s interest. Unlike Russia they don’t seem to be ruled by crazy people.
More realistically Ukraine will lose a bit more ground and a few more towns in Donbas before the Russian offensive culminates, and then as more supplies come in they will eventually counter-attack when they get a chance. The Russian military will run out of soldiers and equipment while the Russian economy sputters, and will be slowly pushed out of Ukrainian territory. What happens as a result to domestic policy in Russia will be highly volatile and is hard to predict.
And the best thing - rich Russian escaping Russia end up being sanctioned, hence, many stay.
Let's see who can suffer more: Westerns + accepting a global food crisis with millions of dead people in the Third world (thanks to the sanctions, NOT the war per se) or the Russians who lived like shit before and know that this is yet another round of sufferings.
From the Mongol invasions to WWII to the Soviet Union, Russians have a lot of experience with collective suffering and deprivation.
One reason I heard my Russian friends repeating is that "it's a bit country so we need a strong ruler to keep it together". But history shows this is not true. Also a federation of states like the USA would probably work better than the current setup where a short guy from Moscow is sending Buryat boys to die in a country they haven't seen before.
Excuse my ignorance… but how is it different from a tall guy from Connecticut sending, I dunno, Montana boys to die in a country they haven't even heard of? I'm just trying to understand the difference.
Russia has historically been invaded by such people as Genghis Khan(actually his grandson, Tamerlane, Napoleon, Charles )I forget which one) of Sweden, and Hitler.
The USA on the other hand is protected by two oceans and has not had a foreign army on the continent since 1815.
Yeah, I keep hear Putin repeat it, always blaming the West. There are two logical fallacies here: first, the Russian fleet is blocking Ukrainian ports, not the other way round, and second, even if we ignored the situation on the Black Sea, it is Putin who started the war. I know Russian accept this logic and victim-blaming, but its' strange to see it on HN.
As for Russians living through bad times, I still wonder why do you have to accept all this crappy treatment. I know when you revolted in 1917 the result was a total mess but maybe it will be better this time. I really believe the Russian people deserve a better fate than what the next years are going to bring you.
How long before their economy collapses? Of course with the idea that everything you're saying is true. Which at this point, I have no basis to disagree with you. I'm just wondering how long you think it will take for all of this finally come to a head.
> is run by (mostly) competent people
Citation needed.
Russians themselves have gotten used to consumer goods etc from the west, but they are mostly too afraid to rise up against or fight for Putin, who has most of modern russian state built around himself. So, no uprising from within probably.
Altogether if not the end of summer, then it's into very scary territory. Famine + energy prices - while Russia being unable to advance in Ukraine because of seasonal changes.
I too can issue a currency, set its value at 1,000,000 USD per unit and declare monopoly in trading it.
There are plenty of Forex exchanges trading RUB for any currency. Including USD, EUR and others. Governments don’t have control over all exchanges so they can’t set the price. The price is determined by supply & demand (ie: the market). Governments do have some levers they can use: buying or selling reserves to put up or downward pressure on the market price.
To limit trading of a currency you’d have to limit exchanges to any other currency. If you limit RUB-USD for example, people could still trade RUB-EUR and EUR-USD, thus still creating a defacto RUB-USD pricing.
For several years we bet the global economy on the idea that we could safely coexist with an aggressive dictator. That bet did not pan out. I agree with you that the least painful time to remove our dependence on Russian fuel was several years ago, but we failed to take the ample warnings and here we are in a crisis. At least we're finally dealing with it.
What would you suggest as an alternative? Continue doing business as usual as if they're not murdering women and children?
No we should do everything possible to stop it.
There is a problem though - when "murdering women and children" is done by approved country "Continue doing business as usual" is pretty much what the West does. And I am not aware of any real repercussions for the crimes committed.
The war in Ukraine is a straightforward story with an obvious bad guy, and it doesn’t require much self reflection to figure out or cause much cognitive dissonance.
"They" were fine with their own government killing hundreds of thousands in Iraq and whole bunch of other countries. They're fine with their government threatening ICC as organization and its members. They've definitely picked their battle and frankly I think by doing all those things without any repercussion they are being hypocrites and setting example to other countries. No high moral ground here. The whole world affairs are quite disgusting for that matter.
Personally I just try to think about nice things that humanity still manage to produce and as I am a creative person my brain is always busy with rather more inspiring matters.
The media & their masters tells us who to support. And Ukraine vs Russia is profitable.
[1] https://zakon-rada-gov-ua.translate.goog/laws/show/55-12?_x_...
Second, that was also based on the promises made in the Budapest memorandum. Seeing that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the situation is already drastically different. Ukraine's choice post-2014 were to surrender to Russia's whims, or try to find allies to protect it from future Russian incursions.
And third, the Ukrainian SSR had sovereignty before it declared independence ( nobody "granted it sovereignty"), de jure ( being a component of the USSR with at least nominal, if not real depending on the guys in Moscow, autonomy) and de facto.
I wonder, how many people will die because of Russia (war) vs. because of Western sanctions (famine+energy crisis). So far Russia is "winning" but let's wait until the winter...
What other mechanisms does the world have to try to stop Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Boots on the ground?
It's also messed up that we don't consider the downstream effects of sanctions as collateral damage. How many millions of people can the west allow to starve due to sanctions and still hold the moral high-ground?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/sri-lanka-faci...
Pretty weird to read all these articles about shortages of IT professionals, and compare that to the immigration barriers your governments have put. Although I guess your typical HN visitor probably wouldn't be very interested in influx of cheap labor that will bring down his salary to sane levels.
-Russia wins in Ukraine
-The sanctions were ultimately ineffective, for the reasons you explain above
-China takes Taiwan during major US political unrest, at BEST destroying the fabs and at worst gaining full control of the leading 3nm/2nm etc process
-A deeper China-Russia alliance, which was expedited by our ineffective sanctions now, puts the screws to US/western companies by blocking access to the latest semiconductor tech
Russia has so far demonstrated that it isn’t capable of much on that front. Ukraine is a big country, they’re barely doing a city at a time, and they’ve only had success on a small front that they’re very familiar with.
-The sanctions were ultimately ineffective, for the reasons you explain above
This remains to be seen - they’re definitely “effective” because they’re changing everything, question is how the West could be “miscalculating”.
-China takes Taiwan during major US political unrest, at BEST destroying the fabs and at worst gaining full control of the leading 3nm/2nm etc process
That would require China to launch an enormous large scale operation, which they’ve just seen can be a total shit show. An invasion would probably not allow them to “take” the 2-3nm process either, and it wouldn’t give them the returns on the investment. Most importantly China currently does not need to be invading Taiwan to be in an advantageous strategic position - they’re “winning” as is.
-A deeper China-Russia alliance, which was expedited by our ineffective sanctions now, puts the screws to US/western companies by blocking access to the latest semiconductor tech
Currently Russia has only managed to weaken and isolate itself. The symmetrical relationship Putin would need probably isn’t on the table, and Russia isn’t a worthwhile partner for China in such a terrible and toxic condition.
(Question is if putting “screws” on western companies is “bad” thing, but that’s another matter.)
All of these things worried me before the war, but Russia’s total incompetence has, if anything, greatly held back the China-Russia relationship.
Russia is weeks, perhaps days, away from consolidating the Donbas. An area larger than the UK and one of their primary objectives.
> Currently Russia has only managed to weaken and isolate itself.
Russia is coming out of this with multiple new trade partnerships, financial payment integrations and military alliances.
NATO population is 10 times that of Russia. The difference in economy/technology/production even more drastic. What winning are you talking about?
In Ukraine. NATO's population is irrelevant if Russia is not fighting NATO.
Imagine, somebody did it for Afghanistan in 2001 what do you think NATO response would be?
Tensions are already rising between the Saudi's and Russians, who are frustrated with Russia's drop in output since the war started. This will only exacerbate the west moving away from fossil fuels - essentially weakening oil power world wide.
On top of that, all the money they're making from oil has been pretty much paying off accumulated foreign debts. People are concerned about the export - but it doesn't matter if you export a lot if you can't import what you need for an extended war effort or for your citizens.
I think Russia has already lost this war from a geopolitical perspective. Even if they take the Ukraine, their position is worse than it was from before.
Please, enlighten us, what should be done?
So yes, you could turn a blind eye on Russian soldiers murdering people, stealing, raping, and so on, but it would be naive to think it will eliminate the problem: it will make it worse in the long term.
OK, now let's hear how it could be "easily avoided".
And of course it sounds nice to say sovereign nations ought be able to choose their own alliances and relationships, yet how long do you think that rhetoric would last if Russia managed to get Mexico to join a military alliance that was more or less openly framed as a force to "contain" the United States? And to add extra icing on the cake, what if they managed to get Mexico to join only after actively and overtly supporting an insurrection that overthrew a democratically elected pro-US regime?
https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-says-ukraine-war-seize...
"Putin said on Thursday that the Ukraine invasion is about expanding Russian territory.
Before, Putin insisted that Russia was freeing Ukraine from so-called Nazis and preventing genocide.
Putin said it was his destiny to "return and reinforce" Russia like Peter the Great did."
"Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. On the face of it, he was at war with Sweden taking something away from it… He was not taking away anything, he was returning. This is how it was. The areas around Lake Ladoga, where St Petersburg was founded. When he founded the new capital, none of the European countries recognised this territory as part of Russia; everyone recognised it as part of Sweden. However, from time immemorial, the Slavs lived there along with the Finno-Ugric peoples, and this territory was under Russia’s control. The same is true of the western direction, Narva and his first campaigns. Why would he go there? He was returning and reinforcing, that is what he was doing.
Clearly, it fell to our lot to return and reinforce as well. And if we operate on the premise that these basic values constitute the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in achieving our goals."
He's obviously speaking by analogy about Ukraine without stating as much, but there's something much more specific he's referencing. This [2] is a map of Ukraine by native language, which is about as close as you can get to ethnicity. After the pro-Russian government in 2014 was overthrown, it's essentially those areas in red that declared their independence and have remained independent since.
[1] - http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/68606
[2] - https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/world/ukraine-di...
OK, you can have Czechoslovakia! (stop there, please)
OK, you can have Poland.
...France?
You see how this doesn't work anymore.
indeed, the UK, France, and Italy should not have been allowed to sign The Munich Agreement of 1938, moreso Poland should not have been allowed to annex Trans-Olza from Czechoslovakia, certainly not in an act of a military ultimatum.
Nuclear weapons changed the circumstances so much that direct comparison with 1938-1939 is impossible. We neither can give Slovakia away, nor have we a reason to. On the other hand, for Ukraine, swallowing the bitter pill and losing territory would also clear the way for NATO application (the civil war in the east makes it de iure impossible) and would give them time to prepare to defend from much better fortified positions, with much greater access to Western weaponry, and with much better contingency plans.
Appeasing dictators with delusions of grandeur simply doesn't work. It might buy you some time, but you better prepare during it.
Then there's the nuclear arsenal of NATO. Would Hitler attack Poland if it had nukes capable of putting an end to the Fuhrer himself, his Volk, and his Reich? From what I learned he wasn't suicidal until much later. Is Putin right now? Possibly, but I think he'd get assassinated long before his order to perform "special military operation" against a NATO country could reach his troops.
Oil is, unfortunately, used everywhere. As you say, inflation due to high oil prices can kill people. And do you know what else can kill people? Starvation due to lower crop yields due to sudden lack of fertilisers. Ask Sri Lanka how their sudden ban on fertilisers went to see what happens when suddenly a country is forced to switch to fertiliserless agriculture.
The results from high fertiliser prices and lack of availability are drastically worse than high oil prices.
Russia has little problem withholding food resources as a way of forcing cooperation. If the US can actually get Russia to agree to play their best card in exchange for almost nothing, it could be an overall win.
It's only hypocrisy if you assume there are some greater moral principles driving the behavior of nations. There's not.
The US puts pressure on people to do what it wants, just like every other country does in proportion to its power. The US just happens to be a global hegemon so it's gets what it wants more often than not, and has disproportionate control over the narrative of what's happening. Russia is particularly good at realizing and exploiting the few pain points there are in US hegemony and uses that to its advantage.
Everything else is just propaganda/ideology to keep you from paying too much attention to what's going on. There's no moral narrative being played out here, and those driving policy in nation states don't sit in big rooms talking about what's "right". They talk about what they need to do to continue to prosper/remain in power and how to do it. They let the media handle attaching a narrative to it that makes it easy to swallow for the public.
https://www.dailypioneer.com/2022/india-abroad/india-s-oil-p...
"India's oil purchases from Russia would not violate any of the sanctions imposed by the US on that country, according to President Joe Biden's Spokesperson Jen Psaki.
Asked during her briefing on Tuesday about reports that India was planning to buy "discounted crude oil' from Russia, she said, "Our message to any country continues to be that obviously abide by the sanctions that we have put in place and recommended."
However, she added, "I don't believe this would be violating that."
Making a moral appeal to cut off petroleum commerce, she added, "But also think about where you want to stand when the history books are written. In this moment in time any support for Russia, the Russian leadership, is support for an invasion that obviously is having a devastating impact".
However, NATO allies of the US continue to import Russian gas and petroleum."
In this case it would have been better to say "US embarrassingly urges use of Russia fertilizer"
As for the Arab spring, that never had a chance of working. Not even Turkey can deal with democracy and Islam.
Also these aren't just minor increases, e.g. Allianz estimate a 31% increase in prices in 2021; for people who live hand to mouth in the developing world this is catastrophic.
> Pastocalle has been a flash point of protests called by the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) against rising fuel prices and living costs, which saw protesters block roads across the country on Monday.
https://www.newsweek.com/ecuadorians-fed-high-gas-prices-inf...
> In addition to a drop in gas prices, the protesters are demanding that the Ecuadorian government drop prices on basic food items.
If you're a farmer, you're going to buy fertilizer from wherever and whomever unless prevented legally from doing so--and I, as a citizen of the US dependent on others growing this food on behalf of me, appreciate it.
On the one hand the US is asking the EU and allies to stop buying oil and whatever from Russia. A few large retailers pulled out of the Russian market due to perceived pressure to do so. We tell India (traditional non-aligned country) not to buy from Russia, we chastised Brazil for buying fertilizer from Russia (despite our objections), we tighten our own embargoes and then we're like, ahhhhh, nevermind..... WE'RE going to buy from Russia.
Is it lack of coordination, foresight, credibility, it's something.
I am now going to imagine the hysterics Pelosi and Schumer would have if Biden suddenly and for no reason declared himself an "R". At this point maybe he should to save the Dem party.
The US is coming up on an election. The party in power is extremely unpopular right now, and about to get walloped according to polls.
Polling shows that inflation is a big driver for their unpopularity. So they're trying to square two semi-incompatible positions: support Ukraine via sanctions and fight inflation too.
I think this is the most overblown talking point right now. In the most favorable wet dream scenario for Republicans where every tossup goes their way[0], they're still only going to hold a 56-44 Senate lead over the Democrats. That's not filibuster-proof and certainly isn't the doomsday scenario that everyone keeps predicting. Keep in mind that Republican primaries have already screwed a lot of those races too. Herschel Walker, a man with a documented history of DV and a noted evolution-denier, will not be winning over Raphael Warnock no matter what the polls say.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_elec...
The wrong thing to do would be to drop all sanctions to try to lessen inflation in hopes of getting elected.
> WE'RE going to buy from Russia.
Having spent three years consulting for federal agencies, this behavior seems to align with my experiences. You learn not to say anything because it's a waste of time and energy. There are other ways to constructively spend your time, like focusing on the mission and the task at hand.
This is an odd one to include given it's almost administration policy at this point to look the other way while New Delhi goes out of its way to buy Russian oil.
At this point I am not sure if they are stupid, evil, corrupt or they just despise and hate their citizens. Or maybe all of that.
You Americans are least have a pragmatic government that at least occasionally does something for your benefit. They at least say "America first", while the EU also says "America first" instead of saying "EU first".
Oh and, the US didn’t mandate Germany to do this, its voters did.
But economies and people can only suffer to a limited extent. EU will return to Realpolitik soon.
Let's face it, the whole bashing of Russia as a "regional power" was idiotic and wrong on the same level as starting the Ukraine war and believing they would win it within a week.
Edit: stop downvoting. How silly are you?
There are East/North European member states that are genuinely concerned that Russia could attack them next. They advocate for stronger sanctions. And while it's not said aloud, they believe the sanctions should be in place until there is (at least) a regime change in Russia. For them, the real issue is not the war in Ukraine but Putin. And if the economy crashes as a result of the sanctions, it's a small price to pay for safety. That's Realpolitik for them.
Then there are West/South European member states that are safe from Russia and mostly just see the economic consequences of the sanctions. They are economically stronger and have more political influence. But if they try to force the issue and lift the sanctions too soon, it could well be the end of the EU.
If anything, I'm incredibly upset that EU is not doing more to tighten the screw on Russia. If we are unwilling to send our militaries to fight Russia in Ukraine, then we should completely and entirely stop doing any business with that murderous, warmongering country, no matter the cost to ourselves. I mean it.
With you until this point. Higher energy prices have in no way made up for the loss of Russia's reserves.
You're talking about the same administration that literally admitted in the open to be executing cyber attacks on Russia[1]. The fact that they haven't made most of North America glow in the dark is an utter miracle.
And to make my point clear, the issue isn't that they're conducting cyber attacks - that's a given.
The issue is admitting it, in the open, to the news media. Everyone knows this is happening, but you don't say the quiet part out loud because it's an escalation against a nuclear power and gives them carte blanche to retaliate.
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[1] https://news.sky.com/story/us-military-hackers-conducting-of...
No it doesn’t. Russia has been taking increasing amounts of direct action against other nuclear states for years (including sponsoring cyber attacks and e.g. criminally intervening in US elections). They aren’t going to start a nuclear war over e.g. the USA compromising their military computer networks and distributing the information discovered there.
Putin is doing everything he can to prevent escalation to a direct shooting war with NATO because he knows that in a conventional war NATO will wipe the floor with the Russian military, and a nuclear war is mutually assured destruction.
I judge middle school debate and this still has to be the most wildly insane geopolitical take I've heard in a long time.
You must be hot boxing some strong stuff... might be time to roll down the windows of that information bubble and get some fresh air ;)
No, no, "some computer hacking" (because who would worry about not being able to watch funny cat videos for a while? it's not like people do anything important using computers...) won't do much. But the next Stuxnet targeted at Russian infrastructure could well spell the end of us all. Honestly, I'd be quite content in that situation - witnessing, for however short before dying to radiation, the literal end of history (instead of the pseudo-one from the '90s) could be strangely rewarding.
But if we compare to the Bush Jr, Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan administrations (let alone the Vietnam war era), it can’t really be called “disastrous”.
Trump’s foreign policy was largely symbolic and incoherent, if anything focused on corrupt self enrichment, breaking up US soft power to aid Russia (he backed out of various treaties, halted diplomacy around the world, wanted to pull the US out of NATO, ...), symbolically opposing China to appeal to anti-Asian racists, making up nonsense about Latin American immigrants to appeal to anti-Latino racists, continuing middle East aggression (and the Muslim ban etc.) to appeal to anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racists. His antics (on top of the Bush Jr. wars) further pissed away America’s global reputation. To the extent things went okay it was largely down to incompetence and uncoordination.
I also wish we'd send in the big guns to put a lot more pressure in focused places.
What may be an inconvenience to you, a probably-rich person on the global scale, who can afford to outbid poor people when food gets short, is not necessarily just an inconvenience for others.
This is not to say that all meat consumption is 'inefficient'. Cattle can graze on land that is not suitable for farming, and animals generally eat more of the physical plants than we do (animals on a feedlot are often eating fibrous parts of the plant like stalks and stubble and not just the parts we humans like to eat). But there's no way around it, industrialized meat in its current form is an extraordinarily inefficient use of land and has terrible environmental consequences.
Also relevant to any discussion on fertilizer is that excessive usage basically destroys the soil. We've moved away from time-tested methods of managing crops through things like crop rotation, cover crops, promoting natural vegetation in key areas... to over-tilling, over-fertilizing, mono-cropping, and this is taking its toil on the ground we use to farm. Fertilizer is also responsible for eutrophication (nutrient pollution) which destroys local ecosystems and poisons the water. Not to mention nutrition != calories.
Fertilizer is absolutely a modern technological wonder which has allowed humanity to produce food at tremendous scale, and I would not argue that it does not have its place in farming. But the current singular focus on "more yield per hectare" is a very modern, naive approach to farming that throws out a ton of considerations, and is absolutely unecessary.
† https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets †† https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs
You are missing a critical piece of information here: what is your yearly income and what is your family size?
Come back when you are willing to starve to death as this is what millions in other countries are facing
Look. We all understand that the reaction to the war activistic and ideological. The more time will pass, the more politics will move towards Realpolitik.
> Using data on ship movements, real-time tracking of gas flows through pipelines and estimates based on historical monthly trade, the researchers reckoned Germany alone paid Russia about 9.1 billion euros for fossil fuel deliveries — mostly natural gas — in the first two months of the war. [2]
Let's not pretend these are comparable numbers.
It's not like the US is about to run out of food anyway. We're a massive exporter. The goal is to boost US food production enough that the 3rd world doesn't starve to death (and if food prices go through the roof, it also helps Russia). Frankly, if we were being ruthless about it, the US might be financially BETTER off if there was a worldwide grain shortage. We're still trying to stop it.
Germany is importing Russian natural gas to avoid turning on nuclear power plants for ideological reasons.
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports/russia/fe...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-ge...
This war is a perfect object lesson in exactly how dependent we are globally on fossil fuels. That we are more decades than we have left away from solving our hydrocarbon problem. And that if we do happen to cross peak oil in a few years (which will actually be good for climate change) the result won't be a transition to green energy but global war on an unprecedented scale.
People paying close attention have been pointing this out for decades but dismissed as "pessimists" by green idealists.
Not to mention that compost is really difficult to come by now.
Unless a farmer is making compost on the side, they can't really treat it as a known input.
I would also argue that chronic over-usage of ammonia-based fertilizers and over-tiling has contributed to degradation to much of the world's farming soil. Which has given rise to many adverse effects such nutrient runoff, poor water infiltration, soil erosion, and downstream effects.
2) Poitical gains. It will be very hard for US to push other countries for sanctions when they can't hold their own.
3) Resilence of production. It's much better for economy to have your factories running and ports working.
Is there a reason Russia is so prolific a source of fertilizer? I assume it's a legacy of Soviet Union attitudes towards raw material production.
I can't really say why Russia would also be a large supplier of potash and phosphate, except to guess that they wanted to cover all of the relevant bases in a market in which they were a big player.
Some people have just lost their ability to think clearly in the US, I (a mexican) lived there for a couple of years and the only thing I can say is that America (as it is now) sucks badly to the point that I prefer mexican corruption and (narcos) crime than america's sick society (were teenagers are murdering people at schools), stupid policies and, the indoctrination of their school system which even before today's stupidity of "gender as an abstract concept" was already really bad, now the whole place its just plain riduculous
- Russia must return all lands that once belonged to it
- Russia must solve "the Ukrainian question"
- the west is our enemy, Russia have reliable allies in the east
- Putin is the reincarnation of Peter the Great (hello Finland and Sweden)
Any peace talks or "business as usual" will lead to a new war in a few years against Poland, Finland, etc. and more blood and refugees. This is how an authoritarian, fascist militaristic state works.
I think it's weird you don't think anyone involved in the problem has thought of your proposed solution, or that you don't think there's any potential negative effects from antagonizing an unhinged despot with his finger on the nuke.
Putin invading Ukraine was impossible because he's not unhinged and it would be an insanely stupid thing to do. He's just gathering his armies next to the border because he's flaunting his strength.
>I'm afraid that conviction is actually growing
Based off your in-depth research of casually browsing NY Times headlines?
First, not everyone, Ukrainians knew. Second, after the end of WW2 we lived (wanted to live) under a spell that conquering whole countries with some opportunistic genocide on top is not going to happen anymore, or at least not in the "civilized" Europe. Now, I hope the spell is off, we can see the world more clearly, and it's a raw power competition in which Putin thinks he has the winning cards or can at least out bluff everyone.
The only thing they can end with nukes are themselves. What was even the point of attacking Ukraine, if you want to make it a nuclear wasteland?
This sentiment is nuts, in my opinion. Russia isn't the only nation that has nukes folks... everyone around Russia has them too...
If Putin were to nuke a major metropolitan area, it would be the end of Putin (literally) and likely the end of Russia (at least it's current government). The unification of NATO, the EU, and the entire "west" would be so strong and unanimous, there would be no positive outcome for Russia.
Let's stop cowering because one dude threatened the entire world... the world is much bigger than Russia.
"Oh those stupid idiots are scared of nuclear war"
That's truly moronic.
Given the performance of the Russian military what makes you think that Russian nukes (and the people who operate them) are any better?
US intelligence and capabilities are likely much more effective than anyone knows.
It's genuinely amazing to see the mental gymnastics here to come to the conclusion that buying fewer weapons is exactly what the defense contractors are lobbying for.
It requires no mental gymnastics whatsoever. Actually the counter argument is where you need to twist yourself to believe otherwise.
Sending more and more weapons only prolongs it and adds to the body count. A humanitarian mission to remove those at risk from the areas Russia wants to invade would be a far better response. Sanctioning Russia is fine but shooting ourselves in the foot by refusing to buy their fuel is ridiculous and destroying our economies leading to real people losing their livelihoods here.
It's important to remember that this war has really been going on since 2014. Eastern rebel forces were starting to crumble until Russia began offering direct military assistance (Not just material but also boots-on-the-ground. Ukraine captured VDV and Spetsnaz POWs and would regularly exchange Russian troops with the DNR/LPR for POW swaps).
Edit: One of the big lessons Europe learned during the first half of the 20th century is that nationalist/ethnic conquests over land and border disputes makes everyone worse-off (World War I), and such acts should be powerfully deterred - through force, because capitulation doesn't work (World War II).
It seems people are forgetting these lessons.
Donbas is the location from which the Nazis launched the attack on the USSR which almost lost them WW2. Its strategic significance cant be understated. Finland and Sweden are not as important.
The thing about the Cuban missile crisis is that Kennedy was able to get Russian missiles AWAY from the United States. Russia's actions are getting hardware placed closer.
And why is that? Probably because Russia will tolerate it in exchange for territorial expansion. Even after the 2014 invasion of Crimea there was open talk about how NATO was obsolete and a waste of money and effort. Russia could've probably eliminated any NATO threat without firing a single shot. It was already seen as a relic of the cold war. Instead, Russia's actions have given a renewed justification for NATO's existence.
Russia literally had a 0% chance of losing this thing in the end. Ukraine did well to defend early and Russia certainly mismanaged the strategy. Going at the mainland was stupid and indefensible and the Ukraine fighters should be commended. But it was never the main objective and the truth is, Russia is on the verge of accomplishing their main objective.
It's time to stop fighting.
This is genocide. Not resisting means millions killed and tens of millions brutally oppressed, a whole nation and its culture erased from existence, and an invitation for further imperialistic wars and atrocities, because evil unpunished only leads to more evil on a larger scale.
This is not genocide, you're exaggerating here. Honestly, if anything the Russian culture of the Eastern regions Russia is about to take was being wiped out. That was the actual genocide. It's why there are so many Russian supporting people there.
When Russia came into Kiev I agree, it was a step too far and the Ukrainian's needed to fight. But now Russia is only attempting their main mission of taking Donbas, etc. It's time to cease fire and negotiate and stop the pointless death at this point.
As they say, citation needed.
Why are some people rooting for more and more needless death and destruction?
Maybe ask on a Russian forum?
Second, letting Russia win will not stop further death and destruction when Putin continues his expansion westward, only then with Ukrainian conscripts as a cannon fodder.
The breakdown in diplomacy with Russia is the worst part. The previous administration at least had diplomacy. The current one just pushed them into this.
If by diplomacy you mean kowtowing to everything Russia does, I'm not sure that's much better.
It's reasonable for Americans to want to drag this conflict out, as they are more insulated from the direct effects of the war, and a pro-American Russia would bring a lot of benefits. But it is clearly having a destabilizing effect on the rest of the world and this may spill over into western europe as well.
Or didn't know what was going on until well after the war was underway. U.S. tactical intelligence has no match on earth. American strategic intelligence is almost predictably garbage. From Iraq to Kabul to Kyiv, we've consistently called the shots wrong.
When's the last time any major power fought a near peer?
I would have said we're getting solid evidence of American intelligence supremacy out of Ukraine. But given the incompetence of the Russian military it would be embarrassing to put them in the same league as China.
More of that was luck than the State Dept will ever admit, but here we are, and I'll be damned if I know where we are 'going'. There's a tendency for armchair commentators to imagine an opponent 'disappearing' once beaten. If you can make 6.6 million square miles of country disappear, then we should all be kneeling before you and calling you Zod.
It's saying that we, keyboard warriors on a programming forum, are just as knowledgeable as e.g. Biden who has the full briefing and resources of the CIA
It’s fascinating where a decade+ of policies ranging from stupid (green tech) to batshit crazy (shutting down nuclear) has led the West (US and especially the EU/Germany). And things are only starting to unravel…
The price of this delusion is being paid right now: impeding famine, energy costs exploding, Europe financing Russian war in Europe.
The goal was “clean abundant energy” but the green movement focused on clean to the detriment of abundant…
What's this bizarre local source of energy that Greenland has that apparently nobody else does?
There's water and fossil fuels in the rest of the world too ...
https://www.worldometers.info/electricity/greenland-electric...
Not even half as delusional as the pro-nuclear power talk here, where every argument in favor goes, no matter how outlandish, unrealistic, or flat out wrong.
And of course, the misnomer of nuclear as dirty, rather than clean and efficient.