I guess the much-ballyhooed cease fire is over. And the price of oil just shot up again. Maybe the oil execs should pay Trump another visit.
Trump is at the NATO conference and has apparently decided the U.S. must cut trade with Spain, and the rest of NATO should, too.
President Trump lashed out at Spain early Wednesday during remarks from the NATO summit, urging the U.S. to cut off all trade with the European country over what he called a lack of contributions to defense spending.
“Spain is a wasted cause. We don’t want to do any trade business with Spain anymore by the way,” Trump said, sitting alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the group’s summit in Ankara, Turkey.
“Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don’t participate. They don’t pay,” the president continued. “I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits,” he said.
“Watch them come running back. Oh they’ll come running back,” he added.
Trump also accused Madrid of treating Rutte “terribly,” telling the NATO chief he “shouldn’t carry” Spain.
I don’t know exactly why he’s pissed at Spain in particular. And I don’t much care. Trump still doesn’t understand what NATO even is and how it’s funded, and why contributions from nations are not equal (because they are based on GDP per capita).
But of course it’s also the case that presidents don’t have the constitutional authority to unilaterally decide to cut off trade with another nation. Only Congress can do that. We’ll see if Congress even responds, though. Most likely we’ll go through more rounds of Trump issuing orders and courts canceling them. I’m sure the other NATO countries realize this.
How is the rest of the conference going? Let’s ask Paul Krugman.
Yesterday, soon after he arrived in Ankara for the NATO Summit, Trump reiterated his demand that Denmark hand him control of Greenland. But reactions were subdued. As far as I can tell, our erstwhile allies are now treating Trump as the senile uncle who says crazy, outrageous things, but shouldn’t be taken seriously. …
…The combined effect of these humiliations for Trump and his minions has been a drastic reordering of America’s place in the world. For most of last year foreign leaders kept trying, desperately, to appease Trump. These days they’re mostly just humoring him, building a world in which his sundowning won’t matter.
It’s extremely unlikely that anything substantive will come out of this NATO meeting. And a year ago the prospect of a failed summit would have been a source of deep concern. Now it will be met with a shrug: Nobody expects anything but chaotic bluster from Trump, and what he does matters less and less.
Do read the whole thing. I especially appreciate what Trump says about Trump’s failure to deliver Ukraine to his buddy Putin.
I understand Trump flew to the NATO summit in his luxury “gift” plane from Qatar. I’ve read in several places that it took in the neighborhood of $1 billion of the taxpayers’ money to retrofit the thing to make it suitable to serve as Air Force One. Trump still expects to take it with him when he leaves office in 2029 (if not sooner). I say no, unless he reimburses the $1 billion back to the Treasury. Maybe not even then.
Update: Edith Olsmsted at The New Republic reports that Trump will be leaving the new plane in Europe and getting home some other way, presumably on some other plane. (The headline of the article says “England” but the article says “Europe.”) Trump’s excuse for this is that it’s being left on one of the big military bases so that “people can see it.” There is speculation that somebody discovered a security problem on the plane, even after spending $1 billion on it.
“The most likely reason for this is that the ‘new’ ex-Qatari jet doesn’t have the self-defense capabilities needed when flying from Turkey while in a shooting war with Iran,” The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg wrote on X. “The actual VC-25 aircraft does have those capabilities.”
George Conway, an anti-Trump activist, suggested that perhaps the plane hadn’t received all the necessary security capabilities “because Trump wants to keep it if he leaves office.”
As the world continues to frustrate him, Trump is turning to his chief source of comfort, remodeling. Scaffolding had been erected around the White House columns. Officially this is supposed to be for “standard restoration work,” but it’s widely believed Trump plans to replace the columns with fancier ones that would clash with the architectural style of the rest of the building. If we’re lucky maybe he’ll just decorate them with gold doo-dads that can be removed later.
There also are persistent rumors/reports that Trump wants to cut down the cherry trees along the Potomac that were a gift from Japan in 1912 to make room for a luxury golf course that nobody really needs. He is putting in a new helipad. Apparently he doesn’t like having to walk on grass. Sometimes grass is wet. Such a trial.
Update: I am just hearing Graham Platner has suspended his campaign. So Dems can choose a replacement to take on Susan Collins. I hope they don’t screw it up.
*I don’t know exactly why he’s pissed at Spain in particular. *
I think the main reason is Spain said the USA could not use Spanish ports or airfields in the course of attempting to invade Iran. Of course, he's still furious that the Spanish told him to get stuffed on increased NATO spending. The Donald never forgets an insult or rebuff and P.M. Sánchez really did it. The God-King cannot be seen to have clay feet.
From Krugman
*For make no mistake: everyone at that summit in Ankara knows that Trump, JD Vance and company both expected and hoped that their betrayal of Ukraine would lead to Russian victory.*
Where do otherwise apparently sane people come up with this level of delusion. To be honest, I just cannot grasp the propensity of many people in the USA to claim that any opponent or anyone trying a slightly different approach to an issue is a traitor. I remember reading that Joe McCarty wrote a book in which he accused General George Marshall of being a traitor and working for the USSR.
AOH got all sorts of criticism for visiting Syria when Assad was still president. It's much better to be utterly ignorant of things on the ground than actually see things for yourself?
At best, Trump went into the Anchorage with his usual lack of anything even resembling planning and expected his fabulous ability to make a deal to win over Vladimir Putin. Trump was not planning on handing over Ukraine to Russia. Trump just is too inexperienced and lacks the intellectual curiosity and rigour(?) to understand much of what he is told, and that's before his rather precipitous cognitive and personality declines recently.
BTW, this decline was evident in the campaign against Biden. It was pretty clear that both men were in cognitive decline: I expected it would be worse sooner in Trump's case than in Biden's. I was wrong.
Trump's approach was a poor strategy against someone probably three times as smart, much, much, more experienced, ten times better briefed[1], and with well established policies and demands.
I really don't know if Putin thought he might achieve something in Anchorage but all it cost was a little time and he gets brownie points from the rest of the world (excluding EU/NATO) for being willing to try.
I loved Krugman's 'To America’s everlasting shame, Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he didn’t “have the cards.”'
One of few sensible things Trump has said, probably since he got out of kindergarten. I think he can smell weakness both in allies and opponents. I like to think that Trump's close association with bankruptcies may have stood him in good stead here. Ukraine/NATO/EU/USA have lost this battle baring a *Deus Ex Machina* intervention by Aliens.
1. Trump had Marco Rubio as Secretary of State; Putin had Sergei Lavrov as Foreign Minister.
Sorry, but I think Krugman could be right about Trump wanting to deliver Ukraine to Putin, at least at some points last year. That explains a lot, actually. His policies regarding Ukraine have been wildly inconsistent, of course, but particularly in March 2025 when he berated Zelensky in that shameful oval office meeting and froze all support for Ukraine, the plan seems to have been to force Ukraine to surrender. if not entirely at least much of its territory, to Putin. That was the current state of Trump's plan to end the war. And after a while he changed his mind.
And on what planet was Trump telling Zelensky he didn't "have the cards" "one of few sensible things Trump has said"? The fact that Ukraine has continued to wear down Russia is pretty clear proof Zelensky has a pretty decent hand. Trump smelled "weakness?" In whom, Zelensky? Are you nuts?
Thank you
That last sentence made no sense, none at all.
None of your sentences made any sense. Follow the money. We were supporting Ukraine with cash and weapons after Russia invaded Under Trump, both dried up. To ignore the alliance between the two requires you ignore that Trump represented Putin's position with NATO this week. (Politico, today) When Russia got the boot from G8, Trump was (and remains) Putin's cheerleader. At Helsinki, Trump rejected the assessment of US Intel, accepting Putin's word that he hadn't interfered in the 2015 election (for Trump) despite the evidence. I can’t tell if you’re that dumb or if you just think we are.
The fact that Ukraine has continued to wear down Russia is pretty clear proof Zelensky has a pretty decent hand.
Yes, Ukraine is wearing down Russia so well that Ukraine just lost Kostiantynivka, Russia is hiting much of Ukraine, especially Kiev with nightly bombardments of drones and balistig missiles. Zeninskyy is scouring NATO looking for air defense supplies such as Patriot batteries that just do not exist.
It is clear that the new long–range drone/missile attacks on Russian petrochemical plants are affecting Russia but almost certainly less than the Western press is reporting. What it seems to be doing is really annoying the Russians.
There are reports of rather ominous troop movements in the Kiev and Sumy oblasts.
Oops there goes another Ukrainian oblast.
Trump smelled "weakness?" In whom, Zelensky?
Of course. Zelinskyy looks a lot like a dead man walking, politically anyway. But just Ukraine in total.
You might not remember, but I do, that back in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and sent a column of tanks driving toward Kiev, the world expected Ukraine to fall in a matter of days. Russia had a massively bigger military and a lot more resources. It's been more than four years. And in spite of Trump trying to undermine Ukraine repeatedly, Ukraine is surviving mostly by fighting smarter than Russia. And it's not surprising if the Ukrainians are getting frustrated with Zelensky. This always happens as wars drag out, and understandably so. And I'm sure Zelensky has his flaws. But "weakness" is not one of them.
*You might not remember, but I do, that back in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and sent a column of tanks driving toward Kiev, the world expected Ukraine to fall in a matter of days. Russia had a massively bigger military and a lot more resources. It's been more than four years. And in spite of Trump trying to undermine Ukraine repeatedly, Ukraine is surviving mostly by fighting smarter than Russia. And it's not surprising if the Ukrainians are getting frustrated with Zelensky. This always happens as wars drag out, and understandably so. And I'm sure Zelensky has his flaws. But "weakness" is not one of them.*
Oh, I remember. However it was obvious by Russian behaviour that it had no intention of assaulting a city of roughly 3M people with a total in-country force of ~180k.
What it did was intimidate the Ukrainian gov't and force it to pull troops from the forces in the Donbass where the main boby of Ukrainian forces were concentrated. BTW, it was General Milley, the Chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff who predicted that Ukraine would fall in three days. This seems to have been a widely held view in the West.
The invasion worked. Warsaw, almost immediately agreed to talks and in March or April 2022 had a tentative agreement with Russia which seems to have been increased autonomy for the two Donbass oblasts/republics and the restoration of Russian language rights in Ukraine. This last was important as dropping Russian as an official language just after the Maidan Revolution was a key cause of the civil war.
This tentative agreement was quickly scotched by the US and UK with Boris Johnson visiting Warsaw to personally talk to Zelenskyy. It all went to $#%^# after that.
Putin and his top advisors had read the Warsaw Gov't correctly and had at excellent chance of getting what they wanted—basically the Minsk Accords. What, I am pretty sure they did not want was the two oblasts/republics. The international fall–out would be horrible and the cost of bringing them up to Russian standards in infrastructure, health care and so on would be a nightmare. The Crimean experience had illustrated this.
What they had not understood the deep desire of elements in NATO to destroy Russia.
*And in spite of Trump trying to undermine Ukraine repeatedly, Ukraine is surviving mostly by fighting smarter than Russia.*
Other than trying to extort money for arms from the European members of NATO, a typical Trump move, I have not seen anything that could conceivably be considered directly undermining Ukraine. Sanctions remain, the US is still supplying intel,heck I think Elon Musk's starlink is still there. I think there may even be another cash infusion in the works
Ukraine has not fought smarter. Through what seems to be a combination of incompetent US advice/diruction and Zelenskyy's stubborn refusal to withdraw troops who are being encircled, the Ukrainian army at the top has been dumb.
What has kept it in play is a combination of massive NATO supplies of money and equipment and the heroic defence by the rank and file who have performed miracles. You may have heard of the saying "Lions led by Donkeys" This is another case.
The insane Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kurst Oblast cost Ukraine perhaps 85–90K casualties for what looked like a publicity stunt. Other than the Kurst Nuclear Power Plant, fairly far from the border, there was nothing of strategic value there. A lot of trees and small farms but that is about it.
Oh, Zelenskyy has lots of flaws but I did not mean to imply personal weakness though that may be true too. The problem I was thinking about is that he was an outsider in Ukrainian politics with no natural constituency within the government or political factions. Therefore, particularly in the early days of his presidency, he was buffeted on all sides by various factions.
I was surprised that he managed to survive his first year in office. I expected that one of the Banderite Fascist (i.e. Nazi) groups like the Azov Batallion or Pervi Sector or Carpathian Sech to have assassinated him.
They appear to have come to that conclusion after their massive line of tanks that left Belarus in February 2022 reached the northern suburbs of Kiev, within roughly 15 to 25 kilometers of the city center. And if the Russians had taken Antonov Airport, the site of a major battle, it would have been easy for the Russians to airlift more troops and equipment into the Kiev area. One does not have to be an expert in military strategy to understand the initial plan was to seize the capital and the government, and thereby the country. So let me gently inform you I am not taking your opinions seriously.
It can be argued that was a dumb plan on Russia’s part, but it was still the obvious plan. Ukrainian resistance plus logistical issues caused the Russians to retreat in April. And after that Putin shifted focus to seizing land in the east and south. He’s had some success with that, but at extraordinary cost. So, basically, it’s clear you have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ll give you a few more chances to say somethi8ng sensible, but note that I don’t have a lot of patience with people who post nonsense and tend to ban them if they piss me off.
Krugman (from an interview on MSNOW) used the term crony capitalism with reference to current administration actions. This practice rewards businesses for political favor not for competent business practices. The failure at the reflecting pool was one of a number of examples used to both show evidence the term was apt and also to illustrate problems associated with the practice of crony capitalism.
This is one big reason it is a bad idea to give this administration free rein on any project, as this seems their preferred and near exclusive method of business transaction.
This is not the only problem. The chief executive will demand overriding artistic license on these projects. Let us just say he tends to overrate his competency in many areas to an extreme. I would not give him artistic license on a putting course. You can bet there would be no hole with a windmill. The style is assured. Something in a godawful gauche it will be.
Maine Dems have been on Lawrence O'Donald of late in the Platner affair. Their commitment to handle the situation in a Democratic and local manner seems quite commendable. To outside help they are polite but firm. This is their job from the bottom-up the way it should be done. Democracy gets its soul that way.
It is like a breath of fresh air to see it properly done. Our job (if not from Maine) is to stay out of the way and admire and learn. Best we get our job done well.
Yes! We non-Mainers should keep out of the way, but we can and should express our support for their process under the circumstances. It cannot be perfect, as they have to play a rather bad hand at this point in the game. On the plus side, the primary campaign seems to have brought out a sense of urgency around the value of activism at the grass roots level; in the competition between small d democracy and corrupt oligarchy (which is neo-feudalism by the billionaire class), there are no heroes from outside coming to save us.
To hear trolls suggest that the four-year was a component of the Russian war plan all along is ludicrous. To hear that the strikes on Russian oil fields is only an annoyance can't be taken seriously. (Russia has banned the export of deisel fuel because of domestic shortages and they are importing oil from India.)
I wish I could confidently predict that Ukraine is on the edge of victory but winning through the collapse of the Russian economy is hard to predict. But the evidence of fractures are huge and spreading.
I'm curious if these are real stupid people or bots spouting the propaganda from Russian troll farms.
One suspects Russian troll farms are involved.
Yes! … and more than "one suspects…"; I suspected that upon my first reading of the post and I have hunch I'm not the only blog denizen who had that reaction! 🙂
Do you – and Maha, and Doug – think I'm a "Russian troll farm" because I disagree with your opinions on the Russia-Ukraine war?
IMO, that accusation only serves to enforce a refusal to listen to opposing viewpoints. Ironically, this is exactly what we accuse MAGAts of doing…
You're one of the regulars. We know you're not a paid troll by now. 🙂
Sorry Maha,
I am a Canadian senior citizen who just happens to have a little knowledge about the Russian Empire, the USSR, and the Russian Federation, which to be rude but truthful, no one else here seems to have.
I have had a casual reading interest about the area for 50 or so years. I, certainly, am no expert but I can probably find Kazan on a map.
Sorry, you lost this argument some time back. It's time to stop now.
I'm curious if these are real stupid people or bots spouting the propaganda from Russian troll farms.
Sorry mate. I am Canadian and we try to be polite. I'll forget being so today: I am just someone who knows a heck of a lot more about the subject than you do.
To hear that the strikes on Russian oil fields is only an annoyance can't be taken seriously. (Russia has banned the export of deisel fuel because of domestic shortages and they are importing oil from India.) *
Sorry, you are right, I was being a bit flippant. They are serious but not critical. They are likely to cause some nasty local shortages and, certainly some logistical problems for the military but, overall, they are not decisive.
*Russia has banned the export of deisel fuel because of domestic shortages and they are importing oil from India.) *
Well that makes sense. If the attacks are having an effect, and I think they are, just not as significant as the Western press is reporting, one would do this. Russia has always bought some petroleum products, it's a long way from Yamal to Vladivostok. From India seems strange. Do you have a ref for this? I have always thought that India consumed Russian oil but it could be reversing. Ironic if Russia is buying back its own oil.
*I wish I could confidently predict that Ukraine is on the edge of victory but winning through the collapse of the Russian economy is hard to predict. But the evidence of fractures are huge and spreading.*
Sorry, the Russian economy which is roughly the 4th largest in the world in PPP terms, according to the CIA Fact Book, is not collapsing any time soon.
Currently I don't know of any serious fractures in the economy although there is a labour shortage probably due to the increased size of the military and general economic growth over the last few years, combined.
As something of an aside, many Western sanctions have been a god-send to Russian farmers and entrepreneurs. Sanctions in 2014 after Maidan spurred Russian agriculture to replace European food products. Russia is now a major pork exporter to China. French wines are replaced by wines from the republics in the south, French cheeses have been replaced by cheeses made locally. There is some dispute about how good the local cheeses are compared to their French equivalent but it looks like things are getting better. Reportedly the wines already the equal of most imported vintages though I'd like an expert opinion on this.
Again as an aside : Sanctions are great against a country the size of Cuba with one cash crop: they are amazingly stupid against a country with a population of 145–150 million people that is as close to self-sufficient as Russia.
The Russian economy is big, yes — 9th in the world in terms of GDP — but according to several sources (example) that are not Russian media it's been seriously damaged and is largely being propped up by Beijing at the moment.
But for now I’ll leave it to other readers whether to allow you to continue to comment here.
Maha – plz don't ban John Kane for expressing views which don't conform to the local "consensus"*. If he gets nasty, sure, boot him, but so far, he seems (1) polite, (2) intelligent, and (3) quite human.
*"consensus" – most longtime "members" of this "therapy group" know that I agree with much of what John Kane wrote above about the Russia-Ukraine war, and that I'm not (completely) alone in this. Ergo, the scare-quotes to remind people that the "consensus" on this issue is not unanimous and therefore not a consensus.
It’s not a matter of “consensus” as much as a matter of “disproven by well-documented facts.” For example, his contention that Russia never intended to assault Kiev pretty much falls apart by the fact that Russia in February and March 2022 clearly was attempting to assault Kiev and came very close to succeeding. If the Russians had taken Antonov Airport, the site of a major battle, it would have been easy for them to airlift more troops and equipment into the Kiev area. And Ukraine would now be entirely in Russian hands. People who try to re-write history annoy me.
Thank you.
Thank you Maha for making it clear about facts vs debunked claims. In addition to that, for me, when it comes to Russia, the important questions are not limited to questions about the details of historical events, recent or past. Equally, if not more important are questions about the Russian society and the role of the Russian government in that society. Is there freedom of the press? Are there serious consequences for ordinary Russian people if they dissent with the current regime? Is there a media-dominating regime-controlled so-called news organization that has been repeated detected by independent journalist to have promoted false narratives (propaganda operation)? These questions have nothing to do with factual data point debates about various granular economic situations that can affect ordinary Russians.
So I googled the following question and got the response shown:
Q: (paraphrased) are ordinary law abiding non-wealthy people flocking to Russia and trying to become citizens of that country?
A: There is no mass influx of ordinary, law-abiding, non-wealthy people moving to Russia. While the country has millions of immigrants, the vast majority are low-wage labor migrants from neighboring post-Soviet republics (like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) seeking economic opportunity. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
For Westerners—including Americans—the number relocating is very small, numbering in the hundreds or low thousands. These individuals are primarily a niche group motivated by ideological or cultural reasons, such as a desire to escape perceived Western liberalism or to live in a more socially conservative environment. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
I have been to Russia, in 2000. Moscow and St. Petersburg. That doesn't make me an expert but in 2001 I married my 'guide' who is half-Russian, and served in the Soviet Army. She's my best friend and she IS an authority on what's happening in that part of the world. She is on the Internet daily, mostly on Russian-speaking sites, largely getting information from expatriates.
People from Russia say the economy sucks, the war sucks, conscription into the Army to become cannon fodder sucks. Putin has lost the confidence of a VERY large swath of the public but with the internal repression, there's no such thing as a reliable poll – the pollsters are crooked and the public is cagy abut saying anything critical of the regime.
I find the comments about the relative quality of Russian wines and cheese amusing. Russia's cash crop is oil and Europe is their market. Europe decided not to feed a Russian war machine and over the last four years, they opened alternate energy sources. Excuse me if I do not think pork to China has replaced oil to the EU. They lost something else. An estimated half-million Russians who do not want to die in Putin's war left Russia. Many of them were young and educated. Germany suffered a similar brain drain in the rise of fascism and some historians have speculated that the brain-drain from Germany to the Allies cost Germany the war.
My brother is in Ukraine. He was there when the war broke. He sent a meme that defined asymetrical warfare – "When Russia strikes Keiv, Ukranians blame Putin. When Ukraine strikes Moscow, Russians blame Putin." IMO, it's not a question of if Putin will be removed, it's the twin questions of when, and who will assume power. I think whoever occupies the Kremlin will pull out of Ukraine completely and blame Putin for everything while the body is still warm. Otherwise, Ukraine will continue to be a drain on the Russian economy that's suffering for no gain.
Re trade with Spain, you can't cut it off. I read somewhere [too many sources to keep up with] The US trades with the EU, not with Spain. That would be like Europe refusing to trade with Florida.
International trade is infinitely complex these days, and Trump clearly doesn't understand it.
The Soviets in their own “war of attrition” against real Nazis and a real Wehrmacht, were able to grind them all the way back to Hitler’s bunker. 1400 miles from Stalingrad to Berlin in about a year, seems a helluva lot more impressive than the 35 miles from Bakhmut to Kostiantynivka in over four years.
I wonder about these Canadian ‘Rootin for Putin’ armchair experts. Seems a bit like rooting for the Cleveland Browns. I mean, what’s the point?
And then, imagining that Trump turns his MN attention span to Canada (wildly assuming all his other misadventures magically correct themselves) to start his own war of attrition… what could be the Canadian plan? Aid from Putin? (I’m assuming that NATO and Ukrainian help are out of the question.)
Sometimes borrowing money makes sense, for a country or for an individual. To borrow money as a country for frivolities when the national debt is approaching 40 trillion dollars seems nonsensical beyond even our recent journey to the land of absurdity. Is the giant arch being built in tribute to fiscal incompetence. Is its grandiose size symbolic of our profoundly abysmal money management skills?
Large numbers are very hard to understand, to conceptualize with meaning. Our population is about 350 million. Let's say each of us owes an equal amount of our national debt. Then 40 trillion divided by 350 million is what each American owes.
Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence does it say All Americans are Indebted Equally. I'm sure real patriots will surely want to claim a bit more of the debt that they really would incur if all were indebted equally. But in case they need to have a starting point for their calculation so they could conceptualize what they might owe as it's a starting point.
To be a real patriot you will need to figure on a number above 114 thousand dollars as your fair share of the county's debt. No one said it was cheap being a real patriot.
Of that amount 3,700 was added last year alone, and 4,000 is estimated to be added this year.
I'd say that kind of recognition of financial mismanagement skill could be considered monumental. Wouldn't a giant hole be more fitting than an arch though?
Please feel free to check my math. It has been ages since I used exponential notation.
I think $40T across 350M population works out to about $114,000 each (but I didn't use calculator or spreadsheet either). That's pocket change for the Zillionaires, pain for the upper middle class, and starvation for the rest of us. But of course, the Zillionaires can hire lawyers and beancounters to avoid paying their share, so more of us will have to starve…
Actually, that "debt" will probably never be paid down. No Congress would risk that; at this point, anything less than ever-expanding national debt would lead quickly to a Crash. So we keep paying off old T-Bills by issuing new ones – at higher rates – so ten years down the line we will have to do the same thing again, probably at even higher rates, so ten years from then…
As Michael Hudson (I think?) said, "Debts that can't be repaid, won't be repaid". The real danger is the likelihood that foreign holders of dollar-denominated securities (stocks, bonds, T-Bills) will someday get spooked and all start selling; that would show up as massive inflation, especially of imported goods and services.
…and that brings me back to all that starvation I was talking about above…
Have a nice day!
I saw a post on FB that I verified, at least partly in a post on "Naval News" who had links to video that supports the claim. The opening paragraph is the main story.
"On the night of July 6th and into the early hours of July 7th, Ukrainian drone forces conducted a massive raid into the Sea of Azov and the Northern Black Sea. This raid aimed at crippling Russia’s logistics supplying occupied Crimea in the increasingly contested waters, striking a total of 10 ships, including eight vital oil tankers, one bulk cargo vessel, and one ferry."
The whole "Russia has this under control" thing is BS. I'm not sure if Crimea is collapsing but I understand from multiple sources that in many parts of Russia and Crimea, civilians can't get fuel except at cutthroat prices, black market basically.
Yes, Ukraine has a propaganda arm but the videos have generally panned out to be the real deal, often dovetailing exactly with Russia newscasts.
Sal Mercogliano posted recently about those Ukrainian attacks on several Russian cargo vessels in the Sea of Azov (~7:00-13:00):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P0SdlyEjck
… but his take was more somber, focusing on casualties among mariners (civilians, not military personnel). The main point of this video is his concern about the general breakdown of protections for commercial shipping. He starts with frightful stats on sinkings and casualties from US actions in waters near Venezuela and Colombia, then moves on to the Ukrainian attacks in the Black Sea, then the mess in & around the Straits of Hormuz, finally ending by reminding us that US involvement in *both* World Wars was rooted in attacks on merchant shipping.
Sal even briefly raises the spectre of nuclear war. I'll go one (big) step beyond Sal: the dots he connects imply that we are already involved in WWIII.
Are ships carrying military supplies fair targets?
Are ships carrying fuel that will be used by the military fair targets?
Are ships bound to ports that are hotly disputed (Like Crimea) legit targets if the cargo is likely to sustain the theft of land?
When Russia targets civilian buildings, does that make apartments in Moscow fair game?
It's a damn slippery slope. My personal opinion is that Ukraine can play by any rules that Moscow has set. That makes civilian targets fair game. It also makes the war with Ukraine less sanitary and academic for disinterested Russians when they can be blown away.
I respect the person with a different view. I'd rather play by a fair set of rules but if the other side has abandoned fair play, they I'm gonna beat them with their lack of rules and I will gladly negotiate a return to fair play because (and after) I have kicked their ass.
According to Sal, most (or all?) of the ships Ukraine sank in the Sea of Azov were "small coastal tankers", presumably hauling oil/gas/etc – so, dual use (mil/civ) stuff.
The RMS Lusitania was carrying "military supplies" – 173 tons of ammunition! – when it was sunk by U-20; was it a legitimate target? Most Americans didn't think so (US newspapers probably didn't mention the ammo on board…), and that incident was a turning point for US opinion, which had been solidly opposed to US involvement in the war.
Also, plz provide sources for "Russia targets civilian buildings". There have been credible reports of apartment buildings in Kyiv (etc) damaged during Russian attacks, but in the cases I know about, casualties reported (by Ukraine!) are not consistent with [successful] intentional attacks on housing blocks. For obvious contrast, see Gaza, where Israel has killed thousands of people and flattened most of the housing stock (…using planes and bombs "Made in USA"…).
More generally, I disagree with the idea that all of Ukraine's attacks on Russia have been [proportional] retaliation. IMO, Ukraine is responsible for escalating the conflict from trench warfare in Donbass to strategic war on national infrastructure. IMO, an honest reading of the history shows that Russia made only occasional, selective attacks on Ukraine's electrical grid until after Ukraine started blowing up Russia's energy infrastructure (mostly oil/gas).
IMO, Russia/Putin *chose* to avoid widespread destruction of Ukraine's infrastructure (until recently) for several reasons:
– Russia/Putin believed (with good evidence) that they were winning the War of Attrition
– If Russian intended to conquer all of Ukraine, wrecking it first would have made rebuilding it more expensive
– If Russia intended to leave a (rump) independent Ukraine as a buffer state, it would be better to avoid unnecessary casualties & misery there, to allow for eventual reconciliation
– Russia/Putin views (most?) Ukrainians as (wayward) fellow Slavs – really, as Russians who just need to be reminded that they're really Russians, not "Ukrainians" (an aspect of Russian socially conservative backlash against Soviet post-ethnic ideology).
IMO, that's why Russia didn't completely wreck the Ukrainian energy grid in 2022-4 – it might have forced Ukraine to negotiate, but only after millions of people froze to death.
But now that Ukraine has changed the "rules" that Russia "set", Russia has begun to retaliate with more strategic warfare. Of course, Ukraine retaliates with more strategic bombing (they still can't win the trench war), and the cycle spirals toward more civilian casualties (on both sides).
If we get sucked into this, it will be remembered as WWIII (if enough humans survive to remember…).
Professor Mercogliano has respectable credentials, but I’m not entirely buying that analysis in regard to Ukraine. In Iran, yeah, could be. But as far as Ukraine is concerned, the argument seems to be that it’s supposed to just lie down and let itself be beaten or it’s the bad guy? Get real. And if Trump hadn’t been undermining Ukraine all this time we’d be looking at a very different picture there now.
Another YT vid from Sal Mercogliano says Ukraine has attacked 48 (!) ships in the last few days. Most are small tankers or cargo vessels designed for river/coastal use, hit by aerial drones in/near the Sea of Azov, but there are a couple larger tankers hit by "Sea Baby" (sea surface drones) further out in the Black Sea. At least one tugboat was attacked.
The aerial drones mostly seem to aim for the ships' bridges, presumably because that's where their limited payload can do the most damage. This implies a lot of direct casualties among the crew, which could be intentional (sends a message to ships' Officers in particular). The grainy black-and-white infrared video mercifully obscures the fact that there are real people in all those bridges…
Sal reiterates the *strategic* aspect of these attacks, and worries that Russia will probably retaliate in kind, only worse. Ukraine's new tactic is clever, but is it wise? Poking the Bear doesn't sound like a smart plan to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPXLPjre30o
Try to make sense. Russia and Ukraine are at war. Is Ukraine just supposed to send sternly worded memos?
Military strategy is probably not your strong suit, and I suggest you’ve posted enough on this topic.
Maha – plz email me (I assume you can see my email address).
Elkern,
I agree with Maha on this. And I go further. Not only are Ukraine and Russia at war, the war was instigated by Russia… and twice. First they invaded and occupied militarily Crimea, a significant part of the sovereign nation of Ukraine. The international community failed to enforce the notion of national sovereignty, a failure that is critical to understanding the current state of civilization on this planet. Secondly, Russia launched another military invasion of Ukraine involving military occupation of very significant amounts of Ukraine's sovereign territory. Again the international community failed to enforce the notion of national sovereignty. In my view, there is no rational support for judging anything that Ukraine does as inappropriate, so long as Russia is still occupying militarily any of Ukraine's territory. Russia is using petroleum fuels to fuel it's military machines, is using electrical power to operate military technology, and is using human soldier to conduct military operations on Ukraine's land. Therefore, Ukraine has the right to attack Russia's ability to sustain those actions.
As for someone's fear that this will start WWIII, I would suggest that the world's countries that have engaged in terrorism around the globe started WWIII a long time ago. As a wise US general observed recently the age of combined arms is over. The new weapons of war are all elements of terrorism.
Finally, Elkern, I take issue with your comparing Russian attacks on civilian targets inside Ukraine with Israel's actions in Gaza as a way of excusing the Russian terror attacks in Ukraine. Russia is an aggressor in Ukraine using both combined arms techniques with terrorism designed to reduce Ukraine's civilian support for their own defense. In the case of Gaza, where I am not a soup to nuts supporter of Israel's actions, it is still true that the Oct. 7 terrorist actions of Hamas were the initiators of that conflict. You can cite the tit-for-tat provocations over the years, but on October 7, Hamas invaded Israel, murdered large number of civilians, and took over 200 hostages. Therefore, Hamas will always be the aggressor in that particular conflict. This does not mean that I agree with the way that Israel has responded. But nothing will change the fact that Hamas invaded Israel militarily. To compare Ukraine with Gaza is invalid.