NYT: Russia can easily exclude the US from the geopolitical struggle

January 16 2022 18

In August 2008, Russia “invaded” Georgia and took control of two of its provinces, and no one did anything to Moscow for this. In the autumn of the same year, Barack Obama became president of the United States and began a "reset" of relations with the Russian Federation. In 2012, he reduced the number of American troops in Europe to the lowest level in history, writes columnist Bret Stevens for The New York Times.

In September 2013, Obama gave in to Bashar al-Assad and accepted the Kremlin's offer to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal. Russian President Vladimir Putin then drew attention to the obvious unwillingness of the White House to interfere in the course of events. In February 2014, the Russian Federation used "little green men" to "annex" Crimea. The Obama administration verbally protested, but did nothing in reality, which provoked the conflict in the Donbass, which has been going on for more than seven years. Obama responded with weak sanctions against the Russian Federation and a stubborn refusal to arm Ukraine.

In 2016, Donald Trump became president of the United States, who was extremely skeptical about NATO and the protection of European allies. In 2017, he tried to block sanctions against the Russian Federation, but under political pressure was forced to take a tougher stance towards Moscow and approve limited arms sales to Ukraine. At the same time, Trump used military assistance to Kiev for the sake of political benefits.

In January 2021, Joe Biden entered the White House, who ran for president, promising a tougher policy towards the Russian Federation. But he lifted sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and did little to increase the relatively meager flow of military aid to Ukraine.

In the face of a Russian invasion, this would be as effective as trying to put out a wildfire by urinating on it. Then there was the shameful evacuation from Afghanistan. The current Ukraine crisis is as much the brainchild of Biden's Afghan fiasco as the last Ukraine crisis was the brainchild of Obama's Syria fiasco.

- the author specifies.

Now Biden is further demonstrating his weakness by threatening "enormous consequences for the Russian Federation" if it "invades" Ukraine, consisting almost entirely of economic sanctions. It's like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Russia has amassed enough gold and foreign exchange reserves that it can safely endure the shutdown from the global banking system. At the same time, Moscow is able to stop gas supplies to the EU, which receives 40% of this raw material from the Russian Federation. The Kremlin can demand that the Europeans conclude a security treaty, and they are likely to agree, ignoring the opinions of Washington and NATO. In this way, Moscow can easily exclude the Americans from the geopolitical struggle, at least until Washington shows goodwill by relinquishing pressure.

Such a move would either force Washington to take a tougher stance or humiliatingly back down, but the current administration will almost certainly choose the latter. This would satisfy Putin's longstanding desire to break the back of NATO. This will further push China to the same aggressive behavior against Taiwan. This will be for America's global position what the Suez Crisis was for Britain.

- the author considers.

Therefore, the US should increase the number of its troops "in the NATO frontline states", especially in Poland and the Baltic countries. This may not be enough to stop a Russian “invasion”, which would be a tragedy for Ukrainians. But Putin plays big - one more piece of Ukrainian territory is just a secondary prize.

What he really wants to do is end the Western alliance as we have known it since the Atlantic Charter. As far as the US is concerned, two decades of bipartisan American weakness in the face of its aggression is bringing us closer to geopolitical collapse. Biden needs to be tougher to save NATO

- summed up the author.

Information

Dear reader, to leave comments on the publication, you must sign in.

Sergeyjluf

+8

16 January 2022 10: 57

2008 Beijing Olympics! The Yankees are playing dirty tricks on Russia in Georgia! 2022 Olympics in Beijing: who will the Yankees harm and where?
1. Rusa
  
  +6
  
  16 January 2022 12: 35
  
  They are already messing up. For example, in Kazakhstan, they are also arming Japan and South Korea.
Pandiurin

+8

16 January 2022 14: 09

This will further push China to the same aggressive behavior against Taiwan...

Maybe it’s just that some limitrophs acting with an eye on the United States will clear something in their brains. It can reach the same Taiwan that you can’t deceive anyone in Taiwan itself that someone will fight for them. We will have to revise the policy to be friendly with mainland China, which will relieve tension in the issues of Taiwan = China.
steelmaker

-15

16 January 2022 15: 46

Russia can easily exclude the US from the geopolitical struggle

I was now watching the news on Russia 24. Showing Afghanistan. Private school. Teaching English and German. The fee for our money is 140 rubles!!!!!! Here are our mediocrities that they do not understand at all? But if he pays and let them study the Russian language - is there not enough education? I'm telling you - mediocrity rules!!!
And How? If out of the blue, where Russia for "penny" can the United States ..how to deliver for 140 rubles a month ????? Here is the geopolitical struggle for you!
Putin shame and contempt!!! The judgment of history is guaranteed to Putin!
1. Bulanov
  
  0
  
  17 January 2022 10: 03
  
  So they (Afghans) will learn English and German and go to England and Germany. If they had learned Russian, they would have gone to Russia.
zenion

-6

16 January 2022 16: 00

Who should be happy about this? Is this really for the people of Russia, who do not even have enough for a funeral. The Russians for the most part abandoned hazel grouses and pineapples. Most Russians, %90 spat on caviar of different varieties, became boring. Oil in the throat does not climb. They want it without knowing what and go there without knowing where. They don’t ask for yachts, they don’t get into taxis. A rooster will wake you up in the morning, crowing like a person. He was the master of the country, tired and waved the people at the country with all parts of the body.
Vladimir Daetoya

+3

16 January 2022 17: 52

If the author takes false facts as the basis of reasoning, then his conclusion will be the one he wants and not the one that is correct.
Jacques sekavar

-3

16 January 2022 17: 56

Hopes for gold reserves and energy supplies to the EU and China are greatly exaggerated.
There are plenty of coercive levers among the USA, and after the second summit of “democracies” there will be even more of them - from a complete ban on trade and financial transactions to the arrest of gold reserves and accounts.
In this case, any operations in a roundabout way through “partners, acquaintances and friends” fall under secondary sanctions.
The consequences of such a development of events are that financial transactions and trade are falling, the income of natural monopolies and revenues to the state budget are reduced to zero. most of them are formed at the expense of foreign markets, and the internal pricing policy is regulated by the state.
The owners of the “steamboat newspaper factories” raise a revolt and demand political and economic changes in an ultimatum form.
The exchange rate of the ruble falls below the plinth, hyperinflation, an increase in the key rate, a shortage of working capital and a wave of bankruptcies, rising prices and the closure of social programs, unemployment and shortages lead to a surge of nationalism.
The property of the state is sold at bargain prices wholesale and retail, and the state itself is on the verge of civil war and collapse.
1. EMMM
  
  -1
  
  16 January 2022 23: 27
  
  from a complete ban on trade and financial transactions to the arrest of gold reserves and accounts
  
  The ruble exchange rate falls below the plinth
  
  A complete ban on financial transactions means not only the complete dependence of the ruble on the dollar (which automatically leads to the disappearance of the concept of the ruble exchange rate against the dollar in principle, only a statistical recalculation). There are other reserve currencies, or potentially reserve ones.
  But as far as trade is concerned, if the states do not have our oil and oil products, fertilizers and metals, I think they will have a hard time.
  So the chatter is all...
zloybond

0

16 January 2022 18: 57

What kind of nonsense, the front-line states of Geyropa ???? Why should we invade some kind of Europe if we have already decided ... we immediately land on the US coast and go to smash their brothels and casinos. Only in this way and no outskirts there. It is necessary to think up - troops to Europe. Although, the more they send here, the less will remain there ... then it will be easier for us to turn around there.
AND

0

16 January 2022 21: 02

Quote: steel maker
Russia can easily exclude the US from the geopolitical struggle

I was now watching the news on Russia 24. Showing Afghanistan. Private school. Teaching English and German. The fee for our money is 140 rubles!!!!!! Here are our mediocrities that they do not understand at all? But if he pays and let them study the Russian language - is there not enough education? I'm telling you - mediocrity rules!!!
And How? If out of the blue, where Russia for "penny" can the United States ..how to deliver for 140 rubles a month ????? Here is the geopolitical struggle for you!
Putin shame and contempt!!! The judgment of history is guaranteed to Putin!

It's more like paranoia Steelevar. It can be seen that Putin took good care of you, it directly broke through you into English and German, your native languages \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbare immediately visible.
Long live our court, the most humane court in the world! And why are you standing Steelevar. And he can't sit down... Ha, ha, ha
1. Eduard Aplombov
  
  -1
  
  17 January 2022 22: 03
  
  your quarrels with a lover of a cheap drunk, although quite funny, but I have one thing, but the minus is not a Russophobe and not an enemy for Russia, he does not see higher than his stool in the kitchen
  one can simply but succinctly say about such people, simplicity is worse than theft ...
  not stupid, just not a distant Internet writer, an ordinary layman
Sergey Pedenko

+1

16 January 2022 21: 43

"need to be tougher"?? they don't understand Putin at all)))
Yuri Bryanskiy

0

16 January 2022 21: 57

An American, like an Englishwoman, crap. We are waiting for an escalation in the Donbass. We will win! For Russia!
Kapitoshka

+2

17 January 2022 05: 21

Quote: Jacques Sekavar
Hopes for gold reserves and energy supplies to the EU and China are greatly exaggerated.
There are plenty of coercive levers among the USA, and after the second summit of “democracies” there will be even more of them - from a complete ban on trade and financial transactions to the arrest of gold reserves and accounts.
In this case, any operations in a roundabout way through “partners, acquaintances and friends” fall under secondary sanctions.
The consequences of such a development of events are that financial transactions and trade are falling, the income of natural monopolies and revenues to the state budget are reduced to zero. most of them are formed at the expense of foreign markets, and the internal pricing policy is regulated by the state.
The owners of the “steamboat newspaper factories” raise a revolt and demand political and economic changes in an ultimatum form.
The exchange rate of the ruble falls below the plinth, hyperinflation, an increase in the key rate, a shortage of working capital and a wave of bankruptcies, rising prices and the closure of social programs, unemployment and shortages lead to a surge of nationalism.
The property of the state is sold at bargain prices wholesale and retail, and the state itself is on the verge of civil war and collapse.

May I know what planet do you live on? ZVR arrest, are you serious? )) How can you explain? I don't understand. If gold reserves were stored on the territory of the United States, as Germany, Japan or South Korea store them - yes. I do not exclude. How did it work out with Afghanistan. But in a particular case, the hands of the shtatovtsy are short.

As for the ban on financial transactions abroad, that is, the disconnection of Russia from SWIFT is a boomerang! How and with what will the States pay for our oil? Steamboats carry money? And what will Europe pay for gas? And the most interesting thing is that Evrika and Bucks will not work, because it will be impossible to exchange them. Only rubles. Will they print? ))) And what to carry? Suitcases?! In freight cars? No, they will not do? And how then? No way? Then, sorry, no money - no gas with oil. And the share of our gas in the geyrop is from 30 to 40%. What should gay people do? Full kirdyk industry? Will the price go up to $5000? Above? It may very well be! And in what place will the euro currency, which no one needs anymore, be here? But for the ruble, in order to pay them off from the Russian Federation, there will be a huge demand. Consequently, the ruble exchange rate will not fall, but will rise significantly.

Or maybe the geyropa will calculate all the risks and send the United States to hell? This is more like the truth. And, by the way, the United States will backfire well. The same Boeing, for example, is almost half Russian. The vast majority there are Russian and German engineers (you may not know, but there is a Boeing-Russia design bureau in Moscow), and the number of American engineers is at a minimum. Almost zero! And 40% of aircraft kits, including avionics, come from Russia. And what is produced in the States is only a little more than 20%. In fact, in Seattle - a screwdriver assembly. And 40% is a lot! Boeing is up. For a long time.

And finally, in a very short time, another SWIFT will be created, since others will lose confidence in it. In other words, if you don't play by the US rules, you'll be banned. Who needs it? Nobody. Yes, and the dollar, not to mention the euro, as the world's monetary currency will significantly undermine its credibility and greatness. And this currency for many years will be the yuan.

So, my friend, treat your little head before scratching such nonsense. Get to the bottom of the issue at least. You don't live on Mars.
1. shinobi
  
  +1
  
  18 January 2022 09: 43
  
  I’ll add to your comment. We already have swift analogues, the Chinese, India and Iran. There are national systems for interbank information exchange in almost every state where there are at least several banks. It is enough to tie the systems together and this is a matter of pure time, regardless of actions of the United States. The owners of the swift are aware of this and will not do anything that would bring the loss of their monopoly at least for a day. everyone, and not just the United States. Consumers are already gradually dissolving over them, it is simply unprofitable for the United States to accelerate this process.
zenion

0

17 January 2022 17: 14

There is the most normal course. On the road along which the United States is moving, pour a lot of rakes.
shinobi

+1

18 January 2022 09: 27

This is how brainwashed my uncle is! If only I studied the opinions of the military for a start.