Spicey McHaggis
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
You don't even need to look further than Russian history to realize that there can in fact be far worse rulers than Putin.
Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread
- Thread starter L50LasPak
- Start date
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- Apr 28, 2016
All this talk about "card networks" is missing that payment networks aren't all that relevant on international trade and aren't what makes sanctions by the US so devastating. VISA/MasterCard aren't prevented from doing business in Russia by sanctions outside by of a few targeted industries or financial institutions and other Chinese and Indian payment networks aren't banned in the US.
It ultimately comes down to us being the biggest consumer market in the world by far, meaning most of the world profits from selling things to us, giving us an enormous advantage as nothing we import has any real strategic value and everything else is a buyers market. We're also still the second largest export market despite running a trade deficit with virtually every nation on earth. Obviously we pay in USD for imports and its the only payment we'll accept for exports, but the USD's dominance as a reserve currency is a natural consequence of us comprising 50% to 25% of the worlds wealth for the better part of a century and its only makes implementing sanctions slightly easier.
We can afford to cut entire industries of some nations out of our market and take the hit while almost no foreign actors of any real importance can survive it without becoming a shell of themselves. Its so far been practically un-survivable if the US sanctions also target third parties who might make up the difference. International trade large enough to make a difference on a nations balance sheet, especially energy, is easy to track and any "middle men" Russia puts between the US and itself isn't going to help them if we start threatening to slam the door in those middle men's faces. Its a simple cost/benefit analysis and the US wins practically every time.
Anyone who thinks otherwise wasn't paying any attention to what happened after Trump pulled out of the JCPOA and reinstated sanctions, and especially during the 2019/2020 escalation with Iran and tightening of the last screws. By 2019 India was importing as much oil from Iran as they were from Saudi Arabia, both tied for the second largest source behind Iraq. And most of that was payed for in currency other than dollars, Iran needed investment to bring production back up after the JCPOA was enacted and the Rial was worthless so they set up a system to pay with Rupees which could then be used for Indian imports, and India owed billions to them that had previously been frozen by sanctions which was payed back in Euros via turkey. They were about as insulated from the spooky scary petrodollar as you could be and had very significant investments in Iran
On top of that literally the entire world aside from Israel and the Gulf Arabs were against us on pulling out of JCPOA, sometimes hysterically so. Europe and Macron in particular threw a massive bitchfit and even went as far to develop a mechanism called INSTEX designed to circumvent sanctions by bartering goods without the involvement of any US institutions or USD in a way that hides the buyer/seller.
None of that prevented Indian oil refiners or the Indian goverment from dropping them completely when we threatened to implement a full scale shoah on any entities, even ones several times removed from the actual business, that were "tainted" by Iranian trade in our jurisdiction. Indian/Iran trade dropped from 15 billion to 2 billion, none of it oil, in the span of a year.
INSTEX was similarly a pathetic failure, it sat fully operational for over a year before anyone chanced using it and it later came out in a propaganda piece about how the Europeans are "finally standing up to the American bullies" that this sole transaction was medical supplies which weren't even targeted by sanctions, we had offered them medical supplies ourselves just months earlier. Its probably an even better example of how even nations that talk a big talk about US influence on the global economy cant even bring themselves to play by our game and retaliate in kind, because they know it wouldn't work on account of that trade imbalance mentioned above. INSTEX wasn't designed to fuck us over or take something from us, it was designed to allow companies to trade with Iran secretly so as not to effect trade with us. We're prepared to risk severing the connection between us, they aren't.
So maybe people can understand why I find it hilarious seeing all this pontification on the imminent collapse of US hegemony or the "petrodollar" because India entered a contract with Russian suppliers to for a total of three days of domestic consumption worth of crude to be traded over a period of several months. For reference India export/imports with Russia are something like 7 billion and 3 billion respectively, I'm sure they'll give up trade with the US this time, because it's not like Russia has much less to offer them compered to Iran and it's also not like they risk far more severe consequences seeing as how the entire western world is in unison on this.
If you think Russia will just shrug this off let me tell you: the truly consequential sanctions haven't even started yet.
So far aside from restricted airspace and minor hurdles of being kicked out of SWIFT its all been private sector decisions. We're not prepared yet to take the same steps with Russia that we did with Iran, it would be premature mostly because of Europe's dead end foreign policy with Russia and lack of foresight, but every step to divest from Russian energy brings that reality closer.
It ultimately comes down to us being the biggest consumer market in the world by far, meaning most of the world profits from selling things to us, giving us an enormous advantage as nothing we import has any real strategic value and everything else is a buyers market. We're also still the second largest export market despite running a trade deficit with virtually every nation on earth. Obviously we pay in USD for imports and its the only payment we'll accept for exports, but the USD's dominance as a reserve currency is a natural consequence of us comprising 50% to 25% of the worlds wealth for the better part of a century and its only makes implementing sanctions slightly easier.
We can afford to cut entire industries of some nations out of our market and take the hit while almost no foreign actors of any real importance can survive it without becoming a shell of themselves. Its so far been practically un-survivable if the US sanctions also target third parties who might make up the difference. International trade large enough to make a difference on a nations balance sheet, especially energy, is easy to track and any "middle men" Russia puts between the US and itself isn't going to help them if we start threatening to slam the door in those middle men's faces. Its a simple cost/benefit analysis and the US wins practically every time.
Anyone who thinks otherwise wasn't paying any attention to what happened after Trump pulled out of the JCPOA and reinstated sanctions, and especially during the 2019/2020 escalation with Iran and tightening of the last screws. By 2019 India was importing as much oil from Iran as they were from Saudi Arabia, both tied for the second largest source behind Iraq. And most of that was payed for in currency other than dollars, Iran needed investment to bring production back up after the JCPOA was enacted and the Rial was worthless so they set up a system to pay with Rupees which could then be used for Indian imports, and India owed billions to them that had previously been frozen by sanctions which was payed back in Euros via turkey. They were about as insulated from the spooky scary petrodollar as you could be and had very significant investments in Iran
On top of that literally the entire world aside from Israel and the Gulf Arabs were against us on pulling out of JCPOA, sometimes hysterically so. Europe and Macron in particular threw a massive bitchfit and even went as far to develop a mechanism called INSTEX designed to circumvent sanctions by bartering goods without the involvement of any US institutions or USD in a way that hides the buyer/seller.
None of that prevented Indian oil refiners or the Indian goverment from dropping them completely when we threatened to implement a full scale shoah on any entities, even ones several times removed from the actual business, that were "tainted" by Iranian trade in our jurisdiction. Indian/Iran trade dropped from 15 billion to 2 billion, none of it oil, in the span of a year.
INSTEX was similarly a pathetic failure, it sat fully operational for over a year before anyone chanced using it and it later came out in a propaganda piece about how the Europeans are "finally standing up to the American bullies" that this sole transaction was medical supplies which weren't even targeted by sanctions, we had offered them medical supplies ourselves just months earlier. Its probably an even better example of how even nations that talk a big talk about US influence on the global economy cant even bring themselves to play by our game and retaliate in kind, because they know it wouldn't work on account of that trade imbalance mentioned above. INSTEX wasn't designed to fuck us over or take something from us, it was designed to allow companies to trade with Iran secretly so as not to effect trade with us. We're prepared to risk severing the connection between us, they aren't.
So maybe people can understand why I find it hilarious seeing all this pontification on the imminent collapse of US hegemony or the "petrodollar" because India entered a contract with Russian suppliers to for a total of three days of domestic consumption worth of crude to be traded over a period of several months. For reference India export/imports with Russia are something like 7 billion and 3 billion respectively, I'm sure they'll give up trade with the US this time, because it's not like Russia has much less to offer them compered to Iran and it's also not like they risk far more severe consequences seeing as how the entire western world is in unison on this.
If you think Russia will just shrug this off let me tell you: the truly consequential sanctions haven't even started yet.
So far aside from restricted airspace and minor hurdles of being kicked out of SWIFT its all been private sector decisions. We're not prepared yet to take the same steps with Russia that we did with Iran, it would be premature mostly because of Europe's dead end foreign policy with Russia and lack of foresight, but every step to divest from Russian energy brings that reality closer.
Last edited:
RX-78
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2021
Every politician's #1 insurance policy the world over, and one of the oldest psy ops if you think about it.
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2021
The Ukrainian military has been caught out using game play footage, from ARMA 3, to show a Russian helicopter being destroyed.
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2017
This is the part where we point at the entire Soviet era.
Spicey McHaggis
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
It worked for Obama. Back then nobody wanted Biden. Turns out the insurance policy wasn't a lie.
- Joined
- May 27, 2020
Agreed in general. Putin very much needs something he can wave around back home to declare it was all worth it, and right now he has 2: the land bridge to Crimea and the entire claimed territory of the breakaways, rather than just what they had. Ukraine may be willing to let the latter go, but I doubt they're going to give up the former without first giving it a solid try.
Spicey McHaggis
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
And more than a few of the Tsars. Actually a lot of royalty.
IPman
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2020
You can usually tell the good guys in a conflict by 3 things
1. the treatment of corpses / the dead
2. the treatment of POWs
3. the treatment of pacifists / conscientious objectors
Hohols basically act like wild niggers in regard to all 3.
But yeah:
1. the treatment of corpses / the dead
2. the treatment of POWs
3. the treatment of pacifists / conscientious objectors
Hohols basically act like wild niggers in regard to all 3.
But yeah:
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2019
It's Russia, they've had what, 3 decent leaders throughout their entire history? The one that basically just copied a bunch of shit from the west was so shockingly good according to Russian standards they call him The Great like he was fucking Alexander or some shit.
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2022
there goes their annual budget for the next 10 years seriously whats that editing, and why is kim trying to be a porn star?
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2018
I wonder if Putin will replace “Hitler” as “the most evil person in all existence” in Western nations
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2018
You know why.
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2018
Peter the Great was a Francophile. So much so that it’s why the Russian nobility learned to speak French and forced French fashion onto other Russians
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2016
Only if he loses.
Screamer
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2021
So they'll actually do it?
A few days ago the story was Amy Schumer (I think) suggested it. A live cross or pre-recorded video. Where Hollywood can use their self-importance and ego to bring attention to the conflict. Virtue signal how good they are. Which got laughed out of the room. With people noting, "I think he has better things to do, such as running a war."
People mocking it like, "Imagine being the type of person who finds out about the Ukraine war from watching the Oscars?"
So now I guess the progressive merry go round of being unable to say no to a dumb idea if it seems to be on cause has brought this up again.
Sargon's wife's son
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2019
Actually this is extremely inappropriate behavior for diplomats the fact of the matter is both us and Russian diplomats have become extremely unprofessional in the last couple of years
Spicey McHaggis
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
He also taxed their beards so they'd shave the fuckers because he didn't want them looking like backwards primitives.
Sargon's wife's son
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2019
The Communist Party of Russia is the second largest political party behind Putin's all Russia party
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2021
At this point Hitler will be called Putin, me thinks. No matter what, win or lose.
Like any other "major" party here, it's just fake opposition. And in no way is it communist either.
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