Vladimir Putin may have already won the battle for Crimea, without firing a shot. Unless someone attacks his troops, there will be no bloodshed. There will also be no democracy. The government of Crimea will do whatever Putin wants and he will call it democracy. If it just ended there it might not be that bad. But it won’t end there. He will now start looking at the Ukraine. This is a different kind of war. It is not the bloody tank invasion mowing down protestors in Hungary. This is the rapid movement of highly armed special forces to take over key positions. It is conquering by the mere threat of violence. When you combine this with the recruitment of top officials sympathetic to Russia and enormous economic pressure the result is a perfect storm. It would be insane for Crimea to rely on the United States for support in dealing with Russia.
Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union with his economic strategy, not his military strategy. He saw that the Soviet Union’s economy was a house of cards. When they tried to keep up with our defense spending their economy collapsed.
Vladimir Putin learned from that. He is not making the same economic mistakes. Russian has built real wealth by building pipelines and drilling for oil. In addition, Putin understands the impact unfunded entitlements have on a nation’s economy:
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130614/181653890.html
While a modern state must honor its obligation “to take care of its population and ensure its social protection” or face the risk of collapse, European countries have been “living beyond their means” and are now “witnessing the rise of a dependency mentality …
[that] endangers not only the economy but the moral foundation of society,” Putin said. “It is no secret that many citizens of less developed countries come to Europe specifically to live on social welfare.”
In contrast, Putin praised Russia’s low unemployment and real wage growth, saying that these, plus the growth of consumer spending and bank lending, are the basic factors stimulating the country’s economy.
“We made our choice long ago. We will not renounce our social obligations,” Putin said of the Russian state.
Putin is a lot of things, most of them bad, but this sure sounds like someone who understands the value of capitalism over socialism. He makes a lot more economic sense than President Obama.
The current strategy for the U.S. with regard to Russia is to apply economic pressure. My question is whether we threaten them or they threaten us?
The United States has done exactly what Putin warned about. The United States has followed the European model of living beyond its means and developing a dependency mentality. Obama has pretty much perfected the art of irresponsible economicy behavior. It is pretty stunning when a Russian President lectures us on the moral foundation of society. What makes this worse is that he is right.
The following article in the Wall Street Journal is sobering:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/03/03/rubin-says-feds-qe3-will-lead-to-trouble/
Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, gives a stark warning:
“Uncertainties could be far greater with the vast increases that have taken place in the balance sheet of the Fed,” which is now worth more than $4 trillion, up from pre-crisis levels around $800-900 billion.
The real threat from Russia may be worse than a military invasion. Europe gets about 30% of its oil from Russia and about 25% of its natural gas. Oil prices have already surged back over $105 per barrel and they may go higher. Europe desperately needs Russian oil and gas. Russian desperately needs the cash from selling it’s gas and oil. Who is going to blink first? My hunch is that Europe will do whatever it takes to keep warm. Did anyone check the forecast?
In the meantime Obama has stopped deep water drilling, he has blocked drilling on public land and he is blocking the proposed pipeline. The only reason we have significant oil supplies now is that he couldn’t stop drilling on private land. The development of fracking technology moved too fast for him to respond. We would have much higher domestic oil production if it wasn’t for the brilliant leadership of the first green President.
Obama took office in January 2009. Now, a little more than five years later we have gone from the most powerful and respected nation in the history of the world to a nearly irrelevant spectator that can be safely ignored. Liberals must be very proud!
TDM