Worst decisions ever: escalation upon escalation
(As developments occur, this post will be updated accordingly.
Current date: 2022-03-03)
Putin:
2022-02-24: <blockquote>“No matter who <b>tries to stand in our way</b>
or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and
<b>the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history</b>”</blockquote>
https://www.wired.com/story/putin-nuclear-threat-ukraine-sanctions-history/
Medvedev:
2022-02-26: <blockquote>In comments on his verified page on Russian social network VK, Medvedev wrote:
"We don't especially need diplomatic relations... It's time to
<b>padlock the embassies and continue contacts looking at each other through binoculars and gun sights.</b>"
...
Moscow will continue its military operations in Ukraine until it had achieved goals defined by President Vladimir Putin as "demilitarisation and "denazification", he said.</blockquote> https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-no-longer-needs-diplomatic-ties-with-west-ex-president-medvedev-2022-02-26/
2022-03-01: <blockquote>[D]on’t forget that in human history,
<b>economic wars quite often turned into real ones,</b></blockquote> https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/top-russian-security-official-hits-back-french-threat-economic-war-against-2022-03-01/
<hr />
US reactions:
President Biden:
2022-03-01: <blockquote> <b>He [Putin] has no idea what’s coming.</b> </blockquote> https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/02/remarks-by-president-biden-in-state-of-the-union-address/
So here Biden tells Putin, and us, that an escalation is coming.
Have Biden and company thought ahead about how the Russians might respond with an escalation of their own to this U.S. escalation?
Where does this end?
What's the offramp?
Let me repeat the quote from Medvedev cited above: <blockquote><b>[E]conomic wars quite often turn into real ones </b></blockquote>
<hr />
Economic war being waged:
2022-02-28:
The initial, catastrophic, effect of the sanctions on the Russian economy:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/28/business/russia-ruble-banks-sanctions/index.html
From that article: <blockquote>"Our strategy, to put it simply, is
<b>to make sure that the Russian economy goes backward as long as President Putin decides to go forward with his invasion of Ukraine,"</b>
a senior [U.S.] administration official said.</blockquote>
2022-03-03
<blockquote>
Essentially, the West took down Russian finances in one day. The situation is likely to become worse than in 1998 because now there is no positive end. All Russia's capital markets appear to be wiped out & they are unlikely to return with anything less than profound reforms.
...
[Back to the news article:]
A major constraint for Russia is its inability to use its foreign exchange reserves to underwrite the ruble, but Grafe suggested this could be overcome by
<b>changing the ruble's reference currency to the Chinese yuan from the U.S. dollar. <b> </blockquote>
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/03/ukraine-analysts-think-western-sanctions-may-destroy-russias-economy.html
2022-03-05:
<b>Putin likens sanctions to declaration of war</b>
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday said the sanctions imposed against Russia since its invasion of Ukraine are “akin to a declaration of war" ...
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-and-ukraine-agree-to-create-evacuation-corridors-in-2-cities/
<hr />
U.S. opinion pieces
Buchanan
2022-03-04 https://buchanan.org/blog/is-a-russia-nato-clash-over-ukraine-ahead-159149
2022-02-24 https://buchanan.org/blog/did-we-provoke-putins-war-in-ukraine-159120
<hr />
Tucker Carlson opinion pieces:
2022-02-22:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-hate-putin-americans-suffer
2022-02-24:
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/gabbard-tells-tucker-this-war-could-have-been-avoided
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-america-top-three-goals-russia-ukraine-war
2022-03-02: <blockquote>Virtually every lawmaker in the room last night [the night of President Biden s State of the Union address] from both parties arrived wearing some version of the Ukrainian flag. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy came with both a Ukrainian-themed pocket square and a Ukrainian flag lapel pin. That's about as Ukrainian as you can get. Even the president of Ukraine doesn't do that very often.
What McCarthy conspicuously didn't do was don an American flag pin. No, not at all. And many others went without that, too, because within the context of last night, the American flag was literally irrelevant.
...
<i>JOE BIDEN: The ruble has already lost 30% of its value. Russia's stock market has lost 40% of its value, and trading remains suspended.
The Russian economy is reeling and <b>Putin alone is the one to blame.</b> </i> </blockquote>
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-biden-state-of-the-union
See also:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/03/16/imf-reports-the-ukraine-crisis-will-fundamentally-alter-global-economic-trade-finance-and-political-order/
To be continued ...
For some very appropriate music to listen to while reading these references, or thinking about their subject, try listening to some of the music in this playlist of Mussorgsky's works:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6WIWapSWYke9TsOfWYDtXLf3okdIDA2K
Note especially the several outstanding performances of Mussorgsky's "Great Gate of Kiev", notably conducted by the great Russian conductor Valery Gergiev.
posted by KHarbaugh at 07:49
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