ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/24/world/europe/3-presidents-and-a-riddle-named-putin.html

doesn't make obama (or his immediate predecessor) look very good. they're like lambs dealing w/ a wolf.

Obama's re-set strategy made some progress when Medvedev wasn't being completely overruled by Putin.

So how should the wolf be dealt with?

I don't know but it seems like he was pretty naive to try and alienate Putin in favor of Medvedev, and it doesn't seem like he has much of a relationship at all with Putin today. This isn't a super uncommon critique of Obama - he's been criticized domestically and internationally for being aloof and not much of a statesman.

have you guys seen "art under Stalin"?

http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/socrealism/Stalin.jpg

This isn't a super uncommon critique of Obama - he's been criticized domestically and internationally for being aloof and not much of a statesman.

This is one of the few criticisms from the right that makes sense, but Putin, as that NYT story shows (and there are others), has no interest in relationships either: "I gave you landing rights during 9/11. Now stay the fuck out of Georgia and Crimea."

x-post to Mordy--

First you described obama as being a lamb in dealing with Putin the wolf, and now you say Obama shouldn't "alienate" Putin and say it doesn't seem like he has much of a relationship at all with Putin today. I'm not clear what you're asking of him and/or what you're saying other world leaders are doing in their dealings with Putin.

well, it was naive for him to think he could shut Putin out by concentrating on Medvedev - iirc everyone at the time of the election assumed Putin was going to maintain power + control. ignoring the dude and hoping he behaves was a pretty silly strategy and has put obama in a position where he has no leverage or really any relationship at all w/ which to try to deal w/ putin. nb it could be nothing could really help w/ Putin and he'd do what he wants, but at this point i kinda think Bush's doe-eyed soul-seeing strategy was preferable to obama's complete lack of anything. you can't play hardball w/ someone if they won't take your calls.

Bush was completely onside with Putin until Yukos / Iraq. After that i'm not sure he was much less distant than Obama, was he?

What exactly do you think Obama could be doing better to "play hardball" with Putin? And if Putin is really as monomaniacal as that article claims, why would Obama have any extra leverage if he'd tickled his tummy and made him feel wanted for a few years? It's more likely that Putin doesn't give a shit what the US thinks and considers it none of their business.

Probably Putin is angry that a western-inspired middle class took to the streets in protest against him after the last sham of an election? How should a western leader react under those cirkumstances? (how on earth is that spelled?)

(and then you answer: 'like they did with bahrain', and them I'm game, set and match...)

But really, I don't think Obama should have done that much more to create a better relationship with Putin. At this point, for me, getting rid of Janokovitj and finally, firmly establishing Ukraine as a part of Europe, is worth handing Crimea to Russia - which they to a large extent really want to be a part of anyway. Putin is a manic autocrat, and him and his stupid eurasian union can trade with themselves all they want. Don't spend energy creating a better relationship with Putin, spend it creating more ways to get energy without being involved with that stupid country.

This is way too callous to the large amount of people in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, etc, who want a better life than what life under Putin and his crony friends will offer them, but really, my point is: What does Putin has to offer the west, which we wouldn't be better off getting elsewhere? And what can he really take, which we would really miss?

Russais evils? are they any more surly than americas? Is Ukraine not their Iraq?

What does Putin has to offer the west, which we wouldn't be better off getting elsewhere?

Gas, oil, the prospect of Chelsea winning the Champions League again?

Is Ukraine not their Iraq?

Crimea is their Miami/Key West. Ukraine is all the red states they fly over to get there.

Britain is going to start importing gas directly from Russia for the first time this year. Obviously the contracts were signed ages ago but fucking great timing there.

Nonetheless Tory backbenchers will be pleased that at least we're looking to increase our trade with nations outside the EU

Peak Gas to thread!!

Russia is out of the G8!

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/24/politics/obama-europe-trip/index.html

welp

countdown to clip of Putin laughting this off in 3... 2...

Oh, they already did. 'G20 is more important anyway' But how do they think this impacts their position in G20?

I'm actually interested in this question, whether or not G20 is dominated by western allies, or whether an anti-western could gather enough strong to... do something...

I actually don't really know what happens at G20-meetings.

http://cdn.brobible.com/wp-content/uploads/files/uploads/images/College/beer-olympics/drink-enema.jpg

"G8 is an informal organization that does not give out any membership cards and, by its definition, cannot remove anyone," he said during a news conference. " All the economic and financial questions are decided in G20, and G8 has the purpose of existence as the forum of dialogue between the leading Western countries and Russia.

"If our Western partners believe that this organizational format has outlived, so be it. At least, we are not attached to this format and we don't see a great misfortune if it will not gather. Maybe, for a year or two, it will be an experiment for us to see how we live without it."

lulrz

Where did Europe get their natural gas from before they imported it from Russia? I'm going under the assumption that they did not import gas from the Soviet Union.

Less gas, more oil, I suppose?

Throgh the 50s Europe mostly used coal, even for home heating, with expected consequences

Till the 60-70s, European cities were also supplied with carbon-monoxide rich coal gas (which is why sticking one's head in the oven was an effective suicide method). Europe restricted its use of natural gas from the 70s as it was seen as limited, and more valuable as a chemical feedstock than a heating/generation fuel. Quite a few, perhaps most European countries that had chemical industries also had some domestic onshore natural gas development.

That changed with nearly contemporaneous discovery of North Sea oil & gas and the massive Urengoy gas field in East Siberia in the 1960s, the 1983 construction of the Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhgorod pipeline through Ukraine, and the belated action against environmental costs (acid rain, mercury) of coal generation (requiring scrubbers etc) which made coal both more expensive and more obviously dirtier.

Befor Urengoy, Ukraine used to be the epicenter of the Soviet Union's gas industry, but its gas was mostly used locally in chemical and fertilizer plants.

Western Europe didn't used to burn so much gas for making electricity, (much more coal) but since the 90s it's been the cheap, plentiful, 'clean' wonderfuel, that can be burnt in smaller, easier to build and easier to vary power plants . Gas coming out of the North Sea started the 'dash for gas' and Russia fuelled it.

Alternative to Russian gas are Qatar, Iran, fracking in Europe and Fracked US gas, probably in that order. It is interesting that with a rapprochement with Iran seemingly on the cards that the Ukraine crisis happened now. In a few years time Iran will potentially be able to export LNG to Europe and Russia will have less of a hold on European Energy supplies.

Xpost

Iran already exports all the LNG it can produce. The big LNG importers are Japan and Korea.

ah, ok. Thanks!

Yeah the problem with all this talk of the US being captain save-a-gas is that its not cheap to liquify and ship all of our natural gas to get all the way out to europe

A couple of U.S. import facilities have, since the shale gas revolution and collapse of the US market price, gone bankrupt, reorganized converted to LNG export. But throughput is only a tiny fraction of what Europe gets from Russia.

One bright side of this Ukraine kerfluffle is that Europe may take alternative energy megaprojects like Desertec more seriously, going forward.

^ U.S. LNG import facilites.

* kneels before the powers that be, begs for post editing, no matter how limited *

like that?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26729273

New Kyiv government looks to be moving against elements within Pravy Sektor that haven't accepted their authority. The Russian media is painting it as an assassination but the official government line looks fairly plausible.

give em hell, harry

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/harry-reid-gop-may-have-helped-russia-annex-crimea

Heh, "regional power", cold:

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-obama-russia-just-a-regional-power-20140325,0,5427785.story#axzz2wzsqrOky

accurate as well

Um, Syria. Moscow has intervened where the West fears to tread.

Russia has a smaller population than Bangladesh. Its still punching above its weight, globally speaking.

poor bangladesh :(

Russia is nearly twice as big as the second biggest country in the world. It's still punching below it's potential weight in the exploitation of natural resources. Part of the push behind Crimea, and in a way, part of the anxiety about the emergence of a mainstream gay culture, relates back to its diminishing population, though. There's a feeling on the right, real or imagined, that Russia is dying and needs a substantial population boost to keep heading in the right direction.

Punching below its weight in tech too.

yeah russian birth rates are pretty low, aren't they? what they really need is a good "fuck for your country" campaign

They had that and it didn't work!

"Mother Russia is watching you... fuck"

Um, Syria. Moscow has intervened where the West fears to tread.

what are you, john mccain? is iran a global power also? moscow has intervened where the west is too smart to tread. it represents no existential threat, short term or long term, to the united states. i still think there are ways to exploit its recent anxiety and bellicosity. encourage corruption in its economy and centrality of fossil fuels, foster a brain drain, depress the overall economy in a way that bolsters the oligarchy, make their source of power open to disruption, hollow them out from the inside. some combination of engagement and containment, combined w/ the base logic and focus of capitalism. bleed them.

Nah. I'm just familiar with the history of Sevastopol. 220,000 Russians died defending it in 1854-55 against the French and English, and around 20,000 Russians died defending it from the Germans in 1941–42. Crimea is as central to Russian history as Chickamauga or Chancellorsville are to American history. Plus, I think in an era with trade pacts and permanent supranational governance like the EU, multi-national states like the Austro-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Yugoslavia, Sudan or Ukraine are a bit of an atavism. Let the Crimeans decide which band of crooks they want to cozy up with, including "none of the above".

Gazprom Proposes Oil, Gas Development in Crimea (Of course they do)

encourage corruption in its economy and centrality of fossil fuels

lol tough ask

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/03/russias-revenge-why-west-will-never-understand-kremlin

That article is not really making the point the standfirst suggest btw, or at least it's not the main point.