Ukrainians oust pro-Russian leader that also happen to be highly corrupt. Russia responds by occupying Ukrainian province using ethnic Russian population as pretext. Ukraine happens to have US/Britain guarantees for its sovereignty via 90s-era nuclear disarmament treaty.

Possible outcomes:

a. Russia holds sham (might be even accurate) referendum, and permanently annexes territory on basis on the results. Nobody does anything about it.

b. Ukraine declares war on Russia, shooting war starts, but Ukraine doesn't get much support and start losing.

c. US gets involved in a limited way, Russia backs down.

d. US gets involved, Russia does not back down. A bunch of US aircraft carriers get sunk by Russian supersonic missiles.

e. Nukes start flying.


I think b. then c. will happen. I am willing to bet Putin will try to capture bigger area than Crimea, domestic pressure to justify his on-going leadership could force him into irrational actions.

Now, I think that WW3-with-nukes drastic outcomes are unlikely. Shooting war is possible, but unlikely if Putin stops at Crimea.

As to actual support for Ukraine, EU is too corrupt and dependent on Russian natural resources to do anything. US is too far away to have effective reach and no longer can dictate economic policy in EU. Sanctions are unlikely. EU that is already on a shaky fiscal ground is not going to commit to such massively expensive sanctions.

What I think Putin failed to understand is that Crimea under Russian control will be another Chechnya. Muslim population of tatars that are content as part of Ukraine will all but guaranteed will start radicalizing under Russian control.

Interesting take from Slate:

I think the most likely is Crimea gaining full autonomy, and quietly realigning with Ukraine on many issues while being vocally pro-Russian.

Seems like Putin, or at least his proxies have overplayed their hand. While Ukraine objects loudly to infractions against their sovereignty, at the end of the day realpolitik should set in and prevent bloodshed. Because dropping large segments of ethnic Russians from the voter rolls will help ensure Ukraine's real independence in the long run.

The Tatars are an interesting problem, but if Crimea does not have to implement Russian decrees and a local govt is smart enough to not cause problems.. I wonder if they would object to independence. I dont know the answer, and suspect it revolves around a great many local circumstances of which I am unaware.

Next point of discussion - market effects.

Today was significant selloff, I don't think shooting (and further downturn) is likely, but not going to bet money on it since I can't estimate risk with all irrationality involved.

Buffet posted "value of money goes down during armed conflict" blog, what do you think of it?

While I agree with Buffet in general terms, I would also agree with you that trying to time the market based on something as inherently irrational as armed conflict is not optimal.

If you are comfortable going long, there may be some good discounts available on stable blue chips like ARMH under the general concept that you will be ahead whenever the bounce back occurs.

I was eyeballing MMM and QCOM, but lets get back to talking about Russia.

I am surprised that things appear to be de-escalating.

Yes, Russian stock market and currency crashes probably have to do something with it, but Putin must have realized this would happen.

Something else outside of eye of media must have happened. Some back-channel deal with US on Syria or Iran?

Like I said - I see it ending in autonomy for Crimea. Unless something new has broken, the Russians are still there they have just backed off threatening the rest of eastern Ukraine.

Since Ukraine has leverage to keep Crimea in line over the long haul, anyone with a lick of common sense in the Kiev govt is going to want to shed those ethnic Russian voters from the rolls because it will make it much harder to re-install a pro Russian govt in Kiev.

Also, Syria/Iran deal could be part of it as well - might be why Obama was meeting with Bibi Netanyahu. Without Likud on board, AIPAC would make major political headaches regarding any Iran/Syria deal.

I read interesting article suggesting that this incident could be used to re-align policy away from war on terror. I'd much rather we race Russia to Mars than waste all that money on paid child and grandma rapist and peeping tom salaries at TSA.

If so, Ukraine deserves more than 1B in aid.

From what little I have read into this.....

This seemed like a European funded protest that was timed during the Russian Olympics so it could fester into a shit storm while they had to sit on their hands.

I think the high level European string pullers that got their jimmies rustled over the billions lost when the trade deal failed. Say what you will about who is right and wrong here but this was a European corporate sponsored coup.

I don't think they expected the Russians to respond so quietly and swiftly after the Olympics ended. They expected to have this cat in the bag by the time they could respond. Russians were already putting boots on the ground before the news hit the media machine.

I'm not casting a right or wrong ballot here....But lets face it. These are two super power run corporate interest fighting over gas supply meant for the Europeans that Russia siphoned at the last minute.

I agree that Russia needs to get back home before this turns into another long winded Chechen style war though.

Putin has made his point already with a very minimal military presence. Russian support will fade if they see the guerrilla warfare machine start revving up even more than it already is over there.

Ukrainian protests were mostly about Yanukovich trying to move Ukraine closer to Russian non-democratic "democracy" governance model. Sure, it was triggered by EU, but that wasn't what it was about.

This was Round2 of Orange Revolution, where Ukrainian people refused to go along with degradation of their democratic rights.

For Putin, the reverse was true. He couldn't leave Ukraine alone or he would risk democratic protests imported into Russia. He already had to deal with some during earlier elections.

This in my book deserves admiration and our support.

Lots of asshattery on both sides. Fundamentally, its probably better for people in Ukraine - majority of them anyhow, to align with Europe.

But even that comes with problems, such as basically selling the country to the IMF. Putin is fighting against the IMF and international banking cartels as much as anything, and also of course having cultivated a nationalist sentiment at home comes under significant internal pressure to act where "Russian Nationals" are involved.

I think a lot of the Orange people in Ukraine have good intentions and high aspirations. Vitali Klitschko in particular is a very respectable person.

Unfortunately the people in Ukraine are caught between the corporatist banking cartel/IMF vultures on one side, and corrupt expressions of Russian nationalism on the other. Pick your poison. The IMF probably a more palatable poison, since they will just impoverish the country where the Russians were going to impoverish the country and enforce a bunch of absurd laws.

Interesting writeup on Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleader...raine-is-wrong/

Radical nationalists may also intend to cure cancer too, but have near zero ability to do ether.



This is false in many ways. Russian-speaking East Ukrainians are not a uniform "pro-Russian" group, many have no interest in joining less liberal Russia as a distant province.

Otherwise, yes, this is just like US "conflict" between liberals and conservatives. Two camps with slightly different ideologies that fight at the polls.

Armed violence, on other hand, was 100% Russian import. Prior to Crimea Ukraine managed to have ZERO violence of this kind (aside from occasional fist fight in their congress) with the political sides largely unchanged. Ukraine also went through similar Orange Revolution without it degrading into armed violence.

The last time anything like this happened was post WW2 when Russia re-established control over its territory, plus a great deal of victor's spoils, and Ukraine's short-lived independence was violently repressed. Big chunk of present day Ukraine was not under control of USSR before WW2.



AHAHAHAHA! Good one. No, wait, this guy is serious.

Overall - Vladimir Golstein is nothing but Kremlin apologist.

Interesting to get different views on the story, but I agree some of the statements seemed a bit odd.

Its like 2 sides shouting "my oligarch is better than your oligarch" at each other.

Perhaps he's suggesting that Putin is replacing oligarchy with dictatorship...

Why do you think Putin is backpedaling on Ukraine right now? He was set to annex East Ukraine, and now he withdraw his special ops and letting it stabilize. Why? Because sanctions + markets cost Oligarchs a very large fortune, with more threatened if he goes through with the plan.


He is not as in control as he thought going in. If he costs too much money he will be replaced by the next apparatchik. He clearly wants to go in, has physical means to do so, domestic propaganda to justify it, and West unwillingness to go into shooting war over Ukraine.

The odd one out is money. Money talks bullshit walks. Oligarchs are still in charge.

Russian-export "Ukrainian" separatists shoot down civilian plane using advanced Russian military hardware.

This is going to turn much uglier for Russia since US/Germany just got a green light to get involved in this.

Why do I have the feeling that this will be forgotten in a few months and nothing more than political jabs will come from it?

Israel did however seize that window of media distraction to move into Gaza.

I think we have very real possibility of proxy war with Russia.

Russian military shelling Ukraine

US getting involved by providing intel.

We definitely don't have a President (Obama) that's capable to go to any kind of war with Russia. Very poor leader under fire.

Oh yeah... remember when Romney said Russia is our biggest threat and everyone laughed. Look who's laughing now. Not that I would want Romney as President. Hopefully the Democrats keep illegals from voting to a minimum so we can have a real leader in Rand Paul as our next President. That would be something compared to the failure we've endured since 08'

Yes, Romney was correct, but this was the "broken clock" kind of correctness.

Yes, I don't think Obama's administration are capable of handling potential escalation with Russia.

No, I don't think there is any merit to "illegals from voting" hysteria. There is just no credible evidence of this happening.

I'm still not sure how Russia is our biggest threat, or why we even care about what happens in Europe. Let Germany and France subsidize their own gas pipeline defense.

Derid, play out "EU in deep recession" scenario in your head. This is why it is our problem.

Yeah I have. And so what?

Even if it is the case... printing massive amounts of money to subsidize the EU - financially, militarily, in general - is one of the primary reasons the global economy is on eggshells in the first place.

The status quo of the USA subsidizing Europe's various fallacies cannot continue indefinitely. Its well past time for some tough love.

Well, at least you are consistent in pursuing both domestic and foreign monetary policy that leads to recession. Global economy in not a zero-sum game, everyone can win or everyone could lose.

Falling prey to what in terms likely most recognizable to you is analogous to the planning fallacy is not anti recession.

You are consistent in regards to short sighted thinking and missing the forest for the trees though.

We are now at the century mark of the US seriously meddling to no long term good with the affairs of Europe and Asia, starting with WW1. Still, very few have learned the lessons of history or realized that Washington had it right.

At least in the Western world productivity gains outpaced population growth. If we don't try to feed starving Nigerian children it is very possible to end both hunger and poverty at home. Unfortunately human condition prevents outright redistribution of goods and services. So we have to work around it.

What does work is increasing imaginary numbers (fiat currency) for productive population, and as long as bulk of it is kept from getting exchanged for basic foods&goods we ALL can have PLENTY. We can actually redistribute basic necessities in a very fair way and use luxury goods for productivity/economic gains.

With that in mind, austerity makes absolutely zero sense. You compromise REAL quality of life (e.g. ability to buy food) to manipulate IMAGINARY numbers. This is why we invented fiat currency - so we don't have to do things like that anymore.

Well, first off thats not what I was referring to. You are trying to shift the topic. Feel free to start another thread about how wealth should be forcibly redistributed. (Ironically a rather failed experiment by the Russians that actually are pertinent to the topic)

Secondly you still seem to think that despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that a free lunch exists. Regarding this topic, which is military interventionism and political gamesmanship - its kind of ironic you make the fiat statement though since this very topic exists because fiat money is absolutely not used for basic foodstuffs its a de facto tool to fuel globe spanning military machines.

Third, dont try and make this about "austerity" and change the topic. Its entirely possible to pay for things from actual tax revenue, the world did it for a long... long time.

Running like Forest Gump from the assertions I was actually making, trying to make military interventionist topic into a topic about hot button keywords "austerity" and "redistribution". Why dont you make new threads if you want to start totally different conversations.

Road map for this conversation:

1. Russia
2. Sanctions
3. Negative impact of sanctions on EU
4. EU recession
5. Global effect of EU's recession
6. Isolationism and austerity
7. Fiat currency and economy

Here, I connected the dots for you.

Now you are just making me laugh. I am sure it makes all kind of sense to an irrational mind.

here is another analogy for you: If we were playing Jenga, I would be looking at the base and you would be worried about how you handled the top.

Russian ground invasion started.

Russia threatens nukes

Oh wow... so who was in back in the 2012 campaign that said Russia was one of our biggest threats? Oh yeah... Romney did while others blew it off. Including the current Incompetent President.

We had better get our shit together. We need to stop with all the frivolous spending and get back to the basics. Get a moving Economy and bring back the America we used to know. Which is a WORKING America. All these lazy fucks sitting on their nuts drawing a paycheck because some dickholes in our Government think we should GIVE people something. Fuck giving... it's time to EARN it. This country is going to self destruct because to many want something they think is OWED to them.

I wonder if someone will get a radioactive pellet shot into their leg if the money keeps going downhill.

If you want WORKING America, penalize outsourcing and capital offshoring. Still, in principle I agree - Economy is the way to beat Russia. USSR went bankrupt, then lost Cold War. The same could be done to Russia during Cold War 2.

As to Russia being a threat, yes Romney was correct. Likely in 2016 you will have no choice but hawkishness, since it will be Hillary vs. Random GOP.

Hilary... LMAO that would be an even bigger FAIL than Obama. I really hope humanity has came far enough to not vote that hack in office. We need it to be Rand Paul, then a revamping of the shitty congress. We as a country need to get back to work people are to worried who they will offend or how much they will get from Uncle Sam to get up and work. I say fuck being offended grow a pair and move on, get up off that ass and do something about the situation they maybe in. Instead of voting for someone to give them something.

But hey back to WW3... I say fuck it, tell Putin to take Kiev in turn we will take Damascus & Tehran just for the LOLS

While I too would like to see Rand 16 (because I know this is more likely than progressive 16), if that happens it will likely be repeat of Obama's presidency in terms of GOP (now with Dems added) establishment obstructionism.

Now that Russian economy crashed, Putin is doubling-down on Ukraine. He moved 'no flag' regular troops back into the fray and pushing back Ukrainian army and volunteers. Some rumbling "To Odessa and Kiev" heard from Kremlin's upper echelons.

Economist on escalation in Ukraine

Economist on Putin's plans

PDF Brookings on Ukraine policy

New Minsk agreement signed, my money is that peace won't hold.

Russian critic assassinated for investigating Russian involvement in Ukraine.

To be honest I am surprised Putin hasn't been taken out.
He is costing the elites a lot of money.

Putin has cultivated an environment where the next best alternative is far worse.

Plus Russian intelligence and security services largely back him, and enjoy immense influence in his regime. As long as this holds true, he will be very hard to get to.