Hannibal Barca wrote: flamming_python wrote: Hannibal Barca wrote:Can you please stop panicking like p@@@y all the time? East seriously winning this economic war over Ukraine.
I was just about to come up with a nickname - Panicky Austin
Actually the whole idea of militarily intervening in the Crimea was stupid; at least until the Ukrainian military would try to retake it by force and employ mass firepower, cynical as it may sound.
It has created this situation where Russia is stuck between a bad choice and an even worse choice, whereas were it to stay its hand - it would be in a better position.
But now that Russia's made its decision, it has to keep the course, and do whatever's neccessery to keep East Ukraine from sliding under the thumb of the Kiev putschists.
Or indeed it will lose it, and also access to Pridnestrovie, and have no buffer between its own territory and a hostile state, semi-hostile military alliance, the West + new Europe will be emboldened to strike further, etc...
And against that some temporary capital outflow or slowdown of economic growth doesn't matter. Russia can take the strain, it can take the strain even if the economy slides into recession which so far its not doing.
Even more. Actually BRICS winning also the economic front.
Additional Europe is collapsing. Nationalists will triumph in the next European elections and ALL nationalists but the ones in Baltics are Eurosceptic and pro Russian.
This Ukrainian thing not only is going well so far but may very well grow to a new Stalingrad for US hegemony in Europe.
I have no accurate prognosis about Europe's domestic trends.
However if I were to guess, then I would very much guess against any significant nationalist victory in any major European country within the next 5-6 years at least - sure it's a trend but it's a slow moving one, it will only be accelerated in case of severe economic troubles.
What will probably happen is that they will grow to be included in ruling coalitions. Ukraine actually heralded this with the inclusion of Svoboda and Pravyj Sektor and the appointment of many of their deputies into organs of state power; although of course no-one actually elected any of them. However once the right-wing parties do make their way into coalitions, they will probably turn down their foreign-policy tune in exchange for concessions in domestic policy. Let's face it - a Russia-friendly EU country is the last thing Washington or Brussels will tolerate..
The current Baltic Junta has basically held power since 1991, and keeps up their legitimacy through constant fear-mongering, orchestrating political provocations against Russia (in order for their population to be hit by the inevitable response), etc... and now with the Crimean episode, they have plenty more ammo for their arsenal; they ain't going anywhere.
What I will say however is this. There are a few fortunate side-effects of Putin's seizure of the Crimea, one of them being that it has pretty much beholden the EU and US to financial assistance to the Ukraine; no matter how much of a basket-case and hopeless cause it turns out to be.
In fact, the Ukraine keeping its Eastern provinces for now is somewhat of a blessing in disguise; it pretty much guarantees that the country will be an economic Afghanistan for anyone sinking money into it - because there is no way to make all those industries in the East profitable or even sustainable without sinking in dozens of billions of dollars into them in addition to the dozens of billions of dollars needed just to stabilise the Ukrainian economy. Huge amounts of money is needed in order to retool and modernise those industries, and have them create something that would be in demand in European markets.
Simply put - all the money that the US and EU will be putting into the Ukraine, they might as well be throwing into a black hole - there is no possible return on it for them and this is going to create considerable economic pressure on the entire EU.
I will also agree that Russia's actions have created a divide in the EU, albeit I don't think the cracks will begin to show until well after this initial phase of bewilderment and pandemonium has died down. The trouble is that Washington has arbitrarily traded away Europe's, Western Europe's in particular but also not forgetting Hungary's, Greece's, Turkey's, Finland's, Czech Republic's, etc... own very fruitful economic, and increasingly defense-industrial, energy, etc... ties with Russia... for a piss-poor country with an illegitimate government full of Nazis on the verge of civil war that's busy working the block with hat in hand asking for billions of dollars at a time when the European continent can barely afford paying for it's own troubles.
Japan is not to be forgotten either, publically they are going along with the US program but privately - all of their diplomatic efforts over the last few years at building closer ties with Russia, expanding mutual investment, etc... are now in danger of ruin.
South Korea so far has been quiet, but if Washington pulls the strings they'll go along only reluctantly - owing to the booming business ties and large amounts of defense industry co-operation.
Israel can't be very happy either, albeit America will probably leave them be vis-a-vis Russia because other considerations take priority.
Hell I don't New Zealand is happy either, they had a representitive in Moscow negotiating an FTA when the crisis hit.
The loudest of the anti-Russian bunch are the US, Canada and Australia - all 3 countries which have basically no economic interests in Russia at all and relatively tiny amounts of trade with Russia.
And yes, while Russia was the one that seized the Crimea - no-one is under any illusion about the US's actions in the Ukraine and it's role in precipitating the crisis; Turkey, India, China, etc... have all come out publicly with their views on this.
Last edited by flamming_python on Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:14 am; edited 1 time in total
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