Category Archives: Russia

“Yeah, eh!” Canada Among Midterm Winners

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Canada, Keystone XL, oil sands, Putin, Republicans, Russia, Senate

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By Greg Smith

There must have been a wave of cheers across Canada last week as Republicans won a majority of the U.S. Senate because the logjam over approval for the Keystone XL Pipeline may finally be over.

The Obama administration’s blockage of approval for construction of the proposed pipeline from Alberta to Texas sums up six years of his presidency: a feel-good strategy that was both doomed to fail at its intended environmental goals while certain to antagonize a key ally in the process. Stopping the pipeline from being constructed offers no benefit to anyone, including the environmentalists who form the heart of the opposition.

The crux of the matter is whether the lack of a new pipeline to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that can process the heavy crude oil coming from the Canadian oil sands will cause Canada to simply stop extracting the oil. During the 2012 presidential debates, Obama pointed out the U.S. is increasing oil production. Due to concerns about pollution and fears of global warming opponents don’t want oil extracted from the tar sands of Alberta.

It seems rather hypocritical for the U.S. to be in an oil boom while telling a neighbor their oil should stay in the ground. It is the usual argument made by too many comfortable, well-heeled environmentalists to save the planet others need to ditch their car and each winter set the thermostat to “Mother Earth thanks you.”

Canada has made it clear it will continue extracting the oil. Without Keystone oil will travel by rail – which requires more fuel and is more dangerous — to the U.S. refineries able to process it, or be sent via a proposed pipeline built to Canada’s east or west coast. In that scenario the oil can be refined in Canada and shipped elsewhere in the world, or sent abroad as crude to be refined elsewhere with lesser environmental regulations. U.S. refineries and oil companies can be cut out of the process with less energy available to the American consumer, and greater pollution in the atmosphere.

With Keystone there is a large construction project employing thousands of Americans, added business for American refineries on a permanent basis and more energy available to the American market. This will mean lower prices and encourage other business and commerce in the U.S.

Without Keystone U.S. companies and consumers could be completely shut out of access to the benefits of Canadian oil, while the oil continues to flow, but at greater economic and environmental cost, and we have jerked around a close ally for years for no good reason.

Forgoing the benefits of Keystone is still less maddening than a sitting president unable to muster the courage to just make a damn decision and live with the consequences. Obama’s unwillingness for a verdict on the pipeline permit may have actually come into the calculations Vladimir Putin made when Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s a pretty easy bet that a man afraid to make a choice on a proposed pipeline probably isn’t much of an adversary in realpolitik with a former KGB colonel.

As Soviet leaders saw decisiveness in Ronald Reagan’s willingness to fire air traffic controllers during an illegal strike in 1981, Obama has shown himself unwilling to ascend the ramparts in a fight. In short order such vacillation moves from farcical to dangerous.   ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political consultant who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at www.betterfatthanfascist.com.

76 Years Since Someone in Politics Was This Wrong

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in 2014 Election, Democrats, GOP, NATO, Putin, Republicans, Russia, Senate, Ukraine

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Given his willingness to ignore the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, President Barack Obama should send DNC Chairperson Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.

Six years on and she has the chutzpah to say it’s Bush’s fault.

Striking Syria: Tobacco Politics Gets Militarized

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Russia, Syria

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By Greg Smith

A hint government has grown too large is when it spends billions to keep tobacco cheap and growers in business while simultaneously spending billions to get people to not use tobacco products. Only such a bloated colossus could contemplate attacking both sides in someone else’s civil war.

Since the 1930s the federal government has provided various types of assistance to agricultural interests. It became apparent just over 50 years ago that smoking was bad for one’s health – causing direct government expense with the inception of Medicare and Medicaid. In just the past decade the federal government paid $1 billion a year to tobacco farmers.

We want to keep farmers in business, but we don’t want anyone to actually use their product. And a bridge to nowhere surprised you.

The government side of the Syrian civil war features a rather brutal dictator named Assad who the United Nations believes used chemical weapons in the war. The rebel side has a wide assortment of groups, including the rather brutal Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which as its name indicates is active in both countries. An ISIS army recently rumbled across the border into Iraq, appeared headed to Baghdad leaving a blood bath in its wake.

President Obama wants to launch air strikes against the Assad regime, and is preparing to authorize strikes against ISIS in Syria.

Both ISIS and the Assad regime merit some well-placed high explosives, but from a strategic standpoint attacks against both the Assad regime and ISIS in Syria will only cancel each other out unless the U.S. – the only nation with the military capacity – is willing to make a major commitment, including putting at least some troops on the ground toward a decisive event ousting Assad and leaving forces in place to assist the non-jihadist rebels.

Even if that level of involvement came to pass the U.S. doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to micromanaging other peoples’ conflicts by providing assistance to “moderate” groups. Ask the Kurds about our history of backing the right horse. Obviously, the Obama administration will not pursue that level of involvement so getting drawn in against both sides is a waste of money and potentially the lives of American service members.

The U.S. has a vested interest in keeping Iraq stable and in one piece to give elected government the chance to survive. Any ISIS fighters that wander into Iraq are fair game. But competing interests in Syria make it wise, at least for now, to leave any engagement to keeping rebels supplied and able to maintain the field.

Iran wants to cooperate with the U.S. against ISIS. Strike one! The Assad government in Syria has offered to coordinate with attacks on ISIS. Strike two! ISIS has recently made noise about attacking Russia. Strike three.

So U.S. attacks on ISIS in Syria will benefit Russia, Iran and the Assad government in Damascus. Winston Churchill said “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” ISIS is not our friend, but they are the enemy of several of our enemies. Military forces not used in Syria can just as well be used to defend Iraq and allow ISIS to continue attacking our enemies.

Waiting to act against ISIS in Syria until the pros and cons are less ambiguous is, for now, the best policy. From an American strategic perspective, ISIS is clearly the least of the four evils involved.   ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political consultant who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at www.betterfatthanfascist.com.

http://southeastfarmpress.com/tobacco/what-does-end-tobacco-buyout-mean

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/world/middleeast/isis-believed-to-have-as-many-as-17000-fighters.html

Vladimir Putin is No Richard Nixon

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by in China, Russia

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By Greg Smith

In 1972 President Richard Nixon taught the world the power of political strategy, greatly increasing U.S. leverage on the Soviet Union by opening relations with its bitter rival the Peoples Republic of China. Vladimir Putin recently tried a similar maneuver against the West, instantly proving he is no Richard Nixon.

Putin’s gambit, brokering a long-term $400 billion natural gas deal between Russia and China, was taken after Western nations placed sanctions on Russia in response to the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. Europe has grown dependent on Russian gas, and Russia on European money. Putin wants NATO capitals to shiver at the thought of its source of heat going east instead of west. In the future this example of Russia’s use of energy to gain influence will likely be looked upon as a poorly timed snub of a dull but reliable customer in favor of a Lamborghini-driving, Rolex-wearing, faux Gucci-clad garment mogul who lives with his mother, steals cable and is two months in arrears to his manicurist.

European leaders cannot help but now realize they can either dance to the Kremlin’s tune, freeze in winter or diversify their energy supply. Considering the burgeoning world gas trade, the latter will become easier as time wears on. Since Russia’s economy is nearly as dependent on energy exports as a Persian Gulf monarchy, Russia driving customers to find other suppliers is possibly the most short-term thinking seen outside Washington, DC in decades.

Were China to become a reliable long-term customer the net effect on the Russian economy would be negated. That is a Siberian sized ‘if.’

The dominant opinion that China’s economy will continue to expand as it has for over three decades is flawed. For the past five years China’s expansion of GDP has relied on massive use of borrowed money, which is being called China’s debt crisis or credit bubble, similar to that which brought on the Great Recession in the West.

The problem for Beijing is less that is has a credit bubble on its hands and more that its economy can no longer, without massive state stimulus, expand at nearly the double-digit numbers that has given it the moxie to swagger around the Pacific as the supposed next hyperpower. China’s debt-to-GDP ratio has grown from 130% in 2008 to over 250%. A healthy economy doesn’t require borrowing at a rate that is as rapid as it is massive. According to The Times of India, six years ago in China a borrowed dollar created nearly a dollar in economic growth. It now takes four borrowed dollars to create a dollar of growth, an unsustainable level even given China’s currency reserves.

History shows that no economy that allows credit to flow at such a rate escapes unscathed. Brazil, so recently a darling of the emerging markets, faced its credit bubble in 2013 and is now in recession. China’s credit increase has been much larger both in real and percentage terms.

Add in China’s rapidly aging population brought on by the One Child Policy and Beijing’s economic future is dim. The emerging market slowdown may act like the waves that swamped the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975, dragging China’s highly leveraged economy into a decades-long funk. Putin has now voluntarily made this his problem, too.

If geopolitical push comes to shove, with ease the U.S. could choke the life out of China’s export-driven economy. Chinese demand for Russian gas would plummet, putting a huge dent in the Kremlin’s ability to compete with the West economically or militarily. While such a conflict is unlikely, natural economic forces are going to do slowly what the U.S. military could do quickly.

In 1972 China and the Soviet Union were bitter ideological foes that had fought a brief border war. Nixon’s rapprochement with communist China opened a new Cold War front, forcing Russia to adopt a more cooperative tone toward both the U.S. and China. In contrast Russia’s gas deal with China will alienate Europe, freeing the next U.S. president to lead NATO aggressively against Russia. China, not known for respecting its obligations to fellow nations, knows any dependency on Russian oil will come at a steep price when, inevitably, there is another Sino-Russo tussle. Beijing is the likeliest candidate to run up huge debts to Russia and hold off paying them as leverage.

Vladimir Putin just went long on a Chinese economic expansion living on borrowed time and money. Russian economic, political and military well being now relies on the success or failure of a sovereign version of Pets.com.   ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political consultant who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at www.betterfatthanfascist.com.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/Chinas-debt-crisis-suggests-an-India-like-crash-round-the-corner/articleshow/29512055.cms

U.S. Better Have a Strong Plan B in Central Europe

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Crimea, Foreign Policy, NATO, Russia, Ukraine

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By Greg Smith

“Instead of alienating ourselves from the world, I want America – once again – to lead.” Barack Obama, July 15, 2008.

President Obama ran for office on a partial platform of improving U.S. relations with foreign countries but his administration has shown a lack of mastery of international affairs. Over a year into his second term foreign policy is ill-defined, buffeted by events and hamstrung by the secretary of state’s pre-occupation with a diplomat’s equivalent of cold fusion.

John Kerry has spent much of the past year trying to forge a framework for a final settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. In itself that would be fine, but the world is not on hold and there is no indication either government is ready to make the major concessions needed to end possibly the most bitter international dispute in modern history. Lately talk is Kerry has made progress, but it will be easy to tell if a real agreement is within reach: Iran’s proxies will rain missiles on Israel as never before.

The Obama administration may not be at fault for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but President Obama’s responses in Libya, Syria, Iran and North Korea as well as America’s recent diplomatic posture probably gave Vladimir Putin the impression the U.S. would respond to its invasion of Ukraine only with threats of a diplomatic nature.

The president and secretary of state are absolutely at fault for having three months’ notice there was a major problem brewing in one of Central Europe’s fledgling democracies and doing absolutely nothing about it. Given the likelihood of Ukraine joining NATO if Kiev lurched back toward the West, Russia’s reaction to events was quite obvious. Yet the administration had either no plan at all, or worse it had a plan and that’s what we’re seeing play out.

After 9/11 U.S. policy was too predicated on full military responses. But this president has swung even further to the other side of an effective mix of hard and soft power. Worse yet, over five years in and he doesn’t seem to have learned how to deal with trouble spots. Not every other world leader views realpolitik as a bad thing. It’s like we’re playing tennis, but Putin is playing football. The time to make adjustments is before we’re flat on our diplomatic back with a concussion.

Given Europe’s dependence on Russian petroleum exports, America’s initial response of threatening Russia with sanctions and isolation are doomed to fail and America’s partners – as well as their enemies — around the world will see to the extent they can count on us in a pinch. Simply not alienating ourselves from others is not the same as leading.   ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political consultant who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at http://www.betterfatthanfascist.com

Blockade Forces Putin to Defeat Himself

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Foreign Policy, NATO, Russia, Soft Power

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By Greg Smith

As previously covered in this blog, the best immediate response for NATO to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is to prevent access for Russian commercial and naval vessels to enter or exit the Black Sea.

One advantage of a naval blockade is it would require very limited air and naval forces, which would still be within striking distance of Iran. The U.S. Navy has grown smaller so a response that does not require a large number of ships would be preferable. The U.S. has F-22s in the region and could quickly have B-1s, which no longer have a nuclear role but can be fitted with anti-ship bombs and missiles. A blockade would be inexpensive, and Russia would not dare seriously test it.

NATO should immediately place a handful of old, expendable ships outside the Turkish Straights to act as a blockade curtain. The Russians may think we won’t risk a billion dollar cruiser in a collision, but the hockey crazy nation will understand the idea of a floating goon.

The best reason for a blockade is strategic: Russian access to the Mediterranean Sea is critical to Russia’s goal of becoming more a power equal to the U.S. Eliminating that access renders the Russian naval base nearly useless, an enormous strategic blow without firing a shot. Russia then has to decide to win a Pyrrhic victory or admit defeat. Russia would be forewarned its actions will seriously impair Vladimir Putin’s desperate desire to globally project military power.

Failure of the U.S. or NATO to act decisively will only invite further aggression, especially as it appears Russia’s incursion is intended to carve a Crimean slice off Ukraine. If the U.S. allows this to happen, which Baltic country is next on the menu?

Russia has used the Black Sea fleet to blockade the sovereign nations of Georgia and now Ukraine, it has no right to complain if another nation blockade’s the Black Sea fleet. A blockade is the best way to diffuse this crisis while preventing another. Why Washington won’t consider an essentially peaceful use of military power is beyond comprehension.  ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political consultant who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at www.betterfatthanfascist.com.