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EU warns US it may respond swiftly to counter new sanctions on Russia
- Thread starter Shiggy
- Start date
Because that is exactly what happened.
Fuck man, even Bruce Springsteen stopped arguing that Trump wasn't a Russian stooge.
He lost all of his money, and couldn't get loans. Dirty Russian money supported him. Everyone he us surrounded with, by choice, has ties to Russian influence.
Russians hacked the dnc, to get trump to win.
You just ignore all of this, which is fine. But more informed people see this as an issue.
Captain Tuttle
Member
How about an electric powered car? Plenty of those around and a good way to generate electricity is through nuclear energy? And Uranium is much more portable in quantity than natural gas or oil, no huge tankers or massive pipelines. You could do away with Russian Uranium and buy it from other sources
You don't even need Uranium. Breeder reactors could theoretically be designed to use many other types of fuel.
TheLaughingStock
Member
Take a step back and think about the implications of what you're suggesting. A Russian agent has access and can use the country's nuclear codes as he sees fit. He's yucking it up with foreign leaders. He's seen countless pieces of classified information. Spearheading domestic policy. Making the final call on military decisions. Installing and influencing 1000s of positions throughout the gov't. You really believe that would be allowed? Impossible.
dreamcastmaster
Banned
Like the UK? Whoops!
Dude. It happened.
He may be an "unwitting" Russian agent, in that he thinks he is being independent. But Trump is most certainly acting in the best interests of Putin and not necessarily the US or its allies, in almost all matters.
Helping out his "comrades" is almost the only thing he has been consistent on.
Like, your hypothetical is exactly why so many people want him gone. He's in the can for a hostile nation, and has access to a bunch of classified shit, and is shaping military policy to be friendlier to Putin, even if it is not in America's best interest.
It's like you don't believe what is happening in front of you, even though the evidence is all there and then claim it's impossible.
He has access to classified intelligence... which he has improperly leaked to Russia. He makes military decisions, which he has already used to protect hostile regimes friendly with Russia. And he makes foreign policy decisions, which he has tried to unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia like 2-3 times, and then his advisers eventually steered him away by jangling keys.
These are the reasons this bill freaking exists.
Why do you think people want him over Pence?
Your example that sanctions work is NK and Iran? Really? If anything, American foreign politics demonstrates that whatever the US is doing doesn't work - at all.
And you're comparing that to the 30s? Why not compare it to everything that happened AFTER WW2?
Europe was at it throats for millennia until... you know, the started trading their resources instead of fighting over them. That's how the EU started, and this strategy has been very successful, vastly more so than the US' example of divide and conquer. The same happened with Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. They were integrated in European trade relations and bound by interdependencies - in this case natural gas. And it worked quite well for 20 years until somebody decided to fuck it up - and no, this wasn't all Russia's doing. Everyone played their part. The CIA (or rather the US) was meddling in Ukraine since at least 2004 (Orange Revolution), the EU was going to fuck them over with their treaty in 2011 (that's how some German diplomats phrased it), and than Russia sealed the deal with the Crimea thing.
And the US' reaction? "fuck the EU"-unilateral actions that benefited them and hurt their "allies". Because that has worked so well in the past - at least for the US. It's actually quite beautiful. Fuck over your friends and then put the blame on them afterwards - just like in this thread.
I didn't talk about the measures in place (but even that is debatable, see below) but the perception/world view displayed in this thread. The US side is all about "punishment". Sanctions are not punishment, they are a bargaining tool, only effective for short time-periods. But that's not how the US is using them. In German it's called "Zuckerbrot und Peitsche" but there is no Zuckerbrot in the US' approach, there is only punishment. But that's probably due to different mentalities.
so you've missed the last 20 years since the 1990s and Russia's attempts to establish a pan-european free-trade area?
"Appeasement", whatever that means, may not work, unilateral sanctions do not work, but (interdependent) trade relations do. They did for over 60 years and we've got plenty of proof for that.
Kinda fascinating how quickly even the most liberal Americans put on their tinfoil-hat as soon as Russia is involved. I mean, I get it. They are the eternal enemy and in most minds the cold war never stopped. An outside enemy is, after all, imperative for every hegemon in a neorealist system.
And it's also easier to blame "the enemy" than do some self-reflecting. The fact that Russian meddling had hardly any effect in European elections should have given them a hint...
But that would also mean admitting that every citizen and both parties are to blame for this. Trump didn't win because of hacking, he won because both parties benefit from a screwed up electoral system where the candidate with the lesser votes can win - just like it happened last year. And society is ok or in some cases even in support of such a fucked up system. Solely blaming it on Russia will not solve the underlying issue.
Hypothetically speaking, just assume the US goes to war with Russia, defeats them, completely eradicates the country and splits it up in a bunch of puppet states. Everything is fine, right? But then, a few years later China decides to meddle in your elections, are you going to do the same? And with every other country after that?
You can hardly blame the thief if you leave your front door wide open. You should take the thief to trial, but you should also remember to close that door. But as it looks atm, the door is going to stay open for the next 200 years, since everyone is obsessing over the thief instead.
Well... this turned out longer than I intended and I'm sure I will be painted with the "if you're not with us you're with the enemy"-brush, but remember: complex issues, especially international relations are never black and white nor can they be discussed twitter-style in 140 letters like your sociopath in the white house likes to
1) yes sanctions have worked in NK and Iran, does Iran have nuclear weapons? Has NK invaded South Korea? The answer to both is no. Obama was taking steps to normalize relations with Iran (which of course dumb fuck Trump will fuck up) showing the carrot and stick approach you later say the us doesn't do.
2) I would argue that Germany treats its allies rather terribly. The punishment on Greece is as bad or worse than any US sanctions on Russia or whomever else.
3) I like how everyone ignores that Russia had a role in Brexit. Is Brexit good for the health of the EU? Is it an attack against the union? Yes, Russia's meddling in French elections failed. Maybe Trump won for other reasons. Maybe Brexit was always going to pass. But Trump's win and Brexit were both very close votes, so the meddling could have turned the tide
4) I agree with you that it would be good to have trade relations between every nation, but they need to be decent international partners first. Let's not beat around the bush. Germany would let Russia have a Crimea, and put up with election meddling as long as it doesn't disrupt that sweet sweet cheap natural gas. That is their position here and it's... short sighted.
Theonik
Member
Depends. What you CAN do is use nuclear to store energy either as heat or as hydro-kinetic energy which can then be used how gas is use today.
Muffin1611
Banned
Actually, electricity heating is the main solution here, and most of it come from nuclear power plants, so... yes? And heat pumps can make the thing quite efficient.
dragonelite
Member
Do you know how much equipment needs to replaced to run the average dutch household on something different then gas. This is an even bigger task then to get people into electric vehicles. That would mean decades of replacing gas based cooking, heating etc. This will not happen within the next 5 year maybe in the next 30 years.
Maybe if US had this LNG overproduction in 2000 instead of 2012 the EU might have slowly replaced NG with more LNG equipment. Be less dependent on Russian gas.
Nuclear would have been a fine solution in the previous century(the 70s), right now i think renewable energy sources is our best bet given the dropping prices.
Probably easier to recover from if a war happens. I rather not think about the US or Russia bombing a Nuclear reactor, i rather have them blow up a windmill or solar panel array.
The purpose of the sanctions was to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons and failed tremendously, NK is a nuclear power and is nearing his goal for an ICBM. There weren't any meaningful resolutions or sanctions before the nuclear crisis and how should sanctions stop NK from invading SK? The international community wouldn't care about NK without it's nuclear weapons and ICBM, like in the past (1950-2006).
It's easy to implement sanctions against another a country when it won't hurt your own economy.
For example - maybe the EU will look at Boeing's $27bn long-term investment in Russia? Or Microsoft/google services that are provided to Russian companies etc?
Sanctions are usually agreed between countries at the highest level, to prevent this kind of mess. "We'll sanction your trade with X, trashing your economy, but not ours!".
So where is the evidence that Russia hacked the French election?
Hacked, I don't think there's anything solid (except Macron's mailboxes being hacked, but that lead to nothing, and possibly spying using Facebook ^_^)
There was a harsh campaign against him in several russian medias, though...
I can only guess, but you're right, if a country is heavily dependant on gas, it won't change in a matter of years.
Granted, but I wonder if a nuclear reactor is worse than a dam... I wonder btw whether bombing a nuclear power plant would be seen as a nuclear attack.
If NK thought it could invade SK without suffering consequences it would do so.
Largely, NK has bombed no one, invaded no one, and there has been peace on the Korean Peninsula for 60 years. Treating them like a rogue nation has been an effective strategy overall, based on that measure, even if the current sanctions were not entirely effective.
Perhaps Europe didn't care much about NK in the 90s, but they were certainly in the news in the US. Bush was calling them part of the axis of evil as early as 2002.
And again, what is your solution? If sanctions don't work, and you are saying we should not pursue sanctions, then give me something that will work.
Surely you are not suggesting that we invade North Korea and Russia, right?
I posted it earlier in the thread. There was an independent, non governmental assessment pointing to APT28, based on common email addresses used in other Russian hacks, the use of Cyrillic Alphabet keyboards and Russian versions of Microsoft Office to process some of the files, and a few other things.
It's posted on Ars Tecnica.
Edit: Of course it's a junior... they come out of the woodwork to defend Russia
Agreed. looking the other way on such an evil regime because they have cheap gas.
It's shameful and short sighted. Putin will invade all soviet bloc countries if given the chance, and it sounds like the EU is actually pretty ok with that.
Because the "government" has limited checks when it comes to overturning an election, the first being the electoral college, the next being impeachment.
Yes, absolutely. What are the credit controls but a form of sanctions against Greece? "Agree to this debt control package, and institute these laws, or else".
And Greece has been in recession for damn near a decade, with a GDP per capita today that is about 2/3 what it was in 2006. That is an absolutely devastating amount of recession and it was caused and exacerbated by EU policy.
The EU has absolutely screwed Greece in the financial crisis and Germany is unwilling to absorb any inflation hit in favor of its less prosperous neighbors.
You can have a opinion on the effectiveness of austerity or not but Germany never issued capital controls for Greece. Greece was offered money to avoid a default in return for certain austerity measures.It was never forced to accept these packages and was free to get the money elsewhere or default.
Must've been dreaming of the ECB pumping 1.1 trillion € into markets to drive up inflation since 2015. Seriously, get your facts straight.
Anyway the US can decide if it actually still wants to work with europe or just add another nail to the coffin of american leadership
Coriolanus
Banned
One does not need to offer a viable solution in order to shoot down an unviable solution.
"But we gotta do SOMETHING" isn't an argument.
This is quite true. Xando and i have some (quite) different opinions wrt greece, but end of the day, the fault for the latest deal rests with Tsipras for being a feckless fucknut that chose to bluff when he shouldve been playing for keeps.
That is an interesting take. The EU negotiated with Greece with a gun to their head. Even the IMF says it was a mistake.
Greece has de factor capital controls because it operates under a pseudo gold standard of the EU.
Look at Greeces economy. Are you REALLY going to argue that it was well-handled or in any was a success? It hasn't recovered at all.
IMO, Creditors should have been forced to take haircuts. Actually, I would not be surprised if this still happens in the next few years.
This. This. This.
They should have talked to the EU beforehand, as before. This way it looks like an attack on Europe as much as on Russia. That's not how you deal with allies.
My argument is "we need to punish bad actors even if it doesn't actually change their behavior."
If the only affect of sanctions on russia is that it makes it life more difficult for Putin and the oligarchs but doesn't remove them from power than it was worth it.
The idea that your position is "what difference does it make if we are propping up a murderous dictator? He's never going to change and his oil is cheap!" frankly I find that indefensible on moral grounds.
I also happen to think it is shortsighted. Rogue states need to be treated like rogue states.
And again, the case against sanctions is not clear cut. There is no counter factual world where there were no Iran or NK sanctions. We have no idea what would have happened without them.
IMO Greece should have grexited in 2011 and converted to their original currency. It would have been the best thing for their economy. Instead they are in some sort of Great Depression like situation and have had nearly 10 years of constant crisis.
I'm not really speaking about the latest round of sanctions, so much as the totality of all of the sanctions. Germany has largely made it a moral argument, designed to avoid them having to inflate their currency or invest their money to bail out another EU nation.
IMO, you are right that Tsipras should have been ready to walk away and leave the EU. If they were ready to do this in 2011 or 2013, the EU likely would have folded and properly bailed them out.
Nice moving goal posts.
You claim Germany forced Greece into capital controls i tell you this cant be true because germany has no power over decisions made by Tsipras or Varoufakis
You claim greece was forced to enter the bailouts by the EU which isnt true because first greece was free to get the money elsewhere (look at how Tsipras tried to get it from russia or china) or second default which was the preferred option for some in the german government.
And once again you move the goalpost by now trying to claim i said the crisis was well handled.
You don't seem to get a key distinction here. Nobody is saying he's a "Russian agent". That sounds like conspiracy talk.
What we're saying is he's corrupt, and that a large proportion of that corruption is thanks to financial ties with Russia.
That doesn't mean he's an "agent". It means he has conflicts of interests (i.e. with being a leader for over 350 million people) that are as deep as they are broad.
Vicetrailia
Member
This is messy only because we have Trump.
The problem here is that unlike the Magnitsky Act which aims directly at the criminal individuals this interferes with all trade of all people dealing across the border. Not only is it unlikely to hit Putin himself much (won't even reduce his approval ratings since it can be sold to the public as a foreign attack which makes them rally instead of question him) it disrupts a ton of business since, well, Russia is a whole country full of consumers and workers, not just a crime family. Businesses don't like such rapid changes and will suffer big losses which the EU govts don't want.
Wag
Member
Nobody knew diplomacy would be so complicated...
Why not Norway? We are kind, we are lovely, we are polite and we don't act like drunken Bastards in your vacation spot.
.We also look nicer than Brits, and are very huggable with our long beards and hair
. So again?
Why not Norway?
Wow, the amount of hypocrisy in this thread is mind boggling.
- The EU repeatedly asked to coordinate sanctions. Trump decides to ignore this and flies off on his own.
- We get to hear 'America first' and 'the EU sucks' over and over. Sucks doesn't it? Perhaps the US government just wants to push their own energy industry on us?
- Yes, we can just switch over an entire continent to new energy sources overnight. lol.
- Russia is on our borders; some decent relationship with that country is in our interests, how scummy Putin may be. We have been getting gas from Russia *for decades* already. Now it's suddenly considered 'scummy'.
- Yes, 'diplomacy' is a bitch.
I guess it's real easy to sit on your high horse and scream bloody murder when you're 10.000 miles away, separated by an ocean.
- The EU repeatedly asked to coordinate sanctions. Trump decides to ignore this and flies off on his own.
- We get to hear 'America first' and 'the EU sucks' over and over. Sucks doesn't it? Perhaps the US government just wants to push their own energy industry on us?
- Yes, we can just switch over an entire continent to new energy sources overnight. lol.
- Russia is on our borders; some decent relationship with that country is in our interests, how scummy Putin may be. We have been getting gas from Russia *for decades* already. Now it's suddenly considered 'scummy'.
- Yes, 'diplomacy' is a bitch.
I guess it's real easy to sit on your high horse and scream bloody murder when you're 10.000 miles away, separated by an ocean.
TatteredHat
Member
If it's going to be America First on that side of the pond it should be Europe First on this side of the pond.
Too bad that your electoral system is so easy to manipulate, Russia probably tried it over here as well but failed badly.
Feel free to complain about it all you want about us propping up an oppressive regime, it just makes you hypocrites.
We do need to become more energy independent, but Europe should never put its citizens in harms way because of a pissing contest between the US and Russia.
Too bad that your electoral system is so easy to manipulate, Russia probably tried it over here as well but failed badly.
Feel free to complain about it all you want about us propping up an oppressive regime, it just makes you hypocrites.
We do need to become more energy independent, but Europe should never put its citizens in harms way because of a pissing contest between the US and Russia.
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