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Rarely do both CNN and RT report the same story. But this time they are doing just that.
Russia is in “Full Alert” according to CNN, while RT says Putin ordered “massive surprise drills”.
According to Russia’s RT, “38,000 troops, 41 ships, 15 submarines, 110 jets and choppers are taking part in the drills which focus on boosting Russia’s military presence in the Arctic and test how quickly special operations forces can be moved along large distances.” This is being done just as NATO U.S. and several Eastern European NATO countries conduct a series of military exercises near Russia's border. In response, Putin has ordered his Northern Fleet "to full alert in a snap combat readiness exercise" in the Arctic.
I’m not sure if its such a good idea to play “chicken” with a guy like Putin. This is one of those situations that is probably nothing but sabre-rattling, but could also get very ugly, very fast.
FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”.
5 comments:
1) Actually, Putin has seemed strangely lethargic in the past 4 months. The pro-Russian rebels only hold a small piece ( 5% of Ukraine land area?) whereas the pro-Russia area used to encompass about half of Ukraine.
2)The time to have rolled back the coup in Kiev was during the past 4 months -- when the winter cold and threat of gas being shut off from Russia would have deterred the EU from supporting stronger sanctions. (EU gets about 30% of it's natural gas from Russia.)
As Mark Anthony told Pompey, winter does not last forever -- spring comes --snows melt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfeytbHBPFM
3) What the corporate US News Media is NOT mentioning here in the USA is that high level Yanukovych supporters are dropping like flies in Kiev. Apparently democracy fills men with such joy that they dive out of 17 story apartment windows:
http://www.rferl.org/content/suicide-homicide-ukraine-officials/26888375.html
3) Russia does have 306 ICBMs with 1000 warheads and about 700 of those warheads are 800 kilotons. Able to blast and burn out to six miles in all directions , not counting the intense downwind fallout. But the US is equally armed, so Putin muttering about nukes impresses no one. Even though NATO bases in Ukraine will lead to the eventual conquest of Russia (stealth drones, nuclear warheads, First Strike).
4) If Putin was serious, he would have been doing civil defense drills -- emptying Russia's major cities to the countryside. The opening kickoff to nuclear war.
The Pentagon would be forced to do the same and Wall Street would go crazy. Asymmetry.
A Russia with a $2.1 Trillion GDP and a debt only equal to 13.4 percent of GDP has a lot less to lose from rattling the china than does a USA with a $17 Trillion GDP and with $18 Trillion in federal debt alone
(105 % of GDP). Just one example of steps Russia is not taking, for some reason.
5) If signs of Russian evacuations do start to appear, Americans would do well to remember that the US government does not guarantee savings in the stock market or mutual funds. And if you look at your home insurance policies, you will notice that loss of homes due to "Acts of War" are NOT covered.
We have not gone down that path yet -- but we have approached the beginning of the path.
Obama and the neocons are fools and poking the Russian bear with a stick. This after engineering the fall of a democratically elected, if corrupt, Ukrainian government on their doorstep. Does anyone think these fascists are worth starting WW3 over. Obama plays basketball, Putin plays chess and is a martial arts expert. Who would you bet on to outmaneuver the other? If the balloon goes up worrying about insurance and the stock market is laughable IMO.
Re Steve at 7:44 PM
1) You missed my point -- the balloon doesn't have to go up for significant damage to occur to our savings -- the balloon just has to appear held on string by a clown.
2) What would a civil defense evacuation do to housing values for urban real estate (hint: look at what happened to our inner cities after the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s --when everyone decided that being 10-15 miles out from ground zero (beyond the blast/fire effects) was a good idea. Result: Instant massive growth of the American suburbs.)
3) And if urban real estate falls, what happens to all the derivatives based on urban real estate --and to the banks holding them? And to the stock market.
Given all our financial/economic/debt problems , I really don't understand why Obama is shaking the china.
It's rich that the US are engineering a conflict with Russia. The US lost all armed conflicts after WWII, all conflicts of choice against vastly inferior military defenses. Why provoke Russia, which actually has a world-class military, after such an abysmal record?
What is the most alarming, is the fact that Putin has turned Russia in the last years into a fascist state. Its perhaps not yet the same as nazi's Germany before the second war, but already very similar to Mussolini's Italy. Yesterday there was an event in St Petersburg. So-called russian friends from extreem right organisations of Europe met each other there. Some of them neo-nazi. And whole this event in a place (former Leningrad) where during the second war hundreads of thousands russians died fighting against hitler's army and hunger (900 days siege). The cynicism and hypocrisy of Putin does not know any boundaries. But what would you expect from a thug?
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