Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
I'm surprised that there hasn't been any discussion on JPP about the situation in the Ukrain & the Crimea.
The Ukraine
- Thread starter Mott the Hoople
- Start date
Airstrip One
Completely Effed
I've always found cranes to be pretty cool.
Billy the Great Khan
Uwaa OmO
I'm not surprised by your lack of reading comprehension. There have been several.
mott quit russian to judgement.
lol
cancel2 2022
Canceled
-∞/10
Billy the Great Khan
Uwaa OmO
Not enough redundant U's for your tastes huh?
Airstrip One
Completely Effed
Trinity is on a roll here!
-∞*∞/10
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Actually on the foreign policy front I'm finding this a fascinating event. One that is as complex as Chinese Arithmatic.
The fundamental problem of the Ukraine is one that is shared by many of the former Soviet Republics and is also shared by many other third world nations. That is, since independence from the former Soviet Union the Ukraine has been governed by one cleptocracy after the other. The pro-Russian Ukrainian prime minister, Viktor Yanukoyvich was ousted by the recent revolt for corruption. Billions of dollars in Ukrainian currency has simply dissapeared under Yanukoyvich and his ministers. They drained the government coffers so badly that the Ukrainian government was no longer able to function adequatly. The previous prime minister, Yulia Tymonshenko, who during her reign was considered the third most powerful woman in the world (behind German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and US S0S Hilliary Clinton) was just recently released after 2.5 years in prison after being convicted on corruption charges. Tymenshenko, prior to politics as a Ukrainian oligarch who made billions as an engineer/economist in the gas industry.
Then you have deep divisions within the Ukrainian population. Western Ukraine has a strong desire to westernize and has close ties to the EU. Eastern Ukraine has a large ethic Russian population with deep ties to Russia. Then there is also the legitimate interest Russia has in the Crimea. As part of the agreement between Russia and the Ukraine when the Ukraine was granted independence that Russia maintained access to it's Naval facilities in the Crimea which is Russia's only warm weather ocean port.
Which ties back to the divisions within the Ukraine. The population is obviously fed up with years of corrupt governance and cleptocracy and the ethnic Russian population of eastern Ukraine obviously sees closer ties to Russia as in their best interest for sound governance as opposed to replacing one group of corrupt Ukrainian politicians with another equally corrupt group of politicians.
Then there's the issue of Natural gas and how this is going to play a role in the course of politics. The big political stick that Russia is using in the Ukraine and to thwart EU interference is natural gas. Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe (and the Ukraine). The Ukraine owes billions in debt to Russia for natural gas. Russia is threatening to call in the payments for that debt and end the steep price discounts to coerce the Ukraine and the EU to respect their geopolitical interest in the Ukraine.
However that big stick which Russia has been using for over a decade now has been significantly weakened by the advent and advance of fracking technology in the US. Russia was and still is the largest exporter of natural gas in the world. Until recently they were also the worlds largest producer of natural gas in the world. That is until the US developed it's current horizontal drilling and fracking technology. Now the US is the largest producer of natural gas in the world.
So now the US government has issued permits to develop the US's natural gas exporting infrastructure. Something that won't really be ready to have a significant impact on the world market until around 2017 when the liquified gas terminals in port regions have been constructed and become operational as well as building a fleet of natural gas tanker ships. With this development the dependece of the EU on Russia as its main source of natural gas can be steeply reduced and thus greatly curtailing Russia's influence using natural gas as a political big stick.
But that has domestic political consequences in the US. US industry and US consumers are depending on this domestic natural gas supply to steeply reduce energy costs for manufacturing and home heating. By exporting this gas tremendous profits can be made by the oil and gas companies but at a substantial cost to manufacturers and home owners who are depending on cheap natural gas supplies. Those cheap domestic natural gas supplies also enter into the geopolitcal fray as it reduces US dependency on foreigh sources of energy from nations who's foreign policies are oppositional to US interests. Obviously there will be deep concerns by the US public about our Government using natural gas as a geopolitical tool at the expense of the American public and consumers.
So as I referred to earlier this whole event is more complex than Chinese arithmatic and it will be interesting to see how the Obama administration will handle this. We've already heard the expected crying of the war hawk neo-conservatives who want immediate and harsh economic and military sanctions against Russia. The problem for them is that they lost all credibility in their bunging of the immoral war in Iraq.
To complicate matters even more Russia is playing a central role with the US in terms of policy in regards to what is currently happening in Iran with its development of its nuclear program, with the civil war in Syria and with the US involvement in Afghanistan.
It certainly is going to be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
On a personal note, my wife and I have a friend from the Ukraine, she's a stunningly beautiful tall blonde young woman who came to the US and worked at the Hotel as a student intern where my wife is a manager. She was completing a degree in hospitality management (which is the same degree my wife has). She came over quite often for dinner and to lounge by our swimming pool (The scary part is she's pretty much an average Ukranian girl, I guess the Ukraine has a well earned reputation in Europe for producing beautiful women.). From our communications with her is that there is a general sense of dispair in the Ukraine on how to end government corruption and a rather fatalistic view that one group of corrupt oligarchs will just replace the current theives when they have their next election. Yulia, our friend, has expressed deep frustrations in this regards. We're just hoping things work out peacefully as she's a lovely young lady and we're deeply worried for her and her future.
The fundamental problem of the Ukraine is one that is shared by many of the former Soviet Republics and is also shared by many other third world nations. That is, since independence from the former Soviet Union the Ukraine has been governed by one cleptocracy after the other. The pro-Russian Ukrainian prime minister, Viktor Yanukoyvich was ousted by the recent revolt for corruption. Billions of dollars in Ukrainian currency has simply dissapeared under Yanukoyvich and his ministers. They drained the government coffers so badly that the Ukrainian government was no longer able to function adequatly. The previous prime minister, Yulia Tymonshenko, who during her reign was considered the third most powerful woman in the world (behind German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and US S0S Hilliary Clinton) was just recently released after 2.5 years in prison after being convicted on corruption charges. Tymenshenko, prior to politics as a Ukrainian oligarch who made billions as an engineer/economist in the gas industry.
Then you have deep divisions within the Ukrainian population. Western Ukraine has a strong desire to westernize and has close ties to the EU. Eastern Ukraine has a large ethic Russian population with deep ties to Russia. Then there is also the legitimate interest Russia has in the Crimea. As part of the agreement between Russia and the Ukraine when the Ukraine was granted independence that Russia maintained access to it's Naval facilities in the Crimea which is Russia's only warm weather ocean port.
Which ties back to the divisions within the Ukraine. The population is obviously fed up with years of corrupt governance and cleptocracy and the ethnic Russian population of eastern Ukraine obviously sees closer ties to Russia as in their best interest for sound governance as opposed to replacing one group of corrupt Ukrainian politicians with another equally corrupt group of politicians.
Then there's the issue of Natural gas and how this is going to play a role in the course of politics. The big political stick that Russia is using in the Ukraine and to thwart EU interference is natural gas. Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe (and the Ukraine). The Ukraine owes billions in debt to Russia for natural gas. Russia is threatening to call in the payments for that debt and end the steep price discounts to coerce the Ukraine and the EU to respect their geopolitical interest in the Ukraine.
However that big stick which Russia has been using for over a decade now has been significantly weakened by the advent and advance of fracking technology in the US. Russia was and still is the largest exporter of natural gas in the world. Until recently they were also the worlds largest producer of natural gas in the world. That is until the US developed it's current horizontal drilling and fracking technology. Now the US is the largest producer of natural gas in the world.
So now the US government has issued permits to develop the US's natural gas exporting infrastructure. Something that won't really be ready to have a significant impact on the world market until around 2017 when the liquified gas terminals in port regions have been constructed and become operational as well as building a fleet of natural gas tanker ships. With this development the dependece of the EU on Russia as its main source of natural gas can be steeply reduced and thus greatly curtailing Russia's influence using natural gas as a political big stick.
But that has domestic political consequences in the US. US industry and US consumers are depending on this domestic natural gas supply to steeply reduce energy costs for manufacturing and home heating. By exporting this gas tremendous profits can be made by the oil and gas companies but at a substantial cost to manufacturers and home owners who are depending on cheap natural gas supplies. Those cheap domestic natural gas supplies also enter into the geopolitcal fray as it reduces US dependency on foreigh sources of energy from nations who's foreign policies are oppositional to US interests. Obviously there will be deep concerns by the US public about our Government using natural gas as a geopolitical tool at the expense of the American public and consumers.
So as I referred to earlier this whole event is more complex than Chinese arithmatic and it will be interesting to see how the Obama administration will handle this. We've already heard the expected crying of the war hawk neo-conservatives who want immediate and harsh economic and military sanctions against Russia. The problem for them is that they lost all credibility in their bunging of the immoral war in Iraq.
To complicate matters even more Russia is playing a central role with the US in terms of policy in regards to what is currently happening in Iran with its development of its nuclear program, with the civil war in Syria and with the US involvement in Afghanistan.
It certainly is going to be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
On a personal note, my wife and I have a friend from the Ukraine, she's a stunningly beautiful tall blonde young woman who came to the US and worked at the Hotel as a student intern where my wife is a manager. She was completing a degree in hospitality management (which is the same degree my wife has). She came over quite often for dinner and to lounge by our swimming pool (The scary part is she's pretty much an average Ukranian girl, I guess the Ukraine has a well earned reputation in Europe for producing beautiful women.). From our communications with her is that there is a general sense of dispair in the Ukraine on how to end government corruption and a rather fatalistic view that one group of corrupt oligarchs will just replace the current theives when they have their next election. Yulia, our friend, has expressed deep frustrations in this regards. We're just hoping things work out peacefully as she's a lovely young lady and we're deeply worried for her and her future.
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Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Bump...come on folks...this is the biggest foreign policy issue in a long time....let's show some interest here!
cancel2 2022
Canceled
Can I just say that my son was due to go to Kiev several weeks ago on a business trip with Cisco but it has been postponed. He did say that speaking the people over there that it isn't that big a deal from their point of view.
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Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Well I didn't get the impression from our friend Yulia that they feared Russia carpet bombing the country. Her biggest fear is the problem they have in their political system of one group of corrupt thieves being replaced by another group of corrupt thieves which is harming ecomonic development and domestic prosperity for most of the peoples of the Ukraine. Political corruption and bribery are taken as a matter of course there and has a long standing tradition culturally speaking. I think that is beginning to change. Thus the civil unrest.
cancel2 2022
Canceled
I am not sure that Yulia Tymoshenko was any less corrupt than Viktor Yanukovych, she is a billionaire who got that way under very dubious circumstances. Unfortunately they all seem to be as corrupt as hell, it is hard to see anyone that has clean hands.
Billy the Great Khan
Uwaa OmO
It's not our problem, and it's a national security risk for Russia, so let them deal with it. We wouldn't want China or Russia deciding who gets to rule Mexico (my pick for the NEXT revolution)
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Which is why she just spent 2.5 years in prison...and that is indeed a problem there.
Airstrip One
Completely Effed
So, Ukraine has a shortage of hand sanitizers?
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
You'd need some if you met our friend Yulia....I'm serious about the Ukraines reputation for beautiful women.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/sea...=image&fr=yfp-t-901&va=ukrainian+women+photos
This is Ukrainian former prime minister Yulia Tymenshenko
https://images.search.yahoo.com/ima...igi=13i0vh7ku&.crumb=N2G8DieO22t&fr=yfp-t-901
and this young lady is the spitting image of our friend Yulia.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/ima...igi=110s73v0u&.crumb=N2G8DieO22t&fr=yfp-t-901
cancel2 2022
Canceled
The German military went through the locals like a dose of salts. That's why there are so many blondes, same story in the Czech Republic. Poland, Hungary et al. You should go to Prague sometime but leave the missus behind as you will just get earache.