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It is a matter of how it forces neighbors to route natural gas via the pipelines. They "encourage" it to go through Russia, allowing them to optimize control over pricing and distribution. It has very little to do with setting prices for it's imports, it is about expanding the process to capture more things to export.
I'm generally a free market guy, and Russia stinks.
Russia does, in some ways, but you have to agree that the USA is worse in that regard. The oil consumption cartel, enforced by military gunpoint, stinks. I'm glad I will never again pull a trigger for oil.
Why do we assume that Russia ever stopped aiming its Nukes at the west?
The USA is justified in its ABM systems. Its not just Russia anymore. Its Iran, N.Korea, China and anyone else who these countries including Russia have sold the technology to.
The Russians share a continent with the Han of China that have been expanding thier area of control for 6,000 years. Why would the Russians worry about the United States?
Last edited by GregW; 02-19-2008 at 06:33 AM..
Reason: sp?
The Russians share a continent with the Han of China that have been expanding thier area of control for 6,000 years. Why would the Russians worry about the United States?
Because now they're in a position to act (at least in part) on their worries. A credit to their newfound 'wealth'. I think it's more that Russia no longer wants to be viewed as the Cold War stepchild and wants to apply pressure to its original territories
What shall we call the confluence of both radical Islam and the socialist states of Russia and China, Islamo-Fasci-Commie-ism?
Humor aside, I have mentioned in several threads a rising "view" in the east that is even outside the strengthening Russian-Chinese economic ascension. This view that both Russia and China feel they can more gratuitously use the American term of "national interest". They would in fact be every bit as correct as we when they exert their influence over a given segment of their own society and even those external to their own. Russian national interest (along with most other nations) extends to a growing number of corners of the globe as it is one of the inevitable results of globalization and the global economic markets.
In the end however it is not the Russian missiles pointed at the US that bothers as much as it is the potential economic missiles pointed at the US by Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and a litany of other smaller nations. The face of modern warfare has changed a good deal among the more sophisticated nations and the next 9-11 is more likely to come in the form of a cyber DOS attack by a bot net of indeterminate origin against our financial markets than it will be from ICBM's.
Russia is a short term player on the world scene. Given its sliding demographics, it's fighting to remain relevant. Forty years from now, it will be a mid level power like France.
They probably already have and are. The cold war never ended Russia just became a democracy and the United States shut up about it. Do you know how easy it would be to pipe oil over from Russia to Alaska? Why do you think they have not taken the initiative to do that? Why do you think Russia is being in such alliance with Iran and China? It is part of their long term plan to prepare for WWIII. Right now this may sound like a little much but in five years, trust me it won't. They already have control over most Iranian oil by trading nuclear technology with Iran. Americans act so clueless, or they are.
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