Reading through this thread and it’s funny to me how Americentric all these takes are. I don’t blame y’all. The British are the same way, thinking it’s about them and bringing their internal politics into this. The Germans don’t care as much, they got their discount Russian gas pipeline and checked out. The French are playing the heroic part of diplomat since the others don’t care and are letting them pretend they’re a big boy. Poland is pissed, and as soon as they wipe the grease of their hands and figure out how to use the two factor authorization thingy to unlock their phone they will explain why.
Anyway, the American transition to becoming a nation of pussies is almost complete. Old Bush started it when presented a golden opportunity he ignored, Clinton was lazy and thought it was over, other Bush or whoever called the shots at least had some balls but traded in their chips to a more cunning player, Obama completely fucked it up worse than any of them, Trump only had four years or he would have rivaled him, and Biden is trying but he’s out of his element and that’s the nicest thing I can say about his entire existence. Magic underwear Romney was partially right, and everyone laughed at him. Never thought I’d see the day.
Since I'm an American, I like America First takes. If the Euros don't like Putin messing in their backyard, then they should man up. Their combined economies are multiple times as large as Russia. Relying on Russia for their energy is just as smart as relying on the chicoms for all our drugs and then funding their gain of function research on bat viruses at a substandard bio lab.
Nothing wrong with caring about the US as top priority. I’m the same way.
At the same time, there are high stakes here. The Euros aren’t going to do shit, it doesn’t matter if even Italy has a bigger economy than Russia. German business interests would never allow it. American hegemony is long gone, maybe we don’t need it anymore or ever even did. But let me tell you, there’s some major fallout coming from watching this happen. It’s the old ounce of prevention for a pound of cure. We’re just kicking the can down the road if we do nothing and eventually the costs will be magnitudes greater.
I’ve spent years working in that part of the world solving problems and I am beyond surprised that it’s gotten to this point, it’s a surreal scenario that is one step away from worst case. The repercussions are bigger than most people realize, and the old man in Washington has done a shitty job explaining them to the American people.
We can put sanctions on Russia. I'd also sanction any European country that was taking gas from the Russians. The killer will be to drive down world oil prices with a big increase in US oil and gas production. We aren't and shouldn't get into a shooting war over Ukraine. I'd be happy to make the Euros scream bloody murder at us. What are they going to do - send us a mean tweet. Pull every US soldier out. No big American paychecks going to buy Euro housing and food. Oh, and take out Iran with the Israelis before we let the Iranians have nukes. But the dems and Biden would never even try this, let alone phuck it up with or emasculated military.
I’m not disagreeing with your main point if the point is us not getting into a shooting war. That would be ludicrous. This is just for clarification:
* Driving down the oil price isn’t going to bother Putin. In 2014 oil fell from ~$100 bbl and didn’t get above 60 for four years. This is in addition to the sanctions for the first farcical invasion. Russia’s economy was hurt but it didn’t move the needle.
* Putin doesn’t care if it’s worse for the average Ivan. That’s not how the system is set up. Votes don’t matter in an oligarchic kleptocracy unless they belong to the oligarchs. And the oligarchs exist because Putin allows them to exist so long as they don’t meddle in politics.
* Euros besides those who know Russia (Baltics and Poland won’t scream because they don’t care enough. The (Western) Europeans are all in such precarious positions of power, with split electorates where a few percentage points puts the other parties in charge. They won’t do anything to harm themselves.
* The US has said they won’t cut Russia off from SWIFT and that’s one of the few things that will move the needle. Great strategy by sleepy Joe, tell them ahead of time that you won’t use the best non violent deterrent.
The way out is to cause the Russian oligarchs and middle class to suffer enough economic pain to put pressure on Putin to give up being Stalin 2.0 and recreating his shitty empire. Cut them off from the banking system and freeze/seize the assets of all his oligarch minions. That’s it, threat over.
