What if Ukraine's situation escalates?

(28-04-2014, 12:04 PM)corydorus Wrote: Which makes Putin dangerous isn't it ? This guy will bully his way out when he can. Shoot down plane as he likes.
Grab land as he wishes.

What did the Chinese do. Nothing. Why no one criticizes them ?

Despite self interests often at play, Euro or US do keep him in checks which is align to common interests. The world would be a terrible place imo without them. Is not surprising most of the world sided USA/Europe though not on everything.

U ought to look at it the other way round as well. It is widely perceived that US had a hand in the breakup of USSR. Warsaw pact was dissolved and now NATO is at Russia's backyard.

The way some of this commentaries are as if Russia is the brainless bogeymen in Austin Powers, only intent on evil. They are also interested in their own national interests.

Russia was weak under Yeltsin but not a sitting duck under Putin. The general international sense is Crimea is critical to the black sea fleet which is why the resistance is somewhat half hearted. But Ukraine would be a very strategic area. See how "relatively" close Moscow is to the Ukraine border. And the baseline is of course these were all previous USSR territories.

As for the Chinese: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They will not say anything.

The issue is not whether US has a hand. In fact i am glad if they have a hand in it. That's mean all our interests are align.
As i said earlier, the new World order has no place for Soviet Union. If we can break up the smaller Russia the better. Hopefully this will kill Putin dream for good.

When Ukraine situation goes out of hand and US is preoccupied there.....China might be tempted to teach Japan a 'small' lesson.....

I'm just glad we don't have oil, if we did I think singapore would be a chaotic place like those countries in the video get manipulated by predators.

The next step for our defenses and make the place more stable will be getting at least 2 aircraft carriers now that we closed down paya lebar airbase.

(29-04-2014, 07:11 PM)sgd Wrote: I'm just glad we don't have oil, if we did I think singapore would be a chaotic place like those countries in the video get manipulated by predators.

The next step for our defenses and make the place more stable will be getting at least 2 aircraft carriers now that we closed down paya lebar airbase.

No true, how about Burnei? They are getting along well.

(29-04-2014, 07:21 PM)orangetea Wrote:

(29-04-2014, 07:11 PM)sgd Wrote: I'm just glad we don't have oil, if we did I think singapore would be a chaotic place like those countries in the video get manipulated by predators.

The next step for our defenses and make the place more stable will be getting at least 2 aircraft carriers now that we closed down paya lebar airbase.

No true, how about Burnei? They are getting along well.

There was a coup happened in Brunei before that's why there's 2 battalion of british gurkas stationed there on top of us having our saf base there

(28-04-2014, 11:01 AM)specuvestor Wrote: I had the impression that US is now energy independent, but I could be wrong that it is a projection, and on the way to crude independent

Interesting premise.

Let's talk crude. How long do you think it will take for US to become a net exporter of crude oil?

^^ You are good at google. You can find the range is between optimistic 2020 to 2035.

As per the shale thread, you can also see how far off the estimations are say 5 years back in 2009 when shale first started. IMHO these estimations are off primarily for 2 reasons: 1) People UNDERestimate impact of shale on oil consumption, the dynamics of energy demand vis a viz energy source is actually more correlated than experts assume, hence the decline in US oil consumption 2) people OVERestimate the production cycle of shale as they peak in around 5 years per field vs decades for an oil field

Hence I think US is likely to have a euphoric decade going forward. If there is any exporting of oil then it would be in the next decade, assuming the legislature even allow for oil export. Beyond that it is anyone's guess on how sustainable is shale as energy source.

But to me the most important issue is not the academic ramblings, but the geo-political reason as the catalyst for US to be self-sufficient. The US relationship with Saudi has deteriorated since 911 and their presence in Middle East diminished with the Arab Spring and Mubarak, topping off with Syria. Their agenda for self-sufficiency AT LEAST from Middle Eastern supplies is very obvious from a national interest point of view

(29-04-2014, 07:11 PM)sgd Wrote: The next step for our defenses and make the place more stable will be getting at least 2 aircraft carriers now that we closed down paya lebar airbase.

You might want to check out how much it cost to build an aircraft carrier and to MAINTAIN one, vs our defence budget

There are good reasons why even military powers globally only have one carrier, not to mention 2 (Besides US only 2 other countries have 2 aircraft carriers in operation)

You need a fleet to protect the aircraft carrier. The personnel involves are 5000 or more alone. And they are highly trained. You also need aircraft that can work on it to project your power faraway. Cost also exclude all the supplies and support. Unless you print money for the world to use, hardly anyone can match America in capability or scale.

All sanctions will not have immediate bite. Sanctions are meant for making you feel the pain down the road. When the people feel the pain, they react.
That being said, I don't believer Russia really import anything significant, net exporter I believe.
It will be a long road for EU and US sanctions to bite.... just look at Iran, N Korea, Cuba..... these countries can trade among themselves already.