Monthly Archives: March 2022

Russia, No-Fly Zones, and War

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Highly touted Russia expert Rebekah Koffler ridiculed the idea of a no-fly zone being erected over Ukraine. Her disdain is not at all centered on practicalities—basing, logistics, etc—but on fear of war with Russia.

The Hill: Foreign policy experts call for ‘limited no-fly zone’ over Ukraine
Same “experts” who got UKR-RUS into this conflict in the first place, by promoting foolish ideas, not grounded in reality.
Now dragging us into WWIII.

And

If the “experts” believe a no-fly zone will make Putin stand down, they are dumb.
If they are running a PSYOP on Putin, it will have the opposite effect. Putin doesn’t think like an American. He thinks like a Russian.
P will interpret the move as escalatory, not de-escalatory.

Koffler’s underlying thesis that Putin doesn’t think like us is right. But in her terror of confronting Putin with a no-fly zone over Ukraine, she wants us to back away from a Putin threat of war against us. Talk about “dumb as a Siberian shoe….”

Her position raises the question: what are her recognition keys for when it is…appropriate…for us to stop backing away from Putin and instead to stand and confront him?

This “Russia expert” is carefully silent on matter. Maybe she’s not dumb as a Siberian shoe…. Maybe it’s more that As a lamb she sitteth meke and stille, as leef on lynde.

Energy Independence

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Let’s say, arguendo, that the Biden-Harris administration is sincere in its desire to switch America over, entirely, to renewable energy sources. Let’s say, also arguendo, that that’s even a good idea. Former Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke had some thoughts that bear on the execution of these premises:

The first two years of the Trump administration, we went from 8.3 million barrels a day [and] declining in just two years to 12.5 million barrels a day, the world’s largest exporter of energy. And it just wasn’t fossil fuels, it was across the board. So fast-forward now; we have Russia and we should immediately ban Russian oil [the Biden-Harris administration finally got around to doing this last Tuesday, albeit with an unspecified effective as of date].

However, the Biden-Harris administration still is begging OPEC to increase its oil output, now talking seriously about lifting sanctions on Iran so as to buy Iranian oil, and adding to that going to Venezuela to “negotiate” for oil from that nation. This is because we no longer have the ability to control our own energy pricing through our own domestic oil and gas production. Paradoxically, Biden-Harris has attacked our fossil fuel industry with greater zeal than it has shown against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

All of that is in the name of getting us off fossil fuels and onto “green,” renewable energy sources as quickly as domestic fossil fuels can be eliminated, regardless of the cost to us Americans, financially and politically around the world, and regardless of the current inability of wind and solar to deliver reliable energy, much less in the amounts our economy needs.

Here’s an alternative path to that golden chalice.

Biden-Harris should take the Federal government out of the way of our fossil fuel production industry—oil, natural gas, and yes, coal—and let us produce all of that energy that the market can bear. That will let us return to energy independence.

Biden-Harris acolytes always point to the 9,000, or so, oil leases that oil producers already own and aren’t exploiting. Biden-Harris acolytes, along with Biden-Harris himself, carefully ignore the fact that those leases require exploration and development of actual oil locations and that the Biden-Harris administration is sitting on existing permit applications to do that and refusing to accept (or slow walking, which functionally the same) new permit applications. Biden-Harris acolytes, along with Biden-Harris himself, also carefully ignore the usurious royalties Biden-Harris has decided to charge on new extractions–new oil and gas drilling/fracking. Biden-Harris acolytes, along with Biden-Harris himself, also carefully ignore the administration blocks on pipelines–and blocks on the separate permits needed to transport oil and gas via those pipelines (and via train in the case of oil)–and on storage facilities so that oil and gas can be delivered to refineries, and they carefully ignore the time required to obtain rights of way for those pipelines even were on permitted [sic] to be built.

Oil and natural gas producers also are wary of the Biden-Harris administration’s fickle performance with regard to its fossil fuel regulating regime and are hesitant to commit the several millions of dollars that are required up front just to get started when that fickleness is too likely to block an effort after those millions have been committed.

Letting our nation return to energy independence will, tautologically, make us not dependent on other nations for our energy—not our enemies, not our allies, not our friends.

That will put us—our free market economy and its private enterprises—back in control of our energy production. That production control would extend to production from all sources, including renewable (and nuclear, which can be quasi-renewable) sources.

That will generate the time and prosperity that then will let us develop the technologies needed to get reliable renewable energy in the industrial quantities we need, without the worsening pollution and expanding carbon footprint (assuming, once again arguendo, that that’s a bad thing) inherent in current production abilities, at a pace that we can afford, and at prices we Americans can afford to pay.

The Collapse of the Ruble

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Much is being made of the collapse of the Russian ruble since the sanctions with which we’ve answered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine went into effect. Here’s the US Dollar-Russian Ruble exchange rate over the last month (as of 6 March 2022):

For context, here is the performance of the ruble against our dollar since 30 January 2012:

The current drop is sharp, but so far, it looks a lot like the drop in the latter half of 2014—when sanctions were going in over Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine and its occupation of Donbas and Crimea, and following which the ruble more or less stabilized into a (very) slow degradation vis-à-vis our dollar.

The current round of sanctions are important, and the further devaluing of Russia’s ruble are important, but history suggests that the exchange rate will once again more or less stabilize without changing Russia’s behavior.

Concrete support for Ukraine remains critical, and that concrete action includes sharply increasing the transfer of arms—including combat aircraft and more capable anti-aircraft batteries than just (but not instead of) Stingers—transfer of offensive weapons, so that Ukraine can drive the barbarians back out of their nation; and a cessation of the Biden-Harris’ constant retreat whenever Vladimir Putin threatens war against us.

The Value of Talks

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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army [sic] and air force [also sic] are repeatedly and routinely bombarding civilian urban areas, hospitals, and schools, and the barbarians he employs as “soldiers” routinely rape and murder captured women and children and torture and murder captured men.

Putin does this especially hard right before his teams engage in “talks” with Ukrainian peace negotiators. Putin also flatly denies his barbarians do this at all.

Mr. Putin spoke Monday with the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, asserting—contrary to evidence of deadly Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine—that the Russian military was taking steps to save civilian lives, and accusing Kyiv of obstructing those efforts, according to the Kremlin’s account of the phone call.
As Russia continued to erase the line between military and civilian targets, Russian forces shot and killed Yuri Prylypko, the head of the village council in Hostomel, outside Kyiv, and two people who were helping him distribute food and medicine, according to the council’s Facebook page. Hostomel was the site of fierce fighting in the war’s early days.
In Kharkiv, near the Russian border, Russia intensified attacks on civilian targets, pressing to subdue a city, Ukraine’s second largest, that remains in Ukrainian control after days of fierce bombardment.

And so on.

Which raises the question: what is the value of engaging in talks of any sort with anyone in the Russian government, much less peace talks for Ukraine?

One is as critical as it might seem to be trivial: to get Putin’s lies, and those of his teams he sends out to pretend to negotiate, about his crimes on the record alongside his crimes.

There’s Debt, and There’s Debt

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James Jay Carafano speculated on the lessons People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping is learning from Russia President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. One of those lessons is the coming cost of bailing out Putin’s economy, should he win, lose, or draw in Ukraine, and should Xi choose to do a bailout.

Beijing’s buddy in Moscow is going to be an economic basket case. Even if Beijing wants to bail them out with their patent debt trap, that is going to cost a lot of money—likely more than the Chinese Communist Party can spare. Buying up Russia at fire-sale prices might be more than even Xi can manage.

Not necessarily. The People’s Republic of China and generations of the state of China before it have considered (Russian) Siberia to have been stolen from the Chinese. A few short years ago, Putin and Xi concluded an economic deal that has Russia and the PRC jointly exploiting eastern and southern Siberia’s vast resources, both on the ground (timber) and below it (ores, oil, natural gas, among others), with the vast bulk of the labor being Chinese, and with that Chinese labor (and their families) moving into Siberia to live and do the work.

One way to do the bailout, with its re-formed means of debt repayment, would be to alter the exploitation deal in the PRC’s favor. Sharply alter it.