Despite tough talk from Brussels (and Berlin) about “retaliation” over these new measures, no shots will be fired, no diplomatic relations broken, no dramatic shifts away from Washington and toward Moscow will be taking place.
Antonov now has the dubious honor to be in the eye of the Russia/US diplomatic storm close up in Washington. It may seem at times like operating behind enemy lines.
The question is, what is the answer? Is the US ever going to be comfy with a nuclear North? Nope. Yet they too know that if we go in, it’s going to be uglier than most imagine.
Democrat. Republican. When it comes to this collusion story, there’s no real difference.
And so it boils down to this: The EU and its leading nations have some soul searching to do. Are they going to roll over and do what they're told, like Uncle Sam's dependable lapdog, or are they going to defy their erstwhile master and refuse to comply with a new round of Iranian sanctions?
If you can’t say anything else, the last year and a half has been entertaining, hasn’t it! I can’t wait for the results of the investigations, not to mention the mid terms. This ought to be a lot of fun.
... it is entirely possible that the next major war will be fought not by human soldiers but by telepathically controlled drone swarms and autonomous weapons. I mean, humans will die, of course, they just won't be required to do the fighting.
I wish it wasn’t so, but as you can see, the worlds in a bit of a mess right now and as we approach the mid-terms, I think all manner of hell is going to break loose.
This is the problem with criminality. Like a cancer, if it is allowed to fester in one part of society it will, sooner or later, spread to others.
Endless US launched war in Syria rages. Is aggression on the Islamic Republic coming? Will Trump regime hardliners dare embroil the region in something far more dangerous than already?
The bottom line is that like Obama, it’s rarely the person that climbs to the top. It’s the “man behind the curtain” that pulls the levers and pushes the buttons, that gets that person to the top.
When someone is spreading rumors and easily debunkable lies about you, you speak up. You set the record straight. You fight back. You do something . . . don't you?
So here we are, with the battle lines of the 21st century forming exactly as the CFR globalist insiders "predicted" nearly three decades ago.
It's hard to talk about the imminent "kinetic military action" with Iran without sounding like a broken record. Many have been warning about it since the days of Bush and the original neocon crew.
Nonbelligerent Iran never attacked another country preemptively, threatening none now, vowing only to defend its territory against foreign aggressors.
Unacceptable policies supported by the Trump regime and most congressional members threaten to fracture US relations with countries like Germany.
And while no one of these stories itself amounts to an End of the Empire moment, taken together they point definitively to the tectonic change that is coming.
We could see huge draw downs, and equally huge explosions to the upside. Unless you’re a very nimble trader, sitting it out could be your best play. Just sayin…
Catherine Clifford writes that Europeans had already been suffering under high energy prices in the months leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Those prices, and others, surged after Russia crossed the Ukrainian border, with international benchmark Brent crude oil breaching the $100 per barrel mark for the first time in 8 years.
Natural gas prices were at least 6.5% higher after the invasion and were up about 2% as of midday Thursday.
And on Tuesday, Germany halted the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, which was intended to double the flow of Russian gas directly to Germany.
Sad to say, but the European Union is heavily dependent on Russian energy sources, which Clifford says is becoming “increasingly unsustainable.”
The EU, however, is reportedly planning energy independence from Russia. That plan was expected to be announced by the European Commission next week.
Felix Salmon writes that until last weekend, Russia's invasion of Ukraine looked quaint, with “columns of tanks, prisoners of war [and] bombed buildings.”
As a new week unfolds, however, the U.S., Canada and Europe on one side and Putin on the other have rolled out their respective nuclear options—the former three financial, the latter literal—although neither has actually been used.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. This is no longer just about Ukraine. It’s quickly evolved into a full-blown confrontation between nuclear powers.
Salmon fears if the conflict continues to escalate like a hundred-yard sprint, the unthinkable could quickly become a reality.