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Thread: A new Cold War era.

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    The late but legendary peterb - Onward and Upward peterb's Avatar
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    A new Cold War era.

    An assassination attempt in the normally fairly sleep city of Salisbury - with the finger fairly firmly pointing to Russia (who have a bit of a track record for this sort of thing) and the immediate expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats...

    Where next?
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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Russia will dismiss some of our diplomats, and carry on doing what they want because we don't scare them.

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Well the Russians must be very stupid for them to try a nerve weapon attack,so close to the Defence CBRN Centre at Porton Down in Salisbury so an epic own goal there:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_CBRN_Centre

    The Defence Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Centre (the Defence CBRN Centre or DCBRNC for short) is a United Kingdom military facility at Winterbourne Gunner in Wiltshire, south of Porton Down and about 4 miles (6 km) northeast of Salisbury. It is a tri-service location, with the Royal Air Force being the lead service. The centre is responsible for all training issues relating to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defence and warfare for the UK's armed forces.

    It is also the home of the National Ambulance Resilience Unit's Training & Education Centre[1] which, among other things, is responsible for training the NHS ambulance service's Hazardous Area Response Teams (HART). The centre was the home of the Police National CBRN Centre until it moved to NPIA facilities at Ryton, Warwickshire.
    Having said that I was wondering how we could identify the Novichok agents so quickly and then noticed this on the BBC:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43377698

    In 1999, defence officials from the US travelled to Uzbekistan to help dismantle and decontaminate one of the former Soviet Union's largest chemical weapons testing facilities.

    According to a senior defector, the Soviets used the plant to produce and test small batches of Novichok. These nerve agents were designed to escape detection by international inspectors.
    So we have seen them before it appears.

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    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    It was meant to be found.

    Putin is setting himself up as emperor, and having prevented meaningful opposition the only thing he has to overcome is voter apathy. Que some military stirring the pot in order to get the UK et al to retaliate, wake up the self-persecuted angst and thus persuade more people to turn up at the voting booth to give him some 'legitimacy'.

    The UK has walked straight into his trap. We should have remained quiet until after the election in a few days, and then work to unify a response bringing together Europe, about the only thing that Putin is worried about.

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Quote Originally Posted by kalniel View Post
    It was meant to be found.

    Putin is setting himself up as emperor, and having prevented meaningful opposition the only thing he has to overcome is voter apathy. Que some military stirring the pot in order to get the UK et al to retaliate, wake up the self-persecuted angst and thus persuade more people to turn up at the voting booth to give him some 'legitimacy'.

    The UK has walked straight into his trap. We should have remained quiet until after the election in a few days, and then work to unify a response bringing together Europe, about the only thing that Putin is worried about.
    Bringing together Europe is what he wants as it proves what he has thought for the last 10+ years - NATO/EU are anti-Russian institutions which only serve to surround and subjucate Russia as a country and do what the Germans could not achieve,the total capitulation of the country.

    Putin is ex-KGB and a nationalist,now think like what a nationalist thinks like.

    Not acting also might signal weakness,so its a catch 22 situation.

    Also TBF,we kind of started the whole problem back in the 1990s and early 2000s. We had promised Gorbachev we would not push Nato eastwards,and the whole US withdrawal from the ABM treaty essentially made Putin paranoid we were trying to surround Russia.

    The US withdrawal from the ABM treaty has made the world a less safer place,as it means all bets are now off with other countries even,as they will integrate alternate systems to delivery nuclear payloads. Remember the 100 or so Aegis equipped ships the US has can act as an ABM system due to new missiles.

    The ABM treaty banned deployment of more than one ABM battery on your territory:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-B...Missile_Treaty

    Looking at Russian history,especially with the way the Nazis invaded them,it was only going to play out ONE WAY. I said this over a decade ago.

    This is what former US secretary of defence,William Perry,said about it:

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0bef3378cd8fc

    William Perry has had a long career in government, serving in the Pentagon under Presidents Carter and Reagan before becoming President Clinton’s secretary of defense in 1994.

    “We stand today, I believe, in greater danger of nuclear catastrophe than we faced during the Cold War,” Perry tells host Robert Scheer in this week’s episode of KCRW’s “Scheer Intelligence.”

    Since his time in the Pentagon, Perry has founded the William J. Perry Project, which aims to educate the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons. He’s also written a book, “My Journey at the Nuclear Brink.”

    Perry and Scheer discuss how the expansion of NATO in the 1990s factors in to the rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia. Perry calls this expansion “the first step” in escalating tensions. The “second step,” he says, was “installing ballistic missile defense systems in Eastern Europe.”

    “Our response to Russia on the objections to these various actions we were taking basically was, ‘What can you do about it? You’re an insignificant power today,’ ” Perry says. “The reason Putin is so popular today is that he has taken actions that, in [Russians’] view, allow Russia to stand as a great power and overcome this humiliating position they were in … so we stand today in a position of hostility between the United States and Russia, comparable to where we stood in the Cold War. In the meantime, we still have many thousands of nuclear weapons.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...caused-by-west

    Stephen Jaffe/EPA

    The current level of hostility in US-Russian relations was caused in part by Washington’s contemptuous treatment of Moscow’s security concerns in the aftermath of the cold war, a former US defence secretary has said.
    Any analysis of Russia has to consider the effect of Nato expansion
    Read more

    William Perry, who was defence secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration from 1994 to 1997, emphasised that in the past five years it has been Vladimir Putin’s military interventions in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere that have driven the downward spiral in east-west relations.

    But Perry added that during his term in office, cooperation between the two countries’ militaries had improved rapidly just a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union and that these gains were initially squandered more as a result of US than Russian actions.

    “In the last few years, most of the blame can be pointed at the actions that Putin has taken. But in the early years I have to say that the United States deserves much of the blame,” Perry said, speaking at a Guardian Live event in London.
    Former US defence secretary, William Perry, talking at a Guardian Live event on Tuesday evening

    “Our first action that really set us off in a bad direction was when Nato started to expand, bringing in eastern European nations, some of them bordering Russia. At that time we were working closely with Russia and they were beginning to get used to the idea that Nato could be a friend rather than an enemy ... but they were very uncomfortable about having Nato right up on their border and they made a strong appeal for us not to go ahead with that.”

    In his memoir, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, Perry writes that he argued for a slower expansion of Nato so as not to alienate Russia during the initial period of post-Soviet courtship and cooperation. Richard Holbrooke, the US diplomat, led the opposing argument at the time, and was ultimately supported by the vice-president, Al Gore, who argued “we could manage the problems this would create with Russia”.

    Perry said the decision reflected a contemptuous attitude among US officials towards the troubled former superpower.

    “It wasn’t that we listened to their argument and said he don’t agree with that argument,” he said. “Basically the people I was arguing with when I tried to put the Russian point ... the response that I got was really: ‘Who cares what they think? They’re a third-rate power.’ And of course that point of view got across to the Russians as well. That was when we started sliding down that path.”

    Perry considered resigning over the issue “but I concluded that my resignation would be misinterpreted as opposition to Nato membership that I greatly favoured – just not right away”.

    He sees the second major misstep by Washington DC as the Bush administration’s decision to deploy a ballistic missile defence system in eastern Europe in the face of determined opposition from Moscow. Perry said: “We rationalised [the system] as being to defend against an Iranian nuclear missile – they don’t have any but that’s another issue. But the Russians said ‘Wait a bit, this weakens our deterrence.’ The issue again wasn’t discussed on the basis of its merits – it was just ‘who cares about what Russia thinks.’ We dismissed it again.”

    The Obama administration has since modified the missile defence system in eastern Europe, replacing long-range with medium-range interceptor missiles but that has not mollified Russian objections.

    Perry said he was opposed to such systems on technical grounds. “I think they’re a waste of money. I don’t think they work,” he said. “In fact, when I talked to the Russians I tried to convince them not to worry, they don’t work anyway but they didn’t buy that.”

    The third factor that Perry pointed to in the poisoning of US-Russian relations was Washington DC’s support for pro-democracy demonstrators in the “colour revolutions” in former Soviet republics including Georgia and Ukraine. Perry agreed with the ethical reasons for backing such revolutions but noted their severely damaging effect on east-west ties.

    “After he came to office, Putin came to believe that the United States had an active and robust programme to overthrow his regime,” the former defence secretary said.

    “And from that point on a switch went on in Putin’s mind that said: I’m no longer going to work with the west ... I don’t know the facts behind Putin’s belief that we actually had a programme to foment revolution in Russia but what counts is he believed it.”

    Perry described the current tensions between Russia and Nato as having “the potential of becoming very dangerous,” and argued for a radical reduction in nuclear arsenals and in particular the removal of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Over 1,000 ICBMs in the US and Russia remain on hair-trigger alert, on a policy of “launch-on-warning”, meaning US and Russian presidents would have less than half an hour to decide whether to fire them in the event of radar and satellite data showing an incoming missile attack from the other side.
    We had a chance to contain and get a more friendly Russia onboard,but our own hubris backfired.

    Even if Putin was replaced,I suspect the distrust will still stay and that is what worries me more. He won't live for ever.

    Edit!!

    The documents detailing NATO not expanding eastwards were declassified in December last year:

    https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-b...-leaders-early

    Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 14-03-2018 at 08:27 PM.

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    While eastward expansion of NATO was handled very poorly, the Russian nationalist really should ask themselves why almost all former Soviet Republics and Eastern Block were so quick to want to join NATO?

    Seems that neither the Russian Empire nor Soviet expansion was something that they remembered fondly. Of course, real-politic might say that it is best not to interfere in the Russian backyard, but then real-politic might say the same about the USA and Central and South America; problem is that the people in neither region want to be the plaything of a superpower.

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Quote Originally Posted by kompukare View Post
    While eastward expansion of NATO was handled very poorly, the Russian nationalist really should ask themselves why almost all former Soviet Republics and Eastern Block were so quick to want to join NATO?

    Seems that neither the Russian Empire nor Soviet expansion was something that they remembered fondly. Of course, real-politic might say that it is best not to interfere in the Russian backyard, but then real-politic might say the same about the USA and Central and South America; problem is that the people in neither region want to be the plaything of a superpower.
    Is that any different than even India or Turkey?? China?? Why does Russia fear NATO(or even the EU) - they see them both as the US coming to their doorstep. So why is the US poking its nose everywhere??

    Why as Europeans are we so weak that we need the US to do all this - we surely could solve our defence problems. We have enough money to do it.

    Would we feel any different if Mexico or Ireland signed military agreements with China??

    I suspect we won't like it - even in Asia the US/UK is poking governments who want to be part of the Chinese string of pearls,despite them not offering any financial incentives at all and in the case of the UK having invaded many of them. Do you realise people don't like our interference too?? I am going to tell you this - in South East Asia everytime Europe or the US starts dictating a lot of people don't like this and this is from experience.

    We had one chance in the 90s to get a friendlier Russia onboard and perhaps push a more democratic country. Instead we let the country collapse inwards,with 8 people taking up 50% of the wealth,and all the clever ones buggering off,so people ignore the damage it did to Russia as a country since it affected all those Russians you don't see on the news - even the Communist party got loads of votes by the end of the 90s.

    The people left behind wanted food on the table and Putin did that whilst expecting Soviet level obedience,since their first taste of democracy was being utterly poor. We should have tried to do more back then.

    We were busy laughing our arse off at Russia and its drunk president. I remember the news at the time.

    Then in our own arrogance whilst Russia was barely solvent,their military in utter shambles,we then decide to:

    1.)Break a promise not to push NATO eastwards

    https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-b...-leaders-early

    Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
    2.)Insult the Russians behind close doors and dismiss them arrogantly as secretary of state William Perry said

    3.)Withdraw from the ABM treaty,weakening Russian and Chinese deterrents,ie,making our chance of a first strike easier

    4.)Give the impression we want to put anti-Russian governments around them,who would become part of NATO

    We enabled Putin to cling to power,by making conditions for his form of nationalism look attractive.

    There was a recent documentary on Putin on the BBC and how he didn't want to be president,and was apparently quite happy to bugger off after a relatively small payoff(!) - its only after our hubris, he started distrusting us and then getting a complex that he was the man to "save russia". Then he decided he wanted to be el-presidente for life.

    If our own arrogance and hubris had not prevailed Putin would have not have stayed in power more than one maybe two terms - not even the people,who took a relatively unknown KGB officer who came from a poor family and plonked him into power,expected him to stay. We created the conditions and he took advantage of this. He is an opportunist.

    This is not the first or last time we have screwed up longterm. In that documentary people like Hague lamented we basically screwed up in how we handled all of this.

    Its not only NATO - the withdrawal from the ABM treaty is a dick move in its own right as it is most likely China has been spurred on to develop alternate systems too.

    Plus look at the way our own politicians TREAT US.

    We vote them into power and they show so little respect for the public and are more worried about fighting leadership battles. They can't even negotiate Brexit FFS,without childish fighting.

    How can you expect them to have any coherent foreign policy,have any nuances on how different cultures might perceive our actions,when they are as perceptive as a bit of coal regarding their own constituents.

    The same sort of dictating and talking down to people,which is also done on an international stage.

    Edit!!

    Plus my point stands - Putin won't live forever,but longterm he has done enough for any future Russian leader,and enough for Russians(especially outside the larger cities) to not trust the west,or at the very least realise the west is not a partner Russia can ever fully rely on.

    That is my fear - what happens longterm even without Putin??
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 14-03-2018 at 11:40 PM.

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    I am sorry to say this but the UK,US,Russia,etc has been clouded by an old generation of politicians who grew up during the cold war,and could never let the bloody thing go.

    They each feed off the paranoia of each other,ie,the paranoia of the US/UK that if NATO(designed to fight a Warsaw Pact that does not exist anymore) does not come up to the Russian borders,and puts a missile shield,the commie reds,will socialise all of us,and the Russians petrified the west will take all their resources and finish off what the Germans couldn't do and all three clinging to the fact they "had" an empire.

    Then the US/UK does not trust China,and China probably does not trust us either,so expect the next stage of the Cold War,to shift back to China,and Russia to run into the hands of China to prop them up,as the enemy of our enemy is our friend. You can see that at the UN and the fact they have even done joint military exercises.

    Yet its all the people who were mere kids,or not even born at the collapse of the Soviet Union who will be the ones fighting any future Cold War. Expect more and more proxy wars as the US/UK,Russia and China screw over more people from desperate countries to pay the toll for this.

    This is what the Cold War did - conflicts like the Angolan civil war is long forgotten by many here,but it killed 500000 people and was an example of one of the proxy wars. It was the proxy wars where the tolls were worst,and its happening now.

    All they see is that,and we certainly need younger people not polluted by all the cold war bullcrap to be in charge.

    This is basically WMD-PEEN dick wrangling - a world full of rocket men. As William Perry said the chance for a nuclear exchange to happen is quite possible,and even a small exchange could kill a lot of people.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 14-03-2018 at 11:47 PM.

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    HEXUS.timelord. Zak33's Avatar
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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Quote Originally Posted by kalniel View Post
    It was meant to be found.

    Putin is setting himself up as emperor, and having prevented meaningful opposition the only thing he has to overcome is voter apathy. Que some military stirring the pot in order to get the UK et al to retaliate, wake up the self-persecuted angst and thus persuade more people to turn up at the voting booth to give him some 'legitimacy'.

    The UK has walked straight into his trap. We should have remained quiet until after the election in a few days, and then work to unify a response bringing together Europe, about the only thing that Putin is worried about.
    agree with the top line. Utterly. He has a shrinking financial ability and has spent the last weeks telling everyone who will listen that he's got a load of new weapons and that people who disagree with him, will buy the farm

    He waits until one of them has his daughter visit the UK and then gets the job done on UK soil, with a chemical that was supposed to be destroyed decades ago, knowing everyone will know it's the old Russian style. And like the way he flies his big planes to our borders every month to test our reactions... he's doing the same again.

    Don't quite agree with the second sentence but it's definately a thought. I think we had to work fast and respond fast. And we have. Might regret it but who can say what we may have regretted had we waited

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    I am sorry to say this but the UK,US,Russia,etc has been clouded by an old generation of politicians who grew up during the cold war,and could never let the bloody thing go.

    They each feed off the paranoia of each other,ie,the paranoia of the US/UK that if NATO(designed to fight a Warsaw Pact that does not exist anymore) does not come up to the Russian borders,and puts a missile shield,the commie reds,will socialise all of us,and the Russians petrified the west will take all their resources and finish off what the Germans couldn't do and all three clinging to the fact they "had" an empire..
    its not fnished CAT ( the paranoia).. it never went away. The Cold War only dimished.... paraoia is still a real thing everywhere.,,,, less likely Nukes and more likely internet thefts and subtefuge. |Trojans and fake news,. It's still a war. And the "old generation politicians" add their piece because their oppostite numbers are also in control.

    Russia, geographically, is still the same. Land locked and ice locked. Few ports. No ability to attack and absorb the world. Every tactical port it owns the rest of the world can see and even partly control. SO they do what they can

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
    "The second you aren't paying attention to the tool you're using, it will take your fingers from you. It does not know sympathy." |
    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zak33 View Post
    Don't quite agree with the second sentence but it's definately a thought. I think we had to work fast and respond fast. And we have. Might regret it but who can say what we may have regretted had we waited
    In acting we have a saying - cue fast, speak slow. I think working fast was obviously a must, and being able to ignore attempts to delay like happened with Litvenyenko was good, but I think the public blame and retaliation should have been held back a bit and delivered a) after the election and b) with EU solidarity.

    We could have had a situation where Putin is re-elected with rubbish turn out, and then the whole of Europe (or at least, the influencial players) respond in concert by kicking out diplomats not just from the UK, but France, Germany, Spain, Italy etc. at the same time, for starters.

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    ahh I see.

    Yes perhaps that would be best. But we are where we are....

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Quote Originally Posted by kalniel View Post
    In acting we have a saying - cue fast, speak slow. I think working fast was obviously a must, and being able to ignore attempts to delay like happened with Litvenyenko was good, but I think the public blame and retaliation should have been held back a bit and delivered a) after the election and b) with EU solidarity.

    We could have had a situation where Putin is re-elected with rubbish turn out, and then the whole of Europe (or at least, the influencial players) respond in concert by kicking out diplomats not just from the UK, but France, Germany, Spain, Italy etc. at the same time, for starters.
    If the last bit happened it would be out of character for Europe,but it depends if we try and use NATO provisions to try elicit a response(technically you could argue its an attack).

    Look at France - only intense US/UK pressure stopped them selling Mistral class helicopter carriers to Russia after Crimea,but they quietly sold them to Egypt and Russia still made money since they sold the KA52 helicopters meant for them instead to Egypt.

    In fact loads of European countries(even Germany and France) have signalled they want to improve relations with Russia,and Germany has an issue that they gave up nuclear only to buy more gas,but from Russia:

    http://www.dw.com/en/europe-doesnt-w...tor/a-42295845
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g...-idUSKCN1G01DJ

    Outside say Poland,the UK has traditionally been the most hawkish country in Europe when it comes to Russia.

    Have you noticed most of the suspected attacks are happening in the UK,not in Germany or France?? That is because we have a tendency to give sanctuary to many of Putin's enemies and also Russia's enemies,ie, all the double agents,and even the USSR killed people in the UK like the chap who was shot with the poison umbrella. Free movement and the large Russian community makes it much easier for assassins to pass undetected into our country. So it could be quite possibly Russia is pre-empting that by trying to remove any thorns in the side before this "loop-hole" closes.

    Even if what you say happens and Europe combines together,we have to be very weary of future actions - we have gotten complacent in the last 30 years of invading loads of countries,without any real issue. This was not the case in the past - more often than not Russia/China would help the opposing side on purpose to counter us,and we think Syria is a big deal for Russia helping them.

    It really isn't - remember why the Vietnam war was so bloody?? It was because the Russians/Chinese actively helped the North Vietnamese with not only weaponary but INTEL too.

    This was very common in the past.

    Plus what is escaping many people's attention is a Russian-Chinese military alliance and its current naval execises:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/w...exercises.html
    http://www.newsweek.com/russia-nato-...r-china-630940

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7953506.html

    So one was in the Baltic Sea and one near North Korea. So basically China has shown intent to support Russia in Europe(against NATO) and Russia has shown it will support China in Asia.

    Both Russia and China are working on forming alternate banking structures too,so to reduce the effect of any western sanctions:

    https://www.activistpost.com/2017/04...hitecture.html
    https://news.cgtn.com/news/3355444d3...4/share_p.html

    These include harmonising parts of their payment systems,etc and in the case of Russia using barter agreements to sell goods to other countries,without using USD:

    https://theaviationist.com/2017/08/0...mbat-aircraft/

    The lines are getting drawn and it looks like the old ones have turned up again(the USSR and China were buddies before the 1960s).

    People poo-poo the whole concept of a European superstate and a unified European military,but the reason why European countries like Germany want this,is to have an independent military option outside the US,to deal with countries like Russia,etc and also Europe should really be a superpower,standing toe to toe with the US,China,etc but also separate politically and not mired in US/Russia history.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 15-03-2018 at 12:40 PM.

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    China is trying to dethrone the dollar in the longterm too:

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/petr...contracts.html

    A bar or two of gold and/or silver under the bed might be a prudent plan for the years ahead.

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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post

    People poo-poo the whole concept of a European superstate and a unified European military,but the reason why European countries like Germany want this,is to have an independent military option outside the US,to deal with countries like Russia,etc and also Europe should really be a superpower,standing toe to toe with the US,China,etc but also separate politically and not mired in US/Russia history.
    And yet they don't want to pay for it... not all NATO countries pay their agreed share

    http://uk.businessinsider.com/nato-s...country-2017-2

    and without the US, the cost would be even greater. And while it might be possible for the State of Europe to raise a standing Army, Navy and Airforce, that state does not exist, so it would be an alliance, like NATO, but without the military strength of the US.
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    Re: A new Cold War era.

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    And yet they don't want to pay for it...

    http://uk.businessinsider.com/nato-s...country-2017-2
    Yep and like I said earlier we have the money to do it - the issue is when we ask the US to back us up,it means our foreign policy is essentially the same as theirs. So for any mistakes they make,we get drawn in too,and the US is doing what suits the US,as we can see with Trump.

    Also,its also why we need to be very careful now we have left the EU,that we also be wary of jumping into bed with the US with everything - we can see with the tariffs on steel,the UK was not automatically exempt. Canada and Mexico were since the US has more investments in those countries and also wants to put a carrot on a stick to keep them happy.



    Quote Originally Posted by The Hand View Post
    China is trying to dethrone the dollar in the longterm too:

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/petr...contracts.html

    A bar or two of gold and/or silver under the bed might be a prudent plan for the years ahead.
    This is something else which is not being reported in the news too. Putin and his mates despite being taking his cut,actually made it a point to settle all Soviet era debts,and try to pay off Russian ones too. Despite the economy slowing down and running a defecit he made sure Russia saved up $160 billion,which has been used to avoid taking loans for the last 5 years,but will most likely run out in three years time.

    So one has to look a few years down the line,what is going to happen. If Putin wins this time,I suspect it is quite possibly it will be his last term,since when the fund runs out,Russia might actually have to run a deficit and actually borrow funds.

    Hence their debt to GDP ratio is well under 40% which is not high,but the main issue is that the economy is not diversified,and part of the issue is due the brain drain in the 1990s,the general skimming of funds by he and is mates,and poor management.

    However,Russian currency and gold reserves have been built up:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...hange_reserves

    It was actually higher in the past,but the UK,France and Germany together just barely scrapes past what Russia has built up.

    China OTH,has probably more currency reserves than Europe combined,so they can probably try to take on the USD.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 15-03-2018 at 04:24 PM.

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