What I wonder is what is the Russian Media telling its people. I'm curious to see what it says from there POV.

I'm sure their nationalism is running at an all-time high.

They "beat" the west in the Olympics (38 medals to our what, 26? or something like that?), showed the world what a grand spectacle they could put on there (or at least that's what they told their people), and after the ass-kicking they got in Dagestan and Chechnya, the home team winning one on the road has to have them just full of themselves...

There are rumors now about the US trying to remove Russia from the G8 or at very least the US not attending until they are removed.

Here you go.

http://english.pravda.ru/

(I don't think you'll like it much as it is heavily biased to the Russian side, although the Greatest Cover Girls Of All Time feature isn't bad)

As a counter to that you can also see what the Ukrainians are saying if you want

http://en.interfax.com.ua/

I'm sure you'll be able to get many more through google, many of which will have their own biases...I think I'll stick with the BBC and a couple of the decent British newspapers...I'd recommend the Times but I think their online platform is subscription only now.

Basically its all they can do.
Just remember what a hard time they had suppressing Muammar Gadaffi's third rate army.
Now you want them to stare into the jaws of the Russian bear?
Also the bear wouldn't even have to actually hit them the cause massive casualties.
A huge percentage of Europe depends on Russian gas for heating, any embargo will result in massive civilian casualties in the next winter.

And as for the united states...a nation that under the current president, stabbed just about all of its allies in the back.
Nothing more than an emasculated giant.

Adi

Sadly true.

Thing that kills me here...

Is that we have done this for years and years...now that we really need to step in and help, we can't.

We have blown our political capital on crap like Iraq/Afghanistan and we cant do anything when a country is being invaded by a bully.

This:
and this:
I couldn't have written that better myself. And you know what? I don't like what the Russians are doing in the Ukraine any more than anyone else here, but if the shoe was on the other foot, I think the US would do much the same as the Russians are doing. The US tends to be better at putting a nice spin on things and probably wouldn't be quite as blunt, but from the Russian point of view I'm sure they feel some justification in their actions (as well as gaining the benefits of a naked land-grab).

Even if the US had the power and political backing there is little the US could really do in the Crimea. Its the Ruskies backyard, the most we could do would be to send in supplies in 3rd party aircraft and land them in non-Russian Controlled airfields. The West just doesn't have any real options.

Actually they have a big one - embargo the Russians - it means the US supporting the needs of the Europeans for natural gas and I am not sure if we have enough ships to be able to do it - but if they can get enough of the European Union states and other countries to not buy their gas and oil then Putin is in major trouble

The Polish natural gas industry and infrastructure could also benefit from US technology, equipment, and know how. Fracking could be the key to breaking the energy grip the Russians have over Western Europe. I know the UK is considering increased fracking as well.

Fracking has been so politicized on both sides of the Atlantic. Even though IMO this is logical and in times of potential conflicts compromises should be made, I still see this being a very tough sell.

I sometimes wonder if it was wise for the Ukraine to give up their nukes, they were like the 3rd or 4th largest nuke power after the breakup of the USSR, then again, it could be a bigger mess, Russia could lose Moscow for Kiev or Leningrad/St. Petersburg for Kherson. Sad to say, the world cannot do much at this point except voice their condemnations and sanctions. The U.S. should not get involved, we have lots of problems here although we need to keep an eye on it. Still, it hurts me to see the Ukraine get bullied, f I could magically snap my fingers and give them 1000 M48/M60 tanks for example, I would.

Chuck

Well, maybe they WILL get M48/M60 tanks after all. ;)

Chuck

I think I'll spend some more time on my shortwave radio. I can pick up Romania in the late afternoons as well.

Chuck

We can't embargo them -- they have oil and a lot of minerals and metals that we can't do without.

I think the U.S. can do well if we free some restriction here at home but Europe would be more screwed, except maybe the UK and Scandinavia from North Sea oil.

Chuck

An embargo against the Russians doesn't work. But a tightening of trade restrictions and increased Tariff's does.

Of course not. They traded the security of their country for a worthless piece of paper.
Please excuse me, but I beg to differ. If the Ukraine hadn't traded their nukes than this whole mess would probably not have happened.

Which is the real lesson to be learned from this story.
You can bet your last cent that just about every small country, is looking at the situation in the Ukraine coupled with the feeble reaction towards Iran. And coming to the only reasonable conclusion possible.
We need to get some nukes.

Adi

The Russians and OPEC are already starting to get worried about the potential of American oil and gas oil shale that is being tapped through fracking. America's oil and gas shale reserves are so big they could potentially eliminate the monopoly that Russia and OPEC states have over the worlds energy supply.

Shale gas and oil reserves are also found in very large quantities in other countries notably Russia, China and Argentina among others. But America has a very significant advantage over the rest of the world in exploiting shale oil and gas for five main reasons; geology, technology, incentive, infrastructure and water. Fracking is still in its infancy but through current production from 14 major shale fields in the United States; notably Bakken in North Dakota and the Barnett and Eagle Ford in Texas; America has already overtaken Russia as the biggest producer of natural gas in the world and will soon overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest producer of oil. By the 2030's America is projected to be entirely energy self sufficient. These figures are only based on what's being produced from active shale fields and conventional oil fields in the United States, but American industry is already retooling around petrochemicals because of it. But the biggest oil shale fields in America and the world hasn't even been touched yet, as they lie on federal lands beneath US western states. The Piceance Basin, the Uintah Basin and the Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are believed to hold between 1.5 to 3 trillion barrels of recoverable shale oil, which on the lower figure is five times the conventional oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Good news for us, and hard luck OPEC and Russia.

Yeah th US is swimming in Natural Gas and will be for a LONG time. The biggest problem is transport. Ships are not as economically feasible for transporting gas as they are with oil. A trans Atlantic pipeline has been mentioned, but it has gotten about as much serious attention as a space elevator.

Keep in mind that the US doesnt buy oil from the Russians - we buy some minerals but not much really - for an embargo to work the US has to get the EU to sign onto it and the former Eastern Bloc countries - and that means being ready to step up to the bar with natural gas -

Putin right now is only staying in power because of the petrodollars and gas dollars - cut into that and he is in big trouble very fast

Shale gas is only the first phase of this. US East Coast LNG refineries that were importing large volumes of natural gas from OPEC countries as little as five years ago have stopped importing due to the volumes of shale gas now being produced in America, and are converting to export terminals. Gas hungry Europe is lining up to import American gas and the Russians are worried, and there is talk about exporting it to even more gas hungry Asia as well. Oil will be the next phase and this will kill OPEC and could lead to the US pulling its forces out of the Middle East who's importance will become redundant to America for energy supplies.

How is Europe set up for offloading? It looks like 3-4 ships a day could offset the volume of Russian gas, but I am expecting it would require a total revamping of the distribution network. West to East rather than the other way around.

A lot of the OPEC gas that used to be shipped to America has been diverted to the European market so they already have an alternative source if things turn tasty. Europe is mainly a gas importer so they already have the infrastructure in place.

Shipping wise the US doesn't have enough ships to send anything to Europe large scale. The US and the EU would have to depend on short-term foreign flag carriers and there are not many set up for that kind of transport. That being said, shipyards across the planet would quickly receive orders for ships to carry product across the Atlantic, good for the ship building industry. The only other real option would be to build that long made fun of pipeline across the Atlantic. Of course they could do it from Newfoundland to Greenland down to Iceland and across to Europe from there. Only sections would be underwater and the rest on land. Only problem would be the Environmentalist screaming bloody murder and the potential for some foreign power in attempting to cut that pipeline at some point.

I couldn't see any US president signing off on a Trans-Atlantic oil or gas pipeline stretching from Newfoundland across to Greenland and Iceland and then terminating in England or France. It is probably feasible to build one but imagine what would happen if the there was a big oil leak under the Atlantic Ocean such as in the Grand Banks and it started killing off all the fish!

Among European countries only Denmark and the Netherlands are self sufficient in gas, and of the major European economies only Britain has large gas resources and that only meets half of its needs. I think there are about 400 LNG carriers afloat around the world at the moment. I don't know who owns them but I suspect all of the American and British supermajor oil companies have a few as well as the traditional main shipping countries in Europe and Asia.

That's the interesting part. It wouldn't be a US President who had to sign off on a transatlantic pipeline. Notice I said it started from Canada? Plus it would have the advantage of going the shortest route. Environmental problems could also be managed by compartmentalizing the entire thing. A leak in one section can be quickly sealed by shutting down individual compartments.
And from what I can gleam from the depths of the Internet there are 370 LNG Carriers (50 owned by Shell) worldwide of various sizes that could be put to use transporting from the New World to the Old..

The interesting thing would be would someone attempt to cut this line (both pipeline or shipping) during peacetime to drive Europe back into Russia's economic embrace.

Australia exports natural gas to markets in Asia by ship. At the moment most of our gas comes from offshore fields in waters off the NW of my state. Production has really ramped up in the past couple of years and will continue to grow.

I did some thinking about that today and I did come to the conclusion that you are correct. It's the old argument, would the Russians want to lose Moscow for Kiev? Leningrad for Kherson? I think this teaches one thing, perhaps you can count on some friends but when you cannot count on them or they can't help you, you got to take care of yourself.

Come to think of it, if the prevailing winds go my way, if I was the Ukraine and Russia does not stop, I'd dynamite, or otherwise blow, the containment system and Chernobyl and let the mayhem ensue.

Chuck

I have mixed opinions on the issue of small countries and nuclear weapons. My own country has an estimated 30% of the world's known uranium reserves and we are a technologically advanced nation so clearly we are well capable of becoming a nuclear-armed state.

As early as 1956 the Australian government investigated obtaining tactical nuclear weapons from the UK. We also poured a lot of money and resources into the Blue Streak missile program with the obvious intention of arming them with nuclear warheads.

Of course, that never came to pass. Apparently the British government back then was warm to the idea of assisting Australia in that area but the US definitely was not. Kind of sad really, especially since we let the Brits detonate a bunch of nukes out in the South Australian desert and on the Monte Bello Islands.

Then in 1970 we signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and ratified it in 1973, and that was that. Lucky for us we have powerful friends :cool: