NP - Krugman: Petrothoughts (Via Kevin Drom)

[alice malice]

Putin, Neocons and the Great Illusion

The truth, however, is that war really, really doesn’t pay. The Iraq
venture clearly ended up weakening the U.S. position in the world,
while costing more than $800 billion in direct spending and much more
in indirect ways. America is a true superpower, so we can handle such
losses — although one shudders to think of what might have happened if
the “real men” had been given a chance to move on to other targets.
But a financially fragile petroeconomy like Russia doesn’t have the
same ability to roll with its mistakes.

I have no idea what will become of the Putin regime. But Mr. Putin has
offered all of us a valuable lesson. Never mind shock and awe: In the
modern world, conquest is for losers.


On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 12:08 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Treacherous, yes, a good word for it. The US is focused on doing
> business.  It's business. The Ukraine killing is entrusted to
> non-professionals, Russia and Ukraine are a deversion, not the focus,
> not the axis for a pivot.  Germany, the Ruble, Oil, these are all that
> are needed to keep Putin with his face in the honey jar. Japan and
> South Korea are adding US defense pieces, not to defend themselves
> against North Korea, a diversion, but to do business with America as
> the Empire moves on China, not Russia. Russia has an emerging economy
> dependent on energy, but China, now the largest economy in the world,
> is still growing at 6%, and its transitioning away from GDP built on
> Government infrastructure spending to a consumer economy. This is not
> a cold war, this is a business war and the US plans to win it. And it
> is well positioned to win.
>
> “Don't forget the real business of war is buying and selling. The
> murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to
> non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many
> ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of
> the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that
> children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after
> battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass
> death's a stimolous to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n'
> grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The
> true war is a celebration of markets.”
>
>
> ― Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_
>
> On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 11:30 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> "The US is focused"?
>> Which US? The Banks, you mean? That chess board is all treachery.
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Sunday, December 21, 2014, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> If you apply the grand chessboard, Crimea is conceded to Putin and the
>>> Ukraine, a pawn is perfectly positioned. Neither matters much in the
>>> grand chessboard, Eurasia is the middle of the board, and the US is
>>> focused on the Queen, that is, China, not Russia. Putin would like to
>>> make it about him, about Nazis and the like, but t is not about Russia
>>> or Nazis. Germany has some obvious weaknesses from history and the
>>> Nazi history, though no longer crippling, still limits Germany's
>>> ambition. But Germany will run for the Americans, be sure of that, and
>>> the neo-Nazis will be dispensed with once they've been used, as in
>>> Ukraine. I like Obama's soft power Castle in Cuba. Nice move,  O.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 at 10:21 AM, Thomas Eckhardt
>>> <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>> > Am 19.12.2014 um 05:56 schrieb alice malice:
>>> >>
>>> >> It doesn't much matter anyways, the Ukraine is not important and the
>>> >> Crimea less so,
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > You should tell that to Zbigniew Brzezinsky who calls Ukraine a
>>> > "geopolitical pivot" in "The Grand Chessboard."
>>> >
>>> > Thomas
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l