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The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. Part of this is ensuring regional powers are either allied (in the case of NATO

The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. Part of this is ensuring regional powers are either allied (in the case of NATO countries or Saudi Arabia) or contained (in the case of Russia and Iran). It is a fundamental rule of Geopolitics that every country assert itself to the best of its abilities with the strengths they have. One of Russia's biggest strengths is natural resources. It is advantageous to them to have Western Europe dependent on its oil and natural gas supplies. George Friedman explains in this book [1] that Russia may attempt to assert itself to a greater extent in the next few decades, possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable, but if Russia has the off switch for Germany's economy, NATO's response is drastically weakened. Whatever scenario may come to pass, European reliance on Russian natural resources disrupts the US's containment strategy which it needs in order to maintain its dominant position in the region. So yes, it will say something if it feels like that is under threat. Not saying this is a good or bad thing. Depends on your perspective and what country you live in. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Next-100-Years-Forecast-Century/dp/0767923057 https://www.amazon.com/Next-100-Years-Forecast-Century/dp/07...

igravious 7y ago
> Russia may attempt to assert itself to a greater extent in the next few decades, possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. This is in the book that forecasts that Japan will attack the US in 2050 except that it'll be all space-borne battlestars and lasers and hypersonic weapons. Among other preposterous scenarios. Riiiight. > It is advantageous to them to have Western Europe dependent on its oil and natural gas supplies. Loaded language. Don't you think Western Europe has thought of this? And hey, if Russia turns off the tap they turn off their revenue stream. Besides, Europe, like the US, keeps strategic fossil fuel reserves. > The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. > Not saying this is a good or bad thing. Depends on your perspective and what country you live in. Seems to me that if the US keeps sanctioning foes and allies alike every country bar the US will consider this a bad thing.
- hopia 7y ago
  It's really not so far-fetched to think Russia would annex a Baltic state sometime in the future. They've shown they have the capability and political will to annex similarly prepared countries' territories. It all boils down to what they believe NATO's response would be.
  - Bendingo 7y ago
    > think Russia would annex a Baltic state Baltics and Crimea are not comparable. - Crimea has Russia's only warm water port and would never be given up - Russia already has Baltic access (Kaliningrad and StPetersburg) - Crimea has been majority ethnic Russian for centuries and welcomes Russia - Baltics hate Russia In summary, there is absolutely no logical reason Russia would annex Baltic state. However, there are plenty reasons why non-Russian interests always repeat this narrative.
  - anticodon 7y ago
    Russia doesn't need Baltic states. Their ports lost their value and the population is dying from poverty, drug addiction and alcoholism (fertility rate in Baltic states under EU is significantly lower compared to soviet times). Why would Russia need several bankrupt dying states? To feed and develop them like in Soviet times getting nothing but hatred in response? Ditto for Ukraine BTW.
  - igravious 7y ago
    For a start Russia already has a Baltic state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast and, not only that, has access to the Baltic itself. So there's zero geopolitical strategic advantage. Anywhere that Russia has "annexed" has had a majority ethnic Russian population and historical ties to Russia. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are not majority ethnic Russian, do not speak Russian, and are part of the EU (and NATO) so they're clearly not aligned geopolitically with Russia and it would cause major regional ramifications, undoubtedly triggering a war with NATO, and/or the EU (both nuclear entities). It would be wholly unprecedented in modern times.
baybal2 7y ago
"United States have no geopolitical strategy, but a lot of self proclaimed geopolitical strategists." I once have heard this position from US ambassador in Kazakhstan on a private reception event. The guy told people he expected a visit to a *stan country to be like a visit to a warzone. He was learning martial arts, hostage negotiation, and been mentored by multiple self proclaimed experts on "warlord politics" of the region. There was no end to his disappointment when he came to understanding that all that geopolitical BS he learned was for nothing, and he came to station the most boring post-Soviet hillbilly town. I think most Americans, even the most educated ones tend to greatly overthink "geopolitical conspiracies" Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions. For them, blackmailing Germany and other wealth nations in Europe by threatening to close the tap has no political story to it at all, just plainly a way to extort some extra bucks, and show the world how big their balls are.
- linkregister 7y ago
  > Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions. The people of Georgia, Crimea, and the rest of Ukraine would beg to differ.
  - texasbigdata 7y ago
    Go back another 60 to 70 years and a few more would too.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    How to say... Russians invasions are acts of war, squarely and simple, but they do so without any tinfoil "geopolitical conspiracy" in mind. There is no bigger "grand plan" to them than to an 8th century Viking raid: more subjects, loot, and territories to use to stage further invasions. Danes cared more for how tasty the British were, before they started to care about the British throne and court politics in the bigger Post-Roman world.
    - eru 7y ago
catalogia 7y ago
You make it sound like it would genuinely be in Germany's interest to not have a pipeline with Russia. Americans are no more rational than Germans, so if what you say is true, where is the harm in letting Germans make their own decisions rather than having Americans make those decisions for them?
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  The word “sanctions” just describes a set of decisions that a sanctioning country can make. Any country is free to make any decision it wants to. If one country doesn’t like the decisions that another country makes, they can sanction them whereby the sanctioning country makes decisions about how it’s going to interact with the sanctioned country and typically how it will interact with other countries that also interact with the sanctioned country. The effectiveness of any sanction is determined exclusively by how much other countries want whatever it is that the sanctioning country has to offer. Liechtenstein has every right to start sanctioning the USA if it wants to, but it would have to first assess what would happen if it forced the world to choose between it and the USA.
- labawi 7y ago
  Not saying Americans are right to impose, but as a neighbor European and an Earth citizen I do believe it would be in our collective interest not to create additional pipelines to Russia, or anywhere else for that matter. Germany should build some HVDC or regular long-distance transmission lines so they can use their wind electricity without routing through neighbors and build more wind farms.
lispm 7y ago
Does the Trump administration and the rest of the US have a policy? To me it looks like chaos. US government is directed by a real-estate and tv guy. He would have difficulties locating Russia on a map and at the same time claims to be the best expert in military, strategy, trade, health care, basically everything. If it is not clear, the US for the last two decades is not moving forward, but backwards in international politics. Trump has exposed this even more. Trying as a strategy to contain Russia is simply not going to work and the US really needs a massive upgrade in political brains, and not more weapons.
usrusr 7y ago
> but if Russia has the off switch for Germany's economy You are completely missing the part where Germany has already been running on Russian gas for decades, from land based pipelines. I think that you might be unaware of how permeable to natural gas the iron curtain had been. The power Russia gains from Nordstream isn't the power to stop supplying Germany (they could already do that and then go broke), the power they gain is the power to keep supplying Germany while playing with the off-switch for their dearly loved "Slavic brother nations". The geopolitical relevance of Nordstream is not Russia selling more gas, it's about Russia deriving more influence per unit of gas. Ever wondered why Poland is refusing so hard to switch from dirty lignite to cleaner gas? It's not just money and miners, far from that.
pyuser583 7y ago
What are you talking about? Every country isn't trying to assert itself. Most are trying to stay our of the way and not get noticed.
barrkel 7y ago
Dependence goes both ways. Russia was reduced to (or built from the ashes as) a resource extraction economy; it's extremely dependent on Europe paying for its gas.
redis_mlc 7y ago
> possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable Russian doctrine is that the satellite countries are buffers to be used as needed, like Kleenex. It's 100% certain Russia will annex Baltic countries whenever it pleases. To say otherwise just makes you "a useful idiot", as Lenin is credited with saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
- barrkel 7y ago
  If Russia annexes any Baltic states it's liable to trigger nuclear war. All the Baltic states are NATO members.
  - macintux 7y ago
    That was probably true 4 years ago. It's not at all obviously true today.
  - smallstepforman 7y ago
    Russia could have annexed the Baltic states when they secceded in 91, but chose not to. From their perspective, they had enough of empire and grew tired of propping the periphery. There was no need for these states to join Nato, and they could have remained as independant partners benefitting from trade with 2 blocks. The fact they chose to move away from Russia has more to do with corruption than logic.
    - jcranmer 7y ago
      Russia's war with Georgia and annexation of Crimea rather vindicates the Baltic states' decision to join NATO. Russia has made it manifestly clear that it wants the right to interfere in any country's politics that hosts a sizable Russian minority, and that it is willing to bring in the tanks should the host country refuse.
      - anticodon 7y ago
        Russia-Georgia conflict started by Georgian invasion. It's a fact acknowledged even by EU. I guess that just "forgot" to publish it in the media and continue to confuse people saying that Russia started it. It was a conflict initiated by Georgia but actually they were asked by US to start it.
bambataa 7y ago
Is it not also advantageous to Western Europe to have Russia dependent on WE’s oil and gas revenue?
anticodon 7y ago
There's also an economic reason: if not for Russian gas, Germany will have to buy several times more expensive US gas. One more way to rule Germany (another is military bases).
oezi 7y ago
The Nordstream II project is curious, because it is just a project to double capacity of the existing Nordstream pipelines. It comes in addition to other pipelines which already supply Europe from Russia. If this pipeline has any political relevance it is making Germany less dependent on Poland's and Ukraine's relationship with Russia. The Russian influence on Germany stays the same.
krageon 7y ago
> Today this would be inconceivable Why? They rolled tanks into a chunk of balkanised land already and nobody lifted a finger. I think anyone that spends some time considering that shudders to imagine how bad it could get with absolutely nothing happening.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> George Friedman explains in this book [1] that Russia may attempt to assert itself to a greater extent in the next few decades, possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable That would be less inconceivable than what they've already done in Ukraine.

igravious 7y ago

> Russia may attempt to assert itself to a greater extent in the next few decades, possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. This is in the book that forecasts that Japan will attack the US in 2050 except that it'll be all space-borne battlestars and lasers and hypersonic weapons. Among other preposterous scenarios. Riiiight. > It is advantageous to them to have Western Europe dependent on its oil and natural gas supplies. Loaded language. Don't you think Western Europe has thought of this? And hey, if Russia turns off the tap they turn off their revenue stream. Besides, Europe, like the US, keeps strategic fossil fuel reserves. > The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. > Not saying this is a good or bad thing. Depends on your perspective and what country you live in. Seems to me that if the US keeps sanctioning foes and allies alike every country bar the US will consider this a bad thing.

hopia 7y ago
It's really not so far-fetched to think Russia would annex a Baltic state sometime in the future. They've shown they have the capability and political will to annex similarly prepared countries' territories. It all boils down to what they believe NATO's response would be.
- Bendingo 7y ago
  > think Russia would annex a Baltic state Baltics and Crimea are not comparable. - Crimea has Russia's only warm water port and would never be given up - Russia already has Baltic access (Kaliningrad and StPetersburg) - Crimea has been majority ethnic Russian for centuries and welcomes Russia - Baltics hate Russia In summary, there is absolutely no logical reason Russia would annex Baltic state. However, there are plenty reasons why non-Russian interests always repeat this narrative.
- anticodon 7y ago
  Russia doesn't need Baltic states. Their ports lost their value and the population is dying from poverty, drug addiction and alcoholism (fertility rate in Baltic states under EU is significantly lower compared to soviet times). Why would Russia need several bankrupt dying states? To feed and develop them like in Soviet times getting nothing but hatred in response? Ditto for Ukraine BTW.
- igravious 7y ago
  For a start Russia already has a Baltic state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast and, not only that, has access to the Baltic itself. So there's zero geopolitical strategic advantage. Anywhere that Russia has "annexed" has had a majority ethnic Russian population and historical ties to Russia. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are not majority ethnic Russian, do not speak Russian, and are part of the EU (and NATO) so they're clearly not aligned geopolitically with Russia and it would cause major regional ramifications, undoubtedly triggering a war with NATO, and/or the EU (both nuclear entities). It would be wholly unprecedented in modern times.

baybal2 7y ago

"United States have no geopolitical strategy, but a lot of self proclaimed geopolitical strategists." I once have heard this position from US ambassador in Kazakhstan on a private reception event. The guy told people he expected a visit to a *stan country to be like a visit to a warzone. He was learning martial arts, hostage negotiation, and been mentored by multiple self proclaimed experts on "warlord politics" of the region. There was no end to his disappointment when he came to understanding that all that geopolitical BS he learned was for nothing, and he came to station the most boring post-Soviet hillbilly town. I think most Americans, even the most educated ones tend to greatly overthink "geopolitical conspiracies" Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions. For them, blackmailing Germany and other wealth nations in Europe by threatening to close the tap has no political story to it at all, just plainly a way to extort some extra bucks, and show the world how big their balls are.

linkregister 7y ago
> Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions. The people of Georgia, Crimea, and the rest of Ukraine would beg to differ.
- texasbigdata 7y ago
  Go back another 60 to 70 years and a few more would too.
- baybal2 7y ago
  How to say... Russians invasions are acts of war, squarely and simple, but they do so without any tinfoil "geopolitical conspiracy" in mind. There is no bigger "grand plan" to them than to an 8th century Viking raid: more subjects, loot, and territories to use to stage further invasions. Danes cared more for how tasty the British were, before they started to care about the British throne and court politics in the bigger Post-Roman world.
  - eru 7y ago

catalogia 7y ago

You make it sound like it would genuinely be in Germany's interest to not have a pipeline with Russia. Americans are no more rational than Germans, so if what you say is true, where is the harm in letting Germans make their own decisions rather than having Americans make those decisions for them?

AmericanChopper 7y ago
The word “sanctions” just describes a set of decisions that a sanctioning country can make. Any country is free to make any decision it wants to. If one country doesn’t like the decisions that another country makes, they can sanction them whereby the sanctioning country makes decisions about how it’s going to interact with the sanctioned country and typically how it will interact with other countries that also interact with the sanctioned country. The effectiveness of any sanction is determined exclusively by how much other countries want whatever it is that the sanctioning country has to offer. Liechtenstein has every right to start sanctioning the USA if it wants to, but it would have to first assess what would happen if it forced the world to choose between it and the USA.
labawi 7y ago
Not saying Americans are right to impose, but as a neighbor European and an Earth citizen I do believe it would be in our collective interest not to create additional pipelines to Russia, or anywhere else for that matter. Germany should build some HVDC or regular long-distance transmission lines so they can use their wind electricity without routing through neighbors and build more wind farms.

lispm 7y ago

Does the Trump administration and the rest of the US have a policy? To me it looks like chaos. US government is directed by a real-estate and tv guy. He would have difficulties locating Russia on a map and at the same time claims to be the best expert in military, strategy, trade, health care, basically everything. If it is not clear, the US for the last two decades is not moving forward, but backwards in international politics. Trump has exposed this even more. Trying as a strategy to contain Russia is simply not going to work and the US really needs a massive upgrade in political brains, and not more weapons.

usrusr 7y ago

> but if Russia has the off switch for Germany's economy You are completely missing the part where Germany has already been running on Russian gas for decades, from land based pipelines. I think that you might be unaware of how permeable to natural gas the iron curtain had been. The power Russia gains from Nordstream isn't the power to stop supplying Germany (they could already do that and then go broke), the power they gain is the power to keep supplying Germany while playing with the off-switch for their dearly loved "Slavic brother nations". The geopolitical relevance of Nordstream is not Russia selling more gas, it's about Russia deriving more influence per unit of gas. Ever wondered why Poland is refusing so hard to switch from dirty lignite to cleaner gas? It's not just money and miners, far from that.

pyuser583 7y ago

What are you talking about? Every country isn't trying to assert itself. Most are trying to stay our of the way and not get noticed.

barrkel 7y ago

Dependence goes both ways. Russia was reduced to (or built from the ashes as) a resource extraction economy; it's extremely dependent on Europe paying for its gas.

redis_mlc 7y ago

> possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable Russian doctrine is that the satellite countries are buffers to be used as needed, like Kleenex. It's 100% certain Russia will annex Baltic countries whenever it pleases. To say otherwise just makes you "a useful idiot", as Lenin is credited with saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

barrkel 7y ago
If Russia annexes any Baltic states it's liable to trigger nuclear war. All the Baltic states are NATO members.
- macintux 7y ago
  That was probably true 4 years ago. It's not at all obviously true today.
- smallstepforman 7y ago
  Russia could have annexed the Baltic states when they secceded in 91, but chose not to. From their perspective, they had enough of empire and grew tired of propping the periphery. There was no need for these states to join Nato, and they could have remained as independant partners benefitting from trade with 2 blocks. The fact they chose to move away from Russia has more to do with corruption than logic.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    Russia's war with Georgia and annexation of Crimea rather vindicates the Baltic states' decision to join NATO. Russia has made it manifestly clear that it wants the right to interfere in any country's politics that hosts a sizable Russian minority, and that it is willing to bring in the tanks should the host country refuse.
    - anticodon 7y ago
      Russia-Georgia conflict started by Georgian invasion. It's a fact acknowledged even by EU. I guess that just "forgot" to publish it in the media and continue to confuse people saying that Russia started it. It was a conflict initiated by Georgia but actually they were asked by US to start it.

bambataa 7y ago

Is it not also advantageous to Western Europe to have Russia dependent on WE’s oil and gas revenue?

anticodon 7y ago

There's also an economic reason: if not for Russian gas, Germany will have to buy several times more expensive US gas. One more way to rule Germany (another is military bases).

oezi 7y ago

The Nordstream II project is curious, because it is just a project to double capacity of the existing Nordstream pipelines. It comes in addition to other pipelines which already supply Europe from Russia. If this pipeline has any political relevance it is making Germany less dependent on Poland's and Ukraine's relationship with Russia. The Russian influence on Germany stays the same.

krageon 7y ago

> Today this would be inconceivable Why? They rolled tanks into a chunk of balkanised land already and nobody lifted a finger. I think anyone that spends some time considering that shudders to imagine how bad it could get with absolutely nothing happening.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> George Friedman explains in this book [1] that Russia may attempt to assert itself to a greater extent in the next few decades, possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable That would be less inconceivable than what they've already done in Ukraine.