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The Art of Monetary War

66 points by kawera 5y ago

roschdal 5y ago
- nostromo 5y ago
  Even if you blame this on NATO, which I don’t, it seems to have all but crippled Russia. Russia had an economy smaller than Texas. Today it’s economy is potentially smaller than Florida’s or Mexico’s. This was a colossal fuck up by Putin and the western powers didn’t even need to fire a bullet.
  - pasquinelli 5y ago
    good thing it's all settled and done.
  - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
    Considering the US economic & cultural war on Russian citizens is still ramping up, we don't know yet how this will effect the USD status as reserve currency. Whether Russia wins, or loses this war, in the long run it is clear: The US hegemony is in peril, and China will gain massive benefits from this.
  - guard0g 5y ago
    It's not entirely painless for the West, given Russia's key position as supplier of wheat, fertilizer, and natural gas. Inflation will be kicking around for a while (even without trillion dollar stimulus programs) and creating economic distress for most.
    - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
      I don't think we have even started to experience the truly massive food price shocks. Was listening to a farmer talk the other day about nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These prices are going through the roof, in some cases, 300% or higher increases. The price shocks are going to hurt lots of people. Their people. Our people.
      - laichzeit0 5y ago
        In the short term. By short term I mean historical short term. Anything less than 10 years is short and insignificant. Hopefully by then the entire world can be independent of Russia in perpetuity and it can wither away completely isolated from the West for eternity.
      - thriftwy 5y ago
        Food is still very, very cheap and people take that for granted. Oil is 30% of Russia's exports but wheat is a wee 2%. What if it grows to 20%, with tenfold price increase?
        OrvalWintermute 5y ago
        > Oil is 30% of Russia's exports but wheat is a wee 2%. What if it grows to 20%, with tenfold price increase? Oil/Fuel is not the only exports, as many petroleum/gas based products are not fuel [1] If fertilizer is one of the majority costs of growing food in the US, and we cut out 50% of the world's supply, then our costs will go through the roof. Uneffected suppliers such as our friends to the North in Canada will also raise their prices, as supply/demand curve will change. While I know most of us technical folks are well compensated, there are lots of poor people working paycheck to paycheck. A big price shock could mean some people starve. I don't want anyone to go hungry [1] https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/politics-government/2022-03-11/russians-freeze-on-fertilizer-exports-is-yet-another-challenge-for-mountain-west-farmers https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/politics-government/20...
    - paganel 5y ago
      It will also hurt Europe when it comes to migration. Much more expensive food means potential famine in large swaths of Africa and in some places in the Middle East, means people willing to risk it all in order to escape famine, means migration to Europe at any costs.
- iaw 5y ago
  The title is a reference to the book "The Art of War" Why was NATO expansion a mistake exactly?
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Yeah, if only NATO didn't expand Putin would have committed himself to a rule of peaceful cooperation with his neighbors... /s
- friedturkey 5y ago
  "Expansion" makes it sound like something that happened to Eastern Europe against their will--not that those countries actively wanted to join. Those countries actively bid to join NATO because they feared Russia expanding into Eastern Europe. Turns out their fears were justified.
  - chii 5y ago
    > bid to join NATO because they feared Russia expanding into Eastern Europe the true root cause, imho, is that the leadership in russia imagines themselves to be the superpower and have the natural right to influence in the region (and the exclusion of other superpower's influence). I think they must give up this notion. If russia turned into what germany is today after the fall of the USSR, they'd be prosperous. It would mean capitulation (to the "west"). Of course, this would mean that the oligarchs do not get their wealth, so there's no impetus for this course of action from anyone. The US is also not keep to have a "marshall plan" like they had with the post WW2 period to rebuild. So perhaps this war in ukraine is "inevitable".
    - pphysch 5y ago
      > the true root cause, imho, is that the leadership in russia imagines themselves to be the superpower and have the natural right to influence in the region (and the exclusion of other superpower's influence). Moscow is actively demonstrating that they are that regional power, and Washington is not. The real root cause is that the leadership of Washington thinks this exact same way, and this is a contradiction. Only Ukraine is in Moscow's front yard, not Washington's, and has a lot of ethnically Russian people. The case for Ukraine being in Moscow's sphere of influence is far stronger than it being in Washington's.
      - pm90 5y ago
        > Moscow is actively demonstrating that they are that regional power, and Washington is not. Moscow is trying to but failing; and the global response to cut off Russia has been lead by Washington.
      - 5y ago
- AlexCoventry 5y ago
  Failing to enact a Marshall-Plan-style reinvigoration of post-Soviet countries was a big mistake. Allowing Putin to cement the kleptocracy in Russia was a big mistake, consigning Russia to decades of economic stagnation. Invading the Ukraine was a mistake, but it would also be a big mistake to think that Western alliances with enthusiastic, innovative and productive post-Soviet countries somehow forced Putin to do that.
  - friedman23 5y ago
    > Allowing Putin to cement the kleptocracy in Russia was a big mistake As opposed to what? These were sovereign nations with nuclear bombs. The US and NATO are not the world police.
    - DeathArrow 5y ago
      >The US and NATO are not the world police. Surely that is not the impression left by countless wars US was involved in.
  - lumost 5y ago
    How would a marshall plan for post-soviet states have been accomplished? The soviet union was not a defeated country that wanted and needed rebuilding. It was a failed state with nuclear weapons that up until 1991 prevented anyone from entering or leaving from/to the West.
    - mudita 5y ago
      I suspect that you are not really familiar with the historical background of the situation, a new "Marshall Plan” is not something AlexCoventry came up with right now in this discussion, but a widely discussed option, which many experts agree would have been helpful, but was mostly not implemented because of the costs involved. I recommend reading a historical book, which goes into more detail than a hacker news discussion could, if you really want to understand the situation at the time. The following is from Paul D'Anieri, “Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War”. The chapters before this are also quite important, but I omitted them, because this got long enough as it is: The end of communism prompted talk of a new “Marshall Plan,” in which massive western aid would support rapid and far-reaching economic reform in Russia. The investment bank Morgan Stanley estimated in January 1992 that reforming the post-Soviet economies collectively would require at least $76 billion per year for at least three years to transform sectors such as energy, infrastructure, agriculture, and food. However, several factors conspired to undermine that hope. First was uncertainty over Yeltsin’s staying power in Russia. While he had defeated the coup, many in Russia strongly opposed the “shock therapy” being advocated. In August of 1992, when the IMF committed $1 billion to help stabilize the ruble, the reform plan of Yegor Gaidar was already faltering, and conservatives in the Congress of People’s Deputies were already seeking this ouster. Second, there was a significant perception in the United States that with the end of the Cold War, the United States would be able to focus less of its attention overseas. American citizens and politicians hoped for a “peace dividend,” through which money freed up from defense spending could be redirected to domestic spending to combat recession. Third, 1992 was a presidential election year. With the economy struggling, and Bush under attack by a Clinton campaign whose mantra was “it’s the economy, stupid,” it was impossible to muster the support needed to take a really bold and expensive policy. In March 1992, former president Richard Nixon, who had promoted détente with the Soviet Union, produced a “secret” memo to US leaders, the contents of which were soon leaked to journalists. He warned that the consequences of failure would be that “war could break out in the former Soviet Union as the new despots use force to restore the ‘historical borders’ of Russia.” Bush did not disagree. “Where we might have a difference, is we’re living in a time of constrained resources. There isn’t a lot of money around. We are spending too much as it already is. So to do the things I would really like to do, I don’t have a blank check for all that. In April, he proposed what became the Freedom Support Act, which largely repackaged existing commitments and presumed contributions by allies that had not yet been consulted. One important component of that proposal, a $6 billion stabilization fund, never materialized. Moreover, the Freedom Support Act aid was divided among the fifteen successor states. In late April, just after Bush announced the Freedom Support Act, Los Angeles exploded into riots, contributing powerfully to the belief that US leaders needed to focus aid efforts domestically, not at Russia. In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote: “The Russian aid bill’s limbo reflects the ambivalent moment in which American foreign policy finds itself after the cold war. One day officials and lawmakers say the United States is the world’s only superpower, and therefore it must lead on issues, such as Russian aid or peacekeeping in Yugoslavia. The next day, though, the same officials and lawmakers say that domestic problems should take precedence, foreign initiatives are too expensive, and therefore Washington cannot afford to lead. In the wake of the Los Angeles riots in particular, the latter mood seems to be dominating“
oneoff786 5y ago
I wonder how this article will read if someone just decides to kill Putin. The article is very pessimistic. To be fair, this hasn’t worked in Iran or North Korea. But those are small nations. The fate of Russia over the next few years could easily determine the next hundred of geopolitics.
- slim 5y ago
  this manner of casually talking about killing a person as if it could be a normal subject is very strange. Are you american?
  - beebmam 5y ago
    Putin has personally ordered the killing and torture of thousands of innocent people for his own enrichment and power. Spare me your crocodile tears
    - slim 5y ago
      I'm genuinely puzzeled. I don't think anyone thinks it's possible to kill putin, so I'm wondering about all this appeal to murder.
      - ggm 5y ago
        You expect him to die in his sleep? It's a kleptocracy: the goons surrounding the oligarchy will kill him the femtosecond it's expedient.
        slim 5y ago
        makes sense as a psyop attack against putin to try and make him paranoid. But do you seriously think putins security is so lax during war time as to leave surface for someone to assassin him in russia? do you think for example a sufficient number of people in his close network are conspiring without him knowing ? to me it does not seem plausible
steve76 5y ago
mannanj 5y ago
So, our sanctions are again going to cause many thousands of innocent citizens to suffer while it does nothing towwards the leadership of Russia? Just like Iran right?
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  The sanctions in Iran were effective in pushing Iran to accept a deal that allowed us to inspect their nuclear facilities and ensure that no weapons grade enrichment was going on. They achieved what they were meant to achieve. Of course Trump tore up that deal, which made the sanctions mostly worthless in the end, but that's on Trump.
  - paganel 5y ago
    > They achieved what they were meant to achieve. That is copium to the highest degree. The sanctions were meant to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb, they were about one year away from having one when the sanctions hit, nowadays I read somewhere (maybe the Economist) that they're maybe one month away only from being able to build one. The sanctions failed. Later edit: Article from November 2021 about the one-month thing: "Iran one month away from achieving nuclear weapon". [1] As recently as January 2020 the West still thought that Iran was "one or two years" from building a bomb [2] [1] https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iran-one-month-away-from-achieving-nuclear-weapon-report-687102 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iran-one-month-away-from... [2] https://www.france24.com/en/20200110-iran-nuclear-weapons-deal-france-le-drian-qassem-soleimani-trump-un-eu-european-union-united-nations https://www.france24.com/en/20200110-iran-nuclear-weapons-de...
    - dillondoyle 5y ago
      Isn't that revisionist too though The sanctions were to stop Iran from building a bomb. the actual capabilities of creating one already existed and as you pointed out can be easily ramped up in relatively no time.
      - paganel 5y ago
nonrandomstring 5y ago
"Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.", said Rand who saw money not as an evil but an instrument of peace. What worries me with talk of "Monetary war" is the transition of money as means of peace into a weapon. Mark this, much as I detest Russia today and believe brutal sanctions are the way, we will all reap tyranny if banks are militarised. First the central digital currencies will be used to cut-off "terrorists", then companies who won't play games, and eventually individuals with inconvenient things to say. Without some form of "bitcoin" [1] that evades authoritarian control, or a diverse basket of payments backed by legislation to prevent "cashless hellholes", you'd better realise your wealth exists only at the whim of some unseen power. [1] we _must_ evolve past PoW
- openfuture 5y ago
  Don't worry it's coming. The proof of trust that is.
- lazide 5y ago
  Central banks already are used as tools to do all these things.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Yoric 5y ago
  Rand's idea that money is an instrument of peace has some historical basis but has also been contradicted by history pretty much forever. Cue to thousands of examples, including money-fueled coups in Ancient Rome, public or private wars paid for by banker's money in Renaissance Italy, the Medici ending the Florentine republic by strength of money, bankers bankrolling both Franco and Adolf Hitler, etc.
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  @Yoric and Lazide Sure I get it. Arguments against my "bad things will happen" is "don't worry they are already happening" :) That doesn't lessen the case that we can and should work on resilient money systems that protect the interests of ordinary people. When the boot is on the other foot, maybe in 10 years when China is "turning-off the dollar", we'll all be glad we built robust and democratically controlled means of exchange.
munch117 5y ago
In the 20th century, Europe tried every strategy to keep the peace. First, we tried deterrence. Touch a hair on my brother's chin, and I'm going to give you a haircut you won't forget. That didn't work. Blew up in our faces, WW1. Then we tried appeasement. That didn't work. Blew up in our faces, WW2. Finally we tried economic cooperation. Make everyone rich and interdependent, and they won't want to go war. That worked spectacularly, and ever since we've been milking that successful strategy for everything it's worth. People are very eager to talk about how that strategy failed with Putin, but what they forget is that this is the only winning strategy there is. We are switching over to deterrence now, but we're doing it for lack of a better choice, not because it's a winning strategy. If we had switched over to deterrence (or appeasement) earlier, it would not have fixed anything, it would only have changed the manner in which things went wrong. "But doux commerce—the notion that money talks, walks, and wants peace—is well and truly buried." I'm hearing the words of an American who's still at step 1, deterrence. It may be a long time, but eventually we will need to get back to the winning strategy.
- Viliam1234 5y ago
  > Finally we tried economic cooperation. Make everyone rich and interdependent, and they won't want to go war. Economic cooperation only makes a country rich if it is not too corrupted internally. When a country is governed by thieves, all wealth ends up in their pockets, and the average citizen remains poor. Interdependence does not mean dependence on everyone. A big country can keep doing business with other big countries, while it attacks its smaller neighbors who only provide a negligible fraction of the trade.
jsnell 5y ago
> Ukraine and Russia supply a third of the world’s wheat That does not appear to be true, 2019 statistics [0] put it at 13%. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_wheat_production_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_wheat_production...
- sleightofmind 5y ago
  Thank you for this. The author may have simply made a mistake. That's quite possible. It's also possible that he was referring to wheat beyond the producer's own need -- exports -- and if this is the case, it appears that Russia and Ukraine produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% of the combined total of the top ten producers -- see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_exports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_exp... So, not quite a third, but not much of an exaggeration.
kkfx 5y ago
IMVHO people have completely forgot a thing: money have no tangible value. Money is a unit of measure of a tangible underlying. We choose something symbolic to trade it in place of physical goods being able not only to trade but to always have something anyone is interested in. That's is. Consider money a value by itself is a psychological scam. Monetary war is just a way to put pressure on an antagonist stating that it have less value than most people think.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Monetary war like this is effectively just defaulting on your debt. Money is debt. Having a dollar literally means that the abstract they owe you one. One what? That's for the market to decide when you decide to cash in the favor. It's all based on trust that what you are owed will be paid back in the future. If the US says "hey, I know you thought you had 100 billion favors you could cash in from us at any time, but actually you don't unless you start behaving how we tell you to", then money becomes a mechanism of control. Sovereigns don't like being controlled by outside forces and will start to look for ways to ascend beyond the control structure, like they always have for all of history. I think this monetary war is going to get messier than most people want to believe.
  - kkfx 5y ago
    Money is debt because of a common and accepted scam, not by nature. Money is debt because years ago some decide that the State should not own money, few private should and they lease them in exchange of an interest, but such scam is vapor: if a country want can easily say "sorry man, there is no debt, we have the army, natural resources etc so shut up and obey or we erase you in a so painful way you'll pry for your own death". Such "defaults" are just scam skirmish from some who want to say his opponent are not worth what they seems to be, nothing practical. The main point is exactly what people want to believe: if enough people decide that's time to erase private central bank putting monetary control under state control yes that will be a big step toward Democracy all over the world, but that's utopia, most people do not even know that debt it's money, not real debt.
DeathArrow 5y ago
Reading this I came to some conclusions: 1.Weaponizing money could never happen if the money were still backed by something valuable such as gold or goods 2.The value of money is now based solely on thrust. If FED confiscated Russia's money, this is a major blow to the dollar. Probably China and other countries are beginning to search for alternatives for US dollar for both trade and keeping their reserves. That would diminish again the trust in the value of the US dollar.
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  > Weaponizing money could never happen if the money were still backed by something valuable such as gold or goods While weaponizing money may not be so easy, that doesn't mean economic warfare would stop. Currently the US has declared what amounts to unrestricted warfare against the Russians, including violating our own laws, and the laws of our allies, to effect damage to them. Specifically I am talking about seizing of private property by fiat for no crime. The logical Russian response is to nationalize every Western asset in their territory Economic warfare may get much worse, since there is power in buying, power in selling, power in being an intermediary, or having the currency of exchange, or the system used for exchange.
  - Yoric 5y ago
    > Specifically I am talking about seizing of private property by fiat for no crime. Has any property been seized? I thought that it was only locked down pending investigations? That's already borderline (possibly illegal? ianal) but very different.

66 points by kawera 5y ago

nostromo 5y ago
Even if you blame this on NATO, which I don’t, it seems to have all but crippled Russia. Russia had an economy smaller than Texas. Today it’s economy is potentially smaller than Florida’s or Mexico’s. This was a colossal fuck up by Putin and the western powers didn’t even need to fire a bullet.
- pasquinelli 5y ago
  good thing it's all settled and done.
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  Considering the US economic & cultural war on Russian citizens is still ramping up, we don't know yet how this will effect the USD status as reserve currency. Whether Russia wins, or loses this war, in the long run it is clear: The US hegemony is in peril, and China will gain massive benefits from this.
- guard0g 5y ago
  It's not entirely painless for the West, given Russia's key position as supplier of wheat, fertilizer, and natural gas. Inflation will be kicking around for a while (even without trillion dollar stimulus programs) and creating economic distress for most.
  - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
    I don't think we have even started to experience the truly massive food price shocks. Was listening to a farmer talk the other day about nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These prices are going through the roof, in some cases, 300% or higher increases. The price shocks are going to hurt lots of people. Their people. Our people.
    - laichzeit0 5y ago
      In the short term. By short term I mean historical short term. Anything less than 10 years is short and insignificant. Hopefully by then the entire world can be independent of Russia in perpetuity and it can wither away completely isolated from the West for eternity.
    - thriftwy 5y ago
      Food is still very, very cheap and people take that for granted. Oil is 30% of Russia's exports but wheat is a wee 2%. What if it grows to 20%, with tenfold price increase?
      - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
        > Oil is 30% of Russia's exports but wheat is a wee 2%. What if it grows to 20%, with tenfold price increase? Oil/Fuel is not the only exports, as many petroleum/gas based products are not fuel [1] If fertilizer is one of the majority costs of growing food in the US, and we cut out 50% of the world's supply, then our costs will go through the roof. Uneffected suppliers such as our friends to the North in Canada will also raise their prices, as supply/demand curve will change. While I know most of us technical folks are well compensated, there are lots of poor people working paycheck to paycheck. A big price shock could mean some people starve. I don't want anyone to go hungry [1] https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/politics-government/2022-03-11/russians-freeze-on-fertilizer-exports-is-yet-another-challenge-for-mountain-west-farmers https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/politics-government/20...
  - paganel 5y ago
    It will also hurt Europe when it comes to migration. Much more expensive food means potential famine in large swaths of Africa and in some places in the Middle East, means people willing to risk it all in order to escape famine, means migration to Europe at any costs.
iaw 5y ago
The title is a reference to the book "The Art of War" Why was NATO expansion a mistake exactly?
anonporridge 5y ago
Yeah, if only NATO didn't expand Putin would have committed himself to a rule of peaceful cooperation with his neighbors... /s
friedturkey 5y ago
"Expansion" makes it sound like something that happened to Eastern Europe against their will--not that those countries actively wanted to join. Those countries actively bid to join NATO because they feared Russia expanding into Eastern Europe. Turns out their fears were justified.
- chii 5y ago
  > bid to join NATO because they feared Russia expanding into Eastern Europe the true root cause, imho, is that the leadership in russia imagines themselves to be the superpower and have the natural right to influence in the region (and the exclusion of other superpower's influence). I think they must give up this notion. If russia turned into what germany is today after the fall of the USSR, they'd be prosperous. It would mean capitulation (to the "west"). Of course, this would mean that the oligarchs do not get their wealth, so there's no impetus for this course of action from anyone. The US is also not keep to have a "marshall plan" like they had with the post WW2 period to rebuild. So perhaps this war in ukraine is "inevitable".
  - pphysch 5y ago
    > the true root cause, imho, is that the leadership in russia imagines themselves to be the superpower and have the natural right to influence in the region (and the exclusion of other superpower's influence). Moscow is actively demonstrating that they are that regional power, and Washington is not. The real root cause is that the leadership of Washington thinks this exact same way, and this is a contradiction. Only Ukraine is in Moscow's front yard, not Washington's, and has a lot of ethnically Russian people. The case for Ukraine being in Moscow's sphere of influence is far stronger than it being in Washington's.
    - pm90 5y ago
      > Moscow is actively demonstrating that they are that regional power, and Washington is not. Moscow is trying to but failing; and the global response to cut off Russia has been lead by Washington.
    - 5y ago
AlexCoventry 5y ago
Failing to enact a Marshall-Plan-style reinvigoration of post-Soviet countries was a big mistake. Allowing Putin to cement the kleptocracy in Russia was a big mistake, consigning Russia to decades of economic stagnation. Invading the Ukraine was a mistake, but it would also be a big mistake to think that Western alliances with enthusiastic, innovative and productive post-Soviet countries somehow forced Putin to do that.
- friedman23 5y ago
  > Allowing Putin to cement the kleptocracy in Russia was a big mistake As opposed to what? These were sovereign nations with nuclear bombs. The US and NATO are not the world police.
  - DeathArrow 5y ago
    >The US and NATO are not the world police. Surely that is not the impression left by countless wars US was involved in.
- lumost 5y ago
  How would a marshall plan for post-soviet states have been accomplished? The soviet union was not a defeated country that wanted and needed rebuilding. It was a failed state with nuclear weapons that up until 1991 prevented anyone from entering or leaving from/to the West.
  - mudita 5y ago
    I suspect that you are not really familiar with the historical background of the situation, a new "Marshall Plan” is not something AlexCoventry came up with right now in this discussion, but a widely discussed option, which many experts agree would have been helpful, but was mostly not implemented because of the costs involved. I recommend reading a historical book, which goes into more detail than a hacker news discussion could, if you really want to understand the situation at the time. The following is from Paul D'Anieri, “Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War”. The chapters before this are also quite important, but I omitted them, because this got long enough as it is: The end of communism prompted talk of a new “Marshall Plan,” in which massive western aid would support rapid and far-reaching economic reform in Russia. The investment bank Morgan Stanley estimated in January 1992 that reforming the post-Soviet economies collectively would require at least $76 billion per year for at least three years to transform sectors such as energy, infrastructure, agriculture, and food. However, several factors conspired to undermine that hope. First was uncertainty over Yeltsin’s staying power in Russia. While he had defeated the coup, many in Russia strongly opposed the “shock therapy” being advocated. In August of 1992, when the IMF committed $1 billion to help stabilize the ruble, the reform plan of Yegor Gaidar was already faltering, and conservatives in the Congress of People’s Deputies were already seeking this ouster. Second, there was a significant perception in the United States that with the end of the Cold War, the United States would be able to focus less of its attention overseas. American citizens and politicians hoped for a “peace dividend,” through which money freed up from defense spending could be redirected to domestic spending to combat recession. Third, 1992 was a presidential election year. With the economy struggling, and Bush under attack by a Clinton campaign whose mantra was “it’s the economy, stupid,” it was impossible to muster the support needed to take a really bold and expensive policy. In March 1992, former president Richard Nixon, who had promoted détente with the Soviet Union, produced a “secret” memo to US leaders, the contents of which were soon leaked to journalists. He warned that the consequences of failure would be that “war could break out in the former Soviet Union as the new despots use force to restore the ‘historical borders’ of Russia.” Bush did not disagree. “Where we might have a difference, is we’re living in a time of constrained resources. There isn’t a lot of money around. We are spending too much as it already is. So to do the things I would really like to do, I don’t have a blank check for all that. In April, he proposed what became the Freedom Support Act, which largely repackaged existing commitments and presumed contributions by allies that had not yet been consulted. One important component of that proposal, a $6 billion stabilization fund, never materialized. Moreover, the Freedom Support Act aid was divided among the fifteen successor states. In late April, just after Bush announced the Freedom Support Act, Los Angeles exploded into riots, contributing powerfully to the belief that US leaders needed to focus aid efforts domestically, not at Russia. In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote: “The Russian aid bill’s limbo reflects the ambivalent moment in which American foreign policy finds itself after the cold war. One day officials and lawmakers say the United States is the world’s only superpower, and therefore it must lead on issues, such as Russian aid or peacekeeping in Yugoslavia. The next day, though, the same officials and lawmakers say that domestic problems should take precedence, foreign initiatives are too expensive, and therefore Washington cannot afford to lead. In the wake of the Los Angeles riots in particular, the latter mood seems to be dominating“

I wonder how this article will read if someone just decides to kill Putin. The article is very pessimistic. To be fair, this hasn’t worked in Iran or North Korea. But those are small nations. The fate of Russia over the next few years could easily determine the next hundred of geopolitics.

slim 5y ago
this manner of casually talking about killing a person as if it could be a normal subject is very strange. Are you american?
- beebmam 5y ago
  Putin has personally ordered the killing and torture of thousands of innocent people for his own enrichment and power. Spare me your crocodile tears
  - slim 5y ago
    I'm genuinely puzzeled. I don't think anyone thinks it's possible to kill putin, so I'm wondering about all this appeal to murder.
    - ggm 5y ago
      You expect him to die in his sleep? It's a kleptocracy: the goons surrounding the oligarchy will kill him the femtosecond it's expedient.
      - slim 5y ago
        makes sense as a psyop attack against putin to try and make him paranoid. But do you seriously think putins security is so lax during war time as to leave surface for someone to assassin him in russia? do you think for example a sufficient number of people in his close network are conspiring without him knowing ? to me it does not seem plausible

steve76 5y ago

mannanj 5y ago

So, our sanctions are again going to cause many thousands of innocent citizens to suffer while it does nothing towwards the leadership of Russia? Just like Iran right?

lalaland1125 5y ago
The sanctions in Iran were effective in pushing Iran to accept a deal that allowed us to inspect their nuclear facilities and ensure that no weapons grade enrichment was going on. They achieved what they were meant to achieve. Of course Trump tore up that deal, which made the sanctions mostly worthless in the end, but that's on Trump.
- paganel 5y ago
  > They achieved what they were meant to achieve. That is copium to the highest degree. The sanctions were meant to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb, they were about one year away from having one when the sanctions hit, nowadays I read somewhere (maybe the Economist) that they're maybe one month away only from being able to build one. The sanctions failed. Later edit: Article from November 2021 about the one-month thing: "Iran one month away from achieving nuclear weapon". [1] As recently as January 2020 the West still thought that Iran was "one or two years" from building a bomb [2] [1] https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iran-one-month-away-from-achieving-nuclear-weapon-report-687102 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iran-one-month-away-from... [2] https://www.france24.com/en/20200110-iran-nuclear-weapons-deal-france-le-drian-qassem-soleimani-trump-un-eu-european-union-united-nations https://www.france24.com/en/20200110-iran-nuclear-weapons-de...
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Isn't that revisionist too though The sanctions were to stop Iran from building a bomb. the actual capabilities of creating one already existed and as you pointed out can be easily ramped up in relatively no time.
    - paganel 5y ago

nonrandomstring 5y ago

"Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.", said Rand who saw money not as an evil but an instrument of peace. What worries me with talk of "Monetary war" is the transition of money as means of peace into a weapon. Mark this, much as I detest Russia today and believe brutal sanctions are the way, we will all reap tyranny if banks are militarised. First the central digital currencies will be used to cut-off "terrorists", then companies who won't play games, and eventually individuals with inconvenient things to say. Without some form of "bitcoin" [1] that evades authoritarian control, or a diverse basket of payments backed by legislation to prevent "cashless hellholes", you'd better realise your wealth exists only at the whim of some unseen power. [1] we _must_ evolve past PoW

openfuture 5y ago
Don't worry it's coming. The proof of trust that is.
lazide 5y ago
Central banks already are used as tools to do all these things.
- deleted 5y ago
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Yoric 5y ago
Rand's idea that money is an instrument of peace has some historical basis but has also been contradicted by history pretty much forever. Cue to thousands of examples, including money-fueled coups in Ancient Rome, public or private wars paid for by banker's money in Renaissance Italy, the Medici ending the Florentine republic by strength of money, bankers bankrolling both Franco and Adolf Hitler, etc.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
@Yoric and Lazide Sure I get it. Arguments against my "bad things will happen" is "don't worry they are already happening" :) That doesn't lessen the case that we can and should work on resilient money systems that protect the interests of ordinary people. When the boot is on the other foot, maybe in 10 years when China is "turning-off the dollar", we'll all be glad we built robust and democratically controlled means of exchange.

munch117 5y ago

In the 20th century, Europe tried every strategy to keep the peace. First, we tried deterrence. Touch a hair on my brother's chin, and I'm going to give you a haircut you won't forget. That didn't work. Blew up in our faces, WW1. Then we tried appeasement. That didn't work. Blew up in our faces, WW2. Finally we tried economic cooperation. Make everyone rich and interdependent, and they won't want to go war. That worked spectacularly, and ever since we've been milking that successful strategy for everything it's worth. People are very eager to talk about how that strategy failed with Putin, but what they forget is that this is the only winning strategy there is. We are switching over to deterrence now, but we're doing it for lack of a better choice, not because it's a winning strategy. If we had switched over to deterrence (or appeasement) earlier, it would not have fixed anything, it would only have changed the manner in which things went wrong. "But doux commerce—the notion that money talks, walks, and wants peace—is well and truly buried." I'm hearing the words of an American who's still at step 1, deterrence. It may be a long time, but eventually we will need to get back to the winning strategy.

Viliam1234 5y ago
> Finally we tried economic cooperation. Make everyone rich and interdependent, and they won't want to go war. Economic cooperation only makes a country rich if it is not too corrupted internally. When a country is governed by thieves, all wealth ends up in their pockets, and the average citizen remains poor. Interdependence does not mean dependence on everyone. A big country can keep doing business with other big countries, while it attacks its smaller neighbors who only provide a negligible fraction of the trade.

jsnell 5y ago

> Ukraine and Russia supply a third of the world’s wheat That does not appear to be true, 2019 statistics [0] put it at 13%. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_wheat_production_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_wheat_production...

sleightofmind 5y ago
Thank you for this. The author may have simply made a mistake. That's quite possible. It's also possible that he was referring to wheat beyond the producer's own need -- exports -- and if this is the case, it appears that Russia and Ukraine produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% of the combined total of the top ten producers -- see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_exports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_exp... So, not quite a third, but not much of an exaggeration.

kkfx 5y ago

IMVHO people have completely forgot a thing: money have no tangible value. Money is a unit of measure of a tangible underlying. We choose something symbolic to trade it in place of physical goods being able not only to trade but to always have something anyone is interested in. That's is. Consider money a value by itself is a psychological scam. Monetary war is just a way to put pressure on an antagonist stating that it have less value than most people think.

anonporridge 5y ago
Monetary war like this is effectively just defaulting on your debt. Money is debt. Having a dollar literally means that the abstract they owe you one. One what? That's for the market to decide when you decide to cash in the favor. It's all based on trust that what you are owed will be paid back in the future. If the US says "hey, I know you thought you had 100 billion favors you could cash in from us at any time, but actually you don't unless you start behaving how we tell you to", then money becomes a mechanism of control. Sovereigns don't like being controlled by outside forces and will start to look for ways to ascend beyond the control structure, like they always have for all of history. I think this monetary war is going to get messier than most people want to believe.
- kkfx 5y ago
  Money is debt because of a common and accepted scam, not by nature. Money is debt because years ago some decide that the State should not own money, few private should and they lease them in exchange of an interest, but such scam is vapor: if a country want can easily say "sorry man, there is no debt, we have the army, natural resources etc so shut up and obey or we erase you in a so painful way you'll pry for your own death". Such "defaults" are just scam skirmish from some who want to say his opponent are not worth what they seems to be, nothing practical. The main point is exactly what people want to believe: if enough people decide that's time to erase private central bank putting monetary control under state control yes that will be a big step toward Democracy all over the world, but that's utopia, most people do not even know that debt it's money, not real debt.

DeathArrow 5y ago

Reading this I came to some conclusions: 1.Weaponizing money could never happen if the money were still backed by something valuable such as gold or goods 2.The value of money is now based solely on thrust. If FED confiscated Russia's money, this is a major blow to the dollar. Probably China and other countries are beginning to search for alternatives for US dollar for both trade and keeping their reserves. That would diminish again the trust in the value of the US dollar.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago
> Weaponizing money could never happen if the money were still backed by something valuable such as gold or goods While weaponizing money may not be so easy, that doesn't mean economic warfare would stop. Currently the US has declared what amounts to unrestricted warfare against the Russians, including violating our own laws, and the laws of our allies, to effect damage to them. Specifically I am talking about seizing of private property by fiat for no crime. The logical Russian response is to nationalize every Western asset in their territory Economic warfare may get much worse, since there is power in buying, power in selling, power in being an intermediary, or having the currency of exchange, or the system used for exchange.
- Yoric 5y ago
  > Specifically I am talking about seizing of private property by fiat for no crime. Has any property been seized? I thought that it was only locked down pending investigations? That's already borderline (possibly illegal? ianal) but very different.