Russia, Iran, Syria Axis
 

So the neo-Fascists, MSM, and the talking heads are all in a tizzy over the POTUS posturing viz-a-viz Putin and Russia. Here's a thought:

Russia, Syria, Iran are the new axis of evil. Donald Trump is positioning to be a reasonable guy (good cop) with Vlad and hard liner with Iran. Why?

He knows that he needs to drive a wedge in the Iran/Russia relationship. Russia wants access to Iran's oil through Syria to Crimea. Iran wants to export more oil. Russia wants the leverage of the oil supply to distribute to Europe through the the Crimean choke point. Russia also needs the economic boost.

The POTUS wants a military strike option on Iran's oil production and nuclear facilities without fear of Russian retaliation. He needs to marginalize Russia in the ME.

Lots of moving parts, but the first order of business is to develop a normalized working relationship with Russia, i.e. limit Russia's options and satisfy their economic need while positioning the US to economically break them.

Not sure how this is going to play out, but looking at this through the lens of an SF mission to pacify a hostile area, the first thing I'm going to try to do is co-opt the village bully (Putin) to my side.

I sense a big picture strategy here and Donald Trump, like Reagan was, is the front man to a grander plan. In fact I see a lot of similarities to the way in which we effected the breakup of the Soviet Union under Reagan.

Thoughts??

Great analysis, just geneuily curious but what makes Putin & Assad evil?

Russia is a rational actor that we treated like a whipped dog after the cold war ended. We put military bases on ground that used to be PART OF THEIR COUNTRY, gave NATO membership (an anti-Russian alliance) to countries that were also...Part of the USSR proper.... as well as former Warsaw Pact nations. All the while smiling and saying that we had no interest in hurting Russia.

You have to look at this from Russia's point of view. They have been invaded multiple times from every direction because they have no natural frontiers. It's all open ground in just about every direction. The mongols wiped them out from the east. Napoleon invaded from the west. Later, Hitler (a sworn ally) invaded and CRUSHED their country. Russia is so paranoid about their lack of defendability they conquered all of Siberia and Central Asia just to have control over their eastern frontiers. After WWII, they damn well made sure they had a buffer to the west as well in the form of the Warsaw Pact.

Now we have advanced NATO all the way to their doorstep by admitting the Baltic states, which were part of the USSR. We also may or may not have assisted a coup in Ukraine that ousted a pro-Russian government and installed an anti-Russian government. We put an airbase in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, also part of the old USSR. We put troops in Georgia, on their southern border. We put troops in Afghanistan, just south of the old USSR.

If you were Russia, how would you view this? Putin got edgy and started pushing back. Now we say that his aggressiveness has no basis and he is just a bully.... If the US had a civil war and we lost Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, California, Puerto Rico, and Florida because they became their own countries, then Russia put troops, airbases, missile defense, and nuclear capable bombers in those states, how would the US react? Especially if they said they were there to counter US aggression?

That's exactly what we've done. The US needs to look in the mirror now and again and splash cold water on our face. Just because we do something doesn't indicate it was smart, or right, because we're a big fluffy teddy bear that never has ill will towards anyone.

Good synopsis for those that don't read history.
The USA has been blessed with large oceans on two sides and a great neighbor on one.

Is the strategy short term nice-nice with Putin in order to long-term starve him of influence/control over joint monopoly energy market dominance?

I always thought the least known victory in the Cold War(besides imploding the Warsaw Pact via non kinetic UW with Solidarity) was Reagan playing hardball on day 1 to stop recession hurt NATO from buying cheap energy from its main enemy the Soviet Union.

While the Cold War was decisively won, few realised Cold War Season 2 started immediately after, and despite Russia being horribly crippled and humbled for most of the last 25+ years, Russia did eventually gain huge ,arkwt share of the Western European energy market.

Which means massive amounts of hard cash and geopolitical influence that has only been temporarily held back by currently low energy prices.

I always thought the disaster that became of Libya(which seems "easy", relatively speaking, from a map reconnaissance standpoint to achieve elusive stability over a very well located, very high quality source of proximate energy) was a key strategic energy alternative to a Putin energy cartel attempt.

Russian games in Venezuela were surely about more than some much needed arms sales and also about building an alternative(under a Russian nuclear umbrella) to a US dominated global system.

Wouldn't Russian attempts to cozy up to Turkey also substantiate an attempt at a Russian energy cartel? This is despite the long history of Russian/Turkish antagonism and hatred.

But if Turkey is going full retard islamic(truly frightening indicator as the only successful, modern, non energy based Muslim economy with rising quality of life and standard of living....going non secular against progressive develop,net theory), the EU refuses Turkish entry, and US relations have been strained since 2003 and Erdogan going non secular...what options are there?

Is a Turkish/Russian nexus that hard to believe after Putin doing a deal with Kadyrov in Chechnya?

Russia's economy is a disaster and a one trick energy pony. Why not use the ashen remains of their crumbled Soviet Union empire to build an energy cartel to supplant OPEC.

But beyond Russia's failing economy, it's also suffering from failing demographics, ultimately under pressure from not only China(Siberia encroachment & resource exploitation), but also Islamic "terra forming" demographics.

In the micro sense(multi-year) I feel Russia needs a bit of a punch in the face....preferably in private...to disrupt their attempt at a competing system....that game needs to end.

In the macro sense(multi-decade) I feel Russia is a needed partner in the eternal war against a far bigger and more dangerous enemy in the form of the glacial slow "terraforming" of incongruent Islam.

Chess versus checkers indeed!

But if my analysis/argument has any validity, how do you discretely punch a chess player in the face, learn how to team up and play chess on the same side as the person you just punched in the face, then partner to destroy the main enemy.

Is that like Star Trek 3D chess?

Because I'm getting confused at the complexity of the micro opposition and macro alignment of interests.

I think some good whiskey might help me.

Great perspective. One interesting thing is to understand how maps shape our world view. Or, how our world view shapes the maps that we commonly use. The common map that we use in the US is the Mercator.. which puts us on one side of the map and Russia on the other. It also distorts as you go to the poles...so with Russia tends to look even bigger than it is. If we use a polar projection you get a true picture from the Russian point of view...and you can see how Russia would feel encircled by the US, NATO etc. just from a geographic perspective...even without history.

That question set my teeth on edge! Sounds like you're trolling. A modest proposal Mustang Man: Do your own research, draw conclusions from that, post your opinion one way or another and be prepared to defend it. Don't ever troll me or anyone else here ever again. Got it?

Try again. Oh, and read Scooter's, Flagg's, ABC 123's posts for a clue. ;)

Flagg: Couldn't agree more with that! This is one very, very complex issue. I loved Scooter's comment. A very accurate assessment from Russia's point of view and critical to find a working solution.

I think this is the critical foreign policy issue of our time and key to the whole ME crisis. Should be an interesting discussion here.

A point of clarification: I do not see Russia as the real enemy, they're a potential asset. Iran's the target.

And let's not ignore Pakistan. They're a wild card and need to be kept on the sidelines.

I'll bite. Before I answer, I want to say something up front: I love my country. I have fought for it for almost 20 years and would do anything to defend it, physically or morally. Right or wrong, the United States is my country and I will unhesitatingly put its interests ahead of anyone and everyone else. Got it? Ok.

There is no such thing as right and wrong, good or evil, when it comes to international relations. Syria evil, America good? Let's put that in perspective.

The United States, after breaking away from Britain, took advantage of financial ruin in France and bought their entire North America holdings for pennies on the dollar. As we started advancing west, we made treaties with the native tribes there. When that was inconvenient, we sent the Army in and uprooted every single tribe. We sent them on a death march west, until they were out of our hair. We sent settlers to northern Mexico against their stern warning, then decided it was ours. After the settlers fought off the Mexicans, they joined the US proper. When Mexico had the audacity to protest this, we declared war on Mexico, invaded, conquered them, then took half of their country from them by force. It's ours now, thanks. We're currently mad that there are so many Mexicans in this part of the country.

We got distracted fighting among ourselves for a while, which we finally solved by waging unrestricted war against civilians in their part of our country in order to terrorize them until they quit. We then sent the Army west with the deliberate policy of exterminating the entire native population. We gave the surviving remnants the worst land we could find and told them to stay there. Occasionally they got uppity, and we sent in guys with guns to punish them for objecting. We decided that we liked that big chain of islands in the middle of the pacific (Hawaii), so we invaded and took for ourselves. The ruling queen could go piss off. Ours.

We ran out of new land to settle and got anxious, so we decided to manufacture a war with Spain. We easily beat them, and took all of their remaining overseas territories because we could. We put troops in the Philippines to claim it, and they decided they wanted their own country instead of being ruled by us. The nerve of those people... so we brutally crushed their revolt over a multi-year counterinsurgency and made sure they knew who was boss. We wanted to sell heroin to China to make money, but they didn't want us to do that exactly. So we did the only rational thing and invaded China. When the Boxers revolted against the white imperialists, we responded violently. A couple of guys got Medals of Honor, for saving the good white folk who had settled there against the irrationally hostile yellow man.

When the Russian revolution broke out, we invaded Russia to try to stop the Bolsheviks. Being America, we did it less than half ass and didn't accomplish anything, other than ensuring that the Russians would remember us with something less than fondness. A little bit later a bunch of countries in the Central America were unhappy that our fruit companies were trying to run the show down there, so they instituted a policy of deciding what companies could do what and how with their natural resources. Fuck that, right? So we sent in the Marines all over the place to put in new governments that would let us take their bananas at cut rates and sell them for profit.

We got sucked into World War 2, mostly because we decided we didn't like the Japanese (who were screwing with our economic interests) and started cutting off their fuel supply. They kind of needed gas, so they attacked us. When things got really tough during the war, we decided that firebombing dense population centers with no military value would be a great way to terrorize the enemy, so we did that. When it got even tougher, we nuked two cities with no military value just to terrorize the Japanese by slaughtering old men, women, and children by incinerating their whole city. Surrender or we keep doing it. Problem solved. Then we put our enemy’s leaders on trial for killing civilians and hung them.

We had an awesome opportunity at this point, seeing as the entire developed world was in ashes and we were left standing. We deliberately created a world designed specifically for our benefit. Our enemies? Yeah, we ensured they remained weak by writing their constitutions ourselves, and permanently stationed garrisons in their country. Great Britain, France, and Belgium were happy for our help during the war, so they won’t mind if we keep our troops in their countries, right? To help. The Russians were busy creating a defensive alliance so they wouldn’t get invaded AGAIN, so we decided to tell our friends they were joining OUR alliance, which would be under our command and not theirs. We made sure everyone adopted our economic system and free trade, so our still standing economy could sell them stuff. We kept our big navy and had international laws written that guaranteed freedom of the seas, which benefited us over all other nations. We put carrier battle groups and Marines in every quadrant of the world to ensure our stuff we were selling got to where it needed to go. This worked so well we paid off most of our 100% GDP debt in record time, then kept making us into the richest country on earth. We created international governing bodies (stationed in the US) which gave us and our docile allies a veto over anyone else’s military actions for any reason. We had international finance rules put in place that ensured the dollar became the world’s reserve currency. We built thousands of nuclear weapons so we could incinerate people’s cities if needed, then told everyone else that they couldn’t have any. We made this a non-negotiable world policy. Except for our allies. They could have some too, as long as they didn’t make too many and stayed in our military alliance we made them join.

When non-allies started making these nukes too, we said they were dangerous and started demonizing them. When those Russian guys kept trying to spread a different economic system that would benefit them, we invaded Vietnam and Korea to make sure they stayed open for us to sell them stuff. In Vietnam we regularly burned down villages and fired munitions off randomly because we didn’t really know where the enemy was. A lot of civilians got killed, but that’s ok. We started having the CIA overthrow democratically elected governments and installing ruthless dictators who liked us better, even if they did torture and kill their own people, just so the Russians wouldn’t get a leg up on us.

Continued.....

When Iraq threatened our oil supply, we sent troops in to annihilate their military and to take away their right to fly airplanes in their own country. We then deliberately fostered insurrection in their country for good measure. We decided to keep troops on their border in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and these countries could just get used to it. When Christians and Muslims started fighting a civil war in the Balkans, we decided that we were bored and started bombing the Christians before invading uninvited to make it better. We then kidnapped the Christian leaders and put them in jail for terrorizing civilians to try to win a war. We also sent troops uninvited into Somalia to “help”. We told everyone they couldn’t have guns and shot anyone carrying one in the streets for any reason, period. When they got uppity and fought back we got mad and started kidnapping people and killed a couple thousand people. When we lost less than 2 dozen guys it was a tragedy, so we left.

When the people in Saudi Arabia got uppity we kept troops there and started asymmetric attacks against us (with one really big one), we went apeshit and started sending in commando teams all over the place to kill people we didn’t think liked us very much. We put flying robots over 8 different countries, without their permission, and started killing their citizens because they made us scared. Our leader and his advisors felt like they had left stuff undone, so we invaded Iraq on trumped up accusations that didn’t pass intellectual muster and overthrew their government. We had their leader executed for the crime of killing rebels in his own country. When the same people started fighting US, we flattened several cities, started a program of targeted assassinations and mass arrests. We tortured some of those prisoners because it was funny. When that got out, we started outsourcing our torture by having our intelligence agency kidnap people and send them to some of those friendly dictators who didn’t have a free press to tell on us.

When all of this was going on, the Libyan president got nervous and dismantled all of his chemical weapons and gave them to us. He then declared his eternal friendship with us. When his people started a revolt, we decided to be really funny and reward his conciliation by helping them kill him by sodomizing him with a kitchen knife. When those same people turned out to have scary religious beliefs, we sent in the robots and commandos to kill people at random. Sometimes we got some kids, but it was for a good cause. They got mad and killed some of our commandos and spies, because they’re just crazy. We still have robots killing them.

When there was a revolt in Syria, where the same scary religious guys wanted to overthrow the government, the government started fighting back by flattening cities, and using targeted assassinations, mass arrests, and torture. We said that no civilized country would do that and started giving the scary religious guys guns to kill this president too. Way better than kitchen knives. Even though no one was attacking us, we put troops in their country and started killing one group of religious guys while supporting another similar group, without having been invited. When the president of Syria actually did invite Russia to help, we said that this was outside of all international norms and they were destabilizing the region. We also said flattening cities, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, and torture were SO wrong, and made lots of speeches about it.

Don’t buy into our own propaganda. We are no better or worse than any other powerful country that has ever existed. No one is “good” or “evil”; we do things because it it’s a rough world out there and we look after our own interests, and do what’s best for the United States. That anyone believes we are somehow morally better, and we have a RIGHT to do all the stuff we do because we’re “the good guys” just shows you the effectiveness of our indoctrination as citizens. That’s ok. It’s way better to win than to lose. But if you want to know why a lot of countries despise the US government, re-read what I wrote and realize that, while a little flippant, it’s all true. We have no real moral high ground in international relations. We didn’t do any of what we’ve done because it was “the right thing to do”, we did it because we thought it benefited us. When other countries behave the same way we do in any capacity, we freak out. Just think about it critically with the blinders off, you might just see the world in a whole new way.

I guess you didn't get educated through Common Core then. :D

Great post!

But I still say radical Islamists are evil. :p

What Scooter said!

I'd add that don't take your eyes off the House of Saud and the current Dynasty of China.

The earth is the only unpaid, untaxed, producer of goods and materials where rich people in power control the power to rape and pillage with an enslaved workforce.

Everything human controlled is a distraction to gain and maintain that power.

I'm a product of the public education system.

I'm finishing my degree now because I've reached that level in the Army where the Officers have just as much experience as the NCOs, and no one really listens to us about things that matter. I plan to get out in a few years and possibly worm my way into somewhere in the government at a higher level so I can help have a say in our foreign defense policy. I'll never be able to do it in uniform, the caste system won't allow it.