So I guess Ukraine does not count, or does Russia consider Ukraine to be part of Russia and there for an internal matter of the Soviet State.....ops Russian Federation.
Once again Russia roles out talk of Nuclear War as they have no other options, Sanctions are crippling its economy.
It could also be a warning in regards to Syria with Turkey calling for a buffer zone inside Syria and a no fly zone with the ultimate aim to remove Assad. The US does not share Turkeys plans but to get Turkey on board to help fight ISIS the US may agree to some of its demands.
While the worlds attention is on the Syrian/Turkey border with the Kurds and ISIS battling it out, ISIS has just over run most of Western Iraq and is drawing ever closer to Baghdad.
Lebanon is being destabilised with ISIS incursions. Only a matter of time until Jordan is also directly threatened.
Northern Iran has also seen battles between ISIS and Revolutionary Guard units.
It is almost like ISIS is appearing everywhere and attacking everywhere at the same time.
Since the US air war began 6000 new recruits have made it to Syria to ISIS training camps that we know of.
Turkey is now having issues and a Kurdish/Turkey civil war could erupt, ISIS would have no better breading ground then a civil war in Turkey. Keep in mind a lot of ISIS recruits are Turkish citizens.
I do not like the way this is head, Ukraine is small fry, NATO and Russia will not come to blows in Ukraine. Current events in the middle east have me worried, it could indeed become a black swan event and unleash a regional war, the largest since Korea at least.
Air strikes wont cut it, while they can slow ISIS down and weaken them a little you need effective ground forces. Kurdish fighters are putting up a good defensive effort It remains to be seen if they can go on the offense against determined ISIS forces. Same with Iraqi forces, it could take a year or more to retrain, equip and get the Iraqi Army back into the fight. What about Syria, I doubt the Iraqi army will cross into Syria. The rebels will also take a year or more to gain in strength.
I think Obama is playing this smart with a low risk high reward air war on ISIS. I'm not convinced however that ISIS can be weakened enough, even then expand rapidly as it still seems to be doing despite constant air attacks.
Hopefully it a sustained air war can weaken them enough over the next 6 months to 1 year to enable local forces to roll them back. But like in all Wars your enemy has a say in how it unfolds. I don't like the direction this is headed.
BP, Alex needs to withdraw your access. You have been told numerous times that the main forum is for property related matters, preferably geographically specific I.e. Australia.
If you want to keep pushing self interest political points that have no relevance you should be removed from the site IMO!!
So I guess Ukraine does not count, or does Russia consider Ukraine to be part of Russia and there for an internal matter of the Soviet State.....ops Russian Federation.
Once again Russia roles out talk of Nuclear War as they have no other options, Sanctions are crippling its economy.
It could also be a warning in regards to Syria with Turkey calling for a buffer zone inside Syria and a no fly zone with the ultimate aim to remove Assad. The US does not share Turkeys plans but to get Turkey on board to help fight ISIS the US may agree to some of its demands.
While the worlds attention is on the Syrian/Turkey border with the Kurds and ISIS battling it out, ISIS has just over run most of Western Iraq and is drawing ever closer to Baghdad.
Lebanon is being destabilised with ISIS incursions. Only a matter of time until Jordan is also directly threatened.
Northern Iran has also seen battles between ISIS and Revolutionary Guard units.
It is almost like ISIS is appearing everywhere and attacking everywhere at the same time.
Since the US air war began 6000 new recruits have made it to Syria to ISIS training camps that we know of.
Turkey is now having issues and a Kurdish/Turkey civil war could erupt, ISIS would have no better breading ground then a civil war in Turkey. Keep in mind a lot of ISIS recruits are Turkish citizens.
I do not like the way this is head, Ukraine is small fry, NATO and Russia will not come to blows in Ukraine. Current events in the middle east have me worried, it could indeed become a black swan event and unleash a regional war, the largest since Korea at least.
Air strikes wont cut it, while they can slow ISIS down and weaken them a little you need effective ground forces. Kurdish fighters are putting up a good defensive effort It remains to be seen if they can go on the offense against determined ISIS forces. Same with Iraqi forces, it could take a year or more to retrain, equip and get the Iraqi Army back into the fight. What about Syria, I doubt the Iraqi army will cross into Syria. The rebels will also take a year or more to gain in strength.
I think Obama is playing this smart with a low risk high reward air war on ISIS. I'm not convinced however that ISIS can be weakened enough, even then expand rapidly as it still seems to be doing despite constant air attacks.
Hopefully it a sustained air war can weaken them enough over the next 6 months to 1 year to enable local forces to roll them back. But like in all Wars your enemy has a say in how it unfolds. I don't like the direction this is headed.
Like all wars, the solution is economic. You don't run an army like Isis without funding. Starve the funds, and you will destroy the armies.
Whenever you have an argument with someone, there comes a moment where you must ask yourself, whatever your political persuasion, 'am I the Nazi?'
Like all wars, the solution is economic. You don't run an army like Isis without funding. Starve the funds, and you will destroy the armies.
It is estimated that ISIS have over $2 billion in cash & gold due to over running so many towns and cities so quickly. Banks and people did not have time to take the money and gold with them. ISIS took most of it. It has some Oil & Gas fields but the Allies are quickly putting an end to this.
Rumors are spreading in the last few days that Al-Qaeda and ISIS are set to merge and join forces. Al-Qaedas branch in Syria the Al Nusra front has already joined ISIS last month. Now we have the Taliban in Pakistan pledging assistance to ISIS, who have an almost limitless supply of men from the Tribal areas of Pakistan. Libyan & Nigerian militias have pledged allegiances to ISIS.
So all of a sudden we have groups from North Africa, all the way through the middle east to Pakistan in some form of alliance with ISIS. A large victory in Kobane despite US bombing would be a huge PR victory which is sure to bring in more groups to its alliance.
What happens if the Taliban merge with ISIS along with Al Qaeda, we then have a terrorist organisation holding land that spans half the globe, not continuous but that is the size of the battlefield.
Pakistan and India shelling each other, North & South Korea shelling each other. Russia continues its press against Ukraine. The world is going to shit in terms of politics and wars.
Talking of funding, a major reason why Hitler attacked so many smaller nations in 1939/40 was to secure the Central Banks gold and treasures as it requires these funds to continue the war effort. In 1939 Germany was close to bankrupt, it was only the proceeds of Taking Warsaw in 39 which kept it going, then of course the large amounts from Paris, Brussels and other capitals help finance the build-up for the invasion of Russia. Lightening war was also designed to minimise the financial drain of the coffers.
YOU wouldn’t know it from the Chanel boutiques and Maserati dealerships lining the boulevards inside Moscow’s Garden Ring, but economic conditions in Russia are becoming dire.
The rouble has weakened to record lows not seen since the 1990s, capital is bleeding out of the country for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, and the economy is projected to grow a piddling 0.5 per cent this year.
You wouldn’t realise any of this from the statements of Russia’s president. At a forum last week, Vladimir Putin ensured investors that the country has enough reserves to implement all of its budget proposals, including an $80 billion increase in military spending next year.
The president certainly seemed confident, telling investors that Russia’s “strategic course remains unchanged” and that he foresees “a country that is strong, flourishing, free, and open to the world.”
Putin’s optimism rests on some pretty big assumptions, including 1.2 per cent growth next year — the World Bank thinks 0.3 per cent is more realistic — and $100-a-barrel oil prices. Despite turmoil in the Middle East, the price fell below $90 last week. Russia relies on oil and gas revenues for about half of its budget.
These trends could be read as a victory for the sanctions regime imposed in recent months by the U.S. and the European Union to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine. But the truth is that the economy was looking dismal long before the sanctions came down.
“The situation became very complicated before there were any sanctions,” Andrei Nechayev, who served as Russia’s economics minister in the early 1990s, told me in an interview this week. “The main reasons are internal problems of the Russian economy: low competition, low protection of property, a bad investment climate. In 2013 we were like a falling jet fighter.”
Though sanctions against corporations have cut off access to easy Western capital, Nechayev said that Russia’s own sanctions — restrictions on food imports from the U.S. and Europe — are “much more stupid.” While it’s not as notable in Moscow, food prices have been skyrocketing in some Russian regions. The government argues that it can replace these imports by stimulating local food production, but this will take time. “You can’t speed up biology,” noted Nechayev, who is now president of the Russian Finance Corp., an investment bank. “It takes a certain amount of time to make a new cow.”
But again, even if the food restrictions were lifted tomorrow, Russia would still be in trouble. Even under a blue-sky scenario in which all geopolitical tensions vanished, the World Bank sees only 0.9 per cent growth next year.
Nechayev believes budget cuts are necessary, particularly to the military, though this seems unlikely given current tensions. The government has also been reluctant to find cuts elsewhere. For instance, a proposal to eliminate the country’s maternity subsidy program, which aims to combat Russia’s demographic decline by awarding lump sum payments to mothers who have more than one child, was shot down by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev last week.
But Nechayev says that the most important thing weighing down the Russian economy is corruption. “Russian businesses face two taxes,” he said, “the legal tax and the corruption tax.”
He also feels that too often, Russia’s local and regional governments have been asked to shoulder the burden of budget cuts. “The result is that they declined investment programs, road construction, innovations programs, etc. Now regional governments are a husk just to pay salaries.”
Obviously there’s a political component to this. It’s nearly impossible for regional governors to be elected without the approval of the Kremlin. As Nechayev, who also leads a small opposition political party called Civic Initiative, noted, “Psychologically it’s not so easy to come to the person who made you the governor to say, ‘Sorry, but you have very stupid financial policies.’ The response will be, ‘OK, we’ll find another guy who’ll solve the problem.’ ”
It would be one thing if it were only liberal former officials with opposition ties like Nechayev making these arguments, but they’re increasingly being voiced by the country’s top economic officials.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said this week that Russia’s high rates of military spending are unsustainable. “We want to reconsider the amount of resources devoted in the course of this new program, so that they are more realistic,” he told the news agency RIA Novosti. The current economics minister and the head of Russia’s central bank have publicly voiced concerns about the drying up of foreign investment.
More dramatically, the head of Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, said last week that Russia’s current government could be repeating the mistakes of the Soviet Union, which also faced “huge structural problems” and an overreliance on oil prices.
“There is one key reason which determined the rest: It’s mind-boggling incompetence of the Soviet leadership. They did not respect the laws of economic development. … We cannot allow the same situation,” said German Gref, whose bank has been targeted by international sanctions. He added that in contrast to Soviet days, today’s Russian government “cannot motivate people through the Gulag.”
The house arrest of oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov last month on what are widely seen as politically motivated money laundering charges also doesn’t seem likely to reassure investors that Russia is a safe bet.
Russia’s economic woes are unlikely to impact public opinion much in the short term. Putin’s political policies are extremely popular, the media is loyal, and the sanctions give the government a convenient political scapegoat. But the degree of alarm among some of the most senior figures in the Russian economy is striking.
Ultimately, however, these arguments probably don’t hold much sway with the one man whose opinion matters. Nechayev thinks Putin may be over-estimating the degree to which Russia can continue to rely on high energy prices — Russian companies are pushing ahead on plans to expand oil drilling in the Arctic — and the ease of substituting trade with countries like China, India, and Brazil for its former partners in Europe and the United States.
But economic concerns may simply not be Putin’s top priority. Putin is “very disappointed with the Western position,” Nechayev said. “Psychologically it’s very appealing to make life unpleasant for his former partners.”
Russia is headed to a dark place with no good outcomes for itself. Even its own top officials are warning of a Soviet like Collapse of Russia unless Putin changes course.
The danger is Putin is increasing military spending by $80 billion next year, which is an almost double current military spending which is $84 billion in 2014. It is crazy, his own finance minister is against it. Putin would only have one option, you don't spend so much so quickly on the military then not use it as your country disintegrates around you due to your own failed policies.
Finance minister warns Russia can't afford military spending plan
Russia's finance minister said on Tuesday the country could no longer afford a multi-billion-dollar revamp of the armed forces approved by President Vladimir Putin, stepping up a campaign to trim spending as sanctions over the Ukraine crisis bite.
Anton Siluanov said a new defense program should be drawn up to take into account the changed economic situation, even though the deputy prime minister in charge of the sector has been ruling out any cuts in military spending.
"A new defense program will be prepared now, and in its framework we want to reconsider the amount of resources that will be spent from the budget in order to make it more realistic," said Siluanov, appointed three years ago after his veteran predecessor, Alexei Kudrin, quit in protest over the proposed military spending.
Siluanov's comments highlight a battle among different factions of the government over defense spending which has heated up in recent months, and which will ultimately be resolved by Putin himself.
They could indicate the president is preparing the way to postpone or trim some defense spending, foreseen at 23 trillion roubles ($576 billion) in the decade to 2020 under his original plan to upgrade 70 percent of military equipment by then.
"Since all such final decisions are made in the Kremlin, the decision about fine-tuning of the program will be made in the Kremlin and opponents of the finance ministry's proposals to adjust it will have to obey," said Ivan Konovalov, head of the Moscow-based Center for Strategic Trends Studies.
"WE CAN'T AFFORD IT"
When the ambitious program to revitalize the Russian army and its aging equipment was first proposed in 2011, the government expected gross domestic product growth of 6 percent throughout the decade.
But the economy may grow by 0.5 percent at best this year, and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank forecast stagnation in the next two years.
"When we were adopting the defense program, the forecasts for the economy and budget revenues were completely different. Right now, we just cannot afford it," Siluanov said.
Western sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis are choking economic growth, weakening the rouble and isolating the market from foreign funding. Along with finance and oil, the arms industry is one of those targeted by the measures, which bar some top companies from seeking finance on Western capital markets and ban the sale of sensitive technology to nine Russian defense firms.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously said, however, that modernization of the military will continue as envisaged by Putin's decrees. "The idea is that by 2015 we should have upgraded 30 percent of military equipment, and by 2020 - 70 percent," Rogozin told the daily Kommersant in an interview.
He added that state defense orders could not be transferred "blindly" at the whim of the Finance Ministry -- at least, not without revising the presidential decree. "The program itself, the amount of funds allocated for it is not subject to revision," he said.
But Konovalov, the defense analyst, said that while some projects, such as modernizing Russia's air force, submarine forces or space technology will definitely continue at full speed, there is room to cut others.
"Consensus will have to be found," Konovalov said. "The initial plan did not take into account the fluctuations in the financial markets."
Some of the projects were created in haste. "Some were even to a certain extent populist," he said.
The 10-year-programme was created before the 2012 presidential election that brought Putin back to the Kremlin after a four-year stint as prime minister.
HIGHER SPENDING, LOWER OIL
While data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that U.S. military spending fell last year, Russia's increased in real terms, exceeding that of the United States for the first time since 2003 and reaching 4.1 percent of GDP.
Between 2004 and 2014, Russia doubled its military spending and according to the newly adopted budget, it will further increase it from 17.6 percent of all budget spending this year to 20.8 percent, or 3.36 trillion roubles ($84.19 billion), in 2017.
But the new budget, which envisages a deficit of no more than 0.6 percent of GDP over the next three years, is based on oil prices of $100 per barrel. On Tuesday, Urals, Russia's main blend, was at around $90 per barrel.
Siluanov admitted that the oil price penciled in the budget "already today seems high." Receipts from oil and gas make up nearly half of government revenues.
"We should have planned the budget more tightly, with a surplus," Siluanov said.
The decline in oil prices has been one of the chief factors that have pushed the rouble to all-time lows of 40 to the dollar..
Sanctions on Moscow for its involvement in Ukraine have cut growth by an estimated 1 percentage point this year, according to former finance minister Kudrin, and economists expect that the acceleration in capital outflows and the decrease in investment activity will hinder growth in coming years too.
The central bank and the finance ministry have begun work on a worst-case scenario that would provide for monetary and fiscal mechanisms to support the economy and the currency if oil prices were to drop to $60 per barrel.
On Monday, Putin signed a law that would allow the government to tap one of the country's oil windfall revenue funds, the Reserve Fund, next year, for the first time since the aftermath of the 2007-8 global financial crisis. The Fund has some $90 billion in it.
"Russia should refocus on domestic economic policy and avoid further distancing itself from its global economic partners," analysts at Uralsib in Moscow wrote in a note.
"Given the negative impact of recent geopolitical events and the government's tightening of economic policy, we believe that Russia may not be able to achieve its long-term economic growth potential until 2017."
IS have only gotten this far because all they have faced is goat herders with limited weapons and troops who ran away in the face of a fight.
There is no military force on earth even close to matching the USA. IS will have their infrastructure pounded into nothing and will be hiding in caves just the same as Al Qaeda had to.
Those images of IS fighters riding on top of tanks into towns, who thinks they will keep doing that shit when there's drones circling at 60,000 feet?
IS have only gotten this far because all they have faced is goat herders with limited weapons and troops who ran away in the face of a fight.
There is no military force on earth even close to matching the USA. IS will have their infrastructure pounded into nothing and will be hiding in caves just the same as Al Qaeda had to.
Those images of IS fighters riding on top of tanks into towns, who thinks they will keep doing that shit when there's drones circling at 60,000 feet?
I do not doubt US technology or its weapons, I know them better then most on these forums. I doubt US resolve or commitment to the fight.
Airstrikes have been going on for a few months now and ramped up over the past 3 weeks. Despite this ISIS advances on nearly all fronts, it has suffered a few minor setbacks but it has also had huge victories. It has over run most of Anbar province and a number or large Iraqi military bases previously US bases, giving them even more heavy weapons including MANPAD missiles.
It is reported that up to 30,000 ISIS fighters are now massed to in Anbar for an assault on Baghdad or at least its western side. ISIS has already taken control of one western suburb of Baghdad right near the international airport, only 20 minutes drive from the Green Zone.
It would be hard for ISIS to take Baghdad as it is Shia dominated but holds a large Sunni population. Like in the North of Iraq you could see panic and fear spread, will the Iraqi Army stand and fight and win?
It gives me no confidence when just a few hours ago the Iraqi Government requested US ground forces be rushed to Baghdad. The US does have 2,300 marines in Kuwait as a rapid reaction force.
I think Obama is going to face a choice over the coming weeks and 1-2 months. To either deploy US forces in large numbers or watch ISIS run over much of Bagdad and its surrounding areas. If the Bagdad belt falls, there is no defeating ISIS from the air. You can bomb and bomb them, but it will not defeat them as no military ground force is capable of stoping them at this point.
Look at the huge efforts the US went to in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 to defeat the insurgency. Do you really think any regional army from the middle east perhaps outside of Israel can do better then US forces.
Who do you think ISIS is, the top 4 commanders are all former Generals from the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein, who led the Insurgency against the US. Many of the fighters are former Iraqi Army soldiers and then insurgents. The core of ISIS is a battled hardened force who fought the US for 8 years. They don't think they lost in Iraq, they simply moved when the US massed forces with the surge and went into Northern Syria.
Hopefully the Iraqi Army can hold its ground with help from Shia militias but I am not confident at all.
Expect to see Tony Abbott front the new media in a month or two saying Australia is now deploying ground forces to Kuwait or Iraq to try to hold the ISIS offensive.
Without a massive deployment of US ground forces I doubt we can defeat ISIS. It is there home turf, they have almost unlimited ability to recruit from across the Muslim world, not shortage of fighters in the middle east. They simply need to want to win more then us and be prepared to bleed more and out last us until we give up and go home like most other wars.
The only way to win is to employ massive forces and attack the centre of gravity of the enemy rapidly. Do what ISIS do to others, speed and firepower leads to fear and enemy units shattering. Don't just do pin prick air raids employ massive air assaults on hundreds of targets per day. Deploy 100,000 US forces to sweep the region of ISIS. Don't go to build democracy or hold ground. Fight a war as it should be fought and kill ISIS where ever they fight or live.
If not go home and leave it to Turkey, Iran and the rest to battle it out and clean up there own backyard. Why are we trying to protect borders drawn up after World War I by the British and French Empires. They lied to the Arabs anyway, Lawrence of Arabia promised them the entire region would be under 1 Arab government, not divided amongst the European Empires and the Gulf states. Now ISIS is trying to once again form 1 super Islamic State like they have always wanted.
One thing is for sure we will all need new Atlas of the middle east in a few years.
BP, Alex needs to withdraw your access. You have been told numerous times that the main forum is for property related matters, preferably geographically specific I.e. Australia.
If you want to keep pushing self interest political points that have no relevance you should be removed from the site IMO!!
His stupidity in putting material up on the main forum only for Alex to continually shift it to the lounge shows why BP believe property simply must make him rich.
He couldn't survive by any other method.
D.F.!
WHAT WOULD EDDIE DO? MAAAATE! Share a cot with Milton?
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