Interesting quote from 2020 IMF Article IV, Annex III: External Sector Assessment (distributed February 2021):
Assessment. International reserves in 2020 are estimated at 365 percent of the Fund’s reserve adequacy metric. While considerably above the adequacy range of 100–150 percent, the level of reserves remains appropriate, taking into account Russia’s vulnerability to oil price shocks and sanctions.
In the wake of selective exclusion of Russian banks from the SWIFT system, and sanctioning of the Central Bank of Russia, it looks like Russia’s ability to deal with the situation – quite rare as it’s essentially a “sudden stop” (see textbook discussion here) meeting a severe financial sanction – will be tested (Economist). Two observations:
- The $639 billion international reserves figure is a little misleadingly termed in colloquial discussion as foreign exchange, giving the impression that they are highly liquid. In fact, of that figure, $463 billion is in foreign exchange; $132 billion is gold, and $24 billion in SDRs (all as of January 2022, as reported by the MinFin to the IMF).
- Is $463 billion big or small. Given that Russia runs a current account and trade surplus (through Q3), and the latter is likely to increase with oil prices (if the oil can be sold, and payment received), then it depends on how fast financial capital can exit the country. It also depends on the Central Bank’s interest rate policy). That is, measured exchange market pressure (EMP) will depend on the financial openness of Russia.
De Jure measures (from Chinn-Ito) only run through 2019:
Figure 1: Chinn-Ito financial openness index normalized to range 0 to 1 (most open), for Russia (salmon), Turkey (green), South Africa (light blue), China (dark red). Source: Ito and Chinn (2021).
As of 2019, using information reported to the IMF, the regulations in place put Russia as one of the most closed economies in terms of financial flows.
What’s more relevant is restrictions on outflows. There are better indices for this, including Pasricha et al. and Fernandez et al. Only the latter has been updated to 2019, so here is a comparison:
Figure 2: Chinn-Ito financial openness index normalized to range 0 to 1 (most open) for Russia (salmon), inverted Fernandez capital account restriction on outflows (purple). Up is more open for both. Source: Ito and Chinn (2021), and Fernandez, Klein, Rebucci, Schindler, and MUribe (2016 as updated).
If regulations are the same as they were in 2019 (which I doubt), then significant controls are in place, at least on paper. Whether these regulations were effective in restricting flows in practice is a different issue; there we need de facto measures of capital controls. Typically, covered interest differentials are used.
Figure 3: Covered interest differentials for Russia, Turkey and South Africa. Source: Geyikçi and Özyıldırım (2021).
.
The differentials 2014-18 for Russia are roughly comparable to those in Turkey for the same period. However differences in default risk and liquidity complicate interpretation. Hence, for me, the question of how much controls can stem outflows remains an open question.
My guess is, however, given the severity of the sanctions, exchange market pressure (regardless of how measured) will skyrocket.
Sanctions on Russia, International vs. Foreign Exchange Reserves, and Capital Controls
[ Really nice presentation and analysis. ]
I think I may have “misspoke” or blundered calling Russia’s currency reserves “foreign exchange” but I do know the difference. I should be more exact in my terminology though. Yeh know, at least act like I have my college degree (this is what my Dad would have told me anyway).
What better place to be than a blog hosted by a guy who knows currency as well as Menzie when capital controls in Russia are becoming a major discussion topic. We are in the right place people. I hear talk that that Ito guy out in Portland ain’t too bad either.
https://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/NPZ2018.pdf
May 29, 2018
From Soviets to oligarchs: inequality and property in Russia 1905-2016 By Filip Novokmet, Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman
Abstract
This paper combines national accounts, survey, wealth and fiscal data (including recently released tax data on high-income taxpayers) in order to provide consistent series on the accumulation and distribution of income and wealth in Russia from the Soviet period until the present day. We find that official survey-based measures vastly under-estimate the rise of inequality since 1990. According to our benchmark estimates, top income shares are now similar to (or higher than) the levels observed in the United States. We also find that inequality has increased substantially more in Russia than in China and other ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe. We relate this finding to the specific transition strategy followed in Russia. According to our benchmark estimates, the wealth held offshore by rich Russians is about three times larger than official net foreign reserves, and is comparable in magnitude to total household financial assets held in Russia.
https://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/AJZ2018.pdf
February 14, 2018
Who owns the wealth in tax havens? Macro evidence and implications for global inequality☆ By Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman
Abstract
Drawing on newly published macroeconomic statistics, this paper estimates the amount of household wealth owned by each country in offshore tax havens. The equivalent of 10% of world GDP is held in tax havens globally, but this average masks a great deal of heterogeneity—from a few percent of GDP in Scandinavia, to about 15% in Continental Europe, and 60% in Gulf countries and some Latin American economies. We use these estimates to construct revised series of top wealth shares in ten countries, which account for close to half of world GDP. Because offshore wealth is very concentrated at the top, accounting for it increases the top 0.01% wealth share substantially in Europe, even in countries that do not use tax havens extensively. It has considerable effects in Russia, where the vast majority of wealth at the top is held offshore. These results highlight the importance of looking beyond tax and survey data to study wealth accumulation among the very rich in a globalized world.
Back in 2012 Russia passed new transfer pricing rules. The accounting firms and law firms convened sessions to go over these rules not in Moscow or St. Petersburg but instead in Cyprus. Why Cyprus you ask? It was a tax haven that the oligarchs used to shift Russian income offshore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/opinion/russia-ukraine-sanctions-offshore-accounts.html
February 24, 2022
Laundered Money Could Be Putin’s Achilles’ Heel
By Paul Krugman
The United States and its allies aren’t going to intervene with their own forces against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I’ll leave it to others with relevant expertise to speculate about whether we’ll send more arms to the Ukrainian government or, if the Russian attack achieves quick success, help arm the Ukrainian resistance.
For the most part, however, the West’s response to Putin’s naked aggression will involve financial and economic sanctions. How effective can such sanctions be?
The answer is that they can be very effective, if the West shows the will — and is willing to take on its own corruption.
By conventional measures the Putin regime doesn’t look very vulnerable, at least in the short run.
True, Russia will eventually pay a heavy price. There won’t be any more pipeline deals; there will be hardly any foreign direct investment. After all, who will want to make long-term commitments to a country whose autocratic leadership has shown such reckless contempt for the rule of law? But these consequences of Putin’s aggression will take years to become visible.
And there seems to be only limited room for trade sanctions. For that, we can and should blame Europe, which does far more trade with Russia than America does.
The Europeans, unfortunately, have fecklessly allowed themselves to become highly dependent on imports of Russian natural gas. This means that if they were to attempt a full-scale cutoff of Russian exports they would impose soaring prices and shortages on themselves. Given sufficient provocation, they could still do it: Modern advanced economies can be incredibly resilient in times of need.
But even the invasion of Ukraine probably won’t be enough to persuade Europe to make those sorts of sacrifices. It’s telling, and not in a good way, that Italy wants luxury goods — a favorite purchase of the Russian elite — excluded from any sanctions package.
Financial sanctions, reducing Russia’s ability to raise and move money overseas, are more easily doable — indeed, on Thursday President Biden announced plans to crack down on Russian banks. But the effects will be limited unless Russia is excluded from SWIFT, the Belgium-based system for payments between banks. And a SWIFT exclusion might in practice mean a stop to Russian gas supplies, which brings us back to the problem of Europe’s self-inflicted vulnerability.
Yet the world’s advanced democracies have another powerful financial weapon against the Putin regime, if they’re willing to use it: They can go after the vast overseas wealth of the oligarchs who surround Putin and help him stay in power.
Everyone has heard about giant oligarch-owned yachts, sports franchises and incredibly expensive homes in multiple countries; there’s so much highly visible Russian money in Britain that some people talk about “Londongrad.” Well, these aren’t just isolated stories….
The preference for any sanctions is that it should hurt the ruling class more than the average citizen. There will be pain for everybody, but so far it seems a lot of pain is going to hit the Kleptocrats.
Could the war be over? From Putin’s perspective, it might make sense to declare victory and go home. Unless he is very optimistic about taking Kyiv, leaving would seem to be the most sensible strategy.
Western governments are imposing a liquidity squeeze on Russia, along with a credit stop. The two go together.
The effect of a liquidity and credit squeeze hurt Russia depends in part on extent to which Russia’s economy is already an autarchy. If credit and trade restrictions work strongly to limit Russian production for domestic consumption, and if a shift to trade with China does a poor job of making up the difference, sanctions are going to hurt a bunch.
Imports are a little over 12% of Russia’s food consumption. Overall imports to GDP just over 20%.
For comparison, Germany’s import ratio is just over 40%, the U.S. about 15%. The U.S. imports about 15% of food consumed. German food imports about 38% of food output (different concept, but it’s what I found first).
So Russia is closer to autarchy than rich Western economis, but Russia isn’t rich. The immediate harm to Russia’s people will be smaller in the sense that they rely on imports less, but probably worse in the sense that their economy provides less.
Good analysis
Interesting how the latest Washington Post/ABC New poll Biden approval poll has developed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qfFHe80q0ITodW8tGHb3Ravm2suyQAjegDjXH95LXTU/edit#gid=0
The Devil’s in the details.
People are needlessly dying in Ukraine so what does Putin poodle Bruce Hall find interesting? A Popularity Poll? You are a pathetic little traitor
Arf, arf. It’s interesting where Biden’s support is. From the chicken hawk liberals at Harvard and Brown. Go Joe!
I guess the 65% who think Biden is doing a shit job are traitors. LOL! What a dolt.
Bruce Hall: I’m in Wisconsin.
Yeah, Madison was always part of the Ivy League at heart. Even the Milwaukee branch had its share of uber leftists when I attended in the 60s.
Bruce Hall: You bandy about the word “leftists”. I’m trying to figure who are the leftists in the Econ Dept. Does believing in market signals constitute “leftist” in your book these days? Concern with budget deficits? Belief in sticky prices. I am curious.
So, economists believe that they are apolitical? You and Donald Boudreaux look at the same data and come to the same policy conclusions? I’d love to hear you two discuss the situation in Ukraine. Well, actually, it doesn’t really matter because the situation in Ukraine is not about economics and thinking that it is important to Putin at this point is misguided. It certainly wasn’t important to Putin’s soulmates: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. Territory and power were and are the objectives. Wealth was a perk.
Harvard students support Ukraine whereas you work for Putin.
It seems the Ukrainians are petting up more of a fight than either Putin or you gave them credit for. Putin would be wise to end this folly but me thinks you also underestimate his madness. I hope I’m wrong but
Cautious Joe waited for the Germans to start sending Stingers to Ukraine before he approved them from the U.S.
Lead from behind.
Your boy waited for dirty lies on Hunter Biden
LOL! Pictures worth thousands of words. But it figures you’d try…. try… to defend that scumbag.
Scumbag is a good description for Trump. It is the perfect description for our resident traitor Bruce Hall.
biden has been doing everything possible short of sending in boots on the ground. bruce hall, are you advocating for boots on the ground and a direct conflict with nuclear armed russian soldiers? somebody needs to be the adult in the room.
Bruce Hall’s mom has her boots on but Brucie prefers to hide in the basement.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=MueX
January 30, 2018
Ratio of Exports to Imports for China, India, Brazil and South Africa, Russia, 2017-2021
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=wjkE
January 30, 2018
Ratio of Exports to Imports for China and India, 2017-2021
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2021/October/weo-report?c=922,&s=TM_RPCH,TX_RPCH,BCA,BCA_NGDPD,&sy=2007&ey=2021&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
October 15, 2021
Volumes of imports & exports of goods & services * and Current Account balance & percent of Gross Domestic Product for Russia, 2007-2021
* Percent change
It’s interesting looking back how the West has ignored most of what Putin was saying.
He wanted assurances that Ukraine would not become part of NATO. Ignored.
He said that if he didn’t get such assurances, he would invade Ukraine. Ignored.
He said if the West attempted to stop his invasion of Ukraine, there would be serious consequences. Ignored.
He put his nuclear forces on high alert.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60547473
Let’s just hope there is someone in the Biden Administration and NATO who is taking Putin seriously now. Putin is a sociopath and possibly a megalomaniac, but let’s hope that he’s not totally irrational at this point. He certainly is pissed at NATO and pissed that he is facing more resistance in Ukraine than he expected, but he has a lot of military in reserve and may well choose to use it. History should have taught us about dealing with leaders who are obsessed with their visions of empire. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao had the one common trait of being relentless and unconcerned about economics, law, or social niceties.
As Joe Biden said, Putin wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union. If he truly believes that, then he should consider what the West is facing and prepare accordingly. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/02/24/president_biden_putin_wants_to_re-establish_the_former_soviet_union_thats_what_this_is_about.html
Bruce Hall: Mao wasn’t concerned about economics? Then the Great Leap Forward wouldn’t have ended until the last Chinese citizen starved to death.
Bruce is carrying water for Putin. Putin wants to divide the U.S. Bruce wants to divide the U.S., specifically by undermining the president in his foreign policy role.
Racism will get commenters banned here. I have to think that some forms of political speech are as vile and as dangerous as racist speech. Heck, racist seech is political speech. Bruce’s anything-goes poliical slime at a time like this should not be seen as just the regrettable cost of free speech. Freedom is under attack, and Bruce is joining in.
Macrodunce, the President is doing a fine job undermining himself with really bad decisions regarding Putin. He ignored everything Putin proclaimed as his intentions and wants and misread Putin’s disregard for economics and the niceties of diplomacy. So, instead of reacting to the real threats that Putin was making with a program like the Lend Lease Act for the Ukraine government that gave weapons to the Chinese to fight off the Japanese during WWII, Biden focused on banking and trade sanctions which were irrelevant to the threat. Economics uber allies?
Now, after the Russians are rolling into Ukraine, he’s open to the idea of providing weaponry that would have kept them out in the first place. Those columns of tanks wouldn’t be rolling into Ukraine if the Ukraine military had Javelin missiles. Aircraft wouldn’t be hitting Ukraine targets if those Stinger missiles had been part of the Ukraine arsenal or forward missile defense systems were put in place. Yes, the Ukrainians are fighting, but they would have been much stronger if the milquetoasts heading the US and EU hadn’t been so busy with their powdered wigs and rouge makeup. Couldn’t antagonize those Russians, right? Couldn’t read the writing on the wall either. After all, what was Biden’s own intelligence service telling him? He had the information; he just didn’t act appropriately until it was too late.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-intel-predicted-russias-invasion-plans-matter-83101972
Oh, my! Oh, dear! How can Putin be so coarse and uncultured as to disregard international law? Why that’s just unthinkable! Biden did the only thing he could do and if you disagree, you are a traitor! Yeah, I’ve heard that. Somehow not agreeing with the milquetoast approach means you’re supporting Putin… as opposed to recognizing you preempt aggression with strength. Oh, Putin would have been so angry with us if we gave defensive weapons to the Ukraine government. Oh, my!
Oh, and what’s being against Biden’s stupidity have to do with racism? Are you a master of the non sequitur or just asinine?
Robert Gates and Condi Rice – certainly no leftist types – are praising how Biden is addressing this crisis. But what do they know? After all – you get to serve as Putin’s court jester so we will take your word for it!
“Oh, and what’s being against Biden’s stupidity have to do with racism? Are you a master of the non sequitur or just asinine?”
You are such a whiney little weasel. The reason people call you a racist and you routinely make incredibly racist comments. The reason we call you a traitor is that you are spewing Putin’s BS. But of course you have never had a shred of personal responsibility. Or self awareness. I guess you have not noticed that everyone here is laughing at how apparent your intellectual garbage is.
pgloser,
The reason people call you a racist and you routinely make incredibly racist comments. The reason we call you a traitor is that you are spewing Putin’s BS. But of course you have never had a shred of personal responsibility.
For example….
I’ve already given you my history of service to this country. I’ve raised three sons who are all fine men and contributors to their communities. You’ve been too ashamed to respond with your actual “personal responsibility” achievements. Get back to day trading.
pgl, are you going to believe your glorious, half-there leader or not?
• https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/shocked-ukrainian-officials-react-to-biden-s-remarks-about-putin/vi-AASWOwT
• https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/biden-putin-russia-ukraine-minor-incursion.html
The guy can’t work his way through a press conference much less come up with anything more than “sanctions” (except we still want your oil). Total BS.
“He ignored everything Putin proclaimed as his intentions”
actually no. he was clear he understood putin was going to invade. there was a lot of noise, both left and right, who were claiming he was using that noise as a distraction. my guess, bruce, is you were one of the people chiming in about that noise as well. biden was right, and let the world know his position.
” I’ve raised three sons who are all fine men and contributors to their communities.”
let’s certainly hope they take after their mother. if they take after their father, they will continue to degrade the quality of this great nation. bruce, you are not what i would call a positive contributor to any american community.
Bruce Hall clearly is a traitor which is no surprise as Bruce Hall’s hero is Donald Trump.
pgloser, now you are simply being an ass.
Wow private first class is calling people names.. This traitor claims to have wore the uniform. So did Benedict Arnold. Now Brucie has 3 sons and he is proud they all look good in their KKK outfits
It didn’t end until Mao had achieve his territorial and political objectives, but certainly his excesses were even a bit much for his cronies. After all, 45 million people died from his beloved communism. Of course, multi-million deaths are a feature of true communism as implemented historically.
But seriously, Prof. Chinn, do you really believe that economics drove Mao or Stalin or Hitler (well he was interested in stealing wealth) or Pol Pot? Sociopath/psychopath dictators are all about power and conquered/stolen/appropriated wealth is just a really nice perk for them. But no, Mao wasn’t interested in economics other than his weird ideas about making everyone utterly miserable in a world of three or four shades of gray.
Putin already has his billions of dollars as do his former KGB buddies. Putin is interested in power and perceived glory. His ego can’t stand being second rate and he appears to be irrational about Ukraine. But that doesn’t make him less dangerous or a closet accountant.
Bruce Hall: What were his territorial ambitions in the Great Leap Forward? I really want to understand what the heck you are talking about. You seem to have no acquaintance with modern history of the PRC/CCP.
Bruce Hall has as much knowledge of history as he is allowed to see from those Kelly Anne Conway’s orders to him.
Mao’s vision was the proletariat rule of historical China with himself as the dictator of the proletariat. Under Mao, 45 million people died. Under Mao, Tibet, an independent state that had actually helped the communists, was invaded by Mao’s forces (no territorial ambition there, eh?). Under the PRC/CCP, millions of female infants were killed because their parents were only allowed one child and they chose to have sons (which ironically caused social problems due to a lack of females).
Your memory is quite selective.
Bruce Hall: I brought up the Great Leap Forward as an example of economics in the end mattering. I didn’t write anything about Tibet (although in the recent past I brought up the Uighurs). I have no problem at all believing Mao was a megomaniacal mass murderer on the order of Hitler and Stalin. So — no my memory is not selective — it’s just that you neglected to focus on the point I was making, and to recall that you stated economics was unimportant to Mao.
I don’t believe economics were at all important to Mao except for his ideology of raw communism as interpreted by his “Great Leap Forward”. Mao was forced to abandon the starvation and mass killings by his upper echelon after the failure of the GLF and Mao was removed as State Chairman, although he remained Party Chairman.
Any economic theories that Mao held (destroying private agriculture and sending farmers to steel mills) were naive and absolutely destructive. Any external “economic sanctions” on Mao would have the same impact they have had on Putin… digging in his heels and becoming more aggressive and destructive.
Bruce Hall: That’s my point. When his policies were destroying the economy and killing thousands, then the economics (not the economic theory) stopped him.
Bruce,
Um, sorry, but you are wrong. Until he invaded Putin did not say he would invade Ukraine if his demand for Ukraine to be kept out of NATO was ignored. He said there would be “military-technical” actions, but he was loudly promising no invasion of Ukraine, indeed ridiculing the forecasts by US intel and Biden that he was planning exactly that. So your comment about what he would do if anybody resisted his invasion is also just plain false, because he was saying there would be no invasion.
Of course, up until the invasion happened, indeed even after it initially started, people at Fox News were agreeing with Putin and ridiculing Biden’s forecasts as a fake news distraction from, you know, that really important indictment of the former Hillary Clinton lawyer who failed to tell the FBI he worked for her. Why Trump informed us that this indictment meant that Hillary deserved the electric chair because she was supposedly spying on the president, even though the searching out public data bases the lawyer did all happened during the campaign before Trump was preaident. But, hey, this was what we should have all been focusing on because there was no way there would be an invasion. Putin had told us so, and Trump and Fox all know he is more reliable than US intel.
BTW, it is indeed clear he is a sociopath, but your idea that there is some clear or obvious way to deal with such an individual looks even stupider and more out of it than the rest of your inaccurate and ridiculous remarks.
Can we suggest to our host that the comment section of this blog is being abused by Putin puppets to spread treasonous lies? Bruce Hall clearly could care less with facts. He has no concern about the lives lost in Ukraine. No – he does everything he can to please his master – Putin.
pgl: They might be Putin payees or they might be true believers. I am sad to say that there are plenty of the latter. Until a state of war exists between the US and Russia, they’re technically not traitors.
Disagreeing about how to respond (provide weapons to Ukraine versus watching Russia run over Ukraine and then responding with sanctions) has nothing to do with being either traitors or “true believes”. Actually, it seems that the “true believers” are those who think Putin will react “rationally” to banking sanctions.
Even Condoleezza Rice admits she doesn’t understand Putin… “seems erratic”. Sure he’s erratic from her diplomatic point of view. But there is nothing “erratic” when Putin is view in the light of his soulmates: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler. He is just sociopathic and evil. There are a lot of naive Chamberlains out there.
“Disagreeing about how to respond”. Bruce Hall is lying here. He has no clue how to respond to Putin. But he does know how to carry Putin’s water, which is exactly what he has been doing. Of course Bruce Hall learned from his master how to lie.
Bruce,
I hop= you recognize that the top of the list of “naive Chamberlains out there” are Trump and the thoroughlyi egregious Tucker Carlson.
Barkley,
You really think that Putin’s words about “military-technical” actions were not understood for exactly what they were. You really think that U.S. and NATO intelligence were blissfully ignorant of Putin’s intentions well in advance. Wow, just wow!
BTW, it is indeed clear he is a sociopath, but your idea that there is some clear or obvious way to deal with such an individual looks even stupider and more out of it than the rest of your inaccurate and ridiculous remarks.
Sure, I think that was the gist of Neville Chamberlain’s response to those who wanted a buildup against the Nazis. Give them sanctions (and Czechoslovakia).
Such nonsense you are spewing. Now just contact John Kerry and give him an attaboy for pointing out that the Russians really needed to focus on climate change.
Let’s go back to the beginning and see where the lies started. You wrote
“It’s interesting looking back how the West has ignored most of what Putin was saying.
He wanted assurances that Ukraine would not become part of NATO. Ignored.
He said that if he didn’t get such assurances, he would invade Ukraine. Ignored.
He said if the West attempted to stop his invasion of Ukraine, there would be serious consequences. Ignored.”
Ignored by whom? Team Biden never ignored any of this. Now Trumpsters, Faux News, and your good buddies did ignore what Putin was saying. But of course a serial liar like you never does take responsibility. Like Putin – they just keep lying.
BH,
It was US intel and Biden who foresaw and loudly publicized that Putin would invade Ukraine, with Putin and all those Fox News people ridiculing him.
Of course that he did so on the scale he has with all the lies he is spouting is the leading sign of his sociopathy. Ukrainians until the last minute did not believe he would, including President Zelensky. I was worried that he might precisely because it was clear he was isolated and periodicallyi spouting weird historical garbage such as his July 2021 5000 word essay in which he denied the historical separatness of the Ukrainian people or culture from Russian. I hoped he was still rational and so hoped he would accept something like a settlement of the Minsk Accords focused on the Donbas republics. But, no, in the end it has become clear he was in for the whole hog and had deluded himself that he could get it easily.
BTW, Ignatius has now reported that probably the realization of how gonzo set Putin was on this came from the top of the CIA. Current director William Burns was previously Ambassodor to Russia and had dealings with Putin back in 2008, knoes him well. This past fall as CIA saw him piliing up his forces along the Ukraine border and clearly was listening to the chatter, Burns visited Moscow in early November and confronted Putin with what CIA knew ans warned him not to invade. Apparently Putin made a speech that left Burns convinved that Putin had bcome completely unhinged and would invade. After that US intel steadily reported that intention, which President Biden publiccized it, while Fox News puvblicized nonsense like how Trump said Hillary should be electrocuted based on a false claim by him.
If freedom can’t withstand mere words on the internet, is it even worth anything?
So you condone racism, disinformation over COVID-19, and treasonous support for a war criminal. Good to know!
All that you get from opposition to Biden’s tepid response and failed foreign policy? Were your parents 2x4s?
Have you taken a rifle and flown to Ukraine? Oh no – you are still hiding in your basement having your mommy get your groceries for you. Until you do take up arms – you are nothing more than the lying weasel you have always been.
bruce, would you have put boots on the ground last friday?
Bruce Hall pretends he served in the military. I seriously doubt this coward served in Vietnam. More like Lindsey Graham’s servant serving in the JAG core. Don’t give this fool a rifle as he has no clue how to properly use it.
You’ve got a real earworm there. Same tune keeps buzzing around in your brain no matter what anyone writes.
Bruce Hall drags out something from 5 weeks ago to suggest Biden gave Putin the OK to invade Ukraine… OF COURSE even dumb troll like Bruce knos there never was any such suggestion. But Bruce has to lie otherwise Putin will not give his pet poodle bone. Bruce Hall. Dumb as rock, dishonest to the core and a traitor
War is the use of violence to impose one’s will on the enemy. Waging war requires allocation of the full resources of the state (people and warfare materials). The entire concept of a war’s purpose is to end the enemy’s resistance. Clausewitz’s theory of total war involved destroying the capital necessary (war materials and logistical support) for the enemy to wage war. This developed into strategies of bombardment, controlling interdictable straights, mining ports, and eventually asymmetrical warfare. (See, Mao on Guerilla Warfare). War is an exercise in applied economics. That is why economic sanctions succeed or fail. Either the sanctions will end the enemy’s willingness or ability to wage war, or they unify the zeal of the populace.
I was taught this at the UW-Madison over 45 years ago in an ROTC course (that I had to fight the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade to enter and exit). I do not know where other contributors got their education in warfare strategy. But, the education appears lacking.
Do you think mutually assured destruction might have possibly changed some of Clausewitz’s writing if he were writing today?? Just an open question to ponder. When you figured that one out then I want you to think about “GVC” in Clausewitz’ time. It’s fine to quote great writers, but sometimes time changes circumstances. It’s also why education is continual, a lifetime process, and higher education degrees tend to mean a little less over time. Such as some things we might have been taught 4 decades ago.