US set to sanction Russia, Iran and North Korea

[Xeones]

Seems the Republicans in the senate don't agree that Russia is fake news.

I don't recall there being a single republican senator back the orange moron on his claim that the intelligence agencies were all wrong.

[Breccia]

I don't recall there being a single republican senator back the orange moron on his claim that the intelligence agencies were all wrong.

Neither do Trump's own intelligence chiefs.

Basically, the only person denying it is Trump.

[ringpriest]

Our Strategic Partnership with Saudi Arabia on a large number of issues is more important than its support for Sunni Terrorism.

US Nation security priorities are and must be:

Russia > China > North Korea > Cyberspace = Space > Iran > Climate Change > Terrorism

In that order.

It should not be shocking that when Terrorism rates so low on US priorities, that our partnership with Saudi Arabia endures.

The problem is that Saudi Arabia is a net drag on US resources (which while great are far from unlimited, particularly these days) - Yemen is a destabilizing disaster; Qatar, Iran and the Strait of Hormuz threaten to become one; Syria-Iraq is an expensive destabilizing disaster. And that's all before you get into their global support for terrorism; while I agree terrorism is a low-priority threat in general, particularly for the US, go tell that to the US military - while it may be smart or foolish (my money is on foolish) responding to Saudi-engendered terrorism has warped the US military badly (and whatever the final cost of that is, it will be in the trillions, at a minimum - that the US has a military focused around fighting guerrillas with antique rifles instead of decisively defeating near-peers is in no small part thanks to how the evil Saudi dictatorship buys off their domestic zealots in their quest for legitimacy).

That's also not counting the damage to America's reputation and morale that comes from supporting such despicable tyrants.

[Breccia]

And of course, as expected, WH announces that Trump will...back the sanctions? Huh...didn't see that coming. I mean, it will have a veto-proof majority, his consent is incidental but...still. Surprised.

[Shalcker]

And of course, as expected, WH announces that Trump will...back the sanctions? Huh...didn't see that coming. I mean, it will have a veto-proof majority, his consent is incidental but...still. Surprised.

Can you tell me, that part of sanctions that EU is constantly warning about... who exactly decides if it should or should not get implemented (if it is in final version)?

...also, who actually does enforcement once signed?

[Bullettime]

And of course, as expected, WH announces that Trump will...back the sanctions? Huh...didn't see that coming. I mean, it will have a veto-proof majority, his consent is incidental but...still. Surprised.

He has no choice even if he disagrees with them. Being anti Russian sanctions against unanimous bipartisan support would be terrible optics and the media, and his own party, would eat him alive.

[Deleted]

AFAIR the sanctions affect the energy contracts with Russia, as like the fact Russia delivers Gas to Europe.

The problem is noone in Europe is willing to accept that Russia may not deliver Gas to Europe anymore. These sanctions will not work, as long Europe isnt being involved into implementing them.

A part of being able to influence the russian leader in his decisions is to be able to question the gas delivery to europe if Putin should extend his war efforts.

If america is forcing europe to buy american or arabian gas, we actually lose a way for political pressure.

[Skroe]

AFAIR the sanctions affect the energy contracts with Russia, as like the fact Russia delivers Gas to Europe.

The problem is noone in Europe is willing to accept that Russia may not deliver Gas to Europe anymore. These sanctions will not work, as long Europe isnt being involved into implementing them.

A part of being able to influence the russian leader in his decisions is to be able to question the gas delivery to europe if Putin should extend his war efforts.

If america is forcing europe to buy american or arabian gas, we actually lose a way for political pressure.

The energy sector sanctions already in place have been highly effective at basically wiping out new oil well exploration in Russia.

The US and EU sanctions are fundamentally different though. The EU sanctions largely focus on economic sectors and trade, because EU trade with Russia is far greater than Russian trade with American. US sanctions on the other hand largely have, and continue to sanction specific individuals and companies in Putin's inner circle. Critics and Putinistas dismissed their effects from the start. They've been dead wrong. While EU sanctions threaten the wider Russian economy, US sanctions threatens the economic welfare of the people Putin relies upon to rule Russia. The 2016 attacks were, in large part, an attempt to reverse those sanctions because Putin cares just as much, if not more so, about his inner circle's economic welfare as he does the wider country's.

Russians have been stashing wealth in New York and London for years. The sanctions have progressively cut that avenue off to them.

The next step is asset seizure.

[Bullettime]

The energy sector sanctions already in place have been highly effective at basically wiping out new oil well exploration in Russia.

The US and EU sanctions are fundamentally different though. The EU sanctions largely focus on economic sectors and trade, because EU trade with Russia is far greater than Russian trade with American. US sanctions on the other hand largely have, and continue to sanction specific individuals and companies in Putin's inner circle. Critics and Putinistas dismissed their effects from the start. They've been dead wrong. While EU sanctions threaten the wider Russian economy, US sanctions threatens the economic welfare of the people Putin relies upon to rule Russia. The 2016 attacks were, in large part, an attempt to reverse those sanctions because Putin cares just as much, if not more so, about his inner circle's economic welfare as he does the wider country's.

Russians have been stashing wealth in New York and London for years. The sanctions have progressively cut that avenue off to them.

The next step is asset seizure.

And asset seizure very well may be the next step after the inevitable Trump trial given it's a two fold issue of a federal collusion case and a state level money laundering op orchestrated by Putin's direct circle.

As much as Russia wants chaos in the west, they greatly overplayed their hand and underestimated our intelligence agencies.

[Skroe]

And of course, as expected, WH announces that Trump will...back the sanctions? Huh...didn't see that coming. I mean, it will have a veto-proof majority, his consent is incidental but...still. Surprised.

This is really extraordinary. It goes far, far beyond sanctions. The bill covers the entire breath of US Foreign Policy with respect to Russia. To put it another way, even if sanctions remain in place, if Trump wants to engage in any type of partnership with Russia on anything, or remove troops from Eastern Europe, or exchange information... anything except the hostile relationship we have now... there will need to be a congressional vote on the issue. Returning those properties Obama seized? Never going to happen without Congressional approval.

This has never happened. It's questionably constitutional depending on the issue at hand (specifically defense issues). But it's the most decisive grab of responsibility by Congress, from the President, on a foreign policy issue in many decades. I can't think of another example of something so expanse off hand. Maybe the War Powers Act, but that was different.

The fact that this is going to pass so overwhelmingly sends a very clear message, even from Republicans: "Even if we're you're political allies, we do not remotely trust you on the Russia issue and you will be making no unilateral decisions with respect to it".

Republicans never even thought of something this tough with respect to Obama and the aspects of his foreign policy they hated. Democrats never dreamed of something this tough with respect to Bush in Iraq.

Automatically by passing this, Donald J Trump becomes the weakest armed President on American affairs in Europe/Russia in over one hundred years. His latitude to make movements will be vanishingly small.

Make no mistake about it. Trump signing this bill is a humiliation for him and his political movement. This isn't just him signing away authority. It's him signing a document that says "I, Donald Trump, and not trusted". Improved Russia relations will be impossible now, and that's a very good thing.

And next year, there are likely to be even tougher sanctions.

[GennGreymane]

Im confused on to how sanctions honestly work on NK.

[Skroe]

And asset seizure very well may be the next step after the inevitable Trump trial given it's a two fold issue of a federal collusion case and a state level money laundering op orchestrated by Putin's direct circle.

As much as Russia wants chaos in the west, they greatly overplayed their hand and underestimated our intelligence agencies.

Something I read on Russia several years ago... early on in the Ukraine crisis, pre-Trump is that Russians citizens, Russian spies and Russian leaders are basically incapable of understanding Western, specifically US politics.

Russia's been essentially a police state for 300 years. Sure, the people at the top, the ideology and who does the policing has changed of course, but Russian society existed along the same outlines with the all-powerful authoritarian state in the center, for a few centuries.

Russia lacks a dynamic civil society like we have in the West. With several brief exceptions, they've never experienced it. So when they see it in the west, they don't and have never had the frame of reference with respect to our political process, in order to make good decisions. They can see it really only through Russian eyes, not American ones.

There is absolutely nothing new about this. In the 19th century, authoritarian states said much the same things about "democracy and chaos" as Russia (and China) does today. In the Cold War, the Soviets made many errors because they were incapable of seeing politics and news through an American lens.

Nothing is truer of this than NATO. Russia leadership legitimately thinks NATO should go away because the Warsaw Pact did. They think NATO is the US's network of buffer states over which is is the secret master, because that is exactly how the USSR operated the Warsaw Pact, and exactly how Russia would act if it were the US. Because they do not have the frame of reference, they refuse to accept that NATO is a voluntary alliance, one that operates only around unanimous consent, and based on shared values. The US is its leader, but only a "first among equals" in a very true sense of the word - after all, when the US wanted to go through NATO to strike Syria in 2013, David Cameron screwed that up, and that was that.

The US has tried to explain this to Russians for 25 years. They legitimately don't see it like that because they dont understand the world through that lens.

Anyway, pulling it all together, the article stated this is why Russia's efforts in Europe and Syria (and I think we can say, by extension now, the US) are doomed. A country, and a country's leadership so used to listening to the authority of the central figure is incapable of understanding how American civil society and leaders, as fractious as we may be at times, gravitate around certain centers of gravity that we won't readily shift from. Suspicion, if not outright Hostility to Russia is one of those centers of gravity.

Thinking that Donald Trump can come in and change that? Even Trump's more obnoxious supporters say few words about positive-relations with Russia. Only if forced. Generally, they'll call the Russian attacks "fake news" and that stuff, but they wont take the next step and extol a pro-Russian foreign policy, because being Americans at heart still, they know it is an absolute non-starter in this country.

- - - Updated - - -

Im confused on to how sanctions honestly work on NK.

The US sanctions banks, mostly Chinese, that are known to illicitly (or explicitly) act as an intermediary (or clearing house) between North Korea and the rest of the world. North Korean commerce goes through those banks, and North Korea uses its accounts there to buy foreign goods.

The sanctions are the type that we need to apply to Russia in the next year or two. They're rather simple.
-> Companies, Individuals and governments can do business with the US government, US companies and US banks.
-> Companies, Individuals and governments can do business with the sanctioned banks
-> Companies, Individuals and governments HOWEVER cannot do business with both, and if you try, we'll black list you from doing business with us and severely fine you.

Unsurprisingly, people rather do business with the world's largest economy than North Korea.

The US has some types of sanctions like this on specific Russian banks and energy institutions. These are the sanctions Putin hates most. We should do as we did in Iran years ago, and extend them to the ENTIRE Russian economy. It would be a made to order financial crisis for them. It would turn Russia into Venezuela.

Since I'm not donating to Republicans semi-blindly anymore until they remove Trump from office and Mitch McConnell retires, I'll give money to any House or Senate candidate of any party who makes it their policy to re-introduce breadlines in Russia.

- - - Updated - - -

The problem is that Saudi Arabia is a net drag on US resources (which while great are far from unlimited, particularly these days) - Yemen is a destabilizing disaster; Qatar, Iran and the Strait of Hormuz threaten to become one; Syria-Iraq is an expensive destabilizing disaster. And that's all before you get into their global support for terrorism; while I agree terrorism is a low-priority threat in general, particularly for the US, go tell that to the US military - while it may be smart or foolish (my money is on foolish) responding to Saudi-engendered terrorism has warped the US military badly (and whatever the final cost of that is, it will be in the trillions, at a minimum - that the US has a military focused around fighting guerrillas with antique rifles instead of decisively defeating near-peers is in no small part thanks to how the evil Saudi dictatorship buys off their domestic zealots in their quest for legitimacy).

That's also not counting the damage to America's reputation and morale that comes from supporting such despicable tyrants.

THe list reflects what the US military consensus generally is from their speeches and statements.

THey do Syria/Iraq because they're ordered to... with all the enthusasim of a root canal.
They do Afghanistan because it's unfinished business from 16 years ago.

But they make it very clear: they're laser focused on readiness/training, recapitalizaiton, modernization and great-power warfare again. The Army is shifting infantry BCTs to armored BCTs. The Marines are speed-buying new air-droppable armor. The Air Force blatantly just said it needs 165 B-21s and 200 bombers total in order to conduct a 180 day air war against the Russian Federation or China.

Regardless on how these plans pan out down the road, it is Russia (and China) that are driving defense priorities, not terrorism.

[GennGreymane]

-snip-

but will that work?

[Skroe]

but will that work?

Nope. We have nothing North Korea wants.

Barring a major war, North Korea will have a nuclear ICBM that can reach the lower 48 in the next decade. And probably a SLBM at sea deterrent around then too. We'll start worrying less about their stationary ICBMs and more about their subs.

It will have happened because every President from Clinton through Obama convinced themselves that time was on their side. Really though, they were just procrastinating. "Strategic Patience" should be engraved on Obama's national library in the far future. But he only put words to the same nonsense policy of his predecessors.

Every day we talked about parochial interests, North Korea was getting one step closer to a nuclear weapon.

And we've spent a lot of days talking about parochial interests.

Without some game changing development, the US comprehensively lost it's nuclear showdown with North Korea. And with the way it waged it, it entirely deserved to.

Now we get to spend even larger sums of money on more advanced and better missile defense.

[Shalcker]

The energy sector sanctions already in place have been highly effective at basically wiping out new oil well exploration in Russia.

In Arctic, that will not be economical below 100 $ oil anyway.

And eventually there will be alternatives.

While EU sanctions threaten the wider Russian economy, US sanctions threatens the economic welfare of the people Putin relies upon to rule Russia.

Going against Putin is what would threaten their "economic welfare", not US sanctions.

The 2016 attacks were, in large part, an attempt to reverse those sanctions because Putin cares just as much, if not more so, about his inner circle's economic welfare as he does the wider country's.

That doesn't stop them from trying to remove them if they can get removal cheap enough, obviously.

Russians have been stashing wealth in New York and London for years. The sanctions have progressively cut that avenue off to them.

Thank you!

The next step is asset seizure.

Go ahead please.

[Skroe]

Who wants a good Sunday evening laugh?

The Illegitimate President of the Deporables, the Orange Turd, reacted in the following way to the fact that he is now officially about to be handcuffed on Russia policy.


BHahAHahahaha.

Congress cuts Trump's balls off on Russia and throws them in a vault, and what doe she do? Rips into Republicans while digging his ditch deeper. Keep it up Trump. Your list of allies grows thinner by the month.

Open wide and take your medicine you Putin-hugging son of a bitch. You and your wretched followers.

[Rukh]

I think Trump will try to veto it. Which will get overruled and make him look even worse. I give it a 50%. I just don't see him stepping back and signing it if Putin tells him not to.

[Edge-]

And of course, as expected, WH announces that Trump will...back the sanctions? Huh...didn't see that coming. I mean, it will have a veto-proof majority, his consent is incidental but...still. Surprised.

Don't be so sure, Scaramucci didn't seem like he was on the same page with that, he was saying Trump hasn't made up his mind.

[Shalcker]

Meanwhile EU is already working on counter-sanctions... just in case this actually goes through.

Quote:
The note says that Brussels’ “primary focus” should be on seeking “a public or written reassurance” from the Trump administration that it will not apply the new sanctions in a way that targets EU interests.

Other options set out in the EU commission note include using European law to prevent the US measures from being “recognised or enforceable” in Europe, and preparing “WTO-compliant retaliatory measures”.

The moves reflect deep concerns that the measures could hit European energy companies involved in Russia-related projects, including those engaged in the Nord Stream 2 initiative to build additional undersea natural gas pipelines between Russia and Germany.

The Nord Stream 2 project, which is strongly backed by Germany, is controversial within the EU, where it has aroused strong opposition from Poland and many other central and eastern European countries concerned that it will increase energy dependence on Russia.

But Brussels is set to argue that the potential economic fallout for Europe from the planned US sanctions stretches far beyond that one project, warning that they could hit the “maintenance and upgrade” of pipelines in Russia that feed gas into Ukraine, as well as pipeline projects in the Caspian region and the development of a gasfield off the coast of Egypt.

In addition, the note warns, “the measures could impact a potentially large number of European companies doing legitimate business under EU measures with Russian entities in the railways, financial, shipping or mining sectors, among others.”

The preparations in Brussels also reflect mounting EU frustration with unilateral economic sabre-rattling from Washington. Mr Juncker warned the US this month that Brussels would swiftly retaliate if the Trump administration delivered on threats to impose punitive tariffs on European steel.


...i guess it'll be height of irony if Congress attempts to act tough with Russia will actually weaken "Western Alliance" against Russia.
...and not even Trump as was expected.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Trump has done one thing beneficial for the US: Proven that our checks and balances (mostly separation of powers) is in good working order. We haven't had a despot who tried to make unilateral decisions in awhile, so I was beginning to wonder if Trump would get away with having his way with our country. But so far Democrats and Republicans have come together to prove "No, you unilaterally decide what goes on with this country, Mr President."