"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again."

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My view on what Putin wants is

A: all independent states that were part of the USSR plus Poland
B: functional control of all the countries of the Warsaw Pact
C: "cooperative," that is obedient, governments in western Europe, especially Germany
 
 
This only goes to prove that when we all said that the USA needs to be careful as other countries have options, good options, we were right. The only loser will be the US defence industry, the main winners, every other defence industry, be they European or South Korean.

There are precious few areas where the USA have a definite lead. Those that currently exist will soon be caught up.
 

And in all the new remote controlled technology the USA is fast dropping behind Ukraine and those countries that are fully supporting it who get all the tech nohow as thanks.
 
Something tells me that the 'imposing' part is where this plan will crumble.....

And the ramping up of non US aid to Ukraine indicates that Ukraine has REAL friends in the free world.

I would not be surprised if the "free world" suddenly decides that they are far better off as a new alliance with Ukraine as a full member (and Taiwan, Mexico and Panama as well) tells the US to pull its head in, that Zelensky is now the leader of the free world and the instant the US sends troops to invade any free world member all Canada's electricity, oil and gas control systems will be destroyed to prevent supply of those essentials to the US, same with the bridges on the Alaska highway and probably some other retaliation - like no US aircraft to fly in to or over Canada. That leaves the US what is politely called screwed. It would harm Canada but it would destroy the US.

Plus all the FW countries immediately ban the US dollar as a trade currency and all NATO members kill the production of parts being produced for the US military. That kills the F35 for years and multiple other weapons.

Am I pessimistic? Maybe, but I can see US is preparing to load the last straw on the camel. When that happens the results will be spectacular and the US will be petitioning all those countries their leadership call "shit holes" for food and fuel aid.
 

I can understand your anger, but don't let it cloud your thinking. The US is the largest producer of oil in the world, and is probably self-sufficient in food.
 
I can understand your anger, but don't let it cloud your thinking. The US is the largest producer of oil in the world, and is probably self-sufficient in food.
Oil is a complicated business both in terms of what comes out of the ground and the commercial relationships that have built up over the last 150 or so years.

The USA may be the largest producer of crude oil,

But it still needs to import substantial quantities of crude just to keep its refineries occupied. And what it produces as crude is currently not all capable of being refined in US refineries, or to produce all the end products in the quantities required. Hence the need for imports.

"Re-tooling refineries to process solely U.S. crude oil (light crude) would cost billions — a risky investment that would take decades to permit, construct and eventually pay off. We lack the infrastructure (like pipelines) needed to cost effectively supply U.S crude oil and refined products to every region. Even if the economics of re-tooling our facilities worked, it can take close to a decade to permit and build pipelines in the United States."


So to be truly self sufficient in the longer term, the USA would need to invest heavily in refining and transportation capabilities and the US consumer will see the cost of many things increasing substantially.

It is a lot more complicated than Trumps call "Drill, baby, drill" at least in the short to medium term.
 

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