Epic Mega Bridge To Connect America With Russia Gets Closer To Reality

Sepa Blackforesta writes: A plan for an epic bridge connecting Russia's easternmost border with Alaska's westernmost border could soon be a reality, as Russia seeks to partner with China. Sijutech reports: "If this mega bridge come to reality, it would be Planet Earth’s most epic mega-road trip ever. The plans have not been officially accepted since specific details of the highway still need to be discussed, including the large budget. Allegedly the plan will cost upwards in the trillions of dollars range."

Comments

Make it out of ice

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't cost anything. All we have to do is wait for the next great ice age.

--
Did I make "Frost post"???

Re:Make it out of ice

[bluegutang]

Like the aircraft carrier that was planned to be made out of ice?

Re:Make it out of ice

[NatasRevol]

Um, with the next great ice age, it'll be a land bridge. No work at all, just wait.

Re:Make it out of ice

[Ronin Developer]

The idea wasn't that far fetched. It would have been almost impossible to sink and heavily armoured. Picrete is some some cool stuff (pun intended).

Re:Make it out of ice

[slazzy]

Pretty sure our climate is going the other way...

Re:Make it out of ice

[KiloByte]

Actually, a new ice age is starting. We just managed to more than offset it, though...

Re:Make it out of ice

[DanJ_UK]

No; don't be stupid.

Re:Make it out of ice

[smithmc]

Not even Pykrete can stop a nuclear-tipped cruise missile. Or a thermobaric device. Or "rods from God".

Re:Make it out of ice

[RockDoctor]

Considering that the design was a world war 2 one when there were no cruise missiles (nor nukes to tip them with), and if "rods from God" had appeared anywhere, it was in a science fiction story along with all those unrealistic out-of-atmosphere rockets ... what's so unreasonable about that?

WTF is a "thermobaric device"? Oxygen lance? OIC, a "fuel-air bomb". Well, if your aircraft carrier is letting bombers from the enemy actually get to the carrier, then you've got some pretty serious failure of your aircraft carrier already. Part of the point of such weapons is to fight at a stand-off distance from the enemy.

Why build one

[skovnymfe]

Why build one... when you can build two for twice the price!?

Re:Why build one

[ArcadeMan]

You missed the Contact reference.

Re:Why build one

[bigfinger76]

Uhhhh, no. He went with it. Whoosh?

Re:Why build one

[jones_supa]

Why build one... when you can build two for twice the price!?

Americans seem to have some kind of habit doing that. Often when I go to Amazon to check some reviews, for example for a computer or a portable heater, there's always comments like "great product, have to grab a couple of more". It certainly is not always obvious to me why the reviewer would need the extra units.

Re:Why build one

[ShanghaiBill]

A ferry would be orders of magnitude cheaper and achieve the same.

Agreed. It could also avoid the ice and bad weather by using a more southern route, like directly from Shanghai to Long Beach.

Re:Why build one

[TWX]

I find reviews for most durable goods that include the suggestion of purchasing more to be suspect unless the reviewer illustrates why they would need more than one. Makes me wonder if the seller has signed up with a fake reviewer service to try to bump up the ratings.

Re:Why build one

[ArcadeMan]

I need to watch it again, it's been too long.

Re:Why build one

[narcc]

You can't understand why someone would want more than one portable heater?

I understand that one is more than sufficient for your 10x15 "apartment" in your mom's basement, but can you look past your own needs for a moment and consider that the needs of others may be different?

Re:Why build one

[cfalcon]

Honestly this was never a red flag for me, but now it will be. If I get some cool house thing, I'll often buy one for my mom, but I can't imagine that is so common as to cause all those reviews.

Re:Why build one

[AchilleTalon]

A ferry would be much slower than a bridge even without taking into account the boarding. It also have to be run on specific schedule while the bridge is always accessible anytime. In addition, a bridge would be much more handly for very long train convoys. It will be much more energy efficient at the end to transport massively goods.

Re:Why build one

[davester666]

In reality it would be "Why build one... when you can build two for three times the price!?"

Re:Why build one

[Schiller555]

For this thing to work around the year, it would actually have to use overground tunnels because temperatures go down to 220K. Folks without special gear will die in minutes at that temperature. But yeah, much better doing this project than financing a new war. Keep it in the backs of your mind for the next financial crisis. "cash for clunker bridges". And no, I am totally serious. Also refer to Mr Keynes.

Re:Why build one

[Sardaukar86]

I hate to think what kind of tolls are they going to need to get an ROI from their trillion-dollar spend.

Personally I think this is all hot air - I doubt even China has this kind of money lying around to splash on silly chest-thumping projects.

Re:Why build one

[wonkey_monkey]

They should've sent, uh... someone who watched the movie more recently.

Re:Why build one

[mcswell]

But this *is* the second bridge. Just because the first one got irreparably damaged by climate change ten thousand years ago...

Re:Why build one

[rtb61]

A ferry also does not not tend to promote development along it's route. So no ferry stations along the way, no diners, no transport hubs, no manufacturing shifted to gain better access to the route. Looking at it of course, hmm make it all look better by including the US but if they are missing so what, a major transport corridor from Bejing through Russia, France and Germany and on into England. That could really work quite well, shipping would take a huge hit of course and the US could always try a north south transport corridor Argentina to Alaska but the South Americans are not all that impressed with the idea of working to closely with the US because it tends to become very socially and economically disruptive.

Re:Why build one

[electrosoccertux]

A ferry would be orders of magnitude cheaper and achieve the same.

Agreed. It could also avoid the ice and bad weather by using a more southern route, like directly from Shanghai to Long Beach.

why would I want to sit on that when I can drive it? don't you know that on-demand is all the rage?

Re:Why build one

[jones_supa]

That's exactly the attitude I was talking about. "Hey, I might need a couple of more at home, why not one for office as well, and some more as gifts."

Re:Why build one

[Cyberax]

There's already a rail connection between China and Europe. It's hardly used, the amount of traffic through this route is pretty much negligible. Most of the Chinese manufacturing is close to the Pacific Ocean, so it's much more efficient to actually _ship_ goods to Europe. The shipping time matters, but not that much.

Re:Why build one

[Reziac]

That aside... my question is -- who the hell is going to use it sufficient to justify the cost?

Or is it intended, in due course, for the convenience of the Chinese Army??

Re:Why build one

[smithmc]

Although I'm not sure what good a second Russia-to-America bridge would be if it were built off of Hokkaido...

Re:Why build one

[smithmc]

Americans seem to have some kind of habit doing that. Often when I go to Amazon to check some reviews, for example for a computer or a portable heater, there's always comments like "great product, have to grab a couple of more". It certainly is not always obvious to me why the reviewer would need the extra units.

I have six or seven computers. I'm sure I'm not the only person here who does. I don't have any portable heaters, but if I did I might possibly have more than one.

Re:Why build one

[smithmc]

It would be cheaper, but it would not achieve the same result. Ferries are slow and can only carry so much. Plus you need to load and unload, which adds cost and slows things down more. A train could ship consumer goods, or oil or coal, directly from Siberia or China (or India, if they play nice) all the way to New York without ever having to touch the product once in between.

Re:Why build one

[Kiaser Zohsay]

In the long run, we're all dead. -- JMK

Re:Why build one

[toddestan]

I have six or seven computers. I'm sure I'm not the only person here who does. I don't have any portable heaters, but if I did I might possibly have more than one.

I do too, though I've only purchased a few of them. Many of them also work quite well as a space heater in a pinch.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What economic benefit is there? I suppose if it's cheaper to ship goods from China that way, it might make sense. But that seems like a stretch given the effective shipping to ports on the west coast. It doesn't make sense for shipping oil because that's already done well through pipelines and tankers. Additionally, the Alaskan oil supply has already passed its peak production, so it's unlikely to be a factor by the time a bridge like this would be built. It's a cool project, no doubt, but I'm struggling to see why the United States would want to pay any part of this. I'm just not seeing any real economic benefits to this.

Re:Why?

[__aaclcg7560]

But that seems like a stretch given the effective shipping to ports on the west coast.

The west coast ports for North America. are maxed out and need modernization to accommodate larger shipping vessals.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38e0825e-c677-11e4-a13d-00144feab7de.html

The Chinese are also spending $50B to build the Nicaragua Canal in Central America to bypass the west coast ports.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/nicaragua_canal_a_giant_project_with_huge_environmental_costs/2871/

The occasional labor strike at the west coast ports and the resulting backlog doesn't help either. Alternative routes may be worth the money for the Chinese to get their products to U.S. consumers.

Re:Why?

[JMJimmy]

Truckers are also cheaper than dock workers.

Re:Why?

[soap_and_dish]

Shipping by truck is much much less efficient / more expensive than shipping by ship. Modernizing some ports would cost far less than this crazy bridge connecting nowhere Alaska to nowhere Siberia. Almost anything would cost less than this. This article isn't about a project which people are seriously considering, this is a Discovery Channel style "What if..." sort of article.

Re:Why?

[NatasRevol]

And strike less often.

What's the economic damage the Long Beach longshoremen strikes have done over the last decade (and possible the next decade) vs the cost of this bridge?

Re:Why?

[JMJimmy]

I'm sure they'll do both. High speed trains are actually harder to design for so adding a road on top is trivial and not much more expensive.

Re:Why?

[ShanghaiBill]

Truckers are also cheaper than dock workers.

Obvious solution: Outsource. Build a port in Ensenada.

Re:Why?

[hackwrench]

I've seen trains carrying truck trailers so that they can just attach the trailer to the tuck quickly and be done with it.

Re:Why?

[Smidge204]

I had the same question, honestly. But it might have some benefits...

A cargo ship has a top speed of under 25MPH (20 knots). A Class 5 freight train can hit 80 MPH and there's no *technical* reason why they couldn't go even faster. Even with the increase in distance by taking the long way around, you can maybe reduce transit time. Such trains could also load and unload deep inland, closer to where the cargo is needed, eliminating multiple handling steps.

I still don't think it's a *good* idea, but it's slightly less crazy than it might initially sound.
=Smidge=

Re:Why?

[TWX]

The whole point of the intermodal shipping container is that it drops into multiple forms of transport with ease. Specific shippers will put van-trailers on freight trains, but that's for speed for final delivery. Freight coming across this route, if by rail, would probably be packed into double-stacked intermodal shipping containers to maximize the volume for bulk delivery. Some final-delivery happens from China, but not most.

Re:Why?

[MountainLogic]

One of the real long term bottlenecks for our ports is the over reliance of trucks to move containers in and out of the ports. Let's face it, everyone want to be next to the ocean so freeways are already clogged (LAX, SD, SFO, SEA). The US ports need to take on building (or greatly expanding) their own rail links to the interior to get around big city traffic. Existing long range freight rail is already maxed out in the west due to extraction industries exporting oil and coal that farmers can't get their grail to the ports for export. There is also the need to restore many of our short line rail in the western cities to get cargo between the ports and logistic centers. Much of these road beds are just setting fallow in "rail banks," waiting for us to restore them to life. What cheaper and more efficient way unclog our freeways of heavy, slow, polluting and damaging trucks.

Re:Why?

[TWX]

Maybe they've demonstrated the real economic cost of importing goods?

If imported products were inspected as thoroughly as they should be they would be a lot more expensive, possibly to the point that some manufacturing would return.

Re:Why?

[Martin Blank]

The economic reasons I can think of largely involve more rapid transportation between hubs all over Asia (and maybe even Europe) to hubs in North America. A trip across the Pacific from Hong Kong to Seattle can take two or more weeks, while a rail trip from Hong Kong to Seattle could be done in perhaps one week, depending on how many yard changes would be needed. (Transit times between Hong Kong and the East Coast via the Panama Canal are even longer, taking a month or more, while the additional time required to cross Canada or the US would be measured in days.) Using Google Earth and some admittedly straight lines, the distance from Hong Kong to Seattle was about 6600 miles. If a train can average even 60MPH over that, the trip would take less than five days, and even some curves and detours wouldn't extend it by much. Of course, most train traffic wouldn't originate from Hong Kong, but would instead go directly, more or less, from the other hub cities scattered across China, reducing the factory-to-destination time even further.

Rail gauges might not even need to be considered, since the US and China use the same gauge, and the tracks through Siberia could be laid as dual-gauge or even just 1435mm gauge and the Russians can start adopting that (it would make trade with Europe easier, too).

Such a bridge would have to allow a significant amount of rail traffic to cross, but the economics could work out over a very long term (many decades at least). The trillion-dollar price tag is for a network of roads and rail running from London to New York; the bridge itself would probably be in the range of $100 billion for a road and dual tracks. Amortizing that at 2% interest over 50 years gets annual costs of $3.18 billion for the loan itself.

A North Carolina Dept. of Transportation study placed the approximate cost of a 4000 SEU Panamax vessel at 80% capacity at about $1500 per TEU and a New Panamax (capacity 12,000 TEU) at 51% capacity at about $950 per TEU. Those capacities can be matched using 4.5 or 8.5 trains, respectively, of 180 wagons (the max length allowed in the US) double-stacked and able to handle four TEU each (so 720 TEU). I'm not sure about the basic economics, but I imagine that the costs for train travel are less than that. Even if they're higher per day, they would probably be lower per trip.

If the toll per TEU is about the same as it is in Panama ($72), each nearly-full train crossing would bring in about $50,000. If maintenance consumed a quarter of that and the rest went to the loan, it would require almost 85,000 annual train trips, or about 232 per day. Even at zero interest, it would require more than 53,000 annual train crossings, or about 146 per day, and all of those at around 95% capacity.

However, if the tolls were higher but the cost per TEU were lower, it might work out. At 50 trains per day, the toll would need to be about $250 per TEU (plus some amount for maintenance) to pay off the loan. That's still a lot of trains for two tracks, but it might be workable. This doesn't include any road tolls or oil/gas transit fees for lines running along the bridge, which could add a fair amount, but I'm not sure it would dent it significantly.

Another reason that I can think of, though, is to get part of North America reliant on Russian natural gas, particularly as Alaska's petroleum-derived production slows over the coming decades. That could bring an influence level that's hard to achieve any other way. Russia has a history of slowing or shutting off gas supplies to Ukraine and other places during winter when it wants leverage. I'm sure it would love to have that leverage over the US and Canada as well.

Re:Why?

[MountainLogic]

Yes, truckers are cheap because the industry has turned them into the ugliest of sharecroppers where the are paid by the mile, lease the trucks from the company and pay for upkeep on the trucks. Now fuel, that's expensive! And for longshoremen, everything is so automated that the docks are deserted compared to a century ago so the port labor cost per pound is miniscule. Truckers are lucky to get gross $20/hour BEFORE expenses.
The biggest expense in shipping is time: capital setting idle, decaying value due to technological obsolescence, missed market windows, etc. Find some smart MBA at a global company, buy them lunch and let them bend your ear on logistics. That is why so many of your favorite electronic toys arrive via cargo plane.

Re:Why?

[__aaclcg7560]

A shortage of boxcars is jamming up the industries that don't rely on specialized rail cars.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/shortage-of-railroad-boxcars-has-shippers-fuming-2015-06-21

Re:Why?

[ArmoredDragon]

Yes, truckers are cheap because the industry has turned them into the ugliest of sharecroppers where the are paid by the mile, lease the trucks from the company and pay for upkeep on the trucks.

I've worked for and with a number of major distributors, and I haven't seen a single one of them that does this. In every case, the company owns the truck and hires people who have a CDL to drive it. Usual going rate is about $21 an hour. They also have their own in-house shops for maintenance.

Even walmart, who is notoriously cheap, does it this way.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is you also need to connect Alaska by rail to the rest of the North American railroad network. There just isn't much rail that far north. So it's not just a matter of building a bridge or tunnel to cross the Bering Strait, but also quite a bit of rail in North America. At the least, you have to lay rail to Fairbanks, which is connected by rail to Anchorage. But that's connected to the contiguous 48 states via tail barge, which defeats some of the goal of the track. Also, unlike a Bering Strait bridge, the connection from Fairbanks to Anchorage is subject to significant seismic risk. Better yet, you run rail to the Yukon and go south from there, which has been proposed in the past. It's definitely doable and makes some sense, but there are a lot of challenges with laying that much rail that far north. It also requires Canadian cooperation, which hasn't been a given. I don't know the price tag for that, but it has to add significantly to that $100 billion. It's doable and might even make long term economic sense if trade continues to grow between China and North America. That said, I think China and Russia would have to pick up a lot of the tab for the actual bridge because I don't think Washington will be quick to fund such a project. Anyway, good post, thanks for the info!

Re:Why?

[SwabianEngineer]

Even a high speed train will be much slower than an aircraft. The economic viability of this project is really questionable. But of course engaging other players is always better than looking at them through a gunsight.

Re:Why?

[AuMatar]

If their strikes really cost that much money, then it should be a trivially easy decision by management to pay them and avoid the strike. If management isn't doing that, then obviously the strikes aren't hurting all that much.

Re:Why?

[Schiller555]

You don't like it when other folks are better than you at your own game ? Thats tough. Now suck it up.

Re:Why?

[robi5]

In fact, the Chinese not only try to build the Nicaragua Canal; they're also building a transcontinental rail line in Honduras. It's interesting how Chinese capital is doing to the World what English, then American capital used to do. Especially here, we talk about the economic backyard of the USA.

Re:Why?

[Schiller555]

Special cold-resistant trains would probably be used. Open the door of your car at 220K and die in a matter of minutes if you do not wear arctic clothing AND have the necessary experience. Of course you might be able to use the road with a car during the summer.

Re:Why?

[Schiller555]

If America cannot built enough rolling rail stock, you should really fix finance. There was a time America flooded the world with cars and aircraft.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What game would that be? Throwing good money after bad only to earn the disdain and constant bitching from those who also benefited without assuming any risk or spending any money. Let someone else play the worlds bitch and let the US start conducting international affairs that are totally 100% self centered and even more predatory than they currently are. Stop wasting money protecting those who are to cheap and incompetent to protect themselves. Scrap the whole war on terrorism and let the ME burn and stop wasting money on NATO and let Russia take what they want. Let the Chinese push Japan to re-arm to fight over old wrongs and control of the South Pacific. In other words give the world what they want and once every thing goes to shit tell anyone asking for US help to fuck off. And China has been making grandiose projects for decades and they have accomplished none of them. No manned moon mission and it has taken them 15 years just to get one used air craft carrier fit for duty. Their technology only advancements are totally based on reverse engineering technology developed by others and also note their economy has experienced a few problems recently.

Re:Why?

[myowntrueself]

But that seems like a stretch given the effective shipping to ports on the west coast.

The west coast ports for North America. are maxed out and need modernization to accommodate larger shipping vessals.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38e0825e-c677-11e4-a13d-00144feab7de.html

The Chinese are also spending $50B to build the Nicaragua Canal in Central America to bypass the west coast ports.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/nicaragua_canal_a_giant_project_with_huge_environmental_costs/2871/

The occasional labor strike at the west coast ports and the resulting backlog doesn't help either. Alternative routes may be worth the money for the Chinese to get their products to U.S. consumers.

The USA can either give Canada back that coastal strip of British Columbia that was expropriated by the UK and gifted to the USA to pay off war debts OR the US can expect to pay very heavy tolls for use of Canadian roads to transport the goods coming over this bridge. Eh.

Re:Why?

[myowntrueself]

I doubt they would ship goods in trucks, though. I suspect the bridge would include many rail tracks. My understanding is that China has interest in a high speed rail line from northeastern China to Alaska. That said, I thought China was interested in a tunnel rather than a bridge. That might be cheaper.

I just assumed that trains were banned in the USA

Re:Why?

[myowntrueself]

I had the same question, honestly. But it might have some benefits...

A cargo ship has a top speed of under 25MPH (20 knots). A Class 5 freight train can hit 80 MPH and there's no *technical* reason why they couldn't go even faster. Even with the increase in distance by taking the long way around, you can maybe reduce transit time. Such trains could also load and unload deep inland, closer to where the cargo is needed, eliminating multiple handling steps.

I still don't think it's a *good* idea, but it's slightly less crazy than it might initially sound.
=Smidge=

How well maintained is the rail network in the USA? Can it actually handle this kind of traffic?

Re: Why?

[NickDanger3rdEye]

"The west coast ports for North America. are maxed out and need modernization to accommodate larger shipping vessals."

Don't you mean weasels?

Re: Why?

[NickDanger3rdEye]

Goddamn autocorrect wessles to weasles

Re: Why?

[Sardaukar86]

Autocorrect: kills jokes from a hundred paces!

Re:Why?

[R3d M3rcury]

Even a high speed train will be much slower than an aircraft.

And significantly cheaper. It rare to send bulk product by way of plane--something has to be pretty screwed up for that to happen.

Re:Why?

[reboot246]

If they're going to use trucks, let's hope the bridge is built with a built-in heating system. Not everybody wants to be an ice road trucker.

I live in Alabama and sometimes even our bridges freeze over in the winter.

Re:Why?

[JMJimmy]

They would probably have to, they'd may even have to include rest areas as well. One of the problems with the Confederation Bridge was driver fatigue. It's a minor problem but apparently it's more taxing on the drivers. That bridge is only 1.2km long so I imagine an 88km+ bridge would be much more difficult to cross.

Re:Why?

[currently_awake]

The US rail network is not properly maintained. Many parts of the track have a top speed of 35 mph. Making the system run at 120 mph would significantly reduce time to market, and therefore reduce total cost. It would also make a great path for refugees, as the Chunnel has shown.

Re:Why?

[currently_awake]

If you extend the line to link up Europe (EU) you can switch a lot of cargo away from Atlantic ocean shipping. And a lot of China production goes to there anyway. This might make up the traffic needed for profitable use.

Re:Why?

[lonney]

Alaska aint short on natural gas, while Prudhoe Bay might be mostly tapped out of oil now, there is enough natural gas up there to warrant interest in building a gas pipeline parallel to the current oil pipeline or through Canada to Calgary, where it'll become available to US and Canadian markets.

Re:Why?

[myowntrueself]

The US rail network is not properly maintained. Many parts of the track have a top speed of 35 mph. Making the system run at 120 mph would significantly reduce time to market, and therefore reduce total cost. It would also make a great path for refugees, as the Chunnel has shown.

Refugees? You mean people escaping the USA, right?

Re:Why?

[electrosoccertux]

Shipping by truck is much much less efficient / more expensive than shipping by ship.

have they tried trucking by ship? or even trucking by truck? are those any betteR?

Re:Why?

[Shakrai]

You don't like it when other folks are better than you at your own game ?

Better than us at our own game? I bet the Western World would be really competitive at manufacturing injection molded plastic garbage if we discarded all of our pesky labor and environmental laws.

"Thank you China; you make our Happy Meals possible." -Stephen Colbert

Re:Why?

[Shakrai]

You realize nobody actually uses Kelvin to talk about air temperature in any context outside of the laboratory, right?

Re:Why?

[Harlequin80]

The economic cost is not born solely by the port operator. It is distributed across the entire economy that is exposed to that transport link.

If you can't get to work because of a train strike, your employer loses the money that you would have produced for them on that day. If you are a contractor you just lost that days pay. Your employers clients lost that day of productivity towards an outcome, ie if you are a developer your product is now a day later. The coffee shop you would have bought your lunch from lost a sale, the news agent that you buy your newpaper from lost a sale etc etc etc.

The economic cost to the train operator is simply your lost fare and any contractual penalties that may now suffer. This is dwarfed by the wider economic loss caused by critical transport strikes but the train operator is neither motivated by them, or able to get money from those sufferers to pay more to the drivers.

Re:Why?

[Harlequin80]

I suspect you would shell it. A pre-stressed concrete arch over the road surface would remove a lot of the problems. The vehicles themselves will act as all year round heaters and ventilation would be relatively simple.

Re:Why?

[Martin Blank]

You make some good points. It would add to the cost of the bridge, but there may be economic incentives for doing so separate from the bridge, including improving the ability to transport goods into Alaska that currently go by truck for long portions of the journey. The additional economic incentives of a bridge might be enough when combined with the above to justify it.

Now, I'm not completely sure of this. It's possible, but some much more significant studies would have to be done to determine feasibility. Russia and especially China have the advantage of not having to convince their publics of the need for building this; the US might just have to build the end-points and Alaska-side rail yard.

Re:Why?

[Martin Blank]

Generally, yes, but Russia has made a habit of providing "preferential" pricing to some customers that can be well below market value, willing to guarantee the price for a very long time. They also have a habit of finding reasons to break the contract when it's convenient, blaming it on provocations, late payments, etc.

Re:Why?

[Martin Blank]

Chinese trade is a reason that I focused on the rail traffic. Russia's benefit there would be in providing the transit corridor, and prices could easily be set in roubles US dollars, helping fill its coffers with roubles (helping to strengthen the rouble on the open market) or foreign currency (that could be used to buy roubles, helping to strengthen it on the open market).

Re:Why?

[Martin Blank]

True. The trip across the Atlantic is shorter (one to two weeks, depending on the location), but travel by rail might be competitive with that in terms of time, and if it can undercut the pricing of ship-borne cargo, it could be worth it.

Re:Why?

[hackertourist]

There are rail links from China to Europe already, and there are a couple of regular scheduled services. Freight volume is minuscule compared to shipped freight though. Transit time is ~15 days (compared to 30 days for shipping).

Re: Why?

[ravenshrike]

Whut? You do realize that the US has the finest heavy freight rail system in the world? It's just that a system geared towards heavy freight sucks at anything else.

Re:Why?

[Dog-Cow]

Posting temperatures in K, vs C or F is just pretentious bullshit. Please find a nice iceberg and take up residence. Naked.

Re:Why?

[Smidge204]

My car can do 100MPH but rarely does.

Having a top speed of 25 knots is not the same as actually traveling at 25 knots. The trend over the past few years, especially, has been to slow down to reduce fuel consumption and save money.

And all that assumes ideal sailing conditions.
=Smidge=

Re:Why?

[Smidge204]

How well maintained is the rail network in the USA? Can it actually handle this kind of traffic?

It already does. What do you think happens to the vast majority of cargo containers that arrive in maritime ports? A short journey by truck to the rail yard and off into the heartland.

It's not high speed rail, of course - mostly for safety. But by the time you're into the intra-continental rail network you've already gotten your benefit out of the project.
=Smidge=

Re:Why?

[myowntrueself]

51st staters that think they are sovereign are cute.

Prey we don't alter the deal further.

This will become a reality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Why?

[PPalmgren]

The longshoreman comment is hysterical. There are tens of thousands of them in the LA/Long Beach area alone. Also, European ports are highly automated, American ports are not automated at all because union strength won't allow it.

Even still, this is a marginal cost on international shipping. The real reason ships are used is economies of scale and cost of production. You can spend $100m on a ship that provides 5x the fuel economy and 5x the capacity of rail that ships anywhere in the world. Ocean-centric shipping isn't going away anytime soon.

Re:Why?

[PPalmgren]

Most go to coastal distribution centers and are repackaged into domestic trucks, primarily because international shipping containers are heavy due to top-lifting while domestic containers can be made much lighter and longer with advertising, and secondarily because products are shipped in bulk not necessarily meant for one location. This is why you rarely see trucks with international shipping company branding at stores other than Home Depot.

Less than 15% of the cargo that arrives at ports ends up on rails.

Re: Why?

[Quirkz]

I was on the line with tech support the other day, and the agent on the other end had an accent where he genuinely said "wictor" multiple times while reading me a license key.

Re:Why?

[Smidge204]

Citation needed.

You seem to be suggesting that containers are unpacked at the dockyards. That's absolutely absurd for legal and liability reasons. The only people who are going to open up a container at the port are going to be the customs agents.

Intermodal containers are placed directly onto road trailers and train cars for transport. Repacking of goods into branded freight happens once the goods arrive at that distributor's warehouse facilities. From there the items will be unpacked and repacked as necessary to get the items where they're going.

If a shipping container has items for more than one destination, then they will only be unpacked at the logistics company's facilities. If you don't fill a container you're paying for a full container anyway because nobody but you or an authorized handler (consolidator) will mix your cargo with someone else's. That means a shipping container as a whole always has exactly one destination.
=Smidge=

Re:Why?

[LessThanObvious]

A Trillion dollar plus bridge connecting us to a country we don't even like doesn't make sense to you? I can't imagine why, it's not like we have any domestic infrastructure that needs funding.

Re:Why?

[smithmc]

The product will not be shipped by truck, but by rail. Which is the cheapest way to move almost anything.

Re:Why?

[PPalmgren]

Citation? I work in the international terminals industry, going on ten years, for the 4th largest terminal operator in the world. A couple years ago I was reporting volume to various entities, so I saw what went where on a daily basis at our terminals, one in every major port in the US.

I think you're misunderstanding me. Very few containers are unpacked on-dock, these are called on-dock CFS facilities. This is most common with USAID bulk shipped in containers (grain shipped out of Houston, for example) and a few other fringe uses.

What I was referring to is how the containers get to/from the shipping terminal to the various companies' distribution facilities, which is predominantly by truck, not by rail. Almost all major distribution facilities are located near major coastal ports and are trucked to those locations from the shipping terminal. At these facilities, the intermodal containers are stripped and sent back to the terminals for re-use, typically empty. Its generally not economical to rail containers anywhere within 75 miles of the current location. Rail is used when it can be, but its volume is low compared to cargo that leaves through the truck gates.

Also, rail links between coastal cities aren't as big of corridors as you'd expect. A ship that calls Los Angeles will also stop in Oakland and Tacoma - it is always cheaper to transport by water than by rail or truck. Even cross-country shipments to coastal locations are rare - you don't ship from China to New Jersey by dropping it off in Los Angeles and railing it cross-country, you go through the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal and dock directly. Only time-sensitive cargo (a very small portion of overall cargo) would do this, and usually by long haul truck.

Re:Why?

[samwichse]

My mother and step father team drove a truck for England (the company, not the country), and this was exactly their experience as well.

Maybe this is the plight of the indie driver?

Re:Why?

[ArmoredDragon]

I'm sure there are, but I strongly suspect that they're getting paid much more than $21 an hour if they own and maintain their own truck. If being an indie truck driver was really that bad, I suspect they'd quickly find a job working for somebody else.

i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

but this is nuts

if the cost is {Y}

and the profit per year is {X}

then 500 years * {X} = {Y} roughly

the cost, including building the roads/ rails to get to the bridge, greatly dwarfs, by many orders of magnitude, the quantity of commerce that would flow

finally, compare the cost to your average container ship fees and where you want to ship it

waiting for a many century payoff is not wise

someday, in only a few decades maybe the way technology and world populations are going, then the scheme would realize a profit in maybe 50 years

but we're not there yet

file this story under "will happen when i am a very, very old man or after"

Re:i love infrastructure

[iTrawl]

To recoup their investment as early as possible they'll allow traffic on sections of the bridge as soon as each is ready.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

ok, what does that change?

opening a small part a little early offsets by a tiny fraction the tiny amounts that would make the route profitable

we're talking about comparing the price of shipping on a container ship and the price of going by rail/ truck on this crazy route

Re:i love infrastructure

[iTrawl]

The other way to look at it is from a job creation project, sunken cost, perspective.

Viewpoint 1: If China got tired of building ghost cities, they can use that workforce on this bridge.
Viewpoint 2: If governments don't care about recouping their investment, then the only factor to consider is if it's cheaper to use that bridge than the options that exist right now, and if it would benefit the economies around the bridge and/or of the world to have that bridge in place and if maintenance and running costs are covered.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

china?

china is currently picking on vietnam, philippines, japan, india, etc., thugging han imperialist efforts to steal land

meanwhile, all is quiet on the northern border with crazy, dying russia

at some point, china will notice that it's stealing speck islands and barren mountains from its neighbors according to hilarious historical made-up "justifications," when russia actually stole vast tracts of resource-rich land from china only 150 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

then things will get interesting with the derelict work force you are talking about, who can easily be handed a gun and told to charge. perhaps china will have some social/ political upheaval, an ultranationalist demagogue will take charge, and, like after every revolution (french, russian, arab spring, etc.) things quickly turn imperial on its neighbors

russia is a failed cult of personality petrostate that everyone hates because it also is a neoimperial thug (only on weak neighbors of course, like any insecure bully). it will continue to decay and have old rusty weapons someday

but china is a rising power a huge economy and with 10x the population of russia will continue to militarize with sophisticated advanced weaponry

THAT is the story with china and siberia, not this silly bridge

the world powers have to talk about how to divide russia when it finally implodes, that's the end game of the trajectory the joke country is currently on

japan gets back sakhalin, kirils

kamchatka would have to be "occupied briefly" by japan and the usa so it is not completely overrun by china when the inevitable happens

i welcome the new countries of tuva, irkutsk, yakusia, etc. (quickly and easily run over by china, and now new north korean style puppet states: i hope not, hopefully more like mongolia)

russia gets pushed back to the urals

and let's not even get started on the revenge that will happen in the european side of things...

hey germany, want to revive konigsberg?

finalnd, you deserve karelia back

abkhazia, crimea...

it's a continuation of the rot and decay that started in 25 years ago with the collapse of the USSR. that's the long term trend that has never been reversed. a brief lull with some petroleum money that is now gone, and mafia goon putin putting a face of denial on that, it doesn't change that trajectory

if you think the kgb thug chest thumping by putin on small, weak georgia and ukraine is supposed to impress anyone other than propagandized neoserfs in a walled media garden inside russia. no: the thugging just isolates russia internationally and makes everyone despise them. so they have absolutely zero friends, and enemies all around when the longterm implosion deepens

and if you think russia's nukes would prevent this scenario: no, any use of nukes would only hasten it

russia: you lost a maritime conflict with a rising japan and then a civil war 100 years ago. get ready for a much more humiliating conflict with china, and much more internal decay

i give it 20-50 years. sooner if china gets internal strife soon and therefore the desperate need to redirect that energy to han ultranationalism on the border

i would actually prefer if it happens in putin's lifetime. let's see that asswipe humiliated. unfortunately, he'll probably die a "hero" and then all the heroic destruction he's done to russia politically and socially will result in the country's serious collapse after he dies

Re: i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

in my defense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:i love infrastructure

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Aren't you forgetting about those Russian nukes? Putin just ordered twenty new ones. This age is different from any other in that regard, a state which holds ICBMs can degrade to any depth and still remain viable.

Re:i love infrastructure

[ScentCone]

it's a continuation of the rot and decay that started in 25 years ago with the collapse of the USSR

No, that rot and decay started 93 years ago with the formation of the USSR.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't bother to read geo-strategic analysis from people (or bots) who can't find the Shift key.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

that's eurocentric history

yes, napoleon and hitler fucked up badly

from the asian side, it's different. for example, genghis khan

Re:i love infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

So tell me how those ICBMs prevented collapse of the Eastern Block in 1989 ?

Russia has huge demographic problems. Also significant muslim minority (close to 8%)
with much higher birth rate than rest of the population.

Far East is being depopulated (by 14% in the last census) and even small influx of Chinese will eventually trip the balance
in the favour of Chinese.

Then when the hell breaks loose in the rest of Russia - they will go for "independence" heavily sponsored by China.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

you're talking about an openly declared war of total destruction

if russia continues it's economic, political, and social degradation, it will become weak enough that china can free siberia the way texas was carved from mexico: an uprising by locals, controlled by china covertly. buy off corrupt russian officials, provide "humanitarian aid", etc

then there is no war declared and no one for russia to nuke

russia can whine and bitch that china is supporting the whole thing, and china can just say it's a local uprising

if russia attacks china anyway, now muscular china has every right to openly attack dying russia

either way, you absorb the "independent state" later

sounds familiar?

yes, because this is how russia operates in abhakazia (georgian province), eastern ukraine, crimea: inflame, create, and encourage a puppet separatist movement

so what i'd like to see is: in 20-30 years china rushes in to "help" chinese minorities abused by russia

just for the irony

watch russia complain in blind hypocrisy

ukrainians and georgians are nodding their heads knowingly right now

already, chinese minorities in siberia are huge and a worry for moscow:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

it won't be but 10-20 years before the chinese are running siberia by economic and social fiat, undeclared, informally, if not officially politically, with russia's weak economy and small population. the actual political control can come later, even much later

siberia breaks from moscow with chinese covert encouragement, just like russia in ukraine and georgia today, and china runs siberia as small weak puppet states

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

it won't be a nuclear war

siberia is already overflowing with chinese. china can complain about the poor treatment of minorities

sound familiar?

run it like russia in georgia in ukraine: inflame and create puppet separatist movements

russia can bitch as loudly as it wants that china is behind the whole thing. china can simply say it's a local uprising

if russia tries anything militarily against china itself, muscular china will smack dying russia (this is in 20 years, considering russia's current economic trajectory and china's current economic trajectory)

meanwhile china will have much more money, and simply provide "humanitarian aid" to chinese and other "repressed minorities" in siberia

small weak independent state in siberia will be created, and china will dominate them with money and social influence. no need for actual declared political control

there is no openly declared war of total destruction, so there is no reason to use nukes

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

but you reply nonetheless, making you more useless than what you complain about

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

china says the spratlys are on ancient chinese maps (as if that's justification, just mapping something). no chinese ever lived there

all that happened is someone drew a nine dotted line on a napkin 70 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

china plays the long game. they're an empire which has expanded and contracted for dozens of centuries. the area russia stole from them has been chinese many centuries more than russian

and is currently oveflowing with chinese:

http://abcnews.go.com/Internat...

remember how texas became part of the usa?

china wants resources

china is becoming imperialistic (they are boldly grabbing islands and you're claiming they aren't bold?)

outer manchuria was gobbled from them during the century of humiliation and unequal treaties

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

so the chinese are on the long view. they're just waiting. when the time comes, they will pounce, and no one will be able to do anything about it

outer manchuria is there's, they are certain of it, and when the time comes, it will be there's again. all it takes is a few more decades of russia continuing to rot economically, socially, and politically as it is, and china to continue to grow economically (and if they have social and political upheaval, then an ultranationalist demagogue may seize control and we'll see this happening sooner)

Re:i love infrastructure

[Rockoon]

someday, in only a few decades maybe the way technology and world populations are going, then the scheme would realize a profit in maybe 50 years

So its profitable then? You do understand that it can trivially make financial sense to begin an investment that wont "show a profit" for even hundreds of years, right?

This is well practiced already in many types of tree investments where the tree can take 30+ years of growth before harvesting begins (either the lumber, or more commonly the fruits/nuts they produce.) As time progresses the plot of land becomes more and more valuable due to whats on it, and can even be sold for a profit far sooner than the 30+ years until any revenue begins.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Intrepid imaginaut]

you're talking about an openly declared war of total destruction

And tuned out. I have a fuckton of mod points as usual but imma let it ride.

Re: i love infrastructure

[iTrawl]

How exactly would you take my comment seriously? A bridge is useless unless both its ends are connected. My scenario might work for roads (like, say, interstates), but I can't see how it would ever work for bridges unless you fly over the unfinished bits.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

1. read, then comment: ok

2. read, don't comment: ok

3. don't read, don't comment: ok

4. don't read, then comment: total shitbag

Re:i love infrastructure

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Shitbag you say,

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

if you think the kgb thug chest thumping by putin on small, weak georgia and ukraine is supposed to impress anyone other than propagandized neoserfs in a walled media garden inside russia. no

Well, it sure as hell impressed opportunistic American politicians who have been expanding NATO for 20 years without seemingly any sort of awareness of the provocation towards Russia it entailed, or seemingly any plan or ideas for how to handle an inevitable Russian response to said provocation. You think Germany is on the verge of annexing territory from Russia? Remind me, what's the most recent annexation in European history?

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

hey, at least you read that one, THEN replied

we're making progress today!

pat yourself on the back son!

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

"don't antagonize the imperial thug, or what the imperial thug does is your responsibility"

gee, i would think anything vile that the imperial thug did was the imperial thug's fault, perhaps? is that a little beyond your brain wattage?

this is the crap you are trying to sell:

"why did you wear that sexy dress? that guy looked at you. so that means i have to beat you now. and it's your fault i have to beat you because you wore that dress"

that's wife beater logic

"why did you accept states fleeing the soviet union, NATO, forcing me to dismember tiny weak georgia and ukraine in my self-destructive frustration and impotent rage?"

have you been beaten too much dear poor shell shock propagandized wife?

especially since "antagonism" as you define it is: the country's and regions momentarily not under the thug's boot after the fall of the USSR doing their damned best to scramble away and not be victims anymore

but of course, you spin that as evil NATO expanding and tricking poor poland, czech, hungary, romania, lithuania, etc... good soviet member states tricked by the evil west, right?

they all hate and fear russia now, moron!

they run to the west as fast as they fucking can

NATO expansion has nothing to do with what NATO did, but everything to do with how maltreated those states were under the russian thug's boot

ukraine are, *were*, your slavic brothers for centuries. they should be your loyal friends after being on the same side for centuries. but no. they had the gall to say they have the right to decide their own fate. and the impotent rage of putin and his small dick says they have to be mercilessly punished for that "crime"

all slavic comradery completely null and void

pathetic, stupid, the logic of the wife beater and the beaten ignorant propagandized serf wives who swallow and accept that mafia thug shit

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

hope they are actually russian trolls, propagandized nationalist fools

because any westerner who believes in russia as victim or russia as strong, is pathetic beyond belief

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

Well, dunno about sexy dresses, but methinks if, say, a country close to the US -- like, for example, Cuba, or Guatemala, or Chile, or Nicaragua, or the DR, or Venezuela, or Brazil -- showed hints or being chummy with a rival state, then the US would respond with all kinds of measures to address that threat. Like, say, by orchestrating coups..?

but of course, you spin that as evil NATO expanding and tricking poor poland, czech, hungary, romania, lithuania, etc... good soviet member states tricked by the evil west, right? they all hate and fear russia now, moron! they run to the west as fast as they fucking can NATO expansion has nothing to do with what NATO did, but everything to do with how maltreated those states were under the russian thug's boot

Are you suggesting that NATO had no choice but to expand to those countries? Like, because they wanted to be NATO members, NATO had no say in it?

ukraine are, *were*, your slavic brothers for centuries.

I'm not Slavic.

pathetic, stupid, the logic of the wife beater and the beaten ignorant propagandized serf wives who swallow and accept that mafia thug shit

If the irony of this statement wasn't lost on you, we could both share an awful hearty laugh.

Re:i love infrastructure

[currently_awake]

So what happens in 20 years when the USA implodes? Does Mexico get back all their stolen land? Will the native americans get their land back? Who ends up holding the weapons of mass destruction?

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

ukraine is begging to get into NATO. all the new eastern european states begged to get into NATO. fuck what the usa or what the west thinks. fuck what russia thinks

does what the actual fucking countries in question think matter at all to you?

only moscow matters? only washington dc? you utterly dismiss the wishes of poles, slovaks, bulgars, etc? that makes you a patronizing, condescending asshole

if warsaw wants to be in NATO, who gives a flying fuck what moscow thinks. why should what moscow thinks be the ultimate point about what POLES want? why? please, justify that. makes beleive you are talking to a pole. tell the pole why they have to stay under moscow's thumb, in spite of what poles want, nevermind americans or western europeans. please, explain

the US would respond with all kinds of measures to address that threat. Like, say, by orchestrating coups..?

the USA of course has done plenty of vile imperialist things. of course. what does that change?

so two wrongs make a right? the usa does something bad so it's ok that russia does something bad? that's how morality works to you? i knew a guy once who killed someone so it's ok if this other guy kills someone? do you have principles or mindless contrarianism as your motivation?

I'm not Slavic.

the only thing worse than a russian propagandized idiot on this topic who thinks russia is the victim here is some airhead western moron who thinks russia is the victim here. at least the russian has the excuse of nationalism and wall-to-wall propaganda. what is your excuse for being so unprincipled and unintelligent on the topic?

Re:i love infrastructure

[Martin Blank]

The Eastern Bloc collapse wasn't the same as an invasion of Russia (or the USSR at the time). Stepping military foot on Russia proper is inviting an over-response.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

china can sponsor fake independence movements, supply them clandestinely

no actual war has to be declared, so there is no one to nuke. even so, if russia decides to attack china on its own, that's a formal declaration on russia's head and china will be happy to respond in full force. not now. in the near future where russia has decayed further and china has strengthened further, and russia's hold on it's far east is weaker and china's expat community in siberia is yet even more influential and it's economic influences much larger

the new countries carved out of weak dying russia like tuva, irkutsk, yakutia, etc. can be satellite puppets, they don't have to be formally absorbed into china politically, if ever. they can be like texas, independent for awhile after the usa carved up northern mexico

does this tactic sound familiar? it should:

this is the same evil shit russia is pulling on ukraine right now and pulled on georgia with abhakazia

kind of a delectable irony, russia deserves it. beijing is an imperial thug like moscow, stealing islands from weak neighbors, but in outer manchuria and siberia, i'm rooting for china. fuck russia that fucking impotent bully

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

russia is a weak, dying, crazy, corrupt cult of personality kleptocrat petrostate

china is a huge, economically powerful, and growing militarily imperialist power

compared to:

the usa has problems with creeping plutocracy

mexico is poor and overrun with narcoterrorism

the point? the usa's problems are tiny compared to russia's

and the neighboring country of china is not in any way like the neighboring country of mexico

russia's far east is vulnerable to swinging away from the decaying power and to the stronger power. yes, if the usa was a failing weak crazy state and mexico was a massive growing power, then yes: texas, california, etc might swing to mexico. but that's not the case is it?

Re:i love infrastructure

[Martin Blank]

China is prodding Vietnam and the Philippines over maritime claims, yes, but to say they're picking on Japan isn't really accurate, as Tokyo's nationalist mayor restarted the public argument over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. This triggered Japan's nationalization of the islands to try to ward off further diplomatic incident, causing an incident which inflamed the Chinese people, which demanded action from the government... The whole thing is a mess that the governments in Beijing and Tokyo would be much happier to see die down again.

And how are you bringing India into this? Aside from a moderately-disputed, very high-altitude border that would be difficult to cross with ground forces (let alone fight in), China and India don't have much in the way of overlapping claims. Even if China got serious territorial ambitions for Indian territory, India's military is at least as good as China's, wouldn't have lengthy supply lines to deal with, and has far more combat experience in the last few decades than does China. The Indian Navy--much stronger than China's--could also make life incredibly difficult for Chinese trade passing through the Indian Ocean for Africa and the Suez Canal, especially since India has a strong blue-water navy and China is still coming to grips with serious operations outside of the China Seas.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

no

india and china have many minor border disputes, but also two major disputes over absolutely huge areas that are indeed mostly mountainous, but i don't know why that magically makes them unimportant

these are very large areas, read up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

and then we can get into the issue of tibetan independence...

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

The Chinese have little interest to invade and occupy other countries

so what is going in the spratlys exactly, moron?

nevermind with india, senkakus, paracels, etc.

you have to at least try to make sense

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

ukraine is begging to get into NATO. all the new eastern european states begged to get into NATO. fuck what the usa or what the west thinks. fuck what russia thinks

Oh, I see, you just don't know what NATO is. It's an alliance headed by the US. So what the US or west think is rather central to what NATO does.

only moscow matters? only washington dc? you utterly dismiss the wishes of poles, slovaks, bulgars, etc? that makes you a patronizing, condescending asshole

I fail to see any way in which I dismissed what any of those people want. They have their own concerns, and Russia has its own, and NATO has its own. Where's the dismissal?

the USA of course has done plenty of vile imperialist things. of course. what does that change? so two wrongs make a right? the usa does something bad so it's ok that russia does something bad? that's how morality works to you? i knew a guy once who killed someone so it's ok if this other guy kills someone? do you have principles or mindless contrarianism as your motivation?

I don't recall ever discussing right and wrong here. This whole thing started with my response to your statement that "if you think the kgb thug chest thumping by putin on small, weak georgia and ukraine is supposed to impress anyone other than propagandized neoserfs in a walled media garden inside russia. no". I wanted to explain that said "kgb thug" was looking for a lot more than impressing Russians. What does that have to do with right or wrong?

if warsaw wants to be in NATO, who gives a flying fuck what moscow thinks. why should what moscow thinks be the ultimate point about what POLES want? why?

How about because when NATO ignores Russian security concerns and expands recklessly, Russia responds with low-level, plausibly deniable invasions and destabilizations in the states they feel are strategically within their sphere, much like the US does with literally the entire Western hemisphere.

the only thing worse than a russian propagandized idiot on this topic who thinks russia is the victim here is some airhead western moron who thinks russia is the victim here. at least the russian has the excuse of nationalism and wall-to-wall propaganda. what is your excuse for being so unprincipled and unintelligent on the topic?

I'm not "western" either, but keep trying. Maybe one of your ad hominems will eventually stick.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Martin Blank]

I didn't say it makes them unimportant. I said it makes them hard to fight over, and that means far less chance of fighting. Absent discovery of significant resources in those locations that can be economically extracted, there's no reason for an outright war over them. India and China are both well aware of the problems that India and Pakistan have had fighting over the Siachen Glacier, where around 2000 troops have died, all but a few dozen from exposure, avalanches, or other climate-related circumstances. Neither China nor India wants to deal with that to fight over economically unimportant territory. That's why there's an occasional skirmish, but not much else.

One exception may be the Tawang region in eastern India, but China would still have to cross the mountains to take it if it came to war. India would likely have significant notification of a build-up, and could through airstrikes and artillery make life difficult for any Chinese forces heading over. That's not including whatever economic restrictions would be placed on China over such actions.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

I'm not overly convinced by the Russia nuclear threat, that's not to say it's not incredibly dangerous, but I'm not convinced the Russian nuclear arsenal is even remotely world ending or similar.

The UK is struggling to afford to maintain an arsenal of 160 missiles, yet Russia's economy is drastically smaller and it's arsenal is supposedly 1600 munitions. I'd be amazed if should it come to that even a fraction of Russia's nukes actually turned out to be viable.

If you want to get an idea of the damage Russia's nukes could do, try here:

nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Long story short, the types of nukes Russia has, combined with it's severe corruption, it's relatively small economy, I'd be amazed if Russia's nukes could at best do much more than wipe out key cities in a few European countries leaving many more cities and many other countries intact. I believe the West could survive a Russian nuclear assault, but every last Russian on Russian soil would be well and truly finished.

It doesn't seem plausible that more than a fraction of Russia's arsenal is genuinely viable regardless of what they claim. Even America with a budget over 8 times the size of Russia's is struggling with the cost of maintaining their similar sized arsenal.

Russia has recently started spending more on it's conventional forces, it's been blowing billions on a 5th gen fighter programme that is now on the verge of collapse. Just today the entirety of it's primary Apache attack helicopter counterpart (all it's Mi28s) have been grounded probably due to low quality parts, poor maintenance.

Putin's nuclear bluff is only going to be able to get him so far. It doesn't seem even remotely plausible that much of his nuclear arsenal after 25 years of decay is even remotely much of a threat if he can't even keep his helicopters in the air, and new planes being built. Nukes ain't cheap, and Russia simply can't afford them. It's trying to grow a multi-faceted defence force without the finances to do so. Good luck with that.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

"Well, it sure as hell impressed opportunistic American politicians who have been expanding NATO for 20 years without seemingly any sort of awareness of the provocation towards Russia it entailed"

Oh nonsense, Russia had every opportunity to join NATO and become a modern progressive nation itself. The fact it decided to not do that because it still had dreams of an empire is not NATO's fault but Russia's. NATO is a security organisation and by increasing membership it increases security. Bringing Russia on board was a key aim because that would be the ultimate stability pact for Europe, but Putin killed all that and put the final nails in the coffin when it invaded both Georgia and Ukraine. Putin plays the victim because it suits, but NATO isn't the aggressor here.

Putin would've done what he did regardless, if anything NATO restricted how far he was able to go - certainly it blocked him from annexing the whole of Georgia proper, and places like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and so forth would likely be stuck once more with Russian puppet governments were it not for NATO.

Putin is an imperialist, and no amount of appeasement will or would have ever changed that. He was there as a KGB agent when the USSR collapsed and he's never forgiven that. You wont change him, and you wont help him, all you can do is stand up to him and keep him in check. He believes soviet Russia was always right, and he's determined to try and rebuild the empire he believes was stolen from Russia, failing to realise it wasn't stolen, merely that the people Russia oppressed for so long were taking their freedom back.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

china is outpacing india economically and militarily

india better catch up

if india had any cojones it would also be more assertive on the issue of tibetan independence. mongolia exists because russia could outweigh china's imperialism. tibet does not exist because india could not do the same

Re:i love infrastructure

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Careful there. The Russia that Japan defeated in a naval battle was the dying Russia of the Tsars and Japan only managed it using a special "technique" (kind of reminds me of Pearl Harbor). The only war the Russia humiliatingly "lost" was Afghanistan, and they "lost" it pretty much the way the US "lost" Vietnam, a troop withdrawal that forced them to abandon the sympathetic regimes they were trying to prop up.

And you're making a bold assumption that China has enough soldiers willing to fight a war that doesn't have an ideological basis yet. An invasion of Taiwan or a naval blockade of the South China Sea is a more likely scenario, even when faced with the possibility of American retaliation, because Party propaganda has already projected these areas as part of a greater China. So unless we start seeing news in the state media about the lands that the Soviets supposedly "stole", don't expect a lot of volunteers signing up for the next Great Patriotic War. The most you get is bunch of draftees with less passion for battle than the pot-smoking porn-chewing Vietnam vets.

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

How about because when NATO ignores Russian security concerns and expands recklessly, Russia responds with low-level, plausibly deniable invasions and destabilizations in the states they feel are strategically within their sphere, much like the US does with literally the entire Western hemisphere.

1. we went over this moron. "it's ok for russia to do bad things because USA does bad things" intellectual and moral bankruptcy

first off fuck the usa. it's committed many crimes in this world. but more importantly, your "two wrongs make the right" thinking only goes to show you lack morals and principles. in your world it's ok for anyone to commit any crime they want at any time. the justification being someone else got away with the same crime once, so they should be able to too. it's sophistry and empty contrarianism

it's like "i hate the usa so i have to love the iranian bomb program." or "i hate iran so i have to love american imperialism." both suggestions are fucking idiotic, and it's the way you think about russia and the usa. in reality, populated with people with actual principles, you can hate both iran, and the usa, for their separate crimes. likewise, it's totally possible to hate the usa, and russia, and not give one or the other a pass because "it's not fair mommy, that kid got away with shoplifting too" like an immature douchebag, which is what you are with your words here. by thinking this way you're just announcing your own intellectual and moral failure

2. if NATO did not exist, russia would be doing the same, or worse. why do you blame the malice of one party on someone else? it's like you lack a basic abstract social model of cause and effect in your mind, something developed by most people in elementary school

example: lets say the USA invades canada in 10 years. according to your logic, we can say it's bin laden's fault, because of 9/11, which did this to american politics, and that to american concerns, and turned them into raging warmongers, etc. so it's all bin laden's fault for the usa attacking canada. completely stupid. but that's your logic here

some moron like yourself would agree with this contrived bullshit, because you believe NATO is somehow to blame for what *russia* does. get it? do you possibly sense the social problem you have on assigning responsibility and accountability for what one person does to another person?

another example: i dent your car. you pull out a gun and blow my head off. according to your wife beater logic, i'm at fault for getting my head blown off. because i dented your car

but in reality, you have many choices to responding to me denting your car. swear at me. ignore me. ask me to pay. punch me. insult my friends and family. dent my car back. make jokes. whatever. how you respond to the stresses of life is about YOUR character and YOUR thinking, and you're only demonstrating your own low character and weak mental capacity at understanding who is responsible for what

in fact, blaming your bad choices on who you choose to victimize is called avoiding responsibility. and for you to fall for this lame "poland wanted to dance with NATO so russia had to beat up ukraine" wife beater stupidity, and your other "the usa does bad things so it's ok for russia to do bad things" two wrongs make a right idiocy, it tells us you are person of no morals who blames your bad choices and your crimes on others

your geopolitical analysis tells us nothing about the reality of russia and NATO, and only about your own intellectual and moral failure

your country is probably some broken shithole with many problems all due to local corruption and bad domestic choices, but blind pride means you believe what some chest thumping demagogue feeds you "it's all the usa's fault because they did bad thing {X} to our country in the cold war 50 years ago" and so you never take any responsibility for your own failures, invent fantastic bullshit cause and effect chains of reasoning for why what you do wro

Re:i love infrastructure

[smithmc]

but this is nuts... if the cost is {Y} and the profit per year is {X} then 500 years * {X} = {Y} roughly the cost, including building the roads/ rails to get to the bridge, greatly dwarfs, by many orders of magnitude

Where did the 500 come from? Show your work, please.

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

Oh nonsense, Russia had every opportunity to join NATO and become a modern progressive nation itself.

Why in god's name would Russia join a military alliance headed by their biggest geopolitical rival whose sole purpose for existing is to surround Russia with thinly veiled sworn enemies, army bases, and missiles aimed at their cities and military forces? What you're talking about is on par with saying the US had every opportunity to join the Soviet satellite states like the Eastern Bloc.

NATO is a security organisation and by increasing membership it increases security.

Hmm, you sure about that? Let me ask you this -- would you be willing to end human civilization as we know it in order to prevent "pro-Russian separatists" in the Ida-Viru region of Estonia from "exercising their right to self-determination" by declaring independence from Estonia and joining Russia?

How about if instead of the Ida-Viru region of Estonia, we're talking about a quarter of the Norwegian offshore oil drilling operations? Would you be willing to destroy hundreds of millions of human lives, including your own, and plunge the planet into decades without sunshine to stop that?

Perhaps NATO isn't everything you think it is, at least not against Russia.

Bringing Russia on board was a key aim because that would be the ultimate stability pact for Europe, but Putin killed all that and put the final nails in the coffin when it invaded both Georgia and Ukraine. Putin plays the victim because it suits, but NATO isn't the aggressor here.

So, let me get this straight -- if, back during the original cold war, the US was faced with Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Panama, Nicaragua, and a couple of other countries entering a pact of mutual defense with the Soviet union wherein they were obligated to attack the US in unison if any of them were attacked by the US, you do not think there would be any Americans feeling as if that was an in any way aggressive move? If Russia had anything close to as far-reaching and actively defensive as the "Monroe Doctrine", they would have launched the nukes when the Berlin wall fell.

Putin would've done what he did regardless, if anything NATO restricted how far he was able to go - certainly it blocked him from annexing the whole of Georgia proper, and places like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and so forth would likely be stuck once more with Russian puppet governments were it not for NATO.

I'll never understand why Putin waited nearly 15 years for NATO to keep expanding before he decided to try to do all those things that he totally intended to do all along. You'd think it'd have been a lot easier to, say, annex Georgia back before they had much in the way of ties to the EU or the US, and same for the rest of those countries. Well, I guess he must be really stupid.

Putin is an imperialist, and no amount of appeasement will or would have ever changed that. He was there as a KGB agent when the USSR collapsed and he's never forgiven that. You wont change him, and you wont help him, all you can do is stand up to him and keep him in check. He believes soviet Russia was always right, and he's determined to try and rebuild the empire he believes was stolen from Russia, failing to realise it wasn't stolen, merely that the people Russia oppressed for so long were taking their freedom back.

Could you give me the phone number for Putin's psychiatrist? I'd love to talk to him, he seems to have told you a lot of interesting things about Putin's character.

Oh, what's that you say? You haven't actually talked to Putin's psychiatrist? And you're basing all your opinions on the typical American "if you're willing to put yourself in our enemies' shoes and consider things from their perspective it obviously means you're a muslim terrorist commie and you hate America" thought-stopping cliche? Well color me surprised.

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

first off fuck the usa. it's committed many crimes in this world. but more importantly, your "two wrongs make the right" thinking only goes to show you lack morals and principles.

No, it just shows your lack of reading comprehension. Go back and find any mention in my posts of morality. It's OK. I'll wait.

2. if NATO did not exist, russia would be doing the same, or worse.

Yeah, sure they would. But what's that got to do with anything I said?

why do you blame the malice of one party on someone else? it's like you lack a basic abstract social model of cause and effect in your mind, something developed by most people in elementary school

Yeah it could be that, or it could be the fact that I was trying to explain to you that Russia's actions were not merely motivated by a need to "impress" their own citizens, as you implied, but were rather the actions of a fairly strategically ingenious and amoral entity seeking to protects its interests against the encroachment of their essentially only military rival.

according to your wife beater logic

Dude, what's with you and wife beating? It's like a verbal tick for you or something. Maybe you should look into that....

your country is probably some broken shithole with many problems all due to local corruption and bad domestic choices, but blind pride means you believe what some chest thumping demagogue feeds you "it's all the usa's fault because they did bad thing {X} to our country in the cold war 50 years ago" and so you never take any responsibility for your own failures, invent fantastic bullshit cause and effect chains of reasoning for why what you do wron gis actually someone else's fault, and you never fix your fucking problems or even admit you created them

The US has never done anything to my country (well, nothing bad at least), and either way I can't say I have much pride in it.

But keep going, I love watching you trying to figure out which cliche you can cast me in.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

"Why in god's name would Russia join a military alliance headed by their biggest geopolitical rival whose sole purpose for existing is to surround Russia with thinly veiled sworn enemies, army bases, and missiles aimed at their cities and military forces? What you're talking about is on par with saying the US had every opportunity to join the Soviet satellite states like the Eastern Bloc."

Well yes, if your view is Russian-centric paranoia I can see why you'd think that, but to anyone else the reasons are obvious - people join NATO as equals and NATO only existed to defend against Russia because Russia had opted to be a threat. In contrast, the USSR held on to countless European states against their will and is trying to do so today. So on one hand you have a purely defensive organisation where everyone is an equal, and on the other you have oppressive Russian imperialism. They're quite different.

"How about if instead of the Ida-Viru region of Estonia, we're talking about a quarter of the Norwegian offshore oil drilling operations? Would you be willing to destroy hundreds of millions of human lives, including your own, and plunge the planet into decades without sunshine to stop that?"

I really have no idea what the fuck your point is. Given that those aren't even choices that exist and hence there is absolutely no context around them then you're not really making any sense. You seem to be suggesting that NATO would randomly start a nuclear war over something relatively trivial. That's a theory you've come up with with absolutely no grounding in reality.

"Perhaps NATO isn't everything you think it is, at least not against Russia."

I don't think you have even the slightest clue what NATO is. It is primarily a security pact couple with military coordination and training. If Russia joined that then it would inherently be protected from NATO as a member itself, and would be involved in NATO's decision making. The fact Russia still has imperialist ambitions and seeks to grow it's territory with force is not in any way NATO's fault, and wholly Russia's. NATO doesn't force anyone to join - countries ask, and even when they do NATO is incredibly careful about membership, hence why Ukraine and Georgia are not yet members.

"and a couple of other countries entering a pact of mutual defense with the Soviet union wherein they were obligated to attack the US in unison if any of them were attacked by the US"

Er, so you're talking about the cold war and you've never heard of the Warsaw pact? You should probably stop now.

"I'll never understand why Putin waited nearly 15 years for NATO to keep expanding before he decided to try to do all those things that he totally intended to do all along. You'd think it'd have been a lot easier to, say, annex Georgia back before they had much in the way of ties to the EU or the US, and same for the rest of those countries. Well, I guess he must be really stupid."

Well, you know, these things cost money. They don't come for free. When your country has basically gone bankrupt it starts to take a while before you can save up your roubles enough to create a viable force, and even then they'll be rusty and may still need further training and support, as Putin learnt the hard way in Georgia when his forces took way more casualties than they should have in 2008.

"Oh, what's that you say? You haven't actually talked to Putin's psychiatrist? And you're basing all your opinions on the typical American"

Psychiatrists don't write leaders biographies and do interviews for them idiot. Similarly, plenty of folks who do and have known Putin personally have written more than enough about his personality. Unfortunately, being as corrupt a dictator as Putin means you tend to fall out regularly with those around you, and we therefore have no end of people who were once close to him, and even some who still are describing his motivations. Oh, and I'm not American.

Stop being a Putin apologist when you don't know the first thing about him. You don't

Re:i love infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

No, it just shows your lack of reading comprehension. Go back and find any mention in my posts of morality. It's OK. I'll wait.

agreed 100%

you have no principles or morality in your "thinking" on the topic. that's the actual point

you have mindless contrarianism where one person can do something evil because somebody else did. and then blame that evil action on someone else anyways, due to your lack of understanding of the concept of accountability

you demonstrate your own personal failures of character rather than any valid commentary on geopolitics. you are projecting choices and consequences as understood by your own dim wattage mind:

1. "somebody did something bad so i should be able to do something bad"

two-wrongs-make-a-right logic

2. "the reason i did something bad is because of what someone else did that does not actually logically imply my action, but whatever"

wife beater logic

your arguments depend upon this "thinking", therefore you mark yourself as an immoral and irresponsible douchebag

i actually feel sorry for anyone who has to work with you or is related to you/ friends with you. you're obviously a horrible piece of shit in the way you think about what is justified or not in this world according to #1 and #2 above

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

So on one hand you have a purely defensive organisation where everyone is an equal, and on the other you have oppressive Russian imperialism.

I can't really argue against this level of delusion, so I'm gonna let that be.

"How about if instead of the Ida-Viru region of Estonia, we're talking about a quarter of the Norwegian offshore oil drilling operations? Would you be willing to destroy hundreds of millions of human lives, including your own, and plunge the planet into decades without sunshine to stop that?"

I really have no idea what the fuck your point is. Given that those aren't even choices that exist and hence there is absolutely no context around them then you're not really making any sense. You seem to be suggesting that NATO would randomly start a nuclear war over something relatively trivial. That's a theory you've come up with with absolutely no grounding in reality.

Haha, I should have known that would go over your head. What I'm asking is -- if NATO is this amazing defensive organization that's keeping Russia from doing anything to its members, would you actually be willing to follow that to the logical conclusion of a NATO war with Russia -- meaning, nuclear war -- if there was a semi-ambiguous Russian invasion of the Ida-Viru region of Estonia taking place, like the one in Ukraine? Or would your politicians twist and turn however they needed to prevent a nuclear holocaust for the sake of a little piece of land that your people don't ultimately really care about?

I don't think you have even the slightest clue what NATO is. It is primarily a security pact couple with military coordination and training. If Russia joined that then it would inherently be protected from NATO as a member itself, and would be involved in NATO's decision making. The fact Russia still has imperialist ambitions and seeks to grow it's territory with force is not in any way NATO's fault, and wholly Russia's. NATO doesn't force anyone to join - countries ask, and even when they do NATO is incredibly careful about membership, hence why Ukraine and Georgia are not yet members.

Yes, and children are "involved" in their parents' decision making. I don't think that level of autonomy is something particularly attractive to most Russians.

"and a couple of other countries entering a pact of mutual defense with the Soviet union wherein they were obligated to attack the US in unison if any of them were attacked by the US"

Er, so you're talking about the cold war and you've never heard of the Warsaw pact? You should probably stop now.

No, I'm asking what the American reaction would be if the scary Warsaw pact involved Mexico and Canada. It's not my fault you forgot the beginning of the paragraph before reaching the end, man, it wasn't even a big one...

Well, you know, these things cost money. They don't come for free. When your country has basically gone bankrupt it starts to take a while before you can save up your roubles enough to create a viable force, and even then they'll be rusty and may still need further training and support, as Putin learnt the hard way in Georgia when his forces took way more casualties than they should have in 2008.

Russia was recovering by 2002. With that size of a standing army, a small invasion isn't going to make or break the bank. Plus, how could something Putin learned when invading Georgia in 2008 have prevented him from doing something before that? Does he have a time machine or something?

Oh, and I'm not American.

Yeah, but your refusal to consider another perspective has "Made in USA" printed on it in red, white, and blue.

Stop being a Putin apologist when you don't know the first thing about him. You don't have to listen to me, but you should at least listen to people who most definitely do know the situation before spouting n

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

one person can do something evil because somebody else did

Where did I say anything like that?

1. "somebody did something bad so i should be able to do something bad"

Where did I say anything like that?

2. "the reason i did something bad is because of what someone else did that does not actually logically imply my action, but whatever"

Oh I think being strategically threatened by NATO totally logically implies the Russian response, and I'm not the only one, people who were paying attention have been warning about it for 20 years.

i actually feel sorry for anyone who has to work with you or is related to you/ friends with you. you're obviously a horrible piece of shit in the way you think about what is justified or not in this world according to #1 and #2 above

Dude, you're slipping. The assumptions about me you made in earlier posts were way more entertaining.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

"Haha, I should have known that would go over your head."

It went over my head because it makes absolutely no sense. Your argument is that NATO's only response to a Russian invasion is nuclear. That's obviously nonsense, if Russia carries out an invasion of a NATO nation in this manner NATO can simply respond in kind, either by say, fuelling Chechen separatism, or by similarly supporting the Estonians - mostly just giving enough weaponry to make such an invasion costly enough for the Russians to change their mind is sufficient. This basically describes pretty much every proxy battle in the cold war - nuclear war didn't happen, why do you think that's different now and the nuclear option is the only option? It isn't, you're simply spouting nonsense.

"Yes, and children are "involved" in their parents' decision making. I don't think that level of autonomy is something particularly attractive to most Russians."

Yes, as we've seen with Putin's regime, Russians prefer something much more restrictive and dictatorial. At least you got that bit right.

"Plus, how could something Putin learned when invading Georgia in 2008 have prevented him from doing something
before that? Does he have a time machine or something?"

No, but obviously if nothing else, Putin isn't stupid. Before 2008 he knew full well his military wasn't upto it, he assumed it would be in 2008 and found that it still wasn't. This isn't really rocket science, I'm amazed you're struggling with it. The average person wouldn't, much less someone with even a modicum of intelligence above that.

"Yeah, but your refusal to consider another perspective has "Made in USA" printed on it in red, white, and blue."

Here's the real problem - you're the only one bringing the USA into this over and over. You're the typical type of person whose view is formed something like "Afghanistan and Iraq were bad, therefore, the US is bad. Russia hates the US, therefore, Russia is good". Obviously that's the height of ignorant dumb-think because it's a fundamental fallacy. But you're excelling at demonstrating that in your oh so binary world that the only factors are either loving Russia and hating the US, or loving the US and hating Russia. Some of us are capable of seeing the billion shades of grey in between - don't think all of us are constrained by the same type of binary dumb-think that you are clearly displaying. It's perfectly possible for someone to think that both Russia and the US have done a lot wrong - the fact you don't get that shows you're a personal that suffers from serious problems of bias, ignorance and partisanship.

"He's a guy that wants democratic reform. Of course he doesn't like Putin, why would he. But what does that have to do with what we're talking about? "

Oh keep up. You asked how I could know what Putin's thoughts are - I point out it's quite simple, you simply read things from people whom he has expressed them to and who is aware of them. I pointed to one such person, again, it's not difficult.

"Unless what you're saying is that it would be preferable to you if Russia was run by people who didn't care about their strategic weaknesses and security, which I guess I agree with. I mean, lots of people would be really happy if some of the pre-Soviet imperial conquests broke off."

Honestly, I don't care what Russia does as long as it only acts either within it's borders, or outside it's borders with consent. I think the US invasion of Iraq was completely and utterly wrong, and I despise the US for it because it's clear the fucking mess in that part of the middle east still stems from that. Similarly however I despise the fact Russia has invaded and annexed the territory of a foreign sovereign nation, whilst simultaneously admitting to committing war crimes in the process (putting civilians at risk by pretending your soldiers are civilian is a self-admitted breach of the Geneva convention by Putin).

If Russians want to sit all paranoid that's fine, but that doesn't give them the right to dic

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

It went over my head because it makes absolutely no sense. Your argument is that NATO's only response to a Russian invasion is nuclear. That's obviously nonsense, if Russia carries out an invasion of a NATO nation in this manner NATO can simply respond in kind, either by say, fuelling Chechen separatism, or by similarly supporting the Estonians - mostly just giving enough weaponry to make such an invasion costly enough for the Russians to change their mind is sufficient. This basically describes pretty much every proxy battle in the cold war - nuclear war didn't happen, why do you think that's different now and the nuclear option is the only option? It isn't, you're simply spouting nonsense.

Then what's the point of NATO? You just wiped your ass with the mutual defense clause. If the mutual defense clause is obeyed, and Russia attacks one of the signatories, then nuclear war is inevitable for the same reason that nuclear war between the US and Russia has always been inevitable in the case of any war between the two. What you're saying is that the response to Russia will be the same as it was without the mutual defense clause. That means NATO was a house of cards all along, at least as far as those tiny eastern European countries are concerned that no American or Brit would be willing to risk annihilation over.

No, but obviously if nothing else, Putin isn't stupid. Before 2008 he knew full well his military wasn't upto it, he assumed it would be in 2008 and found that it still wasn't. This isn't really rocket science, I'm amazed you're struggling with it. The average person wouldn't, much less someone with even a modicum of intelligence above that.

Hahaha, that's awesome, basically your argument is that anything they did is evidence of your position. They didn't invade anyone? Obviously they couldn't! They invaded someone? Obviously imperialists! They stopped invading anyone? Obviously they realized they couldn't! You've set yourself up a nice little unfalsifiable fort there. Rocket science indeed.

"Afghanistan and Iraq were bad, therefore, the US is bad.

Huh? What's the connection there?

Russia hates the US, therefore, Russia is good".

Where did you hear me say that I think Russia is good?

It's perfectly possible for someone to think that both Russia and the US have done a lot wrong

Oh I see, when I accuse of you not seeing Russia's perspective on this because of American-influenced propaganda, you assume I'm accusing you of not knowing the US has done bad things. What were you saying about average intelligence..?

If Russians want to sit all paranoid that's fine

How is it paranoia when the 25 years since the fall of the union have confirmed all their worst fears?

Russia is guilty of all the US' wrongs and then some.

I'd hate to be on the jury that had to decide which one was "more guilty".

But when your worldview is fundamentally broken in that way, it's not terribly surprising that you're also saying things that are either naive to what went on during the cold war, or simply make no sense requiring the enforcement of false choices. Fallacies are of course the only way you can fix the paradoxes in your mind that your broken, nonsensical and hypocritical worldview has inherently created.

Haha that reminds me of those overly vague endings from Grey's Anatomy that were just sort of rambling without really saying anything relevant.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

"Then what's the point of NATO? You just wiped your ass with the mutual defense clause"

Mutual defence, doesn't imply immediate escalation to nuclear defence. You're still entirely making that up. It just means mutual defence. Your rhetoric about guaranteed nuclear war is still nonsense, because the fact that world came out of the cold war nuclear war free is still proof of that. I don't know why you're even engaging in this discussion when you demonstrate exactly no knowledge of the cold war.

"Hahaha, that's awesome, basically your argument is that anything they did is evidence of your position. They didn't invade anyone? Obviously they couldn't! They invaded someone? Obviously imperialists! They stopped invading anyone? Obviously they realized they couldn't! You've set yourself up a nice little unfalsifiable fort there. Rocket science indeed."

No, my argument is that there is an incredibly vast body of proof and analysis on the topic, including statements from Putin himself admitting that his forces weren't up to it in Georgia that highlight this. Again, your lack of knowledge of this topic is wholly your problem, not mine. Don't try and spin it any other way - it's not my fault if you've no idea what you're talking about.

"How is it paranoia when the 25 years since the fall of the union have confirmed all their worst fears?"

Russia's worst fears are that it's neighbours wanted nothing to do with them? That's NATO's fault why exactly? You can't blame anyone but Russia for the fact that everyone around them wants to get as far away from them as possible.

"Haha that reminds me of those overly vague endings from Grey's Anatomy that were just sort of rambling without really saying anything relevant."

It's okay, you don't need to hurt your simple mind any further by failing to understand common words. I understand that things like paradoxes and fallacies are too complicated for you, so I didn't expect you to understand - if you did you'd be able to see why your worldview is so broken and paradoxical in the first place. It's pretty clear from everything you've said that your entire broken world view is built on the fact that you simply have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. You weren't aware of the Warsaw pact, you seem oblivious to the entirety of the cold war, and you are ignorant of the very things even Putin himself has said both about his history, his ideals, and his understanding of his own military,

Try as you might, you've proven that point that you simply can't argue from a point of ignorance- you've tried to argue, but you've yet to say anything that makes any sense, all because you have a complete lack of a grasp of basic facts.

Come back when you actually understand the topic and have managed to stop making such a repeated fool of yourself.

If nothing else go and have a read of the Russian leadership's own comments on it's military decay and the subsequent realisation from Georgia that they still weren't as prepared for war as they thought. I don't even need propaganda because pretty much everything I've said has been self-admitted by the Russian's themselves. Learn about Putin's speeches, such as where he declares the collapse of the USSR one of the greatest tragedies of our era. When you've come back, then tell me again that Putin doesn't lust for a return of Russia's imperial past, and that Putin wasn't aware that he was militarily crippled, and was surprised that they still weren't prepared in 2008.

You wont be able to of course, because by that point, having done that, you'll realise you were wrong. Well, that or just a reality denier, but you wont realise that, you'll just keep on being wrong. When even the folks you're trying to defend have contradicted you with your own words, normally you should know it's time to give up, apparently you don't though, so my bet is on reality denier.

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

Mutual defence, doesn't imply immediate escalation to nuclear defence. You're still entirely making that up. It just means mutual defence. Your rhetoric about guaranteed nuclear war is still nonsense, because the fact that world came out of the cold war nuclear war free is still proof of that. I don't know why you're even engaging in this discussion when you demonstrate exactly no knowledge of the cold war.

Mutual defense means an obligation to respond to any attack as if it was on the home soil of any member. If Russian tanks were rolling towards the white house, would there not be an escalation to nuclear war? For fuck's sake man, the only reason the cold war didn't end with nuclear war is because both powers avoided attacking each other directly. NATO has spread the definition of "attack directly" to include a bunch of countries most Americans can't even find on a map. Assuming the mutual defense clause isn't hot air, NATO extends MAD to those very countries. So one of two things is true -- either NATO is a house of cards as far as those countries are concerned, and Russia can do to them what they're doing to Ukraine, or every American president is willing to destroy the world as we know it for the sake of every one of those countries, because that's what he would do if Russia attacked American citizens on American soil. What's so hard to understand about this...

Russia's worst fears are that it's neighbours wanted nothing to do with them? That's NATO's fault why exactly? You can't blame anyone but Russia for the fact that everyone around them wants to get as far away from them as possible.

Russia's worst fear was that the US would extend the "I'M NOT TOUCHING YOU! I'M NOT TOUCHING YOU!" doctrine to their very borders. Remember the Cuban missile crisis?

I understand that things like paradoxes and fallacies are too complicated for you, so I didn't expect you to understand

Yeah, it's pretty hard for me to understand, considering that you haven't pointed to anything I have actually said as paradoxical or fallacious. You assign imaginary claims to me, and then scoff at how stupid I am for saying those things. Yeah, my fragile little brain is too weak to logically argue the position of the strawman in your head.

You weren't aware of the Warsaw pact

You're right, I wasn't aware that the Warsaw pact included Mexico and Canada and Brazil. That's definitely news to me, and it completely invalidates everything I've said. For my education, could you point to like a Wikipedia page or something on the history of Warsaw pact countries on the American continents?

Just make sure you don't bring up Cuba. Because Cuba was the closest counterpart to countries like Poland and Estonia being in NATO, and the American response to that was to bring the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust, which makes invasions of Georgia and Ukraine seem downright insignificant by comparison. So yeah, don't ever mention Cuba, it would create an unacceptable risk that you might suddenly catch a glimpse of things from the Russian perspective, and we wouldn't want that now, would we?

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

"Mutual defense means an obligation to respond to any attack as if it was on the home soil of any member. If Russian tanks were rolling towards the white house, would there not be an escalation to nuclear war? For fuck's sake man, the only reason the cold war didn't end with nuclear war is because both powers avoided attacking each other directly."

Er. Yes. Exactly. So why do you think that would change now? This is exactly my point, it's like you realise it whilst refusing to realise it.

You still don't get it - you still don't understand that what America would do to defend it's own soil isn't inherently what it has to do to defend foreign soil under NATO. Hell, it's not even clear if Russia did invade US soil that they'd use nuclear weapons, America has the firm military advantage so could win without doing so, thus Russia is the only party likely to do a first strike, and NATO wont use nukes unless Russia does first - it has no need for starters.

But importantly, NATO isn't touching Russian soil, so your argument is wholly meaningless, Russia is however touching foreign soil, albeit not NATO soil yet. Your argument seems to be that NATO nations shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves against Russian aggression - that's great for you as you're a Putin apologist, but you're simultaneously claiming it's not fair if NATO were to do the same to Russia, no shit, so how is it justified that Russia is the only one doing it?

"Yeah, my fragile little brain is too weak to logically argue the position of the strawman in your head."

Anger wont resolve the inherent paradoxes your irrational position has created. You'll need to try harder than that to fix your broken world view.

"You're right, I wasn't aware that the Warsaw pact included Mexico and Canada and Brazil. That's definitely news to me, and it completely invalidates everything I've said."

It doesn't have to, it's irrelevant, your whole argument makes no sense and is built on fantastical non-realities, non-realities you've had to create to counter the fact that your nonsensical ideas don't make sense in the context of actual reality.

"and the American response to that was to bring the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust"

This highlights the hypocrisy of your viewpoint, Russia stations nukes on America's border, pointing at America, and America has created an almost nuclear holocaust. What? Any rational human being can see that both sides escalated that one, I'm pretty sure the Americans didn't ask for those nukes to be positioned there and pointed at them.

So carry on apologising for Putin, being wrong, and talking about non-realities that justify your otherwise non-points. But you still haven't done any of that research I suggested, so you're continuing to be completely wrong and continuing to talk nonsense. Not much of a surprise.

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

You still don't get it - you still don't understand that what America would do to defend it's own soil isn't inherently what it has to do to defend foreign soil under NATO.

Meaning, you agree with me that the mutual defense clause is a sham.

But importantly, NATO isn't touching Russian soil, so your argument is wholly meaningless, Russia is however touching foreign soil, albeit not NATO soil yet. Your argument seems to be that NATO nations shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves against Russian aggression - that's great for you as you're a Putin apologist, but you're simultaneously claiming it's not fair if NATO were to do the same to Russia, no shit, so how is it justified that Russia is the only one doing it?

No, I didn't compare NATO expansion to the invasion of Ukraine, I compared NATO expansion to Mexico and Canada joining the Warsaw pact. Pay attention please.

Anger wont resolve the inherent paradoxes your irrational position has created. You'll need to try harder than that to fix your broken world view.

It's not anger, it's sarcasm. Or did the strawman thing go over your head? Never mind then.

It doesn't have to, it's irrelevant, your whole argument makes no sense and is built on fantastical non-realities, non-realities you've had to create to counter the fact that your nonsensical ideas don't make sense in the context of actual reality.

LMAO. Your word for "hypothetical scenario" is "fantastical non-reality"? I guess even your vocabulary is fundamentally incapable of allowing you to see things from somebody else's perspective.

This highlights the hypocrisy of your viewpoint, Russia stations nukes on America's border, pointing at America, and America has created an almost nuclear holocaust. What? Any rational human being can see that both sides escalated that one, I'm pretty sure the Americans didn't ask for those nukes to be positioned there and pointed at them.

Well yeah, that's my whole fucking point. When the Soviet Union stationed nukes in Cuba, the US responded to that provocative action by bringing the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. When the US expanded NATO all the way to the Russian border, Russia responded with small-scale invasions of their neighbors. Those invasions didn't happen in a vacuum, much like the US response to the missile crisis didn't happen in a vacuum. How can I possibly make that clearer?

Once again, you are arguing against something that the little strawman of me you've constructed in your head is saying, not me. If you actually opened your eyes and paid attention to what I'm saying, I think even you'd be capable of understanding that your counterpoints are entirely irrelevant.

So carry on apologising for Putin, being wrong, and talking about non-realities that justify your otherwise non-points. But you still haven't done any of that research I suggested, so you're continuing to be completely wrong and continuing to talk nonsense. Not much of a surprise.

What research is that? Research disproving things your little strawman told you? I'm not him, I have no interest in understanding how wrong his viewpoints are. If you want to keep talking to him, go stand in front of a mirror and stop bothering me.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

"Meaning, you agree with me that the mutual defense clause is a sham."

No, I'm saying that a conventional response from the world's largest combined military force by a factor of 20x is just as effective a deterrent as the nuclear option which you assume is the first option.

"I guess even your vocabulary is fundamentally incapable of allowing you to see things from somebody else's perspective."

Again, I apologise if more than the most basic English confuses me, I keep forgetting how undereducated you apparently are. But no, a hypothetical scenario is something that could actually happen, the things you're proposing are historical and didn't happen but are using to drive an argument as if they did, and are therefore non-realities.

"Well yeah, that's my whole fucking point. When the Soviet Union stationed nukes in Cuba, the US responded to that provocative action by bringing the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation."

But again, you give lie to your pro-Russian bias in the way you phrase this, you claim it's the US that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation by threatening, not Russia by actually deploying and aiming nukes. This is why you're incapable of offering any rational point to this discussion - from the very outset you have this ISIS style "US is the great satan" outlook whilst implying Russia is just an innocent bystander. That's obviously false.

"When the US expanded NATO all the way to the Russian border"

You do it again here, this is just broken. The US didn't expand anything, NATO grew when countries asked, off their own democratic back to join. Your whole world view is based around this idea that Russia gets to decide what everyone can and cannot do. Rather than realise that these countries asked to join NATO off their own back precisely because Russia had been dicks to them for decades and that that's Russia's own fault, you instead try and argue that the US expanded NATO as if the US somehow forced these countries to join, and as if it's anyone other than Russia's fault that they chose to join the West, rather than continue to sit under the East. NATO is not at fault for Russia's hostility and trampling of it's neighbours pushing them West.

"What research is that? Research disproving things your little strawman told you? I'm not him, I have no interest in understanding how wrong his viewpoints are. If you want to keep talking to him, go stand in front of a mirror and stop bothering me."

And finally deflection, refusing to confront your non-realities and broken world view by simply refusing to actually take the time to research the subject you're talking about. You're deflecting because it's too painful for you to read even a small amount of the plethora of evidence highlighting how wrong you are about things like Putin's awareness of his own military strength.

So here we are still, you're refusing to leave your non-realities behind, you still push your broken worldview, and show nothing but a massive inability to be objective, only looking at things from the Russia Today world view. So no, you can't contribute to this discussion because you highlight time and time again that you neither have a grasp of the subject material at hand, nor are you willing to even research it. Instead you post things over and over that are frankly just Russian propaganda like "The US expanded NATO" - this isn't surprising though, when you're stuck with the Russian Imperialist mindset it's not surprising that you think the only way an organisation can expand is by force, because that's how Russia works. You're oblivious to the way the West works, and that's by bringing people on side by simply giving them the advantages of being independent wealthy states. You can't understand that countries join NATO because they want to because all you know is the Russian way- and that's to make countries join your pact by outright invading them and installing a puppet dictator and secret police force to keep the population oppressed.

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

"Meaning, you agree with me that the mutual defense clause is a sham."

No, I'm saying that a conventional response from the world's largest combined military force by a factor of 20x is just as effective a deterrent as the nuclear option which you assume is the first option.

Oh I see, you're just wiping your ass with MAD. Somebody should have thought of that sooner.

"I guess even your vocabulary is fundamentally incapable of allowing you to see things from somebody else's perspective."

Again, I apologise if more than the most basic English confuses me, I keep forgetting how undereducated you apparently are. But no, a hypothetical scenario is something that could actually happen, the things you're proposing are historical and didn't happen but are using to drive an argument as if they did, and are therefore non-realities.

No, that's not what a hypothetical scenario is. See, this right here is the problem. You're incapable of engaging in abstract reasoning like "what if A had happened instead of B?" That's why you will never understand what I'm saying. You will never understand what it means to imagine "what if the Warsaw pact had extended to the US borders", so you will never be able to imagine a perspective that isn't your own.

"Well yeah, that's my whole fucking point. When the Soviet Union stationed nukes in Cuba, the US responded to that provocative action by bringing the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation."

But again, you give lie to your pro-Russian bias in the way you phrase this, you claim it's the US that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation by threatening, not Russia by actually deploying and aiming nukes.

And the US doing the same in eastern Europe is... also Russia's choice? So, let's summarize: Cuba aligns with Russia = Russia's choice. The US responds, resulting in the missile crisis = Russia's fault. The US extends NATO to the Russian borders = Russia's fault. Russia responds via invasions = Russia's fault.

And you have the gall to call me biased...

This is why you're incapable of offering any rational point to this discussion - from the very outset you have this ISIS style "US is the great satan" outlook whilst implying Russia is just an innocent bystander. That's obviously false.

Once again, that's your strawman talking. I never said anything of the sort. This must be what it feels like to talk to someone with schizophrenic hallucinations -- I have to keep explaining what I actually said vs. what you imagined me saying.

"When the US expanded NATO all the way to the Russian border"

You do it again here, this is just broken. The US didn't expand anything, NATO grew when countries asked, off their own democratic back to join. Your whole world view is based around this idea that Russia gets to decide what everyone can and cannot do. Rather than realise that these countries asked to join NATO off their own back precisely because Russia had been dicks to them for decades and that that's Russia's own fault, you instead try and argue that the US expanded NATO as if the US somehow forced these countries to join, and as if it's anyone other than Russia's fault that they chose to join the West, rather than continue to sit under the East. NATO is not at fault for Russia's hostility and trampling of it's neighbours pushing them West.

I have a horrible feeling of deja vu, but whatever, let's do this again -- did NATO not have any say in whether those countries decided to join or not? Is NATO obligated to accept anyone that wants to join? So, when Castro was aligning himself with the USSR, were they obligated to put missiles in Cuba? Or was it a choice the USSR made, that had consequences in the form of the US response?

You can't understand that countries join NATO because they want to because all you know is the Russian way- and tha

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

"No, that's not what a hypothetical scenario is."

Yes it is, a hypothesis demands that you hypothesise about something that could be. Something in the past that simply was not by definition cannot be. You seem to be failing at even basic English now in a desperate attempt to defend your unreality which you use to justify your pro-Russian bias.

"No, that's not what a hypothetical scenario is. See, this right here is the problem. You're incapable of engaging in abstract reasoning like "what if A had happened instead of B?" That's why you will never understand what I'm saying. You will never understand what it means to imagine "what if the Warsaw pact had extended to the US borders", so you will never be able to imagine a perspective that isn't your own."

No, I'm actually more than capable of engaging in fantasy thinking. But questions like "What if this unreality was actually a reality?" are absolutely meaningless unless you want to, say, write a fiction book. They tell us nothing about the reality, and about the now, and that's why your world view is fundamentally broken- you're too caught up in your fantasy world, and wholly oblivious to reality and the worst part is, you consciously choose to be so by deflecting from the issue of you failing to do any research whatsoever about the reality. You have this made up idea that NATO would always use nuclear weapons as a first strike response even though that runs counter to everything NATO has ever said and done (they're a last resort - a "If we're going to lose everything, then we'll make sure you do to" type weapon). Ironically, Putin has been making a noise involving nuclear threats lately though- you wouldn't know this though, as you just like to defend Russia without having a clue about what it's doing or saying.

"By the way, it's been almost 10 years since I've read or seen anything from a Russian news source, including Russia Today. "

That's probably really part the problem then, and at least explains why you're not aware of basically everything Putin has been saying, and everything about Russian thinking over the last decade. The irony is you talk about the Russian perspective, but you now admit you've no idea what that even is. It's not surprising then that you're arguing based wholly on things that never happened, and arguing against things that simply are.

So I still don't really know what your point is - you still seem determined to argue that your fantasy alternative universe makes NATO the bad guy. That's great, in your fantasy alternative universe. But what relevance does this have to reality still exactly? The fact that you have to invent a la-la land just to make a point shows what a complete load of codswallop you're talking. You've all but explicitly admitted at this point that you don't have the slightest clue about the situation, so why are you continuing? why are you insisting that it's important that I pay any attention whatsoever to your unreality? If I wanted to do that, I'd at least go and read or watch a film about one that's at least somewhat interesting.

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

"No, that's not what a hypothetical scenario is." Yes it is, a hypothesis demands that you hypothesise about something that could be. Something in the past that simply was not by definition cannot be. You seem to be failing at even basic English now in a desperate attempt to defend your unreality which you use to justify your pro-Russian bias.

Oh now you're going to resort to argue over dictionary definitions? That's just sad... It's clear that a person capable of abstract reasoning should be able to envision something as basic as a historical counterfactual. You are either incapable of it, or you choose not to do it, I'm not sure which is worse.

(By the way, you're wrong -- you invented that definition of what a hypothetical is, it's literally been used in the exact context of history before. Not that it matters, as I said above, the exact word is irrelevant. A healthy adult human should be regularly engaging in that sort of reasoning to gain perspective and insight, there's no excuse for you not to be familiar with the concept unless you suffer from some sort of mental disorder that limits your empathic or cognitive faculties.)

But questions like "What if this unreality was actually a reality?" are absolutely meaningless unless you want to, say, write a fiction book. They tell us nothing about the reality, and about the now, and that's why your world view is fundamentally broken- you're too caught up in your fantasy world

You explained better than I ever could why you are incapable of taking on somebody else's perspective. "But I'm not actually you, why would I see anything from your point of view, that's an unreal fantasy world!!!."

That's probably really part the problem then, and at least explains why you're not aware of basically everything Putin has been saying, and everything about Russian thinking over the last decade. The irony is you talk about the Russian perspective, but you now admit you've no idea what that even is. It's not surprising then that you're arguing based wholly on things that never happened, and arguing against things that simply are.

Another unfalsifiable statement. If I read Russia Today, then I'm brainwashed. If I don't read Russia Today, then I'm uninformed. You are so good at these!

- you still seem determined to argue that your fantasy alternative universe makes NATO the bad guy.

I've never said or implied that NATO is the bad guy. It's not my fault if you chose to interpret something I've said that way.

By the way, I see you've conveniently omitted replying to the stuff about Cuba. Why is that? Don't tell me pointing to actual historical fact invalidated your "DURR that's a fantasy world not reality" defense mechanism, so you had to hide from it?

Oh, and going back to something you said earlier:

from the very outset you have this ISIS style "US is the great satan" outlook whilst implying Russia is just an innocent bystander.

Again, that's something you imagined me saying. I never said anything implying the US is any sort of "great satan", and I never said Russia is in any way innocent. It's not my fault that you're apparently frothing at the mouth to fight some sort of Putin-thumper, and decided it had to be me.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

"Oh now you're going to resort to argue over dictionary definitions?"

Well when you're failing to understand basic English, it's kind of necessary that I have to explain meanings to you. Again, don't try and turn your failings around on me, it's not my fault you can't interpret English, or wilfully choose not to because it's inconvenient for your nonsense speak.

Alternative histories are great to explore, but using them to try and argue a point that is false is nonsensical. You're just inventing a history that suits your bias.

"Another unfalsifiable statement. If I read Russia Today, then I'm brainwashed. If I don't read Russia Today, then I'm uninformed. You are so good at these!"

Again, thinking doesn't seem to be your strong point. No, you can read Russia Today to get an idea of Russian thinking perfectly well, but if you then parrot mindlessly and unquestioningly their propaganda then that's when it's a problem - you're doing the latter, you'll simply parroting the Russian government line, even when it's demonstrably false. All media should be evaluated, but it's important to weed out what is propaganda by contrasting, comparing, and comparing against verifiable facts. Even Fox News is a good indicator of what the current neo-con thinking is, but that doesn't mean you have to believe everything they say and take it as fact - only recognise what they're saying to understand what their view is. That's why you can read Russia Today to understand what Putin's thinking is, but accepting what he says as gospel when it's verifiably false is obviously stupid. If he says MH17 was shot by a Ukrainian fighter based on released satellite images for example we can take from that that his aim is to blame the Ukraine, we know however that the satellite images didn't make sense and were clearly doctored (the scale of the aircraft was all wrong relative to the ground), so we know not to also believe he's right, even though we are able to interpret away his intentions and goals.

"I've never said or implied that NATO is the bad guy. It's not my fault if you chose to interpret something I've said that way. "

Actually that's been the implication of your entire argument - the suggestion that NATO is at fault because it would immediately resort to nukes in response to Russian aggression against a member state. You ignore the fact that it wouldn't, and that the real focus of scorn in such an event should be Russia for invading a foreign sovereign state in the first place, rather than NATO for responding. You blame NATO for increasing membership in Eastern Europe, rather than Russia for pushing Eastern Europe into the arms of NATO because they want to be able to keep their sovereignty and independence from Russia secure. You should really be blaming Russia for having such an interfering and aggressive stance towards it's neighbours. The fact your not shows your clear pro-Russian bias. The fact that you blame the US like NATO is some wholly US controlled entity that gets forced on people further demonstrates this.

But really at this point your whole argument now seems to be that you never argued anything. I shall assume therefore that this is your desperate attempt to wriggle out of your own bullshit now that I've demonstrate why it's a load of tosh.

Don't worry, I wont ask for an apology for getting in over your head and trying to make a point that you couldn't in any way back up other than by making stuff up. I know you're too proud for that.

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

Actually that's been the implication of your entire argument - the suggestion that NATO is at fault because it would immediately resort to nukes in response to Russian aggression against a member state

HAHAHAHAHAHA YOU ACTUALLY THINK THAT'S WHAT I WAS SUGGESTING!?!?! Dude you're fucking hilarious. All that stuff I said about strawmen and putting words in my mouth was 10 times worse than I thought it was, considering that what I was saying was very close to the exact opposite of that.

Actually that's been the implication of your entire argument - the suggestion that NATO is at fault because it would immediately resort to nukes in response to Russian aggression against a member state.

No, that was what you chose to infer, to the contrary of all the effort I went to to explain myself in as simple a way as I could manage.

You ignore the fact that it wouldn't,

No, you ignore the fact that that was my whole fucking point.

But really at this point your whole argument now seems to be that you never argued anything. I shall assume therefore that this is your desperate attempt to wriggle out of your own bullshit now that I've demonstrate why it's a load of tosh.

Yeah, it must seem that way to you. I made a fairly simple statement that any idiot should find entirely obvious and non-controvercial, and we've spent the entire time since then going back and forth with you putting outrageous claims in my mouth and me explaining that I never said such things. So yeah, of course, if you go by pure percentage of text, the vast majority of what I've typed has been me explaining that I haven't said, because you seem obsessed with jumping to ridiculously unfounded conclusions about my views like that I "have this ISIS style 'US is the great satan' outlook whilst implying Russia is just an innocent bystander."

Here's a little suggestion -- years from now, if you manage how to temper your preconceived notions and learn how to actually listen to what people are telling you, go back to the very beginning of this conversation and re-read what it is you were replying to. You'll have a great laugh when you realize how ridiculous your response was. I know I am.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

People have to be actually saying something to be worth listening to. You're still just spouting drivel about what you didn't say and justifying what you didn't say, whilst failing to actually say anything at all. The implications of your comments are clear, but you're denying making those implications, yet it's impossible to separate the factual implications of your comments from what you said. For those implications to not exist, as you're claiming, you'd have had to say many different things to what you actually did say. Perhaps you're just incredibly bad at expressing the point you want to make, perhaps you realised you were full of shit and want to backtrack without explicitly doing so. Either way, you've still failed to put across any meaningful point so far.

I've gone back as you suggested and don't see anything different- your original post was still a suggestion that America is wholly at fault for expanding NATO eastwards, rather than Russia being at fault for forcing it's neighbours into a choice between joining NATO, or face territorial annexation, or defacto annexation as Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia have. You only dug this anti-American hole of yours deeper in subsequent posts.

So please, just state clearly. What point exactly are you trying to make?

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

I've gone back as you suggested and don't see anything different- your original post was still a suggestion that America is wholly at fault for expanding NATO eastwards,

I'm happy that you've finally stated in black and white, for the record, that you are entirely insistent on jumping to a conclusion that is in no way inherent to what I said due to your itching need to argue with someone you image me to be. Now that that's on the record, I don't have to bother with you anymore.

I could try to, yet again, explain to you that what I said did not involve any moral judgement, but was rather simply about the motivations that drove Russia to act the way we've seen. But I've done that so many times already, and here you are admitting plainly that you refuse to face that simple truth. My suspicion is that somewhere deep inside you fully understand that the way you initially interpreted my post was a mistake, but you have gone so far out on a limb of self-righteousness and condescension that you can't allow yourself to admit that out loud. It's OK, you don't need to. We both know what happened, we can just have a silent mutual understanding about it.

Re:i love infrastructure

[Xest]

If that's how you want to weasel out of saying something stupid and wrong then sure. But let's be clear - circletimessquare also read your post in the exact same way, and as such it's pretty clear that you simply said something that was wrong and are now desperately trying to weasel out of it all you want.

If pretending it's someone elses fault that you can't express your opinion and opt to persist in posting on a topic you admit that you have simply no understanding of is your way of dealing with being wrong then I guess it sucks to be you.

I see you did the exact same thing with him though - made a bunch of idiotic comments, had it pointed out to you why they're idiotic, and then decided to pretend you'd never said those things.

So given the fact that this seems to happen with you, you should really reconsider your way of coping with it - pretending it's someone elses fault, rather than the blatant reality that you're full of shit and can't cope with being wrong even though it's obvious you know you are deep down from the simple fact you have to repeatedly disown your own comments and pretend you never said them when they're there in black and white:

"Well, it sure as hell impressed opportunistic American politicians who have been expanding NATO for 20 years without seemingly any sort of awareness of the provocation towards Russia it entailed"

Yes, you never said it was America's fault NATO expanded eastwards indeed. Unfortunately you can't disown things when you've published them to the internet, what you said is there clearly for all to see.

Do yourself a favour, grow some balls and own up to your comments or admit to being wrong, rather than simply saying things and then pretending you never did to everyone that points out successfully why you are completely wrong, just as I have over and over in this discussion.

Re:i love infrastructure

[martas]

But let's be clear - circletimessquare also read your post in the exact same way

Is that really what you're going to back yourself up with? That there exists at least one more person as eager to assume they're talking to a pro-Putin boogeyman as you are? Weak.

"Well, it sure as hell impressed opportunistic American politicians who have been expanding NATO for 20 years without seemingly any sort of awareness of the provocation towards Russia it entailed" Yes, you never said it was America's fault NATO expanded eastwards indeed. Unfortunately you can't disown things when you've published them to the internet, what you said is there clearly for all to see.

In one sentence you admit you were wrong, and in the very next you suggest I want to disown something I've said... Why would I want to disown any of that? The only things I've tried to disown are things you've put in my mouth, like that I "have this ISIS style 'US is the great satan' outlook whilst implying Russia is just an innocent bystander."

Speaking of which -- can you copy something I've said that you think indicates that I either "have this ISIS style 'US is the great satan' outlook", or that I believe "Russia is just an innocent bystander"? Do that, and I'll honestly tell you whether a) your interpretation matches my intention, b) your interpretation doesn't match the intended meaning, because I didn't express myself well enough, and you have my apologies, or c) your interpretation is a complete logical non-sequitur. But be careful -- if while quoting me you intentionally leave out important context for what I said that misrepresents my position, you'll dig yourself even deeper in the hole of strawman-fighting you're in.

litleness

[Max_W]

This is the project which is be done. But the problem is the littleness of current thinking.

Not only from London to New York, but from London to Hanoi. It is doable, it will create millions of sustainable jobs.

Re:litleness

[MightyYar]

Why would you need to heavily fortify the bridge? If something objectionable starts to cross it, a WW2 dive bomber could do the job.

Re:litleness

[NatasRevol]

No need for fancy aeroplanes.

A pack of C4 the size of a loaf of bread would do the job.

Re:litleness

[Martin Blank]

If a bomb that small is required to take down a bridge designed for that environment, it's a poorly-designed bridge at best.

Re:litleness

[Jack Griffin]

You don't need to take down the bridge, only the thing on it that is the threat.

Re:litleness

[MightyYar]

Yes, China has no enormous military buildup right now, and they aren't fortifying the South China Sea or being aggressive with their neighbors at all.

Soon. Very soon.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

A plan for an epic bridge connecting Russia's easternmost border with Alaska's westernmost border could soon be a reality,

When asked to explain what is meant by, "soon", the Sijutech spokesman clarified, soon, for very large values of soon.

Re:Soon. Very soon.

[servant]

Tax equity, going back to the moon, walking on Mars, End of War, all these will happen 'soon' also!

Bridge to Nowhere!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's call it the Vladimir Putin/Sarah Palin Friendship Community Bridge.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[Tablizer]

To save fuel, Obama should have made Sarah Palin the US's ambassador to Russia. She could walk to work.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[Bartles]

You know, you can actually see Russia from Alaska.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[Tablizer]

Yes, but that's not the point. She cited it as her foreign policy experience when asked about experience.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[Bartles]

Are you sure about that? Because I think you're full of shit.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[Bartles]

The stuff in bold was edited out of the interview by ABC, just to persuade rubes like you.

GIBSON: Let me ask you about some specific national security situations.

PALIN: Sure.

GIBSON: Let’s start, because we are near Russia, let’s start with Russia and Georgia. The administration has said we’ve got to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Do you believe the United States should try to restore Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia?

PALIN: First off, we’re going to continue good relations with Saakashvili there. I was able to speak with him the other day and giving him my commitment, as John McCain’s running mate, that we will be committed to Georgia. And we’ve got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there. I think it was unfortunate. That manifestation that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the race toward a more democratic nation with democratic ideals. That’s why we have to keep an eye on Russia. And, Charlie, you’re in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They’re very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I’m giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[ScentCone]

No, she mentioned it to point out that she was governor of a state that's a lot closer to a semi-hostile foreign power, and more thoughtful about the implications of that than would be the community organizer from Chicago (who had never been in charge of state police, let alone armed national guard installations). She wasn't presidential material, but nor did she claim that the right-next-doorness of Russia was an example of foreign policy experience. Her point was that when you govern a state with a huge energy and fishing and mining economy that's a stone's throw from a looming competitor in those same areas, it becomes part of your daily thought process. She's a clumsy speaker and has some wacky ideological quirks (mostly from having been raised in a religious family culture), but she wasn't wrong to point out, simply in passing, that having Russia and Canada as your next door neighbors while you're governor is different than having Indiana and Missouri as neighbors when you're a community organizer, whatever that actually is.

Re: Bridge to Nowhere!

[Bartles]

Well said. I'm always surprised that people who voted for John Edwards and Joe biden have the gall to criticize Sarah Palin as unpresidential. At least they could try to be accurate about it, instead of regurgitating crap that was fed to them.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[Tablizer]

Okay I stand corrected on that. But, you have no evidence ABC edited with the intent to make her look foolish. They may have done it to simply keep it short. TV news does that a lot.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[Uberbah]

No, she mentioned it to point out that she was governor of a state that's a lot closer to a semi-hostile foreign power

Your American Exceptionalism is showing again.

She wasn't presidential material

She's a freaking moron who couldn't find her ass with both hands.

Re:Bridge to Nowhere!

[Tablizer]

You are using "guilty until proven innocent". And I don't see ABC as particularly left-leaning in general (although these kinds of bias claims are difficult to objectify and often contentious.)

I'll apply Hanlon's Razor as the more likely here.

Yeah not gonna happen...

[jo7hs2]

This project just isn't going to happen anytime soon. The United States and Russia both appreciate the security of the Bering Straight and a few thousand miles of wilderness separating their main population centers, first of all. Second, the cost of connecting the thousands of miles of roads or rail needed, plus the cost of the bridge, plus the cost of the upkeep of said roads and bridges, will never be recouped by the savings of not shipping via air/ship at current fuel prices. Third, it still isn't even clear they can actually BUILD the bridge.

Re:Yeah not gonna happen...

[amber_of_luxor]

Both the United States Armed Forces, and Russian Armed forces do heavy patrolling of the Bering Strait in winter, because so many people currently walk across the strait to visit friends and relatives in the other country, without bothering to go through a border post.

Spetsnaz used to walk from Kamchatka to Alaska as a training exercise.

The People's Army used to, and maybe still has plans for the troops to walk from Beijing to Washington DC, when the United States goes to war with the People's Republic of China.

The current ability to walk across the strait, is just one of the major obstacles of building a bridge across the strait.

Re:Yeah not gonna happen...

[tibit]

You live in a world where people routinely walk 50 miles over ice to "visit friends"? Must be a cozy little place, then.

Terrible idea.

[queazocotal]

Hasn't anyone seen 'Red Dawn' ?

Re:Terrible idea.

[R3d M3rcury]

Maybe China's been listening to George Carlin.

(Sounds like something that Scott Walker would say)

Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Why would the west give Russia leverage? We saw them try to exploit the pathetic hold they had on us with the international space station. A diplomatic project we put in place mostly to make the russians feel good... and they tried to fuck us with the olive branch.

We have an existing and quite inexpensive container ship network. Is this rail project going to be cheaper than that? Doubtful and less flexible... and most problematic going through Russian territory which means Russia gets leverage.

I'd be surprised if they got the funding for this... the Chinese might pay for it but who is going to build the US/Canadian leg of it? Because we're not letting Russian or Chinese labor in to do it and that means paying an American/Canadian construction firm... and who is going to do that.

Look, if the politics weren't so shitty, I'd say "fine"... it might make some sense. But the politics are not only shitty but getting shittier all the time.

The US State Department has already effectively admitted that we're in the a second cold war with the Russians. Blood is getting pumped back into old Cold War organs, programs, and operations. In the article cited it points out that Russia is dealing with sanctions from the "West"... aka the US. And they think building a rail road to the US is going to give them independence from US sanctions? How?

The only way I can see that happening is if the US gets addicted to the train network and finds it impractical to maintain sanctions given that the train goes through Russia. Which is basically just another reason for the US to quietly slit this idea's throat and move on.

Look Russia... If you want to do business with the US, you need to make people like me happy. I know... you don't like that... but that's reality.

And here's what I'm going to need:

1. Surrender all claims to the Eastern European countries that don't want to join your club.

2. Embrace and accept the missile shield concept. We'll cut you in so you can have the same tech and maintain parity with us for missile defense. What we want is to make the ICBM obsolete. Help us do that and we'll see that you gain the same advantage.

3. Stop doing your best to troll US foreign policy by giving nuclear tech to the Iranians and similar nonsense. Its very obvious what you're doing and it is not appreciated.

4. Stop trying to use anyone's dependence on something you provide to get leverage in politics. Its a serious problem when the Germans trust you for fuel and then you threaten to cut them off if NATO doesn't play ball. You've done the same thing with various eastern european countries as well. And the whole thing with jacking up the launch costs or saying you might not take US astronauts to the space station was a test... and you fucking failed. We gave you an opportunity to stab us in the back of the thigh with a butter knife just to see what you'd do... and you fucking did it. How can we trust you with anything that could potentially give you leverage over us if you'll exploit even the most f'ing meaningless pressure points to gain laughable advantages?

Russia does this and relations between the US and Russia can be very good. Investment, cooperation, access to markets, access to technology... fucking milk and honey. We'll help them develop their resources and find them a market for it. We'll make them rich.

But that's all contingent on them not being assholes. And that's never happening.

Re:Not going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would the west give Russia leverage? We saw them try to exploit the pathetic hold they had on us with the international space station. A diplomatic project we put in place mostly to make the russians feel good... and they tried to fuck us with the olive branch.

We have an existing and quite inexpensive container ship network. Is this rail project going to be cheaper than that? Doubtful and less flexible... and most problematic going through Russian territory which means Russia gets leverage.

I'd be surprised if they got the funding for this... the Chinese might pay for it but who is going to build the US/Canadian leg of it? Because we're not letting Russian or Chinese labor in to do it and that means paying an American/Canadian construction firm... and who is going to do that.

Look, if the politics weren't so shitty, I'd say "fine"... it might make some sense. But the politics are not only shitty but getting shittier all the time.

The US State Department has already effectively admitted that we're in the a second cold war with the Russians. Blood is getting pumped back into old Cold War organs, programs, and operations. In the article cited it points out that Russia is dealing with sanctions from the "West"... aka the US. And they think building a rail road to the US is going to give them independence from US sanctions? How?

The only way I can see that happening is if the US gets addicted to the train network and finds it impractical to maintain sanctions given that the train goes through Russia. Which is basically just another reason for the US to quietly slit this idea's throat and move on.

Look Russia... If you want to do business with the US, you need to make people like me happy. I know... you don't like that... but that's reality.

And here's what I'm going to need:

1. Surrender all claims to the Eastern European countries that don't want to join your club.

2. Embrace and accept the missile shield concept. We'll cut you in so you can have the same tech and maintain parity with us for missile defense. What we want is to make the ICBM obsolete. Help us do that and we'll see that you gain the same advantage.

3. Stop doing your best to troll US foreign policy by giving nuclear tech to the Iranians and similar nonsense. Its very obvious what you're doing and it is not appreciated.

4. Stop trying to use anyone's dependence on something you provide to get leverage in politics. Its a serious problem when the Germans trust you for fuel and then you threaten to cut them off if NATO doesn't play ball. You've done the same thing with various eastern european countries as well. And the whole thing with jacking up the launch costs or saying you might not take US astronauts to the space station was a test... and you fucking failed. We gave you an opportunity to stab us in the back of the thigh with a butter knife just to see what you'd do... and you fucking did it. How can we trust you with anything that could potentially give you leverage over us if you'll exploit even the most f'ing meaningless pressure points to gain laughable advantages?

Russia does this and relations between the US and Russia can be very good. Investment, cooperation, access to markets, access to technology... fucking milk and honey. We'll help them develop their resources and find them a market for it. We'll make them rich.

But that's all contingent on them not being assholes. And that's never happening.

Whatever point you were trying to make there, especially that Russians need to stop being assholes, doesn't work when everything you've based it on involves the US being even bigger assholes.
 

Re:Not going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to make the ultimate deterrent to large scale war obsolete? Do you really think we would have made it 70 years without another world war if the stakes weren't so high? War should always come at an unthinkably high cost. No weapons should be banned, chemical or otherwise. We should be so scared of the consequences of war that no one would ever even consider it.

Re:Not going to happen

[NatasRevol]

Russia's demands:

Get your fucking military out of half the world's countries.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Login and we'll measure the diameter, depth, and contents of the relative assholes.

Otherwise... nope.

Re:Not going to happen

[phantomfive]

We have an existing and quite inexpensive container ship network.

To put this in perspective, consider that if you drive a mile to the store to pick up a toothbrush, you just spent more in transportation costs than it took to get the toothbrush from a factory in China to the store where you bought it. Shipping is really, really efficient.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

The vast majority of places we are... we are there with the consent of those governments.

If this is legitimately Russia's desire, it is similar for their request that we help Russia re-enslave eastern europe. That's Russia's big complaint. "hey hey America... those are MY slaves... don't go giving them weapons or the ability to defend themselves."

To which we have generally told Russia to go fuck itself with a rake.

And here is something the Russians can start looking forward to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Eastern Europe is getting stronger. Russia is getting weaker. We are giving them access to our tech... our markets... our burning fire.

The tank there uses BAE's thermal stealth system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

If you look at the design you can see its a night fighter. That isn't how the Russians fight. But it is how the US fights and it is how the Polish are learning to fight.

We are not afraid of the Russians. They think hissing at us like a snake makes us respect them. They couldn't be more wrong.

We respond more like this to "hissing":
https://youtu.be/SoswyNaAIUA?t...

Our eyes shine and glitter red when you threaten us. Don't.

Really your argument just highlights the foolishness of this Russian venture to build a rail line to the US. We don't want it. We want Russia poor, isolated, and backward until they break. And THEN... we'll try again. We'll offer them a hand of friendship to see if this time they're prepared to not be morons.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Login and we'll talk about it... and I don't expect them to live if this is how they conduct themselves...
https://youtu.be/DoQwKe0lggw?t...

Re:Not going to happen

[NatasRevol]

We don't want it. We want Russia poor, isolated, and backward until they break.

They 'we' are inhumane assholes.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

exactly... the russian rail project is of marginal value under the best of circumstances. And Russia's behavior means we don't want to do anything with them. We want their economy to collapse. We want their asian neighbors to nibble at their borders. We want their military hardware to rust into uselessness. We want their tech to become hopelessly outdated.

This is not what we wanted until fairly recently. But... Putin wants to restart the cold war... Fine.

Re:Not going to happen

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

And we're in a cyberwar with China, it's just that the American government hasn't realized it yet.

Re:Not going to happen

[Solandri]

We have an existing and quite inexpensive container ship network. Is this rail project going to be cheaper than that?

Container ships are cheaper than rail. Their disadvantage is the labor-intensive step of loading and unloading the containers to/from the ship. For a couple hour trip across the English Channel, the loading/unloading cost is disproportionately large compared to the transport cost of the ship, so it makes economic sense to replace it with a tunnel or bridge.

But for cargo across the Pacific, the loading/unloading cost is roughly on par with the fuel cost. So based on the link, even if you doubled the cost per mile, container ships would still be price-competitive with rail. So there's no economic benefit to be gained by shipping goods from China to the U.S. by rail over a Russia-Alaska bridge. Add in the cost to build the bridge and it'll actually be more expensive than container ship. The only advantages you'll get are reduced transport time (from about a month to a week), and the ability to send containers directly by rail to more destinations than just port cities.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Login

I'll comment very briefly. if you login I'll make more comprehensive posts.

1. no they're not this is just something they say to justify ire.

2. I don't see how this isn't anything we don't both know and count upon. This is not surprising in the least.

3. Yep... which why the US is so baffled as to why Russia can't stop being fucktards and cooperate on common goals.

4. As to them needing to be brutal... we have no problem with their brutality. We'd like to use. If the idiot Russians would stop pissing in the West's face, we'd supply them... make them rich... make them more powerful than they've ever been. But they're determined to make the same mistake that the Byzantines made. They pissed in the face of the West as well... see what that got them.

5. If the Russians would stop being dicks we'd BUY their resources at market value and make them filthy rich.

6. We have not forgotten soviet brutality. It is why we are contemptuous of Russian complaints that they are not being given a sphere of influence in eastern europe. No one likes them.

7. As to buffer zones... *laughs* Russia has no buffer zone. This is the 21st century. Why does Russia think we'd need to march to them like Napoleon? The buffer zone is meaningless. Has been for ages. We didn't genocide Russia because we chose not to. We could have nuked Russia after WW2. Stalin couldn't have done anything. Very little has changed. Russia enjoys no security against us. They only thing they can do is press the MAD button. And that's an increasingly rusty and unreliable button.

Russia should be our friends. We could profit greatly by serving each others interests to the mutual profit of the first world which they would join.

Maintaining animosity with the US however is stupid. They get nothing of value for it and maintaining that posture poses an existential threat to the Russian society itself. Putin is pissing away wealth, power, security, and freedom for his people... for nothing.

We wanted to be friends. And Russia has repeatedly gone out of their way to sabotage every gesture of peace.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

WW3 is coming. You think large scale war will never happen again?
https://youtu.be/tvObuhT7Kpw?t...

The only questions to be answered are when, with whom, and who survives.

Login and we'll talk about it.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

not really... the chinese are opportunists... they're exploiting pathetic security policy in the US. I mean, if you leave your fly down can you blame people for looking?

I don't blame the chinese for that. That's on us.

Re:Not going to happen

[smugfunt]

Get your fucking military out of half the world's countries.

More like three-quarters.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

If the entire first world are our puppets... sure.

But by this definition, all governments are puppets of one kind or another and the insult through dilution loses potency.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Login and we'll discuss your argument if you have one.

Looks like random baseless insults from an AC troll more than anything. And one that hypocritically criticizes my record while shielding himself from criticism by not having a record.

Regardless... Login and I'll shred your argument with logic and facts. Or keep trolling like a coward.

Your move.

Re:Not going to happen

[ScentCone]

Russia's demands:

Get your fucking military out of half the world's countries.

... so that it will be easier for Russia to take them over. Yes, Putin would love that.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

alliance with the west would give them the same thing... we could fight the war on terror together... New era of cooperation and mutual profit.

I suspect the main reason Putin rejected that idea is that association with the west would mean democracy, western media, and western NGOs would be a big deal in his country... and the chances of a "colored" revolution that struck down the oligarchs would be more likely than if he opposes the west, suppresses political opposition, censors the media, and excludes foreign NGOs.

Russia would also have a long term future that would be very attractive if they allied. But they're pissing that all away for at best the short term ego and political ambitions of one man. Sure... US as the boogieman is a common tactic for failing states. But how often does it actually work in the long term? Russia is emulating failed states... which is only a good idea if you want to fail.

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

2. Embrace and accept the missile shield concept. We'll cut you in so you can have the same tech and maintain parity with us for missile defense.

So you would just hand over vastly superior US anti-missile technology to Russia. Some of the most secret, sensitive, and costly technology the US has ever developed. Technology that would have a ripple effect elevating the capabilities of every other part of the Russian military. Technology that could allow Russia to develop effective countermeasures to our military systems. Hand it all over to a country that the US is engaging in a renewed and escalating cold war.

Besides losing a huge strategic military advantage and putting the security of the entire free world in grave danger, what is it the US gets out of this again? The warm fuzzy we'll get from the knowledge that "We'll make them rich"?

Relinquishing top secret military tech and enriching Russian oligarchs...you must be quite the darling in DOD circles.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Why? I mean... anyone can say a thing.

I'll show you...

You are a space hamster after my sweet broccoli.

See?

Substantiate your position please.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Yes. That has actually been the declared and official offer from the US for decades on this matter. We don't want an advantage over Russia in regards to nuclear weapons because we don't want to nuke Russia. We'd like to de-emphasize nuclear weapons because of the inherent collateral damage of such weapons.

When the next war comes we'd like that war to be as surgical and limited to military targets as possible while sparing civilians, industry, etc as much damage as possible.

This is in our interest because we don't want to suffer that damage ourselves.

We also prefer conventional forces to be more relevant because that also plays to our strengths. We have the most superior conventional forces in the world. So we don't feel we are losing a strategic edge by rendering ICBMs useless. We feel rather that our conventional forces become more strategically powerful in an environment where nuclear weapons are of limited usefulness.

As to ripple effects, that doesn't worry us because Russia has an economy smaller than Italy. The Soviets couldn't keep up with us so why would the Russian federation have any more luck?

The US has been offering to share this sort of tech with the Russians all along. We don't want a nuclear advantage over rival military powers. We want enough that we're credible. But the real punch of any military is its conventional force.

The United States is tired of being threatened by these doomsday weapons. So, we're going to continue developing and deploying them. Eventually rival ICBM tech is not going to be able to credibly penetrate our defenses. That is not going to be stopped.

We've been working towards this goal for decades. The Russians can accept the tech for free and be happy that we are mutually protected from nuclear attack. Something that is increasingly relevant as Iran gets nuclear weapons and the entire middle east follows suite. OR Russia can pretend that the old 1960s status quo will hold indefinitely.

Things change. The battleship used to rule the waves. The ICBM used to dominate geopolitics... those days are numbered.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

The fact that you can see my sig means you are logged in and are intentionally going anonymous to troll.

Is it hard going through life being as stupid as you are? :D

AC fuckwits.

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

Yes. That has actually been the declared and official offer from the US for decades on this matter.

The US has been offering to share this sort of tech with the Russians all along.

The Russians can accept the tech for free and be happy that we are mutually protected from nuclear attack.

Instead repeating the same unsubstantiated claim over and over, why don't you point me to a government source or sources that show the history of these "share the tech" offers to the Russians? Can you point me to a single policy statement from any administration over these last decades?

I've been around for a few decades myself, and I've never heard of such a policy being taken by any US administration. Ever.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

... its been common knowledge from the start and has been reaffirmed repeatedly... here is Obama doing it again:
http://www.rt.com/usa/obama-sh...

but it goes back to reagan... just doing some basic google searches gets me this:
http://www.thereaganvision.org...

Do I need better links than that... fine... its a waste of time but whatever:
https://www.larouchepub.com/ot...

That is Bill Clinton saying he would also share missile defense tech with Russia... LIKE REAGAN.

But lets see if I can find a better link.
http://www.washingtonexaminer....

That cites that the Russians even opposed a shared missile shield.

I mean... do I really need to go on? I'm sure I do... I'm sure you just couldn't accept anything short of the giant 18 inch dildo right up your ass... Sigh... why is it so annoying to find these links. Its a fucking well known fact but all I can get are sideways references to it. God damn it.

http://www.heritage.org/resear...

Another link referencing the same thing.

Every US president since Reagan has supported the idea of sharing the tech with Russia. Every single fucking one.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Comme...

That's Henry fucking Kissinger saying the idea is a good one.

I think I've got enough there that you can see the US has had this position from the very beginning and has not wavered from it since. The Russians basically are addicted to scaring people. They don't feel right with the world unless they make people afraid which is part of why the US and Russia don't get along. We're never going to be afraid of those idiots.

There are big cultural differences between the US and the Russians. They think hissing at us like a fucking snake is going to get them respect at the table. That is the LAST thing we'll ever respect. Hissing at us gets this response:
https://youtu.be/SoswyNaAIUA?t...

The Russians just don't get it. You don't get the US's respect by acting like a punk.

As to you never hearing this before... it has been in the policy from the beginning and repeated by every president in this context from the start. So your failure to hear it is on YOU. Feel shame.

Re:Not going to happen

[robi5]

> Russia's demands: Get your fucking military out of half the world's countries.

And what next, Russia comes back to occupy all former Eastern Bloc countries in the ensuing power vacuum, maybe throwing in Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Austria, while at it? Thanks, but no, thanks. Russia / USSR has done enough damage already, impoverishing half of Europe and of course its own population except a few oligarchs who then get killed according to whims of daily politics. Ukraine is a nice illustration of what happens if the US doesn't have a military presence - Russia just takes whatever it wants. The shortsighted Russian leaders don't recongize the fact that Western civilization isn't its enemy; Russia will isolate itself for good, and thus will deserve to be slowly eaten away by China and Islamic expansion, while the rest of the World does nothing. With the Western style art and science originating from Russia, its proper place would have been among members of the Western civilization, eventually joining NATO. Russia's leader would rather have a small, shrinking cake that is its own, than to participate in alliances. Russian _people_ would deserve the same European values as their Polish, Czech and other European relatives, but no, their leaders go for isolation, also trying to drag down half of Europe with themselves again.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

The Okinawa situation is entirely a real estate dispute. Have you actually listened to the statements of such groups in the Japanese parliament?

I have.

Its about money.

The issue is that the Japanese government pays the island for the land the US uses... basically the island gets rental fees.

And the island feels the Japanese government doesn't pay enough... and should either pay more OR they should open the land up for development.

The drama beyond that is mostly concocted to support the above position. Something the US Navy makes too easy because it is the policy of the Navy to just pay people to go away if they make claims. So if you go to the Navy and say "hey some random dude raped me"... the Navy hands you money. Now does that mean that all rapes or whatever are bogus? Of course not. However, the statistics are more likely to be in line with what we expect out of the Naval bases elsewhere such as in San Diego etc. Which is to say, US sailors and Marines are not statistically more prone to rape etc than the general population. And deviations outside of those norms could easily be explained by the policy of the Navy on that island to just hand over a sack of cash when they have a problem.

Regardless, the Japanese government is entirely free to kick the US off those islands if they want us gone. If Japan said "go"... we'd go. We remain because the Japanese government wishes us to remain.

Might some local political group want us to go? Perhaps... but that's not how a republic works is it? Mob rule is what you're pushing? I don't quite get where you're going with this nonsense.

Re:Not going to happen

[robi5]

Which country has been in the habit of shooting down civilian airliners, again? Sounds so humane.

Re:Not going to happen

[robi5]

Yeah, not too much wiggle room for Russia, but whatever room left for Russia to prove its good intentions worked out well, keeping Russia's friendly, neutral neighbors, like Ukraine, safe, right?

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

I've obviously been aware pretty much from the start that I was being trolled. I first tried engaging with you. But the problem is that your anonymity makes it hard to know if I'm talking to a shithead AC or a troll AC.

Anyway, that's why I had the new policy of not talking to you people... which to clarify is mostly a statement that I'm not regarding you as a legitimate commentator. It doesn't mean I won't call you a shit head. ;-)

Re:Not going to happen

[robi5]

> No one likes them.

This. Russian _people_ can be awesome, friendly, intelligent and civilized. But _the Russians_, they're hated where they got to know them, through their bullying and arm twisting. When push comes to the shove, the entirety of US and Europe can motion against Russian aggression in unison without hesitation, _even_ their own close relatives, the Ukrainians, Poles, Slovaks etc. Special kudos for Poland for standing up, showing a good example and leading Europe.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

I entirely agree. I don't have any problem with individual russian people. Russian women are frequently hot... and Russian guys... while raging alcoholics are frequently amusing fellows that I'd love to share a beer with... a beer... not 10 liters of vodka because my blood will literally pickle. :D

Its so sad because the US keeps dreaming of making an alliance with Russia. We want it so bad. But the Russian government just can't see how stupid they're being.

Anyone that understand Americans knows that if Russia genuinely allied with us... we'd give them everything. Everything. The benefit for their society and people is really beyond calculation. And the US would profit enormously as well.

Can you imagine the Western hegemony with Russia as an ally within it? The level of clout at that point would be milk squirting out the nose hilarious. Everyone wins. Typical American master plan. But... the Russians refuse. We've been offering them this package since ... well before the cold war we were offering it... and then we started offering it again after the fall of the USSR.

The Russians make us sad sometimes with the opportunities they squander.

Re:Not going to happen

[rastos1]

The vast majority of places we are... we are there with the consent of those governments.

To play devil's advocate: if US comes to country XY and says "we would like to set up a military base on your soil, pretty please" what do you think the country XY says?"

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

It depends on the circumstances.

If country XY is feeling vulnerable because a neighbor is clacking their teeth at them then they could just say "yes, come in... set up any where you want and we'll even pay for some of your facilities so you feel welcome".

We get that treatment in a few places.

It could be a situation where the country would like the US there but maybe they want the US to pay for stuff. In those cases we haggle over leasing fees etc. We've done that with the Saudis a few times as an example. Though they go both ways. Sometimes they contribute money to encourage us or to say they've done their part. And other times they want us to pay.

Then there are situations where country XY doesn't feel threatened at all and the US wants to put some facilities there to help with logistics but the locals generally don't give a shit. That requires something from the US.

What we offer in these matters is variable. Sometimes the country just wants us to be there as a deterrent from a rival. Other times the US will offer money or technology or something in return for the facilities.

We don't get bases by pointing a gun at their heads and saying "give us the base or we'll hurt you"... we don't feel good about that. However, we do feel entirely justified in saying "give us the base or we'll abandon you." Many people feel that is just as bad. But we don't see it that way. Denying us basing facilities makes it harder for us to do our job in the area... and if you're not prepared to offer us that then why should we be obligated to do anything for you? See?

So anyway... Americans are very good at making deals. This is gainsaid by people that don't grasp that making deals is a high art in and of itself and we are masters of it. And in that vein we have little trouble getting basing facilities anywhere in the world... often as not we get them in exchange for things that don't appear to cost us much if anything.

Look at all the countries bragging about how little they spend on their militaries... they get away with that because the US is their military. The people that then suggest the US should cut itself to those levels are really just confessing to be morons. Its always sort of funny... and sad.

Re:Not going to happen

[robi5]

OK point by point:

> 1: Russia is still sore from the US invading it about a century ago. They worry that should they show any signs of weakness, the US will start taking their land... because it happened in the past.

How is it relevant, in the age of mutually assured destruction and Russia being armed with nukes to the gill? A lot of countries were being invaded in the last one or two centuries (don't have to go far, the entire Eastern Europe and the non-Russian members of the USSR were invaded by the Russians), yet they can act collaboratively and reasonably.

> 2: Russia is a Christian nation. Religion aside, this means that if it comes down to blowing themselves up, or maybe holding off so there is actually something useful left for their sons and daughters, they will hold off. However, they are close to nations who just don't give a fuck, and would be happy for complete extinguishment if it helped their extremist ideals. This contributes to the Russian siege mentality.

If it's a Christian country, maybe it can try and preserve Christian values over its territory by _cooperating_ in mutually prosperous relationships with its closest kin, which would be Western civilization, rather than isolate itself and alienate its very neighbors and relatives, thus making it fair prey for the eventual Islamist and Chinese economic, cultural or territorial expansion?

> 3: Russia is always battling terrorists. There are always groups going in and trying to shoot up stuff. It doesn't make the news here in the US, but it is a constant issue.

Always battling terrorists isn't justification for doing it to others. What with shooting opposition politicians in daylight, poisoning folks with Polonium in other countries, invading independent countries, arming insurgents who then shoot down civilian neighborhoods and planes?

> 4: Russian leadership has to be assholes. Again, if they show any type of weakness, there are many countries who would invade. Russia doesn't have the population of the Chinese, nor the religious fervor of the revolutionaries. So, they have to have brutality on their side if their country has to exist. Not many people realize this. A large country usually has many ethnic groups, generally most don't like each other, so crime tends to be higher than a country with a homogeneous population like Japan.

So how is it, that all the Western slavs, who are around the same number of people as the Russians, yet also fragmented, and occupying much smaller, resource-poor land, prosper, grow and cooperate? Why doesn't Russia direct its threat sensors to the real directions, rather than Europe and the US? How come Russia sponsors the Iranian nuclear programme? Why did Russia happily armed China with nuclear weapons and its near-best military equipment? And India, too? If, as you say, prutality has to be on their side, why isn't it balanced by seeking out alliances? Pretty much the entire Western world is on the hunt for terrorists, so there would be room for natural alliances. What did you achieve instead? The US and Poland are fracking, and the European demand for Russian energy is going to decrease. Russia should finance itself if it wants to go it alone.

> If Russia truly collapsed, like Iraq did, World War 3 would happen just because there would be so many states wanting part of the carrion, or want to prevent other nations from taking their part of the corpse.

With a militant, threatening Russia like that of today, there wouldn't be much international help or mourning. World powers would probably carve out a real Russia on the West (Moscow and neighborhood), which could go and prosper like Poland, forming good relationship with its neighbors like Belorussia, Ukraine and the other EE nations, and Western Europe. Some areas would probably go back to Japan, and probably China would take a large multiple of what Russia took from China after the second Opium War. There are lots of ethnic groups East of the Ural, probably they would get to form their nation-s

Re:Not going to happen

[robi5]

It's often not like that. The entire Eastern Europe dreamed of the day when Russian armies would leave and one of the most effective alliances ever in history that provide its members with peace, would integrate them. People craved NATO and EU membership much more than how the people who were already part of these formations could have ever felt. People wanted to be left alone and try to prosper on their own effort, will and work, while enjoying peace. Nobody at the time thougth that remaining neutral (i.e. not becoming a NATO member) would be effective for remaining independent, because people suspected, as it turned out, correctly, that Russia may change its mind about releasing its former layer of subordinated countries. You don't want to be unarmed if your neighbor is a violent, unstable lunatic. Without NATO = without defense. Russia has over 3000 fighter jets. Poland has a couple of hundred. Romania, around 40. Hungary, around 12. None of these countries have nukes and even if they had them, a country which is the size of a single thermonuclear detonation couln't participate in a MAD scheme. Add to this that Eastern Europe, with the exception of Romania, and soon Poland for gas, heavily depends on Russian oil and gas (a BIG mistake, in retrospect, from the EU and NATO was to leave this dependence in place, although this can also be considered evidence that the West really wanted and expected Russia to remain a peaceful, cooperative brother).

Re:Not going to happen

[robi5]

> the US has crippled the Russian economy

The USSR / Russia didn't need a lot of help. Russia is arguably the most resource-rich country (land, minerals, metals, energy and petchem sources), surrounded by two of the greatest markets in the World, Europe and China, with other several, being adjacent, due to its sheer size (Japan, USA, India).

Russia has a people which is recognized as smart, intelligent, and putting an emphasis on education. Russians proved themselves in arts, literature, mathematics, science, everywhere. Heck, some of the most successful US companies had been partly founded by people of Russian origin.

Maybe Russia should have dropped out of the pissing contest with the rest of the First World and try to belong. Instead of this, it remained in a foolish race. After Gorbatchev and Yeltsin, there was chance to integrate and prosper. Instead of this, Russia essentially became like a very large Iran, having a unique people that is worthy of more prosperity, equality and safety, however instead of this, choosing to live off of just energy exports, and bullying its very own neighborhood thermonuclearly and otherwise. At least no one can claim that the US is bullying Canada or Mexico, though its Southern neighbor poses it with quite a few problems. The US hasn't even invaded Cuba even after the USSR's downfall while Russia attacked and annected parts of Ukraine, who had been a long-term participant in its CIS alliance, despite the Budapest Agreement, where Russia, in exchange for asking Ukraine to transfer its nuclear weapons to Russia, not only promised not to attack Ukraine, but reinforced Ukraine's borders, and _guaranteed_ to defend Ukraine's borders and sovereignty.

With friends like Russia, they didn't need enemies...

Re:Not going to happen

[robi5]

Karmashock was ontopic and you are just a nuisance.

Re:Not going to happen

[NatasRevol]

And who did the wiping out AND the setting up?

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

I mean... do I really need to go on? I'm sure I do... I'm sure you just couldn't accept anything short of the giant 18 inch dildo right up your ass...

I will certainly defer to your expertise on the subject of 18 in dildos.

Every US president since Reagan has supported the idea of sharing the tech with Russia. Every single fucking one.

Ascribing to an idea is not the same thing as establishing policy. If Reagan ultimately intended to share SDI tech with the USSR (very little to support that claim), he sure as hell knew that proclaiming such a policy during his administration would have been political suicide. Clinton made reference to supporting the idea, but made no effort to make the idea policy. Even during the time of his administration, pushing such a policy would involve considerable political risk.

The most any administration has done toward sharing anything with the Russians in this area are mere overtures that some sort of coordination between our separate systems could occur, along with very limited details on certain technological capabilities. That is a far cry from handing Russia our technology lock, stock and barrel.

Remember, your position is that Russia will be given missile defense technology to the point of "parity" with the US. I don't believe Reagan himself would agree to that (much less any of his successors). None of the links you provided supports that position even remotely.

Besides, if it has been US policy to share missile defense tech with the Russians since Reagan, why hasn't it happened? I'll tell you why: aspirations only become policy when they make sense. Handing over a superior strategic military technology to a primary adversary almost never makes sense. Given the deteriorating situation between the players, I wouldn't count on it making sense anytime soon.

Re:Not going to happen

[dunkindave]

Before you push that line, look up Iran Air flight 655. Russia is worse, but not the only one.

Re:Not going to happen

[amber_of_luxor]

What I don't understand, is why any Russian that has even a cursory knowledge of the history of Asian Russia would even give this proposal a second chance.

Back in Stalin's day, I'm fairly confident that anybody that proposed this would be cremated that day, and their relatives notified that s/he had suffered an unfortunate accident.

Or do the Russians really not learn from history?

Re:Not going to happen

[SpankiMonki]

Why would the west give Russia leverage?

Because our Chinese bankers tell us to?

Re:Not going to happen

[Harlequin80]

Hmmmm, assuming you are correct about the rate of rapes, perhaps the Japanese on the island still have a right to be fucked off with the US base on the grounds of rape. The rate of reported rape in the US is 26 / 100,000 population. The rate of rape reported in Japan is 1.2 / 100,000. I don't know about you but if the rate of rape around the US base is consistent with continental US rates then the base is responsible for a 2166% increase in rape rate, and I would be pretty upset about that.

Re:Not going to happen

[HornWumpus]

Chinese bankers lost 20 years profits when they got a margin call on the Shanghai exchange last week. Babes in the woods, borrowing to invest at a PE ratio of 100. It's actually amazing they ever got together with their money in the first place.

Re:Not going to happen

[Martin Blank]

Sometimes it's the only way. We held off on airstrikes against ISIS specifically to ensure that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki would not hold on to his position. As soon as his successor's selection (and so someone who actually accepted the Sunni) was ensured, airstrikes started in earnest. (They had begun already to help protect Yazidi tribes fleeing ISIS persecution, but only a handful of those happened.)

As much as Karmashock's hyperbole and predictions are off-base, on that point, he's right.

Re:Not going to happen

[Martin Blank]

Russia and its predecessors have a history of about 800 years of being invaded by one group or another. These included the Mongols in 1223 (who weren't driven out completely until 1480), the Crimean Tatars in 1571, the Polish-Muscovite War from 1605-1618, the Cossack uprising and incursion from 1667-1670, Napoleon's invasion in 1812, Japan in 1904 (mostly naval, but still an attack by an outside power), and Germany in 1941. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the eventual joining of NATO by every non-Soviet member (plus the former Soviet Baltic states) is often seen internally as an incursion into Russian interests, with the discussions of Georgia and especially Ukraine joining NATO leaving Moscow surrounded by enemies who are only a couple of weeks' fighting from the gates of Moscow.

It has a traditional reason to be xenophobic, regardless of whether it makes logical sense to those outside Russia. The Warsaw Pact nations and the former Soviet republics were buffer zones for Russia, land they could afford to lose, at least temporarily, while ensuring that Russia itself survived.

The current situation is only barely tolerable to Moscow, and is exacerbated by recent low Russian birth rates and low life expectancy, leading to a decline in population for nearly two decades. While this is turning around recently, the increasing birth rate is also heavily subsidized by the government (families who have more than one child get a lump-sum payment of about 428,000 rubles (worth about $6800 now, as much as $11,000 before the downturn in oil prices) and heavily dependent on the economy, which is in a difficult position, to say the least. As fragile as it is, it may decrease due to hits to the economy if more sanctions are added or the nuclear deal with Iran induces further oil price reductions, and perhaps in that case by increased alcoholism (more than a third of deaths in Russia are linked to alcohol).

I don't expect Russia to go to nuclear war, but they see the situation as desperate, possibly bordering on disastrous, and it puts them in a difficult position where even pie-in-the-sky ideas (like a Bering Straits bridge, to get back to the original post) sound like a good idea. You might think their position self-made, illogical, or even stupid, but it's very real. You don't have to agree with it to understand it, but dismissing it is just dangerous.

Re:Not going to happen

[Xest]

How many countries are the US military in against the will of the governments of those countries?

I don't believe it's any currently. I believe about the only one you can argue is Guantanamo bay in Cuba, but even there I don't believe the government believe the contract allowing them to be there is illegitimate, even if they greatly dislike it.

In contrast, how many countries are the Russians in against the will of the governments of those countries? Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova for starters:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So sorry, but Russia still loses by the metric you're claiming. They're still the bad guy. They don't get to demand consensual deployments end, whilst committing illegal deployments.

Re:Not going to happen

[Cytotoxic]

Do you really buy that notion? A lot of people on Slashdot were around for the Reagan-Gorbachev talks. Reagan offered to eliminate all nuclear missiles and share a missile defense shield with the Soviets. The two leaders went off on a wild spree of cooperation, leaving their advisors behind, almost agreeing to eliminate all nuclear weapons. They almost had that agreement done at Reykjavík. None of the advisors and tier-two politicians were on board at that point. As soon as they went back to their rooms the walking back began, but a deal was on the table that could have included sharing missile defense research with the Soviets, even though there was nothing that was remotely ready to deploy.

I don't know why that wouldn't count as US policy. The idea was simple..... sign a treaty to eliminate missiles that can reach each other's country. Build a missile defense system that can be used as a backup in case the other side keeps a handful of missiles around. Since you intend to abide by the treaty and eliminate your own missiles, sharing the defensive technology isn't a problem. The thing you gain is a sense of security for both sides.

At the time this was a hugely risky strategy for Reagan, because his defense department believed that the Soviets had a vast superiority in land forces like tanks, etc. Europe would likely have been apoplectic at such a treaty, since the deterrence of US involvement and their huge nuclear arsenal was a great hedge against a Soviet expansion into Europe. Eliminate the missiles and the US couldn't do much to stop the Soviets from taking over more European states - or so the thinking went. I think the conventional wisdom since that time is that the Soviet forces were vastly overrated, and their weaponry was not as formidable as the raw numbers would have indicated. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a bold move.

The Soviets had their own reasons for not wanting to do the deal. But strategically it can only mean that you either don't trust that the US will eliminate their missiles or you are worried that your armies cannot defend your country without your own missiles. (Which is the same position the US was in, they were worried that their conventional forces could not defend against Soviet invasions in Europe)

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

""âoeIt can be said that the old discredited policy of MAD is like two adversaries holding loaded guns to each otherâ(TM)s head. It may work for a while, but you sure better hope you donâ(TM)t make a slip. People who put their trust in MAD must trust it to work 100 percent â" forever, no slip-ups, no madmen, no unmanageable crises, no mistakes -forever⦠For those who are not assured by such a prospect, and I count myself among their number, we must ask: Isnâ(TM)t it time we invented a cure for the madness? Isnâ(TM)t it time to begin curing the world of this nuclear threat?â""

Login and we'll talk about it further.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Crime statistics between countries are not comparable.

For example, the Japanese classify unsolved murders as accidential deaths or suicides. This is why the japanese claim a homocide conviction rate or something like 98 percent. Where as in the US it is below 50 percent.

Most national statistics are not comparable unless you first understand how they're collected and how the politics of the statistics change from one country to another.

These stats are not collected by impartial robots. And the methodology used for them is not uniform. The stats are mostly applicable to themselves. Trying to compare them to an entirely different country means you need to go through a study, analysis, and then conversion process which to my knowledge no one has bothered to do because it would be time consuming and expensive.

If you'd like another example you can look at infant mortality rates in the US which look higher than most first world countries but this is a similar issue.

In most first world countries they do not count under weight babies as being live births in the first place. They also require the baby be able to breath on its own at birth. They also do not give respiration aid to the babies. Some countries require that babies cry on their own at birth or they are not considered live births in the statistics.

In the US, we count babies that are underweight as live births even though they are more prone to die. We also provide respiration. We do not require that babies be able to breath on their own. And we do not care if the baby cries or not for our statistics.

This means the US records more sickly babies as being live births than other countries. We also keep alive babies that would have otherwise died in other countries without even being counted... and some of them subsequently die days or weeks later.

This gives the US a higher infant mortality rate. But you can't say our rate is higher than another country without both the US and that other country having the same definition for what is a live birth. Associating the two statistics requires a calibration statistic where we estimate how many babies are underweight, aren't breathing, don't cry, etc that are being added to US statistics... and then then we have to estimate their contribution to the US infant mortality rate which is naturally going to be the majority of it because they're sickly babies. And then we have to subtract those deaths from the US infant mortality rate to a statistic that is consistent with international standards... and THEN we can compare US infant mortality rates with other countries... assuming we've compensated for everything.

Point is... you can't compare Japanese rape stats with American rape stats. You don't know what is going on in either country.

Keep in mind various countries have different definitions of rape. Consider Saudi Arabia where i think they need two male witnesses for a rape accusation to even be made.

I don't know anything about Japanese or more specifically Okinawa rape statistics. But I also am pretty sure that neither do you. And the thing is that if you don't know you can't draw any conclusions from those numbers because you don't know how they were collected or what people define the variables as and thus you don't know what those numbers even mean.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Your standard requires the Russians accepting the deal.

That has no baring on whether the US has offered repeatedly.

We have. Since the start.

Reagan offered.
Bush 1 offered.
Clinton offered.
Bush 2 offered.
and now Obama is offering.

We've always offered. And I even went so far as to explain why it is in our interests.

The US has superior conventional forces. In a world where ICBMs are irrelevant the US would be MORE powerful not less powerful. Where as the Russians would be almost irrelevant. The modern Russian military is about as scary as Saddam's military in Gulf war 1 WITHOUT the nuclear weapons.

Which is to say... of no real threat to the US. So would we share the anti missile tech? Sure.

If it seals the deal then we'd be stupid not to do it.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Clarify the theme of the error.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

We are not owned by China. The Chinese owning US bonds does not give them leverage over us. It gives us leverage over them.

US debt is paid in US dollars and only on bond maturity which is a term of the bond we defined. If the US economy suffers the value of the dollar goes down and we pay the chinese LESS without defaulting on our obligations.

What is more, US debt interest rates are so low that the chinese are basically paying us to lend us money. If you look into the capital opportunity costs to say nothing of the inflation rates... the Chinese are not getting back 100 percent of their principle when they buy US bonds.

Re: Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

I'm not offering a road. I'm offering a future... without which they have none.

Login and I'll explain.

Re:Not going to happen

[SpankiMonki]

Lol, yeah I think I heard about that...

I guess I should have been more accurate. Instead of "bankers" I should have said "creditors".

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Login and we'll talk about it.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Login and we'll see which of us is deluded.

Re:Not going to happen

[SpankiMonki]

Lighten up, dude. My comment wasn't meant to be taken THAT seriously. Next time, I'll tack on a little winkie so you don't get the wrong idea.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

He lacks the honesty to admit he was wrong. Its a common thing and one of the more annoying aspects to the internet.

In real life people get filtered. If you've not had the education you don't get into certain places to even express your opinion. If you don't have a proven track record of integrity there are a lot of discussions you're just not going to be called on to open your mouth. Etc.

And the double edged sword of the internet is that everyone can speak... even idiots and liars.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Poe's law.

The error is yours. ;-)

I hear people making that comment seriously all the time. You made it, so you got the scripted response.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

How am I off base?

As to why we held off on airstrikes on ISIS... what Obama's strategy is in Iraq is extremely nebulous. I don't think anyone really understands with clarity what he's trying to do.

The previous strategists see only incoherence and incompetence... is it incompetence? Really we don't know... we'll not know what Obama is thinking until we get access to his library and his advisers start writing tell all books.

It all could be a carefully crafted master plan... it could all be stupidity... we don't know.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

The oil deal with another olive branch from the US.

We made good faith efforts to forgive Russia and help them become a productive, successful, and happy member of the First world.

The Second world died with the fall of the USSR... so... Russia could be First world or Third world.

We helped them keep their space program alive with the ISS. We offered them markets to sell their exports to help their economy. We let them sit in on NATO meetings so they could feel politically and militarily comfortable with what was going on.

And we were in talks about actually adding Russia to NATO. That sounds insane now but it has to be pointed out that the US was trying very very hard to put the cold war relationship behind us.

We shut down the CIA operations in Russia to a large extent. We cut military spending or redirected it to other types of defense spending that are not threatening to nation states like Russia.

Russia has betrayed every trust they were extended and exploited every weakness. The people in the US that were trying to make nice with Russia have been humiliated and have lost all credibility. This is an aspect of American politics that most counties don't understand about it.

We're not one person or one party. Our rivals typically have a unitary political structure where if they make mistakes or circumstances change the same people will be making decisions even if they keep making mistakes.

In the US, the people that make decisions changes all the time. And a lot of the control on who gets to make decisions is based on who has the most credibility. During times of peace you're going to get the more diplomatically minded people making all the plans.

If there is money to be made or trade is important then you're going to have industry and business people influencing the issue.

When the diplomatic efforts blow up in everyone's faces and there isn't any money to be made... the military minds take over.

There are sub factions and more factions outside of these three but the point is that the way the US thinks about something shifts very quickly sometimes because the people making the decisions and their backgrounds can change.

And that means the US is prone to very very sudden changes in the way it does things. The Imperial Japanese were very surprised that the attack on Pearl Harbor caused the US to go to TOTAL WAR with them... where nothing was acceptable short of unconditional surrender. For years, the Japanese had been poking the US and the US ignored it or send strong letters asking the Japanese to stop it.

What happened in Pearl Harbor is that it scared Americans and it humiliated the people that said we could have peace with the Japanese. Instantly they lost all credibility and they were replaced with people that had a military mindset. US thinking changed in an instant... completely. Because the people making the decisions were completely different people.

The same thing happened in 9/11. Terrorists had been attacking US embassies and generally causing problems around the world for years. The US mostly ignored it. I think we would occasionally fire some cruise missiles at what was often an abandoned terrorist camp in the middle of the desert somewhere. Ineffective and largely perfunctory responses. It was Osama's theory that if he hit the US hard he would show his allies that the US was a paper tiger. That the US was all talk. That his people could get away with anything with impunity because the US would not respond with anything seriously.

He triggered the same response. The diplomats sat down and shut up... and the people calling the shots shifted to people with a different way of thinking. Osama was completely taken off guard by the sudden and complete shift in US policy.

The Russians have made a similar mistake. They have assumed that the way the US was responding to Russia after the fall of the USSR would be maintained consistently. In attacking Georgia and then Ukraine... in making threatening comments to the US.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Precisely.

Russia's intentions were tested. They failed. All Putin has accomplished was making our eyes glitter when we look upon them. He made a mistake.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Login and I'll prove it.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

All powers have histories of invasions. This isn't justification for anything that any other power couldn't claim with equal justification.

Given that Russia is demanding that lots of countries in eastern europe be defenseless because otherwise they feel vulnerable... that is not justifiable. Their vulnerability is as valid as Russias.

Russia says an invasion from XY could reach their borders. Fine. But then Russia has proven they will send invasions into Eastern Europe. While since the end of the Cold War Russia has not been invaded by any of its old Sat states.

Therefore, Russia's concern is at best hypocritical and at worst a deceptive ploy to keep a future target vulnerable for invasion.

As to Russia's population... you're ignoring their massive exodus from Russia. City is full of Russian expats. Half the taxi drivers and plumbers are Russians. The cream of Russia's population LEAVES. If you're smart, educated, talented... why stay in Russia? You'll have a better life, more rights, and a more stable future for your family if you leave.

So they do.

The only thing keeping Russia from imploding is patriotism... misplaced loyalty to a government dominated by oligarchs that see their own people as peasants and slaves.

Break that... and Russia as a concept... much less a nation... dies.

As to dismissing them... no no... they're being watched very closely. What they say means almost nothing to us at this point. Too many lies. Too much betrayal.

We watch them. With the sound off. At this point the only thing of relevance to us out of Russia is actions.

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

Your standard requires the Russians accepting the deal.

Not at all. My standard is about what constitutes actual US policy vs what one administration or another decides what might become US policy through international diplomacy. Do you honestly believe that any president could simply transfer US strategic military technology to its number one enemy by executive order? Can you say "instant impeachment"? Such a radical policy would have to be backed by treaty. The executive is empowered to do a lot on its own diplomatically - but when it comes to the big stuff, treaties are the order of the day.

Turn on the news and take a look at what's going on with "policy" related to Iran right now. Does that tell you anything about what ultimately ends up as US policy? Presidents don't get to decide things of this magnitude by themselves, and the Iran deal is chickenfeed compared to giving over missile defense tech to the Russians.

Reagan offered. Bush 1 offered. Clinton offered. Bush 2 offered. and now Obama is offering.

We've always offered.

The only presidents that have offered what you're talking about are Reagan (maybe) and Clinton. No other President has considered handing over missile defense tech to the Soviets/Russians to the point of technological parity with the US. But again, diplomatic offers don't rise to the level of established policy.

Even if the Russians at some point accepted these diplomatic overtures and the necessary conditions...do you really think such a deal would've been supported by the legislature then? Or now? Or ever? I took you to be too pragmatic to believe in such a pie in the sky notion. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Overtures, bargaining chips, noble ideas...all these things may be the genesis of policy. But the diplomatic landscape is littered with the corpses of ideas that didn't make the cut to make it to actual policy.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Your position is based on your lack of belief. Mine is based on official statements from the US government.

My position has more basis as yours is mere supposition.

The offer was made. The Russians rejected it.

Case closed.

Next case.

Re:Not going to happen

[smithmc]

Our military isn't in any country that wasn't asked first (OK, except Afghanistan), or that didn't attack us first (or harbor people who attacked us) and then lose (which kind of brings in Afghanistan).

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

Your position is based on your lack of belief. Mine is based on official statements from the US government.

Your position is based on the belief that offers made in the course of diplomacy rise to the level of official policy. As a practical matter - especially when such offers constitute a radical departure from the status quo, especially when such offers pose a substantial risk to US security - policy is not actuated without legislative approval. If you believe otherwise, tell me why - especially in the light of the current flap over Iran.

But instead of responding to me directly, perhaps you'd prefer to post elsewhere in this thread an insinuation that I'm an idiot and a liar without a proven track record of integrity. I think doing so would be a great testament to the nature of your character, so go for it!

Re:Not going to happen

[SpankiMonki]

I hear people making that comment seriously all the time. You made it, so you got the scripted response.

That's a helluva scripted response you gots there!

ps - thanks for the winkie at the end of your error comment. Now I know you weren't being serious. : )

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

As to my position... it has some basis to it. Yours has none what so ever.

Nothing.

Not anything at all.

Nada.

There is no evidence or indictation in anything you will find that implies the US was insincere in this offer. And I should note that the offer has not been recended... yet.

If this continues... it may be in our interests for Russia to just cease to exist as a country. Not a threat of violence from us... but a threat of strategic undermining that leads to systemic collapse.

The last time the Russians collapsed they lost of most of Eastern Europe to the West. We're not giving it back and the Eastern Europeans don't want to go back.

The next time Russia collapses they'll likely lose most of their eastern territory.

And while this is happening what remains of their Soviet warchest will have rusted and crumbled.

Time is on our side here. The smart move for Russia is to accept the deal while there is enough left of them to make it.

As to insinuations of deceit... I didn't insinuate it. I stated it in no uncertain terms. I think you're being very dishonest by refusing to accept the US made that offer.

You question the sincerity of the offer... okay... but it was made. And had the Russians accepted the deal it would obviously have included clauses that required X Y and Z to ensure compliance.

Can you show me incidents of the US making signed agreements with the USSR and then going back on those agreements? Go look for it. I'm sure we did something... we're human... but we complied with most of it pretty religious and that being the case I don't see where you find the justification to question our word in this context beyond your baseless prejudice. Which is all your position boils down to... prejudice. Nothing more when all is said and done.

So... frankly I don't find your position to be legitimate. The US made the offer. That is a matter of record.

The Russians rejected the offer. That is a matter of record.

The opinions of senior US diplomatic officials that were involved in that process are a matter of record. I'm sure I could get statements from the Russians of that era as why they did one thing or another.

And questions beyond that as to whether X or Y would have complied with provision Z is immaterial given that that is a common issue in any diplomatic agreement or business arrangement or any agreement between various parties.

How is it that we ever come to agreements on anything?

Because we work out the details. If party A has a problem with something party B wants then they say that and the two of them can work out compromises etc.

Saying there is a potential of one side or the other betraying the other... what is new?

Your counter argument is dishonest... and stupid mostly because you don't realize how obviously unsupportable your position is and yet you're making it anyway.

I mean... that is dumb.

We're done. If you're going to be stubborn, dishonest, and stupid then I have nothing to gain from talking to you. You've nothing to teach me and you're not clever enough to have thought of anything that I haven't already thought of or know.

So you have no value to me. Your opinion of me beyond that is immaterial to me.

Good day, sir.

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

Do you really buy that notion?

I absolutely buy into the notion that sharing US missile defense data/tech with the USSR/Russians has been an offer on the table (in one form or another) since Reagan. What I don't buy into is the notion that this diplomatic bargaining chip has ever risen to the level of POLICY.

I don't want to get into semantics here. If your definition of US policy is "anything that comes out of the chief executive's mouth", then I agree that coordinating/sharing/funding/whatever SDI tech with the Russians has been US policy - at least with regard to the Reagan/Clinton administrations. Others, I'm not so sure.

The reality is that there has been ZERO technological transfer of US anti-missile tech to the Russians or anybody else. Ever. If sharing anti-missile technology with the Russians has been US policy for decades, then it has to be the greatest policy failure in history. I definitely DO NOT buy into that notion.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

That's not a big scripted response. I have entire expert systems scripts that trigger in certain circumstances. I don't even think about it.

X or Y or Z happens and I drop into standard response to condition Green... activate.

As to winkies... I am serious... the error is yours :D

I'm just not being a dick about it. I'm trying to convey some of my in person casual charm to the extent it can possibly be conveyed here. I say harsh things all the time... and I mean them quite often... but I don't say them to be offensive or to hurt people's feelings or to be an asshole.

Shit is occasionally "wrong"... and I spend a lot of my time every day slapping people upside the head and getting them to pull their heads out of their asses.

I don't do that because I want them to feel bad. I do that because they need to fix it and they need to not do that... often. I express the point clearly... but I don't want an emotional response. I want everyone to happily whistle while they work... or happily fix all the shit they fucked up while they work. People that get upset are generally not very productive. They get distracted and cause problems later on because they feel obligated to revenge themselves as a point of honor. And I've no patience for that shit so I make a point of making it hard for them to emotionally justify such behavior.

I am... a very odd person. I know that. But I'm not an asshole by any reasonable definition of the term. And so I prefer for people to be emotionally centered.

As regards Poe's law... sarcasm, jokes, voice tone, facial expressions... they don't carry naturally over text. You have to overtly put in clear signals for people to know.

A lot of times people will just presume people know what they're thinking and then make statements that can be taken in many different ways assuming they can only be taken in the way they privately intended but never actually made clear.

m'kay? :D

See... serious... but not a dick. :)

Re:Not going to happen

[HornWumpus]

They are the same. My point is there in no limit to the amount of profit that a truly corrupt system can squander.

'They' are currently trying to prop up the 100 PE ratio stock market with government and institutional money. That is what happens when a 1% really run a nation. The Chinese 1% are taking a beating, so their whole economy is trying to prevent economics from working.

For all the profits rolling around in the Chinese economy, fully 30% of their stock market total capitalization was borrowed money. The Chinese stock bubble hasn't fully collapsed yet. Next is the Chinese real estate bubble. Capital flight might yet save the dollar. I'm afraid the Euro is toast though.

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

As to my position... it has some basis to it. Yours has none what so ever.

Nothing.

Not anything at all.

Nada.

You know, if you'd simply issued one more illogical, "NA NA NA it isn't true!" denial of my position, I might have yielded to your wisdom. OOOO! you were so close! Oh well, maybe next time.

There is no evidence or indictation in anything you will find that implies the US was insincere in this offer. And I should note that the offer has not been recended... yet.

How many times do I have to tell you? Jesus. One more time: my position is that diplomatic offers don't rise to the level of policy, especially when it comes to big ticket items - LIKE NATIONAL FUCKING SECURITY. Comprende? I can only assume your attempted deflections from the matter under debate are an acknowledgement of defeat.

The last time the Russians collapsed they lost of most of Eastern Europe...[snip]

Spare me your history lessons. They have nothing to do with the matter at hand.

As to insinuations of deceit... I didn't insinuate it. I stated it in no uncertain terms. I think you're being very dishonest by refusing to accept the US made that offer.

I didn't call you deceitful or otherwise insinuate such a thing. I simply made reference to your pussy-assed remarks to another poster who was engaging me in rational conversation. At least now you have the strength of character to finally own up to your statements directly. Good for you!

Well, sort of. All you make mention of here is my supposed dishonesty. Would it be too much for me to assume that you are retracting your insulting remarks on my intelligence and integrity?

You question the sincerity of the offer... okay... but it was made.

I have not once questioned the sincerity of any offer by any administration to anybody.

Can you show me incidents of the US making signed agreements with the USSR and then going back on those agreements?

When it comes to international strategic military arrangements, signed agreements are not US POLICY until they have been ratified by the US LEGISLATURE. Do you deny this? I've asked this question previously, yet I can't see where you've addressed my inquiry. Why is that?

Look, as I said to the poster to whom you previously made your pussy-assed remarks, if your definition of US policy is "whatever comes out of the chief executive's pie hole" - then I agree with everything you've said on this matter. But I reject the idea that all US policy begins and ends with the word of the president. I think the Constitution might just back me up on that.

If you're going to be stubborn, dishonest, and stupid then I have nothing to gain from talking to you. You've nothing to teach me and you're not clever enough to have thought of anything that I haven't already thought of or know.

Griping about how stubborn, dishonest, and stupid I am isn't really an effective defense of your ridiculous position. But apparently, that's all you're left with.

So you have no value to me. Your opinion of me beyond that is immaterial to me.

Good day, sir.

As good as an admittal of defeat as I've ever heard.

Re:Not going to happen

[SpankiMonki]

That's not a big scripted response. I have entire expert systems scripts that trigger in certain circumstances. I don't even think about it.

Oh good! I was starting to think your automated system was limited to responding to ACs with the text "login and we'll talk about it". Glad to hear you've built a much more comprehensive system. I bet it saves you a shitload of time!

As to winkies... I am serious... the error is yours :D

Well, I'm sure we can allow you at least one misuse of a winkie. I certainly won't hold it against you. : )

Shit is occasionally "wrong"... and I spend a lot of my time every day slapping people upside the head and getting them to pull their heads out of their asses.

I don't do that because I want them to feel bad. I do that because they need to fix it and they need to not do that... often.

You sound just like my dad after one of his "episodes". Thanks for the memories!

Re:Not going to happen

[Harlequin80]

And you cannot completely disregard them either. No, you should not make fine detail decisions around the comparison between statistics gathered by different organisations under different criteria. But to completely discount them is also foolish.

There is a major disparity between the reported cases of rape in Japan and the US. Some of these will be differences in the laws and what qualifies as rape, for example Japan has a much narrower definition of rape than the US does. Some of the cases that would qualify as rape in the US will be reported as Indecent Assault in Japan. A much bigger influencer however, would be the Japanese culture which would see the woman keeping quiet due to shame.

However taking all of that out of it. Your original assertion was that objections to the US base in Okinawa were all about money. And that the claims about rape were "concocted to support the above position". You then go on to say that the US policy was to give bags of money to anyone who claims a random guy raped them and that this was potentially creating false rape reports. However you are now saying you don't know anything about rape statistics in Okinawa. So which is it?

I would also add. You clearly have little to no exposure to Japan or Japanese culture. A Japanese person would be very unlikely to make a false claim of rape for money. Such a claim, true or false, would lead to the person being marginalised by the community and the sense of Japanese honour is so strong that you even see it in how they speak / write about money. Without going into great depths about it I think it can be summed up in the difference between kane and okane. Kane is the Japanese word for money and it is almost always combined with the honorific o. Money made through dishonourable means is referred to a kane and the money you get for working etc is okane.

When you consider that the Japanese society places honour and shame around the source of money, the societal pressure to not make a rape claim, false or true, for money should be obvious.

As for my source of information, I can speak basic Japanese, I have travelled there many times, I am formally qualified to a tertiary level in Asian business operations and culture and I work with Japanese companies operating both in Japan and elsewhere.

Re: Not going to happen

[Martin Blank]

I'm not ascribing special status. I'm explaining how they think and how they view outsiders. Russia has been a fairly xenophobic society for a very long time.

Whether they were successful in repelling the invaders isn't really a factor, either. It's that they're constantly concerned about being invaded. Check with the Poles and you'll find that they, too, are wary of it for precisely the reason that you mention. They're constantly looking over their shoulder at Russia, and don't fully trust Germany, either.

Re:Not going to happen

[Martin Blank]

He's trying to force Iraq and its local allies to deal with the problem rather than inserting American troops into combat situations in an area where they're largely unwanted or even hated. (The forces on the ground are largely there for training, not combat.) Part of dealing with the problem was getting the extremely anti-Sunni al-Maliki out and bringing in al-Abadi, who has promised to work with the Sunnis and has reportedly done so well enough to start changing the minds of some of the Sunni tribal leaders.

By conducting airstrikes, the US and participating allies are filling in a gap in Iraq's military capabilities. They have a few strike aircraft, but they're old and not built to handle the weapons that Iraq is buying from the West. The first F-16s in the Iraqi Air Force were delivered to Iraq itself (rather than being used for training Iraqi pilots in Arizona) just three weeks ago. Delivery was delayed over security concerns at Balad Air Base, which isn't far from ISIS territory.

I don't know if it will work, but it's probably the best option from a list of pretty much only bad options right now. The air mission may be expanding, though, as the US has said it is willing, together with Turkey, to protect civilian populations in at least part of Syria from Syrian bombing runs. That suggests a no-fly zone for those parts, and that can result in a serious escalation. (Turkey wants a no-fly zone over all of Syria and has called for it for years.) All it takes is for one Syrian aircraft to be knocked down and Syria to respond by even targeting US or allied planes with surface-to-air radar, and the US will have reason to respond by taking out at least part of Syria's air defense network and possibly its air force. That could turn the controlled chaos barely held together by Syrian forces into complete anarchy if the government forces are denied air cover. It could be what actually breaks the back of the government, and then it will be a race between ISIS, al-Nusra, and the Free Syrian Army coalition to get to Damascus. At least if ISIS gets knocked down or out, there's a slim chance of a negotiated collapse.

So far, Syria has been tolerant of Turkey shooting down a couple of its aircraft that strayed too close to or over the border with Turkey, but it may not be so willing to tolerate its aircraft being shot down well inside its own territory. If it escalates, we might see just what the actual effectiveness of the Russian S300 SAM system actually is.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

I'm not discounting them. I'm just not comparing them.

As to your belief about my contradictions. There's no contradiction.

I can say that the Okinawa dispute is mostly about the island wanting Japan to pay more money for the bases.

I can say that the US encourages false claims by giving out bags of money simply to silence an accusation.

And I can say that US rape stats are not directly comparable to japanese rape stats.

There is no contradiction.

As to your claim that japanese people don't commit fraud... I know they do just like everyone else. And I'm not especially interested in debating that point. its tiresome.

Regardless... its about money. The issue didn't get heated until the cold war ended which resulted in the US reducing military spending which meant the US spending on the island was cut.

Riddle me this... why does the desire for the US to leave coincide with the US reducing its presence there? The US navy used to be something like 80 percent of the economy on the island. Today it is something like 2 percent.

You might speak some of the language... but you're not doing the math.

Do the math. Watch/read the debates on the issue in the Japanese parliament.

THEN you can lecture me on who has a clue and who doesn't. I have actually looked into this issue specifically. You have not.

If either of us gets to high hat the other... it is me. Don't condescend to me... I'm amazing at it. Not a boast... a fact offered without false modesty.

Present your case if you have one. But don't presume to negate mine based on your presumed superior knowledge. I am very very good at that game and I don't lose it.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

As to Dads or managers... don't judge until you've been in the same position. Its harder than it looks.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Comical... so the US would have literally had to done it and the Russians would have had to accepted it for you consider the offer legitimate in this context.

You have no case. I do.

Good day.

Re:Not going to happen

[Harlequin80]

Seriously? So your argument is basically I know better than you so Nyah. I researched it so my opinion is better than yours? I disagree with you so you must know nothing?

You don't present a case. You pick a bunch of things which you think support your argument and then hold them out there. Not to mention your facts are complete bollocks. For example at the end of WW2 the US presence in Okinawa contributed just over 50% of the total income on the region, mainly in wages. By the 80's it had fallen to single digit levels (c 5% not 2%) and has hovered at that level since. Source: http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/sit...

So your argument that the desire for them to leave is lined up with the decrease in US presence is crap. It simply isn't true.

In addition it is not the Japanese government who wants the US bases gone. It is the local Okinawa residents and local government. The Japanese National government wants the bases to stay because they are currently a key part of Japan's strategic defence arrangements.

I take your word for it that you have looked into it and that you are well read on the topic. I will leave you your title of world's best condescender because I frankly wouldn't want that title.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Workable substitutes was the entire point of the message.

Login and we'll talk about it.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Don't like the taste of your own medicine? But its so thick and salty! You're the one that started claiming to have knowledge of the Japanese culture. Never mind that you had no knowledge of this specific topic.

As to your comical rebuttal that it isn't the japanese government that wants them gone but the locals... you have clearly not read a fucking thing I've said.

I said the dispute is between the locals and the japanese government. The locals want the japanese government to pay them MORE money for the US bases. The LOCALS want more money from the japanese... that is the dispute. The japanese government pays the island rent for the US bases. The locals want the rent payments increased or they want some of the land returned so they can build mini malls on it or golf courses or whatever.

That's all this is... Everything else is bullshit to put leverage on the japanese to pay up. The japanese are not paying up because its fucking extortion. So the island makes trouble. Beyond that, the islanders and the japanese government don't get along for a lot of reasons. For one thing, the island doesn't consider themselves japanese in the first place. They were a separate kingdom or something and want a separate government. So your knowledge of japanese culture is frankly f'ing pointless. The entire situation is something you don't even begin to understand.

Inform yourself, worm. :D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I know this because i know something about this incident.

You know nothing. Absolutely fucking... nothing. You thought the Okinawans were bog standard Japanese. I suspect you picked up some japanese by watching anime or something... and from that you presume to be an expert on all things even vaguely related to japan.

Allow me to respond with the appropriate anime response:
https://youtu.be/_TxnL5VYgoY?t...

Feel shame or admit to being less than scum. :-D

Re:Not going to happen

[SpankiMonki]

Not sure about the meaning of your "manager" reference, but I am a grandfather. Does that allow me to judge? I sure hope so!

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

Comical... so the US would have literally had to done it and the Russians would have had to accepted it for you consider the offer legitimate in this context.

One more time: a diplomatic OFFER doesn't qualify as US policy. It doesn't matter what you or I or anyone else thinks of its legitimacy.

Again, ONE MORE TIME: When it comes to international strategic military arrangements, diplomatic offers are not US POLICY until they have been ratified by the US LEGISLATURE.

Please, stop embarrassing yourself by continuing to reply without offering some argument as to why Constitutional law no longer governs in these matters.

You have no case. I do.

Good day.

What is it you think these little quips of yours do? I can tell you flat out they don't mean shit to anybody but you, and they do nothing more than highlight your lack of persuasive argument.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Wrong. Login I'll make the argument.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

And for my position to be based on policy the Russians would have had to have accepted the deal. Thus your position is that no offer the US makes to the USSR is sincere or citable in this context unless the Russians accepted the deal.

Your position remains retarded.

Good day.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Nope, its just that sock puppet trolls like you that use the AC title to harass anyone in the community that is smarter than you forces me to do things in the light.

You're going to keep scuttling under the fridge and hiding because you're too incompetent to actually hold your ground when I know so much as your nickname. All your bullshit about "oh your record your record your record"... none of it means anything when people can see your own and realize that you've no grounds to accuse anyone of anything.

You're a shithead. And anyone that isn't a shithead themselves can see it.

Login and prove me wrong by showing yourself to be credible. You won't because you can't.

You're garbage.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

Why should you create an account in a community you wish to have a debate in?

Fuck off. First, I think you do have an account... you're just trolling. And second, I've never heard of such a fucking stupid rebuttal. It takes you two seconds and you're just not going to do it?

Fine. Who needs to talk to you in the first place. you're sitting here going through the comment section of a social media site and you said something to me.

I told you that I'd debate the issue with you if you logged in... you're saying you can't bother to do that. Fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

And for my position to be based on policy the Russians would have had to have accepted the deal. Thus your position is that no offer the US makes to the USSR is sincere or citable in this context unless the Russians accepted the deal.

babblebabblepsychobabble.

ONE.....MORE.....TIME: diplomatic OFFERS do not equal US POLICY.

You keep trying to put words into my mouth.You keep doing it over and over and over. This isn't cable news. Your are not now in an environment where repeating something ad infinitum eventually becomes truth. That only occurs because of limited memory....here your posts remain for all to see indefinately.

If Obama says he will give intercontinental ballistic missiles to Iran, FREE OF CHARGE, and then once the missiles have arrived on Iranian shores, Obama will personally arm them with thermonuclear warheads, and he will personally punch in the targeting codes to lay a nuclear egg on the head of the Statue of Liberty...do such pronouncements rise to the level of POLICY?

That seems to be your position. Whatever the President says, goes...right?

Stop avoiding the argument. Does US policy have to have the blessing of the legislature (as outlined in the fucking Constitution), or not. I've asked this question of you multiple times. You refuse to answer. Do you think your silence is going unnoticed to readers of this exchange? Are you that locked into a fantasy world so completely divorced from reality?

Your position remains retarded.

Good day.

Why do you keep saying "Good day"? Is that supposed to lend some sort of weight to your continued deflections? Do you really think anyone reading this exchange is baffled by your bullshit?

Perhaps you are baffled by your own bullshit. Better lay on some more...for your own sanity, if nothing else.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

So you admit to being a troll? Okay. I'm right again.

https://youtu.be/pjTfqOrVJRI?t...

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

Sigh. Yet another response with zero substance. Yet another stupid YouTube link. Yet another pathetic whimper masquerading as an argument.

Newsflash: any discussion you coconut clap into will be up to its ears in retarded, so vaya con dios, chapero.

Re:Not going to happen

[DiehardIndependent]

You had nothing to back up your position at all. Literally nothing.

I backed up my position with multiple arguments you refused to address. I reiterated my arguments over and over, and directly asked for your response several times - yet none was forthcoming.

At this point the only reasonable conclusion is that you have no effective rebuttal, because the best you've been able to respond with so far are the same tired, predictable, redundant posts containing nothing more than your usual infantile snipes:

"Waaah! You're a child!" [stamps feet]
"uh...well, your position is retarded...so there!" [sniffle]
"Hey other guy over there...this guy's a liar with no integrity!"
"You refuse to concede, therefore you are not a legitimate opponent!" [snort]
[posts YouTube video] "Hey look! I'm the guy with the coconuts, and you're the guy with no limbs! I win!!! Yay!"

Presumably these outbursts of yours give you some sort of brief feeling of superiority, and are likely a leftover from an unresolved childhood psychological pathology that continues to dog you into adulthood. But the feeling for you is fleeting, isn't it? Whatever...your utter reliance on such immature little defense mechanisms when you're faced with intellectual defeat speaks for itself.

I get to make fun of you with impunity for my own sport.

Please, continue to go on and have your "fun". Your unabating puerile machinations provide a different sort of entertainment for the rest of us. It's kinda like watching a slow motion train wreck, except that the train's passengers are all gleefully laughing about what a good time they're having, right up to the point where they're turned into hamburger meat.

Re:Not going to happen

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

true, I meant that more as the Chinese government itself has in place hacking programs and those groups are part of the ones hitting US systems. When your attacked by PLA Unit 61398, they aren't a group of disgruntled IT people like Anonymous but a fully-funded, Chinese military hacker group. That's what I meant there; China is flat out attacking the US with actual military units.

Re:Not going to happen

[Karmashock]

We do the same back to them with the NSA. Its not an act of war. Its spying.

And the country that gets penetrated is always at fault.

If the Russians broke through our security during the cold war who's fault was that? Our own always. Its not like the Russians are going to say sorry. And what are you going to do about it? Nothing. Its not worth going to war over. Which means state agencies have to be designed to weather these sorts of attacks... and if they're not up to it then they're incompetent. In most cases they're run by cross-eyed political appointees that don't have the mental steel to deal with the job.

That is the beauty of the old mentality. Its practical, constructive, and goal oriented. This modern tendency to whine and complain when someone breaches security is frankly disgusting.

If the federal government can't deal with state sponsored hacking groups then they're incompetent to have computers in the first place.

I find the entire whine by these people to be entirely unacceptable and degenerate.

I think the NSA should be tasked with creating an incubator program where in federal techs are trained to resist state based intrusions and to understand the sort of things that create vulnerabilities.

Then I would change the institutional ORG charts such that the security departments enjoyed an independent set of priorities to the institutions they guarded as well as a responsibility to prioritize that responsibility above whatever the director of the department wants.

In this way, the organizations would need to work within security requirements rather than simply sweeping them aside or ignoring them whenever they found it inconvenient.

Plate boundary

[hooiberg]

This bridge would cross a plate boundary... It is an earth quake prone area. How long would it survive?

Re:Plate boundary

[MightyYar]

Until the next earthquake, and then you fix it. A hell of a lot more straightforward than making something last in the violent and frozen marine environment. I hope there is no metal in it. Or concrete. This thing has to compete with giant ships lumbering across the ocean - it will be a challenge.

Re:Plate boundary

[RailRide]

You're thinking of the Aleutian Trench. That's a long ways from the Bering Strait. Any plate-boundary crossing would occur on land in NE Russia and be across a strike-slip fault much like the San Andreas, not a subduction zone.

(aside) Last time I heard of this scheme, it was to be a tunnel, proposed to run under the Strait between the Diomede Islands, and it was to be exclusively for rail (conventional--not high-speed).

Need to send vehicles across? Put 'em on the train. No sense building gas stations out in the middle of nowhere, and a tunnel is both less maintenance-intensive and less prone to severe weather.

As always, the hard part isn't building the actual link--it's connecting it to the nearest railheads on both sides, and conjuring up a business rationale for doing so.

---PCJ

No demand

[Kjella]

You are connecting a very, very remote area of Russia with a very, very remote area of the US. Take a look at a population density map, there's no cities whatsoever nearby. And long distance shipping will either go by sea (cheaper) or plane (faster), just the maintenance on thousands of miles of rail would kill it. This is as likely as the head of NASA suggesting a manned mission to Mars, it's his idea to make lofty ideas but the people with the money will never fund it.

Driving? From London?

[barra.ponto]

One can't drive from London to (continental) Europe that I know off. Ferry or train. through the chunnel, can bring a car over, but by that definition one can already "drive" from London to NYC.

Re:Driving? From London?

[myowntrueself]

One can't drive from London to (continental) Europe that I know off. Ferry or train. through the chunnel, can bring a car over, but by that definition one can already "drive" from London to NYC.

"In 2004 Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin Group, used a Gibbs Aquada to set a new record for crossing the English Channel in an amphibious vehicle. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Yes, you can!

MagLev

[hooiberg]

It sounds like a great plan to 'lead technologies', but then you should no longer be thinking of traditional railroad. Might as well go all the way and build a MagLev line, while we are at it.

In 100 years...

[QuietLagoon]

Humans will be looking back and wondering why such an expensive bridge was built for vehicles that are no longer used.

Re:In 100 years...

[__aaclcg7560]

Same situation in the Middle Ages after the Roman Empire fell: "Nice Corinthian columns. What were they used for?"

Re:Militarily insane idea

[__aaclcg7560]

Russia still have armed nuclear ICBMs that can reach the U.S. faster than tanks rolling across the bridge. The cold war may have ended, but Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) have not. You should be more concern about the Chinese buying farmland in the Pacific Northwest.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/real-estate/californians-chinese-scooping-farmland-washington-state-n401841

Russia is known for building roads to nowhere

[iamacat]

Just Google "Baikalâ"Amur Mainline". The project would make sense if Russia and USA were on visa-free travel level good terms, with vibrant urban or industrial centers on both sides of Bering Strait. Think of something like Channel tunnel. But, even in the best political climate, why connect remote areas requiring days of additional road travel to deliver people or goods? Air or sea shipping is the best option until huge changes in demographics of both countries and mutual political ties.

Re:Russia is known for building roads to nowhere

[NatasRevol]

Call it the Seattle to Vladivostok run.

Re:And the purpose of this exercise is?

[dgatwood]

But not cheaper and faster. A boat from China or Japan takes 10-14 plus loading and unloading time (which, if you're sharing a boat with a bunch of other companies, can potentially add weeks of delay before the boat leaves the dock), and air shipping is relatively expensive. With two or drivers trading off, you could potentially do California to Japan by truck in about a week.

Having a bridge between North America and Asia could be absolutely huge for shipping, as a potential midpoint between the two shipping methods. Whether it will be or not is another question.

Brilliant!

[jtownatpunk.net]

So they're going to build a bridge from Nowhere, Russia to Nowhere, Alaska. So the 50 people on each end can visit each other, I guess. Because there's in infrastructure in place to get anything of significance to or from either end point of the bridge.

From an old CNN article: "Relatively isolated even by Alaska standards, no road connects Nome with the rest of the state's road system. About 836 road-less kilometers (520 miles) across desolate terrain separates Nome from the closest major city and road network in Fairbanks, the unofficial northern terminus of the Alaska Highway.

Re:Brilliant!

[hooiberg]

Except that those people do not want to pay the high toll for the bridge, and will keep using the boats that they have used all their lives.

Re:Brilliant!

[wired_parrot]

Not to mention that most of the railway trackage that would have to be built, in both the Russian and the American sides, would be mostly going through permafrost. Permafrost is not the most stable foundation for a railway bed - when the Chinese built the Qinghai-Tibet railway they had to include passive cooling with ammonia refrigerant to keep the soil at a stable temperature, and avoid warping of the tracks. And even then, they are running the risks of having to reconstruct the permafrost section of the track due to unanticipated global warming effects. The chinese only had a short 500km section with which they had to contend with permafrost. The Russian-American railroad would have to contend with thousands of kilometers of permafrost.

And if there were really that much of a business case for a US to China railway connection, the same case could be argued for a China to Europe railway connection,which already exists. Yet despite being a more direct route to Europe than an ocean route, the existing Eurasian Land Bridge only carries 1% of the China-Europe trade. The vastly more expensive US to China connection would be an even more dubious business case.

Re:Brilliant!

[olau]

And if there were really that much of a business case for a US to China railway connection, the same case could be argued for a China to Europe railway connection,which already exists.

It's my understanding that while this exists, it's not really terribly useful, and that China is already building new tracks, going so far as as to finance the parts going through poor nations. It's not easy to find much online on this, but here are one discussion and another.

Re:Two words: global warming

[circletimessquare]

well yeah, on a trajectory of 100-200 years. i'm talking about right now

i even said so in my comment you are replying to: "someday, in only a few decades maybe the way technology and world populations are going, then the scheme would realize a profit" over a shorter period

Re:And the purpose of this exercise is?

[NatasRevol]

Look at the numbers here:
http://www.breitbart.com/calif...

A small number of people can affect large swaths of the economy of *multiple* countries.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

cost

[7-Vodka]

Allegedly the plan will cost upwards in the trillions of dollars range.

It's ok, no need to worry. We'll get government support and we can print the money.

Great idea!

[PopeRatzo]

But before they do it, I'd like to see them fix the potholes on Elston Avenue.

Re:Militarily insane idea

[JeffAtl]

Why should anyone be concerned about that? The same fears arose from the Japanese buying up american real estate in the 1990's.

Even the local government could take it back at any time if it wanted to by just condemning the property.

Re:And the purpose of this exercise is?

[Bartles]

And how long does it take two trucks to ship the same amount of goods as a fully loaded freighter?

The Ultimate bridge to no where

[MountainLogic]

This is about as practical as building a space plane to take me from my kitchen to my livingroom. Slow and inefficient rubber tired transit for more than 1/2 around the planet is the biggest waste of a slashdot article let alone the massive physical resources. Modern cargo containers ships are faster, travel more direct, are more all weather, cheaper and gentler on the environment than running trucks on iced over roads. Other than a civil engineer's board imaginations, I can only assume that this is the ultimate attempt of the Serbian chamber of commerce to get a global scale pork barrel project in their backyard. For transportation comparison:
Mode - Miles/Gallon/ton - [Hydrocarbons, CO, NO lbs/ton mile]. .
Ship - 514 miles/gallon - [0.0009, 0.0020, 0.0053]
Rail - 202 miles/gallon - [0.0046, 0.0064, 0.0183]
Truck - 59 miles/gallon - [0.0063, 0.0190, 0.1017]
Keep in mind that the above does not include the materials, cost or environmental damage to build this road to no where. If you really want a wild road trip drive from Cape Town to Cape Chelyuskin.

Re:The Ultimate bridge to no where

[techno-vampire]

I followed that link you gave, and found something very, very interesting: the article is about transportation on an inland canal, not on the open sea, and it refers to goods transported by barge, not ship. There's a big difference, because many barges have no propulsion and are moved around by towboats.

Re:The Ultimate bridge to no where

[jwhitener]

If this is the same design I saw on a Discovery show years ago, the Bering Straight part, the bridge, would have a road surface, a level for 1-2 sets of train tracks, and several oil/gas type pipelines below that.

But that aside, roads are here to stay. And as batteries/fuel cells get better, combined with more and more decentralized energy generation, mpg is going to be a largely irrelevant statistic.

International relations - Don't work that way.

[Etherwalk]

Whatever point you were trying to make there, especially that Russians need to stop being assholes, doesn't work when everything you've based it on involves the US being even bigger assholes.

Actually, that's not true. International relations works by allowing everyone to be assholes while pretending that they're awesome. The idea is countries make agreements that say one thing (usually a compromise of some kind) while claiming to their politically important classes that the agreement is good because it's another thing. The classic example I think of is the Security Council's authorization for the second Iraq war, which was designed to legally allow the US go to war with Iraq while still letting France claim that they had never meant it to authorize the war with Iraq. It's really about marketing, spin, and convincingly lying in a way which will appease (or in which you can leverage the perceived need to appease) your hard-liners.

Re:International relations - Don't work that way.

[myowntrueself]

Whatever point you were trying to make there, especially that Russians need to stop being assholes, doesn't work when everything you've based it on involves the US being even bigger assholes.

Actually, that's not true. International relations works by allowing everyone to be assholes while pretending that they're awesome.

This is because everyone in political power, in every country in the world, but ESPECIALLY the USA and Russia, are narcissistic personalities. Something that Karmashock was referring to when he said:

 

Look Russia... If you want to do business with the US, you need to make people like me happy. I know... you don't like that... but that's reality.

to make people like him (or Putin or Obama or any other person who could POSSIBLY become president of either country) happy you have to give them lots of ego-puffing, always give them what they want immediately and never ever criticize them.

Could calculate based on fast rail

[grimJester]

You'll probably get most of the value out of electronics exports from China to the US that currently go by sea when air transport would be too expensive. How much is that worth and how much more would it be worth if you could get it to consumers how much faster?

If you can get a 10% increase in price because you have all of China's exports on store shelves a month earlier it could be big bucks. Unlikely to pay off a trillion dollars but anyway.

Not Gonna Happen...

[NicBenjamin]

The Russian official allegedly proposing all this is, Vladimir Yakunin, is under US Sanctions for the Ukraine/Crimea mess. Moreover it would cost Trillion$, during a time when they don't have $10 Billion to upgrade their air force to their latest fighter: the PAK-FA.

I will not be surprised to find out this is somebody at the Siberian Times idea of a practical joke.

Economic Benefit

[Schiller555]

In case of another Finance Event lots of people will become unemployed. For some irrational, out of control reasons. This would be a wonder full project to re-inspire confidence into essentially all of mankind. Folks would be talking "about the massive new bridge, have you seen it on TV" "engineering challenge in fending off the 220K weather" "bears need to be fended off construction workers". Instead of "have you heard about the mass layoff at Gappple computers ?" "should I buy Gold in coins or silver ?" Call me a cynic, but I would call myself a realist. We need this kind of projects in order to "repair" the psychological damage done by finance implosions. So there won't be a benefit to the beancounters, but a benefit to humanity.

Yalu River

[RogueWarrior65]

Apparently, SOME people are learning from history...and not in a good way.

Its the wilderness

[Todd Palin]

Exactly right. The wilderness on either side of the bridge is vast. It is vast because it is really hard to build roads over permafrost, particularly if the permafrost starts to melt whenever you build a road on it. Roads on permafrost pretty much need to be rebuilt every year. The bridge is a big effort, but the roads to reach it might be a bigger project. It would be the bridge to nowhere, from nowhere.

Foolish

[JimSadler]

This project is foolish. how many remote gas stations will be needed to fuel vehicles using such a bridge. who will man and supply these stations and where will their waste go? Driving along and need a toilet? It may be quite a few hours between rest stops. Need a tow truck? I guess that might generate quite a towing bill. Frankly this project will do little if any good for anybody and would be a target for every natural hazard and the terror lunatics would probably enjoy monkey wrenching such a bridge as well.

Re:Easier to annex Alaska

[R3d M3rcury]

And it could lead to nuclear war! And we don't have Rock Hudson to save us!

What bridge?

[khelms]

The article title says bridge. The picture at the top of the article shows a bridge. The actual article text says 55 mile long tunnel. Is there an actual bridge in these plans or not?

Report from Fairbanks

[evilsofa]

I have family in Fairbanks that run an industrial business that would inevitably be significantly involved in and enormously impacted by such a project, and I can tell you that there is no talk of or preparation of even the slightest increase in the infrastructure that would be required before this project even began.

The first phase of an initial inquiry into increasing railroad infrastructure from Alaska to the lower 48, about 10 years ago, rung up an estimate of about a dozen billion dollars; everyone involved did the "let me laugh even harder" dance, and a second phase of the inquiry never happened.

That short little hop between Nome and Fairbanks is 500 miles of wilderness. There are no roads in the entire western half of Alaska and nobody is talking about building any.

here's the problem - there's no road to Nome

[ruebarb]

I live in AK now and have been to Nome where gas is $6 a gallon

Why? Because there's no ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE to Nome

You not only have to build a bridge to one of the most remote parts of the Seward Peninsula - You have to then build an entire road for hundreds of miles down the Seward Peninsula to Fairbanks over land that is varying between Permafrost and regular road - (and you can build for one or the other but the permafrost is changing) - Sure, you could build an "Ice Road" but same situation -

I'm not saying it's the WORST idea in the world - Anchorage has the 2nd busiest Air Cargo terminal in the US - (Nashville is 1st I think) and we're ideally situated for Air over the North Pole, and maybe Naval thru the Northwest passage, - but there's no Rail line - and no Road from the Seward Peninsula to the Lower 48 - Hell, half the villages out there are still on the honey bucket system. The Bridge would probably come ashore at Wales, and you can drive to Nome - but from there you're back to Cargoship - so will the US create that kind of Infrastructure in AK? We can't even get the broken stuff fixed so I don't foresee new stuff.

FYI - the Road to Nome has been tossed back and forth but there's no palate in AK right now for new Infrastructure since the budget deficit caused by dropping oil prices.

RB

Re:here's the problem - there's no road to Nome

[hooiberg]

So, how do people get to Nome, if there is no road? Is there a railway connection?

Re: Easier to annex Alaska

[Midnight Thunder]

Ah but then we could just bomb the bridge. Wouldn't be an effective use of the bridge, granted.

Re:Sara Palin

[Todd Palin]

She will want a kickback. I'm sure she deserves it.

Waiting for the dashcam videos

[RubberDogBone]

Cannot wait for the epic dashcam crash videos as INSANE Russian and Chinese drivers hit Canadian and American roads. It's going to be teeth, hair, and eyeballs ALL over the road.

All that fear about Mexican truck drivers is nothing compared to what's gonna happen with this.

Re:And the purpose of this exercise is?

[dgatwood]

Nobody can predict what will happen between the U.S. and Russia, but I'd be really surprised if things got so bad that U.S. companies didn't feel comfortable shipping goods through Russia. It's not like we're talking about a third-world country or anything.

And what you say about damage is downright silly, because the same concern applies equally for a bridge inside our borders. In fact, by your standards, the docks where those boats load their cargo should never have been built, because if one of the minimum-wage immigrants carrying cargo on his shoulders out to a small boat in waist-deep water dies of a heart attack, it doesn't prevent other workers from loading cargo, whereas if a dock collapses, it does, and those workers can be used for other things if we suddenly no longer need boat shipping. I mean, the only way that logic even starts to make sense is if a serious failure is highly probable, and if that's the case, then it means they got the design wrong.

Besides, the cost of a Bering Strait bridge could be a lot lower than you might think. They would need one segment of it to be tall enough to let shipping traffic through—possibly between the two Diomede Islands—but the rest of it could ostensibly be a simple pontoon bridge, which is relatively cheap.

Most of the cost of the project would likely be for that one span between the two islands that's tall enough to let ships pass under it. That would cost several billion dollars, in all likelihood. The remaining 55 miles, assuming other pontoon bridges are any indication of cost, should be the neighborhood of $5 million to $10 million per lane-mile. At 55 miles long, a four-lane pontoon bridge should cost a couple of billion dollars, give or take, which is about as much money as we waste on a single B-2 bomber.

Of course, a pontoon bridge in that area would have to be specifically designed to withstand the rather severe storms that the Bering sea experiences, which could drive the cost way up. On the other hand, the project is so huge that economies of scale would kick in and bring the component cost way, way down (because you'd be building over 18,000 identical 16-foot segments), which would probably balance that out to a large extent.

Of course, I am not a bridge engineer, so my estimates could be way off, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone were able to come up with a design that fell under the $10 billion mark, or about twice the cost of the Bay Bridge. Heck, the tunnel that Russia proposed was only sixty or seventy billion, so that estimate probably isn't too far off the mark.

Re:And the purpose of this exercise is?

[dgatwood]

Of course, I did forget to mention one other thing, which is the need to build roads to that bridge, which would no doubt add considerably to the total cost.

Re:And the purpose of this exercise is?

[dgatwood]

And how long does it take two trucks to ship the same amount of goods as a fully loaded freighter?

I'm not sure how that's relevant unless your company needs to ship a full freighter-load of goods. I'm not talking about the biggest companies here. I'm talking about the myriad companies that routinely use international shipping in much lower volume. For those companies, what matters is latency—how long they must wait for something to arrive stateside—not bandwidth.

If you're one of those rare companies that can fill a freighter, then your company is clearly in the category that can afford to bring in its first two weeks' supply by air while the boats are carrying the next month's supply, and the boat latency doesn't matter (unless you're a shipping company). But even for those big companies, it could still cut out the second week of air shipments, which could be a significant financial win. And for shipping companies that provide services to smaller companies, being able to offer a level of service between "very expensive" and "glacial" would be a significant win, too.

No, they aren't cheaper,

[Kartu]

Transportation price of large amounts of stuff over long distances, cheapest to more expensive:

1) Sea (ships)
2) Railway
3) Trucks
4) Air

Re:No, they aren't cheaper,

[JMJimmy]

Transporting by ship is the cheapest but that's due to its speed, or rather lack there of. I was specifically referring to the wages of dock workers ($147,000 average) compared to those of truck drivers ($51,000 average)

How long would the bridge be??

[Racerdude]

How can you write an article like that and not even mention how long the bridge would be??

That's kind of crazy

[azav]

Maintenance on such a bridge will be kinda madness. Financially, as well.

Re:Visiting armies invited?

[Karmashock]

I don't talk about things in detail with AC's... login and we'll talk about it.

Re:Visiting armies invited?

[Karmashock]

Had the USSR stayed within the limitations of that invitation then that would have been fine.

It was when they stormed the presidential palace, killed the the former members of the government, and imposed their own government that it would be hard to claim they were there with the blessing of the government.

Unless the government wanted the Soviets to murder them?

The Soviets enjoyed no parity with the US for conduct. It isn't even close. And the modern Russians are demonstrably not a great deal better.

Login and we'll discuss this in more detail.

Re:Militarily insane idea

[smithmc]

Trains can run in both directions, you know.

Econ/Environmental studies will kill it fast

[Virtucon]

Economic and Environmental studies will kill this pretty quick. Even if they did get past all of this, they'll find some endangered species X that will be negatively impacted by the project so it'll come to a grinding halt.

If the Western ports are overloaded, we need to seriously look at what we're importing and prioritize or just say "no thanks" Do we need all that crap that lines shelves of Dollar Stores and is advertised on TV for $20/a can? We don't need anymore George Foreman grills either.

Re:And the purpose of this exercise is?

[dgatwood]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha, did you just compare damage to a 'bridge inside borders' to a bridge over the ocean?

I compared a bridge across a large body of water to a bridge across an only slightly larger body of water. Whether the bridge goes from one country to another is largely irrelevant unless the leaders of one country or the other are idiots. After all, they would both have to pay part of the cost of any future repairs to that bridge, which is a powerful disincentive to bombing it in a fit of stupidity. If anything, the nature of such a bridge might even serve to stabilize relations between the two countries.

The only bottleneck there is a port and ports are much easier and faster to build than additional bridges to increase throughput.

Ports can only increase bandwidth. What shippers care about is latency. The only way you can improve latency with boats is to build faster boats, and the faster the boat, the less it can carry (and the more fuel it takes), so there are very real practical limitations involved.

A burning bridge stops all cargo from being moved, while a burning ship only stops that ship. Shipping docks are a scalable solution, while a bridge is a fixed throughput solution that cannot be scaled without building a second bridge.

A burning dock stops all cargo from being moved. Your point? You think that after Russia and the U.S. build a multi-billion-dollar bridge, one of them is going to suddenly decide to blow it up on a whim? Periods of international tension might very well close the bridge, but I can't imagine them being shortsighted enough to blow it up.

Also, bridges can be repaired pretty quickly these days, for the most part. When a tanker fire destroyed an elevated road segment in San Francisco back in 2007 and caused it to fall on top of another elevated road segment (requiring significant repairs), they had the lower segment repaired in eight days, and the upper one rebuilt in just 25 days. And with the floating bridge I described, assuming you build some extra segments, damage could be repaired in hours simply by towing another identical segment into place and fastening it to the adjacent segments. You just have to provide enough of a financial incentive to grease the wheels of the bridge building company. :-)

Epic? I think they meant "Boring"...

[wardrich86]

...Planet Earth's most epic mega-road trip ever.

Epic? I'd think it to be boring as fuck. A flight over the ocean is boring. And driving across the bridge to PEI in Canada was also damn boring. This would be like that road trip times a thousand once you factor in the distance and all of the accidents holding up traffic. I think I'll just wait for it to come out on YouTube so I can fast-forward and speed up the video footage of the trip and experience it that way.