At the risk of sounding naïve, what if the point of Russia/Saudi/OPEC *is* systemic risk? It is no secret that Russia aims to break free of SWIFT hegemony, so what if the only way to do that is to sow instability?
Russia may lose in Ukraine, but if mortally wounds the UK or US economically/politically via the reshuffling of alliances in the ME, Africa, India, and others, we may find that the victory wasn't so clear. Now, I don't think everyone in our governments are ignorant of the risks and the stakes, but there is a lot of dysfunction built in, and people unable to make hard choices.
I have a feeling the the next 5 or 10 years will be "interesting times". Ridiculous deficits few countries can ever pay down in combination with wars, inflation etc.will eventually cause defaults somewhere I would think. In a lot of ways we would have been better to let it all collapse in 2008, we would have been past it now with a fresh start. Instead all that crap still looms.
You may well be right.
Great article.
At the risk of sounding naïve, what if the point of Russia/Saudi/OPEC *is* systemic risk? It is no secret that Russia aims to break free of SWIFT hegemony, so what if the only way to do that is to sow instability?
Russia may lose in Ukraine, but if mortally wounds the UK or US economically/politically via the reshuffling of alliances in the ME, Africa, India, and others, we may find that the victory wasn't so clear. Now, I don't think everyone in our governments are ignorant of the risks and the stakes, but there is a lot of dysfunction built in, and people unable to make hard choices.
I have a feeling the the next 5 or 10 years will be "interesting times". Ridiculous deficits few countries can ever pay down in combination with wars, inflation etc.will eventually cause defaults somewhere I would think. In a lot of ways we would have been better to let it all collapse in 2008, we would have been past it now with a fresh start. Instead all that crap still looms.