The Road to War With Russia

By Chris Martenson

Peak Prosperity, January 8 2015: For several weeks now the anti-Russian stance in the US press has quieted down. Presumably because the political leadership has moved its attention on to other things, and the media flock has followed suit.

Have you read much about Ukraine and Russia recently?

I thought not, despite the fact that there's plenty of serious action -- both there as well as related activity in the US -- going on that deserves our careful attention.

As I recently wrote, the plunging oil price is a potential catalyst for stock market turmoil and sovereign instability. Venezuela is already circling the drain, and numerous other oil exporters are in deep trouble as they foolishly expanded their national budgets and social programs to match the price of oil; something that is easy to do on the way up and devilishly tricky on the way down.

But consider the impact on Russia. From the Russian point of view, everything from their plunging ruble to bitter sanctions to the falling price of oil are the fault of the US, either directly or indirectly. Whether that is fair or not is irrelevant; that's the view of the Russians right now. So no surprise,  it doesn't dispose them towards much in the way of good-will towards the West generally, and the US specifically.

The fall in the price of oil is creating serious difficulties economically and financially for Russia. We'll get to those facets in a minute. But right now, I want to focus on the continued belligerence of the US towards Russia -- some of which is overt and some of which, you can be certain, is covert -- which could very well end up provoking a more kinetic and dangerous response than the West is prepared for.

Russia Forced To Act

Before anyone jumps in to say "Why are you defending Putin? He's a bad man", let me just say that I have been closely analyzing each move by Russia and the West since then President of Ukraine Yanukovych declined to sign the European Association Agreement back in November of 2013.
Based on the preponderance of evidence, its' clear to me that the West/US deserve the lion's share of the blame for the conflict that now rages with Ukraine and between Russia and the western world.

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Related:

Fort Russ: Yatsenyuk is a warmonger and a puppet of Ukrainian oligarchs - Bundestag deputy

Finian Cunningham: NATO Trips on Own Lies with U-Turn on ‘Russian Aggressor’

Zero Hedge: Mikhail Gorbachev Warns of Major (Nuclear) War In Europe Over Ukraine

Dmitry Orlov: US Is on Its Way out of Eurasia. What Trouble Will It Cook up as It Exits?