[KaiserJeep]

What is at stake nowadays is the perception of Russia as a superpower. It never really was one, but it came close. Russia put the first man in space and built the first "permanent" space station. There were many things that Russia achieved during the Cold War that are impossible today - just as the case with the USA, who went to the Moon, then lost the will to continue to do so.

The concept is as old as the Roman "Bread and Circuses". The Government stores grain and uses it to supply bread to citizens, while slaves and barbarian non-citizens starve. The populace is distracted with spectacles, and all it costs is a few lions plus a few Christians.

Nowadays we have serious looming shortages of energy, which jeopardizes the political power of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. So he postures in the Crimea until the World Cup displaces that as the thing most Russians care the most about. Then he rattles the war saber again, even though it is a saber comprised of 50-year-old Cold War strategic bombers.

In America and Russia both, the relatively high standard of living is slipping. The lack of cheap energy is sapping all life and all hope of recovery from what is essentially an increasingly restless populace, who may get to brooding and - come elections - turn the old scoundrels out and replace them with new scoundrels.

That of course is unthinkable. So you rattle some 50-year-old Cold War bombers, or you bomb an aspirin factory in the Middle East. You kill Osama Bin Laden, or you offer political asylum to Julian Assange. You got in a few games of golf during the NBA playoffs, or had a few days off at your Dacha while the World Cup played out. You under-the-table a few obsolete weapons to the Palestinians or the Syrian rebels or the Ukraine separatists or you sacrifice a few Border Patrol agents in Texas.

In short, you watch the wheel of the ship of state spin merrily because nobody is steering. After all, steering is for those who both know both where they are and where they are going, and you don't have a clue about either.

But by <insert deity name, or perverted profanity>, the one thing that must never be allowed to happen is that the political opposition scores some points. If THEY were to displace US as the helmsman of the Ship of State, our income and our comfortable retirement years would be threatened. We might not be able to afford our comfortable nest on the Bosporus, no wait I mean Lake Michigan.

Better arrange to have the Separatists shoot down an airliner, while we take a well-earned vacation on Martha's Vineyard, and get in a few games of golf. Quietly encourage the network newscasters to slip up and use the forbidden terminology "Redskins", while you hope that will distract the public from your foreign affairs bumbling, and WHY can't those damned Israelis be quiet while you suck up to the Sheiks for some more oil, because if gasoline passes $5 per US gallon, or the average Russian can't afford central heat this winter, it's GAME OVER, MAN.

WE have to appear to be in charge, or THEY will take our place. Unthinkable. If only we can keep them distracted until football season is underway....I mean the public becomes obsessed with beating the Germans in the EHL playoffs.....

We could stir the Gun Control soup again, or throw a few Palestinians on the fire, or Hillary Clinton, or do just anything to avoid talking about Healthcare, or the Crimea, or .....

Petroleum and Circuses? Natural gas and Circuses? Bread and "nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Russki's"?

Find out where that old Nazi nut Strangelove is, please. He's the only one that'll salvage the next election. We have to keep our priorities. Because we are running out of cheap oil, and pretty soon everybody will notice, unless we can keep them distracted.

[Sixstrings]

The air incursions and bomber test runs have gotten worse, since this thread:

U.S., allies scramble jets almost daily to repel Russian incursions

Russian military provocations have increased so much over the seven months since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine that Washington and its allies are scrambling defense assets on a nearly daily basis in response to air, sea and land incursions by Vladimir Putin’s forces.

Not only is Moscow continuing to foment unrest in Eastern Ukraine, U.S. officials and regional security experts say Russian fighter jets are testing U.S. reaction times over Alaska and Japan’s ability to scramble planes over its northern islands — all while haunting Sweden’s navy and antagonizing Estonia’s tiny national security force.

“What’s going on is a radical escalation of aggressive Russian muscle flexing and posturing designed to demonstrate that Russia is no longer a defeated power of the Cold War era,” says Ariel Cohen, who heads the Center for Energy, National Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington.

“The more we retreat, the more we are encouraging Russia to behave in a more aggressive way,” Mr. Cohen said. “We need to be engaging more deeply with our Central Asian allies, but instead we are in the process of abandoning turf to Russia, and it’s wrong — it’s against our interests geopolitically to let Russia feel that they all of a sudden have won all the turf without firing a shot.”

The Obama administration resists such characterizations, asserting that the White House is doing anything but “retreating.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/23/vladimir-putin-emboldened-by-weak-us-response-to-r/

Obama admin is weak on Russia.

We're going to have to stand up, at some point, and rattle some sabres back at them.

I think more should be done for Ukraine -- that's a good place to counter Russia and annoy them -- other than that, I guess I'm okay not much being done until Russia really goes over the line and does something outrageous and there's an incident.

Like the jet liner shot down -- yes, I know it was an accident and they didn't do it on purpose but it's still their fault.

If that had been a US airliner filled with Americans then for the US that would be the "over the line" moment.

FBI says the Russian gov was behind the JP Morgan / banking hack. That was a major cyberattack.

So that moment is coming, guys -- they will do something big. This stuff will keep escalating until it's something big and then the US will have to respond. And if Obama won't, and Democrats are weak on it, then folks will vote R in '16.

So there ya go that's my prediction, check back in two years and see that I was right.