PCR: They are running a risk. We already know that the US has announced a pivot to Asia, reallocating 60% of the American navy to the South China Sea to control the flow of resources on which China depends. The US is contracting to build a series of new air and naval bases running from the Philippines to Vietnam in order to block China.
We have witnessed this century the US withdraw from the ABM treaty with Russia. We witnessed the US construct an ABM system and began deploying it on Russia's borders. The purpose of an ABM is to neutralize the strategic deterrent of the other country.
We've seen the US change its war doctrine, nuclear weapons are no longer to be used only in retaliation to an attack. They are now a preemptive first-strike force. This is clearly directed at Russia. The Ukraine is directed at Russia. So, the war is already started, it is underway. That's what the Ukraine is about. It is the war against Russia.
And the war against China is in preparation. The US takes the side of every country that gets into a dispute with China, even over small things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the US.
The US is surrounding both countries with military bases. The US wants to put Georgia, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin that was part of Russia for two or three hundred years, they want to put that into NATO. They are going to put Ukraine into NATO.
Washington broke all the agreements that Reagan and Gorbachev had about not taking NATO into eastern Europe. NATO is now in the Baltics. It is all across eastern Europe. The former members of the Warsaw pact are now members of NATO.
So, the war is already underway, it is clear. The US has been preparing for years. And the Russians, they must be aware of this. If they are not, they are in really deep trouble.
VOR: Can the US afford it?
PCR: Of course! Sure! The reserve currency can pay its bills by printing money. And that's what Washington does. Washington prints the money.
VOR: But like you said, that creates a lot of risks.
PCR: Until the reserve currency role is lost, there is no limit. Recently I read that one of the advisors to Putin said that Russia needs to form some kind of alliance with other countries and bring down the dollar as the world reserve currency, that this is the only way to stop Washington's military aggression. Of course, he is completely right. But the question is -- can they organize something that quick enough that succeeds -- because Europe is an American puppet state. Those European governments are not independent. They are no more independent than Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Poland were of the Soviet Communist Party. And Japan is a puppet state, it is not an independent country.
So, if you have the euro backing the dollar and you have the yen backing the dollar, that's a fairly strong position to be in. And so, it is going to be difficult for Russia and China or whoever is interested to make inroads in any sort of a rapid way.
And yet, we can see... look what happened in Ukraine. Russia was focused on the Olympics and the US stole Ukraine. Russia was paying no attention, somehow the Sochi Olympics were more important. So, what happened -- Washington reached in, stole Ukraine. Now, this is a tremendous problem for the Russian Government, for Putin, for his leadership.
Putin has asked the Russia Duma to rescind the permission to use the Russian troops in Ukraine. So, clearly, he is acting in a very restrained way. He is trying to avoid conflict. He probably realizes that the conflict will be much more dangerous to everybody than the neoconservatives in Washington think.
But the question is -- will Putin be able to avoid conflict? What will Washington think? Will they think -- oh, this is a very reasonable man, we can make a deal. Or will they think -- look, he is scared, Russia is weak, lets' push forward.
VOR: It is interesting! I remember that George W. Bush in an interview to the Wall Street Journal towards the end of his second term said something about Putin, which was rather surprising to hear from him. He said that Putin never failed him on any of his promises. So, the assessment was rather positive than negative.
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