The war drums are beating loudly. The Biden administration is desperate to turn the nation’s attention away from their blundering efforts. Deep state goons and their media mouthpieces are breathlessly reporting that an invasion of Ukraine by Russia is “imminent”. I find this highly doubtful but first, a history lesson…
Beginning at the turn of the century, Russia was in deep turmoil. 1905 saw the first Russian Revolution. There was a wave of political and social unrest. Worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies led to constitutional reform. The Tsar, Nicholas II was able to keep his rule but it was not meant to last. In 1917, the Bolsheviks, lead by Lenin, overthrew the Russian Empire and Nicholas II abdicated the throne. This was not enough for the communists, as they slaughtered the Tsar and his family a year later. This ushered in the era of the USSR.
The communists were able to hold the union together for many decades under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. However, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics began to crack under the pressure of the post-Cold War era. 1989 saw the Warsaw Pact countries overthrow their communist governments. This included Albania, Bulgaria, Czechia and Slovakia (which at the time was one country, Czechoslovakia), Hungary, Poland, and Romania. The era of communism was swiftly deteriorating. The three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) declared their independence from the USSR in 1990. Then in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev made it official and dissolved the Soviet Union. All remaining republics separated from the USSR. They became independent post-Soviet states. This included Ukraine.
The quick dissolution led to the world maps being redrawn. However, many of the people being drawn into a new country did not have views that aligned with that country’s government and still recognized themselves as Russian citizens. This was especially true in Ukraine and it came to a head in 2013-2014.
In November of 2013 Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych suspended the preparations for Ukraine to join the European Union. President Yanukovych was highly respected by Ukrainian citizens in eastern and southern Ukraine (who still recognized themselves as Russian citizens) but the suspension of the EU agreement brought on the ire of western Ukrainians and the US’s State Department/CIA.
Protests sponsored by the US State Department and facilitated by Victoria Nuland caused unrest in the capital. By February, these protests had boiled over into a full on revolution and overthrow of the Ukrainian government. This led to widespread protests in eastern and southern Ukraine of people who did not want to see Yanukovych removed and did not want to join the European Union. It eventually led to the establishment of self-proclaimed proto-states of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
This conflict between the east and west in Ukraine continued to smolder. A ceasefire was agreed to and it lead to a tentative reprieve of armed conflict. That is until Biden was elected president. With Biden in office, the State Department/CIA went back to work in Ukraine. The administration made arms deals with the Ukrainian government and it has been sending them weapons along with drones and other sophisticated military hardware. When a government gets new fancy weapons they like to use them. No sense letting them gather dust. This was proven true again in Ukraine. As soon as October, Ukraine was using drones against the people in Luhansk.
Russia soon realized what was going to take place. The US was going to supply Ukraine with weapons so that they could systematically annihilate the people of south and eastern Ukraine. Those people who see themselves as Russians first and Ukrainians second. A genocide on your border is worth paying attention to and Russia reacted swiftly. They began amassing troops on their border for an eventual mass migration of people out of eastern Ukraine and into Russia.
Russia gains nothing and loses everything by invading Ukraine. The only thing Russia cares about are the Russian people in eastern Ukraine. They’ve already secured Crimea with a formal Crimean referendum back in 2014. This led to sanctions by western nations but the move was seen as a done deal as the people of Crimea voted on it and wanted it. Now the US is attempting to poke the Russian bear one more time.
I don’t believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin will fall into the trap. He is much smarter than many in the west give him credit for. Even with repeated sanctions, which caused a recession in Russia, the Russian people are still strongly supportive of Putin.
Also, Vladimir has been active on the chessboard of international relations. Russia is part of the OPEC+ alliance which gets them in with Saudi Arabia, as well as the other mid-east oil producing nations. He has continued to develop a relationship with China. In addition, Russia has an abundance of natural gas. With Europe’s backward ‘green’ policies, it has given Russia the upper hand in negotiations with the European Union. The gas pipelines that run to Europe are much more important to Europeans than they are to Russia.
I’m not sure many realize this fact yet but we are swiftly facing an energy crisis around the world. Nations that produce a surplus of energy are going to be highly desirable trade partners. This would put Russia in a very advantageous position. Goading Russia into armed conflict is not going to happen unless Russia’s territorial integrity is violated. The war drums may beat louder and media mouthpieces for the war lobby may flap their gums but nothing happening in Ukraine will push Russia to invade. They are prepared for a different kind of invasion, an invasion of eastern Ukrainians into Russia.
Friday gave us a peek at what would happen to the market in the instance of war breaking out. The major market indices sold off while gold, silver, and oil (SOG) shot-up. If the war drums keep beating and Ukraine continues to act belligerently towards their population in the east, I expect this pressure on the market to continue. If there is any relief and walking back of war rhetoric, expect the correction to go the other way with indices rallying and SOG faltering.