With all that has transpired over the last quarter, even as far back as December 2013, in the Ukraine, I’ve held my peace. As a student of history and having some Slavic ancestry I have a better than average American understanding of Eastern European history, culture, economics, and political structure. Over the course of the last three months I’ve been studying the situation and the hidden complexities as they unfold in the Ukraine and particularly in Russia. While the common history of this region is too complex and detailed to get into in this short article, it would behoove the readership to study it in detail to understand how we got to where we are at the moment. The relationship of Russia and the Ukraine over the centuries has been at best mutually rewarding and at worst a love-hate relationship. Suffice it to say that the eruption of visible conflict in the Ukraine is but a symptom of a long process that has been ongoing since the days of the Cold War. Essentially, it is a conflict between the East and West; specifically between the U.S.A. and Russia and her former Soviet satellites. At its heart lies the Petro-dollar, this was imposed on the world when President Richard M. Nixon ended the gold-back US Dollar, making it the new reserve currency of the world.
This latest manifestation pits two key players in head-to-head positions on opposite sides of each other’s vital interests. It is Putin vs. Obama, but such a match is like Steve Urkel against Chuck Norris. Obviously, the former KGB colonel, Vladimir Putin, with all that position implies, is leagues above the incompetent, effeminate, clumsy, insipid, idealistic, inexperienced Barack Obama. This, however, is but where we stand today. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall we’ve essentially been backing Russia and its still loyal former Republics into a corner; for example, President Reagan assured Gorbechev that NATO would not pursue the formerWarsaw Pact nations to join if Communism fell, and this held until 1994 when President Clinton went back on this promise actively recruiting nations like Poland, Moldavia, Romania, Georgia, and others to join NATO. Ever since we have gradually been encircling Russia with an implied threat by placing strategic missiles in these former
Soviet satellites; this strategy worked while Russia and its allies worked through the transition period of want in the decade of the 1990’s. The breadlines, so profuse in the Western media depictions at the time, are long since gone. Indeed, Russia has emerged, once again, as a formidable world power, and not as the West chooses to portray it as a regional power. Their large oil and gas reserves, which Europe craves and uses, has given them a bargaining chip that the Obama Administration chooses to ignore.
Additionally, since the Petro-dollar is the reserve currency in most energy transactions worldwide the Russians, together with China, have a rather largeGreenbackreserve. To ignore this would be at the peril of the American economy, because we are put in a vulnerable position in two ways. First, the Russians and Chinese can begin to dump Greenbackswhich will not only release inflation here at home but also hyperinflation. Second, the Russians and Chinese, and many other energy producing nations can simply announce that they will now sell their gas and oil in the currency of the buyer. This would have the same effect as dumping Greenbackswithout the obvious aggressive stance. It also is very attractive to our European allies because it would allow trade in homegrown currency eliminating the necessary purchasing of the Petro-dollarthereby effectively lowering the cost of energy at home at least temporarily. This will prove to be a very divisive factor among our allies in Europe and elsewhere.
Obama’s Executive Order of imposing sanctions against the Russians in general and specific political and business people will be just the action to kick off such reactions on the part of the Russians, Chinese, Iran, and others literally plunging the US economy into chaos with the possibility of an “American Spring” similar to North Africa since 2010 here at home.
Meantime, America is also presenting a carrot in the form of IMF loans to the Ukraine, but such an offer is not without a myriad of strings attached … just ask Greece how their IMFloans worked out!
Overall, the Obama Administration is playing a dangerous game of Cat and Mouse with the Russians … and he is no Jack Kennedy. The sanctions he is imposing come at a time when our economic wellbeing is solidly in the hands of others rather than within our own grasp. If, no more likely when, they decide that they have had enough of playing with an amateur statesman like Barack Obama they will set in motion a series of events that will cause a global economic depression that will have the most devastating effect here in the U.S.A.
Obama through his Executive Order of sanctions against Russia may have lit the fuse of a nuclear economic powder keg which will have Armageddon-like ripple effects throughout the globe. That said, the famous Steve Urkel line of: “Did I do that?” will not serve to mitigate the devastation. So prepare, check your food stores, set up your gardens, because we are about to enter uncharted and uncertain times.
Pray the Rosary of the Virgin Mary that the Bishops of the world along with the Pope my finally, finally consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She is our final recourse.
Richard of Danbury, D.S.G.
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