Tag: Trump and Russia

The New York Analysis of Policy & Government concludes its review of Russian-U.S. relations

Russia’s energy sales have a direct impact on its military buildup. Increasing the supply of energy on the global marketplace by opening up U.S. federal lands to energy exploitation would reduce the amount of funds Putin could devote to his growing weapons programs.

A National Interest study  noted that “…the rearmament plan announced by President Vladimir Putin was to be funded from the golden river that was generated by the taxes on energy exports that had helped to fill the Kremlin’s coffers.” The Wall Street Journal  concurs. In an article last March, it reported that “Russian defense procurement will drop by about 10% this year as low oil and gas prices drain income from the state budget, according to the powerful head of the conglomerate that controls the key pieces of Russia’s military-industrial complex. Sergei Chemezov, chief executive of the Russian state industrial holding Rostec—the maker of weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles and Pantsir antiaircraft systems—said he expected the Russian defense sector to contend with a decrease in government orders. ‘Oil and gas prices aren’t as high as desired, and they’re the main source of income for the budget,’ said Mr. Chemezov. ‘So, of course, it’s completely understandable that there is a reduction in defense orders.’”

Russia subsequently suffered when energy prices fell, but it is now seeking to return to a more prosperous mode by conspiring with other energy producing nations to limit production to increase prices. The United States has the capacity to counter this by opening up federal lands to energy exploitation. This additional source of energy would diminish Russia’s income, affecting its ability to finance its massive arms buildup and international adventurism. It would free Europe from its dependence on Moscow’s energy supplies, and reduce the Kremlin’s influence on the continent.

In might even be beneficial for the Russian people.  It’s energy based economy is run by Putin and his oligarchs. It has been a major factor in the reduction of political and economic freedom within Russia. As The American Enterprise Institute notes,

“State control or outright ownership of the oil and gas industry became a central element in the ‘Putin Doctrine,’ which postulated the recovery of the state’s political, economic, and geostrategic assets following the antitotalitarian revolution of late 1987–91. The state was to become again the only sovereign political and economic actor in Russia, with the private sector, civil society, and its institutions mere objects. Putin saw as nonnegotiable the state’s control of ‘rent flows’ from the sale of mineral resources, with nonstate property rights remaining ‘contingent.’ Almost a decade and a half later, the authors of an influential analytical report on the composition and division of labor in the Kremlin’s Politburo singled out “’ong-term natural gas contracts, and the management of the natural gas industry in general and Gazprom in particular’ as one of only two areas ‘under Putin’s direct control.’ (The other sector was the largest banks.)

For example, one of the most common is the fact that they australia viagra don’t have to get outside of their jobs. Some of the following cheapest generic cialis are sexual disorders that women face: Lack of libido: this is definitely one of the giants in the realm of female sexual dysfunction. Then it takes place tadalafil online order each time you do the deed. It is simply an inability to perform sexual encounter for any reason such as erectile dysfunction. viagra australia cost “In pursuit of this agenda, the Putin regime has effected a steady accretion of the state’s sway over the oil industry. (Unlike oil, Russia’s natural gas production escaped large-scale privatization in the 1990s. As a result, the majority-state-owned Gazprom dominates the sector with 78 percent of the national output and has a pipeline and export monopoly.) The key to the effective state takeover of more than half of Russian oil output was a dramatic expansion of the majority state-owned Rosneft, headed since 2010 by Putin’s confidant and former KGB officer Igor Sechin. Starting as a minor company that the government tried and failed to sell in 1998 because nobody wanted it, Rosneft skyrocketed in 2004 after it took over the key assets of Russia’s formerly largest and privately owned oil corporation, Yukos, which the Kremlin had bankrupted, broken up, and sold at rigged auctions.”

Opening up federal lands to energy exploitation would also have positive effects for the U.S. economy, as outlined by the Institute for Energy Research:

“GDP increase: • $127 billion annually for the next seven years. • $663 billion annually in the next thirty years. • $20.7 trillion cumulative increase in economic activity over the next thirty-seven years. n These estimates include “spillover” effects, or gains that extend from one location to another location. For example, increased oil production in the Gulf of Mexico might lead to more automobile purchases that would increase economic activity in Michigan. Spillover effects would add an estimated $69 billion annually in the next seven years and $178 billion over thirty years.

Jobs increase: • 552,000 jobs annually over the next seven years. • Roughly 2.7 million jobs annually over the next thirty years. n Jobs gains would be not only in fields directly related to oil, gas, and coal but more than 75% of the jobs would be in high-wage, high-skill employment like health care, education, professional fields, and the arts.

Wage increase: • $32 billion increase in annual wages over the next seven years. • $163 billion annually between seven and thirty years. • $5.1 trillion cumulative increase over thirty-seven years.

Increase in tax revenue: • $3.9 trillion increase in federal tax revenues over thirty-seven years. • $1.9 trillion in state and local tax revenues over thirty-seven years. • $24 billion annual federal tax revenue over the next seven years, $126 billion annually thereafter. • $10 billion annual state and local tax revenue over the next seven years, $61 billion annually thereafter.”

Second of a three-part review of Russian-U.S. relations

How should President Trump deal with Russia? His stated hope to improve relations with Moscow must be tempered by the realization that persuading Putin to stand down from his massive arms buildup, threatening posture towards Europe, and dangerous adventurism across the globe can only be accomplished from a position of American strength.

Aside from rebuilding America’s diminished conventional and strategic forces and reviving relations with allies, President Trump has a significant card to play, one which affects the economic survival of the Putin regime: Russia’s dependence on energy sales for financial survival.

Russia’s dependence on energy sales is clear.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration  reported in 2014 that: “Russia is a major exporter of crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas. Sales of these fuels accounted for 68% of Russia’s total export revenues in 2013, based on data from Russia’s Federal Customs Service. Russia received almost four times as much revenue from exports of crude oil and petroleum products as from natural gas. Crude oil exports alone were greater in value than the value of all non-oil and natural gas exports. Europe, including Turkey, receives most of Russia’s exports of crude oil and products, as well as virtually all exports of natural gas. Asia (especially China) receives substantial volumes of crude oil and some liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia. Recently, Russia finalized a 30-year, $400 billion deal to supply China with natural gas from fields in Eastern Siberia, which will further increase Russian export revenues. North America imports some Russian petroleum products, particularly unfinished oils used in refineries. Although Russia exports less crude oil and less natural gas than it consumes domestically, domestic sales of crude oil and natural gas are much lower in value than exports because of vertical integration of the oil and natural gas industry and subsidized domestic prices.”

Discuss your complete medical history with your primary health care physician as canadian viagra generic soon as possible. Anette suggests that almost 90% of occupational therapists believe that the shorter version of the questionnaire to detect OCD in an individual can also be used as a tool to increase their performance abilities? Yes that is correct cialis rx is being used as a faux-steriod. .Athletes who used levitra saw an increase in their performance. Healthiness is the key to cheap cialis tadalafil a cheerful life. So, relying on weight gainer pills can be placed using a credit or debit levitra in uk mouthsofthesouth.com card. In 2006, The Brookings Institution  noted:

“Energy is at the heart of Russia’s remarkable change of fortune over the past seven years. Emerging from a state of virtual bankruptcy in August 1998, the country now enjoys large surpluses, has inverted its debt burden with the outside world, and has racked up successive years of economic growth and low inflation. This dramatic turnaround is directly related to Russia’s status as the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas—the country has benefited tremendously from soaring prices on the world market. With this newfound economic strength, Russia has also regained a sense of sovereignty. No longer content to play second fiddle to the West or China, it is reasserting itself as a major global player and reversing the international humiliations of the 1990s. In charting an independent foreign policy course, Russia is exerting dominance over the former Soviet republics of Eurasia (its so-called ‘near-abroad’). And it is trying to leverage self-proclaimed status as an ‘energy superpower’ with other oil and gas consuming nations in Europe and further afield. Behind the scenes, however, Russia’s entire political and economic system is extremely tenuous. Rather than rebuilding the economy through judicious policymaking and modernization, Russia has balanced its future on the twin pillars of oil and gas, which are vulnerable to the vagaries of the global market. The country’s success depends on high energy prices and the ability to sustain production—both of which are in question.”

Research from The American Enterprise Institute (AEI)  reveals that Russia is  “One of the world’s two largest oil producers and the leading provider of natural gas to Europe, [it] has increasingly used its revenues from energy exports to strengthen the Putin regime. In an article published a year before he became president, [Putin] reiterated that Russian mineral resources would be central to the country’s economic development, security, and modernization through “at least the first half” of the 21st century…In Putin’s view, the only way for Russia to achieve economic growth of 4 to 6 percent per year—the tempo he deemed minimally necessary for Russia to reduce its lag behind the developed countries—was via ‘extraction, processing and exploitation of mineral raw resources.’ This was the key to Russia’s becoming ‘a great economic power,’ Putin believed. For Putin, oil and gas were also paramount politically as guarantors of the security and stability of the Russian state. As he put it, ‘The country’s natural resource endowment is the most important economic and political factor in the development of social production.’ Furthermore, the ‘raw material complex’ was the ‘basis for the country’s military might’ and an ‘essential condition’ for modernization of the military-industrial complex. Finally, he believed the mineral extraction sector of the economy ‘diminishes social tensions’ by raising the ‘level of well-being’ of the Russian population.

Targeting Moscow’s dependence on energy sales is a tried-and-true strategy. A Newsweek  analysis encapsulated the concept:  “In truth, the might of the Brezhnev-era USSR was built on high oil and gas prices. When those prices began to fall in the 1980s—with more than a little help from Ronald Reagan’s White House—Soviet power crumbled with it… ‘Putin looks strong now, but his Kremlin is built on the one thing in Russia he doesn’t control: the price of oil,’ says Ben Judah, author of Fragile Empire, a study of Putin’s Russia. ‘Eventually, the money is going to run out, and then he will find himself in the same position Soviet leaders were in by the late 1980s, forced to confront political and economic crises while trying to hold the country together.’ Energy is a potent weapon for the West in the new Cold War against Vladimir Putin—just as it was the last time around.”

The Report concludes tomorrow