SpaceX Wins Injunction Against Russian Rocket Purchases 166
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Reuters is reporting that Space Exploration Technologies, aka SpaceX, has won a Federal Claims Court temporary injunction against the purchase by United Launch Alliance of Russian-made rocket boosters, intended for use by the United States Air Force. In her ruling Judge Susan Braden prohibited ULA and the USAF, 'from making any purchases from or payment of money to [Russian firm] NPO Energomash.' United Launch Alliance is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin."
Oh how the mighty have fallen (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Oh how the mighty have fallen (Score:5, Insightful)
This case turns the usual defense procurement bugaboo on its head.
Not really.
This decision won't stand. The DOD will not let some meddlesome judge stand in the way of a security need, and friendlier judges will quickly overturn it. (It was a temporary injunction anyway).
Look people, this is just to get their (Air Force's) attention. It isn't going to be a permanent thing, by simply making headlines it has served its purpose. (Note that the Russian's will probably block the sale anyway soon).
DOD will promise to revise the bidding, they may also tell Pratt and Whitney to start manufacturing these engines in western countries (P&W bought the license to do this a long time ago, but it was never economic to do so in the past). This isn't particularly difficult tech to build when all of the plans and specs are already in US hands due to long existing licensing deals.
But mostly, the purpose was an attention grab, to demonstrate how stupid it is to encourage US companies to develop lift capabilities and then turn around and buy Russian made engines on a sole source contract.
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This isn't particularly difficult tech to build when all of the plans and specs are already in US hands due to long existing licensing deals.
The RD-180 is a staged combustion LOX/RP-1 rocket engine with an oxygen rich pre-burner. Until the 1990s Oxidizer-rich staged combustion had been considered by American engineers, but deemed impossible. [wikipedia.org]
It is particularly difficult tech. To get the metallurgy and the coating right to withstand pressurized hot oxygen isn't simply a matter of plans and specs. It's about experience.
It's far from impossible but it will take a lot of money and time to produce a reliable RD-180 eninge in the US.
Re:Oh how the mighty have fallen (Score:4, Informative)
Utter nonsense.
Look, we all acknowledge the accomplishments Mother Russia, OK?
But stop trying to make out that this is either high tech or difficult to make. Its a very basic simple design (as is almost all Russian space hardware), simply scaled up.
Engines with the exact same principal of operation powered the Shuttle [wikipedia.org]. It had the additional requirement of being reusable. SpaceX already has the Raptor engine [wikipedia.org] in production and testing.
The metallurgy is not a particular impediment, because it was already developed for prior rocket motors (F1 [wikipedia.org]) as far back as the 50s.
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With respect, it's rocket science you oaf and not just running a cable. It may not be the acme of rockets but it's still had more care and effort put into it than anything you can buy at Walmart, a car dealer or even a used aeroplane auction.
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The F1 engine uses a gas generator cycle and thus as lower perfor
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But mostly, the purpose was an attention grab, to demonstrate how stupid it is to encourage US companies to develop lift capabilities and then turn around and buy Russian made engines on a sole source contract.
If these really are essential for national defense, then they should be sourced entirely within the US, or they should at the very least have a number of suppliers from a diverse set of nations (so that no matter what side of a war we end up on, somebody is still willing to sell them to us). That's why Israel deals with both the US and Russia - they're too small to build EVERYTHING themselves so they diversify so that neither "side" can cut them off entirely.
The US is large enough that there really is no e
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I save my best editing for people who pay me.
Re:Oh how the mighty have fallen (Score:4, Insightful)
Unable? This is about maximizing profit, not ability. They looked into domestic production of this engine and decided to save the billion or so dollars. Looking at this court decision, they may have made the right decision if they get stuck competing with a lower-cost provider of launches.
I'm not sure that SpaceX will prevail in the short term. Ostensibly, the reason the military is willing to pay the Alliance so much is they can't insure their satellites, so they need a very reliable launch vehicle instead. Perhaps SpaceX will prove to be very reliable, but they aren't there yet.
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And of course it's in the U.S. interest to make sure the Russians have an active and completely up-to-date source of rocket engines for their nuclear missles.
In this vein, I wonder what it is we are paying the Chinese to do?
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Perhaps SpaceX will prove to be very reliable, but they aren't there yet.
There's 50% of the problem. SpaceX can test all they want to proven launch worthiness, but it how they handle problems with their systems that the customer is looking at--which they have minimal experience in compared to the ULA. It's the [stupid] man-years advertisement.
Now the other 50% is that DoD likely loves their current political and economic arrangement they have with ULA, so changing that will ripple to all suppliers... and ha
steal the designs (Score:2, Insightful)
If it was just about the designs would could steal any number of them from ourselves (50 years of rocket engine designs to choose from). The issue appears to be the ability to manufacture, which we seem to have lost and would require time & money to restart. All that is except for SpaceX, they appear to build their engine in house. The Merlin engine is a bit less efficient than the RD-180 but its the most efficient hydrocarbon engine developed in the US.
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Wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Guess those Russian trampolines aren't so good after all.
Why (Score:5, Informative)
The summary doesn't mention anything about "WHY" they made this ruling or why there was a lawsuit in the first place.
USAF awarded Russia a no-bid contract on 36 rocket boosters. SpaceX filed suit requesting consideration for the contract. The court filed an injunction to prevent sales being made while the trial moves forward.
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Aerospace is a decades old pile of pork and graft. Contracts are awarded to whoever can bribe congress critters the best.
SpaceX can make some noise here. There's probably a lot of cold war era laws regarding requirements for defense projects to be US manufactured.
I mean really. Cheap imported Russian rockets resold by a cold war era aerospace dinosaur vs an all-American entrepreneur company?
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I mean really. Cheap imported Russian rockets resold by a cold war era aerospace dinosaur vs an all-American entrepreneur company?
Russian rocket engines. The rest of the rocket is manufactured in America, but the engines (arguably the most critical part though) is made in Russia.
Re:Why (Score:4, Informative)
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The contract will probably be re-opened, and this temporary injunction is mostly aimed at doing just that.
DOD will not let it stand in the way of their mission critical launches.
When security critical payloads need to be put in orbit this ruling goes away without a whimper.
To paraphrase Joseph Stalin: "How many divisions does the Court of Federal Claims have?"
DOD and Launch Alliance has nothing to worry about from the Court or from SpaceX. They SHOULD be worried about Putin.
Re:Why (Score:5, Interesting)
The ULA boosters are Lockheed's Atlas V (with the Russian RD-180 engine), and the Boeing Delta IV (which, I believe uses the Rocketdyne RS-68).
However, Boeing has pulled the Delta IV from the market, so there will be a limited number of these launched in the future.
I think that Boeing's decision was one of the reasons that prompted the launch-services merger. The RS-68 was expensive to develop, (and expensive to fly; part of that was the choice to use hydrogen+LOX, instead of kerosene+LOX like the RD-180) - and they weren't making enough profit on the launches, and were ready to bail from the market entirely; while Lockheed's decision to use the RD-180 saved them money - it made them the only player in the medium/heavy launch market.
One thing about the Delta IV; is that it had capabilities that Atlas does not have, like in-air restarts, better reliability, more accurate payload delivery. Don't get me wrong, I think that both vehicles have their merits. The market will suffer with the loss of the Delta IV; and hopefully SpaceX can help, but SpaceX's goal is going to be cheaper launches, and it remains to be seen whether Falcon can deliver any of those features. (the other question about Falcon, is whether they can deliver the Heavy Lift capability which is a HUGE gap right now. Both Atlas and Delta have flown in "heavy" configurations - both of which are essentially "hacks" - but no worse than Ares was going to be).
Re:Why (Score:4, Insightful)
However, Boeing has pulled the Delta IV from the market, so there will be a limited number of these launched in the future.
Got a citation on that? Last I heard there was no definitive plan to end the Delta IV program, in fact it would be insane considering Atlas' precarious engine situation.
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SpaceX Falcon boosters are already quite capable of in-air restart; it's a critical part of their reusable first-stage design (the first stage re-lights at low elevation for a powered touchdown). As for accuracy of payloads, that's one of the critical requirements for ISS transfer, which they have demonstrated repeatedly now. Reliability remains to be seen; they've had no catastrophic failures yet (and they've had at least one sub-last-second automatic launch scrub when the computers detected a problem) but
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I think it is funny to no end for SpaceX to bring out the Obama administration executive orders about prohibiting purchase of parts or supplies from Russia.... and in particularly prohibiting any sort of renumeration toward Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin by name.
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Like hell it should. SpaceX was late to the party, and like everyone else should wait for the next round.
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As with anything environmentally friendly (LH2/LOX), it is stupidly expensive.
And some things are not as environmentally friendly as they might appear. Bulk H2 is produced from natural gas.
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I don't think this will be an issue much longer giving the current state of relations between the US and Russia. As US sanctions continue to ramp up they will start sanctioning entire industries instead of just sticking it to Russia's wealthy elite. They have already cancelled a contract for Russia to provide 10 refurbished helicopters to Afghanistan. The only reason Russia has not mentioned down sizing the cooperation on the ISS is because the US currently owes them over $470 million for their launch serv
New Motto (Score:2)
From "Ad astra per aspera" to "Ad astra per embargo" apparently.
As long as you ignore the facts. Re:New Motto (Score:2)
What good timing (Score:2)
Just as Russia resurrects the Solvet holiday of May Day
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
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May day isn't a soviet holiday, it's originally an American Holiday for American unions.
To quote the almighty wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]
The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) refers to the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square[2] in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers by the police, the previous day. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.
The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant as the origin of international May Day observances for workers.[7][8] The site of the incident was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1992,[9] and a public sculpture was dedicated there in 2004. In addition, the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument at the defendants' burial site in nearby Forest Park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997.[10]
"No single event has influenced the history of labor in Illinois, the United States, and even the world, more than the Chicago Haymarket Affair. It began with a rally on May 4, 1886, but the consequences are still being felt today. Although the rally is included in American history textbooks, very few present the event accurately or point out its significance," according to labor studies professor William J. Adelman.[11]
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Apparently you did not live through the cold war. It is traditionally the Workers Day, yes, but the parade was of a military nature as well.
Not a good sign they are returning to the USSR ways.
Next the Gulags will reopen, and maybe a good old fasioned Stalinist purge too?
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It's a generic Spring Festival event. Maypoles, Whitsun and all sort of other "Oh look - It's sunny" events predate the cold war, haymarket and other modern stuff by hundreds and thousands of years.
As with Easter, Christmas and the solstices, the dates aren't relevant, they just take a ride on existing festivals.
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No, it is not. Unless you include tanks, AA missiles, ICBMs and giant formations of soldiers as "festive"
I suggest you do a little Googling to understand what May Day in Red Square is specifically about.
And btw, May Day was not celebrated, it was banned by the Czars, until Lenin overthrew the Government:
May Day was celebrated illegally in Russia until the February Revolution enabled the first legal celebration in 1917. The following year, after the Bolshevik seizure of power, the May Day celebrations were b
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May day isn't a soviet holiday, it's originally an American Holiday for American unions.
America isn't the only country to have May day. In fact it's rather late to the party.
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I swear, they teach you kids nothing in school.
May Day in Red Square is a SOVIET holiday, traditionally showing off the latest military hardware, like ICBMs, tanks, cruise missles, huge formations of men, jet fighter flyovers.
Not much there for the "common man" except to intimidate them into towing the line.
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May day in Britain, Germany and other European countries has been going on for centuries.
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I've never seen a maypole in the US either. So they wouldn't have anything to do on May Day.
Calling them on the rhetoric (Score:5, Informative)
ULA prefers Atlas V because it is more profitable for them. But it uses engines from Russia.
The Russian engines are purchased from a company with ties to one of the people targeted by US sanctions against Russia... so the judge has granted the injunction to prevent purchasing those Russian engines.
ULA has a stockpile of some Russian engines already, and they have the (less profitable for them) Delta IV if they can't launch Atlas V for any reason... and running out of engines would be one of those reasons. But ULA would prefer to continue buying engines. But we've been paying them to have both rockets available, so they'd better be able to show up with what they've promised.
Separate from this injunction, SpaceX is asking for a review of the large block by of ULA cores, as it was done just before (a few days before) one of the final milestones of SpaceX being qualified to launch for the air force. I think it's not unreasonable for them to say that it's unacceptable to do a huge purchase when if you wait for a few days you would have multiple vendors competing for the bid.
Even John McCain thinks that contract smells fishy: link [dodbuzz.com]
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media weapons armies banks,,, hard to imagine he acted alone
Hey, man! Don't Godwin capitalism.
Why are you hater on the FREE MARKET? :-)
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>Hey, man! Don't Godwin capitalism.
That's what Goebbels said to Hitler in 1933.
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media weapons armies banks,,, hard to imagine he acted alone
It's the mainstream, "Crazed, Lone Dictator" narrative...
Re:International space hug (Score:4, Funny)
Cookies, a 5th of scotch, an angry monkey, a pack or Marlboros, and a really fast car?
Or ... is that just me?
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Shoot! A fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
-- Slim Fuckin' Pickens, man!
900 quintillion cookies (Score:2)
The difference between theory and practice being...
Cookies, a 5th of scotch, an angry monkey
How many cookies? It takes 900 quintillion cookies [wikia.com] to win over the kitten managers.
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Must not be hitting the "Reset" button hard enough.
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Might as well put quotes around "save money" considering we spend more on the military now than we did during the cold war. (right, "terrerism" replaced communism as an excuse for that)
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Believing it would have been fine had the US overhauled it's foreign policy to be Russia friendly, and not supported renegade insurgencies like the Chechens. Expanding NATO would have been fine had the Russians too been included in it. At that time, Yeltsin was running things, and being more sensitive to Russian sensibilities would have actually allowed for the 'Peace Dividend' to materialize.
But the US continued to slash its military budget while the State Department continued to act like the Kremlin w
Re:Innovation vs rent-seeking (Score:4, Informative)
Um, no. The Air Force gave Russia the contract with zero bidding process. SpaceX literally never had a chance. They're suing for a level playing field where they could bid against Russia in an open process.
The rest of your post is...... well.
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Russia was not given a contract. Check your facts.
Boeing and Lockheed got the contract.
The US (NASA and Air Force) has been buying and using these motors since forever.
The US licensed the technology (Pratt and Whitney), and could build them stateside any time they want. Its just been cheaper to buy them in Russia from the original manufacturers.
Re:Innovation vs rent-seeking (Score:5, Insightful)
SpaceX are fantastic, world-class innovators, but lobbying the government to tilt the playing field their way smacks of rent-seeking.
You're confused. It's called levelling the playing field. What the USAF did was sign a no-bid contract with the Boeing/Lockheed to purchase Russian rocket engines. A huge no-no in the public sphere, if not illegal. The only way to get them to reverse on that was to go to court.
Re:Innovation vs rent-seeking (Score:5, Interesting)
You're confused. It's called levelling the playing field. What the USAF did was sign a no-bid contract with the Boeing/Lockheed to purchase Russian rocket engines. A huge no-no in the public sphere, if not illegal. The only way to get them to reverse on that was to go to court.
It isn't wrong to do sole source contracts as a public entity. I did them when I was working for a state agency several times. The big thing is that you need to demonstrate convincingly (and be willing to back that up in a court room if necessary... like SpaceX is trying to call the bluff here with regards to ULA and the USAF) that the company you are sole sourcing is really the only company which could possibly provide the project being desired.
There are a couple of ways to get that to happen, and one of common methods (IMHO it really is corruption at its finest) is to over specify the technical requirements in such a way that one and only one company could possibly present a bid. For example with a computer, you could require that the computer has certain non-standard connectors, be very specific with an operating system (especially an off-beat OS like QNX), monitors have a 63.224 Hz screen refresh capability (or some other really weird number like this), and other details that exclude anybody else. You can reject any other potential bids simply because they failed to meet the original specification.
That is essentially what ULA has done here with regards to their rocket purchases, and SpaceX is crying foul by pointing out their rockets are just as capable to put up many of the same payloads reliably as well. Once the Falcon Heavy has launched a few times (its first launch may be this year or early next year), SpaceX will literally be able to launch anything ULA has with its inventory of rockets. There are other companies like ATK-Orbital that could conceivably be able to compete as well at least for some of these payloads.
The analogy would be some state college putting out for bid a bunch of Mac computers, and some PC dealer filing protest suggesting their products are just as capable for the applications being done at the college. The Apple dealer would point out that specialized software excludes the PCs, and the finger pointing goes on from there in the protest.
Indeed I think Elon Musk and his lawyers are going to bring up Orbital several times if this goes before a courtroom basically saying "it isn't just us".
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I think where your explanation and analogies fall apart is that no bids were ever done. The problem isn't with a sole-source contract (every individual launch is a sole-source contract) but with an uncompeted sole-source contract. Nobody else was even given an opportunity to try to meet the requirements, over-specified or otherwise.
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His explanation also falls apart about the over-spec'd trivialities.
A PC OS vs a Mac OS is a major difference in how the computer behaves, what software you can run on it. Such a requirements difference in a RFQ could easily be sustained.
An arbitrary monitor refresh rate cannot be shown to be a functionally meaningful requirement. A contract with such a provision would be laughed out of court if a losing bidder were to challenge it. If a bid request is steered to one vendor without a substantial, valid reas
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ULA is trying to make the case that their rockets are indeed as different from those of SpaceX as a Mac is from a PC, hence why the contract doesn't need to go out to a bid. It is also on these kind of mundane details that ULA is furthermore claiming as reasons and rationale for why SpaceX doesn't meet the technical requirements for launching EELV-class payloads.
I didn't say it was a perfect analogy, and since you understand computer technology you see how such a contract bid would be really silly and obvi
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They don't want the government to tilt the playing field their way.
They want to be allowed onto the field at all.
The contract in question was no-compete. There was no bid. The USAF just said 'We're gonna buy some rockets from these guys over here. We're not even considering anyone else.' And SpaceX said 'WTF? Hey judge, shouldn't people be able to compete for this contract?'
And the judge apparently thinks that idea has enough merit to block the no-compete sale while it's thoroughly investigated.
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And the judge apparently thinks that idea has enough merit to block the no-compete sale while it's thoroughly investigated.
That's not at all what happened. The judge did not consider or rule on the merits of the contract at all, nor did the judge block or directly interfere with that contract. The judge considered that ULA intends to buy Russian engines from an individual on the sanctions list, which could be illegal. As such, the injunction is limited to forbidding the purchase of the engines until the proper authorities can decide if the purchases would be sanction violations.
The rest of the contract is (so far) free to move
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rent-seeking is what the car dealers are trying to do to Tesla.
You are one very confused fud spreader.
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You are a complete fucking idiot.
Sounds like a recipe for happiness.
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Er, what?
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Have you not paid any attention to the internal politics in Ukraine in the last year?
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One, they aren't stopping at Crimea.
Two, you haven't addressed the other part of the question.
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I wasn't really trying to answer the questions you've posed, but what the hell, if a nerd cant ran't about news on Slashdot...
Question 1) So far the Russian government has stopped at Crimea, although they do seem to be knocking on other doors...
I'm certainly not defending Russia's actions. It appears that their annexation of Crimea, while popular in Russia and maybe even Crimea is a v
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Have you read the actual memorandum? I did a few weeks back, and it says nothing about anyone countering any violations. The *only* repercussions mentioned are that the signatories will request UN action if nukes are used against the Ukraine.
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There's an old proverb about wine casks and sewage. Putin seems to be applying it here.
For the hard of thinking, Ukraine (and the Baltic states) are the wine casks.
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The justification is "we warned them not to". As soon as it became our position that "we oppose a Russian invasion of Crimea", Obama had an obligation to back his words up.
The sanctions offered did nothing but weaken our credibility and our position. We would have done better to not get involved to begin with, rather than to offer lame, half-hearted, impotent opposition.
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We're talking about a nuclear superpower, what would you have him do?
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Maybe we should have looked taking an actual hard line and cancelled Putin's NetFlix and Amazon Prime subscriptions, or something-- you know, show we really mean it.
How about working with NATO to set up trade sanctions? How about ANYTHING more than weak sanctions against a handful of people who truly dont care?
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Russia lost superpower status a long time ago.
That's cute and all, but today's Russia commands higher power than Soviet Union did. Russia owns the largest oil company in the world. Russia has the power to completely dictate Europe's foreign policy because it supplies enough of Europe's natural gas to be able to grind European economy to a halt. It doesn't have the same consumer or production power as the civilized world. But that is not to say that it has no power. In addition to its ridiculously unproportional influence in Europe, it also commands the world's largest nuclear arsenal and can still manufacture long range bombers and mass-scale traditional arms.
Again: it's a nuclear power. But it's not a superpower. And it's oil influence is questionable because it needs Europe more then Europe needs it, and it's recent actions have been promoting more interest in staying the hell away from Russian gas. It's not like there isn't a whole pile of more pliable middle eastern states who'd like to fill that space in.
It's bombers would be defeated by pretty much any modern AA, and definitely by US systems and tons of countries make small arms. Nobody particularly cares
Cheap words since an invasion is not needed (Score:2)
So the promise to oppose an invasion isn't so bad since it's unlikely to have to be carried out. As for the ignored sanctions looking like weakness and the stupidity of get
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What nation had its lines redrawn along ethnic lines? I'm drawing blank on that one. Poland, along with the Polish corridor was drawn with large German populations in the borders. The same thing happened with a lot of the baltic nations, like Czechoslovakia, which was one of casus belli Hitler used for his early aggressions.
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Yugoslavia? Serbia/Croatia/B-H/Montegr0
Czechoslovakia? Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Crimea, Kosovo & Srpska (Score:2)
Uh, that's only implemented for some people, not others. For instance, Kosovo has been forcibly separated from Serbia b'cos Albanians are a majority there who don't want to be a part of Serbia. However, at the same time, in Bosnia, the region of Srpska, which is heavily Serb and whose people want to join Serbia, has been disallowed from doing so.
The West opened a can of worms on Kosovo, and Russia just proved the logic in Crimea, which NATO can't do a thing about. If only the Russians can back up the S
Crimean polls (Score:2)
The Palestine analogy - FAIL!!! (Score:2)
Especially when a lot of those boundaries were laid in place as land-grabs by the winners. Israel anyone? Yeah, don't mind us, we're just going to take this chunk of what's been your land for a millenium, including your most sacred religious sites and your entire Mediterranean sea border, and give it to a bunch of our allies who happen to also have a major axe to grind against you. Your team lost the war, so Suck It Up. We like hamstringing your economy and having a strong military base in the middle of your territory.
I'm not getting the Israel analogy here. Historically, the Jews never left the area, and post WWI, European Jews, who were @ the receiving end of pogroms, be it from Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox kingdoms, moved to Palestine where they bought land way above market rates from the local Arabs. In the meantime, due to WWII and the holocaust, support for the Zionist idea of creating a Jewish state where all Jews could live w/o fear of persecution, increased. No Arabs were displaced by Jews - most were
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Memorandum, not treaty. It's more a declaration of intent than binding law. I'm sure Ukraine would have liked a defense treaty in exchange for giving up their nukes, but they didn't get one. And if you read the memorandum, you'll see it's pretty toothless as well: Yes, this is from wikipedia, but I can't be bothered to dig up the original text - I did so several weeks back when I was arguing your position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
According to the memorandum, Russia, the U.S., and the UK confirmed, in recognition of Ukraine becoming party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and in effect abandoning its nuclear arsenal to Russia, that they would:
Respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within its existing borders.
Refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine.
Refrain from using economic pressure on Ukraine in order to influence its politics.
Seek United Nations Security Council action if nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine.
Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Ukraine.
Consult with one another if questions arise regarding these commitments.[8]
So the only repercussions in the memorandum are to seek UNSC action
East Ukraine (Score:2)
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Our obligations under the memorandum were only to not invade Ukraine, and to request action from the UN if nukes were used. We haven't done the former, and did the latter even though no nukes were used. Why should we get further involved in issues that the international politics of two soverign nations, neither of which is allied with us or presents a serious threat? If Russia becomes seriously expansionistic again then perhaps we'll need to get involved, but for now it's just some readjustments of borde
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Sun Tzu would like that. ;)
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Why? You were allies in WWII. History moves along. Why can't you?
History also moves backward. Where have you been for the last several months?
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I'm pretty sure history moves forward, but people move backward.
Re:Russian Rocket Motors? (Score:4, Funny)
3) Take over Ukraine
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I believe the operation being attempted right now is:
Ukraine=Crimea=Rusia
This is one of those few times that someone used == where = is the correct option!
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I don't think anything involving a government producing things for its military can really be classed as "free market". There are different ways of structuring the production, some of which do have more market involvement than others. E.g. the USAF could produce its own equipment, it could bid some out to contractors, and it could use various processes for doing so. But with exactly one buyer, which is a government, and to make things worse a government's military arm (which introduces all kinds of clearanc
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I don't think anything involving a government producing things for its military can really be classed as "free market".
"Free market" as it is bandied about today has no defined meaning within economics - it is a general concept, usually employed as a political slogan. As Investopedia says Just like supply-side economics, free market is a term used to describe a political or ideological viewpoint on policy and is not a field within economics. [investopedia.com].
It is in the government's interest to introduce market forces into its acquisition system to create competition, and efficiency incentives, and avoid cronyism. This is what the bidding
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Other than the fact that the ruling is specifically and exclusively about the ongoing sanctions against Russia, it has nothing to do with the ongoing sanctions against Russia. Right. That makes sense.