Saber-Rattling and Scaremongering About Russia Makes Little Sense in a GLOBAL ECONOMY

Here's a unspoken link between American business and the American military: America does not attack it's business partners, especially if the "business" is selling weapons. 

Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, Australia...they are all good customers; Saudi Arabia gets 24% of US arms exports alone.

And again, this tends to apply to other businesses as well (hence the NBA tip-toeing around criticism of China). 

Bottom line is, if a country plays ball with America, they won't get experience a coup, invasion, or political uprising. That said, America needs a reason to keep making and selling weapons, and that's where the Foreign Boogey-Man comes in. And while China and North Korea can be useful in that role, nothing beats going after Vladimir Putin, as global affairs analyst and opinion writer Michael Bociurkiw writes in this CNN article:

As 2022 nears, the West is trying to figure out Russian President Vladimir Putin's next move on a complex geopolitical chessboard -- and preparing an "aggressive package" of sanctions, should he decide to make another land grab in Ukraine.

Tensions are now at their highest since 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea and dispatched "little green men" into Ukraine's Donbas region. An all-out land invasion of Ukraine is now a real possibility.

But let's face it. Putin could care less about the West's threats, sitting as he does in the enviable position of being able to call the shots.

Europe is in the grip of an energy crisis with low reserves. And with Russia supplying some 40% of the European Union's gas imports, the Kremlin has already shown its ability to checkmate the West's harshest sanctions by limiting production and potentially triggering rolling blackouts across the continent.

Putin's endgame is USSR 2.0, coming almost 30 years to the day the Soviet Union collapsed. His next moves come at a delicate geopolitical moment, with Western fears of a Ukraine invasion, the colonization of Belarus, a Europe-wide energy crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stepping down as EU chief negotiator and concerns over US President Joe Biden's discombobulated foreign policy.

If you've any doubt about Putin's plans to roll back the clock, just read his 5,000-plus-word essay on why Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are doomed without closer integration with Mother Russia. Or his audacious demands Friday for a veto on who joins the NATO alliance and limits in stationing troops and weaponry in any country which joined the alliance after 1997.

Without firing a shot, Putin has managed to send the West into a collective panic -- or at least into a position where they feel the need to appease the aging autocrat.

For the past four months, and particularly between September 7 and December 5 according to western intelligence sources quoted by CNN, Putin has been amassing tens of thousands of troops and heavy weaponry as close as 30 miles to Ukraine's borders. U.S. intelligence reports suggest a build-up of up to 175,000 troops, enough to stage a swift and immediate incursion.

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What are the tools left in the West's diplomatic toolbox? Depressingly few. But some options remain: banning Russians from travel, blocking those multimillion dollar property deals which have transformed London and Miami into playgrounds for wealthy Russians -- even ordering the immediate expulsion of Russian nationals from Western countries. In other words, whatever it takes short of direct military conflict.

Scared yet? I mean, Putin has used his years of experience to dominate the geo-political landscape like no other! Land invasions! Diplomacy so far has proven ineffective! Strong, bold leadership is needed!

Now I've been critical of CNN before, but both them and Bociurkiw seem to overlook some things, like how America's Pentagon budget dwarfs anything Russia is throwing at their military, or say the existence organizations like the AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN RUSSIA, whose mission is "to promote the development of commercial relations between the Russian Federation and the international community."

And before anyone claims that this is a front for some Putin-inspired trickery, please note the the companies that make up it's President's Circle include: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Mary Kay, Johnson & Johnson, MasterCard, and Citibank. Oh, and their membership list includes: The American Institute of Business and Economics,  American Express Bank, Amway, British Petroleum, Coca-Cola, Dell, General Electric, Google, IKEA, John Deere, Levi Strauss, Microsoft, Proctor and Gamble, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Doesn't look like a bunch of Russia-loving, anti-USA troublemakers to me. And hey, look: even good ol' Pfizer wasn't afraid to do business with the Bear! In sort, American companies have no problem with Russia, and as early as 2017, CNN was aware of this.

So let me say this: when those companies start to leave the country and all that sweet, sweet profit...then maybe we should be concerned. And if we ever end up selling a super-soaker to the Kremlin, then...I guess we'll need a new Foreign Boogey-Man, right?