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In Odesa, Strategic Callousness
On Friday, there was "a beacon on the Black Sea."
So said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who
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I am sorry to say that nato needs to step in and implement a no fly zone around Ukraine, reflag ships leaving Ukrainian ports and tell putin as a first step that kallingrad will experience a blockade if Russian forces do not leave Ukraine including Crimea. Past time to call his bluff.
I think this presents an opportunity for NATO to get involved in the fight, if only to assert itself by guiding ships into port.
It makes sense, in a totally amoral way, Putin will keep striking Odessa and scaring merchant ships from carrying Ukranian grain, because he knows the Ukranians (actually Turkey) won’t cancel the deal and Russia will be able to keep exporting. US needs to provide Ukraine with enough antiship missiles to sink a bunch of Russian navy ships, longer range missiles to hit the Russian rear areas, and get the Polish Mig 29s to Ukraine (forget giving them A10s or F16s, takes too long to train Ukrainian pilots and ground crews on totally new equipment).
The US needs to be extremely careful in this situation- balancing the requests for humanitarian and military aid in Ukraine with the inevitable corruption, failures, and unintended consequences that will occur. For example, there are already reports of Ukraine selling military hardware on black markets (because they want cash)- meaning that military hardware given to Ukraine is now likely headed for the Middle East.
We have already committed $7B in humanitarian and military aid. Most recently, a $400M weapons package. We do not want or need another Afghanistan.
The US is not and can not be the world’s peace keeper. Should we now do something in Myanmar?
Can’t we adopt the approach of the Swiss?
Probably not, however, no one in the US should be against energy independence for the US- which likely means nuclear. A national “safe nuclear” program is what we need and would be a worthwhile reason to print USD. Once the US figures that out, we can export safe nuclear technology for global humanitarian and peace keeping purposes.
Small modular nuclear reactors, like those being built and sold by Rolls-Royce in the UK, present a possibility. Thorium reactors, though more costly than smaller reactors at Rolls-Royce, are abundantly safer than traditional reactors. Thorium reactors can be installed today, as it is already happening in China. We seem to continuously wait patiently for research to provide additional answers. But the world, and our country, is burning up. The US needs to get on the thorium train. It bothers me that no one is talking about this and loudly, emphatically making the case.
I would love to put together a long term nuclear and battery/energy storage investment portfolio.
I have some ideas of which companies I would eventually like to own, but I do not feel compelled to rush into anything now. Financially, all of the companies on my list are messes.