<story><title>Russia &apos;Likely&apos; to Default on Debts</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-russia-sanctions-iif-idINKBN2KX240</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>enkid</author><text>So the West should just let Russia invade Ukraine?  The reason Japan attacked Pearl Harbor was because of the oil embargo, sure.  But the oil embargo was in place because of their aggression against China.  Should the US have kept selling oil to a country that was killing 100,000&amp;#x27;s of people in China?  If is, where is the line drawn?  When should the US have stopped supporting the Japanese war(which is what they were doing by selling the oil needed to carry it out)?</text></item><item><author>hollerith</author><text>I just hope the West didn&amp;#x27;t miscalculate Russian response to their economy&amp;#x27;s violent contraction.&lt;p&gt;Some say that if the US had never imposed sanctions on Japan in the 1930s, Japan wouldn&amp;#x27;t&amp;#x27;ve attacked Pearl Harbor.&lt;p&gt;In that case, the sanctions made it hard for Japan to import petroleum with the result that the Japanese chose to secure their supply by conquest of countries with petroleum reserves (mainly Indonesia IIRC).</text></item><item><author>duxup</author><text>I wonder if Russian leadership miscalculated the scale of international response &amp;#x2F; the international community’s will to act &amp;#x2F; coordinate.&lt;p&gt;Word has it Russia has been trying to insulate themselves in case of sanctions for a while now … but things have moved very quickly and Russia seems way more isolated than before.&lt;p&gt;Even China seems more uncomfortable with the situation as time goes on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eezurr</author><text>Professor John Mearsheimer (a distinguished professor of political science) gave an inciteful talk regarding these events after Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014[1]. He places the blame squarely on the US for these events. The US would react just the same if Russia started expanding its military operations on our boarders [2]. I am deeply concerned that the West keeps upping the confrontation instead of backing down. Russia is sending some of its nuclear arsenal to Belarus as we speak [3]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Cuban_Missile_Crisis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Cuban_Missile_Crisis&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;duckduckgo.com&amp;#x2F;?q=belarus+nuclear&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;duckduckgo.com&amp;#x2F;?q=belarus+nuclear&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also, please don&amp;#x27;t flag my comment again. Everyone who&amp;#x27;s replied to you so far has had their comment flagged.</text></comment>
<story><title>Russia &apos;Likely&apos; to Default on Debts</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-russia-sanctions-iif-idINKBN2KX240</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>enkid</author><text>So the West should just let Russia invade Ukraine?  The reason Japan attacked Pearl Harbor was because of the oil embargo, sure.  But the oil embargo was in place because of their aggression against China.  Should the US have kept selling oil to a country that was killing 100,000&amp;#x27;s of people in China?  If is, where is the line drawn?  When should the US have stopped supporting the Japanese war(which is what they were doing by selling the oil needed to carry it out)?</text></item><item><author>hollerith</author><text>I just hope the West didn&amp;#x27;t miscalculate Russian response to their economy&amp;#x27;s violent contraction.&lt;p&gt;Some say that if the US had never imposed sanctions on Japan in the 1930s, Japan wouldn&amp;#x27;t&amp;#x27;ve attacked Pearl Harbor.&lt;p&gt;In that case, the sanctions made it hard for Japan to import petroleum with the result that the Japanese chose to secure their supply by conquest of countries with petroleum reserves (mainly Indonesia IIRC).</text></item><item><author>duxup</author><text>I wonder if Russian leadership miscalculated the scale of international response &amp;#x2F; the international community’s will to act &amp;#x2F; coordinate.&lt;p&gt;Word has it Russia has been trying to insulate themselves in case of sanctions for a while now … but things have moved very quickly and Russia seems way more isolated than before.&lt;p&gt;Even China seems more uncomfortable with the situation as time goes on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>x86_64Ubuntu</author><text>The West didn&amp;#x27;t expect anyone to intervene when we attacked Iraq over false claims about WMDs.</text></comment>