Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The Russians Strip-Mine the Stuff

The Russians have nuclear weapons, I remind you.

Oh good grief:

The head of Russia's Security Council said in a newspaper interview published on Tuesday that the United States wanted a weakened Russia so as to gain access to its vast mineral resources.

Yeah, we're in desperate need of Paranoiamite and Asshatium.

#WhyRussiaCantHaveNiceThings

UPDATE: Nobody really likes Russia.

UPDATE: Stratfor writes that the Russian charge is nonsense because America doesn't need Russia's mineral resources, we don't want Russia to collapse into chaos that will spill into part of Eurasia we care about, and because we hardly want all those loose nukes looking for a new home:

The idea that the United States would risk this level of chaos in order to secure control of Russian minerals runs counter to all strategic or geopolitical thinking.

The problem is not that the United States is plotting the disintegration of the Russian Federation. The problem is that the Russian Federation is moving toward disintegration on its own.

Indeed. I've wondered if Russia is done breaking apart because of their own idiocy. But I admit I kind of assumed that Russia west of that would retain state cohesion despite the secession of the Far East.

Could it be far worse than that?

Could Putin be the first president of the Grand Duchy of Moscow?