There’s an increasing risk of a two-front war in Israel spreading from the Hamas attack that started in the Gaza strip to an escalation by Hezbollah in Lebanon, possibly Iran.
Fears of a Wider War
The Council on Foreign Relations discusses Fears of a Wider Mideast War.
Is there danger of this spreading into a region-wide conflict involving Iran?
Iran is, of course, a patron of Hezbollah [as well as Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups] and there is an ever-present danger of a two-front conflict, which would devastate parts of Israel and much of Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. There is a risk of escalation. Israeli media reported that the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] fired at a number of potential infiltrators along its border with Lebanon as the violence was unfolding in the southern part of the country.
Threat to Israel From Hezbollah and Iran Raises Risk of Wider Conflict
The Wall Street Journal reports Threat to Israel From Hezbollah and Iran Raises Risk of Wider Conflict
As Israel combats the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it faces the strategic question of whether Iran will direct its other protégé, the Lebanese Hezbollah, to open a second front in the north.
Iran and Hezbollah have strongly supported Saturday’s invasion of southern Israel by Hamas, which briefly overran Israeli military bases and several villages and towns, killing at least 900 Israelis and taking many others hostage to Gaza.
“This victorious operation will certainly expedite the collapse of the Zionist regime and promises its imminent annihilation,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
With its arsenal of precision missiles that could target Israeli air bases and infantry forces hardened by the Syrian war, Hezbollah is a much more powerful enemy than Hamas.
Hezbollah’s entry into the war, however, could unleash direct Israeli strikes not just against Lebanon but also against Iran. Such an escalation could drag the U.S. into a much wider conflict—not something that Tehran is likely to be interested in at this stage.
Two Points of View Regarding Hezbollah
- If Hezbollah had planned a wide-scale attack on Israel, military analysts say, it would have made more sense for it to do so on Saturday, simultaneously with Hamas, while also benefiting from an element of surprise.
- Hezbollah and its Iranian backers might also be calculating that it would be much more advantageous to join the conflict later, as an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza causes inevitable civilian casualties and unleashes a wave of public outrage across the region.
Lebanon has been without a president for a year. So escalation from Lebabon is totally up to Hezbollah.
The Journal notes Hezbollah has assured the Lebanese government that it won’t get involved in another war against Israel unless Israel “harassed”.
The meaning of harassed is unclear. And assurances are only worth what they are worth.
Could This Spill Into a Direct Escalation With Iran?
It could. But right now it seems unlikely.
Lebanon is a much tougher call.
Oil Markets Calm, Gold Up
Judging from the oil markets, a major escalation seems unexpected, at the moment.
However, we have not yet seen Israel’s full response to Hamas.
$WTIC West Texas Intermediate Weekly Chart
Oil Technical Analysis
Technically speaking, $62 to $64 seems to be a floor. Amusingly, $60 is the price Biden wanted to start refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Resistance is around $95 per barrel with the current price around $86.
A bullish cup-and-handle pattern appears to be forming right now depending on whether or not you make allowances to allow for a slanted formation.
Alternate View
$60 Buyer’s Cartel Cap
$60 is the ceiling the buyer’s cartel wanted to impose on Russia. A quick check shows my interpretation was correct.
WSJ full quote: “Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an interview that the U.S. would very likely take steps to enforce the $60-a-barrel price limit that the U.S. and its partners imposed on Russian oil sales“
Sanctions Don’t Work Because They Create New Markets
A person who touted a buyer’s cartel sanction success, now complains the buyers cartel leaks like a sieve.
For discussion, please see Lesson of the Day: Sanctions Don’t Work Because They Create New Markets
How Much Money to Ukraine and Israel?
The Wall Street Journal want “more, more, more” as discussed in The WSJ Editorial Board Wants to Fight Them Over There Not Here
This is the Vietnam War, Iraq War, and Afghanistan War mentality all over again.
US meddling has always backfired.
Ridiculous.
Considering the insane imperialism post World War II where we have been losing everywhere, it is the better choice.
No policy guarantees anything.
Please tell me of a policy that has guarantees?
More evidence that the only sane foreign policy for the US is neutralism.
https://neutralistassociationofthe.us/
To believe that neutrality would insulate us from the rest of the world is fantasy. You cannot live in the world without impacting it, or being impacted by what others are doing. A policy of neutrality guarantees nothing and could easily be the worst possible policy choice.
War is inflationary. Make sure you own a good single family home.
Israel doesn’t have any oil, nor does Lebanon. So why the worry?
Oil traders use every possible excuse to pump the price of oil, even if there is no risk to supply.
No. Most oil traders are just trying to make money. They don’t care if prices are going up or down, as long as they are profiting. They are not trying to “pump” prices. The problem with oil traders is that they often over react to news. In both directions. Which is why oil prices are so volatile. However, in the long run, supply/demand of oil determine price.
US5Y slouched < US10Y. The yield curve is shifting to the left. US5Y will
drop lower.
Hamas hit QQQ assets. QQQ 1D hit a red flatbed and bounced back.
QQQ July 19 shouldn't be breached.
US 10Y slouched.
This might just be a deft strategic play by Russia, that really throws America onto the back foot, and forces NATO’s hand in Ukraine. It is basically politically impossible for America to choose Ukraine over Israel, yet Biden is trying desperately to do just that.
Israel doesn’t need US help to handle Hamas. They will easily roll over the Gaza strip and root out whatever they can of Hamas.
The US only gets involved if Iran directly attacks Israel.
I expect Israel to prevail. But Gaza isn’t going to be an easy win for them as it is a large town of over 2 million with lots of alleys and other passages that will make it hard to avoid snipers, boobytraps, suicide bombers and IEDs.
They can make all kinds of things including weapons in their workshops. I visited one once and the factory was smaller than my garage.
Israel has what it needs for a full genocide if they decide to. They don’t need more from us.
When Jews invaded Palestine in 1948 they challenged one billion Muslims. The war ends when Jews leave Palestine or Muslims nuke it whichever comes first. Netanyahu set out to exterminate one billion Muslims. I wish him well, but am not optimistic.
I would say it’s part of their plan to cause trouble in the ME as a distraction. I rather doubt that Russia gave their go ahead for such an extremely terrible operation though.
I have been following the oil markets for the last 3-4 years. I am not an expert; merely an interested investor. On a daily basis, I follow a lot of sources and individuals who know a lot more than I do, in order to make my investment decisions.
In the last 4 years, I have seen the oil price as low as -$20 and as high as $130. It is a fascinating market with a lot of variables that determine the price of oil. I will try to summarize some of the most important variables that I have learned over the last few years.
There are two markets for oil; the physical and the financial. On any given day, the financial market for oil is 20x to 40x the size of the physical market. The net result of the financial market for oil is an increase in the volatility and variability of oil prices. Without the financial market, oil prices would likely move just a few cents a day, rather than as much as $6 a day.
Witness the price action in 2023 so far. Started as $80, down to $73, up to $81, down to $73, up to $80, down to $74, up to $80, down to $67, up to $83, down to $68, up to $74, down to $68, up to $85, down to $79, up to $94, and down to $82, and now back up a bit after the attack on Israel.
The price drops have happened when the financial markets were worried about a possible drop in demand due to higher rates and an expectation of a weaker economy going forward. The price increases were due to financial markets reacting to announced OPEC+ cuts to supply. These large price swings would not have happened without the forward expectations of the financial markets, and the resulting over reactions.
The financial markets are the major determinants of prices in the short term. In the long term however, prices will depend on the supply and demand in the physical markets. My focus is on the supply and demand trends in the physical market in the long term, because I can grasp that far better than I can anticipate what financial markets are going to do in the short term.
Demand for oil has been growing by 1 mbpd/a on average for the last 50 years and 2023 is no different. Demand for oil has grown from 100 mbpd to 102+ mbpd this year so far. And many “experts” estimate that demand will continue to grow to 108 mbpd by the end of this decade.
Supply of oil is currently being throttled by OPEC+ cuts of 3-4 mbpd. Some of these cuts have been offset by increasing production elsewhere (US, Canada, Iran, Venezuela), but we are still coming up short by 1-2 mbpd compared to demand.
Which means that inventories are dropping all over the world. We all know that the US released 200 mb of SPR last year, in a successful effort to lower prices for a few months. So SPR levels are now 200 mb lower.
Commercial inventories are also dropping. An example is Cushing. Capacity 71 mb. Currently 22 mb. Another reason that commercial storage facilities don’t mind keeping low inventories is the high cost of capital and the high current oil price. It can be expensive to try to build inventory right now and little incentive to do so as futures prices are slightly lower. But as inventories continue to drop, eventually that will lead to more supply crunches and upward price pressures as there is little buffer left.
In the current market, OPEC+ has “some” ability to control the oil supply. They produce roughly 50 mbpd of the 102 mbpd that is demanded by markets. And all other producers are pretty much at full production, with little ability to add more. The US is the largest producer at 13 mbpd, but we have far less control than OPEC. Saudi is the main driving force in OPEC. And they want prices of $90-$100 to maximize revenues for their mega projects and internal stability. They have brokered an agreement to reduce OPEC production in order to force prices to their preferred range. In the long run they partially control the physical markets, but in the short run, they have little control over financial markets. In spite of their current supply cuts and the resulting declining inventories, the financial markets remain worried about high rates and weak growth and the net result is prices currently much lower than what Saudi wants.
In the long run, if the physical market continues to see inventory draws, prices will trend back up.
While OPEC+ is a fairly cohesive group, with goals, and a plan to reach those goals, the US (and Canadian) oil producers are a mix of pubic (and some private) companies, who are focused on their own individual results. Though, as a group, they are influenced by many market forces, which often cause them to act in a similar fashion.
One of these forces is:
A new focus on profit over production. The oil and gas sector, as a whole, is the most unloved sector in the market. They are being abandoned by their biggest financiers and investors. Which makes it far more difficult to borrow money to expand, or issue large numbers of shares to raise capital. They now have a need to appeal to investors. In order to do that, they have changed their focus from increasing production to increasing profitability and rewarding shareholders. As a result, as oil prices rose from the covid bottoms, companies did not rush to expand production as they traditionally would have done. Instead, they began using their increasing cash flows to pay down their high debt levels. They also made promises to investors, saying that once debt levels reached ultra low levels (or zero), that they would begin using their increased cash flows to reward investors with big dividends and/or stock buybacks. This new discipline has not wavered in the face of rising cash flows. Companies have not increased capex spending beyond the minimum needed to maintain production, and rig counts have been dropping all year. The only reason that US (and Canadian) production have grown this year is because of improved efficiencies achieved through new techniques and technology being employed on existing fields. A win-win for companies.
So I would not expect to see a big increase in oil supply from the US or Canada. The companies are not interested in expanding production. And there are very few other countries that have an ability to increase supply either.
So inventories will continue to decline through the fourth quarter, as demand continues to exceed supply and there should be upward pressure on prices based on what is happening in the physical market. Though the financial market will always be an unknown in determining the price on any given day.
I do not know how the conflict in Israel will affect oil, but I suspect the bigger worry will be a possible supply reduction as opposed to demand reduction.
I think oil is going into three figures for sure. The coupling between oil, foreign policy, and bonds is now a bit more visible. America and it’s posse, can only expand war by expanding debt via bonds, and thus driving up yields, rates, and making overleveraged banks in Italy and Germany nervous, and generating bull traps in the stock market, whilst simulatenously compressing trade and contracting corporate revenues, prompting rising unemployment and bankruptcy, reducing its tax receipts and budget.
It’s a vicious vortex, and the implications of rising eurodollar rates and energy costs is going to force America to look for ways to reduce the relative cost of energy (despite net-zero).
…if you were playing this as a computer game, how would you do that?
You’ve spent a lot of reserves and reduced domestic energy production, your capacity for war is more constrained. Just think about the cost of energy, debt, time, and people to wage a proper war in Ukraine… and there’s not even any energy dividend if you win… so why waste resources?
Deploying forces to regain control of Near Eastern states is a bit of a non-starter.
Africa, is a possibility, but a messy one, with a lot of baggage and commitment that comes with it. Why not try closer to home? Logistically easier, cheaper, and less multipolar complications to navigate… yes if this was a computer game, and you were controlling America, you would invade Venezuela and take complete control of its oil, and turn it into another Puerto Rica or Panama. You would not be wasting your time with faraway wars unless there is a major economic as well as ideological reason to do it.
It is said that the purpose of US support of Israel (and add British control of Cyprus) is to secure control of the Suez canal trade route, and the gulf hydrocarbons, as well as religious-political-historical affinity. Russia too, likes to maintain control of it’s base in Syria; Iran in Lebanon.
States like Egypt and Turkey somehow fit in the middle of things in an uneasy and sometimes ambiguous as well as controversial relationship between “the west” and “the east” as it were.
From America’s POV, Russia has become an energy front line; and the front line further south has not yet been stabilised. Russia seems to be tickling the tummies of various ambivalent allies of America in the warmer parts of the world, and America is in trouble… losing Afghanistan, then Ukraine, then what… a third defeat in a row for America seems bound to lead to an internal crisis, especially given the debt crisis that America seems to be in.
To get those rates down, is going to take a huge flood of capital back into bonds, and that is going to need a giant banking crisis in the EU, or giant stockmarket panic.
How else are they going to get those rates down in such a deflationary demographic environment? They can’t print the rates down…
Triple digit prices are certainly possible but unlikely to hold for long because of the resulting demand destruction. The Saudis understand this and most “experts”’suspect that Saudi wants the price between $90 and $100. Once the $100 threshold is crossed, they would open the taps a little more in order to capture those high prices, and force them back down before demand destruction occurs.
Regarding Venezuela, the US would not invade. It is better to make a deal and get US companies back in there, to increase production and fill Venezuelan government coffers.
Regarding everything else you said; I have no idea.
I’ve always wondered how a war between Israel & Iran would play out, considering how far they are from one another. It can only be by proxy., e.g., Hezbollah attacks Israel for Iran, and the U.S. attacks Iran for Israel.
In the end, “no matter whether our clients make money or lose money, Duke & Duke collect their commissions.” So easy to see who wins this one…!
There’s no doubt in my mind that if things got really, really, REALLY bad for Israel, the nuclear option would come into play. Israel does not acknowledge having nuclear weapons, but it is pretty much a foregone conclusion that they stockpile a few hundred warheads. Who knows what Iran has up its sleeve these days regarding nuclear weapons?
And here we are again, contemplating nuclear holocaust as some kind of warporn.
Been living through the buildup my entire life, I’d hate to die and miss it.
Golda Meir had fighter-bombers armed with nukes in the air during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Supposedly she said if the Israelis were pushed into the sea the Arabs would be ended.
It all depends on Hormuz. If Iran blocks Hormuz, oil will go way past $100. Maybe even to $200. There’s little to no oil near Israel, so if things stay contained there, it will have little effect on the price.
Iran would only block Hormuz if it’s directly attacked.
They may cheer lead what’s happening to Israel but they aren’t likely to get involved in any meaningful way unless Israels response drags on for a long time and there is severe civilian losses in Gaza.
The reason is that if Iran attacked first, that would definitely drag the US into the conflict and they aren’t prepared to handle that without Russian or Chinese help which seems very unlikely.
The current state of the Iranian armed forces is well described here:
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/10/my-thoughts.html
They have an impressive number of missiles, some with long ranges. Only one thing would be missing: precise information on the positions of adversaries, particularly aircraft carriers. Perhaps this information could be given by a country which has all the detection and surveillance tools, which would inform Iran as the United States informs Ukraine.
Oh, and they most likely have a nuke already. The IAEA confirmed early this year that Iran has enriched uranium up to 84% or about 6% short of weapons grade plutonium.
NK has tested their nuclear bombs six times since 2006. During this time, they most passed their design to Iran, so Iran doesn’t need to test their bomb. Rather, they can build it in some secret facility that the IAEA, the US or Mossad don’t know about.
It would be idiotic to think Iran doesn’t have a bomb after working to acquire one over the past 40 years. How else are they going to destroy all the Jews in Israel and the Great Satan?
On a side note, go look up Super EMP. Both Russia & China have developed one, but supposedly they US does not have any EMP bombs. A super EMP may create up to 200K volts per meter squared which is gargantuan. Make sure you Faraday cages are properly grounded to withstand that kind of shock.
Watching those bombs, hit Gaza, I’d say there are already significant civilian casualties. Density there is crazy.
Gaza isn’t that dense population wise. No different really than many large towns in the region and when I stayed there the area I was in (northern end of Gaza) was mostly 1 to 4 stories and in Gaza City itself most buildings were mid rise.
Hamas gave Israel a well organised sucker punch bloody nose but has now lost over 2000 of its fighters killed, plus a huge Gazan civilian toll of dead and injured. The commander of the Hamas military wing has had 4 family members killed in return bombing. Stupid.
I disagree with EVERYTHING you just said. I think that it’s just as likely that all of this is part of a larger plan that includes coordination of each of the countries you mention.
FJB is weak. He’s the weakest president there will be for the foreseeable future. A conflict that includes fronts in Ukraine, now Israel, then something like the Strait of Hormuz and then finally Tiawan “could be” aligning.
All of that is just as plausible as the “speculation” you make that Iran doesn’t want to get involved to that degree. That’s BS! It’s now out that they have been working with Hamas for months to plan & execute this attack. That’s a massive escalation and one that could easily cause Israel to lash out at Iran directly in the coming weeks.
This thing could go sideways extremely fast.
DC is full of trigger happy war mongers. People like Doug78. They’ve been itching to invade Iran since Carter was president. They may view this as a golden opportunity. Taking out Russia and Iran at the same time would be a dream come true. Reagan would be so proud of them.
TexasTim65,
Good. You gave some numbers. You said:
“We don’t need 5500 main battle tanks. Tank warfare is way outdated and we could never in a million years ship 5000 tanks across sea to fight anywhere anyway.
We also have 5200 military aircraft. That can probably be cut half (Russia has 3800 and China has 2000) given ours are technically superior or so we claim.”
Military Sealift Command operates 19 Large, Medium-Speed, Roll-on/Roll-off Ships, or LMSRs. Each one can carry 60 Main Battle Tanks plus 48 other tracked vehicles plus 900 trucks. Basically it carries a whole task force. If you do the math you see that it would take four round trips to deliver 5500 main battle tanks plus other useful things and not a million years.
You say Russia has 3800 aircraft and China has 2000 so we need only 2600 aircraft. At last look Russia and China are sort of allied so maybe we will need to the full 5200.
Till recently the US had only 25,000 or so solders in Europe and some in Japan. During the Cold War we had over 350,000 in Europe alone so we did cut back enormously. With Russia invading Ukraine that has gone up to 40,000 or so.
It may be technically possible, but reality is far different. Desert storm sent about 1900 tanks and the operation was about 43 days in total. More importantly, we sent those tanks because Iraq had thousands of tanks of their own (old outdated stuff). But that type of warfare doesn’t exist anymore (head to head). It’s more like what we see in Ukraine with drones and other equipment designed specifically to kill tanks. The US needs maybe 1000 tanks top.
The same goes for aircraft. Increasingly, it will be drone aircraft in the future controlled by keyboard warriors or just flying autonomously. Costs a fraction of the amount of money and you can get suicide drone craft etc.
The US is still trying to fight wars from the 20th century. Modern warfare is all sneaky guerilla tactics like what we saw in Afghanistan and what Ukraine is going to devolve into.
In a real big war many boats will be sunk, even aircraft carriers, many observation satellites will be destroyed. Do not believe that expeditionary forces will be able to travel without danger. And the biggest problem according to me, for Western countries if they have to face a big war, is that their societies are deeply divided. There is no longer a common project.
Thisis very true. Psychologically, the west is vry ill-prepared for a proper world war that is up close and personal.
You gave me a technical question and I answered it. If it’s a good idea to send tanks depends on other things than just feasibility. Ukraine is closely being studied by everybody and there are a lot of lessons. It is however a war where neither side controls the air which is a big surprise and that lack of control by Russia’s airforce sort of skews the lessons towards drones. If in a war with Nato control of the sky may have made use of drones less useful but conclusions are far away. In a near peer war drones will not replace airplanes unless of course they are all shot down which might be the case. Energy weapons are the hot thing now. Good for killing drones cheaply.
Wait to the Terminator soldiers get deployed on the battlefield! Along with their dog sidekicks. Both capable of moving at speeds 2-4X humans and made of exotic titanium alloys that can take a lot more abuse that meat or materials today. Allowed to kill on their own decisions.
Doug78 wrote “Energy weapons are the hot thing now. Good for killing drones cheaply.”
——-
Israeli-Made High-Energy Laser Makes Debut
3/21/2023
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defense Systems debuted its high-energy laser weapon system that will augment Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system for more modern threats.
Called the Iron Beam, the system is designed to neutralize a range of incoming targets — including unmanned aerial systems, rockets, artillery and mortar rounds — using a 100-kilowatt or more directed energy weapon, said Ran Gozali, executive vice president of Rafael’s land and naval division.
“We actually can focus the beam to the diameter of a coin in a 10-kilometer range,” Gozali said on the sidelines of the International Defence Exhibition in Abu Dhabi. The trade show was the first time that Rafael unveiled a full-scale model of the Iron Beam.
…
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2023/3/21/israeli-made-high-energy-laser-makes-debut
AND
Here comes the Navy’s laser fleet
By Jared Keller | Published Jan 12, 2023 2:25 PM EST
The Navy has now taken possession of a half-dozen new laser weapons for integration onto surface warships, officials said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference in Virginia about the Navy’s future DDG(X) surface combatant vessel, Rear Adm. Seiko Okano, program executive officer for integrated warfare systems, revealed that the service has now received one High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) weapon system from defense contractor Lockheed Martin, and seven Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) systems from Government developers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, VA.
Those systems “are now being integrated onto ships,” as National Defense magazine reported from the SNA conference.
…
https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/navy-laser-helios-acquisition-fielding/
So they developed a laser that can focus on a coin from 10k away? Then how come they didn’t shoot down the ragtag ultralights that flew gunmen from Gaza over the border? Surely it behoove the IDF to have such lasers set to fire automatically at any low flying aircraft crossing the border? So bad technology or bad control systems let a mess happen.
I rather suspect Russia can’t afford to have it’s planes shot down. Definitely Ukraine can’t with theirs since they have so few.
Other than the US, most countries can’t afford to lose any of their planes given most are costing between 30-100 million dollars a plane.
That’s why I think drones are the future. For 30 million dollars or 1 plane, you can get hundreds of drones that are increasingly more and more sophisticated. It’s also much harder for air defense systems to handle hundreds of drones compared to a single plane.
The US military does not want the tanks. The tanks are manufactured in swing state Ohio so Congress buys them and the Army puts them in storage. Gas turbine tanks are an albatross. The Army wants a Diesel powered tank.
Added this Tweet to my post
https://twitter.com/MishGEA/status/1711815167787364510?s=20
Oil was/is supposed to drop in November due to increasing inventories and lower demand but that was before Mideast eruption.
I sold some calls today on some oil stock I own, only made $1k but I hope to buy them back for pennies in November. I am ok getting assigned/called if oil goes up.
I am interested in knowing where you got the idea that oil inventories would increase in November. With OPEC+ production cuts, and additional Saudi and Russian cuts the market is undersupplied by roughly 1-2 mbpd. Worldwide commercial inventories (on land and sea) have been declining since the cuts began, and are expected to continue their decline for the rest of the year. In addition demand has reached record highs in 2023 and has not yet shown any sign of falling demand.
It was an analyst on CNBC. I tried to find the segment but I’m too busy right now, maybe I will look for it later. In the meantime you can read this re: gasoline.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/04/oil-rises-on-tightening-crude-supply.html
Don’t know that it matters now with the escalation in the middle east which is why I said “was/is” supposed to fall.
We will see what they come up with. I have no idea but I am interested to see. The gas embargo worked really well; a major industry for Russia is kaput and rusting. Diverting gas to China by pipe turned out to be a pipe dream. With oil they have a few pipelines left and a bunch of ships so it is going to be interesting.
so India buys Russia crude for $59 barrel
and has $26 per barrel delivery fee
no violation I can see here
Russia gas is “kaput”? Pipelines to China take time. Russia will be fine. It debt-to-GDP is 17%. Interest costs on US debt will soon exceed all federal income tax.