Random Thoughts -- Nothing To Do With The Bakken -- At Least Not Directly -- November 25, 2015

Updates

November 27, 2015: my hunch is that when (if) the facts all come out, it will be shown that Turkey miscalculated when shooting down that Russian fighter. Publicly, NATO backed Turkey immediately, but behind closed doors, my hunch is that NATO demanded more military intelligence on the shootdown than Turkey was willing to provide.

Russian is reporting: Russian military says Turkey made no offer to help rescue crew of downed warplane, has made 'confusing' statements about what it knew
Russia is also reporting: Russian military commander details findings of probe into Turkish shootdown of warplane, says monitoring data 'proves' Turkish F-16 was in Syrian airspace 

November 26, 2015: immediately after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet, Turkey asked for emergency NATO meeting. First comments from NATO: they support Turkey's version. Now, today, Turkey is saying they did not know it was a Russian a/c. Something tells me Turkey got a pretty good tongue-lashing in Brussels, and Turkey is now trying to find some excuse to get out of this debacle. No one in the world believes Turkey did not know it was a Russian jet. 

Original Post

 

Note: the following is my worldview of the situation as it stands today.

When it comes to foreign affairs, President Obama listens to his political advisers, and in general, does not attend security briefings in person, preferring to read the briefing papers. He drops warning leaflets prior to dropping bombs.

When it comes to foreign affairs, President Putin listens to his military advisers and attends security briefings in person. He drops warning bombs before dropping bigger bombs.

When an event concerning US security occurs, President Obama draws red signs in the sand, blue lines in the water.

When an event concerning Russian security occurs, the world waits for the second shoe to drop.

A couple of days ago, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter which Putin believes was flying over Syrian airspace. That occurred soon after ISIS brought down a Russian commercial aircraft killing all on board.

This past week power lines in the Ukraine were destroyed, shutting down power to the Crimean.

Today, Russian announced it has suspended coal shipments to the Ukraine in response to the Ukraine's failure to restore power to the Crimean.

That was reported sixteen hours ago.

Eight hours ago, it was reported that the Ukraine has suspended natural gas purchases from Russia, and has closed its airspace to Russian aircraft.

Now Russia has moved S-400 missiles to a Russian air base in Syria:

The S-400 missile systems, which will be sent to the Hemeimeem air base in Latakia, are capable of targeting Turkish jets with deadly precision. If Russia shot down a Turkish plane, NATO would be required to intervene.

This tells me Russia is soon to announce a no-fly zone over Syria which it will enforce with airborne assets. Certainly Turkey will be told to stay out of Syria. But someone else will have to tell them; Russian military has cut off contact with the Turkish military.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and the US government will have the day off.

SecState John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, having killed the Keystone XL, is now focused on the upcoming global warming conference in Paris.

None of this gives me a warm fuzzy.

In the good old days, when I was in the US Air Force, we talked a lot about the East-West axis.

It looks like the axis has shifted 90 degrees, and we now have the North-South axis as in the graphic below:

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Speaking of Which

SecState John Kerry, in preparation for the upcoming global warming conference in Paris, is probably working on inserting NASA's Antarctic data as reported by the [London] Express:

In the last few weeks NASA has revealed the overall amount of ice has increased at the Antarctic and the amount of sea ice has also extended.

Coupled with the latest announcement of slight cooling in the area, it has fuelled claims from climate change deniers that human industrialization is not having the huge impact on global tenperature as often is claimed.