Civil War in Ukraine: Western Empire vs Russia

The United States, the EU and Russia have embarked on diplomatic efforts to defuse the situation in Crimea following a crisis meeting in Paris on 30 March between US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. If those efforts fail, Russia’s increasing isolation could become a serious long-term problem for Russian and international science, says Harley Balzer, who specializes in inter­national affairs and Russian politics at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

“If Russia were to push one inch further into Ukraine, cutbacks on all sorts of academic exchange programmes and scientific collaborations will inevitably follow,” says Balzer. Affec­ted schemes could include the US Fulbright Program, which funds scholarly exchanges with several countries, including Russia.[/b]

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“If Russia were to push one inch further into Ukraine, cutbacks on all sorts of academic exchange programmes and scientific collaborations will inevitably follow,” says Balzer. Affec­ted schemes could include the US Fulbright Program, which funds scholarly exchanges with several countries, including Russia.

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Laura said:

“If Russia were to push one inch further into Ukraine, cutbacks on all sorts of academic exchange programmes and scientific collaborations will inevitably follow,” says Balzer. Affec­ted schemes could include the US Fulbright Program, which funds scholarly exchanges with several countries, including Russia.

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Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot big time (yet again). I swear, watching the US do exactly what is worst for the US - and the world at large - so consistently and self-righteously is amazing. It really is Political Ponerology writ large.

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MOSCOW, April 04. /ITAR-TASS/.

Close international cooperation on space issues is crucial, Rocket and Space Corporation Energia chief designer has said.

Space exploration requires big financial and technical efforts. The implementation of space projects demands close international cooperation, Vitaly Lopota told ITAR-TASS on Friday.

“Space research and outer space exploration are possible within international programs,” he said.

“If we start ‘fighting’ and imposing sanctions, we’ll lose a lot,” Lopota said.

No instructions have been given to the corporation regarding any counter-measures to the US space agency’s decision to suspend cooperation with Russia so far, Lopota said.

“Our purpose is to build spacecrafts and reliable equipment. If any decisions are taken, we will respond,” he said.

NASA is suspending most of its cooperation with Russia, the ISS excepted, due to Russia’s actions towards Ukraine, the US space agency said.

NASA said it plans on decreasing its reliance on Russia in order to send humans to space from American soil by 2017.

The ISS crew includes Russian cosmonauts, Mikhail Tyurin, Aleksander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, and NASA astronauts, Rick Mastracchio and Steve Swanson, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. With a now-defunct shuttle programs, NASA's only way of getting humans into space is via Russian-powered rockets.

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Laura said:

“If Russia were to push one inch further into Ukraine, cutbacks on all sorts of academic exchange programmes and scientific collaborations will inevitably follow,” says Balzer. Affec­ted schemes could include the US Fulbright Program, which funds scholarly exchanges with several countries, including Russia.

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Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot big time (yet again). I swear, watching the US do exactly what is worst for the US - and the world at large - so consistently and self-righteously is amazing. It really is Political Ponerology writ large.

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NASA's withdrawal from communication with Russia would cause damage, first of all, to the US itself and its space programs. If someone may probably win anything from this withdrawal, this would be only a bunch of certain American private companies.

At present, these companies are adhering to all kinds of rhetoric around "the Crimean issue" for trying to convince the US Congress to allocate more sums on NASA's needs – which, in the end, would mean that this money will be allocated on these companies' projects.

It looks like the US is using the threat of stopping cooperation in the sphere of space exploration with Russia as a means for punishing Russia for what the US is depicting as Russia's "annexation" of the Crimean Peninsula (it reality, it was a free-will wish of Crimea's residents for the peninsula to become a part of Russia).
Recently, "The Verge" website published NASA's internal circular letter which says that the agency is cancelling any cooperation with Russia except for jointly using the International Space Station. The website claims that allegedly, NASA has received such an order from the White House.

In his interview to The Verge website, American rocket engineer and writer James Oberg says that the refusal to cooperate with Russia would only hamper the fulfillment of the US's own space projects. If a space project is abandoned for a rather long time, it would be pretty hard to successfully return to it later, Mr. Oberg is convinced.

The US's dependence on Russia in the sphere of cosmonautics is linked, first of all, with two aspects. First, without Russian Soyuz spaceships, the US would not be able to deliver their astronauts to the International Space Station in the foreseeable future, because the US is not planning any launches of piloted spaceships before 2017. Second, NASA is going to create a new heavy rocket with Russian engines "RD-180" (NASA has already purchased several such engines for Atlas rockets).

"If Russia decides to introduce some sanctions in the sphere of space exploration in response to the US's sanctions, these Russia's sanctions may hurt the US much worse than the US's sanctions may hurt Russia," Russian expert in international space projects Yuri Solozobov says. "Theoretically, Russia may affect the US projects of piloted spaceships and of a future carrier rocket in a way that neither NASA nor the White House would like."

Russia has already signed several contracts with NASA concerning the supplies of RD-180 rocket engines to the US and letting American astronauts use Russian Soyuz spaceships. However, even if these contracts are broken, this would not be a tragedy for Russia.

"Russia can conclude space contracts with other countries," Russian expert in Eastern affairs Sergey Druzhilovsky says. "For example, Iran is eager to cooperate with Russia in the sphere of space exploration and is ready to allocate money to Russia for its space projects. There are quite a few other countries that would like to cooperate with Russia in space projects as well."

At present, American robotic rover Curiosity is working on Mars. The rover is equipped with several Russian devises, and US scientists are regularly sending data received by these devices to Moscow by post.

"This communication between scientists and the results of scientific investigation on Mars may also suffer if the US introduces "space sanctions" against Russia," Russian scientist Maxim Litvak says. "The US has already banned its space scientists to communicate with their Russian colleagues via E-mail. The Russian side in this project is represented by scientists from the Institute of Space Research, and the American – from the Laboratory of Reactive Dynamics, and now, both are totally at loss about what will be next."

As it was said, the only side in whose hands this "space conflict" may play are several American private companies. By removing their Russian competitors, these companies are hoping to win more chances to receive allocations for their projects from the US authorities.

However, let us hope that common sense and mutual interests will prevail over political conjuncture in the end. After all, if we look back into history we may recollect how, in 1975, even the severe realities of the Cold War did not prevent the Soviet Union and the US from carrying out the famous "Soyuz – Apollo" project.

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_04_06/Is-divorce-between-Russian-and-US-space-agencies-possible-0497/.

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axj said:

I have to say, having Obama instead of that war-mongering McCain or other Republicans might indeed prove to be a blessing after all.

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Siberia said:

axj said:

I have to say, having Obama instead of that war-mongering McCain or other Republicans might indeed prove to be a blessing after all.

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I agree with you that Obama is better than McCain, just because the latter seems to have some serious psychic deviations possibly due to his injury in Vietnam (I may be wrong, this is my personal impression of him from all that I know about him and his political position).

Here is a quote about him from Wikipedia: "Senator Thad Cochran, who has known McCain for decades and has battled him over earmarks, expressed concern about a McCain presidency: "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain#Political_positions.

He reminds me of our famous Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky also mentioned in this thread some time ago.

But in my opinion, the current position of Obama and his crew is short-sighted and irresponsible towards the US and other nations. I doubt that he is a blessing. I think that the American people deserve a better leader than both Obama and McCain.

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His job is not to protect Europe, as the NATO literature claims. His job is to incite insecurity and, if need be, an all-out war, in order to serve Washington’s agenda of keeping Europe and Russia divided,” Cunningham wrote.

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A source in the Ukrainian parliament has told the Russian Interfax news agency that CIA's Director John Brennan has recently visited Ukraine's capital Kiev and had several meetings with representatives of Ukraine's power-wielding agencies.

The person who said this to Interfax in a phone talk added that John Brennan came to Ukraine not under his real name.

According to some yet unconfirmed information, the decision to suppress protesters in Slavyansk, a city in Ukraine's east, with force was advised to Ukraine's authorities by Brennan.

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