Russia Wants Naval Bases in Cuba

[CuteOldGuy]

It's not legal? Like that would matter?

I have an ambivalent view toward oil. If we insist on using it, we should use our own before we go and buy oil from countries that hate us.

But oil is a 19th century energy. We should have progressed far past the need for oil at this point. But we won't, since the oil industry is one of our main branches of government.

[joe bloe]

We should abandon fossil fuels when the market tells us to. Eventually, scarcity and the cost of production will make other fuels more practical; until that happens, I say use whatever is cheapest and most profitable. If the tree huggers would get out of the way, we could be energy self sufficient ten years.

[Ducbutter]

COG, I agree with you on the issue of legality. That wouldn't stop many from trying it.

[CuteOldGuy]

I don't think there is a free market in energy. The oil industry has too much control, and I believe they engage in regular suppression of alternative sources. That's how monopolists are, and the oil industry has enough money, and more than enough influence to protect their turf for decades to come. It's not market driven.

[Yssup Rider]

DUCK AND COVER!!!!!!

[theaustinescorts]

Originally Posted by Sidewinder

If I were in your shoes, I would not bet on that.

On a beautiful day in summer of 2002, as I recall, I went to the Wednesday lunch buffet at The Mens Club of Dallas, as was my standard practice at that time. I found myself talking with a very interesting older gentleman.

He was the only B-52 aircraft commander in the US Air Force who did not fly his airplane out to his Fail-Safe point on That Day during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was because he and his crew were landing, after a long training flight, when the orders went out.

He described meeting his brother officers on the flight line, as he and his crew were walking in and they were going to their airplanes. He said that every single one of them was "white as a sheet". They all believed, to a man, that This Was It.

It wasn't the US pulling missiles out of Turkey that got the Russians to back down. It was the radar reports coming into the Kremlin, showing a whole bunch of B-52s arriving on station, and the realization that the US was fully prepared to end Russian history over this threat.

Khrushchev blinked. The Soviet Union backed down.

What on earth would some lowly bomber pilot know about any of this?

No it wasn't American might that cowed the Russian bear into withdrawing the missiles.

Every history on the topic records that the Russians held out until Kennedy agreed to withdraw the US missiles in Turkey and to pledge not to invade Cuba in the future.

If the hadn't been an agreement this is what would have happened....

The US would have attacked Cuba.
The Russians would have blown up US forces at sea with tactical nukes
The US would have had to either call off the attack, or go to general war with the Soviets, which WOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED.

There would have been a nuclear war, but it would have been confined to the Carribbean.

I'm not going to throw out all the evidence, documents, testimony and so forth of fifty years because you had a conversation with a bomber pilot in a strip club.

That's just funny.

[i'va biggen]

Use other oil so we can conserve ours then the oil companys can charge whatever they want,and we will all be rich.............

[CJ7]

Originally Posted by Ducbutter

While it is "possible" for someone to directionally drill from one lease to another, it's not legal. That's not to say someone wouldn't attempt to though. It's just that there are so many variables involved I find that an unlikely scenario. Now if two leases, side by side share the same reservois, then it's more than possible to deplete that reservois from either lease. Nothing the current admin. would do in that regard would surprise me. They are clueless. But then we haven't had a real energy policy in this country since the time we needed one so they're not the only ones by any stretch.
BTW, I have approx. 10 years experience roughnecking so I do have a little knowledge in this arena. Based on that experience I can confidently say, don't use the term "slant drill".

never mind slant drill ... for russia to build a rig or rigs off Cuba in international waters, and drill to depths unknown just to get to the ocean floor while fighting the Gulf Stream is a feat within itself .. then to manage distance, and depth via slant drilling to hit a deposit in US waters seems far more than unlikely ... consider the cost and time invoved to accomplish something of that nature, and consider how much oil Russia has directly underneath them and the scenario becomes even more unikely ..

but never let a really good slanted conspiracy go to waste

[WTF]

Originally Posted by joe bloe

. If the tree huggers would get out of the way, we could be energy self sufficient ten years.

Yea and you have a ten inch dick

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

DUCK AND COVER!!!!!!

Now dat is some funny chit right there!

[CuteOldGuy]

Originally Posted by WTF

Yea and you have a ten inch dick

You are kind of obsessed with male genitalia and homosexuality, aren't you, WTF?

[davec.0121]

Gosh - how'd we get from Russian naval bases to male genitalia in only 2 short pages?
Anyway, a few random comments. Firstly, for those of you who think that the Iranians are building an ICBM base in Venezuela or have ground troops in Mexico: you really need to stop getting your news from people wearing tin foil hats.
Then - a Russian naval base in Cuba? So what. The Russian navy is a shell. Their nuclear-powered battle cruiser (the Peter the Great) spends most of its time tied up in port. Their ony aircraft carrier also spends most of its time tied up. But that doesn't matter, because it doesn't have any aircraft anyway. On it's last voyage, pictures showed no aircraft on deck and only a few flight operations were noted by the NATO ships following it. They have only a handful of smaller escorts - it was front page news in the Russian news media when the navy got a new corvette. Putin is making all these noises for a number of reasons, none of the military. The primary reason, of course, is that Putin is trying to re-establish Russia's position as a great power. Russia (and the USSR) was a great power in Europe for over 250 years, and it doesn't sit well with them that the only reason they really matter anymore is because they have nukes and oil. They don't like being relegated to the status of a second- or third-class power, like the UK or France. This military posturing and the concommitant American-baiting plays well at home, where Putin is further cultivating his image as the man who will make Russia strong again, and where there is a strong anti-American streak (since they remember who won the Cold War). Abroad, all the posturing is an effort to remind people that Russia still matters. That's also one reason why the Russians are so recalcitrant about Syria and Assad-it gives them a say again.
So no, the sky is not falling. We are not in a perilous geo-military position in our own back yard.The godless Red/Commie/Muslim hordes are not about to surge across the border to rape and pillage. This whole story, like all the crap Chavez does, is only important if we give it importance.
In regard to them stealing our oil - the longest directional well is about 7-8 km lateral distance, and was drilled using a huge onshore rig in Sakhalin. By ExxonMobil. Unless they drill right up against the maritime boundary and all our oil is within a couple of miles of the boundary, I don't think it's a problem. The main risk, as noted, was from an oil spill. Repsol (the Spanish company that was drilling off Cuba) let the U.S. inspect the rig, and coordinated spill contingency plans with us. FYI - Repsol drilled two dry holes and pulled out. That whole area is really tough geology and there may well not be the oil that Cuba hopes for.