Russia could soon run multiple Ukraine-sized operations: U.S. general

By Adrian Croft

WIESBADEN, Germany Fri Jan 16, 2015 9:44am EST

Russian amphibious vehicles drive in formation during celebrations to mark Navy Day in the far eastern Russian port of Vladivostok July 27, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Yuri Maltsev

(Reuters) - Russia is working to develop within a few years the capability to threaten several neighbors at once on the scale of its present operation in Ukraine, a senior American general said. Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, told Reuters an attack on another neighbor does not seem like an immediate threat because Moscow appears to have its hands full in Ukraine for now.
But that could change within a few years, when upgrades sought by President Vladimir Putin would give Russia the ability to carry out up to three such operations at the same time, without a mobilization that would give the West time to respond.
"Right now, without mobilizing, I don't think they have the capacity to do three major things at one time. They can do one thing, I think, in a big way without mobilizing. But in four to five years, I think that will change," Hodges said.
"Certainly within the next four to five years they will have the ability to conduct operations in eastern Ukraine and pressure the Baltics and pressure Georgia and do other things, without having to do a full mobilization."
The war in Ukraine, in which NATO says Moscow has supported pro-Russian rebels with arms and troops, has alarmed some of Russia's other neighbors, who are seeking greater reassurances for their defense from the Western alliance.
Moscow denies its active troops have fought in eastern Ukraine, but Western governments say they have evidence it has sent armored columns and hundreds of soldiers. More than 4,000 people have died in the conflict, including nearly 300 on board a Malaysian airliner shot down over rebel-held territory.
SPENDING DESPITE CRISIS
Putin has committed to spending billions to boost Russia's military capability, despite an economic crisis caused by sanctions over Ukraine and falling oil prices.

Mysterious Russian Radio Broadcast Goes Out To All Of Russia And Most Of Europe!

By Live Free Or Die - All News Pipeline

As we charge into 2015 and new cold war relations heat up between Russia and the United States, a mysterious Russian radio station which has broadcast the same super-creepy signal for 24 hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, and 365-days-a-year FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS is getting a lot of new interest due to its' unknown purpose, with some claiming it is Russia's 'nuclear trigger' while others say it's a continuous broadcast into outer space to communicate with extraterrestrials. The 1st video, a brand new one from Strange Mysteries, tells us all about the mysterious UVB-76, looking into what it's true purpose might be while telling us about the day in 2010 when it stopped broadcasting for a day, for the first time since 1982!

Oil price slump to trigger new US debt default crisis as Opec waits

Falling oil prices and and US shale drillers drowning in a sea of debt could be the spark for a new credit crunch 

Could falling oil price send the US recovery up in flames as drillers struggle with debt? Photo: REUTERS

By Andrew Critchlow

3:38PM GMT 14 Nov 2014

Remember the global financial crisis, triggered six years ago when billions of dollars of dodgy loans - doled out by banks to subprime borrowers and then resold numerous times on international debt markets - began to unravel and default?

Stock markets plunged, banks collapsed and the entire global financial system teetered on the brink of catastrophe. Well a similarly chilling economic scenario could be set off by the current collapse in oil prices.

Based on recent stress tests of subprime borrowers in the energy sector in the US produced by Deutsche Bank, should the price of US crude fall by a further 20pc to $60 per barrel, it could result in up to a 30pc default rate among B and CCC rated high-yield US borrowers in the industry. West Texas Intermediate crude is currently trading at multi-year lows of around $75 per barrel, down from $107 per barrel in June.

“A shock of that magnitude could be sufficient to trigger a broader high-yield market default cycle, if materialised,” warn Deutsche strategists Oleg Melentyev and Daniel Sorid in their report.

Five years ago at the beginning of what has become known as the US shale oil revolution, drillers started to load up on debt to fund their operations and acquire new acreage as vast areas of North America started to open up for exploration.

In 2010, energy and materials companies made up just 18pc of the US high-yield index – which tracks sub-investment grade borrowers – but today they account for 29pc of the measure after drilling firms spent the past five years borrowing heavily to underwrite the operations. The result of this debt splurge has been a spectacular rise in US oil and gas output.
Latest estimates suggest that by the end of the decade the US will have outstripped even Saudi Arabia and Russia in terms of oil production. The development of new shale resources in North America and the opening up of fields in the Arctic seas off Alaska could see the country pumping 14.2m barrels per day (bpd) of oil and petroleum liquids by 2020, up from 7.5m bpd in 2013.
This rush to pump more oil in the US has created a dangerous debt bubble in a notoriously volatile segment of corporate credit markets, which could pose a wider systemic risk in the world’s biggest economy. By encouraging ever more drilling in pursuit of lower oil prices, the US Department of Energy has unleashed a potential economic monster and pitched these heavily debt-laden shale oil drilling companies into an impossible battle for market share against some of the world’s most powerful low-cost producers in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).