Playing with fire, poking the Russian bear

 From current news:  https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/russias-debt-default-one-hardest-080000031.html

I was asked - Is this war, a path to war?

I think the news is credible but it is not war, yet. The US is pushing to bankrupt Russia and Putin may start a war as a way to stay in power, so our neocon crazies are playing with fire. Continuing to play with it as they have done with Ukraine. But, as we saw with Argentina and Chile in the 80's and 90's default does not create wars. It forces a government change via either a public vote, or revolution, or a military coup. Russia is more likely to have a  military coup than anything else, so no gain for the pain in the end - thank our neocon fools. 

 Banks, US and EU, would take huge losses if there is no negotiated settlement, so before default, there will be a negotiated settlement that inflicts enormous pain to the Russians to save the banks. That's what happened with Greece in 2015.  The people pay the price for the games US neocons play (see Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, Syria).  See my post on Greece from 2015 http://marcomessina.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-simple-view-of-greece-and-grexit.html  That forecast is true today  Something similar will happen to Russia (barring Armageddon) but the added risk is: Russia has nukes and Greece did not. Different stakes same fools in charge. Fingers crossed.

A sobering update from 4/18/22 9p MST  https://www.newsweek.com/putins-iskander-missiles-are-battle-tested-can-carry-nuclear-warheads-1698559?utm_source=PushnamiMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=automatic&UTM=1650324671734&subscriberId=5efd004a23994a6b8781312b