Europe got lucky — it managed to avert an energy crisis, all thanks to a warm winter. But it has another problem. Countries in the region hoarded so much natural gas at higher prices that it’s now stuck with stockpiles of the fuel that have depreciated in market value.
For example, benchmark Dutch natural gas futures have fallen nearly 28% this year so far to around 53 euros, or $57, per megawatt-hour. The Dutch natural gas futures are also 85% lower than a record high of €349 per megawatt hour in August. The price spike had been driven by fears that Europe would be caught in a brutal winter as Russia — a key supplier — would continue cutting piped gas flows to the continent in retaliation to Western sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
The concerns had sent Europe scrambling to import liquefied natural gas from other countries and fill up its storage facilities. But the harsh winter it was fully prepared for did not come — Europe experienced its third warmest January in 2023, with average temperatures 2.2 degrees Celsius, or about 4 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the average between 1991 and 2020, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. It meant that European countries did not need to turn up the heating all that much. And hence, its regional natural-gas inventories — which are at about 65% capacity, on average — are at their highest levels in years, according to a Bloomberg analysis of data from Gas Infrastructure Europe published Monday.
Comment: This is not the problem I expected them to have… too much gas. Seems Russian gas is non indispensable to Europe. Gas yes, but not Russian gas. Too bad for Moscow. Gazprom spent decades building the markets and the massive infrastructure to move their gas to Europe and pissed it all away last February. They’ll eventually rebuild the infrastructure to move all that gas to Asia and elsewhere.
TTG
Another article on this subject:
Putin is staring at defeat in his gas war with Europe
Mild weather this winter is set to help Europe shrug off Russia’s energy threats next year, too.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-energy-gas-supply-russia-putin-winter/
What needs to be acknowledged is that
reducing supply inevitably leads to consequences for consumers.
We should not put our heads in the sand and ignore that reality.
A price will be paid.
I know that a number of you are passionate about the situation in Eastern Europe (much of which was once “the Pale of Settlement”).
I hear you.
But I have to wonder why that is so important to you.
It is not so important to me (whose grandparents hailed from Ireland, Wales, England, and the Palatinate).
I believe the advice of George Washington and John Quincy Adams (but not that of the gaggle of Jews from whom we hear so much) should be heeded in this regard.
We should not be going abroad searching for monsters to destroy.
If you insist on doing that, why are Ukrainians more important than Tibetans?
Interesting question. If the US didn’t go after ‘monsters abroad’, would those monsters stay abroad? Maybe. If they stayed away, over there, then there would only be one monster to go after. The worst monster of all for us to confront…ourselves. Ourselves being the entire utterly corrupt power mad force of our own government and all its tentacles that want to control our lives.
Returning to Eastern Europe. For me personally at 75 years old, seeing Russia bled to death at the hands of a neighboring country is gratifying, even if that country needs Western weapons to do it. To me, the USSR, Russian Federation or whatever, has been a nuisance to mankind for a century. A slightly broken up Russia would be a good thing. Enough authority needs to remain to manage the massive nuclear weapons stockpile. I guess I still have a Cold War mentality and I don’t intend to forget it.
You make a good point. I’ve wondered why the US spent so much and risked so much to save western Europe (including Ireland) from communism after WW II. Western Europeans seem to like socialism anyway and its just a short hop from socialism to communism. Why should we have held it back for 45 years? Where’s the evidence that communism was so bad. Looking for monsters were we? I always wondered if Washington (my favorite American) asked the French why they were spending so much and risking so much to help America. But we are not talking about communism. We are talking about empire. Some on this site want a reborn Russian Empire. They’d never admit it but Ukraine is the first step. Britain had an empire. It included Ireland which the Brits treated badly. That wasn’t America’s business. So maybe your right. Why should America give a crap if all Eastern Europe b/c colonies of Russia. Let the world rtn to 1914. Back to the future once more! Why stop the party in Europe? You referenced Tibet, is there really any American reason to prevent China from taking Taiwan and S. Korea? The Chinese always had a thing for Japan. Why should America care if Japan falls to China. Philippines anyone… New Zealand? I am very much a libertarian isolationist at heart. But I must allow the year 1796 has come and gone. Transportation technology has trumped isolationists philosophy – alas.
There were a number of reasons to oppose Communism.
A not insignificant one was its goal of suppressing religion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism_and_religion
Thus the catchphrase that was prevalent in the 1950s “godless Communism”.
See, e.g.,
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1958/december-22/why-communism-is-godless.html
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union
According to Wikipedia, this also affected Lithuania:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Lithuania
TTG surely knows more about this.
I’m not sure why you bring Ireland into your comment re the US spending and risking so much to save us from communism. Ireland was at that time, and for decades afterwards, one of the most conservative, traditional and Catholic countries in Europe, if not the world. There was no danger here from Communism.
Are you suggesting that the Soviet Union would likely have invaded Ireland if not for the US?
You say you are very much an isolationist libertarian and speak of Russia dreaming of Empire, yet you seem utterly unaware of 800 supposedly, US bases around the world. How many does Russia have? You appear to be totally ignorant of promises made by Bush, Baker, Kohl, Thatcher that Nato would not advance an inch beyond the Oder if Russia withdrew from East Germany. You haven’t done your homework on the reasons for the crisis in Ukraine, as advanced by many military and academic scholars such as Mearsheimer, Mc Gregor, Jeffrey Sachs, Scott Ritter and many more. It seems that the opposition of many here to Russia is based on residual negative feelings towards the Soviet Union. Here’s a newsflash; the SU disappeared over 30 years ago. The Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union. The fact is that Nato has broken every promise it made to Russia, it steadily advanced towards Russias borders, stationing missile bases in Poland and Romania, and attempted to take Crimea to place US bases in Sevastopol, the home of the Russia Black Sea fleet for centuries. Now imagine if the tables were turned; Russia was involved in a coup d’etat against Mexico, or Canada, and was arming and training elements with a hatred towards the US. Would you guys just sit around and wait? You know the answer to that, it’s a rhetorical question. You speak of Russia having designs on an empire. Are you so blindly unaware of the US empire? The US master of the supine EU? And yes, even my own supposedly militarily neutral country, Ireland. I am ashamed of the degeneracy of the Western nations, the deeply ingrained corruption, the clearly compromised political and probably military leaders, who in my opinion are either blackmailed, or bribed. What do you think the Epstein business was about? And do you think he was the first agent provocateur to lure the feckless and corrupt into the honey trap? You say you’ve held back socialism for 45 years, but to this observer, what you have promoted and achieved in an oligarchic nation at home: – https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
The fact is that the US is attempting to kill two birds with one stone, European industry and the breakup of the Russian Federation so as to complete the plunder it attempted back in the 90’s.
It’s sad to see people live in the past, and seemingly can’t adjust their beliefs even when the circumstances change. The RF is not the SU, and under Putin, sought the join the Western club in Nato, and was contemptuously rejected. He has been trying to talk to the West, and its threats to Russia for many years, at least as far back as the 2007 Munich Security Conference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Munich_speech_of_Vladimir_Putin).
The RF is not the SU but both are Russia which has not changed its beliefs since 1914. Sadly it still believes it is the Empire of Eastern Europe and other Slavs, Balts, Finns, and Swedes are subordinate. Ask them why every 0ne has joined NATO. Russia can’t give up its desire for eastern hegemony. But Ukraine too is mired in the past. It has been fighting Russia for its independence for the past 100 years. Its efforts go back much earlier then the Munich Security Conference, before the Maiden, the election of ’14, Nuland, and the break away regions in the Donbas. Do you think if Ukraine just asked nicely Russia would let it be independent? I would think after 800 years of English repression an Irishman would understand that saying “pretty please” just doesn’t work. As to American bases spread around the world I too would like them closed. In fact every American soldier lost in WW I, WW II, Korea, and Nam should never have had to die. All the grave yards in Europe where American soldiers lie cold were unnecessary. Their death was really b/c America wanted a world wide empire … right? We can trust in the goodness of Chinese, Russian, N. Korean, Venezuelan, Cuban, Iranian, and a peaceful Islamic world w/o a “Pax Americana”. The “new think” on int’l relations is predictable. “America bad” sums it up. I don’t buy it.
I’ve been all around the world. Only place left on my bucket list is Cork. Maybe an afternoon in Fermoy would be interesting. Any good pubs?
Razor,
My HUMINT collection team was monitoring the fall of the USSR and the rise of Russia. The same apparatchiks that ran the USSR came back to run Russia. They only left for a matter of weeks. Putin was KGB for the USSR. The Kremlin of Russia is little different from the Kremlin of the USSR.
Well all of your humint failed to predict the fall of the SU.
A matter of weeks? Yeltsin, the US marionette, was there from what? 91 – 2000? And Clinton sent in his team of riggers to ensure Yeltsin would not lost the election he was about to lose in I think 96. This to ensure the continued economic rape of Russia by Wall St, the Chicago boys and the Haaavard set, in alliance with the likes of the oleaginous and vile Bill Browder.
The siloviki came in after Putin; these were patriotic Russians for the most part who abhorred what had become of Russia with the US shock Doctrine. You complain of Putin being KGB, while ignoring HW being boss of the CIA. You only want to see what suits your bias.
Razor,
The communist apparatchiks of the Kremlin became the Russian apparatchiks of the Kremlin. They were the same people. The communist ideology of those people, warped as it was, gave many of those Soviet apparatchiks something outside themselves to strive for. With the fall of the USSR and communism, those apparatchiks had only their avarice to fall back on as a motivator. That avarice led to the current sorry state of the Russian military machine.
Right on point! This comment alone captures the whole point. The KGB still resides in Putin and he is acting on it. He will continue in tiny steps or big ones until he is stopped. Treaties will only be for headlines until he can figure out an excuse to get around them. He knows Western governments have elections which he does not have to worry about. If his people protest him then they are arrested and any opposing media is shut down. He is still bitter KGB. It is profitable for his associates in the Kremlin to be of a like mind especially the younger guard.
To all:
I don’t expect any support for my opinion, but as long as I still have freedom of speech, here it is.
I don’t mind empire, as long as I’m in it. Otherwise, by accident of birth, I’m sure that I would fight against it. However, here I am a US citizen and veteran.
Never was or ever will be a time when man does not seek to dominate other men. War will never go away, and the time of the US Empire is not over. The time for Russia’s empire may well be. And I have no sympathy for the efforts of China to attain empire in this century.
And now, a paragraph about the seeming decline of the US. Just as the global communist in Russia never lost power but changed its facade, the same happened with the communist fifth column here in the US. I was attending San Diego State when the USSR fell. Within weeks, the communist activists on campus dropped the communism and started protesting as environmentalists, same people, same stupid 8 foot tall puppets, and the works.
My degree was in geography, resources and the environment. I had been involved with the early environmental movement that brought the clean air and clean water acts. I also had a front row seat to see how the environmental movement became corrupted. I can say much more, but please extrapolate from here.
Cobo,
Damn well said! Communism lost the State as god but as you point out, environment(alism) became religion and this religion rages against abundance (consumerism) and offers poverty and starvation (environmentalism) as good things to resurrect the State all over again…under their control of course. .
Cobo – aside from the Ukraine business and on the environmental stuff, observations on what happened to the Greens would be interesting.
I no longer see the see the Green parties in England, Germany and Scotland as primarily interested in serious environmental issues. I now see them more as a means of herding those who are genuinely concerned about environmental issues into the crony/progressive big tent.
And the movement’s gone infantile. What was all that Greta nonsense but infantilism squared? What is “Net Zero” but a triumph of fantasy over reality?
So how all that happened, told from a front row seat, would be interesting indeed.
English Outsider:
I grew up at San Diego State, my father being an instructor in the Geography Department. As a high school student I was able to participate with the California initiatives, mentioned, that actually did clean up our air and water. I read “The Limits to Growth,” published in 1972 by the Club of Rome in my HS senior year, 1973. I was, except for my love of dirt bikes :-), very interested in the “environment.”
I did, using my dirt bike and camera, participate in mapping the Habitat Zones of San Diego County in the early 80s. The idea being that to maintain a species a critical minimum amount of contiguous habitat was required. This would allow San Diego to identify these zones and designate development areas that did not conflict. The developers were on board, everybody was on board, but it was killed by the “environmentalists,” who did not want to give up their ability to sue over every corner lot where a wobbly-kneed-little-gnat-snatcher (Gnat Catcher) might land for a moment.
The environmental movement had turned into an employment opportunity for lawyers and bureaucrats. The Green party may have come up somewhere during that time. I might have registered Green – for a while.
Fast Forward – in 2018 I attended the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. It was clear that by then/now, the environmental movement has been completely captured by the corporations that have caused the environmental degradations, everywhere. These same global corporations are behind the UN Agenda 2030 and the WEF. Please don’t forget that Klaus Schwab himself has been Putin’s handler since his days driving taxis in St. Petersburg. China’s rise has been the project of Western oligarchs from Kissinger’s Nixon visit. I’ve documented all this before, so figure in the current work of the “Greens” and let’s put this puzzle together. Thank you.
I am not TTG, obviously. But from what TTG has written in the past, I will offer a guess as to why defeating Russia on the plains of Ukraine is so important to TTG. Aside from the politics of it, important in themselves, TTG was also raised on bad memories of Soviet persecution and oppression of his Lithuanian relatives and ancestors, and wishes to see a similar process which is under way in Ukraine to be stopped in Ukraine before it is rolled out to Lithuania again. If I am wrong about that, then I imagine TTG will correct me.
If I am right about that . . . why it is so important to TTG . . . . then there will be millions of other East European White people to whom it is equally important, even without any gaggle of Jews being heard from at all on the matter. It was, after all, the White nations of Eastern Europe which demanded the expansion of NATO to include them as insurance and protection against the Russian threat of their imagining and memory.
( A Russian Threat which the DC FedRegime and the core NATO governments of Rumsfeld’s ” older Europe” deliberately and maliciously created and engineered into existence by organizing the loot, sack and pillage of Russia during the Yeltsin time, and by humiliatingly excluding it from Europe when it earnestly wanted to join Europe. If TTG considers me wrong about this too, he may decide to correct me about this too.)
“I believe the advice of George Washington and John Quincy Adams (but not that of the gaggle of Jews from whom we hear so much) should be heeded in this regard.”
What “gaggle of Jews” are you referring to? Your ignorant bigotry defeats your argument completely.
There are many.
I will give but one example:
Eliot A. Cohen, who played a significant role in getting the U.S. to invade Iraq, and now, despite the general acknowledgement that that was a mistake, still is published by such prestigious journals as the Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/western-military-aid-ukraine-russia/672737/
You might also note the role of the Kagans and Nulands in influencing American opinion and controlling American policy.
Whose interests are they serving?
Surely not the general American interest.
OTOH, such wise scholars as John Mearsheimer do not get so published.
You want to talk about bigotry?
You might consider that.
That is a very key issue, IMO.
Regarding your assertion of “ignorance”,
have you read The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt?
It gives a clear-eyed, very well-referenced description of what drives so much of U.S. policy.
It is ignorant to ignore that.
Is that not so?
If a significant part of that gas is used to make electricity with in Europe, then if they get a hot or super-hot global warming summer, they will burn that surplus back down making enough electricity to run all the air conditioning they are going to need.
Unless much of Europe does not have air conditioning the way much of America has it.
In which case, Europe will just get very hot, including inside all the houses and buildings.
different clue,
Europe still does not have the amount of air conditioning that we have in the US in spite of some extremely hot summers. The last summer I lived there was extremely hot. My US made VW was the only air conditioned oasis available to anyone in our detachment. The hotels, restaurants and offices relied on open windows for cooling. I was in Munich again in the summer of 2001 or so. It was even hotter and still very little air conditioning.
If the Europeans can figure out how to keep cool or at least coolish in the super hot summers to come, and do it with less energy inputs than what air conditioning would require; Europe will have made an important contribution to energy conservation and energy survival in our global hotting future.
Everything I see suggests that Europe is building out PV and wind absolutely as fast as they can. The last year has really turbocharged that.
On a related note, I’m not sure that Europe having a surfeit of natural gas right now is very much of a problem at all (for anyone other than the Russians).
Mr Hug – availability of fossil fuel is not the problem. I see the Germans and the Poles have recently put in a request to Gazprom for oil, but whether they get that or not they’ll get oil, and LNG, from somewhere.
Even were the Russians to introduce counter-sanctions they’d still get it. “Latvian oil”, Greek shipowners transferring oil from one ship to another in mid-ocean, or just tankers getting redirected, oil will always get to those who want it and are prepared to pay for it.
Incidentally, I live in England where there’s a great energy scare. I bought some heating oil recently. I was surprised to find it not that much more expensive than I’d paid several years ago. (Several years because I use little oil). I also laid in a few cylinders of propane, just in case. Again, the price wasn’t out of the way.
I hope TTG doesn’t read this because I’ve been bragging a little about my wood supply. But behind the bragging is the fear I may not get down to bringing it all in, so I laid in a ton or so of coal to be on the safe side. Again, a higher price but not that out of the way.
So if I’m OK what’s BASF worried about? Given that they have more buying power than me.
Josep Borrell explained a little while ago what the European energy problem is. Take Germany, until now the only successful industrial economy in the West.
Germany survived against Far East competition by getting cheap fossil fuel from Russia. The experts all give different figures but at one time, and until NSI ceased use, the Russian piped gas on long term contracts that Germany was getting was said to be some 20 times cheaper than LNG bought on the world market.
Even without long term contracts piped gas is considerably cheaper than LNG. So Germany could compete on price with the Far Eastern market because of that cheaper gas.
Not so much now. BASF is still able to get gas. But because it fears the price will stay high it’s talking of relocating to the US or China where it’s cheaper. BASF employs tens of thousands of people.
At the other end of the scale is a little glass factory in France. Only employs some 500 people. They’re now on paid leave and the factory just kept ticking over for technical reasons. That factory can get gas too. But not at the price that’ll allow them to keep the price of the finished product competitive.
Cheap energy, said Borrell, was one of the two supports of the European industrial economy. The other support he mentioned is unhindered access to world markets.
The strength of German industry lies in producing superb machines but doing so mass production. Not as well as Japan but pretty close and with an enviable reputation for good solid reliability. (If you notice a touch of envy there that’s because I’m envious. There was a time when we in Britain could pull that trick too)
Now the silly chumps are in the business of cutting away that second Borrell support.
Soon after February 24th last year, when all this was painfully obvious, I wrote in apocalyptic mood that Europe was now condemning itself to becoming an industrial/trading backwater.
Maybe I was overstating the case – I was furious then and am furious now that Scholz had got Germany in the position of backing a bunch of neo-Nazis. But set that aside. I’m seeing articles in the English press claiming that the EU share of world trade has dropped from a third to a seventh. Maybe that’s a bit apocalyptic too, but the Ukrainian venture has at the very least accelerated that process of European economic/industrial decline.
EO,
You stated it succinctly. Europe may have plenty of gas, but it’s certainly not as cheap as it was from Russian pipelines… and that has consequences. If Russia left Ukraine and returned all kidnapped Ukrainian children, I’m pretty sure Europe will like to find a way to return to that cheaper gas. Maybe it’s possible. Maybe it’s not.
Too late. I see your comments on your wood supply and coal purchase. Is it soft coal? I remember the soft coal fireplaces in the UK. It was a rainy day, of course, when I made my way into a pub outside RAF Sculthorpe. It had a tea room with a coal fireplace and the kind of furniture you would find in your grandmother’s house. I had to have a pot of tea while sitting by the fire. It seemed the right thing to do.
TTG,
“Correction: February 17, 2023 — An earlier version of this story miscalculated the temperature difference conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit. It should have been 4 degrees Fahrenheit, not 35.96 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Did they also “miscalculate” the impact on the European economy’s usage of gas due to significant portions of the economy shutting down due to higher costs, such as indicated in the line: “The Dutch natural gas futures … a record high of €349 per megawatt hour in August. ”
What did that actually do to economic output and industrial capability and employment? Here are some other stories on that:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/europes-aluminium-smelters-cut-output-power-crunch-intensifies-2022-08-25/
“New shock’ for European markets as gas price spike fuels inflation fears”
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/new-shock-european-markets-gas-price-spike-fuels-inflation-fears-2022-08-24/
(Inflation in the US is transitory though, so we were told.)
“Sources are additionally hoping that implementation of a European gas price cap may help solve demand woes, …..”
A government regulated price strategy? Wonderful. Where has such socialism ever worked before?
At least they have a glut of high priced gas sitting in storage facilities that will be sold for?
(drum roll please)
1) the purhcase price
2) the purchase price + cost of storage
3) some price that loses money
4) how dare you ask such a question
TTG wrote:
“Gazprom spent decades building the markets”
Can you explain that to me? Gazprom created the aluminum smelting market in Europe so it could sell natural gas there? Gasprom created all the natural gas fired electric plant generation market so they could sell gas there? Or was it that Gazprom produces gas at a cost lower than what is produced in any European country, or the LNG imported product, and they calcuated that with pipelines (and tarriffs on transhipment) their costs would still be lower that of the regulated product within Europe? Maybe it was just ‘greedy capitalists’ in Europe who convinced ‘the Russians’ to help them betray their fellow countryman to make millions of Euros in profits by outsourcing gas production to a low cost country. Or could it be that ‘sanctions’ on gas imports are hurting the Europeans a hell of a lot more than they are hurting Russians?
Fred,
You’re offering articles from last August when gas prices were at their highest. They’ve dropped a lot since then. There are a number of LNG carriers sitting outside European ports hoping the prices spike again. Sure, the European economy took a hit over the past year, but their economy has been growing at 3.5% last year. Unemployment is at a historical low and industrial production hasn’t dropped near as much as predicted. They’re still plagued by inflation like damned near everyone else.
“Gazprom spent decades building the markets”
Gazprom built their pipelines and pumping stations to service Europe. They hitched their gas industry to the European economy. What they’ve built and are building for China pales in comparison.
TTG,
“They’ve dropped a lot since then.”
Are those prices still Higher than before all those sanctions were imposed? (yes, what’s that do to inflation btw) Where do you think all that gas bought at those peak prices is sitting? Did it just pass through the system and nothing actually got put into those storage facilities? For all those ships sitting around – what are they waiting for? An unloading spot at a still not complete terminal or a customer for their product? I hope you are not asking me to believe that multiple firms bought multiple LNG cargos on speculation without actually having customers committed to the cargo in Europe?
“Unemployment is at a historical low and industrial production hasn’t dropped near as much as predicted.”
Historical unemployement with 10 million Ukrainian refugees? (And a few million from that continent to the South) I guess those people don’t count. What was the “predicted” drop in industrial production, is actual industrial production still LOWER than before the sanctions? Which would make one wonder what all those employed people are doing (except the ones in France who are periodically rioting over pension reform).
Glad to know Trump was wrong when he said Germany, and by extention the rest of the EU, was linked to cheap Russian gas. It was really the other way around. Boy were those Russians suckers linking their gas sales to Europeans! I won’t bother asking who owned half of those pipelines recently blown up (by the US according to Sy Hersh but thankfully Balloons Across America kept that from being written about here.) Or what happened to all that projected tax revenue. You would think with a booming record low unemployment economy the EU would be rolling in tax receipts and thus could pay off that debt and eliminate that ‘plague of inflation’. Funny how those plagues keep popping up in countries run by socialists.
Fred,
Those LNG tankers are hoping the price of gas spikes again so they can make a profit on the gas they’re holding. I’m sure some of the gas that went into European storage was bought at the August 2022 high.
Ukrainian refugees are being incorporated into the labor force under the Temporary Protective Directive faster than any other group. Their productive contribution to the economies may be in excess of 1%. Europe may have been addicted to Russian gas, but they proved they could kick the habit over the past year.
You’re more than welcome to do a piece on the Sy Hersh story. You might want to address Moscow’s claim that they have absolute proof that the UK was behind the sabotage.
TTG,
You mean you don’t know who owns the tankers or the cargo on them nor who owns the strategic reserve or what price it was purchased at.
“are being incorporated into the labor force…” “Their productive contribution to the economies may be in excess of 1%….”
So 99% of them are not providing productive contributions to the economies. Where’s their money coming from and how does that correlate to inflation.
Fred,
That contribution is 1% rise in economic growth, not 1% participation in the labor force. Not being an economist, my guess is that refugees are helping to alleviate the European labor shortage. That shortage is a drag on the economy.
TTG,
” alleviate the European labor shortage. That shortage is a drag on the economy.”
LOL DeSantis should fly some of those illegal immigrants over their to help out our struggling European allies. They folks in Brussels sure didn’t like it when Meloni sent a bunch to France, but then maybe they don’t have the same labor problems as those other EU members.
@TTG
“the European economy took a hit over the past year, but their economy has been growing at 3.5% last year. Unemployment is at a historical low and industrial production hasn’t dropped near as much as predicted.”
WOW!
You should check with your dealer, he most probably switched to much stronger stuff than what you usually smoke. 😀
TTG, some of our communities are struggling heavily to accommodate the immigrants. … The numbers are even higher then in 2015/16 in Germany.
EU economic growth was 1.8 % (average) not what you make it to be.
But since Germany’s 2022 growth was 1.1% we (Germans)–if I understand, and you are correct, that is–must be very, very thankful to intransigent Russia and Ukraine, the latter inspired by the City on the Hill, the land of the free. That Ukraine sent their countrymen and women our way to help us out with 1% to our 1.1 % GDP 2022 increase.
But yes, Ireland is doing quite well again after the US triggered 2008 avarice (?) disaster. As does Greece relatively. But best of all, does Monaco, apparently. Except for a friend who works there as a shipbuilder. His Russian sponsors Swiss accounts apparently are frozen.
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp-annual-growth-rate?continent=europe
TTG, how is the Colonel?
Putin’s strategy of attacking energy infrastucture in Ukraine’s electrical grid may be failing also. Although the situation is still shaky considering the “damage to almost all power plants in the country”. Plus the total takeover of by Putin of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, on of the ten largest in the world.
https://twitter.com/BBCPaulAdams/status/1626539822411046913
An amazing bit of ad hoc engineering savvy IMO. That resilience was never envisioned by Surovikin and Putin.
“The existing consumption” That’s some fine wordsmithing there. I bet it sounds even better in Ukrainian.
Norway’s ability to replace Russian pipelined gas is, of course, only one C4-explosion away from being taken off the table.
And if Sy Hersh is correct then, honestly, it is their turn….
When Biden goes to Europe, promising more money for Ukraine, Trump will be going to East Palestine;
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/donald-trump-plans-visit-ohio-town-toxic-train-derailment
It will be an interesting contrast.
John,
The EPA administrator says it is still too dangerous for his staff to go to East Palestine. I wonder if the mayor invited any of the Squad to come. They love Palestine. It might get them some attention.
Fred,
The EPA Administrator was at an East Palestine town hall on Thursday. An EPA team has been there from the first day monitoring air and water and advising DeWine’s team.
TTG,
WOW look at that! I’m so glad to be corrected. How many days after the accident was that? “Monitoring teams” were on site from day one? Well golly gee. Mission Accomplished, move along, nothing to worry about. On to the next story.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/local/2023/02/15/epa-administrator-michael-regan-to-visit-east-palestine-train-derailment-thursday/69907404007/
The Quack from Oz tried to make a sticky ooze on the rail tanker mess by blaming Biden for no action. Repub Gov Dewine basically told Oz to shut up and praised Biden Admin for immediately providing needed assistance.
I wonder what the healthy and stable man who crushed Oz in that senatorial election has to say. Has anyone gone to the hospital he checked himself into to get treatment for that condition which wasn’t going to affect his ability to be a senator yet?
So many non sequiturs, it’s hard to know where to start! Still believes in Empire or Eastern Europe etc…? Where is the evidence for such a bald claim? And what of the Monroe Doctrine in the Americas? One rule for me, but not for thee? Blind hypocrisy.
As for Ukrainian independence, Russia was not scheming to take over Ukraine. That was the US/NATO Nuland plan. Twice, after the Nazis in Ukraine attempted to genocide the Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine and got their asses handed to them, Putin facilitated the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, underwritten by both France and Germany and lodged with the UN. We now know of course, courtesy of the explicit statements of Hollande and Merkel, that they never intended these agreements to be implemented, but we’re simply a feint to rearm and rebuild a Ukrainian army, so as to complete the genocide of their own Eastern population.
As for Ukrainian independence? Ukraine was never a nation as it existed in 1990. It was know as “The” Ukraine, or the borderlands. Made up of several nationalities including Poles, Romanians, Russian etc. You probably don’t know, in your ignorance, that the Bandera “Ukrainians” slaughtered Poles as well as Jews – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia
In any nation where there is a patchwork quilt of nationalities, there has to be mutual rights and respect for it to succeed. The coup regime sought to destroy the Russian cohort of the population.
Despite the Donesk and Lughansk peoples appealing to Russia to incorporate them into the Federation a la Crimea, Russia declined, instead promoting the Minsk agreements
As an Irishman, following 800 years of oppression, I think we’ve learned something of the stink of perfidious imperialists. We know them by their fruits. And I believe any honest, unblinkered person can see clearly since the fall of the Iron Curtain, which is the perfidious Empire. The one that goes round the world seeking monsters to destroy, and slaughtering countless millions in the process. As my late father used to say, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
“Ukraine was never a nation…”
Oh! It was better than that, Ukraine was several nations. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzGpUVX0Q54
Razor – I believe that is the key point. Minsk 2 would have kept the Donbass in the Ukraine. I have not seen it explained how Putin was “empire building” by spending years attempting to get Minsk 2 implemented.
Had he succeeded Donbass would still be part of Ukraine. The blame for the disaster attaches to those who sabotaged Minsk 2.
EO,
Adherence to the Budapest Memorandum would have kept both the Donbas and Crimea in Ukraine. Then Russia and Ukraine would be free to pursue whatever alliances they wished without interference. The Verkhovna Rada approved long sought alliance with the EU was unilaterally and without warning scotched by the Yanukovych secret deal with Moscow. Prior to that, Yanukovych himself long proclaimed that integration within the EU was Ukraine’s strategy. Yanukovych’s abrupt about face triggered the Revolution of Dignity or Euromaidan.
TTG – The terms of the Budapest Memorandum do support that view. Or not, depending on how the last sentence here is read:-.
“The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the Budapest Convention Center with US Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance,[2] prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, “except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
Which is why, presumably, there was that hasty recognition of the self-declared Republics leading to the Russian intervention under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Legalistic stuff. The Dips love legal stuff. So do the Russians. Me, not – I saw too much tying us up in knots with legal stuff during Brexit. Fact is, even had the Russians not got the legal stuff right, Putin had to prevent the Kiev forces getting into the Donbass. There’d have been hell to pay if he hadn’t.
But legal stuff does have its place. That’s why the Russians took good care to ensure Minsk 2 was deposited at the United Nations.
Clause 11 stated – “Constitutional reform in Ukraine, with a new constitution to come into effect by the end of 2015, the key element of which is decentralisation (taking into account peculiarities of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, agreed with representatives of these districts), and also approval of permanent legislation on the special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in accordance with the measures spelt out in the attached footnote,[note 1] by the end of 2015.”
Never happened. Not only did it never happen, there was no attempt by Germany and France to make it happen. Why?
“Angela Merkel said in 2022 that the agreement had been “an attempt to give Ukraine time” and that Ukraine used it to strengthen its armed forces.”
Poroshenko and Hollande said the same. That knocks the ground from under the feet of the Euros and has reduced European diplomatic credibility to nil, not just with Russia, but with many other important countries too. Minsk 2 would have kept Ukraine in one piece. That was what Putin had been pushing for. And it turned out to be merely a scam practised on him by the Euros.
My view since February last is that Putin was deliberately provoked to intervene on February 24th. That to get the Western publics behind the “shock and awe” economic and financial sanctions.
It was the sanctions that were confidently expected to break Russia. They didn’t. It’s now time to pick up the pieces.
As for the military war, I’ve always been amazed that anyone ever expected the Kiev forces to win. When we trained the Ukrainians up we gave them neither the means nor the training for combined arms warfare. So by pushing our proxies on to take on Russia we were just pushing them into the graveyard. We still are.
On a less controversial subject, soft coal? I bought some stuff called smokeless. Which it’s not. The children love it when they’re home. The stove for that is in another room and they gleefully get it up to sauna temperature. Greta would throw a fit.
TG, ou fire slogans about communist aparachiks and russian aparacbiks. That’s nothing more than a slogan. Who specifically, and when? Before Yeltsin? During his term? After his term? Weeks?
Avarice is an interesting one. One you USans should be very familiar with, given the massive avaricious corruption in US business and politics. Pot, kettle,black!
The avarice of the US MIC or as Ray McGovern,(a fine Irish name) has it, MICIMATT, has led to the state where the US military hasn’t won a war since the Pacific war, despite the profligate spendthrift waste, more than the next ten countries combined.
Your elections are dependant on private financing of political candidates, and as one particular lobby likes to do, finances the opposition to an incumbent who refuses to toe their line, eve tho’ their line is not in the interests if the US. Your Supreme Court decided that the legal fiction, known as corporate personality, therefore entitled Corporations to the free speech rights of citizens. (Citizens United) And of course, given the huge divergence in financial resources between the average John Q citizen and the plutocratic and oligarchical Corporations, there’s simply no contest. You get the best Government money can buy.
“Military men are just dumb stupid animals, to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” – Henry Kissinger
Or as the most decorated US marine general put it, all wars are bankers wars.
Still waiting for a response from Bill Roche. What about it, Billy Boy?
Razor,
The who and when of those apparatchiks were detailed in my intelligence information reports (IIRs). This was/is the deep state of both the Soviet and Russian regimes.
You decry the part money and big business plays in the US political system. I happen to agree with you there. Big money and corporations is most often at the heart of corruption in our politics. Such corruption was also present in the USSR, but once the shackles of communist ideology were removed, the corruption in Russia, Ukraine and the rest of the former USSR metastasized. It’s not surprising that Ukraine is still considered corrupt only surpassed by Putin’s Russia.
That’s what’s called a universal quantifier. Considered by who? On the basis of what evidence? These are what are sometimes called “weasel words” See Peter Robinson, DUP.
What you are making is simply a bald assertion with no evidence whatsoever, just as with your previous assertion re apparachiks. And I suppose the US has no deep state? And your intelligence information reports? We’re these official military reports as a serving military officer? To which we obviously have no access to evaluate? We should just take it on trust? I have to say, no disrespect intended, that you come across as someone so biased against Russia , that you are totally lacking any self-awareness in this area, which may be explained as suggested above, by your Baltic origins.
TTG, I would think most American patriots would have enough issues to deal with at home, to keep them from looking at the speck in their neighbours eyes.
Razor,
As the saying goes, we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Razor,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
This is a worldwide ranking that’s been going on since the 1990s. The last one has Russia, Mali and Paraguay in a tie at 137. Denmark is ranked as least corrupt and Somalia as most corrupt.
The preponderance of evidence for my assertions about soviet/Russian apparatchiks is classified IIRs. I can’t and I won’t name names. I was always biased against the USSR. With the breakup of the WTO and the USSR, I thought the Baltics would be in a unique position to be the gateway between the West and Russia, economically, politically and culturally. I was wrong on that one. Now I see a leopard cannot change his spots.
Many years ago Col. Lang tossed my Irish Ass off SST b/c I forgot his admonition about no ad hominems. I got too personnel in replies. These days I try to be less so.
Yes the more money the more corruption and the US produces more wealth then anyone. That’s capitalism for ya! Funny, in tough times, helping nations out in natural disasters, and in paying for int’l organizations, the good ole capitalist digs deep while many others just can’t find their wallets. Since the rest of the world is a pure as driven snow I’m pleased to know there are no avaricious corporations/politicians elsewhere.
As to not winning wars I agree w/you. Its deplorable. But take it from me. Its not wasteful spending its congressional cowardice. Still, I’ll bet there are some Pacific nations that are happy the American Navy still sails. To understand what I just wrote you would need a life’s experience in post ’50 American politics. Lots of reading ahead for you. Choose you authors from both sides of the aisle and thanks for your concern.
Let’s talk about corporate “personality”. I agree w/it. If a corporation, the embodiment (ergo the word in-corpus) of shareholders can sue, be sued, enter (and be responsible for ) into contracts, be liable for conformance to law, and have ownership so to exchange goods, it has to have the same rights as a person under the law. But that is not what really troubles you. You would like only unions, to have the right to make collective political contributions although John Q. citizen can’t possible match the collective clout of union dollars. Am I to understand that some citizens, union members, can combine their political contributions but other citizens, shareholders, may not? Why?
Thank you for explaining what the word Ukraine means. You forgot to mention that this polygot people had more than Poles, Romanians, and Russians. It also had Jews (lots), Litvaks, Ruthenians (Ukies), Austrians, and Hungarians (who did I miss?). So what. How many countries are ethnically pure nation states. Russia, err no.
You jump from Ukrainian ethnicity to Bandera and his killing of Poles and Jews during WW II. Some Poles and Jews were sympathetic to the communists who Ukrainians had been fighting for independence from Russia since post WW I. Jews also participated in the execution of a real genocide of Ukrainian farmers, (which you neglected to mention ) Holodomore. Was Bandera “in it” to promote the Nazis or to remove the commies? No one knows. There were similar organizations in Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Armenia, and Czechoslovakia. Am I to infer they were all Jew hating Nazis?
You say you know something about the wickedness of empire. Unfortunately Ireland’s experience is not unique. Ukraine got to enjoy being a colony to the Empire (S.U.) from ’18 onward while Eastern Europe felt the sting of Russian communist apparatchiks from 1945 to 1991. Every state since, including Sweden, has sought membership in the protective umbrella of NATO. Must be some kind of coincidence. Asked about it Putin reportedly said “there are no imperialists in Moscow. Trust me.” Eastern Europe does not.
Well your walk doesn’t seem to he having much impact at home. Maybe you should stick to walking at home. It’s a lot healthier than chewing gum abroad, and probably much more likely to have positive effects for you and your country’s benefit. Sometimes finding the speck in your neighbour eye while ignoring the beam in your own is regarded as hypocrisy .
I understand you can’t disclose classified info. But that being the case, you can’t raise and rely on it in debate. I could explain why, but I’d have to kill you! See how that works?
As for wiki and TI. Sorry, I don’t have much faith in either, especially such an organisation founded by International bankers. I mean, come on!
TTG,
I am sorry to inform you that all may indeed be lost. Evidence:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtojQCH/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtojBnx/
That’s 2! And counting has barely started. Two what? Two TikTokers using the tag “Lithuanian Girl” who are dancing to and lip/synching with Sveta’s “Sho Mne Delat Sevodnya?” which is a Russian song, by a Russian artist. Do not become overly alarmed. It could be that it’s simply a really great irresistible song sung by a brilliant singer and composer. And the title – “What Shall I Do Today?” – is it subversive, communist, corrupt, anti-Baltic?
TTG,
I am sorry to inform you that all may indeed be lost. Evidence:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtojQCH/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtojBnx/
That’s 2! And counting has barely started. Two what? Two TikTokers using the tag “Lithuanian Girl” who are dancing to and lip/synching with Sveta’s “Sho Mne Delat Sevodnya?” which is a Russian song, by a Russian artist. Do not become overly alarmed. It could be that it’s simply a really great irresistible song sung by a brilliant singer and composer. And the title – “What Shall I Do Today?” – is it subversive, communist, corrupt, anti-American?
F&L,
Looks more like what the kids call a Tik-Tok challenge with a Eurovision-like song than some kind of nefarious Russian plot. Doesn’t worry me in the least. Much like my collection of Russian lacquer boxes, mostly haggled over from the trunks of several Ladas in the shadow of the Brandenburger Tor. I’ll never part with then simply because they’re Russian. Nor will I part with my bootleg Malinin tapes. I never fell for that ridiculous freedom fries big back in the day, either.
As the saying goes, “but at what price?”
The Germans yoy monthly inflation in residential gas and electricity ranged between 33% and 55% for all months March 2022 to December 2022 inclusive. A climate blogger in Germany was on a locked in home utilities contract initiated in spring 2021. The new contract starting April 2023 increases gas by 162% and electricity by 87%. He considers himself lucky to be able to burn wood he gets cheap.
The anti-American viewpoint is always couched under the “hypocrisy” label. However, the “hypocrisy” of those that they adulate is ignored. The US must be flagellated with rhetoric.
The reality of the human condition never to be acknowledged. The history of human conflict, war and occupation. The great war-time leaders, the conquests and the costs.
For the anti-Americans, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not turned out the way they fantasized. Putin believed that his previous showing who’s boss in his neighborhood would work out once again with no real opposition from the Ukrainian military forces and other national capitals. Their decapitation strike against Kyiv failed at the onset of the invasion. Now a year later his “super-power” army has yet to subdue the much smaller and less equipped Ukrainian army. Instead, there’s a possibility that the Ukrainian army could defeat the Russian army in Ukraine.
The anti-Americans now have to bet big on Xi to take down the US. Lockdown CCP whose fragile hold on power in China was best exemplified when their lockdown policy was removed overnight when protests spread spontaneously to dozens of cities.
In recent surveys in several Asian countries, the majorities of people strongly supported a military partnership with the US to bolster their security interests. Just like Sweden & Finland in the Nordic region. Xi’s neighbors in Vietnam, India, Japan, S.Korea and also Philippines know that the US military is the only bulwark against an expansionist CCP.
The Ukrainian war should make it obvious that Europe is too weak to even defend itself. The Eastern European military partnership with the US will only grow consequently as they seek to secure their borders.
All-in-all, it must be a tough emotional situation for the anti-Americans! Around the world, there are many countries who believe their security means a strong military partnership with the US. These are the facts, irrespective of one’s viewpoints on the merits or demerits of this situation.
BP,
Hear hear! You are either with US or you are anti-American! There are ONLY two possible choices.
Only America can keep Eastern safe!
Of course just twenty-four hours ago TTG was telling us that the European economy is booming and unemployment so low they need millions of immigrants. If only they could inspire their own people to defend their own continent and use their own money to do so. (Is it anti-American to ask that? Who gets to choose, the self anointed? or do you have an official appointment fromTPTB?)
Thank goodness you didn’t mention the war that pariah state Saudi Arabia is waging against Yemen. Why just months after pledging to treat them as the lariah state they are President Biden was begging them to increase oil production (for some unknown reason). Of course not being in Europe those people don’t matter. Now if they were on the continent of Africa, like Nigeria, or Congo, or Mali, they would…… still not matter.
Russia’s invasion is unjust. I urge Congress to issue a declaration of war. On to Moscow! Once we are in the halls of the Kremlin Europe will finally be safe. European safety is exactly why our armed forces exist. I hope that’s “pro”-American enough to keep my commenting rights, and keep me out of the re-education camps.
Fred,
For a correspondent with writing privileges on the good Colonel’s site, you fail to learn his lessons. For example, Analysis is not advocacy and Evaluate the message separately from the messenger!
The reality is that the US military is the only entity that can deter “show who is boss mindset” Xi & Putin from an expansionist military strategy. Consequently, those countries who are in the neighborhood are strengthening their military partnership with the US not because the US is arm-twisting them but because of their own security perceptions.
From an advocacy point of view, maybe you can begin with stating your opinion of when is it appropriate for the US to partner or intervene militarily with other countries? Do you believe that Putin should annex Ukraine and Xi do the same with Taiwan?
BP,
You mean you spouted some crap and are upset over getting called out on it? You did not like my advocating a declaration of war over the sacred and inviolate borders of Ukraine? Plenty of members of the House ‘stand with Ukraine’ and proudly wear that nation’s flag on their lapels even while our president, victor of Afghanistan and evacuator of Kabul, was giving his SOTU speech. They should surely be able to justify a declaration of war.
“The reality is that the US military is the only entity that can deter “show who is boss mindset” Xi & Putin from an expansionist military strategy. ”
All other nation states that are members of NATO can not individually or in combination do anything to deter the Russian Federation? None of the nation states in Asia individually or in combination can deter Communist China? The United States of America, planet Earth’s essential nation! If you say so, who am I to disagree.
Which nations in Asia joined China in opposition to the US dollar reserve status and in opposition to US imposed sanctions on the RF? How many of them are also treaty allies of the US? Have any of the dear readers here heard of those actions by those nations?
The converse question to yours is what is the strategy of the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID and how has that affected the expansion of US obligations as NATO marched Eastwards? How would any non-NATO nation view such actions?
Fred; lets play a game. Its simple. There is no more U.S. There is a Canada up North and a Mexico down south but in the middle there’s just ocean. All else in the world is exactly like today. Will there be no bad guys? Perhaps just “different” guys? China and Russia will still be in this “play” world. How do you think they’ll behave. Will Islam be the benign religious force the blessed prophet intended (if ever he did). Will the E.U. finally pay for its very own military and become the European Empire? Who will stop, should anyone stop, the Russians from reverting back to 1914? Who will stop Islam from completing its conquest of Asia. Will India finally tell the Pkies to go f’off? Maybe there will be lots of regional organizations with controlling interests. Maybe not. Do you prefer this world to today’s world w/America? I sense America offends you. She is not perfect! Here’s your chance no more bossy America.
“Who will stop, should anyone stop, the Russians from reverting back to 1914?”
That’s exactly the problem.
Why on earth should the U.S. care if Russia reverted back to the way it was in 1914?
Indeed, let me add one other note.
Look at how today’s Russians view the last ruling family, the Romanovs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonization_of_the_Romanovs
Bill,
Having a hard time in retirement? The EU, which is NATO minus Canada and the US can’t field a combined armed force to defend their own continent? They should probably work on that.
“Who will stop Islam from completing its conquest of Asia. ”
I wonder what the followers of that faith in France and Germany have to say about that; or Ilhan Omar.
“Who will stop, should anyone stop, the Russians from reverting back to 1914?”
You mean they will be allied to the French and Italians but opposed to the Germans? Cheerio!
See also
Triple Entente
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Entente
The Triple Entente (from French entente [ɑ̃tɑ̃t] meaning “friendship, understanding, agreement”) describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as well as Romania, which joined later.
It was built upon the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, the Entente Cordiale of 1904 between Paris and London, and the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907. It formed a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
Fred,
“…you spouted some crap…”
Lol! Maybe that’s what you have a penchant for??
“…are upset over getting called out on it…”
It appears you are the one getting upset, since it appears you can’t distinguish analysis for advocacy.
In recent surveys in several Asian countries, the majorities of people strongly supported a military partnership with the US to bolster their security interests. Just like Sweden & Finland in the Nordic region. Xi’s neighbors in Vietnam, India, Japan, S.Korea and also Philippines know that the US military is the only bulwark against an expansionist CCP.
So just as Cobo you: don’t mind empire, as long as .. (you are] in it. ?
As those anti-Americans are either misguided US citizen but more likely outside it?Just like in the 1990’s we again increasingly live in unipolor American world where the US dictates the rules? Everyone wants to join. Not only in Europe but also in Asia?
But what if a lot of people around the world are not interested in a uni or bipolar world, but are more and more moving towards a multi-polar and multi-regional rules world? Not one in which the US dreams of?
Keynote: Conversation with Evan Feigenbaum on the U.S. and the Indo-Pacific Region
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz_8N32DiLY
I did not finish my changes here:
Not the one the US* dreams of?
* or you and me, ‘we’ versus ‘them’ dream of?
LeaNder,
What you advocate is already happening. Putin has his alliance and dominates who he can in his neighborhood like Belarus. Similarly Xi has his orbit and is threatening his neighbors in “land disputes” including Taiwan, Vietnam and India. If you back either or both orbits and if you believe they represent utopia, you are free to live there. The west is not forcing you to live in their midst.
But saying that Poland, Lithuania or Ukraine can’t align with the US to ensure their territorial integrity because it is “provocative” to Putin is essentially advocating for Putin’s dominance of his neighborhood.
“b” @MoA is a classic example of anti-Americanism. Anyone and anything that opposes the US is virtuous. He advocated for Chavez even though he impoverished his own people and ran roughshod over his political opposition. He extols the virtue of Putin & Xi yet is firmly ensconced in the freedoms provided by western Germany. That is classic armchair marxism.
But saying that Poland, Lithuania or Ukraine can’t align with the US to ensure their territorial integrity because it is “provocative” to Putin is essentially advocating for Putin’s dominance of his neighborhood.
Peacock, I am not and did not advocate anything, I simply asked questions.
Neither am I backing anyone, including MoA … I don’t see signs that Putin/Russia intents to march on to Vilnius or Warsaw either. You do?
I did meet both Ukrainian and Russian deserters/refusniks over here. Should they be sent back? What ya think?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/03/hvag-f03.html
Under the newly signed law draft [ Ukrainian]Law 8271, soldiers directly disobeying an order, threatening a senior officer with violence or deserting one’s unit would face five to 10 years in prison. Convictions of desertion in the face of fire will carry a minimum of five and a maximum of 12 years in prison.
The US told Poland, the Baltic States, to not allow any Russian deserters in? Or they made that quite sensible decision on their own? Another question? See:
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-war-germany-wants-to-grant-asylum-to-russian-deserters/a-63220796
So, ok, as my name has been evoked as the heretic, let me toss some red meat into the den of tigers, wolves, and crocodiles.
In the age of the fear of mass destruction, warfare will return to its roots. The supposed dream of global governance by multinational organizations will pass, the UN will follow its forbearer the League of Nations into the dustbin of history. True victors will no longer defer to clubscouts made up of the weak. Victors will be rewarded with the spoils and what was won will be kept. No, I mean it. Parse that as you may.
cobo
It has always been that way.
There US troops in Germany and Japan still.
EU lucked out this winter but the next one is also a challenge. Reduction in demand has been the key in lower prices. Do anyone guarantee a warm winter in 23-24? So hold your horses.
https://twitter.com/Frank_Stones/status/1628387198809653248
As for the future we will see the EU with higher energy costs and Russia with lower energy income. But fossil fuels looks profitable with the growing global population.
Wind and solar have not proven that they can deliver reliable and cost efficient energy.
Thanks Poul. Hmmm: The Geopolitics of Energy? Been watching them for close to 2 centuries as layperson. Thus your link feels interesting. …