That is not remotely pulling the plug. This is "thinking about it" again. They already stopped accreditation a few weeks ago, otherwise it would already transport gas as the pipeline is already filled. They just say that they have officially stopped the process which they more or less already did. I think in a year it might come online again if the news cycle is on another topic.
Overall it will be much more expensive for Europe than for Russia. Who do you think will profit the most if gas prices hike?
The point is German Green party has the most anti-authoritarian external political stance of all, and have been opposed to Nord Stream II from the very beginning. They might exchange it for compromise on something else, sure, but will have to explain it to their own party members.
Not against shale gas which is worse than natural gas. They opposed it because of environmental concerns of fossil fuels. It would be much better to just get gas from Russia, which we did for several decades.
It is actually legally questionable that the government can influence that project in the first place. It is accepted in a way but perhaps government will have to pay billions for that choice.
If the greens try to sell shale gas against natural gas as something "green", I think they will get a huge invoice from the economy and from voters. Not even the most naive green voters will take that argument and they do take a lot.
The "Green" energy minister that lobbied Europe to have natural gas recognized as a "green" source of energy, while doing their utmost to block any other country from moving on with nuclear ?
Are you going to pretend that Germany didn't lobby for natural gas to be included by Europe in the green taxonomy ? Adding "but we know it's bad!" after the fact doesn't make it better in the slightest. German greens are hypocrites.
Could you give a source for that? A German newspaper reports that the green party was against including gas in the taxonomy, but was overruled by the other two coalition members [1].
The relevant part of the statement, per the official source linked above:
> Minister Habeck said: "The idea of including fossil gas in the taxonomy system is also questionable. The European Commission does at least make it clear that gas from fossil fuels is only a bridging technology which needs to be substituted by green hydrogen. New gas-fired power plants must already be equipped for conversion to hydrogen, and from 2035 they must be operated on the basis of green hydrogen or low-carbon gas. This is ambitious and will require large amounts of hydrogen. Incentivising sufficient investment in the transition towards hydrogen, establishing the necessary infrastructure and ramping up hydrogen production are some of the major challenges we are currently facing."
I think the one that will profit most is China, being the remaining trade partner in a much similar way when most of the world imposed sanctions against north Korea. At the same time this will reduce the impact on prices, since as long China is connected to the global economy then the global supply will still increase when they buy from Russia.
There will be costs associated with transportation for EU, be that from China (as a middle man for Russia) or Canada/US.
I don't think China benefited per se (let alone profited) by being the only one with economic ties to North Korea. As I understand it it's a pretty parasitic relationship. China's reason to help North Korea is more so political and territorial than economic.
It also guarantees them exclusive access to rare earth deposits in North Korea, I thought that was also a major point. They certainly have interest in a stable NK, not a "Maybe I press the red button today" NK.
If nothing else, is anyone keeping a very sharp eye out for what's going on around Taiwan or in the South China Sea, now that everyone's attention is on the Russian Kim's Ukrainian adventure?
It is dead for all purposes unless the political climate changes radically. Whatever the Russian plans for a gas supplier to Germany were, they are limited to what the existing pipelines can deliver. I hope, we can reduce the dependency on Russian gas quickly, even if it means the additional effort of shipping LNG from the US or other sources.
Mid-term it should be highest priority to get rid of fossil fuels as quick as possible.
It's been dead for a very long time. It's a carrot that Russia was never going to get. If Scholz is smart (which I doubt) he'll restart/keep open the nuclear power plants and cut taxes on gas/electricity for households to neutralise the price hikes.
I was unaware it was dead. I was under the impression that despite the brewing trouble with Russia, Germany was planning to use this pipe to buy more Russian gas. It's possible that Scholtz has different ideas about that than Merkel, I suppose.
They really are not. Instead, they were friends with the human rights movement and anti-stalinist organisations in Russia (e.g. Мемориал), which got gutted by Putin. So naturally they are not happy.
I would guess because Russia has shown itself to be a bad actor over and over? They kill/imprison people just for being gay. Imagine what they do to dissidents and those who don't "go with the Russian flow". Dealing with Russia of today is dealing with the devil.
Nuclear plants are not a real replacement to gas. First of all, a lot of gas gets used for heating - nuclear isn't useful there. Then it is used for providing flexible power, to ramp up and down as quickly as possible to follow the production of renewables. Only a small fraction of the gas goes into "base load" usage. So the government might look into the nuclear power plants to dampen the price level for electricity a bit, but that is about it.
For the last days, there was a lot of wind in Germany, causing the German wind energy production to sometimes even exceed French nuclear (up to 48GW of wind power). Germany most of all now has to correct the mistakes by the previous government and very quickly has to push for building up more wind and solar capacity.
Yes, of course you can heat with electricity - and using heat pumps this is definitely the future. However, the amount of nuclear available would make only a small difference here. It should be much easier to just buy gas internationally and push forward with renewables.
You can also use the heat directly (district heating) without having to go to electricity and back. This limits the electricity output efficiency but increases the overall efficiency of the plant. It requires changes to the turbines and the buildout of a district heating system though.
Sure you could heat with nuclear directly. Actually that sounds like something that should have been done when nuclear was in fashion. But you would have to produce a lot of new infrastructure and most of all, new nuclear plants. None of the existing nuclear plants is suitable for that.
And that is sure, while keeping the remaining nuclear power plants in service a little bit longer might be a consideration (though unlikely), investing in new nuclear infrastructure for sure isn't. There, renewables are the way to go.
As you can tell from the map that's not really an issue. Nuclear power plants aren't in the middle of nowhere, they need access to an educated workforce.
They aren't in the middle of nowhere, but usually quite a bit away from city centers, for safety reasons. Too far for a hot water line to be practical.
https://waerme.hamburg/presse-media/pressemitteilungen/erneu... <- This is one such plant at the western edge of Hamburg, being remodeled for that use-case. Having recently seen workers from Statnett
climbing the masts in the rain to put pilot wires to pull new wires(80MW upgrade) on one half of the masts, while hearing the 50hz-buzz about 25 to 30 meters below. Crazy Vikings! :-)
You lose something like 70% of the thermal output of the reactor in the conversion to electricity. Also the capacities a nowhere near large enough. Nord Stream 2 alone can transport something like 63 GW worth of gas. This is more than the total electricity consumption of Germany.
And for a home heater, 80% of the heat from the gas you burn goes up the chimney.
Larger energy capture devices can be more efficient. One highly-efficient fuel burning plant providing power to a hundred thousand electric resistive heaters can produce more useful heat per unit fuel than a hundred thousand small-scale self-maintained home furnaces.
I think you got your numbers wrong. Even in the US, you are not allowed to sell gas furnaces with less than 80% efficiency. High-end ones reach over 99% efficiency.
Combined cycle power plants can be 64% efficient [1] at turning heat into electricity. And if that power goes on to run a heat pump, 1 watt of electric power can deliver 3-4 watts of heating.
And modern gas combi boilers can be 92-98% efficient [2].
The days of people throwing away 80% of the energy they pay for are long gone.
Could you give some examples for nuclear power plants that are using a combined cycle turbine? I was under the impression that the operating temperatures of BWRs or PWRs are nowhere near high enough for that.
Green hydrogen derivatives would make that theoretically possible. This is receiving quite a lot of attention in the EU at the moment. In practice, the stress is more on industrial processes and other primary energy use scenarios.
But if you use that gas furnace to heat radiators in a fluid-born (usually water) heating system, you only need to install an electric heater next to your furnace and re-route the pipes to/from the furnace to use that heater in stead. Not all that humongous an operation.
In the UK, air source heat pumps are pushed as a 1:1 replacement, with running costs basically the same as gas, in GBP.
I can’t verify that easily, but this doesn’t seem disputed, so the retrofitting is maybe not so much of an issue. There is of course the initial installation cost, but also presumably lower maintenance costs.
It also isn't politically feasible. Nuclear power needs subsidies and I doubt a green government will restart those. Government can be impulsive, but I don't see that happening again.
In Germany protest against nuclear weapons and nuclear energy was one of the core issues of the Green Party for the last 40 years. Restarting or extending the lifetime of existing plants would be political suicide for the current government.
If they're smart they can build support for modern designs, probably small nuclear, as long as they can convince their voter base that the risk of accidents and the problem of waste disposal are much smaller than with the outdated plants they helped close down.
From an economic perspective it's a hard sell compared to solar and wind plus storage, but with the resistance to new windfarms by NIMBYs you can probably justify some subsidies. The timescales involved are still a problem though.
The only reason gas is used for heating is the historical cheap price for gas. Gas line and gas infrastructure is actually a bit expensive and require additional maintenance compared to just running electrical lines between homes, and gas heaters are generally a bit more complex to install than electric heaters. The incentives to continue with gas heaters goes down when gas prices goes up, in similar way that the incentives for electric heaters will go down when the electricity prices goes up.
If we compare Sweden to Germany, almost no homes in Sweden has gas lines connected to them. Swedish homes use heated up water (central or communal heating), or just heat up the air. Sweden has a lot of nuclear and hydro so the electricity prices has historically been low, and importing gas would be expensive. There have been few incentives to spend money and government resources into the infrastructure needed for gas. Germany in contrast seems to have done the opposite, with historical low prices for gas (didn't the coal industry produce also produce gas in the past?), and fairly high prices for electricity. By now there is a pretty large sunk costs into gas infrastructures, and a switch to electric heating would be both expensive for the government and for individual home owners.
On the positive side, a massive investment towards electric heating would be a major boon for the environment. Leaks from natural gas is considered a major contributor for green house gases, and burning it also not very good.
People always come up with this population-size argument in contexts where it's totally irrelevant[1]. So what if Germany has eight times more residents than Sweden, or Sweden eight times fewer than Germany?!? Everything still works the same, only scaled up or down by a factor of eight: You have eight times more/fewer consumers to supply (with energy, staplers, food, whatever), but you also have eight times more/fewer entrepreneurs and workers to supply it.
___
[1]: This moronic argument is most frequently brought up as "Single-payer health care can't work in the US as it does in [insert any country with single-payer health care], because the US population is [X] times bigger!" Yeah, but so fucking WHAT? That just means the US has X times more health care recipients, and an X times larger economy to supply health care! It's just the same thing, scaled up by a factor of X. Sheesh...
> Germany most of all now has to correct the mistakes by the previous government and very quickly has to push for building up more wind and solar capacity.
If any of what you say is true at all, how did France survive for so long on nuclear power?
France uses 40.7 billion cubic meters of gas (0.6 per capita), while Germany uses 86.5 (1.03 per capita). Given that France has a warmer climate the difference is not all that big. France does not survive on nuclear power alone.
> a lot of gas gets used for heating - nuclear isn't useful there.
Erm, no, that's just not true. Ironically, the best counter to that is... Russia, which successfully supplies a few million with extremely cheap hot water.
Germany needs gas today, not after n years, so making a nuclear plant today is not a good solution. We should be investing in small nuclear plants that China is making for future needs. Restarting old nuclear plants is not solving the problem because it is expensive. And I highly doubt the government would cut taxes. And, buying oil from other countries is expensive.
This probably explains why Germany is not supporting Ukraine with fists. If they make Russia angry, the Germans will be enemies of Germany due to social unrest. This is a decision of morality vs economics, and the government will choose economics. I think for now, just like China, Germany is just stopping to appease the mass. But after a month they will take Russian gas.
> This probably explains why Germany is not supporting Ukraine with fists.
And also probably because we don't want a war on our borders? Ukraine was supposed to be a buffer state between NATO and Russia, and then US promised that Ukraine would have joined NATO, and back at the time Germany and France pushed back[0]. But US has only to gain with disorders in the old continent, so here we are...
Very true, but as with the Iraq war, the guilty are easily found and support for a war quickly comes from the righteous®.
Russia actually does have an argument for protecting former Russians in some countries. These are people that suddenly lost their nationality with the collapse of the soviet union and don't want to relieve it in favor of the new countries. That puts them in a situation where they are not allowed to travel because of lacking passports. There is additional discrimination that the population faces. Of course that is not at all an excuse for an invasion. But if you deny that Russia has security interests in that region, you basically are asking for a war. And the Russians have made it very clear that it is seen that way and made their reaction very predictable. Yet, western nations ignored that completely.
After what the US media conjured as Russian election interference it certainly drove more animosity towards Russians. Completely irresponsible behavior and not a lesser extend of state propaganda than you would hear from Kremlin media. But people will completely deny this reality due to a religious self-image, even if they know it was bollocks. Shame on those that reiterated that message which was not restricted to the US at all.
The US might have some obligations towards Ukraine, as has Great Britain. But I don't think the involvement of the US has been very helpful. Bush wanted to be seen as strong everywhere after 9-11 and that extended to giving Ukraine and Georgia hope of Nato membership. At that time Russia didn't even react much. But the course for the escalation was set.
One common factor of those that asked for a strong response, which the west mostly gave with the exception of Germany perhaps, was being profoundly ignorant in how to talk to Russia and its interest. Ukraine has interests too, but there is no solution for them without a dialogue with its neighbor.
And just promising to not include Ukraine in a military alliance (it is not just a defensive pact) would have mostly ended the conflict and most arguments. Yet, some people decided not to do that.
> ...don't want to relieve it in favor of the new countries. That puts them in a situation where they are not allowed to travel because of lacking passports. There is additional discrimination...
They put themselves in that situation by not getting new passports, so if there's any "additional discrimination" it's done by themselves. If they didn't want to become citizens of their newly independent ex-Soviet Republics but remain Russians, they should have moved to Russia.
> Of course that is not at all an excuse for an invasion.
It certainly is being used as one, just as it has in the past.
> But if you deny that Russia has security interests in that region, you basically are asking for a war. And the Russians have made it very clear that it is seen that way and made their reaction very predictable.
Russia's "security interests" are, as they have ever been, aggressive unilateral expansion. Nobody else was "asking for a war"; nobody needs to, because Russia is always only too willing to serve one up unasked. So yes indeed, "their reaction [is] very predictable". It always is, and it's of course even easier to predict when it's a "reaction" to circumstances they themselves engineered.
> Yet, western nations ignored that completely.
So WTF were they supposed to do? Acquiesce and appease, as so many times before? There has to be a limit somewhere. Putin cannot count on Munich 1938 going on forever.
> One common factor of those that asked for a strong response, which the west mostly gave with the exception of Germany perhaps, was being profoundly ignorant in how to talk to Russia and its interest.
Because normal international diplomatic relations and norms don't apply to Russia; one has to "talk to" Russia in a special way? How about fucking Russia just come down off its high horse, in stead?
> Ukraine has interests too, but there is no solution for them without a dialogue with its neighbor.
There is no solution for them with such a neighbour.
> And just promising to not include Ukraine in a military alliance (it is not just a defensive pact) would have mostly ended the conflict and most arguments. Yet, some people decided not to do that.
Here's what people with a dictatorial mindset[1] just can't seem to get: It's not a matter of what other powers should "promise" or "decide", but what the people of the sovereign nation of Ukraine themselves WANT to do. If they feel that they need to belong to an alliance in order to preserve their national security, then who the fuck is Putin to say they can't? He has his own nation to run; he is not the dictator of the Ukrainians. (Yet. :-( )
[1]: Like you are so convincingly demonstrating here.
Germany doesn't care about Ukraine. They have to look like they do. Once the Ukrainian issue settles down again like it did after 2014 and everyone in the west moves on to other things, Germany will simply push the start button and gas will flow.
No, certainly not. First of all, Germany does care about the Ukraine. Both on a political level as on a social one. Many Germany have friendships with people from Ukraine. I myself have several in my wider social circle.
There is also the European perspective. The cornerstone of European piece policy has been the integrity of state borders. This is now violated, so this is of very grave concern.
Putin himself stated yesterday, that he considers the Ukraine a part of Russia, so there is concern that he won't stop anytime soon, unless stopped. Ironically, an occupation of the Ukraine makes him what he claimed to try to prevent - a direct neighbor to the NATO states. We can only hope he stops before attacking NATO.
Montenegro is different because everyone involved agreed on the referendum and there was legal basis for independence, even though it only passed by a couple hundred votes and with voter suppression but other than that it's a perfectly valid referendum.
Kosovo* is more comparable to Srpska in Bosnia or Krajina in Croatia, or Crimea and Donbass. While Montenegro is more like Scotland situation in the UK.
> Many Germany have friendships with people from Ukraine. I myself have several in my wider social circle.
Not sure that's a good argument. Many in Germany also have friendships with people from Russia. Would that automatically mean that Germany has to support Russia? I doubt it.
If Russia were threatened by an aggressive neighbor nation they would have no chance to defend against, I think there would be quite some support from Germany too. But currently Russia is the nation invading Ukraine.
(And of course, most Germans distinguish well between the Russian people and their government)
PC linguistic prescriptivism really does get quite tiresome rather quickly. Quite a lot of people have grown up with, and used for decades, the language they learned as children. What's your fucking hurry; can't you be satisfied that their usage will die out with them?
Or go campaign for a while for the French to drop the article from "Le Danemark", or something equally useful.
>Whatever the Russian plans for a gas supplier to Germany were, they are limited to what the existing pipelines can deliver.
They existing pipelines can deliver more easily. It's not like they've been running anywhere close to full capacity.
Nordstream is more about taking leverage away from countries like Ukraine.
> Mid-term it should be highest priority to get rid of fossil fuels as quick as possible.
What Germany needs to do, stat!, is to undo its moronic decision to scrap nuclear power. It's not as if the North Sea is very prone to tsunamis. And most of Germany's nuclear plants were probably not even all that close to the coast.
Let's just fervently hope that any plants already decomissioned can be re-comissioned ASAP.
Because Poland let the long term contracts run out and also got cheered up for this by the US to not depend on Russia, Poland is the one who buys on the spot market.
The German companies buy from Gazprom under the umbrella of the cheap long term contracts and now are selling to Poland. The German companies order from Netherlands way much more then in previous years (almost double), because of long term contracts, that Netherlands has to fulfill.
Here you have the companies, which are really profiting. It is not so much Gazprom as you may think.
I think Poland expected more support for such a decision but they basically just cut their own flesh with that. Ironically the relationship between Russia and Poland is worse than between Germany and Russia. Post-war politics seem to have a larger impact.
How can it be Ironic? It exactly matches the relationships in the first couple years of the second world war: Germany and Russia had the Molotov-Ribbentroff Pact, and the parts of Germany and the Soviet Union that used to be a country called Poland Just Had To Put Up With It.
Germany (or rather "Prussia", given that unified Germany is relatively new thing) and Russia had been much more friendlier with each other than their relationship with Poland, for considerable stretches of history. To the point that at times it's talked as "traditional german-russian friendship".
On completely unrelated note is that our (Polish) current government is beyond stupid, voided long-term contracts during a period of cheaper gas prices, and is now forced to buy at spot prices for more than it saved on the long-term contract (also lots of political capital being involved between govt and opposition).
With Poland, it was more due to internal political need to be seen as hard on Russia (and please look the other way as we buy coal from Donbas). Another leg of that strategy was buying LNG from USA, which turned out to be American companies buying russian gas in St. Petersburg ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
With the contracts, the current ruling coalition sold people the idea that they "got back" money from Gazprom over high prices of long-term contract when spot gas prices were lower. This, indeed, led to a considerable refund - but also meant we don't have guaranteed gas prices anymore, and now spot prices are much higher than they were when they renegotiated out the long-term contract ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gas is one of the few large sources of income in Russia. Reducing the gas trade is one of the few really direct sanctions possible. Even if it comes at a price, it is way better than to start shooting.
This is a reason sanctions don't work as people expect. China will simply buy those valuable gas. I do acknowledge that there would be transportation costs. In the end, Europe will suffer more and China will be happier. And, currently, with the price hike on gas, I think the EU will face more problems.
Geopolitics is not a game of morality, rather it's a game of logic. China, the US, and Russia seem to be playing very well. This is also one reason why India is not saying anything against them. The only victim I see is Europe.
If China is not dumb (it isn't) they will pay that gas a fraction of what Europe is paying it, "or keep it underground." Unless they want to subsidize Russia against the USA. Europe doesn't matter. Every crisis shows that's only a geographical expression (I'm European.)
Have you followed the value of the ruble and the cost on Russian personal income and GDP since the sanctions after the Crimean invasion? They've been highly effective by almost all measures, the Russian economy is dependent on European LNG and oil purchasing, and the initial 2022 sanctions have sent the Russian markets spiraling further.
What are you talking about? This isn't about logic at all, if it were Putin wouldn't be putting troops in Ukraine. This is about saving face and not looking weak because one of his biggest fears (rightfully so) is ending up like Gaddafi.
There's literally nothing here for Russia to win, the west is rapidly moving away from fossil fuels and this will accelerate that. China may scoop up excess gas but it will be significantly less profitable for Russia.
Here's what Russia will be dealing with:
* Russians own significant assets in the west. These assets are vulnerable to seizure. These assets are held by the ultra wealthy Russians that keep Putin in power.
* The war is already unpopular in Russia. It's one thing to fight a war against a foreign enemy and another to fight a war against people who share common values and culture. 20k Russians showing up home in body bags will not help.
* Ukraine is in a significantly better place to defend itself.
There is no win here for Putin, only suffering the Russian people. At some point, a Russian version of the Arab spring is a possible outcome.
This will very likely increase gas prices around the world and they have enough consumers. They don't even have to fear closure of NS2 as a state, the company and investors might, but they will get compensated pretty extensively by mostly European tax payers. If that sound like strategy for you, it is a pretty stupid one.
Germany continues to buy the same amount of natural gas from Russia as before, except half of that gas will now have to continue to go through flaky, expensive, thieving middlemen. What a great plan.
Can you include some links since you seem to be so certain? Both Nord Stream 1 and the land pipeline are still active, I'm not aware of any plans to stop those, maybe you are?
> 2) Russia is already flaky, expensive, and thieving.
It's most certainly not nearly as expensive as Qatar or US LNG. Do you care to list some links or did you just make this up? Also, when did it steal natgas from Germany, exactly?
It's to decrease reliance on Russian gas. If Germany is almost entirely reliant on Russian gas then they cannot impose serious sanctions on Russia without Russia shutting down the gas supply.
While that is a goal, it came with a caveat in that western Europe could reduce dependency on gas going through the pipeline going through Ukraine, meaning Ukraine lost a bargaining chip. Since Europe didn't play ball with NordStream 2, Russia has decided to move forward with their other plans I guess.
Russia modernized its military with money they got from selling gas and oil to Europe. Finally Germany admitted it and at least will not increase its dependence on Russian gas.
I suspect if Germany would continued to develop its nuclear power rather than shutting it down, Russia would not have money for the new war. But then perhaps Germany was still grateful that Moscow allowed German reunification in 1990 and felt obliged to get gas from Russia.
Note also that Ukraine even after 8 years after loosing Crimea continued to transport Russian gas perfectly aware what Russia spent the money on.
Putin failed to create a diverse economy and instead relied on exporting natural resources (part of his "thesis" he wrote for the KGB studies), so this can hurt him. Germany, on the other hand, needs to diversify their oil and gas imports to gain more independence from Russia for geopolitical reasons, as the Russian government has just illustrated that they are dangerous and unreliable. So the step makes sense.
It doesn't suffice, though. The sanctions would have to be all-encompassing, similar to the ones that were imposed on Iran, in order to have a strong effect.
Norwegian here. We are probably already raking in millions extra today as prices soars, but if there was a referendum vote tonight and if could vote to not take advantage of the situation but rather help fellow Europeans that would be my vote. I guess I am not alone.
> I think, temporarily[1] until we get this mess sorted.
> [1]: In the long run oil and gas prices should probably increase until solar and nuclear power become very profitable.
> Nasty surprises seem to happen to people who credibly oppose Putin
I believe, they just don't have/don't want to spend money on showing a real election circus, like in US. Russia is a poor country and making people believe that a cross in a white form means something if you are not a billionaire and can't get billionaires to support you with money, costs a lot.
You have "free press" and "free speech" in the internet, doesn't seem to help much, does it?
And the argument "we're too poor to be a democracy" is bullshit. The real issue is that the country is too corrupt to be a democracy. (The US also has this problem, but to a much lesser extent. Well, somewhat lesser, at least. Trump has certainly has certainly tried to follow Putin there.)
And of course the country is too oppressed to be a democracy. You can't have meaningful elections if you don't have free speech and free press.
I wasn't trying to make it subtle, but it's not a topic of the discussion and talking about it will take too much time. Though in a long enough dispute, it eventually goes to the basics and false beliefs, nothing to undermine there.
I see that even among Norwegian greens there is growing understanding that drilling for more gas is perhaps lesser evil, as it reduce dependence on Russian gas in Europe.
Stopping Russia from copying 1930ies Germany and/or recreating USSR.
The last 20 years Russia has been salami slicing Eastern Europe, taking one slice at the time.
BTW: I think it would be a lot more consistent and believable if you didn't - in a short timespan - both try to criticise me for 1.) not wanting to give enough subsidized fuels to Europe 2.) wanting to subsidize fuels for Europe.
> Stopping Russia from copying 1930ies Germany and/or recreating USSR.
Russia is a poor country without science, technologies and a fossil fuel economy. Everything left from USSR is already fucked up or a one step from being fucked up. There are no means of production to even think about repeating smth like that. The market fall and the money which will be spent on that new "republic" is already enough to send everything to hell, not even talking about the global market fall. The only place you can get an image of it as an almighty Empire is in tv.
> The last 20 years Russia has been salami slicing Eastern Europe, taking one slice at the time.
The fact that Russia is less poor than other exUSSR republics and could easily conquer them doesn't mean that it has resources for a direct conflict with NATO, but Putin can frown intimidatingly in TV, that's for sure. 150k of military troops my ass.
> BTW: I think it would be a lot more consistent and believable if you didn't - in a short timespan - both try to criticise me for 1.) not wanting to give enough subsidized fuels to Europe 2.) wanting to subsidize fuels for Europe.
Hopefully it'll be temporary; the Dutch government set reducing dependency on gas in motion years ago (electrification of houses, increase of green energy projects), and there are other suppliers who turned their ships around to supply to western Europe instead.
I mean transport by ship will be more expensive than a direct gas pipeline, but hopefully it will be enough to avoid scarcity / loss of gas pressure.
Anyway, it's not really Germany's fault is it? The pipeline came with a lot of strings attached, and with Russia posturing and capturing land, there already were a lot of tensions. It became a political tool. Existing gas pipelines run through the Ukraine, if those became obsolete due to Nord Stream 2, Ukraine would lose a bargaining chip with Europe.
If it is the fault of the Germans, then it is more so the fault of the Russians, but honestly if the Netherlands doesn't have natural gas, why be shocked when other people raise prices for a substance you can't do without and must buy at any price?
At least the Scottish have the argument that all things being equal they don't need Russian gas, so the only reason their prices are high is that if you've got a bunch of gas in Scotland, you should sell it all for $$$ to the Netherlands unless the price in Scotland rises too.
How is the Netherlands on Electricity? Are you like Scotland on that too, where despite notionally making most of your electricity without needing gas, the market clearing price is determined by gas generators and so it soars because gas prices are high?
The Netherlands have/had fossil gas. But extracting it caused earthquakes: https://dutchreview.com/news/groningen-gas-tap-to-extract-ne...
So they decided to stop. But replacing the infrastructure depending on gas takes some time. For now they are dependent on imports.
Buy a standard heat pump. Preferably do it in the 90s when it was common sense to get rid of domestic gas. In 2022 you should be on your second or third pump since your oil or gas burner was replaced.
It wasn't the German navy, it was the ranking admiral which had been removed from office immediately, as there was a strong disagreement with his statements.
> It wasn't the German navy, it was the ranking admiral
It he doesn't speak for the Germany navy then who does? Were the navy's intelligence reports wrong or was he briefed wrong or does he not believe his own intelligence people? What if he'd been still been in charge now? Would he still deny it was happening?
All possibilities point to something extremely foolish going on. Absolutely bizarre situation.
This honestly just isn't that significant. Germany's navy, and indeed, German military forces generally, are not relevant to this crisis and will play basically zero part in it.
So all of this analysis and blame-gaming you're trying to do just are not of much import.
I wonder what contingencies the Germany navy is planned for and capable of handling, if they couldn't even get their heads around this being a possibility?
He did not state that Russia is not going to invade Ukraine. He insinuated that (in his opinion) it is nonsense to claim Russia had an interest in a small piece of Ukrainian territory, and that Putin demands respect and "...probably also deserves it." He was immediately fired afterwards because these personal statements (at a security conference in Asia) interfered with Germany's diplomatic efforts, which is always a big No No in the military.
Yes, of course, and he was immediately fired. Your attempts to portray one official's opinion at a security conference, who was immediately fired for uttering it (a very drastic measure), as the voice of the German Navy are patently absurd. And, at pain of stating the obvious, it is not the job of the Navy to evaluate the possibilities of land warfare...
> He did not state that Russia is not going to invade Ukraine.
Goes to show what he knows. Anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size has seen this morning's events coming since Crimea at the latest. The only way to avoid it would have been to make Ukraine a full NATO member in 2015, -16. (For a while I held out hope that the West would see this and do it, but... More fool I, for even hoping.)
> He insinuated that (in his opinion) it is nonsense to claim Russia had an interest in a small piece of Ukrainian territory,
Well he was sure right there -- it's not "a small piece of Ukrainian territory" Putin is interested in taking -- but that doesn't seem to have been what he meant, so he "was right" in that respect purely by accident.
> and that Putin demands respect and "...probably also deserves it."
Yeah, right, kleptocratic tinpot dictators deserve soooo much respect.
> He was immediately fired afterwards
And rightfully so. Not just for blabbing where he shouldn't, but hopefully mainly because he seems to be an idiot with no fucking clue.
That's not really what he said, the press twisted it a bit:
>>“Is Russia really interested in having a tiny strip of Ukrainian soil, to integrate into their country?” the 56-year-old said. “No. Putin is putting on pressure because he knows he can do it, he splits the European Union.”
I first thought he didn't say "wanted to invade Ukraine was nonsense", but that Krym will not be returned to Ukraine and the world will have to come to terms with it.
But you are right, he said "Russia wanting a tiny strip of Ukraine was nonsense" and that is indeed what just happened:
It was about invading Ukraine and especially Kiev. The Ukrainian government had lost the control about the region Russia now openly operates in. They already did so before though.
It's probably true, though. I would guess that Russia didn't want to invade Ukraine. Russia wanted to extract concessions by threatening to invade Ukraine. But since NATO gave Russia nothing, not even some tiny symbolic concession that Putin could present as a victory, Putin, having painted himself into a corner (as per the Economist front cover), had no choice. And so some people will die. And other people (LNG vendors) will get rich.
The accreditation process was already halted, so nothing new has happened. Nord Stream 2 will eventually deliver cheap gas to Germany.
This is just political theatre. Wait till Russia stops sending gas through Ukraine and paying Ukraine billions for the privilege (a move that can be easily justified from the Russian side as 'counter sanctions').
One of the the connections to Russia that kept giving diplomacy a base is, that Russia always was a reliable supplier with gas, as was the Sovjet Union even during the cold war. Equally, Europe is a good customer. Fundamentally such trade is good for both sides.
Nord Stream 2 was strictly speaking never needed, a lot consider it rather a strategy of Russia to be able to cut off Ukraine without severing their trade with Germany. As a consequence, a lot of people in Germany considered North Stream 2 a strategic mistake.
Putin already was playing with the gas supply as the signed contracts were fulfilled, but no extra gas was offered, even if Russia could have made some nice profits, unless North Stream 2 became operational.
Cutting gas below the existing contracts would be a whole different step of escalation.
Here's some quick numbers I just googled to understand the big picture.
This pipeline has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters. It's the same capacity as the Nord Stream 1, which is already in operation. If Germany was truly meaning business, they'd stop Nord Stream 1 the moment Russian boots enter Ukrainian territory. But let's leave that aside.
55 billion cubic meters translate to about 0.6 billion MWh. The price today for natural gas Dutch TTF futures is EUR 78/MWh [1] , so that translates in about 40 billion EUR per year. It has been as low as EUR 13 and as high as EUR 165 over the last 2 years. It's quite likely that Russia would make a profit even at the lower range, so the 40 billion EUR/year is pretty much pure profit for them.
Nordstream 2 has sanctions against it in the US and has for several years now. Work on the pipeline stopped an hour or two before they were signed into law (by the allegedly pro-Russia Trump).
Like Biden always does, he just ignored the bi-partisan sanctions passed by congress because it'll be too late by the time the courts get done (Biden subverting the system to help Russia get what they want)
This is important because Ukraine said quite a while ago that sanctions of Nordstream 2 would go a long way toward preventing war[0]
Meanwhile, the Democrats spent a morning last week waxing eloquent about the evil of the filibuster only to use the filibuster that same day to stop a bi-partisan set of Nordstream 2 sanctions from passing because it was just under the requisite 60 votes.
They show in the news only what they want you to hear. Everything was agreed upon and scheduled long before February, including US,EU,Russia and even Ukraine. Macron was flying all over the world for a reason
If the sanctions were never repealed by the US Congress, the US president has no right to overrule their policy.
This has been in the US Constitution from the beginning of the country and is hardly controversial.
Interestingly, failing to uphold the Constitution and execute the laws passed by congress is serious grounds for impeachment (though it simply will not happen until at least 2023).
Don't know why you got downvoted. All these Americans in this thread can have all the opinions they want. They're not getting screwed by high gas prices right now.
Pretty much everyone actually. What is the worst consequence of not being able to pay for the heating? In the very extreme case, which could affect a tiny minority of the poorest people, you get broke, and have to apply for welfare. Maybe you'll have to use electric heating and/or wear warm clothes inside for a while. That's about it - nothing comparable to what Ukrainians have to endure.
Gas/fuel prices are a global commodity, of course the Ukraine conflict will affect Americans, not as much as Europe, but Americans will get a lot of it as well. The middle east is probably loving the influx of income.
While it’s technically true that there’s shipping of LNG outside of pipelines, my impression is that the market for methane isn’t currently very global.
My point was that the resurgence of economies and cold winters has driven up US methane prices to 2-2.5x where they were a year ago.
I was specifically responding to a commenter implying Americans aren’t experiencing difficulty paying for heating this year.
It's a global market, we get hit by high gas prices too. Almost half of Europeans gas prices are fuel taxes anyway. Talk your governments into backing off those for a while.
The EU is dependent on RU energy exports. It's that simple.
Noble principles do not heat homes, or feed the hungry.
You are free to construct a dichotomy of tanks rumbling over homes, or homes being deprived of heating during hard winter.... but you will only succeed in illustrating the Nash Equilibrium, and fail to be persuasive otherwise.
Europe being dependent on Russia for energy is not a cosmological constant, but a result of multiple political decisions done over decades that are being _slowly_ reconsidered now (nobody is closing the first Nord Stream yet for one)
I’m not sure how this illustrates Nash Equilibrium, nothing stable about this. This is just a hegemonic but declining power (USA), that provided security and stability assurances, which is no longer able to provide those assurances. Putin sees an opportunity to rebuild glory of Russian empire and distract from crushing domestic issues.
a) Solar is not applicable to the Northern Europe. It does not generate heat when it's needed the most (winter).
b) Heat pump (installation, retrofitting existing heat distribution, if at all possible; largest problems might arise with wall mounted radiators since they much larger temperatures to operate) is very costly. Maintenance and running costs not so much.
c) Electricity prices even at the current tarriffs are not cheaper than CNG. This comes from data comparing data on similar volume and insulation buildings using heatpump and CNG heating. That will most likely change in favour of electricity, though its generation from natural gas is really popular around here.
d) To change the type of heating from CNG to something else en-masse would require extreme financial, labor and supply expenses.
I'm pro giving up on the Russian CGN because I do not depend on it and I can offset price hikes. But assuming that would not be without major economic and other consequences is a nonsense.
In in Northern Europe and (c) is not true for new housing stock.
I'm building a house and ran the calculations (two years ago, before gas got expensive) for various forms of heating, and solar PV + heat pump came out the cheapest. We have net-metering but still need to pay "transmission fees" (7c/kWh) for electricity we later consume.
I also considered just using gas for heating in the winter, but the connection fees (installation and ongoing network fees) came out to be much more than the cost of the gas we would actually use.
That's dumb. What they should do instead is tax the gas that will flow through North Stream 2 to be as expensive as the one going through other routes and transfer this tax directly to Ukraine budget as aid let's say for the next 30 years, irrevocably.
And possibly partially to Poland because it has very similar concerns but to a lesser degree than Ukraine.
Germany didn't bulit it. It was build by Russia through Gazprom in collaboration with few German companies, that care about their profits not Russian tanks in Ukraine.
There's nothing wrong making this enterprise to be on par with other routes.
German corporations that collaborated gambled on getting unfair business advantage through geopolitics. They should loose. It doesn't matter they had political support of Germany initially. Political reality changed to the point German support of Russia can no longer be swept under a rug.
> It was build by Russia through Gazprom in collaboration with few German companies, that care about their profits not Russian tanks in Ukraine.
And with the despicable traitor not only to Germany but to Europe and arguably civilisation itself, ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, fronting the whole enterprise.
Nord Stream 2 intention was to make it way more profitable than other routes so Putin can freely mess with countries those other routes go through.
By firmly taxing whatever comes out of NS2 you nullify it's attractiveness for consumers.
And giving Ukraine this much money would strengthen it economically so they can adavance faster towards western standards of living and western culture, further from Russia influence.
Losing two provinces that are basically huge coal mine populated with people speaking other language is not that painful if you can progress towards western knowledge based economies fast.
Ukraine is still a kleptocracy. The money would be largely stolen.
Also, there is no such thing as "irrevocably". Ukraine had just such irrevocable security guarantees granted when they agreed to let go of their nuclear inheritance.
There is no way to stop a determined despot via diplomacy or economical pressures. Putin is trying to replicate the first few years of Hitler's intimidation blitz and the world would do well to not appease him in any way.
That's true but it's true of any country to one degree of another. European union has a lot of mechanism for preventing misapplication of funds it awards to countries.
> Putin is trying to replicate the first few years of Hitler's intimidation blitz and the world would do well to not appease him in any way.
That's pure BS straight from the mouths of propagandist of USA military industrial complex that Putin is godsent enemy that justifies their existence with zero risk.
Putin just wanted to grab for himself a new coal mine which two republics of eastern Ukraine really are.
He just repeats scenario from Georgia (the one near Russia) .
All this Ukraine stuff is also supported by China. I bet they are ready to buy Russian oil and gas to compensate even if this costs them more than getting them from the open market.
Why? Because this is a wonderful test drive to check how the West (sorry for the approximation) is reacting to a country theoretically supported by the West being invaded by another one.
Yes... and no. These are separatists who are operating with the support of Russia, and are (obviously) puppet states for Russia now that Russia is going to be sending "peacekeeping forces" within their territory.
I don't think China would have any objection to separatists of any nation who wanted to spread communism and get Chinese backing. Actually, the fact that there aren't Taiwanese separatists for China is probably a disappointment.
spreading communism - LOL. China might spread their very own version of capitalism, which considering the amount of millionaires and the growing inequalities within China is far from any version of communism.
Russia’s claim is basically, “this is ethnically Russian population speaking Russian”. That’s exactly the same claim that China could make about Taiwan.
Problem is autocrats don't care about consistency at all, nor do they have to maintain an public image of consistency (maybe not just autocrats, perhaps modern politicians in general).
This "if I apply the same logic to this other thing you did" simply doesn't work other than as a gotcha title for the media in opposition. Stories/opinions will be drown out by misinformation and propaganda.
It's even easier especially for autocrats, because if you ask them "isn't that the same claim Western non-Han China could make about itself?", they can just pretend not hearing the question and let the ministry of truth do the work.
> Russia’s claim is basically, “this is ethnically Russian population speaking Russian”. That’s exactly the same claim that China could make about Taiwan.
And yet it's not China's claim over Taiwan (and the “speaking Russian” part is kind of difficult to transfer to China and Taiwan).
> (and the “speaking Russian” part is kind of difficult to transfer to China and Taiwan).
Isn't the main language in Taiwan the same as in south-east mainland China? (What used to be called Cantonese, but maybe it goes by another name nowadays?)
> Cantonese is mainly spoken in Guangdong (historically known as Canton)
Yeah, I thought I'd got that right: The region has been renamed (or, arguably, just had the spelling revised to be more in line with the native pronunciation?).
So why isn't the language now called Guangdongese? This modern PC-induced language revisionism can get pretty darn confusing in its inconsistency.
> There are a lot of people in Taiwan speaking Hokkien.
Which still seems to imply that even more people, i.e. a majority, speak Cantonese, right? I just meant that, since language is often a (sometimes minor, sometimes major) part of how "ethnicity" is defined, China could use an analogous "They even speak the same language!" argument. Not that I'm saying it's a valid argument -- just not logically impossible, as I think was argued or at least implied in some comment(s) above.
In addition to what TwoFerMaggie said in the sibling comment, my point was that China isn't and as never been defined as being a group of people speaking the same language (because, well, they don't!)
>That’s exactly the same claim that China could make about Taiwan.
Logic is for PRC, UKR is sovereign, TW is not. RU invading UKR is international war. PRC invading TW is domestic civil war. RU is violating UKR sovereignty, whereas US intervening on PRC civil war with TW would be foreign power violating Chinese sovereignty. PRC would be UKR sorting out domestic issues whereas US would be RU, an outside aggressor. Note PRC has not endorsed RU annexation of Ukraine including Crimea. Doesn't mean PRC doesn't support RU security concerns, but PRC would like it addressed via diplomacy without normalizing violating sovereignty of countries recognized at UN, which again TW is not. PRC and RU are not aligned on invasion, but it doesn't mean PRC will loudly oppose RU if it's against PRC interest.
First it's very short term thinking by China. Victory is assured for them if the boat isn't rocked too much and they continue the path of economic integration and economic growth. Their economy will be 2x the US economy and then they will be in a better position to assert their geopolitical interests.
Second consider the consequences to China of NATO expansion in the East, which the UK has started to discuss as a good idea in the last few days. That is not good for China's geopolitical position.
The one-child policy over many years was not only successful in stopping the population growth but also completely distorted the age structure of the population. So a large part of the Chinese population is going to retire in a few years leaving behind a comparatively small work force.
I wonder what their plan is for cushioning this.
I heard they have efforts to entice people to have kids again but the now more urbanised and educated population isn't big on it.
I also wonder how this will impact certain regions differently since for example the now very famous Uyghurs and some other minorities were exempt from one child policy till it ended in 2016.
Will their regions fare better economically or is this taxation and application of it in elderly care, pensions, etc a more top down federal thing?
South Korea's demography is crashed but their economic growth is still strong. There is more to growth than that. There's no reason why China can't double its GDP in the next few decades and then assert itself much more strongly after it has achieved that.
Not op, but. SK demographics are only now starting to stagnate and are not decreasing. Japan has had stableish/declining population for a while. Different situations.
China is not really comparable since there is still a substantial reserve army of rural inhabitants that can be drawn into industry (900 mil urban/500 mil rural). Until the rural pop is drained you'll continue to see strong growth in china.
I wonder if China is going to go full-in into artificial wombs and "production" of new work force without need to rely on natural births.
Artificial wombs are very controversial in the West, but they seem to be technically feasible (at least experiments in other mammalian species indicate so), and an authoritarian country like China, being squeezeed by demography while having significant scientific know-how, seem to be the most likely candidates for actually trying this out on humans.
China is not stupid to become depended on Russian gas or oil supply. The deal they signed with Russia is for 38 billion cubic meters of gas sent through "Power of Siberia" gas pipe (for comparison, in 2006 Poland purchase from Russia 206 billion cubic meters) and this throughput will be reached in 2025.
Russia has no practical way to transfer gas designated for Europe to China, there is no pipe they can use as gas comes from different sources.
But yes, China is looking how Europe, USA, NATO is handling the situation as this will give some hints if "the West" is still capable to defend Taiwan, Philippines, Japan...
Come on, China is bad enough as it is, no need to overdo it with imaginary threats.
(Edit: wow impressed by how fast these downvotes came. I wonder if it was triggered by the “China is bad” part or my point that a Chinese invasion of Japan or Philippines is a complete fantasy. In case it's the second part, you should probably take a break from American news…)
While Japan may be a stretch, it is not an exaggeration that China has designs on the territorial waters of the Phillipines and Vietnam and currently lodges diplomatic protests when Koreans flaunt their traditional culture, revealing something that looks like an expectation of tribute.
The issue between China (both PRC and Taiwan since they have the same claims) and the Philippines and Vietnam is with the South China Sea, namely the so-called "nine dash line" that includes areas also claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines.
Interestingly, the Philippines were previously invaded and occupied by Spain, the US, and Japan but never China although one of their nearest neighbour... Likewise although there were conflicts and Northern Vietnam was briefly taken over by China 600 years ago, Vietnam was only fully colonised by France. This is just to point out that China is not historically as aggressive as we are in the West.
I did not avoid anything. Korea is nearer China's "centre of gravity" and has obviously had very close interactions and was indeed a vassal state of China at some point following invasion by the Mongols. But China did not really invade it the way Japan did and it does not detract to my point.
It's FUD to claim that China plans to invade its neighbours. Having a growing influence, sure, but it's quite different and they have along way to go before they can get even halfway to the level of control and influence the US have over many countries, for instance.
You can't be serious are you? In a discussion about the history of Japan Korea and China, arguing that China was “the bad guy”?!
That being said, history is a poor proxy for future behavior: Japan is really unlikely to ever resume its aggressive expansionist policy, and it's not because China doesn't have a terrible track record of neighbors invasion that it will not start in this century. But that doesn't really excuse rewriting history…
You’re arguing in bad faith, or you simply didn’t read the comment I was replying to. That person was making an extraordinary claim - that China has been completely peaceful. I replied to that claim alone
And here you are with vitriolic claims that I was rewriting history.
I assume you’re interpreting the comment as “invasion” of Japan or the Philippines. Which I agree is unlikely
What is more likely is China’s Sphere of Influence extending well beyond Taiwan. No invasion needed or even the installation of a friendly government - just a government that won’t pushback.
Any disputed island (in the eyes of China) will be up for grabs. It won't stop at Taiwan. It'll be any non-nuclear power they can push around. That 9-dash line will become a reality.
Your comment has this air of condescension, like the people who downvoted you to the colour of the HN background don’t know what they’re talking about. That would be bad enough.
But in addition it seems like you’re ignorant of China’s Nine Dash Line, which has impacted Philippines and others. And their demand for control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which has impacted Japan.
> Furthermore, A-Property said that the project involves building a 1358 kilometers long pipeline that would connect Yatek’s fields in Yakutia to the 18 mtpa LNG plant near Ayan on the Sea of Okhotsk.
From there, it seems to be pretty close to China.
I said this in another thread yesterday:
I very much think that this contract is what gave Russia the upper hand. When the Western Europe was the majority market gor Russian gas, things were status quo. Once China starts buying more and more gas from Russia, Russia doesn’t have to please Europe anymore and Europe can impose any sanctions it wants.
>> I very much think that this contract is what gave Russia the upper hand. When the Western Europe was the majority market gor Russian gas, things were status quo. Once China starts buying more and more gas from Russia, Russia doesn’t have to please Europe anymore and Europe can impose any sanctions it wants.
Yep. If Europe (and Germany in particular) retaliates with economic warfare (err... sanctions) then Russia will simply turn off Nordstream 1. Options to sell to China instead make this much easier for them to do. Maybe there isn't currently a good way to deliver, but have you seen how fast China can build stuff if they really want to?
This idea of Germany voting not to turn on a pipeline that is currently not turned on is just an attempt to make it look like they're doing something when in fact, they are not doing anything.
Indeed. And those who say “yeah, but it’s only 36m cubic meters” kinda gloss over the fact that at any time they can simply ramp up. Those 36m m3 can be just a pilot. Those gas field in Yakutia have half a trillion m3 reserves:
> The firm said it expects Yatek’s gas reserves to rise to 567 billion cubic meters in the third quarter of 2022.
At the same time Europe is decarbonizing. From 2025 on most countries won't allow the installation of new gas heatings. H2 production will start in (somewhat) serious quantities in 2025. Electric cars will start to reduce oil consumption in a meaningful way (Norway is already decreasing motor gasoline consumption by 5-6% year on year).
Definitely. I think that what's happening now may actually help swinging skeptics to renewables. It's no longer an ideological reason, it's a real physical, short term existential and measurable threat.
> (Norway is already decreasing motor gasoline consumption by 5-6% year on year).
Yeah, but they're a bit of an exception: The decreasing motor gasoline consumption is due to an ever larger share of cars on Norwegian roads being electric. On the whole, though, electric cars are still rather expensive, and Norway is among the countries where they have a larger market share than elsewhere because it is richer than most countries. (Ironically, in large part because it is a major exporter of... fossil fuels.)
Russia had 48 938 billion cubic meters of proven gas reserves in 2020 ( https://asb.opec.org/data/ASB_Data.php Table 9.1: World proven natural gas reserves by country)
Those 567 billion cubic meters might be a big deal for Yatek, but they're a drop in the bucket for the country as a whole.
Russia is already dependant on China. Without China they would not be able to weather economic sanctions and a China-Russia (plus minor countries like Belarus) is forming a new anti-Nato block.
The logical next move if the pipeline to Europe falls through is for those speedy Chinese builders to build a pipeline. Russia isn't going to defect and even if they do it wouldn't cripple China. It's in China's interest to keep the current political climate in Russia, since if Putin falls to a pro-democratic group like Ukraine did, Russia will snap hard to Nato. And to keep that political climate Russia has to move hydrocarbons.
Personally, I don't really see a way out of this. China is going to be more powerful than Nato. There is no reasonable way out of it. The sooner we recognize this, the faster we'll isolate our economies from Russian and Chinese influence.
This is partially our fault for not doing a Marshal Plan Part Duex in Russia / Ukraine after the iron curtain fell, but really the main problem is that we extended a hand out in good faith to China and it didn't break the way we wanted it to. Rather than join the club and be the most influential member they've decided to real politik and be the next hegemon. It didn't have to be this way, even with the Chinese Communist Party in charge. Vietnam is perfectly capable of joining the club (TPP) without a functioning democracy.
This is a weird extrapolation. Assuming Europe remains impotent, the UK, Australia and U.S. are going to have more mobile firepower than China has total firepower for decades to come.
They have 40% more population than Nato and they don't have the same coordination costs that we do. All we have on them is soft power and economic ties. The first of which is hard to argue with but the second of which is in question.
As for mobile firepower, it takes time to invest in deployment capabilities, yes, but if their task is to dominate a specific target (vs global power projection) then they'll outmatch us within ten years. We do not have long. We need to fix our posture.
>Personally, I don't really see a way out of this. China is going to be more powerful than Nato.
This is still playing out, and I'm extremely sceptical of this take. China has a lot of domestic problems to deal with and a lack of allies due to their geo-politiking. Then you have India waiting in the wings, ready to be to China, what China was to America. Keeping in mind, we are all nuclear powers.
> India waiting in the wings, ready to be to China
Indian democracy makes this a non-starter. We cannot get simple things done because every single issue gets tied up in protests and courts for decades on end.[1][2]
The idea that a democracy can't get anything done is pretty silly. The problem with the Indian system isn't really to do with democracy, rather the structure of the Indian political system that can be fixed. The CCP took decades in order to settle upon a structure that worked for them, before Deng it was endless chaos and internal strife.
China has their pants on. India doesn't. They won't for a decade at the very least.
China has 40% more population than Nato. Their culture is naturally harder to copy because of their extremely difficult language and tightened boarders. They work laughbly longer hours than we do in the west due to the 996 system. They're smart, make no bones about it. They're vicious when it comes to espionage and IP theft. They solve coordination problems with a brute force hammer of "do what I say" communism which cuts both ways, yes, but it will be a while before their generational concerns catch up to them. They are going to be the dominant power ten years from now and the only thing we can do in advance of this reality is to band together and limit our dependance on them.
The time for frienship making is over. The temporary strategy will be appeasement. The long term strategy will be disengagement. They'll go after gains in Africa and the Middle East and rule with an iron fist and we'll capture what we can from Eastern Europe before the next curtain falls on the world and hopefully Central and South America will come with us too. There will be two worlds. One in China's orbit with Russia as a strong second in the same way that the US and the UK operate and one in what we currently call The West or Nato for short. The Common Wealth, United States of America, European Union, Japan and some minor Asian states like Vietnam and South Korea, Mexico, Chile, and hopiful most of the rest of Latin America.
Being a nuclear power isn't enough. To use a nuclear weapon is to escalate to Defcon 1, which risks total castatrophe for your own nation. Real material still matters and China will outmatch us soon and the sooner we recognize that and prepare for it the better.
China still needs western markets. While western manufactures are moving production to other countries, China is learning the hard way directly selling to Western consumers. It is both costly to service western markets directly due to difference in expectations and risky due to political intervention.
The fact is that China currently doesn't have an orbit. It doesn't have NATO, anything resembling the CT/TTP (the absence of the US is one of the major policy failures of the Trump presidency) or NAFTA. Belt and Road has developed the reputation of being completely exploitative, and a way to offload surplus construction capacity in China.
This ties in with the current problems we see in China, where the construction sector is far too large and not sustainable.
My point about nuclear is that China is very limited in where is can project its power.
> China still needs western markets. While western manufactures are moving production to other countries, China is learning the hard way directly selling to Western consumers.
For how much longer, as it is spreading its military / geopolitical power and economic / political model to Africa and the rest of the Third World? It'll be growing its own new customer / supplier markets along with its military / geopolitical allies / clients / satellites / puppets.
Yeah, I'm not saying we should be complacent but we should evaluate the situation objectively. Time to act is now, and the west should ensure that the values of liberal democracy be preserved and authoritarianism contained.
If by supported you mean that China as an ally of Russia won't object to what is currently happening and probably view the situation as profitable then yes certainly. If you mean somewhat masterminded the whole thing as a test then I highly doubt that's what's happening. Russia has its own agenda and ambitions.
> All this Ukraine stuff is also supported by China
Tolerated is a better word. There was ample ex ante evidence that the offensive was to be delayed until after the Olympics. And Russia being more beholden to Beijing as an energy supplier is certainly not bad.
But supporting separatism, in any form, isn’t great for Beijing. And China has relations with Ukraine. Huawei has contracts. And China buys Ukrainian weapons.
I'm not sure whether China sees Crimea and the Donbas as "separatism" (not good) or as Russia taking back what it lost, in which case they may be taking notes...
Some Russians view Ukraine as legitimately part of Russia. China views Taiwan as part of China. China also wishes to garner as much support as possible for its desired takeover of Taiwan. The recent agreement between Russia and China spells out each country’s respective views on these matters. They are in agreement with each other.
The opposite. PRC subscribes to UN framework - it doesn't matter what some Russians or Taiwanese think, it's about norms within the framework. PRC and majority of UN views TW as part of China, it's a domestic / sovereignty issue. Whereas Ukraine is recognized as sovereign at UN, including by PRC, who has not formally recognized RU annexation of Crimea. RU further annexation of Ukraine undermines sovereignty of Ukraine which in PRC view normalizes foreign involvement in domestic affairs, i.e. US supporting TW in PRC/TW civil war.
RU actions are against PRC interests in terms of international norms. Also PRC has not spelled out alignment on RU/UKR issue in terms of sovereignty, while Russian did endorse PRC's sovereignty position on TW, PRC statement of the meeting side stepped RU position on UKR. PRC position has been RU security interests should be respected, preferably via political settlement (Minsk) that doesn't involve violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. The parallel is PRC security interest in taking TW (again a domestic issue) should be respected, without outsiders like US violating Chinese sovereignty.
It's going to be interesting to see how PRC attempts to square the circle now that Putin has invaded and stated UKR has no sovereignty.
I believe your analysis is wrong and that there is no way Russia would do what it is doing without approval from China. China will do nothing to punish Russia. They might make some meaningless gestures but nothing meaningful.
Putin has been looking to secure western border since always. Why does RU need PRC approval? RU does what's in RU interests, the fact that RU had courtesy to wait until after Olympics is about as much leverage PRC has in the situation. And why does PRC need to punish RU or do anything meaningful if doing nothing is likely more optimal for PRC. The geopolitical calculus is all over the place, no reason to be hasty.
RU actions are against PRC interests in terms of international norms.
They are not and I don’t believe Russia would do what it is doing in Ukraine without Chinese approval. The timing of the recent agreement between Russia and China is pretty much proof that Russia has China’s blessing.
Since 1960 China has had military incursions against Vietnam, Soviet Union, and India. It has blatantly violated norms regarding the laws of the seas and used pseudo naval vessels to blatantly overfish in the territory of other countries. It has told VW that if it wants to sell cars in China then VW must stop doing business with a Lithuanian company. Your views on the subject of China and international norms is weird to me and not supported by history.
I will not convince you of anything and likewise I doubt you’ll be able to convince me of anything. I stand by my assertion that China approves Russia’s actions.
They are, why else would PRC stress importance of UK sovereignty in official statements. Because PRC cares about norms not noninterference if it decides to move on TW. Also, why approval and not acquiescence? Russia is not PRC puppet, there aren't comparable political arrangements unlike US and her satraps for PRC to pressure RU.
>Since 1960 China
You basically listed a bunch of events that are consistent with what PRC considers to be domestic issues since the 1960s, i.e. territorial disputes, supporting secessionist forces in TW. Vietnam land war was over security (like Korea), PRC retreated after operations, and ideally PRC would hope RU does as well, hence no recognition of Crimea annexation. CCP does not endorse private companies fish in other countries EEZs. Nor is PRC in violation of UNCLOS norms at UN. Nor do secondary sanctions blocking PRC market which PRC adopted from US toolkit a violation of German sovereignty. Regardless, the point is the spectrum is more than binary approval / disapproval.
Yes? Both articles support not contradict what I said. PRC recognize RU security grievances are legitimate, i.e. US/NATO at fault (just like in Taiwan scenario), but doesn't overtly support invasion that upsets stability (just like in TW scenario), wants diplomatic solution (again, just like in TW scenario). PRC doesn't want to be dragged into this drama, putting out neutral statements. As acknowledge by Uncle Ming, who recognize need to balance between support RU and not provoking US/EU. The original Ming article is about hedging the situation to be most advantageous to PRC interests. He calls for supporting RU more morally / emotionally in private, which contradicts your thesis that already RU has PRC support. The summary basically recognize current crisis is geopolitically complex and outlines what PRC should do, i.e. exactly my analysis "the geopolitical calculus is all over the place, no reason to be hasty".
I see no amount of evidence will convince you that China is ok with Russia invading Ukraine. Your thesis about China and international norms is clearly false and your beliefs about China’s position is not supported by the facts.
My contention that Russia has China’s blessing is correct. It’s ok to admit when you are wrong.
Putin and Xi see the comprehensive weakness of the Biden administration (it's as though projecting an image of weakness and incompetence was the administration's goal), and in that they see historic opportunity. Afghanistan proved their perceptions true.
Yes, I think Taiwan will be back in China's hands by the end of the year.
According to the Wikipedia articles on the various pipelines, there is some technical readiness, at least 3%.
As of today, the only operational pipeline carries about 3% of what Gazprom exports to Europe. It may be possible to boost that quickly, and the pipeline will eventually have a capacity of 30-40% of the European exports.
And this helps to prevent Ukraine and other such eastern companies from having political pressure since instability there or intent to close the pipes to deprive Russia of revenue can just be sidestepped
If you meant that since Russia has pipelines to China and also through the Ukraine, I think you might want to look at their capacity and current usage.
Even if Russia had as much pipeline capacity to China as it has towards Europe, simply switching its exports isn't possible like that. Diverting 20% of Russian exports from Europe would require increasing Chinese usage by 100%.
Doable, I'm sure, given the time to build a few dozen new gas-fired power plants and shutting down as much coal-fired capacity, but not done in a week.
My pet theory is that Russia's natural resource production was looking to fall way short, so much so, even, that wouldn't be able to make their contractual obligations (i.e. international exports). This would have been an economic and political disaster.
I guess we'll never know if I was right now, though, now that demand has fallen[0], supply has increased[1], and the people have been well distracted for some time to come.
My personal pet theory is that Russia is afraid that practical nuclear fusion will make them irrelevant on the energy market, and by extension at all. That's why they are trying to "seize the moment" while they can.
Is the ultimate game for the West to ban export of chipsets to Russia? I mean, the West controls IP for x86 (PC) + ARM (Mobile) + PowerPC/MIPS (Network gear), and Russia cannot probably run their infrastructure on RISC-V alone, and their Elbrus ISA probably didn't take off?
The West can ban Chinese companies and dependent states (S.Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan) from exporting chipsets and devices containing them to Russia.
It'd be an interesting thing to see, how Russia would try to go around this. They will, but it will still be a big problem.
The traditional West isn't looking very good or strong at the moment. That started a very long time ago, and peaked with Trump and NATOs defeat by the Taliban and the incredibly botched retreat from Afghanistan. The EU started to look really bad with the revolutions in Northern Africa, because it was those regimes that kept the African refugees away from the EUs southern borders, and the EU could pretend to be both, totally open and pro human rights without having something hard to do for it. Once that Barriers were gone, the EU started to let people drown in the Mediterranean.
Agree that this is also somewhat of a test, how far can you go militarily against NATO before there is a severe reaction. Pretty damn far I'd guess. The tests have been done when it comes to money, buying legitimacy and freedom to do whatever you want as far as rich and repressive regimes are concerned. The Olympics, FIFA and others come to mind. As does whatever the Saudis are usually up to.
This behavior was always there, to some extend. When the freedom, pro-human rights West started doing the same shit during the war of terror, so, it gave carte blanche to everyone else.
The situation around Taiwan is fundamentally different and can't be compared.
The US or even EU just care soso about Ukraine. The lost of trust of partners, lost face and potential follow up actions and consequences are things they care about more then the Ukraine itself. Hence why they didn't get too much involved in recent years.
But at least the US cares _a lot_ about Taiwan and the EU should too.
Right now Russia plays China off against the West and vice versa. If this triangle collapses into the traditional West vs East pair of alliances, Russia will be the junior partner and lose their superpower status.
It'll also worsen their status in the States where we've got the strange situation of crystallizing the situation in the States of not being sure who the bad guy is: is it China or Russia? If they are allies then it is obvious they both are. Why Americans need an agreed upon bad guy to hate on is a different topic...
- Russia supplies about 40% of the EU’s natural gas imports. Most of the rest comes from Norway and Algeria.
- Russia sends gas to Europe through several main pipelines - such as the Nord Stream, the Yamal-Europe and the Brotherhood (see the map in the article).
- Overall, Russian gas exports to Europe have been decreasing over the last couple of years - down 32% in February this year compared to February 2020. One factor - during the pandemic - has been falling demand as economic activity shrank. Stocks of gas across Europe have been depleted, which in turn is driving up prices.
- Gazprom, Russia's majority state-owned energy company, supplies gas to Europe under two different arrangements: 1. Long-term contracts often lasting from 10 to 25 years. 2. "Spot" deals or one-off purchases for a fixed amount of gas.
- It is understood that Gazprom met its obligations to European buyers last year under these contracts.
- "Spot" sales don't appear to be happening in any significant quantity, going by data from Gazprom's own electronic sales platform.
- The International Energy Agency's executive director, Fatih Birol, has accused Russia of reducing gas supplies to Europe for political purposes.
- Gas storage across Europe is well below the 10-year average, with levels currently at about 75% of storage capacity, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data.
>This leads to the conclusion that Gazprom is supplying the volumes... under its long-term contracts - but it is not providing additional volumes beyond those contracts," says Jack Sharples, of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
Question is, was gas ordered? I doubt anyone delivers without order.
According to Gazprom the orders came only february 2nd.
Gazprom runs underground storages in Western Europe which they didn't refill before Winter 2021/22. Back then it was speculated to be used to hike prices, now we know it's more about leverage.
EU is improved LNG capacity (LNG terminals and LNG regasification capacity) as a policy. LNG imports will take over Russian gas over medium term. After regasification the gas goes to same pipes.
Biden has discussed with US energy companies on how to get them into providing LNG capacity to European needs.
Because they’d rather depend on an ally than an openly hostile state. Because the US would massively subsidize LNG exports to EU in order to support their allies?
If you ignore American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Hawaii, governments that were destabilized and replaced with US-approved leaders, and US military bases in dozens of other countries - sure, yeah, the US remains in north america.
The parent comment has been flagged, but if I recall this conversation about hostility - trying to argue that the US is not hostile and that Russia is somehow unique and uniquely deserving of punishment is ridiculous, which is my point by saying the US has caused millions of deaths in the past 60 years.
Nobody gives a shit about the bad stuff US is doing elsewhere. It is utterly irrelevant to this conversation about European decisionmaking regarding Russia.
What you’re getting at is meaningless virtue signaling.
Ah, you were talking about Ukraine specifically, not dislocating your troops in other countries, where the local population doesn't want you, 'cause you have the upper hand. My bad.
Nor in Italy, where they have the second-biggest presence. But it is easy to understand, considering they kill civilians for fun, but get processed in US[0], and are responsible for countless violences in the cities where their bases are[1].
US has not deployed to Ukraine because its not in its national interest whereas Russia does have an immediate security concern with NATO expansion to its borders after the end of the cold war.
US has deployments all over the world after WWII in order to bully and protect its own interests.
No. All ex-Soviet countries that joined NATO did that willingly as a way to protect their independence (looking at the examples of ex-Soviet countries that did not, it's clear that was the right decision). The "threat" of NATO invading Russia is bullshit and whataboutism.
> Because they’d rather depend on an ally than an openly hostile state.
That's the assumption, but it doesn't follow natural economic laws.... where price ultimately prevails.
One only needs to look at how global oil prices were weaponized, in essence Persian-gulf oil producers openly conspired to sell barrels of oil cheaply to deprive their South American oil exporting competitors from realizing higher gains. And... one only needs to look to Argentina to see how that played out. The point is, energy importers prioritize lower price, and energy exporters are willing to maintain lower prices to protect their cartel or monopoly.
Russia has provided affordable cheap natural gas as a strategic goal to create an effective monopoly in Europe. Not recognizing this monopoly is a form of denial or rationalization, and isn't very helpful. Europe simply cannot cut away the lower energy prices, as that has deep macro economic consequences.
For every $1 spent on Russian gas, I need to spend an extra $X on armament, to counter the extra Russian defence spending funded with the gas.
Spending that money, or a bit more, in the US, at least I’m not funding an openly hostile regime. Some would eve argue you could reduce your defence spending by some amount $Y.
To punish Russia (or its leadership). If US LNG was cheaper, Europe would just be saying “Stop doing the things we don’t like or we’ll change supplier, but that’s in our own best interest so we are likely to do anyway regardless”.
We don’t have history of US severly limiting amount of LNG delivered without a warning in mid september due to some unspecified ooopsie thats never explained by their side.
Why would you buy gas from the country that obviously has goals of invading countries, killing people, and possibly moving into your country next? Seems like paying a bit more from a friendly country is a better idea. Russia aims to takeover Ukraine and end its "western liberalism", kill dissidents, and possibly kill/imprison LGBQT and other non-traditional groups.
Stop it with the pro-Russian propaganda. Ukraine is a peaceful country. Putin has the wool pulled over Russian's eyes about "Nazis in Ukraine!" . He's a lying piece of shit and every Russian, in their heart, knows that.
Germany's problem is that it really wants to be Switzerland - rich, neutral, outwardly virtuous yet totally amoral. Unfortunately its history and geography make that impossible.
Germany politicians desperately don't want to be the leaders of anything.
Given the country's GDP, tech prowess and population, they could be a military and espionage powerhouse far exceeding the UK or France, even rivaling Russia; but historical and political reasons make them tread softly and prefer throwing money at problems (e.g. paying off other countries to join the EU through the CAP, or sending FDI or aid to emerging Europe and Africa) rather than to bully countries using cyber attack or spec ops or even more hardline trade/sanction policies...
> The decision comes as Europeans grapple with record-high power bills, driven in large part by a gas supply shortage.
an artificial shortage made by private investors.
the russians are selling the gas as per contract, but because it is cheaper than what you can get on the spot market, some idiots are making a quick buck by selling the cheap gas for the spot market price.
Be aware that Fefe is very pro Russia and repeatedly stated that he thinks that Russia is defending itself against Western aggression. He also made fun of multiple people who said that Russia would invade.
> He also made fun of multiple people who said that Russia would invade.
Nah, he now switched to explaining why it was expected and Putin had no other choice. I still can’t tell if he has been going crazy in recent years, or if I simply never realized how much bullshit he writes.
im just saying that it is in nobodies interest to only accept western views as valid
i can totally see how NATO's continuance and the veto against russia joining might be perceived as a persistent middle finger towards russia.
My opinion: the only reason why the NATO persists to this day, is to bully russia.
The west could have changed their tone along the way, but no. there needs to be a threat, otherwise nobody would need antimissile shields around russias borders. there needs to be someone to point all those weapons at.
Apparently humanity needs a common aggressor, I hope there will be an alien invasion of world ending proportions, otherwise I doubt we will ever get our shit together and overcome our differences.
Am I the only one who thinks that the reality of this crisis is a lot more nuanced than what Western media shows us?
Same as with Taiwan. It's an island off China and rebels flew there at some point and started to govern Taiwan as if it was theirs. China always insisted that Taiwan is part of China but because they never used military force to put an end to the game which those rebels played on that island it became harder for China to maintain the premise that Taiwan is in fact still part of China. Obviously the West has HUGE incentives to keep Taiwan seperate from China so will only portray one side of the story and the longer China was doing the objectively speaking right thing (not using force to exercise their right) the easier it is for the West to peddle the idea that Taiwan is in fact not part of China. It's almost like the West has been intelligently exploiting the good will of the East and I do feel like there is a lot of that going on between Ukraine and Russia as well.
Unfortunately there are no objective sources of news anymore and it's hard to really get a well balanced overview of the crisis. When I read on Wikipedia that for instance more than half of the Ukraine was not in favour of the Euromaiden protests, or other minor facts which shine a slightly different light on everything I am curious how much did the West contribute in stirring the crisis like we know they did in other countries in the world (Cuba, Middle East, Arab Spring, etc.)
> Same as with Taiwan. It's an island off China and rebels flew there at some point
That's a subjective way to put it, isn't it? You could also say that "rebels" took all of mainland China and Taiwan is the last remaining standoff of the "true" China.
Disagree. Objectively speaking this is not how it works and never has worked in history. The winner takes it all, that's how it worked across the globe in all other territories across the world.
EDIT: Also this argument if completely flawed because Taiwan has no leg to stand on. The only reason why it existed the way it has for so long is because China has actually been nice and not exercised its power. If China was to move troops into Taiwan next week there would be no actual opposition apart from fake outrage in the West, same as what happened with Hong Kong. HK was always part of China historically and the West initially agreed a deal with China to be allowed to have a base there and as time has moved on they thought they could infiltrate from within HK to make the independent and make it a US proxy state, but China, just like Russia now probably, has remained firm to the original roots of HK and now re-exercised their right claim over it and as we have seen the West has done nothing abou tit because they know they 1. cannot and 2. have no real right.
You wonder how much the US contributed? I think Victoria Nuland said US spent a billion dollars in “aid” for the euromaodan. When Biden visited a few years ago, he sat at the head of the table. I think it shouldn’t be too hard to guess how much US has contributed here.
Country formation is a complex topic, and there is certainly no "objectively speaking right thing" like you said. Rebels/insurgent forces start to become legitimate leaders of their land and country at some point, though every one has different definition of where that point is that suits their liking.
Who cares about what happened 100 years ago if 80-90% of Taiwan do not want to be governed by the CCP in the year 2022. That's all that matters. You speak as if these aren't people that deserve sovereignty over themselves.
Germany has run on 60% Wind power alone in January and February so far, even exported energy to France (because their nuclear power is in bad shape) and Poland (coal power plants are just too expensive). Just another motivation to get rid of the old power sources as soon as possible. North Stream 2 never made sense.
45,8% of new buildings in 2020 had heat pumps, which are most efficient for turning electricity into heat. There are ~1,3 Million heat pumps in Germany currently, which is about 7% of all buildings. Of course, all of this could have been faster without the debate for nuclear (even if - we would not build new nuclear plants at this point, so the discussion is without meaning) and the postponement of renewable energy.
And more significantly, its predecessor Nordstream One hasn't been dismantled or blown up, nor even temporarily shut down. It's merrily pumping along, simultaneously serving and reinforcing Germany's dependence on Russian gas.
If there were real plans to sanction people responsible for invasion, they should've sanctioned russian billionaires - cancel their residence, close their companies, liquidate their property, freeze their money in banks, forbid travel. But this looks like they are taking EU money to pay to US gas fracking companies
Did you ever notice that in Chess (a game of kings) you never actually capture the opposing king, you just back him into a corner and call the game over. All other pieces on the board are actually captured and removed.
Russia has had it's billionaires sanctioned back in 14/15. Most of them now use the Russian banks to do their business (and those banks are not subject to sanctions and will misrepresent who they are doing business for).
The next step is to close the loophole and target the Russian banks as a whole, which will have consequences for non-billionaores in Russia too.
London is one of the key centers for global banking. That said, I can't imagine Russian billionaires don't have means to shelter funds, nested shells in some offshore bank I'd imagine.
No one is searching for the "ways", it's agreed on. "You can't do this anymore, because we need to win on the next elections, but we won't look here and here, see you in 2 years"
If you believe in a fairy tale that no one knows whose money going where, in 2022, then yes, sounds very reasonable. Scary Russian billionaires fool poor Europeans by acting through banks, aha. Are you trying to find an excuse for EU and US to NOT take any means to do what they threaten to do? This is bullshit.
>I'm a bit worried about the EU consequences by this, given our already high inflation rate and energy prices being very influental in that regard.
The existing pipelines have much more capacity. Nordstream just serves as a tool to take a bargaining chip away from Ukraine. The pipeline isn't actually scrapped, stuff is just halted. Additionally Russia didn't resupply it's storages in Western Europe much last year and we can now see why.
If Ukraine starts using it's bargaining chip i imagine we'll see those pipelines used real quick.
A bigger issue is the growing demand with multiple countries scrapping nuclear powerplants without replacement.
>A winner is obviously USA with the shale gas production but I'm sure EU will diversify in otehr regards as well.
Whilst I've heard that before as well as talks about LNG terminals....the US barely registers as a supplier behind Algeria, Qatar, Libia, Nigeria,... It's not exactly cheap to transport across the atlantic.
I think that the only way out is that Ukraine cuts off its arm to save the head. It acknowledges the territories as lost, and consolidates what it has left. But I'm not sure how they do that without:
1. The current leader losing legitimacy, and likely resigning.
2. Opening the door for other parts of Ukraine to split off.
3. Opening the door to Russia to meddle in other parts of Ukraine/other nearby states to encourage them to split off.
I don't see Russia backing off in the near future; they've held onto Crimea for the last 8 years without blinking.
I don't see NATO involving itself militarily. If a US soldier dies defending Ukraine, I think that enough people will ask "why are we shedding American blood for something that has nothing to do with us?"
I don't know that economic sanctions will be enough. We've been doing that for years, and nothing's changed.
I don't know that providing weapons to Ukraine will be enough. While the Russians may lose soldiers in the coming months, I've heard that a lot of soldiers come from isolated parts of society (and so the people who mourn them aren't going to be able to organize political resistance).
A lot of people (on Reddit) are calling SWIFT expulsion as the lever. Also the nord stream 2 seems to be inoperational shutting down number 1 would have shown seriousness. So I don't know the endgame but I think the west has levers it is too chicken to use.
I am quite happy that both sides are "too chicken" to use all the levers. Some involve putting in long strings of digits and turning keys at the same time. If the only way to survive for Russia is a full out war, we all lose.
In that sense:
Freezing outside assets might be better to convince the Russian oligarchs to find a peaceful solution: They get their assets back if they can find it. I think Putin being pressured internally by them is probably the best way out of this.
On the other hand, taking outside assets away, or impacting income streams, and a peaceful solution doesn't have the upside anymore. The assets are gone, missed income is gone, and future income is uncertain. They might then support more military action. Out of vengeance, or because they see a better future in there.
> I don't see NATO involving itself militarily. If a US soldier dies defending Ukraine, I think that enough people will ask "why are we shedding American blood for something that has nothing to do with us?"
Which is why it's been so stupid of the US and the EU to push for Ukraine's inclusion into the EU & NATO. All it has done is provoke Russia, who doesn't want foreign influence right on its borders and Ukraine isn't strategically relevant to NATO anyway.
Everyone comes out of this looking incredibly stupid.
I don't think NATO particularly wanted to include Ukraine, but they definitely don't want Russia to be able to dictate who is allowed to be included. Russia is aware of this, which is why in order to set the grounds for an invasion of Ukraine, they repeatedly asked NATO "please swear that you'll never let Ukraine into NATO" with the added non-starter of "remove troops from existing NATO countries". And when NATO rightfully refuses, Russia can claim that NATO is planning to expand to their doorstep.
Similarly for the EU, I don't think the EU strongly cares one way or another, but the EU cannot allow Russia to dictate who's allowed in or not. I don't think it's fair to say "the EU shouldn't let countries try to enter on the basis that Russia won't like it" and somehow it's stupid of them to allow a non-member to dictate who's allowed in.
The EU still has to consider how other nations will react to their policies.
Russia and China are still in the 50-100 years ago mentality and will ruthlessly enforce having buffer states between major powers. Sharing a border is simply not in their interests and they would rather destroy Ukraine than allow it to join the EU.
The US would do the same thing. Just think about how much we freaked out over the Cuban Missile Crisis. If China struck a deal with Canada to put a military base in Vancouver, we'd lose our shit, but we act shocked and insulted when Russia does the same.
> Russia and China are still in the 50-100 years ago mentality and will ruthlessly enforce having buffer states between major powers.
And having "50-100 year ago mentality" doesn't mean "unintelligent" either, it means "no bs wokeness" and "meticulously calculating", which is a crucially important skill in modern day global politics, perhaps even more important than 50 years ago.
> The EU still has to consider how other nations will react to their policies.
To be clear, their policy is "we will not ban nations from joining on the basis that a non-EU nation objects". I think they're aware that this may make some nations unhappy, but it's better than the alternative, which would make it very difficult to ever expand the EU (beyond how difficult it is already).
> Just think about how much we freaked out over the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Notice how that resolved though; the United States pledged (and followed through) with not invading or overthrowing Cuba. Cuba stayed as a USSR-aligned state on the border of the United States. Similarly in the Ukraine situation, Russia pledged to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine if they voluntarily handed over the nuclear weapons the USSR had planted there. Unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis, Russia has no intention of following through with its promises.
> If China struck a deal with Canada to put a military base in Vancouver, we'd lose our shit, but we act shocked and insulted when Russia does the same.
I agree that the US would panic, but Ukraine didn't strike any deals. They weren't in the process of joining NATO (and likely wouldn't be admitted due to "external territorial disputes") and they weren't in the process of joining the EU. In addition, the EU doesn't put military bases anywhere.
The analogous situation would be if the United States invaded Canada because China refused to promise that they wouldn't make exclusive trade deals with Canada, and also refused to promise to remove soldiers from Hong Kong because they made the US feel unsafe.
> I agree that the US would panic, but Ukraine didn't strike any deals. They weren't in the process of joining NATO (and likely wouldn't be admitted due to "external territorial disputes") and they weren't in the process of joining the EU. In addition, the EU doesn't put military bases anywhere.
This is actually untrue. Ukraine has repeatedly stated their intention to become a NATO member state. It's even written into their Constitution. The Vilnius Summit joint declaration (which Ukraine's pro-Russia President at the time did not sign and ended up with his government being removed...) included language from the EU affirming Ukraine's intention to become a member state. Ukraine is currently preparing to put in its application to join the EU and has been formally working on this since Jan 2021.
Ever since the Eastern Partnership (2009) and Ukraine-EU Association Agreement (2012), Russia has been publicly condemning this chosen course of action.
Both NATO and the EU have been courting Ukraine since the early 2000s.
That was not in Ukrainian Constitution until Russia invaded and occupied parts of Ukraine. Before that Ukraine declared itself as a completely neutral state relying entirely on the Budapest Guarantees.
I mentioned it first but I didn't put that at the front of the chain of events. Ukraine and EU/NATO have been courting each other since the Orange Revolution. EU and NATO ascension were at the top of Viktor Yushchenko's priority list from the day he won. He was working on a NATO membership action plan right up until Victor Yanukovych became PM and the divided government killed that proposal. Then he tried again in 2008 and Russia finally came out in full opposition.
> Russia and China are still in the 50-100 years ago mentality and will ruthlessly enforce having buffer states between major powers.
How the fuck is that supposed to work, now that Russia is invading and obviously planning to incorporate Ukraine, which already borders on NATO and EU countries? That's Russia removing any buffer. Does that mean Russia now gets to dictate that Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania must leave NATO and the EU, and they and everyone else is just supposed to STFU and obey?
Seems more reasonable that Russia just gets to stick this bit of its "mentality" where the sun don't shine, doesn't it?
> Which is why it's been so stupid of the US and the EU to push for Ukraine's inclusion into the EU & NATO.
This is an incredibly stupid (and false) thing of you to say.
With all due respect and apologies.
As far as we, Ukrainians, see it, we are being encouraged to be "EU worthy" or "NATO worthy", but we are being constantly told that we are years (decades) from joining either.
These things don't happen overnight. The expressed plan has always been for your country to join in the 2030s.
I'm saying it's been stupid/political suicide for the US and EU because they've both already made it clear that there is next to no strategic value of including Ukraine in these partnerships.
It shows the weakness of the EU itself because it exposes the tiered importance of member states and how some just aren't. I think the best thing for all parties involved would have been to maintain Ukraine as a neutral buffer state and make sure that it has a thriving, rich economy.
Because the alternative is the inevitable angering of Putin, who will not be made to look weak on a world stage. He would rather destroy your state's entire economy than have Russia look like it's not the dominant state in the region.
If you don't believe that the EU has been pushing for you to join, just read the various drafts of the Vilinus Summit joint declaration that went unsigned.
> Which is why it's been so stupid of the US and the EU to push for Ukraine's inclusion into the EU & NATO.
Or, it's been stupid of the US and the EU to talk about Ukraine's inclusion into the EU & NATO but not actually do it like, in 2015 - 17 sometime.
> All it has done is provoke Russia, who doesn't want foreign influence right on its borders and Ukraine isn't strategically relevant to NATO anyway.
Why the fuck is what Russia wants so holy? The rest of Europe wouldn't want a third-world country with nukes and a crazy tin-pot dictator on our eastern border, but are we getting that?
> I think that the only way out is that Ukraine cuts off its arm to save the head. It acknowledges the territories as lost, and consolidates what it has left.
> I don't see Russia backing off in the near future; they've held onto Crimea for the last 8 years without blinking.
I think you answered your own question there, a little bit. Putin's speech yesterday really confirms it as well - he doesn't view Ukraine as a legitimate nation, and so the short-term goals are pretty clear: he'll take it all, if he's allowed to.
There is absolutely nothing Ukraine can do but sit and watch Russia do what it wants. They weren't able to defend their Eastern border back when Russia was pretending to not be involved, let alone when they openly are.
This is Crimea all over again; the West will keep making noises while Russia effectively annexes further portions of Ukraine.
It's a little more nuanced than "they weren't able to defend their Eastern border". They had to balance between:
- Too little force, which would allow the separatists to de-facto control the territories and lead to a Crimea situation.
- Too much force, which would lead to a Russia invasion triggered by either: Russians dying in Ukraine (since some Russian soldiers were in the region "on vacation") or conflict on the Ukrainian-Russian border (either accidental, or false flag).
I'm just trying to figure out what Ukraine can do aside from let itself get gobbled up. Holding its ground while the economic sanctions/protracted warfare eats into Russian morale might work, or it might take too long. Not sure what else will work though.
Is it more nuanced though? The moment separatists started taking over Ukrainian territory, they should've attempted to take that back.
Whether they were unable to or not willing to, as you suggest, now things are a lot worse.
Either way it was a strategic failure, so yes, they did fail to protect their borders even back then.
> The moment separatists started taking over Ukrainian territory, they should've attempted to take that back.
Where have you been from June to August of 2014?
You give it the Cuban treatment (not that I think that's right for the case of Cuba..).
Basically, the EU and US need to agree to completely blockade the country, limit travel to it, cut its access to global financial system, heck even cut its internet (yay less bitcoin hacks), and do absolutely everything but war for now.
IIRC Russia has prepared for its internet to be able to work independently from the rest. As for the exclusion from SWIFT, they may be able to get a deal with China, maybe Iran and some others too.
A lot of discussion is that Ukraine is going to lose its head too. It is getting louder that Russia is going after Kyiv. One option is that Ukraine make it expensive for Russia in terms of man and material with the flood of anti-tank equipment causing some internal strife for Putin. I agree that this isn't going to stop the direction being taken. It just makes it a bit more expensive.
As you've mentioned, I don't see NATO or Europe taking direct risks for Ukraine. But I expect that once Russia invades Ukraine proper and takes Kyiv, US and European sanctions will be the most severe we've seen. Russia has done a lot to prepare for this with limiting export dependency to just what the West needs (energy) and holding a lot of foreign currency. I will be interested to see what the UK does as they have been highly enriched by Putin's henchmen and acting as a playground for oligarchs.
Ukraine has been bumbling along since the Soviet Union collapsed and is in no position to do anything about it. There isn't enough pain to inflict on Russia to stop it from taking what it wants (which I believe is a infantile and subservient Ukraine). Immediately after the Soviet Union collapsed likely would have been a better time to prepare. The countries that took the reemergence of an aggressive Russia seriously right after the cold war have mostly fared better with stronger economies and ties to Europe to protect themselves. Even if all went well it would still be a very difficult challenge for Ukraine to get out of the sphere of Russia.
This is state craft so I wouldn't think along the lines of this year or this decade. I would look out decades to try and see where this is all going. I don't believe that Ukraine will be an EU or NATO member as long as Russia has its current military and economic capabilities. I speculate that Ukraine will be a vassal state for the rest of my lifetime. I would have to see some major fractures in the Russian political position and its economic and military capabilities for my opinion to change. Maybe post Putin the politics changes, I'm not clear on succession planning here. Maybe oil and gas prices go way down and Russia can't field an aggressive military. But I can't see anyone take back Ukraine once Russia invades and changes the political course in Ukraine.
469 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 347 ms ] threadOverall it will be much more expensive for Europe than for Russia. Who do you think will profit the most if gas prices hike?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If the greens try to sell shale gas against natural gas as something "green", I think they will get a huge invoice from the economy and from voters. Not even the most naive green voters will take that argument and they do take a lot.
Super green.
Please don't spread misinformation.
[1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/taxonomie-eu-kommission-...
> Minister Habeck said: "The idea of including fossil gas in the taxonomy system is also questionable. The European Commission does at least make it clear that gas from fossil fuels is only a bridging technology which needs to be substituted by green hydrogen. New gas-fired power plants must already be equipped for conversion to hydrogen, and from 2035 they must be operated on the basis of green hydrogen or low-carbon gas. This is ambitious and will require large amounts of hydrogen. Incentivising sufficient investment in the transition towards hydrogen, establishing the necessary infrastructure and ramping up hydrogen production are some of the major challenges we are currently facing."
There will be costs associated with transportation for EU, be that from China (as a middle man for Russia) or Canada/US.
In any case it's Qatar and other Arab states that produce LNG are the ones who'll be laughing all the way to the bank here.
If nothing else, is anyone keeping a very sharp eye out for what's going on around Taiwan or in the South China Sea, now that everyone's attention is on the Russian Kim's Ukrainian adventure?
Never going to happen. I would expect looking for alternative suppliers of gas, and developing renewables further.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_(society)
What's their reasoning?
[1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/37985/umfrage...
For the last days, there was a lot of wind in Germany, causing the German wind energy production to sometimes even exceed French nuclear (up to 48GW of wind power). Germany most of all now has to correct the mistakes by the previous government and very quickly has to push for building up more wind and solar capacity.
All electricity basically turns to heat at some point. So why not?
And that is sure, while keeping the remaining nuclear power plants in service a little bit longer might be a consideration (though unlikely), investing in new nuclear infrastructure for sure isn't. There, renewables are the way to go.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-map-of-Nuclear-Power...
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.02.080
Larger energy capture devices can be more efficient. One highly-efficient fuel burning plant providing power to a hundred thousand electric resistive heaters can produce more useful heat per unit fuel than a hundred thousand small-scale self-maintained home furnaces.
Modern condensing heaters have an efficiency of 90%.
Combined cycle power plants can be 64% efficient [1] at turning heat into electricity. And if that power goes on to run a heat pump, 1 watt of electric power can deliver 3-4 watts of heating.
And modern gas combi boilers can be 92-98% efficient [2].
The days of people throwing away 80% of the energy they pay for are long gone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant [2] https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/boilers/article/boiler-energ...
(*estimated number out of thin air, but yes majority is gas or oil)
I can’t verify that easily, but this doesn’t seem disputed, so the retrofitting is maybe not so much of an issue. There is of course the initial installation cost, but also presumably lower maintenance costs.
If they're smart they can build support for modern designs, probably small nuclear, as long as they can convince their voter base that the risk of accidents and the problem of waste disposal are much smaller than with the outdated plants they helped close down.
From an economic perspective it's a hard sell compared to solar and wind plus storage, but with the resistance to new windfarms by NIMBYs you can probably justify some subsidies. The timescales involved are still a problem though.
Yes, "Green" Parties are a blight on the political landscape everywhere.
> Restarting or extending the lifetime of existing plants would be political suicide for the current government.
Well, for the bottom of the current "traffic-light" coalition, anyway... (We can but hope.)
If we compare Sweden to Germany, almost no homes in Sweden has gas lines connected to them. Swedish homes use heated up water (central or communal heating), or just heat up the air. Sweden has a lot of nuclear and hydro so the electricity prices has historically been low, and importing gas would be expensive. There have been few incentives to spend money and government resources into the infrastructure needed for gas. Germany in contrast seems to have done the opposite, with historical low prices for gas (didn't the coal industry produce also produce gas in the past?), and fairly high prices for electricity. By now there is a pretty large sunk costs into gas infrastructures, and a switch to electric heating would be both expensive for the government and for individual home owners.
On the positive side, a massive investment towards electric heating would be a major boon for the environment. Leaks from natural gas is considered a major contributor for green house gases, and burning it also not very good.
___
[1]: This moronic argument is most frequently brought up as "Single-payer health care can't work in the US as it does in [insert any country with single-payer health care], because the US population is [X] times bigger!" Yeah, but so fucking WHAT? That just means the US has X times more health care recipients, and an X times larger economy to supply health care! It's just the same thing, scaled up by a factor of X. Sheesh...
If any of what you say is true at all, how did France survive for so long on nuclear power?
France uses 40.7 billion cubic meters of gas (0.6 per capita), while Germany uses 86.5 (1.03 per capita). Given that France has a warmer climate the difference is not all that big. France does not survive on nuclear power alone.
Erm, no, that's just not true. Ironically, the best counter to that is... Russia, which successfully supplies a few million with extremely cheap hot water.
[1] https://www.nucnet.org/news/operation-begins-of-qinshan-nucl...
[2] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202112/22/WS61c27b44a310cdd39...
[3] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chinese-nuclear-...
[4] https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newschinese-nuclear-compani...
This probably explains why Germany is not supporting Ukraine with fists. If they make Russia angry, the Germans will be enemies of Germany due to social unrest. This is a decision of morality vs economics, and the government will choose economics. I think for now, just like China, Germany is just stopping to appease the mass. But after a month they will take Russian gas.
And also probably because we don't want a war on our borders? Ukraine was supposed to be a buffer state between NATO and Russia, and then US promised that Ukraine would have joined NATO, and back at the time Germany and France pushed back[0]. But US has only to gain with disorders in the old continent, so here we are...
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/europe/03nato.html
Russia actually does have an argument for protecting former Russians in some countries. These are people that suddenly lost their nationality with the collapse of the soviet union and don't want to relieve it in favor of the new countries. That puts them in a situation where they are not allowed to travel because of lacking passports. There is additional discrimination that the population faces. Of course that is not at all an excuse for an invasion. But if you deny that Russia has security interests in that region, you basically are asking for a war. And the Russians have made it very clear that it is seen that way and made their reaction very predictable. Yet, western nations ignored that completely.
After what the US media conjured as Russian election interference it certainly drove more animosity towards Russians. Completely irresponsible behavior and not a lesser extend of state propaganda than you would hear from Kremlin media. But people will completely deny this reality due to a religious self-image, even if they know it was bollocks. Shame on those that reiterated that message which was not restricted to the US at all.
The US might have some obligations towards Ukraine, as has Great Britain. But I don't think the involvement of the US has been very helpful. Bush wanted to be seen as strong everywhere after 9-11 and that extended to giving Ukraine and Georgia hope of Nato membership. At that time Russia didn't even react much. But the course for the escalation was set.
One common factor of those that asked for a strong response, which the west mostly gave with the exception of Germany perhaps, was being profoundly ignorant in how to talk to Russia and its interest. Ukraine has interests too, but there is no solution for them without a dialogue with its neighbor.
And just promising to not include Ukraine in a military alliance (it is not just a defensive pact) would have mostly ended the conflict and most arguments. Yet, some people decided not to do that.
No, these people are occupants. They should either deported or jailed.
Letting them stay is a democracy glitch that now terrorists like Putin is exploiting.
They put themselves in that situation by not getting new passports, so if there's any "additional discrimination" it's done by themselves. If they didn't want to become citizens of their newly independent ex-Soviet Republics but remain Russians, they should have moved to Russia.
> Of course that is not at all an excuse for an invasion.
It certainly is being used as one, just as it has in the past.
Russia's "security interests" are, as they have ever been, aggressive unilateral expansion. Nobody else was "asking for a war"; nobody needs to, because Russia is always only too willing to serve one up unasked. So yes indeed, "their reaction [is] very predictable". It always is, and it's of course even easier to predict when it's a "reaction" to circumstances they themselves engineered.
> Yet, western nations ignored that completely.
So WTF were they supposed to do? Acquiesce and appease, as so many times before? There has to be a limit somewhere. Putin cannot count on Munich 1938 going on forever.
Because normal international diplomatic relations and norms don't apply to Russia; one has to "talk to" Russia in a special way? How about fucking Russia just come down off its high horse, in stead?
> Ukraine has interests too, but there is no solution for them without a dialogue with its neighbor.
There is no solution for them with such a neighbour.
> And just promising to not include Ukraine in a military alliance (it is not just a defensive pact) would have mostly ended the conflict and most arguments. Yet, some people decided not to do that.
Here's what people with a dictatorial mindset[1] just can't seem to get: It's not a matter of what other powers should "promise" or "decide", but what the people of the sovereign nation of Ukraine themselves WANT to do. If they feel that they need to belong to an alliance in order to preserve their national security, then who the fuck is Putin to say they can't? He has his own nation to run; he is not the dictator of the Ukrainians. (Yet. :-( )
[1]: Like you are so convincingly demonstrating here.
Overall, rounded: 48% natural gas, 25% oil, 14% district heating
https://www.bmwi-energiewende.de/EWD/Redaktion/Newsletter/20...
Electrical heating is rare, because it's inefficient. And considering the former energy mix of Germany: not ecological.
You don't have to like Scholz, but talking about nuclear in this context and calling the head of a state dumb... ?!?!... doesn't make much sense.
There is also the European perspective. The cornerstone of European piece policy has been the integrity of state borders. This is now violated, so this is of very grave concern.
Putin himself stated yesterday, that he considers the Ukraine a part of Russia, so there is concern that he won't stop anytime soon, unless stopped. Ironically, an occupation of the Ukraine makes him what he claimed to try to prevent - a direct neighbor to the NATO states. We can only hope he stops before attacking NATO.
Now? What about Kosovo* and to lesser degree other conflicts in ex-Yugoslavia? Germany even had an active role in that.
Montenegro gets to declare independence, but Republika Srpska doesn't because Serbs don't matter.
Kosovo must be recognized as an "independent country" right next to Albania, but Eastern Ukraine never.
South Sudan, Eritrea, the list of "approved" places that are permitted independence, goes on and on.
Kosovo* is more comparable to Srpska in Bosnia or Krajina in Croatia, or Crimea and Donbass. While Montenegro is more like Scotland situation in the UK.
Not sure that's a good argument. Many in Germany also have friendships with people from Russia. Would that automatically mean that Germany has to support Russia? I doubt it.
It is just Ukraine, no “the” required nor preferred.
Or go campaign for a while for the French to drop the article from "Le Danemark", or something equally useful.
This line of thinking double prices to gas, natural gas and electricity in the last year. Please stop it!
They existing pipelines can deliver more easily. It's not like they've been running anywhere close to full capacity. Nordstream is more about taking leverage away from countries like Ukraine.
What Germany needs to do, stat!, is to undo its moronic decision to scrap nuclear power. It's not as if the North Sea is very prone to tsunamis. And most of Germany's nuclear plants were probably not even all that close to the coast.
Let's just fervently hope that any plants already decomissioned can be re-comissioned ASAP.
The German companies buy from Gazprom under the umbrella of the cheap long term contracts and now are selling to Poland. The German companies order from Netherlands way much more then in previous years (almost double), because of long term contracts, that Netherlands has to fulfill.
Here you have the companies, which are really profiting. It is not so much Gazprom as you may think.
On completely unrelated note is that our (Polish) current government is beyond stupid, voided long-term contracts during a period of cheaper gas prices, and is now forced to buy at spot prices for more than it saved on the long-term contract (also lots of political capital being involved between govt and opposition).
With the contracts, the current ruling coalition sold people the idea that they "got back" money from Gazprom over high prices of long-term contract when spot gas prices were lower. This, indeed, led to a considerable refund - but also meant we don't have guaranteed gas prices anymore, and now spot prices are much higher than they were when they renegotiated out the long-term contract ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Markets disagree here. The ruble tumbled as well as the main Russian index, 500% more than the USA/Europe did. Russia has a lot to lose.
Geopolitics is not a game of morality, rather it's a game of logic. China, the US, and Russia seem to be playing very well. This is also one reason why India is not saying anything against them. The only victim I see is Europe.
With what pipeline ?
Here's a paper on their effectiveness if you don't believe me, Europe has more than just gas to power its economy - unlike Russia: https://www.jois.eu/files/2_481_Tyll%20et%20al.pdf
There's literally nothing here for Russia to win, the west is rapidly moving away from fossil fuels and this will accelerate that. China may scoop up excess gas but it will be significantly less profitable for Russia.
Here's what Russia will be dealing with:
* Russians own significant assets in the west. These assets are vulnerable to seizure. These assets are held by the ultra wealthy Russians that keep Putin in power.
* The war is already unpopular in Russia. It's one thing to fight a war against a foreign enemy and another to fight a war against people who share common values and culture. 20k Russians showing up home in body bags will not help.
* Ukraine is in a significantly better place to defend itself.
There is no win here for Putin, only suffering the Russian people. At some point, a Russian version of the Arab spring is a possible outcome.
Russia needs China more than China needs Russia.
2) Russia is already flaky, expensive, and thieving.
Can you include some links since you seem to be so certain? Both Nord Stream 1 and the land pipeline are still active, I'm not aware of any plans to stop those, maybe you are?
> 2) Russia is already flaky, expensive, and thieving.
It's most certainly not nearly as expensive as Qatar or US LNG. Do you care to list some links or did you just make this up? Also, when did it steal natgas from Germany, exactly?
Even 2009 at the former height of the Ukraine Gas dispute, exports only got a little disrupted, mostly to Ukraine itself.
This cuts of a source of cash from russia, and means that should they chose to throw a strop again, they can't strong arm germany into dithering.
I suspect if Germany would continued to develop its nuclear power rather than shutting it down, Russia would not have money for the new war. But then perhaps Germany was still grateful that Moscow allowed German reunification in 1990 and felt obliged to get gas from Russia.
Note also that Ukraine even after 8 years after loosing Crimea continued to transport Russian gas perfectly aware what Russia spent the money on.
To state 2: where it imports N amount of gas expensive.
Germany loses.
It doesn't suffice, though. The sanctions would have to be all-encompassing, similar to the ones that were imposed on Iran, in order to have a strong effect.
[1]: In the long run oil and gas prices should probably increase until solar and nuclear power become very profitable.
Russia is also a European democracy. Surprise
> I think, temporarily[1] until we get this mess sorted. > [1]: In the long run oil and gas prices should probably increase until solar and nuclear power become very profitable.
Won't happen during your lifetime.
Nasty surprises seem to happen to people who credibly oppose Putin. Without free press and free speech, elections don't mean much.
I believe, they just don't have/don't want to spend money on showing a real election circus, like in US. Russia is a poor country and making people believe that a cross in a white form means something if you are not a billionaire and can't get billionaires to support you with money, costs a lot.
You have "free press" and "free speech" in the internet, doesn't seem to help much, does it?
And the argument "we're too poor to be a democracy" is bullshit. The real issue is that the country is too corrupt to be a democracy. (The US also has this problem, but to a much lesser extent. Well, somewhat lesser, at least. Trump has certainly has certainly tried to follow Putin there.)
And of course the country is too oppressed to be a democracy. You can't have meaningful elections if you don't have free speech and free press.
Muahahahaa! Wow, man, you're funny!
> Surprise
Yes, indeed: I am surprised anyone with more than a vacuum between their ears could think that.
Not stopping Russia can create bigger problems in 1 or 2 years (and it will come on top of existing problems.)
Stopping Russia from copying 1930ies Germany and/or recreating USSR.
The last 20 years Russia has been salami slicing Eastern Europe, taking one slice at the time.
BTW: I think it would be a lot more consistent and believable if you didn't - in a short timespan - both try to criticise me for 1.) not wanting to give enough subsidized fuels to Europe 2.) wanting to subsidize fuels for Europe.
Russia is a poor country without science, technologies and a fossil fuel economy. Everything left from USSR is already fucked up or a one step from being fucked up. There are no means of production to even think about repeating smth like that. The market fall and the money which will be spent on that new "republic" is already enough to send everything to hell, not even talking about the global market fall. The only place you can get an image of it as an almighty Empire is in tv.
> The last 20 years Russia has been salami slicing Eastern Europe, taking one slice at the time.
The fact that Russia is less poor than other exUSSR republics and could easily conquer them doesn't mean that it has resources for a direct conflict with NATO, but Putin can frown intimidatingly in TV, that's for sure. 150k of military troops my ass.
> BTW: I think it would be a lot more consistent and believable if you didn't - in a short timespan - both try to criticise me for 1.) not wanting to give enough subsidized fuels to Europe 2.) wanting to subsidize fuels for Europe.
what
I mean transport by ship will be more expensive than a direct gas pipeline, but hopefully it will be enough to avoid scarcity / loss of gas pressure.
Anyway, it's not really Germany's fault is it? The pipeline came with a lot of strings attached, and with Russia posturing and capturing land, there already were a lot of tensions. It became a political tool. Existing gas pipelines run through the Ukraine, if those became obsolete due to Nord Stream 2, Ukraine would lose a bargaining chip with Europe.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_the_...
At least the Scottish have the argument that all things being equal they don't need Russian gas, so the only reason their prices are high is that if you've got a bunch of gas in Scotland, you should sell it all for $$$ to the Netherlands unless the price in Scotland rises too.
How is the Netherlands on Electricity? Are you like Scotland on that too, where despite notionally making most of your electricity without needing gas, the market clearing price is determined by gas generators and so it soars because gas prices are high?
Fools.
It he doesn't speak for the Germany navy then who does? Were the navy's intelligence reports wrong or was he briefed wrong or does he not believe his own intelligence people? What if he'd been still been in charge now? Would he still deny it was happening?
All possibilities point to something extremely foolish going on. Absolutely bizarre situation.
I wonder what he says now.
So all of this analysis and blame-gaming you're trying to do just are not of much import.
Yet there they are, right now.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60468237
Goes to show what he knows. Anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size has seen this morning's events coming since Crimea at the latest. The only way to avoid it would have been to make Ukraine a full NATO member in 2015, -16. (For a while I held out hope that the West would see this and do it, but... More fool I, for even hoping.)
> He insinuated that (in his opinion) it is nonsense to claim Russia had an interest in a small piece of Ukrainian territory,
Well he was sure right there -- it's not "a small piece of Ukrainian territory" Putin is interested in taking -- but that doesn't seem to have been what he meant, so he "was right" in that respect purely by accident.
> and that Putin demands respect and "...probably also deserves it."
Yeah, right, kleptocratic tinpot dictators deserve soooo much respect.
> He was immediately fired afterwards
And rightfully so. Not just for blabbing where he shouldn't, but hopefully mainly because he seems to be an idiot with no fucking clue.
>>“Is Russia really interested in having a tiny strip of Ukrainian soil, to integrate into their country?” the 56-year-old said. “No. Putin is putting on pressure because he knows he can do it, he splits the European Union.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/23/german-navy-ch...
His point was: It's not about the "soil" but to split the eu....see the difference?
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/1/23/german-navy-chi...
That's exactly what is happening.
This is just political theatre. Wait till Russia stops sending gas through Ukraine and paying Ukraine billions for the privilege (a move that can be easily justified from the Russian side as 'counter sanctions').
Then you'll hear the Germans scream XD
Nord Stream 2 was strictly speaking never needed, a lot consider it rather a strategy of Russia to be able to cut off Ukraine without severing their trade with Germany. As a consequence, a lot of people in Germany considered North Stream 2 a strategic mistake.
Putin already was playing with the gas supply as the signed contracts were fulfilled, but no extra gas was offered, even if Russia could have made some nice profits, unless North Stream 2 became operational.
Cutting gas below the existing contracts would be a whole different step of escalation.
I didn’t know until this article and comments that Nordstream 2 was already effectively on pause.
I kept waiting for something about the situation to pop up here where I could get opinion and info from actual grownups vs the rest of the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzbxGYBY5M8
Now we get to see if Putin will double down.
This pipeline has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters. It's the same capacity as the Nord Stream 1, which is already in operation. If Germany was truly meaning business, they'd stop Nord Stream 1 the moment Russian boots enter Ukrainian territory. But let's leave that aside.
55 billion cubic meters translate to about 0.6 billion MWh. The price today for natural gas Dutch TTF futures is EUR 78/MWh [1] , so that translates in about 40 billion EUR per year. It has been as low as EUR 13 and as high as EUR 165 over the last 2 years. It's quite likely that Russia would make a profit even at the lower range, so the 40 billion EUR/year is pretty much pure profit for them.
[1] https://www.theice.com/products/27996665/Dutch-TTF-Gas-Futur...
Like Biden always does, he just ignored the bi-partisan sanctions passed by congress because it'll be too late by the time the courts get done (Biden subverting the system to help Russia get what they want)
This is important because Ukraine said quite a while ago that sanctions of Nordstream 2 would go a long way toward preventing war[0]
Meanwhile, the Democrats spent a morning last week waxing eloquent about the evil of the filibuster only to use the filibuster that same day to stop a bi-partisan set of Nordstream 2 sanctions from passing because it was just under the requisite 60 votes.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukraine-us-not-too-l...
This has been in the US Constitution from the beginning of the country and is hardly controversial.
Interestingly, failing to uphold the Constitution and execute the laws passed by congress is serious grounds for impeachment (though it simply will not happen until at least 2023).
If something were actually bipartisan, surely it would be over the filibuster threshold?
It was 55 to 44. As some Republicans like Rand Paul always vote against sanctions, there were at least 6-7 democrats in favor.
In any case, it was merely stating AGAIN what had ALREADY been legislated before (and Biden simply refuse to execute what the Constitution demands)
If Germany is meaning business, they'd stop buying any gas from Russia. Why would the means how it gets to Germany even matter?
OTOH, not everyone in Europe is in a comfortable position where they can care about Russian expansion more than they care about heating their home.
But it’s true that Russia isn’t a driving force in that.
While it’s technically true that there’s shipping of LNG outside of pipelines, my impression is that the market for methane isn’t currently very global.
My point was that the resurgence of economies and cold winters has driven up US methane prices to 2-2.5x where they were a year ago.
I was specifically responding to a commenter implying Americans aren’t experiencing difficulty paying for heating this year.
How much higher are German rates for methane?
Noble principles do not heat homes, or feed the hungry.
You are free to construct a dichotomy of tanks rumbling over homes, or homes being deprived of heating during hard winter.... but you will only succeed in illustrating the Nash Equilibrium, and fail to be persuasive otherwise.
Try to look at the big picture.
b) Heat pump (installation, retrofitting existing heat distribution, if at all possible; largest problems might arise with wall mounted radiators since they much larger temperatures to operate) is very costly. Maintenance and running costs not so much.
c) Electricity prices even at the current tarriffs are not cheaper than CNG. This comes from data comparing data on similar volume and insulation buildings using heatpump and CNG heating. That will most likely change in favour of electricity, though its generation from natural gas is really popular around here. d) To change the type of heating from CNG to something else en-masse would require extreme financial, labor and supply expenses.
I'm pro giving up on the Russian CGN because I do not depend on it and I can offset price hikes. But assuming that would not be without major economic and other consequences is a nonsense.
Edit: formatting and a typo.
I'm building a house and ran the calculations (two years ago, before gas got expensive) for various forms of heating, and solar PV + heat pump came out the cheapest. We have net-metering but still need to pay "transmission fees" (7c/kWh) for electricity we later consume.
I also considered just using gas for heating in the winter, but the connection fees (installation and ongoing network fees) came out to be much more than the cost of the gas we would actually use.
And possibly partially to Poland because it has very similar concerns but to a lesser degree than Ukraine.
There's nothing wrong making this enterprise to be on par with other routes.
German corporations that collaborated gambled on getting unfair business advantage through geopolitics. They should loose. It doesn't matter they had political support of Germany initially. Political reality changed to the point German support of Russia can no longer be swept under a rug.
And with the despicable traitor not only to Germany but to Europe and arguably civilisation itself, ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, fronting the whole enterprise.
It's not about intimidation.
Nord Stream 2 intention was to make it way more profitable than other routes so Putin can freely mess with countries those other routes go through.
By firmly taxing whatever comes out of NS2 you nullify it's attractiveness for consumers.
And giving Ukraine this much money would strengthen it economically so they can adavance faster towards western standards of living and western culture, further from Russia influence.
Losing two provinces that are basically huge coal mine populated with people speaking other language is not that painful if you can progress towards western knowledge based economies fast.
Also, there is no such thing as "irrevocably". Ukraine had just such irrevocable security guarantees granted when they agreed to let go of their nuclear inheritance.
There is no way to stop a determined despot via diplomacy or economical pressures. Putin is trying to replicate the first few years of Hitler's intimidation blitz and the world would do well to not appease him in any way.
That's true but it's true of any country to one degree of another. European union has a lot of mechanism for preventing misapplication of funds it awards to countries.
> Putin is trying to replicate the first few years of Hitler's intimidation blitz and the world would do well to not appease him in any way.
That's pure BS straight from the mouths of propagandist of USA military industrial complex that Putin is godsent enemy that justifies their existence with zero risk.
Putin just wanted to grab for himself a new coal mine which two republics of eastern Ukraine really are.
He just repeats scenario from Georgia (the one near Russia) .
All this Ukraine stuff is also supported by China. I bet they are ready to buy Russian oil and gas to compensate even if this costs them more than getting them from the open market.
Why? Because this is a wonderful test drive to check how the West (sorry for the approximation) is reacting to a country theoretically supported by the West being invaded by another one.
For me, the next one on the line is Taiwan.
I don't think China would have any objection to separatists of any nation who wanted to spread communism and get Chinese backing. Actually, the fact that there aren't Taiwanese separatists for China is probably a disappointment.
Or rather, it’s easy to turn it around.
Russia’s claim is basically, “this is ethnically Russian population speaking Russian”. That’s exactly the same claim that China could make about Taiwan.
It’s also the same claim Western non-Han China could make about itself, or India could make about Tibet.
This "if I apply the same logic to this other thing you did" simply doesn't work other than as a gotcha title for the media in opposition. Stories/opinions will be drown out by misinformation and propaganda.
It's even easier especially for autocrats, because if you ask them "isn't that the same claim Western non-Han China could make about itself?", they can just pretend not hearing the question and let the ministry of truth do the work.
And yet it's not China's claim over Taiwan (and the “speaking Russian” part is kind of difficult to transfer to China and Taiwan).
Isn't the main language in Taiwan the same as in south-east mainland China? (What used to be called Cantonese, but maybe it goes by another name nowadays?)
Cantonese is mainly spoken in Guangdong (historically known as Canton), and Hokkien mainly Fujian. They are two very different languages.
There are a lot of people in Taiwan speaking Hokkien.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien
Yeah, I thought I'd got that right: The region has been renamed (or, arguably, just had the spelling revised to be more in line with the native pronunciation?).
So why isn't the language now called Guangdongese? This modern PC-induced language revisionism can get pretty darn confusing in its inconsistency.
> There are a lot of people in Taiwan speaking Hokkien.
Which still seems to imply that even more people, i.e. a majority, speak Cantonese, right? I just meant that, since language is often a (sometimes minor, sometimes major) part of how "ethnicity" is defined, China could use an analogous "They even speak the same language!" argument. Not that I'm saying it's a valid argument -- just not logically impossible, as I think was argued or at least implied in some comment(s) above.
Logic is for PRC, UKR is sovereign, TW is not. RU invading UKR is international war. PRC invading TW is domestic civil war. RU is violating UKR sovereignty, whereas US intervening on PRC civil war with TW would be foreign power violating Chinese sovereignty. PRC would be UKR sorting out domestic issues whereas US would be RU, an outside aggressor. Note PRC has not endorsed RU annexation of Ukraine including Crimea. Doesn't mean PRC doesn't support RU security concerns, but PRC would like it addressed via diplomacy without normalizing violating sovereignty of countries recognized at UN, which again TW is not. PRC and RU are not aligned on invasion, but it doesn't mean PRC will loudly oppose RU if it's against PRC interest.
First it's very short term thinking by China. Victory is assured for them if the boat isn't rocked too much and they continue the path of economic integration and economic growth. Their economy will be 2x the US economy and then they will be in a better position to assert their geopolitical interests.
Second consider the consequences to China of NATO expansion in the East, which the UK has started to discuss as a good idea in the last few days. That is not good for China's geopolitical position.
I also wonder how this will impact certain regions differently since for example the now very famous Uyghurs and some other minorities were exempt from one child policy till it ended in 2016. Will their regions fare better economically or is this taxation and application of it in elderly care, pensions, etc a more top down federal thing?
China is not really comparable since there is still a substantial reserve army of rural inhabitants that can be drawn into industry (900 mil urban/500 mil rural). Until the rural pop is drained you'll continue to see strong growth in china.
Artificial wombs are very controversial in the West, but they seem to be technically feasible (at least experiments in other mammalian species indicate so), and an authoritarian country like China, being squeezeed by demography while having significant scientific know-how, seem to be the most likely candidates for actually trying this out on humans.
> "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
> "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." (edited in)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Russia has no practical way to transfer gas designated for Europe to China, there is no pipe they can use as gas comes from different sources.
But yes, China is looking how Europe, USA, NATO is handling the situation as this will give some hints if "the West" is still capable to defend Taiwan, Philippines, Japan...
Come on, China is bad enough as it is, no need to overdo it with imaginary threats.
(Edit: wow impressed by how fast these downvotes came. I wonder if it was triggered by the “China is bad” part or my point that a Chinese invasion of Japan or Philippines is a complete fantasy. In case it's the second part, you should probably take a break from American news…)
Interestingly, the Philippines were previously invaded and occupied by Spain, the US, and Japan but never China although one of their nearest neighbour... Likewise although there were conflicts and Northern Vietnam was briefly taken over by China 600 years ago, Vietnam was only fully colonised by France. This is just to point out that China is not historically as aggressive as we are in the West.
Or that there were failed attempts to conquer Japan? Incompetence doesn’t equal a peacenik attitude.
It's FUD to claim that China plans to invade its neighbours. Having a growing influence, sure, but it's quite different and they have along way to go before they can get even halfway to the level of control and influence the US have over many countries, for instance.
That being said, history is a poor proxy for future behavior: Japan is really unlikely to ever resume its aggressive expansionist policy, and it's not because China doesn't have a terrible track record of neighbors invasion that it will not start in this century. But that doesn't really excuse rewriting history…
And here you are with vitriolic claims that I was rewriting history.
No, they did not say that. What they actually said:
> This is just to point out that China is not historically as aggressive as we are in the West.
Now talk about “bad faith”…
What is more likely is China’s Sphere of Influence extending well beyond Taiwan. No invasion needed or even the installation of a friendly government - just a government that won’t pushback.
But in addition it seems like you’re ignorant of China’s Nine Dash Line, which has impacted Philippines and others. And their demand for control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which has impacted Japan.
Condescension + ignorance is a killer combination
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/a-property-sells-10-....
From another source: https://lngprime.com/asia/chinas-zhejiang-energy-to-buy-stak...
> Furthermore, A-Property said that the project involves building a 1358 kilometers long pipeline that would connect Yatek’s fields in Yakutia to the 18 mtpa LNG plant near Ayan on the Sea of Okhotsk.
From there, it seems to be pretty close to China.
I said this in another thread yesterday:
I very much think that this contract is what gave Russia the upper hand. When the Western Europe was the majority market gor Russian gas, things were status quo. Once China starts buying more and more gas from Russia, Russia doesn’t have to please Europe anymore and Europe can impose any sanctions it wants.
Yep. If Europe (and Germany in particular) retaliates with economic warfare (err... sanctions) then Russia will simply turn off Nordstream 1. Options to sell to China instead make this much easier for them to do. Maybe there isn't currently a good way to deliver, but have you seen how fast China can build stuff if they really want to?
This idea of Germany voting not to turn on a pipeline that is currently not turned on is just an attempt to make it look like they're doing something when in fact, they are not doing anything.
> The firm said it expects Yatek’s gas reserves to rise to 567 billion cubic meters in the third quarter of 2022.
So the dependency will be reduced on both sides.
Yeah, but they're a bit of an exception: The decreasing motor gasoline consumption is due to an ever larger share of cars on Norwegian roads being electric. On the whole, though, electric cars are still rather expensive, and Norway is among the countries where they have a larger market share than elsewhere because it is richer than most countries. (Ironically, in large part because it is a major exporter of... fossil fuels.)
> The firm said it expects Yatek’s gas reserves to rise to 567 billion cubic meters in the third quarter of 2022.
Those 567 billion cubic meters might be a big deal for Yatek, but they're a drop in the bucket for the country as a whole.
The logical next move if the pipeline to Europe falls through is for those speedy Chinese builders to build a pipeline. Russia isn't going to defect and even if they do it wouldn't cripple China. It's in China's interest to keep the current political climate in Russia, since if Putin falls to a pro-democratic group like Ukraine did, Russia will snap hard to Nato. And to keep that political climate Russia has to move hydrocarbons.
Personally, I don't really see a way out of this. China is going to be more powerful than Nato. There is no reasonable way out of it. The sooner we recognize this, the faster we'll isolate our economies from Russian and Chinese influence.
This is partially our fault for not doing a Marshal Plan Part Duex in Russia / Ukraine after the iron curtain fell, but really the main problem is that we extended a hand out in good faith to China and it didn't break the way we wanted it to. Rather than join the club and be the most influential member they've decided to real politik and be the next hegemon. It didn't have to be this way, even with the Chinese Communist Party in charge. Vietnam is perfectly capable of joining the club (TPP) without a functioning democracy.
This is a weird extrapolation. Assuming Europe remains impotent, the UK, Australia and U.S. are going to have more mobile firepower than China has total firepower for decades to come.
As for mobile firepower, it takes time to invest in deployment capabilities, yes, but if their task is to dominate a specific target (vs global power projection) then they'll outmatch us within ten years. We do not have long. We need to fix our posture.
This is still playing out, and I'm extremely sceptical of this take. China has a lot of domestic problems to deal with and a lack of allies due to their geo-politiking. Then you have India waiting in the wings, ready to be to China, what China was to America. Keeping in mind, we are all nuclear powers.
Indian democracy makes this a non-starter. We cannot get simple things done because every single issue gets tied up in protests and courts for decades on end.[1][2]
[1] Indian Neutrino Observatory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India-based_Neutrino_Observato...)
[2] Tamil Nadu says ‘no’ in Supreme Court to neutrino observatory project (https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tn-says-no-in-supreme...)
China has 40% more population than Nato. Their culture is naturally harder to copy because of their extremely difficult language and tightened boarders. They work laughbly longer hours than we do in the west due to the 996 system. They're smart, make no bones about it. They're vicious when it comes to espionage and IP theft. They solve coordination problems with a brute force hammer of "do what I say" communism which cuts both ways, yes, but it will be a while before their generational concerns catch up to them. They are going to be the dominant power ten years from now and the only thing we can do in advance of this reality is to band together and limit our dependance on them.
The time for frienship making is over. The temporary strategy will be appeasement. The long term strategy will be disengagement. They'll go after gains in Africa and the Middle East and rule with an iron fist and we'll capture what we can from Eastern Europe before the next curtain falls on the world and hopefully Central and South America will come with us too. There will be two worlds. One in China's orbit with Russia as a strong second in the same way that the US and the UK operate and one in what we currently call The West or Nato for short. The Common Wealth, United States of America, European Union, Japan and some minor Asian states like Vietnam and South Korea, Mexico, Chile, and hopiful most of the rest of Latin America.
Being a nuclear power isn't enough. To use a nuclear weapon is to escalate to Defcon 1, which risks total castatrophe for your own nation. Real material still matters and China will outmatch us soon and the sooner we recognize that and prepare for it the better.
The fact is that China currently doesn't have an orbit. It doesn't have NATO, anything resembling the CT/TTP (the absence of the US is one of the major policy failures of the Trump presidency) or NAFTA. Belt and Road has developed the reputation of being completely exploitative, and a way to offload surplus construction capacity in China.
This ties in with the current problems we see in China, where the construction sector is far too large and not sustainable.
My point about nuclear is that China is very limited in where is can project its power.
For how much longer, as it is spreading its military / geopolitical power and economic / political model to Africa and the rest of the Third World? It'll be growing its own new customer / supplier markets along with its military / geopolitical allies / clients / satellites / puppets.
It is probably not a coincidence that the big move yesterday happened just after the Beijing Winter Olympics ended.
Tolerated is a better word. There was ample ex ante evidence that the offensive was to be delayed until after the Olympics. And Russia being more beholden to Beijing as an energy supplier is certainly not bad.
But supporting separatism, in any form, isn’t great for Beijing. And China has relations with Ukraine. Huawei has contracts. And China buys Ukrainian weapons.
Edit: seems like Ukraine services weapons bought from Russia after relations soured with Russia over claims of China copying the technology. (https://www.mei.edu/publications/why-ukraine-secret-weapon-c...).
RU actions are against PRC interests in terms of international norms. Also PRC has not spelled out alignment on RU/UKR issue in terms of sovereignty, while Russian did endorse PRC's sovereignty position on TW, PRC statement of the meeting side stepped RU position on UKR. PRC position has been RU security interests should be respected, preferably via political settlement (Minsk) that doesn't involve violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. The parallel is PRC security interest in taking TW (again a domestic issue) should be respected, without outsiders like US violating Chinese sovereignty.
It's going to be interesting to see how PRC attempts to square the circle now that Putin has invaded and stated UKR has no sovereignty.
They are not and I don’t believe Russia would do what it is doing in Ukraine without Chinese approval. The timing of the recent agreement between Russia and China is pretty much proof that Russia has China’s blessing.
Since 1960 China has had military incursions against Vietnam, Soviet Union, and India. It has blatantly violated norms regarding the laws of the seas and used pseudo naval vessels to blatantly overfish in the territory of other countries. It has told VW that if it wants to sell cars in China then VW must stop doing business with a Lithuanian company. Your views on the subject of China and international norms is weird to me and not supported by history.
I will not convince you of anything and likewise I doubt you’ll be able to convince me of anything. I stand by my assertion that China approves Russia’s actions.
>Since 1960 China
You basically listed a bunch of events that are consistent with what PRC considers to be domestic issues since the 1960s, i.e. territorial disputes, supporting secessionist forces in TW. Vietnam land war was over security (like Korea), PRC retreated after operations, and ideally PRC would hope RU does as well, hence no recognition of Crimea annexation. CCP does not endorse private companies fish in other countries EEZs. Nor is PRC in violation of UNCLOS norms at UN. Nor do secondary sanctions blocking PRC market which PRC adopted from US toolkit a violation of German sovereignty. Regardless, the point is the spectrum is more than binary approval / disapproval.
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-editor-says-must-suppo...
My contention that Russia has China’s blessing is correct. It’s ok to admit when you are wrong.
Yes, I think Taiwan will be back in China's hands by the end of the year.
As of today, the only operational pipeline carries about 3% of what Gazprom exports to Europe. It may be possible to boost that quickly, and the pipeline will eventually have a capacity of 30-40% of the European exports.
Even if Russia had as much pipeline capacity to China as it has towards Europe, simply switching its exports isn't possible like that. Diverting 20% of Russian exports from Europe would require increasing Chinese usage by 100%.
Doable, I'm sure, given the time to build a few dozen new gas-fired power plants and shutting down as much coal-fired capacity, but not done in a week.
Putin's invading Ukraine to distract from his own domestic issues and to try to boost his popularity with the general Russian population.
I don't think this has anything to do with China.
I guess we'll never know if I was right now, though, now that demand has fallen[0], supply has increased[1], and the people have been well distracted for some time to come.
0: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-stop-nord-stream-...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine#shale_g...
The West can ban Chinese companies and dependent states (S.Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan) from exporting chipsets and devices containing them to Russia.
It'd be an interesting thing to see, how Russia would try to go around this. They will, but it will still be a big problem.
Agree that this is also somewhat of a test, how far can you go militarily against NATO before there is a severe reaction. Pretty damn far I'd guess. The tests have been done when it comes to money, buying legitimacy and freedom to do whatever you want as far as rich and repressive regimes are concerned. The Olympics, FIFA and others come to mind. As does whatever the Saudis are usually up to.
This behavior was always there, to some extend. When the freedom, pro-human rights West started doing the same shit during the war of terror, so, it gave carte blanche to everyone else.
The situation around Taiwan is fundamentally different and can't be compared.
The US or even EU just care soso about Ukraine. The lost of trust of partners, lost face and potential follow up actions and consequences are things they care about more then the Ukraine itself. Hence why they didn't get too much involved in recent years.
But at least the US cares _a lot_ about Taiwan and the EU should too.
TSMC is a Taiwaneese company down to the core, they likely won't be around anymore if Taiwan is gone.
Plus building semiconductor factories takes a long time, weather it's TSMC or Samsung. So China would need to wait for another ~8 Years.
It's also a test to see what's left of America's power after the Afghanistan debacle.
Siding with Russia would further unify US and the EU, which is not something China desires.
China will stay out of this, they have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by siding with Russia.
It'll also worsen their status in the States where we've got the strange situation of crystallizing the situation in the States of not being sure who the bad guy is: is it China or Russia? If they are allies then it is obvious they both are. Why Americans need an agreed upon bad guy to hate on is a different topic...
Europe gas prices: How far is Russia responsible? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/58888451
Some key points in the BBC article:
- Russia supplies about 40% of the EU’s natural gas imports. Most of the rest comes from Norway and Algeria.
- Russia sends gas to Europe through several main pipelines - such as the Nord Stream, the Yamal-Europe and the Brotherhood (see the map in the article).
- Overall, Russian gas exports to Europe have been decreasing over the last couple of years - down 32% in February this year compared to February 2020. One factor - during the pandemic - has been falling demand as economic activity shrank. Stocks of gas across Europe have been depleted, which in turn is driving up prices.
- Gazprom, Russia's majority state-owned energy company, supplies gas to Europe under two different arrangements: 1. Long-term contracts often lasting from 10 to 25 years. 2. "Spot" deals or one-off purchases for a fixed amount of gas.
- It is understood that Gazprom met its obligations to European buyers last year under these contracts.
- "Spot" sales don't appear to be happening in any significant quantity, going by data from Gazprom's own electronic sales platform.
- The International Energy Agency's executive director, Fatih Birol, has accused Russia of reducing gas supplies to Europe for political purposes.
- Gas storage across Europe is well below the 10-year average, with levels currently at about 75% of storage capacity, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data.
Question is, was gas ordered? I doubt anyone delivers without order. According to Gazprom the orders came only february 2nd.
https://www.ft.com/content/576a96f7-e41d-4068-a61b-f74f2b2d3...
Still the same,no order, no delivery.
Biden has discussed with US energy companies on how to get them into providing LNG capacity to European needs.
Where are the 100k+ US troops on Ukrainian borders?
As far as I understand the US still remains on another continent.
The parent comment has been flagged, but if I recall this conversation about hostility - trying to argue that the US is not hostile and that Russia is somehow unique and uniquely deserving of punishment is ridiculous, which is my point by saying the US has caused millions of deaths in the past 60 years.
Russia is.
Nobody gives a shit about the bad stuff US is doing elsewhere. It is utterly irrelevant to this conversation about European decisionmaking regarding Russia.
What you’re getting at is meaningless virtue signaling.
They are only 64k+ indeed. But they are already inside EU, since WWII.
But hey, I raise you Kaliningrad.
Outside of Europe the US has obviously been up to a bunch of nasty shit, but I think we are talking about European decisionmaking here.
Not in Germany, where they have their biggest presence: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/deutsche-finden-a...
Nor in Italy, where they have the second-biggest presence. But it is easy to understand, considering they kill civilians for fun, but get processed in US[0], and are responsible for countless violences in the cities where their bases are[1].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash [1]: https://www.vice.com/it/article/znjkke/vicenza-soldati-usa-s...
It’s easy to be unhappy with some remote evils that aren’t significantly contributing to your local economy.
US has deployments all over the world after WWII in order to bully and protect its own interests.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-mili...
There certainly is plenty of coercion involved in having so many deployments, but plenty of it has to do with strategic alliances.
It’s only their own expansion plans which are threatened by NATO.
https://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/russia-wants...
That's the assumption, but it doesn't follow natural economic laws.... where price ultimately prevails.
One only needs to look at how global oil prices were weaponized, in essence Persian-gulf oil producers openly conspired to sell barrels of oil cheaply to deprive their South American oil exporting competitors from realizing higher gains. And... one only needs to look to Argentina to see how that played out. The point is, energy importers prioritize lower price, and energy exporters are willing to maintain lower prices to protect their cartel or monopoly.
Russia has provided affordable cheap natural gas as a strategic goal to create an effective monopoly in Europe. Not recognizing this monopoly is a form of denial or rationalization, and isn't very helpful. Europe simply cannot cut away the lower energy prices, as that has deep macro economic consequences.
Spending that money, or a bit more, in the US, at least I’m not funding an openly hostile regime. Some would eve argue you could reduce your defence spending by some amount $Y.
And vice versa...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
Of course it makes up a minuscule fraction of the Ukrainian national guard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_of_Ukraine
Another way of framing this is "Europe gas prices: How far is Europe responsible?" https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/what-the-u-s-can-learn... | https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/bi...
Given the country's GDP, tech prowess and population, they could be a military and espionage powerhouse far exceeding the UK or France, even rivaling Russia; but historical and political reasons make them tread softly and prefer throwing money at problems (e.g. paying off other countries to join the EU through the CAP, or sending FDI or aid to emerging Europe and Africa) rather than to bully countries using cyber attack or spec ops or even more hardline trade/sanction policies...
Oh look where the corrupt Flinten-Uschi sits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_European_Comm...
https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-biograp...
And yes they even give free submarines to Israel and help the NSA to spy on other European country's....what a lovely nation.
>rather than to bully countries
Greece want's to have a word with you then.
an artificial shortage made by private investors.
the russians are selling the gas as per contract, but because it is cheaper than what you can get on the spot market, some idiots are making a quick buck by selling the cheap gas for the spot market price.
well, something like that
https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9fb268bf
Nah, he now switched to explaining why it was expected and Putin had no other choice. I still can’t tell if he has been going crazy in recent years, or if I simply never realized how much bullshit he writes.
Figure out for yourself what that makes you for posting that characterization of him.
someone who gets why putin would act like he does
im just saying that it is in nobodies interest to only accept western views as valid
i can totally see how NATO's continuance and the veto against russia joining might be perceived as a persistent middle finger towards russia.
My opinion: the only reason why the NATO persists to this day, is to bully russia.
The west could have changed their tone along the way, but no. there needs to be a threat, otherwise nobody would need antimissile shields around russias borders. there needs to be someone to point all those weapons at.
Apparently humanity needs a common aggressor, I hope there will be an alien invasion of world ending proportions, otherwise I doubt we will ever get our shit together and overcome our differences.
Same as with Taiwan. It's an island off China and rebels flew there at some point and started to govern Taiwan as if it was theirs. China always insisted that Taiwan is part of China but because they never used military force to put an end to the game which those rebels played on that island it became harder for China to maintain the premise that Taiwan is in fact still part of China. Obviously the West has HUGE incentives to keep Taiwan seperate from China so will only portray one side of the story and the longer China was doing the objectively speaking right thing (not using force to exercise their right) the easier it is for the West to peddle the idea that Taiwan is in fact not part of China. It's almost like the West has been intelligently exploiting the good will of the East and I do feel like there is a lot of that going on between Ukraine and Russia as well.
Unfortunately there are no objective sources of news anymore and it's hard to really get a well balanced overview of the crisis. When I read on Wikipedia that for instance more than half of the Ukraine was not in favour of the Euromaiden protests, or other minor facts which shine a slightly different light on everything I am curious how much did the West contribute in stirring the crisis like we know they did in other countries in the world (Cuba, Middle East, Arab Spring, etc.)
It doesnt elucidate everything though. E.g. it's not clear from this who really killed the minsk protocols though.
That's a subjective way to put it, isn't it? You could also say that "rebels" took all of mainland China and Taiwan is the last remaining standoff of the "true" China.
EDIT: Also this argument if completely flawed because Taiwan has no leg to stand on. The only reason why it existed the way it has for so long is because China has actually been nice and not exercised its power. If China was to move troops into Taiwan next week there would be no actual opposition apart from fake outrage in the West, same as what happened with Hong Kong. HK was always part of China historically and the West initially agreed a deal with China to be allowed to have a base there and as time has moved on they thought they could infiltrate from within HK to make the independent and make it a US proxy state, but China, just like Russia now probably, has remained firm to the original roots of HK and now re-exercised their right claim over it and as we have seen the West has done nothing abou tit because they know they 1. cannot and 2. have no real right.
There is also heating 49% (which is basically all gas and oil)
And Mobility 30% (which is basically all oil)
The only way Germany is getting rid of coal & gas is if France builds enough nuclear to power and heat Germany
The UK is denouncing dependency on Russian fossil fuels, and Germany is denouncing dependency on Russian money.
We'll know that they're serious when it's the other way around, and they act on it.
The next step is to close the loophole and target the Russian banks as a whole, which will have consequences for non-billionaores in Russia too.
London is one of the key centers for global banking. That said, I can't imagine Russian billionaires don't have means to shelter funds, nested shells in some offshore bank I'd imagine.
However, they assure us this won't be overly bad although there will be short-term consequences.
A winner is obviously USA with the shale gas production but I'm sure EU will diversify in otehr regards as well.
Altogether this feels like a painful but important step for a healthier energy supply in the future.
The existing pipelines have much more capacity. Nordstream just serves as a tool to take a bargaining chip away from Ukraine. The pipeline isn't actually scrapped, stuff is just halted. Additionally Russia didn't resupply it's storages in Western Europe much last year and we can now see why.
If Ukraine starts using it's bargaining chip i imagine we'll see those pipelines used real quick. A bigger issue is the growing demand with multiple countries scrapping nuclear powerplants without replacement.
>A winner is obviously USA with the shale gas production but I'm sure EU will diversify in otehr regards as well.
Whilst I've heard that before as well as talks about LNG terminals....the US barely registers as a supplier behind Algeria, Qatar, Libia, Nigeria,... It's not exactly cheap to transport across the atlantic.
I think that the only way out is that Ukraine cuts off its arm to save the head. It acknowledges the territories as lost, and consolidates what it has left. But I'm not sure how they do that without:
1. The current leader losing legitimacy, and likely resigning.
2. Opening the door for other parts of Ukraine to split off.
3. Opening the door to Russia to meddle in other parts of Ukraine/other nearby states to encourage them to split off.
I don't see Russia backing off in the near future; they've held onto Crimea for the last 8 years without blinking.
I don't see NATO involving itself militarily. If a US soldier dies defending Ukraine, I think that enough people will ask "why are we shedding American blood for something that has nothing to do with us?"
I don't know that economic sanctions will be enough. We've been doing that for years, and nothing's changed.
I don't know that providing weapons to Ukraine will be enough. While the Russians may lose soldiers in the coming months, I've heard that a lot of soldiers come from isolated parts of society (and so the people who mourn them aren't going to be able to organize political resistance).
Plus gaining territory = more access to raw materials and labor. Perhaps that's Putin's plan?
In that sense:
Freezing outside assets might be better to convince the Russian oligarchs to find a peaceful solution: They get their assets back if they can find it. I think Putin being pressured internally by them is probably the best way out of this.
On the other hand, taking outside assets away, or impacting income streams, and a peaceful solution doesn't have the upside anymore. The assets are gone, missed income is gone, and future income is uncertain. They might then support more military action. Out of vengeance, or because they see a better future in there.
Which is why it's been so stupid of the US and the EU to push for Ukraine's inclusion into the EU & NATO. All it has done is provoke Russia, who doesn't want foreign influence right on its borders and Ukraine isn't strategically relevant to NATO anyway.
Everyone comes out of this looking incredibly stupid.
Similarly for the EU, I don't think the EU strongly cares one way or another, but the EU cannot allow Russia to dictate who's allowed in or not. I don't think it's fair to say "the EU shouldn't let countries try to enter on the basis that Russia won't like it" and somehow it's stupid of them to allow a non-member to dictate who's allowed in.
Russia and China are still in the 50-100 years ago mentality and will ruthlessly enforce having buffer states between major powers. Sharing a border is simply not in their interests and they would rather destroy Ukraine than allow it to join the EU.
The US would do the same thing. Just think about how much we freaked out over the Cuban Missile Crisis. If China struck a deal with Canada to put a military base in Vancouver, we'd lose our shit, but we act shocked and insulted when Russia does the same.
And having "50-100 year ago mentality" doesn't mean "unintelligent" either, it means "no bs wokeness" and "meticulously calculating", which is a crucially important skill in modern day global politics, perhaps even more important than 50 years ago.
To be clear, their policy is "we will not ban nations from joining on the basis that a non-EU nation objects". I think they're aware that this may make some nations unhappy, but it's better than the alternative, which would make it very difficult to ever expand the EU (beyond how difficult it is already).
> Just think about how much we freaked out over the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Notice how that resolved though; the United States pledged (and followed through) with not invading or overthrowing Cuba. Cuba stayed as a USSR-aligned state on the border of the United States. Similarly in the Ukraine situation, Russia pledged to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine if they voluntarily handed over the nuclear weapons the USSR had planted there. Unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis, Russia has no intention of following through with its promises.
> If China struck a deal with Canada to put a military base in Vancouver, we'd lose our shit, but we act shocked and insulted when Russia does the same.
I agree that the US would panic, but Ukraine didn't strike any deals. They weren't in the process of joining NATO (and likely wouldn't be admitted due to "external territorial disputes") and they weren't in the process of joining the EU. In addition, the EU doesn't put military bases anywhere.
The analogous situation would be if the United States invaded Canada because China refused to promise that they wouldn't make exclusive trade deals with Canada, and also refused to promise to remove soldiers from Hong Kong because they made the US feel unsafe.
This is actually untrue. Ukraine has repeatedly stated their intention to become a NATO member state. It's even written into their Constitution. The Vilnius Summit joint declaration (which Ukraine's pro-Russia President at the time did not sign and ended up with his government being removed...) included language from the EU affirming Ukraine's intention to become a member state. Ukraine is currently preparing to put in its application to join the EU and has been formally working on this since Jan 2021.
Ever since the Eastern Partnership (2009) and Ukraine-EU Association Agreement (2012), Russia has been publicly condemning this chosen course of action.
Both NATO and the EU have been courting Ukraine since the early 2000s.
You should check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 it's worth a watch.
It's you who is bullshitting here.
That was not in Ukrainian Constitution until Russia invaded and occupied parts of Ukraine. Before that Ukraine declared itself as a completely neutral state relying entirely on the Budapest Guarantees.
How the fuck is that supposed to work, now that Russia is invading and obviously planning to incorporate Ukraine, which already borders on NATO and EU countries? That's Russia removing any buffer. Does that mean Russia now gets to dictate that Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania must leave NATO and the EU, and they and everyone else is just supposed to STFU and obey?
Seems more reasonable that Russia just gets to stick this bit of its "mentality" where the sun don't shine, doesn't it?
This is an incredibly stupid (and false) thing of you to say. With all due respect and apologies.
As far as we, Ukrainians, see it, we are being encouraged to be "EU worthy" or "NATO worthy", but we are being constantly told that we are years (decades) from joining either.
I'm saying it's been stupid/political suicide for the US and EU because they've both already made it clear that there is next to no strategic value of including Ukraine in these partnerships.
It shows the weakness of the EU itself because it exposes the tiered importance of member states and how some just aren't. I think the best thing for all parties involved would have been to maintain Ukraine as a neutral buffer state and make sure that it has a thriving, rich economy.
Because the alternative is the inevitable angering of Putin, who will not be made to look weak on a world stage. He would rather destroy your state's entire economy than have Russia look like it's not the dominant state in the region.
If you don't believe that the EU has been pushing for you to join, just read the various drafts of the Vilinus Summit joint declaration that went unsigned.
Or, it's been stupid of the US and the EU to talk about Ukraine's inclusion into the EU & NATO but not actually do it like, in 2015 - 17 sometime.
> All it has done is provoke Russia, who doesn't want foreign influence right on its borders and Ukraine isn't strategically relevant to NATO anyway.
Why the fuck is what Russia wants so holy? The rest of Europe wouldn't want a third-world country with nukes and a crazy tin-pot dictator on our eastern border, but are we getting that?
Russia will not stop until someone makes them unable or unwilling to continue expanding.
> I don't see Russia backing off in the near future; they've held onto Crimea for the last 8 years without blinking.
I think you answered your own question there, a little bit. Putin's speech yesterday really confirms it as well - he doesn't view Ukraine as a legitimate nation, and so the short-term goals are pretty clear: he'll take it all, if he's allowed to.
This is Crimea all over again; the West will keep making noises while Russia effectively annexes further portions of Ukraine.
- Too little force, which would allow the separatists to de-facto control the territories and lead to a Crimea situation.
- Too much force, which would lead to a Russia invasion triggered by either: Russians dying in Ukraine (since some Russian soldiers were in the region "on vacation") or conflict on the Ukrainian-Russian border (either accidental, or false flag).
I'm just trying to figure out what Ukraine can do aside from let itself get gobbled up. Holding its ground while the economic sanctions/protracted warfare eats into Russian morale might work, or it might take too long. Not sure what else will work though.
Whether they were unable to or not willing to, as you suggest, now things are a lot worse. Either way it was a strategic failure, so yes, they did fail to protect their borders even back then.
This is not really Crimea, it's just Kosovo but this time someone else is acting as the hypocrite.
Basically, the EU and US need to agree to completely blockade the country, limit travel to it, cut its access to global financial system, heck even cut its internet (yay less bitcoin hacks), and do absolutely everything but war for now.
As you've mentioned, I don't see NATO or Europe taking direct risks for Ukraine. But I expect that once Russia invades Ukraine proper and takes Kyiv, US and European sanctions will be the most severe we've seen. Russia has done a lot to prepare for this with limiting export dependency to just what the West needs (energy) and holding a lot of foreign currency. I will be interested to see what the UK does as they have been highly enriched by Putin's henchmen and acting as a playground for oligarchs.
Ukraine has been bumbling along since the Soviet Union collapsed and is in no position to do anything about it. There isn't enough pain to inflict on Russia to stop it from taking what it wants (which I believe is a infantile and subservient Ukraine). Immediately after the Soviet Union collapsed likely would have been a better time to prepare. The countries that took the reemergence of an aggressive Russia seriously right after the cold war have mostly fared better with stronger economies and ties to Europe to protect themselves. Even if all went well it would still be a very difficult challenge for Ukraine to get out of the sphere of Russia.
This is state craft so I wouldn't think along the lines of this year or this decade. I would look out decades to try and see where this is all going. I don't believe that Ukraine will be an EU or NATO member as long as Russia has its current military and economic capabilities. I speculate that Ukraine will be a vassal state for the rest of my lifetime. I would have to see some major fractures in the Russian political position and its economic and military capabilities for my opinion to change. Maybe post Putin the politics changes, I'm not clear on succession planning here. Maybe oil and gas prices go way down and Russia can't field an aggressive military. But I can't see anyone take back Ukraine once Russia invades and changes the political course in Ukraine.