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Republican isolationists & America-firsters would do well to acquaint themselves with what is at stake. Today Russia & China, which announced a pact of “limitless friendship” three weeks before Putin invaded Ukraine, are challenging America.
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Ukrainian intelligence has reported that Russian energy giant Gazprom is establishing its own private military company (PMC). The rationale for an energy company establishing a security force is at least vaguely plausible given the need to defend fixed assets in trouble spots. Western energy companies like Exxon and BP do the same. However, Gazprom is not establishing a private army to guard a few remote wells or pipelines, or even to be sent to Ukraine. Gazprom’s move is likely about control over valuable energy resources inside of Russia, but more generally, a scramble for power.
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After 2022-2023’s unusually warm winter, Europe may be winning its energy struggle with Russia, but a lasting solution for energy-hungry Europe has not arrived yet. While Europe’s ad-hoc responses to Russian embargos have succeeded in changing one of the cornerstones of its economy, they are neither systematic nor sustainable.
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The invasion in Ukraine was supposed to be long over by now – by Kremlin’s count. After the first three days, Russia’s “short victorious war” would end with a Quisling government in and a parade through Kyiv which would have cemented Russian President Vladimir Putin’s legacy and the Russian empire redux of Eastern Orthodox Slavs: Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, or as the czarist lingo went, “the Great, Little and White Russia”.
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On November 27-28 a conference in Paris addressed a broad spectrum of challenges humanity is facing. Renowned thinkers, including Nuriel Roubini and Jacob Frenkel, the former Chairman of JP Morgan International, and three central bankers from Iceland, Tunisia, and Armenia, warned about inflation and the growing mountain of debt threatening the global economy. The panel at which this author addressed civilian nuclear security was organized by Dialogue of the Continents, a project of the Astana Club, the brainchild of the Nazarbayev Foundation. The panel was chaired by the veteran nuclear policy expert Ambassador Kairat Abusseitov, the former First Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan.
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Europe’s winter – likely to be warmer than average – is a welcome relief for a continent that was facing existential energy supply problems a few months ago. Those problems still exist, and many Europeans are suffering due to the avoidable problems associated with overreliance on Russian gas. Thankfully, the window in which Russia could have leveraged its energy control for a favorable political resolution in Ukraine may be getting smaller. Winter is here, and Europe endures, although not without hiccups.
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The midterm elections’ “red trickle" has not curbed some Democrats’ enthusiasm to begin proposing controversial legislation. One of the most divisive and consequential is the proposed windfall tax on energy companies. Proposals from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) have gained the tacit support of President Joe Biden but are unlikely to pass congress. Washington does what it does best: political theater and posturing. However, just because a bad idea isn’t translating into policy, doesn’t mean it’s not worth refuting.
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The war in Ukraine will have demonstrated the impotence of the United Nations if a permanent member of the Security Council with full veto power becomes a rogue state without consequence. For the havoc it created, Russia must now be evicted from the UN.
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Russia’s targets are not limited to nuclear. A September 12ttack on Ukraine’s second largest thermal powerplant left thousands in major metropolitan areas without power. The attack was a response to Ukrainian counteroffensives, where the Ukrainian military retook over 6,000 sq km of the Russian-occupied territory in the Balakleya, Izyum and Kupiansk regions, and seized the initiative. While this latest Russian attack was a spiteful response to battlefield reversals, the destruction of energy infrastructure has been an ever-present tactic throughout the invasion. Forcibly denying access to energy sources is not only designed to undermine Ukrainian morale and logistics, but also to threaten and undermine European unity.
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There can now be no negotiated reopening or resumption of deliveries even if the battlefields of Ukraine instantly fall silent. The Russians have achieved their immediate goal, with Reuters reporting “Nord Stream AG said it was impossible to estimate when the gas network system’s working capability would be restored.” This winter, Europe is doomed to face the worst energy crisis since the Arab oil embargo of 1974, or worse.
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Despite Francis Fukuyama's infamous opinion, history certainly did not end. The imperial collapse was an unintended consequence of Gorbachev's desire to humanize socialism and save the USSR. He utterly failed in both tasks, but Russia and other Soviet republics were liberated from the Communist nightmare, and the world gained 30 years of relative peace, which is now coming to an end.
Germany could be a European and global leader if it embraces this renaissance and overcomes its petty inter-party squabbles. Or it can just keep importing coal… and Russian gas.
Rivers are Europe’s economic and transportation backbone, and their drying will drive up energy and commodity prices.
A grim outlook was presented to European leaders and energy executives by the International Energy Agency (IEA) at its annual energy efficiency conference in Copenhagen on June 8th. Europe is unprepared for the coming winter. Governments across Europe have the difficult task of both finding the required energy for winter and relieving consumers of the burden posed by increases in gas and energy prices. Considering rising inflation, this is a Herculean task.
On Tuesday, average oil prices fell below $100 per barrel for the first time since April. Lockdowns in China, rising inflation rates, and troubling signs of a recession weigh heavily on oil markets causing the price decline. Against the backdrop of the Russian war in Ukraine, disruptions in oil and gas distribution exacerbated by sanctions and measures to choke supply by OPEC+ have
Wars often change the course of history – that’s a cliché. But it is also a truth. Before the war in Ukraine, the European Union was resolute in its green evangelism. Now the 27-member bloc is waking up to a harsh reality. The strategy of relying on Russian energy to avoid Middle Eastern quagmires and engage with Russia via an EU-wide Ostpolitik has failed. Schroeder and Merkel got an egg on their collective face, although Macron did not get the memo yet.
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Ukraine, a democratic ally with a transatlantic orientation, is fighting a domestically and internationally popular defensive conventional war against Russia, a former imperial master that is attempting to deny Ukraine peoplehood and statehood and that happens to be longtime rival to the U.S. With moral indignation driving a rare bipartisan U.S. foreign policy, there is an understandable interest in winning the peace – even before there is any peace to be won in Ukraine. To do that, policymakers must carefully refine the narratives and policies of Ukrainian aid.
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From many conversations held with Russian policymakers, we know that the vision which denies Ukraine peoplehood, and the Kremlin's resulting aggressions, are nothing new. This war's atrocities flow from the dark misapprehensions held by many Moscow elites concerning Russia's destiny, history and geopolitics.
Even before battlefields are silent, the battle for billions in Ukrainian reconstruction budgets has already begun. Top U.S. policy makers, including Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen championed the initial assistance package to Ukraine, which passed (86-11) in the Senate on May 19.
On Wednesday, Hungary demanded that shipments of Russian oil be exempt from the European Union’s proposed sanctions. This statement comes amidst tense negotiations between Budapest and Brussels over the EU’s sixth round of penalties against Moscow. Budapest has proven the most skeptical of the plan, which requires the unanimous consent of member states.
High energy prices in the UK have led to the worst cost-of-living increases in decades— with economists warning inflation could breach 10% this year. Households faced a record energy bill spike of 54% at the beginning of April and are set to rise again in October.
During President Joe Biden's visit to Europe, the US has struck a deal with the EU to boost its liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply as the trade bloc seeks to reduce its dependence on Russian gas. The war in Ukraine highlighted the Old Continent's unsustainable Russian energy habit.
Tensions between Russia and the West over a possible invasion of Ukraine have reached their zenith. If a shooting war between the two ex-Soviet states does erupt, it will likely happen within the next 72 hours, or not at all (this does not preclude the possibility of limited border incursions by Russian troops or perhaps the formal recognition of Ukraine’s breakaway provinces ).
As the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine grows ever more likely, Berlin’s hesitancy to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and other pressure points, such as SWIFT bank transfer system, erodes deterrence, and may invite Russian aggression.
The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is occurring apace; sales in Europe are accelerating thanks to early adopter enthusiasm and government subsidies - given the shift in government and EU-wide cleaner energy initiatives. According to Schmidt Automotive, battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales will reach a market share of 60% in Western Europe by 2030, or 8.4 million vehicles – a paradigm shift on the continent where the internal combustion engine (ICE) was invented over 160 years ago.
