Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Quijote on January 09, 2007, 01:30:19 AM
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The german chancellor already is thinking about stopping Germany's plans to close its nuclear reactors. Russia has a power in Europe with its energy ressources. Germany is the first to feel it now.
SPIEGEL ONLINE - January 8, 2007, 03:34 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,458401,00.html
ENERGY WARS
Russia Halts Oil Deliveries to Germany
In an apparent escalation of a gas and oil dispute with Belarus, Russia on Monday temporarily halted oil deliveries to Germany. By shutting off the Druzhba pipeline, Moscow cut off the source of 20 percent of Germany's oil imports.
The conflict between Moscow and Minsk over energy prices worsened on Monday, with potentially serious consequences for Western Europe. Russian pipeline operator Transneft shut down its Druzhba pipeline, which is the source of 20 percent of Germany's oil imports.
Transneft has accused Belarus of illegally tapping oil from the Druzhba pipeline, whose name translates as "friendship". Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted Transneft chief Simon Vainshtock as saying that the company had stopped oil transports through the pipeline -- which is used to export oil to Poland and Germany -- during the night. The company said it is currently seeking alternative routes for transporting oil to Poland and Germany, but did not provide any information on when the pipeline might be reopened.
The Druzhba pipeline is an enormously important part of Germany's energy supply. Of the total of 112 million tons of oil that are consumed in Germany each year, 20 percent travel through the pipeline.
"I view the closure of the important Druzhba pipeline with concern," German Economics Minister Michael Glos said Monday. "I expect the deliveries through the pipeline to resume completely as soon as possible."
"Druzhba is very relevant for Germany," a spokesperson for the Association of the German Petroleum Industry told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Most German oil imports from Russia travel through the pipeline. The only alternative would be through tanker deliveries, the spokesperson said, but this would cover "only a small portion" of the lost oil. According to the association, there are no other pipelines available to do the job.
Poland's Economics Ministry also confirmed that oil supplies had been interrupted through the Druzhba pipeline on Monday morning. Germany's Economics Ministry confirmed similar trouble.
A spokesperson for European Union Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said the European Commission in Brussels will investigate the interruption of oil supplies. "We have contacted the Russian and Belarussian authorities and demanded an urgent and detailed explanation for this interruption," spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny said.
In the short term, however, physical shortages aren't expected because Germany has strategic oil reserves that can last up to 130 days and Poland has at least 70 days' worth.
Earlier on Monday, deputy Polish economy minister Piotr Naimski told Polish TV station TVN24 that the pipeline had been shut off because of the ongoing energy dispute between Minsk and Moscow. Russia dramatically increased gas prices on Jan. 1 and acquired a controlling interest in Belarussian natural gas pipeline operator Beltransgas. In addition, the Russian government imposed an export duty of $180 per ton on petroleum.
The government in Minsk responded by promptly applying a €34 per ton transit fee for Russian oil exports to Western Europe. So far, Transneft has refused to pay the tax.
Ernst Uhrlau, president of Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, said the pipeline outage on Monday underscored the importance of energy security for Germany. Uhrlau said it was important to gather and analyze information about conflicts between states affected in order to try to prevent repeats of the current crisis.
dsl/wal/reuters/dpa/afp
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Europe: Feeling the Pinch from the Russo-Belarusian Dispute
Summary
Oil refineries in Europe reported Jan. 8 that interruptions in the shipment of Russian crude oil via Belarus were causing supply shortages. Though the supplies likely will be back to normal within a few days, this is not the first -- or the last -- disruption in Russian energy supplies to Europe. Whether due to commercial disputes with its former states and satellites or Moscow's use of energy as a political weapon, secure and string-free energy from Russia is a thing of the past.
Analysis
Energy firms across Poland and Germany reported Jan. 8 that Russian oil supplies transported through Belarus were not arriving according to agreed-upon schedules. Refineries in Ukraine and Hungary appear to be on the cusp of similar problems. These disruptions have not and will not force shutdowns -- all the states and facilities have sufficient emergency supplies to operate for weeks without the Russian crude -- but they are a none-too-gentle reminder that the days of reliable energy supplies to Europe from the East are a thing of the past.
These are hardly the first interruptions in Russian energy supplies to Europe. Since they started three years ago, such disruptions have included disputes or shortages that limited oil, natural gas and/or electricity deliveries to nearly every European state.
Some of those interruptions -- like the one involving Belarus -- can be explained as commercial disputes.
In this case, Russia on Jan. 1 ended a deal that had formerly existed to reward Minsk for its loyalty, halting subsidies for crude oil to Belarus and imposing a $24.65 per barrel duty. Under the old terms, Russia sent Belarus more crude than it needed, so not only was the Belarusian economy subsidized with cheap energy, but Minsk could then ship the extra oil to Europe at market rates, pocketing the profit -- nearly $2 billion in 2006.
The end of the deal punched a mammoth hole in the budget of Belarus, a country in which the gross domestic product totals only about $30 billion. In retaliation, and to compensate for the shortfall, Minsk unilaterally increased transit tariffs on the 1.8 million barrels per day of crude that Russia ships across Belarus to Europe. The new rates were supposed to kick in Jan. 6. But a related price-and-supply dispute between the Russian government (which controls the oil transport network) and Minsk left Belarus' two refineries without assured supplies.
Russia reduced oil deliveries to Belarus by the amount normally used by Belarus' refiners, but the Belarusians kept tapping the pipelines and shortages manifested downstream in Poland, Germany, Ukraine and Hungary. Russia -- in order to punish Belarus -- then simply shut down the line completely.
The dispute is a reflection of a forming geopolitical fissure between Russia and what once was its only reliable ally. This issue likely will be sewn up quickly, if only because Russia is Belarus' sole energy supplier. But that hardly means the sniping -- and the disruptions -- will not resurface.
Though this -- like a near-disruption of natural gas supplies in December 2006 involving Belarus and one in January 2006 involving Ukraine -- can be called a commercial dispute, it is obvious to all but the propaganda experts that there is a core political aspect as well. Anytime a country in Russia's near abroad has a conflict of interest with Russia -- not exactly a rare occurrence -- the energy supplies of European states farther down the pipeline become threatened. In Moscow's unofficial rhetoric, this is one reason Europe should encourage Russia to keep a tight grip on its near abroad. But for most European states -- particularly those in Central Europe -- it is one more reason to find alternatives to Russian energy.
Since it cannot rely on Russian energy, Europe is looking for ways to mitigate the risk. However, it will not be easy to find substitute sources for all the kinds of energy Russia supplies to Europe.
The hardest to replace is natural gas. Since natural gas is, well, a gas, it is difficult to transport without a multibillion dollar pipeline infrastructure. Since one of those -- the world's most extensive -- already exists between Russia and Europe, Europeans would have to be quite put out with Moscow to invest in replacement options, which include building massive new connections to Algeria, Libya, Iran, Iraq and Egypt -- states that few put at the top of their list of reliable partners. Other possibilities are tankering the stuff in liquefied form, doing away with the industries that use natural gas (with the obvious adverse effects on the European economy) or substituting nuclear power for natural gas-fired electricity plants. All options are expensive, time-consuming and accompanied by their own problems -- yet most of the European states affected are moving forward on some or all of these options.
Oil is easier. Though there is an oil pipeline network, similar to the natural gas network, linking Russia to Europe, oil is a liquid and is more readily transportable via tanker. In fact, the Polish refineries affected by the recent Belarusian-Russian problems have already announced that they will simply switch to waterborne (probably Norwegian) supplies.
At the end of the day, it matters little to the European states whether Russian energy interruptions occur because the Russians are pressuring someone, because there is a commercial dispute or because the Russians – because of cold weather, creaking infrastructure or failing reserves -- are simply unable to deliver supplies. The bottom line is that the needed energy is not there, and the Europeans must plan accordingly.
As the European Commission said in a statement regarding the Jan. 8 interruptions, "There is no reason to be alarmed now, but we are going to take all necessary measures just in case."
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Russia's energy ressources have become Russia's strong leverage on Europe and the former SU states. An unbearable thought.
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The Adventure continues!
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The Belarusian Crisis: An Opportunity for Germany
By Peter Zeihan
Picture this scenario: After months of acrimonious negotiations over energy prices, Russian leaders put their foot down and inform the government of a former Soviet republic that the gravy train has screeched to a halt -- no more subsidized energy supplies. At the dawn of a new year, Moscow ratchets up prices by orders of magnitude, the former vassal state begins siphoning off Russian exports destined for customers in Europe and the Europeans complain vociferously about interruptions to their supplies.
If this sounds familiar, it's because just such a sequence of events occurred in early January 2006, in a spat between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas supplies.
Almost exactly a year later, the scenario has repeated itself, though this time it concerns oil, rather than natural gas, and Belarus, rather than Ukraine. But from a geopolitical standpoint, there are some important differences between the two energy crises. In 2006, Russia used the crisis with Ukraine -- a state crucial to its own national security and territorial integrity -- to drive home a political point to European powers. The point, essentially, was that the ability of everyday Poles, French or Germans to keep warm during the northern European winters was directly tied to their governments' support for Russia on wider geopolitical issues. Recent events involving Belarus, however, might lead to a very different outcome: a foundation for unity among European states and at least a limited assertion of European power.
The Russian Sphere
To understand this, it's important to consider the former Soviet region from Moscow's perspective.
The natural gas cutoffs to Europe last year were all about Russia bringing a post-Orange Revolution Ukraine to heel, and enlisting wider support in its attempts to do so. By ratcheting the price dispute with Kiev into an energy crisis for Europe in the dead of winter, Moscow demonstrated that having a pro-Russian government in Ukraine would mean stable energy supplies for Europe, while the consequences of an anti-Russian government in Ukraine would be economic instability for Europe. Having made that point, Russia spent much of 2006 raking back its influence in Kiev -- a process that culminated in the selection of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich as prime minister.
For Russia, such events -- like Moscow's defeat in the Orange Revolution before them -- were core considerations. Without Ukraine in its orbit, Russia's economic and strategic coherence frays, making it impossible for Russia to function as a global power.
The Russian calculus concerning Belarus, however, is quite different. Ukraine's geographic location and infrastructure make the state critical to Russia's ability to control the Caucasus, feed its population, field a navy, interact with Europe and defend its heartland. While Belarus is more economically developed than Ukraine, it has less than half the land mass and only a quarter of the population. In fact, Belarus likely would be only a footnote in Moscow's strategic planning, but for the fact that some of Russia's natural gas and oil exports pass through it en route to Europe. The Belarusians are well aware of their position.
The leader of Belarus since shortly after the Soviet breakup has been President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Once a Soviet bureaucrat assigned to the USSR's agricultural cooperatives, Lukashenko cut a deal with the Russians upon attaining power: Support me with Soviet-era subsidies and I will sing your praises -- and curse your rivals -- loudly, reflexively and for all time.
The deal served both parties fine. Russia kept an unflinching ally and Lukashenko maintained his popularity through cheap energy supplies -- which fueled the local economy (both literally and figuratively, as Minsk was able to re-export Russian oil and oil products to the West at market rates). Putting a precise monetary value on the benefits to Belarus is difficult, given the murkiness of Russian accounting, but it certainly comes to much more than the Soviet Union spent annually on Cuba during the Cold War. In 2006, for example, the energy subsidies alone amounted to $5 billion.
There were some ancillary benefits for Lukashenko as well. As the years rolled on, his anti-Western rhetoric was so steadily vitriolic that many of Russia's nationalists privately wished he were one of their own. Some of the more, shall we say, colorful of these nationalists took to leaking "poll results" encouraging him to run for the Russian presidency; talks soon ensued about ways to merge the two states into a new union reminiscent of the USSR. For Lukashenko, this was quite attractive: In such an arrangement, he would undoubtedly become the vice president, and -- considering that then-President Boris Yeltsin was known to have the blood alcohol level of a dry martini -- Lukashenko was certain it would be only a matter of time before a failed quadruple bypass made him the revered premier of a revived Soviet empire.
But things changed sharply in 2000, when (the teetotal and healthy) Vladimir Putin became president of Russia. It did not take long for Putin to decide he cared little for Lukashenko, personally, professionally and politically, and relations between Moscow and Minsk steadily cooled. By the end of 2005, Putin had succeeded in reducing the influence of those Russian officials who enjoyed Lukashenko's sharp-edged rhetoric, replacing them with a new cadre of pragmatic strategists who had little desire to keep a significant "Lukashenko" line item on the accounts payable portion of the Russian budget. The Russians steadily cut back on subsidies: As of Jan. 1, natural gas prices were forcibly doubled (with more price increases in the works), and Belarus was stripped of its rights to cut-rate oil.
Moscow's threats to Minsk gave way to unilateral Belarusian tariff increases on Russian exports, and from thence to siphoning of oil exports and a Russian cutoff, announced Jan. 8. With that, Lukashenko's career as the world's best-paid cheerleader came to an unceremonious end.
From the standpoint of the West, however, Lukashenko is no Ukraine: No one is all that concerned about his fate. Make no mistake, Russia's decision to end energy subsidies for Belarus means that the loyalties of this decently developed state perched on the edge of Europe are indeed in play. In fact, should there be a political opening in Minsk, Belarus would be a slam-dunk destination for foreign investment and could even squeeze itself onto the short list of candidates for EU membership. However, 12 years of Lukashenko haranguing the West has taken a toll. If the Belarusian leader now wishes to plot a course away from Russia, he will be starting at square one.
Crisis Averted?
As to the current imbroglio, the Russians have used their many levers of influence to badger Lukashenko into backing away from a trade war. The Belarusian transit tariff that led the Russians to halt their oil exports to Europe was cancelled Jan. 10, with the Russians recommencing exports within a few hours. But, with the political loyalties of Belarus in play, there is certainly no guarantee that disruptions will not recur -- and that is of no small consequence.
The Soviet-era oil pipeline that carries Russian crude to Europe is the Druzhba (which, ironically in the context of Belarus, translates as "friendship"). At full capacity, the line carries 2.0 million barrels per day to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Germany and, of course, Belarus.
Shutting down that pipeline, even for a short time, presents the Russians with an atypical problem. Russia produces about 9.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and gas condensates -- a number that has not changed appreciably in the past four years because the state has not invested in additional export routes. Overflow production -- what the pipes cannot handle under normal conditions -- typically is shipped by more expensive rail and river barge networks; but, as this is winter, Russia's rivers are frozen over and the river barge option is temporarily off the table.
Though Russian refineries might be able to take some of the surplus, most of that oil -- at least 1.0 million bpd -- has literally nowhere to go so long as the Druzhba pipeline is suspended. On Jan. 9, Putin directed the government to consult with Russia's oil magnates (some of whom were in the room with him at the time, due to Russia's ongoing efforts to nationalize its energy industry) and explore the possibility of a production cut.
That would be problematic anywhere, but even more so in Russia, where energy reserves are located in regions of extreme cold. When production is halted, starting Russian oil wells back up is neither cheap nor easy; many of the wells will actually freeze solid and will have to be redrilled before production resumes. Under these circumstances, it could take the Russians as long as a year to bring output back to pre-crisis levels.
At this point, an output reduction appears unlikely, since Belarus is in the process of caving to Russian demands -- but there is a larger political question to be considered. Lukashenko has been humiliated and now must do some political math. His options are to kowtow meekly to Moscow, bereft of those once-generous subsidies, and mark time until he loses power -- or attempt to use what energy leverage he has over Russia to make a friend in Brussels and/or Washington. For Lukashenko -- who has demonstrated that his loyalty is for sale -- the options are wide and the consequences are unpredictable.
An Agenda Downstream
With oil deliveries to five European states already having been suspended for three days, the Belarus-Russian spat obviously has implications far beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union.
As could be expected, the mood in Europe has been one of angered panic. Though oil -- which enjoys a robust spot market and can be shipped easily by tanker -- is easier to scrape together in a pinch than natural gas, it is hardly a snap to replace the Druzhba supplies. European leaders have been outspoken, issuing sound bites peppered with phrases like "destroyed trust," "unreliable," "urgent need to diversify" and "unnecessarily vulnerable." The Europeans were particularly put out that the Russians did not send so much as a notification memo that roughly 2 million bpd of crude deliveries were about to be halted.
In sum, political leaders throughout Europe were soundly in agreement on the issue.
This does not happen often.
Throughout its history, continental Europe has been driven by ideological, religious, cultural, geographic and economic divisions. After the Cold War ended, the Europeans attempted to put those differences aside and work toward not just an economic union but also a political one. But the fiction that these diverse states could act in concert on much beyond trade issues largely was ended by their differences over the Iraq war -- including the decision of many to support the U.S. invasion -- and the failure of the EU constitution. This fracture has sapped much of the enthusiasm for the European Union as a concept and is a contributing factor in deepening "enlargement fatigue."
The Belarus issue, however, provides the Europeans with a stellar opportunity. Energy -- Russian energy, in particular -- is a hot-button issue on which the EU states already share similar views. All that remains now is for some enterprising leader to turn those views into a set of policies that can bind Europe together.
The question, of course, is: who?
Considering the domestic situation for most of the traditional European powers (Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has been reduced to attaching confidence votes to legislation simply to force his unwieldy coalition to vote for his policies, and the French and British heads of state are both slated to leave office in a matter of months), there is really only one political heavyweight available: German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Throw in the fact that Germany holds the EU presidency until July 1 and the G-8 chairmanship until the year's end, and it is a foregone conclusion that she is the only leader who can make a serious attempt at forging a new sense of unity.
It has been a long time since the Germans were a serious political player in Europe. The European mantra after World War II was not much more complicated than, "Use the French-led EU to keep the Germans boxed up economically and the American-led NATO to keep them down militarily." During his tenure, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder managed to open a crack in these long-held convictions, but ultimately he did not challenge the idea that European interests would automatically equate to German interests.
Merkel, however, does. For the first time since the Third Reich, Germany has a leader who wants -- and who even, in some ways, is expected by European neighbors -- to stake out a leadership position for the entire continent. And now the Belarus-Russian spat has handed her an issue she can use to make that stick.
The longer-term implications of this are critical. While the Bush administration is a huge fan of "Angie," the United States historically has been wary of German power. The core tenet of U.S. strategic doctrine is to block the rise of any state that potentially could exert control over an entire continent. For all practical purposes, the United States is the only major power that falls into that category, and so long as a rival does not emerge, its hegemonic position is secure.
This is one of the reasons U.S. relations with the European Union as a whole have never been more than lukewarm -- and those with Russia, in truth, have never been more than coolly polite. Both entities retain the potential to become such a continent-spanning rival. And as European history illustrates, whenever the Germans have ended up on top in Europe, the Americans have marched to war.
To be sure, Merkel has plenty of obstacles to overcome if she intends to prove she is the woman to lead Europe as something more than a figurehead:
Germans might like the idea of being back in the game, but that does not mean Merkel enjoys full support at home for the details of what she will need to do. Any EU-wide energy program doubtless will involve at least a re-examination of nuclear power -- which is a point of contention within Merkel's own governing coalition. If she is not able to muscle the center-left Social Democrats into line, new elections likely will result. And even if Merkel were to come out ahead in those polls, her ability to act as a coherent arbiter of European issues would stall during the foregoing campaign.
There is an issue of balance in energy supplies. Most of the roughly 6 million bpd of oil and oil products exported by Russia end up in Europe, and nearly half of Europe's natural gas imports come from Russia as well. Reducing those dependencies will necessitate a wrenching political and economic shift among European states. Tens of billions of dollars in new pipeline infrastructure to places such as Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Nigeria would be needed -- not exactly a Who's Who of desirable partners in politically correct Europe.
Merkel's existing plans also could hamper her ability to capitalize on the opportunity afforded by Belarus. Before the Russian oil cutoff, she outlined a dozen major issues she planned to address during her EU presidency -- all of them time-consuming and controversial. The sheer size of her agenda, and pledges of attention to the failed EU constitution, have placed her at risk of squandering her leadership opportunity by biting off more than she can chew.
That said, there is now an issue that poses a clear and immediate danger to the union, involving a matter on which member states already share common views. All that remains is for Merkel, as EU president, to set aside her existing to-do list and translate those agreements into a common policy. And this seems to be the direction she is leaning.
As she stated on Jan. 9 as the Belarusian crisis deepened, "For us, energy is what coal and steel used to be." This direct reference to the European Coal and Steel Community -- which provided the early glue for the forebears of today's European Union -- is an excellent signal of just how ambitious the chancellor is.
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Europe, Russia and a New Kind of 'Cold' War
Summary
A Russian oligarch is predicting natural gas shortages in Russia. Europe has good reason to be worried.
Analysis
Anatoly Chubais, CEO of Russian electricity megafirm Unified Energy System (UES), said at a Feb. 15 news conference that planned changes to the country's electricity sector will result in increased demand for natural gas -- which in turn will lead to shortages of the fuel. Those most likely to suffer from the evolution will be European consumers as Russia discovers it has insufficient supplies for export.
After a decade of false starts, the Russian electricity sector is finally beginning its long-awaited reform, which for UES means getting broken up into a large number of regional and local power generating companies -- in theory at least.
One of the many consequences of this will be increased electricity production. Russia's oligarchs currently have to cut deals (and often plead) with UES to make sure they have enough electricity to supply their corporate empires. Now they can simply pay -- through the nose if need be -- to acquire power generation assets for themselves, and add on or modify them as necessary to meet their needs. Particularly in the case of power-intensive industries such as aluminum production, such assets will be constantly run to the red line to ensure full profitability.
As Chubais went on to note, such increased power generation will invariably lead to greater consumption of the natural gas used to produce electricity -- and that is a problem.
Although Russia remains the world's largest producer and exporter of natural gas, state energy firm Gazprom has not excelled at exploring for and developing new natural gas sources. Add in higher electricity demand and an ugly word crops up: shortage. Chubais -- one of the few people in Russia with access to all the data -- projects that in 2007 national demand plus export contracts will edge out supply by 4 billion cubic meters (bcm), ramping up to 40 bcm by 2010.
The results of such a shortfall are fairly easy to predict. Russian electricity and natural gas demand is highest in the winter, when the Russians huddle around their heaters in a desperate effort to avoid freezing solid. Their collective demand for power means that not enough natural gas is left over to meet Gazprom's export contracts. Flows to Europe consequently slacken, as happened for the first time in the early weeks of 2006. Chubais, intentionally or not, is putting Europe on notice that supply interruptions will become an annual affair in the future.
It is probably beyond Gazprom's technical capabilities to turn this situation around without a major change in worldview -- which is not in the cards at the moment. The mammoth firm can do a couple of things, however, to mitigate the coming shortages. First, it can use its political heft -- Gazprom is far and away the most politically powerful firm in the country -- to increase domestic Russian prices. Higher natural gas prices on the subsidized Russian market translate into lower Russian consumption, freeing up more natural gas for export.
Second, Gazprom is working to reduce natural gas' share of the market as an electricity feedstock. On Feb. 8 Gazprom swallowed up (that is: "initialed a deal to form a joint venture with") Siberian Coal Energy Co., which produced about 90 million metric tons of coal in 2006, supplying 30 percent of Russian demand and 20 percent of Russia's coal exports. The deal also brings under Gazprom's control most of the country's electricity generation that is not currently under UES. Gazprom's plan is simple: replace natural gas with coal in as many power plants' fuel mixes as possible.
Both of these strategies are smart and will work, but bridging a 40 bcm gap -- for reference, France uses about 45 bcm a year -- in three years is simply not feasible. Europe will need to learn to get by with less, and even that assumes the Kremlin's political goals do not further limit supplies.
Europe's takeaway should be simple. Regardless of whether European leaders believe Russia's energy policies are politicized (and they are), Russia will soon lack the capability to supply Europe with all the natural gas it wants -- even if the Russians are able to maintain their output levels in the long term (which is in doubt). So, unless Europe wants to feel the cold of winter more keenly, it will need either to find replacement supplies, move its economies away from natural gas, or both.
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Russia: The Significance of Missiles in Belarus
Stratfor Today » July 29, 2008 | 1832 GMT
EVGENY STETSKO/AFP/Getty Images
The Russian Iskander short-range ballistic missileSummary
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CTSO) states (read: Belarus) could consider deploying offensive weapons on their territory at their next meeting at the end of August according to CTSO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha. Though this remains purely Russia’s call, the potential deployment has military — and more importantly, symbolic — importance.
Analysis
The secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russia’s Nikolai Bordyuzha, stated July 28 that the member states of his organization (which include Russia and Belarus) could consider stationing both Iskander short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and strategic bombers on their borders with Europe in response to U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) efforts in Europe. He spoke more directly about military infrastructure improvements on CSTO borders July 26. Though Bordyuzha’s comments are not a direct statement of intent from the Kremlin, Bordyuzha is a powerful ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and is not known for exaggeration. While most of his propositions are of mixed consequence militarily, such a move could carry immense symbolism.
A meeting of representatives of CSTO members — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia and Uzbekistan — is to take place at the end of August, and potential responses to U.S. BMD efforts now look to be at the top of the agenda. However, as the pivot around which the CSTO moves as well as the enabling power in terms of military equipment, Russia’s position is the only one that really matters (another reason Bordyuzha’s statement is of import). Though there has been no shortage of rhetoric out of the Kremlin of late, there has been no actual military movement yet. The Kremlin is still calculating its next move.
(click image to enlarge)
As a response to the U.S. BMD plans, placing SRBMs in Belarus (the only CSTO member other than Russia northwest of the Black Sea, and one of Russia’s most loyal allies) would not be as militarily effective as placing them in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad (also under consideration), which is better geographically positioned to target the proposed U.S. interceptor site at Redzikowo, Poland. Both positions would put Russian Iskander SRBMs in range of Warsaw, but neither position would put them in range of the proposed X-band radar site at Misov in the Czech Republic (or even the Czech border, for that matter).
Though mobile Topol intercontinental ballistic missiles (known to NATO as the SS-25 “Sickle”) were indeed stationed in Belarus during the Cold War, Russia’s few mobile Topol-M (SS-27) missiles are safer in Russia and would not be able to target either Poland or the Czech Republic from such a short distance anyway. The deployment of strategic missiles there for purposes of threatening U.S. BMD installations in Europe is extremely unlikely.
Of course, the CSTO’s plan is all premised on the long-delayed Iskander program (known to NATO as the SS-26 “Stone”), which has long been underfunded. The Kremlin’s ability to threaten the Polish site at Redzikowo depends on its ability to field this particular system in numbers — something it has yet to demonstrate. Any deployment of a Russian battery equipped with Iskanders to Belarus would be the first foreign deployment of the weapon system.
Unfortunately for Russia, the evisceration that the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty inflicted on Moscow’s land-based missile arsenal has left it without the appropriate tools to target either site from its core territory behind the Baltics.
Related Links
Russia: A Military Response to U.S. BMD
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Moving Russia’s strategic bombers back into Belarus, meanwhile, would put a component of Russia’s long-range strategic deterrent at higher risk while undermining its greatest asset — range. Like the prospect of Topol-M deployments to threaten installations not at strategic distances, this is also unlikely. The shorter-range Tu-22M Backfire is a more likely candidate in terms of capability, though it would only encourage heightened NATO air patrols along the border.
But while the military value of any such move would be limited, the symbolism is immense.
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia frantically moved its military assets (especially its nuclear weapons and top-tier weapon systems) back to its own territory, or they became assets of the newly independent former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact allies. Moscow has even continued to attempt to consolidate additional strategic assets inside its own territory. And while it is unclear whether the Kremlin might simply sell Iskanders to Belarus or whether it is considering actually stationing a Russian missile battery on Belarusian territory, such a move would be a military push toward Europe — reversing a trend now approaching more than a decade in the making (though there is not yet any real indication beyond rumors and rhetoric that Russia might actually redeploy nuclear weapons).
Nothing is certain yet, but it is clear that such a move would be the aggressive military counter that Poland fears. If Russian SRBMs end up in either Kaliningrad or Belarus, the Poles will be clamoring for further support from both the United States and NATO. Though it is now only a threat, an actual deployment could bring a new dynamic to Warsaw’s BMD negotiations with Washington. Meanwhile, the Baltic states to the north would be outflanked by the Russian military — bringing back fears of encirclement and even being swallowed up once again.
But from a more geopolitical standpoint, such a move could re-establish a front line in a new Cold War, with Russian weapons targeting a NATO country and U.S. weapons (either defensive or offensive) pointing back. While it would not be as intense an affront to the United States as a Cuban deployment, it will feel precisely like that to Central Europe.
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Kremlin 'Capitalism'
Is a Threat to the West
By PETER CHARLES CHOHARIS
August 16, 2008; Page A11
Moscow has much more than a military threat to intimidate countries in its neighborhood. Long before its foray into Georgia, Russia was using its market strength in oil and gas resources to strong-arm its neighbors and outmaneuver the United States and the European Union. As NATO considers how to respond to Russian troops in Georgia, the West should also consider how to counter Kremlin capitalism.
Ever since Vladimir Putin became Russia's president in 2000, Russian authorities have used the power of the state to gut Russian companies and seize their assets for a fraction of their value. Yukos, once Russia's largest oil producer, was seized by Russian authorities allegedly for back taxes. Its assets were auctioned off at bargain prices to Russia's state-owned energy giants, Rosneft and Gazprom, while its CEO and other company officials were arrested and imprisoned.
The government's seizure also deprived ExxonMobil and Chevron from buying major stakes in Yukos. Sibneft, Russneft, and other Russian hydrocarbon companies have suffered similar fates.
More recently, TNK-BP, Russia's third-largest oil company and a joint venture between British Petroleum and a group of Russian billionaires, has been the target of Russian government investigations. BP calls the government's scrutiny a campaign of harassment. The company's British head, Robert Dudley, was forced to flee Russia two weeks ago, and its British CFO abruptly resigned. This after Gazprom wrested control of the $22 billion Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project from Royal Dutch Shell for a fraction of market value.
BP vows to use "all legal means" to protect its investment. But lawyers won't be enough. For the TNK-BP dispute is about geopolitics and Russian hegemony as much as it is about money.
Since Mr. Putin became president, the Russian government has renationalized much of the energy sector; it now owns 50% of the country's oil reserves and 89% of the gas reserves. Beyond ownership, the Kremlin has positioned high-ranking government officials and other Putin-loyalists -- elites in the security services known as siloviki (men of power) -- to key positions in leading Russian companies, even while they keep their government jobs.
Before becoming Russia's current president, Dmitry Medvedev was both Gazprom's chairman and Russia's first deputy prime minister. siloviki also control major companies in metals, mining and other strategic sectors. While profits are fine, the Kremlin ensures that these companies promote Russia's foreign-policy goals.
This strategy extends beyond energy. Two weeks ago, Moscow announced the formation of a state grain-trading company to control up to half of the country's cereal exports, which are the fifth-largest in the world. Its purpose, most analysts believe, is to provide the government with greater leverage over food-importing nations at a time of rising food costs and shortages.
But it is in the natural gas sector where the Kremlin wields the most power. Numerous Western European countries depend heavily on Moscow for natural gas to heat homes and produce electricity, with some Eastern European countries almost completely dependent. Beyond supply, Russia also enjoys a near monopoly of the pipelines transporting gas to Europe from the east. In a further bid to extend its grip on gas supplies, Russia -- along with such anti-U.S. governments as Iran and Venezuela -- is supporting the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, which some fear will become an OPEC-like cartel.
While Russia may or may not intend to start a new Cool War, it is not afraid of leaving Europeans out in the cold -- literally. In the middle of winter 2006, it cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and parts of Western Europe. It has also cut off gas to Moldova, Belarus and Georgia.
This past spring, critics charge that, in part due to Russian pressure, Germany opposed Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia, the first step toward NATO membership. They point to a Gazprom-led consortium building the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia underneath the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, while circumventing pro-U.S. countries like Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. (Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's role as Nord Stream chairman could not have hurt Russia's influence.)
Last month, after the Czech Republic supported an antiballistic missile system opposed by Russia, the flow of Russian oil dropped 40%. President Medvedev had promised "retaliatory steps."
Aware of their vulnerability, in March 2007 the Europeans developed an "Energy Policy for Europe" to coordinate energy security, competitiveness and sustainability. But agreeing on principles has been far easier than acting on them. Moscow continues to exploit differences among EU member states -- whose dependence on Russian gas, voracity for lucrative pipeline transit fees and desire to tap into Russian energy markets vary considerably -- in order to promote greater European dependence on Russian gas and pipelines.
Thus, when a consortium of European countries proposed the Nabucco pipeline, to pump gas from Central Asia and the Caucasus to Europe without going through Russia, Mr. Putin earlier this year personally met with foreign government and corporate leaders on behalf of South Stream, a rival pipeline that would go from Russia across the Black Sea to Bulgaria and the rest of Europe. To ensure that South Stream would have gas to transport, Gazprom upped its offer to Caspian region suppliers to pay higher rates for natural gas. It also just signed a deal with Turkmenistan to invest in its gas infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Nabucco pipeline's future is cloudy, with one of its original sponsors, Hungary, switching to South Stream due in part to European dithering and skillful Russian negotiating.
Just as NATO's response to Georgia will be crucial for American credibility throughout Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, so too U.S. leadership is vital to maintain Europe's energy security.
Short of sanctions, the West does not currently have much economic leverage. European, Japanese and American export credit agencies could refuse to finance any deals involving Russian companies that have acquired assets expropriated from foreign investors. European countries could also bar such Russian firms from operating in Europe, or could impose a special fee to reimburse expropriated investors. And rather than expel Russia from the G-8 as John McCain has proposed, members should demand that Russia respect the rights of foreign investors and ratify the Energy Charter Treaty.
Longer term, the U.S. needs to use its diplomatic and financial clout to push forward alternative energy routes. Washington's backing was vital to building the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in five years. One of the longest of its kind, the pipeline bypasses Russia and carries crude oil from offshore fields in the Caspian Sea across Georgia to the Mediterranean. Washington must make financing and constructing the NABUCCO gas pipeline a top priority.
Washington also needs to reach out to Central Asia, and should push for a Trans-Caspian pipeline from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and west to Europe. Years of Russian domination have made these countries open to Western investment. Moreover, they understand the strategic importance of diversifying sales and transport options for their oil and gas. Western companies also offer superior technology.
But after Russia's use of military force in Georgia, these countries are wary of antagonizing their former overseer. Without a strong American presence, it is impossible for the West to compete in the region. Yet Turkmenistan has lacked a full-time U.S. ambassador for more than a year.
The markets can also help hold Russia accountable for its heavy-handedness. Two weeks ago after Mr. Putin targeted Mechel, a steelmaking giant -- suggesting that Russian antitrust and tax authorities investigate the company -- Russia's stock market lost $60 billion. Market forces may not protect BP's Russian investments or save Georgia, but they could make it far more costly for the Kremlin to proceed.
Mr. Choharis is a principal in Choharis Global Solutions, an international law and consulting firm, and an adjunct fellow at the American Security Project. He recently returned from a trip to Turkmenistan.
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NATO's 'Empty Words'
August 20, 2008; Page A18
"Empty words." That's how Moscow glibly dismissed NATO's criticism yesterday of Russia's continued occupation of Georgia. The Russians may be bullies, but like all bullies they know weakness when they see it.
The most NATO ministers could muster at their meeting in Brussels was a statement that they "cannot continue with business as usual" with Russia. There was no move to fast-track Georgia's bid to join NATO, nor a pledge to help the battered democracy rebuild its defenses.
Asked about NATO reconstruction aid, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer pointedly said, twice, that it would go for "civilian infrastructure." So here we have a military alliance going out of its way to stress that it will not be providing any military aid. The alliance didn't even cancel any cooperative programs with Russia, though Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said "one can presume" that "this issue will have to be taken into view." That must have the Kremlin shaking.
NATO leaders also failed to mention Ukraine, another applicant for NATO membership that has angered Moscow in recent years and could become its next target. Also missing was any indication that the alliance would begin making long-delayed plans for defending the Baltic member states and other countries on its eastern flank in case of attack. The only good news of the day was that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will eventually send up to 100 monitors, albeit unarmed, to Georgia.
Meanwhile, Russia found new ways to ignore the West and punish the Georgians who are actually abiding by a cease-fire. After exchanging prisoners with Georgia, Russian troops took about 20 Georgians prisoner after briefly retaking the oil port of Poti, blindfolded them and held them at gunpoint. Russia also sank another Georgian navy vessel and stole four U.S. Humvees that had been used in U.S.-Georgian training exercises and were waiting to be shipped out of the country.
All of this continues the Russian pattern of the past week, in which it agrees to a cease-fire and promises to withdraw, only to leave its forces in place while continuing to damage Georgia's military and even its civilian centers. Russian commanders had the cheek to suggest that a return to the troop placements before war broke out on August 8 means that 2,000 Georgian soldiers would have to return to Iraq, from which they had been airlifted home.
One of Moscow's goals is clearly to humiliate Georgia enough to topple President Mikheil Saakashvili, so he can be replaced with a pliable leader who will "Finlandize" the country, to borrow the old Cold War term for acquiescing to Kremlin wishes. In the bargain, it is also betting it can humiliate the West, which will give the people of Ukraine real doubts about whether joining NATO is worth the risk of angering Moscow. Judging by NATO's demoralizing response on Tuesday, the Kremlin is right.
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No thread is ideal for this piece, but this one seems plausible for it.
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Georgia's Guerrilla Option
Reihan Salam
Russia's attack on Georgia raises the question of how weak states can defend
themselves against strong states.
The Russian assault on Georgia holds a number of important lessons. As a
weak state facing a regional hegemon committed to its dismemberment and
isolation, Georgia sought to integrate into NATO and other trans-Atlantic
institutions, hoping that powerful friends would defang the Russian threat.
But as Robert D. Kaplan argued earlier this week, European dependence on
Russian energy exports gives Russia a great deal of political leverage. Fear
of provoking Russia led European states to resist accepting Georgia as a
member of NATO last year, and it has deterred them from taking strong action
to punish Russia for its actions in the current crisis.
Georgia's military humiliation also suggests that smaller powers that seek
protection under the American security umbrella will increasingly have to go
it alone. Constraints on American power - the ongoing U.S. military presence
in Iraq and Afghanistan, a renewed distaste for armed intervention on the
part of the American public, even the yawning size of the federal budget
deficit - will most likely lead the next president to look inward, to seek
conciliation over confrontation even if that means giving inconvenient
allies the cold shoulder. One has to assume that Taiwan has watched the
tepid American response to Russia's power-grab very closely.
As for Russia, its actions in Georgia make a great deal of sense when viewed
through the lens of petro-politics. As military analyst John Robb
<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/08/russias-hostil
e.html> notes, Russia's coercive efforts in its so-called "Near Abroad" have
generally been prompted by a desire to control the flow of energy to the
rich democracies. Estonia tried to scuttle the creation of a pipeline that
would cut them out of transit revenues, so the Russians orchestrated a
series of thuggish cyberattacks. Ukraine tried to control the pipelines
crossing its sovereign territory, which led the Russians to cut off the
energy spigot. When a pipeline running from Azerbaijan to Georgia to the
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey threatened to displace traffic from
an exisiting Russian pipeline, the Russians sabotaged Georgia's energy
infrastructure. The only thing new about the Russian aggression we've seen
this past week is that it's been overt.
So what are the Georgias of the world to do? Weak states might take a page
from the most fearsome non-state actors: guerrillas and criminal gangs.
During its 2006 military campaign in Lebanon, Israeli forces severely
degraded Hezbollah's military capabilities, but Hezbollah survived.
Hezbollah continued to use a variety of asymmetric attacks throughout the
conflict to spread fear throughout Israel's civilian population. The
resilience of Israeli society saw to it that Hezbollah could do no lasting
damage, but Hezbollah exacted a stiff price all the same.
It would be sheer insanity for Georgia to wage a Hezbollah-style terror
campaign against Russian civilians. But in a detailed scenario about the
Chechen fight for independence, John Robb devised a potentially very
effective strategy that draws on the guerrilla playbook. Just as Russia
disrupted Georgia's critical infrastructure in 2006, Georgia might consider
identifying key economic chokepoints - ports, power plants, long-distance
electrical transmission lines, and of course natural gas pipelines - and
training unconventional military forces to deliver crippling blows. While
Russia would be prepared for a few discrete acts of sabotage, they would
have a hard time dealing with a rolling, unpredictable series of attacks
targeting multiple locations. By disrupting Russia's infrastructure, Georgia
could inflict severe pain at relatively low cost. Moreover, Europe would be
impacted as well - which would make the European public think twice about
acquiescing to Russia's thuggish tactics in its own backyard.
To be sure, Russia might then decide to level Georgia - but they'd have to
do so with their economy and ruins and their international reputation in
tatters.
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Eastern Europe Can Defend Itself
By MAX BOOT
August 25, 2008; Page A13
Eastern Europeans are rightly alarmed about the brazenness and success of the Russian blitzkrieg into Georgia. For many living in Russia's shadow, this is reviving traumatic memories -- of 1968 for Czechs, 1956 for Hungarians, 1939 for Poles. It does not help that senior Russian generals are threatening to rain nuclear annihilation on Ukraine and Poland if they refuse to toe the Kremlin's line.
Even those states which, unlike Georgia and Ukraine, are already in NATO can take scant comfort. As Poland's foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, says, "Parchments and treaties are all very well, but we have a history in Poland of fighting alone and being left to our own devices by our allies."
Warsaw's response has been to draw closer to the United States, by rapidly concluding an agreement in long drawn-out negotiations over the basing of U.S. interceptor missiles on Polish soil. That's a good start, but it's a move of symbolic import only. The small number of interceptors are designed to shoot down an equally small number of Iranian missiles -- not the overwhelming numbers that Russia deploys. Poland and other states should be under no illusion they can count on the U.S. in a crisis. In the past we left Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the lurch. More recently we haven't done much to help Georgia.
The only thing that the frontline states can count on is their own willingness to fight for independence. But willingness alone is not enough. They also need the means to fight, and at the moment they don't have them. We have already seen how the tiny Georgian armed forces -- with fewer than 30,000 men -- were routed by the Russian invaders.
What gets ignored is that Georgia, although a small country (population: 4.6 million), has the potential to do far more for its defense. According to the CIA's World Factbook, Georgia has over 900,000 men between the ages of 16 and 49. It could easily create a larger military force than it has, but that would require spending more on defense. By the CIA's estimate, its defense budget was just 0.59% of GDP in 2005.
Georgia's military spending has grown in recent years, but not Eastern Europe's. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, only one country in Eastern Europe spends more than 2% of GDP on defense. That would be Bulgaria at 2.2%. Romania is in second place at 1.9%, followed by Poland at 1.8%. Nor do these countries maintain large standing forces. Poland has 7.9 million males of military age but only 127,266 active-duty personnel in its armed forces. Hungary could mobilize 1.9 million men but has only 32,300 in uniform. Bulgaria has 1.3 million potential soldiers but only 40,747 actual soldiers. And so on.
There is one exception to this demilitarizing trend. Russia, which has more than a million soldiers under arms, has been increasing its defense budget from the lows of the immediate post-Soviet era. Based on official figures it spends at least 2.5% of GDP on its military. But if you add in expenditures on paramilitary forces and other items, the total comes closer to 4% -- roughly the same percentage that the U.S. is spending.
Small states have often shown the ability to humble great powers. In 1920, under the inspired leadership of Marshal Josef Pilsudski, the Poles staged a brilliant counterattack to save Warsaw and drive the Red Army off their soil. In the winter war of 1939-1940 the plucky Finns held off Soviet invaders, forcing the Kremlin to settle for a slice of its territory rather than all of it. More recently, the Afghan mujahedeen drove the Red Army out of their country altogether, thereby helping to bring down the Soviet Union.
But if they have any hope of emulating such feats -- or, more precisely, of deterring the Russians from threatening them in the first place by making it clear that they could emulate such feats -- today's Eastern Europeans have to do much more to prepare a robust defense. They should double their military spending to make themselves into porcupine states that even the Russian bear can't swallow.
The U.S. can help, as we helped the Afghans in the 1980s and as the French helped the Poles in 1920. That will require a readjustment in our military assistance strategy, which has been to create in Eastern Europe miniature copies of our own armed forces. Our hope, largely realized, has been that these states will help us in our own military commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. But in addition to developing NATO-style expeditionary capacity, these states need to be able to conduct a defense in depth.
That means having large reserves ready for fast call-up and plenty of defensive weapons -- in particular portable missile systems such as the Stinger and Javelin capable of inflicting great damage on Russia's lumbering air and armor forces. That's more important than fielding their own tanks or fighter aircraft. We should offer to sell them these relatively inexpensive defensive systems, and to provide the advisory services to make the best use of them. But the first step has to be for the Eastern Europeans to make a larger commitment to their own defense.
Mr. Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author, most recently, of "War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today" (Gotham Books, 2006).
See all of today's
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'Stop! Or We'll Say Stop Again!'
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
September 2, 2008
With apologies to comedian Robin Williams, that's the line that comes to mind when weighing the European Union's declaration yesterday on Russia's continued occupation of Georgia.
At a special meeting in Brussels, EU national leaders told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to abide by the terms of a French-brokered cease-fire, including a pullback of Russian troops to their preconflict positions. If he doesn't do so, they warned, they will hold another meeting.
That's all. It's been almost three weeks since Mr. Medvedev signed the cease-fire, and five days since Moscow broke with the rest of the world by recognizing the self-declared independence of Georgian provinces South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Yet Europe's leaders evidently need more time to ruminate over the situation in the Caucasus.
Well, that's almost all. The European leaders did make one concrete "threat." The EU said it would freeze negotiations with Moscow on a new economic cooperation agreement if Russian forces haven't pulled back to their pre-August 7 positions by next Monday. But this is meaningless. It had taken the Europeans months to agree among themselves to begin the talks, and even before the Russian invasion of Georgia Eastern European leaders had signaled that their countries were unlikely to sign off on any deal anytime soon. Nor was Moscow pushing very hard for it.
During a postsummit press conference, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating EU presidency, got the obvious question: Is the EU a "paper tiger"? Mr. Sarkozy, visibly angered by the suggestion, responded that "Demonstrations of force, verbal aggression, sanctions, countersanctions . . . will not serve anyone." He didn't say how Brussels' latest tsk-tsk-ing serves anyone in Georgia.
Mr. Sarkozy also insisted that his efforts to reach a cease-fire had borne fruit. Again, the Georgians might beg to disagree. Russia has used the agreement's vague language to justify a continued presence in Georgia far beyond the original conflict zone. The cease-fire called for international talks about security and stability for the separatist regions, but that didn't stop Mr. Medvedev from recognizing their independence. Europe's call yesterday to begin these talks rang hollow; that horse isn't going back into the barn.
The most cynical comment of the day, though, was Mr. Sarkozy's attempt to use the conflict to bully the Irish over their rejection of the union's Lisbon Treaty in June. "This crisis has shown that Europe needs to have strong and stable institutions" like those it would have gotten under Lisbon, Mr. Sarkozy said.
No, what Europe needs is political will -- and a new treaty isn't going to solve that. Rather than scolding Irish voters for exercising their democratic rights, Mr. Sarkozy would do better to name and shame those member states whose desire to curry favor with Moscow kept the EU from taking a firmer stand yesterday.
For now, the Continent is determined to talk things out with Moscow. When will it realize that Moscow doesn't to listen?
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Geopolitical Diary: More Ripples in the Post-Georgia Pond
September 4, 2008
There are two disparate and odd bits of news that together might add up to something of interest. First, according to the RIA Novosti press agency, two farms in Estonia have formed an independent “Soviet republic” and plan to ask for Russian recognition, according to a group of Estonian communists.
In itself this is not important, to say the least. It is interesting that RIA Novosti would decide to publicize it beyond its worth, but at this point, everyone is hypersensitive to anything that happens, and publicizing it under current circumstances makes some sense. What it does do is to point to real underlying tensions in the Baltics. The Baltic states have large Russian minorities. Many of these are Russian citizens. The Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians have bad memories of Russian occupation and view their countries’ Russian populations with a degree of unease. The Russians claim to be discriminated against. Between ethnic and some degree of ideological differences, there is tension.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev recently said that Moscow is responsible for Russian citizens wherever they live. That statement implicitly targeted the Baltic states, essentially saying that Moscow speaks for the Russian minorities and that, therefore, Moscow has a role to play in the internal affairs of these countries. On the assumption that the local Bolsheviks who declared independence are Russian — a fair bet — the Russians could theoretically claim to be responsible for them in some way.
The Russians are not behind this stunt, although they clearly want to publicize it. But it points to a flash point that is truly dangerous. If the Russians were to challenge the legitimacy of the Baltic countries’ treatment of Russians, they would not have problems identifying substantial numbers of Russians who would claim grievances. The Baltics, unlike Georgia, are members of NATO and any political conflict there would inevitably involve NATO. We doubt that the Russians would have any interest in invading the Baltics, but we don’t doubt that under the current conditions they might be interested in stirring up problems in the Baltics. The Russians clearly enjoyed the Georgian crisis, and their appetite for confrontation might be growing. This is a stunt. But it is being reported by Russian media. It is not serious, but the underlying issue is.
Along the lines of straws in the wind, a second nation has recognized the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The first was Russia. Now it is joined by Nicaragua. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was, for those old enough to remember, president of Nicaragua in the 1980s, when he led a Marxist government. He was elected again a few years ago, and no one seemed to care very much, including us, since being a Marxist and pro-Soviet didn’t really matter much. Nicaragua’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia does not, by itself, rise to significance, but it does make two points.
The first is that the Russians, should they choose to follow a confrontational course, have recourse to the old Soviet strategy of posing problems for the United States by supporting Soviet allies around the world, and particularly in Latin American where the United States was always sensitive. That strategy is alive because there are Latin American leaders looking for a major power prepared to support them. Nicaragua is one, but Venezuela and Cuba have also spoken in support of Russia’s decision to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia (stopping short of outright recognition). There are also rumors that Russia might consider putting military bases in Venezuela and Cuba — another chance for Moscow to push Washington’s buttons.
Second, there appears to be an expectation of support from Russia in return for recognition. We need to be very careful not to assume either that Russia will simply follow a Soviet-model foreign policy or that it has the resources to do so even if it wanted to. Ortega might simply be enjoying a nostalgic moment. Alternatively, Ortega might be fishing for something from the Russians. As with the Baltics, it will be interesting what the Russians do with this opening, or if they even see it as an opening. We are beginning to have opportunities to measure the distance between Russia’s new foreign policy and traditional Soviet policies and see the delta between the two. How the Kremlin deals with these potential openings could indicate just how far the new Russian foreign policy is willing to push.
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Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, during a press conference Sept. 12, said that Ukraine has no plans to dissolve its agreement allowing Russia to keep its Black Sea fleet base in Sevastopol, but he wants to resolve issues with Russia over its military presence in Ukrainian territory.
stratfor
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Geopolitical Diary: Russia Rethinks Energy Pricing Policy
November 13, 2008 | 0126 GMT
Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant, will start dropping natural gas prices for European consumers at the beginning of 2009, CEO Alexei Miller. Miller’s stated rationale for making such a move in midwinter, when demand is highest, is that the export price for natural gas to Europe in the fourth quarter of 2008 was at a record high of more than $500 per 1,000 cubic meters. With the global economy in recession and energy consumption dropping across the board, that price would naturally have to come down.
Such an announcement would not be anomalous were it not Russia doing the talking. The Russians are reducing natural gas prices for the Europeans not out of economic pragmatism, nor out of the goodness of their hearts; instead, this is primarily a political move designed to keep the window of opportunity for manipulating Europe open as long as possible.
Russia is a powerful producer and exporter of both crude oil and natural gas. Because oil can be loaded and shipped across the world in a variety of ways — tanker, pipeline, truck or rail car — the laws of supply and demand more clearly dictate the price of oil than that of natural gas. Now that the world’s economic hubs are being hit with recession, there is little preventing the price of oil from plunging as demand drops. Thus, Russia also announced Wednesday that it is drastically revising its budget downward, anticipating oil prices falling to at least $50 per barrel in 2009 amid the global financial crisis.
Natural gas pricing works differently. Gas can be shipped easily only through existing pipeline networks, making the relationship between the producer and the consumer much tighter, and therefore much more politicized. As a result, prices for Europe are dictated far more by the Kremlin’s naughty-and-nice list than by market forces. This economic reality is all too familiar to countries like Ukraine, Lithuania and the Czech Republic: All have felt the wrath of Moscow, through price hikes or natural gas supply cutoffs, when they moved against Russia’s geopolitical interests.
Russia is the primary natural gas supplier for many former Soviet republics as well as for Turkey and Europe, with Europe dependent on Russian natural gas for about 25 percent of its energy supply. This economic interdependence gives Russia a big bat to swing in Eurasia, in order to sustain its influence on matters like NATO expansion in the region and the installation of a U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) shield. When winter rolls around, countries like Germany and Ukraine get especially nervous, knowing they have no adequate alternatives to Russia for keeping their lights and heat on. And with the price of oil plunging and Russia expecting to lose some $600 million per day in oil revenues compared to July highs, it has seemed all the more likely that Russia would compensate for these losses by keeping the price of natural gas high.
So why are the Russians talking about reducing the price instead? Gazprom’s announcement likely has to with a growing fear in Russia that a huge energy shift is sweeping across Europe — an energy shift that, for once, is leaving Russia out in the cold.
Russia’s energy leverage strategy, while effective in the past, has strong potential to backfire on the Kremlin over the long term. Since early winter 2006, when Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Europe (as punishment for the Western-backed Orange Revolution in Ukraine), energy security has become the dominant theme of every EU summit. With plenty of encouragement from the United States, Europe has accelerated efforts to break its dependence from the Russian natural gas monopoly. Its moves have involved such things as constructing new nuclear reactors and new pipelines, building terminals for the import (by tanker) of more expensive liquefied natural gas, and promoting alternative energy sources and conservation. The Europeans’ grand plan is to reduce total energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020, and to get 20 percent of the remainder from renewable energy sources, thereby significantly reducing Russia’s ability to twist their arm on political matters.
While the European moves to break Russia’s energy grip have been under way for a couple of years now, the pace at which the change is taking place is astounding — much to Stratfor’s surprise and Russia’s deep discontent.
According to a report by Russian newspaper Vremya Novosti, Russian natural gas exports fell 8.3 percent year-on-year in October. The report also revealed that Germany, Turkey and Italy, Russia’s top three natural gas clients, cut their imports from Russia after Gazprom on Oct. 1 hiked prices to $460-$520 per 1,000 cubic meters.
An 8.3 percent drop in Russian natural gas imports, dwarfing a 1 percent decline in 2007, is very troubling news for the Russians. The Kremlin realizes that the more aggressive its stance toward Europe on energy matters, the faster Europe will move to cut the Russians out of the equation. By reducing the price of natural gas in the winter, the government — through Gazprom — could be toning down energy policy in efforts to win back some of Europe’s faith in Russia as a reliable, or at least less belligerent, energy supplier.
But Gazprom will not be entirely even-handed in its energy pricing this winter. According to Stratfor sources at Gazprom, the company is likely to apply the price breaks selectively. States that have been friendlier to Russian interests on recent matters will get a better deal. Most notably, this includes Germany — which has consciously refrained from taking a strong stance against Russia over the Georgian war and has spoken out against NATO expansion for Ukraine and Georgia — and the Czech Republic, which recently has become much more apprehensive over its BMD deal with the United States. Selective price breaks for EU states would be in direct violation of EU law, which stipulates that no individual economic deals can be made without the consent of the 27-member bloc. But Moscow won’t want to pass up the chance to whittle away at the EU’s economic coherence in the middle of a financial crisis, and to reward countries that are more willing to align with Russian interests.
However Gazprom chooses to implement these price cuts, the European trend of diversifying and seeking greater independence from Russian energy likely will continue. With the window of opportunity for political exploitation closing, the onus is now on Russia to maintain the credibility of its threats in Europe. The energy lever has been effective in the past, and Russia will continue to use it moving forward. But as tough tactics lose their effectiveness, the Kremlin needs a more nuanced approach to slow Europe’s drive toward energy independence.
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Russia needed only a few days this August to drive Georgia's army into retreat. In the aftermath, Europe has held out only a bit longer than Tbilisi's troops.
EU leaders on Friday said they were resuming talks with Moscow toward an economic-cooperation agreement. The negotiations were put on ice 10 weeks earlier because of Russia's invasion of its tiny neighbor and refusal to abide by a French-brokered cease-fire. But by Friday's EU-Russia summit in Nice, France, Moscow's fulfillment of "a large part of its obligations" was good enough for French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Thus ends the lone sanction Europe placed on its belligerent neighbor after the August war. The talks are back on, but Georgians are still waiting for the promised pullback of Russian soldiers to their prewar positions. Numerous Russian troops remain in the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whose self-declared independence has been recognized by only Russia and Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians are still unable to return to their homes both in and outside the conflict zone. EU and other Western observers remain blocked from entering the most war-torn areas, and as recently as Sunday were still reporting incidents in which they'd been fired upon near Abkhazia.
A second round of peace talks between Russia and Georgia is slated to begin today in Geneva. But with Europe in retreat, Moscow will be under no pressure to compromise with Tbilisi. This round is likely to end almost as soon as it begins, just like a first set of negotiations in October.
In today's Opinion Journal
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Iraq 'Fails' UpwardRussia Out of RehabThe Public Payroll Always Rises
TODAY'S COLUMNISTS
Global View: 'No Excuses' for Liberals
– Bret StephensMain Street: Mr. Obama, Give That Man a Medal – William McGurn
COMMENTARY
Our Spendthrift States Don't Need a Bailout
– Steve MalangaHow to Help People Whose Home Values Are Underwater
– Martin FeldsteinDon't Negotiate With the Taliban
– Ann MarloweThere's a Better Way to Prevent 'Bear Raids'
– Robert C. Pozen and Yaneer Bar-YamEurope's reversal is embarrassing on a number of levels. Russia hardly seemed bothered by the suspension in the first place -- and wasn't exactly begging Brussels to come back to the table. Worse were the rationales for resuming the talks, as offered by Mr. Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. Perhaps anticipating the decision, Mr. Sarkozy noted on November 7 that the negotiations had not been suspended but "postponed" -- and that this meant he and Mr. Barroso had the authority to decide how long the postponement would last.
Mr. Barroso even scolded EU members such as Lithuania and Poland for standing in the way of consensus on the bloc's stance toward Russia. "You may not like the common EU position entirely," he said, "but it is in your own interest to have one rather than three or four different positions."
One might expect the Poles and Baltic nations to have a better idea than Mr. Barroso of how to deal with Russia. As for us, we recall a conversation in August with a U.S. diplomat about approaching Russia after the war in Georgia. Rather than trying to wallop Russia's political and business elites with some large penalty while they were in the flush of victory, the diplomat suggested, it would be better to produce a steady stream of measures over time, "so that they realize this isn't going to pass."
What Russia no doubt realizes after last week is that Europe has the will to do absolutely nothing, and that its invasion will in fact "pass" without consequence.
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Rehabbing this jacka$$, second only to Mao in the corpse collection contest and leaving Hitler a distant third, is pretty darn scary.
The sinister resurrection of Stalin
The Soviet leader’s triumphant imperialism is the key to his rehabilitation under Putin, believes Anne Applebaum.
Who is the greatest Russian of all time? In the unlikely event that you answered “Stalin”, you would be in good company. One of the 20th century’s most horrific dictators has just come third in an opinion poll conducted by a Russian television station. Some 50 million people are said to have voted.
Myself, I have some doubts about the veracity of this poll, particularly given that the television station in question is state-owned, and therefore manipulated by the Kremlin. Also, first place went to Alexander Nevsky, a medieval prince who defeated German invaders – and an ideal symbol for the Putinist regime, which prides itself on its defiance of the West. Second place went to Piotr Stolypin, a turn-of-the-century economic reformer who, among other things, gave his name to the cattle cars (Stolypinki) in which prisoners were transported to Siberia – another excellent symbol for the “reformer with an iron fist” label to which both Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev aspire.
Both seem too good to be true; neither had ever before seemed like candidates for such an august title. Had the poll been completely free, I expect Stalin would have come in first place. Why wouldn’t he? After all, the government, media and teaching professions in Russia have spent a good chunk of the past decade trying to rehabilitate him – and not by accident.
All nations politicise history to some extent, of course. But in Russia, the tradition of falsification and manipulation of the past is deeper and more profound than almost anywhere else. In its heyday, the KGB retouched photographs to remove discredited comrades, changed history books to put other comrades in places where they had not been, monitored and tormented professional historians. Russia’s current leaders are their descendants, sometimes literally.
But even those who are not the children of KGB officers were often raised and trained inside the culture of the KGB – an organisation that believed that history was not neutral but rather something to be used, cynically, in the battle for power. In Putinist Russia, events are present in textbooks, or absent from official culture, because someone has taken a conscious decision that it should be so.
And, clearly, a decision has been made about Stalin. In a recently released, officially sanctioned Russian history textbook, in public celebrations and official speeches, the attitude towards him runs something like this: “Mistakes were made… errors were committed… but great things were achieved. And it was all worth it.”
This public portrayal of Stalin is highly selective. The many, many millions who died in the Gulag, in mass deportations or in mass murders are mentioned only as a kind of aside. Stalin’s purges of his closest colleagues and revolutionary comrades are given short shrift. The terror that made people afraid to speak their minds openly, that made children turn their parents in to the police, that stunted families and friendships, is absent from most contemporary accounts. Even Stalin’s programmes of industrialisation and agricultural collectivisation – which modernised the country at enormous cost to the population, the environment, and Russia’s long-term economic health – are not dwelled upon.
Instead, it is Stalin’s wartime leadership that is widely celebrated, and in particular his moment of imperial triumph in 1945, when Soviet-style communism was imposed on Russia’s western neighbours. In that year, Eastern Europe became a Russian colony and, more to the point, Stalin negotiated as an equal with Roosevelt and Churchill.
Annually, Russia’s May celebrations of the anniversary of victory in 1945 grow more elaborate. Last year, they included several thousand Russian soldiers dressed in Soviet uniforms, waving the Soviet flag and singing Soviet songs. Major pieces of weaponry were paraded across Red Square, just like in the old days, to enormous applause.
Books about the war have also now become a major publishing phenomenon in a country that, up until a few years ago, hardly published any popular history at all. Most major bookstores now have a war section, often featuring books like one I picked up in Moscow a few months ago. Entitled We Defeated Berlin and Frightened New York, it is the memoir of a pilot who describes the joy of bombing raids and revels in Russia’s long-lost power to frighten others.
Even more significant is the role that the celebration of the Soviet Union’s imperial zenith now plays in a larger narrative about recent Russian history, namely the story of the 1980s and the 1990s. Famously, Putin once said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the “biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”, presumably larger than either world war. He, along with the Russian media and the current Russian president who echo him, now considers the more open discussion of the Stalinist past that took place during Gorbachev’s glasnost to have been a distraction, a moment of national weakness. More to the point, they openly attribute the economic hardships of the 1990s not to decades of communist neglect and widespread theft, but to deliberate Western meddling, Western-style democracy and Western-style capitalism.
In fact, this argument now lies at the heart of the current Russian leadership’s popular legitimacy. Summed up, it goes something like this: communism was stable and safe; post-communism was a disaster. Putinism, within which Medvedev fits naturally, represents a return at last to the stability and safety of the communist period. Cheer for Stalin, cheer for Putin, cheer for Medvedev, and the media will once again be predictable, salaries will be paid on time, Russia’s neighbours will be cowed, and Russia’s leaders will, once again, negotiate on equal terms with the leaders of the West.
Besides, the more people take pride in the Stalinist past, the less likely they are to want a system that is more genuinely democratic and genuinely capitalist – a system in which the Russians might, for example, vote their president out of power, or hold a street revolution of the kind that brought down corrupt, post-Soviet governments in Georgia and Ukraine. The more nostalgia there is for Soviet-era symbols, the more secure the KGB clique is going to be.
None of which implies that the current Russian government is itself Stalinist either. As the recent election of Medvedev proved, Putin does not need that level of repression in order to stay in power. Too much violence might even threaten his legitimacy which is, as I say, based on an implied guarantee of stability and safety.
Nor was this rewriting of history ever inevitable. Despite the clichés people often spout about Russians invariably leaning towards authoritarianism or dictatorship, Russia was never condemned to celebrate this version of history.
On the contrary, a future government could, instead, rediscover the legacy of Russian liberalism at the beginning of the 20th century or even the legacy of the Russian dissidents, who in the 1960s and 1970s essentially invented what we now call the modern human rights movement. Every country has a right to celebrate some positive elements of its past, and Russia is no exception. But that Putin and his colleagues have chosen, of all things, to celebrate Stalinist imperialism tells us a good deal about their vision of their country’s future.
Anne Applebaum is the author of 'Gulag: a History’ (Penguin)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/4015983/The-sinister-resurrection-of-Stalin.html
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Russia's Gazprom cuts all gas supplies to Ukraine
By LYNN BERRY, Associated Press Writer
30 mins ago
MOSCOW – Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom cut all natural gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday morning after talks broke down over payments for past shipments and a new energy price contract for 2009.
Gazprom officials said the cuts began as planned at 10 a.m. (0700GMT and 2 a.m. EST) and the Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz confirmed a steady drop in supplies.
The festering dispute between the two uneasy neighbors raised fears that a cutoff could lead to a repetition of the January 2006 gas crisis, when a similar dispute between Russia and Ukraine briefly interrupted gas shipments to many European countries.
Europeans get about a quarter of their gas from Russia, and Ukraine controls the pipelines through which Russia supplies most of its customers in Europe. Natural gas is used for heating and to generate electricity, and the cutoff to Ukraine comes as Europe approaches the depths of winter.
While cutting gas to Ukraine, Gazprom said it also increased the amount of gas pumped through pipelines that mainly serve Europe.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned Ukraine against diverting gas intended for other customers, saying that could have "quite serious consequences for the transit country itself" by damaging relations with Europe.
Ukraine's president and prime minister issued a statement saying they would guarantee the uninterrupted transit of natural gas through Ukrainian territory to Europe.
However, the Ukrainian president's energy adviser said it appeared that Gazprom had reduced supplies by more than Ukraine's quota of the deliveries and was not shipping enough to satisfy European customers. Despite this, Ukraine was fulfilling its obligations to deliver gas westward, Bohdan Sokolovsky said Thursday.
It was not possible to confirm his observations.
Naftogaz director Oleh Dubina has said Ukraine has enough gas in reserve to last it through early April.
European countries also have built up their gas storage since the 2006 crisis and would be unlikely to see any disruption for several weeks, said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib bank.
The deadlock over gas supplies reflects the deep political split between Moscow and Kiev.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has angered the Kremlin through his efforts to build ties to Western Europe and his support of Georgia in its August war with Russia.
Ukraine's position in the dispute is further complicated by divisions in the country's leadership. Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, bitter political rivals, are at odds over gas policy and relations with Russia, among other issues.
Gazprom had warned it would cut gas supplies unless Ukraine paid off all of a $2.1 billion debt and signed a deal setting prices for 2009 deliveries by midnight. Neither was done.
Naftogaz paid $1.5 billion to the Swiss-based gas trader Rosukrenergo, which it says covers the debt. But Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said late Wednesday that Gazprom had not yet received the money. Gazprom claims Ukraine owes $600 million more in fines for late payment.
Rosukrenergo is half owned by Gazprom. It was not immediately clear why the money had not been transferred to Gazprom.
"This is an issue of Gazprom's dealings with Rosukrenergo," Naftogaz spokesman Valentyn Zemlyansky said. "Naftogaz has fulfilled all its obligations."
The other stumbling block was the failure to sign a contract for 2009 gas deliveries.
Gazprom had first insisted that Ukraine pay $418 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas in 2009, more than double the $179.50 it paid the previous year.
On Wednesday, Gazprom offered a contract with gas set at $250, which Ukrainian officials said was still too high.
Yushchenko and Tymoshenko offered early Thursday to pay Russia $201 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas if Russia agrees to raise the future price it pays to use Ukraine's pipelines to $2 per 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometers.
Russia has said the $250 offer is contingent on the current transit fee of $1.70 remaining unchanged.
Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the offer from Ukraine's leadership came after the Naftogaz delegation had left Moscow.
"The main problem was not that we disagreed on the price of gas but that the Naftogaz delegation did not have a mandate to sign a new contract," he told reporters.
Sokolovsky, the Ukrainian energy adviser, denied this.
While Gazprom's European customers now pay more than $400, the cost of gas is expected to fall sharply in the spring as a result of the steep drop in the price of oil.
___
Associated Press writer Maria Danilova contributed to this report from Kiev, Ukraine.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090101/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_russia_ukraine_gas;_ylt=AmwKrOQpQkkecEJBx2Bx.JayBhIF
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Geopolitical Diary: From a Chill to a Freeze in Europe
January 8, 2009
Related Links
Russia, Ukraine: Update on the Natural Gas Cutoff
Russia raised the stakes in the natural gas crisis with Ukraine even higher on Wednesday by shutting off the last of the supplies piping into the country. The standoff has now lasted seven days, with a dozen states in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe seeing their imports shut down 100 percent, and a handful of other countries — like Germany and Italy — seeing the bulk of their supplies disappear.
Russia has changed the game from a simple threat to a possible real crisis. During Russia’s 2006 cutoff of natural gas to Ukraine (and subsequently to Europe), Moscow never cut supplies fully, and it only reduced the flow for two days, so the move had no real impact. It was meant to get Europe’s attention, not to concretely harm the Continent. Russia was letting the West know that it was time for Moscow to get Ukraine back under its umbrella, something that has been shaking out over the past few years.
The current crisis looked as if it were following the same path — until Wednesday, when Russia did not just prolong the cutoff, but expanded it into a full shutdown of supplies through Ukraine. Some European states — Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Bosnia — are shutting down industrial complexes and decreasing access to centralized heating, all while an arctic front moves across the Continent.
So far, the cutoff’s real effects are being felt only in the less-influential European states. Russia’s next step would be to prolong the cutoff, causing industries to close and heating supplies to dwindle in the more influential countries, like Germany. Russia might be just testing out its energy lever on the smaller states to see how long it takes to break them, before threatening (or actually inflicting) the same treatment on the more critical states.
The Russians have the Europeans at break point. Europe can’t bear a Russian natural gas cutoff for much longer. Even with all its energy diversification plans on the table, the fact is that Europe is still heavily dependent on Russian supplies for the next few years. The Europeans have issued ultimatums, held meetings and sent warnings to the Russians, but there is nothing concrete that they can do right now.
Europe’s next practical step would be accommodation. And the main target the Russians want the West to back off on is still Ukraine. A deal on scaling down Western influence in Ukraine won’t be struck within a day, but a more solid and prolonged reversal within Ukraine will be seen — most likely with the end result of a pro-Russian government being installed.
It seems that discussions on this topic already are under way; Stratfor has heard rumors that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held a phone conference during the night. Merkel is struggling to make sure that the trap Russia has laid by freezing the Europeans isn’t sprung on Germany, and, at the moment, the price for such assurance is Ukraine.
But this does not mean Russia won’t ask for more than just Ukraine in the near future. Russia has a long laundry list of things it wants to accomplish before it is countered by a freed-up United States, including locking Germany into a neutral stance, restoring its hegemony in the Caucasus, starting up a crisis in the Baltic states and intimidating Poland. But for now (and only now), Russia will settle for Ukraine.
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The behavior of Russia is very strange. This is certainly a reminder that no one should rely on enemies or even unreliable friends for things that are life-sustaining or in this case sovereignty-sustaining.
I've long had a theory that Saudi will not cut off oil supply because that also necessarily means closing their cash register, and China will not destroy our currency because they the are heavily invested. Yet at a time when Russia's asset values and cash flows have imploded, they cut off their own arm in what is obviously some form of warfare that goes beyond economic. As in the case of strange behavior before the Georgia invasion, I assume that something dramatic from Russia follows this, I think regardless of whether their demands are met.
They said the Georgia aggression was timed with the distraction of the Olympics and this perhaps timed maybe to the transition distraction in the U.S. but mostly to winter and unrest at home in Russia.
I don't see how an act of war draws now-sovereign nations to want to re-join them. Living in a cold climate, we have survived price spikes with heating gas and very short outages with electricity but I can't remember a natural gas interruption in my lifetime. The pipeline has constant pressure.
Too bad that we are in no position to help those countries with energy... or security. I suppose it is too far to ship coal and our leftist electorate won't let us produce more energy anyway. Still I wonder what a U.S. or world response should be. At the very least this rogue nation should be removed immediately from the security council and wishfully from the UN. If the charter does not allow removal of a 'permanent' member then it is a good time IMO to form a new group - and be a little more selective this time.
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Geopolitical Diary: Ukrainian Politics and the Natural Gas Crisis
January 13, 2009
On Monday, the 12th day of a natural gas crisis, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union signed an agreement -— for the second time —- for Russian natural gas supplies to Europe to resume. The deal resolved the cutoff prompted by a pricing and debt dispute between Moscow and Kiev and Ukraine’s subsequent siphoning of supplies transiting its territory. The deal also included a plan to deploy European monitors to Ukraine, to check Russian natural gas flows to Europe.
Russian and EU officials initially signed the deal Friday and then sent it to Ukraine, where it was signed it early Sunday. However, Kiev attached an addendum saying that Ukraine had never siphoned natural gas headed to Europe, that Russia owed Ukraine natural gas to make up for a loss in supplies, and that Ukraine no longer owes Russia any debt. These three points are items Moscow could not agree to, and the agreement was broken late Sunday night.
Negotiators reconvened Monday in Brussels and signed the original deal (without the addendum), and the deputy head of Russia’s natural gas monopoly, Alexander Medvedev (no relation to the Russian president), pledged to restart supplies Tuesday morning “if there are no more obstacles.” It is this last caveat which is keeping everyone on edge in Europe, especially as many countries are rationing natural gas supplies and power has been shut off in many Central European states.
The obstacle that Gazprom’s Medvedev was referring to was Ukraine. Though a deal has been struck and natural gas supplies were to resume early Tuesday, Moscow and Kiev have not resolved the debt issue or the price to be paid for natural gas in the coming year —- the issues that gave rise to the most recent crisis and similar crises in years past. This means that at any time, Russia can close the valves again.
Russia will continue using energy to mold the internal political situation in Ukraine, in hopes of shaping the pro-Western government into a more Kremlin-friendly regime. There was evidence Monday of two large steps toward this goal.
First, the pro-Russian Party of Regions in Ukraine began calling for the pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko to resign, and there are rumors that when parliament resumes on Wednesday the impeachment process could begin. Second, the first official poll since the latest natural gas crisis erupted was released in Ukraine. According to the National Academy of Sciences, if presidential elections were held today, Yushchenko would win only 2.9 percent of the vote, while Regions’ leader Viktor Yanukovich would take 30.3 percent and the (currently) pro-Russian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko would take 16.7 percent.
In short, Russia’s moves on Ukraine have pushed voters toward pro-Russian candidates and furthered Yushchenko’s decline -— exactly what Moscow wanted. This does not mean things cannot and will not shift before Ukraine’s next elections, which could take place anytime from the end of 2009 through early 2010 unless Yushchenko is removed from office early. In the meantime, Russia’s use of energy as leverage seems to be creating the effects Moscow wants in Ukraine.
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Europe: Obstacles to Escaping the Russian Energy Grip
Stratfor Today » January 20, 2009 | 1919 GMT
KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP/Getty Images
Construction site of the Flamanville nuclear facility in France in October 2008Summary
After a three-week standoff, Russia and Ukraine have finally resolved their natural gas row, a conflict that has caused supply disruptions throughout much of Europe. Despite the agreement, European countries have begun laying out plans for new energy projects to lessen the impact of future disruptions. Many obstacles lie ahead for Europe’s plans, however, meaning Russia is likely to retain its powerful supplier role in the near future.
Analysis
Related Special Topic Page
Russian Energy and Foreign Policy
Nearly three weeks into a major dispute over natural gas prices, Russia and Ukraine finally reached a substantive deal Jan. 19. No one is happier than Europe. This is especially true of Central and Southeastern Europe, which have had to cope with diminished natural gas supplies (or none at all) over the course of the extensive row, causing major heating and electric shortages and a costly drop in industrial production.
But while natural gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine and on to the European states will slowly resume over the next few days, the Europeans will remain uneasy about the future of their energy security — and will feverishly proceed with plans to escape Moscow’s energy grip as soon as possible.
Europe made similar declarations, and had the same intentions, in 2006, the last time its natural gas supply was jeopardized by an energy row between Russia and Ukraine. In the years since then, nine new energy projects actually have come online. These include two natural gas pipelines and six liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, which bring an annual 62 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas, and one nuclear plant that produces and annual 650 megawatts of electricity (MWe).
To put this in context, Europe consumed more than 500 bcm of natural gas in 2007, receiving around 160 bcm (more than a quarter of supplies) from Russia. In addition, Europe’s annual demand for natural gas is projected to increase to more than 800 bcm over the next decade. While the recent projects account for a considerable amount of new energy supplies, nearly all of them are in Western Europe, thus providing little help to Central and Southeastern Europe.
Russia supplies the amount of natural gas it does to Europe for good reason. Europe shares a land border and a deep history of energy ties with Russia, unlike other suppliers such as the Middle East or North Africa. The pipelines from Russia’s Yamal Peninsula to Europe cover a large distance and were fairly expensive to build, but they were constructed in the Soviet era under a central-planning system that did not prioritize efficiency and returns on investment; it is doubtful such projects could or would be built today. The volume and nature of Russian natural gas dictates that it can be transported most efficiently via pipeline. And Russia has a vast and established pipeline network it uses to send energy throughout Europe. Finding a cost-effective alternative to this network will be doubly hard in the current period of financial instability.
Rather than focusing on rumors of new energy projects circulating in Europe, examining which efforts to shift to energy alternatives actually have made it past the planning phase will prove more helpful in understanding the future of European energy dependence on Russia.
Click to view map
Pipelines
One option for Europe is to build new natural gas pipelines or expand existing networks. Geography, however, limits where Europe can receive its natural gas via pipeline. Aside from the resources its gets from Russia, Europe can only look north to Norway, south to North Africa, and southeast to the Middle East and Central Asia. While no projects are under way in Norway, several pipeline projects are under way elsewhere.
One is the expansion project known as the Poseidon pipeline, which routes natural gas to Europe from Turkey (which in turn gets its supplies from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan). The first phase of the expansion linked Greek and Turkish infrastructure. The second phase, an underwater pipeline to the Italian mainland, is under construction and slated to come on line at the end of 2009. There are also two projects under way to build new pipelines from Algeria to Europe, indicating the potential of North Africa as an energy supplier. The Medgaz and Galsi natural gas pipelines will transit supplies from the Hassi R’mel field in Algeria and connect to Spain and Italy, respectively. As it stands, there are no Europe-bound energy projects in the Middle East — a huge energy-producing region — under construction.
LNG Facilities
Another option for Europe is to expand its energy consumption through the form of LNG. LNG is produced when natural gas is supercooled into liquid form, enabling it to be shipped by tanker — and therefore allowing Europe to get natural gas from all over the world. An LNG liquefaction plant that could boost European supplies is currently under renovation in Libya. Libya recently has opened to the West after shedding its pariah status, creating great potential for (though by no means ensuring) commerce with Europe in the area of energy and trade.
LNG is one of the most expensive and technologically difficult forms of energy to produce and import, but it eases the geographical barriers of the supplier-consumer relationship. (Conversely, it increases competition over supplies). A number of LNG import facilities are under construction in France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. One of these, the United Kingdom’s South Hook facility, will import natural gas from Qatar’s North Field when it comes on line later in 2009. A coastline is required to import LNG, putting much of Central and Southern Europe out of the loop unless additional massive pipeline infrastructure is built to accommodate the transfer of natural gas inland. These are the countries most dependent on Russian energy, and therefore most beholden to Russian energy maneuvers.
Nuclear
Aside from natural gas, nuclear energy provides another option for Europe that would relieve countries from reliance on hostile and distant energy providers. Though nuclear plants can ease the burdens associated with foreign dependence, nuclear energy has been a taboo in much of the European Union. The union actually required many of the Central and Southeastern European members to shut down their nuclear sites upon accession for health and safety concerns — particularly by environmentally conscious Austria, which shares a land border with Central European ex-Soviet states.
Serious consideration by some of these countries to reopen their nuclear plants or build new ones has raised Western European hackles. There will be many EU hurdles to reopening old and dangerous nuclear plants, and funding for this will be lacking due to the particularly severe effects of the financial crisis experienced in Central Europe. (This also will undermine efforts to build new reactors.) If these states become more desperate for alternative sources of energy, however, the likelihood of old plants reopening would increase.
Clearly, European plans for energy diversification away from Russia are fraught with obstacles and complications. Moscow will take note of these troubles, making sure to exploit divisions in order to keep Europe under its energy thumb as long as possible.
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January 28, 2009
Russian military a 'paper tiger' despite symbolic comeback, says IISS
The Russian Navy's heavy A-Cruiser 'Pyotr Veliky'
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Russia may be flexing its military muscle once again, sending warships into international waters and dispatching long-range bombers on reconnaissance trips, but the former superpower remains a paper tiger, according to a respected London think-tank.
The recent naval manoeuvres in the Mediterranean and Latin America were symbolic gestures – the former maritime giant was able to deploy only a small number of ships, while the rest of the fleet was anchored at home without enough money to keep it at sea, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) says.
In February last year a naval force led by the carrier Admiral Kuznetsov completed a two-month deployment, including a period in the Mediterranean – one of the longest of its kind since the Cold War, the IISS said in The Military Balance, its annual assessment which was published yesterday.
However, Oksana Antonenko, a senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the institute, said: “In military terms it was all very modest. This is not a major military comeback, it was just a symbolic deployment.”
She cast doubt on the ability of Russia to project force and said that the victory of Russian troops in Georgia in August merely exposed the Army’s shortcomings. She predicted that the Russian defence budget next year would suffer from an even greater deficit.
The Navy plans to build six carrier battle groups, but the publication said: “The Russian military has a long way to go to recover from 20 years of mismanagement and neglect.
“Only 12 nuclear-powered submarines, 20 major surface warships and one aircraft carrier remain in service with the Russian Navy, the last of which is routinely followed by two tugs in case of breakdown,” it added.
According to the institute’s estimate of Russian defence expenditure, the percentage of GDP devoted to military spending dropped from 5.25 per cent in 1998 to 3.9 per cent in 2007.
The assessment is contrary to the high-profile foreign policy approach adopted by Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister.
There was not enough money for Russia to achieve what it wanted in military terms, Ms Antonenko said. There was also a lack of consensus in the Russian armed forces. Some sections of the Army want to remain focused on territorial defence and the nuclear establishment insists on training for work beyond Russia’s borders.
The Military Balance said that national pride in Russia’s military forces was being restored, however.
Russia remained sensitive to the enlargement programme of Nato, particularly since Georgia and Ukraine had been put on the list of potential new members of the alliance, Ms Antonenko said.
She added that there was no clear understanding in Moscow of what Nato was trying to do with its enlargement programme and she called for a different dialogue between Russia and the alliance.
Ms Antonenko said there were signs of a better working arrangement, with the announcement that Russia was willing to consider allowing Nato to use a northern corridor through its territory for delivering supplies to alliance troops in Afghanistan.
John Chipman, the director-general and chief executive of the IISS, said that since the conflict in Georgia the Russians had announced plans for radical reforms, including turning the Army into a fully professional force.
“This restructuring could make Russian armed forces more capable to operate against modern threats and potentially better interoperable with Western forces,” he said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5599603.ece
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Geopolitical Diary: The Motives Behind Russia's Security Proposal
March 23, 2009
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on Sunday blasted Russia’s proposal for a new security agreement with Europe and said the Americans should not force Poland into “regretting its trust in them.” Speaking at the 2009 Brussels Security Forum, Sikorski was reacting to a proposal that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov presented March 21, intended to create a new treaty to combat terrorism. According to Lavrov, the agreement would “respect sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of countries, inadmissibility of the use of force, guarantees for the provision of equal security, basic parameters of control over armaments and reasonable sufficiency in the development of military capability.” The initiative is meant to prove that no outside state and no international organization has the exclusive right to security in Europe.
Russia’s audience for the proposal was the United States, NATO and the European Union. While the treaty is said to be an anti-terrorism agreement, the Poles — and many others — see the true motives behind Lavrov’s proposal. The measure looks more like an attempt to re-create circumstances in which the United States is not invited to interfere in Russo-European affairs. It also could be intended to create a situation in which Europe is not allowed to cross into the former Soviet sphere dominated by Russia, since Lavrov’s proposal came just days after the European Union decided to launch partnership agreements with many countries in that sphere.
EU foreign policy and security chief Javier Solana — who happens to be a former NATO secretary-general — immediately shot down Lavrov’s proposal, adding that it is “a very intelligent set-up” for Europe to have the United States as the key guarantor of its security.
But it seems not everyone in Europe is as confident in the U.S.-European relationship as Solana.
The initiative Lavrov spoke of is actually based on a new treaty that Russian President Dmitri Medvedev placed before a select group of his European counterparts in June 2008. During the summer, Medvedev and others were very tight-lipped on what exactly this security agreement entailed and whether it actually could serve as a counter to U.S. and NATO influence in Europe. But at the time, STRATFOR sources said German leaders were considering Medvedev’s proposals. The point of that security agreement was to begin fracturing the U.S. hold over Europe and NATO by targeting individual states and pulling them out of Washington’s orbit.
Since Medvedev’s first push for an exclusive security agreement with certain European states, much has happened: the Russo-Georgian war, another natural gas shut-off from Russia to Ukraine (affecting Europe) and a possible move forward in U.S.-Russian negotiations. The time is ripe for Moscow to again try to create a more permanent structure involving Russia and Europe — especially one that counters the United States. Country by country, Moscow is attacking the Europeans’ confidence in Washington. In Moscow’s view, the Russians have the upper hand now: In the war with Georgia, they proved they are willing to invade a U.S. ally; with the natural gas cutoff, they issued a reminder that Europeans still depend on Russian natural gas; and the ongoing U.S.-Russian negotiations have many U.S. allies concerned about what Washington will barter away.
Solana has discounted the idea that any European country will be interested in Russia’s new security deal. However, it seems that some countries might not be quick to pass it up, while others fear the United States cannot follow through on its security guarantees.
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Caspian Pipeline Consortium
Stratfor Today » April 30, 2009 | 2115 GMT
Alexander Aleshkin/Epsilon/Getty Images
LUKoil President Vagit Alekperov at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2008Summary
Russia is on the cusp of acquiring BP’s stake in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline, which would give Moscow majority ownership of a vital energy asset. This shows that Russia is actively pursuing consolidation in the energy sector and working to make Europe’s plans to diversify away from Russian energy all the more difficult.
Vagit Alekperov, president of Russian oil firm LUKoil, is in Kazakhstan until May 1, meeting with officials from the Kazakh government and BP to negotiate on the acquisition of BP’s 6.6 percent stake in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) oil pipeline. According to STRATFOR sources in Moscow, Alekperov will finalize a deal to acquire BP’s share of a joint venture it holds with LUKoil known as LUKARKO B.V. The joint venture has a 12.5 percent stake of the total pipeline; LUKoil’s acquisition would give Russia majority ownership of the strategic energy asset.
The CPC pipeline has a history of garnering significant attention from regional and global players in the energy industry, and for good reason. First commissioned in 2001, the CPC was designed to bring Kazakhstan’s hefty oil resources from the Tengiz oil field to the export terminal in Russia’s port city of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea coast. With a capacity of around 700,000 barrels per day flowing from the Caspian across the Caucasus, this pipeline is of vital strategic importance. Furthermore, the CPC is the only major pipeline traversing Russian territory that is not majority-owned by the Russians; rather, it is split among a hodgepodge of governments and businesses.
This lack of majority ownership has long been a thorn in Moscow’s side, as much of Russia’s strategic strength and foreign policy decisions are driven by its dominance of energy resources. Consequently, Moscow has been working to block any progress on the CPC pipeline and to eventually become a majority owner. Russia used heavy-handed tactics, such as charging enormous taxes and transit fees on the pipeline, to block any effort to expand it. In addition, Moscow sought to increase its ownership in the consortium in order to have more decision-making power regarding the pipeline. Russia purchased a 7 percent stake owned by Oman in November 2008, but this only gave Moscow 31 percent outright ownership of the pipeline — not a controlling stake. Moscow also gained partial ownership in the Rosneft-Royal Dutch/Shell joint venture (which holds a 7.5 percent stake) and the LUKoil-BP LUKARKO joint venture, but still failed to surpass the 50 percent threshold needed for majority ownership.
That will now change. If the meeting between Alekperov and Kazakh and BP officials produces an agreement, which is all but guaranteed, LUKoil (a private company that is not directly owned by the Kremlin but is frequently used to the Kremlin’s advantage), will own LUKARKO’s entire 12.5 percent stake in the CPC, giving Russia majority ownership. This likely will have enormous consequences, as Russia will be in control of decision-making for the pipelines, and the pipeline expansion plans the Kremlin has blocked up until now could change or move forward with the Kremlin as the primary overseer.
It will not be all smooth sailing, however. After the completion of the LUKoil-BP deal, Russian ownership of the CPC will be split among three major constituencies: LUKoil, state-owned oil giant Rosneft and pipeline monopoly Transneft. The Kremlin masterminded this arrangement so that Russia would not appear to have overwhelming influence in the consortium, as ownership would be divided among an independent player that happens to be based in Russia (LUKoil) and government-owned firms. But these companies are not just competitors; they are actually adversaries, in that they are involved with different oligarchs’ clans that are vying for power within the Russian elite.
Moscow understands this and has been consolidating power massively, nationalizing and taking control of assets from a wide range of strategic industries — from banking to energy and everything in between —that were once solely under the oligarchs’ control. The ongoing economic recession, which has hit Russia quite hard, has actually facilitated this process, allowing Moscow to keep all the important players within its borders and beyond in check. Thus, the Kremlin has made plans to consolidate the CPC shares held by Transneft, Rosneft, and LUKoil under one umbrella, though this will not be easy, as none of these companies will want to relinquish its portion of the pipeline. Moscow will have to either fight or accept that its control over the shares is weakened, as the shares are split up — though they are still in Russian hands.
Ultimately, the move to acquire BP’s stake in the CPC pipeline will strengthen Russia’s dominance, giving it ownership of all the major energy infrastructure that touches its soil. As seen in the recent deal to take over Turkmenistan’s strategic pipeline to Iran, Moscow is vigorously reasserting itself in the region through energy deals. The most important intended audience for these moves are the Europeans, who must sit back and watch as their plans for energy diversification away from Russia take another blow.
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Summary
Armenian officials said May 5 that the country will not engage in upcoming NATO military drills in Georgia, joining several other countries that have declined to partake in the drills, most notably Latvia and Estonia. The two Baltic countries’ decision raises the question of NATO’s effectiveness in protecting its two smallest members.
Analysis
Armenia announced May 5 that it will not take part in the upcoming NATO military exercises scheduled for May 6-June 1 in Georgia. Yerevan’s withdrawal makes it the sixth country to announce its absence from NATO’s drills — which will include more than 1,300 troops from 19 member countries and ally states — in addition to Kazakhstan, Moldova, Serbia, Estonia and Latvia. While most of these countries either hold strong political ties to Russia or are wary of angering Moscow and thus come as no surprise in missing the drills, it is the withdrawal of the two Baltic states — Estonia and Latvia — that is particularly unexpected and noteworthy.
The implications of the Baltic countries’ absence from the NATO exercises is symbolically significant. It shows that the two NATO members are making their own decision to opt out of the drills — exercises that they would normally be thrilled to be a part of to maintain their image as firmly in the Western camp. More importantly, their abstention goes against the idea of NATO providing an unflinching security blanket to all of its members, weakening the unity of the security bloc as well as the perception of NATO by outside powers.
Estonia and Latvia hold some of the most confrontational stances towards Moscow of all European countries. This is largely due to geography, as the two countries sit extremely close to Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, with no real terrain barriers to invasion and no strategic depth whatsoever. This vulnerability dates back to nearly a century of domination by the Kremlin, when the two states were republics of the former Soviet Union. Ethnically different from their past Russian rulers (Estonia is closely linked to Finland), the Baltics are deeply resentful of having been ruled with a strong hand by Moscow during the Soviet era.
When the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse, Estonia and Latvia (along with their Baltic neighbor, Lithuania) were among the first countries to declare independence from Moscow in 1991. In 2004, the two Baltic states joined the European Union and, more significantly in their eyes, NATO (originally designed to counter Russia) to cement their place in the Western camp. The proximity to Russia and Moscow’s traditional dominance over the Baltic region meant that entering into a military alliance with the United States and Western Europe was a key imperative for Latvia and Estonia. Their entry into NATO, however, put the Western alliance at the doorstep of St. Petersburg and was perceived as a threat by the Kremlin, although the only NATO military presence thus far has been a small rotation of fighter jets from allied nations to monitor their airspace.
Latvia and Estonia’s animated opposition to Russian foreign policy is grounded in the very reasonable fear of being dominated by Moscow. Estonia’s population is about 1.3 million people, while Latvia’s is just more than 2 million — not even half the size of St. Petersburg. This fear was only exacerbated by Russia’s war with Georgia in the summer of 2008. Moscow’s resurgence has therefore only reinvigorated the Baltic States’ sense of dread that Russia’s return to prominence could put them in Kremlin’s sights in the very near future.
Membership in NATO is key for Estonia and Latvia because it gives them an actual lever against Moscow in a contest where it seems like the Kremlin holds all the levers on the Baltics. From significant Russian populations residing within their borders to cyberwarfare tactics being deployed in the two countries in 2007, Tallinn and Riga are extremely sensitive to Russian maneuvers, a fact the Kremlin is eager to exploit. Moscow also has started to deploy a force of 8,000 troops along the borders of the two countries as part of its Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) force, specifically meant to counter NATO’s expansion plans.
What the two Baltic countries (Lithuania is held in a slightly different vein, as it does not actually border mainland Russia) did gain with their NATO membership were chances to make mainly symbolic moves against their former master, be it siding with Georgia in the Russo-Georgia war or expressing explicit support for U.S. plans to place ballistic missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. NATO membership, however, has not given much to the Baltic States in terms of concrete security. NATO members all pledge to aid allies in the event of an attack. However, the Baltic states have little else vis-a-vis the threat of Russia. Upholding the principle of alliance unity (and reminding their West European allies that Russia is indeed a threat) is therefore the key Latvian and Estonian foreign policy principle and a core national interest. As such, while the two countries have relatively tiny military forces, they would also participate in the number of NATO drills held every year, mainly out of solidarity with the Western military bloc.
But now even that has changed. Estonia and Latvia have been severely affected by the ongoing economic crisis, with both countries facing double-digit drops in gross domestic product forecast for 2009 (-10.1 percent and -13.1 percent, respectively) as a result of foreign capital flight and exports that are in free fall. Extreme social tension has set in as a result of the harsh economic realities, with both countries witnessing violent protests in January. In the meantime, the Latvian government collapsed early in 2009, and Riga has had to take out a $2.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Estonia’s government is set to face a vote of no confidence this week, and a similar loan from the IMF is likely later in 2009.
These conditions have caused Estonia and Latvia to temper their aggressive stance toward Russia. While the two countries are typically vocal and eager to take advantage of Russia’s weaknesses for media attention, they are now backing down as they realize their own positions are weak while Russia’s position is growing stronger. This explains Estonia’s and Latvia’s withdrawal from the NATO exercises, as they realize that their participation would be far more damaging to their relationship with Russia and that their financial situations would make joining in on the drills even more difficult. For these two countries, showing solidarity and support for Georgia makes a great deal of sense in theory (i.e., supporting in principal Georgia’s struggle against Russian influence). But it becomes increasingly hard to justify in practice when Russian influence is being felt in a real sense on their home turf.
During a time of immense security challenges posed by Russia and beyond, perception is key. Moreover, this is not an event that can easily be isolated, as the perception of unity is critical to alliances at all times — and has been a perennial issue for NATO.
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stratfor
Geopolitical Diary: The BMD Issue Comes to the Fore
June 30, 2009
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, told Polish military officials in Warsaw on Monday that Washington is still undecided on how to proceed with the ballistic missile defense (BMD) installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Speaking at a news conference with his Polish counterpart, Gen. Franciszek Gagor, Mullen said that the BMD deployment is still under review, but that “the United States is committed to the relationship with Poland and certainly supporting modernization of the Polish military.”
With U.S. President Barack Obama set to meet with his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev — as well as with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the man truly in charge at the Kremlin — between July 6 and 8, Moscow and Washington are accelerating their political exchanges. One issue will dominate the activity before Obama’s visit and the meetings: increased U.S. military involvement in Central Europe, encapsulated by the proposed BMD system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
From Moscow’s perspective, greater U.S. involvement in Central Europe illustrates a key shift in Washington’s posture in Europe. While the Cold War ultimately was about the disposition of Germany — and Germany therefore was torn apart by the geopolitical forces of the period — the “new” Cold War between resurgent Russia and the United States, the global hegemon, is about the disposition of Poland. A weak and insecure Poland isolated on the open North European plain, between Germany and Russia, poses no threat to Moscow, nor would it be able to counter Russia’s influence on its borders — particularly in the Baltic states, Belarus and Ukraine. However, a confident Poland bolstered and armed by an aggressive patron would not be simply a regional competitor, but a jumping-off point for a host of anti-Russian forces. Thus, it would pose a threat to Russia — one that could counter Moscow’s designs for the region.
Poland is hoping that the United States will be that patron. For Warsaw, the BMD system has little to do with potential nuclear threats emanating from the Middle East (or even from Moscow). It is about entrenching a U.S. presence in Poland for the long haul — committing Washington to defending the portion of the North European plain between the Oder and Bug rivers, in much the same way that Washington was committed to the defense of West Germany during the Cold War.
Thus, Obama’s visit to Moscow next week has prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity between Moscow, Washington and Warsaw. For its part, Moscow is trying the stick-and-carrot approach. The Russian military began a major military exercise in its North Caucasus region on Monday, likely to signal that NATO and its ally Georgia are powerless to prevent Russian dominance in the region.
However, Moscow also has nudged Kyrgyzstan to reverse its decision to end the U.S. lease of the Manas airbase, which is vital for NATO military operations in Afghanistan. And the Russians have signaled that they might agree to the transport of “lethal” military supplies through Russian territory (including its airspace) to Afghanistan, thus allowing Washington to avoid shipping supplies through turbulent Pakistan. Meanwhile, Washington has softened its stance on BMD: Mullen suggested that Washington is considering a Russian proposal about using Soviet-era radar facilities in Gabala, Azerbaijan — a statement that Russian media have given particular attention since Mullen’s visit. (STRATFOR has noted the marginal utility of this radar.)
Ultimately, even if the Russians and the Americans arrive at a mutually acceptable arrangement on the BMD program during talks next week, the question of Poland will remain. A deepening of Polish-U.S. military ties would not stop with a BMD system — even one in which Russia is involved. Washington already has completed delivery of nearly 50 F-16C/D fighter jets in the latest Block 52 configuration — among the most modern F-16s flown in the NATO alliance — to Poland. The Pentagon is quickly closing in on a deal to deploy U.S. Patriot missiles to Poland and/or sell them to Warsaw directly.
Therefore, even if the United States backs away from the BMD issue, the victory would be a Pyrrhic one for Moscow — for it is this arrangement that the Kremlin has truly feared all along. The BMD issue – which would put 10 ballistic missile interceptors near Poland’s Baltic coast – was one issue on which the Kremlin felt it could gain a lot of traction. But an aggressive, confident and U.S.-backed Poland perched on Russia’s borders would be a real geopolitical problem for Moscow.
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Russia Is Back on the Warpath
The West must reaffirm its support for Georgia
By CATHY YOUNG
With President Barack Obama's trip to Moscow on Monday, you might expect Russia to avoid stirring up any trouble. Yet the Russian media are now abuzz with speculation about a new war in Georgia, and some Western analysts are voicing similar concerns. The idea seems insane. Nonetheless, the risk is real.
One danger sign is persistent talk of so-called Georgian aggression against the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia recognized as independent states after the war last August. "Georgia is rattling its weapons . . . and has not given up on attempts to solve its territorial problems by any means," Gen. Nikolai Makarov, who commanded Russian troops in Georgia in 2008, told the Novosti news agency on June 17. Similar warnings have been aired repeatedly by the state-controlled media.
Independent Russian commentators, such as columnist Andrei Piontkovsky, note that this has the feel of a propaganda campaign to prepare the public for a second war. Most recently, Moscow has trotted out a Georgian defector, Lt. Alik D. Bzhania, who claims that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "intends to restart the war."
Yet Russia is the one currently engaged in large-scale military exercises in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and adjacent regions. Russia has also kicked out international observers from the area. On June 15, Moscow vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution renewing the mandate of U.N. monitors in Abkhazia because it mentioned an earlier resolution affirming Georgia's territorial integrity. Negotiations to extend the mission of monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have broken down thanks to Russian obstruction. Now, 225 European Union monitors are the only international presence on the disputed borders.
The expulsion of neutral observers seems odd if Russia is worried about Georgian aggression. But it makes sense if Russia is planning an attack.
What would the Kremlin gain? A crushing victory in Georgia would depose the hated Mr. Saakashvili, give Russia control of vital transit routes for additional energy resources that could weaken its hold on the European oil and gas markets, humiliate the U.S., and distract Russians from their economic woes. Mr. Piontkovsky also believes the war drive comes from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is anxious to reassert himself as supreme leader.
Still, the costs would be tremendous. Last year the Kremlin repaired some of the damage to its relations with Europe and the U.S. by portraying the invasion of Georgia as a response to a unique crisis, not part of an imperial strategy. Another war would cripple Russia's quest for respectability in the civilized world, including its vanity project of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
And after the patriotic fervor wears off, domestic discontent would likely follow. Moreover, Russia would almost certainly find itself mired in a long guerilla war. This would further destabilize a region where Russia's own provinces, Ingushetia and Dagestan, are plagued by violent turmoil.
Given all this, a war seems unlikely. What's more probable is that Russia will seek to destabilize Georgia without military action. This saber-rattling may be meant to boost Georgian opposition to Mr. Saakashvili.
Still, Moscow's actions are not always rational. If the pro-war faction believes that the Western response to an assault on Georgia would be weak and half-hearted, it could be emboldened. In a June 25 column on the EJ.ru Web site, Russian journalist Yulia Latynina writes that the probability of the war "depends solely on the Kremlin's capacity to convince itself that it can convince the world that the war is its enemies' fault."
That is why it's essential for the United States and the EU to respond now -- by increasing their non-military presence in Georgia, expressing a strong commitment to Georgian sovereignty, and reminding Russia of the consequences of aggression. Such a statement from President Obama in Moscow would go a long way toward preventing the possibility of another tragedy.
Ms. Young is a columnist for RealClearPolitics.com and the author of "Growing Up in Moscow" (Ticknor & Fields, 1989).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124649267530483121.html#mod=djemEditorialPage
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Many good points in this article.
That said, I find myself wishing its thinking were placed more into a historical context.
Did not President Clinton promise that we would not take NATO into eastern Europe?
What was the point of our supporting the creation of a breakaway country in the former Yugoslavia against extremely strong Russian discontent on the point? (for reasons of the implications in international law for regions on their periphery IIRC)
How would we feel about Mexico forming military alliance with Russia?
Was it not a major error of President Bush to start something with Russia that we were not in a position to back up? We still have 130,000 troops in Iraq, and our generals in Afpakia have been told not to ask for any more troops, even though they need them. If Pakistan goes down the toilet, how will we supply our troops in Afg? President BO seems to think cutting a deal with Putin et al is the way to go. (The blithering stupidity of such a course of action I trust is apparent to all here.) The Russians continue to play balance of power politics pitting us and the Iranians with occasional support for Iranian nukes and militarization.
Good rule: Don't finish what you can't start.
Led as we are at the moment, with our economy rapidly spiraling into serious vortexes, are we up to this?
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Russia is opening bases in South America again. Last summer they did joint exercises with Cuba and Venzuala
Many good points in this article.
That said, I find myself wishing its thinking were placed more into a historical context.
Did not President Clinton promise that we would not take NATO into eastern Europe?
What was the point of our supporting the creation of a breakaway country in the former Yugoslavia against extremely strong Russian discontent on the point? (for reasons of the implications in international law for regions on their periphery IIRC)
How would we feel about Mexico forming military alliance with Russia?
Was it not a major error of President Bush to start something with Russia that we were not in a position to back up? We still have 130,000 troops in Iraq, and our generals in Afpakia have been told not to ask for any more troops, even though they need them. If Pakistan goes down the toilet, how will we supply our troops in Afg? President BO seems to think cutting a deal with Putin et al is the way to go. (The blithering stupidity of such a course of action I trust is apparent to all here.) The Russians continue to play balance of power politics pitting us and the Iranians with occasional support for Iranian nukes and militarization.
Good rule: Don't finish what you can't start.
Led as we are at the moment, with our economy rapidly spiraling into serious vortexes, are we up to this?
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I saw about the joint exercises, but as far as the logic of the point goes, were they or we doing this first?
As far as opening bases goes, when? Where?
You are a serious student of this part of the world (Georgia, etc) so I would be particularly glad to get your assessment of my additional questions/points.
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I saw about the joint exercises, but as far as the logic of the point goes, were they or we doing this first?
As far as opening bases goes, when? Where?
You are a serious student of this part of the world (Georgia, etc) so I would be particularly glad to get your assessment of my additional questions/points.
I was talking to our office there this week. Russia has moved a considerable amount of men and supplies into Georgia's break away regions and are provoking the Georgians on a daily basis. Shootings, assassination's and motarings are common on the border areas. The Georgians are desperate to get into Nato, they figure if they are not admitted soon the Russians will walk in and take Georgia back.
One thing that was not reported last time around, the Georgian military did not tuck tail and run. They were killing russians at a rate of 10-1. They did rush their armor back to Tbilisi but they figured that they were going to be forced to make a last stand. this time Russia will probably not stop, they will install a new govt and say they were freeing the people from a tyrant
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Huss:
You know I consider you a brother in arms, so forgive a moment of smart-assedness, but I gather your response means you are backing off your claim of the Russians opening bases in Latin America, and therefore acknowledging the point implicit in my question about how we might feel about a Russian base/alliance of mutual defense with Russia-- yes?
Turning to the situation in Georgia: What you report is quite consistent with what I read in Stratfor and elsewhere. Sucks for the Georgians!!! And yes the Russkis are being their bad old KGB, imperialistic, butthole selves. That said-- my question about Bush's judgment in getting us involved and getting the Georgians to rely upon us is questionable. To harp on a point I have made several times before, in the 2004 election even his weenie opponent was calling for expanding the US military by 50,000 troops-- but Bush-Rumbo, still too proud to admit that what was going on in Iraq was more than a bunch of Saddamite remnants, refused to admit that we needed to expand our military.
I have nothing inherently against trying to knock out the Russkis as a major power while they were down, but it seems distinctly unsound to try it with all our bandwidth used up. As best as I can tell, Bush showed very poor judgment here and left us badly overextended.
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Huss:
You know I consider you a brother in arms, so forgive a moment of smart-assedness, but I gather your response means you are backing off your claim of the Russians opening bases in Latin America, and therefore acknowledging the point implicit in my question about how we might feel about a Russian base/alliance of mutual defense with Russia-- yes?
Personally, i think Russia was encouraged to start up the cold war games after we rammed the seperation of Kosovo away from serbia down the throats of the russians and serbs. Im still trying to figure out why we took a city that is considered the cradle of the orthadox church away from the serbs and gave it to muslims who can only trace their ansestry there back to the 1500's and the last ottoman crusade into europe.
A new Cuban missile crisis? Russia eyes bomber bases in Latin America
It could be bluffing or it might be payback – Russia says it's 'ready to fly' bombers to Venezuela and Cuba.
http://www.siberianlight.net/russian-nuclear-bombers-cuba/
http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/03/15/a-new-cuban-missile-crisis-russia-eyes-bomber-bases-in-latin-america/
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Geopolitical Diary: Central Europe's Longstanding Fears
July 17, 2009
German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Munich on Thursday. The meeting produced talk of a Russian-German manufacturing alliance, a 500 million-euro ($704.7 million) joint investment agreement, several business deals that included infrastructure and transportation development, and a lot of chatter on Europe’s energy issues, such as the proposed Nord Stream and Nabucco natural gas pipelines. The business deals are further evidence of a burgeoning relationship between Moscow and Berlin that is evolving into more than just a partnership of convenience based on German imports of Russian natural gas.
More important than the nitty-gritty details of the talks (none of which were wholly unexpected) was the fact that the German and Russian leaders were meeting shortly after both met with U.S. President Barack Obama. If one was ignorant of Germany’s status as an unwavering U.S. ally, with troops in Afghanistan and nearly 70 years of pro-American foreign policy, it might be tempting to conclude that Merkel and Medvedev were comparing notes on their visits with Obama — which could constitute a level of geopolitical coordination far more important than deals to build new rail cars. In other words, Berlin and Moscow could be seen as getting quite close to each other, to a degree that cannot be accounted for solely by Germany’s energy dependence on Russia.
But this is exactly how ex-communist states in Central Europe perceive the relationship between Berlin and Moscow, precisely because they do not consider Germany to be a staunch and unwavering U.S. ally. In fact, Central European states — Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania — see much in German foreign policy that might be drifting away from the United States. For this group of countries, the NATO alliance has not proved to be the warranty against geopolitical instability they had hoped it to be. In fact, since Central European states have been taking part in NATO, Russia has freely manipulated domestic politics in Ukraine and the Baltics, intervened militarily in Georgia and played energy politics with the entire region, through natural gas cutoffs to Ukraine.
Through each episode of Russian brinkmanship, NATO has remained on the sidelines, unwilling to intervene. During the Russian intervention in Georgia in August 2008, Germany even tried to minimize NATO’s reaction and, since then, has vociferously opposed expanding the alliance to include Ukraine and Georgia.
In light of concerns about Germany’s commitment to their defense and NATO’s ability to stand up to Russia, a group of 22 former leaders from Central and Eastern European states wrote a letter to Obama on Thursday, imploring him not to abandon them in the face of continued Russian meddling in the region. The letter specifically referred to the U.S. plans to build ballistic missile defense (BMD) installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, stating that canceling the program “can undermine the credibility of the United States across the whole region.”
For now, the United States is remaining silent on the BMD issue in order to see whether it can win any short-term concessions from Russia, particularly where Afghanistan and Moscow’s help in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions are concerned. Central European states fear that their concerns about Russian power and their own security could be overruled by American interests in the Middle East. Leaders therefore want a firm commitment from the United States to the region, exemplified through the positioning of the BMD system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Russian and German domination are familiar themes for Central Europe. Since both Germany and Russia historically have had interests in the region, states often looked to outside protectors with no immediate designs for the territory — examples include the inter-war U.K.-Polish and Little Entente (between France and Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia) alliances. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a similar arrangement was made with the United States through NATO, or so the states of Central Europe had hoped.
However, the reality is that neither the Little Entente concept of the 1920-1930s nor the U.K.-Polish alliance prevented the region from being overrun by combined Russian and German invasions. Now, the Central Europeans are feeling abandoned by the one power that could provide security against the traditional German-Russian threat: the United States. The question, however, is whether Central European leaders will perceive the U.S. stall as a temporary realpolitik move or permanent abandonment. And if they perceive permanent abandonment, will the region’s leaders continue to write concerned letters to the U.S. president, or will they begin forming a security alliance amongst themselves — with the implicit purpose is countering Russia’s presence in the region?
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Warsaw's Reality on the North European Plain
GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGERLA MERKEL will travel to Sochi, Russia, on Friday to meet with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, one day after her personal intervention seems to have pushed a deal on German auto maker Opel to a Russian-backed bid. General Motors Corp. reportedly agreed in principle on Thursday with Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna International to sell its stake in the troubled Opel unit. The Magna bid is backed by state-owned Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, and would include close cooperation between Opel and GAZ, the second-largest Russian car manufacturer.
While GM was worried that the deal would transfer U.S. technology incorporated into Opel to the Russians, Merkel personally lobbied for the deal, spurning GM’s delay and pressuring the U.S. company to accept the Canadian-Russian bid over a rival Belgian offer. The agreement is only one of a number of recent business deals that illustrate the burgeoning economic relations between Russia and Germany.
“Given its geography, Poland historically has had only two foreign policy strategies”
For Germany, the business deals with Russia are a way to increase demand for German exports, particularly for automobiles and heavy machinery that account for the majority of German manufacturing. Since exports account for 47 percent of Germany’s gross domestic product, the Russian market is an important part of Berlin’s strategy to get out of the current recession. For Russia, the deals are meant both as a means of modernizing the Russian economy and as a way to increase Moscow’s political influence with Berlin. As the trade links crystallize, Berlin and Moscow will not be tied together solely by natural gas exports.
This is undoubtedly going to make Poland uncomfortable. If a newly assertive Germany, which for 60 years has not been allowed to have an opinion in matters of foreign policy, chooses not to be hostile to a resurgent Russia, then the situation for Poland becomes difficult. Warsaw is located on the North European Plain — Europe’s superhighway of conquest — directly between Berlin and Moscow. As such, the Poles are categorically fearful of a Russian-German alliance.
Given its geography, Poland historically has had only two foreign policy strategies. The first, employed when Warsaw is in a powerful position, is to use the lowlands of the North European Plain to its own advantage and expand as much as possible, particularly into Ukraine, the Baltic States and Belarus. This is the aggressive Poland of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which in the 16th century was one of the most powerful and largest countries in Europe. As an example of its power, it was only through the intervention of Polish King Jan III Sobieski that Vienna, and thus Europe by extension, was saved from the Ottomans in 1683.
The second strategy, favored when Warsaw feels threatened, is to find an ally outside of the region determined to guarantee Polish independence. This was the case with Napoleonic France in the early 19th century and with the United Kingdom between the two world wars. This is also the situation today, with Poland hoping that the United States will commit to it with the ballistic missile defense (BMD) installation. BMD, from Poland’s perspective, would mean having U.S. troops on its soil, which would extend the alliance between the two countries past what Warsaw sees as nebulous guarantees of NATO.
However, the United States currently is not looking to challenge Russia overtly. Washington is concentrating on Iran, and the last thing the United States wants is for Russia to counter American moves in Poland by supporting Iran through transfer of military technology, nuclear or conventional.
This makes Warsaw nervous: If Poland cannot employ one of its two favored strategies, it tends to cease to exist as a country. The various partitions of Poland, all in the late 18th century, are still fresh in Warsaw’s collective memory. At that time, a rising Prussia and a surging Russian Empire (along with Austria) broke Poland bit by bit until it no longer existed on the European map. The same situation, also well remembered, was the consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, which led to the combined Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939.
That historical event will bring the current leaders of Poland, Russia and Germany together on Sept. 1 in Gdansk, Poland. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has invited Merkel and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to ceremonies mark the 70-year anniversary of the World War II invasion.
The meeting is indicative of the balancing act that Warsaw is forced to play, lacking a clear signal from the United States on its commitment to Poland. It is also a signal to Washington that, although the invasion occurred 70 years ago, Poland is still stuck in the middle — between of Moscow and Berlin — on the North European Plain.
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The Long Arm of the Kremlin
ON TUESDAY, THE LEADERS OF SEVERAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES will be in Gdansk, Poland, for the 70th anniversary of the day Warsaw considers to have been the beginning of World War II. This anniversary has taken an unusual turn, in that Warsaw is using the occasion to extend an olive branch to Moscow. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is in Poland for the ceremonies and will meet privately with his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk. In June, Tusk called the anniversary an opportunity for Warsaw and Moscow to mend their relationship — a major overture by the Poles, who traditionally have had an aggressive foreign policy toward Russia. But Poland is under pressure at the moment — fearing abandonment by the United States, while Russia is resurging and commanding influence in Central Europe, and the relationship between Berlin and Moscow is growing closer.
“A year ago, it was not clear how effective Russia would be in re-establishing its influence on the Continent.”
For Russia, the anniversary is more than a chance to woo Poland; it is an opportunity for Moscow to demonstrate that it has rebuilt relationships across Europe. Putin will meet not only with Tusk, but also with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and new Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. These leaders are from countries that are part of Russia’s overall plan to turn the tide of pro-Western sentiment in Eastern and Central Europe – something that has been in effect since basically the fall of the Berlin Wall.
A year ago (i.e. until BO's probable electoral victory: Marc), it was not clear how effective Russia would be in re-establishing its influence on the Continent. Although its successes are not set in stone, some are now apparent: Over the past year, Ukraine and Bulgaria have become pro-Russian, Germany has become Russia-friendly and Poland is at least considering how to tolerate a stronger Russia. Tuesday’s meetings in Gdansk are Putin’s chance to solidify Russia’s gains and show the world that Russia can roll back Western influence, even in a country like Poland.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the West began working to push its boundaries in Europe rapidly eastward, destroying Russia’s ability to influence the region. The pro-Western lines have continued moving to the east for the past two decades, via NATO and EU expansion, until they pushed hard up against Russia’s borders. But this was before the United States became preoccupied with other parts of the world and its relationships with European countries began to fracture. The vacuum left by Washington’s inattentiveness to Europe has given Russia a chance to start pushing back against pro-Western sentiment in the former Soviet sphere.
Officials in Moscow know there is only limited time before Washington’s focus returns to Russia, and that now is the time to solidify Russian influence in the former Soviet states and then neutralize or partner with states just beyond that sphere. Once the United States decides to counter Russia, things will get messy on the European geopolitical battlefield once again.
But for now, it seems Russia is making some progress in its roll back across Europe. A question we are considering in Russia’s resurgence is how much longer the United States will allow Russia a window of opportunity. Washington has a full plate right now – with issues including Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan — but the Americans are aware of Moscow’s moves in the former Soviet region. The next thing to watch for is whether Poland can maintain a neutralized position between Russia and Germany — two countries that historically have invaded Poland in the process of invading each other.
If Poland can be neutralized and the United States’ influence in Europe remains low, what will Russia’s next move be? Which countries are next on Moscow’s list as it seeks to rebuild influence in the region? These are questions that many Baltic and Central European countries will be asking on the 70th anniversary of World War II.
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Serbia: Russia's Eyes on the Balkans
SERBIAN INTERIOR MINISTER IVICA DACIC and Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu signed a deal on Wednesday to set up by 2012 a humanitarian center for emergencies in Nis, a city in southeastern Serbia. At a press conference, the ministers said the center would be a regional hub for emergency relief in southeastern Europe, and that it will include a mine-clearance center.
To those familiar with the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations and its longtime minister, this announcement should give pause. It has the potential to redefine how the world looks at the Balkans and Russia’s involvement in the region.
Given the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the independence of Kosovo, the entry of Romania and Bulgaria into the EU and NATO, and the general enlargement of NATO to the Balkans, the West has had the luxury of being able to forget about the Balkans, for the most part. This is historically anomalous, considering the region’s generally unstable past and its penchant for causing wide-ranging conflagrations. Certainly, trouble spots remain: Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo are still overt Western protectorates with potential for flaring up, and Serbia is generally dissatisfied with Kosovo’s independence. However, with Serbia practically surrounded by NATO members or candidates, the West has believed that it has the time to digest the remaining Balkan problems at a leisurely pace.
Enter the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations.
This is anything but a minor ministry in the Russian government. Shoigu has essentially run the ministry since 1994. He is a member of the powerful and selective Russian Security Council -- a key advisory body to the Russian executive on national security -- and has roots in the foreign military intelligence directorate, better known as the GRU, which is one of the most powerful and shadowy institutions in Russia. The ministry is an unofficial wing of the GRU and an outgrowth of its activities. It handles more than natural emergencies: It is involved in the suppression of militant activity in the Caucasus and is in charge of the Russian civil defense troops -- which basically gives the ministry its own paramilitary force, as well as access to the rest of the Russian military. In addition, it has considerable airlift capability due to Russia’s vast geography and often inhospitable climate, which means that in many situations the only means to deliver supplies to an area in need is by aircraft.
It is not clear what this arrangement with Serbia might entail in terms of logistical capability. The region is prone to a variety of natural disasters, especially forest fires, and the center could have a role in aiding their resolution. However, all neighboring countries are either member states of NATO or the EU, or on their way to joining one of the two organizations. And though Serbia's West-friendly neighbors can always use the extra help, they hardly need a regional logistical center manned by Moscow and Belgrade.
Therefore, if one considers the links to the GRU and the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations' experience with airlift and related logistics, it has to be considered that Moscow might lay logistical groundwork that -- intentionally or not -- has military value. This could range from nothing more than surveys of the airport’s capability to the prepositioning of logistical equipment, allowing the facility to be ramped up into a proper base in times of crisis. The United States has littered the Balkans with exactly such installations, referred to as lily pads -- most notably in neighboring Romania, where it has four. These are a threat to Russian interests in Moldova and Ukraine, and something Moscow has wanted to counter.
Nis is an interesting location for the new emergency center because it long has been a military hub – first for Yugoslavia and later for southern Serbia. It is located on a key north-south transportation link in southeastern Europe, has a major airport and is home of the Serbian special forces' 63rd Paratroopers’ Battalion, quite possibly Belgrade’s (if not the region’s) most effective fighting force.
There are some serious impediments to an effective Russian lily pad. First, Serbia is practically surrounded by NATO states, which means its airspace easily could be closed off during a crisis. Second, there is only so much equipment Russia can set up in Serbia before the “equipped logistical base” starts to look suspicious. Third, Russia is, ultimately, a land-based force, and despite the recent rhetoric about the need to establish expeditionary forces, there has not been much concrete movement in that direction.
Despite these limitations, which make the move largely symbolic for the near future, Moscow is on its way to setting up its first logistical center with potential military uses outside of the former Soviet Union. In addition, the center will be run by a ministry that serves as the wing of the Russian military intelligence unit. If one puts this in the context of the recent visit to Belgrade by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, with his pledge for a $1.5 billion loan for credit-starved Serbia, it must be concluded that Russia is moving into the Balkans with enthusiasm.
Belgrade likely hopes that Russia’s moves in the region will spur the West into action over Serbia’s long-delayed, but much-promised, integration into the EU. This strategy seemed to bear immediate fruit: The EU countered Russia’s lending with loans of its own, including a proposal for a $1.5 billion investment over five years.
However, there is danger in this strategy. It is one thing to play one loan off of another and quite another to be seen as a potential ally of Moscow. Serbia easily could find itself in the middle of a whirlwind, with the potential reopening of the Balkans as a major point of contestation between the West and Russia.
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Summary
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos on Jan. 12 praised Russia’s proposal for a new European security treaty as “timely” and in line with Europe’s interests. By putting forth that proposal Russia is not necessarily hoping to get Europe to agree to a particular security arrangement; rather, Moscow is looking to sow discord among European countries, particularly NATO members.
Analysis
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos visited Moscow on Jan. 12. Moratinos, whose country currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, called Russia’s proposal for a new European security treaty “timely” and said its implementation would be in line with Europe’s interests. He also specifically mentioned NATO’s ongoing efforts to create a new “Strategic Concept” document, saying that these efforts manifest “considerable interest” in the Russian security proposal.
Moratinos’ comments were not echoed at a Jan. 12 session of a group of experts, led by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, which met in Prague to draft proposals for the new NATO strategy document. Central European delegates at the meeting expressed considerable anxiety over NATO’s future, asking for assurances that NATO’s Article 5 — the very heart of the NATO alliance, which states that attack on one member is attack on the entire alliance — is still alive and well.
At the core of Central Europe’s unease are Russia’s ever-improving relations with Western European states.
NATO is undergoing its most significant strategic mission revamping since 1999, when it last updated its Strategic Concept document. In that update, NATO took into account the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s and outlined the parameters for NATO operations outside its membership zone, paving the way for the alliance’s role in such theaters of operations as Afghanistan. In 2010, the alliance plans to update its strategic vision at a conference to be held in Lisbon at the end of the year, prior to which it will hold a number of meetings such as the one in Prague.
(click here to enlarge image)
Central European NATO member states are well aware that they now form the buffer zone between Western Europe and a resurgent Russia. Ever since the Russia-Georgia conflict in 2008, Central Europe has asked for greater reassurances from the United States that NATO is willing to protect them. Poland, the Czech Republic and most recently Romania have been involved with U.S. ballistic missile defense, while the Baltic states have asked the United States for greater military cooperation on the ground.
The response, however, has not been to their satisfaction. First, Western Europe and the United States stood idly by while Georgia, a stated U.S. ally, lost its brief war with Russia in 2008. Second, Washington decided to (briefly) abandon its BMD plans in Poland and the Czech Republic in the fall of 2009 in an effort to elicit Russia’s cooperation in Afghanistan and on the Iranian nuclear program. While the U.S. eventually amended its decision, Prague and Warsaw got the sense that they were expendable in the grand geopolitical game. Finally, Central Europeans are closely observing Russia’s warming relations with the main Western European states — particularly Germany, France and Italy. The Kremlin is signing energy deals with these states and offering lucrative assets in the upcoming privatizations of state enterprises in Russia.
The last straw for Central Europe may be Russia’s proposed new European security treaty, meant to integrate Russia more into Europe’s security decision-making. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev first hinted at the proposal after the Georgian war. It was then put forward as a slightly less vague — but still unclear — draft at the beginning of December 2009. For Russia the draft and the treaty itself are not important. Moscow understands well that Western Europe has no intention of abandoning NATO. However, the positive response the draft received from Western European nations — such as the Spanish foreign minister’s comments — is exactly what Russia wanted. For Russia, the point is not to sway Western Europe into an unrealistic new security alliance (although it would love to do just that), but rather to sow discord among NATO member states.
The Central Europeans therefore are taking the lead in refocusing the debate about NATO’s new strategy — which until now has been about identifying new global threats such as energy security, cyberwarfare and climate change — toward Russia. They are asking for concrete assurances that Article 5 is alive and well. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout, hosting the Jan. 12 meeting on NATO’s new strategy, explicitly said that “it is critical for us that the level of security is the same for all members, meaning that Article 5 … is somehow re-confirmed.” One of the proposals at the meeting included drafting a clear and precise defense plan in the case of an attack against the region, presumably by Russia.
The question now is how these demands will be met by Western Europe — and Berlin specifically — which is unwilling to upset its relationship with Russia, particularly not for the sake of Central Europeans. While the United States and Western Europe may be willing to grant a token reaffirmation of Article 5, it is unlikely that Berlin would want to get into the specifics of designing a military response to a hypothetical Russian attack, particularly not one that would be publicly unveiled. Washington might be more amenable to such concrete proposals, but with Russian supply lines crucial for U.S. efforts to sustain a troop surge in Afghanistan, it is not certain that even Washington would be able to give a more direct reassurance.
Ultimately, a token reassurance may not be enough for Central Europe. The coming debate over NATO’s 2010 strategic revamp — with the next meeting scheduled for Jan. 14 in Oslo — could therefore open fissures in the alliance, an outcome Moscow had in mind from the start.
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Freedom lost a friend in the plane crash that killed Poland's president.
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http://www.newsweek.com/id/236220
What's Next for Poland
In the United States, all you have to do is say "Pearl Harbor," and everyone knows what you are talking about. In Poland—a country that was invaded countless times by Russians from the east and Germans from the west—there are far more names of places that everyone instantly recognizes because of their tragic symbolism. But one stands out above all others: Katyn. The fact that the plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others, including a who's who of the Polish political and military elite, crashed as it was attempting to land in the western Russian city of Smolensk near the Katyn forest, makes this national tragedy overwhelming in its emotional impact.
Kaczynski and the others on the ill-fated flight were supposed to go to the Katyn forest to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the execution of 21, 857 Polish POWs and civilians on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin and his Politburo. When I was growing up in our family's new home in the United States, my father—who had served in the Polish Army in 1939 and then fled to the West, joining Polish forces under British command—made sure that his children knew the full meaning of Katyn. Poland hadn't only been invaded by Hitler, he reminded us; it had also been invaded by Stalin's armies, and then they had attempted to wipe out any future source of opposition by executing so many of its top officers and men.
The fact that Stalin and subsequent Soviet and Polish communist regimes insisted on blaming this crime on the Nazis, who invaded Russia only much later, just magnified Katyn's potency as a symbol. When I started visiting Poland as a student and then as a journalist in communist times, people only had to whisper the word "Katyn" to signal their opposition to the government and its wholesale falsification of history. You could talk openly about the truth of Katyn only in the West, where Polish exiles like my father and grandfather, who served in the Polish government-in-exile in London during World War II, kept insisting that the cover-up was as bad as the original crime.
But things began to change after the fall of communism in 1989, triggered by Solidarity's successful battle for freedom in Poland, which included the freedom to tell the full truth about Katyn. In a goodwill gesture to Poland in 1992, Russia's new President Boris Yeltsin finally released the order from Stalin's Politburo that confirmed Soviet responsibility for the murders. While this briefly improved Polish-Russian relations, Yeltsin's successor Vladimir Putin took a harder line on history, initially encouraging a more positive view of Stalin ("the most successful Soviet leader ever," proclaimed a Russian teacher's manual in 2007) and renewed equivocation about his record of mass murder. That included new efforts by some Russians to deny the truth about Katyn.
The irony is that this year, on the 70th anniversary of those murders, there was renewed hope that the truth would really set both countries free. Four days before the fatal crash, Putin had accompanied Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to Katyn and admitted Stalin's responsibility for what happened—although he also tossed in a pseudo-justification by claiming the Soviet leader was avenging earlier mistreatment of Russian POWs by Poles in the two countries' war of 1920.
That was precisely the kind of statement that still infuriated Poles, and particularly someone like President Kaczynski, 60, whose experience as a Solidarity activist in the 1980s made him instinctively distrustful of Russian leaders who weren't willing to come completely clean about their history. When I interviewed Kaczynski shortly after Russia's brief war with Georgia in August 2008, he was uncompromising in his language. "There was a test of strength, and Russia showed the face it wanted to show—an imperial face," he told me. He also blasted the West for its passive response.
Yet even Kaczynski, as tough as he was on the Russians, could imagine a better day—so long, as he put it, that the world would "convince Russia that the imperial era is over." And the very fact that such high-level Polish delegations, representing so much of recent Polish history, were flying often to commemorate the Katyn massacre demonstrated how times have changed. Among those who died today was Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last Polish president-in-exile in London, who officially gave up his post when former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa was elected president of a newly free Poland in 1990. Kaczorowski's government was a largely symbolic continuation of the first Polish government-in-exile during World War II, the government my grandfather was a part of. To Poles, all these connections feel personal.
And then there was a whole new generation of parliamentarians and government officials who died today as well. Among them was Undersecretary of Defense Stanislaw Komorowski, a gifted former scientist who then embarked on a diplomatic career. I met him at a small dinner party in Warsaw in October. As he juggled urgent calls on his cell about Vice President Biden's visit to Poland to discuss missile defense plans, he was both witty and highly knowledgeable, covering a broad range of issues in a coolly analytical way that was quite different from the more impassioned style of slightly older ex-opposition activists like President Kaczynski.
But nothing can be coolly analytical about the way Poles are thinking about Katyn. Now it's not only a name that connotes a past tragedy with continuing political overtones; it will also live in the memories of today's Poles as a symbol of the loss of so many of their countrymen who experienced the full range of the country's recent history—and its battles over the meaning of the place where they, too, came to die.
Newsweek's former Warsaw bureau chief Andrew Nagorski is now vice president and director of public policy at the EastWest Institute. He is the author of The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II.
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When I heard the news the other night, my first thought was "Putin".
I have nothing to offer as evidence, but my gut is not often wrong.
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I have heard no foul play. What a tragedy for all 97 aboard. I'm sure no tears were shed though by Putin regarding Kaczynski. Can't help being reminded of whistle blower Alexander Litvinenko with the radioactive poisoning and Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko with dioxin poisoning.
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The Russian media is now pushing the "Plane was technically sound" story.
This just in, henhouse security top notch, says fox. :roll:
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Russia’s presidential representative in the Central Federal District, Georgy Poltavchenko, said late April 10 that the Polish flight crew of the crashed presidential plane had been advised by Russian air traffic controllers to deviate from their flight plan to Smolensk and land in Minsk or Vitebsk in Belarus. This was later echoed by Russian Transportation Minister Igor Levitin, who said that the decision to land the plane was taken by the Polish pilot, which has been confirmed by flight recordings recovered from the crash site. According to Levitin, the visibility at the airport was 400 meters due to heavy fog, whereas the required landing visibility is at least 1,000 meters. Levitin also said the two flight recorders will be taken to Moscow where they will be examined in cooperation with Polish investigators. According to STRATFOR sources in Poland, the decision to land in Smolensk, and not in Belarus, may have been influenced by the fact that the ceremonies marking the 70-year anniversary of the Katyn massacre were due to take place within an hour of the supposed landing. In addition, the Tu-154 presidential plane was built in 1990 and had recently been serviced in Russia. In January 2010, Russian airline Aeroflot ceased to fly the model, which was designed in the 1960s. Polish President Lech Kaczynski — who, along with 96 others died in the crash — was known to take risks, demanding that his pilot lands his presidential plane in Tbilisi during the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. His pilot at the time refused to land in a war zone, instead diverting the plane to Azerbaijan. According to sources in Poland, that pilot was reprimanded and never flew with the president again.
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Levitin also said the two flight recorders will be taken to Moscow where they will be examined in cooperation with Polish investigators.
**I hope the Polish investigators have the skill sets required to do a proper forensic analysis of the evidence.**
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"I hope the Polish investigators have the skill sets required to do a proper forensic analysis of the evidence."
Agree and they should seek assistance from whoever are the best at this. My doubt isn't that Putin is morally incapable of this, just that I assume the Polish President is more an annoyance than a threat to him. Putin is a shrewd politician and downing an airliner full of innocent people could hurt even his reputation.
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Didn't Russia just foment the overthrow the govt of Krygyztan (sp?) where we have a now suspended base vital to supply the Afghan War?
Isn't this the same Russia that invaded Georgia without consequence?
Isn't this the same Russia that uses its status as a natural gas supplier to squeeze and nudge Europe towards desired behaviors?
Isn't this the same Russia that just backed down the US from anti-missile defense for Europe from Iranian attack?
etc etc
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Didn't Russia just foment the overthrow the govt of Krygyztan...invaded Georgia without consequence...uses its status as a natural gas supplier to squeeze and nudge Europe towards desired behaviors...backed down the US from anti-missile defense for Europe...?
Yes, and shame on us. They are ruthless and on a roll. Why would they risk all that for an inefficient takedown of a Polish leader who annoys them? There is a difference between assassination and terrorism. Downing an airliner doesn't make sense to me. I like the other story about a powerful person thinking this can't or won't happen to them better, it fits the aviation mentality of JFK jr, Paul Wellstone, Ron Brown and maybe John Denver. Not excusing Russians from their other crimes.
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As I said before, there is no evidence of a crime, but the timing and extent of damage to Poland is awfully convenient for Putin.
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Besides mass murder speculation, another thing that follows from the list of violations by Russia brought to light here is what a joke it is that we still go through the UN 'Security Council' for crucial matters of global security with Russia sitting as an equal 'partner'.
I hope that in the next generation of leaders someone has the courage to stand up to this farce a la Reagan addressing the value of the wall: Mr. Secretary General of the UN, tear down this phony security council. To the Ways and Means chair and the UN, we wont pay one dollar more than Uganda or Congo pays ever again or bring important issues before the security council until the council includes only countries with a sincere interest in global security.
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Yeah, there is a Putsch going on probably with Putin and some other nationalists behind it. If it were electorates talking I would probably be forced to shrug it off, but there are obvious indicators otherwise. There seems to be a "War of Peace" syle coordinated attack going on. Infrastructure, Economy and Reputaional/political attacks are being coordinated to pull countries back into the old "Pact".
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stratfor:
Russia's efforts to reassert influence along its territorial periphery are currently evident in numerous ways. A customs union with Kazakhstan and Belarus -- which took effect on Jan. 1, 2010 -- was quickly followed by elections in Ukraine, which brought a pro-Russian president to power in February. Last week, a revolt in Kyrgyzstan toppled the government of independent-minded President Kurmanbek Bakiyev; the speed with which an interim government was formed and Russian troops were flown into the country has strongly suggested that Moscow helped to orchestrate events in Bishkek. And to the west, a "charm offensive" launched months ago, in hopes of softening anti-Russian sentiments in Poland, has gained new traction following the deaths of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and dozens of military, economic and political officials in an April 10 plane crash near Smolensk.
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'Russia engineered air crash that killed President Kaczynski,' claims Polish MP
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 8:09 AM on 13th April 2010
Comments (91) Add to My Stories The Russian government prevented the Polish president's plane from landing four times to divert him from a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, according to an MP.
Artur Gorski said the Russians 'came up with some dubious reasons' that the aircraft couldn't land because they feared President Leck Kaczynski's presence would overshadow a similar event hosted by the Russian prime minister a few days before.
And their alleged plan ended in disaster when the Polish pilots made one final and disastrous attempt to land, killing Mr Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others on board the plane.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265482/Leck-Kaczynski-Russia-engineered-plane-crash-claims-Polish-MP.html#ixzz0l2SKRQ5h
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I would not want to be this guy's food tester...
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AFP - Kyrgyzstan's ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev insisted Wednesday that he was still the rightful leader of his country, breaking several days of silence after his flight into exile.
"I, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, am the legally elected president of Kyrgyzstan and recognised by the international community," he said, speaking to reporters in Belarus where he took refuge earlier this week
"I do not recognise my resignation. Nine months ago the people of Kyrgyzstan elected me their president and there is no power that can stop me. Only death can stop me," Bakiyev said in the Belarussian capital Minsk.
Bakiyev was toppled by a popular uprising in Kyrgyzstan two weeks ago that brought a new interim government to power in the former Soviet republic.
After holding out in his stronghold in southern Kyrgyzstan for about a week, Bakiyev flew to neighbouring Kazakhstan, and the interim government announced that he had submitted his resignation.
On Monday he and several family members left Kazakhstan and arrived in Belarus at the invitation of strongman Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Speaking in the Minsk-based headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet republics, Bakiyev lashed out at the interim government which replaced him.
"Everyone must know the the bandits who try to take power are the executors of a external force and have no legitimacy," he said with steely determination.
"I call on leaders of the international community: do not set a precedent and do not recognise this gang as the legitimate authorities," he said.
"Kyrgyzstan will be nobody's colony. My people want to be free and will become free," Bakiyev added.
http://www.france24.com/en/20100421-kyrgyzstan-toppled-president-bakiyev-belarus-uprising-interim-government
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Claire Berlinski
A Hidden History of Evil
Why doesn’t anyone care about the unread Soviet archives?
Spring 2010
In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains inexplicably indifferent and uncurious about the deadliest ideology in history.
For evidence of this indifference, consider the unread Soviet archives. Pavel Stroilov, a Russian exile in London, has on his computer 50,000 unpublished, untranslated, top-secret Kremlin documents, mostly dating from the close of the Cold War. He stole them in 2003 and fled Russia. Within living memory, they would have been worth millions to the CIA; they surely tell a story about Communism and its collapse that the world needs to know. Yet he can’t get anyone to house them in a reputable library, publish them, or fund their translation. In fact, he can’t get anyone to take much interest in them at all.
Then there’s Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who once spent 12 years in the USSR’s prisons, labor camps, and psikhushkas—political psychiatric hospitals—after being convicted of copying anti-Soviet literature. He, too, possesses a massive collection of stolen and smuggled papers from the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which, as he writes, “contain the beginnings and the ends of all the tragedies of our bloodstained century.” These documents are available online at bukovsky-archives.net, but most are not translated. They are unorganized; there are no summaries; there is no search or index function. “I offer them free of charge to the most influential newspapers and journals in the world, but nobody wants to print them,” Bukovsky writes. “Editors shrug indifferently: So what? Who cares?”
The originals of most of Stroilov’s documents remain in the Kremlin archives, where, like most of the Soviet Union’s top-secret documents from the post-Stalin era, they remain classified. They include, Stroilov says, transcripts of nearly every conversation between Gorbachev and his foreign counterparts—hundreds of them, a near-complete diplomatic record of the era, available nowhere else. There are notes from the Politburo taken by Georgy Shakhnazarov, an aide of Gorbachev’s, and by Politburo member Vadim Medvedev. There is the diary of Anatoly Chernyaev—Gorbachev’s principal aide and deputy chief of the body formerly known as the Comintern—which dates from 1972 to the collapse of the regime. There are reports, dating from the 1960s, by Vadim Zagladin, deputy chief of the Central Committee’s International Department until 1987 and then Gorbachev’s advisor until 1991. Zagladin was both envoy and spy, charged with gathering secrets, spreading disinformation, and advancing Soviet influence.
When Gorbachev and his aides were ousted from the Kremlin, they took unauthorized copies of these documents with them. The documents were scanned and stored in the archives of the Gorbachev Foundation, one of the first independent think tanks in modern Russia, where a handful of friendly and vetted researchers were given limited access to them. Then, in 1999, the foundation opened a small part of the archive to independent researchers, including Stroilov. The key parts of the collection remained restricted; documents could be copied only with the written permission of the author, and Gorbachev refused to authorize any copies whatsoever. But there was a flaw in the foundation’s security, Stroilov explained to me. When things went wrong with the computers, as often they did, he was able to watch the network administrator typing the password that gave access to the foundation’s network. Slowly and secretly, Stroilov copied the archive and sent it to secure locations around the world.
When I first heard about Stroilov’s documents, I wondered if they were forgeries. But in 2006, having assessed the documents with the cooperation of prominent Soviet dissidents and Cold War spies, British judges concluded that Stroilov was credible and granted his asylum request. The Gorbachev Foundation itself has since acknowledged the documents’ authenticity.
Bukovsky’s story is similar. In 1992, President Boris Yeltsin’s government invited him to testify at the Constitutional Court of Russia in a case concerning the constitutionality of the Communist Party. The Russian State Archives granted Bukovsky access to its documents to prepare his testimony. Using a handheld scanner, he copied thousands of documents and smuggled them to the West.
The Russian state cannot sue Stroilov or Bukovsky for breach of copyright, since the material was created by the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, neither of which now exists. Had he remained in Russia, however, Stroilov believes that he could have been prosecuted for disclosure of state secrets or treason. The military historian Igor Sutyagin is now serving 15 years in a hard-labor camp for the crime of collecting newspaper clippings and other open-source materials and sending them to a British consulting firm. The danger that Stroilov and Bukovsky faced was real and grave; they both assumed, one imagines, that the world would take notice of what they had risked so much to acquire.
Stroilov claims that his documents “tell a completely new story about the end of the Cold War. The Ωcommonly accepted≈ version of history of that period consists of myths almost entirely. These documents are capable of ruining each of those myths.” Is this so? I couldn’t say. I don’t read Russian. Of Stroilov’s documents, I have seen only the few that have been translated into English. Certainly, they shouldn’t be taken at face value; they were, after all, written by Communists. But the possibility that Stroilov is right should surely compel keen curiosity.
For instance, the documents cast Gorbachev in a far darker light than the one in which he is generally regarded. In one document, he laughs with the Politburo about the USSR’s downing of Korean Airlines flight 007 in 1983—a crime that was not only monstrous but brought the world very near to nuclear Armageddon. These minutes from a Politburo meeting on October 4, 1989, are similarly disturbing:
Lukyanov reports that the real number of casualties on Tiananmen Square was 3,000.
Gorbachev: We must be realists. They, like us, have to defend themselves. Three thousands . . . So what?
And a transcript of Gorbachev’s conversation with Hans-Jochen Vogel, the leader of West Germany’s Social Democratic Party, shows Gorbachev defending Soviet troops’ April 9, 1989, massacre of peaceful protesters in Tbilisi.
Stroilov’s documents also contain transcripts of Gorbachev’s discussions with many Middle Eastern leaders. These suggest interesting connections between Soviet policy and contemporary trends in Russian foreign policy. Here is a fragment from a conversation reported to have taken place with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad on April 28, 1990:
H. ASSAD. To put pressure on Israel, Baghdad would need to get closer to Damascus, because Iraq has no common borders with Israel. . . .
M. S. GORBACHEV. I think so, too. . . .
H. ASSAD. Israel’s approach is different, because the Judaic religion itself states: the land of Israel spreads from Nile to Euphrates and its return is a divine predestination.
M. S. GORBACHEV. But this is racism, combined with Messianism!
H. ASSAD. This is the most dangerous form of racism.
One doesn’t need to be a fantasist to wonder whether these discussions might be relevant to our understanding of contemporary Russian policy in a region of some enduring strategic significance.
There are other ways in which the story that Stroilov’s and Bukovsky’s papers tell isn’t over. They suggest, for example, that the architects of the European integration project, as well as many of today’s senior leaders in the European Union, were far too close to the USSR for comfort. This raises important questions about the nature of contemporary Europe—questions that might be asked when Americans consider Europe as a model for social policy, or when they seek European diplomatic cooperation on key issues of national security.
According to Zagladin’s reports, for example, Kenneth Coates, who from 1989 to 1998 was a British member of the European Parliament, approached Zagladin on January 9, 1990, to discuss what amounted to a gradual merger of the European Parliament and the Supreme Soviet. Coates, says Zagladin, explained that “creating an infrastructure of cooperation between the two parliament would help . . . to isolate the rightists in the European Parliament (and in Europe), those who are interested in the USSR’s collapse.” Coates served as chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights from 1992 to 1994. How did it come to pass that Europe was taking advice about human rights from a man who had apparently wished to “isolate” those interested in the USSR’s collapse and sought to extend Soviet influence in Europe?
Or consider a report on Francisco Fernández Ordóñez, who led Spain’s integration into the European Community as its foreign minister. On March 3, 1989, according to these documents, he explained to Gorbachev that “the success of perestroika means only one thing—the success of the socialist revolution in contemporary conditions. And that is exactly what the reactionaries don’t accept.” Eighteen months later, Ordóñez told Gorbachev: “I feel intellectual disgust when I have to read, for example, passages in the documents of ΩG7≈ where the problems of democracy, freedom of human personality and ideology of market economy are set on the same level. As a socialist, I cannot accept such an equation.” Perhaps most shockingly, the Eastern European press has reported that Stroilov’s documents suggest that François Mitterrand was maneuvering with Gorbachev to ensure that Germany would unite as a neutral, socialist entity under a Franco-Soviet condominium.
Zagladin’s records also note that the former leader of the British Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, approached Gorbachev—unauthorized, while Kinnock was leader of the opposition—through a secret envoy to discuss the possibility of halting the United Kingdom’s Trident nuclear-missile program. The minutes of the meeting between Gorbachev and the envoy, MP Stuart Holland, read as follows:
In [Holland’s] opinion, Soviet Union should be very interested in liquidation of “Tridents” because, apart from other things, the West—meaning the US, Britain and France—would have a serious advantage over the Soviet Union after the completion of START treaty. That advantage will need to be eliminated. . . . At the same time Holland noted that, of course, we can seriously think about realisation of that idea only if the Labour comes to power. He said Thatcher . . . would never agree to any reduction of nuclear armaments.
Kinnock was vice president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004, and his wife, Glenys, is now Britain’s minister for Europe. Gerard Batten, a member of the UK Independence Party, has noted the significance of the episode. “If the report given to Mr. Gorbachev is true, it means that Lord Kinnock approached one of Britain’s enemies in order to seek approval regarding his party’s defense policy and, had he been elected, Britain’s defense policy,” Batten said to the European Parliament in 2009. “If this report is true, then Lord Kinnock would be guilty of treason.”
Similarly, Baroness Catherine Ashton, who is now the European Union’s foreign minister, was treasurer of Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1980 to 1982. The papers offer evidence that this organization received “unidentified income” from the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Stroilov’s papers suggest as well that the government of the current Spanish EU commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, Joaquín Almunia, enthusiastically supported the Soviet project of gradually unifying Germany and Europe into a socialist “common European home” and strongly opposed the independence of the Baltic states and then of Ukraine.
Perhaps it doesn’t surprise you to read that prominent European politicians held these views. But why doesn’t it? It is impossible to imagine that figures who had enjoyed such close ties to the Nazi Party—or, for that matter, to the Ku Klux Klan or to South Africa’s apartheid regime—would enjoy top positions in Europe today. The rules are different, apparently, for Communist fellow travelers. “We now have the EU unelected socialist party running Europe,” Stroilov said to me. “Bet the KGB can’t believe it.”
And what of Zagladin’s description of his dealings with our own current vice president in 1979?
Unofficially, [Senator Joseph] Biden and [Senator Richard] Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they were not so much concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with showing to the American public that they do care for “human rights.” . . . In other words, the collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely do not care for the fate of most so-called dissidents.
Remarkably, the world has shown little interest in the unread Soviet archives. That paragraph about Biden is a good example. Stroilov and Bukovsky coauthored a piece about it for the online magazine FrontPage on October 10, 2008; it passed without remark. Americans considered the episode so uninteresting that even Biden’s political opponents didn’t try to turn it into political capital. Imagine, if you can, what it must feel like to have spent the prime of your life in a Soviet psychiatric hospital, to know that Joe Biden is now vice president of the United States, and to know that no one gives a damn.
Bukovsky’s book about the story that these documents tell, Jugement à Moscou, has been published in French, Russian, and a few other Slavic languages, but not in English. Random House bought the manuscript and, in Bukovsky’s words, tried “to force me to rewrite the whole book from the liberal left political perspective.” Bukovsky replied that “due to certain peculiarities of my biography I am allergic to political censorship.” The contract was canceled, the book was never published in English, and no other publisher has shown interest in it. Neither has anyone wanted to publish EUSSR, a pamphlet by Stroilov and Bukovsky about the Soviet roots of European integration. In 2004, a very small British publisher did print an abbreviated version of the pamphlet; it, too, passed unnoticed.
Stroilov has a long list of complaints about journalists who have initially shown interest in the documents, only to tell him later that their editors have declared the story insignificant. In advance of Gorbachev’s visit to Germany for the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Stroilov says, he offered the German press the documents depicting Gorbachev unflatteringly. There were no takers. In France, news about the documents showing Mitterrand’s and Gorbachev’s plans to turn Germany into a dependent socialist state prompted a few murmurs of curiosity, nothing more. Bukovsky’s vast collection about Soviet sponsorship of terrorism, Palestinian and otherwise, remains largely unpublished.
Stroilov says that he and Bukovsky approached Jonathan Brent of Yale University Press, which is leading a publishing project on the history of the Cold War. He claims that initially Brent was enthusiastic and asked him to write a book, based on the documents, about the first Gulf War. Stroilov says that he wrote the first six chapters, sent them off, and never heard from Brent again, despite sending him e-mail after e-mail. “I can only speculate what so much frightened him in that book,” Stroilov wrote to me.
I’ve also asked Brent and received no reply. This doesn’t mean anything; people are busy. I am less inclined to believe in complex attempts to suppress the truth than I am in indifference and preoccupation with other things. Stroilov sees in these events “a kind of a taboo, the vague common understanding in the Establishment that it is better to let sleeping dogs lie, not to throw stones in a house of glass, and not to mention a rope in the house of a hanged man.” I suspect it is something even more disturbing: no one much cares.
“I know the time will come,” Stroilov says, “when the world has to look at those documents very carefully. We just cannot escape this. We have no way forward until we face the truth about what happened to us in the twentieth century. Even now, no matter how hard we try to ignore history, all these questions come back to us time and again.”
The questions come back time and again, it is true, but few remember that they have been asked before, and few remember what the answer looked like. No one talks much about the victims of Communism. No one erects memorials to the throngs of people murdered by the Soviet state. (In his widely ignored book, A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, Alexander Yakovlev, the architect of perestroika under Gorbachev, puts the number at 30 to 35 million.)
Indeed, many still subscribe to the essential tenets of Communist ideology. Politicians, academics, students, even the occasional autodidact taxi driver still stand opposed to private property. Many remain enthralled by schemes for central economic planning. Stalin, according to polls, is one of Russia’s most popular historical figures. No small number of young people in Istanbul, where I live, proudly describe themselves as Communists; I have met such people around the world, from Seattle to Calcutta.
We rightly insisted upon total denazification; we rightly excoriate those who now attempt to revive the Nazis’ ideology. But the world exhibits a perilous failure to acknowledge the monstrous history of Communism. These documents should be translated. They should be housed in a reputable library, properly cataloged, and carefully assessed by scholars. Above all, they should be well-known to a public that seems to have forgotten what the Soviet Union was really about. If they contain what Stroilov and Bukovsky say—and all the evidence I’ve seen suggests that they do—this is the obligation of anyone who gives a damn about history, foreign policy, and the scores of millions dead.
Claire Berlinski, a contributing editor of City Journal, is an American journalist who lives in Istanbul. She is the author of There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters.
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_soviet-archives.html
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BBG:
You raise a fascinating point here, one of import beyond the confines of this thread. If you have more in this vein, maybe I should expand the definition of the Fascism thread , , ,
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GERMANY AND RUSSIA MOVE CLOSER
By George Friedman
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will brief French and Polish officials on
a joint proposal for Russian-European "cooperation on security," according to a
statement from Westerwelle's spokesman on Monday. The proposal emerged out of talks
between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev
earlier in June and is based on a draft Russia drew up in 2008. Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov will be present at the meeting. Peschke said, "We want to
further elaborate and discuss it within the triangle [i.e., France, Germany and
Poland] in the presence of the Russian foreign minister."
On the surface, the proposal developed by Merkel and Medvedev appears primarily
structural. It raises security discussions about specific trouble spots to the
ministerial level rather than the ambassadorial level, with a committee being formed
consisting of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Russia's foreign
minister.
All of this seems rather mild until we consider three things. First, proposals for
deepening the relationship between Russia and the European Union have been on the
table for several years without much progress. Second, the Germans have taken this
initiative at a time when German foreign policy is in a state of flux. And third,
the decision to take this deal to France and Poland indicates that the Germans are
extremely sensitive to the geopolitical issues involved, which are significant and
complex.
Reconsidering Basic Strategy
The economic crisis in Europe has caused the Germans, among others, to reconsider
their basic strategy. Ever since World War II, the Germans have pursued two national
imperatives. The first was to maintain close relations with the French -- along with
the rest of Europe -- to eliminate the threat of war. Germany had fought three wars
with France since 1870, and its primary goal was not fighting another one. Its
second goal was prosperity. Germany's memory of the Great Depression plus its desire
to avoid militarism made it obsessed with economic development and creating a
society focused on prosperity. It saw the creation of an integrated economic
structure in Europe as achieving both ends, tying Germany into an unbreakable
relationship with France and at the same time creating a trading bloc that would
ensure prosperity.
Events since the financial crisis of 2008 have shaken German confidence in the
European Union as an instrument of prosperity, however. Until 2008, Europe had
undergone an extraordinary period of prosperity, in which West Germany could
simultaneously integrate with East Germany and maintain its long-term economic
growth. The European Union appeared to be a miraculous machine that automatically
generated prosperity and political stability alongside it.
After 2008, this perception changed, and the sense of insecurity accelerated with
the current crisis in Greece and among the Mediterranean members of the European
Union. The Germans found themselves underwriting what they regarded as Greek
profligacy to protect the euro and the European economy. This not only generated
significant opposition among the German public, it raised questions in the German
government. The purpose of the European Union was to ensure German prosperity. If
the future of Europe was Germany shoring up Europe -- in other words, transferring
wealth from Germany to Europe -- then the rationale for European integration became
problematic.
The Germans were certainly not prepared to abandon European integration, which had
given Germany 65 years of peace. At the same time, the Germans were prepared to
consider adjustments to the framework in which Europe was operating, particular from
an economic standpoint. A Europe in which German prosperity is at risk from the
budgeting practices of Greece needed adjustment.
The Pull of Russia
In looking at their real economic interests, the Germans were inevitably drawn to
their relationship with Russia. Russia supplies Germany with nearly 40 percent of
the natural gas Germany uses. Without Russian energy, Germany's economy is in
trouble. At the same time, Russia needs technology and expertise to develop its
economy away from being simply an exporter of primary commodities. Moreover, the
Germans already have thousands of enterprises that have invested in Russia. Finally,
in the long run, Germany's population is declining below the level needed to
maintain its economy. It does not want to increase immigration into Germany because
of fears of social instability. Russia's population is also falling, but it still
has surplus population relative to its economic needs and will continue to have one
for quite a while. German investment in Russia allows Germany to get the labor it
needs without resorting to immigration by moving production facilities east to
Russia.
The Germans have been developing economic relations with Russia since before the
Soviet collapse, but the Greek crisis forced them to reconsider their relationship
with Russia. If the European Union was becoming a trap in which Germany was going to
consistently subsidize the rest of Europe, and a self-contained economy is
impossible, then another strategy would be needed. This consisted of two parts. The
first was insisting on a restructuring of the European Union to protect Germany from
the domestic policies of other countries. Second, if Europe was heading toward a
long period of stagnation, then Germany, heavily dependent on exports and needing
labor, needed to find an additional partner -- if not a new one.
At the same time, a German-Russian alignment is a security issue as well as an
economic issue. Between 1871 and 1941 there was a three-player game in continental
Europe -- France, Germany and Russia. The three shifted alliances with each other,
with each shift increasing the chance of war. In 1871, Prussia was allied with
Russia when it attacked France. In 1914, The French and Russians were allied against
Germany. In 1940, Germany was allied with Russia when it attacked France. The
three-player game played itself out in various ways with a constant outcome: war.
The last thing Berlin wants is to return to that dynamic. Instead, its hope is to
integrate Russia into the European security system, or at least give it a sufficient
stake in the European economic system that Russia does not seek to challenge the
European security system. This immediately affects French relations with Russia. For
Paris, partnership with Germany is the foundation of France's security policy and
economy. If Germany moves into a close security and economic relationship with
Russia, France must calculate the effect this will have on France. There has never
been a time when a tripartite alliance of France, Germany and Russia has worked
because it has always left France as the junior partner. Therefore, it is vital for
the Germans to present this not as a three-way relationship but as the inclusion of
Russia into Europe, and to focus on security measures rather than economic measures.
Nevertheless, the Germans have to be enormously careful in managing their
relationship with France.
Even more delicate is the question of Poland. Poland is caught between Russia and
Germany. Its history has been that of division between these two countries or
conquest by one. This is a burning issue in the Polish psyche. A closer relationship
between Germany and Russia inevitably will generate primordial fears of disaster in
Poland.
Therefore, Wednesday's meeting with the so-called triangular group is essential.
Both the French and the Poles, and the Poles with great intensity, must understand
what is happening. The issue is partly the extent to which this affects German
commitments to the European Union, and the other part -- crucial to Poland --is what
this does to Germany's NATO commitments.
The NATO Angle
It is noteworthy the Russians emphasized that what is happening poses no threat to
NATO. Russia is trying to calm not only Poland, but also the United States. The
problem, however, is this: If Germany and Europe have a security relationship that
requires prior consultation and cooperation, then Russia inevitably has a hand in
NATO. If the Russians oppose a NATO action, Germany and other European states will
be faced with a choice between Russia and NATO.
To put it more bluntly, if Germany enters into a cooperative security arrangement
with Russia (forgetting the rest of Europe for the moment), then how does it handle
its relationship with the United States when the Russians and Americans are at
loggerheads in countries like Georgia? The Germans and Russians both view the United
States as constantly and inconveniently pressuring them both to take risks in areas
where they feel they have no interest. NATO may not be functional in any real sense,
but U.S. pressure is ever-present. The Germans and Russians acting together would be
in a better position to deflect this pressure than standing alone.
Intriguingly, part of the German-Russian talks relate to a specific security matter
-- the issue of Moldova and Transdniestria. Moldova is a region between Romania and
Ukraine (which adjoins Russia and has re-entered the Russian sphere of influence)
that at various times has been part of both. It became independent after the
collapse of communism, but Moldova's eastern region, Transdniestria, broke away from
Moldova under Russian sponsorship. Following a change in government in 2009, Moldova
sees itself as pro-Western while Transdniestria is pro-Russian. The Russians have
supported Transdniestria's status as a breakaway area (and have troops stationed
there), while Moldova has insisted on its return.
The memorandum between Merkel and Medvedev specifically pointed to the impact a
joint security relationship might have on this dispute. The kind of solution that
may be considered is unclear, but if the issue goes forward, the outcome will give
the first indication of what a German-Russian security relationship will look like.
The Poles will be particularly interested, as any effort in Moldova will
automatically impact both Romania and Ukraine -- two states key to determining
Russian strength in the region. Whatever way the solution tilts will define the
power relationship among the three.
It should be remembered that the Germans are proposing a Russian security
relationship with Europe, not a Russian security relationship with Germany alone. At
the same time, it should be remembered that it is the Germans taking the initiative
to open the talks by unilaterally negotiating with the Russians and taking their
agreements to other European countries. It is also important to note that they have
not taken this to all the European countries but to France and Poland first -- with
French President Nicolas Sarkozy voicing his initial approval on June 19 -- and
equally important, that they have not publicly brought it to the United States. Nor
is it clear what the Germans might do if the French and Poles reject the
relationship, which is not inconceivable.
The Germans do not want to lose the European concept. At the same time, they are
trying to redefine it more to their advantage. From the German point of view,
bringing Russia into the relationship would help achieve this. But the Germans still
have to explain what their relationship is with the rest of Europe, particularly
their financial obligation to troubled economies in the eurozone. They also have to
define their relationship to NATO, and more important, to the United States.
Like any country, Germany can have many things, but it can't have everything. The
idea that it will meld the European Union, NATO and Russia into one system of
relationships without alienating at least some of their partners -- some intensely
-- is naive. The Germans are not naive. They know that the Poles will be terrified
and the French uneasy. The southern Europeans will feel increasingly abandoned as
Germany focuses on the North European Plain. And the United States, watching Germany
and Russia draw closer, will be seeing an alliance of enormous weight developing
that might threaten its global interests.
With this proposal, the Germans are looking to change the game significantly. They
are moving slowly and with plenty of room for retreat, but they are moving. It will
be interesting to hear what the Poles and French say on Wednesday. Their public
support should not be taken for anything more than not wanting to alienate the
Germans or Russians until they have talked to the Americans. It will also be
interesting to see what the Obama administration has to say about this.
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to
www.stratfor.com.
Copyright 2010 Stratfor.
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If I wasn't crying out loud I would be laughing out loud.
"Obama declared Thursday that he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have "succeeded in resetting"" :roll:
"Obama gave Russia perhaps the biggest gift it could have wanted from the meetings: an unqualified, hearty plug for Moscow's ascension to the World Trade
Organization." - :cry: (The GREAT ONE did it again - Medvedev sound like he was swayed by greatness - even Mort Zucker is sickened)
***FOX News By DESMOND BUTLER, Associated Press Writer Desmond Butler, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 12 mins ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama declared Thursday that he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have "succeeded in resetting" the relationship between the former Cold War adversaries that had dipped to a dangerous low in recent years.
Obama directly acknowledged differences in some areas, such as Moscow's tensions with neighboring Georgia, but said "we addressed those differences candidly." And he announced that the U.S. and Russia had agreed to expand cooperation on intelligence and the counterterror fight and worked on strengthening economic ties between the nations.
Obama gave Russia perhaps the biggest gift it could have wanted from the meetings: an unqualified, hearty plug for Moscow's ascension to the World Trade Organization. Russia has long wanted membership but U.S. support in the past has come with conditions.
"Russia belongs in the WTO," Obama said as the two leaders stood side-by-side in the East Room after several hours of meetings — including an impromptu trip to a nearby burger joint for lunch.
The leaders faced questions about the U.S.-led Afghanistan war, and Obama promised that the U.S. will "not miss a beat" because of the change in military command that he ordered on Wednesday. Obama accepted Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation and replaced him with his direct boss, Gen. David Petraeus.
Petraeus "understands the strategy because he helped shape it," Obama said.
Medvedev seemed reluctant to wade into the topic, recalling the ultimately disastrous Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
"I try not to give pieces of advice that cannot be fulfilled," Medvedev said. "This is a very hard topic, a very difficult one."
Yet he said that Russia supports the U.S. effort if it can result in Afghanistan emerging from extreme poverty and dysfunction to have "effective state and a modern economy."
"This is the path to guarantee that the gravest scenarios of the last time will not repeat," he said.
Obama said the two had also agreed to coordinate on humanitarian aid for Kyrgyzstan, wracked by turmoil in the wake of the president's ouster. Kyrgyzstan's president was driven from power in April amid corruption allegations, sparking violence that has left about 2,000 people dead and 400,000 ethnic Uzbeks homeless.
Asked about a major flashpoint between the U.S. and China, Obama said Washington would judge the effect of Beijing's latest currency announcement over the course of the year, rather than overnight. Obama and Medvedev go this weekend to Canada for the G-20 summit, with China's leader also attending. Obama faces pressure from Congress and the U.S. business community to press Beijing more aggressively on its currency policy.
The U.S. argues that the weak Chinese yuan hurts American exports. On Saturday, China announced it would loosen its controls on the currency, but the move may not strengthen the yuan enough for U.S. tastes.
The agenda for Obama and Medvedev was modest, and mostly focused beyond security issues to expanding trade and economic cooperation. Russia has the world's eighth-largest economy but ranks 25th among U.S. trading partners.
"The true significance of Medvedev's visit is that it brings us closer to a relationship that doesn't require Cold War-style summits to sustain itself," says Sam Charap, a Russia analyst at the Center for American Progress. "The lack of headlines is actually a sign of progress."
Medvedev arrived at the White House on a sweltering summer morning for a series of meetings with Obama and U.S. officials. It was their seventh meeting since Obama took office 17 month ago.
Leaving the formality of the White House, they sneaked away for an impromptu ride across the Potomac River to a popular hamburger joint — Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington, Va. Customers cheered when the two walked in.
Later, at the news conference, Medvedev called the burgers "probably ... not quite healthy but it's very tasty."
After their joint news conference, Obama and Medvedev were going together to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Ahead of the talks, U.S. officials pointed to signs that Obama's much-heralded efforts to start fresh with Moscow have delivered results, from Russian support for new U.N. sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program to the signing of a major treaty to reduce the two countries' stockpiles of nuclear weapons. They say the U.S. is standing its ground with Russia but shifting the tone away from conflict.
But conservative critics see Obama as too conciliatory and say he hasn't resolved disputes over issues such as Moscow's human rights record, missile defense and the legacy of the Russia-Georgia war of 2008. They charge that by speaking softly on those issues, the United States is compromising its influence among Russia's neighboring countries.
Medvedev began his U.S. visit in California, where he toured Silicon Valley high-tech firms as part of his push to establish a high-tech center in Russia.***
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I caught a flash of the Prez's speech; IIRC we are selling them an excrement load of Boeing Aircraft and some chickens , , ,
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Paris, Berlin, Moscow and the Emerging Concert of Europe
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is hosting Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday and Tuesday at the French Atlantic resort of Deauville. The summit is being described by Western media as an opportunity for Russia to improve its relations with NATO, with Paris and Berlin lending a hand toward the reconciliation between Moscow and the West.
In a way, the press on the summit is correct: The summit is ultimately about the West’s relationship with Russia. Unfortunately for the United States, Central Europeans, the United Kingdom and a large part of Europe’s firmly pro-U.S. countries such as the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, it’s about the West as defined by Paris and Berlin — which is to say … Paris and Berlin.
“For both France and Germany, but particularly Germany, Russia is not a current security threat but rather a potential energy and economic partner.”
The topics of the meeting will be wide ranging, concentrating on security and Moscow’s relationship with NATO and the European Union. Specifically, the Russian president will bring up the Russian proposal for a new European Security Treaty. While Moscow claims that the proposal is not intended to replace NATO, the United States and its European allies — particularly Central Europeans worried about Russia’s intentions — see it as attempting to do exactly that.
Both Sarkozy and Merkel have indicated that they will listen to what Medvedev has to say on the proposed treaty. Just the fact that Berlin and Paris are willing to listen to Moscow’s proposal is worrisome to the rest of Europe. In fact, the timing of the summit is particularly jarring. The NATO heads of state summit — at which the alliance will approve a new Strategic Concept — is to be held in exactly one month, and yet Paris and Berlin have no problems so openly coordinating European security with Moscow. It is akin to spending a weekend on the sea with a mistress ahead of one’s 25-year marriage anniversary.
Paris and Berlin are both feeling like their marriage with NATO is getting stale. For both France and Germany, but particularly Germany, Russia is not a current security threat but rather a potential energy and economic partner. And neither Berlin nor Paris wants to be part of any future “American adventurism” outside of the European theater of operations, since both see efforts in Afghanistan as largely an enormous expenditure of resources for dubious benefits. The divergent interests of the various NATO member states have France and Germany looking to bring matters of European security back to the European theater, and that means talking to Russia.
France has an additional motive in wanting to make sure that as Germany and Russia get close, France is the one organizing the meeting and therefore keeping an eye on the developing Berlin-Moscow relationship (as evidenced by the fact that Sarkozy is the one hosting the other two leaders). In this context, we can consider Sarkozy’s idea to set up a European Security Council, which according to German newspaper Der Spiegel he would propose at the Deauville summit. Paris is trying to compensate for the strong Berlin-Moscow relationship by going out of its way to create structures that would involve Paris in the future European security architecture. France wants to be able to control the discussion and the makeup at these forums and introduce outside players if it feels that it needs to balance Moscow and Berlin.
While no public or official proposals or agreements may be seen out of the Deauville meeting, Russia is more interested in striking a very real understanding with France and Germany. The lack of public announcements should not detract from the fact that Medvedev is meeting with Sarkozy and Merkel to get a sense of their willingness to offer Russia clear security concessions. Russia wants a commitment and an understanding from France and Germany that they are willing to allow Russia its sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union and that they intend to coordinate with Russia on any future security matters that affect Moscow. Moscow does not want to be blindsided in the future as it was with the West’s decision to back Kosovo’s independence or to be completely left outside of European security matters as it was during the 1990s and doesn’t want to cross a red line with Paris or Berlin as it resurges. Tuesday’s meeting is most likely about creating guidelines on what Russia is allowed to do and what is going too far. Russia is currently at a delicate place in its resurgence during which it may cross into territory that could be construed as being beyond its direct sphere — specifically Moldova — so it needs to know where France and Germany stand now.
The entire episode is beginning to look very much like the Concert of Europe congress system of diplomacy. Between 1815 and 1914, Europeans resolved most geopolitical disagreements by holding a “Congress” at which concessions were made and general geopolitical horse-trading was conducted among the European powers. And if a particularly problematic country refused to make concessions — or was the very subject of the meeting — it could be denied access to the Congress in question.
Whether the Deauville summit results in concrete proposals or not, the significance is not in statements that follow but in the fact that Berlin and Paris no longer see anything wrong in spending a few days by the sea with Russia, especially as the rest of their supposed European allies wait for their input at the NATO summit. This tells us that Europe may have already entered a new Concert era, whether or not post-WWII institutions such as NATO still exist.
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Summary
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski ended a visit to the United States on Dec. 9. The visit comes amid some tensions between Poland and the United States, as Warsaw is dissatisfied with Washington’s level of commitment to Polish security. Poland is thus looking elsewhere for security guarantees to guard against the Russian resurgence. It has begun cooperating with Sweden and discussing security issues with other Central European countries and, more recently, has been developing a cooperative relationship with Turkey.
Analysis
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski wrapped up a two-day visit to the United States on Dec. 9. The most significant result of the visit was U.S. President Barack Obama’s official commitment to a previous Washington proposal to station U.S. land-based SM-3 interceptors in Poland by 2018 as part of its NATO-wide missile defense system and an offer to periodically station F-16 fighter jets and C-130 transport planes in Poland starting in 2013 for joint military exercises. Poland confirmed the latter offer, but Washington has not issued confirmation as of this writing.
The periodic stationing of U.S. Air Force assets in Poland is significant in that it will enhance Poland’s ability to use its own F-16s, purchased from the United States in 2003. However, neither the SM-3s nor the F-16s — nor the current rotational deployment of a unarmed Patriot missile battery — are enough to guarantee that the United States is fully committed to Poland’s defense. Poland therefore could look to enhance its strategic situation through a multitude of partnerships much closer to home, particularly with Sweden, other Central Europeans and potentially Turkey.
Komorowski’s visit to the United States came amid slight tensions between Washington and Warsaw. Recently leaked U.S. diplomatic cables showed that Warsaw was not satisfied with the rotational deployment of the unarmed Patriot missile battery; one senior Polish military official quoted in the cables referred to them as “potted plants.” But the tensions preceded the leaks and even the Patriot missile system’s deployment. Specifically, they have been building ever since September 2009, when Washington reneged on the ballistic missile defense (BMD) plans struck between the previous U.S. administration and Warsaw. What irked Warsaw in particular was the perception that the United States changed the BMD plans in order to gain assurances from Russia that it would not sell the S-300 air defense system to Iran and that it would support the U.S. effort to impose U.N. sanctions on Tehran. The perception in Warsaw was that the United States was trading Poland’s security guarantees for concessions from Russia in a part of the world completely unrelated to Warsaw’s security.
What Poland Wants
Essentially, Warsaw wants Washington to explain its grand strategy so that Poland understands where it fits in it. As Komorowski directly said during his visit, Poland has “no interests either in Iraq or Afghanistan,” and it followed the United States into both countries purely out of principle. In other words, Poland sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan so that it can receive strong security guarantees from the United States in Europe.
The unarmed Patriot battery, the horse-trading between the United States and Russia on BMD, and the rotational, for-exercise-only deployment of F-16s is an inadequate commitment from Warsaw’s perspective. The deployment of F-16s is not a complete throwaway, however; it will help Poland become proficient in flying and maintaining its own F-16s and thus enhance its security. But Poland has wanted a permanent U.S. deployment of some sort for a long time, a point that Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich reiterated in his visit to Washington on Sept. 30. The rotational and temporary nature of both the Patriot and F-16 offers is insufficient. And the fact that the F-16s only come into the picture in 2013 — and the SM-3 BMD component in 2018 — adds to Poland’s suspicion that the United States simply is not ready to commit itself to Polish security fully.
Poland’s geopolitical situation is difficult. Komorowski pointed this out by saying, “We are between Russia and Germany and this is such a place where, even if someone integrates, even if we have a common European home, or NATO, there are still some drafts. No matter on which floor someone opens a door or window, we Poles still have a runny nose.”
Looking Elsewhere
Without a firm U.S. commitment, Poland is looking to patch up its security holes as best as it can. It has turned to Sweden for help on the diplomatic front, jointly applying pressure on the Russians in Eastern Europe. The Polish and Swedish foreign ministers have made joint visits to Ukraine and Moldova in the past three weeks. Warsaw is also looking to its fellow Central Europeans via the Visegrad Group — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary — a group that in 2010 began discussing security matters seriously, including cooperation among members’ air forces. It also intends to make EU defense policy — a concept that has not really carried much weight in policymaking circles for much of the last 60 years — one of the main pillars of its EU presidency in the latter part of 2011, a big part of which will mean turning to France to try to spur greater cooperation on defense matters.
However, Poland’s solutions come with their own problems. Cooperation with Sweden has not (yet) included defense matters. The Central Europeans — even combined — do not have the strength to counter Russia (and often bicker with each other). And any EU defense policy would have to include Germany, which is unlikely to offer Poland any true security guarantees due to its budding relationship with Russia.
This is why STRATFOR is watching carefully the cooperation developing between Poland and Turkey. While Komorowski was in Washington, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was in Ankara meeting with the Turkish leadership. The talks were broad and concentrated on everything from general cooperation in NATO, Turkish EU prospects and a potential EU visa waiver for Turkish citizens. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan specifically stated that cooperation between the countries’ defense industries will increase. But what is interesting is that both Poland and Turkey are sizable regional powers that are trying to manage a Russian resurgence in their own regions. The two countries have no outstanding security concerns, nor are they politically at odds on any significant issue. Neither country wants to be outwardly hostile toward Russia, but both want the credibility and strength to give Moscow notice that there are red lines and limits to the spread of its power. There are differences as well, with Ankara far more reserved about openly aligning with the United States on contentious issues like Russia.
The more Warsaw feels that the U.S. alliance, which Poland has no intentions of abandoning, is insufficient for its security, the more it will look to the countries in its immediate region that perceive the Russian resurgence with as much — or almost as much — trepidation as Poland does. Sweden and Turkey both fit this profile. What they perceive as their own spheres of influence — Stockholm in the Baltics and Ankara in the Balkans and Caucasus — are experiencing heavy Russian involvement. They are therefore potentially useful allies in countering Russia while the United States is constrained by its operations in the Middle East.
Read more: Poland Examines its Defense Partnership Options | STRATFOR
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PARIS — Since a low-key Christmas Eve announcement of a French sale of assault ships to Russia, high-level government deal makers have boasted about the multimillion-euro deal like it was a soccer game triumph. “France wins,” declares the Web site for the Élysée Palace.
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Anatoly Maltsev/European Pressphoto Agency
A French Navy Mistral amphibious assault ship,docked on the Neva River in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2009.
But critics — particularly among Russia’s neighbors including Georgia, Estonia and Lithuania — are raising alarms that France may have pioneered the way for other Western countries to sell Russia whatever they have to offer, from high-technology military equipment to rights for oil pipelines.
“It’s a scandal,” said André Glucksmann, a French philosopher and critic of the deal. He said in an interview on Tuesday that the announcement was timed for the busy Christmas season to bury the “dirty details.”
The boxy, 600-foot-long Mistral vessel is an advanced helicopter carrier equipped with a command center and hospital for military landing operations. It is the first major arms purchase by Russia abroad and the first sale by a NATO country, illustrating the shifting role of an alliance once conceived to counter Soviet military power.
One of the sticking points in negotiations was whether the deal would include advanced naval weapons and defense systems. In the months leading to the deal, a series of French officials softened their stand, saying that France was willing to supply the technology without restrictions.
The French have said nothing in the last few days to spell out the level of technology the Russians will gain. But Russia’s neighbors are clearly worried.
“It’s a little bit premature to take this step because it establishes a precedent,” said Rasa Jukneviciene, the Lithuanian defense minister. In the past, she said, French officials assured Lithuania that sensitive technology would not be included. “But now we are getting information that it is included,” Ms. Jukneviciene said.
The Baltic states have long raised concerns, keenly aware of the comments of Russia’s naval chief, Adm. Vladimir S. Vysotsky, who last year bluntly evaluated the potential benefits the equipment could have offered during the five-day Georgian war in 2008: “Everything that we did in the space of 26 hours at the time, this ship will do within 40 minutes.”
Nino Kalandadze, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, says that the ships can carry up to 16 helicopters and more than 450 troops, giving Moscow much greater command of its coastlines.
“We hope that Russia will use the ships according to international law as a self-defense mechanism,” Ms. Kalandadze said. “But Russia’s current leadership is not one that can always be trusted. It’s known for its disregard for international laws.”
Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, took a more muted view of the deal. “We do not see the sale of these two or possibly four ships as a major challenge for the security environment in the Baltic Sea region,” he wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. “The possible impact is still something that we have to take into account in our long-term planning.”
Under the deal, two of the ships will be built in the French shipyards of St.-Nazaire on France’s Atlantic coast and the next two will be built in St. Petersburg, Russia. The sale underlines Russia’s rising military ambitions and the deterioration of its own arms industry. It is struggling, for example, to finish repairs to upgrade the Admiral Gorshkov, a heavy-aircraft carrier purchased by India. Some analysts predict that construction of a Mistral ship in Russia will also lag.
“In principle, Russia is capable, but it will take a lot longer because the productivity here is inferior. France is more technologically advanced and also, there is no experience building a ship like this in Russia,” said Konstantin Makienko, deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Russian research organization that analyzes the arms trade.
Much of the geopolitical wrangling about the deal emerged in secret American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. In February 2010, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates raised the issue with President Nicolas Sarkozy and France’s defense minister at the time, Hervé Morin.
According to the ambassador’s report of the meeting, Mr. Gates noted that Russia failed to honor an armistice in Georgia brokered by Mr. Sarkozy. Mr. Gates also was scornful of the top deal makers: “Russian democracy has disappeared, and the government is an oligarchy run by the security services.”
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The European Perception of Biden's Russian Visit
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden began his official visit to Russia on Wednesday by meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, to be followed by a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Prior to his visit, Biden made a half-day stopover in Helsinki, where he met with Finnish President Tarja Halonen and had a working lunch with Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi.
The Finland visit was relatively low-key — the main topic of discussion was the economy and not strategic matters — and amounted to little more than a refueling stop on Biden’s way to Moscow. The highlight of Biden’s trip is the U.S.-Russian relationship and the subsequent visit to Moldova. During Biden’s previous European visits, he concentrated on Washington’s relationship with its Central European allies. Europe, particularly Western Europe, does not play a minor role in the complex relationship between Washington and Moscow.
“Germany and France are not engaging Russia for the sake of transforming Russia into some sort of liberal democracy — that is merely the explanation given to the United States and Central Europe — but because it is in their national and economic interests to do so.”
Core Europe — as Germany and France refer to their European Union leadership duo along with the surrounding Western European countries — has for the past 16 months been preoccupied by the eurozone sovereign crisis that has already claimed Greece and Ireland and could require a Portuguese bailout by the end of March. Despite this general preoccupation, France and Germany have increased their engagement with Russia in several ways. First, Paris and Berlin lobbied for Moscow to be included as a “strategic partner” during the negotiations for NATO’s Strategic Concept, essentially the alliance’s mission statement, to the chagrin of Central European — former Soviet sphere — member states. Second, France has stood firm regarding plans to sell Mistral helicopter-carrier amphibious assault ships to Russia, despite criticism from the same Central European states, especially the Baltics. Third, Germany has in the last few weeks boosted its military relationship with Russia, with German defense contractor Rheinmettal offering to build a training center in Russia, and only days ago concluding a contract to provide Moscow with armor plating.
From the perspective of Germany and France, Russia is no longer the existential threat that it was during the Cold War. Russia is in fact a lucrative business partner. Central Europe’s fears of a Russian resurgence are therefore bad for business. Russia needs to be engaged via trade and business, which will lead to an internal transformation of Russia to be more like Europe. Or at least that is the view that German government officials circulate regarding their dealings with Russia, arguing that the “soft power” of trade and economic links will lead to a change in attitude toward Russia. Whether Berlin and Paris actually believe that story is largely irrelevant; it is a useful explanation — especially when talking to American officials and the media — recounting why they are pursuing a relationship with Russia that is counter to the interests of their fellow NATO allies in Eastern and Central Europe.
A central tenet of this argument is the supposed leadership style difference between Medvedev and Putin. Most Western European officials genuinely believe that Medvedev, were he actually powerful enough, would have a different leadership prerogative that would be more favorably inclined toward the West. However, European officials also play up the supposed differences between Medvedev and Putin as an explanation for why they are so earnestly engaging Russia. The argument goes something like this: Business contacts and technology transfers that boost Russia’s ongoing modernization efforts will favor Medvedev and increase his standing in the leadership pantheon of the Kremlin. Therefore, Europe should continue to engage Moscow, and the United States and Central Europe should not stand in its way, since aggression will only turn Russia inward.
The problem with this logic, however, is that Europeans operated the same way even with Putin and even immediately after Russia invaded Georgia in August 2008. Germany and France are not engaging Russia for the sake of transforming Russia into some sort of a liberal democracy — that is merely the explanation given to the United States and Central Europe — but because it is in their national and economic interests to do so.
A good example of this dynamic is precisely the negotiations for Russia’s inclusion as a NATO “strategic partner.” Europeans argued that this was a monumental development since Russia committed in the text of the NATO Strategic Concept to a number of supposed benchmarks on democracy and rule of law. However, it is not clear anyone in Paris or Berlin takes Moscow’s commitments seriously.
Meanwhile, Russia knows how to play the game with Western Europe. Specifically, it knows how to show hints of internal “reform” to satisfy the “soft power” complex of Europe. But at the same time, it is using its enhanced military relationship with France and Germany as a way to counter American influence in countries like Poland and Romania. Moscow feels that it doesn’t necessarily have to respond to every U.S. encroachment in Poland with a tit-for-tat counter — Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad to counter U.S. Patriot missile battery deployment for example — but instead by further developing a relationship with Germany and France and showing both the United States and Central Europe that it is a serious player on the continent.
This obviously begs the questions: What does the future hold for NATO? And how do Paris and Berlin intend to manage their supposed obligations to fellow NATO member states with economic interests with Russia?
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By GUY CHAZAN
Russia has assumed an unusually cooperative role in Japan's nuclear crisis, presenting itself as eager to ease strains on global natural gas markets after years of being criticized for using its energy reserves as a political weapon.
Over the weekend, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russia's OAO Gazprom could pipe more natural gas into the European Union to allow EU-bound cargoes of liquefied natural gas to be diverted to Japan, which was forced to shut down a big chunk of its nuclear power capacity after the March 11 earthquake.
But analysts say it's unclear whether European customers actually want more Russian gas, which is linked to the price of oil and is much more expensive than imports of LNG from places like Qatar.
Russia's reputation as a dependable energy exporter was badly tarnished by a series of pricing disputes with Ukraine which led to cut-offs of Russian gas deliveries to Europe in the middle of winter. Moscow was accused at the time of using its natural riches to pressure its neighbors.
But in the wake of the earthquake that damaged Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant and plunged the country into a nuclear crisis, Russia has offered Japanese companies stakes in two big natural gas fields in Siberia, pushed a proposed "energy bridge" that would bring Russian-generated electricity via underwater cable to Japan, and said it was ready to increase gas supplies to Europe in order to free up LNG for Japan. The announcement was part of efforts by Russia to position itself as a kind of Saudi Arabia of natural gas—able to provide swing capacity at short notice to stabilize markets.
Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italian oil and gas company ENI SpA, said the crisis in Japan and the unrest in Libya, which triggered a sharp decline in oil and gas exports from the North African country, would strengthen Russia's position in European markets, as well as that of other big exporters of pipeline gas. Events in Japan and Libya "mean more piped gas coming from the three traditional suppliers into Europe—Algeria, Russia and Norway," he said in an interview.
Italy asked Gazprom late last month to increase deliveries of gas from 30 million cubic meters a day to 48 million cubic meters after ENI shut down a key pipeline bringing natural gas under the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy.
Analysts say the crisis in Japan, which has eroded confidence in nuclear power worldwide, is generally supportive of gas demand globally. China, India and others have said they will need to re-examine their long-term nuclear strategy, and Germany has closed down seven of its oldest nuclear reactors. An analysis by Deutsche Bank found that if just 10% of nuclear power facilities around the world were shut down due to safety concerns, the world would need an additional 7 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas—an increase of 2.3% over 2010 consumption levels. That could lead to upward pressure on spot prices for gas, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, analysts say.
But Jonathan Stern, director of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, was skeptical that Europe would want to increase its imports of Russian gas. He said many of Gazprom's biggest customers are taking the minimum set out in their long-term "take-or-pay" contracts with the Russian export monopoly and have little desire to boost those volumes.
"The Russians are desperate to pump more gas into Europe, but they're insisting on an oil-linked price," he said.
A spokesman for Gazprom's export arm declined to comment on how events in Japan and Libya would affect the gas market. But he said they were "clearly positive for all gas producers, including Gazprom of course."
"So far this year, we've supplied less than contracted, so we have the ability to increase supplies to Europe," the spokesman said. But he acknowledged that none of Gazprom's European customers apart from Italy had so far asked for increased deliveries of gas.
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Visegrad: A New European Military Force
May 17, 2011 | 0859 GMT PRINT Text Resize:
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By George Friedman
With the Palestinians demonstrating and the International Monetary Fund in turmoil, it would seem odd to focus this week on something called the Visegrad Group. But this is not a frivolous choice. What the Visegrad Group decided to do last week will, I think, resonate for years, long after the alleged attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is forgotten and long before the Israeli-Palestinian issue is resolved. The obscurity of the decision to most people outside the region should not be allowed to obscure its importance.
The region is Europe — more precisely, the states that had been dominated by the Soviet Union. The Visegrad Group, or V4, consists of four countries — Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary — and is named after two 14th century meetings held in Visegrad Castle in present-day Hungary of leaders of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The group was reconstituted in 1991 in post-Cold War Europe as the Visegrad Three (at that time, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were one). The goal was to create a regional framework after the fall of communism. This week the group took an interesting new turn.
(click here to enlarge image)
On May 12, the Visegrad Group announced the formation of a “battlegroup” under the command of Poland. The battlegroup would be in place by 2016 as an independent force and would not be part of NATO command. In addition, starting in 2013, the four countries would begin military exercises together under the auspices of the NATO Response Force.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the primary focus of all of the Visegrad nations had been membership in the European Union and NATO. Their evaluation of their strategic position was threefold. First, they felt that the Russian threat had declined if not dissipated following the fall of the Soviet Union. Second, they felt that their economic future was with the European Union. Third, they believed that membership in NATO, with strong U.S. involvement, would protect their strategic interests. Of late, their analysis has clearly been shifting.
First, Russia has changed dramatically since the Yeltsin years. It has increased its power in the former Soviet sphere of influence substantially, and in 2008 it carried out an effective campaign against Georgia. Since then it has also extended its influence in other former Soviet states. The Visegrad members’ underlying fear of Russia, built on powerful historical recollection, has become more intense. They are both the front line to the former Soviet Union and the countries that have the least confidence that the Cold War is simply an old memory.
Second, the infatuation with Europe, while not gone, has frayed. The ongoing economic crisis, now focused again on Greece, has raised two questions: whether Europe as an entity is viable and whether the reforms proposed to stabilize Europe represent a solution for them or primarily for the Germans. It is not, by any means, that they have given up the desire to be Europeans, nor that they have completely lost faith in the European Union as an institution and an idea. Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to expect that these countries would not be uneasy about the direction that Europe was taking. If one wants evidence, look no further than the unease with which Warsaw and Prague are deflecting questions about the eventual date of their entry into the eurozone. Both are the strongest economies in Central Europe, and neither is enthusiastic about the euro.
Finally, there are severe questions as to whether NATO provides a genuine umbrella of security to the region and its members. The NATO Strategic Concept, which was drawn up in November 2010, generated substantial concern on two scores. First, there was the question of the degree of American commitment to the region, considering that the document sought to expand the alliance’s role in non-European theaters of operation. For example, the Americans pledged a total of one brigade to the defense of Poland in the event of a conflict, far below what Poland thought necessary to protect the North European Plain. Second, the general weakness of European militaries meant that, willingness aside, the ability of the Europeans to participate in defending the region was questionable. Certainly, events in Libya, where NATO had neither a singular political will nor the military participation of most of its members, had to raise doubts. It was not so much the wisdom of going to war but the inability to create a coherent strategy and deploy adequate resources that raised questions of whether NATO would be any more effective in protecting the Visegrad nations.
There is another consideration. Germany’s commitment to both NATO and the EU has been fraying. The Germans and the French split on the Libya question, with Germany finally conceding politically but unwilling to send forces. Libya might well be remembered less for the fate of Moammar Gadhafi than for the fact that this was the first significant strategic break between Germany and France in decades. German national strategy has been to remain closely aligned with France in order to create European solidarity and to avoid Franco-German tensions that had roiled Europe since 1871. This had been a centerpiece of German foreign policy, and it was suspended, at least temporarily.
The Germans obviously are struggling to shore up the European Union and questioning precisely how far they are prepared to go in doing so. There are strong political forces in Germany questioning the value of the EU to Germany, and with every new wave of financial crises requiring German money, that sentiment becomes stronger. In the meantime, German relations with Russia have become more important to Germany. Apart from German dependence on Russian energy, Germany has investment opportunities in Russia. The relationship with Russia is becoming more attractive to Germany at the same time that the relationship to NATO and the EU has become more problematic.
For all of the Visegrad countries, any sense of a growing German alienation from Europe and of a growing German-Russian economic relationship generates warning bells. Before the Belarusian elections there was hope in Poland that pro-Western elements would defeat the least unreformed regime in the former Soviet Union. This didn’t happen. Moreover, pro-Western elements have done nothing to solidify in Moldova or break the now pro-Russian government in Ukraine. Uncertainty about European institutions and NATO, coupled with uncertainty about Germany’s attention, has caused a strategic reconsideration — not to abandon NATO or the EU, of course, nor to confront the Russians, but to prepare for all eventualities.
It is in this context that the decision to form a Visegradian battlegroup must be viewed. Such an independent force, a concept generated by the European Union as a European defense plan, has not generated much enthusiasm or been widely implemented. The only truly robust example of an effective battlegroup is the Nordic Battlegroup, but then that is not surprising. The Nordic countries share the same concerns as the Visegrad countries — the future course of Russian power, the cohesiveness of Europe and the commitment of the United States.
In the past, the Visegrad countries would have been loath to undertake anything that felt like a unilateral defense policy. Therefore, the decision to do this is significant in and of itself. It represents a sense of how these countries evaluate the status of NATO, the U.S. attention span, European coherence and Russian power. It is not the battlegroup itself that is significant but the strategic decision of these powers to form a sub-alliance, if you will, and begin taking responsibility for their own national security. It is not what they expected or wanted to do, but it is significant that they felt compelled to begin moving in this direction.
Just as significant is the willingness of Poland to lead this military formation and to take the lead in the grouping as a whole. Poland is the largest of these countries by far and in the least advantageous geographical position. The Poles are trapped between the Germans and the Russians. Historically, when Germany gets close to Russia, Poland tends to suffer. It is not at that extreme point yet, but the Poles do understand the possibilities. In July, the Poles will be assuming the EU presidency in one of the union’s six-month rotations. The Poles have made clear that one of their main priorities will be Europe’s military power. Obviously, little can happen in Europe in six months, but this clearly indicates where Poland’s focus is.
The militarization of the V4 runs counter to its original intent but is in keeping with the geopolitical trends in the region. Some will say this is over-reading on my part or an overreaction on the part of the V4, but it is neither. For the V4, the battlegroup is a modest response to emerging patterns in the region, which STRATFOR had outlined in its 2011 Annual Forecast. As for my reading, I regard the new patterns not as a minor diversion from the main pattern but as a definitive break in the patterns of the post-Cold War world. In my view, the post-Cold War world ended in 2008, with the financial crisis and the Russo-Georgian war. We are in a new era, as yet unnamed, and we are seeing the first breaks in the post-Cold War pattern.
I have argued in previous articles and books that there is a divergent interest between the European countries on the periphery of Russia and those farther west, particularly Germany. For the countries on the periphery, there is a perpetual sense of insecurity, generated not only by Russian power compared to their own but also by uncertainty as to whether the rest of Europe would be prepared to defend them in the event of Russian actions. The V4 and the other countries south of them are not as sanguine about Russian intentions as others farther away are. Perhaps they should be, but geopolitical realities drive consciousness and insecurity and distrust defines this region.
I had also argued that an alliance only of the four northernmost countries is insufficient. I used the concept “Intermarium,” which had first been raised after World War I by a Polish leader, Joseph Pilsudski, who understood that Germany and the Soviet Union would not be permanently weak and that Poland and the countries liberated from the Hapsburg Empire would have to be able to defend themselves and not have to rely on France or Britain.
Pilsudski proposed an alliance stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and encompassing the countries to the west of the Carpathians — Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In some formulations, this would include Yugoslavia, Finland and the Baltics. The point was that Poland had to have allies, that no one could predict German and Soviet strength and intentions, and that the French and English were too far away to help. The only help Poland could have would be an alliance of geography — countries with no choice.
It follows from this that the logical evolution here is the extension of the Visegrad coalition. At the May 12 defense ministers’ meeting, there was discussion of inviting Ukraine to join in. Twenty or even 10 years ago, that would have been a viable option. Ukraine had room to maneuver. But the very thing that makes the V4 battlegroup necessary — Russian power — limits what Ukraine can do. The Russians are prepared to give Ukraine substantial freedom to maneuver, but that does not include a military alliance with the Visegrad countries.
An alliance with Ukraine would provide significant strategic depth. It is unlikely to happen. That means that the alliance must stretch south, to include Romania and Bulgaria. The low-level tension between Hungary and Romania over the status of Hungarians in Romania makes that difficult, but if the Hungarians can live with the Slovaks, they can live with the Romanians. Ultimately, the interesting question is whether Turkey can be persuaded to participate in this, but that is a question far removed from Turkish thinking now. History will have to evolve quite a bit for this to take place. For now, the question is Romania and Bulgaria.
But the decision of the V4 to even propose a battlegroup commanded by Poles is one of those small events that I think will be regarded as a significant turning point. However we might try to trivialize it and place it in a familiar context, it doesn’t fit. It represents a new level of concern over an evolving reality — the power of Russia, the weakness of Europe and the fragmentation of NATO. This is the last thing the Visegrad countries wanted to do, but they have now done the last thing they wanted to do. That is what is significant.
Events in the Middle East and Europe’s economy are significant and of immediate importance. However, sometimes it is necessary to recognize things that are not significant yet but will be in 10 years. I believe this is one of those events. It is a punctuation mark in European history.
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Summary
Energy projects are likely to be at the center of the July 18-19 talks between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Hanover, Germany. Prominent items on the agenda will be Gazprom’s interest in partnering with German utility companies, the expansion of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline and methods to circumvent EU unbundling reforms. The deals are a sign of the increasingly close relations between the two powers, and they also represent Germany’s willingness to make deals with Russia as Moscow attempts to expand its influence in its neighboring states and Central Europe.
Analysis
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev are scheduled to meet privately July 19 on the sidelines of a two-day bilateral summit in Hanover aimed at bolstering economic ties between Moscow and Berlin. A number of issues are expected to be discussed during the talks, but the discourse will center on the recent increase in Russo-German energy cooperation. This cooperation is categorized by Russian energy giant Gazprom’s interest in engaging in joint ventures with German utility companies, the expansion of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline project, and efforts to deal with the European Union’s third energy package. The new EU mandates are a series of reforms that would require energy retail and production assets be unbundled, a requirement that could pose a threat to future bilateral cooperation.
The deals under discussion in Hanover hold significant strategic importance to Moscow and could be a financial boon for Germany. The energy cooperation agreements that Merkel and Medvedev will be discussing are an indicator of the rapidly strengthening ties between Russia and Germany as well as of Berlin’s willingness to stand as an unconcerned actor in Moscow’s efforts to increase its influence in its periphery and in Central Europe.
A major point of discussion between Merkel and Medvedev will likely be the July 14 preliminary agreement on a potential joint venture between Gazprom and RWE. State-owned Gazprom’s interest in RWE stems from a variety of strategic reasons. First, Gazprom stands to make inroads into the increasingly lucrative German electricity market, where natural gas-fired power plants are expected to increase production to compensate for the loss of electricity generated by the nuclear reactors that Berlin has decided to phase out. Second, Russia would gain access to Germany’s technological expertise in the construction and operation of natural gas-fired plants. Such knowledge is particularly valuable given Russia’s own faltering electricity sector. Finally, Moscow seeks to acquire major Central European energy and electricity assets held by German utility companies. A successful joint venture would grant Russia influence over the energy and electricity sector of the region. Moscow is willing to supply the German companies that agree to a joint venture with lower prices for natural gas, making such a deal financially appealing to Berlin.
Other deals between Russian natural gas suppliers and German utility companies will also be on the meeting’s agenda. Gazprom has shown interest in acquiring power plants and shares from E.On, Germany’s largest utility provider, which also holds significant assets in Central Europe. Thus far, RWE has countered this possibility by including a negotiation exclusivity clause for the next three months, signaling the Essen-based company’s strong interest in the deal. In addition to Gazprom, Russia’s largest independent natural gas provider, Novatek, is negotiating an 800 million euro (about $1.1 billion) cooperative venture with German utility company Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg.
Despite the mutual interest in expanded energy cooperation, the European Commission’s unbundling directive is poised to become a major obstacle to additional Russo-German energy collaboration. A key topic of the Hanover talks will be the ongoing legal battle between Lithuania and Gazprom wherein Gazprom stands accused of violating the unbundling directive. The current energy utility deals are almost certain to encounter vehement opposition from the European Commission and Central European countries. However, Berlin and Moscow established a precedent of sidestepping the EU directive, which forbids energy companies from establishing a producer-to-consumer supply chain, during the creation of the Nord Stream pipeline. Merkel and Medvedev likely will want to replicate this exception and avoid repeating Lithuania’s situation.
The recently completed Nord Stream pipeline will also likely be a matter of discussion, with the two leaders discussing its operational timeline as well as tentative plans for expanding its capacity and output. Nord Stream is one of the main pillars of Germany and Russia’s deepening economic cooperation and a fundamental part of Moscow’s strategy toward its periphery. The direct link between Gazprom’s natural gas fields and Germany’s shoreline via an underwater pipeline in the Baltic Sea allows Russia to sidestep Belarus, Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic countries in natural gas delivery. This bypass ensures Russia can pursue more aggressive energy policies toward its periphery if it so chooses without affecting Germany’s downstream supply.
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http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/08/02/54099467.html :cry: :oops: :-(
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Ummm , , , wouldn't that be better placed in the Russia-US thread or the Cognitive Dissonance thread?
Anyway, you are right :oops: :oops: :oops:
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Dispatch: Romania's Role in Europe's Geopolitical Trends
August 24, 2011 | 1856 GMT
Click on image below to watch video:
On his way to Romania, analyst Eugene Chausovsky explains Romania’s important role in three different Central European geopolitical trends.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Related Links
Russia’s Case to NATO for Integrated Missile Defense
The Divided States of Europe
Germany’s Choice: Part 2
STRATFOR is currently following three major geopolitical trends in Central Europe. One country that serves as an insightful case to look into these trends is Romania, where I am traveling to next.
The first trend that we are following is growing pressures on two key European institutions: the EU and NATO. The EU continues to be mired by weak economic growth as a result of the ongoing European financial crisis. Two of the leading EU economies, Germany and France, posted little to no growth in the second quarter of this year. Romania, which relies on these countries, particularly Germany, as a market for its exports, grew only 0.2 percent in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, NATO has been showing early signs of devolution into regional blocs. The biggest divergence between NATO members is a camp that is willing and happy to work with the Russians and a second camp that is more concerned with a growing Russian resurgence. Romania is firmly in the latter camp as it has contentious issues with Russia over Moldova, and it is concerned over a Russian buildup in the Black Sea.
The second trend that we are following is Russia taking advantage of these growing pressures on the EU and NATO. Russia has been building its relationship with major Western European countries like Italy, France and especially Germany. Moscow is using these growing relationships to leverage its position in Central Europe. For example, Russia and Germany are currently in talks for Russia to acquire energy utility companies, many of which have assets in Central Europe. Russia has also begun to purchase stakes in some of Austria’s banks, which are quite active in Central Europe. These developments are of concern to Romania.
The third trend is an intensifying geopolitical competition over Central Europe between the U.S. and Russia. Due to the growing relationship of Russia and some of the key Western European countries, the United States has pledged to increase its cooperation with many of the Central European states. One key aspect of this is the U.S. ballistic missile defense, or BMD, which is said to become operational by 2015, and Romania is one of the sites of such a system. However, given that the U.S. has already changed some of its BMD plans and security plans in the face of a resurgent Russia, Romani and the other central European countries are nervous that these U.S. security commitments to them are not set in stone. (Translation: Baraq's chickenexcrement deal with the Russkis trading the BMD for , , , a "reset", continues to have costs unmeasured by the Pravdas of wester MSM) Therefore, Romania is directly impacted by all three developing trends in central Europe and will serve as an important bellwether of how these trends play out in the coming months and years.
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Putin's Candidacy Draws Varied Reactions
Two days following the announcement that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will seek a return to the presidency in March 2012, the decision is already bearing consequences — the first of which is a split inside the Kremlin. Putin’s nomination as the candidate for the ruling United Russia party has actually been welcomed by many within the Kremlin. After all, it is no secret that Putin continued to act as Russia’s top decision maker, even after stepping back from the presidency to the premiership.
“Tough choices between rival factions in the Kremlin will have to be made, and Putin will have to favor one faction over the others.”
But the decision to shift Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to the premiership has caused many of Putin’s loyalists to rebel. Medvedev is seen as weak and too willing to accommodate pro-Western policies. His role as president was accepted as long as Putin served as a buffer in the premiership. But many inside the Kremlin’s ministries are unhappy with Medvedev directly overseeing them. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has already resigned, and STRATFOR sources in Moscow say that other ministers and staff are considering doing the same.
While the announcement was expected to cause some controversy, Putin cannot afford a divided Kremlin as elections for the presidency and parliament approach. Tough choices between rival factions in the Kremlin will have to be made, and Putin will have to favor one faction over the others.
Meanwhile, international reaction to Putin’s announced return has been varied. Powerful states such as the United States and Germany have an established near-term relationship with Russia, and said they will work with whoever is in charge. Smaller countries, like the Baltic states and many Central European countries, have a different view on Putin’s possible return to the presidency. They see it as a sign that Russia is about to return to a more assertive foreign policy.
These states are not entirely incorrect. As STRATFOR discussed in the lead-up to the ruling tandem’s decision, Putin, while not fond of the idea of returning to the presidency, feels his return may be necessary in light of the foreign policy challenges that lie ahead.
Putin will focus much of his attention on how to manage the further fracturing of NATO and the European Union. NATO is divided on a number of issues, but disagreements over the alliance’s strategic focus are especially splintering the alliance. NATO members France, Italy and Germany want to hold a close relationship with Moscow. This runs against the interests of other members — mainly the Central European countries — that want to make countering Russia a top priority for NATO. These Central European states think Moscow will use Putin’s return, and the more aggressive stance they think Russia will assume under his leadership, to further divide alliance members.
While NATO’s fracturing has arguably been in the works for decades, the tipping point for Putin’s return was most likely the impending crises in the European Union. Putin, as president, will try to assure the Russian people that he is strong enough to prevent the European crises from rippling through Russia. But the crises in Europe are not limited to the financial realm. A fundamental rift has opened up between the various identities united under the banners of the European Union and the eurozone, and the rift seems likely to worsen in the foreseeable future. As with the NATO fracturing, Russia is primed to take advantage of such fissures in order to continue to divide Europe to its own advantage.
Putin’s presence is also intended to show Europe that whatever chaos lies ahead, Russia will remain a beacon of stability and strength — one that Europe could rely on should they choose to. And for those European states who choose not to, life could be made much more difficult.
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When I heard the news the other night, my first thought was "Putin".
I have nothing to offer as evidence, but my gut is not often wrong.
Gaping holes in Russia's Polish air crash report
By:Diana West | 12/31/11 8:05 PM
Examiner Columnist.
Tis the season for media listmania, but rather than note the top 10 stories of the year, I submit my entry for the great unsolved mystery of 2011.
What really happened in the forests at Smolensk, Russia, when a Polish aircraft carrying Poland's national leadership crashed in April 2010, killing all 96 people on board, including Poland's president and first lady?
The answers Russia presented to the world in its official 2011 crash report are wholly unsatisfactory. Indeed, the Moscow-controlled crash investigation seems to have been designed to suppress or tamper with evidence to exonerate Russia of all responsibility for an accident -- or guilt for a crime.
Like a tired rerun of an old horror movie, the Russian pattern of investigation into the 2010 Smolensk crash is the Russian pattern of investigation into the 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre.
It's hard to overstate the significance of that fateful flight by those Polish leaders, now deceased. They lost their lives trying to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Katyn, the mass murder of 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia killed by Stalin in 1940 to make way for a pro-Soviet, Communist Poland.
After their graves were discovered by Nazi German armies in 1943, Stalin denied responsibility for this crime against humanity. Roosevelt and Churchill let him, thus joining in a Big Lie; Stalin's successors lied about it until Boris Yeltsin came along in 1995.
The 2010 anniversary was to be a public, ceremonial Russian admission of guilt. That those who cared so much about Katyn were killed nearby -- and quite possibly assassinated -- is one of history's darkest ironies.
The Russians assert that Polish pilot error, induced by pressure to land supposedly by the Polish president himself, caused the crash. Poles, particularly those associated with the late president's conservative Law and Justice party, see something far more sinister.
In this worst case scenario, Russian air controllers incorrectly informed Polish pilots they were on the proper glide path when that wasn't true. On purpose? If so, the world has witnessed the mass assassination of a government. And done nothing.
I don't claim to judge the evidence. But it's clear an impartial investigation is warranted because of a Moscow-run investigative process marked by irregularities. These include the red flag of a fact that Russia has refused to return the black boxes of the Polish plane to Poland.
Other irregularities, as summarized in a November 2011 Polish document known as the Smolensk Status Report, are that crash evidence was crudely destroyed (including by bulldozers), tampered with, and lied about (Russian investigators claimed no radar video recording existed, for example, but then cited it in the report). The document notes some Russian pathological reports on victims included descriptions of organs that had been surgically removed before the crash.
A glaring discrepancy concerns the cockpit voice recording. To prove the pilots were under third-party pressure to land, the Russians reported a Polish crew member twice says "He will go crazy" if the plane doesn't land.
Both the Polish Investigation Committee and the Polish Prosecutor's Office publicly contended no such statement was made, and that the Russians altered the CVR to create the statement.
In 1952, Congress investigated the Katyn Forest Massacre and proved Soviet guilt; in 2010 and 2011, there were calls in Congress for an independent investigation into the Smolensk crash.
Such an investigation is urgently required in 2012, and not only to solve the mystery of a vexing crash. We must find out whether the West has once again been party to another Big Lie out of Moscow.
Examiner Columnist Diana West is syndicated nationally by United Media and is the author of "The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization."
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/12/gaping-holes-russias-polish-air-crash-report/2047466
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This seemingly dry article is actually rather important IMHO. If central Asia gas can be delivered to Europe, Russian leverage is dimininshed considerably. The strategic implication on this front were part of the calculus IMHO of the Russian invasion of Georgia.
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http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2012/03/26/u-s-shifts-policy-on-gas-pipelines/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=brussels
U.S. Shifts Policy On Gas Pipelines.
By Alessandro Torello
The lengthy battle over which pipeline project will get the go-ahead to carry natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe is finally starting to pick up momentum.
The much talked-about Nabucco project had to be dramatically downscaled, while Shah Deniz –the consortium that is extracting the gas out of a field offshore Azerbaijan–has excluded one contender, the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy, in what was the first big development in the battle for some time.
As events unfold, the U.S. is adjusting its policy on an issue on which it has been highly influential. Washington has been a strong supporter of the idea of getting gas from Central Asia –and in first instance from Azerbaijan– to Europe. It has considered this key to boosting Europe’s security of supply and reducing its energy dependence on Russia.
While initially it favored Nabucco –the most prominent, biggest and most expensive of the pipeline projects– the U.S. administration has slowly shifted its position, moving to a broader support for the so-called Southern Corridor, as the future pipeline path from Azerbaijan to the European Union, across Georgia and Turkey, is called.
Here’s how Richard Morningstar, the U.S. special envoy for Eurasian energy, one of the main policy makers behind the U.S. policy on Central Asian energy, explained it.
“We were perceived, certainly three years ago, [to be] very Nabucco-centric,” Mr. Morningstar said speaking at a conference over the weekend in Brussels. But “it’s become apparent, at least in the first instance, that there is not enough gas… to fill a full Nabucco pipeline, so our policy… is that we support the Southern Corridor,” he said.
Until a month ago, four projects were competing for that corridor. Nabucco and the BP-backed South-East Europe Pipeline both planned to carry gas to Central Europe, possibly all the way to Austria, while the Trans Adriatic Pipeline and ITGI would supply it to Italy.
But the exclusion of ITGI in February increased TAP’s chances. According to some, this clearly gave TAP the pole position in the overall race: One of TAP’s main sponsors is Norway’s Statoil, which also holds a stake in Shah Deniz, as does BP.
That could raise some concerns. If the Caspian gas goes to Italy, it will not offer much relief to countries in central Europe –Bulgaria first in the list– that are almost totally dependent on Russian gas.
Relieving that dependence was the original aim of the whole Southern Corridor concept, and Mr. Morningstar suggested in an interview that this goal hadn’t been forgotten in Washington. “The first priority has to be getting at least a reasonable amount of gas to the Balkans,” he said. “I think the Shah Deniz consortium and BP understand that if they were to build TAP, significant gas would have to be left in the Balkans,” he explained.
Whether that is feasable, will all depend on how much gas will be reaching Europe. TAP is designed to carry between 10 and 20 billion cubic meters of gas annually, so any significantly lower amount would be a challenge to its profitability, since the lower the volume carried, the higher per cost per unit. It would certainly not make economic sense if it could carry only 5 bcm a year.
Considering that no more than about 10 bcm a year are scheduled to be transported to Europe from the Shah Deniz field to Europe in the current decade, things could be tricky.
Unless, that is, more gas becomes available in the Caspian. If it does, the conundrum could be resolved. “We will know a lot more in the next year, year-and-a-half (about whether) there is any more than the 10,” Mr. Morningstar said.
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http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/2012/03/30/pressure-builds-in-russia-ukraine-pipeline-row/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=emergingeurope
By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen
Russia raised the stakes Friday over its efforts to take control of Ukraine’s gas-pipeline system, as it started diverting gas supplies to Europe away from the former Soviet republic. But Moscow has yet to play its most powerful card that could put an end to the saga about gas transit through Ukraine.
Ukraine said earlier Friday that Russia had almost halved gas-transit volumes through its pipeline system to Europe in recent days.
“This is only the beginning,” a Gazprom spokesman said not long after, adding that lowering volumes was part of a move to redirect gas from Ukraine to the Nord Stream pipeline and through Belarus.
Russia — a major supplier of natural gas to Europe — relies strongly on Ukraine, through which Russian gas travels west to Europe. The two neighbors remain locked in talks over a new gas-supply contract; Kiev is pushing for cheaper gas in order to balance its budget, but in exchange for lower-priced gas, Moscow is aiming to gain control of Ukraine’s pipeline system.
In a sign that tensions are building, the move to lower transit volumes comes after a Russian bank — which is 41%-owned by Gazprom — indicated it will provide a $2 billion loan to allow the Ukrainian gas-transit company to buy gas from Russia.
“I’m not sure if it is a case of carrot and stick,” said Timothy Ash, an analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC in London.
Russia is also putting additional pressure on Ukraine by speeding up construction of the South Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas under the Black Sea to Europe.
However, as strains build, Moscow’s could yet pull a rabbit out of its hat. ”A gas-price discount is still Russia’s main bargaining chip, as it looks to secure control of the pipelines,” Mr. Ash said.
Kiev is trying desperately to secure cheaper gas from Moscow. The Ukrainian government refuses to increase gas prices for domestic consumers ahead of parliamentary elections in October, and it is keeping the state gas company afloat with repeated injections of capital from the state budget.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said recently that he hopes to reach a new gas deal with Russia in May.
Such a deal “would probably be part of an agreement that would give Gazprom a stake in or control over Ukraine’s gas transmission system,” said Andrew Neff, an analyst at IHS Global Insight.
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Polish soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan
Editor's note: The first in our two-part series on the evolving Polish armed forces focuses on Poland's geography and alliance options. The second focuses on how NATO membership is influencing Poland's military modernization efforts.
Poland needs alliance structures to guarantee its security, meaning Warsaw's primary military imperative is to maintain and increase interoperability between its armed forces and NATO. Integrating the Polish military into Western defense structures after nearly 45 years of operating within Soviet systems has been a large, expensive and protracted undertaking. The main priority in this transition is moving away from late-model Soviet equipment in favor of more modern equipment that can integrate with NATO systems on land, sea and in the air.
Land
The Polish army has focused heavily on replacing or upgrading older Soviet hardware to become a more effective and modern army and to increase NATO interoperability. This has included upgrading and modernizing its main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, missile systems, munitions, helicopters and more. In general, Poland is restructuring its ground troops into a smaller, more flexible force with expeditionary capabilities more reflective of NATO's defense priorities.
Poland contributes significantly to NATO's mission in Afghanistan with some 2,420 troops deployed with the International Security Assistance Force, making Poland the fifth-largest troop contributor outside the United States. Poland contributed a similar-sized force to U.S.-led operations in Iraq, with a total troop deployment of approximately 2,500. The operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have been an opportunity for Poland to be extremely active in NATO, helping facilitate its forces' transition into the alliance network and to cement security ties. Poland's contributions to both wars are far more indicative of Warsaw's need for a tight security relationship with the United States than of any common military objectives.
Sea
Poland's navy suffers from the same basic geopolitical constraints that its land forces do when they come up against much more powerful neighbors in difficult geographic conditions. Even a small naval force easily can block both of Poland's main ports, Gdansk and Gdynia, given the numerous chokepoints in the eastern Baltic Sea. Access to the Atlantic Ocean requires passage through the Skagerrak, the strait that connects the North and Baltic Seas that can -- and has been -- blocked by the Swedes, the Danes and the Germans. Once past the Skagerrak, a Polish fleet would still have to traverse either the North Sea or the English Channel before reaching the Atlantic, which brings British naval forces into the equation. As such, the main priority of Poland's navy traditionally has been access denial and defense of the coast against hostile forces approaching by sea.
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Poland has a large and well-equipped indigenous fleet of minehunters and minesweepers. This is both a legacy of the Cold War, during which Polish shipyards produced mostly landing craft and minesweepers given the Polish navy's role under the Warsaw Pact of dominating the Baltic Sea. This role coincided with Poland's maritime geography, since Polish naval and commercial vessels are vulnerable to a blockade of the Skagerrak. Poland's resulting relatively extensive minesweeping capabilities are a unique and valuable skillset it can provide within the NATO alliance structure.
Since joining the NATO security structure, Poland's navy has become less focused on coastal defense and instead is prioritizing increased integration and interoperability with NATO and international naval forces. Poland has invested millions in the development of advanced naval command and control, or C2, capabilities. This allowed for the full integration of the national C2 system -- including computer systems, radios and other assorted communication devices -- with the NATO network. It is difficult to overstate the degree of technical overhaul required to transition C2 systems. Soviet and NATO hardware simply cannot communicate with each other.
Air
Modernizing an air force is a slow process because it tends to be more technology heavy than other branches and, thus, expensive. Poland has spent millions upgrading and modernizing late-model Soviet aircraft like the MiG-29 that would otherwise need to be retired as well as procuring 48 F-16C/D fighters from the United States. Poland also has purchased five C-130E Hercules cargo planes being refurbished by the United States. Building out its transport and logistical capabilities will strengthen Poland's position in NATO, since these types of aircraft are critical for transporting personnel and military equipment in the expeditionary type of operations typical of NATO forces.
Recently, Poland announced that rather than upgrade its 38 Soviet-built Su-22 fighter jets, its Defense Ministry plans to replace the fleet with 123 to 205 unmanned combat aerial vehicles. These require more personnel to pilot, maintain, launch and track the vehicle than a manned platform, but training personnel to operate them takes less time than training pilots. The specifics on exactly what type of unmanned combat aerial vehicles Poland plans to purchase have not been announced. A fleet of unmanned combat aerial vehicles could not replace the specific capabilities of an Su-22, but the shift to more unmanned vehicles is the general trend among most modern militaries. While extremely expensive to develop, investing in this type of technology puts Poland along the path of the future of aerial combat. In the long run, this should be more cost beneficial than continuously upgrading outdated platforms. It is a process, however, that takes significant time and money and may hinder the Polish air force in the meantime.
Other Procurements
Poland's need for an external power to guarantee its security means that the Polish military must take into consideration not only Poland's national imperatives but the imperatives of its allies as well. This applies to procuring some defense equipment and/or developing military capabilities not only suited for Poland's national defense needs but also meant to endear the Polish military to its allies. Examples of this include Poland's leasing of 40 Cougar mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles from the United States to be used in Afghanistan as well as Poland's purchase of eight Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles, four of which are slated for use in Afghanistan as well. Poland can certainly make use of the unmanned aerial vehicles when they are no longer necessary in Afghanistan. The mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles are especially well suited for NATO's counter-insurgency mission, since they provide some of the best protection against the improvised explosive devices used to target Western forces in Afghanistan. But though mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles could be used as typical transport vehicles in Poland, it would prove expensive, meaning they most likely will be returned to the United States.
Poland continues to prioritize its "special" bilateral relationship with the United States. Most important to Poland is retaining some U.S. military presence on Polish soil. In May 2011, the United States sent a number of F-16s from the California National Guard to train alongside Polish F-16s. As of next year, U.S. forces will be stationed in Poland for the first time, though still only on a rotational basis. Poland has been hoping to secure even more of a U.S. commitment by hosting land-based SM-3 ballistic missile defense interceptors as part of a U.S.-led missile defense system in Europe. But Washington's commitment to ballistic missile defense in Europe has shifted repeatedly over the years as a result of changes in the U.S. administration, technological advances and strategic priorities regarding the U.S. relationship with Russia and Central/Eastern Europe. Consequently, Warsaw has been increasing its emphasis on the promotion of regional security groupings with various Central and Eastern European states, the Baltics and even the Nordic states, moves that attest to Poland's centrality in a number of different alliance structures.
Fortunately for Poland, the current security environment in Eurasia has created an atmosphere in which the traditional threats to Poland are more hypothetical than immediate. The longer this remains true, the more time Poland will have to develop its military capabilities. Whether it uses this time to bulk up depends upon whether Warsaw prioritizes increasing its independent military force instead of relying solely on the existence of NATO and the European Union to guarantee its security. While necessary, too much dependence on outside powers is ultimately a gamble for Poland and could leave it vulnerable. On the other side of the equation, however, the resources required to create a strong military capable of independently defending Poland against its traditional geopolitical threats would require a massive expenditure of revenues, manpower and time.
Read more: The Transformation of the Polish Armed Forces: NATO and Military Modernization | Stratfor
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10290243/Russia-mocks-Britain-the-little-island.html
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By Robert D. Kaplan and Eugene Chausovsky
At this juncture in history, the fate of Europe is wound up not in ideas but in geopolitics. For millennia, eruptions from Asia have determined the fate of Europe, including invasions and migrations by Russians, Turkic tribes and Byzantine Greeks. Central and Eastern Europe, with their geographical proximity to the Asian steppe and the Anatolian land bridge, have borne the brunt of these cataclysms. Today is no different, only it is far subtler. Armies are not marching; rather, hydrocarbons are flowing. For that is the modern face of Russian influence in Europe. To understand the current pressures upon Europe from the east it is necessary to draw a map of energy pipelines.
Russian-European Natural Gas Networks
One-quarter of all energy for Europe comes from Russia, but that statistic is an average for the whole continent; thus, as one moves successively from Western Europe to Central Europe to Eastern Europe that percentage rises dramatically. Natural gas is more important than oil in this story, but let us consider oil first.
Russia is among the top oil producers worldwide and has among the largest reserves, with vast deposits in both western and eastern Siberia. Crucially, Russia is now investing in the technology necessary to preserve its position as a major energy hub for years and decades to come, though it is an open question whether current production levels can be maintained in the long term. Russia's primary gateway to Europe for oil (and natural gas) is Belarus in the north and Ukraine in the south. The Druzhba pipeline network takes Russian oil through Belarus to Poland and Germany in the north and in the south through Ukraine to Central Europe and the Balkans, as well as to Italy. Russia certainly has influence in Europe on account of its oil, and has occasionally used its oil as a means of political pressure on Belarus and Ukraine. But moving westward into Europe, negotiations over Russian oil are generally about supply and pricing, not political factors. It is really with natural gas that energy becomes a useful political tool for Russia.
Russia is, after the United States, simply the largest producer of natural gas worldwide, with trillions of cubic meters of reserves. Europe gets 25 percent of its natural gas from Russia, though, again, that figure rises dramatically in Central and Eastern Europe; generally, the closer a country is to Russia, the more dependent it is on Russian natural gas. Central Europe (with the exception of Romania, which has its own reserves) draws roughly 70 percent of the natural gas it consumes from Russia. Belarus, Bulgaria and the Baltic states depend on Russia for 90-100 percent of their natural gas needs. Russia has used this dependence to influence these states' decision-making, offering beneficial terms to states that cooperate with Moscow, while charging higher prices and occasionally cutting off supplies altogether to those that don't. This translates into real geopolitical power, even if the Warsaw Pact no longer exists.
The Yamal pipeline system brings Russian natural gas to Poland and Germany via Belarus. The Blue Stream pipeline network brings Russian natural gas to Turkey. Nord Stream, which was completed in 2011, brings Russian natural gas directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea, cutting out the need for a Belarus-Poland land route. Thus, Belarus and Poland now have less leverage over Russia, even as they are mainly dependent on Russia for their own natural gas supplies by way of separate pipelines.
The next major geopolitical piece in this massive network is the proposed South Stream pipeline. South Stream would transport Russian natural gas across the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Austria, with another line running to Italy via the Balkans and the Adriatic. South Stream could make Central Europe and the Balkans more dependent on Russia, even as Russia does not require Ukraine for the project. This, combined with Nord Stream, helps Russia tighten its grip on Ukraine.
But there is also Caspian Sea oil and natural gas to consider, particularly from Azerbaijan, which inhibits Russia's monopoly. Oil and natural gas pipelines built with the help of Western energy companies in the 2000s bring energy from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku through Georgia to Turkey and onwards to Europe. Furthermore, the Nabucco pipeline network has the potential to bring Caspian Sea natural gas across the Caucasus and Turkey all the way to Austria, with spur lines coming from Iraq and Iran. Obviously, this is a complex and politically fraught project that has not materialized. Winning out over Nabucco has been the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), a far less ambitious network that will bring Azerbaijani natural gas across Turkey to Greece and Italy. Because TAP avoids Central Europe and the Balkans, its selection over Nabucco constitutes a clear victory for Russia, which wants Central and Eastern Europe dependent on it and not on Azerbaijan for energy. In fact, Russian political pressure was a factor in TAP's victory over Nabucco.
The real long-term threat to Russian influence in Europe comes less from Azerbaijan than from the building of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals. These are facilities located on coastlines that convert LNG back to natural gas after it has been liquefied to enable transport across seas and oceans. With an LNG terminal, a country is less dependent on pipelines emanating from Russia. Poland and Lithuania are building such terminals on the Baltic Sea and Croatia wants to build one on the Adriatic. The Visegrad countries of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been building pipeline interconnectors, in part to integrate with -- and take advantage of -- these Baltic terminals. This LNG comes from many sources, including North Africa, the Middle East and North America. That is why Russia is deeply concerned about vast shale gas discoveries in the United States and elsewhere in Europe -- natural gas that could eventually be exported with the help of LNG terminals to Central and Eastern Europe.
Russia is also worried about the European Union's attempt to break its energy monopoly through legal means. According to new legislation known as the Third Energy Package, which is still in the process of being implemented, one energy company cannot be responsible for production, distribution and sales, because the European Union defines that as a monopoly. And such monopolistic practices actually describe Russian energy companies like Gazprom. If the European Union gets its way, Russian corporate control will be unbundled.
Therefore, we forecast that Russia's use of energy to extract political concessions will weaken over time, but will nevertheless remain formidable in parts of Central and Eastern Europe. While energy has served as an effective tool for Russia to wield political influence in Europe, Moscow is first and foremost concerned about maintaining the revenue from energy exports that has become so crucial for Russia's own budget and economic stability. In this sense, maintaining European market share (and further developing market share in Asia) takes precedence over political manipulation for Moscow.
Consequently, Russia will have to become even more subtle and sophisticated in the way that it deals with its former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact satellites.
Read more: Pipelines of Empire | Stratfor
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Russia and Europe Vie to Win the Prize of Ukraine
Putin's grand plan to restore the Russian empire may depend on which way Kiev goes later this month.
by Walter Russell Mead
Nov. 15, 2013 6:27 p.m. ET
This could be the month that determines the success or collapse of Vladimir Putin's strategic plan for Russia. Even as shrewd Russian diplomacy runs rings around a stumbling White House on Syria, and as NSA revelations by Mr. Putin's honored guest Edward Snowden continue to strain U.S. ties with allies, the Russian president's imperial dream is hanging by a thread.
His problem is Ukraine, which since the early 1990s has resisted multiple attempts by Russia—some diplomatic, some subversive, some bellicose—to bring it back under Moscow's control. The turning point may be Ukraine's decision later this month on whether to sign a free-trade agreement with the European Union.
The collapse of the Soviet Union ended 200 years of Russian expansion and empire building. Under the czars, Russian territory stretched past Warsaw into the heart of Central Europe; Stalin's armies camped on the Elbe. President Putin called the Soviet collapse "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."
Russia has lots of reasons to want its old empire back. Control of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan will give Russia more control over world oil and gas markets. Central Asia is rich in resources and Russia fears both Chinese and Islamist ambitions there. The Baltic republics occupy part of what Russia regards as a necessary security frontier against NATO and the West around St. Petersburg. The Baltics also cut Russia off from the Kaliningrad enclave (formerly known as Königsberg and seized from Germany at the end of World War II) and contain sizable Russian minorities.
But there is no doubt that, psychologically and practically, the crown jewel of Russia's lost empire is Ukraine. Its capital Kiev was the birthplace of Russian culture and for many Russians it is an integral part of their homeland. The Crimea is a mostly ethnic-Russian region that Nikita Khrushchev arbitrarily deeded over to Ukraine in 1954. The eastern half of the country speaks Russian and many people there would be happy to return to Moscow's arms.
It isn't just nostalgia that draws Russia to Ukraine. It's also about power and security. With Ukraine back in the fold, Russia has the potential to become the kind of great European power whose interests the EU cannot disregard. Recovering Ukraine is how Vladimir Putin can become Vladimir the Great, ranking with Peter, Catherine and Alexander I as a dominant figure in Russian history.
Mr. Putin's chosen instrument for the first stage in the restoration of Russia as a great power is what he calls the Eurasian Union. This counterpart to the European Union would bring the former Soviet states first into a customs union and then increasingly move toward integration as the EU has done. To get ex-Soviet states to join, Russia is pulling out all the stops.
Kazakhstan and ever-loyal Belarus have already signed up. Armenia has announced its intention to join. Georgia's prime minister says that his country would consider membership if Russia returned the Georgian territories it holds, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
But Ukraine is the pearl of great price. With Ukraine, the Eurasian Union is on the road to becoming a significant force; without Kiev, it is little more than a bluff.
The Kremlin has had reason to be optimistic about Ukraine since the current president, Viktor Yanukovych, defeated his archrival, the pro-Western Yulia Tymoshenko, as power returned to political parties based in the eastern, more pro-Russian half of Ukraine. When the Yanukovych government had Ms. Tymoshenko jailed for corruption in 2011, the EU responded by pressuring Mr. Yanukovych to release her and more generally to make government more transparent. From a Kremlin point of view this looked promising; Mr. Yanukovych and the oligarchs around him would surely prefer a closer, no-questions-asked relationship with Moscow than to enter a free-trade agreement with the busybodies of the EU.
Yet to Moscow's profound displeasure, Ukraine has so far shown strong signs of preferring the EU to Russia as its primary trade and political partner. Even Russian-speaking oligarchs in eastern Ukraine believe that the EU offers greater opportunities and perhaps more security for their wealth than a closer association with Mr. Putin's Russia.
November looks like the month of decision. On Nov. 28 the EU is holding a summit in Vilnius for eastern countries like Ukraine, and Ukraine at that point will either sign a free-trade agreement with the EU or not. If it signs, Kiev is on a path that might one day bring it into the EU but will in any case keep it out of Mr. Putin's Eurasia.
The sticking point is Ms. Tymoshenko. The EU, and especially the Germans, believe that her trial was politicized, and they want her freed. This is more than a question about the fate of one person. The fate of Ms. Tymoshenko is being taken as a sign of whether Ukraine's government is prepared to accept the judicial and political standards of the EU.
As Ukraine moves toward its decision, there is frantic maneuvering on all sides. The EU is sweetening its offer by suggesting that Ukraine could begin to enjoy the benefits of a trade deal even before all EU member states have ratified it. It is proposing to help Ukraine with its gas supply if an angry Russia retaliates by shutting the pipelines yet again. And it is pushing the International Monetary Fund to offer Ukraine $10 billion to $15 billion of standby financial support in the event of Russian pressure.
Russia has characteristically responded with a diplomacy of threats: Ukrainian exports to Russia have been mysteriously held up at the frontier and Russian officials from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on down have warned Ukraine of serious consequences should it side with the EU. Meanwhile, in its continuing efforts to reduce its energy dependence on Russia, Ukraine has signed a $10 billion shale gas deal with Chevron CVX +0.42% —news that cannot have brought much joy to Gazprom. OGZPY +0.95%
It is not clear what President Yanukovych will do. Releasing Ms. Tymoshenko would be a bitter pill, and Ukraine may decide that Europe's price is too high. But the Putin regime has so threatened Ukraine that even some of Russia's natural allies in the country are looking west.
And there is one more question. Losing the chance to reel in Ukraine will be the greatest blow to Mr. Putin's prestige since he emerged on the Russian political stage. As the hour of decision approaches, what if anything will he try in a last-ditch effort to delay Russia's permanent relegation to a secondary role in global power politics?
President Yanukovych and his allies want to stoke a bidding war between the EU and Russia for Ukrainian support. The stakes, for Mr. Putin especially, could not be higher.
Mr. Mead is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and editor-at-large of the American Interest.
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Stratfor has long emphasized the geopolitical importance of Ukraine, a point which I have echoed here, see my post of the other day in the Foreign Policy thread by , , , I forget who, but it was a good piece.
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The Stakes in Ukraine
The U.S. should warn Putin not to stoke violence in Kiev.
Updated Dec. 9, 2013 5:48 p.m. ET
For the second consecutive Sunday, more than half a million people filled the streets of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The anti-government demonstrations are an important moment for the future of Europe, though you wouldn't know it from America's indifference.
Ukraine straddles a faultline between autocratic Russia and free Europe. The country of 46 million is divided between Russian-speakers in the east and nationalists in the west, but most Ukrainians want their country to get closer to Europe. The protests show that Ukrainians are fed up with their rapacious political system and aspire to live under the rule of law.
Enlarge Image
A protester smashes a statue of Lenin with a sledgehammer in Tarasa Shevchenko Boulevard, central Kiev. Zuma Press
President Viktor Yanukovych, who is from eastern Ukraine, surprised his countrymen last month by shelving a free-trade deal with the EU he had promised to sign. Russian President Vladimir Putin had imposed trade sanctions and other punitive economic measures on Ukraine to stop the EU deal and drag Kiev into his own trade and political bloc as he tries to reconstitute a Russian empire.
The protests exploded last week after riot police broke up an encampment of pro-EU demonstrators in central Kiev. The protests have since become less about the EU and now include demands for a new government, early elections and constitutional changes. Mr. Yanukovych fanned public anger on Friday when he met Mr. Putin in Sochi, their third recent tête-à-tête. Rumors swirled that Mr. Yanukovych has secretly promised to bring Ukraine into a Moscow-led customs union. The Kremlin and Mr. Yanukovych deny it.
The EU's trade offer was a modest first step to attract Ukraine, but the bloc lacks the vision or ability to offer more. The West's leadership role used to fall to the U.S., which during the Clinton and Bush years actively helped Ukraine become a stronger state. Now the U.S. has lost interest.
Early last week Secretary of State John Kerry offered platitudes about peaceful protests and suggested America's ties with Russia were a bigger priority. He also put his diplomatic foot in it by repeatedly referring to "the Ukraine." Kiev dropped the article "the" after independence in 1991, believing it suggested that Ukraine was merely a region as opposed to a sovereign state. At the end of the week a senior U.S. official finally criticized Mr. Yanukovych's turnabout on Europe.
A peaceful compromise doesn't have to remove Mr. Yanukovych, who is up for re-election in 2015. With the economy sinking along with his support, he's unlikely to win an honest election. A new cabinet and constitutional changes to weaken the presidency could satisfy the streets, and the EU deal could be revived.
But that doesn't account for Mr. Putin, who will play rough to keep Kiev in his orbit. There are rumors of Russian provocateurs in the crowds and the mobilization of riot police to move toward Kiev. For two decades Ukraine has been the powder keg that never blew, mocking a CIA prediction in the early 1990s of likely civil war. But violence is now a possibility, which could destabilize Europe. If Mr. Yanukovych does move toward a Moscow customs union by fiat, he would split the country.
The protests could also set Ukraine on a better course, and that should be the U.S. goal. At a minimum the Obama Administration can make clear to Mr. Putin that he will pay a price if he stokes violence or promotes a crackdown. It would also help if President Obama found his voice for a change on behalf of freedom and the West.
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Edward Lucas: How the West Lost Ukraine to Putin
The Ukrainian leader weighed both sides' offers and chose the one promising him power and money—Russia's offer.
By Edward Lucas
Dec. 10, 2013 6:33 p.m. ET
The scenes from the Ukrainian capital are extraordinary: Lenin's statue toppled, hundreds of thousands of flag-waving protesters, police raids on media outlets and opposition parties. But they are a sideshow to the big picture: the collapse of the European Union's efforts to integrate its ex-Soviet neighbors in the face of an audacious bid by Vladimir Putin's ex-KGB regime to restore the Russian empire.
The EU's expansion to the east was one of its greatest achievements. The countries that joined in 2004—the so-called EU-8 of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia—now represent some of the Continent's most striking success stories. Even grudging voices in "Old Europe" concede that the EU is stronger, not weaker, because of its new members.
But that triumph was based on some particular circumstances. The EU offered genuine membership. These countries truly wanted to reform, modernize and integrate with the West. Their governments and people alike realized that joining the EU was the only way to do it. They were willing to instigate and accept tough reforms. And nobody was able to stop them.
These advantages are absent in the countries of the "Eastern Partnership," the EU's misguided plan to forge closer ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. These six countries are ill-assorted. Oil-rich Azerbaijan wants strategic ties with the West but has scores of political prisoners and tightly controlled media. Belarus has a marginally less bad human-rights record but hews to the Kremlin line in its foreign policy. Armenia has little love for Russia but depends on it for survival against Azerbaijan. Georgia and Moldova are pro-Western but weak, small and vulnerable. And Ukraine is larger than all the others put together.
They do have three things in common, none of them helpful. Their abilities to make deep reforms range from weak to nil. The EU does not want them as full members. And the Kremlin wants to keep them in its orbit.
The result has been an unfolding disaster. The Eastern Partnership has gotten nowhere in Belarus. Azerbaijan said it wanted easy visas to the EU, but its government showed no desire to make political reforms. Armenia tried to engage but was swatted back into line by Russia and in September rejected the EU agreement. Last month, on the eve of the EU's summit in Lithuania, Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych suddenly announced that he won't sign either. Russia was making him and his country an offer they could not refuse.
The details of that offer are still unfolding. It appears to involve an emergency loan for Ukraine's stricken economy, one without the tough conditions, such as higher gas prices, that would be required in any deal with Western lenders such as the International Monetary Fund. It will involve some cheap gas, probably supplied through a murky but well-connected intermediary company. Russia will deploy its huge media resources, especially its television channels, which are widely watched in Ukraine, against the demonstrators and in favor of the Yanukovych regime.
In return, Vladimir Putin will move Ukraine closer to the planned Eurasian Customs Union, the Russian president's pet project for extending Kremlin influence in the former empire.
Those were the carrots for Kiev rejecting closer EU ties, but there were sticks, too. Ukraine is vulnerable to Russian economic sanctions, some of which Moscow had already imposed. Mr. Yanukovych's personal safety is a factor too: He is terrified of being poisoned and travels with an entourage of food-tasters and flunkies that would not disgrace the Byzantine imperial court. In 2004, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin after challenging Kremlin influence in Ukraine. He lived—and became president—but was permanently disfigured.
The EU cannot match that. It does not do death threats or bribes. It helps countries improve their intellectual-property laws and food-safety procedures. It demands proper elections, courts and media regulation, all anathema to the likes of Mr. Yanukovych, who thrives on rigged elections, propaganda machines and phony justice.
The other benefits the EU offers are free trade, which brings a sharp competitive shock first and benefits later, and easier visas, which are of no interest to Mr. Yanukovych, who can travel wherever he wants. Having weighed up both sides' offers, the Ukrainian leader chose the one that promised power and money: the Kremlin's offer.
That decision left EU officials baffled. They do not understand people like Mr. Yanukovych and their feral approach to politics. Nor do they understand Russia. They missed the fundamental point about Russian foreign policy: To feel secure, Moscow needs a geopolitical hinterland of countries that are economically weak and politically pliable. The EU's Eastern Partnership could make Russia's borderlands economically strong and politically secure. Therefore the partnership must be destroyed.
The EU's failure to deal properly with Ukraine is a scandal. It is no exaggeration to say that the country determines the long-term future of the entire former Soviet Union. If Ukraine adopts a Euro-Atlantic orientation, then the Putin regime and its satrapies are finished. The political, economic and cultural success of a large, Orthodox, industrialized ex-Soviet country would be the clearest signal possible to Russians that their thieving, thuggish, lying rulers are not making the country great, but holding it back.
But if Ukraine falls into Russia's grip, then the outlook is bleak and dangerous. Not only will authoritarian crony capitalism have triumphed in the former Soviet Union, but Europe's own security will also be endangered. NATO is already struggling to protect the Baltic states and Poland from the integrated and increasingly impressive military forces of Russia and Belarus. Add Ukraine to that alliance, and a headache turns into a nightmare.
Western leaders have missed no chance to show the Kremlin that they are not to be taken seriously. The EU merely murmured when the Kremlin imposed trade sanctions on Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Lithuania. Its leaders have done little to make waverers in Ukraine think that Europe is to be counted on in a crisis. The belated diplomatic support that the Obama administration has given the EU in its eastern neighborhood is commendable. But it also highlights the shameful neglect of previous years.
The best way Europe or America can help Ukraine—and Georgia and Moldova—is to take a much tougher stance with Russia. The EU should freeze Russia's request for visa-free travel for holders of "official" passports. The U.S. and EU should also freeze Russia's application to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Paris-based good-governance club. The EU should intensify its scrutiny of Gazprom's OGZPY -1.12% behavior in the European gas market and pursue a pending antitrust "complaint" (in effect a prosecution) against the Russian state-owned giant with the greatest vigor possible.
It is time to show Mr. Putin that his hunting license in Russia's neighborhood is now canceled. Don't hold your breath.
Mr. Lucas is the author of "Deception: The Untold Story of East-West Espionage Today" (Walker, 2012) and "The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West" ( Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
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Leading From the Front in Ukraine
A welcome exception to the Obama foreign policy.
Dec. 15, 2013 7:00 p.m. ET
Addressing hundreds of thousands at Kiev's Independence Square on Sunday, John McCain said, "We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently." The Arizona Senator's appearance was a highlight of the latest pro-democracy rally in the Ukrainian capital. And for once the vocal critic of President Obama's foreign policy was reinforcing rather than dissenting from Administration policy.
Entering the fourth week of protests, the outcome of the political showdown in Ukraine hasn't been decided. But this crisis is a good reminder that the U.S. can still bring influence to bear even on internal foreign disputes in a way that no other country can. Over the past five years the Obama Administration has repeatedly shown friends and adversaries that it is reluctant to stand up for America's interests and values. Ukraine shows what the better policy of leading from the front looks like.
For weeks the U.S. had maintained a guarded neutrality in the standoff. The Administration finally found its voice when President Viktor Yanukovych sent his riot police early last Wednesday morning to clear a large encampment from Independence Square. The images from Kiev even roused a remarkable public intervention from Secretary of State John Kerry, who noted his "disgust" with the Yanukovych government. "That's the strongest statement John Kerry has ever given in his life," Mr. McCain told us in Kiev.
Vice President Joe Biden has made several calls to Mr. Yanukovych. The U.S. threatened to impose visa bans and financial sanctions on Ukrainian leaders, whose worst nightmare is to be denied access to their bank accounts and property in the West. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reinforced the message in a telephone call to the country's military chief, who can be counted on to share it with others in the security establishment. The Europeans made similar noises.
Lo and behold, such Western pressure can work, especially when it sides with a popular uprising against an oppressive ruler. Mr. Yanukovych has pulled the riot police back and reached out to the opposition while still offering few concessions. The protests were sparked by his refusal to sign an "association" treaty with the EU, and Mr. Yanukovych is still looking to get an economic lifeline from Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the protest movement has broadened beyond the EU question to demands for the rule of law and more democratic transparency in this post-Soviet country of 46 million.
Victoria Nuland provided one of many enduring images from Ukraine's uprising. After her meeting with President Yanukovych in Kiev last Wednesday after the attempted crackdown, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs said in a light snow storm: "I hope the people of Ukraine know that the U.S. stands with you in your search for justice, for human dignity and security for economic health, and the European future that you have chosen and deserve."
We're not sure what accounts for the Administration's change of heart and mind. Perhaps it is a recognition, at last, that Mr. Putin means no good for U.S. interests. Whatever the motivation, we'll take it.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367372/how-we-can-help-ukraine-robert-zubrin
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America and Ukraine
As the crisis in Kiev worsens, the U.S. needs to move on sanctions.
Jan. 24, 2014 6:40 p.m. ET
The Ukraine showdown between pro-Western demonstrators and President Viktor Yanukovych is escalating, with at least five dead, violent clashes in Kiev and provincial governments joining the opposition this week. It's past time for the U.S. to get more engaged.
Russia's Vladimir Putin has stoked this crisis from the first and isn't about to let up. The Russian strongman has put $15 billion in aid and billions more in cheap energy on the table to make Ukraine an authoritarian state in Moscow's image. His goal is to make it part of a new Greater Russia. He pressured the ruling clique in Kiev to drop an EU "association" treaty in November, which led to the first protests, and Mr. Yanukovych further inflamed the streets last week with repressive new laws.
Yet this country of 46 million has also built a close relationship with Washington since independence in 1991. The U.S. has leverage with Mr. Yanukovych and his entourage that it so far hasn't employed.
On Thursday, Joe Biden finally called the Ukrainian president "to urge an immediate de-escalation in the standoff . . . and to meaningfully address the legitimate concerns of peaceful protesters." That's good, but what took so long? The Veep should have called last week when the Ukrainian parliament passed the inflammatory laws.
Secretary of State John Kerry has also been MIA while chasing windmills in the Middle East. In Davos on Friday he finally said that, "We will stand with the people of Ukraine." And President Obama ? Who?
After the first deaths of protestors in Ukraine's modern history this week, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev on Wednesday revoked the visas of officials linked to the violence. No names were specified. Washington has promised to "consider" other sanctions, and State and Treasury have debated the names of Ukraine officials and business oligarchs who could be put on a list for a visa ban and U.S. asset freeze.
Now's the time to act. Targeted travel and financial sanctions can be imposed by executive order, and the Administration can urge the EU and its member states to do the same. Little scares Ukrainian elites as much as losing access to their London flats or Cypriot bank accounts.
The Obama Administration has largely ignored Europe during its tenure, but the strategic reality is that only Washington can lead an effort to pull Ukraine out of Moscow's orbit. The EU is divided and irresolute. Worrying parallels to Europe's mishandling of the Balkans in the early 1990s aren't far-fetched. Now as then the EU doesn't seem to realize what's at stake in preventing a violent crisis in its neighborhood. The bulk of Europe's energy supplies come through Ukraine, and pipelines crisscross the western regions with local governments that on Thursday fell to anti-Yanukovych demonstrators.
Talks between opposition leaders and Mr. Yanukovych broke down again on Friday and clashes with security forces resumed. Mr. Yanukovych is under pressure from Moscow to put down the uprising. U.S. and EU sanctions can help isolate Mr. Yanukovych by clarifying that there is a price for repression.
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http://nypost.com/2014/01/25/judgment-day-dawns-in-ukraine-as-protests-continue/
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KIEV, Ukraine—Antigovernment protests intensified on Sunday, posing the most serious threat to President Viktor Yanukovych's rule since demonstrations began here more than two months ago and raising the stakes in a battle for influence between Russia and the West.
Tens of thousands of protesters across Ukraine besieged government facilities and dug in at local administrations buildings they are occupying in several regional capitals, in a challenge to Mr. Yanukovych's pivot to the east and Russia's attempts to assert political and economic power in former Soviet republics.
The widening rebellion throws into question the future of Mr. Yanukovych, who in December sealed a multibillion-dollar bailout from Russia that appeared to secure his political future after abruptly turning his back on a partnership deal with the European Union.
Supporters carry the coffin of Mykhailo Zhyznevsky, an antigovernment protester who was killed during recent rallies, during his funeral in Kiev on Sunday. The widening rebellion has thrown into question the future of embattled President Viktor Yanukovych. david mdzinarishvili/Reuters
For Russian President Vladimir Putin, winning Ukraine's allegiance was a significant victory in his quest to reassert influence over former Soviet republics. Ukraine was the centerpiece of an EU program aimed at coaxing democratic overhauls in the region in return for free-trade agreements. Now, only tiny Moldova and Georgia are on track to sign deals.
Ukraine, which Mr. Putin often calls a "brotherly nation," is also a sensitive domestic issue for Russians. A defeat for Mr. Yanukovych could send a powerful signal within Russia, whose tough antiprotest laws and security tactics seem to have served as a model for his response to the demonstrations. The Ukrainian president this month introduced laws mirroring Russian legislation that strictly curbs dissent, and authorities began a brutal crackdown on protesters that left three dead and hundreds injured.
To be sure, Mr. Yanukovych is far from bowed. Police and security services have remained loyal. The loans and cheaper gas secured from Russia in December have patched up Ukraine's economy. Powerful business tycoons have urged a peaceful resolution to protests and allowed their television channels to broadcast events, but haven't openly challenged the president.
But the crackdown and the laws triggered uprisings across Ukraine in recent days that appear to have thwarted Mr. Yanukovych's attempt to take a more authoritarian grip on this country of some 46 million.
The Kremlin, which has endorsed the crackdown and Mr. Yanukovych's labeling of protesters as radicals, must now be worried, said Steven Pifer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"It is hard to see how they can influence the situation now. It has gotten out of hand and they don't have any levers to pull," said Mr. Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
On Saturday, Mr. Yanukovych for the first time offered significant concessions, including appointing two opposition leaders to the government. But the opposition, urged on by protesters who blame the president for last week's police crackdown in Kiev and have called for his ouster, said it would demand additional measures, including snap presidential elections and an amnesty for all protesters.
"No deal," read a post Sunday on the Twitter account of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was offered the job of prime minister as part of the president's concessions. "We're finishing what we started. The people decide our leaders, not you."
The U.S. State Department didn't comment Sunday on Mr. Yanukovych's latest offer, but has been calling for "substantive discussions" between the government and protesters with an aim of "national reconciliation."
Protests began in November, when Mr. Yanukovych shelved the long-planned integration pact with the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia. Protests evolved into a broader outcry against official corruption, police brutality and the president's authoritarian turn. Protesters are also angered by the passing of laws this month that strictly curb dissent and mirror Russian legislation. Repealing them is a key demand.
"Mr. Yanukovych doesn't have the money or the strength" to institute a Russian-style authoritarian regime, said Andrew Wilson, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The uprisings in recent days started in Ukraine's west, where Mr. Yanukovych is most unpopular. The mayor of Lviv, a major center of dissent, said the new laws wouldn't apply there. Protests have even spread to regions east of Kiev that for years have been loyal to Mr. Yanukovych. In cities across Ukraine, crowds stormed local government buildings in recent days, shouting, "Get the gang out!" and "Get the criminal out!" a reference to the two prison terms Mr. Yanukovych served in his youth for theft and assault. Many protesters who occupied local administration and council buildings declared loyalty to the People's Council, set up by the opposition in Kiev.
The opposition and analysts credit the new fronts outside the capital as forcing Mr. Yanukovych, who for weeks has largely ignored the protests in the capital, to change tack.
"Yanukovych's mood was very different. He was not the same as two days ago," Oleh Tyahybok, a nationalist leader who heads one of the three main opposition parties, told the crowd on Kiev's central square after talks on Saturday.
The president's offer, which came in a three-hour meeting with the three main opposition leaders on Saturday, also includes a promise to consider rolling back constitutional changes that handed him more power, a potential amnesty for protesters if they clear the streets and possible release for protesters detained on the front lines in recent days. The opposition said it wanted actions, not promises, as it didn't trust him to keep his word.
A key showdown will be the emergency session of parliament on Tuesday, when the president's allies say an amnesty law and amendments to the authoritarian laws could be considered. The opposition has raised concerns the president could use the session to institute a state of emergency and a broader crackdown, which the government denies.
Analysts said the offer looked like a trap for the opposition, which is divided and has lost support on the square in recent days amid suspicions some leaders are simply ambitious for power and don't have the mettle to take on Mr. Yanukovych.
"This is a bluff, since the loss of control over administrations has put the Yanukovych regime in a dangerous position," said Taras Berezovets, a political analyst at Berta Communications. "They're trying to bring discord into the ranks of the opposition."
The mood on the square in Kiev was defiant on Sunday. After the speeches Saturday night, protesters smashed windows and tossed Molotov cocktails in an attack on a convention center nearby where they said riot police were hiding out in preparation for an attack. They eventually called a truce and allowed police, who were outnumbered, to leave. One group of activists occupied the Justice Ministry late Sunday.
The attack reflects a growing militancy among protesters. Hundreds of men armed with clubs and makeshift shields stand at barricades to defend the Kiev camp, which covers the square and several connected roads. In the country's east on Sunday, thousands of protesters in Zaporizhya and Dnipropetrovsk surrounded city administration buildings. In a sign of increasing unity across Ukraine, hard-core soccer fans known here as "Ultras" pledged to protect protesters from police in many cities.
In Volyn in the country's west, the city's governor, a presidential appointee, knelt briefly before hundreds of protesters asking them not to storm the building, according to video shared by protesters online. When one man entered the building to ask police not to assault protesters, an officer wearing a black helmet told him: "We're with the people. We're Ukrainians." They then embraced. The governor later resigned. In Poltava, the local police chief halted an attempt to storm the governor's offices by taking off his hat and singing the national anthem, local news agencies reported. Protesters seized the building later.
Some attacks on buildings were less peaceful. In Vinnytsia, protesters stormed the regional administration, spraying fire extinguishers and tossing wooden chairs at riot police.
—Alan Cullison and Katya Gorchinskaya contributed to this article.
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By George Friedman
A few months ago, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich was expected to sign some agreements that could eventually integrate Ukraine with the European Union economically. Ultimately, Yanukovich refused to sign the agreements, a decision thousands of his countrymen immediately protested. The demonstrations later evolved, as they often do. Protesters started calling for political change, and when Yanukovich resisted their calls, they demanded new elections.
Some protesters wanted Ukraine to have a European orientation rather than a Russian one. Others felt that the government was corrupt and should thus be replaced. These kinds of demonstrations occur in many countries. Sometimes they're successful; sometimes they're not. In most cases, the outcome matters only to the country's citizens or to the citizens of neighboring states. But Ukraine is exceptional because it is enormously important. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has had to pursue a delicate balance between the tenuous promises of a liberal, wealthy and somewhat aloof Europe and the fact that its very existence and independence can be a source of strategic vulnerability for Russia.
Ukraine's Importance
Ukraine provides two things: strategic position and agricultural and mineral products. The latter are frequently important, but the former is universally important. Ukraine is central to Russia's defensibility. The two countries share a long border, and Moscow is located only some 480 kilometers (about 300 miles) from Ukrainian territory -- a stretch of land that is flat, easily traversed and thus difficult to defend. If some power were to block the Ukraine-Kazakh gap, Russia would be cut off from the Caucasus, its defensible southern border.
Moreover, Ukraine is home to two critical ports, Odessa and Sevastopol, which are even more important to Russia than the port of Novorossiysk. Losing commercial and military access to those ports would completely undermine Russia's influence in the Black Sea and cut off its access to the Mediterranean. Russia's only remaining ports would be blocked by the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. gap to the west, by ice to the northeast, by Denmark on the Baltic Sea, and by Japan in the east.
This explains why in 1917, when the Bolsheviks took power and sued for peace, the Germans demanded that Russia relinquish its control of most of Ukraine. The Germans wanted the food Ukraine produced and knew that if they had a presence there they could threaten Russia in perpetuity. In the end, it didn't matter: Germany lost Word War I, and Russia reclaimed Ukraine. During World War II, the Germans seized Ukraine in the first year of their attack on the Soviet Union, exploited its agriculture and used it as the base to attack Stalingrad, trying to sever Russia from its supply lines in Baku. Between the wars, Stalin had to build up his industrial plant. He sold Ukrainian food overseas and used it to feed factory workers in Russia. The Ukrainians were left to starve, but the industry they built eventually helped the Soviets defeat Hitler. After the Soviets drove the Germans back, they seized Romania and Hungary and drove to Vienna, using Ukraine as their base.
From the perspective of Europe, and particularly from the perspectives of former Soviet satellites, a Ukraine dominated by Russia would represent a potential threat from southern Poland to Romania. These countries already depend on Russian energy, fully aware that the Russians may eventually use that dependence as a lever to gain control over them. Russia's ability not simply to project military power but also to cause unrest along the border or use commercial initiatives to undermine autonomy is a real fear.
Thinking in military terms may seem more archaic to Westerners than it does to Russians and Central Europeans. For many Eastern Europeans, the Soviet withdrawal is a relatively recent memory, and they know that the Russians are capable of returning as suddenly as they left. For their part, the Russians know that NATO has no will to invade Russia, and war would be the last thing on the Germans' minds even if they were capable of waging one. The Russians also remember that for all the economic and military malaise in Germany in 1932, the Germans became the dominant power in Europe by 1939. By 1941, they were driving into the Russian heartland. The farther you move away from a borderland, the more fantastic the fears appear. But inside the borderland, the fears seem far less preposterous for both sides.
Russian Perspectives
From the Russian point of view, therefore, tighter Ukrainian-EU integration represented a potentially mortal threat to Russian national security. After the Orange Revolution, which brought a short-lived pro-EU administration to power in the mid-2000s, Russian President Vladimir Putin made clear that he regarded Ukraine as essential to Russian security, alleging that the nongovernmental organizations that were fomenting unrest there were fronts for the U.S. State Department, the CIA and MI6. Whether the charges were true or not, Putin believed the course in which Ukraine was headed would be disastrous for Russia, and so he used economic pressure and state intelligence services to prevent Ukraine from taking that course.
In my view, the 2008 Russo-Georgian War had as much to do with demonstrating to Kiev that Western guarantees were worthless, that the United States could not aid Georgia and that Russia had a capable military force as it did with Georgia itself. At the time, Georgia and Ukraine were seeking NATO and EU membership, and through its intervention in Georgia, Moscow succeeded in steering Ukraine away from these organizations. Today, the strategic threat to Russia is no less dire than it was 10 years ago, at least not in minds of the Russians, who would prefer a neutral Ukraine if not a pro-Russia Ukraine.
Notably, Putin's strategy toward the Russian periphery differs from those of his Soviet and czarist predecessors, who took direct responsibility for the various territories subordinate to them. Putin considers this a flawed strategy. It drained Moscow's resources, even as the government could not hold the territories together.
Putin's strategy toward Ukraine, and indeed most of the former Soviet Union, entails less direct influence. He is not interested in governing Ukraine. He is not even all that interested in its foreign relationships. His goal is to have negative control, to prevent Ukraine from doing the things Russia doesn't want it to do. Ukraine can be sovereign except in matters of fundamental importance to Russia. As far as Russia was concerned, the Ukrainian regime is free to be as liberal and democratic as it wants to be. But even the idea of further EU integration was a clear provocation. It was the actions of the European Union and the Germans -- supporting opponents of Yanukovich openly, apart from interfering in the internal affairs of another country -- that were detrimental to Russian national interests.
European Perspectives
Ukraine is not quite as strategically significant to Europe as it is to Russia. Europe never wanted to add Ukraine to its ranks; it merely wanted to open the door to the possibility. The European Union is in shambles. Given the horrific economic problems of Southern Europe, the idea of adding a country as weak and disorganized as Ukraine to the bloc is preposterous. The European Union has a cultural imperative among its elite toward expansion, an imperative that led them to include countries such as Cyprus. Cultural imperatives are hard to change, and so an invitation went out with no serious intentions behind it.
For the Europeans, what the invitation really meant was that Ukraine could become European. It could have the constitutional democracy, liberalism and prosperity that every EU state is supposed to have. This is what appealed to most of the early demonstrators. However improbable full membership might be, the idea of becoming a modern European society is overwhelmingly appealing. Yanukovich's rejection made some protesters feel that their great opportunity had slipped away -- hence the initial demonstrations.
The Germans are playing a complex game. They understood that Ukrainian membership in the European Union was unlikely to happen anytime soon. They also had important dealings with Russia, with which they had mutual energy and investment interests. It was odd that Berlin would support the demonstrators so publicly. However, the Germans were also managing coalitions within the European Union. The Baltic states and Poland were eager to see Ukraine drawn out of the Russian camp, since that would provide a needed, if incomplete, buffer between them and Russia (Belarus is still inside Russia's sphere of influence). Therefore, the Germans had to choose between European partners, who cared about Ukraine, and Russia.
The Russians have remained relatively calm -- and quiet -- throughout Ukraine's protests. They understood that their power in Ukraine rested on more than simply one man or his party, so they allowed the crisis to stew. Given Russia's current strategy in Ukraine, the Russians didn't need to act, at least not publicly. Any government in Ukraine would face the same constraints as Yanukovich: little real hope of EU inclusion, a dependence on Moscow for energy and an integrated economy with Russia. Certainly, the Russians didn't want a confrontation just before Sochi.
The Russians also knew that the more tightly pro-Western forces controlled Kiev, the more fractious Ukraine could become. In general, eastern Ukraine is more oriented toward Russia: Its residents speak Russian, are Russian Orthodox and are loyal to the Moscow Patriarchy. Western Ukraine is oriented more toward Europe; its residents are Catholic or are loyal to the Kiev Patriarchy. These generalities belie a much more complex situation, of course. There are Moscow Orthodox members and Russian speakers in the west and Catholics and Kiev Orthodox in the east. Nevertheless, the tension between the regions is real, and heavy pro-EU pressure could split the country. If that were to happen, the bloc would find itself operating in chaos, but then the European Union did not have the wherewithal to operate meaningfully in Ukraine in the first place. The pro-EU government would encounter conflict and paralysis. For the time being that would suit the Russians, as unlikely as such a scenario might be.
U.S. Perspectives
As in most matters, it is important to understand where the United States fits in, if at all. Washington strongly supported the Orange Revolution, creating a major rift with Russia. The current policy of avoiding unnecessary involvement in Eurasian conflicts would suggest that the United States would stay out of Ukraine. But Russian behavior in the Snowden affair has angered Washington and opened the possibility that the United States might be happy to create some problems for Moscow ahead of the Sochi Olympics. The U.S. government may not be supporting nongovernmental organizations as much as its counterparts in Europe are, but it is still involved somewhat. In fact, Washington may even have enjoyed putting Russia on the defensive after having been put on the defensive by Russia in recent months.
In any case, the stakes are high in Ukraine. The Russians are involved in a game they cannot afford to lose. There are several ways for them to win it. They only need to make the EU opening untenable for the Ukrainians, something Ukraine's economic and social conditions facilitate. The Europeans are not going to be surging into Ukraine anytime soon, and while Poland would prefer that Ukraine remain neutral, Warsaw does not necessarily need a pro-Western Ukraine. The United States is interested in Ukraine as an irritant to Russia but is unwilling to take serious risks.
A lot of countries have an interest in Ukraine, none more so than Russia. But for all the noise in Kiev and other cities, the outcome is unlikely to generate a definitive geopolitical shift in Ukraine. It does, however, provide an excellent example of how political unrest in a strategically critical country can affect the international system as a whole.
In most countries, the events in Kiev would not have generated global interest. When you are a country like Ukraine, even nominal instability generates not only interest but also pressure and even intervention from all directions. This has been the historical problem of Ukraine. It is a country in an important location, and the pressures on it tend to magnify any internal conflicts until they destabilize the country in excess of the significance of the internal issues. Germany and the United States may continue to pursue goals that will further irritate Russia, but as Stratfor indicated in our 2014 annual forecast, they will avoid actions that would risk harming Moscow's ties with Washington and Berlin. Russian influence in Ukraine is currently being limited by the proximity of the Olympics and the escalation in protests on the ground, but the fundamental geopolitical reality is that no country has a higher stake in Ukraine than Russia, nor a better ability to shape its fate.
Read more: Perspectives on the Ukrainian Protests | Stratfor
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Summary
In early February, the pro-regime Ukrainian Front was established in Kharkiv to provide a counterweight to the anti-regime movement unified around Maidan Square in Kiev. Although formed at a local conference administered by a branch of the ruling Party of Regions, several grassroots groups, including a cage-fighting club and a veteran's union, have affirmed their patronage. Unofficial support for the Ukrainian Front from President Viktor Yanukovich's government and Russia could turn the new organization into an important element of the Party of Regions' strategy for confronting opposition protesters.
Analysis
A local Party of Regions branch in the eastern city of Kharkiv officially founded the Ukrainian Front at a conference Feb. 1. Described as an umbrella organization consisting of several different social and political groups, the Ukrainian Front aims to set up voluntary militias and give a voice to Ukrainians who support Yanukovich. The group's goals include providing a structure for the diverse set of pro-government elements that have emerged locally and on social media. While the Yanukovich government has shied away from cracking down on protesters over the past few weeks, the establishment of the Ukrainian Front may be the first step in a new strategy for Kiev to confront protesters indirectly.
Ukraine
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The Ukrainian Front enjoys official support from certain members of the Party of Regions as well as elements of the Communist Party. Its political base is currently concentrated in the eastern cities of Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv. The governor of Kharkiv Oblast, Party of Regions politician Mikhail Dobkin, has described the Ukrainian Front as an instrument for defending Ukraine, purging it of those who intend to "invade the country." While it is mainly Party of Regions members from eastern localities who have been most vocal in promoting the new group, they are unlikely to be acting independently of the party's central leadership.
The Ukrainian Front has also received support from local groups, especially in the Kharkiv region. The proposal for the front's formation came from the local chapter leader of the Union of Afghan War Veterans. In addition, the Kharkiv-based Oplot (a cage-fighting club) is currently mobilizing to oppose the Maidan movement. Oleh Tsaryov, a Party of Regions lawmaker from Dnipropetrovsk and one of the Ukrainian Front's leaders, has argued that "people's militias" should be a part of the front's organization. Members of the veterans' group and the Oplot fight club will likely make up the core of these militias in the Kharkiv area.
From the Grassroots Up
In its present form, the Ukrainian Front is unable to present a serious challenge to anti-government protesters. The group is geographically concentrated in eastern cities that serve as strongholds for the ruling Party of Regions. Yet opposition protesters are largely clustered in Kiev and western cities. Furthermore, while individuals in the country's industrial east tend to work in factories with fixed work schedules, seasonal work is common in the more agricultural west. As a result, workers in the east generally require greater incentives to engage in political protests. Even though hundreds of politicians and local activists attended the conference in Kharkiv, the organization's first official public protest -- the picketing of the Lithuanian Embassy in Kiev on Feb. 6 -- saw a turnout of only 30 activists.
Leader of the Oplot fight club, Yevgeny Zhilin
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The Ukrainian Front's ability to influence events has the potential to evolve if it receives significant, albeit unofficial, support from Ukrainian and Russian officials. Tsaryov, a member of parliament and the Ukrainian Front's most vocal supporter, has close ties to Moscow and recently attended the opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics, giving him an opportunity to interact with the heads of Russia's security apparatus. Moreover, although the Ukrainian Front has no official ties to Russia, the leader of the Oplot fight club, Yevhen Zhilin, visited St. Petersburg in early February to rally support among Russians for the anti-Maidan cause. There are also reports that Russian bikers have arrived in Sevastopol, which adds a different dimension: Groups such as the Night Wolves, a prominent biker gang, eschew anti-establishment bombast, supporting Russian patriotism instead.
Organizing pro-government activists away from Kiev could give the Ukrainian Front breathing space to solidify its plans. Meanwhile, the group is in a position to prevent the protest movement from spreading to the eastern parts of Ukraine. Its intent may be to expand its operations to Kiev once its organization is ready to confront the large Maidan crowds and local self-defense groups.
This grassroots movement is similar to those that have been seen in Russia in the past. In late 2011 to early 2012, as anti-Kremlin protests erupted in Russia, President Vladimir Putin adopted a new strategy for confronting the opposition movement. Instead of sponsoring an official crackdown that would have elicited a strongly negative reaction from the international community and potential investors, the Kremlin recruited local thugs -- reportedly workers from a Ural tank factory -- to disperse protesters in Moscow and surrounding regions. Using unofficial grassroots groups to confront opposition movements allowed Putin to evade responsibility for the thugs' actions.
The Ukrainian Front's leadership has not revealed the details of the organization's future activities, though it is clear that the role of local Party of Regions officials, combined with the support of grassroots militant groups such as the Oplot fight club, will be pivotal. These factors, as well as emerging ties with Russia, point to a new direction for the Yanukovich government and its reaction to the Maidan protesters. Like Putin before him, Yanukovich may be looking for a different method of dispersing protesters while being able to downplay his own role in any ensuing violence. Moreover, the Kremlin has an interest in quietly aiding pro-Russian grassroots movements, which can ultimately help the Yanukovich government tighten its hold on power. The newly founded Ukrainian Front may play an important role in the next stage of Ukraine's crisis.
Read more: Ukraine: The Opposition Faces a New Threat from the Ukrainian Front | Stratfor
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Included in this piece is mention of a point I have been making here for some time about Central Asian gas needing to break up Russia's monopsony status and how that was and is forestalled by the Russian invasion of Georgia:
Waking Up to the Russian Threat
The head of NATO says Europe has misread Vladimir Putin for years and now must scramble to push back against the Kremlin's widening ambitions.
By Sohrab Ahmari
April 11, 2014 6:35 p.m. ET
Brussels
Until recently, members of the Russian delegation to NATO were free to roam at will about the Western alliance's headquarters here on the outskirts of the Belgian capital. The Russians had an awkward habit of listening intently to others' conversations at the cafeteria, yet their presence was tolerated in the name of dialogue.
Not anymore. In response to Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea, NATO earlier this month suspended all practical cooperation with Moscow. Now most of the 70 or so Russian personnel enjoy about the same level of access to the alliance headquarters as journalists. It's a small but significant sign of what NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen calls "the new security environment" in Europe.
With his salt-and-pepper hair, chiseled jaw and crisply pressed navy suit, Mr. Rasmussen, 61, cuts a handsome figure. The former Danish prime minister is also one of Europe's most serious thinkers on defense matters—a hawkish figure, by European standards, who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan despite considerable opposition at home. His term as NATO secretary-general, which began in 2009, was supposed to come to a close in December but was extended through September 2014 so he might oversee preparations for the alliance's September summit in Cardiff, Wales.
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Neil Davies
Mr. Rasmussen sits down with me in a meeting room decorated with solemn portraits of his predecessors—men who led NATO through the Cold War and helped usher in "a Europe whole and free," as then-President George H.W. Bush put it in a 1989 speech commemorating the alliance's triumphant 40th anniversary.
Now that vision of Europe is imperiled once more. "I see Ukraine and Crimea in a bigger context," Mr. Rasmussen says. "I see this as an element in a pattern, and it's driven by President Putin's strong desire to restore Russian greatness by re-establishing a sphere of influence in the former Soviet space."
Destabilizing Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus is a pillar of the Kremlin's strategy. "It's in Russia's interest to see frozen, protracted conflicts in the region, such as in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, and Crimea," Mr. Rasmussen says of regions where Moscow has asserted control. "If you look at a map, you will see why it's of strategic importance for Russia."
Related
The West Leaves Ukraine to Putin
Russia's Second Invasion
Moscow's interfering with states on the Continent's eastern periphery prevents them from joining NATO, Mr. Rasmussen says, since the alliance is reluctant to accept new members involved with border disputes. "At the same time," he says, "it plays a role in energy security. The possibility to establish alternative pipelines circumventing Russia—including through Azerbaijan and in the South Caucasus—is very much dependent on peace and stability in that region. All this is part of President Putin's geopolitical and strategic thinking."
The Kremlin needs modern weapons systems and well-trained forces to realize its vision, and Mr. Rasmussen is alarmed by the improvements he has seen in the Russian military during the past few years. Contrasting Russia's military action against Georgia in 2008 with its invasion of Crimea this year, he says, "we have seen an incredible development of the Russian ability to act determinedly and rapidly. We have seen better preparation, better organization and more rapid action. They have also invested in more modern capabilities. We shouldn't underestimate the strength of the Russian armed forces." Now 40,000 of those troops are massed on the border of eastern Ukraine.
Moscow boosted military spending by 79% in the past decade, according to a Brookings Institution estimate, and military spending amounted to 4.5% of Russian gross domestic product in 2012, according to the World Bank. Most Western European states, by contrast, began cutting defense long before the recession and have kept doing so even as their economies have stabilized. France spent 1.9% of its GDP on defense in 2013; Denmark spent 1.4%; Germany, 1.3%; and Spain, 0.9%.
"We in Europe have disarmed too much, for too long," Mr. Rasmussen says. "We can't continue to cut defense budgets deeply while Russia is increasing her defense budget. . . . It has created a growing gap across the Atlantic between the U.S. and Europe. Today the U.S. spends around 75% of the overall NATO defense investment. I'm concerned that in the long run it will weaken the trans-Atlantic alliance if this trend continues."
Then there is Europe's reliance on Russian oil and gas. Mr. Rasmussen thinks the dependency risks interfering with Western self-defense: "There's no doubt that Europe should reduce its dependency on imported energy from Russia," he says. So does the NATO secretary-general endorse shale-gas fracking? The drilling technique that has led to a U.S. energy boom has met much green resistance in Europe. He chuckles and declines to make specific recommendations: "It's a question of a more diversified energy supply, including the establishment of alternative pipelines."
Equally worrying is the West's drive to unilaterally disarm its nuclear arsenal just as the Russian expansionist tide rises. The U.S. Defense Department on Tuesday announced that it will disable 56 submarine-based nuclear-launch tubes, convert 30 B-52 bombers to conventional use, and remove 50 missiles from America's underground silos—all well ahead of the 2018 deadline set by the New Start Treaty with Russia and despite the crisis in Ukraine.
Reductions to Western nuclear forces "must take place in a balanced manner, based on more transparency" from Russia, Mr. Rasmussen says. "The fact is that since the end of the Cold War, NATO nuclear powers have reduced the number of nuclear weapons significantly, while you haven't seen the same on the Russian side."
The result is that "today you have a clear imbalance between the NATO powers and Russia in that respect," Mr. Rasmussen says. "And in the light of ongoing events in Ukraine, I don't think there is the right climate for moving forward when it comes to nuclear disarmament or arms control. There's no sign whatsoever that Russia will provide more transparency." (Following the interview, a NATO spokesman said Mr. Rasmussen wanted to add this clarification: "Reductions in U.S. strategic forces under the New Start Treaty do not affect the significant U.S. commitments to NATO or the U.S. nuclear-force posture in Europe.")
Behind the NATO capability crisis lies a more fundamental problem of entrenched worldviews. In the years after the Cold War, Western leaders came to believe that European security depended not on confronting the Kremlin, but on engaging it. "We were all very enthusiastic after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the removal of the Iron Curtain, and the breakdown of communism and the Warsaw Pact," Mr. Rasmussen says. "It seemed that we could develop a new vision of Europe whole, free and at peace—in cooperation with Russia."
In 1997, the alliance and Russia adopted the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, resolving to "build together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area on the principles of democracy and cooperative security." The NATO-Russia Council was formed five years later. The council opened NATO headquarters to Russian diplomats—a step that would have been unthinkable during the Cold War.
The Kremlin seemed to respond positively at the time. "In my previous capacity as prime minister of Denmark I have met President Putin on several occasions," Mr. Rasmussen recalls. "I still remember when we established the NATO-Russia Council in 2002. I remember a Putin who delivered what I would call a very pro-Western speech. I left with the impression that he felt strongly committed to delivering this relationship between Russia and NATO."
So what changed? "I think he changed his worldview," Mr. Rasmussen says of the Russian leader. "We still remember his famous speech at the Munich Security Conference, at which he stated that the breakdown of the Soviet Union was the biggest tragedy of the last century. That was the first indication that he had changed his worldview, and now we have seen it implemented in practice, first in Georgia in 2008 and now reaffirmed in Crimea."
The Kremlin and its Western apologists attribute the shift in Russian behavior to NATO expansion in the early 2000s. Mr. Rasmussen rejects this line of thinking. "I hope that Mr. Putin doesn't believe his own words," he says. "He can't seriously consider NATO as an enemy, as a threat. We have never had an intention to attack Russia."
States on Europe's periphery are eager to join NATO, Mr. Rasmussen says, "because we represent basic values that people desire to see implemented in their countries, such as individual liberty, democracy, the rule of law and on top of that economic opportunities, because our community of nations also represents economic freedom. . . . So while Putin tries to establish his Eurasian Union using pressure, not to say oppression, people are queuing up to join our organization voluntarily."
NATO's outreach to Russia, meanwhile, didn't stop even after Mr. Putin bared his fangs in the South Caucasus. "Despite the setback in 2008—the Georgia crisis—in 2010 at the NATO-Russia Summit we decided to develop what we call a true strategic partnership between NATO and Russia," he says. "We invited Russia to cooperate on missile defense. You will see during these post-Cold War years we have done a lot to promote NATO-Russia cooperation."
Has NATO's engagement and cooperation with Moscow paid any security dividends? "Obviously not," Mr. Rasmussen replies without hesitation. "We have seen a revisionist Russia trying to redraw the European map by force. That's a wake-up call. That's a completely new security environment and of course we have to adapt to that." He adds: "This goes far beyond Crimea."
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Finland and Sweden Debate NATO Membership
Analysis
April 17, 2014 | 0435 Print Text Size
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Swedish soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force outside Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. (KAZIM EBRAHIMKHIL/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
The West's standoff with Russia over Ukraine is triggering debate over the adequacy of defense spending and cooperation to confront a more assertive Russia across Europe. In Finland and Sweden, an important element in this debate is whether the two countries should join NATO.
While the events in Ukraine strengthen the argument for NATO membership, general support for the idea is still lacking in both countries -- such a step would represent a big shift from Finland's and Sweden's strategy of avoiding too strong a military alignment with the West in order to prevent any conflict with Russia.
Only if the crisis in Ukraine persists, and if Russia grows more assertive in the Baltics, might public opinion in Sweden and Finland shift strongly enough to make NATO membership likely. Before joining NATO, the two countries would try to strengthen regional collaboration and bolster their own national defenses.
Analysis
The standoff between the West and Russia is increasingly affecting Nordic Europe. On April 15, the Barents Observer reported that politicians in Norway are debating whether plans to cooperate with Russia on hydrocarbons exploration along the countries' shared border should be put on hold in light of the events in Ukraine. In Finland and Sweden, the crisis is fueling the debate over eventual NATO membership. Finland and Sweden are both members of the European Union, and thus have tight economic and institutional bonds with the West, but both have stayed out of NATO.
Sweden, after suffering great territorial losses to Russia in the early 19th century, has abided by a neutrality policy since the end of the Napoleonic wars. It maintained that policy at least nominally throughout the two world wars, though it did provide economic and logistical assistance to the Germans, the Allies and the Finns in World War II. Neutrality was meant as a way to minimize the risk of further defeats comparable to the ones Sweden was dealt in the early 1800s.
The Nordic Countries and Russia
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Finland, the only Nordic eurozone member and a country that shares a long border with Russia, was once absorbed by the Russian Empire, remaining Russian territory for more than a century before declaring independence in 1917. Finland aligned with Germany during World War II to fight the Soviets but ultimately could not recover the territory it lost during the Winter War in 1939 and 1940.
These experiences strongly influenced the Finns' strategy in dealing with their eastern neighbor. During the Cold War, Finland and the Soviet Union had an understanding that Moscow would accept Finland's independence as long as Helsinki abstained from stronger military integration with the West. Finland, since the breakup of the Soviet Union, has integrated institutionally with Western Europe and has procured a growing proportion of its weapons from the West. Much like Stockholm, Helsinki has established strong ties with NATO through joint missions and training. Still, unwilling to sour its relationship with Russia, Finland has abstained from formally joining the military alliance.
As a result of the past decades of European integration and collaboration with NATO -- for example in Afghanistan -- the nonalignment policy in both countries has been a constant issue of debate and is drawing renewed attention as a consequence of the tensions with Russia.
Lacking Support
The Finnish and Swedish political elite has been split over the question of NATO membership for a long time. Governments, including those run by parties that advocate NATO membership, have refrained from holding a referendum on the question due to general public opposition in both countries to joining the military alliance.
In a poll carried out in late 2013, about one-third of Swedes supported NATO membership. In Finland, a poll carried out online of members of the Finnish Reservists' Association (conscripts who have finished their military service) in early April indicated that more than 40 percent would like Finland to join NATO within a few years. According to Finnish media, this is a 10 percentage point jump from a similar poll conducted a year ago. The increase was probably strongly influenced by the events in Ukraine. Polls from the general public give far lower numbers. A February poll, commissioned before Russia annexed Crimea, showed that less than 20 percent of Finns favored NATO membership, a percentage comparable to the levels in 2002, Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported.
A number of factors explain the middling support for NATO membership in Finland and Sweden. Russia is Finland's greatest security concern, but it is also an important economic partner -- one with which Helsinki hopes to maintain a stable relationship. According to Trade Map, Russia was Finland's second-largest import and export market in 2013, behind Sweden. Russia would not likely use its military to keep Finland from joining NATO, but Moscow would probably implement policies that would hurt Finland economically. With Europe going through a structural economic crisis and Finland itself caught in the midst of an economic crisis, keeping good economic ties with Russia is of particular importance. Sweden would face fewer repercussions than Finland, because it does not share a border with Russia. Sweden and Finland would likely coordinate efforts to join NATO, but membership remains unlikely until other revisions in defense policy have been made.
Debates over Swedish and Finnish defense policy are gaining more attention because of the crisis in Ukraine, but NATO membership is just one element. The core question under debate is whether the Swedish and Finnish governments should focus more on protecting their own borders after years of defense spending cuts and foreign engagement. While there is growing support for higher defense spending, this does not necessarily translate into greater enthusiasm to join NATO because it is debatable whether formal accession would add much in terms of national security.
The current status of Finland's and Sweden's relationships with NATO allows both to show their commitment to certain Western allies without having obligations toward all NATO members. Sweden and Finland, despite their nonalignment, could also likely count on material assistance from NATO and European partner countries in case of a military conflict because of their geographic position. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Sweden or Finland were attacked and the NATO members surrounding it simply stood by. Seeing security in the Baltic Sea region threatened, NATO member states would probably be drawn into any such conflict.
Before formally considering NATO membership, Sweden and Finland will seek stronger regional defense collaboration. The five Nordic countries -- Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland -- have a relatively long history of collaboration since they share similar geopolitical concerns. In the late 1940s, the Nordic countries considered forming a defense union, but differences among the countries, the presence of NATO and the strengthening of the European institutions weakened Nordic collaboration. However, in recent years, the will for stronger regional defense collaboration has seen somewhat of a revival through the establishment of the Nordic Defense Cooperation.
This collaboration could strengthen, but its growth will depend on how NATO evolves as a consequence of the current crisis in Ukraine. The difficulty for Sweden and Finland will be to get the other Nordic countries to commit to further regional collaboration. Norway, Iceland and Denmark already are NATO members and hence see less urgency to build an additional alliance. Such an alliance would be particularly de-emphasized if the United States made moves to strengthen NATO. Other regional defense cooperation initiatives, such as the cooperation among the Visegrad states, are dealing with similar issues -- countries see that NATO's weaknesses could be corrected through regional cooperation platforms, but the countries have different national security concerns, slowing efforts to build alliance mechanisms. Stalling collaboration among the Nordic countries would perhaps increase the support for NATO membership in Sweden and Finland.
Moscow is watching events in Nordic Europe with worry, although the debate over Finnish and Swedish NATO membership could quickly die down if the crisis in Ukraine does not escalate further. Russia knows there is a great risk that the more aggressive it is in its periphery, the more a rationale will exist for stronger U.S. military involvement in Eastern Europe, or for a strengthening of military alliances among European countries.
Read more: Finland and Sweden Debate NATO Membership | Stratfor
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Germany Turns Against the West on Russia
Angela Merkel meets with Obama this week and says she's on America's side. But some think she's being played by Vladimir Putin.
By John Vinocur
Updated April 28, 2014 7:16 p.m. ET
Heinrich August Winkler is a major German historian whose book "Der Lange Weg nach Westen'' ("The Long Road West") is considered the standard reference work on Germany's postwar democratization, and what Mr. Winkler saw as the end of its dangerous geopolitical notions of playing an ambivalent midstream role between East and West.
In an important essay published earlier this month in Der Spiegel magazine, Mr. Winkler expressed alarm about a current rise in German sentiment, both left and right, showing understanding or even traces of support for Vladimir Putin's aggression in Crimea and Ukraine.
Mr. Winkler, a Social Democrat, writes that this trend is creating "new doubts about Germany's calculability." He describes the Russian president as having become "the patron of reactionary forces'' throughout Europe, barely a decade after having inspired Western hopes that Russia could become a pluralistic and strategic partner. Now, Mr. Winkler asserts, "the West, until further notice, must say goodbye" to those hopes.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives in Washington on Thursday to talk to U.S. President Barack Obama about the crisis between Russia and the West—or as Mrs. Merkel's government euphemizes it, "the events in Ukraine." It is highly doubtful that she will use the occasion to say anything publicly with the force or finality of Mr. Winkler's judgment.
What Mrs. Merkel hasn't done, and doesn't seem to want to do, is commit herself out loud to any notion that could confront the German public's visibly heightened dissatisfaction with being embedded in the West. As I heard an official in Berlin say privately last week, such a confrontation by Mrs. Merkel would mean stating the unpleasantly obvious: that, since a break-point with Russia was reached through its Crimea takeover, there can be no return to a comfortable status quo ante in German-Russian relations.
To me, Mrs. Merkel doing so would signify a basic change in Germany's Russia position, from "why-can't-we-all-just-be-friends" (and "we're-in-the-money") to a position that accepts, in relation to Mr. Putin's lawless ambitions, a containment-oriented revision in the Western posture on energy, trade and NATO strategy.
Instead, we have a chancellor who—regardless of Germany's participation in new sanctions, or German officers being held captive by pro-Russian separatists—has spent much of her time since Russia's annexation of Crimea waiting on the phone to Moscow for positive signals from Mr. Putin.
This has turned out to be like staring out a window looking for Halley's comet (which appears every 75 to 76 years).
In her statement on Ukraine in mid-March, Mrs. Merkel said blandly that the problem was "about principles and methods of accommodating conflicting interests in the 21st century." A couple of weeks ago, she characterized Russia's annexation of Crimea as "a one-off case," rejecting a comparison with the Nazi seizure of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Such statements come instead of any expression of concern by Mrs. Merkel that, for instance, one poll this month found that 49% of Germans want their country to mediate between Russia and the U.S.—outnumbering the 45% who want to see Germany siding unmistakably with the West.
Irrespective of the fact that the Obama administration has made clear it won't engage militarily in the defense of Ukraine, a non-NATO member, the poll also showed a majority of Germans rejecting a regular presence of NATO forces in the Alliance countries bordering Russia. Symbolic contingents of American troops were sent last week to Poland and the three Baltic states.
In the conservative newspaper Die Welt, Jacques Schuster commented last week on "Germany experiencing a creeping de-Westernization" and a return to the "old ghosts of the middle-ground."
That is clearly where Mr. Putin wants the Germans. So why hasn't Mrs. Merkel, in straightforward language, marked out where she stands and where Germany must not drift? Here are the answers I have come up with:
1. Not her style.
2. She doesn't want "to frighten" public opinion (or alienate voters ahead of May's European Parliament elections).
3. By way of responses in question form: "When's the last time America won a war?'' Or, after backing out of attacking Syria, "What do its redlines mean anymore?''
All this, on the official level, comes with reassurances that Angela Merkel is truly, truly on America's side. But you have to wonder hard about this if, as the New York Times reported last week, Mr. Obama is focused, come what may, on isolating Mr. Putin's Russia to the point that it becomes a pariah state.
Some observers have pointed out that Mrs. Merkel, in grasping for de-escalatory straws, got played by Mr. Putin when, at the end of March, her spokesman said she had been informed that Russia was in the process of diminishing its troop presence on the Ukrainian border. A Russian account of the telephone conversation following the German announcement didn't contain the nonexistent good news.
And in Brussels a senior NATO official told me flatly that, concerning projected middle- and long-term changes in the Alliance's force posture to counter Russia's belligerence, "the Germans are on the fence.''
Could anything then come out of this week's Merkel-Obama meeting? For sure, she will be praised as a great leader—while other views of reality, at least publicly, are pushed aside.
About reality in April 2014: Michael Naumann, who served as the minister of culture in Gerhard Schröder's second-term cabinet, offered me a definition in a conversation last week. "The Germans, now and historically, are scared of Russia," said Mr. Naumann, "and Putin knows this.''
Mr. Obama can't miss taking this reality into consideration as the United States comes to terms with facing Russia essentially alone.
Mr. Vinocur is former executive editor of the International Herald Tribune.
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Borderlands: The New Strategic Landscape
Geopolitical Weekly
Tuesday, May 6, 2014 - 03:03 Print Text Size
Stratfor
By George Friedman
I will be leaving this week to visit a string of countries that are now on the front line between Russia and the European Peninsula: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Azerbaijan. A tour like that allows you to look at the details of history. But it is impossible to understand those details out of context. The more I think about recent events, the more I realize that what has happened in Ukraine can only be understood by considering European geopolitics since 1914 -- a hundred years ago and the beginning of World War I.
In The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman wrote a superb and accurate story about how World War I began. For her it was a confluence of perception, misperception, personality and decisions. It was about the leaders, and implicit in her story was the idea that World War I was the result of miscalculation and misunderstanding. I suppose that if you focus on the details, then the war might seem unfortunate and avoidable. I take a different view: It was inevitable from the moment Germany united in 1871. When it happened and exactly how it happened was perhaps up to decision-makers. That it would happen was a geopolitical necessity. And understanding that geopolitical necessity gives us a framework for understanding what is happening in Ukraine, and what is likely to happen next.
The German Problem
The unification of Germany created a nation-state that was extraordinarily dynamic. By the turn of the 20th century, Germany had matched the British economy. However, the British economy pivoted on an empire that was enclosed and built around British interests. Germany had no such empire. It had achieved parity through internal growth and exports on a competitive basis. This was just one of the problems Germany had. The international economic system was based on a system of imperial holdings coupled with European industrialism. Germany lacked those holdings and had no politico-military control over its markets. While its economy was equal to Britain's, its risks were much higher.
Economic risk was compounded by strategic risk. Germany was on the North European Plain, relatively flat, with only a few north-south rivers as barriers. The Germans had the Russians to the east and the French to the west. Moscow and Paris had become allies. If they were to simultaneously attack Germany at a time of their choosing, Germany would be hard-pressed to resist. The Germans did not know Russo-French intentions, but they did know their capabilities. If there was to be war, the Germans had to strike first in one direction, achieve victory there and then mass their forces on the other side.
When that war would be fought, which strategy the Germans chose and ultimately whether it would succeed were uncertainties. But unlike Tuchman's view of the war, a war that began with a German strike was inevitable. The war was not the result of a misunderstanding. Rather, it was the result of economic and strategic realities.
The Germans struck against the French first but failed to defeat them. They were therefore trapped in the two-front war that they had dreaded, but they were at least fully mobilized and could resist. A second opportunity to implement their strategy occurred in the winter of 1917, when an uprising took place against the Russian czar, who abdicated on March 15, 1917. (Germany actually set the revolution in motion in March by repatriating Lenin back to Russia via the infamous sealed train car.) There was serious concern that the Russians might pull out of the war, and in any case, their military had deteriorated massively. A German victory there seemed not only possible, but likely. If that happened, and if German forces in Russia were transferred to France, it was likely that they could mass an offensive that would defeat the British and French.
In April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. There were multiple reasons, including the threat that German submarines might close the Atlantic to American shipping, but also the fear that events in Russia might defeat the allies. The United States had a deep interest in making certain that the Eurasian landmass would not fall under the control of any single nation. The manpower, resources and technology under the control of the Germans would more than outmatch the United States. It could not live with a German victory, and therefore within a year it had sent more than a million men to Europe and helped counter the German offensive after the October 1917 Russian Revolution pulled Russia from the war. The peace treaty ceded Ukraine to the Germans, placing Russia in danger if the Germans defeated the Anglo-French alliance. Ultimately, the American intervention defeated the Germans, and the Russians regained Ukraine.
The American intervention was decisive and defined American strategy in Eurasia for a century. It would maintain the balance of power. As the balance shifted, Washington would increase aid and, if absolutely necessary, intervene decisively in the context of an existing and effective military alliance.
World War II was fought similarly. The Germans, again in a dangerous position, made an alliance with the Soviets, assuring a single-front war, and this time defeated France. In due course, Germany turned on Russia and attempted to dominate Eurasia decisively. The United States was first neutral, then provided aid to the British and Russians, and even after entering the war in December 1941 withheld its main thrust until the last possible moment. The United States did invade North Africa, Sicily and the rest of Italy, but these were marginal operations on the periphery of German power. The decisive strike did not occur until June 1944, after the German military had been significantly weakened by a Soviet army heavily supplied by the United States. The decisive campaign in northern Europe lasted less than a year, and was won with limited U.S. losses compared to the other combatants. It was an intervention in the context of a powerful military alliance.
In the Cold War, the Soviet Union positioned itself by creating deep buffers. It held the Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine as its first line of defense. Its second defensive tier consisted of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. In addition, the Soviet buffer moved to the center of Germany on the North German Plain. Given history, the Soviets needed to create as deep a buffer as possible, and this line effectively precluded an attack on the Soviet Union.
The American response was more active than in the first two wars, but not as decisive. The United States positioned forces in West Germany in the context of a strong military alliance. This alliance was likely insufficient to block a Soviet attack. The United States promised the delivery of additional troops in the event of war and also guaranteed that if needed, it was prepared to use nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet attack.
The model was in that sense similar. The hope was to maintain the balance of power with minimal American exposure. In the event the balance broke, the United States was prepared to send substantially more troops. In the worst case, the United States claimed to be prepared to use decisive force. The important thing to note was that the United States retained the option to reinforce and go nuclear. The Soviets never attacked, in part because they didn't need to -- they were not at risk -- and in part because the risk associated with an attack was too high.
Thus, the United States followed a consistent strategy in all three wars. First, it avoided overexposure, limiting its presence to the minimum needed. The United States wasn't present in World War I until very late. In World War II, America's presence consisted of peripheral operations at relatively low cost. In the Cold War, it positioned a force sufficient to convince the Soviets of American intent, but always under its control and always poised for full intervention at the latest opportune time, with minimal losses, in the context of an effective military alliance.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the revolutions of 1989 stripped away the buffers that the Soviets had captured in World War II. Their strategic position was worse than it was before the world wars or even since the 17th century. If the inner buffer, the Baltics, Belarus or Ukraine, were to become hostile and part of a Western alliance system, the threat to Russia would be overwhelming. The Baltics were admitted to NATO and the alliance was now less than 100 miles from St. Petersburg. If Ukraine and Belarus went the same route, then the city of Smolensk, once deep in the Soviet Union and the Russian empire, would be a border town, and the distance to Moscow from NATO territory would be 250 miles.
The mitigating factor was that NATO was weak and fragmented. This was not much of a consolation for the Russians, who had seen Germany transform from a weak and fragmented country in 1932 to a massive power by 1938. Where there is an industrial base, military capability can be rapidly generated and intentions can change overnight. Therefore, for Russia, preventing the Western alliance system from absorbing Ukraine was critical, as the events of previous months have shown.
The U.S. Approach
The American strategy in Europe remains the same as it was in 1914: to allow the European balance of power to manage itself. Public statements aside, the United States was comfortable with the weakness of European powers so long as the Russians were also weak. There was no threat of a hegemon emerging. The American strategy was, as always, to let the balance maintain itself, intervene with any aid needed to maintain the balance and intervene militarily in the context of a robust alliance at the decisive moment and not before.
It follows from this that the United States is not prepared to do more than engage in symbolic efforts right now. The Russian military may be able to capture Ukraine, although the logistical challenges are serious. But the United States is not in a position to deploy a decisive defensive force in Ukraine. The shift in the European balance of power is far from decisive, and the United States has time to watch the situation develop.
At this point, the United States is likely prepared to increase the availability of weapons to the countries I will visit, along with Bulgaria and the Baltics. But the United States' problem is that its historical strategy relies on the existence of a significant military force, and where multiple countries are involved, a working alliance. It is pointless for the United States to provide weapons to countries that will not cooperate with each other and are incapable of fielding sufficient force to use these weapons.
Since the events in Ukraine, many European countries have discussed increased defense spending and cooperation. It is not clear that NATO is a vehicle for this cooperation. As we saw during the meetings between U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany's willingness to engage in assertive action is limited. In southern Europe, the economic crisis still rages. The appetite of the British and French or the Iberians to become involved is limited. It is hard to see NATO playing an effective military role.
The United States looks at this as a situation where the exposed countries must take decisive steps. For the United States, there is no emergency. For Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Azerbaijan, along with the other countries along the buffer line, there is not yet an emergency. But one could materialize with surprising speed. The Russians are not intrinsically powerful, but they are more powerful than any of these countries alone, or even together. Given American strategy, the United States would be prepared to begin providing aid, but substantial aid requires substantial action on the part of the buffer countries.
The first and second world wars were about the status of Germany in Europe. That was what the Cold War was about as well, although framed in a different way. We are once again discussing the status of Germany. Today it has no western threat. The eastern threat is weak, far away and potentially more of an ally than a threat. The force that drove Germany in two world wars is not there now. Logically, it has little reason to take risks.
The American fear of a Eurasian hegemon is also a distant one. Russia is far from being able to pose that kind of threat. It is still struggling to regain its buffers. Just as Germany is not prepared to engage in aggressive actions, the United States will continue its century-old strategy of limiting its exposure for as long as possible. At the same time, the buffer countries face a potential threat that prudence requires they prepare for.
However, it is not clear that the Russian threat will materialize, and it is not clear that, rhetoric aside, the Russians have the political will to act decisively. The buffer states' optimal solution would be a massive NATO intervention. That won't happen. The second best would be a massive American intervention. That won't happen either. The buffer states want to shift the cost of their defense to others -- a rational strategy if they can achieve it.
The impersonal forces of geopolitics are driving Russia to try to retake its critical borderland. Having done that, the nations bordering Russian power will not know how far the Russians will try to go. For Russia, the deeper the buffer, the better. But the deeper the buffer, the higher the cost of maintaining it. The Russians are not ready for any such move. But over time, as their strength and confidence grow, their actions become less predictable. When facing a potential existential threat, the prudent action is to overreact.
The buffer states need to arm and ally. The United States will provide a degree of support, regardless of what the Germans, and therefore NATO, do. But the basic decision is in the hands of the Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Serbians and Azerbaijanis, along with those in the other buffer states. Some, like Azerbaijan, have already made the decision to arm and are looking for an alliance. Some, like Hungary, are watching and waiting. Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." There is a rhyme that we can hear. It is in its early stages and few are yet locked into a course as Germany was in 1914. The forces are beginning to gather, and if they do, they will not be controlled by good will.
I will be listening for that rhyme on this trip. I need to see if it is there. And if it is, I need to see if those most at risk to its verses hear it too. I will let you know what I hear.
Read more: Borderlands: The New Strategic Landscape | Stratfor
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Putin's European Enablers
France moves ahead with a $1.6 billion arms sale to Russia.
May 15, 2014 7:28 p.m. ET
U.S. officials and Russia's neighbors are protesting France's plan to sell Vladimir Putin's navy amphibious assault ships, and rightly so. But the French are hardly the only Europeans who want to continue business as usual with a revanchist Russia.
French President François Hollande this week vowed "for now" to honor the $1.6 billion contract signed in 2011 to build two Mistral -class carriers for Russia. France also opposes an effort by the EU's Eastern European countries to include an arms embargo in the next round of sanctions in response to the Russian attack on Ukraine. Rosoboronexport, the Russian state arms agency, on Wednesday praised "France's reliability as a partner."
The contract was a terrible idea even before Mr. Putin showed his full imperial colors. Ignoring objections from the Pentagon and NATO allies, former President Nicolas Sarkozy promoted the sale as a sign of post-Cold War normalization. He knew better. In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia and stole the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Mr. Sarkozy negotiated the cease-fire that Russia failed to honor.
The Mistral can carry some 700 soldiers, four landing craft, 13 tanks and 16 helicopters. As an added nationalist bonus, one of the cruisers will be called the Sevastopol, after the Crimean port annexed by Moscow in March. With the delivery of the first vessel due this fall, the Mistrals will significantly upgrade Russia's fleets in the Black and Baltic seas, and threaten Georgia as well as the three Baltic members of NATO.
The French insisted that the largest military sale to Russia in history showed their faith in post-Cold War partnership. The U.S. had pushed Moscow's entry into the G-8, the World Trade Organization and the OSCE, among other Western clubs. Business was good. "We can't have a double discourse of saying they are partners and then talking about relations with Russia as if it were pre-1991," then French Defense Minister Hervé Morin said in 2010.
Now Mr. Putin has invaded Ukraine—very pre-1991 behavior—yet Western Europeans still prefer to look away. The French aren't even the worst offenders. Germany's business establishment is fighting to preserve billions in trade and energy business with Russia—to hell with Kiev.
Britain's David Cameron has ruled out trade sanctions as well as steps to restrict access for Putin allies to London's financial center. As author Ben Judah has written, the Tories want to "protect the City of London's hold on dirty Russian money."
Neither Mr. Hollande nor Mr. Cameron will be mistaken for another Winston Churchill. As Lord of the Admiralty at the start of World War I, he had to decide what to do with two state-of-the-art Dreadnought battleships built by Britain for the Axis-allied Ottoman Empire, which had paid in full. Britain and Turkey weren't yet at war, but Churchill took the ships for the Royal Navy.
The French aren't about to swallow the loss of $1.6 billion if everyone else in the West is still cashing in. The best solution would be for Canada or other European militaries to buy the Mistrals. Or, as Rep. Eliot Engel proposed last week, NATO could buy or lease them as a shared alliance asset. This would weaken Russia's navy, strengthen NATO, and signal overdue unified Western resolve against Russian aggression.
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Second post:
And while the fg French are selling ships to the Russkis, :x :x :x Ukraine goes begging , , ,
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Ukraine Needs Immediate U.S. Military Aid
Antitank and antiaircraft weaponry are essential to deterring Putin's aggression.
By Andriy Parubiy
May 15, 2014 6:48 p.m. ET
On Dec. 5, 1994, Ukraine signed the Budapest Declaration and agreed to give up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, the U.K. and Russia. Two months ago, the Russian Federation blatantly violated that agreement by annexing the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Last month Russian separatists seized government buildings in the city of Donetsk, while 40,000 Russian troops massed nearby on Ukraine's eastern border. Ukraine is now in dire need of the fulfillment of those Budapest Declaration security guarantees from the U.S. and U.K.
Vladimir Putin's goal is to destroy the independent Ukrainian state because it had the courage to choose a better future with Europe, rather than continue the status quo as Russia's "little brother." When Ukraine's Kremlin-controlled President Victor Yanukovych rejected a pending European Union association agreement, choosing instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia, Ukrainians began huge, peaceful protests that resulted on Feb. 22 in the ouster of Mr. Yanukovych, who shamefully fled the country to Russia. A new government was formed in Kiev on the basis of Western values and principles, and the Kremlin lost control of our country. Mr. Putin must have been in shock.
As former U.S. national security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski noted at the time, "without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire." Thus, deliberately flouting the basic principles of international security and the inviolability of borders, Mr. Putin illegally annexed Crimea, put his armies on Ukraine's eastern borders, and began an economic war with Ukraine by ordering Gazprom OGZPY +2.32% to raise natural-gas prices by nearly 50%. Russia also began to embargo Ukrainian products, such as chocolates and agricultural goods. Mr. Putin is now stirring up separatist movements in multiple regions of Ukraine in the hope of annexing even more Ukrainian territory.
Neither Vladimir Putin nor his saboteurs and terrorists will be able to intimidate Ukraine. We signed the European Association Agreement last month and negotiated Western financing from the International Monetary Fund, the U.S., the EU and Japan. Ukraine's path to Europe is clear and no amount of pressure from Moscow will prevent the country from getting there.
However, Ukraine can't do everything on its own. It needs support from the U.S. To win the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan practiced an American policy of "peace through strength." That is what Ukraine must do. Unfortunately, we now realize that our defense forces were deliberately sabotaged and weakened by the previous government in Kiev, in collaboration with Moscow, to subordinate Ukraine to Russia's imperialist policies. We inherited a dilapidated army, a security and intelligence service awash with Russian agents, a demoralized law-enforcement system and corrupt courts and prosecutors. Corruption in Mr. Yanukovych's government permeated all state bodies and became a shadow government aimed at looting the state.
The Ukrainian military and security forces need reform, training and modern equipment if they are to protect the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity from Russia and other aggressors. Ukraine is a peaceful nation, but no country can accept the annexation of its historical lands. With help from the U.S. and Europe, we can regain stability. Thus we hope to have America's help in building a strong military deterrent. The U.S. has already granted Ukraine nonlethal assistance, and we are grateful.
But the Ukrainian armed forces need much more to withstand Russian aggression. We have submitted a complete list of what is needed to the U.S.—assistance in the form of antiaircraft and antitank weaponry, as well as bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles. As the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, said of Mr. Putin in an interview last month, if he "knows that Western antitank and antiaircraft equipment are part of Ukraine's military arsenal, the price of an invasion rises dramatically." Ukraine does not ask for American soldiers to defend it. We ask only for the tools to defend our nation.
The U.S. can also greatly help Ukraine by applying the maximum sanctions against Russia's economy, against the key personnel running the Putin regime, and against the government's business partners.
America has been an ally and friend of Ukraine since we gained our independence in 1991. The U.S. has provided billions of dollars in humanitarian and technical assistance to Ukraine, which has tremendously helped the country's democratic and economic development.
Now the U.S., with the security guarantees agreed to under the Budapest Declaration, can complete the job of helping Ukraine with the sale of antiaircraft and antitank weaponry. By providing us with these deterrents, America will ensure Ukraine's sovereignty and allow us to follow our path to Europe.
Mr. Parubiy is secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
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Some deep implications here; IMHO this is worth considerable contemplation:
Far Right Fever for a Europe Tied to Russia
By ANDREW HIGGINSMAY 20, 2014
LE CHESNAY, France — At a rally last week near the Palace of Versailles, France’s largest far right party, the National Front, deployed all the familiar theatrics and populist themes of nationalist movements across Europe.
A standing-room-only crowd waved the national flag, joined in a boisterous singing of the national anthem and applauded as speakers denounced freeloading foreigners and, with particular venom, the European Union.
But the event, part of an energetic push for votes by France’s surging far right ahead of elections this week for the European Parliament, also promoted an agenda distant from the customary concerns of conservative voters: why Europe needs to break its “submission” to the United States and look to Russia as a force for peace and a bulwark against moral decay.
While the European Union has joined Washington in denouncing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the chaos stirred by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Europe’s right-wing populists have been gripped by a contrarian fever of enthusiasm for Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin.
“Russian influence in the affairs of the far right is a phenomenon seen all over Europe,” said a study by Political Capital Institute, a Hungarian research group. It predicted that far right parties, “spearheaded by the French National Front,” could form a pro-Russian bloc in the European Parliament or, at the very least, amplify previously marginal pro-Russian voices.
Pro-Russian sentiment remains largely confined to the fringes of European politics, though Mr. Putin also has more mainstream admirers and allies on both the right and the left, including Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, and Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor. Mr. Putin’s authoritarian leanings and pugnacious nationalism have generated widespread and diverse opposition to him across Europe; at a gay pride event in Brussels on Saturday, marchers wore masks featuring Mr. Putin’s face, colored pink and daubed with blue eye shadow and red lipstick.
Even among far right groups, the sympathy for Russia and suspicion of Washington are in part tactical: Focused on clawing back power from the European Union’s bureaucracy, they seize any cause that puts them at odds with policy makers in Brussels and the conventional wisdom of European elites.
But they also reflect a general crumbling of public trust in the beliefs and institutions that have dominated Europe since the end of World War II, including the Continent’s relationship with the United States.
“Europe is a big sick body,” said Alain de Benoist, a French philosopher and a leading figure in a French school of political thought known as the “new right.” Mr. de Benoist said Russia “is now obviously the principal alternative to American hegemony.” Mr. Putin, he added, is perhaps “not the savior of humanity,” but “there are many good reasons to be pro-Russian.”
Some of Russia’s European fans, particularly those with a religious bent, are attracted by Mr. Putin’s image as a muscular foe of homosexuality and decadent Western ways. Others, like Aymeric Chauprade, a foreign policy adviser to the National Front’s leader, Marine Le Pen, are motivated more by geopolitical calculations that emphasize Russia’s role as a counterweight to American power.
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Russia has added to its allure through the financing, mostly with corporate money, of media, research groups and other European organizations that promote Moscow’s take on the world. The United States also supports foreign groups that agree with it, but Russia’s boosters in Europe, unlike its leftist fans during the Cold War, now mostly veer to the far right and sometimes even fascism, the cause Moscow claims to be fighting in Ukraine.
Hungary’s Jobbik, one of Europe’s most extreme nationalist parties and a noisy cheerleader for Moscow, is now under investigation by the Hungarian authorities amid allegations that it has received funding from Russia and, in a case involving one of its leading candidates for the European Parliament, that it has worked for Russian intelligence.
No longer dismissed, as they were for decades, as fringe cranks steeped in anti-Semitism and other noxious beliefs from Europe’s fascist past, the National Front and like-minded counterparts elsewhere on the Continent are expected to post strong gains in this week’s election, which begins on Thursday in Britain and the Netherlands and then rolls across Europe through Sunday.
But they are unlikely to form a cohesive bloc: Nationalists from different countries tend to squabble, not cooperate.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, a group zealously opposed to the European Union, and a critic of American foreign policy, is already engaged in a bitter feud with Ms. Le Pen.
But Mr. Farage and Ms. Le Pen have at least found some common ground on Russia. The British politician recently named Mr. Putin as the world leader he most admired “as an operator but not as a human being,” he told a British magazine.
Ms. Le Pen has also expressed admiration for Mr. Putin and called for a strategic alliance with the Kremlin, proposing a “Pan-European union” that would include Russia.
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Recent Comments
doktorij
9 minutes ago
This seems to be a spreading contagion. No place is immune. No quarter will be given.Sounds like a recipe for viscous conflict to me.
Dee
31 minutes ago
"Russia has added to its allure through the financing, mostly with corporate money, of media, research groups and other European...
Andy
31 minutes ago
The distortion of Putinist astroturfers here is at once both distressing and reassuring to read across all the Western media.It is...
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In general, said Doru Frantescu, policy director of VoteWatch Europe, a Brussels research group, the affections of far right Europeans for Mr. Putin are simply opportunistic rather than ideological, “a convergence of interests toward weakening the E.U.”
This convergence has pushed the far right into a curious alignment with the far left. In European Parliament votes this year on the lifting of tariffs and other steps to help Ukraine’s fragile new government, which Russia denounces as fascist but the European Union supports, legislators at both ends of the political spectrum banded together to oppose assisting Ukraine.
“Russia has become the hope of the world against new totalitarianism,” Mr. Chauprade, the National Front’s top European Parliament candidate for the Paris region, said in a speech to Russia’s Parliament in Moscow last year.
When Crimea held a referendum in March on whether the peninsula should secede from Ukraine and join Russia, Mr. Chauprade joined a team of election monitors organized by a pro-Russian outfit in Belgium, the Eurasian Observatory for Elections and Democracy. The team, which pronounced the referendum free and fair, also included members of Austria’s far right Freedom Party; a Flemish nationalist group in Belgium; and the Jobbik politician in Hungary accused of spying for Russia.
Luc Michel, the Belgian head of the Eurasian Observatory, which receives some financial support from Russian companies but promotes itself as independent and apolitical, champions the establishment of a new “Eurasian” alliance, stretching from Vladivostok in Russia to Lisbon in Portugal and purged of American influence. The National Front, preoccupied with recovering sovereign powers surrendered to Brussels, has shown little enthusiasm for a new Eurasian bloc. But it, too, bristles at Europe’s failure to project itself as a global player independent from America, and looks to Russia for help.
The European Union, said Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a member of the French Parliament and the niece of Marine Le Pen, “is the poodle of the United States.”
Russia offers the prospect of a new European order free of what Mr. Chauprade, in his own speech, described as its servitude to a “technocratic elite serving the American and European financial oligarchy” and its “enslavement by consumerist urges and sexual impulses.”
The view that Europe has been cut adrift from its traditional moral moorings gained new traction this month when Conchita Wurst, a bearded Austrian drag queen, won the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Russian officials and the Russian Orthodox Church bemoaned the victory — over, among others, singing Russian twins — as evidence of Europe’s moral disarray.
At the National Front’s pre-election rally, Mr. Chauprade mocked the “bearded lady” and won loud applause with a passionate plaint that Europeans had become a rootless mass of “consumers disconnected from their natural attachments — the family, the nation and the divine.”
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Ukraine and the Shame of Europe
From the left to the right, Kiev's putative friends found reasons to think that Putin isn't such a bad fellow.
By Ian Birrell
May 21, 2014 6:57 p.m. ET
There are flickers of hope that calm can descend again on Eastern Europe. We are told that those threatening Russian military forces on the Ukraine border will be pulled back, amid hints that Moscow might be able to do business with the oligarch seemingly set to become Ukraine's next president. We must hope that this is the case, that the conflict and violence has ended. It is not too early to reflect on the performance of Kiev's putative European allies in this disturbing episode, or to reach the conclusion that their response has been shameful.
Consider the facts. A large, fledgling democracy in the Continent's biggest country struggled to take flight after years of stagnation under an obscene kleptocracy, only to be ruthlessly dismembered by its belligerent and even bigger neighbor. First came the invasion of Crimea, taken with scarcely a whimper from the West despite being the first such annexation in postwar European history, then the cruel carving up of the country's wealthy industrial heartlands.
Clearly these events were choreographed by Moscow, driven by an authoritarian regime fearful of an upsurge of freedom and consequent loss of influence over the lands ringing Russia. For those of us reporting on the brutal slaughter of protesters in Kiev in February, then the brazen theft of Crimea weeks later, and finally similar stunts in a "spontaneous" uprising in the Donbas region, the evidence points in one direction. Only the most myopic could fail to see this.
Enlarge Image
David Gothard
But it is depressing how many people in Europe fell for the parodic propaganda pumped out by Russian President Vladimir Putin, thereby weakening attempts to marshal a unified response. Disunity ensured that even the wan sanctions imposed by Washington seem strong by comparison, while highlighting divisions that undermine any dreams of European unity. The clash over Ukraine is often viewed as an old-fashion struggle between global powers, yet at its core lies the determination of most Ukrainians to share in their Continent's noblest ideals.
Unfortunately Mr. Putin has plenty of useful idiots on both left and right who view the tragic events in Ukraine through the prism of their own prejudices. On the right, these include ascendant populist politicians whose dislike of the European Union is so intense that they endorse an imperial aggressor rather than individuals seeking liberty and modernity. On the left are those whose visceral contempt for the United States is so hard-wired that they side with any of Uncle Sam's opponents—even if that means indulging a homophobic despot who has crushed dissent at home and sent his forces to stifle democracy abroad.
The most recent example of such reactionary anti-Americanism came last week from the celebrated British-based journalist John Pilger, who made his name covering Vietnam. He blamed the breakup of Ukraine on Washington's warmongers who "masterminded the coup in February" and were orchestrating attacks on ethnic Russians. "For the first time since the Reagan years, the U.S. is threatening to take the world to war," he told Guardian readers. Similar paranoid accusations have been made by the leader of the Stop the War Coalition, Britain's most prominent peace group.
Such deluded analysis is far from unique on the European left. In Germany, a left-wing daily newspaper has run headlines that could have been written by Russian propagandists about fascists controlling Ukraine. One German ex-cabinet minister said Kiev "had to be taught" that it could not join NATO immediately, while former Social Democrat chancellors have publicly hugged Mr. Putin, defended the annexation of Crimea, and blamed the West for causing the crisis.
It is strange to see those who had been incensed by the American invasion of Iraq defending this devastating intervention in another nation. The most charitable explanation is that they have fallen for propaganda about rampaging fascists taking over Ukraine. They turn a blind eye to the rather more uncomfortable reality that ultranationalists have captured the Kremlin. Renewed reverence for Russia on the left is one more curious Cold War echo with this conflict.
Yet it is reflected on the right too. Perhaps this makes more sense: The populist parties riding the anti-politics wave sweeping Europe can identify with Mr. Putin's patriotism, his cultural conservatism, his economic interventionism, his antipathy to globalization, his muscular alliance with the religious establishment. But the populists' support is really rooted in loathing of the European Union. This makes them oblivious to pain caused in Ukraine, let alone the dangers of a complex crisis spiraling out of control. "We have been told the EU stands for peace," Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders told the Dutch Parliament. "Now . . . we know better: the EU stands for warmongering."
Far-right fringe parties are expected to do well in elections this month for the European Parliament, which can only weaken resolve to impose tough new restrictions on Russia. In France, the National Front is leading in opinion polls; its leader, Marine Le Pen, has been courted by the Kremlin while her foreign-affairs chief defended the discredited Crimea referendum and echoed Moscow's language about an "illegitimate" government in Kiev. Little wonder an unpopular Socialist government in France recently opted to carry on with the sale of two aircraft carriers to Russia, ignoring U.S. pleas to pull the deal.
In Britain, the U.K. Independence Party is also predicted to win the forthcoming European parliamentary ballot. Ukip leader Nigel Farage alleged that the EU had "blood on its hands" after meddling in Ukraine and professed his admiration for Mr. Putin's political skills. But even some prominent members of the ruling Conservative Party seem to prefer the former KGB apparatchik to those hated bureaucrats in Brussels—former party chairman Lord Tebbit recently expressed sympathy for Russia, having seen the bullying EU "annex" chunks of central Europe.
Such are the delusions on both left and right. Ukraine's travails were sparked by the desire for democracy and self-determination, powerful forces that populists of all persuasions elsewhere in Europe take for granted. Now we can only watch nervously as this wounded country plans an election for May 25, seeking a path to freedom and prosperity while, in the distance, Vladimir Putin seethes and Europe shrugs.
Mr. Birrell is a contributing editor of the U.K. newspapers the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday and a former speechwriter for British Prime Minister David Cameron.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/05/russia-reviving-empire-201452061922194842.html
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Contrast Barq's offer of MREs to Ukraine:
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/france-moves-to-defy-allies-on-sale-of-warship-to-russia-1401877000?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories
ARIS—France is preparing to train hundreds of Russian seamen to operate a powerful French-made warship this month, defying calls from the U.S. and other Western allies to keep the vessel out of the Kremlin's hands, say people familiar with the matter.
A group of 400 Russian sailors are scheduled to arrive on June 22 in the French Atlantic port of Saint-Nazaire to undergo months of instruction before some of them pilot the first of two Mistral-class carriers back to Russia in the fall, said one of these people.
The training is a pivotal step that deepens France's commitment to fulfilling the €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) contract to supply Russia with the carriers, which are built to launch amphibious attacks with landing craft, helicopters and tanks.
The U.S. and other allies have called on the government of President François Hollande to cancel the contract, arguing the ships will significantly enhance Russian naval power at a time when the Ukraine crisis has raised tensions with the Kremlin to their highest levels since the Cold War.
Under that pressure, Paris insists the training doesn't tie its hands and that it won't make a final decision on the delivery until October. But Mr. Hollande's government also has said France intends to honor the contract, and privately officials give no indication they will renege.
France's ability to reverse course on the delivery, defense analysts say, will be diplomatically and commercially constrained once the Russian Navy arrives on its shores to begin the training and prepare to drive the carrier home.
"Four hundred Russian trainees are rather difficult to keep below the radar," said Nick Witney, a defense analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations. Other observers say that Paris's credibility to deliver on future contracts is also at stake.
French officials say Mr. Hollande is expected to discuss the Mistral deliveries with President Barack Obama when the leaders meet in Paris on Thursday, the eve of D-Day commemorations on the beaches of Normandy.
For months, France has faced staunch opposition from the Obama administration and other Western governments including the U.K. to the plan to sell the ships—criticism that has grown in the wake of Russia's annexation of Ukraine's breakaway Crimea region. In an interview published in French daily Le Monde on Monday, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned Russia might use the ships to "threaten neighbors."
"We have named Russia as an aggressor in Crimea, and I don't think France would want to be supplying useful arms to an aggressor," Mr. Sikorski said.
The tug of war over the Mistral illustrates how Europe's reliance on Russian resources risks unraveling strategic alliances that helped the West win the Cold War. The European Union is deeply divided over how far the bloc should go in imposing sanctions on Russia over its Ukraine incursion. Russian natural gas powers homes and businesses across Germany, the EU's biggest economy, while Russian oligarchs store their fortunes in U.K. banks.
France's economy—hobbled by decades of deindustrialization and rising labor costs—is hungry for large defense contracts that could help get the country's beleaguered shipyards back on their feet. Saint Nazaire, a port which boasts a proud history of building France's biggest ships, now relies on the occasional cruise-ship contract for economic survival.
The government says about a thousand jobs are at stake, in a country with more than 10% unemployment and a stalled economy.
Calling off the Mistral contract, a French official said, would be akin to "shooting yourself in the foot," forcing Paris to take the costly step of reimbursing Moscow.
France has already completed the first ship and built half of the second Mistral, which is scheduled for delivery in 2015. The second ship is named The Sevastopol after the Crimean port that serves as a headquarters for Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
The Mistral, which looms over the town, is a potent weapon. The length of more than two football fields, the ship is designed to edge up to a shoreline and deploy more than a dozen tanks and attack helicopters as well as hundreds of troops. This type of ship is also an integral part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's defenses, using sensitive communications technology to coordinate operations with other NATO ships. The potential transfer of that technology to Russia has long worried policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic.
The ship also plugs a crucial gap in Russia's armed forces. Moscow boasts one of the world's largest armies and a formidable air force. But Russia's Black Sea fleet lacks an amphibious vessel like the Mistral, capable of launching a land invasion. That weakness deprived Moscow of a crucial knockout punch in 2008, when Russian troops invaded Georgia but never managed to dominate the former Soviet countries shoreline, forcing a stalemate.
Demonstrators protest against the Mistral contract in Saint-Nazaire, France, on June 1. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
"A ship like that would have allowed the Black Sea Fleet to accomplish its mission in 40 minutes," Russian Navy Admiral Vladimir Vysotkiy said at the time.
The proposal to sell France's prized warship to Russia grew out of the Georgian conflict. In October 2008, France's president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy met with his counterpart President Dmitry Medvedev in the Alpine town of Evian in a bid to shore up a fragile truce Mr. Sarkozy had brokered between Russia and Georgia weeks earlier. By offering to sell Russia the Mistrals, Mr. Sarkozy aimed to persuade the Russians that NATO was no longer an enemy.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili flew to Paris to protest the sale, but Mr. Sarkozy brushed aside his complaints during a tense meeting in the Élysée Palace, according to a French official. "Look Mikheil, Russia is not going to invade Georgia with this boat," Mr. Sarkozy said, according to the official. Mr. Sarkozy then quipped that it was no use worrying about a Russian invasion, because the Russians were "already in your territory."
Years later, the sale has come back to haunt France's government.
Western diplomats huddled in Vienna to devise a response to Russia's military incursion in Crimea in March. There, a French diplomat recalled how a Canadian colleague cornered him with a question: "Is France going to cancel the sale of those warships to Russia?"
Last month, Assistant Secretary for Europe Victoria Nuland told U.S. lawmakers: "We have regularly and consistently expressed our concerns about this sale."
French officials, meanwhile, haven been poring over the technical details of the training session and deliberating how to temporarily house the Russian troops while they are in French territory without attracting too much attention, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
Russia and France had planned to lodge the troops in a Russian vessel docked in Saint-Nazaire, but the person said French officials are reviewing more discreet options.
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http://www.rferl.org/content/bulgaria-suspends-work-on-south-stream-pipeline/25414739.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/business/international/south-stream-pipeline-project-in-bulgaria-is-delayed.html?emc=edit_th_20140701&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/07/23/frances_ship_sale_to_russia_latest_example_of_commerce_and_policy_clash
Check out the picture of one of the ships.
I'm calling BS on the parity of our sales to Egypt.
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Pilsudski's Europe
Global Affairs
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 - 03:22 Print Text Size
Global Affairs with Robert D. Kaplan
Stratfor
By Robert D. Kaplan
Russia's geopolitical threat to Central and Eastern Europe should have everyone's mind rushing in the direction of a protean Polish revolutionary, statesman and military leader, Jozef Pilsudski, and his concept of the Intermarium -- Latin for "between the seas;" Miedzymorze in Polish. This was a belt of independent states from the Baltic to the Black seas that would work in unison against Russian tyranny from the east and German tyranny from the west. While geopolitics may be about the impersonal influence of geography upon international relations, human agency still applies, so that the idea of an individual Pole from the early 20th century could provide a means for defending freedom in our own era.
Pilsudski dominated Polish affairs from the middle of World War I until his death in 1935. In the words of the late British-educated academic Alexandros Petersen, Pilsudski was from a "staunchly Polonized" family of "disestablished nobility" that had held lands in present-day Lithuania and originally owed its position to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the great powers of 16th- and 17th-century Europe. The destruction of that colossal geopolitical force at the hands of invaders from both east and west provided the motivation behind Pilsudski's vision of a belt of small states to hold in check both Russia and Germany. It was not an altogether new idea. The British geographer Halford Mackinder had proposed something similar a few years earlier in 1919. But whereas Mackinder was only a well-known scholar writing in a book, Pilsudski was a dynamic political leader.
Pilsudski's vision was a product not only of his family history but also of his own bloody experience. He had saved Poland from invading Soviet forces in 1920 in the midst of a number of border wars and went on to become the primary founder of the Second Polish Republic in 1926. Pilsudski's belief in a multicultural Poland to encompass his own Lithuanian background played well with his expansive vision of this anti-Russian belt of states that was, in turn, a spiritual and territorial descendant of that vast tract of territory that had constituted the late medieval and early modern Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which stretched at its zenith from the shivering flatlands of northeastern Europe to the confines of the Ottoman Empire -- in present-day Ukraine.
Pilsudski's realization that the independence of the Baltic states, the Balkans and Ukraine was central to Poland's own security lives on today in the country's post-Cold War foreign policy. To wit, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has been publicly tireless and ever-present in pushing NATO and the European Union toward a tougher stance against Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea. Of course, the European Union's expansion to include Poland, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, together with their incorporation into NATO, has represented the partial institutionalization of Pilsudski's idea -- even if Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the countries of the Caucasus lie stranded in the neither-nor geopolitical landscape of the European Union's Eastern Partnership, which offers insufficient protection against the designs of Russia.
But while danger lurks in the east, the west is less worrisome. For Germany has emerged as a benevolent giant, satisfied with its borders and providing the engine for the European economy. Thus, despite Putin's Revanchism, the European security environment still contains more possibilities than at any time since some of those comparatively dull 19th century decades following the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna. Of course, the relative peace of the 19th century had lulled Europeans into the false sense of security common to all people who have lost their sense of the tragic. And because a sense of the tragic is necessary to avoid tragedy, the result was World War I.
Poland and Romania are two pivotal countries that need no lessons in cultivating the sense of the tragic, for both have long been borderlands between stronger states and imperial forces coming from the east and west. And it is Poland and Romania, the two largest NATO states in northeastern and southeastern Europe respectively, that are crucial to the emergence of an effective Intermarium to counter Russia. Together they practically link the Baltic with the Black Sea.
Though they appear distinctly separated on the current map (even as both countries can claim whole or partial membership in Mitteleuropa), the shadow of Poland has in the course of history crept well into Romanian lands. While a traveler must cross the winding Carpathians twice to get from one country's capital to the other, Poland and Romania have at times been closer than you might think. For example, in the Romanian town of Targu Neamt, I craned my neck up at the citadel that had been conquered by Polish forces under King John III Sobieski in 1691. Lionized by English poet John Milton and praised by military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, Sobieski waged war against the Moslem Turks far away to the south from his native Poland and Ukraine in epic campaigns that helped save the Austrian Habsburgs and thus the Christian West. Sobieski's distant forays southward toward the shadowlands of the Black Sea were certainly part of Pilsudski's mental map -- a map that is still critical to Europe's future as a liberal Western dynamo.
Indeed, during a recent visit to Romania, the president, the president's national security adviser and the prime minister all told me in separate meetings that Poland and Turkey were critical countries for Romania in light of the Ukrainian crisis. Throughout my stay in Bucharest, calls for closer relations with Warsaw and Ankara as part of an anti-Russian alliance were made explicit. While Pilsudski's vision of an Intermarium extended from Finland to Bulgaria, an expanded version fitted to 21st century geopolitical realities would naturally include Turkey and the Caucasus. Turkey is the geographical organizing principle for half of the Black Sea and Azerbaijan's vast hydrocarbon wealth gives it the financial and political leverage to keep Russia from wholly dominating the Caucasus, now that Armenia hosts thousands of Russian troops and Georgia is under threat.
The new Intermarium is still far from crystalizing. Turkey is compromised by its appetite for Russian natural gas via the Blue Stream pipeline. Bulgarian and Serbian politics are heavily influenced by Russian money, criminal networks and -- like Turkey -- the need for Russian natural gas. Romania looks south to Bulgaria and rather than see an ally, sees a weak, at times chaotic state trying to steer a middle path between Russia and the European Union. And while Romania sees Poland as a more powerful, more economically vibrant and strongly institutionalized version of itself -- one that cuts a larger profile in the world media -- Poland looks south to Romania and sees merely a burdensome, weaker and more corrupt state than itself.
Nevertheless, a trend is discernible. High-level meetings between the Intermarium countries have intensified, as the Pentagon and State Department act as hubs for all these countries' militaries, intelligence services and diplomatic corps to interact. Stronger U.S. support to Eastern and Central Europe must be matched by stronger bilateral ties between the countries themselves -- to say nothing of increased defense expenditures in the region. This is all a function of geography that Mackinder and especially Pilsudski were the first to address. Pilsudski knew from his own experience that geography is only destiny if you don't turn it to your advantage. The real balance of power should not be a cynical formulation of the status quo between America and Russia, but a bulwark of democracies blocking the path of tyranny.
Read more: Pilsudski's Europe | Stratfor
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http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/09/02/here_are_three_steps_we_should_take_in_response_to_putins_invasion_of_ukraine?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Flashpoints&utm_campaign=2014_FlashPoints%20[Manual]-test-sept2
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France will halt its delivery of the first of two Mistral amphibious assault ships to Russia in response to Russia's involvement in the crisis in Ukraine, a Sept. 3 statement from French President Francois Hollande said, Reuters reported. France had been reluctant to halt the sale of the ships because the contract with Russia was worth $1.58 billion.
Stratfor
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France Threatens to Suspend Warship Delivery to Russia, Citing Ukraine
Under Pressure from Western Allies, Hollande Shifts Rhetoric on Moscow Defense Deal
By Inti Landauro in Paris and
Stacy Meichtry in Newport, Wales
Updated Sept. 3, 2014 8:14 p.m. ET
The Vladivostok, the first of two Mistral-class warships ordered for the Russian navy, awaits delivery in the French shipyard of Saint-Nazaire. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
France backed off from plans to deliver a controversial warship to Russia next month, saying that the Kremlin's support of breakaway forces in eastern Ukraine endangered Europe.
The threat to suspend the delivery marks a shift in rhetoric from Paris, which had insisted on moving ahead with a €1.2 billion ($1.58 billion) contract to supply two ships to the Russian navy despite pressure from Western allies to cancel the deal.
Despite talks over a possible cease-fire in Ukraine, "the conditions that would allow France to authorize the delivery of the first Mistral-class ship aren't met as of now," President François Hollande's office said.
Moscow shrugged off France's decision. "The Defense Ministry doesn't see a particular tragedy in this," Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov told the official Tass news agency. "But it is, of course, unpleasant and puts a certain tension in the interactions with our French partners."
France issued the warning a day ahead of a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the Welsh town of Newport, during which members of the military alliance are expected to discuss how to contain Russia.
The carefully worded statement, though, left open the possibility that France could complete the delivery on schedule if Russia pulls back from its intervention in Ukraine and moves to calm the crisis.
As the conflict between Ukraine and pro-Russia separatists has escalated in recent months—and despite objections by the U.S. and other allies—the French government had insisted the program was on track.
In July, days after the downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine—Mr. Hollande floated the possibility that he might cancel the delivery of the second vessel, scheduled for 2015, but said Paris was forging ahead with plans to supply the first ship in October.
In possibly delaying the first delivery, French officials said they aimed to shore up the country's credibility with allies heading into this week's NATO summit, where members of the alliance are gathering in a show of unity.
Paris, for months, had defended its plans to deliver the ships as merely the fulfillment of an international contract, arguing that its possible cancellation would force France to reimburse Moscow for the costly ships and place more than a thousand French jobs at risk.
But Russia's decision to send troops and supplies into eastern Ukraine to fight alongside separatists, French officials say, raised the stakes.
While Moscow has denied sending any support to the rebels, French officials said they had proof of a Russian incursion, which they declined to disclose.
Mr. Hollande would have faced a dilemma of "coherence," one French official said, if he moved forward with the warship delivery as NATO allies were gathering to discuss ways to rein in Moscow and defend European borders.
On Tuesday, French officials called Washington and other allied capitals to notify them of the potential suspension and provide reassurances ahead of the summit, the official said. "We do think that was a wise decision," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said of France's threat to stop the warship delivery. "We certainly support their decision."
While France is weighing options, a group of about 400 Russian seamen continues training on board the first Mistral, named Vladivostok, off the French port city of Saint-Nazaire, a person familiar with the matter said.
Earlier this week, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen refrained from exercising direct pressure on Paris but said he expected shows of solidarity from members of the alliance.
"It is not for NATO as an alliance to interfere with such national decisions," Mr. Rasmussen said Monday. "Having said that, I am confident that each and every allied government will take such decisions mindful of the overall security situation and concerns expressed by fellow allies."
The two Mistral-class carriers ordered by Moscow are capable of launching helicopter, tank and missile attacks from the sea and would boost the military might of the Russian forces.
The contract is important for the French shipyard located in Saint-Nazaire on the French Atlantic Coast, which has counted on the Russian order to help stay afloat.
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George Will very persuasively asserts that Putin represents a greater threat than ISIS. (I would arguess that both represent grave threats.)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/386990/vladimir-putins-hitlerian-mind-george-will
Vladimir Putin’s Hitlerian Mind
The Russian president’s fascist revival in Eastern Europe poses a unique threat to the West.
By George Will
The Islamic State is a nasty problem that can be remedied if its neighbors, assisted by the United States, decide to do so. Vladimir Putin’s fascist revival is a crisis that tests the West’s capacity to decide.
Putin’s serial amputations of portions of Ukraine, which began with his fait accompli in Crimea, will proceed, and succeed, until his appetite is satiated. Then the real danger will begin.
Suppose Ukraine is merely his overture for the destruction of NATO, the nemesis of his Soviet memory. Then what might be his version of the Gleiwitz radio-station episode 75 years ago?
On the evening of August 31, 1939, Nazi SS personnel pretending to be Polish partisans seized the station, which was about four miles inside Germany (Gliwice is now in Poland), proclaiming that Poland was invading Germany to achieve “our just [territorial] claims,” and shot a German prisoner dressed in a stolen Polish uniform, giving Hitler his pretext for declaring war the next day.
Putin has discarded the minor inhibitions of what NATO calls his “hybrid war” — giving slightly surreptitious aid to Russian separatists; brazenly infiltrating Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms. Russia has invaded Ukraine, although the Obama administration likes the semantic anesthesia of calling it an “incursion.” Putin does not pretend that it will be, like President Nixon’s 1970 “incursion” into Cambodia, temporary.
So, suppose Putin, reprising his Ukrainian success, orchestrates unrest among the Russian-speaking minorities in Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia. Then, recycling Hitler’s words that his country “could not remain inactive,” Putin invades one of these NATO members. Either NATO invokes Article 5 — an attack on any member is an attack on all — or NATO disappears and the Soviet Union, NATO’s original raison d’être, is avenged.
Although no one more thoroughly detested Hitler’s regime that General Erwin Rommel served, Winston Churchill acknowledged in January 1942 in the House of Commons the talent of Britain’s enemy: “We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.” Putin is, the West should similarly acknowledge, more talented and dangerous than either Nikita Khrushchev or Leonid Brezhnev. Their truculence was not fueled by fury. Putin’s essence is anger. It is a smoldering amalgam of resentment (of Russia’s diminishment because of the Soviet Union’s collapse), revanchist ambitions (regarding formerly Soviet territories and spheres of influence), cultural loathing (for the pluralism of open societies), and ethnic chauvinism that presages “ethnic cleansing” of non-Russians from portions of Putin’s expanding Russia.
This is more than merely the fascist mind; its ethnic-cum-racial component makes it Hitlerian. Hence Putin is “unpredictable” only to those unfamiliar with the 1930s. Regarding the roles of resentment and vengeance, remember where Hitler insisted that France formally capitulate in 1940 — in the railroad carriage near the town of Compiègne, where Germany signed the 1918 armistice.
Since its emancipation by the Soviet Union’s demise, Ukraine has been ravaged by corruption that frays national sentiment, which even before this was a tenuous phenomenon. In The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century, David Reynolds of Cambridge University cites a British diplomat’s 1918 analysis:
Were one to ask the average peasant in the Ukraine his nationality, he would answer that he is Greek Orthodox; if pressed to say whether he is a Great Russian, a Pole, or an Ukrainian he would probably reply that he is a peasant; and if one insisted on knowing what language he spoke, he would say that he talked “the local tongue.”
Ukraine may be an ethnic casserole susceptible to diminishment by Putin’s ladle. But the Baltic States, by virtue of their NATO membership, are, regardless of their histories or sociologies, decisively different. And given Putin’s animus, nourished by his negligibly resisted success in Ukraine, he is more dangerous than the Islamic State.
This group is perhaps 20,000 fighters possessing some artillery and armor but no air force. It is an island of tenuously occupied territory in a sea of hostile regimes — those of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Iraq’s Kurdish region, which has its own regime. These command approximately 2 million troops who, with ample air power, can pulverize the Islamic State whenever the regimes summon the will to do so.
U.S. participation in this should be conditional on the regional powers’ putting their militaries where their mouths (sometimes) are in the fight against radical Islamists. U.S. participation in defense of the Baltic States is unconditional.
— George Will is a Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist.
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News from a couple of days ago:
ISIS threatens to 'liberate' Chechnya and Caucasus
http://rt.com/news/184836-isis-putin-kadyrov-syria/
Interesting that our two greatest enemies will soon be at war with each other.
One might take from this that a post-Putin Russia could very easily or at least logically become a strategic ally of the United States.
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Against Russia's New Military Strategy, NATO Wavers as Lithuania Prepares
Analysis
October 16, 2014 | 0415 Print Text Size
Lithuania Prepares
Members of the U.S. Army 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, unload Stryker Armored Vehicles at the railway station near the Rukla military base in Lithuania, on Oct. 4, 2014. (PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Oct. 15 that she would push to limit Russian television broadcasts inside the country. The statement came only two days after Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Jonas Vytautas Zukas announced plans to form a new rapid reaction force in Lithuania. These moves highlight Lithuania's mounting concerns over the threat Russia poses to the small but strategic country, particularly in light of Moscow's recent actions in Ukraine.
The Lithuanian president's plan to limit Russian media follows similar trends emerging in other Baltic states. The creation of the rapid reaction force, however, represents a new strategy. Zukas said that Lithuania must be ready for "unconventional attacks by unmarked combatants" -- a thinly veiled reference to Russia's actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Vilnius' plan will not be sufficient to counter potential Russian moves against Lithuania. It is instead an initial response to an evolving security environment in which the conventional Russian military threat to the Baltic states is overshadowed by that of hybrid warfare, which includes the use of proxies, special forces and information campaigns.
Analysis
In his statement, Zukas said Lithuania's rapid reaction forces would consist of 2,500 troops from Lithuania's 7,000-person military. These troops would be placed on high alert beginning in November and would have the capacity to mobilize within two to 24 hours. Their mission would be to counter unconventional security threats such as attacks by unofficial armed groups, illegal border crossings and the foreign manipulation of national minorities.
Lithuania formulated this rapid reaction plan within the context of the ongoing standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine -- a conflict that has spread throughout the former Soviet periphery. The Baltic states are on the front lines of this broader conflict and are particularly concerned about Russian encroachment into their territory because of their small size and close proximity to the Russian heartland. This is especially concerning because the Baltic states, particularly Lithuania, have been strong supporters of Ukraine's efforts to integrate with the West, putting them squarely in Moscow's sights.
There has already been a great deal of Russian activity inside the Baltic states and the area surrounding them. Russia has built up its forces near St. Petersburg and in the exclave of Kaliningrad, both of which border Baltic states. Moscow has also increased the scale of its military exercises in both areas, while the Russian minorities in several Baltic states have held pro-Russia demonstrations. The rallies are of particular concern because of the size of the Russian minority populations: 24.8 percent of the population in Estonia, 26.9 percent in Latvia, and 5.8 percent in Lithuania. Cross-border incidents between the Baltic states and Russia have also been on the rise in recent months. The Russian coast guard detained a Lithuanian fishing boat, and Russian officials held an Estonian official in custody for allegedly crossing the border on a spying mission, a charge Estonia denied.
The Baltic states see these recent actions in the context of the events in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, where Moscow's support for demonstrations eventually led to the deployment of Russian military and unofficial militant forces. This has given way to concerns that the Baltics could be the next target for hybrid warfare. As NATO members protected by the Article 5 collective defense clause, the Baltics are somewhat insulated from a Russian conventional military threat. The classification of a threat as subject to Article 5, however, requires a unanimous NATO council vote. This leaves effective defense of the Baltics subject to Western Europe's political will to intervene. A rapid NATO response would be even more doubtful in the case of hybrid or asymmetrical warfare. The Baltic states have called for a permanent NATO military presence within their territory. Instead, NATO and the United States have only stepped up troop rotations for joint exercises and military training to a semi-permanent basis.
Lithuania's decision to organize its own rapid reaction force is an effort to build the capacity to preemptively counter or contain Russian actions and reassure the public that the government is taking concrete action. Given Russia's larger security forces and broader financial resources, however, Lithuania's new force is unlikely to fully neutralize the threat. Maintaining more than a third of Lithuania's forces at that level of readiness will require substantial resources, raising questions about the initiative's long-term sustainability. At best, the plan supplements NATO's efforts, which include launching the bloc's own rapid reaction forces that can be deployed to the Baltics, Poland or Romania. Lithuania will continue to call for a greater U.S. and NATO commitment to regional security.
For its part, Russia will likely continue to use the same methods of hybrid warfare it implemented in Ukraine to project power regionally. Lithuania's creation of a rapid reaction force is simply an acknowledgement of this reality and the need to confront it in a more flexible and creative manner.
Read more: Against Russia's New Military Strategy, NATO Wavers as Lithuania Prepares | Stratfor
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-moving-missiles-rockets-toward-eastern-ukraine/
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What the Fall of the Wall Did Not Change
Geopolitical Weekly
Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - 03:00 Print Text Size
Stratfor
By George Friedman
Twenty-five years ago, a crowd filled with an uneasy mixture of joy and rage tore down the Berlin Wall. There was joy for the end of Germany's partition and the end of tyranny. There was rage against generations of fear. One fear was of communist oppression. The other fear was of the threat of a war, which had loomed over Europe and Germany since 1945. One fear was moral and ideological, while the other was prudential and geopolitical. As in all defining political moments, fear and rage, ideology and geopolitics, blended together in an intoxicating mix.
Marxism's Sway
Twenty-five years later, we take for granted the moral bankruptcy of Soviet communism, along with its geopolitical weakness. It is difficult for us to remember how seductive Marxism was, and how frightening Soviet power was. For my generation, at the better universities, Marxism was not an exotic form of oriental despotism but a persuasive explanation of the world and how it worked, as well as a moral imperative that a stunning number of students and faculty were committed to. The vast majority of Marxists in what was called the New Left adopted it as fashion more than passion. A small segment of the New Left, particularly in Europe and supported by Soviet intelligence, took direct action and took risks, killing, wounding, kidnapping and blowing things up in the pursuit of political aims. The latter had courage; the former were shallow and cynical. There is no doubt that the shallow and cynical were more praiseworthy.
Still, ideologically, Marxism in its several varieties had a persuasive power that is difficult for even those of us who lived through it to recall. Its pull had little to do with industrial democracy, although songs from the labor movement were sung regularly. It was far less about the proletariat and more a revolt against what was seen as the shallow one-dimensionality of affluence. It was never clear to me what Marxists had against affluence, as I was relatively poor, but the venom against the previous generation's capitulation to ordinary life was intense.
Marxism had become the ideology of the young, who celebrated its moral superiority. This should not be dismissed. The young have driven European revolutions since 1789, and they have always been driven by a deep sense of moral superiority. The passion of the young Karl Marx, writing amid the risings of 1848, led directly to Lenin and then Stalin. The self-righteous young have consequence, something no one attending a major Euro-American university in the decades before the collapse of the Soviet empire could ignore. Bitterness against those over 30 (then considered old) was a greater driver than class struggle. That the young feel superior to the old is built into the Enlightenment. We believe in progress, and the young have more of a future than the old.
In looking at pictures of the celebrants at the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it was the young who had risen up. I was not in Berlin in those days, but I had been to Berlin before, and Berlin was a dynamo of Marxism. I am morally and statistically certain that many of those celebrating the collapse of the wall were Marxists.
When the wall came down, it for the most part destroyed Marxism. The so-called New Left believed Soviet Communism was a betrayal of communism. Since Marxism argued that history was in some sense deterministic, how Marxism could have failed from a Marxist point of view was never clear to me. But in the end, the Marxism of my generation had more to do with the fact that their parents, shaped in the Great Depression and World War II, were content with a house and a car, a spouse and some savings. The young always have greater aspirations than to simply live, but they grow out of it.
The fate of Marxism in Europe and the United States differed greatly from its fate in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Marxism died in the Soviet Union with Stalin. With Mao, Stalin was the last great Communist. It was not just that he believed, but that he acted on that belief. At the heart of communism was the class struggle, and that didn't end when the Communist Party had won. The Party and the people had to be purged, shaped and forged into something unprecedented. It was to be an agonizing process, and Stalin was prepared to impose the agony. Stalin is the finest argument there is against sincerity. He sincerely believed not only in the possibility of creating a new society, but in the brutal actions needed to achieve it.
Stalin killed communism. He was right that creating a new society required agony. He didn't realize, or perhaps in the end didn't care, that the agony required made the new society pointless, corrupt before it was born. Nikita Khrushchev tried to build a communist state without Stalinism. But when Leonid Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin and Nikolai Podgorny overthrew Khrushchev in 1964, it was the revolution of the exhausted. Their lives were built on a single triumph: They had survived Stalin. Their goal was to continue surviving. Brezhnev destroyed communism by trying to hold absolute power and do as little with it as possible. He sank into corruption and weakness, as did his regime. The empire didn't revolt. It simply took advantage of the fact that the Soviet Union was too corrupt and self-indulgent to hold onto them. It was less a revolution than the fact that the jailhouse door had been left unlocked.
Marxism's Failure
Marxism destroyed itself because it took power, and putting Marxism on display in power ultimately cost it its credibility. Had it never been in power, more than the tiny handful who are still Marxists might take it seriously.
Marxism was repudiated as an ideology, even as it had repudiated ideology in general. It was the culmination of the Enlightenment, not only because Marxism had the most extreme notion of equality imaginable but also because it was ruthlessly consistent. It had views not only on politics and economics, but also on art, the proper raising of children, proper methods of plowing and the role of sports in society. It had views on everything, and with the power of the state at its disposal, nothing was outside its purview. In the end, Marxism discredited the Enlightenment. It was the reductio ad absurdum of systematic reason. Marxism shattered the Enlightenment into an infinite number of prisms, each free to live the one life Marxism could not tolerate: a life of contradictions. We are heir to the incoherence it left.
But the truth was that Marxism not only failed to create the society it wished, it also did not effectively motivate the New Left. Marxism never succeeded in escaping the primordial reality of the human condition. I don't mean this as not escaping self-interest or corruption. What it failed to do was escape the reality of community as the foundation of human existence, more important than the individual, and certainly more important than class.
From the beginning to the end, the Soviet Union was an empire. It had a center in Moscow and an apparatus that controlled other, lesser vassal states. It could claim that the Soviet Man was being created, but the truth was that the Russian was a Russian, the Kazakh a Kazakh, and the Armenian an Armenian. Stalin never crushed this reality as much as he tried. And when he died, and as the Soviet state grew weaker and more corrupt, these national differences became even more important.
But even more than this, the Soviet Union acted in the world as an empire. On taking power, Lenin made a deal with Germany, exchanging land for peace. Indeed, Lenin came to power essentially as a German operative, delivered to St. Petersburg in a sealed train and funded to overthrow the government and make peace with Germany on Berlin's terms. Lenin made this deal in order to take power. When Germany was defeated, he regained the lost lands and the rest of the empire in a civil war that reclaimed Peter the Great's empire for himself. When we look back, the class struggle was merely the preface. The reality was what Marx called Oriental Despotism, coupled with a capitulation to geopolitical reality.
Stalin later spent the 1930s preparing for war with Germany, purging the military, starving peasants in order to buy steel factories, and building weapons. That he miscalculated the beginning does not change the end. Stalin waged a ruthless war for the motherland and pushed the Soviet empire west to the center of Germany and into the Carpathians. The Soviet Union anchored itself in the center of Europe waging a war with the United States for the former European empires cast free by the collapse of European power. It is one of the great ironies of history that the greatest imperial conflict was waged by the two great anti-imperial powers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
We all now know that the Soviet Union was doomed. It was not nearly so clear to the United States as it fought to a stalemate in Korea and lost in Vietnam. It was not clear during the Cuban Missile Crisis or during the Berlin blockade. Above all, it was not clear in 1980, when the United States had lost in Vietnam and was reeling economically. Iran had expelled American power, and the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan. Tito was dead in Yugoslavia, and the Soviets were fishing in muddy waters. Greek society was torn apart, and the Soviets were funding all sides of an incipient civil war in Turkey. The American strategy of containment was solid in Europe and had added China to the frontier, but it appeared to be rupturing on a line from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan.
In retrospect, we can see that the Soviet Union had long since lost its will to power. It could not have taken risks even if it wanted to. By 1980, it could poke at the United States and its allies, but a full-blooded thrust was something that haunted only American minds. Still, the Soviets played the geopolitical game. Surrounded, they sought openings, and failing to find those, they tried to drive the Americans off-balance throughout the world. They were everywhere. But in the end, their economy was weak, their satrapies were restless and the leaders wanted to enjoy their dachas and their pleasures. It was partly that they had lost all belief, but it was also, in retrospect, that they knew they were weak.
Marx argued that the revolution would come in an advanced industrial country, like Germany. Instead, it came in a place that violated his theory and where building communism was impossible. It arrived in the vast European Mainland, not on the European Peninsula. It came in an impoverished, landlocked country with terrible transportation and a dispersed population, not on the maritime peninsula, with excellent transportation and a concentrated population. This meant that their thrust in Germany and Eastern Europe left them with a region that now shared Russian poverty, and which had to be occupied and defended. The American solution was simple: to wait. There was really no other solution, as an invasion of the mainland had destroyed Napoleon and Hitler. Geopolitics imposed a strategy of waiting on both sides, and the Soviets had less time than the Americans and their allies.
And so the wall came down. The most fantastic dreams of the Enlightenment were shattered. The young Marxists of Berlin, confused by a history that could not conform to their contradictory dreams, got jobs at Siemens or Deutsche Bank or perhaps in Brussels. The Americans claimed a victory that is somewhat reasonable, if the strategy of doing nothing is allowed into the rules of geopolitics. And the empire shattered into small pieces that cannot be rebuilt, in spite of a leader who would like to think of himself as Stalin, but is really a better-dressed Brezhnev.
The most important thing that happened on that day, and which must not be forgotten, is that Germany became once more reunited. From 1871 onward, a united Germany has posed a problem for Europe. It is too productive to compete with and too insecure to live with. This is not a matter of ideology; it is a matter of geography and culture. The young men and women at the wall now emphatically support austerity in Europe, not accepting responsibility for the rest of Europe's fecklessness. Why should they?
The fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago served as an exclamation point in history ending an ideology and an empire. It did not end history, but rather it renewed the puzzle that has dogged Europe since 1871. What will Germany do next and what will the outside world do with Germany? This once slightly unsettling question has become a moderately unsettling one. In Europe, history sometimes throws a party and then presents an unpleasant surprise. But then, Europe is always a surprise, or at least pretends to be.
Read more: What the Fall of the Wall Did Not Change | Stratfor
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I have drawn attention to this matter of Russia, natural gas, and Europe many times:
Russia's South Stream Decision Changes Regional Dynamics
Analysis
December 4, 2014 | 10:30 GMT Print Text Size
Russia's South Stream Decision Changes Regional Dynamics
A construction worker stands in front of two giant pipes arranged to be welded together near the Serbian village of Sajkas on Nov. 24, 2013. (ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
The fallout from Russia's decision to abandon its ambitious South Stream pipeline deal continued Dec. 3, as Italian energy services firm Saipem announced that it would lose almost $2 billion because of Moscow's move. On Dec. 2, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev called for the South Stream project's European partners to have a say in its future. The head of Serbia's Gas Association, Vojislav Vuletic, said his country is still interested in South Stream, while Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country will have to look for alternative natural gas sources to replace South Stream supplies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision to abandon the pipeline deal on Dec. 1, while visiting Turkey. Putin publicly blamed the European Commission's opposition to the planned pipeline, though the project faced other growing constraints (mainly financing). At the same time, Putin announced that Russia would instead build a pipeline similar to South Stream but ending in Turkey, which could then become a hub for Russia's natural gas exports. The decision changes not only the dynamics of energy in the region, but also many relationships in Europe, Turkey and Russia.
Analysis
South Stream was a large pipeline project by Russian natural gas behemoth Gazprom to export Russian natural gas from the Russian mainland, under the Black Sea, to Southern and Central Europe — Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria. The primary purpose of the pipeline was to connect Europe to Russia directly without transiting Ukraine, which previously transported 80 percent of Russian natural gas to Europe. Gazprom held 50 percent of the project, Italy's ENI held 20 percent, Germany's Wintershall held 15 percent and France's EDF held 15 percent. The initial plan was for the South Stream pipeline to reach a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters (bcm) by 2018, which would accommodate approximately 40 percent of Russia's natural gas exports to Europe if run near capacity.
The project became increasingly important to Moscow over the past year as the crisis in Ukraine threatened the reliability — both politically and technically — of Russian natural gas exports to Europe through Ukraine. However, the project has encountered a string of obstacles since its conception in 2007.
Russian-European Natural Gas Networks
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First, the European Union has contested the pipeline, saying it violates the Third Energy Package, European legislation that splits energy production and transmission. The European Commission has used the legislation to pressure all of the EU states that had signed agreements with Russia for the construction of the pipeline. As a result, Bulgaria halted the construction of its section of the pipeline in June.
The second constraint was the rising cost of the pipeline. Gazprom projected a $10 billion price tag in 2007, but projected costs grew to $30 billion in 2014 and likely would have risen further. In mid-November, ENI CEO Claudio Descalzi warned that ENI would leave the project if prices continued to rise. Gazprom is relatively healthy financially, unlike its oil company sister, Rosneft. However, with many large and costly projects lined up for the next few years, including the Yamal natural gas project and the Power of Siberia pipeline to China, Gazprom most likely would not be able to foot most of the bill for South Stream without financial assistance from the Kremlin. And with Russia in a sharp economic decline and oil prices falling, the Kremlin has refrained from handing out large sums of money like it has in the past.
Gazprom has already spent $4.5 billion on South Stream, mostly on 300,000 tons of underwater trunk pipelines that have been delivered to the Black Sea coastline. However, these pipes could still be of use in the construction of Russia's new proposed pipeline to Turkey. According to Gazprom chief Alexei Miller, the alternative pipeline could have a capacity of 63 bcm, of which Turkey could purchase 14 bcm of natural gas and transit the rest to southeastern Europe to the same countries that would have received natural gas from South Stream. In short, the change in the pipeline projects is merely one of route; the outcome would be nearly the same. However, the way that natural gas would be transported is in question, since any new pipeline infrastructure reaching into Europe would be subject to the same EU regulations that haunted South Stream.
The Political Aftermath
By scrapping South Stream and proposing a Russo-Turkish pipeline, Russia has shifted the political and energy dynamics of the region. First, Russia had been using South Stream as leverage over Ukraine and several southeastern European countries. Russia offered Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary investment sweeteners — promises of energy security, construction jobs and transit revenues — for their support of the South Stream project. For example, Bulgaria was set to receive an estimated $500 million annually for transiting natural gas from South Stream. Moscow also used the potential for natural gas transit alternatives in its energy negotiations with Kiev. With South Stream abandoned, Russia's leverage has diminished.
Russia's decision to abandon South Stream also damages Moscow's political ties with some of its European partners in the project. Countries such as Hungary and Serbia spent a great deal of political capital in defying the European Union to support the pipeline's construction. Now some of these same countries are saying they will have to look to the European Union to help secure energy supplies.
Changing Energy Relationships
Should the proposed Russo-Turkish pipeline be constructed, Russia will add capacity to directly supply Turkey, its largest natural gas customer, much like Russia's Nord Stream pipeline connects Russia to Germany, its second-largest customer. Moreover, Turkey is likely to receive a 6 percent discount on its current natural gas supplies as part of the construction deal. With Turkey connected directly to Russia, natural gas supplies will not rely on politically prickly transit states such as Ukraine. Turkey currently receives approximately half of its natural gas supplies from routes going to Europe.
However, the Russo-Turkish pipeline would introduce yet another transit state into Russia's export routes to Europe. The point of South Stream was to directly supply southeastern Europe with Russian natural gas, bypassing Ukraine. Under the new plan, energy supplies would still bypass Ukraine, but would now be contingent on Turkey transiting the supplies. Russia does not hold the influence over Turkey that it has held in Ukraine, meaning that Moscow will be less able to politicize natural gas supplies going to the Continent.
Yet adding a natural gas supply route through Turkey would give Moscow more flexibility in supplying Europe. Russia already has pipelines running to Europe through Belarus, Ukraine and Germany. Adding another major route through Turkey would give Russia a greater ability to shift supplies from one route to another, targeting specific European countries for cutoffs depending on how Moscow wants to shape the political climate.
The proposed Turkish energy connection also adds complexity to other energy projects involving Turkey. The Trans-Anatolian Pipeline has been proposed to move Turkmen natural gas across the Caucasus to Turkey and Europe. Turkey is already moving forward with a similar connection, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, which will carry Azerbaijani natural gas. Discussions have gone on for a long time about the possibility of natural gas giant Turkmenistan supplying these routes via the proposed Trans-Caspian Pipeline. Just as the South Stream project competed with these plans, so will the proposed pipeline to Turkey. Ankara will continue to try to balance Moscow with alternative suppliers such as Azerbaijan. However, with natural gas coming straight from Russia, the incentive to continue wooing Turkmenistan for supplies could be reduced.
All of this said, Russia's announcement that it is abandoning South Stream was contingent on the current political tension between Moscow and the European Union. Russia could revisit its plans for South Stream should this relationship change. For now, the abandonment of South Stream looks like a major setback for Russia's energy strategy in Europe, but Russia could simply be playing the similar projects off each other to shape its overall energy and political discussions in the region.
Read more: Russia's South Stream Decision Changes Regional Dynamics | Stratfor
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December 23, 2014
Beware Putin’s Special War in 2015
December 2014 is the month Putin’s Russia was plunged into undeniable crisis. Between the dramatic drop in oil prices and the collapse of the ruble, under Western sanctions pressure, Russians are going into the new year in a dramatically different, and lessened, economic situation than the one they enjoyed at the beginning of the year now ending.
This will bring myriad hardships to Russians, particularly because even Moscow is admitting that low oil prices may be the “new normal” until the 2030’s. Caveats abound here. The vast majority of Russians don’t travel abroad, much less have vacation properties in Europe, nor do they have hard-currency mortgages (the ruble now having returned to its Soviet-era pariah status). Moreover, the average Russian has a physical and mental toughness about getting by in tough times — it is an unmistakable point of national pride — that Westerners cannot really fathom. In no case now does Russia face the sort of complete economic collapse that it endured in the 1990’s, when the Soviet implosion pushed poor Russians to the edge of survival (were not so many Russians but one generation removed from the farm, and therefore had access to their own food supply, famine might well have happened under Yeltsin). Life in Yeltsin’s Russia, particularly beyond the bright lights of Moscow and St. Petersburg, where few Westerners visit, was harsh and frankly dismal.
Nevertheless, the economic undoing of Putinism over the last weeks, brought about by Western sanctions in response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine which began in early 2014, heralds major changes for the Kremlin, and not just in its domestic affairs. While Russia has far deeper hard currency reserves than it possessed in 1998, the last time the ruble’s bottom fell out, and it’s clear that Moscow will try to prevent banks from failing, there should be little optimism among Putin’s inner circle. Russia now faces a protracted and serious financial-cum-economic crisis that will get much worse before it gets better. Since much of Putin’s popularity has derived from the impressive economic growth his fifteen years in the Kremlin have brought, a rise in living standards that has benefited average Russians as well as oligarchs, the political implications of this collapse for Russia’s president are grave.
But are they enough to get Putin to cease his aggression and, in the long run, perhaps even leave office? Western politicians, eager to avoid armed confrontation with Russia, have assumed that enough sanctions-related pain will force Putin’s hand and get him to back off in Ukraine and elsewhere. This was always a questionable assumption. In the first place, sanctions tend to work as intended mostly against countries that strongly dislike being a global pariah, like apartheid-era South Africa, whose English-speaking white elites hated how they suddenly were no longer welcome in the posh parts of London. There is no evidence that Putin and most average Russians find being despised by the West particularly objectionable; on the contrary, many seem to revel in it.
Then there is the touchy fact that sanctions sometimes work not at all as intended. Using economic warfare to break a country’s will, which entails real hardship for average citizens, can cause more aggression rather than cease it. The classic example is Imperial Japan, which faced grim economic realities once U.S.-led oil sanctions took effect in retaliation for Tokyo’s aggressive and nasty war in China. Lacking indigenous petroleum, Japan was wholly dependent on imports that Washington, DC, blocked with sanctions. These placed Japan on what strategists would term “death ground,” since without imported oil its economy and its military could not function. Moreover, the sanctions were seen — correctly — by Tokyo as a sign that the United States and its allies did not want Japan to dominate the Western Pacific region, which constituted an intolerable affront to Japanese pride. The closest place to get the oil Japan needed was the Dutch East Indies, today’s Indonesia, and Tokyo resolved to seize the oil there by force. To do that, Japan first had to drive the Royal Navy out of Singapore and the U.S. Navy out of the Philippines, and to enable that they had to disable America’s Pacific Fleet, which was ported in Pearl Harbor…and the rest of the story you know.
Japan in 1941 believed it was already facing defeat through oppressive sanctions, so engaging in actual war seemed like a logical choice. The total defeat of the Japanese Empire in 1945 indicates that Tokyo’s decision to bomb Pearl Harbor was madcap, but had things worked out differently at, say, Midway in June 1942, such choices might look very different to historians today. When sitting on promotion boards for battle-tried colonels hoping for selection to general in his army, something he enjoyed, Napoleon liked to ask of a candidate, pointedly: “Yes, but is he lucky?” Japan was not at all lucky in the war it started in December 1941, but its defeat was hardly preordained, and the salient point is that Tokyo felt that the Americans really started that war with their harsh sanctions.
Might Putin do the same and decide that since Russia is facing defeat at the hands of Western sanctions, which represent a kind of war, why not opt for actual war, in which Moscow at least has a chance of victory? It’s too early to determine that, but 2015 will be the year such grave decisions are made. To date, there are no indications that Putin intends to back down in Ukraine, or anywhere, thanks to Western sanctions. It’s important to note that Putin’s narrative, which he has elaborated on several occasions and is accepted by most Russians, is straightforward: He has done nothing illegal in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, he is only protecting Russia and ethnic Russians, which is a legitimate national interest. Moreover, it is the height of cheek for the Americans, who after all invade countries all over the world in the name of “freedom,” to call Moscow’s legitimate actions on Russia’s borders “aggression.” Russia will defend itself against this rancid hypocrisy and will resist the West’s warlike sanctions, which are intended to punish Russia for defending itself and its rightful interests.
Putin’s public statements this month make clear that backing down now is not in the cards. At a press conference last week, he pointedly blamed the financial crisis on the West (“The current situation was obviously provoked primarily by external factors.”) while promising the economy will eventually improve. (Close observers will note that Putin cited “The main achievement of the year in the social sphere is of course positive demographics.”) The usual KGB-style tough talk, however, was on display, as a British journalist explained:
He brooked no compromise on the annexation of Crimea, and renewed his lambasting of the West’s policies since the fall of the Berlin Wall, accusing it of putting up new “virtual walls” and wanting to “chain” the Russian bear. He said that even if the bear were to “sit tight… supping berries and honey” and “abandon its hunting instincts”, the West would still “seek to chain us… then rip out our teeth and claws”. The bear, he said, had no intention of being turned into a “soft toy”. It would defend its sovereignty.
On the weekend, specifically on 20 December, a holiday that honors Russia’s “special services” — this was the day in 1917 that the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, was founded by “Iron Feliks” Dzierżyński; in a normal country this would be a day of national mourning not celebration — Putin addressed Russia’s security posture, noting this year’s spike in espionage against the country. He proudly asserted that Russian counterintelligence, Putin’s former employers, had uncovered 230 foreign spies operating in the country during 2014. He minced no words about this threat:
Frank statements are being made to the effect that Russia should pay dearly for its independent stance, for its support for its compatriots, for Crimea and Sevastopol – for merely existing, it sometimes seems. Clearly, no one has ever succeeded in scaring, suppressing or isolating Russia and never will. Such attempts have been made regularly, over the centuries, as I have said publicly on numerous occasions, and in the 20th century it happened several times: in the 1920s, the 1940s and later. It did not work then and it will not work now. Meanwhile, we have to be prepared to experience certain difficulties and always rebuff any threats to our sovereignty, stability and the unity of our society.
This is not a man who is about to back down; doubling-down seems decidedly more likely. To be fair to Putin, Russia is a democracy of sorts, and popular opinion matters. He has dangerously stoked nationalist fires throughout the year now ending, regularly citing alleged Ukrainian Nazis eager to commit genocide against innocent Russians, so it’s difficult to see how he can turn those passions off with a switch, not least because beating the nationalist drum, while making the diplomatic equivalent of obscene gestures at the West, is popular with the Russian masses.
Neither does Western behavior always help matters. It seems not to have occurred to many Western politicians that gleeful public statements about how sanctions will cripple Russia might make Russians view these devastating acts as tantamount to war waged against them. President Obama, too, has not always been wise in his comments. In the first place he has not explained why a half-century of sanctions on tiny and impoverished Cuba failed to work — hence his opening to Havana last week — but sanctions on vast and largely self-sufficient Russia should be expected to deliver as advertised. Last weekend, Obama’s comments on his adversary in the Kremlin took a strange turn:
There was a spate of stories about how he is the chess master and outmaneuvering the West and outmaneuvering Mr. Obama and this and that and the other. And right now, he’s presiding over the collapse of his currency, a major financial crisis and a huge economic contraction. That doesn’t sound like somebody who has rolled me or the United States of America.
Obama’s offensive defensiveness here speaks volumes — the self-reference in the third person is revealing — and will be read in Moscow as weakness mingled with taunting. If this is what prep school Ivy League lawyers think passes for tough talk in Chicago, the Chekists in the Kremlin, who are actual hard men with much blood on their hands, will be happy to give lessons to faux-macho poseurs in the West Wing, and in 2015 they will.
I don’t know if there will be war — real war — between Russia and the West in the new year. Surely such a possibility cannot be ruled out, not least because NATO has signally failed to implement the modest deterrence posture in Eastern Europe that I recommended six months ago, eschewing actual defense in favor of some showy yet small-scale exercises without strategic impact. It’s not surprising that some NATO frontline states are planning for possible invasion and occupation by Russia, since their faith in the staying power of the Atlantic Alliance, particularly in Obama’s resolve, is increasingly in doubt.
It is unlikely that Putin will soon choose overt aggression against a NATO country with the intent of causing major war, but such a conflict may result anyway in 2015. Rising Kremlin military and espionage operations in Northern Europe are a cause for concern, while Kremlin provocations against Estonia, that tiny country being a particular bugbear for Putin, indicate where the next Russian “microaggression” — here meaning an engineered “misunderstanding” at a border town to test Alliance resolve — may perhaps fall. It’s a tricky game deciding where Obama’s “redlines” are, particularly because the president himself seems not to know in Syria, Ukraine, or anywhere, so it’s dangerously easy to envision a scenario where the angry gamblers in Moscow roll the dice one time too many, forcing NATO’s hand, without realizing it until it’s too late. War can happen by a kind of accident, with a risky Kremlin operational game gone wrong, and since NATO is not seriously prepared to resist Russian aggression on its eastern frontier, in 2015 it just might.
What I am absolutely certain of, however, is that the new year will bring the West more of what I’ve termed Special War emanating from the East. Moscow is far from ready to wage sustained conventional war against NATO, not least because the oil-plus-ruble collapse will delay its long-overdue military modernization program, but it is eminently prepared to engage in the witches’ brew of espionage, subversion, and terrorism that makes up Special War. Here the West must be vigilant, since Kremlin Special War can do real damage, and represents something that NATO is poorly conditioned to recognize, much less defeat and deter.
First, espionage, which is a long-standing Russian core competency. Kremlin intelligence operations against the West are not only rising in number and intensity — even the media has belatedly noticed that Moscow’s special services are as active against us as they ever were during the Cold War — but in aggressiveness as well. Putin takes a deep and personal interest in the activities of Russia’s intelligence agencies, which formed his unmistakably Chekist personality, and he has given them wide latitude to “get tough.” Just as in Israel, though not at all in the United States, Russian spies know that “the top” has their back if an operation goes wrong, as some inevitably will; Moscow prefers a bias for action, not inaction, in its huge espionage arm. Moreover, the persistent inability of Westerners to see Russian espionage as the serious threat to our secrets and safety that it is — here the blindness of even some NATO governments to the painful reality of the Snowden Operation does not encourage — gives the Kremlin a latitude to wage Special War against the West that it does not deserve.
Which leads to the matter of subversion, a term which has fallen out of favor since the Cold War but which needs a rebirth as soon as possible. Russian intelligence and its helpers have a sophisticated doctrine, honed over decades, to wage what we would term Political Warfare against their enemies. To further the Kremlin’s aims, they cultivate Western politicos, activists and journalists to disseminate pro-Russian views on a wide range of issues; much of this is now conducted online. These Western partners range from being full-fledged agents of the Russian special services to mere pro-Putin influencers, not always entirely wittingly. Nevertheless, this Kremlin brand of espionage-based psychological operations — the proper term is Active Measures, which has no doctrinal NATO equivalent — can achieve devastating results through lies, half-truths, and forgeries. Russia takes advantage of Western gullibility, niceness, and unwillingness to accept just how dishonest the enemy is, sometimes to strategic effect. Subversion is back, with online disinformation as its main weapon, and the sooner we accept this the West can begin to counter Russian agitprop that aims to psychologically and politically disarm and divide NATO without fighting.
On the political front, Putin holds quite a few European cards. The Kremlin has successfully established important, multilayered agent-of-influence networks in NATO countries, as I’ve explained previously, and the current political ferment in Europe offers Putin an inroads there that Russia has not enjoyed since the early years of the Cold War. Moscow has long supported far Left parties and activists in the West, but in recent years they have made major inroads on the far Right as well, whose star is ascendant in many European Union states, thanks to hot-tempered debates about immigration and national identity. Simply put, if the EU fails to deal with such issues in an effective way, and soon, it will surrender them to the far Right, i.e. Putin’s allies, in a manner that will have strategic results that will benefit Moscow in important ways.
Last, there’s terrorism. In the 21st century this takes many forms, from blowing up bombs to raiding computer networks. It’s remarkable how few Westerners seem to notice that the sudden and devastating “cyber-vandalism” (to cite Obama) against Sony hits the presses just as Russia’s economy buckles under sanctions. Russian acumen at cyber-terrorism is not exactly news — just ask Georgia and Estonia — but it has yet to be employed against major NATO countries in a strategic fashion. Yet this should be anticipated as an ancillary to other warlike secret Russian operations against NATO and the EU. Moreover, the difficulty of establishing firm attribution in cyber-espionage and cyber-terrorism means that many acts that remain officially unresolved — meaning what Western governments are willing to say publicly — actually have the fingerprint of Russian intelligence on them. And more is coming.
The notion that an angry Russia would employ actual terrorism, meaning killers and bombers, against the West sounds fanciful to some but it ought not, given decades of Russian activities in this arena. The Soviet intelligence services engaged a wide range of foreign terrorist groups beginning in the 1960’s, and terrorists as diverse as the Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction, and the PLO, among many others, obtained aid and training from the KGB and GRU, the Kremlin’s military intelligence arm, as well as from East Bloc sister services. Among major transnational terrorist groups in the late Cold War, only the PFLP-GC was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Kremlin, while the Soviets were content to give aid, comfort, and cover to the PLO and let it kill innocents as it pleased, as long as the KGB’s fingerprint remained difficult to detect. (As a senior KGB officer who dealt with the PLO in the 1970’s replied, when I asked him why the Kremlin never told Arafat’s Fatah terrorists what to attack, “Why give them orders? Everything they do is good!”) It should be noted that the idea the KGB and its East Bloc partners gave assistance to terrorists in the 1970’s and 1980’s was derided at the time as a “conspiracy theory” by nearly all Western “terrorism experts,” yet turned out to be entirely true, we learned, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Hence Moscow’s present-day murky links to international terrorism, even al-Qa’ida, merit close examination.
Moscow need not employ cut-outs and false-flags to conduct terrorism abroad, it has plenty of in-house talent in those areas, which fall under the rubric of what Russian spies term “wetwork.” In recent years, Putin has not been shy about wetwork abroad, even when the Kremlin’s footprint is obvious. The 2006 London murder of the defector Sasha Litvinenko, the infamous radioactive tea assassination, was transparently the work of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s biggest intelligence agency and Putin’s power-base. Two years earlier, GRU assassins blew up Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, exiled leader of the Chechen resistance, with a bomb placed in his vehicle; the device exploded on the streets of Doha, Qatar, killing Yandarbiyev and two of his bodyguards. GRU was sloppy, however, and Qatari authorities quickly arrested the two bombers. At trial, they admitted Moscow had sent them to Doha to assassinate the Chechen leader, yet they were returned to Russian custody in early 2005 amid promises they would serve their jail sentence for murder in Russia. In best Putin fashion, the GRU officers served not a day in a Russian jail, instead getting a heroes’ welcome home, including decorations for their good work abroad, then disappeared from public view.
Contrary to myth, the Cold War KGB and GRU were decidedly cautious about wetwork in the West. Assassinations of “state enemies” abroad were commonplace in Stalin’s time, but they waned in the 1950’s after several embarrassing missteps, including the defection of one would-be KGB assassin to the Americans. The 1959 assassination of Stepan Bandera, the top Ukrainian nationalist, in Munich with cyanide was the last operation of its kind, as the KGB’s footprint on the crime was obvious and embarrassing to the Kremlin. After that, the Chekists became notably cautious about wetwork in the West, not least because such an operation gone wrong would lead to the expulsion of many undercover Soviet intelligence officers, undoing years of hard espionage work.
While KGB and GRU maintained significant wetwork capabilities, they were used very sparingly down to the end of the Cold War. Yuri Andropov, who headed the KGB from 1967 to 1982, was notably cautious in such matters, quashing numerous proposals to assassinate defectors and dissidents in the West. When the Bulgarian DS, a close partner agency, asked for Soviet help to murder a troublesome defector, Andropov told the KGB to help but to steer very clear of the killing itself. The Soviets gave the Bulgarians a special new weapon, an umbrella that fired a micro-pellet filled with highly toxic ricin, which the DS used to assassinate Georgi Markov in London in October 1978 — a crime that British investigators correctly pinned on the DS, though the case, never prosecuted, officially remains open. Yet the Soviets had nothing to do with the killing itself, per Andropov’s orders.
In contrast, Putin shows none of Andropov’s caution. He has been willing to send Russian spies abroad to kill people that the Kremlin does not like, and as Russia finds itself increasingly in a corner and willing to lash out at the West, this ought to concern all Western governments. Increased espionage and subversion against NATO and the EU, directed by Russian special services, should be considered a given. The West would also be wise to anticipate Russian terrorism, the ugly side of the Kremlin’s Special War, as Putin seeks ways to punish the people whom he blames for his increasingly dire politico-economic predicament.
Everything from cyber-attacks to bombings to assassinations of prominent Westerners should be considered eminently possible. The good news is that vigilant Western counterintelligence, employed in a joint and strategic fashion, can blunt Russia’s well-honed Special War acumen and will prevent terrorism by the Kremlin and its friends and various false-flags. By blunting espionage, you also cut short things much worse. The bad news is that NATO and the EU remain seriously deficient in counterintelligence, beyond the merely tactical realm, and are not yet ready to take on the Russians in this most important game. Money, motivation and cultural change inside U.S. and Western security services are needed urgently to develop serious counterintelligence vision and competence.
The new year will be filled with many Kremlin operational games of various kinds. Expect regular media reports of “unattributed” cyber attacks, “unexplained” acts of sabotage, “unresolved” online scandals, and “mysterious” terrorist incidents across the West. This can be stopped, and must be; there is little time to waste. I will be spending 2015 doing my part to assist the West as it learns to wage Special War against the number-one-ranked team in the game. I used to be a player, now I’m just a consultant. If you would like to contact me about how to fight smart, feel free to do so.
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Russian Aggression, Western Talk
Vladimir Putin wages war on Ukraine, while Europe hopes to ease sanctions.
Updated Jan. 23, 2015 6:59 p.m. ET
140 COMMENTS
Barack Obama devoted two short paragraphs in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday to the crisis in Ukraine. “We’re upholding the principle that bigger nations can’t bully the small,” the President said, “by opposing Russian aggression, and supporting Ukraine’s democracy, and reassuring our NATO allies.” Thanks to American and European sanctions, he added, “Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters.”
Vladimir Putin begs to differ. Russian forces on the same day opened fire on Ukrainian positions in the rebel-controlled Luhansk region, not far from the Russian border, according to a Ukrainian military spokesman. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cut short his trip to Davos to deal with the “worsening situation” on the home front.
Moscow has issued the usual denials about reinforcing the rebels in Luhansk, calling its regulars “volunteers” and sneering at “hallucinations about a ‘Russian invasion,’” as a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman put it. There are now some 9,000 such volunteers fighting alongside pro-Kremlin rebels in eastern Ukraine, according to Mr. Poroshenko, and they are armed with hundreds of tanks, heavy artillery and personnel carriers.
“For months now there has been a push by the separatists for expansion of their territory,” a Western diplomat at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe told us. The rebels have “a lot of ammo,” the official said, “and that’s coming from somewhere. This could not be happening without sophisticated logistical support from the Russian Federation.”
Meanwhile, the Western diplomatic push continues. The German, French, Ukrainian and Russian Foreign Ministers held a new round of talks in Berlin on Wednesday. The aim is a cease-fire along the lines of September’s failed Minsk Protocol, but as Mr. Poroshenko told reporters, “To have a complete de-escalation we don’t need any blah-blah-blah. We need just to withdraw Russian troops.”
It doesn’t help that the West’s commitment to sanctions is flagging. “I think the sanctions must stop now,” French President François Hollande said on Jan. 5. He added: “It has been costly for him. . . . Mr. Putin does not want to annex eastern Ukraine. What he wants is for Ukraine not to fall into the NATO camp.”
Mr. Hollande’s musings on Russia’s intentions were echoed by European Union foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini, whose bureaucracy in a discussion paper circulated to EU foreign ministers suggested bifurcating the Ukraine issue into the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s “destabilization of eastern Ukraine.” If Moscow pulls back from eastern Ukraine, the paper said, sanctions could be rolled back and cooperation resumed.
European foreign ministers later clarified that there are no immediate plans to lift sanctions, but the Mogherini paper revealed the depth of Western misunderstanding of Russia: Just as Mr. Putin feels the pressure of falling oil prices, Mr. Hollande and Ms. Mogherini telegraph a willingness to welcome him back into good Western graces if only he’ll settle for his gains so far. The West should instead be maintaining the pressure, so the Russian people come to understand the costs of Mr. Putin’s revanchism.
The Russian leader doesn’t want to deal with the West like a normal nation. He wants to re-create Kremlin dominance over Russia’s near abroad and use energy exports as a political weapon against Western Europe. If the West permits him, he will consolidate his gains, continue to stir trouble in Ukraine and wait until the right moment to go on the offensive again.
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WRM, my favorite Democrat, is always a very worthwhile read:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/01/27/in-it-to-win-it/
The post-1990 European order has taken much more damage than much of U.S. elite opinion has fully understood, and that damage poses much greater dangers to vital U.S. interests than most people think. Intelligent U.S. engagement in the rethinking and reforming of Europe is as necessary now as it was earlier in the 20th century.
...
From the Kremlin’s perspective, the world may have looked better a year ago when oil was expensive and Moscow’s coffers were flush. But while Russia had some ugly surprises in 2014, Putin seems to believe that the false foundations underneath the imposing façade of the West continue to erode at an accelerating pace. It does not take a strong push to knock over a house of cards; Putin, one suspects, still thinks he can win. He is certainly acting that way.
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Putin Begins to Crack the Atlantic Alliance
The British are on the outs, and German elites float a European Treaty Organization to replace NATO.
By
John Vinocur
Feb. 16, 2015 7:30 p.m. ET
163 COMMENTS
While the Germans, seconded by their French character witnesses, negotiated an ethereal Ukraine cease fire with Vladimir Putin in Minsk, Belarus, last week, Britain was kept informed by regular messages from the conference room.
It was a drip-feed from an arena of bad history in the making to a distant sideline. Call it either a gesture of consideration and respect, or a sign of the largely self-inflicted downgrading of a onetime Great Game player. Whatever, here was Britain home alone, although in no sense in the strategically assertive manner of Benjamin Disraeli ’s notion of Splendid Isolation.
David Cameron ENLARGE
David Cameron Photo: Bloomberg News
The Minsk deal was “terrible,” a senior U.K. official told me afterward, with holes in it so gaping as to allow Russia to drive tanks unhampered through an open Ukrainian border for next to forever. There might be some regrets that London wasn’t there as a “practitioner,” the official said, “but the deal was so bad that we now see our distance as an advantage.”
In theory, after the Obama administration outsourced the response to the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine to Angela Merkel ’s Germany, only U.N. Security Council member Britain was (very theoretically) left in Europe to take sides and name names. But London chose not to press for an active role. Ms. Merkel then signaled that Germany’s “strategic patience” with Mr. Putin’s asymmetrical war could last for decades.
As a result, over the course of the past two weeks Mr. Putin got an up-close lesson in Western halfheartedness.
French President François Hollande, as Germany’s sidekick in meetings with Mr. Putin in Moscow and Minsk—Ms. Merkel didn’t want it to go down as a German-Russian deal—exclaimed, “I don’t want to say anything about the responsibilities of one or the other” combatants. He added, “Will someone please explain to me what the difference is between an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon?”
Here goes. Offensive weapon: a Russian tank. Defensive: a Ukrainian soldier with an antitank guided missile, one of the kinds of arms Barack Obama is fussing about delivering to the government in Kiev.
Britain’s response was a “no” to supplying Ukraine with defensive lethal weapons, coupled with a statement by Foreign Minister Phillip Hammond that, “We’re happy that the Germans have taken the lead.”
This isn’t Britain at its bravest, cleverest or most famously resourceful. Its slide has been accelerated by a U.S. administration that hung Britain out to dry by abandoning its promised willingness to come on board with London on a more muscular approach to Syria in 2012-13. Since then, Mr. Obama’s steadfastness has been regarded warily by some British officials.
A more immediate explanation for this effaced approach is the national election May 7, in which Prime Minister David Cameron ’s Conservative Party sees the prospect of a fragmented vote requiring the formation of a coalition government.
His strategists don’t want to wander from a single campaign message on the improvement in the British economy. Polls say that foreign affairs aren’t among the top 10 issues of voter concern and that only 17% “think the United Kingdom has a moral responsibility to support popular uprisings against dictators,” a negative measure of potential public engagement on Ukraine.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the British fade is that it bolsters Mr. Putin’s conviction that he is succeeding in splitting apart the Atlantic Alliance. A frequently silent, self-involved, scarcely active and less goading Britain, one obviously less confident in its trans-Atlantic instincts and its trans-Atlantic ties, reinforces the Russian idea that it really can reverse the post-Soviet security order in Europe.
Britain ought to be fighting this out loud. In Germany, echoing the Gerhard Schröder years, the weekly Die Zeit made reference without particular alarm to a Europe now “wrestling” with its “emancipation” from the U.S. Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a newspaper close to the chancellor, last week referred to Ms. Merkel as a “mediator” between the U.S. and Russia, a notion she refutes but that has wide appeal in Germany.
Sueddeutsche’s chief editor, Kurt Kister, wrote on Saturday that “the Americans hardly play a role anymore” in Europe and recommended its countries begin thinking of setting up a “European Treaty Organization or EUTO.”
That’s crackpot stuff. How could a Europe without America ever muster a credible nuclear deterrent against Russia? But there’s the potential for a rewrite of Europe’s security treaties lurking out there that could make for trouble. The German foreign ministry of Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Russians want “to discuss” such a rewrite. What could Britain be saying but isn’t?
Malcolm Rifkind, who is on a German-appointed panel of “eminent persons” to begin that discussion, gave a glancing but interesting answer via a question to Ms. Merkel at the recent Munich Security Conference. The former Conservative foreign and defense minister asked if her no-military-solution thesis on Ukraine could ever be successful without the threat of force being attached. She dodged the essence of the question.
Mr. Rifkind, in a later conversation, saw the possibility of an altered tone from a re-elected Conservative-led government in Britain. He said, “A change can come if there’s an American-led policy that’s less ambiguous and unabashedly robust.”
Good to hear it said. But he shouldn’t hold his breath.
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http://news.yahoo.com/lithuania-reinstate-conscription-amid-russia-fears-133241019.html
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Europe’s Defense Wanes as the Putin Threat Grows
Most NATO members are going to fail to meet pledges to stop declines in military spending.
By
Ian Birrell
March 3, 2015 7:08 p.m. ET
London
The chill of a new Cold War is descending over Europe. In Ukraine, ripped apart by Russian President Vladimir Putin ’s adventurism, a shaky cease-fire holds but there are growing fears of a new onslaught on the key port city Mariupol. In Estonia, one of the increasingly nervous Baltic states, a Feb. 24 Independence Day celebration in Narva, 300 yards from the Russian border, was marked by a NATO show of strength with troops from seven nations, including the U.S. and U.K., marching in the slush.
On the same day Russian troops drilled on their side of the border in Pskov, with 1,500 paratroopers swooping from the sky in exercises to capture an “enemy” airfield. Meanwhile, Lithuania revealed plans to reintroduce conscription in response to “growing aggression” while Norway is restructuring its armed forces to ensure faster response to Russian threats.
A few days earlier, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon had warned of “real and present” danger to the Baltic states. In Moscow, Kremlin-connected pundits debate whether nuclear war is “winnable” while opposition leaders like Boris Nemtsov, shot in the back last week, are murdered. Russia is probing NATO reactions and response times, with four times as many interceptions made for breaches of Baltic airspace last year than in 2013. Twice recently the Royal Air Force scrambled fighter jets to escort Russian bombers flying over the English Channel.
But when a Russian submarine was suspected of slinking into Scottish waters late last year, weeks after another was spotted off the Swedish coast, the RAF had to summon NATO assistance for sea patrol planes to hunt it down. Such is the state of the British armed forces, cut by governments desperate to cash in the “peace dividend” after the last Cold War and then hit by financial meltdown. Sadly, the U.K. now appears reliant on allies for aircraft to search its own waters. With fewer than 100,000 full-time troops, Great Britain now has a smaller army than during the mid-19th-century Crimean War.
Meanwhile, a new report by the European Leadership Network think-tank reveals that most NATO members are failing to fulfill pledges to reverse declines in defense spending. It found six key countries cutting budgets, including the economic powerhouse of Germany, while the cash flow is flatlining in France, the other big spender. Budgets are rising in frontline states such as Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, but only one country—Estonia, with defense spending of less than $500 million—will meet the NATO target this year of all alliance members spending at least 2% of GDP on defense.
Five months ago, British Prime Minister David Cameron urged NATO members to hit the 2% defense-spending target at a summit in Wales. Now he is coming under growing pressure from disgruntled military chiefs and grumbling backbench members of Parliament as the country falls below the NATO target, and defense spending sinks to its lowest level in 25 years while inflated budgets for dubious foreign-aid projects soar.
Rory Stewart, a widely admired Tory member of Parliament and chairman of the House of Commons defense select committee, rightly argues that the NATO defense-spending target is symbolically important when the world is so dangerous—as well as sending a crucial message to an opportunistic Russian president testing his neighbors’ resolve. “This puts the spotlight on whether European nations are even capable of being regional powers in their backyard,” he recently told me.
Germany has been asserting its leadership in recent weeks by seeking to resolve the two major crises confronting the continent, with Chancellor Angela Merkel heading cease-fire talks over Ukraine before taking a firm stance on Greek debt repayments. The country is also arming Kurds in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq. Yet Berlin’s defense spending has plunged to 1.09% of GDP this year from 1.3% in 2013—despite leaked parliamentary reports last year revealing the shocking state of outdated military equipment.
While Mr. Putin has lied consistently about Russian involvement in Ukraine since the start of his seizure of Crimea, he has been relatively open about his determination to modernize his nation’s creaking military machine. His biographer, Masha Gessen, points out that six of the first 11 decrees Mr. Putin passed after taking office concerned the military, with defense spending soaring despite deep economic problems. Russia’s annual defense spending has doubled over the past decade—surpassing Great Britain’s—and Moscow has plans to replace over two-thirds of the country’s aging military equipment by 2020.
Restraint of Russian expansionism is about more than spending, of course—and U.S. defense budgets still dwarf those of Russia (although Washington seems more focused these days on its “pivot” to Asia and the rapid buildup of China’s arsenal). But Europe needs to wake up after witnessing the first annexation on the continent since 1945, followed by the willful wrecking of Ukraine.
European leaders have been woefully slow to appreciate the threat posed by Mr. Putin’s gangster-style presidency furled in the flag of nationalism. Moscow will strategize on the basis of Western weakness, while continuing to chip away at European divisions. Mr. Putin, for instance, has just awarded a €2.5 billion loan to the financially challenged government of Cyprus—a European Union member opposed to Russian sanctions—in return for naval access to its ports.
NATO is planning a rapid response unit and mounting more exercises. But is this really enough to stop more “little green men,” whether in Russian uniforms or not, from sparking another conflict? As Malcolm Chalmers, research director at the Royal United Services Institute in London, recently told me: “The danger is that Russia next bites off a bit of Estonia, then asks what NATO is going to do about it.”
As we fight this new Cold War, Western leaders need to relearn the old lessons of crisis management and deterrence that defeated Mr. Putin’s Soviet predecessors—and relearn them quickly.
Mr. Birrell is a contributing editor of the U.K. newspaper the Mail on Sunday and a former speechwriter for British Prime Minister David Cameron.
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Where is Putin ?Interesting rumor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFzU4xrwjxM
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http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6287/sweden-military#.VcSHLgEo8VY.twitter
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http://news.yahoo.com/russia-summons-polish-ambassador-protest-removal-soviet-era-191111204--business.html
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A good dissection of current Russian tactics in Europe and the Baltics:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-inauguration-of-21st-century-political-warfare-a-strategy-for-countering-russian-non-li
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I did not see this coming , , ,
http://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-jews-fleeing-western-europe-should-move-to-russia/
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I did not see this coming , , ,
http://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-jews-fleeing-western-europe-should-move-to-russia/
I can say i'm a bit surprised as well.
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European surge. A year from now, there will be thousands more U.S. soldiers stationed in Eastern Europe. And they’re bringing their tanks, howitzers, and armored Bradley infantry carriers with them.
Pentagon officials have long talked about their plan to rotate a third Army brigade in and out of Europe to bolster the two brigades already there. The plan was for the third brigade to move around Eastern Europe conducting training exercises with local allies nervously watching their borders for the next potential Russian provocation. On Wednesday, the U.S. European Command added a new wrinkle to the plan, announcing that this new armored brigade will bring its own tanks and other equipment along, instead of falling in on a prepositioned set of combat-ready equipment already on the continent. The move will add hundreds of the Army’s most advanced tanks, cannons, and other ground vehicles to the force. It will also free up an entire brigade’s worth of weapons currently being used by American forces training on the continent, which will be stored in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany in the event that more U.S. troops need to be rushed to the continent on short notice.
The Pentagon currently has about 65,000 troops assigned to the U.S. European Command, down from about 200,000 during the height of the Cold war in the 1980s. Then new deployments will be paid for using the European Reassurance Initiative, for which the White House requested $3.4 billion in its 2017 budget submission to Congress. The plan’s 2016 budget was $800 million.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lithuanias-president-russia-is-terrorizing-its-neighbors-and-using-terrorist-methods/2014/09/24/eb32b9fc-4410-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2013780/royal-navy-pledges-to-man-mark-vladimir-putins-navy-as-russians-begin-ten-ship-pincer-move-on-the-english-channel/
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/world/europe/finger-pointed-at-russians-in-alleged-coup-plot-in-montenegro.html?emc=edit_th_20161127&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/a-former-communist-showpiece-offers-a-neighborhood-history-lesson-in-krakow-poland/2016/12/01/c2a7712c-aab5-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html?postshare=5001480920627904&tid=ss_fb-bottom&utm_term=.b5d91ff9ad84
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Picking Up Where the West Leaves Off
Analysis
December 9, 2016 | 09:00 GMT Print
Text Size
Members of Poland's and Lithuania's special operations forces descend from a helicopter during joint military exercises in Croatia in 2009. As the Russia-West conflict intensifies, the countries stuck in the middle will increase their cooperation. (STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)
Forecast
Shifting European and U.S. politics will weaken the West's support for states along Russia's periphery, or at least give that impression.
As Western countries become more divided and Russia's position strengthens, Eurasian countries will band together and increase their cooperation with one another.
Ukraine and Georgia will be particularly energetic in their pursuit of regional integration as they look to their neighbors for strength and protection.
Analysis
This year has rattled Western politics to their core. The Brexit vote laid bare the deep rifts crisscrossing the Continent, while far-right and anti-establishment parties across Europe have gained momentum. Across the Atlantic, the United States witnessed a similar political upheaval in the surprise November election of Donald Trump as the country's next president. With several more votes scheduled for 2017 in many of the European Union's biggest member states, including France, Germany and now perhaps Italy, next year is shaping up to be just as turbulent as the last.
The effects of these sweeping changes will ripple beyond the United States and Europe. Russia, in particular, could have a chance to gain the upper hand in its tense standoff with the West, which has been ongoing since Ukraine's Euromaidan uprising in 2014. Not only will the upcoming transitions in the United States and Europe weaken the West's resolve to maintain its sanctions against Russia, but they will also shift the West's attention inward to its own divisions. This may give Moscow room to strengthen its influence among the nations in its periphery.
The states that lie between Russia and Europe will no doubt feel the impact of the political upsets occurring outside their borders. Countries that once belonged to the Soviet Union have watched the changes underway with growing unease, and they are likely re-evaluating their stances toward the competing giants looming on their eastern and western flanks. All of them, from those in Eastern Europe to those in the Caucasus, will have to prepare for a new geopolitical environment in which Russia may no longer be able to be ignored and the West may no longer be able to be counted on.
An Eastern European Union?
As these countries reassess their situations, they will likely turn to each other for help. Ukraine will be particularly important to watch: For the past three years, it has relied on the West's backing in its spat with Russia over the eastern region of Donbas. But now, as the European Union fragments and as the incoming U.S. administration weighs its commitment to NATO allies and its collaboration with the Kremlin, Ukraine cannot be sure that Western economic, political and defense aid will continue.
And so it will look to its neighbors as an insurance policy in the event that NATO and the United States scale back their military presence in Central and Eastern Europe. Neither Poland nor the Baltic states are in a position to fully replace EU or NATO forces, but they could form a supplemental alliance of sorts with Ukraine. In fact, Ukraine has already begun to ramp up its joint training and military exercises with Poland and Lithuania, and it will probably continue to do so in the coming year.
Mutual defense may not be the only thing Ukraine seeks from its neighbors. Poland and the Baltic states have made great strides in diversifying their energy portfolios away from Russian natural gas by building liquefied natural gas import terminals and pipeline interconnectors throughout the region. Ukraine, which is also working to reduce its dependence on Russian energy by reversing natural gas flows from Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, will likely try to join their burgeoning energy network in the years ahead. After all, greater energy connectivity with Poland and the Baltics — including a planned pipeline linking Ukraine and Poland with a capacity of 5 billion cubic meters that will be complete by 2020 — could give Kiev more opportunities for energy diversification.
Cooperation in the Caucasus
The nascent Ukrainian bloc is not the only one of its kind. Like Ukraine, Georgia has become concerned by the potential withdrawal of Western aid. Tbilisi is currently engaged in a dispute with Moscow over the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and it has tried to integrate more closely with the European Union and NATO. Both organizations, however, have repeatedly put off Tbilisi's requests for membership plans. As their focus turns inward in the years ahead, Georgia's aspirations for deeper integration with Europe will be put in even greater jeopardy.
Georgia, too, will respond to the West's distraction by cozying up to two of its key neighbors and allies, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Tbilisi has already forged sturdy economic and energy ties with Baku and Ankara that will likely grow stronger in the coming years. Georgia serves as a vital transit state for oil and natural gas flowing from Azerbaijan to Turkey through the South Caucasus Pipeline, and construction is underway on the Trans-Anatolian and Trans-Adriatic pipelines. The two projects will bring an extra 16 bcm of natural gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II field to Turkish and European markets by 2018 and 2020, respectively. Along with the pipelines will come new transportation links, with the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway scheduled for completion in 2017.
The three countries, meanwhile, have also begun to expand their defense cooperation. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey now hold trilateral military exercises that will probably increase in scope and frequency next year. Georgia's chief of staff of the armed forces has already announced that the biggest exercises the three nations have ever held will take place in summer 2017.
The Ukrainian and Georgian blocs will undoubtedly encounter many challenges in the months ahead. Turkey's reluctance to directly challenge Russia will heavily influence the political dynamics of the Caucasus, while volatility in Ukraine could hamper Kiev's efforts to form a Baltic alliance. At the same time, Europe and NATO will by no means halt their activities in the region. But as the West becomes a more reluctant partner to the Eurasian states on Russia's doorstep, they will have little choice but to lean on each other for support.
Lead Analyst: Eugene Chausovsky
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/world/europe/intent-on-unsettling-eu-russia-taps-foot-soldiers-from-the-fringe.html?emc=edit_th_20161225&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/europe/estonia-juri-ratas-center-party.html
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https://www.1492news.com/news/37795_1483466418
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Summary
As shifts in the global order expose Poland's inherent vulnerabilities, the country has no choice but to look outward for support. Poland will do what it can to boost its own defense capabilities, but in its search for security and stability, Warsaw will also focus on building its web of political military alliances. In the Eurasian borderlands, Poland will work to bolster defense cooperation with countries near the Baltic and Black seas that are likewise wary of the potential for Russian aggression. Poland will also seek to reinforce ties with the broader European Union; though Warsaw will push against EU interference, it will ultimately support efforts to prevent the bloc's collapse. And as EU states diverge on policies toward the new U.S. presidential administration, Warsaw will try to protect its own bilateral ties with the White House.
Analysis
The uncertainties surrounding policy shifts under U.S. President Donald Trump's administration are forcing European countries to adapt their own foreign policy strategies. Germany, for example, is focused on trying to avoid a trade war with the United States and on developing closer ties with the administration. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom wants to negotiate a free trade agreement with Washington that would give London more flexibility as it navigates the Brexit process. Poland's main concern regarding the new global order is the same as it's always been: national security.
Warsaw's concerns are rooted in its age-old geographic vulnerabilities. Poland is at the heart of the Great European Plain, the largest mountain-free territory in Europe, which stretches from the French Pyrenees in the west to the Russian Ural Mountains in the east. Poland has no clear geographic borders and historically has been surrounded by powerful neighbors such as Germany, Russia and, earlier, Austria. It has repeatedly been invaded and partitioned by its neighbors.
Poland's Geographic Challenge
Poland's fragile geopolitical situation explains why a key element of Warsaw's foreign policy strategy is to look for as many alliances as possible to protect its territorial integrity. After the end of the Cold War, Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. It also sought to create regional alliances such as the Visegrad Group (with Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) and the Weimar Triangle (with Germany and France). But Warsaw is particularly keen to maintain strong ties with the United States, which it sees as its ultimate protector against Russian aggression.
The American Question
In recent years, Poland's foreign policy strategy has faced two major challenges: The first is the evolution of the European Union's economic crisis into a political crisis, resulting in stark internal divisions within the Continental bloc. The current Polish government has been critical of some aspects of the process of Continental integration, requesting the repatriation of some powers from Brussels back to national governments. But Warsaw is interested in reforming, not dissolving, the European Union. The second challenge has been the crisis in Ukraine, which put the spotlight on an aggressive Russia and a divided Europe. Some EU members, including the Baltic states and Germany, still defend strong sanctions against Moscow. But others, including Polish political allies such as Hungary, would like to lift them as soon as possible. (Thus far, all EU members have repeatedly voted to extend sanctions.)
The fragmentation of the European Union will be easier for Poland to digest if it preserves strong relations with the United States. But Warsaw is worried that the Trump administration might take a very different approach to foreign policy. The U.S. president has called NATO "obsolete" and has showed interest in improving relations with Russia, compelling Polish leaders to redouble their outreach to the White House. According to Polish President Andrzej Duda, in a phone call shortly after the U.S. election, Trump reassured him that bilateral cooperation would remain strong. In early February, Krzysztof Szczerski, one of Duda's senior advisers, met with Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, and invited the new president to visit Poland. On Feb. 5, Trump confirmed that he will attend a NATO summit in Brussels in late May.
Warsaw is looking for more than rhetorical reassurances. In mid-January, the U.S. deployed heavy weaponry and thousands of soldiers to Central and Eastern Europe, but this move was originally ordered by former U.S. President Barack Obama. Poland said it expects the Trump administration to honor the deal reached at the NATO summit last July, when Washington agreed to deploy some 4,000 troops on a rotational basis to Poland and to increase military exercises in the region.
Some of Trump's recent moves have put EU members in the awkward position of having to criticize the White House while simultaneously remaining in its good graces. For Poland, this balance should be easier to maintain, as the ruling Law and Justice party is ideologically close to Trump on several issues. In fact, Poland was one of the few EU governments to actually praise Trump's recent moves to limit immigration into the United States. The Polish government also hopes that the Trump administration will be less involved in Polish domestic political affairs than the Obama administration, which sought to strengthen the rule of law and to amp up the fight against corruption in the region.
Looking at the Baltic Sea
Even if Polish officials have reason to be optimistic about relations with Washington remaining strong during the Trump administration, they are also making preparations for an increasingly uncertain global order. At home, Warsaw's strategy centers around an ambitious plan to modernize its defense capacities. This involves increasing military spending and strengthening its domestic defense industrial base. In December, Poland's Ministry of Defense announced plans to spend more than 61 billion zlotys ($14.5 billion) to acquire weapons and military equipment between 2017 and 2022.
At the regional level, Warsaw is interested in stronger political and military cooperation with its neighbors. A natural area for Poland to seek allies is the Baltic Sea, where countries have similar concerns about Russia's recent moves. Poland already has strong ties with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, all of which have recently increased their own military spending. In fact, Poland and Estonia are among the only five NATO members that currently meet the organization's defense spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product. (The others are the United States, the United Kingdom and Greece.) Each of these countries generally wants a stronger and, if possible, permanent NATO presence in the region.
Poland and the Baltic countries are also interested in coordinating defense strategies. In mid-2016, for example, they began discussions with defense contractors to create a regional anti-aircraft missile shield. Such cooperation has a political element as well; Warsaw and its Baltic peers often join forces to preserve EU sanctions against Russia and to increase European economic and political cooperation with Ukraine. They are also boosting efforts to strengthen ties with Ukraine outside of the EU context.
Poland's Baltic strategy involves cooperation with Sweden, too. Stockholm has been one of the main supporters of developing closer ties between the European Union and countries in the former Soviet sphere, particularly Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, to bring them closer to the West. And over the past three years, Swedish officials have repeatedly warned about the worsening security situation in the Baltic area. Though Sweden is not a NATO member, since the start of the war in Ukraine the country has deepened its cooperation with the military alliance. In May 2016, for example, Sweden signed an agreement with NATO that allows the alliance to operate more easily on Swedish territory during training or in the event of a conflict.
In late 2015, Sweden and Poland signed their own military cooperation agreement, highlighting their shared interest in deterring potential Russian aggression. Closer Swedish-Polish links open the door for tighter cooperation between Nordic and Baltic countries, as Finland (another neutral, non-NATO country) often coordinates its foreign policy with Sweden. But despite its concerns regarding Russia, Sweden has remained neutral since the early 19th century, and there are no guarantees that Stockholm is ready to change its position and take a more confrontational military position toward Russia. Opinion polls in Sweden show that people are becoming increasingly supportive of NATO membership, but the issue remains controversial.
The Limits of the Visegrad Group
Poland's foreign policy strategy also involves keeping close ties with its fellow partners in the Visegrad Group: Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The bloc has a military component, as its members recently developed a Visegrad EU Battlegroup. But though the group is an effective tool giving Poland political influence within the European Union, is may not be as useful when it comes to dealing with Russia.
Because of differences in their respective geographic positions, not all the members of the Visegrad Group have the same sense of urgency when it comes to Russia. The crisis in Ukraine highlighted the oft-diverging foreign policy goals within the group. Hungary, for example, has openly demanded the lifting of EU sanctions against Russia, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been more guarded in their criticism of Moscow's actions. Internal political dynamics also play a role, as Poland sees itself as the natural leader of the Visegrad Group, a view that is not necessarily shared by the other three governments.
This has led Poland to show interest in going beyond its Visegrad allies and developing closer ties with Romania. Before the Ukrainian crisis, Polish-Romanian relations were not particularly active. But Russia's annexation of Crimea put Romania on alert, given that the peninsula is barely 140 miles from the Romanian border. Transdniestria, a breakaway territory of Moldova with close cultural links to Romania but militarily backing from Russia, is even closer. Like Poland, Romania also considers a more active Russia as a threat. Thus, Romania joined forces with Poland to demand a greater NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe. These days, Romanian representatives are often invited to meetings of the Visegrad Group, and Polish and Romanian authorities been meeting more frequently. Poland supports Romania's request for a larger NATO presence in the Black Sea.
Outreach to Germany
Finally, the new global order could open the door for better ties between Poland and Germany, whose bilateral relations have been relatively cool in recent years. The Polish government has refused to join a German-backed plan to distribute asylum seekers across the European Union, and Berlin has criticized Polish judicial reforms. Warsaw's calls for EU reforms to weaken the central institutions in Brussels and to repatriate powers back to national governments is at odds with Germany's view of a federal Europe.
But Germany is preoccupied with keeping the European Union together amid rising geopolitical uncertainty and sees Poland's cooperation in that regard important. Warsaw, in turn, is concerned that after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, it will lose a key ally in its push to preserve tough EU policies on Russia and to maintain strong EU ties with NATO and the United States. More important, for all of Warsaw's criticism of the European Union, the bloc is still a substantial source of funding and protection for Poland. In the current context of EU fragmentation, Germany and other member states have identified defense as one of the few areas on which additional cooperation is still possible. Considering Poland's foreign policy concerns, Warsaw is likely to support initiatives in this area.
Thus, Poland's strategy to cope with an increasingly uncertain global system will once again focus on developing as many international alliances as possible. At home, Poland will continue to focus on modernizing its military. Abroad, it will seek deeper ties with countries from the Baltic to the Black seas. Poland will remain a critic of some aspects of the European Union, but it will protect its membership within the bloc. And as EU member states struggle to form a united response to the new U.S. government, Warsaw will focus on bolstering its own ties with Washington.
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March 26, 2017 3:46 p.m. ET
146 COMMENTS
Marine Le Pen made a surprise visit to the Kremlin Friday, and Vladimir Putin’s warm reception left little doubt about Moscow’s choice to win the French Presidential election in a month.
The French National Front leader was looking for at least a de facto Kremlin endorsement a month from the first round of voting, and she received it with news footage that showed the Russian strongman smiling next to her.
“We do not want to influence events in any way,” Mr. Putin said, and how would anyone get that idea? Pro-Kremlin news sites merely published reports that the Kremlin had pledged to “help” Ms. Le Pen’s cash-strapped campaign before correcting the stories and deleting the tweets. In 2014 the National Front received a $10 million loan from a Kremlin-linked bank.
Ms. Le Pen returned the public admiration, saying Mr. Putin represents a “new vision” of conservative nationalism and sovereignty along with Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That’s an insult to Messrs. Trump and Modi, who have won fair elections. She also called on Paris and Moscow to join forces to combat “globalization and Islamic fundamentalism.”
Ms. Le Pen made clear that she’d pursue a policy of appeasement toward Russian aggression against the countries that live in Moscow’s shadow. Sovereignty is sacred to her—unless you’re Georgian or Ukrainian. “I was one of the few politicians in France who were defending their own point of view on Ukraine that coincided with that of Russia,” she said at the Russian Parliament.
She went on to denounce Ukraine’s elected government using rhetoric that would make the producers at Russia Today blush: “We are forced to deal with a government that came to power illegally, as a result of the Maidan revolution, and now bombs the population in Donetsk and Luhansk. This is a war crime.” She vowed to fight European sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and proxy invasion of eastern Ukraine.
Ms. Le Pen has long been a Putin apologist, but the difference is that now she has a plausible path to the Élysée Palace. Being open to negotiations with Mr. Putin is one thing, excusing and endorsing Russian imperialism another. If she’s elected, Mr. Putin will have an overt fifth columnist in the heart of NATO.
(MARC: Forgive me if I have this wrong, but is France in NATO?)
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March 26, 2017 3:46 p.m. ET
146 COMMENTS
Marine Le Pen made a surprise visit to the Kremlin Friday, and Vladimir Putin’s warm reception left little doubt about Moscow’s choice to win the French Presidential election in a month.
The French National Front leader was looking for at least a de facto Kremlin endorsement a month from the first round of voting, and she received it with news footage that showed the Russian strongman smiling next to her.
“We do not want to influence events in any way,” Mr. Putin said, and how would anyone get that idea? Pro-Kremlin news sites merely published reports that the Kremlin had pledged to “help” Ms. Le Pen’s cash-strapped campaign before correcting the stories and deleting the tweets. In 2014 the National Front received a $10 million loan from a Kremlin-linked bank.
Ms. Le Pen returned the public admiration, saying Mr. Putin represents a “new vision” of conservative nationalism and sovereignty along with Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That’s an insult to Messrs. Trump and Modi, who have won fair elections. She also called on Paris and Moscow to join forces to combat “globalization and Islamic fundamentalism.”
Ms. Le Pen made clear that she’d pursue a policy of appeasement toward Russian aggression against the countries that live in Moscow’s shadow. Sovereignty is sacred to her—unless you’re Georgian or Ukrainian. “I was one of the few politicians in France who were defending their own point of view on Ukraine that coincided with that of Russia,” she said at the Russian Parliament.
She went on to denounce Ukraine’s elected government using rhetoric that would make the producers at Russia Today blush: “We are forced to deal with a government that came to power illegally, as a result of the Maidan revolution, and now bombs the population in Donetsk and Luhansk. This is a war crime.” She vowed to fight European sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and proxy invasion of eastern Ukraine.
Ms. Le Pen has long been a Putin apologist, but the difference is that now she has a plausible path to the Élysée Palace. Being open to negotiations with Mr. Putin is one thing, excusing and endorsing Russian imperialism another. If she’s elected, Mr. Putin will have an overt fifth columnist in the heart of NATO.
(MARC: Forgive me if I have this wrong, but is France in NATO?)
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/defence-security/france-and-nato/
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Well, it appears senility now has a toe hold on me. Where the hell did I get that idea?
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I have to say... I'm loving the trend in the world right now.
I will look back in a few years here, to see if I still feel the same way.
EDIT: BTW.... The Crimeans aren't Ukrainian. They never have been. They are a distinct ethnic culture, and going back far enough, it wasn't anyones. Kruschev "gifted" it to the Ukrainian SSR, when the Soviet Union was still effective, and not as anything to do with a national sovereignty, with a right to their own constitutions and languages (investigate the differences between Russian federal entities (republics, and krays,) compared to those that don't (regions, districts, & 3 federal cities), listed in rank, and each having the capacity historically to be subjected the the preceding, with the exception of the federal cities. Crimea was "gifted" to the Ukrainian SSR as a matter of administrative convenience as well as personal convenience (being that Kruschev is Ukrainian).
The Crimea is now recognized by Russia, as "The Republic of Crimea," which gives them several rights that they would not have under Ukrainian rule, amongst them, the right to their own constitution and a certain level of self governance and determination.
Also interesting, is the fact that this isn't the only problem Ukraine is having, as with the Donetsk People's Republic (also backed by Russia).
Just throwing that out there. It seems that Russia is a lot more willing, to give locals a lot more power than Ukraine is willing to do.
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Forecast
Russia will keep trying to exploit divisions in the western Balkans, traditionally a theater of competition for many world powers.
Russian influence will continue to spread in some of the Balkans' most turbulent areas, including Serbia, northern Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia.
By stoking tensions in the region, Moscow could engineer a series of crises too challenging for the West to contain.
Analysis
The Balkan Peninsula has long stood at the edge of empires. The region, with its jumble of ethnicities, religions and political movements, has been a playing field for competing world powers throughout its history. Russia began to vie with the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires for influence over the area in the 19th century. During the Cold War, Yugoslavia became a battleground between the Soviet Union and the West, despite its officially nonaligned status following World War II. While the West tried to woo the country with economic aid, the Soviets played to its ruling Communist Party, and the two sides continued in deadlock through the 1980s. Once the country dissolved in 1991, however, the tides turned. The collapse of the Soviet Union left Moscow in no position to see Yugoslavia's constituent states through their transition to sovereignty, leaving that task to the European Union. The West has dominated the Balkan states' economic and security relationships ever since.
Russia still maintained its footholds in the Balkans, though. And today, as the European Union's divisions deepen and uncertainty prevails within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Moscow has turned its focus to the region once more. The Balkans' stability has been such a hot topic in Russian President Vladimir Putin's meetings with the Kremlin Security Council this year that the council's chief even said it was a top priority for Moscow. Incidents of Russia's meddling in the Balkans have been on the rise, meanwhile, raising questions about whether it will be the next theater in Moscow's ongoing struggle against Western power and unity. After all, stoking tensions in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia offers the Russian government a convenient means to increase its influence and further distract the West.
Rattling Sabers in Serbia
Since the end of the Cold War, Serbia, unlike many of its Western-leaning neighbors, has stayed in the middle of the Russia-West dynamic. The country has drawn on its cultural and religious bonds to Russia to keep a strong relationship with Moscow while also pursuing membership in the European Union. Over the past two years, however, Russia's influence in Serbia has grown noticeably. The number of Russian media outlets and nongovernmental organizations in the country has jumped from fewer than a dozen to more than 100 since 2015, according to the Belgrade-based Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies. The Kremlin's two main news networks, Sputnik and RT (formerly Russia Today), have both begun offering television programming, online news and radio broadcasts in Serbian. In addition, Russian state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta prints Nedeljnik, a widely read weekly, in Moscow before delivering it to Serbia. The publications make frequent use of anti-Western rhetoric, for instance through references to NATO's 1999 bombing of Serbia and Moscow's support for Belgrade during that conflict. And the strategy seems to be working: A poll conducted in February by Serbian weekly Vreme indicated that some 68 percent of Serbs prefer relations with Russia to ties with the European Union.
At the same time, Russia and Serbia have flaunted their military connections in recent months. A Russian plane carrying 40 metric tons of food, clothing and medical supplies from Serbia set off for Syria in October 2016. The following month, the Russian and Belarusian militaries held drills in Serbia to coincide with NATO exercises just across the border in Montenegro. The government in Belgrade, moreover, will receive six Mikoyan Mig-29 fighter jets and dozens of tanks and combat vehicles in the next few weeks as a gift from Moscow, which has also offered to sell it the Buk anti-aircraft missile systems. (The equipment will be a welcome update to the Soviet technology that the Serbian military still relies on.)
Much of this saber rattling is political theater meant to appeal to Serbia's nationalist voters ahead of the April 2 presidential election. But beneath Belgrade's politicking runs an undercurrent of tension between the country and its neighboring states — particularly Kosovo, whose independence Serbia does not acknowledge. The two almost fell into conflict in January when Kosovo's government deployed special police forces to stop a train headed from Belgrade to the state's northern territory, home to mostly Kosovar Serbs, and emblazoned with the phrase "Kosovo is Serbia" in 21 languages. Responding to the incident, Kosovar President Hashim Thaci accused Serbia of attempting to use the "Crimean model" to take over the northern part of his country. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, meanwhile, telephoned his Russian counterpart to ask for support, sparking fears that a new war was nigh.
How to Create a Crisis
Now that Kosovo is once again flirting with the idea of transforming its lightly armed security force into a bona fide army, relations between the two states are coming under further strain. The United States and its fellow NATO members have threatened to rescind their support and protection for Kosovo if it follows through with the plan. Even so, Thaci sent a draft law approving a regular army to the legislature during the week of March 20, citing Serbia's recent military deals with Russia and Belgrade's influence in northern Kosovo as grounds for the measure. The Kosovar government in Pristina is concerned that between the European Union's internal divisions and the new administration in Washington, the West won't have the time or attention to devote to keeping the nine-year-old sovereign state safe. And if tensions continue to mount between Kosovo and Serbia, Russia could use them to engineer a full-blown crisis down the line.
In fact, Moscow is currently facing allegations that it tried to do just that in Montenegro. The country's government has accused Russian security forces of plotting to assassinate Milo Djukanovic, then the prime minister, just before parliamentary elections in October in an effort to thwart its bid for NATO membership. Russia's former deputy military attache to Poland, who was ejected from Warsaw in 2014 for espionage, organized the plan, according to Montenegro's chief special prosecutor. Adding to the intrigue, Djukanovic said Moscow poured money into the country's parliamentary campaigns in the runup to the elections. Serbia detained and deported a group of Russians accused of planning the coup in the weeks after the vote, and another 21 suspects were arrested in Montenegro. Moscow, for its part, has denied involvement in the plot and accused the country's government of falsifying events to cast it in a negative light. Regardless, a prospective new election in 2018 could give Russia another opportunity to sow seeds of discord in Montenegro's fragile government.
A Referendum on Russia's Influence?
A vote in Bosnia-Herzegovina's Republika Srpska, likewise, could give Moscow a chance to increase its sway there. The republic's president, Milorad Dodik, has called for a referendum next year on the independence of Republika Srpska, which is home primarily to Orthodox Serbs. (The proposal recalls the independence vote that Crimea held just before Russia annexed it.) Dodik, who first suggested the referendum during his campaign for the presidency in 2014, has made no secret of his ties to the Kremlin. Two weeks before the presidential vote, he traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin, and on election day itself, he liaised with Russian ultranationalist and propagandist Konstantin Malofeev at a posh hotel after casting his ballot. Malofeev is an agent of Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov; together, the two have reportedly organized and funded referendums in Ukraine's restive Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. What's more, he arrived at the election day meeting with a group of Russian Cossacks later seen walking the streets near polling sites.
Dodik managed only a slim victory in the vote, limiting the amount of clout Russia has in Bosnia-Herzegovina through him. Nevertheless, more and more Russian media has been creeping into the country over the Serbian border for the past two years to spread Moscow's word. Though voters in Republika Srpska are divided over the issue of secession, the Kremlin's media campaigns will likely ramp up as the possible referendum approaches, perhaps igniting one of the largest political powder kegs in the Balkans today.
Disseminating Disinformation
The mostly Slavic state of Macedonia is already in the thick of a Russian disinformation campaign. Russia's Foreign Ministry has accused the European Union and United States of supporting separatist movements among the inherently fragile country's Albanian minority, which makes up 25 percent of the population. Over the past few weeks, Macedonians have taken to the streets to protest Macedonian Albanians' demands for their own government. Moscow is stoking the unrest, claiming that the West is supporting calls for the creation of a so-called Greater Albania. According to a Stratfor source, the German and Austrian embassies in the country are trying to counter Russia's propaganda, as is the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Even so, recent polls show that most Macedonians would sooner turn to Russia for help in the future than to the West because they doubt Western governments' commitment. (Indeed, Washington is reportedly planning to cut funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, creating a vacuum in the Macedonian media for Russia to fill.)
Although the instability in Macedonia pales in comparison with that in Kosovo or Republika Srpska, the situation there offers yet another example of Russia's activities in the Balkans. Of course, not all states in the region have accepted Moscow's advances: Croatia, a member of the European Union as well as NATO, has actively worked to keep Russian or pro-Russian media from spreading inside its borders, according to a Stratfor source. A fellow NATO member, Albania, has also attempted to resist Russia's influence as the Kremlin's media outlets have expanded their coverage to include Albanian-language services. Still, the campaigns are sure to continue. For Moscow, meddling in the Balkans is a low-cost and high-yield endeavor. The Russian government has no illusions that it will be able to win the Balkan countries over to its side. Instead, it views the region as a hornet's nest. By stirring it up, Moscow could create a series of crises too deep for the European Union or NATO to contain, thereby giving it another card to play in its negotiations with the West.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/trump-nato-germany/528429/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/angela-merkel-donald-trump-germany-us-no-longer-rely-european-union-climate-change-g7-a7760486.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/28/merkel-urges-eu-to-control-their-own-destiny-after-trump-visit-climate-change-decision.html
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Not quite sure what to make of this , , ,
https://euobserver.com/foreign/137990
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CIA could recruit stick fighters as counter intelligence 8-)
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Russia has committed many terrible war crimes in Syria. I am quite fine with Macron showing some spine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-putin-france-russia.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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Russia has committed many terrible war crimes in Syria. I am quite fine with Macron showing some spine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-putin-france-russia.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
I'm sure Putin took him very seriously. :roll:
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Though I disagree with the article's challenge to the importance of the 2% minimum for the minnows-- think of it as having skin in the game/a show of will and commitment-- this article has a number of intelligent observations.
https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2017/6/13/natos-essential-minnows-and-the-russian-threat
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Though I disagree with the article's challenge to the importance of the 2% minimum for the minnows-- think of it as having skin in the game/a show of will and commitment-- this article has a number of intelligent observations.
https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2017/6/13/natos-essential-minnows-and-the-russian-threat
Why protect people who won't protect themselves? Who sneer at us every chance they get? Who are allowing themselves to be swallowed by islam anyway?
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AGREED.
I read the article to be talking about Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia-- aren't they paying their 2%?
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AGREED.
I read the article to be talking about Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia-- aren't they paying their 2%?
I was thinking primarily about Norway.
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http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-trump-gave-poland?mbid=nl_170708_Daily&CNDID=50142053&spMailingID=11432571&spUserID=MjAxODUyNTc2OTUwS0&spJobID=1200684804&spReportId=MTIwMDY4NDgwNAS2
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EU: Energy Meeting Tackles the Thorny Issue of Ties With Russia
Connections
Regions & Countries
Topics
Themes
Once again, energy ties with Russia have become a source of controversy in the European Union. On July 25, representatives from member states gathered in Brussels to discuss their joint energy strategy at a meeting chaired by the Estonian government. Estonia currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union and is interested in diversifying the union's energy sources and reducing its dependence on Russian natural gas.
One of the thorny dilemmas under discussion at the meeting was the future of the Nord Stream II pipeline project, which would transport additional natural gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, bypassing Eastern Europe. The pipeline is controversial in Europe, and 13 EU members recently protested the project, arguing that it would increase European dependence on Russian natural gas. To make things more complex, the offshore section of the pipeline lies outside the jurisdiction of the union's set of energy sector rules, known as the Third Energy Package, thus putting the project in uncertain legal territory.
In June, the European Commission asked member states for authorization to negotiate the pipeline project on their behalf, and though the move is backed by countries such as Poland, Estonia and Denmark, it puts Germany in an awkward position. Despite Berlin being one of the main proponents of a hard line on Russia over the situation in Ukraine, it is also one of the main supporters of Nord Stream II. Defenders of the project argue that as long as the European energy market is well-integrated, Russia's dominance will be mitigated, because Moscow will be unable to single out individual nations as it has done in the past. And while the Nord Stream II project would transport gas to countries other than Germany, such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Berlin’s position as the European Union’s main political player means it must decide whether or not to use its influence to push ahead with the project. If it does, Germany risks alienating countries in Central and Eastern Europe and deepening east-west frictions within the union.
To further complicate matters, the July 25 meeting took place as the U.S. Congress prepared to approve additional sanctions against Russia, which would allow for the discretionary application of financial sanctions on any firm taking part in any Russian pipeline project. While the European Commission said on July 24 that it was ready to take the issue to the World Trade Organization, or even consider the introduction of countersanctions, the bloc remains divided on the issue.
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U.S. Congressional Sanctions Carry Consequences Beyond Russia
Sanctions legislation in Congress not only could increase tensions with Moscow and block President Donald Trump from easing or lifting sanctions against Russia, but the package also could complicate relations with some European allies.
(JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
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The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation on July 25 that would place new sanctions on Russia and also put a check on President Donald Trump's ability to remove sanctions that are already in place. The 419-3 vote in the House came three days after congressional leaders reached an agreement on the heavily debated bill, which includes sanctions language on North Korea and Iran as well. The compromise sanctions package now moves to the Senate, where a previous version passed overwhelmingly in June.
The key elements of the sanctions bill include the following:
The congressional review mechanism on removing sanctions or the application of sanctions remains intact. If the president wants to remove sanctions against Russia, he must submit a report to Congress citing his rationale for doing so and the effect it would have on U.S. national security interests. The House and Senate would have 30 days to either agree with the president or block him. That decision could be vetoed by the president, but Congress could override him with a two-thirds majority vote in each chamber.
The financial sanctions on certain Russian energy companies that limit U.S. persons and firms from dealing in certain maturities of debt now covers all debt with a maturity length of over 60 days rather than 90 days.
A provision, also in the previous Senate version of the bill, that could lead to a ban on investing in Russian sovereign debt.
The sanctions preventing U.S. persons and companies from participating in Russian Arctic offshore, deepwater and shale oil projects have been changed. U.S. persons and companies will now not be allowed to work in any new Arctic offshore, deepwater or shale project globally where certain Russian energy companies have either a controlling stake or a "substantial" minority stake defined to be 33 percent or higher.
The bill now makes it mandatory rather than optional for the United States to impose sanctions on foreign firms that are investing in or helping Russian deepwater, Arctic offshore and shale projects in the Russian Federation or its exclusive economic zone. The president can waive these sanctions if it's in the U.S. national security interest to do so. Europe essentially has the same sanctions, but the European Commission gave waivers to companies that had existing blocks (like Eni's Black Sea and Arctic offshore projects).
The optional sanctions on firms helping develop Russian energy export pipelines, such as the German companies involved in building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to carry Russian natural gas to Europe, also remain.
The package thus adds considerable congressional oversight on Trump in the application of sanctions and makes several restrictive changes to the energy-related components of the sanctions. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said July 23 that the Trump administration was "able to work with the House and Senate, and the administration is happy with the ability to do that and make those changes that were necessary," adding that "we support where the legislation is now." This statement appears to indicate that Trump will sign the sanctions package once the Senate passes it, possibly before Congress breaks for its August recess. Given the strong support the bill has on both sides of the aisle in both chambers, should the president reject the bill, his veto would likely be overridden.
The compromise bill is likely to add considerably to the tensions between Moscow and Washington at a time when Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are still reaching for low-hanging fruit — such as a resolution to the seizure of Russian diplomatic compounds in the United States — to set the U.S.-Russia relationship on a conciliatory track. Russia has said that it views the new sanctions "extremely negatively" but that it will reserve its judgment until the official details of the sanctions are made clear, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating "we have heard certain adjustments and will wait with patience when this position is worded clearly."
Assuming the bill's language remains unchanged from its current form and it is signed by Trump, Russia could seek to retaliate against the United States in various ways. Russia could increase its own economic restrictions against the United States, for example, or ratchet up pressure against the United States in any number of theaters. One primary theater would be Ukraine, where Russia can drive separatists to escalate fighting in Donbas as a means to pressure Kiev and its Western backers. Indeed, a recent spike in fighting and a proposal by a rebel leader to form a new "Malorossiya" state could be seen as signals of Moscow's displeasure with the negotiation process. Another primary theater would be in Syria, where Russia can back out of a recently introduced cease-fire agreement with the United States and play more of a spoiler role against Western-backed rebel forces in the long-running conflict.
Russia also has been building ties in other, secondary theaters as a means to increase its leverage with the United States in their ongoing negotiation process. In Venezuela, where a long-simmering political crisis has the potential to accelerate in light of growing signs that the United States could impose sanctions against state-owned oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela, Russia has been increasingly involved in asylum negotiations for embattled President Nicolas Maduro. In North Korea, Russia has been building economic and energy ties to the country, just as the United States has been preparing a sanctions vote over North Korea's missile tests in the U.N. Security Council, where Russia has veto power. And in Afghanistan, Russia has been building diplomatic and potential security ties with the Taliban, just as the United States has been working to increase its military presence in the country.
Russia is not the only power concerned about the proposed U.S. sanctions. The European Union also has reacted negatively, given that its energy operations would be affected by the sanctions. The European Commission warned of "wide and indiscriminate" unintended consequences, while countries such as Germany have threatened to retaliate against the United States if the sanctions affect projects like Nord Stream 2. The mandatory secondary sanctions are essentially the same sanctions that Europe has in place, but Europe gave waivers to companies that had existing blocks — like Eni's Black Sea and Arctic offshore projects — and this is where things could get complicated. If the United States, for example, decides to apply secondary sanctions on Italy's Eni, which plans to start drilling in the Black Sea this summer, then Italy will object. Italy's biggest course of action could be asking the European Union to restart an age-old debate around the international legality of U.S. secondary sanctions, which could include bringing it up to the World Trade Organization. According to one internal memo within the European Commission, if the sanctions are enacted, Europe will respond "within days." Thus the congressional sanctions legislation not only is likely to worsen the standoff between the United States and Russia, but it also will complicate ties between the United States and EU countries affected by the energy-related sanctions.
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Russia is planning several days of military maneuvers in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, The New York Times reported Aug. 1. Estimates of the numbers of troops likely to be involved in the September exercises range from 13,000 — according to Russia — to as many as 100,000. The drills have been planned for several months and are not a direct reaction to threats of new U.S. economic sanctions. The Kremlin is trying to reach an understanding with the West over Russia's sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union.
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WSJ:
By Orde F. Kittrie
July 31, 2017 7:05 p.m. ET
126 COMMENTS
The U.S. spends heavily to defend Europe, yet most North Atlantic Treaty Organization members don’t spend 2% of their GDP on defense, as the alliance’s guidelines call for. Worse, many of these free riders also punish U.S. companies for manufacturing weapons used by the Pentagon to defend NATO allies and other countries. Specifically, several NATO member governments have divested from or even criminalized the purchase of stock in U.S. defense contractors.
Between 2005 and 2013 Norway’s government pension fund divested from U.S. defense contractors such as Boeing , Honeywell , Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman “because they are involved in production of nuclear weapons.” The fund, controlled by Norway’s Finance Ministry, is worth some $900 billion. At the end of 2015, approximately $180 billion was invested in 2,099 American companies.
Norway, a NATO member, divested even though these companies produce nuclear weapons only for the U.S. government, and NATO’s 2012 Deterrence and Defence Posture Review describes U.S. nuclear weapons as “the supreme guarantee” of members’ security. The hypocrisy goes further: In 2016 Norway authorized its pension fund to invest in Iranian government bonds—even though Iran has sponsored terrorism for decades and is a patron of Bashar Assad’s atrocities in Syria.
So far only Norway has divested from companies for producing nuclear weapons. But the government pension funds of Denmark, France and the Netherlands have joined Norway in divesting from American companies that produce other weapons stocked by the U.S. military. These countries have targeted General Dynamics , Raytheon and Textron for manufacturing cluster munitions and land mines, in some cases after production reportedly has stopped.
Six European countries—NATO members Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain, plus nonmember Liechtenstein—make it illegal for their nationals to invest in companies that produce cluster munitions or land mines. In Switzerland, citizens can be imprisoned for five years for direct and indirect financing, including stock purchases, of companies that manufacture nuclear weapons, cluster munitions or land mines.
While these weapons often pose a threat to civilians even after conflicts end, the U.S. government deems them necessary. The Obama administration acknowledged in 2014 that land mines are needed to protect South Korea. The State Department has long said the elimination of cluster munitions “from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of its soldiers and those of its coalition partners at risk.”
Many NATO governments joined the 2008 international treaty to ban cluster munitions and the 1997 agreement to forbid land mines. Boycotts targeting companies producing these weapons derive from expansive interpretations of particular provisions in these accords. Both treaties say that “never under any circumstances” will a country “assist, encourage, or induce” anyone to engage in activities such as the development or production of the banned weapons.
The treaty banning nuclear weapons, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on July 7, includes similar language. Many of the 122 governments that voted for the nuclear treaty will likely divest from and criminalize purchase of stock in nuclear-weapons manufacturers. No NATO government supported the nuclear ban treaty. Yet Norway’s divestment from stock in nuclear-weapons manufacturers shows the fervor generated by movements against disfavored weapons can spur such boycotts even if a country ultimately doesn’t support the treaty.
The danger of European economic warfare against Israel—including the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement—deservedly has received considerable attention. In contrast, European economic warfare against U.S. companies for implementing U.S. government policy has avoided the spotlight and elicited virtually no response from Washington. This must change. The targeted U.S. firms together employ hundreds of thousands of American workers. For allied governments to penalize such companies for filling U.S. government orders is unacceptable. It could even increase costs to the U.S. taxpayer, who ultimately would pay extra legal or financing costs associated with producing these weapons.
If left unchecked, this problem will grow. Norway’s pension fund has divested from Wal-Mart , America’s largest employer, for “serious violations of human rights,” according to the fund’s website. The fund has also divested from two U.K. companies for producing Britain’s nuclear arsenal and one Israeli company for involvement with Israel’s antiterrorism fence.
Congress and the executive branch should spotlight, and vigorously oppose, ally and partner government boycotts that target the defense industrial base of the U.S. and key allies such as Israel and the U.K. Governments must know that such boycotts, if continued, will subject them and their companies to commensurate penalties.
Mr. Kittrie, a law professor at Arizona State University and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is author of “Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War” (Oxford, 2016).
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Can anyone think of ANYTHING that Trump could be thinking in "restoring relations with Russia".
since when has the US ever been close to Russia?
And how could we be? What is god's name is Trump thinking?
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/president-trump-not-very-happy-russia-sanctions-bill-052305558--abc-news-topstories.html
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:-D
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/02/donald-trump-signs-russia-sanctions/
not that this would SHUT CNN up for even two seconds
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Oct. 16, 2017 Either through alliance or conquest, Russia is an alternative to the U.S. and EU.
By George Friedman
Last week, a delegation of executives from major German corporations met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Such delegations are unremarkable. Sometimes they travel together to meet with foreign leaders. It is sometimes routine, sometimes a courtesy. But occasionally, it has significance. In the case of Russia-Germany relations, such meetings are always potentially significant.
Unsteady Relations
There are two relationships that are central to Germany. One is with the European Union, the other is with the United States. Neither relationship is stable right now. Brexit, the Spanish crisis, German feuding with Poland and the unsolved economic problems of southern Europe are tearing at the fabric of the European Union. The Germans and the EU apparatus claim that none of these threaten the fundamental health of the bloc, and point to the fact that, almost a decade after 2008, Europe appears to be achieving very modest economic growth.
The Germans, of course, know the dangers that lie ahead, even if Brussels does not. Many of the EU’s problems are political, not economic. Poland and Germany have butted heads over the tension between the right to national self-determination and EU rules. This is also what Brexit was about. Spain is locked in a dispute over the nature of a nation and the right of a region to secede, while the EU considers what role it should play in the domestic matters of a member state. And although southern Europe’s problems are economic, the fact that Europe has eked out minimal growth means neither that such growth is sustainable nor that the growth rate comes close to solving the Continent’s deep structural problems. As the de facto leader of the EU, Germany has to appear confident while considering the implications of failure.
The German relationship with the United States is at least as unsettled – and not just because of President Donald Trump’s personality. The strategic and economic situation in Europe has changed dramatically since the early 1990s – when the Soviet Union fell, Germany reunified and the all-important Maastricht treaty was signed – but Germany’s structural relationship with the U.S. has not. Both are members of NATO, but they have radically different views of its mission and its economics. Germany has the world’s fourth-largest economy, but its financial contribution to NATO doesn’t reflect that.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) attends a meeting in Sochi on Oct. 12, 2017, with heads of German companies. Chairman of the Management Board of METRO AG Olaf Koch is seen in the background. MAXIM SHEMETOV/AFP/Getty Images
Then there is Russia. The American policy toward Russia has hardened since the Democratic Party adopted an intense anti-Russia stance following the presidential election – more intense even than that of the Republican Party, which has always been uneasy with Russia. The Ukraine crisis continues to fester while U.S. troops are deployed in the Baltics, Poland and Romania. This has widened rifts within the EU. Germany isn’t interested in a second Cold War; Eastern Europe believes it’s already in one. The Eastern Europeans are increasingly alienated from the Germans on the issue and more closely aligned with the Americans. At a time when German relations with key Eastern European countries are being tested, the added strain of U.S. policy in the region is a threat to German interests. Germany wants the Russia problem to subside. The U.S. and its Eastern European allies think the way to accomplish that is through confrontation.
A Most Dangerous Option
Germany’s foreign policy has remained roughly the same since 1991, even as the international reality has changed dramatically. This is forcing Germany toward a decision it doesn’t want to make. But it must consider what happens if the EU continues to disintegrate and if European foreign policy and politics continue to diverge from its own. It must consider what happens if the U.S. continues to shape the dynamics of Europe in such a way that Germany will have to confront American enemies with it, or refuse to do so. This isn’t just about Russia – we can see the same issue over Iran.
Germany can’t exist without stable economic partners. Never has it been self-sufficient since it reunified. It must explore alternatives. The most obvious alternative for Germany has always been Russia, either through alliance or conquest. Germany needs Russian raw materials. It also needs the Russian market to be far more robust than it is so that it can buy more German goods. But Russia is incapable of rapid economic development without outside help, and with the collapse of oil prices, it needs rapid development to stabilize its economy. Germany needs Russia’s economy to succeed, and what it has to offer Russia is capital, technology and management. In exchange, Russia can offer raw materials and a workforce. An alignment with Russia could settle Eastern Europe in Germany’s orbit. With the way things are going, and given Germany’s alternatives, the Russian option is expensive but potentially very profitable.
But Germany has a problem with Russia. Every previous attempt at alignment or conquest has failed. Building up the Russian economy to create a robust market for German goods would certainly benefit both countries, but it would also shift the balance of power in Europe. Right now, Germany is militarily weak and economically strong. Russia is moderately powerful militarily and economically weak. An alignment with Germany could dramatically strengthen Russia’s economy, and with it, its military power. Having moved away from the United States and de-emphasized military power in the rest of the European peninsula, Germany could find itself in its old position: vulnerable to Russian power, but without allies against Russia.
The corporate chiefs’ trip to Russia is not a groundbreaking event, nor does it mark a serious shift in German policy. But it is part of an ongoing process. As the international reality shifts from what Germany needs, Germany must find another path. In the short term, the United States is vulnerable to a cyclical recession, and hostility toward Germany is increasing in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe. China is facing internal challenges of its own. There are few other options than Russia, and Russia is historically a most dangerous option for Germany.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/28/poland-wants-permanent-us-military-base-willing-pa/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/06/08/if-russia-invades-us-special-operations-forces-have-an-unconventional-plan-to-liberate-the-baltics?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Top5&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0dKaE5UZzRZemhtTXpNNSIsInQiOiJORnU4b2JqQjVCVTdaUldqSlZnUXFCSzNFKzlFcFdpRlR5WmJFSGNsRTVwZFBqRlNrUFwvUTBkSWk3NFZSTVkybzQzUkVXWEFQK2lIWFZKbXR4WU43NW9IYnZwNjZMa1loTUpqNXZmK1ZsOFV2UEZXbVBYUEZvTXVIQUZ1Q09xSlgifQ%3D%3D
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By The Editorial Board
July 8, 2018 6:22 p.m. ET
213 COMMENTS
President Trump will attend a summit of North Atlantic Treaty Organization national leaders this week, and the stakes are unusually high for everyone. He plans to meet Vladimir Putin shortly afterward, and Mr. Trump will be at a disadvantage if he doesn’t set the right tone in Brussels.
That tone should be a united front between America and its allies, within a NATO committed to and capable of deterring new threats. This doesn’t mean Washington must always avoid raising uncomfortable truths within the alliance. It does mean Mr. Trump should recognize how NATO benefits America, and how it can help him avoid the diplomatic traps into which his predecessor fell.
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The good news is that Mr. Trump is doing better on this score than many of the pearl-clutchers among foreign-policy worthies will admit. He has taken a particularly aggressive stance on defense spending among NATO members, most recently in a series of testy letters reportedly sent to other national leaders. Allies have pledged to spend at least 2% of GDP, a promise they repeated at the 2014 Wales summit. Mr. Trump is continuing a long tradition of bipartisan frustration in Washington when they don’t meet that pledge.
But Mr. Trump should also give credit where it’s due, especially when he can claim part of the credit for success. Inflation-adjusted defense spending among non-U.S. NATO members has increased each year since 2014, and at an accelerating rate that likely will deliver the largest annual spending growth since the Cold War this year. More than half of NATO’s 29 members are on track to meet their 2% pledge by 2024, compared to four or five in a typical year before 2014. Mr. Trump’s win here is keeping up the pressure for more burden sharing as memories of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea fade.
NATO also is making important progress on the capabilities that new money buys. Since 2015 the alliance has ramped up investment in a spearhead force capable of deploying up to 5,000 troops to trouble spots within 48 hours. Now the challenge is how to mobilize larger forces if needed, and Mr. Trump has an opportunity to lead real progress.
Defense ministers last month signed off on a new “four 30s” commitment—that by 2020 NATO Allies should be able to deploy 30 troop battalions, 30 air squadrons and 30 warships within 30 days. By encouraging his peers to give this plan their final endorsement, Mr. Trump can signal that the alliance is committed to being an effective deterrent.
Movements of troops across borders within NATO can still face considerable legal and bureaucratic obstacles, and cutting this red tape requires cooperation from defense ministries and interior ministries across Europe. In addition to his focus on spending, Mr. Trump could help America and the alliance by demanding firm commitments to fix this problem, perhaps with a deadline.
All of this would help Mr. Trump as he prepares to face off with Mr. Putin. The weakness in Mr. Trump’s NATO diplomacy so far, and it’s a big one, has been his willingness to denigrate the alliance, even to the point of suggesting America might withdraw from it.
Maybe that’s meant to scare other members into meeting their financial commitments, but when Mr. Putin hears the same comments they sound like a weak and fracturing West. His strategic goal is to crack the alliance so he can have a freer hand to dominate Eastern Europe and reassemble at least a de facto version of Greater Russia. He could then use his military leverage to influence diplomatic and economic decisions across Europe.
Mr. Putin snatched Crimea and invaded Ukraine because he learned over time that President Obama had no stomach for confrontation. Mr. Trump presumably isn’t eager to be humiliated in similar fashion. That is more likely to happen if he agrees to ease sanctions in return for Russian promises of good behavior, even as Mr. Putin concludes that NATO would struggle to respond to harassment of its eastern members.
Ronald Reagan knew better. His successful diplomacy with Moscow—which ended the Cold War—started with a strong commitment to Europe and friendly relations with Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Schmidt and then Helmut Kohl. His model of a willingness to negotiate, but only from a position of strength, can serve Mr. Trump well. A start will be to talk up, and expand on, NATO’s progress while renewing his commitment to the alliance.
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The Economist 2017
German Russian Pipeline smells funny to America
https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/06/22/germanys-russian-gas-pipeline-smells-funny-to-america
[Also Putin's pipeline
How reliant is Europe on Russian Gas, The Economist 2014
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2014/04/03/putins-pipelines]
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Germany’s Russian gas pipeline smells funny to America
Angela Merkel says Nord Stream 2 is no one’s business but Germany’s
Jun 22nd 2017
LIKE vinyl records and popped collars, rows between the United States and Europe over Russian energy are making a comeback. In the early 1980s Ronald Reagan’s attempts to thwart a Soviet pipeline that would bring Siberian gas to Europe irritated the West Germans and drove the French to proclaim the end of the transatlantic alliance. The cast of characters has shifted a little today, but many of the arguments are the same. In Nord Stream 2 (NS2), a proposed Russian gas pipeline, Germany sees a respectable project that will cut energy costs and lock in secure supplies. American politicians (and the ex-communist countries of eastern Europe) detect a Kremlin plot to deepen Europe’s addiction to cheap Russian gas. They decry German spinelessness.
NS2, which its backers hope will come online at the end of 2019, would supply gas directly from Russia’s Baltic coast to the German port of Greifswald, doubling the capacity of Nord Stream 1, an existing line. Its defenders, including a consortium of five European firms that will cover half its cost of €9.5bn ($10.6bn), say that it will help plug a projected gap between Europe’s stable demand for gas and declining production in the Netherlands and North Sea. Germany’s government, especially the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior coalition partner, shares this view. (Gerhard Schröder, a former SPD chancellor of Germany, chairs NS2’s board.) Some Germans quietly hope that NS2 could transform their country into a European energy hub.
Such arguments strike sceptics—countries like Poland and the Baltic states, energy experts at the European Commission, foreign-policy hawks and a handful of German renegades—as myopic. NS2, they say, might lower fees for Germans but raises them for eastern Europeans further down the chain. It undermines the European Union’s stated aim to diversify its sources of energy (Russia accounts for 34% of the EU’s overall gas market, but far more in some countries). It allows Gazprom, the Kremlin-backed energy giant, to bypass existing pipelines in Ukraine, depriving the Ukrainians of lucrative transit fees. By squeezing existing supply routes, NS2 might also leave Ukraine obliged to negotiate cap-in-hand with its arch-enemy (Kiev has not imported gas directly from Gazprom since 2015). Gazprom has proved willing to wage energy wars before. Why contribute to its arsenal?
To this fiery brew has now been added America’s toxic Russia politics. Earlier this month the Senate passed a bipartisan bill that would, among other things, allow the Treasury to slap sanctions on foreign companies that invest in Russian pipelines. (The bill is not yet law: it awaits debate in the House of Representatives, and Donald Trump has yet to opine on its merits.) The move spooked Europe’s firms and enraged some of its politicians. “Europe’s energy supply is Europe’s business, not that of the United States of America,” thundered Germany’s foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, and Austria’s chancellor, Christian Kern, in a joint statement. The pair were particularly incensed that the bill included a call to increase American exports of liquefied natural gas, implying that blocking Russian gas was partly an effort to help American energy companies. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, let it be known that she supported her minister.
The timing of the Senate bill is awful. On June 26th the EU’s 28 governments will begin debating whether to allow the European Commission to negotiate the terms of NS2 directly with Russia. Mrs Merkel argues that EU institutions have no business intruding in a purely commercial enterprise. But countries like Sweden and Denmark, which must grant environmental permits if the project is to proceed, want the commission to get involved so that they are not left alone to stare down the Kremlin. Foes of NS2, like Poland, think bringing in the commission might be a way to slow the project down. The discussion will be a fascinating test of Germany’s ability to sway opinion inside the European club.
Don’t look back to Angie
For observers who see Mrs Merkel as Vladimir Putin’s main European adversary, her stance is perhaps the biggest puzzle. The chancellor helps broker negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Against domestic and foreign opposition, she has held the line on the EU’s sanctions against Russia over its land grabs. Her strategy looked like a textbook case of European leadership, placing German interests to one side for the greater cause of EU unity and resistance to outside aggressors.
But the chancellor’s tacit yet clear support for NS2 suggests that a correction may be in order. Her commitment to Ukraine is not in doubt, and she is infuriated by Mr Putin’s lies. But Germany has never accepted the mantle of European or global leadership that so many would like to thrust upon it, especially when it comes to the politics of energy. Outsiders should not be surprised to see it behave like any other European country favouring its own consumers and firms (two of the five companies investing in NS2 are German). American intervention may only strengthen Germany’s resolve to protect its commercial interests.
Those hoping to slow NS2 would do better to look to Brussels. The commission will be happy to smother the pipeline in bureaucracy, should the EU’s governments give it a chance. Its legal brains say that EU energy law does not apply to offshore pipelines outside the internal market. But the commission dislikes NS2 and distrusts Gazprom, which it thinks abuses market dominance. “If Gazprom was Statoil [Norway’s national energy firm], we wouldn’t have a problem,” says one official.
So NS2 may yet be asked to obey parts of EU law, including third-party access to the pipeline and transparency on pricing. Ukrainian anxieties might be allayed by insisting that Gazprom commit to maintaining supply through existing pipelines after 2019, when the current contract expires. This might ease fears that NS2 will leave parts of Europe in hock to the Russians for decades to come. But before then a thousand things can go wrong.
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/07/12/on-russian-gas-and-nato-military-spending-trump-and-ukraine-see-eye-to-eye/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURNM1ltVmlaVFUxTkRobCIsInQiOiJrWmxJUHc4TmFDRVVTRVp5TkQ0RUlGcXF5QzQ4YzFyeEJ5RDNaMHVrMTNtMFptNlFOVCtEODgySmU1QlMybk5EZU1hZkhSU0YyVjhcL1h1S3FFK3RmVnl4d3dyWUxzYWFlYnVjRGFRSjg4bk5mcEpOYUd0dU04a2M3K3RqQzVMZ1gifQ%3D%3D
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With the world transfixed by the high-visibility spat between U.S. President Donald Trump and other NATO leaders about defense spending in the alliance, less attention was paid to the significant agreements struck by members during the latest summit. These agreements include the following:
One of the most notable of the summit's achievements is the agreement to improve the readiness of NATO forces. Known as the "Four Thirties" plan, the agreement envisions having 30 additional major naval ships, 30 heavy or medium maneuver army battalions, and 30 air squadrons, with enabling forces, ready for combat within 30 days. This was a key U.S. initiative going into the summit, with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis in particular emphasizing this effort to enhance NATO's overall rapid response force.
Building on the recent setup of NATO's Atlantic and logistics commands, as well as its Multinational Division North East, Denmark, Latvia and Estonia signed into life the new Multinational Division North, with Canada, Great Britain and Lithuania on board as "contributing countries." Scheduled to reach initial operational capability in early 2019, this regional command will better focus NATO's defense of the Baltics.
NATO also agreed to establish a Cyberspace Operations Center in Belgium to better coordinate the alliance's cyber defenses.
All of these initiatives highlight how NATO continues to make progress on improving its overall combat readiness, as well as continues to emphasize the potential for a conflict with Russia. An enhanced readiness force will allow NATO to quickly respond to a Russian attack, and the new Baltic multinational division command will cover one of the most important fronts with Russia. With Russia increasingly leveraging its cyber capabilities, the Cyberspace Operations Center is representative of how NATO is moving to put a priority on its ability to respond to Moscow's cyber operations.
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"This was a key U.S. initiative going into the summit, with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis in particular emphasizing this effort to enhance NATO's overall rapid response force."
We haven't heard Mattis' name much while we had shiny objects turnover in so many other areas. It probably means he is doing his job and has won the President's confidence. This is a big accomplishment, committing these countries to defense and readiness.
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http://www.atimes.com/article/natos-problem-is-that-europeans-wont-fight/
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http://www.atimes.com/article/natos-problem-is-that-europeans-wont-fight/
They can’t be bothered to interfere with the muzzie rape gangs roaming their cities. We should pull out and let them go to their fate.
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https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/A-glimpse-of-Europes-true-face-562370
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https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-30/why-the-u-s-should-move-its-troops-from-germany-to-poland
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https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-30/why-the-u-s-should-move-its-troops-from-germany-to-poland
We should.
I wonder if German Hillary every thinks about her status as the second worst German leader in history.
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The logic is there viz the Germans, but what consequences viz our dealings with the Russians (cyber, Syria/Iran, Ukraine, elsewhere)?
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The logic is there viz the Germans, but what consequences viz our dealings with the Russians (cyber, Syria/Iran, Ukraine, elsewhere)?
Poland is an actual friend, Germany is not. Protect your friends.
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The logic is there viz the Germans, but what consequences viz our dealings with the Russians (cyber, Syria/Iran, Ukraine, elsewhere)?
Poland is an actual friend, Germany is not. Protect your friends.
The main threat of Russian aggression would tend to be in the Balkans. Poland is much closer. Better ABM location. Friendlier to the US. More effective overall and probably less expensive.
The objection to the Russian gas pipeline is real. Why defend a country in bed with the threat. A waste of our resources.
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Today, Trump said that the collusion claims between Russia and his campaign have impeded current Russia-US relations. The media reports it as the entire Mueller investigation has impeded current US-Russia relations. No. Just the collusion narrative.
Trump's statement about giving him a reason to believe his DNI assessment or Putin's claim of denial struck me as saying that neither side has proven themselves to be more credible than the other. Especially when federal government investigators never seized Clinton's servers but relied upon a third party assessment of the intrusions allegedly made on it by Russian GRU agents. For defense lawyers, there would be a huge chain of custody issue here since the government would be presenting hearsay evidence about what intrusions occurred on that server instead of the best evidence itself, the server itself.
The "both sides have caused relations to deteriorate is true." What was the US involvement in the orange uprising in Ukraine in 2004? What was the US involvement in the 2014 events in Ukraine that caused a change in government there?
This does not mean that Putin is a good guy or a victim. He isn't. But it does mean that when you are trying to thaw diplomatic relations, you don't stand up there and berate your opponent in public.
Nor does this mean that Trump himself spoke in a classically diplomatic way. He did not.
It should be noted that Putin received nothing from the US at Helsinki other than a promise to talk some more. They did not even get a lousy reset button this time.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/germany-is-becoming-a-russian-satellite-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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GPF Staff |August 18, 2018
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A four-way summit with Germany, France, Russia and Turkey may soon take place. And it appears that their opposition to U.S. policy is a major reason it will be held. Advisers are already planning to hold preparatory talks, confirming statements made earlier by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany on Saturday for informal talks over the Ukraine conflict, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and the Syrian civil war. Meanwhile, Turkey’s finance minister and his French counterpart agreed over the phone to jointly confront U.S. sanctions against Turkey. Delegations from the two countries will meet later this month to discuss further economic cooperation options.
Poland has renewed calls for a permanent U.S. military presence in the country. The most recent request was made by President Andrzej Duda. If the U.S. is going to favor bilateral defense ties over multilateral ones, then engaging Eastern Europe, especially Poland, makes a lot of sense. The region is flanked by Germany and Russia, and though they don’t see eye to eye on everything, they still share a lot of interests, especially in response to some recent U.S. policies. This puts Poland in an uncomfortable position, hence its calls to the U.S. military. Washington has yet to respond.
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WSJ
Europe
U.S. Opposition to Pipeline Hangs Over Meeting Between Putin and Merkel
Sanctions could be used to stop completion of Nord Stream 2 pipeline amid concerns it would heighten Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas
A vessel laying pipe for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea near Lubmin, Germany, on Thursday. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
By Bojan Pancevski in Meseberg, Germany and
Emre Peker in Brussels
Updated Aug. 18, 2018 2:42 p.m. ET
As President Vladimir Putin met with Chancellor Angela Merkel near Berlin on Saturday to try to safeguard a controversial Russian-German gas pipeline, the U.S. wasn’t present but it could have a big say in the outcome.
The U.S. has in hand a package of sanctions that could be used to try to stop completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is already in its advanced stages, by targeting companies, and potentially financial firms, involved in its construction. Current and former U.S. officials said such sanctions had been discussed and could be mobilized in a matter of weeks, though they added that no action was imminent.
The pipeline, a key issue in the two leader’s talks, would channel natural gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. The project is being developed by Russian state-controlled gas-exporting monopoly Gazprom , along with European companies Royal Dutch Shell PLC , Wintershall AG, Uniper SE , OMV AG and Engie SA .
“Together with German partners we are working on the new natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which will complete the European gas transport system, minimize the transit risks, and secure the growing consumption in Europe,” Mr. Putin said at a joint press statement with Ms. Merkel before the start of the meeting.
But consecutive U.S. administrations have long opposed the pipeline, which would run alongside an existing one, over concerns that it would increase Europe’s already-high dependence on Russian natural gas and give the Kremlin political leverage and substantial revenues.
Gas Spat
Germany-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline would double direct Russian gas imports, as President Trump accuses Berlin of being "captive to Russia."
Vyborg
Nord Stream (existing)
finland
Nord Stream 2 (planned)
Narva Bay
sweden
estonia
russia
latvia
Baltic
Sea
lithuania
BELARUS
russia
Lubmin
Greifswald
100 miles
poland
germany
100 km
Source: Nord Stream 2
U.S. opposition to the project escalated after Russia was accused of interfering in the 2016 election and as the Trump administration grew increasingly skeptical that internal resistance within Europe would stop the plan, officials said.
In August 2017, Congress gave President Trump power to impose sanctions on companies and individuals working on the pipeline following revelations of Russian interference in the U.S. election, a power several U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal would now be used to try to block the project.
One U.S. official said work on the measures was being finalized between the White House and the State, Commerce and Energy Departments.
The official said the only decision left before enforcing the sanctions was whether to levy them only on the companies that would lay the pipes in the Baltic Sea, or to extend them to banks and other firms involved in financing the pipeline. Washington would give the European Union advanced warning before enforcing the sanctions, this person added.
German officials have countered that Western countries had been buying Russian natural gas at the height of the Cold War. One aide to Ms. Merkel said the U.S. push was motivated by Mr. Trump’s desire to sell more U.S. liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Europe.
The EU in late July pledged to ramp up U.S. LNG purchases as part of an effort to de-escalate trans-Atlantic trade tensions, triggered by Mr. Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs on European producers.
A spokesman for Ms. Merkel declined to comment on the possibility of U.S. sanctions against the pipeline. A Nord Stream 2 representative also declined to comment, saying the company wasn’t informed about the Trump administration plans.
A White House spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“We have been clear that firms working in the Russian energy export-pipeline sector are engaging in a line of business that carries sanctions risk,” said Richard Grenell, U.S. ambassador to Germany. U.S. and German officials said Mr. Grenell has raised the issue repeatedly since arriving in Berlin in May.
Mr. Trump himself has been scathing in public about the project and brought it up in his bilateral meetings with Ms. Merkel, according to officials on both sides.
One concern about the pipeline is that it could make it easier for Russia to stop delivering natural gas via Ukraine after Gazprom’s transit contract expires at the end of 2019. The country, which has been locked in a bitter conflict with Moscow since Russian troops seized part of its territory in 2014, currently acts as a transit country for Russian natural-gas exports to the EU and levies a fee on this trade.
Ms. Merkel had hoped that assurances by Mr. Putin to continue channeling a substantial amount through Ukraine even after Nord Stream 2 comes online would placate the U.S.
“In my view Ukraine must retain its role in the transit of gas,” Ms. Merkel said on Saturday.
Mr. Putin reiterated his pledge but emphasized that the transit volume would need to suit economic demand. Ukrainian officials have complained that once Nord Stream 2 is built, demand for transit via their country would drop.
A U.S. official said Washington was chiefly concerned with curbing Europe’s dependency on Russian natural gas, which the Kremlin has used in the past as a means to pressure recipient nations.
“Russian influence will flow through that pipeline right into Europe, and that is what we are going to prevent,” the U.S. official said.
The original Nord Stream pipeline came online in 2011 with a capacity to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year through its German terminal on the Baltic Sea coast. It delivered a record 51 billion cubic meters last year. Nord Stream 2, set to go online next year, would double this capacity.
A European energy executive familiar with the discussions said company representatives had told John McCarrick, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources, that the five European companies and Gazprom had already provided €5.5 billion ($6.3 billion) in financing and the project wouldn’t be stopped even if the U.S. were to impose sanctions.
Other issues the two leaders said they would discuss included Iran, Ukraine and the situation in Syria. Mr. Putin, whose country is involved in the conflict on the side of President Bashar al Assad, said that it was important to provide economic support for the rebuilding of Syria.
Germany hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, but Berlin officials said that they were wary of providing economic support for Mr. Assad’s regime without a political agreement on the country’s future.
Mr. Putin arrived at the meeting at the government‘s guest house in Meseberg after attending the wedding of Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl at a countryside estate in the province of Styria, where he was pictured dancing with the bride. He also brought a Cossack choir.
—Tim Puko and Ian Talley in Washington and Ann M. Simmons in Moscow contributed to this article.
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By George Friedman
The US Threatens Russia Over Missiles
Washington claims Moscow violated an arms control treaty.
The United States has threatened to pre-emptively strike Russian missiles aimed at Europe. Its stated justification is that the missiles in question are medium range and thus in violation of a 1987 anti-missile treaty. They were initially singled out in the treaty because they could be rapidly prepared for launch and arrive on target with minimal or no warning time. That meant that it could knock out European retaliatory capability, undermining the deterrent effect of Europe-based systems.
Washington’s ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said the U.S. remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution but was prepared to consider a military strike if Russian development of the medium-range system continued. She made it clear that the onus of diplomacy would fall on Washington’s European allies. Presumably, this means Germany, which has a somewhat functional relationship with Russia. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said he would address the issue with his NATO counterparts tomorrow.
The U.S. has expressed concern about these missiles before, but this is the first time it has threatened to destroy them. It’s unclear what a pre-emptive strike would involve, but it’s safe to assume Russia would consider it an act of provocation and could escalate conflict accordingly.
Our initial reaction is that it is a test of NATO. Most of the U.S. comments appear to be directed not at Russia but at its European allies, many of which, Washington believes, have been overly permissive about Russian missiles. If NATO is content to allow what the U.S. claims are violations of a Russian treaty commitment, then it says a lot about NATO. The U.S. has made military action contingent on the failure of the diplomatic route. And here, the U.S. expects the Europeans to take the lead. In a sense, the U.S. is trying to force Europe to take this seriously. And it’s reminding its allies that it won’t shrink from unilateral action, however unlikely the prospect may be.
Russia’s intentions are difficult to parse. The threat posed by these missiles does change the balance of power in Europe somewhat. Russia seemed to think that apart from the expected rhetoric from the U.S., and absent anachronized notions of nuclear deterrence, nothing would happen. From the American point of view, a treaty violation is significant. But the incident raises perhaps an even more important question: If the Russians see the nuclear balance as archaic and threats to Europe as outmoded, then why is it deploying this missile? The development of the missile likely indicates that the Russians do not see this as archaic. For the U.S., threatening to strike the Russian sites is meant to galvanize the Europeans and drive home the fact that in geopolitics, nothing is archaic.
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OSLO Military forces from 31 countries began NATO's largest exercise in decades, stretching from the Baltic Sea to Iceland, on Thursday, practicing military manoeuvres close to Russia, which itself held a huge military drill last month.
As temperatures fell below freezing across training grounds in central Norway, giving a taste of what it means to defend NATO's vast northern flank, some 50,000 troops, 250 aircraft and 10,000 tanks, trucks and other land-based vehicles were ready.
"Forces are in position, they are integrating and starting combat enhancement training for major battlefield operations over the next two weeks," Colonel Eystein Kvarving at Norway's Joint Headquarters told Reuters.
Dubbed Trident Juncture, the exercise is by far the biggest in Norway since the early 1980s, a sign that the alliance wants to sharpen its defences after years of cost cuts and far-flung combat missions.
Increasingly concerned about Russia since it annexed Crimea in 2014, Norway has sought to double the number of U.S. Marines receiving training on its soil every year, a move criticized by Moscow.
Russia last month held its biggest manoeuvres since 1981, called Vostok-2018 (East-2018), mobilising 300,000 troops in a show of force close to China's border which included joint drills with the Chinese and Mongolian armies.
NATO's war games were originally meant to involve 35,000 troops, but the number grew in recent months and included the late addition of an aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman with some 6,000 personnel.
NATO fears Russia's military build-up in the region could ultimately restrict naval forces' ability to navigate freely, and on Oct. 19 the Truman became the first American aircraft carrier to enter the Arctic Circle since before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Although a solid majority of Norwegians support membership of NATO, whose secretary general is former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, some parties on the left would prefer that the country quit the alliance and form some type of military cooperation arrangement with its Nordic neighbours.
"The effect of this activity will increase the tension between Norway and Russia," Socialist member of parliament Torgeir Knag Fylkesnes said of the exercise, adding that the presence of an aircraft carrier caused particular concern.
"You have to be quite hawkish to view this as something that brings peace in any way," he told Reuters.
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Sailing by the bear. The United States has conducted a freedom of navigation operation near the Sea of Japan to challenge Russian maritime claims there. Though these kinds of operations are routinely used to counter Chinese claims in the Western Pacific, this was the first one directed at Russia since 1987. Soon after, the U.S. notified Turkey of its intent to sail a warship through the Bosporus and Dardanelles into the Black Sea, presumably in response to Russia’s recent seizure of Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait. (Notifying Turkey is required under the 1936 Montreux Convention.) The U.S. and Turkey may be at odds on issues such as the Kurds and the Syrian war, but mutual enemies have a way of bringing countries together. Turkey, with its long history of conflict with Russia in and around the Black Sea, will likely welcome this show of force by the U.S.
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Germans, Take a Stand Against Nord Stream 2
The pipeline project would aggravate dependence on Russia, harming European states’ national security.
13 Comments
By Richard A. Grenell
Dec. 16, 2018 3:21 p.m. ET
A vessel lays concrete-coated pipe for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline near Lubmin, Germany, Aug. 16.
A vessel lays concrete-coated pipe for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline near Lubmin, Germany, Aug. 16. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Berlin
Russia’s recent aggression in the Sea of Azov reminds us of the need for vigilance against Vladimir Putin’s malign activities. The U.S. and Germany have responded by strongly condemning Moscow’s blockade of the Kerch Strait, a clear violation of international law. While we appreciate Germany’s support for European solidarity, action should be taken to show Russia that its aggressions have consequences.
With this in mind, we ask Berlin to join the chorus of nations that view Gazprom ’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project for what it is—an affront to Europe’s energy and national-security goals.
Russia’s actions highlight the danger of giving Moscow more sway over Germany’s energy supply. In 2017 Germans imported more than 50% of their natural gas from Russia. If Nord Stream 2 is built, bypassing our Eastern European allies, it is bound to increase Germany’s reliance on Russia even further. Russian influence would flow through the pipeline along with gas.
And what would flow the other way? Billions of euros that would support Moscow’s destabilizing foreign policy, including its increasingly aggressive posture along NATO’s eastern flank. We hope Germany pursues other supply options that would drive a competitive natural-gas market, rather than help Mr. Putin dominate the market.
If built, Nord Stream 2 and a second line of TurkStream would allow Russian gas to bypass Ukraine and undermine its security. That’s clearly what Mr. Putin wants. Nord Stream 2 would open the door to increased aggression against Kiev, since Moscow would no longer have to worry about how its activities could affect its gas sales to Western Europe. The Ukrainian government would also lose billions in essential gas-transit income—a sum roughly equivalent to Kiev’s entire defense budget. We welcome the commitment of Germany’s chancellor to ensure that gas delivery through Ukraine will continue. Unfortunately, time and again Russia has demonstrated it cannot be trusted to uphold its promises or its contractual obligations.
Ukraine has no greater friend than the U.S. in the face of continued Russian aggression. Europe should send Moscow that clear message, too. The U.S. will continue its decades of strong support for the European goal of energy security through diversification. The latest Russian provocations show how urgent this effort is. Many German policy leaders already recognize this reality. Leading Bundestag members from the Christian Democratic Union and Green Party have called for a restriction on Russian gas imports to Germany. That would be a step in the right direction.
Germany has made tireless efforts to resolve tensions between Russia and Ukraine through diplomacy. Now it is uniquely placed to use its political and economic clout to hold Russia accountable for its actions. By taking a tough stance through action on Nord Stream 2, Germans can show that they stand in solidarity with Ukraine and the rest of Europe, and that Mr. Putin won’t get away with continued aggression.
Mr. Grenell is U.S. ambassador to Germany.
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/24/how-trump-made-war-on-angela-merkel-and-europe?mbid=nl_Daily%20121718&CNDID=50142053&utm_source=nl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20121718&utm_content=&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=Daily%20121718&hasha=52f016547a40edbdd6de69b8a7728bbf&hashb=e02b3c0e6e0f3888e0288d6e52a57eccde1bfd75&spMailingID=14812354&spUserID=MjAxODUyNTc2OTUwS0&spJobID=1541460470&spReportId=MTU0MTQ2MDQ3MAS2
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EU: Germany Might Take the Lead in Negotiations With Russia on Nord Stream 2
(Stratfor)
The Big Picture
After years of Russia manipulating natural gas supplies to Europe for its political ends, the European Union began fighting back through legal mechanisms. But while it revolutionized its onshore pipeline rules in the Third Energy Package, the bloc did not set rules for offshore pipelines, which have come into the spotlight with Nord Stream 2. Now, following much debate, the European Union appears to have figured out how to oversee them — and Germany couldn't be happier.
What Happened
The Council of the European Union on Feb. 8 approved new rules on offshore energy pipelines originating in non-EU member states. The European Parliament will now consider the Franco-German compromise measure, which assigns negotiating authority over pipeline rules and exemptions to the country where the duct's first interconnector is located.
Why It Matters
If passed, the measure would give Germany negotiating power with regard to Nord Stream 2, a 55 billion-cubic-meter (bcm) pipeline connecting Russia and Germany across the Baltic Sea. Berlin has long supported the pipeline, arguing it is not a political project but an economic one. This has not sat well among Eastern and Central European states such as Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia, which stand to lose lucrative transit contracts for Russian natural gas traversing their territory on the way to Germany via older, onshore pipelines. Eastern and Central European countries also fear Russia would be more likely to halt shipments of natural gas to them for political ends, since Nord Stream 2 would lessen the impact of such cutoffs on customers further downstream, like Germany.
Even if Germany ultimately receives negotiating power, the project would still have to surmount many legal and economic challenges before it becomes a reality.
If Berlin takes over negotiations regarding Nord Stream 2 with Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, the pipeline would likely win EU approval. In the process, Germany would demand pro-competition concessions like requirements that Gazprom sell an allotment of the natural gas on spot market exchanges. This would force Gazprom to compete on the open market, promoting the EU goal of moving away from long-term oil-indexed prices and contracts. Brussels, however, would still play a strong role in the regulation of onshore pipelines connecting to Nord Stream 2, meaning that, even if Germany ultimately receives negotiating power, the project would still have to surmount many legal and economic challenges before it becomes a reality.
Background
Central and Eastern European countries aren't the only ones opposed to Nord Stream 2. The United States also takes a dim view of the project on the grounds that it would increase European dependence on Russian natural gas and make it far easier for Russia to cut off gas to Ukraine to gain leverage over Kiev. The United States has even threatened to sanction companies involved in Nord Stream 2, though it has not done so yet.
This year will also be crucial for talks between Moscow and Kiev on natural gas contracts at large. The transit contract between Russia and Ukraine, the main conduit for Russian gas to Europe at present, expires at the end of 2019. Russia and Gazprom have been open to signing a new contract, but various leaks and statements have suggested that Russia is considering a new transit deal offering only 10 bcm to 15 bcm per year, far below the 87 bcm of Russian gas that transited Ukraine on the way to the European Union and Moldova in 2018. The precipitous decline likely stems from Russia's expectation that it will be able to bypass those countries and cut straight to EU markets.
In public announcements and talks with Moscow in 2018, Berlin began to link the Nord Stream 2 project to the Ukrainian transit issue. If Germany becomes lead negotiator on Nord Stream 2, it could well make rules on supplies and volumes contingent on Russia's continued use of the Ukrainian route (in addition to Nord Stream 2), and a new transit contract between Moscow and Kiev. The issue is likely to come up during the next round of trilateral gas talks featuring the European Union, Ukraine and Russia in May, as well as subsequent meetings.
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The U.S. in Central Europe. During a trip to Hungary, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that Washington would try to re-engage with Central and Eastern Europe to prevent the region from building closer ties to China and Russia. Pompeo also warned of the risks of building networks using Chinese tech firm Huawei’s equipment and said cooperation with countries that have a strong Huawei presence could stall. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto responded by saying suggestions that Hungary was too friendly with Moscow and Beijing were an example of the West’s “enormous hypocrisy,” adding that cooperation with Russia didn’t prevent Hungary from being a reliable U.S. partner and NATO member. Despite the somewhat contentious exchange, Pompeo and Szijjarto agreed on a defense cooperation agreement that will allow the U.S. military greater freedom to move through Hungary and could increase Hungary’s purchase of U.S. arms. Pompeo is on a tour through Central and Eastern Europe that will also include visits to Poland and Slovakia
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Huawei headaches. In the latest drama surrounding Chinese tech giant Huawei, Washington raised the possibility of limiting intelligence sharing with Berlin if Germany were to use Huawei in the construction of its 5G network. This comes after German officials said there was no evidence to justify a ban on the company. The issue adds to the list of topics the U.S. and Germany do not see eye to eye on. The threat of changes in intelligence sharing must be taken seriously. Germany needs whatever help it can get to bolster its domestic security as foreign fighters make their way back to Europe. And the issue could have an impact on NATO cooperation. The organization is already on rocky ground, and restricting or downgrading intelligence sharing between two leading members would only further weaken the alliance.
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https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2019/03/us-official-brings-poland-serious-robust-offer-troop-presence/155529/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
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Time to leave Germany.
Huawei headaches. In the latest drama surrounding Chinese tech giant Huawei, Washington raised the possibility of limiting intelligence sharing with Berlin if Germany were to use Huawei in the construction of its 5G network. This comes after German officials said there was no evidence to justify a ban on the company. The issue adds to the list of topics the U.S. and Germany do not see eye to eye on. The threat of changes in intelligence sharing must be taken seriously. Germany needs whatever help it can get to bolster its domestic security as foreign fighters make their way back to Europe. And the issue could have an impact on NATO cooperation. The organization is already on rocky ground, and restricting or downgrading intelligence sharing between two leading members would only further weaken the alliance.
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GPF
March 18, 2019
By Jacob L. Shapiro
Italy Signs Up for the Belt and Road Initiative
Rome’s decision has provoked stern but ultimately empty U.S. warnings.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been making significant inroads in Europe despite repeated U.S. warnings to its European allies. On March 8, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte confirmed that Italy would become the 17th European country to join BRI. According to Conte, Italy will sign a memorandum of understanding during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to Rome later this week. Italy’s ANSA news agency reported that Luxembourg is also in advanced negotiations with China to sign a similar agreement.
(click to enlarge)
Washington was quick to respond to Conte’s remarks. The day after his announcement, the U.S. National Security Council took to Twitter to express its displeasure, warning that Italy’s participation in BRI would “bring no benefits to the Italian people.” The Italian government is also facing backlash from its own foreign policy establishment, at least some of which is aghast at the potential sale of the cornerstone of Italian strategy since 1945 – strong relations with the U.S. – for the low price of unspecified amounts of Chinese capital to build infrastructure.
MOUs are nonbinding and generally full of unrealistic aspirations rather than concrete plans. Still, the deeper problem is that Italy is counting on the U.S. to buy significant amounts of Italian debt in 2019. This is especially crucial for Italy since the European Central Bank concluded its bond-buying program in December. If the U.S. decided to voice its displeasure by, say, encouraging investors to eschew buying Italian debt, it could increase Italian borrowing costs at a time when the country is already in recession and its debt-to-gross domestic product ratio is at 133 percent. At least on the surface, Italy appears to be risking an awful lot for an awful little.
Why, then, would it be willing to make such a move? Thus far, U.S. warnings against cooperating with China have been more bark than bite. Stalwart U.S. allies such as Poland, New Zealand and Israel have also signed MOUs on BRI with little consequence. Even France and the European Commission have appeared open to cooperation with China on BRI projects in various joint declarations. Italy is debt-ridden and cash-starved, and if China is willing to throw some money its way, Italy has every reason to accept it. It’s taking a calculated risk, but considering U.S. reactions to other MOUs, it’s not an especially dangerous one.
For China, Italy’s participation in BRI is an insignificant though welcome step toward its much broader strategic ambitions. China’s success in this long-term endeavor will not be determined by the endorsement of a single country, even one as important as Italy. The broader project is to connect the entire Eurasian landmass via ports, roads and rail. Even if successful – and that’s a big if – it will be many decades before such infrastructure can be built let alone pay dividends. It will also take a lot more than MOUs for such a plan to work.
Many have described BRI as a Chinese version of the Marshall Plan. But it’s a faulty comparison because it misunderstands the scope and goals of both projects. The Marshall Plan’s aim was to rebuild Western Europe so it could hold the line against the Soviet Union. In trying to reorient Eurasia away from the Western Hemisphere and toward the Middle Kingdom, BRI is entirely different in scope. The United States would never have contemplated a Eurasian-wide Marshall Plan because it would have laid the groundwork for precisely the type of power the U.S. has been obsessed with thwarting for over two centuries.
As overly ambitious as China’s larger strategic goal may be, it is precisely that strategic aim that so irks the United States. While it doesn’t particularly care if China builds a port in Italy or high-speed rail in Poland, it does care about the potential emergence of a dominant power in Eurasia. Whether it’s China or some other power bridging the Eurasian landmass, the threat to the United States is the same. Being able to seamlessly connect markets from Shanghai to Lisbon would hamper the United States’ ability to prevent the rise of a Eurasian hegemon or a Eurasia less dependent on Washington’s support and approval.
There’s just one small problem with China’s plan: It would be nearly impossible to execute. China doesn’t possess the levels of financial and political capital needed to complete such a project. Even if it did, it would face tremendous political challenges in implementation. Many great powers have dreamed of ruling Eurasia. They have all been thwarted by Eurasia’s tremendous diversity. China’s vision of two continents stitched together by shared economic interests is wildly idealistic because not everything is about shared economic interests. Consider the European Union, and the level of discord in that multilateral organization despite its immense wealth. China has promoted the idea that Eurasian countries should cooperate to build a more prosperous and stable Eurasia. It’s a noble idea, but the promise of infrastructure spending will not be enough to encourage countries as varied as Italy, Iran and Uzbekistan to work together to build a Chinese-led Eurasian order.
Even if China’s ultimate aim to link Eurasia is more dream than reality, BRI is still potentially problematic because China’s ability to convince countries to sign MOUs undermines U.S. relationships throughout the world. The United States' insistence that its allies reject BRI funds or Huawei 5G equipment falls on deaf ears because the United States hasn’t offered any compelling alternatives. The U.S. built and sustained a global world order based on maximum freedom and independence for all actors. Countries that agreed to play by U.S. rules gained unfettered access to trade and protection from potential adversaries. At its best, the system is largely non-coercive and works in the interests of its stakeholders. But it wasn’t envisioned as a kind of American empire, in which an American emperor could direct countries not to buy the best technology available because the U.S. didn’t like who was making it. Indeed, in 1945, the U.S. was interested in destroying empires, not building one of its own.
When the U.S. takes such a heavy-handed approach on issues like BRI and 5G, it plays directly into China’s hands because such is the behavior of an empire. The aspect of U.S. policy that is most attractive to most countries is precisely how hands-off U.S. foreign policy is. The U.S. has no desire to dominate Eurasia – it simply wants to make sure no one else does. China, with its authoritarian system and historical preference for social stability over the protection of individual rights, does have an interest in dominating Eurasia, not to mention a history of conquering vast swaths of it. That’s why, at a political level, even a country as distant as Italy can’t seriously contemplate an alliance with China. Accepting investment is one thing, but Italy isn’t about to seek to replace a system that has sustained it through the most united and profitable period in Italian history since the Roman Empire.
The only thing that could really push countries like Italy and Poland into China’s waiting arms is if the U.S. breaches the rules of its own system and, in doing so, harms the national interests of those who participate in it. The U.S. is insisting other countries ban Huawei technology or not sign BRI MOUs, without providing better, or at least comparable, alternatives. If the best the U.S. can do in these situations is threaten to impose tariffs or other economic penalties, it is indicative of the kind of sclerotic self-righteousness that often appears when global superpowers either take power for granted or fail to maintain their relative advantages. Six years after China announced the Belt and Road Initiative, the U.S. response is to send angry tweets. That is far more of a boon to Chinese strategy than any MOU could ever be.
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https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/want-stop-russia-invading-baltic-states-turn-poland-military-powerhouse-48692?fbclid=IwAR3nGI8yuZ9cpQ298gUGqFbaI3VexBr1TOEh0FQv3ww8jPzoNoUewFelDIM
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/congress-no-u-s-military-base-for-poland-until-it-pays-for-nazi-war-crimes/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=def01972f5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_15_08_29_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-def01972f5-45632137&fbclid=IwAR3-eGQMWqTkd3JKMmZlIRQd1WTh4cnLbZcHPqH4pPfFhZ4IFVLFSA-HL6U
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/damaged-russian-sub-linked-to-underwater-drone-program/
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https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/07/russian-warship-enters-ukrainian-gunfire-exercise-area-creating-dangerous-situation/158337/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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Charges of Russian aggression. In an interview with Obozrevatel, a member of Ukraine’s top brass said he suspects Russia is preparing a large-scale military operation against Ukraine. Lt. Gen. Vasily Bogdan said powerful Russian military units – including more than 200,000 troops backed by rocket artillery, missiles and electronic warfare systems – are concentrated on the Russia-Ukraine border. On top of this, the Ukrainian Military Portal reported that, starting July 24, Russia blocked off five zones in the Black Sea totaling nearly 119,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) – more than a quarter of the sea’s total area. The zones closed off international shipping routes to Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania and Ukraine, effectively cutting off these countries’ sea access. Russia said the closures, which are scheduled to continue through Aug. 19, were for “combat training” and other navigational purposes.
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in the "New"
Cold War:
19 minute part 1
https://audioboom.com/posts/7341652-tales-of-the-new-cold-war-1-of-2-russia-s-nuclear-powered-fear-of-first-strike-stephen-f-cohe
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stephen Cohen
a good listen
(even if this is his wife : Katrina vanden Heuvel)
Dr Cohen thinks it began in the CIA not FBI under Obama Administration - and is largest scandal in American history (the MSM completely ignoring unlike when they had a Republican president in their crosshairs):
~ 21 minutes
https://audioboom.com/posts/7341650-tales-of-the-new-cold-war-2-of-2-russia-s-nuclear-powered-fear-of-first-strike-stephen-f-cohe?playlist_direction=reversed
I would be shocked if we will find out ever. let alone before the election
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-nuclear-monitoring-stations-went-silent-after-missile-blast-11566172101
"communication and network errors"
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Russia and Serbia get cozier. While most of Europe’s political leaders have been busy lambasting French President Emmanuel Macron for blocking North Macedonia’s and Albania’s bids to join the European Union, a much bigger country in the Western Balkans has been pulling away from Brussels’ sphere of influence. Last month, Russian troops trained their Serbian counterparts on the use of Russia’s S-400 air defense system during a joint air defense exercise in southern Serbia. On Thursday, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that it had airlifted the S-400 and battery of short-range Pantsir-S1 missile systems to Serbia for phase two of those same exercises, known as Slavic Shield. The Serbian military is due to receive a shipment of Pantsir-S1s, and Serbian politicians have discussed purchasing S-400s as well. In addition, the two countries are scheduled on Friday to sign an agreement creating a free trade area between Serbia and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. The European Commission has repeatedly warned Belgrade, which began accession negotiations with the EU in 2014, that it cannot be a member of both economic unions. But Serbia’s government has proceeded undeterred; President Aleksandar Vucic told the Financial Times this week that Brussels’ decision on Western Balkan expansion vindicated his approach.
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Exploring the Eastern Flank of the European War Theater
By: Jacek Bartosiak
It is increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that Russia’s foreign policy, which aims to reestablish dominance in the region, is supported by a military policy meant to ensure its security at the expense of its neighbors. Indeed, Moscow has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to do so. Over the past few years alone, Russia has reconstituted so-called “strike armies” that had been defunct since the end of the Cold War.
These strike armies have been deployed to mostly to Russia’s west in a clear attempt to intimidate the countries on NATO’s eastern flank. And while they have not yet been battle tested, they appear capable: Joint strategic command staff exercises in recent years show that they can operate on a front stretching from the Baltics to the Sea of Azov, an area comprising the entire Intermarium.
(click to enlarge)
Yet the main focus of Russian military posturing is on preventing NATO from enlarging its eastward power projection toward the Russian heartland. It’s a tall order, considering that for more than 30 years the U.S. has relied on supremacy in four of five domains of warfare – land, sea, air, space and information. U.S. dominance in this regard has been a function of seamless air-ground operations as land forces have increasingly depended on other domain capabilities to enable freedom of action on the ground. Russia’s military modernization efforts are meant to achieve parity on these fronts.
With the change in the contemporary warfighting technology and geography in Central and Eastern Europe, ground forces might now be required to provide freedom of action to other domains by eliminating the enemy’s land-based anti-air, space, maritime and cyber capabilities. This is a novel situation for the (thus far) superior U.S. forces that enjoy “artillery support” of F-16s and other tactical aircraft. The so-called Air-Land Battle Concept, which was the foundation of U.S. capabilities in Europe, has been undermined by advancements in Russian anti-access/area denial, electromagnetic and cyber warfare capabilities. Put simply, if allied units can be detected electronically, they can be hit, destroyed, disrupted or spoofed.
Power projection now matters again. The U.S. must deploy and sustain itself over contested lines of communication to deter or counter Russia deep into the European Peninsula to reach Poland and the Baltic States. The problem is that United States lacks the ability to project power in sufficient quantity within the required time frames if opposed by a peer or near-peer enemy. Turns out, old military doctrines weren’t enough to defeat the new generation of Russian warfare – at least not as quickly or as cheaply as the United States would prefer.
Washington’s answer has been to demonstrate credible warfighting capability to deter Russians by denial and to be postured to fight and win if deterrence by denial fails. This new operational concept, called Multi-Domain Battle, marries capabilities as part of a joint team to create temporary windows of superiority across multiple domains and throughout the depth of the battlefield in order to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative; defeat enemies; and achieve military objectives. Time will tell how this concept transforms the European battlefield.
Far from the Atlantic coast and from the rimlands of Central and Eastern Europe is a different set of parameters for executing war, a place where Continental wars were waged for European domination. There are pivotal areas in in this theater that are critically important to sustain proper and credible military posture. I will explore them in detail in Part 2 of this article.
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https://danish-energy-agency.mynewsdesk.com/pressreleases/permit-for-the-nord-stream-2-project-is-granted-by-the-danish-energy-agency-2937696
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Belarus: A Barometer Between Russia and the West
Eugene Chausovsky
Eugene Chausovsky
Senior Eurasia Analyst, Stratfor
6 MINS READ
Oct 31, 2019 | 09:00 GMT. The country is trying to stake out a place between Russia and the West.
(ALENA BAHDANOVICH/Shutterstock)
HIGHLIGHTS
The collapse of the INF Treaty and Russia and NATO's military buildups are increasing pressure on countries in the European borderlands, especially Belarus.
Belarus has leveraged its strategic location to act as a mediator between the two sides, but its small size and geographic exposure present more risks than benefits for Minsk.
Rather than solve the intractable tensions between Russia and the West, Minsk will provide an indication of the scale and intensity of issues like the conflict in Ukraine and the future of arms control.
The warning could hardly be starker: "Mankind is moving to the brink of the abyss," Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko said earlier this month in an address to international officials and experts at the Minsk Dialogue Forum. "The confrontation between Russia and the West is at its highest level; in a couple of minutes, the stage of nuclear war can be reached." For Belarus, the standoff between Russia and the West is especially worrisome, given its position sandwiched between the two powers at a time when the recent collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty eliminates some of the safeguards preventing nuclear proliferation. What's more, both NATO and Russia are conducting military buildups in Belarus' immediate vicinity in countries such as Lithuania and Poland. Against that backdrop, Belarus is uniquely placed to show which way the breeze is blowing in the standoff between Russia and the West — even if its geopolitical position means those winds are destined to present some turbulence.
The Big Picture
As the standoff between Russia and the West intensifies, Belarus is becoming increasingly embroiled in it. In this, the small but strategic country is providing a barometer regarding the prospects for the Moscow-West standoff.
Aspirations Vs. Reality
Lukashenko's sentiments might be somewhat exaggerated, but they nevertheless reflect the sense of alarm in Belarus. The worries also loomed large at the forum, which — uniquely for other gatherings in the region — brought together representatives from Russia, the United States, the European Union, former Soviet countries and China on Oct. 7-8 with the explicit goal of finding workable solutions to regional security issues. As in past editions, this gathering took place in a "dialogue" format, in which the organizers of panels on issues like arms control and Ukraine purposefully mixed representatives from different countries so that participants interacted with one another and the broader audience, rather than delivering monologues. Organizers hoped the structure would cultivate an atmosphere generating new ideas and more constructive dialogue — with Lukashenko urging the forum's participants to "get together in a calm, peaceful place, discuss our problems, and work together to resolve them."
In practice, however, the forum largely reinforced the conflicting viewpoints and opposing positions of its participants, particularly where Russia and the United States were concerned. When it came to discussions about the INF, for example, Russian representatives blamed the U.S. withdrawal for the treaty's collapse, while U.S. representatives blamed Russian breaches and a lack of transparency for the INF's undoing. When it came to Ukraine, Russian representatives continuously referred to the conflict as a civil war, whereas U.S. representatives (in concert with the Ukrainians) termed it a war of Russian aggression. From there, the sides presented and repeated accounts of the other's transgressions in detail, illustrating the difficulty of getting Moscow and Washington to even agree on a common frame of reference over the problems that divide them, much less explore possible solutions.
This map shows locations in Poland and Belarus where NATO and Russia could deploy more military forces.
Belarus' Unenviable Position
This is not to condemn Belarus or the forum specifically for any shortcomings; rather, it lays bare the geopolitical realities that are currently in play. The standoff between Russia and the West — and particularly between Moscow and Washington — is a product of deep-seated and conflicting interests, with Russia seeking to pull the states of the former Soviet Union into its sphere of influence, just as the United States and NATO are striving to keep those countries out of Moscow's orbit. When it comes to countries like Ukraine, which is geographically exposed in the European borderlands and caught on the frontlines of the standoff, the conflicting interests can have disastrous consequences.
Belarus desperately seeks to avoid similar consequences. For years, it was a close ally of Russia and, to a certain degree, a pariah in the West, but the Belarusian government changed tack following the Euromaidan uprising in Kyiv and the ensuing conflict in Ukraine, positioning itself as a mediator between Russia and the West and as a country that could work with both sides. This shift had both political and geopolitical motivations — political in that Lukashenko wanted to avoid the fate of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who was forced out by Western-backed protests and an uprising against his rule, and geopolitical in that Belarus wished to prevent the Ukrainian conflict or other proxy wars from spilling onto its soil. Belarus, accordingly, has become a key negotiating site for the conflict in Ukraine (producing the Minsk protocols to pave the way for its diplomatic resolution), while its government has somewhat softened the suppression of its own opposition, earning better ties with the West and prompting the European Union to ease sanctions as a result.
Nevertheless, Belarus has been careful not to stray too far from Russia lest it alienate Moscow; indeed, its strategic alignment with Russia has only deepened in recent years. Despite occasional tiffs between Moscow and Minsk over energy prices and export tariffs, Belarus has remained a loyal member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and the Moscow-based Collective Security Treaty Organization. Belarus has resisted Russia's efforts to establish an air base on its territory in order to preserve as much autonomy as possible, but it has further integrated with Russia on security matters like joint air defense networks and aircraft purchases. In the meantime, Belarus has expressed deep concern over U.S. military expansion in Poland and, most recently, the deployment of an additional U.S. brigade in Lithuania. Minsk has duly vowed to respond to the buildup, suggesting that Belarus' calculations regarding Russian military deployments in the country could soon change.
In essence, Belarus is trying to maintain a balance between Russia and the West to reduce risks and identify opportunities, while also reaching out to other influential powers, most notably China.
In essence, Belarus is trying to maintain a balance between Russia and the West to reduce risks and identify opportunities, while also reaching out to other influential powers, most notably China. Although the forum concentrated largely on issues of European security, the topic of China was inescapable. From growing security ties between Moscow and Beijing to China's Belt and Road Initiative and China's role in the breakdown of arms-control deals, Chinese activities were a prominent element of virtually all discussions, reflecting the country's growing regional and global clout. Beijing is also important for Minsk specifically, as Belarus is a key hub of the Belt and Road Initiative in Eastern Europe.
It is in this context that Belarus, in general, and the Minsk Dialogue Forum, in particular, provide an important barometer of key geopolitical issues, including the strategic competition among the great powers, huge infrastructural initiatives to connect the continents, as well as the global arms race. Ultimately, given its size and its position among larger and much more powerful neighbors, Belarus cannot take decisive action on such issues on its own. Nevertheless, it has and will continue to use platforms like the forum to shape the conversation among key powers and maneuver in an increasingly complex and contentious environment. As one Belarusian official put it, "Supporting peaceful initiatives in the region is a matter of our survival" — something that reveals Minsk's broader strategy as much as the current geopolitical competition highlights its limitations.
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Congressional testimony:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/fiona-hill-says-that-she-heard-putin-describe-american-fracking-as-a-great-threat-to-russia
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Congressional testimony:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/fiona-hill-says-that-she-heard-putin-describe-american-fracking-as-a-great-threat-to-russia
It is, as it is to Iran and other scummy places.
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Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:
If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:
Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.
Yep. You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/02/24/trump-isnt-sounding-like-a-russian-mole/
Hat tip, Glenn Reynolds.
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December 20, 2019 Open as PDF
China’s Enigmatic Loan to Belarus
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
Rather than continue drawn-out negotiations for a Russian loan, Belarus on Monday signed an agreement with the China Development Bank for a five-year, $500 million loan. From an economic perspective, this case is of little interest, since Chinese loans are a common practice in the countries of the post-Soviet space, especially if the country is included in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. But from a geopolitical perspective, this could be a significant event. Belarus is integral to the balance of power in Eastern Europe, and any disruption or interference can change the behavior of Russia and the West. The thorny question, then, is why China is disturbing this balance with moves that apparently help Belarus to reduce its dependence on Russia – especially just days before an important meeting between the presidents of Russia and Belarus – which is sure to annoy the Kremlin and please the West.
No Strings Attached
The economy of Belarus is not going through the best of times. Changes to Russian tax policy – a so-called tax maneuver – are expected to cost Belarus more than $10 billion by 2024, including a direct hit to the budget of nearly $3.24 billion. (Despite an agreement reached by Moscow and Minsk on a “compensation” scheme for the tax maneuver, Moscow will not return the full amount. Russian subsidies could amount to $1.5 billion.) Moreover, Minsk owes some $3.8 billion in 2020 in foreign loan repayments and interest, and it is looking for ways to refinance previous credit payments without relying on Russia and increasing Russia’s leverage over it. Belarus’ geopolitical strategy hangs on balancing Russian influence with the promise of greater cooperation with Europe. Falling too firmly into the Russian camp would undermine the strategy and put Belarus squarely in Russia’s pocket. One need only look at the recent loan issue for a demonstration of what that might look like. In February, Minsk asked Moscow for $600 million. The Kremlin agreed in April, but it linked the transfer to progress on the integration of the two countries as part of the Union State. (Negotiations on the $200 million seventh tranche of a loan from the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development were also cut short.) So in the summer, because of the lack of progress in negotiations with Russia, the Belarusian Ministry of Finance turned to the China Development Bank for the money.
China and Belarus have recently been interacting more and more intensively. In fact, this is not the first Chinese loan to Belarus. In 2015, the China Development Bank and the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus signed a credit agreement worth $700 million. Belarus received from China another approximately $450 million in 2016, $300 million in 2017, and $500 million in 2018. Two other agreements were concluded in April 2019: The China Development Bank provided $110 million to Belarusbank, and the Export-Import Bank of China allocated about $70 million to state-owned Belarusian Railway.
(click to enlarge)
Most of the Chinese loans and investments go to finance joint projects between Belarus and China (like the BelGee automobile assembly plant, the Vitebsk hydroelectric station, the Great Stone industrial park and the Minsk-Gomel high-speed rail project), which significantly increases China's position as an important trading partner for Belarus. In 2018, bilateral trade grew by 17.1 percent, to $3.5 billion, making China Belarus' third-largest trading partner. When Moscow over the past decade restricted Belarusian agricultural products' access to the Russian market, Chinese imports helped pick up the slack. In 2018, for example, as the value of Russia’s imports of Belarusian milk and dairy products fell to $578 million, an approximately 20 percent decline from the previous year, China bought $60 million worth of the same goods – a more than 900 percent increase. China is also giving Belarus a boost in military procurement, which traditionally is Russia’s sphere. The headline project is the joint creation of the Polonez multiple launch rocket system, which could be deployed against tank groups and infantry dispersed over large areas.
Simply put, another Chinese loan to Belarus couldn’t be called unexpected. But this latest loan, unlike the others before it, is unconditional; the funds can go anywhere and are not required to be invested in Chinese projects or used to refinance previous Chinese loans. This is highly unusual for China, whose loans typically fall into one of two categories – soft loans and commercial loans – and which are normally secured or guaranteed by the government of the borrowing country. Previous Chinese loans to Belarus were intended to set up joint projects, with the condition that the Chinese component of the project would be at least 50 percent, or financed state programs with the participation of Chinese partners. For example, funds allocated for the modernization of the railway in Belarus and the purchase of 18 trains immediately went to Chinese suppliers.
Winners and Losers
It isn’t clear yet how Belarus will use the loan, but there are two main possibilities. One is that Minsk could pay off some previous Chinese loans coming due in 2020. In this case, the loan wouldn’t ultimately be a significant deviation from China’s usual practice, in that the funds would return to China. Still, this would serve as a reminder of China’s growing economic influence in Belarus – not to mention a potential Chinese debt trap. The other possibility is that the new loan could be used to refinance loans from Russia. This would be significant in that it would slightly reduce Moscow’s leverage over Minsk. Russia owns about 50 percent of Belarusian foreign debt, amounting to some $7.5 billion to $8 billion out of a total debt of $16.6 billion as of Nov. 1.
In trying to understand why Beijing attached no conditions to this loan, it’s worth considering which countries the loan benefits. The main beneficiaries of a decline in Russian influence over Belarus – aside from Belarus itself – would be Poland and the United States. Neither the U.S. nor the European Union is willing to antagonize the Kremlin by providing credit to Belarus. No such impediment exists for China. Since the U.S. and China are still negotiating a trade agreement, this could be interpreted as a small concession by Beijing as part of the phase-one deal, or it could be linked to sanctions relief for North Korea. But we don’t think that China is interested in driving a wedge between Russia and Belarus to satisfy the United States, particularly since any help to the U.S. in containing Russia only frees up Washington to focus more on containing China.
Of course, it’s also true that Belarus occupies an important geographical position, the last piece needed to link China’s Belt and Road Initiative to Europe. But since China sees Russia as a much more important partner than Belarus, it is not in Beijing’s interest to anger Moscow. The trade turnover between Russia and China is many times that between Belarus and China, plus Russia-China trade has been growing steadily in recent years – by 2.2 percent in 2016 compared to the year before, by 20.8 percent in 2017 and by 27.1 percent in 2018. Russian exports to China in 2018 amounted to $56 billion, while Belarusian exports were worth only $480 million. From January to October 2019, agricultural imports from Russia grew by 12.4 percent in annual terms, and automobile exports from China to Russia grew by more than 66 percent. There’s also the recently inaugurated Power of Siberia gas pipeline, which will increase Chinese reliance on Russian gas.
(click to enlarge)
For now, Belarus can rejoice that it found the additional funds – and on favorable terms, with less politicized conditions. From Minsk’s perspective, the loan will significantly strengthen its negotiating position with Moscow, enabling the country to attain better terms when its president meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to hammer out a deal on energy prices, subsidies and economic integration. The Kremlin, for its part, is unlikely to react to the Chinese loan. But if Moscow starts to suspect ill intentions on the part of Beijing, it will think carefully about how to express its dissatisfaction.
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Europeans Try to Have It Both Ways
They expect American protection but aren’t prepared to defend their own countries.
By Walter Russell Mead
Feb. 17, 2020 4:20 pm ET
How solid is the West? At last weekend’s Munich Security Conference, the world’s largest gathering of security policy makers and officials, the theme was “Westlessness,” referring to the sense of disorientation that many Europeans feel in this age of America First.
Since the 1940s, U.S. leadership in the service of a united and secure Europe has been the one unchanging feature in the Continental landscape. For generations, the U.S. committed to protect Europe from Russia, maintain bases in Germany to prevent it from threatening its neighbors, and promote European integration. Now Europeans don’t know where they stand, and a mixture of bafflement, anger, disappointment and fear fills the atmosphere at conferences like the one in Munich.
There’s little doubt that Trump administration policies, ranging from trade wars to toughness on Iran, have tested trans-Atlantic relations to the breaking point. But to understand the growing weakness of the Western alliance, Europeans need to spend less time deploring Donald Trump and more time looking in the mirror. A good place to begin is with a Pew poll released earlier this month on the state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Superficially, the poll looks like good news. In 14 European countries plus Canada and the U.S., a median 53% of respondents said they had a favorable view of NATO, while only 27% saw the alliance unfavorably. Despite double-digit declines in NATO’s favorability among the French and the Germans, these numbers aren’t bad. Mr. Trump, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel are all less popular in their home countries than NATO is.
So far, so good—but that support is thin. When asked if their country should go to war with Russia if it attacked a NATO ally, 50% of respondents said no, and only 38% supported honoring their commitment to NATO allies.
Let those numbers sink in. Only 34% of Germans, 25% of Greeks and Italians, 36% of Czechs, 33% of Hungarians and 41% of the French believe their country should fulfill its treaty obligation if another European country is attacked. Only the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands and Lithuania had a majority in favor of honoring the NATO commitment to mutual defense.
Europeans often contrast the “nationalism” of backward political cultures like Russia, China and the U.S. with their own supposedly enlightened attitude of cosmopolitan solidarity. Yet if these numbers are accurate, Europeans haven’t replaced nationalism with European solidarity. They have replaced nationalism with fantasy: the belief that one can have security and prosperity without a strong defense.
That vision leaves Europe vulnerable, and it is threatening to let the West unravel. European leaders believe they are trading parochial loyalties for higher and broader commitments, when in truth their countries lack the solidarity that makes international order possible. Those who dream that they can have security without the willingness to fight for it are slowly turning NATO into the paper tiger that its enemies hope it will become.
Meanwhile, Europeans still, mostly, trust America. Seventy-five percent of Italians believe the U.S. would rally to NATO’s defense if Russia attacks, as do 63% of Germans and 57% of French. Despite European ambivalence about fulfilling NATO obligations, the alliance is held together by their confidence that America—Mr. Trump’s America—will fulfill its obligations.
Europe’s problem isn’t Mr. Trump. It isn’t nationalism. It isn’t that others aren’t wise or enlightened enough to share Europe’s ideals. It is that too few Europeans stand ready to defend the ideals they claim to embrace. That young Germans no longer dream of fighting and dying to conquer Poland is an excellent thing, but it is a bad and even a dangerous thing that so few young Germans think Europe is important enough to defend and, if necessary, to risk their lives for.
This problem won’t be easy to solve. For many Europeans, the essential purpose of European integration was to end war. For centuries, the restless nationalisms of European peoples plunged the Continent into one wretched war after another. The European Union was meant to bury those national antagonisms and end the cycle of war. To love Europe was to enter a posthistorical age of perpetual peace. For voters who grew up in the European cocoon, the military defense of European ideas sounds like a contradiction in terms. How can you build peace by making war?
In contrast, Americans continue to believe that Europe is worth defending. We must hope that over the next few years more Europeans will come around to that position; otherwise, the prospects for “Westlessness” will only grow.
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https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/02/20/poland-is-becoming-americas-key-nato-ally/
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https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/06/05/trump-orders-massive-cut-to-us-troop-numbers-in-germany-report/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Army%20DNR%206.5.20&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Army%20-%20Daily%20News%20Roundup
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Trump’s Spite-Germany Plan
He’ll weaken America’s military posture and get nothing in return.
By The Editorial Board
Updated July 29, 2020 9:02 pm ET
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Soldiers of the U.S. Army disembark from an airplane upon their arrival at Poznan Airport in Poznan, Poland, July 16.
PHOTO: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
Beneath the din of media condemnation, it can be hard to sort the good from the bad in President Trump’s unorthodox foreign policy. Some initiatives scorned by foreign-policy elites have been wise, like pulling out of failing arms accords. Yet the Pentagon’s plan to withdraw almost 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany is far from a stroke of populist genius. It’s a blow to U.S. interests that won’t fulfill the cost-saving objective Mr. Trump claims to be concerned with.
Amid souring relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr. Trump in June ordered thousands of U.S. troops withdrawn from the country. On Wednesday Secretary of Defense Mark Esper sketched out the plan. He said the U.S. will cut its troop presence in Germany to 24,000 from 36,000, with some 5,600 moved elsewhere in Europe, including Belgium and Italy, and 6,400 stationed back in the U.S.
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The Pentagon is presenting the move as improving its flexibility. Yet the U.S. presence in Germany—along with infrastructure and knowledge built over decades—is strategically located in the geopolitical and economic heart of Europe. Moving forces south or west in the Continent is a retreat that reduces U.S. ability to surge into the theater if Russia makes a military move. Indebted countries like Italy or Spain are unlikely to pay more than wealthy Germany for the U.S. presence.
The Obama Administration in 2012 and 2013 withdrew U.S. combat brigades from Germany, and Vladimir Putin responded by invading Ukraine in 2014. Expect the Kremlin to get similar signals from President Trump’s move. Mr. Esper said some forces will move to Poland, but there is no agreement yet to do so. One reasonable suggestion is moving the U.S. Africa Command, now based in Germany, to southern Europe so it is closer to the Mediterranean.
As for the troops coming home, Mr. Esper says many will return on rotations “in the Black Sea region.” This will be costly. The Journal reports that the retreat from Germany may cost $6 billion to $8 billion.
Mr. Trump is legitimately impatient about Germany’s failure to meet its Nato defense commitments, its support for Russia’s gas pipeline, and its naivete about China. He might have emphasized the last point by announcing that the Indo-Pacific is now a more important theater than Europe and moving a few thousand U.S. troops to Asia to pressure Berlin.
Instead he appears to be undermining America’s military position out of pique—moving U.S. forces to punish Germany, though many will go to countries that also aren’t pulling their weight. Oh, and in the middle of an election campaign he’s undermining the case, which he supported with action over three years, that he is tougher than Democrats on Mr. Putin. Mr. Trump’s erratic foreign-policy impulses remain the greatest risk of a second term.
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In Belarus, an Election Fuels the Fight for Russia's Borderlands
Sim Tack
Sim Tack
Senior Global Analyst , Stratfor
6 MINS READ
Aug 4, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
Plainclothed Belarus' security forces and riot police officers detain a protester at an opposition demonstration in Minsk, Belarus, on July 14, 2020.
Plainclothed Belarus' security forces and riot police officers detain a protester at an opposition demonstration in Minsk, Belarus, on July 14, 2020.
(SERGEI GAPON/AFP via Getty Images)
The likely tumultuous aftermath of Belarus's upcoming presidential election could significantly shake up the balance of power in the strategic borderland region between Russia and Western Europe. Amid the growing popularity of opposition movements in Belarus, the outcome of the country's Aug. 9 presidential election is widely expected to be heavily contested. The likely emergence of post-election protests will cast doubt over President Alexander Lukashenko's grasp on power and could open the door to a potential regime change. Belarus's importance to Russia's external security strategy will make Moscow extremely invested in the outcome of any power struggle in the country, which could prompt Russia to intervene directly.
A Heated Political Battle
Lukashenko's heavy-handed crackdowns against political activism have consolidated support for increasingly popular opposition candidates. The Belarusian government's repression of opposition activities, in particular — including detainments and refusal to register candidates — has concentrated opposition backing behind Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Lukashenko's primary challenger in the upcoming election. His government's perceived poor handling of the country's COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent economic crisis, as well as ongoing concerns over Lukashenko's moves to limit political freedoms, has also helped propel her bid for the presidency. In response to EU demands and sanctions, Lukashenko scaled back pressure on opposition activities during the 2010 and 2015 presidential elections. But the current rise of opposition support and anti-government sentiment has resulted in a renewed culture of repression and crackdowns ahead of this year's election.
The opposition is unlikely to win the election given Belarus's history of electoral interference, which will almost certainly fuel intense protests rejecting the outcome. Lukashenko's regime depends on the active repression of political opposition and has been suspected of rigging elections to secure its grasp on power. There is no reason to believe this year's vote will be any different, especially given the particularly heated opposition campaign. Opposition candidates are calling for a high turnout to make any falsification of votes obvious. They are also already priming the Belarusian population to defend their vote after the election, though opposition leaders have yet to outright call for post-election protest action for fear of prosecution. The outcome of the 2006 election in Belarus resulted in protests that were eventually quelched by security forces. A repeat of those 2006 events, later dubbed the "Denim Revolution," is likely following the Aug. 9 presidential ballot. This time, however, post-election protests have the potential to escalate into larger or more violent persistent demonstrations given the current levels of opposition activity and large turnout at rallies.
President Lukashenko's ability to weather the coming round of post-election unrest is uncertain and may largely depend on his ability to maintain the loyalty of security forces. In many cases where governments have fallen to similar protests in the past, such as Ukraine's Euromaidan protests in 2013-2014, the alignment of security forces was decisive in shaping the outcome. Lukashenko maintains an active policy of frequently reassigning government officials and leaders of security branches to keep any individual position from amassing too much power. But while this practice avoids the rise of internal competitors, it also leads to weaker patronage structures that Lukashenko may come to depend upon to remain in control throughout intense protests. The position of security forces, and their behavior in response to post-election protests, will thus be critical in establishing the strength of Lukashenko's continued ability to repress dissent.
Gauging the Russian Response
A regime change in Belarus would intensify the geopolitical competition between Russia and the West by upending the current balance of power in Moscow's borderlands. The Belarusian opposition led by Tikhanovskaya has demonstrated a clear pro-Western orientation, meaning her rise to power could reorient the country toward the European Union and the United States. Such a geopolitical shift would present a clear existential threat to Russia, which depends on Belarus as it's last real buffer between it and NATO. Losing influence with Belarus would deny Russia of the strategic depth the country provides, and would leave Russia's core dangerously exposed to potential expansions of Western influence to its borders, which are located less than 400 kilometers (or roughly 250 miles) away from Moscow.
Russia's Slipping Grasp On Its Borderlands
Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the ongoing conflict against Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine have decisively pivoted Kyiv toward the West in recent years. This shift, which itself followed over 20 years of gradual NATO expansion into Eastern Europe toward Russia's borders, has drastically remapped the balance of power between Russia and the West in the borderlands that lie between them. In trying to balance between its powerful neighbors, Belarus has also flirted frequently with the West, as evidenced by Lukashenko's government agreeing to host NATO forces for military exercises earlier this year. But a complete pivot to a clearly pro-Western administration would solidify Russia's losing battle against the eastward encroachment of NATO's influence.
The potential for a significant upheaval of Belarus governance will force Russia to choose between either throwing its weight behind Lukashenko, or finding other means to guarantee its influence over the country. Russia will take whatever actions necessary to try and guarantee an election outcome that doesn't shift Belarus even closer to the West. But while Russia actively supported Lukashenko in the past, his government's oil diversification efforts over the past year, as well as Minsk's resistance to Moscow's push for deeper political and economic integration, has recently driven a wedge between the two countries. Russia would still prefer Lukashenko over the pro-Western opposition. Though if his position becomes untenable, Moscow may go to great lengths — including the deployment of covert military actions — to try and gain control over the political transition process in Belarus. Indeed, the recent arrest of 30 suspected Russian mercenaries in Belarus could indicate that Moscow is already preparing such plans. This approach, however, would be prone to strategic risk or miscalculations, as was the case in Ukraine. But Moscow is unlikely to stand idly by if there is a real risk of losing Belarus entirely to the West.
A complete pivot to a pro-Western administration in Minsk would solidify Moscow’s losing battle against the encroachment of NATO’s influence.
If Lukashenko manages to hold on to power, he will find himself strengthened in countering both Russian integration efforts and Western demands for political liberalization. Lukashenko's ability to survive heavily contested elections, whether through Russian support or by his own means, would grant him a greater degree of maneuverability. Lukashenko would be in an even better position to negotiate beneficial energy trade terms with Moscow, as well as resist Russian demands for greater economic and political integration. His firm grasp on power would also enable him to ward off European demands for political liberalization, though the oppression of opposition activity during the presidential election and possible violent crackdowns against protests thereafter could raise the risk of EU sanctions. Such sanctions would most likely target individuals engaged in violence against civilians as opposed to having a broader economic impact, thus representing only a temporary rollback in the warming of Minsk-EU relations.
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The German press is running heavy with last Wednesday’s Pentagon press conference, in which Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed the U.S. will withdraw 11,900 troops from Germany. Markus Söder, minister president of the state of Bavaria, called the decision “inexplicable,” while Angela Merkel’s trans-Atlantic coordinator, Peter Beyer, said it “makes no sense geopolitically for the United States.” For its part, Germany’s anti-American Left Party welcomed the decision. Its Bundestag leader proclaimed on prime-time television: “I can’t get enough of this punishment,” referring to Donald Trump’s seeming insistence that the move is more retaliatory than strategic.
Strains on the U.S.-German alliance have been attributed to everything from Mr. Trump’s bullying and ignorance and Ms. Merkel’s excessive circumspection to Vladimir Putin’s talent for sowing chaos abroad. But even if all these assumptions are accurate, none are root causes. The trans-Atlantic fissures predate Mr. Trump and Ms. Merkel and will outlast them, with potentially tectonic consequences for Germany’s role in Europe.
The core problem with trans-Atlantic relations is that they never evolved after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the original bargain struck after 1945, the U.S. provided security to its European allies and supported their struggling economies. In return, those allies backed the U.S. on most major issues related to the Soviet Union in Europe. This model of trans-Atlantic relations was founded on the reality of a near-hegemonic America, and a Europe that was economically poor, politically fragile, and militarily vulnerable to the Soviet threat.
Challenges to this model date to at least the Nixon administration, and no U.S. president has been entirely satisfied with Europe’s contribution to the Western alliance. But once the Soviet Union collapsed, and the European Union emerged as one of the world’s largest economies, many Americans began to think it unwise to keep bearing more than 70% of defense expenditures for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Even President Obama, whose personal relations with Ms. Merkel were famously warm, left office frustrated about the trans-Atlantic imbalance. In March 2016 he affirmed an “anti-free-rider campaign,” meant to dissuade the Europeans “from holding our coats while we did all the fighting.” “We expect others to carry their weight,” he explained.
While Mr. Trump hasn’t cultivated the personal touch exhibited by his predecessor, he has sustained Mr. Obama’s parting challenge to the trans-Atlantic model. If Joe Biden succeeds in November, he too will struggle to justify the viability of pre-1989 security and trade imbalances in a world in which Europe is no longer poor and the U.S. is no longer hegemonic.
It remains too early to judge the efficacy of U.S. sanctions on German gas pipelines, demands on German telecommunications infrastructure, pressure on German military spending, and general shaming of Germany’s international diplomacy. But critics aghast at the Trump administration’s continued preoccupation with alleged German delinquency would do well to consider how far a Biden administration would get in the opposite direction.
Would a President Biden find it easy to uphold unconditional security guarantees to Germany and its neighbors, even if Berlin buys more gas from Moscow, expands trade links with Beijing, and declines to help address U.S. trade concerns in Brussels?
These are not mere questions of “fairness,” but of the foundations of contemporary Germany. Consider the precarious circumstances which underwrite Germany’s position as both the wealthiest country in Europe and one of the most pacifist members of NATO.
While the Russian threat looms over Poland, Sweden, Finland and the Baltics, the Kremlin is hardly considered a menace in Italy, Spain or Portugal. France is attempting to revive a full-fledged Franco-Russian partnership, while Britain is no longer shackled to the consensus demands of Brussels. Given the wild asymmetry of European threat perceptions, a lopsided U.S. presence truly is the glue that keeps the continent’s security architecture together, and Germany’s postwar identity intact.
But if the U.S. ever withdraws from Europe in a significant way—as Mr. Trump’s troop plan suggests it could, and as events in the South China Sea seem almost designed to achieve—Germany will find itself in a kind of straitjacket.
As the seat of political and economic power in Europe, Berlin would become the main target of Nordic, Baltic and Visegrád pleas to do and spend more on defense, of French appeals to de-Americanize European security, and of Russian fears of German remilitarization. German leaders would also face a whirlwind of competing domestic passions, from advocacy for a renewed era of German military confidence to sheer terror at the notion of reopening the darkest box in Germany’s psychological attic.
Ms. Merkel has spent 15 years betting that steady growth, full employment and high wages can keep that box shut, and that U.S. forces can keep Germany’s nightmare scenario forever at bay. It is the tragic irony of her final year in office that these two strategies have collided, and that trans-Atlantic ties have frayed so much under her watch.
Mr. Stern was chief of staff and a senior adviser at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, 2019-20.
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that us should are ask them to pay up to their promises:
https://www.westernjournal.com/victor-davis-hanson-germanys-furious-trump-pulling-thousands-troops-berlin-refuses-pay-nato-dues/
and of course the left will stamp and stomp there feet and say this is an example of we are mean to our enemies
(and of course add the obligatory "Trump cozies up to despots like Putin - another phony Russiagate angle)
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D1 is definitely Trump hostile. FWIW here is their POV:
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/09/potentially-deadly-blow-nato/168853/
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R.D. Hooker, Jr. served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council from April 2017 to July 2018
wonder what he thinks if Joe Biden , or better yet Kamala Harris could lead the free world
or nato etc.
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What President Trump is doing here IS a major change in long standing American geopolitical strategy. It is normal and understandable that people sincerely dedicated to the previous strategy would be concerned.
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https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/trump-russia-intelligence-explode-220746995.html
we keep hearing how Russia ran campaign to get Trump elected
can ANYONE please tell exactly what they did and if it mattered?
not a peep about China doing the same with bribing everyone in US
and infiltrating academics industry etc
This comment is curious:
"According to Ioffe, the scope of the attacks is actually much larger than previously known to the public ― CIA agents all over the globe have suffered its effects, which include lasting brain damage ― and, under the Trump administration, the United States is not doing much to stop them."
This suggests that Russian knows who the CIA agents are - how is this
explained
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16900/germany-russia-nord-stream-pipeline
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Say it ain't so Manchurian Joe!
GPF: Black Sea deployment canceled. The United States canceled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea, according to Turkish officials. Washington had expressed concern about the military buildup along Ukraine's border with Russia, but Moscow criticized the deployment, calling it provocative.
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https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/985439655/a-worst-nightmare-cyberattack-the-untold-story-of-the-solarwinds-hack
Glad we have responded with sanctions - whatever that means
Unhappy Biden uses some false pretenses ("stealing the 2020 election ) " "bribing AFghans to kill US troops"
Unhappy as noted above he makes a threat and changes his mind looking more stupid then if he did not make the threat
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Brief: Assassination Plot in Belarus
One suspect allegedly engaged in discussions in the U.S. and Poland.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Background: Despite massive protests against his reelection last August, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and his regime clung to power and continue to suppress critics. The regime’s opponents have not gone away, however, and they continue to challenge Belarus’ stability. This concerns not just Minsk but also Moscow, for which Belarus is a key ally and important buffer between Russia and the West.
What Happened: On Saturday, the Russian Federal Security Service said it had detained two Belarusians: Yuras Zyankovich, who also holds American citizenship, and Aleksandr Feduta. The two men were accused of planning to kill Lukashenko and carry out an armed coup in Belarus, with the help of locals as well as unnamed Ukrainians. The suspects were caught in Moscow and were delivered to Belarus’ State Security Committee. Discussing the case, Lukashenko said his sons were also targeted for assassination, and he accused foreign secret services of being involved.
Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said Monday that President Vladimir Putin had discussed the case with U.S. President Joe Biden during their phone call on April 13. When asked if the U.S. had been involved in the alleged assassination plot, however, Peskov declined to comment.
Bottom Line: This may be little more than the continuation of the power struggle between Lukashenko’s regime and its opponents, but it looks bigger than that. Importantly, Russia alleges that one of the suspects traveled to the United States and Poland for consultations before meeting in Moscow, where they were detained. It’s also significant that Putin and Biden discussed an assassination plot against Lukashenko before the Russian security service had publicized the case. The U.S. role, if any, is unclear, but we need to keep a close eye on happenings in Belarus.
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May 26, 2021
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Paying the Price for Belarus’ Plane Diversion
The incident has drawn strong condemnation from the rest of Europe.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
The fallout from Belarus’ diversion of a commercial plane over the weekend is still unfolding. The incident happened on Sunday, when Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair plane en route to Lithuania to land in Minsk, supposedly because of a bomb threat. Once the plane landed, they arrested opposition journalist Roman Protasevich, the founder of a channel called Nexta on the Telegram messaging app. Nexta had covered the mass protests last year against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who personally ordered the plane’s grounding. Details about what precipitated the incident are sketchy, but what matters more is how this will affect Europe’s relationship with Belarus and Belarus’ top ally, Russia.
Ryanair's Unexpected Flight Path
(click to enlarge)
What Happened
A number of theories have been floated about what exactly happened and why. In the absence of an investigation, we can posit two possible explanations. First, Lukashenko may have wanted the journalist arrested to try to put the squeeze on the opposition, which has enjoyed growing support among both the Belarusian public and foreign powers. If this was what motived the move, it would indicate that Lukashenko believes his position and that of his government is getting weaker, especially since the protests following the disputed elections last August. The threat posed by Protasevich must have been serious enough for Lukashenko to risk angering the West by scrambling a fighter jet to force the landing of a commercial plane midflight. This explanation doesn’t seem sufficient, however. The threat to the president after the protests last year seems to have been tamed enough not to warrant such a drastic move. Lukashenko stayed in power, and recent demonstrations have been smaller than those that followed the election. Tough new media restrictions were also imposed, and many opposition figures either left the country or were detained.
A second possible explanation is that Minsk really did believe that there was a bomb on board the plane. The head of the aviation department at Belarus’ Transport Ministry said unidentified individuals who called themselves Hamas soldiers had threatened to blow up the plane the day before, demanding an end to Israeli aggression in Gaza. The CEO of Ryanair said the bags of the passengers were searched after the plane landed, although one passenger said authorities made no effort to rush passengers off the plane and demonstrated no concern while searching passengers and their bags that an explosion might be imminent.
Either way, the incident has placed significant pressure on Minsk, which could now see fresh protests and calls for Lukashenko’s removal and new elections. All of these possibilities would only further isolate the president.
What Now
Many countries in Europe and beyond have condemned Protasevich’s arrest and the forced landing of the plane. Britain banned flights from Belarusian state-owned carrier Belavia. And Lithuania blocked all planes from Belarus from landing at its airports. EU members decided during a summit on Monday to ban Belarusian planes from flying to the bloc and called on European carriers not to transit through Belarusian airspace. Germany’s Lufthansa, Latvia’s Air Baltic, Hungary’s Wizz Air, Poland’s LOT, the Netherlands’ KLM and Sweden’s SAS all announced that their planes would not fly over Belarus.
Belarus' Nearly Empty Skies
(click to enlarge)
These measures are particularly punitive during a pandemic that has placed the airline industry under serious strain. Now that lockdown measures are beginning to ease, having flights to and from Europe severely restricted could affect the recovery of Belarusian airlines and the Belarusian economy in general. Belavia is planning to cut its staff – by up to 50 percent, according to some sources – due to the European backlash.
As for Moscow, it has said that it doesn’t want to intervene in an issue that’s mostly between Belarus and Europe, likely trying to bide its time until it sees what the full fallout will be. It has used this wait-and-see strategy before, including during the protests against Lukashenko last year, though it could still react if it deems doing so necessary.
Rumor has it that Lukashenko will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Friday. The two leaders will likely discuss how the Ryanair incident could affect transport between the two countries, especially considering that Belarus was an important corridor for travel between Russia and Europe. Russia might now become a corridor for travel between Belarus and Europe, especially as the summer tourist season heats up. So far, Russian airlines have made no changes to flights, but if they were to stop flying over Belarusian territory, under the threat of sanctions, they could find other routes to Europe – as they have done since the 2014 plane crash in Donbass that led to that region’s airspace being declared unsafe. Moscow also recently introduced a new train route that reaches Minsk in seven hours for the ridiculously low price of $20-$30.
The Kremlin is also likely concerned about Western retaliation directed at Russia. The European Council already agreed to impose new sanctions on Belarusian individuals, companies and sectors. Moscow can only hope that European leaders will find these measures sufficient punishment and not seek retribution against Lukashenko’s biggest foreign supporter. However, the U.K. said it was considering sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 and the Yamal-Europe pipelines, both of which carry – or, in Nord Stream 2's case, will eventually carry – Russian energy supplies to Europe, and the latter of which passes through Belarus. The dilemma for Moscow, which is eager to avoid any additional pressure on its economy, is that it needs to balance between pacifying Belarus and not further aggravating Europe.
Despite the intrigue over what led to the grounding of the Ryanair plane, the key issue here is how the European response could impact Russia as well as the Belarusian government and opposition. Moscow views any threat to the Belarusian leader as a threat to itself. Belarus is Russia’s last remaining ally on its western border, which explains why Moscow works so hard to keep Lukashenko in power and to keep him loyal to the Kremlin. But doing so is getting harder.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/the-tuesday/dispatches-from-the-future-front/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TUE_20210601&utm_term=Tuesday-Smart
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June 1, 2021
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A Russian Move in Europe
By: George Friedman
Russia and the European Union held a conference last week, during which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a speech: “The situation remains rather alarming. Our common European continent is experiencing an unprecedented crisis of trust. Division lines are emerging in Europe again. They are moving eastward and getting deeper as if they were frontline trenches.” These are not trivial points, nor are they the usual verbal jousting of international conferences. They reflect the Russian reality, and as before in history, it differs from the European and American views of things.
The organizing principle of the Russian perspective can best be understood by what President Vladimir Putin said years ago: that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe for Russia – not the collapse of communism, mind you, but the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, the core of which had been forged during the time of the czars and which protected Russia from invasion.
The Soviet Union’s collapse shattered the westernmost reaches that face Europe. Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova all became independent, and Russia’s border moved dramatically eastward. In one sense, there was little Russia could do about it. In another sense, Russia could live with the loss so long as the Europeans and Americans didn’t control the region. A buffer zone could suffice, one that required genuinely Russia-leaning or at least neutral governments. Governments dominated by the West were dangerous.
Russia's European Buffer Zone
(click to enlarge)
The Ukrainian revolution of 2014 upset the balance by replacing a pro-Russia president with a solidly pro-West government. Putin regarded this as a U.S.-engineered coup, and he sought to retain control of the eastern portion of Ukraine that borders Russia. Three perspectives emerged. The U.S. perspective was that Ukraine had the right to self-determination. The Russian perspective was that this was a result of covert action. The European perspective was classically European in that there were just about as many opinions as there are countries in Europe. Countries on the former Russian border such as Poland saw Russian moves in Ukraine as a return of Russian aggression. Germany’s perspective was that whatever happened should not be permitted to affect Germany’s relations with Russia. The opinion of a country like Portugal was that all this was far away and did not necessarily affect Europe.
Even so, it was a watershed moment. Russia believed that the West had violated an implicit agreement on the neutrality of the buffer region. The U.S. believed it was witnessing a new Russian attempt to return to great power status. Europe was alternatively alarmed or indifferent.
But the recent events in Belarus have shifted this. A Ryanair aircraft flying from one EU country to another was forced to land in Belarus, where two of its passengers were arrested. Russia had been supporting Belarus and its embattled, pro-Russia president following the chaotic Belarusian election last year, so if it hadn’t been clear before, it was now: Belarus was a partner if not an outright satellite. The event confirmed to Europe that Russian power had moved westward and had now arrived on the border of the Baltics and Poland. But to Russia, the opposite – that European power was advancing steadily eastward – had long been true. And that is at least partly what Lavrov was referring to in his speech at the EU conference.
And yet he never raised the key issues. What is Europe’s relationship with the United States, and what exactly is Europe? You cannot answer the first question without first answering the second. The Russians need to know the answer now. If Europe is a united entity with a singular foreign policy that operates under the auspice of NATO, then Russia stands against not just Europe but also the United States. If it doesn’t, then Russia is in a much stronger position. Moscow can’t expect to change America’s mind on the matter, but it might be able to split Europe’s view of Russia. And since NATO operates on many issues based on unanimity, that essentially blocks the U.S.
In this context, Lavrov's speech makes sense. He was speaking directly to Europe, telling its leaders that Russia will respond if they continue to press east. He was speaking to those who hoped that the situation in Belarus would simply go away. His audience – the EU – is not Europe but a treaty on economic cooperation among most but not all European countries. The EU does not have a foreign policy beyond its trade policy, nor does it have a military. The EU is institutionally averse to national security issues intruding on economic issues. Lavrov’s speech was alarming to this group, and it was this group that he hoped to alarm. They might have been upset by the Ryanair incident but not so much that they want to confront Russia militarily or even economically.
For Russia, a fragmented Europe is the best defense because it freezes NATO and makes increased U.S. involvement more difficult. Without NATO, U.S. involvement will have to be done nation to nation, and thus without unquestioned support by European countries. That makes power projection from North America to Poland a difficult logistical matter.
In other words, Russia wants to preempt a joint American-European reaction to a hypothetical Ukrainian action. But there is a truth here: The Russians are weak and frightened. They are frightened by the full meaning of the fall of the Soviet Union, and despite massing troops here and there, they are not confident in their ability to prevail. They are unsure of their own strength. They believe they have a window of opportunity with Belarus, but to fully capitalize on it they must create cracks in Europe. It’s the move to make, and we can expect many attractive offers to various European countries. The problem Russia has is finding attractive offers.
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July 13, 2021
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Biden and Merkel to Meet
By: George Friedman
U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are scheduled to meet Thursday in Washington, where they are expected to discuss issues such as cybersecurity, Nordstream 2 and Afghanistan. But as is often the case, the official agenda items are secondary to the more important aspect of the meeting. After all, Berlin has never been especially decisive in Afghanistan, cybersecurity is a threat that affects all countries, and Nordstream 2 is nearly completed.
The latter two issues necessarily implicate Russia, which goes to the heart of the meeting. The actual point of discussions between Biden and Merkel will be what the U.S. relationship with Germany is, and what Germany’s relationship with Russia and Poland will be. Implicit in these questions is what Germany’s relationship with Europe will be, a subject that will be touched on gingerly, if at all, but matters more than all other questions.
The European Union was created for two purposes, according the founding treaty: peace and prosperity in Europe. The memory of the two world wars haunted Europe, so if the Continent could figure out a way to shed national distinctions of their importance, peace would be possible, or so the theory went. The path to transcending nationalism was in constructing a union in which universal prosperity was achieved, and with it a common European interest. Along with this would come a common European identity, in which nation-states would decline in importance.
From the American point of view, the European Union would be a logical epilogue to the Marshall Plan. The U.S. had included within the principles of the plan the integration of Europe’s national economies. It was a rocky trip, as European nationalism and mutual suspicion were inevitably high. The French in particular distrusted integration. But it was important to the United States, which was responsible for protecting Western Europe from a Soviet attack. To successfully do so, there had to be a restoration of European military power and integration into what would become NATO. Economic integration and military integration were, from the American point of view, inseparable. The European free trade zone emerged from the Marshall Plan, was redefined by the Europeans, and finally became the EU.
The legacy of the Marshall Plan was the principle of European integration. But Europe has become an entity in which military strategy, economic policy and foreign policy are uncoordinated. In terms of military policy, there are wide differences in Europe. Poland, always wary of Russia, is obsessed with protecting itself from potential Russian aggression. For, say, Portugal, Poland’s concerns are far from its own. From the German point of view, creating a military force equal to its economic power would both undermine its economy and revive historical fears of German power, both reasonable concerns with the first one dominant. NATO, which is the framework of both European defense policy and the trans-Atlantic relationship, has no common strategy, making NATO itself dysfunctional and rendering a strong trans-Atlantic relationship impossible.
A similar problem exists within the EU. The EU has created prosperity, but the prosperity is not equally enjoyed. Unlike regional disparities within a nation, these are regional disparities between nations, which ultimately retain their right to self-determination.
The EU has had three significant crises: the global financial crisis of 2008, the migration crisis in 2015, and the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic costs. In all cases, the interests of particular nations clashed with the strategy laid down by the EU. At the moment, the economic conditions of various countries within the eurozone have competing needs required to stimulate a recovery – and some members of the EU are not in the eurozone to complicate matters further. Germany, the leading economy in Europe and the fourth-largest in the world, wants to maintain an economy that does not run deficits, and it wants the European Central Bank to follow this course. Germany fears inflation. Italy and other countries are facing a profound economic crisis that requires, according to John Maynard Keynes, massive stimuli and deficits to create a framework for recovery. Germany’s economic problem is not Italy’s, but whereas there are many nations in the eurozone, there is one central bank and therefore one monetary policy. In all three of these crises, there was a wide diversion of interests and needs, and the EU sought to use its power to punish the countries that were unwilling to follow its policy.
This then leads to a difference in strategy. As one example, consider Nordstream 2, which will deliver Russian natural gas to Europe and which the U.S. believes will make Europe far too dependent on Russian energy. In the past, the Russians have cut off the flow of energy to Eastern European countries. It had few long-term consequences beyond inflicting fear. But under other circumstances, the Russians might use this power to bring about changes in behavior or even capitulations to its demands. The Poles are terrified of excessive dependence on Russian fuel, not only because of their position but also because they fear that other EU members might cooperate with Russian strategy to keep the fuel flowing.
Germany and Poland are neighbors with a long history. To Poland, Nordstream 2 is an existential threat. To Germany, it is a useful source of energy. The Germans think they can form a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia based on German technology transfers and the like and avoid the threat of having energy cut off. The Poles see in this attitude that Germany has no interest in Polish needs, and so neither do NATO and the central bureaucracy of the EU.
The United States is inevitably drawn into this issue through its NATO membership. The U.S. has some forces in Poland but needs greater NATO involvement if it hopes to successfully deter Russia. There is no common NATO view in practice.
Similarly, there is no single view on the current economic crisis. The intention of the EU was to integrate Europe. What it has done is try to reconcile the diverse interests of European countries and, failing that, follow the interest of the more prosperous and powerful countries.
Germany is the most powerful country in Europe, and the problem Biden will have is discerning what European policy on various matters is and whether to link Nordstream to German pressure on Russia and German warfare, and make the U.S. dependent on Germany for that security area. But then Germany must also lead the EU, which is different from leading NATO or defining an immigration strategy. The production of a European strategy under these circumstances is complex in the extreme. The ability to understand that strategy is beyond the capability of putative allies.
The Europeans like to argue that the U.S. has turned away from the trans-Atlantic relationship. The fact is that trying to understand Europe’s defense policy, economic policy, and grand strategy verges on the impossible. The only option is bypassing these institutions and dealing with individual states. Of course, these states are constrained by the reality of being part of this chaos. Zbigniew Brzezinski once said that the problem in dealing with Europe is finding Europe’s telephone number. I would argue not that the U.S. has turned its back on Europe but that Europe has adopted a decision-making process designed to avoid clarity in what decision it has made.
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"Biden and Merkel to Meet"
The greatest minds and powers of western civilization in our time.
God help us.
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"Biden and Merkel to Meet"
When former is not acting as a warrior for
defense of "democracy" at home
fighting racial repression suppression and depression
just another reparations con.
I am not paying.
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What the U.S.-Germany Deal on Nord Stream 2 Means for Ukraine
Continued U.S. and German discord over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, along with the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, reflect Ukraine’s struggles to convince Western policymakers to fully support its foreign policy. Domestic tensions in Ukraine due to perceived meager support from the West could further weaken President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. The United States and Germany are planning to announce a deal on the disputed Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the coming days, according to unnamed sources cited in a July 19 Reuters report. This follows the July 16 meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Joe Biden in which both leaders declared their unity against Russian aggression and agreed to collaborate on mobilizing investment aimed at helping emerging economies in Central and Eastern Europe transition to cleaner energy, but failed to resolve their countries’ differences on the natural gas pipeline between Germany and Russia. As part of the to-be-announced deal with Germany, the United States has reportedly agreed not to resume its currently waived sanctions against the company behind the $11 billion project, Nord Stream 2 AG, and its chief executive following assurances and yet unspecified investments supporting Ukraine’s energy transformation from Russian hydrocarbon imports to domestic green energy production. U.S. and German investments in the transformation, efficiency and security of Ukraine’s energy sector, however, are unlikely to be enough to prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from reducing Ukraine’s crucial transit revenues in the coming years.
In May, the White House decided to waive sanctions against the corporate entity and CEO in charge of the Nord Stream 2 project to protect its relationship with Germany and buy more time for negotiations. The move alienated partners in Central and Eastern Europe keen to oppose Russian influence and incited bipartisan backlash from U.S. lawmakers, both of which will resume in similar force.
The still hazy details of a possible U.S.-Germany deal on Nord Stream 2 are likely to entail continued challenges for Ukraine. Both Biden and Zelensky had insisted on concrete investments as compensation or gas volume transit guarantees through Ukraine to offset or limit the pipeline’s potential use as a tool of Russian geopolitical coercion against Kyiv. Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom is already preparing for an attempt to use high gas prices as a way to pressure German and EU regulators to allow the pipeline to quickly begin operations. The United States and Germany appear to have agreed on eventually investing in Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but the continued lack of details could be an indication that the compensation will be underwhelming and most likely too late to seriously improve Ukraine’s energy security in the near term. According to the five-year transit deal that Russia and Ukraine signed in 2019, Ukraine’s minimum transport volumes can decrease from the minimum of 65 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas in 2020 (which is already down from the 87 bcm Ukraine received in 2018) to 40 bcm in 2021-24. This means Ukraine could receive transit fees over the next three years on just half the volume of gas it did three years ago. After 2024, Gazprom could be in a position to demand a further decrease in its minimum transport volumes through Ukraine, and it is unclear if U.S. and German investments in Ukraine’s energy security will significantly improve the situation even by then.
Gazprom has reduced bookings through the Ukrainian transit network by 20% this summer compared with previous norms. European states have, in turn, been unable to refill their gas storage prior to the fall, which is already low due to an unusually long winter across the Continent. This will lead to higher prices in the winter when Nord Stream 2 could near physical completion, which the pipeline’s backers will claim underscore its necessity.
While Nord Stream 2 is likely to be physically completed, there are still legal and political obstacles to the pipeline becoming operational. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Nord Stream 2 a “fait accompli” at a congressional hearing on June 7, suggesting that the White House believes it will be completed. Additionally, earlier concerns of faltering German support for the project amid indignation over Russian conduct have largely faded. And while the Green Party, which calls for the abolishment of Nord Stream 2, could enter the German government after the federal election in September, it may do so only as a junior partner of Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which supports the project. But physical completion, possibly as soon as the fall, doesn’t mean that the pipeline will enter operation in short order — particularly if the lingering risk of U.S. sanctions targeting the third-party service companies and insurance firms needed to operate the pipeline is not fully removed, which the reported U.S-German deal appears unlikely to achieve.
While Russian vessels can complete construction of the project while under U.S. sanctions, certification and insurance will have to be done by large, non-Russian entities, and it isn’t clear which will be willing to do so. Indeed, the threat of U.S. sanctions already prompted at least 16 third-party companies to pull out of the project in February.
Additionally, Nord Stream 2 must be fully compliant with German and EU regulations, and is likely to face a steady onslaught of legal challenges in both jurisdictions that could delay its opening and/or reduce its capacity once in operation.
Russia has downplayed and tried to draw the international community away from risks related to certification and insurance. On June 3, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the country sees no risks for the certification.
Domestic support for Zelensky’s government could fall as the perception builds that Ukraine is not receiving sufficient Western support against Russian aggression. Zelensky will seek political support from the United States during an upcoming meeting with Biden at the White House, which was previously scheduled for July but has been pushed into August. Domestic political tensions in Ukraine, meanwhile, have reached a high amid renewed national security concerns related to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statements on reasserting Russia’s historical control over Ukraine and denial of legitimate Ukrainian sovereignty prior to the 2021 Russia-Belarus Zapad military exercise scheduled for September. Those security concerns have since only been augmented by the resignation of the country’s influential Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avavok on July 12.
The Zelensky administration is worried that some members of the U.S. government believe Kyiv should cave to Russian and Franco-German pressure by following through with the so-called Steinmeier Formula, which is an interpretation of the Minsk agreements that would grant the Donbas breakaway regions constitutionally-enshrined autonomy and the ability to hold local elections prior to Ukraine receiving control of its border with Russia. Since it was proposed by Germany in 2016, the Steinmeier Formula has sparked protests in Ukraine for being a capitulation and a dangerous trap unfavorable to Ukraine’s interests.
Some U.S. officials believe the Steinmeier Formula could open the door for a de-escalation of the eastern Ukraine conflict, and could also enable the United States and Europe to more effectively focus on their true strategic priority of rallying an international coalition against China. But other members of the Biden administration are more willing to continue supporting Ukraine’s position that it should receive full control of its border with Russia before recognizing any local elections.
Against this backdrop, individuals close to Zelensky have speculated that Ukraine’s frustration with the West could prompt Kyiv to explore increased investment from China and other Asian countries. To that end, Zelensky held his first phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping on July 13 — the day before Merkel’s trip to Washington and the day after Zelensky’s meeting with Merkel in Berlin.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17603/germany-russia-nord-stream-biden-administration?fbclid=IwAR06TvaCv-DUMTlrnWEYTy38j-8dv6hG8RSE9YuZkG3Yx5bf0vgK_H-jQ3E
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Lukashenko's stance on integration. During a media event called the “Big Conversation,” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he would support integration with Russia so long as Belarus remained a sovereign state.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-belarus-plan-massive-anti-nato-military-exercise-wake-afghan-defeat
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Daily Memo: Western Warnings for Ukraine
Officials have expressed concern about a buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Concerns over Russian troops. Ukraine’s Western allies have warned that Russia is massing troops on the Ukrainian border. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that Washington was “very concerned about some of the irregular movements of forces that we see on Ukraine’s border.” Meanwhile, Ukraine received the fourth delivery of supplies – 80 tons of ammunition – from the United States as part of a $60 million aid package promised to Kyiv in August.
Reaching out to NATO. Poland, Lithuania and Latvia are considering triggering Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which allows member states to ask for consultations if they feel their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened, amid an influx of migrants coming across the Belarusian border. The Polish prime minister on Sunday called on NATO to take “concrete steps” to address the issue. The EU foreign affairs chief confirmed on Monday that the bloc would impose sanctions against Belarus targeting the Minsk airport and other facilities and hotels hosting migrants
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Nice they found a border they are interested in protecting. Too bad it’s not ours.
Daily Memo: Western Warnings for Ukraine
Officials have expressed concern about a buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Concerns over Russian troops. Ukraine’s Western allies have warned that Russia is massing troops on the Ukrainian border. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that Washington was “very concerned about some of the irregular movements of forces that we see on Ukraine’s border.” Meanwhile, Ukraine received the fourth delivery of supplies – 80 tons of ammunition – from the United States as part of a $60 million aid package promised to Kyiv in August.
Reaching out to NATO. Poland, Lithuania and Latvia are considering triggering Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which allows member states to ask for consultations if they feel their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened, amid an influx of migrants coming across the Belarusian border. The Polish prime minister on Sunday called on NATO to take “concrete steps” to address the issue. The EU foreign affairs chief confirmed on Monday that the bloc would impose sanctions against Belarus targeting the Minsk airport and other facilities and hotels hosting migrants
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RUSSIA
Putin seeks NATO pledge not to expand east
BY VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW | President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow would seek Western guarantees precluding any further NATO expansion and deployment of its weapons near his country’s borders, a stern demand that comes amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian and Western offi cials have worried about a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine, saying it could signal Moscow’s intention of an attack. Russian diplomats countered those claims by expressing concern about Ukraine’s own military buildup near the area of the separatist conflict in the eastern part of the country.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, noting that Mr. Putin could quickly order an invasion of Ukraine, warned that Washington stands ready to inflict heavy sanctions on Russia if he does. Speaking at a Kremlin ceremony where he received credentials from foreign ambassadors, Mr. Putin emphasized that Russia will seek “reliable and long-term security guarantees.”
“In a dialogue with the United States and its allies, we will insist on working out specifi c agreements that would exclude any further NATO moves eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory,” Mr. Putin said.
He charged that “the threats are mounting on our western border,” with NATO placing its military infrastructure closer to Russia and offered the West an opening to engage in substantive talks on the issue, adding that Moscow would need not just verbal assurances, but “legal guarantees.”
Mr. Putin’s statement came a day after he sternly warned NATO against deploying its troops and weapons to Ukraine, saying it represented a red line for Russia and would trigger a strong response.
Tensions have been soaring in recent weeks over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine, which worried Ukrainian and Western officials, who saw it as a possible sign of Moscow’s intention to invade its former Soviet neighbor. NATO foreign ministers warned Russia on Tuesday that any attempt to further destabilize Ukraine would be a costly mistake.
The Kremlin insists it has no such intention and has accused Ukraine and its Western backers of making the claims to cover up their own allegedly aggressive designs.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the concentration of Ukrainian troops looks “alarming,” adding that he was going to raise the issue during a ministerial meeting in Stockholm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Thursday. Speaking before a meeting with Mr. Blinken, he again assailed Ukraine for failing to meet its obligations under a 2015 peace deal for the region that was brokered by France and Germany and signed in Minsk, Belarus.
Speaking Wednesday in Riga, Latvia, Mr. Blinken said that “we don’t know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade.”
“We do know that his is putting in place the capacity to do so on short order should he so decide,” Mr. Blinken told reporters. “We must prepare for all contingencies.” r. Blinken gave no details on what kind of sanctions were under consideration if Russia did invade Ukraine.
In April, the European Parliament approved a nonbinding resolution to cut off Russia from the so-called SWIFT system of international payments if its troops entered Ukraine. Such a move would go far toward blocking Russian businesses from the global financial system, even though Moscow has developed its own parallel system in preparation for such a move.
Western allies reportedly considered such a step during earlier escalations of tensions over Russia’s actions regarding Ukraine. In 2019, then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that cutting Russia off SWIFT would effectively amount to a “declaration of war.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukraine has amassed about 125,000 troops — about half of the size of its military — near the conflict zone. She also pointed at an increasing number of violations of a cease-fire in the east.
Amid the tensions, Moscow on Wednesday launched drills in southwestern Russia involving over 10,000 troops. A smaller exercise also began in Russia’s westernmost region of Kaliningrad on the Baltic, involving 1,000 personnel from armored units.
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 after the country’s Kremlinfriendly president was driven from power by mass protests. Moscow also threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, known as the Donbas. More than 14,000 people have died in the fighting.
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great to see you again [Vlad]!
:roll:
does biden sound like a horses idiot or not?
i get it ; "diplomacy" yada ..
https://nypost.com/2021/12/07/biden-putin-hold-virtual-meeting-as-ukraine-tensions-escalate/
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1392934/ukraine-biden-warns-putin-putin-warns-biden-not-to-poop-pants
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https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-12-15/xi-says-china-russia-should-safeguard-each-others-security-interests
weird
did Adolf and Josef wave to each other , or perhaps hug, or kiss each other on the cheeks?
Do we need a China- Russia thread?
or China - Russian - Iran thread?
or thread such as relations between enemy countries of US?
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/dick-morris-tucker-carlson-putin-neville-chamberlain/2021/12/15/id/1048756/
But Tucker would have a point
why is the /US funding the *majority* of Nato
let Europe fund most
and cut the foolish Russian pipeline.
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I love Tucker, but I agree that sometimes he is soft on Russia.
I confess I am not clear on his position regarding military supplies and hard economic sanctions here (including SWIFT)-- all of which I favor-- but I certainly agree with him regarding not sending troops and not bringing Ukraine into NATO.
Morris asks what's wrong with defending Ukraine? Morally, nothing-- but we are seriously lacking in bandwidth AND LACKING COMPETENCE IN LEADERSHIP for the fight. Germany stabs Ukraine in the back with the Nord Stream pipeline, and puts under 1.5% of GDP into NATO, and how we are supposed to defend them?
Fuck off!
Edited to add:
For several years now I have repeatedly emphasized the point now being made by this WSJ editorial:
The Xi-Putin Entente Rises
Both share a goal of undermining the U.S.-led global order.
By The Editorial Board
Follow
Dec. 15, 2021 6:59 pm ET
The gushing remarks at Wednesday’s video meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have drawn renewed attention to an underplayed story: The tightening strategic embrace between America’s two most formidable geopolitical competitors. Moscow and Beijing have held each other at arm’s length for decades, but as the world becomes less stable, both see regional advantages from rolling back American power and prosperity.
“China-Russia relations have emerged from all kinds of tests to demonstrate new vitality,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministryaccount of the discussion. It added that “Russia will be the most staunch supporter of the Chinese government’s legitimate position on Taiwan-related issues.” In his introductory remarks, Mr. Putin hailed “a new model of cooperation” between the two countries. He will travel to Beijing and meet Mr. Xi in person early next year.
This is more than talk. Joint military exercises between the two powers have been accelerating, including a naval demonstration in the Sea of Japan in October. Russian and Chinese warplanes have repeatedly intruded on South Korean airspace since 2019, most recently last month. Moscow surged its supply of military equipment to Beijing in the years after seizing Crimea in 2014.
The nations don’t need to present a single strategic front to imperil American interests. They can do so by pushing on different fronts simultaneously in hopes of sapping American power.
The military crisis Mr. Putin has generated over Ukraine works to Mr. Xi’s advantage, drawing U.S. focus from the defense of Taiwan. And if China starts a shooting war in Asia, Moscow could calculate that it’s more likely to get away with its own territorial expansion. A war in either region could trigger conflict in the other.
Both powers are also giving Iran crucial support as Tehran fights U.S.-led sanctions against its nuclear program. Mr. Putin’s new defense agreement with India also redounds to China’s benefit by pulling India away from the U.S.
The rising entente between Beijing and Moscow underscores the growing threats to the U.S.-led international order. The new reality means the U.S. needs to shore up its own alliances while also moving more quickly than it has to build military and cyber defenses that can meet this more dangerous world.
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If I am not mistaken, this site is led by John Bolton.
I post this piece not because I agree (IMHO it does not openly address the question of Ukraine in NATO) but because it is worth considering:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18044/russia-biden-appeasement
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December 20, 2021
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The Russian Treaty Proposal
By: George Friedman
We have been operating with a model of Russia. Having lost its non-Russian territories with the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia is missing the buffers that protected it. Its national imperative is to recover those border states, either formally or informally. They could be either occupied by Russian forces or, at the very least, governed by native governments that exclude the presence of Western powers and coordinate with Moscow.
The Russians achieved this in the South Caucasus through diplomacy and the stationing of Russian peacekeepers in the region. They have been increasing their power in Central Asia. But the critical region for Russia is in the west, facing Western Europe, the United States and NATO. There, the loss of Belarus and Ukraine posed a critical problem. The eastern border of Ukraine is only about 300 miles (480 kilometers) from Moscow, and Ukraine is allied with the United States and European powers, informally if not as part of NATO.
Russia’s strategy to this point had been to avoid direct military intervention against hostile forces and use hybrid measures to build influence and gain control. This is what happened in the Caucasus. This is also what happened in Belarus, where a contested election left President Alexander Lukashenko in a weak position, and Moscow used its power to assure Lukashenko’s position and control events in Minsk. The surge of refugees toward the Polish border put Poland on the defensive and created a sense of crisis in Poland. As for Belarus, it was simply the arena chosen by Russia, a satellite taken softly.
As Russia was reclaiming its buffers, we turned our attention to Ukraine, which, as I said, is the key buffer. It is vast, it threatens Russia directly, and from Ukraine, Russia could threaten the West as well. Indeed, between Belarus on the North European Plain and Ukraine’s control of the Carpathian Mountains, Russia could not only defend itself but also threaten an attack on Europe from the Baltic to the Black seas.
The Russians mobilized forces along Ukraine’s borders – from the east, north and south – and, without making overt threats, created a situation in which an invasion of Ukraine seemed possible. I wrote last week doubting that the Russians would try a complex occupation of a hostile country because the possibilities of failure, even against minimal resistance, were real and because the Russians could not predict American actions. If it intervened, the U.S. would likely intervene on land, but it also possesses arsenals of anti-tank missiles launched from air or ships in the Baltic and Black seas. How this conflict would evolve is unknown, and the United States might not choose a military counter. But Russia could not know this, nor could it risk acting on intelligence, which is frequently mistaken.
For the Russians to complete rebuilding the Soviet Union, they have to first neutralize the United States without military action. The best strategy for this is to neutralize NATO, whose military forces are limited but still significant. More important, an American response to Russia without the availability of NATO territory, and without the political backing of NATO allies, would complicate the military and political dynamic of U.S. action. The U.S. had already indicated its caution by threatening the Russian banking system if there were a war in Ukraine, rather than threatening military action.
Therefore, before Russia even considered military action in Ukraine, it had to neutralize the (already cautious) U.S. politically, and the key to that was to paralyze NATO and particularly Germany. Germany sees Russia as a crucial source of energy, a trading partner that might grow in significance, and a problem to be avoided. Even more important to it is Europe, of which NATO is a crucial element – not so much as a military force, but as another force holding Europe together. As the dominant power in Europe (outside of Britain), Germany has a national imperative to maintain its dominant economic position, which gives it major influence on the behavior of the Europeans on military matters.
For Germany, a war would therefore not suit its needs. It would risk a conflict that could severely weaken Europe’s economy at a delicate moment. Germany sees Poland as a difficult problem since it is in NATO, but Poland’s posture toward Russia does not suit Germany’s interests. Germany would of course like a buffer against Russia in Belarus and Ukraine, but not if it means massive economic cost and increasing American power in Europe. The U.S. dominates NATO, and an extended conflict would maximize American military considerations and minimize German economic concerns. In short, while there may be an array of positions on Russia’s moves in Europe, Germany, the leading power, needs to avoid war and will pay a price for this. Russia’s neutralization of the United States leads through NATO, Europe and particularly Germany. If they have divergent views, a unilateral American defense against Russia becomes very risky.
Thus, we get to the extraordinary document that Russia delivered last week. The document is targeted at NATO. The key clause is Article 5: “The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the national territories of the Parties.”
In other words, Russia is demanding the right to limit the deployment of U.S. troops in NATO countries if the Russians feel threatened by that deployment. The immediate effect would be that, while Poland could build its strength, the U.S. would have to withdraw from Poland if Russia felt threatened, which it says it does. Of course, if the Russian Federation reintegrated former Soviet territories within its political system, which I think is a possibility, then Russia would be freed from Article 5.
There are other clauses that guarantee the United States will reject the document. It is therefore an interesting question why the Russians crafted it. It may be designed as a negotiating platform, but it is too skewed to the Russian interest to be a workable platform for Washington. Another possibility is that it is for domestic Russian consumption, showing that Russia speaks to the U.S. as a powerful equal to be respected. Or it might be that after the Americans’ initial response to Russian threats – that their banking system would be hurt – the Russians read the U.S. as unwilling to respond in Ukraine.
The key from my point of view is that no one wants a war in Ukraine because it would be long and bloody, and the geographic advantage would go to Russia. A proposal on the table, regardless of how preposterous, can give cautious nations an opportunity to capitulate while appearing to prefer a diplomatic course to irrational military responses. Much of Europe is unwilling to fight for Ukrainian independence. The United States, concerned with the free spread of Russian power through military force, might choose an intervention. This proposal might well be seen in Europe as a “basis of discussion,” limiting American options.
An invasion of Ukraine would be filled with risks for Russia. Failure or prolonged resistance would turn Russia from a reemerging power into a nation to be discounted. Russian President Vladimir Putin obviously knows this document will be rejected, but within its context, rejection will get back to counteroffers, and it is possible that NATO and the U.S. will give some ground in exchange for scrapping some of the egregious Russian demands. Or Putin wants everyone to see this in terms that are not mentioned – as an ultimatum – and to panic.
In any case, the key piece of Russian reconstruction – Ukraine – is on the table, and the document so completely confuses the issues, by demanding fundamental shifts in how the U.S. operates, that something may be conceded under European pressure. Putin has nothing to lose from this document and something to gain. I would assume the American response will be to refuse talks based on the document.
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https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/20/a-new-iron-curtain-descends-thanks-to-joe-biden/
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https://dailycaller.com/2021/12/21/european-natural-gas-prices-russia-gazprom-joe-biden/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2360&tpcc%3D=newsletter&pnespid=sbo_CnseOqgXgOXBujvsEs2BtgCkDYd0MPSzmu9m.kZm.rLecLnBVAQX5FV.iesnNgKFEl9h
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December 22, 2021
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A New Periphery in Eastern Europe?
Russia has a plan to outflank Eastern Europe and undermine the West's monopoly over sea routes.
By: Ridvan Bari Urcosta
Eastern Europe has been a buffer region between Russia and the West for centuries. In a nutshell, that means it has nearly always been contested by greater powers whose security depended on incorporating the region into their sphere of influence, thus keeping their enemies at a distance. That also means that countries of the region tend to be dependent, to some degree, on one patron state or another. To be sure, there have been times when they have enjoyed comparatively more sovereignty; such was the case briefly at the beginning of the 20th century and more recently after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But several developments, including the concurrent crises at the Polish-Belarusian border and in Ukraine, show that the region is regressing to the mean, falling once again into the historical pattern that has defined it for hundreds of years.
More interesting, however, is that there may be a new periphery forming that Russia can exploit if things in Belarus and Ukraine don’t go its way.
Bypassing Eastern Europe
Of course, neither Russia nor the West is ready to give up just yet. Ukraine, for example, is a valuable point of leverage for the West against Russia, and Russia needs Ukraine for strategic depth. Both would like to create special zones of control in Ukraine that correspond with ideological and cultural preferences of the local population. (Something they could likely do without resorting to war.) Both favor the status quo, and both understand that the status quo was nearly impossible to maintain without some concessions, however disinterested they are in making any.
Belarus is less contested but no less important. Moscow is firmly in control there, and Minsk’s foreign policy is little more than Russian foreign policy. Indeed, it is through Belarus that Russia plans to reorient certain supply lines so that it depends less on Eastern Europe and the Baltics and more on Central Asia and China.
For example, Moscow is building the Ust-Luga Multimodal Complex in the Gulf of Finland and is developing terminals at the Ust-Luga Sea Merchant Port. This year, the port at Ust-Luga was the biggest in the Baltic Sea by cargo turnover and the second largest in Russia (behind Novorossiysk, located in the Black Sea). Some Russian estimates suggest it will eventually be the largest in the world. In the next few years, Russia will finish the ambitious Lugaport terminal in Ust-Luga port, which will increase cargo turnover by about 30 percent – including the bulk of what Russia now sends to ports of the Baltic states. Moscow signed an agreement with China National Chemical Engineering in 2019 to construct petrochemical facilities in Ust-Luga, too, a cog in the grander Belt and Road Initiative worth about $13.3 billion, according to Xinhua.
Elsewhere, China is working with the Russian Defense Ministry to modernize the Baikal-Amur Mainline railway and to overhaul the M-12 highway, which connects western China and Europe. This is nothing less than an organized process to bypass Eastern Europe. In that sense, construction of new port facilities in Ust-Luga is comparable to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic, both of which aim to outflank the Eastern Europeans and undermine the Western monopoly over sea routes.
The China Factor
Still, it’s unclear how successful Moscow will be in integrating new hubs to a Europe-China corridor. For China, the Eastern European states are essential components of the Belt and Road Initiative, some projects of which have clashed with Russian interests. For example, China and Ukraine signed contracts for building BRI port facilities in Crimea months before Russia annexed the peninsula, which prevented Beijing from implementing any projects. And the ongoing conflict in the Donbas has only reinforced the barriers between Russia and the West. (The main hub between Europe and Eurasia was therefore shifted to Belarus.)
Meridian Highway
(click to enlarge)
Notably, the timing for China is bad. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of the so-called China-Europe Express has become much more important. Economic activity through the railway systems from China to Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus doubled annually over the past two years. This is why tensions between Lithuania and China over Taiwan, for example, are problematic. For Beijing, the Lithuanian ports are quite attractive, but political mistrust pushes the two countries further apart. Chinese trains continue to transit through the country but no longer stop to exchange goods.
More dangerous for China, though, are the tensions between Poland and Belarus. In November, Chinese industry was concerned about the knock-on effects of the border crisis because more than half of the entire cargo volume carried by Belarusian Railway is transited in or out of China. Beijing still considers Belarus an important hub and gateway to Europe, and – considering Chinese freight goes from Belarus to Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Kaliningrad – it will keep using it for as long as possible. But the border crisis has made Beijing think of alternative routes.
In other words, new geopolitical divisions in Eastern Europe are threatening Chinese plans for Eastern Europe, a region in which Chinese cargo has dramatically increased since 2011. China regularly provides Belarusian customs services with new contemporary equipment and gives some grants to help improve border crossings. At the same time, the situation on the Polish-Belarusian or Lithuanian-Belarusian border poses a threat to Chinese national economic interests because until now there hasn’t been any reliable alternative land routes (air and sea are too costly).
It’s unclear how successful Russia’s efforts in creating new routes will be, but for China they will be less than ideal. Beijing has said that the conflict between Belarus and the EU won’t harm the international transit of goods. However, already in September, Lukashenko said nothing threatens the transit of Chinese goods through Belarus. It’s not hard to see Belarus gradually becoming a land corridor that allows Russia and China to potentially circumvent problematic countries in Eastern Europe – so long as things break the right way.
The new periphery and spheres of influence in Eastern Europe can be established in case of a further deterioration of relations between Russia and the West and further Russian expansion on its borderlands. This would require Russia's reorientation of its economic routes out of Eastern Europe and maintenance of Belarus and Ukraine as buffer zones. Things are looking good for Russia in Belarus, but in Ukraine they are more uncertain.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=c8e3f3ea7f9a566da4c69b313528d782_61c491ce_6d25b5f&selDate=20211223
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Reversal. The Yamal pipeline, which delivers Russian natural gas to Germany via Belarus and Poland, was flowing in reverse direction on Thursday for the third day in a row – bringing gas from Germany to Poland. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Berlin of reselling its gas, which was purchased at prices below current rates, to Poland.
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Putin warns Biden of ‘complete rupture’ in relations if sanctions proceed
Russia’s president spoke in a 50-minute phone call with Biden amid U.S. fears that Moscow may once again invade Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with President Biden on a videoconference Dec. 7. (Mikhail Metzel/Pool/Sputnik/Kremlin/AP)
By Robyn Dixon and Paul Sonne
December 30, 2021|Updated yesterday at 7:32 p.m. EST
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in a phone call with President Biden late Thursday that any new sanctions on Russia as a result of the Ukraine crisis could lead to “a complete rupture of relations” between Moscow and Washington that their descendants would come to regret, according to Putin’s foreign policy aide.
Putin issued the warning during his second phone call this month with Biden, after the U.S. president reiterated how Russia would face unprecedented and punishing sanctions from Washington and its allies if Putin were to proceed with a new invasion of Ukraine, according to Russian presidential foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.
Putin told Biden that such actions would be a mistake, “which our descendants will later appreciate as a huge one,” Ushakov said, according to the Interfax news agency. “Many such mistakes have already been made over the past 30 years. Therefore, it is advisable not to make such mistakes in this situation.”
The call, which took place at Putin’s request and lasted 50 minutes, came as the Kremlin ratchets up pressure for a sweeping new European security deal after massing troops near the border of Ukraine and firing a test salvo of hypersonic weapons last week to reinforce its demands.
Putin has demanded swift acceptance of a proposed security deal that would bar Ukraine from ever joining NATO and rule out any other eastward expansion by the U.S.-led military alliance. The Russian leader has accused Western nations of encroaching on Russia’s borders with military exercises in the Black Sea region and turning Ukraine into a beachhead for anti-Russia action.
Russian officials see a time frame of just weeks for Biden to agree to demands that NATO has long refused, including effectively allowing Russia to veto the security decisions of Ukraine and other nations in the region. The White House has rejected any such bans on NATO membership out of hand, saying all sovereign nations should retain the right to make decisions about their own security.
A senior Biden administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters, told reporters after the call Thursday that Putin was looking to set the “tenor and tone” for upcoming in-person talks between Washington and Moscow that are slated to take place in early January in three different settings.
The United States and Russia are scheduled to hold bilateral talks in Geneva on Jan. 9 and 10, the senior official said. Those will be followed by talks at the NATO-Russia Council on Jan. 12 and negotiations at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes Ukraine, on Jan. 13, the official added.
“Both leaders acknowledged that there were likely to be areas where we could make meaningful progress, as well as areas where agreements may be impossible, and that the upcoming talks would determine more precisely the contours of each of those categories,” the senior Biden administration official said.
Biden, who took the call from Wilmington, Del., where he and first lady Jill Biden are expected to ring in the new year, also told Putin that the United States wouldn’t be discussing the security of its European allies and partners without them at the table, and Putin said he understood, according to the administration official.
Biden and Putin will not attend any of the meetings set for January but will be represented by their respective top diplomats and defense officials.
The talks come amid significant disagreement about Putin’s intentions in Ukraine.
Some analysts say Russia’s insistence that a complex security deal be negotiated in such a short time and include pledges Putin knows Washington won’t make could be a pretext for military action. Others believe Putin has created the threat of a new Ukraine war simply to secure concessions from the United States and its allies in upcoming talks.
During the call, the Russian president told Biden that Russia wanted security guarantees and stressed that “the main thing we need is a result” from the upcoming talks, Ushakov said.
“The U.S. president, in principle, agreed with this point of view and reacted quite logically and quite seriously,” Ushakov said. Biden told Putin that Russia and the United States “could and should play a key role in efforts to ensure peace and security both in Europe and elsewhere in the world,” he said.
“It is important that the American side demonstrated a desire to understand the logic and essence of Russian concerns,” Ushakov added, describing the call as constructive and noting that Biden pledged to continue bilateral talks with Putin.
In their Dec. 7 videoconference, Biden warned Putin of tough new sanctions if Russia escalates action against Ukraine, a threat the Kremlin has shrugged off, saying it is accustomed to Western sanctions.
Putin last week made it clear he would not wait long for the written security guarantees he demands. He said he was not interested in negotiations, only results.
“It is you who must give us guarantees, and you must do it immediately, right now,” he told a Western journalist last week at his annual news conference, when asked whether he would rule out invading Ukraine. “It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep.”
Six ways Russia views Ukraine — and why each should worry the West
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said last week that the United States had its own list of security concerns about Russian actions to bring to the January talks.
An unclassified U.S. intelligence analysis revealed by The Washington Post this month found that Russia was preparing to move as many as 175,000 troops in preparation for an invasion, though the White House has said Putin has not made a decision yet. U.S. officials and military analysts have predicted that if Putin proceeds, the offensive could take place in late January or February.
Putin blames Western aggression for the rising military tension over Ukraine and last week threatened to respond with “military-technical measures” if his security demands were not met, without indicating what the measures would be.
On Sunday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explicitly linked Russia’s test firing of Tsirkon hypersonic missiles on Christmas Eve with Moscow’s demands for security guarantees, saying Russia hoped that its demands would “thus become more compelling.”
Putin, who has often boasted that Russia leads the world in hypersonic missile technology, said the first Tsirkon missile salvo test was “successful, impeccable.” He called it “a major event in the life of our country and a significant step in raising Russia’s security.”
Sonne reported from Washington. John Wagner, Sean Sullivan, Meryl Kornfield and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report
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Putin’s pressure pushes nations toward NATO
Scandinavian outsiders assert rights
BY GUY TAYLOR THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s tough talk and threatening military buildup on Ukraine’s border could backfi re and result in the one thing he says he doesn’t want: an expansion of NATO to more countries on Russia’s doorstep.
While Mr. Putin is seeking guarantees from the West that Ukraine and others not be allowed to join the Western military alliance, some countries in the region that long shunned NATO membership in favor of a policy of neutrality are reconsidering purely as a response to Russia’s aggressive posturing.
Most notably, top officials in Finland in recent days have forcefully asserted that Helsinki has a right to apply for NATO membership, regardless of how Moscow feels about it. Sweden’s more conservative parties also have edged closer to NATO in recent years, and elections this spring could bring the question new prominence.
Following a shift in policy by a farright party, Sweden’s parliament formally adopted a “NATO option” motion on a 204-145 vote last month. The option allows the Riksdag to consider applying for membership in the future. The measure passed over the strong opposition of the minority government, led by center-left parties.
The motion does not force the government to act, but “we can now expect a more comprehensive political debate about an eventual Swedish membership,” Calle Hakansson, an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, told public service television, according to a report by Politico Europe.
Finland and Sweden already have positive diplomatic relations with the alliance, but both have long been firm in their autonomy as militarily nonaligned countries, in part for fear of provoking Moscow.
However, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin used their official New Year’s addresses to stress that Finland has the option of seeking NATO membership at any time, regardless of what security “guarantees” the Kremlin is seeking.
According to the online publication BrusselsMorning, Mr. Niinisto said Finland has “room to maneuver and freedom of choice” that includes “the possibility of military alignment and of applying for NATO membership, should we ourselves so decide.”
Ms. Marin said Finland has “learnt from the past,” an apparent reference to Helsinki’s troubled history with Moscow dating to the Soviet Union’s annexation of Western Karelia from Finland during the 1939-1940 Russo-Finnish war.
Unease over that history has been rekindled among Finnish nationalists since Russia’s similarly forceful annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Sweden’s pro-NATO voices say the country’s long-cherished policy of neutrality has left it in no man’s land in the face of Russia’s resurgent foreign policy aggression in the Putin era. The aggression has included provocations aimed directly at Stockholm.
“For Sweden, one of the first wakeup calls of a resurgent Russia was the simulated nuclear attack on Sweden by Russian bombers on the night of Easter Friday in 2013,” according to 2016 commentary written by then-Swedish Air Force Maj. Carl Bergqvist.
The commentary, published in the online journal War on the Rocks, noted that the Russian posturing had prompted Sweden and Finland to sign “host-nation support agreements with NATO to speed up the process of hosting NATO forces when needed.”
In August, Swedish troops were hastily sent to the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea after Russian warships were spotted in the area.
Mixed public opinion is a factor in both countries. Polls find that Swedes are equally divided over the wisdom of joining NATO, but pollsters have found a major shift from the 1990s, when a strong majority opposed membership. A recent Finnish poll found a plurality — 40% — still oppose NATO membership to 26% in support, but pro-NATO sentiment is on the rise.
Even before the New Year’s speeches by the Finnish president and prime minister, Russia voiced frustration that Finland or Sweden might try to join NATO.
“It is quite obvious that the ascension of Finland and Sweden to NATO would have serious military and political consequences that would require an adequate response from Russia,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Dec. 29, according to EU Today.
The back-and-forth comes amid rising concern in the U.S. and NATO that Russia may be on the verge of invading Ukraine. Russia has been building up its military troop along the Ukrainian border.
The buildup, which has triggered U.S.-backed Ukrainian forces to dig in on their side of the border, has created a foreign policy headache for the Biden administration.
Moscow has even test-fired hypersonic missiles to underscore its demand that the West provide guarantees that NATO not expand any farther into countries surrounding Russia.
President Biden responded to the demand by warning Mr. Putin during a phone call last week that the U.S. could dramatically elevate sanctions against Moscow if Russian forces take further military action against Ukraine. Mr. Putin said such a U.S. move could lead to a complete rupture of ties between the nations.
Mr. Biden subsequently spent the weekend trying to prevent a war in Europe. He arranged a pep talk with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy just days after the tough, nearly hourlong talk with Mr. Putin.
Although some in Washington say Mr. Biden is not firm enough with Moscow, a key Democrat warned Mr. Putin on Sunday that his tough talk may provoke the very thing he fears: more countries near Russia’s borders signing up with NATO for their own protection.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Russian military action against Ukraine would spark a rethinking all along Russia’s borders with the West.
“I also think that a powerful deterrent is the understanding that if they do invade, it is going to bring [NATO] closer to Russia, not push it farther away,” Mr. Schiff said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/8/missile-deployments-military-exercises-table-russi/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=11Iw8MaFP720XtwqHL1S5DtzdrDhIDLpyohpeaLrUasUE%2FIeIyroEFN0b68HXFcx&bt_ts=1641675388354
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10383565/Finland-Sweden-closer-joining-NATO-Putins-demands-ban-them.html
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAVPXle1--g
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Senate Democrats are working to kill a Republican measure to slap sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Catie Edmondson
By Catie Edmondson
Jan. 12, 2022
Senate Democrats unveiled legislation on Wednesday that would impose sanctions on top Russian officials if Moscow invaded Ukraine, in an effort to squash a competing Republican-led bill that would impose sanctions on a Russian natural-gas pipeline that bypasses Ukraine.
The Senate is expected to vote later this week on a measure led by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, that would impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2, a Russian undersea pipeline to Germany viewed as a means of exerting influence over Europe. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has both privately and publicly urged senators to support the bill, casting Nord Stream 2 as an existential threat. The pipeline would give Russia enormous leverage over Europe and would render Ukraine’s own pipeline to Poland obsolete, depriving Ukraine of substantial revenue.
But the Biden administration and its allies in Congress have lobbied against Mr. Cruz’s measure, which would go into effect 15 days after being signed into law, whether or not Russia attacks. They argue that quick passage would undermine unity among the nation’s European allies, including Germany, which has championed the pipeline as vital to its industrial success. They also argue that the sanctions would have little effect on the construction of the pipeline, because it is nearly completed.
They have instead encouraged Democrats wishing to penalize Russia for massing troops at Ukraine’s border to support legislation by Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat.
“We support Senator Menendez’s legislation, which would trigger severe costs to Russia’s economy and support additional security assistance to Ukraine should Russia further invade,” said Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. “We will keep working with Congress on maximizing potential costs to Russia.”
That approach appeared to be resonating on Wednesday with even the most vocal Democratic defenders of Ukraine, as more than two dozen members of the party signed on to Mr. Menendez’s legislation. Ten Democrats would need to back Mr. Cruz’s bill in order for it to pass, and it would likely be doomed in the Democratic-controlled House.
“We need legislation that addresses the political situation we face today in response to increasing Russian aggression — not last year or two years ago,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire. “The dynamics changed and so must our strategy.”
Mr. Menendez’s legislation would impose sanctions on top Russian officials, including President Vladimir V. Putin, as well as the nation’s banking sector if Russia engages in or supports “a significant escalation in hostilities or hostile action in or against Ukraine.” And it would provide Ukraine with $500 million in supplemental emergency security assistance in the event that Russia invades.
Republicans have argued that sanctions could still stop the completion of Nord Stream 2, and accused President Biden of indulging Russian lawlessness last year when the administration waived sanctions on the pipeline in an attempt to mend ties with Germany.
New sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline were included in the annual defense policy bill last year, but were quietly stripped out of the legislation at the last minute before its final passage.
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https://www.voanews.com/a/macron-s-call-for-eu-talks-with-kremlin-unnerves-european-allies-/6405475.html
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-chancellor-turned-down-biden-invite-discuss-ukraine-crisis-der-spiegel-2022-01-21/?fbclid=IwAR0QAEoycx41Wm1UNUFK5vcTRd0t2KJpYL6L4tB0feJto37gHbNMK6IT7is
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This does ignore the question of why Europe should not be taking the lead in defending itself, the failure of Germany and many others to pay their 2% of GDP, etc, but many relevant military observations are made:
Is the U.S. Ready for a Russian Invasion of Eastern Europe?
By JERRY HENDRIX
January 20, 2022 6:00 AM
The Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, along with Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, are all watching Vladimir Putin’s military buildup in eastern Europe with great unease. Each of them was controlled by Russia during its previous incarnation as the Soviet Union, and none of them wishes to return to that subjugation. That’s why they originally sought membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and have increased their own defense spending to meet, and in some cases surpass, the 2-percent-of-GDP goal that the alliance first agreed upon in 2014. NATO membership brings with it the guarantee of security that the U.S. has provided to Europe for 70 years, and with an aggressive Russia looming to the East, security is very much a concern.
There are, however, several problems with this calculation. First, the botched withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and the abandonment of American citizens and loyal allies there have dealt a significant blow to the U.S.’s credibility everywhere else. Second, the U.S. Army, the linchpin of security in Europe, largely returned to the United States years ago. Finally, due to Russia’s investments in anti-access area-denial weapons at its enclave in Kaliningrad, the U.S. Navy can no longer get Army units to Europe in time to blunt a Russian onslaught should one occur. Russia has amassed a force of over 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine, including formations of heavy artillery, armored troop carriers, and main battle tanks. It has also already initiated cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure in Ukraine. If Russian forces should suddenly roll over Ukraine and then position themselves to threaten the Baltic nations, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, NATO will find it difficult to respond quickly.
As part of the European Defense Initiative, the U.S. has built a cache of pre-positioned ordnance, including enough equipment for an armored brigade, in Poland. The men needed to make use of that equipment and man the tanks and armored personnel carriers would be flown in from the United States at the first sign of trouble. Additionally, NATO has established a response-force brigade (5,000 personnel) and enhanced forward-presence battalions (400 personnel), but it must be admitted that these will serve as nothing more than a speed bump if Russia initiates a rolling start and then sprints across Ukraine, a nation that is just under 800 miles wide and possesses modern road and rail systems. Should they meet with minimal resistance, Russia’s armored forces, with adequate logistical support, could cross Ukraine and be on NATO’s doorstep in ten days or less. They would confront a NATO ill-prepared for the threat they posed.
Over the past 20 years, NATO nations have decreased their investments in mobile armor and artillery, by far the most expensive of the ground forces, and the United States has not only followed this path but also pulled its last permanently based armored unit out of Europe. The U.S. Army, which once fielded numerous armored divisions of up to 12,000 to 16,000 men each, now retains but one, although there are smaller armored brigade combat teams (BCTs) incorporated into the six standing infantry divisions and one mountain division that remain in the active force. The simple truth that few wish to reckon with is that, aside from air-power assets — the F-35 would most certainly get its baptism-by-fire against Russia’s fighters and its advanced S-400 missiles — under the best circumstances only one or two U.S. armored brigades would be available during the first 72 hours. Thus, only 10,000 men, some transported by air to join up with pre-positioned equipment and others previously assigned to the region as part of a rotational force, would be available to aid our European allies and blunt a rolling Russian assault.
The Administration Knew the Afghan Air Force Would Collapse after a U.S. Withdrawal
Such an understanding emerges from an acknowledgement that armored units cannot be flown to Europe. The men, their equipment, and their vehicles are too heavy and must travel by sea. It would take a minimum of three days to onload tanks and other armored vehicles in the United States, whether in Texas or any of the available ports on the east coast. The ships that would carry them, purpose-designed roll-on/roll-off cargo vessels, would then take four to five days to cross an Atlantic Ocean that is no longer controlled by the United States and its NATO allies. Russia has spent ten years designing and building the new Severodvinsk class attack submarine. A derivative of Russia’s previous highly effective Akula and Alfa class fast-attack designs, the Severodvinsk has allowed Putin to challenge allied supremacy over, on, and under the Atlantic at the same time as NATO has divested of its own subs and submarine-hunting frigates.
If the transports survived their Atlantic crossing, they would not be able to traverse the Baltic Sea to their preferred offloading ports in Poland or one of the Baltic nations; the Kaliningrad-based S-400 surface-to-air missile (250-mile range) and Iskander surface-to-surface missile (175-mile range) give Russia the ability to control the surface of the Baltic Sea east of Denmark. (It should also be noted that the Baltic is too shallow and dangerous for large, missile-laden U.S. nuclear submarines to operate safely within its waters without being quickly detected.)
These facts would render it necessary for the ships carrying American Army units to offload their cargos in Belgium or France, and then load their vehicles onto railcars for transport to eastern Europe. This process would take another seven to ten days, and would be complicated by the fact that eastern and western European rail networks, as an artifact of the Cold War, lack uniform railroad gauges. The net result is that it would take nearly three weeks for American armored forces to travel from the U.S. to the front lines of a conflict which by then would almost certainly be over.
NATO and the United States need to understand that for the moment, a massive return of forces to Europe will not be the answer to the Russian threat, simply because there are not a massive number of appropriate, armored forces available for transport. Europe must take steps not only to increase its defense spending, but to also grow its forces, supplementing them with the types of platforms needed to confront the Russian threat at their doorstep. Additionally, the U.S. Army must return its strategic focus to Europe rather than aimlessly casting about for a role in the Pacific. It should rebuild its armored elements, and advocate for a return to a forward-base model, perhaps establishing new bases in eastern European nations rather than returning to its previous garrisons in Germany. While this might run counter to agreements made during the 1990s between Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton, the simple fact is that Russia’s annexation of Crimea, occupation of parts of Georgia and the Donbass, and persistent threats against Ukraine have rendered such agreements moot.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy and its NATO allies must confront the threat of Russia’s naval units in the Atlantic and in particular its new generation of submarines. They need more attack submarines, towed-array-sonar-equipped surveillance ships, and frigates, and they need them soon. Because without them, Europe could soon be rendered a continent the United States cannot reach or aid.
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Sounds like Checkmate.
This does ignore the question of why Europe should not be taking the lead in defending itself, the failure of Germany and many others to pay their 2% of GDP, etc, but many relevant military observations are made:
Is the U.S. Ready for a Russian Invasion of Eastern Europe?
By JERRY HENDRIX
January 20, 2022 6:00 AM
The Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, along with Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, are all watching Vladimir Putin’s military buildup in eastern Europe with great unease. Each of them was controlled by Russia during its previous incarnation as the Soviet Union, and none of them wishes to return to that subjugation. That’s why they originally sought membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and have increased their own defense spending to meet, and in some cases surpass, the 2-percent-of-GDP goal that the alliance first agreed upon in 2014. NATO membership brings with it the guarantee of security that the U.S. has provided to Europe for 70 years, and with an aggressive Russia looming to the East, security is very much a concern.
There are, however, several problems with this calculation. First, the botched withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and the abandonment of American citizens and loyal allies there have dealt a significant blow to the U.S.’s credibility everywhere else. Second, the U.S. Army, the linchpin of security in Europe, largely returned to the United States years ago. Finally, due to Russia’s investments in anti-access area-denial weapons at its enclave in Kaliningrad, the U.S. Navy can no longer get Army units to Europe in time to blunt a Russian onslaught should one occur. Russia has amassed a force of over 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine, including formations of heavy artillery, armored troop carriers, and main battle tanks. It has also already initiated cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure in Ukraine. If Russian forces should suddenly roll over Ukraine and then position themselves to threaten the Baltic nations, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, NATO will find it difficult to respond quickly.
As part of the European Defense Initiative, the U.S. has built a cache of pre-positioned ordnance, including enough equipment for an armored brigade, in Poland. The men needed to make use of that equipment and man the tanks and armored personnel carriers would be flown in from the United States at the first sign of trouble. Additionally, NATO has established a response-force brigade (5,000 personnel) and enhanced forward-presence battalions (400 personnel), but it must be admitted that these will serve as nothing more than a speed bump if Russia initiates a rolling start and then sprints across Ukraine, a nation that is just under 800 miles wide and possesses modern road and rail systems. Should they meet with minimal resistance, Russia’s armored forces, with adequate logistical support, could cross Ukraine and be on NATO’s doorstep in ten days or less. They would confront a NATO ill-prepared for the threat they posed.
Over the past 20 years, NATO nations have decreased their investments in mobile armor and artillery, by far the most expensive of the ground forces, and the United States has not only followed this path but also pulled its last permanently based armored unit out of Europe. The U.S. Army, which once fielded numerous armored divisions of up to 12,000 to 16,000 men each, now retains but one, although there are smaller armored brigade combat teams (BCTs) incorporated into the six standing infantry divisions and one mountain division that remain in the active force. The simple truth that few wish to reckon with is that, aside from air-power assets — the F-35 would most certainly get its baptism-by-fire against Russia’s fighters and its advanced S-400 missiles — under the best circumstances only one or two U.S. armored brigades would be available during the first 72 hours. Thus, only 10,000 men, some transported by air to join up with pre-positioned equipment and others previously assigned to the region as part of a rotational force, would be available to aid our European allies and blunt a rolling Russian assault.
The Administration Knew the Afghan Air Force Would Collapse after a U.S. Withdrawal
Such an understanding emerges from an acknowledgement that armored units cannot be flown to Europe. The men, their equipment, and their vehicles are too heavy and must travel by sea. It would take a minimum of three days to onload tanks and other armored vehicles in the United States, whether in Texas or any of the available ports on the east coast. The ships that would carry them, purpose-designed roll-on/roll-off cargo vessels, would then take four to five days to cross an Atlantic Ocean that is no longer controlled by the United States and its NATO allies. Russia has spent ten years designing and building the new Severodvinsk class attack submarine. A derivative of Russia’s previous highly effective Akula and Alfa class fast-attack designs, the Severodvinsk has allowed Putin to challenge allied supremacy over, on, and under the Atlantic at the same time as NATO has divested of its own subs and submarine-hunting frigates.
If the transports survived their Atlantic crossing, they would not be able to traverse the Baltic Sea to their preferred offloading ports in Poland or one of the Baltic nations; the Kaliningrad-based S-400 surface-to-air missile (250-mile range) and Iskander surface-to-surface missile (175-mile range) give Russia the ability to control the surface of the Baltic Sea east of Denmark. (It should also be noted that the Baltic is too shallow and dangerous for large, missile-laden U.S. nuclear submarines to operate safely within its waters without being quickly detected.)
These facts would render it necessary for the ships carrying American Army units to offload their cargos in Belgium or France, and then load their vehicles onto railcars for transport to eastern Europe. This process would take another seven to ten days, and would be complicated by the fact that eastern and western European rail networks, as an artifact of the Cold War, lack uniform railroad gauges. The net result is that it would take nearly three weeks for American armored forces to travel from the U.S. to the front lines of a conflict which by then would almost certainly be over.
NATO and the United States need to understand that for the moment, a massive return of forces to Europe will not be the answer to the Russian threat, simply because there are not a massive number of appropriate, armored forces available for transport. Europe must take steps not only to increase its defense spending, but to also grow its forces, supplementing them with the types of platforms needed to confront the Russian threat at their doorstep. Additionally, the U.S. Army must return its strategic focus to Europe rather than aimlessly casting about for a role in the Pacific. It should rebuild its armored elements, and advocate for a return to a forward-base model, perhaps establishing new bases in eastern European nations rather than returning to its previous garrisons in Germany. While this might run counter to agreements made during the 1990s between Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton, the simple fact is that Russia’s annexation of Crimea, occupation of parts of Georgia and the Donbass, and persistent threats against Ukraine have rendered such agreements moot.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy and its NATO allies must confront the threat of Russia’s naval units in the Atlantic and in particular its new generation of submarines. They need more attack submarines, towed-array-sonar-equipped surveillance ships, and frigates, and they need them soon. Because without them, Europe could soon be rendered a continent the United States cannot reach or aid.
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Is Germany our ally?
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Is Germany our ally?
In theory, yes. But not really.
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WW1: Germany and Russia fight over East Europe
WW2: Germany and Russia fight over East Europe
WW3: Germany and Russia fight over East Europe
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WW1: Germany and Russia fight over East Europe
WW2: Germany and Russia fight over East Europe
WW3: Germany and Russia fight over East Europe
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/04/americans-and-germans-disagree-on-the-state-of-bilateral-relations-but-largely-align-on-key-international-issues/
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/579307/
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https://www.reuters.com/world/german-government-distances-itself-navy-chiefs-comments-putin-2022-01-22/?fbclid=IwAR3ihFlgJ7XXlxPSQ0cZMf1clqrupkBf15AEdoyhoYL5Ba8CuEyxfjWXC9w
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https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-will-not-supply-weapons-kyiv-now-defence-minister-says-2022-01-22/?fbclid=IwAR2Jj6MTty1MseOoOWwfIycpM8AwKq3l5QdBuuHeKS1MgI-OOsBuAXahyzY
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Is Germany a Reliable American Ally? Nein
Berlin goes its own way, prizing cheap gas, car exports to China, and keeping Putin calm.
By Tom Rogan
Jan. 23, 2022 5:00 pm ET
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ILLUSTRATION: DAVID GOTHARD
As Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine looms, most Western allies are acting to support Kyiv and reassure vulnerable members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Germany is taking a different approach, putting Russian interests before those of the West.
Berlin reveals a serious reality: Facing the two most consequential security threats to America and to the post-World War II democratic international order—China and Russia—Germany is no longer a credible ally. For Germany, cheap gas, car exports to China and keeping Mr. Putin calm seem to be more important than allied democratic solidarity. Ukraine’s fate will convey on Germany a heavy burden of responsibility.
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Berlin refuses to supply Ukraine with weapons, and it is actively preventing Estonia from doing so. In recent days, Britain has airlifted antitank weapons to Ukraine and conducted Ukraine-related intelligence-gathering flights. But while the intelligence flights have transited German airspace—the most direct route between Britain and Ukraine—the weapons flights have been making detours around Germany. Britain’s Defense Ministry played down the detours, confirming that it didn’t seek overflight permission. But that’s the point: Britain didn’t ask because that would have forced Germany to grant or reject the request. Britain believed the decision would be difficult for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s new government.
Another illustration is Berlin’s approach to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will send gas to Europe from Russia. German regulators say the pipeline can’t start working until it meets corporate compliance standards. That has rankled Mr. Putin, who wants it pumping now. In turn, the Russian president’s Gazprom puppet company has reversed gas flows through the existing Yamal-Europe pipeline for more than four weeks. Russia also has cut off thermal coal supplies to Ukraine for more than three months. Mr. Putin’s message is clear: Ukraine better roll over, and Germany better approve Nord Stream 2.
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The energy blackmail underlines why Republicans, and until this month Democrats, had supported sanctions on Nord Stream 2. They knew Mr. Putin would use the pipeline to extract political fealty in return for heating supplies during the cold European winter. They feared he would use Nord Stream 2 to offset gas supplies—and billions of dollars in transit fees—that currently flow through Ukraine. But because of German pressure on the Biden administration and Senate Democrats, Nord Stream 2 and Mr. Putin gained a lifeline. A majority of Democrats last week rejected a bill from Sen. Ted Cruz to reimpose sanctions on the pipeline, denying it the 60 votes it needed to pass. Germany scored a major win at U.S. expense. Considering the alliance principle of reciprocity, it isn’t clear what President Biden has received in return.
Democrats say sanctions on Nord Stream 2 aren’t necessary because Germany won’t operate the pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine. But Germany isn’t on the same page. Asked about suspending Nord Stream 2, Mr. Scholz’s defense minister responded, “We should not drag [Nord Stream 2] into this conflict.” The ruling Social Democrat Party’s general secretary allowed that “everything in me resists the idea of conflicts being conjured up just to bury a controversial project.” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock might oppose the pipeline, but she is a voice in the cabinet wilderness. And Mr. Scholz has called for a “qualified new beginning” with Mr. Putin.
Germany has also abandoned the NATO defense-spending target of 2% of gross domestic product, spending only 1.5% of GDP, and it allows Russian chemical-weapons research on its soil. Such research supports assassination campaigns like the one that targeted Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and a former British agent. Mr. Scholz also has committed to pursuing observer status in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and only vaguely to supporting NATO’s nuclear deterrence. This concession has been long sought by Mr. Putin.
Then there’s Germany’s stance on China. Shortly before entering office, the Biden administration requested that then-Chancellor Angela Merkel delay a European Union-China trade deal. She responded by speeding up negotiations to reach a deal before Mr. Biden took office. This was rude but not surprising. So great was the Chinese Communist Party’s affection for Ms. Merkel that her departure saw the party’s propagandists design a digital tapestry in homage. Mr. Scholz seems determined to earn a similar honor.
Asked recently whether he would support a diplomatic boycott of February’s Beijing Winter Olympics, Mr. Scholz mused, “We think it’s important to do everything you can to make the world work together internationally, and any actions you take in each case need to be carefully weighed.”
“No” would have been a simpler answer.
Mr. Scholz appears committed to preserving Germany’s $150 billion a year exports to China at all costs. This was made clear recently to Lithuania, which is suffering a Chinese trade war for letting Taiwan open a representative office. German businesses, rather than supporting their democratic neighbor, are warning Lithuania to give in to China’s demands or see German investment suspended. That lack of democratic solidarity stems from the Federal Chancellery. This is a realm where Volkswagen exports talk and the Uyghur genocide, destruction of Hong Kong democracy and military imperialism walk.
Even when Germany pretends that it cares about the democratic international order, its lack of genuine interest quickly becomes obvious. Germany recently deployed a warship in the South China Sea, which China claims as its own private swimming pool. Simultaneously, however, Berlin begged Beijing to let its ship make a Shanghai port call. China denied the request. Contrast Germany’s South China Sea experience with that of France, which has sent nuclear attack submarines to train with U.S. Navy counterparts for battle with an advanced adversary.
Mr. Biden suggests that Germany is one of America’s most important allies. Given Berlin’s policies toward the nation’s two pre-eminent adversaries, it’s hard to see how Mr. Biden’s claim holds up.
Mr. Rogan is a national-security writer for the Washington Examine
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https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/germany-roiled-political-earthquake-navy-chief-resigns-after-saying-putin-deserves-respect?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=435
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https://www.axios.com/eu-gas-scramble-russia-ukraine-crisis-d8402d82-0888-47b2-a89d-6586c4eb2013.html?fbclid=IwAR2PCM21igMmVNcTz5z9MGYiTdsxAopK0K3WAYrZX2xz4hDj2NPQUKCXw2M
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https://www.axios.com/eu-gas-scramble-russia-ukraine-crisis-d8402d82-0888-47b2-a89d-6586c4eb2013.html?fbclid=IwAR2PCM21igMmVNcTz5z9MGYiTdsxAopK0K3WAYrZX2xz4hDj2NPQUKCXw2M
Europe deserves everything it’s getting. Shiver in the dark and think of Greta, you morons.
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To be fair, the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Lithuania, Latvia, etc have not been slackers at all.
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To be fair, the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Lithuania, Latvia, etc have not been slackers at all.
If you went to “green energy”, or dependence on Russia, you get what you deserve.
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January 24, 2022
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The Russian Mystery
By: George Friedman
In looking at Russian strategy in Ukraine, and indirectly toward the United States, there is a mystery that seems to have an obvious answer but that is difficult to simply accept.
Moscow started with a relatively slow deployment of forces along the Ukrainian border. It appeared to be in a position to invade Ukraine with minimal opposition. Rather than attack, though, Russia engaged in a diplomatic confrontation with the United States, demanding that Ukraine never be admitted into NATO, and that NATO limit its deployment of weapons in Eastern Europe.
Russian negotiators knew full well that the U.S. would never agree to these terms. For one thing, it’s a decision for NATO, not Washington. For another, NATO members in the region are at the easternmost frontier of the alliance. They are the most exposed to potential Russian actions, particularly if Russia takes control of Ukraine. In short, capitulating to Russian demands would leave Eastern Europe open to Russian attacks. Most important to Washington, though, is that its credibility would be mortally wounded, not just in Europe but around the world. Allowing the Russians to force the United States to agree on future relations with a sovereign state was simply a nonstarter. The consequences would be global, and not for nothing, it would create a political crisis in the United States the administration could not manage.
(click to enlarge)
It doesn’t make sense for Russia to delay military operations while making demands it knew were going to be rejected, especially since its military was already deployed. Why would Russia, if fully committed to entering and occupying Ukraine, give the West time to prepare military countermeasures? Moscow understands that its actions would be seen as a threat because that is how they were meant to be seen. It understands there would be a response, but it also understands it can’t be certain what the response would be. Air and naval forces and anti-tank weaponry, for example, could dramatically complicate the invasion.
An invasion of Ukraine is difficult in the best conditions. The country is roughly the size of Afghanistan, and coordinating a complex armored operation presents untold opportunities for failure. The Russian army has not carried out an armored operation since World War II, so the troops are inexperienced. Minimizing the possibility of an anti-Russian buildup would increase the risk to the operation. In an operation of this magnitude, the attack should be made as early as possible. By waiting, Russia increased the risk of failure.
It’s possible, then, that Moscow wanted to float an impossible proposal for propaganda purposes. But the value of world public opinion compared to a successful military operation is minimal. After an invasion, public opinion would be against Russian aggression regardless of diplomatic niceties. The value of public opinion, in other words, only takes you so far.
The only conclusion to be drawn is that Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine, as Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has repeatedly said. Given that Russia failed to act when it could and arguably should have, it seems to me that he might have been telling the truth. On the other hand, we have seen the Russians be active, albeit more subtly, in Belarus, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Logic dictates that Russia must rebuild its historic buffer zone and that Ukraine is essential in this regard. Moscow has done everything in its power to create an atmosphere of crisis. Perhaps it had intelligence that the U.S. and NATO would fold their cards. But the U.S. can’t afford to do nothing. President Joe Biden’s threat to the Russian banking system is either far more devastating than I can fathom or simply a cover for military action. So in this sense, the U.S. is being coy as well, just not nearly as confusingly as the Russians.
My best guess is the Russians have set up negotiation with the most extreme demands as a normal negotiating strategy. But the fact remains that Russian forces are deployed, and resistance is being strengthened. It may be that the Russians are simply confident that their force is still able to win. But a rule of war is that you strike at maximum advantage, and give away no advantage. The rule of diplomacy is to make a lot of threats before making a deal. Right now, it’s one or the other.
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January 14, 2022
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From the European Buffers to the Intermarium
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
Russia has been in the process of reclaiming its buffer zones – the areas in its periphery such as the Caucasus, the Baltics, Central Asia and Eastern Europe that give Moscow strategic depth from potential enemies – for some time. But the problem of strategic depth runs both ways. At the end of World War II, the Russians occupied the Baltic states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and the eastern half of Germany. None of them had been occupied by the Soviet Union before the war. The conquest of this area was the result of defeating Germany and dividing Europe with the West based essentially on the areas each held at the end of the war.
With this, Russia expanded its strategic depth dramatically. The distance it would take from the Fulda Gap to Moscow was so great that a NATO offensive designed to break Russia was impossible. As important, it reduced the strategic depth of the Anglo-Americans to just a few hundred miles. Forward deployed Soviet forces were, for example, 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Hamburg, a major German port. It was accepted that Western Europe could be defended only by massive reinforcement and resupply from the United States. With the western ports under attack or captured, the ability to support forces trying to hold the west would collapse.
The Anglo-Americans, and later NATO, faced a massive Soviet force occupying Eastern Europe and the eastern part of Germany without strategic depth and with fewer troops. The West had air and naval forces, well-trained troops and, most important, nuclear weapons. The U.S. had a massive bomber force that could deliver a nuclear strike to the Soviet Union, but the Soviets had no equivalent ability to strike the United States until much later in the Cold War. Thus, the Soviets’ strategic force and American nuclear bombers canceled each other out.
Even so, Soviet control of Eastern Europe provided a degree of defense Moscow never had previously. It was a profound problem for the U.S. and NATO. Washington had never intended a nuclear exchange for Europe, and it had what was likely a sufficient air-land capability to break the first wave of a Soviet attack and threaten the next. But for leaders in Western Europe, Eastern Europe was a geographic nightmare that facilitated a Soviet attack on a line from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea.
For this reason, the collapse of the Soviet Union relaxed the West. Until 1991, NATO had been a formidable force. After Eastern Europe broke from the Russians, the West had gained strategic depth. This meant that the ready-alert status of NATO and the U.S. nuclear arsenal was no longer relevant. The added distance of a Soviet attack, ignoring the shambles of the former Soviet Union, made conventional attack impossible. Of all the reasons offered for NATO’s operational decline, this is the most persuasive: that the strategic reality of the Continent had simply changed, and that the threat from the Soviet Union was no longer there. This was later consummated by the integration of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania into Western institutions.
This, in turn, created the problem Russia faces today. From Moscow’s point of view, the expansion of NATO eastward might eventually ensnare countries like Belarus and Ukraine, and even Georgia in the Caucasus. The Maidan revolution of 2014 only worried Moscow more. If NATO integrated Ukraine, it is reasonable to believe that Moscow would be indefensible. For Russia, hoping for the extended restraint of the United States is not a good bet.
At the same time, if Russia were to control both Belarus and Ukraine, an assault on Eastern Europe, coupled with subversion operations, could recreate in Russia’s favor the geography of the Cold War. NATO is a shadow of what it once was. The U.S. no longer guards the Fulda Gap. If Ukraine is taken, then conventional and even advanced technology might not be able to limit a Russian advance to the east.
In that sense, one of the West’s greatest problems is that the former Soviet satellites, especially those in Eastern Europe, lack the strength to deter a Russian advance. Size is not the issue. Russia’s population is about 145 million. The population of the countries above is about 84 million. Given that they would be in defensive positions, and if properly armed and organized, they do not have to be a negligible force. The problem is twofold. First, most have taken NATO membership too seriously, not considering that NATO is hollowed out. They see themselves as too weak to defend themselves and expect an American miracle. The miracle could come, but not without a united, armed and motivated Intermarium, a term I have used for the alliance of the states between the Black and the Baltic seas. Ultimately, this group of countries was unable to envision the force it could bring to bear, and therefore psychologically was incapable of united action, but always waited for another country to protect it.
(click to enlarge)
The true weakness is not only that these countries don’t trust themselves but also that they don’t trust each other. Centuries of war have made them tired, even bitter enemies. I believe the Intermarium, armed and committed, would deter Russia even without massive American assistance. I advocated this a decade ago. Now, it is too late to implement except as an emergency force.
Thus we can understand the present situation in Ukraine. The Eastern European borderland lacks the ability to, as Charles de Gaulle said, at least tear an arm off. Russia cannot live with a U.S.-occupied Ukraine. The U.S. cannot live with Russia that far into Eastern Europe. Russia is not ready for a war, and the U.S. might be ready but doesn’t want it. The Russians will fight for Ukraine if terms are not reached. The Americans may fight but only through air power for the eastern borderland as it will be much cheaper now than later. The Eastern Europeans will fight, too little, too late and too disorganized. The British will be there, but I have no idea what each NATO country will do.
It is clear that there will be no war now. It is equally clear that this is the festering world of Europe. The borderlands will be perpetually contentious, and the balance of forces will shift over time, as they always do. Which way they will shift is, of course, less clear. But the old distrust between the U.S. and Russia remains, and that makes any lasting settlement impossible, because any settlement requires a degree of trust. The formation of the Intermarium alliance, which might include Belarus and Ukraine but which would exclude NATO and Russia, would work but won’t be tried. Everyone is waiting for the great powers, never believing that they might have other things to do with their time.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jan/25/biden-administration-moves-cover-european-gas-shor/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=wpnf7J1C7zgl%2B%2FMna4UH4GaUW1vEDPfTxhF1QEP7XVkb6KwyfR%2FSU5hu7v4SQX1%2B&bt_ts=1643145917492
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How Will the EU Respond to Russian Aggression in Ukraine?
5 MIN READJan 25, 2022 | 21:28 GMT
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives a statement on Ukraine at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Jan. 24, 2022.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives a statement on Ukraine at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Jan. 24, 2022.
(JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)
The European Union will likely impose robust economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, but the bloc will struggle to come up with high-impact punitive measures in response to other, more likely acts of Russian aggression. In recent days, EU governments have intensified their debate over how to deal with a potential escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. While member states agree that a formal Russian invasion would trigger economic and political sanctions against Moscow, the bloc is internally divided over how to react to disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, attempts to destabilize the Ukrainian government or interruptions in natural gas supplies to Ukraine, which are some of Russia’s many options. Eastern European and Baltic governments believe that a cyberattack or a disinformation campaign should be enough to trigger sanctions against Russia, but some Western European governments have defended a more cautious approach, arguing it would be hard to identify the perpetrators behind such actions.
Considering Russia’s multiple options to attack Ukraine, the European Union is likely to consider several alternatives and make a decision only after Moscow makes a move. According to media reports, the European Commission is currently working on a list of potential sanctions, but will not reveal it unless Russia displays direct aggression against Ukraine. The European Union’s options include imposing export controls on Russian goods, targeting Moscow’s ability to convert foreign currency, implementing tighter sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas industry (likely focused initially on technology transfers), imposing restrictions on Russia’s access to Western semiconductor technology, banning Western funds from buying Russian sovereign debt, and adding more individuals close to Russian President Vladimir Putin to the bloc’s list of travel bans and asset freezes. However, more drastic actions — such as cutting off Russia’s access to the SWIFT global financial messaging network, or imposing broad Iran-style sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas sector — are unlikely without an actual invasion due to the economic blowback such actions would have on the bloc. The European Union’s close trade and investment ties with Russia also explain why the bloc will be more reluctant than the United States (which has comparatively weaker economic ties with Russia) to impose painful sanctions. But the probability of stronger EU sanctions will increase significantly if Russia launches a full-blown military invasion in Ukraine.
Russia is a large supplier of products including fertilizers, aluminum, steel and nickel to Europe, which means that strict export controls would also disrupt European supply chains. Large European companies in sectors from banking to automobiles are active in Russia and would be negatively affected by financial and export bans.
Russia is the European Union’s main supplier of natural gas, which gives Moscow some leverage in its dealings with Brussels. Russia’s natural gas exports to Europe have been at reduced levels for several months, which has contributed to rising energy prices across the Continent at a time when inventories are at unusually low levels.
The German government remains internally divided over whether to block the Russia-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline from becoming operational. In late 2021, the government put the decision in the hands of Germany’s energy regulator, which is currently assessing whether the pipeline complies with EU rules. A formal military invasion of Ukraine would severely increase the probability of the German government blocking the pipeline, but other less aggressive Russian actions could enable Berlin to preserve its current ambiguous position on the issue.
The European Union’s internal divisions could convince Russia that any aggressions against Ukraine that fall short of a military invasion will have tolerable economic consequences. Brussels is likely to adopt a progressive approach to sanctions, adapting them to the severity of Moscow’s actions and making them subject to modifications. According to media reports, some EU governments are already asking to exempt certain companies or existing contracts (such as on energy supplies) from potential sanctions. In addition, EU-wide sanctions require unanimous support from the 27 members of the bloc, which could result in watered-down measures to appease some member states. Against this backdrop, Russia is more likely to increase support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, launch cyberattacks against the Ukrainian government and/or conduct destabilization campaigns targeting Kyiv — all actions that would likely trigger a milder reaction from the European Union compared with a full-blown invasion. Moscow will likely also keep natural gas exports to Europe relatively low and refuse to lower prices for prospective buyers in order to keep its leverage in negotiations with the European Union and discourage Brussels from imposing economically painful sanctions.
The European Union is also internally divided on the issue of arms exports to Ukraine, a decision that member states will continue to make at an individual level. Granting additional financial assistance to Kyiv is less controversial, and the bloc is likely to increase grants and loans for the Ukrainian government in the coming weeks.
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The Worst Ally
By RICH LOWRY
January 25, 2022 6:30 AM
German Bundeswehr army soldiers at the Kaserne Hochstaufen mountain infantry military barracks in Bad Reichenhall, Germany, in 2016. (Michaela Rehle/Reiters)
Germany, the laggard of NATO with a deep conflict of interest regarding Russia, is the weak link.
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President Joe Biden’s press conference last week was atrocious, but one of his worst missteps amounted to telling the truth about Germany, if not by name.
Biden said there’d be divisions within NATO over a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine. This is true enough, and the chief cause would be a Germany that is staking a strong claim to being our worst European ally.
If NATO is hollowed out over time, Germany will have much to do with it. The country is too guilt-wracked over its enormities in World War II to contribute rigorously to the defense of the West, and too cynical to allow anything to interfere with its selfish interests, both in Russian energy and the Chinese export market. It is attempting a kind of de facto economic alliance with the revisionist autocratic powers, China and Russia, at the same time it is allied politically with the foremost defender of the democratic West, the United States.
Its defense spending is inching upward but is still short of the 2 percent of GDP pledged by NATO countries. It stands now at 1.5 percent of GDP. This is an economic powerhouse that has been shirking its responsibilities, in part because it has been able to rely on the United States — and its vast military might — as a crutch.
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Germany imagines its unique contribution is a commitment to soft power and peace through diplomacy. It’s hard to credit German idealism, though, when it has tethered itself to Russian gas over the long-standing objections of its allies. They warned that this would inevitably increase the geopolitical sway of Vladimir Putin, and so it has.
In a fit of self-sabotage, Germany is closing the last three of its nuclear power plants this year and is scheduled to close down its coal plants by 2038. No one buys more gas from Russia, where Germany now gets more than half of its supply. The country has been hell-bent on the development of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to bring gas directly from Russia to Germany, bypassing Ukraine and making it even more vulnerable to Russian coercion.
Germany has to be calculating that if it participates in harsh sanctions against Russia, it makes itself vulnerable to Russian countermeasures. Already, Russia has been squeezing Europe’s gas supplies. It’s not at all clear that Germany would give up on the pipeline even if Russian tanks roll for Kyiv.
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The Germans, meanwhile, aren’t willing to make even the slightest gesture toward deterring Russia. They are blocking Estonia, a fellow NATO ally, from sending howitzers to Ukraine that originated in Germany.
Germany has no problem selling weapons all around the world, including to the perpetually troubled, Taliban-supporting government in Pakistan and the dictatorship in Egypt.
The justification for blocking the Estonia-to-Ukraine transfer is that Germany was responsible for unspeakable horrors in that part of Europe in World War II, so it has to be especially sensitive to German weapons going there.
Needless to say, there’s a categorical difference between the depredations of the Nazis and providing weapons to a plucky independent nation in fear of being dismembered by a neo-imperialist country to its east (a country, by the way, that once was allied with the Nazis).
Not to worry, though; Germany is pledging to open a field hospital in Ukraine.
When we talk about European divisions over Russia’s menacing of Ukraine, we are mostly talking about Germany (although France is always a nettlesome partner). The British have taken a hard line. Sweden and Finland have been stalwart. Spain is deploying ships to the Black Sea. The Dutch have said they are open to providing weapons to Ukraine.
All that is heartening and appropriate. It is Germany, the laggard of NATO with a deep and growing conflict of interest regarding Russia, that is the weak link — and Putin, unfortunately, knows it
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It’s Macron’s Moment to Move Europe Beyond NATO
Russian threats, Normandy talks, and the EU presidency give the French leader a golden chance to advance his new European security arrangement.
Kevin Baron
BY KEVIN BARON
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
JANUARY 25, 2022 05:50 PM ET
While the world is waiting to see if Russia will invade the rest of Ukraine, some national security leaders are keeping an eye on Paris. Can French President Emmanuel Macron use this crisis to realize his vision of European security?
On Wednesday, negotiators from Russia and Ukraine are to meet with counterparts from France and Germany. It’s called the Normandy Format; the group of four first met on the sidelines of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in 2014. It may be a waste of time. But it may be the start of something much more, no matter what Putin decides.
First, President Joe Biden and the Americans won’t be there, by design. Though U.S. media have focused much attention on the U.S. reaction to Moscow’s buildup, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is largely a European one. In November, Ukraine’s top spokesman called the Normandy Format “the only platform for negotiation.”
Second, all parties have largely ignored the United Nations in New York, and tried to keep NATO out of it. Alliance leaders have rejected Putin’s assertions that this is a fight between Moscow and NATO over Ukraine’s potential membership, although they offered to join direct Russia-NATO talks. Putin has not responded, and this week several alliance members are promising to send thousands of additional NATO troops into Eastern Europe as buffers if needed, but still not into Ukraine.
“How does it stop Putin from going into Ukraine” if U.S. troops are sent on defensive-only missions into neighboring NATO states? Fox’s Pentagon reporter asked U.S. officials at a Monday press conference.
After a video conference of some world leaders on Monday, Biden asserted total unity among the allies. But even Americans aren’t unified. Hawks in Congress have called on Biden to send U.S. troops to Ukraine’s front lines before Russia advances.
European governments have acted both collectively and independently toward Russia, but Germany has hardly played along, refusing overflight rights for allies to deliver even ammunition and breaking with allies on other issues, like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Its Navy chief resigned over the weekend after embarrassing remarks that appeared to concede to Putin. “Germany is no longer a credible ally,” declared one columnist in the Wall Street Journal.
In comes France
For the last five years, Macron has repeatedly proposed a new non-NATO, Europe-only security architecture: a “strategic autonomy” intended to be more flexible and responsive to continental Europe’s needs, and independent of America’s isolationist whims. In other words, something made for exactly this kind of moment.
Now a coincidence of timing has installed France as the six-month president of the Council of the European Union, and Macron promised to continue pushing for a new “collective security framework” for the continent and “strategic rearmament.”
Can the Normandy Platform, the EU presidency, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict be the triple springboard Macron needs to launch a new European defense?
Scholars and professionals of European and transatlantic security have long debated whether security issues in Europe should be handled without the United States or NATO. Will a more independent Europe give openings to adversaries on issues as diverse as Huawei’s Chinese telecom hardware, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, migrants, nuclear weapons, and counterterrorism? On the other hand, U.S. leaders have called for stronger European defenses for decades and Macron’s pitch really does nothing to weaken NATO’s defensive treaty pact, so why should Europe need Washington’s permission (or any involvement) in regional disputes?
“I think that it is good for there to be coordination between Europe and the U.S., but it is vital that Europe has its own dialogue with Russia,” Macron said last week, in calling for a continuation of the Normandy Format. The French president repeated his familiar calls for a European “collective resilience.”.
“The security of our continent requires strategic rethinking, strategic rearming of Europe as an area of balance and peace,” he said.
Like clockwork, an essay titled “Macron’s Flawed Vision for Europe” appeared that same day in the journal Foreign Affairs. Noting that French leaders have been calling for strategic autonomy from the United States since Charles de Gaulle and John F. Kennedy, the piece is a prime example of academic hand-wringing over the idea, both chiding and thanking the French for it. The authors argue that Macron is not wrong to want autonomy for Europe. “Developing its own grand strategy and providing for its own security would be a natural next step,” write Frank Gavin, professor at Johns Hopkins, and Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis. But they warn that Macron has not yet fully articulated how to do it, and Europe may not be quite ready. “This vision assumes that a continent with a long history of divisions is now united on its defense and foreign policy. But a cursory look at the recent debates on Russia, China, and even the United States shows a lack of strategic coherence among European states.”
They argue that Macron is wrong to assume that France actually can lead, or that Europe is able to handle all of its problems. “Rather than going it alone, Europeans would be better off working together with the United States on a few key priorities,” they write. “Macron’s approach would result in a Europe that, instead of doing one or two things well, might do everything poorly.” It’s a jarring and arrogant criticism, as if the existing toolbox of security arrangements—including the American and European publics who voted in their recent governments—have done much better leading the world in recent times.
“To be fair,” they write, “Macron recognizes the desultory state of European affairs, and much of his strategy is a call for the continent to ‘wake up.’ Yet his recommendations risk further fracturing Europe.”
Does it, though? We know Europe is not a nation, but if Europeans can survive being lumped together under NATO, the EU, and the euro in the last century then perhaps they can survive in the new one with a new arrangement whose sole purpose is to improve their collective security and power with greater autonomy from Washington.
Macron’s critics here and elsewhere say he needs to do more to unify Europeans, get them to agree on their security priorities, sell his idea as theirs, and be sure to include the United States and not undermine NATO. That’s all true, and it’s no small task.
But by Macron’s own words, that’s exactly what he’s trying to do, and he’s not backing down. One year ago, the French president welcomed Biden into office not with deference, but with a blunt message that global security will require more than shoring up the old transatlantic NATO alliance. Now he is seizing an opportunity to advance European strategic autonomy by broadening its constituency and consensus. It’s worth a shot. NATO will survive, and the Western world likely will survive or perish for many other reasons. With Macron at the bully pulpit during this latest crisis, perhaps these are the first steps toward giving everyone what they want: a stronger Europe.
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And this from 9/2021
Biden Just Gave France Something More Valuable than a Submarine Contract
The White House endorsement of European defense apart from NATO is worth more than a $66 billion deal with Australia.
Kevin Baron
BY KEVIN BARON
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
SEPTEMBER 22, 2021
The $66 billion submarine deal with Australia is lost, but France’s President Emmanuel Macron may have won something far more valuable from President Joe Biden.
For several years now, Macron has pitched the idea that Europe needs to boost its military spending and capabilities to better defend itself and its interests. U.S. and NATO leaders have largely responded politely but dismissively to a concept they argue could subvert the 71-year old alliance. Europe? Defend itself? Says France? Okay. But did the United States just come around?
The break came on Wednesday, after a week of Franco-American diplomatic faux pas from both sides over the surprise (to Paris) revelation that Australia would purchase American- and British-made nuclear-powered submarines instead of French diesel boats. Macron recalled his U.S. ambassador over it, and Biden had spent days trying to get his French counterpart to talk about it. When Macron finally picked up the phone, it’s unclear whether he got an apology from Biden. But buried inside the joint U.S.-French readout of their call came news of a major policy concession.
“The United States also recognizes the importance of a stronger and more capable European defense, that contributes positively to transatlantic and global security and is complementary to NATO,” says the joint statement.
That’s big. The part that matters most is the phrase “and is complementary to NATO.”
Recall that nearly two years ago, Macron called NATO a “brain-dead” organization. He has since argued in many venues that while NATO’s nuclear umbrella remains essential, Europe cannot and should not rely on outsiders— meaning the U.S., UK, Canada—for safety and security. Just weeks after Biden took office, Macron told the Atlantic Council think tank, “My mandate has been to try to reinvent or restore an actual European sovereignty.” Of late, he has argued that a stronger and independent European defense would make NATO stronger by relieving some of the burden on the larger defensive nuclear pact and allowing Europeans to think, plan, and act more quickly and independently.
It’s quite a turn after two decades in which U.S. officials have gently and not-so-gently prodded NATO’s European members to shoulder more of the burden of collective defense. Of course, that was always meant to take place within the construct of an alliance in which America is the big dog. The NATO supreme allied commander is an American military four-star officer, not French, German, British, or North Macedonian.
Recall that in February, Biden’s first transatlantic coming-out speech as president was filled with niceties that slighted Macron’s ideas by not even acknowledging them. Read aloud today, those remarks to the Munich Security Conference should be embarrassing for this White House. “I know the past few years have strained and tested our transatlantic relationship, but the United States is determined — determined — to re-engage with Europe, to consult with you, to earn back our position of trusted leadership,” Biden said.
Ha, some trust. September’s submarine scandal torpedoed that sentiment. The French were given no notice, much less consultation, about the coming deal, according to the New York Times and other newsrooms. So French leaders are furious while American and British leaders are hardly apologetic. Biden hasn’t taken a single question about the deal; in his public opening remarks with the leaders of Australia and the UK at the United Nations this week he made no mention of submarines; only the other leaders did.
So let’s take this for what it’s worth, no more or less. The Biden White House’s one-line acknowledgement that a European defense capability that is separate but complementary to NATO is “important” was buried in a diplomatic readout of a private conversation. That is hardly a ringing endorsement. But it’s new, and rest assured Paris will use those words to continue making their case. Macron can now say he moved Biden further toward Paris’s position. And Biden can say he’s open to European defense evolution. Both can say they still love NATO. But none of us yet knows how far Biden is really to go down this path with Macron, if at all.
They won’t have too much time to lurk behind vagaries. Biden and Macron agreed to meet in late October. If we don’t know more by then whether these world leaders are serious about creating a new European defense and security autonomy, that’s the question I would ask first
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Practice. Meanwhile, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet started exercises involving more than 20 ships in the Black Sea. Russia also started exercises in the Arctic focused on protecting communications along the Northern Sea Route. Those drills involve up to 1,200 personnel and up to 20 aircraft and 30 ships.
MARC: Besides the obvious implications of this, also keep in mind the specifics of the Sea of Azov! IIRC it contains Ukraine's main port to the Black Sea, but its' use requires going through narrow straights controlled by Russian Crimea.
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Restoring American Credibility to Defend Taiwan, by Way of Ukraine and Poland
Worried about Taiwan? Try reinforcing Poland.
January 27, 2022 Updated: January 27, 2022biggersmaller Print
The most recent crisis in Ukraine and simmering tensions in Taiwan are the result of America’s fallout from Afghanistan. But building a base in Poland is a simple but effective way to mitigate both situations.
The fall of Kabul and the disgraceful and disorganized withdrawal of U.S. soldiers and many civilians from Afghanistan has drawn comparisons to the fall of Saigon. The abandonment of so many Afghani green card and SIV holders and allies has also led to legitimate questions about American credibility.
It has been a few months, but the consequences are present to this day. There are allies around the world that rely on America. They often have a smaller military than the threats they face, and rely on American promises as a deterrent, and count on quick American support in the case of an attack. In the most recent case, Russian aggression against Ukraine seems like one of many instances in which U.S. allies will question the utility of American help.
It may be too late to deter war in Ukraine, but there are still steps the president can take to strengthen American credibility. It is important to know how trust in America and its credibility can be restored when allies from Poland to Taiwan are questioning Washington’s promises. This comes as the Chinese regime flew over 39 warplanes in Taiwan’s air identification zone on Jan. 24 and its carrier task force just returned from the open sea.
The most dangerous weakness of the United States is the strategic perception of an isolationist America unwilling to use force, such as quick support for Taiwan in the case of Chinese aggression or serious decisions to stop Russian aggression against Ukraine. As a result of that perception, America needs something much bigger or bolder to help change it. Bold is usually a Washington term that suggests massive spending. But here I am talking about better strategic military decisions to compensate for the cause of the loss of confidence.
The answer to the danger in the Taiwan Strait and Ukraine, ironically enough, is found in a commitment to another ally. America should build a base in Poland. This is more than sending aid or placing a few units that can be also withdrawn more easily. Building a base is more permanent and will anger Russia. This is a concern that should be noted and assessed.
But while it’s true we shouldn’t needlessly antagonize Russia, we also shouldn’t give them a veto against self-defense of us and our allies. Considering Russian seizure of the Crimea, intimidation of countries like Montenegro and Macedonia, the active undermining and possible war in Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin’s aggressive nationalist rhetoric, the United States has a much more solid case for needed defense in the region.
Poland wanted this base so badly they requested it during the Trump administration and offered to name it Fort Trump! Honoring their request, especially when it seems like America is in retreat, would make this an important sign of friendship. Beyond the symbolism, this decision addresses important operational concerns.
War gaming analysts have noted that the Baltics could fall to a speedy Russian invasion! And Ukraine is facing attack from a much larger force that can be launched from three different directions. Ukraine’s only friendly border is Poland! American forces have practiced moving forward to provide support to the Baltics, but they lack heavy ground elements. And the existing U.S. forces stationed there, without a base, would wither in the face of heavy Russian fire on a narrow front like the Suwalki gap or Polish Ukrainian border.
In short, the base would provide a sign of commitment, and the units stationed there are elements that would provide a better response to either region. Both of which would signal American commitment and possibly a deterrent.
This commitment is the most important point. It directly addresses the strategic perception that might cause Taiwan to question American commitment. In both World War I and II, Poland relied on Western allies like France and Great Britain to protect it from Eastern threats such as Germany and Russia. But the allied commitment to Poland was so sparse that after Germany invaded Poland, which invoked declarations of war from Britain and France, the Western European conflict with Germany was called the “Phony War.”
TAIWAN Air Force
A People’s Liberation Army (PLA) H-6 bomber flies on a mission near the median line in the Taiwan Strait, which serves as an unofficial buffer between China and Taiwan, on Sept. 18, 2020. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via Reuters)
Besides current concern over Russia, China’s aggression is the leading concern. A bold, concrete commitment to an American ally can address both concerns. A long-term base repudiates the disasters of America abandoning long-term allies in Afghanistan, and dithering while Ukraine is invaded. And sends a signal to other free countries around the world. It has the added benefit of not being directly related to China in any way and, thus, Beijing’s propagandists can’t complain that it’s a sign of American aggression. For example, Beijing often complains that America’s freedom of navigation patrols, which are allowed under international law, are irritating and unlawful. However, an indirect message, after building a base in Poland, can’t be said to destabilize the East China Sea, but still sends a message that America will help its allies, like Taiwan, with long-term planning.
America can’t change its past, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan will remain a black eye for years to come. And the Biden administration will likely be unwilling to commit to a base in Poland for all the reasons it decided to leave Afghanistan. It seems to be doing little to help Ukraine. But American policymakers and generals should consider the idea, so when a president that is serious about restoring American credibility is elected, he or she can make that quick decision.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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Worried about Taiwan? Get Zhou Bai-Den out of office.
Restoring American Credibility to Defend Taiwan, by Way of Ukraine and Poland
Worried about Taiwan? Try reinforcing Poland.
January 27, 2022 Updated: January 27, 2022biggersmaller Print
The most recent crisis in Ukraine and simmering tensions in Taiwan are the result of America’s fallout from Afghanistan. But building a base in Poland is a simple but effective way to mitigate both situations.
The fall of Kabul and the disgraceful and disorganized withdrawal of U.S. soldiers and many civilians from Afghanistan has drawn comparisons to the fall of Saigon. The abandonment of so many Afghani green card and SIV holders and allies has also led to legitimate questions about American credibility.
It has been a few months, but the consequences are present to this day. There are allies around the world that rely on America. They often have a smaller military than the threats they face, and rely on American promises as a deterrent, and count on quick American support in the case of an attack. In the most recent case, Russian aggression against Ukraine seems like one of many instances in which U.S. allies will question the utility of American help.
It may be too late to deter war in Ukraine, but there are still steps the president can take to strengthen American credibility. It is important to know how trust in America and its credibility can be restored when allies from Poland to Taiwan are questioning Washington’s promises. This comes as the Chinese regime flew over 39 warplanes in Taiwan’s air identification zone on Jan. 24 and its carrier task force just returned from the open sea.
The most dangerous weakness of the United States is the strategic perception of an isolationist America unwilling to use force, such as quick support for Taiwan in the case of Chinese aggression or serious decisions to stop Russian aggression against Ukraine. As a result of that perception, America needs something much bigger or bolder to help change it. Bold is usually a Washington term that suggests massive spending. But here I am talking about better strategic military decisions to compensate for the cause of the loss of confidence.
The answer to the danger in the Taiwan Strait and Ukraine, ironically enough, is found in a commitment to another ally. America should build a base in Poland. This is more than sending aid or placing a few units that can be also withdrawn more easily. Building a base is more permanent and will anger Russia. This is a concern that should be noted and assessed.
But while it’s true we shouldn’t needlessly antagonize Russia, we also shouldn’t give them a veto against self-defense of us and our allies. Considering Russian seizure of the Crimea, intimidation of countries like Montenegro and Macedonia, the active undermining and possible war in Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin’s aggressive nationalist rhetoric, the United States has a much more solid case for needed defense in the region.
Poland wanted this base so badly they requested it during the Trump administration and offered to name it Fort Trump! Honoring their request, especially when it seems like America is in retreat, would make this an important sign of friendship. Beyond the symbolism, this decision addresses important operational concerns.
War gaming analysts have noted that the Baltics could fall to a speedy Russian invasion! And Ukraine is facing attack from a much larger force that can be launched from three different directions. Ukraine’s only friendly border is Poland! American forces have practiced moving forward to provide support to the Baltics, but they lack heavy ground elements. And the existing U.S. forces stationed there, without a base, would wither in the face of heavy Russian fire on a narrow front like the Suwalki gap or Polish Ukrainian border.
In short, the base would provide a sign of commitment, and the units stationed there are elements that would provide a better response to either region. Both of which would signal American commitment and possibly a deterrent.
This commitment is the most important point. It directly addresses the strategic perception that might cause Taiwan to question American commitment. In both World War I and II, Poland relied on Western allies like France and Great Britain to protect it from Eastern threats such as Germany and Russia. But the allied commitment to Poland was so sparse that after Germany invaded Poland, which invoked declarations of war from Britain and France, the Western European conflict with Germany was called the “Phony War.”
TAIWAN Air Force
A People’s Liberation Army (PLA) H-6 bomber flies on a mission near the median line in the Taiwan Strait, which serves as an unofficial buffer between China and Taiwan, on Sept. 18, 2020. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via Reuters)
Besides current concern over Russia, China’s aggression is the leading concern. A bold, concrete commitment to an American ally can address both concerns. A long-term base repudiates the disasters of America abandoning long-term allies in Afghanistan, and dithering while Ukraine is invaded. And sends a signal to other free countries around the world. It has the added benefit of not being directly related to China in any way and, thus, Beijing’s propagandists can’t complain that it’s a sign of American aggression. For example, Beijing often complains that America’s freedom of navigation patrols, which are allowed under international law, are irritating and unlawful. However, an indirect message, after building a base in Poland, can’t be said to destabilize the East China Sea, but still sends a message that America will help its allies, like Taiwan, with long-term planning.
America can’t change its past, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan will remain a black eye for years to come. And the Biden administration will likely be unwilling to commit to a base in Poland for all the reasons it decided to leave Afghanistan. It seems to be doing little to help Ukraine. But American policymakers and generals should consider the idea, so when a president that is serious about restoring American credibility is elected, he or she can make that quick decision.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/01/business/russia-oligarchs-uk-sanctions/index.html?fbclid=IwAR36--_5y25XeejTcuqmGFHmtobQBEyZJJXrjMpTpyxig3u2Lti1ynUxjb4
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https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/cord-cutting-russian-style-could-the-kremlin-sever-global-internet-cables/
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That would be a super powerful OODA loop disruption for us.
Suppy lines would cease immediately so would social order in much of the country and other countries as well. China takes Taiwan as Russia takes Ukraine and ??
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February 1, 2022
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Open as PDF
Russia’s True Strategy Shows Itself
By: George Friedman
If you look at the whole of Russia’s behavior around Ukraine, its strategy becomes clear – or as clear as clear gets in geopolitics. The buildup of troops started months ago. In time, it dawned on the U.S. and its NATO allies that something might be happening. The Russians issued their demands a few weeks ago, asking that NATO not grant Ukraine membership into the alliance and that it withdraw weapons from Eastern Europe. Put differently, Moscow wanted to return to a status quo that it had held before the Soviet Union fell.
One explanation for Russian behavior thus emerged. Moscow's demands made it seem as though Ukraine and Eastern Europe posed a unique threat to Russia that would abate if NATO abandoned ship. That is simply untrue; missiles no longer need to be close to be a target in order to be a threat. That demand therefore made little sense except in the case I have been pressing: Russia needs strategic depth against a ground assault. However unlikely this threat may be, it is primal and visceral. That threat would be abated some if NATO retreated westward, but it would be all but removed if Russian troops eventually were deployed westward.
The problem with this line of thinking is that Russia knew full well that the U.S. and its allies would reject its demands.
Another theory was that Russia always intended to invade Ukraine. It wanted the United States to reject its offer to justify a war. The Europeans generally don’t want a war, nor do many in the United States. The Russians may have believed the rejection of their demands would have created serious concern in Europe but no more than interested awareness in the United States. So if we shift the focus away from Ukraine, Russia’s intention might have been to simply divide NATO so deeply that it could never be repaired. Considering the Europeans are unwilling to financially sustain the alliance, the U.S. doesn’t trust its members to share all the risks, and with the general economic forces driving Europe apart, Russia doesn’t have to try all that hard to divide the alliance.
On this point, Germany, the de facto leader of Europe, is essential. Its economy is currently weakened by limits on its export market and internal imbalances from the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the stabilizing factors of its economy has been the reliability of Russian natural gas exports, a reliability that was to be enhanced by the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Russia needs the revenue from selling to Europe in general and Germany in particular. Russia’s actions near Ukraine have thus created a conundrum. Germany – and really, all NATO members – needs Russia’s energy but does not trust Russia. A war might force Russia to stop exports to Europe, giving Germany and others the choice between internal mayhem and long-term security from Russia. Russia has made no overt move because the idea of an attack is more powerful than an actual attack.
This would explain why Russian demands were meant to be rejected, holding off an invasion while the fear of war grows. It would trigger German gestures of solidarity with NATO while urgently searching for a solution that would compel Russia to desist. It would explain Moscow’s extraordinary patience with the U.S. response, and it would explain the promise that in spite of massed forces, there will be no war. If NATO essentially breaks up, Russia will be in a position to create a neutral military zone and an economic zone that it is an integral part of and chief energy supplier to.
The one counter to all this is something we don’t usually pay attention to in geopolitics: public opinion. The outright rejection of the Russian offer should have divided the U.S. and created general anti-American feeling in Europe. So far, this has not happened, despite the fact that Russia is generally pretty good at using social and political divisions to shape the behavior of countries to its benefit.
Moscow’s actions and offers were meant to cast the U.S. as unreasonable. Yet no powerful anti-war movement has arisen in Europe as yet, and the division in Washington remains in place. Driving Europe in the direction the Russians want would seem to require public support. That would deny governments room for maneuver, which is precisely what Russia needs to do.
This is a complex explanation for a very complex set of maneuvers. If NATO shatters, the Russians think they will take control of Ukraine without risk. From the viewpoint of Germany at least, the benefits of NATO do not compare with the benefits of access to natural gas. Germany, for one, cannot value NATO over gas. Russia has adopted a strategy of indirect attack, first weakening NATO, perhaps mortally, then expecting Ukraine to fall in its lap. That is its expectation but Russia, as other nations, has been frequently wrong. The Russians were utterly honest when they said that they were not intending to attack Ukraine. They have bigger fish to fry before that.
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By the way: The U.S. thinks it might have a blueprint for ending Russia's manufactured crisis with Ukraine. And according to language in a leaked U.S. document (via Spanish newspaper El Pais) sent to Russia last week, that American plan involves "conditions-based reciprocal transparency measures and reciprocal commitments by both the United States and Russia to refrain from deploying offensive ground-launched missile systems and permanent forces with a combat mission in the territory of Ukraine."
"We did not make this document public," Kirby said at the Pentagon Wednesday. "But now that it is…this document makes clear that there is a path forward" to diplomatically end the current tensions.
Meanwhile in Moscow, Putin has a thought experiment about Crimea, the peninsula Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and which he clearly is very nervous about one day having to give back. "Let's imagine Ukraine is a NATO member and starts [an operation to retake Crimea]. Are we supposed to go to war with the NATO bloc? Has anyone given that any thought? Apparently not," Putin said Tuesday at a press conference with Hungary's leader. Reuters has more from that messaging, here.
Related reading: "U.S. Sends Top Security Official to Help NATO Brace for Russian Cyberattacks," via the New York Times reporting Tuesday.
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Also, note the part about prior Chancellor Schroeder being part of the Nord Stream 2 swamp.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/world/europe/olaf-scholz-biden-ukraine-russia.html?fbclid=IwAR3NPLDNJyfvFUsLp6Fd0nUTcjZvHqb15BUnCshq_Ng2A0d7LSfeDiIlFXI
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can't read without signing
in
so POTH can track me [and sell the info. to the DNC :wink:]
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Germany’s ‘Invisible’ Chancellor Heads to Washington Amid Fierce Criticism
Olaf Scholz will try to repair Germany’s credibility in the Ukraine crisis when he meets President Biden on Monday. Next on his agenda: Kyiv and Moscow.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, center, on Wednesday in Berlin. He has been mocked as “nearly invisible, inaudible.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, center, on Wednesday in Berlin. He has been mocked as “nearly invisible, inaudible.”Credit...Florian Gaertner/Photothek, via Getty Images
Katrin Bennhold
By Katrin Bennhold
Feb. 6, 2022
BERLIN — One headline asked, “Where is Olaf Scholz?” A popular magazine mocked the German chancellor’s “art of disappearance.” And his ambassador in Washington wrote home that Germany was increasingly seen as an unreliable ally in a leaked memo that was all the buzz this past week and began with the words: “Berlin, we have a problem.”
With the threat of war hanging over Europe and rising tensions in the standoff with Russia over Ukraine, Mr. Scholz is headed to Washington on Monday for his first meeting with President Biden since taking over as chancellor in December. Foremost on his agenda: Show the world that Berlin is committed to the Western alliance — and, well, show his face.
Less than two months after taking over from Angela Merkel, his towering and long-serving predecessor, Mr. Scholz is drawing sharp criticism at home and abroad for his lack of leadership in one of the most serious security crises in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
His Social Democrat-led government, an untested three-way coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats, has refused to send arms to Ukraine, most recently offering 5,000 helmets instead. And it has been cagey about the type of sanctions that could be imposed in the event of a Russian invasion.
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As for the chancellor, he has made himself conspicuously scarce in recent weeks — so scarce that the newsmagazine Der Spiegel described him as “nearly invisible, inaudible.”
While President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy have been busy calling President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Scholz has so far neither picked up the phone to Moscow nor visited. He has not gone to Kyiv, Ukraine, yet, either, and his visit to Washington, some note, took almost two months to organize.
Image
Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday on the front line in eastern Ukraine. While the United States and other NATO countries rushed military aid to Ukraine, Germany offered 5,000 helmets.
Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday on the front line in eastern Ukraine. While the United States and other NATO countries rushed military aid to Ukraine, Germany offered 5,000 helmets.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Last week, Emily Haber, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, sent a memo to Berlin, warning of “immense” damage to Germany’s reputation. It was not just the news media but many in the U.S. Congress who questioned Germany’s reliability, she reported. In the view of many Republicans, she wrote, Berlin is “in bed with Putin” in order to keep the gas flowing.
It has not helped that since then, Gerhard Schröder, a former German chancellor from Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats, accused Ukraine of “saber rattling” and just on Friday announced that he would join the board of Gazprom, Russia’s most prominent energy company.
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“Scholz’s central mission for his Washington visit has to be restoring German credibility,” said Thorsten Benner, a founder and the director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.
“It’s not how Mr. Scholz envisaged his first U.S. trip as chancellor,” Mr. Benner added. “But international security was never near the top of his agenda.”
Mr. Scholz, 63, has been a familiar figure in German politics for more than two decades. He was general secretary of his party and mayor of the northern port city of Hamburg before serving in two governments led by Ms. Merkel’s conservatives, most recently as her finance minister.
A labor lawyer and lifelong Social Democrat, Mr. Scholz narrowly won the election last fall on a platform promising workers “respect” and a higher minimum wage, while nudging Germany on a path to a carbon-neutral future.
Foreign policy barely featured in his election campaign, but it has come to dominate the first weeks of the new administration. Rarely has a German leader come into office with so many burning crises. As soon as Mr. Scholz took over from Ms. Merkel in early December, he had to deal not just with a resurgent pandemic but with a Russian president mobilizing troops on Ukraine’s borders.
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Russian infantry vehicles during drills in January in the Rostov region of Russia. The standoff with Russia over Ukraine has proved particularly vexing for Mr. Scholz.
Russian infantry vehicles during drills in January in the Rostov region of Russia. The standoff with Russia over Ukraine has proved particularly vexing for Mr. Scholz.Credit...Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters
“It wasn’t the plan,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the vice president of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. “This is a government that has huddled around an ambitious plan of industrial transformation, but the reality of a crisis-ridden world has interfered with their plans.”
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Of all of the crises, the standoff with Russia has proved particularly uncomfortable for Mr. Scholz. His Social Democrats have traditionally favored a policy of working with Moscow. During the Cold War, Chancellor Willy Brandt engineered “Ostpolitik,” a policy of rapprochement with Russia.
The last Social Democratic chancellor, Mr. Schröder, is not just a close friend of Mr. Putin’s, he has also been on the payroll of various Russian energy companies since 2005, notably Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the two gas pipelines connecting Russia directly with Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine Tensions
Updated
Feb. 7, 2022, 3:52 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Putin and Macron meet in a diplomatic bid to resolve Russia’s standoff with Ukraine.
Blinken defends the exposure of alleged Russian plans as pre-empting Moscow’s disinformation.
See how Russia’s troops are nearly ready to mount an attack.
It was not until last week, after Mr. Schröder’s comments about Ukraine, that Mr. Scholz felt compelled to publicly distance himself from the former chancellor.
“There is only one chancellor, and that is me,” he told the public broadcaster ZDF.
His party’s divisions over Russia are one way to explain why Mr. Scholz has shrunk away from taking a bolder lead in the standoff with Russia, prompting some to lament the loss of leadership of his conservative predecessor.
Mr. Scholz won the election last year primarily by convincing voters that he would be very much like Ms. Merkel. Terse, well briefed and abstaining from any gesture of triumph, he not only learned to sound like the former chancellor, he even emulated her body language, holding his hands together in her signature diamond shape.
But now that he is running the country, that is no longer enough. German voters are hungry for Mr. Scholz to reveal himself and increasingly impatient to learn who he is and what he actually stands for.
Image
The receiving station for the $10 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which connects Russia directly with Germany. If Russia invades Ukraine, Mr. Scholz will be under enormous pressure to close it down.
The receiving station for the $10 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which connects Russia directly with Germany. If Russia invades Ukraine, Mr. Scholz will be under enormous pressure to close it down. Credit...Sean Gallup/Getty Images
As the current crisis unfolds, Mr. Scholz’s imitation of Ms. Merkel is also less and less convincing. She was understated and studious, and often kept her work behind the scenes, but she was not invisible.
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In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin invaded Crimea, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day. It was Berlin that united reluctant European neighbors behind costly sanctions and persuaded President Barack Obama, distracted by domestic affairs, to focus on a faraway conflict.
At that point, of course, Ms. Merkel had already been chancellor for nine years and knew all of the protagonists well.
“The crisis came very soon for Scholz,” said Christoph Heusgen, a veteran diplomat and Ms. Merkel’s foreign policy adviser during the last Ukraine crisis.
Understand the Escalating Tensions Over Ukraine
Card 1 of 5
A brewing conflict. Antagonism between Ukraine and Russia has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, annexing Crimea and whipping up a rebellion in the east. A tenuous cease-fire was reached in 2015, but peace has been elusive.
A spike in hostilities. Russia has recently been building up forces near its border with Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s messaging toward its neighbor has hardened. Concern grew in late October, when Ukraine used an armed drone to attack a howitzer operated by Russian-backed separatists.
Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.
The Kremlin’s position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscow’s military buildup was a response to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance.
Rising tension. Western countries have tried to maintain a dialogue with Moscow. But administration officials recently warned that the U.S. could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Russia invade.
Mr. Scholz’s advisers have been taken aback by the level of criticism, arguing that Mr. Scholz was merely doing what Ms. Merkel had so often done: Make yourself scarce and keep people guessing while engaging in quiet diplomacy until you have a result.
When Mr. Scholz has spoken up on the current crisis — referring to the Russia-owned gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 as a “private-sector project” before pivoting to saying that “everything” was on the table — he has conspicuously recycled language that Ms. Merkel used before.
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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Deauville, France, in June 2014. In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin first invaded Ukraine, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Deauville, France, in June 2014. In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin first invaded Ukraine, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day.Credit...Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
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But given the escalation in the current crisis, that language is long outdated, analysts say.
“He’s overlearned the Merkel style,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Marshall Fund said. “He’s Merkel-plus, and that doesn’t work in a crisis.”
After facing mounting criticism from Kyiv and other Eastern European capitals, Mr. Scholz’s leadership is increasingly being questioned at home, too.
In a recent Infratest Dimap poll, Mr. Scholz’s personal approval rating plummeted by 17 percentage points, to 43 percent from 60 percent in early January, the sharpest decline for a chancellor in postwar history, the firm says. Support for his Social Democrats fell to 22 percent, lagging the conservatives for the first time since last year’s surprise election victory.
Mr. Scholz’s team announced that after returning from Washington, the chancellor will pivot to a full schedule that he hopes will shift German diplomacy into high gear. Following his meeting with Mr. Biden, he will meet with Mr. Macron; the Polish president, Andrzej Duda; and the three leaders of the Baltic States. The week after, he will travel to Kyiv and Moscow, in that order.
Senior diplomats say it is high time for such a pivot, starting with Monday’s visit to the White House.
Mr. Scholz has a seeming center-left ally in Mr. Biden, who has so far refrained from publicly criticizing Berlin. Not since President Bill Clinton’s second term have both the White House and the German chancellery been in the hands of center-left leaders, and for all of the wavering on the German side, the two administrations have been in close contact throughout.
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Mr. Scholz, right, listening to President Biden, onscreen, at the start of the virtual Summit for Democracy in December. Mr. Biden has so far not publicly criticized Berlin.
Mr. Scholz, right, listening to President Biden, onscreen, at the start of the virtual Summit for Democracy in December. Mr. Biden has so far not publicly criticized Berlin.Credit...Michele Tantussi
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But patience is running thin, and Mr. Scholz will have to bring something to the table.
“There has to be a visible sign of commitment to the alliance,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “That’s what other allies are doing: The Spanish, the Baltic countries, the Poles, the Brits — everyone has offered something to strengthen deterrence on the eastern flank.”
In a televised interview before leaving for the United States on Sunday, Mr. Scholz hinted that Germany might beef up its troop presence in Lithuania. He also mentioned the possibility of additional air patrols in eastern and Central Europe.
As important as any material commitment may be the words Mr. Scholz uses — or does not use — to publicly communicate that commitment.
“Maybe for the first time he could mention Nord Stream 2 by name when talking about possible sanctions,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said.
“He needs to make a clear statement that Germany gets the situation and will stand with its allies.”
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/politics/us-intel-russia-doubts-invasion-ukraine/index.html
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Putin Says the West Is Goading Russia Into War With Ukraine—and Many Russians Agree
State propaganda is driving home Russian President Vladimir Putin’s explanation of why he has massed troops near Ukraine
Anastasia Bukhteyeva, a 24-year-old graduate student in Fryazino, a small town outside Moscow, says Russia isn’t at fault for the Ukraine standoff.
By Evan Gershkovich and Matthew Luxmoore | Photographs by Oksana Yushko for The Wall Street Journal
Feb. 8, 2022 5:30 am ET
Like many Russians, graduate student Anastasia Bukhteyeva hopes the current standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine doesn’t erupt into a full-scale war.
But if fighting does break out, the 24-year-old is sure of one thing: It won’t be Russia’s fault.
“I have a feeling that someone is trying to provoke Russia,” said Ms. Bukhteyeva, who is studying to be an elementary school teacher. “I don’t understand who this would be good for, but I feel like it would be good for America.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Western powers are goading Moscow into attacking Ukraine. He says the U.S. and its allies are threatening Russia’s security with their military support of Kyiv and military exercises in the Black Sea. Moscow has amassed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border.
The West counters that Russia is illegally occupying part of Ukraine, that it is arming and financing proxy Russian forces that have occupied swaths of its industrial east, and that its troop buildup is aimed in part at pressuring Ukraine to return to Moscow’s sphere of influence.
With the Kremlin having stifled political opposition in Russia after a year-long crackdown on dissent, there are few voices left to challenge Mr. Putin’s hard-line message, which, according to pollsters and analysts, is key to winning the tacit support of a Russian population worn down by the Covid-19 pandemic and a stagnant economy.
People enjoying the weekend in Red Square in Moscow on Saturday.
In recent weeks, state-run media has increasingly echoed Mr. Putin’s depiction of Russia as a victim in the standoff. Television has accused Washington of bringing Ukrainians for military training run by the Central Intelligence Agency, sending U.S. mercenaries to Ukraine and helping transport chemical weapons to the Donbas, an area in eastern Ukraine where Russia fomented a separatist uprising against Kyiv in 2014.
Moscow, which denies backing the rebels, says it is coming to the aid of Russian speakers who suffer discrimination by Kyiv.
“Ukraine is being pumped with lethal weapons and whipped into a mass psychosis while Russia is cast as the main aggressor,” Dmitry Kiselyov, host of a prime-time news broadcast, said last week. “All possible provocations can be expected at any moment.”
In December, Mr. Putin compared events in the Donbas region to a “genocide,” playing on public prejudice and fears. Days later, the popular Russian TV talk-show 60 Minutes amplified the claim, suggesting that CIA operatives had flown in from the U.S. to sow discord in Ukraine.
The U.S., NATO and Russia are caught in a diplomatic standoff over Moscow's buildup of troops at the border with Ukraine. WSJ looks at what Russia wants and how Ukraine and its allies are preparing for a potential crisis. Photo: Andriy Dubchak/Associated Press
The U.S. warned in November that Russia could launch false flag operations to justify an attack, and last week officials said they had intelligence that Moscow was planning to release a video featuring a staged attack by Kyiv’s military forces.
“Putin’s policy is to keep all doors open, to keep all possibilities open,” said Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “But if Russia feels it necessary to attack, then it needs a pretext.”
Independent Russian pollster Levada Center found in December that two-thirds of respondents blame Ukraine, the U.S. or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for the escalating tensions. Just 4% blamed the Kremlin.
Ilya Shepelin, who analyzes government-run media on the independent Dozhd television channel, said airtime devoted to Ukraine is now at its highest level since Moscow seized Crimea in early 2014 and began backing the rebellion in Donbas.
“The main point is that we don’t want to attack Ukraine,” Mr. Shepelin said of the view advanced on state media. “We are peace-loving, but Western media are making us the aggressors.”
Ilya Shepelin, host of the ‘Fake News’ program on Dozhd television channel, at work on Friday in Moscow.
Russian propaganda has also fueled the continued armed conflict over Donbas. In one oft-cited incident early in the war, Russian state television aired a report alleging Ukrainian forces had publicly crucified a three-year-old child. The story turned out to be fake.
By then, a surge of patriotism inspired by the seizure of Crimea and the narrative around the Donbas uprising helped to boost Mr. Putin’s popular support.
This time, however, a mood of mobilization is absent in Russia.
Mr. Putin is simply “displaying his strength” to boost his approval ratings, said Ivan Mertsalov, an 18-year-old university student. “He doesn’t need an invasion.”
Many Russians have also opted out of closely tracking politics after a year that saw the opposition dismantled, independent media hounded and prominent rights groups closed, said Sergei Belanovsky, a sociologist.
Instead, Russians are more concerned about Covid-19 and their own finances, he said. At the end of December, state pollster VtSIOM found that rising inflation, the pandemic and falling standards of living after years of Western sanctions were bigger concerns than politics or the threat of war.
Since he first started hearing about Russian troop movements last fall, Ivan Popov, a bartender at a popular Moscow bar, has only overheard customers discuss the crisis a couple of times. “Our patrons mostly discuss the virus, who’s gotten sick,” he said.
Ivan Popov, a 30-year-old bartender in the Moscow metro on his way to work last week, says he hasn’t followed events too closely.
Mr. Popov, 30, believes “geopolitical games” are at fault for the tensions but he hasn’t followed events too closely because, he said, “It’s not my war.” For him, the pandemic and the economy were more important concerns.
Denis Volkov, director of Levada, said that, in focus groups, participants say they immediately change the channel on television or radio when they hear about Ukraine. That means most Russians haven’t actively tried to understand what has caused the escalation, Mr. Volkov said.
Ms. Bukhteyeva, the graduate student, gets her news from state television. Her view, she said, is that the U.S. “wants to undermine Russia’s reputation.”
“But people don’t want to go to war over this,” Mr. Belanovsky said. “And if there are real losses, there will be a real protest against the Kremlin.”
Olga Mazurova, a doctor and organizer of antiwar picketing, on Arbat Street in Moscow on Saturday.
Russian authorities have banned large demonstrations. And public opposition to a possible conflict has been muted. Leading artists, intellectuals and activists wrote a letter at the end of January to the Kremlin urging Russian leaders not to go to war with Ukraine and the West.
“The policy based on promoting the idea of such a war is immoral, irresponsible, and criminal, and cannot be implemented on behalf of Russia’s peoples,” they wrote.
The letter, which was posted as an online form open for anyone to sign, has garnered 5,000 signatures in less than two weeks.
One of those who signed, 62-year-old doctor Olga Mazurova, said she doesn’t think protests will sway Mr. Putin. Still, since December, she has rallied a group of two dozen mostly elderly journalists, academics and lawyers for the only kind of antiwar demonstrations now possible.
On weekends at several squares and pedestrian arteries in central Moscow, they take turns standing alone to circumvent Russia’s ban on mass gatherings and hold posters displaying the slogan: “No to war.”
“This won’t stop unless every one of us little guys in Russia who cares puts in at least a minimal contribution,” Dr. Mazurova said. “Or at least isn’t an accomplice to this crime.”
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Putin Is Operating on His Own Timetable, and It May Be a Long One
The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine could turn into a drawn-out and dangerous diplomatic slog toward a difficult settlement.
A Ukrainian soldier on the front in southern Ukraine. It is likely that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will seek to keep tensions high for the foreseeable future.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Anton Troianovski
By Anton Troianovski
Feb. 8, 2022
Updated 3:53 p.m. ET
MOSCOW — The Ukraine crisis is here to stay.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is increasingly staking his legacy on reversing Ukraine’s pro-Western shift. Even if he does not order an invasion this winter, he is making clear that he will keep the pressure on, backed by the threat of force, for as long as it takes to get his way.
But Ukraine’s leaders have so far refused to compromise on Mr. Putin’s terms, and the West sees the Kremlin’s demand for a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe as a nonstarter. That leaves the best-case scenario as a long and dangerous diplomatic slog toward a difficult settlement — a process that could consume Western resources and attention for many months.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, shuttling from Moscow to Kyiv to Berlin on Monday and Tuesday, described the coming days as crucial in the West’s bid to avert war. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, in some of his strongest comments yet, insisted that Russia would suffer “far-reaching consequences” if it attacked Ukraine.
Mr. Putin has countered with a pledge to keep the “dialogue” going. It is a message that implies he would be deliberate in using his levers of influence and coercion to deal with the longstanding Russian grievances that the Kremlin appears newly determined to address.
Russia’s current military buildup around Ukraine is so extensive that Mr. Putin will have to decide in the coming weeks whether to order an invasion or pull some troops back, analysts say. But even if he draws them down, he will have other means to keep his adversaries on edge, like exercises of his nuclear forces, cyberattacks or future buildups. And if he does attack, the West’s current diplomatic scramble is likely to only intensify.
“I expect we’ll have this crisis with us, in various forms, for all of 2022, at least,” said Andrei Sushentsov, dean of the school of international relations at MGIMO, the elite Moscow university run by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
He described the current standoff as only the first step in a drawn-out Russian effort to force the West to agree to a new security architecture for Eastern Europe. It was a characterization of the start of a more high-stakes phase in Russia’s yearslong conflict with the West that is gaining currency in Moscow’s foreign-policy circles.
Russia’s aim, according to Mr. Sushentsov: keep the threat of war ever-present, and thus compel negotiations that Western officials have avoided until now.
For too long, he said in an interview, people in Western Europe have been lulled into thinking that a new war on the continent was impossible. For Mr. Putin, that point of view needs to be changed, Mr. Sushentsov said, to compel the West to accept Russia’s demands.
“What’s important is this suspense, this feeling of a prewar situation,” Mr. Sushentsov said. “People are spoiled by an overly long peace. They think of security as a given, as something that is attained for free, rather than something that must be negotiated. This is a mistake.”
For the West, that approach could mean being drawn into a new sort of “forever war” — a conflict consuming ever more time and treasure, with no clear exit strategy. The lesson of the chaotic Afghan withdrawal last summer, to Mr. Putin, may have been that the U.S. has no stomach for a distant conflict — and Ukraine is distant to the U.S. but not to Russia.
President Biden came to office determined to focus the U.S. and its allies on the long-term threat of managing a rising China — a technological, military and economic competitor. But now it is Mr. Putin who has seized the administration’s attention.
One senior European diplomat said in Washington recently that six months ago, no one was discussing a threat to the fundamental order that was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“Now we all are,’’ he said.
Mr. Biden on Monday characterized a Russian invasion of Ukraine as “tanks or troops crossing the border.” But American officials say that there remain numerous lower-grade options that Mr. Putin is considering that could touch off a less deadly but still costly conflict.
Mr. Biden’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, Anne Neuberger, was at NATO last week trying to shore up the alliance’s defenses in case Mr. Putin decides that the least costly way to destabilize the Zelensky government is by turning off the power or communications.
Even if Mr. Macron, working with Mr. Biden and other Western leaders, were to help secure a temporary relaxation of tensions, Mr. Putin’s demands are so expansive — and his disdain of Ukraine’s pro-Western leaders so great — that analysts struggle to imagine a grand bargain being struck.
Ruslan Pukhov, a Russian military analyst, said that even if the West and Ukraine were to make sufficient concessions in the coming weeks to avert an armed conflict, they would be unlikely to satisfy Russia in the longer term, adding that a renewed threat of war could come next year.
“The West just doesn’t understand how much this is a question of life or death for us,” said Mr. Pukhov, who runs the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a privately owned think tank in Moscow. “Ukraine in NATO, from my point of view or Russia’s, would be the equivalent of nuclear war.”
Mr. Putin made the threat of war over Ukraine between nuclear superpowers explicit twice in recent days — in news conferences after his meetings with Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary last week and with Mr. Macron on Monday. Both times, Mr. Putin described a scenario in which Ukraine would join NATO and then, with the Western alliance’s backing, try to recapture Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
A brewing conflict. Antagonism between Ukraine and Russia has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, annexing Crimea and whipping up a rebellion in the east. A tenuous cease-fire was reached in 2015, but peace has been elusive.
A spike in hostilities. Russia has recently been building up forces near its border with Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s messaging toward its neighbor has hardened. Concern grew in late October, when Ukraine used an armed drone to attack a howitzer operated by Russian-backed separatists.
Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.
The Kremlin’s position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscow’s military buildup was a response to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance.
Rising tension. Western countries have tried to maintain a dialogue with Moscow. But administration officials recently warned that the U.S. could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Russia invade.
Dmitri Kiselyov, one of Russian state television’s leading anchors, on Sunday detailed what would happen next: a nuclear war in which Russia, faced with its own destruction, would take the West with it.
“Let’s remember that Russia doesn’t need a world without Russia,” Mr. Kiselyov intoned at the beginning of his weekly prime-time show, paraphrasing a 2018 line by Mr. Putin. “And then not just America, but also Europe, will turn into radioactive ash.”
Western officials describe NATO membership for Ukraine as unrealistic anytime in the near future, but the Kremlin insists that even the possibility poses an existential threat. On the ground, analysts see preparations gaining pace for a possible military solution to preventing Ukraine from ever joining NATO.
Researchers monitoring satellite imagery and footage of troop movements posted to social media say that Russia is deploying personnel and equipment to within miles of the border with Ukraine. The forces have been filmed setting up tents in the mud and snow, adding to fears that Mr. Putin could order an attack as early as this month.
“It’s safe to say that this is not a force posture that Russia is going to maintain for an extended period of time,” said Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at CNA, a research institute based in Arlington, Va. “They are entering a go/no-go posture, and they’re going to make that decision in the coming weeks.”
But even if an attack were to happen, touching off what would most likely be enormous human suffering in Ukraine, the diplomatic scramble would continue — with Russia exercising even more leverage, Mr. Kofman argues.
“Diplomacy continues throughout war,” he said. “Ultimately, there would need to be some sort of agreement.”
Despite the worrying troop movements, many analysts inside Russia continue to doubt that Mr. Putin will actually order a full invasion. The risks would far exceed any of Mr. Putin’s prior military pushes, like the five-day war against Georgia in 2008 or the still-simmering proxy war in eastern Ukraine that he started in 2014. Russian missiles could miss their targets, causing civilian casualties; Ukraine could respond by attacking Russian targets across the border.
“I think most military officials understand that any operation would be rife with great difficulties,” Mr. Pukhov, the Russian military analyst, said. “One has to understand that even in the event of limited military action, you won’t be able to avoid a major escalation and it won’t conclude in five days.”
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia would withdraw the thousands of troops it had sent to Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbor, after large-scale joint exercises concluded there on Feb. 20. Whether the Russian troops indeed leave will be one closely watched signal of Mr. Putin’s military intentions. Even if they do, Russia’s newfound appetite for attention-grabbing military pressure against Ukraine and the West is likely to remain.
“Russia has departed from the tactic of simply asking to be listened to,” Mr. Sushentsov, the university dean, said. “Russian leaders have seen that this does not work and that it is necessary to make clear the risks of the Russian position being ignored.”
David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.
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Too bad we are not the ones selling to Germany , , ,
February 9, 2022
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How Germany’s Energy Needs Limit Sanctions on Russia
There’s a limit to how much German manufacturing can phase out its use of natural gas.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
Russia’s ongoing troop buildup near the Ukrainian border has led to more than a month of intense diplomacy as well as new U.S. military deployments in Eastern Europe. The West typically responds to Russian aggression with economic sanctions. But since the West has already been sanctioning Russia for years following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its role in the war in eastern Ukraine, to have an impact any new sanctions would need to tackle Russian energy supplies to Europe – especially the forthcoming Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea.
In the current environment, this will be complicated if not impossible. The Ukraine crisis comes as Europe is dealing with soaring gas prices and internal divisions over how to reduce its usage of fossil fuels over the long term. The Kremlin knows this – and it has made the most of this chance to test the West. Moscow wanted to see if NATO (and the European Union) would stick together, and if so, what their response would be. While the discussions take place between the West and Russia and between Western allies, understanding what’s at the core of the crisis can help us anticipate the economic steps the players could take next.
Germany Is the Key
An agreement within the EU to sanction Russian energy flows is an impossible task. Such sanctions need unanimous support among the 27 EU member states. More than a third of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, and some countries, like the Baltics, Bulgaria and Austria, get more than 70 percent of their gas from their big eastern neighbor. What’s more, there are few alternative suppliers who could quickly meet Europe’s needs. This means Brussels is very limited in how aggressive it can be against Russia’s energy sector.
European Union Countries Most Dependent on Russian Energy
(click to enlarge)
A more likely approach would be for Europe to sanction the crown jewel of Russia’s energy strategy toward Europe: the not-yet-operational Nord Stream 2. Cognizant of Russia’s energy strategy and the EU’s limitations, the United States for years has warned that the 750-mile (1,200-kilometer) Nord Stream 2 – by bypassing Ukraine and thus depriving it of leverage as well as transit fees – could further diminish Ukraine’s security. Washington’s allies in Eastern Europe saw things similarly. Poland and the Baltics noted that, once Nord Stream 2 is operational, Russia could better use energy as a geopolitical tool to influence and divide Europe. Moreover, Moscow could cut off supplies to Ukraine and, indirectly, to Eastern Europe, forcing those states to become more dependent on Western European energy infrastructure. But efforts to block construction of Nord Stream 2 failed and attempts to find alternative gas sources foundered over delays and cost. All the while, Europe’s dependence on Russian gas grew.
The pandemic closed off the opportunity for Europe to find alternatives to Russian energy. The supply chain crisis, followed by the energy crisis in 2021, has forced Europe to scramble to ensure it has enough stored gas to last through the winter. No matter how promising, investments in new technologies – be they batteries or hydrogen – will bear fruit only in the long term. To avoid further economic disruption, Europe needs to make the most of its existing contractual relationships and the existing energy infrastructure.
Since European energy prices started soaring late last year, many voices in the bloc and in the U.S. have accused Russia of market manipulation. Moscow has dismissed the charges, but the Ukraine crisis only made things worse. As a result, the U.S. joined in trying to secure alternative gas suppliers for Europe. On Jan. 7, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson in Washington. Talks are underway to increase liquefied natural gas supplies to the EU from Norway, Qatar, Azerbaijan and Algeria. LNG isn’t a perfect replacement for Russian gas, but it can help. Another change over the past month or so is that the U.S. has insisted that Nord Stream 2 will not move forward if Russia invades Ukraine. In a more measured response, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the pipeline could be up for discussion as part of sanctions measures.
Why Germany Can’t Give In
Germany’s energy consumption has rebounded from the pandemic, and although Berlin is an avid supporter of green energy, when confronted with the energy crisis it switched coal production back on. Conventional, nonrenewable sources of energy accounted for more than 50 percent of its electricity generation in the third quarter of 2021. The German coal industry association said in January that Germany imported 24.5 percent more coal by volume than in 2020, and it expects that figure to increase by 7.7 percent in 2022. (Even here, Germany relies on Russia: Approximately 53 percent of hard coal that goes into German power generators and steelmakers came from Russia last year, according to the coal industry association.)
German Energy Consumption | 2000-2021
(click to enlarge)
Germany has invested in increasing its renewable energy, but wind and solar can’t yet replace natural gas, which comes almost exclusively from abroad. Germany produces only about 3 percent of the gas that it consumes, and more than one-third of its imported gas comes from Russia. Although natural gas burning accounts for only 15-17 percent of German electricity generation, according to the latest data from utility industry group BDEW, about half of German households rely on gas supplies for heating during the winter. When Germany loses part of its gas imports – for whatever reason and from whatever source – it must increase its coal-fired generation at home or import more power from neighbors to fill the gap.
The U.S. has offered to send Germany more LNG if Nord Stream 2 is abandoned, but Germany lacks LNG infrastructure. A few places in Europe have the port infrastructure to accept LNG, like Britain, northwestern Europe, Poland and the Mediterranean, but the latter two locations are still young in their development. What little LNG Germany imports mostly comes through the Dutch Gate Terminal, which can handle just 12 billion cubic meters per year. This could be expanded but it would take time and investment.
Finally, there’s a limit to how much Germany can phase out natural gas, and that limit is found in German manufacturing. Manufacturing accounts for more than half of the gas that Germany consumes. To consume less, some manufacturing sectors would need to reinvent their production processes and invest in new technologies – all of which is costly. But there are also industries for which hydrocarbons are not only a source of energy but also a raw material. The chemical sector is probably the best example. Chemical manufacturing involves the production of pretty much everything we use today – because (sadly) plastic is part of most things that we consume. The chemical industry also produces fertilizers, which are key to agriculture and thus the food supply chain, and supports the pharmaceutical industry.
The pharmaceutical sector is one reason it is unlikely that Germany’s dependence on natural gas imports will diminish. If anything, it could grow. Sometimes called the world’s pharmacy, Germany is home to more than 500 pharmaceutical companies, including big corporations like Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Merck. Germany is also Europe’s largest and the world’s fourth-largest pharmaceutical market, and considering the country’s demographics, it is only going to grow in the coming years.
At the same time, the pandemic brought forth a key security problem for the health sector: the need to limit shortages in the supply of medicines and vaccines. This is why the new German governing coalition has announced that it wants to take steps to relocate the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals back to Germany. This includes reducing the bureaucratic burden, examining investment subsidies for production sites and considering subsidies to ensure security of supply. Moreover, in the field of biopharmaceuticals – the most advanced pharmaceutical production and an area with high growth potential – Germany is the most important player in Europe. In terms of the number of active ingredients produced, Germany ranks second worldwide, behind the U.S., an advantage that it intends to keep – but one that depends on a stable gas supply.
Pharmaceuticals alone are not the reason Berlin can’t say no to Nord Stream 2, but Germany’s strategy to reshore the most important industries from abroad, in an attempt to diminish supply chain shortages, certainly weighs on the decision. To produce more at home Germany needs energy, and with alternative sources expensive or years of research away, conventional energy sources and natural gas in particular remain important. Moscow is very aware of Germany’s threefold dependence on its gas, oil and coal. The reason for Russia’s buildup near Ukraine was in part to test the newly installed government in Berlin on its trans-Atlantic ties. In other words, Moscow stress-tested NATO and the EU. Neither bloc has broken, and in fact NATO has increased its troop presence along its eastern flank.
Creative Solutions
At the same time, the West needs to think about other ways to keep Russia from becoming more aggressive. The effectiveness of sanctions generally turns on two basic variables: domestic market size (the loss of the U.S. or EU as a potential market for one’s exports versus, say, the market of Kyrgyzstan) and global market share (when one country holds a near-monopoly on the production of certain goods, it’s hard to sanction that country). Considering the above, the EU may have reached the limit of using sanctions against Russia due to its near-monopoly position on the European (especially German) energy market.
However, Western countries have some of their own monopolies in the global economic system. A prominent example is SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication network, which ensures the execution of virtually all banking payments. SWIFT is domiciled in Belgium – a member of both the EU and NATO – which makes it relatively simple to leverage it in the event of renewed, targeted sanctions. The U.S. has also threatened to cut Russia off from cutting-edge technologies.
For another example, the U.K. is a dominant player in the shipping insurance industry. In 2010, when the West was seeking to deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions, maritime insurer Lloyd’s announced that it would stop underwriting gasoline imports to Iran, a move that has had important consequences for Iran’s economy by exacerbating the plunge of Iran’s national currency and triggering a loss in Iran’s foreign reserves. In theory, it could do the same to Russia.
This is just speculation so far, but the point is that unless Berlin can be convinced to take a hard line against Moscow on energy, the West may have to get creative with its economic diplomacy. For now, military posturing is the strongest message the West has sent to Russia. If nothing else happens, NATO’s eastern frontier and Russia’s western border will remain the most militarized in Europe.
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1678609/war-with-russia-can-explode-literally-at-the-speed-of-light-heres-why
Michael Yon@MichaelYon
7 hours ago
War with Russia Can Explode -- literally at the Speed of Light: Here's why
10 February 2022
Miami, Florida
Mind Dump, Sans Edit
Watching this all unfold. Like a glacier creeping across an awakening super volcano.
Using FlightRadar24 and other methods, am watching large numbers of American military aircraft -- including B-52s -- moving forward to places like Poland.
If this touches off, it's very difficult to imagine a likely scenario in which this does not quickly spread.
As you know, last year I spent several weeks in Lithuania and warned many times that the Polish and Lithuania borders were being probed using migrants as cover, while developing a migrant-pump and pipeline as a weapon in case of war. The migrants can be used both as human shields and cover to send in spies and special forces.
But that's the small war. The big war can hit the high seas and Americans everywhere in a matter of minutes.
Imagine a simple scenario in which Russia invades beginning with cyberwar, information war, airstrikes, rocket strikes, artillery, and ground invasion. Many of the rockets, artillery, and other weapons are being fired from within the borders of Belarus and Russia.
The US provides direct intelligence or even firepower against Russian ground troops. Russia attacks our space assets, and lights up our aircraft with fire control radar in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, for starters.
Russia loses troops early on, and respond by launching surface-to-air and ground-to-ground missiles from within Belarus/Russia at US forces, and shoots down American aircraft.
Now what are we to do? Russia and Belarus are using electronic warfare, fire control radar, and weapons that are stationed WITHIN their sovereign borders.
How will you respond? Firing back at the fire control radar, artillery, and air bases, would comprise a clear attack on their own people in their own homelands. Remember -- Russia can put people into space more reliably than the US Postal Service can deliver your mail before spying on it.
The Bear has spies working all around America including within the US military, CIA, and the works. We are Woke like that.
If we fire into Russia and Belarus, even by accident, that's the first shot of World War III. You can bet there will not be any commercial air travel within hundreds of miles of the battle zone -- and in fact all air travel to Europe might be closed at the beginning of a cold winter.
Meanwhile, not to target-fixate, Iran and others are eyeing up the region, including Israel. And then there is Taiwan. Our own borders are wide open. Food, fuel, and fertilizer prices are steadily rising.
The Canadian trucker strike -- growing in seriousness by the hour -- and the American truck strike that is forming, and I will join if the Blue Devils and not started World War III yet.
Friends write messages with quips such as, "We will close Nord Stream II." Russia will take the pipeline in Ukraine.
There is every reason to believe that The Beast will create an emergency situation in America and the pretense of a Republic will crumble this year. If you believe the got away with stealing elections the first time, why would they not do it again? Or just cancel elections all together. It's an emergency, after all. Take the jab. March to war. Pay your taxes. And shut up or die.
The war with Russia can explode at the speed of fire control radar. The speed of light.
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The West’s Dilemma of Sanctioning Russian Aggression in Ukraine
16 MIN READFeb 11, 2022 | 22:44 GMT
The flags of NATO member countries are seen on a billboard in Riga, Latvia, on Nov. 28, 2021, two days before the start of meetings to discuss Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine.
The flags of NATO member countries are seen on a billboard in Riga, Latvia, on Nov. 28, 2021, two days before the start of meetings to discuss Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine.
(GINTS IVUSKANS/AFP via Getty Images)
Less than a month after the United Kingdom’s 1939 declaration of war against Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill famously described Russia’s actions as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Churchill’s quote likely still rings true today in how Western leaders view their Russian counterparts — especially regarding Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine. But it is probably an even more accurate description of the trillion-dollar question North American and European governments are facing if Russia invades Ukraine — that is, how to sanction the Russian economy in a way that maximizes pressure while minimizing blowback.
This dilemma is exposing Western Europe’s incredible dependence on Russian energy supplies, as well as NATO allies’ divergent positions on how far to go in sanctioning Russia. Canada and the United States’ geographic distance from Ukraine and relative independence from Russian energy exports give them the space to take more antagonistic positions with fewer consequences compared with European countries like Germany, which receives more than half of its natural gas from Russia.
As the specter of a Russian invasion grows, Western leaders risk backing themselves into a corner where they are forced to implement sanctions just for the sake of doing something that goes beyond a diplomatic response but falls short of a military intervention. This strategy, however, could backfire as sanctions have proven to be limited in their ability to deter behavior — let alone Russia’s — and are also politically challenging to remove once they’re in place.
The Dilemma of Russian Energy Exports
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has focused on exporting natural gas, oil, defense and minerals to countries around the world, as well as deeply intertwining its economy with those in Europe. This makes carving out the Russian economy — which is the world’s 11th largest — from the global economy via robust and sweeping sanctions a disruptive procedure, particularly at a time when Western countries are dealing with energy price-fueled inflation.
Over the years, the United States has also placed substantial sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela designed to significantly disrupt their economic activity. But compared with Russia, these countries’ economies are far smaller and less interconnected with global markets, which have limited the blowback of such sanctions. Iran and Venezuela, for example, are also two major oil exporters. But Russia alone exported 4.3 million barrels per day in 2021 — a level that neither Iranian nor Venezuelan oil production has reached in 40 years.
In February 2021, a colleague of mine wrote that sanctions are more effective when they “[focus] on the greatest point(s) of leverage.” There’s little disagreement that Russia’s dependence on oil and gas revenue is its Achilles’ heel and where Western sanctions could inflict the most pain. In 2021, the oil and gas industry accounted for 36% of the Russian budget and 49% of Russian exports. But there’s just as little disagreement that Europe’s dependence on Russian energy exports is also its Achilles’ heel and serves as Moscow’s primary leverage point against the West. Russia exported a whopping 185 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe in 2020 — equivalent to 38% of all global LNG trade that year.
Sanctioning Russian energy exports (particularly natural gas, due to the difficulty in securing alternatives given infrastructure constraints) would thus have immediate repercussions for Europe, as would imposing other measures (like severing Russia’s access to the SWIFT global financial messaging system) that prompt Russia to cut off its natural gas exports to the Continent. The loss of Russian energy exports — whether through direct sanctions or indirect Russian retaliation — would lead to substantial natural gas shortages in Europe due to the lack of alternatives to replace Russian shipments, causing significant social and economic unrest across the Continent as natural gas (and other) prices rise.
This, in turn, makes targeting Russia’s energy exports a terrible option for Western leaders as they seek to find a strategy designed to maximize economic pressure on Moscow and minimize blowback on European countries.
Central and Eastern European countries are incredibly dependent on Russian natural gas. In 2020, Russian natural gas exports accounted for 34% of natural gas consumed in Europe (including Turkey). Many Western European countries, like Spain and France, import very little Russian natural gas. But countries in Central and Eastern Europe, like Slovakia and Austria, are highly dependent on Russian natural gas. In 2020, Germany imported 56.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia, or approximately 63% percent of its overall consumption.
There is no immediate alternative to Russian natural gas. U.S. and European leaders have approached other large exporters of liquified natural gas (LNG) — including Qatar, whose emir visited Washington earlier this month — about increasing exports to Europe in the event of a gas cut-off or sanctions. But excess gas production is limited. Unlike the global oil market, the LNG market lacks a swing producer like Saudi Arabia that can quickly surge exports in the event of a major disruption of supplies. Russia’s 185 billion cubic meters of natural gas exports to Europe in 2020 was equivalent to a whopping 38% of the globally traded LNG market.
Europe will need to refill gas storage during the summer. Although European countries are coming out of the 2021-22 winter season when natural gas demand peaks due to demand for heating, European natural gas storage levels are just 35% full, and will probably further decline to around 30% by March. This means European countries will need to refill gas storage levels before the 2022-23 winter season, which will require Russian natural gas. Typically, European gas storage levels reach around 100 billion cubic meters when they peak at the start of the winter.
The West’s Options for Retaliation
The United States and Europe have refrained from outlining the specific sanctions that they are considering amid the escalating Ukraine crisis in lieu of broader sanctions that could affect Russian energy exports to Europe. But leaks cited in recent reports suggest the West is considering a host of sanctions that would have a significant medium- and long-term impact on the Russian economy, including barring investment into strategic industries like oil and gas. Western countries have allegedly sparred over the precise details of the sanctions — like which Russian financial institutions, companies or oligarchs would be targeted, or what projects or sectors would be exempted.
The United States can more quickly enact sanctions compared with the European Union, where adopting sanctions requires unanimous approval from member sanctions. Washington is thus likely to take the most aggressive action when it comes to sanctioning Russia over its actions in Ukraine. Home to the world’s largest economy, the United States is also able to leverage its importance in the international financial system to force its sanctions on other countries in a way that no other government can.
Differences between Western countries’ views on Russia will also make sustaining any sanctions policy difficult. While the United States can maintain its sanction policy indefinitely without other countries vetoing it, the EU foreign policy requirement for unanimity means that Russia will try to pick off more vulnerable European countries to vote against European sanctions and any extensions of them.
As evidenced by the long-running split between Berlin and Washington over sanctioning Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, there is unlikely to be full alignment between all Western governments on what a final sanctions package entails in response to a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. But in addition to less impactful sanctions like asset freezes and travel bans targeting Russian government officials, the final package will likely include a combination of the following measures:
Expanded sanctions on Russia’s financial sector. The United States, United Kingdom and European Union will likely blacklist more Russian financial institutions and impose restrictions designed to limit Russia’s ability to convert rubles to hard currencies, like the U.S. dollar, euro or British pound. One bill proposed in the U.S. Congress would sanction Russia’s three largest banks, including VTB and Sberbank, which are essential to Russian households, pension funds and workers.
Expanded sanctions on Russia’s energy sector designed to reduce long-term investment. The United States and European Union appear likely to place restrictions on financing, technology transfers and other related activities to new Russian oil and gas projects, particularly more technologically challenging that Western companies are participating in. Washington and Brussels could also expand some of the restrictions on Russian Arctic and shale projects they imposed in response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. In addition, the United States and (less likely) Europe could impose broad sanctions on Russia’s newer pipeline projects, including Nord Stream 2, and potential future ones as well.
Expansive controls on exports of high-tech products to Russia. Despite having a large economy, Russia lacks an expansive tech sector that produces and develops the products that will be strategically important in the coming decades, like high-end electronics, biotechnology, semiconductors and green technology. U.S. export controls on Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei have shown how effective such measures can be in cutting off a company or country’s access to technology in these key fields. Russia’s small market and the limited direct impact on Russia’s oil and gas exports make export controls an attractive option for retaliating against Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, particularly amid the West’s policy of increasing similar restrictions against China. Sanctions limiting access to foreign-made chips would also hit Russia’s two most popular processors for military and government applications, Elbrus and Baikal, as they are currently manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and would likely fall under sanctions.
Expanded sanctions on Russian oligarchs viewed as being close to the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other key Russian officials. The United States and European Union relied heavily on sanctioning Russian oligarchs as a part of their response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea in hopes of causing enough economic pain on Putin’s inner circle to informally pressure him to change his policy. While an expansion of this strategy is likely, there are constraints as many of the obvious oligarchs have already been targeted in some fashion. Sanctions on key oligarchs can also lead to significant repercussions across the global economy. U.S. Treasury sanctions targeting Oleg Deripaska and Rusal (the Russian aluminum giant he controlled) led to a 20% spike in aluminum prices in 2018, and remained elevated until Washington eventually reached a deal to reduce sanctions on the company less than a year later.
Russia’s Vulnerability
The sanctions that are being proposed by Western leaders in the case of a Russian invasion of Ukraine are designed to limit the impact on Russia’s oil and gas exports to Europe and do not reach for the proverbial “nuclear option” of SWIFT sanctions. But it is likely that the level of sanctions the West is considering — even if not immediately impactful — will still have dire consequences for Russia by 2030 if they remain in place.
Russia’s economic model is already undergoing significant structural changes. The country is entering a period of prolonged demographic decline and its economic dependence on emissions-intensive natural resources will struggle to maintain relevance in a greener economy. Russia’s technological capabilities continue to wane amid its struggles to shift toward a digital economy that manufactures high technology goods. The technology areas where Russian companies are still globally competitive are chiefly in Soviet-era legacy industries like aerospace and defense. But in even these sectors, Russian firms are falling behind their competitors in the West and, increasingly, China. Simply put, it is likely that the level of sanctions the West is considering — even if not immediately impactful — will still have dire consequences for Russia by 2030 if they remain in place. These economic weaknesses mean the sanctions measures the West is considering would likely still have a significant impact over the medium- and long-term for Russia.
Nonetheless, Russia has been able to weather Western sanctions put into place since 2014 over Crimea and other issues without a visible impact thus far, which could make Moscow overconfident in its ability to withstand additional economic pressure. Russia has spent the last decade making their economy more insulated from Western sanctions. As a result, the Kremlin may feel it has taken enough steps to weather new Ukraine-related sanctions from the United States and Europe. However, Western sanctions may be far more aggressive than anything Russia's stopgap measures are designed to protect against — thus creating the possibility of a miscalculation on Russia’s part if it decides to invade Ukraine.
The Issue of ‘Sticky’ Sanctions
Without a dramatic turn of events in Russia, Ukraine or Europe, it is difficult to imagine a series of events that would prompt the West to relax whatever sanctions it imposes over the current Ukraine crisis. It has been proven to be politically difficult for Western governments to actually remove sanctions against non-democratic countries without a significant change in policy, as acutely illustrated by the United States’ 60-year-old sanctions on Cuba. Clearly, Cuba is no longer the same national security threat it was back when the sanctions were first enacted in 1962 — when the island nation hosted Soviet ballistic missiles and served as a central part of the Cold War. But the inertia of U.S. sanctions policy has never really made it politically feasible for the United States to relax and suspend the embargo on Cuba, as there has not been a change of government in Cuba, even though the United States does not have sanctions on at least a dozen countries that have worse human rights and rule of law records.
More recently, the political inertia behind the U.S. sanctions policy on Iran showed how, even if a country negotiated a deal with the United States to relax sanctions, that deal may not be permanent if there’s a change of U.S. administration, even though Iran was following through with its end the bargain. Given the current political environment in the United States (and parts of Europe), such challenges will likely also plague any new U.S. sanctions placed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis – making the sanctions policy “sticky.”
An effective sanctions strategy will include clear and concrete strategic objectives in their design and attach conditions for their removal to those objectives. If the United States and European Union place sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine, those concrete objectives could either be:
Entering negotiations for a cease-fire and the end of the Russian invasion. Russia will almost certainly have the upper hand in any invasion of Ukraine and it is hard to imagine the Russian military getting bogged down to the point where it would want to enter negotiations to end the conflict. That would be tantamount to Russia admitting defeat and allowing a pro-Western government to remain in Ukraine.
Deterring Russia from broader military action beyond Ukraine. The problem with using sanctions as a form of deterrence is that deterrence needs a level of permanence. Sanctions as a form of deterrence, in this case, would be problematic because if Russia “wins” in Ukraine and installs a pro-Russian government, Moscow risks seeing the cost of sanctions as worthwhile and is less likely to change its future behavior beyond Ukraine. Moreover, in the case of such a Russian “victory” in Ukraine, there would also not be a clear point where the Western governments could politically justify suspending or removing sanctions on Russia like they could if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine failed and sanctions removal was a part of a peace settlement.
A High-Stakes Situation
Western leaders are more likely to design a sanctions policy with domestic political objectives in mind and the need to punish Russia for invading Ukraine in the first place. The most realistic way for sanctions to be removed would either involve Russia making significant concessions (and it remains unclear what those would be) or a significant mea culpa by the West to end the sanctions due to them being ineffective or, worse, causing more significant harm.
A scenario in which Western sanctions make matters worse could transpire if the Kremlin feels that, in order for sanctions to be removed, it must escalate tensions elsewhere in Europe — whether through saber-rattling in the Baltics or threatening to cut off gas to European markets. Regardless of veracity, Russian leaders may perceive that further destabilizing behavior elsewhere in Europe may ironically give Moscow the leverage it needs to force the West to remove sanctions once a pro-Russia government is set up in Kyiv or the conflict in Ukraine becomes even more deadlocked than it already is.
If the new sanctions persist indefinitely, there could be long-term strategic repercussions, as it would represent a significant first step in isolating the Russian economy from that of the West. This would thereby result in Moscow, Beijing, and other non-Western countries accelerating efforts to create alternatives to the Western-led and developed financial system that can give Western sanctions so much bite. Such an outcome risks Russia becoming more insular and resulting in a turn to neo-Cold War dynamics where economic relations between Russia and the West are reduced substantially, leading to more hostility on numerous friction points.
It will also force Russia to become more dependent on China as a partner. Although recent media attention has focused on Moscow and Beijing’s apparently budding ties, China has incentives to not fully embrace Russia. Given that Russia needs China more than the reverse, China may initially respond by keeping Russia at an arm's length in order to avoid disrupting its own economic relationship with Western countries. But even if it doesn’t more closely align with Russia, China could still view an aggressive sanctions package from the West as a sign of possible risks in the event of future conflict in Taiwan or the South China Sea. As a result, Beijing would likely only increase its efforts to create international financial mechanisms globally that could operate regardless of U.S. sanctions policy and limit the extraterritorial impact of Western sanctions on its non-Western trading partners.
As questions remain about the long-term impact of new sanctions on China and Russia’s relationships with each other and with the West, so will the strategic risk that Western countries incur by going down the sanctions path. Western sanctions strategies have long been criticized for being strategically ineffective in achieving their objectives. And that strategy will face the most significant test yet if Russia invades Ukraine
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I've commented on Schroder previously.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/11/germany-russia-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR3PAjBj4TOa17BW5fI9tb3uY9C1iuBVw9ixj3to3VeCVrD3JC1JWthdGxc
The former chancellor and friend of Putin’s at the heart of Germany’s Russia struggle
Former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, flanked by the German flag, attends a 2019 soccer match against Serbia. (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)
By Loveday Morris
February 11, 2022 at 11:28 a.m. EST
BERLIN — For Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, a former leader has become a headache.
As Russian troops massed on the borders of Ukraine, Gerhard Schröder — who led Germany from 1998 to 2005 for Scholz’s Social Democrats — accused Kyiv of stoking tensions by “saber-rattling.” He called out “Russia-bashing” in the media.
The ensuing furor only grew when the 77-year-old former chancellor was nominated Feb. 4 to the board of Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom, cementing his place as the personification of Germany’s deep energy ties with Russia, and of President Vladimir Putin’s expanding reach into European politics through Moscow’s natural gas riches.
The move has raised concerns that Putin could be using his longtime friend to drive a wedge into Germany’s governing party as it struggles to formulate a coherent policy toward Moscow as Russian troops gather near Ukraine’s borders. And Scholz’s party has been left scrambling to distance itself from Schröder, amid questions about how much influence the former chancellor-turned-Russian energy lobbyist still wields.
In showdown with Russia, Germany struggles over economy, politics and history
Schröder was instrumental in giving birth to the project that has been the biggest sticking point between the German government and Washington during the current crisis: Nord Stream 2, the yet-to-be operational natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
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Despite pressure from the United States, Scholz has been reluctant to join President Biden in unequivocally stating that the pipeline will not be switched on in case of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, citing “strategic ambiguity.”
President Biden meets with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Oval Office on Feb. 7, 2022. (Al Drago/Pool/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Although Schröder holds no political position in Germany, his links to the Russian energy sector in such a sensitive period have sparked condemnation from across the political spectrum, including calls to strip him of his taxpayer-funded perks.
“In these times of escalation, this is really wrong,” Roderich Kiesewetter, a Christian Democratic lawmaker on parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said of Schröder’s decision to increase his ties to the Russian energy sector.
At best, Kiesewetter said, Schröder is acting “completely inappropriately” and hurting the image of Germany. But the lawmaker also fears that the former chancellor is part of a Putin “chess game” to try to divide Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, which leads a three-party coalition formed after elections in September that marked the end of Angela Merkel’s stewardship of the country at 16 years.
“He’s a tool,” Kiesewetter said.
As tensions rise between Russia and West, a quiet back channel flows from Finland's president
The former chancellor is not alone in what has been dubbed an increasing “Schröderization” of European politics as Moscow tries to gain political influence via the revolving door between business and the halls of power.
There is the former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl, who last year was appointed to the board of Russia’s state-controlled oil giant Rosneft and was famously photographed in 2018 dancing with Putin at her wedding. Also, former French prime minister François Fillon was nominated last year to the boards of the Russian state oil company Zarubezhneft and the Russian petrochemicals giant Sibur. A former Austrian chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, was made a board member of the Russian oil firm Lukoil in 2019.
But none of their ties come close to Schröder’s in scope and influence. The former chancellor declined an interview request and did not respond to questions sent to his office.
“[Putin’s] aim is to damage Germany’s credibility among it’s partners, whether its the United States or E.U. partners,” Sudha David-Wilp, deputy director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund, said of Putin’s intentions with Schröder’s new nomination. “Perhaps it’s working.”
But more important, she said, is the question of how the Social Democrats solve their disagreements over their party’s Russia policy.
Biden vows to stop Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine
For the Social Democrats, dealing with Schröder has become like “dealing with the strange uncle that’s coming over to dinner, you don’t want embarrassing everybody,” she said.
Senior party officials have distanced themselves from Schröder and emphasized that he no longer has major influence in the party. The way Schröder mixes business interests with his role as a former chancellor is “not only wrong” but “even sad,” the general secretary of the Social Democrats, or SPD, Kevin Kühnert, said in a recent interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.
“I don’t know anyone in the party who shares his views,” the Social Democratic premier for Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, told the Rheinische Post.
Putin and then-Chancellor Schröder at a news conference in Berlin in September 2005. (Andreas Rentz/Photographer: Andreas Rentz/Gett)
And Scholz has emphasized in interviews in the United States and Germany that the former chancellor does not speak for the party.
“If I understand the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany correctly, there is only one federal chancellor and that is me,” Scholz told the German broadcaster ZDF when asked about the fact that there were two Social Democrat chancellors giving contradictory statements on the crisis.
But it emerged this week that a member of Scholz’s government had met with Schröder last month to discuss the “future of German-Russian relations and civil society in Russia” in the thick of the Ukraine crisis, sparking a new round of criticism.
“The protestations of the SPD leadership to distance themselves from Gerhard Schröder are refuted by the fact that the former chancellor and a top Russia lobbyist continues to maintain close contact with the Scholz government,” said Matthias Hauer, a parliamentarian with the Christian Democrats who had requested information from the federal government on Schröder’s contact with officials.
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According to the information Hauer said he received, Schröder met with Johann Saathoff, the parliamentary secretary of state in the Interior Ministry on Jan. 5. Until December, Saathoff had been the foreign office’s point person on Russia. Also present was Heino Wiese, a former Social Democrat parliamentarian and lobbyist who also is Russia’s honorary consul in Hanover, and Matthias Platzeck, former Social Democrat leader for the state of Brandenburg.
Saathoff did not respond to requests by The Washington Post for comment. But he told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that he had requested the meeting to discuss “civil society” and that Schröder did not try to influence government action.
The pro-Kremlin leanings of the former chancellor have long been known. While still chancellor in 2004, Schröder famously described Putin as a “flawless democrat.” The same year, Putin traveled with a Cossack choir to Schröder’s home in Hanover for the chancellor’s 60th birthday.
Opinion: Germans ask: Where is Chancellor Olaf Scholz?
He used his last few days in office to set the wheels in motion for the first Nord Stream pipeline. It was 10 days before the 2005 elections — which he looked set to lose — when he left the campaign trail to sign a letter of intent with Putin on the pipeline. It gave Russia a way to send natural gas to Europe that bypassed Belarus, Poland and Ukraine — and weakened those countries’ leverage against Moscow.
Less than three weeks after Schröder left office, he was appointed head of the shareholders committee at Nord Stream. He has since used his connections to lobby on behalf of the new sister project, Nord Stream 2, opening the door for Gazprom chief executive Alexey Miller to meet with officials in Berlin.
In the thick of the last conflict in Ukraine, Schröder celebrated his 70th birthday in St. Petersburg at a Nord Stream-hosted event that Putin attended. They greeted each other with a warm hug, just two months after Russian forces annexed Crimea. In 2017, he took up the position of chairman of Rosneft, which is under U.S. and European Union sanctions for Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and for other acts.
“Sure, he’s just a former chancellor, but he of course has a huge network in Germany,” said Timo Lange, a campaigner with LobbyControl, a Berlin-based lobbying watchdog. “In public discourse, he always speaks with the authority of a former chancellor. It gives a lot of politicians in the Social Democrats a lot of headaches.”
A recent article by Germany’s T-online news website outlined Schröder’s meetings with Manuela Schwesig, the prime minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state, where the Nord Stream 2 pipeline makes landfall in Germany. Schwesig also is a Social Democrat and known for her staunch backing of business links with Russia, including the pipeline.
“They have a pretty huge economic interest that Nord Stream happens,” Lange said of the state government. “Schröder uses his influence where he can.”
The receiving station of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline near Lubmin, Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
The former chancellor has said he is working in the interests of Russian-German ties.
It’s “my life,” he said in response to criticism as he took up his $600,000-a-year position at Rosneft in 2017, saying it wasn’t up to the German media to decide what he does with it.
When asked whether he feared being used by Putin, he said: “I am not usable.” The salaries for his positions with Nord Stream are not public.
But during the current crisis, outrage has reached a new peak. “Why does he do this?” read a headline in Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday.
“The former head of government is Vladimir Putin’s best man in Germany,” it added.
The controversy comes as the Social Democrats struggle to unite on a Russia policy and Scholz tries to bring together a left-leaning wing that espouses detente toward Russia as forwarded by the party’s Cold War-era chancellor Willy Brandt, crafting the approach with the reality of today’s geopolitics in mind.
“The party does not really have a direction or speak with a single voice,” said Peter Matuschek, the head of political and social research at the German polling firm Forsa. “The former chancellor Schröder complicates things even more.”
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https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/biden-stumbles-toward-war-russians?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyODA4MDM2MiwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDg2NjM1MTUsIl8iOiJzWVVZeCIsImlhdCI6MTY0NDY5NzE0OCwiZXhwIjoxNjQ0NzAwNzQ4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNzQ2NTgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.-Q-jWfoUg8yRQy-f8_9D9ibos9b1s8y01e-WxqV6mL4
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Corrupt buffoons on the edge of global horror.
So we got that going for us!
https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/biden-stumbles-toward-war-russians?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyODA4MDM2MiwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDg2NjM1MTUsIl8iOiJzWVVZeCIsImlhdCI6MTY0NDY5NzE0OCwiZXhwIjoxNjQ0NzAwNzQ4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNzQ2NTgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.-Q-jWfoUg8yRQy-f8_9D9ibos9b1s8y01e-WxqV6mL4
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18227/russia-sweden-finland-nato
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18232/israel-europe-gas-pipeline
Biden Administration Kills Israel-to-Europe Gas Pipeline
by Soeren Kern • February 15, 2022 at 5:00 am
Biden's decision — reportedly coordinated with Turkey but reached without consulting Israel, Greece or Cyprus, the main countries involved in the project — undercuts three of the strongest American allies in the Mediterranean region.
EastMed's cancellation — variously described as a "disastrous decision," a "strategic mistake" and an act of "appeasement" of Erdoğan — represents a major geopolitical victory for the Turkish strongman.
The EastMed pipeline has been in the works for more than a decade. The Israel-Greece-Cyprus project — joined by Bulgaria, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia — has long been seen as a way to diversify natural gas supplies to Europe.
The Turkish government has always insisted that Israeli gas can only be sold to Europe through Turkey.
"The Americans do not want the pipeline because Ankara might 'get angry.'" — Theofrastos Andreopoulos, defense analyst, defensenet.gr.
"If Erdogan perceives the non-paper as some form of appeasement by Washington, he will simply double down on his gunboat diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean and play the role of spoiler in the region." — Richard Goldberg, a member of the U.S. National Security Council during the Trump administration.
Is the Biden administration truly concerned about climate change, or does it want to prevent Israel from becoming a strategically important supplier of natural gas to Europe?
"The reversal on the EastMed pipeline becomes only more hypocritical and offensive given the fact that President Biden continues to clear the path towards completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline." — U.S. Representatives Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
"This is a disastrous decision that imperils European security and opens the door for further Russian energy hegemony in European gas markets. It should be reversed." — Ariel Cohen, veteran energy analyst, The Hill.
"Turkey is not looking to participate in Eastern Mediterranean initiatives, it wants to dominate them. Ankara's goal is not one of cooperation but of regional primacy if not hegemony." — Endy Zemenides, Executive Director, Hellenic American Leadership Council.
The Biden administration has abruptly withdrawn American support for the Eastern Mediterranean (EastMed) pipeline, a project aimed at shipping natural gas from Israel to European markets. The White House appears to have caved to pressure from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has vociferously opposed the underwater pipeline because it would bypass Turkey. Pictured: Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiadis (left), Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (center) and then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands in Athens on January 2, 2020, ahead of signing the pipeline agreement. (Photo by Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration has abruptly withdrawn American support for the Eastern Mediterranean (EastMed) pipeline, a project aimed at shipping natural gas from Israel to European markets. The White House said the project was antithetical to its "climate goals."
In reaching its decision, which effectively kills EastMed, the White House appears to have caved to pressure from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has vociferously opposed the underwater pipeline because it would bypass Turkey.
Biden's decision — reportedly coordinated with Turkey but reached without consulting Israel, Greece or Cyprus, the main countries involved in the project — undercuts three of the strongest American allies in the Mediterranean region.
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February 16, 2022
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How the Ukraine Conflict Moves Europe’s Front Line
The possibility of war has major implications for countries like Poland and Romania.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
The Ukraine crisis may have caught some off guard, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. The current conflict can be traced back to the Maidan revolt of 2014 and the subsequent annexation of Crimea, or to 2004, when Russia realized it was losing ground to the West in Ukraine, or, really, to the end of the Cold War and beyond. What’s new is that the possibility of war in the region is being taken seriously for the first time since the Soviet Union collapsed, and that has major implications for NATO, Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe.
Bad for Russia
At least part of Russia’s strategy on Ukraine was to use it to divide the West. Poland, for example, is existentially afraid of Russian advances, while Germany, for example, is heavily dependent on Russian hydrocarbons – and both are EU and NATO members. The United States, meanwhile, is focusing on internal problems as the United Kingdom, another European power, just left the European Union. Russia figured now was as good a time as any to highlight European and trans-Atlantic weaknesses.
So far, Russia has achieved the opposite. NATO has increased its military deployments to Eastern Europe, putting forces on standby and deploying additional ships and fighter jets. The U.S. and the U.K. have enhanced their respective presence in the region, while France has sent troops to Romania under NATO command. Spain and the Netherlands have also sent ships and fighter jets to the Black Sea to join NATO forces. Even Germany seems to be on the same page. Last week at a press conference in Washington, Chancellor Olaf Scholz seemed to nod in agreement as U.S. President Joe Biden threatened “there would be no longer a Nord Stream 2” if Russia invaded. In fact, the U.S. has been lobbying other countries to make up for any natural gas shortfall from Russia with liquefied natural gas. (So far, Australia, Japan and Qatar have agreed to help.) Little surprise, then, that German military aircraft carrying troop reinforcements landed in Lithuania on Feb. 15.
Moreover, the threat of a Ukraine invasion galvanized Western countries outside of NATO. Finland and Sweden, for example, are for the first time in years discussing joining the alliance. Both have coordinated with NATO over the past few months. Finland has enhanced its military readiness while Sweden has been reinforcing its military presence on the island of Gotland, the part of the country closest to Russia. Likewise, the Russian threat has revived concerns among NATO members and non-members alike from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
In other words, Russia’s latest push to reclaim the borderlands it lost at the end of the Cold War is bringing its supposed enemies closer together. And at their core is NATO, an alliance many believed had outlived its mandate.
A New Frontier
Clearly, the threat of war has raised concern among a host of nations. But for Romania and Poland – Washington’s operational allies on the front lines – it has raised profound strategic questions.
The first pertains to what a war with Ukraine would actually look like. Some war planners were convinced that a southern route would be Russia’s primary path to invasion, one that would link Odessa to Crimea and give Russia control of all non-NATO ports on the Black Sea. A northern invasion route was deemed less likely. Even so, a northern invasion would require Poland to engage in an active defense against Russian forces to block their advancement, while a southern invasion would require Romania to engage in both amphibious and mountain warfare. All these necessitate different tactics and equipment, and all demand different kinds of coordination and cooperation between Bucharest and Warsaw.
(click to enlarge)
The second is how likely an invasion truly is. Moscow said it needs to fight back against Western encroachment. NATO, after all, eventually absorbed Eastern European countries Russia hoped it wouldn’t at the end of the Cold War. Moscow’s demands made it seem as though Eastern Europe and Ukraine posed a unique threat to Russia that would go away if NATO simply got out of the region. Untrue as that may be, Russia’s message was clear: Eastern European countries are just as much a target as Ukraine is.
Of course, these countries have dealt with Russian assertiveness in all its forms before, and none are eager to fall back into Moscow’s orbit. It’s why they joined NATO and the EU in the first place, and their accession is a big reason that Russia is trying to reclaim influence in the areas it regards as its borderlands: the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The realization of what Russia has said – that Moscow considers them, like Ukraine, a part of its buffer zone – made Eastern European nations realize that they were less a borderland, where East and West collide every day without incident, and more a front line along which they would have to make their own strategic decisions.
To be sure, the countries of Eastern Europe have been doing just that. They have, for example, increased defense and security spending in case Russia decided to move on them. But while this was broadly understood at strategic levels by the governments, the average person didn’t really perceive the threat – that is, not until the current Ukraine crisis, which has convinced many that defense and security are now more urgent than ever.
This is more important than it sounds. A cornerstone of Eastern European strategy has been a focus on resilience to Russian hybrid warfare, making sure they don’t fall victim to disinformation campaigns, economic tampering, etc. It’s a largely proactive and measured strategy that necessarily eschews assertiveness. Active defense of the front line is an entirely different mentality. They have to not only step up when needed – but defend themselves and the NATO (and the EU) frontier at all times.
This mentality will likely spread. Urgency and assertiveness in defense matters translate into effective critical infrastructure development that improves the transportation, energy and health sectors. These developments need more than just investment from Western European countries that want the front line to hold; they need a fundamental change in policy that incorporates military, diplomatic, economic and political aspects. For better or worse, Poland and Romania may soon be responsible for defending NATO and the European frontier. They’ll need to adjust to reality accordingly.
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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/us-stock-futures-rise-washington-105808409.html
PUTIN ---->> slow Jo and Blinks
:roll:
can anyone imagine how much Putin is raking in through surrogates
in the US market right now?
Hey at least 2 of grandparents are from Ukraine -
can I get in on it. Vlad ?
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https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/02/20/ron-klains-domestic-motive-for-ukraine-crisis-surfaces-white-house-to-blame-economic-collapse-gas-prices-and-inflation-on-manufactured-russia-ukraine-conflict/
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declares Biden :
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-ukraine-russia-invasion-putin-us-sanctions-195703429.html
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declares Biden :
https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-ukraine-russia-invasion-putin-us-sanctions-195703429.html
That'll stop 'em! Take that Vlad! Toe to toe combat.
Maybe Xi will just attack a couple of 'breakaway' areas of Taiwan - and face limited sanctions!
I wish that whoever wrote Biden's speeches would read them.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/with-ukraine-debate-over-trump-effect
on top of all this the Left can now claim gas prices are up because of Vlad .
Infuriating how Biden now tells Americas we will have to undergo more pain
at the pump because of what is going on in Russia- Ukraine
see we just don't know this is really good for us - the high gas prices
we just have to endure pain while we wean off carbon and switch to wind solar
and save the world from climate change
do we little people understand? :wink:
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/with-ukraine-debate-over-trump-effect
on top of all this the Left can now claim gas prices are up because of Vlad .
Vlad had the money to spend on military adventurism because Kidsniffer McAlheimer's shut down US oil production.
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https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/the-hot-take-boils-over.php
Republicans committed treason appeasing Putin? Isn't that ass backwards?
His former student John Hinderaker calls him out on it.
cf. Mike Pompeo, Tom Cotton, Sen Jim Risch, Donal Trup, Ted Cruz
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If Trump were in Putin's pocket, he would: [Walter Russell Mead, 2017]
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/02/24/trump-isnt-sounding-like-a-russian-mole/
Limit fracking as much as he possibly could
Block oil and gas pipelines
Open negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cut U.S. military spending
Try to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.
-----------------------------------------------
He didn't. Joe Biden did.
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How to Beat Putin With Natural Gas
America and its allies can wean Europe off its dependence on energy imported from Russia.
By Kenneth C. Griffin and Niall Ferguson
Feb. 23, 2022 6:46 pm ET
On June 24, 1948, Soviet forces blockaded the Allied-controlled areas of Berlin. The U.S. and U.K. responded by airlifting food and fuel from Allied airbases in western Germany. At the height of Operation Plainfare, one plane landed every 45 seconds at Tempelhof Airport. It worked. On May 11, 1949, Moscow lifted the blockade of West Berlin. Stalin blinked.
No such airlift can relieve the pressure being exerted on Ukraine by the huge military force Russia has assembled, with Russian troops entering Donetsk and Luhansk. But the principle can be applied to the broader problem raised by the Ukrainian crisis.
The foundation of Russian power today is the energy industry, which funds Russia’s foreign policy, including its formidable armed forces. Russia is an energy superpower in no small part because European consumers buy Russian gas. Europeans wagered that energy interdependence would temper Russian militarism, but instead Europe has funded the Kremlin’s rearmament. Europe would be safer if it had relied on allies for its gas.
The problem isn’t simply Europe’s energy dependence, but Russia’s use of energy to co-opt European politicians. In early February, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was nominated to join the board of Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas monopoly. He already sits on the board of Rosneft, Russia’s state-owned oil giant. These appointments highlight Germany’s dependence on Russian gas. Is it any surprise that Chancellor Olaf Scholz initially sought to exclude energy explicitly from any sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine? He halted Nord Stream 2, the natural-gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, only after Vladimir Putin asserted the “independence” of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Since West Germany launched its Ostpolitik policy in the late 1960s, the bet that energy interdependence would produce peace involved building a network of gas pipelines. Rather than pacifying Europe, however, these pipelines empowered Russia. Without Russian energy, European citizens would struggle to get through winter. Mr. Putin has long understood the leverage this gives him.
The U.S. should encourage its European allies to reduce their reliance on Russian gas exports. The additional sanctions against Russia envisaged by the Biden administration would come at a tremendous cost to Americans without addressing the long-term source of Mr. Putin’s power. Tougher U.S. financial sanctions would only further reduce the attractiveness of the dollar as a reserve currency. Withholding U.S. technology from Russia would inflict both direct and indirect damage on American companies, which have many international competitors, not least in China.
Reducing reliance on Russian gas will require substantial investment and political will. Europe needs to replace as much Russian gas as possible with liquefied natural gas, ideally with long-term contracts to buy gas from allied countries such as the U.S. The American capacity to export liquefied natural gas is growing every year. Some European countries have already begun building substantial infrastructure to take advantage of this growth. Poland and Lithuania now no longer rely on Russian gas because they can import supplies from as far away as Australia.
The biggest laggard is, predictably, Germany. One reason is that the upfront costs of building liquefied natural gas infrastructure can be steep. Yet Russia’s supposed price advantage no longer looks so compelling. European gas currently trades at around $26 per metric million British thermal units. The price of American gas is a little over $4.
Europe could also move itself toward energy independence by adopting a more realistic approach to climate change. Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power looks increasingly like a historic error. The European Commission’s soon-to-be-announced plan to reduce its reliance on Russian gas is past due, but “doubling down on renewables” for short-term effect is delusional.
The U.S. has a role to play, too. It needs to produce more gas, not less. Washington should recognize that the American gas industry produces a relatively clean-burning fuel that the world will need for decades. Bans on fracking are misguided and neutralize a critical economic and geopolitical advantage. The U.S. should frack more, so it has the gas needed to wean Europe off Russian pipelines.
Green-minded Europeans should also note that buying American gas would be better for the environment. In the U.S., gas companies face stricter regulations for methane capture and other environmental priorities. The Russian energy industry pays little heed to such concerns.
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https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/02/20/exp-gps-0220-condi-rice-on-putin.cnn
we did push the ruskis over the edge
we knew the red lines
and stepped over them
I don't know what was gained
and due to the gas stupidity here we allowed russia to build up
like they did
and Europe allowed this too.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10546799/More-150-senior-Russian-officials-sign-open-letter-condemning-Putins-invasion-Ukraine.html?fbclid=IwAR1J6UzlRXtbsQyBHdrUSUIQarq_FrAfG7HnyKZN3M1x_5VphY5TS6S6A4c
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All this avoided if only we ruled out Ukraine joining NATO? We broke Budapest agreement?
No. Russia broke the agreement with the 2014 invasion seizing Crimea. There is no such thing as an agreement that binds only one side to it.
Sovereign Ukraine had a right to protect itself against its aggressive evil neighbor including pursuing weapons and new defense treaties.
Trump should not have said Putin is strategic genius? For those who compete in combat sports or real combat or war or even competitive tennis, how does it go when you underestimate your adversary? Generally, you lose.
If nothing else, Putin has ego. Obama dissed him in 2012 for the world to see, not a geopolitical threat in 20 years. Obama thought he was mocking Romney. Forgot he had to Leader of the Free World if he won. By 2014 Putin invaded Ukraine and took Crimea. Take that! He waited out Trump, got the one that challenged him "toe to toe" and took the rest of what he wanted in Ukraine.
Underestimating the damage Putin can do is naive. Appealing to his sense of global, moral and historic responsibility was beyond stupid, and sending Kamala there to settle the whole thing when he already knew their attack plan was beneath worthless.
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Even Politico sees it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/24/putin-was-playing-biden-all-along-00011555
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"More than 150 senior Russian officials sign open letter condemning Putin's invasion of Ukraine"
Wow , there is at least some freedom of speech in Russia !
This never would have happened under Stalin
they would have all knew to do so would mean either instant death
or a "vacation" to the "archipelago"
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".All this avoided if only we ruled out Ukraine joining NATO? "
Rubio on last night stated
Putin wants Nato out of baltic countries, estonia, latvia, lithuania, romania as well
not just guarantee - no nato in ukraine
oddly bugaria is a Nato country but appears to be closely linked to putin regime
there are 30 countries in NATO:
https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html
we should form a South Pacific TO
to counteract the CCP
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Can't remember the source, but one observer says build a thousand new nuclear plants in US and Europe if you want to cripple Putin's power. (famous people reading the forum).
The number is figurative, the concept is spot on. People are burning fossil fuels to power their grid. Eliminate that and what happens to the world price of gas and oil, and the European dependence on Russian gas and oil?
This is in hindsight if you think Putin is done or in foresight if you think he has just started, or if you actually care about human caused climate change.
Joe Biden just paid for Putin's invasion a thousand times over with his failed energy policies.
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I am still betting on fusion
though I will be long gone before that is commercially viable
from what little I have read about it.
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" Trump should not have said Putin is strategic genius? For those who compete in combat sports or real combat or war or even competitive tennis, how does it go when you underestimate your adversary? Generally, you lose. "
I am in this camp about this :
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/02/24/john-kelly-i-dont-get-praising-putin-he-is-a-murderer/
Hitler was genius but I don't recall anyone in the West praising him for it.
"Kelly added, “You know, is Putin smart? Yes. Tyrants are smart. They know what they’re doing. But that’s — I can’t imagine why someone would look at what’s happening there and see it anything other than a criminal act. I don’t get it, Jake."
I get it .
:wink:
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The Uke power structure was neck deep in the “Russia, Russia, Russia!” Fraud. They can die in a fire as far as I am concerned. So sorry Hunter won’t be getting anymore graft for the big guy from that corrupt s-hole.
Putin is a nasty, throat cutting bastard. Unlike our feckless, “everyone gets a trophy” western elites, he probably has gotten his hands dirty for real on behalf of his country. I am willing to bet he won’t be checking his watch at a ceremony for the returning fallen Russian soldiers.
Compared to the western “elites”, he is a genius, but that’s a low bar to step over. The most important thing is Putin actually wants the best for his nation. Wouldn’t it be nice if our leaders did as well?
" Trump should not have said Putin is strategic genius? For those who compete in combat sports or real combat or war or even competitive tennis, how does it go when you underestimate your adversary? Generally, you lose. "
I am in this camp about this :
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/02/24/john-kelly-i-dont-get-praising-putin-he-is-a-murderer/
Hitler was genius but I don't recall anyone in the West praising him for it.
"Kelly added, “You know, is Putin smart? Yes. Tyrants are smart. They know what they’re doing. But that’s — I can’t imagine why someone would look at what’s happening there and see it anything other than a criminal act. I don’t get it, Jake."
I get it .
:wink:
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February 25, 2022
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Daily Memo: Russian Troops Move on Kyiv
Ukraine's president has offered to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Events in Ukraine. Russian troops are continuing to strike at various targets on Ukrainian territory, including the capital, Kyiv, where explosions and occasional gunfire were heard throughout Friday. According to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, Russian troops also gained control of the Hostomel airfield near Kyiv. In a video message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy offered to negotiate directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. For more Ukraine updates, visit our Breaking News page.
European retaliation. After an extraordinary meeting of EU leaders Thursday night, top EU diplomats are expected to approve a new package of sanctions on Friday. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated that excluding Russia from the SWIFT banking network should be reserved as a last resort, a position shared by the French foreign minister. Italy also opposes the measure but said it was willing to deploy an additional 3,400 military personnel to NATO’s eastern flank.
French mediation. French President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday evening after the emergency summit of EU leaders. Macron said he reached out to Putin at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Putin talks. Putin also spoke by phone with Syrian President Bashar Assad, who expressed strong support for Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine and condemned the destabilizing policies of the United States and NATO. Separately, the Russian president spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping and reportedly said he was ready to communicate with Kyiv. He also held talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi about Ukraine as well as efforts to reinstate Iran’s nuclear deal.
Washington's role. The U.S. has been busy meeting with allied nations over Ukraine. On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his counterparts from Israel and the United Arab Emirates. He also held talks with India’s external affairs minister, who spoke with Putin the same day. In a conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Blinken thanked Ankara for its support of Kyiv.
Gas flows. Despite the instability in Ukraine, Gazprom is continuing to supply Russian gas to Europe through Ukrainian territory as normal. The transport of Russian gas via Ukraine's transmission system actually increased by 20 percent – almost 100 million cubic meters – on Friday compared with the previous day.
Diversification. German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said Berlin was considering ways to enact laws that will help Germany diversify its energy supplies in order to reduce its dependence on Russian coal and natural gas. Part of its plan is to build more liquified natural gas terminals for receiving supplies and to expand so-called solidarity contracts to places like Poland, Italy and France.
Stability in the Balkans. NATO and the European Union Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina announced the deployment of four more companies, totaling 500 troops, to Bosnia in response to the potential spread of instability from the Ukraine crisis. The mission called the deployment a precautionary step. Anonymous Western officials reportedly said the move was in response to deteriorating security conditions globally coming from not just Ukraine but also Russian influences in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity as well as Montenegro and Serbia.
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second post
"The Uke power structure was neck deep in the “Russia, Russia, Russia!” Fraud. They can die in a fire as far as I am concerned."
Fair point!!!
Yet what message will China take from a successful cost-free Russia conquest as it contemplates Taiwan?
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Fusion, yes, but right now you build what is available right now, the cleanest, safest, most economical source.
Remember we only have 10 years to act, 20 year ago, or something like that.
For Putin in the short term, we should put American drilling, fracking and exporting on steroids. Wouldn't be bad to get the Saudis on board as well.
---------------------------
Interesting that Hunter's connection to Burisma is tied to the pro-Russian side of Ukraine politics.
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Who offered Col. Alexander “Flounder” Vindman a job as Ukrainian Defense Minister?
Fusion, yes, but right now you build what is available right now, the cleanest, safest, most economical source.
Remember we only have 10 years to act, 20 year ago, or something like that.
For Putin in the short term, we should put American drilling, fracking and exporting on steroids. Wouldn't be bad to get the Saudis on board as well.
---------------------------
Interesting that Hunter's connection to Burisma is tied to the pro-Russian side of Ukraine politics.
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Good question.
Do we have an answer?
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Good question.
Do we have an answer?
www.axios.com/impeachment-hearing-alexander-vindman-ukraine-defense-minister-f7de6d2d-1c3c-4315-98e7-3a56652dc1a3.html
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Europe Stays in Bed After Its Ukraine Wake-Up Call
Leaders understand what’s at stake in the conflict but are in denial about what a solution requires of them.
By Joseph C. Sternberg
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Feb. 24, 2022 1:32 pm ET
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German chancellor Olaf Scholz talks about the Russian invasion of Ukraine in Berlin, Feb. 24.
PHOTO: SEPP SPIEGL/ZUMA PRESS
To describe an event as a “wake-up call” implies the call’s recipient will stay awake rather than roll over and fall back asleep. Which will it be for Western Europe now that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has finally happened?
Give Europe credit for at least answering the phone. Leaders, particularly in Germany, seem to have been genuinely embarrassed by their weak and disorganized initial response when it became clear in January that an invasion was impending. The weeks since have seen steady improvement, although from a very low baseline.
READ MORE OPINION COVERAGE OF THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE
Review & Outlook: Putin’s New World Disorder
Walter Russell Mead: A Rogue Russia Tries to Reset the World Order
Peggy Noonan: Where Putin Goes From Here
Kimberley A. Strassel: Biden’s Time for Choosing
O’Brien and Gray: A Hardheaded Guide to Deterring Russia and China
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz deserves half a cheer more than he generally receives for his handling of this crisis. All signs had pointed to paralysis. His new government, in office barely a month when the Ukraine emergency started, is composed of three parties: Mr. Scholz’s soft-on-Russia center-left Social Democrats, known by the German initials SPD; the human-rights idealists of Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s left-wing Green Party; and the pro-business pragmatists of Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s Free Democrats. Even that description of countervailing impulses oversimplifies the problem. In practice, there are six or seven “parties” in Germany’s government given the complex divisions within each party on foreign-policy matters.
Outsiders (my fellow Americans, this means you and me) frustrated with Mr. Scholz’s slowness to work with NATO allies on sanctions, military aid to Kyiv and the like might have underestimated these coalition-building challenges. From this perspective it’s near miraculous that Mr. Scholz announced on the first morning after Russia’s move into Eastern Ukraine this week that he would block the opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
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That project is overwhelmingly popular among German voters. Its salesman in chief is the country’s last SPD chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. Willy Brandt’s “Ostpolitik” of rapprochement with Moscow in the late 1960s is the only original foreign-policy idea the SPD ever had, and pressure within the party to stick to that line is immense. Despite these headwinds, Mr. Scholz formed a tenuous consensus for a somewhat harder line on Russia.
But Mr. Scholz still only gets half a cheer, because this amounts to an enormous political effort to settle debates Berlin ought to have resolved 14 years ago, when Mr. Putin first started attacking Russia’s neighbors. Worse, the one strategic issue Berlin has managed to settle, it settled in exactly the wrong way.
That’s energy policy. Climate protection might as well be the established religion in Germany, complete with tithes in the form of consistently high energy prices. German politicians and citizens agree they want their future to be zero-carbon. They’ve all gotten a crash course the past month in how quickly that domestic-policy virtue signaling transmogrifies into a strategic vulnerability.
Germany remains heavily dependent on natural gas, which found favor there in recent decades as a lower-emissions “transition fuel” while Berlin ditched coal and nuclear but before enough windmills and solar panels were installed to power Europe’s largest economy. Germany remains heavily dependent on Russian natural gas because successive German governments tried as hard as possible to discourage themselves and the rest of the world from investing in non-Russian production and shipping.
Answering the Ukraine wake-up call here would mean adopting a new understanding of how this bunch of policies, once viewed solely through a domestic lens, affect national security or conflict with other values such as “solidarity” with Ukraine. A simple step, and a sign Germany is starting to get it, would be to delay the shutdown of the country’s remaining three nuclear plants scheduled this year.
Yet across multiple conversations with foreign-relations and economic experts here over the past two weeks, the only thing everyone agreed on is that nuclear power won’t return to Germany. The political consensus against it is too strong. Most of the experts understand, more or less, how dangerous this antinuclear policy is. Politicians and voters are in denial.
This isn’t to pick only on the Germans. Across Europe the same problem repeats itself. The U.K. is only now starting to discuss the vulnerability of its financial system to Russian money launderers and asset hiders because London has not previously been willing to jeopardize an economic model that relies excessively on its broad financial-services industry to generate jobs, gross domestic product and tax revenue. Cracking down on Russia there might require substantial regulatory and enforcement changes touching the entire industry. Italy faces German-style energy vulnerabilities thanks to its own hostility to nuclear power.
Waking up suggests not only a change in mental state from asleep to alert, but also a change in physical position from horizontal under the duvet to upright and dressed for the day. Alertness is not necessarily Europe’s shortfall here. Europe’s problem is that as awake as it is regarding the Putin threat, it still doesn’t want to get out of bed.
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How the timing looks:
(https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/02/image020.png?w=518&ssl=1)
https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/02/image020.png?w=518&ssl=1
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February 27, 2022
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The Economic Retaliation Against Russia Takes Shape
The headline measures involved SWIFT and restricting Moscow’s ample international reserves.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
The economic retaliation against Russia for invading Ukraine is starting to shape up. The United States announced on Feb. 24 that along with Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union, it would impose a variety of sanctions against Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, military chief Valery Gerasimov and hundreds of members of the Russian parliament and Security Council, as well as a variety of businessmen and oligarchs, have been put on an asset freeze and travel ban list.
But among the most important measures is the disconnection of Russian banks from SWIFT, a member-owned association connecting more than 11,000 banks, financial institutions and corporations in more than 200 countries and territories, allowing them to communicate rapidly, securely and inexpensively. (Because SWIFT was formed in Belgium, it must comply with EU regulations. This is why even though the U.S. in theory could have pressured SWIFT to move even more quickly against Russia, it needed the EU on board.) It is a critical service provider, having a systemic role in supporting payment systems worldwide. In practical terms, SWIFT allows bank customers from corporations to students to pensioners to make daily transactions. It connects your account in your bank to another account in another bank, making rapid payments possible.
If all Russian banks are excluded from SWIFT, it will be extremely difficult for Russia to make financial transactions of nearly any kind internationally, let alone circumvent sanctions. In terms of registered users, it is the second-largest country in the association after the U.S. That includes about half (or roughly 300) of Russia’s financial institutions.
The obvious question the SWIFT issue raises is whether Europe, which is highly exposed to Russia’s economy, particularly on energy, might be shooting itself in the foot. But SWIFT notably doesn’t monitor the details of every transaction, and in any case, Western press releases all noted that only “select” banks would be disconnected. It’s possible the EU – led by Germany, a huge buyer of Russian hydrocarbons – has given itself room to continue to buy some Russian energy. Such things are still negotiated and details will be released soon.
Even so, the inability to use SWIFT for regular payments will hurt European economies operating in Russia. Energy firm BP, for example, is already considering divesting. London-listed Coca-Cola HBC, which bottles Coke for Russia, Ukraine and much of Central and Eastern Europe, employs 7,000 people. French yogurt maker Danone controls Russian dairy brand Prostokvashino and gets 6 percent of total sales from the country. (This is to say nothing of the many Asian companies operating in Russia that will likewise be affected.)
The belief is that the measures will hurt Russia much more than Europe. But as important, they are meant to buy time for businesses to adapt and react to changes affecting their operations. This is the EU after all. That means the process will be slow. It will take days or weeks for this to go into effect.
Fear, of course, moves faster, especially for Russian citizens who don’t know what to expect next. They have understandably rushed to banks and ATM machines to withdraw money. (Mastercard, Visa and ApplePay will no longer work for them once the SWIFT measures are implemented.)
However, Russia is insulated from its expulsion somewhat by the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), its homegrown version of SWIFT. Only about 20 percent of all domestic transfers are conducted through SPFS currently, but that figure will surely grow. It has plenty of drawbacks – it doesn’t work on the weekend, and messages are limited to a much smaller 20KB – but it has virtually no international exposure, and Belarus said in December that it would leave SWIFT for the SPFS.
Russia hopes expansion won’t stop there. Since 2019, Moscow has been planning to link the SPFS to Eurasian Economic Union members (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) as well as Iran, India and Turkey. Russia is also reportedly seeking to integrate the SPFS with the China-based Cross-Border Inter-Bank Payments System (CBIBPS), something that may be accelerated considering the current urgency.
But the SPFS’ success elsewhere will depend entirely on the state of the Russian economy. So far, things aren’t looking great: Many people are cashing in their deposits, and international businesses are thinking of leaving the country. Most withdrawals are taken out in dollars and euros. International companies closing down businesses will transfer their funds abroad in foreign currencies and those adapting will likely set up reserves in dollars or euros, all considered more reliable in times of crisis in Russia. All this is putting inflationary pressure on the Russian ruble. Uncertainty is unfriendly to the currency of an already weakened economy.
This is why, for the time being, the more potentially devastating sanctions involve restrictions on how Russia’s central bank can deploy its international reserves. They will certainly be implemented more quickly than SWIFT restrictions, and they will prevent Russia from using its reserves to combat inflation. (Note: Russia currently holds about $640 billion in reserves, more than half of which is held in foreign currencies. Demand for the Russian ruble is already low after three days of war in Ukraine. Moscow would need to increase liquidity to counteract this pressure – sell some of the dollars, euros or gold it held internationally and counter the increase in demand for foreign currency against the rubble on its internal market. But that will, of course, now be more difficult.)
More details will come out about the sanctions regime, which could always change, but from what we can tell so far they are bad for Russia and Russia alone. They introduce the prospect of hyperinflation – with no ability to use reserves to deter the already growing inflation, short of crucial imports, Russian production would become more expensive. Printing money will become the only solution, but the limited ability to pay for producing goods and services and mass unemployment will be just around the corner. Little wonder, then, that President Vladimir Putin has already asked for negotiations.
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How the timing looks:
(https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/02/image020.png?w=518&ssl=1)
https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/02/image020.png?w=518&ssl=1
Pure coincidence, Doug!
Is this part of the Deep State Junta’s plan?
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/02/26/stunning-discovery-evidence-suggests-u-s-intel-baited-russia-in-december-by-telling-china-ukraine-was-coming-into-nato/#more-228614
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GM: Reluctant to run with that without some sort of confirmation , , , Any other sources on this?
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GM: Reluctant to run with that without some sort of confirmation , , , Any other sources on this?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/
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Intriguing, but
a) It is only the Uke's word, and
b) I am blocked from seeing past the first two paragraphs. Are you able to paste the whole article?
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From 'Energy Independence' to this:
Paraphrasing Trump, 'You're gonna get tired of losing.'
---------------------------------------
"U.S. is a net importer of crude oil"
US importing 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2022/02/21/russia-is-a-major-supplier-of-oil-to-the-us/?sh=41c547d18c35
The 1970s called and wants their domestic and foreign policies back.
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February 28, 2022
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Open as PDF
What the Ukraine War Means for the Balkans
This is a region where separatist rhetoric can quickly turn violent.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is hosting the Western Balkans Investment Summit on Monday, with the leaders of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia all in attendance. The EU enlargement commissioner, Oliver Varhelyi, will also address the summit.
Important though the EBRD is – it’s the largest institutional investor in the region, having provided more than 15 billion euros ($17 billion) in funds to date – sometimes a summit is just a summit. But in light of the war in Ukraine, and the amount of attention the West is paying these countries, it reveals the fragility of the region.
On Feb. 24 – the day the EBRD announced the summit, and the day the invasion in Ukraine started – the European Union Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR) said it increased the number of peacekeepers in the country (some 500 soldiers comprising four companies) as a “precautionary measure” – less as a direct response to Ukraine and more as a way to get ahead of destabilized international security. Rumors about an additional deployment of troops at short notice abound, often citing unnamed EU officials.
Bosnia isn’t the only country in the region hosting peacekeeping forces. In Kosovo, the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) includes roughly 4,000 troops. They were last on alert in September 2021 when tensions rose between Serbia and Kosovo. Last week, there were fears of renewed tensions after Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced his country would not impose sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine – because Moscow did not sanction Belgrade in 1990 and has supported Serbia’s territorial integrity by not recognizing Kosovo’s independence. On Sunday, Kosovo asked the United States to establish a permanent military base in the country and speed up its integration into NATO after confirming it too will impose sanctions against Russia.
The Balkans are famously unstable. Bosnia, for example, consists of two autonomous entities: the Serb-majority Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, populated mainly by Bosniaks and Croats. Its government was structured by the Dayton Agreement in 1995, the idea being that it would be the best way for three embittered ethnicities to share power after the war. But bad blood persists, and little progress has since been made. With the economy going from bad to worse, the only thing the Croats, the Bosniaks and the Serbs living in the country seem to have in common is migrating to Western Europe where they can hope for a decent living. They blame politicians for not doing much for the stability of the country.
Ethnic Groups of Former Yugoslav States
(click to enlarge)
They may have a point; politicians rarely speak about socio-economic problems, preferring instead to cast blame and stoke their nationalist and separatist bases. In fact, EUFOR’s decision to deploy more troops comes only a few weeks after renewed ethnic tensions, thanks largely to calls from Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the tripartite presidency, for an independent Republika Srpska.
The Serb Republic isn’t the only concern. Croat political parties have threatened to boycott elections in October if the electoral law isn’t amended to increase Croats’ presence in national institutions. On Feb. 19, the Croatian National Assembly, an umbrella organization that represents most Bosnian Croat political parties, threatened to launch legal procedures to create its own entity if its conditions are not met.
On Feb. 22, just after the EU discussed the situation in Bosnia, Croatia called for the next EU summit in March to discuss the political impasse in the country. The problem is that discussing doesn’t really solve the matter. Instead, the opponents of the West are taking all such summits as good excuses to increase their own rhetoric. Just as the EU foreign ministers were discussing the situation in Bosnia, Dodik accused the U.S. and the Europeans of favoring Bosnia's Muslim majority, the Bosniaks, in a way that destabilizes the country in the long run.
Which is why the war in Ukraine matters here. Russia is hugely influential in the Balkans, and Moscow has made similar comments as Dodik for years. Dodik has a good working relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Embassy in Sarajevo has repeatedly said Russia would “react” if Bosnia ever took steps to join NATO. (Relatedly, this is why Kosovo’s recent request to join NATO is so consequential.) More important, Russia is Bosnia's biggest investor, and the country relies exclusively on Russia for its natural gas. Not to mention the years of strategic partnership between Russia and Republika Srpska that involved everything from helping Dodik politically to regular training of the republic’s security forces. In December 2021, Russia even promised to support Bosnian Serbs in their disputes over power-sharing in the country.
The conflict in Ukraine began with Russia recognizing the independence of the two separatist republics. A renewed crisis in the Balkans could start with Dodik thinking it’s time for Russia to recognize the independence of Republika Srpska. He has expressed support for the Russian invasion and said he is dissatisfied with Bosnia’s decision to cosign the EU statement condemning it. It’s certainly possible that he is stoking tensions to help carry him through elections, which he is wont to do, but considering the economic and political fragility of Bosnia, political chatter can turn into something much more violent.
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Ya, from money threD:
In Putin's words...on the US $
https://twitter.com/i/status/1195282924624465927
Vladimir Putin: "The Dollar Enjoyed Great Trust Around The World. But For Some Reason It Is Being Used As A Political Weapon, Imposing Restrictions. Many Countries Are Now Turning Away From The Dollar As A Reserve Currency. US Dollar Will Collapse Soon."
--------------------------------
That is in response to this, which is response to his act of war:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1. Western nations dropped economic sanctions of historic scale on Russia that are hobbling its financial system and effectively reversing 30 years of post-Cold War engagement. The economic moves by the U.S. and Europe, in response to the invasion of Ukraine, reverberated Monday through Russia’s economy, which was largely cut off from much of the West, and hindered the ability of Russia’s central bank to manage the country’s financial system and mitigate the damage. Western banks and businesses added to the governments’ actions by halting operations in Russia and sales to Russian companies. Many cited the risks of potentially violating sanctions. In just days, Russia has been all-but-unplugged from a global system that powered its transition from a closed, government-controlled economy to a more modern one that yielded Western goods, foreign travel and a middle-class lifestyle. (Source: bloomberg.com, wsj.com)
2. The U.S. and European Union blocked Russia’s central bank from using its emergency reserves to protect the economy from the Western pressure campaign, a salvo the bank’s governor said risked triggering a financial crisis. The coordinated action blocks the central bank from selling dollars, euros and other foreign currencies in its reserves stockpile to stabilize the ruble. Announcing the move Monday in Washington before U.S. markets opened, U.S. officials said they intended the sanctions to stoke already surging inflation, and the actions against the Bank of Russia are intended in effect to neutralize the country’s monetary defenses. The sanctions also target another major government stockpile of assets, a key sovereign-wealth fund called the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and prevent Moscow from using other government and private banks to sidestep sanctions on its financial system, the officials said. (Source: wsj.com)
3. U.S. payment card firms Visa and Mastercard have blocked multiple Russian financial institutions from their network, complying with government sanctions imposed over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Yesterday, Visa said it was taking prompt action to ensure compliance with applicable sanctions, adding that it will donate $2 million for humanitarian aid. Mastercard also promised to contribute $2 million. "We will continue to work with regulators in the days ahead to abide fully by our compliance obligations as they evolve," Mastercard said in a separate statement late on Monday. The government sanctions require Visa to suspend access to its network for entities listed as Specially Designated Nationals, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. The United States has added various Russian financial firms to the list, including the country's central bank and second-largest lender VTB. (Source: reuters.com)
4. Shipping giant Maersk will temporarily halt all container shipping to and from Russia, deepening the country’s isolation as its invasion of Ukraine sparks an exodus of Western companies. The West has imposed heavy restrictions on Russia to close off its economy and block it from the global financial system, effectively making it "uninvestable" and encouraging companies to halt sales, cut ties and dump tens of billions of dollars worth of investments. (Source: reuters.com)
[Hat tip John Ellis]
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https://www.cato.org/commentary/ignored-warnings-how-nato-expansion-led-current-ukraine-tragedy?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Cato%20Social%20Share
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"At present, NATO has 30 members. In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the Alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. The other member countries are: Greece and Turkey (1952), Germany (1955), Spain (1982), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017) and North Macedonia (2020)."
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_52044.htm
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https://stevecortes.substack.com/p/the-risks-of-heeding-americas-warmongers?utm_source=url
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https://stevecortes.substack.com/p/the-risks-of-heeding-americas-warmongers?utm_source=url
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/russia-use-nuclear-weapons-nato-ukraine/
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https://stevecortes.substack.com/p/the-risks-of-heeding-americas-warmongers?utm_source=url
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/russia-use-nuclear-weapons-nato-ukraine/
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/you-want-a-cyber-world-war-this-is?utm_source=url
If we are lucky...
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(What is GAE?)
-----------------
Every time I hear, 'we've got Putin backed into a corner", I wonder, is that a good thing?
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https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-03-01/poland-nato-russia-invasion-ukraine-5185737.html?fbclid=IwAR3TE0T30vh7TcplGkgqJVGiosausBJ8ubbGMFPJUn7rSX_09aoAVoKh47I
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https://russiandefpolicy.com/2022/02/07/mass-fire-strike-on-ukraine/
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https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-03-01/poland-nato-russia-invasion-ukraine-5185737.html?fbclid=IwAR3TE0T30vh7TcplGkgqJVGiosausBJ8ubbGMFPJUn7rSX_09aoAVoKh47I
Russia could quite reasonably see that as an act of war. We are on the razor's edge of WWIII and need to tread carefully.
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Grrr , , , a fair point , , , grrr
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(What is GAE?)
-----------------
Every time I hear, 'we've got Putin backed into a corner", I wonder, is that a good thing?
Globalist American Empire
Alternately Gay American Empire as the only flag they have any attachment towards is the rainbow flag.
As Sun Tzu said "Give Putin a golden bridge to exit Ukraine from, lest he crash your grid and turn your cities into radioactive glass".
That may not be a direct quote.
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The danger of course is that he takes that bridge as a green light to "victory".
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The danger of course is that he takes that bridge as a green light to "victory".
Unlikely. The Russian performance has been seriously lacking. Russia has invested roughly half its military might in this operation, the losses they have taken at this point will have an adverse impact they will feel for years.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/03/germany-putin-ukraine-invasion/623322/?fbclid=IwAR2MgN-BYutiVl7vnmkJ3jFoaLfEojttNhYwdudgMA1lZTTi1HzgXLLz75I
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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/03/germany-putin-ukraine-invasion/623322/?fbclid=IwAR2MgN-BYutiVl7vnmkJ3jFoaLfEojttNhYwdudgMA1lZTTi1HzgXLLz75I
You know things are bad when people are cheering Germany re-militarizing.
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https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220228-belarus-approves-hosting-nuclear-weapons-russian-forces-permanently
(What is GAE?)
-----------------
Every time I hear, 'we've got Putin backed into a corner", I wonder, is that a good thing?
Globalist American Empire
Alternately Gay American Empire as the only flag they have any attachment towards is the rainbow flag.
As Sun Tzu said "Give Putin a golden bridge to exit Ukraine from, lest he crash your grid and turn your cities into radioactive glass".
That may not be a direct quote.
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https://twitter.com/m_suchkov/status/1497961761554710531
This is how things will get WWIII started.
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-03-01/poland-nato-russia-invasion-ukraine-5185737.html?fbclid=IwAR3TE0T30vh7TcplGkgqJVGiosausBJ8ubbGMFPJUn7rSX_09aoAVoKh47I
Russia could quite reasonably see that as an act of war. We are on the razor's edge of WWIII and need to tread carefully.
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ASSESSMENTS
How the Ukraine War Will Impact Poland
6 MIN READMar 1, 2022 | 22:00 GMT
Refugees from Ukraine line up to enter Poland on Feb. 28 at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland.
Refugees from Ukraine line up to enter Poland on Feb. 28 at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland.
(WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
While Poland faces no immediate threat of Russian military aggression, it is exposed to unconventional attacks from Moscow that will keep tensions high in the coming weeks. The events in Ukraine could also negatively impact the Polish economy, while the influx of migrants from Ukraine could produce a nationalist backlash. Poland's primary geopolitical concern is a potential Russian attack, which explains why it is one of the most hawkish EU and NATO member states when it comes to calling for sanctions against Russia. But Poland faces no immediate threat of Russian invasion because it is covered by NATO's collective defense framework, and Russia is not interested in going to war with the alliance. Russia's response to EU sanctions, however, will likely include unconventional aggressions such as cyberattacks against governments and businesses and disinformation campaigns. So while Poland faces no direct military threat from Russia, the risk of other forms of warfare will remain high for several weeks.
Russia's actions in Ukraine are likely to cause Poland to increase its military spending. The country already is one of the few NATO member states that meets the alliance's target of spending at least 2% of its gross domestic product on defense spending. Russia's invasion of Ukraine will make it easier for Poland's military establishment to convince politicians to increase defense spending, and will also motivate the government to spend more on cybersecurity.
In the short term, the events in Ukraine will reduce tensions between Poland and the European Commission and pause threats from Brussels to cut Warsaw's funding. For years, Brussels has accused Warsaw of increasing political control of the judiciary and pressuring independent media, while Warsaw has accused Brussels of interfering in Polish domestic affairs. This is a risky confrontation for Warsaw, because the commission has threatened to suspend EU funding, of which Poland is a net receiver. The need to show a united front against Russia and Poland's exposure to events in Ukraine, however, will likely result in a truce between Brussels and Warsaw that will reduce the risk of cutting much-needed EU funding for Poland, at least temporarily.
In mid-February, the European Court of Justice ruled that a mechanism to link the disbursement of EU funds to respecting the bloc's values and norms is legal. This gives the European Commission leverage in its dealings with member states that refuse to comply with the bloc's rules.
Despite a temporary truce with Brussels, EU sanctions against Russia and the probable collapse of the Ukrainian economy will negatively impact Poland. Trade between Russia and Poland is not particularly strong, but Poland imports goods such as fertilizers and chemicals from Russia and exports agricultural products to Russia, all of which could be affected by the combination of trade sanctions and the negative economic impact of war on the Russian economy. In recent years Poland has reduced its reliance on Russian natural gas by increasing its liquefied natural gas imports, which means that it is in a relatively good position to withstand eventual reductions in Russian exports to Europe. But if the Ukraine crisis continues to result in higher oil prices around the world, it could have an inflationary impact on Poland. In the meantime, trade between Poland and Ukraine is relatively small, with only about 2% of Poland's exports going to Ukraine. Still, should the war with Russia continue for several weeks, it would probably have a severe impact on the Ukrainian economy that will in turn have a negative impact on Polish exports at a time when Poland is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In late 2021, the Polish government announced that it will not sign another long-term supply contract with Russian energy giant Gazprom after its current contract expires at the end of 2022. Instead, Warsaw plans to replace Russian natural gas imports with LNG imports, supplies from the upcoming Baltic Pipe (which will transport natural gas from Norway) and spot deals. In addition, Poland plans to supply the parts of the country that are the farthest away from its LNG terminal through the upcoming Poland-Slovakia gas interconnector, which will become operational in late 2022.
On Feb. 21, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin said that natural gas storage facilities in Poland are 80-90% full, which would delay for weeks the impact of Russia cutting its supplies to the country.
The increase in migrants from Ukraine could over time produce a nationalist backlash in Poland. While in the short term Polish authorities and local communities will welcome these migrants out of solidarity, in the long run, a significant spike in the arrival of Ukrainians could produce mixed results in Poland. On the one hand, it could help Poland mitigate the demographic impact of low fertility rates and high emigration rates by providing a significant influx of young Ukrainians seeking to enter the Polish workforce. On the other, it could also generate a nationalist reaction in Poland, especially in rural areas in the east of the country where the standards of living are lower and where some of the migrants at least initially will likely be housed. Poland's nationalist government is critical of immigration, which means that after the Ukraine crisis is over Polish authorities could take a stricter stance on Ukrainian immigrants. Poland will hold a legislative election in late 2023, and immigration is likely to be a central issue of the electoral campaign.
According to the United Nations, more than 520,000 people have left Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia, with more than half of them going (280,000) to Poland and the rest opting for Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova. While most of them are Ukrainian nationals, there are also thousands of nationals from African and Middle Eastern countries who were studying or working in Ukraine; their arrival is more likely to provoke a nationalist backlash in Poland.
Around 1.5 million Ukrainian nationals currently live in Poland. Poland's growing economy, higher standards of living and cultural similarities with Ukraine are some of the main reasons for migration. According to EU data, most Ukrainian migrants are under 40 years of age.
More than a million Polish citizens left the country in the decade that followed Poland's EU accession in 2004. Poland's fertility rate stands at 1.4 children per woman, one of the lowest in the world. If it remains unchanged, this combination of high emigration and low fertility rates will result in the aging and reduction of Poland's population in the coming decades.
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=258&v=2jy3JU-ORpo&feature=emb_logo
Luckily, we have very smart people running things on our side, so there is no way this could happen!
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=258&v=2jy3JU-ORpo&feature=emb_logo
Luckily, we have very smart people running things on our side, so there is no way this could happen!
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/february/escalate-de-escalate
-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=258&v=2jy3JU-ORpo&feature=emb_logo
Luckily, we have very smart people running things on our side, so there is no way this could happen!
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/february/escalate-de-escalate
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2022/03/02/battlefield-nuke-detonated-and-joe-biden-dropped-it-n1562958
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https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/february/escalate-de-escalate
"Today the communist ideology is gone, but the Soviet threat perception remains the same—Russia considers the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) its main enemies."
- We are such a threat to them; we might attack unprovoked at any time. Oh wait, is it the other way around?
-
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/february/escalate-de-escalate
"Today the communist ideology is gone, but the Soviet threat perception remains the same—Russia considers the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) its main enemies."
- We are such a threat to them; we might attack unprovoked at any time. Oh wait, is it the other way around?
We have been encroaching on them since the end of the Cold War, just exactly as we promised we wouldn’t.
It doesn’t matter if we agree with their worldview, Russia sees NATO as a threat and and has made very clear for a long time where their red lines were.
-
From Matt Bracken:
You might not agree with an adversary (Russia in this case), but to dismiss and ignore their legitimate security concerns is dangerously stupid. It is always wise to look at a war or a potential war from the other side's perspective, if only to improve the effectiveness of your own efforts.
Russia is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya or Serbia, easy (and safe) for America and NATO to slap around. Russia has the most powerful nuclear force on the planet. Miscalculation over Ukraine can rapidly escalate into full-blown war and a nuclear exchange. For Russia, Ukraine joining NATO is a redline worth going to war over. We ignore this at our own peril.
In 1962, we already had medium-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Turkey. When the USSR obtained a client state (Cuba) 100 miles from Florida, they thought it would be fair turnabout to also have their own MRBMs in range of America. (ICBMs were not yet available.) When the missiles were discovered in Cuba, the result was that America was outraged, rightly, and we very nearly had a nuclear exchange.
It was not "JFK backed down Khrushchev!" as American media portrayed it. Diplomats and generals on both sides later wrote that we came within a hair-breadth of a full nuclear exchange. In the deal that was worked out, we also (quietly) removed our MRBMs from Turkey. Part of the agreement was that the USSR would not crow about how they forced us to move our missiles out of Turkey.
Today Russia looks at Ukraine, and they see it as the 1942 invasion route of the Nazis, which came very close to cutting off their Caspian oil, which would have caused the rapid collapse and defeat of the USSR. The idea of NATO forces prepositioned across Ukraine, directly on the Russian border, armed with tanks and MRBMs, is a redline they have repeatedly said they could not tolerate.
The Russians think: at least the Germans had to fight their way to Ukraine and and then across it. How much worse to have NATO forces already in Ukraine, poised in striking range with missiles and tanks, ready to nuke Moscow in minutes, and occupy or destroy the Caspian oil fields in days?
We teased Ukraine into believing that if they were compliant with American, EU and NATO desires, they'd eventually join both groups. Instead, Russia was provoked into removing the possibility of NATO forces ever being positioned in Ukraine by their own invasion. This was all entirely foreseeable.
Imagine Khrushchev saying to JFK: "Our Cuban allies requested these armaments to protect them from continued Yankee aggression. So screw you, our missiles will stay in Cuba." It would have meant nuclear war. This is how dire the Russians consider even the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO as a full partner.
We ignore their perspective at our own peril.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/february/escalate-de-escalate
"Today the communist ideology is gone, but the Soviet threat perception remains the same—Russia considers the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) its main enemies."
- We are such a threat to them; we might attack unprovoked at any time. Oh wait, is it the other way around?
We have been encroaching on them since the end of the Cold War, just exactly as we promised we wouldn’t.
It doesn’t matter if we agree with their worldview, Russia sees NATO as a threat and and has made very clear for a long time where their red lines were.
-
Like the way we went after Chechnya, Georgia, Caucasus, Crimea and all of Ukraine? Oh wait...
-
Like the way we went after Chechnya, Georgia, Caucasus, Crimea and all of Ukraine? Oh wait...
Trump deterred Putin. Stolen elections have consequences.
What should the US and/or NATO do?
-
https://www.theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-after-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999
We were warned.
From Matt Bracken:
You might not agree with an adversary (Russia in this case), but to dismiss and ignore their legitimate security concerns is dangerously stupid. It is always wise to look at a war or a potential war from the other side's perspective, if only to improve the effectiveness of your own efforts.
Russia is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya or Serbia, easy (and safe) for America and NATO to slap around. Russia has the most powerful nuclear force on the planet. Miscalculation over Ukraine can rapidly escalate into full-blown war and a nuclear exchange. For Russia, Ukraine joining NATO is a redline worth going to war over. We ignore this at our own peril.
In 1962, we already had medium-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Turkey. When the USSR obtained a client state (Cuba) 100 miles from Florida, they thought it would be fair turnabout to also have their own MRBMs in range of America. (ICBMs were not yet available.) When the missiles were discovered in Cuba, the result was that America was outraged, rightly, and we very nearly had a nuclear exchange.
It was not "JFK backed down Khrushchev!" as American media portrayed it. Diplomats and generals on both sides later wrote that we came within a hair-breadth of a full nuclear exchange. In the deal that was worked out, we also (quietly) removed our MRBMs from Turkey. Part of the agreement was that the USSR would not crow about how they forced us to move our missiles out of Turkey.
Today Russia looks at Ukraine, and they see it as the 1942 invasion route of the Nazis, which came very close to cutting off their Caspian oil, which would have caused the rapid collapse and defeat of the USSR. The idea of NATO forces prepositioned across Ukraine, directly on the Russian border, armed with tanks and MRBMs, is a redline they have repeatedly said they could not tolerate.
The Russians think: at least the Germans had to fight their way to Ukraine and and then across it. How much worse to have NATO forces already in Ukraine, poised in striking range with missiles and tanks, ready to nuke Moscow in minutes, and occupy or destroy the Caspian oil fields in days?
We teased Ukraine into believing that if they were compliant with American, EU and NATO desires, they'd eventually join both groups. Instead, Russia was provoked into removing the possibility of NATO forces ever being positioned in Ukraine by their own invasion. This was all entirely foreseeable.
Imagine Khrushchev saying to JFK: "Our Cuban allies requested these armaments to protect them from continued Yankee aggression. So screw you, our missiles will stay in Cuba." It would have meant nuclear war. This is how dire the Russians consider even the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO as a full partner.
We ignore their perspective at our own peril.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/february/escalate-de-escalate
"Today the communist ideology is gone, but the Soviet threat perception remains the same—Russia considers the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) its main enemies."
- We are such a threat to them; we might attack unprovoked at any time. Oh wait, is it the other way around?
We have been encroaching on them since the end of the Cold War, just exactly as we promised we wouldn’t.
It doesn’t matter if we agree with their worldview, Russia sees NATO as a threat and and has made very clear for a long time where their red lines were.
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quote author=G M
Trump deterred Putin. Stolen elections have consequences.
What should the US and/or NATO do?
----------------------
No easy or immediate solutions now. As you say above, a certain combination of things with Trump deterred or slowed him. Biden will be a historic case study on what not to do. Besides sanctions and arming with 'defensive' weapons, there isn't much we can do short of full scale war. As I and perhaps everyone on our side has said, drill baby drill, frack, build pipelines, build refineries, build exports, build a thousand nuclear plants in the US and Europe, squeeze China, and shrink his one dimensional economy until the revolt takes him down from within.
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We had better start drilling ASAP, I am guessing we have little strategic reserves at this point. The greens here and in eurostan did a lot to empower Putin’s military adventurism. The second and third order effects from our actions are going to have seriously negative consequences globally.
If we are lucky enough to avoid WWIII and the release of canned sunshine on various cities, we may be facing the global financial collapse. Nice distraction for the corrupt western governments facing pushback for their Covidiocy-totalitarian actions.
https://mtracey.substack.com/p/escalation-alert-is-nato-fighting?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDQ2Mzg1NSwiXyI6IjYrTUNFIiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ2MTk0MjYzLCJleHAiOjE2NDYxOTc4NjMsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0zMDMxODgiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.YY8OB9Z19E35h34e88cV_ZQKg4DwDmT0xCYyX21r4EM&s=r
quote author=G M
Trump deterred Putin. Stolen elections have consequences.
What should the US and/or NATO do?
----------------------
No easy or immediate solutions now. As you say above, a certain combination of things with Trump deterred or slowed him. Biden will be a historic case study on what not to do. Besides sanctions and arming with 'defensive' weapons, there isn't much we can do short of full scale war. As I and perhaps everyone on our side has said, drill baby drill, frack, build pipelines, build refineries, build exports, build a thousand nuclear plants in the US and Europe, squeeze China, and shrink his one dimensional economy until the revolt takes him down from within.
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https://www.revolver.news/2022/03/how-american-elites-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-love-the-bomb/
We had better start drilling ASAP, I am guessing we have little strategic reserves at this point. The greens here and in eurostan did a lot to empower Putin’s military adventurism. The second and third order effects from our actions are going to have seriously negative consequences globally.
If we are lucky enough to avoid WWIII and the release of canned sunshine on various cities, we may be facing the global financial collapse. Nice distraction for the corrupt western governments facing pushback for their Covidiocy-totalitarian actions.
https://mtracey.substack.com/p/escalation-alert-is-nato-fighting?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDQ2Mzg1NSwiXyI6IjYrTUNFIiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ2MTk0MjYzLCJleHAiOjE2NDYxOTc4NjMsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0zMDMxODgiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.YY8OB9Z19E35h34e88cV_ZQKg4DwDmT0xCYyX21r4EM&s=r
quote author=G M
Trump deterred Putin. Stolen elections have consequences.
What should the US and/or NATO do?
----------------------
No easy or immediate solutions now. As you say above, a certain combination of things with Trump deterred or slowed him. Biden will be a historic case study on what not to do. Besides sanctions and arming with 'defensive' weapons, there isn't much we can do short of full scale war. As I and perhaps everyone on our side has said, drill baby drill, frack, build pipelines, build refineries, build exports, build a thousand nuclear plants in the US and Europe, squeeze China, and shrink his one dimensional economy until the revolt takes him down from within.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10569141/Putin-NOT-crazy-Russian-invasion-NOT-failing-writes-military-analyst-BILL-ROGGIO.html
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https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Russian-Gas-Via-Yamal-Pipeline-Halts-Flows-To-Germany.html
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interesting
but what do I care
they voted for Merkel
they stopped their nuclear power
that is their problem
our problem is the Democrat Party whose members are not letting us frack and drill
here
But Biden will grandstand and yell " the evil russians " are cause of gas spikes ... here
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March 3, 2022
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Finland and Sweden Revive NATO Membership Debate
The Ukraine crisis has pushed both countries to consider joining the alliance.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
On March 1, Finnish lawmakers began debating whether their country should join NATO. The move came after more than 50,000 people in Finland signed a petition calling for a referendum on accession. And there are other indications that support for membership is growing: A poll conducted by Finland’s state broadcaster Yle found that 53 percent of Finns would support joining the alliance. Before making any decision, however, the country will likely consult with its close ally and fellow non-member Sweden, which is also reconsidering its status in light of the war in Ukraine.
Different Paths
The crisis has revived a debate over NATO membership in both countries. Finland’s historical refusal to join the alliance resulted from what many know as Finlandization, a term used to describe the country’s official neutrality during the Cold War. The country’s status was first established by a 1948 treaty with Moscow in which Finland agreed to remain neutral in the conflict between the West and the Soviet Union, and the Soviets agreed not to invade and turn the country into a satellite state, as happened to many Eastern European nations at the time. Finland’s imperative was to avoid conflict with its neighbor, having lost territory to the Soviets in two wars in 1939 and 1944. As part of the arrangement, Finland agreed to stay out of NATO.
Over time, it established good relations with the Soviet Union, and neutrality eventually evolved into Finland adapting its domestic and foreign policies to suit the Soviets while also maintaining ties with the West. Since the end of the Cold War, Finland has remained friendly with Russia, but it no longer adjusts it behavior to accommodate its neighbor. With a weak Russia to its east, it has much more room for maneuver.
It has also developed closer ties with Sweden, which has long had an adversarial relationship with Russia. They fought wars for centuries over control of the Baltic Sea region, and in 1809, the then-Kingdom of Sweden lost the Finnish portion of its territory to Russia. Since then, it has avoided engaging in military conflict with the Russians. It remained neutral during the two world wars, pursued a non-alignment policy and declined to join NATO. Still, it sees Russia as the main challenger to its imperative to maintain control of the Gulf of Bothnia coast, where its capital, Stockholm, is located.
Both Finland and Sweden joined the European Union in 1994 and have an interest in keeping the Baltic Sea – their main trade route to Europe and the world – open for maritime traffic. They therefore cooperate with NATO members in the region, but only in such a way that doesn’t irritate Russia.
A Step Too Far?
Also in 1994, Finland and Sweden joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. The initiative was essentially meant as a way for former Soviet Union countries to participate in NATO activities without acquiring membership. Those who support the program see it as a way to deepen security ties between NATO and non-NATO members, especially in unstable or conflict-prone regions. Sweden and Finland’s participation in the program was a compromise, satisfying both pro- and anti-membership camps within their countries.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, few objected to the arrangement; Russia, for one, was preoccupied with its economic problems after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But over time, Russia became a resurgent power and looked to secure its buffer zones. 2008 was a turning point: Its invasion of Georgia forced NATO to prioritize security of the Baltic states and the Baltic Sea, which had implications for Sweden and Finland. NATO concluded that the Swedish island of Gotland was essential to its defense of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and thus temporarily deployed surface-to-air missiles on the island to secure control of the southern Baltic Sea.
Another turning point came in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. For Sweden, it was further evidence that it needed to bolster its defenses. That year, Sweden and Finland decided to deepen cooperation between their militaries, and in 2015, their governments acknowledged the extensive ties between their armed forces. Around this time, public support for NATO accession was relatively high. Still, both governments separately concluded that seeking membership could trigger a backlash from Russia and thus decided not to pursue it.
Sweden Should Apply for NATO Membership
(click to enlarge)
Finland Should Apply for NATO Membership
(click to enlarge)
But since 2014, their relationships with Moscow have diverged. In Sweden, reports of incursions into its waters and airspace as well as cyberattacks all apparently linked to Russia have caused tensions between Moscow and Stockholm. Most recently, in January, several reports of drones flying over sensitive areas of Swedish territory – the royal palace at Drottningholm, a water treatment center near Norsborg and nuclear power stations – were all linked to Moscow, leading to calls to consider NATO membership.
The situation is somewhat different in Finland. It hasn’t experienced the same incursions on its territory and infrastructure, so the debate around NATO has focused on questions over its political sovereignty and identity. Opponents argue that membership would weaken Finno-Russian relations, which have been carefully cultivated since the mid-1940s. It could also jeopardize trade between the two countries as well as Finland’s energy supplies, about 60 percent of which come from Russia. Sweden, on the other hand, doesn’t rely heavily on Russia for energy or trade.
Since the war in Ukraine began last week, however, the Finnish public seems to be warming to the idea of membership. Polls show record high support for NATO accession, and several protests against the Russian invasion have occurred. Current attitudes in Sweden are harder to gauge because the most recent survey on NATO membership was conducted in January, before the Russian invasion. That poll, conducted by Demoskop, found 42 percent of Swedes supported membership while 37 percent opposed it.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated NATO’s openness to Finland and Sweden joining the alliance last month during a meeting with their foreign ministers in Brussels. In fact, both countries have deepened cooperation with the alliance, including working with the Nordic Defence Cooperation initiative and participating in NATO exercises in the Baltic region.
Still, attitudes toward membership will depend on perceptions of the Russian threat. It’s a difficult balance between fear of being attacked by Russia without having the protection of NATO, and fear of triggering Russian aggression or being drawn into a conflict with Moscow by joining NATO.
Either way, Finland and Sweden’s relationships to war may lead them down separate paths. Sweden has not experienced a war on its territory in more than 200 years – which may explain why public support for NATO membership has historically been higher here than in Finland. Finns, meanwhile, are conscious of their relatively recent history of conflict with the Soviet Union and want to avoid hostilities at all costs – which may explain why many support membership now only after seeing Russia attack another neighbor. They have different reasons to remain neutral, and different reasons to reconsider their neutrality. But if forced to choose, both will stand by NATO.
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March 1, 2022
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The New Old Germany
2022 isn’t 1914 or 1939, but an armed Germany is significant.
By: George Friedman
It seems that Russia had two distinct but overlapping goals in invading Ukraine. The first was to take control of its western borderland, an area that gives it strategic depth and that Moscow believes to be in its sphere of influence. The second was to pit NATO members against each other, breaking off factions that opposed any form of intervention. Whatever anyone says about President Vladimir Putin’s character and temperament is irrelevant. For Russia, there’s a logic to the strategy. Defending one’s country is a ruthless task.
From Russia’s perspective, Ukraine shouldn’t matter to any country unless that country wants to strangle Russia – something that wouldn’t happen if NATO didn’t exist. If Europe wasn’t a base of operations for the United States, Russia’s primary adversary, the United States wouldn’t be a threat.
Central to all calculations on European power is Germany. It’s been a military nonentity for some time, and since 1991 its primary focus has been economic growth. It has a massive, export-oriented economy that requires a ton of energy, and much of that energy comes from Russia. (More will come if and when the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline comes online.) The Russians planned this crisis with this in mind.
Like virtually all countries, Germany was hurting from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic when the war in Ukraine started. The loss of Russian energy would only make things worse. Since Germany and Russia tend to cooperate on economic matters, and Germany has avoided both military rearmament and confrontations with Russia, Moscow assumed that whatever it did in Ukraine was of no consequence to Berlin.
The first few days of the invasion seemed to validate Russia’s thinking. At first, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphatically said that he would not permit the supply of weapons to Ukraine from Germany. In another case, a British aircraft delivering anti-tank missiles to Ukraine routed itself around Germany rather than ask for overflight rights. Meanwhile, Putin met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to arrange a natural gas agreement, but Orban said he was not prepared to take a hostile stance toward Germany. This raised hopes in the Kremlin that the alliance could be split. If even a minor country like Hungary, a former Soviet satellite, was prepared to pull away from NATO, then the foundation of American power on the European Peninsula was dissolving, or so the thinking went.
But Putin failed to understand Germany’s own anxieties toward Russia. Russia and Germany could work closely under the NATO framework, but if that framework melted, and Ukraine fell, then the only thing standing between Germany and Russia would be Poland. This may sound paranoid, but the fact that Russia essentially took over Belarus last year in a bloodless coup and is trying to take over Ukraine now suggests the paranoia had some merit.
The German strategic position was collapsing. Berlin was at odds with its fellow EU and NATO members, France was emerging as the primary European interlocutor, and the United States, the foundation of German national security, was growing impatient if not hostile. The government hoped that for all the grumbling about Ukraine, business with Russia could continue unabated as the U.S. would handle any serious military confrontation.
But it was not to be. Washington hasn’t taken military action, of course, but it has placed massive economic burdens on Russia that will halt the flow of energy to Europe. The dream of having strong commercial ties with Russia while being part of NATO was over. Russia made that impossible. Berlin was forced to do what it didn’t want to do: choose. But then it really was no choice at all. Russian gas notwithstanding, Germany said it would arm Ukraine, and more significantly, it would rearm under a significantly enhanced defense budget.
Aside from the revitalization of NATO, this may well be the most important consequence of Russia’s invasion. Recall that a powerful, militarized Germany has historically been a destabilizing force in Europe. When Germany unified in 1871, it rapidly emerged as a major but insecure economic power, worried about simultaneous attacks from Russia and France. Things are different now, of course. 2022 is a different world from 1914 and 1939. But even so, the saving grace in the eyes of many European countries is current military weakness. In geopolitics, solutions to one problem can breed new ones.
Russia has put itself in a bad position. The fragmentation of Europe is no longer possible. Even if it defeats Ukraine, it will be that much closer to a hostile Europe, led by a newly remilitarized Germany.
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Daily Memo: Russia-Ukraine Talks End, Western Sanctions Hit Global Business
Negotiations in Belarus apparently ended with no signs of capitulation.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Update on talks. After negotiations between Russia and Ukraine ended on Monday, representatives of both countries left Belarus for their respective capitals to consult with officials before the second round of talks. In a video message posted Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine did not get what it wanted but did receive “some signals.” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine would continue until its goals were achieved.
Impact of sanctions. Western sanctions on Russia are beginning to have an impact on businesses worldwide. Global shipping leader Maersk told customers it may stop bookings to and from Russia. This follows German shipping firm Hapag-Lloyd suspending orders for Ukrainian cargo and temporarily blocking bookings involving Russia. Major credit card companies Visa and Mastercard confirmed they have blocked Russian organizations from their payment networks. Oil firms BP, Equinor and Shell have independently decided to cut ties with Russian partners despite the wiggle room for energy transactions under the sanctions. Finnish corporations such as K Group, S Group, Neste and Alko announced they would no longer buy Russian products or export to Russia. And Finnish citizens are boycotting gas stations that are subsidiaries of Russia’s Lukoil.
Hungary's stance. Hungary’s foreign minister said on Monday that Budapest would not allow the transit of lethal weapons to Kyiv through Hungarian territory. Budapest did, however, vote in favor of EU financing for the purchase and delivery of weapons to Kyiv. The foreign minister said the stance was aimed at guaranteeing the security of Hungarian communities in Transcarpathia (western Ukraine). He also said that Hungary will provide humanitarian aid such as food and water.
Ankara's warning. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that, per the provisions of the Montreux Convention, Turkey has warned all countries that they should not sail warships through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. The exception is if the warship is returning to its base in the Black Sea. Cavusoglu noted that since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ankara has not received any requests for the passage of military vessels through the straits.
Italian support. The Italian government approved on Monday a decree giving the green light to transfers of vehicles, materials and equipment to the Ukrainian military. The decree also addresses energy supplies and mentions the possibility of future gas rationing. During a visit to Algeria on Monday, Italy’s foreign minister also spoke about energy diversification as part of Rome’s efforts to reduce its dependence on Russian supplies, which now account for 40 percent of Italy’s natural gas imports.
EU candidacy. The European Parliament is expected to approve Ukraine’s bid for EU candidate status on Tuesday. On Monday, eight members of the bloc – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – urged the EU to grant Kyiv official candidate status.
Stabilizing the ruble. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a series of measures to help stabilize the value of the ruble. They include obligating exporters to sell 80 percent of their foreign exchange earnings, a ban on certain types of foreign exchange transactions and a ban on Russian residents transferring foreign currency to accounts outside Russia.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10569141/Putin-NOT-crazy-Russian-invasion-NOT-failing-writes-military-analyst-BILL-ROGGIO.html
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/03/british-begin-to-suspect-something.html
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Thoughts on the contents of my Reply 358?
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Thoughts on the contents of my Reply 358?
We are long past the point where we should be spending a single penny on Germany’s defense.
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True that!
Next step in the thought process:
What happens if Ukraine does not become a quagmire and China decides to go after Taiwan? What do we do then?
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True that!
Next step in the thought process:
What happens if Ukraine does not become a quagmire and China decides to go after Taiwan? What do we do then?
We should cut and run, which is what we will do after the PLA kills a carrier group or two. China’s generals openly discuss that they will trade 100,000 troops to kill 10,000 Americans, and that the American public will not tolerate those losses and give up on Taiwan.
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Can't say that is poorly reasoned but a follow up question:
What happens after we cut and run?
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Can't say that is poorly reasoned but a follow up question:
What happens after we cut and run?
Every nation will need to make hard choices based on their own self interests. Our country is in dire need of unfcuking it’s self.
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"We are seeing the collapse of post Cold War triumphalism, “end of history”, “unilateralism” and all the rest of it. Reality is biting, and biting hard. All you have to do is watch CNN’s parade of talking heads and “experts” speculating about how crazy Putin is: they don’t understand, therefore he must be nuts. For the West, as it has been, it’s over. The confusion, the bullshit, the boasting, the hysteria, the bans: the West has nothing left in the locker. Pour Russian vodka down the toilet, fire a singer and director, change the name of a drink or a salad, ban cats or trees, sanction a Russian plutocrat and steal his yacht, wear a blue and yellow t-shirt. Pathetic. And don’t, under any circumstances, allow a Russian outlet to tempt the sheeple with “disinformation”. Just like the USSR but stupider. And who thought stupider was even possible?"
now everyone seeing death and destruction on cable are so outraged screaming to do more
yes we could have sent weapons in sooner
but it would not have made much difference except more death and destruction
it is not too late to beef up NATO countries (how about they do it for once)
now
and simply sit tight ;
all the while CCP sits and smiles biding their time........
whether this would have happened with T in office , I dunno,
but it is all moot now
I just hope we stay out of it
and do not escalate to nukes
and stop the liberal madness crushing us
in '22 and '24
I am not a Trump fan as noted ad nauseum but if he is the nominee
he gets my vote !
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"Our country is in dire need of unfcuking it’s self"
TRUE THIS.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60624500
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https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR18NiLcAsF3mbj2bHCD1bhnygsA-oqqvyE_ULutttu5tqAGVfIpR1A6wtg
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/04/business/lukoil-end-war/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2sAZXaLIRQVRUuQBlicle50y-CgFwYZXycqgbtSeUKQOffK9Z8lr2f2yw
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gorbachev-says-u-s-became-arrogant-after-soviet-union-collapsed/
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gorbachev-says-u-s-became-arrogant-after-soviet-union-collapsed/
He is correct. Hubris is leading us to disaster.
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https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR18NiLcAsF3mbj2bHCD1bhnygsA-oqqvyE_ULutttu5tqAGVfIpR1A6wtg
Prof. Mearsheimer, from the article: "I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO."
*****************************************************************************************
One person who strongly disagreed with that is Sen Joe Biden in 2007 who said Russia had slipped into "authoritarianism, corruption, and manufactured belligerence" and was "bully[ing] its neighbors".
https://irp.fas.org/congress/2007_hr/russia.pdf
*****************************************************************************************
- Blame the rape victim for carrying mace or blame Ukraine for wanting defensive weapons and agreements to protect itself against a "belligerent", " bullying" neighbor who happens to be a major nuclear power, I don't buy the idea that the desire to protect your country from an aggressor is justification for the aggressor to come in and crush you.
Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, as I understand it, gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees they did not receive.
Didn't everyone who studied Russia's behavior under Putin know their intent was and is to reconstitute the Soviet Union and the intent of the Soviet empire was to expand outward and threaten the west? Wasn't there adequate evidence of that at the time? Unless Sen Biden was lying in Congressional testimony in 2007, this did not start in Bucharest 2008. NATO and Ukraine were responding to the existential threat posed by Putin / Russia.
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Now do the Monroe Doctrine.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR18NiLcAsF3mbj2bHCD1bhnygsA-oqqvyE_ULutttu5tqAGVfIpR1A6wtg
Prof. Mearsheimer, from the article: "I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO."
*****************************************************************************************
One person who strongly disagreed with that is Sen Joe Biden in 2007 who said Russia had slipped into "authoritarianism, corruption, and manufactured belligerence" and was "bully[ing] its neighbors".
https://irp.fas.org/congress/2007_hr/russia.pdf
*****************************************************************************************
- Blame the rape victim for carrying mace or blame Ukraine for wanting defensive weapons and agreements to protect itself against a "belligerent", " bullying" neighbor who happens to be a major nuclear power, I don't buy the idea that the desire to protect your country from an aggressor is justification for the aggressor to come in and crush you.
Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, as I understand it, gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees they did not receive.
Didn't everyone who studied Russia's behavior under Putin know their intent was and is to reconstitute the Soviet Union and the intent of the Soviet empire was to expand outward and threaten the west? Wasn't there adequate evidence of that at the time? Unless Sen Biden was lying in Congressional testimony in 2007, this did not start in Bucharest 2008. NATO and Ukraine were responding to the existential threat posed by Putin / Russia.
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quote author=G M
"Now do the Monroe Doctrine"
Fair point but I don't think our immediate neighbors feel similarly, recently, threatened by us.
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quote author=G M
"Now do the Monroe Doctrine"
Fair point but I don't think our immediate neighbors feel similarly, recently, threatened by us.
No matter if we agree with him or not, Putin sees NATO as a dagger pointed at Russia's throat. He and many western experts have made it clear for years. Our geniuses keep moving forward until creating this crisis.
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March 6, 2022
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Can Russia Withstand Western Sanctions?
Moscow is willing to accept short-term pain for long-term gain.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western countries have introduced a series of measures to try to force the Russian economy into meltdown. Many Western governments have imposed strict sanctions on Russian banks, elites and exports, and major international companies have suspended their Russian operations. The European Union, Switzerland, Canada and others closed their airspace to Russian airlines. The Kremlin says its economy is strong enough to withstand the pressure. This may be true in the long term, but in the short, there's little question average Russian citizens will feel an impact.
Countries Banning Russia from Their Airspace
(click to enlarge)
Mitigating Factors
It’s already clear that the sanctions imposed on Moscow are having a much greater effect than previous anti-Russian sanctions. Since they were introduced, the value of the ruble has plummeted (from 81 rubles to the dollar on Feb. 23, the day before the operation was announced, to 106 rubles to the dollar on March 3), Moscow has imposed restrictions on foreign exchange, trading on the Russian stock market was closed for several days, and the share value of major Russian companies has crashed. The sanctions are also taking a toll on Russian banks, including the largest bank, Sber, which accounts for about 90 percent of transfers and about 70 percent of card payments in the country. VTB, Otkritie, Promsvyazbank, Sovcombank, Rossiya Bank, Novikombank and the state development bank VEB were all disconnected from the SWIFT banking system, which severely limits their ability to do business outside of Russia. The decision of the EU, U.S., Britain and Canada to freeze Russia’s central bank reserves will also have a big impact.
Russian Household's Investment in Currency
(click to enlarge)
Bad for Consumers
But it's unlikely that these will bring about the total collapse of the Russian economy. For one, the banks included in the sanctions list already operate mainly within Russia, where they receive most of their profits and where most of their clients are located. In addition, not all Russian banks were included in the SWIFT ban, meaning some transactions between Russian businesses and foreign clients can still go through as normal. Even the banks that were included can use one of several alternative systems available to them. Moreover, Russians’ historical distrust of the banking system will provide some cushion for the financial sector. More than 90 percent of the Russian population keeps at least some of their savings in cash – especially those who have savings in foreign currency – and roughly 40 percent of trading operations in the country are carried out in cash.
Thus the panic caused by the sanctions may be greater than the impact itself. For the financial sector, the blow will be mitigated by several factors. First, the West is reportedly considering excluding energy payments from the SWIFT ban. There are also no signs of a major sell-off of shares in Russian companies, including by non-residents – which makes sense since they’ve lost so much of their value over the past week. In fact, some Western institutional investors such as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are actually buying up bonds from firms like Gazprom and Russian Railways. Russia’s central bank has introduced several measures to soften the blow. For example, even before trading opened on the first business day after the initial sanctions were announced, it raised the key interest rate sharply – from 9.5 percent to 20 percent – to prevent the financial fallout from spreading. And the Ministry of Finance announced that exporting companies will be obligated to sell at least 80 percent of their foreign exchange earnings domestically, which will force them to buy rubles and create more demand for the currency.
But despite these efforts, the average Russian citizen will likely feel some pain from the sanctions. This wasn’t the case with the previous sanctions regime imposed in 2014 (and then renewed and expanded yearly) by the EU and U.S. after Russia annexed Crimea. (Though Russians did feel the impact of Moscow’s retaliatory ban on food imports from the EU, U.S., Canada, Japan and Australia.) Small and medium-sized businesses and large state-owned companies were able to find loopholes and continue to conduct business mostly as usual. In some cases, foreign goods were delivered to third countries before arriving in Russia to skirt the sanctions. Average Russians continued to travel and pay for purchases abroad with cards from state-owned banks, and shops remained fully stocked with foreign products – sometimes with quality substitutes from friendlier nations.
When it comes to the current crisis, the burden on average consumers will come not just from the sanctions themselves but also from major companies' withdrawal from the market. In the first days after the Russian campaign began, many companies announced that they would leave the Russian market or suspend their operations there, either because the sanctions and other restrictive measures made it too difficult to do business in Russia, or because they didn’t want to be seen as profiting from a country that invaded its neighbor. Some of the firms that announced at least partial suspensions of their Russian operations include Boeing and Airbus, Apple, Nike, H&M, and automakers Daimler, Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover, Ford, BMW and Mercedes. Many other companies that supply products for processing are considering leaving.
These withdrawals will affect the range of products available to consumers as well as corporate profits and jobs. Until now, the range of foreign goods available to consumers in Russia had expanded every year. In 2021, Russia depended on imports for 40 percent of consumer goods and 53 percent of non-food products. Imports accounted for 32 percent of Russia’s milk powder and cream, 30 percent of cheese and 28 percent of beef. They also accounted for 39 percent of cars, 58 percent of machinery and equipment, 60 percent of medicines and medical devices, 82 percent of clothing, 87 percent of computers and electronics, 88 percent of shoes, and 95 percent of auto parts. Notably, more than 70 percent of microchips in Russia come from foreign suppliers, while domestic chips are used mainly in the military-industrial sector and space. All of this means consumer prices will likely rise both because of the lack of confidence in the market and the depreciation of the ruble. The extent will depend on how quickly Russian companies can find substitutes.
Russian Financial Liabilities, October 2021
(click to enlarge)
Short-Term Pain
Assuming more severe sanctions aren’t introduced, Russia’s economy will weather the storm in the long run. It still has plenty of money in its National Wealth Fund, low public debt and large gold reserves. It’s also counting on two additional factors to soften the blow. First, it believes its budget funds are protected because existing contracts to supply oil and natural gas remain intact. The high price of energy and depreciating ruble will make these contracts even more valuable to the Russian budget. Second, Moscow expects reduced competition from multinational firms will increase profits for small and medium-sized Russian businesses. Previous sanctions had a positive impact on domestic production and helped Russia achieve self-sufficiency in a number of goods. It’s relying on allied countries, particularly those in the Eurasian Economic Union, to supply products for which there is currently no quality domestic substitute. It’s also hoping to coax countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to continue or expand trade, even in a different currency, and that more countries will join its System for Transfer of Financial Messages – its alternative to SWIFT – and its Mir payment system – similar to VISA or Mastercard.
The problem is that these contingencies will come to fruition only in the long term. In the short term, the people and the state are bound to suffer. Factory shutdowns, layoffs and closure of retail stores and businesses will require the government to spend more to support the population. Moreover, logistical problems, the anemic ruble, the weak position of Russian companies, and mere speculation will increase the cost of goods and contribute to rising inflation. Add to this a shortage of specialized workers, especially in the IT sector, as people search for employment in other countries with fewer restrictions due to sanctions.
Moscow is betting big on its long-term prospects at the expense of its short-term economic health. It’s also betting that the West won’t be willing to impose more severe punishments, such as refusing to buy Russian oil and gas or a total SWIFT ban. Time will tell if these bets pay off.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/biden-admin-talks-poland-provide-warplanes-ukraine-rcna18876?fbclid=IwAR3fcBPqDIc3LmQ9bPVeb5K7ZqSE294PSjQ_A7tiwFR4TBnSAIKMYoiVuHE
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/biden-admin-talks-poland-provide-warplanes-ukraine-rcna18876?fbclid=IwAR3fcBPqDIc3LmQ9bPVeb5K7ZqSE294PSjQ_A7tiwFR4TBnSAIKMYoiVuHE
If Putin decides to hit those jets on Polish soil?
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/biden-admin-talks-poland-provide-warplanes-ukraine-rcna18876?fbclid=IwAR3fcBPqDIc3LmQ9bPVeb5K7ZqSE294PSjQ_A7tiwFR4TBnSAIKMYoiVuHE
If Putin decides to hit those jets on Polish soil?
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/766/162/original/04afe57e2eaa1da8.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/766/162/original/04afe57e2eaa1da8.jpg)
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Does anyone know what the Monroe Doctrine does not say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
It does not say the US can invade Canada, wage war there, destroy its airbases, bomb its civilians, capture land and people, overthrow its government.
[Monroe Doctrine] "held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act against the U.S."
We didn't invade Ukraine. THEY did.
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Monroe Doctrine did not say Hitler's Germany could annex and invade all it's neighbors, right?
No direct answer here to my points regarding hindsight lessons learned [or not] coming out of WWII "stop evil sooner". Russia today is not as dangerous to the world as Hitler was in what year? 1938 after they "annexed" Austria? 1939 after they took Poland? What about Spring 1940 after they took Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and France? C'mon Doug. That's just Europe. We still did not get in. That's not anymore countries than those who are deathly afraid of Putin Russia today.
No rebuttal to my point that the best foreign policy analysts of 2007 characterized Putin's Russia as "belligerent and bullying to its neighbors" prior to when we alleged caused all this in 2008 by talking to countries who wanted to defend themselves against the Russian aggressor.
Blame America First, but we did not cause this.
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From the wiki article cited by Doug:
The Venezuelan crisis of 1895 became "one of the most momentous episodes in the history of Anglo-American relations in general and of Anglo-American rivalries in Latin America in particular."[29] Venezuela sought to involve the U.S. in a territorial dispute with Britain over Guayana Esequiba, and hired former US ambassador William L. Scruggs to argue that British behaviour over the issue violated the Monroe Doctrine. President Grover Cleveland through his Secretary of State, Richard Olney, cited the Doctrine in 1895, threatening strong action against Great Britain if the British failed to arbitrate their dispute with Venezuela. In a July 20, 1895 note to Britain, Olney stated, "The United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition."[11]: 307 British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury took strong exception to the American language. The U.S. objected to a British proposal for a joint meeting to clarify the scope of the Monroe Doctrine. Historian George Herring wrote that by failing to pursue the issue further the British "tacitly conceded the U.S. definition of the Monroe Doctrine and its hegemony in the hemisphere.
Does anyone know what the Monroe Doctrine does not say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
It does not say the US can invade Canada, wage war there, destroy its airbases, bomb its civilians, capture land and people, overthrow its government.
[Monroe Doctrine] "held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act against the U.S."
We didn't invade Ukraine. THEY did.
------------------------------------------------
Monroe Doctrine did not say Hitler's Germany could annex and invade all it's neighbors, right?
No direct answer here to my points regarding hindsight lessons learned [or not] coming out of WWII "stop evil sooner". Russia today is not as dangerous to the world as Hitler was in what year? 1938 after they "annexed" Austria? 1939 after they took Poland? What about Spring 1940 after they took Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and France? C'mon Doug. That's just Europe. We still did not get in. That's not anymore countries than those who are deathly afraid of Putin Russia today.
No rebuttal to my point that the best foreign policy analysts of 2007 characterized Putin's Russia as "belligerent and bullying to its neighbors" prior to when we alleged caused all this in 2008 by talking to countries who wanted to defend themselves against the Russian aggressor.
Blame America First, but we did not cause this.
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"From the wiki article cited by Doug..."
Interesting but unresponsive to my points.
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"From the wiki article cited by Doug..."
Interesting but unresponsive to my points.
So, not Canada. Do the "Banana Wars" ring a bell?
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Well-reasoned Doug.
I mostly agree. The starting point should not be what Stalin conquered as part of WW2 (a.k.a. NATO moving east from Germany) but IMHO there does come a point at which military alliance on Russian borders does trigger legit Russian Monroe concerns. You are right we cannot invade Canada under the Monroe Doctrine nor invade Mexico , , , ahem , , , again, but were Mexico to forming a mutual defense treaty with China or Russia I'm thinking we would and should have forceful response, see e.g. the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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Well-reasoned Doug.
I mostly agree. The starting point should not be what Stalin conquered as part of WW2 (a.k.a. NATO moving east from Germany) but IMHO there does come a point at which military alliance on Russian borders does trigger legit Russian Monroe concerns. You are right we cannot invade Canada under the Monroe Doctrine nor invade Mexico , , , ahem , , , again, but were Mexico to forming a mutual defense treaty with China or Russia I'm thinking we would and should have forceful response, see e.g. the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Thank you Crafty. I would clarify, we stopped the missile placements in Cuba, but we didn't take over Cuba. The focus was on offensive weapons. We didn't send assassination teams in for Castro. Cuba wasn't in danger of being invaded by the US prior to the crisis, or since. They were acting as a pawn in a superpower contest.
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Well-reasoned Doug.
I mostly agree. The starting point should not be what Stalin conquered as part of WW2 (a.k.a. NATO moving east from Germany) but IMHO there does come a point at which military alliance on Russian borders does trigger legit Russian Monroe concerns. You are right we cannot invade Canada under the Monroe Doctrine nor invade Mexico , , , ahem , , , again, but were Mexico to forming a mutual defense treaty with China or Russia I'm thinking we would and should have forceful response, see e.g. the Cuban Missile Crisis.
And we quietly removed our missiles from Turkey at the same time, as was agreed upon.
Thank you Crafty. I would clarify, we stopped the missile placements in Cuba, but we didn't take over Cuba. The focus was on offensive weapons. We didn't send assassination teams in for Castro. Cuba wasn't in danger of being invaded by the US prior to the crisis, or since. They were acting as a pawn in a superpower contest.
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"From the wiki article cited by Doug..."
Interesting but unresponsive to my points.
So, not Canada. Do the "Banana Wars" ring a bell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars
If the US has some bad history in Latin America (in the 1800s), from my point of view, that doesn't change right from wrong committed by Putin.
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Ummm , , , does "Bay of Pigs" trigger any memories?
Or, going back further just how was the Spanish American War triggered? Leading to the Platt Amendment?
Guantanamo Bay?
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"From the wiki article cited by Doug..."
Interesting but unresponsive to my points.
So, not Canada. Do the "Banana Wars" ring a bell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars
If the US has some bad history in Latin America (in the 1800s), from my point of view, that doesn't change right from wrong committed by Putin.
Putin is acting is what he sees as in his nation's best interest. Our leadership doesn't. Perhaps that is why it is so jarring (Well, aside from the endless propaganda being flooded towards us).
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cuban-missile-crisis
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had gambled on sending the missiles to Cuba with the specific goal of increasing his nation’s nuclear strike capability. The Soviets had long felt uneasy about the number of nuclear weapons that were targeted at them from sites in Western Europe and Turkey, and they saw the deployment of missiles in Cuba as a way to level the playing field. Another key factor in the Soviet missile scheme was the hostile relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. The Kennedy administration had already launched one attack on the island–the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961–and Castro and Khrushchev saw the missiles as a means of deterring further U.S. aggression.
SNIP
Despite the enormous tension, Soviet and American leaders found a way out of the impasse. During the crisis, the Americans and Soviets had exchanged letters and other communications, and on October 26, Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy in which he offered to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for a promise by U.S. leaders not to invade Cuba. The following day, the Soviet leader sent a letter proposing that the USSR would dismantle its missiles in Cuba if the Americans removed their missile installations in Turkey.
Officially, the Kennedy administration decided to accept the terms of the first message and ignore the second Khrushchev letter entirely. Privately, however, American officials also agreed to withdraw their nation’s missiles from Turkey. U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy (1925-68) personally delivered the message to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, and on October 28, the crisis drew to a close.
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https://www.minotdailynews.com/opinion/national-columnists/2022/03/what-do-ukraine-and-wuhan-have-in-common/
What do Ukraine and Wuhan have in common?
NATIONAL COLUMNISTS
MAR 4, 2022
LAURA HOLLIS
Campaigning politicians have always inflated their own importance and the benefits of the policies they espouse — and exaggerated the perils of electing the other guy. It used to be the case that these self-aggrandizing stump speeches were tempered by a (mostly) diligent press that went out of its way to poke holes in those exaggerations and deflate egos with some sharply pointed facts. And Americans have historically trusted their elected leaders to tell the truth in matters of grave national importance.
No more. We are swimming in a cesspool of lies so fetid that it’s almost impossible to know what’s true anymore. This is a consequence of two political parties whose most visible and powerful members lie with impunity, and a national press that abandoned the pursuit of truth years ago in favor of pushing left-wing political propaganda.
Let’s take the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Is this nothing more than naked aggression by a larger country (Russia) run by an ex-KGB agent (President Vladimir Putin) who’s made no bones about wanting some (if not all) of the old Soviet territories back?
That’s the position being pushed by the Biden administration.
Putin, on the other hand, claims not only that parts (if not all) of Ukraine belong to Russia; he has intimated that the United States has been funding the development of possible biowarfare agents at laboratories in Ukraine, and that these pathogens could be used as weapons against Russia.
Until recently, most of us would have tended to believe the statements of our own government over the inflammatory accusations of a former Soviet strongman. But two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that our own government lies to us continuously and repeatedly.
In fact, the similarities between the “Ukraine biolabs” story and the theory that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology are remarkable.
When COVID-19 began spreading throughout China and the rest of the world, the “official” story was that the virus had jumped species (from bat to human, perhaps with an intermediary host) in a wet market in Wuhan. Very quickly, some writers pointed out that the city of Wuhan had an international virology institute. And that bat viruses were being studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And that scientists who worked at WIV had published papers in which they described genetically manipulating those viruses to see if they could be made to “jump species” (so-called gain of function research).
Immediately, these statements and the questions they raised were dismissed as “misinformation” or Chinese government propaganda. Broadcast and print media journalists refused to investigate the claims. Those who continued to ask questions were denounced as kooks or “conspiracy theorists.” Social media megacorporations Twitter, Facebook and YouTube removed content and shut down the accounts of anyone who tried to publish information about the “lab leak” theory. America’s COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci was consistently among the most vocal detractors of that theory.
But information continued to seep out. State Department memoranda from 2018 were discovered, warning that research into zoonotic bat viruses being conducted at the WIV lacked adequate safety protocols. Those memoranda mentioned funding by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the organization run by Fauci. Fauci was called before Congress and insisted that the NIAID had never funded “gain of function” research. An October 2021 letter from the NIH proved that this was untrue; the NIAID and the NIH had funded gain of function research in Wuhan. Other documents — including Fauci’s own emails — obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests revealed that Fauci and other scientists were seriously evaluating the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, even as they lied to the public and denied it.
What does any of this have to do with Ukraine?
A Washington Post article from 2005 opens with this statement: “The United States and Ukraine agreed yesterday to work jointly to prevent the spread of biological weapons, signing a pact that clears the way for Ukraine’s government to receive U.S. aid to improve security at facilities where dangerous microbes are kept.” The two U.S. senators spearheading that initiative were Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, and Barack Obama, then a Democratic senator from Illinois.
So, “dangerous microbes” are at these Ukrainian laboratories, and the United States government has been providing funding. For what, exactly? To “improve security.”
This hardly inspires confidence.
Right on cue, here come the “official” statements. An article published last week in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists quotes Robert Pope, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, a “30-year-old Defense Department program that has helped secure the former Soviet Union’s weapons of mass destruction and redirect former bioweapons facilities and scientists toward peaceful endeavors.”
According to Pope, “the labs in Ukraine are not bioweapons facilities … (T)hey are public and animal health labs” that “conduct peaceful scientific research and disease surveillance.” Pope further insisted that all pathogens present at the Ukrainian laboratories were safe as long as they were kept frozen, but power outages caused by damage to the buildings (from warfare, for example) could pose a problem. Furthermore, the safety protocols of the Ukraine labs are not without concern. “They have more pathogens in more places than we recommend,” Pope said, in what sounds like a serious understatement.
Predictably, any suspicions about the work conducted in Ukrainian laboratories and funded by the U.S. government are now being dismissed as “disinformation.” Foreign Policy published an article yesterday insisting that the “Ukrainian lab bioweapons” claims are just “conspiracy theories” being advanced by (of course) the Russian and Chinese governments and (wait for it) QAnon supporters who are spreading misinformation on social media as part of the “dogma for the right wing of the Republican Party.”
Sound familiar?
So, what’s really going on in the Ukrainian laboratories? Who do you believe?
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Ummm , , , does "Bay of Pigs" trigger any memories?
Or, going back further just how was the Spanish American War triggered? Leading to the Platt Amendment?
Guantanamo Bay?
I need help connecting this to the current discussion. Covert op 60 years ago, Bay of Pigs, why was it covert if 'backyard' invasions are justified? It certainly wasn't a full scale, tanks on the streets, missiles in the air invasion. Why not and why not since then? (Sovereignty?)
I would add, isn't it a political loser for the right to be taking Putin's side, justifying his carnage?
No one responded to the 2007 report posted.
I am on the side of Ukraine's right to defend itself and to ask for help in doing so. Also on the side of containing Russia's expansionism to the extent we can.
No one wants US ground troops deployed there. No one wants nuclear war or any escalating or widening of the conflict.
Ukraine is not a threat to Russian borders. A secure Ukraine only threatens Putin's expansion plans.
Strong sanctions have other consequences, but wouldn't we also criticize if Biden and Europe responded with weak sanctions?
In negotiations now, a non-NATO model for Ukraine:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-open-discussing-non-nato-models-negotiator-tells-fox-news-2022-03-06/
The invasion needs to fail for Putin,
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-07/card/ruble-sinks-to-fresh-lows-with-russian-market-shut-HDeRc7VEmBa1aaz90kOB
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10585145/Ukraine-war-Zelensky-declares-god-not-forgive-Russians-target-civilians.html
then give him some face saving for his exit. End this before the Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Financial attacks on the Russian people risk turning them against us instead of against him.
The world gets more complicated and dangerous when the US chooses weakness instead of strength with restraint.
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https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/275/598/original/497a3c7ec9c79531.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/275/598/original/497a3c7ec9c79531.png)
Ummm , , , does "Bay of Pigs" trigger any memories?
Or, going back further just how was the Spanish American War triggered? Leading to the Platt Amendment?
Guantanamo Bay?
I need help connecting this to the current discussion. Covert op 60 years ago, Bay of Pigs, why was it covert if 'backyard' invasions are justified? It certainly wasn't a full scale, tanks on the streets, missiles in the air invasion. Why not and why not since then? (Sovereignty?)
I would add, isn't it a political loser for the right to be taking Putin's side, justifying his carnage?
No one responded to the 2007 report posted.
I am on the side of Ukraine's right to defend itself and to ask for help in doing so. Also on the side of containing Russia's expansionism to the extent we can.
No one wants US ground troops deployed there. No one wants nuclear war or any escalating or widening of the conflict.
Ukraine is not a threat to Russian borders. A secure Ukraine only threatens Putin's expansion plans.
Strong sanctions have other consequences, but wouldn't we also criticize if Biden and Europe responded with weak sanctions?
In negotiations now, a non-NATO model for Ukraine:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-open-discussing-non-nato-models-negotiator-tells-fox-news-2022-03-06/
The invasion needs to fail for Putin,
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-07/card/ruble-sinks-to-fresh-lows-with-russian-market-shut-HDeRc7VEmBa1aaz90kOB
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10585145/Ukraine-war-Zelensky-declares-god-not-forgive-Russians-target-civilians.html
then give him some face saving for his exit. End this before the Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Financial attacks on the Russian people risk turning them against us instead of against him.
The world gets more complicated and dangerous when the US chooses weakness instead of strength with restraint.
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/03/06/rubio_a_no_fly_zone_means_world_war_iii_it_means_starting_world_war_iii.html
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/03/06/rubio_a_no_fly_zone_means_world_war_iii_it_means_starting_world_war_iii.html
It would start WWIII. We are on the razor's edge of it now.
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(https://www.twincities.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/jea-0900-Aerials-6-9-2020.jpg?w=1280)
Oh, sorry, that's Minneapolis.
Your enemies are much closer.
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Oh, sorry, that's Minneapolis.
Your enemies are much closer.
Sorry G M but this is not an either-or situation. There is no logic to me that because Mpls is screwed up, Putin gets a pass. And China is a bigger threat.
I came far closer to dying (not being born) because of a ground war in Europe than to these thugs at home.
Speaking of the thugs at home, how did not fighting back go for us?
Twin Cities metro (pop. 3 million) has median household income of 80k, for my congressional district that is 100k, for my city that is 120k, median, not the rich. We can vote the assholes out and we can rebuild burnt buildings where we have the will. What's Ukraine going to do?
Silence on the WWII analogies but does anyone here think that had the US not intervened, had Hitler won in Europe, had Japan won in Asia, that we were going to be just fine in the 49 states that were not (yet) attacked?
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Hitler had something like 18 million troops. Putin has less than a million, much of which is already bogged down in Ukraine. He also has an economy the size of Italy's. He is europe's problem, not ours.
Ain't no Russian ever called me a deplorable.
Oh, sorry, that's Minneapolis.
Your enemies are much closer.
Sorry G M but this is not an either-or situation. There is no logic to me that because Mpls is screwed up, Putin gets a pass. And China is a bigger threat.
I came far closer to dying (not being born) because of a ground war in Europe than to these thugs at home.
Speaking of the thugs at home, how did not fighting back go for us?
Twin Cities metro (pop. 3 million) has median household income of 80k, for my congressional district that is 100k, for my city that is 120k, median, not the rich. We can vote the assholes out and we can rebuild burnt buildings where we have the will. What's Ukraine going to do?
Silence on the WWII analogies but does anyone here think that had the US not intervened, had Hitler won in Europe, had Japan won in Asia, that we were going to be just fine in the 49 states that were not (yet) attacked?
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Doug,
What do you propose the US does above and beyond what is already being done?
And please do not tell us about re opening oil drilling here
we all know this already
and know the Biden will not allow that
so what else would have us do?
sometimes we can't fix what goes on in other parts of the world without more sacrifice and risk than it is worth.
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Poland Will Not Send Its Fighter Jets to Ukraine Amid Russia Conflict: Official
By Jack Phillips March 7, 2022 Updated: March 7, 2022biggersmaller Print
Poland’s military has not and won’t send its fighter jets to Ukraine to support the country’s military against Russia, said a deputy foreign minister.
Marcin Przydacz, the deputy minister, told Radio Zet that “we will not open our airports and Polish planes will not fight over Ukraine … Polish planes will not fight over Ukraine.” Another government spokesman, Piotr Mueller, said that the move to provide planes was still being discussed within NATO, but added that “at this stage it doesn’t look like such a decision will be made,” according to a translation of his statement, reported by Polish media.
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Poland, a member of NATO, has been given the “green light” to send fighter planes to Ukrainian forces.
“In fact, we’re talking with our Polish friends right now about what we might be able to do to backfill their needs if, in fact, they choose to provide these fighter jets to the Ukrainians. What can we do? How can we help to make sure that they get something to backfill the planes that they are handing over to the Ukrainians?” Blinken told CBS News.
Since the conflict started on Feb. 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government have repeatedly asked the United States and NATO to send weapons, including fighter planes to defend the country’s airspace against Russia.
“We are working with our American, especially, friends and allies, on the steady supply of all the ammunition and anti-air, anti-tank, and planes to be able to effectively defend our country,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, said on Sunday.
But over the weekend, Russia’s Defense Ministry issued a warning to other countries about sending fighter planes.
Epoch Times Photo
A Ukrainian man rides his bicycle near a factory and a store burning after it was bombarded in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 6, 2022. (Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo)
“The use of the airfield networks of these countries to base Ukrainian military aircraft and their subsequent use against the Russian armed forces may be regarded as the involvement of these states in an armed conflict,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told the Interfax news agency on Sunday.
Konashenkov said Russia’s Defense Ministry is aware of “Ukrainian combat planes which earlier flew to Romania and other neighboring countries,” without elaborating.
Meanwhile, there have been calls by Zelensky’s government to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which NATO and the White House said would escalate the conflict.
While saying a no-fly zone is not being considered, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters late last week that the move would lead to NATO and U.S. military planes attacking Russian assets in order to enforce such a policy.
On Sunday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told ABC News that a no-fly zone over Ukraine could lead to a third world war or possibly a nuclear conflict.
“A no-fly zone has become a catchphrase. I’m not sure a lot of people fully understand what that means,” Rubio told ABC News. “That means flying AWACS 24 hours a day, that means the willingness to shoot down and engage Russian airplanes in the sky. That means, frankly, you can’t put those planes up there unless they’re willing to knock out the anti-aircraft systems that the Russians have deployed in, and not just in Ukraine, but Russia and also in Belarus,” Rubio said.
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second
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Russia Says Military Action Will Stop ‘In a Moment’ If Ukraine Meets Certain Conditions
By Zachary Stieber March 7, 2022 Updated: March 7, 2022biggersmaller Print
Russia will immediately stop military action in Ukraine if certain conditions are met, including recognizing portions of eastern Ukraine as independent, a Kremlin spokesperson said March 7.
Ukraine must stop fighting, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, known together as Donbas, as independent territories, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Ukrainian officials are aware of the demands and “were told all this can be stopped in a moment,” Peskov added.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Top Russian officials have described the incursion as a “special military operation” aimed at rooting out “Nazis” and forcing Ukraine to disarm over alleged violations of earlier pacts. Ukrainian officials have condemned the invasion as unwarranted, and many Western countries have punished Russia with sanctions over the conflict.
Peskov said Russia will finish “the demilitarization of Ukraine” and that Ukraine should cease fighting.
In addition to altering the constitution to block entrance into any bloc, such as NATO, “we have also spoken about how they should recognize that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognize that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states,” Peskov added. “And that’s it. It will stop in a moment.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin conveyed the demands to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a call over the weekend, according to the Kremlin.
“It was stressed that the suspension of the special operation is possible only if Kyiv ceases the military actions and fulfills Russia’s demands that were made perfectly clear,” Russia reported, according to state-run media.
Erdogan urged Putin on the call to agree to a ceasefire while a broader agreement is hammered out, his office said, while also stating he had been able to schedule a meeting in Antalya with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiating teams are scheduled to meet later on Monday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told reporters before that Zelensky “will certainly not make any concessions that could humiliate Ukrainians in their fight for territorial integrity and freedom.”
Negotiators have met twice since the war started but have failed to reach agreements on anything besides opening humanitarian corridors to allow the evacuation of people from places under attack.
That agreement was partially breached because Russians didn’t adhere to the parameters, according to Ukrainian officials.
A fresh slate of corridors announced Monday was decried by Ukrainian officials because the corridors led to Russia or Belarus.
Zelensky, meanwhile, called for the world to boycott Russian exports, especially oil.
“If the invasion continues and Russia doesn’t give up on its plans against Ukraine, it means that new sanctions, new steps against the war and for the peace are necessary,” he said in a speech.
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/what-breaks-first-in-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20220307&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/what-breaks-first-in-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20220307&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
The Ukes will be lucky if they don't get one of Vladi's nukes.
-
Hitler had something like 18 million troops. Putin has less than a million, much of which is already bogged down in Ukraine. He also has an economy the size of Italy's. He is europe's problem, not ours.
Ain't no Russian ever called me a deplorable.
Germany had 550,000 troops in 1935. Russia has 6 times as many tanks now as Germany did in 1940. Plus stealth bombers plus nuclear, oops. Can't we just say both are or were a major threat and have or had similar ambitions.
Funny that today we know we are on the brink of a world War and in the late 30s we did not.
-
Doug,
What do you propose the US does above and beyond what is already being done?
And please do not tell us about re opening oil drilling here
we all know this already
and know the Biden will not allow that
so what else would have us do?
sometimes we can't fix what goes on in other parts of the world without more sacrifice and risk than it is worth.
We aren't very far apart on policy. Hands tied, not fair to ask what I would do and not count anything Biden won't do like drilling. Needless to say, I don't have the Silver Bullet answer.
Everything short of ground troops and nuclear would be under consideration in phases 1-5 and then reconsider that.
History might show Putin bit off more than he could chew and this fizzles out with medium amounts of carnage and territory lost. History also might say we should have done more to stop him while we could.
What does China take from this? Taiwan is not in NATO. Is Taiwan our fault? Did we provoke Xi by helping Taiwan defend itself? Is Taiwan Asia's problem.
-
"Hands tied, not fair to ask what I would do and not count anything Biden won't do like drilling"
well yeah the libs and globalists elites etc did tie are hands......
so be mad at them for believing putin would do nothing while they keep adding more countries to Nato
no one here is saying putin is a nice guy,
who should be called a genius, or we should not criticize him.
there simply is nothing else we can do short of sending in the air force
or other military
so we should we escalate the military in your view ?
-
Arm the Ukes! Just like we did the Mujahadeen!
-
Arm the Ukes! Just like we did the Mujahadeen!
Russia has many ways to pay us back.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/russia-ukraine-war-nyc-risk-russian-cyber-attack
-
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245343
Blood on our hands.
second
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Russia Says Military Action Will Stop ‘In a Moment’ If Ukraine Meets Certain Conditions
By Zachary Stieber March 7, 2022 Updated: March 7, 2022biggersmaller Print
Russia will immediately stop military action in Ukraine if certain conditions are met, including recognizing portions of eastern Ukraine as independent, a Kremlin spokesperson said March 7.
Ukraine must stop fighting, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, known together as Donbas, as independent territories, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Ukrainian officials are aware of the demands and “were told all this can be stopped in a moment,” Peskov added.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Top Russian officials have described the incursion as a “special military operation” aimed at rooting out “Nazis” and forcing Ukraine to disarm over alleged violations of earlier pacts. Ukrainian officials have condemned the invasion as unwarranted, and many Western countries have punished Russia with sanctions over the conflict.
Peskov said Russia will finish “the demilitarization of Ukraine” and that Ukraine should cease fighting.
In addition to altering the constitution to block entrance into any bloc, such as NATO, “we have also spoken about how they should recognize that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognize that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states,” Peskov added. “And that’s it. It will stop in a moment.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin conveyed the demands to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a call over the weekend, according to the Kremlin.
“It was stressed that the suspension of the special operation is possible only if Kyiv ceases the military actions and fulfills Russia’s demands that were made perfectly clear,” Russia reported, according to state-run media.
Erdogan urged Putin on the call to agree to a ceasefire while a broader agreement is hammered out, his office said, while also stating he had been able to schedule a meeting in Antalya with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiating teams are scheduled to meet later on Monday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told reporters before that Zelensky “will certainly not make any concessions that could humiliate Ukrainians in their fight for territorial integrity and freedom.”
Negotiators have met twice since the war started but have failed to reach agreements on anything besides opening humanitarian corridors to allow the evacuation of people from places under attack.
That agreement was partially breached because Russians didn’t adhere to the parameters, according to Ukrainian officials.
A fresh slate of corridors announced Monday was decried by Ukrainian officials because the corridors led to Russia or Belarus.
Zelensky, meanwhile, called for the world to boycott Russian exports, especially oil.
“If the invasion continues and Russia doesn’t give up on its plans against Ukraine, it means that new sanctions, new steps against the war and for the peace are necessary,” he said in a speech.
-
Hitler had something like 18 million troops. Putin has less than a million, much of which is already bogged down in Ukraine. He also has an economy the size of Italy's. He is europe's problem, not ours.
Ain't no Russian ever called me a deplorable.
Germany had 550,000 troops in 1935. Russia has 6 times as many tanks now as Germany did in 1940. Plus stealth bombers plus nuclear, oops. Can't we just say both are or were a major threat and have or had similar ambitions.
Funny that today we know we are on the brink of a world War and in the late 30s we did not.
I looked it up, Nazi Germany had 13.5 million soldiers (roughly). Putin has less than a million. How does he scale it upwards given his financial and demographic constraints?
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/stunning-admission-ukraine-former-top-level-cia-official
You.Don't.Say.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245343
Blood on our hands.
second
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Russia Says Military Action Will Stop ‘In a Moment’ If Ukraine Meets Certain Conditions
By Zachary Stieber March 7, 2022 Updated: March 7, 2022biggersmaller Print
Russia will immediately stop military action in Ukraine if certain conditions are met, including recognizing portions of eastern Ukraine as independent, a Kremlin spokesperson said March 7.
Ukraine must stop fighting, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, known together as Donbas, as independent territories, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Ukrainian officials are aware of the demands and “were told all this can be stopped in a moment,” Peskov added.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Top Russian officials have described the incursion as a “special military operation” aimed at rooting out “Nazis” and forcing Ukraine to disarm over alleged violations of earlier pacts. Ukrainian officials have condemned the invasion as unwarranted, and many Western countries have punished Russia with sanctions over the conflict.
Peskov said Russia will finish “the demilitarization of Ukraine” and that Ukraine should cease fighting.
In addition to altering the constitution to block entrance into any bloc, such as NATO, “we have also spoken about how they should recognize that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognize that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states,” Peskov added. “And that’s it. It will stop in a moment.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin conveyed the demands to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a call over the weekend, according to the Kremlin.
“It was stressed that the suspension of the special operation is possible only if Kyiv ceases the military actions and fulfills Russia’s demands that were made perfectly clear,” Russia reported, according to state-run media.
Erdogan urged Putin on the call to agree to a ceasefire while a broader agreement is hammered out, his office said, while also stating he had been able to schedule a meeting in Antalya with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiating teams are scheduled to meet later on Monday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told reporters before that Zelensky “will certainly not make any concessions that could humiliate Ukrainians in their fight for territorial integrity and freedom.”
Negotiators have met twice since the war started but have failed to reach agreements on anything besides opening humanitarian corridors to allow the evacuation of people from places under attack.
That agreement was partially breached because Russians didn’t adhere to the parameters, according to Ukrainian officials.
A fresh slate of corridors announced Monday was decried by Ukrainian officials because the corridors led to Russia or Belarus.
Zelensky, meanwhile, called for the world to boycott Russian exports, especially oil.
“If the invasion continues and Russia doesn’t give up on its plans against Ukraine, it means that new sanctions, new steps against the war and for the peace are necessary,” he said in a speech.
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/904/694/original/c5dbd5583de4fb34.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/904/694/original/c5dbd5583de4fb34.png)
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/stunning-admission-ukraine-former-top-level-cia-official
You.Don't.Say.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245343
Blood on our hands.
second
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Russia Says Military Action Will Stop ‘In a Moment’ If Ukraine Meets Certain Conditions
By Zachary Stieber March 7, 2022 Updated: March 7, 2022biggersmaller Print
Russia will immediately stop military action in Ukraine if certain conditions are met, including recognizing portions of eastern Ukraine as independent, a Kremlin spokesperson said March 7.
Ukraine must stop fighting, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, known together as Donbas, as independent territories, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Ukrainian officials are aware of the demands and “were told all this can be stopped in a moment,” Peskov added.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Top Russian officials have described the incursion as a “special military operation” aimed at rooting out “Nazis” and forcing Ukraine to disarm over alleged violations of earlier pacts. Ukrainian officials have condemned the invasion as unwarranted, and many Western countries have punished Russia with sanctions over the conflict.
Peskov said Russia will finish “the demilitarization of Ukraine” and that Ukraine should cease fighting.
In addition to altering the constitution to block entrance into any bloc, such as NATO, “we have also spoken about how they should recognize that Crimea is Russian territory and that they need to recognize that Donetsk and Lugansk are independent states,” Peskov added. “And that’s it. It will stop in a moment.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin conveyed the demands to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a call over the weekend, according to the Kremlin.
“It was stressed that the suspension of the special operation is possible only if Kyiv ceases the military actions and fulfills Russia’s demands that were made perfectly clear,” Russia reported, according to state-run media.
Erdogan urged Putin on the call to agree to a ceasefire while a broader agreement is hammered out, his office said, while also stating he had been able to schedule a meeting in Antalya with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiating teams are scheduled to meet later on Monday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told reporters before that Zelensky “will certainly not make any concessions that could humiliate Ukrainians in their fight for territorial integrity and freedom.”
Negotiators have met twice since the war started but have failed to reach agreements on anything besides opening humanitarian corridors to allow the evacuation of people from places under attack.
That agreement was partially breached because Russians didn’t adhere to the parameters, according to Ukrainian officials.
A fresh slate of corridors announced Monday was decried by Ukrainian officials because the corridors led to Russia or Belarus.
Zelensky, meanwhile, called for the world to boycott Russian exports, especially oil.
“If the invasion continues and Russia doesn’t give up on its plans against Ukraine, it means that new sanctions, new steps against the war and for the peace are necessary,” he said in a speech.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PC7DzTRS7A
-
Two different takes on Putin and the strategy to stop him.
How to defeat him, The Atlantic, I don't fully agree::
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-strategy-that-can-defeat-putin/ar-AAUJVFT
- Take all of what he says and add drill, baby, drill to it.
And things will get worse, by Walter Russell Mead:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/putins-war-will-get-uglier-ukraine-russia-war-stalin-czars-history-empire-soviet-union-11646688611?mod=djemalertNEWS
WRM is right, Putin will choose double down on military failure in Ukraine and oppression at home. Only Ukraine surrender (or assassination from within) will stop him.
First article makes the point I'm asking, this is not Czechoslovakia 1938, and G M's point, his army is not the weirmacht (sp?).
Doug: Is Putin falling into the US trap of Vietnam, Afghanistan etc., if you cannot use nuclear weapons to win the conflict, they are of no value. He has already threatened their use. So then it is back to the conventional war and seeing which side has more determination, Ukrainians defending their homeland or a Russian army that doesn't want to be there.
Arm the Ukrainians. Bankrupt Putin. Fight back if he shoots as much as a firecracker across any other border.
-
Two different takes on Putin and the strategy to stop him.
How to defeat him, The Atlantic, I don't fully agree::
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-strategy-that-can-defeat-putin/ar-AAUJVFT
- Take all of what he says and add drill, baby, drill to it.
And things will get worse, by Walter Russell Mead:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/putins-war-will-get-uglier-ukraine-russia-war-stalin-czars-history-empire-soviet-union-11646688611?mod=djemalertNEWS
WRM is right, Putin will choose double down on military failure in Ukraine and oppression at home. Only Ukraine surrender (or assassination from within) will stop him.
First article makes the point I'm asking, this is not Czechoslovakia 1938, and G M's point, his army is not the weirmacht (sp?).
Doug: Is Putin falling into the US trap of Vietnam, Afghanistan etc., if you cannot use nuclear weapons to win the conflict, they are of no value. He has already threatened their use. So then it is back to the conventional war and seeing which side has more determination, Ukrainians defending their homeland or a Russian army that doesn't want to be there.
Arm the Ukrainians. Bankrupt Putin. Fight back if he shoots as much as a firecracker across any other border.
NATO member states in eastern europe are much more likely to be invaded by muslim rape gangs imported by western europe than the Russian army.
-
https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/04/nato-involvement-in-ukraine-could-spark-nuclear-genocide-heres-how-it-could-happen/
-
Very timely post!!!
Here is one of mine from FB in response to another post:
============================
Mostly agree, but I disagree on one major point.
To summarize my thinking:
America has what we call the Monroe Doctrine (for those of us not familiar with it, look it up) The MD is simple and primal: Don't Stand Too Close To Me-- hence the Cuban Missile Crisis.
We have insisted upon it, and we should respect the concern of others in this regard. In this context it is irrelevant what kind of a man Putin is. Just as we would not want Mexico in military alliance with Russia or China, Russia deserves similar respect for reasons of primal geopolitical principles.
Putin has made clear for some 18 years now that he regarded Ukraine into NATO as a red line violation of his MD space, yet Obama-Biden-Clinton-the State Dept (Nuland-Farkas-Vindman-et al)-the Pentagon have pushed in this direction with an incoherent mix of corruption and weakness (e.g. Sec State Hillary signing off of Russia acquiring 25% of American uranium as Bill grifted big bucks from Russia, while sending only MREs and blankets when Putin seized Crimea, Hunter's grifting operation in Ukraine to the corrupt benefit of his father while disabling American oil and NG energy and strengthening Russian energy etc etc etc)
(Also see a similar push for Georgia that Putin bitch slapped down with his invasion of Ossetia in 2008, also with geopolitical NG pipeline issues being part of the mix)
President Trump got in front of the momentum of this Deep State institutional freight train. He saw that:
Driving Russia into the arms of China would be a geopolitical error of catastrophic proportions AND that strength was required.
To this end he rebuilt American arms and their credibility-- no shame of the Biden exit from Afghanistan for him! Instead he killed Bagdaddy of Isis, Suleiman of Iran, killed 250 Russian Wagner mercenaries in Syria and sent 29 missiles up the ass of a Russian airfield in Syria when they chem attacked Syrian civilians.
HE MADE AMERICA AN ENERGY EXPORTER-- contrast the incoherence of the Dem Deep State on this that now finances Russia's attack!!!
Very much worth noting is how he got in Europe's face on this-- particularly Germany (which in effect in recent days has now admitted he was right) demanding that Germany and other NATO countries meet their commitments to NATO-- all to the howls of the Dems and their running dogs (mocking use of an old Russian communist term here) in the MSM.
It is no coincidence that Uke born Col. Vindman of the NSC (who was offered the Uke Defense Ministry!!!) was a major player in the first Trump impeachment in which he virtue signaled he came forward as a whistle blower because President Trump was violating American policy toward Russia!
The hubris of the Deep State mind revealed is stunning. The American PRESIDENT is the one who sets policy! and Trump ran precisely on finding a way of working with Russia!
And what was at the core of the Trump impeachment? His wanting to get at the core of the Biden & Son grifting operation in Ukraine! And we have the hubris to call them corrupt?!?
(Worth noting is that Pelosi's son and other American ruling class children were in on the corruption in Ukrainian energy sector as well)
THERE WAS A DEAL TO BE HAD: UKE NEUTRALITY IN RETURN FOR RESPECT OF UKE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY. BY REJECTING THIS TEAM BIDEN REJECTED PUTIN'S LONG AND OPENLY DECLARED RED LINE. TEAM BIDEN IGNORED THE WARNING GROWL OF HIS GRADUAL TROOP BUILD UP.
NONE OF WHAT WE HAVE NOW WAS NECESSARY BUT FOR THE FECKLESS STUPIDITY OF TEAM BIDEN.
And now we have what we have. There is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. Obama-Biden-Clinton-the State Dept (Nuland-Farkas-Vindman-et al)-the Pentagon have gotten the war that they have pushed for.
Wag the Dog anyone?!?
Watch how this is and will be played in the arena of American electoral politics and decide for yourself!
"The US and Russia have been arming and funding each other’s adversaries/allies since the beginning of the Cold War"
Agree 100%.
"The Russians will not use nukes in response to this or start a full-scale war. They’re bluffing, straight up."
If by "this" you mean giving Migs out of NATO Poland to the Ukes, I disagree.
They HAVE started a full-scale war in response to Obama-Biden-Clinton-the State Dept (Nuland-Farkas-Vindman-et al)-the Pentagon ignoring their clear declaration that Ukraine alliance with the West was a red line for them. PUTIN WAS NOT BLUFFING.
"They believe the West’s resolve can be easily broken through fear and threats of war. Flinching on any front like this sets an irreversible precedent."
Given Biden's incoherent strategy and weakness it is easy to see how Putin got to that conclusion!!! We see now what weakness brings!!!
Thanks in great part to the great courage of the Ukrainian people, Putin has overplayed his hand quite badly. He is clearly showing that he will keep escalating until he has something which he can portray as a victory before his own military and his own people turn on him.
Though blazingly stupid, feckless, and unnecessary as this Wag the Dog war was and is, I agree to flinch now would be great error. Let us continue supplying the brave Uke people! Maybe Congress could get off its fg ass and hold a weekend session when necessary!
But where we disagree is on the point that Tucker is making in the clip above. Just as is proven by the war in progress he was not bluffing when he said that Ukraine alliance with the west was a red line, he is not bluffing when he says that giving the Ukes NATO Migs is a red line.
As the Poles have wisely concluded in ignoring feckless fool Blinken's "green light", this is a bridge too far.
Russian nuke doctrine does call for battlefield nukes and Putin is cornered. You might be right and the Migs would help accelerate his collapse, but you might bewrong and this move could trigger things to a whole other level- quite possibly Russian battlefield nukes- not only between Russia and us, but also our discussion here has yet to take Xi and China, and Taiwan into account.
We do not have the bandwidth for both and are led by people who cannot even depart from Afghanistan without turning it into an epic disaster and shame of American arms.
Meanwhile, there is the small matter of Article Four, Section Four of our Constitution. Time to defend our own borders!!!
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March 8, 2022
View On Website
Open as PDF
Daily Memo: More Sanctions
Additional measures are in the offing as U.S. destroyers reportedly enter the Baltic Sea.
By: Geopolitical Futures
More sanctions. EU diplomats are expected to expand sanctions against Russia on Tuesday. The new package will target more Russian oligarchs and the maritime shipping industry. However, diplomatic sources claimed that the new measures will not target ports for fear of further compromising energy supplies.
Baltic Sea drills. The Russian Baltic Sea Fleet has started exercises involving anti-ship missile systems after two U.S. destroyers reportedly entered the Baltic Sea.
Mixed signals. The Ukrainian military said that although Russian operations continue, their troop advancement has slowed dramatically. For its part, Russian’s Defense Ministry said its armed forces have taken control of eight new settlements. Moscow, meanwhile, announced a temporary cease-fire to allow for the evacuation of civilians from Ukrainian cities.
Nord Stream 1. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak threatened to halt gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Germany, Russia’s most important European energy customer, responded by calling its bluff, saying Russia may not be able to afford becoming an unreliable supplier.
Hungary and China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday spoke to his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, who expressed a willingness to help Chinese nationals fleeing Ukraine to return to China. Wang said that for China, the situation in Ukraine is regrettable, adding that he hoped the European Union would uphold the spirit of strategic autonomy and play a more proactive role in resolving the crisis and building a European security mechanism in the next step.
Russia’s ally in Sudan. Sudan has reportedly relocated warplanes from Wadi Seidna air base just north of Khartoum to other military airports outside the capital to make room for Russia’s air force, according to an unnamed senior Sudanese air force official. It’s unclear how Russia intends to use the bases.
European carmakers. The war in Ukraine is already hurting European car production thanks to a shortage of wiring harnesses, according to cables and electrical systems company KES. Skoda, the Czech car manufacturer, confirmed as much. Skoda recently decided to stop its activities and its exports in Russia in response to the invasion.
North Korean nukes. Commercial satellite imagery shows construction at North Korea's nuclear testing site for the first time since its closure in 2018, U.S.-based analysts said on Tuesday. Images include construction of a new building and repairs of another. International monitors have also reported that the North's main nuclear reactor facility at Yongbyon appears to be operating fully, potentially creating fuel for nuclear weapons.
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"Here is one of mine from FB in response to another post:"
Great analysis. I disagree in part. Wonder if you had any noteworthy response or rebuttal to that on FB.
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Awaiting response- including yours :-D
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https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/04/nato-involvement-in-ukraine-could-spark-nuclear-genocide-heres-how-it-could-happen/
I'm not sure how that would be accidental - if one of the world's super powers set off nuclear weapons intentionally - in the course of an offensive invasion - of a previously sovereign nation.
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Accidental in the sense that each went in thinking the other side would blink first in the game of chicken.
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"Here is one of mine from FB in response to another post:"
Great analysis. I disagree in part. Wonder if you had any noteworthy response or rebuttal to that on FB.
I like it. Well stated.
-
Tail wags gents, thank you.
================
Big uh oh here!
https://www.axios.com/poland-fighter-jets-ukraine-8c71b8b9-b22b-4f0f-aabd-789081ddb994.html?fbclid=IwAR1qEIbu9tYmZwXvWaghIBqm0EXgJad4tkm_0wa8M3hEw6of6yu7musGr7M
https://www.gov.pl/web/diplomacy/statement-of-the-minister-of-foreign-affairs-of-the-republic-of-poland-in-connection-with-the-statement-by-the-us-secretary-of-state-on-providing-airplanes-to-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR1lTxX9-HGtbxUR9vr99jHvEju4wlTZ4lUu6E_l7lsF-0tfkiaxZZ4G1Mc
-
Tail wags gents, thank you.
================
Big uh oh here!
https://www.axios.com/poland-fighter-jets-ukraine-8c71b8b9-b22b-4f0f-aabd-789081ddb994.html?fbclid=IwAR1qEIbu9tYmZwXvWaghIBqm0EXgJad4tkm_0wa8M3hEw6of6yu7musGr7M
What could go wrong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxJHecyYBno
-
Tail wags gents, thank you.
================
Big uh oh here!
https://www.axios.com/poland-fighter-jets-ukraine-8c71b8b9-b22b-4f0f-aabd-789081ddb994.html?fbclid=IwAR1qEIbu9tYmZwXvWaghIBqm0EXgJad4tkm_0wa8M3hEw6of6yu7musGr7M
What could go wrong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxJHecyYBno
https://thegoodcitizen.substack.com/p/does-tucker-carlson-read-the-good?s=r
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Thanks Marc.
1. "We have insisted upon it [Backyard / Monroe Doctrine / Don't stand so close to me], and we should respect the concern of others in this regard. In this context it is irrelevant what kind of a man Putin is."
- Not what kind of man is he, but what kind of behaviors has he exhibited?
As I understand it, the Monroe Doctrine was an American assertion of a right, not a treaty or a binding agreement. But in that it has served us well (mostly), let's treat it as binding as it applies to Russia and China, as it applies to us. Assuming this is a (rather unspecific) right of these three countries to be honored by the others, is it unconditional?
I argue no.
The trouble between Ukraine and Russia is a which-came-first argument, the chicken or the egg. Ukraine has needed to defend itself and seek help with that because of Russian "Belligerence and bullying" (2007), and Russian invasion (2014), and various troubles in the years in between (a matter of both opinion and of fact). From the Russian perspective, they are provoked into these aggressions because Ukraine is seeking to improve its defenses.
2. The 'Monroe Doctrine' argument as it applies to the US, Russia and China, does it apply to Ukraine? If not, why not? Because they are small (larger than France)? Because they do not have the similar potential to threaten us in our hemisphere so we do not owe them that mutual protection, and can provide them with nothing on their front, and thus we must favor our adversary with restraint?
3. What is the right of Ukraine to defend itself and seek help in doing that? Under these circumstances, it's nearly absolute. They face a potential eternity of generations living under oppression if they fail to fight back or fail to win that fight.
4. Given this war is already underway, a war of Putin's choosing, and our ally(?) is begging for help against our adversary, the aggressor Russia, and the United States is forced to make a choice. And that choice I believe is, what is in our best interest? All options are on the table. The American answer at this point is, try to help Ukraine and try to help weaken or stop Russia until the war hostilities subside.
5. We calculate the implications for the US under all the scenarios, but also, what are the implications for China? We can do nothing to help Hong Kong because they are certainly in China's [front] yard. We can do nothing to support Taiwan for the same reason. But we are providing and contemplating more military support for Taiwan. Is that wrong? I don't believe so.
On china's other front, the low level war with India, on a border Google Maps cannot find, under these rules we cannot help emerging power India against rival power China, no matter what happens? I disagree. If escalation by China forces us to make choices, we search our mind and our conscience for what is right and what is in our best interest. The 'Monroe Doctrine' is a factor but not the only factor.
To at least consider standing up to evil everywhere we find it is a responsibility of a moral people, and also a strategic, survival imperative.
-
WSJ
OPINION COMMENTARY
Why Does Ukraine Have a Jewish President? Ask Isaac Babel
Zelensky’s bravery is reminiscent of the Russian writer’s fierce refusal to curb his independence.
By Ruth R. Wisse
March 7, 2022 12:29 pm ET
Ukrainians and Jews were trapped in a fateful pattern for centuries. Whenever Ukrainians fought for their independence—against the Poles in 1648, the Soviets in 1919 or the Germans in 1941—Jews were the plunder at their disposal. Bohdan Khmelnytsky figures in Ukrainian history as the George Washington of the nation. He figures in Jewish history as the pogrom killer of thousands. How can a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors now be the country’s accepted leader?
Our guide to an answer is a native of Odessa, Isaac Babel, one of the boldest writers who ever lived. In 1920, during the first war waged by the newly formed Soviet Union, against Poland over territory that is now Ukraine, Babel served as the embedded correspondent in the First Cavalry army, made up of Zaporizhian Cossacks. His account of that war in the stories of “Red Cavalry” shows why Jews and Ukrainians may be the two peoples readiest to live and die for their freedom—and how their fused spirit lives in Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
As a Soviet functionary charged with forging Soviet unity, Babel was privately taking notes for the great work he intended to write. “Red Cavalry” documents the contrast between the sensitive Jewish narrator and the Cossacks he accompanies into battle. The stories show that an “intellectual with glasses” could find no way to protect the Jews from being crushed between the warring armies. In this work, as in real life, the author and narrator took on the assumed Russian patronym Lyutov, not to deny his Jewishness but better to fulfill his professional role.
The function of the creative writer differed from that of the embedded propagandist. Behind the more obvious contrast between Jews and Cossacks, Babel sensed that the two groups shared a common destiny under the new Soviet regime, which would tolerate neither the Jewish way of life nor the essential autonomy of the horsemen. He was witnessing the imposed death of both these civilizations. Jews suffered the brunt of the violence, but the Cossacks had to submit to foreign codes of conduct and severe limitations on their freedom. Soviet dictatorship bore down equally on both.
Their common fate under communism led Babel to notice other resemblances. The Jews and Cossacks were equally brave. Lyutov is billeted in a Jewish home that has been looted, and on waking where the landlady had bedded him down, he discovers that he has been sleeping beside a corpse. The old man has had his face hacked in two, with “dark blood clinging to his beard like a clump of lead.” The Jewish landlady tells how he had begged the Poles to kill him in the backyard so that she, his daughter, would not see him die. “Now, I want you to tell me where in all the world one could find another father like my father!”
There are no trigger warnings to shield delicate sensibilities. Every murdered Jew in Babel’s writing has wounds in front as a sign of unarmed resistance. The valiant father has his counterpart in a rabbi’s son who leaves home to join the fight, dying with his Hebrew pages and Communist pamphlets strewn around him. And while the physical bravery of the Cossacks makes them more useful in battle, they are not natural soldiers either, since they resist military discipline.
Because Stalin’s suppression had not yet solidified when Babel wrote these stories, he felt unconstrained by any cultural expectations. He extended his writerly respect to the Cossack attributes that Jews thought evil, and he let the Cossacks speak for themselves without romanticizing their sometimes brutal justice. At the same time, while he valorizes the pacific Jews, whom he knew better, he does not sentimentalize their victimhood, and he shows through the self-portrait of Lyutov how the desire to be blameless may not be a virtue.
Lyutov is hardest on himself in these stories. In one, he is shamed for endangering his comrades in arms by not carrying a gun into battle. In another he earns the lasting contempt of a friend when he is too squeamish to pull the trigger on a fatally wounded soldier who begs to be shot. The most trenchant criticism comes when an officer tells Lyutov, “I see right through you. All you want is to have no enemies.” Denying enmity is not morality, but cowardice.
Babel did not realize the high price he would have to pay for writing as a free man. He was arrested, tortured and executed in 1940.
President Zelensky’s readiness to die for Ukraine’s freedom feels much like Babel’s refusal to curb his independence. Likewise, Lyutov’s wanting to have no enemies helps us understand why the Jews who finally reclaimed their sovereignty in Israel would fight so tenaciously to repel the Arab-Muslim aggressors who still deny them their country after almost eight decades. Small nations, such as those of the Ukrainians and Jews, will always seem easy prey.
Among the many appeals Mr. Zelensky has issued, he has asked Jews to “cry out over the murder of civilization.” That he now does it in the name of Ukraine is no anomaly but the sequel to what Isaac Babel described.
Ms. Wisse is a professor emerita at Harvard and author of the memoir “Free as a Jew.”
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"Because they do not have the similar potential to threaten us in our hemisphere so we do not owe them that mutual protection, and can provide them with nothing on their front, and thus we must favor our adversary with restraint? "
We OWE Ukraine nothing. Not our zoo, not our monkeys. Does bleeding out Putin's forces make sense? To a degree, but it's a dangerous game and if it goes wrong we get WWIII. The people playing it on our side are highly credentialed idiots with decades of failure upon failure on the foreign policy front. We don't let idiots drive tractors in flyover country, but we let them pull stings from the shadows in Washington DC.
-
https://www.takimag.com/article/if-only-putin-had-invaded-mexico/
-
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nuland-warns-russia-may-seize-ukraine-biolabs-stage-false-flag-using-bioweapons
https://www.minotdailynews.com/opinion/national-columnists/2022/03/what-do-ukraine-and-wuhan-have-in-common/
What do Ukraine and Wuhan have in common?
NATIONAL COLUMNISTS
MAR 4, 2022
LAURA HOLLIS
Campaigning politicians have always inflated their own importance and the benefits of the policies they espouse — and exaggerated the perils of electing the other guy. It used to be the case that these self-aggrandizing stump speeches were tempered by a (mostly) diligent press that went out of its way to poke holes in those exaggerations and deflate egos with some sharply pointed facts. And Americans have historically trusted their elected leaders to tell the truth in matters of grave national importance.
No more. We are swimming in a cesspool of lies so fetid that it’s almost impossible to know what’s true anymore. This is a consequence of two political parties whose most visible and powerful members lie with impunity, and a national press that abandoned the pursuit of truth years ago in favor of pushing left-wing political propaganda.
Let’s take the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Is this nothing more than naked aggression by a larger country (Russia) run by an ex-KGB agent (President Vladimir Putin) who’s made no bones about wanting some (if not all) of the old Soviet territories back?
That’s the position being pushed by the Biden administration.
Putin, on the other hand, claims not only that parts (if not all) of Ukraine belong to Russia; he has intimated that the United States has been funding the development of possible biowarfare agents at laboratories in Ukraine, and that these pathogens could be used as weapons against Russia.
Until recently, most of us would have tended to believe the statements of our own government over the inflammatory accusations of a former Soviet strongman. But two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that our own government lies to us continuously and repeatedly.
In fact, the similarities between the “Ukraine biolabs” story and the theory that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology are remarkable.
When COVID-19 began spreading throughout China and the rest of the world, the “official” story was that the virus had jumped species (from bat to human, perhaps with an intermediary host) in a wet market in Wuhan. Very quickly, some writers pointed out that the city of Wuhan had an international virology institute. And that bat viruses were being studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And that scientists who worked at WIV had published papers in which they described genetically manipulating those viruses to see if they could be made to “jump species” (so-called gain of function research).
Immediately, these statements and the questions they raised were dismissed as “misinformation” or Chinese government propaganda. Broadcast and print media journalists refused to investigate the claims. Those who continued to ask questions were denounced as kooks or “conspiracy theorists.” Social media megacorporations Twitter, Facebook and YouTube removed content and shut down the accounts of anyone who tried to publish information about the “lab leak” theory. America’s COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci was consistently among the most vocal detractors of that theory.
But information continued to seep out. State Department memoranda from 2018 were discovered, warning that research into zoonotic bat viruses being conducted at the WIV lacked adequate safety protocols. Those memoranda mentioned funding by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the organization run by Fauci. Fauci was called before Congress and insisted that the NIAID had never funded “gain of function” research. An October 2021 letter from the NIH proved that this was untrue; the NIAID and the NIH had funded gain of function research in Wuhan. Other documents — including Fauci’s own emails — obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests revealed that Fauci and other scientists were seriously evaluating the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, even as they lied to the public and denied it.
What does any of this have to do with Ukraine?
A Washington Post article from 2005 opens with this statement: “The United States and Ukraine agreed yesterday to work jointly to prevent the spread of biological weapons, signing a pact that clears the way for Ukraine’s government to receive U.S. aid to improve security at facilities where dangerous microbes are kept.” The two U.S. senators spearheading that initiative were Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, and Barack Obama, then a Democratic senator from Illinois.
So, “dangerous microbes” are at these Ukrainian laboratories, and the United States government has been providing funding. For what, exactly? To “improve security.”
This hardly inspires confidence.
Right on cue, here come the “official” statements. An article published last week in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists quotes Robert Pope, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, a “30-year-old Defense Department program that has helped secure the former Soviet Union’s weapons of mass destruction and redirect former bioweapons facilities and scientists toward peaceful endeavors.”
According to Pope, “the labs in Ukraine are not bioweapons facilities … (T)hey are public and animal health labs” that “conduct peaceful scientific research and disease surveillance.” Pope further insisted that all pathogens present at the Ukrainian laboratories were safe as long as they were kept frozen, but power outages caused by damage to the buildings (from warfare, for example) could pose a problem. Furthermore, the safety protocols of the Ukraine labs are not without concern. “They have more pathogens in more places than we recommend,” Pope said, in what sounds like a serious understatement.
Predictably, any suspicions about the work conducted in Ukrainian laboratories and funded by the U.S. government are now being dismissed as “disinformation.” Foreign Policy published an article yesterday insisting that the “Ukrainian lab bioweapons” claims are just “conspiracy theories” being advanced by (of course) the Russian and Chinese governments and (wait for it) QAnon supporters who are spreading misinformation on social media as part of the “dogma for the right wing of the Republican Party.”
Sound familiar?
So, what’s really going on in the Ukrainian laboratories? Who do you believe?
-
"Because they do not have the similar potential to threaten us in our hemisphere so we do not owe them that mutual protection, and can provide them with nothing on their front, and thus we must favor our adversary with restraint? "
We OWE Ukraine nothing. Not our zoo, not our monkeys. Does bleeding out Putin's forces make sense? To a degree, but it's a dangerous game and if it goes wrong we get WWIII. The people playing it on our side are highly credentialed idiots with decades of failure upon failure on the foreign policy front. We don't let idiots drive tractors in flyover country, but we let them pull stings from the shadows in Washington DC.
It is ALREADY a dangerous game and doing nothing risks WWIII as well. I measure the risk by what percent of the globe they control, measured a number of different ways. They start with eleven time zones, enough nukes to make this conversation real and enough oil and gas to turn the world economy on and off. Oh, and the Uranium supply. Why is more better?
I spent the afternoon reading about build your own fallout shelters
This to me is more about Russia gaining, than Ukraine losing. Maybe it turns out that the west having zero reaction to current invasion leads to ... China takes Hong Kong, oops already done, China takes Taiwan, China takes control of South China Sea, America sends war ships there so why shouldn't they, Russia corners Uranium market, oops already done, Russia takes the breakaway Republics of the next first tier neighbor and so on. Well that's Europe's problem, and Asia's problem? If so, with Russia, China and who knows who else emboldened, the risk level went up or went down?
Putin gets his way with ALL first tier neighbors because of what the 5th President of the US said in 1823, then what? Then gets his way with all new first tier neighbors? Same doctrine? He can't? He won't? That's where we'll draw the big new red line? Or we still don't care? We care more about Poland, Romania, Lithuania than Ukraine, how so? Isn't Finland first tier? Haven't they been provocative?
Except to say a. Russia is not a threat, and strangely b. we are on the brink of a nuclear war with Russia we will lose, no one answers my question, what is THE lesson in hindsight of WWII. I say, stop evil sooner. You say:
-
"Because they do not have the similar potential to threaten us in our hemisphere so we do not owe them that mutual protection, and can provide them with nothing on their front, and thus we must favor our adversary with restraint? "
We OWE Ukraine nothing. Not our zoo, not our monkeys. Does bleeding out Putin's forces make sense? To a degree, but it's a dangerous game and if it goes wrong we get WWIII. The people playing it on our side are highly credentialed idiots with decades of failure upon failure on the foreign policy front. We don't let idiots drive tractors in flyover country, but we let them pull stings from the shadows in Washington DC.
It is ALREADY a dangerous game and doing nothing risks WWIII as well. I measure the risk by what percent of the globe they control, measured a number of different ways. They start with eleven time zones, enough nukes to make this conversation real and enough oil and gas to turn the world economy on and off. Oh, and the Uranium supply. Why is more better?
I spent the day reading about build your own fallout shelter.
This to me is more about Russia gaining, than Ukraine losing. Maybe it turns out that the west having zero reaction to current invasion leads to ... China takes Hong Kong, oops already done, China takes Taiwan, China takes control of South China Sea, America sends war ships there so why shouldn't they, Russia corners Uranium market, oops already done, Russia takes the breakaway Republics of the next first tier neighbor and so on. Well that's Europe's problem, and Asia's problem?
Putin gets his way with ALL first tier neighbors because of what the 5th President of the US said in 1823, then what? His gets his way with all new first tier neighbors? Same doctrine? He can't? He won't? That's where we'll draw the big new red line? Or we still don't care? We care more about Poland, Romania, Lithuania than Ukraine, how so? Isn't Finland first tier? Haven't they been provocative?
Except to say a. Russia is not a threat, and strangely b. we are on the brink of a nuclear war with Russia we will lose, no one answers my question, what is THE lesson in hindsight of WWII. I say, stop evil sooner. You say:
Pick your fights carefully. Ukraine is not the place to risk global thermonuclear war over. Our problems are here, not over there.
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I thought we were to retreat from the fights at home too. What ground will we hold soon at this rate?
-
I thought we were to retreat from the fights at home too. What ground will we hold soon at this rate?
“America is at that awkward stage; it's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.”
― Claire Wolfe
We are close to the end of that stage.
NoGo zones aren't just for muslim enclaves in euro-stan. It's a tactic that can work anywhere.
Plan accordingly.
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https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-blob-wants-war.html
Plan and/or pray accordingly.
-
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-blob-wants-war.html
Plan and/or pray accordingly.
From Joe Kent(Currently running for Congress):
Dear Friend,
The establishment wants to lead us into war (again).
The narrative out of Washington, DC feels very similar to the lead up to the Iraq War. We have politicians, members of Congress, now echoing the messaging of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address about building a “coalition” of allies against Russia. Then, they vote to express “solidarity” with Ukraine, laying out ways they can further provoke Russia.
Instead of lawmakers like Jaime Herrera Beutler warmongering and conducting pointless photo ops behind Ukrainian-colored American flags, we need to demand that Joe Biden consult Congress so those who represent the American people can vigorously debate any escalations of force.
The American people want to know what’s on the table and want to have a say, and Congress alone has the power to declare war—but Joe Biden and the establishment across both parties don’t want them to.
It’s easy for them to talk a big talk in DC and act tough on the world stage. But at the end of the day, they have completely incapacitated our domestic energy production and our leverage in dealing with Russia. They’re willing to put our national security in danger, even if it means striking oil deals with despotic governments like Venezuela.
There is nothing but incompetence and weak leadership coming out of our nation’s capital, and that’s a very dangerous combination. It’s time for us, the American people, to have a say in our national security—because no one benefits from war.
Why does his perspective matter?
https://sofrep.com/sofrep-radio/episode-545-joe-kent-special-forces-veteran-and-gold-star-husband/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/03/22/feature/navy-cryptologist-shannon-kent-who-died-in-an-isis-suicide-attack-in-syria-was-torn-between-family-and-duty/
-
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-blob-wants-war.html
Plan and/or pray accordingly.
From Joe Kent(Currently running for Congress):
Dear Friend,
The establishment wants to lead us into war (again).
The narrative out of Washington, DC feels very similar to the lead up to the Iraq War. We have politicians, members of Congress, now echoing the messaging of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address about building a “coalition” of allies against Russia. Then, they vote to express “solidarity” with Ukraine, laying out ways they can further provoke Russia.
Instead of lawmakers like Jaime Herrera Beutler warmongering and conducting pointless photo ops behind Ukrainian-colored American flags, we need to demand that Joe Biden consult Congress so those who represent the American people can vigorously debate any escalations of force.
The American people want to know what’s on the table and want to have a say, and Congress alone has the power to declare war—but Joe Biden and the establishment across both parties don’t want them to.
It’s easy for them to talk a big talk in DC and act tough on the world stage. But at the end of the day, they have completely incapacitated our domestic energy production and our leverage in dealing with Russia. They’re willing to put our national security in danger, even if it means striking oil deals with despotic governments like Venezuela.
There is nothing but incompetence and weak leadership coming out of our nation’s capital, and that’s a very dangerous combination. It’s time for us, the American people, to have a say in our national security—because no one benefits from war.
Why does his perspective matter?
https://sofrep.com/sofrep-radio/episode-545-joe-kent-special-forces-veteran-and-gold-star-husband/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/03/22/feature/navy-cryptologist-shannon-kent-who-died-in-an-isis-suicide-attack-in-syria-was-torn-between-family-and-duty/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/996/194/original/fb5edc5ec905296e.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/996/194/original/fb5edc5ec905296e.png)
-
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500499205663645700.html
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nuland-warns-russia-may-seize-ukraine-biolabs-stage-false-flag-using-bioweapons
https://www.minotdailynews.com/opinion/national-columnists/2022/03/what-do-ukraine-and-wuhan-have-in-common/
What do Ukraine and Wuhan have in common?
NATIONAL COLUMNISTS
MAR 4, 2022
LAURA HOLLIS
Campaigning politicians have always inflated their own importance and the benefits of the policies they espouse — and exaggerated the perils of electing the other guy. It used to be the case that these self-aggrandizing stump speeches were tempered by a (mostly) diligent press that went out of its way to poke holes in those exaggerations and deflate egos with some sharply pointed facts. And Americans have historically trusted their elected leaders to tell the truth in matters of grave national importance.
No more. We are swimming in a cesspool of lies so fetid that it’s almost impossible to know what’s true anymore. This is a consequence of two political parties whose most visible and powerful members lie with impunity, and a national press that abandoned the pursuit of truth years ago in favor of pushing left-wing political propaganda.
Let’s take the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Is this nothing more than naked aggression by a larger country (Russia) run by an ex-KGB agent (President Vladimir Putin) who’s made no bones about wanting some (if not all) of the old Soviet territories back?
That’s the position being pushed by the Biden administration.
Putin, on the other hand, claims not only that parts (if not all) of Ukraine belong to Russia; he has intimated that the United States has been funding the development of possible biowarfare agents at laboratories in Ukraine, and that these pathogens could be used as weapons against Russia.
Until recently, most of us would have tended to believe the statements of our own government over the inflammatory accusations of a former Soviet strongman. But two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that our own government lies to us continuously and repeatedly.
In fact, the similarities between the “Ukraine biolabs” story and the theory that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology are remarkable.
When COVID-19 began spreading throughout China and the rest of the world, the “official” story was that the virus had jumped species (from bat to human, perhaps with an intermediary host) in a wet market in Wuhan. Very quickly, some writers pointed out that the city of Wuhan had an international virology institute. And that bat viruses were being studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And that scientists who worked at WIV had published papers in which they described genetically manipulating those viruses to see if they could be made to “jump species” (so-called gain of function research).
Immediately, these statements and the questions they raised were dismissed as “misinformation” or Chinese government propaganda. Broadcast and print media journalists refused to investigate the claims. Those who continued to ask questions were denounced as kooks or “conspiracy theorists.” Social media megacorporations Twitter, Facebook and YouTube removed content and shut down the accounts of anyone who tried to publish information about the “lab leak” theory. America’s COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci was consistently among the most vocal detractors of that theory.
But information continued to seep out. State Department memoranda from 2018 were discovered, warning that research into zoonotic bat viruses being conducted at the WIV lacked adequate safety protocols. Those memoranda mentioned funding by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the organization run by Fauci. Fauci was called before Congress and insisted that the NIAID had never funded “gain of function” research. An October 2021 letter from the NIH proved that this was untrue; the NIAID and the NIH had funded gain of function research in Wuhan. Other documents — including Fauci’s own emails — obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests revealed that Fauci and other scientists were seriously evaluating the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, even as they lied to the public and denied it.
What does any of this have to do with Ukraine?
A Washington Post article from 2005 opens with this statement: “The United States and Ukraine agreed yesterday to work jointly to prevent the spread of biological weapons, signing a pact that clears the way for Ukraine’s government to receive U.S. aid to improve security at facilities where dangerous microbes are kept.” The two U.S. senators spearheading that initiative were Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, and Barack Obama, then a Democratic senator from Illinois.
So, “dangerous microbes” are at these Ukrainian laboratories, and the United States government has been providing funding. For what, exactly? To “improve security.”
This hardly inspires confidence.
Right on cue, here come the “official” statements. An article published last week in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists quotes Robert Pope, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, a “30-year-old Defense Department program that has helped secure the former Soviet Union’s weapons of mass destruction and redirect former bioweapons facilities and scientists toward peaceful endeavors.”
According to Pope, “the labs in Ukraine are not bioweapons facilities … (T)hey are public and animal health labs” that “conduct peaceful scientific research and disease surveillance.” Pope further insisted that all pathogens present at the Ukrainian laboratories were safe as long as they were kept frozen, but power outages caused by damage to the buildings (from warfare, for example) could pose a problem. Furthermore, the safety protocols of the Ukraine labs are not without concern. “They have more pathogens in more places than we recommend,” Pope said, in what sounds like a serious understatement.
Predictably, any suspicions about the work conducted in Ukrainian laboratories and funded by the U.S. government are now being dismissed as “disinformation.” Foreign Policy published an article yesterday insisting that the “Ukrainian lab bioweapons” claims are just “conspiracy theories” being advanced by (of course) the Russian and Chinese governments and (wait for it) QAnon supporters who are spreading misinformation on social media as part of the “dogma for the right wing of the Republican Party.”
Sound familiar?
So, what’s really going on in the Ukrainian laboratories? Who do you believe?
-
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/017/112/original/1070be1f54651e72.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/017/112/original/1070be1f54651e72.png)
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500499205663645700.html
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nuland-warns-russia-may-seize-ukraine-biolabs-stage-false-flag-using-bioweapons
https://www.minotdailynews.com/opinion/national-columnists/2022/03/what-do-ukraine-and-wuhan-have-in-common/
What do Ukraine and Wuhan have in common?
NATIONAL COLUMNISTS
MAR 4, 2022
LAURA HOLLIS
Campaigning politicians have always inflated their own importance and the benefits of the policies they espouse — and exaggerated the perils of electing the other guy. It used to be the case that these self-aggrandizing stump speeches were tempered by a (mostly) diligent press that went out of its way to poke holes in those exaggerations and deflate egos with some sharply pointed facts. And Americans have historically trusted their elected leaders to tell the truth in matters of grave national importance.
No more. We are swimming in a cesspool of lies so fetid that it’s almost impossible to know what’s true anymore. This is a consequence of two political parties whose most visible and powerful members lie with impunity, and a national press that abandoned the pursuit of truth years ago in favor of pushing left-wing political propaganda.
Let’s take the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Is this nothing more than naked aggression by a larger country (Russia) run by an ex-KGB agent (President Vladimir Putin) who’s made no bones about wanting some (if not all) of the old Soviet territories back?
That’s the position being pushed by the Biden administration.
Putin, on the other hand, claims not only that parts (if not all) of Ukraine belong to Russia; he has intimated that the United States has been funding the development of possible biowarfare agents at laboratories in Ukraine, and that these pathogens could be used as weapons against Russia.
Until recently, most of us would have tended to believe the statements of our own government over the inflammatory accusations of a former Soviet strongman. But two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that our own government lies to us continuously and repeatedly.
In fact, the similarities between the “Ukraine biolabs” story and the theory that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology are remarkable.
When COVID-19 began spreading throughout China and the rest of the world, the “official” story was that the virus had jumped species (from bat to human, perhaps with an intermediary host) in a wet market in Wuhan. Very quickly, some writers pointed out that the city of Wuhan had an international virology institute. And that bat viruses were being studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And that scientists who worked at WIV had published papers in which they described genetically manipulating those viruses to see if they could be made to “jump species” (so-called gain of function research).
Immediately, these statements and the questions they raised were dismissed as “misinformation” or Chinese government propaganda. Broadcast and print media journalists refused to investigate the claims. Those who continued to ask questions were denounced as kooks or “conspiracy theorists.” Social media megacorporations Twitter, Facebook and YouTube removed content and shut down the accounts of anyone who tried to publish information about the “lab leak” theory. America’s COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci was consistently among the most vocal detractors of that theory.
But information continued to seep out. State Department memoranda from 2018 were discovered, warning that research into zoonotic bat viruses being conducted at the WIV lacked adequate safety protocols. Those memoranda mentioned funding by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the organization run by Fauci. Fauci was called before Congress and insisted that the NIAID had never funded “gain of function” research. An October 2021 letter from the NIH proved that this was untrue; the NIAID and the NIH had funded gain of function research in Wuhan. Other documents — including Fauci’s own emails — obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests revealed that Fauci and other scientists were seriously evaluating the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, even as they lied to the public and denied it.
What does any of this have to do with Ukraine?
A Washington Post article from 2005 opens with this statement: “The United States and Ukraine agreed yesterday to work jointly to prevent the spread of biological weapons, signing a pact that clears the way for Ukraine’s government to receive U.S. aid to improve security at facilities where dangerous microbes are kept.” The two U.S. senators spearheading that initiative were Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, and Barack Obama, then a Democratic senator from Illinois.
So, “dangerous microbes” are at these Ukrainian laboratories, and the United States government has been providing funding. For what, exactly? To “improve security.”
This hardly inspires confidence.
Right on cue, here come the “official” statements. An article published last week in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists quotes Robert Pope, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, a “30-year-old Defense Department program that has helped secure the former Soviet Union’s weapons of mass destruction and redirect former bioweapons facilities and scientists toward peaceful endeavors.”
According to Pope, “the labs in Ukraine are not bioweapons facilities … (T)hey are public and animal health labs” that “conduct peaceful scientific research and disease surveillance.” Pope further insisted that all pathogens present at the Ukrainian laboratories were safe as long as they were kept frozen, but power outages caused by damage to the buildings (from warfare, for example) could pose a problem. Furthermore, the safety protocols of the Ukraine labs are not without concern. “They have more pathogens in more places than we recommend,” Pope said, in what sounds like a serious understatement.
Predictably, any suspicions about the work conducted in Ukrainian laboratories and funded by the U.S. government are now being dismissed as “disinformation.” Foreign Policy published an article yesterday insisting that the “Ukrainian lab bioweapons” claims are just “conspiracy theories” being advanced by (of course) the Russian and Chinese governments and (wait for it) QAnon supporters who are spreading misinformation on social media as part of the “dogma for the right wing of the Republican Party.”
Sound familiar?
So, what’s really going on in the Ukrainian laboratories? Who do you believe?
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https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/03/08/obama-led-ukraine-biolab-efforts/
You.Don't.Say!
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/017/112/original/1070be1f54651e72.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/017/112/original/1070be1f54651e72.png)
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1500499205663645700.html
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nuland-warns-russia-may-seize-ukraine-biolabs-stage-false-flag-using-bioweapons
https://www.minotdailynews.com/opinion/national-columnists/2022/03/what-do-ukraine-and-wuhan-have-in-common/
What do Ukraine and Wuhan have in common?
NATIONAL COLUMNISTS
MAR 4, 2022
LAURA HOLLIS
Campaigning politicians have always inflated their own importance and the benefits of the policies they espouse — and exaggerated the perils of electing the other guy. It used to be the case that these self-aggrandizing stump speeches were tempered by a (mostly) diligent press that went out of its way to poke holes in those exaggerations and deflate egos with some sharply pointed facts. And Americans have historically trusted their elected leaders to tell the truth in matters of grave national importance.
No more. We are swimming in a cesspool of lies so fetid that it’s almost impossible to know what’s true anymore. This is a consequence of two political parties whose most visible and powerful members lie with impunity, and a national press that abandoned the pursuit of truth years ago in favor of pushing left-wing political propaganda.
Let’s take the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Is this nothing more than naked aggression by a larger country (Russia) run by an ex-KGB agent (President Vladimir Putin) who’s made no bones about wanting some (if not all) of the old Soviet territories back?
That’s the position being pushed by the Biden administration.
Putin, on the other hand, claims not only that parts (if not all) of Ukraine belong to Russia; he has intimated that the United States has been funding the development of possible biowarfare agents at laboratories in Ukraine, and that these pathogens could be used as weapons against Russia.
Until recently, most of us would have tended to believe the statements of our own government over the inflammatory accusations of a former Soviet strongman. But two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that our own government lies to us continuously and repeatedly.
In fact, the similarities between the “Ukraine biolabs” story and the theory that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology are remarkable.
When COVID-19 began spreading throughout China and the rest of the world, the “official” story was that the virus had jumped species (from bat to human, perhaps with an intermediary host) in a wet market in Wuhan. Very quickly, some writers pointed out that the city of Wuhan had an international virology institute. And that bat viruses were being studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And that scientists who worked at WIV had published papers in which they described genetically manipulating those viruses to see if they could be made to “jump species” (so-called gain of function research).
Immediately, these statements and the questions they raised were dismissed as “misinformation” or Chinese government propaganda. Broadcast and print media journalists refused to investigate the claims. Those who continued to ask questions were denounced as kooks or “conspiracy theorists.” Social media megacorporations Twitter, Facebook and YouTube removed content and shut down the accounts of anyone who tried to publish information about the “lab leak” theory. America’s COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci was consistently among the most vocal detractors of that theory.
But information continued to seep out. State Department memoranda from 2018 were discovered, warning that research into zoonotic bat viruses being conducted at the WIV lacked adequate safety protocols. Those memoranda mentioned funding by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the organization run by Fauci. Fauci was called before Congress and insisted that the NIAID had never funded “gain of function” research. An October 2021 letter from the NIH proved that this was untrue; the NIAID and the NIH had funded gain of function research in Wuhan. Other documents — including Fauci’s own emails — obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests revealed that Fauci and other scientists were seriously evaluating the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, even as they lied to the public and denied it.
What does any of this have to do with Ukraine?
A Washington Post article from 2005 opens with this statement: “The United States and Ukraine agreed yesterday to work jointly to prevent the spread of biological weapons, signing a pact that clears the way for Ukraine’s government to receive U.S. aid to improve security at facilities where dangerous microbes are kept.” The two U.S. senators spearheading that initiative were Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, and Barack Obama, then a Democratic senator from Illinois.
So, “dangerous microbes” are at these Ukrainian laboratories, and the United States government has been providing funding. For what, exactly? To “improve security.”
This hardly inspires confidence.
Right on cue, here come the “official” statements. An article published last week in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists quotes Robert Pope, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, a “30-year-old Defense Department program that has helped secure the former Soviet Union’s weapons of mass destruction and redirect former bioweapons facilities and scientists toward peaceful endeavors.”
According to Pope, “the labs in Ukraine are not bioweapons facilities … (T)hey are public and animal health labs” that “conduct peaceful scientific research and disease surveillance.” Pope further insisted that all pathogens present at the Ukrainian laboratories were safe as long as they were kept frozen, but power outages caused by damage to the buildings (from warfare, for example) could pose a problem. Furthermore, the safety protocols of the Ukraine labs are not without concern. “They have more pathogens in more places than we recommend,” Pope said, in what sounds like a serious understatement.
Predictably, any suspicions about the work conducted in Ukrainian laboratories and funded by the U.S. government are now being dismissed as “disinformation.” Foreign Policy published an article yesterday insisting that the “Ukrainian lab bioweapons” claims are just “conspiracy theories” being advanced by (of course) the Russian and Chinese governments and (wait for it) QAnon supporters who are spreading misinformation on social media as part of the “dogma for the right wing of the Republican Party.”
Sound familiar?
So, what’s really going on in the Ukrainian laboratories? Who do you believe?
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RZESZOW, Poland—In the space of two weeks, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has set off one of the largest and fastest arms transfers in history.
By road and rail, the Czech Republic sent 10,000 rocket-propelled grenades to Ukraine’s defenders last week alone. In Poland, the provincial airport of Rzeszow located about 60 miles from the Ukrainian border has been so crowded with military cargo jets that on Saturday some flights were briefly diverted until airfield space became available.
On the country’s highways, police vehicles are escorting military transport trucks to the border, with other convoys slipping into Ukraine via snow-covered back roads through the mountains.
Ukrainians in Kyiv unloaded a shipment of military aid, delivered in February as part of U.S. security assistance.
PHOTO: VALENTYN OGIRENKO/REUTERS
The race to deliver arms to Ukraine is emerging as a supply operation with few historical parallels. Western allies, having ruled out putting troops on the ground in Ukraine, have been attempting to equip the country’s thinly spread and outmatched military, some of its soldiers fighting without boots.
With Russian warships holding the Black Sea coast, and Ukraine’s airspace contested, the U.S. is rushing to truck weapons overland before Russia chokes off the roads as well. Pentagon officials said most of what will total $350 million in arms and assistance the Biden administration pledged late last month has been delivered. Congress is considering authorizing billions more. The Defense Department has described its efforts as unprecedented.
Governments once reluctant to transfer arms and antagonize Russia are joining the fray. Sweden, though historically nonaligned, has pledged 5,000 antitank weapons. Berlin—which only three weeks ago was blocking Estonia from transferring German-made howitzers to Ukraine—is now sending more than 2,000 antitank and antiaircraft weapons. Italy, long a passive player in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has also promised weapons, and Spain has offered grenade launchers.
Ukrainians Seek Safety as Russia Presses Its Attack
The mass flight from the fighting in Ukraine continued as Russian forces launched strikes on cities and military targets.
Residents fled Irpin, Ukraine, on Monday.People leaving Irpin, Ukraine, located just west of the capital of Kyiv, on foot Tuesday.Rescuers inspected a school building in Chernihiv, Ukraine, that was damaged by shelling, in a photo provided by Ukrainian authorities on Monday.A woman was carried across a river under a damaged bridge in Irpin, Ukraine, on Monday.Refugees from the fighting in Ukraine outside an immigration office in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday.A reception center for refugees from Ukraine at Poznan University of Technology in Poznan, Poland, on Monday.An elderly woman was evacuated from Irpin, Ukraine, by ambulance on Tuesday.A Polish soldier helped a child off a train from Lviv, Ukraine, at the station in Przemysl, Poland, on Monday.Men received weapons training in Lviv, Ukraine, on Monday.A resident took shelter in the basement of a building in Irpin, Ukraine, on Monday.
People leaving Irpin, Ukraine, located just west of the capital of Kyiv, on foot Tuesday.MANU BRABO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
1 of 10
•••••
The allied effort is buttressed by ordinary citizens in Europe and the U.S., who say they are buying hunting-grade gear online—to circumvent rules against shipping military equipment—and funneling it to friends headed into Ukraine. In Warsaw, a 67-year-old woman is in charge of smuggling night-vision goggles to the country’s defenders. Packed hotels near the Polish-Ukrainian border cater to men asking each other how they can ship body armor to major cities, before Russian troops seize the roads.
Still, Ukrainians say it isn’t enough. In videos posted to social media from his office in Kyiv, with the Ukrainian capital almost encircled by Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged the West to send more weapons and enforce a no-fly zone to stop Russia from carrying out more air attacks on civilians. He pleaded last weekend to members of Congress for combat jets and missiles.
Such appeals are coming not just from the top. Frontline fighters in Ukraine’s Territorial Defense units have used social media to put out a shopping list of their needs, including helmets, binoculars, range finders along with more basic needs such as instant noodles or Q-Tips.
“We need more,” said Andriy Malets, a 53-year-old entrepreneur who signed up to help defend the town of Kryvyi Rih but said he was forced to wait because his local unit has five volunteers for every available gun. Instead, he said, people in Kryvyi Rih now spend their time making Molotov cocktails.
With many types of military aid not yet arrived, many civilians in Ukraine are making Molotov cocktails.
PHOTO: LORENA SOPÉNA/ZUMA PRESS
The infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry has little precedent in modern times, said Filip Bryjka, a security analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. There hasn’t been a Western arms push of such speed and scale in Europe since President Harry S. Truman asked Congress to send $400 million in military and economic assistance into Greece and Turkey in the first months of the Cold War, said Mr. Bryjka, who wrote a recent analysis of Poland’s role in arms transfers to Ukraine.
The dollar value, U.S. and allied officials say, is almost certain to grow if the war continues. On Capitol Hill, legislators are considering a bill for when the $350 million designated for Ukraine runs out. That legislation provides $12 billion for Ukraine and its Eastern European allies, roughly half of which would be dedicated to supporting Ukraine militarily.
Ukrainian officials, in negotiations with Poland and the U.S., have pushed for NATO allies to provide Soviet-era jet fighters that Ukrainian pilots could fly, alongside more antitank missiles, Turkish drones, and heat-seeking missiles capable of shooting down combat helicopters or planes.
U.S. troops have set up bases at Rzeszow. Poland and at two small airfields, both not far from Poland’s border to Ukraine.
PHOTO: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
“We are happy but we are not satisfied,” said one senior Ukrainian official. “What we have is not enough because Russian troops are still in Ukraine.”
U.S. officials warn that the pace of resupply would likely slow if Russian forces grab control of the highways and cities of western Ukraine, where the weapons are received from convoys rolling in from Poland, Slovakia and Romania. But judging the pace of Russia’s advance and when the supply lines may be cut is hard to assess, defense officials have said.
A large amount of the gear going to Ukraine comes from NATO members in Central Europe that were once part of the former Soviet Union or allied with it. The U.S. says that Washington and its NATO allies have sent 17,000 antitank weapons into Ukraine, mostly provided by the Czech military.
Civilians fled the city of Sumy as Ukraine and Russia agreed on a limited cease-fire there; residents said soldiers ransacked their homes in Irpin; Ukrainian President Zelensky posted defiant video messages. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Some of the efforts have been financed by a crowdfunding campaign, which raised $20 million from individual donors in the Czech Republic. The country’s government put up another $30 million to buy arms that have virtually all been dispatched.
“Everything that Ukraine’s allies ask us to do, we do it ASAP,” said Czech Deputy Defense Minister Tomas Kopecny. “When it’s used in Ukraine it means it’s not used in our country.”
Although the transport planes and trucks are highly visible, the operation to supply Ukraine in many countries has been shrouded in secrecy. Some Central and Eastern European countries worry overt shipments could provoke Russia. “Most countries prefer not to share details because they are afraid of how Russia could react,” said Mr. Bryjka. “And they don’t want to make Russia’s intelligence work easier.”
The shipments are also operating through an area that Washington doesn’t expect to stay open much longer. Kyiv, which U.S. officials thought would fall early in the war, has held off Russian advances, allowing western militaries to ship in gear more easily than they expected.
Ukrainian women on Monday reviewed how to use weapons in case they are called to fight the Russian invasion.
PHOTO: COZZOLI/FOTOGRAMMA/ZUMA PRESS
Ukrainians living outside the country are using the same opening to drive in military gear bought with their own money to soldiers fighting in the war. While President Biden was delivering his State of the Union address last week, promising aid for Ukraine, Oksana Prysyazhnyuk, a Ukrainian energy executive in New York state, was watching, while texting friends on the front. “Maybe you can find someone who can provide helmets and bulletproof vests because the demand for them is absolutely huge,” a Ukrainian stationed near the front line texted her.
“They are going to war with bare hands,” Ms. Prysyazhnyuk said. “They don’t even have winter boots.”
One senior Ukrainian military official, who spoke Tuesday from his base outside Kyiv, disagreed. He said there were now no major equipment shortages among his troops. Asked what kind of support he would like to see from the West, he backed Mr. Zelensky’s call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine and added: “I’d like to see more Russians in graves.”
Write to Matthew Luxmoore at Matthew.Luxmoore@wsj.com, Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-08/china-pushes-russia-conspiracy-theory-about-u-s-labs-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR0eRovR3NZAVLlKAWBBl_1wsKEFbbMFt2ewhQ_H8ZOPu874qzX9cYtuQD0
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-08/china-pushes-russia-conspiracy-theory-about-u-s-labs-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR0eRovR3NZAVLlKAWBBl_1wsKEFbbMFt2ewhQ_H8ZOPu874qzX9cYtuQD0
If you’ll read through what I posted, the USG did indeed have labs handling dangerous pathogens in Ukraine.
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https://www.c-span.org/video/?86974-1/nato-expansion
Before he developed his “stutter”.
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https://www.c-span.org/video/?86974-1/nato-expansion
Before he developed his “stutter”.
Looks like it got memoryholed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVnuYiawhTk
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https://mobile.twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1500350719639101441
Losing, not winning. At great price.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-08/china-pushes-russia-conspiracy-theory-about-u-s-labs-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR0eRovR3NZAVLlKAWBBl_1wsKEFbbMFt2ewhQ_H8ZOPu874qzX9cYtuQD0
If you’ll read through what I posted, the USG did indeed have labs handling dangerous pathogens in Ukraine.
From "What labs?" to "Oh, THOSE labs. Purely defensive!". "Russian false flag!"
https://thepostmillennial.com/biden-official-us-ukraine-bio-research-facilities-russia
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Would like to see some coverage by sources we have heard of , , ,
=====================
Putin’s War Will Get Uglier
He won’t give up power without giving repression every chance to succeed.
By Walter Russell Mead
Follow
March 7, 2022 6:12 pm ET
Vladimir Putin is beginning to understand the immense difficulty of the war he cavalierly launched in Ukraine. He knows now that his corrupt and time-serving generals lied to him about the effectiveness of the military machine they had built. He knows that the flattering “experts” who reinforced his prejudices about the weakness of Ukrainian national identity were talking through their hats. He knows that even German fecklessness has limits and that Americans still know how to fight cold wars. He has no illusions now about the power of Western economic sanctions, and he knows that families all over Russia will soon be mourning their sons as the death toll mounts in Ukraine.
He is no doubt dismayed by the cascade of bad news but appears determined to fight on. This should not surprise us. Mr. Putin also knows that his future in power, his freedom and quite possibly his life depend on the outcome of this war.
And there is something else he knows, or thinks he knows, that many in the West discount. Westerners and especially Americans believe that freedom always wins in the end. That implies Mr. Putin will fail in Ukraine and Putinism will ultimately fail in Russia because that is the way history works.
From where Mr. Putin sits in the Kremlin, however, history seems to teach a different lesson. The empire of the czars was not built on freedom, nor did freedom result when it fell. The Soviet Union that rose from the ruins of Romanov power was not based on the idea of human freedom. Stalin wasn’t deposed by Russians hungry for freedom; he died in bed. The feeble liberals who tried to introduce Western-style democracy into post-Soviet Russia were soon sidelined in the power struggles of the Yeltsin era. Mr. Putin simply does not think that “freedom always wins” and his likely reaction to the failure of his initial strategy for the absorption of Ukraine into his domain will be to double down on repression.
We should not underestimate the power of his belief in the efficacy of the iron fist. He has seen it work in Tibet, Xinjiang and, most recently, Hong Kong. Mr. Putin knows how ugly and effective the process of restoring Bashar al-Assad’s rule across most of Syria has been. He notes that Nicolás Maduro still rules Venezuela, that the Castroite state retains its hold on Cuba, and that North Korea has defied decades of American sanctions. He recalls last year’s democratic rising in Belarus, and he remembers how easy it was for Alexander Lukashenko to crush it. Mr. Putin is unlikely to give up his ambitions in Ukraine, much less his power in Moscow, without giving repression every chance to succeed.
We should not delude ourselves about how far Mr. Putin could go. Since the outbreak of the war, he has been cracking down in Russia—closing the last remnants of a free press, arresting critics and tightening the laws against protest and dissent. But the Soviet era saw much more totalitarian controls and much greater terror than anything that exists in Russia today.
Would Mr. Putin rebuild the Gulag Archipelago and re-create the terror through which Stalin ruled Ukraine? If the alternative is to flee Moscow in disgrace and pass the remaining years of his life as a state pensioner in China, he will almost certainly move in that direction. Mr. Putin cemented his hold on power by deploying ruthless violence against civilians in Grozny to crush the Chechen drive for independence. Why would he yield power without using every available method to hold on?
The question is whether he can succeed. On the one hand, Mr. Putin’s state and the Russian bureaucracy today lack the ideological commitment and the experience of civil war that made Stalin’s Communist Party such an effective instrument of mass repression and terror. Today’s security agency, the FSB, is less powerful than the KGB, much less is it a match for the NKVD of Stalin’s time. There is also a question of how far into the darkness Mr. Putin’s allies are ready to travel with him.
Yet the technologies deployed across China under Xi Jinping make repression and social control much easier than ever. It is in any case easier to build an effective police state than to build a modern army, and the men who enabled Mr. Putin’s march into Ukraine may well continue to support him as he marches deeper into the Russian past.
Mr. Putin’s political career demonstrates three unwavering commitments: to his personal power, to the expansion of Russia, and to the superiority of authoritarian society over the liberal West. Unfortunately for the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, these principles will likely shape his decisions in the days and weeks to come.
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A lot of OMG is floating around regarding "US bio-labs in Ukraine". This 2005 document gives background.
The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program was intended to remediate a growing problem that stemmed from the collapse of the USSR. Scientists in the former Soviet labs had lost salaries, etc. and some were flowing bio materials and other WMD-related stuff into the black economy. Jihadis were quite interested in how they might use those things.
So CTR funded labs for ex-Soviet scientists outside of Russia proper, with an eye to bio-defense. I can't speak to anything that happened after, say, 2014 or so, but that was the origin and purpose of the "US bio-labs" whose existence is a hot social media meme today.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005-10/threat-reduction-program-extends-reach-ukrainian-biological-facilities
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https://mobile.twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1500350719639101441
Losing, not winning. At great price.
Elsewhere today on the forum, "If America Is Ever Invaded, You Must Take Up Arms and Fight". - Charles C.W. Cooke
But when the time comes, you will be told to "accept reality".
Head of Ukraine should surrender, we are told, lay down arms, "accept reality", agree to all Russian terms, because that is best anyway. You'll be "neutral" as a Russian puppet, assuming they let you live.
The invading force is 'surrounding resistance and annihilating it'. But when it comes here, we will shoot our way out of it?
I say, stop evil sooner. It's already picking up steam.
To Zelinsky, America isn't coming. Give up.
In the end, there is no America coming for us either. Retreat isn't going to get us out of this.
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Some interesting, detailed history from someone who was at there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB4C08m3JOY
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mciLyG9iexE
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Gain of function? I’m sure that if the USG assures us that everything was aboveboard, that’s sufficient!
A lot of OMG is floating around regarding "US bio-labs in Ukraine". This 2005 document gives background.
The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program was intended to remediate a growing problem that stemmed from the collapse of the USSR. Scientists in the former Soviet labs had lost salaries, etc. and some were flowing bio materials and other WMD-related stuff into the black economy. Jihadis were quite interested in how they might use those things.
So CTR funded labs for ex-Soviet scientists outside of Russia proper, with an eye to bio-defense. I can't speak to anything that happened after, say, 2014 or so, but that was the origin and purpose of the "US bio-labs" whose existence is a hot social media meme today.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005-10/threat-reduction-program-extends-reach-ukrainian-biological-facilities
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GM:
He is giving the previously unknown to me origin of this.
That is very valuable to know.
Keep in mind that with the War with Islamic Fascism starting in 2001 that the logic of keeping these evil people on OUR payroll continued to apply.
He clearly states he does not vouch for the last eight years.
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You’ll note how the narrative changed from “Ukraine bio labs are a conspiracy theory!” To “Oh, those labs! Nothing to worry about!”. Given the very recent unpunished criminality of our USG public health officials, I trust them as much as I trust the Russians.
GM:
He is giving the previously unknown to me origin of this.
That is very valuable to know.
Keep in mind that with the War with Islamic Fascism starting in 2001 that the logic of keeping these evil people on OUR payroll continued to apply.
He clearly states he does not vouch for the last eight years.
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Not asking for Trust.
Searching for Truth-- which includes:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/beijing-pushes-russian-conspiracy-theory-about-us-bio-labs-in-ukraine_4324022.html?utm_source=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-03-09&utm_medium=email&est=9cMrllFlSOok9o%2FVFQQU3poq3pwQ93Jxh2YUj1hLOxEPhi5u2h3Fb%2FKBx7Lf8Vsah0U2
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/breaking-video-russia-tells-us-found-biological-weapons-video/
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/breaking-video-russia-tells-us-found-biological-weapons-video/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/043/833/original/52a2b395a7ee73e4.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/043/833/original/52a2b395a7ee73e4.jpg)
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https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/079/772/original/1e14ab8638f3db01.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/079/772/original/1e14ab8638f3db01.jpg)
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-blob-wants-war.html
Plan and/or pray accordingly.
From Joe Kent(Currently running for Congress):
Dear Friend,
The establishment wants to lead us into war (again).
The narrative out of Washington, DC feels very similar to the lead up to the Iraq War. We have politicians, members of Congress, now echoing the messaging of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address about building a “coalition” of allies against Russia. Then, they vote to express “solidarity” with Ukraine, laying out ways they can further provoke Russia.
Instead of lawmakers like Jaime Herrera Beutler warmongering and conducting pointless photo ops behind Ukrainian-colored American flags, we need to demand that Joe Biden consult Congress so those who represent the American people can vigorously debate any escalations of force.
The American people want to know what’s on the table and want to have a say, and Congress alone has the power to declare war—but Joe Biden and the establishment across both parties don’t want them to.
It’s easy for them to talk a big talk in DC and act tough on the world stage. But at the end of the day, they have completely incapacitated our domestic energy production and our leverage in dealing with Russia. They’re willing to put our national security in danger, even if it means striking oil deals with despotic governments like Venezuela.
There is nothing but incompetence and weak leadership coming out of our nation’s capital, and that’s a very dangerous combination. It’s time for us, the American people, to have a say in our national security—because no one benefits from war.
Why does his perspective matter?
https://sofrep.com/sofrep-radio/episode-545-joe-kent-special-forces-veteran-and-gold-star-husband/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/03/22/feature/navy-cryptologist-shannon-kent-who-died-in-an-isis-suicide-attack-in-syria-was-torn-between-family-and-duty/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/996/194/original/fb5edc5ec905296e.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/996/194/original/fb5edc5ec905296e.png)
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If Russia took Alaska back, that's the only way we could buy oil from ANWR.
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If Russia took Alaska back, that's the only way we could buy oil from ANWR.
Don’t give Mordor on the Potomac any ideas.
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And this is what it looks like as it gathers momentum:
PS: The WSJ fails to mention Sec State Blinken's "green light" which kicked off this interaction.
=================================
NATO’s Polish MiG Fiasco
The White House divides the alliance and signals weakness by refusing to let Warsaw send fighter jets to Ukraine.
By The Editorial Board
Follow
March 9, 2022 6:45 pm ET
The U.S. and Europe have shown impressive cohesion since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which makes this week’s fiasco over delivering Poland’s MiG fighters to Kyiv so damaging. The message to Mr. Putin is that his intimidation works and NATO can be divided.
On Tuesday Poland said it could transfer around two dozen MIG-29 jet fighters to a U.S. base in Germany, and then to Ukraine, whose pilots can fly the Soviet-era planes with minimal training. On Sunday Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said the U.S. was working with the Poles on the issue and would try to “backfill anything that they provide to the Ukrainians.” Yet Washington later claimed surprise at Poland’s proposal.
“The decision about whether to transfer Polish-owned planes to Ukraine is ultimately one for the Polish government,” said a Pentagon spokesman in a statement late Tuesday. “The prospect of fighter jets ‘at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America’ departing from a U.S. NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance.” He added that the plan lacked “substantive rationale” and was not “tenable.”
Untenable how? After a NATO no-fly zone, which the alliance has refused, the MiGs are Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top request. The jets won’t decide the war, but his generals must think they’d help if only to deny Russia control of the skies. Any Russian artillery batteries or jets taken off the battlefield could save Ukrainian lives.
What happened between Mr. Blinken’s endorsement and the Pentagon’s rejection? It’s hard not to conclude that the White House blinked for fear of provoking Mr. Putin, who is demanding that the West stop arming Ukraine.
But NATO countries are already sending all sorts of weapons into Ukraine. Is a Polish MiG with a Ukrainian pilot somehow more provocative than a Turkish drone or an American antitank missile? Transferring planes isn’t the same as NATO aviators directly shooting down Russian jets.
Mr. Putin calls anything beyond Western acquiescence and Ukraine’s surrender a provocation. And NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg felt obliged to warn Mr. Putin Tuesday that a Russian attack on supply lines in alliance territory would trigger a collective response: “We are removing any room for miscalculation, misunderstanding about our commitment to defend every inch of NATO territory.”
Poland—which shares a border with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine—doesn’t want the transfer of planes directly to Ukraine from its territory to be perceived as a unilateral provocation. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Wednesday that the decision “must be unanimous and unequivocally taken by all of the North Atlantic Alliance.”
On Wednesday U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin formally nixed the MiG transfer to Ukraine. The failure of Team Biden to back up Warsaw is a failure of U.S. leadership.
There is risk of escalation in any war, and needless provocations should be avoided. But the risk of giving Mr. Putin a veto over NATO actions is that it undermines the credibility of deterrence. As Mr. Putin’s frustration grows, he is bombing cities, and Wednesday bombed a maternity hospital. The death toll is rising.
As he escalates, will he use chemical weapons or tactical nukes? Will NATO refuse to respond then because it fears World War III? The MiG mistake may let Mr. Putin believe his threats will make NATO stand down.
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For the record, what he means by Far Right is unclear to me:
=========================================
Unpacking Putin's 'Denazification' of Ukraine and My Forecasting Failure
undefined and Stratfor Director of Global Security Analysts at RANE
Sam Lichtenstein
Stratfor Director of Global Security Analysts at RANE, Stratfor
12 MIN READMar 9, 2022 | 21:01 GMT
A photo taken at a Moscow metro station on March 1, 2022, shows a mosaic panel depicting the liberation of Kyiv by Russia's Red Army in 1943.
A photo taken at a Moscow metro station on March 1, 2022, shows a mosaic panel depicting the liberation of Kyiv by Russia's Red Army in 1943.
(ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Author's Note: Last week, my colleague wrote why he was wrong about Ukraine. This week, it's my turn. I was also wrong about Ukraine. I thought the Russians would formalize their de facto control of the separatist republics in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region and perhaps grab a bit more territory in the surrounding areas (and near the Crimean Peninsula, which they had already annexed). But I did not think Russia would launch a full-scale invasion. In retrospect, there were many reasons for my analytic failure — not least of which was underestimating Russian President Vladimir Putin's risk tolerance. But one key indicator I undervalued was Putin's focus on the supposed need to ''denazify'' Ukraine in advance of the invasion. Had I given more weight to that variable, I may have forecast differently. Below is an initial review of what ''denazification'' means in this context, how I misjudged the importance of Putin's use of this phrase, and why the choice of this language is so concerning for global security and stability.
Putin's Misdeed: Misusing History
In his Feb. 24 address announcing Russia's ''special military operation'' in Ukraine, Putin offered many justifications for the war, but by far the most direct was the following:
''The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.''
It was a dramatic (and, for many reasons, inherently flawed) allegation that took many observers by surprise, although it was not the first time Putin and other senior officials had leveled variations of this accusation, albeit less explicitly. Perhaps most importantly and prominently, in his controversial July 2021 article ''On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,'' Putin repeatedly linked the modern Ukrainian state to Nazism, going so far as to accuse the government in Kyiv of creating ''a climate of fear in Ukrainian society, aggressive rhetoric, indulging neo-Nazis, and militarizing the country.'' In retrospect, it appears that Putin was laying the ideological groundwork for the line of argumentation that he and other Russian leaders would repeatedly reference in the intervening eight months. In various iterations, they warned that Ukraine's government was supposedly led by fascists intent on subjugating, if not outright conducting genocide against, ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. In turn, this meant it was incumbent on Russia to defend these peoples — with force, if deemed necessary.
No matter how absurd this argument may seem to most outsiders (for the record, there is absolutely no evidence of mass attacks against ethnic Russians), Russian leaders were able to manipulate elements of truth from Ukrainian society to build and propagate a self-serving narrative. To be sure, Ukraine, like many countries (including Russia) has a right-wing extremist problem, both historically and contemporarily. World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist leaders like Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych and Yaroslav Stetsko remain widely seen as national heroes despite their Nazi sympathies and collaboration. More recently, far-right nationalists like Andriy Biletsky, Serhiy Sternenko and Dmytro Yarosh have made a name for themselves not only by standing up to Russian influence, but for their connections with right-wing violence and extremist groups as well. Meanwhile, ultranationalist political parties like Svoboda operate both as regional outfits and at a national level in Ukraine. Avowed neo-Nazi fighters from groups like the Azov Battalion have also integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces and/or continue to operate in separate paramilitary groups.
Despite their bluster, however, far-right nationalists as a whole (and neo-Nazis more specifically) have minimal influence in Ukraine's national politics or mainstream society. When Ukrainian ultranationalist political parties joined forces with Svoboda to jointly contest 2019 parliamentary elections, they won barely over 2% of the vote; this was even less than in 2014 and fell short of the 5% threshold to even secure a parliamentary seat through a combined party list (while Svoboda on its own only won one constituency). As for Azov, even the largest estimates put the number of its fighters in the low thousands — a figure dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian military personnel and volunteers who have recently joined to defend their country. While any level of right-wing extremism is clearly problematic for the government in Kyiv, it thus hardly amounts to the supposed existential neo-Nazi threat that Russian leaders have made it out to be.
In retrospect, I should have seen this more assertive Russian rhetoric not as merely a lever of influence to try to gain concessions, but instead as a statement of intent.
Ukraine is also hardly the only country with a history of Nazi collaboration during World War II. Many European countries, perhaps none more so than Germany itself, routinely announce investigations into far-right extremists in official posts. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany party (some of whose regional branches and individual members have been linked to extremism) holds at least some political sway, but no one would accuse the government in Berlin of being led by neo-Nazis. Similarly, in Russia, Putin himself exploits grassroots support from far-right nationalists such as Alexander Dugin and Konstantin Malofeev, as well as groups like the Izborsk Club — some of whom and which could easily be labeled neo-Nazis, even if they don't call themselves such.
While right-wing extremist activity in Ukraine is deeply troubling, it is by no means unique to the country, and to argue that today's government in Kyiv is led by neo-Nazis strains serious logic. In their effort to portray Ukrainian society as something akin to a reincarnation of the Third Reich, Russian leaders have grossly exaggerated the significance of right-wing extremism in Ukraine while ignoring the many countervailing forces in the country. And perhaps that is precisely why I discounted Russian neo-Nazi rhetoric in the run-up to the invasion: to me, it just seemed too ridiculous. But even if it appeared that way to me, it was not to Russian leaders, who — whether they truly believed it or not — were building a case for war with the need to ''denazify'' Ukraine as a primary justification.
My Error: Prioritizing Precedent Over New Information
What should have spurred me to adjust my forecast was Putin's Feb. 21 announcement formally recognizing eastern Ukraine's self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk republics as independent states, which enabled Russia to officially station troops in the two territories controlled pro-Russian separatists for military action against Ukraine several days later. In that speech, Putin again escalated his neo-Nazi accusations, saying that ethnic Russians in those territories faced the risk of genocide ''because these people did not agree with the West-supported coup in Ukraine in 2014 and opposed the transition towards the Neanderthal and aggressive nationalism and neo-Nazi which have been elevated in Ukraine to the rank of national policy.''
Hours before his address, Putin's national security leadership team had already said as much to justify Putin's decision, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov castigating the West by noting ''the fact that [Western leaders] are now trying to prop up an overtly neo-Nazi, Banderite regime in Kyiv is also a manifestation of genocide,'' and that ''in both cases [referring back to the Western-backed independence of Kosovo from pro-Russian Serbian control in 2008], this is an attack against Slavs, against Orthodox Christians, and in Ukraine's case, against everything Russian.''
There was absolutely no evidence of any threat of genocide, but this extreme historical revisionism enabled Putin to portray himself as a liberator, rather than a conqueror (at least to his domestic audience). It also enabled Putin to appeal to his re-engineered version of history in which the modern Russian state denies that the Soviet Union was ever a Nazi collaborator, but instead acted only as a liberator in helping to free eastern Europeans from Nazi occupation, ignoring the Soviet domination that then replaced it.
In claiming ethnic Russians were under threat in Ukraine and then using force to adjust borders, it is Putin who much more closely resembles a certain World War II-era fascist dictator.
From my perspective, this was all absurd, but it was from the same playbook that Putin had previously used — and therefore I mistakenly fit my forecast of what would happen next into the mental model of past Russian behavior. Indeed, Putin justified his 2014 military offensive in Ukraine on the same grounds that ethnic Russians were under threat from the government in Kyiv — the same charge Putin leveled at Georgia's government in 2008 when Russian troops invaded the country ostensibly to protect ethnic Russians in border areas. In both the 2014 Ukraine offensive and the 2008 Georgia invasion, Russian military activity took place beyond the primary territorial disputes (most notably, with the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine — a clear and pure land grab as the territory was separate from the eastern Donbas region where Russian troops were supposedly intervening to protect the local population). However, in neither of these cases did the Russian military expand major operations across the entirety of either country with the goal of regime change. Instead, Russian troops carried out fairly short campaigns (just five days in the case of Georgia) with limited goals of capturing certain territories.
But Ukraine in 2022 was not Ukraine in 2014 or Georgia in 2008. It was one thing for Russian leaders to claim ethnic Russians were being persecuted, but it was quite another to essentially label the Ukrainian government as being led by neo-Nazis hellbent on mass violence. The alleged persecution of ethnic Russians in Ukraine could have still been used to justify a Russian military incursion, but not necessarily anything more; by contrast, the existential threat of a neighboring government being run by warmongering extremists inherently required more aggressive action. No matter how twisted, in the Russian narrative, it would be impossible to level those charges at the Ukrainian state without seeking to fundamentally change the regime — a much more expansive goal than merely intervening to ostensibly protect ethnic Russians. In retrospect, I should have seen this more assertive Russian rhetoric not as merely a lever of influence to try to gain concessions, but as a statement of intent. Russian leaders were preparing for a much larger campaign this time around, but in my analysis, I was giving much more weight to Moscow's older playbook than I should have.
The Dangers of Putin's 'Denazification' Myth
The signals I missed of course became clear in Putin's Feb. 24 speech announcing the Russian military action — which, no matter how he and state propaganda have characterized it, has been shown over the past two weeks to be nothing less than a full-scale invasion of the country with the apparent goal of regime change in Kyiv. In Putin's address, he further manipulated World War II-era history to fit his current objectives, even going so far as to make this cynical appeal to Ukrainian soldiers:
''Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today's neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people's adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people.''
Clearly, Putin had moved beyond what more limited goals of territorial control he may have once had to more maximalist objectives. The tragic outcome of that shift has been seen over the past two weeks, with further suffering expected in Ukraine and a cascade of worldwide ripple effects that are only beginning to be fully appreciated. Understandably lost amid these developments has been much of the historical revisionism that was central to Russia's justification for war. Russian troops have trampled on not only Ukrainian sovereignty, but history. It should not be lost on anyone that, in claiming ethnic Russians were under threat and then using force to adjust borders, Putin is the one who much more closely resembles a certain World War II-era fascist dictator who made similar claims about ethnic Germans.
If we cannot agree on the past, we should prepare for a more turbulent future.
It is frequently said that the victors get to write the first draft of history, but in this case, history is being completely rewritten to fit self-serving objectives. While the violent manifestation of that is seen most clearly in Ukraine today, what is to stop Russia from doing the same in a place like Moldova — another country with a pro-Russian separatist region supposedly under threat from the government in Chisinau? And looking elsewhere, China's leaders also indulge in the same sort of widespread historical manipulation that could one day provoke conflict, as do a host of tin-pot dictators who can stir up plenty of regional trouble with fantasies of righting supposed historical wrongs. In short, if we cannot agree on the past and accept revisionist views of history, we should prepare for a more turbulent future.
A world of increasingly frequent and impactful disruptions means that, as an analyst, I must remember the lessons I am taking away from my mistaken Ukraine forecast. Chiefly, this means not merely adding new information into a preexisting mental model of the most likely scenario, but instead routinely reevaluating the likelihood of the baseline scenario itself in light of new information. Even if brief, there was a moment between Putin's Feb. 21 announcement to recognize eastern Ukraine's separatist regions and his Feb. 24 address to announce the invasion where I had that opportunity to recalibrate my assessment. And while I may have missed it, I am pleased to say that some of my colleagues were more prepared. Having an analytic team that constantly questions assumptions and offers diverse (and, yes, divergent) views with well-reasoned arguments is crucial, as forecasting is always more effective when it takes into account various perspectives. When the next question about the potential for conflict escalation inevitably emerges — be it from Russia, China or another country — I know I'll be even more prepared to answer it.
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1828007/monkeys-covered-in-gas-playing-with-matches
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/079/772/original/1e14ab8638f3db01.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/079/772/original/1e14ab8638f3db01.jpg)
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-blob-wants-war.html
Plan and/or pray accordingly.
From Joe Kent(Currently running for Congress):
Dear Friend,
The establishment wants to lead us into war (again).
The narrative out of Washington, DC feels very similar to the lead up to the Iraq War. We have politicians, members of Congress, now echoing the messaging of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address about building a “coalition” of allies against Russia. Then, they vote to express “solidarity” with Ukraine, laying out ways they can further provoke Russia.
Instead of lawmakers like Jaime Herrera Beutler warmongering and conducting pointless photo ops behind Ukrainian-colored American flags, we need to demand that Joe Biden consult Congress so those who represent the American people can vigorously debate any escalations of force.
The American people want to know what’s on the table and want to have a say, and Congress alone has the power to declare war—but Joe Biden and the establishment across both parties don’t want them to.
It’s easy for them to talk a big talk in DC and act tough on the world stage. But at the end of the day, they have completely incapacitated our domestic energy production and our leverage in dealing with Russia. They’re willing to put our national security in danger, even if it means striking oil deals with despotic governments like Venezuela.
There is nothing but incompetence and weak leadership coming out of our nation’s capital, and that’s a very dangerous combination. It’s time for us, the American people, to have a say in our national security—because no one benefits from war.
Why does his perspective matter?
https://sofrep.com/sofrep-radio/episode-545-joe-kent-special-forces-veteran-and-gold-star-husband/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/03/22/feature/navy-cryptologist-shannon-kent-who-died-in-an-isis-suicide-attack-in-syria-was-torn-between-family-and-duty/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/996/194/original/fb5edc5ec905296e.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/996/194/original/fb5edc5ec905296e.png)
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U.S. Moves to Deny Russia ‘Most Favored’ Trade Status
Biden says U.S. will ban imports of Russian seafood, vodka and diamonds, joining other nations increasing the pressure on Putin
Biden Says U.S. Plans to Revoke Normal Trade Relations With Russia
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WASHINGTON—The U.S. moved Friday to sever normal trade ties with Russia—and ban imports of its seafood, vodka and diamonds—as it joined other countries in ratcheting up economic pressure on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
President Biden said the measures would deal “another crushing blow to the Russian economy” and President Vladimir Putin, following other efforts by the U.S. and allies to isolate Russia from international commerce.
“As Putin continues his merciless assault, the United States and our allies and partners continue to work in lockstep to increase the economic pressure on Putin and to further isolate Russia on the global stage,” Mr. Biden said.
Stripping Russia of its most-favored-nation trade status will require a vote of Congress, which the House will take up next week, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). The Senate is working on an agreement that it can pass quickly, said a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.).
The proposed legislation would end the U.S. policy of treating Russia as a most-favored nation, a key principle of the World Trade Organization that requires member countries to guarantee equal tariff and regulatory treatment to other members.
Other nations Friday also detailed new efforts to isolate Russia.
The Group of Seven affluent democracies pledged to work toward curtailing the West’s trade with Russia and to curb its access to funding from international financial organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would prohibit the import of key goods in the iron and steel sector from Russia, which she said would deprive the Kremlin of billions of euros of export revenue.
The EU is by far the most important destination for Russia’s exports, purchasing 41% of the total value in 2019, followed by China with 13.4%, according to the WTO.
Ms. von der Leyen said the EU would also ban the export of luxury goods to Russia.
“Those who sustain Putin’s war machine should no longer be able to enjoy their lavish lifestyle while bombs fall on innocent people in Ukraine,” she said.
The U.S. action will deny Russia more than $1 billion in export revenues, a White House policy statement said, adding that the U.S. “retains the authority to impose additional import bans as appropriate.”
The U.S. also on Friday imposed restrictions on exports of luxury goods, such as watches, vehicles and jewelry, to Russia and Belarus. The U.S. export value of the products covered by the restrictions is nearly $550 million a year, the White House said.
The Russian embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. still has other measures to raise the pressure on Russia. It could expand the sanctions on the banking system, including cutting Gazprombank, a vital part of Russian energy export, out of U.S. dollar access.
Another option: Implementing a blanket ban on exports to Russia, going beyond defense, maritime, luxury goods and sensitive technology sectors that are already banned or severely restricted.
Crab—mainly snow crab and red king crab—represents the bulk of the newly banned imports to the U.S., accounting for $1.1 billion of the $1.2-billion Russian seafood imports in 2021.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, the U.S. and allied countries have imposed heavy sanctions on Russia. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday dives into how these sanctions are affecting everyone from President Vladimir Putin to everyday Russian citizens. Photo: Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press
A spokeswoman for National Fisheries Institute said the importers’ group would work with the administration on implementation of the latest seafood import ban.
Russia is famed for its vodka, but Americans drink relatively little of the distilled spirit exported from that country. Russia exported about $21 million worth of vodka to the U.S. in 2021 or about 1.4% of vodka imports to the U.S. The U.S. imported $276 million in diamonds from Russia in 2021, most of which were for nonindustrial use.
Overall trade between the U.S. and Russia is modest, with $36.1 billion in two-way-goods trade between the two nations in 2021, making Russia the U.S.’s 23rd-largest trading partner, according to Census Bureau data.
Of that amount, $29.7 billion were imports of Russian products into the U.S., including fuels, precious metal and iron and steel. The import volume is just 6% of the U.S.’s purchases from China in 2021.
Aside from oil and gas, Russia isn’t a major player in world trade. Even so, analysts say the combined impact of other nations will be significant.
“The more countries that take this action, the more effective the sanctions will be,” said Inu Manak, fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “If allies coordinate in removing Russia’s trade concessions, the impact on the Russian economy will be quite severe.”
The administration has already announced a ban on Russian oil, coal and gas, which make up roughly 60% of the overall U.S. imports from the country.
Ed Gresser, a former official with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative who now serves as vice president for Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist-leaning Democratic think tank, said the energy-import ban could have an inflationary impact because of Russia’s huge presence in the world energy market.
The other measures announced Friday aren’t likely to have a big effect on consumers “because Russia’s trade with the world is not very large,” he said.
Outside of energy products, other raw materials and commodities, which make up a large part of the remaining U.S. purchases, Russia will continue to enjoy duty-free treatment or insignificant duties even after the end of the most-favored-nation trade status.
The tariff rate on specialty metals such as uranium and palladium, another large import category that includes critical feed for some U.S. industries, will remain zero even if Russia’s status changes.
That’s because the tariff rate list, which is used for countries without most-favored-nation status, was designed to minimize tariffs on American manufacturers reliant on imported materials, while imposing higher rates on consumer products.
The loss of most-favored-trading status means some Russian imports will be subject to higher tariff rates that are currently imposed on North Korea and Cuba. The U.S. imports relatively little from Cuba, and nothing from North Korea.
The proposed legislation also calls for expelling Russia from the WTO. That is a symbolic gesture because the step would require a time-consuming effort to garner the consent of more than 100 member countries.
Meanwhile, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) is proposing tax-code changes aimed at penalizing the Russian government and sanctioned Russians who own U.S. assets.
His plan would deny foreign tax credits and certain deductions for U.S. companies earning income in Russia and Belarus, adding those countries to a list that includes Iran, North Korea, Syria and Sudan.
“If U.S. companies choose to keep paying taxes to Russia—taxes that are funding the bombing of hospitals for women and children—they should do it without a penny of help from American taxpayers,” he said.
Mr. Wyden’s plan would also deny the benefits of the U.S.-Russia tax treaty to sanctioned individuals and entities and give the Treasury Department the ability to add more people to that list. The change would effectively raise taxes on their cross-border dividend and interest payments.
Other measures the U.S. could take include sanctions on sectors such as shipping and insurance and blacklisting additional companies and government officials. Late Friday, the Treasury Department announced a new round of financial sanctions targeting “Russian and Kremlin elites, oligarchs, and Russia’s political and national security leaders” who have supported Mr. Putin.
—Eliza Collins, Richard Rubin, Laurence Norman, Bojan Pancevski and Ian Talley contributed to this article.
Write to Yuka Hayashi at yuka.hayashi@wsj.com, Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com and Anthony DeBarros at Anthony.Debarros@wsj.com
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How to Deal With the Unappeasable Putin
The Russian leader, like Mussolini, lacks the military and economy of a great power—and has an impossible political goal.
By Walter Russell Mead
March 10, 2022 12:44 pm ET
Russia is internationally isolated, its forces are stuck in the mud in Ukraine, and it faces the toughest array of economic sanctions ever imposed on a great power. Yet Russian armies continue to advance, China appears to back Vladimir Putin’s play, Ukrainian negotiators are considering concession to some Russian demands, and Europe remains vulnerable to Russian energy blackmail.
So: Is Mr. Putin a political genius we underestimate at our peril, or is he an overrated buffoon who, intoxicated by a long run of good luck, has fatally misjudged his prospects in Ukraine?
History offers another way to think about figures like Mr. Putin. Benito Mussolini had an astonishing career, creating a political movement that ruled Italy for 20 years. His methods often were morally repugnant, but the Fascist movement he created found sympathizers and imitators from Germany to Japan. There was a time when Fascist Italy looked to be leading Europe out of the “decadence” of parliamentary democracy toward a postliberal era.
But Mussolini had an Achilles’ heel. His political project of re-creating the Roman Empire couldn’t be realized. He could build the most powerful political movement in modern Italian history, he could conquer Ethiopia, he could help Franco win the Spanish Civil War, but none of it brought his goal within reach.
Like Mussolini, Mr. Putin has a long record of success. The war in Chechnya was ugly, but he began his time in office by ending what many thought was the inevitable dissolution of the Russian Federation and reasserting Moscow’s control over its restive regions. Coming to power when oligarchs dominated Russian politics, Mr. Putin skillfully played them against one another until he emerged as the unrivaled master of the Russian scene.
He reasserted Russian power in international relations. Post-Soviet Russia was a helpless and weak state, unable to halt the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or to influence American and European power in the Balkans and Central Asia. A combination of adroit diplomacy and the ruthless use of force gave Mr. Putin a de facto veto on NATO expansion after his 2008 invasion of Georgia. In 2014 he snatched Crimea and invaded the Donbas, drawing only halfhearted sanctions from a divided West.
Defying the sanctions, and profiting from the Obama administration’s strategic confusion, Mr. Putin seized the opportunity of the Syrian civil war to support longtime Russian ally Bashar al-Assad, making a mockery of John Kerry’s pompous demand that Mr. Assad had to go. Russia’s new role in Syria gave it an entrée into Middle East politics, which it used to build a close relationship with Israel and the Arab oil producers. Employing mercenary organizations like the Wagner Group, Mr. Putin was able to extend Russian power into Libya and sub-Saharan Africa, forcing the French out of Mali. By selling sophisticated antiaircraft weapons to Turkey, he drove a wedge into NATO even as he cultivated close relations with countries like Hungary and Italy in ways that undercut European Union cohesion.
Like Mussolini, Mr. Putin was fortunate to face an ungifted generation of Western leaders. Nobody will be expanding Mount Rushmore with sculptures memorializing any of America’s post-Cold War presidents, and the generation of European leaders that included figures like Gerhard Schröder and François Hollande will not long be remembered. Playing a weak hand aggressively, Mr. Putin managed to divide and confuse this motley crew long enough to threaten the Western order in Europe and reassert Russia’s place among the great powers.
But as Mussolini discovered, diplomatic and even military victories cannot make an impossible dream come true. Mussolini was unable to build an Italian economy that could support his ambitions or a military capable of rivaling the great powers like Germany and Britain. This is where the limits of Mr. Putin’s achievements also seem to lie. After 20 years in power, he has failed to equip Russia with either the economy or the military that a great power needs. And because his power rests on such narrow and unsatisfactory foundations, his foreign policy remains one of brinkmanship and adventurism that is always vulnerable should his adversaries call his bluff—or if he miscalculates and bites off more than he can chew.
The best way to think about Mr. Putin is as a gifted tactician committed to a strategic impossibility: for Russia to regain the superpower status once held by the Soviet Union. Such leaders are unappeasable because their goals can never be reached. The rise of China, Russia’s continuing demographic decline, and its continuing inability to create a modern and dynamic economy will not end because Russian flags fly over the ruins of Kyiv.
There are two mistakes we can make about figures like Mr. Putin. One is to underestimate their talent for troublemaking if they don’t get what they want. The other is to believe that by giving in to their demands we can quiet them down. The West has made both mistakes with Mr. Putin in the past. We must try to do better now.
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Daily Memo: Russia Suspends Grains Exports, EU Says No to Fast-Track Membership
Brussels denied Kyiv's request for quick accession.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Reinforcements for Donbass. Russia’s Defense Ministry said more than 16,000 “volunteers” from the Middle East have applied to participate in Russia’s military campaign in Donbass. During a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, President Vladimir Putin said he agreed with the plan to attract foreigners to the fight in Donbass and a proposal to transfer captured Western-made weapons to the militaries of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. Meanwhile, the rebels in Donetsk reportedly took control of the Ukrainian city of Volnovakha, located approximately 40 miles (60 kilometers) southwest of Donetsk along the highway linking Donetsk with the key coastal city of Mariupol.
No more grain exports. Russia’s Economy Ministry said it will suspend the export of grains – including wheat, barley and corn – to members of the Eurasian Economic Union until Aug. 31. The move aims to shore up domestic supplies.
No fast-track membership. EU member states on Thursday decided not to grant Ukraine fast-track membership in the bloc. Poland and the Baltic states were in favor of speeding up the accession process, but Western European countries like France and the Netherlands were opposed. On Friday, the European Commission proposed committing another 500 million euros ($550 million) in military aid to Kyiv.
Biden and Erdogan. U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday spoke by phone with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss bilateral relations and the situation in Ukraine. Erdogan stressed Turkey’s role as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. He also said Turkey expected to be able to purchase 40 new planes and modernize its existing F-16s as soon as possible, and called for the lifting of sanctions against Ankara’s defense industry
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Daily Memo: Moscow's Plan to Stem the Fallout of Sanctions
Beijing, meanwhile, has expressed its displeasure with the onslaught of Western sanctions targeting Russia's economy.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Coping mechanisms. The Russian government introduced new measures to help the country cope with Western sanctions. They include an exemption on income tax payments on bank deposit interest, a possible ban or limits on foreign trade on certain products, assistance for some airlines, preferential lending for the agriculture industry, additional funding for road infrastructure and retaliatory measures targeting countries that prohibit Russian ships from entering their ports. President Vladimir Putin also approved amendments to the budget and tax codes that significantly expand the powers of the government.
China's stance. Actions taken by the U.S. and NATO have pushed tensions between Russia and Ukraine to a “breaking point,” a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said at a press briefing on Wednesday. He called on the U.S. not to undermine China’s rights and interests in managing the Ukraine issue and its ties with Russia. Relatedly, Chinese President Xi Jinping criticized Western sanctions on Russia during a virtual summit on Tuesday with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Xi said measures introduced by the U.S. and the EU will negatively affect global energy security, financial stability and supply chains.
Preparing for the fallout. French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi spoke by phone on Wednesday about the situation in Ukraine and its impact on the EU economy. They attempted to coordinate a common position ahead of the EU leaders’ summit in Versailles on Thursday and Friday, when EU heads of state are expected to discuss new measures to mitigate the economic fallout of the Ukraine war, particularly as it relates to energy.
Truss in Washington. U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will travel on Wednesday to Washington to meet with U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. They will discuss Ukraine and efforts to reduce energy dependence on Russia. On Tuesday, the U.K. announced that it would phase out Russian oil imports after Washington said it would ban all Russian energy imports.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-threatens-attack-nato-weapons-shipments-ukraine-legitimate-targets
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1828007/monkeys-covered-in-gas-playing-with-matches
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/079/772/original/1e14ab8638f3db01.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/101/079/772/original/1e14ab8638f3db01.jpg)
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-blob-wants-war.html
Plan and/or pray accordingly.
From Joe Kent(Currently running for Congress):
Dear Friend,
The establishment wants to lead us into war (again).
The narrative out of Washington, DC feels very similar to the lead up to the Iraq War. We have politicians, members of Congress, now echoing the messaging of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address about building a “coalition” of allies against Russia. Then, they vote to express “solidarity” with Ukraine, laying out ways they can further provoke Russia.
Instead of lawmakers like Jaime Herrera Beutler warmongering and conducting pointless photo ops behind Ukrainian-colored American flags, we need to demand that Joe Biden consult Congress so those who represent the American people can vigorously debate any escalations of force.
The American people want to know what’s on the table and want to have a say, and Congress alone has the power to declare war—but Joe Biden and the establishment across both parties don’t want them to.
It’s easy for them to talk a big talk in DC and act tough on the world stage. But at the end of the day, they have completely incapacitated our domestic energy production and our leverage in dealing with Russia. They’re willing to put our national security in danger, even if it means striking oil deals with despotic governments like Venezuela.
There is nothing but incompetence and weak leadership coming out of our nation’s capital, and that’s a very dangerous combination. It’s time for us, the American people, to have a say in our national security—because no one benefits from war.
Why does his perspective matter?
https://sofrep.com/sofrep-radio/episode-545-joe-kent-special-forces-veteran-and-gold-star-husband/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/03/22/feature/navy-cryptologist-shannon-kent-who-died-in-an-isis-suicide-attack-in-syria-was-torn-between-family-and-duty/
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/996/194/original/fb5edc5ec905296e.png
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/100/996/194/original/fb5edc5ec905296e.png)
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/sperry-ukraine-worked-democrats-against-trump-2016-stop-putin-and-it-backfired-badly
The Uke power structure was neck deep in the “Russia, Russia, Russia!” Fraud. They can die in a fire as far as I am concerned. So sorry Hunter won’t be getting anymore graft for the big guy from that corrupt s-hole.
Putin is a nasty, throat cutting bastard. Unlike our feckless, “everyone gets a trophy” western elites, he probably has gotten his hands dirty for real on behalf of his country. I am willing to bet he won’t be checking his watch at a ceremony for the returning fallen Russian soldiers.
Compared to the western “elites”, he is a genius, but that’s a low bar to step over. The most important thing is Putin actually wants the best for his nation. Wouldn’t it be nice if our leaders did as well?
" Trump should not have said Putin is strategic genius? For those who compete in combat sports or real combat or war or even competitive tennis, how does it go when you underestimate your adversary? Generally, you lose. "
I am in this camp about this :
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/02/24/john-kelly-i-dont-get-praising-putin-he-is-a-murderer/
Hitler was genius but I don't recall anyone in the West praising him for it.
"Kelly added, “You know, is Putin smart? Yes. Tyrants are smart. They know what they’re doing. But that’s — I can’t imagine why someone would look at what’s happening there and see it anything other than a criminal act. I don’t get it, Jake."
I get it .
:wink:
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https://nypost.com/2021/04/15/putin-closes-off-access-to-black-sea-after-biden-blinks/
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/putin-reported-arrest-russian-intel-official-ukraine-invasion?fbclid=IwAR0JWDbMANXu8HW6JOZogb3LjrU7QdlFvatnQn7QC-oqVODSS3Hw4VwyB4o
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VDH was on the Sebastian Gorka show. I won't do his point justice, but:
It is very important that Putin and Russia are seen as losers in Ukraine, as it pertains to China's point of view. China won't want to partner with them if they are seen as losers on the world stage, weak, inept and bankrupt. They would be a liability as a partner.
But if Russia comes out a winner in the invasion and survives the sanctions, that is emboldening for China in their pursuit of Taiwan and for a Russian Chinese partnership, which would be a terrible development for the (shrinking) free world.
China likely told Putin to wait until after the Olympics and therefore was aware in advance of this invasion - as they contemplate theirs.
Xi is watching Ukraine closely and weighing his own next move.
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https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1502345407350730755?fbclid=IwAR3jydc8ui86AgzdR0K86uUA4leFM3_SUD7cJvQSFsBKvZJ8mEy4xm2I3BM
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Turkey’s Russian Missiles Could Defend Ukraine
A way to solve the dispute between Washington and Ankara and do poetic justice in the process.
By Paul Kolbe
March 17, 2022 6:21 pm ET
Ukraine needs antiaircraft weapons, and Turkey has one it should get rid of—a Russian-made S-400 system it bought four years ago that triggered an enormous backlash from the U.S., which stopped selling F-35 fighter jets to Ankara in response.
How about a triple play? The U.S. helps Turkey send its S-400 to Ukraine to defend against Russian warplanes, offers the Turks a nice new American replacement, and gets F-35 shipments back on track. This would also help repair the relationship between the U.S. and Turkey in the face of Russian aggression.
Ukraine’s desperate struggle to repel Russia’s invasion depends on denying Russia air dominance. While Ukraine has preserved some air-defense capability, it lacks the means to hold off Russian air power indefinitely. Once Russia rules the Ukrainian skies, Ukrainian ground forces will be exceedingly vulnerable, as will supply lines of arms and aid from the West.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has begged the West for more aircraft and air defense. The onset of Russian air attacks on military airfields and training sites in western Ukraine, along with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov’s warning that Western aid shipments are “legitimate targets,” demonstrates that Ukraine requires better long-range, high-altitude air defenses. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby recently noted that Ukraine needs new ground-based air-defense systems more than it needs Polish MiG-29s, the deal for which was scuttled after the Pentagon said it didn’t consider the deal “tenable.”
Ukraine has limited stocks of Soviet-era S-300 mobile missile systems. These weapons are effective but dated, and Ukraine has had to use them judiciously. Within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Bulgaria, Greece and Slovakia have S-300s, which could be transferred relatively quickly. Thomas Warrick at the Atlantic Council has suggested that the U.S. include S-300s as part of a lend-lease package for Ukraine, and NATO is reportedly exploring this idea.
When Turkey first signed a deal with Russia for the purchase of S-400 batteries, the U.S. and other allies saw the integration of the Russian system into NATO air defenses as a grave intelligence threat. In response, the U.S. suspended Turkey’s participation in the F-35 program, and Congress eventually subjected Turkey to the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, which made it ineligible to purchase F-35 fighters to modernize the Turkish air force. One can imagine Vladimir Putin laughing at the discord and damage the sale of S-400s wrought within NATO.
There is no doubt S-400s would bolster Ukraine’s air defense capability, and eliminating them from the Turkish inventory should clear the way for Turkey’s reinstatement in the F-35 consortium and sanctions repeal. The gap in Turkish air defenses can be filled in the short term with U.S. Patriot batteries and eventually with Turkey’s own Siper antiaircraft missiles, which are under development.
It would be symbolic if Russian-made missiles shot down Mr. Putin’s warplanes in Ukraine that are bombing refugees, maternity wards and kindergartens. Having delivered the weapons to Turkey in the first place, Mr. Putin can hardly complain when Turkey sends them to a friend and neighbor to defend against wanton aggression. Indeed, late last year Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov encouraged Turkey to purchase more S-400s: “This kind of cooperation between Russia and Turkey should not be a threat for any country . . . because the system is not offensive, it is defensive.”
Delivering Turkish S-400s to Ukraine would help Ukraine, NATO, the U.S, and Turkey and would harm only Russia. Using Russian-made S-400s, sold to Turkey with the goal of dividing NATO, to shoot down Russian jets bombing Ukrainian cities would be poetic justice.
Mr. Kolbe is director of the Intelligence Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was a Central Intelligence Agency operations officer for 25 years.
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Russia said on Saturday that it has used hypersonic missiles to destroy Ukrainian military assets in what marks the first time Moscow has acknowledged using this type of weapon in combat.
The Russian defense ministry said in a March 19 operational update that on Friday it destroyed a large underground storage facility for missiles and aviation ammunition in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankovsk region, using missiles that can travel at over five times the speed of sound.
Igor Konashenkov, the ministry spokesperson, said that the Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic ballistic missiles was used in the strike.
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The important part of the story is what was destroyed by the missile.
Russia said on Saturday that it has used hypersonic missiles to destroy Ukrainian military assets in what marks the first time Moscow has acknowledged using this type of weapon in combat.
The Russian defense ministry said in a March 19 operational update that on Friday it destroyed a large underground storage facility for missiles and aviation ammunition in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankovsk region, using missiles that can travel at over five times the speed of sound.
Igor Konashenkov, the ministry spokesperson, said that the Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic ballistic missiles was used in the strike.
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And that was , , , ?
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And that was , , , ?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10630145/Putin-fires-hypersonic-missile-Ukraine-Russia-steps-war-attrition-strike.html
Killing a bunch of the western volunteers and destroying an arsenal of western high tech weapons.
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And that was , , , ?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10630145/Putin-fires-hypersonic-missile-Ukraine-Russia-steps-war-attrition-strike.html
Killing a bunch of the western volunteers and destroying an arsenal of western high tech weapons.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/russia-exploits-ukraines-western-flank/
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10631861/Missile-attack-Ukrainian-military-base-launched-Russian-forces-hacked-British-phones.html
And that was , , , ?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10630145/Putin-fires-hypersonic-missile-Ukraine-Russia-steps-war-attrition-strike.html
Killing a bunch of the western volunteers and destroying an arsenal of western high tech weapons.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/russia-exploits-ukraines-western-flank/
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Unfortunately, the idea here will be used to push "Racism" charges because the Ukes are white, but glad to see the WSJ realize that provoking mass migration is a purposeful tactic of war.
Putin Uses Refugees as a Weapon
As the burden on Europe grows from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden can act boldly to help.
By The Editorial Board
Follow
Updated March 22, 2022 7:18 pm ET
As Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion bogs down, he’s trying to break Kyiv’s resistance by targeting civilians with missiles and artillery. He also hopes to break European support for Ukraine by using the country’s refugees as a political weapon. The U.S. can help Europe share this refugee burden.
That’s the horrible state of war as more than 3.5 million Ukrainians have fled the country since the invasion began, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Another six million or so have left their homes but remain in Ukraine, though they may eventually have to leave too.
Tiny Moldova has accepted nearly 400,000, while Russia and Belarus together have absorbed about a quarter-million. The remaining refugees have gone to countries in the European Union, more than two million to Poland alone. Many of these arrivals will soon move on to other parts of the EU where friends or family already live.
“We can see solidarity from all member states,” said Ylva Johansson, EU home affairs commissioner, on Monday. “This is a new way of doing it without mandatory quotas and instead of working together within the solidarity platform.” She’s right about the EU’s impressive unity and generosity.
Brussels also wisely decided to give Ukrainian refugees the ability to live and work in the bloc for three years. This should ease the financial stress on Europe’s welfare systems, but there could soon be acrimonious fights about how to share the burden that is falling mostly on Ukraine’s nearest neighbors. Poland and Hungary could be overwhelmed if millions more arrive and the rest of the Continent becomes hesitant to take more.
The Biden Administration has given temporary protected status to some 75,000 Ukrainians already in the U.S., and it could simplify requirements for those Ukrainians who haven’t come to America yet but have family in the U.S. Mr. Biden’s visit to Warsaw on Friday presents an opportunity to go bigger: Why not offer to resettle 200,000 or 300,000 Ukrainians currently in Poland? A bipartisan bill in Congress could shape up differently, but setting ambitious terms of the political debate would be morally just and strategically prudent.
The offer would counter Mr. Putin’s transparent strategy to bomb Ukrainians out of their homes and add to their suffering. Easing the refugee crisis in Europe will help women and children as well as the soldiers who stayed behind to defend their country.
As the war drags on, the Russian dictator also wants to burden the European nations whose military and humanitarian support is crucial to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s resistance. He wants France and Germany in particular to pressure Mr. Zelensky into a settlement on the Kremlin’s terms.
The West needs to continue to provide Ukraine with whatever it needs to win a peace it can live with. To that end the West can shelter the country’s women, children and elderly as a defining contrast to Mr. Putin’s barbarism.
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Romania's Security and Social Challenges, and Political Benefits, From the Ukraine War
6 MIN READMar 23, 2022 | 17:11 GMT
Refugees from Ukraine walk at the Ukrainian-Romanian border in Siret on March 2, 2022.
Refugees from Ukraine walk at the Ukrainian-Romanian border in Siret on March 2, 2022.
(DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP via Getty Images)
The war in Ukraine is creating significant social and security challenges for Romania that EU assistance will only partially mitigate, but at the same time, it is leading to temporary political stability. Romania has traditionally been concerned about potential Russian aggression, explaining the country's staunch support for NATO and frequent requests for a greater NATO troop presence in the country. A Russian invasion of Romania is improbable considering that Moscow most likely wants to avoid a direct confrontation with any NATO member states. Still, Romania's hawkish position on Russia and its support for tough EU sanctions against Moscow and an increased NATO presence in the Black Sea region make the country vulnerable to unconventional retaliation from Russia. This could include cyberattacks against Romanian state institutions, infrastructure and private companies. Romania could also be subject to disinformation campaigns and other destabilization attempts from the Russian government or pro-Russian groups, either directly or in neighboring Moldova, which is not a NATO member.
Romania shares a 614-kilometer (about 381-mile) land border with Ukraine, which means that the war is getting closer and closer to Romania as Russia intensifies its attacks in western Ukraine.
Romania also has Black Sea coastline, meaning if Moscow ends up controlling southern Ukraine as a part of a strategy to deprive Kyiv of access to the sea, Romania and Russia will share a larger maritime border. (Russia de facto controls Crimea, on the Black Sea, but Romania and the European Union do not recognize Moscow's claim to the territory.) This will increase the risk of deliberately provoked or accidental confrontation between the Russian and Romanian navies, and potentially constrain Romania's room to explore for hydrocarbons in the Black Sea.
Romania is worried that the Ukraine conflict could extend to neighboring Moldova, because Russia eventually could use the pro-Russia breakaway territory of Transdniestria to launch an assault on the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Even if Russia does not invade Moldova, it could try to destabilize Moldova's pro-European government. This would increase political instability and social unrest in Romania's smaller neighbor that in a more escalatory scenario could spill over from Moldova into Romania. While a part of Romania's political and military establishment supports deepening defense cooperation with Moldova, critics of the idea argue that doing so could lead to unnecessary frictions with Russia.
In mid-March the director of Romania's National Cyber Security Directorate, Dan Cimpean, said the country faced a "spectacular rise" in the number of cyberattacks aimed at its infrastructure since the start of the war.
The Russian threat has reduced internal disputes within Romania's coalition government, ensuring that domestic and foreign policy will not be significantly disrupted, at least temporarily, though economic challenges will grow. Before the start of the war in Ukraine, Romania's coalition government — which includes the center-left Social Democratic Party, the center-right National Liberal Party and the centrist Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania — was riven by ideological and political disputes, which made the government fragile and complicated policymaking. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, however, has resulted in a more cohesive government that is seeking to avoid internal disputes at a time of a major war in the region. While some sporadic disputes will continue to take place, and a Cabinet reshuffle to renew Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca's team of ministers is possible in the coming months, the external challenges facing Romania will bring temporary stability to the government. This means that Bucharest will not face a political crisis, such as a surprise collapse of the government, and the government will be able to speak with a single voice at the European Union on issues such as applying and enforcing sanctions against Russia, providing financial support to Ukraine, housing asylum seekers, and providing political and financial support to Moldova. But even if Romania's political environment will be more stable, the government will have to confront emerging economic challenges.
The war in Ukraine is contributing to already high energy prices in Romania, which could slow activity in the manufacturing sector, as companies face rising operating costs. High fuel prices meanwhile could negatively impact transportation companies, increasing the probability of supply chain disruptions. And a reduction in disposable income in Romanian households could result in reduced domestic consumption (retail sales already contracted by 1% year-on-year in January), further weakening economic growth and opening the door to social unrest.
The Romanian government is trying to mitigate all these risks by capping energy prices, but this will come at the expense of high public spending that will worsen Bucharest's fiscal deficit.
In the coming months, Romania is likely to need significant institutional, logistical and financial support from the European Union to cope with migrants, but will still face challenges even with EU aid. For decades Romania has faced significant emigration, which means that it has limited experience in receiving large numbers of asylum seekers. While the Romanian government has provided residency rights and housing to migrants from Ukraine who want to stay in the country and free transportation to those who want to go to other parts of the European Union, a significant part of the assistance is coming from nongovernmental organizations and grassroots organizing efforts, resulting in some lack of coordination. As a result, in the coming weeks, Bucharest is likely to ask Brussels for increased logistical and financial help to deal with migrants. The European Union is currently considering legal mechanisms to give asylum seekers coming from Ukraine long-term work and residence permits. Brussels is also looking for ways to make it easier for Ukrainian children to continue their education in the European bloc.
While these EU measures will alleviate the burden on Romania to some extent, the country could struggle to implement these EU measures due to its logistical and institutional shortcomings. In a longer timeframe, there is a risk of isolated episodes of racism and discrimination, which in a more escalatory scenario could grow into larger anti-government protests or even targeted violence if Romanians feel that the migrants are generating crime or competing with them for jobs and state help.
In a March 17 speech, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said his country will receive "as many refugees as needed."
On March 21, the Romanian government announced that more than 515,000 people had arrived from Ukraine since the beginning of the war, with around 80,000 opting to stay in Romania while the rest continued their journey to other parts of the European Union. According to official figures, of the asylum seekers who chose to stay in Romania roughly 30,000 are children.
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https://montrealgazette.com/news/world/how-the-little-known-but-vital-suwalki-corridor-could-block-nato-road-and-rail-assistance-to-baltic-states
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-wing-americans-converged-war-175538767.html
NO conservatives like me Tucker etc
are not protecting Putin or are fans of this killer
We are trying to protect the US from causing more harm than good
We are not to be labelled isolationist
because we are being careful about which global problems are in our interests to intervene - or not
we are just trying to avoid what we have had multiple times through our history has been wars that spiraled out of control
WW2 keeps being invoked as the model to compare this situation with.
we must stop them now - don't be dumb dupe like a neville chamberlain blah blah blah
I think it could just as easily be more like WW1
where war kept escalating out of control
beyond what it needed to be.
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Exactly.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-wing-americans-converged-war-175538767.html
NO conservatives like me Tucker etc
are not protecting Putin or are fans of this killer
We are trying to protect the US from causing more harm than good
We are not to be labelled isolationist
because we are being careful about which global problems are in our interests to intervene - or not
we are just trying to avoid what we have had multiple times through our history has been wars that spiraled out of control
WW2 keeps being invoked as the model to compare this situation with.
we must stop them now - don't be dumb dupe like a neville chamberlain blah blah blah
I think it could just as easily be more like WW1
where war kept escalating out of control
beyond what it needed to be.
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https://nypost.com/2022/03/24/russia-will-likely-default-on-its-debt-with-april-4-payment-due-of-2-2b-experts/?fbclid=IwAR0pvdvhzGPF-mhrBjlhFaCwPu0vUszop3NMjqh4WxvWqaM2iTXaYirofxM
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Most proposals for military aid to Ukraine involve help from the air, such as establishing a Berlin-style airlift, flying in warplanes from Poland, and creating a no-fly zone over Ukrainian territory. But it would be a serious blunder to neglect the naval aspect of the conflict. Russia certainly hasn’t. According to the Times of London, recent intelligence indicates that Russia has a fleet of warships ready to launch an amphibious assault on Odessa, the last major Ukrainian seaport not in Russian hands or under Russian siege.
OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH
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It is vital to Europe’s peace and security that Ukraine not lose what remains of its Black Sea coastline, and that Russia not consider that international body of water its private naval and maritime preserve. The U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization can protect this strategic flank of Europe and NATO while also relieving Russian pressure on Ukraine short of risking war.
The Black Sea’s importance to Russia’s economy and sovereignty dates from the 19th century. But then the Black Sea and the Turkish Straits, which allowed access to the Mediterranean and beyond, took on growing importance for Russia.
That was thanks to Russia’s export trade in grain and industrial goods—and its imperial designs in Southern Europe, including on the Turkish capital. The issue became so important that nations negotiated international agreements aiming to restrict the Russian navy’s presence in the Black Sea and access to the Turkish Straits, the most recent being the Montreux Convention, which was signed in 1936 by the Soviet Union and nine other countries and is still in effect.
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The Black Sea remains vital to Russia’s national interest. One reason Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea in 2014 was to secure the former Soviet naval base at Sevastopol. It is crucial to confront Russia in this region as part of a broader strategy to help Ukraine—and also as the centerpiece of a new NATO maritime strategy. Here are five steps the U.S. and NATO can take:
First, keep Ukrainian forces supplied with antiship missiles that can deter Russian naval forces and amphibious landings. The Norwegian-made Naval Strike Missile can be launched from either ship or shore. Poland and Romania have bought them from Norway’s Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace. All three countries are NATO members; all three should be working together to build Ukraine’s antiship-missile arsenal, especially after Ukraine’s claim that it was able to destroy a Russian naval vessel near Mariupol using similar weaponry.
Second, make sure Turkey bans passage of Russian warships under Article 19 of the Montreux Convention, which governs access to the Black Sea through the straits, while allowing free passage of U.S. and NATO vessels. Under Article 19, Turkey can deny access to warships of war belligerents as long as Turkey isn’t a party to the conflict. On Feb. 27, three days after Mr. Putin invaded, Ukraine asked Ankara to close the straits to Russian warships. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu acknowledged Mr. Putin’s invasion as an act of war—a major step toward invoking Article 19. A day later, however, Turkey seemed to back away, with words suggesting it would close the straits to all warships, not only those from Russia and Ukraine. Under Article 19, however, Turkey isn’t authorized to close the straits to neutral warships. Adherence to the article requires blocking passage only to Russian and Ukrainian vessels. Turkey’s NATO partners should insist that Ankara carry out Article 19 to the letter.
This will come too late to interfere with the 30 or more Russian warships already blockading the Ukraine coastline. But closing the straits would hamper attempts to reinforce future large naval operations, and signal that the Russian navy can no longer act as if the Black Sea is its private lake.
Third, send a U.S.-led NATO flotilla to show the flag at ports of friendly countries on the Black Sea. Last July NATO conducted an important Black Sea exercise with some 30 vessels from 32 NATO members and other countries, including Ukraine. The NATO presence has since nearly vanished. It’s time to revive a robust Western naval presence.
Fourth, organize a humanitarian sealift with a convoy of ships under NATO escort bringing food and medical supplies to Russian-occupied Kherson. This convoy can show Moscow that although Kherson is currently occupied by Russian troops, it is still Ukrainian sovereign territory.
Fifth, devise a naval strategy for the Black Sea region. A single French frigate visited the region in December 2021 and left the day after the New Year. No major NATO warship has made an appearance since, even as Russia ravages Ukraine. The war is “like a boa constrictor around Ukraine’s neck,” retired Adm. James Foggo, who commanded U.S. and NATO fleets in Europe for almost a decade until 2020, told Reuters. “NATO needs a maritime strategy.”
The fate of NATO’s southern flank may depend on how quickly its leaders, including President Biden, respond to this challenge—at sea as well as on land and in the air.
Mr. Herman is senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author, most recently, of “The Viking Heart: How Scandinavians Conquered the World.”
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https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/people-ideas-machines-ii-catastrophic?s=r
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https://www.zerohedge.com/military/pentagon-says-russian-military-leaders-are-repeatedly-declining-deconfliction-calls
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/people-ideas-machines-ii-catastrophic?s=r
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https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/3171755/ukraine-war-us-nato-prepare-russian-nuclear-attack
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/pentagon-says-russian-military-leaders-are-repeatedly-declining-deconfliction-calls
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/people-ideas-machines-ii-catastrophic?s=r
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-poland-putin-russia_n_623f5280e4b067827e394197
This should be our policy in China too.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-poland-putin-russia_n_623f5280e4b067827e394197
This should be our policy in China too.
How’s our track record with that? Should they have honest elections like we do?
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New policy already walked back by Biden handler cabal.
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New policy already walked back by Biden handler cabal.
Reminiscent of Reagan, "Mr. Gorbachev... Tear down this wall."
Except this isn't Reagan, he didn't mis-speak, and no one IIRC walked it back.
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Russia isn’t the Soviet Union. We aren’t the shining city on the hill.
New policy already walked back by Biden handler cabal.
Reminiscent of Reagan, "Mr. Gorbachev... Tear down this wall."
Except this isn't Reagan, he didn't mis-speak, and no one IIRC walked it back.
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https://www.google.com/search?q=diveristy+flag&oq=diveristy+flag&aqs=chrome..69i57.2757j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
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https://www.google.com/search?q=diveristy+flag&oq=diveristy+flag&aqs=chrome..69i57.2757j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60894142
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10656603/Russian-soldier-surrenders-TANK-return-7-500-Ukrainian-citizenship.html
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Russia’s war against Ukraine is failing. But serious dangers remain. Among them are “peace” terms that, like those Russia imposed on past victims of its aggression, would set up Ukraine—and others—for bloodshed in the years to come. Vladimir Putin, who didn’t bargain on a tough fight, is likely to propose terms that look like concessions but are calculated to hobble Ukraine and threaten security far beyond its borders. Ukrainians won’t accept such an endgame, and other countries should not try to get them to do so.
Russia’s recent wars illustrate what Mr. Putin likely has in mind for Ukraine. In Georgia, which he invaded in 2008; in Moldova, where Russian troops never left; and in Azerbaijan, where Russia supported Armenian separatists in the early 1990s, fighting subsided but ambiguity followed. Russia’s proxies—a mix of puppets and Kremlin thugs—proceeded to dig in behind semiofficial armistice lines. With Russia’s support, fiefs under these proxies in some cases have lasted to the present day.
Contributing to their persistence are the cease-fire terms. Neither continuing war nor cementing peace, the terms deliberately debilitated the countries Russia had attacked by entrenching its proxies on each country’s territory and stipulating “peace processes” that Moscow used not to pursue peace, but to prevent the countries from stabilizing or escaping Russia’s shadow.
Hints from the Kremlin suggest that this is how Mr. Putin hopes to gain lasting ground from his botched invasion. Mr. Putin insists that Ukraine accept the permanent loss of the three pieces of the country that Russia already has taken—the Crimean Peninsula and the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
That might sound like a clean-cut outcome, but it wouldn’t be. If Russia wins the terms it demands, then other parts of Ukraine will fall under the shadow of contrived secessions, sham independence movements and whatever other forms of subversion Mr. Putin might improvise. Brutal client outposts, fake referendums and forced population exchanges likely won’t be limited to two or three parts of Ukraine. Even if Mr. Putin makes a show of restraint at first, he would have convenient launchpads from which to do more harm. Under the endgame he likely is pursuing, Ukraine can expect no better a fate than Georgia, Moldova or Azerbaijan, which endured coercion by Russia for decades.
The West tolerated Russia’s strategy of creating and sustaining “frozen conflicts” against its smaller neighbors. This signaled to Mr. Putin in 2014 that it was safe to seize Crimea and conjure the rebel groups through which Russia has ruled Donetsk and Luhansk and menaced Ukraine. Tolerating such an outcome in Ukraine would be a mistake.
The risks for the security of Europe are clear. Ukraine is larger than earlier victims of Russia’s aggression and post-armistice intrigues. It borders four countries—Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania—in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and sets an example for the three NATO countries the U.S.S.R. once directly ruled—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Permanent ambiguity and destabilization in Ukraine aren’t acceptable.
The horrors that Russia is inflicting on civilians in Ukraine add urgency to the search for peace. Ukraine might reasonably consider concessions on the timing or terms of joining NATO or the European Union. But concessions that give Russia permanent leverage over Ukraine will supply no peace. They will only set the stage for future war, and on the terms Mr. Putin prefers.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, affirming that Ukraine won’t accept ultimatums, sees the danger of accepting Mr. Putin’s terms. If the world wants peace and a secure Europe, then it shouldn’t impose a settlement on Ukraine that ignores lessons from places where Russia got the endgames it demanded.
Mr. Grant served as senior adviser for strategic planning in the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, 2019-21. He is author of “Aggression Against Ukraine: Territory, Responsibility, and International Law.”
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Regarding Russia 'regime change': [G M] "Russia isn’t the Soviet Union. We aren’t the shining city on the hill."
Russia wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union and we had a 50-50 election decided, perhaps wrongly, by less than the margin of fraud.
Biden was not supposed to say regime change because that is escalating, we want Putin to have a nice, safe off ramp and Russia Putin has nukes.
The discussion was ended by spokespeople, Blinken and others quickly walking that back instantly. I saw the "Ambassador to NATO" on FNS this Sunday am say "That is not the policy."
That of course begs the question, who is in charge of US policy? If you believe in the singular chief executive, commander in chief, and if he or she says it, isn't that the policy?
Back to the original point, [yes, America needs regime change too] Russia needs regime change. Their elections aren't fair [what do ours have to do with that point, credibility? We need work on ours too and regime change as well, but our transitions in power have been regular, frequent and election and constitution-based.]
This President of Russia is leading an invasion of a neighbor, disrupting a peace, violating sovereignty, killing people, blowing up hospitals, schools, homes, apartment buildings and fuel supplies. We oppose that. Why can't we say aloud we want the Russian people to choose new leadership and get rid of this monster?
['But Doug, they have nuclear weapons and we aren't so perfect.']
Therefore, we can't speak, ever, unless it supports the Russian regime? Like the nothing but suck-up Olympic media coverage in China? I disagree.
The leader of the free world should be able to say from any podium that the great people of Russia deserve better leadership, that Taiwan is a country, and the Chinese people deserve free and fair elections - even if ours aren't so perfect.
I get it that the timing here is lousy when we are trying to give him an offramp from this invasion, but what kind of world are we in that the 'leader of the free world' can't speak truth to the world? Then by default Putin or Xi is the leader of the free world. They decide what we can say and when.
Others say, "Orwell's 1984 was not a how to book", and I would add, we are not on the side of the censors.
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"Russia wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union and we had a 50-50 election decided, perhaps wrongly, by less than the margin of fraud. "
No, Russia wants to defend from the fake and gay NATO.
Back to the original point, [yes, America needs regime change too] Russia needs regime change. Their elections aren't fair [what do ours have to do with that point, credibility? We need work on ours too and regime change as well, but our transitions in power have been regular, frequent and election and constitution-based.]
Not relevant to the 3rd world banana republic that formerly was known as the United States of America.
Regarding Russia 'regime change': [G M] "Russia isn’t the Soviet Union. We aren’t the shining city on the hill."
Russia wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union and we had a 50-50 election decided, perhaps wrongly, by less than the margin of fraud.
Biden was not supposed to say regime change because that is escalating, we want Putin to have a nice, safe off ramp and Russia Putin has nukes.
The discussion was ended by spokespeople, Blinken and others quickly walking that back instantly. I saw the "Ambassador to NATO" on FNS this Sunday am say "That is not the policy."
That of course begs the question, who is in charge of US policy? If you believe in the singular chief executive, commander in chief, and if he or she says it, isn't that the policy?
Back to the original point, [yes, America needs regime change too] Russia needs regime change. Their elections aren't fair [what do ours have to do with that point, credibility? We need work on ours too and regime change as well, but our transitions in power have been regular, frequent and election and constitution-based.]
This President of Russia is leading an invasion of a neighbor, disrupting a peace, violating sovereignty, killing people, blowing up hospitals, schools, homes, apartment buildings and fuel supplies. We oppose that. Why can't we say aloud we want the Russian people to choose new leadership and get rid of this monster?
['But Doug, they have nuclear weapons and we aren't so perfect.']
Therefore, we can't speak, ever, unless it supports the Russian regime? Like the nothing but suck-up Olympic media coverage in China? I disagree.
The leader of the free world should be able to say from any podium that the great people of Russia deserve better leadership, that Taiwan is a country, and the Chinese people deserve free and fair elections - even if ours aren't so perfect.
I get it that the timing here is lousy when we are trying to give him an offramp from this invasion, but what kind of world are we in that the 'leader of the free world' can't speak truth to the world? Then by default Putin or Xi is the leader of the free world. They decide what we can say and when.
Others say, "Orwell's 1984 was not a how to book", and I would add, we are not on the side of the censors.
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Russia’s War With Ukraine Unifies Europe
The conflict positions Germany to be the military and economic powerhouse of the EU.
By Walter Russell Mead
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March 28, 2022 6:29 pm ET
Vladimir Putin hoped to break up the European status quo with his attack on Ukraine. Increasingly, it appears that the chief consequence will be to reinforce it. President Biden may have gaffed his way across Europe last week, but Mr. Putin’s unhinged behavior has removed any doubts European policy makers may have had about the value of the trans-Atlantic alliance. Worse for Russia, Mr. Putin’s war is making Germany more powerful, more activist and more Atlanticist, a combination likely to support American power and undercut Russian influence in Europe for many years to come.
To describe Germany as a winner in Mr. Putin’s war against Ukraine would go too far. The war upended the assumptions on which German energy and security policy has long rested and forced Germany to make harsh decisions it preferred to avoid. Angela Merkel’s Germany dreamed that its companies could prosper indefinitely while a great green energy transition rippled painlessly through an ever-democratizing, ever-disarming world. Thanks to the war, German business is reassessing its relations with China as well as Russia. The military plans spending increases, and energy policy is shifting from “climate first” to “security first” to reduce dependence on Russian imports.
The consequences of these changes for Germany’s place in Europe and Europe’s role in the world will be profound. Assuming Berlin follows through with its pledge to raise defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, Germany is on course to become the military as well as economic powerhouse of the European Union. France will remain the only nuclear-armed EU member and will likely remain better placed to engage outside the EU than Germany, but Berlin’s growing conventional military power will inevitably tip the balance further toward Germany in the internal politics of the EU.
There is more. Managing a massive refugee program, supporting Ukraine economically in the wake of a devastating war, and building up the strength of frontline states are generational tasks that will engage European policy makers and soak up European economic resources for years. The EU expansion process had ground to a halt in recent years as some member countries fretted over the cost of including new members and others worried that a growing membership could make it harder to reach timely decisions and limit the prospects for a deeper and stronger union. Those concerns remain, but the need to promote economic and political stability on the EU’s eastern flank will likely make the case for expansion harder to resist as more EU money flows east.
All this makes Germany’s role as the EU’s central powerbroker—balancing the conflicting agendas of the Frugal North, the Endangered East and the Indebted South—more crucial to Europe’s future than ever. This will likely be good news for American strategists who have long hesitated between two scenarios for Europe’s future. On one hand, almost everyone in the world of American foreign policy wants Europe to become stronger militarily, as that would help stabilize the region while reducing the cost to the U.S. of European security. On the other hand, a Europe so powerful that it would no longer need American protection might become a political and economic rival in ways that Americans would not always welcome. The German awakening suggests that we are about to see a Europe that is both stronger and less Gaullist than most thought possible before Mr. Putin’s invasion.
Germany’s attitudes about European independence and American power are complex. Germans do not always see the world as Americans do, and the election of Donald Trump significantly reinforced German skepticism about American reliability and strategic competence. But strong trans-Atlantic ties help solidify Germany’s place in Europe. The American military presence in Europe calms countries like Poland that might otherwise fear a rearming Germany even as the NATO security guarantee provides much more confidence than EU security guarantees alone ever could.
Germany won’t, however, turn its back on Brussels or Paris. For both economic and security reasons, Germany needs the EU, and the commitment to a deep relationship with France remains embedded in German political culture and strategic thought. Berlin will deepen defense cooperation with Paris even as it bolsters its Atlantic ties. Presumably one aspect of this will be that much of its new defense budget ultimately will involve joint ventures with French and other European weapons makers.
Mr. Putin wanted a weaker Europe, increasingly separated from the U.S. It looks as if he’s going to get exactly the opposite. Mr. Putin’s war, so far at least, looks set to promote the emergence of a Europe that is militarily stronger and more deeply engaged with the U.S. than at any time since the end of the Cold War.
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March 30, 2022
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Poland: Germany’s Indispensable Partner
Berlin is likely to push for the release of EU funds to Warsaw in light of the war in Ukraine.
By: Francesco Casarotto
More than a month into the war in Ukraine, the conflict is unsurprisingly putting mounting pressure on Europe. Most obviously, pre-war supply chain issues have mixed with the economic fallout from the invasion to send energy prices skyward, and sanctions have forced European firms to find alternative partners. The arrival of millions of Ukrainian refugees is also straining states’ asylum systems. Despite these enormous challenges, the most significant result of the war thus far is that it has revived NATO and reunited the European Union around Russophobia. Among the chief beneficiaries of this development is Germany. And to preserve the bloc’s newfound unity, Berlin is on the front line, willing to show greater flexibility toward its EU partners.
One example involves the rule of law question. Namely, anonymous EU officials said recently that the bloc will likely hold off for now on applying the rule-of-law conditionality mechanism, which links disbursement of EU funds to member states’ respect for democratic principles as defined by Brussels. This marks an apparent shift in the bloc’s pre-war stance, which seemed to be leaning toward withholding funds from states like Poland and Hungary. (Separately, Brussels is already withholding from Warsaw and Budapest funds from the EU’s pandemic recovery program over similar concerns.) Even before the war, Berlin was one of the louder voices calling for compromise, and now it points to the need to prioritize unity in the face of unprecedented challenges. Germany is especially concerned with relations with Poland given that state’s significant role as a buffer between Germany and Russia. Ultimately, German pressure will likely lead the EU to drop the threats to suspend funds and to show greater flexibility toward Poland and Hungary.
Background: Whose Rules and Whose Laws?
The European Union is the most ambitious experiment in economic union in modern history. Importantly, it also aspires toward a form of political union. Over time, its leaders gave themselves the goal of forming an “ever closer union” based on liberal democracy, the rule of law and a free market economy – the so-called Copenhagen criteria. Especially in light of challenges to democracy in recent years, Brussels sees itself as a champion of democracy and human rights.
The problem is that the 27 member states have different notions of liberal democracy and the rule of law, and tensions between EU authorities and national leaders often arise over these disagreements that touch on core issues of national sovereignty. National leaders are reluctant to compromise or cede powers to a regional body they cannot control, especially since governments get their mandate from their voters. Moreover, in the case of rule of law, national governments have little incentive to bend to the EU’s will. With the exception of potential fines – which the bloc often lacks the political will or legal framework to implement – Brussels has no significant, credible tools with which to sanction states that it believes violate rule-of-law standards.
However, in January 2021, the EU introduced the rule-of-law conditionality regulation, which enables the bloc to take steps including the suspension of EU payments to member states if rule-of-law violations jeopardize the utility and scope of the funds. Poland and Hungary strongly opposed the mechanism, which implicitly targeted their governments; both are at loggerheads with Brussels – over judicial independence and media freedom in Warsaw’s case, and over minority rights and corruption in Budapest’s case. In fact, the EU executive is already withholding from the two states money from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund.
Primary Beneficiaries of EU's Recovery Fund
(click to enlarge)
Pragmatism Prevails
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, the European Commission is reportedly planning to unlock recovery funds for Poland and possibly Hungary, marking a transition away from previous rhetoric about safeguarding the rule of law in the bloc. The driving force behind this change is obviously the Ukraine conflict and the subsequent need to avoid divisions between member states. Despite opposition from several lawmakers from the European Parliament, who contend that the EU has a moral duty to enforce respect for the rule of law, leniency is likely to prevail. Simply put, pragmatism above ideals.
At the center of this is Germany, the de facto leader of Europe. Before the war, economic and social pressures related to COVID-19 were tearing at the fabric of the EU. This was particularly problematic for Germany, which has a critical need to keep Europe, its most important trade market, from fragmenting. What’s more, prior to the war there were questions about Berlin’s fitness to lead, especially on economic policy. The war in Ukraine, then, is an opportunity for Germany to reinforce the bloc’s cohesion and regain some of its credibility. As an added benefit, blame for Europe’s economic woes can be shifted to Russia and away from Brussels’ or Berlin’s management of the pandemic response.
Separately, the renewed threat of Russian revanchism has highlighted to Germany the need for a strong and friendly Poland to buffer it from Russia. Lying on the flat North European Plain, with no geographical barriers between it and Moscow, Berlin’s geographical vulnerabilities have always been a concern for its leaders. Before the war, Germany was the most reluctant European state to sanction Russia or to send weapons to Ukraine. This was mainly due to Germany’s dependence on Russian energy. Barely a week before the war began, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said no European security framework should be made without or against Russia.
North European Plain
(click to enlarge)
Now, the German position on Russia has completely reversed. It has supported most of the sanctions against Russia and announced plans to drastically increase its defense budget. Just as Berlin’s friendly attitude toward Moscow became a liability once the bombs started falling, so did its tough stance against Warsaw. Being tough on Poland risks strengthening anti-EU forces in Poland, which to date still make up a minority of the population.
Finally, Poland is on the front lines of the refugee effort. Germany is well aware of the implications of another refugee crisis on the EU’s cohesion, so even if other states are open to accepting refugees now, the more Poland can absorb the better. Warsaw recently said the expense of hosting the refugees would likely be around 24 billion euros ($27 billion), which is almost exactly what the country was due to receive in the form of grants from the bloc’s pandemic fund. Releasing the funds might help Poland better manage the situation and reduce Ukrainians’ incentives to continue moving west.
Ukrainian Refugee Destinations, as of March 27, 2022
(click to enlarge)
Conclusion
There may be other Western European holdouts, but Germany will work hard to convince the European Commission to release the funds to Poland. Maintaining a strong and allied Poland – and, to a lesser extent, Hungary – is a security imperative for Germany. Keeping the EU united is an economic imperative. Germany will act to preserve those two interests.
Almost everything Berlin has done since the start of the war points toward preserving the integrity of the European Union: sanctioning Russia, sending arms to Ukraine and even halting the certification process for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. In doing so, Germany is showing a renewed will to lead the bloc, even if it comes at costs it was previously unwilling to pay.
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The D Brief
March 30, 2022
Russia's military is still attacking Ukrainian cities even as negotiations continue in Turkey. Some of that shelling is hitting the capital of Kyiv, where Russia claimed it would "drastically reduce" its hostilities, according to remarks Monday from Kremlin officials in Moscow.
"A nearly endless rumble of artillery audible in central Kyiv today—at times loud enough to startle birds to take fight," U.S. Air Force veteran Nolan Peterson reported on Twitter on Wednesday from the capital. "Clearly there has been no let up in fighting on the city's periphery," he added.
Chernihiv is another city Russia claimed to be departing soon as it allegedly shifted its efforts to invasion's offensives in the south and the east of Ukraine. Chernihiv's mayor told CNN Wednesday morning (afternoon local time) that the city is under "colossal attack," and more than a dozen civilians have been taken to the hospital from those ongoing attacks. Reuters and the Associated Press have more.
News: Russia has launched several hypersonic missiles at Ukraine, America's top military commander in Europe told senators with the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
"There have been multiple launches. Most of them have been directed at military targets," said Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters of the U.S. military's European Command. As far as why, Wolters told lawmakers, "I think it was to demonstrate the capability and attempt to put fear in the hearts of the enemy. And I don't think they were successful." After all, as our colleague Patrick Tucker reported Tuesday, "Hypersonic missiles are designed to thwart the world's most sophisticated air defenses, so it's unclear why Russia is using them against the Ukrainian military, which doesn't have the sort of defenses that would merit the use of an advanced, experimental, and very expensive weapon." More, here.
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Wolters is on the Hill again today for another hearing, this time before the House Armed Services Committee. He's joined by the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Celeste Wallander. That one started at 10 a.m. ET. Catch it live via HASC, here.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht is at the Pentagon this morning for a meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Lambrecht arrived about an hour after sunrise, at 8 a.m. ET.
New: German officials are asking citizens to begin conserving their natural gas usage, since the country may have little choice but to rely on Russian sources until at least 2024, the Associated Press reports from Berlin and Warsaw. "We are in a situation where, I have to say this clearly, every kilowatt hour of energy saved helps," Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Wednesday. He also said he thinks Germany might be able to cut its reliance on Russian oil and coal as early as the end of this year.
Poland says it will stop using Russian coal possibly as soon as May. And Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday he expects his country to stop using Russian oil by the end of December. Meanwhile, "Poland is expanding an [liquid natural gas] terminal to receive deliveries from Qatar, the U.S., Norway, and other exporters," AP reports. And "A new Baltic pipeline bringing gas from Norway is expected to open by the end of the year." More, here.
Updated economic outlook for Russia: Things are improving slightly for ordinary Russians, but the country's overall forecast is still very dim, according to Elina Ribakova of the Center for a New American Security. "Russia's domestic banking system is gradually stabilizing," she tweeted Tuesday, with illustrative data from the Bank of Russia. "Severe bank runs triggered by the war and sanctions appear to have moderated," she said.
That could mean the Kremlin doesn't have that much money to be flexible. Or, as Ribakova put it, "Russian banks barely survived the bank runs and don't have cash sloshing around to pay for military spending. Especially if [an] oil embargo gets implemented."
A second opinion: "Sanctions against Russia have been unprecedented in speed, the scale of targets, and international cooperation," tweeted Eddie Fishman, also of CNAS, on Tuesday. "But they are NOT comprehensive. They remain a 7/10 or 8/10 in intensity, not a 10/10." He explains what more can be done—using charts, tables and graphs—here.
Four European countries booted more than 40 Russian diplomats and officials Tuesday over allegations they were spying or conducting influence operations on behalf of the Kremlin. The Belgians expelled 21; the Dutch kicked out another 17; Ireland booted four; and the Czech Republic said it expelled one as well. North Macedonia booted another five on Monday for similar reasons.
100-plus and counting: Recall that Poland kicked out 45 Russian diplomats last week; and Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia collectively expelled another 20 the week before that, bringing the latest totals to more than 110 Russian expulsions since Putin's Ukraine invasion first began.
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https://www.statecraft.co.in/article/russia-shuts-down-gas-supply-via-yamal-europe-pipeline?fbclid=IwAR3XyjEUhl-mzC1bn9QFvWSmQA_3DiFbcpNuNCB4bbzIEgNhn0FUt3Q9deA
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HT for GM
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/german-retailers-increase-food-prices-20-50-monday
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https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarians-vote-orbans-12-year-rule-tight-ballot-overshadowed-by-ukraine-war-2022-04-03/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily-briefing
Also see!
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/will-viktor-orban-bring-down-house-davos-built?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=584
What do we think of Orban's relationship with Putin and reliance on Russian nat-gas? BTW in this article note the issue of Central Asian natgas as an alternative to west Russian natgas. A few years back I repeatedly drew attention to this variable.
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It’s utterly unacceptable that Muslim rape gangs aren’t allowed to ravage the women of Hungary! Why are they so special? It’s obviously racism! Leaders who act in the interest of their citizens need to be removed from power!
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarians-vote-orbans-12-year-rule-tight-ballot-overshadowed-by-ukraine-war-2022-04-03/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily-briefing
Also see!
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/will-viktor-orban-bring-down-house-davos-built?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=584
What do we think of Orban's relationship with Putin and reliance on Russian nat-gas? BTW in this article note the issue of Central Asian natgas as an alternative to west Russian natgas. A few years back I repeatedly drew attention to this variable.
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https://theintercept.com/2022/04/01/russia-ukraine-proxy-war-washington-diplomacy/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter
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EASTERN EUROPE
Favoring Putin, populists win in Hungary, Serbia
BY JUSTIN SPIKE AND JOVANA GEC ASSOCIATED PRESS BUDAPEST, HUNGARY | After two nationalist European strongmen won overwhelming victories in elections on Sunday, one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate both was not from a neighboring country or a regional ally. It was Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The parliamentary elections in Hungary and Serbia both brought landslide wins for the two countries’ longtime, pro-Putin leaders — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
Their victories on Sunday highlighted an underlying discord in attitudes among European nations toward the autocracies of Russia and China. As those powers seek to exert greater influence on the continent and beyond, conservative populists such as Mr. Orban and Mr. Vucic have aimed to emulate the autocratic touch through their own style of governance in the heart of Europe.
Mr. Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party won more than 53% of the vote, shocking both pollsters and a Western-looking coalition of more liberal opposition parties which had appealed to voters to bring an end to Mr. Orban’s 12 years of increasingly autocratic rule and stronger ties with Moscow and Beijing.
In Serbia, Mr. Vucic cruised into an outright victory with the nearest opposition candidate trailing by some 40 percentage points. It was the first time that a presidential candidate won a second mandate without a runoff vote.
“I managed something no one else has done before me,” Mr. Vucic said in a victory speech. “It wasn’t even close.”
The results — which cemented the power of two leaders who have been accused of undermining democratic norms — underscored an accelerating drift away from the liberal values and internationalist vision of European Union leaders in Brussels among Hungarian and Serbian voters. Russia’s war in Ukraine played an outsized role in the campaigns in both countries, and analysts say the conflict helped to mobilize support for the incumbents.
Serbia’s largely pro-Russian electorate shuns groups identifi ed with pro-Western policies, while Mr. Orban’s reputation as Mr. Putin’s best advocate in the EU has led his supporters to view Russia as a crucial partner.
Formally on the path to EU accession, Serbia has seen a rise in pro-Russian sentiment under Mr. Vucic and mounting skepticism and mistrust of the EU, even as the country’s main financial inflows come from the bloc.
Mr. Vucic’s government has supported the U.N. resolution condemning the attack on Ukraine, but he has refused to join the sanctions against Moscow.
“Vucic has created this atmosphere of huge adoration for Russia and hypocrisy toward the EU,” Biljana Stojkovic, the presidential candidate of a green-left coalition said. “I don’t think he has understood the importance of [the war in Ukraine] and the geopolitical changes.”
Mr. Orban, while begrudgingly voting for most EU sanctions against Russia, has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons or allow for their transfer across the Hungarian- Ukrainian border. He has also fought intensely against sanctions being imposed on Russian energy imports — on which Hungary is deeply dependent, drawing the scorn of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In a victory speech Sunday, Mr. Orban singled out Mr. Zelenskyy as part of the “overwhelming force” that he said his party had struggled against in the election — “the left at home, the international left all around, the Brussels bureaucrats, the [billionaire George] Soros’ empire with all its money, the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president.”
Andras Biro-Nagy, a researcher and director of the Policy Solutions think tank in Budapest, said that Mr. Orban and his “media empire” won the war of narratives over the war in Ukraine.
“There was a clash of narratives between the East vs. West narrative which was used by the opposition campaign, and the security and peace versus war narrative created by Orban,” Biro-Nagy said. “It seems that Orban’s narrative which appeals to the Hungarian society’s craving for security and stability and peace won this time.”
A survey by Hungarian pollster Publicus in March showed that only 44% of Fidesz supporters considered Russia the aggressor in the war in Ukraine.
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third
April 5, 2022
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How the Ukraine War Will Likely End
By: George Friedman
As we consider how the war in Ukraine will end, we must first understand how it began. Russia invaded for geostrategic reasons – having Ukraine as a buffer state safeguards Moscow from invasion from the west – and for economic reasons, which have often gone overlooked. The transition from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation wasn’t exactly lucrative. It may have increased total wealth, but Russia remains a poor country. Its gross domestic product ranks just behind South Korea's, a respectable placement but hardly where a superpower should be. And in terms of per capita GDP, Russia ranks 85th, nestled between Bulgaria and Malaysia.
Economic statistics rarely tell the whole story, of course, but in Russia’s case they fairly accurately present a country that is poorer than it appears, masked superficially by a top layer of the superrich elite. Life in major cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow is luxurious for the wealthy and bearable for the rest. Life in the countryside is something else entirely.
Individual regimes can’t be solely blamed for Russian poverty. The size of the nation, and the difficulties in areas such as transport associated with its size, makes Russia difficult to govern. From the time of the czars, it has been the state rather than shared economic prosperity that has kept Russia together. Often this has been achieved through the security services, which are tasked with maintaining state power, not with building an economy. It’s little wonder that the country that boasted the Okhrana also produced a president who cut his teeth in the KGB. Rightly or wrongly, Russia’s size and inefficiency tend to demand a strong hand.
This has created an expectation that the state will be strong even if the people are poor. There was pride in the czars and in Stalin – the so-called “man of steel.” But for a ruler to govern Russia, they must demonstrate strength. The intellectuals in Russia speak of democracy and human rights. The people want protection against invaders from without and against impoverishing chaos from within.
Over the years, President Vladimir Putin has made various gestures at improving Russia, but he learned in the KGB that without a strong hand Russia is ungovernable. And he knew that there are two types of strength: The kind that makes other countries tremble, and the kind that keeps homegrown “enemies” in check.
From Belarus to Kazakhstan, Putin has tried, in the only way he sees fit, to rebuild Russia brick by brick. Ukraine is the biggest brick. He believes he had to take it. Russia was becoming restless. Dissidents were being arrested, and foreigners were dismissing it. Strategy and power forced him to act. But the problem was that his instrument of action, the Russian army, was as ineffective as Russia itself. This had not always been the case. As brutal as military service could be, there was a certain pride in it.
The Russian army today seems disorganized, unimaginative and uninspired. The deployment of force, preparation of logistics and command of the battlefields on all levels simply wasn’t there. This was a different sort of Russian army, a bureaucratized one, one more afraid of the czar than of losing to the enemy. Putin demanded a rapid defeat of the enemy. But to rule by strength, you must see clearly and strike decisively at the center of gravity.
Ukraine had no center of gravity, only a widely dispersed light infantry force that provided no single point to destroy. Although that may seem like guerrilla warfare, it is not, and Ukraine surprised its enemy with resilience and unpredictability. The attacker can respond with brutal attacks on the population, but that leaves the Ukrainians with no choice but to fight. The Russian army wasn’t designed for this war, hadn’t planned for this war and has only brutal counter-civilian action to take. And Putin will take it.
The problem, then, is that Putin cannot stop, nor can he reach an agreement with Ukraine that he will keep. Every deal – except for surrender by the enemy – is a revelation of weakness on the part of a weak country and a weak ruler. The only alternatives are ineffective action because the force he sent to war was the wrong force from a country that didn’t have the right one.
He can reach a genuine cease-fire, but if he does, he’s finished. Not being able to defeat the Ukrainians, and held in contempt by others, destroys the myth of his power. Continuing the war endlessly reveals the same thing. As this goes on, Putin’s primary task is to pretend that the defeat is not happening because anything less than victory is a defeat. Every agreement must end in betrayal, and as it happens with guerrillas, they get stronger the longer the war drags out.
A crucial question is whether Russia has strategic reserves. The army has been in the field for over a month, in weather that is still cold, at the end of a logistical line that is problematic. It has been fighting a highly motivated, mobile light infantry force familiar with the terrain. It cannot go on indefinitely. Russia has to rotate its forces. Strategically, it must send more. Instead, it is executing a bloody withdrawal. You don’t fight for the same ground twice unless you have to.
This means that Putin’s war plan is shattered. The resistance has been effective and his troops need a relief he cannot provide. Putin will feint in other directions – perhaps in the Baltics or Moldova – but he lacks the force to fight on another front. He can’t sustain this war easily, especially in the face of NATO soldiers who have so far stayed out of the fray.
Even so, I cannot predict what a leader will do in the end. But for now, it’s clear to me that Putin will cling to power and blame everyone around him. But every day the war goes on, Putin gets weaker. Ukraine should not be able to resist, NATO should not be united, American economic warfare should not be so powerful. Putin is growing more desperate. He has mumbled about nuclear weapons, the sign of utmost desperation. But he knows he and anyone he may love will die in a nuclear exchange. Even if he is prepared to commit suicide rather than capitulate, he knows that the order to launch must go through several hands, and each of those hands knows that the counterstrike will kill their loved ones. Therein lies the weakness of nuclear war: Retaliating is one thing, initiating another. Putin trusts few people, and he doesn’t know how reliable anyone would be in this situation – nor what the Americans might do if they saw preparation for a Russian launch.
If Putin gives up his position, he is compromised, and perhaps lost. The buzzards are circling. So he must continue to fight until he is forced out and someone else not responsible for the disaster takes over and blames it all on Putin. I think that this can’t end until Putin is pulled from the game.
Obviously, I am moving here away from geopolitical analysis into the political. The former tries to minimize individual influence while the latter emphasizes it. That gives my forecast an inevitable imprecision. But given the situation on the ground, and given Russian internal dynamics, it does seem that all the forces coming to bear on Putin dictate a certain direction. The war will end, but the war is evolving in a way that creates unique pressures on the Russian political system, and, because of the nature of the system, that pressure pivots on Putin.
This is not the only outcome. Ukraine might collapse. Russia might collapse. The Russian army may devise a strategy to win the war. A settlement that is respected might be reached. All of these are possible, but I don’t see much movement in any of these directions. A political end is what I would bet on, with the Russians taking the short end of the stick. I wouldn’t have thought this on the first day of the war, but I think this is likely the shape of the last day.
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A ‘Win’ for Hungary’s Orban
He enjoys some measure of popular support if not a decisive mandate.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
April 4, 2022 6:40 pm ET
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and members of the Fidesz party celebrate on stage at their election base in Budapest on April 3.
PHOTO: ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
More Europeans and Americans purport to care about Hungarian politics than probably should, so Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s re-election Sunday will stir discussion, especially on the political right. Here’s a friendly reminder that whatever else this vote demonstrates, it isn’t the vanguard of a new Christian nationalist movement that can or will lead the West.
Mr. Orban cruised to his fourth term, winning 53% of the vote for his coalition and 135 out of 199 seats in the parliament, compared to 35% of the vote for the next largest opposition group. The result shows that Mr. Orban’s agenda suits some portion of the electorate. This is especially true of his approach to cultural issues, where his conservative views on sexual ethics may be closer to the European mainstream than his critics elsewhere in the European Union care to admit.
But Mr. Orban’s government also tilted the scale against the opposition to a heavy-handed degree. Opposition parties and candidates struggled to get an airing on state-owned television, and in other media that receive large advertising revenue from the government. The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe, which monitors elections, notes that the government and state-linked firms dominate advertising spending.
Elements of the campaign resemble machine politics that would make Boss Tweed blush. This includes a pervasive mingling of government spending on public communication with Mr. Orban’s electioneering. Taxpayer-financed posters with Mr. Orban’s picture resembled campaign messages, the OSCE notes. Messages on utility bills about low energy prices dovetailed with a key Orban theme.
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The result is something less than unfettered Western European democracy, but more freedom than in Russia or other authoritarian states. The EU, with its threat of financial sanctions against Hungary, has if anything given Mr. Orban a political foil for his nationalism. He doesn’t seem to mind if China supplants the U.S. as a leading global power since Beijing doesn’t care how he governs.
Mr. Orban is a clever manipulator of nationalist, anti-immigration sentiment in a small European state. His soft-on-Putin views are cringe-worthy in the wake of Russian brutality in Ukraine. But they also mirror in substance what was Germany’s foreign policy until the Feb. 24 invasion.
Hungary matters because with Russia threatening NATO’s eastern flank and China, Iran and jihadists on the march, the Western Alliance needs a large measure of unity for common defense. The EU and NATO will have to make some accommodation to Mr. Orban’s government, however distasteful that may be. The bigger threats to world freedom and security are further east.
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fifth
Daily Memo: European States Expel Russian Diplomats
The move was a response to alleged atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Expulsion. Several European countries, including Germany, France and Italy, announced they will expel dozens of Russian diplomats in response to the discovery of civilians killed in Bucha, Ukraine, following Russian forces’ retreat from the town. Some of the countries also cited national security concerns. Moscow vowed to respond in kind.
Diplomacy in Moscow. Foreign ministers of the Arab League countries met on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow to help find a resolution to the Ukraine crisis. The Arab ministers later held talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Poland.
Gazprom seizure. Germany seized control of the German subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom on Monday, accusing the company of violating reporting requirements and saying the move was “necessary to ensure security of [natural gas] supply in Germany.” On Tuesday, Gazprom’s British-based subsidiary said it would consider cutting links with its parent company.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-russia-gazprom-rosneft-nationalization-natural-gas-oil-ukraine-war-2022-4
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Hope the Russkis don't have Javelins!
GPF: A quarter-million tanks. Poland signed a $4.75 billion deal with the United States on Tuesday for the purchase of 250 M1A2 Abrams tanks. The first 28 tanks should be delivered by the end of this year. Poland’s defense minister said the deal would deter “a potential aggressor.”
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https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/meet-kornet-russia%E2%80%99s-killer-anti-tank-weapon-194159
Hope the Russkis don't have Javelins!
GPF: A quarter-million tanks. Poland signed a $4.75 billion deal with the United States on Tuesday for the purchase of 250 M1A2 Abrams tanks. The first 28 tanks should be delivered by the end of this year. Poland’s defense minister said the deal would deter “a potential aggressor.”
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The Right’s Russia Temptation
Some in the America-first movement mistake Putin for a strong nationalist leader like Donald Trump.
By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro
April 10, 2022 2:59 pm ET
I served in the Trump administration and fiercely defended the former president. During his administration, no dictator dared do anything close to what Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine now. But the things some America-first conservatives are now saying about Mr. Putin alarm me.
I noticed this after I condemned Russia’s invasion in a group chat with Trump appointees. One replied with a Z, the pro-Russia war symbol. One made a vulgar suggestion that President Volodymyr Zelensky was crooked. Others supported Ukraine, and it was clear our group was splitting into two factions.
That split within the right has emerged publicly as well. “Putin has laid out what he wants in Ukraine—a decent starting point,” congressional candidate Joe Kent said March 31, speaking at what was styled an “emergency” conference called “Up From Chaos.” Mr. Kent, who is challenging Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R., Wash.) in a primary, called Mr. Putin’s demand that Ukraine cede Donetsk and Luhansk “very reasonable.” Helen Andrews, a senior editor for American Conservative magazine said, “Ukraine is a corrupt country. Come and get me.”
Also on March 31, Compact magazine released a declaration, signed by 33 people on both the right and left, including former Trump White House aide Michael Anton and journalist Glenn Greenwald. It calls for “de-escalation” and “good-faith” peace talks that acknowledge Russia’s “legitimate security needs” and demands that President Biden disavow “regime change” in Moscow.
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Other America-firsters have made comments that sound like Russian propaganda. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) tweeted that U.S. tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on “lethal aid to be given to possible Nazi militias that are torturing innocent people, especially young children and women.” Charlie Kirk, president of Turning Point USA, tweeted that “if you are mindlessly supporting Ukraine . . . you might be cheering for literal Nazis.”
Some of these arguments are made in earnest; others perhaps are mere efforts to be edgy. One might think they’re harmless, but they potentially influence millions of American conservatives, and Russian state media has republished some of them to push the lie that Ukraine is overrun by Nazis targeting Russian civilians. They also damage the credibility of the America-first movement.
Some of my former colleagues buy into Mr. Putin’s false narratives because they mistake him for a Russian Donald Trump—a strong nationalist leader who fights woke ideas. But the war against Ukraine hasn’t benefited Russians, and Mr. Putin is a ruthless dictator with contempt for human life, including the lives of Russians. The Russian opposition he represses is “liberal” not in the sense of being leftist but of favoring freedom. His opposition to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization isn’t antiglobalist but anti-Western and anti-American.
Still, that so many leading America-firsters are parroting the Kremlin’s narrative suggests the movement has taken a dangerous turn. The reasonable goal of reducing military adventurism has regressed toward extreme isolationism, producing a self-described antiwar movement that preaches peace while callously ignoring war crimes.
Mr. Shapiro is an investigative journalist who has reported on Russian affairs. He served as a senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, 2017-21.
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"One made a vulgar suggestion that President Volodymyr Zelensky was crooked."
https://www.occrp.org/en/the-pandora-papers/pandora-papers-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-ukrainian-president-and-his-inner-circle
The Right’s Russia Temptation
Some in the America-first movement mistake Putin for a strong nationalist leader like Donald Trump.
By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro
April 10, 2022 2:59 pm ET
I served in the Trump administration and fiercely defended the former president. During his administration, no dictator dared do anything close to what Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine now. But the things some America-first conservatives are now saying about Mr. Putin alarm me.
I noticed this after I condemned Russia’s invasion in a group chat with Trump appointees. One replied with a Z, the pro-Russia war symbol. One made a vulgar suggestion that President Volodymyr Zelensky was crooked. Others supported Ukraine, and it was clear our group was splitting into two factions.
That split within the right has emerged publicly as well. “Putin has laid out what he wants in Ukraine—a decent starting point,” congressional candidate Joe Kent said March 31, speaking at what was styled an “emergency” conference called “Up From Chaos.” Mr. Kent, who is challenging Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R., Wash.) in a primary, called Mr. Putin’s demand that Ukraine cede Donetsk and Luhansk “very reasonable.” Helen Andrews, a senior editor for American Conservative magazine said, “Ukraine is a corrupt country. Come and get me.”
Also on March 31, Compact magazine released a declaration, signed by 33 people on both the right and left, including former Trump White House aide Michael Anton and journalist Glenn Greenwald. It calls for “de-escalation” and “good-faith” peace talks that acknowledge Russia’s “legitimate security needs” and demands that President Biden disavow “regime change” in Moscow.
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Other America-firsters have made comments that sound like Russian propaganda. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) tweeted that U.S. tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on “lethal aid to be given to possible Nazi militias that are torturing innocent people, especially young children and women.” Charlie Kirk, president of Turning Point USA, tweeted that “if you are mindlessly supporting Ukraine . . . you might be cheering for literal Nazis.”
Some of these arguments are made in earnest; others perhaps are mere efforts to be edgy. One might think they’re harmless, but they potentially influence millions of American conservatives, and Russian state media has republished some of them to push the lie that Ukraine is overrun by Nazis targeting Russian civilians. They also damage the credibility of the America-first movement.
Some of my former colleagues buy into Mr. Putin’s false narratives because they mistake him for a Russian Donald Trump—a strong nationalist leader who fights woke ideas. But the war against Ukraine hasn’t benefited Russians, and Mr. Putin is a ruthless dictator with contempt for human life, including the lives of Russians. The Russian opposition he represses is “liberal” not in the sense of being leftist but of favoring freedom. His opposition to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization isn’t antiglobalist but anti-Western and anti-American.
Still, that so many leading America-firsters are parroting the Kremlin’s narrative suggests the movement has taken a dangerous turn. The reasonable goal of reducing military adventurism has regressed toward extreme isolationism, producing a self-described antiwar movement that preaches peace while callously ignoring war crimes.
Mr. Shapiro is an investigative journalist who has reported on Russian affairs. He served as a senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, 2017-21.
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IIRC the rejoinder was "Given the realities of Ukraine, to have one's money out of reach of the government was the intelligent thing to do."
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second
Slovakia sent an S-300 air defense system to Ukraine late last week, (video here) and the U.S. military "repositioned" one of its Patriot missile systems, along with a crew of U.S. service members, to Slovakia in response. That repositioning "aligns perfectly with our previous efforts to bolster NATO's defensive capabilities and to demonstrate our collective security requirements under Article 5 of the NATO treaty," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement Friday. The move also "complements the NATO multinational battlegroup in eastern Slovakia, which includes air defense elements from Germany and the Netherlands," he said.
By the way: China just discretely sent missiles to Russian ally Serbia over the weekend. Open-source intelligence analysts spotted the deliveries—using six Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes—and posted imagery on Twitter Saturday. The delivery reportedly involved medium-range HQ-22 surface-to-air missile systems the Serbian military agreed to buy in 2019, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Saturday. The delivery will make Serbia "the first operator of the Chinese missiles in Europe," according to the Associated Press. Tiny bit more from AP, reporting separately Monday from Beijing, here.
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IIRC the rejoinder was "Given the realities of Ukraine, to have one's money out of reach of the government was the intelligent thing to do."
"It's just a stutter!"
:roll:
From 10/21
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy
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He leads bravely with his ass very much on the line.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-delivered-missiles-to-serbia-over-nato-airspace_4396236.html?utm_source=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-04-12&utm_medium=email&est=75Ikih02APTw6urS24qc03F1yt%2Ffkn0ve5xtJ0XpmsBUmCYLYmKlLdYRC9kSk5qXaFdG
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third
April 12, 2022
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Time For Putin’s Hail Mary Pass
By: George Friedman
Alexander Dvornikov isn’t exactly a household name, but it could be soon. He’s the Russian general President Vladimir Putin has put in charge of the war in Ukraine after what can generously be described as a disappointing start for Moscow. Dvornikov is credited with saving the Russian campaign in Syria, and the Kremlin hopes he can replicate his successes in Europe.
In Syria, Dvornikov understood that Russia was fighting a diffused infantry force with deep ties to the populations of the areas they were fighting in, so he launched a war on those populations focusing his resources not on the fighters themselves but on their friends and families. He meant to terrify them and thus instill a deep desire to end the war. Put less clinically, Dvornikov carried out mass murder, a calculated measure intended to save Russian lives and to intimidate other populations into staying out of the fight. Putin appointed him because of his reputation and his ability to command and massacre.
Syria and Ukraine differ in one crucial way: Syrians had no external support to speak of. The Ukrainians have NATO. So far, NATO has been part of an economic war against Russia and a source of weapons for the Ukrainians. It has not crossed the line to direct, overt intervention on a major scale. Dvornikov could change that.
NATO members have made clear they would not intervene directly, but as the atrocities mount, so would the pressure to act. The publics of most NATO countries oppose intervention, but it only takes a few Buchas to change their attitudes. And the U.S. itself is never far away.
Appointing Dvornikov to save the day is a Hail Mary. But this misses the point. Even if Dvornikov’s brutality can somehow pacify Ukraine, it will convince the rest of the world to keep sanctions in place, thereby institutionalizing their crippling economic effects. Economic warfare is being waged by a massive global coalition. Russia was hardly economically robust before the war, but there are some claims that Russia’s gross domestic product is contracting by 50 percent. That may be overstated, but there is no question that things are bad. For Russia to “win” in Ukraine would not solve this problem. If anything, it could compound it.
With Dvornikov managing Ukraine, Russia must go from a single Hail Mary to a second larger one. The only way to both win in Ukraine and get free from the sanctions is to create a basis for negotiations and mutual concessions. To do that, Russia must have some basis on which to get the West to abandon its sanctions regime – that is, by having something to trade. Russia cannot impose equivalent sanctions, nor can it gin up public sympathy for Russia. This leaves it only one option: to threaten Western economies by threatening the trading system.
This requires a military solution. Russia has over 20 Kilo-class submarines, diesel-powered subs that lack the range and endurance of nuclear-powered submarines but are nonetheless able to carry both torpedoes and cruise missiles, which means they launch from a distance. There is a range of chokepoints that are critical to the West – the Denmark Strait, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Gulf of Mexico are just a few. A demonstration shot would shut down trade and send insurance rates surging, while navies try to determine the extent of the deployment and target. The goal of the Russians would be to demonstrate presence, break contact and evade. The uncertainty would threaten trade.
Of course, this would be the ultimate Hail Mary, and one I am writing about because it is for me a leading concern from any hostile nation that wants to improve its negotiating position with the U.S. (or any trading nation). In most cases, this is a dubious strategy. It is dubious here as well. Russia’s goal may be to win in Ukraine, but that won’t solve its fundamental problem. It can only get economic negotiations with leverage, and at the moment, it has little economic leverage. Its only possible solution is to turn this into a military lever. Given the power of the U.S. and NATO navies, this is a forlorn hope, but so is appointing Dvornikov. The good choices are evaporating.
I believe that Putin is, in the end, fighting for his political life, and that makes him open to the Hail Marys of the game. Since he will not go quietly, this is a risky and extreme choice. But he seems to be favoring those at the moment – perhaps with good reason.
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https://creativedestructionmedia.com/news/europe/2022/04/12/clinton-soros-anti-corruption-unit-head-in-ukraine-fired-admitted-on-tape-working-against-trump/
Very timely post!!!
Here is one of mine from FB in response to another post:
============================
Mostly agree, but I disagree on one major point.
To summarize my thinking:
America has what we call the Monroe Doctrine (for those of us not familiar with it, look it up) The MD is simple and primal: Don't Stand Too Close To Me-- hence the Cuban Missile Crisis.
We have insisted upon it, and we should respect the concern of others in this regard. In this context it is irrelevant what kind of a man Putin is. Just as we would not want Mexico in military alliance with Russia or China, Russia deserves similar respect for reasons of primal geopolitical principles.
Putin has made clear for some 18 years now that he regarded Ukraine into NATO as a red line violation of his MD space, yet Obama-Biden-Clinton-the State Dept (Nuland-Farkas-Vindman-et al)-the Pentagon have pushed in this direction with an incoherent mix of corruption and weakness (e.g. Sec State Hillary signing off of Russia acquiring 25% of American uranium as Bill grifted big bucks from Russia, while sending only MREs and blankets when Putin seized Crimea, Hunter's grifting operation in Ukraine to the corrupt benefit of his father while disabling American oil and NG energy and strengthening Russian energy etc etc etc)
(Also see a similar push for Georgia that Putin bitch slapped down with his invasion of Ossetia in 2008, also with geopolitical NG pipeline issues being part of the mix)
President Trump got in front of the momentum of this Deep State institutional freight train. He saw that:
Driving Russia into the arms of China would be a geopolitical error of catastrophic proportions AND that strength was required.
To this end he rebuilt American arms and their credibility-- no shame of the Biden exit from Afghanistan for him! Instead he killed Bagdaddy of Isis, Suleiman of Iran, killed 250 Russian Wagner mercenaries in Syria and sent 29 missiles up the ass of a Russian airfield in Syria when they chem attacked Syrian civilians.
HE MADE AMERICA AN ENERGY EXPORTER-- contrast the incoherence of the Dem Deep State on this that now finances Russia's attack!!!
Very much worth noting is how he got in Europe's face on this-- particularly Germany (which in effect in recent days has now admitted he was right) demanding that Germany and other NATO countries meet their commitments to NATO-- all to the howls of the Dems and their running dogs (mocking use of an old Russian communist term here) in the MSM.
It is no coincidence that Uke born Col. Vindman of the NSC (who was offered the Uke Defense Ministry!!!) was a major player in the first Trump impeachment in which he virtue signaled he came forward as a whistle blower because President Trump was violating American policy toward Russia!
The hubris of the Deep State mind revealed is stunning. The American PRESIDENT is the one who sets policy! and Trump ran precisely on finding a way of working with Russia!
And what was at the core of the Trump impeachment? His wanting to get at the core of the Biden & Son grifting operation in Ukraine! And we have the hubris to call them corrupt?!?
(Worth noting is that Pelosi's son and other American ruling class children were in on the corruption in Ukrainian energy sector as well)
THERE WAS A DEAL TO BE HAD: UKE NEUTRALITY IN RETURN FOR RESPECT OF UKE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY. BY REJECTING THIS TEAM BIDEN REJECTED PUTIN'S LONG AND OPENLY DECLARED RED LINE. TEAM BIDEN IGNORED THE WARNING GROWL OF HIS GRADUAL TROOP BUILD UP.
NONE OF WHAT WE HAVE NOW WAS NECESSARY BUT FOR THE FECKLESS STUPIDITY OF TEAM BIDEN.
And now we have what we have. There is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. Obama-Biden-Clinton-the State Dept (Nuland-Farkas-Vindman-et al)-the Pentagon have gotten the war that they have pushed for.
Wag the Dog anyone?!?
Watch how this is and will be played in the arena of American electoral politics and decide for yourself!
"The US and Russia have been arming and funding each other’s adversaries/allies since the beginning of the Cold War"
Agree 100%.
"The Russians will not use nukes in response to this or start a full-scale war. They’re bluffing, straight up."
If by "this" you mean giving Migs out of NATO Poland to the Ukes, I disagree.
They HAVE started a full-scale war in response to Obama-Biden-Clinton-the State Dept (Nuland-Farkas-Vindman-et al)-the Pentagon ignoring their clear declaration that Ukraine alliance with the West was a red line for them. PUTIN WAS NOT BLUFFING.
"They believe the West’s resolve can be easily broken through fear and threats of war. Flinching on any front like this sets an irreversible precedent."
Given Biden's incoherent strategy and weakness it is easy to see how Putin got to that conclusion!!! We see now what weakness brings!!!
Thanks in great part to the great courage of the Ukrainian people, Putin has overplayed his hand quite badly. He is clearly showing that he will keep escalating until he has something which he can portray as a victory before his own military and his own people turn on him.
Though blazingly stupid, feckless, and unnecessary as this Wag the Dog war was and is, I agree to flinch now would be great error. Let us continue supplying the brave Uke people! Maybe Congress could get off its fg ass and hold a weekend session when necessary!
But where we disagree is on the point that Tucker is making in the clip above. Just as is proven by the war in progress he was not bluffing when he said that Ukraine alliance with the west was a red line, he is not bluffing when he says that giving the Ukes NATO Migs is a red line.
As the Poles have wisely concluded in ignoring feckless fool Blinken's "green light", this is a bridge too far.
Russian nuke doctrine does call for battlefield nukes and Putin is cornered. You might be right and the Migs would help accelerate his collapse, but you might bewrong and this move could trigger things to a whole other level- quite possibly Russian battlefield nukes- not only between Russia and us, but also our discussion here has yet to take Xi and China, and Taiwan into account.
We do not have the bandwidth for both and are led by people who cannot even depart from Afghanistan without turning it into an epic disaster and shame of American arms.
Meanwhile, there is the small matter of Article Four, Section Four of our Constitution. Time to defend our own borders!!!
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IIRC we covered this story here.
What are the implications for America now?
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IIRC the Russians have been a major financial backer of Le Pen.
==================================
Le Pen signals sharp turn in foreign policy if elected
Right-winger would curb NATO ties, reach out to Russia
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS | French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen warned Wednesday against sending any more weapons to Ukraine, and called for a rapprochement between NATO and Russia once Moscow’s war in Ukraine winds down.
Ms. Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist who has long cultivated ties to Russia, also confirmed that if she unseats centrist President Emmanuel Macron in France’s April 24 presidential runoff, she will pull France out of NATO’s military command and dial back French support for the whole European Union.
The comments on the very first days of the run-off indicate the 53-year-old Ms. Le Pen and her National Rally party are largely sticking by their populist, hard-right foreign policies for the face-off with Mr. Macron, despite the uproar in Europe caused by the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Macron, a pro-EU centrist, is facing a harderthan- expected fight to stay in power, in part because the economic impact of the war is hitting poor households the hardest. France’s European partners are worried that a Le Pen presidency could undermine Western unity as the U.S. and Europe seek to support Ukraine and end Russia’s war on its neighbor.
Asked about military aid to Ukraine, Ms. Le Pen said she would continue defense and intelligence support — with qualifications.
“[But] I’m more reserved about direct arms deliveries. Why? Because ... the line is thin between aid and becoming a co-belligerent,” she said, citing concerns about an “escalation of this conflict that could bring a whole number of countries into a military commitment.”
U.S., French and NATO leaders have all said they want to avoid a wider war and have ruled out NATO troops in the fighting, but have been stepping up both defensive and offenses aid to Kyiv as the invasion has ground on.
Earlier Wednesday, French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said France had sent $109 million worth of weapons to Ukraine in recent weeks as part of a flow of Western arms.
Earlier in his term, Mr. Macron had tried to reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin to improve Russia’s relations with the West, and Mr. Macron met with Mr. Putin weeks before the Russian invasion in an unsuccessful effort to prevent it. Since then, however, France has supported EU sanctions against Moscow, has offered sustained support to Ukraine, and sharply criticized Mr. Putin personally for launching the invasion.
Ms. Le Pen, who lost a similar run-off to Mr. Macron five years ago but is considered by the polls to have a much better chance this time, argued that France should strike a more independent path from the U.S.-led NATO military alliance.
And despite the atrocities that Russian troops have committed in Ukraine, Ms. Le Pen said that NATO should seek a “strategic rapprochement” with Russia once the war is over. Such a relationship would be “in the interest of France and Europe and I think even of the United States,” she said, to stop Russia from forging a stronger alliance with world power China.
She did not directly address the horrors unfolding in Ukraine.
Ms. Le Pen spoke at a press conference Wednesday to lay out her foreign policy plans, which include halting aid to African countries unless they take back “undesirable” migrants seeking entry to France. She also wants to slash support for international efforts to improve women’s reproductive health in poor countries, increase minority rights or solve environmental problems.
At the end of the event, protesters held up a poster showing a 2017 meeting between Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Putin. One activist was pulled out of the room. Anti-racism protesters also held a small demonstration outside.
“The election of Madame Le Pen would mean electing an admirer of Putin’s regime, an autocratic regime and an admirer of Putin’s imperialistic logic,” said Dominique Sopo, head of the group SOS Racism. “It would mean that France would become a vassal to Putin’s Russia.”
On European matters, Ms. Le Pen again outlined an approach in the 90-minute press conference that would give France more operating independence and loosen its ties with neighbor Germany and the European Union. Mr. Macron has spoken repeatedly about building up the EU as a security and diplomatic force in the world.
Where Ms. Le Pen once advocated taking France out of the European Union and dropping the use of the euro currency, she said she now seeks greater freedom to maneuver while staying in the 27-nation bloc.
“Nobody is against Europe,” she said at one point. “We want to reform the European Union from within. The more we free ourselves from the straitjacket of Brussels while remaining in the EU, the more we will look to the wider world.”
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https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily-briefing
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"The election of Madame Le Pen would mean electing an admirer of Putin’s regime, an autocratic regime and an admirer of Putin’s imperialistic logic,”" (said some opponent.)
- Very hard to tell truth from smear. .
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https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/04/the-dem-midterm-wipeout-watch-3.php
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Russia boosts campaign to stir American doubts
False narratives of invasion flood social media
BY JOSEPH CLARK THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. officials are bracing for Russian President Vladimir Putin to double down on his robust disinformation campaign in America.
Kremlin-linked accounts have stepped up propaganda campaigns worldwide on Facebook and Instagram, according to a report by the platforms’ parent company, Meta. Social media have been flooded with amplified disinformation about the Russia-Ukraine war and pro-Moscow conspiracy theories.
The Kremlin cultivated a worldwide network of proxy outlets and social media bots to spread its message, stir internal discord in the West and undermine democratic institutions, U.S. authorities and cybersecurity professionals said.
“They’re really good at this,” said Howard Stoffer, a scholar of national security and international affairs at the University of New Haven. “They’ve developed a very skilled way of getting false information into the narrative, and that then becomes mixed in with the real information, and people don’t know how to sort it out.”
Since the invasion in late February, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, has approached news outlets with paid advertisements that resemble opeds accusing Ukraine of “genocide of the Russian-speaking population” and NATO of using Ukraine to “establish a foothold in the struggle against Russia.”
The Washington Times rejected the advertisement and was
not able to find another news outlet that accepted the ad.
Newsweek ran a story last week with the headline “Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S. Reveals Why Ukraine War Began, How It Could End,” in which Mr. Antonov conveys the talking points in the ad nearly verbatim.
In the article, the news magazine clarified that Mr. Antonov’s arguments run “contrary to that of Ukraine and its foreign backers, including the U.S.”
Newsweek did not respond to a request for comment.
Russia has also woven its message throughout social media. Disinformation about the war has been posted on user accounts both overtly and covertly linked to Russian government officials.
In a post last week on the official Twitter account for the Russian mission to the United Nations, it said a deadly missile strike on a civilian train station in eastern Ukraine was carried out by Ukrainians to “disrupt the mass exit of residents from the city in order to use them as a ‘human shield.’” Last month, the Russian Embassy in Britain used Twitter posts to accuse Ukrainian forces of staging the March 9 airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol. The messages ignited a flurry of spiraling online conspiracy theories despite verification by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that it was a Russian attack.
In the Meta report released last week, the company detailed efforts by Ghostwriter, a hacker group linked to Russian ally Belarus, to take over the social media profiles of Ukrainian military leaders to post disinformation from their accounts.
The report outlined other Russian efforts to spread online disinformation, including the creation of fake accounts to stoke anti-Ukrainian sentiment.
The Kremlin has been engaged in a simmering information battle with the U.S. since the Cold War. Soviet and later Russian propagandists have seized on opportunities to stoke internal social and political divides in America and engaged in campaigns to discredit the U.S. while bolstering Russia’s image on the world stage.
According to a 2020 report from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, the Russian disinformation apparatus has evolved into a full-fledged ecosystem expanding well beyond offi cial government and state-funded messaging to achieve their goals.
U.S. officials accused Russia of posting attention-grabbing headlines on social media and sowing online discord to interfere in the 2016 and 2020 elections to help Donald Trump.
Rather than appealing to logic, experts say, Russian propagandists seize on emotions to make their targets question the truth.
Among the most blatant Kremlin apparatus to influence Americans’ perceptions and opinions is the Russian statecontrolled television news network RT America, formerly Russia Today. Until last month, it operated out of a Washington headquarters serving as, according to the Global Engagement Center, a direct conduit for “the Kremlin’s talking points.”
Before it was dropped by major U.S. distributors at the beginning of March, RT and its sister radio news outlet Sputnik operated under the supervision of the Russian government while blending in with major independent and fact-based news outlets. It even had a correspondent at the White House.
As Russia’s military massed on the Ukraine border, RT toed the line by peddling Kremlin claims that the buildup was part of a “routine” military exercise, that NATO expansionism was to blame for the rising tensions, that Nazis overran Ukraine, and that the army was protecting the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine.
Just days before the invasion, RT America ran stories about Russianspeaking “refugees” being relocated from the Donbas region to Russia because of reports that “the Ukrainian army was planning ’a breakthrough’ into the Donbas territory.”
Nathalie Vogel, an information warfare specialist and senior fellow at the Prague-based European Values Center’s Kremlin Watch, said the talking points were nothing new for those experienced in spotting Russian propaganda. Many of the bullet points were recycled line for line from the 2014 annexation of Ukraine, she said.
To dismantle the Kremlin’s propaganda, the Biden administration showed operational intelligence scrubbed of details that would reveal sources and methods.
Weeks before the attack, administration officials from the White House, State Department and Pentagon called Mr. Putin’s bluff from the podium. On Feb. 24, their predictions were proved to be true.
“We did that for several reasons,” a national security official told The Times. “One reason was the importance of countering Russian disinformation and denying them some type of false pretext or justification for launching the attack. And two, because we recognize the united and the closely coordinated response was going to be critical in order to hold Russia accountable for its action and to raise the pressure on Putin.”
The approach helped dismantle Russia’s claims and bolstered U.S. credibility on the world stage, potentially repairing some of the damage from Mr. Biden’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan.
As Russia’s information war escalates in tandem with its assault on Ukraine, experts and lawmakers recommend a back-to-basics approach of using U.S. transparency to rebuff Kremlin talking points.
“Putin spent months spinning false narratives he hoped would paralyze Ukraine’s Western allies once he invaded. Now, in danger of losing the war, Putin will no doubt double down on his disinformation efforts,” said Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Transparency is key to ensuring Putin does not succeed in fracturing international opposition to his war.”
Since the invasion, Russia has accused the U.S. of operating chemical and biological weapons development facilities in Ukraine and accused Ukraine of using “crisis actors” and fake atrocities to influence the West.
“The lies are just getting bigger,” said Mr. Stoffer, the national security scholar. “You have to think about the fact that now they’re trying to challenge these outright human rights violations, these outright war crimes, which are only going to get worse.”
He said the most effective anecdote is transparent, objective accounts from media and trusted governments to expose Russia’s actions.
Since the Russian retreat from Kyiv, Ukraine has disputed Russian claims of detente by broadcasting evidence of repositioned forces on its eastern front.
U.S. intelligence capabilities are aimed at collecting evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. A National Security Council official said the evidence could be shared with partner nations and potentially with the public.
Still, the transparency strategy has risks. It requires extensive review to filter out any details that could reveal intelligence tradecraft.
Each release undergoes “a rigorous review process by the National Security Council and the intelligence community to validate the quality of the information and protect sources and methods,” the offi cial said. “We only approve the release of intelligence if we are confident those two requirements are met.”
Ms. Vogel of Kremlin Watch said the goal should be to develop resilience against Russian disinformation.
She said it is not realistic to seal off the West from the Kremlin’s talking points or remove every pro-Russian account on social media. Instead, she said, Americans need to be able to spot Russian disinformation and have access to objective facts that counter the Kremlin’s narrative.
“The people who are behind the accounts are entitled to their opinion, even if it’s nonsense,” Ms. Vogel said. “But you have to have people on the other hand that can identify nonsense. It boils down to exactly that. … Ask yourself: Why these stories are being told?”
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(https://instapundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/MOSKVASUB.jpg)
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By: Geopolitical Futures
LNG in Europe. Germany’s Finance Ministry said the government will allocate 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) to lease floating liquified natural gas terminals. Meanwhile, Spain is expecting delivery on Sunday of LNG from Cameroon using a tanker from Russian firm Gazprom. It's a controversial move because, since 2019, Spain hasn’t purchased LNG from Cameroon, where the only LNG manager is Gazprom. Despite calls from Brussels to reduce energy imports from Russia, Spain has increased its purchases of Russian gas in recent weeks.
Gas in Serbia. In an effort to reduce its dependence on Russian energy, Serbia plans to procure LNG from Greece and natural gas from Azerbaijan beginning in 2023. It’s expected that the deliveries will come from the Nis-Dimitrovgrad gas pipeline, which will connect Serbia with Bulgaria and will be completed by next year.
Concession. Armenia, which gets all of its natural gas imports from Russia, has begun paying for gas purchases with rubles. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan abandoned an agreement with the Sber group of Russian companies to introduce a new digital platform for the provision of services and said it would develop another platform on its own.
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Just saw Jason Beardsley on FOX discussing Ukraine. Impressed me a lot. I will be watching for him:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonrbeardsley
Among his points:
* We knew this was coming so why did we not arm BEFORE? He placed great emphasis on this.
* Referenced the mirror image of the Cuban Missile Crisis analogy
* We need to understand what the hell is the end game? Why is it in our interest to have the Ukes as a proxy on Russia's border?
* Due to our strategic incoherence getting to this point, this is a VERY dangerous situation. Russia/Putin unwilling to accept Ukes as American proxy on their border; pressures to double and triple down are very high.
*OTOH Putin cannot be allowed to get away with what he has done and is doing.
Serious cognitive dissonance!!!
===========
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/give-war-a-chance?s=r
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Helping Ukraine Win Against Russia Is a Vital NATO Interest
Here are steps the West can take to avoid peace compromises that would legitimize Putin’s war crimes.
By Paula Dobriansky and Richard Levine
April 15, 2022 2:23 pm ET
WSJ
The West can’t continue to pretend that a negotiated peace is possible in Ukraine. Not after Russia killed 57 civilians with a ballistic missile at the Kramatorsk train station. Any settlement could only legitimize Russia’s control of Ukrainian land. That’s unacceptable. Ukraine must be victorious, and any instrument of peace should document this fact.
In war, geography determines tactics. Fighting in urban areas conveyed important advantages to Ukrainian forces. Small, highly mobile groups, armed with man-portable antitank and antiaircraft weapons, inflicted grievous losses on Russia. Deprived of his conquest of Kyiv, Vladimir Putin seems poised to fight two battles. One is in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine; the other seeks to establish a permanent land bridge to Crimea and thus deny Ukraine access to the Sea of Azov. The Donbas is composed of the energy-rich Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Mr. Putin would love to get his hands on their natural gas and coal reserves. Both areas are predominantly Russian-speaking and contain self-described breakaway republics.
If Ukraine is to challenge Russia for control of the Donbas, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must provide Kyiv with main battle tanks, tracked howitzers, multiple-launch rocket systems, infantry fighting vehicles and armored troop carriers. The Czech Republic has transferred Soviet-era fighting vehicles and tanks to Ukraine. This is an important demonstration of solidarity, but this equipment was designed in the 1960s and is antiquated.
NATO should proceed in phases. First, send into Ukraine heavy weapons that can be immediately adopted by Ukrainian forces, with little or no training. Next, provide Western-designed armored equipment as soon as possible, along with training packages that will allow Ukraine to deploy the new weapons quickly. American or British tanks, with composite armor and superior targeting systems, will be vital if the war becomes protracted.
Integrated land and air operations will be crucial if Ukraine is to win. Reconnaissance drones are useful, but fighter aircraft are essential. The Ukrainians need fighters like the Mikoyan MiG-29 or other fourth-generation aircraft, and they need them now. The official U.S. position is that MiG-29s can’t fly directly to Ukraine from NATO bases in Germany. To get around this, NATO must find ways to move these fighters into the country using decoys and electronic deception to prevent the Russians from figuring out their points of departure.
Additional antiship missiles like the American-made Harpoon will be necessary to prevent the Kremlin from establishing the land bridge it desires. The Russian navy can’t be allowed to use the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to assault the cities and ports that dot Ukraine’s coast. Neither can Moscow be allowed to unload troops and equipment.
Faced with staggering losses, Russia has resorted to attacks on civilians. Ukraine needs a defense against medium-range ballistic missiles such as the one used on Kramatorsk. Depending on its configuration, the S-300 surface-to-air missile system may not be up to the task. U.S.-made Patriot batteries can intercept ballistic missiles. Over shorter ranges, the SAMP/T air-defense system, which is used by France and Italy, can also accomplish this job.
Mr. Putin’s barbarism is intended to demoralize Ukraine’s population. NATO must increase its humanitarian aid immediately. The U.S. Navy’s Sealift Command should sail America’s two hospital ships to the region, perhaps docking them in Romania. Each of these vessels has 1,000 beds and is guarded from attack by international conventions to which Russia is a party. These ships would provide medical care to Russian prisoners of war in addition to Ukrainians.
The West shares with Ukraine a conception of liberty that isn’t based on race or heritage but inalienable rights. No tyrannical force must ever be allowed to destroy this profound link. Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine with the goal of erasing the identity of its people, much as Joseph Stalin hoped to do in 1932-33, when he murdered as many as 10 million Ukrainians through starvation in the atrocity known as the Holodomor. Such horror defined the last century. It can’t be allowed to define this one.
Ms. Dobriansky served as undersecretary of state for global affairs, 2001-09. Mr. Levine served as the first deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for technology transfer and security assistance, 1986-88.
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Jason Beardsley
Among his points:
* We knew this was coming so why did we not arm BEFORE? He placed great emphasis on this.
---------
That was the conundrum. Leave Ukraine unprepared and Putin invades, or arm them and Putin declares them a threat and invades.
If the lesson is arm early and thoroughly before the invasion, Taiwan should look like Fort Knox by now.
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Jason Beardsley
Among his points:
* We knew this was coming so why did we not arm BEFORE? He placed great emphasis on this.
---------
That was the conundrum. Leave Ukraine unprepared and Putin invades, or arm them and Putin declares them a threat and invades.
If the lesson is arm early and thoroughly before the invasion, Taiwan should look like Fort Knox by now.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/taiwans-defense-plans-are-going-off-the-rails/
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https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2017/10/ukraine-us-trains-army-west-fight-east/141577/
We have been training and equipping them for years.
Jason Beardsley
Among his points:
* We knew this was coming so why did we not arm BEFORE? He placed great emphasis on this.
---------
That was the conundrum. Leave Ukraine unprepared and Putin invades, or arm them and Putin declares them a threat and invades.
If the lesson is arm early and thoroughly before the invasion, Taiwan should look like Fort Knox by now.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/taiwans-defense-plans-are-going-off-the-rails/
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quote author=G M
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2017/10/ukraine-us-trains-army-west-fight-east/141577/
------
Sounds like this war has been continuous in the 'separatist regions' at least since the 2014 invasion.
That article is from 2017. It would seem that now these regions are already lost to Russia.
Changing that would require a new offensive from the west, i.e. WWIII, and the west has no plans or will to do that.
Lesson learned in the backyard theory: The big bad bear, if they have enough nuclear weapons to scare people, can take any neighboring regions they want, any way they want, any time they want.
And face sanctions! Russia continues to serve and vote as a "permanent member" of the UN "Security Council. What security? The security of their civilian bombing expansion plans?
Meanwhile it's outrageous to think of the US in our backyard helping depose tyrannical authoritarian regimes, Cuba, Venezuela, and letting their own people self govern - because THAT would be wrong. What a farce.
Like politics at home, it's two sets of rules.
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quote author=G M
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2017/10/ukraine-us-trains-army-west-fight-east/141577/
------
Sounds like this war has been continuous in the 'separatist regions' at least since the 2014 invasion.
That article is from 2017. It would seem that now these regions are already lost to Russia.
Changing that would require a new offensive from the west, i.e. WWIII, and the west has no plans to do that.
Lesson learned in the backyard theory, the big bad bear, if they have enough nuclear weapons to scare people, can take any neighboring regions they want, ant way they want.
And Russia continues to serve and vote as a "permanent member" of the UN "Security Council. What security? Theirs??
Meanwhile it's outrageous to think of the US helping depose tyrannical authoritarian regimes in our backyard, Cuba, Venezuela, and letting their own people self govern, because THAT would be wrong. What a farce.
Like politics at home, it's two sets of rules.
Will the big guy get 10%?
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By
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.Follow
WSJ
April 15, 2022 6:28 pm ET
To paraphrase JP Morgan banker Jamie Dimon’s advice to investors and analysts this week, everything looks pretty good except the possibility that something really bad could happen.
The stock market, so far, has largely recapitulated its pattern from past wars: sell the rumor, buy the news. The S&P 500 hit a recent low on Feb. 23, the day before Russia’s invasion. It’s up 167 points since then.
A Canadian fund manager made news by advising his investors to keep buying stocks because in an all-out nuclear war their portfolio allocation would be irrelevant anyway. Looking back and trying to explain a modest 7% drop during the Cuban missile crisis, economists reached for a similar explanation: There’s no point discounting a worst-case outcome because nobody will be around to benefit from a wise investment decision.
Fritz Todt, who built the autobahn, told Hitler in November 1941 the war could not be won and must be ended politically. Hitler responded: “I can scarcely still see a way of coming politically to an end.”
The führer was talking his book. Negotiated endings are always on the cards, as they now could be for Vladimir Putin. There was no “existential” risk for Germany. Even under the rigorous terms actually imposed—unconditional surrender—Germany survived and quickly was on its way to becoming the leading state in Europe. The “existential” risk belonged to Hitler; under any settlement that might be envisaged, he would have had to leave power and accept accountability for his crimes.
Mr. Putin, in astonishingly short order, has turned his Ukraine lark into a similar risk not for Russia but for Mr. Putin. Hence a heating up of the rhetoric recently. RIA Novosti, an official Moscow news service, issued a bloodcurdling call for the liquidation of Ukraine. Sergey Karaganov, a leading Putin intellectual, told a Western interviewer, “The stakes of the Russian elite are very high—for them it is an existential war,” and gave voice to a miracle scenario in which nuclear threats cause the U.S. to abandon NATO.
And despite Washington having supplied Ukraine’s military for years, a démarche this week from the Russian Embassy demands the U.S. stop and warns of “unpredictable consequences.”
I first mentioned the Hitler-Todt episode in this column in 2014, in anticipation of Mr. Putin bringing the world to such a moment. It is difficult not to imagine him now fingering his weapons of mass destruction, particularly his tactical nuclear warheads, and wondering if they might offer a way out of his dilemma—a concern publicly aired this week by CIA Director William Burns.
Only one answer would seem to fit the situation: a clear signal to Mr. Putin that, in such a case, NATO airpower will join the war on Ukraine’s side and reduce most of his standing army to a smoldering wreck. Where the decisive ground battle is now shaping up in eastern Ukraine, the open terrain is especially conducive to such an aerial campaign.
The logic of preserving his army to fight another day will be hard for Mr. Putin to ignore if he hopes to stay in his job. Seven weeks of war have also been useful: He and his domestic allies have had a chance to wrap their heads around the possibility of defeat. For his colleagues, moreover, an easy decision is not to see everything they value destroyed for the sake of a man they’ve come to loathe personally.
One way or another, the U.S. is likely to find itself moving closer to center stage in the conflict and its endgame. Germany and others resist cutting Mr. Putin’s vital energy dollars not just out of concern for their own economies; they don’t crave the risks and uncertainties that come with making Mr. Putin’s position in Moscow terminally untenable. Probably Mr. Biden’s advisers, except a few militants, agree. And if anything can get China’s Xi Jinping off the sidelines and working with the U.S. and Europe in Ukraine, it will be a desire not to see Mr. Putin humiliated.
Only the Ukrainians themselves, having experienced Russian occupation and seen that it means acquiescing in the mass murder of civilians, are a likely voice of realism and spine-stiffening. Lately recalled have been JFK’s words about the necessity of leaving Khrushchev an exit route. In Mr. Putin’s case, the advice is too late. With his blunders and miscalculations, his survival is now in his own hands; he has left the allies nothing to work with. Joe Biden’s alleged rhetorical excesses may be all that—calling Mr. Putin a war criminal, referring to genocide (not an unreasonable interpretation of recent Russian rhetoric), saying Mr. Putin should not remain in power.
My guess is these out-of-school expostulations pop out for a reason—because the consensus after so many hours of White House discussion is that Mr. Putin is likely beyond saving no matter what the U.S. does.
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Germany Has a Hungary Problem
Berlin’s complicity with Viktor Orbán imperils European unity against Russian aggression.
By Dalibor Rohac
April 17, 2022 4:34 pm ET
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaks at a news conference after the parliamentary election in Budapest, April 6.
PHOTO: BERNADETT SZABO/REUTERS
For more than a decade, German leaders have coddled and appeased not only the Kremlin but also the European Union’s most reckless and openly anti-Western government—in Budapest.
Germany’s negligence in Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been particularly evident amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For some Berlin critics, Ukraine’s recent rejection of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s proposed visit to Kyiv comes as belated vindication.
Days after the war began, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a policy revolution, including a plan to spend more on defense and wean the country off Russian natural gas. But Mr. Scholz’s Zeitenwende, or “new era” of policy, put forth Feb. 27 seems too little, too late. And it doesn’t address Germany’s tolerance of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s outreach to China and Russia and his Fidesz party’s undemocratic policies targeting civil society, free media and the judiciary.
In 2013 Mr. Orbán compared the policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel to those of the Nazis, yet Ms. Merkel’s “strategic patience” approach to foreign policy provided cover for the Hungarian leader’s practices. For years Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats failed to expel Fidesz from the European People’s Party, a family of center-right political groups, and blocked efforts to hold Mr. Orbán accountable for the many rule-of-law violations in the country.
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The EU is a diverse, pluralistic body, and Ms. Merkel always sought to avoid unnecessary conflicts, particularly if they involved domestic matters. At the same time, Hungary has acted as an extension of Bavaria’s auto manufacturing base—Audi is the second-largest employer in Hungary, followed by the likes of Mercedes-Benz and Bosch.
Today, Germany’s complacency is indefensible. The issue is no longer the lack of a level playing field in Hungarian politics, exemplified by the country’s recent parliamentary election. At a time of war in Europe, Hungary is undercutting Western unity. Before the invasion, Mr. Orbán visited Moscow, seeking more natural gas and a license to produce the Sputnik vaccine in Hungary. Instead of pushing for an energy embargo, the Hungarians are touting their 15-year contract with Gazprom and refusing to allow allied shipments of lethal aid to Ukraine through Hungary.
The relationship with Moscow has been so valuable to Mr. Orbán that he decided to sacrifice his longstanding partnership with Poland’s nationalist government over the war in Ukraine. The informal pact with Warsaw had helped shield Fidesz from international criticism of its domestic policies and provided a valuable roadblock to the EU’s use of the Article 7 procedure suspending a member nation’s rights.
One can only speculate whether Hungary’s historic claim to western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region and its Hungarian-speaking population might play a role in explaining the government’s cold attitude toward Kyiv and its acceptance of Mr. Putin’s aggression. What matters is that Mr. Orbán’s cravenness is again receiving cover from the German government.
What Germany is being asked to do by its European and American partners, as well as by the Ukrainians, has a cost. Weaning Germany off Russian natural gas imports is bound to be disruptive. Reversing the foolish plan to phase out nuclear energy would break German taboos and rattle the Green Party, one of Mr. Scholz’s junior coalition partners, while providing military aid to Ukraine faces resistance in his own party, the Social Democrats.
Mr. Scholz would do well to realize the even higher cost of inaction with regard to opportunistic behavior by bad-faith actors in Moscow and Budapest.
Germany’s power and importance in Europe and NATO are undisputed. But power and importance come with responsibilities, which Ms. Merkel and Mr. Scholz seem to prefer to avoid. Hungary’s withering democracy and Mr. Orbán’s destabilizing role in Eastern Europe are part of the collateral damage from that neglect.
Mr. Rohac is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
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The costs of Biden’s abdication of leadership
Lack of U.S. guidance in Ukraine could imperil global security
By Tom Basile
The line between peace and war is thin, but the line between regional and global conflict is thinner still. Russia has crossed one line. It is poised to cross others with the help of China, and the Biden White House appears to have no strategy to handle it.
Those on the left and the right, who have preached for more than a year that the Ukraine conflict is not worth our time or resources, must recognize now how a lack of U.S. leadership in one conflict can precipitate a cascade of events that imperil global security. Think of it as threat inflation.
The Biden White House has said that there will be “consequences” for China helping Russia in Ukraine. Always deft at global brinksmanship and testing the Biden administration’s resolve, six Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes delivered HQ-22 surface-to-air missile systems to Serbia. Add that country to the list of nations joining the China-dominated New Axis.
While the Biden White House is focused on spinning inflation as the “Putin price hike” and open borders, Serbia is increasingly looking like a Chinese or Russian proxy in the region. Apparently, there are no repercussions or even rhetorical response for the Chinese arming a European nation.
Communist China is moving into Europe militarily in a way we haven’t seen before. It’s doing it at a time when they should be cautious. They would be cautious if they saw real American leadership.
The war in Ukraine is entering into a new dangerous phase. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is becoming increasingly desperate to demonstrate to his own population that the massive losses are worth it. Only a victory of sorts will suffice between now and Victory Day, May 9. Desperate men do desperate things.
Ukrainian officials are increasingly concerned that Mr. Putin will commit a false flag attack on his own military inside Russia near the border with Ukraine to justify the use of a tactical nuclear or chemical weapon.
The alleged chemical attack in Mariupol this week is believed to have been a trial balloon to gage reaction from the international community. No indication of “consequences” for such an attack from the White House. The Ukrainian crippling of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet could also spur additional disproportional reprisals.
Moldova is now well within Mr. Putin’s grasp as the non-NATO country already has Russian-backed separatists on its eastern border. Moldova is a sitting duck with virtually no offensive weapons, ground forces or leadership willing to stand against the Russian dictator. The country could fall to a small force of 10,000 to 20,000 Russian troops giving Mr. Putin a win for domestic purposes, control over more territory and a staging ground for attacks into Western Ukraine or more boldly, Romania.
Then there’s Georgia. After Mr. Putin invaded in 2008, under the cover of the U.S. financial crisis, then-President George W. Bush recommended NATO membership to protect the country from Moscow’s aggression. Europe refused, and today the South Ossetia region of Georgia is primed for a full Russian annexation and use as a staging ground for other incursions into the country.
A recent announcement about an effort to hold a referendum on Russian annexation in South Ossetia is curiously timed. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters “... we treat the expression of the opinion of the people of South Ossetia with respect.” A positive vote could give Mr. Putin all the reason he needs to roll into the country.
All this could happen while the battle for Donbas rages on in Eastern Ukraine as a war of attrition that could go on for years.
People in Finland are taking iodine pills and arming themselves against a possible Russian invasion. The Polish are preparing their citizens for the possibility of conflict. The Israelis should be asking themselves what happens if the U.S. allows Russia to get away with a chemical attack, even a modest one, or worse yet, the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
None of this is about Europe. China and Russia aren’t afraid of Europe. What we see happening is due to the abdication of global leadership by the American president, in favor of climate change profiteering and a far-left domestic agenda.
Mr. Putin may have overestimated the preparedness, professionalism and even the will of his military, but he still has the considerable human capital to expend. China is coming out of this first volley of the new Cold War unscathed and is now moving into Europe. Iran waits in the wings to play its part.
President Biden needs to get serious about active deterrence and real consequences for aggressive behavior or we could see a rapid cascade of circumstances that leads to global conflict
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https://www.foxnews.com/world/russian-officials-questioning-putins-decision-to-invade-ukraine-report?fbclid=IwAR1z11Lrj1xxBZPS9qVYbskzE46GYxtWTWBmCgYzK8OAQ7bVrc7RA1jHqgQ
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The D Brief
April 20, 2022
Russia's Ukraine invasion, day 55: A localized, humanitarian ceasefire may have been reached in the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. It reportedly began at 2 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET), according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk; and it's intended to allow women, children, and the elderly to evacuate the besieged city. But it's too soon to know for sure if this will work out as stated, since similar deals for fleeing Ukrainians have collapsed in the recent past due to Russian artillery shelling, including in Mariupol.
European Council President Charles Michel is in Kyiv today, which he called "the heart of a free and democratic Europe," to illustrate his support for Ukraine.
For now anyway, Germany's new chancellor is perfectly fine not giving Ukraine heavy weapons like tanks or armored personnel carriers, Olaf Scholz told reporters Tuesday in Berlin. However, he said he's asked German arms dealers to draw up a list of what weapons they can manufacture for Kyiv. "Ukraine has selected what it needs from this list and we are providing the money they need to buy it," Scholz said Tuesday.
For the record, "Scholz has also significantly ramped up the financial aid Germany is providing to Kyiv," Financial Times reports. That includes "A special fund to help crisis-hit countries invest in their military [that] is being increased from €225mn to €2bn, with the bulk going to Ukraine."
Defense One Special Report
Reagan Forum
China and Russia dominated discussions by top military leaders at the 2021 Reagan National Defense Forum—but the talk wasn't all about near-peer adversaries. Read more in this special report.
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But as a percentage of GDP, Germany is being out-donated by Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Sweden, the U.S., the Czech Republic, Croatia, the U.K., France, and Italy, according to data compiled by the German-based think tank the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Christoph Trebesch, Kiel's research director said in a statement, "It is remarkable that the U.S. alone is giving significantly more than the entire EU, in whose immediate neighborhood the war is raging."
Hey, rich people: Ukraine wants you to buy its military some jets. That message has been spreading since it seems to have first launched on April 12, via Ukraine's Anton Gerashchenko. "Address the wealthy leaders of the world business and elites representatives that support Ukraine to privately buy planes," he tweeted, sharing a YouTube link for that campaign, here.
Developing: Ukraine's European allies are repairing damaged jets, and some partnered nations are helping provide spare parts, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said Tuesday. "I would just say without getting into what other nations are providing that they have received additional platforms and parts to be able to increase their aircraft fleet size," he said, and added, "I think I'd leave it at that."
Czech defense firms will repair damaged Ukrainian tanks, like T-64s, Prague's defense ministry said Tuesday. Reuters has a tiny bit more, here.
The Netherlands just pledged "armored vehicles" and "additional heavy materiel," Prime Minister Mark Rutte tweeted Tuesday. And the British and Canadian prime ministers on Tuesday both pledged to send Ukraine more artillery soon.
Developing: The U.S. is preparing yet another $800 million batch of arms for Ukraine, CNN reported Tuesday. "If approved, the latest package of $800 million would mean the US has committed approximately $3.4 billion dollars in assistance to Ukraine since Russia's invasion began."
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/russia-general-announces-plan-to-invade-moldova-after-ukraine/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=27457428
Russian General Announces Plan to Invade Moldova after Ukraine
By ARJUN SINGH
April 22, 2022 10:21 AM
A Russian general announced plans to occupy the Transnistria region of Moldova on Friday.
Speaking at a defense industry meeting, Brigadier General Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District, stated that the Russian Armed Forces plan to “make passage” into the region — in Moldova’s East, bordering Ukraine and less than 30 miles from the port city of Odessa — to create a “land corridor to Crimea,” Russian media reported. Such a corridor would also purport to connect the Russian mainland to Transnistria.
Minnekayev stated that the measure was part of Russia’s second phase in its war in Ukraine, which involves establishing full control over the Donbas Region and Ukraine’s coast along the Black Sea. No timeline was provided for the maneuver to begin, however.
In his remarks, Minnekayev cited the strategic value of the region, claiming “control over the south of Ukraine is another exit into Transnistria, where there are also facts pointing to the oppression of the Russian-speaking population.” Transnistria is a separatist region of Moldova — comprised primarily of Russian speakers — akin to Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine, which has been autonomously run by a pro-Russian faction since 1990. It is not internationally recognized by any country, including Russia, though nearly 1,500 Russian troops are stationed in the region and its trade is primarily conducted with the Russian mainland.
Ukraine’s armed forces had previously warned on April 2 that Russia was mobilizing troops in Transnistria, though this was initially denied by Moldova. Ukraine believes that such mobilization is a prelude to attacks on Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port city and a gateway for its international trade.
Russia’s occupation of Transnistria would expand the conflict with Ukraine to another European nation-state, since it began in late February of 2022.
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The Stakes in the Battle for the Donbas
A Russian general lifts the veil on Putin’s plans to grab Ukraine’s south.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
April 22, 2022 6:40 pm ET
As Russia consolidates its forces for an offensive in Ukraine’s east, the temptation is to think the stakes have shrunk for NATO and the West after Russia lost the battle of Kyiv. But Vladimir Putin can still win a major victory that would leave him stronger and better able to menace Ukraine, its neighbors and the Western alliance.
The Kremlin boss still has broad military ambitions, as one of his generals let slip on Friday. “Since the start of the second phase of the special operation . . . one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine,” Major General Rustam Minnekaev was quoted as telling Russian news agencies. “This will provide a land corridor to Crimea,” the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Most people have suspected that this is one of Russia’s war aims, though Mr. Putin continues to claim he’s merely trying to protect the Russian-speaking people in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Gen. Minnekaev lifted the veil, and not merely on the goal in Ukraine.
“Control over the south of Ukraine is another way out to Transnistria, where there are cases of Russian-speaking people being oppressed,” Gen. Minnekaev said.
Transnistria is a breakaway Russian-speaking sliver of Moldova, the small country between Ukraine and Romania that leans toward Europe. The Russian general is saying that if Russia captures southern Ukraine, annexing Transnistria if not all of Moldova will be next on the Kremlin menu.
Moldova summoned Russia’s ambassador to its capital of Chisinau to protest the Russian general’s remarks, but no one paying attention doubts that what he said is true.
All of this raises the stakes in the battle for the Donbas, since it means Russia doesn’t plan to settle for protecting the separatist oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia also wants to move on Odessa, Ukraine’s port on the Black Sea. If the Russians capture the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol, as they likely will after their brutal siege, then Odessa would be Ukraine’s last major maritime link to global commerce. Russian forces have tried to move on Odessa but have faced fierce resistance.
If the Kremlin crushes Ukraine’s eastern army in the Donbas, it would be able to concentrate its forces for the march south. Once the south is conquered, Mr. Putin might then seek a truce that would leave a quarter or third of Ukraine in his hands.
Ukraine would be left as a rump state, more dependent on Western aid. He could bide his time as Western sanctions erode, while rearming and waiting for another chance to march on Kyiv and assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr. Putin would then be in a better position to consider his options to challenge NATO solidarity. The likeliest target is one of the Baltic states with an ethnic Russian minority and access to the Baltic Sea.
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All of this underscores the urgency of continuing to supply Ukraine’s military, especially with heavy weapons such as long-range artillery, rocket-launch systems, tanks, fighter jets, and missile defenses. Off-the-shelf weapons stocks are running low, and Ukraine will soon need ammunition and missiles directly from Western military assembly lines.
President Biden announced another $800 million in weapons for Ukraine this week, and Congress will have to appropriate more in the coming weeks. Military officials from 20 countries will meet next week in Germany to assess Ukraine’s needs and coordinate aid. This is useful as long as it doesn’t default to the most risk-averse thinking.
This is the time to give Ukraine all it can handle to press for victory against Russia. The goal is to block Russian advances and inflict such losses that Mr. Putin is forced to reconsider his war aims again. He could escalate and try to draw in NATO more directly, but that carries risks of more severe Russian losses.
Ukraine has paid dearly to protect its homeland in a war it didn’t choose. The West’s interest is in a Ukrainian victory that pushes Russia out and lets its people decide their own destiny. Russia without Ukraine is a much less significant threat to NATO and the U.S.
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Russian commander said Friday that Moscow wants to take “full control” of eastern and southern Ukraine, in part so it could have a path to neighboring Moldova — raising fears that the nearly two-month war could spill outside of Ukrainian borders.
The comments from Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s Central Military District, seemed to hint that the Kremlin — which has been stymied in its bid to take over the Ukrainian capital — still wants to conquer wide swaths of its neighbor’s land, and potentially threaten the nations that lie beyond. They drew swift condemnation from Moldova, where residents have worried since the beginning of the war they could be next in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.
Mr. Minnekayev said capturing Ukraine’s east and south would create a “land corridor” to the Crimean Peninsula — which the Kremlin annexed in 2014 — and give Moscow influence over “vital objects of the Ukrainian economy,” according to the Russia state media outlet Tass. It would also provide “another way out to Transnistria,” Minnekayev said, referring to a thin strip of land that runs along Moldova’s border with Ukraine that functions as a separate nation, though it is not recognized as such, even by Russia.
Minnekayev’s comments came at the end of anothergrim week in Ukraine — particularly in the eastern Donbas region, where Kremlin forces have refocused their fire in recent days. The devastated southern port city of Mariupol remained under siege, with Russia vowing to trap remaining Ukrainian forces that have been holed up in a steel plant there
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/22/russian-ambition-beyond-ukraine/
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/large-deadly-fire-breaks-out-russian-defense-research-facility?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=621
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https://thesaker.is/a-west-mandated-russian-default-who-wins-and-who-loses/
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Not sure that I even understand quite a bit of that, but the questions presented sure seem important.
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April 25, 2022
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Can Africa Replace Russian Energy in Europe?
Moscow isn’t too worried, but neither is it taking any chances.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
Unsurprisingly, the economic war against Russia has created tensions in European energy markets, which are scrambling to find alternate sources from what is still their largest supplier. Italy, for example, has already reached agreements to increase natural gas supplies from Algeria and Angola. However, Russia isn’t all that concerned – it figures the internal problems endemic to the region, the recent OPEC+ deal and the competition for energy in the European Union will conspire to keep Europe fairly dependent on its own exports. But neither is Moscow taking any chances. It sees what Europe is doing and will take all appropriate steps to maintain its position in European markets by increasing cooperation with African states.
Hopes
The debate over abandoning Russian gas for other suppliers, particularly in Africa, isn’t new. U.S. President Ronald Reagan encouraged Europe to do so as far back as 1981, right around the time the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod gas pipeline – the primary conduit for Russian exports to Europe via Ukraine – was being built. The idea was to weaken the Soviet Union, which, like Russia today, relied heavily on oil and gas revenues. Washington set a ceiling for Western Europe – allies could buy only up to 30 percent of their total gas consumption from the Soviet Union – and banned the General Electric Corporation from exporting technology and equipment to the Soviet Union under the threat of sanctions. Europe ultimately went its own way: West Germany and the Soviet Union had important oil and gas infrastructure contracts that neither wanted to abandon, and other countries had too few options for ginning up their own production.
Today's tension is somewhat similar. It’s true that curbing Russian imports would hurt the government in Moscow. It generates more than a third of its budget with oil and gas sales, with Europe importing about 85 percent of all Russian gas. Which is why the European Commission has accelerated a plan to reject Russian carriers. If implemented, the EU could reduce its demand for Russian supplies by as much as two-thirds by the end of 2022, its supplies offset by increases in imports from the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, Africa, Azerbaijan and Norway, as well as the U.S., which is supplying liquified natural gas.
But in the context of the current economic war, African countries occupy a unique place for a couple of reasons. First is the sheer amount of natural gas resources – about 455.2 trillion cubic meters, according to British energy firm BP. Second is proximity. The legacy of colonialism has left many African regions oriented toward trade with Europe, with gas pipelines and LNG terminals to boot. Third is the simple fact that countries such as Algeria and Nigeria already supply a not-insignificant amount of gas to Europe. (Algeria accounts for almost 12 percent of European consumption, while Nigeria accounts for about 3 percent.)
Gas Pipelines from Africa to Europe
(click to enlarge)
More important is that African countries have the potential to increase production and supplies without dramatically reorienting global supply flows. Stimulating production and discovering new deposits will be a much more effective method of energy warfare than the reorientation of existing trade flows. After all, if the European Union prefers countries that already have a developed infrastructure for production, processing and transportation, and already have customers and occupy a sizable market share, then these countries will most likely have to abandon their current markets to cover European demand. (Think Azerbaijan, Qatar and Norway.) This will almost certainly result in Russian oil filling the gaps. Goosing production in Africa sidesteps that problem.
Doubts
All this is easier said than done. Just about every EU country is trying to accomplish the same thing but on a bilateral basis. What may benefit one country may well come at another’s expense. Moreover, EU members that go it alone will have a harder time marshaling the huge amounts of resources needed to boost African production enough to offset the loss of Russian supplies.
Indeed, it’s hard to overstate how difficult it will be to build up the necessary infrastructure in the short term. It’s not that there aren’t any pipelines. Transmed, a natural gas pipeline from Algeria via Tunisia to Sicily and thence to mainland Italy, delivers some 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year. And Medgaz, the main gas pipeline connecting the largest gas field in Algeria with Spain, has a design capacity of 8 billion cubic meters per year. It’s that existing pipelines either have far too low a capacity to replace Russia or have been rendered inoperable by construction or regional conflicts. (Such is the case with the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline in Algeria.) This is to say nothing of the difficulty in constructing new pipelines through the Mediterranean Sea, which is often too deep for modern technologies to accommodate.
Natural Gas in Africa
(click to enlarge)
And even if new infrastructure were completely operable, it ignores the fact that gas producers tend to start consuming more of their products. In Algeria, for example, gas consumption increased from 25.3 billion cubic meters in 2010 to 43.1 billion cubic meters in 2020. In Egypt, it jumped from 43.4 bcm to 57.8 bcm, while in West Africa it jumped from 8.6 bcm to 25.2 bcm. That means Algeria consumes nearly half of what it produces, Egypt nearly all of what it produces, and West Africa roughly two-thirds of what it produces.
Production is typically incommensurate with increased consumption for a variety of reasons. International oil companies began to reduce investment in response to falling oil prices. In Algeria, the development of new potential exploration zones, most of which are new shale gas deposits, becomes unsustainable due to the lack of water resources necessary for hydraulic fracturing. In Nigeria, gas production depends on oil production, and oil production is limited by the OPEC+ agreement. In Angola, production has fallen by more than a third because Western operators simply do not want to invest any more money in perpetually unstable economies. And it goes without saying that redirecting needed gas supplies to Europe will be sure to upset the local populations, potentially leading to bouts of unrest.
Meanwhile, Russia has significantly strengthened its position in the region. Lukoil, Gazprom, Rosneft and others are directly or indirectly enhancing energy relations with many African states. For example, Lukoil entered the offshore deepwater project on the Tano block of the Ghana shelf in West Africa, where there are two gas fields. Lukoil also acquired a 25 percent stake in the Marine XII hydrocarbon production project on the shelf of the Republic of Congo, where Litchendjili gas condensate is being produced. Rosneft acquired a 30 percent stake in the Zohr offshore gas field in Egypt. Gazpromneft has projects in Libya and offshore fields in Equatorial Guinea and Angola through its subsidiary, NIS. Gazprom is participating in exploration and production operations at El Assel, Algeria, in which it has a 49 percent share. Russia also participates in maritime transport, as evidenced by a delivery to Spain from Cameroon on a Gazprom-chartered tanker.
Russia's Presence in Africa
(click to enlarge)
For Europe, then, finding new partners is possible but difficult. Finding new deposits is expensive and time-consuming. And redirecting existing flows risks creating more markets for Russia. Even if things proceed without a hitch, it’s unlikely that Africa can replace the Russian energy that Europe wants to forgo – namely, about 40 percent of what it consumes every year – any time soon. Moscow will therefore bank on the ineffectiveness of Europe’s current African project in the short term, while continuing to enhance its market share in the medium term. Given the lack of investment and technology and the rather friendly attitude of African states toward Russia and their nonaligned sanctions policies, the future may still be bright for Russia.
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Pentagon grapples with future of troop presence in Europe
Military planners debate rotational deployments vs. permanent posts
BY BEN WOLFGANG THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The U.S. military footprint in Europe has vastly expanded in the two months since Russia invaded Ukraine, with more than 100,000 troops now on the ground on a continent where the talk until recently was on how and where to cut back.
The looming question for Pentagon planners now is how many troops should stay and for how long.
Russia’s assault on Ukraine has sparked a high-stakes debate about how best to use American boots on the ground in Europe as a show of solidarity with Kyiv and as a deterrent against any Russian move against NATO’s eastern flank, such as an attack on Baltic nations or a strike on Poland.
Inside the Pentagon and in national security circles, the questions center on whether the U.S. should dramatically increase the number of troops permanently stationed across Europe, with all the attendant costs and commitments, or ramp up rotational deployments of service members on missions typically lasting less than a year.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley recently told Congress that he favors the construction of permanent U.S. bases in Eastern Europe but wants to staff those facilities primarily with rotational troops. Such an
approach carries a host of benefi ts, most notably on the financial front. Rotational deployments are less costly, mainly because the troops’ spouses and children usually remain in the U.S. Troops on multiyear deployments stay with their families on American military bases.
That approach has critics, especially given the security climate in Europe.
Proponents of more permanent deployments say that increasing the number of U.S. troops on rotation through Europe isn’t a strong enough show of force to change Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cost-benefit analysis. They say a more permanent American presence would carry tangible benefits in the worst-case scenarios of an all-out NATO showdown with Russia.
“We can’t have forces slated to reinforce Europe waiting in garrisons in the U.S. They need to be ready, and they need to be permanently deployed to the front lines in Europe,” said Jim Townsend, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy during the Obama administration.
“We’ve got to lean toward deployed forces in Europe. There’s a role for rotational forces, but forces are vulnerable when they transit the Atlantic,” he told The Washington Times in an interview. “We need to have full-time forces there. I know the Pentagon doesn’t like to hear that for various reasons, but I think it’s a mistake to just do more of what we’re already doing. We need to have more armor permanently deployed in Europe.
“To rotate an armored brigade combat team to Europe, their equipment has to go over on ships. If we are in a conflict with Russia, we won’t have time to wait for ships, and they may be intercepted in the Atlantic before they even reach Europe. We need to have more armor permanently deployed to Europe, not just rotating in,” he said.
The Pentagon is reimagining its approach to troop deployments against the backdrop of Europe’s biggest ground war since World War II and longer-term strategic hopes of reorienting U.S. power to face China, not Russia.
Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine continued Monday with strikes on Ukrainian rail and fuel depots. The Russian military is working to cripple Ukrainian supply lines and prevent equipment from reaching the eastern front.
Russian forces have massed in eastern Ukraine in a major offensive on the disputed Donbas region, which has become the epicenter of the war. Russian troops also are seeking to capture the devastated port city of Mariupol, which would create a land bridge between the Donbas and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia forcibly annexed in 2014.
To help beat back that Russian offensive, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv over the weekend and announced another American military assistance package to Ukraine. Underscoring the high stakes of the conflict, Ukrainian officials said such aid is crucial but the Western world must do more to stop Russian aggression, which they said will surely not stop in Ukraine.
“As long as Russian soldiers put a foot on Ukrainian soil, nothing is enough,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Associated Press on Monday. He said the U.S. and NATO must do more to “stop Putin in Ukraine and not to allow him to go further, deeper into Europe.”
Russia was complaining about the growing number of U.S. troops near its borders weeks before Mr. Putin authorized the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a Feb. 3 briefing that the U.S. was fueling tensions in the region by sending more troops to Poland and Romania in response to the Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian border.
“Clearly, Russian concerns are justified and understandable,” Mr. Peskov told reporters. “All measures to ensure Russia’s security and interests are also understandable.”
Ironically in light of the debate, the Biden administration defended the troop deployments in part because they were temporary and could be reversed if Russia stepped back.
“These are not permanent moves. They are precisely in response to the current security environment in light of this increasing threatening behavior by the Russian Federation,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
The Biden administration has vowed to defend every inch of NATO territory from Russia, essentially guaranteeing a world war scenario if Russian troops press beyond Ukraine. A central part of the U.S. deterrence strategy has been to send tens of thousands more troops to Europe at a pace not seen since the Cold War.
Such major increases in U.S. troop deployments seemed unthinkable a few years ago. President Trump and his national security team, skeptical of many NATO allies, looked to shrink the overall number of U.S. troops in Europe and reposition more than 10,000 forces from Germany.
President Biden and Mr. Austin quickly stopped that plan after taking office in January 2021.
Fifteen months later, The U.S. footprint has expanded to its highest level in years. In January, as the world watched to see whether Mr. Putin would attack Ukraine, about 80,000 U.S. troops were stationed across Europe.
Now, about 102,000 American forces are in Europe, military officials told The Times on Monday. Of those, about 65,000 are on a permanent deployment and remain there for several years. The remaining troops are in Europe on a rotational basis, officials said. Such an approach has become common in Europe, the Korean Peninsula and other theaters with significant U.S. troop presences. Troops often arrive on short-term deployments to take part in military exercises or could be sent temporarily to hot spots such as Eastern Europe to demonstrate American resolve in the face of a potential attack.
In Eastern Europe in particular, Gen. Milley said, the U.S. can essentially have the best of both worlds.
“My advice would be to create permanent bases but don’t permanently station. So you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent bases,” Gen. Milley told House lawmakers during a recent hearing. “And what you don’t have to do is incur the cost of family moves, PXs, schools, housing and that sort of thing. So you cycle through expeditionary forces through forward deployed permanent bases.
“You get the effect of permanent presence of forces, but the actual individual soldier, sailor, airman and Marine is not permanently stationed there for two or three years,” he said.
That approach clearly has supporters inside the Pentagon, but strong arguments could be made for more permanent deployments. Some evidence shows that rotations don’t always generate as much cost savings as anticipated.
Perhaps more important, permanent troop deployments may send stronger signals to allies and enemies. During the Trump administration, Poland lobbied for more American troops on its soil and even offered to build a $2 billion “Fort Trump” to house them.
“In terms of diplomatic or political-military factors, forward stationing is preferred by American allies overseas over rotational deployments. Allies perceive forward-stationed forces as a sign of a stronger, more enduring commitment from the United States,” U.S. Army War College researcher John R. Deni said in a 2017 report examining Army deployments around the world
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HT to GM-- pasting this here as well:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-former-ukraine-ambassador-slips-admits-putin-wouldnt-have-invaded-under-trump
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The U.S. Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War
Washington might study Cold War-era practices that had a major effect on Soviet policy making.
By Seth Cropsey
April 27, 2022 1:08 pm ET
Russia conducted its first test of the Sarmat, an intercontinental ballistic missile that carries a heavy nuclear payload, on April 20. Vladimir Putin and his advisers have issued nuclear warnings throughout the war in Ukraine, threatening the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with attack if they escalate their involvement. Moscow recently threatened Sweden and Finland with a pre-emptive strike if they join NATO.
The reality is that unless the U.S. prepares to win a nuclear war, it risks losing one. Robert C. O’Brien, a former White House national security adviser, proposed a series of conventional responses, which are necessary but not sufficient to deter Russian nuclear escalation. Developing a coherent American strategy requires understanding why Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons and how the U.S. can recalibrate its strategic logic for a nuclear environment.
Russia’s war is being fought on two levels. At the military level, the battlefields have been restricted to Ukrainian and, in a handful of instances, Russian territory. But the conflict is also a war against NATO, given Ukraine’s position as an applicant, NATO’s military support for Ukraine, and NATO’s willingness to embargo Russian products and cut off Russian energy.
Mr. Putin had two objectives in going to war. First, he hoped to destroy Ukraine as an independent state. Russia planned to drive into Kyiv within hours, install a quisling government, and months later stage referendums throughout the country that would give the Kremlin direct control of its east and south. Aleksandr Lukashenko’s Belarus, and perhaps the Central Asian despots, would fall in line. Mr. Putin would therefore reconstitute an empire stretching to the Polish border.
Ukrainians thwarted that plan. Much depends on the next few weeks, as Russia stages a major offensive in the east designed to destroy the Ukrainian military’s immediate combat capacity, tear off eastern provinces, and solidify a land corridor to Crimea. But there is a serious possibility that Ukraine wins this next round of fighting. Russia has no reserves beyond its mobilized forces; its units have dwindling morale; and those formations withdrawn from around Kyiv are trained to conduct armored, mechanized, and infantry operations and poorly suited for combat. Meantime, the Ukrainians are receiving heavier weapons from the West and have begun a counteroffensive around Kharkiv, which, if successful, will spoil Russia’s attack.
If Russia’s military situation appears dire, Mr. Putin has a dual incentive to use nuclear weapons. This is consistent with publicly stated Russian military doctrine. A nuclear attack would present Ukraine with the same choice Japan faced in 1945: surrender or be annihilated. Ukraine may not break. The haunting images from Bucha, Irpin and elsewhere demonstrate Russia’s true intentions. A Russian victory would lead to mass killings, deportation, rape and other atrocities. The Ukrainian choice won’t be between death and survival, but rather armed resistance and unarmed extermination.
Nuclear use would require NATO to respond. But a nuclear response could trigger retaliation, dragging Russia and NATO up the escalation ladder to a wider nuclear confrontation.
Perhaps a conventional response to a Russian nuclear attack would be sufficient. What if the U.S. and its allies destroyed Russian military units deployed to the Black Sea, Syria and Libya; cut all oil pipelines to Russia, and used their economic clout to threaten China, and other states conducting business with Russia, with an embargo?
Each of these steps is necessary. But Russia’s goal in going nuclear is to knock NATO out of the war. The Kremlin believes its resolve outstrips that of the U.S. A conventional American response would confirm this—and create incentives for additional Russian nuclear use.
The Kremlin is resurrecting the arcane art of nuclear war fighting. These weapons have a military purpose. They also have a political one. The U.S. should reframe its thinking in kind.
This isn’t to say the U.S. should use nuclear weapons—again, a nuclear response would make global nuclear war more likely. But America and its allies can take steps against Russia’s nuclear arsenal that undermine the Russian position at higher escalation levels. The U.S. Navy’s surface ships, for example, could be re-equipped with nuclear weapons, as they were during the Cold War.
Most critically, if Russia used a nuclear weapon, the U.S. could use its naval power to hunt down and destroy a Russian nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine, the backbone of Russian second-strike capability. Late in the Cold War the U.S. Navy threatened to do exactly that, pressuring the Soviet Union’s nuclear bastions, the protected littoral areas from which Soviet subs aimed to operate with safety. In a series of naval exercises during the Reagan administration, the U.S. and its allies simulated assaulting the Sea of Okhotsk and Barents Sea bastions, while U.S. submarines probed and shadowed Soviet boats in both areas. Post-Cold War evidence reveals that American naval pressure had a major impact on Soviet policy making: Despite Moscow’s priority of armaments over all other state needs, the U.S. showed it would still be able to fight and win a nuclear war.
The ability to win is the key. By arming surface ships with tactical nuclear weapons as well as attacking a nuclear-missile sub and thus reducing Russian second-strike ability, the U.S. undermines Russia’s ability to fight a nuclear war. The Soviets were deeply afraid of a pre-emptive strike by NATO. That fear has morphed, under Mr. Putin’s regime, into a fixation on the “color revolutions,” pro-democracy uprisings in former Soviet republics. Jeopardizing Russian second-strike capability would tangibly raise the military stakes. Mr. Putin could no longer unleash his nuclear arsenal with impunity. Instead, he would need to reckon with the possibility that NATO could decapitate the Kremlin—yes, suffering casualties in the process, but still decapitate it.
A nuclear war should never be fought. But the Kremlin seems willing to fight one, at least a limited one. If the U.S. demonstrates it is unwilling to do so, the chance that the Kremlin will use nuclear weapons becomes dangerously real.
Mr. Cropsey is founder and president of the Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy and is author of “Mayday” and “Seablindness.”
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May 2, 2022
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Hungary and Europe’s Energy Puzzle
It’s getting harder for Budapest to balance Russia and the West.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
On April 27, Russia announced that Gazprom stopped sending gas to Bulgaria and Poland after they missed the deadlines Russia set for paying in rubles. The European Union is scrambling to respond as members negotiate the content of their next sanctions package, which would contain a ban on Russian oil imports. But as with all things EU, there is dissension in the ranks. Germany, Poland and the Netherlands may be Russia’s biggest customers in Europe, yet it is Hungary that seems to be most reluctant on further sanctions against Russia. In fact, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said earlier in April that Hungary would pay in rubles if Russia requested it. That request will have only a limited impact on European energy security, but it will have important political consequences, especially for Hungary, which will find it increasingly difficult to maintain its position with Russia – and the EU.
Hungary’s Strategy
Russia’s announcement, not to mention its halting of exports to Poland and Bulgaria, has been described as a breach of contract, but even if that’s the case, it won’t be all that consequential. Poland imports 10 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas per year, and its contract with Russia was due to expire in December anyway. Bulgaria imports 3 bcm. Together, they account for just 8 percent of total EU imports. They are already planning to offset the losses with supplies from Norway and Azerbaijan and with regasification facilities for imported liquified natural gas.
It’s unclear which country Moscow plans to cut off next. Its deadlines are unknown to the general public, and they depend on the details of contracts and negotiations between Gazprom and its customers. However, industry sources have said it could happen as early as May. Whatever the case may be, the European Commission has urged member states to make sure their facilities are 80 percent full by November, and while it is difficult to know the stock levels for each member state, the block’s stocks are at only 33 percent storage capacity.
It’s also unclear how much Russia is willing to cut off. Now more than ever, Moscow can’t afford to deprive itself of too much revenue. Perhaps this is why Moscow initially offered what looked to be a compromise for its European partners: Energy importers would open two accounts with Gazprombank, which is currently not under sanctions, and European buyers would pay euros into a first account, after which the bank could convert them into rubles and deposit the money into a second account. Then, the sum would be wired to Gazprom.
But the offer was also strategic. Moscow knew that it would create disagreement among European states and potentially weaken the Western alliance – one of its fundamental goals in Ukraine. The proposal essentially splits EU members into three groups. One is formed of countries like Belgium, Spain and Romania that import little or no gas from Russia and can thus refuse to compromise. The second includes countries such as Poland that are only partially dependent on Russian gas and may have contracts that soon expire. These countries are already looking for new suppliers and may consider accepting a compromise in the near term. The third group comprises big buyers like Germany and Italy that are struggling to replace imports quickly and that may take the deal if the threat of cutting supplies dramatically hurts their economy. They are looking at replacing gas suppliers and finding alternative sources to gas. For them, time and adaptability are of the essence.
Hungary is a bit of an outlier. In the context of recent EU history, Budapest has become an important partner for Russia. Since 2008, the EU has struggled with socio-economic problems and since the early 2010s with an unprecedented refugee crisis. Consequently, support and financial funding for Eastern European countries that were still new to the bloc declined as Western Europe was facing unprecedented problems. Nationalism, populism and euroscepticism have, meanwhile, increased throughout Europe. Energy security had become a concern for most European states well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Amid these problems, Hungary started engaging more with Russia, which could provide energy security and no-strings-attached investment. Of course, this decision invited criticism from Brussels, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used it to shore up support at home, positioning himself as a champion of sovereignty and independence against an ever-encroaching Europe.
Benefits
Currently, roughly 75 percent of Hungary's natural gas imports and 65 percent of oil imports come from Russia. This means that import prices are a matter of political stability. Budapest capped energy prices last fall to protect domestic consumers from rising oil prices. The government provides tax benefits and subsidies, and the costs of the price freeze are currently divided between the big players, the small retail petrol stations and the government. One can understand why the government is reluctant to sanction Russia.
But Hungary’s alignment with Russia goes beyond energy. Its geopolitical imperative, and the strategy that comes from it, is to maintain internal security while seeking to expand its influence and project power beyond its current borders. This demands a balance between its alignment with the West and its relations with Russia.
Two major historical events are responsible for Hungary’s strategy. The first and most important is the Treaty of Trianon after World War I, which ceded parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, as nation-states in the region were taking shape. Since then, Hungary’s goal was to establish influence and eventually gain back the land it considered unjustly lost. During the Cold War, Budapest wasn’t strong enough or independent enough to reclaim these lands, but since the conflict has ended, it has made a concerted effort to cater to Hungarian communities there that vote in Hungarian elections.
The second is the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The uprising was repressed by the Soviets after an intense summer of insurgent fighting, and after the U.S. proved unwilling to counter Soviet action, it ultimately failed. Most Hungarians perceive the event as simply proving that America can’t be trusted. Even so, Hungary became a NATO member as it recognized the West’s superiority over Russia, and it joined the EU once it understood the economic benefits of membership. Yet it never fully trusted either organization, and it never fully disavowed its relations with Russia.
All this explains Hungary’s position. Budapest depends on Russian energy, so even though it has been absorbed by Western institutions, it still needs a good working relationship with Moscow – and vice versa. Russia didn’t place any conditions on its investments in and business ties to Hungary. That relations with the West have been deteriorating lately made the Hungary-Russia romance all the more advantageous.
All of which helps to explain Hungary’s response to the invasion of Ukraine. It hasn’t condemned Russia the way others have, choosing instead to focus its remarks on protecting Hungarian communities in Eastern Europe, while being somewhat instrumental in getting Ukrainian refugees to the rest of Europe (something it was loath to do in other immigration crises when the refugees were coming from the Middle East and North Africa). Budapest did the bare minimum to help NATO beef up the eastern flank and allowed NATO to move through and be stationed in the country, but it banned the shipment of weapons and equipment to Kyiv coming from NATO member states and U.S. allies. (Here again domestic politics is in play. During campaign season, the government understood there was a chance that Russia would win, and thus saw an opportunity to expand its influence in Transcarpathia while ensuring the country’s energy security.)
Flaws
Despite the obvious benefits, Hungary’s strategy isn’t as successful as it appears. With the outcome of the war becoming less and less clear, the only tangible perk is that it gets discounted Russian gas at a time when everyone else is scrambling. But even this benefit might be in question, as things evolve.
Meanwhile, the European Commission seems to be getting serious about its threat to cut EU funding to Hungary if it doesn’t fix its rule of law problems. It had made that threat ahead of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, but since Budapest didn’t take it seriously, and since it was difficult to get Hungary to toe the EU (and the U.S.) line on condemning Russia, the commission has launched an administrative procedure against Hungary, making the claim more realistic. (Even if the EU does not admit the procedure is tied to the conflict in Ukraine, the timing is telling.)
It is a first for the commission to start such a procedure, which is based on the principle that the disbursement of EU funds is conditional on respect for values like the rule of law and could see countries with systemic problems lose out on funding. It’s expected to take between five and nine months. It will also involve two rounds of consultations with Budapest, but if the talks go nowhere, the commission will design “administrative remedial measures” that the other EU countries will have to adopt or amend with a qualified majority in the council – a process that will last a maximum of three months.
Many see the EU’s move as an attempt to set a precedent, a warning to other European countries with respect to EU funds and democratic norms. It is partly that, but because the feud between Brussels and Budapest is years in the making, the timing is indicative of something else: that this is a consequence of supporting Russia, or at least of not aligning with the EU on the war. In the coming talks, it will be up to Budapest to negotiate its position and decide whether Europe or Russia is a more reliable and more financially productive partner.
Another flaw in Hungary’s strategy involves the trust it has in natural gas transit states. Siphoning off gas is unethical and in many cases illegal, and Russia has said that it would cut off supplies to any country that engages in this tactic. But that’s not an especially effective threat. If Poland or Bulgaria have already had their supplies threatened, what’s to stop them from taking gas passing through their territory on its way to Hungary? They are both looking to secure alternative supplies so it's unlikely they'll do that. But in any case, the only party that would know is Gazprom itself. And who can really verify the accuracy of what Gazprom says?
It may be that Hungary’s answer to Brussels in the months to come will influence Gazprom’s reply to Budapest’s energy security concerns. But no matter what it decides, the energy puzzle in Europe remains. Russia knows and uses some key vulnerabilities, and Brussels is struggling to keep its politics and economics coordinated, while nation-states are scrambling to remain stable.
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What to Watch for as the EU Sanctions Russian Oil
If approved, the European Union's proposed embargo on Russian oil will ripple across global markets, especially if it helps enable more substantial U.S. sanctions targeting Moscow's energy sales to non-Western countries. On May 4, the European Commission proposed a sixth package of EU sanctions against Russia in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The new measures include:
An EU-wide embargo on Russian petroleum, with the embargo of crude oil imports entering force in six months and the embargo on petroleum products imports entering force by the end of 2022.
A ban within one month on the transport, including ship-to-ship transfers, of Russia-origin crude oil and petroleum products by any EU-flagged, -owned, -chartered or -operated vessel to third-party countries (i.e. non-EU member states).
A ban within one month on EU entities and persons providing any services related to the transport of Russia-origin crude oil and petroleum products, including technical assistance, brokering services, insurance, and financing or financial services.
All of the European Union's 27 member states need to approve the proposal before the sanctions enter force. To secure unanimous support, Brussels may grant exemptions to countries that are most dependent on Russian oil, like Hungary and Slovakia. Countries including Greece, Malta and Cyprus have also expressed concerns about banning EU tankers from shipping Russian oil. Nonetheless, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the European Union aims to approve the sanctions during the bloc's next Foreign Affairs Council meetings, which are scheduled for May 10 and May 16. But according to Politico, the new measures could be approved even sooner — potentially as early as May 6.
What to Watch For
As EU member states discuss, approve and ultimately implement the new sanctions targeting Russia's oil sector, there are several key things to watch for in the coming months in order to gauge the embargo's overall impact:
Whether the EU grants exemptions to certain countries
If approved, the proposed embargo on Russian oil is slated to come into force for all EU member states' contracts (including long-term contracts) this year. The European Union, however, already appears willing to exempt certain member states from implementing the new sanctions. Just hours after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the sanctions package, Hungary's foreign minister said the country could not support a full EU ban on Russian oil. But it's unlikely that von der Leyen would have announced the package if she was not confident that all countries would get behind the proposal. There are reports Hungary and Slovakia will receive exemptions that will allow them to continue buying Russian oil under long-term contracts through the end of 2023. If Brussels does grant these exemptions, other countries will probably seek them as well, diluting the overall effectiveness of the bloc's embargo. On May 4, Bulgaria's deputy prime minister told a Bulgaria-based financial newspaper that Sofia would seek an exemption if the European Union exempts other countries from the new sanctions. According to Politico, the Czech Republic wants similar concessions to the ones reportedly being granted to Slovakia and Hungary.
How fast European markets adapt
The initial market response to the May 4 unveiling of the new EU sanctions package was fairly small, with the price of Brent crude oil only increasing by about 3-4%. This suggests much of the proposed ban on Russian oil was priced in and that markets are not as concerned about crude oil supplies for European refineries. While this may be the case, how quickly European refiners and supply chains can adapt to the new restrictions may ultimately decide how impactful the sanctions are on European consumers. The refineries most at risk of physical supply disruptions are the ones in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary that are situated along the two arteries of the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline system. Each of these could import crude oil from sources other than Russia, though in some cases, it would require additional investment like expanding port facilities.
Nonetheless, the refinery in the Czech Republic is connected to a number of other pipelines that can import non-Russian oil. Germany, meanwhile, has recently reached an agreement with Poland to allow its two Druzhba-dependent refineries to use a Polish port to import crude oil. And TotalEnergies, which operates one of the two German refineries along the pipeline, is already planning to phase out the use of Russian crude oil at its Luena refinery in Germany. Hungary and Slovakia, which each have a Druzhba-dependent refinery, may receive exemptions from sanctions allowing them to phase out Russian oil over a longer period. But Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, which operates both refineries, has said it has sufficient capacity in the Adria oil pipeline connected to an oil import terminal in Croatia to supply the two refineries in Hungary and Slovakia. This underscores that Hungary's push for the exemption is more driven by its current government's political calculations, rather than purely economic considerations.
An aerial photo taken on April 12, 2022, shows the TotalEnergies Leuna oil refinery near Spergau, Germany. The refinery is connected to the Druzhba oil pipeline that transports oil from Russia to Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
But despite what appears to be alternatives, each of these European refineries will be trying to replace Russia's flagship Urals crude oil sent through the Druzhba pipeline with other medium sour crude. This means that there will be more customers competing in a part of the global market that is already tight due to the self-sanctioning by companies deciding to reduce Russian oil purchases. Many of the largest streams of medium sour crude grades come from Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates — all of which will now be caught between high demand from Asia and increased demand from Europe.
The ban on petroleum product imports — principally Russian diesel — will also exacerbate Europe's ongoing diesel challenges, though the exact impact remains unclear. In April, Europe imported about 770,000 barrels per day of diesel from Russia, or about half of its diesel imports. It is unclear how the EU sanctions, however, will clarify what constitutes ''Russian'' petroleum products (if they do at all), as different intermediate petroleum products (such as naphtha) are often used in the process of making finished petroleum products; even finished petroleum products (including gasoline) are usually blended with different components as well. The fine print of the finalized EU sanctions package could clarify whether the embargo will also apply to products that were either created or blended with any Russian petroleum — which will, in turn, determine how much Russian petroleum products end up in European markets. According to a May 4 Reuters report, some traders are already trying to assess whether or not a diesel blend containing 49% Russian diesel constitutes a Russian petroleum product or not.
The impact of the EU's transport-related sanctions
Although the EU embargo on Russian petroleum is getting the most attention, the proposed ban on transporting Russian oil to non-EU countries may be just as significant due to the potential impact on Russian oil sales to non-Western countries like China and India, which have imposed few (if any) sanctions on Russia. Europe is one of the regions most important to the shipping industry. Many of the world's largest tanker companies are based in the European Union, such as Belgium-based Euronav, Greece-based Tsakos Energy and Greece-based Navios Maritime Holdings, and U.K.-based International Group of Protection & Indemnity Clubs, which collectively provide liability coverage for around 95% of ocean-bound tankers and will follow EU law and regulations. There is already a global shortage of oil tankers and many of them may be unwilling or unable to carry Russian crude due to the new sanctions if they are approved, limiting Russia's ability to export oil beyond the EU market.
Moreover, Russia's Baltic Primorsk and Ust-Luga oil export terminals and the Black Sea Novorossiysk oil export terminal that handle Russia's seaborne Urals crude grade exports are not equipped to handle very large crude carriers (VLCC) or ultra-large crude carriers (ULCC). Instead, most Russian crude oil shipments to Asia are first loaded on smaller tankers at these Russian ports. The smaller vessels transfer the oil to larger VLCCs or ULCCs that then go on to deliver the shipments at Asian ports. Those VLCCs or ULCCs, however, are typically sitting in EU waters and thus could soon be subject to sanctions. In addition, because it takes much longer to reach India (and especially China) from Russia compared with Europe, more tankers will need to be in use at once in order to maintain the same level of crude oil exports if going to Asia instead of Europe.
All of this will make it harder for Russia to find tankers that can export its crude if the EU sanctions are approved.
All of this will make it harder for Russia to find tankers that can export its crude if the EU sanctions are approved. And while India and China have their own fleets of tankers that can and have been used to skirt Iran or Venezuela sanctions, doing so on such a large scale will eat into their tanker capacity, which may deter Beijing and New Delhi from significantly ramping up their Russian oil imports. If the transport sanctions are effective in limiting Russia's ability to export oil currently destined for Europe to other markets, it will not only have a more significant financial impact on Russia, but a more significant impact on overall global oil supplies and, in turn, global oil prices.
The potential expansion of U.S. sanctions
The United States and European Union have been working closely together on their respective sanctions packages. Washington, however, has so far sought to avoid forcing EU states to cut off their imports of Russian oil by imposing secondary U.S. sanctions akin to those that have significantly curbed Iran's global oil exports. But if the European Union implements its proposed embargo, it would remove this roadblock by mitigating concerns about the second-order impact such sanctions would have on virtually all of the United States' NATO allies. This could, in turn, free Washington to more broadly target Russia's oil sales via secondary sanctions if the situation in Ukraine does not improve or if the number of civilian casualties in the war escalates significantly.
Such expansive U.S. sanctions, however, would still make it difficult for India, China and other countries to import Russian oil at high volumes, even at discounted prices — adding pressure on crude oil prices and, more importantly, gasoline prices in the United States. Given U.S. voters' particular sensitivity to rising gas prices, the White House is unlikely to impose broader sanctions on Russian oil ahead of the November midterm elections, though it may have more political space to do so after the vote.
Russia's response
Russia — which exported about two-thirds of its oil to Europe prior to the Ukraine invasion — will probably retaliate against the EU embargo, raising the potential for more economic disruptions in Europe. Moscow recently cut off Bulgaria and Poland's natural gas supplies and has threatened to do the same to other European customers that do not pay for gas using the ruble payment mechanism the Kremlin has set up. The European Union is planning to issue new legal guidance in the hopes of clarifying whether Russia's ruble payment mechanism violates EU sanctions ahead of gas payments due by more customers in the second half of May. If companies do not use the mechanism, the European Union oil embargo makes it even more likely that Russia will retaliate with gas cutoffs. Even if they do use the mechanism, Moscow may still consider cutting off the bloc's natural gas supplies.
Russia can also threaten to cut off other key raw materials and goods that the European Union depends on (such as nuclear power fuel rods, agriculture and fertilizer) or demand that purchasers of these exports use a similar ruble payment mechanism. On May 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a broad decree allowing his government to cut off exports for products and raw materials to people and entities that are on a Russian sanctions list. The decree gives the Russian government 10 days to draft the list of entities that will be affected. It's possible that European firms, especially those announcing a plan to exit Russia investments like TotalEnergies and Shell, are placed on that list. Russia could also conduct cyberattacks against Western targets or retaliate against Western businesses or visitors still active in Russia through asset seizures or arbitrary detentions. The Kremlin's response to the European Union's proposed oil embargo has so far been largely rhetorical, but it is unlikely to stay that way for long.
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Daily Memo: Europe Searches for Substitute Suppliers
The U.S. and Germany also agreed not to recognize any territorial gains made by Russia as a result of the war in Ukraine.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Gas alternatives. As Europe continues its search for alternative sources of natural gas, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country should be prepared to facilitate liquefied natural gas shipments to landlocked member states. Germany recently rented four floating storage and regasification units. Azerbaijan’s energy minister, meanwhile, said his country expected to deliver over 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe by the end of this year. This follows statements from Azerbaijan’s president earlier this week in which he said that Azerbaijan plans to produce more gas from new offshore fields next year and that the capacity of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline could be expanded to 20 bcm by adding pump stations. In addition, Bulgarian gas provider Bulgargaz and Greek utility company DEPA said they agreed to start joint purchases of LNG – which will be used to supply southeastern Europe – in an effort to boost their bargaining position.
Security aid for Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz discussed Ukraine during a phone call on Thursday. They pledged to coordinate on providing security aid to Kyiv and, according to a German government spokesperson, agreed not to recognize any territorial gains made by Russia as a result of the war. Relatedly, Germany’s defense minister said on Friday that Berlin will deliver seven Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine. Training for the equipment will be offered starting next week, and ammunition will also be sent.
Turkey and France. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday spoke by phone with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron. The two leaders discussed the Ukraine war and ways to improve bilateral ties. Erdogan said relations between Ankara and Paris are of great importance for European security – though they have been strained over the past few years over a number of issues including the eastern Mediterranean and Libya.
Russian tariffs. Russia will reduce duties on wheat exports from $120.10 per ton to $114.3 per ton for a weeklong period beginning May 13. This will be the first decrease since mid-March. A spokesperson for Russia's Foreign Ministry confirmed that Moscow still planned to fulfill its international contracts to supply agricultural and fertilizer products.
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The Need for Reinforcements in Ukraine Backs Russia Into a Corner
While Russia is unlikely to declare a full mobilization in the short term, it will likely need to deploy more soldiers to continue waging its war in Ukraine. This means that Moscow will likely mobilize at least some reinforcements, which could indefinitely prolong the conflict — exposing Russia to more economic problems and pressure from the West. As Russia's offensive in eastern Ukraine grinds on, military analysts increasingly believe the offensive capability of Russian forces in Ukraine will be largely exhausted in the coming weeks, regardless of whether they secure the entire administrative borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russian troops now find themselves outnumbered in Ukraine after losing roughly 15,000 soldiers since the beginning of the war. As Kyiv raises, trains and moves territorial defense battalions to the frontlines, Russian forces will thus first and foremost need more manpower to conduct a new offensive operation, in addition to rest, resources and stronger logistical support.
Russia's Options for Military Reinforcements
Against this backdrop, the future of the conflict now rests largely in the Kremlin's hands, and in particular, on Russia's willingness to conduct mobilization by raising new troops and readying the country's economy to work on behalf of the war effort. Recent media reports suggest Russian President Vladimir Putin could declare additional mobilization measures — or even war on Ukraine — as soon as May 9, which is Russia's Victory Day commemorating the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II. But even if Putin doesn't leverage the patriotic holiday to make such an announcement, Russia will still need to provide its battered troops in Ukraine with at least some reinforcement. Moscow has three main options for such mobilization — all of which pose considerable military, political and economic risks:
1) Keep the current course by conducting partial mobilization measures.
In this likely scenario, Putin would seek to maintain maximum flexibility by declaring Russia's ''special military operation'' a victory, but noting that defending the victory will be a long-term struggle requiring additional sacrifices from the Russian people. Moscow will choose from a menu of measures to draw additional manpower into the armed forces, which would represent a partial mobilization. The goal of this strategy would be two-fold: consolidate the current territorial gains in Ukraine (specifically the so-called ''land bridge'' connecting Crimea to the Donbas consisting of the southern portions of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions on the left bank of the Dnieper river), and keep pressure on Kyiv to negotiate a peace deal favorable to Moscow.
Under this strategy, Russia's partial mobilization measures could include an unofficial mobilization of up to 60,000 reservists in Russia (which Ukrainian and Western sources believe may already be underway); a steady increase the economic incentive of military contract service; a mobilization of troops in specific regions of Russia bordering Ukraine on the grounds of the alleged threat to them; a decree mobilizing a certain percentage of reservists or other employees with weapons training from federal agencies such as the interior ministry, bailiffs service, emergency situations service and others for temporary military service; an extension of last year's conscripts' service requirement and a movement of select conscripts into front-line roles; and, finally, a patriotic campaign declared by Putin himself calling for volunteers for military service.
Drivers: Russia will probably require at least some additional manpower to confidently stabilize its current control of Ukrainian territory in the medium term, and the current pace of Russians' volunteering is insufficient to meet these requirements. These measures would be much less harmful to the Russian economy and politically risky than a general mobilization. The Kremlin's complete control of decision-making means that it can adapt mobilization measures to fit whatever it decides its next objectives are and the speed with which they should be completed. Because training requirements mean that it will take months before mobilized forces are combat-ready, a partial mobilization would give Moscow options and peace of mind no matter how things play out on the battlefield in the coming weeks. In addition, partial mobilization measures could sufficiently deter the Ukrainian army from major counteroffensives.
Constraints: This option could raise expectations among the Russian populace without any guarantee of a greater victory. Hard-liners in the government and nationalist elements could criticize the measures as evidence that Russia's special operation has failed, but that the Kremlin still lacks the resolve to take the necessary steps to achieve a decisive victory. Should Russian forces prove capable of holding off Ukrainian counterattacks (or should Ukrainian forces be deterred from attempting such attacks), these partial mobilization measures would not significantly improve Russian military capabilities relative to Ukraine's, but would still have political and economic costs.
Soldiers carry the coffin of Nikita Avrov, a 20-year-old Russian serviceman killed in combat in Ukraine, during a funeral service in Luga, Russia, on April 11, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)
2) Significantly escalate the conflict by declaring war and a national mobilization.
In this less likely but still possible scenario, Putin would rebrand Russia's ''special military operation'' into a war to justify extensive mobilization measures in a risky bid to achieve a decisive victory over Kyiv, reverting to the invasion's original maximalist aims. Putin would claim that this massive war effort was the only way to sufficiently ''demilitarize'' and ''denazify'' Ukraine and, in turn, ensure Russia's long-term security as otherwise, low-level conflict would continue to grind as Ukraine maintained its pro-Western course.
The declaration of war would open the door for Russia to declare martial law and a national general mobilization. This would make all men between the ages of 18-50 eligible for military service, depending on their category of fitness for the army. Men unfit for military service, meanwhile, could be placed in armaments production or other secondary roles. After several weeks or months of organizing and training these reserves, Russia would attempt to use its massive manpower advantage to surround Kyiv and annex as much southern and eastern Ukraine as it desires, linking up with Transdniestria or going further into Moldova, possibly leaving a rump state in western Ukraine or creating a puppet government modeled off of President Alexander Lukashenko's regime in Belarus.
Drivers: Russia would use this massive mobilization as part of a bid, along with other measures such as raising the nuclear threat level, to intimidate Ukraine into submission in negotiations and deter additional Western support for Ukraine in the following weeks as Russian forces mobilize. Should this fail, Russia would attack with its now significant numerical superiority to achieve its most ambitious stated goals of ''demilitarization and denazification.'' This is because the Kremlin sees the installation of a pro-Moscow regime and occupation of the country as the only sure way to prevent Ukraine from resuming integrating with European and transatlantic structures in the long term. Russia could also use a declaration of war to force Belarus and Russia's other Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) partners into the conflict that would otherwise resist doing so under all circumstances.
Constraints: Putin's repeated false declarations that conscripts aren't fighting in Ukraine suggest that the Kremlin believes such a move would be highly unpopular and would effectively constitute an embarrassing admission that the war is not progressing as originally planned. Russia is already confronting shortages of equipment and rations. Bringing hundreds of thousands more poorly trained and poorly motivated troops to the frontlines in Ukraine would thus risk only worsening Russia's already poor logistical situation. Russia can already declare victory and can continue economically starving Ukraine indefinitely via its naval blockade, making such a complete victory not worth the cost. Such an extensive mobilization, however, would only exacerbate Russia's own economic woes by not only generating new Western sanctions but deepening the brain drain, as younger and more educated Russian men are forced from their jobs and many attempt to flee the country.
Ukrainian soldiers ride in the back of a truck after fighting on the frontlines near Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on April 30, 2022. (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)
3) Pursue minimal mobilization and rely on negotiations to de-escalate.
In this more unlikely scenario, Moscow would declare its ''special military operation'' in Ukraine a victory and claim that it would now pursue de-escalation as it waits for Kyiv to accept the new reality of Russia's seized territories in southeastern Ukraine as part of a peace agreement. In this scenario, Moscow would likely unilaterally declare a cease-fire and make small tactical withdrawals to defensible positions. Moscow would also likely forgo additional mobilization measures under the assumption that its current forces can successfully defend their ground against Ukrainian counterattacks without major reinforcements. In addition, the Kremlin may decide against mobilizing more military reinforcements for fear that it'd provoke costly counterattacks on its troops by convincing the Ukrainian leadership to exploit a potentially unique window during which they have a manpower advantage. But should such Ukrainian counterattacks take place anyway and fail strategically by taking heavy losses, this would reduce the extent and necessity of Russian mobilization measures in the future.
Drivers: Moscow may believe it has already sufficiently accomplished its strategic objectives, as Ukraine will continue to remain a broken, blockaded and outside of Euroatlantic organizations for the foreseeable future. Russia can always resort to mobilization in the future should it feel the situation is truly critical. There is also little strategic reason for Moscow to endure the economic and social consequences of mobilization until such reinforcements are absolutely necessary. Finally, this course of action would most effectively allow Russia to claim that it is Kyiv and the Ukrainians that are continuing the war and an obstacle to peace — an argument Moscow likely believes will be key in turning the narrative in Russia's favor internationally and helping sure up support domestically.
Russian soldiers patrol a bombed theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on April 16, 2022. (ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Constraints: Without more forces, many military experts believe that Russia may not be capable of holding their current lines in the coming weeks, in particular on the right bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region. However, it will take months to adequately assemble, train and transport more Russian soldiers to the frontlines in Ukraine. Failing to start this process now would risk leaving outnumbered and increasingly outgunned Russian troops particularly vulnerable to counterattacks by extending the window in which Ukraine has more manpower. A failure to mobilize could also suggest that Russia is comfortable with abandoning at least some seized territory, which would disappoint Russian nationalists and collaborators in Ukraine. The situation on Russia's frontline could deteriorate suddenly and quickly, meaning Russia's mobilization could come too late after Ukrainian forces have launched a counterattack — allowing Ukraine to return significant territory before sufficient Russian soldiers can stabilize the front.
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fourth
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61320132
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fourth
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61320132
Neutral against evil isn't necessarily the right answer.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10792055/Russian-tank-ace-25-crowned-world-champion-war-games-killed-Putin-sends-real-war.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-losing-ukraine-amid-reports-of-russians-sabotaging-own-tanks/ar-AAX0fpA?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=ab6d4edd489e42b191531e1fa82606c1
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https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/05/08/megalopolis-x-russia-total-war/#more-268376
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Frustrating article.
Several interesting perspectives mixed in with this sort of thing:
Ukro Nazis? Seriously?
Completely ignoring that the Ukes REALLY don't want to become Russian
Completely ignoring how Russia is waging the war
etc
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-has-signaled-intent-to-end-current-phase-of-invasion-cut-losses-with-kherson-referendum-expert/ar-AAXar9t?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d6174444139a43d38f910a9665037b75
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10815861/Russia-threatens-nuke-Britain-Satan-2-missile-just-200-seconds-Finland-10-seconds.html
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and turkey pissed off
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-middle-east-turkey-moscow-sweden-49d5297a0dff391e5de9f24f6b3a390a
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May be a negotiating tactic for arms and or money.
FWIW seems to me Turkey has motive for Russia to be off balance.
IIRC it has had strong trade with Ukes and good Black Sea relations.
On the other hand, the more Russia gets Black Sea position, the more valuable Turkey's Bosphorus.
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May 16, 2022
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Reactions to Finland’s NATO Membership
Russia and NATO-member Turkey oppose expansion for different reasons.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
On May 15, Finland officially announced that it would apply to join NATO. The debate over whether it would do so had taken place for some time, but the decision was accelerated by Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine. Sweden reportedly will follow suit this week.
If the decision isn’t all that surprising given the circumstances, the reaction from Russia is – and it reveals much about Moscow’s limitations. Also surprising is the response from Turkey, which is opposed to Swedish and Finnish accession, even as their potential admission revives the alliance by creating a new containment line from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
Russia’s Reaction
Russia and Sweden don’t have much to do with each other, but Finland and Russia do. They share a massive border and have been friendly for years, thanks in part to Finland’s neutrality during the Cold War. This was made possible through a treaty they signed in 1948. In exchange for neutrality, the Soviet Union promised not to invade or turn Finland into a satellite state. At the time, it was imperative for Finland to maintain the integrity of its borders, lest it lose any more territory to Russia.
As a result, Finland and Russia have developed a fairly close relationship. Trade and investment have increased since the Cold War, particularly between southeastern Finland and northwestern Russia, while transit and transport have also grown. Economic ties suffered when Russia annexed Crimea, after which Finland joined in on EU sanctions against Moscow, but even then, some 60 percent of Finnish natural gas still came from Russia. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, Helsinki has grown increasingly wary of Russia's aggression since 2008 and has, like Sweden, enhanced its cooperation with NATO accordingly.
For its part, Russia has already said that it will take “retaliatory steps'' over Finland’s accession. In some ways, it has been hedging its bets in the event this day ever came. Since 2014, it has been modernizing infrastructure and investing in the settlements of northern Murmansk. On Feb. 28, just a few days after the invasion of Ukraine started, the regional government announced the beginning of another stage of construction and modernization and that about 3 billion rubles ($44 million) were allocated for the works in 2022 – a first for a region that hasn’t gotten much attention over the past decade.
NATO accession talks have made the Kremlin’s plans more urgent. On April 13, President Vladimir Putin tasked the Defense Ministry with handling these modernization efforts, ordering that they be finished by 2024. The Murmansk region, where about 724,000 people live, is the location of Russia’s northern navy's main base, which consists of five military camps and 12 settlements with a population of roughly 150,000. Considering the total budget for the program is estimated at 78 billion rubles (and since it had been allocated before sanctions took effect), it is likely that the Northern Fleet will be beefed up.
Another option for Russian retaliation is economic. Cutting energy supplies is something that Russia will consider judiciously – Moscow needs the money, and it can’t afford to look indifferent to the plights of the 30,000 Russians who live there. Hence why Russia acted measuredly on May 14 in cutting electricity supplies to Finland citing payment delays, which opens the door for negotiations later.
But it may not matter as much later as it does today. Finland currently receives about 10 percent of its electricity consumption from Russia, but it has been working on shoring up its own production. And though 60 percent of its natural gas comes from Russia, natural gas accounts for only about 5 percent of Finland’s total energy consumption. The country’s main sources of energy are nuclear power (roughly 33 percent of total consumption), hydropower (22 percent), and biomass (17 percent).
A more effective way to hurt the Finnish economy is for Russia to “weaponize” St. Petersburg. The port there dominates regional shipping, helping to handle Finnish cargo that Helsinki cannot accommodate. More, most of Finland’s foreign investment in Russia is concentrated in St. Petersburg. The Russian government could increase pressure on the Finnish companies operating in Russia, thus making them rebrand their business, sell their key assets or even renounce their business in Russia. In an extreme scenario, Russia could nationalize Finnish assets before investors begin the long and arduous process of divesting from a fairly integrated economy. However, Moscow would be reluctant to do so since it may also lose other investors who may reconsider their investments in a country that's willing to nationalize private assets.
The Turkey Factor
Whatever Russia decides, it certainly has the time to consider its options. For a country to join NATO, it needs to receive a formal invitation. And though NATO leadership has been openly inviting both Sweden and Finland to join, a formal invitation depends on the consensus of current members.
Enter Turkey. The day after Finland announced it would join NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he opposed expansion, citing concerns over the presence of “terrorists” in both Finland and Sweden. Turkey has long complained that Sweden doesn’t consider the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) a terrorist organization. Ankara has condemned the fact that the Swedish foreign minister criticized Turkish operations in northern Syria and met with members of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the PKK’s Syrian arm, in 2020.
Ankara has also criticized Finland for joining military sanctions against Turkey. The sanctions were imposed by the United States after Ankara purchased the Russian S-400 missile defense systems, and though they are mainly about limiting American military sales to Turkey, they also limit credit that would benefit Turkey’s military industry, something that cuts into the European-Turkish development of advanced weapon systems. In general, NATO and its allies have been concerned that integrating the S-400 into allied systems could compromise NATO’s security and have limited their technological sales and cooperation with Turkey. Finland and Sweden both have enhanced their security partnerships with NATO, participating in joint exercises and, by doing so, establishing common interoperability infrastructure.
Even with the tense relations between Turkey and Finland and Sweden, Ankara’s reaction to their accession surprised NATO and its member states. The U.S. State Department spoke to Ankara nearly immediately after Erdogan came out against expansion. Turkey has long complained of insufficient cooperation from NATO in its fight with the PKK and blocked a NATO defense plan for the Baltic region in 2019 over the bloc’s refusal to label the YPG as a terror group in its official documents. But it also took a step back in 2020 after NATO met some of its conditions and supported the Baltic defense plan.
But Turkey’s posture shouldn’t be all that surprising. Ankara has maintained a balanced strategy over Ukraine, looking for a middle ground. While it has supplied Ukraine with drones and has shut its straits and air space to Russian military ships and aircraft, Turkey was criticized for doing too little, too late, so as not to upset Russia, which could easily retaliate against Turkish interests in northern Syria. All that makes Turkey willing to maneuver so that it accommodates some of Russia’s behavior. Its negotiating posture within NATO allows it to ensure some small gains for itself, further growing its posture as a regional power.
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How Russia Would Respond to Finnish and Swedish NATO Membership
7 MIN READMay 16, 2022 | 18:19 GMT
Russia will perceive Sweden and Finland's NATO membership as another eastward move by the alliance that would further encircle it in the Baltic region. Moscow will respond with disruptive measures, but a direct conflict between Russia and Sweden or Finland is not feasible at this time. Russia has sent mixed messages regarding how it perceives the prospect of Finland and Sweden joining NATO, suggesting that while it did not perceive the possibility as an existential threat, the move would force Moscow to increase arms deployments to the Baltic region. This in turn would raise the odds of accidental clashes between Russian and Western forces, though the risk exists regardless given the growing importance of the Baltic Sea and Arctic to military competition and training. Before the Ukraine war, Moscow viewed Finland and Sweden as outside of its sphere of influence, and had already factored in the possibility of Finnish and Swedish NATO membership in its decision to invade. This does indeed suggest that Moscow does not view their membership as an existential threat, and so would not respond to the development with extreme measures that could risk a direct military confrontation with NATO. In any event, Russia currently lacks the military capability to conduct a military incursion against Finland since 70% of Russia's ground forces are committed to Ukraine at present (though some have withdrawn from there due to heavy losses of personnel and equipment). Even if Russia did want to carry out preemptive military action against Finland, doing so would require weeks of highly visible preparations and the implementation of mobilization measures, which would take months.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 16 said Russia had no problem with Finland or Sweden, so there was no direct threat from NATO enlargement to those countries, but that the expansion of NATO military infrastructure into this territory would certainly provoke a corresponding military response.
Former Russian President and current Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council Dmitri Medvedev on April 14 warned that should Sweden and Finland join NATO, then Moscow would strengthen its land, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea, including the deployment of nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles to the region, but said their membership was different for Russia because "we do not have territorial disputes with these countries, as with Ukraine."
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 12 said, "Finland's accession to NATO will cause serious damage to bilateral Russian-Finnish relations, stability and security in the Northern European region. Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard." While Russian officials repeatedly warned of "military-technical" response measures should its demands not be met before invading Ukraine, such measures toward Finland likely will comprise only the deployment of military hardware to the Baltic area.
Russia's short-term response to Finnish and Swedish accession to NATO could include cyberattacks and other destabilization measures, some of which have likely already commenced. Despite Russian officials' contradictory, but threatening, rhetoric, Moscow has few means to prevent or deter the two countries from joining NATO, or impose significant costs on them for doing so. Since it cannot credibly threaten a conventional military strike, Russia would likely resort to threatening rhetoric, often mentioning the likely deployment of nuclear weapons to the Finnish border and Baltic Sea region. Moscow will also consider actual moves to increase the costs on Sweden and Finland for their move toward membership, including cyberattacks and political interference campaigns, perhaps aimed at worsening supply chain disruptions and inflation. Such attacks could be used in tandem with disinformation and propaganda campaigns intended to fuel discontent over economic difficulties and the growing military and asymmetric threat from Russia that NATO membership brings. Russia could also seek to shut off natural gas supplies to Finland as soon as May 23, when Finnish utilities' next gas bills are due.
Medvedev on April 14 noted that "no sane person wants higher prices and taxes," suggesting that Russia could implement a disinformation campaign to convince voters in Sweden and Finland that NATO membership will raise the cost of living.
Many Finnish government websites crashed April 8 while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Finnish parliament via video, most likely due to Russian cyberattacks, underscoring that Russian cyber and political interference measures have already begun.
According to May 12 Finnish media reports, lawmakers in the Nordic country have been briefed that a gas shutoff and possibly other economic retaliation could be part of Russia's response to Finland's move to join NATO.
Russia's mid- to long-term response will likely involve a significant increase in its military infrastructure near Finland and the Baltic and Arctic regions. Finland and Russia share a 1,340-kilometer (about 833-mile border), and its accession would more than double the length of NATO's land borders with Russia. The Russian side of the border is severely underdeveloped due to its remoteness and decades of government neglect. To remedy this, Russia will move to expand its civilian border control infrastructure and construct new fortifications along the Finnish border should Finland join NATO. Russia will be particularly sensitive to NATO activities in Finland given the proximity of Murmansk, Russia's only ice-free port with unrestricted access to the Atlantic and world sea routes. The transportation route to and from Russia's commercial and military window on the Arctic would become well within range of NATO spy planes given Finnish membership. Moscow will have to spend large sums on constructing housing and facilities for more Russian ground forces to be based around its second-largest city, St. Petersburg — which sits less than 200 kilometers from the Finnish border — and in the border region of Karelia. The other major point of Russia's military response will be in the Kaliningrad exclave, which will likely officially become home to tactical nuclear and hypersonic weapons, and the Gulf of Finland, where Russia will likely deploy additional coastal missile and anti-aircraft batteries. These measures will require substantial defense spending increases toward capital-intensive construction projects — a cost that will come on top of the massive expenditures related to its war in Ukraine.
Russia has already deployed nuclear weapons in its Baltic exclave in Kaliningrad, Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said April 14; nuclear-capable hypersonic Kinzhal missiles were spotted on a Russian fighter landing in Kaliningrad on Feb. 7, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow could attempt to use migrant flows to destabilize Finland and Sweden, similar to how Belarus weaponized migrants against Poland and Lithuania in summer and fall 2021, though reduced migration and travel flows through Russia due to the war in Ukraine will make this difficult in the near term. Though its length and remoteness make the Finnish border an attractive target for such a gambit, it is ulikely to become a preferred route to Europe through Russia because harsh conditions make it a dangerous journey for much of the year.
The Arctic Council and other current Arctic governance models could well break down, as Sweden and Finland joining NATO would formally split the Arctic into two spheres: NATO countries and Russia. Disruptions to cooperation in science and the regulation of marine resources have already been seen in the wake of the Ukraine war.
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https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/737/627/original/fe335e51b9fbe85b.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/737/627/original/fe335e51b9fbe85b.jpg)
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https://www.daily-sun.com/post/620302/Russia-set-to-reap-largestever-wheat-harvest
Russia offers the world oil and wheat. We can sell episodes of "RuPaul's Drag Race".
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/737/627/original/fe335e51b9fbe85b.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/737/627/original/fe335e51b9fbe85b.jpg)
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Turkey's autocratic president is still mad at Sweden and Finland. So officials from the two Nordic nations are headed to Ankara to talk about their upcoming request to join the alliance. Their bids would require approval from every NATO member—including Turkey.
According to Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who is facing re-election next year, there are too many northern Europeans of Kurdish descent. Indeed, six members of Stockholm's Riksdag (parliament) are Kurds, according to the Wall Street Journal. And Erdogan has been engaged in a fierce counterinsurgency campaign against the stateless Kurds for nearly a decade, with tensions peaking around the time of the attempted coup in Turkey back in the summer of 2016.
A further reason Erdogan is heated: Sweden and Finland joined other European countries in sanctioning Turkish defense firms after Erdogan's military carried out an offensive inside Syria in 2019.
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/germanys-foreign-minister-blames-russia-causing-brutal-hunger-actually-created-eu-sanctions-russian-agricultural-products/
https://www.daily-sun.com/post/620302/Russia-set-to-reap-largestever-wheat-harvest
Russia offers the world oil and wheat. We can sell episodes of "RuPaul's Drag Race".
https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/737/627/original/fe335e51b9fbe85b.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/106/737/627/original/fe335e51b9fbe85b.jpg)
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https://www.foxnews.com/world/hungarys-top-diplomat-under-biden-global-stage-changed-since-trump-era?fbclid=IwAR2yCmxMTVWuOMZKZYuyBxnlEUS66hcTCvIkwS3gMN6QSDtvjVzE1KXvwYA
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/26/russia-economy-aviation-sanctions-shortages/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F36f0cad%2F628fa3cd956121755a91cf52%2F61cdf026ae7e8a4ac205b2b3%2F14%2F72%2F628fa3cd956121755a91cf52
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/26/russia-economy-aviation-sanctions-shortages/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F36f0cad%2F628fa3cd956121755a91cf52%2F61cdf026ae7e8a4ac205b2b3%2F14%2F72%2F628fa3cd956121755a91cf52
Oh no, the Russians will have to import all their consumer goods from China.
Just like we do.
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June 3, 2022
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Daily Memo: Beijing Searches for Ways to Help Moscow
By: Geopolitical Futures
Chinese support. Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed his closest advisers to propose ways to help Russia financially without conflicting with the sanctions imposed by the West, according to a report by The Washington Post. The report also says China’s top leadership called for new investment and trade with Belarus.
Helping hand. With assistance from the U.N., Turkey is facilitating the delivery of 20 million tons of grain and sunflower seeds from Russia and Ukraine to world markets. The details, including the route that will be used to deliver the goods, will be worked out in the coming days. Belarus’ president said his country was also open to helping deliver Ukrainian grain to Baltic ports.
More sanctions. The European Council has approved the sixth package of sanctions against Russia and Belarus. They include restrictions on importing Russian oil – though a temporary exception will be made for the import of crude by pipeline to a number of EU member states. The sanctions also include disconnecting three Russian banks and a Belarusian bank from the SWIFT system, and an expanded list of defense-related goods and technologies that will be blocked for Russian access.
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June 6, 2022
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Daily Memo: Germany Approves New Military Spending, Lavrov Cancels Trip to Serbia
Moscow was forced to cancel the visit after three Balkan countries banned the foreign minister's plane from their airspace.
By: Geopolitical Futures
New military spending. Germany’s parliament approved a constitutional amendment that will unlock 100 billion euros ($107 billion) in military spending for the country. Approximately 41 billion euros will go to the air force, which intends to buy CH-47F Chinook helicopters and possibly F-35 fighter jets. Another 19 billion euros will go to the navy to purchase submarines, frigates, corvettes and multipurpose combat boats. A portion of the money will also fund personal equipment for troops.
Trip canceled. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov canceled a visit to Serbia that was planned for Monday after Montenegro, North Macedonia and Bulgaria banned the plane he was set to use from flying in their airspace.
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Remember Sec. of State Hillary signing off on Russia acquiring 25% of American uranium? Remember the huge deal that Bill helped engineer for Russia with Kazakhstan that resulted in over $100M (!!!) going to the Clinton Foundation?
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Russia’s Nuclear Power Hegemony
The West Is Dependent on Moscow for More Than Just Gas and Oil
By Jessica Lovering and Håvard Halland
June 8, 2022
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/.../russias-nuclear-power...
The invasion of Ukraine has thrust the world into an energy crisis. Since Russian troops began pouring across the country’s borders, oil prices have risen by more than a quarter. Gas prices have nearly doubled. And the outlook for both markets is not promising; as Western countries use sanctions to limit Russia's ability to finance its war with oil and gas revenues, energy prices are likely to remain high and volatile. The wartime uncertainty is dovetailing with concerns about climate change, prompting further anxiety about the world’s energy future. Countries needed to start shifting away from fossil fuels decades ago to protect the planet. Now, they must do so at a time when people are paying increasingly high prices.
As states look to bring down high energy costs and disentangle themselves from Russia—while combating climate change—many have expressed a renewed interest in nuclear energy. It’s easy to see why. Nuclear power is already one of the world’s largest sources of carbon-free energy, responsible for 25 percent of the European Union’s electricity. Unlike most forms of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, nuclear power can reliably produce large quantities of electricity every hour of the year. And it has already helped Europe move away from fossil fuels extracted elsewhere in the world, including natural gas from Russia.
But in the short term, increasing Europe’s reliance on nuclear energy won’t free the continent from Russian fuel. Just as Europe has become dependent on Russian oil and gas, so too has much of the world become dependent on Russia for the materials needed to make nuclear power. Russia has close to half of the global capacity to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel, and 40 percent of the nuclear energy produced in Europe depends on uranium from Russia or Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, both close allies of the Kremlin. Roughly half of all U.S. nuclear power plants—about 10 percent of total U.S. electricity generation—are powered by imports from those three countries (a fact that could explain why the U.S. nuclear industry lobbied to exclude uranium from sanctions on Russian energy imports.) Russia also dominates the market for nuclear power plant exports and construction, especially in emerging economies. Its closest competitor is China, another autocracy. States that contract with China or Russia could spend decades dependent on them for nuclear fuel and services.
To end Russia’s dominance over the nuclear business (and prevent China from taking its place), democratic countries need to get serious about supporting their domestic nuclear industries—especially as new, innovative technologies hit the market. They must implement policies that create demand for nuclear energy as part of their broader climate agendas, and they need to invest in creating nuclear manufacturing facilities that can reliably supply a growing global market. Doing so is critical both to fighting climate change and curtailing the global power of authoritarian regimes.
RUSSIAN POWER
Over the last two decades, Russia has become the world’s go-to supplier for nuclear technology, especially for countries building their first nuclear projects. Russia is deeply experienced in constructing and maintaining nuclear plants, and it offers a one-stop-shop for the items needed to create them: reactors, fuel, financing, and even worker training. Since 2000, Russia has signed bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements with 47 countries, and it has large power plants under construction in Bangladesh, Belarus, and Turkey. It is involved in nuclear projects across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America.
It also has projects in eastern Europe. Indeed, for decades, one of Russia’s main nuclear clients was Ukraine. Before Russia first invaded the country in 2014, Ukraine got 95 percent of its nuclear fuel from Russia—a majority of its entire electricity supply. But after Russia annexed Crimea and fostered an insurgency in the Donbas, Ukraine accelerated plans to diversify its uranium imports. Many other European countries also began expressing concern about being dependent on Russian nuclear technology, worries that were validated in February 2022. Since then, the West has moved quickly to try to wean itself from Russian energy resources, including nuclear power. On May 2, for instance, a Finnish consortium announced it was canceling a contract for a 1,200-megawatt Russian reactor.
Almost all green energy sources present ethical dilemmas.
Of course, Europe’s most prominent dependence is ultimately on Russian coal, oil, and gas, rather than on nuclear energy. In fact, in its guidance for how countries can best move off Russian fuel, the International Energy Agency highlighted the role that nuclear power could play. As the IEA noted, nuclear energy is “the largest source of low emissions electricity in the EU,” and its expansion could substantially increase the continent’s access to fossil-free energy. Not everyone agrees; the European Commission’s plan to reduce Russian gas imports notably does not mention nuclear power, and Germany has held fast in its plans to close its three remaining nuclear reactors by the end of this year (even though the country imported close to $10 billion euros worth of fossil fuels from Russia since the start of the invasion). But other countries, such as Belgium and Japan, have promised new investments in nuclear energy to reduce their dependence on Russian gas. They are picking up on an old tradition of using nuclear power to bolster energy independence. Countries with dwindling domestic coal supplies, like the United Kingdom and Japan, turned to nuclear energy after World War II to fuel their growing industrial sectors. After the oil embargoes of the 1970s, France and Sweden also built out nuclear infrastructure to reduce their dependence on the Middle East.
Although nuclear power is critical to freeing Europe from Russian gas, it could still leave these states vulnerable to Russian influence. And even if states cancel nuclear projects with Russia, China will soon surpass France to become the second-largest producer of nuclear power, with its own ambitions for dominating the global export market.
Indeed, almost all green energy sources present ethical dilemmas. The Democratic Republic of Congo currently makes 60 percent of the world’s cobalt—a mineral critical to electric vehicles—but the country’s producers have faced scrutiny from international organizations over human rights practices, including their use of child labor. In 2021, the Biden administration blacklisted several Chinese solar companies after they were accused of using forced labor and other abuses. And Russia is a significant producer of nickel, which is critical to electric vehicle batteries. Concerns over future sanctions on nickel, or other disruptions to its supply, have driven its price to an 11-year high.
CHAIN REACTION
To free itself from dependence on Russian energy, the world will need to be more proactive in ensuring that its energy supply chains are sustainable and ethical. But that doesn’t mean a return to energy isolationism. Modern energy production systems are complex and interconnected, especially those that depend on critical minerals not evenly distributed across the globe. They indicate that true energy independence—where states create power entirely by themselves—is no longer practical. Instead, democracies should focus on strengthening their energy interdependence with trusted partners.
To some extent, this process is already underway with nuclear power. Romania canceled an agreement with a Chinese state-owned firm in 2020 for two nuclear reactors because it preferred to move forward with a NATO ally. China and Russia had been in the running for a nuclear tender in the Czech Republic, but the government ultimately excluded them from a formal document-sharing process and explicitly said that both states were “not invited” to bid. Chinese firms are significant investors in two nuclear power projects in the United Kingdom. Yet in September of 2021, the British government announced it was trying to force a sale of China General Nuclear Power Group’s share in one of the projects. In 2019, a U.S. nuclear company co-founded by Bill Gates announced that it had canceled a project to build an experimental reactor in China after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed further trade restrictions.
True energy independence is no longer practical.
But the West’s domestic nuclear industries have stalled in recent years, and so right now, U.S. and European nuclear companies are struggling to find proper alternatives to Russian and Chinese state-owned vendors. To catch up, their governments must craft an old-fashioned industrial policy based on investing in domestic manufacturing capabilities all along the nuclear supply chain. They will have to successfully demonstrate new nuclear technologies that they can then market globally. That means Western countries should increase funding for nuclear export projects through their own export-import banks and development financing, and also by pushing large investment and development banks to change their policies on supporting nuclear power.
Doing this will not be easy, and it will not be inexpensive. But the West’s drive will benefit from its dynamic and innovative nuclear sector. Although traditional, large-scale nuclear projects have struggled domestically in the United States and Europe, a new suite of nuclear technologies could start to shift the market in their favor. The United States has over 60 companies working on advanced reactor technologies, including NuScale Power, which is marketing small modular reactors and has reached agreements to deploy them to Poland and Romania. (The latter country has also agreed to import reactors from Canada.) The British company Rolls Royce is working to develop its own small modular reactor technology, and it has signed memorandum of understanding with the U.S. utility Exelon and entities in the Czech Republic. Westinghouse, a U.S. nuclear energy company that helped Ukraine dramatically reduce its reliance on Moscow, has also recently expanded its cooperation with the Czech Republic (and Slovenia) to explore deploying its newer, large AP1000 reactors. And in April, the U.S. State Department announced that it would help Latvia explore the feasibility of nuclear power.
These kinds of collaborations across allied democracies are precisely what the planet needs to create energy supply chains that are secure, ethical, and sustainable. They will help the West build resilience against the whims of authoritarian regimes. By pivoting away from fossil fuels, they will also help states avoid supply shortages and price shocks. But these collaborations show a recognition that the solution to Russia’s energy dominance and to climate change is not an attempt at green nationalism. Instead, it requires that allied states work together to design energy systems and technologies that are robust because they are collaborative and interdependent
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I thought they left Russia to protest Ukraine
well
not exactly
https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/mcdonalds-corp-marks-rebrand-restaurant-to-reopen-in-russia/
they changed their logo
for ignoble reasons
likely
do not want to be seen as US company which is in proxy war with Russia
just burger and fries for sale ....
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Russia won. Time to move on to the next psyop.
I thought they left Russia to protest Ukraine
well
not exactly
https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/mcdonalds-corp-marks-rebrand-restaurant-to-reopen-in-russia/
they changed their logo
for ignoble reasons
likely
do not want to be seen as US company which is in proxy war with Russia
just burger and fries for sale ....
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"Time to move on to the next psyop"
that already in progress
1/6/21
propaganda
and white supremacy
threat to democracy
yet China is already able to deal us death blows
they sell us tech that is rigged
we sell them hamburgers ......
wonder if mc donalds puts chips in their fries.....
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The 19th-Century Technology Driving Russia’s Latest Gains in Ukraine: Railroads
After struggling to supply troops early in the war, Moscow has returned to Soviet-era shipping methods. That could limit its reach going forward.
Russian armored vehicles loaded on rolling stock at a railway station on Feb. 23 in the Rostov-on-Don region of Russia, not far from the Ukraine border.
Russian armored vehicles loaded on rolling stock at a railway station on Feb. 23 in the Rostov-on-Don region of Russia, not far from the Ukraine border. ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Daniel MichaelsFollow
and Matthew LuxmooreFollow
June 14, 2022 10:56 am ET
Russian forces have advanced in eastern Ukraine over recent weeks behind overwhelming artillery barrages, a shift in fortunes made possible by better access to rail lines delivering tons of ammunition and other supplies.
Trains are the Russian military’s go-to method for moving troops and heavy weapons. In Ukraine’s industrialized Donbas region, dense rail networks have played to Moscow’s advantage.
Russia’s military depends so heavily on trains that it maintains an elite Railroad Force, a service branch once common in countries through World War II. The unit has camouflage-painted armored train cars equipped with antiaircraft cannons and artillery to guard supply trains, and its troops are trained to repair bombed tracks while under enemy fire. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it has restored 750 miles of track in the land corridor it now controls in Ukraine’s southeast.
“Even if Ukrainians destroy rail lines, it will just slow the Russians, not stop them,” said Alex Vershinin, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who has analyzed Russian military logistics.
But Russia’s heavy reliance on train transport, a 19th-century technology, reveals critical gaps in its logistics, the coordinated transfer of supplies. Russia’s struggle to supply troops away from rail lines has slowed its invasion and contributed to catastrophic failures in its early offensives to take Kyiv and Kharkiv. It could also shape the conflict going forward.
On Track
Russian troops have advanced into eastern Ukraine, using artillery transported on the region's dense rail networks.
Areas of significant fighting
Track gauge
Russian
5 ft
Standard
4 ft 8 1⁄2 in
RUSSIA
Donetsk
BELARUS
Kyiv
POLAND
Donetsk
UKRAINE
DONBAS
REGION
ROMANIA
200 miles
200 km
Note: Significant fighting areas denote areas of ongoing combat with at least one Russian battalion tactical group, and are within 24 hours of June 12, 3 p.m. EDT. Rail networks include passenger and freight tracks. All high-speed rail in Europe uses standard-gauge except from Russia and Finland.
Sources: Institute for the Study of War (areas of significant fighting); Stratfor, Agico Group (track information)
Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Unlike the U.S. and other countries that have adopted modern military logistics, Russia has largely remained wedded to traditional Soviet-era methods. It isn’t just a sign of the military’s failure, according to Western officials. The shortfall results from a lack of modernization in Russia’s economy.
Russia boasts one of the world’s largest military forces, equipped with nuclear submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles, but it has few shipping containers, forklifts or pallets of the kind the U.S. is using to speed supplies into Ukraine, according to logistics experts.
Instead of the heavily mechanized logistics system used for decades by Western businesses and militaries, Russia’s military relies on bountiful conscript labor to move gear, much of it packed in unwieldy coffin-size wooden crates.
“The U.S. has built logistics like we are short of people, and Russia has done it like manpower is free,” said Trent Telenko, who spent 33 years at the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency and has studied Russian military logistics.
Supply-chain management is a booming field in much of the world. Yet in the World Bank’s most recent Logistics Performance Index, from 2018, Russia placed 75th out of 160 countries, between Paraguay and Benin. Germany ranked first, the U.S. 14th and China 26th.
Modern cargo handling relies on containers of standard sizes that fit trucks, train cars, ships and hoisting equipment. Russia’s container ports in 2020 handled slightly more of the containers than those in Colombia and fewer than France, according to United Nations data. The volume of container traffic passing through Russia has been largely flat since 2013, while global volume rose 23% over the same period.
Russians load cargo manually into railway vehicles that travel its national rail system, which forms the backbone of the country’s freight network. Railways reach deep into sparsely populated corners of Siberia, with many lines built by Gulag slave labor under Stalin. The U.S.S.R. used train tracks with a wider gauge than Western Europe, in part to thwart invasion. In recent years, that disparity has slowed rail commerce with other countries, further isolating Russia’s logistics industry.
Ukraine, once part of the U.S.S.R., has the same wide-gauge tracks, making it easy for Russian trains to roll in during the invasion.
Despite being the world’s largest country by land area, Russia has only 963,000 miles of highway, according to 2020 figures from Russia’s state statistics agency. That leaves some smaller cities without access to large delivery trucks. The U.S., with less than 60% the area of Russia, has 4.2 million miles of highway, according to government data.
Russia’s lack of civilian trucks is mirrored in its military, which has long faced vehicle shortages. Western intelligence analysts during the Cold War could judge Soviet battle readiness by seeing if army trucks were deployed to help farms collect the harvest rather than move troops.
All by hand
Days after Moscow first stormed into Ukraine in February, a Russian soldier radioed comrades to complain he was stuck. “I just need a gas station,” said the soldier, identified as Buran 30, over an open frequency captured by intelligence firm Shadowbreak International. “Equipment is stopping.”
In the weeks that followed, Russian soldiers abandoned scores of military vehicles that had run out of fuel or needed spare parts, according to Ukrainian and Western intelligence. Fuel trucks, lightly armored and potentially explosive, and other supply vehicles were easy targets of Ukrainian fighters. Short of fuel, food and ammunition, Russian troops struggled.
Efficiency and worker safety, goals of for-profit logistics operations in the West, haven’t been a priority for Moscow’s quartermasters.
Russia’s wooden crates, which can weigh more than 100 pounds when full, are similar to ones the U.S. used in the 1940s. “They’d get everyone who wasn’t an officer and make them lug things” into trucks, said Georgy, a Russian conscripted into a logistical support brigade in 2016 and who asked to be identified by only one name.
He recalled seemingly endless work cradling the splintery containers or grabbing them by small metal handles that dug into his fingers. The painful work was accepted as character-building, Georgy said.
The U.S. resisted mechanizing military logistics for the first decades of the 20th century, aiming to keep peace with labor unions representing civilian dockworkers who loaded vital supplies, said Manley Irwin, an emeritus professor of economics at University of New Hampshire who studies U.S. Navy history. That changed in World War II.
U.S. Marines island-hopping across the Pacific in pursuit of Japanese forces repeatedly outraced their supplies. To speed the movement of provisions, the Navy looked to transport systems used by U.S. companies and tapped corporate managers to help improve military logistics.
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A wartime study found that the man-hours required to load and unload supply ships could be cut to 203 from 682 by using forklift-and-pallet systems.
“What saved them was bringing in industry,” Mr. Irwin said. The forklift was deemed so significant to the U.S. military, he said, that literature about its various wartime uses and methods was classified as secret.
Supplies being unloaded from landing crafts on the shores of Iwo Jima after the U.S. Marines established a beachhead on the island during World War II.
PHOTO: BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
The Russian economy under President Vladimir Putin has advanced beyond Soviet-era practices. But investment has focused largely on extractive resource sectors, like petroleum and minerals, rather than advanced manufacturing and logistics.
The easing of economic restrictions in post-Soviet Russia allowed it to obtain more-advanced technology, superior production equipment and to hire experienced foreign managers. But that also increased Russia’s reliance on outsiders to build its industrial base.
Specialized roles in industry, such as supply chain supervisor, had only begun taking root in Russian businesses in 2014, when ties with the West were frayed over Moscow’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. Sanctions recently imposed after the invasion of Ukraine are expected to set back Russia’s logistics even further.
Without domestic logistics expertise, Russia’s military lacks a model to challenge its resistance to change, which is typical of armed forces, analysts said.
Boxed in
Private-sector know-how rescued the Pentagon in 1965, when Washington ratcheted up the number of troops in Vietnam. Supplies piled up on the shores of the embattled country, and ships were waiting weeks to unload.
American shipping entrepreneur Malcom McLean, who had led development of the standardized shipping container almost a decade earlier, persuaded the Defense Department to adopt his innovation. Taking the risk of investing his own money, he built a container terminal at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.
“A lot of people in the military were opposed to containers in Vietnam, taking a not-invented-here attitude,” said Marc Levinson, author of “The Box,” a history of the shipping container. “In pretty short order, containers solved the military’s problems. It really transformed the ability to fight the war.”
The use of containers by the military quickly catapulted demand among civilian-cargo movers, Mr. Levinson said.
Early this year, before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, a steady flow of U.S. cargo planes landed at Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport. Mechanized loaders moved pallets of Javelin antitank rockets, artillery shells and ammunition to forklifts, which hoisted them onto military trucks destined for bases across Ukraine. The speedy deliveries helped Ukrainians repel Russian forces from the capital of Kyiv.
The U.S. military’s commitment to logistics automation is embodied in the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System that President Biden recently promised to Ukraine. The 5-ton truck has robotic arms that load prepackaged rockets ready for launching and can be operated by a single soldier. Comparable Russian systems must be loaded and prepared manually by a team.
Mr. Telenko, who followed the development of such automated systems over the years, said the contrast between the two countries reflects how their respective societies approach risk. In the U.S., public accountability and the prospect of litigation prompted the military to reduce as much human fallibility in logistics as possible.
“There’s a cultural aversion to risk built into the American military supply chain that Russia doesn’t have,” Mr. Telenko said. Increased safety and efficiency have the added benefit for the Pentagon of reducing payouts in veterans’ benefits, a large expense, and leaving more money for operations, training and equipment.
“A military can’t be better than the social system it grows out of,” he said.
Write to Daniel Michaels at daniel.michaels@wsj.com and Matthew Luxmoore at Matthew.Luxmoore@wsj.com
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Why Russia Will Be Reticent to Unblock Ukraine’s Grain Exports
4 MIN READJun 14, 2022 | 16:56 GMT
Wheat grows in a farm field about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from the front line of battle between Russian and Ukrainian troops near Sloviansk, Ukraine.
Wheat grows in a farm field about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from the front line of a battle between Russian and Ukrainian troops near Sloviansk, Ukraine.
(Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Even if talks on ending Russia’s naval blockade of Ukraine to allow grain exports via the Black Sea continue, major obstacles to an agreement and its implementation mean that Ukraine’s grain exports will remain strained, maintaining pressure on global food prices and fueling war fatigue in the West and around the world. On June 8, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met in Ankara where, among other topics, they discussed measures to create a sea lane to resume Ukraine's grain exports via the Black Sea as a part of a U.N.-backed effort to address the global food crisis. According to reports, Turkey is open to an agreement that would involve Turkish warships demining Ukrainian ports and creating a safe passage for ships carrying wheat and other products from Ukrainian waters. While the two foreign ministers expressed optimism that the plan was feasible, no agreement was struck. And as long as the talks take place without the participation of Ukraine and its demands are not addressed, a deal will likely remain elusive.
Prior to the war, Ukraine exported around 95% of its cereals and oilseed via the Black Sea, averaging as much as 6 million tons per month. But exports amounted to only around 800,000 tons in May. Ukraine’s rail operator has said it expects rail exports to rise to up to 1.5 million tons a month in the coming weeks, but even under this optimistic scenario, Ukrainian grain exports will remain below a third their pre-war levels and at a much higher cost. Ukrainian farmers still managed to plant nearly 70% of their spring 2022 crops, but the inability to sell their goods amid the ongoing storage and export bottlenecks could prevent Ukrainian farmers from planting crops in the fall of 2022 and the spring of 2023.
Turkey’s cooperation with Russia to advance the Ukrainian grain export issue is in part motivated by Ankara’s domestic economic instability and desire to mitigate the added pain of global food price shocks. But it’s also motivated by Turkey’s desire to remain a central player in cease-fire talks between Russia and Ukraine, as well as an overall constructive partner for Moscow as Turkey eyes another possible offensive in Russia-protected parts of Syria.
Kyiv will insist that the most sustainable way to end the naval blockade and resume grain exports is for the West to supply Ukraine with weapons to end the blockade and protect its coastline. In a statement following the Turkey-Russia meeting, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that while Kyiv "appreciates Turkey's efforts to unblock Ukrainian ports," it would reject any agreements that do not take Ukraine’s interests into account. Negotiations to which Ukraine is not a party and that do not involve providing Ukraine with a military deterrent against Russia breaking the deal are therefore unlikely to materialize. Ukraine has numerous concerns about resuming grain exports, including the possibility that demining its ports and coastal waters could prompt Russia to swiftly move in with its own naval mines or use the cleared areas to conduct offensive strikes on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian statement specifically pointed to a Russian missile strike that destroyed warehouses at Mykolaiv’s commercial port on June 7 as evidence that Russia was not serious about allowing Ukraine to resume food exports.
Ukraine will keep open the possibility of a deal as long as third countries, presumably NATO countries including Turkey and Romania, guarantee all aspects of the deal, including the minesweeping process and patrol and escort duties for the area of the Black Sea in question.
A deal could take months to implement, and Moscow has little reason to expedite the resumption of grain exports because food inflation could fuel Western war fatigue. Representatives of the International Maritime Organization have said that even if Ukraine wanted to reopen its ports, it would take several months to completely remove sea mines in the necessary areas. Furthermore, Moscow likely believes that the continued limitation of Ukraine’s grain exports to road, rail and river transport (effectively capping the volume it can export) will contribute to war fatigue in Europe and across the globe by contributing to rising food prices amid already immense pre-existing inflationary pressures on fuel and other commodities. Moscow likely hopes that such fatigue would push the West to pressure Kyiv to accept Russian terms for a ceasefire later this year.
Commercial ships stopped operating in the northwest of the Black Sea near Ukraine, and freight and insurance costs spiked after several merchant ships were hit in the early days of Russia’s invasion, prompting some shipping companies to avoid the Black Sea altogether. Three mines were detected free-floating in March, two of which were located off the coast of Turkey and the other of which was found near Romania.
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https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/06/obsolete-nato-force-presence-baltics-needs-upgrade-estonian-defense-leader-says/368224/
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June 17, 2022
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On the Road Again
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
Tomorrow, my wife, Meredith, and I leave for Poland and Hungary. I have been invited to both countries so I am not crashing the party, and it will give me a chance to get a sense of the war in Ukraine without being shot at. Not getting shot is key to our retirement plan. Still, the war is very much about the eastern tier of European states, and there is much to learn.
To be sure, the war is as much about Eastern Europe as it is about Ukraine. Russia, as I have written, needed strategic depth. The eastern Ukrainian border is less than 300 miles (480 kilometers) from Moscow. That makes Eastern Europe insecure. If the Russians take Ukraine, Eastern Europeans ask, where will they stop? If Russia takes Ukraine, its border will be shared with the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. This new border would be long, and guarding it against further Russian penetration could replicate the Cold War strategy with a far longer border to protect. There would be more strategic depth for the West, but not enough to change the basic battle problem.
There is a reason this would matter to the United States. As I have written, the fundamental interest of the United States is controlling the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Washington’s participation in both world wars was predicated on it. If all of Europe were under the control of the kaiser, Hitler or the Soviets, they could utilize European expertise and resources to build a fleet that could challenge the United States. The ability of the U.S. to ignore the world rests on these oceans, and holding on to them means that the world can’t be ignored. Thus is the paradox of U.S. geopolitics. The best way to defeat an enemy navy is to prevent it from being built. Hence why blocking Soviet advances in Europe was a Cold War naval strategy.
Russian acquisition of Ukraine reopens that threat, albeit as a very distant one. But the farther east Russia is challenged, the lower the cost and the lower the risk for the United States and Europe. Thus, the Russian conquest of Ukraine would be followed by the question of where Russia might go next. Russia might claim that it had no further territorial ambitions, but even if that were true now, it may not be in the future.
Poland and Hungary must formulate complex calculations to manage Russian and American strategic imperatives. Neither wants to be occupied by Russia, but neither wants to become a pawn in another chapter of European grand strategy. Each has sought to deal with the problem in very different ways.
Poland sits on the North European Plain, the long flat stretch of land running from France to Moscow. It is the plain where great powers duel. As a result, Poland has been occupied by foreign powers for much of its history. Warsaw reclaimed its sovereignty after the Cold War, and it doesn’t want to lose it again. It already has a hostile Belarus on its border, and a Russian victory in Ukraine would mean a large portion of its border, already difficult to defend, would be face-to-face with Russian power. Poland’s only option is to either hope for the best or build up its own military as it banks on Washington remembering how much Russia threatens the Atlantic. Which also means that during the current conflict it must protect itself by supporting Ukraine and counting on Washington to do likewise. Preventing Russia from occupying Ukraine is the least costly and risky option, so Poland is deeply linked to the U.S. and the U.S. to Poland. Both are working to make sure Russia fails to conquer Ukraine.
Hungary is in a different position. If Russia advanced, it would have to cross the Carpathian Mountains that lie to the east of Hungary. Doing so would be difficult, and the strategic benefit would be questionable, especially because Russian forces would be in a poor defensive position in the flat, open expanses of western Ukraine. Moving westward increases the risk, while occupying the Hungarian basin intensifies the risk. Russia has invaded Hungary before, of course, but under the current circumstances, it creates more problems than it solves.
Budapest is therefore less concerned than Warsaw about the events in Ukraine. So long as Hungary doesn’t pose a threat to Russia, it is secure. Which is why Budapest didn’t outright oppose the Russian invasion, why it didn’t agree to get much involved, and why it didn’t do Washington’s bidding either. If Russia gets bogged down in Ukraine or loses the war, Hungary will be fine. If Moscow wins, that’s another story.
Geography has forced Poland into an aggressive posture and Hungary into a passive posture. Circumstances change over the long term, but countries like Poland and Hungary don’t have the luxury of the long term. As for the war, Russia has abandoned a broad, poorly manned offensive in favor of seizing Donbas, a region over which it had decisive influence before the invasion. It has not managed to fully take Donbas. Donbas is next to Russia, so movement and logistics are much easier. Given this, it cannot be said that the war has turned around, only that Russia is winning in an area it didn’t really need to fight for. This is a far cry from occupying Ukraine. There is a solution of course: leave Ukraine as a vast buffer between Russia and the West, and return to the status quo. It is hard to imagine Moscow being able to live with that. And this is Russia’s great problem. Wars fought in order to make political statements are dangerous wars.
So off to Europe I go. I will have to make sure I don’t give the wrong speech in the wrong country.
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/post/2307592/strangling-kaliningrad-very-serious
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Russia Isn't Winning in Ukraine, 'but It's No Longer Losing'
Is anyone actually winning the war in Ukraine? Are European leaders already positioning themselves for post-conflict relations with Russia? George Friedman, founder of Geopolitical Futures, joins the podcast to discuss China's and Germany's positioning throughout the conflict, U.S. standing in NATO and more.
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Below is a full transcript of the conversation, including time stamps. Full audio is posted above.
Mohamed Younis 00:07
For Gallup, I'm Mohamed Younis, and this is The Gallup Podcast. In this episode, we check in on the war in Ukraine. What's changed and what hasn't? Dr. George Friedman is the founder of Geopolitical Futures and Gallup senior adviser on geopolitics. George, welcome back to the show.
George Friedman 00:23
Good to be here.
Mohamed Younis 00:25
Let me just start by asking, where do things stand right now in the war in Ukraine? Is there a side that's in any way winning?
George Friedman 00:32
Well, the Russians are no longer losing. That doesn't mean they're anywhere close to winning. What we have is this: The Russians have cut way back on their emissions so far. They are dominating the eastern part, the Donbas. But we have to remember that they controlled the Donbas before the war. This is a heavily Russian district -- wanted to be part of Russia, had a lot of Russian special forces in there. So at this point, what they've managed to do is stabilize their losses. They're not losing anybody in the south because they've withdrawn. And they're fighting -- not yet succeeding -- in taking the Donbas. So at this point, while people are talking about the war having changed its dynamics and the Russians being more in power, no, what we are seeing here is the Russians having retreated to a safe point and fighting to hold that point. And we're waiting to see whether they can launch out of there to carry out operations at a distance.
Mohamed Younis 01:42
We heard recently complaints or comments from Ukraine's military leaders about weapons and how quickly they were arriving. Is that at all an issue in what we're watching in the Donbas, or do the Ukrainians kind of have what they need?
George Friedman 02:00
Well, the Ukrainians received a huge load of weapons from the Americans, primarily through Poland. That supply was exhausted. It takes time to refresh it. I'm assuming that that pile is being refreshed; the U.S. said it is being refreshed. At the same time, the Europeans are beginning to talk about cutting back the support for Ukraine, forcing a negotiation or something like that. The American position still seems to be to fully support the Ukrainians, which means the weapons will arrive shortly. And so they're caught between these two. But there's also the thing when you're on the battlefield, you're always short of weapons. You always feel that there should be more coming. The avalanche the U.S. delivered in the first instance is probably unsustainable from a logistics point of view. But we have to watch the question of the Europeans, and the Americans quietly agreeing with them: This can't go on, Ukraine is not gonna win. Let's get the deal. It's there.
Mohamed Younis 03:11
That's a great segue to my follow-up question. There was a lot of celebration of Western unity at the beginning of this conflict -- NATO uniting and Putin bringing everybody together. The past couple weeks have actually been really good examples of where each of the key European powers kind of stands and how far they're willing to go, at varying degrees. We saw -- before getting to Europe, we saw, of course, Henry Kissinger make a couple comments about, you know, how a settlement could be achieved, with Ukraine giving up some territory. We've seen Macron take a much more, you know, direct interest in maintaining relations and communication with Putin. The Italians, the Germans, the U.K. -- everybody seems to be positioning themselves differently. So what I want to ask you, George, is lay out kind of the main powers in degrees of ascending or descending support for Ukraine. Like, who's the most for just, like, supporting them, and who's the most tepid or timid in supporting them? Let's start there.
George Friedman 04:20
We have to define "supporting," because the United States doesn't need their support to wage this war. The United States is overwhelmingly the supplier of weapons. The Poles are the foundation of the training system and so on. And so the reality of war is that, so long as the Americans want to fight it, the Poles like to do it, which they will, both, it sort of doesn't matter what they're saying. From a political point of view, it's nice to have the unity. But as in the Vietnam War, for example, there was a point where the public didn't want to support it. It was a losing war anyway. So ranking who's most in favor, I suppose, would require that we talk about not their rhetoric but their weapons. And the British are providing weapons. They're our buddies -- always there -- and the rest are minimally significant.
George Friedman 05:23
So the question is, to what extent does the United States care what the Ukrainians are saying? What the -- I should say, to what extent do the Americans care what the Europeans are saying and to what extent are they prepared to wage the war without them? I can pretty much assure you that the European position is not the top consideration for the Americans. The top consideration is this: If Ukraine fell to the Russians, where would they go next? You know, they may say, like Hitler did, I have no further territorial ambitions. But the Russians want to return to the position they had prior to 1991. They want to go dominate Eastern Europe and go deeper. Can they? Well, the American position is it's the last thing we want. We don't want the Cold War again. And if we have to have a Cold War, I'd rather have it in Ukraine than in Germany.
George Friedman 06:29
So what's not being discussed by most people is, why do we assume that Ukraine is the sum total of what the Russians want? And the American position seems to be, we're not sure what they're going to do. Not being sure, we're going to hold the line in Ukraine. It's cheaper.
Mohamed Younis 06:49
In terms of -- and I love how you responded and said, you know, "What does it mean by, what do you mean by 'support'"? In terms of hold that line, what, what does that mean -- forget about sort of like politically for America. But just as George geopolitical analyst, is it realistic to support Ukraine to the point of like getting back all of its territory? Is it folding to the Russians to say, "You guys can have the Donbas but no much, no further"? Like how do you, where do you draw that line?
George Friedman 07:20
Well, the fundamental question is not Ukraine, if you pose it that way. But if you pose it as I just did -- further ambitious of the Russians -- the question you ask is, where is it going to be more costly, to defend west of the line of the Ukrainian border or to defend the Ukraine? From the American point of view, the Ukrainian war has been very cheap. It has cost weapons. The Poles took what little risk there is from our shoulders; the Ukrainians are having casualties. So the question is just how long are we prepared to fight to the last Ukrainian? And the answer is that the Ukrainians will fight so long as the weapons come in. Weapons, weapons are cheap.
George Friedman 08:06
So everybody is kind of looking at the question of what comes after a Russian victory? And they get nervous. The Russians are looking, what comes after a Ukrainian-American victory? And they get nervous. Neither feel they can afford to lose the war. The Russians don't want the Americans 236 miles away from Moscow. We don't want them pushing into Poland; that's another war for us. So right now, both sides calculate that holding the line makes the most sense.
George Friedman 08:45
Now, we need a buffer zone between the United States and Ukraine -- and the Russians, I should say. Where do we draw that line? And where will the Ukrainians allow us to draw that line? So there are many political questions that we have to address. There are many military questions we have to address. And very frankly, the Europeans only enter into it to the extent that they reduce the sanctions against Russia and have allowed them to have trade and rebuild their economy. And that matters.
Mohamed Younis 09:24
On that front, let me end by asking you, George, about Germany. If anybody is going to lead the way, economically, at least, in Europe, it's gonna be them. Assess the chancellor's position right now in Germany on this war.
George Friedman 09:41
Well, remember the largest importer of -- of German goods is the United States. Now, that doesn't mean that there's, on the whole, there aren't others, but the United States is an urgent trading partner because we buy Mercedes, we buy Volkswagens, and these are the structures. So how far do they want to go in alienating the United States? Do they really want to create a situation where the United States throws in the towel on NATO and says, there is no alliance that counts? They have a lot of decisions to make.
George Friedman 10:21
What the Germans want is this thing to disappear, go away and not bother them anymore. Ain't gonna happen. So each of the countries that might want to challenge the United States on the continuation of the war has to consider what the United States might do as a result. One, increase the level of the war. Two, ban their exports to the United States. Three, you know, possibly dismantle the Atlantic relationship. They're all concerned about that. So it's not a simple question of, let's end the war; it's a more complex question. And always remember in this war, there are many people officially at war. This is an American war. And if the, NATO cannot at least give lip service and sanctions on this war, there's a lot of Americans who really have a serious question of what the point of NATO is.
Mohamed Younis 11:23
Yeah. And it's fascinating that so much of this was discussed in the previous president's term under a very different fact pattern. But those tensions were there, are still there.
George Friedman 11:35
Trump, whether you like him or not, understood a fundamental fault line in the West, which is that we have trans-Atlantic relationships. And it's not the Americans that have let down the Europeans but, to the contrary, the Europeans, by not building militaries that are sufficient. Now, the politics of it all going back and forth is uninteresting. But the point was that the United States has consistently wanted to pretend that they had partners. And the United States truly doesn't know what the partnership consists of. What can we count on? And the Europeans really don't want NATO to go away.
Mohamed Younis 12:16
Yeah. It's fascinating how just kind of, you know, this limbo that we're seeing happening between don't get too involved, want the war to end but don't pull down NATO. It's really fascinating to see so many important economies have so little to say or do on such a major conflict.
George Friedman 12:36
Compared to the American economy, they're not that impressive. We underestimate how just massive our economy was. We overestimate how powerful the Chinese economy is or the Russian. But the Europeans understand exactly how important the American economy is to them and, you know, this is what's holding up any change. Now, if we could negotiate an agreement where the Russians agreed to return to their borders, let the French do it. It's no problem. If they said, OK, we'll end the war but not Donbas. The other question would be, yeah, Donbas is really yours, and we don't care. But when will you start the war again?
Mohamed Younis 13:27
Exactly.
George Friedman 13:28
And this is the real issue. Wars end in truces when both sides are exhausted; neither is. Or when you're looking at a situation where there's a kind of clear demarcation line; there isn't. So it's very hard to end this war and very hard to win this war. And these considerations really are more important than what the French are doing. Not to denigrate the French, but you're not going to be able to bring a peace settlement, and you're not going to be able to change the American position. Now if it turns out that the U.S. is deliberately cutting weapons deliveries to Ukrainians to try to force some sort of settlement, that becomes very, very different. That would also be politically significant in the United States to find out that secretly they dialed back. So I think this war continues.
Mohamed Younis 14:36
Let me -- and of course, I always lie with the last question. My real last question is -- and it's really a question that could be a whole episode -- China. So far, when we started, when this war started, we were talking about how much China will support or not support or try to remain neutral on this. As this is dragged on, has China backed off supporting Russia, or have they become more involved in supporting Russia?
George Friedman 15:02
They really only have rhetorically supported Russia. They never really did. But they certainly backed off. We know there are negotiations going on between the United States and China over the question of trade barriers and so on. That's been going on. We also hear reports of unrest in China. I just spoke to a Chinese source today, and he said, "Look, Shanghai was not about COVID; it was about punishing Shanghai and demonstrating Xi's power." OK, it's one report, but that people will be saying things like this is important.
George Friedman 15:42
Another person basically made it clear that we have a prob -- well, apparently, the Politburo met (that's the leadership). And the Politburo meeting agreed that most money would be spent on poor farmers, not on tech. Two members of the Politburo went out, wrote an article criticizing the decision. And now, I have not seen the Politburo split in public for a long time. The incredible economic stress on China, it's weakening; it's causing serious political problems that are going to be settled soon.
Mohamed Younis 16:30
On that note, George Friedman, founder of Geopolitical Futures. George, thanks for being with us.
George Friedman 16:35
Thank you.
Mohamed Younis 16:43
That's our show. Thank you for tuning in. To subscribe and stay up to date with our latest conversations, just search for "The Gallup Podcast" wherever you podcast. And for more key findings from Gallup News, go to news.gallup.com or follow us on Twitter @gallupnews. If you have suggestions for the show, email podcast@gallup.com. The Gallup Podcast is directed by Curtis Grubb and produced by Justin McCarthy. I'm Mohamed Younis, and this is Gallup: reporting on the will of the people since the 1930s.
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U.S. quickly builds up troops in Europe
No sign of mission length, goal
BY BEN WOLFGANG THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The number of American troops in Europe has risen sharply in the four months since Russia invaded Ukraine, from about 65,000 in mid-February to 100,000 today.
That increase, one of the most rapid U.S. military buildups on the continent in the post-Cold War era, has no clear end date or any obvious metrics to determine when troops could come home or be repositioned to other theaters such as the Indo-Pacific.
Instead, their mission is to deter further Russian aggression and prevent any attack on NATO territory. That goal will prove difficult to measure and could justify a years-long mission as Russia and Ukraine settle into a slow, bloody war of attrition in the Donbas.
The long-term consequences for the U.S. and its foreign policy priorities could be significant, some analysts say, because Washington likely can’t afford to maintain such troop levels in Europe over the long haul without sacrifi cing resources in the Pacific.
They say the conflict in Ukraine, and Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s not-so-subtle threats toward Europe, should spark a renewed push inside NATO and the European Union to ramp up member nations’ defense spending and troop deployments on their borders.
“We did what we had to do in the short term, following the February invasion, to deter an attack against NATO members,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. “Unfortunately, we have no idea how long this lasts. I think we can make a reasonable guess that what’s going on in Ukraine could go on for a very long time.
“I don’t want to send more forces than we need to Europe because they’re needed in the Indo-Pacific,” Mr. Bowman said. “We really need Europe to step up as much as possible to take the security burden off of our forces that are there as much as possible so we can allocate more of our finite resources elsewhere.”
Mr. Bowman said, however, that if the choice is between a ramped-up U.S. presence or inadequate protection for NATO’s eastern flank, “I choose to send U.S. forces.”
Those questions will be at the center of public and private conversations this week when NATO members meet for a high-stakes summit in Madrid.
The debate over a long-term American military presence in Europe has been politically divisive. It formed a cornerstone of President Trump’s foreign policy as he relentlessly pushed European nations to spend more on their own security and remove some of the burden from the U.S.
His push was somewhat successful. Numerous NATO members increased annual defense spending past 2% of gross domestic product, which has become the widely accepted target figure.
Mr. Trump’s effort to pull thousands of U.S. forces from Germany was abandoned after President Biden came to power in January 2021.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked more defense spending increases, but even European leaders acknowledge that they have been too slow to bolster their militaries.
The figures are stunning, especially compared with the eye-popping defense spending increases in Moscow and Beijing.
From 1999 to 2021, EU combined defense spending increased by 20%, the European Commission said in a May 18 analysis. During that same time, defense spending increased by 66% in the U.S., 292% in Russia and a whopping 592% in China.
“Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has changed the security landscape in Europe. Many are increasing their defense spending, but it is crucial that member states invest better together to prevent further fragmentation and address existing shortfalls,” top EU diplomat Josep Borrell said in a statement accompanying that May 18 document. “If we want modern and interoperable European armed forces, we need to act now.”
In 2020, total EU defense spending amounted to 1.3% of the alliance’s GDP, according to European Commission figures. Key European nations, including Germany and Poland, have ramped up their defense budgets in the months since the war in Ukraine began. They have pledged to increase the budgets further.
In the short term, there is no clear substitute for U.S. manpower, weapons and equipment in Europe, particularly in Poland and the Baltic states closest to the raging war in Ukraine.
The Pentagon has largely sidestepped questions about how long it will maintain the level of U.S. troops in Europe. It emphasizes that the military is present in the region to deter Russian aggression and demonstrate NATO solidarity.
Military analysts say such deterrence is crucial for the security of Europe and for America’s long-term foreign policy challenges beyond the continent.
“To the extent China is seen as a major challenge, it is all the more reason that European security must be stabilized as an anchor of the future global order,” Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a June 21 analysis of U.S. and NATO defense postures in Europe.
“The United States and allies do not have the military, economic, or diplomatic bandwidth to address escalating crises and conflict in both Europe and Asia at the same time,” Mr. O’Hanlon wrote. “New crises and conflicts in Europe must be prevented before they begin, to the maximum extent possible.”
The twin dynamics in Europe and the Pacific will require close collaboration between the U.S. and its NATO allies to achieve maximum impact, specialists say.
Major European military players such as Britain and France are increasing their presence in the Pacific, specialists say, but others should focus almost entirely on Europe to take pressure off U.S. forces.
“I really don’t need German vessels sailing through the Taiwan Strait,” Mr. Bowman said. “What do we need to defend Europe? We need air defense. We need long-range fires. We need [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance]. Armored forces deter aggression along our flank. I’d like the Europeans to provide that as much as possible. It’s their backyard. If they don’t, we should. But we should be banging on them behind closed doors as much as possible to do it.”
Of the 100,000 U.S. troops in Europe, more than a third are on rotational deployment. That means the service members are expected to remain on the continent for less than a year.
“Prior to the unprovoked Russian invasion in Ukraine, there were approximately 65,000 permanently assigned U.S. service members in European Command,” U.S. European Command told The Washington Times in a statement. “There are currently 100,000 U.S. service members in the region. That includes approximately 35,000 scheduled rotational forces and additional forces ordered to the region by Secretary of Defense [Lloyd] Austin.”
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June 22, 2022
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The Paradox of a Strong Ruble
Russia’s task for the rest of the year is to weaken its currency.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
After a precipitous fall at the beginning of the war in Ukraine and the imposition of large-scale Western sanctions, the Russian ruble has surged back over the past two and a half months. From 120 rubles per dollar on March 11, the currency is now valued at around 55 rubles per dollar, and banks can buy dollars for as little as 44 rubles. But a strong ruble does not necessarily mean a strong economy. On the contrary, the ruble’s strength, combined with government and bank policies to limit the impact of sanctions, may complicate life for ordinary Russians more than sanctions.
Impact on Average Russians
Western sanctions against Russia since Feb. 24 have shredded supply chains, and many foreign firms opted to leave the Russian market, whether due to moral outrage or because of the difficulty of executing financial transactions. The list of sanctioned individuals has expanded, and many Russian banks – mostly state-owned – have been disconnected from the SWIFT international payments system. But the measures so far have had minimal effect on Russian consumers, who can find Russian or other foreign substitutes for most products and can still use SWIFT to transfer money via some private banks. More important, Russia’s oil production continues to grow, rising by 5 percent in May compared with April.
However, the most important consequence for both business and individuals was in the financial sector, which has grappled with currency restrictions, sharp fluctuations in the ruble’s value and unpredictable bank policies regarding foreign currency. It isn’t easy to find alternative means to make online purchases from foreign websites, execute money transfers, manage foreign currency accounts or exchange currencies at prices and conditions comparable to those before the war. (I personally had to give up subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon, and some newspapers and magazines, simply because I no longer have the technical ability to pay for them. Of course, Russians immediately found loopholes, but the process is typically inconvenient and expensive.)
Another problem Russians are facing is that, despite the strengthening of the ruble, domestic and imported goods and services are not getting cheaper. In theory, a stronger ruble should reduce the cost of imported goods, but instead prices from March and April – when the ruble was at its weakest – have proved sticky. For example, before the war an iPad Air cost approximately $1,100; the price soared during the initial sanctions panic, and at the current exchange rate it costs $2,500.
Russian Opinion on Businesses Leaving
(click to enlarge)
Ruble Rollercoaster
Currencies are always very sensitive to geopolitical disruption. Russia introduced a floating exchange rate, meaning the Russian central bank does not directly assign the value of the national currency. The central bank can change the exchange rate only by indirect methods – for example, foreign exchange interventions – while market conditions primarily set the value. At the start of the war, the ruble predictably depreciated sharply. In addition to high uncertainty, many Russians rushed to the banks to buy currency or change existing savings, which further increased the exchange rate. The panic was one of the main reasons for the increased price of goods.
Fluctuating Ruble Exchange Rates
(click to enlarge)
Today, the ruble is the strongest it’s been against the dollar since 2015. This is due to two main factors: high global oil and gas prices, and capital controls. The war, proposed and enacted embargoes on Russian energy, and the throttling of Russian gas supplies to Europe (the Kremlin blames sanctions, the West blames the Kremlin) have pushed up oil and gas prices. Natural gas prices in Europe exceed $1,450 per thousand cubic meters, and Brent crude is trading at nearly $120, the highest since April 2011. Prices are likely to remain high for quite some time.
Amid this backdrop, a huge influx of foreign exchange earnings from exports of high-price commodities strengthened the ruble and gave the Russian economy a boost. Russia’s revenues from oil and gas exports are at record highs. Income from oil exports reached 4.75 trillion rubles (approximately $90 billion) in four months, half the sum Moscow expected to make all year. Previously, this foreign exchange inflow was compensated by purchases of foreign currency by the Ministry of Finance and capital outflow, but because of sanctions there’s been a drop in demand for foreign currency for imports and investment.
Moreover, Russia is requiring foreign firms from sanctioning countries to open accounts with Gazprombank to pay for gas and converting the dollars or euros into rubles, equivalent to a 100 percent sale of foreign exchange earnings. According to central bank forecasts, Russia will run a current account surplus of $145 billion this year, 19 percent higher than in 2021.
Domestically, Russia tightened its foreign exchange controls and introduced temporary changes to foreign currency transactions. To maintain the ruble exchange rate and reduce inflation, the Ministry of Finance obliged Russian exporters to sell 80 percent of their foreign exchange earnings. (Now that things are more stable, the ministry has lowered that figure to 50 percent.) Temporary restrictions on buying foreign currency were imposed on Russian citizens too. Dividing countries into “friendly” and “unfriendly” governments – as Moscow has done – has dramatically complicated money transfers even from banks not under sanctions. For residents of Russia and non-residents from friendly countries, the central bank introduced restrictions in April – cross-border transfers could not exceed $10,000 per month, a figure that grew to $150,000 in June – but the policies of individual banks muddied the waters by implementing commissions for servicing foreign currency accounts, transfers and receiving transfers, simply because the demand for dollars and euros has fallen.
Paradox
In theory, a strong ruble benefits importers and consumers alike because it makes imported goods cheaper and more accessible. It would be good for Moscow too, since import substitution is a long process that needs to be as cheap as possible. A strong ruble, moreover, helps the Bank of Russia to fight inflation, which stands at more than 15 percent. And it should help lower the prices of imported goods that some sectors of Russia still depend on – which would reduce inflationary expectations, make money cheaper and support economic growth.
But the paradox of the ruble is that as it strengthens, imports do not become cheaper and inflation doesn’t fall by much. Annual inflation dropped only to 16.7 percent in June compared with 17.1 percent at the end of May and 17.8 percent at the end of April. Under the current batch of sanctions and the uncertainty of supply chains, prices aren’t dropping even with a strong ruble. Home builders are in no hurry to sell products at a low price, guided here more by the usual principles of trade than by sanctions pressure. Real household income, meanwhile, is expected to fall by nearly 7 percent, further reducing the purchasing power of ordinary citizens.
A strong ruble, then, is bad in the short term and the long term. Russia is a vast and unevenly developed country, the maintenance of which historically requires financing and redistribution of funds. But it has to have funds to redistribute them. Total budget revenues for 2022 are expected to reach just over 25 trillion rubles, including oil and gas revenues of nearly 4 trillion rubles, even as it keeps some $155 billion in the National Welfare Fund. Taxes ensure a steady flow to these coffers, a large share of which are taxes from oil and gas companies and proceeds from the sale of energy resources abroad. Moscow’s primary job under the sanctions, then, is not only to maximize import substitution and preserve the economic situation of the population but also to make sure there’s money in the treasury through the sale of goods abroad. With a strong ruble, this becomes more difficult. That’s because exporters’ profits fall when the ruble’s value relative to other currencies increases, meaning the value of Russian exports will also decline.
Put simply, the ruble is too strong, a sentiment shared recently at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Under tough sanctions but requiring large expenditures, a rate of 70-75 to the dollar is likely the sweet spot. Moscow’s job for the next half-year is to weaken the ruble, and the government is already discussing instruments that will allow the currency to return to the range of 65-80 to the dollar, like it was before the war. But Moscow understands that in the face of severe restrictions on the movement of capital, the ruble may continue to strengthen. The central bank and the government began to soften their plans earlier than expected, but so far it has had no effect on the ruble. In the face of sanctions pressure, it will be difficult to achieve demand for the currency at the same level as before the crisis. It’s an unusual case when a strong ruble, like a very weak ruble, becomes a challenge for the Russian economy.
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third
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18610/eu-superpower-delusion
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https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/06/nato-approve-biggest-overhaul-defense-cold-war-leader-says/368629/
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:roll:
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/06/nato-approve-biggest-overhaul-defense-cold-war-leader-says/368629/
:roll:
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Yes, yes, we shall see, but worth noting.
In a related vein, this from WT:
SPAIN
Many NATO members fear Russia’s rise in Africa
Spain, others push issue at summit in Madrid
BY JOSEPH WILSON ASSOCIATED PRESS BARCELONA, SPAIN | While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is certain to dominate this week’s NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, and other member nations are quietly pushing the Western alliance to consider how mercenaries aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin are spreading Moscow’s influence to Africa.
As the host of the summit taking place from Tuesday to Thursday, Spain wants to emphasize its proximity to Africa as it lobbies for a greater focus on Europe’s southern flank in a new document outlining NATO’s vision of its security challenges and tasks.
The Strategic Concept is NATO’s most important working document after the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, which contained the key provision holding that an attack on one member is viewed as an attack upon all. The security assessment is updated roughly every decade to reset the West’s security agenda.
The current version, approved in Lisbon in 2010, stated the risk of a conventional war on NATO territory was “low.” It did not explicitly mention concerns about instability in Africa. At the time, the alliance viewed apathy as its biggest military threat; U.S. complaints that some European members were not paying their due featured heavily in summit talks.
Fast-forward a dozen years, and the view looks very different from NATO headquarters in Brussels. After Russia brought war close to NATO’s eastern borders, the alliance has worked to provide Ukraine with an assortment of more powerful weapons and to avoid the very real risk of getting drawn into the fighting.
But there appears to be a consensus among NATO members heading into the Madrid summit that while Russia remains concern No. 1, the alliance must continue to widen its view globally. Spain’s position for an increased focus on “the South” is shared by Britain, France and Italy.
In their view, the security challenges in Africa arise from a Mr. Putin apparently dead-set on restoring the imperial glories of Russia as well as from an expansive China. Russia has gained traction thanks to the presence of its mercenaries in the Sahel region, a semiarid expanse stretching from Senegal to Sudan that suffers from political strife, terrorism and drought.
“Each time I meet with NATO ministers, the support of the allies is total due to the instability that we see on the alliance’s southern frontier and especially the situation in the Sahel region right now,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Albares said.
The Kremlin denies links to the Wagner Group, a mercenary force with an increasing presence in central and North Africa and the Middle East. The private military company, which has also participated in the war in Ukraine, has developed footholds in Libya, Mali, Sudan and Central African Republic.
In Mali, Wagner soldiers are filling a void created by the exit of former colonial power France. In Sudan, Russia’s offer of an economic alliance earned it the promise of a naval base on the Red Sea. In Central African Republic, Wagner fighters protect the country’s gold and diamond mines. In return, Mr. Putin gets diplomatic allies and resources.
French President Emmanuel Macron has long called for a “greater involvement” from NATO in the Sahel region, where Paris was once the dominant colonial power. Now that Wagner has moved into Mali, French authorities underlined that Wagner mercenaries were accused of human right abuses in the Central African Republic, Libya and Syria.
Former NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said that Russia’s brutal military campaign in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad during his country’s long civil war left it emboldened.
“Syria gave [the Russians] the sentiment that they could be more active in that part of the world,” Mr. Solana said in an interview.
With the Sahel, Morocco and Algeria at risk of worsening instability, “the southern part of NATO, for Portugal, Spain, Greece, etc., they would like to have an eye open to that part of the world,” he said.
Italy is another NATO member attuned to the political climate across the Mediterranean Sea. The country hosts NATO’s Joint Force Command base in Naples, which in 2017 opened a south hub focusing on terrorism, radicalization, migration and other issues emanating from North Africa and the Middle East.
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June 28, 2022
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Warsaw to Budapest
By: George Friedman
The trip from Warsaw to Budapest is a trip between two realities. Warsaw is not quite on a war footing but exudes a desire to be there. For the Polish, Ukraine is their war too, eager as they are to support the Ukrainians and engage the Russians, hoping the U.S., which has troops based in Poland, will join them. They have a visceral hatred of the Russians that precedes communism, and they share a sense of identity with the Ukrainians, who were welcomed into Polish homes when they fled their country at the outset of the war. Partly that’s because Poland is deeply embedded in European history. Linguistically, it is linked to Europe. The Polish say they will sacrifice for Ukraine, and though they seem to mean it, I can’t help but notice that Russian artillery fire hasn’t hit Warsaw yet. Even so, certainly the war is near to Warsaw’s heart.
Poland and Hungary
(click to enlarge)
It’s about an hour’s flight to Budapest, where the mood is very different. The government isn’t convinced that the war will come to Hungary, a sense that reflects the alienation rooted in Hungarian identity. Unlike Poland, Hungary has no ethnic bond with Ukraine, or with any other European country for that matter. Hungarians are not related to any other European nation or ethnic group. All European languages – except for Hungarian – descend from Indo-European, a language of a people lost in the mists of time. The Hungarians arrived from Central Asia. They settled where they are in 800 A.D. Hungarians may have personal affinities to other European countries, but ethnically and linguistically they are disconnected. It’s true that Hungary once controlled the area of Ukraine just to its east, but they occupied it as Hungarians, not as equals, and in any case, Budapest lost this territory in the Treaty of Trianon after World War 1. The country remains genuinely angry about it, and some are passionate about regaining that region.
If you have been wondering where I am wandering, I am trying to understand the geopolitics of Poland and Hungary. Poland was built out of the framework of Europe. Hungary was never part of Europe. Poland has a deep historical connection with Ukraine. Hungary does not. Poland has been involved in Ukraine as its borders changed over the years. Hungary remains a small country centered on the Great Hungarian Plain (a good name), an area east of Austria, south of Poland, and north of Romania. This has been its core for 12 centuries.
Poland lies on the North European Plain, a vast, flat area running from France to Moscow. The traffic on this plain was heavy and varied, and it has defined the history of northern Europe. Save for the Danube, Hungary was outside that flow. Poland was part of Europe. Hungary is just located there.
North European Plain
(click to enlarge)
The different conversations to be had in Warsaw and Budapest require explanation, but that is hard to come by. Two cities, nearly neighbors at just 500 miles (800 kilometers) apart, are strangers to each other. The languages are not easily transferrable. One is part of Ukraine’s war, and the other is distant, even indifferent. Poland is like much of Europe; Hungary is its own entity. It stands to reason, then, that Poland is comfortable with contemporary Europe and America’s role in it. Hungary is uneasy with it, much to the agitation of its neighbors. Budapest stands between Warsaw and Bucharest yet they seem to have more in common than either has with Budapest.
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RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Russian forces announced they had abandoned the strategic Black Sea outpost of Snake Island, in a major victory for Ukraine that could loosen the grip of Russia's grain export blockade.
Russia's defense ministry described the decision to withdraw from the outcrop as a "gesture of goodwill" that showed Moscow was not obstructing United Nations efforts to open a humanitarian corridor allowing grains to be shipped from Ukraine's ports.
Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to seize most of Ukraine, but his forces are so degraded by combat that they likely can only achieve incremental gains in the near term, the top U.S. intelligence officer said.
Putin said that Russia would respond in kind if NATO deployed troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after they join the U.S.-led military alliance.
Trade through Lithuania to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad could return to normal within days, sources said, as European officials edge towards a compromise deal with the Baltic state to defuse a row with Moscow.
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https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/04/19/which-country-has-given-the-most-money-to-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR2qBuDU1Wp25UQI9H_7VsawSZZ7zfc0eidibzrWvLf6ka2gYqX4EUWiSFc
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"Putin said that Russia would respond in kind if NATO deployed troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after they join the U.S.-led military alliance."
Isn't NATO expansion proof of Putin's strategic error invading Ukraine. The rationale with Ukraine was that NATO was getting too close to Russia and now Finland will be in NATO?
Founding NATO member Norway also shares a border with Russia. Russian Kaliningrad is landlocked by NATO via Lithuania and Poland.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/22/russia-and-nato-member-lithuania-are-clashing-over-kaliningrad.html
https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/us-military-base-poland-troops-europe-nato
http://www.vidiani.com/maps/maps_of_europe/maps_of_sweden/detailed_political_map_of_scandinavia_with_roads_and_major_cities.jpg
Getting the world to unite against you is hardly succss.
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Exactly so.
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The world? Hardly. The crumbling west.
"Putin said that Russia would respond in kind if NATO deployed troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after they join the U.S.-led military alliance."
Isn't NATO expansion proof of Putin's strategic error invading Ukraine. The rationale with Ukraine was that NATO was getting too close to Russia and now Finland will be in NATO?
Founding NATO member Norway also shares a border with Russia. Russian Kaliningrad is landlocked by NATO via Lithuania and Poland.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/22/russia-and-nato-member-lithuania-are-clashing-over-kaliningrad.html
https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/us-military-base-poland-troops-europe-nato
http://www.vidiani.com/maps/maps_of_europe/maps_of_sweden/detailed_political_map_of_scandinavia_with_roads_and_major_cities.jpg
Getting the world to unite against you is hardly succss.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/eu-quickly-backing-hardline-kaliningrad-standoff-russia-stations-new-missiles-baltic?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=751
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-18/why-ukraine-crisis-west-s-fault
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Sorry, I don't buy that.
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I should have clarified that I am putting it up there as a representation of a particular school of thought in 2014.
By all means, what are your disagreements?
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An Eagle Trapped by a Bear: Germany’s Energy Nightmare
It seems strange to recall it now, but there was a time around the late 1990s when Germany (partly because of the immense burden of reunification) was seen as the sick man of Europe. As in the past, it reinvented itself. The combination of labor-market reforms, wage restraint (the two correlate less than conventional wisdom has it) and, above all, the concealed devaluation represented by the switch into the euro (which boosted German competitiveness within the euro zone and outside it) were all essential steps in creating the successful export-led growth that has come to define the German economy.
But there are increasing signs of trouble.
Walter Russell Mead, in the Wall Street Journal (June 27):
In recent years, the German economic miracle depended on a combination of industrial prowess, cheap energy from Russia, and access to global markets, particularly in China. Today every one of those pillars is under threat. German mastery of automobile technology through a century of engineering is challenged by the shift to electric vehicles. The chemicals industry, in which German technology has led the world since the 19th century, is coming under environmental challenges as global competition intensifies.
Those challenges are exacerbated by the loss of cheap and secure Russian natural gas. Green energy, despite massive German investment, will be unable to supply German industry with reliable and cheap power for a long time. In the meantime, the alternatives to Russian pipeline gas are expensive and controversial. Nuclear power gives Greens the willies; coal is unbearable; liquefied natural gas requires long-term commitments and massive capital expenditures.
Beyond that, Germany’s economic relationship with China is changing for the worse. China was long the ideal customer for German products. Its newly affluent middle class fell in love with German luxury cars. Its rapidly growing manufacturing sector voraciously consumed German machine tools and other capital goods. But China’s growth is decelerating. Its maturing industrial economy seeks to compete with high-end German producers, often based on tools reverse-engineered from German imports.
Germany has done well out of that relationship with China — so well that it is now unhealthily dependent upon it.
Reuters (June 30):
Inflation would spiral even further in Germany if it weren’t for business with China, Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess said in a media interview published on Thursday.
“Germany would look completely different” if it turned away from China, Diess told the Spiegel weekly, adding that such a move would harm growth, wealth and employment.
For Merkel’s Germany to have built up a dangerous reliance on not one, but two, authoritarian (and not necessarily friendly) states looks, as The Importance of Earnest’s Lady Bracknell might have said, a lot like carelessness. Worse, there are clear signs that Germany has used its export-driven prosperity as an excuse to coast in other areas of its economy, notably in digitalization, but elsewhere too. A few years back I wrote an article comparing, in some respects, Merkel’s Germany with the era of stagnation in Brezhnev’s USSR. Nothing I have learned since has changed my mind.
Stock markets are not everything (and Germany is famous for the performance of its privately held businesses). Nevertheless, it says something that, as Ralph Schoellhammer reports for Unherd:
Measured by market capitalisation, only one German company makes it into the top 100 worldwide, and German market capitalisation as a share of global market capitalisation has shrunk to 1.97%, an all-time low.
Complacency has been compounded by the Energiewende, a wasteful and reckless binge on renewables made nuttier still by the rejection of nuclear power for reasons that amounted to little more than superstitious dread.
And indeed, the immediate crisis that Germany is now facing is on the energy side, something, if anything, that Mead understates, but then he was writing a couple of weeks ago, and matters have deteriorated sharply, if predictably, since then.
Wolfgang Münchau, in the Spectator (July 2):
Gazprom, the monopoly supplier of piped Russian gas, has been giving Germany a taste of what life might be like, should Moscow play nasty. It recently halved the amount of gas sent through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, using bogus technical excuses. Germany, which still relies on Russia for more than a third of its gas, is now realising it may have to cope with a total gas embargo – and a cold winter. Last week its gas risk level was raised to stage two, a state of ‘alarm’.
Putin may keep the gas flowing at a reduced volume. But what if he cuts Germany off altogether? To say that Germany has made itself reliant on Russian gas doesn’t quite capture the enormity of what is going on. Germans need Russian gas to heat their homes. The country’s heavy industry depends on Russian hydrocarbons. According to Robert Habeck, the German economy minister, any sudden stop in Russian gas flows would trigger a domino effect: an economic crisis which he compares to the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Habeck is also [German chancellor] Olaf Scholz’s deputy chancellor and the Green party’s most senior representative in the German government. He has been quite emphatic about how vulnerable his country is to Putin turning off the taps. ‘Companies would have to stop production, lay off their workers, supply chains would collapse, people would go into debt to pay their heating bills and people would become poorer,’ . . .
Germany aims to have its gas reserve containers 90 per cent full by the winter – up from 60 per cent now.
Habeck has warned that if Russia continues supplying gas at the current rate, (unspecified) “additional measures” will have to be taken to reach the 90 percent target. He has described Russia’s move as “economic warfare” and stressed that there is nothing irrational about it: “After a 60% reduction, the next one logically follows.”
Münchau:
Germany’s gas regulator recently published seven scenarios for winter and spring. Six involve critical shortages. Only one envisages capacity at a moderately safe 25 per cent in the winter (and 40 per cent in the summer). But that is the scenario in which the Russians honour all the gas storage requirements under German law. In other words, there is zero room for any deviations. So if Putin keeps the gas flowing at a diminished rate, Germany could experience massive shortages this winter. This may well be Putin’s sweet-spot option. He could inflict damage, and still get most of the money as Russian gas sells at massively inflated prices.
Putin has previously resisted using gas and oil as diplomatic weapons even during earlier wars. When he annexed Crimea, the gas kept flowing through Ukraine. What is different this time is that the EU, US and UK have all placed sanctions on Russian fossil fuels. Habeck has set himself the target of reducing Germany’s Russian gas consumption to zero within two years – though he stands little chance of achieving that given the absence of alternative suppliers.
Under the circumstances, it is easy to imagine that Putin will either switch off the flow, or (there are technical reasons why switching it off entirely can cause difficulties) reduce it even more. Russia is, as Münchau points out, “awash with cash.” Thanks to higher energy prices, its current-account surplus could, he argues, double to some $250–300 billion this year. If the war in Ukraine is still dragging on into the winter months — as seems reasonably likely — it would make sense for Putin to use a brutal energy squeeze to spur the EU to force Ukraine to cut some grubby deal with Moscow. The EU’s determination to wean itself off Russian gas as soon as it can (which, incidentally, is not tomorrow) means that Moscow is running no risk of alienating a client that would otherwise be good for decades. Moreover, bullying the EU to bully Ukraine into some sort of “peace” would generate a political and, given the direct and indirect cost of the war to Moscow, economic return.
There is no getting away from how damaging the consequences of such a squeeze on Germany could be, ranging from restrictions on heating and hot water in homes to shutdowns in industry after industry, neither a recipe for social calm nor continued support for Ukraine.
As Germany tries to free up gas for transfer to its reserves by reducing consumption, it is getting an early taste of what may lie ahead.
The Financial Times (July 8):
Germany is rationing hot water, dimming its street lights and shutting down swimming pools as the impact of its energy crunch begins to spread from industry to offices, leisure centres and homes. . . .
The GdW [the Federation of German Housing Enterprises] said the Ukraine war will push up energy prices for consumers by between 71 per cent and 200 per cent, amounting to additional annual costs of between €1,000 and €2,700 for a one-person household and up to €3,800 for four people, compared with 2021 levels.
As it is, Schoellhammer notes:
Electricity prices have been surging to an all-time high, with current 1-year forward electricity contracts clocking in at EUR 340 per MWh. Just to put this number into perspective, for the last three decades this value never surpassed €100 per MWh. In other words, the year 2023 will see electricity turning from a utility into a luxury good for many Germans.
The Wall Street Journal (July 5):
The fertilizer industry is particularly exposed to the current volatility because it uses gas as a raw material, said Christopher Profitlich, a spokesman for SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz GmbH, one of Germany’s leading fertilizer manufacturers.
“A shortage of gas would mean we would not be able to produce fertilizer, meaning that farmers would not be able to produce enough food, and this would push global prices up and create a shortage of foodstuffs,” Mr. Profitlich said.
SKW also produces the fuel additive AdBlue which is used by over 90% of trucks that make up Germany’s complex road-based logistical chains, as well by vehicles critical for emergency services and construction.
“Without AdBlue, engines would stand still,” Mr. Profitlich said.
At Bavaria-based porcelain maker Rosenthal GmbH, a stop in supplies would bring production to a complete standstill. White porcelain is typically made by heating materials in gas-fired chambers known as kilns temperatures over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Gas is currently the only energy source that can ensure that process, said Mads Ryder, Rosenthal’s chief executive.
“A cutback or even a halt to gas deliveries would mean that we would have to stop our entire production immediately and that would have considerable economic consequences for the company,” he said.
While the industry is exploring alternative sources like hydrogen, it would take at least 10 years before these offer a viable alternative, he said.
“There is very little creative freedom here in ceramics,” said René Holler, general manager of the German Association of the Ceramic Industry.
At brewer Brauerei C. & A. Veltins GmbH & Co. KG, gas is also an essential part of the whole beer production process.
The kettles for the brewing process are heated with the help of gas, which is also needed to achieve the necessary kettle pressure. The company then needs glass bottles, and natural gas is also indispensable in glass manufacturing. In total, Veltins says it would need 50 million bottles this year, whose costs are already up some 80% since April.
“To put it plainly: no beer without gas,” said Veltins spokesman Ulrich Biene. . . .
At chemicals giant BASF SE, a significant fall in gas supplies could lead to the closure of the world’s largest integrated chemical complex spanning some 200 plants. Such a shutdown would reverberate beyond the company, which sits at the beginning of most industrial supply chains, from cars to toothpaste. A throttling of BASF’s ammonia output, a key ingredient in fertilizers.
Henkel AG, the maker of consumer products including Persil laundry detergents, said it was looking at ways to switch to alternative energy sources and is considering increasing working from home options for employees to save on energy and heating costs.
German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp AG is heavily reliant on gas for its blast furnaces. “A switch from natural gas to oil or coal is not possible in our production processes, or only to a negligible extent,” the company said in a statement.
Yasmin Fahimi, the head of the German Federation of Trade Unions has recently warned that problems with the gas supply could lead to the “permanent collapse” of certain industries, specifically citing aluminum, glass, and chemicals. “Permanent” may be an overstatement, but Fahimi’s comment will have caught Chancellor Scholz’s attention. The trade unions are close to his SPD, and Fahimi herself was an SPD member of the Bundestag.
Faced with the prospect of an economic (and, undoubtedly, political) crisis in Germany (and what that could mean to the U.S., as economic contagion spreads out from the EU’s most important economy), it’s unclear what the Biden administration could do to keep Berlin in line if, indeed, it was even willing to do so.
Thinking back to Habeck’s warning of another Lehman moment, at least one domino is beginning to topple. Uniper, Europe’s largest importer of Russian gas, has asked the German government for help. Its problems (which are unlikely to be unique) stem from the fact that the slowdown in gas flows from Russia is reportedly costing the company as much as €30 million or, take your pick, €40 million a day (the company’s problem is that it cannot pass on the higher cost of the gas it has to buy to fill the gap left by Russia to clients with whom it has long-term supply contracts). Some estimates are that a bailout could amount to as much as €9 billion, probably in the form of debt finance and an equity infusion, plus a mechanism enabling Uniper to pass on (one way or another) some of the higher prices it is paying for its gas to its clients, whatever the long-term contracts may say. Failure to agree on some sort of rescue deal will mean that Uniper will have to draw down some of its gas reserves, a move that goes directly against Germany’s current effort to fill those reserves up.
In another sign of the times, Germany has (unexpectedly) reported its first monthly trade deficit since 1991. The amount (which relates to May) was not large (around €1 billion), and similar news would attract little attention if it concerned other EU countries, but coming from the EU’s export powerhouse, well . . .
Oh yes, the Nord Stream 1 pipelines have for some time been scheduled to undergo their annual maintenance between July 11–21. No gas will flow through the pipelines during this period. The question now is how much will flow afterwards.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/french-german-leaders-warn-populations-prepare-total-cut-russian-gas-social-unrest-looms
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July 11, 2022
View On Website
Open as PDF
Back to the Future With NATO
Its new Strategic Concept emphasizes the alliance’s military chops.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
Much has been said about how the Russian war in Ukraine has changed NATO. Its membership certainly is set to grow as Sweden and Finland begin the accession process. But as important is its new Strategic Concept, published last week at a summit in Madrid, that shows what’s in store for the alliance in the coming decade. In a word, the concept is: realignment.
From Partner to Threat
The text of the Strategic Concept is public – even if the accompanying Military Strategy text, which details how member states can support the alliance’s goals, is classified. Still, what’s available suggests the next decade will focus on deterrence and defense, emphasizing NATO’s original purpose as a military organization. (That may sound self-evident, but recall NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept, which highlighted the political role the alliance could play in European affairs.) Whereas the previous concept referred to Russia as a strategic partner for Euro-Atlantic stability, the new one explicitly describes Russia as a strategic threat.
This isn’t especially surprising given the text was published at a time of war. Other documents released during the Kosovo War in 1999 and the Korean War spoke in similar terms. In fact, the latter is considered to be a turning point in NATO history because it led to increased U.S. assistance to combat the Soviet Union and the reorganization of a rapidly expanding alliance under centralized command, all of which would be mainstays for the rest of the Cold War.
Likewise, the 2022 Strategic Concept proposes a broader framework for the alliance that reestablishes its military role, while keeping its political role and taking a more global approach, integrating China and discussing security matters pertinent to the economic domain. More important, it proposes a new force model that will likely lead to the military reorganization of the alliance, just as what was proposed in 1952 did. The document discusses the establishment of the NATO Command Structure for the information age and for the ways in which NATO plans to expand its military capabilities and cooperation. The wording points to a further military enhancement while also hinting at the formation of a platform that can support global operations in military, political and economic domains.
Indeed, the new force model is at the heart of the Strategic Concept, which means to “significantly strengthen deterrence and defense for all Allies … [and] enhance our resilience against Russian coercion.” To that end, publicly available information, including the content of a speech made by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last week, suggest NATO plans to increase its presence in its east, which may involve expanding and rebranding the 40,000-strong NATO Response Force. At the same time, the new force model for NATO’s eastern and southeastern flanks, which will host the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, envisions a future in which thousands more troops based in their home countries are ready to deploy if needed.
Stoltenberg also said that the NATO Response Force of some 40,000 troops will be transformed into a future force of some 300,000 troops maintained at high alert, with 44,000 kept at high readiness. Though it’s unclear how alliance members plan to reach that number, it would mean that, for the first time, all rapid reaction forces under NATO command will be committed to a deterrence and defense role, and that all these forces will be consolidated under one command framework. Based on the explanations offered publicly, the new force model wants this new force to be held at 24 hours “notice to act,” while the bulk of the NATO Force Structure will hold at 15 days “notice to move.” This is an extraordinary improvement to the current structure, where some forces have 180 days’ notice to move, essentially making the alliance more flexible and more dynamic. The new strategy will also see heavy equipment pre-positioned near NATO borders. All of this points to member states being more committed to make NATO a stronger military force again.
To achieve the size and scope of such a force will be expensive for NATO allies. Hence why Stoltenberg said the NATO defense investment pledge of 2 percent of gross domestic product per ally is now “more of a floor than a ceiling.” Several European NATO members, including Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, have already committed to increasing their respective defense budgets accordingly. But, importantly, nearly all of Europe is dealing with high inflation and post-COVID economies, so the success of these pledges depends on economic constraints going forward.
American Leadership
To some degree, they depend on American leadership too, and it’s not clear if the U.S. shares Europe’s concerns entirely. A classified version of the U.S. National Defense Strategy was made available to Congress in late March, and it seems to give China and the Indo-Pacific region a higher priority than Russia and Europe. (This is probably why NATO’s Strategic Concept focuses on links between Russia and China, and says those links threaten European security.) The NDS offers insight into how the U.S. will regard NATO’s new force model and its future force. According to publicly available details available on the strategy, the American future force will be built on three principles: “integrated deterrence” and credible combat powers, effective campaigning in the grey zone, and “building enduring advantage” by exploiting new, emerging and disruptive technologies. And for the first time, the NDS implies a greater role for allies to help the U.S. meet its strategic goals and challenges, particularly in and around the European theatre. All of this points to the challenge of maintaining interoperability between the U.S. future force and allies' forces.
The message from Washington is clear: Europe will have to start to share the responsibility of guaranteeing European security. That means a stouter and more robust NATO. While the U.S. has called on Europe to do this on several different occasions in the past, the current wartime scenario works in the U.S.' favor as NATO allies are highly incentivized by Russian military operations to keep NATO intact and improve national defense capabilities.
Washington aside, the basis for NATO’s future is having enough forces to deter and engage in crises and to respond quickly to any crisis in and around the Euro-Atlantic area. The new Strategic Concept reaffirms NATO’s commitment to collective defense, with a 360-degree approach built on three core tasks of deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security. All of this points to the complexity of the environment that NATO is currently working in.
The Strategic Concept is a tacit recognition of the global economic war the world is engaged in, which is why it also calls on NATO to further work on developing its political role, and why it mentions the preservation of NATO’s technical edge, a digital transformation that enhances cyber and emerging and disruptive technologies, and the upholding of the rules-based order, all of which go beyond the scope of a purely military alignment. Put simply, the world is more complicated now than it was in the 1950s, so if the alliance is going to maintain its edge, it will need to do so in a variety of domains. This is precisely what the new concept calls for.
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Is freezing to death part of the concept?
July 11, 2022
View On Website
Open as PDF
Back to the Future With NATO
Its new Strategic Concept emphasizes the alliance’s military chops.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
Much has been said about how the Russian war in Ukraine has changed NATO. Its membership certainly is set to grow as Sweden and Finland begin the accession process. But as important is its new Strategic Concept, published last week at a summit in Madrid, that shows what’s in store for the alliance in the coming decade. In a word, the concept is: realignment.
From Partner to Threat
The text of the Strategic Concept is public – even if the accompanying Military Strategy text, which details how member states can support the alliance’s goals, is classified. Still, what’s available suggests the next decade will focus on deterrence and defense, emphasizing NATO’s original purpose as a military organization. (That may sound self-evident, but recall NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept, which highlighted the political role the alliance could play in European affairs.) Whereas the previous concept referred to Russia as a strategic partner for Euro-Atlantic stability, the new one explicitly describes Russia as a strategic threat.
This isn’t especially surprising given the text was published at a time of war. Other documents released during the Kosovo War in 1999 and the Korean War spoke in similar terms. In fact, the latter is considered to be a turning point in NATO history because it led to increased U.S. assistance to combat the Soviet Union and the reorganization of a rapidly expanding alliance under centralized command, all of which would be mainstays for the rest of the Cold War.
Likewise, the 2022 Strategic Concept proposes a broader framework for the alliance that reestablishes its military role, while keeping its political role and taking a more global approach, integrating China and discussing security matters pertinent to the economic domain. More important, it proposes a new force model that will likely lead to the military reorganization of the alliance, just as what was proposed in 1952 did. The document discusses the establishment of the NATO Command Structure for the information age and for the ways in which NATO plans to expand its military capabilities and cooperation. The wording points to a further military enhancement while also hinting at the formation of a platform that can support global operations in military, political and economic domains.
Indeed, the new force model is at the heart of the Strategic Concept, which means to “significantly strengthen deterrence and defense for all Allies … [and] enhance our resilience against Russian coercion.” To that end, publicly available information, including the content of a speech made by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last week, suggest NATO plans to increase its presence in its east, which may involve expanding and rebranding the 40,000-strong NATO Response Force. At the same time, the new force model for NATO’s eastern and southeastern flanks, which will host the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, envisions a future in which thousands more troops based in their home countries are ready to deploy if needed.
Stoltenberg also said that the NATO Response Force of some 40,000 troops will be transformed into a future force of some 300,000 troops maintained at high alert, with 44,000 kept at high readiness. Though it’s unclear how alliance members plan to reach that number, it would mean that, for the first time, all rapid reaction forces under NATO command will be committed to a deterrence and defense role, and that all these forces will be consolidated under one command framework. Based on the explanations offered publicly, the new force model wants this new force to be held at 24 hours “notice to act,” while the bulk of the NATO Force Structure will hold at 15 days “notice to move.” This is an extraordinary improvement to the current structure, where some forces have 180 days’ notice to move, essentially making the alliance more flexible and more dynamic. The new strategy will also see heavy equipment pre-positioned near NATO borders. All of this points to member states being more committed to make NATO a stronger military force again.
To achieve the size and scope of such a force will be expensive for NATO allies. Hence why Stoltenberg said the NATO defense investment pledge of 2 percent of gross domestic product per ally is now “more of a floor than a ceiling.” Several European NATO members, including Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, have already committed to increasing their respective defense budgets accordingly. But, importantly, nearly all of Europe is dealing with high inflation and post-COVID economies, so the success of these pledges depends on economic constraints going forward.
American Leadership
To some degree, they depend on American leadership too, and it’s not clear if the U.S. shares Europe’s concerns entirely. A classified version of the U.S. National Defense Strategy was made available to Congress in late March, and it seems to give China and the Indo-Pacific region a higher priority than Russia and Europe. (This is probably why NATO’s Strategic Concept focuses on links between Russia and China, and says those links threaten European security.) The NDS offers insight into how the U.S. will regard NATO’s new force model and its future force. According to publicly available details available on the strategy, the American future force will be built on three principles: “integrated deterrence” and credible combat powers, effective campaigning in the grey zone, and “building enduring advantage” by exploiting new, emerging and disruptive technologies. And for the first time, the NDS implies a greater role for allies to help the U.S. meet its strategic goals and challenges, particularly in and around the European theatre. All of this points to the challenge of maintaining interoperability between the U.S. future force and allies' forces.
The message from Washington is clear: Europe will have to start to share the responsibility of guaranteeing European security. That means a stouter and more robust NATO. While the U.S. has called on Europe to do this on several different occasions in the past, the current wartime scenario works in the U.S.' favor as NATO allies are highly incentivized by Russian military operations to keep NATO intact and improve national defense capabilities.
Washington aside, the basis for NATO’s future is having enough forces to deter and engage in crises and to respond quickly to any crisis in and around the Euro-Atlantic area. The new Strategic Concept reaffirms NATO’s commitment to collective defense, with a 360-degree approach built on three core tasks of deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security. All of this points to the complexity of the environment that NATO is currently working in.
The Strategic Concept is a tacit recognition of the global economic war the world is engaged in, which is why it also calls on NATO to further work on developing its political role, and why it mentions the preservation of NATO’s technical edge, a digital transformation that enhances cyber and emerging and disruptive technologies, and the upholding of the rules-based order, all of which go beyond the scope of a purely military alignment. Put simply, the world is more complicated now than it was in the 1950s, so if the alliance is going to maintain its edge, it will need to do so in a variety of domains. This is precisely what the new concept calls for.
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GPF is not opining or advocating. It is describing.
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GPF is not opining or advocating. It is describing.
Ignoring that western europe is utterly fcuked without Russian energy is a pretty serious oversight when discussing anything NATO might conceive of.
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Yes, a serious oversight by NATO.
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https://ace.mu.nu/archives/399971.php
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https://sonar21.com/nato-fantasy-soldiers/
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Well, that was pretty potent , , ,
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-spending-counter-russia-war-effort-exceeds-first-5-years-war-costs-afghanistan?intcmp=tw_fnc&fbclid=IwAR2f7sTdT4PrZyOMzcY1uycLhxo2AKDXl9JhUTbCtiR-0EpGqiBdskRnb80
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My Russian born friend born to Ukrainian Jews who is now American comments:
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all of these comments are predicated on the idea that Putin's plan is to invade Europe or restore the Soviet Union. What the American/Western media fails to understand is his long standing philosophy that Russia's future is not in the West, but in the East. While we have been trying to destroy Russia's economy with sanctions and suffering from inflation and astronomical gas prices, Russia made over 50 billion selling to China and India since the war began. I really wish the whole picture was available to more people.
Arming Ukraine will not end well for anyone. In addition to the brave Ukranians who are genuinely fighting for their country, there is a significant number of radicals from all over the world who flocked there for a chance to fight. Just two yeats ago, Time magazine did a documentary on the training camps of the Azov batallion and interviewed Neo-Nazis from several countries who came to fight there . One from Sweden was interviewed saying that he finally found a place with like minded people (not Ukraine itself but the training groups). He was disillusioned with his own country for promoting racial mixing. These are the people we are arming along with the Ukranians.
It is a terrible situation for the Ukranians especially, because they are simply a pawn in the war between US and Russia. But in the end, that country will be left in shambles, while Russia focuses its energy on the rest the world that does not include the United States and Western countries. He has been saying it for years. That it is a very big world and the US and Nato are a tiny portion of it. He often talks about the hubris of the westerners in thinking that the world.revolves around them. But between China and India alone, he has almost half of the world's population to trade with. He plans on working with countries that do not feel that they have a higher moral ground and who will not cut economic ties based on his decisions and actions. He says it openly. Russia does not need the West..he says it all the time. And his actions back up his words. In Russia regardless of what is said in the media here, life is going on as before. All of my friends still have jobs, they go out to restaurants and go on vacations. Aside from the economy, Putin truly believes that the western countries are on a fast track to social, political and economic decline. Having exported all of their labor force to other countries, reliant on the rest of the world for oil and energy and caught up in political disputes with one another. He also has some strong opinions on declining family values and believes that at least in Eurppe, the immigrant population will outnumber the European within 50 years due to most Europeans having only one child and later in life. The demographics will change and that will naturally change the political landscape which he beliebs will lead to civil war between the future Muslim majority in Europe and the white nationalists. As far as the US, most Russians believe that while it was once a great country, the disunity between the parties and the various other issues that plague us will also bring us down.
I think it people actually listened to his speeches in Russian and understood the nuances of the language, their opinion of his plans would be very different. I am always horrified at quotes attributed to him in American media which often distort or flat out mistraslate what he says.
This is not to say Putin is not a tyrant and a despot. He 100% is. He is cold and ruthless and calculating. And everyone in Russia knows it (and many accept it for various reasons). But the irony of it all is that while we think we are defending ourselves against him, we are actually destroying ourselves in the process. As Putin laughs in the background.
This whole situation reminds of the a scene from Hannibal, where Lector in his younger days, convinces one of his patients to cut off his own face while Lector watched.
=======================
Something like this?
https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-faces-entire-industries-collapse-russia-natural-gas-supply-cuts-2022-7?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=sf-bi-main&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2KieeKc4a_XEGKPRGujcN1XfjOEbx3jxlnamLOVNcXWcOc1Arro89JVbU
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2415120/significant-nord-stream-1-flows-stop
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second
July 13, 2022
America's top diplomat says Russia's "forced deportations" of nearly a million Ukrainians is a war crime. Kremlin officials refer to the relocations as "filtration camps," but U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken calls it the "unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons," according to a statement on Wednesday, July 14—which is day 140 of the invasion Vladimir Putin is believed to have thought would take only two days.
Staggering scope: "Russian authorities have interrogated, detained, and forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, from their homes to Russia," Blinken said, and added these Ukrainians are often sent "to isolated regions in [Russia's] Far East." (And the wider refugee outflow from Ukraine has now eclipsed 9 million people, the UN's refugee agency said Wednesday in its latest update.)
Russia's apparent purpose: conquest, as "Moscow's actions appear pre-meditated and draw immediate historical comparisons to Russian 'filtration' operations in Chechnya and other areas," Blinken said. "Putin's 'filtration' operations are separating families, confiscating Ukrainian passports, and issuing Russian passports in an apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine," the secretary said.
"Accountability is imperative," Blinken insists. "This is why we are supporting Ukrainian and international authorities' efforts to collect, document, and preserve evidence of atrocities." Along with Ukraine and its allies and partners around the world, "Together, we are dedicated to holding perpetrators of war crimes and other atrocities accountable," Blinken said.
, , ,
Poland's message to the world: Putin wants more than just Ukraine. "Russia will continue the war against Ukraine, and will remain a country that is aggressive towards states that it treats as its zone of influence," Polish intelligence officials announced in a statement Wednesday. After the present operational pause, "the Kremlin will presumably begin another phase of war," the spokesman for Poland's Minister-Special Services Coordinator said, and emphasized, "There's no indication that Russia's war against Ukraine is about to end. There's no sign that Russia wants to resign its objective, which is to destroy Ukraine in its present form."
"A strategic objective of the Kremlin is to destroy or completely humiliate the [NATO] alliance," Warsaw says—echoing one of several points recently articulated by historian Anne Applebaum. "The aim of Russia's operations is still to blur the Kremlin's responsibility for the attack against Ukraine, to distort the perception of war, to cover up Russian crimes and losses, as well as to destabilize western countries that are engaged in helping Ukraine." That includes lifting sanctions on Moscow, and stopping military assistance to Kyiv.
The way forward, according to the nation both Hitler and the Soviets invaded in 1939, is to stay united as an alliance, and to continue arming and helping Ukraine at every available opportunity. "Only with maintaining unity and common assessment of threats coming from the east, will we be able to stop Russian aggression," the spokesman said, calling Russia's Ukraine invasion "only a transit stop" for Putin and officials in the Kremlin. More to that message, here.
The British military largely concurs, and says in its latest Ukraine update that, "Russia continues to seek to undermine the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state and consolidate its own governance and administrative control over occupied parts of Ukraine. Recently this has included an initiative to twin Russian and Ukrainian cities and regions to develop post-conflict administrations and a decree to make it easier for Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship," which we flagged in Monday's newsletter.
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2415120/significant-nord-stream-1-flows-stop
Exactly.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/doomsday-submarine-delivered-to-russian-navy-capable-of-launching-nuclear-torpedoes/ar-AAZxTaF
Good thing we aren't provoking WWIII!
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2422375/germany-atmospheric
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2443220/force-majeure-russia-returning-the-sanctions
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2443220/force-majeure-russia-returning-the-sanctions
Yes.
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Dont worry about the US military going woke, check out this supposed NATO meeting.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1551824119842357248
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The Flank of War
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
The arena for the Russian-Ukrainian war is obviously Ukraine. But as in most wars, the main arena does not define the war as a whole. This war did not start with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has been underway for years as low-level pressure. It started intensifying in 2020.
As we have argued, Russia’s main goal is to create geographic buffers protecting its core from attack, particularly along historical lines of invasion. It is not always necessary to achieve political ends – and all wars have political ends through the direct use of force. Political ends can also be achieved economically, through covert action or threats. There is a basic principle of war: to attack an enemy on the flanks. Main force is usually concentrated on the center of the lines. The rear is difficult to reach. But the enemy’s flanks are likely vulnerable points where an attack, if successful, can break the opposing force.
The flanks are not only tactically significant. They can be strategically critical, protecting the nation itself by eliminating a line of attack; for the attacker, they create a line of attack, forcing the dispersal of defending forces and creating openings. For Russia, the first flanking attack occurred following a disputed election and protests in mid-2020 in Belarus, along the northern border of Ukraine, with its westward border blocking the North European Plain. It therefore meant that any attack from Poland, for example, would be blocked from Russia by force in Belarus, diverting the attack across Ukraine. It should be emphasized that a prudent strategist deploys forces based not on an appreciation of enemy intentions at the moment but rather based on possible actions. And for Russia, an attack by or from Poland was seen as possible, and closing that line of attack imperative. The solution was a soft intervention to help quell anti-government protests. The Russians cemented President Alexander Lukashenko in place and gained the opportunity to attack Ukraine’s northern flank.
The second area where the Russians sought to protect their flanks was in the South Caucasus. The South Caucasus was a line of attack used by Turkey through the centuries. Russia locked the area down by securing a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that resulted in Russian peacekeepers deployed to the region, securing it from immediate threats.
The United States is now countering Russia’s southern flank defense. The Russian move was based on ending the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict and becoming the arbiter between them. With Russia preoccupied with Ukraine, this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited both Armenia and Azerbaijan, offering to mediate existing problems between them and obviously discussing energy in Azerbaijan. Georgia is already hostile toward Russia and relatively close to the United States. The U.S. is clearly seeking to create a solid, pro-American bloc in the South Caucasus and to force the Russians to be concerned about the North Caucasus and possibly divert forces there. Since this was a pathway of invasion at one time, and since the United States has the potential to act on it, Russia cannot ignore its southern flank.
At the same time, Russia is trying to build a flank to Ukraine’s southwest in Moldova. Moldova is an independent, Romanian-speaking country. Its politics are complex and unpredictable. Russia has sought to create a pro-Russian Moldova for quite a while, but in general it has failed to shift Moldova’s alignment. Now, the Russians are pressing harder, seeing a possible flanking maneuver in which they could threaten Ukraine from the south, in an area where conquest would mean the cutting of Ukrainian supply lines. The trick is to elect a pro-Russian government, perhaps offering Moldova a piece of Ukraine that would reduce Moldova’s vulnerability and dependence on Romania as an incentive. This would create a threat to Ukraine that would be difficult to tolerate. Romania, a U.S. ally, has tried to manage Moldova since the fall of the Soviet Union in an environment in which there was no significant war underway. Now, Russia has an overriding reason to try to prevail, and the U.S. has an overwhelming reason to block it. This flanking maneuver is sufficiently significant for a major Russian effort, while diverting Ukraine and the United States from more immediate demands on resources, simply in order to maintain the status quo.
The Ukraine war began with an attempt by Russia to ally with China and divert American attention from Europe. The attempt to force the U.S. into an Asian flank failed. One of the interesting things about flanking maneuvers in international affairs is that large-scale ententes tend to fail because the scale of powers is so large that it is filled with complexity. Flanking is a maneuver that requires agility. A major power can try to maneuver; a lesser power can at best ally with a major power, but it can rarely maneuver it into a desired position.
There are, of course, many other attempts being made to recruit nations by both sides of the war. But the flanking maneuver is different. First, it is a geographical position that is sought, so that countries in this discussion are all on or near the Ukrainian border. They pose a threat of military action that might affect the military reality inside Ukraine. The very threat posed by the flanking maneuver – the possibility of an attack – may force one of the combatants to redeploy forces needed for combat into a static position, weakening the force as a whole. Normal alliances can strengthen one side or another materially, but unless they’re contiguous they cannot directly threaten the other side. Getting Iran or New Zealand to declare their support might be satisfying and perhaps mean acquiring some equipment, but it would not shift anything.
The war appears to be static right now, although that can change at any moment. And when wars become static, changing the shape of the playing field becomes important. Right now both the Americans and the Russians are engaged in flanking maneuvers that could change the shape of the battlefield and put one side at a disadvantage. The longer the war lasts, the more the battle for the flanks will matter.
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The Ukrainian Verdun
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson
July 28, 2022 Updated: July 28, 2022biggersmaller Print
Five months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war is now reduced to one of attrition. The current dirty, grinding slog is fought mostly with artillery and rockets. Everything from Ukraine’s shopping centers to apartment buildings—and the civilians in them—are Russian targets.
Most outsiders have already forgotten the heroic Ukrainian winter repulse of the botched Russian shock-and-awe effort to sweep into Kyiv, decapitate the government, and declare the eastern half of the country a Russian protectorate within mere days.
Months later, the long war devolves further into a contest of mass and weight—tons of explosives blowing up pathways for massed troops grabbing a few more charred miles of ruined landscape.
Russian President Vladimir Putin bets he can throw in more men and more shells than Ukraine and its Western suppliers can match. He is quite willing to “win” by laying waste to eastern Ukraine even if it means losing three Russian soldiers for every Ukrainian.
When war becomes such gridlocked carnage, each side looks to new game-changing diplomacy, strategies, allies, or weapons to break the deadlock.
For Putin, such escalation means more flesh, steel, and explosives. His country is 28 times bigger than Ukraine, and over three times more populous, with an economy 15 times larger.
As for Putin’s financial reserves, the Western oil boycott means increasingly little to him when 40 percent of the planet’s population in India and China are eager to secure near-limitless Russian energy.
Another 750 million people in Europe once talked tough. But as a second winter nears, their gas and oil imports from Russia will further wither. Then their Churchillian rhetoric may chill.
So, the Ukrainian war increasingly will depend on endless U.S. aid and escalation.
To stop the Russian steamroller, Ukraine demands sophisticated American missiles to sink Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Kyiv requests shipments of U.S. jet fighters to knock down Putin’s missiles and planes.
It asks for more rockets and artillery to ensure tit-for-tat retaliation for every incoming Russian shell and bomb. Kyiv negotiates for more Western intelligence to take out more Russian generals and more lift capacity to stage airborne raids into Mother Russia itself.
We in the West abhor Putin’s war as senseless carnage, the last mad act of a vainglorious and delusional dictator.
Yet Putin trusts that future Russian generations will come to appreciate his grinding effort as the brutal restoration work of Vladimir the Great. When the wreckage is forgotten, Putin is convinced he will be viewed as the world’s most successful irredentist—one who had already battered Georgia, Ossetia, Chechnya, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine back into the reborn Russian empire.
If Putin can smash Ukraine into submission, the former jewel in the Russian imperial crown, then he thinks he can eventually swallow all the remaining former Soviet republics that are far less formidable than Ukraine.
The United States is nearing a gut-check decision. There are plenty of dangerous firsts in radically upping our role with Ukraine. No one quite knows the post-Cold War rules of engagement when one nuclear power openly fights the surrogate of another.
In the old days of the Soviet Union and a backward Maoist China, conventional American triangulation ensured that neither nuclear power grew closer to each other than to us.
After Ukraine, both nuclear powers are de facto allies, ganging up on a common American enemy. As global inflation spikes, recession looms, and oil prices soar, some of our sworn and de facto allies, including India and Turkey, prefer Russian oil to Western sermons.
The heroic Ukrainian resistance may have brought European NATO states and the United States closer. But oddly, Ukraine’s supporters seemed to have soured the rest of the world on Western economic boycotts and sanctions—and the torpid leadership of President Joe Biden and his European counterparts.
In the West, there are dissident rumblings of a possible plebiscite to adjudicate the Russian-speaking Ukrainian borderlands—with possible guarantees of an Austria-like, non-NATO neutrality for Ukraine.
But such compromise talk earns charges of appeasement from Western zealots. Apparently, American moralists intend to fight for the principle of the sanctity of national borders to the last Ukrainian.
Vastly upping aid to Ukraine has become the cause célèbre of the West. But few have fully explained the ensuing costs and dangers of escalation to the American people. The United States appears to be heading into a stagflationary recession following the loss of deterrence from the Afghanistan catastrophe and with restive renegades like Iran and North Korea joining the Beijing-Moscow nuclear axis.
For now, no one knows whether greater American escalation would tip the balance for an allied democratic victory, and a repeat of our savior role in the two World Wars. Or will the proxy war suck the United States into a Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan-like quagmire?
Worse: Will our intervention trump even the brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis—with the nuclear standoff nightmarishly unpredictable?
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/why-west-easing-its-sanctions-russia
Yeah, not so much.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/europes-energy-crunch-battening-down-the-hatches/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CAPL_080522&utm_term=Capital-Letter-Smart
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/can-russia-divide-europe?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=Can%20Russia%20Divide%20Europe?&utm_content=20220805&utm_term=FA%20Today%20-%20112017
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https://www.newsweek.com/us-air-division-sent-europe-after-kremlin-says-russia-nato-war-1733022?fbclid=IwAR3a72_QED3Mu3nXSseIU2xW55cKAwuRMhYp6cFAidZPWis5pnNNwXeG3bE
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Certainly not a fan of Vindman, but this piece gives interesting insight into the mindset, and continues details of background history of which I was unaware/had forgotten.
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/stop-tiptoeing-around-russia?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=twofa&utm_campaign=China%E2%80%99s%20New%20Vassal&utm_content=20220812&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week%20-%20112017
Stop Tiptoeing Around Russia
It Is Time to End Washington’s Decades of Deference to Moscow
By Alexander Vindman
August 8, 2022
For the last three decades, the United States has bent over backward to acknowledge Russia’s security concerns and allay its anxieties. The United States has done so at the expense of relations with more willing partners in Eastern Europe—Ukraine in particular. Instead of supporting the early stirrings of Ukrainian independence in 1991, for example, Washington sought to preserve the failing Soviet Union out of misplaced fear that it might collapse into civil war. And instead of imposing heavy costs on Russia for its authoritarianism at home and antidemocratic activities abroad, including in Ukraine, Washington has mostly looked the other way in a fruitless effort to deal cooperatively with Moscow.
The justification for this Russia-centric approach to Eastern Europe has fluctuated between hopes for a good relationship with the Kremlin and fears that the bilateral relationship could devolve into another cold war—or worse, a hot one. But the result has been U.S. national security priorities based on unrealistic aspirations instead of actual outcomes, particularly during moments of crisis. Even as evidence mounted that Russia’s belligerent behavior would not allow for a stable or predictable relationship, U.S. policy stayed the course, to the detriment of both U.S. national security interests and the security of Russia’s neighbors.
One would think that Russia’s war in Ukraine would have demanded a shift in U.S. strategic thinking. Instead, whether out of habit, reflex, or even prejudice (thinking of Russians and Ukrainians as “one people” or of Ukrainians as “little Russians”), the primary decision makers in charge of U.S. foreign policy still privilege Russia over Ukraine.
The war has now reached an inflection point. The United States must decide whether it will help Ukraine approach the negotiating table with as much leverage as it can or watch Russia reorganize and resupply its troops, adapt its tactics, and commit to a long-term war of attrition. If Ukrainian democracy is going to prevail, U.S. foreign policymakers must finally prioritize dealing with Ukraine as it is rather than Russia as they would like it to be.
“THE UNGROUP” AND ITS LEGACY
Prioritizing Ukraine will require breaking the long-standing tradition of Russocentrism in trilateral U.S.-Ukrainian-Russian relations. In its contemporary form, that tradition dates back to 1989, when senior members of U.S. President George H. W. Bush’s administration set up a secret group of interagency staff members to plan for the possible dissolution of the Soviet Union. On July 18 of that year, Robert Gates, who was then deputy U.S. national security adviser, sent a memo to Bush titled “Thinking About the Unthinkable: Instability and Political Turbulence in the USSR.” As Gates recalled in his 2007 memoir, From the Shadows, he argued that the United States “should very quietly begin some contingency planning as to possible U.S. responses, actions and policies in the event of leadership or internal policy changes or widespread ethnic violence and repression—and consider the implications for us of such developments.”
Soon thereafter, Gates tasked Condoleezza Rice, then the senior director for Soviet and East European affairs on the National Security Council, with assembling an “ungroup” that would take on this “unthinkable” task. (At the time, official U.S. policy still focused on preserving the Soviet Union and supporting reform efforts, so the ungroup’s name reflected both its seemingly impossible mandate and its Top Secret status.) The team Rice pulled together included trusted officials from the Department of Defense, Department of State, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Among them were Dennis Ross, then the director of policy planning at the State Department; Fritz Ermarth, the chair of the National Intelligence Council; Robert Blackwill, the national intelligence officer for the Soviet Union; Paul Wolfowitz, the undersecretary of defense for policy; and Eric Edelman, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for Soviet and East European affairs.
Working in secrecy, these officials considered possible scenarios for Soviet collapse and potential U.S. responses. Written evidence of the group’s deliberations—or even its existence—is sparse. (I have mainly relied here on memoirs by people who served as high-level officials in the George H. W. Bush administration, some of which contain details of the ungroup without explicitly naming it, and on interviews with five former officials who were either participants in the group or had direct knowledge of its work.) But the conclusions the ungroup reached are clearly imprinted not just on U.S. foreign policy in the last years of the Soviet Union but also on U.S. priorities in the newly independent Soviet republics. The three greatest threats the United States would face in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, the ungroup predicted, would be the proliferation of new nuclear weapons states; “loose nukes,” or the loss, theft, or sale of weapons-grade fissile material, especially to nonstate actors or countries with clandestine nuclear weapons programs; and conflicting loyalties in the Soviet military that might lead to civil war in the newly independent republics or in Russia itself.
U.S. policymakers must deal with Ukraine as it is rather than Russia as they would like it to be.
When the unthinkable became inevitable and the Soviet Union began to crumble, mitigating these threats became the overarching goal of U.S. policy toward the former Soviet bloc. The United States pursued denuclearization in the former Soviet republics and partnership with an ideally strong, centralized Russian government in Moscow. If both goals could be accomplished, so the thinking went, then widespread ethnonationalist conflicts could be averted and command and control of the former Soviet arsenal could be maintained in a stable, whole Russia, thereby reducing the risks of a nuclear catastrophe.
The ungroup didn’t oppose the independence of the Soviet republics, but its fear of worst-case scenarios contributed to missteps and missed opportunities. For instance, it is hard not to hear echoes of the ungroup’s warnings in Bush’s infamous “Chicken Kyiv” speech in the Ukrainian capital on August 1, 1991. Mere weeks before Ukraine’s parliament adopted an act declaring the country’s independence, Bush declined to support the country’s right to self-determination, warning instead of “suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.” In line with the ungroup’s thinking, he privileged a carefully managed Soviet decline over the wishes of Ukrainians, who would go on to overwhelming vote for independence in a referendum at the end of the year.
Bush’s words provoked a visceral response from Ukrainians. For the Ukrainians who still remember the speech, or at least know of it, Bush’s explicit preference for the Soviet Union’s survival and his willingness to openly reject Ukrainian aspirations for statehood and independence were symbolic failures and practical indicators of where Ukraine fell in the hierarchy of U.S. relationships. One might argue that it was reasonable for the Bush administration to prioritize its relationship with the Soviet Union, which was, by any measure, a greater power than any of its potential successor states. It had enormous energy resources, a colossal military-industrial complex, and the ability to create massive headaches for Washington. But managing Soviet and later Russian threats did not have to come at the expense of engagement with the republics. Washington could have pursued both objectives at the same time, adapting to the Soviet Union’s decline while also hedging against future Russian irredentism by supporting self-determination in the emerging post-Soviet states.
Bush’s speech in Kyiv was an ignominious start to the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship.
Instead, Bush’s speech in Kyiv was an ignominious start to the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship that could have easily been avoided. Bush could have stuck to platitudes about the promotion of peace, democracy, and self-determination and omitted the patronizing warning about civil conflict. After all, the United States had little influence over Ukraine’s decision to seek independence or the Soviet Union’s longevity. In the end, neither outcome conformed to U.S. policy preferences.
The Bush administration wasn’t fully united behind this overly cautious approach toward the collapsing Soviet Union; there were dissenters, both inside and outside the ungroup. For instance, as Michael McFaul and James Goldgeier note in Power and Purpose, then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney advocated policies that would prevent the reemergence of a Soviet or post-Soviet threat in Eurasia. He thought the United States should seize the opportunity to undermine a great power rival and extend democracy and Western security institutions farther east.
Cheney’s arguments stopped short of predicting a Russian resurgence—something that was difficult to conceive of against the backdrop of immense economic, social, and political problems in Russia—but they foreshadowed key developments in U.S. foreign policy during the post-Soviet years. One episode from Gates’s memoir stands out: On September 5, 1991, a month after Bush’s Chicken Kyiv blunder, Cheney clashed with Secretary of State James Baker over the effects of the Soviet Union’s impending collapse. According to Gates, Cheney argued that the breakup was “in our interest,” adding that “if it is voluntary, some sort of association of the republics will happen. If democracy fails, we’re better off if the remaining pieces of the USSR are small.” Baker’s response was indicative of the more dominant strain of thinking within the ungroup: “Peaceful breakup is in our interest, not another Yugoslavia.”
According to the former officials I interviewed, those more in line with Cheney’s thinking, including Wolfowitz and Edelman, came to view post-Soviet European security as a zero-sum game with an enfeebled but still dangerous geopolitical rival in Moscow. They also saw a newly independent, vulnerable Ukraine in need of assistance and recognized that, if strengthened, it could serve as a bulwark against Russian revanchism. But these were minority views. Most influential players in the national security establishment agreed with Baker that U.S.-Russian relations had to form the bedrock of any post–Cold War security structure. They believed that if they could get Russia right, the country would become a bastion of stability in the region and even contribute to positive outcomes in Ukraine and elsewhere.
BLINDED BY THE MIGHT
This fixation on dealing with Moscow has proved remarkably durable. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all built their regional policies around their hopes and fears for Russia—hopes for a cooperative relationship and fears of another cold war. Now, President Joe Biden’s administration has come full circle with a risk assessment of Russia’s war in Ukraine that could have been drawn up by the ungroup, one that is more focused on the internal Russian consequences of the conflict than on the consequences for Ukraine itself. The Soviet Union is long gone, but concerns about instability, Russia’s nuclear arsenal, regional conflict, and bilateral confrontation remain. To avoid provoking Moscow, the United States has implicitly acknowledged Russia’s influence in an imagined post-Soviet geopolitical space in Ukraine. It has also often filtered its decisions about Ukraine policy through the prism of Russia, balancing its objectives in Ukraine against its need for Russia’s cooperation on arms control, North Korean and Iranian nuclear proliferation, climate change, the Arctic, and space programs, among other things.
By comparison, the United States has been largely ambivalent toward Ukraine. It has engaged with the country when the two countries’ interests and values aligned. For instance, during the Clinton era, the United States made a clear push for democratization and denuclearization. But once denuclearization was attained and democratization had stagnated under Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, the impetus for bilateral engagement declined. During Clinton’s second term and during the Bush and Obama administrations, the United States shifted away from Kyiv and toward collaboration with Moscow.
Misguided hope for a strategic partnership with a reformed Russia—or at the very least, a stable and predictable relationship with Moscow—seemed to outweigh much more achievable U.S. interests and investments in Ukraine in these years. The United States bought into the myth of Russian exceptionalism and deluded itself with distorted visions of the bilateral relationship, largely ignoring the signs of authoritarian consolidation within Russia and failing to heed the warnings from partners in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. Even worse, because of its desire to accommodate Russia, the United States dismissed democratic progress in Ukraine—for instance, in the aftermath of pro-democratic movements in 2004–5 and 2013–14—and undermined prospects for a more fruitful long-term relationship with Kyiv. U.S. policymakers justified this approach on the grounds that drawing Russia in as a responsible member of the international community would enable democratization in the region. Later, when Russia’s lurch toward authoritarianism became undeniable, they justified it on the basis of stability, succumbing to fears of a return to Cold War–era tensions.
The United States was not necessarily wrong to pursue a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia. Where it erred was in continuing to pursue this objective long after there was no realistic chance of success, which should have been obvious by 2004, when Russia interfered in Ukraine’s elections on behalf of its preferred candidate, or at the very latest by 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia. Instead of looking for more cooperative partners, however, U.S. policymakers continued their futile courtship of Kremlin leadership. As a result, they passed up opportunities to invest in the U.S. relationship with Ukraine, which was always a more promising engine of democratization in the region.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
For most of the last 30 years, Kyiv has been a more willing U.S. partner than Moscow. But Washington chose not to see this. Had it been more receptive to Ukrainian overtures and sensitive to Ukrainian concerns, the United States might have offered something more than vague “security assurances” in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which accompanied Ukraine’s fateful decision to give up the nuclear weapons it inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead, the agreement—signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States—required only consultations and a commitment to seek UN Security Council action in the event of violations (an obvious flaw, considering Russia’s veto power in that institution).
Other early attempts at bilateral cooperation came only at Ukraine’s insistence. In 1996, for instance, Kuchma requested the establishment of a special binational commission, named for him and U.S. Vice President Al Gore, to increase cooperation on trade, economic development, and security issues, among other things, as part of a closer strategic partnership. Although the Gore-Kuchma Commission was modeled after a similar U.S.-Russian commission, the dialogue it spawned never produced a real strategic partnership. Engagement with Russia was a major U.S. priority; engagement with Kyiv was an afterthought. After all, outcomes in Ukraine were still viewed as dependent upon outcomes in Russia.
The 2004–5 Orange Revolution offered another opportunity for cooperation. After thousands of Ukrainian demonstrators took to the streets to protest a fraudulent presidential runoff election, paving the way for a free and fair vote two months later, the United States could have provided greater financial and technical assistance to Ukrainian reform efforts and nurtured Ukrainian ambitions for European and transatlantic integration. A stronger partnership might have prevented the political infighting and failed reforms that eventually fueled popular disappointment with the pro-European government of President Viktor Yushchenko.
For most of the last 30 years, Kyiv has been a more willing U.S. partner than Moscow.
Instead, the United States opted for a policy no man’s land. At the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration pushed for the alliance to welcome Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO. But the United States and other NATO members declined to spell out what Ukraine would need to do to accede, and they refused to draw up a membership action plan. The resulting declaration produced the worst possible balance of provocation and assurance, giving Russia a new grievance to exploit but making Ukraine no more secure.
These failures had painful consequences for Ukraine. If Yushchenko’s reforms had generally succeeded, Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian candidate who was defeated after the Orange Revolution, might not have won the 2010 presidential election. Without a Yanukovych presidency, the Ukrainian government and armed forces might not have atrophied, and a rapacious kleptocracy might not have taken hold. The 2013–14 Revolution of Dignity, also known as the Euromaidan Revolution, might not have become necessary and Ukraine might not have become vulnerable to Russian aggression and Western ambivalence. The costs of Russia’s 2014 incursion into eastern Ukraine would have been significantly higher if the Ukrainian government and military had been intact and developing. Moreover, Russia would have had to contend with a stronger Western reaction and international opprobrium had the United States and the other signatories of the Budapest Memorandum demonstrated a stronger long-term commitment to Ukrainian democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
Even if none of this had happened, the West could have responded more forcefully to Russia’s 2014 invasion. A tougher reaction might have deterred further Russian aggression or at least better prepared Ukraine for a larger conflict. The United States and its allies helped modernize Ukraine’s military, but because they did not want to provoke Moscow, they declined to impose stiff-enough sanctions on Russia or provide heavy equipment or extensive training to Ukrainian troops. Russian President Vladimir Putin escalated anyway. Now, the West is scrambling to make up for lost time.
The United States doesn’t deserve all the blame for these missed opportunities. Rampant corruption, political infighting, and abysmal leadership hamstrung Ukraine’s efforts at reform and development for years before the Orange Revolution. And it wasn’t until the 2013–14 revolution that Ukraine truly pivoted toward reform, transparency, democracy, and European integration. But even in the moments when Ukraine was a willing and able partner, the United States was reluctant to cooperate or upgrade U.S.-Ukrainian relations. Apprehension about the political response from Moscow always precluded a closer relationship with Kyiv.
The United States opted for a policy no man’s land toward Ukraine.
This historical failure has become more evident as former U.S. government officials have been forced to defend their records on U.S. policy toward Ukraine. There are very few who can honestly say they did all they could in the eight years since Russia’s first invasion to aid Ukraine’s reform efforts, hasten the country’s integration with Europe, harden its defenses, and bolster deterrence. Whether that is because of willful ignorance or an institutional predilection for coddling Russia, there is no excuse for neglecting Ukraine.
Part of the problem may be a decades-long hangover from the Cold War during which the expertise, education, and training of Eurasia specialists in the national security establishment have atrophied. Moreover, virtually all the experts who have worked for the U.S. government over the last 30 years were trained Sovietologists, not Ukrainianists. As a result, they were ill prepared to recognize and understand Ukraine as a fully distinct cultural, ethnolinguistic, historical, and political entity. Rather, these Sovietologists, and the Russianists and Kremlinologists who filled their shoes, saw Russia’s “near abroad” as always having been in Moscow’s orbit. The physical borders of a newly independent Ukraine might have been clearly demarcated, but the mental boundaries of Ukraine’s geopolitics were still fettered to the imperial center in Moscow.
To make matters worse, area studies also declined after the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to a dearth of funding for the languages and specialized knowledge needed to develop regional expertise. Those Soviet studies programs that survived were rebranded as Russian and Eastern European studies, Russian and Eurasian studies, or some other variant of this formulation, suggesting an equally privileged position for Russia relative to the rest of Eurasia.
With a few exceptions (most notably, Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute), most U.S. universities train their students in the Russian language, with a focus on Russian history, culture, and literature. Although the Slavic academic community has begun to reevaluate Russocentric approaches to the study of Eurasia, this shift has not yet been felt within the U.S. government. Russian and Eastern European expertise—or what little of it exists in government—has been treated as a proxy for knowledge of Ukraine. In the time I spent on the National Security Council, from 2018 to 2020, the results of this cumulative bias in national security education became obvious. Very few officials had specialized knowledge of the region, let alone of Ukraine, and among those, even fewer had Ukrainian language skills.
UNGROUP THINK ENDURES
The bias against Ukraine and toward Russia continues to this day. The Biden administration seems unable to accept that as long as Putin is in power, the best the United States can hope for is a cold war with Russia. In the meantime, Washington should be making every effort to prevent the conflict in Ukraine from turning into a long war of attrition that will only increase the risks of regional spillover as time passes. That means supporting Ukraine in full and giving it the equipment it needs to force Russia to sue for peace, not quivering in fear every time Putin or one of his mouthpieces says something about Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. The United States is a superpower. Russia is not. The Biden administration should act as if it knows the difference and deploy its vast resources so that Ukrainians can dictate the outcome in Ukraine.
But old habits die hard. According to two former senior U.S. officials who worked on Ukraine policy, including one who served in the Biden administration, the senior leadership of the National Security Council has acted as a spiritual successor to the ungroup. NSC officials have sought to limit military support for Ukraine based on a familiar logic—that it might escalate tensions with Moscow and upset remaining hopes of normalizing relations with the Kremlin. Even as Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin have pledged to give Ukraine all the support it needs to win the war, NSC officials blocked the transfer of Soviet-era jets to Ukraine, declined to provide Ukraine with sufficient long-range air defenses to clear the skies of Russian planes, withheld the quantities of long-range rocket systems and munitions needed to destroy Russian targets within the theater of war, and halted discussion on the transfer of manned and unmanned aircraft required to neutralize Russian long-range attacks on Ukraine’s cities.
According to former officials, the NSC leadership believes that the war will pose significantly greater risks to the United States and global stability if Ukraine “wins too much.” They wish to avoid the collapse of Putin’s regime for fear of the same threats the ungroup identified three decades ago: nuclear proliferation, loose nukes, and civil war. And they have sought to reduce the likelihood of a bilateral confrontation between the United States and Russia, even at the risk of greatly overstating the probability of conventional and nuclear war. “While a key goal of the United States is to do the needful to support and defend Ukraine, another key goal is to ensure that we do not end up in a circumstance where we’re heading down the road towards a third world war,” said Jake Sullivan, who heads the NSC as Biden’s national security adviser, at the Aspen Security Forum last month. In this excessive concern over how Russia might react to U.S. policies, one can see the shadow of the ungroup.
The senior leadership of the NSC has acted as a spiritual successor to the ungroup.
Planning for every contingency is a responsible way to manage national security threats, but lowest-probability worst-case scenarios should not dictate U.S. actions. By looking for off-ramps and face-saving measures, the ungroup’s successors are perpetuating indecision at the highest levels of the Biden administration. Time that is wasted worrying about unlikely Russian responses to U.S. actions would be better spent backfilling allies’ weaponry, training Ukrainians on Western capabilities, and expediting more arms transfers to Ukraine.
The United States is slowly coming around to providing some of the right capabilities, but not in the necessary quantities and not before U.S. torpor degraded Ukraine’s ability to hold and reclaim territory in southern Ukraine and the Donbas. After months of deliberation, the Biden administration finally agreed to transfer high-mobility artillery rocket systems known as HIMARS, but it has refused to provide the longest range munitions needed to hit Russia’s long-range strike capabilities and military stockpiles. It remains unclear whether the administration will eventually send the munitions that can travel 190 miles, a significant improvement over the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System munitions it is currently providing, which can travel only about 45 miles. The United States has also shied away from providing Ukraine with medium- and long-range surface-to-air missiles that could target Russian aircraft, missiles, and in the worst-case scenario, delivery systems for any possible tactical nuclear weapons. Ukraine could force Russia to the negotiating table faster if it had such capabilities. And providing sufficient weapons wouldn’t significantly undermine resourcing worst-case-scenario war plans against Russia. The U.S. government can do both.
The Biden administration has rightfully, if belatedly, begun to speak about a policy of Ukrainian victory on the battlefield, but it still has yet to match this rhetoric with the requisite military support. Thus far, the Biden administration has transferred a modest $8 billion in weapons to Ukraine. Additional security assistance has been blocked or delayed by the NSC or bogged down in the bureaucracy of the Department of Defense. Congress has passed a Lend-Lease Act for Ukraine, reviving a World War II–era program that gives the president enhanced authority to lend or lease large quantities of defense hardware to Ukraine. The Biden administration should be making greater use of this authority. It should also be leading the effort to establish logistical and sustainment centers within Ukraine, not hundreds of kilometers away in Poland and Romania but as close as possible to the eastern and southern battlefields. If Ukraine wins this war, it will be thanks not just to weapons and will but to staying power.
The United States should also do more to resolve the issue of grain exports. Russia’s blockade of Ukraine has disrupted global food-supply chains and prompted a growing list of countries to impose grain export bans. This problem will only intensify as Russian forces continue targeting grain storage facilities and transport networks and loot Ukrainian harvests in occupied territories. Providing escorts for Ukrainian merchant vessels and opening a humanitarian shipping corridor is one potential solution, albeit a risky one. More likely, grain shipments will continue to be transported slowly and inefficiently by rail, barge, and truck to countries such as Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, and Bulgaria. Ukraine uses a wider rail gauge than its EU neighbors, and while rail capacity is up, the current speed and volume of rail transports is insufficient to remove the existing export backlog.
Transportation costs as well as the availability of trucks, barges, and suitable rail cars is another problem. The European Union has rolled out a plan for “solidarity lanes”—alternative logistics routes for Ukrainian agricultural exports through the EU to third countries—but this ad hoc emergency response is emblematic of the West’s failure to plan for long-term contingencies. In the two months since these lanes have been established, they have failed to clear shipping bottlenecks and left agricultural produce stranded short of its destination. On July 22, Russia agreed to allow grain exports to proceed. But just one day later, Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s largest seaport and cast the deal into doubt. Depending on when one starts counting—the 2014 seizure of Crimea or the February invasion—the United States and the EU have had either five months or eight years to plan for major export disruptions of this sort, so it is disappointing that they have had to scramble to piece together a patchwork solution to a predictable problem.
Again, however, this lack of preparation is more understandable when viewed through the West’s Russocentric lens. Planning for major disruptions in agricultural exports made little sense as long as a wider war was inconceivable. And even in the event of a war, the overriding Western assumption was that Russia could conquer Ukraine or force Kyiv to capitulate in short order; business would find a way to continue with only minimal disruption. The same faulty logic explains how Europe allowed itself to become dependent on Russian oil and gas—and how it has struggled to wean itself off these resources even after the danger they pose has been revealed. The United States and the EU must learn from these failures and interrogate the assumptions that blind them to potential threats, no matter how far-fetched those threats may seem in peacetime.
A FOOTHOLD FOR DEMOCRACY
The Biden administration has made democratic renewal a cornerstone of its domestic and foreign policy agendas. There is no better way to demonstrate democratic resolve than by defending U.S. values and interests in Ukraine. A Ukrainian victory would not only limit Russia’s capacity for future military aggression but also cement democracy’s foothold in Eastern Europe, offering a powerful lesson to would-be authoritarian aggressors and democratic nations alike. A Ukrainian loss, by contrast, would signal an acceleration of the wave of authoritarianism and democratic decline that has washed over the globe in the last decade.
To ensure the triumph of democracy in Ukraine, the United States must first change its thinking patterns and learn from decades of mistakes. Recognizing the poisonous Russocentrism of U.S. foreign policy is the first step toward a better approach to U.S.-Ukrainian relations. As Russia’s war effort falters and the prospect of a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia begins to look unthinkable once again, it will be tempting to revert to old ways of thinking and plan for normalized relations with a post-Putin Russia. But such an outcome would once again risk privileging Russia over Ukraine. Even if Putin is deposed or replaced through some other means, the United States should not assume Russia can change for the better; rapprochement must be earned, not given. By freeing itself from its Russocentrism, Washington will also be better able to engage with and listen to its partners in Eastern and northern Europe, which have greater proximity to and more clarity on national security threats from Russia. Their knowledge and expertise will be critical to Ukraine’s victory over Russia, future Ukrainian reconstruction, the prosecution of war crimes, prosperity in Eastern Europe, and eventually, the establishment of thriving democracies across Eurasia.
Beneath the United States’ misplaced aspirations for a positive relationship with Russia lies immense hubris. Americans tend to believe they can accomplish anything, but perpetually discount the agency of their interlocutors. In truth, the United States never had the influence to unilaterally change Russia’s internal politics. But it did have the ability to nurture a more promising outcome with a more willing partner in Ukraine. Unless the United States fundamentally reorients its foreign policy, away from aspirations and toward outcomes, it will miss an even bigger opportunity to bring about a peaceful, democratic Eastern Europe.
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August 12, 2022
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Norway Adds to Europe's Energy Crunch
Europe's backup power providers are looking less reliable than it hoped.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Norway's Depleted Reservoirs Add to the European Energy Crunch
(click to enlarge)
Norway is one of Europe’s most important alternatives to Russian energy supplies. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, EU countries sharply increased electricity and natural gas imports from the Nordic country. But despite its sizable reserves and electricity generation, Norway is proving not to be as stable as hoped. Facing low water levels for hydropower plants and fearing domestic power shortages, Oslo is considering reducing electricity supplies to Europe, which could lead to electricity rationing and higher prices in Europe this winter.
This would push up costs in Europe at a time when inflation is already elevated. However, if Norway can increase its electricity production by building gas-fired power plants, then the question will be whether Norwegian gas can substantially replace Russian gas in the European market. One way or another, a difficult winter lies ahead for Europe
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Russia-China axis is competitive
https://doubleline.com/wp-content/uploads/China-Russia-Axis_Campbell_8-8-2022.pdf
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https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/saudi-prince-made-500-million-russia-bet-start-ukraine-war?fbclid=IwAR3wwFwJlFDKmcx9XLEbxpzl1OVmwnzsUe8zGJmzeELeaECJkwqFBxOTBk4
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https://www.marketwatch.com/story/kissinger-says-u-s-is-aimlessly-heading-toward-edge-of-war-against-russia-and-china-11660552482
I find it remarkable that Henry is still so lucid and logical (agree with him or not) at 99!
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The Risk of Another Balkans War, Part 2: Russian and Chinese Influence
undefined and Director of Analysis at RANE
Sam Lichtenstein
Director of Analysis at RANE, Stratfor
9 MIN READAug 16, 2022 | 16:50 GMT
Demonstrators in Belgrade, Serbia, hold up Serbian flags and a photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 24, 2022, during a rally in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Demonstrators in Belgrade, Serbia, hold up a photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin and wave Serbian and Russian flags on March 24, 2022, during a rally in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(VLADIMIR ZIVOJINOVIC/AFP via Getty Images)
Editor's Note: This column is the second of a two-part series that assesses the risk of another war breaking out in the Balkans amid renewed concerns over ethnic tensions, political unrest and competing external influence in the region.
In the first part of this series, we examined the local drivers and constraints on the potential for renewed conflict in the Balkans. However, the actions of external actors — namely Russia and China — are also key to evaluating regional stability.
Russia's Historical Influence
Russia has historically seen the Balkans as falling within its sphere of influence. This has contributed to some of the corruption, political paralysis, increased militarization and other challenges that bedevil Balkan countries. Moscow's influence is most pronounced in Serbia, with which it shares a variety of practical and symbolic ties. Particularly in Serbia, but throughout the region, Russian propaganda (including disinformation that a ''war'' had broken out between Kosovo and Serbia two weeks ago) has sought to exploit ethnic tensions and other divisions in an attempt to keep regional states from aligning westward.
Indeed, just two weeks ago, Russia spread disinformation that a ''war'' had broken out between Kosovo and Serbia after the former's decision (now delayed until the start of September) to no longer recognize Serbian license plates led to a brief outburst of unrest along the Kosovo-Serbia border. The Kremlin has also been a destabilizing force in other disputes; in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia has implicitly endorsed the threats made by the country's top Bosnian Serb politician, Milorad Dodik, to dismantle the governance structure established in the power-sharing agreement that ended the Bosnian War in 1995.
Moscow has even been accused of trying to foment a (failed) coup in Montenegro in 2016 as part of a larger destabilization campaign to try to prevent the country from joining NATO (which it did the following year). And of course, in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, fears have risen that President Vladimir Putin's high tolerance for risk could lead him to take aggressive moves in the Balkans to further destabilize political and security dynamics in Europe.
But even in Serbia, there are constraints on Russia's influence. Unlike other Western governments, Belgrade hasn't directly sanctioned Moscow in response to its aggression against Kyiv. But Serbia has backed other sanctions against Russian proxies and voted in favor of multiple U.N. resolutions condemning the Ukraine invasion. And while some have called Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic ''little Putin'' in reference to his perceived close ties with the Kremlin, Vucic's leadership has ultimately been defined much more by a desire to hold power. In May, for example, Vucic made headlines when he criticized remarks made by Putin comparing Kosovo's right to independence with that of the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. More recently, Vucic also condemned a legislator from his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) for appearing to call for war with Kosovo in response to the license plate dispute; in a July 31 tweet, the SNS lawmaker raised the idea that Serbia would ''be forced to begin the denazification of the Balkans'' — using the same controversial term Putin used before sending troops into Ukraine — which Vucic publicly denounced as ''stupid'' and ''irresponsible.''
To this end, Vucic is more than happy to play Russia and Europe off each other to achieve his goals. Indeed, Serbia is the largest regional recipient of EU pre-accession funds, but at the same time recently inked a gas deal with Moscow. Vucic also knows he must at times cater to the pro-Russian sympathies harbored by Serbians, some of whom have protested in support of Russia's actions in Ukraine.
On a more strategic level, the Ukraine war is also a double-edged sword for Russia. While it offers Moscow another wedge issue to try to split the Balkans away from the West, it has also forced the European Union and NATO to refocus on their near-peripheries to counter Russian influence. Both alliances are reexamining their relationships with the Balkans and are newly cognizant that any serious instability, let alone real conflict, would give Russia an opening. This suggests there are even greater motivations in the West to help manage Balkans disputes and move forward with their deeper integration with the European Union and NATO, even if that means in some cases toning down criticism (such as over corruption) in order to keep regional countries facing westward.
The war in Ukraine has even helped check some regional provocations, most notably in June when Milorad Dodik announced a six-month delay in pulling his Republika Srpska region out of Bosnia and Herzegovina's national institutions. Dodik did not formally scrap the plan, but he did specifically cite geopolitical uncertainty as the reason for the postponement, opening an avenue for mediation.
China's Growing Impact
China, too, represents a challenge, primarily economically though increasingly also politically and militarily. A large part of the European Union's leverage in the Balkans is the vast economic benefits that membership would bring. But the longer the accession process takes, the more likely regional states will start looking elsewhere for economic ties, a gap Beijing has eagerly sought to fill.
In recent years, China has poured investment into the region, particularly Serbia, to the tune of billions of dollars annually. And unlike EU and U.S. aid, which is often conditioned on fighting corruption or strengthening the rule of law, most of China's aid comes with few strings attached, making it especially attractive to regional recipients. Though still far behind Russia, China has also started to become more engaged in the region's political disputes and military affairs; this was most notable in April when Chinese military planes delivered an air defense system to Serbia — a visually evocative representation of growing Chinese influence.
But there are also major caveats to this narrative. While Chinese investment in the region has increased, it's still nowhere near the level of EU investment. Serbia, for example, is by far the largest Balkan recipient of Chinese funds, though Chinese investment is estimated to represent approximately just 1% of total foreign direct investment in Serbia (compared with the European Union's 70%). Moreover, while Chinese loans may come with fewer conditions, their terms are also opaque and hard to repay, which ends up trapping borrowers. In Montenegro, a Chinese-financed $1 billion road project (dubbed the ''highway to nowhere'') has attracted global media attention for the havoc it has wreaked on the country's finances — a cautionary tale many regional states have taken note of.
And if anything, Serbia's acquisition of the Chinese air defense system is further evidence that Vucic's administration is hardly in hock to Russia, but instead seeking to play great powers against each other — likely looking to the West to counter. After all, Serbia (like Bosnia-Herzegovina) has an Individual Partnership Action Plan with NATO, the closest form of cooperation a non-member state can have with the bloc.
Turkey's Role
Finally, there is a third external actor, Turkey, which also plays a role in the region, though ultimately its influence has been less impactful and drawn less concern in Western capitals. Geographic proximity and historic ties underlie Ankara's interest in the region, particularly in Muslim majority countries like Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Generally, Turkey has played the role of foreign investor, but has also competed for influence on religious terms by spreading its brand of Islam.
While these factors have at times spurred complaints in Europe, ultimately Turkey's membership in NATO and deep trade ties with the European Union (even if not as a member) mean that its activities have not raised fears akin to those by Russia and China. In fact, whereas Moscow and Beijing have been cast as ideologically-driven destabilizers, Ankara has largely pursued a highly practical foreign policy in the Balkans and favored the Europe-oriented status quo, keen to be seen as a mediator that resolves disputes rather than a disrupter that fans them.
Beijing, Brussels or Moscow?
In this assessment, therefore, concerns over regional ethnic tensions are real but also manageable. Balkan leaders may offer a lot of proverbial bark, but comparatively little bite. This is not to say that sporadic flare-ups, like that seen two weeks ago, will not be ongoing risks. They could even grow in severity and length, especially if regional leaders fan ethnic flames. After all, the danger of playing identity politics is that such passions are deeply personal and harder to temper. But fundamentally, the constraints — politically, economically and militarily — on wider conflict appear to surpass the drivers for it.
An implicit assumption, however, is that the Balkans states feel that deeper integration with the West is still a realistic possibility, despite many years of waiting. Indeed, much of the underlying rationale for peace comes from the belief that conflict would do far more harm to the Balkan states' aspirations than would achieve any major benefits. But should the European Union and NATO fail to offer concrete accession paths, and individual Western states lose interest in the Balkans, regional leaders' calculations could change. This could open the door for greater Russian and Chinese influence or even set the stage for a regional leader to gamble that a major provocation would jolt the West into making concessions rather than see the country swing toward Moscow or Beijing. To be sure, key European leaders have made recent statements supportive of deeper integration with the Balkans and taken trips to the region, but ultimately they will need to show action, not offer mere words.
In this sense, general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina set for Oct. 2 will provide a key litmus test, not only based on how they play out domestically but also for how engaged the European Union, NATO and other key Western players are in the run-up and following the vote. After all, in many respects, the Balkans is the West's to lose. While the Ukraine war has certainly refocused the region's relevance to the West, Russia's invasion is also a tragic reminder of how quickly things can escalate — even when there does not appear to be a clear strategic rationale.
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The unself aware FA opines-- that said there are points worth considering here:
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Playing With Fire in Ukraine
The Underappreciated Risks of Catastrophic Escalation
By John J. Mearsheimer
August 17, 2022
Smoke from a Russian airstrike in Lviv, Ukraine, March 2022
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/playing-fire-ukraine
Western policymakers appear to have reached a consensus about the war in Ukraine: the conflict will settle into a prolonged stalemate, and eventually a weakened Russia will accept a peace agreement that favors the United States and its NATO allies, as well as Ukraine. Although officials recognize that both Washington and Moscow may escalate to gain an advantage or to prevent defeat, they assume that catastrophic escalation can be avoided. Few imagine that U.S. forces will become directly involved in the fighting or that Russia will dare use nuclear weapons.
Washington and its allies are being much too cavalier. Although disastrous escalation may be avoided, the warring parties’ ability to manage that danger is far from certain. The risk of it is substantially greater than the conventional wisdom holds. And given that the consequences of escalation could include a major war in Europe and possibly even nuclear annihilation, there is good reason for extra concern.
To understand the dynamics of escalation in Ukraine, start with each side’s goals. Since the war began, both Moscow and Washington have raised their ambitions significantly, and both are now deeply committed to winning the war and achieving formidable political aims. As a result, each side has powerful incentives to find ways to prevail and, more important, to avoid losing. In practice, this means that the United States might join the fighting either if it is desperate to win or to prevent Ukraine from losing, while Russia might use nuclear weapons if it is desperate to win or faces imminent defeat, which would be likely if U.S. forces were drawn into the fighting.
Furthermore, given each side’s determination to achieve its goals, there is little chance of a meaningful compromise. The maximalist thinking that now prevails in both Washington and Moscow gives each side even more reason to win on the battlefield so that it can dictate the terms of the eventual peace. In effect, the absence of a possible diplomatic solution provides an added incentive for both sides to climb up the escalation ladder. What lies further up the rungs could be something truly catastrophic: a level of death and destruction exceeding that of World War II.
AIMING HIGH
The United States and its allies initially backed Ukraine to prevent a Russian victory and help negotiate a favorable end to the fighting. But once the Ukrainian military began hammering Russian forces, especially around Kyiv, the Biden administration shifted course and committed itself to helping Ukraine win the war against Russia. It also sought to severely damage Russia’s economy by imposing unprecedented sanctions. As Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explained U.S. goals in April, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” In effect, the United States announced its intention to knock Russia out of the ranks of great powers.
What’s more, the United States has tied its own reputation to the outcome of the conflict. U.S. President Joe Biden has labelled Russia’s war in Ukraine a “genocide” and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being a “war criminal” who should face a “war crimes trial.” Presidential proclamations such as these make it hard to imagine Washington backing down; if Russia prevailed in Ukraine, the United States’ position in the world would suffer a serious blow.
Russian ambitions have also expanded. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in the West, Moscow did not invade Ukraine to conquer it and make it part of a Greater Russia. It was principally concerned with preventing Ukraine from becoming a Western bulwark on the Russian border. Putin and his advisers were especially concerned about Ukraine eventually joining NATO. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the point succinctly in mid-January, saying at a press conference, “the key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward.” For Russian leaders, the prospect of Ukrainian membership in NATO is, as Putin himself put it before the invasion, “a direct threat to Russian security”—one that could be eliminated only by going to war and turning Ukraine into a neutral or failed state.
Moscow did not invade Ukraine to conquer it.
Toward that end, it appears that Russia’s territorial goals have expanded markedly since the war started. Until the eve of the invasion, Russia was committed to implementing the Minsk II agreement, which would have kept the Donbas as part of Ukraine. Over the course of the war, however, Russia has captured large swaths of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, and there is growing evidence that Putin now intends to annex all or most of that land, which would effectively turn what is left of Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state.
The threat to Russia today is even greater than it was before the war, mainly because the Biden administration is now determined to roll back Russia’s territorial gains and permanently cripple Russian power. Making matters even worse for Moscow, Finland and Sweden are joining NATO, and Ukraine is better armed and more closely allied with the West. Moscow cannot afford to lose in Ukraine, and it will use every means available to avoid defeat. Putin appears confident that Russia will ultimately prevail against Ukraine and its Western backers. “Today, we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield,” he said in early July. “What can you say? Let them try. The goals of the special military operation will be achieved. There are no doubts about that.”
Ukraine, for its part, has the same goals as the Biden administration. The Ukrainians are bent on recapturing territory lost to Russia—including Crimea—and a weaker Russia is certainly less threatening to Ukraine. Furthermore, they are confident that they can win, as Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov made clear in mid-July, when he said, “Russia can definitely be defeated, and Ukraine has already shown how.” His U.S. counterpart apparently agrees. “Our assistance is making a real difference on the ground,” Austin said in a late July speech. “Russia thinks that it can outlast Ukraine—and outlast us. But that’s just the latest in Russia’s string of miscalculations.”
The threat to Russia from NATO is even greater now than it was before the war.
In essence, Kyiv, Washington, and Moscow are all deeply committed to winning at the expense of their adversary, which leaves little room for compromise. Neither Ukraine nor the United States, for example, is likely to accept a neutral Ukraine; in fact, Ukraine is becoming more closely tied with the West by the day. Nor is Russia likely to return all or even most of the territory it has taken from Ukraine, especially since the animosities that have fueled the conflict in the Donbas between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government for the past eight years are more intense than ever.
These conflicting interests explain why so many observers believe that a negotiated settlement will not happen any time soon and thus foresee a bloody stalemate. They are right about that. But observers are underestimating the potential for catastrophic escalation that is built into a protracted war in Ukraine.
There are three basic routes to escalation inherent in the conduct of war: one or both sides deliberately escalate to win, one or both sides deliberately escalate to prevent defeat, or the fighting escalates not by deliberate choice but inadvertently. Each pathway holds the potential to bring the United States into the fighting or lead Russia to use nuclear weapons, and possibly both.
ENTER AMERICA
Once the Biden administration concluded that Russia could be beaten in Ukraine, it sent more (and more powerful) arms to Kyiv. The West began increasing Ukraine’s offensive capability by sending weapons such as the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, in addition to “defensive” ones such as the Javelin antitank missile. Over time, both the lethality and quantity of the weaponry has increased. Consider that in March, Washington vetoed a plan to transfer Poland’s MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine on the grounds that doing so might escalate the fight, but in July it raised no objections when Slovakia announced that it was considering sending the same planes to Kyiv. The United States is also contemplating giving its own F-15s and F-16s to Ukraine.
The United States and its allies are also training the Ukrainian military and providing it with vital intelligence that it is using to destroy key Russian targets. Moreover, as The New York Times has reported, the West has “a stealthy network of commandos and spies” on the ground inside Ukraine. Washington may not be directly engaged in the fighting, but it is deeply involved in the war. And it is now just a short step away from having its own soldiers pulling triggers and its own pilots pressing buttons.
The U.S. military could get involved in the fighting in a variety of ways. Consider a situation where the war drags on for a year or more, and there is neither a diplomatic solution in sight nor a feasible path to a Ukrainian victory. At the same time, Washington is desperate to end the war—perhaps because it needs to focus on containing China or because the economic costs of backing Ukraine are causing political problems at home and in Europe. In those circumstances, U.S. policymakers would have every reason to consider taking riskier steps—such as imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine or inserting small contingents of U.S. ground forces—to help Ukraine defeat Russia.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, April 2022
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, April 2022
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Reuters
A more likely scenario for U.S. intervention would come about if the Ukrainian army began to collapse and Russia seemed likely to win a major victory. In that case, given the Biden administration’s deep commitment to preventing that outcome, the United States could try to turn the tide by getting directly involved in the fighting. One can easily imagine U.S. officials believing that their country’s credibility was at stake and convincing themselves that a limited use of force would save Ukraine without prompting Putin to use nuclear weapons. Alternatively, a desperate Ukraine might launch large-scale attacks against Russian towns and cities, hoping that such escalation would provoke a massive Russian response that would finally force the United States to join the fighting.
The final scenario for American involvement entails inadvertent escalation: without wanting to, Washington gets drawn into the war by an unforeseen event that spirals upward. Perhaps U.S. and Russian fighter jets, which have come into close contact over the Baltic Sea, accidentally collide. Such an incident could easily escalate, given the high levels of fear on both sides, the lack of communication, and the mutual demonization.
Or maybe Lithuania blocks the passage of sanctioned goods traveling through its territory as they make their way from Russia to Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that is separated from the rest of the country. Lithuania did just that in mid-June, but it backed off in mid-July, after Moscow made it clear it was contemplating “harsh measures” to end what it considered an illegal blockade. The Lithuanian foreign ministry, however, has resisted lifting the blockade completely. Since Lithuania is a NATO member, the United States would almost certainly come to its defense if Russia attacked the country.
Russia, desperate to stop Western military to Ukraine, could strike NATO states.
Or perhaps Russia destroys a building in Kyiv or a training site somewhere in Ukraine and unintentionally kills a substantial number of Americans, such as aid workers, intelligence operatives, or military advisers. The Biden administration, facing a public uproar at home, decides it must retaliate and strikes Russian targets, which then leads to a tit-for-tat exchange between the two sides.
Lastly, there is a chance that the fighting in southern Ukraine will damage the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, to the point where it spews radiation around the region, leading Russia to respond in kind. Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and prime minister, delivered an ominous response to that possibility, saying in August, “Don’t forget that there are nuclear sites in the European Union, too. And incidents are possible there as well.” Should Russia strike a European nuclear reactor, the United States would almost certainly enter the fighting.
Of course, Moscow, too, could instigate the escalation. One cannot discount the possibility that Russia, desperate to stop the flow of Western military aid into Ukraine, would strike the countries through which the bulk of it passes: Poland or Romania, both of which are NATO members. There is also a chance that Russia might launch a massive cyberattack against one or more European countries aiding Ukraine, causing great damage to its critical infrastructure. Such an attack could prompt the United States to launch a retaliatory cyberattack against Russia. If it succeeded, Moscow might respond militarily; if it failed, Washington might decide that the only way to punish Russia would be to hit it directly. Such scenarios sound far-fetched, but they are not impossible. And they are merely a few of the many pathways by which what is now a local war might morph into something much larger and more dangerous.
GOING NUCLEAR
Although Russia’s military has done enormous damage to Ukraine, Moscow has, so far, been reluctant to escalate to win the war. Putin has not expanded the size of his force through large-scale conscription. Nor has he targeted Ukraine’s electrical grid, which would be relatively easy to do and would inflict massive damage on that country. Indeed, many Russians have taken him to task for not waging the war more vigorously. Putin has acknowledged this criticism but has let it be known that he would escalate if necessary. “We haven’t even yet started anything in earnest,” he said in July, suggesting that Russia could and would do more if the military situation deteriorated.
What about the ultimate form of escalation? There are three circumstances in which Putin might use nuclear weapons. The first would be if the United States and its NATO allies entered the fight. Not only would that development markedly shift the military balance against Russia, greatly increasing the likelihood of its defeat, but it would also mean that Russia would be fighting a great-power war on its doorstep that could easily spill into its territory. Russian leaders would surely think their survival was at risk, giving them a powerful incentive to use nuclear weapons to rescue the situation. At a minimum, they would consider demonstration strikes intended to convince the West to back off. Whether such a step would end the war or lead it to escalate out of control is impossible to know in advance.
In his February 24 speech announcing the invasion, Putin strongly hinted that he would turn to nuclear weapons if the United States and its allies entered the war. Addressing “those who may be tempted to interfere,” he said, “they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.” His warning was not lost on Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, who predicted in May that Putin might use nuclear weapons if NATO “is either intervening or about to intervene,” in good part because that “would obviously contribute to a perception that he is about to lose the war in Ukraine.”
There are three circumstances in which Putin might use nuclear weapons.
In the second nuclear scenario, Ukraine turns the tide on the battlefield by itself, without direct U.S. involvement. If Ukrainian forces were poised to defeat the Russian army and take back their country’s lost territory, there is little doubt that Moscow could easily view this outcome as an existential threat that required a nuclear response. After all, Putin and his advisers were sufficiently alarmed by Kyiv’s growing alignment with the West that they deliberately chose to attack Ukraine, despite clear warnings from the United States and its allies about the grave consequences that Russia would face. Unlike in the first scenario, Moscow would be employing nuclear weapons not in the context of a war with the United States but against Ukraine. It would do so with little fear of nuclear retaliation, since Kyiv has no nuclear weapons and since Washington would have no interest in starting a nuclear war. The absence of a clear retaliatory threat would make it easier for Putin to contemplate nuclear use.
In the third scenario, the war settles into a protracted stalemate that has no diplomatic solution and becomes exceedingly costly for Moscow. Desperate to end the conflict on favorable terms, Putin might pursue nuclear escalation to win. As with the previous scenario, where he escalates to avoid defeat, U.S. nuclear retaliation would be highly unlikely. In both scenarios, Russia is likely to use tactical nuclear weapons against a small set of military targets, at least initially. It could strike towns and cities in later attacks if necessary. Gaining a military advantage would be one aim of the strategy, but the more important one would be to deal a game-changing blow—to create such fear in the West that the United States and its allies move quickly to end the conflict on terms favorable to Moscow. No wonder William Burns, the director of the CIA, remarked in April, “None of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons.”
COURTING CATASTROPHE
One might concede that although one of these catastrophic scenarios could theoretically happen, the chances are small and thus should be of little concern. After all, leaders on both sides have powerful incentives to keep the Americans out of the fighting and avoid even limited nuclear use, not to mention an actual nuclear war.
If only one could be so sanguine. In fact, the conventional view vastly understates the dangers of escalation in Ukraine. For starters, wars tend to have a logic of their own, which makes it difficult to predict their course. Anyone who says that they know with confidence what path the war in Ukraine will take is mistaken. The dynamics of escalation in wartime are similarly hard to predict or control, which should serve as a warning to those who are confident that events in Ukraine can be managed. Furthermore, as the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz recognized, nationalism encourages modern wars to escalate to their most extreme form, especially when the stakes are high for both sides. That is not to say that wars cannot be kept limited, but doing so is not easy. Finally, given the staggering costs of a great-power nuclear war, even a small chance of it occurring should make everyone think long and hard about where this conflict might be headed.
This perilous situation creates a powerful incentive to find a diplomatic solution to the war. Regrettably, however, there is no political settlement in sight, as both sides are firmly committed to war aims that make compromise almost impossible. The Biden administration should have worked with Russia to settle the Ukraine crisis before war broke out in February. It is too late now to strike a deal. Russia, Ukraine, and the West are stuck in a terrible situation with no obvious way out. One can only hope that leaders on both sides will manage the war in ways that avoid catastrophic escalation. For the tens of millions of people whose lives are at stake, however, that is cold comfort.
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Placed here for its relevance to the Ukraine War
By: Geopolitical Futures
Buying Russian oil. Japan has reportedly resumed importing oil from Russia. Import volumes are still down year-on-year, as Japan brought in just 65 percent of what it imported in July of last year. Still, despite the lull in Russian hydrocarbons, Japan’s trade deficit with Russia by value increased by 155 percent. Elsewhere, Bangladesh is considering buying fuel supplies from Russia amid growing economic instability.
Russian denial. The Russian Embassy in Armenia sent a note to the Armenian Foreign Ministry in which it defended itself against accusations that it was involved in an explosion in Yerevan on Aug. 14. Separately, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held talks Wednesday with his Armenian counterpart to discuss military-technical and military cooperation, as well as issues related to Russian peacekeeping operations.
Russia receives India. India's national security adviser made an unannounced visit to Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian authorities, including his counterpart Nikolai Patrushev. They are expected to discuss Afghanistan, counterterrorism, defense, and food and energy security
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Waiting for the next thing, as Ukraine has faded.
Placed here for its relevance to the Ukraine War
By: Geopolitical Futures
Buying Russian oil. Japan has reportedly resumed importing oil from Russia. Import volumes are still down year-on-year, as Japan brought in just 65 percent of what it imported in July of last year. Still, despite the lull in Russian hydrocarbons, Japan’s trade deficit with Russia by value increased by 155 percent. Elsewhere, Bangladesh is considering buying fuel supplies from Russia amid growing economic instability.
Russian denial. The Russian Embassy in Armenia sent a note to the Armenian Foreign Ministry in which it defended itself against accusations that it was involved in an explosion in Yerevan on Aug. 14. Separately, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held talks Wednesday with his Armenian counterpart to discuss military-technical and military cooperation, as well as issues related to Russian peacekeeping operations.
Russia receives India. India's national security adviser made an unannounced visit to Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian authorities, including his counterpart Nikolai Patrushev. They are expected to discuss Afghanistan, counterterrorism, defense, and food and energy security
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Faded?
Maybe not , , ,
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/08/us-deploys-nuke-capable-b-52-bombers-to-uk/?fbclid=IwAR2BWSPQDHcaFV0MNwfJ8KaA5erMnz2A_FbaqOt0glYS9IHu_t8lFooozW4
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I mean the psyop. It has run out of steam, the potential for WW III has not...
Faded?
Maybe not , , ,
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/08/us-deploys-nuke-capable-b-52-bombers-to-uk/?fbclid=IwAR2BWSPQDHcaFV0MNwfJ8KaA5erMnz2A_FbaqOt0glYS9IHu_t8lFooozW4
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At least they will reach their carbon goals
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2609611/putin-helping-germany-reach-carbon-goals
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August 24, 2022
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Russia’s Buffer Zone May Have to Wait
Mounting challenges are forcing Moscow to moderate its war aims in Ukraine.
By: Ridvan Bari Urcosta
As the military adage goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy. No one is more cognizant of this fact right now than Russia, which has faced multiple setbacks in its offensive against Ukraine. Six months in, the situation on the ground is constantly changing, often in ways that the Kremlin didn’t expect or intend. Russia invaded Ukraine with the goal of reestablishing much-needed strategic depth on its western borders. However, as the fighting wears on, new challenges are forcing Moscow to limit its focus to securing sufficient defensive depth around core regions and chokepoints rather than seizing all of Ukraine.
Russia’s objectives in Ukraine are intertwined with its security and military concerns, which are themselves part of a broader grand strategy. Russia’s grand strategy entails achieving strategic depth along vulnerable borders. In this case, Ukraine helps fulfill the Russian need to create a larger buffer zone between itself and the West, particularly NATO states. In 2014, Moscow made a first attempt at gaining Ukrainian territory and succeeded in holding Crimea as well as establishing a strong presence in Donbas. This time around, Moscow believed that those Ukrainians who for decades voted for pro-Russian political parties would lend their support to the Russian initiative. This did not happen.
Since late February, the battleground and its realities have been forcing Russia to rethink its immediate strategic goals. The fighting has gone on longer than anticipated, and Ukraine has demonstrated it plans to continue fighting and is not yet interested in a peace agreement. With time, Ukraine will complete its training on Western-donated weapons and equipment. Russia’s most significant concern in this regard is the versatile short- and medium-range rockets that Ukraine possesses or will possess in the near future. Over the past few weeks, Ukraine has demonstrated the capability to use these rockets to strike deep into the rear of Russian forces on the offensive, including hitting weapons depots and air defense systems. This, then, compels the Russians to drive deeper into Ukrainian territory to build even more strategic depth and provide the distance for its air defense systems to react.
Additionally, Russia's challenges will only multiply and intensify with time. First, there's the West's economic and military support for Ukraine, which helps Kyiv to prolong the fighting and do so with increasingly advanced weaponry. Ukraine's asymmetric attacks with weapons like the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, better known as HIMARS, have proved particularly problematic for Russia. On the economic front, Western sanctions against Russia led Moscow to start restricting trade and economic relationships. They also overburdened the Russian economy and resulted in the political decision to repress domestic unrest. Lastly, Russia does not appear to have overcome its logistical challenges and continues to struggle to deliver military supplies and defend its rear. All of these factors together make taking the whole of Ukraine a less feasible, more costly move.
Russia's Buffer Zones
(click to enlarge)
Russia, therefore, recalculated its military strategy toward Ukraine. First, the new strategy needed to account for Ukraine’s Western allies. Russia knew the West would side with Ukraine but miscalculated the degree to which the West would provide military and financial support and its ability to collectively engage in economic warfare. In particular, Moscow remains vigilant of U.S. and British contributions to the Ukraine war effort, particularly with the delivery of cutting-edge military hardware. At the same time, the West’s collective response made Moscow more cautious about bringing its forces right up to NATO lines. Russia does not want to engage directly with NATO, and efforts to occupy all of Ukraine would bring it dangerously close to NATO’s border, leaving little room for error. Lastly, Moscow seeks to use lessons from the war in Donbas between 2014 and 2015 to account for Ukraine’s military capability (particularly with regard to missiles) to target Russian military assets by establishing greater depth around chokepoints of strategic importance.
Russia’s new strategy entails a new list of military objectives in Ukraine. First, Russia must secure the separatist Donbas republics from the reach of Ukrainian artillery and rockets, up to 150 to 200 kilometers (roughly 90 to 125 miles). This requires establishing total control of the area from Donetsk to the city of Pavlograd near the Dnieper River. Farther south, Russia must secure the northern Crimean water canal system in the Kherson region from Ukrainian artillery and prevent the reclamation of these areas by the Ukrainian army. Russia's distance calculations here are premised on the missile range of Ukrainian and Western-provided weapons, and will thus adjust with Ukrainian capabilities.
To achieve these goals, Russia again must conduct an offensive operation and reach the line of Kryvyi Rih and Nova Odesa, and take Mykolayiv city. It is an almost impossible task for Russia currently. Relatedly, Russian forces need to control the Crimean Bridge given its essential role as an economic and military supply route to the peninsula and the Russian forces in southern Ukraine. This also means guaranteeing security over all of Crimea and keeping it free from military incidents. Currently, the closest Russian bases in Crimea are no less than 200 kilometers from areas under Ukrainian control. And finally, Russia will set its sights on the longer-term goal of securing a greater buffer zone along Ukraine’s northern regions of Sumy and Chernihiv, which are just 450 kilometers from Moscow. These regions are close to many cities that are part of the Russian ethnic heartland – like Kursk, Belgorod, Oryol and Voronezh – where Moscow does not want to lose any influence. The problem with this particular objective is that, in order to gain more than a 100-kilometer buffer zone, Moscow has to go almost to the outskirts of Kyiv, on the left bank of the Dnieper, which as the early phase of the war proved would come at a high cost.
Russia is trapped in a classic geopolitical dilemma, where mounting constraints prevent it from effectively pursuing its ultimate goal of gaining strategic depth along its western border. Moscow’s current solution is to go marginally deeper into Ukrainian territory to secure depth against missiles in strategic occupied territory, without making a play for all of Ukraine. Such an approach will leave the question of its buffer zone open-ended. But it may also provide Russia with the opportunity to consolidate the progress it has made during this round, free up resources to focus on mounting economic problems and live to fight another day. It’s only a matter of time before Russia steps up overtures for a negotiated settlement in the conflict.
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Russia’s Gas Threat Is a Bluff
Its reputation and economy both depend on keeping the Nord Stream pipeline operational.
By Paul Roderick Gregory and Ramanan Krishnamoorti
Aug. 24, 2022 1:33 pm ET
Vladimir Putin relishes blackmailing an apprehensive and intimidated Europe with access to natural gas. His game: threatening that Russia will deliver only 40%, 20%, maybe even zero if you don’t do what he wants. Governments hang on his words without asking whether his threats are credible. The International Energy Association warns that Mr. Putin might cut off gas to the European Union entirely. But that would require a complete shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, and every petroleum engineer knows the consequences for Mr. Putin would be dire.
In gas markets, a gathering system transports gas from fields. This system connects to a pipeline, which transports gas to customers. Transactions between buyers and sellers are usually governed by long-term contracts that promise sufficient revenue for construction, operating costs and profits to satisfy demand at the other end of the pipeline.
That Gazprom, Russia’s state-run gas company, isn’t an investor-owned for-profit enterprise complicates conventional economic analysis. Gazprom serves as an instrument of Russian foreign policy. Its Nord Stream pipeline transports gas to the EU through its northern route. The pipeline draws its gas from fields in Russia’s remote Arctic areas, including Yamalo-Nenets. This gas enters the pipeline at Vyborg, close to the Finnish border. It then flows under the North Sea to Greifswald, Germany, and enters the EU distribution system. A parallel undersea pipeline, Nord Stream 2, has yet to enter into service.
Nord Stream’s capacity is 62 billion cubic meters a year. From 2019-21, Gazprom shipped annually some 55 billion cubic meters of gas through Nord Stream, and it operated at this rate—near capacity—up to the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
We don’t yet know how much pipeline capacity will be used in 2022, but, in late July Nord Stream operated around 40% capacity. After a return to service, following so-called routine maintenance in July, flow fell to 20% of capacity. Gazprom’s threat of further stoppages materialized as it again shut down deliveries for three days at the end of August for maintenance.
If the pipeline operates at 20% of capacity for the rest of the year, Gazprom would transmit about 19 billion cubic meters of gas to the EU via Nord Stream in 2022. This gas will be drawn from fields that in the preceding three years produced about 55 billion cubic meters a year.
Unlike crude oil, which could be diverted to other markets by tankers, Gazprom can’t send its excess northern gas elsewhere. That would require massive new pipeline systems, taking years to build. Gazprom could divert some gas to storage, but its tanks already are nearly full in preparation for winter.
Producers can’t increase or reduce output according to pipeline demand, so Gazprom would seem to have no choice but to shut in a substantial number of Northern gas wells. It can do so without losing lucrative oil production, because these fields are “dry,” primarily gas wells, not a mix of oil and gas. Gas production for the whole of Russia declined more than 10% in the first half of 2022 compared with the previous six months as wells began to be shut in.
Shut-in wells are always challenging when dealing with hundreds of wells across different geological formations. As time passes, shut-in wells can experience fluid buildups that threaten the underlying reservoir structure, keeping some from returning to full production. That can be avoided with good field management. But Gazprom must now do without Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger, international service companies with expertise in well management that are winding down their business in Russia. As a last resort, Gazprom could flare the excess gas, causing environmental damage and effectively burning money.
The excess-gas problem is only one potential cost of dramatic cutbacks in deliveries to the EU. The cutbacks likely won’t damage the pipeline itself, although steel can corrode and leaks could form. Rather, the accessories that regulate the gas flowing into the pipeline could be damaged by operating at a low capacity. Most of the compressors that pressurize the gas, as well as valves and meters, tend to operate best at high capacity. Lower pressure and diminished throughput can compromise ancillary equipment.
But we have yet to examine Mr. Putin’s most extreme option: stopping all gas deliveries to the EU, shutting in entire fields and idling Nord Stream not for days or weeks but months. Such a shutdown during the winter would require a complete overhaul of Nord Stream’s ancillary equipment, and no one could know what damage the pipeline and related infrastructure would incur.
Mr. Putin can threaten to cut off gas, but he can’t act unless he is willing to risk one of his crown jewels. So who has whom over the barrel? As he becomes more belligerent, the EU is booking substitutes for Russian gas from Qatar, Algeria, Azerbaijan and others, returning to coal and nuclear power, and expanding its liquefied-natural-gas infrastructure.
The threat to Russia’s gas infrastructure from Mr. Putin is trivial compared with his sacrifice of Russia’s reputation as a reliable supplier, which the Soviets began cultivating decades ago. As he jerks his EU customers around with threats, small concessions and more threats, he risks losing his best EU customers for good. Who will benefit? Mr. Putin’s enemy No. 1—the U.S. and its burgeoning LNG behemoth.
Mr. Gregory is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Houston and a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Mr. Krishnamoorti is a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston.
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Putin doesn't need to cut off all gas, just restrict it. Which he is already doing.
Russia’s Gas Threat Is a Bluff
Its reputation and economy both depend on keeping the Nord Stream pipeline operational.
By Paul Roderick Gregory and Ramanan Krishnamoorti
Aug. 24, 2022 1:33 pm ET
Vladimir Putin relishes blackmailing an apprehensive and intimidated Europe with access to natural gas. His game: threatening that Russia will deliver only 40%, 20%, maybe even zero if you don’t do what he wants. Governments hang on his words without asking whether his threats are credible. The International Energy Association warns that Mr. Putin might cut off gas to the European Union entirely. But that would require a complete shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, and every petroleum engineer knows the consequences for Mr. Putin would be dire.
In gas markets, a gathering system transports gas from fields. This system connects to a pipeline, which transports gas to customers. Transactions between buyers and sellers are usually governed by long-term contracts that promise sufficient revenue for construction, operating costs and profits to satisfy demand at the other end of the pipeline.
That Gazprom, Russia’s state-run gas company, isn’t an investor-owned for-profit enterprise complicates conventional economic analysis. Gazprom serves as an instrument of Russian foreign policy. Its Nord Stream pipeline transports gas to the EU through its northern route. The pipeline draws its gas from fields in Russia’s remote Arctic areas, including Yamalo-Nenets. This gas enters the pipeline at Vyborg, close to the Finnish border. It then flows under the North Sea to Greifswald, Germany, and enters the EU distribution system. A parallel undersea pipeline, Nord Stream 2, has yet to enter into service.
Nord Stream’s capacity is 62 billion cubic meters a year. From 2019-21, Gazprom shipped annually some 55 billion cubic meters of gas through Nord Stream, and it operated at this rate—near capacity—up to the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
We don’t yet know how much pipeline capacity will be used in 2022, but, in late July Nord Stream operated around 40% capacity. After a return to service, following so-called routine maintenance in July, flow fell to 20% of capacity. Gazprom’s threat of further stoppages materialized as it again shut down deliveries for three days at the end of August for maintenance.
If the pipeline operates at 20% of capacity for the rest of the year, Gazprom would transmit about 19 billion cubic meters of gas to the EU via Nord Stream in 2022. This gas will be drawn from fields that in the preceding three years produced about 55 billion cubic meters a year.
Unlike crude oil, which could be diverted to other markets by tankers, Gazprom can’t send its excess northern gas elsewhere. That would require massive new pipeline systems, taking years to build. Gazprom could divert some gas to storage, but its tanks already are nearly full in preparation for winter.
Producers can’t increase or reduce output according to pipeline demand, so Gazprom would seem to have no choice but to shut in a substantial number of Northern gas wells. It can do so without losing lucrative oil production, because these fields are “dry,” primarily gas wells, not a mix of oil and gas. Gas production for the whole of Russia declined more than 10% in the first half of 2022 compared with the previous six months as wells began to be shut in.
Shut-in wells are always challenging when dealing with hundreds of wells across different geological formations. As time passes, shut-in wells can experience fluid buildups that threaten the underlying reservoir structure, keeping some from returning to full production. That can be avoided with good field management. But Gazprom must now do without Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger, international service companies with expertise in well management that are winding down their business in Russia. As a last resort, Gazprom could flare the excess gas, causing environmental damage and effectively burning money.
The excess-gas problem is only one potential cost of dramatic cutbacks in deliveries to the EU. The cutbacks likely won’t damage the pipeline itself, although steel can corrode and leaks could form. Rather, the accessories that regulate the gas flowing into the pipeline could be damaged by operating at a low capacity. Most of the compressors that pressurize the gas, as well as valves and meters, tend to operate best at high capacity. Lower pressure and diminished throughput can compromise ancillary equipment.
But we have yet to examine Mr. Putin’s most extreme option: stopping all gas deliveries to the EU, shutting in entire fields and idling Nord Stream not for days or weeks but months. Such a shutdown during the winter would require a complete overhaul of Nord Stream’s ancillary equipment, and no one could know what damage the pipeline and related infrastructure would incur.
Mr. Putin can threaten to cut off gas, but he can’t act unless he is willing to risk one of his crown jewels. So who has whom over the barrel? As he becomes more belligerent, the EU is booking substitutes for Russian gas from Qatar, Algeria, Azerbaijan and others, returning to coal and nuclear power, and expanding its liquefied-natural-gas infrastructure.
The threat to Russia’s gas infrastructure from Mr. Putin is trivial compared with his sacrifice of Russia’s reputation as a reliable supplier, which the Soviets began cultivating decades ago. As he jerks his EU customers around with threats, small concessions and more threats, he risks losing his best EU customers for good. Who will benefit? Mr. Putin’s enemy No. 1—the U.S. and its burgeoning LNG behemoth.
Mr. Gregory is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Houston and a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Mr. Krishnamoorti is a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston.
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quote author=G M
Putin doesn't need to cut off all gas, just restrict it. Which he is already doing.
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Yes. Biden's policies (and Europe's) are paying for Putin's war.
All he has to do is maximize his revenues. For those relying on the pipeline, he is the OPEC of the 1970s.
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Weapons shortage. Germany’s foreign minister said in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF that her country was experiencing a shortage of weapons, which explains some of the difficulties it has had in delivering arms to Ukraine.
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Even Pentagon front D1 has to admit:
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2022/09/russian-oil-exports-rise-governments-and-shipping-companies-play-cat-and-mouse/376720/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
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Second
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/in-prague-it-begins/
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"Russia's melancholy oligarchs," via Financial Times on Russian tycoons "bitter about sanctions that have left them ostracized in the west and impotent at home," including one (Mikhail Fridman) offering to finance Ukraine reconstruction if the U.S. spares him;
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We will see how long europe can stick it out.
I bet the Russians will be welcomed back with open arms well before spring.
"Russia's melancholy oligarchs," via Financial Times on Russian tycoons "bitter about sanctions that have left them ostracized in the west and impotent at home," including one (Mikhail Fridman) offering to finance Ukraine reconstruction if the U.S. spares him;
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https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/09/finnish-economist-i-am-telling-you-people-that-the-situation-in-europe-is-much-worse-than-many-understand/
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https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/09/finnish-economist-i-am-telling-you-people-that-the-situation-in-europe-is-much-worse-than-many-understand/
The best case scenario is that we can still rebuild after the damage is done with minimal disruption.
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Daily Memo: Putin and Scholz Discuss Ukraine, Gas
The German chancellor urged Moscow to withdraw its forces from Ukraine.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Difficult discussions. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory and seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict during a phone call on Tuesday. It was the leaders’ first conversation since late May. According to the Kremlin, Putin said Russia remains a reliable energy supplier and claimed that Western sanctions were to blame for the stoppage of deliveries through the Baltic Sea natural gas pipeline.
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2741601/prague-now
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2741601/prague-now
When virtue signaling goes wrong.
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For 30%?
https://watson.brown.edu/climatesolutionslab/research/2022/mapping-us-military-dependence-russian-fossil-fuels
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September 21, 2022
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Russia Hits Europe in the Bread Basket
When it comes to fertilizers, Europe has no good alternatives.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
It’s autumn in Europe, which for European farmers means it’s time to start placing orders for fertilizer for the spring. Of course, prices have been much higher recently. World nitrogen prices are up significantly since the start of 2021, driven by elevated demand for agricultural produce and pandemic-related supply disruptions. European prices of natural gas – a factor in nitrogen-based fertilizer production – since the second half of 2021 have shot up by even more. And the elevated price of nitrogen fertilizers has already pushed purchasers toward phosphorus or potash fertilizers, bringing their prices to multiyear highs as well. Then, in February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was added to the mix.
Higher energy and fertilizer prices means higher food prices, without a fanciful surge in output or state intervention. This will increase the risk of social unrest in Europe, a major concern for European governments and the European Union. It’s clear that Europe must do something, but the most important factors in the soaring costs are the war in Ukraine and – indirectly, in the case of fertilizers – Western sanctions against Russia. For Moscow, one of the world’s largest producers of natural gas and nitrogen fertilizers, this is crucial leverage, which it will use to try to extract significant concessions on sanctions. Europe’s next best alternative — finding supplies somewhere else in the next few months – is unlikely to pan out, and it may eventually have to give the Kremlin some of what it wants.
Disruptions, Real and Imagined
Put a large market with lots of manufacturing capacity next to a treasure trove of natural resources, and you get interdependence. Over the years, infrastructure and commercial linkages, made possible by proximity and circumstance, have tied the European and Russian markets together. In addition to being a massive natural gas exporter, Russia supplies approximately 45 percent of the world’s ammonia nitrate fertilizers, 20 percent of potash fertilizers and just under 15 percent of phosphate fertilizers. Most of this production goes to Europe. Russia receives a constant influx of foreign currency, reinforcing the regime’s stability. Europe, most of the time, receives a cheap, steady flow of critical inputs: About 40 percent of its gas imports and, for example, about a third of its ammonium for the production of fertilizers. Roughly a quarter of Europe’s fertilizers are imported from Russia, and together with Belarus, a Russian ally, provides more than half of Europe’s potash fertilizers.
Fertilizer Nutrients and Imports' Share in EU Consumption
(click to enlarge)
EU Fertilizer Production by Nutrient, 2019
(click to enlarge)
Since December 2021, the Kremlin has had quotas in effect on exports of nitrogen and compound nitrogen fertilizers to states outside the Eurasian Economic Union, but those quotas have been gradually relaxed without spurring a significant increase in Russian fertilizer exports to Europe. Western sanctions do contribute, but not directly. There are sanctions in effect that target individuals who run Russian fertilizer companies, but no measures target the fertilizers themselves. The European Union did adopt a quota on the import of Russian potassium fertilizers for one year, but the quota limit is very close to typical trade volumes. Instead, the effect of Western sanctions is mostly transmitted through logistics and finance.
In terms of logistics, Baltic ports that usually receive shipments have become less accessible to Russian producers. Buyers have encountered difficulties chartering large bulk carriers, forcing them to rely on smaller vessels and raising transport costs and delivery times. Financially, some Russian banks are blocked from using SWIFT, the dominant messaging system for interbank transactions. As a result, payments are more complicated, and some potential buyers are avoiding Russia entirely for fear of blowback. In total, nearly 300,000 tons of fertilizers are reportedly blocked from European ports and can’t reach the buyers.
Toliatti-Gorlovka-Odessa Ammonia Pipeline
(click to enlarge)
With respect to ammonia specifically, the war in Ukraine is a direct obstacle to the delivery of supplies. The 2,500-kilometer (1,550-mile) Togliatti-Gorlovka-Odesa pipeline is capable of transporting 2.5 million tons of ammonia per year from Russia’s Volga region to the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Yuzhny, near Odesa. But it also happens to traverse the parts of Ukraine witnessing the most intense fighting, including Kharkiv. And since ammonia is highly toxic and corrosive, the war is a problem.
Europe’s Options
An additional problem for Europe is the lack of alternative suppliers. Domestically, the nearly 30 percent increase in natural gas prices put a damper on Europe’s own fertilizer production. As much as 15 million tons of European ammonia capacity has been shuttered or is at risk of it, equivalent to almost a third of Europe’s annual output. Producers of nitrogen fertilizers face significant competition for scarce natural gas from other industries as well as households. And Europe lacks the capacity to significantly raise production of other types of fertilizers. Ideally, Europe would try to develop homegrown resources –preferably not nitrogen, whose processing for fertilizers requires lots of natural gas. Mines in east Germany have started test-drilling for potassium, but again, it would take time to spin those up to meaningful production levels.
European buyers have reached out to other gas and fertilizer producers in the Middle East, North Africa and Canada. The bloc is discussing natural gas with Algeria and fertilizer with Morocco, which already provides 40 percent of Europe’s phosphate imports and contains more than 75 percent of proven world reserves of phosphorite. But Europe faces obstacles here as well. Gas-producing countries are already taking advantage of their access to cheaper gas and running fertilizer plants producing nitrogen at near full capacity. Quickly raising production of other fertilizers is even more difficult. Lastly, importing more fertilizers does nothing to help domestic fertilizer firms stay afloat.
European Fertilizer Consumption by Crop
(click to enlarge)
Then there are the long lead times. Although fertilizer is usually applied a couple of months before planting season (February-March), farmers usually order fertilizer between September and November. The European Union is working on a strategy to increase domestic fertilizer production, protect and create jobs, and diversify supplies, but such a reform will take more time than Europe has – and possibly more unity too.
This leaves Europe with two options: muddle through, or compromise with Russia. Already, there are indications that Europe is investigating the latter. According to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the West is discussing increasing ammonia nitrate supplies through the pipeline in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already given his support to the idea. And the United Nations proposed that gaseous ammonia owned by Russian fertilizer maker Uralchem be piped to the border with Ukraine, where U.S.-based trader Trammo would buy it.
Compromised
But Russia is aware that Europe does not have many options, so Moscow is in no hurry to respond to appeals to make better use of the Togliatti-Gorlovka-Odesa pipeline. The Kremlin intends to squeeze Europe to, for instance, ease restrictions on logistics or payment for Russian goods. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently called on Europe to ease restrictions on port access for fertilizer shipments bound not just for Europe but for non-European markets as well. Several ports, including Rotterdam and Finland’s Kotka, have responded positively to proposals to make exceptions for Russian fertilizers. However, Brussels is nervous that simplifying logistics or otherwise easing up the pressure will restore maritime or rail connections and give Russia more access to foreign currency and trade.
Given the likely shortages of fertilizers for the spring, the prospects for Europe’s 2023 harvest are murky but downbeat. Moscow can use the situation to promote its interests and seek favorable contract terms. It will delay restoration of pipeline supplies for as long as possible under various pretexts, from unexpected repairs to retribution for refusal to pay in rubles. Therefore, food prices are unlikely to stabilize by next summer, and prices in the EU as a whole will remain elevated, heaping more pressure on the bloc.
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Gas prices. Moldova’s National Energy Regulatory Agency said the price of natural gas for consumers will increase by 27 percent beginning Oct. 1, as a result of the rising cost of Russian gas. The government in the Eastern European country is coming under increasing pressure with anti-government protests erupting there already this month.
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September 26, 2022
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Why Would Poland Spurn Germany?
The answer is domestic and, to a lesser extent, European politics.
By: Ryan Bridges
“We were dependent on Russia, but today we are cutting this dependence,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said last week while inaugurating a new canal to the Baltic Sea. The canal’s contribution to this goal is dubious, but it will enable vessels to reach or depart the Polish port of Elblag without needing to traverse Russian territorial waters around Kaliningrad. More interesting was Morawiecki’s next statement: “We are cutting our dependence on both Russia and Germany.” This comes just a few weeks after Poland demanded $1.3 trillion in World War II reparations from Germany.
Warsaw’s reasons for distancing itself from Moscow – a hostile power with a proven history of invading its neighbors – are clear, but Berlin’s offenses are less obvious. Germany is Central Europe’s strongest country, with a latent capability to dominate most of the Continent. The Western powers’ strategy toward Germany since World War II has been to smother it with friendship – integrating its military into a U.S.-dominated alliance with its neighbors and, beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community, giving its economy the keys to a market of more than 450 million consumers and their countries’ resources. Germany’s docility today in the face of Russia’s attack on the NATO-Russian buffer shows that the Western strategy was, if anything, too successful. When it comes to the immediate threat to Poland, Berlin is a friend to Warsaw. Why, then, is the head of Poland’s government trumpeting cryptic plans to reduce ties with Germany? The answer is domestic and, to a lesser extent, European politics.
The German Question
The roots of the European Union lie in predominantly U.S. efforts to find a way to unleash German economic potential while calming German anxieties about potential encirclement. For reasons having to do with geography, climate, culture, history and probably countless lesser factors, the Germans are experts at producing complex industrial goods – far more than the German population could possibly consume. This raises two problems: First, the resources necessary to produce all these unparalleled goods exceed Germany’s own resource pool. The German economy has to get them from somewhere else, whether via cheap trade and investment or conquest. Second, a population of approximately 80 million couldn’t possibly consume all the vehicles, machinery, etc. that German industry can produce. The German economy needs easy access to foreign consumers – again, through preferential trade arrangements or conquest – to offload the excess. The U.S. strategy, which Washington advanced through deft diplomacy, economic incentives and security guarantees despite the reluctance of France and Britain, successfully resolved both German problems peacefully. The European common market was born, nestled in a political framework that had to grow with economic integration.
The resulting union is what Poland and other newly independent Soviet satellites and republics were desperate to join as the Soviet Union started to disintegrate. The EU all but guaranteed explosive economic growth and could open the door to NATO membership – that is, American military protection. Poland applied for EU membership in 1994 and joined in 2004 alongside nine of its neighbors. As expected, NATO invited Warsaw into its ranks in 1997, and the marriage was sealed less than two years later. The Polish economy saw 28 years of economic growth – even through the 2008 recession and Europe’s own subsequent crisis – before shrinking briefly in 2020.
But while this was happening, the post-Cold War world was taking shape. Politically, economically and militarily peerless on the world stage, the United States scrambled to capitalize on its advantage. It pushed for a more globalized world, with more and stronger political and economic bindings. Militarily, it enlarged the trans-Atlantic alliance and, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, embarked on an ill-fated campaign to spread democracy by force in the Muslim world. The shock of the 2008 Great Recession gravely wounded social cohesion, not only in the U.S., and raised serious questions about the attractiveness and viability of the U.S.-led economic order and leadership. At the same time, America’s disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and its chaotic interventions in Libya and elsewhere undermined domestic support for military adventurism. By 2022, after some three decades of U.S. preponderance, the world is riddled with crises, and Americans’ willingness to pay the cost of being the world’s policeman has receded. (By how much is an open question. U.S. assistance to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia suggest it’s still higher than some observers believed.)
The Sovereignty Question
Where do Polish-German relations fit into this well-known history? Just as the Americans had their phase of overexuberance after the Cold War, so did the Europeans, including the Poles and other newly independent peoples. EU enlargement wasn’t an especially difficult sell. Incorporating much poorer ex-Soviet satellites and vulnerable states would be expensive, but the potential payoff was irresistible. Western European investors could snatch up cheap land, resources and companies, yielding a healthy profit, while Eastern European workers could flood the EU with cheap labor. Bureaucrats in Brussels gave considerable thought to how best to politically integrate the former communist states. It was not enough to make them see European integration in the same light as the founding members.
From the world wars, many Europeans and most Germans learned that European nationalism must be contained in the name of peace. During the Cold War, the early members of what would become the European Union got decades of practice trusting one another and cooperating for mutual benefit. But across the Iron Curtain, Moscow was stamping out European nationalism in its own way: using brutal covert and overt repression. While Western Europeans were discussing deeper political, economic and monetary integration in the late 1980s, the Soviets’ dire economic situation was depriving them of the ability to contain nationalism in Eastern Europe. By 1990, nationalism and democracy had won out in Central and Eastern Europe.
But democracy alone is not enough. Whereas Western Europe’s collective identity over decades had focused on multilateralism and compromise, its liberated neighbors to the east had been learning the value of cohesiveness, national pride and sovereignty. Without those things, they would not have regained their autonomy. Where a West German saw the loss of some national sovereignty to Brussels as the price of prosperity and peace – and thus a net positive for Bonn’s sovereignty overall – a Pole was mistrustful of any appeals to share decision-making power.
National identities form over generations, and changing them is hard. Poland’s current leadership, the Law and Justice Party (PiS), is particularly committed to Polish nationalism and conservative values. Its largest political opponents are pro-European liberals and centrists, closer to the prevailing politics in Western Europe, where the bulk of EU decision-making power lies. Drawing on their cultural and historical memory, Polish national-conservatives are xenophobic, especially Islamophobic, and generally intolerant of social diversity. (The Western European experience, despite its imperfections, is simply different.) The prevailing ideology in Poland, while reserving its most intense disdain for the Kremlin, is highly mistrustful of Germany’s relative social liberalism.
More important, PiS wants to make fundamental changes to the Polish judicial system, but it has failed to convince most of the EU that its intentions are good and its concerns legitimate. Brussels and most Western European capitals suspect PiS is working to weaken or eradicate Polish political and social liberalism, a challenge to their own regimes but also to the EU, which is founded on liberal ideas like compromise, diversity, civil rights and the rule of law.
Germany Is the Rock, Russia Is the Hard Place
The main battlefield between PiS and Brussels is over the reversal of some Polish judicial reforms and the delivery of 35 billion euros ($34 billion) of EU money for Poland’s economic recovery from COVID-19. The European Commission set milestones for the reversal of PiS’ judicial reforms that it says Warsaw must meet before it will transfer the funds. Obviously, PiS wants to concede as little as possible, but the economic slowdown, rising interest rates and the war next door are pressuring it to get the funds soon. What’s more, Poland is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections by November 2023, and if it doesn’t receive the assistance before then, PiS will be gambling its electoral fortunes on an orderly end to the war in Ukraine and an economic rebound, ideally by the summer.
The Polish government’s rhetorical assault on Germany, therefore, is part of its power struggle with the EU, as well as a backup campaign strategy. Germany is the most influential member of the European Union, but it cannot single-handedly decide whether Poland will receive its 35 billion euros. Poland’s prime minister knows this. But Berlin is a popular object of antipathy for his party’s base – much better than targeting the EU itself, which is immensely popular with Poles. Anti-German rhetoric signals PiS’ resolve while leaving the EU room to maneuver. And if the EU calls PiS’ bluff, then as a last resort it could go into the election blaming the Germans for allowing Russia to invade Ukraine, not doing enough to stop the war and withholding needed financial assistance that rightfully belongs to the Poles.
Whether this strategy will work depends on how the economic situation evolves in Poland, as well as political and social stresses in Europe as a whole. At the moment, there’s little reason to expect a dramatically improved economic situation over the coming months. And EU institutions, with sufficient backing from the member states, do not seem to be in a compromising mood. The United States could try to intervene, but Washington usually steers clear of EU internal politics, and the Biden administration would likely prefer a more liberal government in Warsaw anyway. Most important, the U.S. does not want to risk widening any rifts in Europe at a time when its days of significant involvement on the Continent are ending. If the U.S. is going to reduce its trans-Atlantic commitments while leaving Europe intact and able to defend itself, then it will need the Germans to take the helm.
Poland is unlikely to make a full climbdown on its judicial reforms, but Brussels has most of the leverage. A cease-fire where the EU gets most of what it wants and PiS lives to fight another day – after next year’s elections – is probable. Most important, even a PiS-led Poland is unlikely to actually reduce its dependence on Germany. This would be tantamount to reducing ties to most of Europe, and with the Americans having one foot out the door to Poland’s west and the Russians knocking on the door to its east, that is not an option.
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https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/09/baltic-worries-mount-russian-draftees-flood-regional-training-sites/377882/
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Mor on the pipelines. We still don't know, right? Even though one post said 100% sure.
https://www.newsweek.com/putins-nord-stream-gamble-backfires-russia-losing-energy-war-1747951
The pipelines were not in use when it happened? Is that right?
"Neither pipeline was in operation at the time, after Gazprom, the state-owned company that operates the pipeline, stopped running Nord Stream 1 on August 19, citing maintenance issues. In July, the pipeline had been shut down for annual repairs. The Nord Stream 2 project was scuppered by Western sanctions."
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"Methane Hydrates"
https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html
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"Gazprom, the state-owned company that operates the pipeline, stopped running Nord Stream 1 on August 19"
The greens are pissed
this takes away one of their talking points..
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Mor on the pipelines. We still don't know, right? Even though one post said 100% sure.
https://www.newsweek.com/putins-nord-stream-gamble-backfires-russia-losing-energy-war-1747951
The pipelines were not in use when it happened? Is that right?
"Neither pipeline was in operation at the time, after Gazprom, the state-owned company that operates the pipeline, stopped running Nord Stream 1 on August 19, citing maintenance issues. In July, the pipeline had been shut down for annual repairs. The Nord Stream 2 project was scuppered by Western sanctions."
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"Methane Hydrates"
https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html
I contacted a friend who is retired LE and by his description "17 years in the oil field and 4 years in the military blowing shit up"
doesn't agree with the Lawdog theory at all. I will try to post what he said in more detail.
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"Lawdog theory"
What are you referring to?
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"Lawdog theory"
What are you referring to?
"Methane Hydrates"
https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html
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https://twitter.com/AZmilitary1/status/1577225979591680000
Theories are nice, but find evidence and see where it leads you.
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Given Putin has nukes, we should do what then?
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Given Putin has nukes, we should do what then?
Broker a peace deal. Stop fcuking around on Putin's front porch and focus on the dumpster fire the US has become.
Putin didn't burn down American cities in 2020.
Your actual enemies are much closer.
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All possible responses suck.
The suckeries with GM's proposal are:
a) we teach that nuke black mail works;
b) we underline what an unreliable ally we are-- we told the Ukes we had their back, now as the stand to win at the cost of much blood and treasure, we pull the rug from under them.
c) those in the Taiwan region will draw lessons accordingly.
d) we still won't be defending our border.
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All possible responses suck.
The suckeries with GM's proposal are:
a) we teach that nuke black mail works;
N. Korea already did that.
b) we underline what an unreliable ally we are-- we told the Ukes we had their back, now as the stand
to win at the cost of much blood and treasure, we pull the rug from under them.
When did “we” (The American people sign on for the CIA’s color revolution and long term aggression against Russia after we promised we would not at the end of the Cold War?
c) those in the Taiwan region will draw lessons accordingly.
Those in the Taiwan region know exactly who we are and that the PRC has the Biden crime family as it’s catspaw.
d) we still won't be defending our border.
But we should send our troops to defend Ukraine’s border!
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I don't think one inch of Ukraine is on Putin's porch. Sounds like border denial, and sovereignty means nothing?
Where is Putin's porch after he takes Ukraine. US out of Poland next?
How do you broker a non-consensual surrender? From which side? We are trying to broker his surrender.
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I don't think one inch of Ukraine is on Putin's porch. Sounds like border denial, and sovereignty means nothing?
I care about America's border, every other country's border is their problem. Especially a Mafiya-Thugocracy like Ukraine. Which border applies to Ukraine?
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/116/965/329/original/a020a4492b2e2f06.png)
Where is Putin's porch after he takes Ukraine. US out of Poland next?
When did Poland become a part of the US? I missed that debate in congress.
How do you broker a non-consensual surrender? From which side? We are trying to broker his surrender.
We can just cut off the money/weapon faucet, 70% or which was stolen anyway.
Did Zelensky and his crew become multi-millionaires or Billionaires from our tax money?
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With that logic, Texas isn't really US, added more recently. Where is our southern border? Is there one?
If nothing outside the US affects us or interests you, why all the threads and discussions?
Let China take Taiwan?
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With that logic, Texas isn't really US, added more recently. Where is our southern border? Is there one?
If nothing outside the US affects us or interests you, why all the threads and discussions?
Let China take Taiwan?
One must adjust to the situation as it is, not how we wish it to be.
Charity, and self defense starts at home.
The rotting husk of what used to be the US is in no condition to be edging the world towards a global nuclear apocalypse.
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Belarusian reinforcement. Russian troops who will form a new group to jointly guard the Belarusian border with host-country troops arrived in Belarus over the weekend, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said. The ministry also said it is conducting a rotation of units to reinforce its border with Ukraine, focused especially on bridges, crossings and railways. Lastly, it’s been reported that Belarusian military personnel have been told they are no longer allowed to take leave outside the country, save to travel to Russia. While these preparations may not be used to invade Ukraine from the north, they could be enough to put pressure on Poland to respond.
Russian energy sales. Europe's purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas are rising despite its sanctions on Moscow. While piped gas deliveries from Gazprom declined in the first nine months of this year, Russian LNG exports to Europe increased by 50 percent, to 15 billion cubic meters, compared with the previous year. Novatek, a major Russian gas producer, said its third-quarter global sales increased by 12.9 percent, though it did not disclose how much of the deliveries Europe accounted for. The firm continues to sell gas to Europe in foreign currencies, while Gazprom has switched to payments in rubles.
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Some sanctions don't work.
If you ban Russian energy sales to Europe, are you sanctioning Russia, who may sell it elsewhere, or are you sanctioning Europe, who needs to heat homes and businesses.
It's a tangled web. Too bad to restrain US energy production and put a stick in the eye of the Saudis at the same time you want to put the squeeze on Putin.
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https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2022-10-19/putin-declares-martial-law-in-annexed-regions-of-ukraine
"The upper house of Russia’s parliament quickly endorsed Putin’s decision to impose martial in the annexed Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. The approved legislation indicated the declaration may involve restrictions on travel and public gatherings, tighter censorship and broader authority for law enforcement agencies."
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Does anyone here believe the "elections" conducted by the Russians in the annexed regions were free and fair? Is THIS what they voted for?
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https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2022-10-19/putin-declares-martial-law-in-annexed-regions-of-ukraine
"The upper house of Russia’s parliament quickly endorsed Putin’s decision to impose martial in the annexed Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. The approved legislation indicated the declaration may involve restrictions on travel and public gatherings, tighter censorship and broader authority for law enforcement agencies."
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Does anyone here believe the "elections" conducted by the Russians in the annexed regions were free and fair? Is THIS what they voted for?
About as free and fair as ours are.
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/2912157/russians-reported-flying-drones-over-norwegian-airport
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https://www.theamericanconservative.com/war-and-regrets-in-ukraine/
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"Make the best deal it can"?
And what will that look like?
What lessons will China draw after Afghanistan and then this?
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"Make the best deal it can"?
And what will that look like?
A permanently neutral buffer state.
What lessons will China draw after Afghanistan and then this?
1. The USG is run by highly credentialed idiots who will get us into wars that we have no idea how to win while we piss away endless blood and treasure.
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Indeed.
My point about the Macgregor article remains. He eloquently describes the deep problems with one side of the dilemma we face, but ignores the deep problems that on the other side of the dilemma.
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Indeed.
My point about the Macgregor article remains. He eloquently describes the deep problems with one side of the dilemma we face, but ignores the deep problems that on the other side of the dilemma.
Our dilemma is how to avoid global thermonuclear war.
Step 1. Stop fucking with Russia through our Uke proxy.
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https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/614/003/original/bd043ebe51564bfb.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/118/614/003/original/bd043ebe51564bfb.jpg)
The GAE finds this stance utterly unacceptable!
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https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-tv-boss-says-drown-ukrainian-children-burn-families-alive-1754116
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"Rape them, drown them, burn families alive."
Pure evil. Putin bad isn't some joke or takeoff on OrangeManBad.
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https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-tv-boss-says-drown-ukrainian-children-burn-families-alive-1754116
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"Rape them, drown them, burn families alive."
Pure evil. Putin bad isn't some joke or takeoff on OrangeManBad.
:roll:
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/West-and-allies-must-never-yield-to-Russia-s-nuclear-threat
West and allies must never yield to Russia's nuclear threat
Easy compromise could make the world a far more dangerous place
Has World War III already begun? Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to be constantly reminded of the dire consequences of his recklessness.
HIROYUKI AKITA, Nikkei commentator
October 23, 2022 10:05 JST
TOKYO -- With Russia showing no sign of ending its brutal invasion of Ukraine, concern is growing that President Vladimir Putin may ultimately resort to tactical nuclear weapons; he has made such threats repeatedly.
Some pundits say Russia might go the nuclear route to break Ukraine's will if it concludes that it cannot win the war with conventional arms.
How can the West and its allies protect the people of Ukraine and restore peace without yielding to Putin's threat? The world is now at a critical juncture.
Policymakers, military leaders as well as academic and other experts from the U.S., Europe and elsewhere gathered in Warsaw, Poland, on Oct. 4 and 5 to discuss the issue at the Warsaw Security Forum. Tensions were running high in the country, where more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees have fled to.
In open debate, many participants called for unified support for Ukraine, but in closed-door sessions they focused on more sensitive topics, particularly on how to respond to Putin's nuclear threat.
Giving in to Putin could encourage North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping to take the path of nuclear brinkmanship. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
There is a slight division within NATO on the issue, with the U.S., U.K., Poland and the three Baltic states taking a much tougher stance on Russia than Germany, France and a few other members.
Overall, NATO members agree they should never succumb to Putin's threat and continue to support Ukraine until the invasion ends in failure. They also agree that if Russia uses nuclear weapons, it should face a massive retaliation from either the U.S. or NATO.
However, some experts are calling for a more cautious approach: If Putin is cornered as the war progresses, the risk of his using nuclear arms will increase. Some even said Ukraine should be persuaded to negotiate a cease-fire with Moscow for the sake of avoiding a nuclear attack on itself.
For some, it might seem better to appease Putin than risk nuclear conflict, but the reverse is true. Any concession to Putin would not only hamper the security of Ukraine but also make the world a far more dangerous place.
There are three reasons for this. First, if Ukraine agrees to a cease-fire while Russian troops are still on its soil, that would mean Putin's nuclear threat has worked. Once he tastes success, he might use the same tactics to expand his control to all of Ukraine or to further threaten Eastern Europe and other regions.
Poland has experienced the Russian menace many times in the past. It was invaded by both Germany and the former Soviet Union during World War II. Though it regained independence after the war, the country was soon incorporated into the Soviet sphere.
A Polish expert on Russia warns that compromising with Putin -- giving him a cease-fire on his terms -- will undoubtedly lead to Moscow launching another invasion.
Second, if the West gives any hint of yielding to the Russian threat, China, North Korea and other nuclear nations will try to emulate Russia, convinced that nuclear threats work. China might increase its military pressure on Taiwan while warning the U.S. that it will not hesitate to use its nuclear arsenal if Washington interferes.
Third, some countries might seek to go nuclear to protect themselves if nuclear powers begin to use threats and intimidation to get their way. Recent polls in South Korea, which faces a nuclear threat from North Korea, show that a majority support their country gaining nuclear arms.
To end the Ukrainian crisis, the West and its allies need to do more than increase their military support to Ukraine while calling for the withdrawal of Russian forces. They must increase their diplomatic and other pressure so that Putin will think twice before deciding to go nuclear.
A medical worker runs past a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 10. © AP
In other words, Putin needs to be made aware that if he chooses the path of destruction, he would face a full-scale retaliation from NATO. Once Putin realizes what such retaliation would do to his military, he might hesitate to use the ultimate weapon. The West also needs to urge China and India, two major fence-sitters, to oppose Russia's use of nuclear arms.
Specific retaliatory measures are being discussed within NATO. One senior official said the U.S. and Europe share information on all possible options while holding almost daily talks.
Such options likely include the annihilation of Russian forces in Ukraine and the Black Sea, according to former high-ranking U.S. and European military officers. The attacks would likely use conventional weapons, military experts say.
The White House, which has already warned Russian leadership of retaliatory action, should keep sounding the warning. Putin said on Sept. 21 that his nuclear threat is not a bluff; NATO needs to make him see that neither is its warning of retaliation.
The world now faces the greatest risk since the Cold War. Fighting between NATO and Russian forces, if it occurs, could lead to World War III or something close to it.
Fiona Hill, who led Russian policy at the U.S. National Security Council in the Donald Trump administration, told U.S. media last month that World War III has already begun. To prevent an armed escalation in Ukraine, the West and its allies need to keep reminding Putin and other Russian leaders of the dire consequences of their reckless actions
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The Putin Pawns in the NATO Alliance? How the West Emboldens Erdoğan's Aggression
by Burak Bekdil • October 25, 2022 at 5:00 am
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Turkey's Islamist President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been militarily threatening a fellow NATO ally, Greece, using increasingly threatening language. He also proudly announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised him to make Turkey an international natural gas hub, therefore selling his gas via Turkey, avoiding Western sanctions.
What does Erdoğan get in return? Huge American (and other Western) pats on the back.
Erdoğan, while explicitly threatening a NATO ally, has a plan to seriously undermine Western sanctions on Russia.... The project will enable Turkey to store Russian gas in Thrace and sell it to willing European buyers. This will effectively kill Western sanctions on Russia. Turkey will earn transit fees from every cubic meter of Russian gas sold to European buyers. A win-win for two autocrats.
What was the U.S. administration's response to all that? Approval for fighter jet sales!... An earlier version of the bill had linked the sale to the condition that Turkey would not use the aircraft against Greece.
Erdoğan is now hopeful that Congress should give the green light to the F-16 deal before the end of the year.
What other insane, anti-Western moves should Erdoğan make before U.S. President Joe Biden understands that Turkey's Islamist autocrat is a Putin pawn inside the NATO alliance?
Or is Biden a Putin pawn as well?
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Second
Moscow's message. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke by phone on Sunday with the defense ministers of Britain, France, Turkey and the United States about the situation in Ukraine. In their conversations, Shoigu accused Ukraine of planning a provocation using a “dirty bomb.” The British Defense Ministry said the defense secretary "refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation."
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Second
Moscow's message. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke by phone on Sunday with the defense ministers of Britain, France, Turkey and the United States about the situation in Ukraine. In their conversations, Shoigu accused Ukraine of planning a provocation using a “dirty bomb.” The British Defense Ministry said the defense secretary "refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation."
Maybe it's a good sign they are talking. I don't think Russia was talking when they were winning.
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I have a similar read.
We all know the Russians flagrantly lie and do false flags and the clear statement by the Brits blowing off this latest piece of horseshit tells the Russkis that they will get zero traction with this one.
Note Putin's former speech writer on growing discontent within the Russian military: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wDLnzXij8Q and the possibility that they would reject command to launch. This adds significance to the comms between Shoigu and our side's defense ministers.
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second post
What to Expect From Italy's New Right-Wing Government
While more protectionist, Italy's new government will largely remain on the path of economic reform, fiscal prudence, and support for sanctions against Russia set out by outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Political instability is likely to increase after the winter as intra-coalition rivalries emerge and the popularity of the country's new prime minister starts waning. Italy's new right-wing government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was sworn in on Oct. 22 following weeks of negotiations between coalition parties to assign key cabinet positions. Her team, unveiled on Oct. 21, includes nine ministers from her far-right Brothers of Italy party, five ministers from each coalition partner (the right-wing Lega and Forza Italia parties), and various technocratic figures.
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Russian Cash Can Keep Ukraine Alive This Winter
There’s precedent for transferring the more than $300 billion in frozen reserves as compensation.
By Robert B. Zoellick
Oct. 26, 2022 12:17 pm ET
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers a video speech to a conference in Berlin, Oct. 25.
PHOTO: OMER MESSINGER/GETTY IMAGES
Countries win wars through economic resilience, not by force of arms alone. Ukraine’s army is winning battles, but its economy faces a bitter winter. Vladimir Putin knows this, which is why he is bombarding the country’s energy infrastructure. To strengthen Kyiv’s economic hand, the U.S. and the Group of Seven partners need to change Mr. Putin’s calculus. They must force him to recognize that he can’t break Ukraine and that the economic costs of his war will be turned against him.
This week the German government and European Commission hosted a conference in Berlin on Ukraine’s economic plight. Like a similar event in July, the meeting was long on good intentions and short on practical results. Despite references to a Marshall Plan for Kyiv, attendees forgot what the former secretary of state said in his 1947 speech announcing his plan for a war-ravaged Europe: “The patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate.”
Kyiv is fighting a war while coping with losses similar to those of the Great Depression. The country’s economy will shrink by about one-third this year, as inflation has wreaked havoc and tax revenues have collapsed. Kyiv needs about $5 billion a month to cover nonmilitary spending. Out of 43 million Ukrainians, some seven million have become refugees and another seven million have fled within the country.
Mr. Putin has bet that the initial surge of Ukrainian adrenaline would give way to fatigue. The U.S. needs to help turn that gamble against him, which it can do without any direct military intervention.
The U.S. should deploy its best asymmetrical weapon: financial power. In cooperation with its G-7 allies, the U.S. should begin the process under the international law of transferring the more than $300 billion in frozen Russian reserves to Ukraine and other afflicted countries as compensation for Mr. Putin’s aggression.
Various scholars, such as University of Virginia professor Philip Zelikow and Anton Moiseienko of Australian National University, have mapped out how this may work in practice. As Messrs. Zelikow and Moiseienko identify, the United Nations General Assembly recognized in 2002 the International Law Commission’s Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts.
In combination with several U.N. resolutions and a ruling from the International Court of Justice that have found that Russia has waged a war of aggression, those articles establish the international legal basis for transferring Russia’s reserves to Ukraine. In doing so, the U.S. and allied countries wouldn’t be taking Russian reserves for themselves; they would transfer them to an international fund for compensation.
The U.S. should also propose to the U.N. that frozen Russian reserves could finance a U.N. claims commission to compensate low-income countries victimized by Russia’s shock to food supplies. There’s precedent for such a decision. After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, a U.N. commission awarded more than $50 billion to more than a million claimants, including funds to Kuwait, Iran, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for environmental claims.
Sen. James Risch (R., Idaho), ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been working with colleagues of both parties on legislation to authorize the transfer. After granting almost $60 billion for Ukraine, Congress and the public can reasonably ask why the U.S. shouldn’t transfer Russian money to Ukraine.
Mr. Putin has violated fundamental international rules and endangered the security of all nations. He’s sought not only to overrun a neighbor but to annex its occupied lands. He has threatened the use of nuclear weapons, not as a deterrent, but as an offensive weapon in a war of conquest. His war has cost poor countries the ability to feed the hungry by disrupting the grain trade.
A U.S.-led financial assault could effectively turn the tables on Mr. Putin and give Ukraine a lifeline to survive and rebuild.
Some Western policy makers are likely to have reservations about the approach. Some may worry, for example, that Russia will retaliate by seizing foreign assets. But it has already done so. If Russia turns to sabotage, it should be forced to pay.
Others may argue that a transfer of Russian reserves risks confidence in the U.S. dollar. But countries hold dollar reserves for reasons of macroeconomic stability, not so they can invade neighbors. China may worry about holding dollar reserves, but Beijing would already substitute other reserves if it could. Its turn toward self-sufficiency and market controls won’t help it create an alternative reserve currency. China and other countries hold dollars because they sell more to the U.S. than they buy. If they dump dollars, they will shrink their sales and economies.
A transfer of Russian reserves respects international law. It also represents a potential item in negotiations to end the war. If Mr. Putin reaches a settlement, Moscow may be able to recover some of its reserves.
The U.S. needs to reset the strategic chessboard. Washington can change the terms of battle by using its strongest economic weapon. By relying on international law, the U.S. would also reinforce the rules-based order that Russia wants to destroy. That would achieve justice as well as peace.
Mr. Zoellick served as U.S. trade representative (2001-05), deputy U.S. secretary of state (2005-06) and World Bank president (2007-12). He is the author of “America in the World.”
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/10/26/democrat-declares-woke-war-one-against-russia/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DmzAw_iTgo
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cf:
How Do Drag Shows Advance U.S. National Security?
The Biden administration pushes woke ideology on the world at the expense of American values.
By John Ratcliffe and Cliff Sims
Oct. 27, 2022 6:17 pm ET
The exportation of American culture has long been one of our nation’s greatest soft-power assets. But instead of using it to affirm Western values and U.S. interests, the Biden administration is proselytizing for woke ideology. The foreign-policy implications could be catastrophic.
In an effort to “promote diversity and inclusion,” the State Department is funding “drag theater performances” in Ecuador through cultural grants. The purpose of the grants, according to official documents, is to “support the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security.”
Left unexplained is how drag-queen shows enhance American national security or advance our interests—let alone why U.S. taxes should pay for it. Meanwhile, a Chinese consortium controls the two largest copper mines in Ecuador. A lot of good drag theater will do when we can’t find enough copper for essential manufacturing.
This moment of diplomatic idiocy pairs nicely with the Biden administration’s request earlier this year for $2.6 billion to export woke ideology in the form of “gender equity and equality” around the world.
In another cringeworthy example of the State Department’s woke virtue signaling, the U.S. Embassy in Budapest tweeted a “Who said it?” quiz that asked Hungarians to guess whether various statements had been made by Vladimir Putin or a Hungarian politician.
A “downright barbaric ideology is gaining ground,” one quote began, “originating in U.S. universities, which denies all the value that humanity has created.” This supposedly scurrilous statement, with which many Americans would agree, was uttered by Hungary’s deputy prime minister—a thoughtcrime that the U.S. Embassy implies puts him on par with a global pariah.
These are grade-school antics, not the projection of American power. When the U.S. has issues with foreign leaders, it should deal with them through adult diplomacy. Instead, our diplomatic efforts under President Biden, a self-styled foreign-policy expert, could be summed up as “anyone I don’t like is Putin.”
Hungary beefed up NATO’s eastern flank with military deployments after Russia invaded Ukraine and has absorbed masses of Ukrainian refugees this year. But instead of encouraging Hungary to continue bolstering these efforts, the Biden administration ridicules its leaders for being justifiably repulsed by the woke ideology of American universities.
During the Trump administration, one of us (Mr. Sims) asked the ambassador of a Five Eyes ally why he was confident that his country would stay aligned with the U.S. in the face of increasing Chinese aggression. He replied with a single word: values.
Woke ideology frustrates and confuses allies and undermines our strength by attacking the very values on which America is built. To reclaim America’s role in the world, we must lead by example. American foreign policy must have as strong a moral core as the American people. Our leaders need to understand that our strength abroad emanates from our best traditions at home—strong families, patriotism, grit and determination, and a military that our service members and citizens can be proud of.
Throughout the Trump administration, our National Security Strategy focused on the values of “principled realism,” acknowledging that “the American way of life cannot be imposed upon others,” but asserting that “advancing American principles spreads peace and prosperity.” These American principles included a respect for national sovereignty, a realistic view of global competition and the limits of U.S. capabilities, and a total confidence in America’s ability to be a force for good in the world.
America’s traditions made our culture the envy of the world. They also helped the U.S. build alliances and, when necessary, win wars. Ideological indulgences like drag shows only drive away allies. It’s time to stop pushing destructive woke ideology on the rest of the world and bring sanity back to American diplomacy.
Mr. Ratcliffe served as director of national intelligence, 2020-21. Mr. Sims served as deputy director of national intelligence for strategy and communications, 2020-21.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/10/27/12000-russian-troops-once-posed-a-threat-from-inside-nato-then-they-went-to-ukraine-to-die/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab&sh=a24185133750
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/10/27/12000-russian-troops-once-posed-a-threat-from-inside-nato-then-they-went-to-ukraine-to-die/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab&sh=a24185133750
Good post. One point they make...
[Kaliningrad] "sandwiched between two NATO countries along a strategic sea",
...brings up this point.
This exposed part of Russia has been surrounded by NATO all these years and never been attacked by NATO.
Makes you wonder if their rationale for invading Ukraine, the fear NATO would attack Russia via Ukraine, was BS.
If NATO is the aggressor (complete BS), why didn't they invade Kaliningrad?
Same reason NATO still hasn't attacked Russia in this conflict or ever since formed. NATO isn't an aggressor. [Putin is lying about that.] NATO is barely a defense of member nations treaty.
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Martin Armstrong quoting Reuters and the Independent newspaper
"While Russia has identified Britain as acting on behalf of the United States to blow up the Nord Stream Pipeline as Britain publicly denies it, Liz Truss' phone was hacked. One minute after the pipeline was destroyed she sent a text to Secretary Anthony Blinken "It's done." The Independent has acknowledged that Russia has hacked Liz Truss' phone. This is an act of war."
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Martin Armstrong quoting Reuters and the Independent newspaper
"While Russia has identified Britain as acting on behalf of the United States to blow up the Nord Stream Pipeline as Britain publicly denies it, Liz Truss' phone was hacked. One minute after the pipeline was destroyed she sent a text to Secretary Anthony Blinken "It's done." The Independent has acknowledged that Russia has hacked Liz Truss' phone. This is an act of war."
IF TRUE, this is huge (and terrible) news. But all I find on Reuters is two denials:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-says-no-basis-russian-accusations-against-britain-2022-10-30/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-british-navy-personnel-blew-up-nord-stream-gas-pipelines-2022-10-29/
Hard to believe the Russians would lie...
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Martin Armstrong quoting Reuters and the Independent newspaper
"While Russia has identified Britain as acting on behalf of the United States to blow up the Nord Stream Pipeline as Britain publicly denies it, Liz Truss' phone was hacked. One minute after the pipeline was destroyed she sent a text to Secretary Anthony Blinken "It's done." The Independent has acknowledged that Russia has hacked Liz Truss' phone. This is an act of war."
I have not seen "Its done" being quoted elsewhere. Not sure what his source is. Martin's predictions can be wrong (rarely), but have not found him to make things up. Now if something goes belly up in the UK, that might be telling.
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https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/30/germany-defense-pledges-uncertain-ukraine-russia-experts/?utm_medium=email&pnespid=teJiUCNNOP4YwKna_SrtHY2PshP3UsEnLemizPV0sBZmfzBGroyhI8YC_f.qa20ncEjHrSTf
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November 2, 2022
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For France, Working With Russia Is Expensive
The Ukraine war has dashed nearly all of Paris’ hope of helming a “Greater Europe.”
By: Ryan Bridges
The worst day for France’s grand European vision was Feb. 24 as Russia invaded Ukraine, but a close second came a few weeks earlier, when Russia and China announced their unlimited friendship. French grand strategy was to avoid at all costs a Sino-Russian alignment. President Emmanuel Macron articulated this outlook well in an August 2019 address to France’s ambassadors, in which he said Western civilization is in decline and Europe will disappear, wrenched apart by the intensifying bipolarity of the United States and China – unless the French lead a revolt against American hegemony, accommodate the Russians, and fortify “Europe” (including Russia) into a third pole. Since the days of Charles de Gaulle, France has been uncomfortable with its often subordinate role in the Western alliance, particularly with respect to the U.S. and Britain. In mid-2019, with the U.S. losing interest in Europe, Russia and Ukraine in a stalemate, and China ascending, Paris sensed an opportunity to change its fortunes and create a more sovereign European bloc.
Macron never doubted the difficulty of this endeavor, but neither did the Kremlin take him particularly seriously. Since the invasion in late February, Russia’s repeated declarations of war on the West have snuffed out Paris’ dream of a Europe that stretches from Lisbon to Vladivostok. The best Macron, and by extension France, can do now is strive to be the one who made the grand vision possible, perhaps even by helping to accelerate the downfall of Vladimir Putin’s regime without getting any of the credit.
Grand Vision
Much of Macron’s 2019 speech is worth reading in full, but here’s a summary: European civilization is in decline, and only France can save it. The United States is part of the West, but in the same way that Russia is. Americans are different from Europeans because they place individual freedom above everything. Russia is different because it is “deeply conservative and opposed to the EU project,” a tortuously polite way of dismissing the enormity of their differences. The rivalry between these conceptions of Western civilization, according to Macron, threatens to tear the collective West asunder.
Macron believes that the global distribution of power is shifting from the U.S. toward China. The ultimate outcome of this shift is unclear, but there will likely be two centers of power, eventually, with Russia and Europe caught in between. To him, Europe and Russia are in the same boat, even if they don’t know it yet. Macron thinks their best course of action would be to reconcile, cooperate and form a “balancing power.”
What would this balancing power look like? It would be Europe, in the form of concentric circles – emanating from Paris, naturally. The first encompasses Paris and Berlin. Next comes the 19-member eurozone, then the EU-27, and then the United Kingdom, Turkey, Norway, Switzerland and others. Each successive circle represents a progressively looser relationship, with fewer obligations to each other but less power and fewer benefits. With little fanfare, the final circle was added in October, when Macron’s brainchild, the 44-member European Political Community, held its first summit in Prague. The EPC brought in the Balkan and South Caucasus states, but it publicly withheld invitations to Russia and Belarus because of the war in Ukraine. To join the outer circle, by implication, Moscow needs to end the war and show goodwill. The relationship can proceed from there, from general political dialogue to cooperation on transnational crises and, eventually, deeper economic ties.
From Macron’s point of view, these are not the same terms that the United States attempted to impose on Moscow at the end of the Cold War, so it’s possible the Kremlin would be more amenable to them. Though it’s not entirely clear what the differences are, Macron’s broader criticism of America’s Russia policy is a familiar one: After the Soviet Union’s breakup, Western Europe “gave the impression of being a Trojan Horse for [the U.S.], whose final aim was to destroy Russia.” This was possible because “Europe … did not enact its own strategy.” Whether and how much this is true is irrelevant. It is a widely held sentiment in some corners of the West, and it is especially popular in Russia, and that is what matters. It represented the bare minimum to get the conversation started.
Nightmares and No Choices
From the start, Macron knew this was a long shot. He described it as “a strategy of boldness, of risk-taking,” and praised the French for possessing “a spirit of resistance [that] does not give in to fate or adapt to things and habits.” But if it were ever achievable, it isn’t any longer. For starters, Putin did not believe that Macron could deliver on his promises. The Baltics, Poland and likely others would never accept a renovation of Europe’s security architecture that included an open door to Russia. As long as the U.S. supports them and has the troop presence in Europe to back up its words, revising the European order is out of the question. This is why Putin sent his December 2021 ultimatum to the United States, not France or even Germany.
Moreover, European strategic autonomy – Macron’s plan to overcome the U.S. veto on European strategy (aka NATO) – is in shambles. France cannot credibly guarantee the security of Central and Eastern Europe on its own, and in any case, it’s not as threatened by Russia as those regions are. It needs partners with the interest and capability to support it. The United Kingdom has lost the capability. This leaves Germany, ideally with Poland. But Germany and Poland are bickering, and predictably, Germany’s “turning of the times” announced in the days after the invasion has come full circle. Germany’s stockpiles are low on ammunition but overflowing with excuses, which seem to run out only when opinion polling shifts. Simply put, outside of tough rhetoric about the future relationship with Russia, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has given few indications of breaking with two decades of German grand strategy. Germany still resists the fiscal integration needed to make the euro stable and a viable alternative to the dollar, goes it alone on subsidies and energy policy, is slavishly committed to self-imposed debt rules that hamstring lasting investment in things like defense, and is doubling down on its trade-dependent economic strategy.
Putin correctly understood that dealing with Europe was a dead end. If anything, he appears to have read Macron’s repeated overtures – correctly, again – as weakness, or at least as evidence of cracks in the Western bloc. So when the U.S. rejected his ultimatum almost out of hand, Putin flew to Beijing and sealed a strategic partnership with President Xi Jinping. This was France’s nightmare scenario. If Russia truly sides with China – and it’s certainly not clear that that’s the case – then France has no choice but to commit to more time living in America’s shadow.
Surveying the Wreckage
At this point, Putin is radioactive. The number of European leaders who think it even possible to accommodate him is few and far between. Still, negotiations are inevitable. An entente with Russia is extremely unlikely before Macron’s second (and final) presidential term ends in 2027, so if Paris wants to take political credit in the here and now, its next best option is to help Ukraine reclaim territory and eventually secure the best possible outcome at the negotiating table. If this accelerates the end of the Putin regime, that may be for the best from France's perspective, so long as it does not unnecessarily destabilize Russian society and, just as crucially, attracts minimal attention to France’s role.
Central and Eastern Europeans are understandably worried by France’s commitment to not upsetting the Russians. For them, it betrays an eagerness to work with Russia that, they fear, could become a willingness to work with Putin. But more than that, the strategy is deferential toward Russian concerns about the presence of significant military force in Central and Eastern Europe. France could tell the Kremlin that it will never abandon its friends to the east, and that the right of it or anyone else in NATO to ensure their security is not up for discussion. But it hasn’t, preferring instead to offer Central and Eastern Europe’s security as a bargaining chip to get Russia to accept the seat left open for it at the top table.
This remains an insurmountable problem for the dream of a Greater Europe. The Western policy that Russia abhors and France regrets was made in Warsaw, Budapest, Prague and even Berlin at least as much as it was made in Washington. It is not enough for France to excise American influence over European affairs; it must replace the Americans in the eyes of those who lived beyond the Iron Curtain, or else it must strike a deal over their heads and probably destroy a major interior ring of the system of concentric circles. Either way, the price of moving forward with Russia just got a lot higher
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Base expansion. Warsaw plans to expand its military base in Powidz, which hosts U.S. forces, according to the Polish defense minister. The expansion will include additional warehouses, hangars and a fuel reserve. Warsaw said the main goal of the enlargement is to boost the rapid response capability of U.S. and Polish troops, as well as the forces of other NATO countries.
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https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/09/why-are-we-not-being-told-the-truth-about-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR1fw2-xMghlDY75EDGFB2vd0demMJXugza61PRRMqdxPT0U7D0C_6umjv4
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"Recent reports of U.S. officials secretly encouraging Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to be open to negotiations are more than just shows of good faith. This reflects the growing fatigue and cost of the war, as well as the dawning realization that Russia has more leverage in the situation than the leaders of the West are letting on publicly."
I agree with 99 yo Kissinger
give Putin Donbas
better then thousands of people dying and more destruction
of the country
risk of nucs
risk of famine
and endless quagmire
in mho
I don't think don't think that by doing so will encourage Putin to invade anywhere else anytime soon
his cost was very great
we made out point
he probably would like to get the heck out of this mess too
I am thinking
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Courting Moldova. U.S. and Moldovan officials held meetings this week to discuss military cooperation. Also this week, the U.S. Agency for International Development pledged to help Moldova overcome its energy crisis with a $30 million grant to cover electricity costs and $19.5 million for projects to strengthen energy security and reduce the country’s dependence on Russia. On Thursday, the European Union promised 250 million euros in assistance for Moldova's energy sector. Washington and Brussels are courting Moldova, a former Soviet state in which Moscow has interests, to keep it out of Russia's sphere of influence.
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https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/complications-of-the-ukraine-war/
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https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/complications-of-the-ukraine-war/
Filled with important facts and analysis helpful to a better understanding, though I also found it to be very one sided.
A point we can all agree on: "This is a war with no natural stopping point."
Left out I think, though I should read it again carefully:
1) Anything about Putin not being our moral equivalent,
2) That Putin's goal is to reconstitute the Soviet Union,
3) That NATO is a threat to Russia's expansion plans, not to it's borders known on maps.
4) Russia was rightful in taking back Crimea, 2014? And credits Putin for doing it bloodlessly. I disagree, but what about the atrocities of this war?
5) What do the people of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine provinces want?
Everyone seems to agree the "elections" of the provinces to join Russia were a sham. Why so? If that's what the people want, with 'common language and culture', to live under tyranny and get conscripted for the next war, why pressure anyone or cheat in the vote?
6) Crediting the US for everything Ukraine has done to defend itself is a little overdone, IMHO.
7) Does a sovereign nation have a right to defend itself, including defense agreements?
8.) Where else around the world does that argument apply, that land, that base, used to be ours?
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November 15, 2022
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Ominous Explosions in Poland
Nothing has been confirmed, but some have blamed errant Russia rockets.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Days after a humiliating withdrawal from the city of Kherson, Russia launched a massive missile strike across Ukraine. There are widespread power outages in the country and likely multiple deaths, but the alarming news happened next door in Poland, where at least one missile may have landed, killing two people. All we know so far is that something caused a crater and damaged grain dryers on Tuesday afternoon near Przewodow, less than five miles from the Ukrainian border and about 40 miles north of Lviv, Ukraine.
Location of Apparent Strike
(click to enlarge)
Poland’s prime minister convened an emergency security meeting, according to a government spokesman, but he provided no reason for the meeting. No official sources in Poland, NATO, Ukraine or Russia have confirmed the attack, but an anonymous U.S. intelligence official told the AP that Russian missiles were to blame. (The Pentagon has said it could not corroborate the reports.) If it did occur, it would be the most serious moment in the nearly nine-month war because unlike Ukraine, Poland can invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, obligating every other member to come to its defense.
Possible explanations for the incident include a deliberate Russian escalation intended to coerce the West into pressuring Ukraine to submit to Russian demands; an accidental strike by Russia; an accidental strike by (or debris from) a Ukrainian air defense system; or even something totally unrelated, such as a grain dust explosion, which occurs when an ignition source meets accumulated grain dust in a confined space.
All we can say for sure is Russia has not formally declared war on Poland or NATO, and the next move will certainly come from Warsaw and Washington. The U.S. commitment to avoiding a NATO-Russia war has not changed and likely will not change because of something that could be explained away as an accident. If Russian involvement is confirmed, Ukraine, Poland and some of its neighbors will surely demand a strong response. But the West has effectively exhausted its most significant sanctions options: Europe is not ready for a gas embargo, the oil price cap is proceeding but won’t be ready immediately and Hungary has obstructed other measures. The likely response, then, would probably involve an escalation of military support for Kyiv, to include Western-made aircraft and armor.
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What sanctions? Western countries continue to import energy from Russia despite the tough sanctions they’ve imposed on Moscow. European traders are reportedly filling storage tanks with Russian diesel before an embargo on Russian oil products comes into force on Feb. 5. Diesel from Russia accounted for 44 percent of Europe’s total fuel imports in November, up from 39 percent in October. Meanwhile, The Sunday Times newspaper reports that at least 39 shipments of Russian oil (registered as deliveries from other countries) worth $237 million have arrived in the U.K. since the start of the war in Ukraine.
More fertilizer. Russia is increasing export quotas for certain types of nitrogen fertilizers. By the end of 2022, the quota for the export of urea will be increased by 400,000 tons, ammonium nitrate by 200,000 tons and carbamide-ammonia by 150,000 tons. Russia introduced quotas for the export of nitrogen and complex fertilizers on Dec. 1, 2021, to curb rises in food prices. It's now in the process of negotiating a deal to boost its fertilizer exports, which have slumped due to sanctions.
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Eight years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QGFZev_h7g
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November 22, 2022
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In Poland, Peace May Be a Bridge Too Far
By: George Friedman
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to speak to some Poles. I won’t pretend that they speak for the entire country, but my impression is that, broadly speaking, they believe a peace agreement with Russia would be a mistake. It is to be understood that many Polish people are both passionate about the subject of Russia and not directly militarily involved in the Ukraine war. Poland has provided some weapons and supplies, of course, and some Poles have chosen to enter the fight, but as a nation Poland is riveted by a war it is largely outside of.
Poland has two historic enemies: Germany and Russia. For more than a century, one (and sometimes both) threatened the country’s very existence. The German question was answered by World War II, but that conflict nonetheless resulted in Russian occupation, which lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. Poland has thus been conditioned to distrust good fortune. The United States has guaranteed Poland’s security, placing increasing numbers of troops within its borders, yet the Poles are not at ease. Partly that’s because Washington has its own interests there, and history has taught Poland that those who do not attack you either betray you or let you down.
It’s unsurprising, then, that Poland was prepared to act in Ukraine at the outset of the conflict, and that it was disappointed when the Americans prevented them from doing so. (Washington didn’t want the war to spread anywhere else, and it didn’t want Moscow feeling more paranoid than it ordinarily does.) It’s also unsurprising that Poland doesn’t want a peace agreement. Warsaw sees this as a historic moment for Ukraine, and Kyiv’s supporters, including Poland, can use Russian weakness as an opportunity to break Russia militarily and secure Poland for generations to come. For them, the errant missile fire last week was a reminder of the threat Russia still poses.
In my opinion, this is neither militarily possible nor politically wise. The force committed to combat Russia is limited to Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has been fighting for its homeland – always a good motivator – and has been on the strategic defensive. The Russians have been on the offensive, which means their supply line is increasingly stretched and fragile as the army advances. More, extended offensive operations on multiple axes create command and control difficulties. Ukraine’s supply lines have been less stressed, and control of Ukrainian forces has thus been less strained but more effective. (This is to say nothing of the parallel U.S. supply lines.) As a result, the Ukrainians have paid a high price but have been rewarded. The Russians have paid a high price but with fewer rewards. Even then, the Russians have not been defeated. Moving into a strategic offensive posture will not yield the kinds of success Ukraine has had on the strategic defense. Attacking Russian forces in a defensive posture could readily lead to failure.
Poland may be willing to throw its military into the fray, but the Polish army is inexperienced and untested, and it depends on the United States for many critical supplies. Washington, for its part, is not interested in adopting an offensive posture. Its strategy is to keep Ukraine as a buffer zone between Russia and Europe – one designed to prevent a European war or even a new cold war. It therefore wants to avoid Russian occupation there without committing American forces to combat. If Ukrainian forces fail to hold their country, the U.S. has other military options, but Ukraine is absolutely its preferred first line of defense.
One option Washington does not have is to break the Russian army permanently. It simply lacks the resources and the will. The Russians have performed poorly in a foreign county, but it must be assumed they would fare better defending their home turf. Breaking Russia’s military demands deep penetration into Russia, and the U.S. is not going to use its military on an action that is likely to fail, let alone one that could trigger a nuclear scenario. (Not for nothing, an advance into Russia would be strategically faulty. If the attacking force were broken, a new westward thrust could work as it absorbs supplies and manpower.)
Politically, the invasion of Ukraine imposed costs on Russia, and though public opinion varies greatly, the people generally do not see the conflict as a necessary one. Attacking Russia would create political unity where there otherwise isn’t any, and the political goal should be to create dissonance. The current disagreement there has weakened Russia’s motivation to fight. Forcing Russians to fight outside the country will likely maintain that division, whereas taking the fight to Russia could have the opposite effect.
Forcing the Russians into an offensive posture has both military and political benefits. At a time when Russia appears internally fragmented and Ukraine is increasingly capable, the greatest danger is to assume that prior successes mean future success, a disease military success frequently causes.
If Moscow were forced into a peace treaty, the benefit to the West is political. A cease-fire raises questions about the prudence of the government and the competence of its military. Given that breaking the Russian army on the whole is a non-starter, a peace agreement creates a political force in Russia that must be allowed to mature. The risk of pursuing a broad victory is too high, much higher than the danger of peace. But President Vladimir Putin understands this equation too, so high-profile Russian losses inside Ukraine are key to his losing control.
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Eight years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QGFZev_h7g
This (title of post) is what I want to know. Didn't notice until after watching it was 8 years old. I feel very sorry for these people, caught in a bad place.
One, she mentioned, was more open off camera. They wish to be Russians but not Putin totalitarian subjects or conscripts. They feel a distance with Kiev. Some very anti-Europe. No one wants war. No good choices.
They know they can't speak freely (and didn't vote freely).
I wish disputed lands could just have autonomy and peace, trade freely with both sides, keep their land and their homes, but instead they are pawns in a larger war to be traded and captured.
It doesn't seem it is Ukraine's eastern provinces Russia wants. Putin wants to trample those areas as part of a larger expansion scheme. IMHO. Now, if this is failure for Putin, where is the off ramp that saves face.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/olaf-scholz-accused-of-breaking-promises-as-german-army-barely-receives-any-new-funding/ar-AA14AAZn?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=514dafd978394502a8667b00b98c0c4f
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/putin-s-top-propagandists-openly-talk-of-russia-losing-to-ukraine-and-being-tried-in-hague/ar-AA14G2qw?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=9832fb6820684d2194f085612b29b57e
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Russia, Moldova: Gazprom Lifts Immediate Threat to Natural Gas Deliveries Through Ukraine
2 MIN READNov 28, 2022 | 20:56 GMT
What Happened: Russian gas giant Gazprom declined to follow through on its Nov. 23 threat to reduce natural gas flows through Ukraine to Moldova, Reuters reported Nov. 28. Gazprom said it maintained flows because Moldova's Moldovagaz had since corrected payment violations for current November supplies of Russian gas, but Gazprom reiterated that it reserved the right to lower or halt flows if Moldova fails to make its contractual payments.
Why It Matters: The decision not to reduce flows will put downward pressure on European gas prices, which rose the week ending Nov. 26 following Russia's threats because the supply route via Ukraine is the last functioning Russian gas corridor to Western Europe. Gazprom's decision suggests Moscow is reluctant to reduce or end gas flows through Ukraine prematurely. The use of advance payment as justification not to follow through on the cutoff, however, could set up Gazprom to quickly reduce flows should Moldova fall behind on payments in the coming months, as paying on time and in full is a constant challenge for the cash-strapped country.
Background: On Nov. 1, Gazprom cut natural gas deliveries to Moldova and its pro-Russian breakaway Transdniestria region, which is home to Moldova's largest gas-operated power station that historically supplies about 70% of the country's electricity needs. The station sharply cut output to the rest of Moldova the same day, which precipitated widespread blackouts.
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By: Geopolitical Futures
Adapting. Russia’s purchasing managers’ index increased at its fastest pace in nearly six years, from 50.7 in October to 53.2 in November. (A rating below 50 signifies a contraction.) The growth was driven by new orders and helped spur an increase in employment. Russia’s economy appears to be adapting to the tough Western sanctions regime.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/captured-documents-reveal-russia-s-plan-to-annex-ukraine-in-ten-days-and-kill-its-leaders/ar-AA14Px4G?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=81ca5ec7e9204f94be1680b5d15ba6a8
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Russia in Belarus. Meanwhile, Russia’s military is also conducting battalion tactical exercises at training grounds in Belarus, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday. Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by his defense and foreign ministers, was in Minsk on Monday for his first trip to Belarus since 2019. Notably, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu “inspected” Russian troops involved in the war in Ukraine, the ministry said on Sunday.
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FA is quintessential foreign policy establishment
Putin’s Last Stand
The Promise and Peril of Russian Defeat
By Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage
January/February 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine was meant to be his crowning achievement, a demonstration of how far Russia had come since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. Annexing Ukraine was supposed to be a first step in reconstructing a Russian empire. Putin intended to expose the United States as a paper tiger outside Western Europe and to demonstrate that Russia, along with China, was destined for a leadership role in a new, multipolar international order.
It hasn’t turned out that way. Kyiv held strong, and the Ukrainian military has been transformed into a juggernaut, thanks in part to a close partnership with the United States and Western allies. The Russian military, in contrast, has demonstrated poor strategic thinking and organization. The political system behind it has proved unable to learn from its mistakes. With little prospect of dictating Putin’s actions, the West will have to prepare for the next stage of Russia’s disastrous war of choice.
War is inherently unpredictable. Indeed, the course of the conflict has served to invalidate widespread early prognostications that Ukraine would quickly fall; a reversal of fortunes is impossible to discount. It nevertheless appears that Russia is headed for defeat. Less certain is what form this defeat will take. Three basic scenarios exist, and each one would have different ramifications for policymakers in the West and Ukraine.
The first and least likely scenario is that Russia will agree to its defeat by accepting a negotiated settlement on Ukraine’s terms. A great deal would have to change for this scenario to materialize because any semblance of diplomatic dialogue among Russia, Ukraine, and the West has vanished. The scope of Russian aggression and the extent of Russian war crimes would make it difficult for Ukraine to accept any diplomatic settlement that amounted to anything less than a total Russian surrender.
That said, a Russian government—under Putin or a successor—could try to retain Crimea and sue for peace elsewhere. To save face domestically, the Kremlin could claim it is preparing for the long game in Ukraine, leaving open the possibility of additional military incursions. It could blame its underperformance on NATO, arguing that the alliance’s weapon deliveries, not Ukraine’s strength, impeded a Russian victory. For this approach to pass muster within the regime, hard-liners—possibly including Putin himself—would have to be marginalized. This would be difficult but not impossible. Still, under Putin this outcome is highly improbable, given that his approach to the war has been maximalist from the beginning.
A second scenario for Russian defeat would involve failure amid escalation. The Kremlin would nihilistically seek to prolong the war in Ukraine while launching a campaign of unacknowledged acts of sabotage in countries that support Kyiv and in Ukraine itself. In the worst case, Russia could opt for a nuclear attack on Ukraine. The war would then edge toward a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia. Russia would transform from a revisionist state into a rogue one, a transition that is already underway, and that would harden the West’s conviction that Russia poses a unique and unacceptable threat. Crossing the nuclear threshold could lead to NATO’s conventional involvement in the war, accelerating Russia’s defeat on the ground.
The final scenario for the war’s end would be defeat through regime collapse, with the decisive battles taking place not in Ukraine but rather in the halls of the Kremlin or in the streets of Moscow. Putin has concentrated power rigidly in his own hands, and his obstinacy in pursuing a losing war has placed his regime on shaky ground. Russians will continue marching behind their inept tsar only to a certain point. Although Putin has brought political stability to Russia—a prized state of affairs given the ruptures of the post-Soviet years—his citizens could turn on him if the war leads to general privation. The collapse of his regime could mean an immediate end to the war, which Russia would be unable to wage amid the ensuing domestic chaos. A coup d’état followed by civil war would echo what happened after the Bolshevik takeover in 1917, which precipitated Russia’s withdrawal from World War I.
No matter how it comes about, a Russian defeat would of course be welcomed. It would free Ukraine from the terrors it has suffered since the invasion. It would reinforce the principle that an attack on another country cannot go unpunished. It might open up new opportunities for Belarus, Georgia, and Moldova, and for the West to finish ordering Europe in its image. For Belarus, a path could emerge toward the end of dictatorship and toward free and fair elections. Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine could strive together for eventual integration into the European Union and possibly NATO, following the model of Central and Eastern European governments after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Though Russia’s defeat would have many benefits, the United States and Europe should prepare for the regional and global disorder it would produce. Since 2008, Russia has been a revisionist power. It has redrawn borders, annexed territory, meddled in elections, inserted itself into various African conflicts, and altered the geopolitical dynamic of the Middle East by propping up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Were Russia to pursue radical escalation or splinter into chaos instead of accepting a defeat through negotiation, the repercussions would be felt in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Disorder could take the form of separatism and renewed conflicts in and around Russia, the world’s largest country in landmass. The transformation of Russia into a failed state riven by civil war would revive questions that Western policymakers had to grapple with in 1991: for example, who would gain control of Russia’s nuclear weapons? A disorderly Russian defeat would leave a dangerous hole in the international system.
CAN’T TALK YOUR WAY OUT
Trying to sell Putin on defeat through negotiation would be difficult, perhaps impossible. (It would be much likelier under a successor.) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would demand that Moscow abandon its claim on the nominally Russian-controlled territories in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. Putin has already celebrated the annexation of these areas with pomp and circumstance. It is doubtful he would do an about-face after this patriotic display despite Russia’s tenuous hold on this territory. Any Russian leader, whether Putin or someone else, would resist relinquishing Crimea, the part of Ukraine that Russia annexed in 2014.
Conditions on the ground in Russia would have to be conducive to compromise. A new Russian leadership would have to contend with a demoralized military and gamble on a complacent public acceding to capitulation. Russians could eventually become indifferent if the war grinds on with no clear resolution. But fighting would likely continue in parts of eastern Ukraine, and tensions between the two countries would remain high.
Still, an agreement with Ukraine could bring normalization of relations with the West. That would be a powerful incentive for a less militaristic Russian leader than Putin, and it would appeal to many Russians. Western leaders could also be enticed to push for negotiations in the interest of ending the war. The hitch here is timing. In the first two months after the February 2022 invasion, Russia had the chance to negotiate with Zelensky and capitalize on its battlefield leverage. After Ukraine’s successful counteroffensives, however, Kyiv has little reason to concede anything at all. Since invading, Russia has upped the ante and escalated hostilities instead of showing a willingness to compromise. A less intransigent leader than Putin might lead Ukraine to consider negotiating. In the face of defeat, Putin could resort to lashing out on the global stage. He has steadily expanded his framing of the war, claiming that the West is waging a proxy battle against Russia with the goal of destroying the country. His 2022 speeches were more megalomaniacal versions of his address at the Munich Security Conference 15 years earlier, in which he denounced American exceptionalism, arguing that the United States “has overstepped its national borders in every way.”
Part bluster, part nonsense, part trial balloon, Putin’s rhetoric is meant to mobilize Russians emotionally. But there is also a tactical logic behind it: although expanding the war beyond Ukraine will obviously not win Putin the territory he craves, it could prevent Ukraine and the West from winning the conflict. His bellicose language is laying the groundwork for escalation and a twenty-first-century confrontation with the West in which Russia would seek to exploit its asymmetric advantages as a rogue or terrorist state.
The consequences of a Russian nuclear attack would be catastrophic, and not just for Ukraine.
Russia’s tools for confrontation could include the use of chemical or biological weapons in or outside Ukraine. Putin could destroy energy pipelines or seabed infrastructure or mount cyberattacks on the West’s financial institutions. The use of tactical nuclear weapons could be his last resort. In a speech on September 30, Putin brought up Hiroshima and Nagasaki, offering jumbled interpretations of World War II’s end phase. The analogy is imperfect, to put it mildly. If Russia were to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, Kyiv would not surrender. For one thing, Ukrainians know that Russian occupation would equal the extinction of their country, which was not the case for Japan in 1945. In addition, Japan was losing the war at the time. As of late 2022, it was Russia, the nuclear power, that was losing.
The consequences of a nuclear attack would be catastrophic, and not just for the Ukrainian population. Yet war would go on, and nuclear weapons would not do much to assist Russian soldiers on the ground. Instead, Russia would face international outrage. For now, Brazil, China, and India have not condemned Russia’s invasion, but no country is truly supporting Moscow in its horrific war, and none would support the use of nuclear weapons. Chinese President Xi Jinping made this publicly explicit in November: after he met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he issued a statement declaring that the leaders “jointly oppose the use or threat of the use of nuclear weapons.” If Putin did defy this warning, he would be an isolated pariah, punished economically and perhaps militarily by a global coalition.
For Russia, then, threatening to use nuclear weapons is of greater utility than actually doing so. But Putin may still go down this path: after all, launching the invasion was a spectacularly ill-conceived move, and yet he did it. If he does opt for breaking the nuclear taboo, NATO is unlikely to respond in kind, so as to avoid risking an apocalyptic nuclear exchange. The alliance, however, would in all likelihood respond with conventional force to weaken Russia’s military and to prevent further nuclear attacks, risking an escalatory spiral should Russia launch conventional attacks on NATO in return.
Even if this scenario could be avoided, a Russian defeat after nuclear use would still have dangerous repercussions. It would create a world without the imperfect nuclear equilibrium of the Cold War and the 30-year post–Cold War era. It would encourage leaders around the globe to go nuclear because it would appear that their safety could only be assured by acquiring nuclear weapons and showing a willingness to use them. A helter-skelter age of proliferation would ensue, to the immense detriment of global security.
HEAVY IS THE HEAD
At this point, the Russian public has not risen up to oppose the war. Russians may be skeptical of Putin and may not trust his government. But they also do not want their sons, fathers, and brothers in uniform to lose on the battlefield. Accustomed to Russia’s great-power status through the centuries and isolated from the West, most Russians would not want their country to be without any power and influence in Europe. That would be a natural consequence of a Russian defeat in Ukraine.
Still, a long war would commit Russians to a bleak future and would probably spark a revolutionary flame in the country. Russian casualties have been high, and as the Ukrainian military grows in strength, it can inflict still greater losses. The exodus of hundreds of thousands of young Russians, many of them highly skilled, has been astonishing. Over time, the combination of war, sanctions, and brain drain will take a massive toll—and Russians may eventually blame Putin, who began his presidential career as a self-proclaimed modernizer. Most Russians were insulated from his previous wars because they generally occurred far from the home front and didn’t require a mass mobilization to replenish troops. That’s not the case with the war in Ukraine.
Russia has a history of regime change in the aftermath of unsuccessful wars. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 and World War I helped lead to the Bolshevik Revolution. The collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991, came two years after the end of the Soviet military’s misadventure in Afghanistan. Revolutions have occurred in Russia when the government has failed in its economic and political objectives and has been unresponsive to crises. Generally, the coup de grâce has been the puncturing of the government’s underlying ideology, such as the loss of legitimacy of Russia’s monarchy and tsardom in the midst of hunger, poverty, and a faltering war effort in 1917.
Putin is at risk in all these categories. His management of the war has been awful, and the Russian economy is contracting. In the face of these dismal trends, Putin has doubled down on his errors, all the while insisting that the war is going “according to plan.” Repression can solve some of his problems: the arrest and prosecution of dissidents can quell protest at first. But Putin’s heavy hand also runs the risk of spurring more dissatisfaction.
If Putin were deposed, it is unclear who would succeed him. For the first time since coming to power in 1999, Putin’s “power vertical”—a highly centralized government hierarchy based on loyalty to the Russian president—has been losing a degree of its verticality. Two possible contenders outside the traditional elite structures are Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, a private military contractor that has furnished mercenaries for the war on Ukraine, and Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic. They might be tempted to chip away at the remains of Putin’s power vertical, encouraging infighting in the regime in hopes of securing a position in the center of Russia’s new power structure after Putin’s departure. They could also try to claim power themselves. They have already put pressure on the leadership of the Russian army and the Defense Ministry in response to failures in the war and attempted to broaden their own power bases with the backing of loyal paramilitary forces. Other contenders could come from traditional elite circles, such as the presidential administration, the cabinet, or military and security forces. To suppress palace intrigue, Putin has surrounded himself with mediocrities for the past 20 years. But his unsuccessful war threatens his hold on power. If he truly believes his recent speeches, he may have convinced his subordinates that he is living in a fantasy world.
The chances that a pro-Western democrat would become Russia’s next president are vanishingly small. Far more likely is an authoritarian leader in the Putinist mold. A leader from outside the power vertical could end the war and contemplate better relations with the West. But a leader who comes from within Putin’s Kremlin would not have this option because he would be trailed by a public record of supporting the war. The challenge of being a Putinist after Putin would be formidable.
One challenge would be the war, which would be no easier to manage for a successor, especially one who shared Putin’s dream of restoring Russia’s great-power status. Another challenge would be building legitimacy in a political system without any of its traditional sources. Russia has no constitution to speak of and no monarchy. Anyone who followed Putin would lack popular support and find it difficult to personify the neo-Soviet, neoimperial ideology that Putin has come to embody.
In the worst case, Putin’s fall could translate into civil war and Russia’s disintegration. Power would be contested at the top, and state control would fragment throughout the country. This period could be an echo of the Time of Troubles, or smuta, a 15-year crisis of succession in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries marked by rebellion, lawlessness, and foreign invasion. Russians regard that era as a period of humiliation to be avoided at all costs. Russia’s twenty-first-century troubles could see the emergence of warlords from the security services and violent separatists in the country’s economically distressed regions, many of which are home to large numbers of ethnic minorities. Although a Russia in turmoil might not formally end the war in Ukraine, it might simply be unable to conduct it, in which case Ukraine would have regained its peace and independence while Russia descended into anarchy.
AGENT OF CHAOS
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a first step in refashioning a Russian empire has had the opposite effect. The war has diminished his ability to strong-arm Russia’s neighbors. When Azerbaijan fought a border skirmish with Armenia last year, Russia refused to intervene on Armenia’s behalf, even though it is Armenia’s formal ally.
A similar dynamic is at play in Kazakhstan. Had Kyiv capitulated, Putin might have decided to invade Kazakhstan next: the former Soviet republic has a large ethnic Russian population, and Putin has no respect for international borders. A different possibility now looms: if the Kremlin were to undergo regime change, it might free Kazakhstan from Russia’s grasp entirely, allowing the country to serve as a safe haven for Russians in exile. That would be far from the only change in the region. In the South Caucasus and in Moldova, old conflicts could revive and intensify. Ankara could continue to support its partner Azerbaijan against Armenia. Were Turkey to lose its fear of Russian opprobrium, it might urge Azerbaijan to press forward with further attacks on Armenia. In Syria, Turkey would have reason to step up its military presence if Russia were to fall back.
If Russia descended into chaos, Georgia could operate with greater latitude. The shadow of Russia’s military force, which has loomed over the country since the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, would be removed. Georgia could continue its quest to eventually become a member of the European Union, although it was bypassed as a candidate last year because of inner turmoil and a lack of domestic reforms. If the Russian military were to withdraw from the region, conflicts might again break out between Georgia and South Ossetia on the one hand and between Georgia and Abkhazia on the other. That dynamic could also emerge in Moldova and its breakaway region Transnistria, where Russian soldiers have been stationed since 1992. Moldova’s candidacy for European Union membership, announced in June 2022, might be its escape from this long-standing conflict. The European Union would surely be willing to help Moldova with conflict resolution.
Putin’s fall could translate into civil war and Russia’s disintegration.
Leadership changes in Russia would shake Belarus, where the dictator Alexander Lukashenko is propped up by Russian money and military might. Were Putin to fall, Lukashenko would in all likelihood be next. A Belarusian government in exile already exists: Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lives in Lithuania, became the country’s opposition leader in 2020 after her husband was jailed for trying to run against Lukashenko. Free and fair elections could be held, allowing the country to rescue itself from dictatorship, if it managed to insulate itself from Russia. If Belarus could not secure its independence, Russia’s potential internal strife could spill over there, which would in turn affect neighbors such as Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine.
If Russia were to truly disintegrate and lose its influence in Eurasia, other actors, such as China, would move in. Before the war, China mostly exerted economic rather than military influence in the region. That is changing. China is on the advance in Central Asia. The South Caucasus and the Middle East could be its next areas of encroachment.
A defeated and internally destabilized Russia would demand a new paradigm of global order. The reigning liberal international order revolves around the legal management of power. It emphasizes rules and multilateral institutions. The great-power-competition model, a favorite of former U.S. President Donald Trump, was about the balance of power, tacitly or explicitly viewing spheres of influence as the source of international order. If Russia were to suffer a defeat in Ukraine, policymakers would have to take into account the presence and the absence of power, in particular the absence or severe decline of Russian power. A diminished Russia would have an impact on conflicts around the globe, including those in Africa and the Middle East, not to mention in Europe. Yet a reduced or broken Russia would not necessarily usher in a golden age of order and stability.
A defeated Russia would mark a change from the past two decades, when the country was an ascendant power. Throughout the 1990s and into the first decade of this century, Russia haphazardly aspired to integrate into Europe and partner with the United States. Russia joined the G-8 and the World Trade Organization. It assisted with U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan. In the four years when Dmitry Medvedev was Russia’s president, from 2008 to 2012, Russia appeared to be playing along with the rules-based international order, if one did not look too closely behind the curtain.
A Russia amenable to peaceful coexistence with the West may have been an illusion from the beginning. Putin projected a conciliatory air early in his presidency, although he may have harbored hatred of the West, contempt for the rules-based order, and an eagerness to dominate Ukraine all along. In any case, once he retook the presidency in 2012, Russia dropped out of the rules-based order. Putin derided the system as nothing more than camouflage for a domineering United States. Russia violently encroached on Ukraine’s sovereignty by annexing Crimea, reinserted itself in the Middle East by supporting Assad in Syria’s civil war, and erected networks of Russian military and security influence in Africa. An assertive Russia and an ascendant China contributed to a paradigm of great-power competition in Beijing, Moscow, and even a post-Trump Washington.
If Russia were to disintegrate and lose its influence in Eurasia, China would move in.
Despite its acts of aggression and its substantial nuclear arsenal, Russia is in no way a peer competitor of China or the United States. Putin’s overreach in Ukraine suggests that he has not grasped this important point. But because Putin has intervened in regions around the world, a defeat in Ukraine that tore apart Russia would be a resounding shock to the international system.
The defeat could, to be sure, have positive consequences for many countries in Russia’s neighborhood. Look no further than the end of the Cold War, when the demise of the Soviet Union allowed for the emergence of more than a dozen free and prosperous countries in Europe. A Russia turned inward might help foster a “Europe whole and free,” to borrow the phrase used by U.S. President George H. W. Bush to describe American ambitions for the continent after the Cold War ended. At the same time, disarray in Russia could create a vortex of instability: less great-power competition than great-power anarchy, leading to a cascade of regional wars, migrant flows, and economic uncertainty.
Russia’s collapse could also be contagious or the start of a chain reaction, in which case neither the United States nor China would profit because both would struggle to contain the fallout. In that case, the West would need to establish strategic priorities. It would be impossible to try to fill the vacuum that a disorderly Russian defeat might leave. In Central Asia and the South Caucasus, the United States and Europe would have little chance of preventing China and Turkey from moving into the void. Instead of attempting to shut them out, a more realistic U.S. strategy would be to attempt to restrain their influence and offer an alternative, especially to China’s dominance.
Whatever form Russia’s defeat took, stabilizing eastern and southeastern Europe, including the Balkans, would be a herculean task. Across Europe, the West would have to find a creative answer to the questions that were never resolved after 1991: Is Russia a part of Europe? If not, how high should the wall between Russia and Europe be, and around which countries should it run? If Russia is a part of Europe, where and how does it fit in? Where does Europe itself start and end? The incorporation of Finland and Sweden into NATO would be only the beginning of this project. Belarus and Ukraine demonstrate the difficulties of protecting Europe’s eastern flank: those countries are the last place where Russia would give up on its great-power aspirations. And even a ruined Russia would not lose all its nuclear and conventional military capacity.
Twice in the last 106 years—in 1917 and in 1991—versions of Russia have broken apart. Twice, versions of Russia have reconstituted themselves. If Russian power recedes, the West should capitalize on that opportunity to shape an environment in Europe that serves to protect NATO members, allies, and partners. A Russian defeat would furnish many opportunities and many temptations. One of these temptations would be to expect that a defeated Russia would essentially disappear from Europe. But a defeated Russia will one day reassert itself and pursue its interests on its terms. The West should be politically and intellectually equipped both for Russia’s defeat and for Russia’s return.
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Daily Memo: EU to Cap Gas Prices
The bloc agreed on the measure after months of negotiation.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Containing prices. EU governments agreed on Monday on a price cap for natural gas in an effort to contain rising energy prices. The cap, which will come into effect on Feb. 15, is set at 180 euros ($191) per megawatt hour. Germany voted for the measure despite raising concerns earlier. Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Russian authorities would respond accordingly.
Still buying Russian oil. Russia’s Transneft pipeline operator said it has received applications from both Germany and Poland for oil in 2023. The supplies would be transported through the Druzhba pipeline, which is exempt from EU sanctions on Russian oil that went into effect earlier this month. Both countries have said they will aim to reduce imports of Russian oil.
Russian concessions. Russia and Belarus agreed to a fixed price for natural gas for the next three years after talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk on Monday. Moscow also agreed to restructure Belarus’ debt. During Putin’s visit, Lukashenko said Russia provided his country with S-400 missile defense systems and the Iskander ballistic missile system, which are already on combat duty.
Discount. Russian Railways, together with the railway companies from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran, will provide preferential rates for container shipments in 2023 through the International North-South Transport Corridor, which connects Russia with the Caspian Basin, the Persian Gulf and Central, South and Southeast Asia. Russian Railways earlier said it would introduce a 20 percent discount for container traffic crossing between Russia and Kazakhstan. Moscow is seeking ways to find new export markets amid the tough Western sanctions.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64050719?fbclid=IwAR21eUro0XNHrCaybpX2UG8v4BDZsZxa24wTnbUddsurHABUDsS7AcGVoZE
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/evidence-nord-stream-sabotage-doesnt-point-russia-washington-post?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1141
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Daily Memo: Russia Announced Military Expansion Plan
The Defense Ministry introduced a series of changes to the armed forces.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Military expansion. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced at an annual meeting of the ministry board on Wednesday a plan to increase the size of Russia's armed forces from 1 million to 1.5 million. The age of conscription will also jump from 18 to 21. Shoigu said NATO’s expansion to Finland and Sweden necessitated the changes. President Vladimir Putin, who also attended the meeting where a series of military changes were announced, said there were no restrictions on funding for the military. Concerns are growing within the Russian population over the military campaign in Ukraine.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/north-korea-supplying-arms-russian-mercenary-wagner-group?fbclid=IwAR1zt6SGstuU9NOfK1t74o84K74fdJDwpoli5Qe0K1AGd7Lf-Q5D2rjSSWA
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What to Make of Zelensky's Visit to Washington
7 MIN READDec 22, 2022 | 19:53 GMT
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to the United States appears unlikely to convince the White House to provide Kyiv with the weapons it needs to retake more of its territory from Russia. On Dec. 21, Zelensky made his first foreign visit since Russia invaded his country on Feb. 24 — arriving in Washington for talks with U.S. President Joe Biden and top U.S. officials, followed by an address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. The visit coincided with the announcement of a new U.S. package of $1.85 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine that includes one Patriot anti-air defense system (details on the model and munitions for which were not disclosed). The visit comes at a pivotal moment, with Ukrainian forces making gains on the battlefield in recent months. But Ukraine lacks the long-range strike capability and other offensive equipment it needs to maintain its momentum against increasingly entrenched Russian forces. At a press conference with Zelensky, President Biden shot down the idea of providing Ukraine material ''fundamentally different'' from that which is already going there, saying this would ''have the prospect of breaking up'' NATO and the European Union's support for Ukraine. The remark reasserted the West's policy of refusing to provide Ukraine long-range weaponry, such as the Army Tactical Missile System (which is a surface-to-surface missile) or other longer-range munition Ukrainian forces would need to more effectively degrade Russian logistics farther from the current front line. Therefore, while the trip will likely help drum up support among U.S. lawmakers and citizens for continuing to help Ukraine, Zelensky's visit did not secure longer-range strike capabilities that Kyiv will need to maintain offensive momentum this spring — buying Russia time to train, rearm, and build fortifications for its troops in eastern Ukraine, and likely putting on the war on a path whereby Kyiv will have little chance to retake the territories Russia seized this year.
The $1.85 billion U.S. package authorizes $1 billion of additional security assistance to Ukraine, delivering equipment that is drawn directly from Department of Defense stocks. The other $850 million in assistance will come from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), allowing Ukraine to purchase equipment and earmark production directly from U.S. defense contractors.
The U.S. decision to provide the Patriot defense system is the result of Russia's campaign on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. The decision is notable due to the system's ability to help defend Ukraine amid Russia's ongoing airstrikes against the war-torn country's critical infrastructure (like its energy grid). The delivery of the Patriot system is also notable because it marks a shift in U.S. policy, as in the months immediately following Russia's invasion, the United States had repeatedly rejected the idea — often saying the system would require U.S. personnel to be stationed in Ukraine, which would pose an unacceptable risk for NATO.
The visit comes as Russia is signaling its intention to maintain the war effort in the long term, while highlighting its cooperation with China. Moscow conducted two previously unannounced events on the day of Zelensky's visit in what appeared to be an effort to signal Russia's intention to maintain its negotiating position and continue the war — no matter how long it takes and at what cost for Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave public remarks before an expanded meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry's Collegium. During the meeting, Putin said that there were ''no funding restrictions'' on the Russian military and that ''the corresponding results will be achieved,'' while Shoigu vaguely noted that Russia's goal for 2023 was to continue the ''special operation [in Ukraine] until its completion.'' Also on Dec. 21, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev — who's a close confidant of Putin and currently serves as the deputy head of Russia's Security Council — met Chinese President Xi Jinping on an unannounced visit to Beijing, where he delivered a ''message'' from Putin, the contents of which were undisclosed beyond hailing the countries' ''unprecedented'' cooperation. Together, the two events emphasized the Kremlin's commitment to its current course, reassuring China that Russia will remain a long-term reliable partner for Beijing against the West no matter how the war evolves.
During the Dec. 21 event, Shoigu proposed and Putin accepted a controversial measure to adjust the age range for conscription in Russian military service from 18-27 to 21-30. The details of the proposal are unclear, other than it will be phased in starting next year. But its purpose appears to be making more of Russia's population subject to conscription, while also excluding teenage conscripts from being called to fight in Ukraine (which is unpopular in Russia).
Medvedev was accompanied by Secretary of the United Russia party Andrei Turchak and the head of the United Russia faction in the State Duma, Vladimir Vasiliev. Their inclusion in the China trip was likely intended to reassure Beijing of the guiding role the United Russia party will play in managing Russia's politics in the long term, and that under the party's leadership, Russia would continue its policy of confrontation with the West (even after Putin is no longer president) — thereby demonstrating to Beijing the inviolability of their close ties.
Kyiv's failure to shift the U.S. position on advanced and long-range strike weapon deliveries will likely force Ukraine to adopt a more cautious and defensive strategy on the battlefield, making further Ukrainian territorial gains (and peace talks with Russia) unlikely over the next year. Even if it does not get the weapons it is requesting from the West, Kyiv is unlikely to agree to any sort of a cease-fire that involves giving up Ukrainian territory to Russia, as this would be politically unacceptable for Zelensky. With little prospect of rapidly regaining its territory without long-range capabilities, Kyiv's strategy will effectively involve waiting for Russia's social, economic and political conditions to deteriorate to the point where Moscow is eventually forced to withdraw from Ukraine. But this strategy is dubious because it could take many years for Russia's domestic situation to reach that point. It also depends on events in Russia evolving in a certain way, as well as continued Western support for Ukraine (which could eventually weaken amid the mounting global economic fallout from the war).
The United States could hypothetically reverse its decision not to provide Ukraine advanced and long-range strike weapons in the future, as it did with Patriot. However, such a move is unlikely unless Moscow significantly escalates the war (by, for example, launching a renewed offensive toward Kyiv) because, as Biden indicated, it could cause increased tensions within NATO. Such a strategic reversal could also be politically costly for the Biden administration, as deciding against providing Ukraine with advanced weapon systems now only to later authorize it would pose the same escalation risks, while also giving Russia additional time to reconstitute its forces.
Following Zelensky's trip to Washington, Ukraine may shift the focus of its requests for additional Western aid to other offensive weaponry Kyiv needs, such as modern main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, and NATO fixed-wing aircraft (which Zelensky assured Congress the Ukrainian military was perfectly capable of operating). But there is for now little sign that the West's stance on providing Kyiv with such systems will change anytime soon.
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December 28, 2022
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In Germany, the Era That Didn’t Turn
Russia’s decline and America’s assurances weaken the rationale for rearmament.
By: Ryan Bridges
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivered his historic “Zeitenwende” – literally, “turn of an era” – speech three days after Russia invaded Ukraine. The world was at an inflection point, Scholz said, and Berlin had to adapt. Foremost, Germany needed a forceful but prudent answer to the Russian attack. Scrapping his coalition’s ban on the delivery of lethal weapons to conflict zones, Scholz announced the shipment of thousands of shoulder-fired anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine – a very big deal among German officials, though less so among their allies. He also endorsed sanctions against Russia’s elites, and he reaffirmed his government’s commitment to the defense of its NATO allies. Scholz would flesh out his Ukraine policy later, but for now he had committed Germany to containing the war and exerting pressure to bring the Kremlin back to the negotiating table.
But what made Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech famous were two other commitments. First, the chancellor said Germany would “overcome” its dependence on Russian energy. Second, he promised to transform the Bundeswehr into a capable, modern fighting force by launching a 100 billion-euro ($106 billion) special fund for defense projects and investments. And “from now on, year after year,” Germany would spend more than 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, he said.
Germany has undergone a sea change when it comes to its energy security, though both it and Europe are still far from independent of Russia. But the stories – and the data – regarding defense modernization and rearmament are roughly the same as before. Clearly, there are some dependencies Germany is not ready to leave behind.
Energy Security
In the spring, German officials warned that the sudden loss of Russian gas supplies would trigger a recession on par with 2009, when the German economy shrank 5.7 percent. Yet the latest official estimates for 2023 assume little to no Russian gas and still project a fall in gross domestic product of half a percent or less.
How did this happen? First, Europe made refilling gas storage an emergency priority. At the time of writing, Germany’s gas storage is 88 percent full, 11 percentage points above the five-year average for this time of year. EU storage as a whole is more than a third higher than at this point last year. Second, demand destruction and conservation efforts contributed to a 20 percent drop in EU gas consumption from August to November relative to previous years. Germany cut its consumption by more than a quarter. This was just as Russia was escalating the gas war, stopping delivery in September through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which along with its sister project was sabotaged in October by unknown actors.
Finally, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany had no capacity to import liquefied natural gas. After the invasion, Germany in just 10 months built the infrastructure to host its first floating LNG terminal. (This in a country that routinely uses fax machines and where a capital airport project missed its deadline by nine years.) Germany will launch two more floating LNG terminals soon, enabling it to replace about a third of the gas it imported from Russia last year – without needing to rely on its neighbors. More terminals will open around next winter for a total LNG import capacity of approximately 30 billion cubic meters, a little over half what Germany bought from Russia in 2021. It’s not exactly the picture of German efficiency – the LNG terminals are costing well over double the government’s estimate – but by German standards it was swiftly done, especially for a project of this magnitude.
And of course, there are Germany’s inherent advantages – its access to the North and Baltic seas and its centrality in Europe, and especially its strong finances, which enable it to compete with wealthy Asian buyers of LNG. This is why Germany was so reluctant to accept proposals for an EU price ceiling on natural gas imports. Germany, if not its energy-intensive industry, is better positioned than most of the region to weather high gas prices. It worries that an effective cap would undermine government efforts to reduce energy consumption while potentially diverting LNG shipments to non-European buyers and rattling markets. On Dec. 19, Berlin relented and supported a cap, but the myriad safeguards mean it is questionable whether it will ever be activated.
This is not to downplay the risks, the most immediate of which is that without adequate energy savings, Europe could suffer blackouts. Especially vulnerable are landlocked states in Central and Eastern Europe and anyone that can’t outbid the wealthier northwest for gas. Mild temperatures have helped reduce consumption, and in a best-case scenario German gas storage could enter April more than 70 percent full. By this time, Europe will have shifted from drawing down stockpiles to replenishing them. However, the consensus is that restocking will be extremely difficult for Europe next year, with Russian gas potentially unavailable and the anticipated return of Chinese demand following the end of its zero-COVID policy. The Paris-based International Energy Agency warned recently that the EU could fall 27 bcm short of meeting its estimated demand of 395 bcm next year.
If worse comes to worst, and if political cooperation in the EU breaks down and gas-sharing agreements fail, it’s safe to assume the bloc’s wealthiest member state would suffer a relatively smaller share of the pain. As with the economic response to COVID-19, the main challenge for the German government will probably be balancing its narrow national interests with its EU obligations.
Defense U-Turn
As for Scholz’s defense spending commitments, there is no suspense. Germany will not spend 2 percent of GDP on defense in 2023, and based on current plans, after hitting the mark in 2024-25, it will fall back below it in 2026. Scholz’s term ends in 2025, so he will be able to campaign on (temporarily) meeting the target. Winning elections is, ultimately, what the 2 percent target is for. The real measure of whether a NATO member is meeting its minimum obligations is not so easily quantifiable, but no one disputes that Germany is falling short. Early returns on the Zeitenwende are hardly better.
In a recent exercise, all 18 new Puma infantry fighting vehicles failed. Before that, amid unsourced reports that the Bundeswehr had ammunition for only a couple of days of war, the co-leader of Scholz’s Social Democrats traded blame with defense industry officials for the shortage. The government says industry is failing to invest; industry says it does not trust the government to make investing worthwhile. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, also of Scholz’s party, asked the finance minister to urgently provide funds to buy ammunition. The finance minister said Lambrecht had never mentioned this supposed emergency before and pointedly suggested she get her own house in order. The Finance Ministry also denied the request, which drew less attention, and said bureaucratic hurdles were to blame.
But the real culprit is Germany’s own interests and strategy, which, evidently, has not changed as much as Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech indicated. The reason is that the catalyst for the change – the looming threat of a Russian attack on a German ally – is no longer credible. In the last days of February, officials in Ukraine and the West were anticipating Kyiv’s encirclement. No one knew if the Ukrainian state would survive. No one knew how dependable the U.S. response would be, nor even whether EU or trans-Atlantic unity would hold if the Kremlin took any number of plausible actions, such as cutting off Europe’s gas supplies.
Ukrainian strength and American support have greatly exceeded expectations in Berlin as well as in Moscow. By April, Russian forces had withdrawn from around Kyiv. Not long after, the grumbling started in Berlin about whether all the new defense spending was really necessary. The Greens argued that more of the new 100 billion-euro special military fund should go to non-military elements of security, such as cyber and infrastructure protection. The cost-conscious Free Democrats felt emboldened to make the process as painful as possible to prevent its being repeated. And Scholz’s own Social Democrats returned to navel gazing. Over the summer, a senior Social Democratic lawmaker and chair of the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee wrote an essay outlining “a new Ostpolitik for the Zeitenwende.” This new Ostpolitik, or eastern policy, would be everything to everyone: “realistic and value-based, underpinned by military resilience and willingness to engage in dialogue.” And he said it should be coordinated with some three dozen German allies, with the close involvement of civil societies – which is good for diplomatic relations and democracy but a recipe for inaction.
The More Things Change …
The loss of Russian piped gas is a seismic event for Europe. Gazprom’s pipelines to Germany under the Baltic Sea are dead and buried, and the Yamal pipeline through Belarus and Poland isn’t operating. Shipments are occurring only via Turkey and Ukraine, both in small quantities. As a result, European gas prices are four to five times the norm.
But over time, the expansion of European LNG import capacity will help globalize the LNG market, with prices on the American, Asian and European markets converging. Persistently high prices will also transform the European industrial landscape, bankrupting weaker firms and driving some energy-intensive manufacturing out, but also creating the painful conditions that tend to drive innovation. (Some manufacturers have already defied expectations and found novel ways to boost their energy efficiency.) The crisis has renewed interest in the deepening of European energy cooperation, and it could accelerate the discovery and development of breakthroughs in green technology. It could also provoke social unrest and civil strife. Or the war could end suddenly, and Russia could begin restoring gas supplies. Only time will tell.
But when it comes to security policy, Germany is not convinced that it needs to do much more. If the Putin regime survives its misadventures in Ukraine, it will still be years before it can threaten any defensive coalition Poland, Finland and Sweden – let alone NATO – could put together. Poland especially has been bolstered by the war in Ukraine, and Warsaw is determined to build Europe’s strongest army. Whether it succeeds or not, Polish power is rising relative to Russia, providing Germany a stronger layer of protection. Most important, the Biden administration is determined to provide stability, eager to show partners and rivals in Asia that it is a reliable and valuable ally.
This does not mean nothing has changed in Germany. The urgency to break the country’s reliance on Russian piped gas is real – in fact, energy experts warn that Germany is overbuilding LNG import capacity. Moreover, dreams of an entente with Russia have been shattered, and Germans are more conscious of the risks of dependence on authoritarian states. For example, 84 percent of Germans agree that it is important that the country reduce its economic reliance on China, though the government is divided on this. But for a while longer at least, the U.S. is willing to provide the relatively minor resources necessary to stonewall Russia, which is paying an exorbitant price in Ukraine. Until this changes, Germany is betting against the Zeitenwende.
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"The loss of Russian piped gas is a seismic event for Europe."
not a peep about who did it
it had to be us.....
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I saw it asserted that the methane from the explosion/leak was greater than all other global warming emissions. Anyone have anything on this?
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I saw it asserted that the methane from the explosion/leak was greater than all other global warming emissions. Anyone have anything on this?
That was my first impression, all the gas in two pipelines goes out with a major breach, but then we learned one pipeline was not yet in service and the other was closed for maintenance (not in service) so I don't know much leaked, if any.
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Posting this does not mean I agree with it:
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Wait A Second! Merkel Did What?
BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, JAN 02, 2023 - 09:20 AM
Authored by Natasha Wright,
Even if Merkel had not been accomplice to this grande feat of political mirage and deception, she should be praised for her honesty.
Otherwise, merely as a set of mitigating circumstances for ‘the Merkel on the political court of justice of history’ we could just acknowledge her honest admission that she was a participant in that grand Minsk Agreements delusion, which led the world into a conflict of huge proportions, the result and the aftermath of which the world cannot even see the outlines of at this point, and in its less favourable variant it can mean its complete destruction (the world’s destruction that is). The issue is certainly much more deep-rooted than that. Merkel has recently, seemingly totally unprovoked, divulged the well-hidden truth that the Minsk Agreements with Russia about Ukraine, signed seven years ago with the presidents of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko, Merkel and the then President of France, Francois Hollande reached within the framework of the Normandy Format were just a deceptive political ploy.
Sadly, some of the signatories (i.e. Germany, France and Ukraine) seem to have never even considered fulfilling all the signed contractual clauses and its pertaining elements. That agreement, Merkel admitted, was signed merely to consolidate and reinforce Ukrainian military might and buy more time so that they could use it for their ‘final reckoning’ with Russia. The Minsk Agreement, says the already retired Merkel during her ‘sitting on her political laurels’ pension days, Merkel disclosed to the general public and her political counterparts, that it was a mere concerted effort to give Ukraine time, which many have subliminally known already. Ukraine used that time to consolidate its military position, as is so blatantly obvious at this moment in time. The Ukraine from 2014 and 2015 is certainly not the Ukraine of the year 2022. The Battle for Debaltseve at the beginning of 2015 has patently proven that Putin’s army could have rolled over them in a nanosecond back then and crushed them to pieces militarily.
I sincerely doubt that the NATO member states could have done more back then than what they are doing now. Clearly, it was bound to turn into a frozen conflict and not solved at all. Ukraine has just been given a precious time it badly needed. As if Poroshenko wanted to reinforce what Merkel was about to disclose a few months later, NATO Secretary General, Stoltenberg, has boastfully gloated that NATO allies have given much needed support for Ukraine for years on end, particularly since 2014 so that its armed forces were much bigger and more powerful in February 2022 than in 2014. Moreover, Stoltenberg. ‘A wannabe-Adolf’ admitted at the NATO Summit in Madrid this summer after a series of belated admissions, they have been preparing for this for quite a long time now. This plausible though an oblique admission that the Minsk Agreements did not serve the purpose of a peaceable solution to the conflict but so as to simply arm and train Ukraine en route its military preparation for the war yet to come against Russia. The ‘kudos filled with irony’ for this should go straight to Petro Poroshenko that exactly what happened. Admittedly though ironically, that was a very talented document, which is how Poroshenko described it i.e. written with great political panache because they needed the Minsk Agreements to gain four more years as their head start, to form, consolidate and train Ukrainian armed forces, and together with NATO build the best military combat readiness army in Eastern Europe in line with the high-profile NATO standards. That was what Poroshenko trotted out inadvertently in front of the Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus, who made him believe that he was in fact talking to Michael McFaul, the former U.S. Ambassador in Russia. Poroshenko, out of sheer negligence and ignorance, was way more straightforward, up until Angela Merkel with her official though unanticipated admission and confirmation of all Russian suspicions on this matter, outplayed them in all her honesty. She even appears to have told the truth. Which possibly makes matters much worse for her. That’s it, Sergey Lavrov gave a succinct response. Vladimir Putin rose above it all though with overwhelming subtle derision. How one is supposed to feel if he and Russia had been viewed as the main culprits for the ongoing war of massive proportions but it turned out that he was right all along. Vladimir Putin gave a straightforward response. ‘This is disappointing, Truth be told, I did not expect to hear any such thing from the former German Chancellor because I have always thought that the German leaders were honest with us. Apparently, they resorted to ‘grand deception’ tactics. The situation is not just horrible but abhorrent as well, said Alexander Lukashenko, the disappointed host of the then Minsk Agreements.
Poroshenko, Hollande, whom Merkel led along holding his ‘politically rickety’ hand as if he were her political lapdog in front of Putin’s eyes, carried out a secret operation and deceived everybody. In doing so, they got a long period of a pseudo ‘truce’ so as to prepare Ukraine. After Merkel’s admission, nobody has the right to blame Russia for what happened. What is even worse, the Minsk Agreements and its great pretenders in all their feats of delusional pretence, is not an exception to the rule but it occurs as a rule for the Collective West.
‘The hidden agenda behind the Minsk Agreement additionally demolishes the credibility of the Collective West to tatters’ – the Chinese Global Times concludes. Merkel’s admission goes to prove that some countries in the Collective West, particularly the USA, fail to perform their contractual obligations. They breach contracts, they break their own words with utmost dismissive frivolity. They deem any agreement as useful only if they see their chance to promote their own selfish interests. Otherwise, Washington DC and their vassals are always on the ready ‘to fail to perform’.
One has to wonder why the Collective West keeps doing this? What is the rest of the decent world to do and how are we to move on from this after this admission by Merkel? Are we supposed to sign any future agreements and business deals with the Collective West? Does that mean that there will not be peace in the world as long as one great power is driven to a complete defeat? What got into Merkel to give away those precious details? We are yet to find out in Merkel’s memoirs.
There is no need to pardon Merkel for anything she has done but her admission is hugely important particularly for Moscow for the reasons of any future peace negotiations. All these great deceptions carried out under false pretences appear to come with a long tradition back in history. In the history of diplomacy it is not odd that political personages of huge importance break their promises. The history of international relations has witnessed such instances of statesmen and political figures giving their words and then breaking them. Even the formal pledges and written agreements. Especially in the 20th century. Hitler comes to mind. James Baker’s pledge ‘Not one inch eastward‘ given to Michael Gorbachev as well still resonates in our historical memory and certainly in the political archives
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Moscow claims that it killed hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in retaliation for a massive New Year's strike.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Strikes in Ukraine. Following a Moscow-declared cease-fire over Orthodox Christmas celebrations, Russia launched an airstrike on the eastern Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk in retaliation for a Ukrainian strike on Makiivka in Donetsk on New Year’s Eve. The Russian Defense Ministry said 89 Russian soldiers died in the Makiivka strike. There are no signs of casualties from Russia's own attack on Kramatorsk, according to reports, despite Moscow claiming to have killed 600 Ukrainian troops. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said reinforcements would be sent to Bakhmut and Soledar, the site of heavy fighting between the two sides.
Drills in Belarus. Russia and Belarus announced that they will conduct joint air exercises from Jan. 16 to Feb. 1. All of the Belarusian air force's airfields and training grounds will be involved in the drills, and the aviation component of Russia’s Military Space Forces have already arrived in Belarus to take part. The two countries earlier agreed to deploy a joint “regional grouping of troops” in Belarus, amid President Alexander Lukashenko's repeated references to a rising threat from the West.
Grain for Africa? Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to send grain for free to Turkey via the Black Sea corridor for delivery to poor African countries. Erdogan said he agreed to turn the grain into flour in Turkish factories before shipping it to Africa, noting that 44 percent of the agricultural products exported from Ukrainian ports from the corridor are actually destined for European countries.
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GPF
Resilience. Russian industries continue to show signs of resilience despite sanctions. In the first 10 months of 2022, fertilizer exports totaled $16.7 billion, a 70 percent increase compared with the same period in 2021, despite a 10 percent drop in sales. Exports of liquefied natural gas to the European Union also grew, with the Yamal LNG project’s supplies to the bloc increasing by about 13.5 percent in 2022. According to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, oil production rose last year by 2 percent and exports by 7 percent, while budget revenue from the oil and gas industry increased by 28 percent.
Boosting cooperation. Russia and Belarus began joint air exercises on Monday amid a buildup of forces in Belarus. Minsk called the drills, which will use all of the country's airfields, “defensive in nature.” Though this could be preparation for Belarus’ official entry into the Ukraine war, Minsk has other reasons to cooperate with Moscow: In a new interview, Belarus’ finance minister discussed the possibility of refinancing the country's Russian loans, some of which were granted last year to fund its import substitution projects following the West's imposition of severe sanctions.
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Europe's Warm Winter Minimizes the Impact of Russia's Gas Cut-Offs
8 MIN READJan 17, 2023 | 21:46 GMT
A mild winter will not only help Europe withstand the rest of the season with low levels of Russian natural gas, but will also reduce the risk of an energy crisis next winter by leaving the Continent with larger-than-usual gas stockpiles. According to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, European gas storage was 81.49% full as of Jan. 15 — the highest recorded level for this time of year since 2011. The ten-year median for Jan. 15 is historically about 63% full. Germany's storage levels actually increased from 87.2% to 91.4% between Dec. 20 and Jan. 8. These high storage levels, combined with relatively low demand, saw Europe's main gas benchmark — the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) — dip under 55 euros per megawatt hour in mid-January for the first time since late 2021 (and trade below that level on Jan. 17).
Several factors have contributed to Europe's gas storage levels declining at a slower-than-normal pace this winter, including:
An unseasonably warm start to winter: The weather across Europe has been unusually warm since November, which is the start of the Continent's winter heating season. In the first ten days of January, a number of European countries saw record-high temperatures. On Jan. 1, temperatures in the Polish capital of Warsaw reached 19 degrees Celsius (66.2 degrees Fahrenheit), far surpassing the city's previous record for the hottest day in January by 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit). Since Oct. 1, Germany's average temperature has been nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit above normal levels. Northwestern Europe is expected to experience cooler-than-normal temperatures by mid-January, but due to milder temperatures elsewhere, weather forecaster Maxar Technologies is still projecting next week's total heating-degree days to be below the ten-year average across the Continent.
Gas-saving measures: The European Union agreed to target a voluntary 15% decline in gas demand between August 2022 and March 2023. This has been backed up by individual EU governments lowering the thermostats in their buildings, which has prompted many companies in Europe to follow suit. Gas prices across the Continent also remain relatively high (even if partially subsidized by various EU governments and lower than the record levels seen last summer), which has helped further dampen demand. The European economics think tank Bruegel estimated that demand for natural gas among the 27 EU member states was 13% lower in December compared with the 2019-21 average.
Lower industrial demand: High prices have led to an increase in feedstock costs for industrial consumers of natural gas. This led to a number of gas-intensive industries, such as zinc smelting, to cut back or suspend their output, especially after being hammered with record-high prices over the summer. In an effort to cut costs, power generators and other industrial consumers of natural gas have also shifted some consumption to other fuels where possible, such as coal and crude oil. As a result, European industrial natural gas demand is also down more than 15% from normal levels.
Increased LNG and piped natural gas capacity: In recent months and weeks, several new pieces of infrastructure to boost the Continent's access to natural gas have also come online. In October, the BalticPipe pipeline — which connects Poland to Europe's biggest natural gas producer, Norway — came online. On Dec. 17, Germany's first import facility for liquified natural gas (LNG) opened up after the arrival of a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) that the German government and companies contracted earlier in 2022. On Jan. 13, energy giant TotalEnergies announced the start-up of another FSRU in Germany.
The slow start to the winter will alleviate concerns about Europe entering a gas crisis-induced economic recession over the next three months, which will undermine what little leverage Russia has over the Continent with low amounts of Russian gas still being piped to European countries. The European economy is still at risk of slowing due to rising interest rates designed to choke off inflation. But warm weather and lower-than-normal gas demand have reduced the likelihood of severe shortages and/or sustained sky-high energy prices triggering a gas crunch in Europe that exacerbates inflation and forces companies to either declare bankruptcy or conduct massive layoffs. Lower gas prices, as well as relatively low oil prices compared to mid-2022, will also reduce political pressure on European governments and the potential for demonstrations like those seen in Vienna last month, where participants called on the Austrian government to weaken sanctions on Russia in response to high energy prices. This reduced risk of political backlash makes it even less likely that European governments will consider offering Russia concessions in the coming months. It will also give governments more confidence to authorize weapons transfers to Ukraine without concerns about natural gas and energy price consequences. Over the course of 2023, some European leaders may slowly start pressuring Ukraine to negotiate a peace deal with Russia that ends the war, but the lack of a major gas crisis won't force European leaders to do so prematurely.
A Russian kinetic attack or a cyberattack on Europe's gas infrastructure, while unlikely, could result in a crisis. As high gas stockpiles eat away at its leverage over Europe, the Kremlin could opt for more drastic measures to directly sabotage the Continent's infrastructure this winter.
A mild winter will make it easier for Europe to withstand the next winter without an energy crisis. But natural gas prices will remain above pre-2021 levels, which will continue to undermine the Continent's industrial and manufacturing base. Europe will likely enter this spring with near or at record levels of gas storage, barring a series of major winter storms that quickly exhaust its stockpiles by increasing demand and/or disrupting supply. Typically, the Continent's gas storage levels fall below 40% full during the winter; in 2022, they dropped to 27.5%. But during the winter of 2020 (which is so far the most comparable to this winter in terms of gas storage levels), total European gas storage never fell below 70% full. If inventories remain relatively high, Europe will thus have an easier time filling storage back to above 95% in preparation for the 2023-24 winter compared with last year, even with limited amounts of Russian natural gas (which was still flowing through the Nord Stream I pipeline for much of the first half of 2022 uninterrupted). This will, in turn, mitigate the risk of greater global gas shortages this year by reducing the number of LNG cargoes Europe will have to import to replenish its stockpiles. China's LNG needs are slated to rebound substantially in mid-2023 amid the recent easing of the country's strict ''zero-COVID'' policy, which had depressed demand in 2022 due to occasional lockdowns. High Chinese demand and high European demand to refill storage could overwhelm global LNG supplies, which are relatively inelastic since no major LNG export facilities are expected to come online this year. But Europe's high gas reserves will reduce the chances of this happening by lessening its need for imports. However, despite the lower risk of European and Chinese demand-induced LNG price spikes later this year, gas and electricity prices in Europe (and around the world) will likely remain at abnormally high levels.
Higher gas and electricity prices in Europe will undermine its industrial and manufacturing competitiveness vis-a-vis Asia and North America, even though an outright energy shortage is unlikely. While Asian consumers will pay similar prices to Europeans for natural gas, they will no longer be paying higher prices. This is because Europe previously imported Russian natural gas at lower prices, while Asian countries like Japan and South Korea paid what was described as the ''Asian premium.'' As a result, natural gas prices in Europe were relatively lower than in Asia before 2021. The continued period of high gas prices is thus more disruptive to Europe, where businesses and households had grown accustomed to cheaper gas. The United States, for its part, has been well-insulated from the global gas crunch thanks to its high levels of domestic shale gas production, which saw the country's major pricing benchmark, Henry Hub, trade at below $4 per million British Thermal Units (MMBtu) this month — or roughly a fifth of the European gas price.
Europe's warm winter is sparking fears about lower levels of rainfall and snow cover, which in the summer could result in lower hydropower generation, drought conditions impacting agriculture and low river levels. Low hydropower generation could force power companies to rely more heavily on thermal power — coal or natural gas-fired — during the hot summer months. While this may not significantly impact Europe's ability to fill storage back to high levels, it could result in more LNG cargoes being needed to be imported. Low river levels can have a more drastic impact on some European economies if it disrupts river transport and/or increases river freight costs. In 2022, drought conditions in Europe forced shippers on the Rhine — Germany's critical river artery — to lighten their load so that they didn't run aground amid low water levels, with some vessels carrying just 25% of their normal tonnage in August.
image of globe
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totally off the airwaves
latest thing I could google about it :
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-63636181
Must have been US or UK
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MARC: Serious sounding convo on Russian TV with some subtitles in English:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-tv-warns-new-big-war-coming-after-putin-ultimatum/ar-AA16EhGT?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=a92936610f194fb3927be05522964d7c
Russian TV Warns New 'Big War' Coming After Putin Ultimatum
FRIENDa
Besides for that lady, all of them are anti open war. But they are all convinced that this has nothing to do with Ukraine and that the main objective of the US is to destroy Russia completely no matter what it costs Ukraine or anyone else. There are a lot of cultural references that are not well translated. I think the English all of them sound belligerent and like Russia is on the verge of using Nukes.
Even the title is so misleading. No one there is warming that a big war is coming. The lady said that she thinks that something might happen by the end of the winter bc in December Putin mentioned that he is willing to negotiate but that Ukraine is not. And that with Putin there is no need to read between the lines. A few months before he attacked, he said he would attack if he felt threatening..nothing changed and he did attack. She thinks that if he said that he's willing to negotiate and that he will strike if the US sends troops there, then he will.
But these people are not politicians and have no say in anything. They are just sharing their opinions..and they all agree that if they were to get into a "hot" war, that it would destroy the world and that their allies like China and India will turn away from them. They don't want that.
I read that Julia Davis is a native Russian speaker. She must understand what is actually being said.
Now I see an article that "Russia threatens to kill 10,000 American soldiers" based on this video
You sent
One of the men said that America is willing to sacrifice a certain amount of soldiers before they give up. Like in Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan. He didn't say let's go kill them. He said that this is the amount of sacrifice America is willing to make in a war if they were to go to war with Russia.
And the lady in the video is a complete dummy. Now i understand why she was chosen to run a propaganda newspaper. She's a total ditz.. proposing to play a game of chicken with America and telling those other guys who said that an open war would destroy the whole world "who needs a world without Russia"
But just to mention that she is not Russian..she is Armenian and lived and was Educated in a city in Caucaus mountain where all the Chechen and Cherkassi and Gerogian tribal leaders go.
So she has that tribal "I will blow myself up to kill the enemy" mentality. That is not how most Russians think.
But the titles of these articles are very incendiary. Which is very scary.
What's the purpose?
MARC Click bait.
FRIEND
Oh and they Joked that if they attacked US, they would spare Tucker Carlson
So then of course, now I'm reading that Russia wants to kills all Americans except Tucker Carlson
It was obviously a joke!
Did you catch the part when they quoted a movie about killing someone and the character says " don't worry, we won't kill you painfully "
Not sure what the subtitles said.
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Bad news for Moscow. The executive director of the International Energy Agency said Russia’s oil and gas export revenues likely fell by 30 percent, or $8 billion, in January compared to the same period last year due to the price ceiling imposed by Western countries. The G-7 introduced a cap of $60 per barrel on Russian crude last December. On Sunday, a separate price ceiling for Russian diesel and fuel oil took effect.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/white-house-responds-to-report-claiming-us-blew-up-nord-stream-pipeline-last-year_5043261.html?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2023-02-08&src_cmp=gv-2023-02-08&utm_medium=email&est=p%2F9UaR%2BVmvbYQ23Pju1nZiCzs94Kw4ukTuFORHLzqZJfknqgpLN%2Bw8QzbfoibaMqLaqW
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https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream?fbclid=IwAR1nRGXDGsL4At9OfM1HKG3QuEGQ2wGhwzeV-kzPKmw5VkyQsUhU15jcAEA
Tucker did quite the rant on this the other night. Anyone have the URL?
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Why India supports Russia. Indians have long memories, US support to Pak during the 1971 war and after that still rankles. US also does not have a reputation to stay the course, whether it was Afghanistan or earlier wars, or perhaps the Ukr. war in the future. If the US took out Nordstream, without German permission, that will leave a lasting impression on their ally.
https://youtu.be/7v0uupnRIK4 (https://youtu.be/7v0uupnRIK4)
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Why India supports Russia. Indians have long memories, US support to Pak during the 1971 war and after that still rankles. US also does not have a reputation to stay the course, whether it was Afghanistan or earlier wars, or perhaps the Ukr. war in the future. If the US took out Nordstream, without German permission, that will leave a lasting impression on their ally.
https://youtu.be/7v0uupnRIK4 (https://youtu.be/7v0uupnRIK4)
The US is a weak enemy and a treacherous ally. It shouldn’t be this way, but our “elites” only see conservative Americans as the true enemy.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-putin-ally-ramzan-kadyrov-says-he-will-not-hide-intention-to-invade-poland-anymore?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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Bad news for Moscow. The executive director of the International Energy Agency said Russia’s oil and gas export revenues likely fell by 30 percent, or $8 billion, in January compared to the same period last year due to the price ceiling imposed by Western countries. The G-7 introduced a cap of $60 per barrel on Russian crude last December. On Sunday, a separate price ceiling for Russian diesel and fuel oil took effect.
It is very hard to know what's happening. Looks like India is buying Russian oil at low prices, refining it and selling it back to EU and US for 3 x. Its a good racket, everyone goes home happy, India makes money, Russia makes money and EU/USA have no oil shortage.
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Act of War
The attack on Nord Stream was an act of war.
MICHAEL YON
FEB 10
09 February 2023
Panama
The attack on Nord Stream was an act of war. Many of us suspected from Day 1 the culprit was OGUS: Occupation Government United States. After all, OGUS puppets such as Biden publicly threatened the pipelines.
There are many reasons to deeply suspect OGUS committed or sponsored the attack. No reasonable alternatives have been forwarded.
The attack was an act of war.
An act of war against Russia, against Germany (and thus NATO), and against human rights. An attack on civilian infrastructure vital to food production and human life on a massive scale. An act of war and a crime against humanity. As are the biological weapons disguised as ‘vaccines.’
Ultimately blame rests with globalists such as WEF/CCP who control or heavily influence the White House and Pentagon.
There is every reason to think OGUS committed rogue attacks. Without a vote.
An attack on NATO. Thus an attack on all NATO members. United States is a NATO member. This was an attack on United States.
A rogue, illegal attack.
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Act of War
The attack on Nord Stream was an act of war.
MICHAEL YON
FEB 10
09 February 2023
Panama
The attack on Nord Stream was an act of war. Many of us suspected from Day 1 the culprit was OGUS: Occupation Government United States. After all, OGUS puppets such as Biden publicly threatened the pipelines.
There are many reasons to deeply suspect OGUS committed or sponsored the attack. No reasonable alternatives have been forwarded.
The attack was an act of war.
An act of war against Russia, against Germany (and thus NATO), and against human rights. An attack on civilian infrastructure vital to food production and human life on a massive scale. An act of war and a crime against humanity. As are the biological weapons disguised as ‘vaccines.’
Ultimately blame rests with globalists such as WEF/CCP who control or heavily influence the White House and Pentagon.
There is every reason to think OGUS committed rogue attacks. Without a vote.
An attack on NATO. Thus an attack on all NATO members. United States is a NATO member. This was an attack on United States.
A rogue, illegal attack.
https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/12/bidens-bombing/
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"https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/12/bidens-bombing/"
So much right and wrong in that, IMHO.
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https://summit.news/2023/02/14/snowden-says-ufo-hysteria-is-engineered-distraction-from-nord-stream-pipeline-bombshell/
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The Hersch piece certainly is inherently plausible, but as I previously mentioned a highly knowledgeable friend of mine reminds me of Hersch's wild claims in the past and tells me that there are some implausible aspects to Hersch's piece. Given my friend's professional competence in these matters, particularly with regard to conflict with Russia, I take note.
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The Hersch piece certainly is inherently plausible, but as I previously mentioned a highly knowledgeable friend of mine reminds me of Hersch's wild claims in the past and tells me that there are some implausible aspects to Hersch's piece. Given my friend's professional competence in these matters, particularly with regard to conflict with Russia, I take note.
If out RINOs in Congress weren’t just wasting oxygen, they’d drag people in and question them under oath to answer these questions.
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so no surprise who did it
on another note
interesting that pilots stated the lower flying craft interfered with their sensors
yet at least one of the "objects" took 2 side winder missiles to shoot down because the first one missed
I recall reading during the anthrax scare
that 200 lbs of anthrax released over DC would be enough to kill everyone
(as a conservative not necessarily a revolting thought)
I am thinking China could send balloons overhead loaded with anthrax making shooting them down totally dangerous ......
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"interesting that pilots stated the lower flying craft interfered with their sensors. yet at least one of the "objects" took 2 side winder missiles to shoot down because the first one missed"
I had not put these two things together!!!
"I recall reading during the anthrax scare that 200 lbs of anthrax released over DC would be enough to kill everyone , , , I am thinking China could send balloons overhead loaded with anthrax making shooting them down totally dangerous ......"
Quite the blackmail!!!
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"interesting that pilots stated the lower flying craft interfered with their sensors. yet at least one of the "objects" took 2 side winder missiles to shoot down because the first one missed"
I had not put these two things together!!!
"I recall reading during the anthrax scare that 200 lbs of anthrax released over DC would be enough to kill everyone , , , I am thinking China could send balloons overhead loaded with anthrax making shooting them down totally dangerous ......"
Quite the blackmail!!!
Anthrax is the equivalent of black powder muskets when it comes to bio weapons. Imagine the nightmares Fauci funded at Wuhan.
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The Hersch piece certainly is inherently plausible, but as I previously mentioned a highly knowledgeable friend of mine reminds me of Hersch's wild claims in the past and tells me that there are some implausible aspects to Hersch's piece. Given my friend's professional competence in these matters, particularly with regard to conflict with Russia, I take note.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/sy-hersh-swings-big-misses-lee-smith
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Quality find GM.
Does it affect your previous analysis?
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Quality find GM.
Does it affect your previous analysis?
Ability: Although other western nations have some ability with underwater demolitions, the US and UK could easily do it without question.
Opportunity: The US and UK had easy access to NS during BALTOPS (Cover for action).
Motive: To prevent Germany from cutting a side deal with Russia in the short term, and preventing a Russian-German alliance in the long term.
Another version of events here:
https://twitter.com/JohnBasham/status/1626078491560099840
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On top of my Boomer bias against Twitter as a place for serious convo, I am not familiar with the author.
Certainly, you make very fair points as to the inherent plausibility of the idea that we did it-- indeed, if not us, then who?
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Minsk clarified under which circumstances it would send troops across its southern border.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Setting parameters. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his troops will fight in Ukraine alongside the Russians only if Belarusian territory is attacked. At a press conference on Thursday, he also said Minsk is making preparations for any possible aggression but will not announce a military mobilization. He made the comments as Kyiv and some in the West have warned that Belarus could deploy its troops to Ukraine to help its closest ally, Russia. Lukashenko also said he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
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February 17, 2023
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What Happens If Ukraine Falls?
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
I recently wrote about Russian preparations for a major offensive in Ukraine: a pincer movement that would close Ukrainian forces in from the north and the south. There is now general discussion of such a move by Russia in the next months, albeit configured in many different ways, most different from mine. Still, the important issue is whether Ukraine can defeat such an attack. Over the past year, Ukraine has fared much better than expected, and Russia much worse. But major powers have the luxury of early stumbling, their size giving them the resources needed to recover from early defeats. The successes of weaker powers sometimes die on the vine. And though Russia could, in theory, hold on and send Ukraine reeling through sheer stamina, doing so would be a move of last resort. Such is the uncertainty of war.
Belarus seems to be thinking of entering the war, and though its utility is limited, its knowledge of the balance of power in Ukraine could be beneficial to Moscow. Russian aircraft – and intelligence operatives, I suspect – are now operating in Moldova, and Romania, its neighbor and occasional protector, is on alert. Anxieties are high. France and other European countries have ordered their nationals to leave Belarus, and the U.S. has warned its citizens to leave Russia.
If the Ukrainians can no longer resist effectively, and if the flanks represented by Belarus and Moldova are opening a path to Poland and Romania, what will the United States do? Europe will follow Washington’s lead, for better or worse. The worst-case scenario, of course, would be the war that was avoided during the Cold War. That war never happened because Russia did not have the power to engage and defeat NATO and its U.S. benefactors. The Russians were not prepared to attack given the risk of failure and the riskier, albeit unlikely, possibility of a nuclear exchange.
Still, the U.S. must consider the risks of intervention. If Russia occupies Ukraine, it would effectively border Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. It’s no secret that President Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB operative, considers the collapse of the Soviet Union a geopolitical catastrophe, which means he may well see the collapse of Russian power in Central Europe equally lamentable. A return to the borders of the Cold War after defeating Ukraine would go far in redeeming Russia’s geopolitical position. And it would raise the question of whether and when Russia would press farther west. It would put Europe in a position it never conceived it would be in: living with a hostile and powerful enemy at its border, and a not-always-predictable America guaranteeing its frontiers.
Now, as always, Russian occupation of Europe would threaten U.S. control of the Atlantic – something for which Washington fought two world wars. Under those circumstances, it would more easily justify direct American intervention. After all, it would be able to maneuver more easily in Ukraine, and it would have a network of allies near and needy.
If Ukraine's defenses crumble, the U.S. would have to make some rapid decisions (or rapidly implement decisions already made). It could send forces into Ukraine to try to force a Russian retreat, or it could decline combat. Directly engaging Russian troops with limited force can be a long, painful and uncertain engagement. But accepting the outcome opens the door for Russia to rearrange Europe again. A second cold war would be a necessary but undesired outcome. Reinforcing Ukraine before its collapse would therefore be the lower risk and cost option.
If Ukraine falls, the U.S. will be forced to engage Russia. Fighting directly in Ukraine will be a choice, which means doing so will be politically painful. Presidents are rarely rewarded for avoiding a threat that has not yet materialized, even if it’s inevitable.
I am not predicting the imminent fall of Ukraine, of course. I’m simply gaming out all the options if it does fall. Prudence – and the coming Russian offensive – demands it.
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I trust we remember who this woman is , , ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5SMm4i1YqY&t=2s
I can't help but note her comments at 03:20 about not knowing the state of the Uke military. Ummm, if memory serves, President Trump had SOCEUR Green Berets train them and that is a big piece of why they are fighting so well, and know how to use our equipment. There is also the matter of the seasoning that comes from fighting the Russian "little Green Men" in the Donbass for several years , , ,
04:20 in her discussion of provocations she leaves out:
our backing the overthrow of the Russian backed Uke govt in 2014 and that the Russian taking of Crimea was a RESPONSE to this (I think I have this right)
our discussions of bringing the Ukes into NATO
Signing off at 06:50
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https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/127/931/818/original/0b71140c08b4352c.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/127/931/818/original/0b71140c08b4352c.jpg)
He gets us.
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A point well worth noting.
I am playing this meme forward.
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https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putins-war-costs-changing-russias-economy
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putins-war-costs-shifting-burden-population?fbclid=IwAR1snB2VJz-uKs0aWBcpTgiCHyCx31pWA--UTf7-Jw9xbP61-BP6PaPD01o
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Daily Memo: Putin Pulls Out of Nuclear Treaty
In an annual speech, the Russian president also warned the West against supplying Kyiv with long-range weapons.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Putin's message. Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his first address to the Federal Assembly since the war in Ukraine began nearly a year ago. In the speech, he said Russia would suspend its participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty. (Washington accused Moscow in January of violating the treaty by refusing to allow inspections on Russian territory.) He also warned that if the West provides Ukraine with long-range weapons systems, Russia will be forced to push back the threat even farther from its borders. Putin devoted the second half of his speech to economic issues, boasting that the Russian economy was stronger than the West believed it would be after imposing its strict sanctions against Moscow.
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Daily Memo: Moldova Responds to Russia's 'Destabilizing' Actions
The animosity is building between the two countries.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Moldovan response. Moldova’s foreign minister said Chisinau will begin the process of renouncing several agreements signed under the Commonwealth of Independent States in response to Russia’s attempts to destabilize the country. This comes after the Russian president earlier this week revoked a 2012 decree recognizing Moldova’s independence in resolving the dispute over the Russian-backed separatist region of Transnistria, which borders Ukraine. Moscow has also accused Kyiv of planning a provocation in Transnistria and framing it as a Russian assault on the territory.
MARC: As usual Russia's word is meaningless. Remember the Budapest Memorandum? Look how shamelessly a deal supposed to put things to rest is jettisoned.
Putin's promise. In a speech to mark “Defender of the Fatherland Day,” Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to provide Russian troops with more advanced weapons and equipment. He said the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile system will be deployed this year, that mass production of air-based hypersonic Kinzhal systems will continue, and that mass deliveries of sea-based Zircon hypersonic missiles will begin. He made the comments on the eve of the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Possible summit. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan could meet in Brussels for a summit hosted by European Council President Charles Michel, according to U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price. Price also said significant progress has been made over the past few months toward settling the two countries' dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh. The U.S. and EU are playing mediator here, blocking Moscow’s efforts to do the same in its traditional sphere of influence.
Worsening drought. The Horn of Africa is facing its sixth consecutive year of below-average rainfall, which could severely worsen the ongoing drought there, according to the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Center. The drought covers areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, and its effects have been exacerbated by political instability in the region. Militant groups including al-Shabaab have taken advantage, disrupting relief efforts and recruiting fighters from local populations with promises of food.
Chinese concerns. During talks with Japanese officials, China’s assistant commerce minister said on Thursday that Beijing is highly concerned about Tokyo’s moves to control semiconductor exports. He expressed hope that Japan would abide by international rules and provide Chinese companies with a “fair, non-discriminatory and predictable” business environment. Japan is set to introduce new export controls this spring, the details of which have not been disclosed publicly.
Trade networks. Kazakhstan’s prime minister said his country will speed up development of transport routes to Russia and China, as well as the trans-Caspian route, to remove bottlenecks in the trade network. Four routes to Russia are already being repaired, while corridors to other destinations are set to be modernized by 2030.
Gas imports. Belarus signed a deal with Russia’s Gazprom agreeing that the price of its natural gas imports will be fixed to the ruble. The price of gas for Belarus in 2023 will stay the same as last year. Minsk began paying for Russian gas in rubles last April.
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https://summit.news/2023/02/25/us-military-aid-to-ukraine-exceeds-the-costs-of-afghanistan/
Be sure to watch JPW's video.
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Note the point about massive ammo stores!
===================================
February 27, 2023
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In Moldova, Ukraine Buys Time
An ongoing war of words with Russia could spell another offensive.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
A war of words has troubled Moldova for more than two weeks. It started when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of a Russian coup plot against Moldova on Feb. 10. Two days later, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said that Ukraine sent intelligence to her government, according to which the Russians had a plan to destabilize the country by organizing protests and by employing “violent actions.” It would have been the perfect cover for inciting a coup in a country that is prone to violent protest-induced governmental change.
In fact, Moldova had been on high alert even before Zelenskyy’s warnings. Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – in a not-so-veiled threat – accused the West of “having its sights” on Moldova as a country that might “follow Ukraine’s path.” Even before that, Sandu enraged Moscow in January by implying Moldova might consider joining NATO. Two influential Russian lawmakers responded by saying Moldovan membership in NATO could lead to the country’s destruction. Following the threat, Sandu requested that the parliament pass draft legislation to provide the Prosecutor's Office and the State Information System with tools to combat risks and threats to the country's security more effectively.
News of the coup added to the already high anxiety in Moldova and triggered a change in government. Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita resigned and was replaced by Sandu’s security adviser and National Security Council secretary – a signal that the government was prepared to operate from a mandate to protect Moldova from Russian threats. This is no small thing for a country usually committed to a policy of neutrality. Sandu and the new prime minister promptly issued statements on the shortcomings of neutrality and a potential constitutional change to join a “larger alliance” – that is, NATO.
These kinds of statements, meanwhile, have stirred up domestic partisan activity. Pro-Russia factions are expected to object, while nationalist factions seek to double down on their own agenda, which includes petitions to the EU to add Moldovan oligarchs and other sympathetic politicians to sanctions lists.
Moscow has responded to Moldova in kind. On Feb. 21, President Vladimir Putin canceled a 2012 foreign policy decree that committed Moscow to peacefully resolving the border crisis of Transnistria. The region is a narrow strip of land in eastern Moldova that has been controlled by a Russian-backed government since a war in 1992 fought between Transnistrian separatists and Moldova. And for 30 years, some 2,000 Russian soldiers have been stationed there. (The separatist region is said to host the largest weapons depot in Europe – about 20,000 tons of ammunition and military equipment, albeit likely from the Soviet era.) In 2012, Moscow agreed to help find a way to peacefully resolve the conflict, but that was at a time when Russia was seeking closer relations with the EU and the U.S. Clearly, that is no longer the case. In other words, Transnistria is a European region in which Russia has citizens to protect and military assets already in place to protect them.
Moldova and Borderlands
(click to enlarge)
This is why fears are well-founded that Russia’s escalation in Ukraine could embroil Moldova. And it explains the most recent exchanges between Russia, Ukraine and Moldova. On Feb. 23, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that Ukraine was planning an operation to invade Transnistria. Moldovan media reported that the claim was merely Russian psyops. Still, Kyiv went out of its way to say it would act to help Moldova if Russia ever attacked.
These statements paint a picture of escalation that Russia would benefit from. Moscow’s frontal attacks in Ukraine haven’t been especially successful, so logic dictates the execution of a flanking maneuver. Belarus – helmed by a staunchly pro-Russia government – and Moldova are the only places in which Russia could launch such a maneuver. The cancellation of the Moldova decree, then, is meant to force Moldova to accept Russian dominance and influence. It does not indicate an attack, but it does make it clear that one is a very real possibility.
Imagine a scenario in which Moldova got militarily involved in the Ukraine war and opened a second front. Considering how quickly Kyiv responded to a potential Russian threat in Moldova, Ukraine could spare some soldiers along with weapons they received from the West to fight in Ukraine. This would allow Kyiv to ask for even more Western help. The U.S. and its allies may not want the conflict to escalate further – in fact, NATO has already urged Ukraine to use its arsenal for defensive operations, not for offensive ones – but if Moldova were attacked, and if Ukraine rushed to its aid, they would have little choice but to continue their support.
For Russia, sustaining an offensive in both eastern Ukraine and southern Ukraine, where the country borders Transnistria, would be a logistical nightmare. Opening a new front might be worth the effort so long as it doesn’t spread itself too thin, doesn’t lose territory it has gained, and doesn’t upset the U.S. so much that it needs to intervene directly. Ideally, it would lead to negotiations. The fact that U.S. President Joe Biden mentioned Moldova in a recent speech in Warsaw shows that a new front is the last thing Washington wants. With that in mind, Russia may determine it is better served by opening a new front in Belarus rather than Moldova. If Russia dominates Moldova, it would imperil NATO’s southern reach, and would thus draw in the United States. Belarus would be easier to ignore.
Meanwhile, the tension inside Moldova has benefited its pro-Europe governing party. The coup rumors helped Sandu and her party consolidate their position. Had it not been for the warning Ukraine delivered to Moldova, Sandu’s government would have likely fallen by the end of the month due to protests driven by general discontent with the country's poor economic performance. Installing a new government during what appears to be a security crisis has allowed Sandu to avoid further political instability.
The mere prospect of a Russian threat against Moldova allowed the government to establish better relations with the West, giving Sandu direct access to Western leaders like Biden with whom she met during his visits to Munich and Warsaw. Engaging with the U.S. and EU leaders directly makes it more likely for Moldova to obtain security guarantees and funding to improve its economy. Moreover, Russia’s cancellation of the 2012 decree has freed Moldova up from the negotiation process Russia had forced it into. De facto, the negotiating format set forth by the decree was already doomed; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine essentially put an end to the “5+2” setup in which Moscow and Kyiv, in addition to the Organization for Security and Economic Cooperation in Europe, sat next to each other as “mediators” and “guarantors” vis-a-vis Chisinau and Tiraspol, with the United States and European Union reduced to “observers.” It could no longer function, and Moscow’s cancellation only confirmed as much. If anything, through this cancellation Russia acknowledged its weakened position.
For Ukraine, the situation in Moldova buys much-needed time. It could help Kyiv negotiate more help from the West, and it could forestall another Russian offensive. It’s possible that none of this will come to pass, but the potential can’t be ruled out. For Russia, opening a new front, either in Belarus or Moldova, would give it a strategic advantage. If current anxieties lead to the destabilization of either country, Poland or Romania could be next.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11797397/Putin-274million-spy-plane-destroyed-drone-attack-near-Minsk-pro-Ukraine-Belarus-group.html
or maybe not:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/first-image-of-russian-a-50-radar-jet-after-claimed-attack-in-belarus
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nato-deputy-on-how-alliance-would-react-if-moldova-is-attacked-by-russia/ar-AA184XRg?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=e5bb4723883c410a8adb7a6d789d9247&ei=23
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US marxists learned well from their mentors
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-diplomat-said-ukraine-war-launched-against-us-crowd-laughs-2023-3
Insert Joe Biden for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
telling all problems are Trump's fault , border is controlled , I am just a white boy but I am not dumb
no difference nada
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March 7, 2023
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Hungary and Russia
By: George Friedman
The Russian government has informed Hungary that its diplomats entering Russia will have to pay a fee rather than pass into Russia without paying for visas. Since levying a minor charge on diplomats entering countries is fairly common, Russia’s move seems inconsequential. However, Russia also said that the fee will be levied until the Hungarians rectify certain violations of an agreement, which is presumably the agreement governing diplomatic relations.
What makes this significant is that Hungary, fairly alone among European nations, has developed a singularly friendly relationship with Russia. Recall that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Moscow shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Orban was seen conversing with Russian President Vladimir Putin about war and making a deal for a large amount of Russian natural gas to be delivered to Hungary. More important, Hungary refused to join the coalition coalescing to resist Russia. As recently as last week, Orban said that the fight between Russia and Ukraine is not a matter of concern to Hungary. Hungary was therefore the country in Europe least committed to supporting Ukraine and most enjoying its relationship with Russia.
This is what elevates a seemingly trivial bureaucratic misunderstanding to something noteworthy. Russia has no positive relations with members of the EU aside from Hungary, and it’s odd that Moscow would allow any doubt to be cast on that relationship. It is not the importance of the policy shift; there is none. It is Russia's decision to impose this fee on a friendly nation, and then to publicize it, at a time when President Vladimir Putin needs to find a way to change Europe’s point of view on the war.
Key to understanding this is understanding the Hungarian-Russian relationship. Hungary has strained relations with many of its neighbors, not to mention the European Union and NATO. The EU has sought to fine Hungary for violations of European rules concerning the organization of the judiciary, freedom of the press, immigration and other things. The EU has withheld some funds as punishment and has threatened to suspend others. In turn, Budapest has obstructed Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership process. Perhaps most interesting, Orban visited the United States to attend meetings of conservative Republicans, many of them committed to former President Donald Trump. He has been a thorn in the side of the Western political establishment.
His reasons for doing this are partly ideological – he accepts the principles of American and European conservatives and, in accepting them, believes the West is corrupt and weak. When he saw that war with Russia was coming, he assumed the West would either fail to defend Ukraine or collapse in the face of Russian power. Like others, he expected Western help to be limited, Ukraine to be rapidly overrun by Russia, and a new political and institutional structure to be established in Europe. This reasonably led to moving close to Russia and separating himself from Western powers. The fact that his assumptions were wrong has forced him into a difficult position. If Ukraine falls, Russia will occupy the eastern border of NATO – a border shared by Poland, Hungary and Romania. The next Russian move, in the face of the defeat of NATO, would likely run through Hungary, whose terrain enables relatively easy passage. NATO would therefore have to deploy soldiers to Hungary to block Russia. Hungary is a marginal player in the Ukraine war, but if Russia overtakes Ukraine, moves into Central Europe and establishes a new balance of power, Hungary will be a key battleground – in which case Orban’s relationship with Putin will mean little. So long as the Ukrainian war continues Hungary is secure. That changes if either Russia or the West scores a decisive victory. From Budapest’s point of view, the situation can get out of control.
Ingratiating itself with the West, then, would make sense for Hungary. It knows it cannot control Russia, and that it will need to be at least congenial with the West if or when it wins in Ukraine. This is why Russia’s decision to levy fines is strange. For now, Russia needs Hungary, and Hungary needs room to maneuver. It’s unclear if this is meaningful, or if this little more than a slap on the wrist of a nation Russia values is part of a broader shift on the battlefield and thus on the global stage.
P.S. After completing this article we received an update that Orban is now calling for an immediate cease-fire and negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, and is preparing to go to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and act as a kind of mediator.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/coordinated-media-hoax-campaign-russia-blasts-nytimes-report-nord-stream-monstrous
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New Revelations About the Nord Stream Attacks Put Ukraine in Hot Water
9 MIN READMar 8, 2023 | 23:15 GMT
Allegations that pro-Ukrainian actors were behind last fall's sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines reduce the perceived Russian threat to European oil and gas infrastructure, but could also undermine Western support for Ukraine. The extent to which this occurs will likely depend on whether the Ukrainian government is believed to have participated in the attack. On March 7, multiple Western news outlets published stories that U.S. and European officials believe pro-Ukrainian saboteurs were behind the September 2022 explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines, which are operated by Russia's state-owned gas giant Gazprom. Officials reportedly have no evidence to indicate that top Ukrainian leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, directed or were aware of the operation. The anonymous sources cited in these reports say there remain many unknowns and declined to reveal any of the evidence informing their suspicions. However, the same day, Die Zeit and several other German media outlets reported that five men and one woman, all of whom used fake passports and were of unknown nationality, used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company in Poland to carry out the attacks. The yacht reportedly left a German port on Sept. 6, 2022 (nearly three weeks before the incidents began on Sept. 26) and was returned in an ''uncleaned'' fashion; German prosecutors were supposedly able to find evidence of explosives on a table in the yacht's cabin. On March 8, Germany's federal prosecutor's office confirmed that the yacht had been searched in January.
In late September 2022, four leaks were detected on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that carry Russian gas through the Baltic Sea to Germany. Neither pipeline system was delivering gas to Europe at the time, though were under pressure which led to the leaks. The leaks were soon assessed to be deliberate explosions; they also appeared to be very precisely targeted because the two attacks on Nord Stream 1 occurred just outside of Denmark's territorial waters, while Nord Stream 2 does not go through the country's sovereign territory at all.
In the wake of the Nord Stream leaks, many Western governments immediately called out Russia as the likeliest perpetrator, accusing the Kremlin of orchestrating an attack as a form of coercive diplomacy against the West for its support for Ukraine. However, despite significant speculation, there has been no publicly revealed evidence clearly pointing toward Russia, which has always maintained its innocence and accused Kyiv and the West of being responsible.
On March 8, Germany's defense minister warned that it was too early to jump to conclusions, hinting it could have been a Russian false flag operation and that it may not have been ordered by the Ukrainian government.
If Ukrainian nationals were indeed behind the attacks, it would reduce the overall threat that Russia may pose to oil and gas infrastructure in Europe, despite lingering risks. Originally, the speculation that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 attacks were the work of Russia led many to believe that Moscow had demonstrated its willingness to strike energy infrastructure in Europe (even if technically outside of EU maritime territory, as the explosions occurred just beyond Denmark's 12 nautical mile territorial waters). This raised concerns that Russia could carry out sabotage operations against other infrastructure, such as Norwegian or U.K. oil and gas infrastructure in the North Sea or the Baltic Pipe connecting Norway to Poland in the Baltic Sea. But if it turns out that Russia was not behind the attacks, then there is no precedent of Russian sabotage against EU oil and natural gas infrastructure in territorial waters or exclusive economic zones to point to as evidence that the Kremlin is willing to take such risks against NATO or likely future NATO countries, like Sweden. Still, even if the perceived risk to European oil and gas infrastructure is lower, Russian sabotage or accusation of sabotage on natural gas pipelines going through Ukraine remains a distinct possibility, as Ukraine is a war zone and Russian forces have repeatedly attacked critical infrastructure in the country. For southeastern Europe, this represents a continued energy security risk since the Ukrainian pipelines delivering Russian gas to Europe remain in operation (but natural gas delivered through those pipelines also goes to Hungary, which the Kremlin may not want to harm with gas cutoffs for fear of alienating its closest ally in the European Union). Finally, if Russia was not behind the Nord Stream attacks, it does not exclude the possibility of Moscow conducting cyber and/or physical attacks against other European infrastructure in the future, even if the likelihood of this scenario is reduced.
U.S. and European leaders will see the revelations as another sign that the Ukrainian government is failing to constrain its own conduct or that of its citizens. But while this will damage their trust in Kyiv, Ukraine's Western allies are unlikely to significantly scale back their support unless the Zelensky administration is found to be directly implicated. The allegations add to a list of incidents suspected to be the work of Ukraine that Kyiv's Western backers have indicated risked not only alienating European allies but expanding the war — a scenario that NATO countries first and foremost want to avoid. But while these previous incidents drew some concern from Western governments, they were immediately linked to the Ukrainian military and intelligence services. All of the incidents were also significantly less controversial compared with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which are infrastructure for delivering gas to NATO countries. As long as the allegations continue to suggest that the attacks took place without the approval of the Ukrainian government, it is unlikely that additional revelations will override the strategic imperatives driving high Western support of Kyiv. If, however, evidence emerges that the Ukrainian government approved the action, it could significantly fracture the United States and other major Western nations' willingness to continue funneling money and weapons into Ukraine. Some Western officials would use Kyiv's involvement in the Nord Stream leaks to argue that a Ukrainian government unwilling or unable to constrain its actions (or those of citizens claiming to act on its behalf) could conduct escalation or unauthorized provocations intended to draw NATO into the war with Russia in order to prevent the West from agreeing to a de-facto Russian victory in Ukraine by not providing sufficient weapons for it to retake more of its territory.
The incidents involving Ukrainian actions not necessarily approved by the West include the killing of ultranationalist journalist Daria Dugina inside Russia in an apparent attempt to assassinate her father, the strike damaging of the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Crimea to Russia, and drone strikes deep inside Russia that have destroyed Russian strategic bombers (which ultimately served as Moscow's primary argument for suspending its participation in the New START treaty with the United States).
Any Ukrainian involvement in the attack could undermine public support for Western governments' pro-Ukraine stance and embolden anti-war movements. Regardless of whether Kyiv was behind the attacks or if they were the actions of a pro-Ukraine sabotage group with no direct link to the Ukrainian state, media reports connecting the blasts to Ukraine could impact the public perception and narrative of the war in Ukraine across the United States and Europe. While the White House remains staunchly behind Kyiv, there are growing calls from some, mainly Republican, U.S. lawmakers to put upper limits on the amount of U.S. financial and military assistance to Ukraine. The recent news reports could thus not only add momentum to these calls, but also have longer-term impacts on the candidates vying for the U.S. presidency in 2024 elections. In Eastern Europe, support for Ukraine is likely to remain strong regardless of these events, because of the region's higher sense of threat regarding Russia. But in Western Europe, voices calling for an end to EU support for Ukraine could become louder — particularly in Germany, which has seen some of Europe's largest protests against the Ukraine war and Russian sanctions. These types of demonstrations in Germany and other Western European states (like Italy and France) will likely increase in frequency and intensity in the wake of the recent Nord Stream revelations. Such protests have so far had little effect on Western public opinion. But the allegations that pro-Ukrainian actors were behind the September pipeline attacks — combined with even bolder Russian propaganda that can now point to the incident as proof of Western lies about the war — could rally more widespread opposition against supporting Kyiv's war efforts and the country's accession to the European Union, especially if Kyiv's involvement is confirmed.
At two recent hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican lawmakers pressed Pentagon officials about where money and military support for Ukraine is going. On March 8, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also rejected an invitation from Zelensky to visit Kyiv, arguing that he didn't need to travel there to ensure that Ukraine did not receive a ''blank check.'' In addition, multiple recent surveys show that overall U.S. public support for Ukraine is decreasing, while the percentage of Americans who think their government is giving Kyiv too much aid is increasing.
Mainstream government parties across Europe will not downplay the significance of the sabotage. But to mitigate the potential for protest and public backlash, they may try to divert attention from it by arguing Russia had already halted natural gas flows through the pipeline and pointing to other direct Russian responsibilities in the conflict, while at the same time casting doubts on any Ukrainian involvement.
For months, regular anti-war rallies have taken place in Berlin and across several cities in eastern Germany, particularly Leipzig, that have stretched across both far-left and far-right political forces in the country. Before the sabotage incidents in September, German demonstrators had been demanding the reopening of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to ease spiraling energy prices in 2022. On Feb. 24, marking the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a demonstration against supplying Ukraine with weapons saw 13,000 people take to the streets in Berlin.
Other countries besides Germany have experienced similar demonstrations, including the Czech Republic, which in September 2022 saw 70,000 protesters gather in Prague to oppose the government's support for Ukraine. Such protests have also taken place in France, Italy and the United Kingdom, but on a much smaller scale
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RANE is pissng on your leg and telling you it’s raining.
New Revelations About the Nord Stream Attacks Put Ukraine in Hot Water
9 MIN READMar 8, 2023 | 23:15 GMT
Allegations that pro-Ukrainian actors were behind last fall's sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines reduce the perceived Russian threat to European oil and gas infrastructure, but could also undermine Western support for Ukraine. The extent to which this occurs will likely depend on whether the Ukrainian government is believed to have participated in the attack. On March 7, multiple Western news outlets published stories that U.S. and European officials believe pro-Ukrainian saboteurs were behind the September 2022 explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines, which are operated by Russia's state-owned gas giant Gazprom. Officials reportedly have no evidence to indicate that top Ukrainian leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, directed or were aware of the operation. The anonymous sources cited in these reports say there remain many unknowns and declined to reveal any of the evidence informing their suspicions. However, the same day, Die Zeit and several other German media outlets reported that five men and one woman, all of whom used fake passports and were of unknown nationality, used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company in Poland to carry out the attacks. The yacht reportedly left a German port on Sept. 6, 2022 (nearly three weeks before the incidents began on Sept. 26) and was returned in an ''uncleaned'' fashion; German prosecutors were supposedly able to find evidence of explosives on a table in the yacht's cabin. On March 8, Germany's federal prosecutor's office confirmed that the yacht had been searched in January.
In late September 2022, four leaks were detected on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that carry Russian gas through the Baltic Sea to Germany. Neither pipeline system was delivering gas to Europe at the time, though were under pressure which led to the leaks. The leaks were soon assessed to be deliberate explosions; they also appeared to be very precisely targeted because the two attacks on Nord Stream 1 occurred just outside of Denmark's territorial waters, while Nord Stream 2 does not go through the country's sovereign territory at all.
In the wake of the Nord Stream leaks, many Western governments immediately called out Russia as the likeliest perpetrator, accusing the Kremlin of orchestrating an attack as a form of coercive diplomacy against the West for its support for Ukraine. However, despite significant speculation, there has been no publicly revealed evidence clearly pointing toward Russia, which has always maintained its innocence and accused Kyiv and the West of being responsible.
On March 8, Germany's defense minister warned that it was too early to jump to conclusions, hinting it could have been a Russian false flag operation and that it may not have been ordered by the Ukrainian government.
If Ukrainian nationals were indeed behind the attacks, it would reduce the overall threat that Russia may pose to oil and gas infrastructure in Europe, despite lingering risks. Originally, the speculation that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 attacks were the work of Russia led many to believe that Moscow had demonstrated its willingness to strike energy infrastructure in Europe (even if technically outside of EU maritime territory, as the explosions occurred just beyond Denmark's 12 nautical mile territorial waters). This raised concerns that Russia could carry out sabotage operations against other infrastructure, such as Norwegian or U.K. oil and gas infrastructure in the North Sea or the Baltic Pipe connecting Norway to Poland in the Baltic Sea. But if it turns out that Russia was not behind the attacks, then there is no precedent of Russian sabotage against EU oil and natural gas infrastructure in territorial waters or exclusive economic zones to point to as evidence that the Kremlin is willing to take such risks against NATO or likely future NATO countries, like Sweden. Still, even if the perceived risk to European oil and gas infrastructure is lower, Russian sabotage or accusation of sabotage on natural gas pipelines going through Ukraine remains a distinct possibility, as Ukraine is a war zone and Russian forces have repeatedly attacked critical infrastructure in the country. For southeastern Europe, this represents a continued energy security risk since the Ukrainian pipelines delivering Russian gas to Europe remain in operation (but natural gas delivered through those pipelines also goes to Hungary, which the Kremlin may not want to harm with gas cutoffs for fear of alienating its closest ally in the European Union). Finally, if Russia was not behind the Nord Stream attacks, it does not exclude the possibility of Moscow conducting cyber and/or physical attacks against other European infrastructure in the future, even if the likelihood of this scenario is reduced.
U.S. and European leaders will see the revelations as another sign that the Ukrainian government is failing to constrain its own conduct or that of its citizens. But while this will damage their trust in Kyiv, Ukraine's Western allies are unlikely to significantly scale back their support unless the Zelensky administration is found to be directly implicated. The allegations add to a list of incidents suspected to be the work of Ukraine that Kyiv's Western backers have indicated risked not only alienating European allies but expanding the war — a scenario that NATO countries first and foremost want to avoid. But while these previous incidents drew some concern from Western governments, they were immediately linked to the Ukrainian military and intelligence services. All of the incidents were also significantly less controversial compared with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which are infrastructure for delivering gas to NATO countries. As long as the allegations continue to suggest that the attacks took place without the approval of the Ukrainian government, it is unlikely that additional revelations will override the strategic imperatives driving high Western support of Kyiv. If, however, evidence emerges that the Ukrainian government approved the action, it could significantly fracture the United States and other major Western nations' willingness to continue funneling money and weapons into Ukraine. Some Western officials would use Kyiv's involvement in the Nord Stream leaks to argue that a Ukrainian government unwilling or unable to constrain its actions (or those of citizens claiming to act on its behalf) could conduct escalation or unauthorized provocations intended to draw NATO into the war with Russia in order to prevent the West from agreeing to a de-facto Russian victory in Ukraine by not providing sufficient weapons for it to retake more of its territory.
The incidents involving Ukrainian actions not necessarily approved by the West include the killing of ultranationalist journalist Daria Dugina inside Russia in an apparent attempt to assassinate her father, the strike damaging of the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Crimea to Russia, and drone strikes deep inside Russia that have destroyed Russian strategic bombers (which ultimately served as Moscow's primary argument for suspending its participation in the New START treaty with the United States).
Any Ukrainian involvement in the attack could undermine public support for Western governments' pro-Ukraine stance and embolden anti-war movements. Regardless of whether Kyiv was behind the attacks or if they were the actions of a pro-Ukraine sabotage group with no direct link to the Ukrainian state, media reports connecting the blasts to Ukraine could impact the public perception and narrative of the war in Ukraine across the United States and Europe. While the White House remains staunchly behind Kyiv, there are growing calls from some, mainly Republican, U.S. lawmakers to put upper limits on the amount of U.S. financial and military assistance to Ukraine. The recent news reports could thus not only add momentum to these calls, but also have longer-term impacts on the candidates vying for the U.S. presidency in 2024 elections. In Eastern Europe, support for Ukraine is likely to remain strong regardless of these events, because of the region's higher sense of threat regarding Russia. But in Western Europe, voices calling for an end to EU support for Ukraine could become louder — particularly in Germany, which has seen some of Europe's largest protests against the Ukraine war and Russian sanctions. These types of demonstrations in Germany and other Western European states (like Italy and France) will likely increase in frequency and intensity in the wake of the recent Nord Stream revelations. Such protests have so far had little effect on Western public opinion. But the allegations that pro-Ukrainian actors were behind the September pipeline attacks — combined with even bolder Russian propaganda that can now point to the incident as proof of Western lies about the war — could rally more widespread opposition against supporting Kyiv's war efforts and the country's accession to the European Union, especially if Kyiv's involvement is confirmed.
At two recent hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican lawmakers pressed Pentagon officials about where money and military support for Ukraine is going. On March 8, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also rejected an invitation from Zelensky to visit Kyiv, arguing that he didn't need to travel there to ensure that Ukraine did not receive a ''blank check.'' In addition, multiple recent surveys show that overall U.S. public support for Ukraine is decreasing, while the percentage of Americans who think their government is giving Kyiv too much aid is increasing.
Mainstream government parties across Europe will not downplay the significance of the sabotage. But to mitigate the potential for protest and public backlash, they may try to divert attention from it by arguing Russia had already halted natural gas flows through the pipeline and pointing to other direct Russian responsibilities in the conflict, while at the same time casting doubts on any Ukrainian involvement.
For months, regular anti-war rallies have taken place in Berlin and across several cities in eastern Germany, particularly Leipzig, that have stretched across both far-left and far-right political forces in the country. Before the sabotage incidents in September, German demonstrators had been demanding the reopening of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to ease spiraling energy prices in 2022. On Feb. 24, marking the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a demonstration against supplying Ukraine with weapons saw 13,000 people take to the streets in Berlin.
Other countries besides Germany have experienced similar demonstrations, including the Czech Republic, which in September 2022 saw 70,000 protesters gather in Prague to oppose the government's support for Ukraine. Such protests have also taken place in France, Italy and the United Kingdom, but on a much smaller scale
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Maybe, but worth the posting.
Do note "If Ukrainian nationals were indeed behind the attacks"
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Maybe, but worth the posting.
Do note "If Ukrainian nationals were indeed behind the attacks"
This has all the credibility of OJ’s search for the real killers.
CIA disinfo op.
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Could very well be. But RANE (formerly STRATFOR) is a serious analytical source and if they make the case it should be read. Of course, if they got taken, that too needs to be taken into account subsequently.
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https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/nord-streams-tap-on-the-shoulder?sd=pf
The PRC just accidentally severed a couple of Taiwan’s undersea cables.
Or maybe it was those Ukes on a sailboat!
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https://www.the-sun.com/news/7603864/putin-killing-russian-elite-mob-boss/
[at the lack of diversity :wink:]
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What's Ahead for Belarus-Russia Integration?
11 MIN READMar 13, 2023 | 21:53 GMT
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) meets with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi, Russia, on Sept. 26, 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) meets with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi, Russia, on Sept. 26, 2022.
(GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)
Russia's influence over Belarus will likely grow in the coming years, although Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will probably seek to slow Moscow's integration efforts to preserve his place in power. On Feb. 17, Lukashenko met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss the two countries' strategic integration within the Union State, which Minsk defines as a confederation of states and Moscow views as a more binding federation. Then on Feb. 20, investigative journalists from numerous Western media outlets reported that they had obtained a 2021 internal strategy document detailing the Kremlin's plan to use the Union State to take ''full control'' of — or even ''absorb'' — Belarus by 2030. The document, allegedly prepared by Russia's security agencies, military and other government bodies, outlines how Russia will use Union State integration to manage Belarus' foreign policy in the interests of Russia, increase the Russian military's presence on Belarusian territory, ensure the supremacy of the Russian language over the Belarusian language, and give Belarusians Russian citizenship. If confirmed, the moves outlined in the report would align with Russia's policy toward Belarus since the Union State's inception in 1999.
Russia and Belarus agreed to 28 integration programs in their 2021-2023 Union State agreement. At a press conference after his talks with Putin on Feb. 17, Lukashenko claimed that the two countries had completed ''about 80%'' of the programs focused on deepening economic integration, including ''key tasks in the tax and customs spheres.'' But Lukashenko noted that the ''measures in the humanitarian sphere,'' which relate to education and media, have yet to be implemented.
On Feb. 25, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — the now exiled Belarusian opposition leader who opposed Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election — said that the leaked strategy document contained no new information, and reflects ''the policy that Russia has been pursuing in Belarus for a long time, since the end of the 18th century.'' Tikhanovskaya added that it is ''expressed as a fight against our national language, symbols, culture, history, and instead in glorifying everything Russian.'' Therefore, she concluded, everything related to the Union State is a ''threat to the sovereignty of Belarus.''
Competing Visions of the Union State
Lukashenko and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the Union Treaty in December 1999, less than a month before the latter's sudden resignation. The treaty was formed on the basis of preexisting treaties from 1995 that foresaw the creation of a customs union between Belarus and Russia. From the beginning, Lukashenko and Yeltsin had competing objectives for integration. Yeltsin's administration sought to ensure that Belarus would remain a reliable ''buffer'' between Russia and the West. At the time, Belarus was the only former Soviet state willing to engage in much deeper integration beyond the relatively limited mandates of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Collective Security Treaty Organization. As a Slavic nation, Belarus was also an easy and ideologically attractive target. By creating a common legislature, flag, coat of arms, anthem, constitution, army, citizenship and currency with Belarus, Russia ultimately hoped to attract others to join the Union State (namely Ukraine and Kazakhstan), though this never happened. Lukashenko, for his part, likely hoped that signing the Union Treaty would tie his otherwise weak economy to the stronger Russian one, particularly as Belarus' European neighbors were already limiting cooperation amid the president's increasingly brutal crackdowns on dissent in the mid-1990s. Lukashenko also reportedly hoped that him winding up in the hypothetical position of head of the Union State would enable him to effectively succeed the already ailing Yeltsin as Russia's de facto leader, although Putin's rise prevented that goal from being realized. Ultimately, the Union Treaty is ambiguous regarding the fundamental question of whether the Union State is, as favored by Minsk, a supranational confederation of states, or, as Moscow seeks, a regular federation or an EU-style union.
While in the past Lukashenko has used his skepticism regarding integration with Russia to bolster his domestic popularity, his government's growing international isolation and economic reliance on Russia are making it difficult to resist further integration. The issue of Union State integration had been largely stagnant since the late 2000s. But in 2019, it suddenly resurfaced amid a flurry of meetings between Russian and Belarusian leaders, prompting Belarusians to take to the streets in Minsk to protest against closer ties with Moscow. In February 2020, Lukashenko once again put the topic on pause by forcefully rejecting the idea and asserting that Russia did not seek to integrate with Belarus, but ''absorb'' it — something he would ''never'' allow. Lukashenko hoped this position would frame him as the guarantor of Belarus' sovereignty ahead of the country's August 2020 presidential election. But when the election did not go according to plan and mass protests swept Belarus, Moscow didn't rush to Lukashenko's aid. Eventually, Lukashenko did crush the protest movement without overt Russian intervention. However, Belarus' total reliance on Russia for external credit forced Lukashenko to agree in September 2021 to 28 ''Union State programs'' intended to unify Russia's and Belarus' policies, legislation and regulations in nearly all key policy areas related to the economy. In this way, Russia hoped to cement its influence in Belarus through bureaucratic alignment.
Lukashenko likely permitted Tikhanovskaya to participate in the 2020 presidential election to give it a veneer of competition and legitimacy compared with the country's previous ones, thereby enticing Europe to continue working with his regime. Instead, the election resulted in mass protests and expanded EU sanctions amid widespread claims of fraud.
This past January, Lukashenko held a cabinet meeting on integration with Russia and the implementation of programs of the Union State. During the meeting, he assured his cabinet members that ''the loss of some part'' of Belarus' sovereignty remained ''out of the question,'' once again suggesting the potential threat that Union State integration posed to Belarusian sovereignty.
Given Belarus' already deep economic reliance on Russia, the Kremlin's future aspirations for integration will likely focus on social and institutional issues. All the Union State programs authorized for 2021-2023 primarily pertain to greater economic alignment; in addition to steps such as harmonized monetary and tariff policy formalized in 2022, by the end of 2023, Russia and Belarus are supposed to agree to a common gas market, unified consumer protection rules and unified nuclear energy policy. This will bring Belarus' economic integration with Russia to near completion, with Russia already serving as the country's main trading partner. Starting this year Moscow will thus likely seek to deepen integration with Minsk in spheres increasingly unrelated to the economy. To this end, the September 2021 agreement specifically acknowledges that the two sides will ''intensify efforts to deepen cooperation in the fields of education, healthcare, science, and culture.'' Russia probably believes that it can use Union State integration to make itself a vital part of Belarus' media landscape, economy, legal and regulatory spheres to the point where Belarusian society would not be able to function normally without it. This would then reduce the risk of Belarusians eventually pushing for a more pro-Western leader by effectively making it impossible to uproot Russian influence in Belarus. Lukashenko, however, will remain loath to allow Russia such a greater role in his country's society and institutions, which would also risk further blurring the lines between Belarusian and Russian identity.
Russia accounted for 41.1% of Belarus' exports and 56.6% of its imports in 2021. The countries' mutual trade turnover rose 15% in 2022 in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In the coming years, Lukashenko's priority will be the survival of his regime, which will see his government selectively accelerate or delay particular integration policies. Lukashenko's primary goal is to maintain maximal control of Belarus for himself and his inner circle, rather than among political leaders and bureaucrats in Moscow. The integration to which Lukashenko has agreed up to this point serves this purpose: the country's heavily sanctioned economy can only continue to function thanks to support provided by Moscow. Lukashenko likely believes that the regulatory alignment with Russia that he's so far overseen will help his government maintain economic stability by outsourcing bureaucracy to Moscow and improving efficiency. But Lukashenko probably views anything other than further economic and some military integration as a threat to his rule, as Russian control over the Belarusian education system, media, security and defense spheres could lead Moscow to conclude that Lukashenko is expendable and easily replaced by an even more pro-Russian leader. However, stonewalling all integration with Russia would risk collapsing the Belarusian economy and turn Moscow sharply against Lukashenko. This will likely compel the Belarusian president to allow slow integration in the economic, legal and regulatory spheres, which he believes would be less politically risky. To get Moscow on board with this approach, Lukashenko will claim that quicker integration is unpopular in Belarus, risks undermining his regime and could inadvertently unnecessarily burden Russia — arguments Moscow will accept, for now.
Lukashenko allowed his country to be used as the primary staging ground for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, under the pretext of the Union State military exercise ''Allied Resolve 2022.'' But Russia's current military contingent in Belarus is estimated at around 15,000 troops — a number still insufficient to pose an immediate threat to Lukashenko's rule, or to Ukraine, as several thousand more Russian security personnel would likely be needed to forcefully oust the Belarusian government or launch an attack on Ukraine from Belarus.
On Nov. 26, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei died under sudden and mysterious circumstances at the age of 64. Makei was one of the main architects of Belarus' previous foreign policy of balancing Russia and the West. He had also advocated, even since Russia's initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, for a ''friendly approach'' to Ukraine and, in the lead-up to Russia's February 2022 invasion, stressed that no attack on the country would be launched from Belarusian territory.
Lukashenko will also seek to deepen his regime's ties with China as a way to counter Russia's near-total control over Belarus' economy. On March 1, Lukashenko traveled to China for meetings with high-ranking Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping. During his visit, Lukashenko signed documents to increase Belarusian-Chinese cooperation in numerous areas, including trade, industry, agriculture, science and technology, health, tourism and sports. Particular emphasis was placed on plans to create a free trade and investment zone in Belarus for Chinese businesses later this year. Lukashenko's recent trip to Beijing aligns with his efforts to use China as a counterweight to Russia's growing economic influence. As Lukashenko is now even less capable of returning to his previous strategy of seeking economic benefits from both Russia and the West due to the latter's increasing sanctions on his regime, closer ties with Beijing have become critical in keeping his government from becoming totally reliant on Russia. Russia, for its part, would much prefer Minsk cozying up with China, its main strategic partner, over its adversaries in the West. Indeed, while Moscow seeks to ultimately secure total control over Belarus, deeper ties between Minsk and Beijing could serve to its benefit in the near term amid recent reports that China is ''strongly considering'' sending Russia lethal aid in Ukraine. Greater Chinese production of goods in Belarus and transit through the country to Europe would provide a clear avenue for Belarus to eventually transfer Chinese weapons to Russia, either after producing weapons domestically with Chinese support or claiming that it did. With no near end in sight to the war in Ukraine, speculation that China may use military-technical cooperation with Belarus as a way to provide military support to Russia will thus likely only grow in tandem with Beijing and Minsk's deepening bilateral ties.
Despite Lukashenko's efforts to slow the integration process, Russia's grip on Belarus will likely tighten in the years ahead. Unless Russia suffers a sudden and resounding defeat in Ukraine that triggers a drastic regime change in Moscow (which seems improbable at this point), Russia will continue its efforts to absorb Belarus, which Moscow sees as essential to protecting itself from potential Western aggression. In addition, the pro-democracy movement in Belarus that staged the massive 2020 protests is unlikely to pose a credible threat to Lukashenko's rule in the foreseeable future. The Belarusian opposition has not conducted any major protest activities in the past year and has been largely forced underground due to the severe risks involved with critiquing the Lukashenko regime or integration with Russia. Therefore, the Kremlin is likely confident in its ability to slowly squeeze Minsk into submission in the coming years without formal annexation or the use of force, which could cause instability and jeopardize the otherwise favorable trajectory of Russian control over Belarus. Therefore, annexation will instead likely remain a backup option for if something goes wrong.
On March 6, a Minsk court sentenced Belarusian opposition leaders Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Pavel Latushko in absentia to 15 and 18 years in prison, respectively.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/russian-military-plane-crashes-into-u-s-drone-over-black-sea/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=30833994
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/russian-military-plane-crashes-into-u-s-drone-over-black-sea/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=30833994
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/403567.php
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/russian-military-plane-crashes-into-u-s-drone-over-black-sea/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=30833994
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/403567.php
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/131/979/254/original/bf34de2a8a3271f6.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/131/979/254/original/bf34de2a8a3271f6.jpg)
Between what Russia bought from the Taliban and this, imagine what they can reverse-engineer.
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To be precise, we managed to sink it to evade capture, yes?
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To be precise, we managed to sink it to evade capture, yes?
We did?
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So we say.
Any indicators to the contrary?
Either way, the underlying point is an important one.
Remember how Obama-Biden did nothing when the Iranians hijacked one of our most advanced drones and presumably have reverse engineered it-- and now provide the results to Russia?
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Second
Big error to have withdrawn our navy from the Black Sea and NATO ally Turkey has closed the Bosphorus to war ships resulting in our having no ships to reclaim the drone.
We assert that the water where it sank is thousands of feet deep. We assert nothing of intel value to be found at this point anyway.
OTOH the Russians have war ships in their Crimea/Sea of Azov port.
In other words, if the Russkis can get to it then , , ,
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Second
Big error to have withdrawn our navy from the Black Sea and NATO ally Turkey has closed the Bosphorus to war ships resulting in our having no ships to reclaim the drone.
We assert that the water where it sank is thousands of feet deep. We assert nothing of intel value to be found at this point anyway.
OTOH the Russians have war ships in their Crimea/Sea of Azov port.
In other words, if the Russkis can get to it then , , ,
The same people who left billions of dollars of equipment and weapons and classified materials to the Taliban have assured us that Russia will get nothing of use from the drone. Cool!
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https://www.businessinsider.com/svb-bank-crisis-russia-western-sanctions-insures-fallout-us-ukraine-2023-3
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Well played Vlady, well played.
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-19/anti-russia-guerillas-in-belarus-take-on-two-headed-enemy/102112538?fbclid=IwAR3svQ3JQM-8lODQuJb_ZBLPd29NVbAx5M0UWBfiGv5jmlfDF5W9hQX0Hes
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https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/russias-ex-foreign-minister-on-his-totalitarian-country/?fbclid=IwAR39oYYYFipTG6-pA_LgRqFusUJIzUrRN3OxOLk7X6W1FsMKZVxrJd9fTtA
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https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/russias-ex-foreign-minister-on-his-totalitarian-country/?fbclid=IwAR39oYYYFipTG6-pA_LgRqFusUJIzUrRN3OxOLk7X6W1FsMKZVxrJd9fTtA
Good thing we live in a free country!
:roll:
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A rather irrelevant to the subject at hand observation.
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A rather irrelevant to the subject at hand observation.
Once upon a time, we were a free country and we offered an alternative to totalitarian governments we opposed. Not so much anymore.
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Duh, we get that!
But of interest in the posted article in question was to read of the perspective of someone at the highest levels of the game in Russia. We don't stop knowing what we know because our minds are so feeble that we need continuous reminder.
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Duh, we get that!
But of interest in the posted article in question was to read of the perspective of someone at the highest levels of the game in Russia. We don't stop knowing what we know because our minds are so feeble that we need continuous reminder.
Who is paying his bills? You might want to know that before you listen to what he is selling.
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Now you change the subject from your previous comment.
Moving on.
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Now you change the subject from your previous comment.
Moving on.
Yes, we are not because my constantly lied to. It certainly wouldn’t be funded by our government!
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/29/us-supplants-russia-as-europes-biggest-crude-oil-s/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=KKx5%2Bg5BQavuiCYO8WMrzIdKr%2BRmXWmQONrxHKwdYVZTq3u4YrOtSVMl3YMmWpaW&bt_ts=1680093587107
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/29/us-supplants-russia-as-europes-biggest-crude-oil-s/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=KKx5%2Bg5BQavuiCYO8WMrzIdKr%2BRmXWmQONrxHKwdYVZTq3u4YrOtSVMl3YMmWpaW&bt_ts=1680093587107
That's good, as we are pumping lots of oil in the US!
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Putin’s Shakespearean Demons
Imagine the condition in the heart of Europe today had NATO’s boundaries stayed frozen after 1989.
By Robert D. Kaplan
April 2, 2023 5:22 pm ET
Geopolitics will take you only so far in explaining foreign affairs. The more important element is Shakespearean. Ukraine is a perfect example.
Ukraine is engulfed by Russia on the north and east, its history and language entwined with its neighbor’s. But the greater part of the story concerns the personality of Vladimir Putin. The geopolitical argument that Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was expanding completely disregards the Russian leader’s Shakespearean demons.
Mr. Putin’s decision to invade represented not the collective thinking of the Russian elite but his own thoughts. Many oligarchs and security heavies near him were as surprised by the decision as people in the West. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, pressed by an oligarch to explain how Mr. Putin could have planned such an invasion without his inner circle knowing, reportedly replied: “He has three advisers. Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.”
Given Mr. Putin’s paranoia, isolation and delusions of grandeur, the question arises: Would Europe today be at peace with Mr. Putin’s Russia had NATO not expanded east after the Cold War and had there been a Western guarantee of recognizing Russian interests in Ukraine? Certainly not.
The explanation for this lies in what would have been the internal situations of the states of Central and Eastern Europe—from Estonia south to Bulgaria and including Poland and Romania—had none of them joined NATO or the European Union. Having suffered nearly a half-century of communism, and in many cases having lacked a robust middle class before Nazi and Soviet occupation, those former Soviet bloc countries might have remained basket cases, with poverty-stricken rural areas and nasty, unstable politics in the capital cities. That would have left all or most of them vulnerable to Mr. Putin’s mischief.
One of the biggest canards in Washington is that the U.S. would have been better off without NATO enlargement. Take Moldova, a country that is Romanian-speaking and part of historic Greater Romania, yet never admitted to NATO or the EU. Romania has become a strong and stable state for the first time in its modern history, under NATO and EU tutelage and despite the Stalinist ravages of the Ceaușescu decades. But Moldova is weak and tottering—and a likely victim of destabilization by Mr. Putin’s Russia. Without NATO and EU expansion eastward over the decades, there might now be a few Moldovas between Germany and Russia.
Success in foreign policy isn’t only about the good things that happen but also the bad things that don’t happen. What hasn’t happened in Europe because of NATO expansion is broad-based instability. Imagine the condition in the heart of Europe today had NATO’s boundaries remained frozen after 1989.
NATO and the EU have created many durable bureaucratic states with reliable militaries in Central and Eastern Europe able to do their part to withstand Russian aggression. The West has grown in both economic and political might. Thus the business of World War II and the Cold War has been closed.
Hungary flirts with authoritarianism and Bulgaria is a weak state, but they are the fixable exceptions. If Russia’s military situation in Ukraine were to deteriorate dramatically, it is possible that the opportunistic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would re-embrace the EU and its democratic standards. NATO expansion throughout Central Europe was virtually inevitable because of the decisive and one-sided way the Cold War ended, just as the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s encouraged the West to expand NATO to Romania, Bulgaria and Albania so that they wouldn’t be stranded on the other side of the Balkan battlefields.
Put another way: Had the West not expanded NATO and the EU to the east, we would now be fighting for Poland instead of for Ukraine and Belarus, as Mr. Putin surely would be breathing down the neck of every country between Berlin and Moscow. Ukraine would long ago have been under the heel of the Kremlin. Germany would have drifted further toward neutralism, requiring a close relationship with Russia not only for natural gas but to manage its borders with Poland and the Czech Republic—had those countries not become members of NATO and the EU and been susceptible to greater Russian influence.
We are now fighting to complete the Intermarium, Latin for “between the seas.” That is, the Baltic and Black seas—a belt of democratic states, from Estonia in the north to Ukraine in the south, to protect against Russian imperialism. We owe this post-World War I concept to the Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski, who envisioned it as a defense against Germany, too. Germany is now a longstanding ally. With Russia defeated in Ukraine, the purpose of the Intermarium will have been accomplished. This is all about geopolitics until it is all about Shakespeare, since a Russia without Mr. Putin would, however unstable, at least have some possibility of becoming a normal country.
Let’s not forget Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, another Shakespearean character, without whose charisma and dynamic leadership Ukraine might never have mustered the will to resist Russia on the battlefield. Geopolitics gets you only so far.
Mr. Kaplan holds a chair in geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and is author, most recently, of “The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power.
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WSJoke
Putin’s Shakespearean Demons
Imagine the condition in the heart of Europe today had NATO’s boundaries stayed frozen after 1989.
By Robert D. Kaplan
April 2, 2023 5:22 pm ET
Geopolitics will take you only so far in explaining foreign affairs. The more important element is Shakespearean. Ukraine is a perfect example.
Ukraine is engulfed by Russia on the north and east, its history and language entwined with its neighbor’s. But the greater part of the story concerns the personality of Vladimir Putin. The geopolitical argument that Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was expanding completely disregards the Russian leader’s Shakespearean demons.
Mr. Putin’s decision to invade represented not the collective thinking of the Russian elite but his own thoughts. Many oligarchs and security heavies near him were as surprised by the decision as people in the West. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, pressed by an oligarch to explain how Mr. Putin could have planned such an invasion without his inner circle knowing, reportedly replied: “He has three advisers. Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.”
Given Mr. Putin’s paranoia, isolation and delusions of grandeur, the question arises: Would Europe today be at peace with Mr. Putin’s Russia had NATO not expanded east after the Cold War and had there been a Western guarantee of recognizing Russian interests in Ukraine? Certainly not.
The explanation for this lies in what would have been the internal situations of the states of Central and Eastern Europe—from Estonia south to Bulgaria and including Poland and Romania—had none of them joined NATO or the European Union. Having suffered nearly a half-century of communism, and in many cases having lacked a robust middle class before Nazi and Soviet occupation, those former Soviet bloc countries might have remained basket cases, with poverty-stricken rural areas and nasty, unstable politics in the capital cities. That would have left all or most of them vulnerable to Mr. Putin’s mischief.
One of the biggest canards in Washington is that the U.S. would have been better off without NATO enlargement. Take Moldova, a country that is Romanian-speaking and part of historic Greater Romania, yet never admitted to NATO or the EU. Romania has become a strong and stable state for the first time in its modern history, under NATO and EU tutelage and despite the Stalinist ravages of the Ceaușescu decades. But Moldova is weak and tottering—and a likely victim of destabilization by Mr. Putin’s Russia. Without NATO and EU expansion eastward over the decades, there might now be a few Moldovas between Germany and Russia.
Success in foreign policy isn’t only about the good things that happen but also the bad things that don’t happen. What hasn’t happened in Europe because of NATO expansion is broad-based instability. Imagine the condition in the heart of Europe today had NATO’s boundaries remained frozen after 1989.
NATO and the EU have created many durable bureaucratic states with reliable militaries in Central and Eastern Europe able to do their part to withstand Russian aggression. The West has grown in both economic and political might. Thus the business of World War II and the Cold War has been closed.
Hungary flirts with authoritarianism and Bulgaria is a weak state, but they are the fixable exceptions. If Russia’s military situation in Ukraine were to deteriorate dramatically, it is possible that the opportunistic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would re-embrace the EU and its democratic standards. NATO expansion throughout Central Europe was virtually inevitable because of the decisive and one-sided way the Cold War ended, just as the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s encouraged the West to expand NATO to Romania, Bulgaria and Albania so that they wouldn’t be stranded on the other side of the Balkan battlefields.
Put another way: Had the West not expanded NATO and the EU to the east, we would now be fighting for Poland instead of for Ukraine and Belarus, as Mr. Putin surely would be breathing down the neck of every country between Berlin and Moscow. Ukraine would long ago have been under the heel of the Kremlin. Germany would have drifted further toward neutralism, requiring a close relationship with Russia not only for natural gas but to manage its borders with Poland and the Czech Republic—had those countries not become members of NATO and the EU and been susceptible to greater Russian influence.
We are now fighting to complete the Intermarium, Latin for “between the seas.” That is, the Baltic and Black seas—a belt of democratic states, from Estonia in the north to Ukraine in the south, to protect against Russian imperialism. We owe this post-World War I concept to the Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski, who envisioned it as a defense against Germany, too. Germany is now a longstanding ally. With Russia defeated in Ukraine, the purpose of the Intermarium will have been accomplished. This is all about geopolitics until it is all about Shakespeare, since a Russia without Mr. Putin would, however unstable, at least have some possibility of becoming a normal country.
Let’s not forget Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, another Shakespearean character, without whose charisma and dynamic leadership Ukraine might never have mustered the will to resist Russia on the battlefield. Geopolitics gets you only so far.
Mr. Kaplan holds a chair in geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and is author, most recently, of “The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9OcuySd7Fo
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Daily Memo: Russia's Plummeting Revenues
Moscow's budget deficit is growing fast.
By: Geopolitical Futures
More signs of trouble. Russia’s federal budget revenue in the first quarter dropped by 21 percent (to 5.7 trillion rubles, or $69 billion) compared to a year ago. The decline was largely due to the flagging energy sector, where oil and gas revenues plummeted by 45 percent. Budget expenditures, however, increased by 34 percent to 8 trillion rubles. The Russian currency fell to its lowest level – 83 rubles on the dollar – on Friday, after climbing 18 percent since the beginning of the year. The ruble is under pressure from weak exports, low foreign currency supplies and foreign investors’ withdrawals from Russian assets.
Security coordination. Russia and Belarus are stepping up their joint security planning. The two countries are working on a “security concept” for their integration project called the Union State – which will include consideration of tensions on their external borders, sanctions and the “information war” launched against them. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met on Thursday to discuss defense-related issues.
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April 11, 2023
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Daily Memo: Hungary and Russia Talk Energy, US and Philippines Train in South China Sea
Budapest is looking ahead to next winter.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Energy focus. Hungary’s foreign minister arrived in Moscow to discuss energy cooperation with Russia’s deputy prime minister and the head of Russian firm Rosatom. Hungary, which is still importing Russian oil and natural gas, is concerned that Europe could face more energy problems next winter due to spikes in demand from the recovering Chinese economy and Europe's slow development of energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russian oil exports to India reached another record high, climbing to 2.14 million barrels per day in March.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/macron-makes-no-apology-china-trip-comments-eu-leadership-warms-anti-us-message
Who could have foreseen this?
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https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-draft-mobilization-concription-notices-85a03cd13e7faaaefa2a0132f96eb1b4
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/ukraine-agents-attacks-inside-belarus-russia-leaked-us-documents-say-rcna78973
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https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/14/nato-hungary-viktor-orban-leaked-pentagon-docs/?utm_medium=email&pnespid=7OBqDXhcavIG2v3Hqza3GoOVtk_vRcJ_dOekzLB48g9mdUY9SDJSXstGPEC7GVrfu91GrxmG
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https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/14/nato-hungary-viktor-orban-leaked-pentagon-docs/?utm_medium=email&pnespid=7OBqDXhcavIG2v3Hqza3GoOVtk_vRcJ_dOekzLB48g9mdUY9SDJSXstGPEC7GVrfu91GrxmG
He's not wrong.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/wagner-group-chief-calls-putin-declare-end-war-gain-firm-foothold-held-territories?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1411
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April 17, 2023
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Belarus and Russia: Partners For Now
Belarus is beholden to Russia, but it is still guided by self-interest.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
Belarus is all but a Russian vassal state, but that wasn’t always the case. Only a few years ago, it had been able to balance between Moscow and the West, careful not to antagonize or placate either side too much, while generally taking advantage of its position as a transport route between Russia and Europe. Minsk even tried to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow in the late 2010s as conflict brewed in eastern Ukraine.
But things changed in 2020. That year, President Alexander Lukashenko was reelected in what was generally seen as a sham election. The ensuing protests pitted Lukashenko against demonstrators he claimed were organized by Western countries. Things looked increasingly dire until Russia, one of the only countries to recognize Lukashenko’s legitimacy, stepped in. It helped form a security reserve to deal with the protests, and even restructured $1 billion worth of Belarusian debt. Put simply, Lukashenko owes his position to Russia – a position that has further alienated Belarus from the West while making it more economically and politically dependent on Russia. This explains why Belarus has “backed” Russia’s intervention in Ukraine from the outset. On the anniversary of hostilities, Lukashenko reminded the world that he believes the conflict was caused not by Russia but by Western aggression, which he vowed to resist alongside Russia in Ukraine. But his comments betray an unspoken concern that pro-Western elements in Ukraine could spread to Belarus and put his government at risk.
To be sure, the threat of destabilization still exists. The opposition may be fragmented – and further imperiled by Minsk’s intensified prosecution of journalists and civil rights activists – but it still has support from like-minded parties in Europe. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who was Lukashenko’s primary rival in the 2020 election, still travels the world to rally others to her cause. (She was recently in the U.K. and Ireland, where she received the Tipperary International Peace Prize). And let’s not forget that Belarus borders an active warzone where Russian forces are battling Ukraine and pro-Western forces, which include Belarusian volunteers. Belarus is absolutely worried that the mingling of these elements could destabilize its own government. The Belarusian opposition condemned the war in Ukraine and launched a campaign of anti-war protests, even as pro-Ukraine militias were created. Minsk cannot afford to forget the 17,000 troops in Ukraine – which may or may not include anti-government Belarusian nationalists – currently concentrated near the Belarusian border.
The more unstable Ukraine becomes, the more worried Minsk gets, and the more it is forced to turn to Russia. Though the Belarusian military has not directly participated in the Ukraine war, Minsk has made itself available to Russia in other ways. Russian troops are constantly stationed in Belarus, and they regularly hold joint exercises, including near the border with Ukraine. In April, Russia sent Belarus Iskander-M ballistic missiles that are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, and certain Belarusian aircraft have been equipped with weapons capable of destroying nuclear equipment. Meanwhile, the idea of a “union state” between Russia and Belarus has gained more traction in light of Western sanctions. Minsk and Moscow even announced a plan to prepare a security concept for their Union State integration project, where external challenges are identified and plans are formulated. Lukashenko is also looking to revise bilateral agreements and decide “what normative legal act of an interstate nature should be adopted now in order to ensure the complete security of Belarus.”
The government in Minsk understands that Russia needs Belarus as much as Belarus needs Russia, so the more military assistance it provides, the more it will demand from Russia in return, especially financially. More than 40 percent of Belarusian exports go to Russia and 56 percent of its imports come from Russia, but Ukraine and the European Union were also significant trade partners. Western sanctions hit the Belarusian economy hard, particularly in light of the fact that oil products constituted a large share of trade with Europe. (Raw materials, of course, come from Russia and are processed at Belarusian facilities.) In no uncertain terms, the government needs to soften the economic blows from the sanctions campaign to stave off any potential instability.
Top Trading Partners of Belarus
(click to enlarge)
The sanctions have directly affected about 20 percent of the Belarusian economy, and their indirect effects have rippled through nearly every sector. The country's gross domestic product fell by 2.1 percent from January to April 2022, and the economy minister warned that sanctions could destroy a number of key industries such as related to oil refining, fertilizers, food, chemical fibers and lumber.
Deepening integration with Russia could help smooth things out since Moscow can provide a reliable market for Belarusian goods and facilitate their reach into other markets like China and Central Asia. Back in 2021, Belarus signed on to 28 Union State programs with Russia and secured access to cheaper oil and gas; now it wants to increase exports and execute industrial projects. All told, Belarus managed to offset some 80 percent of export losses because Russia provided 19 ports for the transshipment of Belarusian cargo. In January-October 2022, the passage of Belarusian exports by rail through Russia more than doubled, while container traffic to China increased even more.
The next Belarusian election won't be until June 2025. Even if Lukashenko recuses himself from the race, he will still be politically active, hoping to maintain power behind the scenes, all while supporting Russia. But their relationship will start to be dictated more by self-interest. Minsk will make its demands, and Moscow will generally oblige. For Russia, Belarus is an important buffer zone on its western border, and Moscow believes its influence there is a matter of national security. For Minsk, Russia is the lesser of two evils, but one that guarantees economic and national security. And the more pressure Belarusian authorities receive from the West, the more Minsk will be drawn into Russia’s orbit. But even this can't guarantee that Belarus will be a Russian ally forever. Its interests will determine the extent of their future cooperation.
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https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/politics/us-warns-russia-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant/index.html
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A letter? From Team Biden? No doubt the Russians will honor the request , , , :roll:
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April 28, 2023
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Russia Sanctions Hit Their Limit
The effectiveness of the sanctions campaign is nearing its limits.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Russia's Sanction Surge
(click to enlarge)
Kyiv wants more Western sanctions against Russia, but there are signs that the effectiveness of the sanctions campaign is nearing its limits. In early March, the European Union issued its 10th package of sanctions against Russia, but various European firms are still finding ways to do business with the country. The most important example concerns oil. Europe continues to buy Russian oil, only it's doing it through middlemen like India, which is exporting 360,000 barrels per day to the Continent.
Even the International Monetary Fund has said that, after a sharp fall in the second quarter of 2022, Russia's economy managed to recover in the second half of the year. This suggests the Russian economy is weathering sanctions better than most observers expected.
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fu5Tu4NaEAEIhv7?format=jpg&name=900x900)
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???
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/we-simply-dont-have-ammo-polish-general-says-can-no-longer-supply-ukraine-warns-russia
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April 28, 2023
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Poland on My Mind
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
During my recent bout with COVID-19, I apparently announced to my wife in the middle of the night that we were in Poland and that I had a meeting scheduled with the Polish military. This is the moment my wife wisely decided to call our doctor, starting a sequence that led to my spending three nights in hospital. I have no memory of any of this, so I’ll defer to my wife.
Of all the curiosities of this episode, my biggest question was why I would choose Poland for my supposed meeting. I’m from Hungary; maybe I was troubled by Hungary’s position on the war? But I love Ireland; why didn’t I elect to be there? Then it occurred to me that I had written a book in 2009 in which I forecast the emergence of Poland as a great power. This is the same book in which I predicted Russia would invade Ukraine. If a person revisits their own writing while delirious, I assume the same madness would generate more interesting thoughts.
The idea of Poland as a great power was ridiculed at the time and remains dubious in the better regions of my craft. But Poland as a great power is not nearly as crazy an idea now as it was then. In my forecast, I predicted that Russia would attack Ukraine and fail to defeat it. But the heart of my forecast was that Poland, sandwiched between Russia and Germany, has historically been a bad place to be. In 1939, to use just one example, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a pact whose primary purpose was to break Poland. The attack itself was a means to an end: The Soviet Union and Germany regarded the defeat and dismemberment of Poland as essential to their national security. The Soviets could have simply dug in and held their ground if the Germans attacked. Germany could have started the war with any number of nations. On the surface, opening the war with an attack on Poland did not make sense for either country. The German-Soviet treaty could have been put to better use.
Geography explains their rationale. Poland sits on the North European Plain, which is the highway from Paris to Moscow. Poland was neither a superpower nor a nonentity, but if a war started to the west, the threat of Poland striking Germany from the rear had to be taken seriously. If Germany struck the Soviets from the west, the Poles would be a significant complementary force.
But military geography isn’t the only consideration. Poland had significant economic promise compared with the Soviets. Russia was larger and possessed raw materials, but it lacked the dynamism needed for, say, a war machine. Poland was smaller but was emerging as a significant economic power. Years later, the European Union convinced me of the importance of independent countries in general and Poland in particular.
I did not believe then, nor do I now, that the EU was a viable long-term entity. Multinational alliances tend to fragment over time. The United Kingdom left, taking with it a huge chunk of the EU economy, and to my amazement, the EU didn’t seem to grasp the significance. For alliances to exist, members must all share the burden of the alliance. All political and especially economic alliances have periods of pain, which is rarely evenly distributed. For an alliance to survive, the more successful nations must be willing to sacrifice to maintain the union. This is a rare thing in this world, and over time, the differential pain breaks the alliance. The purpose of the EU was to promote peace and prosperity. It was my view that peace was always fragile, given my read of the Russians. I didn’t believe the various nations of the EU would sacrifice prosperity to relieve the pain of foreign countries. Italy has a troubled economy, and it bears responsibility for this. The EU will help, but not so much that it can solve fundamental economic problems. A nation is a nation, and the government’s obligation is to the nation. The political ability to assume economic burdens is limited.
From my point of view, then, Poland would emerge militarily because it faced an immediate threat from Russia that motivated its policy, while Germany would be generations away from aggressive war. Economically, Poland was an outsider to the European system, and it would be under constant pressure from the EU to change the way it behaves on a religious, legal and social basis. Poland would resist and be treated as a pariah, but it could not concede because of domestic politics and therefore, in the course of EU history, would be on its own.
Germany is socially incapable of being a great military power, as it had been, and it is so intimately linked with the EU that it would have trouble defending itself in a crisis. Russia lacked the military capacity to pose a threat to Poland, and its economy is not a major force. Poland is not yet a major power, but its military position relative to its neighbors is significant, and given the economic challenges facing a still-united EU, Poland has greater long-term economic potential than some of its neighbors.
And thus, the meeting that I believed I was attending in Poland might simply have been Warsaw’s wish to consult me on their next move. Or my theory could be utterly wrong, put in my head by COVID-induced fever dreams. But my wife tells me I am much better now, and I no longer think they are waiting to meet with me. But I wrote the forecast a decade before I got COVID-19, and so far it has mostly come to pass. So I’ll hold my position, regardless of what the Polish General Staff thinks.
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https://summit.news/2023/05/03/new-bbc-report-insinuates-russia-blew-up-nord-stream-pipeline/
Russia! Russia! Russia!
RANE is pissng on your leg and telling you it’s raining.
New Revelations About the Nord Stream Attacks Put Ukraine in Hot Water
9 MIN READMar 8, 2023 | 23:15 GMT
Allegations that pro-Ukrainian actors were behind last fall's sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines reduce the perceived Russian threat to European oil and gas infrastructure, but could also undermine Western support for Ukraine. The extent to which this occurs will likely depend on whether the Ukrainian government is believed to have participated in the attack. On March 7, multiple Western news outlets published stories that U.S. and European officials believe pro-Ukrainian saboteurs were behind the September 2022 explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines, which are operated by Russia's state-owned gas giant Gazprom. Officials reportedly have no evidence to indicate that top Ukrainian leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, directed or were aware of the operation. The anonymous sources cited in these reports say there remain many unknowns and declined to reveal any of the evidence informing their suspicions. However, the same day, Die Zeit and several other German media outlets reported that five men and one woman, all of whom used fake passports and were of unknown nationality, used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company in Poland to carry out the attacks. The yacht reportedly left a German port on Sept. 6, 2022 (nearly three weeks before the incidents began on Sept. 26) and was returned in an ''uncleaned'' fashion; German prosecutors were supposedly able to find evidence of explosives on a table in the yacht's cabin. On March 8, Germany's federal prosecutor's office confirmed that the yacht had been searched in January.
In late September 2022, four leaks were detected on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that carry Russian gas through the Baltic Sea to Germany. Neither pipeline system was delivering gas to Europe at the time, though were under pressure which led to the leaks. The leaks were soon assessed to be deliberate explosions; they also appeared to be very precisely targeted because the two attacks on Nord Stream 1 occurred just outside of Denmark's territorial waters, while Nord Stream 2 does not go through the country's sovereign territory at all.
In the wake of the Nord Stream leaks, many Western governments immediately called out Russia as the likeliest perpetrator, accusing the Kremlin of orchestrating an attack as a form of coercive diplomacy against the West for its support for Ukraine. However, despite significant speculation, there has been no publicly revealed evidence clearly pointing toward Russia, which has always maintained its innocence and accused Kyiv and the West of being responsible.
On March 8, Germany's defense minister warned that it was too early to jump to conclusions, hinting it could have been a Russian false flag operation and that it may not have been ordered by the Ukrainian government.
If Ukrainian nationals were indeed behind the attacks, it would reduce the overall threat that Russia may pose to oil and gas infrastructure in Europe, despite lingering risks. Originally, the speculation that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 attacks were the work of Russia led many to believe that Moscow had demonstrated its willingness to strike energy infrastructure in Europe (even if technically outside of EU maritime territory, as the explosions occurred just beyond Denmark's 12 nautical mile territorial waters). This raised concerns that Russia could carry out sabotage operations against other infrastructure, such as Norwegian or U.K. oil and gas infrastructure in the North Sea or the Baltic Pipe connecting Norway to Poland in the Baltic Sea. But if it turns out that Russia was not behind the attacks, then there is no precedent of Russian sabotage against EU oil and natural gas infrastructure in territorial waters or exclusive economic zones to point to as evidence that the Kremlin is willing to take such risks against NATO or likely future NATO countries, like Sweden. Still, even if the perceived risk to European oil and gas infrastructure is lower, Russian sabotage or accusation of sabotage on natural gas pipelines going through Ukraine remains a distinct possibility, as Ukraine is a war zone and Russian forces have repeatedly attacked critical infrastructure in the country. For southeastern Europe, this represents a continued energy security risk since the Ukrainian pipelines delivering Russian gas to Europe remain in operation (but natural gas delivered through those pipelines also goes to Hungary, which the Kremlin may not want to harm with gas cutoffs for fear of alienating its closest ally in the European Union). Finally, if Russia was not behind the Nord Stream attacks, it does not exclude the possibility of Moscow conducting cyber and/or physical attacks against other European infrastructure in the future, even if the likelihood of this scenario is reduced.
U.S. and European leaders will see the revelations as another sign that the Ukrainian government is failing to constrain its own conduct or that of its citizens. But while this will damage their trust in Kyiv, Ukraine's Western allies are unlikely to significantly scale back their support unless the Zelensky administration is found to be directly implicated. The allegations add to a list of incidents suspected to be the work of Ukraine that Kyiv's Western backers have indicated risked not only alienating European allies but expanding the war — a scenario that NATO countries first and foremost want to avoid. But while these previous incidents drew some concern from Western governments, they were immediately linked to the Ukrainian military and intelligence services. All of the incidents were also significantly less controversial compared with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which are infrastructure for delivering gas to NATO countries. As long as the allegations continue to suggest that the attacks took place without the approval of the Ukrainian government, it is unlikely that additional revelations will override the strategic imperatives driving high Western support of Kyiv. If, however, evidence emerges that the Ukrainian government approved the action, it could significantly fracture the United States and other major Western nations' willingness to continue funneling money and weapons into Ukraine. Some Western officials would use Kyiv's involvement in the Nord Stream leaks to argue that a Ukrainian government unwilling or unable to constrain its actions (or those of citizens claiming to act on its behalf) could conduct escalation or unauthorized provocations intended to draw NATO into the war with Russia in order to prevent the West from agreeing to a de-facto Russian victory in Ukraine by not providing sufficient weapons for it to retake more of its territory.
The incidents involving Ukrainian actions not necessarily approved by the West include the killing of ultranationalist journalist Daria Dugina inside Russia in an apparent attempt to assassinate her father, the strike damaging of the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Crimea to Russia, and drone strikes deep inside Russia that have destroyed Russian strategic bombers (which ultimately served as Moscow's primary argument for suspending its participation in the New START treaty with the United States).
Any Ukrainian involvement in the attack could undermine public support for Western governments' pro-Ukraine stance and embolden anti-war movements. Regardless of whether Kyiv was behind the attacks or if they were the actions of a pro-Ukraine sabotage group with no direct link to the Ukrainian state, media reports connecting the blasts to Ukraine could impact the public perception and narrative of the war in Ukraine across the United States and Europe. While the White House remains staunchly behind Kyiv, there are growing calls from some, mainly Republican, U.S. lawmakers to put upper limits on the amount of U.S. financial and military assistance to Ukraine. The recent news reports could thus not only add momentum to these calls, but also have longer-term impacts on the candidates vying for the U.S. presidency in 2024 elections. In Eastern Europe, support for Ukraine is likely to remain strong regardless of these events, because of the region's higher sense of threat regarding Russia. But in Western Europe, voices calling for an end to EU support for Ukraine could become louder — particularly in Germany, which has seen some of Europe's largest protests against the Ukraine war and Russian sanctions. These types of demonstrations in Germany and other Western European states (like Italy and France) will likely increase in frequency and intensity in the wake of the recent Nord Stream revelations. Such protests have so far had little effect on Western public opinion. But the allegations that pro-Ukrainian actors were behind the September pipeline attacks — combined with even bolder Russian propaganda that can now point to the incident as proof of Western lies about the war — could rally more widespread opposition against supporting Kyiv's war efforts and the country's accession to the European Union, especially if Kyiv's involvement is confirmed.
At two recent hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican lawmakers pressed Pentagon officials about where money and military support for Ukraine is going. On March 8, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also rejected an invitation from Zelensky to visit Kyiv, arguing that he didn't need to travel there to ensure that Ukraine did not receive a ''blank check.'' In addition, multiple recent surveys show that overall U.S. public support for Ukraine is decreasing, while the percentage of Americans who think their government is giving Kyiv too much aid is increasing.
Mainstream government parties across Europe will not downplay the significance of the sabotage. But to mitigate the potential for protest and public backlash, they may try to divert attention from it by arguing Russia had already halted natural gas flows through the pipeline and pointing to other direct Russian responsibilities in the conflict, while at the same time casting doubts on any Ukrainian involvement.
For months, regular anti-war rallies have taken place in Berlin and across several cities in eastern Germany, particularly Leipzig, that have stretched across both far-left and far-right political forces in the country. Before the sabotage incidents in September, German demonstrators had been demanding the reopening of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to ease spiraling energy prices in 2022. On Feb. 24, marking the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a demonstration against supplying Ukraine with weapons saw 13,000 people take to the streets in Berlin.
Other countries besides Germany have experienced similar demonstrations, including the Czech Republic, which in September 2022 saw 70,000 protesters gather in Prague to oppose the government's support for Ukraine. Such protests have also taken place in France, Italy and the United Kingdom, but on a much smaller scale
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-issues-new-military-threat-to-nato/ar-AA1aHfdN?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=cb3bbf75a7cf403288d053f78e0f6773&ei=9
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-issues-new-military-threat-to-nato/ar-AA1aHfdN?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=cb3bbf75a7cf403288d053f78e0f6773&ei=9
Endless provocation.
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Russia? or Finland?
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Russia? or Finland?
The malevolent retards in DC.
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I'm thinking the Finns have real good reason to want this, and Russia is responsible for why.
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I'm thinking the Finns have real good reason to want this, and Russia is responsible for why.
"Finlandization" was thing for a reason. Buffer states and diplomacy are how you avoid war.
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I'm thinking the Finns have real good reason to want this, and Russia is responsible for why.
"Finlandization" was thing for a reason. Buffer states and diplomacy are how you avoid war.
https://twitter.com/RebelNews_UK/status/1654072821289566208
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/136/703/671/original/460f0893b188ac6e.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/136/703/671/original/460f0893b188ac6e.jpg)
It's not Russians.
It's not 1983 and Reagan isn't president.
You don't live in the same country.
Time to adjust your paradigm. The one you've been using is way out of sync with reality.
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Wagner Threatens to Pull Out of Ukraine in Latest Internal Russia Spat
Graphic video shot in front of rows of dead soldiers underlines Moscow’s divisions ahead of expected Ukrainian offensive
By Thomas GroveFollow
and Isabel ColesFollow
Updated May 5, 2023 9:00 am ET
The leader of Russian paramilitary group Wagner threatened to withdraw his troops from the front line in Ukraine, citing growing losses, in a move that raises fresh tensions between Moscow’s military leaders ahead of an expected offensive by Kyiv’s forces.
Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces would leave their positions in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on May 10 after delivering an expletive-riddled broadside against Moscow’s military leadership, which he accused of withholding ammunition.
“Shoigu, Gerasimov, where is the…ammunition?” he shouted into the camera, referring to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top military officer, in a video posted on his public Telegram channel.
“If you handed over the ammunition quota, there’d be five times fewer dead,” he added, standing in a field covered in rows of dead soldiers.
Wagner has spearheaded Russia’s offensive on the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Ukrainian forces are clinging on to after months of brutal combat that have taken a heavy toll on both sides. The White House estimated this week that about half the 20,000 Russian troops killed in Ukraine since December were from Wagner.
“I withdraw units of the Wagner [private military company] because they are doomed to a senseless death without ammunition,” Mr. Prigozhin said in a later statement.
Ukrainian officials cast doubt on Mr. Prigozhin’s ultimatum. Andriy Chernyak, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, known as GUR, said Mr. Prigozhin was seeking a scapegoat for failure to seize Bakhmut by May 9, when Russia marks the victory of the Soviet army over Nazi Germany in 1945. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said Russia had deployed Wagner soldiers from other fronts to Bakhmut in an effort to capture the remainder of the city before Victory Day.
The flare-up of tensions within Russia’s military machine over chronic supply shortages follows a spate of drone attacks on Russian soil. The strikes, which have targeted mainly infrastructure central for sustaining Moscow’s war effort such as trains, airfields and fuel depots, have put the Kremlin on the back foot ahead of what Western analysts say is an imminent Ukrainian offensive.
A blaze at a Russian refinery near the border with Ukraine early Friday sent plumes of smoke into the sky. Military analysts have said the string of drone strikes is likely part of Kyiv’s attempt to disrupt Russian logistics ahead of its planned offensive. Ukraine hasn’t commented on the attacks.
The cause of the explosion at the Ilsky refinery in Krasnodar, which sits in southern Russia, wasn’t immediately clear. Emergency workers speaking to state news agency TASS said it was the result of a drone attack.
Russian state television initially blamed saboteurs. State media later said the blast was caused when the blaze from a previous attack by Ukrainian drones on Thursday reignited.
In the most spectacular incident, two drones exploded over the Kremlin earlier this week after Moscow said they had been intercepted. Russia blamed Ukraine and the U.S. Both Kyiv and Washington denied involvement.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in India, blamed the drone attack on Kyiv and said it couldn’t have been carried out without “the knowledge of its masters.”
Earlier this week, an airport in Russia’s Bryansk region was also targeted by a drone, and two trains carrying fuel toward the front lines were derailed in the same area.
The U.K.’s Ministry of Defense said a recent uptick in attacks targeting Russian railway lines in areas bordering Ukraine had likely caused short-term, localized disruption to Moscow’s military movements. While the damage can be repaired quickly, the ministry said Russia’s internal security forces were unlikely to be able to fully protect Russia’s rail networks from attack.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is preparing to deploy Western weapons and troops trained by its allies in an offensive to recapture territory occupied by Russia in the east and south of the country.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its units were still pressing to take all of Bakhmut and that Moscow’s troops had destroyed a bridge crucial to the Ukrainians’ efforts to resupply its forces there with armament and personnel. Fighting has raged in recent days over the last road Ukraine can use to resupply its forces from the west.
A wounded Ukrainian serviceman waits to receive first aid near the front-line city of Bakhmut. PHOTO: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
A three-day curfew came into force in the southern city of Kherson as Russian forces continued to pound the surrounding region with rockets and artillery. Three people were wounded in shelling over the past day, said the head of the Kherson military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, adding that Russian forces had fired hundreds of projectiles across the region.
Ukrainian forces recaptured the city of Kherson last year but it and the surrounding areas remain within artillery range of Russian forces that were driven back to the east bank of the Dnipro River.
Local authorities have said the curfew aims to help law enforcement carry out unspecified activities. A Ukrainian military analyst said the curfew might make it easier for the Ukrainian military to move around and target Russian positions over the river. Ukraine has previously imposed curfews to clear the streets, making it easier to identify and root out collaborators who may be providing information to Russian forces.
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Little Lithuania Stands Tall Against Russia and China
Gabrielius Landsbergis, the Baltic nation’s foreign minister, explains why his country never bought into ‘the end of history’ and what Ukraine and Taiwan have in common.
By Tunku Varadarajan
May 5, 2023 3:53 pm ET
Lithuania is a Baltic country of just under 2.8 million people, a million fewer than live in the city of Los Angeles. It won its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and existed for the next three decades on the margins of international attention, patronized in the European Union (which it joined in 2004) by heavyweights like France and Germany.
The war in Ukraine changed all that, redrawing the moral and diplomatic map of Europe in significant ways. With France and Germany leading from behind—the latter chronically indecisive and hostage to Russian energy supplies—the front-line states of the eastern flank have been left to mount a robust European defense of Ukraine. Along with Poland, the Baltic states—Estonia and Latvia as well as Lithuania—have been most vocal in their condemnation of the invasion; and they’ve committed materiel to the war effort in unstinting ways and hosted large numbers of Ukrainian refugees. In doing so, they’ve earned the wrath of Russia, which they regard as proof of a moral duty well done.
“We still have a very clear historic memory of my country being under occupation,” says Gabrielius Landsbergis, 41, Lithuania’s foreign minister, in a Zoom call from his chancery in Vilnius. “I’m a youngish politician, but I remember it, as does the current young generation in Parliament.” His children “only read about it,” but Lithuanians have national nightmares of Russian attacks, “not just the tanks in Ukraine, and in Georgia, but here in the capital city.”
Mr. Landsbergis was 9 when Soviet tanks rolled into Vilnius in an attempt to disperse massed protesters calling for independence. Fourteen Lithuanians died at the hands of Soviet troops on Jan. 13, 1991, now commemorated as Freedom Defenders Day. Eight months later, Russian President Boris Yeltsin recognized Lithuania’s sovereignty. United Nations membership followed days later. The foreign minister’s paternal grandfather, Vytautas Landsbergis, now 90, was the first head of state of independent Lithuania.
That experience gives Lithuanians an “additional layer of understanding of what we’re up against, and what Ukraine is up against,” the foreign minister says. It also explains why Lithuania is the world’s only country in a state of open confrontation with both Russia and China. Lithuania sees itself as standing up to bullies who would snuff out the sovereignty of other nations. Its political position was strengthened late last month when China’s ambassador to France said on French television that “previously Soviet states have no effective status in international law.”
China’s animus against Lithuania is easily explained. In November 2021, the government gave its imprimatur to the opening of a Taiwan Representative Office in Vilnius. Such an office is commonly described in the media as a de facto embassy, but Mr. Landsbergis takes care to call it “nondiplomatic.” It is the sole Taiwanese representative office in Europe to use “Taiwan,” as opposed to “Taipei,” the only name China considers permissible. Even in the U.S., Taiwan’s representatives adhere to Beijing-approved nomenclature.
The Chinese reaction was swift, disproportionate and vengeful. China ceased all trade with Lithuania overnight, recalled its ambassador from Vilnius and expelled Lithuania’s from Beijing. “It was a hand-brake situation,” Mr. Landsbergis says, “a full stop.” He believes it was unprecedented: “Going from 100% of trade to zero trade—that’s never happened.” It caused “a lot of stress to businesses” and “a lot of stress to the government, trying to figure out how to deal with the situation.”
As it floundered to deal with the economic shock, Lithuania found that it wasn’t friendless. Australia, Japan and South Korea opened their ports to ships that could no longer dock in China: “Last year, our trade with the Pacific grew by 40%.” Booming trade with Singapore prompted Lithuania to open an embassy there.
“We were decoupled by China,” Mr. Landsbergis says, “but we showed that it was possible to withstand it, and not lower our threshold when it comes to values.” Taiwan still has its office in Lithuania, and trade relations with China have been restored, although the ambassadors haven’t returned.
Why did Lithuania, alone in Europe, poke China in the eye? Mr. Landsbergis doesn’t care for that characterization; he says his country isn’t “poking China in the eye, but allowing people to feel dignified by calling themselves the way they see themselves. And if they see themselves as Taiwanese, be it politically or culturally, it’s not my place to ask, but to give them that dignity.” He says Vilnius’s position on Taiwan derives from its national values and belief in a “rules-based world order.” He directly compares Taiwan to Ukraine. “The sovereignty of countries is one of our main values,” he says, as is the “dignity of people, which usually comes up when we’re talking about the people in Taiwan” and their desire to be “recognized as a democratic community.”
China, Mr. Landsbergis says, accused Lithuania of violating “their One China policy. We said that every country has a One China Policy and we did not violate the policy that Lithuania has. So this is a political dispute, but it goes deeper than that, to an attempt to suppress identity.”
He also bristles at the thought of taking dictation on policy from Beijing. “Will we be able to talk about Hong Kong? About Xinjiang? Will we be able to look into human-rights abuse? Maybe that will become an out-of-the-question question that will merit sanctions from China.” That “might start affecting our sovereignty. And this is where we are.”
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https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/9766/Artykul/3161894,garry-kasparov-issues-warning-to-poland-and-baltic-states?fbclid=IwAR3805U8WAzMhz0tmiLUVy99VLxIYhh6BWrpaeoRD2SOIs3ISCao-q9uloE
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https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/9766/Artykul/3161894,garry-kasparov-issues-warning-to-poland-and-baltic-states?fbclid=IwAR3805U8WAzMhz0tmiLUVy99VLxIYhh6BWrpaeoRD2SOIs3ISCao-q9uloE
We are not removing Putin, and in trying to do so we are risking WWIII.
We should have quit when we were ahead.
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A most reasonable POV!
OTOH Kasparov is a very bright man, a brave man, and Russian opponent of Putin who knows him well. Reading and noting his thoughts on the matter is also reasonable.
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A most reasonable POV!
OTOH Kasparov is a very bright man, a brave man, and Russian opponent of Putin who knows him well. Reading and noting his thoughts on the matter is also reasonable.
I don't love or trust Putin. My priority is what is left of the Former USA. I have family and friends less than a day's drive from the clusterfuck in El Paso.
Unlike the scum pulling the strings on the semi-animated corpse of Pedo Peter Biden, Putin actually has a love for his "Rodina".
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"My priority is what is left of the Former USA."
YES!!!
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The Arrest That Preceded an Invasion
Lukashenko hijacked a plane to capture a critic of his Belarus government.
By The Editorial Board
May 8, 2023 6:14 pm ET
The world’s authoritarians are getting more brazen in their extraterritorial reach, and the eight-year prison sentence handed out last week to Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich is a reminder that the West has been too timid in its response.
Mr. Protasevich is a prominent critic of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko who left Belarus in 2019 to escape arrest. When demonstrations erupted in 2020 against Mr. Lukashenko, Mr. Protasevich’s Telegram channel, NEXTA Live, became a popular source of information for protesters. “We were the only ones beyond the control of the Belarusian authorities,” he told the BBC in 2020.
In May 2021 Mr. Lukashenko learned the journalist was flying to Lithuania from Greece over Belarusian territory and ordered a fighter jet to intercept the Ryanair passenger plane on the pretense of a bomb threat. No explosives were found, but Belarusian agents arrested Mr. Protasevich.
Who knows what brutality the 27-year-old has had to endure in prison. His confession on state television and subsequent praise of Mr. Lukashenko were obviously spoken under duress. A Belarusian court nonetheless found him guilty Wednesday of organizing riots and calling for acts of terrorism, among other charges, and imposed the harsh sentence.
Mr. Lukashenko’s capture of the journalist was “a case of state-sponsored hijacking,” as Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said at the time. Yet the Western response was less than forceful. The European Union barred civilian planes from flying through Belarusian airspace and blocked Belarusian planes from transiting through Europe. But it took nearly a month for Washington and the EU to impose sanctions on Belarusian officials in response to the hijacking.
Mr. Lukashenko is Vladimir Putin’s closest ally and facilitated the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A mere two days after Mr. Protasevich’s arrest—and amid reports that he had been beaten in jail—the White House announced a one-on-one meeting between President Biden and Mr. Putin.
The Protasevich hijacking unfolded as Mr. Putin was sizing up Western resolve as he considered his move against Ukraine. Nine months later, Russian tanks rolled across the border, including from Belarus.
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May 12, 2023
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Russia and the Nightmare Scenario
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
I recently wrote an article that raised the question of whether the Russian government was united or even functional. The basis for the article was that the Russians have been bogged down in the city of Bakhmut for more than six months, have not retreated or regrouped, and have been unable to advance. Russian forces there are so deeply divided between the regular armed forces and the Wagner Group, the private military company that has been carrying much of the load, that the Russian military has refused to provide artillery rounds to Wagner. Withholding ammunition from this force in Bakhmut would not be rational. Some have argued that the military is short of artillery shells, which raises the question of how that was permitted to happen.
On the surface, it seems there is a political battle going on between the regular army and Wagner. Regardless of the cause, the fundamental question is why the civilian government, namely President Vladimir Putin, has not intervened and imposed the necessary steps, such as producing more shells or shifting some of the inventory, to solve the problem. Put differently, a tense struggle is taking place within the Russian army, and the president of the republic has not imposed his power on the forces and commanded solutions.
The question is whether Putin has the will or, more important, the power to do something about this problem. I obviously have no direct knowledge of the inner workings of the Kremlin, but I discern that this is a major obstacle for the government based on the public utterances, the military’s performance and the fact that the high command and the political leaders have not acted.
This raises the possibility that Ukraine and its allies could be winning the war against a crippled Russia. That should be all for the good if true, but it also raises a more frightening scenario.
In 1991, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed, the major issue was the status of nuclear weapons. The fear was that elements in the Soviet government who resisted collapse or thought they might reverse events would obtain parts of the Soviet arsenal and threaten the West with it. Others worried that if the Soviet control system had broken down, individuals would gain access and perhaps fire a missile. How to gain control of the Soviet Union’s arsenal very rapidly became an overarching concern. Anxieties were eased when an arms control agreement was reached with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Soviet Union was unstable but had controls. The degree of control in Moscow today is unclear. That means that the 1991 nightmare could rear its head again. If the military and political leadership are as fragmented and unpredictable as they appear to be to me, the end game might not be paradise but a deep crisis.
This is all vastly hypothetical, but a conventional defeat of a major nuclear power carries with it uncertainties about just how far the defeated might go. Perhaps the Russians will throw in their chips, perhaps they will bluff some action, and perhaps they will try to redress their defeat. The likelihood of the final option may be infinitesimal, but the stakes are too high to ignore the possibility when nuclear weapons are concerned.
Defeating a nuclear power whose command-and-control system broke down – and whose president has already threatened nuclear action – is a very difficult business. The reality of a counterattack has kept nuclear war at bay since 1945. Even so, if the government collapses, the actions of the Russians can’t be known.
Frankly, it’s not in the interest of the United States or Ukraine to absorb the risk. I am certain that intelligence and the military are playing out the war games that might reveal the truth. But my understanding of the situation leads me to the conclusion that it is not in the interest of the U.S. to defeat Russia, and that even if the Ukrainians can threaten a victory, they should settle for an agreement.
Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq could be treated casually after they ended because they were not nuclear powers. But if Russia loses in Ukraine, what will be its next target? Protecting Ukraine is a strategic necessity in my mind, since the Russian threat increases if Moscow wins in Ukraine. But either way, the Russian appetite will not dissolve. If my concerns about Russia’s stability are wrong, we still gain by thinking this through.
We will reach the negotiation stage at some point, and then the great uncertainty will become whether Moscow is in control of its nuclear weapons and whether the government could order their use. As I have said, this is possible though a most unlikely scenario, but it will psychologically haunt peace talks. Defending Ukraine was an imperative not because of the centrality of Ukraine but because of what would come next from Russia if there was no resistance. Russia’s next move will not be to invade Poland, but we cannot dismiss the possibility of convincing nuclear gestures.
I do not think the nightmare will be nuclear war. Rather, it will be Russia’s use of the threat of nuclear war to shape negotiations. Any threat would have to be taken as credible, and a credible nuclear threat, even if it never transpires, is a nightmare.
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https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
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What the Escalating Wagner Feud Means for Russia's War in Ukraine -- And Beyond
May 16, 2023 | 20:57 GMT
While the Wagner Group's public feud with Russia's military leaders could complicate Russia's war efforts in Ukraine, the military contractor will likely remain involved in the war, though its role will diminish over time. Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian military contractor Wagner Group, has in recent days escalated his months-long feud with Russia's military leadership. On May 5, he accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov, two close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin, of causing the deaths of Wagner soldiers by failing to provide Wagner Group sufficient artillery ammunition. Then on May 10, Prigozhin suggested that an unnamed ''grandpa'' — a possible reference to Putin — was an imbecile whose withholding of resources was a catastrophic mistake. On May 11, reports in Russian media citing Kremlin officials suggested that the comments nearly crossed a red line of attacking Putin, but that Prigozhin's ability to plausibly claim that he was referring to other officials, including his usual targets Gerasimov and Shoigu, meant the words didn't constitute a direct attack on the president and therefore the Kremlin was unlikely to act against him. On May 15, additional leaks also began circulating that Prigozhin offered Ukraine intel on Russian forces in exchange for ceding territory around Bakhmut, which is likely related to Wagner's feud with the MoD as well.
The Wagner Group is a global paramilitary force that some European countries are now moving to designate a terrorist group, and that the United States has labeled a transnational crime organization.
Wagner soldiers have been a key force in Russia's war efforts in Ukraine since last fall. Wagner's feud with Russia's Ministry of Defense (MoD), embodied by Kremlin insiders Shoigu and Gerasimov, began festering in February over Wagner soldiers' inability to take Bakhmut in Russia's winter offensive, and has since worsened due to the MoD's ammunition saving for the upcoming Ukrainian offensive. Meanwhile, the Wagner group has taken massive losses on the battlefield that have shattered its remaining forces. In Prigozhin's eyes, his organization has sacrificed resources for the MoD. To that end, on May 9 Prigozhin griped that ''our enemy isn't the Ukrainian military'' but Russian ''military bureaucrats.''
Citing leaked U.S. intelligence documents, The Washington Post reported on May 5 that tensions between the MoD and Wagner were reaching new highs. Gerasimov and Shoigu were reportedly implicated in actions to sabotage Wagner and provide justification to reduce the group's role in Ukraine. Specifically, on Feb. 12, Gerasimov allegedly ordered to stop munitions supplies to Wagner, halting planned military transport flights that were set to transport ammunition to the organization's headquarters in southern Russia. Intercepted communications from Russia's Federal Security Service confirmed that Wagner was receiving less ammunition than it had been promised, suggesting Gerasimov's intervention caused the shortage.
According to the leaks published by The Washington Post, Russia's military leadership was so frustrated by Prigozhin's public attacks that some officials debated how to quash his criticism, considering a public campaign to discredit Prigozhin before concluding that banning him from speaking out was not feasible.
The feud could complicate Russia's efforts in Ukraine by deepening fissures within the Russian military, leading to an inefficient allocation of resources and weakening political support for the invasion. On one side of the ongoing feud is Shoigu, Gerasimov and the rest of Russia's defense establishment. And on the other is the Wagner Group and Russian military officials skeptical of the Ukraine war's trajectory — including the former head commander of the invasion, Gen. Sergey Surovikin, who Progozhin claimed on May 8 had been appointed as the Wagner Group's effective liaison with the MoD. The deepening rift between these two sides risks fueling factionalism in Russia's leadership and resentment among the rank and file that could complicate military efforts. Because of the feud, Russian military officers may not know the extent to which their actions should entirely align with Shoigu and Gerasimov, or with Prigozhin and aligned general Surovikin. This could make some Russian soldiers hesitant to see through orders that may be pushed in factional interests rather than objective military realities, leading to less optimal allocation of increasingly limited resources. Similar hesitance may grow among the rank and file, where reports indicate an interservice rivalry between Wagner and the MoD is breeding distrust and animus on the ground, reducing the interoperability of Wagner and Russian army troops and their combat effectiveness. Prigozhin's rhetoric also foments broader skepticism and disdain toward Russia's military and political leaders among not just soldiers, but the general public and elites. A sense of disunity has grown in recent months among influential military bloggers, some state propagandists, and even political officials. On May 10, lawmakers from the ruling United Russia party offered to invite Prigozhin to parliament to explain his grievances, demonstrating the increasing political visibility of the Wagner leader's skepticism of Kremlin-appointed military leaders.
Prigozhin has often followed his provocative statements and addresses with promotional videos seeking volunteers to join the Wagner group. The conduct suggests that Prigozhin is effectively using anger toward the regular army and accusations of MoD incompetence as a recruiting tool, underscoring Wagner's direct competition for manpower against the MoD's own volunteer campaign.
On April 30, Russia's deputy defense minister in charge of logistics, Mikhail Mizintsev, was removed from his position without explanation. But on May 4, Wagner announced Mizintsev had become a deputy commander of Wagner forces in Ukraine, making him one of the most senior Russian military officials ever to join the organization. The move is a potential sign of factionalism in the military.
On Oct. 8, Moscow General Sergei Surovikin was named as the first overall commander of the Ukraine invasion, replacing a previous command structure whereby multiple front commanders answered to Putin through Shoigu and Gerasimov. After only three months on the job, Surovikin was then replaced in January and demoted to serving as one of Gerasimov's deputies.
Surovikin's time as overall commander saw at least two major controversial decisions, including the retreat from the Western bank of the Dnieper River in November and the airstrike campaign against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure that failed to undermine Ukraine's resistance. This fueled speculation that Russia's top military leaders had set up Surovikin and his advocates, including Prigozhin, to serve as scapegoats.
While Prigozhin will likely continue making divisive comments, his reliance on Putin and the defense ministry mean that he is unlikely to continue escalating the feud to the point of crossing the Kremlin's red lines. Prigozhin will continue to publicize his grievances and garner attention, including by making critical comments toward the MoD, which will pose an informational challenge to the Kremlin. But the Kremlin is unlikely to muzzle Prigozhin because he does not pose a threat to Putin's power and Russia's greater political system. The Kremlin also does not believe Prigozhin will cross its clear red lines by, for example by directly attacking Putin, forming an anti-Kremlin political movement or engaging in treasonous activity.The Wagner Group remains entirely reliant on Russia's defense ministry for key weapons and transport, and Prigozhin's other business endeavors are dependent on government contracts that could be quickly curtailed should he overstep his bounds. Therefore, it is extremely doubtful that he would bite the hand that feeds him by significantly escalating his rhetoric. Prigozhin's activities are an attempt to increase his influence, but are not an attempt to fundamentally alter his ultimately minimal role in Russia's governance system. Prigozhin is still not viewed in the Kremlin or the general public as a viable politician, and remains unlikely to vie for such status at the risk of his life and fortune.
The ongoing feud will, however, likely further compel Moscow to gradually reduce the Wagner Group's role in Ukraine. Wagner forces remained Russia's primary offensive forces after Russia's military establishment endorsed General Surovikin's plan to move to the defensive while using missiles to strike Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Gerasimov's replacement of Surovikin in mid-January resulted in that strategy being partially abandoned, with Russia instead launching a larger winter offensive aimed at regaining the initiative. The offensive saw the Russian regular army play a larger role around Vuhledar and Kreminna, but yielded extremely limited gains. Only Wagner's preceding efforts in Bakhmut continued to gain ground, though it's come at an enormous cost. Wagner forces are now likely exhausted and demoralized. But most importantly, they're short of manpower, down to around 15,000 soldiers from approximately 50,000 early last fall. As Russia's regular army contingent in Ukraine has grown to approximately 500,000 soldiers due to mobilization, the relative importance of Wagner troops to Russia's overall force structure has fallen significantly. Furthermore, as the entire Russian army deals with ammunition shortages and prepares to defend against Ukraine's impending counteroffensive, for which Wagner is not structured, the lack of prestige-gaining offensive opportunities leaves little reason for Wagner to maintain a large presence on the front line.
Wagner will likely retain some involvement in the war, even if on a smaller scale, as Wagner forces have benefits compared with Russian regular troops that Moscow will want to continue leveraging. There are several reasons the Kremlin would want to keep some level of Wagner soldiers in Ukraine, despite the recent feud with Prigozhin. For one, Wagner soldiers have been fighting in conflict zones around the world for years, including in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The military contractor's surviving forces are thus more experienced than the vast majority of Russia's regular troops — especially the newly mobilized ones now deployed to Ukraine. For Russia, this makes Wagner a considerably useful resource for not only future combat, but for training and advising other Russian units in the meantime. Unlike Russian regular troops, Wagner fighters are also all volunteers and prisoners, which means their loss on the battlefield has a smaller impact on Russian society and Moscow's overall war efforts compared with the loss of regular soldiers or mobilized personnel. Furthermore, prisoners and previous mercenaries are not individuals taken out of the economy, and Wagner casualties are not reflected in Russia's official army statistics and thus lack political ramifications, which enables Moscow to use Wagner soldiers for riskier attacks. Furthermore, from a financial standpoint, Wagner forces' upkeep is less of a drain on the Russian government's budget (due to private funding sources picking up a larger portion of the group's operating costs). Another private military contractor could, in theory, eventually offer similar economic, political and strategic benefits to Moscow. But the other contractors currently operating in Russia — while plentiful — are still much smaller and lack the manpower, equipment, structure, administration, or media status to replace Wagner quickly.
On April 18, videos emerged in Russian media purporting to show that Wagner personnel were participating in the training of mobilized regular soldiers — a formerly exclusive undertaking of the regular army. Such training would constitute an expansion rather than a reduction of the military contractor's role, which would make it harder for Gerasimov and Shoigu to phase out the use of Wagner soldiers in Ukraine.
Despite his public criticisms, Prigozhin will also seek to stay engaged in Ukraine to ensure that he and his organization remain important to the Kremlin, though this will limit Wagner's ability to expand its operations in key geographies like Africa. Wagner's ''regime security'' services remain key to the Kremlin's global geopolitical strategy, including in countries such as Mali, the Central African Republic and Libya, providing services for which competition largely comes from other Russian private military contractors with weaker ties to the Kremlin. For Wagner, those global services are likely more lucrative from a business standpoint compared with fighting in the Ukraine war. But despite his recent criticisms of Russian leaders' strategy in Ukraine, Prigozhin will still seek to ensure that his organization remains involved in the Ukraine war. This is because Wagner's presence in Ukraine remains an important source of prestige, as well as a valuable insurance policy that will protect Prigozhin himself from the worst consequences of any red lines he may cross in the future. Pulling out Wagner's remaining forces to focus on activities in Africa could put him in increased danger as the Kremlin may seek to replace him with someone more committed to the Ukraine agenda. Therefore, Prigozhin's feud with the Russian military, Wagner's losses in Ukraine and continued presence there mean the group will likely be constrained in its ability to significantly expand its presence in Africa or elsewhere. These factors could cause potential clients to turn to one of the many other smaller (but growing) private military contractors in Russia or from another country by fueling concerns about Wagner's ability to fulfill contracts.
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Pithily, potently, and pungently argued , , ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh4QU7hxKVg
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-deputy-minister-pyotr-kucherenko-dies-after-slamming-fascist-invasion-of-ukraine?ref=home%3Fref%3Dhome&fbclid=IwAR3152fm1kX_RWR6LZkO2StaPPO_5ZXfB5W2DYA8CXrjqGQwgcHQ-TD8bYc
==========================
Tomáš Řezníček
13h
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The Legion of Free Russia, consisting of Russians fighting on the side of the Ukrainian army, passed to Russia in the Belgorod region and conquered three settlements Kozinka, Glotov, Gora-Podil. Tough fights are underway for control of Greyvoron.
Her statement: "We are Russians just like you. We are human beings just like you. We want our children to grow up unbroken and be free people so they can travel, study and just be happy in a free country. But in today's Putin's Russia, rotten corruption, lies, censorship, restrictions of freedoms, repression, has no place. In that Russia, where a human life means less than an official's wallet. In Russia, where a separate railway is built to the residence of grandfather of the bunker instead of repairing roads in the regions. In a dictatorial country where children are separated from their parents for calling for peace and teenagers get life imprisonment. It's time to end the Kremlin dictatorship. Thank you to all those who support us. To everyone sending us donations and smoking where necessary. Your support is what reminds us every day of our final goal on Red Square [in Moscow]. Be courageous and not afraid for we are coming home. Russia will be free! "
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Pithily, potently, and pungently argued , , ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh4QU7hxKVg
Not sure why you like Zmughan so much. He sure forgot the CIA’s color revolution and the Ukenazi slaughter of ethnic Russians since 2014 that might have been a motivator for Russia.
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On many things he has much to offer.
Not a question of like or not, it is a question of a precise articulation of a particular POV. Those of us who disagree (I'm thinking that is all four of us) need to be able to answer precisely-- e.g. such as you just did.
"Man sharpens man" etc.
PS: I used your Foreign Policy Experts Against Expanding NATO citation on a FB Group yesterday.
PPS: One of these days you may notice that I don't necessarily agree with 100% of things that I post.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/22/bosnian-diplomat-zlatko-lagumdzija-warns-about-rus/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=morning&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=P1Iu27CJpemil%2FBe5veXKkz0%2FLdai5HuAj9QNPFt6fkMw%2B8apvoLjAtZJoEKENka&bt_ts=1684847433669
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/22/bosnian-diplomat-zlatko-lagumdzija-warns-about-rus/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=morning&utm_term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=P1Iu27CJpemil%2FBe5veXKkz0%2FLdai5HuAj9QNPFt6fkMw%2B8apvoLjAtZJoEKENka&bt_ts=1684847433669
As the CIA is stirring in Hungary.
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https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/russian-war-support-ahead-ukraines-offensive?id=743c2bc617&e=de175618dc&uuid=cc7ddefa-7743-4ffb-84f7-3972b8aefa9e&mc_cid=6f870619db&mc_eid=de175618dc
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https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/russian-war-support-ahead-ukraines-offensive?id=743c2bc617&e=de175618dc&uuid=cc7ddefa-7743-4ffb-84f7-3972b8aefa9e&mc_cid=6f870619db&mc_eid=de175618dc
Oh, yeah.
Did Putin get cancer again? Fall down the stairs and Biden his pants?
:roll:
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Ummm , , , none of which applies to anything Stratfor has ever said.
In a nearby thread, you spoke of thinking like a gambler-- and gamblers "think in bets"-- they realize there is not only one possible outcome.
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Ummm , , , none of which applies to anything Stratfor has ever said.
In a nearby thread, you spoke of thinking like a gambler-- and gamblers "think in bets"-- they realize there is not only one possible outcome.
Sttratfor/RANE are big on parroting the party line.
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Nice try at evading the point.
Strat/RANE has not ever said anything like this "Did Putin get cancer again? Fall down the stairs and Biden his pants?"
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Nice try at evading the point.
Strat/RANE has not ever said anything like this "Did Putin get cancer again? Fall down the stairs and Biden his pants?"
True.
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Thank you.
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Out of such blusters and such posturing escalations can come , , ,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/head-of-rt-calls-for-lindsey-graham-s-assassination-after-edited-video/ar-AA1bOE7G?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=33312f15b4444c3fa10044969d0650b1&ei=10
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Definite FAFO territory. And the rest of us will be drug in.
Out of such blusters and such posturing escalations can come , , ,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/head-of-rt-calls-for-lindsey-graham-s-assassination-after-edited-video/ar-AA1bOE7G?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=33312f15b4444c3fa10044969d0650b1&ei=10
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https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/latest-headlines-digest-the-wests
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https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/latest-headlines-digest-the-wests
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/col-douglas-macgregor-bakhmut-catastrophe-ukraine-f-16s-wont-make-difference
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Poland Hardens Its Defenses Against Russia
But leaders in Warsaw worry about Western European weakness and U.S. staying power.
By Jillian Kay MelchiorFollow
May 30, 2023 3:38 pm ET
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine left Poland more vulnerable. Most of the country’s northern and eastern borders—some 730 miles—is adjacent to Ukraine, Belarus (a client of Moscow) or Russia itself (the exclave of Kaliningrad). Warsaw has steeply increased defense spending to strengthen its military.
But leaders here worry whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is up to the task. “We need to adjust our security policy toward this challenge,” Radoslaw Fogiel, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the lower house of Poland’s Parliament, says of the alliance. He and his colleagues express concern about Western Europe’s military weakness and America’s staying power.
Since 1994 Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus, but demonstrations erupted after the rigged presidential election in 2020. Mr. Lukashenko needed Mr. Putin’s help to quell the protests, and Russia’s president hasn’t let him forget the favor. Mr. Lukashenko is like an ocean swimmer fighting a deadly undertow; he’s frantically paddling, but Mr. Fogiel wonders “if he didn’t cross the point of no return already.”
In April Mr. Putin said a 28-point plan for integrating Russia and Belarus is 74% complete and “we will certainly continue this effort without slowing down.” He touted the two countries’ collaborations on energy and electricity, cultural issues, economics, security and defense.
That last item has Poland particularly alarmed. This month Moscow and Minsk signed an agreement to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to a storage facility in Belarus. Last month Belarus’s Defense Ministry reported that the country’s troops had finished training to use tactical nukes. Mr. Putin has moved S-400 surface-to-air and Iskander short-range missile systems to Belarus and stationed thousands of Russian troops there under the guise of training. Mr. Lukashenko hasn’t dispatched Belarusian troops to Ukraine, but Russian tanks rolled from Belarus toward Kyiv in February 2022, and the Russians have fired missiles at Ukraine from Belarusian soil.
As the Kremlin reaches westward in Ukraine and Belarus, Poland aims to strengthen its deterrence and defense. Last year lawmakers passed a bill mandating a minimum of 3% of gross domestic product for defense spending. This year military spending will be closer to 4%, at around 98 billion zloty, or more than $23 billion, plus up to some $11 billion more this year from a separate Armed Forces Support Fund. Poland has been buying tens of billions of dollars of military equipment from the U.S., the U.K. and South Korea.
Contrast Poland’s hardening of its defenses with Western Europe. Germany and France were among the countries that failed last year to reach NATO’s benchmark of spending at least 2% of GDP on defense, according to the alliance’s recent estimates. Popular Mechanics defense reporter Kyle Mizokami forecasts that Poland is now on track to have “more tanks than the U.K., Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy combined” by 2030. Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski, deputy chairman of the lower house’s Foreign Affairs Committee, says Poland would like to buy more German Leopard tanks, but Berlin couldn’t deliver them before 2027: “They do not have the industrial capacity.”
Europe’s defense companies won’t ramp up manufacturing unless they’re confident of long-term increases in military spending. A commitment now may prove a bargain. “If we are losing Ukraine, which is absolutely out of my imagination, can you imagine our investments when the Russian army will be, you know, in Belarus and Brest and Lviv?” Gen. Rajmund T. Andrzejczak, Poland’s highest-ranking officer, said at a foreign-policy and defense conference in Warsaw in May. (Brest, Belarus, and Lviv, Ukraine, are near the Polish border.)
Warsaw is uneasy about America’s long-term commitment to the region. Mr. Bartoszewski criticizes the Western European attitude that “we don’t have to spend the money because [America] will defend us. . . . Imagine a President DeSantis comes and says: ‘No. I won’t.’ ”
Bogdan Klich, a former defense minister who is now chairman of the Polish Senate’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and the European Union, says that despite Ukraine’s bipartisan support in the U.S., “everything depends on who is the president.” He fears a second Trump administration would undermine NATO’s political and military unity.
Mr. Bartoszewski suggests that the Biden administration’s “disgraceful evacuation of the American soldiers from Afghanistan” helped convince Mr. Putin that he could invade Ukraine without serious consequences. Had the U.S. failed to support Ukraine, China might have concluded that the Americans wouldn’t defend Taiwan either. “America, by showing strength in Europe, helps American interests in the Pacific,” he says.
“If the U.S. wants Europe to be united in whatever happens in the struggle with China we cannot afford ourselves to have a threat in our backyard,” says Mr. Fogiel. The war in Ukraine is “a real opportunity to contain, to defeat Russia, for a very small percent of our defense budget, with no American presence on the ground.” For the U.S., in short, it’s “a bargain.” For Poland, it’s an urgent necessity.
Ms. Melchior is a London-based member of the Journal editorial board.
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Ruling the skies. NATO started Air Defender 23, the largest air force exercise in the alliance’s history. More than 20 countries, 10,000 personnel and about 250 aircraft will launch from bases in Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. Japan and NATO-aspirant Sweden are among the attendees. The exercise ends on June 23.
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https://babel.ua/en/news/95104-the-us-senate-blocks-the-sale-of-himars-batteries-to-hungary-because-it-does-not-approve-of-sweden-joining-nato?fbclid=IwAR28DHsLkmHgmUW1jPOtTNCvs_qUGnTJSg7jn7ZocnfCV48tLClSvWlhgto
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Poland Is Set for a Turbulent Pre-Election Period
11 MIN READJun 15, 2023 | 17:07 GMT
People wave EU and Polish flags during an anti-government rally organized by the opposition in Warsaw, Poland, on June 4, 2023.
People wave EU and Polish flags during an anti-government rally organized by the opposition in Warsaw, Poland, on June 4, 2023.
(WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Poland's government will implement controversial policies to disrupt the opposition ahead of a tight election in October, but pressure from the European Union and especially the United States will likely prevent Warsaw from taking an overly authoritarian turn. On May 29, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed into law a controversial bill that establishes a new special parliamentary panel with special powers to investigate Russian influence in the country. The bill has triggered an uproar at home and abroad, with critics arguing that the government could use the panel to ban opposition figures from running in Poland's general election later this year. In response to the backlash, Duda proposed amendments on June 2 that would make it easier to appeal the panel's verdicts, as well as prevent the special commission from penalizing those with alleged links to Russia (like banning them from office). But the changes have done little to ease people's concerns, with roughly 500,000 protesters taking to the streets of Warsaw on June 4 to voice their anger over the bill. On June 7, the European Commission also opened an infringement proceeding requesting Poland to block the law.
The Polish general election will see the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party compete against a host of opposition parties led by former prime minister Donald Tusk. According to Polish law, the election must take place on or before Nov. 11.
The bill grants the new parliamentary panel extensive powers to investigate actions taken ''under Russian influence'' from 2007-22. It also states that the panel's members will be chosen by the country's legislature, where Duda's ruling PiS party enjoys a narrow majority. The lower house of Poland's parliament narrowly approved the bill on May 27, overturning a previous rejection in the upper house.
Under the new changes proposed by Duda, the special commission would only be able to issue recommendations regarding individuals it found to have acted under Russian influence.
A May 29 poll showed 61% of Poles found the new law to be ''a pre-election ploy to discredit political opponents.''
In response to the bill being signed into law, the U.S. State Department issued a statement on May 29 expressing concern that the new Polish parliamentary panel ''could be used to block the candidacy of opposition politicians without due process'' and therefore ''interfere with Poland's free and fair elections.'' Shortly after, the European Commission released a similar statement and threatened to take legal action against the law, which it did on June 7.
The Polish government's decision to set up a panel to investigate opposition figures comes against the backdrop of the ruling party's declining popularity. Since taking control of the Polish government in 2015, the PiS has consolidated its grip on power by expanding its influence over the country's media and judiciary, while simultaneously imposing generous subsidies and welfare policies (including a popular child benefit program) to increase popular support. This has put Warsaw on a collision course with Brussels by weakening basic democratic values and the rule of law in the country, which has seen the European Commission impose record fines on Poland and withhold billions of euros of post-pandemic recovery funds and cohesion funds earmarked for the country. Warsaw's standoff with Brussels has fueled tensions both within the PiS, as well as between the ruling party and its main junior coalition partner (the far-right and eurosceptic United Poland party), over whether to backtrack on controversial reforms to unlock EU funds. And this — combined with the government's perceived mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, unpopular anti-abortion laws in 2020, and rampant inflation brought on by Russia's ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine — have contributed to the PiS's sliding polling numbers in recent years.
The PiS remains the most popular party in Poland, but the once significant gap between the ruling party and opposition parties has steadily eroded in recent years. The PiS is currently polling at about 35%, compared with about 47% in April 2020.
The latest controversy surrounding the government's move to establish a parliamentary panel tasked with ''combating Russian influence'' has helped further galvanize support for the opposition coalition led by Tusk's Civic Platform (PO) party, which is now polling just a few points behind the PiS. Support for the PO party reached 31% in a June 5 Kantar poll (up from about 20% in April 2020); the parties in the PO-led coalition are currently polling at a combined 41%.
In the hopes of shoring up support, the Polish government on May 14 announced a 60% increase in monthly child subsidies from next year (boosting the ''500+'' social benefit program that was crucial in helping the PiS being elected in 2015), though this failed to translate into any meaningful bump in the ruling party's polls.
The EU-Poland Standoff on Judicial Reforms
In 2018, Poland created a controversial disciplinary chamber that supervises the work of judges and prosecutors as a part of broader judicial reforms. The European Union has argued the chamber undermines the independence of Poland's judiciary by enabling the government to pressure judges. In July 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ordered Poland to abolish the chamber, which Warsaw refused to do. The CJEU then imposed a daily 1 million euro fine on Poland for failing to comply with its order, which was reduced to 500,000 euros per day in April 2023 after the body was replaced with a ''chamber of professional responsibility.'' As Poland is yet to pay its fines, the European Commission has decided to withhold 360 million euros worth of EU funds earmarked for Poland. In addition, Brussels has also suspended about 35 billion euros worth of COVID-19 recovery funds destined for the country, as well as the transfer of 76.5 billion euros worth of funds under the 2021-27 EU budget, over Warsaw's failure to roll back recent judiciary reforms and reinstate dismissed judges.
The PiS-led government will promise further spending increases and maintain a confrontational stance within the European Union, while using Russia to discredit the opposition ahead of a tight general election later in the year. With its prospects for being re-elected for a third term uncertain, PiS and its allies will increase efforts to gain a greater lead over the opposition. The government will attempt to consolidate its base through financial promises and appeals to traditional values, while retaining a foreign policy aimed at presenting itself as the defender of Polish sovereignty. In the lead-up to the general election, this will see Warsaw maintain its hawkish stance against Russia, highlighting Poland's central role in the Western alliance with Ukraine. But it will also see the Polish government take an even more confrontational and uncompromising stance against the European Union, making a resolution to Warsaw's long-standing dispute with Brussels over rule of law violations all the more unlikely ahead of the vote. In addition, the PiS-led government will seek to undermine support for opposition candidates by suggesting they have connections to the Kremlin, as evidenced by its move to establish a special commission tasked with rooting out Russian influence prior to the 2023 election. While Duda's proposed amendments to the legislation would effectively remove the new body's capacity to prevent officials from seeking office, the government will likely still use the commission as a political tool to discredit the opposition and stigmatize key candidates ahead of the election, particularly Tusk.
Poland has emerged as a key member of the Western alliance formed in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Eastern European country is Ukraine's third-largest donor and military supplier, behind only the United States and the United Kingdom (which are comparatively much wealthier nations). Poland has also hosted more than 3.5 million refugees from neighboring Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022.
Ahead of the 2023 general election, Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has so far promised to increase childcare benefits to 500 zlotys ($200) per month, which would cost the state about $15 billion per year (or roughly 10% of the government budget). The government has also promised to provide free medicine for children and senior citizens, and to grant free access to highways and expressways across the country.
But pressure from the United States — which Poland depends on for crucial military, economic and energy support — will limit Warsaw's room for action against the opposition ahead of the election. Polish politics will become increasingly tense in the coming months as the government seeks to disrupt the opposition, which in response will frame the upcoming general election as a battle for democracy and rally its supporters to stage mass demonstrations against any attempt from Duda's government and his PiS to smear their political challengers. Against this backdrop, international pressure (particularly from the United States) will somewhat limit the government's ability to repress its opponents in the lead-up to the election. Warsaw will likely maintain a confrontational approach with Brussels as a way to showcase strength domestically, even at the cost of further delaying the disbursement of pandemic recovery funds. But compared with the European Union, the United States has considerably more leverage at its disposal to contain the PiS's antidemocratic tendencies, thanks to Washington's deep economic, military and energy ties with Warsaw. With approximately 10,000 U.S. armed forces currently stationed in Poland, Warsaw sees its close security partnership with Washington as essential in deterring a possible Russian invasion, especially as the war in neighboring Ukraine rages on with no near end in sight. Imports of U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) over the past year have also been pivotal in reducing Poland's reliance on Russian gas supplies — another key strategic objective of the Polish government. If the Polish government takes drastic measures against political opponents that could see the country become more decisively authoritarian, the United States could threaten to cut or scale back the crucial support it currently provides to the country. To avoid such a scenario, Warsaw will thus likely seek to avoid taking action that could excessively undermine Poland's democratic credentials ahead of the election.
In 2020, the United States agreed to install a permanent military presence in Poland through an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The U.S. military is currently building an Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense facility in the country as well. Other U.S. assets in Poland include an Armored Brigade Combat Team, a Combat Aviation Brigade, a Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, and a hub for U.S. Air Force drone operations. Poland, which increased its defense budget to 4% of GDP in 2023, is also scheduled to receive new U.S. deliveries of key military equipment, including 250 M1A2 Abrams tanks, 18 HIMARS rocket artillery systems, 32 F-35 stealth fighter-bombers, MQ-9 Reaper ground-attack drones, and 800 AGM-114R2 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles.
The United States replaced Russia as Poland's top LNG supplier in 2023. Washington and Warsaw are also collaborating to build modern U.S. nuclear power plants in Poland.
A further deterioration in the rule of law in Poland will increase socio-political tensions in the country and exacerbate tensions with the European Union, further delaying EU funds that will undermine economic growth, while increased public spending will put upward pressure on inflation. The government's expansionary fiscal policies will amplify inflationary pressures in Poland, thus prolonging the cost-of-living crisis in the country as high consumer prices continue to erode citizens' purchasing power. Moreover, the government's continued stand-off with the European Union over rule of law issues means EU funding will most likely remain frozen for Poland in the coming months. This will weaken economic growth and undermine the investment outlook in the country, while also increasing borrowing costs for the government as Warsaw tries to make up for missing EU funds with public spending amid higher interest rates. Additionally, Warsaw will continue to oppose EU climate laws while attempting to block the European Union's recently agreed migration and asylum pact in order to boost its popularity at home, which will further exacerbate relations with the bloc even if it does not manage to stall legislation. Finally, while eventual responses from opposition parties to any attempt from the government to suppress political dissent will largely remain peaceful, rising socio-political tensions could trigger waves of social unrest in the country, causing disruptions and possibly escalating into sporadic episodes of violence.
Poland has one of the highest inflation rates in the European Union (13% year-on-year as of May 2023). The country's core inflation rate — which excludes more volatile energy and food prices — remained at a staggering 12.2% year-on-year as of April. Although falling, inflation in Poland is still set to remain high due to the tight labor market (as evidenced by the country's record-low unemployment), minimum wage hikes, and the government's pre-election expansionary fiscal policies. Poland's inflation rate is expected to be the highest in the European Union next year, with the European Commission projecting a 6% average inflation rate in 2024.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/senior-russian-official-putin-has-green-light-sever-undersea-commo-cables?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1581
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/senior-russian-official-putin-has-green-light-sever-undersea-commo-cables?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1581
I think I pointed out a long time ago about the foolishness of fcuking around with the world’s largest nuclear power. It’s very different from playing whack-a-mole with haji in Durka-durka-Stan.
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https://www.eurasiareview.com/17062023-nato-ukraine-defense-council-to-be-established/?fbclid=IwAR0RmwnLIhfLUgM2G69BBJUgPpDpREWd0fQEJxLZfZXR4fhI6srJ4ZYI-9U
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.polskieradio.pl%2F395%2F9766%2FArtykul%2F3190795%2Cpolish-lawmakers-pass-resolution-in-support-of-ukraine%25E2%2580%2599s-nato-bid%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3IkFw9yvDArMzOLVUGlv-ojFrjTHlMMTGnNl8RGce60pcWeAWXUrYHxiM&h=AT0Huv1AzzSUJh5ecKGMnzXRO879Bsbhf-d3Db4OUW6hN1KbED6mfT5ryG_C7bQTYwIeYJecc7idIiRnlnpCRD27GvDLcepVGinQ7RkxOm28mHc8-ng-4ULlHDX_KKBPuA&__tn__=%2CmH-R&c[0]=AT30MdrXJhClVImJP1GmNBDeCI36maUYIX3127hC3udIxXoVGHz-_NnnG_rBqg-Id5A1A-FMPj2CTCmYB8Q9cSGr-nfRdJ6EBGhkacC9XPDso2YAZUSaajFjhVQzBTkrRg_dSEmElLoMvAFFMqVweZTDZvWrxbzeI5nD561Q8a-_gw14pBJtpN43f3Tf9t-bL_xIKymSH8SzZ8vRtSTjZw
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https://www.eurasiareview.com/17062023-nato-ukraine-defense-council-to-be-established/?fbclid=IwAR0RmwnLIhfLUgM2G69BBJUgPpDpREWd0fQEJxLZfZXR4fhI6srJ4ZYI-9U
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.polskieradio.pl%2F395%2F9766%2FArtykul%2F3190795%2Cpolish-lawmakers-pass-resolution-in-support-of-ukraine%25E2%2580%2599s-nato-bid%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3IkFw9yvDArMzOLVUGlv-ojFrjTHlMMTGnNl8RGce60pcWeAWXUrYHxiM&h=AT0Huv1AzzSUJh5ecKGMnzXRO879Bsbhf-d3Db4OUW6hN1KbED6mfT5ryG_C7bQTYwIeYJecc7idIiRnlnpCRD27GvDLcepVGinQ7RkxOm28mHc8-ng-4ULlHDX_KKBPuA&__tn__=%2CmH-R&c[0]=AT30MdrXJhClVImJP1GmNBDeCI36maUYIX3127hC3udIxXoVGHz-_NnnG_rBqg-Id5A1A-FMPj2CTCmYB8Q9cSGr-nfRdJ6EBGhkacC9XPDso2YAZUSaajFjhVQzBTkrRg_dSEmElLoMvAFFMqVweZTDZvWrxbzeI5nD561Q8a-_gw14pBJtpN43f3Tf9t-bL_xIKymSH8SzZ8vRtSTjZw
What could possibly go wrong?
:roll:
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Seymour Hersh: Partners In Doomsday
SUNDAY, JUN 18, 2023 - 12:30 PM
Authored by Seymour Hersh via Substack
As Ukraine begins a counter-offensive and Biden's hawks look on, new rhetoric out of Russia points to a revival of the nuclear threat...
I was planning to write this week about the expanding war in Ukraine and the danger it poses for the Biden Administration. I had a lot to say. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has resigned, and her last day in office is June 30. Her departure has triggered near panic inside the State Department about the person many there fear will be chosen to replace her: Victoria Nuland. Nuland’s hawkishness on Russia and antipathy for Vladimir Putin fits perfectly with the views of President Biden. Nuland is now the undersecretary for political affairs and has been described as “running amok,” in the words of a person with direct knowledge of the situation, among the various bureaus of the State Department while Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on the road. If Sherman has a view about her potential successor, and she must, she’s unlikely ever to share it.
Biden is believed by some in the American intelligence community to be convinced that his re-election prospects depend on a victory, or some kind of satisfactory settlement, in the Ukraine war. Blinken’s rejection of the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine, voiced in his June 2 speech in Finland that I wrote about last week, is of a piece with this thinking.
Putin should rightly be condemned for his decision to tumble Europe into its most violent and destructive war since the Balkan wars of the 1990s. But those at the top in the White House must answer for their willingness to let an obviously tense situation lead into war when, perhaps, an unambiguous guarantee that Ukraine would not be permitted to join NATO could have kept the peace.
Ukraine’s counter-offensive is going slowly in its early days, and so news of the war briefly disappeared from the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. The newspapers’ fear of another Trump presidency seems to have diminished their appetite for objective reporting when it delivers bad news from the front. The bad news may keep coming if the Ukraine military’s limited air and missile power continues to be ineffective against Russia.
It is believed within the American intelligence community that Russia destroyed the vital Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River. Putin’s motive is unclear. Was the sabotage aimed at flooding and slowing the Ukraine Army’s pathways to the war zone in the southeast? Were there hidden Ukrainian weapons and ammunition storage sites in the flooded area? (The Ukraine military command is constantly moving its stockpiles in an effort to keep Russian satellite surveillance and missile targeting at bay.) Or was Putin simply laying down a chip and letting the government of Volodymyr Zelensky understand that this is the beginning of the end?
Meanwhile, there has been an escalation in rhetoric about the war and its possible consequences from within Russia. It can be observed in an essay published in Russian and English on June 13 by Sergei A. Karaganov, an academic in Moscow who is chairman of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Karaganov is known to be close to Putin; he is taken seriously by some journalists in the West, most notably by Serge Schmemann, a longtime Moscow correspondent for the New York Times and now a member of the Times editorial board. Like me, he spent his early years as a journalist for the Associated Press.
One of Karaganov’s main points is that the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine will not end even if Russia were to achieve a crushing victory. There will remain, he writes, “an even more embittered ultranationalist population pumped up with weapons—a bleeding wound threatening inevitable complications and a new war.”
The essay is suffused with despair. A Russian victory in Ukraine means a continued war with the West. “The worst situation,” he writes, “may occur if, at the cost of enormous losses, we liberate the whole of Ukraine and it remains in ruins with a population that mostly hates us. . . . The feud with the West will continue as it will support a low-grade guerrilla war.” A more attractive option would be to liberate the pro-Russian areas of Ukraine followed by demilitarization of Ukraine’s armed forces. But that would be possible, Karaganov writes, “only if and when we are able to break the West’s will to incite and support the Kiev junta, and to force it to retreat strategically.
“And this brings us to the most important but almost undiscussed issue. The underlying and even fundamental cause of the conflict in Ukraine and many other tensions in the world . . . is the accelerating failure of the modern ruling Western elites” to recognize and deal with the “globalization course of recent decades.” These changes, which Karaganov calls “unprecedented in history,” are key elements in the global balance of power that now favor “China and partly India acting as economic drivers, and Russia chosen by history to be its military strategic pillar.” The countries of the West, under leaders such as Biden and his aides, he writes, “are losing their five-century-long ability to siphon wealth around the world, imposing, primarily by brute force, political and economic orders and cultural dominance. So there will be no quick end to the unfolding Western defensive and aggressive confrontation.”
This shakeup of the world order, he writes, “has been brewing since the mid-1960s. . . . The defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the beginning of the Western economic model crisis in 2008 were major milestones.” All of this points toward large-scale disaster: “Truce is possible, but peace is not. . . . This vector of the West’s movement unambiguously indicates a slide toward World War III. It is already beginning and may erupt into a full-blown firestorm by chance or due to the incompetence and irresponsibility of modern ruling circles in the West.”
In Karaganov’s view—I am in no way condoning or agreeing with it—the American-led war against Russia in Ukraine, with the support of NATO, has become more feasible, even ineluctable, because the fear of nuclear war is gone. What is happening today in Ukraine, he argues, would be “unthinkable” in the early years of the nuclear era. At that time, even “in a fit of desperate rage,” “the ruling circles of a group of countries” would never have “unleashed a full-scale war in the underbelly of a nuclear superpower.”
Karagonov’s argument only gets more scary from there. He concludes by arguing that Russia can continue fighting in Ukraine for two or three years by “sacrificing thousands and thousands of our best men and grinding down . . . hundreds of thousands of people who live in the territory that is now called Ukraine and who have fallen into a tragic historical trap. But this military operation cannot end with a decisive victory without forcing the West to retreat strategically, or even surrender, and compelling [America] to give up its attempt to reverse history and preserve global dominance. . . . Roughly speaking it must ‘buzz off’ so that Russia and the world could move forward unhindered.”
To convince America to “buzz off,” Karaganov writes, “We will have to make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons set unacceptably high, and by rapidly but prudently moving up the deterrence-escalation ladder.” Putin has already done so, he says, through his statements and the advance deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. “We must not repeat the ‘Ukrainian scenario.’ For a quarter of a century, we did not listen to those who warned that NATO aggression would lead to war, and tried to delay and ‘negotiate.’ As a result, we’ve got a severe armed conflict. The price of indecision now will be higher by an order of magnitude.
“The enemy must know that we are ready to deliver a preemptive strike in retaliation for all of its current and past acts of aggression in order to prevent a slide into global thermonuclear war. . . . Morally, this is a terrible choice as we will use God’s weapon, thus dooming ourselves to grave spiritual losses. But if we do not do this, not only Russia can die, but most likely the entire human civilization will cease to exist.”
Karaganov’s notion of a thermonuclear weapon as “God’s weapon” reminded me of a strange but similar phrase Putin used at a political forum in Moscow in the fall of 2018. He said that Russia would only launch a nuclear strike if his military’s early warning system warned of an incoming warhead. “We would be victims of aggression and would get to heaven as martyrs” and those who launched the strike would “just die and not even have time to repent.”
Karaganov has come a long way in his thinking about nuclear warfare by comparison with his remarks in an interview with Schmemann last summer. He expressed concern about freedom of thought in the future and added: “But I am even more concerned about the growing probability of a global thermonuclear conflict ending the history of humanity. We are living through a prolonged Cuban missile crisis. And I do not see the people of the caliber of Kennedy and his entourage on the other side. I do not know if we have responsible interlocutors.”
What should we make of Karaganov’s warming of doom? Do his remarks in any way reflect policy at the top? Do he and Putin kick around the idea of when or where to drop the bomb? Or is it nothing more than an expression of Russia’s decades old inferiority complex when looking to the gleaming West, where it finds—as we see in the Biden Administration today—endless hostility toward Russia.
“This could be the clarion of a movement in Russia,” one longtime Kremlin watcher told me, “for a dangerous shift of policy or it could or the off-the-wall ramblings of a concerned but deeply Russian academic.” He added that any serious Nato political strategist should read and evaluate the essay.
Is the future of the world really only in Russia’s hands—and not in ours?
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if we vote in trump
we will not need to worry about ukraine
besides the fact this would not have happened if he was prez
he will fix it in an hour
but he would not say how since he does not want to reveal his dealmaking strategy ahead of time.........
just ask him.
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Don’t worry, the one true branch of government will start a nuclear war with Russia if that it s what it takes to keep Trump out of office.
if we vote in trump
we will not need to worry about ukraine
besides the fact this would not have happened if he was prez
he will fix it in an hour
but he would not say how since he does not want to reveal his dealmaking strategy ahead of time.........
just ask him.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-reveals-draft-treaty-ukrainian-neutrality-march-2022-which-nearly-ended-war?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1587
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Zelenskyy Questions US Presidential Candidates Calling for Ukraine Peace Deal: ‘Are They Ready to Go to War?’
Ryan Morgan
June 19, 2023Updated: June 20, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a recent interview with NBC News, pushed back on comments from Republican politicians who are hesitant to keep bolstering Ukraine’s military against Russia.
Zelenskyy joined NBC News to talk about Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive and his requests for additional weapons and aircraft for Ukrainian forces. During the Thursday interview, NBC correspondent Richard Engel asked Zelenskyy to respond to Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’s characterization of the Ukraine-Russia conflict as a “territorial dispute” and fellow Republican candidate Donald Trump’s vow to quickly end the conflict and sue for peace between the two countries.
“If any candidate thinks supporting Ukraine is too costly, are they ready to go to war? Are they ready to fight? Send their children? Die?” Zelenskyy said. “They will have to do it anyway if NATO enters this war, and if Ukraine fails and Russia occupies us, they will move on to the Baltics or Poland or some other NATO country. And then the U.S. will have to choose between keeping NATO or entering the war.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine continuing to fight is to the benefit of NATO nations like the United States.
“I wonder if those candidates realize the price Ukraine is paying in this war,” the Ukrainian president said.
Engel asked Zelenskyy whether he was worried if certain candidates winning the 2024 U.S. presidential election raised concerns for Ukraine.
“The American people will choose the most worthy president and we will support this choice. And that’s normal and fair,” Zelenskyy replied. “Of course some statements from representatives of specific groups and politicians calling for diminished support of Ukraine, yes that does worry us. I think that’s a big risk for Ukraine. It’s not the person at the top, it’s the change of policy we want to avoid. I believe that won’t happen.”
Trump, DeSantis, RFK Jr. Seek Ukraine Settlement
Rather than continuing to arm and fund Ukraine’s military, Trump and DeSantis have both called for a peaceful cessation of hostilities.
In a March response to a questionnaire from then Fox News host Tucker Carlson, DeSantis said the United States has many pressing national security concerns but “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them” and “peace should be the objective.”
Following his initial comments about Ukraine, DeSantis told Fox News host Piers Morgan that the Russian decision to invade Ukraine was “wrong” and labeled Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” but stood by his position that the United States should not get further involved in the conflict.
DeSantis also questioned the idea that Russia poses a threat beyond Ukraine, chalking up Russia’s progress so far in the war to a “loss.”
“I do not think it’s going to end with Putin being victorious. I do not think the Ukrainian government is going to be toppled by him and I think that’s a good thing,” DeSantis told Morgan in March.
Last month, DeSantis again addressed the Ukraine-Russia conflict, reiterating calls for a peaceful settlement.
Trump has repeatedly called for a peaceful settlement to the conflict, including during a contentious town hall interview with CNN in May. When CNN host Kaitlin Collins asked whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, Trump said, “I think in terms of getting it settled so we [can] stop killing all these people—Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying.”
During the CNN interview, Trump said he could bring about a peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. Trump also refused to call Putin a war criminal, saying that label “should be discussed later” but that doing so too soon would make it “a lot tougher to make a deal to make this thing stopped.”
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also called for a peaceful conclusion to the war in Ukraine.
“We will offer to withdraw our troops and nuclear-capable missiles from Russia’s borders. Russia will withdraw its troops from Ukraine and guarantee its freedom and independence,” Kennedy’s campaign website states. “[United Nations] peacekeepers will guarantee peace to the Russian-speaking eastern regions [of Ukraine]. We will put an end to this war. We will put an end to the suffering of the Ukrainian people. That will be the start of a broader program of demilitarization of all countries.”
Trump’s 24-Hour Commitment
During his interview with NBC, Zelenskyy also questioned Trump’s claim that he could reach a peace agreement within 24 hours.
“I don’t think there’s a single person in this world who could convince Putin to end the war. I don’t believe that’s possible,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine and Russia have been at odds since at least 2014, when then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from power. Yanukovych was on generally friendly terms with neighboring Russia, and pro-Russian Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas region sought to separate from Ukraine with support from Russia. Forces of the post-Yanukovych Ukrainian government have been involved in low-level fighting in the Donbas region since then. Putin cited a need to protect these pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine as part of his reason for invading Ukraine in February of last year.
Prior to Yanukovych’s ouster, Ukraine had also given Russia access to the Crimean port of Sevastopol. After Yanukovych’s ouster, Russian forces annexed Crimea with relatively minimal resistance.
While relatively low-level fighting between separatists and Ukrainian government forces continued in the Donbas region throughout his presidency, Trump has said Russia would not have invaded Ukraine the way it did in February of last year had he still been in office.
From NTD News
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Putin’s to-do list
What would happen if Russia were to prevail in Ukraine?
By Clifford D. May
Western leaders have long misunderstood Vladimir Putin.
In 2001, President George W. Bush “looked the man in the eye” and “found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.” Not exactly.
In 2015, President Barack Obama predicted that Mr. Putin would not want to “get bogged down in an inconclusive and paralyzing civil conflict” in Syria. Five hundred thousand slaughtered Arabs later, Mr. Putin has propped up his client, dictator Bashar Assad.
Angela Merkel made Germany dependent on Russian energy in the belief that Mr. Putin’s ambitions would drown in a river of euros. The chancellor was mistaken.
And after Mr. Putin dismembered Georgia in 2008 and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 (while inserting irregular forces into eastern Ukraine to wage an endless insurgency), American and European leaders went out of their way not to provoke him.
This may explain why President Biden, early in 2022, hoped Mr. Putin was planning only a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.
A question worth asking: Should Mr. Putin come out of this war looking and feeling like a winner — I’m hopeful about the current Ukrainian counteroffensive, but I rule nothing out — what would he do next? The answer, I assure you, will not be: “I’m going to Disneyland!”
Moldova is the lowest-hanging fruit. It’s not a NATO member, and its military capabilities are limited. Russia already occupies Transnistria, a strip of what used to be eastern Moldova between the Dniester River and the Ukrainian border. Moldova would probably fall to Mr. Putin within days.
Mr. Putin might want to formalize his control of Belarus, to which he recently deployed tactical nuclear weapons.
After that, perhaps a bolder move: The creation of a land bridge to Kaliningrad, a Russian territory — it was Konigsberg when it was captured from Germany in 1945 — 400 miles west of the Russian mainland.
Based in Kaliningrad is the Russian navy’s Baltic Fleet. Russian troops there are equipped with mobile nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles, and sophisticated air defense systems. Russian tanks would roll west into Lithuania from Belarus and east into Lithuania from Kaliningrad. Mr. Putin would need to take only a ribbon of southern Lithuania — in particular, the main road running from Belarus to Kaliningrad.
But Lithuania is a NATO member, so Mr. Putin wouldn’t dare, right? Don’t be so sure. He’d likely call the invasion “a special military operation to restore Russian territorial contiguity at a time of increased NATO aggression against Russia.”
He might also charge that the Russian minority in Lithuania, roughly 7% of its 2.8 million population, is being oppressed and requires his help. Neighboring Latvia and Estonia, where ethnic Russians are close to a quarter of the population, could be dealt with later.
Mr. Putin could say to NATO: “I’m open to diplomacy — a land-for-peace deal. But if you’d rather wage war, you should understand that extreme measures will be considered.”
Now ask yourself: Which NATO members would be willing to risk a nuclear war with Russia over a ribbon of countryside in the southern Baltics? Turkey? Germany? France? Would most Americans support such a conflict?
It’s tough to see how NATO could survive if it failed to defend one of its members as pledged in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
For Mr. Putin, NATO’s collapse would be a huge victory, one that his communist allies in Beijing and his Islamist allies in Tehran would regard as a significant battle won in their war against the West.
And in both those capitals, as well as in nuclear-armed Pyongyang, a lesson would be learned: The U.S. and Europe cave in to nuclear blackmail.
There’s one more geostrategic reality I want to mention. Sandwiched between Lithuania on the north and Poland on the south is the Suwalki Gap, a narrow stretch of Polish land running from Belarus to Kaliningrad.
A rail link just north of this corridor links Kaliningrad to the Russian mainland. But it functions under an agreement between Russia and Lithuania, whose relations are now severely strained.
A year ago, Lithuania, complying with European sanctions, prohibited the transit of coal, metals and building materials.
Kaliningrad’s governor called that a “serious violation” of the agreement.
A Russian invasion and occupation of the Suwalki Gap would also trigger Article 5. And it would cut off Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from their NATO allies, complicating any attempt to provide materiel and reinforcements in case of a Russian invasion.
Not just coincidentally, comrade, two years ago, Russian and Belarusian troops staged a military exercise to practice closing off the Suwalki Gap and attacking Lithuania.
Perhaps you’ll say that, after the war in Ukraine, Mr. Putin wouldn’t have the resources and manpower necessary for such aggressions. But if he’s been successful, Tehran and Beijing would be as helpful as possible. The morale of his troops would improve. And he’d have millions of Ukrainians whom he could draft and then — with bayonets pressed against their backs — use as cannon fodder.
This much we should understand by now: Mr. Putin’s mission, as he sees it, is to restore the Russian Empire, which, for less than a century, was rebranded as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
“If Russia is not defeated [in Ukraine], then it will just be a matter of time before it regroups, rearms, and that it will come for somebody next,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte told a reporter last month.
In the Pentagon and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, geopolitical strategists should be imagining scenarios such as those described above. Defense plans based on deterrence rather than appeasement should be established. A good place to do that would be the next NATO summit. It’s scheduled for July in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washing-ton Times
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He will win.
I hope he gets Zelensky and his cartel in his grasp.
Putin’s to-do list
What would happen if Russia were to prevail in Ukraine?
By Clifford D. May
Western leaders have long misunderstood Vladimir Putin.
In 2001, President George W. Bush “looked the man in the eye” and “found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.” Not exactly.
In 2015, President Barack Obama predicted that Mr. Putin would not want to “get bogged down in an inconclusive and paralyzing civil conflict” in Syria. Five hundred thousand slaughtered Arabs later, Mr. Putin has propped up his client, dictator Bashar Assad.
Angela Merkel made Germany dependent on Russian energy in the belief that Mr. Putin’s ambitions would drown in a river of euros. The chancellor was mistaken.
And after Mr. Putin dismembered Georgia in 2008 and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 (while inserting irregular forces into eastern Ukraine to wage an endless insurgency), American and European leaders went out of their way not to provoke him.
This may explain why President Biden, early in 2022, hoped Mr. Putin was planning only a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.
A question worth asking: Should Mr. Putin come out of this war looking and feeling like a winner — I’m hopeful about the current Ukrainian counteroffensive, but I rule nothing out — what would he do next? The answer, I assure you, will not be: “I’m going to Disneyland!”
Moldova is the lowest-hanging fruit. It’s not a NATO member, and its military capabilities are limited. Russia already occupies Transnistria, a strip of what used to be eastern Moldova between the Dniester River and the Ukrainian border. Moldova would probably fall to Mr. Putin within days.
Mr. Putin might want to formalize his control of Belarus, to which he recently deployed tactical nuclear weapons.
After that, perhaps a bolder move: The creation of a land bridge to Kaliningrad, a Russian territory — it was Konigsberg when it was captured from Germany in 1945 — 400 miles west of the Russian mainland.
Based in Kaliningrad is the Russian navy’s Baltic Fleet. Russian troops there are equipped with mobile nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles, and sophisticated air defense systems. Russian tanks would roll west into Lithuania from Belarus and east into Lithuania from Kaliningrad. Mr. Putin would need to take only a ribbon of southern Lithuania — in particular, the main road running from Belarus to Kaliningrad.
But Lithuania is a NATO member, so Mr. Putin wouldn’t dare, right? Don’t be so sure. He’d likely call the invasion “a special military operation to restore Russian territorial contiguity at a time of increased NATO aggression against Russia.”
He might also charge that the Russian minority in Lithuania, roughly 7% of its 2.8 million population, is being oppressed and requires his help. Neighboring Latvia and Estonia, where ethnic Russians are close to a quarter of the population, could be dealt with later.
Mr. Putin could say to NATO: “I’m open to diplomacy — a land-for-peace deal. But if you’d rather wage war, you should understand that extreme measures will be considered.”
Now ask yourself: Which NATO members would be willing to risk a nuclear war with Russia over a ribbon of countryside in the southern Baltics? Turkey? Germany? France? Would most Americans support such a conflict?
It’s tough to see how NATO could survive if it failed to defend one of its members as pledged in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
For Mr. Putin, NATO’s collapse would be a huge victory, one that his communist allies in Beijing and his Islamist allies in Tehran would regard as a significant battle won in their war against the West.
And in both those capitals, as well as in nuclear-armed Pyongyang, a lesson would be learned: The U.S. and Europe cave in to nuclear blackmail.
There’s one more geostrategic reality I want to mention. Sandwiched between Lithuania on the north and Poland on the south is the Suwalki Gap, a narrow stretch of Polish land running from Belarus to Kaliningrad.
A rail link just north of this corridor links Kaliningrad to the Russian mainland. But it functions under an agreement between Russia and Lithuania, whose relations are now severely strained.
A year ago, Lithuania, complying with European sanctions, prohibited the transit of coal, metals and building materials.
Kaliningrad’s governor called that a “serious violation” of the agreement.
A Russian invasion and occupation of the Suwalki Gap would also trigger Article 5. And it would cut off Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from their NATO allies, complicating any attempt to provide materiel and reinforcements in case of a Russian invasion.
Not just coincidentally, comrade, two years ago, Russian and Belarusian troops staged a military exercise to practice closing off the Suwalki Gap and attacking Lithuania.
Perhaps you’ll say that, after the war in Ukraine, Mr. Putin wouldn’t have the resources and manpower necessary for such aggressions. But if he’s been successful, Tehran and Beijing would be as helpful as possible. The morale of his troops would improve. And he’d have millions of Ukrainians whom he could draft and then — with bayonets pressed against their backs — use as cannon fodder.
This much we should understand by now: Mr. Putin’s mission, as he sees it, is to restore the Russian Empire, which, for less than a century, was rebranded as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
“If Russia is not defeated [in Ukraine], then it will just be a matter of time before it regroups, rearms, and that it will come for somebody next,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte told a reporter last month.
In the Pentagon and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, geopolitical strategists should be imagining scenarios such as those described above. Defense plans based on deterrence rather than appeasement should be established. A good place to do that would be the next NATO summit. It’s scheduled for July in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washing-ton Times
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"He will win."
Maybe and maybe not.
"I hope he gets Zelensky and his cartel in his grasp."
Why do you root for his victory?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
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"He will win."
Maybe and maybe not.
"I hope he gets Zelensky and his cartel in his grasp."
Why do you root for his victory?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I root for Zelensky to face justice.
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Russia invaded his country. He and the Uke people fight back! This is right and proper!
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Russia invaded his country. He and the Uke people fight back! This is right and proper!
He was hired and installed into power by the CIA and he and his cartel stole billions of our money while feeding innocent people into the meat grinder.
It's like taking sides when Los Zetas murder another cartel.
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That meat grinder is Russia turning his country into rubble.
Love ya man, but on this your thinking is not sound. The fighting spirit of the Ukes proves you wrong.
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That meat grinder is Russia turning his country into rubble.
Love ya man, but on this your thinking is not sound. The fighting spirit of the Ukes proves you wrong.
Magical thinking about "Fighting spirirt". :roll:
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They are showing up to fight. Nothing magical about it whatsoever and should readily be acknowledged but for some reason you cannot.
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They are showing up to fight. Nothing magical about it whatsoever and should readily be acknowledged but for some reason you cannot.
They are getting butchered like europe hasn't seen since WWI.
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The Russians too-- but you seek to change the subject. Stay on point please.
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The Russians too-- but you seek to change the subject. Stay on point please.
The point is the Uke offensive is a massive failure.
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Still off-point.
The point in this moment is that I have challenged your hostility to Uke success in general and Zelensky in particular and apparent rooting for Russian success.
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Still off-point.
The point in this moment is that I have challenged your hostility to Uke success in general and Zelensky in particular and apparent rooting for Russian success.
https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/7mtk8t-768x384.jpg
(https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/7mtk8t-768x384.jpg)
Putin is the least of the evils.
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Well, that does clarify :-D
As for "least of evils" I'm thinking your brand of humor and snark would get you defenstrated in short order.
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Well, that does clarify :-D
As for "least of evils" I'm thinking your brand of humor and snark would get you defenstrated in short order.
Murderous bastard Putin is, he actually appears to love Russia and his people.
Unlike our leaders…
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" he actually appears to love Russia and his people".
What a scary, naive view. He loves himself and his power and that's it.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Freezing_Order.html?id=ARVJEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ov2=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Does he love the people he steals from, all of them? Does he love the people that he murders, everyone that gets in his way?
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Does he allow 3rd world savages to stream into Russia to rape, murder and replace the Russians?
No? How unprogressive!
" he actually appears to love Russia and his people".
What a scary, naive view. He loves himself and his power and that's it.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Freezing_Order.html?id=ARVJEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ov2=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Does he love the people he steals from, all of them? Does he love the people that he murders, everyone that gets in his way?
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Well, the Russians are failing to reproduce by quite a bit , , , all on their own.
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Well, the Russians are failing to reproduce by quite a bit , , , all on their own.
I guess they need some of that Somali magic that has made Minnesota the economic miracle it is today!
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You need to work on your logic a bit.
We are discussing your apparent enthusiasm for the Putin/Russia way. To think it unsound and unsuccessful does not mean one is a Prof softy on US immigration patterns.
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You need to work on your logic a bit.
We are discussing your apparent enthusiasm for the Putin/Russia way. To think it unsound and unsuccessful does not mean one is a Prof softy on US immigration patterns.
I am for anyone who stands against the GAE and it's fake and gay NATO minions. Putin builds churches and doesn't allow his country to be invaded by 3rd world savages.
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" he actually appears to love Russia and his people".
What a scary, naive view. He loves himself and his power and that's it.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Freezing_Order.html?id=ARVJEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ov2=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Does he love the people he steals from, all of them? Does he love the people that he murders, everyone that gets in his way?
Tell me about the Biden and Clinton crime families and Epstein, Doug.
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https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/06/21/putin-says-a-political-solution-is-still-possible/
VodkaManBad!
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Will Ireland Join NATO?
Jun 22, 2023 | 17:31 GMT
Despite an ongoing debate, Ireland is unlikely to join NATO anytime soon, but the country will probably adjust its security doctrine to bring it closer to the alliance and improve its protection from Russia's unconventional aggression. On June 22, Ireland began a four-day public consultation to review the country's foreign, security and defense policies, including the specific question of NATO membership. The Consultative Forum includes academics, researchers, politicians, representatives from EU member states, and members of the general public. Once the debate is over, the forum will issue a report for Ireland's foreign ministry, which will then decide whether to make recommendations to the broader Irish government.
Ireland has been a neutral country since its independence in the early 20th century. But Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered an intense domestic debate about Ireland's neutrality in general, and NATO membership in particular. Recent decisions by Sweden and Finland to abandon their neutrality and apply for NATO membership (which Finland obtained in April) have further fueled the debate in Ireland.
Ireland's coalition government is internally divided on the issue. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (from the Fine Gael party) and Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin (from the Fianna Fail party) have both defended the Consultative Forum while also promising that it will not necessarily result in Dublin applying for NATO membership. However, lower-ranking members of both parties have heavily criticized the forum and have warned against flirting with NATO accession. On June 18, Irish President Michael D. Higgins generated significant controversy when he said that Ireland is ''playing with fire'' and ''drifting'' towards NATO. Sinn Fein, Ireland's main opposition party, described the forum as a ''blatant attempt to undermine Irish neutrality.''
The debate over NATO membership will likely continue, but significant social, political and institutional obstacles will probably keep Ireland from joining the military alliance in the short-to-medium term. To abandon neutrality, Ireland must reform its constitution, which requires support from both houses of parliament. This will prove difficult considering the internal divisions on the issue among the country's largest political parties. Constitutional reforms also require a referendum, which would prove difficult to pass. Opinion polls suggest that public support for NATO membership has risen since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but most also suggest it is still below 50%. Moreover, opinion polls indicate that Sinn Fein may win Ireland's next general election (which is scheduled for early 2025), which would further reduce the probability of NATO accession considering the party's staunch support of Irish neutrality. Even if Ireland overcomes all of its social and political obstacles to NATO membership, there would be economic disincentives. To begin with, NATO membership would probably result in a substantial increase in military spending to take Ireland closer to the alliance's target of spending at least 2% of GDP on defense (Ireland's defense spending is currently at 0.3% of GDP). Increasing defense spending may also force Ireland to modify its economic model, which is based on offering low taxes for multinationals. Because of all these factors, NATO membership is unlikely in the short-to-medium term.
Neutrality is a core part of Ireland's social and political identity, which explains why the issue is so controversial for politicians and the broader Irish society. And unlike Finland, which shares a massive land border with Russia, Ireland also lacks the same sense of urgency when it comes to a potential Russian conventional aggression.
According to an IPSOS poll published in the Irish Times on June 18, 61% of Irish voters want the country to remain neutral. However, the same poll showed that 55% of voters also support increasing military spending.
Even if Ireland is unlikely to join NATO in the foreseeable future, the country will probably still modify some aspects of its foreign policy to increase cooperation with the alliance. While the risk of a conventional Russian military aggression is low, Ireland is exposed to Russia's unconventional aggression due to its EU membership (Ireland participates in EU sanctions against Russia), its support for Ukraine (Ireland provides non-lethal assistance to Ukraine), and its close security and intelligence cooperation with the United Kingdom and the United States (both of which are hawkish on Russia). In particular, Irish authorities have expressed concern about Russian cyberattacks, as well as attacks against infrastructure, like the undersea fiber optic cables connecting Europe and the United States and the natural gas interconnectors between Ireland and Scotland. Facing these challenges, there are several things that the Irish government could do in the coming months to adapt the country's defense and security strategy to the current geopolitical climate without necessarily applying for NATO membership. For example, Irish officials have expressed interest in abolishing the country's so-called ''triple lock'' mechanism, according to which approval from the Irish government, the Irish parliament and the United Nations is required before more than 12 Irish military personnel can be deployed abroad. Dublin is also considering joining a NATO program to protect undersea infrastructure. Finally, Ireland is likely to announce further increases in defense spending, especially as the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end in the foreseeable future.
In July 2022, the Irish government announced that the country's defense spending will increase from 1.1 billion euros in 2022 to 1.5 billion euros by 2028, the largest increase in the country's history. The government also announced its intention to increase participation in the European Union's Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which promotes military integration between EU member states.
In March, Martin asked the Irish Parliament if ''with the experience of recent years, can we genuinely and honestly say that the triple lock remains fit for purpose?'' He also said that the issue of modifying Ireland's neutrality should not be binary about NATO membership, because ''there is a more nuanced, informed and layered discussion to be had [about] unpacking and examining our long-standing policy of military neutrality, while at the same time, exploring the full spectrum of policy options that are available to us as a sovereign state and a committed member of the European Union.''
In June, the head of NATO's recently-created Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination center, General Hans-Werner Wiermann, told Irish media the military alliance had confirmed that Russian ships have carried out extensive mapping of undersea cabling and pipelines in European seas, adding that it was a ''fair assumption'' that they had also mapped infrastructure in Irish waters. Irish officials have expressed interest in cooperating with the Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination center.
-
" he actually appears to love Russia and his people".
What a scary, naive view. He loves himself and his power and that's it.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Freezing_Order.html?id=ARVJEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ov2=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Does he love the people he steals from, all of them? Does he love the people that he murders, everyone that gets in his way?
Tell me about the Biden and Clinton crime families and Epstein, Doug.
It's not a back and forth so leave my name out of it.
-
" he actually appears to love Russia and his people".
What a scary, naive view. He loves himself and his power and that's it.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Freezing_Order.html?id=ARVJEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&ov2=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Does he love the people he steals from, all of them? Does he love the people that he murders, everyone that gets in his way?
Tell me about the Biden and Clinton crime families and Epstein, Doug.
It's not a back and forth so leave my name out of it.
So the American Oligarchy is off limits....
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GM:
There is an opportunity here for you to work on your interpersonal communication skills.
What Doug is saying here is the same thing I am saying when I hit you with my lawyerly "Non-responsive" and "non-sequitur" responses.
Snark suitable for the Progs, the Woken Dead, and others of that ilk is not well received by us your comrades.
-
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/stab-in-the-back-putin-vows-to-respond-decisively-to-wagner-armed-rebellion/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=31892661
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/05/15/wagner-boss-russian-troop-positions-ukraine/
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/special-report-emergency-situation?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=130558910&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
============
Looks like the raw material for a potential collapse of the Russian war effort.
Should this turn out to the be the case, things to look out for:
a) Andrew McCarthy gleefully razzing GM;
b) Biden and the Deep State crowing with the Pravdas spreading the message far and wide;
c) The Washington Wing of the GOP trying to get in on the credit;
d) those of us who predicted calamity having a lot of explaining to do.
-
GM :
"Murderous bastard Putin is, he actually appears to love Russia and his people.
Unlike our leaders…"
Well I would say the Wagner coup attempt and possible ensuing chaos and civil war throws ICE COLD water on that illogical (with due respect) statement.
https://inews.co.uk/news/wagner-coup-russia-vladimir-putin-british-army-chief-2434137
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Nothing new in mercenaries switching sides for better pay.
GM :
"Murderous bastard Putin is, he actually appears to love Russia and his people.
Unlike our leaders…"
Well I would say the Wagner coup attempt and possible ensuing chaos and civil war throws ICE COLD water on that illogical (with due respect) statement.
https://inews.co.uk/news/wagner-coup-russia-vladimir-putin-british-army-chief-2434137
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".Nothing new in mercenaries switching sides for better pay."
Thus, Putin is a great man who loves his people ?
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".Nothing new in mercenaries switching sides for better pay."
Thus, Putin is a great man who loves his people ?
Putin doesn’t allow rapefugees into Russia or the transing of Russian children. That’s why the GAE wants to destroy him.
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"Nothing new in mercenaries switching sides for better pay."
True that!
AND such action here would seem to be quite inconsistent with your insistence on impending Russian victory.
Anyway,
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/stab-in-the-back-putin-vows-to-respond-decisively-to-wagner-armed-rebellion/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=31894012
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"Nothing new in mercenaries switching sides for better pay."
True that!
AND such action here would seem to be quite inconsistent with your insistence on impending Russian victory.
Anyway,
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/stab-in-the-back-putin-vows-to-respond-decisively-to-wagner-armed-rebellion/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=31894012
Actually it’s very consistent with a desperate GAE trying to flip the script from the smell of dead Ukes and burning western wonder weapons.
-
Huh?
Anyway , , ,
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/prigozhins-siege-ends-postmortem?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Also see:
===============
Putin Uses Prigozhin's 'Betrayal' to Strengthen His Grip on Russia
Jun 24, 2023 | 22:35 GMT
Members of Wagner Group on June 24, 2023, sit on a tank in a street in the city of Rostov-on-Don.
Members of Wagner Group on June 24, 2023, sit on a tank in a street in the city of Rostov-on-Don.
(STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images)
The demise of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia's paramilitary Wagner Group, will reduce domestic criticism of the Kremlin's handling of the Russia-Ukraine war, but also open the door to additional internal repressions and personnel changes that could impact Russia's strategy in Ukraine in the long run. On June 24, a convoy of Wagner mercenary forces stopped their so-called march on Moscow roughly 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the Russian capital, after several hours of uncertainty about their ultimate goal. The group had begun its march on the Russia-Ukraine border late on June 23, as Wagner leader Prigozhin said the measure was meant to protest the Kremlin's mishandling of the war. Hours after Prigozhin gave the order for his mercenaries to advance on Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a televised address in which he said that the fighters of the Wagner Group were being "dragged into a criminal adventure" and pushed toward "an armed rebellion." The address did not mention Prigozhin by name, nor did it mention the actual goal of his uprising — namely, the removal of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov over their months-long feud concerning the lackluster war effort against Ukraine. Instead, Putin praised Wagner's fighters and specifically underlined that he had been in contact with the "front commanders" in Ukraine to reassure the public that the events had not impeded Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine. However, Putin also accused the march's participants of "treason," for which "they would answer before the law," and numerous Russian law enforcement agencies launched multiple criminal cases related to the incident.
On June 23, Prigozhin declared a "march of justice" in support of his claim that Russian army forces lethally shelled a Wagner Group position in Ukraine, which Russia's Defense Ministry dismissed as "fake" and a "provocation." Early on June 24, Prigozhin's forces seized the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, and several columns of Wagner forces began a loosely-organized drive toward Moscow, often having to take indirect routes to avoid roadblocks. Prigozhin eventually ordered the forces headed toward Moscow to stand down after he obtained "security guarantees" for them during negotiations with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. At the time of writing, Wagner fighters had already begun withdrawing from the military headquarters in Rostov, meaning Wagner's occupation will end in the coming hours.
Lukashenko's press service announced that Prigozhin accepted the president's proposal "to stop the Wagner movement in Russia and take further steps to de-escalate tensions" and that Prigozhin later confirmed that Wagner's vehicle columns moving toward Moscow would turn around and leave in the opposite direction. Prigozhin ended his political crusade before any major clashes with Russian forces could take place, which otherwise would have weakened sympathies for Wagner and Prigozhin's negotiating position. Prigozhin likely cut his losses because the disorganized columns of Wagner forces were unlikely to reach Moscow en masse or achieve their goals of removing Gerasimov and Shoigu upon arrival. State actors will reportedly drop charges against Prigozhin, who will relocate to Belarus in the coming days. It is expected that Wagner forces believed to have opened fire on Russian security forces — for example, those that reportedly downed Russian military helicopters — may still serve long prison sentences. However, in order for the Kremlin to avoid right-wing backlash, Wagner forces that did not fire upon Russian authorities will receive amnesty so they can continue fighting in the war against Ukraine.
Prigozhin's removal will result in the dissolution of the Wagner Group and those aligned with it, thereby consolidating the Kremlin's power. Still, the June 23-4 events will make it more difficult for Putin to continue echoing the military leadership's claims that Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine is going according to plan. This will provide Putin with stronger grounds to eventually reshuffle military leaders, possibly including Shoigu and/or Gerasimov, as well as other high-ranking officials responsible for economic mobilization in support of the war effort. (However, these changes may not be immediate, as the Kremlin wants to avoid sending the message that it has capitulated to Prigozhin.) In the past, Putin has been reluctant to remove high-ranking officials, further transition the civilian economy to war production, and increase mobilization measures or preemptive detentions of opponents, as he considers these factors to be unpopular and politically destabilizing. However, against the backdrop of the revolt, he is likely to receive much greater support among the public and elite in applying the aforementioned measures, which would ultimately strengthen Russia's ability to continue waging war in the long term. The Kremlin will likely also use the revolt to further establish its control over information channels in the country by removing the Wagner Group and Prigozhin from power, thereby preventing the far-right community from drifting away from Shoigu and Gerasimov, and by extension, Putin.
The Kremlin will also almost certainly use the incident to step up the repression of liberal Russians. While many of the Russian opposition movement's leaders do not sympathize with Prigozhin, as he is considered a bandit and warmonger who kills in Ukraine while pushing for escalation inside Russia, some enthusiastically shifted their stance to support him during the rebellion in hopes of destabilizing Putin's regime. For example, influential opposition voice and former political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky called for Russians to arm themselves and prepare to support Prigozhin's move on Moscow, though it does not appear such calls achieved any result.
While the short-term impact of these events will have a minimal impact on the Ukraine war, Ukrainian forces could step up attacks and push up the timetable of their counteroffensive to capitalize on the chaos. There were several reports — and accompanying video evidence — that Wagner forces fired on and shot down multiple Russian helicopters that they likely believed would attack them. These and other Russian equipment losses — as well as the significant destruction of road infrastructure inside Russia near the Ukraine border — will hurt Russian forces and logistics, but are ultimately insignificant. Furthermore, the vast majority of Wagner's forces — likely no greater than around 25,000 — had already been taken off the frontlines in Ukraine, meaning the chaos inside Russia likely had little effect on units fighting at the front. Furthermore, the incident will enable Russia to push Wagner, other private military companies and "volunteer" units to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry in line with Shoigu's earlier order. These contracts will offer unity in military command by preventing private forces from interacting with different generals and carrying out separate logistical practices from regular Russian forces, which bred distrust and animosity on the ground. Still, some reports indicate that Ukrainian forces could be taking advantage of the tense political situation in Russia by moving more of their offensive units toward the front around Bakhmut, the southern Donetsk region and the Zaporizhzia region.
At a meeting with influential ultranationalist bloggers and state media military correspondents on June 14, Putin appeared to tentatively back an order by Shoigu from June 11 for all "volunteer detachments" to sign contracts with the military by July 1.
=====================================
A final possibility is that we have just witnessed a classic Russian “maskirovka,” basically theater to distract from the fighting in Ukraine. Ultimately, no definitive casualties were reported, and a negotiated settlement was reached. It took some wind out of Wagner’s sails, improved Lukashenko’s image and, in the end, demonstrated that Putin remains in control of Russia.
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/kim-dotcom-did-putin-prigozhin-play-cia-tune/
Very plausible.
-
"Actually it’s very consistent with a desperate GAE trying to flip the script from the smell of dead Ukes and burning western wonder weapons."
The Ukes vaunted "Offensive" is an epic failure. They died without any meaningful gains and lost the allegedly game changing NATO armor in large numbers.
Then, most likely, the US got taken for at least 6 billion by Putin and his team for the fake coup plot.
Aside from that, the war is going great!
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/kim-dotcom-did-putin-prigozhin-play-cia-tune/
Very plausible.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-intelligence-knew-days-advance-wagner-rebellion-briefed-congress
Baited.
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/kim-dotcom-did-putin-prigozhin-play-cia-tune/
Very plausible.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-intelligence-knew-days-advance-wagner-rebellion-briefed-congress
Baited.
https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/230/976/original/c09611bd053aa21d.jpeg
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=852,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/141/230/976/original/c09611bd053aa21d.jpeg)
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Putin Uses Prigozhin's 'Betrayal' to Strengthen His Grip on Russia
Jun 24, 2023 | 22:35 GMT
The demise of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia's paramilitary Wagner Group, will reduce domestic criticism of the Kremlin's handling of the Russia-Ukraine war, but also open the door to additional internal repressions and personnel changes that could impact Russia's strategy in Ukraine in the long run. On June 24, a convoy of Wagner mercenary forces stopped their so-called march on Moscow roughly 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the Russian capital, after several hours of uncertainty about their ultimate goal. The group had begun its march on the Russia-Ukraine border late on June 23, as Wagner leader Prigozhin said the measure was meant to protest the Kremlin's mishandling of the war. Hours after Prigozhin gave the order for his mercenaries to advance on Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a televised address in which he said that the fighters of the Wagner Group were being "dragged into a criminal adventure" and pushed toward "an armed rebellion." The address did not mention Prigozhin by name, nor did it mention the actual goal of his uprising — namely, the removal of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov over their months-long feud concerning the lackluster war effort against Ukraine. Instead, Putin praised Wagner's fighters and specifically underlined that he had been in contact with the "front commanders" in Ukraine to reassure the public that the events had not impeded Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine. However, Putin also accused the march's participants of "treason," for which "they would answer before the law," and numerous Russian law enforcement agencies launched multiple criminal cases related to the incident.
On June 23, Prigozhin declared a "march of justice" in support of his claim that Russian army forces lethally shelled a Wagner Group position in Ukraine, which Russia's Defense Ministry dismissed as "fake" and a "provocation." Early on June 24, Prigozhin's forces seized the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, and several columns of Wagner forces began a loosely-organized drive toward Moscow, often having to take indirect routes to avoid roadblocks. Prigozhin eventually ordered the forces headed toward Moscow to stand down after he obtained "security guarantees" for them during negotiations with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. At the time of writing, Wagner fighters had already begun withdrawing from the military headquarters in Rostov, meaning Wagner's occupation will end in the coming hours.
Lukashenko's press service announced that Prigozhin accepted the president's proposal "to stop the Wagner movement in Russia and take further steps to de-escalate tensions" and that Prigozhin later confirmed that Wagner's vehicle columns moving toward Moscow would turn around and leave in the opposite direction. Prigozhin ended his political crusade before any major clashes with Russian forces could take place, which otherwise would have weakened sympathies for Wagner and Prigozhin's negotiating position. Prigozhin likely cut his losses because the disorganized columns of Wagner forces were unlikely to reach Moscow en masse or achieve their goals of removing Gerasimov and Shoigu upon arrival. State actors will reportedly drop charges against Prigozhin, who will relocate to Belarus in the coming days. It is expected that Wagner forces believed to have opened fire on Russian security forces — for example, those that reportedly downed Russian military helicopters — may still serve long prison sentences. However, in order for the Kremlin to avoid right-wing backlash, Wagner forces that did not fire upon Russian authorities will receive amnesty so they can continue fighting in the war against Ukraine.
Prigozhin's removal will result in the dissolution of the Wagner Group and those aligned with it, thereby consolidating the Kremlin's power. Still, the June 23-4 events will make it more difficult for Putin to continue echoing the military leadership's claims that Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine is going according to plan. This will provide Putin with stronger grounds to eventually reshuffle military leaders, possibly including Shoigu and/or Gerasimov, as well as other high-ranking officials responsible for economic mobilization in support of the war effort. (However, these changes may not be immediate, as the Kremlin wants to avoid sending the message that it has capitulated to Prigozhin.) In the past, Putin has been reluctant to remove high-ranking officials, further transition the civilian economy to war production, and increase mobilization measures or preemptive detentions of opponents, as he considers these factors to be unpopular and politically destabilizing. However, against the backdrop of the revolt, he is likely to receive much greater support among the public and elite in applying the aforementioned measures, which would ultimately strengthen Russia's ability to continue waging war in the long term. The Kremlin will likely also use the revolt to further establish its control over information channels in the country by removing the Wagner Group and Prigozhin from power, thereby preventing the far-right community from drifting away from Shoigu and Gerasimov, and by extension, Putin.
The Kremlin will also almost certainly use the incident to step up the repression of liberal Russians. While many of the Russian opposition movement's leaders do not sympathize with Prigozhin, as he is considered a bandit and warmonger who kills in Ukraine while pushing for escalation inside Russia, some enthusiastically shifted their stance to support him during the rebellion in hopes of destabilizing Putin's regime. For example, influential opposition voice and former political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky called for Russians to arm themselves and prepare to support Prigozhin's move on Moscow, though it does not appear such calls achieved any result.
While the short-term impact of these events will have a minimal impact on the Ukraine war, Ukrainian forces could step up attacks and push up the timetable of their counteroffensive to capitalize on the chaos. There were several reports — and accompanying video evidence — that Wagner forces fired on and shot down multiple Russian helicopters that they likely believed would attack them. These and other Russian equipment losses — as well as the significant destruction of road infrastructure inside Russia near the Ukraine border — will hurt Russian forces and logistics, but are ultimately insignificant. Furthermore, the vast majority of Wagner's forces — likely no greater than around 25,000 — had already been taken off the frontlines in Ukraine, meaning the chaos inside Russia likely had little effect on units fighting at the front. Furthermore, the incident will enable Russia to push Wagner, other private military companies and "volunteer" units to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry in line with Shoigu's earlier order. These contracts will offer unity in military command by preventing private forces from interacting with different generals and carrying out separate logistical practices from regular Russian forces, which bred distrust and animosity on the ground. Still, some reports indicate that Ukrainian forces could be taking advantage of the tense political situation in Russia by moving more of their offensive units toward the front around Bakhmut, the southern Donetsk region and the Zaporizhzia region.
At a meeting with influential ultranationalist bloggers and state media military correspondents on June 14, Putin appeared to tentatively back an order by Shoigu from June 11 for all "volunteer detachments" to sign contracts with the military by July 1.
-
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/on-the-front-in-ukraine-going-into-battle-in-a-leopard-2-tank-a-9baffb53-1e5b-4a18-8ec5-173d067721af
Going into battle in a tank is frightening, something that Sasha, 55, is quick to admit. "For the enemy, we are always the first target," the tank commander says. Misha, the 25-year-old gunner, says that he has always been lucky so far. "Two of my tanks have been destroyed since the beginning of the war, but I’m still alive." There are even soldiers who try to get out of it, says the 22-year-old loader, who goes by the nom de guerre "Hudzik." Sometimes, he says, soldiers will even invent a problem with their tank.
DER SPIEGEL 25/2023
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 25/2023 (June 17th, 2023) of DER SPIEGEL.
SPIEGEL International
None of the three Ukrainian soldiers hold it against those who refuse to fight. Misha knows that his luck, too, could turn. "If they hit the turret, you’re just a pile of ashes," he says. "It’s better to refuse to go into battle than to chicken out in the middle of the fight," Hudzik says.
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https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/coup-coo/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNYnzWPUZ04
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"Actually it’s very consistent with a desperate GAE trying to flip the script from the smell of dead Ukes and burning western wonder weapons."
The Ukes vaunted "Offensive" is an epic failure. They died without any meaningful gains and lost the allegedly game changing NATO armor in large numbers.
Then, most likely, the US got taken for at least 6 billion by Putin and his team for the fake coup plot.
Aside from that, the war is going great!
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-official-says-ukraine-has-lost-15-its-bradley-fighting-vehicles
-
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/the-darkness-ahead-where-the-ukraine?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
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Europe Is Set to Withstand Further Disruptions to Its Russian Gas Supplies
Jun 28, 2023 | 15:35 GMT
The contract overseeing the supply of Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine is set to expire at the end of next year, but the impact on Europe will likely be mitigated by the Continent's reduced reliance on Russian energy exports and increased access to new global gas supplies. According to Ukrainian energy minister Herman Halushchenko, Russia's state-owned gas giant Gazprom and its Ukrainian counterpart Naftogaz will not renew their transit contract after it expires at the end of 2024. If confirmed, this would result in the interruption of Russian natural gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine starting in 2025. The current contract, which was signed in 2019, includes the possibility of a 10-year extension beyond 2024. But the chances for such an extension are now ''slim,'' according to Galushchenko, who revealed Ukraine is already preparing for a cut-off.
Despite Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian pipeline gas has continued to flow through the war-torn country (mostly ending up in Austria, Slovakia, Italy and Hungary), although at reduced volumes. About half of Russia's gas exports to Europe now come in the form of liquified natural gas (LNG), with the other half roughly equally split between the TurkStream pipeline and pipelines that cut through Ukraine, which account for almost 5% of Europe's total natural gas imports.
The contract between Gazprom and Naftogaz was brokered in December 2019 with the help of the European Union, Germany and France. The last-minute deal was signed to ensure Russian gas continued to transit through pipelines in Ukraine, in order to avoid a repeat of the 2009 crisis that led to the complete cut-off in supplies to southeastern Europe, which at the time was fully dependent on Russian gas.
If it isn't renewed, the Gazprom-Naftogaz contract will expire on Dec. 31, 2024. But the ongoing war in Ukraine could still halt gas flows before then, whether by causing physical damage to the pipeline structure itself, or by prompting Moscow to deliberately cut-off deliveries.
If the contract expires next year, Gazprom may still technically provide natural gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine under a more flexible system. The Russian firm could, for example, provide gas through capacity booking on a short-term basis (i.e., month-ahead), replicating a model Gazprom used to send gas through the Yamal-Europe pipeline connecting Russia with Poland and Germany before those supplies were interrupted in May 2022. But this appears highly unlikely given the lack of trust and political support from all parties, particularly as negotiations would have to involve both Russia and Ukraine.
Europe's recent efforts to reduce demand, increase supply and stabilize prices will enable the Continent to withstand further eventual reductions in Russian gas. European natural gas and electricity prices spiked in 2022 as Russia slashed natural gas flows to Europe to retaliate against EU sanctions related to the war in Ukraine. The consequent energy crisis triggered rampant inflation and slowed economic growth across Europe. It also caused the Continent's industrial output to drop dramatically as sky-high gas and electricity bills forced manufacturers (particularly in energy-intensive sectors) to scale back their operations. In response, the European Union and national governments enacted price caps and launched financial support programs to both mitigate the impact of higher energy costs on consumers and businesses as well as stabilize and contain wholesale prices. To weather the crisis with fewer Russian supplies, the European Union also imposed energy-saving policies to reduce demand and took action to increase and diversify its energy supplies. Over the past year, the combined impact of these efforts to boost gas storage levels, switch to alternative energy sources, find new suppliers and cut overall gas consumption has significantly reduced Europe's reliance on Russian gas (which now comprises just over 10% of European gas imports, compared with over 45% before the war). It's also eased wholesale gas prices on the Continent (which fell to a two-year low at the beginning of June), in addition to boosting the European Union's gas inventories (which are now nearing full capacity, exceeding the bloc's storage target three months ahead of schedule).
Norway usurped Russia as Europe's largest gas supplier in 2022. Pipeline gas and liquified natural gas (LNG) imports into Europe from Azerbaijan, North Africa, Qatar and the United States have also massively increased in recent months.
Natural gas demand in the European Union fell by an all-time record of 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2022, and is expected to be down by about 60 bcm in 2023 compared with the previous five-year average, according to data from the European Commission. This was due to a combination of policy-, market-, and behavioral-driven changes, along with a milder-than-expected 2022-23 winter.
Since hitting an all-time high of above 300 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) in August 2022, natural gas prices in Europe have continued to decline on the back of falling demand and plentiful alternative supplies. Wholesale natural gas prices on the Continent reached a two-year low of €25/MWh at the start of this month, before increasing slightly in mid-June due to outages and maintenance at gas processing plants in Norway. Gas prices in Europe are now on a downward trend again, though the recent Norway disruptions highlight the potential for further volatility amid tight supply and demand balances.
Natural gas storage facilities in the European Union are now more than 91% full, according to the latest data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, exceeding Brussels' goal of reaching 90% of total capacity by Nov. 1.
If the Gazprom-Naftogaz contract isn't renewed at the end of next year, the consequent interruption of Russian natural gas supplies through Ukraine would increase energy prices across Europe, though nowhere near the levels seen in 2022 — particularly as the current global gas tightness is expected to ease significantly in 2025. The expected expiration of the Russia-Ukraine transit agreement in December 2024 means one of the two last remaining Russian natural gas corridors into Europe will be cut off starting from 2025, leaving the TurkStream pipeline delivering gas to Serbia, Hungary and Bulgaria through Turkey as the only active route. With global gas supplies expected to remain tight through the end of next year, prices across Europe will likely increase as the contract expires, even if only a small percentage of supply is removed (as shown by the recent price jump connected to the outages in Norway). The true extent to which prices increase, however, will depend on the amount of gas European countries manage to store ahead of the 2024-25 winter, as well as the overall macroeconomic situation in Europe. It will also depend on Asia's economic climate at the time, which will determine LNG demand from Europe's Asian competitors on the global market. Still, Europe is unlikely to experience the price shocks seen in 2022 thanks to the countermeasures taken at the height of the energy crisis last year, as well as the Continent's ongoing efforts to reduce demand, control price volatility, expand LNG import capacity, and sign new supply deals with other countries. Moreover, the current tightness in the global LNG market is expected to ease significantly right as the Russia-Ukraine transit contract will likely end, with substantial new supplies from Qatar and the United States set to come online beginning in 2025. This should not only help further stabilize gas prices in Europe, but could even see prices decrease despite the loss of Russian supplies through Ukraine (barring any major events that create supply and/or demand shocks, like incidents affecting Europe's gas infrastructure or a particularly cold winter in Europe or Asia).
If the Gazprom-Naftogaz agreement expires next year, Ukraine would lose out on the related transit fees (which, according to the contract, would have amounted to $7.15 billion over 2020–24, though Kyiv accused Gazprom of never having paid this amount in full throughout the conflict). But the impact on Ukraine's energy security would not be meaningful, as the country does not directly import Russian gas that flows through the pipelines in its territory. Ukraine also now produces nearly enough gas to meet domestic demand, which has dropped significantly since Russia's February 2022 invasion.
While demand reduction will help keep natural gas prices under control in Europe, much of that reduction will continue to come from lower industrial consumption. Especially until new LNG supplies come online in 2025, European producers will face higher energy prices (and, in turn, operating costs) compared with their competitors in Asia and North America — creating knock-on effects that will continue to weaken Europe's industrial production and economic growth over the next two years.
Assuming the Gazprom-Naftogaz contract isn't renewed in December 2024, negotiations to resume flows of Russian gas through Ukraine may even become part of eventual peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow. But those negotiations are unlikely to happen anytime soon, with no near end in sight to the war in Ukraine. Even after the conflict eventually ends, it would still probably take several years to rebuild trust between Kyiv and Moscow, limiting room for cooperation between the two on gas transit for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, the expensive measures already taken by European countries to wean themselves off of Russian energy supplies will also reduce their incentive to resume Russian gas flows through Ukraine, even if Moscow is willing to provide European customers at greatly discounted prices. Italy, for instance, has been working to massively increase pipeline imports from North African countries and readjust its own midstream pipeline network to move volumes northward in a bid to become Europe's new gas hub. It will be almost impossible to reverse many of these measures (such as long-term LNG supply deals or the construction of expensive import infrastructure) for several years, while the parallel reduction in natural gas consumption across the Continent (thanks to efforts to accelerate the energy transition away from fossil fuels) will also reduce the need to re-establish politically and strategically problematic energy cooperation with Moscow.
An interruption of gas flows through Ukraine would see Europe import even less Russian gas, further robbing Moscow of its ability to weaponize its energy exports to increase pressure on the West. As the Kremlin looks for new ways to preserve this leverage, Russia may start to directly target Europe's energy infrastructure (or threaten to do so) through conventional or unconventional operations (including physical or cyberattacks).
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https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/the-darkness-ahead-where-the-ukraine?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
He warned us.
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That is a really good piece!
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June 30, 2023
Open as PDF
Predictions on Russia, Wagner and Ukraine
By: George Friedman
Given circumstances, I decided to combine my ongoing series on forecasting methods with current events in Ukraine. The source book is “Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe,” written in 2013-14 and published in January 2015. It had a major focus on Ukraine and Russia’s future, as well as other countries. I’ve extracted some passages of relevance to the current situation, which I’ll include at the end of this article, but my focus here is the events of the last week.
Many people have seen the confrontation between Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin as a coup attempt. Others have argued that it was a conspiracy designed in some way to increase Russia's warfighting capability. In other words, Prigozhin and Putin were not enemies but allies.
I don’t see that as possible. Prigozhin was a creature of Putin – his caterer, then organizer of a private Russian military company giving Putin a deniable military force that could operate in many countries of interest to Russia. The theory put forward by some was that faking a coup against Putin would create some sort of military advantage. They proposed that by transferring Wagner members to Belarus, they would be in a position to strike Ukraine’s northern flank. This would, however, bring them into intimate contact with massed Ukrainian artillery and potentially action by Poland, which might regard Belarus as an independent state threatening its eastern flank as well as Ukraine. A conspiracy so vast and facing so many risks of failure doesn’t make sense.
An additional problem is that the response inside Russia to this “fake” coup was unpredictable. Morale at all levels of the Russian army might have collapsed, leaving the Wagner Group as Russia’s only functioning army. Putin may have trusted Prigozhin, but Wagner could not wage a war with Ukraine on its own. It was much too small, even if better motivated than the main Russian army.
Finally and most important, coups must move quickly in order to impose a new reality on a nation and break the spirit of potential alternatives that might want to fill the vacuum. Secrecy is essential. Declarations come at the successful end of a coup, not at the beginning as was the case here.
An attempted coup by a friend is common but shocking, and it often breaks the leader. Putin was certainly shocked but not broken.
The reason I have spent this much time on it is to introduce my own theory. I think this was an attempt to overthrow the president. The war is not going well, Prigozhin had been arguing that the army was incompetent and that he was better suited to wage it, and Putin wasn’t buying it. The action was what it appeared to be. It was a coup that failed, as many do.
But one major mystery still lingers. The Wagner Group was the most dangerous threat to Ukrainian forces. It is now dispersed and without leadership, yet Ukraine has not launched a major offensive to take advantage of the situation. The spring offensive continues at the same cautious rate as before. The events of the past week would seem to offer a huge opportunity for Ukraine, even if all the niceties of planning had to be ignored in favor of rapid action. Russia ought to send major reinforcements to Ukraine in short order, and Ukraine should be taking every risk needed to preempt this. There has been enough time to act, as the Wagner troops are awaiting orders. It may be that the Wagner Group is still an actionable force in Ukraine, but moving all of its forces to Belarus would be hard to hide. American intelligence would likely be aware of their location, and the U.S. would not send the Ukrainians into a meat grinder. Yet there has been no leak, no Ukrainian offensive and no news of a major Russian reinforcement, a fact the Kremlin would certainly announce proudly to demonstrate that Russia is still operational.
It is as if the war has been reset at several levels. It is continuing but not anywhere close to the intensity there was before the coup attempt. The Russians seem low key on the war in statements, and Ukraine does as well. The U.S. has talked a lot about the coup attempt but little about the war itself. We seem to have entered a new period in the conflict, with all sides reducing it. Putin needs to regroup, and that will take time. The Ukrainians, for all their bravado, need a settlement. The U.S. has made clear that a settlement is its goal. According to reports, the Wagner Group seems concentrated in Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh, far away from Moscow.
Ukraine is not surging into the gap, and Russia is not surging large forces to replace Wagner. The United States is quiet. So my theory, free and worth every penny, is that the door has opened to a negotiated settlement. Putin is fighting a war he is not going to win – at least not anytime soon. The U.S. has a presidential election coming, and it needs Ukraine not to win but to block Russia. While Ukrainian rage at Russia is real, it cannot resist if the U.S. wants a compromise.
Whatever that compromise is, I think the end game is starting. I could be wrong.
Following are some excerpts from my chapter in “Flashpoints” on predictions for Russia and Ukraine written in 2014:
[Russia’s] strategy has to first focus on Belarus and Ukraine. At the moment Belarus is not a problem. It is weak, has a leader who will bend to the Russians’ will, and needs Russian investment. But even Belarus can’t be taken for granted. Once the current leader, Lukashenko, leaves the scene, no one can predict the political evolution of the country. So the Russians must institutionalize their influence economically and through relations with the Belorussian intelligence services. The Russians must be constantly active in Belarus.
The more immediate problem is Ukraine. It is a story that goes back to a strategic decision made by the United States and the [European] peninsula in the 1990s. There were two strategies they could follow. One was to allow a neutral buffer zone of former Soviet-dominated states to exist. The other was to incorporate as many of these states into NATO and the EU as possible. The Russians were not in a position to block this move east. They thought, or at least claimed to have been promised, that NATO would never advance into the former Soviet Union. When the Baltic states were admitted to NATO, that promise, whether real or not, was broken. NATO had moved more than five hundred miles east, toward Moscow, and it was not one hundred miles from St. Petersburg.
The first duel was over Ukraine, the key region for Russia. It wasn’t only a matter of energy pipelines, but of the long-term physical security of Russia. The Ukrainian border with Russia is over seven hundred miles long. It is five hundred miles from Moscow over flat, open terrain. Odessa and Sevastopol, both in Ukraine, provide Russia with commercial and military access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. If Ukraine were to be integrated into NATO and the European Union, Russia would face a threat not only in the Baltics, but one from Ukraine. Loss of access to Ukrainian territory would be a blow to Russian economic strategy. A Ukrainian alliance with NATO would pose an unmistakable threat to Russian national security. Precisely that threat has resurfaced. The Ukrainian situation simply does not reach closure. Everything settled is reopened. Given its importance to Russia, this makes sense.
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There is a fragility to Ukraine. In the east the Russian influence is heavy. Polish and Romanian influence dominates in the west, and Ukrainians as a whole are divided politically between those wanting to be part of the EU, those wanting to be close to Russia, and those who want a fully independent Ukraine. This makes the Russians even more uneasy. Divisions such as these make Ukraine fertile ground for manipulation by anyone interested in it. The Russians are very aware of this vulnerability because they themselves have been manipulating Ukraine for a long time. Because of this, the Russians will interpret outside involvement as manipulation, and potentially a threat to their overriding interests in Ukraine.
American and European policy toward the former Soviet Union consisted of trying to turn former Soviet Republics into constitutional democracies, under the prevailing theory that this would stabilize them and integrate them into the Western economic and political system. As a result, both these countries and the United States engaged in the funding of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) they regarded as pro-democracy. The Russians saw funding of these groups as pro-Western and thus hostile to Russian interests. The same thing happened in Ukraine. Americans were oblivious to how Russians saw this interference. The Russians, on the other hand, did not believe the Westerners were that naive.
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Putin understood that the United States was far more powerful than Russia. He also understood that Washington could, in the long run, influence the European peninsula, particularly the countries in the borderland. But the United States was bogged down in the Middle East. Russia had a window of opportunity not only to reassert its military capability, but to reshape borderlands, particularly Ukraine, into something that would protect Russia.
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Russia faces no military threat now, but it also knows that military threats emerge suddenly and unexpectedly from the peninsula. Given the uncertain future of Ukraine, that could come quickly.
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second
Russian Nuclear Weapons for Belarus
Putin extends his control over Minsk by deploying tactical nuclear missiles in the country.
By
The Editorial Board
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June 29, 2023 6:39 pm ET
Russia said this spring that it would send tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, and on Tuesday President Alexander Lukashenko said he has received some of them. This development is another escalation by Vladimir Putin and another indication of Moscow’s takeover of Minsk.
Mr. Putin helped Mr. Lukashenko quell the 2020 protests against the Belarusian government, but at a price for Belarus independence. Military integration is a key component of Russia’s slow-rolling annexation of Belarus.
Mr. Putin has positioned Russian troops in Belarus and used its territory to launch Russian ground forces and missiles to attack Ukraine. Russia has also stationed S-400 surface-to-air and Iskander short-range missile systems there. Belarus’s Defense Ministry said in April that Russia helped train its soldiers on the use of tactical nuclear weapons, and now Mr. Lukashenko says they’re in-country.
Amid last weekend’s chaos in Russia, Mr. Lukashenko positioned himself as a mediator between Mr. Putin and the mercenary warlord-turned-rebel Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the Belarusian no doubt hopes to leverage this role for more influence with the Kremlin. Yet the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons that Mr. Putin will control is another step in the erosion of Belarus’s sovereignty.
Like Ukraine, Belarus gave up its nuclear weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia’s war in Ukraine will discourage other countries from surrendering their nuclear weapons, and now Mr. Putin is proliferating them. The Kremlin knows that its nuclear saber-rattling has had some effect on Western calculations of how much to support Ukraine, and his deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus is another failure of Western deterrence.
Russia’s nuclear deployment also illustrates what Mr. Putin had in mind for a Kremlin-controlled Ukraine. The West helps its own security when it helps Ukraine defeat Russia.
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https://www.historiologist.com/p/if-putin-goes-world-war-iii-starts
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https://michael-hudson.com/2023/06/america-has-just-destroyed-a-great-empire/ (https://michael-hudson.com/2023/06/america-has-just-destroyed-a-great-empire/)
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Please post that in Geopolitics.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUJ7CnU6hA8
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https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
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https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
The blame America for Putin's war mantra is quite tiresome to me. Author acts like all these moves of US/NATO happened in a vacuum
From the article:
"The point here is not to make arguments of moral equivalency."
But that's exactly what he does, paragraph after paragraph after paragraph, IMHO.
A balanced view would include some of the following:
"Alleged Russian political meddling documented in 27 countries since 2004"
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/09/07/alleged-russian-political-meddling-documented-27-countries-since-2004/619056001/
(Doug) Poor guy, loves his people, and has no ambitions beyond his own border? Not according to any objective account.
"Of all the democracies that emerged in the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has suffered the most from Russian interference."
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/21/russia-war-ukraine-authoritarianism-domestic-politics/
Senator Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2007 said Russia had slipped into "authoritarianism, corruption, and manufactured belligerence" and was "bully[ing] its neighbors".
https://irp.fas.org/congress/2007_hr/russia.pdf
(Doug) I'm not crazy about defending Clinton, Obama, Biden or Bush, but NATO was not the aggressor; Putin was and still is.
The "not one inch eastward" alleged ad nauseam NATO quote was made in the context of not one inch westward, or any other direction, for Russia.
When did they violate that? Every damn day.
Number one supplier of arms to Saddam to kill Americans in Gulf War I, Russia. Proxy war? Were we shocked? No. That's what they do.
Mitt Romney, 2012, number one geopolitical threat in the world? Russia. Some presciently thought China, but all knew Russia was up there, meddling, expanding, bullying, arming, threatening. It's what they do.
Neutral Finland and formerly socialist Sweden joining NATO. Why? They want war? Or they see a real Putin Russia threat and want defense?!
I don't remember anyone on our side questioning the need for missile defense sites in East Europe and we were appalled when Obama made a secret deal to cancel them.
Why would they want missile defense?
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/12/08/504737811/russia-seen-moving-new-missiles-to-eastern-europe
Not some hawkish right wing media. NPR.
Think what you will about the wars in Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the easternmost town in the US is eastport Maine, same as it was in 1798.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastport,_Maine
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Very well-argued Doug.
A follow up question:
Given what we know now, was our insistence on including Ukraine in that eastern movement a good call? Could we have kept the status quo of the Trump era?
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"Given what we know now, was our insistence on including Ukraine in that eastern movement a good call? Could we have kept the status quo of the Trump era?"
I assume you refer to this:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/01/joint-statement-on-the-u-s-ukraine-strategic-partnership/
I don't have the answers (and hindsight isn't fair). Of course there were always costs and risks to standing up to Russia - and risks (often larger) for appeasement. What was the alternative? I don't accept that they took Crimea and were already going after the eastern provinces. That negates the promise of not one inch, but exactly what should we have done, I don't know.
We could have said, you can keep what you've taken already and you can finish taking that which you have started to take by force, and we will disarm and back off, not defend Ukrainian sovereignty in any way, but that is our red line, no more, lol.
What happened, in my view, was not mainly provocation on our part, but that they smelled weakness and pounced.
OTOH, the Biden family was tied up in Ukraine corruption so I have no reason to trust that our leaders did the right thing for the right reasons.
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Jumping analogies, I think it's crazy that totalitarian China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council while democratic Taiwan is not accepted as a member. What's the matter with us? Yes I want the US to recognize and advocate for Taiwan and at the same time I understand honesty and doing the right thing carries big risks. A certain amount of caution might be prudent, but letting them take Taiwan is out of the question for me. If they invade just the (Mandarin speaking?) western provinces, (hypothetical analogy) let it go? It's their backyard.
BTW, didn't we lose Hong Kong under Trump - distracted by covid?
https://www.hrw.org/feature/2021/06/25/dismantling-free-society/hong-kong-one-year-after-national-security-law
Restraint has it's costs and losses as well.
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Now some overreach the other direction:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/05/ukraine-nato-open-letter-00104575
When I saw Alexander Vindman was one of the"experts", it reminds me, no one is an expert on stopping psychopaths with nuclear buttons.
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Summarizing my understanding of the chronology- and I might be getting some of this wrong:
Regarding the Donbas area, genuine Russian speaking vs. Uke speaking historical complexities exist. I have related in this thread previously my Jewish Russian born/Russian speaking now American citizen friend whose grandparents fled to Russia to escape the Nazis and her take on things. Whatever the case, the Obama-Biden chapter of America did diddly squat.
2008 (or was it 2014?)- US (Victoria Nuland at State Dept et al) backed the overthrow of the elected (and Russian supported government). Recording exists of Nuland speaking of this and she has claimed we put $1B into the effort. Somehow this usually gets left out of the story.
How would we feel if Russia or China did something similar in Mexico?
IN RESPONSE, Putin blew off the Budapest Memorandum of 1993 and took Crimea. Somehow that this was a response usually gets left out of the story.
Whatever the case, the Obama-Biden chapter of America did diddly squat. MREs and blankets?!? Seriously?!?
Putin has always been quite clear that the Ukes joining NATO was a red line for him for reasons rather analogous to our Monroe Doctrine. How would we feel if Russia or China were working to get Mexico into a military alliance?
Bush 43 was working to bring Georgia into NATO and Putin put an end to that with invasion of the Ossetia region. It is not like we did not know that the man meant it when he said "red line". So why persist with Ukraine, of far higher importance to Russia when neutrality was an option-- in effect the status quo of the Trump era?
For me this is a central question.
Instead, Sec Def Austin and VP Harris in the fall leading up to the invasion (while on Euro soil IIRC) spoke of the Ukes entering NATO. "No one can tell the Ukes what to do" blah blah. Hubris!!! All this after Afghanistan and pulling the US Navy out of the Black Sea.
The policies of the Bush 43-Obama-Biden chapters of America have been an extraordinary blend of weakness, incoherence, bluster, and hubris-- and now, even if we "win" (whatever that looks like) Russia has been driven into China's arms. This is a great error of deep geopolitical significance IMHO.
The Trump chapter of America had it exactly right.
a) Hard on the NATO Euros to pay their fg share;
b) Hard on Germany over Nord Stream;
c) Strong on America as provider of energy (thus driving down prices for Russia as added benefit);
d) Killed 250 Wagners in Syria and shot 39 cruise missiles up Russian ass in Syria;
e) Trained up the Ukes via SOCEUR and provided stingers and other deadly toys;
e) sweet talk in public with Putin so as to allow him to save face in front of his Russian audience.
In my opinion, all this should have been continued. Russia would not have invaded and Russia would not now be a junior ally to China, solving much of its food and energy needs.
Having stirred up the shitstorm that he did, Biden was ready to fly Zelensky out when the Russians invaded. Somehow, this too does not get mentioned.
My guess is that Z. reminded/blackmailed him into the support that we see.
More shortly. Electrician is here.
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https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/imperialist-red-herring-nato-expansion-and-the-ukraine-war/?fbclid=IwAR37oOqcYiaosFfwJ64q-43zRQ5i_OfW_Cvzw7AHqrvPpxIFVqlOkC7xBqc
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Great summary Crafty. More balance and insight than most takes we read that tell only one side of it. I have some questions along the lines of which came first the chicken or the egg.
Russia responded to the coup, but wasn't
'the coup', whether Ukrainian alone or American-backed, a response to Russia installing a Russia supporting Ukraine government. US offers defense help etc, NATO or otherwise, not because billions were burning a hole in our pockets but because Ukraine has been under threat, meddling, attack etc from the start and especially through the Putin years (decades).
I like the long list of what Trump did right. Even the friendly pubic face to Putin. We knew what that meant, a part of the negotiations, but had to listen to how the ruthless media opponents framed him a Putin appeaser but he wasn't. Funny that Putin invaded Ukraine during the administration before and the administration after but not during those four years. He isn't say, I'll have more flexibility after my reelection, even though all his advisers wrote tell-all books.
On the Putin-motive side of it I stand by my earlier observation. We pose a threat to his expansion plans, not to his sovereignty or his republic. It wasn't Trump who called for regime change but don't we openly support, with words, free elections everywhere? While Putin murders his opposition. Words to oppose that, free speech 8 time zones away, are off limits?
On the analogy side, Mexico IS invading us and we still aren't invading or installing pro-American government or 'annexing' them. For whatever happened in the 1960s, we still haven't toppled the Cuban government or annexed them
There's no easy answer or way out of this now. As stated, build a strong America, strong economy, strong defense, that is our best long term approach, and elect wise leaders we need to be able to trust to handle the risks, tradeoffs, capable of subtlety, action and restraint needed in the current mess. Not feeble, corrupt or short sighted ones.
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"(W)asn't 'the coup', whether Ukrainian alone or American-backed, a response to Russia installing a Russia supporting Ukraine government"?
There was an election. Perfectly reasonable to think that the Russians had their thumb on the scale and yes there was considerable Uke street action/uprising against the Russian backed government. Indeed before "Fire Hydrant of Freedom" was peeled off from "Dog Brothers Martial Arts" we had this thread:
https://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2480.msg78632#msg78632
Note the opening entries.
That acknowledged a brief trip down memory lane will turn up LOTS of examples of American meddling in our backyard in Latin America-- including for "stopping communism" e.g. stopping Russia from making establishing a one-mile runway in Grenada- the length of which was relevant only to heavy military cargo planes. And what did Reagan do? He invaded!
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"And what did Reagan do? He invaded!"
Yes. Nitpicking, the analogy I was looking for was, invaded and annexed. :wink:
Southernmost point of the 'continental' USA is still Key West, since 1822.
71 Cubans were killed. Again the chicken egg question on meddling.
I think ccp was there...
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-live-rebel-saboteurs-cause-chaos-by-burning-railroads-near-moscow/ar-AA1dCmzU?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2f8852a304a346c1bae76b581b0b74f2&ei=72
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https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/azov-commanders-return-6th-column?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=133960494&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/07/11/nato-summit-2023-vilnius-lithuania/70384574007/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/wagner-mercenaries-entering-belarus-as-minsk-announces-road-map-for-joint-military-drills/ar-AA1dTZbz?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=1dbad86489004a8a96f8278e11a4cf28&ei=9
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Not a fan of FP, but it is seriously focused on geopolitics and so it does have articles I want to see, but at $20 a month count me out.
That said, I do want to see the following very much:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/11/obama-russia-ukraine-war-putin-2014-crimea-georgia-biden/?fbclid=IwAR0r_IGqUNCZHNiTY0OyuK5zdZZ63Xm3aRRREdWO9D0ShyQDH4Fxs1Zo2fY
They do give some freebies to people nibbling, so if any of you here would be willing to nibble with them, get this as a freebie, and post it here I would be grateful.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/flying-russian-flags-more-wagner-troops-roll-into-belarus-as-part-of-deal-that-ended-their-mutiny/ar-AA1dYpjg?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=8575e75bbf404f69905a5024d8574681&ei=13
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Second
https://amgreatness.com/2023/07/16/have-we-forgotten-the-russian-way-of-war/?fbclid=IwAR2l_z6JNKs9hE67UizpIVgUaaLecik0a2KXK_6VCIWQlK6ZSHJt0817xIY
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The Long, Destructive Shadow of Obama’s Russia Doctrine
A series of bad decisions during the Obama years prepared the ground for Vladimir Putin’s war.
By Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the founder of Myrmidon Group.
JULY 11, 2023, 4:22 AM
In an interview with Times Radio in May, Richard Dearlove, the former head of Britain’s MI6, observed that “the policy that [U.S. President Barack] Obama followed in 2014, when there was this initial Russian invasion … the way that this was handled, with the benefit of hindsight, was probably a mistake.” Dearlove was right, but he missed a salient point: The decisions made in the Obama years aren’t just something to observe through the rearview mirror. Obama’s policies continue to exercise a major influence on the course of the Russia-Ukraine war and have resulted in the unnecessary loss of tens of thousands of civilian and military lives.
Today, Ukraine is in the early stages of what its leaders say is a major counteroffensive to recapture the roughly 20 percent of its territory occupied by Russia. The task of reconquest is far from simple. Not only has Russia’s military spent many months creating strong lines of defense and digging in, but Ukraine is also handicapped by the slow and belated provision of military aid. It still lacks significant air power and long-range missiles, two categories of weapons that would make reconquest less costly.
Ukraine has already endured an eight-year hybrid war that took 14,000 lives before Russia’s massive invasion in 2022 took even more—with tens of thousands and perhaps as many as several hundred thousand people killed on both sides. Russia at one point held as much as 27 percent of Ukrainian territory before its forces collapsed on several fronts. Yet Ukraine still lacks a wide array of necessary weapons to reclaim what Russia still occupies.
In truth, all these predicaments trace back to Obama’s Russia policy. Indeed, it can be argued that Obama’s approach to Russia and Ukraine continues to influence the situation fundamentally and detrimentally on the ground and in the U.S.-led allied response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s all-out war.
Without question, Putin bears full and total responsibility for his war on Ukraine and the suffering and death his forces have inflicted. But his attack on Ukraine in 2014, his growing imperial ambitions, and his subsequent decision to obliterate the Ukrainian state have their roots in the policies and actions of the United States and its allies during the Obama years.
Obama’s Russia policy, including his embrace of the doctrine of Kremlin escalation dominance, has continued to shape U.S. policy during the Trump and Biden administrations.
For most of Putin’s years in power, the United States and the West responded inadequately to Russia’s increasingly aggressive acts, from a series of assassinations in Western countries to the occupation of other countries’ sovereign territories. It began with then U.S.-President George W. Bush’s weak reaction to Putin’s 2008 invasion of Georgia. When Obama came into office, he compounded Bush’s mistake. Instead of pivoting to punish Russia for its aggression, he tasked his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, with launching a “reset” in relations, wiping the slate clean of Russia’s misdeeds in Georgia. More significantly, Obama scrapped the Bush administration’s plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, a decision Putin personally cheered.
Nor did Obama adequately grasp the scale of the looming Russian threat. During the 2012 presidential election campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney declared that Russia “is, without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe. They fight every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that [Obama] has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed.” In response, Obama mocked his rival: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
In 2014, after Russia had already annexed Crimea, shot down MH17, and sent Russian troops and security services into combat in Ukraine’s Donbas, Obama staunchly opposed sending arms to Ukraine. He responded to the Russian invasion of Crimea with only minor sanctions targeting Russian individuals, state banks, and a handful of companies. He rejected a leading U.S. role in diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war, delegating responsibility to France and Germany. While it makes logical sense to expect European countries to take charge of security on their continent, these countries lack the United States’ geopolitical heft, and Putin has never accepted them as peers of or negotiating partners for Russia. What’s more, these two European countries were heavily dependent on trade with Russia and showed little interest in the security of Eastern European countries. Most damaging was Obama’s clear statement that Ukraine was not a U.S. strategic priority.
Speaking with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in the Donbas, Obama emphasized the limits of his commitment to Ukraine. As Goldberg wrote: “Obama’s theory here is simple: Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there.” Goldberg then cited Obama as saying, “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.” In other words, a U.S. president all but acknowledged Ukraine as a Russian client state, telegraphing to the leader of an aggressive, revisionist power that the United States would stand down if Russia were to widen its war. Moreover, the doctrine of Russian escalation dominance—that the Kremlin would always be willing to exercise superior power to get its way in Ukraine, whereas the United States would not—became the governing principle of U.S. policy. This principle echoes to this day, holding back U.S. support for Ukraine.
During a recent interview with CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour, Obama doubled down on his weak response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine in 2014. “We challenged Putin with the tools that we had at the time, given where Ukraine was,” Obama claimed. It’s true that in the early days after Russia’s shock invasion, Ukraine’s degraded armed forces were not ready to fight back to reclaim occupied territory. But Obama neglected to mention that within months, Ukraine had significantly rebuilt its armed forces, in large measure aided by the heroism of volunteer fighters who enlisted by the tens of thousands in a vast civic movement to protect their country. And that means that the most important tool Obama had at that time was to give these fighters lethal weapons, which he steadfastly refused to deploy for the rest of his presidency.
An collage illustration shows map segments with member countries — and possible future members — of NATO. Russian President Vladamir Putin is seen in profile with a tear of Ukraine map to signify the effect of the Russian war on the alliance.
An collage illustration shows map segments with member countries — and possible future members — of NATO. Russian President Vladamir Putin is seen in profile with a tear of Ukraine map to signify the effect of the Russian war on the alliance.
NATO’s Next Decade
Turn Ukraine Into a Bristling Porcupine
Criticism of Obama’s stance on Ukraine—or, for that matter, the stances of then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel or then-French President Francois Hollande—is not a matter of hindsight. Distinguished voices in the foreign-policy community and the U.S. Congress, including late Republican presidential candidate John McCain, called for broader sanctions and urged Obama to arm Ukraine from the outset of Russia’s 2014 aggression. Yet despite congressional resolutions calling for such aid, Obama opposed sending Ukraine weapons and invoked the doctrine of Russian escalation dominance. Instead, throughout the Obama years, U.S. aid was limited to hundreds of millions of dollars in non-lethal equipment and military training, the latter largely spent on U.S. personnel.
Obama’s Russia policy, including his embrace of the doctrine of Kremlin escalation dominance, has continued to shape U.S. policy during the Trump and Biden administrations. Although Donald Trump behaved badly toward Ukraine by trying to enlist Kyiv in his efforts to weaken presidential rival Joe Biden, he greenlighted the shipment of Javelin anti-tank weapons in 2017 and 2019. Nonetheless, years of fierce debate merely over sending Javelins stifled discussion of other weapons needed by Ukraine, including air and missile defense, battle tanks, fighter jets, and long-range missiles. These could have made Ukraine more secure before 2022, and some of them are still not in Ukraine’s arsenal today.
To his credit, Biden advocated arming Ukraine with defensive weapons when he was vice president under Obama. But when he became president himself, Biden brought many of the architects of Obama’s timid approach to Russia back into the government. As a result of their influence, from the moment in the fall of 2021 when the U.S. government knew Putin was planning to invade to the start of the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the United States lost a crucial window in which to provide Ukraine significant new weapons and the training to use them. Instead of much-needed howitzers, tanks, multiple-launch rocket systems (such as HIMARS), and heavy ordnance, Washington doled out modest assistance enabling not much more than partisan resistance.
Even when the Biden administration became convinced Russia would wage war around October 2021, it still restricted aid to a meager $60 million worth of small arms and ammunition. Only in December 2021 did Biden finally approve a $200 million shipment of shoulder-fired missiles and other lethal and non-lethal aid. The package included 300 Javelin anti-tank missiles that arrived in January, mere weeks before Russian forces began their multifront assault. And still, there were no heavy weapons in sight.
To be sure, the Biden administration and its NATO allies have reassessed—and in some measure departed from—Obama’s idea of Russian escalation dominance. Yet the lingering influence of the doctrine has contributed to the long-standing denial of long-range missiles, and it has delayed the provision of combat aircraft to Ukraine.
Indeed, the doctrine of Russian escalation dominance persists in a more limited form to this day. Biden’s continued invocations of Putin’s potential willingness to use nuclear weapons is proof of its influence, as is the United States’ concern that Ukraine may take the war to Russian territory. There is no question that Washington should not ignore Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. But fear of Russia’s use of tactical nuclear weapons should never paralyze efforts to arm Ukraine adequately. Putin’s use of nuclear weapons is highly unlikely, especially now that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has explicitly warned Putin about using them in Ukraine. Second, it is for Ukrainians to determine for themselves their strategy of war and the risks they are prepared to take. As for Russia’s alleged nuclear escalation dominance, the United States has a familiar doctrine of its own to counter it: nuclear deterrence. If Biden no longer believes mutual deterrence protects us from nuclear escalation, he may as well submit to Putin now, let him restore the Russian Empire, and allow Moscow to project its power into the heart of Europe.
Regrettably, the abiding influence and long afterlife of Obama’s Russia doctrine will soon result in the further unnecessary loss of many thousands of Ukrainian lives. Had Ukraine been systematically armed by the West in the eight years after Russia launched its hybrid war in 2014, it is likely Ukrainians would have better held the line during Russia’s February 2022 invasion. It is even possible Ukraine could have dealt Russia an early decisive blow to its initial advances. Had a well-armed Ukraine fought back with full force, Russia’s massive territorial gains could have been avoided, and we might have been spared such Russian-perpetrated atrocities as Bucha, Irpin, and Mariupol.
It is, of course, possible that no policy could have deterred Putin from taking Ukrainian lives, razing civilian homes, destroying civilian infrastructure, and seizing Ukrainian territory. But Putin’s rising imperial ambitions and the high costs Ukrainians are paying for them are at least in part the fruit of Obama administration policies that continue to exert a powerful influence to this very day.
Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the founder of Myrmidon Group.
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Thank you for finding that for us.
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July 21, 2023
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Poland as a Great Power
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
In my book “The Next 100 Years,” which was published in 2009, I argued that Poland would become a dominant power in Continental Europe in the coming decades. Several political and military officials seem to be finally coming around to the idea. Most recently, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace signed a new bilateral 2030 Strategic Partnership with Warsaw. During the signing, Wallace said Poland would soon have the biggest army in Europe and commended its strong support for Ukraine. And though that might be a slight exaggeration, that he said it at all attests to the state of Polish military affairs.
Considering the state of Poland from 1939 to 1991 – that is, from partition through Soviet occupation – my forecast may have seemed untenable at the time. But my reasoning was sound, geopolitically speaking. I believed Russia would put heavy pressure on its western flank to build strategic depth. NATO, which was formed as a mutual defense force to operate as a single force, would not be able to command all of Europe’s forces; it would be able to direct only those who had an interest in deploying troops in the first place. Though several European countries fit that description, the country with the best capability of blocking Russia, and the most vested interest in doing so, was the United States. And if they ever wanted to halt Russian advances, Poland was essential. It has a broad front facing a potential Russian advance, and it would provide for the movement of forces up into the Baltics or south toward Hungary and Romania. Poland is, in other words, the geographical foundation for the defense of Europe.
The possibility of a Russian advance became all the more real after the Ukrainian revolution in 2014 against a pro-Russian president. Moscow saw the uprising as a transformational event that turned an ally into a U.S. satellite, and it began to prepare its military accordingly.
The U.S. understood the long-term possibilities Russia was creating. While much of Eastern Europe wanted to stay out of any Russo-American confrontation, Poland didn’t have that luxury. The mutual threat of Russia was the foundation of the U.S.-Polish relationship, which, along with active allies such as the U.K., was the basis of an anti-Russian strategy. Washington thus began to shape Poland into a self-sufficient military force by providing weapons and training and building the requisite infrastructure to host a major American presence in the event of a war.
The argument I made was that Poland, emotionally recalling Soviet occupation and (correctly) understanding that any war fought would be fought within its border, embraced the idea of creating a self-sufficient force as soon as possible. It was betting that a close relationship with the United States also would give it a dominant role in Eastern Europe. From Obama to Trump to Biden, equipment, intelligence and training flowed to Poland.
The massive flow of weapons and the training of a military force gave the U.S. a secure base from which it can now supply Ukraine. It also gave it a force that is available to move eastward if required. The British secretary of defense should be a competent judge in terms of Poland’s armament and willingness to engage, so the claim that Poland will become the preeminent military force on the European peninsula is, I think, reasonable. It is capable of engaging, and it certainly has a chance to prevail if the war evolves that way.
Military power isn’t the sum total of national power, of course. But I would argue that Poland has become powerful because it is useful to U.S. strategy, the baggage of that dependency notwithstanding. National power depends on an economic foundation that is not only designed to build weapons but to use economics as a defensive and offensive weapon. Until Poland does this, it cannot claim to be a great power. But it should be remembered that the United States recovered from the Great Depression and rebuilt its economy through World War II. A successful war can drain a country and then empower it. The number of businesses setting up shop in Poland suggests that my broader forecast may be correct. But the war has to end favorably, and the Polish economy must be ready to accommodate economic opportunity. If it does and is, Polish power may not dominate Europe, but it will certainly be critical in shaping it.
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Lukashenko Won the Putin-Prigozhin Fight
The dictator of Belarus recognized the mutiny in Russia as an opportunity to empower himself.
By Anchal Vohra, a columnist at Foreign Policy. FP subscribers can now receive digests of new stories written by this author. Subscribe now | Sign in
JULY 17, 2023, 1:24 PM
There was an atmosphere of nervous excitement in the offices of the Belarusian opposition in Vilnius and Warsaw late June as Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin rebelled against the Kremlin elite and marched on Moscow. It seemed that troubles inside Russia might keep President Vladimir Putin preoccupied and leave his ally in Minsk to fend for himself.
For the first time in three years, since Aleksandr Lukashenko allegedly rigged the elections and forced opposition leaders into exile, there was cautious hope that they may find the chance they were looking for to launch an uprising, depose the autocrat, and usher in democratic governance.
“We thought that this could develop into the X hour—when the window of opportunity for our victory opens again,” Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of the democratic opposition, wrote to Foreign Policy in an email. Tsikhanouskaya quickly reached out to all pro-democracy Belarusian representatives, including “the Belarusian volunteer units in the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” she said.
“We were feeling so motivated,” added Pavel Latushka, her deputy and former Belarusian minister of culture, from Warsaw. “We convened a meeting of the transitional cabinet on Zoom,” he said over the phone, and pulled out the Peramoga, or Victory Plan—which lays out the steps to overthrow Lukashenko.
“Tens of thousands of activists would go to places they needed to and start their activities,” encouraging hundreds of thousands of others to join en masse, he said, alluding to large-scale protests including sabotage actions.
But the exhilaration was short-lived. Their hopes were quashed, once again, by Lukashenko himself, who mediated between Putin and Prigozhin on June 24 and brought the Russian mutiny to an anticlimactic end. He played statesman, a loyal ally, and in his usual braggadocious manner relayed details of how he advised the Russian president against executing Prigozhin.
“I said to Putin: ‘Yes we could take him out, it wouldn’t be a problem, if it doesn’t work the first time then it would the second,” he bragged to Belarusian security officials while sharing selected chunks of his conversation with the Russian president. “I told him: ‘Don’t do it, because afterwards there will be no negotiations and these guys will be ready to do anything.’”
Lukashenko will perhaps never stop boasting about saving the day for the Kremlin, but Belarusian politicians and analysts believe his intervention was rooted in self-interest. He hoped to further a long-nurtured ambition or at the very least ensure his own survival as Belarus’s president.
Lukashenko understands that instability in Russia would spill over to Belarus and strengthen democratic forces at home threatening his rule. Some say he owes his survival to Putin, who assured him of military reinforcements amid mass protests in 2020 and sent him a billion and a half dollars in a loan to strengthen his position. If and when the democratic forces rise again, Lukashenko knows he has only one ally. But protecting Wagner from Putin’s wrath and allowing it to base in Belarus, analysts said, opened up other opportunities, too, including partnering with Wagner in its resource loot in Africa and using the mercenaries as an extra tier of personal security at home.
“On the day of the mutiny in Russia, he tried to help his senior partner, his boss, to pay him back and show his loyalty,” Pavel Slunkin, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former Belarusian diplomat, told Foreign Policy on a visit to Brussels. Slunkin believes that contrary to Lukashenko’s claims, he was merely Putin’s messenger and not a negotiator on equal footing.
While there are varied interpretations of how big a part Lukashenko actually played in bringing the Russian mutiny to an end, there is a consensus that he was directly involved.
The Perils of Hosting Prigozhin in Belarus
Why welcoming the Wagner Group carries risks for Aleksandr Lukashenko’s rule.
ANALYSIS | KATIA GLOD
Belarusian U.N. Ambassador Valentin Rybakov, a man wearing a dark suit, stands at a podium decorated with the U.N. emblem as he speaks to a crowd. Behind him, three other members sit at a high platform.
Belarusian U.N. Ambassador Valentin Rybakov, a man wearing a dark suit, stands at a podium decorated with the U.N. emblem as he speaks to a crowd. Behind him, three other members sit at a high platform.
Russia’s Support Seals Belarus’s Fate at the U.N.
The race for a seat on the U.N. Security Council turned into a proxy fight between Russia and the world.
REPORT | J. ALEX TARQUINIO
“Putin was about to obliterate Wagner, but several hours later there is an agreement that Prigozhin will go to Belarus, and no one even touches him,” said Yauheni Preiherman, the founder and director of the Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations. “Lukashenko did exercise his agency.”
Since brokering the deal, Lukashenko’s popularity inside Russia has skyrocketed. According to a poll by Levada Center on July 1, a week after he brokered the deal, Lukashenko was the second most popular politician in Russia, after the Russian president. For a man who wanted the top job in Russia, such high popularity could be a reason for strife with his patron. Yet Lukashenko has played a bold game.
A firm believer in the Soviet Union, Lukashenko rose from humble beginnings—from a deputy chairman of a collective farm to the position of president. In 1999, when he agreed to the treaty to form the Union State of Russia and Belarus, a supranational union, he had hoped he would become the president of the Russian Federation and Belarus. But in the end, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin chose Putin as his successor.
“I have met this guy many times, and I can tell you what he is thinking—he still wants to be the president,” of the Russian Federation and Belarus, Latushka said. “Over the last month, Lukashenko has met many governors of the Russian region,” Latushka claimed. “Now he has created maximum support in Russian society, especially among the elite, and he is sending the message ‘I am your guy,’ he is playing his own game.”
But while Lukashenko wants to lead a combined Russian and Belarusian state, he doesn’t want Putin to merge the two, rendering him jobless. He has been skeptical that Putin might one day unseat him and has at times made overtures toward the West.
Artyom Shraibman, a Belarusian scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Russian attacks on Georgia and Crimea unsettled Lukashenko, who feared Belarus could be next. However, during every election, he has turned to Moscow’s assurances to curb dissent and stay in his chair.
“When Russia attacked Georgia in 2008, he started to flirt with the West. Then elections came in 2010, and Lukashenko cracked down on protesters. That froze relations with the West,” Shraibman said. “In 2015, relations with the West started to normalize again, and he started to release political prisoners. That was after Russia annexed Crimea. But then there was another election in 2020 with far greater public mobilization and bigger protests.” Again, Lukashenko cracked down on protesters with Putin’s backing and relations with the West collapsed, Shraibman added.
Putin needs Lukashenko, too. As he invaded Ukraine, he banked on his only ally in the region to station Russian troops and threaten the West that he would move Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus that shares a border with NATO states. But Lukashenko is by far more dependent on Putin’s goodwill, which he may have risked with his recent bluster. At first Putin thanked his Belarusian counterpart, but later seemed to downplay his role by crediting Russian security forces with stopping a “civil war.”
Furthermore, in an insult, even Wagner seems to have rejected Lukashenko’s proposal. A day after he offered refuge to Wagner fighters, he tried to sell the idea to Belarusians, vehemently opposed to hosting the mercenaries, as beneficial to the Belarusian army. “They will tell us about weapons,” he said, “which worked well, and which didn’t. And tactics, how to attack, how to defend.” Belarusian news agency Belta quoted Lukashenko on its Telegram channel confirming Prigozhin’s arrival. “I see that Prigozhin is already flying on this plane. Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” he said.
In an attempt to show his readiness to host Wagner, Lukashenko allowed the independent press to see thousands of tents erected in an unused military base. But two weeks after he brokered the deal they lie vacant, and Wagner fighters, along with their chief, are in Russia trying to strike a deal with the Russian president.
The Kremlin confirmed that more than 30 Wagner commanders met Putin on June 29 and presented their version of what transpired over June 23 and 24. They underscored that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state and the commander-in-chief” and wish to continue to “fight for their homeland,” in Ukraine. Putin has offered them “options for further employment and further use in combat,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
As Putin scrambled to contain the rebellion, Lukashenko found a moment to shine and prove his relevance. But the challenge to Putin has also boosted the morale of Belarusian opposition. The mutiny has exposed Putin’s invincibility as “an illusion,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “Lukashenko will not last even a day without Putin.”
“Belarus is boiling, and the only way to keep the lid on is by increasing repression,” she said, adding that there are more than 5,000 political prisoners in Belarus, with only a third officially recognized—including her husband. “But at one point, this won’t work anymore, and the lid will blow off.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftiioAvH3ug&t=92s
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July 24, 2023
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Much Hangs in the Balance of the Grain Deal
Russia’s regional influence and monetary policy depend on the outcome.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
On July 21, Russia's central bank increased its key interest rate to 8.5 percent, citing inflationary risks from a tight labor market and strong consumer demand. This marks the first time the bank has lifted rates in over a year, and more may be in the offing. The move comes days after Russia withdrew from the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal because, Moscow claims, it failed to live up to its promises, which included reconnecting a Russian bank to the international SWIFT system, the reopening of an ammonia pipeline and allowing Russian ships to dock in international ports.
The grain deal was established several months into the war in Ukraine to make sure Russia and Ukraine – two of the world’s most important grain producers – could safely bring their products to market and thus help keep global food prices down. The Black Sea is vital in this regard, accounting for roughly 30 percent of global wheat exports and 20 percent of global corn exports. But Russia has begun to lose interest in the agreement. Most of its grain exports are bound for Asia and, increasingly, Latin America, and therefore don’t need to pass through the Black Sea. (The recently inaugurated North-South corridor has become the first step in a global network of ports and routes that enables Russia to bypass the Black Sea entirely.) Meanwhile, Moscow has reason to curb exports. Doing so would protect domestic consumers, correct harvesting imbalances due to environmental factors and relieve pressure on the ruble.
This last point is critical. Propping up the ruble is the reason Russia needs to keep the grain deal going and why connecting the government-controlled agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank to the SWIFT system is the key Russian demand. Increasingly, Russia relies on the Chinese yuan rather than on Western currencies. According to the central bank's latest financial stability review, the share of the yuan in the exchange market rose to roughly 40 percent, and in foreign trade operations reached 25 percent for exports and 31 percent for imports in May 2023. Along with the increase in the share of the yuan, the share of the ruble in foreign trade also continued to grow, reaching 39 percent of exports and more than 30 percent of imports.
This has complicated things with traditional Russian allies. Russia’s prolific use of the yuan, a currency that’s not freely convertible, has essentially made its monetary policy dependent on Beijing while contributing to domestic inflation. Meanwhile, recent news reports suggest a weak ruble has caused problems in Central Asia, where Russia has an imperative to help keep populations safe and stable.
Dynamics of U.S. Dollar/Russian Ruble Exchange Rate
(click to enlarge)
All of this makes Moscow want to control the flow of dollars and euros – both of which are convertible currencies. While there are private Western banks working in Russia, and though there are a few Russian banks that are still connected to SWIFT, they are not controlled by the Russian government. Motivated by profit, these banks will keep the flow coming in and make use of it for their own purposes. Increasing the interest rate is pretty much all Moscow can do to address inflation. Hence why it wants to reconnect its public banks to SWIFT via the grain deal.
However, Moscow could not persuade the West to accept its terms, and it has given the West a three-month ultimatum to do so. To show that it still has some leverage in the talks, Moscow has upped its attacks on the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Mykolaiv and Chornomorsk. (Most recently, according to the Ukrainian media, the ports of Ismail and Reni, both on the Danube, were also hit - marking a first attack on ports inside the country.) It announced that it would treat all ships going to Ukrainian ports across the Black Sea as carriers of military cargoes, called for new military drills and has declared that it has the right to block the exclusive economic zones of Black Sea region states – even those in NATO.
Black Sea Major Ports
(click to enlarge)
So far, Moscow has blocked the Ukrainian coast and, according to local sources, part of the Bulgarian economic zone – all under the pretext of holding naval exercises. By claiming it suspects all cargo going toward Ukrainian ports of carrying military cargo in support of Kyiv, Russia says it has the right to inspect ships passing through the Black Sea. This is likely why Russia blocked the perimeter within the Bulgarian economic zone: so its warships could stop commercial ships for inspection, considering the perimeter is nearby the Western coast of the Black Sea, where naval commercial traffic is still working from and into the Bosporus. It is unclear what Russia would do should a commercial ship not stop for inspection.
Russian Naval Exercise Perimeters, Jan 1 - Feb 17, 2022
(click to enlarge)
This points to a growing danger to essential Black Sea trade routes, which raises the prospect of global market instability for everything from oil to foodstuffs to fertilizers. Wheat prices have been on an upward trend for nearly a week, and the shipping and insurance industries are trying to remove the uncertainty in the market. The Lloyd's of London insurance market has already placed the Black Sea region on its high-risk list. However, on July 18, Lloyd’s insurer Ascot said the insurance facility is on pause, leaving open the possibility that Russia could re-enter the grain deal. It’s unclear what the insurer thinks after days of heavy attacks on grain facilities in Odesa and the other ports, but it is obvious that war risk premiums are increasing by the day for all shipping corridors in the Black Sea. Russia’s decision has effectively reinstalled the blockade and turned the Black Sea into a heightened-risk war zone.
For Ukraine, this has forced a massive amount of grain to be transported by river, road and rail – all of which are difficult and expensive. Right now, the primary alternative route for the grain corridor from Odesa to the Bosporus is the Romanian port of Constanta, which, like the rest of Romanian infrastructure, has grown only more important since the outset of the war. Ukrainian grains are shipped to the mouth of the Danube and, from Sulina, the load is transported further into Constanta (through the Danube and its channels) and then taken either by sea, rail or road into the market. Despite the fact that Romania modernized its infrastructure over the past year – about 2.5 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain now transit through the country, from 300,000 metric tons in March 2022 – logistical problems abound due to limited shipping and storage capacity.
While limited, Romania could still implement several enhancements to expand the flow from Ukraine and partially compensate for the collapse of the grain deal. At the moment, because of the risk posed by undersea mines and the lack of night signals on Sulina Danube Channel, ships are sailing only during the day. Furthermore, the average weight for vessels passing through Sulina is around 5,600 metric tons. By introducing night sailing, increasing vessel capacity to 15,000 metric tons, increasing use of the railway network and increasing use of the Galati port facilities on the Danube, Romania could handle up to 3.5 million metric tons more of Ukrainian grain on average each month. However, because offload capacity will largely remain the same, the result may only be greater congestion. Furthermore, with the annual crop just entering harvesting season, challenges will increase.
Importantly, Russia has reasons to escalate attacks in southern Ukraine independent of the grain deal. Moscow would prefer to reconnect with SWIFT, of course, but flexing its military muscles at a time of perceived weakness is politically valuable too. It shows the Russian people that the military is still capable despite its setbacks, and it shows the West that there are consequences if Moscow doesn’t get its way.
Black Sea Maritime Traffic, October 2022
(click to enlarge)
For its part, the West doesn’t have many viable responses. Romania and Bulgaria have improved coastal anti-ship missile capabilities, but they are still behind the curve. Delays in U.S. defense deliveries have put more pressure on coastal states in the immediate proximity of Ukraine. Turkey has an advanced naval capability, and in theory it could partner with Romania and Bulgaria (all NATO member states) to provide an armed escort for commercial ships in the Black Sea. Romania and Bulgaria are coordinating on minesweeping along the coastline, and NATO could also provide shore support. However, NATO is a military organization with a political component, much of it driven by the United States. Black Sea countries have advocated that the U.S. adopt a Black Sea strategy in the hope that NATO might follow suit. These kinds of strategies take time to develop.
Black Sea Maritime Traffic, July 2023
(click to enlarge)
Russia will use that time to its advantage. Hitting Black Sea shorelines and Ukrainian port infrastructure serves the long-term strategic goal of Russia: to destroy the most productive sector Ukraine has left, agriculture, which makes up about 40 percent of Ukraine's GDP. There are about 18 million metric tons of grain stored in the Ukrainian silos from last year –more than half of annual production – because it couldn’t get them out. The grain deal helped, of course, as did the creation of new routes through Romania and Poland, but it hasn’t been enough.
The blockade and the Russian attacks on port infrastructure make it unlikely that Ukraine will be able to move its production to the market soon either. The end result that Russia is looking to achieve is that Ukraine doesn’t participate in the international grain market this year or in the foreseeable future. Its inability to move surplus grain to the market has already killed much of the Ukrainian grain business this year.
With no industry to rely on (most was located in eastern areas now occupied by Russia) and no functioning agriculture, there isn’t much of a Ukrainian economy left. Even if the West promises to help Ukraine rebuild it, there is nothing easy in the process of socio-economic reconstruction. For Russia, making things hard in the long term is a safe way to bring Kyiv under its influence. Russia is likely to have problems of its own, so its pressure on Kyiv might be less aggressive than it would like, but its current actions are designed to be able to pressure Kyiv later, even if it loses the kinetic war.
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https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/russia-raises-stakes-with-bold-strike?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=135387607&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
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New plan. Three Lithuanian ministers on Monday sent a letter to the European Commission proposing that Baltic Sea ports be used to export Ukrainian agricultural products following Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal. According to the proposal, Ukrainian goods could be transported to the Ukrainian-Polish border and then shipped by land to the port of Klaipeda.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19824/biden-deal-russia-ukraine
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Border protection. Poland is considering closing its border with Belarus following the deployment of hundreds of Wagner Group mercenaries from Russia to Belarus, according to Poland's interior minister. He also said his country was discussing with Lithuania and Latvia possible joint actions in the event of serious incidents involving the mercenaries on NATO and EU borders. The Polish government also plans to build a new fence along the Belarusian border.
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Russia's Activities Near Romania and Poland Risk Sparking Another NATO Crisis
Aug 3, 2023 | 16:57 GMT
A Polish soldier stands by anti-tank obstacles by the metal wall constructed at the Belarussian border in Bialowieza, Poland, on July 08, 2023.
A Polish soldier stands by anti-tank obstacles by the metal wall constructed at the Belarussian border in Bialowieza, Poland, on July 08, 2023.
(Omar Marques/Getty Images)
Russia and Belarus' ongoing activities at the Romanian and Polish borders carry a high risk of sparking a crisis with the two NATO members, though if this happens, Bucharest and Warsaw will likely seek de-escalation. In recent days, Poland and Romania have warned their NATO and EU partners about potential Russian and Belarussian aggression in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. On Aug. 1, the Polish government accused Belarus of violating Polish airspace with military helicopters and announced it would increase its military presence on its eastern borders. Then on Aug. 2, the Romanian government said that Russia's increased attacks on Ukrainian ports by the Danube River (which separates Ukraine from Romania) were ''unacceptable'' and described them as ''war crimes.'' Poland (which shares land borders with both Russia and Ukraine) and Romania (which shares a land border with Ukraine and Black Sea access with Ukraine and Russia) are two of Europe's most hawkish countries with regard to Russia. They are some of the strongest supporters of sanctions against Moscow and an increased NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe, which fuels their fears and accusations of potential Russian aggression in the region.
Poland's relations with Belarus, a close Russian ally, have been tense for years. In mid-2021, Belarus encouraged and assisted migrants from Middle Eastern countries to enter Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, which these countries denounced as an act of hybrid warfare. Polish-Belarusian tensions escalated again in June 2023, when Minsk accepted to host mercenaries from the Wagner group after their failed mutiny in Russia. Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko later said that some Wagner fighters were keen to enter Poland and ''go on a trip to Warsaw and Rzeszow.'' On July 29, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said some 100 Wagner fighters were close to the Belarusian city of Grodno near the Polish border, describing the situation as ''increasingly dangerous.''
In mid-July, Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a U.N.-brokered agreement to allow Ukraine to export grains and oilseeds through its Black Sea ports. Since then, Russia has increased its missile attacks on Ukrainian ports at the mouth of the Danube River. On Aug. 2, Russia attacked Ukrainian grain ports and transport infrastructure at Izmail, a city on the Ukrainian-Romanian border.
In the case of Romania, Russian aggression is more likely to occur by accident than by design, which means that if it happens, Bucharest is likely to loudly denounce Moscow but ultimately seek de-escalation. Romania's NATO membership puts it under the military alliance's collective security umbrella. Russia thus knows that military aggression against Romania could trigger a war with NATO, which Moscow wants to avoid. This means that a potential Russian missile attack on the Romanian side of the Danube (which is possible, considering how close to the Ukraine-Romania border Russia's attacks are) is more likely to happen by accident than by design. If a Russian missile accidentally hits a Romanian target, Bucharest would likely protest loudly and denounce it as an act of aggression. Bucharest would also likely call its NATO partners for consultation under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty. However, this would unlikely lead to the triggering of the collective defense clause established in Article 5, as Romania, Western Europe and the United States do not want an open war with Russia — especially one caused by a comparatively minor incident, like a missile falling on the wrong side of the Danube. It would take a much more obvious and undeniably planned act of aggression (such as attacking major infrastructure well within Romanian territory) for NATO to consider using Article 5.
In November 2022, a missile struck a Polish village near the border with Ukraine, killing two people. Warsaw suggested Russia could be responsible and called for Article 4 consultations with its NATO partners. NATO's reaction to the incident was very cautious, as the alliance did not automatically accuse Russia and called for a proper investigation, which later concluded that the incident had probably been caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired by Ukrainian forces in response to Russia's air raids on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. This episode demonstrated NATO's caution regarding unexpected events and spillover from the war along NATO member states' borders.
In addition to the Black Sea, Romania is also concerned about the increased potential of Russian destabilization efforts in neighboring Moldova, which is home to the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria that hosts Russian troops. Romania supports Moldova's pro-EU government and worries that if pro-Russian political forces take control of the country, Moldova could turn into a Belarus-like situation.
In Poland's case, aggression from Belarus or Russia has a higher chance of escalation because it is less likely to be an accident; however, Russia and NATO would still seek to avoid a war. Should Wagner forces, and especially Belarussian military forces, enter Poland's territory, the probability of escalation would be higher than in the case of a missile accidentally hitting Romania, because it would be the result of an active decision by Wagner, Minsk, Moscow or all three of them. A potential goal of such an incursion would be to fabricate a threat that would force Poland (and possibly other NATO states) to redirect their focus from helping Ukraine militarily to improving their own security. In the case of Wagner, Minsk and Moscow could still argue that the mercenaries acted without their consent, but in the case of the Belarussian military, there would be no such plausible deniability. In either case, Poland would almost certainly request Article 4 consultations with its NATO partners. Article 5 conversations would also be possible, though an incursion limited in scale and scope (such as Wagner or Belarussian troops briefly entering Poland's territory and then returning to Belarus) would be unlikely to trigger a military response from NATO because the alliance would probably not consider it severe enough to justify a war with Russia and/or Belarus. Still, an incursion into Poland could result in a confrontation with Polish border troops (particularly as Warsaw is increasing its military presence at the border), which would carry the risk of further escalation. Such a scenario would require a much stronger de-escalation effort from both sides, with a higher risk of events spinning out of control, even if a full-on NATO-Russia war remains improbable as a result.
Since the beginning of Russia's war in Ukraine, Poland has repeatedly accused Moscow of acts of unconventional aggression, including cyber attacks against Polish state institutions and private businesses, as well as disinformation campaigns. However, because Poland is unable to directly prove that the Russian government was behind these events, combined with the fact that so far, these acts of aggression have not disrupted any essential Polish infrastructure or resulted in casualties, this means that Poland and NATO do not see it as justification to trigger Article 5 and retaliate against Russia.
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https://spectator.org/edward-luttwak-the-u-s-must-end-the-russia-ukraine-war/
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19868/ukraine-bomb-russia
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August 8, 2023
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The State of the War in Ukraine
By: George Friedman
A month and a half ago, right after the attempted Wagner coup, there appeared to be chaos in Moscow, with the future of President Vladimir Putin in question. There were indications of some movement toward negotiations in the war. Some of those contacts were public. The director of the CIA, while on a visit to Ukraine, had an extended telephone conversation with the head of Russian intelligence. What was said is unknown, but it is unlikely that the two intelligence chiefs spoke without prior discussion at lower levels. Given the nature of this war, it's unlikely that contact between Russia and the United States, however trivial and ineffective, hasn’t been underway throughout.
The war appeared to have two limits. The United States would not deploy significant force in Ukraine or fire on Russian forces. The Russians would attack Ukrainian forces but not American supply depots in Poland. This meant that the war would not pit Russian and U.S. forces directly against each other, continuing the understanding in place since 1945, overwhelmingly but not absolutely honored. Strategic combat would be between Ukraine, supplied by the U.S., and Russia. That agreement holds and limits the global risks in the war. It may have just worked out that way, but I expect some explicit understanding was reached. The Wagner incident must have worried Washington as to who was in control in Moscow and raised questions about whether the understanding was still in place. The transfer of Wagner fighters to Belarus and to Poland’s border must have increased worries.
Two things became unlikely: that Russia would destroy the Ukrainian army and occupy Ukraine, and that Ukraine’s army would drive Russia out of Ukraine. The only logical step is a negotiated settlement. The question is what that settlement might consist of. The only logical settlement – on the surface, at least – is a division of Ukraine. One option might be that Donbas, full of ethnic Russians and on Russia’s border, is ceded to Moscow. But Ukraine cannot cede more – or even this – because it reasonably doesn’t trust the Russians not to base a force there and attack again in the future. The Russians will have a great deal of trouble accepting this. They have lost much in the war, and returning with only Donbas would be an insult to the dead and devastating to Putin. Ukraine must have a militarily defensible boundary and a shallow concession. Russia must validate the claim that it is a great power and can settle for far more than Ukraine can concede. Each side must make a powerful move to convince the other that a bad compromise is better than defeat.
I had thought that Russia might launch a powerful offensive designed to shatter the Ukrainian army and begin taking Ukrainian territory, forcing a settlement. I was surprised that it did not do so. I then realized that the Russian army does not have the ability to organize such an attack or to accept those kinds of casualties. Putin used Wagner as a separate force because he understood the limits of his enemy. When that blew up in his face, he realized what I missed: that his military was in no position to launch a final assault, and that he was in no position to negotiate.
Ukraine’s problem is that it does not control most of its logistical system and its prime supplier, the United States, has somewhat different if overlapping interests. The Ukrainians’ goal is to defeat the Russians and regain all of Ukraine. The American interest in defending Ukraine is both an end in itself and the means toward another end. The U.S. must keep Russia from moving west and creating a new and very costly cold war. The U.S. also wants to demonstrate to the world that it is in a position to militarily participate in Ukraine’s defense so long as Ukraine is prepared to defend itself. Another obvious object of the lesson is China and its periphery, particularly Taiwan. In a way, this is the final repudiation of the Vietnam model, where U.S. forces engaged in direct combat because the South Vietnamese were unable or unwilling to. In Ukraine, the U.S. avoided the body bags that came home during Vietnam and also showed the power of logistical support.
If it is accurate that Russia cannot launch a decisive ground attack, then it must do something indirectly to drive a wedge between Ukraine and the United States. The Kremlin knows that a full break is impossible, but a break on peace terms may well be possible. One Russian strategy that is failing is supporting a Vietnam-style antiwar movement in the United States. There is one, but it is not as powerful as the Vietnam antiwar strategy was.
An alternative is to drive a wedge between the U.S. and other allies. The U.S. needs allies in the region, and pleasing Ukraine while alienating them is unsupportable. The Russian decision to move vessels into the Black Sea achieved two things. Ukraine is a major exporter of grains, and cutting off those grains would cause problems in general and likely disaster in Africa. The Russians would hope to shape this into international demand for a settlement, more on Russian terms.
Their other goal would be to split NATO. The Black Sea includes NATO states like Romania. The presence of a small Russian fleet near its coast might force the Romanians to demand that a settlement be reached. Both of these are strategies of misdirection, used when direct power is not available. However, ships are very vulnerable these days – to air power, missiles and drones. Thus, the Ukrainians attacked Russian ships, sensing the importance not only of their exports but also of showing the Americans that they remain a serious force. The attacks also increase the sense of Russia's vulnerability.
There are, as I said, informal talks underway. The Russians must decide whether to double down on the Black Sea strategy, seek another flank to hit or accept a settlement that gains them little but does not humiliate them. It is a question of how far Putin’s hubris goes and how secure he is.
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August 8, 2023
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Daily Memo: Eastern European Machinations
Romania reportedly wants to help Moldova, and Germany reportedly wants to hurt Poland.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Moldova’s patron in Romania. The defense ministers of Romania and Moldova met on Monday in Chisinau, where they discussed regional security and ways Romania could help modernize Moldova’s army. (The government in Bucharest recently delivered bulletproof vests and tactical SUVs.) They also addressed Moldova’s potential accession to the Defense Ministers of Southeastern Europe, a defense platform under the aegis of NATO that Romania has chaired since July 1.
Poland warns against Germany. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pavel Jablonsky said Germany plans to block strategic investments bound for his country, including those earmarked for the improvement of navigation on the Oder River, the expansion of the port in Swinoujscie, the Central Communication Port and its nuclear power plant. He said that Berlin will do so under the pretense of environmental concerns but that it’s really a matter of business – that Germany doesn’t want Poland as an economic competitor.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydv_3n5__2I
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/08/09/how-did-ukraine-beat-russias-drone-jammers/?fbclid=PAAabR3TYKjt6cfZEj3WZEVCEiGdqPmQOqmn_5jk2QVKzs1Hu5V2Un-8dX0KE&sh=160a369d7caa
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https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/08/11/belarus-abducting-deporting-ukrainian-children-social-media-networks-kyiv-minsk-camps-russia-war-donbas/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Editors%27%20Picks%20-%2008112023&utm_term=editors_picks
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War crime.
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Which Countries Are Digging into Their Pockets to Help Ukraine?
On the menu today: I return from vacation just as the headline “President Trump indicted” runs for the fourth time in five months. Our Brittany Bernstein has the story about Trump’s indictment in Georgia, and our Andy McCarthy lays out how this particular set of criminal charges — 13 in all — could be the most enduring legal danger for Trump: “Because our federalist system makes the states primarily responsible for the conduct and policing of elections, Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis has an array of state laws that more directly target misconduct in connection with the electoral process. She may have an easier time proving that the same conduct was not only egregious but illegal.” Andy also points out that presidents have no authority to pardon state crimes — so neither Trump nor Ron DeSantis nor any other future Trump-friendly president could erase the conviction or the consequences.
I spent last week visiting three of America’s friendly Nordic allies, and it prompted me to look up some figures — revealing that, despite a lot of the rhetoric you hear, Europe hasn’t been dragging its feet in helping Ukraine. In fact, by several measures, some tiny European countries are digging deeper into their pockets than the arsenal of democracy is.
Europe’s Not-Insignificant Aid to Ukraine
The first argument against additional U.S. aid to Ukraine is often, “It isn’t our fight, so we shouldn’t be helping them at all” — an unpersuasive assertion that there is no U.S. interest at stake at all in Russia’s attempted brutal conquest of a U.S. ally on the doorstep of the NATO alliance, an act of wanton military aggression with consequences for world food and energy markets that has triggered a humanitarian crisis. The next most common objections are, “Europe should take the lead” and “Europe isn’t paying its fair share.”
Once you look at the numbers, those two arguments don’t hold much water, because Europe is, if not taking the lead, running alongside us, and certain European countries are paying much more than any reasonable definition of their “fair share.”
Make no mistake, continental Europe is much closer to the conflict than the U.S. and has even more to lose if Russia annexes all of Ukraine and brings its forces to the borders of NATO members Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania as well as Moldova, where Russia allegedly tried to stir up a coup earlier this year.
But if Europe as a whole isn’t quite taking the lead in assisting Ukraine, it isn’t lagging behind, either.
From the beginning of the war to May 31 of this year, the European Union countries, collectively, are just a bit behind the U.S., contributing, donating, or loaning nearly $75 billion to the beleaguered country. That figure includes combined military equipment and ammunition, financial assistance, and humanitarian aid. The American contribution in that period is just a bit higher, at $77.5 billion.
(All of the figures in today’s newsletter are from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s database and analysis and are converted from Euros to dollars at this weekend’s exchange rate. The Kiel Institute only measures government-to-government assistance, and does not count sums from private charities, churches, the Red Cross, or other international organizations.)
When you throw in the non-EU countries in Europe — such as the United Kingdom ($10.9 billion in total aid), Norway ($2.3 billion, more on them below), and Switzerland ($427 million), Europe actually outpaces the U.S. by roughly $88 billion to $77 billion.
In other words, Europeans are kicking in about $1.14 for every dollar the United States sends in military, financial, and economic aid to Ukraine. And despite the perception that the U.S. and the European Union are roughly economically equivalent, the U.S., as a whole, is a heck of a lot richer than the E.U. as a whole. According to the International Monetary Fund, the EU’s GDP is $17.8 trillion, while the U.S. GDP is about $26.8 trillion.
As for the argument “Europe isn’t paying its fair share,” that depends upon which countries you use to define “Europe,” and how you define “fair share.”
One key question is how you measure the aid provided to Ukraine — by the sum total of the military, humanitarian, and financial aid, or as a percentage of GDP. Countries with a lot of resources can reasonably be expected to spare more, and a small country with a small GDP, smaller tax revenue, and a smaller military necessarily has fewer arms and other resources to spare.
By the end of May, tiny Estonia had contributed $473 million in total aid, which ranks as the 21st-highest total out of all the countries in the world. But as a percentage of GDP — Estonia’s GDP is roughly $37 billion — that ranks first in the world.
NATO’s three Baltic members — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — are on the metaphorical front line in any conflict with Russia. Putin’s regime has been harassing those countries with cyberattacks and other non-kinetic forms of opposition for years, and no one in Europe felt particularly assured when China’s ambassador to France said in April that former Soviet countries don’t have “effective status in international law.” It’s not surprising that the Baltic countries see Ukraine’s fight as their fight. Latvia’s donations to Ukraine equal 1.09 percent of their GDP, and Lithuania’s equal almost 1 percent.
After the Baltic trio, Poland (seven-tenths of a percentage point of that country’s GDP) and Slovakia (six-tenths of a percentage point) rank fourth and fifth. The Nordic countries also rank near the top when their donations are compared to their countries’ GDP.
As noted on Twitter/X while I was away, in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Ukrainian flag is almost as ubiquitous as the Danish flag, visible at the city’s central train station; above an H&M; in front of the Saint Ansgar’s Cathedral; and above the Scandic Palace hotel, next to City Hall. For what it’s worth, I spotted a couple of Ukrainian flags while wandering around downtown Stockholm, Sweden, but none while wandering around downtown Oslo, Norway.
Denmark’s GDP is about $400 billion, which sounds like a lot, and by most measures, it is. If Denmark were an American state, its GDP would rank 15th, just behind Michigan and just ahead of Colorado. It would be absurd to expect Denmark’s total support for Ukraine to be comparable to that of the total contribution from the United States. But as a percentage of the country’s GDP, Denmark’s is higher than America’s.
As of May 31, Denmark ranks ninth overall in total aid to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s database and analysis, with $1.72 billion. That’s a bit more than a half a percentage point of Denmark’s GDP, ranking it sixth in the world. As a percentage of GDP, Denmark’s military contributions rank sixth in the world and its humanitarian contributions rank fourth in the world.
When it comes to aiding Ukraine, tiny Denmark is punching well above its weight.
You can see the Danish government’s summary of its aid here, although keep in mind that the site measures the aid in the local currency of the Danish Krone. Denmark has been a member of NATO since its founding.
For perspective, in the same period, the U.S. ranked first overall with the highest total value of donations of aid and equipment at $77 billion. But because our GDP is so much larger, that much larger sum is just three-tenths of 1 percentage point of our GDP — ranking us twelfth in the world. As a percentage of GDP, U.S. military contributions rank 15th in the world and our humanitarian contributions rank 18th in the world. Our financial commitments — which include budgetary aid to Ukraine’s Economic Support Fund and loans — rank sixth in the world in that category.
You can see the U.S. government’s summary of its aid to Ukraine here.
As of May 31, Sweden ranks tenth overall in total aid to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute’s database and analysis, with nearly $2 billion. That’s about three-tenths of 1 percent of Sweden’s GDP, ranking it 13th in the world. As a percentage of GDP, Sweden’s military contributions rank tenth in the world, and its humanitarian contributions rank 15th in the world.
You can see the Swedish government’s summary of its aid here, although keep in mind that figures are listed in the local currency of the Swedish krona. Sweden is in the final stretch of formally joining NATO.
As of May 31, Norway ranks eighth overall in total aid to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute, with nearly $2.3 billion in aid. That’s nearly one-half of 1 percent of Norway’s GDP, ranking it seventh in the world. As a percentage of GDP, Norway’s military contributions rank twelfth in the world, and its humanitarian contributions rank the same. You can see the Norwegian government’s summary of its aid here, although keep in mind that figures are listed in the local currency of the Norwegian kroner. Norway has been a member of NATO since its founding; many people forget that it shares a short stretch of border with Russia, above the Arctic Circle.
Germany, which has gotten a lot of grief for foot-dragging and delays in sending weapons systems to Ukraine, has now given $11.6 billion in total aid, which ranks it third in the world in total sums. The Germans rank second in the world in sending humanitarian aid, and are now up to second in military aid, which is laid out here.
Who’s straggling?
Considering how France has the seventh-largest economy in the world, one might expect France to rank a little higher than eleventh in total aid at $1.5 billion, and 28th as a percentage of GDP. France ranks tenth in humanitarian commitments, ninth in financial commitments, and 15th in military commitments. As a percentage of GDP, France ranks 24th in humanitarian aid, 16th in financial aid, and 27th in military aid. You can find a list of some of France’s forms of aid here, which range from MLRS rocket launchers to Crotale air-defense systems to light bulbs to a mobile DNA-analysis laboratory to more than 20,000 Ukrainians enrolled in the French education system.
Correspondingly, Italy has the eighth-largest economy in the world but ranks significantly lower in aid to Ukraine in each category: twelfth highest in total aid at $1.46 billion and 26th as a percentage of GDP. The Italian government summarizes its efforts to help Ukraine here.
And then there’s the government of Hungary, which has not only not given much from its own resources, but has at times blocked or impeded additional European Union assistance to Ukraine. Hungary has donated $51 million according to the Kiel Institute. Hungary has a smaller GDP than you might expect — ranking behind Peru, Iraq, Kazakhistan, and Algeria — and yet Hungary’s donation is only two-tenths of 1 percent of that sum.
The Kiel Institute’s next update of its figures is scheduled for September 7.
This does not mean that there are no limits on what the U.S. can reasonably and safely send to Ukraine. As this newsletter mentioned back in April, there are four weapons systems that the U.S will require a long time to restock to pre-war levels. At the “surge” or prioritized production rate, it will take two and a half years to restock the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) mobile-artillery system and vehicles, four years to restock at least one category of 155 millimeter shells, five and a half years to restock the Javelin anti-tank-missile stockpile, and six and a half years to restock the Stinger air-defense-missile stockpile. It is reasonable for the U.S. to tell Ukraine that there are particular weapons systems that are in limited supply and can no longer be spared because of defense needs elsewhere.
Beyond that, the U.S. has a lot of top-of-the-line military supplies lying around, unused. For example, the U.S. Air Force has more than 1,000 F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft in its inventory.
Back in January, President Biden announced that the U.S. would send 31 M1A1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine. The first batch was approved for shipment last week, and should arrive in Ukraine in early autumn. The U.S. Army is believed to have about 2,500 Abrams tanks in various versions, with an additional 3,700 in storage.
In a lot of circumstances, America’s European allies can be justifiably accused of skimping on defense spending, downplaying threats on the international stage, and blithely assuming that Uncle Sam will bail them out if the situation gets really bad. (It’s sort of the tradition of the 20th century.) But in the circumstances of getting military, financial, and humanitarian aid across the border to a pro-Western, democratically elected government at risk of being annexed by Russia, a lot of our European allies are really stepping up to the plate — most notably the Baltic and Nordic countries.
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Belarus Reaches Out to Poland and the EU
By: George Friedman
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko made a speech last week in which he appeared to be reaching out to the West. Belarus has been a close Russian ally for years; it might even be considered a satellite. On several occasions, the Russians have used political influence to stabilize Lukashenko’s presidency. After the attempted coup by the Wagner Group in June, Lukashenko gave the group, with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent approval, refuge in Belarus – although there is evidence that many of these troops have left the country. Regardless of their whereabouts, Lukashenko is closely tied to Russia.
The important point is that Lukashenko also proposed a new economic direction for Belarus, saying:
“Now we make money primarily in the East: in Russia, China. But we must not discard contacts with the high-tech West. They are nearby, the European Union is our neighbor. And we should maintain contacts with them. We are ready for this, but there should be due consideration for our interests. Believe me, the time will come (using your professional terms, I would say that now we are going through the period of turbulence), and in 2024-2025 there will be serious changes in the world.”
Lukashenko also said that Belarus needs to talk to the Poles and that he told the prime minister to contact them. “If they want, we can talk, patch up our relations,” he said. “We are neighbors, and this is something you cannot choose, neighbors are given by God.” Poland's deputy foreign minister responded by saying that if Belarus wants to have good relations with Poland, it should stop attacks on their shared border and release Polish prisoners from Belarusian prisons.
On the surface, Lukashenko's comments look like a careful attempt to move Belarus away from its heavy dependence on Russia and to balance that relationship with the EU and, surprisingly, Poland. Minsk and Warsaw have been hostile toward one another, massing troops on their border. The problem is that it is hard to imagine that Russia would be willing to tolerate this opening to Poland, given Poland’s position on Ukraine, its aid to Kyiv and its willing service as an arms depot for the United States. An opening to the EU might be seen as advantageous to Russia since Moscow also wants stronger ties with the bloc.
Belarus’ outreach to Poland opens another possibility. The Ukrainian-Russian war is appearing increasingly to be a frozen conflict, one that neither side can win but also one that will be difficult to settle after all the bloodshed on each side. Ending the war without something resembling victory would be extremely problematic. At the same time, the war cannot simply go on, as each side has limits in manpower, weapons and public support.
Given this, Lukashenko’s expressed desire for closer relations with the European Union and, more importantly, Poland may be something that Moscow encouraged. Belarus is very close to Russia and has had a role in the war, however minor. It might be possible for the EU to work with Belarus, and from there the road to Moscow might be easier to take. The Poles are a different question. Their hostility to Belarus is substantial, and Poland might demand unmanageable concessions from Minsk. Still, there is a desire in Europe as elsewhere for an end to the war, and the EU may see Belarus’ knock on the door as a way to improve relations with Russia. As for Poland, there are many in Europe who see Warsaw’s stance on the war as unique to Poland and its geographic position, and not in their own interest to follow. They might reward Poland or apply pressure on it to modify its position.
My tendency is to regard this as a gesture by Lukashenko, who might be trying to play the role of statesman. But I have to take into account that Belarus owes its position and potentially Lukashenko’s life to Putin. And Lukashenko’s support in Belarus is unclear. It is hard to imagine him taking a diplomatic initiative that isn’t approved by Moscow. So my gut reaction aside, I have to be open to the possibility that this is somehow an opening to Europe, with the overture to Poland being a first step in moderating its position on the war. You would not expect a direct approach, but it is clear that all players are getting tired of the war. That includes the U.S., where the 2024 elections will have a major impact on the U.S. approach to the conflict. So, Lukashenko’s bewildering approach may be a Russian-supported attempt to gauge European war weariness. If it is rejected, then it is only Belarus that will be embarrassed. If this seems complex, it is because the situation is very complex, and we are approaching the time when the sides will try subtle approaches. Or this is Lukashenko’s own attempt to secure Belarusian independence from Russia, which I really can’t buy.
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https://www.ft.com/content/d7ba0831-eed3-49d2-a017-b324a1122970?fbclid=IwAR02JV0HxZGBMblTwat8DM2mx1KwDiDcBu-FJ4fPiK6M-iKOkcrPdiJXmRo
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/china/chinas-defense-minister-touts-fraternal-relations-with-belarus-5472429?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2023-08-18&src_cmp=uschina-2023-08-18&utm_medium=email&cta_utm_source=China&est=S0vuB75rB%2BAmRmpM2rADijZabIpPOh%2Fah5d8VgMmB68leFFm70ZJv%2BCGgkTZeIdKPCFX
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NR PLUS MEMBER FULL VIEW
Poland’s Pivotal Role
On the menu today: For the next couple of days, the Morning Jolt is going to have a different format and focus, as I travel to some far-flung corners of the world, aiming to give you, and myself, a clearer perspective on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how that conflict has affected global energy markets, food markets, and political realities. I realize that everyone else in the U.S. political world is focused on this week’s Republican presidential-primary debate, asking those hot-button questions like, “What is Doug Burgum going to say next?” and, “So did Francis Suarez qualify for this thing, or not?” and, “Wait, which one is Doug Burgum again?” But while all of America is on the edge of its seat, brimming with suspense over what Asa Hutchinson is going to say, the world keeps turning — and perhaps no country in NATO is playing a more pivotal role in the effort to help Ukraine than Poland. This week, I’m looking at Poles, not polls.
Pole Positions
Krakow, Poland — Russia and the U.S. NATO ally Poland are not at war. But they’re not really at peace, either.
The roads and railways running through Poland are the transportation routes for more than 80 percent of the military hardware delivered to Ukraine. Last year, Poland agreed to open up five additional access points for trucks on the border with Ukraine, doubling the cargo-traffic capacity between the two countries. The Russian government was always likely to eventually deem those routes worthwhile targets for sabotage and disruption.
Last week, the Washington Post revealed that the Polish government has found evidence that Russia’s military-intelligence agency, the GRU, recruited refugees from Eastern Europe and tried to get them to hide tracking devices in military cargo, and then ordered them to derail trains carrying weapons to Ukraine. An official with Poland’s Internal Security Agency — the Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego — told the paper that certain recruits had been assigned to carry out arson attacks and an assassination.
Beyond the roads and rails, the single most important hub of activity for getting both military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine is Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, about 60 miles from the Ukrainian border and about 100 miles east of the city from which I’m writing this newsletter. U.S. and allied planes, including C-17 Globemaster, A400M Atlas, and C-130 Hercules cargo planes, regularly land and unloading weapons and supplies. The runways are protected by Patriot-missile batteries, visible from the road to the airport; while it may have the equivalent of a NATO air base operating on its runways, the airport still offers civilian flights to Warsaw and Gdansk.
The Russian government won’t bomb or attack any of these sites directly, but its leaders sure as hell would love to figure out some way to cause disruptions here without leaving any fingerprints.
In addition to the accusations of attempted sabotage, Russian cyberattacks have targeted Polish news sites, government and military entities, and the country’s tax-service website. One study concluded that since the Russian invasion began, Poland has been targeted by cyberattacks more often than any other country in Europe.
Poland is about as close to the Russia–Ukraine war as you can get without being in it, both geographically and psychologically. (Every now and then the war spills over, as in November 2022 when a Ukrainian air-defense missile crossed the border and struck a Polish grain plant, killing two people.) Spending the entire Cold War under the boot of the Soviet Union left the Poles with a keen sense of the threat posed by Russian military aggression — and how hard it can be to regain independence and freedom once it is lost.
Just a few days ago, Zbigniew Rau, Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared on Twitter:
Europe needs to do more for its security to repel any conventional aggression in the future. We must pull all allies in this direction and effectively boost defense spending. Let’s establish a “coalition of the delivering” within NATO. A group of allies leading by example and spending at least 2 percent on defense. You can count on Poland in this much-needed endeavor! I look forward to seeing every NATO member state meeting this requirement.
If all U.S. allies were like the Poles, we would have less to worry about.
Poland sent $4.5 billion in military, economic, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine from the start of the war until May 31, 2023, according to the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker. That ranks the Poles sixth in the world by total amount of support given, and fourth in the world by support given as a percentage of GDP.
One of the points I hadn’t mentioned in last week’s discussion of foreign governments’ aid to Ukraine is the number of refugees taken in by each country. The Kiel Institute numbers are only measuring direct government-to-government aid. As of April this year, Poland had taken in 1.56 million refugees, more than Germany (a little over 1 million), the Czech Republic (about a half million), Italy (171,000), Spain (168,000), the United Kingdom (164,000), France (118,000), Slovakia (111,000), and Romania (110). Keep in mind, Slovakia and Romania share borders with Ukraine.
Lest you be told that the United States is being overrun by Ukrainian refugees, from February 2022 to April of this year, the U.S. accepted 271,000 Ukrainian refugees. (More than half of the nearly 124,000 applications filed by Americans seeking to sponsor Ukrainians fleeing the war in their homeland have come from households in just five states: New York, Illinois, California, Washington State, and Florida.) In other words, the U.S. has taken in roughly 17 percent of the refugees that Poland has welcomed.
Technically, Russia claims it has taken in 2.8 million Ukrainian refugees, but it’s tough to verify those numbers and figure out how many are actually Ukrainians who have been forcibly abducted to Russian soil.
The influx of refugees into Poland since early 2022 has not spurred a broad backlash from native Poles; by and large, Poles see the Ukrainians as beneficial to their country:
The survey by Ipsos for OKO.press and TOK FM, published today, found that 62 percent of Poles agree it would be “good for Poland if Ukrainian refugees were to stay for many years”. Only 27 percent disagreed. There are currently estimated to be over a million refugees from Ukraine in Poland.
In five polls conducted by Ipsos on this subject since May 2022, between 57 percent and 69 percent of Poles have declared a positive attitude towards the long-term stay of refugees from Ukraine in Poland, with only 24 percent to 30 percent expressing negative views.
Considering that other surveys have found Poles less enthusiastic about immigrants from outside Europe, the Poles may well see the Ukrainians as culturally like themselves and a good fit for the existing Polish culture. Lviv, the sixth-largest city in Ukraine, which sits not far from the Polish border, was part of Poland for stretches of its history.
A new survey indicates that in the past year, Polish support for assisting Ukraine has declined somewhat, from 83 percent to 65 percent. It is probably worth noting that those least enthusiastic about helping Ukraine also do not seem enthusiastic about voting. “Neutrality is also more likely to be desired by those who are politically less engaged — for example, mentioning in our survey that they do not intend to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections.”
And those parliamentary elections are now less than two months away. Polish president Andrzej Duda announced parliamentary elections would be held October 15, with both the 460-seat lower house of parliament and the 100-seat senate at stake. Polls currently indicate that Duda’s Law and Justice Party, the right-of-center party which has governed Poland since 2015, is on pace to win the most seats but is likely to fall short of an outright majority in parliament. Duda and his party are looking for an unprecedented third term. It is likely that Duda will be running on a national-security-themed message, touting his defense buildup. He recently oversaw the country’s largest military parade in Warsaw since the Cold War and declared, “The goal of this huge modernization is to equip Poland’s armed forces and create such a defense system that no one ever dares attack us, that Polish soldiers will never need to fight.”
The party that is currently on pace to win the second most seats is Koalicja Obywatelska, or KO, the “Civic Coalition,” a mish-mash of center-left, center-right, and center-center parties all unified in their opposition to the Law and Justice Party.
The party that is currently expected to win the third-most seats is Konfederacja (Confederation), described as a coalition of nationalist, far-right-populist parties.
Some Western observers worry that Konfederacja will throw a monkey-wrench into the results and win enough seats to end up in a kingmaker position.
Mikolaj Bronert of the German Marshall Fund writes:
Konfederacja is even more resolute in its negative view of Polish Atlanticism. Konfederacja Member of Parliament Robert Winnicki has argued that the US military presence in Poland demonstrates the country’s “vassalization”. Similarly, Konfederacja’s leaders have taken the lead in criticizing the volume of Polish military assistance to Ukraine. Winnicki has remarked that NATO’s eastern-flank countries should not be the ones to champion military support for Ukraine. Instead, allies that “are not located next to the Russian border” should play a greater role. While in principle Konfederacja’s leadership is not against military support for Ukraine, the scope of Polish support is too ambitious in their view and will lead to the “demilitarization of Poland”. Winnicki has stated that “Poland must support Ukraine without weakening its own defensive capabilities.”
Konfederacja is also staunchly anti-Ukrainian in its rhetoric. Ever since Russia annexed Crimea, politicians affiliated with the coalition have attempted to justify Russia’s actions. Janusz Korwin-Mikke, one of Konfederacja’s frontmen, argues that Poland should recognize the annexation of the peninsula. He is also not persuaded of Russia’s threat to Europe, stating that “Ukraine is Poland’s enemy, not Russia.”
Bronert writes that while Polish governments have been politically diverse over the past three decades, there’s been a broad consensus about supporting other Eastern European countries in moving in a more Western-democratic direction, and maintaining strong ties to the U.S. and its allies. But “Konfederacja is the first political entity with a realistic prospect of breaking this 30-year-old consensus.”
Two referenda will also appear on the ballot along with the parliamentary seats. One will ask Polish voters whether they “support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa under the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy.” Voters will also be asked whether they support the dismantling of a wall recently built along the border with Belarus.
By and large, Ukraine and Poland have been steadfast allies since the beginning of the war, although there is a continuing disagreement about Ukrainian grain being sent through Poland. Last month, Russians bombed the port facilities in Odessa, Ukraine, putting an exclamation point on Putin’s decision to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that was supposed to enable Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger. Ukraine’s agriculture minister said the port facilities would take a year to repair.
The first complication is that moving the grain by truck or train cannot really replace the scale, speed, and efficiency of container ships. (Readers of the short story Saving the Devil know that eastern Europe and central Europe have different widths of train tracks, and the railway gauge in Ukraine is about ten centimeters wider than the gauge in Poland. All of the grain would have to be moved into new containers, or the containers moved onto train cars with a narrower base.) The second complication is that Polish farmers fear that Ukrainian grain could flood the market and bring prices down, and the Polish government intends to keep a ban on the import of such grain in place when the rest of the European Union lifts its bans next month.
Before Russia ended the Black Sea Grain Initiative by blowing up the ports, the program had exported almost 33 million metric tons of grain and other foodstuffs — mostly corn, to make room for the incoming wheat crop, and mostly moving on to developing countries such as Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, and Djibouti. The U.S. is in talks to get the grain out through the Danube River by October.
ADDENDUM: One of my traveling companions just mentioned the news that U.S. citizens should leave Belarus immediately, because Lithuania is closing its border. Hey, I picked a great week to be out here, right?
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New Friends Changed My Mind About Ukraine
A visit to Finland and the Baltic states helped me appreciate the Russian threat.
By Dave Seminara
Aug. 28, 2023 5:42 pm ET
Pekka Veteläinen and Anna Saarela are tough Finns who heat their home with firewood and make a living off Russian bears. They built five bear-viewing cabins in the taiga, roughly half a mile from the border and Russia’s Paanajärvi National Park—land that was part of Finland before World War II. Business is slow this year because of the Ukraine war, they told me, as we watched half a dozen massive brown bears scavenge in the lake. Pekka used to believe Finland should remain neutral. “But our opinion about NATO changed overnight with the invasion,” he said.
My family spent a month this summer traveling in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Everywhere we went, from the Arctic Circle to the Curonian Spit, pro-Ukraine and anti-Russian sentiment was rampant. In Cēsis, Latvia, our host, Zigmunds Rutkovskis, proudly told us that his daughter was learning every important language, “but not Russian.” At the local tennis club, head pro Valdis Libietis told us the club had taken in a Ukrainian soldier who lost his leg in the war and was now living above the clubhouse. “It’s our duty to help,” he said.
From Helsinki to Vilnius, Ukrainian flags are ubiquitous. In Riga, Latvia’s capital, they’re on every bus and tram car. Since the war, tensions between the country’s ethnic Russian minority and its Latvian majority have bubbled over. Lawmakers passed a law this year whereby the vehicles of drunk drivers are now shipped to Ukraine for use by the military and hospitals. Latvia’s Parliament last year amended the country’s immigration law to require Russian citizens living in the country to pass a Latvian language test.
In Jaunpils, Latvia, where you can stay in a 700-year-old castle at bargain prices, a young woman operating a medieval-games business told us that a pro-Russian singer was booted out of the country’s annual song competition. Since the war, she said, she and many other Latvians have refused to speak Russian. “When we hear it, we just shrug and pretend like we can’t understand them,” she said.
In Vilnius, our guide, Lina, showed us the city’s stunning Old Town and proudly told us that her nation of fewer than three million people raised €5 million ($5.4 million) in three days to buy an advanced military drone for Ukraine. “We understand what the Ukrainians are going through better than anyone,” she said. We saw evidence of Lithuania’s resolve at the Hill of Crosses, a pilgrimage site where believers have left hundreds of thousands of crosses. The Soviets bulldozed the site in 1961, 1973 and 1975—burning thousands of wooden crosses and confiscating metal ones for scrap. Many people were arrested, but each time the Soviets removed the crosses, more appeared until the Soviets eventually gave up. Perhaps this is a lesson for us today as we deal with Russian aggression: The war in Ukraine must be won on the battlefield, but also through small acts of resistance.
Each country we visited has barred Russian tourists. Tourism is already down in the region because of the war, but the countries believe it’s worth the economic pain to send a message to the Kremlin. Only two others have followed their lead: Poland and the Czech Republic. Meanwhile a host of other countries are actively courting Russian tourists. Iran and Cuba recently signed tourism pacts with Russia. Sri Lanka, Morocco and Thailand plan to launch direct flights there. India, Myanmar and Oman recently held meetings with Russia to discuss tourism.
Meantime Americans can still trade with and visit countries confronting Russian tyranny or those enabling it. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow no longer offers nondiplomatic visas—for reasons unrelated to the war. Since the invasion, however, the U.S. has issued more than 60,000 tourist visas to Russian citizens. Perhaps we should ban Russian tourists who aren’t coming to visit an American citizen or do business here.
Ukraine has become a partisan issue. Before my trip, I was receptive to arguments from nationalists who think we should scale back aid to Ukraine. But not now. It isn’t only Ukraine counting on us to have their backs.
I don’t know the best way to confront Russia. But I do know that now, when I think about Russia and Ukraine, I’m not focused on Burisma, Hunter Biden or Ukrainian oligarchs. I worry more about my new friends living in Vladimir Putin’s shadow.
Mr. Seminara is a former diplomat and author of “Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed & the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth.”
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Poles warn of Russia’s plans for hybrid warfare
Moscow’s actions aim to threaten NATO countries
BY GUY TAYLOR THE WASHINGTON TIMES WARSAW, POLAND | Russia is expanding its use of “hybrid warfare” — including cyberattacks, border disruptions and disinformation campaigns — in a bid to destabilize NATO’s eastern flank, the Polish government’s top national security official warned on Tuesday.
With Moscow’s conventional military bogged down in Ukraine after 18 months of war, the Kremlin is increasingly bent on sowing regional chaos, said Jacek Siewiera, the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau.
Western European nations, he added, should be more vigilant about the “broad spectrum of activities” Moscow is launching with help from ally Belarus to intimidate front-line NATO members such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, for supporting Ukraine. The threat exists even though NATO and Russian forces have carefully avoided direct conflict.
“No one in NATO should be convinced that the hybrid threat doesn’t affect his life,” Mr. Siewiera, who also serves as secretary of state in the government of Polish President Andrzej Duda.
“In Europe, in France, Spain in many other countries, if they are not facing hybrid threats right now, I’m sure that they cannot exclude it in the nearest future,” Mr. Siewiera told a group of international journalists visiting Poland on a trip sponsored by the Polish Foreign Ministry.
His comments coincide with weeks of rising tensions between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s government and NATO’s easternmost member nations, where fears have swirled that the war in Ukraine could spread.
Poland has deployed thousands of troops to its border with Belarus. Polish military and security officials openly characterize Belarus as the Kremlin’s pawn.
“We assess that Belarus is nothing more than just a tool in the hands of Russians,” Gen. Wieslaw M. Kukula, the commander general of Poland’s Armed Forces, said Tuesday.
The unease between Warsaw and Minsk has risen dramatically since the death of Russian Wagner Mercenary Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and other top company officials in a private plane crash last week.
Mr. Prigozhin had relocated a large contingent of Wagner mercenaries to a site in Belarus as part of a deal to end his abortive uprising against Russian President Vladimir Putin in late June. The Lukashenko government has said it hopes to use the Wagner forces for Belarus’ own security interests.
With Mr. Prigozhin gone, it is unclear who will take command of the mercenaries.
Gen. Kukula said Tuesday there has already been an uptick in provocations from the Belarusian side of the border, including the use of lasers pointed at Polish border forces’ eyes. He did not say specifically who inside Belarus was using the tactic.
Russia has for years sought a military advantage over the U.S. and its allies through the use of hybrid warfare — an approach often credited to Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces.
In 2013, the general published a journal article now widely considered the strategic foundation for the Kremlin’s subversion policies in the years since. The “Gerasimov Doctrine of Hybrid Warfare” blends conventional and unconventional warfare, essentially expanding military battlefield options infinitely.
“In the 21st century we have seen a tendency toward blurring the lines between the states of war and peace,” the general wrote. “Wars are no longer declared and, having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template. The very ‘rules of war’ have changed.”
U.S. national security experts have anticipated a surge in Moscow’s use of hybrid warfare for months, particularly since January, when Mr. Putin tapped Gen. Gerasimov to personally take command of all Russian forces in Ukraine.
Apart from the border tensions, Polish security officials say there is no doubt Russia is driving the hybrid warfare campaign, and that other tactics are already being used inside Poland, the key staging ground for much of the NATO equipment being provided to Ukraine.
Poland has “become a playground of Russian spy games,” one counterintelligence official told the visiting press group Tuesday.
Officials said Polish security authorities have detained 16 people in recent months on suspicion of involvement in a Russian espionage ring operating inside the NATO country. The ring’s key mission was to monitor Polish military facilities and track road and rail routes for NATO equipment moving across the border into Ukraine.
At the same time, the officials said, Russia and Belarus are pushing a “full-fledged propaganda campaign” to undermine Poland-Ukraine relations and amplify domestic divisions ahead of Poland’s October parliamentary elections.
“We are in the preelection time, it’s very tense,” said one of the offi cials. “This hybrid war against Poland will continue, ... especially during the election period.”
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Failing to deliver. EU countries will purchase record volumes of liquified natural gas from Russia this year, Russian media reported, despite Western promises to reduce energy imports from Moscow. In the first seven months of this year, EU imports of Russian LNG grew by 40 percent from the same period in 2021, making Russia the bloc's second-largest fuel supplier after the United States. In that time, the EU accounted for 52 percent of Russia’s LNG exports.
Lukashenko on Wagner. Belarus will remove forces from Russia’s Wagner Group when the Baltic states expel foreign military personnel from their territories, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said. Lukashenko argued that demands from Poland and the Baltic countries that Minsk expel Wagner fighters were "stupid" considering that Belarus' neighbors were massing more troops on their borders.
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NR PLUS MEMBER FULL VIEW
The Spectacularly Strange Land of ‘Mini-Russia’
On the menu today: I have departed Ukraine and asked God to bless and protect its people as they endure this brutal war. (Then again, maybe we could give God a little help by sending some more air-defense systems.) My traveling companion and I crossed the border into Moldova, and we turned our attention to another contested stretch of land in this region. Readers, I know the current tensions surrounding Transnistria are foremost in your mind . . .
. . . I know the current tensions surrounding Transnistria have regularly been on your mind . . .
. . . I know the current tensions surrounding Transnistria have occasionally . . .
. . . Okay, when I mentioned I would be traveling to Transnistria, one of my family members thought I had made up the name. Who among us can find Transnistria on a map? Trick question! You won’t find Transnistria labeled on a lot of maps, because in the eyes of almost the entire world, it’s not a real country, it’s just a rogue region of Moldova that aspires to be a colony of Moscow. Come with me to “mini-Russia,” a spectacularly strange little stretch of land where hammers and sickles abound like the Cold War never ended.
Welcome to the Least-Visited ‘Country’ in Europe, Comrade!
Leave it to me to spend a week or so in Ukraine, a country currently being invaded by the Russian army, and then agree to take a day trip to Transnistria, one of the few countries in the world that still has a hammer and sickle on its flag, a place the New York Times accurately labeled, “a mini-Russia.”
I should say, “country,” with air quotes, because as far as almost all the rest of the world is concerned, Transnistria is just a rebellious region of Moldova that insists upon calling itself the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. The only three other places on Earth that recognize Transnistria as an independent country are Abkhazia and South Ossetia (which are Russian-influenced disputed territories in Georgia), and Artsakh (which is a Russian-influenced disputed territory in Azerbaijan).
You probably noticed the pattern there. Transnistria is yet another Russian-influenced “frozen conflict” zone and disputed territory, a sliver of land in a narrow valley stretching north–south along the bank of the Dniester river, with Moldova on one side and Ukraine on the other. It is regularly described as the least-visited country — er, “country” — in Europe. And it is tiny; Transnistria’s thin strip of claimed territory adds up to 1,607 square miles. For comparison, the state of Delaware is 1,948 square miles.
Transnistria actually has two official flags. The first has a yellow hammer and sickle in the upper left corner against a red background, like the old Soviet flag, but with a big green stripe across it, as if someone had hastily attempted to turn it into a holiday logo for Christmas Communists. The second official flag is a duplicate of the current Russian flag, but with a slightly different ratio, 1:2 instead of 2:3. In other words, to the naked eye, this territory is covered with flags that are indistinguishable from those of Russia, and that is not an accident.
If Transnistria is not Russia, a lot of its citizens sure as heck want it to be. That second co-official flag is atop the parliament building and just about every other government building. A giant statue of Lenin stands in front of the parliament building, which is just a few blocks from Lenin Street. Logos, seals, and emblems with the hammer and sickle are everywhere. The country’s currency is the Transnistrian ruble.
There are Russian soldiers who serve as “peacekeepers” at the border checkpoints. (For the first time on this trip, I saw Russian armored personnel carriers that were in one piece.) Transnistria is reportedly home to 1,500 Russian soldiers, although it seems like it has been a while since anyone has published a reliable head count.
There are no photos in today’s Morning Jolt, because I didn’t bring my phone into Transnistria. The U.S. State Department lists Transnistria under the level-three warning — “reconsider travel” — just below level four, “do not travel.” The easiest way to avoid having any Russian-aligned government official or soldier going through my phone was to not have it there. You can find plenty of pictures of what I saw on the internet.
As the Cold War approached its end in 1989, most Moldovans began rejecting Soviet-imposed changes, passing laws that made Romanian the official language, adopted the Latin alphabet and rejected the use of Cyrillic, and beginning to embrace its own identity. But groups in communities along the eastern border still felt great affection for Russia and the Russian language and rejected those changes. Tensions grew until open shooting between the two sides broke out in March 1992, and Russia intervened, first by assisting the Transnistrian side and by brokering a ceasefire that left the tiny sliver of land controlled by the Transnistrians with a form of quasi-independence. Not much has changed in the 30 years since.
For all the Transnistrian Soviet nostalgia, the good news is that, at least for now, there’s little sign of any overt animosity between the Moldovan people and the Transnistrians. People travel back and forth across the border posts every day without incident. The Transnistrian government has stated it has no interest in getting involved in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
That is good, but the war is being fought on the Moldovan doorstep, Russians regularly fire missiles through Molodvan airspace, and missile debris keeps landing on the Moldovan side of the border. Last month, Russia sent drones to attack the port of Reni, which is about a mile from the Moldovan border and just across the Danube River from Romania. Our Moldovan guide for our journey to Transnistria told us that he worries a great deal about the war spilling over the border into his country.
Earlier this year, the Moldovan president, Maia Sandu, accused Vladimir Putin of attempting to overthrow the government by fomenting violence through foreign actors and internal criminal groups. Intriguingly, our guide asserted that this was not a big deal and he didn’t worry about it.
One major problem surrounding Transnistria is that Moldova would like to join the European Union someday, and when I say someday, I mean the government has set an explicit and public goal of 2030. The country has road signs that say, “Moldova EU 2030,” and pictures of the EU flag are in the windows of the offices of its border posts.
Moldova submitted its application to the EU last year and was granted “candidate status.” Countries that want to be in the European Union must have “the capacity to effectively implement the rules, standards and policies that make up the body of EU law and adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.” A country’s government can’t do that if it has a rogue breakaway region that makes its own laws and uses its own currency.
Earlier this month, Sandu said of the breakaway region, “Perhaps, when Ukraine wins this war and returns its territories, a geopolitical opportunity will appear that will allow us to settle the conflict peacefully.” Eh, maybe, but that day seems far in the future. No one I spoke to in Ukraine expected the war to end anytime soon.
Our tour guide, a cheerful and gregarious Moldovan who had no ill will toward Transnistrians, mentioned he had seen a pair of Hungarian tourists the previous day and recognized their car parked in front of the Lenin statue. A few minutes later, we ran into them in the nearby “Memorial of Glory,” which features memorials to the soldiers of World War II, the Transnistria War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which occurred about 300 miles away.
The Hungarians’ tour guide, upon realizing I was American, felt the need to tell me that the Ukrainians were bombing themselves. If you’ve been reading this newsletter over the past two weeks, you know that I wanted to sock him, but I had enough good sense to recognize the headline “Transnistrian tour guide repeats insane Russian propaganda, American journalist attempts to strangle him” would be bad for everyone. I stared back in disbelief and confusion, and then pretended I didn’t understand him, telling him we were going to walk around the city for a bit. This confused him sufficiently, and after a few awkward moments, we all said goodbye and went our separate ways.
If you wanted me to get the Russian perspective on the war, there it is: Russia isn’t bombing the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians are bombing themselves.
I mean, even Alex Jones has his limits.
My traveling companion and I had lunch at USSR Canteen, which I can only describe as an effort to create a version of the Hard Rock Café chain, but for Josef Stalin. Busts of Lenin are everywhere, the walls were plastered with old Soviet art and newspaper headlines, old Soviet military uniforms, and portraits of Soviet leaders, and the television was showing some Russian soap opera.
I could see some people, particularly NR readers, objecting to dining in a Soviet Union-themed restaurant. If you believe the crimes of the Soviet state were anywhere close to the crimes of the Nazis, you could argue that a USSR-themed restaurant is as offensive as a restaurant whose décor and menu is meant to evoke the Third Reich. (We have only had Amazon plaster Nazi-style ads and posters all over a New York City subway car to promote The Man in the High Castle.)
I see the existence of the USSR Canteen as an example of the ultimate triumph of capitalism. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev — they all thought they were going to conquer the world and move human history in a new direction. Today, they’re just kitsch. Sure, a themed restaurant using their faces and iconography is in business, but the Soviet Union itself went out of business 30 years ago. (I do recognize, however, the argument that Putin is attempting to recreate the Soviet Union as a gangster state, without all of that economically debilitating communism.) Soviet Communism is now just a schtick for a themed restaurant — just another version of Planet Hollywood, Rainforest Café, or the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. It’s a gimmick for monetizing the nostalgia of the elderly who associate communism with the good old days. Of course, to the extent those days were good for those elderly, it’s not because Moldova was part of the Soviet Union. They felt good because they themselves were young back then.
(I would have loved to trash the Commie cuisine, but darn it, the roast chicken and chicken soup were pretty good.)
How narrow is Transnistria? Our guide drove us north out of the city, into farmland, and pointed to a small hill, explaining that Ukraine’s territory starts on the other side of that hill. We turned to a road to our left, and headed westward, and within three or four minutes we were at the border post to Moldova. Of course, to almost all the world, we were in Moldova the whole time.
One other wrinkle, over on the other side of Moldova, is the issue of potential unification with Romania. (I’ll bet you never realized Moldova was such a hotbed of international intrigue.)
There are a considerable number of Moldovans would like to be part of Romania. There’s a lot of shared culture, language, and history between the two countries, and for Moldovans who would like the benefits of EU and NATO membership, this would be like killing two birds with one stone. According to a 2021 poll, around 44 percent of Moldovans support unification. That’s not a majority, but it’s not that far from it.
As American citizens, the U.S. Constitution protects our right to never have to care about the Eurovision contest, a sort of continental musical Olympics that gets wrapped up in a great deal of national pride. Yes, I know it launched or advanced the careers of Abba, Olivia Newton John, Celine Dion, and Julio Iglesias. The only reason I bring it up is because the 2022 contest featured Moldovan singers Zdob şi Zdub & Advahov Brothers, and the song “Trenuleţul,” an exuberant little ditty about how much the Moldovans love Romania, and how the two countries are so similar they’re hard to distinguish. The video is worth a watch as a taste of Moldovan humor and a reflection of the yearning for unification. It’s hard to imagine American performers singing to any other country, even Canada or the United Kingdom, that we’re so similar that it’s hard to tell us apart:
Go fast, go quick
The train rocked by rails
But it can’t understand
Through which country it runs
An old country, a new country
It’s like one, it’s like two
Both apart, both together
It’s like two, it’s like one
Hey ho! Let’s go
Folklore and Rock’n’roll
The train is leaving! Where are you?
Chișinău to București
And now, dear readers, you know a lot more about Transnistria and Moldova than you probably ever expected to know.
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America’s Real Russian Allies
By Timothy J. Colton and Michael McFaul
We hope you enjoyed Foreign Affairs Summer Reads. We will be continuing to share more of the same great storytelling and analysis throughout the year in our subscriber-only newsletter, The Backstory. We’ve included the first edition of the season here. To continue receiving weekly highlights from our archives, become a subscriber now at the limited rate of just $2.50 per month.
On September 11, 2001, within hours of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., Russian President Vladimir Putin was on the phone with U.S. President George W. Bush, offering his condolences. He was the first international leader to call Bush. Later that day in a televised address, Putin declared, “Russia knows directly what terrorism means, and because of this we, more than anyone, understand the feelings of the American people. In the name of Russia, I want to say to the American people—we are with you.” As the United States ramped up its war on terrorism, it appeared that it might also be ushering in a new era of partnership with Russia.
But as early as November 2001, Timothy Colton and Michael McFaul already saw cause for concern. In an essay published shortly after the 9/11 attacks, they wrote, “it is becoming increasingly evident that, just as America’s competition with the Soviet Union defined the second half of the last century, so will its new relationship with Russia help determine the contours of the new one.” As Washington threw itself into a global campaign against terrorism, they warned, “inattention to the fragility of Russian democracy would be a huge mistake—and one that could have serious negative consequences for American security.”
At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin had been in office for just two years, but had consistently shown solidarity with Washington. The United States, however, should not take such support for granted, Colton and McFaul warned. Despite Putin’s early cooperation, and support for the United States and democracy among the Russian people, “senior Russian military and intelligence officers are already pushing Putin to retreat to old ways of thinking about international politics,” regarding the West with hostility and suspicion. “Backsliding in Moscow is still a danger and could pit Russia against the United States,” they wrote.
A political science professor at Stanford University in 2001, McFaul would go on to become the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. By that point, Russia had descended into full-fledged authoritarianism, and it launched its invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014. It is impossible to say how the world would be different if the United States had chosen a different foreign policy path after 9/11. But as Colton and McFaul pointed out in November 2001, Russian democracy was not dead yet—it just needed all the help it could get to stay alive.
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second
I would add the following to the preceding:
a) the Russians gave us heads up on the Boston Marathon bombers, but we blew it;
b) when, thanks to Obama, we had no means of getting our astronauts up to our Space Station the Russians provided taxi service;
c) a high level DEA friend tells me anti-drug cooperation was good. Contrast President Biden getting paid millions while hundreds of thousands of Americans have been and will be killed by Chinese fentanyl;
d) When Pakistan was uncooperative, Russia was a conduit to American logistics for Afghanistan.
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Also:
One of my FMA teachers (GM Leo Giron, of much CQ combat in WW2 against the Japanese) said "Peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is the management of conflict."
I fully get Putin's vision.
Which is why Trump's strength (Javelins, SOCEUR training the Ukes, US energy strength, making NATO short strokers carry their load, killing Wagner in Syria, etc etc) viz Putin instead of Biden's senile and corrupt combination of hubris and appeasement (e.g. pulling the US Navy from the Black Sea, approving the NS pipeline, undoing the anti-missile deal with Poland and Czech Republic, saying a small invasion was OK (!!!) etc etc) was the way to go.
With Trump's way there was no war.
With Biden's way there is and we are led by the same crew (Biden, Harris, Blinken, Austin, Milley, Nuland, Vindeman et al) that created this giant fustercluck that reshapes China-Russia-Iran-North Korea into a giant axis that now drives to have the BRICs (including Saudi Arabia and Brazil) decouple from the dollar.
This threat is grave and was utterly unnecessary-- Putin's desires being irrelevant in the face of American strength and competence, and energy dominance.
All apparent courses of action now seriously suck.
Pulling the rug from under the Ukes now? Terrible!
Keeping on the current trajectory? Terrible!
==================================
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/8/poland-embraces-role-nato-country-front-row-seat-r/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=A9FkKlKvUWWIwZw%2BYlw432JwDwS0l9%2F7JiIcKq%2FO4eqlBsRxEJYnirEiNJ4ZNEQU&bt_ts=1694204737916
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/world/russian-troops-withdraw-norway-border-drop-since-start-ukraine-war-official.amp
Wait, I thought the big threat to Russia was Putin. Turns out the NATO threat is only against Russian expansionism.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/europe-is-on-the-verge-of-surrendering-ukraine-to-putin/ar-AA1h30zV?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=29c06c75ba0941dca474a1ed2c2c0ce3&ei=12
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https://www.newsweek.com/russia-gas-production-collapse-ussr-levels-1831087
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from above article:
"O'Donnell said that the increase in supplies of US LNG helped by Norway and Qatar meant that "the EU didn't have to cave in when Putin cut the gas flows."
Funny, no mention of the Nordstream pipeline derailment.
Nada
Totally ignored
How come ? :wink:
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reading a bit deeper
the Nordstream is repaired but exports to Europe down from 55% to 35 % (Germany)
from what I gather.
Hungary still gets most from Russia
so perhaps sanctions are main source of Russia oil reduction
not clear to me
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October 3, 2023
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The War Is Over, but No One Knows How to Stop Fighting
By: George Friedman
It has been more than one and a half years since Russia launched its attack on Ukraine. The war has not gone as the Russians expected, unless they had planned for more than a year of taking casualties without being in a position to crush the Ukrainians. The Russians had to expect a short war in which they crushed the Ukrainian army and its will to resist. If they fell short, they knew that the Americans after a short time would surge weapons into Ukraine, risking a protracted conflict.
Ukraine has been defending its homeland, so morale is high. The Ukrainian mission was to force a Russian retreat across the border. Its first strategy relied on agility, employing relatively small units to strike at slow-moving Russian forces. But as the Russians drew into prepared defensive positions with heavy weapons, the Ukrainian strategy became less effective. The surge of U.S. and NATO weapons increased casualties on defensive positions as well as offensive ones.
The American-Russian war was in certain ways distinct from the Russian-Ukrainian war. I have written before on this. Russia’s fear was that an American force on the Ukrainian border could attack Moscow, some 300 miles (480 kilometers) away. The Americans feared that the fall of Ukraine would bring Russian forces to the eastern line of NATO nations, restarting the Cold War. In this sense, the war has little to do with Ukraine, save that it has savaged the country, and is sliding toward a painful and dangerous cold war.
Looked at this way, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a move against the Americans. The American response was intended not only to block the move but also to open the possibility that Russia’s greatest fear may be realized: Ukrainian forces, backed by U.S. equipment, pushing right up to the most sensitive border in Russia. It may well be that neither side intended these actions, but neither could dismiss the other.
As a result, the Russians moved into formidable defensive positions. They continued to launch offensive operations, but these lacked the power to achieve their ends. The true end became defensive. The Ukrainians attempted offensive operations, always holding back troops in the event of an unexpected Russian offensive. Both spoke of offenses and launched them, but held back power sufficient to maintain their own defenses. So, we have seen a sort of frozen war, in which the need to hold positions makes it impossible to commit enough force to achieve the initial goals. These types of wars become primarily political morasses, where both sides fear that any movement would have political consequences for the opening of peace talks.
Zelenskyy believed that if American intervention did not cause the Russians to abort, then it would at least allow Ukraine to counterattack on a vast scale. But the United States is engaged in a different conflict: keeping Russia away from NATO. It would provide sufficient force to keep the Russians at a distance but not enough to crush them.
Russia has kept the U.S. away from its border but little else. Ukraine has retained sovereignty over a good deal of the country. And the U.S. has made a Russian penetration beyond Ukraine highly unlikely.
The U.S. reached its goal, while Russia and Ukraine have not and will not. However, neither have they been crushed. Ukraine is now a divided country but enough of it is intact to claim victory, and Russia has pushed past its old border enough to claim a small victory. Both could claim humanitarian reasons for ending the war.
But now the dead creep. They gave their lives for nothing but the pretense of victory, as no rational person will think of the outcome as contempt for the dead. So having fought and defended for coming on two years, how the war ends is reasonably clear. How long will it take for the leaders to admit what is obvious? Everyone lost this war, and in due course so will the leaders. And that is what will delay the inevitable peace.
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An unusual military build-up in southern Europe sparked fears of another invasion like Russia's full-scale assault on Ukraine (msn.com)
================
October 4, 2023
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In the Balkans, Another Borderland Conflict Flares Up
It’s possible the spat between Serbia and Kosovo could benefit Russia.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
On Oct. 1, following a request from the supreme allied commander Europe and approval by the North Atlantic Council, the United Kingdom announced that it would deploy 200 soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment to join the 400-strong British contingent already in Kosovo for an annual exercise. The decision came a week after an armed attack by Serb militants against Kosovo police renewed fears of growing violence.
In an attempt to ease tensions, last month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti. In an official communique, NATO urged the two to engage in EU-facilitated dialogue.
Even so, the situation is as volatile as ever. The North Atlantic Council said it would authorize more forces if necessary. NATO had already strengthened its presence there in May, when skirmishes between Serb protesters and law enforcement left dozens injured. By June, NATO’s peacekeeping mission there boasted 4,500 troops from 27 contributing nations. On Sept. 29, the U.S. National Security Council confirmed rumors that Serbia had beefed up its military presence at the border, calling it “an unprecedented staging of advanced artillery, tanks and mechanized infantry units.” The government in Belgrade has since cut down its troop numbers there, but tensions remain.
And the reason for these tensions is fundamentally geopolitical. Kosovo, which is populated primarily by ethnic Albanians, declared unilateral independence from Serbia in 2008. This was roughly 10 years after NATO intervened in the Kosovo War to protect ethnic Albanians from the Serbian armed forces, which, notably, resulted in NATO bombings of Serbian targets. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, and ethnic Serbs in Kosovo consider themselves to be part of Serbia.
The majority of Kosovo's Serbs live in the north but account for less than 10 percent of the total population. The area is politically, religiously and culturally important to them, so the Serb communities are unwilling to leave. Instead, they have advocated greater autonomy from the Albanian majority, and the Albanian majority fears the government in Belgrade will use these communities as an excuse to claim the area for its own. The EU-mediated Brussels Agreement of 2013 gave Serbia the right to establish municipalities in the north but stipulated that Kosovo’s government had to have some control over them. The two sides never agreed on how the agreement would be implemented.
Several seemingly insignificant events have led to flare-ups in the intervening years, including a dispute over license plates. But in March 2023, after Kosovo and Serbia signed a new deal promising to normalize ties, controversial elections in four northern Kosovo municipalities rekindled their conflict. After the polls closed, election officials reported that only 1,567 people voted in four municipalities – equal to a 3.5 percent turnout – in what was a successful boycott by ethnic Serbs. In the town of Zvecan, which has a population of just under 17,000, the newly elected mayor received only 100 or so votes. The mayors were sworn in despite accusations of illegitimacy, resulting in protests that clashed violently with security forces, including those belonging to NATO.
EU-mediated talks between Serbia and Kosovo continued throughout the summer but stalled in mid-September. EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell blamed Kosovo for the failure, saying it refused to hold early municipal elections and pointing to recent provocations such as eviction orders, property expropriations and the employment of special troops for local law enforcement. He also criticized Serbia for delaying, among other things, an energy roadmap, which contravened the agreement. Only a few days after talks ended, a police officer was shot and four civilians were killed when Kosovar police raided a monastery near the Serbian border, where at least 30 heavily armed men were allegedly hiding. Each side blamed the other, of course, but Milan Radoicic, the vice president of the Serbian List party, took sole responsibility for the incident, saying neither he nor his party received assistance from Serbia.
The recent tensions have clearly jeopardized prospects for renewing normalization talks. The European Commission already announced that it would enact punitive measures against Kosovo, and it has said it may do likewise against Serbia if no progress on easing tensions is made.
But to some degree, the damage has already been done. Serbia lost the high ground it briefly held when Kosovo refused to de-escalate tensions. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has been exculpated by Radoicic's confession that he acted without Belgrade's knowledge, but his party’s ties to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party are so well known that he may not get the benefit of the doubt. And Radoicic’s admission of guilt was likely the result of pressure from the party in Serbia. Because of his history on the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions list for organized crime, Radoicic was already hurting Serbia's international standing. The government has been trying to move closer to the West in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, and being seen as responsible for a shooting in Kosovo would certainly hurt its efforts to that end. This may be why Rodoicic resigned from the Serbian List party just before he confessed to his involvement in the shooting.
Moreover, the confession makes it more difficult for Serbia – or the international community, for that matter – to compel Kosovo to implement the Brussels Agreement and thus establish its autonomous municipalities. Kosovo’s refusal to implement the agreement, and its failure to de-escalate tensions in the north, were what led to its reprimand by the EU in the first place, including a withdrawal of the U.S. assistance that had been the backbone of its independence. The latest bout of violence, then, gives Pristina an opportunity. If it can convince the international community that it was not Radodoic alone but Serbia List that is responsible for the latest attack, and potentially declare it a terrorist organization, it could remove it from the political scene in Kosovo. With no political party, the Serbs could not establish the autonomous municipalities, so Kosovo would have no need to abide by the Brussels Agreement.
This would give the prime minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, not one but two wins. His refusal to implement the Brussels Agreement was electorally motivated; he needed to show that he was not like previous leaders, and in Kosovo, to refuse deals with Serbia is to stay in power. But Kurti can also use the attack as an excuse to tighten control over the Serb-dominated north. It may not prevent another violent flare-up – in fact, it could have the opposite effect – but it could endear him to many of his voters.
Otherwise, the big winner here is Moscow. Since 2011, when the Serbs first protested against the establishment of administrative borders between Kosovo and Serbia, Russia's popularity has grown. The Russian Embassy in Serbia provided aid at the time to the barricaded Serbs and has reportedly sustained it ever since. In 2014, a Russian center for human rights was set up in North Mitrovica, even though it was declared illegal by Kosovar authorities. And though there is nothing but rumor to suggest Russia was involved in the recent attack, Moscow would certainly benefit from another conflict in the Balkans, especially if it distracts the West from Ukraine.
To understand what could happen with Serbia, look at what is happening in the Caucasus. The incident in northern Kosovo comes a week after Azerbaijan’s military went into Nagorno-Karabakh, causing ethnic Armenians there to flee the area for fear of additional retaliation – this despite the fact that Russia has traditionally been an ally and fellow member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization with Armenia. Armenia waited in vain for Moscow’s help, but in light of renewed talks between Azerbaijan and Russia, particularly over the creation of the highly anticipated International North-South Transport Corridor, it’s possible that Russia could have helped Armenia but decided not to. It’s no secret that Moscow has been unhappy for some time now with Armenia's outreach to the West.
As the war in Ukraine continues, it has repercussions in all of Eurasia’s borderlands, where more or less frozen conflicts seem to be opening up to renegotiation or, worse, renewed violence. All interested parties are recalculating their positions accordingly.
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/10/04/us-russia-emergency-tests-n2629332
:-o :-o :-o
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What a curious coincidence!
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Rightsizing the Russia Threat
Whatever Putin’s Intentions Are, He Is Hemmed In by Limited Capabilities
By Samuel Charap and Kaspar Pucek
October 3, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin near Svobodny, Russia, September 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin near Svobodny, Russia, September 2023
Artem Geodakyan / Reuters
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Since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022, debates have raged in the West about how to properly respond to Moscow’s aggression. But those debates are limited by a lack of agreement about the goals of that aggression and, ultimately, what kind of threat Russia really represents. Arguably, understanding the Russia threat is a first-order priority: unless Western governments get that right, they risk either overreacting or underreacting.
Officials and scholars who have proffered their views of Russian goals tend to see them in quite stark terms. Many have made the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a maximalist whose ambitions go far beyond Ukraine. Others portray Putin as obsessed with Ukraine—or more specifically, obsessed with erasing it from the map. Such assessments of Putin’s intentions, however, are often unmoored from any consideration of his capabilities. If one accepts the formulation that a threat must be assessed based on an adversary’s intentions and capabilities, then the limits of what Putin can do establish which of his ambitions are relevant for understanding the threat posed by Russia—and which merely reflect the powers of his imagination.
Over the past 20 months, the world has learned much about what Putin can and cannot do. When one considers that evidence, a different view of Putin and the threat he represents emerges: a dangerous aggressor, for sure, but ultimately a tactician who has had to adjust to the constraints under which he is forced to operate.
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WHAT DOES PUTIN WANT?
Some prominent Russia analysts have claimed that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is merely the first step in a much larger attempt at domination that will extend beyond Ukraine. Putin, in this view, is a maximalist. As the scholars Angela Stent and Fiona Hill argued in Foreign Affairs: “[Putin’s] claims go beyond Ukraine, into Europe and Eurasia. The Baltic states might be on his colonial agenda, as well as Poland.” In this view, Russia’s progressively greater use of military force in its foreign policy since the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 is part of a continual process that has yet to peak. Putin, accordingly, will not stop until he has restored some version of the Russian Empire or at least a sphere of influence that goes beyond Ukraine. As Hill and Stent put it in a different article: “If Russia were to prevail in this bloody conflict, Putin’s appetite for expansion would not stop at the Ukrainian border. The Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and many other countries that were once part of Russia’s empire could be at risk of attack or subversion.”
If Putin does harbor such imperialist ambitions in eastern Europe, his intentions would partly resemble those of Hitler and Stalin. Some leaders, particularly in parts of formerly communist eastern Europe that fell under Nazi occupation during World War II and Soviet occupation and control after it, have not shied away from making the analogy explicit. For example, in June 2022, Polish President Andrzej Duda criticized German and French attempts at diplomacy with Russia by rhetorically asking: “Did anyone speak like this with Adolf Hitler during World War II? Did anyone say that Adolf Hitler must save face? That we should proceed in such a way that it is not humiliating for Adolf Hitler? I have not heard such voices.”
Other analysts and policymakers have portrayed Putin as essentially a génocidaire—a man bent on destroying not only the Ukrainian state but also its people and culture. As the historian David Marples put it: “The Russian leadership seeks to depopulate and destroy the entity that since 1991 has existed as the independent Ukrainian state.” The writer Anne Applebaum concurs: “This was never just a war for territory, after all, but rather a campaign fought with genocidal intent.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described “an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia,” a charge backed by the odious practices of Russian forces: the mass killings of civilians, the torture and rape of detainees, the deliberate bombing of residential neighborhoods, and the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. In his September 2022 address to the UN General Assembly, U.S. President Joe Biden stated that “this war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people.” The legislatures of Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have joined that of Ukraine in formally declaring Russia’s aggression in Ukraine a genocide.
Putin’s dreams matter little if he cannot realize them on the ground.
The trouble with seeing Putin as a maximalist or a génocidaire is that it ignores his inability to be either one of those things—unless he resorts to use of weapons of mass destruction. When Russia’s conventional military was at the peak of its power at the start of the war, it was incapable of taking control of any major Ukrainian city. Since the retreat from Kyiv and the northeast, Russian forces have demonstrated little capacity to conduct successful offensive operations. Their last attempt—a winter offensive in the south of the Donetsk region—ended in a bloodbath for the Russian side. At this rate, Putin will never succeed at taking control of Ukraine by force, let alone wipe out its inhabitants, even if Western support for Kyiv wanes. If he cannot take Ukraine, it seems far-fetched that he could go beyond it. These Russian weaknesses are widely invoked, but they are usually ignored in assessments that focus on Putin’s intentions.
Moreover, Moscow’s soft-power instruments have been revealed to be equally ineffective as its hard power ones. Despite many fears to the contrary, German dependence on Russian natural gas has not allowed Moscow to stop Berlin from leading efforts to counter aggression in Ukraine. In addition, the shallowness of Russia’s capital markets and the general weakness of its industrial sector have driven former Soviet countries toward the West and China in search of trade opportunities and investments—despite elaborate attempts by Moscow to foster economic integration in the region. In addition, Putin’s Russia, unlike its Soviet predecessor, has no power of attraction with which to co-opt foreign elites into larger political projects. The Kremlin under Putin has neither a powerful, transnational ideology nor a developmental model that could attract elites outside its borders. Whatever soft power Russia wielded to attract elites through more banal means—say, bribery on a grand scale—has been largely squandered by now, thanks to the brutality of its war.
The Ukraine war has revealed that Putin does not have the resources—short of using nuclear weapons—to fulfill maximalist or genocidal objectives. The Russian military has improved its performance during the war; its destructive power should not be dismissed. And Putin’s intentions do matter. But it is now clear that his forces cannot defeat the Ukrainian military, let alone occupy the country. Perhaps he might dream of wiping Ukraine off the map or of marching onward from Ukraine to the rest of the continent. But his dreams matter little if he cannot realize them on the ground.
PAVED WITH BAD INTENTIONS
A smaller but vocal group of analysts takes a markedly different view of Putin’s intentions, claiming that he is a fundamentally defensive actor who seeks (like all leaders of major powers, this group alleges) to prevent threats to his homeland from materializing. Rather than trying to conquer Ukraine, let alone Europe, Putin has been waging a reactive war to keep the West out of his backyard. The political scientist John Mearsheimer, the most prominent exponent of this view, has argued that “there is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine.” He has also written that “there is no evidence Russia was preparing a puppet government for Ukraine, cultivating pro-Russian leaders in Kyiv, or pursuing any political measures that would make it possible to occupy the entire country and eventually integrate it into Russia.” In other words, Russia has been playing defense, and Putin is merely pushing back against Western encroachment. He seeks nothing more than security for his country.
But this portrayal of Putin clashes with the reality of Russia’s actions. It now seems patently obvious that Putin’s motives went far beyond defense. It is difficult to see the Russian attempt to take Kyiv in the first weeks of the war as anything other than a regime-change operation. And British, Ukrainian, and U.S. intelligence agencies have all judged that the Kremlin attempted to prepare various Ukrainian figureheads to lead a Russian puppet regime in Kyiv and steer the country back into Moscow’s orbit. (One such figurehead, Oleg Tsaryov, even directly confirmed his presence in Ukraine on the day the full-scale invasion began, declaring on the Telegram social media platform that “Kyiv will be free from fascists.”)
Still, to accurately assess the Russia threat, the clear evidence of Putin’s initially expansive intentions must be coupled with the equally clear evidence of Russia’s limited capabilities, which have been on vivid display since February 2022 and which appear to have forced Putin to adjust his aims. Putin may well have been seeking to conquer Ukraine in the initial stage of the war, but following the failure of that plan, he (at least temporarily) downsized his goals. He withdrew his forces from around the capital and other cities in the northeast of Ukraine in early April 2022; they have never returned. As Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, has testified to Congress: “Putin is likely better understanding the limits of what his military is capable of achieving and appears to be focused on more limited military objectives for now.” The best way to understand Putin, then, is not as an offensive maximalist, a génocidaire, or a wholly defensive actor, but rather as a tactician who adjusts his ambitions to accord with the constraints under which he operates. Analysis of the Russia threat should focus less on what he might aspire to and more on what he plausibly can get with the power he has.
DEALING WITH A TACTICAL ADVERSARY
An understanding of Putin as a tactician is not necessarily reassuring. His ambitions may well expand in the future just as they have contracted in the past—and if Russia’s power can enable that expansion, then threat assessments should change. Moreover, even with his current limited capabilities, Putin can still inflict major damage on Ukraine and its people. Russia has pounded Ukrainian ports and industrial and energy facilities and has mined many agricultural fields. Its naval blockade has obstructed exports of grain, steel, and other commodities on which the Ukrainian economy (and that of many other countries) critically depends. In 2022, the Ukrainian economy shrank by a third, and it is hard to imagine how a substantial recovery could take place before Moscow stops bombing major cities and infrastructure and lifts the blockade. Further, Ukraine is by far the most powerful of Russia’s non-NATO neighbors. In other words, even with his current capabilities and a tactician’s mindset, Putin could pose an insurmountable threat to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and other former Soviet republics. U.S. allies in NATO might be safe, but that’s cold comfort to people in those countries.
For governments, rightsizing the Russia threat—that is, adopting an understanding of Putin as a tactician operating under significant constraints—should form the basis for determining appropriate policy responses to his actions. Policymakers should recognize that Putin’s goals might well be a moving target and avoid static assessments. Regularly testing the proposition that he might have adjusted to new circumstances would be a sensible approach.
Regardless, a proper understanding of the threat Russia poses must begin with an accurate appraisal of Russian power. Putin might harbor fantasies of world conquest. But at the moment, his military cannot even fully conquer any of the four Ukrainian provinces he claims to have annexed last year. Ultimately, those are the constraints that should bound the debate about the extent of the threat.
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Second
Respect for GF, but IMHO he misses the consequences of our insisting upon getting inside of Russia reactionary gap.
October 6, 2023
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Thoughts on the American Interest
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
Recently, I wrote an article on the Ukraine war titled “The War Is Over, but No One Knows How to Stop Fighting.” There were substantial reader comments and a strong minority who argued that given my thinking, it was time to withdraw U.S. funding for weapons for Ukraine. I normally answer emails individually, but I found this viewpoint important and in error, so I thought I would write a broader piece.
The war is at a standstill rather than a Russian victory precisely because of weapons and money provided by the United States. Remove that aid and Russia, a much better-endowed country, would likely sweep over the Ukrainians. The gridlock that exists would collapse. That would lead to a much greater problem. If Ukraine fell to Russia, Russia would then be on the borderline of NATO countries (the Baltic states, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania). Russian President Vladimir Putin once said the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster. I am certain he included in that the fact that Russian troops were no longer stationed in central Germany, where a generation of U.S. troops faced off with them through many cold winters. Putin understood the importance of strategic depth in defending Russia, and this was lost when the Soviet Union fell and Ukraine became an independent country. His attack on Ukraine was intended to rebalance it.
But the reality would be that the United States, its allies and Russia would again face each other, both sides on a hair trigger, in a dangerous confrontation. Each nation has its own national interest. Russia’s is to surge west through Ukraine, and the United States’ is to stop it. Perhaps a Russian victory would not have such dire consequences, but Americans have learned – or should have learned – to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. That would seem an expensive frame of mind to some, but it has been ignored in the past, resulting in much sorrow.
In May 1940, Germany invaded France. The British had been asking for American military aid. There was a strong movement, built around groups like America First, that did not want the United States to be engaged in wars that were “none of its business.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt slipped some aid to Britain but not the kind of massive military assistance or troops that might have blocked Germany. Many Americans saw this as a foreign war of little importance to the United States.
Hitler declared war on the United States several days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. There are different numbers given for how many Americans died in the European theater of operations in World War II. (Estimates range from about 200,000 to 400,000, but the numbers are not morally significant.) This was the expensive route. Engaging earlier in the war would have both been prudent and saved lives, as defense is less costly than offense.
The most important lesson of this is that an American decision not to go to war does not necessarily prevent war. In spite of the U.S. unwillingness to make war on Germany, Japan and Germany coordinated Pearl Harbor and Germany’s initiation of war on the United States. The idea that making war is an option for the United States is an illusion. Wars are very often initiated by the enemy.
This was a reality that the America First people missed. They combined their position on war with an opposition to the construction of weapons that could be seen as hostile. And they were opposed to defense spending, which forced the U.S. into a massive spending spree when the war began.
Can the U.S. avoid a major war in Ukraine? Yes, if the Russians don’t attack further westward. Otherwise, the options are war or giving them a free hand.
Where should the United States act on the worst case? As far into Ukraine as possible, keeping Russia as far from the western border as possible.
Should the United States fight its own war or fund the Ukrainian military? The answer to that is obvious. The war has to be fought, but better with weapons and money than American troops.
However the U.S. fights it, the Russians must achieve strategic depth. How much may be negotiable if the Ukrainians – with American help – maintain the burden of independence, which they are. We can give money, or face a more dangerous Russia and give lives. I vote money.
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Estonia’s Lessons for Ukraine
The former Soviet state has rooted out corruption and bet big on technology.
Andy Kessler
Oct. 8, 2023 12:01 pm ET
“You can’t bribe a computer,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told me. When it’s time to rebuild, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should heed these words. Estonia—a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—is No. 1 in providing government services digitally, according to the United Nations; first in democratic development among 29 postcommunist countries, according to Freedom House; first in international tax competitiveness, according to the Tax Foundation (the U.S. is 22nd); and sixth in the 2023 Index of Economic Freedom, according to the Heritage Foundation (the U.S. is 25th). It has the most startups per capita in Europe, and its 15-year-olds top the Continent in reading, science and mathematics.
Last week I sat down with Ms. Kallas, 46, in the cabinet room of Stenbock House, seat of Estonia’s government, and couldn’t help asking, “How did you accomplish all this since regaining independence?” I had been politely warned not to say “since Soviet occupation.”
“To attract investments, investors must trust your economy,” Ms. Kallas said. “Under the Soviets, we normalized corruption. When we restored our independence and freedom, suddenly it required a whole new mind-set from all people—it was not OK to steal from the state.”
“We have become this tech-savvy country”—Skype was created in Estonia —“because we had to do everything from scratch, so we sort of leapfrogged and went directly into e-governance.”
“Ninety-nine percent of our government services are digital, and we are more and more using AI.” Plus, “98% of people file taxes online because it’s all pre-filled. We are probably the only country in the world where people actually compete over how fast they file taxes because it’s so simple.”
Ms. Kallas noted her government uses these digital tools “to decrease, diminish bureaucracy.” That’s how to create small government. “It’s cheaper and our debt is much lower as well.” Though it’s rising, Estonia still has the lowest ratio of government debt to gross domestic product in the EU.
Taxes? “We are a very open economy. Our competitive advantage is that we don’t have corporate income tax. When you reinvest into your company, your equipment, your people, you’re not paying income tax, you’re only paying income tax if you take it out as dividends, if it’s distributed.”
With low corporate taxes, “a lot of EU residents from the U.K. are establishing companies here.” A Brexit win. And “the personal income tax is 20%. But we had to raise it now to 22% because of the costs. We have to spend on defense, right?”
I said, “Small government, free trade, low taxes—that’s the Reagan playbook.” She smiled.
“We don’t have a lot of people or natural resources”—some oil shale, plus limestone and lake mud. “What do we have? We have our minds and brains. So we actually have to focus on that, that means an education system.” It “focuses on the STEM subjects. All first-graders are taught coding—I guess actually, it’s even in kindergartens.” Estonian kindergartners use robots from a program called ProgeTiger. “We are a small country, only 1.3 million people, which means that you have to learn all the other languages. And coding is one of the languages you learn.”
“We also teach entrepreneurship in schools.” In high school they do role-playing, with bankers and loans and investment and government. “Oh, you pay taxes, where does that go?” Ms. Kallas says she is proud that Estonia “is very high on the list of youth entrepreneurship.”
Ms. Kallas notes the country has the most unicorns per capita—startups worth over $1 billion. “We have 11 of such companies in different fields. It’s really manufacturing, and it’s IT services. We help a lot of, for example, African countries to build up their governance, and we have helped Ukraine.”
At a recent international conference, Ms. Kallas was in a “green room where all the leaders are. And I had a queue of people wanting to greet me. And you know why? Because Estonia has helped those countries and I didn’t even know all of them. And they came to thank me for what we have done. We are such a small country, but we have helped a lot of countries in the world, e-governance, setting up their services.” A great export.
Estonia does have issues: “When the war started, our imports from Russia decreased 95%. The export is more complicated, because we have the land border, and there are the exports that are oriented from Estonia and the exports that actually come from other European countries.” Add to that high energy prices driving inflation and a modest recession. A small scandal swirls over an investment in Russia by Ms. Kallas’s husband. Still, the Reagan playbook is working.
The Biden administration focuses on squishy notions like equity while Estonia is working to increase everyone’s equity value. Purchasing power is up 400% since Soviet occupation—sorry, since Estonia regained independence. Free trade, low taxes, small government, e-services, educated workers, low debt and negligible corruption. Ukraine—and the U.S.—can learn a lot from Estonia.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nord-stream-20-finland-estonia-undersea-pipeline-baltic-has-been-deliberately-damaged?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1896
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Sounds good-- but are there any unintended consequences lurking here?
https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/12/exclusive-gop-rep-unveils-bill-that-would-allow-us-to-pay-itself-back-for-ukraine-aid-with-frozen-russian-assets/?pnespid=sL9kDHlHL74bguKfuDWmEo2LrwPwDoNwIuy63PlrtENmTOItLNPTxZNAQAGcCpvXIdOIjhM2
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-propaganda-germany-will-soon-exist-only-under-the-russian-flag/ar-AA1j8tki?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=21eb3eb90a4b4e7da5f1f1380ad88434&ei=5
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https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-ally-warns-enemy-poland-you-risk-losing-your-statehood-2023-11-02/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/unfortunate-news-for-kyiv-they-ve-lost-an-ally/ar-AA1kvTGI?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=6edc0a9a3f2e42028028fecabdba1b6c&ei=21
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/north-korean-ammunition-proves-fatal-for-russian-soldiers/ar-AA1kx1Qx?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=18996ff8c9a6459e9371e48af7c54ba0&ei=9
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https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-112523-major-avdeevka-breakthroughs?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=139162443&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=z2120&utm_medium=email
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/top-ukrainian-politician-david-arakhamia-gives-seventh-confirmation-of-russia-ukraine-peace-deal-agreed-in-march-2022/ar-AA1ky3eT?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=d9c4074d37804cdab6bf2fd7c35e5391&ei=18
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The main stipulation was Ukraine not join NATO
although this is unclear :
" Donbass would remain in Ukraine but as an autonomous region"
not sure what this means
or "the Crimea problem would be addressed"
Overall to me this sounds like a good deal for everyone.
So Ukraine does not get admitted to NATO
so what.
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Roadmap. Turkey and Russia agreed on a roadmap to build a natural gas hub in the Turkish region of Thrace, according to Turkish media. The project would make Turkey one of the largest gas suppliers to Europe and a central figure in the energy export business. Russia’s Gazprom and Turkish state-owned Botas are working closely on the project.
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second
How to Avoid Defeat in Ukraine
For starters, step up military aid and break Putin’s global networks of influence.
Walter Russell Mead
WSJ
Nov. 27, 2023 1:24 pm ET
The German tabloid “Bild” said the quiet part out loud. President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the well-sourced newspaper reported, plan to force Ukraine into peace talks next year by denying it the weapons needed to win.
This creates a dilemma for those who know that Ukraine’s fate matters deeply to the U.S., but who can also see that Team Biden is more interested in avoiding confrontation with Russia than in defeating it. To oppose aid to Ukraine is to ensure a Russian victory, but funding Mr. Biden’s approach will do little to prevent one—and will further erode public support for America’s global engagement.
Having failed to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine in the first place, the Biden administration badly overestimated the effect of Western sanctions on Russia. Once it was clear that sanctions wouldn’t force Russia to end the war, and after several failed efforts to tempt Russia with “off ramps,” Team Biden cooked up Plan Stalemate. The West would dribble out enough aid to help Ukraine survive, but not enough to help it win. Ultimately, the Ukrainians would lose hope of victory and offer Mr. Putin a compromise peace. The White House would spin this as a glorious triumph for democracy and the rule of law.
Some will criticize this as a cynical strategy, but the real problem is that it is naive. Mr. Biden seems to be clinging to the idea that Mr. Putin can be appeased—parked, if you prefer—by reasonable concessions. And so, the White House thinks, if Ukraine offers reasonable terms, Russia will gladly accept them.
But what if, when Mr. Putin senses weakness, he doubles down? What if a few thousand square miles of Ukrainian territory matter less to him than inflicting a humiliating defeat on the Biden administration and demonstrating the weakness of the West?
Mr. Putin has recovered from his early stumbles in Ukraine. Russia has more than doubled its forces there since the war began. Despite early setbacks, Russia has developed capabilities and tactics that have improved its troops’ effectiveness on the battlefield. The unconventional (if morally repugnant) decision to send released prisoners to fight in such places as Bakhmut and Avdiivka means that Russia was able to degrade some of Ukraine’s best combat units while preserving its own best units for battle elsewhere.
Russia has increased weapons production and is now manufacturing ammunition an estimated seven times faster than the West. It has mitigated the effect of Western sanctions. It is strengthening military and strategic links with Iran, and thanks to Iranian protégé Hamas, Western attention has shifted from Ukraine toward the Middle East.
Let’s say that six months from now the Biden strategy brings Ukraine to the bargaining table. At that point, support for more war funding would be even lower in the U.S. and Europe than it is now. Ukraine would be even more divided and war-weary than it is now. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s political position at home would grow weaker. Under those circumstances, why would Mr. Putin give President Biden a face-saving exit from a war Mr. Biden doesn’t think he can win?
We are back to the Obama follies. In 2014, President Obama failed to deter Russia from violating the United Nations Charter and its own pledged word by invading the territory of a neighbor whose security the U.S. had committed to support in the Budapest Memorandum. Mr. Obama failed to fight back against the invasion, and he then failed to develop a program of sanctions and counter-pressure that would have prevented Russia from consolidating its winnings in Crimea and the Donbas.
Sophomorically mocking Mitt Romney’s sage warnings about Mr. Putin, supinely whispering sweet nothings about more flexibility after the election into the ears of then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and passively accepting Russia’s murderous and strategically fateful venture into Syria, President Obama taught Mr. Putin contempt for the West.
Mr. Putin largely rested on his laurels during the Trump administration, but once Mr. Biden brought a host of ex-Obama officials back to the White House, the Russian leader moved back into high gear. Until Team Biden fully shakes off the vacuous platitudes of Obama-era groupthink, the administration will continue its flailing and failing in the face of the empowered and emboldened Russia Mr. Obama left to his successors.
There still are ways for the West to prevail. Mr. Putin’s global networks of influence can be destroyed. We can break Wagner’s power in Africa, disrupt Russia’s activities in Syria, and squeeze Iran to block its cooperation with Moscow. We can step up our military aid to tip the balance against Russia in Ukraine.
Funding failure isn’t a plan. Congress should continue to fund Ukraine, but it must also insist on the policy changes that would make American strategy coherent again.
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What do others here think about that?
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" There still are ways for the West to prevail. Mr. Putin’s global networks of influence can be destroyed. We can break Wagner’s power in Africa, disrupt Russia’s activities in Syria, and squeeze Iran to block its cooperation with Moscow. We can step up our military aid to tip the balance against Russia in Ukraine."
really
we can do all this?
if so easy why not already done?
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"President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the well-sourced newspaper reported, plan to force Ukraine into peace talks next year by denying it the weapons needed to win."
I suspect he is right about this.
"This creates a dilemma for those who know that Ukraine’s fate matters deeply to the U.S., but who can also see that Team Biden is more interested in avoiding confrontation with Russia than in defeating it. To oppose aid to Ukraine is to ensure a Russian victory, but funding Mr. Biden’s approach will do little to prevent one—and will further erode public support for America’s global engagement."
Agree.
"Having failed to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine in the first place, the Biden administration badly overestimated the effect of Western sanctions on Russia. Once it was clear that sanctions wouldn’t force Russia to end the war, and after several failed efforts to tempt Russia with “off ramps,” Team Biden cooked up Plan Stalemate. The West would dribble out enough aid to help Ukraine survive, but not enough to help it win."
I think this correctly captures a depth of cynicism that is quite terrible.
"Ultimately, the Ukrainians would lose hope of victory and offer Mr. Putin a compromise peace. The White House would spin this as a glorious triumph for democracy and the rule of law."
That sounds about right to me.
"Some will criticize this as a cynical strategy, but the real problem is that it is naive. Mr. Biden seems to be clinging to the idea that Mr. Putin can be appeased—parked, if you prefer—by reasonable concessions. And so, the White House thinks, if Ukraine offers reasonable terms, Russia will gladly accept them."
The same error as the one made with Iran.
"But what if, when Mr. Putin senses weakness, he doubles down? What if a few thousand square miles of Ukrainian territory matter less to him than inflicting a humiliating defeat on the Biden administration and demonstrating the weakness of the West?"
A question that must be asked, particularly with the rest of the Axis tag team America's already overtaxed bandwidth.
"Mr. Putin has recovered from his early stumbles in Ukraine. Russia has more than doubled its forces there since the war began. Despite early setbacks, Russia has developed capabilities and tactics that have improved its troops’ effectiveness on the battlefield , , , Russia has increased weapons production and is now manufacturing ammunition an estimated seven times faster than the West. It has mitigated the effect of Western sanctions. It is strengthening military and strategic links with Iran, and thanks to Iranian protégé Hamas, Western attention has shifted from Ukraine toward the Middle East."
So much for the braggadocious happy talk from the White House, Pentagon, and the Pravdas! Appeasement has had its predictable consequences.
"Let’s say that six months from now the Biden strategy brings Ukraine to the bargaining table. At that point, support for more war funding would be even lower in the U.S. and Europe than it is now. Ukraine would be even more divided and war-weary than it is now. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s political position at home would grow weaker. Under those circumstances, why would Mr. Putin give President Biden a face-saving exit from a war Mr. Biden doesn’t think he can win?"
A penetrating question.
"We are back to the Obama follies. In 2014, President Obama failed to deter Russia from violating the United Nations Charter and its own pledged word by invading the territory of a neighbor whose security the U.S. had committed to support in the Budapest Memorandum. Mr. Obama failed to fight back against the invasion, and he then failed to develop a program of sanctions and counter-pressure that would have prevented Russia from consolidating its winnings in Crimea and the Donbas.
"Sophomorically mocking Mitt Romney’s sage warnings about Mr. Putin, supinely whispering sweet nothings about more flexibility after the election into the ears of then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and passively accepting Russia’s murderous and strategically fateful venture into Syria, President Obama taught Mr. Putin contempt for the West."
A devastating bitch slap from reality!
"Mr. Putin largely rested on his laurels during the Trump administration, but once Mr. Biden brought a host of ex-Obama officials back to the White House, the Russian leader moved back into high gear. Until Team Biden fully shakes off the vacuous platitudes of Obama-era groupthink, the administration will continue its flailing and failing in the face of the empowered and emboldened Russia Mr. Obama left to his successors."
Yup.
"There still are ways for the West to prevail. Mr. Putin’s global networks of influence can be destroyed."
This is not immediately apparent to me.
"We can break Wagner’s power in Africa",
Really?
"disrupt Russia’s activities in Syria,"
Having brought the Russians in, and with the Turks and Russians working together what would be the plan here? How did Hillary's machinations in Syria turn out?
"and squeeze Iran to block its cooperation with Moscow."
We can and should squeeze Iran, but I'm not seeing any signs of this being remotely plausible. Indeed, Iranian proxies attack us in Iraq and Syria without consequence, and the Houthis in Yemen too.
"We can step up our military aid to tip the balance against Russia in Ukraine."
Ummm , , , like what? And what does Russia do should the Ukes start winning? Note the above about Russia's improved game. As we have noted here previously, the working assumption is that the Russian's motivational structure is always to double down.
"Funding failure isn’t a plan."
Agree!
"Congress should continue to fund Ukraine, but it must also insist on the policy changes that would make American strategy coherent again."
Ummm , , , but after reading this piece, as full of intelligent observations as it is, we still are no closer to knowing what that is. Take Crimea? Take Donbass? Allow the Ukes to start hitting the Russian homeland? Overthrow Putin? What badwidth would we have left for useful elsewhere?
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Second
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukrainian-negotiator-russia-promised-peace-if-ukraine-dropped-nato-aspirations/ar-AA1kzI7y?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=6c9c15fb54c64b69a96c480d004b168d&ei=13
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https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-security-service-blew-up-main-railway-connection-between-russia-china/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication&fbclid=IwAR3s_LpcYRRibCIHtC6ITOx2tSB91_uicxfpEstgTC4StSYkkuRZVaAGJKU
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LNG to Europe. Russian exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe reached a record high in November, totaling 1.75 million tons, according to Russian news outlet Kommersant. France and Belgium were the top destinations. Exports to Japan also increased by 22 percent year over year and to South Korea by 50 percent. Supplies to China, meanwhile, fell sharply to 100,000 tons compared to the previous month’s 800,000 tons. Notably, however, the Financial Times reported last month that a fifth of Russian LNG supplies entering Europe is reshipped to other markets.
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LNG to Europe. Russian exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe reached a record high in November, totaling 1.75 million tons, according to Russian news outlet Kommersant. France and Belgium were the top destinations. Exports to Japan also increased by 22 percent year over year and to South Korea by 50 percent. Supplies to China, meanwhile, fell sharply to 100,000 tons compared to the previous month’s 800,000 tons. Notably, however, the Financial Times reported last month that a fifth of Russian LNG supplies entering Europe is reshipped to other markets.
Those million of tons of LNG exported could've, should've been from the US. But no...
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Russia Has Designs on Moldova
The tiny state near Ukraine is next on the Kremlin menu.
By
The Editorial Board
Follow
Dec. 5, 2023 6:40 pm ET
Still think Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambition stops at Ukraine? Listen to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who threatened tiny Moldova last week at the annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
“Moldova is destined to fall the next victim in the West-unleashed hybrid war against Russia,” Mr. Lavrov said. The reality is that, as Moldovans politically gravitate to the West, their country has become a target of Russia’s hybrid aggression.
Moldova restricted flights to Russia and imposed sanctions on financial institutions after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Last month Chișinău also began enforcing additional European Union sanctions—a decision Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova vowed “will not be left unanswered,” according to the Russian news agency Tass. The U.S. estimates agricultural production accounts for some 12% of Moldova’s GDP, and on Monday Moscow commenced restrictions on imports of Moldovan fruit and vegetables.
Mr. Putin hopes to spread economic hardship to foment political instability and turn public opinion against the ruling pro-Western government. Moldova’s per capita GDP is less than $6,500, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The good news is that the European Union has helped shelter Moldova’s agriculture industry from Russian economic coercion by suspending tariffs and quotas on seven categories of produce since July 2022. This alternative market has flourished, with Moldova fruit exports surging.
But Russia is also meddling in Moldovan politics. A Moldovan informal document circulated to the EU says it “collected solid evidence” that Russia provided “illegal finances to its proxies” in Moldova “to organize electoral campaigns, to corrupt candidates, to buy voters and to increase the scale of disinformation campaigns” in the country’s recent local elections.
Shortly before the election, a fake video purported to show President Maia Sandu resigning and asking voters to support a candidate widely believed to be pro-Russian. Moldovan authorities worry about a proliferation of fake videos before next year’s presidential election.
Energy blackmail is another Kremlin tactic. Moldova has worked to reduce its reliance on Russian energy, and it also wants to limit its dependence on electricity generated from Russian gas in the territory of Transnistria that broke away from Moldova at Russian instigation in the early 1990s. The U.S. has provided Moldova with $80 million in direct budget support to offset record electricity prices last winter, as well as $220 million to strengthen Moldovan energy security.
If the Kremlin rolls over Ukraine, it will regroup and aim to foment unrest in other parts of the former Soviet Union. Better to help Ukrainians stop Mr. Putin there.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-fires-warning-shot-at-nato-country/ar-AA1l3nK2
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/president-of-latvia-responds-to-putin-s-threats/ar-AA1l5AkT?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=b4edeb91d6f943f3aa97c7fa5cffd10e&ei=13
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The Peril of Abandoning Ukraine
If Congress forces Kyiv to accept a Russian victory, the result won’t be peace but a new war.
By David Satter
Dec. 7, 2023 4:41 pm ET
WSJ
With money for Ukraine running out, there is much talk in Congress about the U.S. southern border but scant attention to menacing developments inside Russia. If aid is cut off and Ukraine is forced to accept a Russian victory, the result won’t be peace but Russian preparation for a new war.
The war in Ukraine activated the Soviet totalitarian psychological inheritance in Russia, which was partially dormant but never disappeared. Freed of the restraints imposed by Western ties, Russia is more dangerous than it has been since the height of the Cold War. Militarization is being matched by a surge in nationalist fanaticism.
The budget for the next three years (2024-26), which Vladimir Putin signed Monday, increases defense spending for 2024 by almost 70%. Industries related to the war have seen spectacular growth. But that will be difficult to sustain without a fall in living standards, and any reduction in military spending would lead to a massive structural shock.
In an interview on Rossiya-1 television, Mr. Putin said that 99.9% of Russians would be willing to sacrifice their lives for the country. In a televised message to schoolchildren on Sept. 1, the first day of school, Mr. Putin said that he “understood why we won the Great Patriotic War,” as Russia calls World War II. “It is impossible to defeat such a people with such an attitude. We were absolutely invincible and still are.”
The death toll is rising, but Russia is celebrating. The once-insignificant budget for “military patriotic education” has been dramatically expanded and is being used for constant patriotic meetings in schools and stadiums. On Sept. 30, Putin announced a new holiday, the “Day of Unification,” to mark the 2022 annexation of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizha regions of Ukraine. Russians celebrate flag day on Aug. 22 and the Day of National Unity on Nov. 4, which marks the previously ignored liberation of Russia from the Poles in 1604. It was celebrated this year for several days in major cities.
Inflation has taken a toll, but Russians are accustomed to growing food and bottling it for the winter. At the same time, the war has created new opportunities. The pay for soldiers in Ukraine is 195,000 rubles a month, or about $2,100, nearly 14 times the median salary in the poorest regions of Russia. When a soldier is killed, his family receives a payment of some $55,000, a fortune by Russian standards.
Historian Sergei Chernyshov describes what he saw when he visited the small city where his parents live: “Tens of thousands of soldiers did not return from the front, but hundreds of thousands returned, and with so many millions of rubles that they previously could not have imagined it. In the villages of Russia, there are constant funerals, but there is a sense of taking part in something great—defeating Nazism in Ukraine and finally settling the score with gays, Jews, and the collective West.”
In one year, the Wagner mercenary group recruited 49,000 prisoners to fight in Ukraine. The late Yevgeny Prigozhin, the group’s leader, told prisoners, “We need your criminal talents,” and said that he preferred convicts who had committed more than one murder. The recruits were used in human-wave attacks, but the survivors returned as heroes to the communities they previously terrorized. According to the BBC Russian Service, former Wagner fighters are suspects in at least 20 serious offenses committed since their return, including rape and murder. The real number is probably much higher because many crimes aren’t recorded.
History, meanwhile, is being rewritten. Russia is depicted as a besieged fortress, defending not only itself but all of civilization. New high-school textbooks claim that Russian forces entering Ukraine found evidence of the mass murder of civilians, that the U.S. and other Western countries are using Ukraine as a “clenched fist” aimed at Russia, and that the West is fixated on destabilizing Russia.
Military instruction in the schools is being introduced as early as kindergarten. The training includes teaching children to kill “enemies” using weapons. Morning rituals in elementary schools include patriotic talks by soldiers who have returned from the front and the unveiling of memorial plaques for those who were killed.
At the same time, reminders of Russia’s real history are being eliminated. Since May, dozens of plaques marking the last residences of persons who died in Stalin’s purges in the 1930s have disappeared, and at least 18 monuments to victims of Soviet repression have been reported stolen or vandalized. In the town of Velikiye Luki, the private Russian Knight Foundation inaugurated a 26-foot-high statue of Stalin and argues on its website that the monument is crucial in that Russia is fighting a “real patriotic war.”
The transformation of Russia into a military machine presages future conflict in the event of a peace agreement with Ukraine. Moscow won’t honor any agreement. In 1997 Russia signed a peace treaty with Chechnya. Two years later, four apartment buildings were blown up in Russian cities and Russia launched a new invasion of Chechnya. All evidence shows that the buildings were blown up not by Chechens but by the Russian Federal Security Service as part of an operation to bring Mr. Putin to power.
Perhaps more important, Russia is looking for any sign that the West will shrink from defending its principles. In this respect, references in Congress to an unwillingness to support a “forever war” are not only disgraceful but dangerous.
In a television show marking the Day of Unification, propagandist Sergei Mardan said that the annexation of Ukrainian regions was the start of Russia’s journey to restoring its empire. He said that Russia had lost its purpose after the fall of the Soviet Union but had been reborn with the war in Ukraine. That, he said, is “something wonderful, something frightening.”
Russia’s position in the world is defined by the personal interests of its rulers. Under wartime conditions, they have made national fanaticism the key to their hold on power. A Russian victory would reinforce a war psychology that has gripped the population and can’t be abandoned without the leaders themselves being threatened. Allowed to win in Ukraine, they would defend their positions by looking for new conquests, creating a massive and long-term security threat for the West.
Mr. Satter is the author of “Never Speak to Strangers and Other Writing from Russia and the Soviet Union.” A second volume is scheduled for release in February.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtwe3l-AXXw
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/worrying-words-from-germany-we-have-no-alternative/ar-AA1lhxET?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=98d53265c1ff4b558eed197609267643&ei=17
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https://news.yahoo.com/u-intelligence-assesses-ukraine-war-161649343.html
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/us/politics/russia-intelligence-assessment.html
The Russian push in eastern Ukraine this fall and winter was designed to sap Western support for Ukraine, according to a newly declassified American intelligence assessment.
The drive has resulted in heavy losses but has not led to strategic gains on the battlefield for Russia, said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.
Since the beginning of the war Russia has suffered from a staggeringly high number of losses, according to another newly declassified assessment shared with Congress. At the start of the war the Russian army stood at 360,000 troops. Russia has lost 315,000 of those troops, forcing them to recruit and mobilize new recruits and convicts from their prison system.
Moscow’s equipment has also been crushed, according to the assessment. At the start of the war, Russia had 3,500 tanks but has lost 2,200, forcing them to pull 50 year old T-62 tanks from storage.
The assessment says the Russian losses have reduced the complexity of Russia’s recent military operations in Ukraine.
“The war in Ukraine has sharply set back 15 years of Russian effort to modernize its ground force,” the declassified assessment said. “As of late November, Russia had lost over a quarter of its pre-2022 stockpile of ground forces equipment and has suffered casualties among its trained professional army.”
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nato-ally-to-give-ukraine-billion-dollar-booster/ar-AA1lsM8H?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=e6460041d6a04beeabc59b3d2c33752b&ei=5
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Deeply disconcerting-- reading all of it recommended!
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/breaking-down-thinktank-lands-latest?publication_id=1351274&post_id=140019998&isFreemail=true&r=z2120
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[Doug] I post this without endorsing or necessarily agreeing with everything in it.
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The pitfalls of seizing Russian assets to fund Ukraine
Moscow must be made to pay, but without risking harm to global financial stability
https://www.ft.com/content/b46a3308-b048-44fd-b619-0b92c404c379?segmentId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9
The case for making Russia pay for its unprovoked assault on Ukraine is morally and legally indisputable. How to achieve this is a trickier question. The US is coming around to the idea of seizing up to €260bn of Russian central bank assets held abroad that were frozen early in the war and using them to fund Kyiv; EU countries including France and Germany are reluctant. Great caution is merited. Confiscating Russian reserves risks setting harmful precedents and undermining the global financial architecture.
Central bank reserves are generally considered to be protected by sovereign immunity — the doctrine that one country’s national courts cannot sit in judgment on the acts of another, or use its assets to execute judgments. International lawyers headed by Philip Zelikow, a former senior US diplomat, have set out a legal basis for transferring Russian sovereign reserves. They argue this would be a justified “countermeasure” against Moscow’s gross breach of international law through its assault on Ukraine. They point to how Iraqi reserves were used in internationally imposed compensation after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Some other legal scholars challenge this reasoning. US officials now seem privately to back it, along with Britain’s foreign secretary, Lord David Cameron. Having a potential legal basis, though, is one thing; whether it is economically or politically wise to use it is another. A powerful concern is that doing so could harm international financial stability — and the dollar and euro’s status as reserve currencies — by undermining the essential trust involved in depositing reserves with other nations.
Freezing Russian assets was a sound way to squeeze its ability to fund its war. EU plans to tap windfall profits generated from holding them do not affect their underlying ownership. But going further and confiscating the reserves crosses a line. Countries such as China might come to fear reserves held in euros or dollars were no longer safe.
There is also a risk that even if Russian assets were seized under, say, a special G7 mechanism, countries elsewhere might then think it acceptable to settle disputes by grabbing reserves. Rightly or wrongly, many nations of the “global south” would see it as another example of wealthy democracies adapting the rules to their own interest. The US and its allies have couched Ukraine’s war against Russia as defending a rules-based international order. Even if Moscow has trampled on global norms, the west’s response must be seen to be legally irreproachable.
Russia must of course pay towards the vast costs of rebuilding Ukraine. The G7 has pledged to keep Moscow’s assets frozen until Russia compensates Kyiv for the damage — which could be potent leverage in a future settlement. But it is no coincidence that the idea of Russian asset seizures has gained momentum just as US and EU support for Kyiv’s war effort is hitting political roadblocks. It risks becoming a mechanism for western democracies to shirk their own responsibilities. Having stayed out of direct military engagement, they have a profound duty to keep funding Ukraine’s defence of European security and values.
Proponents of using Russian assets argue that “western taxpayers won’t pay”. But the world’s wealthiest economies, and their financial institutions, ought together to be up to this task — and to making the case to their electorates for why this must happen. With careful preparation, and by building the broadest possible coalition in support, there may be ways to lessen the risks of confiscating Moscow’s reserves. As 2023 moves into 2024, however, it is on unblocking and locking in their own financial support for Kyiv that western leaders should focus their efforts.
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I remember in 1990 I wrote a letter to the editor.
Everyone was asking who is gonna pay for the cost of the Gulf War and I wrote in that Iraq should pay. Seize their oil. Very *simple* fix actually.
My 24 hrs of fame when I got to be the *lead* letter to the editor in the Palm Beach Post that day.
:))
Of course, GH Bush did not take my advice.
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news.yahoo.com/dutch-commander-chief-call-netherlands-155800659.html
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/25223187/putin-blitzes-village-russia-devastating-blunder/
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https://english.pravda.ru/world/158590-nato_crimea_montreux_convention/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/next-nato-member-commits-troops-to-russia-border-after-200-year-neutrality/ar-AA1mGooY?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=c885260ffe4f4164bce3835f1d51f10b&ei=11
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Europe Comes to Boil: the Balkans, Hungary and Russia
By: George Friedman
A few months ago, when Gaza joined Ukraine as a theater of intense war, I wrote about another potential conflict emerging in the Balkans. I do not listen much to sources, but two people I trust for their insight on the region warned me that a war was highly probable. I reported as much to our readers, noting that I was torn between sources and my own model, which suggested the opposite. I have not been proved a failure yet, but a war – one that could implicate more than just the Balkans – is becoming increasingly probable.
Central and Eastern Europe
(click to enlarge)
Part of this has to do with deep unrest in the region. Demonstrations have broken out in Serbia, over allegations of government corruption. This would not be significant in itself were Russia not a close ally of Serbia. Russian involvement in a potential conflict there brings consequences unknown but potentially significant given the regional balance of power.
Next door, Bosnia-Herzegovina is facing an insurrection by ethnic Serbs who charge that Bosnians are endangering them. The demonstrators dedicated their uprising to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had recently visited the country. The United States sent F-16s to signal its opposition to the protests in a move that greatly complicates the situation.
Serbia has been close to Russia for years. Hungary grew close to Russia just before Russia invaded Ukraine. From my perspective, it appears as though Russia is working with its newfound friend in Hungary to project influence – and potentially power – into Serbia, where Budapest also has political interests. This sounds conspiratorial, but then sometimes there are conspiracies.
In any case, Russia is bogged down in Ukraine despite its claims to the contrary. Were this not the case, Russia would show much more movement and not be so desperate to recruit new forces – even by going so far as to, say, offer Russian citizenship to foreigners. Moscow isn’t losing the war but neither has it taken control of the battlefield. It is perhaps creating a foundation south of Ukraine. Its significance is not clear, but it could be read as a major Russian maneuver. At this point, the government must create new dimensions to the war. The problem faced by anyone in Russia’s position is that in looking for new dimensions they might overstretch themselves and exhaust time and resources.
Let’s assume the unlikely: that Russia will use the advantages gained in the Balkans to threaten Ukraine’s flank and rear by posting troops there, or simply threatening a flanking maneuver. If that were the case, the important question would be what it would do next. The reason the U.S. supports Ukraine is that it is afraid of what moves Russia might make if victory opens new avenues of attack. If Russia can break through, it will have won land broken by war. Moscow is losing much in this war and may be looking for something more.
Hungary is closer to Russia because it assumed a rapid Russian victory in Ukraine. That didn’t happen, and its miscalculation came at the expense of ties with the West. Hungary’s relationship with the European Union is near collapse. Like others, Hungary did not see the war lasting this long and therefore did not expect this degree of alienation. However, it has not been touched by the war, nor is it invested deeply in it. This gives Hungary options.
In supporting Serbia – and the ethnic Serbs in Bosnia – Hungary has also brought itself closer to Russia. Hungary’s military capability is limited, but its military value potential rests in its geography. If Russia definitively crushed Ukraine, it could have claimed cities in western Ukraine, such as Uzhgorod in the Carpathian Mountains, that are just north of Hungary. Hungary is generally flat, and a sophisticated force could easily defeat it. If Ukraine collapsed, there would be little blocking a Russian attack, particularly if the Russians treated them as allies and were just passing through to Austria on Hungary's western border.
There are a staggering number of steps and challenges facing this analysis, of course, but there is a certain logic to it. Russia has suffered great losses, politically and economically, from the Ukraine war. President Vladimir Putin has called the fall of the Soviet Union the greatest catastrophe in Russia’s history. Putin, a former KGB operative in East Germany during the Cold War, does not, I think, confine the collapse to Russia but to Russian control of Central Europe. A drive through Hungary would open the door if not to a return to empire then at least to the recognition that Russia is a great European power.
I may be reading too much into what could be random events, but it seems to me that all three players share a common interest that must be taken seriously. Certainly a coalition is forming regardless of what it turns out to be.
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https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/nato-to-build-a-baltic-defense-line-in-2025
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/maginot-line
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why not
it was a greatly successful strategy in France circa 1940. :wink:
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A counter argument would be that the fortification Russia built in eastern Ukraine stymied the Uke counter offensive.
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Turkey signs off on Sweden joining NATO
Stockholm clears major hurdle for bid
BY BEN WOLFGANG THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Turkish parliament on Tuesday approved Sweden’s bid to join NATO in a major boost for thetransatlantic alliance, which is now poised to gain its second new member in less than a year after Finland’s accession last April.
Separately, Hungary also signaled Tuesday it may be on the verge of dropping its own opposition to Sweden joining NATO. The two developments in key NATO capitals represent significant movement on NATO’s long-running effort to bring Sweden into the fold, and also underscore how the Western military alliance has only grown stronger in the nearly two years since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Turkish legislators ratified Sweden’s accession protocol by 287 votes to 55, with four abstentions. The ratification will come into effect after its publication in the country’s Official Gazette, which is expected to happen in the coming days.
The vote in Turkey ends a long-running saga that saw Ankara stand in the way of Sweden’s NATO membership bid for over 18 months. NATO Secretary- General Jens Stoltenberg hailed the Turkish vote, saying he hoped Sweden would become the alliance’s 32nd member “as soon as possible.”
“Sweden’s membership,” he added, “makes NATO stronger and us all safer.”
Finland and Sweden both dropped longstanding foreign policies based on official neutrality in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ironically, Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the decision to invade as a reaction to previous rounds of NATO expansion which had brought the alliance deep into Eastern Europe.
The opposition was driven largely by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s insistence that Sweden do more to crack down on Kurdish groups operating in Sweden that Ankara considers to be terrorists, along with other objections among top Turkish officials.
Turkey has long been critical of Sweden and Finland for their approach toward the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a rebel group with links to the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. The SDF has been the chief U.S. partner in the years-long fight against the terror group the Islamic State in Syria. Sweden in particular is home to a large community of Kurdish exiles.
Turkish officials in recent weeks have praised some of the tangible steps taken by Sweden to address Turkey’s concerns, including amending some anti-terrorism laws. Sweden also has pledged closer cooperation with Turkey on anti-terrorism efforts.
NATO, U.S. and European officials have lobbied hard behind the scenes to convince Turkey to change its position. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for example, met with Mr. Erdogan earlier this month during a whirlwind tour across the Middle East, and the State Department confirmed that Sweden’s bid to join NATO was a key topic of their discussion.
Tuesday’s vote indicates those efforts were successful.
In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on social media Tuesday that he’s extended an invitation toPrime Minister Ulf Kristersson to come to Budapest to discuss Sweden’s NATO membership. In a letter to the Swedish prime minister, Mr. Orban wrote that “a more intensive political dialogue” could contribute to “reinforcing the mutual trust” between Sweden and Hungary. He said the two men can discuss ”future cooperation in the field of security and defence as allies and partners” during their meeting.
Mr. Orban has said he supports Sweden joining NATO, but there is deep opposition among other Hungarian officials who object to comments made by Swedish lawmakers about the current state of Hungary’s democracy. Hungary also has closer ties to Russia than virtually any other NATO member, and the Kremlin deeply opposes Sweden’s accession to NATO.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yki6pigUbfw
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https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-23-2024
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2008 remove nucs from GB
2024 replace nucs in GB
https://news.yahoo.com/us-station-nuclear-weapons-uk-190000208.html
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Nice catch.
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By: Geopolitical Futures
Turkey falls in line. Turkish banks have begun closing the accounts of Russian companies over fears of incurring secondary U.S. sanctions, according to Russian business daily Vedomosti. A Kremlin spokesperson said Moscow was in touch with Ankara on the matter. This comes after U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order in December threatening penalties on foreign banks that help Russia circumvent sanctions.
Support for Ukraine. EU member states reached a deal on Thursday to provide Ukraine with 50 billion euros ($54 billion) in economic support. European Council President Charles Michel said all 27 EU leaders agreed to the package, despite Hungary having threatened to veto it.
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By: Geopolitical Futures
Tightening the screws. China’s Chouzhou Commercial Bank is no longer conducting transactions with Russian and Belarusian clients, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported. Transactions using not only the SWIFT payment system but also Russia’s SPFS and China’s CIPS are affected. The bank is one of the main payment methods used by Russian importers. Several financial institutions in China and elsewhere have recently suspended transactions with Russia, following an executive order signed in December by the U.S. president threatening penalties for banks that help Moscow evade sanctions.
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NATO appears to be less worried about Trump's remarks than the Dems and the Trump haters. Here is what was said by the head of NATO. "The leader of NATO said he’s not concerned about the U.S. pulling out of the alliance even if former President Donald Trump wins reelection in November.
“I’m confident that the United States will remain a staunch ally” no matter who wins, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview Wednesday during his dayslong visit to Washington.
The NATO chief is in town to make his pitch that supporting Ukraine and rearming NATO — issues that are inexorably intertwined — helps the U.S. in the Pacific and creates American jobs.
“I worked with former President Trump for the four years he was president,” Stoltenberg told POLITICO, when Trump repeatedly threatened to leave the alliance as he thundered about NATO allies failing to keep up with defense spending pledges.
The NATO chief also pointed to the traditional bipartisan support for NATO in Congress, something he said he witnessed on Tuesday while meeting with Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Stoltenberg also noted that Trump’s criticism of NATO wasn’t really aimed at the alliance, but at individual countries that have failed to live up to the 2014 pledge to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024. “It’s important to listen,” he said, because the criticism from Trump “is not a criticism of NATO not investing enough in NATO.”https://www.politico.com/.../nato-chief-trump-ukraine...
In 2014, three Allies spent 2% of GDP or more on defence; this increased to seven Allies in 2022. Moreover, 2022 was the eighth consecutive year of rising defense spending across European Allies and Canada, amounting to a rise of 2.2% in real terms compared to 2021. One last point, NATO nations still aren't paying their fair share, but they are doing better. Trump's statement which basically pushed back on the idea of "Let Mikey do it." And scared a few nations into waking up. Today more nations are expanding their spending on defense, which was all that Trump wanted. For all of you who believe that Trump will just leave NATO. He can't it is a treaty, and it take a vote of congress to remove ourselves from a treaty....
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tucker-carlson-lifts-lid-on-what-putin-really-said-about-ukraine-in-off-record-chat/ar-BB1iaQ8p?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=24e9bca602fb45db98668ea15aea7bb1&ei=18
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https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/07/world/biden-putin
Not release of recording of this of course.
Can anyone imagine Putin up against our leader even 2 yrs ago or for that matter anytime in Joe's career?
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/breaking-leaks-reveal-mike-turners-alarm-serious-national/
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GPF
Backing Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a security pact in Berlin on Friday. With the deal, which likely resembles a 10-year security agreement signed last month between Ukraine and the United Kingdom, Germany is pledging long-term support to Kyiv in its fight against Moscow. Zelenskyy is expected to travel to Paris also on Friday to sign a similar deal with French President Emmanuel Macron. Earlier this week, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Berlin will increase its supply of artillery shells to Kyiv by three to four times in 2024.
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https://archive.ph/WX3CD#selection-2637.4-2637.92
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I can only see the opening paragraphs.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/02/22/is-europe-ready-to-defend-itself?utm_campaign=a.the-economist-this-week&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=20240222&utm_content=ed-picks-article-link-1&etear=nl_weekly_1&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-this-week&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2/22/2024&utm_id=1855156
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https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=obama+debate+with+romney+cold+war+over&mid=5148444A231A93324A335148444A231A93324A33&FORM=VIRE
Obama: "cold war has been over for 20yrs"
Who looks like the one who is WRONG now?
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https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=obama%20debate%20with%20romney%20cold%20war%20over&mid=9C192B42F3515CF2F2DA9C192B42F3515CF2F2DA&ajaxhist=0
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https://www.ammoland.com/2024/02/finland-is-building-shooting-ranges-to-boost-citizen-soldiers/?ct=t(RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN)#axzz8SaFLt3Ch
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https://twitter.com/mij_europe/status/1761467698855178556?t=JslxMIxrQ5gNcUFnFdnS5w&fbclid=IwAR1LTcoJdEwjsqqf2_0g7XvamonuATqmOvRhHgyYhKyFWpGFyZJHpXNhFaY
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kAQeicvRSok
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Europe Has More to Fear Than Trump
Decades of complacency have left the Continent vulnerable and dependent on American protection.
By Jakub Grygiel
Feb. 25, 2024 1:13 pm ET
Europeans fear Donald Trump’s return to the White House, and who can blame them after he said he’d “encourage” the Russians to “do whatever the hell they want” to allies who don’t pay enough for their defense? Yet that comment should wake up those in Europe who think that U.S. reservoirs of resources and will are infinite. Mr. Trump reflects a growing American frustration with many allies that refuse to face the harsh international reality: that rivals are arming rapidly, and the only guarantee of security remains a large, and perhaps unsustainable, U.S. military expenditure.
Europe has enjoyed a decadeslong vacation from the obligation of any polity: security. The benign international conditions of the 1990s and early 2000s seemed to be a prelude to a peaceful global community. Now it’s clear that progress toward global harmony isn’t happening, and nourishing such illusions is dangerous.
Some, especially on Europe’s eastern front line, have fully awakened to the reality of competition and war. But others, such as Germany and Italy, spend well below 2% of gross domestic product on defense—with the bulk of that money going toward personnel rather than weapons. If European politicians think that Russia is a serious threat, they should push for massive spending on defense and a mobilization of their societies including some form of conscription, regardless of what a U.S. presidential candidate says. Those in Europe who fret that the Continent is in danger but then ask the U.S. to protect it at high cost are covering up their unwillingness to make hard choices.
The solution isn’t the European Union. Much of the rhetoric in Europe pre-emptively condemning a future Trump presidency is a useful cover for those in love with the idea of European strategic autonomy. If Mr. Trump will abandon Europe, then the only salvation, they think, is a reinvigorated EU with not only a common coin and market but also a common army, centralized weapons procurement, shared defense industry and an EU-level military command.
There is a reason this hasn’t happened. Europe’s nations don’t want it. Portugal doesn’t care about Poland’s border. Estonia isn’t preoccupied with Sicily. Berlin would rather do business with Moscow than fight for Suwałki, Poland. Paris or Rome won’t place their aspirations of grandeur or their business interests in the hands of a Central European leader, even one domesticated by EU ambitions. There is no feasible alternative for European states other than to shore up their own national forces.
Europe should fear its enemies. An aggressive Russia pushing westward won’t stop even after Vladimir Putin is out of power. Over the past 10 years, Russia has increased its defense spending by 300%, while EU countries have increased theirs by only 20%. The quality of Western weapons may be better, but the war in Ukraine shows that quantity also matters. Russia is producing 20 to 30 new tanks a month, while Germany will get 18 new Leopard tanks in 2025. The U.K. has around 40 tanks that are ready to be deployed.
Add to this grim picture the instability of Europe’s southern frontier, likely to become worse as demographic pressures in Africa and Asia exacerbate the northward migration flow. This is a problem that won’t be solved by international development organizations. It requires an investment in security, from maritime interdiction to stabilization of North Africa, all of which involve men, ships, planes and ammunition.
Finally, Europe should be afraid of a weak U.S. president. Joe Biden has 11 months left in his administration. If we take the past three years as an indication of what he may do, Europe faces serious risks. So far the Biden administration has abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban, has willfully dragged on the war in Ukraine by spoon-feeding Kyiv with enough arms not to be overwhelmed by Russia but not enough to defeat it, and has entered into a war with Iran and its proxies without a clear vision of victory.
All this bodes ill for Europe. Mr. Biden wants to avoid a presidential election in the shadow of wars. He has a strong interest to strike a deal with Russia, regardless of what this may mean for Ukraine. The inability of Congress to agree to fund the next batch of weapons for Ukraine—caused in part by the Democrats’ insistence on ignoring the crises on the U.S. southern border—is helpful for Mr. Biden as it reduces American exposure to the war and prepares the conditions for freezing the conflict. Ukraine—and, with it, European security—is at risk of being sacrificed well before Inauguration Day 2025.
Europeans should be afraid. But the primary object of their fear is more immediate. They should arm themselves regardless of what a U.S. president, or a presidential candidate, says.
Mr. Grygiel is a professor at the Catholic University of America, a senior advisor at the Marathon Initiative and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
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Second
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-early-warning-aircraft-downed-all-ten-crew-members-killed-ukrainian-intelligence-reports/ar-BB1iPOFI?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=f37efce0318e45d482ca68a9a58a7915&ei=16
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-s-black-sea-war-plan-isn-t-working-uk/ar-BB1iQZSk?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d3a2105fe8f242029ebba024b75c2c41&ei=20
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February 27, 2024
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Open as PDF
Europe’s Strategic Moment
By: George Friedman
It’s been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, so it’s time to lay out the strategic situation as I see it. In February 2022, I argued that Russia invaded Ukraine primarily to enhance its strategic depth. The wars on Russia prosecuted by Napoleon and Hitler were foiled by the great distances the invaders had to travel to reach Moscow – and by no small amount of Russian blood. That distance exhausted the attackers, breaking them by the time they reached the Russian heartland. The events of 2022 to me were no different: The war was intended to put more miles between Moscow and the West, especially NATO. Russia's suspicion owes to the Maidan uprising in Ukraine in 2014, which toppled a pro-Russian leader and installed a pro-Western government and for which Moscow believes Washington was responsible.
In my opinion, America’s intentions were not to launch an eventual invasion of Russia, though it did have a small interest in limiting Russian influence. Russian intelligence is competent, and it is unlikely that the Kremlin received reports of American invasion plans ahead of the war in Ukraine. But in statecraft, intention is simply the quacking of ducks. Intentions can change in minutes. What Russia paid more heed to was capabilities. Whatever their intentions, the U.S. and NATO were in no position to invade Russia. Yet Russia feared that their intentions could change, as could their capabilities. A war should begin when the enemy has no intention to fight and has limited capability.
This calculation led Russia to invade Ukraine and thus acquire a vast buffer against American incursion if the U.S. changed its stance. The attack on Ukraine has been a failure. Moscow clearly meant to overrun Ukrainian forces quickly, before the U.S. or NATO could join the fray. Instead, Russia has experienced a significant number of casualties, a coup attempt from a private military group, significant economic losses and a reckoning with its own demographic problems.
Russia also failed to begin the war with the advantage of surprise. No doubt it was motivated by the assumption that the threat of a Russian invasion would cause fear and unrest in Ukraine. That propaganda campaign went on for months and convinced the U.S., through intelligence on Russia’s capabilities, that Russia was going to attack. This caused Washington to undertake an emergency surge in armaments and joint planning with Kyiv. The U.S. imperative was that there be no Russian attack that would cause Ukraine to fall and thus bring Russia to the border of NATO. The Americans weren’t clear on what would happen if Russia occupied Ukraine – and likely the Russians weren’t either – but here again, capability rather than intention must inform decisions.
The signal that Russia would invade meant that Russia could not smash Ukraine with a single decisive blow. The military thus had to change its plans, reorganize its forces and develop a logistical system able to sustain an extended ground offensive. During that time, there was disarray among Russian forces, with a battle breaking out between the Wagner Group and Russian general staff that ended in the aforementioned coup. Moreover, in tipping off the invasion, Russia gave Ukraine time to develop an agile defensive strategy, and gave the U.S. time to provide advanced weapons systems.
The past two years have cost the Russians greatly, the Ukrainians even more. Russia did not fight or organize well, but it performed just well enough to bring the conflict to a point where the U.S. commitment is now at risk – and with it the strategy that caused Russia to fall into the type of war it didn’t expect. That strategic retreat is the point Russia had to reach – and at the moment seems to be reaching.
If Russia takes the whole of Ukraine, the question that is fundamental to the war is what Russia’s next move will be. Putin has made it clear that he believes Ukraine is part of Russia, as are other nations in the region in his mind. Intentions are irrelevant, but if Russia occupies Ukraine and then seeks to drive back NATO, the intentions might be matched by capability.
The U.S. will likely send more weapons, but Russia has ventured too far into Ukraine to be stopped by anything less than overwhelming force. The U.S. fought World War II and the Cold War to prevent Europe from being overrun and controlled by a single power. The inherent resources of Europe pose a potential threat. President Woodrow Wilson saw this. So did Franklin Roosevelt, and so did the various presidents who presided during the Cold War. Blocking Germany and Russia have long been fundamental principles of U.S. foreign policy – not exclusively for its own benefit but fundamentally in pursuit of its own interests.
The war in Ukraine is the continuation of a consistent U.S. foreign policy going back to the beginning of the last century. But what happens in Ukraine will affect what happens in the rest of Europe. The two world wars cost more than they might have if the U.S. had acted sooner. The question now is whether the U.S. confronts Russia – which is pursuing its own interests, as all nations do – sooner or later. The answer to that question necessarily involves Europe. The Cold War was a true alliance. This war is hard to make out on that score. The truth is Europe has the most at stake and needs to put up most of the funding and support for Ukraine.
The situation on the Continent has reached a point in which choices have to be made, and all choices have costs. It is easy to claim that Ukraine is not important to the U.S., but then again our fathers and grandfathers could teach us a great deal about the fantasies of the Philippines or North Africa not meaning much to us. They paid their price, and so did the Europeans. What now?
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https://www.newsweek.com/russian-region-will-neutralized-if-moscow-moves-nato-ambassador-1874006?fbclid=IwAR19BGDAx0pIsNhuUdz8S6U7r7i9FZ4cAWNsVKzZHaiNcOvmROn0fzru6ok
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/polish-foreign-minister-cautions-us-aid-failure-may-spark-global-nuclear-arms-race/ar-BB1iY3EV?fbclid=IwAR1enb9_km05_LPTBuZO_GZSYZUsusoj87MyxMhBL90n5Z5xatArzKYnWLo
No mention of Iran's nukes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBbLfwQfTXI
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/italy-s-surprise-air-defense-withdrawal-leaves-pro-putin-leader-fuming/ss-BB1junAk?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=8baf1c2131da4a50a91ca528fb61a0f5&ei=298
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-says-one-nato-nation-is-awash-with-russian-spies/ar-BB1jzBfm?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=28a2a71fc9034fe9afb8b5e0e1c85961&ei=16
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I fear that if Dems can’t find enough votes to mail in and hence overcome all the voters they are alienating they will opt instead to involve us in a European war merely to introduce a variable to the electoral equation and see what shakes out:
https://weapons.substack.com/p/biden-and-macron-threaten-ukraine?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwAR0Jvqfglam4u7znRMkrKHPVbV5l-2_gMiTdWZTPzghc6L0TssVx3plqKOU&triedRedirect=true
Modify message
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhXV_r1LAbw
Note his discussion of Art 3 and the relevance of logistical disruption vulnerabilities.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/france-germany-to-build-arms-plant-in-ukraine-as-stakes-rise/ar-BB1jY09U?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=c9f1c5c2844e4be9ab9cc584c4124a0d&ei=23
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March 15, 2024
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A Closer Look at NATO Spending
Poland wants to raise the alliance's spending target.
By: Geopolitical Futures
NATO Spending
(click to enlarge)
In a meeting with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, Poland's president advocated that each NATO member increase defense spending to 3 percent of gross domestic product to strengthen the alliance against Russian aggression. NATO faces the challenge of equitably distributing defense costs, centered on the 2 percent GDP spending goal, which was established after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. However, implementation has been inconsistent, and increased spending does not always enhance NATO's collective capabilities.
In 2023, Poland exceeded the threshold, allocating over 3 percent of its GDP to defense, primarily on equipment. Other Eastern European nations along the frontline with Russia have acted similarly. Meanwhile, the U.S. has historically been the largest contributor to NATO defense. But Western Europe, despite its significant contributions to the defense of Europe, has not consistently met the 2 percent objective. Upcoming European Parliament elections may spotlight the necessity for greater European investment in NATO.
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The Oil Weapon Against Moscow
In 1986 the U.S. and Saudi Arabia raised production. That move contributed to the Soviet collapse.
By Andriy Yermak
March 26, 2024 4:09 pm ET
Russia’s economy depends on the country’s natural resources, as it did in the Soviet era. Its growth depends on the price of oil—which contributed to the collapse of the Soviet empire and will determine Vladimir Putin’s current bid to restore the regime. It is oil that can thwart the Russian dictator’s revanchist ambitions.
In 1984, 613 million tons of oil were extracted in the Soviet Union—3 million tons less than in 1983 and well below that year’s target of 624 million tons. The Soviets sustained enormous financial losses because of the shortfall, exposing the vulnerability of the economy, which was depleting old oil deposits. To increase production, the U.S.S.R. needed Western technology. It also needed Western money, which it funneled into its military-industrial complex to threaten the West. When Mr. Putin turned energy into a geopolitical weapon, he was using an old Soviet playbook.
Then, the West saw an opportunity to erode Moscow’s finances by lowering oil prices and increasing output—as it should today. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia developed a plan to lower the price of oil. A reduction of $10 a barrel would mean a $10 billion loss for the Soviets over a year. Saudi Arabia, the most influential player in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, bucked OPEC’s consensus and increased production. The U.S. also stepped up production—and imposed an embargo on technology exports to the U.S.S.R. Oil prices plummeted even more than expected—to $12 a barrel. The colossal losses, combined with massive military spending, undermined the Soviet economy.
What happened later is well known: The U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991. The world’s largest nuclear arsenal couldn’t save it.
But history shows that when Russia is flush with oil money, it tries to reassert its global dominance. Russia’s growth under Mr. Putin is thanks to soaring oil prices. In 2011-14, oil and gas revenue in Russia exceeded 50% of federal revenue. In recent years, oil and gas have accounted for up to 60% of Russia’s total goods exports and 40% of federal revenue.
Billions of dollars in oil and gas profits fuel the Kremlin’s imperialism and revanchism. The West must ratchet up sanctions to make Russia’s oil trade less profitable, while also increasing Saudi and U.S. oil output. The West should also cut off Russia’s access to technologies, including by imposing sanctions on intermediaries. Lowering oil’s price to $30 a barrel would help. But without new supply sources, price caps won’t work. Ukraine and the world need Saudi Arabia and the U.S. to take the lead. As in the 1980s, increasing production will tame both Moscow and Tehran, which is the key to peace in Europe and the Middle East.
I co-chair an international working group on sanctions with Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia. According to estimates by our group, restrictions on Russian oil, including the European Union embargo and Group of Seven price cap, have cost Moscow $113 billion in export revenue since the invasion. Russia still allocated $102 billion for military spending in 2023, keeping the war machine well-funded and giving Mr. Putin scant incentive to negotiate. For Ukraine to prevail, oil prices must come down significantly.
The Kremlin is incapable of engaging in equal dialogue—it only pretends to do so. From 2014 to 2022, Ukraine conducted some 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia, seeking a peaceful resolution to Moscow’s attempted annexation of Crimea and temporary occupation of parts of Eastern Ukraine. Every time, Russia violated any arrangements. As long as Moscow refuses to recognize Ukraine’s international sovereignty, efforts at peace are futile.
Mr. Putin’s Russia, fueled by oil revenue, has no incentive to pursue peace, but instead aims to restore the U.S.S.R. and its sphere of influence. Mr. Putin isn’t bound by ideological principles other than a lust for power and will support extremists around the world to promote chaos. Pursuing this malign agenda requires oil revenue.
To save the world from another century of turmoil, the West must replicate the successful example from the 1980s. Once again, it can outmaneuver Moscow and Tehran and reclaim the initiative.
Mr. Yermak is head of the Office of the president of Ukraine
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April 8, 2024
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NATO Weighs Its Future Ukraine Support
The alliance isn’t ready to back down.
By: Antonia Colibasanu
NATO marked its 75th anniversary last week. The moment was naturally accompanied by talk about the future of the Ukraine war and the alliance’s support for Kyiv. On Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg proposed creating a 100 billion-euro ($108 billion) fund to provide military support to Ukraine over the next five years, a move that would mark a significant milestone in the alliance’s backing for the country.
The idea was met with mixed reactions. Until recently, voluntary Western support for Ukraine has been coordinated through the Ramstein group (formally the Ukraine Defense Contact Group), a U.S.-led coalition of 56 countries, including all 32 NATO members. While NATO allies are expected to discuss the proposal at their gathering in July, European members seem set to approve it to send a message about their continued support for Kyiv.
Many of the details are up for debate, but Stoltenberg’s plan envisages a fund comprising contributions from NATO members with the aim of providing financial assistance to Ukraine over the next five years. The money would supplement U.S. support for Ukraine, while Congress holds up a key $60 billion aid package. For Europe, the main reason for the plan is that they worry that if Donald Trump wins the presidency in November, the position of European countries within NATO could be compromised. Indeed, Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February – where he spoke of his desire for retribution against people, countries and organizations he believes mistreated him – seems to have compelled European governments to push for more action on Ukraine, as European NATO members are near the top of Trump’s list of adversaries.
At the same time, domestic politics in the leading European countries, most notably Germany and France, have also played a role. In Germany, some 82 percent of respondents in a recent poll said they believe NATO is important to securing peace in Europe, while only around 10 percent consider it is unnecessary. Even among supporters of populist parties that have been critical of NATO, such as Alternative for Germany and the newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, only a minority are in favor of dissolving the alliance. In addition, seven out of 10 Germans believe the danger to European peace and security is serious or very serious, up significantly from five years ago. The result of this rising unease appears to be increased support for NATO, which has backed Germany’s plan to rapidly build up its military. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Chancellor Olaf Scholz established a special budget worth 100 billion euros to modernize the Bundeswehr. The majority of the money is tied up in orders for expensive military equipment. Furthermore, according to recent surveys, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is by far the most popular politician in Germany.
The situation in France is somewhat different. The leadership’s concern for Ukraine seems to outweigh that of the French public, which is more concerned with the country’s socio-economic problems. According to surveys, French business activity decreased for the 11th consecutive month in March, as demand for French goods and services weakened and employment fell. Moreover, Paris is trying to reassure financial markets after official numbers released last month revealed that the public deficit for 2023 exceeded government targets. With France already seeing high interest rates and Europe’s highest ratio of taxes to gross domestic product, the administration is considering reducing social benefits and local government budgets, a politically sensitive move in a country that values its social safety net.
Thus, it seems that French President Emmanuel Macron may have been trying to distract public attention by asking for more help for Ukraine, even calling recently for troops on the ground. France’s fiscal realities may hinder Macron’s call for further joint borrowing to fund European security programs, but his ambitions to lead Europe in a time of war remain. After all, unlike Germany, France has long had a formidable military and doesn’t need to rebuild it. Paris’ focus, therefore, is on public perceptions as it tries to assert itself as an important player in Ukraine – which will be key to boosting its posture in Europe and within NATO. France also recognizes the possibility that the U.S. may soon expect Europe to assume more of the burden for Ukraine (especially if Trump becomes president), which would require a transfer of responsibility from the U.S. to its European partners.
NATO’s potential future focus on burden shifting, rather than burden sharing, is also why France has tried to underline its efforts to help Kyiv. According to the French Ministry of Defense, the value of French military equipment delivered to Kyiv by the end of 2023 was 2.6 billion euros. Paris contributed a further 1.2 billion euros to the European Peace Facility, bringing its total spending on Ukraine to 3.8 billion euros.
The U.S.’ contributions still eclipse France’s, however. According to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. has spent the equivalent of 69.1 billion euros in financing and equipment for Ukraine, 18 times more than Paris. However, according to estimates from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, EU institutions combined provided the most military, humanitarian and financial help to Ukraine, followed by individual states like the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Denmark. These figures show that Europe is already in a good position to boost its share of the burden.
Government Support to Ukraine
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Russia, meanwhile, will certainly exploit these measures in upcoming election campaigns in Western countries, painting the West as the aggressor and the main obstacle to a settlement to the conflict. All of this will be carefully considered as NATO gets closer to the July summit.
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Moldovan politics. Anti-EU opposition parties in Moldova announced on Sunday that they are forming a new coalition to run in upcoming elections. The announcement of the Victory alliance, headed by fugitive businessman Ilan Shor, was made in Moscow. The pro-Russia leader of the semi-autonomous Gagauzia region, Evgenia Gutsul, is also joining the coalition and attended the ceremony.
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(5) POLAND ‘READY TO HOST NATO NUKES’: Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Poland is ready to host NATO nuclear weapons in response to Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus.
“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear arms on our territory as part of nuclear sharing to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready to do so,” Duda said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk seemed surprised by the statement.
Why It Matters: The statement drew a harsh response from Russia, with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov again warning that Russia and NATO are “teetering dangerously” on nuclear war. These statements are not uncommon, but nuclear reposturing in light of a new weapons package to Ukraine is a dangerous development. – M.S.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-sets-stage-for-upheaval-in-another-country/ar-AA1nstgm?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=7acce9055f0d45f2b878bd7c3808f2da&ei=8
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13337445/russian-attack-cyber-cyberattack-texas-town-water-tower.html
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/moldova-clamps-down-after-russian-moves/ar-AA1nzurh?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=55859edb1f804e48ac6a23f8bcbd9aeb&ei=2