Western Europe become ever-more-dependent on Russian gas
Western Europe seems determined to ally itself with Russia:
Weeks after getting the European Union’s approval for a gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea, Russia is moving ahead with its plans to construct a new Black Sea pipeline into Western Europe. Moscow intends to extend the existing Turk Stream pipeline that links Russia and Turkey to supply Western Europe with gas, German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported…
The move will further strengthen Russia’s position as a geopolitical player in Europe. President Donald Trump has been critical of Germany over its dependence on Russian gas. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” he said during the NATO summit meeting last summer.
Currently, Russia amounts to 40 percent of gas import to Europe. This energy dependence is expected to grow further as Chancellor Angela Merkel moves ahead with a radical environmentalist agenda, phasing out all the existing coal and nuclear power stations in the country.
The German political establishment is deeply implicated in Moscow’s plans to expand its energy infrastructure westwards. Chancellor Merkel’s predecessor, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, is head of NordStream AG, the multi-billion dollar Russian company that owns the Russia-to-Germany pipeline.
While Berlin continues to entangle itself into Russian pipelines, it increasingly relies on Washington for its security needs.
Note Germany’s antipathy to nuclear power plants, although power plants are probably the cleanest efficient energy source today.
It seems eminently reasonable that Germany provide for its own security needs. The Marshall Plan was hardly The Treaty of Versailles.
Merkel and her gang are the fat cats of Europe.
Russia was headed west before it diverged violently, progressively left-ward. Today, Russia is, paradoxically, incrementally more West than West.
It’s a new form of Strategic Deterrence. Russia would not want to destroy its best customer, and Europe does not want to see Russia alienated & (more) dangerous. Sanctions & Evil Empire rhetoric notwithstanding.
Gas is a fleeting resource. There are vast oceanic methane hydrates, but conventional hydrocarbon basins exhaust their gas-stocks, rapidly. Russia does still have huge reserves on the Arctic ocean continental shelf … but the current fossil fuel era/paradigm will pass quicker than others.
Keeping Russia tied more to the West, and less to China, is a primary bottom-line.
The problem is that the pipeline would allow Russia to play all sorts of games with Eastern European countries, while Germany could still have its gas. Germans are only thinking of themselves here. They won’t stick their necks out for Poland or the Baltics.
Games … with the gas?
The Eastern countries seem rather assertive & gung-ho these days. Are they in some particular exposed to Russian games, currently? Or just a general observation on geography?
Ted Clayton – Peak Oil part Duex. Those methane calhydrates are green house gasses, no can use, no way, never ….
“Germans are only thinking of themselves here. They won’t stick their necks out for Poland or the Baltics.”
Those who demonstrate that they only think of themselves will eventually awaken to find that when needed, no one will stick out their neck for them.
Germany is likely to be the first to fall to the Islamic snake.
Whereas Poland and the Baltics will find that when forced to, that the Russian federation will welcome them with open arms. As some masters are better masters than others.
There is a huge gas find near Cyprus and the Israelis have another in the Mediterranean.
Totally clear that the German energy policy – the Vladimir Putin Energy Policy for Germany (VPEPG) – will come back to haunt Germany and maybe much of Europe as well.
You take take Angela Merkel out of East Germany, but you can’t take E.Germany out of Merkel.
While tens of thousands of Germans were fleeing the DDR in the late 1940s to escape that communist hell hole, Merkel’s family willingly “fled” into the DDR.
When Russian shuts off gas supplies to Germany – for whatever reason Russia deems necessary – the USA had best limit itself to selling natural gas to Germany; and THAT IS IT !!
If Germany wishes to commit suicide , that is their problem.
In any event, the USA should have pulled out of NATO in 1990, and frankly, now is a good as time as any.
Though it is quite possible that the Germans may be a little nervous about Russian intentions, though clearly the ruling elites of Germany have no such qualms, the Germans DESPISE the USA.
They deserve ZERO US taxpayer $$$ towards their defense. After all, they have the third largest economy on earth.
om – Yes, true … though Merkel shutting down the nuclear plants (she of the Nuclear Physics degree, and Quantum Mechanics PhD.), sez she figures the climate can handle it. Or the populace will no longer care, after Little Ice Age part Duex sets in.
The real trick, is how to collect the darn stuff.
We could give Europe more options (and buffer to Russia) if we could export more LNG. Export capacity is expanding, but we are still a minor player at 5% of LNG trade.
Leviathan…..
A long time ago, in this blog far far away, i laid out the then current conflicts in the middle east end to end, really kind of, sort of, did actually, halt the pipelines that would have put someone else’s raw materials on the market in competition with Russia’s raw materials economy… (ergo Africa never does well either… despite rich raw materials, and a to die for location location location in the center of everything…)
Artfldgr on June 12, 2014 at 3:24 pm at 3:24 pm said:
Nice to see the past is still connected to the present…
Gonna be a hot time in the igloo tonight!!
Cause…
“Levant-Europe Gas Pipeline: Full Speed Ahead”
-AND-
“ExxonMobil makes biggest natural gas discovery in two years off the coast of Cyprus”
now… you might think this is a bit off coming through Greece..
but no, cause the gas that WAS going through the Ukraine, now is going another route thanks to the whole one country line in the sand crumbling during and post bush…
its the “Turkish Stream”, even larger than the Ukraine pipeline
and now, who will sell Ukraine gas? nothing to steal in transit either…
Ah, since 2015 Russia been building building building…
[like china been making islands on Japanese land]…
Except now… there is… Latakia!
Protected by S-300 and S-400 missile systems manned by Russian personnel..
A compliant leader who would rather be in comfort leading under someone else than be nothing or dead without them…
Tartus and Sevastopol and Novorossiysk?
Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are now buying Russian weapons
“Russia is taking over the Middle East, one country at a time.” – Belfer Center
Really? i would never have guessed…
you guys missed a truly AMAZING chess game…
given these are its first permanent military bases in the middle east, any kind of idea that things are like before, will ignore that things are not like before…
Russia protects Syria
Iran works under Russian protection in Syria building missiles
Israel can’t raid them, and Hezbollah gets missiles and drones…
I dont know what makes me think fixing which pipelines get used and which ones get abused is going to happen?
Turkey, member of NATO… but by end of this year will have S-400s installed with Russian operators… 67 years go poof! and what about our F-35 stealth fighters?
[we kind of sort of use ?ncirlik air base]
Tune in years from now, for like sands through the hourglass these are the days of our lives
Let the entertainment begin! Huzzah!
Doug Park,
We have much of the pipeline network, the processing plants, and the port-development all in-place & working. But across now quite a time period, we have demurred from seriously pursuing the shipping-component of the overall system. ‘Why not’ is a good question …
During the Great War a grievously disappointed Kaiser asked his foreign minister: “What’s up with Austria_Hungary?” (paraphrase here) The foreign minister replied: “Your Majesty we are allied with a corpse!”
Such is now the indisputable state of affairs with the United States and NATO. In the event of war with Russia, the refusal of Western Europe to provide for their own defence would require several hundred thousand American casualties to make up the shortfall. (For example. Germany–now the strategic lynchpin of NATO–fielded about 200 divisions on the Eastern Front during WWII. Currently they have less than a handful of divisions of all types and a large number of their fighting and logistics vehicles couldn’t make it to the corner convenience store because of the lack of parts and maintenance. The German air force is even in a more deplorable state.)
More significantly, neither the Germans nor the Western Europeans generally have any desire at all to fight to preserve their homelands. This is quite clear from public polling.
Western Europe is a dead man walking. Their culture died in ’14-’18. Full stop.
And they truly do hate us. Public polling again.
That the American ruling class remains loyal to NATO is “best evidence” of their malignant stupidity.
But their sons and daughters are not going to die in the next European conflagration. So there’s that.
Whereas Poland and the Baltics will find that when forced to, that the Russian federation will welcome them with open arms. As some masters are better masters than others.
never… no way…
you forget the Forest Brothers, and the heroes of the people betrayed…
You have no idea given their history… no idea…
there are 93,498 Americans of full or partial Latvian descent.
Ah, they fled cause they already lived under Stalin before…
dude… we were betrayed under Molotov-Rippentrop and again by FDR at Yalta
When World War II started in September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, Latvia had already come under the Soviet sphere of influence in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its Secret Additional Protocol of August 1939….
“Forced to choose between Germany and Russia, they have chosen Germany, because they seek co-operation with western civilization. The rule of the Germans seems to them to be the lesser of two evils.” oberführer Adolf Ax reported later explaining the German Waffen-SS Latvian Legion motivation.
Why would they do THAT?
well, since neo refuses to read Dear god i wanted to live [a young girls diary smuggled out]
and probably wont see the movie about a young couple at same period Chronicles of Melanie
“June 17, 1940, the Soviets came in, and in 1941, the Germans came in and pushed back the Soviets,” says Oskars Gruzins, a young guide at the Museum of Occupation in the heart of old Riga https://www.rferl.org/a/1070605.html
The plan called for the deportation of all those in the following categories and their families:
All the members of the former governments
Higher state officials and judges
Higher military personnel
Former politicians
Members of voluntary state defense organizations
Members of student organizations
Persons having actively participated in anti-Soviet armed combat
Russian émigrés
Security police officers and police officers
Representatives of foreign companies and in general all people having contacts abroad
Entrepreneurs and bankers
Clergymen
Members of the Red Cross.
23 percent of Estonia’s population
oh, there was another category… victim of someone who wanted your home…
and when america sent no weapons, and germany pulled back
funny…
but Latvian singers Valters and Kaža won Eurovision with this song…
The War Is Not Over (Latvia)
Valters and Kaža
Ta na na na… na na…
Na na na… na na…
The war is not over, everyone knows it
It’s just a reason to make us believe
That someone’s the loser, someone’s the winner
To make us believe that’s the way it should be
But I don’t wanna believe
But I don’t wanna believe
No, no, no, but I don’t wanna believe
it was too long… had to cut it…
here is their recording… youtube free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3GsRotAP_Q
this is them at eurovision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5HAilNn4fs
Artfldgr,
Recep Tayip Erdogan is certainly going far out of his way to make it look like “67 years go poof!”, isn’t he?
Have they really decided to throw in the towel on joining Europe … in some capacity/flavor? Remember, it was only in the later gambits of the great game, that this was about any “Union”. It was the Coal Board, then the Economic Community, then the Commonwealth. The EU is a newbie … and I daresay, kinda clunky-looking chess. Turkey isn’t NATO, ‘because EU’.
I can read the board either way. Erdogan might be shooting for Winston Churchill status … or he may be no more than what we see in the papers.
Nice thing about the S-300/400 system, it goes home as easy as it deploys.
Germany is rich enough, with people that are hard working enough, so that it could quickly “come back”. This year, this decade.
But less and less so, as the years go by. Most of the “hate Trump / Orange Man Bad” is actually an excuse to be anti-American, out of envy. This will be seen more clearly as Trump leaves, and whether Pence or somebody else “just as bad” as Trump.
On the other hand, Putin is no fool, nor even so aggressive as many neo-cons claim. Putin and Serbia were strongly against Kosovo leaving Serbia. I was in favor. But now I’m not; it was a mistake.
Because if Kosovo can leave, then the borders are not clear — so the objection to the majority Russians in Crimea leaving very corrupt Ukraine for Russia, that objection melts in the face of support for Kosovo. Either both border changes are OK, or neither is. Now I think neither was correct — but both will become historically accepted.
The ex-commie Visegrad 4 (Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia), plus the Baltics, will provide a NATO welcoming buffer between Germany and Russia. So the Germans can pretend to be safe from Russia for a few more decades.
Poland will be increasing their requests for NATO aid/ troops/ bases. And Russia will continue to object — and sell gas & oil to Germany & Europe. Including Poland and the other ex-commie countries.
The new stalwarts in Europe are the former Soviet-oppressed states: Poland and the Baltics, Hungary. They know the price to be paid, and will again pay it. Remember Polish cavalry attacking Nazi tanks in 1939? Thank goodness we no longer have Barack Hussein interfering in Polish self-defense armament.
Parts of the future Poland and the future Baltics were, with cities in northern ,Germany, in the Hanseatic League, way back when. Part of the initiation of the great leap forward of Europe. Linked by culture and trade; the common denominator was German merchant-traders in all of the HL ports, including the Russian city of Novgorod.
Now we have Merkel, the successful Manchurian candidate, inexorably turning Germany into a failing state, dependent on Russia, its people thoroughly marinated in Political Correctness. The German decline will be slow but inexorable, and the German sheeple cannot see it, not until it actually happens, when it will be too late to remedy.
And it’ll only get worse. Dutch government has decided to halt all gas production (and probably oil production) from their extensive fields by 2030 at the latest “to save the planet”, and close all coal fired power plants by the same date without replacement (so the country will be utterly dependent on energy imports as there are no other power stations in the Netherlands).
That’s (after Norway) the largest European source of natural gas drying up, and Norway mostly supplies the UK, not Germany.
Western Europe is kaput. Islamic and African invasion, idiotic PC multicultural dreamers, and a mostly beta male population; a bunch of Kentucky 12 year olds armed with 22s could conquer them. Let them collapse. Don’t defend them. Arm Eastern Europe.
JTW on March 1, 2019 at 10:48 pm at 10:48 pm said:
And it’ll only get worse. Dutch government has decided to halt all gas production (and probably oil production) from their extensive fields by 2030 at the latest “to save the planet”,
* * *
Well, with the abortion and euthanasia they have decided to practice, there won’t be any Dutch people still alive by then anyway.
@Artfldgr:
I do indeed know about the Forest Brothers (thank you, Great Courses Plus).
Also, one of my two best boyhood friends was the son of two Latvian WW2 refugees. In 1991, when it was announced that Latvia had declared independence, I wept at the news.
I don’t think the Baltic States will go gently into that good night if the Russians get violent. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll *win*, either.
The Victorian Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston said “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
Germany’s perpetual interest is Russian resources, whether acquired through War or Peace.
“WHO runs Bartertown?”
“President Donald Trump has been critical of Germany over its dependence on Russian gas. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” he said during the NATO summit meeting last summer.”
And Adam Schiff and his gang still go around claiming Trump is a Russian puppet. Is it worse if he actually believes that, or if he doesn’t believe it but he thinks the American people will?
Wow! Some outstanding — and very insightful — comments here today. Thanks to all for the insights, especially on Germany and Europe.
When I travelled in Europe in 1956 there were still many traces of the war — pill boxes by the sides of roads, bombed out cities, even the occasional Nazi helmet on a fence post. The French, Dutch, Belgians and others I talked to were not afraid of the USSR, they were afraid of the Germans, who had started two devastating wars. Maybe Germany’s decline now calms them a little?
Merkel has been as destructive as Obama, but has lasted longer. We dodged the bullet when Hillary lost.