The Russian Bear and the European Union Energy Crisis

The Unhappy Legacies of the Biden Regime

Last year, the European Union (EU) got 40 percent of its natural gas needs from Russia. EU leader Germany also got about 40 percent of its gas needs from Russia.  After the sanctions on Russian gas and the suspicious self-inflicted destruction of most of the capacity of the Nordstream 1 and Nordstream 2 pipelines connecting Russian natural gas to Germany, the Russians are now supplying only 9 percent of the EU’s natural gas. The EU has also been a fervent proponent of replacing carbon-based fuel with renewable green energy sources. Natural gas is an environmentally clean-burning fuel. Germany had all but phased out coal and nuclear power to pursue climate change ideology. In wiser times, this may someday be regarded as a classic case of enormous short-sighted stupidity. Climate ideology, which is about as scientific as the Salem Witch Trials, has demonized the future of fossil fuels without bothering any reasonable analysis. It may be ten, twenty, or even thirty years, or actually probably never before windmills, solar panels, and other green dreams can replace fossil fuels. Electricity is not an original natural resource. Meanwhile, technological advances in converting fossil fuels to energy may reduce energy related pollution and costs to considerably more livable levels.

The human and civilizational costs of having a 10 to 30 year or maybe forever power shortage before the Green New Age can manifest its glory could include widespread malnutrition, starvation, de-industrialization, and poverty. Germany, a world manufacturing leader, is already talking about becoming a service economy. Unless you are lucky enough to live next to a waterfall, starting your electric car could be costly or inconvenient for a long while.  Painful humor aside, it would be wiser to make sure the functions of society can go on comfortably and reliably before we abandon what works and plunge into alternatives that may not be reliable, plentiful, and cheap for years, decades, or more.  But we are nevertheless plunging ahead based on an ideology or political religion rather the reality of what can work now as we test and develop a firmer grasp of future possibilities. No civilizational gaps please.  

The Russia-Ukraine War has, of course, brought Europe’s energy shortage to near-term reality.  EU and NATO sanctions on Russian energy have backfired. The Russians have found attractive new markets and new friends for Russian energy, including India, China, Turkey, and others in Asia. This has also driven increased interest in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South African) trade and currency cooperation that could challenge the US petrol-dollar for currency dominance. The Russian economy is recovering from a recession, but most of Europe is on the verge of severe recession and human misery because of energy shortages.

On Friday, October 21, the EU passed in principle a plan to place a cap on the price that can be charged for Russian oil and gas imports, which the G7 (US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan) plans to implement in December. It is questionable whether Italy and Japan will go along with this. The EU was pleased that the price of natural gas dropped 7 percent in Friday trading to $113.56  per kilowatt hour. The EU thinking is that this will reduce inflation. However, basic economic experience suggests that price limits cause shortages that further result in even higher prices. This may be a bigger burden on the EU than Russia. Energy market analysts, of which the Russians are most experienced, forecast that Russia can evade at least 90 percent of the price-caps by re-routing oil and gas.

One plan underway bodes ill for Germany, Greece, Cyprus, and probably all of the EU. This is for the Russians to route oil and gas through Turkish terminals. An important side-effect of this will be that Turkey would gain increased influence and control over the economies and politics of Germany and other EU nations.  Of Germany’s estimated 84 million people, there are already approximately 7.0 million Turks, approximately 8.3 percent of the population that would certainly increase in numbers and political power. A total of 13.3 percent of the German population are foreign-born immigrants. The new Turkish terminal for Russian oil and gas could also increase the Turkish threat to their traditional enemies in Greece and Cyprus. Turkey is nearly 100 percent Muslim, but since the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 had gained a reputation as being one of the most secular Muslim countries. However, under Turkish President Erdogan, Turkish Islam has become increasingly militant. Erdogan seems to have ambitions to establish a new Ottoman Empire. This could also mean an increased threat to Syria. Europe could be completely changed.

The Norwegians have a new pipeline that just opened to Poland. However, Norwegian oil and gas are higher priced. The Norwegians recently notified the UK that they would not be able to help the UK much this winter.

Italy’s new conservative prime minister has already agreed to receive Russian natural gas. Hungary has long been in that position, and it looks like Bulgaria will also side that way. Serbia in not a member of NATO but has recently pledged supportive neutrality with Russia.

The Nordstream pipelines sabotage could be repaired by the Russians. Both the Swedes and Germans say they know who did the sabotage but cannot reveal it for security reasons. The Russians lost not only big potential revenues from the sabotage but also key leverage to influence sanctions and NATO supplies to Ukraine. The Russians believe the sabotage was engineered by the Americans and British to prevent Germany from caving to Russian energy supply leverages. Poland is thought to have been involved.  Finland is beginning to back away from its NATO interests. The Dutch are still forcing farmers to reduce the nitrogen necessary for good farm crops.  The French are uncomfortable with Ukrainian (specifically Zelensky) and NATO talk about using tactical nuclear weapons. Zelensky has even hinted at pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against Russia.

There have been numerous and sizable demonstrations in Germany and the Netherlands against the cutoff of critical energy supplies by sanctions on Russian energy. Europe is facing a cold winter with considerable limits to heat and electricity. Fewer Europeans accept the NATO narrative that Russia is the sole culprit of the Russia-Ukraine War.

The groundwork for the present Russia-Ukraine War began in 2014 with the Maidan Revolution forcing out a legally elected pro-Russian Ukrainian President. Massive, instigated demonstrations resulted in 121 deaths. The demonstration-driven coup is believed by many scholars and those involved to have been engineered by the US State Department, CIA, and British MI6. Then Vice President Joe Biden and several current Biden officials were believed to be strongly associated in its plan and oversight. The new Poroshenko regime in Ukraine then proceeded to persecute the Russian minority, which is a majority in eastern and southern Ukraine, with cultural cleansing and worse. (On May 2, 2014, at least 42 pro-Russian activists seeking shelter from armed pro-Ukrainian mobs in Odessa died in a fire. Odessa had voted strongly for pro-Russian politicians in past elections and is essentially Russian speaking.)  The strongly Russian ethnic Donbas region resisted this ethnic cleansing, and Russian ethnic resistance was put down harshly by the Ukrainian Army. Over 14,000 people were killed, of which approximately 10,000 were Russian ethnic civilians.  A cease fire in September 2014 and the Minsk Accords in February 2015 resulted in an agreement brokered by France and Germany with Ukraine and Russia to give the Donbas Republics autonomous status within the Ukrainian State. Ukraine continually blocked this from being implemented with a final refusal by Ukrainian President Zelensky on February 18, 2022, which contributed to the final decision of Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine on February 24. Biden was also heavily involved in manipulating Ukrainian government and even Orthodox Church affairs in 2018 and 2019.

Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and several other EU nations may be in for revolutionary elections. The issues all over Europe will be natural gas and oil supply, inflation, sanctions on critical Russian imports, and ending support for the war in Ukraine. Globalism will be out of favor. Relationships with the EU, NATO, and the United States will be strong concerns. Blowing up natural gas lines will not be remembered with gratitude.  It would be wonderful if conservatives win as was the recent case in Sweden and Italy, but these elections could be won by socialist demagogues as well.

The UK is in the same civilizational crisis. Prolonged energy shortages to bolster American and NATO objectives in Ukraine are unlikely to be politically tenable. The UK has already lost a promising free-market prime minister to the Ukraine War associated energy shortage.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden has thrown away American energy independence. His treasonous open-door immigration policy has become a massive unopposed invasion of insurgents and welfare dependents you may soon see at the polls.  His fake-named spending programs are driving increasingly unbearable inflation. His woke directives are destroying our military, our schools, and American culture and justice. Crime and insecurity rule in many of our streets, and radicalism and insecurity rule in many of our schools. Political corruption and partisan tyranny run amok. He has us on the brink of all-out war with a powerful nuclear-armed adversary. Does he think he must win in Ukraine by November 8? We can’t believe anything he says or trust his judgment. A massive vote must sweep the Democrats out of office or see our country in comprehensive ruin.