Russia vs West

[Chris Coles]

Re: Russia vs West

To LukeSter:

I heard the same things before. But I think if we know this strategy he wanted us to know it.

I believe most societies are developing by their internal means so you can tell or demand whatever you want in foreign policy. But it should be supported by nation at a whole.

The idea of interests does not mean military wars. But dominating in a Europe is a stretch . Russia has only 140 mlns and a lot of demographic problems.

You don't live here in the UK where we have a considerable Russian population and, to be perfectly honest, you come across as naive. Many of our problems with Russia stem from the fact that the Russian Army were perfectly capable of blowing up their own people in Moscow apartment blocks to promote a war in Chechnya.

My assessment is that the real problem in Russia itself is the power of the Russian Army who have no moral foothold, a base of civilised morality, that comes from a nation firmly wedded to the rule of the law.

That is not to deny them respect, simply to acknowledge that they have a much more fundamental attitude to war. Once in play, they work to their own rules as we can clearly see today in Georgia and have so clearly seen recently in Chechnya.

I feel like I am watching a reality show based upon that wonderful movie; The Long Good Friday. If you have not seen it, I recommend it. It shows the local hood, faced with new problems, deals with them in exactly the same way as he always has; except this time, it just blows up in his face. Exactly what is happening to the US. They just could not resist using the same tactics as before. They simply could not stop themselves.

As for energy, there are developments in the pipeline and outside of conventional thinking that will completely negate that part of the debate. But getting the investment started, let alone putting all our efforts into that, is the real difficulty as I can confirm with my own ideas lying fallow because no one wants to invest in new thinking.

We are trapped between expecting all the old thinking must remain in place and yet faced with a dire threat that can only be negated by new thinking.

Based upon the above posts, I see a new war as now inevitable. The only improbable is when.

[Guest]

Re: Russia vs West

VIT -

Did you ever watch the Spielberg movie "Saving Private Ryan"? There was a scene late in the movie, in the top of a bell tower in a medieval town, when a few of these soldiers were trapped against the Germans. An American soldier has walked up the steps, completely crushed by his own fear. He is so afraid that he is paralysed, and cannot rush to help any of his dying comrades, standing still instead only to watch in silence. He witnesses one of his platoon members ambushed by a German soldier there in the top floor. They lock in struggle, and roll over several times, and the German soldier winds up on the top, with his bayonet pointed towards the American soldier's heart. Their eyes are locked together, staring into each other. The German is stronger, and the knife slowly descends and pierces the American's jacket, and then slowly pierces into his body. The American's grip is almost halting the knife, but not enough, and in slow motion as they stare at each other the German officer drives the knife into the American GI's heart. The whole event happens in complete silence.

The point is, they both have known for several long minutes, as they stare at each other, who is to live and who is to die. Now you point to only 180 million Russians, and wonder how they can put a rope around Europe's neck so tight that Europe becomes completely tamed by Russia. I think this "finlandization" will happen like those two Spielberg soldier characters. They both know which way this is going, but when the entire world begins to starve for oil, short of starting a war by the Europeans to invade Russia (an idea that has not enjoyed great success in recent centuries) the Europeans must slowly submit for the worldwide lack of a resource that is like oxygen for all of our societies. The Russians, with this tremendous land mass, and tremendous reserves of gas, will slowly bring the Europeans to their knees. There will be no "conquest". There will be only a silent "finlandization" where the wishes of Russia go increasingly unopposed by Europe.

Ironically, Europes biggest apologist for "peace at all costs", France, holds the keys to Europe's emancipation. Europe must go nuclear much faster than the USA even, because at least the US has massive unexplored continental shelves, coal and shale, plus massive landmass for bioenergy, solar and wind, to slow down the impact of peak oil. Europe is fare more densely populated, and has no ocean barriers providing security. It will either embark on a massive nuclearization ahead of any other continent, or it will fall increasingly under Russian geopolitical "influence", or in fact the likeliest avenue is that both will occur together . These guys are in the very first innings of a locked struggle over this question right now. Russia will exploit it's energy for every last scrap of geopolitical advantage that it can get. And Europe has so many people to provide energy for, that despite vastly outnumbering Russia in population and tremendously so in GDP, it risks being brought to it's knees by "Tsar-Patriot Putin and his successors, because lack of energy worldwide will be the "giant-slayer". Give it 20 years, and you won't believe the geopolitical changes to that old "Atlantic alliance".

I think this general idea has a better than 65% chance of really happening. Energy in the 21st century is going to be the "giant-slayer".

To LukeSter:

I heard the same things before. But I think if we know this strategy he wanted us to know it.

I believe most societies are developing by their internal means so you can tell or demand whatever you want in foreign policy. But it should be supported by nation at a whole.

The idea of interests does not mean military wars. But dominating in a Europe is a stretch . Russia has only 140 mlns and a lot of demographic problems.

[Shakespear]

Re: Russia vs West

Check out this analysis.

http://www.newstatesman.com/europe/2...ukraine-cheney


I must say I am totally confused.

Trying to figure out who set the trap is like those matriyoshka dolls sold in Russia. Always another layer of possibilities.

[VIT]

Re: Russia vs West

What I see here is the discussion about the end of mankind. If you proceed with your idea about limited resources to the logical end you will see it. And you are arguing who will be the last. In short run oil and gas is very important and used for influence and wars like the land was the idea of ancient wars. But I believe it is not the case for long tun. We will solve the problem with resources somehow or we will all die at the end. Russia is not the only place where oil and gas is so your fears seems to be exaggerated.


To Chris Coles:
" That is not to deny them respect (Russian army), simply to acknowledge that they have a much more fundamental attitude to war."
Do you know how it is called what are you saying ???
It is the same as we remember Germans for Nazis atrocities, Britans for opium wars, even not mention what US is doing today around the world. Nobody is saying that American are cruel (in fact they are not) because of CIA prisons Abhu Grade etc. So please try to avoid accuse nations for what their leaders are doing.

[c1ue]

Re: Russia vs West

Lukester,

You should be more clear what you mean by Finlandization.

You mean the country with a currency account surplus of 10% of GDP?

The one with a world leadership in cell phones?

Sure, Finland imports a lot of energy from Russia - but I'm not seeing Finland support any of Russia's foreign policy initiatives.

As for Europe being 'under a stranglehold' to Russian energy: France does import oil, but their consumption is under 2M barrels/day.

Germany is less energy secure mostly due to fanatic Green opposition to nuclear power - but no doubt this will change as the Germans realize it is a choice between nukes or Russian natural gas import dependence.

The southern EU countries are in trouble, but that was always the case.

Nonetheless in general the EU nations have both the money and the expertise to reduce dependence on Russian imports over time - hardly a gun to the head.

[VIT]

Re: Russia vs West

Nuclear power is not the solution. Uranium resources are even more limited then oil and gas.

[phirang]

Re: Russia vs West

Nuclear power is not the solution. Uranium resources are even more limited then oil and gas.

There's always thorium...

There are lots of lower-grade uranium deposits that can be brought on-line, but margin cost would be probably $30-40/lb.

[Guest]

Re: Russia vs West

Check out this analysis. http://www.newstatesman.com/europe/2...ukraine-cheney I must say I am totally confused. Trying to figure out who set the trap is like those matriyoshka dolls sold in Russia. Always another layer of possibilities.

Shakespear -

I read the link. Saakashvili really does come across as hopelessly inept to embark his country on this misadventure. Hugely naive and miscalculating. As to Israelis arming Georgia? Business as usual. Any nation with an arms export industry worldwide is vigorously searching for new clients (even "neutral" Germany quietly does so!). And the search for regional allies is entirely normal to all of them also. What is not given much press but is also true: I believe the Israelis went out of their way to try to dissuade Saakashvili from any adventurism? They understand caution better than most players in the Middle East and if Georgia had accepted their cautious advice as well as their arms and training their net position would only be in the plus today.

Nothing wrong with Georgia seeking to build it's armaments and defense forces at all. Only Saakashvili did not understand that once he had them, his smartest strategy would have been to sit very quietly with those arms for the next ten years until the Russians "got used to it".

As for the US and Cheney, he comes across looking almost as reckless (and naive!) as Saakashili. But then, that fact has lost the power to surprise any of us:

From the article:

[ Cheney immediately announced that the Russian invasion cannot go "unanswered", a choice of words that the American former ambassador to Nato Robert Hunter described as "inflammatory". Cheney has been spoiling for a fight with the Russians for a couple of years, and he and his allies have seized upon Georgia's and Ukraine's stated aim to join Nato as a way of riling Moscow. ]

What I see here is the discussion about the end of mankind. If you proceed with your idea about limited resources to the logical end you will see it. And you are arguing who will be the last. In short run oil and gas is very important and used for influence and wars like the land was the idea of ancient wars. But I believe it is not the case for long tun. We will solve the problem with resources somehow or we will all die at the end. Russia is not the only place where oil and gas is so your fears seems to be exaggerated.

VIT (Vitaly?) -

I appreciate the realism of your comments. Even if I had not already been given a clear hint by your prior posts, I would identify you as a Russian by the hints of "bleak fatalism and realism" in comments such as "or we will all die at the end". Very Russian form of address. Your optimism that "a solution to energy shortage will be found because it must" is very similar in spirit to EJ's own expressed positive and forward looking ethic, that technology will indeed resolve this in an acceptable tme frame. Don't forget however it is not only energy availability, but it is also critical strategic minerals globally that are on a quite brief depletion timetable (average of maybe 30 years left for most of them!). It is an admirable way to look at the world, even the correct way, as there is literally no alternative. But you guys have never been very specific about the technology, and the scale of the roll-out, which you suggest will have enough BTU's output to replace half the world's current oil consumption. That is how much more we will need in thirty years.

This is roughly like a man standing on the railway tracks with a large speeding train approaching him, now about thirty yards away from him, who keeps insisting "no worries, I can fly when the moment arrives which requires me to fly". Anyone watching will say, "OK, that's going to be a really inspiring thing to watch, but show me where these wings of yours are, and maybe it's a good idea to start unfolding those wings right about now?". But our hero standing on those railroad tracks is sort of lounging around, smoking a cigarette and looking relaxed and ironical about everyone else's agitation?

Your idea that there is lots more oil and gas lying around for all takers outside of Russia is certainly open to question. You must have read all about large oil field decline, steeply declining new oil field discovery rates, and projected world consumption growth? If you factored that into your estimations I would expect you to see the outlines of a world where every nation will need to secure every last scrap of petroleum / gas that it can in only 10-15 more years. Pressures on all nations will become intense, and soon. The scenario above about Russia is not arbitrary. It is derived primarily from the fact that Russia in fact politicises it's energy sales to extract geopolitical advantage more than any other country in the world except Venezuela.

More than the most radical members of OPEC, Russia under Putin is tempted into this game. Their approach to the meaning of having oil and gas available for international sales is precisely that it can be used to extract very specific political and strategic concessions from those who buy it.

No other country in the world does this as systematically (and ruthlessly) as the Russians under Putin. Libya sells energy to any country that wants it, and is interested only in the money, not extracting ruthless geo-political concessions. Ditto most of the Gulf States, ditto Nigeria, ditto Mexico, ditto Canada, ditto even Indonesia while it is still selling some, ditto even Kazakhstan, ditto Norway and the UK, whose oil sales are completely a-political. All of them sell their energy to the world strictly as a free commercial idea. But Russia is very similar to Venezuela, selling it's energy with a very close correlation to extracting harshly manipulative political influence. It is this quality which the Europeans see, and increasingly do not trust.

In a world of severe Peak Cheap Oil, where all nations are subtracting from what's available everywhere, the Russian "energy relationship" with the EU will become more clearly like what I described above. Meantime please understand this is not an indictment of the Russian people, but your countrymen (like Americans also!) are far too passive about their remaining democracy, leaving it increasingly up to autarchs like Putin to play deadly serious politicised games with their position as energy kings of the world. The majority of Russians insofar as they wonder about the idea of free markets, probably admire Putin for asserting Russian power via the energy. Some Americans have the same idea of admiration for America's assertiveness, but generally with things like commercially saleable commodities, we Americans are much more free market that Russians.

In the energy = political power game with Europe therefore, I think as a consequence Russia's "influence" on the EU's capacity for free decisions will become increasingly strong, and the EU people will be slow to react to the extent of their dependence on Russian energy. It is actually a highly probable scenario.

I much appreciate your very clear and unambiguous comments in reply and offer respect to the Russian people, who have suffered much under their Autarchs. Of all the Russian premiers since Andropov I have to confess I liked Yeltsin the best. Drunk yes, maybe also a bit incompetent, but also a man with a really strong heart-beat for creating a much freer Russia, which if that experiment had been given another ten years under his kind of political hunger for "unlocking" everything (without the "vodka haze"), would have created an extraordinary emergence of democracy again, (the best chance for Russia's real, true emancipation since the very first idealistic days of Lenin!). Putin may appear as a strong minded patriot to a lot of Russians, and certainly he is very smart indeed, but when I look t him I see only ex-KGB.

I don't buy all the arguments about how "extraordinary times require strong and ruthless leaders". I would not buy this argument for a New York minute.

... As for Europe being 'under a stranglehold' to Russian energy: France does import oil, but their consumption is under 2M barrels/day. ... in general the EU nations have both the money and the expertise to reduce dependence on Russian imports over time - hardly a gun to the head.

C1ue -

If you re-read my comment on this point it won't escape you that I did not refer to Europe as "being already under the stranglehold of Russian energy", but rather as heading that way (in a hurry). The notion you put forward, that the entirety of Europe can build itself enough nukes to reduce it's total petroleum imports to a rounding error and so escape the politicization of energy access in 15 years is a quite controversial assertion to put forward. I think if the roadmap to energy independence through nuclear were this broad and unhindered, you would see a furious new burst of nuclear plant building already well in progress. I know where you are coming from on the Peak Cheap Oil question already from many previous posts.

When you are driving on a camping vacation with your family, are you the sort of driver who considers it prudent to fill the tank every time you get down to a quarter of a tank, or are you one of those drivers who continues feeling expansive about fuel independence right down to the "tank reserve" readings? It is a minority of readers (both here and worldwide) who feel your sense of tranquillity about handily replacing hydrocarbons dependence with nuclear and "alt-energy". I've read people like Charley Maxwell (and the IEA, just for one other mainstream example) routinely mention that by 2025, the world will have employed all alt-energy (including nuclear) to replace absolutely, less than 20% of global hydrocarbons consumption.

Meanwhile, read VIT's own comments about the sufficiency of uranium to even feed this nuclearized world you envision. France took 40 years to arrive at the level of electricity generation which it has accomplished with nuclear. When every industrialised nation on earth starts to copy-cat that idea simultaneously, is there any remote possibility that this will create the "100 elephants trying to squeeze through a revolving door at once" effect? At very least, your assertion about energy independence through nuclear attained Europe-wide in 20 years is the equivalent of riding in your family camper on the freeway with the tank fuel gauge reading 1/8th of a tank of gas.

As noted to VIT:

This is roughly like a man standing on the railway tracks with a large speeding train approaching him, now about thirty yards away from him, who keeps insisting "no worries, I can fly when the moment arrives which requires me to fly". Anyone watching will say, "OK, that's going to be a really inspiring thing to watch, but show me where these wings of yours are, and maybe it's a good idea to start unfolding those wings right about now?". But our hero standing on those railroad tracks is sort of lounging around, smoking a cigarette and looking relaxed and ironical about everyone else's agitation? I'm thinking he's gonna get flattened, for sure.

[VIT]

Re: Russia vs West

To Lukester:

You are right VIT - Vitaly. I am impressed you easily recognized by writing.

I am mostly agree about everything what you said. You are saying Russian and US society are very passive. I do not think so for Russia. And that is my fear. I am really afraid that Kremlin proceed to buy the loyalty of citizens by high oil prices and playing in the world politics. Most of Russians understand that Putin is not democratic and there is no free media inside. I see some revolution potential inside like happened with Ukraine. And afraid this potential will be put outside on external "enemies". Bourgeois revolution has never happened in Russia, even it is capitalism as announced.

Putin uses oil to extract influence as West used financial strength to extract resources form the rest of the world. We can argue if it is fair but these are realities of today. I agree Western approach is better. But he does nor force to buy it. Again if we put everything together Putin must afraid of West more then vice versa.

I do not say that we will solve resources problem. But if we don't we are facing new society with full cycle-recycle type of consumption. And I am not sure it will support all Earth population with more or less even distribution. If this is a case all these talks about different politics are just cheap. Does anybody want to think what will be in between. I do not think it is pleasant.

[Guest]

Re: Russia vs West

Very smart answer Vitaly. I agree with everything you say.

To Lukester:

You are right VIT - Vitaly. I am impressed you easily recognized by writing.

I am mostly agree about everything what you said. You are saying Russian and US society is very passive. I do not think so for Russia. And that is my fear. I am really afraid that Kremlin proceed to buy the loyalty of citizens by high oil prices and playing in the world politics. Most of Russians understand that Putin is not democratic and there is no free media inside. I see some revolution potential inside like happened with Ukraine. And afraid this potential will be put outside on external "enemies". Bourgeois revolution has never happened in Russia, even it is capitalism as announced.

Putin uses oil to extract influence as West used financial strength to extract resources form the rest of the world. We can argue if it is fair but these are realities of today. I agree Western approach is better. But he does nor force to buy it. Again if we put everything together Putin must afraid of West more then vice versa.

I do not say that we will solve resources problem. But if we dont we are facing new society with full cycle-recycle type of consumptions. And I am not sure it will support all Earth population. If this is a case all these talks about different politics are just cheap.

[touchring]

Re: Russia vs West

Yes, but i think the US also wants high oil prices because Exxon and many other US oil companies got control over many oil fields, local and foreign.

But this is a deadly policy in the long term. As i had foreseen a few months ago, the West and Russian will have a showdown sooner or later if oil prices remain high and allow the Russians to rearm.

The biggest beneficiary of this showdown will be China, as they will stay out of this conflict. Contrary to what many here think, i don't think that the Chinese have any ambition in Siberia, they are more interested in extending their influence by politics and trade to smaller resource rich countries like those in Africa.

Meanwhile, Russia blew up the Georgian rail line carrying oil from the black sea ports, and with that, the intentions are very clear - http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/eu...ml#cnnSTCVideo

Putin uses oil to extract influence as West used financial strength to extract resources form the rest of the world. We can argue if it is fair but these are realities of today. I agree Western approach is better. But he does nor force to buy it. Again if we put everything together Putin must afraid of West more then vice versa.

[c1ue]

Re: Russia vs West

The notion you put forward, that the entirety of Europe can build itself enough nukes to reduce it's total petroleum imports to a rounding error and so escape the politicization of energy access in 15 years is a quite controversial assertion to put forward.

All of Europe doesn't need to go nuclear.

Only Germany.

UK has its North Sea - enough for its own use.

Europe has both the Middle East and Finland for oil.

However, Germany is overly dependent on Russian natural gas for electricity generation.

The Eastern European countries are also dependent, but don't have either the money nor expertise to buil nukes as Germany can.

The point is simple: I am not saying that the world's energy can be supplied by nuclear - although in reality a normal reactor only uses a small percentage of the uranium fed into it. Creating feeder reactors up this number considerably, as well as reactors using higher level byproducts (i.e. plutonium).

But it is true that there are security issues with doing this as well as expertise and cost issues. A first world economy like Germany can handle it though.

As for your belief assumption that the rest of the world has bought into your Mad Max peak oil crap - well - as I've said before: Even if you are right and it IS different this time around, the rich countries won't suffer much, relatively, but the poor ones will.

As always those without serve as the air bag for those with.

I am still unconvinced of your argument - if for no other reason than we haven't seen a real prolonged oil shortage. No lines, no rationing, no diddly squat in the way of concrete evidence of not enough oil to go around. It is still all straight line projections - right up there with Malthus and Ehrlich.

[GRG55]

Re: Russia vs West

You don't live here in the UK where we have a considerable Russian population and, to be perfectly honest, you come across as naive. Many of our problems with Russia stem from the fact that the Russian Army were perfectly capable of blowing up their own people in Moscow apartment blocks to promote a war in Chechnya.

My assessment is that the real problem in Russia itself is the power of the Russian Army who have no moral foothold, a base of civilised morality, that comes from a nation firmly wedded to the rule of the law.

That is not to deny them respect, simply to acknowledge that they have a much more fundamental attitude to war. Once in play, they work to their own rules as we can clearly see today in Georgia and have so clearly seen recently in Chechnya.

I feel like I am watching a reality show based upon that wonderful movie; The Long Good Friday. If you have not seen it, I recommend it. It shows the local hood, faced with new problems, deals with them in exactly the same way as he always has; except this time, it just blows up in his face. Exactly what is happening to the US. They just could not resist using the same tactics as before. They simply could not stop themselves.

As for energy, there are developments in the pipeline and outside of conventional thinking that will completely negate that part of the debate. But getting the investment started, let alone putting all our efforts into that, is the real difficulty as I can confirm with my own ideas lying fallow because no one wants to invest in new thinking.

We are trapped between expecting all the old thinking must remain in place and yet faced with a dire threat that can only be negated by new thinking.

Based upon the above posts, I see a new war as now inevitable. The only improbable is when.

The Great Game continues. And just like a game of chess, the loss of one small piece does not mean the loss of the game itself. The USA is a very, very long way from being checkmated. The antics of a bunch of Georgian and Russian thugs shooting at each other in the Caucasus is being ascribed a significance far beyond what it deserves.

Europe demonstrated that it is completely incapable of dealing with problems in its own back yard during the most recent Balkan conflict. Nothing whatsoever has changed since. Europe's interests and the interests of the USA align far more often than they diverge. That Europe remains militarily dependent on the USA is the more important issue. The former Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe [such as Poland] understand and acknowledge this reality. Western Europe, including the UK, also understands this, but prefers to avoid discussing it in polite company.

Given the recent events in Georgia, do you think that Europe is now likely to become more, or less, supportive of US interests and foreign policy in the next phase of the Great Game?

[metalman]

Re: Russia vs West

The Great Game continues. And just like a game of chess, the loss of one small piece does not mean the loss of the game itself. The USA is a very, very long way from being checkmated. The antics of a bunch of Georgian and Russian thugs shooting at each other in the Caucasus is being ascribed a significance far beyond what it deserves.

agree. don't get carried away by the antics of don putin. on the other hand, this don has 10,000 nukes.

[GRG55]

Re: Russia vs West

agree. don't get carried away by the antics of don putin. on the other hand, this don has 10,000 nukes.

While everybody yabbers on about the USA "screwing it up yet again", I think instead they should be asking themselves if this is what the world begins to look like without a USA. Darfur was the precursor.

When I was a kid I discovered that every school yard bully shared one trait in common; they always backed down when confronted. The objective is to control the time, place and circumstances of that confrontation.