Posted on 03/08/2022 1:46:15 AM PST by dennisw
The EU is fortifying itself with remarkable speed for a new era of 'zero gas' from Russia
A Western oil embargo against Russia raises the geostrategic stakes exponentially.
What was almost unthinkable last week looks almost unstoppable this week. Ukrainian resistance and outraged moral opinion in the democracies has changed the character of this war, and changed what the West is prepared to do.
The White House is sending emergency missions to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to find extra barrels. The US is pushing for a quick deal with Tehran on nuclear proliferation to bring back Iranian crude. All normal diplomatic reservations are being set aside.
It is this – as much as comments by top US diplomat Anthony Blinken – that tells us Washington really is going for broke. You can hear the footsteps of the world's only real superpower bearing down fast.
The West has the strategic depth to endure the sudden loss of 4.3m barrels a day of Russian crude, the lion's share sold to Europe and Nato democracies. It will be painful but is technically and economically doable.
A crude blockade will make it impossible for the Kremlin to continue waging serious offensive war in Ukraine beyond a few weeks. There is a high chance that it will set off the internal disintegration of Vladimir Putin’s siloviki regime (KGB mafia), though by what mechanism remains obscure.
Oil matters more than gas: it makes up 40pc of Russia’s state budget. It is what holds the patronage machine together.
The historical parallel with Ukraine is Benito Mussolini’s 400,000-strong invasion of Ethiopia in 1935,
Cornell professor Nicholas Mulder recounts in The Economic Weapon, a history of sanctions, how liberal public opinion got ahead of sleepy governments, shaming leaders into action just as they are doing today.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The UK can afford it, Continental Europe can’t.
What are these ‘democracies’ the writer of this shameless drivel refers too. Cheer leading putting Iran back on the path to the bomb too as an encore. What a @rick
Strongly doubt this. I'll believe Zerohedge over the sadly diminished Telegraph when it comes to economic power analysis. Russia seems to have the whip hand when it comes to gas.
- Ukrainian resistance and outraged moral opinion in the democracies -
“democracies” such as CIA-trained paramilitaries already in action in Eastern Ukraine before Russia invaded!
14 Jan 2022: Yahoo: CIA-trained Ukrainian paramilitaries may take central role if Russia invades
The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.
The CIA-trained forces could soon play a critical role on Ukraine’s eastern border, where Russian troops have massed in what many fear is preparation for an invasion...
While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it, said a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government.
By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA Ground Branch paramilitaries also started traveling to the front in eastern Ukraine to advise their counterparts there, according to a half-dozen former officials...
One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. “The United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.”...
“If the Russians invade, those [graduates of the CIA programs] are going to be your militia, your insurgent leaders,” said the former senior intelligence official. “We’ve been training these guys now for eight years. They’re really good fighters. That’s where the agency’s program could have a serious impact.”...
“It has helped “turn the tide,” said the first former CIA official, who said he or she was briefed that “gains were being made on the battlefield” as a “direct result” of the program...
If the Russians launch a new invasion, “there’s going to be people who make their life miserable,” said the former senior intelligence official. The CIA-trained paramilitaries “will organize the resistance” using the specialized training they’ve received.
“All that stuff that happened to us in Afghanistan,” said the former senior intelligence official, “they can expect to see that in spades with these guys.”
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html
Tehran and Venezuela because Russia isn’t moral enough to buy oil from…
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had our own oil to pump?
Such genii ...cut a lousy deal with some really bad dudes, who just want u dead, just to spite Vlad.....no wonder I sleep so well at night.
Sure, I’ve seen how their green energy worked. Now, they are claiming to get by without 40% of energy. LOL. Gas is $12 in Germany right now. Nat gas was $4000 per tcm yesterday. Sure, they can get by by burning furniture for heating, but it won’t make their vehicles nor factories run. Also, a third of world’s export of wheat is from Russian and Ukraine. Most of fertilizers as well as tons of other commodities.
Europe is set to turn into Argentina and China into a new boss.
How so?
Dementia Joe is still busy importing over 600,000 barrels of Russian oil per day, no?
After taking steps to cut US oil production by a million barrels per day since seizing power after stealing the elections.
The UK cant afford it. Heating bills have skyrocketed and families with children and old folks are suffering.
The American Empire self-destructs. But nobody thought that it would happen this fast
> March 07, 2022
by Michael Hudson
Empires often follow the course of a Greek tragedy, bringing about precisely the fate that they sought to avoid. That certainly is the case with the American Empire as it dismantles itself in not-so-slow motion.
The basic assumption of economic and diplomatic forecasting is that every country will act in its own self-interest. Such reasoning is of no help in today’s world. Observers across the political spectrum are using phrases like “shooting themselves in their own foot” to describe U.S. diplomatic confrontation with Russia and allies alike. But nobody thought that The American Empire would self-destruct this fast.
For more than a generation the most prominent U.S. diplomats have warned about what they thought would represent the ultimate external threat: an alliance of Russia and China dominating Eurasia. America’s economic sanctions and military confrontation have driven these two countries together, and are driving other countries into their emerging Eurasian orbit.
rest at link
https://thesaker.is/america-shoots-its-own-dollar-empire-in-economic-attack-on-russia/
Trust me, it is nothing compared to the rest of Europe. They are heading straight to 19th century.
I agree that “canceling” Russia from the Western monetary system was stupid. Even the individual citizens in Western countries need to take notes. It might happen to people the government doesn’t like here. As for Russia, oil, gas, and rare earths are more valuable than iPhones and Levi’s and Russia has plenty of it the the world still needs it, with or without USD.
The White House is sending emergency missions to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to find extra barrels. The US is pushing for a quick deal with Tehran on nuclear proliferation to bring back Iranian crude. All normal diplomatic reservations are being set aside.
It is this – as much as comments by top US diplomat Anthony Blinken – that tells us Washington really is going for broke. You can hear the footsteps of the world’s only real superpower bearing down fast.
Iran and Venezuela to the rescue! Thanks Blinky the idiot.
China will make up any Russian income shortfalls with long-term contracts that are probably already written. Including new gas and oil pipelines.
Don’t forget Blinky’s proposed Polish fighter jet swap.
Without asking Poland.
We didn’t. Out idiot leaders have. And not I’m paying over 4 bucks and expecting another dollar to come. And watching our economy implode. First time the American people have been hit with sanctions because of our own government. Stolen elections matter.
The EU’s bluff is extraordinary stupid.
“The West has the strategic depth to endure the sudden loss of 4.3m barrels a day of Russian crude, the lion’s share sold to Europe and Nato democracies. It will be painful but is technically and economically doable.“
Economically doable for the coup government in DC. Not for the American people. This will hit our economy as bad as the lockdowns. I despise DC.
Does anyone see this as the flailing last gasps of a West which is losing its grip on world influence? How desperate they are proving themselves to be that they are willing to race to Iran and sell the world out to a demonic regime just to stick it to Putin? What are these crazy bastards capable of doing next?
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