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Ukraine: Follow The Energy
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Scrape away the media sensationalism and geopolitical posturing and it boils down to a simple dynamic: follow the energy.
Though many seem to believe that internal politics and geopolitical posturing in Ukraine are definitive dynamics, I tend to think the one that really counts is energy: not only who has it and who needs it, but where the consumers can get it from.
Let's cut to the chase and declare a partition along long-standing linguistic and loyalty lines a done deal. Let's also dispense with any notions that either side can impose a military solution in the other's territory.
Media reports on the weakness of Ukrainian military forces abound (for example, Ukraine Finds Its Forces Are Ill Equipped to Take Crimea Back From Russia), but Russia's ability to project power and hold territory isn't so hot, either.
A knowledgeable correspondent submitted these observations:
RE: Russian Army. Effective draft evasion is running 80%. Morale is low, training is very poor and poorly funded. The Russian army has also gone through 22 years of near continuous contraction.
And this standing army has heavy commitments in the Caucasus and Far East Siberia. Moreover, at least half of these Russian ground troops are short term 12 month conscripts. I don't think these kids will produce many usable and motivated troops. The low morale recently seen in the Ukrainian Berkut and other police will be multiplied by at least 10x.
Russian speaking Ukrainian bands are rumored to already be crossing the borders into Russia territory. They're to be ready to sabotage bridges and infrastructure and generally retaliate. Fluent Russian speakers with many years experience of living in Russia. Who can say for sure if this has already happened or is just being threatened? We can say this is a very real danger. These people look just like "Russians."
And we can also say this threat will seriously complicate Russian rear area security and logistics. And speaking of logistics, the distances in south Ossetia and Abkhazia were very short and the populations were entirely friendly. Neither condition prevails in the Ukraine outside the Crimea.
Supplying moving armored units over hundreds of miles of occupied country is very difficult logistically. The logistics for air assault helicopter units are just as bad. These helo units look mobile but they're a lot like a yoyo being twirled around your head on the string. They only go fast within a fixed radius anchored by logistics that are about as heavy to move as an armored division's supply columns. That is years in the 101st Airborne Division talking. The fuel consumption rates are immense. Stuff starts breaking down fast.
Conclusion: a de facto partition is already baked in because neither side can force a re-unification. Various jockeying and posturing will undoubtedly continue for some time, but the basic end-game is already visible: de facto partition.
Let's move on to correspondent A.C.'s observations about energy.
This map rounds out the European energy Rosetta Stone. When they hear that Italian fighter jets are over Tripoli, or that the French Foreign Legion has returned to the deep Sahara Desert, they can can better understand the reasons and real objectives of such operations.
Many have noted that the Russia economy is critically dependent on oil and gas exports to the EU. It should be noted that the converse is less true every day about EU dependence on Russian oil and gas. The Wall Street Journal even had a line about an EU proposal to push natural gas EAST to the Ukraine. It's hard to understand that passage or where the natural gas could come from unless one understands the North Africa to southern Europe gas pipelines.
The factors bringing the conflict in Ukraine to a head are:
1. The natural gas discoveries in eastern Poland and western Ukraine played the largest role.
2. The reduced importance of the gas pipeline running through the Ukraine to Europe as compared to 2009. Since that time the Nordstream lines have been finished and Gazprom acquired commercial control of the Belarus pipeline. The South Stream lines are well along in development.
3. Fast developing liquid natural gas (LNG) seaport terminal infrastructure.
Events in Libya, Mali and Algeria are not hermetically isolated from this. They are part of a comprehensive energy policy problem being dealt with by the same leaderships. It increasingly looks like a series of peripheral Energy Wars that are being fought out for control of Europe.
LNG exports are going to become a weapon in the struggle for geopolitical influence and control.
This highlights another problem for Russia/Gazprom. Its present natural gas advantage in Europe now rests mainly on its pipeline infrastructure. This advantage is fading due to the current and proposed pipeline projects running through Turkey to Europe, plus LPG terminal & ship developments, plus the five trans-Mediterranean pipelines from Libya, Algeria and Morocco to southern Europe, plus local shale gas plays...
The Ukraine is not the only country becoming less systemically important to Europe for natural gas supply. So is Russia. Current events will only accelerate everyone's efforts to diversify away from such an unstable and apparently dangerous supplier.
I think the long-term fallout from the Ukrainian Crisis will be similar to China's attempt to exploit its temporary low price monopoly position in rare earth metals a few years ago. The result is rare earth metals are becoming less rare by the day as alternate mines outside China are opened and reopened.
Thank you, A.C. Scrape away the media sensationalism and geopolitical posturing and it boils down to a simple dynamic: follow the energy.
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I read it 20 years ago and I just bought a copy for my teenage son...
Strange how Hitler made so many mistakes in strategy.
But it could be said to have been all predestined.
In the New Testament, Book of Revelation, written in the first century AD,
Revelation chapter 8 prophesied WWI
Revelation chapter 9 prophesied Nazi Germany and WWII
Revelation chapter 10 prophesied US Space Shuttle Rocket
Revelation chapter 11 prophesied 9-11 NYC WTC Twin Towers destruction.
Yeah, between the Bible and Nostradamus everything that has happened up to now has been predicted...
I have studied the hundreds of prophesies of Nostradamus also.
All are somewhat obscure at first glance, but,
Many prophesies deciphered as presumably true, many prophesies undeciphered or misunderstood.
Nostradamus, a physician, born into a Christian family that a few generations earlier had been Jewish,
probably inspired to write his prophesies by study of Bible prophesies.
Not that there is 100 percent certainty in the interpretation.
They were originally written as intentionally obscure.
Knowledge of the future can be dangerous.
US Government spy agencies have funded psychic research and psychic spying.
I cannot remember the name of that program.
Wow...
That is about all I can muster...
Wow....
This is even more so for Japan which was pushed to war because of the blocades. This does not absolve the country for being a militaty dictatorship or for invading China brutaly but Japan "had" to go to war for South East Asia oil fields and other resources. The only unknown was the timing.
Vlad sings Kumbaya next..he gives you that warm feeling no?
Looks like standard western democratic tactics.
Well take what we want and everyone can go fuck themselves. If we get in trouble well blame everyone else.
These guys make dictators look good. At least with the dictators they at least have the balls to be straight up with you.
If i didnt know better i would think the entire west is run by some evil super woman. The deviousness, backstabbing, manipulating....If a man is responsible for this, this man has a pussy.
The pit must be deeper. Maybe all this stems from some Rothschild powered woman who has a court order for child support from the ENTIRE WORLD.
Israel is sometimes described as the Bride of God.
"Let me control the money supply of a country, and I care not who makes its laws" - A.M. Rothschild
"Let us control the sources and flow of carbon-energy, and we care not who makes the laws." - Big Oil
"The country whose currency is used for pricing and selling carbon-energy, rules all currencies and thus rules the world. We control that currency." - The Fed's owners
You want to knock the (energy) battery off the Fed's shoulder? Go ahead, but you'd better do it really well, cause you're not getting a second chance. /sarc
+1 Kirk. That kinda language is hazardous and may cause you to go cra cra with a nail gun ;)
"Ukraine and the 'Little Cold War'"
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/ukraine-and-little-cold-war?utm_source=fr...
Excerpt from Friedman's 2009 book.
It isn't just oil and gas flows. It is about creating buffers and securing Russian borders, not necessarily through "conquest".
"Media reports on the weakness of Ukrainian military forces abound (for example, Ukraine Finds Its Forces Are Ill Equipped to Take Crimea Back From Russia), but Russia's ability to project power and hold territory isn't so hot, either"...
So tell that one to a U.S. Army Navy and Marine Corps contingent that have been at war now going on 13 years with multiple tours of duty and "brain injury" that they now have to gear up for the biggest game of their military careers that by their Leaders actions may draw another super power adversary into the mix.
This is total B.S. when you understand that basic ingredient of where the U.S. forces have been and where they're being asked to deliver now.
Scrape away the media sensationalism and geopolitical posturing and it boils down to a simple dynamic: follow the energy.
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Scrape away the FECES from a Charles Smith post and you will always find AIPAC disinformation.
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Yes, ... follow the OIL, I mean FOLLOW the PENSION checks to Tel-Aviv.
Here's the DEAL in a nutshell, but Smith will never tell you the WHY.
The USA and USD are going down, and Israeli Shekel is tied to the USD. The MOSSAD has 1,000's of Pensioner's living in Tel-Aviv Condo's they're dual-citizens that have already left the USA and 'retired' in Tel-Aviv.
The MOssad made a deal with Saudi Arabia, that they would take out Syria, and Ukraine, and GAZPROM, and then Tel-Aviv would get $300 Billion EUROS/year, and split the profits with Saudia, that way everybody POST USD would be safe and happy in Tel-Aviv forever.
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Problem is of course PUTIN Doesn't want to lose those EURO's either, ... nobody wants USD everybody wants EURO's.
The FECES is strong with this one.
Only a fucking half wit with a syphilys diseased brain would want that fucking ponzi fake voucher for europe in their wallet.
Not that the fucking black cretin obummer has made the dollar any better, but to say everyboby wants thet poisonous peice of ass wipe the euro is rank stupidity. It just another fake fucking momo
Thank you for a very instructive post. Yes it's all about energy and it will be more so with every passing year.
As for saying that a trans-sahara pipeline can replace gas from Russia, it looks like a stretch. Think about the security of Northern Nigeria, Niger and Southern Algeria in a couple of years.
Follow the neocons:
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-cris...
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/03/neocons-move-to-exploit-ukraine-cri...
http://www.bollyn.com/#article_14573
the first feller, clearly, has no idea about the tactical situation in Crimea as to Russia's ability to hold and control it. Trying to hold all of Ukraine would not only be something they could only do with great difficulty and never completely, given outside help, they wouldn't want to.
They may protect some areas in the East, but 90% of their concern is Crimea. It's not negotiable.
They'll keep it, but things are now extra tense globally. Russian and perhaps Chinese tolerance is very low and NATO/Israeli aggression high so the chances a match will light a flame in one of about 5 possible likely theatres is pretty good.
Well KARZAI is still alive in Afghan, ... so the CIA can do something right, .... fucking amazing, he's personal killed 300,000 'taleban' with CIA money, ... amazing he's alive.
At the very least having a KAGAN man control UKRAINE, allows them to plunder and bleed the nation and sign contracts to remove GAZPROM,...
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Neocon's don't really want to run a country or its people, they just want to plunder a country for its wealth.
Look what the neo-con zio-nazis have done to the USA, ... Israelify the police, is about the only noticable, other than turn the USD into an AIPAC FIAT money tree.
Get your facts straight please.This article is TOTAL, UTTER BS.
More than 30% of Europe's energy is coming from Russia.
Ukraine is a gas importer and so is Poland. LNG capacity is nowhere near the volume needed to supply Europe.
This article is little more than daydreaming. There is no source that can replace Russian gas and oil, except maybe Iran regarding gas, but that is years away at best if the political situation allows it.
Khadaffy and Mubarak kept the lid on and provided vast amounts ot intel re: al queda / muslim brotherhood. obama took em out.... draw your own concklusions..... now obama is squeezing israel and letting iran have the bomb... draw your own conclusions.... brennan sabotaged all USSA ewfforts in iraq. dempsey and clapper are retards... hagel is a yes man... we slap our allies around vogorously and limp wrist our enemies... we unilaterally cut our offensive capability and nukes in return for nada... you figure out what is going on. benedict arnold would be jealous... he never got to play golf and lvie like the rich and famous...