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Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Comments on Ukraine

    A couple of comments I have made elsewhere regarding the Ukrainian mess:

   Roger Helmer said "Both Russia and the EU benefit enormously from the trade in Russian gas.  Russia supplies around 30% of Europe’s gas demand, with some half of that coming through Ukraine.  The UK gets little Russian gas directly, but any loss of gas to the EU as a whole would clearly impact on our supplies from elsewhere.

Fortunately we’ve had a warmish winter, and it’s nearly Spring, so immediate pressure on supplies is not too severe.  Several European countries (though not the UK) have built new gas storage, in large part to anticipate supply problems and reduce the immediacy of their dependence on Russia.
If the situation deteriorates, and a shooting war commences, the impact could be very serious indeed, both for prices and for security of supply.  In the UK, we have created a situation where over the next decade or so, gas is the only generating capacity we can build in the time-scale to keep the lights on.

 We’re locked-in, at a time when one of Europe’s major gas suppliers seems to be on the brink of war."

& I commented

Good points. I strongly disapprove of the way the US/EU have poured at least the admitted US $5bn into funding rioters in Ukraine and overthrowing the democratically elected government. This loos like a potential rerun of the assistance we gave to genocidal (ex-)Nazis, gangsters and organleggers across in Yugoslavia. We are destroying the country and if we have to pay higher fuel bills it will be nothing in comparison to what Ukrainians of all persuasions may suffer.

Nonetheless this is further proof that when our government cuts our basic infrastructure to the bone we automatically become extremely vulnerable to outside shocks. The prime duty of our government is to maintain order & to allow industry to make us better off – it is not their duty to foment disorder and disaster abroad.

and in reply to this article on Stratfor

    I believe this analysis relies to heavily on traditional strategic issues.
 
    Since 1945 the main threat of destruction to Russia & everybody else has been ICBMs. Despite the fact that we are all now much to nice to threaten all out nuclear war the fact remains that distance has been largely removed as a defence (US history to 1945 was also that the Americas were different because European militarists couldn't reach them).
 
     The other point is, good news, that conquest of neighbouring territories has not been a way of increasing national power since 1800. It is good way of demonstrating power, as the Victorian carve up of Africa proved, but ruling colonies is not a profitable business even if they are your own citizens as Canada, Australia and previously the USA were. Building your economy as China and Germany 1871-1913 did, is infinitely more effective though less spectacular, and Sarajevo 1990-1995 may come to haunt us as Sarajevo 1914 did.
 

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