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Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

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251–260 of 470 posts

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#251

Anyone have thoughts on how this all pans out? I think that the only way out is that Ukraine cuts off its arm to save the head. It acknowledges the territories as lost, and consolidates what it has left. But I'm not sure how they do that without: 1. The current leader losing legitimacy, and likely resigning. 2. Opening the door for other parts of Ukraine to split off. 3. Opening the door to Russia to meddle in other…

> I don't see NATO involving itself militarily. If a US soldier dies defending Ukraine, I think that enough people will ask "why are we shedding American blood for something that has nothing to do with us?"

Which is why it's been so stupid of the US and the EU to push for Ukraine's inclusion into the EU & NATO. All it has done is provoke Russia, who doesn't want foreign influence right on its borders and Ukraine isn't strategically relevant to NATO anyway.

Everyone comes out of this looking incredibly stupid.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#252

Anyone have thoughts on how this all pans out? I think that the only way out is that Ukraine cuts off its arm to save the head. It acknowledges the territories as lost, and consolidates what it has left. But I'm not sure how they do that without: 1. The current leader losing legitimacy, and likely resigning. 2. Opening the door for other parts of Ukraine to split off. 3. Opening the door to Russia to meddle in other…

Russia is a bully, and giving an inch will only end with more inches taken. Putin has written - at length - on his desires to reincorporate Ukraine.

Russia will not stop until someone makes them unable or unwilling to continue expanding.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#253
post #183

I'm a bit worried about the EU consequences by this, given our already high inflation rate and energy prices being very influental in that regard. However, they assure us this won't be overly bad although there will be short-term consequences. A winner is obviously USA with the shale gas production but I'm sure EU will diversify in otehr regards as well. Altogether this feels like a painful but important step for a h…

>I'm a bit worried about the EU consequences by this, given our already high inflation rate and energy prices being very influental in that regard.

The existing pipelines have much more capacity. Nordstream just serves as a tool to take a bargaining chip away from Ukraine. The pipeline isn't actually scrapped, stuff is just halted. Additionally Russia didn't resupply it's storages in Western Europe much last year and we can now see why.

If Ukraine starts using it's bargaining chip i imagine we'll see those pipelines used real quick. A bigger issue is the growing demand with multiple countries scrapping nuclear powerplants without replacement.

>A winner is obviously USA with the shale gas production but I'm sure EU will diversify in otehr regards as well.

Whilst I've heard that before as well as talks about LNG terminals....the US barely registers as a supplier behind Algeria, Qatar, Libia, Nigeria,... It's not exactly cheap to transport across the atlantic.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#254
post #53

My personal opinion: All this Ukraine stuff is also supported by China. I bet they are ready to buy Russian oil and gas to compensate even if this costs them more than getting them from the open market. Why? Because this is a wonderful test drive to check how the West (sorry for the approximation) is reacting to a country theoretically supported by the West being invaded by another one. For me, the next one on the li…

Right now Russia plays China off against the West and vice versa. If this triangle collapses into the traditional West vs East pair of alliances, Russia will be the junior partner and lose their superpower status.

It'll also worsen their status in the States where we've got the strange situation of crystallizing the situation in the States of not being sure who the bad guy is: is it China or Russia? If they are allies then it is obvious they both are. Why Americans need an agreed upon bad guy to hate on is a different topic...

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#255
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Ha ha, funny joke. Where are the 100k+ US troops on Ukrainian borders?

The US has caused more death in the past 60 years from military intervention than all other countries combined

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#256

Germany has run on 60% Wind power alone in January and February so far, even exported energy to France (because their nuclear power is in bad shape) and Poland (coal power plants are just too expensive). Just another motivation to get rid of the old power sources as soon as possible. North Stream 2 never made sense.

Germany needs gas thanks to years of anti-nuclear, which is why we have 4x+ the carbon output for electricity of "nuclear is in bad shape" France

The only way Germany is getting rid of coal & gas is if France builds enough nuclear to power and heat Germany

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#257
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Ha ha, funny joke. Where are the 100k+ US troops on Ukrainian borders?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deploym...

They are only 64k+ indeed. But they are already inside EU, since WWII.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#258
post #12

Thanks Germans. Paying our gas bill will be fun here in the Netherlands.

If it is the fault of the Germans, then it is more so the fault of the Russians, but honestly if the Netherlands doesn't have natural gas, why be shocked when other people raise prices for a substance you can't do without and must buy at any price? At least the Scottish have the argument that all things being equal they don't need Russian gas, so the only reason their prices are high is that if you've got a bunch of…

The Netherlands have/had fossil gas. But extracting it caused earthquakes: https://dutchreview.com/news/groningen-gas-tap-to-extract-ne... So they decided to stop. But replacing the infrastructure depending on gas takes some time. For now they are dependent on imports.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#259

Anyone have thoughts on how this all pans out? I think that the only way out is that Ukraine cuts off its arm to save the head. It acknowledges the territories as lost, and consolidates what it has left. But I'm not sure how they do that without: 1. The current leader losing legitimacy, and likely resigning. 2. Opening the door for other parts of Ukraine to split off. 3. Opening the door to Russia to meddle in other…

> I think that the only way out is that Ukraine cuts off its arm to save the head. It acknowledges the territories as lost, and consolidates what it has left.

> I don't see Russia backing off in the near future; they've held onto Crimea for the last 8 years without blinking.

I think you answered your own question there, a little bit. Putin's speech yesterday really confirms it as well - he doesn't view Ukraine as a legitimate nation, and so the short-term goals are pretty clear: he'll take it all, if he's allowed to.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#260

If there were real plans to sanction people responsible for invasion, they should've sanctioned russian billionaires - cancel their residence, close their companies, liquidate their property, freeze their money in banks, forbid travel. But this looks like they are taking EU money to pay to US gas fracking companies

Russia has had it's billionaires sanctioned back in 14/15. Most of them now use the Russian banks to do their business (and those banks are not subject to sanctions and will misrepresent who they are doing business for).

The next step is to close the loophole and target the Russian banks as a whole, which will have consequences for non-billionaores in Russia too.

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