Quote from: suchmoon on June 25, 2022, 11:15:12 PM

Quote from: paxmao on June 25, 2022, 09:59:26 PM

I think that having oil & gas pipelines with the RF is not really a problem. This should have brought RF and EU's interest close together and Adolf Putin could have chosen to be a civilised nation with a positive influence in the world. I guess a former KGB mediocre bureaucrat cannot avoid being what he is.

Unfortunately it becomes a gateway drug to complete dependence on Russian (or Saudi, or some other totalitarian shithole) energy resources. Yes, a pipeline could be built while keeping viable backup options but ten years later a different party gets elected and says "why do we need to spend billions maintaining LNG terminals when we have this cheap gas flowing through the pipeline" or "why do we need the nuclear plants or solar or geothermal or anything really except cheap natural gas power plants" etc etc.

Oh the pipelines already exist. And it is not just Nord Stream and Nord Stream II, which are fully operational, it is the infrastructure that runs inside the RF linking the massive Siberian fields with central Europe.

When the RF speaks about replacing the demand from Europe with demand from Indian and China they often forget to mention that all the infrastructure has been created to supply cheaply to Europe and all other alternatives would be either very expensive or would require huge investments.

All this cuts both ways. The RF may threaten the EU with cutting supplies, but the EU would look for alternatives (would suffer economically for sure) but for the RF is much worse: They may loose their best client and all the infrastructure is built with that client in mind.

If the EU can make the Oil sanctions fully effective, the RF may be unable to pay for the aggression.