Category: US/Russia Relationship

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 11, 2022

Wrongo subscribes to John Dick’s, CEO of Civic Science, weekly newsletter. Last week Civic Science was first up with an opinion poll on the Brittney Griner prisoner swap. Turns out America wasn’t happy with it:

“Fifty-two percent of Americans disagreed with the decision, compared to just 37% who agreed (11% had no opinion, somehow)…..Political affiliation was highly correlated, with strong Rs opposing the move at 82% and strong Dems supporting it at 72%. Folks in the middle were anything but balanced, however, where 53% of moderates rejected the swap, while just 33% celebrated it.”

They sampled 1,876 American adults:

It’s a conundrum to Wrongo why 52% of Americans think it’s a bad decision. Would people rather we walked away from any deal just to keep Viktor Bout in jail and leave Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony? Not wanting to let Bout go before his sentence was completed is understandable. What’s not understandable is whatever happened to American compassion and empathy? On to cartoons, although there isn’t much to laugh at here.

Why so hypocritical?

Trump delivered for Dems:

Mitch and Chuck agree:

Hershel Walker and another guy who needs a walker:

Kyrsten enters the game:

Trump’s business is a tax fraud, but he’s still taxing:

 

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Griner Comes Home

The Daily Escape:

Barn before a storm, Walla Walla, WA – 2022 photo by Gary Hamburgh Photography

After 10 months in Russian custody, including time in a penal colony, WNBA star Brittney Griner is on her way home. In exchange for Griner’s freedom, Russia secured the release of Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms smuggler. Another American, the former Marine Paul Whelan, remains imprisoned in Russia.

CNN reports that the White House said Griner was released to US officials. From Biden:

“Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner…She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home.”

The prisoner swap occurred in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. A joint statement from the UAE and Saudi Arabia said both Gulf countries played a role mediating the exchange between the US and Russia. By the time you are reading this, Griner should be on American soil.

But the result is a mixed bag. It’s very good news that Griner is free. But Viktor Bout is also free to rebuild his arms-dealing network. People are rightly wondering why Whelan wasn’t included in the trade. After all, he’s finishing his fifth year in Russian prison. But negotiation requires both sides to agree and the Russians would only offer Griner.

Of course, the Right-wing chattering class disapproved. First, from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, who tweeted:

“This is a gift to Vladimir Putin, and it endangers American lives….Leaving Paul Whelan behind for this is unconscionable.”

Some Conservative mouth-breather named Jessie Kelly tweeted this:

“She’s a black lesbian who hates America. Biden is just bringing another voter back home.”

Another mouth-breather, Conservative Benny Johnson who has a show on Newsmax, tweeted this with typical Right-wing understatement:

“This is the lowest point in US foreign policy in my lifetime. Collapse of an empire.”

It can’t be a long life for young Benny. What is he, five years old?

You have to love the comments by these wingnuts each of whom say they could have brokered a better deal with their expert negotiating skills. And rather than be happy that one American is returning home, they use their oral flatulence to make comments about what should have happened, and why Biden is a loser.

Poor Paul Whelan’s family shows that most Americans still have decency and class:

“NEW from the Whelan family: “There is no greater success than for a wrongful detainee to be freed & for them to go home. The Biden Admin made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, & to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn’t going to…”

The American people should thank Paul Whelan’s brother David for being so gracious. That isn’t something that we can say about the many Republican mouthpieces who felt it was necessary to weigh in.

People need to stop thinking about this as a trade or a prisoner exchange. The Russians kidnapped Griner and held her for ransom. She was a wonderful target, being a very tall black lesbian woman playing professional basketball in Russia. She was chosen, then convicted, and then sent to the gulag for the very purpose of being bait to spring Viktor Bout.

Does it suck that the price of releasing her was letting an odious killer go free? Of course. It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that as individuals and given their relative “crimes”, they weren’t equivalent assets. Everyone knows that Griner’s offense was simply a pretext to create a prisoner that could be traded. The initial arrest was about finding a small amount of hash oil on a Black gay woman.

Prisoner exchanges usually look like, “You arrested one of our spies and we want him back, so we arrested one of your spies. Let’s talk.” They don’t normally look like: “We plucked a random minor celebrity of yours off the street and she’s gonna do nine years.”

And when they do, it’s important to point out that it’s more like a kidnapping and a ransom than it is like an equivalent exchange.

Two closing thoughts. First, Conservatives always say: “Don’t negotiate with terrorists“. But all nations negotiate with terrorists; that’s just something governments say. Negotiating with terrorists doesn’t incentivize terrorism. It incentivizes terrorists to negotiate. The alternative is that terrorists engage in terrorism that does not involve negotiations. And that only leads to terrible outcomes.

All governments have to decide whether to negotiate or not on a case by case basis.

Second, Americans, especially conspicuous Americans, should stay the hell out of Russia until the Putin government’s current business plan is updated.

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Russia’s New Ukraine Strategy

The Daily Escape:

Dune Evening Primrose, Anza Borrego Desert SP, CA – November 2022 photo by Paulette Donnellon. This flower only blooms at night.

The war in Ukraine has entered a new phase. Early predictions that Russian forces would roll over token Ukrainian resistance didn’t last long. Confidence grew in a possible Ukrainian victory after Kyiv took advantage of America’s HIMARS artillery and other highly capable Western equipment began to degrade the Russian logistics and command systems.

Then, Ukraine launched a series of counter-offensives that have liberated formerly Russian occupied territory. November’s evacuation of Kherson by Russia showed that Moscow hasn’t yet found a way to stabilize its front lines in the face of Ukrainian military ground tactics.

But the ground has now shifted. The newest Russian commander, General Sergei Surovikin, in October began a bombing campaign on Ukrainian utilities throughout the country. It soon became clear that Russia is attempting to take out as much of Ukraine’s electrical grid as it can.

The WaPo said in late October:

“Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have been so methodical and destructive that administration officials say they are being led by power experts who know exactly which targets will cause the most damage to Ukraine’s power grid.”

Tactically, Ukraine’s weapons and ammunition can be replaced by the west. Troops can be trained to use new systems; cash can be transferred from Washington and/or Brussels. But the electric grid infrastructure cannot be easily fixed with replacements or money. There isn’t a large inventory of Soviet-era power generating and transmission gear laying around Europe that can be marshaled to fix the Ukrainian grid.

The grid destruction is taking place primarily by precision missile strikes launched from aircraft flying within Russia. We’ve seen that Russia continues to struggle in the land battle, but they have much more latitude to strike against Ukraine’s society and economy from within their own country.

We may have to refine our viewpoint about who is winning and losing this war. The US and NATO have focused on the land battle, which now favors Ukraine. But Russia seems willing to use air bombing to grind western Ukraine into a wasteland. The precision bombing of infrastructure can go on all winter, while the movement of ground forces will largely come to a halt as winter deepens.

Russia could make western Ukraine so close to uninhabitable that many of its citizens leave for Europe. No electric power in western Ukraine also means no water. That would mean the only people who could continue to live there would be the hardiest.

Russia can do all of this while the ground war is literally frozen in place. Russia can do this without a major commitment of additional troops, tanks, or new logistics paths into Ukraine.

If this is Russia’s plan, it makes sense. It’s incremental, has flexibility and fully utilizes Russia’s current advantages, including control of its own airspace. And since NATO and the US haven’t supplied Ukraine with weapons that could reach Russian soil or airspace, Russians are invulnerable to sustained Ukrainian attack.

Russia isn’t acquiring and defending new territory; it’s degrading much of Ukraine instead. Whether this is a winning strategy or not, it’s evidence of new and higher quality military thinking on Russia’s part.

It isn’t necessarily a winning strategy if the west supplies Ukraine with better air defense weaponry or with weapons that have the range to reach into Russia. There are two types of weapons to consider. Those that have a range that could strike behind Russian lines, and those that could reach into Russia itself.

Longer-range weapons raise concerns that the conflict could escalate to include NATO. But at the currently underway Bucharest NATO meeting, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said  that Ukraine should be free to strike military sites inside Russia as it fends off attacks on its critical infrastructure. Washington has previously denied Kyiv’s request for the 185-mile range ATACMS missile, which can reach into Russia.

America is at a similar point in the Ukraine war to where it was in the Afghan war: The enemy is striking it from another country, and our policy is not to pursue them inside their political borders.

The difference is that America was doing the fighting in Afghanistan and Ukraine is doing the fighting inside Ukraine. But in both cases, the US policy is strategically flawed. Russia must be made to pay real costs if they are going to use stand-off weapons to grind Ukraine into dust.

The challenge for NATO’s and America’s generals is to recognize that the Russian war strategy has changed, and to adapt to it. Russia wants to make it into a war of attrition. Ukraine wants to retake its lands.

How should Biden and NATO respond? Can the West sustain Ukraine in a prolonged existential conflict like this without changing its strategy?

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Saturday Soother, Nordstream Clues Edition – October 1, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Kalalau Valley Lookout, Waimea Canyon, Kauai, HI – September 2022 photo by Alex Skoz

Who sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines? We’re forced to speculate, but it’s a near certainty that the US Navy knows who did it. In perusing Stratfor’s publication this week of where in the world US Navy fleets are located, Wrongo saw this map:

The map breaks the Navy’s fleets into Carrier groups (four in orange) and LHA and LHD Amphibious Assault groups (two in blue). The map shows the location of these groups over the last four weeks. The one of interest is LHD3. It spent most of the past four weeks in the Baltic Sea, including a great deal of time very near the Nordstream pipelines.

LHD3 is the designation of the USS Kearsarge, what the Navy calls a Multiple Purpose Amphibious Assault Ship, shorthand for a small aircraft carrier. The Kearsarge left the Baltic Sea a few days ago. Part of the reason the Kearsarge was in the Baltic was to participate in Baltops 22:

“This year, more than 45 ships, over 75 aircraft, and 7,000 personnel are tasked to execute a series of complex events throughout the two-week exercise.”

Seapower Magazine reported that one element of the Kearsarge operations in the Baltic was to test special sub-sea mine destruction technologies: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A significant focus of BALTOPS every year is the demonstration of NATO mine hunting capabilities, and this year the US Navy continues to use the exercise as an opportunity to test emerging technology….Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark….”

Bornholm is where the first breaches of Nordstream Two were discovered. Stratfor reports that:

“On Sept. 26, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Administration warned of potential ”deliberate attacks” after energy companies reported multiple cases of unidentified drones flying near offshore oil and gas installations. Just a few hours later, officials in Denmark warned they had found a gas leak along a section of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm.”

The following day, the Swedish Maritime Administration announced it also detected two gas leaks on the Nordstream One pipeline in a nearby area. A fourth leak was discovered subsequently. While the Baltops 22 operation finished in July, the US Sixth Fleet didn’t begin leaving the Baltic Sea until September 22.

So it’s highly likely the Navy knows what happened and maybe who did it.

A head-scratching question is why would anyone do this? Damaging Nordstream is a direct terror attack on both Russia, and the EU, Germany, and the western European nations indirectly connected to the pipelines.

It is impossible to believe that it was done undetected. This type of clandestine operation requires deep water explosives, submersibles, divers and digging through the sea mud to attach explosives to the concrete shell that surrounds the steel pipeline.

Let’s take a brief look at the leading characters. Western governments say Russia did it, but why would it? One benefit to the Russians is that it forced the price of natural gas even higher (it went up 7%). It might have propaganda value; Russia can blame the US and thereby further turn Russian civilians against the West.

One old myth may apply: According to legend, Spanish conquistador HernĂĄn CortĂ©s ordered his men to “Burn the boats” as they began their conquest of the Aztec empire in 1519. The idea was that there would be no opportunity to retreat, and winning the battle was all that mattered. For Putin, could it be he purposefully destroyed billions of dollars of Russian energy infrastructure and their “cash cow”, believing that Europe will never again want Russian gas? If so, that means Putin intends to win WWIII.

Could it be China? Closing Nordstream means China would get all the gas it needs, and possibly at even cheaper prices. Rendering Nordstream useless forces the Russians to tie their currency more tightly to the Chinese Yuan. And the newest Chinese submarines might be able to do the deed.

Could it be the US? We have the technology and were in the area. But what goal of our foreign policy would be served by drastically hurting our NATO allies? If we did it, we’ve gone from a passive participant arming Ukraine to an active participant, possibly engaging in an Act of War.

Could it be a smaller state in the rabid anti-Russian west such as Poland?  The US Navy knows. Will they tell anyone?

On to the weekend, where we ignore what Gini Thomas told the Jan. 6 Committee or, whatever Judge Aileen Cannon is thinking about Trump’s documents. It’s time for our Saturday Soother! Start by brewing up a hot steaming mug of Kahiko ($47.95 for 8oz: expensive, no? Thanks Biden) from Hawaii’s Hula Daddy Kona Coffee. It is said to be richly chocolaty, harmoniously juicy, and bright.

Now, grab a seat by a south-facing window and listen to George Gershwin’s “Lullaby for Strings”, written in 1919, although it was first performed as an orchestral piece in 1967. It’s played here by the New York Philharmonic String Quartet in 2016:

BTW: Stop watching cable news.

 

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Is Putin Bluffing?

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, foothills of the Superstition Mountains, Phoenix, AZ – September 2022 photo by Gary Robinson

Wrongo is a life-long peacenik. That started with his opposition to the Vietnam War, which didn’t prevent him from being drafted and spending his service time in Germany running a nuclear missile site for the US Army. His anti-war stance went forward through Grenada, Iraq (twice), Libya, Syria and of course, Afghanistan.

Curiously, he’s in favor of the US assisting Ukraine, largely because if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unchecked, it will create a continuing threat to Europe and to world peace. The fallout from NATO assisting Ukraine to date has been immense. Now, Russia appears to be trying to add holding Europe hostage to a nuclear threat to his already holding it hostage for energy.

In a speech Wednesday morning, Putin announced a partial mobilization of his military, saying the goals of his invasion of Ukraine had not changed and that the step was “necessary and urgent,” and effective immediately. They’re going to mobilize 300,000 troops who have prior military experience.

Contrast this to the 200,000 troops he used to invade Ukraine.

This is Russia’s reaction first, to getting bogged down in what was supposed to be a quick operation in Ukraine; and second, by Ukraine’s successful counter-offensive that has caused a significant Russian military retreat.

Russia’s plan is now to absorb the Donbas region into Russia after a sham referendum in the next few days. Once Russia annexes the Donbas, Putin says that part of Ukraine will henceforth be a part of Russia. He made his strategy explicit:

“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people….This is not a bluff.”

From a Russian perspective, any further Ukrainian attacks in the Donbas could be construed as attacks on Russia. That means Russia might consider themselves free to interdict NATO resupply operations to Ukraine even within NATO countries.

We’re now in a situation that’s fast-moving, and potentially dangerous. Putin is reminding the West that he has his finger on the nuclear button. He also said:

“I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and some components are more modern than those of the NATO countries…”

Even though Putin said he isn’t bluffing, we have to ask: Is this a bluff?

The answer may turn on whether we’re talking about Russia attacking the West outside of Ukraine, and whether they use nukes or conventional weapons in that attack. If they use nukes, the question is whether they use tactical nukes (usually 2-200 kilotons) or heavy ballistic missiles. The Hiroshima bomb was 15 kt. The US has deployed about 100 tactical nuclear bombs, called the B61, in Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Russia going nuclear would confront NATO with two unpalatable choices: One, back down and accede to Russian demands with the near certainty of having to face additional attempts at nuclear blackmail farther down the road. The other option would be for NATO to hit back with its own nuclear arsenal with the obvious risk of having the Ukrainian War escalate into a general nuclear war.

A third possibility is for NATO to retaliate with a large conventional weapon strike. If NATO wants maximum shock value for their nonnuclear counterstroke, striking Crimea would be a serious response.

But whether there is a conventional or nuclear response, the possibility of escalation seems high. OTOH, if Putin used a tactical nuke in Ukraine, it could signal the start of the end game for him. Even the most opportunistic of Russia’s allies would cut them off, both diplomatically and economically.

But the problem with playing chicken is that sometimes the other guy just holds the wheel straight, presses the accelerator, and closes his eyes.

What counters this is that the people surrounding Putin have as much to lose as anyone in the West in the event of an escalation that brings NATO into the fray. Will Putin actually resort to using nukes in Ukraine or Europe? Nobody knows.

Putin knows that everyone knows he knows that he can’t actually win using nukes. The threat is that he will tip the geopolitical board over in a tantrum. Putin’s actual use of nukes will result in a tremendous blowback of either retaliatory nuclear strikes or large-scale conventional weapons strikes, depending on how he actually used his nukes.

Something to consider is speed of response. Putin can nuke Ukraine with a transit time of around 8 minutes from launch to detonation for a ballistic missile, and slightly longer for a cruise missile. Rest assured that the US/NATO have some nuclear-armed submarines in the Arctic that could hit Moscow in 8-10 minutes if it came to that.

Sitting in the comfort of the US, Wrongo can’t support adopting a Chamberlain-esque policy of appeasement with Russia.

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Ukraine Update

The Daily Escape:

Cowee Mountain Overlook, Blue Ridge Mountains, NC – 2022 photo by Jordan Hill Photography

The Washington Examiner posted this shocking number:

“More than 50,000 Russian service members have been killed in the more than six months since the war in Ukraine began.”

They are quoting from a tweet by the Ukraine Ministry of Defence that says 50,150 Russian soldiers have been killed. That doesn’t mean that the figure is accurate, but it’s a stake in the ground by Ukraine.

A separate tweet by someone who is difficult to verify, translates what purports to be a document from the Russian Ministry of Finance. It provides some backup to the claim of deaths, assuming it’s both accurately translated and authentic: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“The doc[ument] from the Russian Ministry of Finance, which is distributed online, says that as of Aug 28, the families of the dead soldiers were paid 361.4 bill[ion] rubles, 7.4 mill[ion] for each [soldier]. The division would give 48,838 CONFIRMED deaths. This does NOT include those LDNR”

LDNR is an abbreviation for the breakaway Ukrainian provinces under Russian control. This comes a month after a senior Pentagon official said it believes that roughly 70,000-80,000 Russian forces have been killed or wounded in action.

If the number of deaths was correct, one would expect the number of wounded to be substantially higher than the Pentagon estimate, assuming the 50,000 was subtracted from the 80,000 number.

Even if these numbers are exaggerated, and the reality is more like half the number of deaths vs. what Ukraine has reported, few governments can survive losing ~25,000 troops in six months in what amounts to a war of choice.

By contrast, the US lost 2, 456 military in the 20-year Afghan War, while the Soviet Union lost 13, 310 in its 10 years there.

Meanwhile CNN is reporting on Russian President Putin’s combative speech at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok, where he claimed that Russia is gaining influence on the global stage. This from a transcript posted on the Kremlin website:

“We have not lost anything and will not lose anything….the entire system of international relations has recently undergone irreversible…tectonic shifts,”

It makes Wrongo wonder if the families of the reported 50,000 Russian soldiers killed feel the same way.

Further, there have been several reports in Western media that support Putin’s claims that the sanctions aren’t really that successful. Western countries are trying to cripple Russia’s $1.8 trillion economy, and the effectiveness of our sanctions is a key ingredient in the outcome of the war in Ukraine.

The Economist reports that the sanctions are not going as well as expected, and Russia’s GDP will shrink by 6% in 2022. But Bloomberg, citing information from planners inside the Kremlin, says that the Kremlin planners’ base case sees the economy bottoming out next year at 8.3% below the 2021 level. That would be a severe economic impact, felt in all corners of the Russian Federation.

On top of that, if Putin carries through on his threat this week to cut off all natural gas exports to Europe, that could cost as much as 400 billion rubles ($6.6 billion) a year in lost tax revenues. And Putin’s touted new export markets wouldn’t fully compensate for the lost European sales, even over the next 3-5 years.

Sanctions won’t win the war. They are having the effect of weakening Russia, when what they thought would be a short war with acceptable costs has turned into a long war with costs that are potentially dangerous.

The high human death toll coupled with the burgeoning economic costs may mean sadder times in Moscow.

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Russia, Iran Form Energy Cartel

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Lookout Point, Harpswell, ME – August 2022 photo by Rick Berk Photography

Good strategy is supposed to include a look at what the logical outcomes may be, once you’ve implemented your strategic plan. Was that done when the US and the EU decided to sanction Russia about its Ukraine invasion after having sanctioned Iran, well, for being Iran?

When you treat much of the world as your enemy, you should expect them to eventually find common cause and fight back. We’re speaking about the world’s supply of natural gas (NatGas). There is a new alliance between Russia and Iran on NatGas. At Oil Price, Simon Watkins says that a new energy cartel is forming: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)

“The US $40 billion memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed last month between [Russia’s] Gazprom and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is a steppingstone to enabling Russia and Iran to implement their long-held plan to be the core participants in a global cartel for gas suppliers in the same mold as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for oil suppliers.”

The article describes how Russia and Iran are creating a NatGas OPEC. The two countries are first and second respectively in holding the world’s largest NatGas reserves. Russia has just under 48 trillion cubic meters (tcm) and Iran has nearly 34 tcm, so the two countries are in an ideal position to form a cartel.

NatGas is a vital commodity. It is widely seen as the optimal product in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. And controlling the global flow of it will be the key to energy-based power over the next 10 to 20 years. This has already been demonstrated in Russia’s hold over the EU through its NatGas supplies.

From a top-down perspective, this Russia-Iran alliance might also draw other Middle East gas producers, who have tried to be neutral between the Russia-Iran-China axis or the US-EU-Japan axis.

Qatar has long been seen by Russia and Iran as a prime candidate for this kind of gas cartel because it shares its gas field with Iran. Iran has exclusive rights over 3,700 sq.km of the well-known South Pars field (containing around 14 tcm of gas), with Qatar’s North Field comprising the remaining 6,000 sq.km (and 37 tcm of gas).

If they can enlist Qatar, this new cartel would control 60% of world gas reserves, allowing them to control NatGas prices globally. It would be logical for prices to rise, given the growing demand for NatGas in the coming decades.

America can dodge this bullet for a few years because proven gas reserves in the US amount to about 13.5 tcm. So, at the current level of production we can produce sufficient NatGas for another 13-15 years.

But this means that in a decade or so, the US, Europe, and Asia will all be more dependent on imports from Russia, Iran, and Qatar, while competing with the rest of the world for our share in order to maintain our economy and lifestyle.

So, strategy can be a bitch. By creating a global political and economic environment that pushes Russia, Iran, and Qatar into a cartel, we’ve created a significant future economic vulnerability.

There are immediate NatGas cost implications in the US today. Bloomberg’s article, A ‘Tsunami of Shutoffs’: 20 Million US Homes Are Behind on Energy Bills, paints a picture:

“…about 1 in 6 American homes…have fallen behind on their utility bills. It is, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), the worst crisis the group has ever documented. Underpinning those numbers is a…surge in electricity prices, propelled by the soaring cost of natural gas.”

That’s 16% of American homes for the math challenged. Winter in the US may not be as big a disaster as in the UK and Europe, (better insulation). But plenty of people here will have to choose between food and heat.

The world is sorting itself out into blocks of countries aligned with each other. Russia, China, Iran and perhaps India, want their own commodity-based financial system to reduce their exposure to the political impacts from the West’s corporate/state “free” market system, which has used trade as a weapon for the past few decades.

There are two ways of looking at this. We could just build this energy vulnerability into our economic planning and prepare to devote a growing share of our GDP to paying the cartel for more NatGas.

Or, we could immediately start seriously building out our renewable energy capacity. There’s a model. Europe is attempting to pivot away as quickly as possible from its dependence on Russia.

We could do the same thing.

That could reduce our exposure to imported NatGas because it’s largely a bridge from coal to renewables. Massive investing in renewables would give Russia and Iran a shorter bridge than they think they’re getting.

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The US Jobs Market and The EU vs. Russia

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Lake Sammamish, Issaquah, WA – June 2022 photo by Gary Hamburgh

Two pieces of news to think about today.

First, you can always tell when an economic boom is nearing its end, because the jobs market begins to get shaky. That seems to be starting. The WSJ reports that:

“Businesses in several different industries are rescinding job offers they made just a few months ago, in a sign the tightest labor market in decades may be showing cracks.”

No need to panic just yet, the labor market remains strong, with an unemployment rate at 3.6%, near a half-century low. But signs of retrenchment in hiring shows that executives are having trouble predicting the economy over the next 12 months.

And when companies revoke job offers, it indicates their view of the future business outlook has changed so quickly that it’s undoing hiring plans made only a few weeks before.

Many hiring managers say signing up new recruits remains highly competitive. The WSJ reports on a Gartner survey of more than 350 HR executives conducted in May that found around 50% thought the competition for talent would increase over the next six months. Nearly two-thirds said they hadn’t made any changes to their hiring practices or HR budgets in response to economic volatility.

But it seems there are changes afoot. Country wisdom says that a storm rarely hits us without warning. The skies turn dark, the wind picks up, the birds go quiet. It’s possible to see the signs before the storm hits if you know what to look for. We’re seeing signs now of what’s to come.

Second, there’s an adage, attributed to Trotsky, but difficult to verify, that says: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Those words are apt in today’s situation between Europe and Russia. CNN is reporting about an emerging flashpoint between Russia and the EU:

“Tensions are mounting around…the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, an isolated but strategically significant territory on the Baltic coast…Russia has reacted furiously after Lithuania banned the passage of sanctioned goods…into Kaliningrad. But Lithuania says it is merely upholding European Union sanctions, and the European bloc has backed it.”

Kaliningrad is Russia’s westernmost territory and it has no land connection to Russia. It’s the only part of Russia that is completely surrounded by EU states. Here’s a map:

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland are all members of NATO, surrounding Kaliningrad militarily. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, experts have feared that Kaliningrad might become the next flashpoint in tensions between Moscow and Europe.

Russia says that Lithuania’s sanctions on goods transit is a blockade in violation of a 2002 agreement to allow goods to flow between Kaliningrad and Russia. Sanctions apply to about 50% of Russian shipments. The sanctioned products include construction machinery, machine tools and other industrial equipment. But food and personal travel are not sanctioned.

Since the Baltic freezes during the winter, resupplying Kaliningrad will become particularly difficult in about six months. Lithuania has also closed its airspace to Russia. A Berlin-style airlift could prove problematic as well.

Lithuania has spent years building a liquid natural gas (LNG) port and the infrastructure necessary to connect to Nordic and EU grids. She was therefore able to shut off Russian oil, gas, and coal quickly and is in a better position to do without Russia’s gas than the rest of the EU.

Lithuania imports 70% of its electricity from Sweden through a dedicated underwater cable. Sweden’s power is nuclear and hydroelectric, thus independent of Russia as well. Lithuania is also in a position to supply gas to Latvia, Estonia, and Poland through their LNG terminal.

So is Europe at a flashpoint? There’s little Moscow can do to Lithuania beyond threaten.

Is it just a matter of time before NATO and Russia are in a shooting war? Doubtful. Russia could try cutting off all oil, gas, and coal exports to the other NATO countries. Russia could then say they would sell to any countries that left NATO. That might not pop NATO’s balloon, but it might take some of the air out of it.

If Russia decided to do that, it would have to find a way to transport it’s oil, gas, and coal to alternate customers. That can’t happen quickly. Given that the adversarial relationship between Europe and Russia may last a decade or more, Russia will probably have to find alternative customers regardless.

Neither side wants to undertake drastic changes in energy supply too precipitously.

Wrongo doubts the Kaliningrad situation will lead to war, but each provocation and escalation increases the odds. We’re playing in a very high stakes game, given the nuclear weapons on all sides. But Europe and NATO can’t automatically bow to Russia’s threats.

NATO can’t be unwilling to fight, but there’s a difference between that and provoking a war. Right now, it’s difficult to see a peaceful end game between the US, NATO, and Russia

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Monday Wake Up Call – May 9, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Lynden, WA – May 2022 photo by Randy Small Photography

A final thought about our radical Supreme Court: They should give up their black robes. White robes would be much more appropriate.

But for today, let’s talk about the Victory Day celebrations in Russia. This year marks the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II, and Russia observes it every year with military parades and patriotic messages.

Wrongo is publishing this before we learn exactly how Putin will mark the celebration. Certain pundits think that Putin will use the occasion to escalate his war in Ukraine.

UPI reported that in remarks Putin made to commemorate Victory Day, he blasted what he described as “Nazi filth” in Ukraine. He also sent congratulatory messages to the Russian-appointed figureheads of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, which together make up the Donbas region, for “fighting shoulder to shoulder for the liberation of their native land.”

That certainly doesn’t sound like he’s backing down on his currently stalemated war.

Others think that Putin is more likely to make the political choice to declare victory, or partial victory in the “special military operation”. They think that Putin will postpone any decision regarding mobilizing more troops, which could be politically difficult. Pat Lang, a former US intelligence officer, worries about Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon against the steel plant in Mariupol, a frightening possibility for the world.

Despite the speculation, let’s spend a few moments thinking about how the Ukraine war might end.

“Tell me how this ends” is what General Petraeus famously asked in 2003 at the outset of the Iraq War. It lasted until 2011, and then morphed into the war on ISIS, that lasted until 2017.

Since the Russian war hasn’t resulted in a clear victory, certain US and British officials are talking more openly about a “victory” in Ukraine, meaning that the West decisively degrades the Russian military’s capability. Also, there’s some talk about regime change in Moscow.

A more likely scenario is that we’ll see an extended standoff between Ukraine and Russia, without an agreed end to the war, but where neither side wishes to continue active combat. In this case, Western sanctions would continue. Russian forces would occupy all or most of the Donbass region and control a land corridor linking Crimea with the Donbass and Russia.

This outcome would have few rules of engagement, since most of the guardrails that would be part of a negotiated settlement wouldn’t exist. The US and Europe would face years of instability and the constant threat of a military miscalculation causing a spillover in Europe. A forever war in Ukraine also runs the risk of eroding support for Kyiv in the US. America isn’t emotionally able to endure another grinding military conflict, even with no troops on the ground.

Finally, there may be a negotiated settlement. But what is the compromise that all parties can live with?

Zelensky has indicated that Ukraine might agree to be a neutral country; but only on condition of stringent security guarantees, the terms of which both the US and Russia might find objectionable.

Ukraine has understandably ruled out territorial concessions, but Putin would almost certainly not agree to any settlement in which Russia were forced to leave the Donbass and Mariupol. And separatist groups there would be unhappy living under Kyiv’s rule after years of war. Also, it’s hard to see Putin compromising unless the US and Europe ease economic sanctions as part of a settlement. Removing sanctions without a Ukraine “victory” might be a difficult political pill for Biden in particular, to swallow.

We like to think that all wars end, and eventually, they do. Remember that may not happen quickly or completely. The surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox didn’t settle hostilities, or political and cultural tensions in the US. It didn’t resolve the related racial prejudices and political differences, which still linger today.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that in the Ukraine war, there may not be a discrete moment marking the war’s end for many years. A protracted war would be a favorable outcome for Moscow. It would certainly be a terrible outcome for Ukraine, which is already devastated as a country.

Time to wake up, America! What’s our strategy in Ukraine? Are we even following a strategy in the Ukraine war? To help you wake up, listen to Jon Batiste perform McCartney’s “Blackbird” on The Late Show in 2016:

Note Batiste’s overture on piano which McCartney originally wrote for guitar, was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s BourrĂ©e in E minor, a well-known lute piece.

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Ukraine War Escalates

The Daily Escape:

Lupine, Rocky Mountain Front, MT – April 2022 photo by Jack Bell Photography

After just a few months, the Ukraine war is escalating dangerously. Russia decided to shut off gas exports to two EU nations, Poland and Bulgaria because they won’t pay Russia in Rubles. This escalation came one day after the US and other Western allies met to coordinate speeding up deliveries of more and better weapons to Ukraine.

Cutting off gas was called blackmail by the EU. But it isn’t blackmail, it’s war by other means. And it was totally foreseeable years ago when Europe happily set up its bulk gas buying relationships with Russia’s Gazprom.

There also were explosions in both Russia and in Transnistria (a separatist part of Moldova) that knocked out two powerful radio antennas and hit the state security ministry. Transnistria houses Europe’s largest ammo dump, filled with old Soviet armaments. It’s just 1km from the Ukraine border. Russia has blamed Ukraine. Ukraine blamed Russia.

Inside Russia’s Belgorod province, near the border with Ukraine, Newsweek reported that an ammunition depot was on fire. It’s unclear whether this was caused by poor local management, Ukraine, or sabotage.

And Germany decided to send anti-aircraft self-propelled guns to Ukraine. The Gepard, a tank with two 35-millimeter anti-air cannons, was phased out from the German army more than 10 years ago. But Germany still has many available. One problem is Switzerland, a key supplier of ammunition for the Gepard, has banned the export of that ammo to Ukraine.

It’s clear that the US and NATO are dipping their toes deeper into this conflict, and that Russia is expanding its efforts as well. The question is: whose toes get nipped first?

The Express is reporting that on Wednesday, Putin told Russian lawmakers in St. Petersburg:

“If anyone decides to meddle in ongoing events and create unacceptable strategic threats for Russia, they must know our response will be lightning-quick….We have all the instruments for this, ones nobody else can boast of. And we will use them, if we have to….We have already taken all the decisions on this.”

The big question today is whether the EU and NATO will say cutting off gas to one of us is cutting off gas to all of us. That would be a substantial escalation from where both stood on Russian gas in February.

By cutting off gas supplies, Russia may be making the same strategic mistake that the Confederacy made with its Cotton Embargo at the beginning of the US Civil War. That initially caused considerable economic pain, but both the French and British started importing Egyptian and Indian cotton. The South lost a long term market by its action. By the time the Confederacy realized it, they’d lost their key cotton export ports because of the US Naval blockade.

This is really Russia’s attempt to bully its biggest Western customer, Germany. As the Confederacy discovered, cutting off your big customers creates an aspect of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). It will be interesting to see how the rest of the EU deals with Russia’s demand for Ruble payments.

A few weeks ago it seemed Germany would blink first, but after its announcement to send armored vehicles, that seems less certain. The Russians are simply driving Europe to reduce their reliance on Russian gas and oil, with imports from other sources and renewables.

This is certainly an existential war for Ukraine and, given the current round of escalations and the bellicose talk out of Moscow, it’s becoming an existential war for all of Europe as well.

There’s an emerging feeling in the EU that Ukraine must win for Europe to feel secure. Winning is everything for both Ukraine and Russia. While Russia seems to be winning on the ground in Ukraine, they’ve been mostly stagnant for nearly a month while steadily getting chewed up by Ukraine’s defensive tactics. Ukraine on the other hand, is being bombed and shelled back to the 19th Century.

In the short term, things look bleak for Ukraine. In the longer term, if the West’s weapons resupply works, things look bleaker for Russia. And in the sanctions war, it also looks bleak for Russia in the longer term.

Europe probably can replace most of its Russian oil and gas imports within 12-18 months. OTOH, the Russian war machine is dependent on the West’s chips, optics, and other high tech, all of which are embargoed. It will take Russia years to replace them.

A final thought. Corruption in Russia’s military has been a serious problem since at least the 1970s. That time frame is important, because it means that no current Russian military officer has ever lived in an un-corrupt military culture. That doesn’t mean their military isn’t dangerous, but maybe we’ve exaggerated their prowess.

Wrongo asked Ms. Right if she could name a city in Moldova. She came up with bupkis. Wrongo understands that Bupkis has lovely churches and museums.

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