Putin's Grip

          Russia invaded Crimea and conquered it without firing a shot.  If Vladimir Putin wanted to, he could invade and take over the rest of Ukraine as well, with or without firing a shot.  Any local resistance would be crushed by Russian forces, and nobody—not Western Europe and not the United States—would do anything about it. 

          Why wouldn’t Western Europe come to Ukraine’s rescue?  Because Putin has Germany, France, and Great Britain by the testicles, and any move by them would be extremely painful.  Putin’s grip is through Gazprom, the world’s biggest single producer of natural gas, which is a major supplier of Western Europe’s gas and is controlled by the Russian government, i.e., Putin. 

          How did Germany, France, and Great Britain get themselves into such a vulnerable position?  Because of their short-sighted energy policies.  Following the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, they decided that a reliance on nuclear energy to produce electricity was too risky, so they began to shut down nuclear power plants and shift to natural gas.  The problem was that their natural gas production had been falling since 2005, for example, by 53 percent in the U.K. and 43 percent in Germany.  But instead of adopting policies that would promote the exploration and extraction of natural gas in their own countries, they turned to Russia.  In one year alone, from 2012 to 2013, Gazprom’s share of the European gas market jumped from 25% to 30%.  

          Now consider the folly of France’s ban on fracking or the United Kingdom’s unwillingness to drill for on an estimated 1,000 trillion cubic feet of gas in its Bowland Basin.  Even if Europe were to reverse its nonsensical energy policies today, it would take years for it to ramp up its production of oil and gas.  Meanwhile, Mr. Putin shows no sign of relaxing his grip.

          What about the United States?  Couldn’t it come to the rescue now that it is about to produce more natural gas than it can consume?  Unfortunately, that would require a complete change in the energy policies of this administration, which is engaged in a war on fossil fuels and does not permit the exportation of natural gas.  That policy is not going to change until after Obama is out of office.  Can Europe wait that long?