Energy Policy Is Too Important To Be Left to Climate Activists

Biden Needs a ‘Pivot’ to the World

Russia’s war in Ukraine makes clear that U.S. foreign policy can’t focus only on the Indo-Pacific.


An airman checks ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine from Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base in January.

PHOTO: ROLAND BALIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has not yet reached its climax, but it has already shaken the foundations of world politics. In the past 72 hours, German and consequently European politics have been transformed. Berlin is openly sending arms to a country whose independence it has for decades refused to defend. Mr. Putin faces the greatest crisis of his career. Middle East oil producers are regaining the upper hand over the Biden administration as the war adds inflationary pressure to an overheated world economy. Powerful voices in Japan are openly discussing nuclear weapons even as Beijing reflects on the lessons of Mr. Putin’s war for Xi Jinping. The voluble American pro-Putin chorus has folded like a cheap suit.

The war on the ground continues to develop and it is at this point impossible to say how long or how brutal the war will be, much less how it will end. The U.S. intelligence community still believes that Russia’s greater military strength will ultimately prevail, but the uncertainties around that forecast have grown. A palace coup or a popular uprising in Russia could bring the war and Mr. Putin’s career to a quick end. Alternatively, Russian forces in Ukraine could adapt to the new situation and, perhaps with the kind of brutality Russian forces have brought to Chechnya and Syria, crush Ukrainian resistance as the world wrings its hands. The confrontation between the West and Russia could escalate toward an all-out cyberwar or the most dangerous nuclear standoff since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Western aid could help Ukraine fight Russia to a standoff, leading ultimately to a de facto partition and another frozen stalemate.

The ultimate impact of the war on world politics is as unpredictable as the course of the war itself. Regime change in Moscow leading to a quick end to the war could put Europe back to sleep, send energy prices tumbling, and restore a sense of normalcy to much of the world. Entering the nuclear or cyberwar dimension could have revolutionary consequences for world order. A Russian victory leads to one kind of future for Europe and the world; a defeat for Moscow would be equally decisive.

But if we cannot yet predict how the war will change the world, it has already reminded us of some important truths. One is the unpredictability of war. Before he launched the invasion, Mr. Putin was driving the crisis. Now, the crisis is driving him. An uncontrollable chain of events has put him in a position he would never have chosen and has given him a narrow and ugly set of choices.

The second is that common danger is what makes alliances strong. Diplomats like to take credit for “good relations” with alliance partners and good diplomatic technique can certainly ease relations. But four days of Mr. Putin’s war did more to push Germany back into a responsible participation in the Western alliance than eight years of emollient Obama diplomacy, four years of Trumpian threats, or a year of Biden-era placating.

The third is that Americans consistently overvalue the ability of economic sanctions to influence the strategic choices of other countries. Thomas Jefferson’s embargo failed to influence British and French policy in 1807. The South’s cotton embargo failed to bring Britain and France onto its side in the Civil War. Sanctions failed to budge Saddam Hussein, the Iranian ayatollahs or North Korea. They failed to stop Mr. Putin from launching his war.

A final truth: Nationalism matters. Sometimes, as when it stokes the fantasies behind Russian irredentism and ambition, it is a dark force that challenges democracy and peace. At other times, as when it unites Ukraine behind its Jewish president and democratic constitution, it supports the causes of freedom and hope. But either way, nationalism has deep roots in human nature, and serious politicians must learn to harness rather than attempt to suppress or ignore it.

Mr. Putin’s war is also reminding us of some key truths about American power. The first is that despite all the talk of decline, the American world system remains strong. Economically, the U.S.-based open global economic system offers so much opportunity to so many people in so many countries that it remains almost irrepressibly resilient. In time of peace, it cements American alliances. In time of conflict, as Mr. Putin is discovering, being cut off from it imposes enormous costs on our adversaries.

Geopolitically, the American position is equally strong. The more threatening great land powers like Russia and China become, the more closely many countries in Europe and Asia align with the U.S.—and the more seriously they take their own defense.

Ideologically, American power is also stronger and more resilient than it sometimes appears. Liberal democracy has its flaws, but as the grim spectacles of the Chinese and Russian systems remind us, it has some advantages too. Mr. Putin can impose his will on Ukraine only by atrocities that will drive home the evils of authoritarian rule to billions of people all over the planet.

Beyond this, the Biden administration is struggling to absorb other, less comfortable truths about American power. One is that energy policy is too important to be left to climate activists. The Biden administration, and the whole world economy, badly needs stepped-up oil and gas production to break Mr. Putin’s energy weapon, but Biden policy has systematically sabotaged America’s capacity to achieve it.

Whether by hampering U.S. domestic production, seeking to restrict financing to energy companies or alienating the Gulf states through its Iran and Yemen policies and its shunning and shaming of leaders like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Team Biden has weakened crucial underpinnings of American power at a time of great need.

Mr. Putin’s war also reminds us that American foreign policy cannot solve its challenges through isolationism or through minimizing other commitments to focus on the Indo-Pacific.

What happens in Europe does not stay in Europe. Current defense spending plans are woefully inadequate for the dangers at hand. The Biden administration must pivot to the world.

WSJ Opinion: Weak Foreign Policy Exacerbates Russia, Ukraine Tensions
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WSJ Opinion: Weak Foreign Policy Exacerbates Russia, Ukraine Tensions
WSJ Opinion: Weak Foreign Policy Exacerbates Russia, Ukraine TensionsPlay video: WSJ Opinion: Weak Foreign Policy Exacerbates Russia, Ukraine Tensions
(12/09/21) Joe Biden came to office promising he'd take a tough stance with Vladimir Putin, but his foreign policy decisions to date haven't deterred Russia amassing thousands of troops in readiness to invade Ukraine. Images: Getty Images/Maxa
SEE Below added article:
“The Biden administration took sanctions off the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The Nord Stream 2 Pipeline is the most influential project that the Russians have. The Trump administration had it sanctioned. "

Biden’s ‘Weak’ Messaging a Factor in Ukraine Invasion: Richard Grenell

By Isabel van Brugen and Jan Jekielek
 
March 1, 2022 Updated: March 1, 2022

President Joe Biden’s weak messaging and policies on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline played a role in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion against Ukraine on Feb. 24, former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell suggested in a recent interview.

“This is a disaster … We didn’t have to have this situation unfold,” Grenell told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando.

Grenell, former U.S. ambassador to Germany, said he believes the Biden administration’s decision in May 2021 to waive sanctions on the company behind Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany and its chief executive, factored into Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

“This is a terrible situation that has unfolded because Joe Biden is so weak and has messaged multiple times that he would make decisions and not think about the consequences,” he said.

“The Biden administration took sanctions off the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The Nord Stream 2 Pipeline is the most influential project that the Russians have. The Trump administration had it sanctioned. It is not up and running.”

The project represents an $11 billion investment from Russia that, if certified, would carry 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to Germany every year.

Last year, a State Department report sent to Congress concluded that Nord Stream 2 AG—the company behind the pipeline—and its CEO, Matthias Warnig, an ally of Putin, engaged in sanctionable activity. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately waived those sanctions, saying that it was in the U.S. national interest.

The waivers had no specific end date, and could be rescinded by the secretary of state.

Biden on Feb. 23 moved to announce new sanctions Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers “in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.”

Epoch Times Photo
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Washington on Feb. 24, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“As I have made clear, we will not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate,” the president said in a statement, announcing the measures.

Russian officials “turn energy off and on whenever they want to create leverage,” said Grenell. “We already know that the Russians do this.”

“And so the largest economy in Europe, the Germans, should not be in a position of being able to be leveraged by the Russians. And they currently are with this Nord Stream 2 pipeline.”

“This is a failure of epic proportion,” Grenell continued.

“We wouldn’t be in this situation if Donald Trump were President, if we had a president who really thought about what was happening,” he added. “There are implications for your decisions. When you drop sanctions on the Nord Stream Two Pipeline, don’t be surprised that you’re empowering the Russians.”

Biden meanwhile on Monday downplayed fears of nuclear war with Russia, after Putin said Sunday said that he had placed Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces on “high alert.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday that that the United States will not attempt to escalate the rhetoric against Russia in light of the apparent heightened nuclear threat.

“It is important to remember—even over the course of the last several months and years—when we had significant disagreements with Russia on several issues, the United States and Russia have long agreed that nuclear use will have devastating consequences,” she told reporters.

Jack Phillips and Reuters contributed to this report. Epoch Times

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Comment by Willem Post on March 1, 2022 at 6:26pm

EXCERPT from:

THE UKRAINE PLOT IS THICKENING WITH GERMANY AND FRANCE BARELY IN LOCKSTEP WITH US/UK-LED NATO

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-plot-is-thickening...

 

I wrote this article, because Russia-hating, extremists in the US State Department and US Congress have been using NATO to pressure first the USSR, then Russia.

 

They have been deluding impoverished, corrupt Ukraine with future membership in the EU and NATO, since 1990

They have been weaponizing Ukraine since the US-instigated Color Revolution/coup d’etat in 2014

Millions of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, mostly in East Ukraine, decided not to support the Kiev government.

The US instigated Ukraine not to implement the Minsk 2 agreements, to keep the pot boiling

 

The US and UK supplied huge quantities of defensive and offensive weapons, plus military training personnel to Ukraine, so it could “defend itself”

 

Russia made certain demands regarding:

 

1) NATO encroachments beyond East Germany starting in 1997 (after pledging not to do so in 1990)

2) The indivisibility of Russian and European security.

 

The US/UK-led NATO rejected the demands, and offered to talk about important, albeit peripheral issues.

 

Ukraine hot-heads floated the idea of Ukraine having an “Iron Dome” similar to Israel, and reacquiring nuclear weapons

Russia finally reacted. The result is a shooting war in Ukraine.

 

The EU is partially at fault, as it did not assert itself regarding the Kiev coup d’etat in 2014

The EU decided to become an aider and abettor of US policy goals regarding Ukraine in 2014, and onwards

The EU ended up being maneuvered into its present predicament, which is at variance with EU vital interests.

NATO Expansions Starting in 1997

 

PART 1

 

This article summarizes statements by prominent people in the UK, US, and Europe opposing NATO expansions.

 

Ukraine bravery, augmented with lethal NATO weapons, and more than several thousand highly experienced mercenaries, appears to have slowed down Russian forces.

 

However, Russian forces will be taking off the gloves, and do some major damage to all sorts of infrastructure; in military parlance: “softening enemy positions”

 

Russia will disable, with remote missiles, almost all major government buildings, at night when they are empty, and TV and radio towers, and power plants, and military basis (as part of demilitarizing/de-NAZI-fying Ukraine), and communication centers, etc.

 

Eventually nothing will function.

There will be several million additional refugees to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, etc.

 

All this would have been avoided, if NATO had kept its promise, made in 1990, not to expand beyond East Germany

 

Secretary of State Wolfowitz issued a US Defense plan for 1994 to 1999, that included the expansion of NATO, i.e., expand US geo-strategic objectives.

 

The US Congress approved the expansion of NATO in 1998.

 

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted to NATO in 1999

 

At present, the US Government-US Media complex is repeating, ad nauseum, all this has nothing to do with NATO expansion, but everything to do with evil Putin:

 

1) Wants to deny Ukraine’s right to exist;

2) Wants to reestablish the greatness of Russia,

3) Hates freedom and democracy

 

If Russia’s attack on Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO expansion, how come so many western experts have spent decades warning NATO expansion would lead to an attack on Ukraine?

 

Spinmeister, former Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, facetiously pretends: “This thing (i.e., NATO expansions), we were warned about for decades, was never anything anyone ever mentioned, until the end of last year”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/experts-warned-years-nato-ex...

 

Germany's Der Spiegel Asks: "Is Vladimir Putin Right?" Regarding NATO Expansion?

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/germanys-spiegel-asks-vladim...

 

Promises Not Kept: The West promised not to expand NATO, beyond East Germany (the Oder River), according to a recently made-public document from the UK National Archives.

 

A newly discovered document from March 1991 shows US, UK, French, and German officials discussing a pledge made to Moscow that NATO would not expand to Poland and beyond. Its publication by the German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday comes as expansion of the US-led bloc has led to a military standoff in Eastern Europe. 

 

The minutes of a March 6, 1991 meeting in Bonn between political directors of the foreign ministries of the US, UK, France, and Germany contain multiple references to “2+4” talks on German unification in which the Western officials made it “clear” to the Soviet Union that NATO would not push into territory east of Germany. 

 

“We made it clear to the Soviet Union – in the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations – that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe”,the document quotes US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz.

 

“NATO should not expand to the east, either officially or unofficially,” Seitz added. 

A British representative also mentions the existence of a “general agreement” that membership of NATO for eastern European countries is “unacceptable.”

 

“We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe [sic],” said West German diplomat Juergen Hrobog. “We could not therefore offer Poland and others membership in NATO.”

 

SEE URL

https://www.rt.com/news/549921-nato-expansion-russia-document/

 

PART 2

 

During a 1990 meeting, US Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev of the following:

 

Baker said"If the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction."

 

Several years later, NATO and President Clinton began considering just such a spreading—but not without controversy.

 

1) American diplomat George Kennan, a towering figure in Cold War strategy, who authored the policy of Soviet “containment,” was unequivocal in his opposition.

 

In a 1997 essay published by The New York TimesKennan said, "Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era…Such a decision may be expected…to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking."

 

2) A bipartisan group of 50 foreign policy luminaries—including Cold War hawks like Paul Nitze and Robert McNamara—signed an open letter to President Clinton opposing NATO expansion.

 

"Russia does not now pose a threat to its western neighbors and the nations of Central and Eastern Europe are not in danger…we believe that NATO expansion is neither necessary, nor desirable, and that this ill-conceived policy can, and should be put on hold," the group declared.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-nato-empire-building-set...

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tangled-tale-nato-expansion-...

 

PART 3

 

NATO did promise Moscow it wouldn't expand, former German defense official tells RT

https://www.rt.com/russia/549961-west-nato-expand-willy-wimmer/

 

Here is more evidence, the 1990-promise not to expand NATO beyond the Oder (border of East Germany and Poland), was deliberately broken by the US, using NATO as its battering ram since 1994

 

Hungary and Poland became the first major NATO expansion countries in 1997.

 

The present US/EU/NATO call for unison, is basically a call for “same-message-thinking”

 

It is a sign to the Media airing “at variance” thoughts are not welcome, even if such suppression would instigate a real war., which would give the US/EU the excuse to severely sanction Russia

 

They likely knew “stirring the bear” eventually would lead to trouble.  

 

The US has instigated lots of wars/military actions/color-revolution since 1945

 

Eisenhower warned against the power of the military-industrial complex in 1960


The image shows, NATO expansions

 

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on March 1, 2022 at 3:27pm

Youngkin Poised to Withdraw Virginia From Multistate Climate Pact
Government records indicate that Youngkin will rely on a mix of executive action, budget changes, and legislation to withdraw from the 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/03/01/youngkin-poised-to-withdraw-...

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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