Link here.

Note: I had scheduled this article to be posted prior to the sabotage attacks on gas pipelines to Germany. It remains to be seen how that may affect this analysis. – Natylie

By Diana Johnstone, Consortium News, 9/12/22

The European Union is girding for a long war against Russia that appears clearly contrary to European economic interests and social stability. A war that is apparently irrational – as many are – has deep emotional roots and claims ideological justification. Such wars are hard to end because they extend outside the range of rationality.

For decades after the Soviet Union entered Berlin and decisively defeated the Third Reich, Soviet leaders worried about the threat of “German revanchism.” Since World War II could be seen as German revenge for being deprived of victory in World War I, couldn’t aggressive German Drang nach Osten berevived, especially if it enjoyed Anglo-American support? There had always been a minority in U.S. and U.K. power circles that would have liked to complete Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union.

It was not the desire to spread communism, but the need for a buffer zone to stand in the way of such dangers that was the primary motivation for the ongoing Soviet political and military clampdown on the tier of countries from Poland to Bulgaria that the Red Army had wrested from Nazi occupation.

This concern waned considerably in the early 1980s as a young German generation took to the streets in peace demonstrations against the stationing of nuclear “Euromissiles” which could increase the risk of nuclear war on German soil. The movement created the image of a new peaceful Germany. I believe that Mikhail Gorbachev took this transformation seriously.

On June 15, 1989, Gorbachev came to Bonn, which was then the modest capital of a deceptively modest West Germany. Apparently delighted with the warm and friendly welcome, Gorbachev stopped to shake hands with people along the way in that peaceful university town that had been the scene of large peace demonstrations.

I was there and experienced his unusually warm, firm handshake and eager smile. I have no doubt that Gorbachev sincerely believed in a “common European home” where East and West Europe could live happily side by side united by some sort of democratic socialism.

Gorbachev died at age 91 two weeks ago, on Aug. 30. His dream of Russia and Germany living happily in their “common European home” had soon been fatally undermined by the Clinton administration’s go-ahead to eastward expansion of NATO. But the day before Gorbachev’s death, leading German politicians in Prague wiped out any hope of such a happy end by proclaiming their leadership of a Europe dedicated to combating the Russian enemy.

These were politicians from the very parties – the SPD (Social Democratic Party) and the Greens – that took the lead in the 1980s peace movement.

German Europe Must Expand Eastward

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a colorless SPD politician, but his Aug. 29 speech in Prague was inflammatory in its implications. Scholz called for an expanded, militarized European Union under German leadership. He claimed that the Russian operation in Ukraine raised the question of “where the dividing line will be in the future between this free Europe and a neo-imperial autocracy.” We cannot simply watch, he said, “as free countries are wiped off the map and disappear behind walls or iron curtains.”

(Note: the conflict in Ukraine is clearly the unfinished business of the collapse of the Soviet Union, aggravated by malicious outside provocation. As in the Cold War, Moscow’s defensive reactions are interpreted as harbingers of Russian invasion of Europe, and thus a pretext for arms buildups.)

To meet this imaginary threat, Germany will lead an expanded, militarized EU. First, Scholz told his European audience in the Czech capital, “I am committed to the enlargement of the European Union to include the states of the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova and, in the long term, Georgia”. Worrying about Russia moving the dividing line West is a bit odd while planning to incorporate three former Soviet States, one of which (Georgia) is geographically and culturally very remote from Europe but on Russia’s doorstep.

In the “Western Balkans”, Albania and four extremely weak statelets left from former Yugoslavia (North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and widely unrecognized Kosovo) mainly produce emigrants and are far from EU economic and social standards. Kosovo and Bosnia are militarily occupied de facto NATO protectorates. Serbia, more solid than the others, shows no signs of renouncing its beneficial relations with Russia and China, and popular enthusiasm for “Europe” among Serbs has faded.

Adding these member states will achieve “a stronger, more sovereign, geopolitical European Union,” said Scholz. A “more geopolitical Germany” is more like it. As the EU grows eastward, Germany is “in the center” and will do everything to bring them all together. So, in addition to enlargement, Scholz calls for “a gradual shift to majority decisions in common foreign policy” to replace the unanimity required today.

What this means should be obvious to the French. Historically, the French have defended the consensus rule so as not to be dragged into a foreign policy they don’t want. French leaders have exalted the mythical “Franco-German couple” as guarantor of European harmony, mainly to keep German ambitions under control.

But Scholz says he doesn’t want “an EU of exclusive states or directorates,” which implies the final divorce of that “couple.” With an EU of 30 or 36 states, he notes, “fast and pragmatic action is needed.” And he can be sure that German influence on most of these poor, indebted and often corrupt new Member States will produce the needed majority.

France has always hoped for an EU security force separate from NATO in which the French military would play a leading role. But Germany has other ideas. “NATO remains the guarantor of our security,” said Scholz, rejoicing that President Biden is “a convinced trans-atlanticist.”

“Every improvement, every unification of European defense structures within the EU framework strengthens NATO,” Scholz said. “Together with other EU partners, Germany will therefore ensure that the EU’s planned rapid reaction force is operational in 2025 and will then also provide its core.

This requires a clear command structure. Germany will face up to this responsibility “when we lead the rapid reaction force in 2025,” Scholz said. It has already been decided that Germany will support Lithuania with a rapidly deployable brigade and NATO with further forces in a high state of readiness…

Continue reading here.

Link here.

By Rajan Menon, Boston Review, 9/21/22

Rajan Menon is the director of the Grand Strategy Program at Defense Priorities, Spitzer Professor Emeritus at the Powell School of City College of New York, and a senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies. He is the author (with Eugene Rumer) of Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order (MIT Press, 2015).

In wartime what happens at the front matters immensely. But what happens in the rear—in society at large—matters too, even if it lacks the battlefield’s drama and urgency. I was reminded of this during a recent trip to Ukraine. What also became clear as I traveled through Ukraine was that as the war continues with no end in sight, the country’s ability to prevail at the front will depend on how badly the war damages a critical part of the rear: the economy.

Thanks to a street-smart friend who has spent considerable time in the country and come to know it well, I was able to venture far afield from Kyiv: to Kryvyi Rih (President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown), Nikopol, Dnipro, Kremenchuk, Cherkasy, and the outskirts of Donetsk.

Since the war began, Ukraine’s airspace has been closed to nonmilitary planes, so flying into Kyiv isn’t an option; it’s train, bus, or car—I chose car. Still, once I’d crossed the border from Poland into Ukraine, it was hard to comprehend that I’d entered a country that has been at war for nearly seven months against the world’s second most powerful military machine.

The ancient city of Lviv, just over forty miles from the Polish border, bustles with energy. At rush hour traffic chokes its streets. In the early months of the war, Lviv’s population swelled and rents soared. “Internally displaced people” (IDPs) from the areas hit hardest by the war started seeking safety there (as they did in numerous other Ukrainian cities), though for some it was a waystation to other border cities, such as Chernivtsi and Uzhhorod. Lviv still has many IDPs, but you wouldn’t know it.

Head east from Lviv to Kyiv—about seven hours by car—and the rolling, lush countryside radiates a deceptive calm. I was about fifty miles outside Kyiv before imposing military checkpoints with a clutch of soldiers materialized—a recent development, I was told. Until May, because of the gauntlet of checkpoints and the nighttime nationwide curfew, which remains in effect, the drive from western Ukraine to Kyiv could take twelve hours, sometimes even more than a day.

In Kyiv itself, despite the frequent missile strike alerts, the swanky restaurants and chic cafes remain jammed. Trendily dressed young people chat each other up as if they hadn’t a care in the world; people saunter through the streets, riveted by their smartphones; fancy cars line the busy streets. It certainly does not feel like prewar Kyiv, but in another sign of normalcy’s gradual return, Kyivans have started complaining about traffic again.

The normalcy is a façade, though. The war weighs heavily on everyone’s mind. Venture into the capital’s outskirts—to places such as Bucha, Hostomel, and Irpin—or travel to places near the frontlines—on barely passable pothole-filled roads—and the destruction the fighting has wrought is omnipresent. (The endless expanse of sunflower fields and rustic village homes provide welcome relief.)

Indeed, once you leave Kyiv far behind, there is no forgetting that you are in a country under attack. During my stay in Ukraine, only one day passed when warning sirens did not pierce the night, and sometimes the day, at least once. Ukrainians mostly shrug off these alerts. It is impossible to live in terror and apprehension daily for months on end and continue to function, even semi-normally. Still, the alerts are a reminder that the normalcy provided by daily routines can be shattered instantly by a missile strike. There is no shortage of stories describing this.

Moreover, the consequences of war—over 5,000 civilians killed, another 7,000-plus injured as of late July, cities destroyed, over 11 million refugees and IDPs, and a battered economy—are inescapable. Though millions of Ukrainian refugees have returned home from neighboring European countries, their jobs have largely vanished. Annualized inflation, which hit 22.2 percent in July, more than double what it was before the war, makes getting by even harder, especially for those from poorer regions in Ukraine’s south and east. The places where people shopped, the clinics they relied on, and the schools their kids attended may no longer be standing.

The war has also produced a deep hostility toward Russia in much of the country that will not dissipate soon, if ever. Russian has come to be seen by many in Ukraine as the occupier’s language. Even those who regard it as their first language, including ethnic Russians (especially young people), have switched to Ukrainian, smuggling in Russian words when their vocabulary comes up short. The anti-Russian sentiments typically associated with western Ukraine may be slowly spreading to the country’s Russian-speaking regions—for example, Odesa and Mykolaiv.

Indeed, the war has kindled a greater hostility toward the Russian people as a whole. Several people I met remarked that the war’s savagery proves that Russians are not a normal people. “All Russians?” I asked, suggesting that this was a crude generalization and stereotype. “Yes,” they replied. They wondered how I could not understand this after seeing places such as Bucha, Hostomel, and Irpin, on Kyiv’s northern outskirts, where Russian troops committed atrocities, where bombed-out building are still visible. Surely I knew that Russian soldiers had defecated in the living quarters of Ukrainian homes they had occupied, scrawled venomous messages on buildings, and tortured and executed civilians?

In this climate the reflexive tendency to differentiate between eastern and western Ukraine, always simplistic, has become even more so. The fate of places such as Donbas and Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, make clear that Ukraine’s Russian-majority regions have witnessed vastly more death and destruction than its other parts. This contradicts Vladimir Putin’s claims that he invaded Ukraine partly to protect its ethnic Russians from persecution from latter-day Nazis and Banderites, contemporary acolytes of Stepan Bandera, who was prepared to work with the German occupiers during World War II to realize his dream of an independent Ukrainian state.

Though I’ve traveled to the Donbas before, I did not on this occasion because that would have meant wading into a battlefield. Many people there, and others throughout the country, are of the view that Ukraine should not cut itself adrift from Russia. Still, one has to wonder how closely people in areas traditionally, although not entirely accurately, labeled for convenience as Russophone feel connected to Russia now. The war has changed how Ukrainians, regardless of ethnicity and language preference, think about their identity.

Ukraine is hardly the only country where the place of ethnicity and language in shaping identity is complex. Identity, as scholars have shown, may turn on the ethnicity of one or both parents, the language of the ethnic group that people embrace, or the language people use to think and speak. Nailing down people’s identity in Ukraine is even harder because there has not been a national census in over two decades.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the push to make Ukrainian mandatory (which does not mean Russian is or will be banned; you hear it everywhere, save in the country’s western parts) evokes varying sentiments, particularly in wartime. Some are convinced that it must be done, especially following the Russian invasion. Others believe Ukrainian will naturally become the country’s defining language as the post-Soviet generations become the majority, and that mandating its use will prove divisive. Still others, above all older native Russian speakers (who can be ethnic Ukrainians or Russians), bristle at anything that they consider compulsion.

I asked some of my interlocutors whether language policy that favors Ukrainian was wise in a country containing millions of Russian speakers who tend to be concentrated in the east and south, especially when Russia stokes their anxieties about becoming “the other.”

My question was irrelevant in one sense. Ukraine’s linguistic separation from Russia, underway even before the war, has been accelerated by the fighting. The government deems it essential to forge a distinctive national identity. A recent law (passed before the war, it will take effect in January) requires that Ukrainian be used in government, businesses, and schools.  When Russian-language public schools reopen in the fall, they must switch to instruction in Ukrainian. Waitstaff and hotel clerks, indeed all businesses in the service sector, must use Ukrainian first and can use another language only if necessary, otherwise they risk a $200 penalty.

Putin insists, as he did in a July article, that Ukrainians and Russians are really one people united by a shared history and culture. Ironically, he may be remembered as arguably the greatest contributor to the solidification of a distinctive Ukrainian national identity—one marked by animus toward Russia and the determination to turn away from it and toward Europe.

Russia thought it would quickly and decisively achieve a battlefield victory; that it hasn’t has induced Putin to target Ukraine’s infrastructure even more in hopes that the Ukrainian government will be unable to sustain its armed resistance.

The war has already exacted a heavy toll on the Ukrainian economy. Prime Minister Denis Smyhal expects that GDP could shrink by more than one-third this year alone and the National Bank projects that inflation, too, will reach over 30 percent. Next year’s budget deficit is projected to be $38 billion—that’s more than one-fifth of Ukraine’s current GDP. The European Union and the World Bank reckon that the bill for rebuilding the economy will be $349 billion, but the destruction increases daily and the war could still drag on for years.

Despite the carnage, destruction, and fear produced by the war, though, people have not only managed to create space to live their lives but also to make sacrifices to help their country even when it involves great personal risk. These endeavors inspire faith in Ukraine’s future.

Nikopol, a city located across the Dnipro River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, is visible if you stand at the river’s shore (not advisable: you are in range of Russian artillery across the river). The city is unprepossessing at the best of times; the refugee influx, collapse of businesses, and constant shelling from Russian troops (including the day before I arrived) has made it worse. A local businessman, a “mini oligarch,” as my friend labeled him impishly, called it “a dead city.” That’s not hyperbole. Though we were there on a beautiful, sunny day, the streets, parks, and playgrounds seemed empty. Nikopol has become a dried-out husk.

Yet virtually none of the doctors and staff at the local children’s hospital—which is cheerily decorated, spotless, and well equipped—have left, unlike so many townspeople who concluded that Nikopol was too dangerous due to frequent Russian shelling or the risk that Russians could take the city. The exodus has included many refugees, save apparently the hardened souls from Mariupol who have experienced far worse, and local people with skills the city’s economy needs desperately. The doctor who showed us around could certainly have found a job in a safer, quieter, and lovelier place in Ukraine, of which there are many. Yet he chose to stay in a city from which, my friend said, people flee to their dachas to escape the nighttime shelling, or drive to villages and sleep in their cars if they can’t afford a rural abode.

In Dnipro, which has also been rocketed continually, an NGO runs a shelter for IDPs. The employees of the NGO have likewise remained at their posts out of a sense of civic duty. The overwhelming majority of the residents are women and children who have fled other parts of Ukraine. The youngest is a month old. They are permitted to stay for a week but then must move on—but to where exactly?—to make room for the next batch of arrivals. Community restaurants donate meals to the shelter and local and foreign NGOs provide other supplies. The accommodations are barebones: makeshift bunkbeds draped with threadbare sheets to create a modicum of privacy. Yet for people fleeing death, the spartan refuge, even if transitory, is a lifeline.

The man who appeared to be in charge observed wearily that obtaining basic supplies is a constant struggle that requires day-to-day adaptation and improvisation—and all while suppressing the fear of bombardment, I thought. The harried young staff who tend to the many needs of the IDPs could have moved to safer venues. Yet, like the employees of the Nikopol hospital, they have stayed at their jobs.

Nikopol and Dnipro are not like Kyiv, Lviv, or Cherkasy; the risks created by war are visceral and unrelenting. The urge to leave must be overwhelming at times, especially for young, well-educated people, who can more easily move elsewhere, find jobs, and begin a new life. That makes the determination of those who have stayed to serve others remarkable. The examples of civic-mindedness in Nikopol and Dnipro can be found in various forms elsewhere in Ukraine.

The focus on Ukraine’s front is understandable, but how the war has reshaped life in the rear, and especially the good that people have done in dangerous circumstances, is also worth recording and remembering. Some changes unfolding in the rear may prove problematic, but others augur well for the country’s future, especially once it begins the long, hard recovery of rebuilding and reintegration that could takes decades to accomplish.

By Michael Snyder, End of the American Dream Blog, Reprinted by ZeroHedge, 9/27/22

Something really strange just happened.  On Monday, large underwater “explosions” were detected in the precise areas of the sea where the Nord Stream pipeline system is now leaking.  In fact, the explosions were so large that they actually registered on the Richter scale.  If someone wanted to purposely damage the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, very large explosions would be needed because those pipelines are extremely thick.  So it appears that this was a deliberate act of sabotage, and that is what many European officials are now alleging.  But if that is the case, who was behind it?

At this point we just don’t know.

But there are certain facts that we do have.  The following are 15 things we know about the “mysterious explosions” that severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines…

#1 We are being told that the sections where the pipelines were damaged are “70-90 meters below sea level”.  So someone would need to go down pretty deep to get to them.

#2 It is extremely unlikely that these pipelines could have been ruptured by accident because they are extremely thick…

The steel pipe itself has a wall of 4.1 cm (1.6 inches) and is coated with steel-reinforced concrete up to 11cm thick. Each section of the pipe weighs 11 tonnes, which goes to 24-25 tonnes after the concrete is applied.

#3 It is being reported that explosions “were heard” in the areas where gas is now leaking out of the pipelines…

Explosions were heard near the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipes where gas is now leaking into the Baltic from three holes, scientists have confirmed, while chronic safety concerns have led to a five-mile exclusion zone being imposed around the affected area.

#4 The Swedish National Seismic Network detected one explosion that registered 1.9 on the Richter scale and another one that registered 2.3 on the Richter scale…

Two powerful underwater explosions were detected on Monday in the same area of sea as the Nord Stream gas leaks, according to the Swedish National Seismic Network.

The monitoring network said the first explosion occurred on Monday at 2:03 a.m. Swedish time with a magnitude of 1.9 on the Richter scale, followed by a second at 7:04 p.m. on the same day with a magnitude of 2.3.

#5 The largest leak is reportedly “spreading bubbles a good kilometre (3,280ft) in diameter”…

It comes after shocking footage released earlier today by the Danish military from a flyover of the affected region showed huge swathes of the sea near the Danish island of Bornholm churning as the gas bubbled to the surface.

A military statement claimed that the largest leak ‘is spreading bubbles a good kilometre (3,280ft) in diameter. The smallest is creating a circle about 200 metres (656 feet) in diameter’, while the head of Denmark’s Energy Agency said it could take up to a week for gas to stop draining into the sea.

#6 German officials are claiming that this was a deliberate act of sabotage…

Germany is reportedly far less hesitant, however, with officials believing sabotage is virtually the only plausible cause for the leaks.

“We can’t imagine a scenario that isn’t a targeted attack. Everything speaks against a coincidence,” a government official reportedly told German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.

#6a NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday attributed the leaks on the Nord Stream pipelines to acts of sabotage and said he had discussed the protection of critical infrastructure in NATO countries with the Danish defense minister.

#7 Interestingly, this incident took place just one day after thousands of German protesters took to the streets and demanded the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline…

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in the northeastern German seaside town of Lubmin on Sunday, urging officials to put into service the halted Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that was designed to transport fuel from Russia to Germany.

Germany had stalled the launch of the ambitious energy project for months before putting it on the back burner in the wake of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, which is now in its eighth month.

#8 The prime minister of Denmark also believes that this was a deliberate act of sabotage…

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has said her government believes the leaks were caused by ‘deliberate actions’, adding that the gas supply pipeline will be out of action for around a week.

She said this evening: ‘It is now the clear assessment by authorities that these are deliberate actions. It was not an accident. There is no information yet to indicate who may be behind this action.’

#9 The Ukrainians are blaming the Russians for the explosions…

It comes after Kyiv’s presidential advisor Mikhaylo Podolyak said on Twitter: ‘The large-scale gas leak is nothing more than a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards the EU.’

Podolyak accused Russia of seeking to ‘destabilise the economic situation in Europe and cause pre-winter panic’.

#10 It is being reported that the CIA recently warned Germany about a potential attack on the pipelines…

German magazine Spiegel said the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recently warned Berlin about the increasing signs of a possible planned attack on the Nord Stream pipeline system.

Spiegel reported, citing unnamed sources, that the CIA tipped off Berlin in the summer about possible attacks on NS1 and NS2.

#11 A Polish member of the European Parliament seems absolutely convinced that the United States was behind the attack…

A former Polish Defense Minister, Radek Sikorski, has attributed to the United States the sabotage of two pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and 2, which carry natural gas from Russia to Germany. “Thank you, USA,” Sikorski wrote on Twitter. Sikorski was Minister of National Defense from 2005 – 2007 and served as Deputy Minister of National Defense and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, previously. He is currently an elected member of the European parliament.

Nord Stream 1 and 2 lie on the bed of the Baltic Sea. Nord Stream 2 was finished last year but Germany never opened it because Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

#12 Joe Biden previously threatened to “end” the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine: “If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

#13 Victoria Nuland has also previously threatened the Nord Stream 2 pipeline: “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”

#14 Meanwhile, European officials just gathered for a ceremony “to mark the opening of the new Baltic Pipe”…

Leaders from Poland, Norway and Denmark have attended a ceremony to mark the opening of the new Baltic Pipe, a key stage in the drive to wean Poland and Europe off Russian gas.

The pipeline will transport natural gas from the Norwegian shelf via Denmark and through the Baltic Sea to Poland. It is the centrepiece of a Polish strategy to diversify away from Russia that began years before Moscow’s February invasion of Ukraine triggered a global energy crisis.

The flows from Norway along with supplies via liquefied gas terminals are central to Poland’s plan. The country was cut off from Russian gas supplies in April, allegedly for refusing to pay in roubles.

#15 Germany’s Tagesspiegel reports that German security authorities assume that the three tubes of the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 and 2 will be forever unusable after alleged acts of sabotage.

If they are not repaired quickly, a lot of salt water will run in and corrode the pipelines, the Tagesspiegel learned from government circles.

So what does all of this mean?

I don’t know.

But this certainly is not going to be good for the rapidly growing energy crisis in Europe.

It is going to be a bitterly cold winter all over the continent, and there will be a lot of anger.

As I keep warning, the comfortable lifestyles that we are all currently enjoying will soon be rudely interrupted.

Everything is changing, and a lot of pain is on the horizon.

So I would encourage you to monitor global events very, very closely in the months ahead, because they are going to have very serious implications for every man, woman and child on the entire planet.