Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources. Here's an article about the discussion while Reagan was president: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/climate/europe-russia-gas...
In contrast, the US has invested staggering amounts of money into work on energy independence (triggered by the OPEC embargo in the 70s). This led to research in solar, wind, and fracking, which eventually led to significant improvements.
2. The energy jugular vein of parts of Europe is exposed to those who are happy to hurt Europe. I think France is mostly okay due to nuclear power (yes some are down for delayed maintenance, but they still have a lot being generated).
Yes, yes, it's all more complicated than any simple summary can make it. But lack of energy for a country can quickly lead to a lot of dead people. A country is unwise if it ignores the issue. In contrast, I think it's quite reasonable to take steps to ensure that any necessary energy will be available in the future.
It is utterly inexcusable that Germany continued to rely entirely on Russian gas after the invasion of Crimea in 2014 at the very latest. We didn't have a single LNG terminal!
Pick your mix of blind stupidity and outright corruption, but I lean heavily towards the latter.
Look no further than Gerhard Schroder (ex Chancellor of Germany). He was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline between Russia and Germany. He later became manager of Nord Stream 2, he joined the board of directors of Rosnef (biggest Russian oil producer) and 20 days before the Russian invasion he joined the board of directors of Gazprom
There have been more reasonable explanations of the causality of that.
To wit, that multinational energy deals of that magnitude require political investment and certainty to be tenable. Schroder's involvement was a tacit acknowledgement of this reality, and gesture of political good faith.
Or put another way, neither Russia nor Germany would have contemplated the project without serious indications of political support.
The whole issue is self inflicted by the German government. So far Russia adhered to the supply contracts. The stakes are high for Russia here. If Russia would not adhere to the contract even in these times, other contract partners like India and China would likely reconsider their long term contracts.
It was Europe which decided not to by cheap Russian gas anymore and to ground their own economy. Instead Europa has to buy gas now on the spot market for about ten times the price. So Russia is more than happy by adhering to the contract and watching Europe to inflicting the damage themselves.
If the West would have decided to buy their NLG somewhere else 5 years ago, Russia would have invaded the Ukraine even with less considerations.
Russia is cutting deliveries quoting supposed technical problems, and demands unilateral changes to gas contracts, viz RUB payments. They also cut supplies to 0 for a number of European countries.
I mean, i don't quite blame them, they started a war and the West is sending in military kit to kill their soldiers in Ukraine, but Russia is certainly not holding it's side of the contracts here.
But it is indeed self inflicted as everyone warned Germany that this is how it will end. But hey gas was cheap for a while.
The only time supplies were cut to zero was for the annual maintenance which happens in the summer every single year, and the pipeline is always shut down for that. Go look at the history of Nord Stream flow rates (on their website) to see that this is true if you don't believe me.
The technical problems are real. A western company (German even) received a compressor turbine, repaired it and then sat on it due to sanctions. Germany got the sanctions voided for that equipment and it was shipped it back to Russia. If the problems weren't real we can assume it would have been discovered at that point. Also remember that the whole point of imposing sanctions on Russia is to degrade their factories and ability to repair complex equipment! Industrial disruption due to inability to access foreign parts and repair services is exactly what the sanctions were meant to create and yet when it happens, media and government claim there can be no possible wear and tear on huge pieces of rapidly spinning equipment, so it must all be 4D chess.
Russia did not "demand unilateral changes to gas contracts". It's the other way around. Europe sanctioned Russia and then stole all their EUR foreign reserves, an unprecedented and highly hostile move. Because Russia could no longer transact in EUR they said, OK, you'll have to pay us for gas in rubles. Given this they could theoretically have said you're violating your contracts which say you'll pay us in EUR, so we won't supply any gas until you un-sanction us, but they didn't.
So, every claim you're making here is wrong and this can be checked against documented facts and sources that aren't connected to Russia.
This is a core part of the problem with what's happening. The media lies and simply makes things up. People believe it anyway. Did Russiagate teach us nothing? What Russia is doing is bad but telling ourselves a bunch of nonsensical fairy tales will only make the situation worse.
Well, it's economic warfare and two are playing this game. But Russia is certainly not innocent here.
Russian funds were indeed frozen, but with the exception of banks processing gas payments so that can go ahead. Russia went further than asset freezes, and nationalised swathes of Western property in Russia, like leased aeroplanos for example. By EU countries laws, frozen Russian assets are to be returned at some point and cannot eg be used by other parties in the meantime. Whereas Russia declared a lot if Western assets their own property now.
I agree it's awkward, the West couldn't expect Russia to not respond to the sanctions. So in the narrow context of gas exports it's not simply "bad Russia good West", but Russia is clearly an active belligerent in this economic conflict.
> Russian funds were indeed frozen, but with the exception of banks processing gas payments so that can go ahead.
This is not correct. You have to understand that "money" at commercial banks is not money, but only a debt of that commercial bank with the account holder. Gas and other commodities are always paid in real money, which exists only in to flavors: Paper money and accounts directly at the respective central banks. This means you can have your real USD only on accounts at the FED and real Euros only at ECB etc. The West froze Russian accounts on EZB (the contracts are nominated to be paid in EUR) and at the same time wanted to pay the gas only on these accounts, which for obvious reasons was rejected by Russia. Russia requested to have their accounts unfrozen or paid in Rubels.
There was some face saving detours introduced into the payment process, but in the end the West pays now in Rubels.
Another example of self inflicted pain was when the West made it impossible for Russia to make debt payments. It was not Russia who suffered (they saved their payments), but the western creditors who lost their money.
I know a few investors who held Gazprom and Lukoil stocks over many years. They were factually expropriated because the brokers are refusing to process dividend payments or even selling the stock back to Russia. Again, not Russia was hit but citizens in the West.
> Germany got the sanctions voided for that equipment and it was shipped it back to Russia.
Apparently there were multiple turbines, and at least one of them is in the "Germany (and Canada) have waived sanctions on it, but Gazprom refuses to accept it back because of sanctions" stage.
They claim they are refusing to accept it due to lack of delivered documents. As discussed elsewhere on this thread, we don't know what these documents are or why Canada/Germany didn't deliver them or what's really going on here at all, so it's hard to know. But if Russia wanted to use gas sanctions on the west to get western sanctions on Russia relieved, they'd need to actually make that clear instead of talking about document delivery, so it's probably real.
But tbh even since the 1970s, we know peak oil is coming. Nuclear fission and fusion plus full electrification of industry, transport and homes, and renewable energy investment should be absolutely critical. This is what taxes and governments are for!
Jumping on the US bandwagon so late is a mistake though, given the current situation it'd be best to stay neutral realistically (like Armenia, Georgia, etc.) and use the time to achieve the above. Ideology is nice, but realpolitik keeps the lights on.
Armenia gets 80% of its electricity production from a single nuclear power plant owned and operated by Russia. It also sits in a seismically active area of the world, tbn.
Your comments in this discussion are filled with desperate denial of the horrible situation your leaders have gotten yourselves into, and all you can say in response to video of Trump warning about this four years ago is "Seriously?".
Had Heiko Maas gone home four years ago and advised Merkel to listen to Trump and start weaning the country off Russian gas (and, yes, buy US gas instead), Germany would not face this existential crisis today. Instead, he laughed at the US president on camera, and is now enjoying a quiet retirement in Saarland (and, no doubt has no worries about whether he will be able to get gas to heat his home this winter). *The German crisis is 100% self-inflicted*.
There is a crisis, but it is hardly "existential", yet. Self inflicted? How so? Because nobody could predict the future?
My "seriously" comment was a reaction to a post of what basically is a meme in a rather serious discussion.
As far the "German" crisis goes, isn't it rather a European, and one could make the case, global energy crisis? Compounded by a global economy heading for a recession (the US are already in one based on two quarters with negative GDP growth) caused by too much cheap money and staggering inflation due to supply short falls caused by Covid?
But yeah, if Germany would have bought US gas instead of Russian one all would be good... By the way, Nord Stream 2 never went live over this. Before any of the current mess happened. You want to blame someone, blame Putin to do something the USSR was too smart to do during the cold war.
>My "seriously" comment was a reaction to a post of what basically is a meme in a rather serious discussion.
That you've seen the video elsewhere neither makes it a "meme", nor allows you to dismiss it as merely such. (I'm just amazed that you didn't pull the "Even a broken clock is right twice a day"/"Trump said everything about anything so was bound to get something right"/"Trump also said uncomplimentary things about NATO so should have been arrested as a traitor" canards. And yes, I've seen all three responses, almost word for word, when I in the past pointed to the Trump video.)
>As far the "German" crisis goes, isn't it rather a European, and one could make the case, global energy crisis?
This is a global crisis in large part because of Germany. Germany is the large European economy most dependent on Russian energy. Even setting aside how the German economy drives the bulk of Europe's economy, thanks to the European energy market increased prices in Germany increases prices on the rest of the continent. The UK is mostly self-sufficient in terms of gas, but prices there have risen too because producers understandably prefer selling to those on the continent willing to pay much more.
The US is also self-sufficient, but prices here have risen (not as much, but some) for similar reasons. The non-developed world is going to be hit the hardest.
America won the landgrab lottery and sits on plenty of oil and gas, which makes this kind of talk really cheap right now. Having a democratic neighbor like Canada with equal resources and 1/10th of the population also helps. Europe is not in that position and I wish people would understand that.
Seems like it should be even more of a focus than no? If North America is concerned _and_ has enough resources with teamwork, then it must be a pretty big deal. "Told you so" always feels cheap, even more so when it's right.
> "Told you so" always feels cheap, even more so when it's right.
"Told you so" doesn't solve anything in the short term, but it might spur stronger future efforts.
> America won the landgrab lottery and sits on plenty of oil and gas, which makes this kind of talk really cheap right now.
I think that misses a key point: There's a big difference between potential and actual advantages.
In the 1970s the US imported a huge amount of energy, making it vulnerable to external extortion... just like Europe now. Then OPEC pulled the trigger, and it was devastating to the US. Ordinary citizens waited in long lines to get just a little gas... which galvanized the public as well as its government. The 1970s energy crisis caused a fundamental shift in US policy. It caused a top-to-bottom focus in the US on ensuring energy and food independence. You couldn't breathe in the 1970s or 1980s without hearing about energy. Walt Disney's Epcot center had at least one pavilion dedicated to the topic. Often the US can't keep a focus on one topic over many years (it often acts like a kid with ADHD), but this is an area where it did focus continuous resources over a lengthy time.
Yes, the US has some geographic advantages, but it couldn't take advantage of many of them decades ago; investment was necessary. The US couldn't use shale in the 1970s, for example, so its "geographic advantage" was not an advantage at the time without investment. The US created an entire branch of government (Department of Energy, founded August 4, 1977) to have a long-term focus on the issue. It invested crazy sums of money, including in research, and as I noted those investments finally resulted in independence about 30-40 years later.
> Having a democratic neighbor like Canada with equal resources and 1/10th of the population also helps. Europe is not in that position and I wish people would understand that.
Yes, the US and Canada work together, and that has led to lots of benefits for both. But it is NOT true that manna fell from heaven; massive multi-decade investments were planned and executed specifically to produce these advantages.
Europe is different, but it has its own advantages. Europe has an extremely well-educated workforce and has incredible technical prowess. It also has lots of capital. And Europe has lots of countries with different strengths and weaknesses, which often leads European countries to be really good at international cooperation. Europe could have used those advantages to improve its energy security. The most obvious is nuclear: Germany is in real trouble for energy, while France has lots of nuclear power plans and simply doesn't have the same level of risk. Or drill offshore, or whatever. No option is perfect, but Europe does have lots going for it.
It's not that Europe wasn't warned. The US did so, repeatedly. After all, the US had experienced a shock, so it knew what such shocks could do. And while I think altruism played a part, it's not just that. The US & Europe are deeply linked, so serious harms to Europe also harm the US. The US has great incentive to ensure Europe doesn't spiral into a situation where many Europeans are dying from freezing or starvation. The US has repeatedly begged Europe to deal with its dependency on Russia. But in the end, the Europeans have to decide what they're going to do. I can imagine the US trying to help Europe with some energy issues, but the Atlantic is big; the US can only do so much now to help Europe in the short term.
It's possible that this will spur changes in Europe today, just like the 1970s energy crisis spurred changes in the US. But it may be a painful process in the meantime.
And yes, there should be more nuclear power plants online in France during winter. But some projections say that it won't be enough and France will depend on other countries until next year.
> It's not that Europe wasn't warned.
That may be so. However, most proposed solutions were not to be come independent, but to import oil/gas from other countries. Which is why public opinion never really changed. And its very hard to encourage people to become climate neutral if others (americans) are some much worse in respect to climate change.
Also, many Europeans have personal connections to Russia and don't trust the US. It's not all just corrupt politicians (which is obviously contributing, but its not just that). Similar story with Iran, btw.
If only Europe was on good terms with Canada and America and had LNG terminals to import natural gas from it's allies and other middle eastern countries who are happy to sell natural gas to europe instead of solely relying on russian imports...
Germny: Nuclear for electricity, gas for heating, indusyry and chemicals.
Now tell me how more nuclear power would have helped with a gas shortage (since Germany is filling up gas reservoirs atm I'm not even sure how bad the shortage really is)?
And don't say France, because we will have cooler rivers and more rain again come fall / winter.
Simple replacement. Germany also uses gas for 12% of its electricity generation. Every bit of gas not used for electricity generation is gas saved for heating and so on.
"since Germany is filling up gas reservoirs atm I'm not even sure how bad the shortage really is"
What are you talking about? It's summer, gas is used for heating, of course it's not a critical issue per se now. Germany is saving gas for the winter, when it heavily uses gas and when Russia will almost certainly cut off the remaining supplies.
And for what it's worth, Germany is already beginning rationing actions for energy starting tomorrow, so even now there is actually already some urgency, which will grow as it gets closer to winter.
The gas reservoirs don't hold enough to get through a winter. They hold enough so that with normal inflows, there's enough gas in the winter - while drawing down the stocks.
You need both ~full storage and continuing supplies to get through a winter.
Sure. And still ir stands that reservoirs are filling up faster than anticipated. I'm in supply chain, and if during a period where inventory is hard to come by said inventory is replenished faster than planned, that is usually a good thing.
Sure, and that will be done, including installation, for 80 million people before Christmas. 2022 that is. Or how much do you think such a transition will take?
In which it wont help a single bit in the short term. Like masks and vaccines during Covid, you need short term fixes until something mid to long term is put in place.
Nuclear in Germany got shut down, and Europe could have chosen the US as a trading partner over Russia (I am assuming as a non-economist, non-FP expert).
If I were on a jury to decide if European leader should have acted differently in the last decade regarding energy stability, I know where I lean.
That was during the cold war 40 years ago and the US couldn't have said otherwise at this time given how entrenched and polarised the conflict was.
The EU has been built on the concept of collaboration. It's not for no reason that Macron called a couple weeks ago for being careful not humiliating the Russian civilisation (with of course sanctions being necessary), to fend off the risk of seeing the same thing repeating itself in a few generations. History demonstrated that many times.
And with your reasoning, Hitler would have enslaved all of Europe and Japan all of Asia or the former Yugoslav nations would have massacred each other.
The Allies let Hitler annex Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia because "hey, let's not start a war with Nazi Germany", and then let Putin annex Crimea because "hey, let's not start a war with Putin's Russia", but talking and diplomacy only gets you so far and after that, unfortunately, war requires tough measures that hurt everyone, because while you sit around, more people are dying and you're setting a precedent for the future that it's ok to invade other countries and kill innocent people, because you previously let others get away with it before in order to avoid war.
You really think Trump actually figured something out, and not just parroting (without understanding) what others in Europe had been saying for decades? Really?
Those warnings from the US are usually transparent geopolitical self interest. That’s not to say it’s incorrect, just that Europe does not need the US new world bumpkins to teach them about energy policy or dictate its foreign relations. It is perfectly capable of managing and mismanaging its own interests.
> Those warnings from the US are usually transparent geopolitical self interest. That’s not to say it’s incorrect, ...
All countries speak for their own self interest... but the warnings can also be correct.
If millions of Europeans freeze or starve, that hurts the US greatly too. Their economies are deeply intertwined, and there's enough shared history that many in in the US would feel it personally.
> just that Europe does not need the US new world bumpkins to teach them about energy policy or dictate its foreign relations. It is perfectly capable of managing and mismanaging its own interests.
All countries manage their own interests; no one would expect otherwise. But thinking "they're new world bumpkins, they have nothing worth listening to" is a terrible idea. Sometimes the new kid on the block has learned something. The US is often happy to steal good ideas from anyone, regardless of age. The US has lots of problems (who doesn't?), but it also has many advantages - not just due to the "luck of the draw", but due to careful investment to turn potential advantages into real ones.
Yes, along with a massive superiority complex that led the grandparent to ask “why didn’t those Silly Billies just listen to us?”
The US is not a purely good faith big brother of Europe, as much as Americans would like to think it is.
Saying bumpkins was a jest, but also true. The US has short and uneventful history in comparison to most old world countries. Its horizon ends at the ocean for the most part and for most US leaders, understanding the rest of the world is optional.
Saying “why didn’t you just invest in energy self sufficiency” is completely unhelpful. EU leaders know the value of energy, but realpolitik is a thing.
>Yes, along with a massive superiority complex that led the grandparent to ask “why didn’t those Silly Billies just listen to us?”
But that's exactly what this boils down to. Indeed, why didn't the Europeans (really, "Germans") listen to the Americans? No amount of "How uncouth of you to tell us the truth, and how unfair of you to tell us that we should have listened to you" doesn't affect the validity of the truth, or the wisdom in listening to it in the first place.
> I think France is mostly okay due to nuclear power (yes some are down for delayed maintenance
To the contrary, they have had to scale back nuclear because the rivers they use for cooling are too warm [1].
And they have resorted to importing power:
"That means France is importing power at a time it would normally be exporting it and EDF is buying electricity at high market prices, just as Europe is scrambling to find alternative energy supplies to Russia."
The problem is that high demand periods (i.e. for air conditioning) correlate with conditions (high temperatures) that are making the nuclear plants difficult to operate.
It doesn't matter so much for the summer demand if nuclear runs at full capacity in cold weather. Part of the issue is that these plants are using rivers for cooling, which by definition have less thermal mass than larger bodies of water like oceans.
The long term issue is that climate change is pushing these river temperatures consistently higher over time.
One of the reasons why nuclear goes so well together with renewables like PV. Actually said that we have more coal plants than nuclear ones in Germany. But that is hibdsight, at the time the decisions were almost reasonable.
That's very patronising. All these "warnings" were distant echoes of internal debates Europe has been having for decades. They're nothing that Europe didn't know about already.
It's like saying "European policy makers have been warning USA about the dangers of repelling the right to abortion". Playing the role of Captain Obvious isn't helpful.
Additionally, Europe isn't Europe. Europe is a collection of sovereign states. Eastern Europe has been warning some western European countries about the dangers of relying on Russia for decades (no, USA's expert advice was not required to reach this conclusion).
The difficulty here in the UK is that we're caught up in it inadvertently.
Despite common perception, only 3% of our gas comes from Russia. Half is North Sea and a third from Norway, with the rest shipped in from elsewhere in the world.
Unfortunately it doesn't matter that only 3% comes from Russia, because prices are set in a market where other countries have more reliance on Russia. The UK ends up paying more as a result.
(To be clear our energy policy is terrible; it just so happens that on this one point it isn't our fault).
here's an archive of a tweet with replies from 2018 where the idea was being mocked, fun reading if you enjoy some schadenfreude. Plus the German delegation laughing at the idea
Can someone explain to me why the US is the next source for energy rather than directly from the much geographicly closer Middle East, which the US spent a significant amount of political & military resources bringing into its sphere for its own energy needs?
> Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources.
Thankfully the fact checkers were there to save us. "Germany only imports a fraction of it's energy from Russia" with the smug faces, silly music and everything.
What I remember is that fact checkers mostly focusing on Trump’s frequent conflation of natural gas and all energy. He would often, either carelessly or deliberately misleadingly, say things like “60% of Germany’s energy comes from Russia” when it was actually 60% of Germany’s natural gas, and natural gas accounts for only around 20% of Germany’s total energy. That seems like a reasonable distinction for fact-checkers to highlight.
Yeah, because the US wanted especially Germany to buy US LNG instead of Russian gas. The latter worked since the 69s, it worled all the wayvthrough the Reagan admin and the end of the cold war, the fall of the soviet union until Putin turned nuts. All in all, tgat bad dependency worked nicely for 50+ years.
"adapt". There's decades of pain and death for millions in your use of the word, pain and death that could have been avoided, and will undo much of whatever the that 50+ year dependency produced.
Also say what you will about US policy, we may not be altruists but we're a far lesser evil than the Russians have ever been from a European perspective. Cheap energy from Russia has been a Faustian bargain for at least the last 15 years.
Soviet gas was a reliable thing for 50+ years, that changed only in 2022. And couod you please explain how millions are going to die in Europe over the change from gas to some other renewable source of heating? Seriously curious here, because I see that shit repeatef all iver the place without any reasonable explanation whatsoever.
Obviously it won't be direct or all at once, but serious inflation kills. Economic recessions kill. Suicides and overdoses increase, and European energy prices are climbing so high people literally freezing to death might not be unheard of if winter is cold enough. And even those who can make it through will be seriously diminished economically. Peoples' livelihoods will be destroyed.
One thing's for sure, the vaunted European social safety nets are going to have a hell of a stress test over the next few years. I hope they're up to the task.
I was helping with the mis-remembering, not making a point. Trump is a clown and the fact that 'even' he got this right, just goes to show how bad it was for Germany to depend primarily on a single point of failure.
That single point of failure delivered reliable for 50+ years. Common, a crowd like the one on HN should get at least the basics right before predicting the end of western civilisation.
> Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources.
The alternative point of view is that Europe is in an energy crisis because it decided to sanction Russia over Ukraine, and Russia responded in kind. The decision to sanction Russia, while morally justifiable, was not strictly necessary and was in part driven by EU's alliance with the US. If the EU had been a really autonomous subject it would have taken in account its own interests first in this crisis.
Cutting Russia off was pretty much the only sensible choice and the problem is entirely because they also rely on such a source for energy, had they not been so needy of Russia there wouldn't be a problem, when Russia is a problem state you shouldn't be giving them power or leverage over you at all and they were always likely to do something that would be problematic, nothing they have done is unexpected, Europe walked right into Russias hands and it was clear to see.
It's the same reason why a lot of the world needs to back away from China ASAP or else we will be in this situation again just with a range of other resources/manufacturing in the not to distant future.
>> it would have taken in account its own interests first in this crisis.
Europe did take account of its own interests
The primary interest of Europe is to put a stop to Russian aggression and genocide.
The RUS govt itself has said that it will not stop at Ukraine, which it also states has no right to exist, and that Poland and the Baltics are next.
Aggressors and autocrats will only stop when they ARE stopped by an outside force. Every other "negotiation" or appeasement is taken as a sign of weakness or permission. Destroy entire cities in Chechnya, Syria, Georgia? No opposition? OK, must be fine. Occupy and annex Crimea & Donbas? A bit of tut-tutting, but no real opposition, must be fine. So, we get the Ukranian war and threats against Poland and the Baltics, and just yesterday against the British isles.
Not being killed is the first interest of Europe.
Not being subjugated to an authoritarian regime is a close second.
Maintaining low energy pricing and high availability is definitely lower than both.
Just because the US is showing leadership and many countries agree that genocide is bad and should be sanctioned does not mean that the agreeing party is somehow not independent. Stop carrying Putin's water.
The US has invested staggering amounts of money into work on anti-nuclear lobbying in France, a country which wanted an independant Europe on civilian and military nuclear. Hallstein, a former personnality of the nazi party ironically contributed to the European energetic dependence to the USA and Russia notably.
Economic interdependence is good to maintain peace. Especially after the Cold War I can understand this incentive to strengthen the relations with Russia. The mistake was to continue to believe in it after Putin took Crimea in 2014.
>Economic interdependence is good to maintain peace.
False. Even before Ww2, European countries were still economically interdependent and yet still WW2 happened. What maintains peace is democratically elected leaders and separation of powers so that no single mad-man can ever singlehandedly turn a nation to war. That's why we had peace since WW2, democracy. Which Russia rever really had. So being dependent on countries with corrupt undemocratic governments where one leader can do whatever he feels like with no real opposition to stop him, was the real issue.
All the time during the cold war the rather close economic ties between the west and the USSR (grain, gas...) helped to keep communication channels open and reduce the risk of the cold war turning into a hot one in Europe. Not seeing this is quite, well, short sighted.
Grain and gas trade didn't prevent WW3, but fear of mutual annihilation from nuclear weapons did. Same how current grain and gas trade between Russian and the west didn't stop it invading Ukraine.
Sure, MAD helped. As did all those wars in Korea, Vieynam and Afghanistan (there was one involving Russia way beforw the US went there, based on the ignorance of history in this thread I thought it makes sense to add). More than one thing can be true at the same time, especially in a complex world
> Economic interdependence is good to maintain peace.
I think history has plenty of counter-examples. Interdependence also provides incentives for one to either take over or extort the other. Taiwan and mainland China are interdependent, and that situation is tense.
I think it's the other way around. If the relationships are already peaceful, then it's much safer to have interdependence. Think Canada/US, or the various countries within the EU.
Hmm, assuming your inverted causation has an interesting implication: The press currently likes to chastise european politicians for the gas interdependence with Russia. This is just an result of peace though. It does not make sense to punish them for maintaining peace. Thus, we should rather congratulate european politicians for what they achieved until now.
I don’t claim that interdependence is sufficient for peace. It is much more complicated. So counter examples are to be expected. What I still believe though: Intentionally increasing interdependence makes war less likely not more.
In contrast, the US has invested staggering amounts of money into work on energy independence (triggered by the OPEC embargo in the 70s). This led to research in solar, wind, and fracking, which eventually led to significant improvements.
The result is that while things aren't perfect:
1. The US is a net energy exporter: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/imports-...
2. The energy jugular vein of parts of Europe is exposed to those who are happy to hurt Europe. I think France is mostly okay due to nuclear power (yes some are down for delayed maintenance, but they still have a lot being generated).
Yes, yes, it's all more complicated than any simple summary can make it. But lack of energy for a country can quickly lead to a lot of dead people. A country is unwise if it ignores the issue. In contrast, I think it's quite reasonable to take steps to ensure that any necessary energy will be available in the future.