Part 3 of the Russian Natural Gas and Geopolitical Realignment Series
By George McMillan, owner of McMillan Geostrategic Consulting
The West-to-East German-Russo-Japanese Pipeline Alliance
The possibility of the Alternative For Deutschland Party defeating Olaf Scholz and the Social Democratic Party and repairing Nordstream to purchase Russian Natural Gas is becoming more realistic the more that Germany deindustrializes, inflation rises, and living standards fall.
The fundamental geopolitical problem of the United States boils down to preventing its two key allies, Germany and Japan, from purchasing cheaper Russian oil and natural gas to reverse the economic decline and collapse of the middle class.
Delivered by pipeline, cheap Russian natural gas would make Germany’s and Japan’s heavy industries increasingly globally competitive and less vulnerable to maritime chokepoint issues during times of conflict. This rationale would compel the secondary and tertiary industrial power centers in their regional orbit to follow suit, connecting to cheap Russian oil and natural gas to remain industrially competitive as well.
The reason why Germany is more important than Japan in this regard is that the German World consists of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Austria which share a border with Germany on the Danube River. If the German oil and gas pipeline network is connected to Russia by any pipeline, it could supply both the German World and the entire Danube River Slavic World as well.
Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg to the West could conceivably follow suit, as the Groningen gas field has been shut down due to the ground tremors associated with natural gas extraction. The BENELUX countries have been connected to the German pipeline network for decades making it easy to participate in a German-Russo natural gas alignment.
If Germany were to repair Nordstream, it is conceivable that more than a dozen countries could join a Russo-German natural gas market, paying directly in rubles and jettisoning the petrodollar. In this scenario, all the other countries in the German World could pay Germany in Euros while Germany participates in a Euro-Ruble exchange, or some other payment arrangement. The external drop in the demand for the US Dollar would likely increase inflation inside the US.
Petrodollar Primacy and the Long March Towards Globalism