Part 4 of the Russian Natural Gas and Geopolitical Realignment Series
By George McMillan, owner of McMillan Geostrategic Consulting
The Energy Situation in Europe
The United States foreign policy planners have successfully separated their European allies from affordable energy sources by rapidly moving NATO Eastward encircling all of the oil and natural gas pipelines emanating from Russia.
As explained in the previous three articles in this series, the goal is to prevent Russia from infrastructurally integrating with Germany and following the PMESII/DIME SWOT analysis explained in the previous articles, ultimately aligning with Russia economically, diplomatically, and militarily.
The US foreign policy planners have successfully replaced affordable Russian oil and natural gas delivered by overland pipeline with Liquified Natural Gas shipped overseas that is roughly 30% more expensive and far less versatile—BASF needs natural gas for the Haber-Bosch process at its Ludwigshafen headquarters plant to make fertilizer for the world’s agricultural business.
Since energy costs are in every step of making every consumer good and service delivering them, the US has successfully driven up the costs of all goods and services yielding inflation, deindustrialization, job loss, and living standard decline in Europe in general and Germany especially.
The problem that the US policy planners face now is how to replace the cheap Russian oil and natural gas delivered by pipeline with something that is equally affordable before the next election cycle in the US and Europe, especially as the AfD gained popularity in the Thuringia and Saxony elections in early September of 2024.
If the Europeans simply elect politicians to repair the Nordstream pipelines and return to purchasing Russian oil and natural gas by paying directly in Rubles per US sanctions, then the last 30 years of the neoconservatives’ effort, along with the hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed Ukrainian soldiers, will have backfired tremendously.
The Purpose of NATO