Originally Posted by
West Coast
An op/ed on the ambassador is your source document Racedo? Really?
Not an Op ed. Reported statement from one of the speakers of the German parliment, back up by the 2 largest parties. Claim will be its not from Merkel or opposition leader but they haven't dismissed or doing anything about the statement.
Anyway, you seemed to have missed my question. Do you believe Putin wouldn't turn off the NG gas supply as a means to achieve political or military goals?
Answer is nope, not to Germany or EU because you only get to do it once and they stop buying. Germany bought $20 billion and NL bought $30 billion in Oil and Gas in 2017, assume that gets to $70 in a couple of years and thats 15-20 % of Russian exports. Germany and NL can buy elsewhere at increased cost and then not pay Russia for breach of agreement. Mutually agreed destruction of both economies
The sanctions US pushed in 2014 have cost EU circa $50 billion but noticeable US has suffered little from this as its sold little agri goods there. After a while politicians start asking why are our countrys the ones bearing the brunt of sanctions and US is ok. Obama's strategy has made some European politicians to start to view US as Frenemy rather than a Friend. I though Obama strategy dumb at the time and has proven so.
Russia not threatening anybody on Energy v statements from state dept to US Oil men. Dept of State dept policy is to destroy Russian economy by targeting Oil/Gas exports.
If you look over last 5 yrs, as a result of sanctions Russia has sold off $160 billion is US treasuries, bought huge amounts of gold, reinvested huge amounts in starting up agri production, now outstrips US in Wheat exports and its growing. Additionally its trading heavily with China etc. Look at what China has also been doing.
Biggest risk to US is not Russia or China but its $22 trillion debt. Countrys are not buying it and Interest repayments are as much as US defence spending, after a while it becomes unsustainable.