Being a European, I know very well that everywhere on this continent countries and nations have various scores to settle with their neighbors. In the case of Estonia, they are playing with fire. WWIII will be good for nobody, but, in view of their strategic position, it will particularly bad for the Estonians themselves. Better stop provoking the Bear.
The Baltic countries want revenge for the Second World War and the Soviet occupation that followed. Britain, first and foremost, along with France and Germany, dream of plundering and dismembering Russia as a way to get out of the debt trap and their economic impasse.
Unfortunately, the generation that remembered the horrors of war in Europe has passed away.
The funny thing is that without American backing, Europe is not able to win a war with Algeria, for example. Let alone Russia. But they continue to dream.
The European Union is not the US of Europe. It is a mosaic of states with fragmented interests, limited resources and an extremely dysfunctional bureaucracy. I suppose this will lead to tectonic political changes. There is a possibility that the Ukrainian war could lead to the end of the EU as we know it.
Oh yes, Estonia wants war with Russia. It just wants the Americans, the British, etc. to be the ones to fight it.
Don't forget that the Estonians suffered terribly under the communist regime. Think for instance of the Tartu Prison Massacre, committed by the NKVD in Tartu Prison on July 8 and 9, 1941 in which 193 prisoners were executed as the invading German troops approached. One of the murderers was a certain Moses Sverdlov, a man who later died in Tel Aviv, on 23 January 2015. Under Lenin and Stalin, the Soviet Jews were the pillar of the communist dictatorship, especially active in the secret police. Think of characters like Genrikh Yagoda, Naftaly Frenkel, or Matvei Berman. That's one of the reasons why people were so angry with them. Read Solzhenitsyn's "Two Hundred Years Together," whenever it may become available in English.
Why don't they want revenge on Germany that murdered their Jewish and Gypsy population? Many Estonians supported the Nazis and such voices exist today.
In Lithuania, they make a big deal about the partisans who fought the Soviet forces there during and after the second world war. They are portrayed as heroes, with t.v. documentaries and movies made about them showing them in their uniforms in the woods waging what looks to me like a terror campaign. Of course, they were NAZIs. That was the only kind of organized group that had been allowed under the Germans.
They never talk about the horrors inflicted by the Germans but always talk about the evil Russians. Lithuania had the worst record in Europe for cooperating with the German security forces to round up Jews. It was and still is a deeply Catholic country. They are gung ho for war with Russia. But somewhere else like Ukraine. They have no significant military resources to contribute to the war they insist NATO engage in.
Lithuanian Nazis exterminated the Jewish side of my family. Only few who escaped to Russia survived, along with 2 million of other European Jewish escapees.
Now there is a monument in Vilnius to the Lithuanian national hero - the main Nazi collaborator who oversaw the mass murder of Jews. Liberal democracy and the Nazi past go hand in hand. Lithuanian moral standing, in their own eyes, grows bigger with every bark at Russia.
My mistake, It was not Kaunas but Kłajpeda. Some Polish still see Kaunas/Kowno as a Polish city.
The largest gains of the territory came to Ukraine. In 1750s, Ukraine signed a treaty of unity with Russia owning 3 provinces. In 1992 it existed the USSR with 9. The Russian empire gains in the west in 18 and 19 century; Lenin assigning Eastern Ukraine to the Ukrainian SSR in 1920s; Galicia with the city of Lwów given to the “victor” - the Soviet Union by the Yalta agreement in 1945, Crimea “gifted” by Khrushchev in 1954. That is how Ukraine ended up with over 40% of the ethnic Russian population, as well as others: Hungarians, Crimean Tatars, Belarusians, other. Attempts to Ukranize everybody lead to an armed conflict.
We have friends in Estonia so visit quite frequently.
It’s a bit like Finland but with more varied scenery, more interesting architecture, better restaurants, and much cheaper booze.
The people are very rude and unfriendly, not just to tourists, but also to each other, which may explain why there are only a million of them, so don’t expect a smile from a stranger, or even a brief eye contact; you’re more likely to get a scowl.
They really really hate Russians, and nearly all of them will tell you a story about some relative or other who was killed by the Russians during or after the war, but curiously they’ll never mention their Jewish fellow citizens who were murdered by their Estonian neighbors.
Ethnic Russians, even though they have lived there for generations, generally can’t become full citizens or vote unless they can pass a difficult examination in the Estonian language, which apparently even Estonians would struggle with (much like the French language test in Quebec which French people routinely fail). The only Russian speakers who are tolerated are a small community of ‘Old Believers’ who left Russia three or four hundred years ago because of some doctrinal issue over Orthodox Church rituals, and there are very few of these.
Most Estonians are totally non-Christian, but rather quietly animistic, naming their children after trees and plants, and leaving silver gifts at the many shrines that have been erected to the local forest nymphs and spirits by the government.
Good place to visit, but don’t mention the war, and if your sympathies lie with Russia, keep it to yourself.
I have heard similar stories from others. Thank you for your comments. My only addition is that some Estonians joined the Waffen SS and participated in the extermination of Jews and Gypsies. Some of them are still regarded as heroes in Estonia.
Just curious, who are those Waffen SS Estonians who "participated in the extermination of Jews and Gypsies" regarded in Estonia as heroes and how you discovered it?
Bush (43) should have been put in a rubber room for admitting the Baltic Republics into NATO. Lithuania is trying to provoke Russia by trying to isolate Kaliningrad. This result was entirely predictable.
"The trouble with provocations is they can cause wars. The hysteria now apparent in official channels in parts of Europe (for example, France, UK, Germany, Estonia) reflects huge anxiety that Ukraine will not survive the Russian onslaught."
This provocation leading to war is entirely intentonal.
Kallas is from the family that loves to be in power. Her father was a Soviet apparatchik and the Head of the Estonian Central Bank, then an Estonian apparatchik, and then a EU kadrę. She first formed a party and got elected, was not successful, but got rewarded with the position at EU.
She is openly talking about her plans for Russia - to dismember Russia into many smaller states.
Hating Russia and being dumb and a delusional is a prerequisite for advancing in the EU bureaucracy.
The Kiev troika, Zelensky, Yermak and Budanov, and their chief of staff Sirsky all talk to each other in Russian, while suppressing Russian-language media, education and culture.
Overall, there are a few decades of hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) left. Their availability as well as the availability of other resources will now be diminishing, which goes against the trajectory this civilization is on. The economy, especially in the West, has been thoroughly fucked up, industrial capitalism has been transformed into financial capitalism. As a result, Western might has feet of clay. The West has shit, only declining control over global money and other institutions. The rest of the world no longer gives a damn. Europe is in the deepest shit. No energy, no resources, no nothing, apart from entitlement to hyper-luxurious lifestyle.
Taking Russia apart via Ukraine with the US behind their ass/in collusion was pretty much the only way out, the only way to get access to riches for the next half-century or so and hope that something will be discovered in the meantime to keep the circus going.
With the US now saying, eff you, Europe is as good as fucked. There is no way Europeans will go to war not to mention that the effeminate population would be blown away in a matter of days if they tried. They still haven't realized it though. It's quite likely that they'll try to provoke the Russkies into something to draw the US back into the game, to provide the muscle Europe doesn't have, even though it's questionable whether or to what extent the US does.
The best scenario would be if the US told the EU to go fly a kite and exited NATO and the EU either fell apart, as it's not realistic to expect that it can be internally transformed to behave reasonably and forge a meaningful relationship with Russia. That will have to be done by individual countries.
The good news is that despite all the saber rattling, Europe is totally impotent and will remain so for a long time to come. It would take ages to build an army and lots of hardship to motivate people to fight, and simply won't happen.
It might be, however, that they succeed in one of these provocations, make the Russians drop an oreshnik or two someplace significant and only then the twits will put their tail between their legs or will be made to by the pissed off populace, which will have, hopefully, realized what's going on.
Now, to play the devil's advocate, let's consider the following. Let's assume that the end of the fossil era is nearing, say in a few decades, and that will result in the end of the industrial civilization as we know it. Supply chains will fall apart, there will be shortages, famines, disease, you name it. People will be left to their own devices. Considering how weak people have become, militarization is probably not a bad thing, teaching people survival techniques, exposing them to some hardship, teaching them to defend themselves. Is it possible that the militarization has such a dual purpose? Could it be that such patent imbecile as that imbecile Kallas are in fact not as fucking stupid as they appear? I wonder.
"With the US now saying, eff you, Europe is as good as fucked. There is no way Europeans will go to war not to mention that the effeminate population would be blown away in a matter of days if they tried. They still haven't realized it though. It's quite likely that they'll try to provoke the Russkies into something to draw the US back into the game, to provide the muscle Europe doesn't have, even though it's questionable whether or to what extent the US does."
I certainly hope they don't draw the US into a war with Russia. I don't think we can fight a major land war in Eastern Europe. We don't have the capability of producing weapons fast enough nor the ability to supply the large numbers of troops that would be required in the face of Russian opposition.
"This was ever always only the real plan all along."
Indeed, it was.
Speaking of plans, Trump's tariff idiocy was an attack on the Chinese economy. It was an absurd pretense for rectifying imagined trade imbalances with the United States.
Exactly. Plus, I don't think that Americans are all too keen to die in a war for countries they couldn't care less about (unlike the likes of Victoria Nuland, Chrystia Freeland, Blinken, and others who have family history in Eastern Europe). Especially now, since Trump is giving Americans (the patriotic variety) some hope of restoring American greatness.
Europe is an empty vessel, even though they haven't realized it yet. It might only dawn on them if they try something, get slapped over the wrist with an oreshnik, start whining about Article 5, and are told that they're on their own.
The projections are for oil consumption to reach a hundred million barrels a day by 2030. At that rate, a decade of consumption would be a billion barrels. Canada alone has one hundred and fifty billion barrels of oil. Ditto for Venezuela Between just them they have enough oil for centuries not decades.
Regardless of how weak you think Europe is. the Europeans think that Russia is not only much weaker than them but that it is brittle and so fragile that any organized, full on pressure from Europe will cause Russia to collapse. The Europeans say they are proceeding to equip themselves to act accordingly.
Not sure where you get the oil projections from, but the way I understand it is not the presence of oil in the ground, but the cost of getting it out. The low-hanging fruit has been exhausted, and extraction is getting more expensive - and when I say more expensive, I mean energy expensive (money doesn't matter, it's shit, energy is what spins the wheels). In other words, the energy obtained from oil will be lesser and lesser, and there won't be enough of it to make it worthwhile to extract what's in the ground. FYI, I try to get info from various sources - I follow guys like Art Berman, Dan Gowin, Gail Tverberg, SImon Michaux.
As to Europe, not sure if that's what they think - they might - but bringing Russia down and stealing everything it's got is they're only way out. They can't get energy and stuff from anywhere else. Europe can't put any more pressure on Russia, they've used it all up. Likewise, they can't equip themselves because they don't have the energy, the resources, and the manufacturing. It might well be that the military buildup on credit is a pipe dream because nobody will lend them money or accept whatever shit they print - since the collateral (winning the war with Russia) is highly risky.
So plenty of oil available for North America forever at a stable price point. Ditto for Russia. Everybody else is on their own. That means all the energy needed for their economy and the fertilizer absolutely necessary for modern agricultural output. Again everybody else is on their own.
Both North America and Russia have the other resources and water necessary to put it all together. Not saying they necessarily will put it together but the possibility exists for it to happen.
Europe keeps invading Russia and getting defeated. They always blame it on the winter as if somehow Russians weren't equally affected by the same conditions.
"Forever" is not what just about all the sources that I've checked out say. What you seem to be missing in your simple arithmetic is the economic aspect. There is a thing called energy return on investment, which basically says how much energy you need to obtain energy. If it's too low, it's not worth it and the stuff stays in the ground, or in oil sands, whatever.
How much of the stuff that can be viably extracted and how long the oil-driven civilization can keep going nobody knows accurately, but "forever" (sic) sounds pretty delusional. That being said, North America and Russia are best off globally, that is correct.
As to everybody else being on their own, what we're seeing globally is the end of globalization - a truly phantasmagorical period in history during which fucking people wasted energy on the illusion of a global market and transported apples, potatoes, and what have you from the other side of the world instead of growing or making the stuff locally. Much of the energy was burned on transporting air (empty space in packaging). That's now coming to an end, a harbinger of the localization that's coming. Whether it's intended, or whether it's been instigated by physical forces matters not.
As for Europe, they should have told the British to take a hike and aligned themselves with Russia, provide technological expertise, culture, diplomacy, stuff like that. Probably too late now, nobody needs that no more. The US should align itself with Russia. Canada should join in. Everybody needs to free themselves from the influence of the perfidious British m-effers, they're the biggest problem. They're the ones stirring trouble because they got shit and need to pillage the world through scheming. And they're good at it, unfortunately.
As to the energy situation, the 'forever' delusion notwithstanding, it would behoove humans to prepare for the post-oil era by building infrastructure that will allow as comfortable life as possible, like building waterways for example.
Will the combined Canadian and Venezuelan oil deposits last five billion years? No. The planet won't last that long. Will it necessarily last until the seas rise and the mountains fall? No.
Will it last at an affordable rate longer than anyone currently alive? Yes. Will it last longer than the lifetime of anyone born to anyone currently alive? Yes. Will it last longer than those distant progeny? Yes. That counts as forever for me. In terms of planning, discussion, practical considerations .... it is forever.
Of course, other sources of oil or even alternative methods of generating energy may make the oil sands impractical in general. Either way the oil will still be there.
I leave aside the forthcoming dramatic decrease in the world's population.
That's not quite what I'm hearing and reading, which puts the end of oil somewhere between 50-100 years from now. And I'm disregarding the hysterical reports that there's only a few years or decades left.
Mind you, I tend to look at things from a long-term perspective, hundreds of years at a minimum. I don't give a shit about what happened last week, which seems to be the preoccupation of most of the myopic creatures people have become.
All will depend on how things develop and, as you say, the coming decrease in the global population will play a big role. All sorts of things are liable to happen, and the (un)availability of oil might not be the most pressing issue.
From where I'm standing, the most pressing issues for the occidental civilization are spiritual emptiness, lack of purpose, no vision for the future, cultural decadence. We're zombies living anachronistic lives anchored in a past glory, which wasn't really all that glorious.
This guy Trump is trying something, but his vision is limited to geopolitics, business. The world needs something much bigger, something akin to Christianity, something that would invigorate people and break this existential stasis the world seems to be in.
You also need lots of heat to cook the oil out of the tar sand. Therefore, a portion of the Canadian tar sand will be consumed in the acquisition process even before refinement starts.
Paul is correct. The fact that we're drilling horizontal wells in zones that were previously nonproductive with vertical wells is proof. And North America doesn't have plenty of oil. There's already talk that the Permian is nearing it's peak.
I'm a petroleum engineer with 45 years in the oil industry. My sources are better than average and aren't man on the street types. The Permian has already drilled most of the better prospects and companies are seeing a decline in initial production in development wells. As I said, Paul is correct.
European - so called - leaders are warning of a Russian attack after the Ukraine is finished. Meanwhile they are setting up the perfect conditions for this to become true.
It seems to be the destiny of the Baltic states to be the stick that pokes the bear.
Mind you, I do not believe the US would want to participate in such a Baltic war (a lot depends on the president the US has by then). In fact, such a war would be over before any NATO response could be formulated.
Estonians are simply living up to their Nazi heritage. They are hoping the West will achieve what Hitler (and Napoleon) failed to do by constantly provoking the Russians.
The Baltic states are a little piss ant group that hates Russia. Their only threat to Russia, as you point out, is provocation. I am pretty sure that the Deep State and MI6 accentuate the provocation.
Speaking about German Nazis. I hope you know that at the end of WWII American and British captured many Nazi war criminals and let them go knowing all well who they were. They became the empire valuable assets. Many settled in the US and Canada, even more in Latin America. There is a book “The Nazis next door: How America became a safe heaven for Hitler’s men”
Most western leaders don’t reflect the views of their populations, I thought the attack poodle Callous (I think thats the correct spelling) fell into that category. Seems not from reading the article and comments. They truly have got the leader they deserve.
Still, they can’t all be that bad, one of my wife’s aunts married an Estonian. He had been castrated by the Nazis in WW2, despite his suffering he was a very decent man , always presented a happy face , raised 2 adopted children. He was neither jewish nor gypsy, but slavic. He can’t have been the only slavic person badly treated by the Nazis, so I really don’t understand the mentality, given Russia liberated them from the Nazis.
Collectively hating a nation (Russians, Americans, etc etc.) is not a badge of honor or intelligence. I agree that the level of support for the Nazis is not their best moment in Estonians history.
final points.
. Unfortunately, they were not the only ones.
.The problem is not what Estonians did back then, but the revival of National Socialist ideology in Europe today, behind various veils.
The dehumanization of the other, and a Manichaean view of the world, good versus evil, , is not the best path forward.
The East European revisionism is very important topic for the future stability in Europe. Getting rid of it is Putins end goal, and it'll be achieved when US leaves the continent.
Being a European, I know very well that everywhere on this continent countries and nations have various scores to settle with their neighbors. In the case of Estonia, they are playing with fire. WWIII will be good for nobody, but, in view of their strategic position, it will particularly bad for the Estonians themselves. Better stop provoking the Bear.
I agree.
Trump just needs to pull the US out of NATO. The crybully and provocation activity of the Eurotrash will stop overnight.
Eurotrash speaking: yes please leave NATO.
It's not like we're allies anymore, why bother pretending.
Trump is rather like a Grand Old Duke:
Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
When they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.
Nice to see more praise of your Dear Leader after the televised cabinet meeting modelled on Pyongyang.
The Euro has risen 5% against his mighty dollar in a week, as US interest rates have risen by 10% and Euro rates fallen.
Xi is unloading Treasuries and his him by the balls.
Gilgamech is no Trump supporter, just so you know. And Xi is NOT unloading Treasuries; it's the Japanese who are doing that.
I don't blame them, but let's give the credit to whom it is due, shall we?
He sure sounds like one there...
As for which Asian nations are dumping Treasuries, I'll pause for, oh... ninety hours...
...though like Forbes I suspect it may be quite a few of them.
No doubt others will, but I think China won’t, for now. It’s leverage, you see. They can play that game at LEAST as well as Trump.
Pulling America out of the enforcement arm of postwar American capitalism seems paradoxical.
The Baltic countries want revenge for the Second World War and the Soviet occupation that followed. Britain, first and foremost, along with France and Germany, dream of plundering and dismembering Russia as a way to get out of the debt trap and their economic impasse.
Unfortunately, the generation that remembered the horrors of war in Europe has passed away.
The funny thing is that without American backing, Europe is not able to win a war with Algeria, for example. Let alone Russia. But they continue to dream.
The European Union is not the US of Europe. It is a mosaic of states with fragmented interests, limited resources and an extremely dysfunctional bureaucracy. I suppose this will lead to tectonic political changes. There is a possibility that the Ukrainian war could lead to the end of the EU as we know it.
Oh yes, Estonia wants war with Russia. It just wants the Americans, the British, etc. to be the ones to fight it.
I think the record of collaboration with the Nazis is a black mark on Estonia. Hating Russians won't expunge it.
Don't forget that the Estonians suffered terribly under the communist regime. Think for instance of the Tartu Prison Massacre, committed by the NKVD in Tartu Prison on July 8 and 9, 1941 in which 193 prisoners were executed as the invading German troops approached. One of the murderers was a certain Moses Sverdlov, a man who later died in Tel Aviv, on 23 January 2015. Under Lenin and Stalin, the Soviet Jews were the pillar of the communist dictatorship, especially active in the secret police. Think of characters like Genrikh Yagoda, Naftaly Frenkel, or Matvei Berman. That's one of the reasons why people were so angry with them. Read Solzhenitsyn's "Two Hundred Years Together," whenever it may become available in English.
Why don't they want revenge on Germany that murdered their Jewish and Gypsy population? Many Estonians supported the Nazis and such voices exist today.
In Lithuania, they make a big deal about the partisans who fought the Soviet forces there during and after the second world war. They are portrayed as heroes, with t.v. documentaries and movies made about them showing them in their uniforms in the woods waging what looks to me like a terror campaign. Of course, they were NAZIs. That was the only kind of organized group that had been allowed under the Germans.
They never talk about the horrors inflicted by the Germans but always talk about the evil Russians. Lithuania had the worst record in Europe for cooperating with the German security forces to round up Jews. It was and still is a deeply Catholic country. They are gung ho for war with Russia. But somewhere else like Ukraine. They have no significant military resources to contribute to the war they insist NATO engage in.
Lithuanian Nazis exterminated the Jewish side of my family. Only few who escaped to Russia survived, along with 2 million of other European Jewish escapees.
Now there is a monument in Vilnius to the Lithuanian national hero - the main Nazi collaborator who oversaw the mass murder of Jews. Liberal democracy and the Nazi past go hand in hand. Lithuanian moral standing, in their own eyes, grows bigger with every bark at Russia.
Yes, that's right. The Baltic countries - in fact their representatives - give the impression that they suffer from the small dog syndrome.
Actually, that's your mother’s syndrome - small bitch with vaginal pus syndrome.
Lmao
The irony here is that the Lithuanians only have their capital thanks to the Red Army. Wilno was a Polish city.
Not only Vilnius. A large chunk of the country, including city of Kaunas - Kowno in a pre-war Poland.
I don't think the Polish army managed to capture Kowno.
My mistake, It was not Kaunas but Kłajpeda. Some Polish still see Kaunas/Kowno as a Polish city.
The largest gains of the territory came to Ukraine. In 1750s, Ukraine signed a treaty of unity with Russia owning 3 provinces. In 1992 it existed the USSR with 9. The Russian empire gains in the west in 18 and 19 century; Lenin assigning Eastern Ukraine to the Ukrainian SSR in 1920s; Galicia with the city of Lwów given to the “victor” - the Soviet Union by the Yalta agreement in 1945, Crimea “gifted” by Khrushchev in 1954. That is how Ukraine ended up with over 40% of the ethnic Russian population, as well as others: Hungarians, Crimean Tatars, Belarusians, other. Attempts to Ukranize everybody lead to an armed conflict.
you don't massacre an entire population because some of them were Communists.
you don't massacre an entire population even all of them were/ are communists, democrats, roma, israelis and so on
Palestinians?
Are you asking if it is acceptable to massacre Palestinians?
my disagreement applies to any population. Aboriginal, Indian, Palestinian, and so on and so forth
They are the one being massacred right now now but you didn’t mention them.
My mistake since i mention the israelis.
We have friends in Estonia so visit quite frequently.
It’s a bit like Finland but with more varied scenery, more interesting architecture, better restaurants, and much cheaper booze.
The people are very rude and unfriendly, not just to tourists, but also to each other, which may explain why there are only a million of them, so don’t expect a smile from a stranger, or even a brief eye contact; you’re more likely to get a scowl.
They really really hate Russians, and nearly all of them will tell you a story about some relative or other who was killed by the Russians during or after the war, but curiously they’ll never mention their Jewish fellow citizens who were murdered by their Estonian neighbors.
Ethnic Russians, even though they have lived there for generations, generally can’t become full citizens or vote unless they can pass a difficult examination in the Estonian language, which apparently even Estonians would struggle with (much like the French language test in Quebec which French people routinely fail). The only Russian speakers who are tolerated are a small community of ‘Old Believers’ who left Russia three or four hundred years ago because of some doctrinal issue over Orthodox Church rituals, and there are very few of these.
Most Estonians are totally non-Christian, but rather quietly animistic, naming their children after trees and plants, and leaving silver gifts at the many shrines that have been erected to the local forest nymphs and spirits by the government.
Good place to visit, but don’t mention the war, and if your sympathies lie with Russia, keep it to yourself.
I have heard similar stories from others. Thank you for your comments. My only addition is that some Estonians joined the Waffen SS and participated in the extermination of Jews and Gypsies. Some of them are still regarded as heroes in Estonia.
Just curious, who are those Waffen SS Estonians who "participated in the extermination of Jews and Gypsies" regarded in Estonia as heroes and how you discovered it?
Sounds like a you thing - and a boatload of bullshit. Definitely not russofellators - very sensible.
They should deport all the Russians. They are not native to Estonia, just like in the "Kaliningrad"enclave.
Bush (43) should have been put in a rubber room for admitting the Baltic Republics into NATO. Lithuania is trying to provoke Russia by trying to isolate Kaliningrad. This result was entirely predictable.
Russians are colonizers in the Baltics, especially in the "Kaliningrad" enclave.
"The trouble with provocations is they can cause wars. The hysteria now apparent in official channels in parts of Europe (for example, France, UK, Germany, Estonia) reflects huge anxiety that Ukraine will not survive the Russian onslaught."
This provocation leading to war is entirely intentonal.
Not many provocations that were unintentional, I think. "Unprovoked" wars are rarer than two horned unicorns.
You forgot to add that Kaja Kallas is the daughter of some high up soviet apparatchik, insofar she perfectly fits into a notable EU position.
Kallas is from the family that loves to be in power. Her father was a Soviet apparatchik and the Head of the Estonian Central Bank, then an Estonian apparatchik, and then a EU kadrę. She first formed a party and got elected, was not successful, but got rewarded with the position at EU.
She is openly talking about her plans for Russia - to dismember Russia into many smaller states.
Hating Russia and being dumb and a delusional is a prerequisite for advancing in the EU bureaucracy.
The Kiev troika, Zelensky, Yermak and Budanov, and their chief of staff Sirsky all talk to each other in Russian, while suppressing Russian-language media, education and culture.
Look at the story of her great-grandfather, and you know who she is.
The way it looks is like this.
Overall, there are a few decades of hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) left. Their availability as well as the availability of other resources will now be diminishing, which goes against the trajectory this civilization is on. The economy, especially in the West, has been thoroughly fucked up, industrial capitalism has been transformed into financial capitalism. As a result, Western might has feet of clay. The West has shit, only declining control over global money and other institutions. The rest of the world no longer gives a damn. Europe is in the deepest shit. No energy, no resources, no nothing, apart from entitlement to hyper-luxurious lifestyle.
Taking Russia apart via Ukraine with the US behind their ass/in collusion was pretty much the only way out, the only way to get access to riches for the next half-century or so and hope that something will be discovered in the meantime to keep the circus going.
With the US now saying, eff you, Europe is as good as fucked. There is no way Europeans will go to war not to mention that the effeminate population would be blown away in a matter of days if they tried. They still haven't realized it though. It's quite likely that they'll try to provoke the Russkies into something to draw the US back into the game, to provide the muscle Europe doesn't have, even though it's questionable whether or to what extent the US does.
The best scenario would be if the US told the EU to go fly a kite and exited NATO and the EU either fell apart, as it's not realistic to expect that it can be internally transformed to behave reasonably and forge a meaningful relationship with Russia. That will have to be done by individual countries.
The good news is that despite all the saber rattling, Europe is totally impotent and will remain so for a long time to come. It would take ages to build an army and lots of hardship to motivate people to fight, and simply won't happen.
It might be, however, that they succeed in one of these provocations, make the Russians drop an oreshnik or two someplace significant and only then the twits will put their tail between their legs or will be made to by the pissed off populace, which will have, hopefully, realized what's going on.
Now, to play the devil's advocate, let's consider the following. Let's assume that the end of the fossil era is nearing, say in a few decades, and that will result in the end of the industrial civilization as we know it. Supply chains will fall apart, there will be shortages, famines, disease, you name it. People will be left to their own devices. Considering how weak people have become, militarization is probably not a bad thing, teaching people survival techniques, exposing them to some hardship, teaching them to defend themselves. Is it possible that the militarization has such a dual purpose? Could it be that such patent imbecile as that imbecile Kallas are in fact not as fucking stupid as they appear? I wonder.
"With the US now saying, eff you, Europe is as good as fucked. There is no way Europeans will go to war not to mention that the effeminate population would be blown away in a matter of days if they tried. They still haven't realized it though. It's quite likely that they'll try to provoke the Russkies into something to draw the US back into the game, to provide the muscle Europe doesn't have, even though it's questionable whether or to what extent the US does."
Excellent points.
I certainly hope they don't draw the US into a war with Russia. I don't think we can fight a major land war in Eastern Europe. We don't have the capability of producing weapons fast enough nor the ability to supply the large numbers of troops that would be required in the face of Russian opposition.
"I certainly hope they don't draw the US into a war with Russia."
This was ever always only the real plan all along.
"This was ever always only the real plan all along."
Indeed, it was.
Speaking of plans, Trump's tariff idiocy was an attack on the Chinese economy. It was an absurd pretense for rectifying imagined trade imbalances with the United States.
I'm hoping he remembers that FDR's economic warfare on Japan gave us Pearl Harbor.
Exactly. Plus, I don't think that Americans are all too keen to die in a war for countries they couldn't care less about (unlike the likes of Victoria Nuland, Chrystia Freeland, Blinken, and others who have family history in Eastern Europe). Especially now, since Trump is giving Americans (the patriotic variety) some hope of restoring American greatness.
Europe is an empty vessel, even though they haven't realized it yet. It might only dawn on them if they try something, get slapped over the wrist with an oreshnik, start whining about Article 5, and are told that they're on their own.
The projections are for oil consumption to reach a hundred million barrels a day by 2030. At that rate, a decade of consumption would be a billion barrels. Canada alone has one hundred and fifty billion barrels of oil. Ditto for Venezuela Between just them they have enough oil for centuries not decades.
Regardless of how weak you think Europe is. the Europeans think that Russia is not only much weaker than them but that it is brittle and so fragile that any organized, full on pressure from Europe will cause Russia to collapse. The Europeans say they are proceeding to equip themselves to act accordingly.
Not sure where you get the oil projections from, but the way I understand it is not the presence of oil in the ground, but the cost of getting it out. The low-hanging fruit has been exhausted, and extraction is getting more expensive - and when I say more expensive, I mean energy expensive (money doesn't matter, it's shit, energy is what spins the wheels). In other words, the energy obtained from oil will be lesser and lesser, and there won't be enough of it to make it worthwhile to extract what's in the ground. FYI, I try to get info from various sources - I follow guys like Art Berman, Dan Gowin, Gail Tverberg, SImon Michaux.
As to Europe, not sure if that's what they think - they might - but bringing Russia down and stealing everything it's got is they're only way out. They can't get energy and stuff from anywhere else. Europe can't put any more pressure on Russia, they've used it all up. Likewise, they can't equip themselves because they don't have the energy, the resources, and the manufacturing. It might well be that the military buildup on credit is a pipe dream because nobody will lend them money or accept whatever shit they print - since the collateral (winning the war with Russia) is highly risky.
So plenty of oil available for North America forever at a stable price point. Ditto for Russia. Everybody else is on their own. That means all the energy needed for their economy and the fertilizer absolutely necessary for modern agricultural output. Again everybody else is on their own.
Both North America and Russia have the other resources and water necessary to put it all together. Not saying they necessarily will put it together but the possibility exists for it to happen.
Europe keeps invading Russia and getting defeated. They always blame it on the winter as if somehow Russians weren't equally affected by the same conditions.
"Forever" is not what just about all the sources that I've checked out say. What you seem to be missing in your simple arithmetic is the economic aspect. There is a thing called energy return on investment, which basically says how much energy you need to obtain energy. If it's too low, it's not worth it and the stuff stays in the ground, or in oil sands, whatever.
How much of the stuff that can be viably extracted and how long the oil-driven civilization can keep going nobody knows accurately, but "forever" (sic) sounds pretty delusional. That being said, North America and Russia are best off globally, that is correct.
As to everybody else being on their own, what we're seeing globally is the end of globalization - a truly phantasmagorical period in history during which fucking people wasted energy on the illusion of a global market and transported apples, potatoes, and what have you from the other side of the world instead of growing or making the stuff locally. Much of the energy was burned on transporting air (empty space in packaging). That's now coming to an end, a harbinger of the localization that's coming. Whether it's intended, or whether it's been instigated by physical forces matters not.
As for Europe, they should have told the British to take a hike and aligned themselves with Russia, provide technological expertise, culture, diplomacy, stuff like that. Probably too late now, nobody needs that no more. The US should align itself with Russia. Canada should join in. Everybody needs to free themselves from the influence of the perfidious British m-effers, they're the biggest problem. They're the ones stirring trouble because they got shit and need to pillage the world through scheming. And they're good at it, unfortunately.
As to the energy situation, the 'forever' delusion notwithstanding, it would behoove humans to prepare for the post-oil era by building infrastructure that will allow as comfortable life as possible, like building waterways for example.
Will the combined Canadian and Venezuelan oil deposits last five billion years? No. The planet won't last that long. Will it necessarily last until the seas rise and the mountains fall? No.
Will it last at an affordable rate longer than anyone currently alive? Yes. Will it last longer than the lifetime of anyone born to anyone currently alive? Yes. Will it last longer than those distant progeny? Yes. That counts as forever for me. In terms of planning, discussion, practical considerations .... it is forever.
Of course, other sources of oil or even alternative methods of generating energy may make the oil sands impractical in general. Either way the oil will still be there.
I leave aside the forthcoming dramatic decrease in the world's population.
That's not quite what I'm hearing and reading, which puts the end of oil somewhere between 50-100 years from now. And I'm disregarding the hysterical reports that there's only a few years or decades left.
Mind you, I tend to look at things from a long-term perspective, hundreds of years at a minimum. I don't give a shit about what happened last week, which seems to be the preoccupation of most of the myopic creatures people have become.
All will depend on how things develop and, as you say, the coming decrease in the global population will play a big role. All sorts of things are liable to happen, and the (un)availability of oil might not be the most pressing issue.
From where I'm standing, the most pressing issues for the occidental civilization are spiritual emptiness, lack of purpose, no vision for the future, cultural decadence. We're zombies living anachronistic lives anchored in a past glory, which wasn't really all that glorious.
This guy Trump is trying something, but his vision is limited to geopolitics, business. The world needs something much bigger, something akin to Christianity, something that would invigorate people and break this existential stasis the world seems to be in.
You also need lots of heat to cook the oil out of the tar sand. Therefore, a portion of the Canadian tar sand will be consumed in the acquisition process even before refinement starts.
Paul is correct. The fact that we're drilling horizontal wells in zones that were previously nonproductive with vertical wells is proof. And North America doesn't have plenty of oil. There's already talk that the Permian is nearing it's peak.
There is always 'talk'.
I'm a petroleum engineer with 45 years in the oil industry. My sources are better than average and aren't man on the street types. The Permian has already drilled most of the better prospects and companies are seeing a decline in initial production in development wells. As I said, Paul is correct.
European leaders seem to be toddlers playing at adults.
Doesn’t Estonia realise that Russia probably has more police officers in Moscow than their measly 7700 “soldiers?”
Baffling.
Beware the Baltic states.
European - so called - leaders are warning of a Russian attack after the Ukraine is finished. Meanwhile they are setting up the perfect conditions for this to become true.
It seems to be the destiny of the Baltic states to be the stick that pokes the bear.
Mind you, I do not believe the US would want to participate in such a Baltic war (a lot depends on the president the US has by then). In fact, such a war would be over before any NATO response could be formulated.
The European poodles know full well that they cannot defeat Russia without the United States.
Estonians are simply living up to their Nazi heritage. They are hoping the West will achieve what Hitler (and Napoleon) failed to do by constantly provoking the Russians.
Thanks for the informative article.
The Baltic states are a little piss ant group that hates Russia. Their only threat to Russia, as you point out, is provocation. I am pretty sure that the Deep State and MI6 accentuate the provocation.
Wow. I now know you are a Putin lackey. Unsubscribing!
Great.
I am not a Putin lackey. I don't see where a war is good for anyone.
Don't you know that everyone who opposes war with Russia and wants to end the war in Ukraine is a Putin lackey?
Use whatever label you like - you push his “worldview.” You spin their half truths and mistruths.
Ha ha ha ... Hilarious.
Speaking about German Nazis. I hope you know that at the end of WWII American and British captured many Nazi war criminals and let them go knowing all well who they were. They became the empire valuable assets. Many settled in the US and Canada, even more in Latin America. There is a book “The Nazis next door: How America became a safe heaven for Hitler’s men”
Argument by thought terminating cliche.
Wow I didn’t think people that stupid read this type of analysis - bye.
Wow, thanks for revealing your lack of intelligence and warmongering foolishness.
Most western leaders don’t reflect the views of their populations, I thought the attack poodle Callous (I think thats the correct spelling) fell into that category. Seems not from reading the article and comments. They truly have got the leader they deserve.
Still, they can’t all be that bad, one of my wife’s aunts married an Estonian. He had been castrated by the Nazis in WW2, despite his suffering he was a very decent man , always presented a happy face , raised 2 adopted children. He was neither jewish nor gypsy, but slavic. He can’t have been the only slavic person badly treated by the Nazis, so I really don’t understand the mentality, given Russia liberated them from the Nazis.
Collectively hating a nation (Russians, Americans, etc etc.) is not a badge of honor or intelligence. I agree that the level of support for the Nazis is not their best moment in Estonians history.
final points.
. Unfortunately, they were not the only ones.
.The problem is not what Estonians did back then, but the revival of National Socialist ideology in Europe today, behind various veils.
The dehumanization of the other, and a Manichaean view of the world, good versus evil, , is not the best path forward.
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The East European revisionism is very important topic for the future stability in Europe. Getting rid of it is Putins end goal, and it'll be achieved when US leaves the continent.
Thanks for bringing up the topic.