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I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy was to their military / political thinking. If others are interested, this video has a great over

I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy was to their military / political thinking. If others are interested, this video has a great overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE

tartoran 5y ago
Gas and oil is all they have to trade and they have a lot of it.
- phkahler 5y ago
  If only they used the profits to build a great economy with more to offer. They have no shortage capable and even brilliant people, but they've got a management problem at the national level.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    See also: Louisiana. It's understandable that there are a ton of chemical refineries near the mouth of the Mississippi because it allows for easier transport of refined goods to other countries. Less understandable when they're everywhere else in the state, except for the part where local governments give quarter-century and longer sweetheart tax break deals for these companies to come in, pollute the local environment, and pay no taxes on the real estate they're operating on. One of the main reasons that the education and social services systems in the state are so horrendously poor is because there's no tax revenue. And even by those standards, Russia is a kleptocrat's wet dream.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    The resource curse tends to be the rule, not the exception.
    - MandieD 5y ago
      Norway seems to have avoided it the past few decades by following the advice Tony Montana didn’t: don’t get high on your own supply. They dampen the effects of easy oil money by putting most of the profits into their sovereign wealth fund and, unlike just about every other oil producing country, taxing fossil fuels even harder than countries like Germany and Denmark (which tax them pretty hard).
      - pydry 5y ago
        Norway is the exception.
- chinathrow 5y ago
  They will have even more of it in the future as the world will stop buying.
- okl 5y ago
  They also have significant market share exporting certain commodities like Nickel, Palladium &c. -- but not close to gas/oil, true. Since new investment into fossil fuel projects will go to nearly zero from here (and old equipment becomes defunct unless it is replaced), expect there gas/oil exports to decline significantly in the next years/decades. Putin didn't only mess up Ukraine now, he also wrecked his own country for at least a generation to come.
  - tobi_spaceship 5y ago
    Same could be said for Biden.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      As a foreigner, I can say that whatever it is you’re thinking of isn’t even newsworthy on the international stage. What Putin has done to Russia is like if an American president had invaded a neighbour and the result was simultaneously $4 trillion central bank assets held abroad getting frozen, most of the billionaires becoming personae non grata in half the planet, a lot of smart people leaving the country as quickly as possible, the stock markets crashing about as hard as the Great Depression, direct refusal by major shipping companies to deal with the nation, and the currency halving relative to everything else, while also finding the hard way that all the military hardware had been “maintained” with cheap lookalike products and the cost difference pocketed by corruption at an unknown part of the chain.
    - KarlKemp 5y ago
      what?
      - MandieD 5y ago
        He probably believes what most of my relatives (most of whom are Texans) do: this is all Biden’s fault for not letting petroleum producers drill and frack wherever and however they want; Putin never would have tried this if he knew the US could just overwhelm the oil market. They can’t bear to consider that this is something of a last hurrah as Europe tries to wean themselves from the petro drug. There’s plenty of non-petroleum-related business going on in Texas, but the semi-rural power base relies on oil to stay rich.
- FpUser 5y ago
  Metals, wheat and some other stuff. All soon to be halted if not already.
abledon 5y ago
if you need a crazy french canadian gaming warlord providing commentary, heres the xqc version (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1409387850?t=00h58m50s https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1409387850?t=00h58m50s)
treis 5y ago
Funny thing is that something like half of Russian gas goes through Ukraine and some more is just across the border in Belarus. AFAIK that hasn't stopped. Just goes to show you the complexity of international relations. Map: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/europe-map/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/europe-map/ It's a bit misleading since it doesn't show Nordstream 1 which runs under the Baltic sea to Germany. EDIT: Here's a better map. The above is outdated https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Major_russian_gas_pipelines_to_europe.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Major_ru...
- ls612 5y ago
  Makes you wonder if one side or the other will “accidentally” damage those pipelines. Like obviously they can’t overtly do it but you know, stuff gets damaged every day in combat zones… it would certainly immensely hurt Russia’s strategic position to have their gas exports cut off.
  - Ralfp 5y ago
    If Polish-Russian gas trade is anything to go by, they won’t. They will just one day cut off deliveries and communicate that there is unknown technical difficulty and they are working on resolving it.
  - qqqwerty 5y ago
    Better yet, Ukraine should build some well fortified military bases on top of/next to the pipelines. It seems like Russia's only advantage in this war right now is artillery. But if an errant shell could shut down one of the last remaining sources of revenue, maybe the will think twice?
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Better yet, Ukraine should build some well fortified military bases on top of/next to the pipelines. It seems like Russia's only advantage in this war right now is artillery. But if an errant shell could shut down one of the last remaining sources of revenue, maybe the will think twice? That would only hurt Ukraine's allies. Russia is probably going to end up pivoting to exporting energy to China, anyway. Russia's going to see this invasion through. It's clear that there's not some "one weird [economic] trick" that will get them to turn around and go home. The only way that's going to happen is if they're defeated militarily.
mderazon 5y ago
More convinced that the only thing stopping wars will be energy abundance not reliant on fossil fuels. Countries will still fight over natural resources, but probably less
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  There's an argument here that this war is a step in the transition from wars over "oil" (read: energy supply) to wars over water. There's a little bit of both here, and it's made the war difficult for outsiders to read.
  - gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
    Not sure if it’s a water war the way I would consider it but you may be right. Freshwater is typically the object of hypothetical water wars, and in this case Russia wants warm (salt) water for naval power projection. This is probably more of a coastline/harbour war.
    - InitialLastName 5y ago
      As I understand it, there has also been some conflict over the water supply to Crimea, which comes in by aqueduct over the isthmus towards Ukraine in the north (hence Russia's focus on conquering the area inland from that border).
  - mderazon 5y ago
    With enough energy and access to sea water you can desalinate I guess
    - The_rationalist 5y ago
      In fact nuclear plants are optimal for this
    - RealityVoid 5y ago
      You need it for agriculture, probably much more water than it's feasible to desalinate.
dekhn 5y ago
There's a couple great books, The Prize and The Quest, by Daniel Yergin, who is an energy expert. It greatly clarifies the current situation. Update: I just saw he's published a newer book as well, https://www.amazon.com/New-Map-Energy-Climate-Nations/dp/1594206430 https://www.amazon.com/New-Map-Energy-Climate-Nations/dp/159... "The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations" which I haven't read, but probably just updates the story as it evolved over the past 10 years.
qiskit 5y ago
> I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy was to their military / political thinking. Oil strategy is tied to everyone's military/political thinking. Especially the top oil producers like Russia, US, etc. US was the top oil producer from 1850s to 1950s. It's one of the reasons we became a world power. We aren't maintaining military bases in saudi arabia because we are fans of islam. We didn't invade iraq because of freedom or democracy. We've been trying to topple venezuela for 2 decades because they have the largest oil reserves in the world. Some even think we are suddenly concerned about muslims in xinjiang because the chinese found oil there. Germany invaded the soviet to take the baku oil fields. Oil has been central to most major world invents the last 150 years. What do you think our issue with iran is? Their huge oil and gas fields. You could argue the ukraine war is about oil and gas too. If we ever got fusion energy or anything like that, one of the major sources of war would be gone.
- landemva 5y ago
  ' Oil strategy is tied to everyone's military/political thinking. ' Now people may begin to understand why Biden's son was installed in 2014 on board of directors of a Ukraine oil producer at 50,000 USD per month. It was not by happenstance nor for knowledge of oil & gas. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27403003 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27403003
HellDunkel 5y ago
This is the most interesting thing i saw in a while. It is tragic that our news channels are incapable of delivering such insights- german newspaper/tv all fell for putins silly „historic“ farytales..

tartoran 5y ago

Gas and oil is all they have to trade and they have a lot of it.

phkahler 5y ago
If only they used the profits to build a great economy with more to offer. They have no shortage capable and even brilliant people, but they've got a management problem at the national level.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  See also: Louisiana. It's understandable that there are a ton of chemical refineries near the mouth of the Mississippi because it allows for easier transport of refined goods to other countries. Less understandable when they're everywhere else in the state, except for the part where local governments give quarter-century and longer sweetheart tax break deals for these companies to come in, pollute the local environment, and pay no taxes on the real estate they're operating on. One of the main reasons that the education and social services systems in the state are so horrendously poor is because there's no tax revenue. And even by those standards, Russia is a kleptocrat's wet dream.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  The resource curse tends to be the rule, not the exception.
  - MandieD 5y ago
    Norway seems to have avoided it the past few decades by following the advice Tony Montana didn’t: don’t get high on your own supply. They dampen the effects of easy oil money by putting most of the profits into their sovereign wealth fund and, unlike just about every other oil producing country, taxing fossil fuels even harder than countries like Germany and Denmark (which tax them pretty hard).
    - pydry 5y ago
      Norway is the exception.
chinathrow 5y ago
They will have even more of it in the future as the world will stop buying.
okl 5y ago
They also have significant market share exporting certain commodities like Nickel, Palladium &c. -- but not close to gas/oil, true. Since new investment into fossil fuel projects will go to nearly zero from here (and old equipment becomes defunct unless it is replaced), expect there gas/oil exports to decline significantly in the next years/decades. Putin didn't only mess up Ukraine now, he also wrecked his own country for at least a generation to come.
- tobi_spaceship 5y ago
  Same could be said for Biden.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    As a foreigner, I can say that whatever it is you’re thinking of isn’t even newsworthy on the international stage. What Putin has done to Russia is like if an American president had invaded a neighbour and the result was simultaneously $4 trillion central bank assets held abroad getting frozen, most of the billionaires becoming personae non grata in half the planet, a lot of smart people leaving the country as quickly as possible, the stock markets crashing about as hard as the Great Depression, direct refusal by major shipping companies to deal with the nation, and the currency halving relative to everything else, while also finding the hard way that all the military hardware had been “maintained” with cheap lookalike products and the cost difference pocketed by corruption at an unknown part of the chain.
  - KarlKemp 5y ago
    what?
    - MandieD 5y ago
      He probably believes what most of my relatives (most of whom are Texans) do: this is all Biden’s fault for not letting petroleum producers drill and frack wherever and however they want; Putin never would have tried this if he knew the US could just overwhelm the oil market. They can’t bear to consider that this is something of a last hurrah as Europe tries to wean themselves from the petro drug. There’s plenty of non-petroleum-related business going on in Texas, but the semi-rural power base relies on oil to stay rich.
FpUser 5y ago
Metals, wheat and some other stuff. All soon to be halted if not already.

abledon 5y ago

if you need a crazy french canadian gaming warlord providing commentary, heres the xqc version (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1409387850?t=00h58m50s https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1409387850?t=00h58m50s)

treis 5y ago

Funny thing is that something like half of Russian gas goes through Ukraine and some more is just across the border in Belarus. AFAIK that hasn't stopped. Just goes to show you the complexity of international relations. Map: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/europe-map/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/europe-map/ It's a bit misleading since it doesn't show Nordstream 1 which runs under the Baltic sea to Germany. EDIT: Here's a better map. The above is outdated https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Major_russian_gas_pipelines_to_europe.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Major_ru...

ls612 5y ago
Makes you wonder if one side or the other will “accidentally” damage those pipelines. Like obviously they can’t overtly do it but you know, stuff gets damaged every day in combat zones… it would certainly immensely hurt Russia’s strategic position to have their gas exports cut off.
- Ralfp 5y ago
  If Polish-Russian gas trade is anything to go by, they won’t. They will just one day cut off deliveries and communicate that there is unknown technical difficulty and they are working on resolving it.
- qqqwerty 5y ago
  Better yet, Ukraine should build some well fortified military bases on top of/next to the pipelines. It seems like Russia's only advantage in this war right now is artillery. But if an errant shell could shut down one of the last remaining sources of revenue, maybe the will think twice?
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Better yet, Ukraine should build some well fortified military bases on top of/next to the pipelines. It seems like Russia's only advantage in this war right now is artillery. But if an errant shell could shut down one of the last remaining sources of revenue, maybe the will think twice? That would only hurt Ukraine's allies. Russia is probably going to end up pivoting to exporting energy to China, anyway. Russia's going to see this invasion through. It's clear that there's not some "one weird [economic] trick" that will get them to turn around and go home. The only way that's going to happen is if they're defeated militarily.

mderazon 5y ago

More convinced that the only thing stopping wars will be energy abundance not reliant on fossil fuels. Countries will still fight over natural resources, but probably less

InitialLastName 5y ago
There's an argument here that this war is a step in the transition from wars over "oil" (read: energy supply) to wars over water. There's a little bit of both here, and it's made the war difficult for outsiders to read.
- gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
  Not sure if it’s a water war the way I would consider it but you may be right. Freshwater is typically the object of hypothetical water wars, and in this case Russia wants warm (salt) water for naval power projection. This is probably more of a coastline/harbour war.
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    As I understand it, there has also been some conflict over the water supply to Crimea, which comes in by aqueduct over the isthmus towards Ukraine in the north (hence Russia's focus on conquering the area inland from that border).
- mderazon 5y ago
  With enough energy and access to sea water you can desalinate I guess
  - The_rationalist 5y ago
    In fact nuclear plants are optimal for this
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    You need it for agriculture, probably much more water than it's feasible to desalinate.

dekhn 5y ago

There's a couple great books, The Prize and The Quest, by Daniel Yergin, who is an energy expert. It greatly clarifies the current situation. Update: I just saw he's published a newer book as well, https://www.amazon.com/New-Map-Energy-Climate-Nations/dp/1594206430 https://www.amazon.com/New-Map-Energy-Climate-Nations/dp/159... "The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations" which I haven't read, but probably just updates the story as it evolved over the past 10 years.

qiskit 5y ago

> I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy was to their military / political thinking. Oil strategy is tied to everyone's military/political thinking. Especially the top oil producers like Russia, US, etc. US was the top oil producer from 1850s to 1950s. It's one of the reasons we became a world power. We aren't maintaining military bases in saudi arabia because we are fans of islam. We didn't invade iraq because of freedom or democracy. We've been trying to topple venezuela for 2 decades because they have the largest oil reserves in the world. Some even think we are suddenly concerned about muslims in xinjiang because the chinese found oil there. Germany invaded the soviet to take the baku oil fields. Oil has been central to most major world invents the last 150 years. What do you think our issue with iran is? Their huge oil and gas fields. You could argue the ukraine war is about oil and gas too. If we ever got fusion energy or anything like that, one of the major sources of war would be gone.

landemva 5y ago
' Oil strategy is tied to everyone's military/political thinking. ' Now people may begin to understand why Biden's son was installed in 2014 on board of directors of a Ukraine oil producer at 50,000 USD per month. It was not by happenstance nor for knowledge of oil & gas. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27403003 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27403003

HellDunkel 5y ago

This is the most interesting thing i saw in a while. It is tragic that our news channels are incapable of delivering such insights- german newspaper/tv all fell for putins silly „historic“ farytales..