Europe’s Energy Crisis Forces Factories to Go Dark | Hacker News Reader

Europe’s Energy Crisis Forces Factories to Go Dark

nytimes.com

26 pointswalterbell143 comments

>But the impact of Russia’s abrupt cutoff of gas to Europe has doused the business with new risks.

More like "the idiocy and lack of actions from EU leaders on the energy front after the 2014 invasion of Crimea has doused the businesses with new risks".

Energy mitigations off Russian gas should have started 8 years ago, not wait for Ukraine to get blown up.

In a way, I understand Merkel: she must have seen Putin is a scoundrel but choose the policy of trying to domesticate him by keeping civilized business relations with him. Unfortunately, she lacked imagination. In XXI century, it is more inexcusable than ever.

That's fine, but at the same time you need to build up your backup strategy.

That's the problem in general in our modern economy. No reserves, no resilience, no backup plan

Two countries that both have McDonalds would never go to war with each other though. I mean, except for all of the times they have. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexus_and_the_Olive_Tree...

Let me correct this brilliant socio-economic hypothesis: "two countries that both have American food and drink franchises they're all fat and physically incapable".

So Putin invaded a foreign country and seized their land and you think Merkel's decision of keep doing business with Putin was somehow domesticating him?

It's precisely that lack of action that proved to Putin that out leaders are spineless addicts to his cheap gas and he can play them like a fiddle.

Also, let's not forget the lucrative positions Gerhard Schröder got at Russian energy companies in exchange for his "help" in getting Germany hooked on Russian gas.

That's my point: not only it didn't work, but her lack of imagination left us all on the cold.

since when russia was an enemy of europe? historically they are the one who beat the nazis. if you refer to 2014 it is europe and us that also pushed russia to come into ukraine.

everything would have been avoidable if we gave putin some warranty of not meddling with ukraine, putting corrupt people in a non elected government. and Im not saying that what is happening know is right. A russian invasion of ukraine is wrong. but that was definitely something USA actions in Ukraine expected long before 2014

>since when russia was an enemy of europe?

Ask the Eastern European countries who've had to suffer 50 years of communist atrocities thanks to WW2 invasion of their countries by Russia and the USSR.

USSR not russia. it collapsed. are you still upset about ottoman empire? nazi germany? the first world war aftermath should have taught us something.

Ha, you're saying this after you said (not exact words) "Look who beat the Nazis in 1945!"? So which is it, do you want to consider the group of people occupying the land 80 years ago same as the present people, or different?

America dropped 2 atomic bombs on live civilians and now they fear mongering the world into a new nuclear war. I think this beats everything and every argument for giving them the keys to owning the "peace of the world" but somehow you seem to hate russia more than facts.

Come on kid, you're the one arguing with emotions (Bombs on live civilians! Hmm, reminds me of Assad, Putin's friend, dropping phospor bombs) instead of logical facts.

This reply is just a distraction and doesn't refute the fact that you're just a rambling fool who tried to argue both that "heroic Russia beat the Nazis" but "That was the USSR, long collapsed, and not Russia causing suffering in the Warsaw pact countries!'.

who are you calling kid? you even edited your original comment afterward lol. logical facts are that russian and putin long called for ukraine to be neutral. removing their elected leader and pushing a pro european riot destroyed that neutrality and that was the tipping point of everything else. that people like you developed a generational hate toward a country is not helping with the above facts

I'm calling you kid, kid. So what if I edited my comment, to emphasize you still haven't acknowledged your incoherence: So which is it, do you want to consider the group of people occupying the land 80 years ago same as the present people, or different? Russia beat Nazis in the 1940's = so Russia is hero. USSR was a brutal regime = USSR collapsed, Russia today doesn't have anything to do with USSR. But Russia today should still get credit for USSR beating the Nazis!

BTW I don't hate Russia the country, I have friends who are stuck there and don't know what tomorrow may bring (including a couple who might both be called to war (apparently being a woman might not save you from mobilization if you're a doctor), and they have 2 young kids), but I hate the corrupt idiot currently holding it hostage...

Yeah, your style of argument is familiar to me, the style of the feeble-minded and people who are emotional and whose knowledge aren't full knowledge but just gathered from random blogs, tweets, and whatever propaganda crap you're reading. Incoherent, and when people point it out, bring out other topics in hopes that they get distracted and engage the new topic instead. When challenged, you'd rather not discover to see whether the opponent is right, but you'd rather protect your own ego and convince yourself that they're the deluded ones, and you're the one who knows the truth. "I can't acknowledge that, to acknowledge that would mean admitting I was an idiot yesterday, and I'm not an diot!"

Sorry dang, and HN, for engaging the trolls...

you the troll changing original comment to make me look like im incoherent. this is disingenuous theres nothing more to say.

He doesn't make you look incoherent. You wrote your own comments. You want to credit Russia for beating nazis while not crediting them with atrocities because it was the USSR.

Can't go much more incoherent than that.

there is coherence. his original comment was spitting hate at russia in a way that the country was pure evil my reply merely mentionned they defeated nazi germany. then he edited the comment. I credit the fact that history is complex and that all countries are bad and good.

America dropped 2 atomic bombs on military targets. The civilians were collateral damage, as always occurs in war. Attacks conducted by Japan, USSR, and other belligerents involved in WW2 also killed large numbers of civilians.

> since when russia was an enemy of europe?

It's hard to give a precise date since Europe was torn by so many wars over centuries, but when it comes to the present situation, I'd say it was the Bolshevik Revolution. European countries were afraid the communist movement spreads everywhere - and in fact it became quite popular in several countries.

Then, after WWII, Russia established their military bases in all of Eastern Europe and after that the Cold War begun. When the Berlin Wall fell, everybody was so happy because we really hoped it's the end of tension between Russia and the West. It didn't last long, though - Putin's speech in Munich in 2007 made it clear he has a completely different vision.

So, to briefly answer your question, for the most part of the last century, actually.

Merkel is a "former" Stasi and what do think Scholz is? Deutschland is just yet another rusky oblast, end of story. Actually no, the EU is just the 4th Reich aka DDR aka rusky oblast therefore.

Let's not exaggerate. Germany needs energy, so Scholz strategy is to minimize the losses. He is also sending weapons to Ukraine, just not bragging about like other countries. The spirit of the "German fault" is still present in Germany and there is a strong disincentive for engaging in any kind of armed conflict.

Nevertheless, I believe Germans as a whole realize how mistaken the overall policy of their government is and exercise some pressure to change that. Not shutting down nuclear reactors would be a good first step that would benefit the whole EU, not just Germany.

> trying to domesticate him by keeping civilized business relations with him.

This was the theory sold by German elites to the populace over obnoxiously overfunded German public media.

You could also blame the companies too.

Any reasonably size company could have started doing things to insulate themselves. Things that were compatible with the environmental policies governments were already pushing.

Which things do you think they should have been doing?

Companies that are highly exposed to price volatility like wholesale electricity and gas prices can include some kind of energy hedging in their risk management portfolio. It will cost them money in good years but it keeps them from going out of business in bad years.

Companies that choose not to hedge make more profit in good years but must come begging to the government for bailouts or price controls in bad years. (i.e. shareholders pocket the profit while taxpayers cover the losses)

Depending on the government's response to those kinds of requests, you end up with more of one sort of company or the other.

Price hedging. Doing things that would also be environmentally good (and encouraged by the EU), higher efficiency kilns, electric kilns.

I'm not in the glass making business so I don't really know what the possibilities are, and the answers are different for different companies.

Point is this situation was foreseeable, and slot of the things companies should be thinking about anyway.

Companies are always looking towards the next quarter, they don't care where the energy comes from as long as it's cheap. It's the job of governments to pursue a sane and self sufficient energy policy.

Companies are not elected for "the good of the people", so they have no obligation.

Oh wait, neither are the officials of the EU commission. Hmmm

They are nominated by the Council and confirmed by the Parliament, it's cheap populism to imply they don't represent the public at large.

I vote every 4 years (i.e. once every 1460 days) and have the choice between several mediocre candidates and parties.

I don't see why I should feel represented.

It goes without saying that this amount of felt representation doesn't increase with EU bodies (save the parliament)

Always blame the EU when your favorite party is in power for years and did shit. I don't remember EU forcing Germany to buy gas from Russia or close their nuclear power. Russian gas was cheap so capitalism dictated to use it, closing nuclear plants scored some national politics points so sure close that too.

But the most simple excuse for a bad government is to blame the opposition, when you were in power for a long time and you can't blame the opposition hen you blame the EU and US.

The main point to GP was that companies have no obligation whatsoever.

Personally, I don't hold ONLY the commission accountable.

But the problem here is that the amount of learning (or even just admitting mistakes) is zero, so I don't see how they're not doing more stupid things down the line.

>so I don't see how they're not doing more stupid things down the line.

What do you mean? EU commission should force Germany to like nuclear? We all need to blame our politicians, UK, Germany, Romania (... the rest) - we all could have done a better job but corrupptuon and greed of our local politicians screwed us the citizens.

The thing though I am puzzled about is this big price increases, I am not sure if I can blame the EU commission or is again the local politicians and greedy companies that profited to raise all the prices.

I mean that it's safe to assume incompetent leadership in the future (by those same actors, i.e. commission and member states)

My bet is price controls (and I don't mean the stupid oil price cap) and capital controls next.

I never said they were. But on the subject of companies struggling to pay fuel bills for something foreseen, the companies in question surely bears some of the blame.

The glass company in the article has had 8 years to consider what would happen.

8 years where in could have investigated and invested in more efficient kilns, electric kilns, price hedging, etc.

This isn't about the good of the people it's about the good of the company. They took a business decision not to protect themselves against this eventuality, why is government to blame for that business decision?

All the while the EU has been encouraging all these measures anyway. Has the company not considered what happens if they can't burn gas in the future? I don't know if France has a net zero target, but even if it doesn't it is a possibility.

and the american policies of putting weapons next to russia while they would totally invade mexico if mexico did have russian weapons.

Citation needed. What weapons are you on about?

Mexico does actually appear to have purchased weapons from Russia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93Russia_relation...

Which weapons are you referring to? Mexico has purchased Russian weapons.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-russia-military-id...

I meant american weapons operated from american army bases. just like in europe, turkey, middle east

But there was never going to be a NATO base in Ukraine, cause Ukraine wasn't going to join NATO for decades.

The US Army never proposed to open a base in Ukraine. You are spreading misinformation.

Are you referring to the cooperative policies between the US and various European countries? I'm not aware of the US unilaterally moving weapons to the Russian border without an arrangement with the host country.

There was a cooperative agreement between the USSR and host country Cuba in 1962 to move nuclear missiles to 90 miles from the US mainland.

Yes, and I believe the US response to that should be condemned to the extent that it escalated the conflict, not used as a whataboutism to excuse Russia's actions today.

Are you still pretending that NATO expansion had anything to do with the conflict in Ukraine? It is, and always has been, Russian imperialism.

"President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a deal for greater integration with the European Union , sparking mass protests, which Yanukovych attempted to put down violently. Russia backed Yanukovych in the crisis, while the US and Europe supported the protesters. "

why do you think he rejected it? greater integration meant NATO bases. And this guy knew (because putin and russia always said it) that NATO next to russia was a big no go. the next logical steps are easy to understand. europe and USA backing protesters meant that if russia did not act they would be NATO bases next to them. fair elections should have happened and people should have voted for yes/no they want to join europe. then putin wouldn't have been able to attack Ukraine. Instead USA just used their old playbook like they did in middle east

You'll have to clarify the link between EU memberships and NATO bases. The only thing that seems likely to lead to NATO bases in Sweden and Finland seems to be the invasion of Ukraine, not their long EU membership.

let's say mexico joins the shangai corporation. let's see how many days their president stays in power.

You're making less sense, try moving your argument in the other direction.

That's a whole bunch of nonsense. You get NATO bases by joining NATO, completely independently of how close to the EU you are.

Putin would have always been able to attack Ukraine. He's not bound to some sort of world government contract. He can do anything in his power as the President of Russia, and that includes attacking Ukraine, even if for stupid or inconsistent reasons. There's nothing that could make him unable to, other than stopping being President.

i am not sure how its not playbook US policies. remove a pro-russian president. put a pro europe leader that you select and do whatever you want in the country including setting up bases. just look at any past leader/alliances in middle east with USA. they always did that. you a russian strategist you'd take that into account...

I didn't say anything about US policies, I have no idea what you're replying to.

NATO is USA.

I still didn't say anything related to that

Putin wouldn't attack ukraine for no reason. He is probably one of the most open leader we had in recent years with trump. they both spoke exactly like they acted. Putin always said that ukraine should remain neutral and that if not russia will act with its army. same threats were pushed against finland for instance. Removing an elected president and backing up pro-european rioters definitly destroyed this neutrality. US knew that and prepared for this outcome willingly.

You're still answering to something I didn't say. I said precisely what I meant to. Try answering to something I actually said.

"Putin would have always been able to attack Ukraine. He's not bound to some sort of world government contract. He can do anything in his power as the President of Russia, and that includes attacking Ukraine, even if for stupid or inconsistent reasons."

i was answering this. he is not - unlike the western press tends to say - stupid or incosistent. he is literaly the most consistent leader of his era. we know what he wants and what he protects. he never changed his mind on the key areas of his geopolitic view of the world. not like europe or us presidents do every new election or new mandate to get more voices. Putin always said that ukraine was to remain neutral. and if you play around words then by your logic even biden would be able to press the red button and extinct mankind for stupid or inconsistent reasons.

> i was answering this. he is not - unlike the western press tends to say - stupid or incosistent.

Doesn't matter one bit. He's free to change his mind on that at any time. He can't make a promise that's binding on himself, he can always go back on his word and nothing can be done about it.

> and if you play around words then by your logic even biden would be able to press the red button and extinct mankind for stupid or inconsistent reasons.

I'm not playing around with words. That's exactly what I mean. He really can.

How about you look at it from a different perspective? Putin and Yanukovych are corrupt fuckers. I know it's a lazy answer to google for sources, but google it. Joining the EU means having more scrutiny from Brussels, and if you're a corrupt autocrat, would you want that? No. How about you engage in some what-if thinking and think, "What if Yanukovych didn't want to join the EU because he didn't want his corruption be scrutinized?". What if Putin doesn't want Ex-Soviet countries join the EU because his own citizens might look at the non-autocratic countries and see how progress can be made, and they might start wondering why they're still dirt poor, is it because all the money in their own country went to Putin and friends' pockets?

As to fair elections, here's some numbers about support for joining the EU from Ukranians (which you can conveniently dismiss by saying the pollers are "controlled by the West"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93European_Union...

Also why no one is questioning the EU reaction to the war. No one forced them to impose sanctions on Russia. They should have foreseen the gas situation and measured their response.

EU tried to commit economic suicide with covid lockdowns and the Ukraine war. Seems they finally succeeded. Too bad I earn my salary in Euro. Because of Brussels I can buy almost as half as last year.

I think you are in the minority with your stance. Most Europeans support the sanctions, and rightly so. Tough times require compromises. Expecting to live in stable, uneventful bliss forever is certainly desirable, but very naïve.

Then why is everyone whining?

Someone is always whining, usually whiners are louder than ... the non-whiners. And I didn't say everyone supports the sanctions. 10, 20 or 30% of people of a large group can whine so loud you'd think they are speaking for the whole world.

First of all, the sanction blowback hasn’t hit Europe with full force yet, of course one would otherwise support something that enjoys massive media and government support when the real costs aren’t obvious.

Secondly, this needn’t have been tough times, if the EU had prepared. Or failing that, recognized that it can’t declare economic war on Russia and enjoy gas deliveries as usual.

Thirdly, “stable, uneventful bliss” must be a poor attempt at humor. Did you miss the multi-year global pandemic that we still haven’t recovered from?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Being unrelenting on Russia invading Ukraine is a strategic measure to make further war in Europe unlikely.

I don't think there's a politician who didn't see that sanctioning Russia could lead to an unstable oil and gas situation, but on the whole it was deemed worth it (and in polls most people seem to agree).

The EU didn’t decide to start a war. Putin did. (How’s that working out for Russia, by the way?)

The EU was forced into a bad situation due to the recklessness of Moscow.

That said the writing was on the wall 8 years ago or so, and the EU really should have been diversifying away from dependence on Russia.

The energy market shock wasn’t caused by the Russia-Ukraine war. That’s a local conflict which would typically not have a significant impact on energy deliveries.

The market shock is caused by lack of supply caused by Russia cutting deliveries, which in turn was caused by the EU declaring economic war on Russia.

Which in turn was caused by the Russia Ukraine war...

Technically correct and yet the unprecedented extent of the sanctions, the lack of a defensive treaty with the attacked party and the vulnerability of the EU to these very sanctions make them debatable.

It is precisely this debate which is being suppressed through either public shaming or by directly blaming Russia and omitting the role of the EU (and US) in this economic fiasco.

We did not want to support Putin in his reckless war. We certainly didn't want this to become the first of many such wars. Better to address this aggression with a very firm response, even if it means sacrifices on our side.

So, yeah, we decided to impose those sanctions, knowing it would affect us badly, but we did it anyway. Most people seem to support this, at least for now.

What point are you trying to make? That we should blame our governments for doing something most of us agree is painful but necessary?

Have no clue why this is being downvoted... I agree. You could have used nicer words though.

Because it such a hindsight 20/20 comment providing an easy answer to a complex question, all by providing an easy scapegoat. So, IMHO, it is shallow, and bad for HN standards, comment.

Didn't people, even Trump, say before that it is a bad idea to have only a single provider for a very important resource?

And, mind you, we don't have an availability problem, we have a price problem. One that is caused by Russia's refusal to sell gas to Europe, one that hurts energy intensive industries at a time energy markets in general are disturbed to unrelated reasons, right after a pandemic that disrupted supply chains in the middle of global inflation.

But yeah, Germany's refusal to buy gas from the US after Trump said they should is the root cause of all of that.

Aren't availability and price correlated?

Sure, so? Prices are back to pre war levels apparently and gas kept flowing the whole time. It was simply more expensive in the last months.

Oh yes, sure. But of course the entire switch created a lot of stress, uncertainty, anxiety and so on. It is impossible to measure the real costs of that switching. But I bet they were very high.

Having a basis, where one supplier/resource never accounts for more than let's say 20% makes a system much more resilient. I think it is "just" simple math, that was ignored before because it was cheap and easy at the time.

Btw: it’s even worse than that. The perceived dependency allowed Russia to think that they can get away… they thought they could blackmail the West.

Didn't Trump prevent other providers by killing the Iran deal?

One could have so nicely pitted Russia against Iran. But Trump wanted to sell US oil

I wonder if people are going to be this 'clever' about 'made in china' when shit will hit the fan. But I know that Europe is easier target in Anglo-sphere.

I don’t buy this at all. What’s complex about weaning the continent off of Russian energy 8 years ago rather than all at once in a few years’ time? How is “dependence on Russian energy” a scapegoat? And the “hindsight is 20/20” action would have been arming Ukraine to the hilt 8 years ago—weaning off of Russian energy requires no such hindsight.

You are aware that the Russian invasion was stopped, and Russia is being driven back? That was, oartly, due to weapons deliveries from the West and NATO, which includes all major EU countries. Keeping gas from Russia flowing kept a door open for Putin and prevented escalation. Which, in my book, are good things.

Now Europe is getting gas from other souces, albeit more expensive ones. And the EU alone is delivering 2.5 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine.

Once this war is over, I am all for normalized relations with Russia, because those make long term peace easier. Propably not worling under a Russian leadership that intentionally choose war.

> You are aware that the Russian invasion was stopped, and Russia is being driven back? That was, oartly, due to weapons deliveries from the West and NATO, which includes all major EU countries.

Yes, I am aware. I didn't contend that Europe isn't doing anything to resist Russia, I'm alleging that increasing energy dependence on Russia was a mistake, especially after the 2014 invasion.

> Keeping gas from Russia flowing kept a door open for Putin and prevented escalation.

Big "citation needed" here. As far as I can tell, "keeping gas flowing" (to the extent that it is) is directly paying for the war (notably Russian gas is bought and paid for in Rubles, helping to prop up the Ruble's value)--quite the opposite of "preventing escalation".

Being a European (Dutchman living in Sweden) I have the privilege of speaking from my lived experience (right?) so... It is not as if there were no warning signs, nor warnings. No, this is really the effect of a myopic view on energy production and consumption pushed mostly by the "green" parties, movement and lobby. The main culprit here is Germany with their "green" politicians insisting on closing nuclear power plants as if this were some religious edict but many other European countries as well as the EU are to blame for this lack of insight.

Gas accounts for 15% of Germanies electricity production, it was a consevative government, CDU-led, that implemented the last nuclear exit plans. It is the Greens that kept nuclear plants running until next year. It is the Greens that push for more military aid for Ukraine, it is a Green Minister who is getting gas reservoirs filled up faster than planned. As another commenter pointed out, gas prices are back to pre war levels by now.

Context matters, nothing haooens in a vacuum.

The problem in Germany is not just the reliance on natural gas but the removal of the reliable base load due to policy - nuclear and coal - and now out of necessity - natural gas. Wind and solar can not provide the base load without sufficient storage which, as of yet, is unavailable. This has left Germany without a reliable base load infrastructure and with that dependent on imports plus the remaining base load infrastructure.

When was the last blackout in Germany that was not caused by a natural disaster? I cannot remember any in the last decades. And electricity for industrial customers was historically among the lower ones in Europe, consumer pruces are more expensive due to the way Germany, again implemented by conservative governments, financed the build out of renewables.

And despite all the issues in thr last months, there were no blackouts, gas kept coming in and industry carried on.

That there have been few blackouts in the past - with natural gas aplenty and more nuclear power stations online, fewer electric cars demanding to be charged, fewer data centres which each are good for half the output of a modestly sized power station - does not mean much for the current or direct future situation. Here's the differences, in case I need to spell it out:

- the relative dearth of natural gas does not just affect Germany...

- ...it also affects countries around Germany which use natural gas for power generation...

- ...which means less power is available for export by those countries to Germany...

- ...just at the start of winter which is the season when electrical power demand peaks.

I live in Sweden where blackouts only occurred due to natural disasters, mostly storms taking out local power distribution infrastructure. Things have changed here, both due to the closure of half the nuclear capacity which has now been acknowledged by the CEO of the state-owned backbone power distributor "Svenska Kraftnät" to be the main cause of the problems middle and southern Sweden experiences [1] as well as due to the larger demands placed on export capacity due to the problems in Germany and elsewhere. There are warnings for potential blackouts here as well which hitherto was something unthinkable given the overcapacity Sweden normally has.

[1]https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/svenska-kraftnat-i-varsta-f...

Germany sid cause any electricity issues, those were caused by the fact that for a variety of reasons, France became a net importer this summer. That's gonna change as soon as river carry more and cooler water again and the French nuclear reactors come online again after maintenance.

Europe thought rainbows, friendship, and deeper economic investment would be a more effective deterrent than military might. They doubled down on investing in Russian energy while criticizing the US and NATO for their doctrine of military deterrence.

They thought peace is more stable when both sides are economically intertwined.

And that is also the case. What options would there be against Russia without the possibility of economic sanctions?

War! And not only in Ukraine

> What options would there be against Russia without the possibility of economic sanctions?

Not fueling their imperial fanfiction to begin with. The original mistake was offering them aid after the fall of the USSR without requiring steps towards liberal democracy in exchange.

Ah, of course. Because execting a Morgenthau plan on one of the two major nuclear powers, one that is currently desintegrating, ever was a good idea...

They took steps towards a liberal democracy. Remember Yeltsin?

That led to the rise of oil and gas oligarchs meanwhile the ordinary people suffered. That's why they voted for a "strong" leader: Putin.

There's a difference between trading with Russia and depending so heavily on Russia for the most critical resources. Notably, sanctions work best when ceasing trade harms the sanctioner more than the sanctioned, but the opposite is true with respect to energy--Russia can sell to the rest of the world (apart from those countries who are also sanctioning Russian energy, who can do so due to more energy-independent policies) while Europe can't easily source energy from new suppliers.

> What options would there be against Russia without the possibility of economic sanctions?

Continue to supply arms to Ukraine without an energy crisis?

Russia can't sell as easily as it sells to Europe for the same reasons Europe can't buy from other sources easily. Pipeline availability and capacity.

Russia seems to be selling just fine because it has infrastructure and capacity to send to other regions (though no doubt it's diminished). Europe has relatively few LNG pipelines from other regions (and LNG tankers and other infrastructure is similarly in short supply).

The EU member states used to be in near constant war for centuries, starting two world wars in the process. Economic entanglement was one of the major factors that finally lead to a lasting peace. Applying the same concept to Russia was reasonable.

With another Russian leader it might have worked. But Putin, for whatever reason, chose potential glory over economic prosperity. A move so foreign to European democracies that we refused to see it coming.

>Economic entanglement was one of the major factors that finally lead to a lasting peace.

There couldn't possibly be anything more false. This horse has been beaten to death already and should just be let to die.

European countries had entangled economies and were still going to war with each other. France and Germany were each other's biggest trading partners and that didn't stop them fighting each other in WW1 or WW2.

The reason why we have had peace after WW2 is the implementation of fully fledged democracies with separation of powers in the major European leaderships along with US peacekeeping and the Marshal plan.

Russia was not a democracy anymore after the 1993 coup since the president there could do whatever he wants without the parliament able to stop him and therefore should not have been trusted as a fair trading partner.

I'm not sure why this was downvoted, this is largely the right answer. The US has had troops all over the continent and the USSR was an external, existential threat against which they were united. People weren't worried about their stock portfolio, they were worried about the Soviet Union nuking their cities.

Agree with everything except the last sentence: that the Russian invasion failed so hard is partially due to the support Ukraine got since 2014 and still gets. For me, it was more like preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. Because who wouod have thought anyone would be stupid enough to lanch a major land war, in Europe, against a well prepared country that can easily be supplied by its allies, an invasion that was signaled light years in advance? So yeah, it was a surprise that it actually happened, and it hit a rather well prepared Ukraine.

> Putin, for whatever reason, chose potential glory over economic prosperity.

He stated his reasons. He believes there was a western-backed military coup in 2014. Ukraine failed to implement the Minsk agreements. Ukraine is attempting to join NATO. He believed an assault on the breakaway republics was imminent. He believes Ukraine is harboring literal Nazis, committing crimes against humanity against ethnic Russians.

Those are more or less the stated reasons.

IMO, Ukraine was a vassal state, much like Puerto Rico to the US. Maybe the relationship wasn't so formalized, but Russia viewed Ukraine as theirs one way or another. For some reason, people in the western world operate on some kind of technicality system, as if words on paper make a difference.

> For some reason, people in the western world operate on some kind of technicality system, as if words on paper make a difference.

Yes, we call this "rule of law" and it works really well in the west.

Does it though? [1]

We have pretend rule of law. We pretend the law matters, and we pretend to follow it.

In any case, Putin argues that the war (or in his parlance, SMO) is legal under UN precedent in Yugoslavia, that a breakaway republic may be recognized even if the former nation dissents.

IMO, this whole ordeal could have been avoided, but Western backed Ukraine decided it was better to fight than capitulate to Russia's demands.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War

You are probably well aware but this is exactly the lines being sold by the Kremlin.

Ukraine, as we can see in reality, isn't Russia. Don't identify as Russia and has not been wanting to be part of Moscow-ruled territory for a few decades.

How exactly could this whole ordeal been avoided? Letting Putin continue the dismantling of Ukraine through civil wars and separatist movements?

> How exactly could this whole ordeal been avoided?

Not have a western backed military coup in 2014, for starters?

As I said, Ukraine was essentially a vassal state of Russia. The coup in 2014 meant to overthrow vassal status. This kicked off a civil war.

There's a series of events that lead to the current war which could have been handled differently. But Nationalism won out, people decided that giving autonomy to some regions was unacceptable and worth fighting for.

The Maidan Uprising was neither western-backed nor a military coup. It wasn't even a coup. The _legislature_ may have violated the constitutional process for removing a president, but the courts never ruled as such. It's also not a "civil war" when Russia invades Ukraine, even if there are separatists involved.

> The Maidan Uprising was neither western-backed nor a military coup.

Many people think this, but it's factually incorrect.

Many people think this because it is factually correct. The evidence to the contrary is a clip of a private conversation that Russian intelligence acquired in which one US diplomat opined to another that the uprising might not be a bad thing (or something to that effect).

When John McCain flies out and meets the head of the opposition, who thereafter storm the capital with assault rifles, and the president of the country flees, it sure looks like a western backed coup to me.

A politician visiting a country (even expressing support for a rival politician) doesn't imply backing a coup, and indeed there was no coup--the capital was never occupied (in a military sense) by armed protesters as you claim, the president fled to escape justice (and indeed the supreme court convicted him of treason). Notably, the Yanukovych wasn't pushed out by any military or paramilitary, he was voted out by the (democratically elected) legislature and convicted by the court. That said, I'm sure the protesters were armed, as they were being fired upon by Yanukovych's forces (including snipers trained in Russia) and many protesters were killed. Moreover, McCain was advocating for a peaceful transition of power to stop the violence.

While we're talking about suspicious foreign involvement, let's talk about the $15bn that Putin offered Yanukovych (and which Yanukovych accepted) hours before police were ordered to crack down on protests. Or the documents which showed that Russian officials served as advisers in the crackdown on protesters (operations Wave and Boomerang) including the use of snipers and the planned use of 22,000 security troops in Kyiv alone.

> the capital was never occupied (in a military sense) by armed protesters as you claim

I'm sorry, but this is a basic fact of the events, and you are tragically misinformed. Many people are misinformed, many media outlets played up the 'peaceful protests' angle, but there is no doubt, there was an armed insurrection.

I think this article offers a glimpse of what was being reported at the time [1]. Scores of police captured, 3 killed, 28 shot. This was prior to the presidential palace being captured, that happened once the police flipped sides.

1: https://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/kiev-ukraine-proteste...

> We have pretend rule of law. We pretend the law matters, and we pretend to follow it.

There's no pretense. We mostly do follow the law, and the law very much matters. The Iraq War is the exception that proves the rule.

> IMO, this whole ordeal could have been avoided, but Western backed Ukraine decided it was better to fight than capitulate to Russia's demands.

"WWII could have been avoided, but Allied Europe decided it was better to fight than capitulate to Nazi demands." Obviously nations are going to fight for their sovereignty.

> In any case, Putin argues that the war (or in his parlance, SMO) is legal under UN precedent in Yugoslavia, that a breakaway republic may be recognized even if the former nation dissents.

Anyone can argue that anything is legal, that doesn't make them right. Notably, the UN collectively disagrees with him.

This is the whole point--you can't bank on 'economic entanglement' with a dictatorship because the dictator may or may not care about the economy (beyond its ability to finance his war, anyway). Moreover, Europe continued to increase its economic exposure to Russia while Russia was publicly decreasing its exposure to the west (this has been Russian policy since the west sanctioned Russia for invading and annexing Crimea almost a decade ago). Even if you believe in "economic entanglement" (and I doubt it was as potent as NATO, etc), surely it only works if the dependency is mutual.

US/NATO have military all over Europe, and that hasn't prevented this either. The reason the threat doesn't work is because Ukraine isn't a NATO member.

The US has been pulling troops out of Europe for the last 20 years, and during that time, NATO's policy has been letting Putin walk all over its neighbors. If NATO stood up 8 years ago like they're doing today, then there would never have been a second invasion of Ukraine to begin with.

You mean more expansive gas. So the same people crying now would cry why gas is so expensive and how it hurt the economy and made it less competitive.

Exactly, the dependency on Russia was wanted by large parts of the EU political leadership in order to remain competitive economically.

It’s interesting to see that most people consider Europe was tricked by Russia, when in fact this relationship was both wanted and good for both parties.

Based on who the EU’s energy suppliers are, I can’t seriously consider that the EU cares about democracy or international law so much that it would perform economical self-sabotage. My theory was that the US gave the EU an ultimatum on Russia and it caved.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221005122032/https://www.nytim...

Prior to the end of the cold war, Europe was getting the bulk of it's energy and raw materials from it's colonies or former colonies. Slowly but surely, those colonies gained real independence and Europe had to start paying market prices for energy.

This wasn't too bad for a while, until Asia and much of the 3rd world started to industrialize. This put upward pricing on energy. Europe understood their waning influence, and formed the EU. If you want to do business in Europe, you will be subject to a lofty VAT and other regulatory requirements.

This worked for a while. Since Europe was the destination for goods, industrialized former colonies sold their goods to Europe. As the quality of living has increased world wide, there's now demand for goods elsewhere.

Where does this leave Europe now? They have little energy, little raw materials, little industrial capacity. The rest of the world no longer needs them. If a small nation needs capital, it can get it through BRICs on better terms. China and Russia are trying to get into the aviation market. European engineering services will be replaced by other countries.

Take a picture Europe. It's all downhill from here.

The issue is so called energy market, where electricity LOT price is set to MAX LOT price for all LOTS at that time slot if all lots are bought (peak hours when all generation is consumed). So in peak hours everyone gets max price of gas powerplant, all electricity selers happy (wind gets 4000 EURO/MWh, solar get same, everyone!) and the sucker on the wire end pays the bill/factories go dark. This stock algorithm with high gass price is exploading EU now.

This isn't the case in the UK? You can be billed for peak and off-peak prices if you wish, but if you're billed like this it often costs more because you end up paying more for peak use. Where as the standard price charged as a weighted average of the two.

Just this morning the Future Day Ahead price of Gas was at pre-war levels... we will see how this goes.

Aren't markets are fun thing?

Those of us who were warning about this months ago were called Putin bots. EU needs to get their act together on energy (like wartime economy hair on fire emergency situation) or face serious deindustrialization and decrease in standards of living. Once you deindustrialize, it's hard to get it back (see Detroit and other similar places in the US and UK).

And independent both from Russia and the US with energy.

Isn't that exactly what's happening?

But maybe the EU is facing doom, in which case it wont matter that it turns into a desolate, deindustrialized waste land because I will freeze to death in the dark of a blacked out winter anyway. Or not, only time will tell.

The problem isn't energy but how the price is made.

The Merit-Order system doesn't fit the current situation.

Can you explain a bit more what you mean?

The energy price depends on the price of most expensive sold energy source.

Nuclear energy and wind and PV energy are pretty cheap but electricity from gas is expensive at the moment.

But because of the merit order system all electricity is sold at the price of gas produced energy independent of the real production cost.

So if the price of one needed energy source rises, the prices for all skyrocket, not matter if the expensive one is needed for 1% or 50% of the energy demand. All costs the same of the most expensive one.

Makes sense, thank you for explaining.

(Not really) Surprising number of pro-Kremlin views expressed by accounts that were created in the last few months. Welcome to HN, Internet Research Agency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency)!

There is energy everywhere. There isn’t a lack of energy. Energy shortages are political issues. If you want energy fast then coal plants are cookie cutter and coal is easy to store and ship. If you have more time then nuclear can go anywhere.

Humanity needs more energy, not less. I’m tired of so-called “progressives” who are against the progress of the human species. Go suicide yourselves if that’s what you want but leave me alone, I don’t want to freeze.

you rather die for all the other things that will affect human life in the next years? Do you rather die for pollution, high temperatures, flooding, etc etc?

Highly exaggerated outcomes. But you can ameliorate increased heat, flooding, and pollution. You can’t fix freezing and starving to death. I’ll take the latter over letting humanity wither over some insane concept of “Mother Earth” as if a non-living planet cares or has thoughts and feelings. Earth will be fine - it is a rock. We only care about earth insofar it suits us. I don’t want humanity to die out and I don’t see humans as a cancer. We must thrive and grow and flourish and that requires energy.

Freezing to death versus possibly dying under a environmentalists future doomsday prediction is an easy and obvious choice.

Entire coal related business in Central Europe is in hold in deadlock by virtually mafias. Poland in some corrupted convulsions is attempting to import coal from... Indonesia... by now they've mostly lost money on it.

There might be energy everywhere, but there's not gas in Europe's gas pipelines and it gets really cold here in the winter.

Also, however "cookie cutter" coal power plants are, I doubt they can be spun up in months.

It's like planting a tree - the best time is ten years ago, the second best time is now.

This. I'd love to live in a world where all energy is renewable and non-polluting, but I'd rather get there more slowly without thousands of people freezing to death [1]. And those figures are just for the UK - I'd imagine the figures are worse in less wealthy, colder countries in Eastern Europe.

[1] https://www.nea.org.uk/news/271120-01/

There is enough energy but the price is calculated per Merit-Order.

So if only 1 kW has a high price, all have.

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