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> The coming collapse of the German industrial system as it is starved of cheap natural gas that formed the basis of its chemical and energy inputs

Citation needed? This is online news drama, other than BASF itself and the Aluminium industry please clarify what part of German Industry is so energy intensive that it would _collapse_ with constraint Energy production?

When you look at actual numbers instead of glib sound bites, the argument starts to fall apart pretty quickly:

In 2019, gas imports via pipeline cost Germany $30 billion, representing only 0.75% of its GDP, and the overall value of the country’s gas consumption was below 2% of GDP.

[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/german-economy-...]

I follow Peter Zeihan’s work quite closely too

You should balance it out with some Ian Bremmer, there’s plenty he says that is true but that doesn’t mean that the situation will unfold quite dramatically as he portends.

> cheap natural gas that formed the basis of its ... energy inputs

This makes it sound like gas plays a huge role in German energy production when in reality it has been hovering between 10% and 15% since the late 90's

Hydrocarbons are used in tons of chemical processes, not only to produce energy - in this sense they are not replacable.

You skipped the word chemical... I had a hunch I should have spent 10 more minutes in edit...

Chemical inputs from natural gas are the most important of those two, BASF is essentially pulling up stakes in Europe and hoping they survive the move to the US.

https://www.ft.com/content/f6d2fe70-16fb-4d81-a26a-3afb93e0b...

Hah, I expected to find a Zeihan-inspired reply close to the top and was not disappointed :)

While the German industrial system may well be at risk of collapse, what you've proposed is completely impossible.

ASMLs technology is Dutch and German technology and it will never move anything to the US. It won't desired and it won't be allowed. Especially since the US has had part in causing these gas problems. Why would a Dutchman at ASML want to move to America, which is so culturally different and which has its own ruling class with which he has little connection?

Furthermore, this is actual high-tech stuff, not industry, and it won't be affected by high electricity or gas prices.

I am pretty sure a grateful Ukraine is gonna hook us up with neon

Either Russia takes over, and then there's going to be a price hike for having been anti-Russian. Or Ukraine somehow survives, and then they have to rebuild ... leading to a price hike.

They may be grateful, but they will also make us pay through the nose.

It might be opening a can of worms but how do you see Russia pulling off a victory after the abject failure so far. They are burning through assets trained and built over years. There is absolutely no reason to believe that their position or resources should improve over time. As it stands their logistics are a laughingstock incapable of effectively bringing a few few hundred thousand people effectively to bear on Ukraine. There is absolutely no reason to believe its up to bringing a larger force to bear. How do you see them possibly winning?

I was hoping part of the rebuilding would be simply seizing every penny of Russian assets currently frozen and giving them to Ukraine.

Russian Forces have been hours from collapse ... for the last six months. Any day now. Eventually Ukraine will run out of Western goodwill and local manpower. If you are victorious until the last man and the last bullet, you still lose.

> I was hoping part of the rebuilding would be simply seizing every penny of Russian assets currently frozen and giving them to Ukraine.

That is not going to happen because it sets a dangerous precedent against other countries who do something like the Russians do now every five to ten years.

>Russian Forces have been hours from collapse ... for the last six months. Any day now.

That's a strawman, nobody has said Russian Forces are on the brink of collapse, at most its been said that if russia continues the way it does, they won't be able to win the attrition war which will make the army collapse.

>Eventually Ukraine will run out of Western goodwill and local manpower. If you are victorious until the last man and the last bullet, you still lose.

The west will fold, while having had 20 years of investment in a failed state like Afghanistan?

It also completely ignores the monumental toll the war is having on Russia, the economic and political upheavals resulting from the war, and the political and social consequences of mobilization.

Pretending like Russia is coping with this war fine flies in the face of reality.

If you think Russia is doing okay then why did they even start mobilisation at all?, surely the hasty mobilisation is a sign that the war is not going the way that they expect.

The tanks that they are sending don't even use the same ammo, nor the same amount of tankers that the rest of the tanks that Russia uses. Thinks have to be going truely poorly for them to breaking them out.

This is a lot of bad logic compressed into little text. We open with someone unnamed somewhere said foo, !foo ergo bar. This doesn't follow at all. They have given it there all under ideal conditions the best they could do was insufficient and no matter how many people they in theory induct it just goes downhill from here because scaling up their war machine meaningfully will take years they don't have. Giving twice as many people little pieces of paper declaring them combatants doesn't scale your war machine. Training them extensively while expanding the logistics underlying their ability to fight does.

Nobody ought to think Russia will collapse in days but likewise nobody ought to look at present circumstances and believe that they can do this for several more years either.

Meanwhile there is no reason to believe the pittance that is being given isn't sustainable for years. In fact its basically paying to wreck your enemy for pennies on the dollar. It's a fantastic deal and we can basically afford it forever.

The people that would be setting the precedent don't do things like invade each others territories any longer. Its a standard they not only can afford to set its one that would benefit them.

Please support your position that western support or Ukrainian manpower are anywhere near the end of their rope.

I think you are interpreting a lot into very few words.

What I said is that

a) We will have to pay more for neon gas regardless of who wins the conflict.

b) Regardless of our Western propaganda, Russia is far from being defeated and has a good chance of perpetuating the conflict to a point when the West loses interest. This - an underdog starting a war against another country, which was supported by Western money (and eventually troops which - after expensive losses - folded) - has happened before, see Vietnam or Afghanistan.

> Please support your position that western support or Ukrainian manpower are anywhere near the end of their rope.

Don't just look at the situation in the overly-enthusiastic US, and ex-Warsaw-Pact member states. "Old Europe" currently experiences skyrocketing energy costs (in part created by now buying gas from the Americans, which make us pay significantly more than Russia ever did) while at the same time preparing for the coldest winter in years.

When public opinion turns, democracies adapt, which may mean less support for a war we have no part in and which hurts us by association. Democracies which do not eventually bow to public opinion fail and become authoritarian, either by trying to protect themselves from the populus, or by the populus overthrowing the system and replacing it with a strongman.

We've had our economic crash in the 2000s, we had our pandemic in the 2020s, we are experiencing the first stages of a war which we still may become an active part/battefield in. We all know what came after that the last time. No-one needs that.

Fun fact: In Germany, we had a massive police action against a right-wing quasi-monarchist group trying to overthrow the government only last week, with several arrests, many of whom were former special forces and ex-generals. Of course, that only means the next group will be harder to detect.

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes ... and right now, it rhymes a bit too perfectly for my tastes.

    "Ingas is based in Marioupol. Its production site, linked to the Azovstal factory, was requisitioned in March 2022 by Russian forces. Cryoin is in Odessa, a city also under pressure. Even if the official communication from Intel and TSMC is reassuring, other information evokes a very problematic situation, especially at TSMC, which would be in a situation to slow down its production."[1]

[1] https://en.overclocking.com/we-talk-again-about-neon-gas-and...