From: slider@anashram.com   
      
   Time to wake up and smell the cordite. Like shockwaves from an exploding   
   missile, Vladimir Putin’s war on Europe’s edge is rapidly rolling   
   westwards, blasting its way through the front doors of homes, businesses   
   and workplaces from Berlin to Birmingham. Its fallout seeds a toxic rain   
   of instability, hardship and fear.   
      
   The idea the Ukraine conflict could be confined to Ukraine – Nato’s   
   politically convenient grand delusion – and that western sanctions and   
   arms supplies would stop the Russians was always a nonsense. Now, enraged   
   by Kyiv’s stubborn resistance and hell-bent on punishing his punishers,   
   Putin’s aim is the immiseration of Europe.   
      
   By weaponising energy, food, refugees and information, Russia’s leader   
   spreads the economic and political pain, creating wartime conditions for   
   all. A long, cold, calamity-filled European winter of power shortages and   
   turmoil looms. And like a coin-fed gas meter, the price of western   
   leaders’ timidity and shortsightedness ticks upwards by the hour.   
      
   Russia’s destabilisation operations, social media manipulation,   
   cyber-attacks, diplomatic double-talk, nuclear blackmail, plus its   
   unrelenting slaughter of civilians in Ukraine, will only intensify   
   Europe’s state of siege in the months ahead. The west’s fanciful belief it   
   could avoid continent-wide escalation is evaporating fast.   
      
   Though not entirely due to Putin’s war, Europe now faces fundamental   
   challenges as big or bigger than the 2008 financial crash, Brexit, or the   
   pandemic. Yet many EU and UK politicians skulk in denial. If, as   
   predicted, the gas stops flowing and the lights dim, it will not just be a   
   matter of closed factories, lost jobs, and depressed markets.   
      
   Freezing pensioners, hungry children, empty supermarket shelves,   
   unaffordable cost of living increases, devalued wages, strikes and street   
   protests point to Sri Lanka-style meltdowns. An exaggeration? Not really.   
   Blowback, fanned by the Putin-admiring far right, is already gathering   
   strength in Greece and Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.   
      
   In prospect, too, is a shattering of EU solidarity as national governments   
   compete for scarce resources. Brussels is due to publish a “winter   
   preparedness plan” this week. But its provisions are unclear and   
   unenforceable. The broader context is lack of an agreed, implemented   
   EU-wide energy policy.   
      
   Despite bilateral cooperation pledges, a total Russian cut-off could pit   
   country against country, further inflate prices, and split the anti-Moscow   
   coalition. In such a scenario Putin would demand sanctions relief in   
   return for resumed supplies, just as he has over blockaded Black Sea grain.   
      
   Import-dependent Germany is already taking unilateral steps, seeking   
   alternative oil and gas suppliers. A national emergency moved closer after   
   Moscow turned off the Nord Stream I pipeline last Monday. Many in Berlin   
   fear (and some environmentalists hope) the shutdown – and any subsequent   
   rationing – may become permanent.   
      
   Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice-chancellor, fretted publicly about a   
   “political nightmare”. Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, sounded   
   similarly panicky last week. He predicted an imminent gas cut-off. Waxing   
   Napoleonic, he urged European countries to form up in “order of battle”.   
   But as in 1812, Russia has “General Winter”.   
      
   As if the mounting misery of millions were not daunting enough, then   
   consider, too, the war’s knock-on impact on efforts to combat the climate   
   and biodiversity crises. In the UK and elsewhere, net zero targets appear   
   at increasing risk of being abandoned.   
      
   Because Europe faces “very, very strong conflict and strife” this winter   
   over energy prices, it should make a short-term return to fossil fuels,   
   Frans Timmermans, the European commission’s vice-president, suggested.   
   Once again, Germany is showing a lead, increasing electricity production   
    from coal-fired power stations. Once again, the west looks to tyrannical   
   Gulf oil sheikhs for salvation.   
      
   A European winter of chaos may also strain US ties. By comparison,   
   America’s post-pandemic recovery is more advanced, its economy more   
   resilient, its energy costs much lower. Yet it is US president Joe Biden’s   
   too-cautious leadership of Nato that has led Europe into this geopolitical   
   cul-de-sac, even as a weakening euro slides below one dollar.   
      
   For Europeans, as they are re-learning to their cost, all wars are local.   
   For Americans, as ever, all wars are foreign.   
      
   The sanctions, economic aid, and other non-military measures preferred by   
   Biden were never going to be enough to bring Putin to heel. Some observers   
   suspect a stalemate that slowly bleeds Russia suits US purposes, whatever   
   the collateral damage. Yet right now, it’s Putin who is bleeding Europe.   
   Sanctions are backfiring or poorly enforced. His energy coffers bulge. And   
   Ukrainians aside, the pain is disproportionately felt by less wealthy   
   European and developing countries. As instability grows, US-Europe   
   divergence will feed pressure to change course.   
      
   The obvious escape route is a land-for-peace deal with Putin, agreed over   
   Ukraine’s dead bodies. This kind of shoddy sellout has influential   
   advocates. If (and it’s a big “if”), Russia returned to business as   
   normal, it would alleviate Europe’s suffering – though probably not   
   Ukraine’s.   
      
   Yet such a deal would also be a precedent-setting disaster for future   
   peace and security across the continent and globally, too. Just think   
   Taiwan. Or Estonia. It would destroy the sovereign integrity of democratic   
   Ukraine.   
      
   Fortunately, there is an alternative: using Nato’s overwhelming power to   
   decisively turn the military tide.   
      
   As previously argued here, direct, targeted, forceful western action to   
   repulse Russia’s repulsive horde is not a vote for a third world war. It’s   
   the only feasible way to bring this escalating horror to a swift   
   conclusion while ensuring Putin, and those who might emulate him, do not   
   profit from lawless butchery.   
      
   Intent on inflicting maximum disruption, Putin openly menaces the   
   heartlands of European democracy. The writing is on the wall and may no   
   longer be ignored. Enough of the half-measures and the dithering! Nato   
   should act now to force Putin’s marauding troops back inside Russia’s   
   recognised borders.   
      
   It’s not only Ukraine that requires saving. It’s Europe, too.   
      
   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/17/putin-is-a   
   ready-at-war-with-europe-there-is-only-one-way-to-stop-him   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)