President Macron, in Moscow for talks, shows every sign of appeasing President Putin
Russia has always punched well above its weight on the global stage, but rarely more so than today. Despite its vast landmass, Russia doesn't even make it to the world's top ten economies as measured by nominal GDP, and in terms of GDP per capita, it is a lowly 57th, or about the same income per head as Romania.
The German economy alone is two and a half times bigger, and the EU as a whole, more than ten times as large. Essentially we are talking about an economy which is scarcely any bigger than Spain. And yet Putin has got the vastly superior wealth of western nations running around in circles, not knowing how to respond to his threats.
More than 70 years of communist rule is one reason why Russia is so poor, but it’s also because of the grossly disproportionate amounts it spends on the military. As a share of GDP, only Israel and Saudi Arabia spend more, a commitment that puts the nominal value of Russia's military spending on about the same level as the UK.
Yet it is not military might, or even the country's huge remaining nuclear arsenal, that gives Russia its geopolitical clout. Rather, it is its abundant reserves of oil and natural gas, and in particular the stranglehold it enjoys over supply of gas to Europe.
Many column inches have been expended on the failings in energy policy which have brought Britain to today's parlous state of affairs, but they are nothing compared to the idiocies of Europe in making itself so wholly reliant on Russia to keep the factories open, the lights on, and homes warm.
Shamefully, Europe finds itself caught in a vice-like grip over the future of Ukraine and its eastern flank in general. It daren't kick too hard against Vladimir Putin's ambitions for fear he'll cut off the supplies. Similarly, to impose the only sanction likely to work against Putin - to stop buying his oil and gas - is like taking a gun to one's own head. There is not enough gas in storage, or available alternative LNG supply, to see Europe through the winter months if Russian supplies are further curtailed.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, says she has a plan to ease the plight of consumers should energy prices continue to surge as a result of the situation in Ukraine. Other than direct subsidy, which would further hole the EU's already stretched budget, it's hard to know what it might be.
Desperate to wean Europe off its addiction to Russian gas, the US has offered to step into the breach with supplies of LNG, but even if those supplies were readily available in the quantities needed, LNG requires a distributional infrastructure which as things stand is simply not there at the necessary scale.
Putin doesn't hold all the cards; with his 40 percent plus share of the European market, he's as reliant on the revenues it delivers as Europe is on his gas to power its economy. It will take Russia some years to develop the pipelines needed to switch to all too eager Chinese buyers.
It would also be curtains for Nord Stream 2 - a project Putin has invested considerable political capital in - if he even so much as temporarily cut off supplies to Europe. An unreliable supplier is a dead supplier. Whatever the hardships, Europe would double down on efforts to find alternatives. For Russia to cut itself off from its largest market would not be wise.
Germany has warned Russia that Nord Stream 2 will not go ahead if it invades Ukraine
Nonetheless, Putin can see the writing on the wall; Europe's rush to decarbonise threatens eventually to cut him out of the mix in any case. As it is, limiting supply to Europe has already interrupted a decades-long record of steady reductions in emissions, forcing electricity generation back onto heavily polluting coal and oil.
In any case, Putin would be right to think his product has a better long term future in China than it does in Europe, even if tying his fortunes to the Chinese dragon is not an ideal outcome for him either.
Whatever the long term geo-strategic implications of today's energy crisis, the short term outlook looks grim. The EU can attempt to take the sting out of surging prices with subsidies all it likes, but if there is no gas, it won't make a great deal of difference.
Rationing and blackouts become inevitable. Good luck, Ursula, in devising a plan which attempts to divide up the "share and share alike" pain by choosing which factories to close and where. It'll make the row over immigrant quotas seem like a vicar's tea party by comparison.
For the moment, the battle of wills resembles a high stakes game of chicken, with each side hurtling towards each other in a lorry packed with explosives across a single lane bridge. The best hope for Europe is that it manages to string diplomatic efforts out for long enough to see it through the winter surge in demand. But that would only give temporary relief.
Europe has foolishly joined itself at the hip to Russia, and cannot face up to the costs of separation. Small wonder France's Emmanuel Macron shows every sign of transmogrifying into Édouard Daladier, the French head of state who appeased Hitler over the Sudetenland. With an election to win, Macron wants to be seen as the President who saved Europe from war. Small wonder too that Putin feigns admiration for the "realism" of Macron's diplomacy; Putin is winning, and can therefore afford his magnanimity.
But by all means, keep shutting down nuclear power plants, fuckheads.
