NationStates Jolt Archive

I've read a number of posts that say it is silly to think that the EU is under any threat. That a war in Europe is a thing of the past.

Is that reasonable?

=========================
Anger as Russia digs in over oil

By George Parker, Arkady Ostrovsky, Ed Crooks and Chris Flood
Published: January 9 2007 14:29 | Last updated: January 9 2007 20:28
Vladimir Putin on Tuesday faced an angry European backlash about his decision to halt oil supplies through the pipelines crossing Belarus.

As the Russian president made clear his determination not to back down in his dispute with Belarus, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, denounced his actions as "not acceptable", noting that even during the height of the cold war, Russia had been a reliable energy supplier to Europe.

Ms. Merkel, speaking as the new president of the EU, said Russia’s latest display of energy muscle "hurts trust and it makes it difficult to build a co-operative relationship."
=========================
-- http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0a141ef0-9fec-11db-9059-0000779e2340.html

As long as Russia controls such a large portion of Europe's oil and gas, Russia will have a stranglehold on Europe.

Is it unreasonable to think that a war might break out over this control?

Is it unreasonable to consider a scenario where, say, Germany strikes an independent deal with Russia to acquire its oil needs, at the expense of the rest of Europe? Might, in such a case, the rest of Europe look upon Germany as unfriendly? Perhaps hostilely so?

Maybe it is not so farfetched to think that Europe is not as far from war as it may be thought.

Is it unreasonable to think that a war might break out over this control?

Is it unreasonable to consider a scenario where, say, Germany strikes an independent deal with Russia to acquire its oil needs, at the expense of the rest of Europe? Might, in such a case, the rest of Europe look upon Germany as unfriendly? Perhaps hostilely so?

Yes, and yes.

Is it unreasonable to consider a scenario where, say, Germany strikes an independent deal with Russia to acquire its oil needs, at the expense of the rest of Europe? Might, in such a case, the rest of Europe look upon Germany as unfriendly? Perhaps hostilely so?

Considering that Merkel was criticising Russia, I think Germany was a poor choice for your example.
No, the main source of conflict as I see it is around Greece and Turkey.

Not unreasonable, no. Ridiculous.

Even so, the sooner Europe goes nuclear, the better.

Not unreasonable, no. Ridiculous.

Even so, the sooner Europe goes nuclear, the better.

Huh? You realise that two of the five signatories of the NPT are located in Europe?

Oh, no, I was referring to power. You know, because he was arguing about Russia controlling gas lines.

Probably should have mentioned that, sorry.

Oh, no, I was referring to power. You know, because he was arguing about Russia controlling gas lines.

Probably should have mentioned that, sorry.

Ahhh, I see.

Yes, and yes.

Why and why?

Why and why?

It's so absurd over something like this that it really needs no explanation.

Huh? You realise that two of the five signatories of the NPT are located in Europe?

Isn't virtually every nation in Europe a NPT signatory?

Nah. We Brits have successfully proved to Europe that going to war over oil isn't worth the effort.

it will cause europe to try to become less reliant on russia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6247199.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6247487.stm

Nah. We Brits have successfully proved to Europe that going to war over oil isn't worth the effort.Oh it can be, it just has to executed properly. The Iraqi people neither love nor fear the coalition or Iraqi government. Hence why there's so much trouble in Iraq.

If you're going to kill indiscriminately you might as well do it properly and with purpose. Not like these namby pamby americans who accidently kill civilians. All it means is that these people hate the americans for killing civilians, but don't fear them either as they claim they didn't mean to and it was an accident.

The Mongols on the other hand had a much better experience in keeping the places the conquered under control. They're tactic was that if anyone crossed them they would kill that person, their family, their friends, their coworkers, their neighbours, their worst enemy, their tax collector, their mayor, and everyone else who lived in the same town/city as them. No remorse and no mercy. Pretty much everyone learned to fear the Mongols, or else they learned how to die.

Isn't virtually every nation in Europe a NPT signatory?

Yeah, I word it wrong. I meant that two of the five original nuclear powers, and main signatories of the NPT (France and the UK) are in the EU.

Oh it can be, it just has to executed properly. The Iraqi people neither love nor fear the coalition or Iraqi government. Hence why there's so much trouble in Iraq.

If you're going to kill indiscriminately you might as well do it properly and with purpose. Not like these namby pamby americans who accidently kill civilians. All it means is that these people hate the americans for killing civilians, but don't fear them either as they claim they didn't mean to and it was an accident.

The Mongols on the other hand had a much better experience in keeping the places the conquered under control. They're tactic was that if anyone crossed them they would kill that person, their family, their friends, their coworkers, their neighbours, their worst enemy, their tax collector, their mayor, and everyone else who lived in the same town/city as them. No remorse and no mercy. Pretty much everyone learned to fear the Mongols, or else they learned how to die.
Well, perhaps the way we treat civilians might have become a little more enlightened since Genghis Kahn?

Oh noez not the Russians we’ve only dealt with our village idiot for nearly 720 years!

-we won’t invade nobody fights a land war in Asia
-we won’t need Russian gas and oil
-what would Russia want with causing any trouble in Europe?
-Russian exports are as much good in creating bitches as making Russia one

The Mongols on the other hand had a much better experience in keeping the places the conquered under control

didn’t do a too good job of it did they :p

Well, perhaps the way we treat civilians might have become a little more enlightened since Genghis Kahn?Whatever makes you think that? Most governments will still treat the civilians of other countries apallingly if they think they can get away with it. DU rounds, mines, nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, Zyklon-B, Anthrax, VX gas, napalm, Agent Orange, white phosphorus, and other stuff.

The only thing several centuries has done is to make nations less effcient at what they do best. Exterminate other nations. NB. Note the use of the word nation rather than state or country.

didn’t do a too good job of it did they :pThey did, they just decided they'd proved a point after conquering most Asia, significant parts of Europe, brought down the Chinese Empire and the Persian Empire, and went home for a jolly cup of tea and to bury daddy.

Let's just have a pop at Russia. I'm tired of their shit.

[gun smilie'd!]

Whatever makes you think that? Most governments will still treat the civilians of other countries apallingly if they think they can get away with it. DU rounds, mines, nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, Zyklon-B, Anthrax, VX gas, napalm, Agent Orange, white phosphorus, and other stuff.
I was talking more along more, well, idealistic lines then. And in any case, I don't see any European counties using them, at least on the scale you described, any time soon without public outrage.

The only thing several centuries has done is to make nations less effcient at what they do best. Exterminate other nations. NB. Note the use of the word nation rather than state or country.
Then hopefully we won't try and do it so often.

Well i think the worst thing that will happen is it would damage trade relations from and to Russia.. But think think Germany will strike a secret deal with Russia will just be stupid, because The economy between all the EU countries is so intertwined that it would damage Germany more than it will help it. Besides Angela Merkel is a smart leader (she has done a pretty good job getting Germany's economy up again) so she wont do that for sure..

The most properly result of this, is it will speed EUs plan for completely self-reliance of energy forms (cant think when it was made but it think it was 2 years ago)...

They did, they just decided they'd proved a point after conquering most Asia, significant parts of Europe, brought down the Chinese Empire and the Persian Empire, and went home for a jolly cup of tea and to bury daddy.

pffft 33 million km²

Amateurs I say!

pffft 33 million km²

Amateurs I say!Nah, the mongols thought the world were the amateurs. They started over on a harder difficulty level. It was either Deity or Emperor, I can't quite remember.

But think think Germany Germany will strike a secret deal with Russia...

Whoa, you've got a bit an echo there... *taps mic*

It's so absurd over something like this that it really needs no explanation.

So, it's absurd to think that a war can start over the control of resources? Very important resources? That's how the US got into World War II, because Japan didn't like how the US controled Japan's access to resources.

Germany started her end of World War II for similar reasons. Lebensraum and to gain resources that were scarce in Germany. Toss some revenge in there, too. Revenge seems pretty absurd as a cause for war, but it's a cause.

Wars in the past have started for far less. How is it absurd that one might start over Russia's oil policies?

Since when has absurdity prevented war?

Well, perhaps the way we treat civilians might have become a little more enlightened since Genghis Kahn?

Not in Dresden or Tokyo.

Well i think the worst thing that will happen is it would damage trade relations from and to Russia.. But think think Germany will strike a secret deal with Russia will just be stupid, because The economy between all the EU countries is so intertwined that it would damage Germany more than it will help it. Besides Angela Merkel is a smart leader (she has done a pretty good job getting Germany's economy up again) so she wont do that for sure..

Germany was just an example and chosen because they did it twice last century.

Don't like them? Fine, stick in Lichtenstein. Sweden. France. Sealand. X.

every place on the planet is under threat from the slightest resistence to filling america's economic interest's pockets. europe is no exception. and it saddens and angers me seeing what europe and asia are both loosing and have lost as a resault. primarily in terms of diversity, both culturaly and tecnologicly.

this will not last forever. america may be screwing its own economy trying to become, or defacto remain, world dictator.

someday it will be forced to retire from the empire bussiness, lick its well earned wounds, and settle down to the mellowness of once and former empires as vertualy every nation in western europe has had the experience of going through and doing, even great britan.

someday. but who knows when that day will be. today its policies may be hastening that day. such as those it is currently engauged in certainly did so for each of those former powers mentioned.

but diverse is the nature of nature and such things move statisticly rather then linearly. so who's to say how or when?

but the biggest threat to anyplace these days isn't militarily other then from the u.s. and that is one that has proven "futile", to "resist", at least overtly, unless there are really good barganing chips involved that can't be simply moved in and taken. again, at least for the time being.

europe's hole card is its intangables, which everyone, even the u.s., understands would simply perish and evaporate in all but name, were the u.s. to attempt directly to do so. this is what has saved and protected europe from america's more direct sort of aggression.

but look arround. you've still got more trains then we have. but look what's already happend to the per capita level of abundance of public transport you once had. this is the most obvious outword sign of what i'm talking about.

=^^=
.../\...

every place on the planet is under threat from the slightest resistence to filling america's economic interest's pockets. europe is no exception.

:confused:

Last I checked, Russia wasn't cutting off the US' oil supply.

So, what's the relevance?

but look arround. you've still got more trains then we have.

Ah - OK...

but look what's already happend to the per capita level of abundance of public transport you once had.

I haven't a clue what the US' "per capita level of abundance of public transport" is, nor do I care.

I could only see something like this being a problem if the world hadn't bothered to fully or even partially convert enough of their energy infrastructure over to alternative energy by the time dwindling oil supplies make control of this magnitude highly significant. That is, if oil supplies are low enough that any control is worth fighting over.

I don't know if Europe will be having that problem, though. The United States, Russia, China, and India perhaps, but possibly not Europe.

It's unlikely and certainly undersirable, although it's not outside of the realm of belief. Knowing how closely linked the states of Europe were prior to 1914, it would take naught more than a simple, initially harmless seeming, chain reaction to set them down that road once again.

:confused:

Last I checked, Russia wasn't cutting off the US' oil supply.

So, what's the relevance?

what is the "relevance" of "russia" to the title of this thread?

or to any concept of a "threat" to "europe"?

(or much of anyplace else, other then some of it's own former "republics")

=^^=
.../\...

what is the "relevance" of "russia" to the title of this thread?

Did you read the first post in this thread?

It is Russia that is cutting of oil to Europe.

or to any concept of a "threat" to "europe"?

They are using oil resources as a threat.

(or much of anyplace else, other then some of it's own former "republics")

Last I heard, Germany wasn't one of their former republics. Maybe the Eastern half, but not the West.

isn't anyone, the u.s. included, who feels "threatened" by not being 'given'/allowed to purchase, whatever, what belongs to someone else, comes from someone else, from under someone else's own house so to speak, being just a little tiney bit deshonest with themselves?

an honest and decent person would see this as all the more incentive to develop and impliment real alternatives.

russia doesn't OWE europe its oil. nor does iraq and iran OWE the u.s. or anybody else their's. nor does any other resource nation owe any dominent power its own fortunate resources, whatever they may happen to be.

=^^=
.../\...

I could only see something like this being a problem if the world hadn't bothered to fully or even partially convert enough of their energy infrastructure over to alternative energy by the time dwindling oil supplies make control of this magnitude highly significant. That is, if oil supplies are low enough that any control is worth fighting over.

I don't know if Europe will be having that problem, though. The United States, Russia, China, and India perhaps, but possibly not Europe.

sounds like the setting for fallout and the sequel fallout 2

So, it's absurd to think that a war can start over the control of resources? Very important resources? That's how the US got into World War II, because Japan didn't like how the US controled Japan's access to resources.

Germany started her end of World War II for similar reasons. Lebensraum and to gain resources that were scarce in Germany. Toss some revenge in there, too. Revenge seems pretty absurd as a cause for war, but it's a cause.

Wars in the past have started for far less. How is it absurd that one might start over Russia's oil policies?

Since when has absurdity prevented war?

In case you hadn't noticed, the dispute itself was not between Russia and Germany, but Russia and Belarus. And it ended this morning.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6248251.stm

Care to point out where exactly the threat lies?

So, it's absurd to think that a war can start over the control of resources?

In this case, very much so. Not just absurd, but bonkers really.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6248251.stm

See?