Russia - USA Relations

The USA / NATO want to talk about a security guarantee for Russia.  The talks are scheduled to start in January.  As I said before, their guarantees are worth nothing.  The only guarantee for Russia is modern weapons and technological advantage over the West in military technology.  Russia, with its current defense spending, is developing its troops very well.  In addition, it makes technological breakthroughs in many areas. Plus an alliance with China. They don't need US guarantees worth toilet paper.

GarryB wrote:We as mere mortals think the invasion of Iraq was a stupid mistake... billions wasted, thousands of Americans killed likely hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed... but lots of money to be made first destroying and then rebuilding the country and that is what it is all about.

ALAMO wrote:They whine NS2, while buying Russian oil as fast as they can.
It is jus a business. If you can nail your competitor - why not?

I think these versions are a little naive

It's always been about the 'Grand Chessboard'.

And so was surrounding Russia and trying to contain it's freedom of maneuver. Russia is a competitor alright - but in everything, and the US goal was always to bring it to heel. Business, etc... can be sacrificed. EU economies too. As long as it weakens Moscow more or ultimately defeats it. You can't make an omelette, without breaking a few eggs.

They whine NS2, while buying Russian oil as fast as they can.
It is jus a business. If you can nail your competitor - why not?

The irony is that the competitor in this case is the EU, because it is the EU that is looking at $2K per gas unit... Russia is making very good money out of this BS.

In addition, it makes technological breakthroughs in many areas. Plus an alliance with China. They don't need US guarantees worth toilet paper.

Getting it in writing means leverage... of course they will still weasel out of it if they think they need to, but it is something they can hold up and demand compliance with until they withdraw.

The ABM treaty was useful, as was the INF treaty and the START treaties, but America didn't want to be restricted but in most cases it was Russia that was really restricted.... the INF treaty especially because it meant cheaper lighter IR and MR ballistic and cruise missiles could not be developed so Russia had to use ICBMs and SLBMs and ALCMs for targets in Europe and the Middle East and the Pacific... with the INF treaty gone they can free up their ICBMs for targets in the US and use smaller cheaper lighter easier to hide missiles against Europe and the ME and Pacific/Asia region.

You can't make an omelette, without breaking a few eggs.

That is the problem though... the west are not chiefs... they are anarchists... they don't take the eggshells off and drop the contents into a pan... they throw the eggs against the wall and watches for the results... if it creates a weak government they can control then they are happy,  if not fund and support the enemy till they get into power and try to control them... during the cold war allies were built up despite being under total control... Germans and Japanese probably didn't care that Washington was in control because there was work and their economy was great and they were making stuff and moving forward.

For Syria or Libya or Iraq or Afghanistan... the rebuild was a lie... Halliburton made billions rebuilding stuff but don't check their work because you will be disappointed in terms of value for money.... in the end in Syria they didn't spend any money on infrastructure... just bombs an bullets and how much oil can they steal to make a profit...

Everyone complains about Donald Trump but all US presidents have been like that... but he was the only honest one in terms of being open about being a bastard to allies and enemies alike.

The Facade has slipped and people bypassing the propaganda machine of the western media are finding out the truth which is very different from what the US and UK media have been showing us or want us to see... despite saying they show every angle... every angle but the truth...

The wheels are falling off and they don't know how to fix it... printing more money and giving rich people tax breaks is not working... it never did.

As the situation degrades in the west, it will get more hysterical and we
may well see a nuclear war. The sanctimonious west will not go away like the USSR.

The closer to the nuclear button the cooler and more sensible the heads tend to be and we will be relying on that for a non nuclear future.

People are mixing the things out there.
In the case of Poland, there is a contract signed till the end of 2022, so in reality, the prices for gas should be stable.
But those are not, because of different factors.
I have no idea how does your gas or electricity bill looks like outside the EU, but here we have regulations dividing the gas/energy supplier from the infrastructure, that must be operated by a separate and independent entity.
In real terms, that means that you can buy the G/E from a different supplier, and it will be delivered to you via the grid owned, operated&paid by some other company.
That makes your bill made of several different cost factors, only one of them being the G/E itself. The others are distribution charges, subscription fees, cost applied to the line operations etc. For gas, the rate is 30:70, while for electricity close to 50:50.
If the electricity hikes 20%, that will make about 10% of the overall cost increase.
Still, most of the countries in the EU operate long term contracts, because these maniac "spot transactions" are something that they took out of the arses not a long time ago, while having contracts in being. What they have not predicted, was a very warm Summer, that hyped the electricity consumption due to AC, low winds that paralyzed the wind turbines producing about 17% of EU needs on average, while Denmark for example made about half of it's energy there.
This combo made the gas storage used for additional power production at gas powered power plants, pumping up both the consumption and CO2 emission, and that was no enough. So the coal was put on the table again.
And here is where Gazprom appears on the scene, saying : sure, we can sell more gas to you, but on our terms, not yours. We will not pump more gas via Ukraine, we have brand nes NS2 ready, so happy to start it up.
No? OK, that is fine, you can buy additional volume at spot market you advocated so much for.
No? Well, so you can make your precious Ukrainian comrades fart into the existing grid, maybe that will help. A cabbage makes good farting.

The other part of the story is the transit fees. There is no deal between the Polish grid operator and the Gazprom, it ceased back in 2020.
Poland never tried to renew it, due to political reasons mostly.

And here is where Gazprom appears on the scene, saying : sure, we can sell more gas to you, but on our terms, not yours. We will not pump more gas via Ukraine, we have brand nes NS2 ready, so happy to start it up.

They just built a new pipeline direct to Germany that bypasses a lot of extra countries that would normally draw transit fees for gas transfer through the pipes on their territory... they are not actually doing anything to collect those fees like maintaining their pipes or anything... they seem to be putting most of their energy into sabotaging NSII and shit talking Russia.

They have pumped all the gas they were contracted to pump... if the customers want any more gas or they want to top up their own storage facilities in Europe then it does not make sense to send it through hostile countries when a brand spanking new pipeline exists... they are in no hurry to top up their storage... they are obligated to make sure Russian customers needs are met first... they can wait till May or whenever to top up their storage tanks in Europe.

The only value for Gazprom for the extra capacity in storage tanks is if they get a big order and don't have the pipe capacity to deliver it, they can tap into their storage reserves, but if the EU wants to play stupid games and stop them pumping gas through the new pipes and also demanding extra gas be sent without actually ordering or paying for anything then Gazprom can simple smile and ignore them.

If the EU wants Russia to send gas through Ukrainian pipes then order some gas... but the spot price is very high and of course the countries on the route will get a good slice too... making it even more expensive....

BTW where I live in New Zealand there is no gas network, most houses are on the electricity grid, but those that use gas for cooking or heating or water heating often get rather large gas bottles... like the big gas bottles used for gas wielding... normally two of them.

The only time I buy gas is little 9kg bottles used for barbecues or gas heaters.

They are about $25 to fill.

They have small trucks that deliver the big gas bottles, but not a huge number of people have gas like that...

I must say it is certainly more efficient for hot water supplies than electricity, but most of the other things I use power for electricity makes more sense.

Note for the AC excess electricity use during Summer... wouldn't that be the ideal situation for Solar panel power?

GarryB wrote:BTW where I live in New Zealand there is no gas network, most houses are on the electricity grid, but those that use gas for cooking or heating or water heating often get rather large gas bottles... like the big gas bottles used for gas wielding... normally two of them.

The only time I buy gas is little 9kg bottles used for barbecues or gas heaters.

They are about $25 to fill.

They have small trucks that deliver the big gas bottles, but not a huge number of people have gas like that...

I must say it is certainly more efficient for hot water supplies than electricity, but most of the other things I use power for electricity makes more sense.

Note for the AC excess electricity use during Summer... wouldn't that be the ideal situation for Solar panel power?

Same in Russia in some of the out of the way villages

In the Soviet-era the statistics for 'gasification' included not only those settlements that had a gas pipe running to them, but also those that had regular deliveries of gas canisters organized. Actual gas pipeline construction for running gas from the network was only a priority for cities.

In terms of pipes, the gasification level of Russian villages and rural population centres was as little as 15% or so in 1991. Nowadays its higher, 65%, and with a lot more gas pipes having being built to small towns and villages. One of the lesser known success stories of the past few decades.

It's naturally far more a priority for Russia's frigid climate than for a country like New Zealand.

These gas bottles Garry mentioned, have a standard weight of 11kg in Poland for example.
And just the same way, it is an alternate grid of distribution. You buy the tank once, and later just replace the empty one for full, paying the net value of gas contained.
As I use it for bbq only, a bottle lasts a season - April-October, and the last one I bought was $15.
For heating purposes, where there is no natural gas connection, operators of LNG are locating big storage tanks at your parcel. Those are automated, so communicate with the operator, and it is their duty to fill it with gas. The end user's job is to pay the bill.
I find it close to impossible to connect all Russian rural villages to the grid, as it makes no economic sense.
But there are some funny parts as well, saw a material where the people who live just outside the Gazprom facility at Yamal were saying, that they are not connected to the gas system
They addressed that to Putin at the last annual Q&A session, leaving him literally speechless for a few seconds

ALAMO wrote:These gas bottles Garry mentioned, have a standard weight of 11kg in Poland for example.
And just the same way, it is an alternate grid of distribution. You buy the tank once, and later just replace the empty one for full, paying the net value of gas contained.
As I use it for bbq only, a bottle lasts a season - April-October, and the last one I bought was $15.
For heating purposes, where there is no natural gas connection, operators of LNG are locating big storage tanks at your parcel. Those are automated, so communicate with the operator, and it is their duty to fill it with gas. The end user's job is to pay the bill.
I find it close to impossible to connect all Russian rural villages to the grid, as it makes no economic sense.
But there are some funny parts as well, saw a material where the people who live just outside the Gazprom facility at Yamal were saying, that they are not connected to the gas system  
They addressed that to Putin at the last annual Q&A session, leaving him literally speechless for a few seconds    

Dunno if these guys were ever connected either in the end

It's naturally far more a priority for Russia's frigid climate than for a country like New Zealand.

The electrical grid is pretty much complete and total because a lot of the electricity generation is in the south of the south island... if it was in the far north they probably would not bother, but because the hydro electric dams were down here every town has electricity.

It does not really get very cold here and most houses have some sort of wood burner or open fire for heating when it gets cold so electricity was mostly for lighting and cooking and TV etc. These days heatpumps are rather more popular and open fires are banned in some regions to deal with air pollution.

I remember in the 1970s there were fuel shortages and a lot of petrol driven cars were converted to LPG... but retained their petrol tanks so they could run on either petrol or LPG with the flick of a switch.

We had car less days... at a time when most families had one car you got a sticker to show which days of the week you could drive...

Regarding the future I don't think any company or the government would go to the expense of putting in gas pipes even for major cities because the demand for gas is simply not there.

Perhaps if a hydrogen fuel technology is developed that can separate the carbon in hydrocarbons as a solid without combustion then petrol and diesel and kerosene would be useful ways of carrying and distributing hydrogen so the existing fuel stations and trucking and shipping of fuel might continue as normal...

But there are some funny parts as well, saw a material where the people who live just outside the Gazprom facility at Yamal were saying, that they are not connected to the gas system Laughing
They addressed that to Putin at the last annual Q&A session, leaving him literally speechless for a few seconds

That sort of thing is normal though isn't it?

We pay more for the milk and meat and fruit and food our farmers produce than someone in London or the EU pays and they send the best stuff overseas, so we pay more for lower quality products.

The US / NATO vs Russia talks on security guarantees will begin on January 12.  In my opinion, this is a complete waste of time for Russia.
Even if the US agrees something, they will not obey the agreement anyway.

Arrow wrote:The US / NATO vs Russia talks on security guarantees will begin on January 12.  In my opinion, this is a complete waste of time for Russia.
Even if the US agrees something, they will not obey the agreement anyway.

The Russians are saying that the word of the US regime is worth less than zero themselves, but this is the way of the diplomacy, and as said it covers Russia from the kind of smear they will be receiving when they take the measures they are most probably going to take. It is now in their interest to call out the Western military bluff, so despite their prudence I think they are going to act much bolder from now onwards.

They wont expect the west to keep its word, but once they have their word in writing then they can justify responses... putin even mentioned it...

He said everyone has red lines so if you cross ours then you have no right to complain when we respond and our responses might cross your red lines... so for instance if the US forces the Ukraine into HATO then Russia might start selling Su-57s to Iran and North Korea and might start placing nuclear weapons on the border of the Ukraine with warheads targeted and ready to launch on a moments notice... they might send Zircon missiles with nuclear warheads to Cuba... there are a variety of things they could choose to do...

That is the Cold War all over again. Except Russia this time has less resources and people.
Been there done that. Russia needs to treat Ukraine like the US treated Mexico in its history.
If there is trouble in the borders, you do a punitive expedition and annex easy pickings.

But better technologies and weapons, a strong economy. The West, on the other hand, is bankrupt.

Arrow wrote:But better technologies and weapons, a strong economy.  The West, on the other hand, is bankrupt.

Except the Soviet Union also had better technologies and weapons in the late 1950s. The US isolated them and eventually they stagnated.

US established an unipolar international order after the WWII based on nuclear weapons and an economy which was 50% of the world's one after the destruction of its rivals. Now things do not even remotely resemble that, the forces of history cannot be stopped.

BTW, talks Russia-US scheduled for the 10th of January in Geneva:

https://tass.com/politics/1381725