Russian attack on Ukraine - 23 [8] Russia’s attack on Ukraine | Peak oil blog

Russian attack on Ukraine - 23

[8] Russia’s attack on Ukraine seems to have been made for many reasons.
Russia was clearly frustrated with the current situation, with NATO becoming increasingly assertive within Ukraine itself, even though Ukraine is not itself a NATO member. Russia is also aware that in some sense, it has far more power over the world economy than most people realize because the world economy is utterly dependent on Russia’s fossil fuel exports . Sanctions against Russia will likely hurt the countries making the sanctions as much or more than they hurt Russia.

There were also several concerns that were specifically Ukrainian giving rise to the attack on Ukraine. There had been long standing conflicts about natural gas pipelines. Was Ukraine taking too much natural gas out as a transit fee? Was it paying the correct fee for the natural gas it used? Ukraine also seems to have mistreated quite a few Russian-speaking Ukrainians over the years.

Russia has become increasingly frustrated with the small share of the world’s output of goods and services that it receives. The way the economic system works today, those who provide “services” seem to receive a disproportionate share of the world’s output of goods and services. Russia, with its extraction of minerals of many kinds, including fossil fuels, has not been well compensated for the great wealth that it brings to the world as a whole.

Over the years, Russia’s great strength has been its military. Perhaps Ukraine would not be too large a country to do battle over. Russia might be able to eliminate some of its irritations with Ukraine. At the same time, it might be able to make changes that would help to raise what have become chronically low fossil fuel prices. The sanctions that other countries would make would tend to push the required changes along more quickly.

If the sanctions really did push Russia down, the result would tend to push the whole world economy toward collapse, because the rest of the world is extremely dependent upon Russia’s fossil fuel exports. In Figure 1, the laws of physics say that there is a proportional response to the quantity of energy “dissipated”; if a greater output of goods and services is desired, more energy input is required. Efficiency changes can somewhat help, but efficiency savings tend to be offset by the higher energetic needs of the more complex system required to achieve these savings.

If energy prices do not rise high enough, we will somehow need to get along with very little or no fossil fuels. It is doubtful that renewables will last very long either because they depend upon fossil fuels for their maintenance and repair.