The West faces hard choices
Back on January 24, K.T McFarland, Donald Trump’s former security advisor, was a lone voice saying that Russia would invade Ukraine—and the ultimate beneficiary of such a war would be China. With a weak, unpopular president and a faltering economy, America is in a three-way squeeze with Russia fighting Ukraine, Iranians threatening to attack and China, seizing the moment, flew 39 war ‘planes close to Taiwan before the Russia invasion began.
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War or releasing fresh fossil fuels?
It is a view echoed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, who quoted Trump saying: “you can’t let a man with nuclear weapons dictate. We have an army too. If we let Putin get away with taking Ukraine, China will seize Taiwan. If there is a chemical weapon attack on Ukraine, we must implement a no-fly zone. If Russia deploys a nuclear weapon, the radiation will move to Europe and that becomes an attack on NATO.”
Turn the energy industry back on
Earlier this month K.T. McFarland told Fox News there are only two ways to stop Putin: militarily by defeating him on the battlefield and economically by reducing his income to the point where he can’t afford to keep fighting. Because fossil fuels fund Putin, it is vital that America’s energy industry is turned back on.
The West is caught in a dilemma. Everyone wants Ukraine to prevail, but at no significant cost or risk to themselves. Understandably no NATO member, including the U.S., wants their own forces to join the fight, and risk setting off another world war.
In the coming days and weeks President Biden and other western leaders must make a choice. Will they give Ukraine the weapons it needs to defend itself? Even so, Ukraine might not prevail, but at least they would have a fighting chance.
And is Biden willing to pause his sacred war on fossil fuels and let American energy companies ramp up production and increase exports? If so, he could help Europe wean itself off Russian energy, bring down the price of oil and gas and so doing with this double whammy deprive Russia of windfall profits.
Paying Putin $1,000,000,000 daily
Russia takes in more than a billion dollars every day from natural gas and oil exports. European nations are projected to pay Russia nearly half a trillion dollars in 2022 to buy Russian energy. They are literally funding Putin’s war machine. If Biden paused his war on fossil fuels to allow American natural gas production and exports to Europe, Putin’s revenues would plummet.
If President Biden neither halts the sale of fossil fuels to Europe by freeing up the American oil and gas industries, nor succeeds in persuading the Senate to fund arms to Ukraine, the harsh reality is Putin is likely to destroy Ukraine. And, in a few years’ time, when the Russian bear is hungry again, he will be back for more. Meanwhile China, equally hungry, is eyeing Taiwan.
Is your view of the future as clear as K.T. McFarland’s? If not, can we help you to see your business’s future direction more clearly with Forecast 5’s budgeting and forecasting program?
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