Sure they are reluctant now, but if Russia does something silly, then the reluctance for sanctions will be gone. Russia is also dependent on someone buying their gas.
I think he was being sarcastic.
What?
Germany certainly seems reluctant. The decision to divest from nuclear power so precipitously looks worse and worse. The EU as a whole has made a massive blunder in making themselves so vulnerable to Russian energy.
Our governments and those who control them may want to thread carefully because the culmination of the ongoing dispute and various other policies will affect the availability and price of food. For instance a client state of Russia, Belarus produces 20% of the worlds potash. The big 4 nutrients for plant growth are nitrogen, potassium, phosphate, magnesium all used in general fertiliser.
August 17, 2020
JSC Belaruskali controls up to 20% of the global supply in potash, meaning any extended strike action or disruption at the company could impact prices of a commodity widely used by farmers to help plants grow. The state-owned mining company is also a pillar of Belarus’s economy and a major source of taxes and foreign currency, making it important for Mr. Lukashenko.
So far there seem to be loopholes in the sanctions that have dented the impact but not the prices which are up
October 19 2021
January 10, 2022
Lithuanian companies continue to ship Belarusian potash products, a key ingredient in fertilizer, through its rail network and port of Klaipeda to markets in the EU and elsewhere, despite the Belarusian state-run potash giant, Belaruskali, being sanctioned. The continuing trade with the Lukashenka regime has sparked a scandal in Lithuania, with even calls for the government to step down.
Lithuania is not alone. Fresh data shows that trade between the EU and Belarus almost doubled in 2021, triggering some to question whether Western sanctions are strong enough, including the exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who says Lukashenka has exploited "loopholes" to circumvent them.
<snip>
However, at least one economist has questioned the degree to which trade between the Baltic nations and Belarus has increased, chalking up the higher numbers to a rise in commodity prices.
"Knowing what is imported from Belarus in general, they are mainly goods whose prices have risen very, very rapidly during 2021. They are timber, fertilizer, and fuels. Even if, in terms of physical volume, imports remained unchanged, the amounts could indeed be much higher last year, in terms of money," Peteris Strautiņs, an economist at the Luminor Latvija bank, said in comments to Latvian public radio on January 5.
Now look at the issue of nitrogen availability and supply, since the current disruption to fertilizer production and pricing is one hundred per cent policy driven, the past decadal move to random energy has increased the demand for natural gas and it is a key ingredient in fertiliser production during the Haber process.
January 19, 2022
“We have set out objectives in terms of reducing nitrogen usage overall by 20% - it may have to be reduced further.
“This will be done by reducing fertiliser usage, changing fertiliser type, etc. Those will all contribute to that.
“If we were to take a pro-rata expectation, we would have to be delivering something close to two megatonnes in the first budgetary period to contribute to the overall economy-wide commitment of 51%.”
The Climate Action Plan 2021 outlines that chemical nitrogen use on Irish farms must be reduced to a target level of 350,000 tonnes by 2025, with a further reduction to an absolute maximum of 325,000 tonnes by 2030.
MOSCOW, Nov 3 (Reuters) -
November 3, 2021
Russia will limit exports of nitrogen fertilisers and complex nitrogen-containing fertilisers for six months to try to curb any further increase in food prices amid higher gas prices, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Wednesday.
Moscow has been trying to contain high food inflation at home with taxes on grain exports in 2021. The recent surge in global gas prices added to its concerns that higher prices for nitrogen fertilisers, which need gas for their production, would further increase the cost of food for the Russians.
January 21 2022
Europe has been hardest hit by fertiliser-plant cutbacks on soaring costs of gas used to run them -- and nutrient prices there remain at a record even as the pressure eased in North America. Europe could face a deficit of about 9% of its annual nitrogen-fertiliser needs in the first half, VTB Capital estimates. Food may get even pricier if harvests suffer or crop prices rise.
Many farmers yet to secure chemicals are either waiting until the last minute in case prices ease, or may spread them more thinly.
In Hungary, nitrogen fertiliser usage will drop around 30% to 40% this season, hurting crop yields, said Gyorgy Rasko, an agricultural economist who has farms in the country.
"If there's a drought around the end of April and May, the effect could be even more devastating, since nitrogen helps plants survive dry days," he said.
Nitrogen nutrients are crucial for spring growth in Europe and are used again from February. They're also the type most affected by Europe's energy crisis because they're produced using gas. A first-half shortage of those types may reach up to 7 million tons, VTB said.
January 23, 2022
The farming protests in the Netherlands due to "Green policies" have been ongoing for a few years with the court system enforcing these policies.
The limits to the ability of the soil to produce the same amount of output as prior to the disruption lasts about one to one and a half years from the end of the disruption and resumed application of fertiliser. The current disruption to fertiliser production and pricing is one hundred per cent policy driven, It is a combination of green energy policy, economic sanctions, and political posturing, we can expect soaring food prices as a result of supply cuts in wealthy countries such as Ireland and we should not be surprised by widespread hunger, even starvation and societal breakdown in some parts of the world. That will potentially last for a couple of years even if we start to reverse course tomorrow. This is one more angle to be considered in the dispute with Russia.
Sounds like Austria has interests in Nord Stream 2 also and seem a bit reluctant.
While this would be ideal in the long run (for climate change reasons if nothing else) is this practical immediately? I suspect that it is not and hence why the Germans are so reluctant to engage in the same punitive measures of Russia as countries who aren't as reliant on Russian gas (ie USA & UK).
As I said they will still wipe the floor with several other militaries combined.
I don't think you a real grasp of Afghanistan and elsewhere ,
But remind us about Russias involvement in Afghanistan
It’s a lot less than that on GDP basis … admittedly we’ve somewhat weirdly overinflated GDP, but even with that anomaly ironed out, just looking at say our tax take, we aren’t spending a reasonable amount of money on defence at all.
It doesn’t have to be major scary stuff, but we should be able to at the very least see what’s going on. We’ve no primary radar which is just inexcusable, even for the sake of aviation safety when you’ve Russian military aircraft flying with their transponders off, which means civilian radar can’t see them.
If you’re going to be neutral, and passive you still need to be able to defend that position and we really are not.
Ireland is becoming a lot more significant - it’s a sizeable financial hub, it’s host to umpteen major IT companies, all the major global pharma players, we host and transit a lot of global internet traffic for all sorts of major players. We’re the worlds largest player in aircraft leasing and we are a small bit significant EU and Eurozone member.
However, we imagine we’re still some 1950s backwater or that we can live rent free, relying on soft power, friendly connections and proximity to the US, U.K. and France, without any real formal military alliances and if the bluff were ever called, we would have no choice but to rely on those informal links and while it’s likely they would come to our rescue, it’s not down to any treaty commitments.
If you’d a very hardline GOP presidency with little focus on Irish American links, maybe far worse than Trump and the UK had wandered off into some mega Brexit hardcore huff, we would be relying on far less proximate relations in France.
The last few years have shown we probably can’t realistically just rely on many of those constants that were there since WWII.
This is an irish forum. We spent many of the last 800 years fighting to stop our nearest big neighbour from controlling us.
There would be little sympathy for the idea that anyone should have a sphere of control. It's related to why we aren't in NATO and why we are neutral.
If the Russians could be persuaded to move their missile testing exercise to Rockall and completely destroy the rock so it's not visible at low water it would favour Ireland greatly.
I mean what CNN believe and Biden approval ratings seem irrelevant in terms of deciding whether it was a decent withdrawal or not. The opinions of the media or the general public are hardly meaningful or objective. I might as well ask a bunch of kids what their favourite cartoon character is as using some presidential polling numbers to decide whether or not the military operation was a success.
The escape from Afghanistan by the US being described as the most effient ever, those words, those words should be painted in history as the greatest propaganda words I've ever seen.
The US friends in Afghanistan see that withdrawal as a **** show.. in my words.. a **** show of epic proportions.. the Taliban walked through the lines the US said would hold, the Taliban,held power about how many people escaped from the **** show..
But yeah, the most effective withdrawal (defeat) yeah all good.
I, we didn't see the live pictures of the withdrawal.. (Don't look Up)
You may call it a success but even CNN at the time were saying very different.
The withdrawal was also the start of the decline in Bidens approval ratings.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan might be the most efficient withdrawal of an occupying force I've ever heard of. What did they lose, like 14 soldiers? I'd call that a success.
The US armed forces, the strategy in Afghanistan would fill you with confidence?
Im lost in how many trillions of dollars it takes to have a view of success..
Mountain guerrilla army defeated a multitude of trillions of dollars backed army..
Let's face it, the world police we see, hasn't played a part in a successful war since WW2
Let's hope your right.
They have been up until the withdrawal at war everyday for the last 20 years,they will still wipe the floor against any other country or countries combined .....
The way the USA handled the Afghanistan withdrawal wouldn't be exactly filling anyone with confidence in the capabilities of its military prowess.
No tinfoiler, a miss understanding, I believe all EU nations have too increase their defense spending?
It's you that's not true mate.
I don't know what tinfoiler you got that from, but it's utterly false. It's not in the Lisbon Treaty, we aren't obligated in any such way and our current defence spending is 0.17% of GDP
NATO members do have a 2% GDP defence spending agreement, but its rarely met and of course we aren't in NATO so....
As a national security matter, you won't hear much about it either.
The Russian notification suggested maybe 5 ships and some long range aircraft to be used. I would guess there will be at least 3 or 4 times that many NATO ships on station to frustrate them, including aircraft carriers and also free-roaming attack submarines.
Who knows, even little old us might send as many as 6 of our most modern patrol ships to have a nosey at Ivan
© Naval Service
He's a fringe nutter, but still nice to get a shout out:
“Not all Europe should be destroyed - but London (yes).
“Let the Scots, Irish, Welsh live.
@Kermit.de.frog not true mate, we are locked into an EU army, we have to spend a certain percentage of our GDP on defensive equipment..
Pretty sure that is thanks to the Lisbon treaty we agreed too on the second run.
What are we going to do about it?
The politicians and the Irish people stand behind the cloak of "neutrality" to not spend money on any defensive measures whatsoever. Couldn't be bothered. The Russians know that we are the weakest of the weak links that can do feck all.
This is the swing of that.
We still haven't heard an opinion from our government on the military exercise?
It was the Russians that first informed the Irish people that they were going to be performing these exercises?
Russia and the US (happy to see the experts agree here that this isn't a NATO situation, it is a plain as day the US vs Russia) war game, the Ukraine is as it always has been a pawn in this game..
Russia used Ukraine to keep NATO from setting up shop on its door step
The US, now that it has flipped the Ukraine is looking to set up its attack shop on the door step of its enemy..
And want the public to accept that the Ukraine is an "independent" without influence nation? They've never had it, don't try and tell me now they're an independent nation.
@Manic Moran but to think that American troops cannot operate effectively in cold weather such as found in Ukraine is daft.
No sure where that's coming from I never suggested that US troops couldn't operate in Cold weathers ...
10th Mountain isn't categorized as a mountain unit, they keep the name only for lineage purposes. They are, however, pretty reasonable at dealing with cold weather. As I'm typing, their base, Ft Drum is -5. Tomorrow the high is -8, overnight low of -23. It's warmer in Kharkov and Donetsk right now. With an average elevation in Eastern Ukraine of about 600ft, I don't think altitude sickness is going to be a problem.
Not that this is particularly relevant since I don't think anyone expects the Americans to get involved, but to think that American troops cannot operate effectively in cold weather such as found in Ukraine is daft.
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