Six on History: War in Ukraine (not available on CNN)
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March findings by The Levada Center, an independent, nongovernmental Russian polling organization, show that Putin’s approval percentage actually rose from 71% last month to 83%. Approval of the Russian government as a whole increased 15 percentage points from February to March.
A strong majority of respondents – 69% – also believe that Russia is moving in the right direction, after just over 50% believed so in February. About a fifth of those surveyed say that the country is on the wrong path. The poll from the center – widely considered among the only credible pollsters operating in Russia and which years ago was included in the country’s register of noncommercial organizations acting as foreign agents – reached 1,632 Russian adults over a weeklong span in late March.
The results are significant, coming a day after a top U.S. military official cited public support as the key reason Putin felt emboldened to initiate hostilities against Ukraine. Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command, told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday morning that a number of factors contributed to Putin’s thinking.
“But the overriding variable, in my view,” Wolters added, “is the fact he believes that he has popular support of his citizens.”
With tight control over the media, Putin’s government has largely been able to control the narrative of the war, blaming Western aggression while concealing the mounting losses by Russia amid the war with its neighboring former Soviet state. A Russian military official revealed last week that more than 1,300 of the country’s troops have been killed in Ukraine, while NATO estimated most recently that the number could be anywhere between 7,000 and 15,000.
Western defense officials have repeatedly noted that Russia’s forces in Ukraine are struggling on the ground, with low food and fuel supplies and morale issues, which has led to an increasing bombardment of Ukrainian cities from the air. Indeed, both Pentagon and British defense ministry officials said recently that Russia is orchestrating a repositioning in Ukraine while being willing to escalate violence in other ways to cover for their temporary setbacks.
“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told reporters on Wednesday. “So it is increasingly clear that Putin’s war has been a strategic blunder that has left Russia weaker over the long term and increasingly isolated on the world stage.”
The results also come as the Russian economy lurches from the effect of Western sanctions, that sent the ruble plunging and consumers scrambling before largely stabilizing at prewar levels in recent days. However, a separate Levada poll this week indicated that retail investors in the country have a very dim view of the economic situation going forward, with those who expect their finances to improve this year plunging from 44% in October to 13% this month.
MORE:
War-Weary Russians Threaten Trouble for Vladimir Putin Amid Ukraine Attack ] [Oops! guess we can stop pushing that line now!]And yet in spite of the unprecedented sanctions, staggering military losses and global isolation, The Levada Center’s latest survey shows that Putin’s citizens appear to be rallying behind him. Previous polling by center – released before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 – found that a majority of those surveyed were rather afraid or constantly afraid of world war, while only 29% said they were not afraid at all. But Putin, who in the past has turned to overseas engagements to bolster flagging support at home, may be benefiting from the nationalist fervor that generally accompanies a foreign conflict – likely a part of his calculus." [a welcome change from his "playbook"!]
"The new FIDH report, Russia: Crimes Against History, catalogs these violations, analyzes them from the viewpoint of international human rights law, and makes recommendations to national authorities and international organizations on how to improve the situation of so-called “history producers.”
“Our report is the first comprehensive analysis of the issue of manipulation of historical memory in Russia from the vantage point of human rights law,” said Ilya Nuzov, head of FIDH's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk who conceived and co-authored the report. “Our findings show that the authorities have created a climate of fear and repression for all independent voices working on historical past in Russia, reminiscent of the worst practices of the Soviet period.”
Specifically, the report details how, in recent years, the government has methodically attempted to discourage independent work in the historical field while actively promoting its own “historical truth” that centers on Soviet victory in the Second World War.
In 2020, the official historical narrative was set in stone in the Constitution, which was amended contrary to domestic and international law. In the Constitution, Russia is presented as the "successor" regime of the Soviet Union, which must "honor the memory of the defenders of the fatherland" and "protect the historical truth." This narrative is actively promoted by government institutions. On the other hand, the authorities have stigmatized and penalized internationally supported civil society organisations, such as International Memorial, with the likes of foreign agent laws; it has criminalized interpretations that diverge from the state's interpretation of history through the adoption of “Exoneration of Nazism” and other memory laws;
“The report is important not only for Russia,” remarked Valiantsin Stefanovic, FIDH vice president. “Its findings and recommendations could be applied to other countries in the region and around the world that manipulate historical memory. In Belarus for instance, we see a similar use of memory laws to crack down on the pro-democracy movement.”
"Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, Western media have depicted Russian President Vladimir Putin as an irrational—perhaps mentally ill—leader who cannot be reasoned or bargained with. Such portrayals have only intensified as the Ukraine crisis came to dominate the news agenda.
The implications underlying these media debates and speculations about Putin’s psyche are immense. If one believes that Putin is a "madman," the implication is that meaningful diplomatic negotiations with Russia are impossible, pushing military options to the forefront as the means of resolving the Ukraine situation.
If Putin is not a rational actor, the implication is that no kind of diplomacy could have prevented the Russian invasion, and therefore no other country besides Russia shares blame for ongoing violence. (See FAIR.org, 3/4/22.) Yet another implication is that if Putin's defects made Russia’s invasion unavoidable, then regime change may be necessary to resolve the conflict.
'Increasingly insane'Western media have for years been debating whether Putin is insane (Extra!, 5/14; FAIR.org, 2/12/15) or merely pretending to be—speculation that has only intensified in recent weeks:
- Guardian (2/24/22): “Decision to Invade Ukraine Raises Questions Over Putin’s ‘Sense of Reality’”
- Daily Beast (3/1/22): “The Russian People May Be Starting to Think Putin Is Insane”
- Vanity Fair (3/1/22): “Report: An 'Increasingly Frustrated' Putin, a Madman With Nuclear Weapons, Is Lashing Out at His Inner Circle”
- New York (3/4/22): “Putin’s War Looks Increasingly Insane”
Guardian (2/24/22) : "A member of the European parliament for Macron’s grouping told France Inter radio...he thought Putin had gone mad."
The Guardian report (2/24/22) cited concerns raised in European official circles about Putin’s mental state:
They worry about a 69-year-old man whose tendency towards insularity has been amplified by his precautions against Covid, leaving him surrounded by an ever-shrinking coterie of fearful obedient courtiers. He appears increasingly uncoupled from the contemporary world, preferring to burrow deep into history and a personal quest for greatness.
Even when other media analysts argued that Putin’s alleged mental illness was merely a ruse to wrest concessions from the west, this was not presented as a rationale for negotiating with him, but rather as a reason to reject de-escalation and diplomacy. Forbes (3/1/22) claimed that although Putin is “obviously capable of massive errors in judgment,” that doesn’t necessarily mean that “he’s lost his marbles,” as Putin has only “gotten this far by being calculating and cunning.” Forbes' Michael Krepon went on to explain that the “mad man theory only works when the threatener is convincingly mad,” and that Western countries should proceed to call Putin’s bluff: “Help Ukrainians with military, economic and humanitarian assistance,” he urged, rather than pursuing diplomatic negotiations with Russia.
'Detached from reality'Daily Beast (3/1/22): There is a lot of talk in the West about Russian President Vladimir Putin being mentally unhinged."
In the Daily Beast (3/1/22), Amy Knight, a historian of Russia and the USSR, displayed a remarkable ability to read Putin’s mind, discerning the real motivations of someone she describes as possibly “detached from reality.” She attributed Putin’s decision to invade to a feeling of insecurity over his “hold on power,” because he “knows that he was not democratically elected to the presidency in 2018, or even in 2012, because serious contenders were barred from participating.”
This alleged feeling of “insecurity” has apparently driven Putin to hate “democratic states on his country’s border,” because he doesn’t “want his people to get ideas.” Knight claimed that all Putin’s rhetoric about “the West destroying Russian values and NATO threatening Russia with nuclear weapons” merely “camouflages his intense fear of democratic aspirations in his own country.” Strangely, although Knight speculates about Putin’s possible insanity, she also provides largely rational explanations for Putin’s actions, because if a leader is afraid they weren’t legitimately elected, they might opt to launch a war to generate a "rally 'round the flag" effect, as George W. Bush did. This undermines the suggestion that Putin is an irrational actor.
Knight suggested that Putin was more dangerous than Soviet leaders like Nikita Khrushchev or Joseph Stalin, or even Germany's Adolf Hitler. Khrushchev, she wrote, was someone who wasn’t “consumed by the historical grudges and the need to show off his masculine credentials,” and “had to consider the views of fellow Politburo members” instead of making key decisions on his own, like Putin allegedly does.
One of Khrushchev's decisions, jointly made or otherwise, was launching the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, which kept that country in the Warsaw Pact at the cost of several thousand lives. That invasion does not seem obviously different in kind from Putin's attempt to keep Ukraine from leaving what Russia considers to be its sphere of influence.
'Reason is not going to work'Other Western media headlines offered quite specific, though varying, evaluations of Putin’s mental state from a distance. (This sometimes also happens with domestic figures like former President Donald Trump.) A few instances:
- Atlantic (4/15/14): “Vladimir Putin, Narcissist?”
- Independent (2/1/15): “President Putin Is a Dangerous Psychopath—Reason Is Not Going to Work With Him”
- USA Today (2/4/15): “Pentagon 2008 Study Claims Putin Has Asperger's Syndrome”
- Sun (2/28/22): “Vladimir Putin Is Egocentric, Narcissistic & Exhibits Key Traits of a Psychopath”
- Fox News (3/2/22): “Russian President Vladimir Putin Has Features of a Psychopath: Expert”
These diagnoses from afar have been going on for a long time. In 2014, psychotherapist Joseph Burgo (Atlantic, 4/15/14) argued that “Putin may or may not be a clinical narcissist," because it’s “impossible actually to diagnose the man at a distance.” Nevertheless, Burgo encouraged the US foreign policy establishment to assume he is a narcissist, in order to help “mitigate risk in the ways it deals with him.”
USA Today (2/4/15) quoted a Pentagon report: "Project neurologists confirm this research project's earlier hypothesis that very early in life perhaps, even in utero, Putin suffered a huge hemispheric event to the left temporal lobe of the prefrontal cortex."
In 2015, USA Today (2/4/15) reported on a 2008 study from a Pentagon think tank that theorized that Putin has Asperger’s syndrome, an “autistic disorder which affects all of his decisions.” It speculated that Putin’s “neurological development was significantly interrupted in infancy,” although the report acknowledged that it couldn’t prove the theory because they weren’t able to conduct a brain scan on the Russian president.
The 2008 study was based on “movement pattern analysis,” essentially watching videos of Putin’s body movements to gain clues on how he makes decisions and reacts to events. Further reporting on the study (Guardian, 2/5/15) noted that the authors don’t claim to make a diagnosis, because that would be impossible based on so little evidence. The work was primarily inspired by Brenda Connors, a former State Department official, professional dancer and “movement patterns analysis” expert at the US Naval War College. [This could be The Onion! Where's the MSM, or corporate astroturf school budget and curriculum watchdog groups on this? -- on what's being paid for and taught in U.S. Naval War College classrooms, in Newport, RI of all places!]
Psychologist Pete Etchells (Guardian, 2/7/15) mocked the Pentagon study because the methodology of using movement pattern analysis to diagnose Asperger’s syndrome is “so generic as to be meaningless,” and that trying to “figure out someone’s state of mind based solely on how they move is a hugely subjective endeavor, easily prone to misinterpretation.” He also noted that it is not possible to diagnose whether people are on the autism spectrum with brain scans.
Some writers (e.g., Guardian, 2/22/17; Daily Beast, 8/9/21) have criticized what is known as “Putinology”—the reduction of Russian politics to the analysis of incomplete, and occasionally false, information about Putin and his motives. It is a common Western media tactic to equate and reduce an entire country to its singular (and often caricatured) head of state, usually presented as a cartoon villain with sadistic and irrational motives, to justify further Western hostility towards those countries (Passage, 12/14/21; Extra!, 11–12/90, 4/91, 7–8/99).
'Violation of ethical rules'Some contemporary attempts to explain Russia's invasion of Ukraine by psychoanalyzing Putin make sweeping judgments about his mental state, even while insisting that a professional diagnosis would be necessary to confirm their speculative perceptions of him.
Fox News' expert is not violating ethical rules because when he refers to Putin as a "psychopath," he's not "diagnos[ing] a public figure who he has not personally examined," but rather "assess[ing] Putin’s actions in the framework of a personality type."
Fox News (3/2/22; reposted by Yahoo!, 3/2/22) cited forensic psychiatrist Dr. Ziv Cohen, who averred it would be a “violation of his profession’s ethical rules to diagnose a public figure he has not personally examined.” He went on to seemingly violate those ethics by opining that diplomatic negotiations with a “psychopath” like Putin were pointless:
"He’s not crazy," Cohen said. "He’s charming, calculated and manipulative. With psychopaths, you cannot develop a common understanding. You cannot have agreements with them. They really only respond to superior power, to a credible threat of force."
Fox actually cited one other source, Rebekah Koffler, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer for Russia, who noted that “other psychiatrists have evaluated Putin's mental stability and concluded he is a typical authoritarian with no anomalies,” and that Putin’s actions “reflect Russian cultural norms and standards of behavior.” Koffler argued that the comparisons being made between Putin and figures like Stalin and Hitler are exaggerated, yet Fox only included Dr. Cohen’s pathologized opinion in its headline: “Russian President Vladimir Putin has Features of a Psychopath: Expert.”
Psychologist Emma Kenny claimed for the British tabloid Sun (2/26/22) that although she’s “unable to bring him to the consulting room for assessment,” she nevertheless feels comfortable making declarations like:
Putin continues to manufacture an “alpha male” persona. He is incredibly egocentric, and has a confidence and arrogance he does not try to hide.... Emotions such as guilt and shame do not seem to register with him—another key example of a potentially psychopathic nature.
As of this writing, Secretary of State Antony Blinken hasn’t attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, while Russian military commanders are declining calls from the Pentagon, likely due to the US sharing military intelligence with the Ukrainian government. This silence on both the diplomatic and military fronts risks further escalation instead of a quick negotiated end to the war.
The Western media caricature of Putin as a psychopathic leader acting on irrational and idiosyncratic beliefs is a convenient propaganda narrative that excuses US officials from taking diplomacy seriously—at the expense of Ukrainian lives and nuclear brinkmanship (Antiwar.com, 3/10/22). Recent negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul were hailed by both parties as constructive, with Russia vowing to reduce military activity around Kyiv and northern Ukraine as a result (NPR, 3/29/22). It’s important not to let US officials subvert peace negotiations between the two parties on the evidence-free grounds that negotiations with Russia are pointless."
Observers predict that the post-war reconstruction of war-torn Ukraine may involve huge amounts of money, and US companies, along with transnational corporations, will be the main beneficiaries of Ukraine's reconstruction.
The Global Times is publishing a series of stories and cartoons to unveil how the US, in its status as a superpower, has been creating one crisis after another in the world. This is the third installment.
Workers onload a shipment of military aid provided by the US to Ukraine, at the Boryspil International Airport outside Kiev, Ukraine on January 25, 2022. Photo: IC
Monstrous military-industrial complex
The Democratic and Republican parties in the US are generally divided on many topics, from climate change to same-sex marriage, but there is one exception - the defense expenditure. In 2020, the US spent nearly $780 billion on its military. The figure was more than the total expenditure of the other nine countries following the US that spent the most on the military in the same year combined.
To justify such a large military expenditure, the US had tried to incite wars around the world, with the Russia-Ukraine conflict their latest target.
John Mearsheimer, a prominent American international relations scholar, reiterated in a recent opinion piece published in The Economist on March 19 that "the West, and especially America, is principally responsible" for the Ukraine crisis. Since 2008, the US has been encouraging Ukraine to join the EU and NATO, leading to the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalating into a war, he said.
After the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, students at the University of Chicago, where Mearsheimer works, circulated a letter calling for the cancellation of John Mearsheimer over "Putinism."
However, what the students do not know is that the US military-industrial complex (MIC) is moving full steam ahead regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, which some media outlets have called the biggest land conflict in Europe since the World War II.
The MIC is a unique phenomenon in the US. During World War II, the five top US defense contractors [didn't exist in current form] - Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Company, Northrop Grumman Corporation, the Boeing Company, and the General Dynamics Corporation - made a large profit from the war and got a large number of federal government contracts during that period. Since then, their interests have been bound together.
During the Cold War era, the US military, defense contractors, the federal government, the Congress, and local universities cooperated closely and extended their forces to new industries like aerospace, energy, the electronics industry, information technology, and bioengineering, creating an enormous MIC. Think tanks and the media have all been dragged into it and they became part of the complex of shared interest.
The MIC has hogged most of the US' wealth and become a monster that the country cannot get rid of.
On January 17, 1961, in his farewell address, then-president Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex," noting that the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power along with the MIC existed and would persist.
The MIC also has a great influence on US presidential elections, as about 30 percent of the US companies and one-quarter of the country's employment opportunities are related to the MIC. In addition, some of the US states where these military contractors have established their bases of operation like Michigan, Ohio, and Florida are also swing states that no presidential candidate would want to lose.
Hypocrisy of Pax Americana
Underpinning the growing wealth of the military-industrial complex for years was the "Pax Americana" concept peddled by US strategists, a concept applied to the concept of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere and later in the world after the end of World War II in 1945, when the US became the world's dominant economic and military power.
But there were also persistent challenges in the US about the hypocrisy of Pax Americana, including former US president John Kennedy who advocated against the idea in the 1960s.
Kennedy argued that such a peace based on "American weapons of war" was undesirable.
"What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living,'" Kennedy said on June 10, 1963, when giving the commencement address at the American University in Washington, DC.
However, after the Ukraine crisis broke out, calls for military expansion and the revival of Pax Americana were again agitated in the US.
The online publication Foreign Affairs published an article entitled "The Return of Pax Americana" on March 14. The article said that Russia's special military operation in Ukraine "has now inadvertently done the United States and its allies a tremendous favor," or "a historic opportunity to regroup and reload for an era of intense competition - not just with Russia but also with China - and, ultimately, to rebuild an international order that just recently looked to be headed for collapse."
Voices encouraging the US to prepare for a war with China and Russia at the same time are not alienated among US scholars.
An opinion piece published by Foreign Affairs on February 27 proposed a massive increase in US defense spending. Matthew Kroenig, author of this article, is the deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. The center published a report in 2021 and advocated for comprehensive containment of China.
"The United States remains the world's leading power with the greatest global interests, and cannot afford to choose between Europe and the Indo-Pacific. Instead, Washington and its allies should develop a defense strategy capable of deterring and, if necessary, defeating Russia and China at the same time," said Kroenig in the article.
Some US strategists told the Global Times that the voices of these experts are echoed by many among Washington's decision-makers, "but the problem is that most of their recommendations cannot be implemented."
One reason, for example, is that the US' national debt already stands at over $30 trillion, making it difficult to significantly increase defense spending, which is already nearly $800 billion.
Who's the real beneficiary?
After the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, the voice of the American elites calling on other Western countries to extend their arms and raise their military budgets has boosted the US MIC to make more profits.
On March 15, US President Joe Biden signed a funding bill to send $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine, which includes weapons the Ukrainians have been requesting, such as the anti-armor and anti-air systems. On March 16, Biden again announced another $1 billion in new assistance to Ukraine, supplying Ukraine with 9,000 anti-armor systems, 7,000 small arms, 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 20 million rounds of ammunition, and 100 drones.
Tulsi Gabbard, a US politician and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 US presidential election, alleged that some in the Biden administration "actually want Russia to invade Ukraine" because "the military-industrial complex is the one that benefits from this," the New York Times reported on March 28.
Gabbard, who claimed in February that both Democrats and Republicans in Washington are "essentially in the pocket of the military-industrial complex," calls the defense industry's political influence a scandal, said the NYT report.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is a major boon for the world's largest defense contractors, such as Raytheon which makes the Stinger missiles and, jointly along with Lockheed Martin, makes the Javelin anti-tank missiles being supplied to Ukraine by the likes of the US and Estonia. Lockheed's shares are up by around 16 percent and Raytheon's around 3 percent since the military conflict in Ukraine began, independent media outlet the Conversation reported on March 9.
Indeed, sanctions imposed by the US and European governments in conjunction with some multinational companies have hit the Russian economy hard. On March 14, 850 stores belonging to McDonald's in Russia were officially closed. Also, at least 300 multinationals have pulled out of Russia since the conflict began.
But the crisis in Ukraine will benefit the US economy and multinationals in the long run, observers noted. Companies from European countries such as Germany and France have invested much more in Russia than in the United States. In the future, these companies will likely have to turn to the US for alternate investment destination.
India Today noted that the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine will involve huge amounts of money, and US companies will definitely be the main beneficiaries of Ukraine's reconstruction.
To draw a comparison with the war in Afghanistan, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the 20-year reconstruction package approved by the US Congress after the war in Afghanistan involved an investment of $145 billion, and observers pointed out that the reconstruction of Ukraine will certainly not cost any less than that.
The military conflict between Russia and Ukraine "has the champagne corks quietly popping in the Pentagon, on K Street, in the defense industry, and throughout the halls of Congress," Franklin Spinney, a former military analyst for the Pentagon, wrote in a recent commentary piece published in the US online magazine CounterPunch.
Spinney recently said in an interview that the huge US defense spending has seriously affected the country's long-term development. He believes that NATO's five waves of easternward expansion have violated its initial commitments and its failure to respond seriously to Russian demands are the direct causes of the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which cannot be separated from the true features of the US' MIC.
US: The Biggest War Profiteer
1. Six of the world's 10 largest defense contractors come from the US
- Lockheed Martin
- Boeing
- Raytheon Technologies
- Northrop Grumman
- General Dynamics
- L3Harris Technologies
2. Since 2001, the US has spent $6.4 trillion in wars, and US military operations in 85 countries killed 801,000 people including 335,000 civilians and caused 37 million people to become refugees
3. $6.4 trillion has been spent on post-911 wars and conflicts in more than 80 countries, and most of the budgets were transferred to the top 5 contractors. From 2001 to 2021, the stocks of these top five contractors outperformed the stock market overall by 58%.
Next up:
From the disintegration of the Soviet Union to the step-by-step design and execution of the Ukraine crisis trap, the US intends to achieve absolute hegemony through its strategic goals while suppressing Russia, dominating the EU, and containing China. The US, the global "master of strategy" that has killed many birds with one stone, is a schemer living in the ideology of the Cold War. In our next story, we'll look at how the US became the 21st century's "Cold War schemer."
"Is the U.S./NATO-instigated war with Russia, taking place on the battlefield of Ukraine, yet another “war for oil” — or a war over control of global sales of natural gas?
At an emergency NATO summit in Brussels March 25, President Joe Biden announced the U.S. will accelerate liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe, sending an additional 15 billion cubic meters (bcm) of LNG shipments on seagoing tankers in 2022, on top of 2021 exports of 22 bcm. Biden said U.S. exports of LNG will continue to grow through 2030, averaging 50 bcm to Europe annually.
Before Biden’s NATO address, the U.S. Department of Energy issued two long-term orders March 16 giving Cheniere Energy projects in Louisiana and Texas “additional flexibility to export the equivalent of 0.72 bcm of LNG per day” to “any country with which the U.S. does not have a free trade agreement, including all of Europe.” Despite the fact that U.S. LNG exporters were already at or near maximum capacity, the DOE approval allows every U.S. LNG project to export to any country not under U.S. sanctions.
Fracking and the 2014 Ukraine coup d’etat
In 2014, the U.S. financed and armed a right-wing coup in Ukraine. Even before that, the U.S. was promoting exports of U.S. liquified natural gas to Europe as the way to wean the EU from its dependency on Russian gas imports. The U.S. moved to secure global markets for its more expensive and more environmentally hazardous fracked gas, even before infrastructure was fully in place to accommodate this trade.
For years, with limited success, the U.S. energy industry pressured Ukraine and other European countries to open up for fracking. With domestic overproduction of fracked gas, and U.S. earnings around $3 per mmBtu (million British thermal unit), the industry was eager to export LNG to markets with higher rates of return. In 2013, natural gas in Europe sold from $11 to $13 per mmBtu and in Southeast Asia $18 per mmBtu or higher. (tinyurl.com/mrxn3m4b)
Energy industry public relations firms pushed the message that people in the U.S. had to accept the environmental risks stemming from fracking in order for the U.S. to achieve “energy independence.” Yet in April 2014, following the February Ukraine coup, two bills were introduced in the U.S. Congress seeking to fast-track U.S. LNG exports to Europe.
Pressure blocked Nord Stream 2 pipeline
In 2011, Russia and Germany cooperated to begin construction of a large, direct, natural gas pipeline from Russia’s northwestern border to Germany. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline would have cemented growing economic relations between Russia and Germany, both U.S. economic competitors.
Completed in September 2021, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was scheduled to open in early 2022. In late 2021, the U.S. began ramping up pressure on Ukraine to join NATO, simultaneously issuing daily announcements about Russian plans to invade Ukraine. By imposing the most extreme economic sanctions against Russia and demanding compliance from EU nations including Germany, the U.S. successfully blocked the Nord Stream 2 opening, further compelling Russia’s defensive war.
LNG exports a setback for limiting global warming
In calling for increased LNG exports to Europe, the Biden administration abandoned any pretense of enacting major climate legislation. Bowing to energy industry pressure, it issued a “fact sheet” promoting expanding LNG exports to the EU, claiming this is “not in conflict with the net-zero climate goals that we’re shooting for” and that LNG is a “catalyst” for doubling down on investments in clean energy.
Biden’s March 25 pronouncement was met with immediate concerns from global climate activists, who see it as a serious setback for efforts to phase out fossil fuel usage to limit global warming. Miles Jones, managing director of policy at Food & Water Watch called on Biden to “firmly reject any plans to fast-track gas export terminals here in the U.S. Corporate polluters are brazenly seizing on this crisis to secure decades of dependence on dirty energy, which will further devastate frontline communities and abandon any hopes for bold climate action.”
Liquified natural gas production generates higher levels of carbon emissions than any other energy source, except for coal. While Russian gas would have been sent through the already constructed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, U.S. LNG shipments will require the construction of new gas terminals and pipelines. These fossil fuel infrastructure projects will take years to build and would be used for a long time.
Somini Sengupta, Global Climate Correspondent for the NY Times, wrote: “U.S. gas export buyers are under long-term contracts. Export terminals are already shipping out all the gas they can. Not all EU countries have import terminals to take in more LNG. If they had to build more, it could lock in reliance on gas for 10-15 years.” (March 25, 2022)
Promoting LNG exports would leave Europe more dependent on U.S. energy, while prolonging global reliance on a fossil fuel sourced by hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” Fracking releases toxic and carcinogenic chemicals into the environment, wastes millions of gallons of vital water resources and contaminates air and water in communities adjacent to fracked wells. Serious health issues and deaths have been linked to exposure to fracking chemicals and waste products.
Increasing LNG exports would greatly push back efforts to move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources — solar and wind power. Compared to renewable energy, producing LNG emits 14 times the amount of carbon as does solar power and 50 times as much carbon as wind power. Resources invested in more fossil fuel production and distribution mean less funding on research, development and distribution of renewable energy sources.
Methane gas emissions more potent than CO2
When natural gas in any form is burned for energy, it releases carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. But environmental activists see LNG as especially problematic for the climate.
“In every step of its life cycle — from extraction to processing to storage to transportation — LNG emits methane,” said Marisa Guerrero with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) which found methane (CH4) 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) in the first 20 years after emissions.
LNG must be chilled to temperatures of minus 259 F and held to that extreme temperature throughout its entire transport — whether by ship, rail or truck — a very energy-intensive process. Warming it back to normal temperature requires yet more energy. All told, LNG is responsible for nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as ordinary natural gas. [the type which flows through the Russia to Europe pipelines]
A Feb. 4 study by Duke University detected hundreds of very large and previously unreported methane leaks, released at oil and natural gas production sites around the world. In 2021 Duke’s Drew Shindell, writing for a United Nations climate report, found that reducing methane emissions was the most cost-effective way to slow global warming. (tinyurl.com/y2ydydjt)
Risks to communities of color
Fossil fuel facilities, including those built to process and ship LNG, are disproportionately located near low-income neighborhoods and in communities of color. They range from locations in the Delaware River Basin in New Jersey and Maryland to Gulf Coast cities in Louisiana and Texas, where the majority of LNG ports were built with little regard for local communities’ safety and well-being. The NRDC found: “Fourteen percent of the climate footprint of LNG comes from gas leaks, flaring or intentional venting during production and transport.”
These export terminals handle large quantities of other fuels even more volatile than LNG. With the large quantity of gas stored in just one LNG tank, any breach by fire would become an unimaginable catastrophe.
LNG transport to and from export terminals is risky. The Trump administration allowed highly explosive LNG to be moved by rail. Trains with up to 100 specialized cars carrying LNG move through major metropolitan areas on a daily basis, endangering millions of people along the routes. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has delayed reversing Trump’s policy and has yet to permanently ban LNG “bomb trains.” The more the Biden administration promotes LNG exports, the less likely the ban will happen.
However, sabotaging Russian gas exports to Germany was never the U.S. endgame. Ultimately controlling Russia’s vast natural resources is the goal. U.S. strategists, war planners, corporate media and politicians created a situation where the people of Ukraine were put in harm’s way to serve the interests of Pentagon-armed corporate warmongers. Ukraine’s sovereignty was never the main issue.
For decades, fracking has put U.S. workers and communities in harm’s way. Expanding LNG exports, on top of the war, makes matters worse for everyone."
