The French president Emmanuel Macron has gone a bit crazy:

Europe’s credibility will be destroyed if Russia is allowed to win in Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron has warned, as he defended his refusal to rule out sending troops to the country.
…
The war in Ukraine is “existential for our Europe and for France”, Mr Macron said in the interview on France 2 and TF1.“Do you think that the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Estonians, the Romanians and the Bulgarians could remain at peace for a second [in the event of a Russian victory in Ukraine]?” he asked. “If Russia wins this war, Europe’s credibility would be reduced to zero.”

Micron fails to recognize that Europe does not have any credibility it could lose. Just ask those ~150 countries who have not sanctioned Russia. They know very well that the 2014 U.S./EU coup in Kiev started the mess and that the failure, especially of France and Germany, to force Kiev to implement the Minsk agreements led to its escalation.

Failing as the guarantor of agreements without any attempts to enforce them leaves one’s credibility behind.

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»Udeležba« francoske vojske v Ukrajini ne bi prinesla velikih sprememb. Usoda francoskih vojakov bi bila na fronti podobna usodi ukrajinskih vojakov. Če bi se francoska vojska namestila na zahodu in jugu okrog Odesse, bi to morda sprostilo 20-30 tisoč ukrajinskih vojakov, ki bi lahko bili poslani neposredno na fronto. Vendar bi po sedanjem tempu izgub človeške sile ta novi kontigent ukrajinskih vojakov zadostoval zgolj za 1-2 meseca vojne na fronti.

What could a french deployment of troops in Ukraine result in the Russo-ukrainian war? There has been much talk lately from Macro about French troop deployments to Ukraine. The risks are high, but possibilities for this to happen are slim. But if it happened how could such a deployment look like and what would the consequences be?

There would of course be a heightened risk for an all out war between France and Russia, but most probably eventual fighting would be kept in Ukraine. As long as that would be the case NATO involvement could probably be avoided. Theoretically naval warfare could occur in the Oceans but that could be a border case with article 5.

Risk for a nuclear war would probably not increase much. France would not attack Russia with nuclear weapons if its expeditionary Corps in Ukraine, and invite assured annihilation, Russia in it’s turn would have no need to use nuclear weapons since a French engagement would have a scant influence on the Russo-ukrainian war. Russia would only use nuclear weapons if they saw an existential threat to their core interests.

What could France do? I assume a maximalist scenario. They could of course do anything less than this scenario. France lacks both large resources of ammunition, missiles, heavy equipment and manpower. The French military equipment are of high quality but expensive due to small production series. Its armed forces are also mainly prepared for policing operation in the Global South and not for high intensity or industrial warfare. There are also a severe shortage of armaments production capacity to replace lost equipment.

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Že dvajset let nobeni levosredinski vladi ni uspelo končati mandata. Vse levosredinske koalicije po letu 2004 so implodirale v brezidejnosti in nekompetentnosti ter notranjih koalicijskih spopadih. In pravkar gledamo razpad pri živem telesu zadnje levosredinske vladne inkarnacije. Zakaj levosredinske vlade ne znajo vladati?

Za tehten odogovor bi bil potreben daljši esej o fenomenologiji slovenske kulture in volilnega telesa. Vendar bi v grobem lahko izpostavili predvsem dva razloga. Prvi razlog je v pomanjkanju močnega ideološkega naboja med potencialnimi volilci levosredinskih strank in posledični promiskuitetnosti volilcev. Glede na izide volitev po letu 1991 je slovensko volilno telo polarizirano – približno 40 % se uvršča med volilce desnice in strank desno od sredine (desna sredina) in 60 % med volilce levice in strank levo od sredine (leva sredina). Med obema poloma je zelo malo prehajanja. Volilci strank desne sredine so diciplinirani glede volilne udeležbe, na levi sredini se potencialni volilci v primeru slabe izbire raje umaknejo v volilno abstinenco, kot da bi volili za stranke desne sredine.

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A key factor that has gone mostly unnoticed is that the pickup in US growth last year came from a sharp rise in net immigration. In simple terms, more workers generate more goods and services. A larger number of people earning paychecks means more consumer spending. And more people paying income tax on earnings boosts tax revenues. Last year, the US population rose by 0.9% in 2023, much faster than the US Census Bureau forecast of 0.5%. And the prime-age workforce participation rate—ie 25- to 54-year-olds—reached 83.5% in February, matching highs that hadn’t been seen since the early 2000s. Much of this is due to immigration. The US economy is outperforming in GDP terms mainly because of net immigration, twice as fast as in the Eurozone and three times as fast as Japan.

US economy: saved by immigrants

Tudi če imate drugačne poglede, se splača prebrati.

Pope Francis and many others want negotiations to end the Russo-Ukrainian war. But there will be no negotiations now. Both Russia and Ukraine want to improve their positions before negotiations. Russia to get more concessions from Ukraine and Ukraine to avoid too many concessions. But how will the war finally end?

Scenariji konca vojne

I will paint with broad strokes a picture of a probable way to end the war. There will be no detailed discussions about offensives and other military matters. I said that there will be no negotiated peace for now, even though it would probably be the best alternative for Ukraine. The best alternative would of course have been a negotiated settlement during the spring of 2022, but that ship has already sailed.

What would an acceptable peace agreement be today. Russia would demand the same things as in 2022. That is a bilingual Ukraine with strong guarantees for the Russian population and the Russian Orthodox Church. A small Ukrainian military, eternal neutrality and close economic ties.

End to sanctions and a return of impounded Russian assets in the West. But the main difference would be that not only Crimea but also the entire Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts would be accepted as part of Russia.

Ukraine might accept a ceasefire and freezing of the frontlines, nothing else. They don’t feel defeated and wouldn’t consider giving Russia anything Russia hasn’t taken by military force. But the Russian deal is probably the best thing Ukraine can hope to achieve. But that ship will also sail without Ukraine.

What has the future in store for the war? The war might be over in a couple of years or continue until 2030. It can also end in an resounding Russian victory or just a minor Russian  victory. We now have four different scenarios.

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Poglejte video in razlago profesorja Galbraitha.

This is hands-down the best explanation I’ve heard on why sanctions on Russia backfired, and why they were never going to succeed in the first place.

By economist James K. Galbraith, professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Best quote of his explanation: “This is a situation in which the sanctions were imposed by one important sector of the world economy which then cut itself off from resources that it needs – and that’s particularly true of Western Europe – in return for cutting Russia off from various things that Russia doesn’t really need.”

Second best quote: “If you go back to the period before the introduction of the sanctions […] the Russian economy was very heavily colonized by Western firms. That was true in automobiles, it was true in aircrafts, it was true in everything from fast food restaurants to big box stores. Western firms were present all throughout the Russian economy. A great many of them […] either chose to exit Russia or were pressured to exit Russia after early 2022. So on what terms did they leave? Well, they were required, if they were leaving permanently, to sell their capital equipment, their factories and so forth, to let’s say a Russian business which would get a loan from Russian banks or maybe have other sources of financing, at a very favorable price for the Russians. So effectively a lot of capital wealth, which was partly owned by the West, has been transferred to Russian ownership.

And you now have an economy which is moving forward and has the advantage compared to Europe of relatively low resource costs because Russia is a great producer of resources, oil and gas and fertilizer and food stuff and so forth. And so while the Europeans are paying maybe twice in Germany what they were paying for energy, the Russians are not, they’re paying perhaps less than they were paying before the war.

So again I characterize the effect of the sanctions, in fact as being in certain respects a gift to the Russian economy. And this is, I think, quite different from what the authors of the sanctions expected. […]

And the essence of the situation is this would not have happened without the sanctions. You could have had the war, and it would have gone pretty much as it has gone. But the Russian government in 2022 was in no position to force the exit of Western firms. It didn’t want to, wouldn’t have done that. It was in no position to force its oligarchs to choose between Russia and the West. It didn’t wish to do that. These choices were imposed by the West, and the results were actually, in many respects, favorable to the long-term independent development of the Russian Federation’s economy.”

Vir: Arnaud Betrand

Od 44:22 naprej

Drago Babič

Pred kratkim je bila objavljena (pred)zadnja različica Nacionalnega energetsko podnebnega načrta, verzija 4., ki predstavlja osnovo za zadnji krog javne obravnave tega dokumenta. Konec junija bo vlada sprejela končno obliko dokumenta in ga poslala v Bruselj. S tem bo NEPN postal osrednji načrtovalni dokument Slovenije za področje energetike in podnebnih sprememb do leta 2030 z vizijo do leta 2040.

NEPN bo imel velike materialne posledice, tako za oskrbo z energijo vseh potrošnikov v Sloveniji, kot za finančno breme, ki ga bo morala Slovenija iz svojega BDP nameniti za njegovo realizacijo. Poleg tega bo doseganje v njem opredeljenih načrtov in ciljev s strani Evropske komisije tudi finančno sankcionirano. Predvsem bo predstavljal konkreten koncept energetike s podrobnim načrtom investicij, ukrepov in finančnih podpor, ki bodo potrebne za njegovo implementacijo.

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Spodaj je nekaj odlomkov iz članka v zadnjem The Economistu o “presenetljivi” odpornosti ruskega gospodarstva na vojno in sankcije. Članek je tradicionalna analiza, kot bi se je lotili na IMF za katerokoli državo na svetu. In v tem je njegova težava – članek ne upošteva dveh ključnih elementov: specifičnosti ruskega gospodarstva in geopolitike.

Prvič, kot sem v zadnjih dveh letih že neštetokrat napisal, praktično nemogoče je sankcionirati državo, ki je globalno velik dobavitelj “sistemskih dobrin”, kot sta nafta in plin, ki sta ključna inputa za vsako gospodarstvo. Brez energije ni gospodarske aktivnosti, pomanjkanje energije pa povzroči inflacijski šok, zato bodo države vedno našle način, da pridejo do energije. In Rusija ni imela težav prodati svojega plina in nafte ter hkrati dosegati še ekstra dobičkov. Kdor je mislil, da bo drugače, je slab ekonomski analitik.

In drugič, zahodni politiki in analitiki so spregledali ključna geopolitična dejstva, in sicer da je Rusija velesila in da se je globalno gospodarsko težišče premaknilo proti Kitajski, ki pa jo hkrati ZDA želijo s trgovinskimi in tehnološkimi vojnami ter političnimi provokacijami glede Tajvana zaustaviti. Posledica je – sicer predvidljiva in napovedana – nočna mora za ZDA, da sta se povezali in močno integrirali dve največji državi na svetu, ki to ne bi smeli in pred čemer so svarili klasiki geopolitične doktrine. In da sta s seboj v navezo potegnili še druge velike države “globalnega Juga” (BRICS+), ki imajo poln kufer ameriškega vmešavanja, pridiganja in izsiljevanja. Kdor je mislil, da bo drugače, je slab politični analitik, ki je prešprical klasike ameriške geopolitične doktrine (George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski) in realizma v mednarodnih odnosih (John Mearsheimer). 

In kaj zdaj, ko je (predvidljivo) propadla obstoječa strategija, in ko rusko gospodarstvo robustno raste, ko proizvede na dan za 3-krat več orožja in municije kot vse zahodne države skupaj, ko je Rusija demonstrirala superiornost v sodobnem bojevanju (droni, motenje signala, supersonične rakete, uničevalec satelitov), ko je Rusija preusmerila prodajo plina in nafte v druge države in ko je 100 milijard uvoza iz zahodnih držav zdaj povsem nadomestil uvoz iz Kitajske? Kakšna je nova strategija, ko je Ukrajini de facto zmanjkalo za boj spodobnih mož in na fronto v gotovo smrt pošiljajo 18-letnike, ženske in starce. Bo NATO poslal svoje sile v zahodno Ukrajino (katere?) in tvegal jedrski spopad? Kaj bo po Trumpovi zmagi na predsedniških volitvah v ZDA?

Kakšna je strategija? Jo sploh imajo?

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Prva in najmanjša posledica zmanjšanja ladijskega prevoza skozi Sueški kanal za 50 % in skozi Panamski kanal (za 32 %) v prvih dveh mesecih letos bodo statistične “težave” zaradi premika v beleženju izvoznih in uvoznih tokov ter primerjav med leti. Druga posledica so disrupcije v proizvodnji zaradi pomanjkanja določenih inputov (podobno kot leta 2021), zaradi česar so nekatere tovarne (kot je na primer Teslina v Berlinu) morale zaustaviti proizvodnjo za 2 tedna. Tretja težava je možen vpliv na cene zaradi pomanjkanja inputov (podobno kot leta 2021). Četrta težava pa, da bodo imele nekatere izvoznice likvidnostne težave zaradi premika v dostavi in plačilih blaga.

In the past few months, global trade has been held back by disruptions at two critical shipping routes. Attacks on vessels in the Red Sea area reduced traffic through the Suez Canal, the shortest maritime route between Asia and Europe, through which about 15 percent of global maritime trade volume normally passes. Instead, several shipping companies diverted their ships around the Cape of Good Hope. This increased delivery times by 10 days or more on average, hurting companies with limited inventories.

On the other side of the world, a severe drought at the Panama Canal has forced authorities to impose restrictions that have substantially reduced daily ship crossings since last October, slowing down maritime trade through another key chokepoint that usually accounts for about 5 percent of global maritime trade.

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