JEA: After years of sanctions, Russia’s economy is still strong. The irony is that it seems that it is the New World Order that seems to suffer from the sanctions. In that sense, are the sanctions slowly but surely heralding the end of the New World Order?
By Russia Today
After weeks of intensive negotiations, the European Union has agreed on a sixth package of sanctions against Moscow. Its main element is the cessation, by the end of this year, of oil imports from Russia delivered to the bloc’s market by sea.
According to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, this will reduce Russian supplies to the EU by 90%, with the remaining 10% lined up for the chop in the future.
The percentage share is a debatable issue, but the assessment of the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, who announced the ban on two-thirds of Russian raw materials, looks more realistic. For Russia, the main thing so far is not quantity, but quality. Pipeline routes, unlike maritime routes, cannot be redirected elsewhere; a ban would have meant decommissioning the Druzhba pipeline and losing this delivery method. This did not happen due to the persistence of Hungary, which was secretly supported by several other countries.
As for tankers, the global oil market is unified, and until a global trade embargo is imposed against Russia (which is almost impossible), goods will be sent to other consumers, mainly those in Asia.
“At the same time, the price per barrel continued to rise after the announcement of the new measures. So Russia, in terms of revenues, will continue to benefit in the near term, at least.”
Even considering the discounts that customers from Asia will receive, they are always sensitive to the narrowing of their partner’s room for alternatives. However, the timeframe for the full implementation of even Brussels’ already agreed upon solution is still unknown.
Industry experts have unanimously agreed that there is no substitute for Russian oil in the EU at the moment, as the volumes available on the market are limited. So it cannot be ruled out that after the loud political declarations have faded from the headlines, there will be a very cautious and gradual implementation. In any case, the most interesting aspect of this story is not the tactical, but the strategic aspect.
Let’s assume that the EU does set a clear political goal of ending energy cooperation with Russia, and in the medium-term it will be possible to implement it. What would this mean for the world order?
The fragmentation process, which is already taking place, has worsened, and, in recent months, it has taken on an avalanche-like character. If the EU’s slogans come to pass (and the phase-out of hydrocarbons, including gas, was pledged long before the Ukraine crisis), the energy structure of Eurasia could be completely transformed. Since the 1960s, the geopolitical configuration of the continent has been based on increasingly extensive oil and gas cooperation between the (now former) USSR and Western Europe.
China, which was unfriendly to the Soviet Union and distant in every sense from Europe, remained a thing in itself for some time, but from the 1970s it began to open up to the world, first politically, then economically, focusing primarily on the US. After the end of the Cold War, these processes became organic elements of the global order, with the expectation that a world-wide system of economic interdependence would eventually emerge. Now, in fact, the opposite will happen.
The EU intends to make a purposeful effort to rid itself of Russian raw materials, although economically this is totally impractical and mostly unprofitable. The replacement should be its own resources (preferably renewable technologies) and other sources, most likely the US and the Middle East. Let’s put aside, for the moment, the question of the reliability and cost-effectiveness of alternatives, assuming that in case of firm political resolve, EU states will be prepared to pay more and bear additional risks.
The surplus Russian resources will go to Asian markets – oil immediately, gas in a couple of years – when this country has the necessary infrastructure in place. The Asian countries are completely satisfied with this situation, because now they will hold the advantage that Europe has had so far: The presence of a very large, stable, and relatively cheap source of raw materials. In addition, there is an opportunity to seek more favorable conditions, compared to the general world situation, especially in the near future, while Russia adapts to changing circumstances. If the described scheme becomes a reality, the departure from globalization will proceed at a faster pace.
“In recent months, it has become clear that Russia’s role in the global economic order is much greater than is commonly thought.”
The resources of Eurasia, most of which are either located in Russia or depend on its transport and logistics capabilities, have become an important pillar of development for the world’s leading players since the end of the twentieth century. How skillfully and far-sightedly Moscow itself has managed this role is a different question.
Nevertheless, it will remain relevant even after a possible “divorce” from Europe and “marriage” to Asia. However, a change in the political balance in Eurasia will affect the entire world order, and not in favor of those who were its chief beneficiaries until recently. In this regard, it will be most interesting to see if Western leaders will continue to encourage the process, or whether a possible political shift in the near future will lead to the emergence of forces who look at things from a different perspective.
Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the book, Kevin MacDonald’s Metaphysical Failure: A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Critique of Evolutionary Psychology, Sociobiology, and Identity Politics. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.
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The struggle for survival, the need for food, inert liberty reflexes converted into servile reflexes by Pavlovian algorithms for this Scientific Dictatorship. Beat a dog with a stick and the mere appearance of the stick will have it running away. Menace-Virus. Conditioned reflex- Mask. Vaccine. Isolation. Result-Docility.
Symbolic representations, mathematical abstractions, have substituted concrete physical temporal realities. The world has been draped in a veil of symbols of mathematical theories in a representation of the world which is given to us as being ‘objective’, ‘true’, ‘actual’, ‘of nature’, when in fact it is the means through which the world is represented that is being mistaken for the world itself. This has been called the ‘mathematicization’ of the world. It is the world of academia occupied by the educated and rewarded by the powerful.
Time itself has become a mathematical quantity presented as ‘pure’, ‘true’, ‘absolute’-something alien to man outside of his world of social interactions where time is related to material objects and their motion.
‘Time is money’. It has become ‘a thing’- not the result of social interaction but something owned by wealth.
‘Concrete activity’ is human production of real things.
Human activity has produced the ‘concrete’ world around us but
ownership is decided by the most ‘abstracted form of value’- money.
I’ve heard of something called “real politics” and of something called “real economy.”
If the money-from-nothing Houdini con-artists don’t force their franken-zombie boot-lickers to commit hari-kari, then the real men, and the real women who support productive constructive materiel reality will figure out a way to live like human beings, and be done with the parasites feeding off of their good-natured hearts and souls.
I agree with you, Elvin, but the problem is, the USA will never go back to being a “normal” nation that works for a living and pays its bills because our political establishment is beholden to Zionist banksters and crazy religious fanatics who long for a cataclysmic war with Russia that will be the end of the USA as we know it. 40 million of these folks voted for Trump in 2020. It was because of them that he killed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. It was because of them that he murdered General Soleimani. It was because of them that he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, setting the stage eventually for nuclear war with Russia.
The 10% which is excluded from the embargo going mostly to Hungary through pipelines is 800,000 barrels a day and by the time oil hits $400 that 10% will be around that figure.
This was a response to Adrian.
Newt, your numbers are wrong, is not only Hungary who receives through pipeline, Orban is the one most loudest on media, and is not only the Druzhba pipeline is in the game.
BTW Newt, sleepy he went to drag himself front MBS for beg him increasing oil barrels production, I guess he will offer him that he can cut up with a bone saw how many journalist he want if if he helps him get fall gas price before Midterms because today US Strategic Petroleum Reserve are at same level June 1987 and going down….
Forget the Bin there done that bone Salmonella, Trump is the one who gave him a clean bill, he was kissing their hands for buying his overpriced condos. But the children of Yemen are practically worthless compared to Ukrainians, even your clan agrees with that, don’t they ?
Some lies from European Commission about such “90%” and the remaining 10% are…. how much money is these 90% ?? $10bn dollars and how much is the remaining 10% ?? $12bn dollars.
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