In his keynote speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg argued that “economic relations with authoritarian regimes can create vulnerabilities”, citing not only Russia, but also China – “another authoritarian regime that does not share our values”.
He went on to describe the idea that “we should have free trade in natural gas meaning we can buy as much gas from Russia as you want” as “wrong” and “dangerous” because “it provides Russia with a tool to intimidate and to use against us”.
As to trade with China, he acknowledged “there are huge benefits”, clarifying that “I’m not arguing against trading with China”. But he pointed out that “control over 5G networks is of vital security importance”, so we should not “just open up those networks”.
Stoltenberg emphasised that “we should not trade long-term security needs for short-term economic interests” because “freedom is more important than free trade”, and proclaimed that “our economic choices have consequences for our security.”
All these arguments make sense, and I’m not about to suggest Stoltenberg is completely wrong. (Limiting foreign ownership of critical infrastructure certainly seems like a good idea.) However, there is one major caveat I’d like to discuss.
Stoltenberg frames the issue as “short-term economic interests” versus “long-term security needs”, implying that trade with “authoritarian regimes” is good for the economy but bad for national security. Yet there’s reason to believe that trade with such regimes could be good for national security. How?
One of the most influential theories in the study of inter-state conflict is the ‘capitalist peace theory’, also known as the ‘doctrine of gentle commerce’. In short, it states that countries which trade more with each other are less likely to go to war.
The reason why is obvious: it’s costly to wage war against a country you buy things from or sells things to. When two trading partners go to war, they forgo positive-sum ‘gains from trade’, ending up poorer. As Robert Wright has quipped, “Among the many reasons I think we shouldn’t bomb the Japanese is that they made my minivan.”
While the relationship between trade and conflict is hard to pin down empirically, here’s what Steven Pinker says in The Better Angels of Our Nature:
The theory of gentle commerce is not only supported by numbers from international datasets but is consistent with a phenomenon long known to anthropologists: that many cultures maintain active networks of exchange, even when the goods exchanged are useless gifts, because they know it helps keep the peace among them.
I would therefore suggest that Stoltenberg’s framing is too simplistic: maintaining economic interdependence with countries like Russia and China could benefit our national security.
Take his claim that buying energy from Russia is “dangerous” because it gives Russia leverage over us. That’s true. But it also gives us leverage over Russia, since Russia needs our money just as much as we need Russia’s energy.
Imagine Europe had stopped buying energy from Russia years ago. Yes, we’d no longer be dependent on Russia. But Russia would no longer be dependent on us. They would have built new pipelines, and found other buyers for their energy – like India and China. And in that case, they might be even less vulnerable to Western sanctions.
We ought to remember what trade with other countries means: we have a stake in their economies, and they have a stake in ours. Which just might be enough to prevent war.
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What isn’t an authoritarian regime now? If we haven’t descended to Shanghai levels it is only a matter of time. Our politicians are illiterate or just sold out. The attempt to silence criticism over the racket in Ukraine is authoritarian. Who is he kidding?
Yes, the last couple of years the West descended into extreme authoritarianism. It had a reason ‘to stop covid’ etc. But I expect other regimes have their reasons – to ‘protect the citizens from capitalism’ or ‘stability’ or the latest in Hungary ‘due to the economic circumstances’
The West isn’t against extreme authoritarianism – just differs slightly from other countries on when to impose it.
We have lost our moral compass and deserted the moral high ground – at least where personal freedom comes into it. A period of quiet reflection should be in order before we start bullying other countries that don’t measure up to our leaders’ bizarre impression of what the West ‘stands for’.
A few decades too late for that, sadly.
Did you see Klaus Schwabbs speech…….1930 all over again and they truly think they have won this time.
‘It had a reason ‘to stop covid’ etc.’
Correction: it had an excuse.
We were never as noble as we may have liked to believe (Jon Garvey’s point is absolutely valid), but events from the first months of 2020 have been catastrophic: particularly as far as respect for truth and personal freedom is concerned.
Lies are repeated endlessly and shamelessly. They are the new normal. It doesn’t matter how many times you point out and prove that something is incorrect: it will still be repeated.
It is demonstrably the case, for instance, that Ukraine mined the Black Sea and that it is the Russians clearing “corridors” for merchant shipping to export Ukrainian grain. Who knows?
The truth isn’t always easy to ascertain, and many things are open to interpretation. But our leaders and our principal “news” organisations no longer seem to bother.
They have decided what the story should be (on Russia and the Ukraine, on trade and the economy, on public health and safety), and that’s what they tell those who have become their subjects, rather than their citizens.
Through their lies and their laws, they have bullied and coerced people into taking experimental injections at a ruinous cost (in every sense).
However imperfect we were in “the West”, we used to be better than this.
This is why the new Harms Bill is being rushed through. Only fascist organisations actively shut down the truth. Once again those in control have projected their own aims onto the ‘conspiracy theorists’.
This has been taught to Western Governments by the Globalists who own EU
Just look at the families who have been involved in this Global authoritarianism. The majority are old Europe who financially support the US Democrat Party. They are the left over from what we thought we had finally broken. Russia warned us in the 1990s what Europe would become via the Globalists. As with Enoch, we allowed ourselves to be treated like mushrooms…..
Interesting to note that a senior government scientist, Mark Woolhouse, has concluded in his book* that lockdowns were unnecessary. Seems to me that they were planned simply to exercise unprecedented control over us. I wait to see what else is planned…
*”The Year the World went Mad”
https://youtu.be/xOAqlOxOgSg
Because it’s not easy being green.
No.
As we depend on China in particular for nearly everything we use, need and now no longer produce, banning trade with China would be fun indeed!
Russia is a vital source of raw materials natural resources and agricultural products.
We will see how Germany gets along without Russian gas and oil. Back -peddling in Berlin away from the Red Green Loons in charge has already started.
Is trading with the melt-down Biden US now bad for National Security – now there is a real question?
Pragmatic as ever mate.
China and Russia might not be ideal bedfellows, but bullying them to comply with western values simply won’t work.
Whilst we moan about slave labour in China, do we count the bodies of victims of the west’s incessant warmongering?
Imperialist powers never count the bodies of the ‘enemy’ victims of their power games ( as the US proved in Vietnam) only their own carefully monitored “sad losses”.
Whilst American’s were ashamed of returning Nam Vets.
“Sanctions” are of course merely economic warfare designed to destroy a country’s economy and effect ‘regime change’ often effected via an angry suffering populace, stirred up and funded by external Agencies without the foreign instigator firing a shot .
They may also be used to force a desperate country into a war at a time disadvantageous to itself and against its interest often resulting its being labelled as the ‘aggressor’ in order to secure the same Regime Change and subsequent client status outcome.
Examples: Syria, Japan, December 1941, Ukraine 2014, Russia 2022(?)
China: “another authoritarian regime that does not share our values”.
Why is Xi Jinping listed as one of the WEF’s people then?
If you don’t go, you don’t know.
Can you remind us what our ‘values’ are again please? Our Government doesn’t seem to know any longer and many are quite rightly getting very confused.
For example, does someone identifying as a woman have to have been born with a womb or not? Many of our leaders are unclear.
And is Britain ‘racist’ and should explaining why it is not and saying ‘No’ to that question disqualify you from becoming a priest in the Church of England?
Do you have the Human Right to ‘bodily autonomy’ as guaranteed by the Nuremberg Code of 1946, or can the Government just pass the buck on this to allow Bill Gates to impose dangerous, experimental ‘mandated’ vaccines on you (known to have directly caused loss of life and very serious injury), as he sees fit?
“British values” – no longer so easy to know what they are or who is in charge of them !
Because all of the WEF people are intent on creating a totalitarian world government.
My gut feeling is we shouldn’t trade at all with countries that don’t live up to our standards. It’s no fun to be undercut by someone that uses slaves – how can you compete with that?
The problem is – after the last 2 years – we in the West don’t have any standards to live up to.
We cant and shouldnt dictate to other countries how they should behave (internally) so I think the opposite.
Trade with everyone and anyone but with caveats.
See those countries and cultures for what they are – dont be naïve and ‘hope’ they are better, have more integrity, are more honourable and are less of a threat to us than they actually are. Its an accident of geography that China has a vast quantity of rare earth metals and the arab world and Russia has a glut of oil and gas so trade with them with both eyes open as to how they view us. Its no surprise to anyone with any intelligence that Russia at some point may weaponise their oil and gas and yet how many governments are shocked by this.
Never get into a position where we are wholly dependant on one supplier (Germany take note!) and always be prepared to walk away with minimal impact to ourselves.
Always negotiate a two way benefit so that there is mutual self-interest. Never receive more than you give, and especially dont be in position where you receive nothing – even if its called ‘International Aid’. We arent a charity.
Always have a backup! Domestic or international.
All of the above is simple for anyone with knowledge how business works – but it seem to be a revelation to our governments.
“Its no surprise to anyone with any intelligence that Russia at some point may weaponise their oil and gas and yet how many governments are shocked by this.“
And yet the reality is that I don’t recall Russia ever “weaponising” its oil and gas against its European customers, nor even threatening to. So long as people pay, Russia supplies.
Russia’s rulers understand that the value of being a reliable supplier far exceeds any short term benefits that could be extracted by such leverage.
All the noise about “weaponising” oil and gas has come from established liars in the US sphere – neocons and the like, who have an agenda of trying to build a hostile, confrontational European relationship with Russia. As usual, they accuse others of that which they themselves are guilty of. They have “weaponised” trading and even their own currency, in a kind of global cancel culture, to try to coerce others into submission.
It’s a lie, just as the nonsense about Russia “blockading” Ukrainian grain is a lie. Lying is the essence of the Empire of Lies.
If Russia has “weaponised” its energy supply, it’s only because Europe has bowed to the great god of climate change and unwisely exposed itself.
Trump warned them. They didn’t listen, just laughed at him.
Having internal taxes/tariffs on trade between citizens (income and sales taxes) then erasing taxes between countries is a recipe solely to export jobs.
“So it’s very unlikely that any experiment on monkeypox in the Wuhan lab would have leaked.”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/did-monkeypox-leak-from-wuhan-
So it probably did then
Monkeypox – a smokescreen for a global health powergrab?https://www.anhinternational.org/news/anh-feature-monkeypox-a-smokescreen-for-a-global-health-powergrab/
.
.
Yes, also, excellent points from the author. Very difficult to take the assumptions of people Stoltenberg who are anything but defenders of freedom – as we see sack loads of money going to his friends n Ukraine as the ship continues to go down. A free society has to eat, but that means nothing to these people either.
Serious question…. Xi Jinping and Jens Stoltenberg are both WEF agenda contributors. What does Stoltenberg mean when he says ‘our values’? Presumeably Xi Jinping signed up to Davos values when he became one of their agenda contributors, and the WEF accepted him. I don’t understand.
What does Stoltenberg mean when he says ‘our values’
Fedualism.
Liberal democratic countries should apply firm conditions on importing goods or having their businesses operate within currently tyrannical ones such as Russia and China.
These conditions should include commitments by these states to incremental liberalisation and democratisation (and in the case of Russia just now to end the assault on Ukraine) in other words they should be of a moral and ethical kind.
This approach would obviously give the Chinese and Russian (and similar) states and citizens an enormous economic incentive to move towards democratisation by being able to sell their produce as widely as possible.
Given the likely initial reluctance to accept such terms, those living in ‘the West’ should be prepared to take a short-term financial hit in terms of reduced availability of eg cheap IT equipment, phones etc. Moral agendas often do involve some degree of self-sacrifice.
On the other hand if the refusal to meet democratisation conditions continues for any length of time there is no reason that replicating industries cannot spring up in democratic regions bringing relevant prices back down again.
As a by-the-by and huge added benefit any need to speedily reindustrialise in eg the UK would hopefully lead to a reappraisal and rejection of the completely self-destructive and unfounded anthropogenic Climate Change / Net Zero agenda (which should be got rid of asap in any case)
At the same time western countries should freely allow non-democratic nations to import their goods so as not to deliberately penalise their already badly treated populations (though that again might meet with at least initial tit-for-tat resistance).
Economic benefits should never take priority over morality, in this case that involved in propping up oppressive and harmful systems.
Force others to conform to your standards. Hmmmmm, that sounds a bit totalitarian to me.
“Obviously”? Really? Their products are already used as widely as could possibly be imagined. No need for democratisation so far.
Always assuming ‘the West’ want’s to pay Chinese wages, it’s a great idea, providing you’re happy to impoverish 1.5bn people.
If the west onshores manufacturing, what do we use for energy if we don’t increase CO2 output? Meanwhile, 1.5bn Chinese starve because we don’t buy their products.
LOL, you expect the people of a country you have condemned to poverty to be able to afford to buy your products, even if they are produced with breadline labour?
Economies and morality have always been a balancing act. Where’s the morality in what you suggest, consigning the Chinese people to a life of misery because you don’t like their politics?
Force others to conform to your standards. Hmmmmm, that sounds a bit totalitarian to me.
Refusing to purchase good from tyrannical systems is no more totalitarian than refusing to buy a watch from ‘a guy in the pub’, shopping in Morrisons rather than Tesco because you prefer the way they treat their staff, or indeed any other purchasing decision.
“Obviously”? Really? Their products are already used as widely as could possibly be imagined. No need for democratisation so far.
By ‘obviously’ I was meaning from within the system I suggested, but in any case thank you for openly admitting that there is no democracy in these countries (this is usually hidden behind rhetorical smokescreens such as ‘a true people’s democracy’ etc).
Always assuming ‘the West’ want’s to pay Chinese wages, it’s a great idea, providing you’re happy to impoverish 1.5bn people.
That is a fair point, Chinese imported goods are indeed currently selling at a discount due to lower wages so the cost of any domestically produced replacements would be concomitantly higher.
On the other hand, unless you are suggesting that the CCP intends to keep its population on low wages indefinitely both these and the resultant product prices (including exports) will inevitably rise to meet western standards, so all this would just be a short term issue in any case.
If the west onshore manufacturing, what do we use for energy if we don’t increase CO2 output?
I am afraid you didn’t read the comment you quoted carefully as that is precisely what I am proposing:
As a by-the-by and huge added benefit hopefully any need to speedily reindustrialise in eg the UK would lead to a reappraisal and rejection of the completely self-destructive and unfounded anthropogenic Climate Change / Net Zero agenda (which should be got rid of asap in any case)
Meanwhile, 1.5bn Chinese starve because we don’t buy their products.
I am sure that is a massive exaggeration of the effect of limitations on exports, but in any case
(A) if there was any serious danger of famine in China under the moral approach I am advocating western nations would of course step in with food aid and subsidies (unlike the Chinese Communist Party which stood back in the late 1950s and early 60s whilst tens of millions starved due to their own socially malicious and anti-scientific agricultural policies)
(B) I am sure that sufficient numbers both within the current regime and wider population would realise long before any actually occurred that warding off a self-inflicted famine by introducing the sort of democratic reforms that have been successfully and beneficially in place across the world for a very long time was more sensible than continuing to prop up an ultimately unsustainable tyrannical system.
LOL, you expect the people of a country you have condemned to poverty to be able to afford to buy your products, even if they are produced with breadline labour?
Please see my above and under my proposals it would be the CCP that would be responsible for any loss of exporting income by refusing to give up its immoral and unjustifiable tyrannical role.
Economies and morality have always been a balancing act. Where’s the morality in what you suggest, consigning the Chinese people to a life of misery because you don’t like their politics?
The CCP has already consigned the Chinese people to a life of misery due to its oppressive and totalitarian policies. Man does not live by bread alone, and freedom is necessary for a genuinely happy existence.
And even the economic benefits of the recent partial relaxation of business controls have been very selectively felt, full liberalisation would spread them far wider and quicker (the west should practice a form of this itself by getting rid of the entirely unnecessary, destructive and impoverishing Climate Change measures)
A multi-party liberal democratic China, Russia etc would also be far less aggressive and pose less of a threat to world peace.
Russia in Ukraine with its near daily nuclear threats, and a potential Chinese attack against Taiwan (which would have similar dangers of escalation) put all of these economic arguments into perspective.
A humanicidal nuclear exchange is the greatest danger we have ever faced, and if economic leverage might help ward it off then that is clearly at least worth trying.
Finally, can I assume that you are as opposed to Russia’s hugely impoverishing current widespread restrictions on exports of eg gas and oil as you are / would be of western restrictions in the other direction?
A PS to both my above:
I would be even more happy to see a continuation of current trading but with eg Russia and China accepting huge investment subsidies (in a sense financial bribes) from the West in return for full liberal democratisation.
In effect it adds up to the same thing, would ultimately be more than cost effective and certainly worth it for all the benefits I have highlighted above – including and especially for those currently living under the jackboot of tyranny.
You said:
Refusing to buy something is one thing. Refusing to buy something on condition someone changes their values is totalitarianism.
No if, but’s or maybe’s. We’ve just been through it and almost every informed commentator called it totalitarian.
Clearly, you ween’t obvious enough as I seem to have misunderstood what you said.
Democracy doesn’t exist in China. Nothing new there. Russia is democratic and, judging by ‘western’ standards perhaps more democratic than us. With an 83% approval rating from Russians, Putin is by far and away a more popular leader then any western one I can recall.
Yep, and 1.5bn people starve because your totalitarian beliefs state no trade without conforming to the western vision of an ideal world.
Whichever way you cut it, all want to do is what’s not working now, bullying the rest of the world to conform to your standards.
FFS. People are calling for a cut in foreign aid as it is. So we deliberately impoverish a country, then give them hand outs.
You are just digging a bigger totalitarian hole for yourself. Have you no insight at all?
Conform or starve. No doubt you’ll claim that’s not totalitarian.
Keep doubling down. It’s now getting funny.
That’ll be why more Rolls Royces are sold in China than anywhere else and the favourite Chinese tourist destination is Harrods.
There’s been plenty of poverty in the west under liberal democracy, and long before climate change reared its head.
LOL. Like the west’s non aggression around the world since WW2 I suppose. Like to tell me the last time the Chinese invaded the middle east and waged a 20 year war there?
No nuclear threat from NATO then? Fleets of nuclear submarines from the US/UK/France (93) all members of NATO. Russia has 45, PRC 14 but with no alliance between one another. The US/UK/France with 25 Aircraft Carriers compared to Russia’s 1 and China’s 4.
But Russia’s the nuclear threat………..
We have faced it for all of my 65 years.
Better than your alternative, nuclear war, surely? Besides, thanks to Putin the futility of the climate change agenda is being exposed. That should please you.
There are also alternatives to Putin’s gas Europe could (and can) afford, but they went down the route of renewables whilst not telling their public how ruinously exposed the continent is to Russian energy.
That’s not Putin’s fault He’s just playing by their rules.
In other words, nothing is beneath you in forcing your perception of morality on someone else. What do you do if they don’t comply, nuke them?
You have no moral authority to pass judgement on what conditions other people live under whilst you accept the west’s behaviour over the last 70 years. And by living in a country under the protective umbrella of NATO (which I presume you do) and refusing to do anything about the west’s aggression, you implicitly condone its behaviour. As we all do, sadly.
Refusing to buy something is one thing. Refusing to buy something on condition someone changes their values is totalitarianism.
A) Your basic position on this issue seems to be that any individual, organisation or government can cease purchasing from any other party at any time (obviously within the rules of contract) and for any reason; including disapproving of the supplier’s practices as long a they don’t mention it.
The second they do point out that disapproval of practices is the reason for the change, with the implicit or explicit suggestion that they will resume the relationship as soon as the harmful practices are abandoned, they become tyrannical and responsible for any negative financial consequences to the supplier.
So in the real world a major bread-producing company switches to another flour supplier because they are cheaper, thus putting their current one out of business.
According to you no problem.
On the other hand the same major bread producer indicates that they have found out that the flour supplier has started using illegal and under-paid child labour, so they will not continue buying from them until the practice stops.
So exactly the same business decision (actually more benign because of the offer of a solution) should not be considered acceptable, but rather tyrannical and the cause of any of the flour producer’s subsequent financial woes (rather than their own decision to continue to use Illegal and underpaid child labour).
Another way of putting the same thing is that if ‘protected’ customers of the Mafia (say being supplied illicit and overpriced alcohol for their liquor store) pluck up the courage to stop buying from them they are behaving in a brutally oppressive manner towards their criminal overlords.
I can only strongly disagree with your basic premise.
B) Their is no such thing as differentiated ‘values’ (though many like to claim them as excuses for harmful behaviour), just the universal morality of the spiritual Golden Rule – which can be variously phrased as ‘treat others the way you wish to be treated yourself’, ‘never cause deliberate harm’, treat all your fellow human beings as exact equals and with respect and compassion at all times’ etc.
The use of the term ‘values’ for the ideologies and practices of tyrannical regimes – including discrimination based on ruling party membership, intimidation, internment, suppression of all basic freedoms, widespread economic corruption, killing both through execution and deliberately / negligently induced famines etc etc – is simply a semantic attempt to euphemise and cover up these fundamentally immoral practices.
Democracy doesn’t exist in China. Nothing new there.
Oh well that’s all right then, tough luck on the brutally oppressed population. Oppression which has now been extended to Hong Kong (in spite of promises of maintaining liberal democratic practices) and being threatened on the people of Taiwan through military invasion.
Russia is democratic and, judging by ‘western’ standards perhaps more democratic than us. With an 83% approval rating from Russians, Putin is by far and away a more popular leader then any western one I can recall.
Western standards of democracy (ie the ideal version, of course there are flaws in practice) include freedom of speech, press, unhindered multi-party elections, preclusion of state intimidation through assassination and purely political internment etc – none of which apply to Russia.
Leadership approval rating are completely irrelevant to the democratic credentials of any country, apart from anything else in tyrannical systems they are generally unreliable and even if accurate can reflect fear as much as genuine support.
To put this another way as I pointed out before the Nazi regime achieved an 89% approval rating in the referendum held in 1934 to grant Hitler supreme state leadership.
That did not provide them with any liberal democratic credentials.
Yep, and 1.5bn people starve because your totalitarian beliefs state no trade without conforming to the western vision of an ideal world.
Whichever way you cut it, all want to do is what’s not working now, bullying the rest of the world to conform to your standards.
Again I don’t accept that the Chinese regime and its people are so incompetent as to be unable to feed themselves if their export market was reduced (and if such morality-based sanctions were to be imposed there would certainly be a long run-in period to allow adjustments in the Chinese economy, or even more preferable adjustments in their political system which would allow free trading to continue).
With regards to all the other claims in this statement, use of the terms like ‘totalitarian’ and ‘bullying’ please see all my above (in this and other relevant posts)
So we deliberately impoverish a country, then give them hand outs.
Any impoverishment would be instigated by the CCP and its refusal to allow morality-based liberal democratic reforms.
The same sort of not just impoverishment but mass famines they have deliberately engineered in the past.
That’ll be why more Rolls Royces are sold in China than anywhere else and the favourite Chinese tourist destination is Harrods.
I am not sure why you would seek to justify or minimise the brutal state oppression of an entire population because a tiny percentage own Rolls Royces and can shop in Harrods.
In any case no amount of Rolls Royces or expensive Harrods purchases can make up for a lack of basic freedoms and human rights for the individuals involved (though temporary material thrills can certainly kid us into thinking we’re content); nor, obviously for the relatively poor vast majority of the population.
Again, man does not live by bread alone.
There’s been plenty of poverty in the west under liberal democracy, and long before climate change reared its head.
The emergence of multi-party liberal democracy in the west went hand in hand with the fossil-fuel powered Industrial Revolution – one which massively and speedily improved the living standards of all those living there, and would have continued to do so had environmentalism (and its Climate Change battering ram) not become the popular religion of choice.
LOL. Like the west’s non aggression around the world since WW2 I suppose. Like to tell me the last time the Chinese invaded the middle east and waged a 20 year war there?
I don’t support military action of any kind, including that of the UK or other western nations.
On the other hand I think it is necessary to look at the ideologies and agendas involved in any conflicts and support the more benign (ie in this context liberal democratic) one.
In recent times the wars that western nations have been involved in have overwhelmingly been in opposition to tyrannical systems and regimes (including in the Middle East).
The one exception was the (UN instigated) NATO intervention in former Yugoslavia, where it actually supported the more regressive party (militant Islam dominated Kosovo versus a relatively progressive – but by no means fully democratic – Serbia).
In any case because of their inherently (at least internally) non-violent, negotiation-based and tolerant nature liberal democracies hardly ever go to war with each other; which is another of the many reasons why I wish to see the model adopted universally as at least a stepping stone towards world peace and prosperity.
With tyrannical systems such as those currently in place in Russia and China pointing in exactly the opposite direction.
No nuclear threat from NATO then? Fleets of nuclear submarines from the US/UK/France (93) all members of NATO. Russia has 45, PRC 14 but with no alliance between one another. The US/UK/France with 25 Aircraft Carriers compared to Russia’s 1 and China’s 4.
But Russia’s the nuclear threat…
A nuclear threat, like that of any other weapons, does not rest in their mere possession but rather statements about possible use.
In the case of Russia it has been making vile and bullying threats on an almost daily basis to instigate a humanicidal nuclear armageddon if anyone dares stand in there way in Ukraine (ie not just if nuclear weapons are launched against them).
We have faced it for all of my 65 years.
It was certainly fairly prominent during the Cold War, which ended about 30 years ago.
Since then there has been relative calm and security on the nuclear armageddon front, until the Putin regime decided to make it raise its very ugly head again.
Better than your alternative, nuclear war, surely?
It seems rather inconsistent that you won’t condemn current Russian sanctions as totalitarian and impoverishing in the same way as you have my own proposed (conditional) ones against tyrannical regimes.
Beyond that I have no idea why you are describing a nuclear war as ‘my alternative’.
There are also alternatives to Putin’s gas Europe could (and can) afford, but they went down the route of renewables whilst not telling their public how ruinously exposed the continent is to Russian energy.
That’s not Putin’s fault He’s just playing by their rules.
Well we could switch back to fossil fuels (eg fracking, coal mining and full exploitation of the North Sea etc) almost overnight, but beyond that I agree with all that you said there.
In other words, nothing is beneath you in forcing your perception of morality on someone else. What do you do if they don’t comply, nuke them?
You think that providing generous financial incentives to make morally progressive reforms is the same thing as using force, up to and including nuclear weapons?
You have no moral authority to pass judgement on what conditions other people live under
I have not only a right but an obligation to make moral judgements on any topics I am involved in.
whilst you accept the west’s behaviour over the last 70 years.
I have been heavily critical of many aspects of the UK and other governments’ behaviour during my adult lifetime (thankfully not yet 70 years!).
Regardless we don’t ‘buy’ the right to make moral judgements based on past beliefs and activities but rather are obliged to do so at all times.
And finally on this approach, not matter how many immoral activities the west has or has not engaged in in the past, two (or more) wrongs don’t make a right.
And by living in a country under the protective umbrella of NATO (which I presume you do) and refusing to do anything about the west’s aggression, you implicitly condone its behaviour
I am aware of all the inherent dangers of life and am not looking for any sort of ‘protective umbrella’ (from NATO, the UK army or any other military source).
If I did it would be a delusion, because the existence of armed forces (and the nation-states that create them) make all of our existences much more precarious; not just the possibility of ending up in a conventional war zone but with mass nuclear annihilation an ever present danger.
We need to work with a all due urgency toward a world without warfare and free from the ongoing threat of nuclear armageddon;
And the route towards that presumably desirable outcome lies via the multi-party liberal democratic model, not the inherently militaristic and tyrannical ones currently in place in both Russia and China.
It’s not as if this country was ever a democracy and certainly no longer.
I think the point most people miss in all this nonsense is that only 40 years ago Russia and China were entirely authoritarian in the truest sense of the word.
Both have embraced Capitalism, China in the biggest possible way, so if we don’t want to alienate them wouldn’t it be sensible to encourage them rather than condemn them?
There is a long way to go with China politically, but internal change is always going to be slow.
It is amazing how all of these brilliant economic brains didn’t forecast this happening last year. My son was actively investing in Russian companies last year when they were performing well.
Trump did. But he posted mean tweets so wasn’t a good POTUS.
‘… China – “another authoritarian regime that does not share our values”.’
But now we share theirs.
Exhibit A: last two years.
There are no longer any regimes that are not authoritarian, and the WEF certainly is a sponsor of that authoritarianism in the West.
Do these people have no self-awareness?
i suppose that would be a No.
The most dangerous trade for other nations is now with the super-authoritarian USA, always having been eager to engage in judicial extortion (ask the Swiss banks, DB or Daimler) and on leveraging the reserve $ benefit for political reasons and gain, and/but now also having abolished the main rule of law in form of property rights not being subject to whims, nationality or political consent and acquiescence.
Closely followed by the UK and EU which have now adopted similar degenerated practices.
Nations only have interests, and in truth, the US’s and its barking poodle UK’s interests are very different from the EU and in particular Germany’s (NS2&co), and they will stop at no scheme to advance them, as ze Germans, thei Ukie pawns and the whole world are now finding out the very hard way.
Interesting guy, our Jens. Up to the 90s he was run as a KGB contact in Norway. By 2000 he was PM called the Norwegian Blair. Now overseeing the biggest NATO increase since WW2. He is talking his book, question is , which book?
I cannot believe half of the images in this Twatter. But I do think that this is the ultimate aim.
https://twitter.com/leehoward708/status/1529391659569532929
“But it also gives us leverage over Russia, since Russia needs our money just as much as we need Russia’s energy.”
No they don’t.
Surely the last few months have dispelled this nonsense. Russia has no need of our money – pounds and dollars – because they have their own – the Rouble.
Russia is perfectly capable of maintaining monetary circulation entirely in Roubles and employing everybody who is currently working in Russian Energy, working on something else. War machinery for example.
We don’t do international trade to amass foreign promises. We do international trade in exchange for real things of material value.
If we stop supplying Russia with anything physical or useful, then they have no need to supply us with anything physical or useful either.
To maintain a dependency, Russia cannot amass ‘foreign reserves’. They have to be made to spend them with us. Just giving them money isn’t enough.
NATO values? What a joke. NATO is fomenting this war with Russia and has started more wars than it ever ended! NATO is the aggressor!
If I was able to shut anything down it would be the WEF. After the speeches that I have watched from Davos this week it is obvious these people think they own us and that we are unable to make any decisions for ourselves. The WEF is a highly dangerous, self appointed organisation.
Why does the author presume that we in the west are not living in an authoritarian regime? One which wages war against other sovereign nations with impunity? Freedom of movement, speech, choice, association and bodily autonomy are the markers of a free society: all these principles have been violated by western governments at the behest of globalist corporatists. The author is a total normie and should be ignored.
And of course it’s true that “if goods do not cross borders then armies have to”…
A weak argument that isn’t supported by what’s happening. The West has applied a good deal of ‘leverage’ but it hasn’t made a jot of difference to Putin. He’s prepared to cut off supplies to his former buyers, as he knows he can sell it elsewhere. The theory only works if there is limited demand for a product, if there are other market opportunities to sell a critical commodity the theory falls apart.
Not only is it bad for security but, especially in respect of China, it has resulted in the destruction of our own manufacturing industry and products often of inferior quality. As for energy a nation which relies almost completely on energy supplies for those countries is vulnerable to deliberate supply interruption. Of particular concern too is the involvement of the Chines in Hinckley point nuclear power station.
An academic argument that no longer seems operable. Trade between Russia and Europe didn’t prevent the Russian invasion of Ukraine, trade emboldened it.
As a life-long free trader and a person who’s livelihood is dependent on selling western goods to China, I take this quite seriously but I don’t fool myself into believing that there aren’t significant risks and costs to the current trade structures.
After Centrica pulled out of part funding Hinkley Point C in 2013 Cameron and Osborne went to Peking to beg the state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) to put in money. The Chinese did so very willingly. Not surprising, as part of the deal (which has never been rescinded) is for the UK to allow CGN to build and operate nuclear reactors in the UK using Chinese technology, Chinese construction workers, and Chinese operators. And one of the nuclear licensed sites ear-marked to receive a Chinese nuclear reactor is Bradwell-on-Sea. You just couldn’t make it up! But the best part? Bradwell (as the crow flies, or more aptly, as per the route radioactive particles would travel!) is about 40 miles from the heart of London. Were there ever to be a serious release of radiation such as occurred at Chernobyl and Fukushima, the exclusion zone could extend as far as a 50 mile radius from the site (that is the current US recommendation to its nationals for those living in the Fukushima region). That would basically necessitate the evacuation of London for decades!
At the time a spokesman for the GMB union wrote in a letter to the government,
“The idea that a Chinese state company will be given a site in the UK, not far from London, where they can use Chinese labour to construct a reactor to be made in China and using Chinese components would in our view constitute economic madness and raises serious safety issues.”
What kind of clowns would ever have signed the UK up to such a disastrous deal – why, the same sort as the imbecile that is currently in No. 10.