{"id":32570,"date":"2018-03-20T08:13:11","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T13:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32570"},"modified":"2018-03-20T08:13:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T13:13:52","slug":"attack-against-nord-stream-2-renewed-with-vigor-whose-interests-does-it-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32570","title":{"rendered":"Attack Against Nord Stream 2 Renewed with Vigor: Whose Interests Does It Meet?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Attack<\/p>\n

Attack Against Nord Stream 2 Renewed with Vigor: Whose Interests Does It Meet?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n

Economics dictate national interests. Foreign policy is the tool used to advance it. Moscow has to fight back on all fronts, but the truth is that Washington does not care much about chemical attacks in Eastern Ghouta, the Salisbury poisoning, election meddling, or so many other fairy tales used to justify its anti-Russia policy. These are just pretexts to promote US economic interests abroad.<\/p>\n

Gas exports to Europe present exciting opportunities but supplies from Russia are cheaper and more reliable. So the US needs to get rid of the obstacle in its way \u2014 the\u00a0Nord Stream<\/a>\u00a02 (NS2) pipeline, which will carry natural gas from Russia to Germany. Washington will do anything to achieve this cherished goal.<\/p>\n

On March 15, a bipartisan group of 39 senators led by John Barrasso (R-WY) sent a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to the Treasury Department. They oppose NS2 and are calling on the administration to bury it. Why? They don\u2019t want Russia to be in a position to influence Europe, which would be \u201cdetrimental,\u201d as they put it. Their preferred tool to implement this obstructionist policy is the use of sanctions. Thirty-nine out of 100 is a number no president can ignore. Powerful pressure is being put on the administration. Even before the senators wrote their letter, Kurt Volker, the US envoy to Ukraine, had claimed that NS2\u00a0was a purely political<\/a>, not commercial, project. No doubt other steps to ratchet up the pressure will follow.<\/p>\n

Their loyal friends in Europe chimed in almost simultaneously with the US lawmakers. Polish Foreign Minister\u00a0Mateusz Morawiecki\u00a0has proven himself to be a\u00a0master at<\/a>\u00a0telling horror stories<\/a>\u00a0about the scariest things that might happen once the pipeline is up and running. On March 2, the speakers of parliament in Ukraine and Moldova\u00a0signed a letter<\/a>\u00a0addressed to the chairs of the parliaments of the EU countries, warning about the repercussions. This is \u201ca destabilizing factor\u201d that will weaken Europe, they exclaim. Of course it is. Paying more for gas brought in on ships that can change course to head for a new destination if the price of gas elsewhere becomes more alluring will naturally make Europe stronger. Good reasoning!<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attack Against Nord Stream 2 Renewed with Vigor: Whose Interests Does It Meet? Economics dictate national interests. Foreign policy is the tool used to advance it. Moscow has to fight back on all fronts, but the truth is that Washington does not care much about chemical attacks in Eastern Ghouta, the Salisbury poisoning, election meddling, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[15296,19357,281,18975,694,8203,827],"class_list":["post-32570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-alex-gorka","tag-economic-interests","tag-europe","tag-nord-stream-2","tag-russia","tag-strategic-culture-foundation","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32571,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32570\/revisions\/32571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}