Europe Moving to War Footing on Energy.

 There are many stories coming out of Europe on how they hope to get through the winter without Russian Gas. A lot of it is reading like Europe is slipping into some sort of emergency war footing.

Switzerland is making it an offence to have your thermostat above 19 degrees, Germany have halted the destruction of coal fired power stations, the French are un-mothballing their nuclear reactors. 

The EU seems hell bent on doing some destructive taxation for some reason, rather than helping the situation. They want to cap the profits of renewable and nuclear producers whilst simultaneously doing a windfall tax-grab on  fossil fuelled energy providers. I'm not sure how that helps exactly. But I suppose it is doing something about the situation.

I have sneaking suspicion the near future is a dark place. Big wars have started over less. The fight for resources whether it's energy, oil, gas, diamonds, minerals, has always ended in war.

If Putin keeps the taps turned off, then how desperate could Europe get? Could Europe make a land-grab for the Russian gas fields so they control the energy for themselves? Well, the gas fields of Russia are thousands of miles behind the Russian border. So safe for now. 

Except, there's a left-field option: what about China?

Let's surmise the crash of the West due to energy supply causes the impending crash of China too. If people in the West are paying all their disposable cash to energy suppliers, then there's nothing left for the producers of tat in China.

China could be looking at a black economic hole and the shock of Covid has been bad enough. 

China may think it has the resources and manpower to slice Russia in two and push from Mongolia to the gas fields of Siberia. It's a straight run. albeit around 1500 miles, which is half the distance from Ukraine. 

They have the technological upper hand over Russia, they have vastly more numbers in manpower, they have parity in the numbers of aircraft but importantly have a better technological edge over Russia and have better drone and stealth technology (stolen from the Americans).

These are delicate times at the moment and all bets are off regarding if and where full-scale war may break out. 

If Putin were smart, he'd pull back to pre-war lines or at least offer to do so as some sort of peace deal. Because at the end of this winter Russia and the rest of the world may not exist as it does today.