Crescent International
Talk of Germany potentially canceling Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline project from Russia is unlikely to materialize.
It would create major economic and geopolitical problems for Europe that might trigger disintegration of the European Union (EU).
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is set to run from Russia’s Baltic port of Ust-Luga and will double Russia’s gas exports to Europe.
According to Deutsche Welle, the €10 billion project “is currently on hold 160 kilometers off the German coast after US sanctions came into force late last year.”
After Alexei Navalny, Russia’s opposition activist lionized by the Western media was allegedly poisoned by the government in Moscow, Eastern European EU member countries began pressuring Germany to cancel the project.
The reasons put forward by Poland and the Baltic states essentially echo US’ political considerations.
From a strictly historical geopolitical perspective, Poland and the Baltic states have good reason to fear Russia’s rise.
However, it is not the 1930s and Moscow is unlikely to create an escalated confrontation like in Ukraine, Poland or the Baltic states.
It is a different theater and Moscow knows that it will trigger a much stronger Western response which it would rather avoid.
Overall, Moscow wants stability in the EU to use it as an essential market for energy exports to keep its economy healthy.
European payments for energy supplies bring in much-needed Western currencies to Russia. Moscow is not interested in losing its most profitable customer.
It should also be kept in mind that EU’s decades-long blind following of US adventurism in the Muslim world has limited its geopolitical options.
Thus, it has little choice but to seek Russia’s energy products.
For the EU to significantly reduce its energy dependence on Russia, it will have to turn to Central Asia or the Persian Gulf.
This scenario will open a series of geopolitical complications.
Persian Gulf autocracies would have to become one of the key energy substitutes for the EU, especially Qatar, which is now under Turkish influence.
The Gulf sheikhdoms will have to deal with Iran, Turkey or Russia to a certain degree, as alternative energy routes would mainly pass through their territories or spheres of influence.
This will create additional geopolitical and economic leverages for Turkey and Iran, whom EU’s neocolonial regimes have been pressuring and destabilizing for decades.
Thus, Tehran and Ankara would use the new energy routes for their political advantage, something the EU’s neo-colonial regimes see as far more politically problematic than being dependent on Russia.
Hypothetically, if the EU were to ask Iran or any energy-rich Muslim country of the former Soviet Union to replace Russia as a key energy supplier, Tehran would not agree to backstab Moscow.
Russia has continued strategic cooperation with Iran in its most difficult times.
Similarly, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan cannot side-step or cut Russia out of the European market.
This would have serious repercussions for the illegitimate regimes in all three countries whom Russia can easily destabilize.
Thus, essentially the EU has undermined its own options and cornered itself into remaining dependent on Russia for energy supplies.
