What if Ukraine Wins the War?

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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… European leaders won’t be celebrating.

Europe’s leaders fall out of key on Ukraine
https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-leaders-fall-out-of-…

Even as European leaders sympathize publicly with Ukraine’s struggle and in some cases have gone to great lengths to support the country, they also fear that what French President Emmanuel Macron last week called a “humiliation” of Russia could create a whole new set of problems, Western officials say.

One big concern is that a Ukrainian win could destabilize Russia, making it even more unpredictable and putting a normalization of energy links further out of reach. That’s why some western European capitals quietly favor a “face-saving” resolution to the conflict, even if it costs Ukraine some territory.

I also think US defense contractors and their “bought & paid for” Members of Congress would prefer a 20-year war in Ukraine. That would do the most to boost Executive Compensation.

intercst

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One big concern is that a Ukrainian win could destabilize Russia,

Argentina lost the Falklands war, and the Argentine junta was unhorsed.

Greece’s wag the dog exercise in Cyprus didn’t go their way, and the Greek junta was unhorsed.

What we are hearing from Europe is probably the whining of the interests that positioned themselves to profit from the status quo.

Steve

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Happy balloon day

Jeff

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One big concern is that a Ukrainian win could destabilize Russia, making it even more unpredictable and putting a normalization of energy links further out of reach.

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Why would EU ever want to be dependent on Russian energy again?

Jaak

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Why would EU ever want to be dependent on Russian energy again?

Because “cheap” Russian energy improves Executive Compensation. Remember, these guys only play on a quarter-to-quarter time horizon. No one considers long term damage.

intercst

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Why would EU ever want to be dependent on Russian energy again?
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Because “cheap” Russian energy improves Executive Compensation.

Lower cost energy also reduces energy poverty. For example:

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/eu-buildings-factsheets-topics-t….
Energy poverty is a widespread problem across Europe, as between 50 and 125 million people are unable to afford proper indoor thermal comfort.

https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-consumers/ene…
An EU-wide survey concluded that in 2020, 8% of the EU population said that they were unable to keep their home adequately warm. Energy poverty therefore remains a major challenge and lifting vulnerable citizens out of it is an urgent task for the EU and its members.

DB2

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Lotsa balloons! Congrats and keep breathing and thinking.

Putin’s war is a disaster for Russia, and it will not take more than another year of horrors for that disaster to manifest.

USA battlefield dominating 777 howitzers are arriving now in significant numbers and the Ukrainians are showing an eagerness to show off their skill and heroism in using them.

The Russian armed forces’ professional and elite warriors have been decimated, mostly in the initial idiotic attack, and probably much worse one of ten. Some are dead, some are long term invalided, and many of the highest ranking leadership, both army and FSB, has been cashiered and/or imprisoned.

Russian conscripts are demoralized and it seems a significant portion of the populace seems to be resisting conscription, and conscription in Russia under Putin has been a very spotty and corrupt system.

Russian military equipment manufacture is disastrously corrupt and incapable of volume production of reliable advanced gear.

Russia failed to make the leap to modernity that Ukraine is successfully making, and so it is losing its intellegentsia to the West in large numbers.

Perhaps the greatest revealed weakness has been the failure of Russian secure communications (fragile units that are awkward and unreliable in use), especially because Russian miliary culture is the ultimate in top down control at a time when information tech and culture profoundly empower small intercommunicating groups acting on their own initiative.

After being of the top three dominant powers of the world since Catherine the Great Russia is now shown to be a pathetic has been, albeit still loaded with world destroying power. The mental adjustments will be diffiult for Putin and his kind. If Russia and Russians are lucky then Ukraine, post war, will help guide them into modernity even while commandeering a portion of Russian petro wealth to pay for reconstruction.

The adjustments will be earthshaking and unpredictable. and of oourse “JC’s” around the world mostly do not like uncertainty and change.

david fb

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DrBob2 posts,

Lower cost energy also reduces energy poverty. For example:

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/eu-buildings-factsheets-topics-t……
Energy poverty is a widespread problem across Europe, as between 50 and 125 million people are unable to afford proper indoor thermal comfort.

https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-consumers/ene……
An EU-wide survey concluded that in 2020, 8% of the EU population said that they were unable to keep their home adequately warm. Energy poverty therefore remains a major challenge and lifting vulnerable citizens out of it is an urgent task for the EU and its members.

Good point. But you don’t necessarily have to burn more oil to stay warm. The EU could focus on installing more energy efficient heat pumps, or expand the adoption of ground-based thermal heating & cooling systems like the have in Germany.

https://www.german-energy-solutions.de/GES/Redaktion/EN/Text…

intercst

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Great Russia is now shown to be a pathetic has been

Just think how France or Germany would have made mincemeat of Russia. Does this mean NATO is not needed now?
Of course not. The US plans to utilize NATO members in the China confrontation.
Unfortunately for the world, once China has been put down; the arrogance & hubris of the US will be unbearable.

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Because “cheap” Russian energy improves Executive Compensation.

Russian energy isn’t all that “cheap”.

A couple months ago, a Lithuanian government official was on Amanpour talking about the need for countries to divorce themselves from Russian energy.

Lithuania built an LNG terminal in 2014, so they are not only rid of Gazprom, but found that playing the global market for gas, the prices they paid were less than what Gazprom demanded.

Klaipeda liquefied natural gas floating storage and regasification unit terminal or Klaipeda LNG FSRU (Lithuanian: Klaipedos suskystintu gamtiniu duju terminalas) is an LNG terminal in the port of Klaipeda, Lithuania. It cost US$128 million to construct.[1] The project operator is Klaipedos Nafta.

The terminal started operating on 3 December 2014.[2] After the completion of the Klaipeda LNG FSRU, Lithuania became the fifth country in the world to use FSRU technology for liquefied natural gas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaip%C4%97da_LNG_FSRU

Steve

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Lower cost energy also reduces energy poverty…Energy poverty therefore remains a major challenge and lifting vulnerable citizens out of it is an urgent task for the EU and its members.
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The EU could focus on installing more energy efficient heat pumps, or expand the adoption of ground-based thermal heating & cooling systems like the have in Germany.

They’re currently working on that in the UK, but it seems that it’s not easy or cheap. For example, from a couple of days ago:

Heat pump costs soar because Britain’s radiators are ‘too small’
www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/heat-pump-costs-s…
Homeowners trying to install eco-friendly heat pumps have been left with surprise £30,000 bills after it emerged millions of radiators are too small to work with the new technology. The Government wants 600,000 heat pumps installed every year by 2028, in line with its “net zero” aims, but the majority of homes may need thousands of pounds worth of upgrades to accommodate them.

Heat pumps need larger radiators to achieve the same heat output as gas boilers, which heat water to much higher temperatures.

Some 99% of British homes do not have radiators large enough to heat a room on the coldest winter’s day, using a low-temperature heat pump, the most common model, according to a Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy study. “High temperature” heat pumps can help fix this but 90% of homes would still need better radiators.

DB2

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Heat pumps need larger radiators

…OR far better, need very well insulated and sealed rooms that require an even more expensive refit or rebuild. And the same goes for air conditioning that is energy efficient – far too many homes are as leaky as old barns (new barns built as businesses are much much more well insulated and come with better door and ventilation seals).

The scale of what needs to be done is still not comprehended. E.g., it is simply insane to keep building homes as if heating and cooling costs do not matter because the homes are instant white elephants. But that is the case almost everywhere in the USA, and even places with much better building codes often are encapable of enforcing the codes. I long ago discovered that the “dual pane” windows required by code and manufactured in Spain are often next to useless because never subjected to real testing before install.

david fb

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it is simply insane to keep building homes as if heating and cooling costs do not matter because the homes are instant white elephants. But that is the case almost everywhere in the USA…

Do you have any numbers that show building standards haven’t improved? I ask because our current house (built 2007) is about twice as large as our old house (from 1967) and yet the heating/cooling costs for the two homes are approximately the same.

DB2

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Some 99% of British homes do not have radiators large enough to heat a room on the coldest winter’s day,

Brits never heard of forced air heating systems? Seems that a circulation fan under each radiator would improve efficiency vs depending on convection alone.

Steve

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Let’s hold off on the victory champagne. This war may drag on for many more months.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-troops-begin-to…
Ukraine troops begin to surrender in Mariupol
A bus carrying wounded service members of Ukrainian forces from the besieged Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol drives under escort of the pro-Russian military upon arrival in Novoazovsk, Ukraine May 16, 2022.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/reuters/more-than-250-ukrainian…
More than 250 Ukrainian fighters surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol and Kyiv said on Tuesday it had ordered its full garrison to evacuate, bringing an apparent end to the bloodiest battle in Europe for decades.

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Ukraine troops begin to surrender in Mariupol

The Gringo squatters and scofflaws at the Alamo lost too. That wasn’t the end of the war.

Steve

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Energy poverty is a widespread problem across Europe, as between 50 and 125 million people are unable to afford proper indoor thermal comfort.

Are renewables affecting income distribution and increasing the risk of household poverty?
Pereira et al.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544218325…
Abstract:
The worldwide electricity mix has become diversified, mainly through the exploitation of endogenous and green resources. However, doubt has been cast on the much-vaunted advantages of renewables due to some of their characteristics, such as availability, security and affordability.

In fact, growth in the installed capacity of renewable energy has increased electricity prices, which raises the question of how households have withstood the cost of energy transition. The main aim of this study is to empirically assess and discuss: (i) whether different types of household have suffered dissimilar effects from the promotion of renewables; (ii) the consequences of promoting renewables on household income; and (iii) if the promotion of renewables has reduced the risk of poverty and social exclusion.

A panel data of European countries has been analysed using Kao’s residual cointegration test, and an Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach, to assess the relationships. This paper proves that both income and risk of household poverty are directly linked with renewable energies, in both the short- and long-run. The energy transition to renewables has had negative consequences for households. Thus, the disadvantaged households should be helped to meet the increased cost arising from the energy transition.

DB2

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/26/ukraine-fron…
Ukrainian volunteer fighters in the east feel abandoned

Ukrainian leaders have projected and nurtured a public image of military invulnerability — of their volunteer and professional forces triumphantly standing up to the Russian onslaught. Videos of assaults on Russian tanks or positions are posted daily on social media.

But the experience of Lapko and his group of volunteers offers a rare and more realistic portrait of the conflict and Ukraine’s struggle to halt the Russian advance in parts of Donbas. Ukraine, like Russia, has provided scant information about deaths, injuries or losses of military equipment. But after three months of war, this company of 120 men is down to 54 because of deaths, injuries and desertions.

But Lapko and Khrus’s concerns were echoed recently by a platoon of the 115th Brigade 3rd Battalion, based nearby in the besieged city of Severodonetsk. In a video uploaded to Telegram on May 24, and confirmed as authentic by an aide to Haidai, volunteers said they will no longer fight because they lacked proper weapons, rear support and military leadership.

Has the previous rosy picture of the Ukraine Russia war been based on Ukrainian propaganda? Is the Russia military not on the verge of collapse?

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However, doubt has been cast on the much-vaunted advantages of renewables due to some of their characteristics, such as availability, security and affordability.

DB2,

If you are going to put it that way I have far more doubt in fossil fuels and nuclear. I get the bills. I get you might be profiting. We need to lower your profits. LOL

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However, doubt has been cast on the much-vaunted advantages of renewables due to some of their characteristics, such as availability, security and affordability.
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If you are going to put it that way…

You should contact the authors of the paper; I’m sure they have plenty of references.

Diogo Santos Pereira - University of Beira, Covilhã, Portugal
António Cardoso Marques - NECE-UBI, Covilhã, Portugal
José Alberto Fuinhas - University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

DB2