Writing at UnHerd, Thomas Fazi takes an extremely dire view of the economic and social implications of Europe’s (a) reliance on Russian natural gas while (b) opposing Russian war against neighboring Ukraine. Check out this quote:
If it stays on its current course, Europe is looking at years of economic contraction, inflation, deindustrialisation, declining living standards, mass impoverishment, and shortages — and this without taking into account the terrifying prospect of an outright military confrontation with Russia. How can anyone think Europe can survive this without plunging into anarchy?
Fazi believes Europe is very unlikely to cope well with the results of their choices. Candidly, he almost appears to be in favor of letting Putin do his darnedest in Ukraine and elsewhere as long as Russian gas keeps flowing.
The fallacy in his argument is that while Europe is being hurt, he implies Russia is doing fine. It isn’t, its feared army has been shown to be a mess and its people aren’t loving Putin’s “great foreign adventure” in Ukraine or his call up of reserves.
Can Putin hang on awhile longer? Probably through the winter, at least. Beyond that, it’s questionable. Can Europe hang on awhile longer? Same answer as above.
We live in interesting times.
