So...I was readng this book 'Oilopoly', and it's rather disturbing, no offense to any Russians.
As you all know, since the USSR collasped, Russia was deemed as a Third-World Country with a Fist-World military, and began to cave in on itself, losing it's status as a viable supepower.
But when the Russians started seriously expanding and modernising their energy sector, i.e gas and petroleum, building pipes throughout Europe, establishing a monopoly, it gets frightening that they have accumulated so much clout. Ukraine, Finland, Belarus all have been on the other end of this energy 'club' Russia wields, it can cut of gas whenever it wants to, specifically three guys at Gazprom HQ can do so whenever they want to.
Not a very well known issue I think, but considering the world can't really do anythng to stop Russia, i.e there's no energy MAD, as there is for nuclear weapons, anyone has any thoughts?
Russia although mantaining control over much of the world's energy does not control all of it. There is a lot of Oil elsewhere, and it is in no short supply. The power that russia retains over the energy however is a big deal. Since they supply much of the gas to Europe they can deprive them of Oil as they please. The execution of power is what we need to worry about not the power.
Gotta give them credit for building and using that power. Many other countries have the ability and the resources available but don't for whatever reason. Both the U.S. and Canada for example have ridiculous reserves of most usable types of power sources plus the ability to harness wind, water, and solar but rely on oil from other regions instead of harnessing local sources of power.
