In Geopolitics Today - Friday, October 8th
Russia Weighs in on Europe’s Energy Crisis and US Training Taiwanese Troops in Secret
Russia Weighs in on Europe’s Energy Crisis
Moscow is skilfully navigating the energy crisis currently plaguing Europe. Due to high consumption and limited supply, storage levels for natural gas in Europe are at their lowest in a decade. Russia’s Gazprom has reinforced anxiety by limiting supply while also forecasting a “cold, snowy winter in Europe,” while Russian President Vladimir Putin staged an informal policy discussion with officials from Russia’s energy sector.
Putin attributed the European gas crisis largely to decisions made by the European Commission. The policy discussion blamed the crisis on an overreliance on volatile gas markets, the unreliability of wind and solar energy, and a miscalculation of the energy supply-demand balance. In the meeting Putin dismissed complaints that Russia is withholding gas from European markets, and remarked that Russia is fully meeting its obligations under existing supply contracts. Among the solutions offered was the quick certification and the start of operation for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
The head of Gazprom has proposed that Russian electrical power plants should begin to stockpile fuel oil for possible use in generating electricity, thus allowing Russia to redirect natural gas volumes to increase exports to Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that Russia is indeed meeting its natural gas supply commitments to Europe under existing contracts, remarking that there have been no gas purchase requests that Russia has as yet turned down. As such, Russia is showing a willingness to ease Europe’s energy woes in exchange for German and EU support for the certification of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
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US Training Taiwanese Troops in Secret
Reports from the Wall Street Journal suggest that the United States has been engaged in the secret training of Taiwanese troops for over a year. US Marines and a special operations team are said to be training ground and maritime forces on rotational deployments in Taiwan. When quizzed on the issue, a Pentagon spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied the presence of American forces when asked, declining to comment on “specific operations, engagements or training.” The Pentagon has previously dismissed such reports as “inaccurate.”
The US officially withdrew its armed forces from Taiwan in 1979 as Washington established relations with Beijing. At the same time however, the US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which stipulates that the US must help Taiwan to “maintain a sufficient self-defence capability.” Through this legislation, Washington has openly sold weapons to Taipei since then, angering Beijing in the process. But with China's rapid economic and military expansion of recent years, Washington may feel the need to reinforce Taiwan’s capabilities even further to maintain the status quo in the region.
Chinese forces have stepped up their activities towards Taiwan, conducting amphibious assault exercises and flying large sorties of bombers and fighters in the vicinity of Taiwanese airspace. On Monday, China sent 56 warplanes into Taiwan's air defence identification zone. Beyond Beijing's longstanding protectiveness of what it considers its core interest in achieving reunification with Taiwan, the presence of US troops poses a further problem for Beijing as any attack on US personnel is sure to cause a sharp reaction from Washington.
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