K.T. McFarland knows that a key facet of Russian power is energy production. If America ramps up production, the weakened Russian Bear can only growl.

Make America energy independent again!! Allow us to produce our own oil and STOP relying on Russia for their’s!!! If you are truly serious about hurting Putin, do this and help our European allies by exporting our gas & oil to them. pic.twitter.com/lHroZutm68

— MtnRdr (@MtnRdr88) February 24, 2022

McFarland: President Biden took to the East Room to announce a series of sanctions against Russia, as punishment for its “minor incursion” into two provinces of eastern Ukraine. From the gravity in his voice, he must have assumed Vladimir Putin would be in the Kremlin, quaking in his boots. I doubt President Putin even bothered to shrug his shoulders.

Putin’s power grab in eastern Ukraine is a done deal, a repeat of his rapid occupation and annexation of Crimea after the Sochi Olympics in 2014. What do these two power grabs have in common? Joe Biden, obviously. He was vice president for the first, and president for the second.

But they have something else in common – high energy prices. In 2014 oil was about $100 a barrel, just like today. Russia’s main export is energy resources. Nobody buys Russian watches or computers or cars. Just about everybody buys Russian oil and gas. When energy prices are high, Russia is flush with cash, and emboldened to do ambitious things.

Putin understood this decades ago. In the early 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Putin left the KGB and went to graduate school. With an eye to politics, he used his dissertation to outline how to rebuild Russia through energy exports. He advocated taking oil and gas companies away from the oligarchs and bringing them under central government control.

After investing in infrastructure, and building pipelines, Russia could export gas and oil, especially to Europe. Russia could use the revenues to rebuild its central government and military. Europe’s energy dependency would give Putin with political and economic leverage over his customers. Putin was prepared to play the long game, and he has finally seen his efforts pay off.

What he didn’t anticipate was America’s shale oil and gas technology revolution. Nor did he anticipate a businessman like Donald Trump would become president.

Trump understood the extraordinary opportunities America’s sudden newfound energy wealth offered. We could finally be energy independent. We could become one of the world’s major energy exporters, perhaps replacing Russia and Arab oil countries as the main supplier to Europe and even Asia.

American exports entering the market would force down global energy prices, and push Russia (and Iran) into near bankruptcy. We could help save the climate as companies and countries moved from expensive, dirty coal to inexpensive, clean American natural gas. It was a win, win, win proposition for the U.S., and lose, lose, lose for Russia…

If Biden were serious about stopping Putin, he would restart the American energy industry, build LNG terminals at home and abroad, and offer our European allies energy security. That would remove Putin’s chokehold over Europe. It would also drive down oil and gas prices, and once again wipe out Putin’s energy windfall profits. Wars are expensive, so are invasions and occupations. This week Putin put another piece of Ukraine under his belt. The way to prevent him from getting all of Ukraine, or making moves against even more former Soviet states, is to take away his piggy bank.

 

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