Thread by @guy_laron

1. How can you solve a crisis if you don't know what's it about? I follow the debate about NATO expansion with great interest & have a lot of sympathy for those arguing that a promise ("not one inch") was made. Yet, I don't think this is the core issue #UkraineCrisis

2. In a book published two years ago Thane Gustafson, a Georgetown Prof and an expert on the geopolitics of energy, identified the problem as one of commercial rivalry emerging out of EU expansion:

3. The conflict, as Gustafson sees it, is between Russian state-led capitalism and European market-based capitalism. Another source for the conflict in his view was the change taking place in the European political scene; namely the rise of the green movement #Germany

4. An important part of the story is the rise of a new government #Germany
#Putin realized that the participation of the Greens in the new coalition poses a dire threat to his key project of creating an alternative gas corridor underneath the Baltic Sea
reuters.com/article/us-ger…

5. Putin keeps hoping that #NordStream2 will be approved for use and raised the issue with the German Chancellor just 6 days ago during the talks over the crisis #UkraineCrisis
reuters.com/business/energ…

6. Russia invested $11 billion in that project. Yet hopes that the pipeline would open anytime soon are dwindling.

7. This shifted the locus of the conflict back to Ukraine as Gustafson forecasted two years ago, based on the fact that Russia was still dependent on to stream its gas exports to Western Europe.

8. It makes the conflict more manageable. Ukraine is a thorny question but announcing a clear deadline to regulatory debates at Germany and EU institutions over Nordstrom 2 shouldn't be that hard. It can also resolve the problem of high electricity bills across the continent