The Siege of Europe?
21st Century Siege Warfare
In the popular Netflix series “Occupied” based on a storyline by Jo Nesbø, Norway drinks too much climate kool-aid and decides to unilaterally turn off all of its oil and gas production. Europe, has a moment of energy realism (it’s fiction; you have to suspend you disbelief!) and recognizes its own energy-supply weakness and invites Russia to invade Norway to turn the oil and gas taps back on. This is fiction with a capital “F”; in the real world, Norway is one of the most “energy pragmatic” countries and Europe is in almost complete denial about their need for oil and gas. But we will come back to Norway later.
Siege and the City
Two wars are being fought in Ukraine. The horrific war of attrition in the east - a form of warfare that despite 21st century drones is sadly reminiscent of the 20th century trench-warfare. The other war is the deliberate targeting of civilian energy infrastructure.
By targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Russia is engaging in a modern form of siege warfare. In Medieval times cities were encircled and forced into capitulation by depriving the occupants of food and water leading to disease and death. In 2024, large population centres are viable only with lots of energy, specifically electricity. The coming winter will be a serious challenge for the war-weary in Ukraine; which is exactly the plan.
A Trump victory could significantly negatively impact US support - which would leave the rather weak Europeans as the last bastion.
Russia plays a long game - both on the battlefield and on the world stage. Hoping the world will get Ukraine-fatigue and it will grind out a victory, however Pyrrhic. Reducing Europe’s ability to support Ukraine could be part of the playbook.
A Dangerous Precedent
The sophisticated sabotage of the NordStream pipelines in September 2022 remains the subject of much speculation. Prima facie, it would seem unlikely that this was a Russian operation - it would have been much simpler to turn off a valve at their end. Whoever did this bombing, one thing is sure - it has set a precedent for the war in Ukraine to have both an “energy” aspect as well as an “international” aspect.
One of the great mysteries of watching the European Energy Train-Wreck is the ability to always learn the wrong lessons. Clearly if this sabotage has been done by an ally, there is some complicated diplomacy to deal with. But abstracting from the “who”, this should have been a profound “teaching moment” - with the lesson being that Europe is very vulnerable to energy supply shocks.
That said, a legitimate pro-renewables position is:
Reliance on imported gas is a weakness (Indeed, gas is one leg of the Fatal Trifecta as Meredith Angwin has convincingly argued).
Therefore, double-down on wind and solar as a means to reduce reliance on imported gas.
Through the lens of the Fatal Trifecta, this is reducing one leg, whilst increasing reliance on an even weaker leg… and let’s not talk about shutting nuclear power stations.
If we have learnt anything from the global roll-out of wind and solar it is that these need to have robust back-up systems, which typically involves a lot of gas. Witness Germany reverting to coal as an emergency measure after NordStream was blown up and other pipeline gas was sanctioned, followed by a remarkable build-out of LNG ReGas terminals and import capacity. Clearly, the simplistic argument of “more wind and solar” for energy security has major limitations.
The real lesson from Nordstream (again, irrespective of who did it), is that energy infrastructure is a key component or Energy Security and that is in turn, as Ukraine is experiencing, a key part of National Security.
Besieged
How better to accelerate the collapse of Ukraine, and punish and weaken the Europeans, than to extend the siege warfare to Europe’s energy supply? Indeed, if successful, an extended energy crisis for Europe could fatally weaken the continent.
It could be argued the Russia doesn’t have to engage in any “hybrid warfare” to undermine Europe’s economic and industrial power - Europe (including the UK in this generalization) is doing a great job of its own volition.
Already we can note that Germany has had to cut back on its financial (and military) aid to Ukraine due to budget issues at home. As per my series (What is Wealth) money is not infinite and energy will always be bought. If it gets more expensive there is simply less for everything else, and the EnergieWende is nothing if not expensive.
The reason for this is the extremely difficult budgetary situation in which the governing coalition of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Green Party, and the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) is struggling to make ends meet. (DW)
Any direct attack on any NATO would trigger Article 5 and would drag the US back in, whoever is in the White House. But what if… Europe’s energy infrastructure was targeted with enough “plausible deniability”?
Norway Revisited
By 2023, Norway had responded to Europe’s need for gas and was contributing 30% of all gas imports to Europe. Despite all the noise, Russia still provides about 15% (roughly half and half via pipeline and LNG) and the US LNG has rapidly climbed to second place at about 20%. Norway is also an important source of electricity from its hydro power via interconnectors.
If Russia wanted to undermine Europe’s ability to support Ukraine, Norway and specifically Norwegian energy infrastructure would be the obvious place to start. This is of course not lost on either NATO or the Norwegians.
Lars Christian Aamodt, head of Norway’s National Security Authority (NSA), said in February that he is “concerned about dependency, and there is no doubt that Europe has become more dependent on Norwegian gas".
"As soon as the dependency increases, so will the threat and the risk," he added.
He also mentioned that physical sabotage cyberattacks could easily target the nation's oil and gas facilities and highlighted Russia's continuous monitoring of its energy infrastructure. (source)
and
Swedish security police are investigating possible sabotage behind repeated railway derailments in the far north of the country, and the Estonian security services have logged intensified Russian efforts to recruit local citizens to attack their own government…
…In northern Norway too, Russian jamming of GPS is not only disrupting air traffic on a daily basis, but is hampering the work of police and emergency services.
The cyber-attack on the Colonial pipeline in the US, whilst seen as a ransomware attack, should also be a big red-flag. Hopefully this attack hasn’t faded into obscurity in the defence community: a successful ransomeware attack would have great “plausible deniability”.
And then we have oddities - “probably nothing” you say… but odd nonetheless:
and
Occupied
Given that Europe is doing a fine job of undermining its own energy security, reducing its industrial capabilities and juggling shrinking budget priorities, maybe these are just curiosities.
However, if this were a novel, the denouement would be that Europe was indeed “Occupied”. A series of European leaders having been Russian “sleeper” agents all along, sabotaging Europe’s energy security from within.
I doubt we’ll see that one on Netflix.
“Europe is doing a fine job of undermining its own energy security” - Such excellent sarcasm does not go unnoticed by this reader.