If Russia remains economically isolated after Putin is ousted, wouldn't that worsen the odds of positive political reform in Russia? Economic sanctions are the stick, but if they continue even after Putin is gone, where is the carrot? If the new leader proves themselves bad as well, the sanctions should obviously be resumed.
They have everything. Fertile soil with lot of fossil fuels for energy. If they didn't have corrupt political oligarch nexus they would easily be the richest countries in the world.
Since Global petroleum supply and demand is inelastic even a small shortfall in Global Production will result in much higher prices
In the turmoil of regime change in Russia production would fall and probably not come back online again for decades
When the wall fell Russian production declined and has never reached its 1980s Peak because of the geography of Russia. In fact I think most of the wells that were turned off at that time have never come back online and recent production increases are due to new infrastructure being built
If Putin's gone Russia collapses into anarchy and civil war. Putin has spent the last 20 years ensuring that there is no viable "new leader" of Russia. He's structured the Russian state so that every possible person in power has a well-delineated job to do, they all distrust each other, they all report to him, and nobody has the bigger picture. Anyone who gains enough of a following to threaten him gets thrown out of a window or poisoned with polonium. If he didn't do this he would've been ousted years ago.
Countries in the midst of civil war aren't very good at shipping natural gas either. Europe's best hope for not freezing is to go invade Russia, capture the pipelines and gas fields, and staff them with Europeans. Unfortunately this plan has worked out for Europe (and the world) approximately never.
My (extremely limited) understanding is that even if Putin wanted to flip the script and move Russia away from an oligarchy, that he'd be replaced with someone stronger, more heartless, etc.
Does somebody have an idea for how reform could occur in a place that has never really been "free"?
Won't it increase the odds of positive political reform in Europe and elsewhere, if they have energy independence rather than being beholden to dictatorial petrostates? It seems like a worthwhile goal even outside of the environmental benefits.
That seems another matter to me. Are the sanctions against Russia meant to change Russia's warmongering behavior, or are they meant to save the environment? At present these motivations seem to align, but if the political situation in Russia changes that may no longer be the case.
If nobody buys Russian gas even after sanctions are lifted, that's not because of sanctions against russia, but rather because nobody likes to do business with a bully that has shown they will happily attempt to screw you over with any power they hold over you, no matter how friendly they have been in the past.
In the short terms, Germans are rightly thinking "We'd rather get through the winter with local coal than pay Moscow" so no, this is not an environment benefit, yet.
However it is a good trend in longer term - I don't think that there is desire for a long term "turn back to coal", it's just short-term expedience until a better alternative can be built up - after all, those coal plants exist already. Yes it's done under difficult conditions now as a consequence of not doing it under good conditions earlier.
> Are the sanctions against Russia meant to change Russia's warmongering behavior, or are they meant to save the environment?
it is, as I said above, not an either-or. The environmental benefits (which might be a good step, but will not be in themselves enough to "save" anyone) are outside of the consideration, and not the matter at hand. I thought that was clearly phrased.
Rather, removing Russia, or other petrostates ability to blackmail with energy supply, makes them less likely to warmonger. Russia's warmongering is very much supported with oil and gas leverage - i.e. threats of "don't interfere or you'll go cold". Like the other reply says - if bullies no longer have a hold over you, you'll get less bullying. It's a poor assumption that Russian leadership will be better or even different in nature any time soon, Putin or not. And it's good for European domestic politics as well, to be less concerned with appeasing other powers, especially dictators.
> Are the sanctions against Russia meant to change Russia's warmongering behavior, or are they meant to save the environment?
They're not capable of doing anything to save the environment - in fact it's likely they're a net-negative. Russia is still selling that energy to someone - right now China and India - and it's unlikely the new buyers will be taking the same steps to burn the natural gas as cleanly or efficiently as western Europe would.
