Texas Tea Time

There's a bit of a stunt aspect to trotting out past predictions and saying "I told you so." Make a hundred assertions, find one that came true, and ignore the rest, and you too can claim Nostradamus powers.

However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to plot the future, especially when playing geopolitical chess. So, with the self-awareness I just mentioned... "I told you so."

Back in 2014, I suggested we Beware the Bear, that Russia's deep internal problems couple with her export-based resource economy would be a prime motivator for aggressive territorial expansion.

After weeks of "will he or won't he," we stand looking with the benefit of hindsight at the obvious: Of course he did. Putin didn't just take a nibble at two chunks of eastern Ukraine that he could pretend wanted to join Russia. He's making a move for the whole kit-and-caboodle.

He's daring the West to stop him, knowing full well that the Europeans won't do diddly and that there's little to no stomach in America for fighting yet another war on the other side of the planet, no matter how hard the neocon drums are pounded.

I've long argued that the forced decarbonization of our energy economy was pointless, because the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and the developing world would not follow suit. That our doing so would play into their hands, weakening our economies and giving them relative advantage via cheaper energy. That they'll pretend to sign up for various reduction accords, and quietly laugh at us for the wealth we're ceding to them.

The rush to shut down good and reliable sources of energy (Germany's nuclear reactors) before equally reliable replacements were in hand was and continues to be astoundingly stupid. It also put an extra queen on Putin's side of the chessboard, given how reliant Western Europe already was on Russian energy exports.

Oil was $44 a barrel when I suggested our counterweight to potential Russian aggression was Drill, Baby, Drill - that ensuring a robust supply of oil and gas apart from the Russians and the Middle East petro-states was necessary for global security. And, indeed, the fracking revolution did just that, briefly, driving oil down to the 20s, despite Obama's objections.

Today, oil is at $95. While there are many factors, the fact that Biden's taken several major steps against domestic oil and gas production certainly has had an impact. Putin et al are laughing all the way to the bank.

Now, the West will try to sanction Putin out of Ukraine. And fail miserably. Even if the West doesn't buy another drop of oil or gas from Russia, their fungibility means the stuff will get sold anyway.

The remedy, such as it is, remains the same. Pump more of that black gold, that Texas Tea, and reduce the West's reliance on thug regimes. Sure, it'll take time to affect things, but not nearly as much as Obama forecast when he told us "we can't drill our way to energy independence."

Vitally, it'll set us up against the next move by an aggressive nation, whether it be Putin's Russia (the Baltic states are sweating right now) or Xi's China (Xi is supping on the East, and Taiwan is his next course).

And I (don't really) hate to say it, but Biden's net-zero fantasy either has to be abandoned or be acknowledged as America's suicide pill. Forcing Wasabi Green upon Americans just became even more stupid than it was before. As I've exhorted countless times, we should be putting our efforts into nuclear plants. Now more than ever. The more of those we build, the more oil and gas we can export to Europe to counterweigh the Bear.

Won't wind and solar enable the same, you might ask? That 90% of the rare earths those need come from China is another foreign dependence that'll be used against us when opportune.

Concluding that the West's pursuit of a massive, coercive reduction in carbon emissions would be an economic boon to the East is turning out to be an inadequate prediction. Beyond money, it's a ceding of global power to nations that will have no qualms in using it aggressively and confrontationally, rather than cooperatively. Some believe that continued use of gas and oil is a slow global suicide, but now we see that abandoning them before viable alternatives are in hand is a far quicker and surer one.

Will Biden and the Democratic brain trust recognize any of this, and reverse course?

Not a chance. As a result, Americans are in for a lot more pain, and America's position in the global power rankings will continue to slip. From wholly self-inflicted wounds.