The Coming Gas War. Israel v Russia.
I have said it before and will say it again that Israel’s natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean sea threaten Russia’s economic survival.
If you think Ukraine joining the Western camp embroiled Russia in an offensive war. In that case, you will be in no doubt that Russia sees Israel’s potential natural gas resource as a Damocles sword hanging over its head.
The Ukraine/Russia conflict has changed how Europe looks at their dependency on Russian gas and oil. Consequently, the European Union is exploring other suppliers such as America in the short term and Israel as a reliable energy supplier in the future.
Russia cannot allow this to happen and has placed its troops on the border between Israel and Syria and is developing naval facilities at Tartus on the northern edge of the Meditteranean sea. This is Russia’s only overseas naval base. These assets operate under significant air cover, and air-defence umbrella from the Russian/Syria airbase Khmeimim located south-east of Latakia in Hmeimim, Syria.
Russia’s strategic plan is to turn the Mediterranean into a Russian lake undermining Turkey and within striking distance of Europe. Finally, Israel would be placed in so desperate a position that American support might fall to zero. Putin, like Mahomet II, is double-faced, “peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart.”
Unlike the war in Ukraine, which had a political aim as well as a strategic plan, a war with Israel would lack a genuine political purpose, and that makes the military goal nonsense unless it’s predicated on economic considerations as well as designs on strangling Europe and separating her from the United States which would then be isolated and reduced to a giant imprisoned within its continent.
I would argue that Putin is not delusional but practical in implementing a foreign policy of the State that for him, is practical, designed not in terms of some dream world but in terms of the realities of international relations in terms of power politics. The Russian President has two objectives to reinstate Russia’s predominance in the old soviet sphere of interest and a balance of power in western Europe and the Far East. To achieve both these goals, Putin would have to dominate the Levant and remove the one obstacle to achieving his vision. That would be the Jewish State gaining the wealth of the Mediterranean Gas fields and the enormous influence within the new world order this would give him.
Unfortunately for Putin’s Russia, the time has passed for such grand strategic plans. Leaving it the nuclear option. Should they choose catastrophe over rational behaviour, they would have committed national suicide.
Whatever happens, Russia’s star is sinking, and China’s is rising, and two heads cannot wear one crown.
As for Israel, it will continue to shape the region and define the future of its people. Its Gas Fields will be defended against all comers. Israel will use its naval, air, and ground forces to repel any aggressor and endeavour to maximise their freedom of action. At the same time, a creaky juggernaut like Russia would self-destruct under its lack of initiative.
