Europeans must be getting really worried that they have become so heavily reliant on a thug state for their present and future energy needs. Russia is using tactics for extracting higher prices from its neighbors that would make Stalin proud, forcing nearby states to retaliate–and the whole thing is becoming a major nightmare for Europe.

Last year, Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine in the dead of winter over a dispute where Russia sought to extract drastic price increases from its neighbor. Later it threatened to do the same to Georgia and Belarus if they didn’t pony up double the amount those countries had been paying before. And in a move sure to send chills through the entire oil industry worldwide, Russia forced the Shell Corporation to give up a controlling stake in the huge Sakhalin-2 natural gas project that company had invested in, bringing even more natural resources under the direct control of the Russian government and its energy monopoly Gazprom.

Both Georgia and Belarus had to cave to the demands, but the latter has now retaliated by slapping a tax of $45 per ton of oil passing from Russia through Belarus’s pipes to Germany, Poland and Ukraine. In response, Russia has now cut off all oil flowing through Belarus–citing “force majeure” or “unavoidable circumstances.”

Needless to say, Europe is highly upset.

This is the future that awaits us if we don’t start now to diversify our energy sources–one where the petroleum “have’s” lord it over the “have not’s” in any way they see fit. Russia’s antics don’t just threaten Europe–they embolden other countries to do the same thing throughout the world. These countries–from Venezuela to Saudi Arabia and Iran–know that they have a chokehold on a key vulnerability of the West, and intend to use every resource at their disposal to impose their brand of hegemony.

Have we had enough yet? Few national security problems are more pressing than ensuring a steady energy supply that doesn’t depend on unstable or rogue nations. So what are we going to do about it?

Tags: belarus, Energy, europe, gazprom, georgia, natural-gas, oil, petroleum, pipelines, russia, ukraine