, Columnist
The West’s Energy War Against Russia Demands Sacrifice
Prevailing means acknowledging the need for political compromises and potentially hard choices for energy consumers.
Leading an energy war against Russia.
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Even as Russia and Western countries avoid a shooting war over Ukraine, they have already joined an energy war. Opening skirmishes have taken the form of selective cutoffs of, and encroaching sanctions on, Russian supply. Yet there is a yawning gap between the rhetoric of war and the realpolitik of energy diplomacy — one that Russia will exploit and that the West must find a way to close.
In a recent essay in the New York Times, President Joe Biden wrote that standing by Ukraine and making Russia pay “a heavy price” was in our vital national interest, in part because not doing so: