Awol

Daily Beast reporting that Guccifer 2.0 was ID’d as a GRU agent... Stone publicly stated they had been in touch via DM on twitter and Guccifer was the source of the DNC emails. They’re all going to jail, I really believe it now.

Everywhere.

John Bolton in. Oh Lordy.

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefing to 50 odd ambassadors was streamed live on RT. The US, French and German rep’s all called BS on the stand up comedy routine with lots of photos from Syria, some overhead pics of Porton Down (it’s near Salisbury, suspicious eh?) and concluding that it could have been the UK attacking itself, it could have been the USA, but it definitely wasn’t Russia. No siree Bob. Oh, and some young sounding and fairly nervous diplomat from the UK embassy nevertheless stood up and verbally demolished the entire Russian muppet show - good lass. Would be hilarious if it wasn’t so serious, but I don’t think it went the way they’d hoped.

I’m doing those IR/Security lectures again now and it’s been very interesting to note what’s changed in that community. Or at least it’s been interesting for me, because I don’t know everything.

No, it’s fundamental. What Juncker says or does is irritating / amusing / embarrassing depending on the time of day, but it doesn’t matter hugely. The EU is not a core member of NATO or have a seat on the UNSC. What states do and say does matter, particularly France & Germany in this context.

States can and do act together in the common defence of their mutual security. The US-backed NATO members did exactly that during the Cold War, where solidarity was self-interest. Since then Western Europe became increasingly fat and lazy around a reunified Germany, believing its own PR that a major European conflict was unthinkable, credible armed forces were unnecessary and the EU by its existence was some guarantor of perpetual peace. That’s the bonkers bit, conceited & self-deluded horse poo. Even now Europe’s not defenceless and a United show of diplomatic force (including Washington) would blunt Putin’s probing. Without it NATO’s credibility erodes, making Europe more vulnerable to aggressive Russian revisionism. That’s the path now being taken by Paris, Berlin and most importantly, Washington.

No, the EU is not yet a state that however much the institutions wish it to be, whereas France and Germany are states & act as such. Juncker is most probably auditioning for his next job, assuming the old soak isn’t already on the payroll. I certainly am prejudiced against the EU, but that doesn’t affect the analysis.

The third parties we are really bothered about in this instance have already accepted the evidence presented to them, their refusal to challenge Russia directly on the issue is political. States look to their own interests and it suits them not to take a firmer line, mirroring their behaviour after the Litvinenko incident. Solidarity in Europe is a myth, within or without the EU. The American glue that held it all together is dissolving under Trump, so its no shock that the new German (SPD) Foreign Minister Heiko Maas described the poisoning as a “bilateral issue” between Russia & UK, while Juncker sucks up in hope of a nice post-Presidency sinecure in Putin’s state-crime-terror nexus. I’d imagine reality is coming as a shock to many UK politicians reared on happy-clappy ‘end of history’ fairytales. Normal service is resuming.

Russia is denying it ever manufactured the nerve agent and claims to have destroyed its chemical weapons stocks in 2017; Novichok was never declared to the OPCW by its Russian inventors which is itself a breach of the treaty; Russia is conducting a disinformation campaign that has so far blamed Sweden, Ukraine, the UK (probably others too that I’ve missed) & all while claiming no knowledge of the agent anyway, while retweeting media interviews with its defector inventor... Russia is trolling the UK on an epic scale & if we gave them a sample then how in any way would that improve the situation? Our allies know the crack, Russia isn’t going to ‘fess up, it just provides another opportunity for them to take the piss & dissemble further. The OPCW are at Porton Down now doing independent testing so a non-UK assessment will be made available when they are finished. Even John fecking McDonnell says Corbyn has got this wrong and understands that handing even more ammo for Moscow to fire at the UK in satirical style is a dumb idea. This isn’t some little spat, releasing chemical weapons on UK soil is deadly serious & needs to be treated as such. Indulging Moscow’s attempts to rub the UK’s nose in it is naive beyond description. If you still don’t see a good reason not to send them a sample then I don’t know what to tell you, tbh.

Pig wrestling...

Meanwhile on planet EU, President Juncker speaks for us all:

JC: ‘Ah, Mr Putin, you’ve read my file so let’s skip the formalities. We handed over the poison so I must know the truth. Was it the Jews or the Israelis?’

Corbyn calling again for a sample of the nerve agent to be sent to Russia for analysis. When investigating attempted murder would the police normally ask the chief suspect to assist in interviewing witnesses?

The border can’t be agreed until the customs arrangements required for it are known. That’s why the trade talks always had to happen in parallel to sort it out. They’ve now fudged a form of words that the EU can point Dublin towards and say “look, we put Ireland up front, as you asked.” It suited Brussels to have the border issue as an upfront red-line with citizens rights because both gave cover to their one true concern, how much money they could wrench out of the UK. They didn’t want to talk trade deals until the money was agreed because that would give the UK too much leverage in talks. Now they’ve got the agreement on cash the EU is happy to fudge the border issue and move on to trade talks where it can actually be sorted out. It was always about getting an agreement on the UK’s money first and decoupling it from trade arrangements, the rest are 2nd or 3rd order issues for Brussels. (imo)

I’ve missed all of the discussion you reference here (gave up reading when Brexiteer=moron posts took over) but I’m not sure asserting “it’s a mirage” necessarily makes that true. If the shape of a UK deal is thrashed out by March ‘19 as planned, we can negotiate with other countries knowing what’s up for grabs and what isn’t. We’ll be out of the SM & CU come Dec 2020, the FTA on goods will get done (overwhelmingly in EU’s interest to do it) so the big question will be on Financial Services. FWIW I think that will get done too, again because the EU can’t afford to raise barriers against its biggest supplier of capital - but we’ll see.

Moving towards the opposite I think, but with the softest possible landing on the way out. It won’t please the hard-right Tories but that hitting that sweet spot of allowing UK to sign other deals while still having full single market access is the target they shot for and hit. If they’d gone in saying that was all they wanted it’s debatable whether the EU would have agreed it at all. Always good to give the other side the wins they felt they needed. Over to ‘disgraced etc’ Liam Fox’s department.

Seems pretty good on balance, no obstructions to citizen’s movements during transition, full market access continues until Dec 2020 but no restrictions on signing new trade deals between March ‘19 and Dec’ ‘20. Well played.

New German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas briefing that Russia is a “difficult partner” but that the Skripal poisoning is a “bilateral issue” between the UK and Russia. So they’ve accepted Russia did it but don’t care. Great to see Germany showing the same level of solidarity as it did over Litvinenko - when we were still firmly EU and NATO members.

No, you’re assuming their cooperation in allowing us to catch them in the act of breaking the OPCW treaty. Could exposing our knowledge of a facility compromise a source? I’m not saying it does but of course it could. On the last part the answer is yes, frankly. We don’t know what evidence our government has and what it may be prepared to put into the public domain as this row escalates. Getting Russia to continue its denials before dropping the proverbial mic on them may be exactly their strategy, who knows? Either way, given the circumstantial evidence I’d take the word of our country over that of Putin’s Russia. Wouldn’t you?

Calling for challenge inspections under the OPCW is absolutely one route, but there is a balance to be struck. Our people believe this stuff has been manufactured and stockpiled by Russia for a decade. It may for example be being produced at an undeclared facility (after all the agent itself was undeclared under the OPCW) and our knowledge of the ongoing programme is likely to be from a human source who may still be active. Revealing that we know location ‘x’ actually manufactures Novichok not babushka dolls may then burn that source. When the other side ignores all the mutually ageeed rules (which they have) and then lies their arses off about it (as they are) it’s not so simple as pitching up to Russia and catching them red-handed, as it were. That’s assuming they even cooperated anyway. To date zero challenge inspections have been carried out under the OPCW, or so I read. UK intelligence, the UK government and some otherwise skeptical UK partner countries are all satisfied, based on the evidence they have seen, that Russia is responsible. The Russians have acted like guilty school children since being accused and aren’t even trying to lie effectively, deliberately spreading multiple & incredible ‘alternative facts’. They are laughing at us. I don’t doubt some folks would rather believe the Russians, Craig Murray or anyone else who wants to weigh in, but on balance I think they’re probably wrong.

Shami “no anti-semitism here guv” Chakrabati was pushing the ‘lost control of’ line very hard on Marr. I say clinging because outside of the conspiracy theory fraternity Russian culpability doesn’t seem to be in question, but even Russia dismissed the line that Corbynites are taking. I wouldn’t expect anything else (much like the Tories sleazing for cash is expected) but the optics look pretty odd, imo.

Government usually buys direct from the producers. There are some really big commodities brokers who source cargos but that more often applies to liquids like oil and condensate, not LNG which is invariably government controlled or through a producer associated with a state, like Total for example. I haven’t kept up with gas prices since leaving the Gulf but they were incredibly low and the latent capacity to increase production meant they were unlikely to rise significantly. I don’t think leaving the EU has any bearing on prices though, they are market driven. We do have a good relationship with Qatar and could source more LNG there if needed, and even the US is exporting fracked LNG now from the southern states. One of the reasons other Gulf states are trying to keep Iran in the economic closet is their production potential for LNG, with reserves even larger than Qatar’s own - they share the Pars Field with them but Iran has lots, lots more to exploit. East Africa is also swimming in gas with new facilities being built from Tanzania down the Mozambique Channel, as is the eastern Med with Turkey, Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt all quids in. Basically there’s no shortage of the stuff, the issue is prices being high enough to justify the investment / production costs.

Boris’ interview on Marr pretty much sums up the UK’s (our) current problem. On one side is Corbyn, clinging desperately to a theory of chemicals getting loose from Kremlin control, a possibility offered to Moscow and vehemently denied at the beginning of this episode. Motive? I can’t think of a flattering one. On the other side is Johnson admitting taking £160K from the wife of an ex-Putin Minister for a game of tennis. Not illegal, but utterly squalid & impossible to believe doesn’t compromise them in the broader sense of how much Russian cash they’re in receipt of. Behind a paywall so can’t link but The Times is reporting UK intelligence claims that Russia has been producing and stockpiling Novichok agents for a decade. If that is the info shared with our partners it’s easier to see how they did a 180 after being briefed. Also shows how farcical the Russian denials are.

This Russian being interviewed on Marr is great. “No, we have never produced Novichok. Never.” The Russian embassy in UK was retweeting an interview with the defector scientist who designed and produced it. In Russia!!!