In the tangle of interests that globalization always ends up in and where there is no longer any beginning, end or responsibilities, Russia has stepped in on the sale of oil in the run-up to the Ukraine invasion. Oil and gas prices rose last year after a few lesser years. Dollars poured into Moscow from all over the world and from Europe in particular, thanks to Jan, everyone and to us. Because there are factories that have to run and cars that have to drive and chimneys in the port of Rotterdam that have to smoke. This is what progress looks like.
The Russians then went on a shopping spree with that currency: just before the invasion that threatens to destroy Ukraine, Russian arms purchases and production soared to more than 60 billion euros, the Swedish institute Sipri, which researches issues of peace and war and periodically publish estimates of the largest defense expenditures in the world.
And now that all that money has been turned into murder weapons, desperate attempts to unravel the tangle are back again. Frustrating Russian oil exports. Oil boycott. Just find a stub and poke until the thread comes loose. Child can do the laundry.
Then it turns out that the law of the string of Christmas tree lights that can never be untangled again is universal: trying to pluck the thread leads to deflection of the narrowing. Further on, a new knot emerges that is even more impossible, and which necessitates more drastic measures. Cutting for example. But cutting means that the factories that have to run and the cars that have to drive and the chimneys that have to smoke can no longer do that, at least not as before. That everything becomes more expensive, scarcer and less. This is what decline looks like.
Switching off the system: hardly to be done without protesting somewhere. It hangs together by frayed threads, but as soon as you start pulling, something gets tangled elsewhere.
Will you cut the thread that leads to blood minerals and child labor in Congolese mines? Then we will have a shortage of smart telephones, electric cars and all kinds of other equipment that contains a battery.
Are we switching ourselves off from Chinese stuff because of repression there? Then we can close entire shopping streets here.
Are we opting for animal welfare, now that the authorities have gassed countless quantities of healthy chickens, ducks and other poultry and transported them to rendering plant Rendac to reduce them to something unrecognizable, because the animals are still not vaccinated against bird flu? Then the international poultry trade must stop, because vaccinated animals cannot be traded.
No government leader dares to sell that. Mark Rutte is looking forward to it. He too watched Emmanuel Macron’s escape this weekend with great interest. Rutte also knows that no one wins elections by cutting threads that lead to decline. We are completely at the mercy of each other, and of Russia.