The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1477088
A-4 Wednesday, August 24, 2022 The Press-Dispatch AREA HAPPENINGS Celebrate Recover y – Will meet ever y Monday at 6 p.m. at the River of Life Church, 342 E. CR 300 N., Petersburg. For more infor- mation, contact Pastor Jim at 812-354-8800. Pike County Histor y Center – Will meet the fourth Monday of each month at the Histor y Cen- ter, 1104 Main Street, Pe- tersburg at 6:30 p.m. New members welcome. Histor y Center hours Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. until further notice. Free Clothing Bank, CLOSED – Oak Grove Clothing Bank in Oakland City is now closed. No other free clothing bank location available in Oakland City. Winslow Alcoholics Anonymous – will meet ever y Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. Call 812-789-8535 for loca- tion of the meeting. Odd Fellows IOOF Pa- cific Lodge #175 meet- ing – the second Monday of each month at 7 p.m. All area members are encour- aged to attend. Otwell Ruritan – will have its monthly meetings the second Monday of each month at 7 p.m. Pike Lodge #121 F&AM regular stated meeting – the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30 p.m. All area Masons are invited to attend. Jefferson Township Community Center of Ot- well – will have its monthly meetings the first Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. All members are urged to attend. Perinatal Loss Support – Expectant parents who suddenly lose their child of- ten experience a wide range of emotions and grief. Me- morial Hospital and Health Care Center offers support to assist those who have ex- perienced the loss of a child (conception to one month of age) through the griev- ing process. For more infor- mation about Perinatal Loss Support, contact Theresa O'Br yan, Pastoral Care, at 812-996-0219 or tobr yan@ mhhcc.org. Stendal Community Create and Craft Night – The first Tuesday of each month, anytime between 6-9 p.m., at St. Peters Lu- theran Church fellowship hall. Bring a craft, sewing, yarn or unfinished projects. Create and finish projects, and learn new ones while having fun. For more infor- mation, call Sherr y Meyer at 812-457-9842. Grief Support Series – The death of a loved one, a child leaving home, over- whelming changes in one's personal life – each can cause profound grief and suffering. To offer reassur- ance and comfort, Memori- al Hospital and Health Care Center has developed a free support program called "Grief Support Series." Call for the next five-week pro- gram. Programs will be at 6:30 p.m. in Memorial Hos- pital and Health Care Cen- ters Chapel. This program is free and space is limited. Pre-registration is neces- sar y, call 812-996-0219. Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia Caregiver Support Group – Memori- al Hospital's Caring Hands Senior Ser vices sponsors an Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia Caregiver Sup- port Group. Meeting dates have changed to the first Tuesday of ever y month, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Medical Arts Conference Center, located in the low- er level of the Medical Arts Building at 721 W. 13th St. in Jasper. For more infor- mation, visit Memorial Hos- pital's website at www.mhh- cc.org and click on "Classes and Events." If you would like more information on dementia and being a care- giver, call 812-996-0218. Pre-registration is not nec- essar y. Living with COPD – If you or if someone you care for is living with COPD, join us for an educational meet- ing on the second Tuesday of each month, from noon- 1:30 p.m. in the Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center Mar y Potter Meet- ing Room, located inside the hospital at 800 W 9th St., Jasper, IN. For more information, visit Memorial Hospital's website atwww. mhhcc.org and click on "Classes and Events," or call 812-996-5232 or 812- 996-1528. Pre-registration is not necessar y, and there is no cost to attend. Memorial Hospital Offering Stroke Sur vi- vor and Caregiver Sup- port Group – The support group will be held on the fourth Tuesday of each month, from 1-3 p.m. in the Medical Arts Building Conference Center located at 721 W. 13th Street in Jas- per. The support group will be held monthly. Pre-reg- istration is not required to attend. For more informa- tion about the Stroke Sur vi- vor and Caregiver Support Group, please call Mar y Jo Eaton Calhoun, BSN, RN, Telemedicine Ser vices, at 812-996-6364, or Brandie Beck, RN, Neuroscience Nurse Coordinator, at 812- 996-5912 or. You can also e-mail questions or com- ments to strokesupport@ mhhcc.org. Petersburg Senior Cit- izen Will be Offering Se- nior a Lunch Menu – Pe- tersburg Senior Citizen will be offering seniors lunch on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to ? At the Petersburg court house basement, 801 Main Street. Pike Gibson Water, Inc. – will be holding the regular monthly meetings open to the public on the second Monday of each month starting in August 2022, at 6:30 p.m. CST, at 325 N Jackson St, Oakland City, IN. The Oakland City-Co- lumbia Township Public Librar y Board of Trust- ees – September meeting has been rescheduled from the 14th to the 21st of Sep- tember. The meeting will be at 4 p.m. in the Librar y Meeting Room. For more information, contact the Oakland City Columbia Twp. Public Librar y. America and Russia are in a new kind of war By James Carafano National Security and Foreign Policy Specialist The war against Ukraine has brought U.S.-Russian re- lations to their lowest point in modern histor y. Russia is demonstrating that it has no regard for human rights, na- tions' sovereignty and territo- rial integrity, or nations' right to determine their own future. Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly has imperialist ambitions. Ukraine did not provoke the war, and Putin likely would prefer to convert Ukraine into Russian territor y once again. This is not another Cold War. There is nothing "cold" about naked, violent aggres- sion. This is a new kind of war and the U.S. and its allies in the transatlantic community are going to learn how to fight. For starters, the transatlantic community needs to check- mate Putin's two most import- ant weapons—his military, and Russia's use of energy to black- mail, coerce, and profit. STRENGTHENING FOR THE FIGHT To hold the Russian Feder- ation accountable for its war crimes in Ukraine, support Ukraine, and strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Orga- nization (NATO), the United States has taken several ac- tions. (The following list is not exhaustive of all U.S. actions taken since Februar y 24, the start of the war, however.) Washington has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Moscow, sending the Rus- sian economy south. The Rus- sian ruble now is worth less than one cent in the American economy. The U.S. imposed restrictions on transactions with Russia's central bank and transactions by U.S. financial institutions with Sberbank, and imposed sanctions on Rus- sia's VTB Bank and four other financial institutions, VEB, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Nord Stream 2 pipe- line and its chief executive of- ficer, several defense-related entities, Vladimir Putin, Rus- sian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, several Kremlin-con- nected oligarchs, and more. It also cut selected Rus- sian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Fi- nancial Telecommunication (SWIFT) messaging system to "ensure that these banks are disconnected from the inter- national financial system and harm their ability to operate globally." In addition, the United States is providing to Ukraine advanced weaponr y, such as Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft systems, additional militar y assistance including grenade launchers, rifles, pistols, body armor, and helmets, and humanitarian assistance. The United States also sent approximately 14,000 troops to Germany, Poland, and Romania to reinforce NA- TO's Eastern flank, in case the war encroaches onto NATO territor y. Icy U.S.-Russian relations also have had several con- sequences in recent histor y. Over the past few years, the U.S. and Russia have imposed multiple tit-for-tat actions, in- cluding expelling diplomats and setting restrictions on the number of diplomatic staff al- lowed to work in each other's countr y. According to a senior Biden administration official, the United States has been forced to cut its diplomatic staff in Russia by approximately 90 percent in the last four years. It is also difficult for U.S. citizens to visit Russia due to a Level 4 travel advisor y imposed by the U.S. State Department, and likewise for Russians to visit the United States due to most visa ser vices being halt- ed. Three U.S. citizens—Paul Whelan, Trevor Reed, and Brittney Griner—current- ly are imprisoned in Russia. Whelan and Reed, two for- mer U.S. Marines, most like- ly are imprisoned on fabri- cated charges, and Griner, a Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) star, is imprisoned allegedly for trans- porting hashish oil in her lug- gage at the Moscow airport. The U.S. State Department is working toward all three of their releases. Connected to the war in Ukraine, Russia has created a new law that criminalizes any reporting that "contradicts the [Russian] government's version of events," which has shut down, whether temporar- ily or permanently, American media outlets in Russia such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and The New York Times. Similarly, RT America ceased production and laid off most of its staff, most likely because it could no longer be profitable for reasons tied to the war in Ukraine. NATO RESPONSES Russia's second invasion of Ukraine has proven, at least initially, a severe shock to Eu- rope. For the time being, it's put to bed questions around the usefulness of NATO and supercharged the obvious need for the alliance's upcom- ing strategic concept to place a spotlight on collective defense as the core task of the alliance for the foreseeable future. Russia's actions have laid bare the reality that militar y capabilities remain crucial for securing freedom, especially in the era of great power com- petition. The questions for NATO moving for ward are threefold: A) How does the alliance re- spond to the shifted geopolit- ical map of Europe in terms of operational planning? B) How will alliance members respond to the now obvious need to live up to the North Atlantic Trea- ty's Article III requirement to "maintain and develop their individual and collective ca- pacity to resist armed attack?" C) Finally, how can NATO continue to aid Ukraine in de- fending its sovereignty against a Russian regime bent on ex- tinguishing their existence? In addition to scrambling the political map of Europe, Russia's war against Ukraine has dramatically altered the physical landscape of the Eu- ropean theater. Russian forces now control additional areas of Ukrainian territor y, specifical- ly in the nation's south, east, and near Ukraine's northeast- ern borders with Belarus and Russia. Russia's has expanded control over Ukrainian territo- r y along the Black Sea, seek- ing to consolidate its position and eventually push for ward to link with the occupied Transnistria region of Moldo- va. It's too early to determine the outcome of the conflict, however, even if we assume Russian forces are pushed out of Ukraine, Russia's de facto absorption of Belarus necessi- tates NATO update its opera- tional planning. Alliance members should also be aware of ways in which Russia will utilize the war in Ukraine to impose additional economic pressures against Black Sea nations. A recent example of this tac- tic is Russia's disputed claim that mines laid by Ukraine had become unmoored during a storm and were drifting southward. As Bulgarian Rear Admiral Kiril Mihailov told a news conference, the claims "may be more a matter of com- plicating shipping and instill- ing fear and tension among sailors and coastal states rath- er than a real threat." Russia's war against Ukraine has awakened many NATO members from their defense spending slumber, resulting in new pledges to attain the NATO spending benchmark of 2% of GDP. Rus- sia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine caused a shift in threat percep- tions amongst many NATO members, particularly those closest to Russia. This chang- ing threat assessment, along- side perhaps in part, the stri- dency of U.S. calls for more defense spending, led to real increases. As NATO's Secretar y Gen- eral's Annual Report noted, "2020 marked the sixth con- secutive year of growth in de- fense spending by European Allies and Canada, with an increase in real terms of 3.9% from 2019 to 2020. Moreover, 11 Allies met the guideline of spending 2% of their Gross Do- mestic Product on defense, up from just three Allies in 2014." Putin's actions have super- charged this trend, leading some nations such as Germa- ny and Denmark, for instance, to announce plans to spend 2% of GDP. Other nations, such as Estonia and Romania, which spend 2%, to increase defense budgets even further. At March's extraordinar y NATO Summit in Brussels, Secretar y General Stolten- berg announced that NATO allies who have not attained 2% will bring plans to raise spend- ing to that level to the next NATO Summit taking place in Madrid in June. Also at the Summit, NATO announced the creation of four addition- al battle groups in Bulgar- ia, Hungar y, Romania, and Slovakia. These will join the existing NATO battle groups deployed in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. NATO must be cognizant of the potential that, however unlikely, Putin could decide to expand his war against Ukraine to target a NATO member and prepare accord- ingly. The alliance must move beyond mere "tripwire" force deployments to large, perma- nently deployed capabilities in eastern member states to adequately deter Putin from contemplating future action against a NATO member. Finally, NATO has a role to play in organizing deliv- eries of aid and weaponr y to Ukraine. Since the war began, NATO member states have sent weapons and humani- tarian aid to Ukraine. At the Brussels summit, members made additional commitments to Ukraine for weapons deliv- eries, including further an- titank weapons, drones, and anti-ship missiles. While this aid has been donated on a bilateral basis between individual nations and Ukraine, NATO can and should take a leading role in organizing aid from its mem- ber states to Ukraine which should over time better max- imize the impact on western aid on the ground in Ukraine. FIGHTING FOR ABUNDANT, AFFORDABLE, RELIABLE ENERGY Europe is facing an energy crisis. In the European con- text, Russia most benefits from the current energy cri- sis. Never one to pass up an opportunity to turn a geopoliti- cal crisis and to his advantage, President Putin has used the energy shortage in Europe to give Russia the upper hand. Europe already depends on Russian natural gas for 40 percent of its needs. In total, almost 200 billion cubic me- ters of natural gas are now imported from the countr y annually due to declining Eu- ropean production and rising demand. Thanks to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 is dead. However, as long as Europeans keep buying gas from Russia they will contin- ue to indirectly fund Russia's war machine against Ukraine. Europe needs to do a better job at diversifying its energy resources away from Russia. This can be done by Europe looking south instead of east for new sources of energy. For example, the South- ern Gas Corridor connects gas from the Caspian Sea to southern Europe and has the potential to supply 60 billion cubic meters per annum of natural gas to European mar- kets. Currently, the Southern Gas Corridor is only deliver- ing 10 billion cubic meters per annum. There is also talk of finally building a Trans-Cas- pian Pipeline to bring natural gas from Central Asia to Eu- rope bypassing Russia. This pipeline would connect to the Southern Gas Corridor. A pipeline is the only eco- nomically viable way to move natural gas across the Caspi- an Sea. This means that right now there is no profitable way to get Central Asia's gas to Eu- rope without going through Russia or Iran. Europe should be taking a leading role in making the proposed dou- bling down on a reality. In addition, Europe's ener- gy security can be bolstered by the Three Seas Initiative. Launched in 2016 to facilitate the development of energy and infrastructure ties among 12 nations in eastern, central and southern Europe, the initiative aims to strengthen trade, infrastructure, ener- gy and political cooperation among countries bordering the Adriatic Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. As a ves- tige of the Cold War, most in- frastructure in the region runs east to west, stymying greater regional interconnectedness. Developing north-south inter- connections and pipelines will boost Europe's energy securi- ty. HOW THE WEST CAN WIN THE PEACE IN UKRAINE Russia has a track record of using energy as a tool of aggression. As Nord Stream 2 gets closer to being fully operational and as winter ap- proaches, do not expect Rus- sia to help Europeans solve their energy crisis. Each bar- rel of oil and cubic meter of gas that Europe can buy else- where other than Russia will make it more secure. Finally, the U.S. should boost LNG exports to Eu- rope American energy com- panies continue to be a major reliable and cost competitive supplier of natural gas to Eu- ropean markets. Upon Con- gress' lifting of a ban on U.S. export of natural gas (and oil) in 2015, U.S. export capacity has grown from negligible amounts to being among the top three exporting countries in the world and meeting roughly 19 percent of global demand. The U.S. will have the larg- est LNG export capacity in the world by the end of 2022 with the completion of the Sabine Pass and Calcasieu Pass facil- ities in Louisiana and uprates to increase production capac- ity at several existing facilities (for a total of 13.9 billion cubic feet per day, compared to 11.6 in 2021). An eighth LNG ex- port facility in Texas is expect- ed to come online by 2024 and the Federal Energy Regulato- r y Commission has approved several other projects which are not yet under construc- tion. In October 2021, LNG ex- porters in the U.S. were oper- ating beyond capacity and the EIA expects U.S. exports to be 16 percent more than last year in response to new capacity and high demand for natural gas in Europe and Asia. Each barrel of oil and cubic meter of gas that Europe can buy elsewhere other than Rus- sia will make it more secure. While these proposals alone are not enough to completely decouple Europe from its en- ergy dependency on Russia, they are a good start. TIME FOR CHOOSING After the war against Ukraine, Putin will be faced with the challenge of re- building his militar y and the Russian economy. In these months, or perhaps years, the Kremlin will be limited in its capacity to threaten the trans- atlantic community. That is ex- actly when the West needs to step boldly for ward with seri- ous defense and energy policy to ensure future Putin threat can be stiff armed. Commentary PUZZLED ABOUT WHAT TO READ? ..and you will have your solution. subscribe to 812-354-8500