, Columnist
Europe Must Declare a War Economy
As Russia turns off the gas and Germany activates emergency plans, Europeans must become ants to avoid ending up grasshoppers.
Weapon of choice
Photographer: Dmitry Astakhov/AFP via Getty Images
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The next step in the conflict between the West and Russian President Vladimir Putin was supposed to be a European boycott on Russian coal, oil and natural gas. It may instead be a gas embargo by Putin on Europe. It comes to much the same.
The countries of the European Union must accept what some of them — notably Germany and Austria — spent years denying. It’s that in the eyes of an amoral despot such as Putin, everything is a weapon of war. That includes nuclear and chemical arms, but also wheat, disinformation and, not least, energy.