Dictators

Europe gets about one/third of its natural gas and one/forth of its oil from Russia and the US could make up for most of this and if the Saudis could kick in while the US gears up it could wean Europe away from Russia. It is difficult to understand why Germany shut down its nuclear power before it was ready to replace it with renewables. It is much like the US going ahead with electric cars before the energy sources were moved away from fossil fuels. Once again politics is behind both of these situations. As the situation in Ukraine unfolds it is mindful that dictators are always coveting territory. Russia is eyeing Ukraine while China looks longingly at Taiwan. Democracies must answer to the people so they use their military for defense. England is not attacking Scotland, France is not attacking Germany and the US does not have designs on Canada because democratic nations do not tend to expand their territory. Putin can easily convince the Russian people that they are being attacked because he does not have to answer to the press and therein lies another basic difference between democracies and dictatorships.