Ukraine

Major changes in UN structure take a long time but they have to start somewhere

Energy has long lost media attention; so we no longer think about ways we use energy and its effect on national policy or our pocketbooks. However, problems of energy supply we deemed a crisis in the 1970’s are still with us. U. S. warships still protect Persian Gulf supply of Middle East oil which accounts for one-quarter world’s oil production.

Since the Reagan administration, the United States has, under various guises, sought to develop technology that would render enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles non-threatening to its people and interests. The national missile defense program has been aimed at bringing about the end of foreign missile threats from rogue states and geopolitical foes alike. Missile defense systems have grown exponentially more effective and sophisticated, and have culminated in an interceptor system that will soon make missile attacks on areas shielded by such systems pointless.

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s power grab and annexation of the Crimea has filled global news headlines as he attempts to reverse what he has called the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century” – the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it needs to be remembered that this conflict has its deeper roots in two ideas that have plagued the world for over two centuries: nationalism and government interventionism into economic affairs.

The Ukrainian-Russian crisis over the de facto occupation of Crimea by Russian military forces, which has enveloped the concerns and fears of the world over the last weeks, revolves around two conflicting claims of national self-determination. It has, once again, brought with it the danger of war on the European continent.

The Ukraine came apart when a protest against its president forced him to flee to Russia. The issue was whether the Ukraine would be allied with Russia or with the…

The impact of [gas shale basin] development … has the potential to greatly reduce the world’s dependence on oil and natural gas from rogue nations.