What a mad phantasy... Undermining your closest allies' economy to win the war?
And, no, it cannot confiscate the oil and, even if it would, most of the energy comes to Europe in the form of natural gas, which is moved by pipeline. So, yes, the US can stop that by bombing Austria or Poland.
It's obviously a bad place to be in, strategically, for Europe to be somewhat reliant on Russian fuels. But you should note that current sanctions are already far more costly for EU countries than for the US: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/_processed_/f/2/csm_mi2022...
For Latvia, it's 64x more expensive. Even for Germany, it's factor 10.
Nobody is denying anything, except people claiming these are easy decisions to make and some approach a totally obvious choice. Finland & Germany have changed more drastically than either one has ever before, and more than anyone else in this situation. The Baltic states can also take a 20 % hit to GDP and they'll be fine, because they make up a small fraction of EU GDP and it would be easy (and right) to help them. The same happening in France, Germany, or Italy will not only hurt citizen in those countries, which would be uncomfortable but not disastrous. It would likely shut down every manufacturing on the continent that's more complicated than fish & chips.
And that’s exactly why humankind is forever bound to repeat the same mistakes over and over. We have all the information in the world and yet politicians still think that this time is different and you can appease dictators and they’ll just stop. But once they do realize, it’s already too late and it ends up costing many magnitudes more.
It’s always about choosing short term gain over long term thinking. Can’t wait to see when global warming really starts to hurt.
Nobody is appeasing anyone. They are trying to keep the lights on while everyone scrambles to find other sources of energy. These are the largest sanctions ever, already, oil and gas are on track to be included within six months, they have been impounding yachts left and right, delivering offensive weapons on previously unknown scales, etc.
And, no, it cannot confiscate the oil and, even if it would, most of the energy comes to Europe in the form of natural gas, which is moved by pipeline. So, yes, the US can stop that by bombing Austria or Poland.
It's obviously a bad place to be in, strategically, for Europe to be somewhat reliant on Russian fuels. But you should note that current sanctions are already far more costly for EU countries than for the US: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/_processed_/f/2/csm_mi2022...
For Latvia, it's 64x more expensive. Even for Germany, it's factor 10.