Author: Roger Klang

I come from Arboga, Sweden, same latitude as Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki. The year in which I was born was 1965. But I grew up in the region of Scania in the south end of Sweden. I believe in God and his son Jesus Christ but I still don’t go to Church. I don’t know what else to say about myself so I’ll stop here. The truth is, you wouldn’t know me if you had read a book about me. I’m pretty unique I like to think. We all are, but especially me. Roger M. Klang, civis Lundensis

Why Germany cannot repeat its WWII performance Lesson six

Peak oil has long since occurred in Ploiesti, Romania, where the Germans got most of their oil during World War II.

Lend-Lease. The Allied Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union which made the Soviet Union superior to Nazi-Germany in materiel and also economically during most of World War II. Supplies and military equipment were shipped in convoys around Nordkap in Norway to Murmansk and Archangels. Supplies and military equipment were also shipped from the US to Vladivostok in southeastern Russia with Soviet flagged ships. A Persian Corridor was also available to support the Soviet Union.

From the East, however, there will never be any Lend-Lease going to the western countries. The Germans’ interest in expanding their borders westward is minimal.

Moscow seems to be just the right distance from western Europe to keep Russia from defeat, seen in a historical perspective. Since then that distance has increased. Circumstances may have altered with the development of new materiel like long distance weapons and satellite sensors.

Italy and Spain are no longer fascist states.

Hypothetical German hopes of securing a future fuel supply by taking the oil fields in the Caucasus at Baku and the Caspian sea are vane. And they also, among other things, need a Chrome supply transported by railways westward from Turkey. Perhaps some Germans hope, as they did in Nazi-Germany with oil from Romania, to seize the oil fields at Caucasus and subsequently load the fuel on barges that can traffic the Danube River. But importing oil from North Africa through the straits in western Turkey and up into the Danube River is certainly seen as an alternative for Germany.

Germany buys an unknown percentual proportion of its oil from Russia, and they buy a lot of gas, gas that runs through the Nordstream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. They have tied theirselves quite a bit to Russia’s supplies of gas and oil to Germany.

Germany can extract liquid fuel from their oil shale and lignite coal, but not nearly enough for the German logistics chain, the motorized army and the air force.

I have put together a 35-point axiom, which can be used to determine a possible outcome in case of a major war. Of these 35 points, Nazi Germany had 17 crucial advantages against 6 for the Soviet Union, and yet Germany lost the war. My conclusion is that this is mostly due to the Soviet endurance through the Allies Lend-Lease, as well as the bombings of Germany including bombings against German-occupied/allied industrial areas and petroleum industries.

(Seventeen German advantages marked *)

1) have a better air force *
2) have a better or more extensive air defense *
3) are more thoroughly trained *
4) have logistic advantages *
5) have the right kind of materiel and equipment in the right amount and constellation, civilian as well as military *
6) have material quality advantages for heavier materiel *
7) have information, intelligence and surveillance advantages *
8) have technological communication advantages *
9) have better and more encryption variables *
10) have a superior leadership and educational doctrine *
11) have the opportunity to choose their battles and where they will take place *
12) have the best country climate *
13) have physically stronger, more sustainable soldiers (mainly concerns voluntary defense/professional soldiers) *
14) have better motivated soldiers *
15) have a better and more sustainable financial system *
16) have a better ability to quickly rebuild ruined industry and destroyed infrastructure (at least when the war looks like in WWII it’s a contest) *
17) have better infrastructure in their home country *

(Six Russian advantages marked ¤)

18) have a weather or season advantage during their warfare, or have weather-resistant clothing for their soldiers, cold-resistant equipment, functional food supplies and indoor accommodation opportunities in severe cold, etc. Deep snow can make transportation and transfer difficult for those who are not equipped and trained, deep mud is even worse, it may cause the most problem for an attacker.¤
19) have a bigger and faster production¤
20) gets financial and material help from the outside world¤
21) have access to oil and oil refineries and kerosene¤
22) have the most (ice free) commercial ports and access to safe shipping routs¤
23) have plenty of or appropriately placed fake targets so that the enemy’s surveillance and attack aircraft will correctly assess the location of the wrong target¤

(Twelve indeterminable or double acting/double edged)

24) are better equipped
25) are better protected and defended by, for example, mines and artillery in a defensive action and artillery during an offensive action
26) are more protected and harder to detect by using better camouflage
27) have better tools, e.g. have night vision devices as standard if you look at the situation today, or have electrolyte powder and potassium permanganate and antibiotics and low-cost performance enhancers, etc.
28) have advantages in terms of fire against targets
29) have better armor on combat vehicles with an advantage of better impact concerning fire against targets
30) have geographic advantages for either defense alt. an offensive (forest areas, steppes, transverse rivers etc.) ¤ *
31) In addition, the best long-range heavy-duty vehicles, adapted for the ground conditions and the accessibility of the offensive (compare with multiplied tactics) ¤ *
32) have a shorter production chain
33) have greater potential/ability to protect industry and infrastructure * ¤
34) have commodity assets within gripping distance ¤ *
35) have the most friendly minded neighboring states or least hostile neighbors

Nazi Germany had 17 of these above listed 35 possible advantages. Opposed are six advantages for Russia, and twelve indeterminable.

Perseverance is obviously such an important factor that it overrides all other factors if you can hold off a quick victory for the opposing side. How else can you explain a German loss even though the Germans had 17 advantages against 6 for the Soviet Union?

The shorter logistics chain (No. 4 above) may not be considered to be a German advantage. However, east Preussia had a partially strategic advantageous starting point at the start of the war, even though east Prussia lacked commodity resources. This advantage Preussia had because Stalin relocated parts of Russia’s industries from western Russia to the east of the Ural Mountains in the summer of 1941.

Another German advantage (not mentioned in the list above) was initially the surprise of the attacker. Although this is usually neutralized relatively quickly, it wasn’t in this war. But a Russian advantage at a later stage was that they could maintain and even increase sufficient reinforcements and resources, which the Germans could not hope to maintain for their part.

The Germans can not count on making a reprisal of the overall plan for the daring attack through the Ardennes as in the attack on France in 1940.

Germany lacks nuclear weapon capacity while Russia, the United States, Great Britain and France all have it. But Germany can acquire it, hypothetically speaking.

Lastly, let me remind you that Germany’s constitution today explicitly prohibits Germany from entering into strategic defense alliances with non-NATO countries. For the protocol, I can say that I support this.

Homework:

No homework today

Roger M. Klang, defense political spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden

The Chinese Lap-system. Lesson five

What if the Russians invite the Chinese Navy to a unifying drill in the Baltic Sea and the Chinese airforce to a coordinated drill with its units in Kaliningrad Oblast and Luga?

The Chinese thereafter do the Russians job through a sneaky Trojan horse and occupy the big Swedish island of Gotland in the middle of the Baltic Sea, with limited forces. The Chinese Navy has already visited the Baltic Sea and Stockholm in september 2015 via the Danish Belt with a newly built missile equipped Destroyer, a Frigate and a support-ship. The Chinese Navy had a coordinated drill with Russia in the Baltic Sea in 2017.

Consider that it has happened subsequent to two earlier migration ages that the Huns (Asians) have made themselves homesteady in Europe, after beating the Ostrogoths from central Europe, only to disappear approximatly 80 years later just as sudden as they showed up. In the later period the Roman army in alliance with the Visigoths under the Goth and fieldmarshal, with the suspiciously Swedish-sounding name Alarik, beat the Huns.

The Chinese started up factory constructions in the strategicly located Kalmar on the mainland centered just west of the narrow Swedish Island of Öland in the Baltic Sea, with Chinese labour and talked big about one million Chinese migrating to Kalmar. That was foiled by good old fashioned Swedish Bureaucracy. Or maybe it was unintentionally, I really don’t know.

In the fall of 2013 the Icelandic government approved unified Icelandic, Norwegan and Chinese energy corporative efforts to explore possible oil existence on Iceland’s north coastal area. This was hardly done so that the Chinese could extract and import the potential oil all the long way to China as far as China is concerned. For the Chinese it is all about the Lap-system that they are building up in obscurity all the way from China to Malacca Strait to Sri Lanka to various African coastal countries to Iceland and/or Greenland and all the way into the Baltic Sea. The Chinese are going for world dominion.

Homework:

Why do you think that the Chinese Navy visited the Baltic Sea and Stockholm in 2015? Is this proof that the Chinese will not stop until they have accomplished world dominion? Or do you think that the idea of the Chinese seeking world dominion is paranoid? Consider the Chinese constructions and plans in Kalmar before you answer – ”paranoid” – cocksure.

Roger M. Klang, defense political spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna värdepartiet) in Sweden

Does one need to know the range of military aircraft? Lesson four

The F-35 is the United states latest fighter jet. It is also the future naval aircraft-carrier based fighter jet aircraft (F-35C with C as in Carrier based). An F-35C has a realistic combat range of about 500 miles, i.e. 800 km. Combat range as seen in the chart below is the realistic range a fighter jet has with the option still for, hold your breath, you have heard it before, dogfight.

MQ-25 Stingray is an air-refueling aircraft under development (2018). In the chart below the air-refueling of the F-35C:s is thought to be done with this carrier based fuel-tanking aircraft. But they could also refuel the F-35C with a bigger tanker like for example the C-130 tanker, although this cannot start from or land on a carrier. C-130 is an aircraft with multiple functions. Some are made for transporting materiel and soldiers or dropping large bombs, and some are made for refueling of other aircraft in the air. Some are made for other purposes.

Depending on how many fighters sent up and what tankers they use and how many tankers in the air, the possible approach for the mission will vary. Simplified, the possibilities regarding flight paths plus the opponents capability will set the boundaries for the mission. The possible outcome will mainly depend on the planner and the level of professionalism of his crews. Of course the level of yours and your opponents technology will matter too. And the rest are due to circumstances like weather, malfunction or the battles randomized chaos.

In this example, I did not count on hanging extra tanks on the fighter aircraft. Those would have significantly reduced the number of offensive weapons and sensors hanging on the pylons. As you will learn, one MQ-25 Stingray can only refuel one fighter jet at a time of approximatly about 2-4 minutes. 2 minutes minimum. Two fighters need to work together as one tactical unit and both must follow through all the way to the target. Two fighters are refueling in the air approximatly ten to twenty percent of their combined flight time, using only one tanker and tanking the two fighters only once per aircraft in a mission, and it has to be initiated within the first 360-430 miles of flight.

If one calculates the numbers correctly, one will come to the conclusion that the range of a Carrier Air Wing increases by at the most 3/4 if this Air Wing is air-refueled only once during one and the same mission.

If the Air Wing is air-refueled twice during a single mission, the range is still limited by the combat radius the aircraft has. 500 miles + 500 miles which become a 1,000 miles (1,600 km) is in any case the maximum range.

With a single MQ-25A Stingray, one can only air-refuel one (1) F-35C per mission, once on the flight path to the target and once on the way back, if it takes about 4 minutes for a refueling.

The F-35B is the VTOL and STOVL variant of the aircraft. It must sacrifice a considerable amount of fuel for this capability of being able to vertically take off and land on the spot (VTOL) or start on a very short stretch and land on the spot (STOVL). The individual F-35B pilot must have enough fuel left to make a what is a fuel costly vertical landing on the aircraft carrier, but a number of aircrafts at a time can descend to land on the aircraft carrier. That alone compensates for a lot of the sacrificed fuel, since a number of F-35B doesn’t have to loiter in the air waiting to get clearance to land one by one. So in an operational environment, the sacrificed fuel doesn’t make that much of an impact on the mission range compared to if using the F-35C. Did I mention, the F-35B can also air refuel.

The combat radius of an F-35C could actually be as low as 430 miles if you want to have good safety margins. But if we assume that the combat radius is 500 miles and that one Stingray refuel one F-35C once per mission with an air refueling distance of about 60 miles, then the F-35C aircraft must return after a total flight distance of 870 miles from the aircraft carrier. After air refueling, it can fly a distance of 370 miles + the return distance of the 870 miles = 1,240 miles. The F-35C has a maximum range of 1,350 miles. In total, it gives a margin of 6 minutes for all F-35C to circulate and descend for landing on an aircraft carrier, which corresponds to a distance of 43 miles at a speed of 435 miles per hour on a low altitude. It would provide a four-group F-35C, supported under a mission by four Stingrays, approximately 1+ minute for landing per plane, if only one aircraft is touching the deck and taxing in at a time.

A third or a fourth of all the aircrafts onboard the carrier will be under maintenance at any given time. As one can count on at least one Stingray always being on maintenance aboard the Carrier, one must make place for one extra Stingray on the Carrier. Several Stingrays will occupy a lot of space on the aircraft carrier at the expense of at least twice the space required for the F-35C. Then it’s probably better to invest in the existing E/A-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and the radar plane E2-C Hawkeye battle management and control aircraft, if you want to optimize. These must still be carried onboard the Carrier.

But how optimal is it to base three or four MQ-25 Stingray on a lone Carrier group? The Carrier group would have to adjust their distance to the goal after any caprice of the Stingray mechanics, so these Stingrays must be kept in top condition so that the aircraft carrier group is not constantly forced to maneuver into a new position in a jerky way.

The United States has around a dozen carriers but some of them must be on rotation in the US at every given time. China has two aircraft carriers. The US carriers allows the fighter aircraft to carry bigger payloads, i.e. weapons, because of the carriers typicly steam-catapults that catapults the aircrafts into air, combined with the thrust of the aircrafts engines. However, the US Navy needs to project power in many parts of the world simultaneously.

The fact that the US Navy’s aircraft-carriers have nuclear propulsion does not mean that the carrier groups as such have longer range in reality. There are many ships with different tasks in a carrier group. A single fighter aircraft can perhaps fly four missions in a day and in those four missions it will consume the amount of fuel equivalent to a tank truck and a trailer full of fuel. That equals up to several ships full of fuel only for the aircrafts alone. Some ships protect the carriers from air-threats, some ships protect the carriers from underwater threats, some ships supply the carriers’ surrounding group with fuel oil and some ships supply food and beverage to all the crew-members of all the ships.

In reality, friendly harbors are important during a far away mission.

Now you know the basics.

Homework:

Look at where your country or any country of your choice is located and try to imagine how the US or China could tackle them or come at them using possible means. What countries are likely to display animosity and what countries do you think would display the opposite to the two nations respectively. Check out where they have friendly airbases and/or ports in friendly countries if you can. You may know if there are naval ships with air-defense systems on it based in naval ports. Naval ships air-defense systems against aerodynamic targets rarely have more than a 120 km (75 miles) range and it is a defensive weapon and should not be used offensively, i.e. it is there to protect the ship or group of ships first of all.

If you know where different nations ground based air-defense systems i.e. surface-to-air missiles are deployed for the moment being or will be deployed, you get extra credit. They are there to protect cruical infrastructure or military installations or mobile equipment and are also not offensive weapons. But such knowledge is rarely public knowledge unless the country is at war and its adversary or other players reveals their location, as is the case with Russias S-400 and S-300 systems and their radar systems in Syria.

Use the internet to find out things if it is not enough to use the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK, and it usually isn’t. The variables are many and intertwined which makes the task incredibly complicated. The more you know the more complicated it gets. Mix as many variables as you think you can manage for this task, but start learning how to slim them down effectively. I am only talking about military targets here. And I am only talking about air raids with F-35 starting from air strips or carriers.

This is not meant to be an exam that I will scrutinize as if it was a Masters degree. You are bound to not knowing what type of bases your country has where, and what capabilities these have. It doesn’t have to be accurate, you’re in training! But part of the training involves finding out as much useful information as you can. I am first and utmost training you to be an intelligence person. Information on the Internet can be accurate, grayish, dubious or just plain false, and I really cannot teach you how to find out accurate information for yourself. You have to have a sense for realities and reason to be able to do that, and that cannot be taught. At least not if it is not taught from an early age.

Remember, choice of the wrong means is less of a liability for a commander than failing to act! (Old Swedish jungle-proverb)

Roger M. Klang, defense political spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden

The end of all civilizations. Lesson three

I want to emphasize that when putting a point in a number followed by the word ”million” like this; 1.837 million, it means 1 837 000. When putting commas in a number like this; 1,602,205 it means that it is the full number 1 602 205, and it is not followed by the word ”million”.

In 2013 the United States extracted, in its country, amounts of oil equivalent to 60 percent of their nation’s oil consumption. America consumes 10 liters of oil per person and day. But in 2019 the United States oil reserve days are basically over, unless we account for oil that comes from shale and difficult-to-reach oil reserves. And you need to pump down toxic chemicals into the ground to be able to extract the shale oil. Moreover, the shale oil’s impact on the market is temporary. The 35 billion Texan barrels of oil in an area as big as Alabama will only supply America for a few years:

320,000,000 inhabitants consume 10 liters per person and day =
3,200,000,000 x 365 = 1,168,000,000,000 / 159 liters per barrel =
7,300,000,000 barrels in one year =
Maybe 5 years of consumption for the entire American people.

Texas consists largely of desert, but this desert has an ecosystem. I think Trump is in a propaganda war with the oil-producing countries that do not have to use chemicals to be able to pump up oil. He says that everything is well and he has said that the US would become self-sufficient in oil and even become a net exporter of oil. But what president wants to go down in history as the president who poisoned America’s environment and above all its sweat water sources to the extent we see today with the Fracking method, if there was high quality oil to be bought elsewhere for the US? This story is going to float up to the surface and haunt Trump for sure.

Trump writes in his book “Crippled America” from 2015, that researchers at (the small university) Rice University in Huston Texas have estimated that the US “can have” two trillion barrels of “recoverable oil” so that it will suffice for US consumption for 285 years. Firstly, if you calculate on 2 trillion barrels and the population of the United States in 2015, then the given number is incorrect. The correct number would be 270 years. I also do not believe in the estimation of “2 trillion barrels” because it would mean that the United States has got more oil reserves than the rest of the world put together. Quite much more. I think it is a joyish calculation, especially considering that the US has to make use of Fracking to such a great extent already today to pump up their oil. I think the US is experiencing its last oil boom, and at a great cost to their environment as well.

The CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2018-2019, which I trust more than I believe in Trump’s bombastic statements about America’s independence, shows that the United States 2016 imported most of the oil they consume from Canada, Venezuela, Saudi-Arabia and Iraq. But one must make an assessment based on comparison between states in the book and simple calculations. If the USA does not import oil but instead exports domestic oil, they have stepped up the Fracking extraction of oil with rocket speed in the past years since 2016. It now defacto appears as if the United States has so much oil that it will last forever and that it even can be exported because they have too much of the product, if anyone can have that. The United States, as the foremost player in the West and Saudi-Arabia as the leading player in the Middle East, is in a nerve war with each other about the oil price.

It seems like if acceptance of the Fracking method has increased in the US. They can destroy the Texan desert, because that eco-environment is not essential to the people of the United States. But judging from the pictures in a recently made French documentary film, the shale oil is at least partly extracted in fertile and inhabited areas in the Permian Basin area of Texas where most of the shale oil comes from.

A basin, just like the Permian Basin, is a place where the ground is lower than its surroundings. A basin can in nature be a very widestretched area ideal for vegetation. Water flows from the surroundings into many of the basins and that makes the basins fertile. Where there are green pastures and ample water reserves are also the same places where people tend to settle. And it is mostly in basins you can find oil. Consequently, the toxins used for the Fracking method, will contaminate the ground and the groundwater used by farmers and as drinking water by people and livestock.

15 million homes in the US get their water from private wells. That is 43.5 million people. 63 million Americans were exposed to unsafe drinking water in 2017, almost 1/5 of the population in the United States. Also, since people first settled in those basins many ideal spots for oil-drilling purposes are inhabited farmland and/or heavily populated city regions. The oil is often literally under the feet of the urban population. That’s what I mean wen I say difficult-to-reach oil reserves.

Pollution in the communities groundwater and in sweetwater lakes force many people to buy bottled water instead of drinking from the tap. A lot of extra energy consumption is thus created when large amounts of water has to be bottled and delivered from far away locations.

The numbers from the French 2018 documentary “The struggle for Oil” speak of 400 million barrels a year or 1.1 million barrels of oil extracted through Fracking in the United States per day. It does not make the United States self-sufficient, but 1.1 million barrels a day is equivalent to what the United States 2016 imported from Saudi-Arabia and Iraq together. It is about 1/7 of the total US oil imports. But the 1.1 million number is only 1/8 of the number which the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2018-2019 claims that the US domestic production of oil was per day in 2016. But perhaps they look at Fracking in the USA as a method of pressing down the oil price marginally and not as a way to become self-sufficient in oil. The extracted amount of shale oil that according to what the French documentary film from 2018 claims that the US pumps up today, would last just as long as according to my calculations for how long the US civilization as we know it can count on to exist, i.e. about additionally 40 years. Is this a coincidence?

The United States, according to the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2018-2019, imports 2.0 million barrels a day from Canada and 1.0 million barrels of oil per day from Mexico, but the Mexican oil is out of stock at any time, if the oil wells have not already dried up. Convenient then, that a wall against Mexico is going to be built right about now if Trump gets his way. The United States imports another 700,000 barrels a day from Saudi-Arabia, 400,000 barrels a day from Iraq and 300,000 barrels a day from Venezuela. The known rest or 200,000 barrels come in smaller quantities from other countries. All in all, the known amount of 4.6 million barrels.

In comparison, the giant American oil rig ”Perdido”, which is located 300 km off-shore in the Mexican Gulf, can pump up maybe 86,000 barrels of oil per day. The oil rig itself cost 3,000,000,000 dollars to build. That means a liter price of 4 dollars or 15 dollars per gallon if the oil rig stands for fifteen years. And that’s not counting salaries for the oil rig’s personnel and maintenance or production stop, nor do I estimate the deconstruction costs. But on the other hand it is a low estimation of the oil rig’s total lifespan. Imagine that, 15 dollars per gallon! The numbers suggests that Perdido is only an experimental platform. But Perdido is extremely remote. Actually 2 million barrels of the US oil is produced by the US with less remote and less complex off-shore platforms in the Mexican Gulf every day. There is thus a difference between off-shore and off-shore.

If I in the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2018-2019 calculate on all oil countries’ oil exports and the oil countries’ export percentage to the US and then make a comparison with the fixed figures for US oil imports, then about 4.6 million barrels as mentioned above are covered in the book of the US total imported 7.85 million barrels. Thus it doesn’t add up! The United States produces, I guess mainly by the “fracking method”, because it is the method used in the Texas Permian Basin nowadays, 8.853 million barrels a day in 2016 according to the fact book.

The United States could in theory live solely on Saudi-Arabia’s oil reserves only, realistically or optimistically, depending on how you look at it, 30 years if the Saudis had been able to pump up the oil in the required pace and if they sold their oil exclusively to the United States, which they don’t do today.

Canada sits on 170 billion barrels of crude oil, a fourth place in the world, and the country exports 2.671 million barrels of oil per day, most of which goes to the United States. And Venezuela, which exports oil to China but mostly to the United States, sits on one of the worlds two largest certain oil reserves, the other being Saudi-Arabias, ie. about 300 billion barrels of oil for each of the two nations. But Venezuela is only in place 11 in the world when it comes to crude oil production. They export 1.514 million barrels of oil per day. China can buy just under half of the oil exports that the United States creams out of Venezuela. It is only because of Venezuela’s geographic location and nothing else, that China does not have a larger portion of the pie.

The United States imports a total of 7.850 million barrels of oil per day. That means they have to import more than half of these 7.850 million barrels of oil from the Middle East mainly. This would mean that their civilization can survive unaffected for more than 40 years by importing oil from just Saudi-Arabia, Iraq, Canada and Venezuela + the US own oil production, as long as production and the pie allotment remain constant as in 2016. But then they would have no Allies in Europe to take into account and they must consider at least one European partner – Britain.

The oil deposits at the Golan Heights are estimated to exceed Saudi-Arabia’s oil reserves. The CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2018-2019 doesn’t mention any evidence of major oil deposits in Israel, but this was expected at this stage, regardless of whether there are any significant oil deposits in the ground at the Golan Heights or not. They do not like lying, but it is actually not proven beyond doubt that there are oil in large quantities at the Golan Heights. It could be an equally unsuccessful project, a mony drain, as with the supposed gas in Siljansringen in Sweden three decades ago.

The European Civilization may have only 20 years of its lifetime left, if we do not pump up our military muscles. The United States military force is an expeditionary one and will not be able to measure up to Europe’s total defense forces, at least not on the ground and at least not without a safe haven and deployment site and not without safe bases. But the Americans have no interest in occupying northwestern Europe. If the United States, together with Britain, are hogging the oil and running over or ignoring most European countries in the process, then England will be left to pick up the bill. It will end with an unintentionally neutering of Great Britain by the United States just as they were neutered by the Romans during the former migration period.

We do not behave like that. We sit on the best magnetic iron ore in the world, but we would never be so stupid that we thought we could become isolationistic while the rest of Europe or the world falls back into the Middle Ages. In that case, we would have to count on a war against an overwhelming opponent. Though in our case, a war against us by the Europeans had not been needed. We would have been goners logistically and materiel-wise anyway. America’s and Europe’s civilizations goes under together, with or without a great war. But good luck trying to get Trump to understand that!

Russia’s oil reserves are estimated to be 80 billion barrels (2017). It will be enough for 20 years if Russia is forced to supply Europe and China with the oil they are used to consuming throughout this time. Today, Russia exports ~50 percent of its oil production.

Azerbaijan’s oil will last for 23 years with its current production rate which is relatively low.

Norway’s oil reserves were 1/6 of the United States in 2017. The Norwegians produced 1,648,000 barrels of oil per day in 2016. They retained 253,000 of these barrels of oil for their own use in 2016. Export is at approximately 80 percent of the total production. Norway is able to produce oil for a further 10 years with the current production rate.

Sweden imported 394,000 barrels of oil per day in 2016. 45 percent of the crude oil came from Russia. 26 percent came from Norway, Nigeria accounted for 10 percent Venezuela for 7 percent and Denmark accounted for 13 percent in 2016.

Sources; CIA WORLD FACTBOOK; and the part about Sweden’s oil imports from the blog Cornucopia? by Lars Wilderäng

The worlds oil reserves of 1 trillion 726 billion barrels of oil in 2017 are sufficient for the whole world for maybe 18 years from 2019. However, there are uncertainties in these estimates. New oil fields are discovered on regular basis, and since 1991, we have declared peak oil every year. Also the Ugandan oil deposits probably wrecks my estimation a bit. But the southeast Asian countries’ economies are growing fast.

But it is more complicated than so. There are actually 161 different internationally traded crude oils on the stock market. It can seem insanely many since you as a consumer only have a few different options to choose from when you refuel your gasoline car. The crude oils all differ in terms of quality and price. Many grades of crude oil are suitable for production of plastics, diesel and fuel oil only. The Norwegian and British oil in the North Sea has been dubbed “Brent oil”. Brent oil is characterized by its high quality and it is suitable for making gasoline from. West Texas Intermediate (WTI), also known as Texas Light Sweet, is also a type of high-quality crude oil suitable for making gasoline from, and it is used as a benchmark in oil pricing alongside Brent. Both crude oils are light (low density) and sweet (low in sulfur). Other important oil markers include Dubai Crude and OPEC Reference Basket.

Phosphates

Phosphates are used for manure and it is spread across farmlands around the world to achieve significantly larger harvests. Estimates of phosphate production are sometimes difficult to understand because the phosphates are mined in different forms. The dominant form is ”Phosphate Rock”, a mineral that is usually mined in open pits. Two thirds of the world production are mined in China, the United States and Morocco/Western Sahara. Morocco and the by Morocco occupied Western Sahara account for 30 percent of the export market.

US phosphate reserves will last for 30 years for US use only. The United States does not export phosphate ore. Neither does China. The worlds phosphate reserves are estimated to be around 15 billion tonnes, which is sufficient for the world-wide consumption for 90 years with current technology, according to the US Geological Survey. Phosphate production in the world will not come to a critical low level before the worlds oil reserves peter out. Thus, phosphate production in Morocco/Western Sahara is strategically secondary. This did not prevent the United States from making a bilateral trade deal with Morocco during 2006. The European Union didn’t jump on the train until two years later.

Homework:

Can you think of a reason why George W. Bush and the United States made a bilateral trade deal with Morocco during 2006?

Roger M. Klang, defense political spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden

Contemporary overall strategies for the great powers. Lesson two

A work hypothesis

If you followed my first lesson you will recognize that I sometimes repeat myself here. The information I am repeating is vital to understand the world. But I will to my utmost try not to continue doing that unnecessarily.

The proxy war that the Saudis and the United States are enforcing in Yemen with the destruction of the Hodeida port is all about safe passage for merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden and the northwest of the Indian Ocean. The Iranian regime is said to be the instigator of the unrest in Yemen.

The long expected American war against Iran may have already started in 2019. But it didn’t start from zero, it has been escalating for a long time. Iran is very much responsible for the belligerent situation in Syria between them and Israel and the US (other fighting nations and ethnic groups here omitted). And president Trump is a friend of Israel. So, yes, he is a cog and he is the biggest cog in the US war machine. I think that it still revolves mostly around China. The Iranians, the Chinese, or maybe both regimes supposed shenanigans in Yemen happened because they wanted to boost the Somali piracy in order to shut down or hinder transit for western merchant ships with the destination east USA and Europe sailing through the Red Sea.

And probably the Chinese conspires in the Persian Gulf region since the Chinese buy oil from both Saudi-Arabia and Iran and every other country in the Persian Gulf that sells oil.

And they are suspected of instigating the Somali pirate activity in the west Indian Ocean, probably by arranging for the Somali pirates to use the port in Hodeida in Yemen for negotiations with the shipping companies, negotiations that could take up to a year for every hijacked ship. Cause I know of no hijacked Chinese merchant ships.

If you Think that the Yemeni people got the short end of the stick, consider what would have happened if the Maritime sea routes to Europe and eastern USA would have been cut off.

Question: Why would China want to cut their own supply lines and trade routes? The answer is, they don’t want to cut them! They want to monopolize them.

And if you think that it is easier to sneak into the Red Sea passed the American base in Djibouti by the African horn, with a skiff with a fabric rooftop, loaded with ten men armed to the teath who are clearly not out on a fishing trip, than it is to sneak in with a large merchant ship you’d better think again. They surely prefer not to challenge the American Navy with their hunting vessels, but they feel safe sailing into the Red Sea with their booty ship. They know a merchant ship wont be sunk by the Americans and they have hostages on their way to Hodeida in west Yemen. The American Navy and Airforce are ill equipped for fighting piracy. Hodeida had to be bombed.

The so-called Saudi-led coalition, which the United States is an important part of, supports the legitimate authority in Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition is trying to take control of the important port in the city of Hodeida, which is located by the Red Sea. The city was controlled by the Houthi militias in 2018.

The trade routs at sea goes from the Middle East, eastern Africa and East Asia into the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea and further up to western Europe and the eastern United States. The merchant ships also go in the other direction.

It is possible to extend the sea routes around South-Africa but it is more common for ships to become wrecked or lose containers due to high sea. (But it is still a much trafficked sea route, for the South-Americans.) Also, the distance is considerably longer and most European and North-American merchant ships may not even be built to cover the extra distance without filling up on extra fuel oil for their engines, and China is the number one player in Africa and around Africa’s coast band. In Tanzania alone there are just as many Chinese as there are Africans. Tanzania is tangibly conveniently localized at the east-coast neighboring Uganda, for the Chinese to get an edge in gaining access to Uganda’s untapped oil reserves.

But it may be that the governments and shipping companies in the west have just made a cold hammered economic calculation and/or risk assessment and come to the conclusion that it is not a long term viable option to sail around South-Africa since you would have to add another 30+ days to the voyage.

Somali pirates have begun to use mother ships to significantly expand their reach. They now also use rocket launchers.

When comparing the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2015 with the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2018-2019, Uganda is not included as a state in the later issue. This Uganda has in common with Japan and Paraguay, which are also not included in this later issue.

Uganda, located in Africa’s inland 1,200 km southwest of Djibouti, sits according to oil prospects from 2008 on oil in the ground that has been estimated to be greater than or equal to that of the oil-fields in Saudi- Arabia and the Persian Gulf. “Ugandan oil reserves can correspond to the total oil reserves of all of the Gulf countries put together”, according to Sally Kornfeld, analyst at the Office of Fossil Energy at the United States Department of Energy. Planning of the construction of refining capacity and pipelines are underway. There is also the question of what oil quality they have found in Uganda. Is the oil suitable for making gasoline from? It’s a big deal if it is.

Who will put their hands on that oil? The main reason, which is related to ”Freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea waters, why the Americans are putting pressure on the Chinese in the South China Sea right now is Uganda, and their decision on who will get to buy their oil is crucial to what’s going to happen in the world in the future. Since the US and their allies merchant ships, oil tankers and the US Navy, frequently traffic the South China Sea waters, Freedom of navigation is obviously important. He who controls the choke-Points i.e. the straits in southeast Asia, is likely to be the number one buyer of the Ugandan oil. It is either going to be the US or it’s going to be China.

It contradicts the view on the objective for the US Department of Defense, but the United States would rather see a full-scale war on China sooner rather than later. It actually is self-evident. A weak opponent is better than a strong opponent, if they have to fight in the first place.

It is possible to defeat Afghanistan in war. The day when the Chinese consider themselves to be strong enough to project their power-language in other parts of the world than China’s mainland, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and the South China Sea, they are likely to begin with completely crushing the pride of the Afghans, to overthrow the country so that it can be used as a grain storage and a logistic hub and springboard for invading eastern Europe. In order for it to be possible, the Chinese must first make the country of Afghanistan their private brothel as once the Mongols did before them in history. This will cause in particular eastern Europeans and western Europeans to cheer, and that’s all in good order. The problem is, as I mentioned, that Afghanistan will only be a Chinese springboard for invading Europe, which will be the main objective for the Chinese.

But first, the Chinese must establish the Silk Road Economic Belt and secure their military transit routes through a number of countries and in multiple places. Beijing wishes transit and military access to the Malacca Strait and other straits in southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea as well as the Persian Gulf to name the most important examples. These sea-routes are also part of the Silk Road Economic Belt.

Donald Trump and the United States do not wish to see a strong maritime China. The company Genie Oil and Gas will extract the oil below the Golan Heights. Trump wants to protect the shipping-lanes through the Strait of Hormuz, Malacca Strait, Sunda Strait and Lombok Strait, the Indian Ocean, the Arab Sea, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Gibraltar Strait by forcing the Chinese to invade eastern Europe by land and not the United States allied (or allies) in western Europe by sea and certainly not presumably oil-rich Israel.

A Chinese invasion will come at some time, we just do not know when although we know that it will not come in the next few years. The United States powerful nuclear arsenal guarantees that the Chinese will not try to invade the United States mainland. You may think that invasion scenarios should be a thing of the past, but it is only we westerners who think like so.

According to my work hypothesis, Trump is doing his best to sidestep and juggle with various statements in the purpose of throwing gravel in the eyes of people and nations to appear as Syria’s savior in need when it’s really about safe trade-routs for merchant ships and countering Iran and China. So keep an eye on the ball! But I would have done the same practical things in Trumps seat. Though I would at the same time have told the truth to my people and to the world.

Vladimir Putin wants to push the Chinese attack routs as far down to the Indian Ocean as they possibly can. Kremlin Russians are afraid of losing influence to China over Azerbaijan and Russia’s narrow southern buffer front. There in the Caspian Sea Russia and Azerbaijan have major oil reserves.

India is the third largest crude oil importer in the world. The Indians want to avert the Chinese interest in the other direction to Argentina, the Falklands and South-America.

Chile and Argentina together form all of the southern parts of South-America. Chile is located by the Pacific Ocean and Argentina is located by the Atlantic Ocean. Chile is in the US pocket and Argentina is largely in China’s pocket. Both Chile, and Argentina in particular, have plenty of raw materials.

Homework:

Have a map in front of you when doing your homework today!

Can you see any possibilities today for the Chinese to project enough power, with only two available air-craft carriers, in the South China Sea and extensively into the Indian Ocean to confine the US in order to control who Uganda shall sell their oil to?

Both the US Navy and the Chinese navy each have access to a safe port and then some in the Indian Ocean. Chinese port (civilian for now) is on the large island of Sri Lanka just south of India. American port is on a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The Chinese reportedly have a port and an airfield in the southwest of Pakistan in Gwadar in the Gulf of Oman. But the Americans have airbases in Kuwait (semi-american), Qatar and UAE and a port in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.

Both China and the US have ports and air-strips in Djibouti by the African Horn.

Consider the Malacca Strait south of the China Sea. What can you find out about the by Malacca Strait surrounding countries? Who has the means to control the Malacca Strait? Is it perhaps Malaysia even?

Roger M. Klang, defense political spokesman for the Christian Values Party (Kristna Värdepartiet) in Sweden