A wheat and fertilizer shortage of a magnitude greater than this was predicted at least 3 years ago when I started paying attention when China started stockpiling wheat like there was going to be an apocalypse. Two years ago, fertilizer shortages were being reported but was going under the radar, likely because this would be a sign causing panic and there is no way to resolve this issue thus reporting on it would hasten supply issues, causing panic and inflation thus threatening those in power.
There is far more here than just Russia/Ukraine. Let's list the resources in play here:
1. Oil 2. Neon 3. Fertilizer and crops in general 4. Wheat
Let's also ignore all of Russia's claims about security because, despite the biolabs (which I've been watching since the first couple of days of the invasion as governments and media keep rolling back the level of denial), this is not what's really at stake though with what I'm about to outline, it's pretty obvious that the claims Russia is making about them including bioweapons that can target specific races is entirely believable.
1. Oil: Russia can't get oil out cheaply if it doesn't control both Ukraine and Belarus. With climate pushes and the world struggling to move away from oil, Russia sees the writing on the wall and wants to milk the oil-train as much as they can while they can. This is literally their number one export and income. This incentive is the first true resource war that will cause civilization to collapse if no intervention in the course of matters appears. Because Russia absolutely sucks at making semiconductors and chips, a move to electric from oil means that they become 100% reliant on chips from other countries.
2. Neon: Because Ukraine is responsible for much of the world's neon production and it's an absolute requirement for chip manufacture, Russia stands to gain so much from gaining control of this. This would strategically place them to control the remaining oil use in Europe and (lesser) globally while controlling much of the global chip production resources.
3. Fertilizer, crops in general: Countries are hoarding fertilizer and refusing to sell it globally. This creates a higher price for what you can find (if you can and make no mistake, you pretty much can't) and creates a much higher price for crops you can grow. And that brings us to the real cash crop here...
4. Wheat: Together, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine produce something like 40% of the world's wheat. This is a high demand item that every single country on the planet uses. Reduce the amount of available fertilizer and you suddenly have an extremely profitable commodity. It doesn't matter if Russia damages production for one or two years because by the time they get wheat rolling again, prices will be high and the cost of taking the land will be quickly paid off even with sanctions which will be rolled back so that wheat purchases can be made. The problem here is that Russia can produce its own wheat for its own people and with sanctions in place, they can tell the world to piss off and not sell them any wheat while nuking Ukraine and ensuring no else one can have the wheat that Ukraine could have produced. This is why Putin played the nuke card early in the game. Every politician, especially in the US, knows this and they've kept the truth of it from you.
diggernicks 0 points 3.1 years ago
Sounds like you speak from experience