In the video clip below, Dr. Celeste Wallander, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. expresses concern over Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.
Dr. Wallander states that these attacks may violate the rules of war because at least some of the infrastructure attacked are "civilian targets." She then, under further questioning, admits that the owners of the attacked infrastructure are, "private Russian citizens who are part of the Putin regime."
I don't understand her position.
During World War II, the US and the UK spared little effort in bombing German synfuel plants... which were owned by corporations such as IG Farben and the German-American Petroleum Company (previously partly owned by American oil interests).
Romanian and Hungarian oil infrastructure was also the target of raids by the United States Army Air Force and the Royal Air Force... most notably during, "Operation Tidal Wave" ... the huge air raids on the refineries around Ploiești.
The Western Allies attacked Axis oil infrastructure because they foresaw that depriving the German War Machine of petroleum products would bring that Machine to a grinding halt. Without liquid fuels and lubricants, Luftwaffe planes would not be able to fly, and Heer and SS tanks and troop transports would not be able to move. Hence, the Oil Campaign.
In 1944 General George S. Patton's Third Army was racing across southern France. In his haste to be the first U.S. commander to cross into Germany, however, Patton overextended his supply lines. His armored columns ground to a dead stop. Faced the choice of waiting until he could be resupplied or draining the fuel of captured German vehicles, Patton chose the latter. His tanks and armored personnel carriers continued to steamroll toward Germany, powered by the German's own ersatz gasoline – synthetic fuel manufactured from coal.
The leaders of World War II, on both sides, knew that an army's lifeblood was petroleum. Ironically, before the War, experts had scoffed at Adolph Hitler's idea that he could conquer the world largely because Germany had almost no indigenous supplies of petroleum. Hitler, however, had begun assembling a large industrial complex to manufacture synthetic petroleum from Germany's abundant coal supplies.
When Allied bombing of the German synfuels plants began taking its toll in late 1944 and early 1945, the entire Nazi war machine began grinding to a halt. More than 92 percent of Germany's aviation gasoline and half its total petroleum during World War II had come from synthetic fuel plants. At its peak in early 1944, the German synfuels effort produced more than 124,000 barrels per day from 25 plants. In February 1945, one month after Allied forces turned back Hitler's troops at the Battle of the Bulge, German production of synthetic aviation gasoline amounted to just a thousand tons – one half of one percent of the level of the first four months of 1944. None was to be produced afterwards. Lack of petrol meant the end of the war and the end of the Third Reich.
[….]
Early Days of Coal Research
Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
U.S. Department of Energy
www.energy.gov/…
Dr. Wallander’s remarks cause me to ask: What's different now, in the case of Putin's War Machine?
In addition to supplying fuels and lubricants that Putin’s War Machine needs, Russian oil products also give Putin the means to earn the cash that he needs to keep his troops paid, to buy electronic chips that his weapons systems need (and that Russia itself lacks the ability to manufacture), and to keep Russia’s economy going. As a means to earn foreign currency, Russia has not all that much to offer beyond natural gas, raw petroleum, and refined petroleum products.
From my perspective, Ukraine is therefore fully justified in going after Russian energy infrastructure.
Not by its own choice, Ukraine is at war with Russia. Ukraine did not ask for war. Ukraine had the temerity to send Ukrainian stooges of the Russians packing, and to try to chart its own course as a pluralistic democracy with its hopes and aspirations oriented toward the West. As punishment for that attitude, Ukraine was invaded by Putin’s army and mercenaries. Ukraine is fighting a defensive war. Ukraine is fighting both for its very existence and for the lives and freedom of its citizens.
Russia invaded Ukraine out of imperialistic and genocidal ambitions, plain and simple. Russia is waging a totally unjustified and aggressive war against Ukraine. Russia literally wants to wipe Ukraine off the map and to eliminate the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian culture, and Ukrainian national identity and consciousness.
The Nürnberg Tribunals that followed World War II established the principle that waging an aggressive war is a war crime. As a resultI, some German leaders ended up swinging from the ends of ropes after having been charged with and after having been convicted of waging aggressive war. Others received long prison terms.
The prosecution of German war criminals helped to lay the foundation for the Rules-Based Order that has prevented a Third World War from breaking out in Europe or in Asia. Putin’s aggressive war ainst Ukraine is a direct threat to that Order.
As I see it, Dr. Wallander needs to rethink her position. If she was voicing the Administration's position, then there needs to be a house cleaning. She and the others that have formulated that position should be dismissed from service, and her slot and the others’ slots in the Administration should be assigned to others... to people who have a clearer view of what is going on in Ukraine, and of what the stakes are... people who understand that Putin's aggressive war needs to be stopped sooner rather than later.
Please note: I do not put the entire blame on Dr. Wallander, or on the Biden Administration. Former President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson bear their own large shares of the blame for the current situation, in which Ukraine finds itself handicapped due to a shortage of weapons and ammunition.
On April 22, 1971, former Lieutenant John Kerry testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He criticized the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Kerry famously asked:
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
[Emphasis Added.]
I would pose a similar question to those who have held back the resources that Ukraine needs to adequately defend itself:
How do you ask Ukrainians to die so that the West avoids offending Valdimir Putin?
How do you ask Ukrainian men and women to die for a mistake?