Norway Cutting Off Fuel to US Navy
A story I thought I'd never see.
UK Defence Journal (“Norwegian fuel supplier refuses U.S. warships over Ukraine“):
Norwegian fuel company Haltbakk Bunkers has announced it will cease supplying fuel to U.S. military forces in Norway and American ships docking in Norwegian ports, citing dissatisfaction with recent U.S. policy towards Ukraine.
In a strongly worded statement, the company criticised a televised event involving U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, referring to it as the “biggest shitshow ever presented live on TV.”
Haltbakk Bunkers praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his restraint, accusing the U.S. of “putting on a backstabbing TV show” and declaring that the spectacle “made us sick.”
As a result, the company stated: “We have decided to immediately STOP as fuel provider to American forces in Norway and their ships calling Norwegian ports. No Fuel to Americans!” Haltbakk Bunkers also urged Norwegians and Europeans to follow their lead, concluding their statement with the slogan “Slava Ukraina” in support of Ukraine
I have no expertise on the nature of HB’s contract with the U.S. government but suspect that this will sort itself out soon enough. But the reaction of a core NATO ally to the meeting should raise alarm bells.
While Norway has historically fallen just shy of the 2% GDP defense spending pledge, they field a sizable, well-trained force that’s a robust contributor to NATO combined operations. They’ve been stockpiling pre-positioned supplies for US and NATO forces since the 1980s at their own expense.
The US Marines, in particular, have a deep relationship with Norwegian forces, routinely training there. Alone among foreign countries, Norway has a decades-long relationship with the Marine Command and Staff college wherein they supply a top lieutenant colonel for a two-year stint on the faculty. They’re sending the best of the best, folks who will pin on colonel as soon as they get back to Norway and most of whom will be generals.
If your worldview is purely transactional, I suppose that doesn’t matter. But we’ve spent more than a century building up goodwill. It takes a far shorter time to squander it.
In language the fascists will understand: doubleplusungood.
I can’t wait for the free-market advocates to come along and explain how this is totally unfair.
There’s a new organization named Wiemar+ (named for the Wiemar Triangle Treaty, not the Wiemar Republic) consisting of France, Germany, Poland, UK, and Spain that appears to be setting itself up as the successor to NATO
Statement by Weimar+ on the support to Ukraine
This is not Norway, but rather a 40 yr old Norway bunkering company. One presumes there are other bunkering companies that service the “whole Nordic region” as this company claims it does. And they don’t list the US as a customer but rather NATO. So does boycotting a NATO ally create problems with them selling to other NATO forces?
And what are they advocating? There are only three possible futures for the Ukraine war which is now in its 11th year.
1. Continue to fight for another 10, 20, 100 years with US, UK and EU funding. Probably a shorter time as the Ukrainian boys are killed off.
2. A negotiated peace as Trump is pushing
3. WWIII. -only US/NATO troops in Eastern Ukraine can take back the Donbas and Crimea, but would likely require at least tactical nuclear weapon exchanges.
@JKB: The “only 3” possibilities you posit are confined within a narrow set of assumptions, so your odds of successful prognostication are thinner than the real possibilities.
Update:
Norway’s government does not support this political act by a private company
@Rob1:
You are right, I did discount the Russian male population collapsing before the Ukrainian. Of course, in 20 years, the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children Russia has kidnapped will be of age to send into the meat grinder against their nation of birth
I’m all for letting the Trump Administration get slaps of harsh realities. But at some level, it also beneficial to keep relationships engaged in normal context for as long as possible.
If a traditional ally were to make an abrupt challenge as suggested by the Norwegian company, Trump’s (and MAGA’s) reflexive response is retaliation, setting up a possibility of spiraling conflict. It is probably smarter, in this context, to continue to assert “normalcy” albeit firmly without patronizing, rather that to play into someone’s pathology. Resist destructive advances from the other party while offering normalizing options.
Seems more to me like it’s a Norwegian company rather than Norway itself responding. I think the response from the right will be to again claim that failure to grovel to Trump is somehow the same as disrespecting the US. This may give them a little more ammunition.
Steve
@JKB:
I think I understand now. You’re a speechwriter for JD Vance, right?
@JKB:
If you think that was the only thing missing from your ‘analysis’, it explains why you uncritically post what you do.
@JKB:
The problem is that the negotiated peace that Trump is pushing is the Russian version of a “peace.”
Another option is a real negotiated peace that isn’t conducted in a way that Ukraine will feel that it loses simply by participating.
The problem with Trump’s version of “peace” is that it induces Ukraine to keep fighting.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Which also gets to a point aboutUkraine needing to be an active part of the talks. They were not included in the talks that happened last month.
@Steven L. Taylor:
It should also be noted that the felon & Vance’s hissy fit has also eliminated most of the leverage that the admin had over Ukraine.
@mattbernius: If Ukraine wants to talk to Russia, they should just engage directly. What’s the point of using a weak middleman with no moral authority? Trump, who is owned by illegal immigrant Nazi oligarch Musk, has made the US a vassal state of Russia, which is a client state of China.
At this point, Trump’s America is a vassal state of China, in axis with Iran and North Korea. So there is little reason for Ukraine and Europe to let such an embarrassing and diminished former power negotiate on their behalf. They can just talk to Xi and Putin directly, rather than their towel boys Trump, Vance, Rubio etc.
@JKB:
Are you okay? That was pretty bizarre even for you.
Re: the original post
I thought R’s were all about local control / standards and so-called “state’s rights”.
Exiting NATO and siding with Russia will have consequences. These people are idiots.
U$A! U$A! U$A!
Live by the margins, die by the margins.
I’d be surprised if this effort wasn’t well under way 3 years ago.
@JKB:
Yes, a negotiated sell out, one in which Russia keeps the Ukranian territory it has a waged war to steal from Ukraine.
Trump* predicted there would be so much winning that it would sicken people.
*Sooper Genius/Stable.
@Rob1: Even easier, in the current international/NATO treaty climate, relying on the US for defense equipment makes no more sense than relying on Russia, China, or NK would.
lol
The British reply to such a demand would amusing, if possibly unprintable.
@JKB:
You misspelled “surrender”.
You mean the territory they took when Obama was president and that Obama forced the Ukrainians to give up and only sent blankets for them to fight with?
But Ukraine now holds Russian territory so the lines may be different once things are settled.
@JKB:
Ukraine didn’t invade Russia. Vice versa. Russia invaded Ukraine.
Are you so demented you believe opposite truth on purpose to stroke your foolish ego?
I didn’t follow the Crimean thing closely, but I would guess the world’s (and yes, Obama’s) blind eye to that invasion set up the conditions for the current war. Because everybody gave Russia a free pass on that one so they thought they could just do what they want.
And now I’m seeing conservative commenters, here and elsewhere, claiming Trump is 10 chess moves ahead of everyone in this “negotiation,” when it appears he’s just poised to give Russia another free pass. How that prevents future Russian invasions, which they are obviously wont to do (both historically and just listening to what they say now), is admittedly beyond me. If Trump is as brilliant as these commenters say, we’ll history will have to judge that. But since the guy can’t read or write and has serious temper problems, I have my doubts.
@JKB:
Obama???? Dude….. I can’t even. Do you know what decade we live in? Perhaps the century? I suppose we should blame Lincoln for the fact that Tennessee still has health care deserts because they won’t accept Medicare expansion.
@JKB:
Did I mention the Crimea here?
Thanks for participating.