Crimea River

I know the title's lame, and altogether too obvious...but then why shouldn't it be when we're discussing "Vladimir's Folly".
Clearly we were not far off the mark in our last post where we accused Vlad of slicing off a chunk of Ukraine for Mother Russia, annexation of Crimea is now a foregone conclusion. With Donetsk and Kharkiv awaiting their warm embrace from Vlad.

Speaking solely for myself, the mental image of Vlad embracing anyone makes me want to hurl.
Could it be I'm not alone?

Here's our reality America, other than sanctioning Russia diplomatically, our only recourse is to sink the Russian state economically. We did it before, and we're in a very unique position to do so again.
Given Vlad's penchant for stripping his nation of it's natural resources, and his neglect of anything remotely resembling real industry; his vulnerability is a clear and fortuitous target.

Namely, natural gas; we the US of A, sit on more gas than we can use. Pretty much more than any other country on Earth. Given a substantial joint effort of government, industry and environmentalists, we could very easily disrupt or even destroy Russia's chokehold on Europe through natural gas sales.

Think of all the gas that's just being burned off in North Dakota right now, more than one million dollars worth per day, because we did not have the foresight to build infrastructure capable of exporting that asset. As that asset goes up in smoke, so does our best weapon for putting Putin out of power.

Vlad, how long can you hold out if we suddenly flood the market with cheap gas?

I keep hearing an old Mellencamp tune in my head: "The walls, keep tumblin' down, the walls..."