Final Word from Monday, January 16, 2023

A possible Pearl Harbor moment that abruptly changes U.S. and Nato policy against direct military involvement in Ukraine, which we wrote about twice in March of last year (here and here), hasn't come so far. Instead, there are creeping Pearl Harbor moments that are getting Nato countries, including the CR, increasingly committed in Ukraine. Just before the Czech presidential elections, the New York Times reported that the next step in this escalation of military involvement by Ukraine's Western allies will likely be to send Western tanks, which the newspaper said will break another taboo. Andrej Babiš's new billboards for the second round of the elections will make it almost impossible to have a rational debate over the next two weeks about what this escalation might mean for the CR. The cabinet should nevertheless tell companies what its strategy will be if Russia decides to respond by, for example, cutting off fossil-fuel supplies to countries sending ever-heavier weapons to Ukraine. [ Czech Republic United States heavy equipment petroleum oil diesel natural gas ]