Vladimir Putin took Crimea with his troops without flags, then the regional parliament organized a referendum at full speed, the citizens voted by an absolute majority to join Crimea to Russia, the international community rejected the vote, the USA and Europe decided isolation measures against the Moscow authorities... Will this be how the history of the new Cold War which is taking place in 2014 and which is relegated to the “background” of Kiev and Euromaida begins?

The new cold war of the twenty-first century is now the main issue, a few weeks have blurred the protests of Euromaidan and the rest, the allegations of a corrupt political system, the desire to approach Europe of Ukraine and others. Wars, whether cold or hot, are made by the military, sometimes in bloody battles, sometimes hidden. But money feeds them.

“History is not over and perhaps Crimea Menor is deciding what the world will be in the next quarter of a century.” In addition to coordinating the supplement La Vanguardian Dinero de Barcelona, José Manuel Garayoa, which every Sunday makes public its economic analysis, has coordinated the article The Diplomacy of the Dollar against the Ruble and the Yuan.

In Garayoa's opinion, Russia has felt that the United States of America. Yeltsin's times are over. The United States is organising a free trade area with Europe, including Ukraine, as was recently thought. Beijing is nervous about the actions of the West in Moscow. China is the Western factory, Russia is the European gas supplier.

Monetary policies are abstract things for citizens, but like China, Russia has been attacked with the latest decisions of the Central Bank of the United States. 30% of the United States debt is in the hands of China and Russia. Oligarchs in these countries have already begun to talk about the threat of selling U.S. bonds on a massive scale.

“But Beijing has gone even further,” says Garayoa. “He has been buying gold, taking advantage of the fact that in 2013 he lost 28% of his value. In 2014, 14.8% has become more expensive.” China has bought gold from France and Italy to have more money than the United States. Some experts say that China wants to replace the dollar with renminbi or yuana with gold. And Russia, which has gold mines, would be on its side.

Why buy gold? The US authorities have been interested in keeping the dollar low in order to encourage exports from countries. In return, China’s interests have been affected by the high cost of renminbia. Slow in growth in recent years, I had no choice but to borrow more and had reached the border. He needed more room to manoeuvre. “That’s why,” says Garayoa, with the Ukrainian crisis, global dollar diplomacy is on a squeeze, while gold is becoming more insane.”

In the heat of old and new gases

Both gas and nationalism, geopolitical opposites and monetary confrontation warn the new Cold War from the beginning of the twenty-first century.

What happens is that before Ukraine burned down -- there was a global market for boiling gas. Guilty: The fracking gas that the United States is exploiting so successfully. Last summer Regis Genté explained this new data at Le Monde Diplomatique: “Le gaz schiste chambule la géopolitique” (Fracking gas has turned geopolitics upside down).

The reader will recall the dispute between Ukraine and Russia between 2005 and 2009, in which the Russians halted their gas flow to the Ukrainians more than once, as in the toughest winter. Although new pipelines are being built for the introduction of Eastern gas into Europe, the most important still pass through Ukraine. The Kiev authorities considered the price they had to pay to the Russians for their consumption to be too expensive and, as there was no agreement in the dispute, they repeatedly threatened to cut fuel traffic, while the Russians, like some, closed the source to others.

But that was before, before the United States was able to supply itself with fracking gas. They have reached the point of starting to export Yankees in three years. Genté said that in July last year the main producers of conventional natural gas (Russia, Iran, Qatar, Bolivia...) met to agree on a strategy for the new slate gas. The United States was able to sell gas on the market at $4 per unit, while in Asia it cost $18 and in Europe 10. All of a sudden, almost 70 percent of the fuels were on the verge of the United States becoming self-sufficient to bring from abroad.

Let us now set aside the real cost of fracking. Because, as with nuclear energy, the costs that are left behind and handed over to society as to the people of tomorrow are excluded from the accounts. These include the tremendous pollution caused by the subsoil gas extraction process. But the wealthiest in the world have no homeland, as they have so far polluted the shores of Nigeria or Ecuador to buy cheap oil, they are now able to squeeze the metropolis itself, either in North Dakota or in Pennsylvania. But that's for another time.

As far as Ukraine and Crimea are concerned, what matters is that the whole gas supply scheme has become rarefied. At the moment, to the detriment of Russia. In addition to the fact that Europe has reduced its consumption by the crisis, US coal is cheaper, also to the detriment of gas, and soon gas extracted from the slate will be offered to Europe.
There are also changes in transportation. Once oil exploitation has reached its peak, it is intended to give way to liquefied gas. As a result, this new product is being transported by boat for transfer to ports authorised for this purpose. By sniffing the play, the Russians are increasingly looking towards Asia to sell their old gas.

Do not ask with all these changes what the negotiations and decisions on climate warming are going to look like. If the coal is in fashion again... Some believe that the Pick Oil phenomenon has been delayed for a couple of decades.

There are many unknowns on this whole issue. But it is undeniable that behind the movements that every day are seen in Crimea, a few are played the coins, the fuels, the public debts and -- as always, the markets.