[ducleonctor]

...Germany gets its natural gas from mother Russia.

Which is more dirty, has a touch of corruption and allows mother Russia to tell the Germans how to behave. But it makes some politicians and companies in two countries happy and shows that large scale energy projects can work if there is a will.

So it's a start I guess.

[tpmx]

Ok, I'll bite:

> Is it really so hard to cooperate with or convince the nations involved who own the biggest deserts?

In a word, yes. These are some of the most unstable countries in modern history. Then you also need to secure the cables going north from Africa. Take the Suez canal risk and multiply it with a factor of 100-1000x.

Then we also have China currently being busy colonizing Africa...

[ducleonctor]

> In a word, yes. These are some of the most unstable countries in modern history. Then you also need to secure the cables going north from Africa.

They are indeed unstable - for reasons that may not be discussed - but buying the required sites and securing them should be possible anyways. If local jobs are created in the process, even better. So much effort has been wasted on partially securing much more dangerous countries like Afghanistan and Irak with questionable lasting benefit and apparently low strategic gain.

> Take the Suez canal risk and multiply it with 1000.

A very good point. One pipe obviously isn't enough and one shouldn't push too large objects through it without a capable plumber around.

> Then we also have China currently being busy colonizing Africa...

Aren't the Chinese endavours mostly directed at farming and some mining for now? OK, they may also try to develop some industry, but how well Chinese business culture meshes with the African population's culture remains to be seen.

Also, just because a competitor is doing something one shouldn't do it? If everybody had always followed this rule, the USA would now maybe be called "North Mexico" because the Spanish sailed some ships there, first. I am not saying colonization is a good idea, much better arrangements could be made today.

[tpmx]

I think the you should spend your efforts on responding to other comments you got, at least two were quite strong, much stronger than mine.

I'll just reply to the China thing:

> Aren't the Chinese endavours mostly directed at farming and some mining for now?

No. A large part of their investments are focused is on building and owning ports and roads. This is essential for owning trade, which is how you get to own the governments of Africa.

[ducleonctor]

> No. A large part of their investments are focused is on building and owning ports and roads. This is essential for owning trade, which is how you get to own the governments of Africa.

Good to know. I wasn't aware of that. What does that mean for our supply of blood diamonds, copper and similar? Maybe they are more needed in China, now that manufacturing has and is still being outsourced to that piece of two countries?

[tpmx]

It's weird that you'd take a random internet stranger on their word. I'd kind of expect someone partaking in this debate to know about this stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa%E2%80%93China_economic_...

[ducleonctor]

I was aware of "debt-trap diplomacy" (IMHO risky tactics without being able to collect the debt using force) and similar tactics, but not that the Chinese state had actually managed to setup a "colonialism-like" foothold in African countries. I assumed their policies were merely aimed at exploiting these countries in the previously "accepted" way.

Considering that our food supply also already critically depends on artificial fertilizer from African mines, why not add energy to the mix? Meaning, we have to stand up for our share of the business in any case and have certainly developed since our imperial past:

Afterall, the African savannahs and jungles do hold a great many tasty species (bats, monkeys, ...), the consumption of some of which are rumored to help with your and your comrade's lacking love life. Some members of African tribes still share these believes, may it actually be a match made in heaven?

I wonder what happens when African communities start noticing that racism and nationalism are concepts that do not exclusively apply to the guests from a century ago.

[p_l]

Buying up required sites is exactly how Suez Canal started - and ended with Suez Crisis.

Of course, there's always an option of not backing down from local population, or going full american and starting an insurgency doing terrorist strikes on all sorts of targets like primary schools - but I'd argue that we do not want that kind of blood energy, do we?