The point is if you are a petro state, threatening to cut off gas to your biggest customers is like threatening to use a grenade in a bar fight
Not really. Russia could completely cripple all industry in the EU overnight. They are giving them a tiny straw to sip from. Russia has mostly abandoned the west, their energy is going throughout asia and it will take a while to get to the numbers they had before. Russia and China are going to be an absurd joint power in the near future and given how terrible NATO is, there is nothing to compete with them. Turkey most likely will leave NATO and join the east, leaving Europe with a super tiny army.
Hard times ahead fren.
I'm afraid you keep missing the point and unfortunately believing Russian propaganda without considering any of the difficulties they face when doing this--this isn't some one-sided weapon that they can wield without consequences. Cutting off gas to Europe cuts roughly 40% of their government revenue. And it doesn't even shut down all industry in Europe. In the short and medium term, there is no replacement for both sides so Europe shuts down some of its most energy-intensive industry and takes a painful GDP hit, and Russia loses a two-digit fraction of government revenue and GDP. Sure, they could do that in the same way they could nuke London or Paris, but it's not plausible in any world where Russia comes out of it stronger than they are today. So it's not really as powerful of a weapon as it appears, and why would they want to self destruct too? It makes for good propaganda and and fear to blunt western resolve and response and that's about it. Maybe they'll even be crazy enough to do it, but we'll probably instead keep seeing toying and cut offs here and there. It would indeed be a crappy few years for Europe (and the Germans would especially deserve it for their naivete), but the consequences at home in Russia would be just as bad. The projections I have seen would be a up to a 6.5% loss of German GDP (which is indeed very bad) with a total gas cutoff. What would Russia's be? It's a bit like MAD nuclear war: there will be no winners, at best only some who lose less than others.
Turkey (or other neutral countries) joining a grand alliance of Russia and China? There is no Russia/China alliance even existing right now, so that's quite a hypothetical you're banking on. Turkey is better off sitting on the fence as a middle power and playing each side anyway. Neither Russia nor China even want an alliance (go check their statements on this). Both of them want to be and see themselves as global players, and they have their own objectives. The only thing that they have in common is a hatred of America along with other global luminaries like Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, etc. After seeing how weak Russia is and how they behave, why would any neutral county want to join them willingly? Traditionally Russia has used force compel its neighbors into its realm of influence, but those countries flea as soon as given the chance.
Russia has no real allies in its current invasion, and as time goes on their strength and influence just looks weaker. Who wants to sign up for a boondoggle in Ukraine that benefits them not at all and makes them a global pariah sanctioned out that ass when faced with that map? Only an idiot believing Russian propaganda would think this looks like a good time to join them. At best it has neutral countries like India and China that want to sit it out and and not pick sides. Neutral countries stay that way for a reason, and joining up with a declining empire and getting cut off from world markets doesn't look very attractive from their perspective. Hence why nobody is taking their side, and I don't see any reason in the future for that to change in their favor. There are a bunch of countries in Russia's sphere of influence spotting weakness in the motherland and alternatives elsewhere, however...
How terrible NATO is? NATO is growing yet more powerful in both absolute terms and relative to Russia due to Russia's dumb actions. I'm not sure what you're comparing unarguably by far the world's most powerful alliance to, but if NATO's capabilities are terrible, what do you call Russia's? For a long time when people thought of Russia's strengths they thought of lots of nukes, lots of land and resources, and a big, powerful military. One of those is no longer there. That will have consequences. Russia speaks of a global realignment, but they should be careful for what they wish for because so far the realignment has not gone in their favor at all.
Let's check back on how things are going in Russia in 5 years. Educated people are voting with their feet to leave. Foreign capital and investment has dried up. Parts shortages have already caused factory shutdowns. It's hard to run an advanced country without computers, airplane parts, global banking integration, or even train parts that we take for granted. The pain of these compound over time. This is not a winning formula. There just isn't anything to be optimistic about or a story of strength there other than expecting a miraculous complete collapse of the West that somehow leaves them unharmed. But is that really believable? That's quite a bluff to bet the house on too.
They have over the last six months after they caught the world off guard with their erratic behavior, but will they make massive profits over the next 6 years or 60 years? Their best customers are dumping them in mass, but that takes time for the effects to be seen. With a bit of foresight and thought we can think about how it will likely go, however.
Because that's where the biggest and richest market is. It's the same reason China is dependent on Europe and America to buy their shit. And that's where their pipelines and infrastructure go. They can't just turn off the pipelines flowing to Europe and redirect that gas to China and India. And it's hard for them to ship the oil to those places to given all the sanctions and insurance difficulties for oil tankers and traders. Over the longer term, they will probably be able to redirect some of it, but they will have to accept sub-market rates on the reduced volume. How exactly is this helping them come out ahead compared to the status quo pre-invasion?
Regarding high profits now, of course they are doing fine now that prices are high and they're still shipping volume to Europe. The point is the scenario changes dramatically for them when one (or both!) of those things change, as they inevitably must. On the volume side, Europe sees it can't allow Russia to dangle the energy weapon over them, so they are diversifying sources like crazy, and in a few years Russia won't have any power at all for cutting off supplies. On the high prices side, energy prices are highly volatile and tend to overshoot. Given that we're likely headed for a global recession and unrest caused by the high energy and food prices, I expect oil prices will tumble within the next 2 years.
It's going to be an absolute clusterfuck for them when oil prices fall. Combine tens of thousands of men in their prime dead or scarred for life coming back to economic fuck-all back home, collapsing government revenues and no ability to pull in competitive outside investment, a devastated army, sanctions denying them the ability to import needed high-tech electronics and mechanical parts for maintenance or building anything new, a disastrous age structure with no signs of getting any better with all this going on, and brain drain of all those with skills who see the writing on the wall, satellite states in Central Asia seeing Russia's weakness and increasing Chinese influence as an opportunity for more autonomy and playing both sides, and there really isn't much to be optimistic here for the nation's future. They have a big country with many resources, but will they be able to hold it together and manage it responsible with good leadership? Their cultural history isn't very optimistic on this either with periods of empire and periods of collapse.
The point is if you are a petro state, threatening to cut off gas to your biggest customers is like threatening to use a grenade in a bar fight. Whatever happens, it's not going to leave you in a stronger position after you do it, and it really shows bad judgment and that you don't have any real strengths going on so you decided to resort to such a poor choice.