Bcc: contributors ___________
This article makes it very clear why the US is planning a nuclear
war with Russia and China:
The SCO, founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the heads of state of China,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, has
evolved into what might be called Halford Mackinderbs worst nightmareba
vehicle for welding close economic and political cooperation of the
key Eurasian land powers independently of the United States. In his
widely-publicized 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, former US National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski bluntly stated, bIt is imperative
that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia
and thus of also challenging America.
With Nord Streambs primary gas route directly from Russia to its
major clients in Germany, along with a stable transit agreement
through Ukraine, the likelihood of a disrupted supply of Gazprom
deliveries to northern Europe becomes remote. Nord Stream will allow
Moscowbs Gazprom to use a more flexible gas diplomacy and to greatly
lessen future vulnerability to transit country supply disruptions
such as it has had in recent years from a hostile Ukraine.
In addition to Serb Bosnia, Gazprombs partners now include Bulgaria,
Hungary, Greece, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. It almost retraces
the Balkan route of the controversial Berlin-to-Baghdad railway
which played such a decisive geopolitical role in British machinations
that ultimately led to World War I following the assassination of
the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand.[11]
The recent events in Ukraine and the rollback there of the ill-fated
Washington Orange Revolution, in the context now of Moscowbs
comprehensive energy politics, present Washington strategists with
a grave challenge to their assumed global bFull Spectrumb dominance.
The US debacle in Afghanistan and the uneasy state of affairs in
US-occupied Iraq have done far more than any Russian military
challenge to undermine the global influence of the United States
as sole decision maker of a bunipolar world.b
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2010/03/20/high-stakes-eurasian-chess-game...
http://tinyurl.com/ydgxgvu
High-stakes Eurasian chess game:
Russiabs new geopolitical energy calculus
Posted by inthesenewtimes on March 20, 2010
F.William Engdahl Global Research 20th March, 2010
The defusing of major Washington military threats is far from the
only gain for Moscow in having a neutral but stable Ukrainian
neighbor. Russia now vastly improves its ability to expand the one
great power lever it has, outside of its remaining and still
formidable nuclear strike force. That lever is to counter Washingtonbs
relentless mililtary pressure by cleverly using export of the worldbs
largest reserves of natural gas, a fuel much in demand in Western
Europe and even in UK where North Sea fields are in decline.
According to west European industry estimates, demand within the
European Union countries for natural gas, especially for use in
electric power generation where it is seen as a clean and very
efficient fuel, is estimated to rise some 40% from todaybs levels
over the next twenty years. That increase in gas demand will coincide
with a decline in current gas output from fields in the UK, Netherlands
and elsewhere in the EU. [1] With Ukrainebs shift from hostile
opposition to Moscow to what Yanukovych terms bnon-alignedb neutrality
b with an early emphasis on stabilizing Russian-Ukrainian gas
geopolitics b Moscow suddenly holds a far stronger array of economic
options with which to neutralize Washingtonbs game of military and
economic encirclement.
When Yushchenko and Georgiabs Saakashvili took the reins of power
in their respective countries and began taking steps with Washington
to join NATO, one of the few means available for Putinbs Russia to
re-establish some semblance of economic security was its energy
card. Russia has by far the worldbs largest known reserves of natural
gas. Interestingly, according to US Department of Energy estimates,
the second largest gas reserves are in Iran, a country also high
on Washingtonbs target list.[2]
Today, Russia is clearly pursuing a fascinating, highly complex
multi-pronged energy strategy. In effect it is using its energy as
a diplomatic and political lever to bwin friends and influence (EU)
people.b Putinbs successor as President, Dmitry Medvedev, is well
suited to the role of overseeing gas pipeline geopolitics. Before
becoming Russian President, he had been chairman of the state-owned
Gazprom.
High-stakes Eurasian chess game
In a sense, the Eurasian land area today resembles a geopolitical
game of three-dimensional chess between Russia, the European Union
member countries, and Washington. The stakes of the game are a
matter of life and death for Russia as a functioning nation, something
clearly Medvedev and Putin well realize at this point.
US attempts at the military encirclement of Russia included not
only the Rose and Orange Revolutions in 2003 and 2004, but also the
highly provocative Pentagon missile bdefenseb policy of placing
US-controlled (not NATO-controlled) missiles in key former Warsaw
Pact countries on Russiabs direct perimeter. As a result, Moscow
has developed a remarkable and complex energy pipeline strategy to
undercut a clearly hostile US military strategy that has used NATO
encirclement, missile deployments, and bcolor revolutions,b including
the attempted destabilization of Iran during summer 2009 with a
bGreen Revolutionb or what Hillary Clinton flippantly dubbed the
bTwitter Revolution.b All of these US moves have attempted to isolate
Russia and weaken her potential strategic allies across Eurasia.
For Russia, which recently surpassed Saudi Arabia as the worldbs
largest oil producer and exporter, sales of its natural gas abroad
has a significant advantage in that Moscow is better able to control
the price and market of gas. Unlike oil, whose price is tightly
controlled by a cartel of Big Oil (and their Wall Street co-conspirators
such as Goldman Sachs, Morgn Stanley, JP MorganChase), natural gas
is far more difficult for Wall Street to manipulate on a short-term
speculative basis as with oil.
Because gas, unlike oil, is dependent on construction of costly
pipelines or LNG tankers and LNG port terminals, it tends to have
a price fixed by bilateral long-term agreements between buyer and
seller. That gives Moscow a degree of protection against events
such as the brazen Wall Street manipulation of oil prices in 2008-2009
from a record high of $147 a barrel down to below $30 only months
later, manipulations which devastated Moscowbs oil earnings at just
the time the global financial crisis cut off credit to Russian banks
and companies.
With Yanukovych now President in Ukraine, the way appears clear for
a rational gas supply and transit contract from Russiabs Gazprom
to and through Ukraine, and continuing on to western Europe. Fully
half of Ukrainebs domestic energy comes from natural gas and the
overwhelming bulk of that gas, some 75%, comes from Russia. [3]
At this point it seems a stable settlement has been reached between
the Russian and Ukrainian governments on pricing for imported Russian
gas. As of January 2010 Ukraine has agreed to pay prices close to
western European levels for its gas, and at the same time she will
get significantly higher transit fees from Russiabs state-owned
Gazprom for transporting Russian gas through to western Europe.
Some 80% of Russian gas exports went through Ukraine up until now.
[4]
Thatbs about to change dramatically however, with the implementation
of Russiabs long-term pipeline strategy, a strategy designed to
make Russia less vulnerable to future political shifts such as the
2004 Ukraine Orange Revolution.
After the 2004 Ukraine Orange Revolution, Moscowbs western pipeline
strategy until now has been to bypass both Ukraine and Poland through
construction of an underwater gas pipeline, Nord Stream, running
from Russia directly to Germany. Polandbs Foreign Minister Radek
Sikorski is a Washington trained neo-conservative . As the previous
Defense Minister, he played a central role in Polandbs missile
defense agreement with Washington. Sikorskibs Poland today is bound
closely to NATO, including agreeing to Washingtonbs militarily
provocative missile deployment policies, and he is trying at every
turn, so far unsuccessfully, to block construction of Nord Stream.
Nord Stream was especially vital for Russia when it looked possible
that Washington might succeed in pulling Ukraine into NATO after
the Orange Revolution. Today the alternative Baltic Sea pipeline
assumes a different importance for Russia.
The Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russiabs port of Vyborg near St.
Petersburg to Greifswald in northern Germany, goes beneath the
Baltic Sea in international waters, completely bypassing both Ukraine
and Poland. When Nord Stream was announced as a joint venture between
two major German gas companies, E.ON and BASF with Russiabs Gazprom,
and with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as board member,
Sikorski, then Polandbs Defense Minister, compared the German-Russian
gas deal to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact b the 1939 pact between
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which divided Poland between the
two. [5] Sikorskibs logic was not so precise but his emotional
imagery was.
In late 2009 Sweden and Finland joined Denmark in finally granting
passage rights through their portion of the Baltic Sea for the
pipeline. Construction of the multi-billion dollar project is due
to begin this April and gas deliveries are to begin in 2011. When
a second parallel pipeline, due to start construction in 2011, is
completed, Nord Stream anticipates a full capacity of 55 billion
cubic meters of gas a year, enough to fuel 25 million households
in Europe, according to the Nord Stream website.
With Nord Streambs primary gas route directly from Russia to its
major clients in Germany, along with a stable transit agreement
through Ukraine, the likelihood of a disrupted supply of Gazprom
deliveries to northern Europe becomes remote. Nord Stream will allow
Moscowbs Gazprom to use a more flexible gas diplomacy and to greatly
lessen future vulnerability to transit country supply disruptions
such as it has had in recent years from a hostile Ukraine.
At the end of 2009 in Minsk, just as Nord Stream was clearing the
final political hurdles, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met with
Belarus officials. Medvedev said that Russia was considering a
second leg of its large Yamal-Europe gas pipeline through Belarus
if future demand from western Europe warranted, stating, bI think
the more possibilities there are for Russian gas supplies to Europe,
the better it will be for both Europe and Russia.b [6]
In addition, in a notable geopolitical shift, the UK has just signed
a long-term contract with Gazprom to import gas via the Nord Stream
to meet more than 4% of UK gas demand by 2012, as Britain shifts
from being a gas exporter to a gas importer.[7] Presently, in
addition to the UK and Germany, Gazprom now has contracts to supply
Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium and France, making it a major new
factor on the EU energy supply market.
South Stream strategy
Meanwhile, Washington, bitterly opposed to Nord Stream, attempted
unsuccessfully to block it by proxy through back-door support for
Poland and other EU opposition.
In a second major front in what could be called the Russia-USA
pipeline wars, the US has initiated competing proposals to build
gas pipelines to serve the countries of southern and southeastern
Europe. Here Washington is openly backing what is called the Nabucco
pipeline project. Moscow is promoting what it calls its South Stream
project, the southern Eurasian sister to the Nord Stream in the
north of Europe.
On December 12, 2009 the government of Bulgaria, a former Warsaw
Pact member now in NATO and the EU, announced that it would participate
in Moscowbs South Stream project despite considerable pressure from
Washington.
In June 2007, Gazprom and Italybs ENI concern signed a Memorandum
of Understanding for the South Stream project to design, finance,
construct and manage the South Stream. ENI, Italybs largest industrial
company, created in the 1950bs by Italybs legendary Enrico Mattei,
is also partly state-owned and has been involved in the Russian gas
business since the early 1970bs.
South Streambs offshore section is to run under the Black Sea from
the Russian coast to the Bulgarian coast, a length of around 550
miles at a maximum depth over two kilometers and have a full capacity
of 63 billion cubic meters, even larger than Nord Stream.
From Bulgaria, South Stream will split into two arms, the northern
section stretching to Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and
Austria and the southern arm going through Bulgaria to southern
Italy. The new pipeline is expected to become operational in 2013.
Gazprom has an agreement to provide Italy with gas until 2035 and
South Stream will be the main vehicle for that.South Stream AG, the
50-50 Gazprom-ENI joint venture is registered in Switzerland. To
date Gazprom has signed transit agreements for the pipeline with
the Republic of Serbia and Greece and Hungary. [8] In January 2008,
Gazprom bought 51% of the Serbian state oil monopoly NIS to secure
its presence there.
An indication of the pressure that Washington has put on Bulgaria
over its participation in Russiabs South Stream is that Bulgaria
also signed up to take part in the Nabucco project in December 2009.
Commenting on the dual signings, Bulgariabs Prime Minister Boyko
Borisov told the press, bNabucco is a priority of the European Union
while the Russian South Stream is moving forward very quickly and
many European countries are joining it almost daily.b[9]
On March 3, 2010 the new Croatian government of Prime Minister
Jadranka Kosor signed an agreement in Moscow with Russian Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin allowing the pipeline to pass through
Croatian territory, setting up a 50-50 joint venture to realize the
construction.
Kosor said that the agreement bOn the Construction and Exploitation
of a Gas Pipeline on Croatian Territoryb creates a legal basis for
Croatiabs involvement in South Stream, allowing the parties to set
up a 50/50 joint venture. Two days later, in what seemed a snowballing
enthusiasm for Gazprombs project, the Bosnian Serb Republic announced
that it, too, will join the South Stream gas pipeline project. It
proposes to build a 480 km pipeline in northern Bosnia and link it
to the South Stream pipeline, bringing the total number of participating
countries that have signed deals with Gazprom to seven. [10]
In addition to Serb Bosnia, Gazprombs partners now include Bulgaria,
Hungary, Greece, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. It almost retraces
the Balkan route of the controversial Berlin-to-Baghdad railway
which played such a decisive geopolitical role in British machinations
that ultimately led to World War I following the assassination of
the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand.[11]
The central issue for the two competing pipeline projects, South
Stream and Nabucco, is not who will buy their gas. As noted, natural
gas demand across Europe is expected to rise dramatically in coming
years. Rather itbs the question of where the gas will come from to
fill the pipeline. Here Moscow now clearly holds the trump cards.
In addition to gas directly from Russiabs gas fields, a major
component of South Stream gas is to come from Turkmenistan and from
Azerbaijan and possibly at some point from Iran. In December 2009
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev went to Turkmenistan to sign major
agreements on energy cooperation.
Until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Turkmenistan was a
republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic,
Turkmen SSR. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran
to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast,
Kazakhstan to the north and northwest and the Caspian Sea to the
west. Russiabs Gazprom until now has been the dominant economic
partner of the country, which has newly confirmed huge gas reserves.
Turkmen gas has been vital for the supply chain of Gazprom and dates
back to the era when Turkmenistan was an integral part of the Soviet
Union and the Soviet economic infrastructure.
When bPresident for Life,b Saparmurat Niyazov, known as bTC<rkmenbaEyb
or bleader of the Turkmens,b died unexpectedly in December 2006,
Washington began entertaining hopes of weaning the new President,
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, away from Russia and into the US orbit.
To date they have met with little success.
The Medvedev-Berdimuhamedow December agreements included new
agreements for Turkmen long-term gas supplies to Gazprom which will
fill the South Stream pipeline either directly or by replacing
Russian gas to the same b meaning Nabucco is left out in the cold
there.
Nabucco high and dryb&
The active pipeline diplomacy of Russia and Gazprom in recent months
has dealt a devastating blow to Washingtonbs favored alternative,
Nabucco, which is planned to run from the Caspian region and Middle
East via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary with Austria and further
on to Central and Western European gas markets, some 3,300 km,
starting at the Georgian-Turkish and/or Iranian-Turkish border. End
station would be Baumgarten in Austria. The project is parallel to
the existing US-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum oil pipeline and could
transport 20 billion cubic meters of gas a year. Two-thirds of the
pipeline would pass through Turkish territory.
Following a two day visit to Ankara in April 2009, US President
Obama appeared to have won a major victory for Nabucco when Turkeybs
President Erdogan agreed to sign on to the project in July 2009,
after several years of delay. Nabucco is an integral part of a US
strategy of total energy control over both the EU and all Eurasia.
It explicitly has been conceived to run entirely independent of
Russian territory and is aimed at weakening the energy ties between
Russia and Western Europe. Those energy ties were considered a
significant reason why the German government along with France
refused to back Washingtonbs push to bring Ukraine and Georgia into
NATO.
Today the future of Nabucco is in grave doubt. The problem is that
Russiabs Gazprom has all but locked up long-term gas contracts with
all the potential suppliers of gas for Nabucco, leaving Nabucco
high and dry. Thus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and
Iraq are being touted as potential suppliers to Nabucco.
Until now the main gas supply for Nabucco should be Azerbaijan, the
source of large oil reserves captured by a BP-led Anglo-American
consortium bringing Baku oil from the Caspian Sea to the west,
independent of Russia. That Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline was a
major reason Washington backed the 2004 Georgian bRose Revolutionb
that put dictator Mikhail Saakashvili into power.
In July 2009 Russiabs Medvedev and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller went
to Baku and signed a long-term contract to buy all the gas from the
Azeri Shah Deniz-2 offshore field, the same field Nabucco hopes to
tap for its pipeline. Azerbaijanbs President Aliyev seems to be
playing a cat-and-mouse game with both Russia and EU-Washington,
to play one off against the other for the highest price. Gazprom
agreed to pay an unusually high price of $350 per thousand cubic
meters for their Shah Deniz gas, a clear political not economic
decision by Moscow that owns controlling interest in Gazprom. [12]
In early January 2010, the Azeri government also announced sale of
a portion of its gas to neighboring Iran, another blow to Nabucco
supply.[13]
All potential gas suppliers to the US-backed Nabucco pipeline to
the EU are in doubt as Moscow outflanks USA
Even were Azerbaijan to agree to sell gas and Nabucco to buy it on
competitive terms to Gazprom, industry sources say the Azeri gas
alone would not suffice to fill the pipeline. Where could the
remaining gas come from? One possible answer is Iraq; the second
is Iran. Both would entail huge geopolitical problems for Washington,
to put it mildly.
Currently, even a minimal agreement between Turkey and Azerbaijan
for delivery of Azeri gas to Nabucco is in serious doubt. Despite
the highly publicized Turkish government decision in 2009 to finally
join Nabucco, the vital talks between Turkey and the Azeri government
remain stalemated. Despite repeated interventions from US Special
Envoy on Eurasian Energy Richard Morningstar to force a final deal,
talks remain deadlocked as of this writing. Adding to the woes of
Washingtonbs Nabucco dreams, one of the key partners of the Nabucco,
Austriabs OMV, told the Dow Jones wire service at the end of January
that the Nabucco pipeline would not be built if demand is too
low.[14]
In terms of other options being proposed by some in Washington, for
Iraqi gas to flow into Nabucco it would have to go through the
Kurdish regions of both Iraq and of Turkey, giving the Kurdish
minorities a potential major new revenue source, something not so
very welcome in Istanbul. Iran as a potential gas source is at
present not in the Washington calculus because of the tensions over
Iranian nuclear plans, but more because of Iranbs enormous influence
over the future of Iraq, where they exercise significant influence
on the majority Shibite population there.
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, though both have significant natural
gas reserves, are even more politically and geographically unlikely
as sources of gas for essentially an anti-Russian project. Their
distance would mean skyrocketing costs, pricing it far above gas
from Gazprombs South Stream.
In a true exercise of Byzantine diplomacy, Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited both Russia and Iran to join the Nabucco
project. According to RIA Novosti, Erdogan stated, bWe want Iran
to join the project when conditions will allow, and also hope for
Russiabs participation in it.b Then, just weeks after a formal
signing of the Nabucco agreement with the US, during Putinbs visit
to Ankara in August 2009, Turkey granted Russiabs state-run natural-gas
monopoly Gazprom use of its territorial waters in the Black Sea,
where Moscow wants to route its South Stream pipeline to deliver
gas to Eastern and Southern Europe. In exchange, Gazprom agreed to
build a pipeline across Turkey from the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean.[15]
In early January 2010, the Turkish government furthered its growing
ties with Russia during a two day visit to Moscow by Prime Minister
Erdogan during which energy and the South Caucasus were discussed.
Washingtonbs Radio Liberty calls it a bnew strategic allianceb
between the once-bitter Cold War rivals. Significantly, Turkey is
also in NATO. [16]
This is no passing fad. Press in both countries speak openly of a
Russo-Turkish bstrategic partnership.b [17] Today Turkey is Russiabs
largest market for export of Russian oil and gas combined. As well
the two countries are discussing plans for Russia to build Turkeybs
first nuclear power plant to meet Turkeybs electricity demand.
Bilateral Turkish-Russian trade last year reached $38 billion making
Russia Turkeybs largest trade partner. The figure is expected to
grow some 300% over the next five years, creating a solid and
expanding pro-Russia trade lobby in Turkey. The two countries are
in detailed negotiation over some $30 billion in new trade agreements,
including Turkeybs nuclear power plant, as well as the South Stream,
Blue Stream Turkish-Russian gas pipelines and a Samsun-Ceyhan oil
pipeline from Russia to Turkeybs Mediterranean coast.[18]
Indicating how many land mines could explode in the face of Nabuccobs
backers, especially in Washington, the Turkish parliament on March
4, 2010 approved a bill on the construction of the Nabucco pipeline.
But the same day the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs
Committee passed a non-binding resolution calling the World War
I-era killing of Armenians genocide.
The vote led to the immediate recall of Turkeybs Ambassador to
Washington as a protest, and will possibly lead to even closer
cooperation between Moscow and Ankara on matters of mutual interest,
including South Stream.
The European Union has just approved a $3 billion general economic
stimulus that includes $273 million for Nabucco. At an estimated
final cost of $11 billion, that is hardly convincing support for
Nabucco. Moreover, the money is being frozen until a final go-ahead
for Nabucco is clear, indicating that the countries of the EU are
hardly as eager as Washington to back the risky Nabucco counter to
Moscowbs South Stream. The EU has said if there is no firm agreement
between Nabucco backers and Turkmenistan for gas supply within six
months, the money will be used for other projects. [19]
The combination of neutralizing the threat of Ukraine in NATO,
starting construction of the strategically important Nord Stream
Russian pipeline to Germany and westwards, and Russia advancing its
South Stream gas pipeline plans has effectively rendered Washingtonbs
Nabucco pipeline counter-strategy impotent. These developments
ensure that Russiabs role as Europebs largest energy supplier is
secure. In recent years Russia has grown to become the source for
almost 30% of EU oil imports and by far the largest share of its
natural gas.[20] That has enormous strategic geopolitical significance,
a point not missed in Washington.
However, with its role in Europe seemingly shored up and the Orange
Revolution de facto rolled back, Russiabs policymakers are increasingly
turning to the east and the energy demands of its cooperation partner
and former Cold War foe, China.
Moscow Goes East
At the end of 2009, precisely as planned and to the surprise of
Washington, Russia opened the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil
pipeline, a four-year construction project costing some $14 billion.
The pipeline now allows Russia to export oil directly from its East
Siberia fields to China as well as South Korea and Japan, a major
step in closer economic integration between especially Russia and
China. The pipe now runs to Skovorodino just north of the Chinese
border on the Bolshoy Never River. From here at present the oil is
loaded onto rail tank cars for transport to the Pacific port of
Kozmino near Vladivostok. The port alone cost $2 billion to build,
has capacity to handle 300,000 barrels of crude per day, with oil
quality comparable to that of Middle Eastern oil blends now dominating
the market. Transneft, the Russian state pipeline monopoly, spent
another $12 billion to lay the 2,700-km ESPO pipeline through east
Siberian wilderness, to connect the areabs various oil fields being
developed by Russian oil majors Rosneft, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz.
The final link of pipeline to the port of Kozmino is due to be
completed in 2014, costing an added $10 billion and resulting in a
pipeline almost 4800 kilometers long, a distance greater than from
Los Angeles to New York. Moscow and Beijing have also agreed to
build a spur pipeline from Skovorodino to Daqing in Chinabs
Heilongjiang province in northeastern China, the center of its
energy and petrochemical industry and site of Chinabs largest
oilfield. When completed, the pipeline will carry eastward an annual
80 mm tons of oil from Siberia, including 15 mm tons to China through
an additional spur.
An indication of the priority that energy-hungry China places on
Russian oil, China has loaned $25 billion to Russia in exchange for
oil deliveries over the next two decades. In February 2009, when
world oil prices dropped to $25 a barrel from a record high $147
some six months before, Russian oil giant Rosneft and pipeline
operator Transneft were on the brink of collapse. Beijing, in a
deft and swift move to insure future oil from Russiabs East Siberia
fields, stepped in and through the state-owned Chinese Development
Bank offered loans to Rosneft and Transneft of $10 billion and $15
billion respectively, a $25 billion dollar investment to accelerate
the construction of the pacific pipeline. For its part, Russia
agreed to develop further new fields, build the ESPO leg for Daqing
from Skorovodino to the Chinese border, a distance of some 43 miles,
and supply China with at least 300,000 barrels of highly in-demand
sweet or low sulfur crude oil per day.[21]
Beyond the Russian border, in the Chinese interior, Beijing will
construct a domestic pipeline approximately 600 miles long to Daqing.
The Chinese loan was made at 6% interest and would require Russian
oil be sold to China for $22 per barrel. Today the average international
oil price has recovered to some $80 a barrel, meaning China has
locked in a golden prize. Rather than reneg on the price deal,
Moscow has clearly decided the strategic advantages of the China
link outweigh possible revenue loss. It retains price control over
the rest of the oil flowing through the ESPO pipeline on to the
Pacific for other Asian markets.
Whereas the energy markets of Western Europe pose a relatively
stagnant demand prospect, those of China and Asia are booming.
Moscow is making a major shift eastwards in light of that fact. At
the end of 2009, the Russian government released a comprehensive
energy report entitled bEnergy Blueprint for 2030.b It calls for
substantial domestic investment in the East Siberian fields, and
speaks of a shift in oil exports toward Northeast Asia, with the
share of the Asia Pacific region in Russian exports growing from
8% in 2008 to 25% over the next years.[22] That will have significant
political consequences for both Russia and Asia, especially China.
China passed Japan several years ago to become the worldbs second
major oil importing nation after the United States. The issue of
Chinese energy security is of such paramount importance for China
that Prime Minister Wen Jaibao has just been named to head a
cross-ministry National Energy Council to coordinate all issues of
Chinabs energy policy. [23]
Russian begins LNG deliveries for Asia
A few months before the completion of the ESPO oil pipeline to the
Pacific, Russia began its first ever deliveries of Liquified Natural
Gas (LNG) from the Gazprom-led Sakhalin-II project, a joint venture
that includes Japanbs Mitsui and Mitsubishi as well as the Anglo-Dutch
Shell. For Russia the project will give her invaluable experience
in the rapidly expanding global LNG market, a market not dependent
on fixed long-term pipeline construction.
China has also made forays into other countries in the former Soviet
Union area to secure its energy needs. Late in 2009 the first stage
of a pipeline, known variously as the Central AsiabChina Gas Pipeline
or the TurkmenistanbChina Gas Pipeline, was completed. It brings
natural gas from Turkmenistan across Uzbekistan to southern Kazakhstan
parallel to the existing Bukhara-Tashkent-Bishkek-Almaty pipeline.
[24]
Within China, the pipeline connects with the existing West-East Gas
Pipeline that crosses China and supplies cities as far as Shanghai
and Hong Kong. Some 13 billion cubic meters (bcm) are supposed to
go through the pipeline in 2010, increasing to over 40 bcm by 2013.
Ultimately the pipeline could supply more than half of Chinabs
current natural gas consumption.
It marked the first pipeline to bring Central Asian natural gas to
China. The pipeline from Turkmenistan will be connected to a branch
line from western Kazakhstan, scheduled to open in 2011 and which
will supply natural gas from several Kazakh fields to Alashankou
in Chinabs Xinjiang Province.[25] Little wonder that Chinese
authorities were none too pleased with ethnic Uighur riots in July
of 2009, which the Chinese government claimed was instigated by the
Washington-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and its leader Rebiya
Kadeer, who reportedly has close ties to the US Congressb regime-change
NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy.[26] Xinjiang is becoming
ever more strategically important to future Chinese energy flows.
Far from a threat to Russiabs energy strategy as some western
commentators claim, the Turkmen-China gas pipeline in effect serves
to deepen the economic ties within the countries of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, SCO, at the same time it locks up for
China a major portion of Turkmen gas that might have gone to the
floundering Nabucco pipeline favored by Washington. That can only
be to the geopolitical advantage of Russia which would lose a major
economic influence were Nabucco to succeed.
The SCO, founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the heads of state of China,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, has
evolved into what might be called Halford Mackinderbs worst nightmareba
vehicle for welding close economic and political cooperation of the
key Eurasian land powers independently of the United States. In his
widely-publicized 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, former US National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski bluntly stated, bIt is imperative
that no Eurasian challenger emerges capable of dominating Eurasia
and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive
and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of
this book.b[27] He added the warning, bHenceforth, the United States
may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that
seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening Americabs
status as a global power.b[28] In the wake of the events of September
2001, events which many Russian intelligence experts doubted to be
the work of a rag-tag band of Muslim Al Qaeda fanatics, the SCO has
begun to take the character of the very threat that Brzezinski, a
student of Mackinder, warned of. In a recent interview on The Real
News, Brzezinski also bemoaned the lack of any coherent Eurasian
strategy, notably in Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the part of the
Obama Administration.
Russia also moves North to the Arctic Circle
Completing Russiabs new geopolitical energy strategy, the remaining
move is to the north, in the direction above the Arctic Circle.
In August 2007, then-Russian President Vladimir Putin caught the
notice of NATO and Washington when he announced that two Russian
submarines had symbolically planted the Russian flag at a depth of
over 4 kilometers on the Arctic Ocean floor, laying claim to the
seabed resources. Then in March 2009 Russia announced that it would
establish military bases along the northern coastline. New US NATO
Supreme Commander Admiral James Stavridis expressed concern that
Russian presence in the Arctic could pose serious problems for NATO.
[29]
In April 2009, the state-owned Russian news service RIA Novosti
reported that the Russian Security Council had published an official
policy paper on its Web site titled, bThe fundamentals of Russian
state policy in the Arctic up to 2020 and beyond.b The paper described
the principles guiding Russian policy in the arctic, saying it would
involve establishing significant Russian army, border and coastal
guard forces there bto guarantee Russiabs military security in
diverse military and political circumstances,b according to the
report.[30]
In addition to staking claim to some of the worldbs largest untapped
oil and gas resources, Russia is clearly moving to pre-empt a further
US expansion of its misleadingly named missile bdefenseb to the
Arctic Circle in echoes of the old Cold War era. Last September
Dmitry Rogozin, Russiabs envoy to NATO, told Vesti 24 television
channel that the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic might provide
the United States with an effective theater to position shipboard
missile defenses to counter Russian weapons. His remarks followed
the announcement by US President Barack Obama that the US would
place such defenses on cruisers as a more technically advanced
alternative.[31]
A 2008 estimate by the US Governmentbs US Geological Survey (USGS)
concluded that the area north of the Arctic Circle contains
staggeringly large volumes of oil and natural gas. They estimated
that more than 70% of the regionbs undiscovered oil resources occur
in five provinces: Arctic Alaska, Amerasia Basin, East Greenland
Rift Basins, East Barents Basins, and West Greenland-East Canada.
More than 70% of the undiscovered natural gas is believed located
in three provinces, the West Siberian Basin, the East Barents Basins,
and Arctic Alaska. Some 84% of the undiscovered oil and gas occurs
offshore. The total undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources
of the Arctic are estimated to be approximately 90 billion barrels
of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion
barrels of natural gas liquids.[32] The main potential beneficiary
is likely to be Russia which has the largest share of territory in
the region.
Contrary to widely held beliefs in the west, the Cold War did not
end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 or the fall of
the Berlin Wall in November 1989, at least not for Washington.
Seeing the opportunity to expand the reach of US military and
political power, the Pentagon began a systematic modernization of
its nuclear arsenal and a step-wise extension of NATO membership
right to the doorstep of Moscow, something that then-Secretary of
State James Baker III had pledged to Russian President Mikhail
Gorbachev would not happen. [33] Washington lied. During the chaos
of the Yeltsin years, Russiabs economy collapsed under IMF-mandated
bshock therapyb and systematic looting by western companies in
cahoots with a handful of newly created Russian oligarchs.
The re-emergence of Russia as a factor in world politics, however
weakened from the economic shocks of the past two decades, has been
based on a strategy that obviously has drawn from principles of
asymetric warfare, economic as well as military. Russiabs present
military preparedness is no match for the awesome Pentagon power
projection. However, she still maintains the only nuclear strike
force on the planet that is capable of posing a mortal threat to
the military power of the Pentagon. In cooperation with China and
its other Eurasian SCO partners, Russia is clearly using its energy
as a geopolitical lever of the first order.
The recent events in Ukraine and the rollback there of the ill-fated
Washington Orange Revolution, in the context now of Moscowbs
comprehensive energy politics, present Washington strategists with
a grave challenge to their assumed global bFull Spectrumb dominance.
The US debacle in Afghanistan and the uneasy state of affairs in
US-occupied Iraq have done far more than any Russian military
challenge to undermine the global influence of the United States
as sole decision maker of a bunipolar world.b
Notes
[1] Eurogas (European Union of the Natural Gas Industry), Natural
Gas Demand and Supply: Long-Term Outlook to 2030, Brussels, Belgium,
2007, accessed inwww.eurogas.org/<http://www.eurogas.org/>b&/Eurogas%20long%20term%20outlook%20to%202030%20-%20finab&
[2] Jim Nichol, op. cit.
[3] US Department of Energy, Ukraine Country Analysis Brief, Energy
Information Administration, August 2007, Washington DC, accessed
inhttp://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Ukraine/Full.html
[4] International Energy, Russia to supply 116 bn cm of gas to
Europe via Ukraine in 2010, Beijing, November 19, 2009, accessed
inhttp://en.in-en.com
[5] Simon Taylor, Why Russiabs Nord Stream is winning the pipeline
race, January 29, 2009, EuropeanVoice.com, accessed
inhttp://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/why-russia%E2%80%99s-no...
[6] RAI Novosti, Russia pledges 30-40% discount on gas for Belarus
in 2010, November 23, 2009, accessed inhttp://en.rian.ru
[7] UPI, Nord Stream to supply UK by 2012, December 1, 2009, accessed
inhttp://www.upi.com
[8] Gazprom, Major Projects: South Stream, accessed inhttp://old.gazprom.ru/eng/articles/article27150.shtml
[9] Trend, Bulgaria ready to participate in both South Stream and
Nabucco, Baku, Azerbaijan, December 5, 2009, accessed inhttp://en.trend.az
[10] Olja Stanic, Bosnian Serbs to join Russia-led gas pipeline,
Reuters, March 5, 2005, Banka Luka Bosnia, accessed
inhttp://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINLDE6241B920100305
[11] For more on this fascinating and all-but-forgotten history of
the German-British imperial rivalries over the Berlin-Baghdad Railway
project in the prelude to the First World War, see, F. William
Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New
World Order, London, Pluto Press, 2004, pp. 22-28.
[12] Mahir Zeynalov, Azerbaijan-Gazprom agreement puts Nabucco in
jeopardy, Todaybs Zaman, July 16, 2009, accessed
inhttp://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/sabit.do?sf=aboutus
[13] Saban Kardas, Delays in Turkish-Azeri Gas Deal Raises Uncertainty
Over Nabucco, Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 7 Issue 39, February 26,
2010.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Brian Whitmore, Moscow Visit by Turkish PM Underscores New
Strategic Alliance, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, January 13,
2010, accessed inhttp://www.rferl.org/content/Moscow_Visit_By_Turkish_PM_Underscores_N...
[16] Ibid.
[17] Faruk Akkan, Turkey and Russia move closer to building strategic
partnership, RAI Novosti, January 15, 2010, accessed
inhttp://en.rian.ru/valdai_foreign_media/20100115/157554880.html
[18] RAI Novosti, Russian delegation to discuss Turkey nuclear power
plant plan, Ankara, February 18, 2010, accessed
inhttp://en.rian.ru/world/20100218/157927131.html
[19] Kommersant, Nabuccobs future depends on Turkmenistan, Moscow,
March 9, 2010, accessed inhttp://en.rian.ru/papers/20100309/158135872.html
[20] US Energy Information Administration, Russia: Oil Exports,
accessed inhttp://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Russia/Oil_exports.html
[21] Greg Shtraks, The Start of a Beautiful Friendship? Russia
begins exporting oil through the Pacific port of Kozmino, Jamestown
Foundation Blog, Washington D.C., December 11, 2009, accessed inhttp://jamestownfoundation.blogspot.com/2009/12/start-of-beautiful-fr...
[22] Ibid.
[23] Moscow Times, Putin Launches Pacific Oil Terminal, December
29, 2009, accessed inhttp://www.themoscowtimes.com
[24] Zhang Guobao, Chinese Energy Sector Turns Crisis into
Opportunities, January 28, 2010, accessed inwww.chinadaily.com.cn<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn>
[25] Isabel Gorst, Geoff Dyer, Pipeline brings Asian gas to China,
London, Financial Times, December 14, 2009.
[26] Reuters, China calls Xinjiang riot a plot against its rule, 5
July 2009, accessed inhttp://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE56500R20090706
[27] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy
and Itbs Geostrategic Imperatives, New York, Basic Books, 1998
(paperback), p. xiv.
[28] Ibid., p.55.
[29] UPI.com, Russiabs Arctic Circle Claims Worry NATO, October 2,
2009, accessed
inhttp://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/10/02/Russias-Arctic-Circle-claims-w...
[30] Mark Sieff, Russia creating new armed forces to boost power
in arctic, UPI.com, April 6, 2009, accessed
inhttp://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2009/04/06/Russia-...
[31] UPI.com, Russia fears missile defenses in Arctic, September
29, 2009, accessed
inhttp://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/09/29/Russia-fears-missile-defenses-...
[32] Donald L. Gautier, et al, USGS Arctic Oil and Gas Report:
Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle,
Washington D.C., USGS, July 2008, accessed inhttp://geology.com/usgs/arctic-oil-and-gas-report.shtml
[33] F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian
Democracy in the New World Order, Wiesbaden, edition.engdahl, October
2009, p.3.
___________________________ subscribe mailto:
newslog+subscribe@googlegroups.com<mailto:newslog+subscribe@googlegroups.com>
blog for subscribers:
http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/
Climate science: observations vs. modelshttp://rkmdocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-science-observations-vs-m...
Prognosis 2012: the elite agenda for social transformationhttp://rkmdocs.blogspot.com/2010/02/prognosis-2012.html
The Grand Story of Humanityhttp://rkmdocs.blogspot.com/2010/03/grand-story-of-humanity.html
related websites:
http://www.governourselves.org/http://escapingthematrix.org/http://cyberjournal.org
archives:
http://groups.google.com/group/newslog/topicshttp://groups.google.com/group/cyberjournal/topics
moderator: r...@quaylargo.com<mailto:r...@quaylargo.com> (comments
welcome)
__._,_.___
Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional Change settings
via the
Web<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newslog/join;_ylc=X3oDMTJnY204NzVoBF9TA...>
(Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to
Daily
Digest<mailto:newslog-dig...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Email%20Delivery:%20Digest>
| Switch to Fully
Featured<mailto:newslog-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Change%20Delivery%20Format:%20Fully%20Featured>
Visit Your Group
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newslog;_ylc=X3oDMTJlaGoyY2I2BF9TAzk3ND...>
| Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> |
Unsubscribe
<mailto:newslog-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>
__,_._,___