Russia's Strike Shows The Power Of the Pipeline

What we've been reminded once again is that Vladimir Putin is perfectly willing to sacrifice the rule of law and the good opinion of others to protect the Russian empire and the energy monopoly that sustains it. The techniques he used to bring Georgia to heel, while more lethal and destructive, have the same thuggish quality as the techniques Putin uses to silence domestic opposition and to expropriate the energy assets of Yukos, Shell and BP.

from Global Guerrillas

Adopting global guerrilla methods (particularly systems disruption) as state policy

Georgia does have a way out of the predicament. It could adopt the global guerrilla methods (aka fifth generation warfare) and use system disruption as a strategic weapon to coerce Russia to relent. Like the Ukraine found out (I suspect unwittingly), the best way to coerce Russia is to disrupt its export of natural gas/oil. Fortunately for Georgia, Russia’s vast distances yield a pipeline transport system that is both heavily concentrated and extremely vulnerable (I’ve done the network analysis and it would be very easy to do, it is rife with systempunkts). A dozen small teams (2-3 at most, my personal choice would be mercenaries to enhance plausible deniability) dedicated to blowing up sections of these pipelines (either within Russia or in 3rd party nations like Poland and Ukraine), would likely yield a 20% to 30% sustained reduction in Russian exports.
The result would be predictable. The rapid and severe customer/investor reaction to a reduction in Russian exports would be so severe that Russia would be forced to promptly concede. All Georgia needs to do now, is adopt 4GW and go to work defending itself.

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