Posted on 08/15/2008 8:25:45 PM PDT by Fennie
The sudden war in the Caucasus brought Georgia to heel, reasserted Russia's claim as the dominant force in the region, and dealt a blow to U.S. prestige. But in this part of the world, diplomacy and war are about oil and gas as much as they are about hegemony and the tragic loss of human life.
Victory in Georgia now gives Russia the edge in the struggle over access to the Caspian's 35 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas. The probable losers: the U.S. and those Western oil companies that have bet heavily on the Caspian as one of the few regions where they could still operate with relative freedom.
At the core of the struggle is a vast network of actual and planned pipelines for shipping Caspian Sea oil to the world market from countries that were once part of the Soviet empire. American policymakers working with a BP-led consortium had already helped build oil and natural gas pipelines across Georgia to the Turkish coast. Next on the drawing board: another pipeline through Georgia to carry natural gas from the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea to Austria-offering an alternate supply to Western Europe, which now depends on Russia for a third of its energy.
But after the mauling Georgia got, "any chance of an new non-Russian pipeline out of Central Asia and into Europe is pretty much dead," says Chris Ruppel, an energy analyst at Execution, a brokerage in Greenwich, Conn. The risk of building a pipeline through countries vulnerable to the wrath of Russia is just too high...
Go nuclear energy. Fu*k the Russians.
( War In Georgia A Blow To U.S. Energy Plans ) hopefully, this is a cave in on the Democrats plans of obstruction to the US plans to find energy in our own country.
BP is in Azerbaijan too. They have a project to be completed by 2012.
I looked at the maps and pipelines right after Russia invaded Georgia and figured this out.
Why was the West caught with their pants down?
But it has served to bolster the resolve of the former Warsaw Pact countries. Poland agreed to our ABM bases - the debate over extra dollars ended awfully quickly. Now the Ruskies have threatened nuclear strikes on Poland.
You know that’s BS, the Russians know as well as anybody that nukes are only a sabre rattling tool, their use on any significant scale is tantamount to an end game to the world economy. They’re far too pleased with their windfall oil profits to go globally postal.
It’s time the European nations to grow a pair and start building nuke and coal powered plants. Let the Russians choke on their gas. Since coal makes Harry sick we can sell it to the Euro’s.
Indeed, f*** the Russkies. They probably can’t even make the trains run on time in Russia much less maintain order in the old Soviet republics (or colonies), but somehow I always felt in the back of my mind that a pipeline completely OUT of Russian control wasn’t in the cards. Otherwise, why would the US government be involved? It’s sad, but I don’t think Russia knows how to be a prosperous, open country that gets along with its neighbors, nor do they want to.
big time!
Forget about oil, will this conflict impact the mail order bride industry? =oD
The chechens were monitoring it and reporting it. How we could have missed it is beyond me.
November 10, 1997
The New Pipeline Politics
By SHEILA N. HESLIN (senior member of President Bill Clinton's National Security Council in charge of Russian, Eurasian and Ukrainian affairs)
Re: "why would the US government be involved?"
It's buisness. You think policy makers are rich because they collect a government paycheck?
If you like $5/gal, Vote Democrat.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Collapsing the price of oil would dry up a lot of revenue to many rogue nations.
And don’t forget cabbage imports.
Is anyone awake in DC?
China is occupied with the Olympics.
Russia is occupied with Georgia.
Why isn’t America occupying Iran?
Or at the very least, taking out all of their nuke capability while China and Russia are occupied?
All the more reason to drill for our own oil.
Even if the price of gasoline goes down to $3 a gallon, we still need to press for our own oil. This last crisis makes it only more clear. It is a matter of national security. We may not only have to fulfill our own needs but those of any allies we may have. It is imperative that we be able to do so.
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