US military will stay in Georgia

BBC ^ | August 18, 2008 | Natalia Antelava

[Bokababe]

What do Kosovo and Georgia really have in common? They are both oil routes for delivering Caspian oil.

[Eagles6]

Oil runs the world. If the bad guys control it the good guys are screwed. We can supply all of our own but our allies can’t. Russia is using it as a extortion tool.

[Southack]

Bush rocks!

Nice to see that we’re standing firm in Georgia.

[Bokababe]

"Oil runs the world. If the bad guys control it the good guys are screwed. We can supply all of our own but our allies can’t. Russia is using it as a extortion tool."

I hear you, but at what point did we become the oil companies' army? Five bucks a gallon and giving up our first born sons to their wars just doesn't sound like "a deal" to me.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Pipeline War I: Caspian-Balkan Adventure

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan line
Chechnya/Kosovo conflict.
Another pipeline through Georgia/Kosovo in the works

Pipeline War II: Return of Bears

Flush with oil cash, Russians push forward into Georgia, threatening key pipelines outside their control, while pressuring EU with gas supply using another pipeline through Russia.

Concurrently, Russia earnestly embarks on reclaiming its near-abroad.

Attention vacuum occurs in E. Asia. What would N. Korea and China do?

[unspun]

And how about some nice, new F-35’s?

[Eagles6]

Will continue tomorrow. Goodnight.

[Sharrukin]

Last Updated: Sunday, 18 January, 2004

This article is four years old. I believe the Russian base it mentions has already been removed.

[MarMema]

The article is from 2004. However, we do have military in Tbilisi and I believe it is their presence, as do many Georgians, that have kept the city safe from the Russians.

[TigersEye]

This article is from January. We will see if it still holds as policy. I hope so.

[TigersEye]

The oil company’s wars? Looks more like communist Russia’s war here.

[Dawnsblood]

Yawn! We support free people period. This is a screwed up situation. Neither territory has a clean claim to Russia or Georgia and they have been arguing about it since the ‘90s but that doesn't mean we should back off. The Russians may think that their might makes right, but we can force them to talk to the Georgians and that may make a difference. If the Russians wanted a fair conversation they would not have threatened the Poles over 10 whole ICBM interceptors.

[Hoplite]

Another pipeline through Georgia/Kosovo in the works

Has Kosovo moved?

[TigerLikesRooster]

No, Georgia-Turkey-(another country or countries)-Kosovo-...-EU.
You know pipeline is usually pretty long.

[Hoplite]

And they can be infinitely long if they exist only in the imagination.

[rrrod]

I wonder how our troops are doing....just a handful there. A real tightrope

[TigerLikesRooster]

Hmm.. I was watching CNN international broadcast reporting on Georgian crisis. It did show a pipeline project starting from Caspian Sea going through Turkey, crossing near Bosporus Strait, onto Balkans near(or through) Kosovo

While it was long, it did not look infinitely long.:-)

[Hoplite]

Nabucco or South Stream perchance?

Neither runs through Kosovo, which can claim to be more centrally located for oil or gas pipelines than... Montenegro. Which means it's on the opposite end of the spectrum from Georgia as far as being strategically located, hydrocarbon-wise.

And while Kosovo does have a pipeline, from a refinery in Macedonia (OKTA), it's owned by the Greeks (Hellenic Petroleum), and terminates in Kosovo, its intended market.

You may recall some nonsense about us invading Afghanistan in order to secure oil routes to the Indian ocean - it's the same level of thinking which leads one to the same conclusion in regards to Kosovo.

[MarMema]

link

[HAL9000]

Russia can hurt Europe and Asia by cutting off oil and gas supplies, but in the process, they will hurt themselves too. They don’t have a diversified economy that can compensate for the loss of oil revenues.