CSM: Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash

[jaybeat]

The Christian Science Monitor

Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash

Oil-pipeline routes, market leverage make struggle a 'battle for energy.'

By David R. Francis

from the August 18, 2008 edition

In both geopolitical and economic terms, the United States appears a loser in the Russia-Georgia conflict.

If the pipeline crossing Georgia, bringing approximately a million barrels of Caspian oil a day to the West, remains shut down for much longer, it could result in higher oil prices.

"We could see $4 a gallon gasoline again," warns Edward Yardeni, an American consulting economist.

The 1,100-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline provides only about 1 percent of the global demand for oil. But, as Prof. Michael Klare of Amherst College notes: "There's not a lot of spare capacity" in the world.

In the long-running struggle for control of Caspian oil and gas and influence in the ex-Soviet states of that region, the clash has been a blow to US clout.

"The Russians come out of this as winning this round," says Professor Klare. "They are the power brokers in this part of the world…. But there will be more skirmishes to come."

Klare, author of "Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy," sees the conflict as "not a battle for democracy," as portrayed by Washington. "It was a battle for energy," he says.

<snip>

"Throughout the Caucasus, the US has been striving to establish pro-American governments for strategic reasons," says William Beeman, chair of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota. One reason aside from Caspian oil, Professor Beeman suspects, is to provide a staging area for possible attacks on such perceived enemies as Iran and Syria.

Russia supplies one-quarter of the oil and half the natural gas consumed in Europe, and the revenue is seen as key to Russian prosperity. The European Union has been keen on the Georgia plan as a way to gain bargaining power and reduce the risk of supply cutoffs.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0816/p14s01-cogn.html

Follow the oil, follow the money. As with Iraq, "democracy" is just a cover story, and a very thin one at that.

[Wilber_Stool]

1. I don't agree.

Certainly the by-pass pipeline to the Caspian had something to do with it but to the Russians it was managable. It was selling the Georgians a billion dollars of arms and then sending 1,000 Marines and some Israilies mecenaries to train their army that pushed them over the edge.

[jaybeat]

5. Huh? Why do you think the US has armed the JoJos to the teeth?

We just like setting up pins for PootPoot to knock down?

Bill Clinton (loyal corporatist that he was, despite his many other good qualities) knew we wouldn't want either Russia or Iran to have the ability to shut of Caspian oil OR gas, but they've got it anyway.

And there isn't a fucking thing Georgie-pants can do about it, which makes him pretty god-awful mad, don't you think?

Pretty soon now, he's gonna, gonna, gonna... Call his Daddy, and then Putin will have to say he's sorry!

[sam sarrha]

2. then why were we enmeshed in the disaster in Georgia.? we trained and armed the Georgian army then

suckered them into attacking the provinces.. while the Russians were having massive war games "JUST ACROSS THE BOARDER"

[Karenina]

3. Well, DUH!!

Far be it from the Ruskies to KNOW that the Amis and Israelis were conducting Boy Scout camps with state-of-the art firecrackers "just-in-case!" :rofl:

[yurbud]

4. vote this up. This is enough to make me subscribe to CSM

[Igel]

6. Why must there be only one "real" reason?

In 2003 Sam Tanenhaus raised a ruckus over the Iraq war. People required one reason; when there were multiple reasons--seldom are things so simple--people had a fit. What? There had to be one reason, we seek clarity, and when you give us just one, we're outraged? Well, yes.

I thought it was an insane point. Too simplistic, then not simplistic enough. But when you get 10 people supporting a policy, right or wrong, there's no need for all 10 to agree on the prime motive. This is another article that purports to reduce a mess of motives to a single motive, even though the act accomplishes, possibly, a multitude of things.

Russia probably had a number of problems they'd like resolved. More control over Central Asian exports, and therefore Central Asian economies and governments. More control over Georgia. More control over Georgia. "Control" does a lot of things--makes you important, and makes those controlled less important and less of a threat.

But Georgia was also disrespectful; Saakashvili was insulting to Putin, to the distress of Putin's aides and "colleagues". He insulted Russia. Given the oft-felt humiliation at the loss of the USSR and the Russian empire, Saakashvili and Georgia set themselves up as a fall-guy to show that Russia is still a Big Man in Eurasia. Where better, than to stride in Stalin's old haunts and smack down an upstart rebel province, even if you probably can't take it all back. Finlandize it, monopolize it, and you get the benefits without the obligations.

Moreover, Georgia was isolated: It's not "well" in Europe, it's peripheral, European not by culture but by arbitrary geographical divisions. It's small. It's not in NATO or the EU; NATO has recently denied it a manner of access, same as with Ukraine. By pulling Georgia, less responsible than Ukraine in its public relations with Russia, Putin told NATO's Georgia-refusers they were right in their tiff with the US. And serves as a warning about Ukraine. Great: Split NATO and weaken the US's position. Bad goals, from Russia's POV?

Georgia has two problem areas, Abkhazia and Ossetia. Abkhazia's been embarrassing--a Russian plane, contrary to peacekeeping authority, caught on film shooting down a Georgian drone. Skirmishes in the Kodori Gorge. Not only is Abkhazia a problem, it's 10-20 miles from Sochi, the site of the 2014 Olympics, Putin's pet project. Ossetia's a smuggling route. And both are adjacent to Russia. Unlike the third hot spot, which is peaceful and harder to access--Trans-Dniestria.

Of course, people forget that Russia in June (or was in May or July?) announced new measures with regard to Abkhazia and S. Ossetia, measures which the West mildly objected to and Georgia went ballistic over. The new measures would have brought the two breakaway provinces more firmly and clearly in the Russian orbit. The West quickly forgot this, and didn't defend the status quo when it relied crucially upon words and nothing but words. Little protest. Russia had free hand, and considered it, in all likelihood, as a green light. Soon thereafter, a botnet system was set up to cyberattack Georgia. In early-mid July, showing prior planning.

At the same time, humiliating Georgia--in a region where "humiliation" counts for something--shows that having the US as an ally hurts. It weakens the US's public perception directly. NATO stood to one side, passive and riven. NATO's passive, weak. This both serves strategic goals, presumably, while cowing Europe--esp. salient to former USSR protectorates, whether Latvia or the Czechs--as well as domestic goals, showing how strong Russia is and playing to domestic "patriotism", stuff that makes ardent freeperdom here seem mainstream in many cases.

So, it's all petropolitical in nature? That requires asserting that one POV--a rather narrow one--is the only possible one held by the Russians behind the planning and execution of the Russian counteroffensive, and the steps that led up to the reason for the counteroffensive.

It's a smorgasbord. Why pick just one item from the buffet?