Geopolitics / Europe

• A Floating Alternative to Nabucco Undercuts Potential Disruptions to EU Energy Supplies

  In late February 2010, Romania, Azerbaijan, and Georgia finalized an agreement on the direct export of Azerbaijani natural gas to Romania. This has profound ramifications for halting Turkey’s ability to hold the EU hostage to energy supplies via Turkey, and offers far more rapid easing of European energy pressures. The new agreement calls for transporting the Azerbaijani gas via pipelines to the SOCAR-owned Kulevi terminal on the Georgian coast of the Black Sea. From there, the liquified gas will be shipped across the Black Sea by tankers to new terminals in the Romanian port of Constanta. From Constanta, the gas…

• The Moscow Bombing: An Inevitable Victory for Moscow, But a Hard Struggle Ahead

  The March 29, 2010, martyr-bombings in the two Moscow Metro stations served as a reminder of the escalating and evolving jihadist surge into Russia’s soft underbelly. The bombing took place at peak rush hour. The first martyr-bomber detonated herself at 7:56am in the Lubyanka station which serves the Kremlin’s bureaucracy. The second martyr-bomber detonated herself at 8:37am in the Park Kulturi station, a connection and transfer station from the Ring Line leading to Moscow’s center. Both martyr-bombers detonated themselves inside train cars just as the doors were opened to let passengers in and out. At the time of writing, the…

• The True Causes Underlying the Moscow Metro Bombings

  The tragic news of the 29 March twin suicide bombings of two Moscow Metro stations during the morning rush hour has produced outrage worldwide, with the Kremlin quickly adding that the attacks were carried out by the Caucasus Mujaheddin, a northern Caucasus-based militant Islamist guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Moscow to St. Petersburg express train last November. The grim death toll can be seen as yet another statistic in the Kremlin’s ongoing war with Chechnya separatists that erupted in December 1994.   Underneath and driving the savagery of the last 16 years is a resource that…

• Renewed Battle for the Falkland Islands Suits the Embattled British, Argentine Leaders, and Others

  The artificially-engendered revival of the dispute, which began in February 2010 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, has been portrayed as a posturing by embattled Argentine Pres. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, taking advantage of both the start of exploratory oil and gas drilling by British company Desire Petroleum in the Falklands waters, and the talks by Latin American and Caribbean leaders of the Rio Group in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen, beginning on February 22, 2010. But the crisis may well play into the political posturing of…

• Gazprom: Angel or Demon?

  Gazprom faces regular opprobrium for its bullying ways of using energy as a pressure and political tool. Seen by some, mostly Russians, as the symbol of a successful and strong Russia, others see it as a dominating juggernaut, economic right arm of the Kremlin implementing, or should we say, imposing its policies by using energy as a weapon. Just like Louis XIV used to say “L’Etat c’est moi” (I am the State), Gazprom could say the same in light of its commercial power and the unconditional governmental backing it enjoys. However, just like Monsanto generates passionate debates with its genetically…

• The Great Competition Over Energy Shoves and Shapes the Emergence of the "New Caucasus"

  The South Caucasus: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia - is at an historic "T" junction in the road. The next turn could result in a regional eruption of violence which would spread beyond the region and would most likely to involve all three major neighbors. It would disrupt the regional network of energy supplies to Europe. Or this next turn in the road could usher in the establishment of a new regional order -a "New Caucasus" -which would serve as a stabilizing buffer between Russia and Iran and Turkey as well as facilitate the rapid expansion of the flow of hydrocarbons…

• Central Asia's Most Precious Resource - Water, Not Oil

  “In every drop of water there is a grain of gold.” - Aral proverb Since the 1991 collapse of the USSR, foreign investors have looked at the former Soviet space as a land rich in underdeveloped resources waiting for Western technology and finance to bring to the world market. Gold from Kyrgyzstan, uranium and oil from Kazakhstan, oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan – all have begun to make their way to the global market, generating rich profits for both their owners and developers. In the five former Soviet countries stretching eastwards from the Caspian to the western Chinese border…

• Turkey and Russia - Tender Relations Over Nuclear Power

  The recent announcement of a stay of execution on three of the clauses of the legislative framework for the building of Turkey’s first ever nuclear power plant has reinforced doubts about the viability of the project and threatens to strain Turkey’s increasingly close economic relationship with Russia. The court decision is the latest in a series of setbacks for Turkey’s nuclear power ambitions. The contract for the building of a nuclear plant in Akkuyu, near Mersin on Turkey’s eastern Mediterranean coast, was first announced on March 13, 2008. The size of the plant was set at 4,000 MW, plus or…

• Turkmen Gas - Caveat emptor

  Of the five nations surrounding the Caspian – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia and Turkmenistan, the hydrocarbon riches of Turkmenistan remain the last great prize, sought and fought over by Russia, China, Iran and Western investors. A recent scandal involving the country’s immense natural gas reserves has brought home the truth of the old Latin adage, “caveat emptor.” Turkmenistan's President Gurbangeldy Berdymukhammedov has dismissed gas officials for allegedly overstating the country's reserves by a factor of two to three times. While the announcement has startled the Western investment community, which has been assiduously seeking entry into the country since the sudden…

• Georgia - Energy Bridge To Conflict

  U.S. foreign and energy policies are inextricably linked, closer than Siamese twins. Since the 1991 collapse of the USSR, Washington’s foreign policy has been to advance NATO up to the borders of the Russian Federation while converting former Soviet Caucasian and Central Asian nations, along with Central and Eastern European countries into energy transit nations en route to the ultimate prize, the vast and largely untapped oil and natural gas riches of the three former Soviet republics ringing the Caspian – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. It is an understatement to say that Moscow has viewed this policy with growing alarm,…