Think Twice Finance

Rethinking Energy Policy: Stark Reality in South-Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.

It is time to quit telling ourselves bedtime tales of a Lennonesque future of universal peace and brotherhood.

There was no end to the Cold War, as Gorbachev made clear in his most recent speech. No more rubber chicken and honoraria for him.  Russia used the last 15 years to replace their failed military with a successful foreign-built energy weapon, while Gorbachev passed out platitudes. The rust will eventually set in when we pull out of Russia, but meanwhile, we’re on the defensive.

We have a few friends; some old, some new. Western Continental Europe, as usual, is too preoccupied with itself to be of any use. The Sarkozy deal with Russia was a wink and a nod that nobody took seriously.

The short term stakes are the oil resources of East Asia, Siberia and the Middle East.

It would have been lovely to have thriving democracies and peace in the Middle East, but we underestimate how much democracy owes to good luck and how little it owes to human nature.

So the Middle East will not be able to defend itself. We are going to have to hold our noses, as usual, and protect them from Russia and themselves. Give them 50 years, and maybe the Middle East will be viable. I hope so, because they are certainly going to be expensive until they get themselves in hand.

Yes, the longer term answer is energy independence and the good old Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to keep us out of harm’s way for 100 years or so. But for the next 20 years, no Middle East – no good times.

Russia sees no reason why they shouldn’t control the oil outside the Middle East. Unfortunately, they have a point. And we better do something about that as Europe hangs in the balance. If Western Continental Europe doesn’t miraculously wake up to its precarious position, we have the desperate corridor from Britain to Georgia that “gets it,” and is willing to fight, and maybe help from Asia. This sounds extreme. The problem is, it fits the facts.

And a look forward would be useful over here as well. Not even energy independence and a couple oceans is enough to protect us from a Soviet Republic of Europe. And that’s where Russia sees the future. It’s been tried before by folks with fewer resources behind them, and it almost worked.