As RA
argued yesterday, more than profit seeking, logistical expediency, or simple market value, Europe and Turkey finally agreed to build the Nabucco natural gas pipeline mainly as a response following years of heavy handed Russian conduct in energy affairs. Though the two gas wars with Ukraine are imperfect examples, it seems that Russia has something to learn about running a soft-touch energy empire before provoking more Cuban-Revolution-like alternative pipelines. There's some more on this line from an editorial in
the Washington Post:
Though energy pipelines are not usually the subject of
international politics and high diplomacy, Moscow has made them so.
Twice in the past four years, it has turned off a pipeline that
supplies countries across Europe in an attempt to undermine the
democratic government of Ukraine, which, like Georgia, has refused to
become a Kremlin vassal.
The midwinter blackmail, personally overseen by Mr. Medvedev's
mentor, Vladimir Putin, has had the effect of vitalizing a project that
once looked like little more than a pipe dream. Nabucco, which will
extend 2,000 miles and cost more than $10 billion to construct, was
championed tirelessly by the Bush administration. But the countries
that would most benefit from it, such as Hungary and Austria, were more
interested in negotiating new pipeline routes with Russia until
recently. Now they appear to recognize that diversifying their sources
of gas is essential to their national security -- and also to promoting
a Russia that will not seek to use its natural resources as a means to
rebuild the Soviet empire.
