The Pipeline War

FYI for those interested in the U.S. failure to match Russia so far in the European pipeline war, Foreign Policy has a good interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the cold warrior and former National Security Adviser.

In it, Brzezinski, who served under Jimmy Carter when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, calls reliance on Russian energy "a potential long-range threat" to Europe. He urges the West to head this off, for one thing by making sure that Caspian Sea natural gas gets to Europe. "If Europe and the United States jointly do not do what is needed to obtain great diversification of access to energy, Europe could become politically vulnerable," Brzezinski says.

Europe relies on Russia for more than 30% of its oil and natural gas. In the pipeline wars, Russia has proposed three primary natural gas pipelines: one strengthening its effective monopoly on Turkmenistan's and Kazakhstan's exports, another combining their natural gas with Russia's own and shipping it to northern Europe ("Nordstream") and a third shipping the gas to southern Europe ("South Stream").

Together, these pipelines would further isolate Central Asia from the rest of the world, and they would put Europe further at the mercy of Russia, which has compiled a record of using petro-power as a blunt instrument for political and economic influence.

A good start on leveling their impact would be the proposed trans-Caspian pipeline, which would carry Turkmen, Kazakh and Uzbek natural gas to Baku and on to Turkey for onward shipment to Europe.

For it to get off the ground, the Turkmen would need to be prepared for serious heat from Vladimir Putin.

And the U.S. would have to assure the republic that Washington would stand behind Turkmenistan as it did with Azerbaijan to promote construction of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which last year shattered Russia's monopoly on oil exports from the region.