Ho Hum;Another Stupid War Of Choice

[Marcellinus]

dayuhan,

true the natural gas was not destined for the us. however, injecting the supply of natural gas from the dualetabad gas fields would have had an impact on the global demand of natural gas which would have been favorable to the us.

also, from what i understand, the gas pipeline from turkmenistan was just a pawn in the greater game of caspian/CAR energy production. as i understand, transporting oil from the caspian through afghanistan to ports in pakistan was a viable option than transporting it through georgia to turkish ports in the mid nineties.

seems to me that moving oil south through afghanistan would have better marginalized russia. i think that it is the hindsight of the completion of the baku-ceyhan pipeline and the deterioration of the afghan pipelines that allows you to relegate that whole expedition to carrot/stick diplomacy.

[Fuchs]

however, injecting the supply of natural gas from the dualetabad gas fields would have had an impact on the global demand of natural gas which would have been favorable to the us.

Natural gas hasn't really a global market. Most is moved through pipelines with long-term contracts. LNG tankers are rare and iirc they tend to serve on well-defined routes to supply LNG to meet long-term contracts as well.