Georgia's South Ossetia Conflict - Political Commentary

[Stan]

Hey Eric !

I read that the Russians supposedly targeted the BTC pipeline but there didn't seem to be any clear info on whether it was damaged or not. It seems that this was a target of Russia - was it to damage (send a message) or control the pipeline?

Statoil folks here claim the pipelines were shut down on both ends well before the offensive. Odd that, as if Mother Russia was prepared (go figure).

Then there's this from BP:
BP still waiting for damaged Turkish pipeline to cool

... fire broke out on Aug. 5 after a blast in the Erzincan province for which the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, has claimed responsibility. The 1,768-kilometer (1,100-mile) link contains 10 million barrels of oil at any one time and cost $3.9 billion.

BP and partners stopped pumping crude into the Baku-Supsa pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Georgian Black Sea coast because of "precautionary measures," ...

The Baku-Supsa pipeline was restarted last week after 19 months of repairs.

BP and StatoilHydro ASA also halted natural gas exports from Azerbaijan through the South Caucasus pipeline because of security concerns,

Oil is only being transported through the Baku-Novorossiysk link to the Russian Black Sea coast and in rail cars across Georgia to the Black Sea ports

Russian warplanes attacked a section of the BTC pipeline in Georgia today, according to Kakha Lomaia, head of Georgia's National Security Council.

Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, told reporters in Moscow that it hadn't been targeted.

"We can't verify" the bombing of the BTC pipeline, Hugh McDowell, BP's general manager for Georgia, said by phone today. "It's being investigated, but there are many different reports and we take each one seriously."

[bourbon]

I read that the Russians supposedly targeted the BTC pipeline but there didn't seem to be any clear info on whether it was damaged or not. It seems that this was a target of Russia - was it to damage (send a message) or control the pipeline?

Not the BTC, reportedly it was the Baku-Supsa line, Steve Levine wrote on his blog Oil & Glory:

(I just received reliable confirmation that, contrary to a statement by Georgia, Russia did not bomb near the Baku-Ceyhan line. Bombs were dropped near the smaller Baku-Supsa line, which leads to Georgia's Black Sea, but caused no damage. The Supsa line passes near South Ossetia so it's possible that this was a fog of war situation.)

BTC was declared force majeure on Aug 5 from an explosion in Eastern Turkey the PKK is taking credit for, they just put the fire out monday. The Azeri BTC exports were rerouted to Baku-Supsa, the pipeline the Russians tried to bomb, and was then temporarily shut down.

[Culpeper]

What would have been the value of bombing the pipeline?

[bourbon]

What would have been the value of bombing the pipeline?

Bombing the pipelines, or almost hitting them, on top of this skirmish is going to kill the investment climate in Georgia. This is important because it will likely kill plans for the Nabucco gas line to Europe, and its competitor Gazprom’s South Stream will be built. Nabucco threatens to break the Russian monopoly of transporting Caspian gas to Europe. Again this is natural gas not oil, no use of spot markets, long term fixed contracts, with great power given to who controls the transportation.

While Nabucco’s plans have some hang ups, South Stream makes little sense economically. It will be the most expensive pipeline ever made, and cost likely 2X more than Nabucco. However, market principles do not matter for South Stream with Russia using Gazprom and its pipelines as a geopolitical tool. Market principles do apply to Nabucco. Investors will be hard pressed to put up the billions needed for Nabucco, when its feeder the South Caucasus Pipeline (gas line that runs in the BTC corridor) is exposed to so much risk.

For more on Nabucco v. South Stream & Balboa v. Drago, I recomend:

OIL, OLIGARCHS, AND OPPORTUNITY: ENERGY FROM CENTRAL ASIA TO EUROPE, HEARING before the COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE. Thursday, June 12, 2008.
Ms. Zeyno Baran (PDF)
Director, Center for Eurasian Policy
Hudson Institute, Washington, DC

[Fuchs]

Sorry, but that "90% energy needs" is not realistic. It casts a strong shadow on the whole source.
According to CIA world factbook, Turkey produces already about 6% of its crude oil consumption itself.

That would leave about 4% for the complete coal consumption and iol/gas imports from other countries.

It looks to me as if the author forgot to substract the exports; Turkey is a transit country for oil & gas, after all.

[Ken White]

form over function?

"..which imports 90 percent of its energy needs and 65 percent of its natural gas from Gazprom..."

correct English as written but if you add a comma or a semi colon where it shouldn't be technically and perhaps should be practically speaking...

"which imports 90 percent of its energy needs; and 65 percent of its natural gas from Gazprom..."

then he's saying Turkey imports 90% of it's total energy needs of which 65% (other sources say 67%) of it's natural gas imports come from Gazprom.

Dunno

[jmm99]

evidence doesn't work that way.

Even if you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Turkey does not import 90% of its energy needs (that figured in BTUs or equivalent, not bcm), that disproves only that statement.

That proof does not affect any of the other statements made in that article, or in the other articles. You have to go after them one by one.

Would think you'd want to go after Gazprom supplying 65% of natural gas consumption; or prove that Putin did eagerly talk to Erdogan; or that Ivan readily agreed to the Caucasian Alliance; etc., etc. ...

Hmm ...

Gazprom Permits Shell to Supply Gas to Turkish Market
Cagri OCAL
Sunday , 04 March 2007
This commentary is from USAK's Energy Review Newsletter
......
“Under the contract, Gazprom will supply 250 mcm of gas annually to Shell Enerji A.Þ. in the period up to 2021”, the news release said. Total natural gas sale to Turkey will be 3.75 bcm and present value of this sale is approximately $1 billion. (Cumhuriyet) Russia and Turkey established a gas partnership in 1984. Since 1984, Russia supplied a total of 138.7 bcm of natural gas to Turkey. Supplies from Russia followed an increasing trend in the past 22 years period and reached all-time high level of 20 bcm in 2006. Russian natural gas currently accounts for 65% of Turkey's gas imports. (The New Anatolian)

http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=2516
http://www.turkishweekly.net/energyr...rgyReview9.pdf'

-----------------------------------
For anyone interested in this boring topic, here are the CIA stats as of tonite's viewing. I should think that the stats are quite different as of 2007-2008.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...k/geos/tu.html

Natural gas - production:
860.3 million cu m (2005 est.)
Natural gas - consumption:
26.25 billion cu m (2005 est.)
Natural gas - exports:
0 cu m (2005 est.)
Natural gas - imports:
25.48 billion cu m (2005)

Oil - production:
45,460 bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - consumption:
660,800 bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - exports:
112,600 bbl/day (2004)
Oil - imports:
724,400 bbl/day (2004)

Interesting. No nat gas exports; and is Turkey-produced oil used in Turkey or exported or both. Strange.

---------------------------------
BTW: Don't care if you do disprove every sentence in the articles, since they ain't written by me. In that case, we would have advanced the search for truth - as well as for mom and apple pie.

Whole bunch of Russian Turkish nat gas stuff; e.g., an index at

http://www.rpi-inc.ru/pdf/SEE_Gas_TOC.pdf

and more files at

http://www.rpi-inc.ru/pdf/

looks borinnnggg......

[AmericanPride]

Just FYI, the EIA agrees with White. Sorry Fuchs.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Turkey/Background.html

There's also some wonderfully colored graphs.

[jmm99]

re: AmericanPride

Thanx for the explanation - energy output and requirements = special relationship. The Gazprom links seem to run from south (Turkey, another thread here) to north (Baltic pipeline) and in between (where I am dumb).

So, recent flap in Helsinki (noted by Stan above - one step ahead of me ) ties in as well

HELSINGIN SANOMAT
INTERNATIONAL EDITION - BUSINESS & FINANCE
18.8.2008
....
Politicians take mainly positive view of Lipponen pipeline lobbying effort
The announcement that former Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament Paavo Lipponen (SDP) is taking on a job as a lobbyist for the Russian-German company Nord Sream, which is planning to set up an undersea gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, brought both approval and critical comments from Parliamentary party group leaders and other politicians.

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Pol.../1135238727769

Seems like a conflict of interest to me; but Gazprom seems to make many pretty packages for people and nations.

PS: One wonders if Putin didn't start to shape this plan (in his head) when he was in East Germany, since economic warfare seems to have been his bent. If so, will + foresight.

[Norfolk]

Nordstream not only has Gerhard Schroeder at the helm, they've gone and found yet another former PM to force the Sierra through Scandinavia and the Baltic Seabed -- ex-Finnish PM Paavo Lipponen. Lipponen was quoted:

Now that is interesting; I had read that Lipponen had turned the offer down a little while ago. Well, that has reversed pretty quickly. Hmmm...

[Jedburgh]

JF, 3 Mar 09: The Impact of the Russia-Georgia War on the South Caucasus Transportation Corridor

....the paper argues that the initial damage that the war inflicted upon the political reliability of the transit corridor is gradually diminishing and that new opportunities are emerging. The complete reversal of this damage can be possible but will depend on U.S. and EU policy, the role of Turkey, internal stability in the Caucasus region, and Russian policy in Central Asia and the Caucasus. It is important to remember that when the initial decision to revitalize the energy corridor through Georgia and Azerbaijan was made in the mid 1990s, the security environment was extremely difficult and there was no infrastructure to support shipment of oil through the corridor, yet leadership of the United States and Turkey supported that decision and helped to implement it. Today’s environment is much more favorable considering the functioning infrastructure and greater demand for Caspian energy. New natural gas discoveries in Turkmenistan and the next stage in oil and gas developments in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan will require additional export capacity and a tough battle is ahead between the different export options, each supported by state sponsors with competing interests. It is significant in this context that Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan signed an agreement on November 14, 2008, to develop a Trans-Caspian oil transportation that will include onshore oil pipeline in Kazakhstan and a tanker fleet in the Caspian Sea to ship Kazakh oil to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline and on to the world markets. As it was indicated at the Budapest summit devoted to the Nabucco pipeline project on January 27, significant progress has been made on the development of a natural gas link between the Caspian and Europe, and Georgia has an important role to play.....

[AmericanPride]

Any opinions about the future credibility of NATO? Has Russia's action in Georgia revealed a deep fault between the security interests of the United States, W. Europe, and E. Europe vis-a-vis Russia?

[Ron Humphrey]

Any opinions about the future credibility of NATO? Has Russia's action in Georgia revealed a deep fault between the security interests of the United States, W. Europe, and E. Europe vis-a-vis Russia?

would be dependant on whether the many countries for whom this action carried a message decide to cower as requested or if on the other hand we see a whole lot of militaries start doing exercises along their borders, more invites for air defense, and/or possible new additions to the alliance.

For Georgia to be let in now would send a huge message of solidarity to certain parties on the other hand if everything goes away quietly then it will be pretty much the same thing as giving in to the bullying.

Will be interesting to see what Chinas overall output about it ends up being.
One would hope they would remember that the capital they have brought in through interactions with the west is one of the larger factors in maintaining their ability to provide services and thus keeping their party intact.

[Ken White]

will become Russian, Georgia will be smaller and that NATO is unlikely to ever include Georgia as a member (barring a major implosion of Russia, not likely at this time). I suspect the old line Social Democracies that constitute western and central Europe will outvote the US and the eastern European NATO members on that issue.

In this, I think the European consensus has it right, militarily, strategically and operationally. Supporting Georgia is well and good, idealistic and to be admired -- it also is fraught with reality problems. Maybe even common sense problems.

Going to be interesting to see what Afghanistan does to NATO in survival terms over the long haul. Georgia and the current flap won't help...

[Ron Humphrey]

will become Russian, Georgia will be smaller and that NATO is unlikely to ever include Georgia as a member (barring a major implosion of Russia, not likely at this time). I suspect the old line Social Democracies that constitute western and central Europe will outvote the US and the eastern European NATO members on that issue.

In this, I think the European consensus has it right, militarily, strategically and operationally. Supporting Georgia is well and good, idealistic and to be admired -- it also is fraught with reality problems. Maybe even common sense problems.

Going to be interesting to see what Afghanistan does to NATO in survival terms over the long haul. Georgia and the current flap won't help...

The question that comes to mind is if one looks at the situation the one country that provided more troops than anyone besides UK to help us and yet?

NATO didn't let em in?

NATO is in what seems to be widely percieved as a do or die in Afghanistan in so far as proving it's worth?

The danger of allowing this current incident to stand without some major changes in a variety of areas would seem to far outway what would be somewhat more predictably the follow-on with things as they stand right now?

And thats not even getting into what message this may have sent Iran regarding support against international pressures.

[Fuchs]

The question that comes to mind is if one looks at the situation the one country that provided more troops than anyone besides UK to help us and yet?

NATO didn't let em in?

NATO is in what seems to be widely percieved as a do or die in Afghanistan in so far as proving it's worth?

OK, that's an understandable U.S.American point of view, but imho quite superficial.

NATO is first and foremost a collective security organization/treaty/alliance.
It serves its members' interests in national security affairs.
It is not a payment method of U.S. foreign policy.
It is not the United Nations, has no real reason to care for distant countries' national security.
Maybe you can provide me any hint how a membership of Georgia could improve the national security of European NATO members.
It would be a buffer zone for Turkey, but at the same time a buffer that Turkey doesn't need as long as Georgia isn't a member.
Its military strength is negligible.

About the Iraq thing; that's not NATO business, but US/UK business. There's no reason for countries like Germany or Italy to thank Georgians for playing auxiliary troops for GWB in Iraq.
The USA is free to agree on a bilateral alliance with Georgia if it desires to do so. That's something that the Europeans couldn't veto against (afaik).

Afghanistan is highly exaggerated in regards to NATO politics. Americans might believe that it's a litmus test for NATO, but Europeans do (usually) consider NATO as a collective national security alliance, not as a club for joint overseas expeditions.
The connection between 9/11 and fighting Taleban in 2008 in an Afghan civil war is extremely weak. The initial declaration that NATO collective defense was being activated due to 9/11 was already questionable an considered as a symbolic gesture by many Europeans.

NATO is the stabilizing (multi)national security institution in Europe (WEU/EU being the backups) and highly successful as such (even keeping peace between greece and Turkey). It is easily justified.

The USA can leave it if it desires, of course.
(But that would end the US's status as superpower because it depends more on its allies than Americans imagine - remember UN security council veto rights of UK/France & the lack of U.S. bases in Europe, Africa, South America and Western/Northern Indian Ocean without European support?)

[Ken White]

The question that comes to mind is if one looks at the situation the one country that provided more troops than anyone besides UK to help us and yet?

No question that they did that and that it was of some help to us.

NATO didn't let em in?

Why should they; the big shakers and movers in NATO, other than the UK, didn't agree at all with our attack on Iraq. They in fact suffered some losses in several areas because of that attack, not least that we bulldozed them into forgiving a lot of Iraqi debt -- so how much of NATO, en masse, saying 'no' was on the purely logical grounds that admitting Georgia would not be strategically smart and how much was NATO (-) payback to the US for earlier ignoring them? Georgia helped the US in Iraq, not NATO.

NATO is in what seems to be widely percieved as a do or die in Afghanistan in so far as proving it's worth?

I guess some see it that way. I don't, I think NATO is too important to the members for various reasons to go away. However, I do think the disconnect over roles and missions in the 'Stan will have a lasting impact on the alliance. As will Iraq. Like they say about adultery in marriage; "Things may be better or they may be worse but they'll never be the same."

The danger of allowing this current incident to stand without some major changes in a variety of areas would seem to far outway what would be somewhat more predictably the follow-on with things as they stand right now?

Perhaps. My personal belief is that our policies toward Russia post 1991 have been extremely short sighted and while freedom is great, one needs to be a little careful about what one wishes for or they may get it...

I'd also suggest our options are rather limited. Russia, after all, is operating on interior lines -- and not just in the military sense.

And thats not even getting into what message this may have sent Iran regarding support against international pressures.

Irrelevant IMO. Iran is aware and has been for almost 30 years of the fine print involved in resisting international pressure; they're masters at it -- almost as good as the North Koreans. The Iraniha know that Russia and China will continue to support them and they know the west (including the US) is highly unlikely to resort to overt violence unless they make a bad mistake. The Mullahs are not stupid, they'll work hard at verbiage and mild provocation but will pull back before going to far. I don't think this changes anything with respect to Iran, to include dealings with the Iraqis (who were and are totally unlikely to allow Iranian hegemony).

[Ratzel]

After reading some of the Baltic State's defense plans, I've come to the conclusion that they have a military to support the US and NATO, and generally hope the Russians will not destroy too much during an invasion. None of these States (and Georgia) had/have anything ready for a serious territorial defense. This might be the right thing to do? If you know you'll be destroyed, it may not be worth it?

If this is the case, they need some sort of strategy once they're occupied? They could:

1) Lay in the street and have huge protests so military equipment won't be able to move?

2) Everyone can refuse to go to work or do anything the Russians say?

3) Socialize all citizens to fight to the death regardless of potential destruction?

[jmm99]

from kaur
3. About NATO/US military plans by RAND.

Chap 5 interested me on 2 points: posited 30-day warning period of Russian attack; and the military capabilities in the Leningrad military district.

Have you run into any gaming scenario for a 1 on 1 Russian attack on Finland ?

I haven't, but I may well be looking in the wrong places.

Thanx ahead if you can help.

[Stan]

Chap 5 interested me on 2 points: posited 30-day warning period of Russian attack; and the military capabilities in the Leningrad military district.

Have you run into any gaming scenario for a 1 on 1 Russian attack on Finland ?

I haven't, but I may well be looking in the wrong places.

Thanx ahead if you can help.

Here's one of many scenarios going around as Finland joins the former soviet Republics -- joining NATO -- a possibility which could not be viewed impassively. As well as being perceived as an affront and potential threat, it would also present the opportunities of being able to teach others lessons and to set default positions.

Future active measures could include (once again) obstruction of ports, shipping lanes and off-shore facilities; over flights, airspace denial and harassment of civil aviation; disruption of freight and transportation; freezing foreign investments and business in Russia; economic, energy and cyber campaigns; symbolic incursions onto islands or across borders; and political and diplomatic threats against individual countries.

Hat tips to Bruce Jones.