Read in context it would reveal that reference, it wouldn't make that reference make any sense. The pipeline would not have belonged to or been controlled by US companies under any of the proposed scenarios.Originally Posted by Ray
I repeat: investment by US companies or participation of US companies in a consortium does not translate to "US control" of the pipeline or whatever flows through it. Citing the pre-70s Saudi Aramco as an example to the contrary is, I fear, ridiculous. We all know business was once done that way. We all know business isn't done that way any more: there's not a sovereign nation on the planet that would accept such an arrangement in today's world. Anyone who's even vaguely familiar with the way Central Asian energy deals are being structured knows that foreign control is simply not an issue: the US is not going to "control" these resources... nor, frankly, does it need to.
There's been a great deal of utter nonsense written about the proposed TAPI pipeline, and I fear you've bought the lot. The key item of context that's typically missed in these discussions is scale. It's just not that big or important a project. It's not a game-changer; never was.
The intention of the pipeline was to bring a portion of Turkmenistan's natural gas output south to India and Pakistan. For the Turkmens this was part of an effort to diversify export routes: they were simultaneously developing a larger pipeline to China (now in operation) and building up their links to the Russian gas grid. It wasn't about a seismic shift in policy, just a natural diversification. There's never been any question of the US supplanting Russian and Chinese regional influence, for reasons that will be instantly clear to anyone with access to a map.
For India and Pakistan the pipeline would have been one source of energy supply among many. It would not have the capacity to meet all their needs and nobody would be foolish enough to rely on a pipeline crossing such a volatile area. Again, a matter of interest but at no point a critical need or a game-changing project.
In the project's original incarnation, in the Taliban years, the US interest was in using the project as a cash-generating carrot to try to bait more moderate elements in the Taliban into a more engaged stance, and of course the possibility of tossing a project to an American company that was undergoing some hard times (none of the major companies were interested; the project was too small and too risky). Since regime change there have been vague attempts to revive the project, mainly as a way of trying to provide a revenue source for the Afghan government. Of course nobody's really interested in investing, given the security risks.
There is not and never was any great strategic imperative here on the part of the US. The pipeline would not have given "control" of anything, just the potential for Afghanistan to earn a little money. In the old days that was a possible lever to manipulate the Taliban; more recently it's a possible way to let the Afghan government earn a bit on its own and suck a little less off the great American teat, which is running a bit dry at the moment. It's nowhere nearly as large or important as it's been cranked up to be by people who are trying to construct a case for some "all about oil" scenario or some vast regional strategic imperative.
Who says the CAR has the world's largest untapped supply of hydrocarbons?
It's widely believed in energy circles that Caspian reserves have been massively overstated:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/86
Certainly reserves are significant, but by no means unique or spectacular. There is also no need whatsoever for the US to try to control this oil/gas or get it to the US. It makes far more geographic sense to let it flow to China and to Europe through Russia. Of course that poses risks, but not for the US. Long term there's real potential for Russia-China conflict in the area, but that's all the more reason for the US to keep a light footprint.
Certainly the US has been cozying up to regional governments since the Afghan intervention, but that's more about keeping the northern supply route to Afghanistan open than about trying to "get the oil" or pursue some vast strategic overhaul.
Gwadar may be closer, but that's not the source of the gas. When you add in the total transport cost from Turkmenistan, it would be cheaper and far less risky for the Indians to load LNG tankers in Qatar and sail them to Mumbai. Of course the Indians want to diversify their sources of supply, but TAPI was never more than a remote possibility for them and it will not be a major problem for them if it never materializes (very likely).
It's not an issue for the US. It's an issue for the source countries because if their only export route relies on the Russian grid the Russians get to unilaterally dictate transhipment fees, and sole dependence on Russia for transport would give the Russians more leverage over those countries than they want to allow. Who would want their primary (sole, really) source of revenue completely in the hands of a single foreign country?
None of the states involved in Caspian oil are trying to cut the Russians out. They are actively developing their connections to the Russian grid and shipping substantial amounts of product through that grid. Like China, Russia is a regional power and nobody in the region wants to piss them off They just don't want to be completely dependent on Russia, quite sensibly. It's diversification, not replacement.
Risks look likely to be substantial for a long, long time. It's a messy neighborhood and that's not changing any time soon.
I don't see how anything under discussion here - or anywhere - would "box in" Iran or subdue Pakistan. This seems a bit of fantasy.
Afghanistan is far more prone to insurgency than Xinjiang, and Xinjiang is under Chinese control, while Afghanistan is not.
The TAPI was never intended to supply China and would not supply China in any event, so the comparison is really quite irrelevant. Of course China badly wants to give its navy access to an Indian Ocean port - logical, given China's dependence on Middle East oil - but that's about building the capacity to protect access to the ME supply route, not about getting access to the minor stream of gas coming through TAPI. Central Asian oil and gas do flow to China and will continue to flow to China, but not via Afghanistan... that would not be a sensible route at all, again the evidence is on any map.
Absurd. The US backed the Afghans against the Soviets because they wanted to weaken the Soviets, not because they had strategic interests in Afghanistan. The US would have backed anyone who was fighting the Soviets. Surely you noted that once the Soviets were gone the US dropped Afghanistan like a hot potato, and showed no interest in it at all until AQ settled there. The only interest the US had in Afghanistan in that period was as a means to weaken the Soviets: the Soviet presence and its capacity to drain the Soviet regime were the only strategic interests.
Face it: the US doesn't want Afghanistan. Nobody wants Afghanistan. It's a monumental headache with no strategic or economic value whatsoever. All the rapturous conspiracy theorizing in the world can't make it anything other than that.
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