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23 comments on Siberian Nights: The East Siberia-Pacific Ocean Oil Pipeline

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3 Stacked Midgets on February 27, 2007 - 2:10pm

The threat of cutting off supplies is sufficient to enforce compliance, much like the threat of MAD keeps the world secure from nuclear armegeddon.

Proxy wars between the US and Russia are quite likely, however. You could say that it already happened last Summer in Lebanon.

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memmel on February 27, 2007 - 2:27pm

Except that with oil you have the simple problem that the routes of supply can be attacked thus if you threaten to cut off oil to me I'll blow up your pipeline and nobody gets oil.

I don't think that strategic oil games are the same is MAD although a resurgence of MAD to prevent all out war is obvious since most of the players have nuclear weapons.

MAD would actually encourage regional war in my opinion over oil.

I just cannot see everyone being Russia's whipping boy over oil. Also Russian exports are declining now so they are dealing with a smaller carrot every year.

Back to pipelines. They are such a easy target for attack disruption and this can readily be hidden as either a real insurgent attack or fake one that I think this will be used to punish Russia if the go to far. Thus covert disruption is trivial.

I don't agree with equating MAD with oil supplies.
It simply to easy as you mentioned to use proxies and covert operations to disrupt supplies for everyone on the threat of
cut offs for one.

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3 Stacked Midgets on February 27, 2007 - 2:42pm

Why would Europeans or Asians want to risk destroying their relationship with the world's most stable major energy supplier? While the Saudis, the Iranians and the Iraqis are all vulnerable to being invaded or thrown into chaos by insurgents, Russia is a first-world nation with a secure government.

Instead of seeking confrontation, the Europeans are trying to limit their economy's reliance on energy by persuing policies directed towards efficiency.

The BTC pipeline and others like it are designed to keep Russia from gaining too much influence in Europe.

If both the American-aligned pipes and the Russian-aligned pipes are being sabotaged, nobody gets any energy. I think that it's likely that producer and transit nations will develop insurgencies that will put pressure on the pipelines - but it would be counter-productive for the Euros to do it.

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memmel on February 27, 2007 - 5:21pm

First off at some point the gloves will come off so to speak.
Once it becomes a matter of survival I cannot see either Japan or Europe not moving to a more militant footing. Democracies can swing quickly if their "way of life" is threatened. Yes both are less stupid than America if that makes sense but don't underestimate how quickly things can change.

In a previous post I related a chain of events that could result in martial law being declared in America. It was Mexico going unstable plus economic depression plus peak oil. Not since the last great depression has even the possibility of martial law been worth considering.

If anything resource wars will cause previously pacifist nations to change quickly. Japan has already moved to a more militant stance to counter China.

The only way I could see this not deteriorating into increasingly violent resource wars is for regions to undertake and aggressive policy to move away from oil.

I still cannot see how Russia playing oil as a strategic resource will not result in war.

Understand that the threat for oil as a strategic resource is denial.

For Russia its denial of oil to one of the consumer nations.
For anyone of the consumer nations its destruction of the oil delivery method and in essence denial for all.
Either Russia follows fair market practices and sells for the most part to the highest bidder or their will be war.

This of course means that it may become pretty important for the creation of treaties to handle power down.

Given the fact that peak oil is not even recognized right now the chances of a enlightened approach is low.

I see war according to Sun Tzu's Art of War

http://www.sonshi.com/sun2.html

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