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328 comments on DrumBeat: August 8, 2008
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328 comments on DrumBeat: August 8, 2008
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Does anyone familiar with Russian geopolitics know if the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline fire in Turkey is connected in anyway to the recent invasion of Southern Osetia/Georgia?
It seems there are a couple of pipelines that might be at risk if this situation escalates.
I have no idea, but it doesn't sound good...
Russia sends forces into Georgian rebel conflict
Israel backs Georgia in Caspian Oil Pipeline Battle with Russia
I saw that, but Debka isn't exactly a reliable source. Haven't found any confirmation elsewhere.
Video footage of Russian Armour moving into position.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7548715.stm
I meant the part about Israel being behind it.
Oh yeah, so I see.
Naaah, surely shum mishtake. Israeli advisors winding up the Bear?
Nobody would be that daft ....
...surely
Now I geddit.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4484849.ece
Analysis: energy pipeline that supplies West threatened by war Georgia conflict
A section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline 30 miles south Tbilisi, Georgia, under construction in 2003
Robin Pagnamenta
The conflict that has erupted in the Caucasus has set alarm bells ringing because of Georgia's pivotal role in the global energy market.
Georgia has no significant oil or gas reserves of its own but it is a key transit point for oil from the Caspian and central Asia destined for Europe and the US.
Crucially, it is the only practical route from this increasingly important producer region that avoids both Russia and Iran.
The 1,770km (1,100 miles) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which entered service only last year, pumps up to 1 million barrels of oil per day from Baku in Azerbaijan to Yumurtalik, Turkey, where it is loaded on to supertankers for delivery to Europe and the US. Around 249km of the route passes through Georgia, with parts running only 55km from South Ossetia.
Expert view: Georgia's decision to shell Tskhinvali could prove 'reckless'
Definitely interesting timing for this conflict. This makes the Chinese Olympics a bit more political. Bush and Putin are there and this conflict is right in China's backyard. China does not want this to ruin their party, but everyone else is rolling out their political dirty laundry.
Ilagri has some good commentary on the conflict this morning:
Debt Rattle, August 8 2008: Game Day: Accounting, Olympics, Oil and War
You really should link to the individual post, not the front page. Tomorrow or next week, if someone tries to follow the link, it won't lead to the article you are quoting.
And you should have emailed that point to Dragonfly, instead of putting that reply here, so that s/he could still edit the post!
Anyone want to take bets that the US is involved because "the Decider" doesn't realize that there are actually TWO Georgias, and that this one isn't the one where Atlanta is located?
Given that Georgia wants NATO membership and access to the oil pipeline, there seems to be little reason for Georgia to start such a conflict. Given that Russia has been strong-arming resources for quite some time, dislikes the notion of NATO on their doorstep, and would like to lessen US influence, they seem to have several reasons to want such a conflict.
It seems to me that there is a very good chance that Russia actually started or intentionally provoked the current conflict, with a hoped-for result that not only will they disrupt some oil for Europe and strengthen their local neighborhood position but also blame it all on the US by proxy.
Why WOULD Georgia start this conflict?
Is this how WW III will get started? Two diminishing empires of the past - trying to divi up the spoil of war with all their chess pieces in place. We are in Iraq being bogged now in Russia's Iran while Russia will get bog down in Georgia with our Isreal?
Who think that this war won't push oil over $200/bbl? Don't underestimate the ego and foolishness of those in power.
It's too late to educate the American public on what the neocons have been trying to do to Russia. NATO expansion and the BTC pipeline were part of something Americans refuse to believe exist: a conspiracy to turn Russia into another subservient Mexico. We should never have championed NATO expansion; it was a self-fulfilling prophecy:
1. We must let every country bordering Russia into the "North Atlantic" Treaty Organization to defend it from Russian aggression.
2. Russia must prevent itself from being surrounded and sanctioned by US surrogates.
3. Russia attacks to install a friendly government to break the chain.
4. The case for NATO expansion is proved.
This was all forseeable, just as Bush Senior foresaw the failure of an occupation of Iraq. But we did it anyway. Now we're stuck; to reverse expansion because of Russian aggression is too great a loss of face. In truth, NATO has violated its own reason for existence and Europe should be freed to work out its defense in a democratic EU framework instead of following US orders into Afghanistan and God knows where else.
Interesting to see what position China takes. You could argue that China's stand on Taiwan more closely resembles that of Georgia on Ossetia and Abkhazia. If China sides with its SCO partner, look out.
But this must be dealt with in the next few days to restore the status quo. A humiliation of Russia will unleash the potential power of its people in ways we don't want to live with.
I don't see a humiliation of Russia happening. They have plenty of oil, money, tanks, jets, and nukes. Why should they back down?
Russia isn't a paper tiger and, for that matter, neither is China. This isn't Granada and this isn't the Caribean - IMHO, Nato should stay away from somebody else's back yard.
The next step in the neocons' master plan would be to destroy the Russian oil behemoth. Maybe they'll attempt to impose sanctions on Russia. That's why China's response matters. It can quickly absorb all the oil Russia has to sell, purchased with dollars the US cannot control. We'd have lost before we even started.
The neocon master plan was to set up bases in all the *stans thus encircling both Russia and China. Brilliant idea - until the big guys decide to do something about it.
Slight correction, the oil would be purchased with Euro's or Rubles the US cannot control.
China is no longer a sleeping giant. The opening ceremonies at Beijing today are designed to remove any doubts. What has emerged is very robust, alert, and energized player on the world stage.
I can't imagine any other world capital matching the magnificence and grandeur of these Olympics.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/2008_olympics_opening_ceremony....
The dragon is awake and breathing fire.
I think the bear is very aware of this. Suspect that is why it waited until the eagle had landed (in Beijing) to make its move.
The neocons would be wise to pay attention.
It's like the 20th Century never happened. It's like a broken record.
"When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn"
Just like Chechnya, the mountainous region of South Osetia is a very difficult battlefield. Russian troops can be bogged down in a bloody partisan warfare that could last years.
OTOH I strongly doubt that Russia is willing to take on an all out warfare with Georgia. It could turn into even bigger nightmare than Chechnya.
Hey, folks. War in South Ossetia is over. Russia has already driven Georgia out of South Ossetia, and is now regouping before going into Georgia to "punish those responsible".
Don't know why western media is being so inept and reprinting articles from hours ago.
Yep, The Grand Chessboard:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/zbig.html
---------------------------
"THE GRAND CHESSBOARD - American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives," Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, 1997.
--------------------------
I am not a military strategist, but if I were Putin and his Boyz, now would be the time to grab profitable control of the BTC pipeline, or to shut it down, then reroute the flow further North thru Russia and/or compliant client states.
My guess is the US is too weak to adequately respond, therefore the next move would be up to NATO. Do they have the 'nads to protect Georgia and the pipeline? I have no idea, just posting food for thought. IMO, high potential for this to get real ugly.
I bet long hours at the Pentagon, Kremlin, and the Euro capitals as they try and grapple with what to do for their next chess moves.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Bob, remember that "Zbigniew Brzezinski" is Obama's advisor.
More wars soon.
Where did you get this info from?
A "punishment attack" by Russia would be a very stupid move IMO. If they took over the province they can very well rest on their success and use Georgian aggression as a reason to claim its independence/succession to North Osetia. An escalation of the conflict would take away their legal and moral advantage.
Hello LevinK,
Agreed. No need yet for Russia to chessmove a powerful bishop or castle into a Georgian square when an irritating pawn will do just fine:
Russia just needs a low grade conflict to cause sufficient confusion so the pipeline operations can be disabled with regularity.
If Russia is heading into Peakoil decline, they then become highly incentivized to try and maximize their export profits. Periodically blowing up those non-Russian controlled pipelines can have a very, very high rate of return as posited by Jeff Vail and John Robb.
NATO has to decide whether a chessmove of a knight, bishop, or castle needs to go for the Russian pawn. Time will tell.
Russia does not need to blow that pipeline, just the ability to do so in case it needs/wants to. And it is not money from oil spikes they are after; it is political leverage, which in turn gives them better cards for access to markets, resources etc. This is what this game is about.
Good point. The fog of war sure makes it hard to tell what is going on now, and where it will end up. The most recent link I could find:
http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/28686
-----------------------------------------
August 9, 2008, 2:46
Fighting resumed in South Ossetia
....Another of Georgia's breakaway republic's, Abkhazia, says Georgia is building-up its military across the Abkhazian border. Earlier, the republic's president Sergey Bagapsh expressed his readiness to help South Ossetia.
------------------------------------------
Probably a good business move for Gazprom too. Yes? No?
cfm in Gray, ME
If this were a chess game, the reply could be to accept or decline the gambit. I think at this stage of the game the greater likelihood will be to make make a move somewhere else.
Note that this is still like the cold war, where battles are fought in proxy nations instead of on native soil. Another few countries can be left in ruins before any real conflicts would need to start.
Who suffers most if that pipeline were to be disabled?
This is the point where the war must be stopped. The Russians had to restore the status quo and no more. They are sorely tempted to remove Saakashvili's neocon outpost, but it would be a huge mistake to do it directly. It plays right into the neocon propaganda machine, one whose only goal is permanent war when the planet can barely even afford peace.
Se we'll probably blow it.
Bushco will certainly find a way to blow it. There are two possibilities: they ignore it, or they blow it.
I weep for my country.
I think that you're likely right about Russia not being willing to engage in all out warfare with Georgia or even move south of South Ossetia ... and that would be the key to whether it would effect Baku-Ceyhan. There is also the Western Route Export Pipeline, or Baku-Supsa Pipeline, which runs north of Tblisi and terminates in the Black Sea, operated by BP. Also oil is transported via rail both north and south of Tblisi. I think that rail lines just touch the border of South Ossetia ... not sure if Baku-Supsa runs through South Ossetia or within a couple of miles of the border. It was just restarted recently after an outage and it's throughput is around 145 kb/d. I believe that the South Ossetian conflict was given as the cause of the previous shut down by the head of the GIOC.
Some maps of the pipelines:
http://www.azerbaijan.az/_Economy/_OilStrategy/pipelines/btc.html
http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/ossetia.htm
Georgia isn't exactly The Duchy of Grand Fenwick, but the matchup is almost as lopsided, though a good bit less farcical.
I can't help but think that the Chinese would view the BTC as being unfavorable to their long-term interests. It does head west instead of east, and thus moves oil AWAY from China. Shutting it down would open up the possibility of other ways being found to move that oil - ways that would more likely be in China's direction.
Interesting that nobody has noticed yet that taking off from Georgia would make for a much shorter, easier, and more unexpected route into Iran for Israeli aircraft.
According to news reports, Cossacks are volunteering to go to South Ossetia and fight the enemies of Russia - their traditional role.
Lest anyone should think that this is a new development, I hasten to point out that the father of the last Shah of Iran, Reza Shah, came to power with the help of his own Cossack regiment. He was a Cossack and spoke Farsi (Persian) not very fluently. Naturally, British gold helped a lot. He was also the guardian of the British Embassy in Tehran before they (the British) made him Shah. I guess he was handy.
Here is a photo of a Cossack patrol near the Baku oil fields in 1905.
link
Baku was Iranian for an awfully long time. But that is another story!
Edited to replace the image with a link. That image is too large to post in a DrumBeat.
In the sense that it was part of the political entity known as Persia. Ethnically-speaking, Baku is Azeri--more than 90% so. (There are a lot of Azeris in Iran now, too ... and have been for an awfully long time.)
Absolutely right.
In fact, around 30% of the Iranian army is Azeri - especially the officer corps. It always has been so. Iran is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnical country. Different peoples have different skills and inclinations - the Azeri Turks like the military.
If you check out the Battle of Issus - when Alexander of Macedonia defeated Darius III in 333BC - around 1/3 of the Persian army was composed of Greek mercenaries. Tell that to almost any Greek and they will not believe you.
T-80's (I assume) with full reactive armor. I hope this is just for show....
Nope, just good'old T-72s with ERA tiles slapped on..
Looking through all the footage I'm counting 7x MBT, 6x AFV, 8x SPA and numerous support soft vehicles in the distance...
Russians don't just move 'a few tanks' over the border. That's a minimum of full mechanized division on the march there...
- Ransu, FDF-reserve
Although Forbes gave it a "Best of the Web" award
No confirmation in the Jerusalem Post yet but I did notice they helpfully identify the two carriers supposedly heading to the gulf to destroy Iran as USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ronald Reagan. Things are heating up.
While Wikipedia notes:
Israel, Georgia: Israel To Halt Arms Sales To Georgia
August 5, 2008 | 1419 GMT
Israel plans to halt military equipment sales to Georgia because of objections from Russia, Haaretz reported Aug. 5, citing unnamed Israeli defense officials. The concession is meant to give Israel leverage as it tries to persuade Russia not to ship arms and military equipment to Iran, the officials said. Israel has been selling unmanned drone aircrafts and other items to Georgia, Georgian military experts said. Israel’s Foreign Ministry has declined to comment on the situation."
http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/121047
How convenient.
Also how convenient.
The Olympics start today.
And I still can't figure out how Israel is going to get oil/gas
from Turkey via pipeline.
Maybe this is one of those 3D chessboards like they had on Star Trek?
;}
Yeah, good thing oil prices have peaked and are heading downward on a long-term basis.
/sarcanol
For what it's worth Debka is now reporting
[Link to front page as individual article link currently points to older article]
Finnish TV reports: Russian president is saying at least 10 of their "peacekeeper" soldiers have been killed, numerous civilians with Russian passports slaughtered and claims that "ethnic cleansing" is going on in some South Ossetian villages.
When the president of Russia makes statements like that, you know he means business. They have explained to the Russian people that an evil enemy is killing innocent Russians and an appropriate retaliation will be taken. Basically all bets are off. If they treat Georgian the way they treated Chechnya...
I'm no military analyst but I've been to enough war games in my reservist years that I know Russians don't just move 'a few tanks' over the border. That footage seen on BBC is a minimum of mechanized division moving over. And Russian use of air forces won't be a few planes bombing the Georgian military base either... When you anger the bear it will basically put its foot down with so much force and firepower that the Georgians will be stopped in a matter of days, if not already. Let us just hope international diplomacy can work out a ceasefire before we see bombing of T'bilisi...
I listened to our US MSM as well as BBC Radio this morning. I have no idea what's going on. The MSM reported a few things that didn't agree with what BBC radio reported.
Again, I have no idea what's going on.
Americans are like the NFL referee who only sees the retaliation, not the cheap shot that brought it on. The pro-war media swings its camera around just in time to provoke us without any historical background.
Bloomberg have the Georgian presidents version of events on video:
http://www.bloomberg.com/
Here's an 11:33 A.M. (Eastern) WSJ headline, from their website:
Russian Conflict Escalates
Well, I guess if two Israeli soldiers are worth destroying a country over...
And while things in Georgia are spinning out of control:
http://europebusines.blogspot.com/2008/08/massive-us-naval-armada-heads-...
If I were a drinker, I'd be off to the bar.
I'll have one for you. I think now is the time to go long oil, I'm going to buy some DBO on Monday, if the world is still standing.
"I think now is the time to go long oil, I'm going to buy some DBO on Monday, if the world is still standing."
Go for it Consumer.
Like the Russians you will make a KILLING! Yahoooooooo!
I guess it is a pretty sad commentary that my first thought was about the people in the way of the bombing, but it only took me a few minutes to think of - how does this affect me directly, and what can I do about it.
I'm trying to reform, but it's hard not to think about how to protect yourself. Some people do it by ELP, some think of what financial instruments to buy, etc. I'm still going to go out tonight, and I will have a couple of beers. Maybe I shouldn't, but what exactly am I supposed to do?
If the US starts a war with Iran, I would like to survive the financial collapse that follows intact, and buying oil is the best way I can think of to do this. Just because I said it, doesn't mean everyone else wasn't thinking it.
Hello DavebyGolly,
Thxs for the link. We had the dotcom bubble, then the real estate bubble. Makes one wonder if WWIII bubble has started, eh?
Unfortunately, this is only profitable for a very few for just a limited time, but highly costly for billions. :(
Maximum Power Principle [MPP] can be a real bitch for those on the losing side of a transaction.
America and Russia just couldn't leave China to have it's own pyrotechnic display and day in the sun.
davebygolly, what bar is closest to you? Time to start drinking strong ones. And smoke 'em if you got 'em.
If you were close enough, I'd join you. Even buy you a few rounds. A foggy brain makes more sense than what's happening now.
It's a mad, mad world!!
Cheers!
No time to start like today.
The Reagan, the Roosevelt, the Iwo Jima and the Ark Royal at the same time? Man, if they're not rotating anything out, they mean it this time.
This may be the closest we've come to a complicated, multi-state crisis since 1914. If the worst happens, a lot of countries will be dragged in very quickly. I'm still putting the odds of war at under 50% because I don't see how the US can take on this much trouble all at once.
I don't see how the US can take on this much trouble all at once.
Fission and fusion weapons.
Agreed, Eric.
Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told (January 2008)
The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy (March 2006)
They've been planning this for more than a few years.
And thanks to you, too, GreyZone. I think you have just answered a question I tossed out on August 7th's blog: how would it be in anyone's interest to start firing missiles around the Straits of Hormuz?
It's all about maintaining primacy.
I guess, for western strategists, it's now or never.
Wonder if the uniforms in NATO who came up with this wonderful world view are cut from the same cloth as the neocons? -- armchair warriors, no experience needed.
Credentials, please? Oh, you enjoy playing RISK? Come in, my man. Do we have a job for you!