The New Energy Cold War: The Warsaw-Tehran Connection 32 comments
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
In this final look at the "New Energy Cold War," we examine what's ultimately at stake for Russia and the West.
“We have crossed the Rubicon.” - Donald Tusk, Polish Prime Minister
In Part I of this series, we looked at the South Ossetia conflict “through Russian eyes.” In Part II, you had plenty to say about the “Cuban missile crisis in reverse.”
Now, in Part III, we will look at the longer-term implications for oil and gas... and listen for the distant drumbeats of war.
A Deep Miscalculation
The attitude of the West -- all the more enforced by Western politicians and Western media -- is that “Russia needs to be shown who is boss.” The whole affair is seen as a sort of game... a chance for the West to thump its chest, trumpet its ideals and demonstrate moral superiority (in word if not in deed).
In reading the various Western op-eds, two assertions come to the fore over and over again. First, that “Russia is dangerous.” Second, that “Russia is weak.” (The WSJ even ran a recent piece titled, “Russia is dangerous but weak.”)
Both these assertions are true. The problem is, the pundits have the situation backwards. They recognize that Russia is dangerous, but they calculate that, because Russia is also “weak,” that lessens the danger somehow. The fact that Russia is weak, these pundits tell us, means that the West can “show them who’s boss” without much effort.
And, of course, politicians are happy to fan the flames. It’s the assumption that Russia is weak that allows John McCain to crow, “We are all Georgians” without really thinking about what he is saying.
It’s the assumption that Russia is vulnerable -- too disadvantaged, too reliant on oil and gas revenues to be a long-term threat -- that lets the West fancy itself a school teacher and Putin a bullying seventh-grader.
And perhaps most insultingly, it was the West’s fundamental inability to take Russia seriously that led to a Polish missile installation in the first place. (Remember the first excuse for wanting to put missiles in Poland? To protect Eastern Europe from Iran. That makes about as much sense as protecting Nebraska from North Korea. You don’t pass off an excuse like that with a straight face... not to someone you take seriously, anyway.)
This is foolhardy for one key reason. Yes, Russia is dangerous; and yes, Russia is weak. But Russia is all the more dangerous because it is weak.
Consider which is more dangerous: an animal fighting for sport, or a cornered animal fighting for its life. When survival is at stake, everything changes. When there is no option of backing down, the game turns deadly. For these reasons, a strong-but-weak opponent should be feared more than a conventional one, not less. Weakness tends to force one’s hand.
A Focus on Survival
An important thing to keep in mind is that Russian and Western leaders just don’t understand each other. This not a mild rift, but a chasm. Spengler of the Asia Times puts it best:
The fact is that all Russian politicians are clever. The stupid ones are all dead. By contrast, America in its complacency promotes dullards. A deadly miscommunication arises from this asymmetry. The Russians cannot believe that the Americans are as stupid as they look, and conclude that Washington wants to destroy them...
These perceptions are dangerous because they do not stem from propaganda, but from a difference in existential vantage point. Russia is fighting for its survival, against a catastrophic decline in population and the likelihood of a Muslim majority by mid-century. The Russian Federation's scarcest resource is people. It cannot ignore the 22 million Russians stranded outside its borders after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, nor, for that matter, small but loyal ethnicities such as the Ossetians. Strategic encirclement, in Russian eyes, prefigures the ethnic disintegration of Russia, which was a political and cultural entity, not an ethnic state, from its first origins.
When Russia acts out on its borders, the West sees a thuggish Putin beating his chest. Putin himself -- thug that he may be -- sees a country acting in its own best interests, for the purpose of long-term survival.
It’s a natural human tendency to assume that others see the world the same way we do. Here in the West, we have been successful for so long that it’s easy to take survival for granted. We are so far removed from long-term strategic issues that we rarely think about them... or condense them into sound bites when they do come up.
As a result of this, Russia’s long-term survival focus is a doubly foreign mindset to us. We just don’t spend much time thinking 10 or 20 years into the future (though perhaps we should). And we certainly don’t spend much time thinking about survival (though perhaps China’s rise will change that).
Counting the Costs
Now let’s look at the costs of all this, and figure out how energy (oil and gas) comes into play.
First, we know that this latest escalation will prove hugely expensive for the United States.
In response to Poland’s agreement to host 10 American interceptors, Russia declared Poland a viable candidate for nuclear attack. Ukraine and the Czech Republic have also rushed to ally themselves with the U.S., and thus increased their target profile.
Europe is not going to step up here (as if that were a surprise). The United States is going to have to pay for this added defense burden in Eastern Europe. If there is any hint of a move against Poland, Uncle Sam will have to respond... just as with Taiwan, and just as with Iraq.
In short, the financial cost of being policeman to the world is about to go up, big time -- at a time when the U.S. is more financially exposed and militarily stretched than ever.
Second, we know that big oil and gas producers like Russia and Iran need energy prices to stay high.
This is one of those areas where weakness creates added danger. If Russia and Iran had more robust economies, they wouldn’t be so long-term dependent on one income stream. As it stands, oil and gas revenues are critical to both countries.
This means that if energy prices fall too much, Russia and Iran (and Venezuela and a few others) will have strong incentive to respond. If that response is unpalatable to the West, so be it -- the cash flow is too important.
This is why Russia doesn’t seem to care too much about its reputation at moment. The West is horrified that Russia would be so cavalier in throwing off cooperation with NATO, jeopardizing WTO status, and so on. But none of that stuff really matters to Russia in light of the deeper issues at hand.
The Warsaw-Tehran Connection
So, to recap: We know that Russia is “dangerous but weak,” with the weakness enhancing the danger. We know that Russia is focused on long-term survival, with acute awareness of population issues. And we know that the U.S. is badly overstretched, both economically and militarily.
Last but not least, we know that oil-and-gas-fueled regimes (like Russia and Iran) need energy prices to stay high... and have both the will and the way to push them higher if need be.
In sum, this is a lousy time to start up a new cold war. But that’s what we’ve got, and that’s what the Warsaw-Tehran connection represents.
Russia will not stand for blatant aggression on its borders. If anything, Russia needs to expand those borders, or else face demographic oblivion. Being a brilliant survivor who clawed his way to the top of a brutal system, Vladimir Putin knows this. He is thinking about the long game.
Polish PM Donald Tusk was right. The missile defense deal is a true crossing of the Rubicon, because Russian survival (as perceived by Putin) and Western democratic ideals are now squarely at odds. What happened in Warsaw (the capital of Poland) is symbolic of an epic clash, just beginning to take hold, from which neither side will be able to back down.
Tehran (the capital of Iran) is a factor because Russia is not alone in needing high oil and gas prices to survive.
What’s more, while there is certainly no love lost between Russia and Iran -- “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” as the old saying goes -- Russia can make life extremely complicated for the West in all kinds of subtle ways.
Selling nuclear technology to Iran, or threatening to do so, would certainly count as one of those ways. Coordinating hostilities would be another. Can you imagine America’s response to high-alert sovereignty threats on, say, Ukraine and Iraq at the same time? (God forbid Taiwan got thrown into the mix also.)
No Way Out But Through
The situation has the feel of “irresistible force meets immovable object.”
Russia has the West over a barrel... a barrel of oil and gas. Meanwhile, the West can’t back down from its idealistic commitments, in spite of being tapped out on blood and treasure. And Russia can’t back down from its long-term expansionary plans, in light of the demographic survival threat.
The takeaway from all this is that oil and gas prices may continue to fall as the world flirts with slowdown... but they can’t fall too much, and can’t stay down for too long. The energy powers that be can’t afford it. And for the West, there is no way out of this mess. We’ll just have to play a very tough hand as best we can, financing a herculean array of defense commitments without much recourse.
The most frightening aspect of all this, as far as your humble editor is concerned, is the potential damage blowhard politicians can do. It’s not pleasant to think that, even now, very few Westerners recognize the scale or scope of what’s at stake here. Having been “on top” for so long, we’re just not used to genuine strategic challenges. If the wrong leader says or does the wrong thing in a bone-headed assumption that this is all just a parlor game, who knows where escalations could lead?
The positive aspect, though, is the technological one. As the West comes to realize the full cost of our oil and gas addiction, we will be motivated more than ever -- in perhaps the most urgent possible way -- to find real solutions.
Hard as it is to believe, we haven’t seen that sense of true urgency yet. You can already hear the sighs of relief as the price of a gallon of gas backs off. You can sense it in the political hopes that a little offshore drilling will make a meaningful difference. When we realize what’s really at stake -- when the West tastes fear again, for the first time in a long time -- that urgency will come.
Related Articles
|
Find People on SA
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largest
increase in followers
in the last 7 days-
1
David Fry
-
2
Philip Davis
-
3
Bill Gross
-
4
Tyler Durden
-
5
TraderMark
Fastest Climbers » -
1
-
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most activeSee all
Instabloggers.
Top Instabloggers » -
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
This article has 32 comments:
Many argue that Obama will have greater clout in Europe, but has shown no interest in using that prestige to get the Europeans to step up to defend themselves proactively.
After so much time and effort in building the "European Union", its surprising how quickly Europe is ready to define itself down, & let countries on the Eastern periphery fend for themselves.
This is quite serious - more serious than Iraq, in fact. Unfortunately neither Europeans nor Americans seem to agree on any of the lessons of the events leading to World War II. We are going to pay the price for the uncritical glorification of "multilateralism", as we eventually realize that Putin doesn't factor global disapproval (even if it existed) in to his plans.
A long range energy plan promoting natural gas, oil drilling, nuclear and solar power -- which would have an impact chronologically in the order I listed them -- would help America, Europe and the world resist the influence of the Russia - Iran - Venezuela axis. We seem to be moving very slowly in that direction. But quite frankly, as long as Western academics continue to ignore the need for reliable energy sources and a strong military alliance with Europe, we will become progressively more vulnerable.
Many argue that Obama will have greater clout in Europe, but has shown no interest in using that prestige to get the Europeans to step up to defend themselves proactively.
After so much time and effort in building the "European Union", its surprising how quickly Europe is ready to define itself down, & let countries on the Eastern periphery fend for themselves.
This is quite serious - more serious than Iraq, in fact. Unfortunately neither Europeans nor Americans seem to agree on any of the lessons of the events leading to World War II. We are going to pay the price for the uncritical glorification of "multilateralism", as we eventually realize that Putin doesn't factor global disapproval (even if it existed) in to his plans.
A long range energy plan promoting natural gas, oil drilling, nuclear and solar power -- which would have an impact chronologically in the order I listed them -- would help America, Europe and the world resist the influence of the Russia - Iran - Venezuela axis. We seem to be moving very slowly in that direction. But quite frankly, as long as Western academics continue to ignore the need for reliable energy sources and a strong military alliance with Europe, we will become progressively more vulnerable.
pachanguero - please reread stonebraker's response - think - then think some more.
Also, WAKE UP AMERICA!!! So said Representative Dennis Kucinich at the Democratic National Convention.
Also, GO TO:
www.stopoilspeculation.../
and sign the petition.
Then, WAKE UP AMERICA and email your Republican Senator and tell him/her to pass the GD Oil Speculation Bill.
Link below is from a Gwynne Dyer essay.
www.gwynnedyer.com/art...
Iran wants to wipe out Israel. There must be a misunderstanding here, lets talk to Iran. How much food and oil has been delivered to N. Korea? What do they want now? Lets have another committee....
Russia invades Georgia, obiviously committees are needed.
Serious electric hybrids and natural gas-powered vehicles are a start, and part of Biden's record as a senator is his proposal to help fund lithium battery development here in the US to keep Detroit competitive with the Asians. Meanwhile McCain runs and hides whenever a vote for alternative energy subsidies comes up--and he's from a state where solar power should be huge. Check their records and vote accordingly.
I don't know how many times economists have to work it out for people. You see prices going up and speculators making money and you are unable to conceive of any other relationship between the two other than that one must cause the other.
Speculators, in fact, serve a purpose. They take the risk of holding oil that producers do not want to take and that consumers cannot yet use. They allow producers to hedge their risk of changing oil prices.
Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Companies that produce oil do not want to be at the whim of geopolitics so they contract with speculators at market prices based upon what is currently known. If a giant new oil field is discovered tomorrow they are protected from the resulting oil price collapse while the speculator loses. If they did not have this protection then some of the smaller producers might go out of business in tough times, lowering the production of oil, and, wait for it, raising the price.
Ultimately, prices are going up because supply is more limited than consumers would like (and because we're inflating our money supply, but I digress). If you are accusing speculators of hoarding oil, I would ask you why the producers themselves don't hoard it if it's so easy to make money doing so.
Otherwise, I like reading about geopolitical strategies.
"Europe is the real mystery here. For a continent supposedly scarred by World War II, it seems oblivious to the Russian situation."
My answer, this is not a mystery to me. I am German and I saw it coming in my home country over many years. This is in my opinion the outflow of the fact that at least one generation of left wing journalists from the ‘68 generation all with glowing agendas got into in the leading editorial positions of most newspapers and media outlets. Slowly but surely they brainwashed a decent part of the population into believing that America is a larger threat that the former Soviet Union. Finally it was cool among young people to condemn the US for whatever they did or not did. It did not mean a darn thing that the US helped Germany develop a democracy and prosper in a big way after WWII.
There is an overlay of political opinion caused by the fact that West Germany integrated East Germany. The West as you may know supported the East from falling off the cliff. But the support generated among the recipients a sense of entitlement. And no matter what was offered it was largely perceived as being not enough. There was enough hardship left that the old ideals of a socialist society never died. Remnants of the SED, former socialist unity party of East Germany are still existing and they have numerous followers, that seek political power. Obviously the SED was an affiliate of the Soviet Union franchise. Germany of today is a halfway socialist country where the government has a larger stake in everybody’s life than in the US.
I see analogous developments in the US elite media, which worry me a lot. Being brainwashed is subtle and steady. It comes in small doses, does not hurt it goes often unnoticed until it is perceived common sense. My best recommendation to the Americans is to stay on the outlook and don’t let anybody take away your (and now my) freedoms.
It also comes down to education. Ferdinand's assasination and WW1? The US looks the other way long enough to ensure a bloodbath in Europe. Hitler's various field trips into other countries, the US looks the other way, another major bloodbath in Europe. WW11 ends, the Soviets create the USSR. We again look the other way. We were the only nation with the Atom Bomb. We look the other way again and millions die over decades.
We call ourselves Liberators and Saviors. But when push comes to shove, we only get involved when we have no other choice. This is History and was taught in the 50's and 60's. Today, History is considered to be a useless elective. Unfortunately, History has a tendency to repeat.
That being said, this democracy of ours is still evolving. An Economic Crisis is needed to "Awaken the Sleeping Giant". (Who said the quoted phrase?)
Hopefully, history will not repeat again.
Hopefully, America's once powerful Industrial Base will be restored.
Independence from Foreign Oil is a lofty goal. The ability to manufacture our own products should be just as important. We are just as dependant on Foreign Maufacturers as we are on Oil.
We wonder why Europeans don't embrace their "saviors". 10's of millions died that did not have to, they remember, we choose to remember what we
A few facts:
1.<<If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate.
A Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”
A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them. >>
source:
www.nytimes.com/2008/0...
2. <<Obama: Blackwater is Getting a Bad Rap
July 28, 2008 11:24 AM EDT (Updated: July 28, 2008 12:20 PM EDT)
views: 142 | rating: 10/10 (2 votes) | comments: 3
US News and World Reports has confirmed that Blackwater handled Obama’s security while in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama who has been a critic of the private security firm recently, was overheard as saying that Blackwater is getting a bad rap.
Sen. Barack Obama has not been a fan of private police like Blackwater in war zones, and some news outlets even reported that they were spurned for his trip last week to Afghanistan and Iraq. >>
Unlike Kennedy Obama is a coward - he chose Blackwater because of their reputation of providing the best security. Amazing how he suddenly he became a fan of Blackwater.
source :
www.gather.com/viewArt...
Second, if the Russians were protecting their citizens wouldn't an evacuation of said citizens been the proper response. It seems to me that destroying infrastructure and occupying cities outside of South Ossetia is pretty much overkill.
Third, if you think that Russians aren't above manipulating weaker nations you have never studied history. After shaking off the Tartar Yoke, Russian history is composed of subjugation of nations (Ukraine, Baltic States, Crimean Tartars, ect.), annexing parts of independent states (Poland four times, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine (after the revolution)), or simply invading and installing a government that will march in lock step with Moscow (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Moldova, ect).
I think that South Osettia was nothing more than a naked attempt at toppling the Georgian government. It did not succeed but caused plenty of misery.
Looking at the Georgian campaign, the states that have been brutalized by Russia in the past, can not help but run to the US as a guarantee to their physical security. None of them believe that Western Europeans will do much to help them. The events preceeding WW II have taught all of them about how hollow French and English assurances really are.
Losing to many brain cells I guess. But at least, these posts keep them active and help forestall memory loss.
Well, double standards RULED in international politics, like always.
Congratulations for your three-part article. As a Russian-Canadian and former Visiting Professor of one of American Schools of Diplomacy, I find your analysis somewhat simplistic, but it is WAY better than most professional analysts, journalists and politicians offered to the American and European public.
Few understood that Russia defended its own citizens in a break-away region from the haphazardly planned by Saakashvili ethnic cleansing, Croatia-style. You may not remember, but in the late nineties ethnic Serbs were ethnically cleansed from two break-away Krayina and Vucovar Serb-majority regions of Croatia by Croatian regular military which was armed and trained by the U.S.
Milosevic, who at that time still ruled Serbia, didn't respond. However, Putin clearly remembered the case, knew that the conflict with belligerent Georgia was coming and had a clear pretext to get involved given that a dozen of Russian peace-keepers were killed by Georgians. The simple indignation that the peaceful city of Tzhinvali was carpet-bombed like it was a military field (and from the horrendous losses they suffered during the WWII the Russians viscerally know what that is like), Russian public firmly stood by his side.
After so much bizarre analysis by the Western news media circuits, as American taxpayer I was grudgingly expecting our government to start wasting our money on Georgian re-building and on further alienating Russia. Well, today it happened, and a billion of my and your dollars will go to build new Georgian roads and military bases, despite the fact that New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina…
In the long run, the end of the 15-year South-Ossetia and Abkhazia stalemate and the unexpectedly easy Russian victory will prove to be the event that has fleshed up the realities of an emerging multi-polar world. It is up to our leaders to choose how much we will lose in pretending that Russia is intrinsically “bad” and that it needs to be “taught a lesson” of obeying our will...
I find it difficult to imagine that Russians will lose here. After all, this time they have all the strong cards, and we have mostly the misplaced disgust and pathetic indignation. But those are the usual feeling of losers.
Again, thanks for your article.