EU report: Georgian attack started war with Russia

The result of the EU investigation is not surprising. What disturbs me is that Georgia connects with NATO and then starts a war with Russia, a war they can't possibly win. What kind of ally can they be? Clearly they were expecting a rescue from NATO. I hope they were appropriately disappointed, enough so they don't do that again.

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Georgia's attack on its breakaway South Ossetia region marked the start of last year's war with Russia, which retaliated with excessive force, an EU-commissioned report said Wednesday.

The report on the five-day war in August 2008 lay blame on both sides, but cited Georgia as starting the conflict with its night shelling in South Ossetia - an act it said was not justifiable under international law.

The EU report went on to blame Russia for conducting a military campaign deep inside Georgia. "All this cannot be regarded as even remotely commensurate with the threat to Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia," the report said.

Russia's retaliation went "far beyond the reasonable limits of defense," it said, criticizing the devastating Russian assault on a tiny neighbor that in recent years has moved closer into the West with hopes of joining NATO.

In a first reaction, both sides said the report vindicated them. The Russian Foreign Ministry said "the core conclusion of the report is that the current leadership of Georgia unleashed the aggression."

via EU report: Georgian attack started war with Russia - World News | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news.

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Healthy examples: Plenty of countries get healthcare right

- The Boston Globe

That was Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, speaking last month about healthcare reform. But it could have been virtually any other Republican, not to mention any number of sympathetic interest groups, because that's the party line for many who oppose healthcare reform. If President Obama and his supporters get their way, this argument goes, healthcare in America will start to look like healthcare overseas. Yes, maybe everybody will have insurance. But people will have to wait in long lines. And when they are done waiting in line, the care won't be very good.
Typically the people making these arguments are basing their analysis on one of two countries, Canada and England, where such descriptions hold at least some truth. Although the people in both countries receive pretty good healthcare - their citizens do better than Americans in many important respects - they are also subjected to longer waits for specialty care and tighter limits on some advanced treatments.
But no serious politician is talking about recreating either the British or the Canadian system here. The British have truly "socialized medicine," in which the government directly employs most doctors. The Canadians have one of the world's most centralized "single-payer" systems, in which the government insures everybody directly and private insurance has virtually no role. A better understanding for how universal healthcare might work in America would come from other countries - countries whose insurance architecture and medical cultures more closely resemble the framework we'd likely create here.
Last year, I had the opportunity to spend time researching two of these countries: France and the Netherlands. Neither country gets the attention that Canada and England do. That might be because English isn't their language. Or it might be because they don't fit the negative stereotypes of life in countries where government is more directly involved in medical care.
Over the course of a month, I spoke to just about everybody I could find who might know something about these healthcare systems: Elected officials, industry leaders, scholars - plus, of course, doctors and patients. And sure enough, I heard some complaints. Dutch doctors, for example, thought they had too much paperwork. French public health experts thought patients with chronic disease weren't getting the kind of sustained, coordinated medical care that they needed.
But in the course of a few dozen lengthy interviews, not once did I encounter an interview subject who wanted to trade places with an American. And it was easy enough to see why. People in these countries were getting precisely what most Americans say they want: Timely, quality care. Physicians felt free to practice medicine the way they wanted; companies got to concentrate on their lines of business, rather than develop expertise in managing health benefits. But, in contrast with the US, everybody had insurance. The papers weren't filled with stories of people going bankrupt or skipping medical care because they couldn't afford to pay their bills. And they did all this while paying substantially less, overall, than we do.
The Dutch and the French organize their healthcare differently. In the Netherlands, people buy health insurance from competing private carriers; in France, people get basic insurance from nonprofit sickness funds that effectively operate as extensions of the state, then have the option to purchase supplemental insurance on their own. (It's as if everybody is enrolled in Medicare.) But in both countries virtually all people have insurance that covers virtually all legitimate medical services. In both countries, the government is heavily involved in regulating prices and setting national budgets. And, in both countries, people pay for health insurance through a combination of private payments and what are, by American standards, substantial taxes.
You could be forgiven for assuming, as Kyl and his allies suggest, that so much government control leads to Soviet-style rationing, with people waiting in long lines and clawing their way through mind-numbing bureaucracies every time they have a sore throat. But, in general, both the Dutch and French appear to have easy access to basic medical care - easier access, in fact, than is the American norm.
In both the Netherlands and France, most people have long-standing relationships with their primary care doctors. And when they need to see these doctors, they do so without delay or hassle. In a 2008 survey of adults with chronic disease conducted by the Commonwealth Fund - a foundation which financed my own research abroad - 60 percent of Dutch patients and 42 percent of French patients could get same-day appointments. The figure in the US was just 26 percent.
The contrast with after-hours care is even more striking. If you live in either Amsterdam or Paris, and get sick after your family physician has gone home, a phone call will typically get you an immediate medical consultation - or even, if necessary, a house call. And if you need the sort of attention available only at a formal medical facility, you can get that, too - without the long waits typical in US emergency rooms.
This is particularly true in the Netherlands, thanks to a nationwide network of urgent care centers the government and medical societies have put in place. Not only do these centers provide easily accessible care for people who use them; they leave hospital emergency rooms free to concentrate on the truly serious cases. Tellingly, a Dutch physician I met complained to me that waiting times in her emergency room had been getting "too long" lately. "Too long," she went on to tell me, meant two or three hours. When I told her about documented cases of people waiting a day, or even days, for treatment in some American emergency rooms, she thought I was joking. (In a 2007 Commonwealth Fund survey, just 9 percent of Dutch patients reported waiting more than two hours for care in an ER, compared to 31 percent of Americans.)
Dutch and French patients do wait longer than Americans for specialty care; around a quarter of respondents to the Commonwealth Fund survey reported waiting more than two months to see a specialist, compared to virtually no Americans. But Dutch and French patients were far less likely to avoid seeing a specialist altogether - or forgoing other sorts of medical care - because they couldn't afford it. And there's precious little evidence that the waits for specialty care led to less effective care.
On the contrary, the data suggests that while American healthcare is particularly good at treating some diseases, it's not as good at treating others. (In some studies, the US did pretty well on cardiovascular care, not so well on diabetes, for example.) Overall, the US actually fares poorly on measures like "potential years of lives lost" - statistics compiled by specialists in an effort to measure how well healthcare systems perform. In a 2003 ranking of 20 advanced countries, the US finished 16th when it came to "mortality amenable to healthcare," another statistic that strives to capture the impact of a health system. The Dutch were 11th and the French were fifth. These statistics are necessarily crude; diet, culture, and many other factors inevitably affect the results. But, taken together, they make it awfully hard to argue that care in these countries is somehow inferior. If anything, the opposite would seem to be true.
Critics of health reform frequently point to cancer as proof that American healthcare really is superior. And, it's true, the US has, overall, the world's highest five-year survival rate for cancer. But that's partly a product of the unparalleled amount of government-funded research in the US - something healthcare reform would not diminish. Besides, it's not as if the gap is as large or meaningful as reform critics frequently suggest. France (like a few other European countries) has survival rates that are generally close and, for some cancers, higher. Much of the remaining difference reflects differences in treatment patterns that have nothing to do with insurance arrangements and everything to do with idiosyncratic medical cultures. This is particularly true of prostate cancer, where a staggeringly high survival rate in the US seems to be largely a product of aggressive US treatment - treatment that physicians in other countries, and increasingly many specialists here, consider unnecessary and sometimes harmful.
None of this is to say that either the Dutch or French systems are perfect. Far from it. In both countries, healthcare costs are rising faster than either the public - or the country's business interests - would like. And each country has undertaken reforms in an effort to address these problems. The French have started to introduce some of the managed care techniques familiar to Americans, like charging patients extra if they see specialists without a referral, while developing more evidence-based treatment guidelines in the hope that it will reduce the use of unnecessary but expensive treatments. The Dutch overhauled their insurance arrangements a few years ago, to introduce more market competition and reward healthcare providers - that is, doctors and hospitals - who get good results.
But cost is the one area in which France and the Netherlands are a lot like Canada and England: They all devote significantly less of their economy to healthcare than we do. The French spend around 11 percent of their gross domestic product on healthcare, the Dutch around 10. In the US, we spend around 16 percent. And, unlike in the US, the burden for paying this is distributed across society - to both individuals and businesses - in an even, predictable way.
Of course, reforming health insurance in the US isn't going to turn this country into France or the Netherlands overnight, any more than it would turn the US into Britain and Canada. The truth is that the changes now under consideration in Washington are relatively modest, by international standards. But insofar as countries abroad give us an idea of what could happen, eventually, if we change our health insurance arrangements, the experience of people in Amsterdam and Paris surely matters as much as - if not more than - those in Montreal and London. In those countries, government intervention has created a health system in which people seem to have the best of all worlds: convenience, quality, and affordability. There's no reason to think the same thing couldn't happen here.
Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor of The New Republic, where he writes a blog called "The Treatment." He is also the author of "Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis - and the People Who Pay the Price (HarperCollins, 2007).
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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Healthy examples: Plenty of countries get healthcare right - The Boston Globe

Plenty of countries get healthcare right.

"I DON'T WANT America to begin rationing care to their citizens in the way these other countries do."
That was Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, speaking last month about healthcare reform. But it could have been virtually any other Republican, not to mention any number of sympathetic interest groups, because that's the party line for many who oppose healthcare reform. If President Obama and his supporters get their way, this argument goes, healthcare in America will start to look like healthcare overseas. Yes, maybe everybody will have insurance. But people will have to wait in long lines. And when they are done waiting in line, the care won't be very good.
Typically the people making these arguments are basing their analysis on one of two countries, Canada and England, where such descriptions hold at least some truth. Although the people in both countries receive pretty good healthcare - their citizens do better than Americans in many important respects - they are also subjected to longer waits for specialty care and tighter limits on some advanced treatments.
But no serious politician is talking about recreating either the British or the Canadian system here. The British have truly "socialized medicine," in which the government directly employs most doctors. The Canadians have one of the world's most centralized "single-payer" systems, in which the government insures everybody directly and private insurance has virtually no role. A better understanding for how universal healthcare might work in America would come from other countries - countries whose insurance architecture and medical cultures more closely resemble the framework we'd likely create here.
Last year, I had the opportunity to spend time researching two of these countries: France and the Netherlands. Neither country gets the attention that Canada and England do. That might be because English isn't their language. Or it might be because they don't fit the negative stereotypes of life in countries where government is more directly involved in medical care.
Over the course of a month, I spoke to just about everybody I could find who might know something about these healthcare systems: Elected officials, industry leaders, scholars - plus, of course, doctors and patients. And sure enough, I heard some complaints. Dutch doctors, for example, thought they had too much paperwork. French public health experts thought patients with chronic disease weren't getting the kind of sustained, coordinated medical care that they needed.
But in the course of a few dozen lengthy interviews, not once did I encounter an interview subject who wanted to trade places with an American. And it was easy enough to see why. People in these countries were getting precisely what most Americans say they want: Timely, quality care. Physicians felt free to practice medicine the way they wanted; companies got to concentrate on their lines of business, rather than develop expertise in managing health benefits. But, in contrast with the US, everybody had insurance. The papers weren't filled with stories of people going bankrupt or skipping medical care because they couldn't afford to pay their bills. And they did all this while paying substantially less, overall, than we do.
The Dutch and the French organize their healthcare differently. In the Netherlands, people buy health insurance from competing private carriers; in France, people get basic insurance from nonprofit sickness funds that effectively operate as extensions of the state, then have the option to purchase supplemental insurance on their own. (It's as if everybody is enrolled in Medicare.) But in both countries virtually all people have insurance that covers virtually all legitimate medical services. In both countries, the government is heavily involved in regulating prices and setting national budgets. And, in both countries, people pay for health insurance through a combination of private payments and what are, by American standards, substantial taxes.
You could be forgiven for assuming, as Kyl and his allies suggest, that so much government control leads to Soviet-style rationing, with people waiting in long lines and clawing their way through mind-numbing bureaucracies every time they have a sore throat. But, in general, both the Dutch and French appear to have easy access to basic medical care - easier access, in fact, than is the American norm.
In both the Netherlands and France, most people have long-standing relationships with their primary care doctors. And when they need to see these doctors, they do so without delay or hassle. In a 2008 survey of adults with chronic disease conducted by the Commonwealth Fund - a foundation which financed my own research abroad - 60 percent of Dutch patients and 42 percent of French patients could get same-day appointments. The figure in the US was just 26 percent.
The contrast with after-hours care is even more striking. If you live in either Amsterdam or Paris, and get sick after your family physician has gone home, a phone call will typically get you an immediate medical consultation - or even, if necessary, a house call. And if you need the sort of attention available only at a formal medical facility, you can get that, too - without the long waits typical in US emergency rooms.
This is particularly true in the Netherlands, thanks to a nationwide network of urgent care centers the government and medical societies have put in place. Not only do these centers provide easily accessible care for people who use them; they leave hospital emergency rooms free to concentrate on the truly serious cases. Tellingly, a Dutch physician I met complained to me that waiting times in her emergency room had been getting "too long" lately. "Too long," she went on to tell me, meant two or three hours. When I told her about documented cases of people waiting a day, or even days, for treatment in some American emergency rooms, she thought I was joking. (In a 2007 Commonwealth Fund survey, just 9 percent of Dutch patients reported waiting more than two hours for care in an ER, compared to 31 percent of Americans.)
Dutch and French patients do wait longer than Americans for specialty care; around a quarter of respondents to the Commonwealth Fund survey reported waiting more than two months to see a specialist, compared to virtually no Americans. But Dutch and French patients were far less likely to avoid seeing a specialist altogether - or forgoing other sorts of medical care - because they couldn't afford it. And there's precious little evidence that the waits for specialty care led to less effective care.
On the contrary, the data suggests that while American healthcare is particularly good at treating some diseases, it's not as good at treating others. (In some studies, the US did pretty well on cardiovascular care, not so well on diabetes, for example.) Overall, the US actually fares poorly on measures like "potential years of lives lost" - statistics compiled by specialists in an effort to measure how well healthcare systems perform. In a 2003 ranking of 20 advanced countries, the US finished 16th when it came to "mortality amenable to healthcare," another statistic that strives to capture the impact of a health system. The Dutch were 11th and the French were fifth. These statistics are necessarily crude; diet, culture, and many other factors inevitably affect the results. But, taken together, they make it awfully hard to argue that care in these countries is somehow inferior. If anything, the opposite would seem to be true.
Critics of health reform frequently point to cancer as proof that American healthcare really is superior. And, it's true, the US has, overall, the world's highest five-year survival rate for cancer. But that's partly a product of the unparalleled amount of government-funded research in the US - something healthcare reform would not diminish. Besides, it's not as if the gap is as large or meaningful as reform critics frequently suggest. France (like a few other European countries) has survival rates that are generally close and, for some cancers, higher. Much of the remaining difference reflects differences in treatment patterns that have nothing to do with insurance arrangements and everything to do with idiosyncratic medical cultures. This is particularly true of prostate cancer, where a staggeringly high survival rate in the US seems to be largely a product of aggressive US treatment - treatment that physicians in other countries, and increasingly many specialists here, consider unnecessary and sometimes harmful.
None of this is to say that either the Dutch or French systems are perfect. Far from it. In both countries, healthcare costs are rising faster than either the public - or the country's business interests - would like. And each country has undertaken reforms in an effort to address these problems. The French have started to introduce some of the managed care techniques familiar to Americans, like charging patients extra if they see specialists without a referral, while developing more evidence-based treatment guidelines in the hope that it will reduce the use of unnecessary but expensive treatments. The Dutch overhauled their insurance arrangements a few years ago, to introduce more market competition and reward healthcare providers - that is, doctors and hospitals - who get good results.
But cost is the one area in which France and the Netherlands are a lot like Canada and England: They all devote significantly less of their economy to healthcare than we do. The French spend around 11 percent of their gross domestic product on healthcare, the Dutch around 10. In the US, we spend around 16 percent. And, unlike in the US, the burden for paying this is distributed across society - to both individuals and businesses - in an even, predictable way.
Of course, reforming health insurance in the US isn't going to turn this country into France or the Netherlands overnight, any more than it would turn the US into Britain and Canada. The truth is that the changes now under consideration in Washington are relatively modest, by international standards. But insofar as countries abroad give us an idea of what could happen, eventually, if we change our health insurance arrangements, the experience of people in Amsterdam and Paris surely matters as much as - if not more than - those in Montreal and London. In those countries, government intervention has created a health system in which people seem to have the best of all worlds: convenience, quality, and affordability. There's no reason to think the same thing couldn't happen here.
Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor of The New Republic, where he writes a blog called "The Treatment." He is also the author of "Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis - and the People Who Pay the Price (HarperCollins, 2007).
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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Armitage: "They Tortured" "Maybe I should Have Resigned"

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Informed Comment

Armitage admits:
1. He and his boss Colin Powell lost a major battle within the Bush administration on whether the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war applied to guerrillas captured during the "war on terror."
2. That the Bush administration engaged in torture in the form of waterboarding, though he denied that he had sure knowledge of this practice at the time he was in office
3. That he probably should have resigned, but hung on for fear of how bad policy could get if he and others were not there to fight the battles
4. He says that the US Senate should have known about the torture, calls them "AWOL," and implies that there will be no investigation of Bush crimes against humanity because such a process would implicate the senators themselves, as at the very least having been derelict in their duty to advise and consent. (I wonder if he is also implying that some Democratic senators knew about the waterboarding and remained silent, so that they will not now launch a prosecution?)
A Spanish judge is considering an indictment of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and several other Bush administration officials for having sanctioned torture at Guantanamo Bay. In breaking news Thursday morning, it was announced in Spain that the government prosecutor has advised the judge to drop the case; apparently he still has the discretion to continue.
The others who would likely be indicted if the case went forward, according to Scott Horton, are "Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith."
Armitage's revelation that he and his boss "lost" a battle to preserve a commitment to the Geneva Conventions in Washington in this period seems likely to me to become part of the Spanish prosecution.
Japanese officers were tried for war crimes after World War II by the United States for having engaged in waterboarding.
It has been suggested that the six implicated Bush administration officials would, in case of formal indictmen, no longer be able safely travel to Europe, because judges claiming universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity might well order their arrest, as happened to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

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Russia plans to create Arctic military force

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Tri-City Herald

Russia plans to create a new military force to protect its interests in the disputed Arctic region, a Kremlin strategy paper says.
The document outlines Russia's policy for the Arctic, which is believed to contain as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. The paper was signed by President Dmitry Medvedev in September and released by presidential Security Council, but only reported by Russian media on Friday.
Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway have been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic.
The dispute has intensified amid growing evidence that global warming is shrinking polar ice, opening up new shipping lanes and allowing natural resources to be tapped.
The Kremlin paper says the Arctic must become Russia's "top strategic resource base" by the year 2020.
It calls for strengthening border guard forces in the region and updating their equipment, while creating a new group of military forces to "ensure military security under various military-political circumstances."
By 2011, it says, Russia must complete geological studies to prove its claim to Arctic resources and win international recognition of its Arctic borders. The paper has been posted on the Security Council's Web site.
Moscow first submitted its claim in 2001 to the United Nations, but was rejected for lack of evidence. Russia now hopes to prove that an underwater mountain range crossing the polar region is part of Russia's continental shelf.
In 2007 two Russian civilian mini-submarines descended to the Arctic seabed to collect geological and water samples and drop a titanium canister containing the Russian flag. More such missions have been planned, officials have said.
Polar scientist Artur Chilingarov, who took part in the 2007 submarine mission, praised the new strategy paper.
"The creation of Arctic forces reflects a normal desire to protect our territory," Chilingarov was quoted as saying by the business daily Kommersant.
Earlier this week, a deputy chief of staff of the Russian Navy also said submarines from Russia's Northern Fleet could be involved in efforts to claim and protect Arctic resources.
Russian diplomats have voiced concern in recent days about a military exercise in Norway.
"The increased NATO activities in the Arctic could erode constructive cooperation between littoral nations," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Thursday.

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New Al Qaeda Cell A Growing Threat To U.S., Officials Warn N. African-Based Militants Can Blend In Without Raising Suspicions In Europe, U.S.

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CBS News

The new faces of terror are militants inside an emerging Al Qaeda cell, which U.S. officials warn presents a clear and growing threat to America.
Based in North Africa, the group calling itself "Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" specializes in kidnappings and suicide attacks, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.
A car bombing last September of an Algerian military barracks killed 28 people. But, follow-up bombings of a United Nations building and a diplomatic office signaled that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has bigger plans.
"They have devoted an enormous amount of their energy and their resources to try to build this up as a base to try to carry out attacks, not just in North Africa, but ultimately into West Europe and someday against North America," says Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institute.
Riedel, a former CIA official, says a propaganda video - just posted on a jihad website - shows a sophisticated attack capability.
But, the most lethal aspect of AQIM - and its real value for Osama bin Laden's terror network - goes beyond firepower.
Says Ambassador Dell Dailey, a U.S. Department of State Counterterrorism official: "Leaders of Al Qaeda and its affiliates are extremely interested in recruiting terrorists from and deploying terrorists to Europe, people familiar with our Western cultures that can travel freely."
And that's exactly who's being drawn to the AQIM training camps - people who can easily blend in without raising suspicions in Europe or the U.S.
"Some of those people are second, third generation and they now have French, Belgian or Spanish passports and a French, Belgian or Spanish passport is exactly what Al Qaeda is looking for because that's their mechanism to get into the United States," Riedel says.
U.S. officials have long worried about British radicals using U.K. passports to bring terror to America. But, now the North African branch of Al Qaeda presents a second pipeline - a doubled threat to the homeland.

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EU official warns of 'slave-like' labor market

You can bet, slave labor is happening all over the west including in the US.
Tri-City Herald

Europe has a hidden labor market in which migrants and even children are working in "slave-like" situations, a European Union official said Tuesday.
Morten Kjaerum, director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, warned that the current global economic crisis could push more people into this underground economy and expose them to severe exploitation.
Kjaerum said there is a growing illicit market in Europe "where migrant workers and children are working in what you could say (are) slave-like situations."
Kjaerum, in an interview with The Associated Press, said the problem persists throughout Europe and involves both undocumented foreign nationals and EU citizens.
"The whole issue of ... the "slave-like" labor market is something we have to address again more forcefully," he said.
While the market's magnitude was "very difficult" to assess, such low-end jobs can be found in the sex and farming industries, among others, Kjaerum said. Sometimes, domestic workers also fall into this category.
Reports suggesting the existence of an underground economy within the EU are not uncommon. In late 2006, for example, Polish police said they had arrested the alleged ringleader of a human trafficking network that had shipped hundreds of Poles to what authorities described as virtual slave labor in Italian fruit plantations since 2000.
Sometimes, Kjaerum said, workers in the illicit market even face death.
"We have seen cases in member states where, most likely, these people were shot, killed afterwards just to get rid of them - so it is a real issue," Kjaerum said. He declined to provide more details.
The Vienna-based agency is slated to release a report on child trafficking early next year. According to Kjaerum, very preliminary findings show that the problem is "very much an issue" to which EU nations and institutions need to pay more attention.
Each year, "hundreds, if not thousands" of children come to Europe and simply disappear within days or weeks, he said.
"Some of them we never hear about, others present themselves at the borders as asylum seekers or in other ways and are being transferred to asylum camps or other care centers and then simply disappear."
Kjaerum said it was "most likely" that many of the children either disappear into the sex market, become domestic workers or laborers in industries such as farming.
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights was established last year and is meant to advise the EU and its member states as they implement EU laws to ensure that fundamental human rights are observed.

The great game of hunting pirates

Asia Times Online

Sea piracy off the coast of Somalia is looming large on the radar of world opinion. The recent hijacking of the oil tanker Sirius Star - a supertanker big enough to hold a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily production (2 million barrels) - has dramatically highlighted the expanding dimensions of the problem. The barely functioning government of Somalia is unable to curb the pirates who sail from its ports and seize cargo ships that ply past.
The pirates on board the Sirius Star have issued a US$25 million ransom demand, and warned of "disastrous" consequences if the money is not paid.
[..]Therefore, there is no question that the problem of piracy is also to be addressed ashore in Somalia. But, problems often enough, lend themselves to solution if only soldiers and geostrategists would step aside for a while. That is, at least, the expert opinion of Katie Stuhldreher. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor recently, she put forth a three-way approach to the Somalia problem. One, the international community should appreciate that the piracy in Somalia has its origin among disgruntled fishermen who had to compete with illegal poaching by foreign commercial vessels in its tuna-rich coastal waters.
This unequal fight created a local impoverished population. Resentment was also caused among the coastal population over the shameless dumping of wastes in Somali waters by foreign ships. The disgruntled local fishermen, who lost out, soon organized to attack foreign fishing vessels and demand compensation. Their campaign succeeded and prompted many young men to "hang up their fishing nets in favor of AK-47s".
Stuhldreher suggested, "Making the coastal areas lucrative for local fishermen again could encourage pirates to return to legitimate livelihoods." Therefore, she wrote, "A fishery protection force will eliminate the pirates' source of legitimacy." This could be done under the auspices of the UN or African Union or a "coalition of the willing".
Most important, "An international force sent to protect local industry will achieve the same goal as warships but in a more acceptable way. The principal reason piracy thrives along Somalia's coast is that there is no coastal authority to protect these waters. Armed foreign ships will still serve to fill that vacuum and deter attacks, but with the explicit mission of serving Somalia's people - the very people who have chalked up enough reasons to dislike foreign military interventions and are likely to view the presence of warships as intimidation."
But, will there be any takers for "nation-building" in Africa among the US, NATO and European member countries, Russia or India? Highly unlikely. Ideally, the international community should also commence a reconciliation process involving the residual elements of the ICU. In retrospect, like in Afghanistan in the case with the Taliban, a proper understanding of Islamism would help appreciate the worth of the ICU in stabilizing Somalia.
On the contrary, under the broad rubric of the fight against sea piracy, what we are witnessing is an entirely different template of maritime activity by the interventionist powers. The US has established a separate Africa Command in the Pentagon. NATO and the EU have stepped out of the European theater and entered the Indian Ocean area. Russia is seeking a reopening of its Soviet-era naval base in Aden. India has sought and obtained berthing facilities for its warships in Oman, which is an unprecedented move to establish a permanent naval presence in the Persian Gulf. The Indian Ocean is becoming a new theater in the Great Game. It seems a matter of time before China appears.
China of course is not a newcomer to the Indian Ocean. In 1405, during the reign of Emperor Yung-lo of the Ming Dynasty, a celebrated Chinese naval commander Ching-Ho visited Ceylon (presently known as Sri Lanka) bearing incense to offer at the renowned shrine of the Buddha in the hill town of Kandy. But he was waylaid by Sinhalese King Wijayo Bahu VI, and he escaped to his ships. To seek revenge, China dispatched Ching-Ho a few years later. He captured the Sinhalese king and his family and took them away as prisoners. But on seeing the prisoners, the Chinese emperor out of compassion ordered them to be sent back on the condition that the "wisest of the family should be chosen king". The new king, Sri Prakrama Bahu, was given a seal of investiture and made a vassal of the Chinese emperor. That was how Ceylon remained until 1448, paying an annual tribute to China.
Admiral Mehta has a worthy example in front of him, provided he can coax his reluctant country to flex its muscles in Africa for the first time in its ancient history. His best argument would be that unless he took an early lead, Ching-Ho might reappear in the Indian Ocean. But then there is an inherent risk insofar as the pirates who disappeared into the mist on Tuesday evening might also return looking for the INS Tabar.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Moscow calls for anti-US alliance

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smh.com.au

THE President of Russia has called on Europe's leaders to create a new world order that would minimise the role of the United States.
Confident that a row with Europe prompted by Russia's invasion of Georgia in August was over, Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the French spa town of Evian on Wednesday determined to woo his fellow leaders into creating an anti-US front.
Gone was the kind of wartime rhetoric that saw Mr Medvedev lash out at the West and describe his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili, as a "lunatic". Instead Mr Medvedev spoke of a Russia that was "absolutely not interested in confrontation", and outlined plans for a new security pact to ban the use of force in Europe.
Yet there was little doubt that Mr Medvedev was playing the divide-and-rule tactics of Vladimir Putin, his predecessor and now Prime Minister, by seeking to pit the US against its European allies.
In a speech delivered to European leaders at a conference hosted by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to discuss the international financial crisis, Mr Medvedev sought to show that the US was at the root of all the world's problems. He blamed Washington's "economic egotism" for the world's financial woes and then accused the Bush Administration of taking Europe to the brink of a new cold war by pursuing a deliberately divisive foreign policy.
He also maintained that the US was once again trying to return to a policy of containing Russia.

The most embarrassing part is that Medvedev is right, the US is THE problem in the Middle East and with the World financial crisis! But so is Russia a problem. Putin would have the same sort of influence over the EU if he could. Sarkozy looks like a placater al la Neville Chamberlain.

Poland wants more forceful NATO to check Russia

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Now that the US has tied down it's army in Iraq, lost the perception of invincibility, NATO is bogged down in Afghanistan and I suspect feels just as powerless as the US in the face of a resurgent Russia. I suspect this was Putin's intent all a long. He just may successfully demonstrate that NATO is impotent. Poland and Ukraine could be left out to dry.
International Herald Tribune

An ideological gulf has opened between the West and Russia after the war in Georgia, one that requires a more forceful response from the European Union and NATO, Poland's foreign minister said on Thursday.
In a speech at Columbia University, Radoslaw Sikorski said NATO must get back to the basics of exerting its role as a military organisation in light of the war.
Sikorski called Russia's August military foray into Georgia a challenge to the European Union's unstated ideology of abolishing borders in order to avoid war.
"I think there is a profound ideological difference between the European Union and the Russian Federation," he told an audience of diplomats, students and journalists.
[..]
Sikorski, calling it the "Medvedev Doctrine," said the implications were worrying for countries with large ethnic Russian populations such as Ukraine and the Baltic states.
"Any further attempt to redraw borders in Europe by force or by subversion will be regarded by Poland as an existential threat to our security and should entail a proportional response by the whole Atlantic community," Sikorski said.
"We need to make NATO's traditional security guarantees credible again," he said. "NATO needs to recover its role, not just as an alliance but as a military organisation."

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Behind the Crisis in the Caucasus: Russian Isolation or Inclusion in the International Arena?

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RightSideNews.com

The outbreak of the crisis in the Caucasus goes much deeper than Russia's concern for the welfare of residents of South Ossetia, a non-Russian ethnic minority. The actual reason for Russia's invasion of Georgia stems from a clash of interests between Russia and the West on four fronts, each reflected in this crisis.
Indeed, while it was Georgia that Russia invaded, Russia's expectation was that reverberations of its invasion into Gori and Poti would resound not only in Tbilisi and Kiev, but also in Brussels and Washington. Understanding the geopolitical context and the time dimension will paint a clearer picture of the crisis and perhaps suggest directions for its possible resolution.
In most of the power struggles in recent years between Russia and the US, the US and the West have taken the initiative and occasionally scored successes, at least in the short term. In August 2008, following the incursion of Georgian soldiers into South Ossetia, Russia seized an opportunity to take the initiative and from its standpoint achieve success on those same fronts. The Russian invasion into Georgia is merely one battle in the overall broader campaign of the clash of interests waged between the sides.
The First Front: Insufficient Attention to Russian Interests in the International Arena
Kosovo can serve as an example of this front's clash of interests between the West and Russia. For several years the inhabitants of Kosovo, the separatist Albanian region in Serbia, have demanded independence. Russia, an ethnic federation and significant ally of Serbia, vehemently opposed granting independence to Kosovo. Russia feared that international recognition for an independent separatist ethnic district would serve as a precedent for separatist regions at home, for example, Chechnya. However prominent Western countries, including the US, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy decided for various reasons to ignore the Russian interest and recognize the state immediately following its declaration of independence in February 2008. The current Russian president, Medvedev, said then that Kosovo's independence would "lead to the undermining of stability and security in Europe and would set all Europe on fire."
In August 2008, Russia apparently found an opportunity to prove its claim and exact a price from the West and the US for their disregard of the Russian interest. Russia indeed has always supported autonomy for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but the timing of its invasion into Georgia was far from coincidental. The exercise of Russian force followed by recognition of the independence of these regions, while demonstrably ignoring the stances of the European Union and the US, was an initiated response by the Russians to the West turning its back on Russian interests in the matter of Kosovo. On August 27, one day after Russia recognized the independence of the regions, the Russian president assessed, "we acted like other countries did in regard to Kosovo."
The Second Front: The Renewed Struggle between East and West

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The US and some European countries are concerned about Iran's armament campaign and the progress of its nuclear program. Consequently, the US has for some time been deliberating with Poland and Czechoslovakia, its strategic partners in Central Europe, over the possibility of placing defense systems on their territories to guard against a potential Iranian threat. In order to dispel Russian concerns, the US proposed that Poland allow Russian observers permanent access to these systems, but the Poles rejected the proposal. For its part Russia has argued that the projected sites of the systems challenge the true intentions of the US and its partners. Poland borders Belarus, Russia's prominent ally and its western neighbor; in Russian eyes, locating the systems there is tantamount to placing missile systems on its actual border.
As far as the Russians are concerned, the US insistence on keeping Russia out of the picture regarding its decision over the location of the defense systems on the one hand, and its decision to install those systems precisely in Russia's "backyard" on the other, are possible indications of a return by the US to an era of a quasi East-West arms race. Already in April 2008, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that placing the systems in Poland and Czechoslovakia without supplying satisfactory assurances to Russia would lead Russia to a military-technological response. The Russian military attack on its southern neighbor, Georgia, may be an initial Russian signal to the US and Europe of the ability of the former superpower to return and activate its military might against the West in the 21st century.
The Third Front: A Western Foothold in Traditional Regions of Russian Influence
The US views partnership with the new democracies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia as an important strategic objective; it thus seeks to strengthen the democratic regimes there with assistance to their militaries and economies. Such US activity is not looked on favorably by the Russian leadership. Russia is not interested in the restoration of democratic regimes with Western style anti-Russian leanings in its immediate vicinity and in regions that historically were under its influence. Moreover, Russia views NATO's eastern expansion with suspicion and as an infringement along its borders.
The inclusion of central European countries like Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, and East European countries bordering Russia like Estonia and Latvia to NATO is perceived in Russia as an emerging potential threat to its security. Consequently, US support for the consolidation of anti-Russian Western regimes in Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet Union countries that border Russia, and their addition to NATO constitutes, in Russian eyes, the further crossing of a red line. But despite Russia's resolute and severe opposition, the secretary of the organization made a pledge at the NATO summit in April regarding Georgia and Ukraine joining the Alliance: Ultimately they would be accepted as full members of the organization. In response, the Russian deputy minister of foreign affairs, Alexander Grushko, said the acceptance of those countries to the organization would constitute "a terrible mistake with severe repercussions for pan-European security." Lavrov added that membership in NATO would prompt a worsening of Russia's relations with Georgia and the Ukraine.
The attack on Georgia, under the pretext of defending local inhabitants of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, demonstrates just how critical it is to Russia that Georgia and Ukraine remain under its patronage and not become military allies of the world's largest military power, the US, or its European partners. Moscow hopes this campaign will underscore to the West just how inadvisable it is to fan the flames of this regional fire and how important it is for Russia to retain influence and strategic supremacy in its immediate vicinity.
The Fourth Front: Russia's Primacy as an Energy Supplier (Oil and Gas)
Russia is one of the world's largest exporters of oil and natural gas. Moreover, because resource-rich Central Asian countries lack direct access to the Black Sea and to Europe, they sell Russia natural gas at half price while Russia in turn sells it at full price to Europe. In other words, Russian profits from energy sales to Europe depend not only upon those resources, but also on their transfer from Central Asia to Europe. Europe is naturally interested in reducing its growing dependency on Russia and therefore is working to find alternative ways of importing gas and oil from Central Asia. The most efficient alternative is to import directly from Georgia, the only country aside from Russia with a continental connection to both Central Asia (via Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea) and the European Union (via the Black Sea).
In recent years, two pipelines were opened through which Georgia exports Azeri oil to Europe, via its port on the Black Sea and the Turkish port on the Mediterranean. The pipeline running through Georgia to the Black Sea port runs near Gori and the port city of Poti, two cities the Russians took pains to conquer when they invaded the country. But what really worries the Russians are the plans by the West and Georgia to break the Russian monopoly on natural gas exports to Europe by building a pipeline in the Caspian Sea connecting gas reserves of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) to Azerbaijan and from there moving onward through Georgia to Europe (the Nabucco project). Russia's first and foremost interest is that Europe's dependency on it for supplying natural energy remains unaltered and that no viable alternative be found. By invading Georgia, Russia has attempted to signal that it will allow no such alternative to materialize. Undermining the stability of the regime in Georgia plus decisive Russian influence in South Ossetia (in close proximity to the routes of the proposed pipelines) and Abkhazia (with its strategic port on the Black Sea) will allow Russia to strengthen its footing as the sole export baron for energy resources from the eastern side of the world to the west.
Summary
The current crisis in the Caucasus is the outcome of a clash of interests between Russia and the US and the West in a number of arenas: insufficient consideration of the Russian interest in the international arena, the renewed struggle between East and West, a Western foothold in regions of Russian interest, and challenge to the Russian energy monopoly. Thus an attempt to solve the crisis in the Caucasus by focusing on the status of the separatist districts in Georgia would miss the mark and overlook the true roots of the problem. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are merely indications of a broader picture signifying a crisis of trust in relations between Russia and the West, and the lack of understanding, internalizing, and honoring each side's respective interests.
There are numerous diverse issues on the international agenda far more important than the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Cooperation and productive dialogue between the sides can happen only by seeing the range of mutual interests, prioritizing them, and understanding how the more important interests can be realized.
The contents are based on presentations by Dr. Brenda Shaffer and Yaakov Kedmi at a closed discussion at the Institute for National Security Studies.

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INDOlink - Analysis - Sarkozy Deserts Bush, Europe Drifting From America

http://www.indolink.com/printArticleS.php?id=090908045536

When Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President of France, it appeared that for the first time a French President was going to play a second fiddle to President Bush. He gave the impression that he was also a staunch rightist who was bent upon reversing the liberal and leftist traditions of France and tows the neo conservative and reactionary policies of President Bush. However, the recent developments in Europe and the Middle East show that Sarkozy has parted company with Bush.
Sarkozy played a very different role in the Russia - Georgia conflict as opposed to the Bush administration that has taken a strong anti Russian stand. Sarkozy has taken a neutral stand in the conflict and has strongly opposed the American policy of provoking confrontation with Russia. Sarkozy does not want to antagonize Russia and wants to continue cooperation with Russia. As the chair of the 27 nation European Union, Sarkozy effectively resisted the American pressure to impose sanctions on Russia. He was able to get a compromise from Russia and Georgia regarding the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Georgia. Russia will withdraw its troops from Georgia except Ossetia and Abkhezia and in return, Georgia will not try to retake Ossetia or Abkhezia .
Sarkozy's mission was very different than the American vice President Dick Cheney's trip to Georgia and Ukraine that looked like a deliberate move to provoke Russia. The Russians have already blamed him for provoking the conflict in order to have McCain win the Presidential election. Sarkozy tried really hard to calm the tensions on both sides. Sarkozy does not want Europe to become an arena for the third world war. Europe has suffered enough in the two world wars and is very reluctant to again become a battle ground.
Sarkozy's recent trip to Syria again showed that the French policy in the Middle East is fundamentally different from the American policy. America is heavily tilted towards Israel and is perceived as anti Arab and anti Muslim by the Arabs and the Islamic countries. He was the first head of a western state to visit Syria after the murder of the Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri. The west blamed Syria for the murder. In Syria, Sarkozy reasserted the French neutrality in the Arab-Israel conflict. Israel has become so used to the American one sidedness that it views the Europeans neutrality as a tilt towards the Arabs.
What made Sarkozy change his policies? Europe is fundamentally different than the United States. America remains the only country in the world that is loyal to the pure and unadulterated consumerist capitalism. Europe has long back deserted the traditional capitalism and has adopted the concept of a social welfare state based upon what can be called utilitarian capitalism. This form of capitalism can also be called "Capitalism with a human face".
The poor performance of the American consumerist capitalism as compared to the European utilitarian capitalism has convinced Europe that it is on the right track. Failure of the American policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran as well as the deepening economic crisis at home has convinced the Europeans that time has come to put a distance between America and Europe. The resurgence of Russia as a global power and the relative decline of the American power has also led the Europeans to review their relations with Russia and America and adopt a more balanced and independent stand in the conflict between the two countries.
England seems to be sticking to its subservient role to America. Some people called Tony Blair "Bush's Peon". It seems that Gordon Brown wants the same job. England has very little influence in Europe compared to the combined influence of France and Germany. America is looking to India as a replacement for the declining influence in Europe. So far, India seems eager to fill the vacuum. India can empathize with America because if America is losing global influence, India is facing the same in Asia, Third world and in the nonaligned movement.
Dr. Sawraj Singh is Chairman of Washington State Network For Human Rights, and Chairman of Central Washington Coalition For Social Justice.

Georgia crisis: Nicolas Sarkozy hails breakthrough in talks with Russia

Telegraph

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has hailed a "momentous" breakthrough after securing a pledge from Russia to withdraw its troops from undisputed Georgian territory within a month.
Although the Kremlin has repeatedly appeared to flout the terms of an earlier ceasefire deal brokered by Mr Sarkozy, the French leader said he was hopeful that this time Russia would keep its word. France is taking a lead role in talks as it currently holds the presidency of the European Union.
But even as Mr Sarkozy and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, were revealing the contents of the accord at a Tsarist hunting lodge outside Moscow, Georgia claimed that Russia had deployed additional troops around key towns over the past two days.
The French leader defended himself against criticism that he and other European leaders had been too placatory towards Moscow, saying the original ceasefire deal he brokered on Aug 12 should serve as an example for conflict resolution around the world.
"There is no longer any conflict and the weapons are silent," he said. "If all conflicts could embark on resolutions such as this, we would all be in a better position." Yet yesterday's deal is likely to draw fresh criticism that the European Union has shifted the goalposts to suit Moscow. In the immediate aftermath of last month's five-day war, the West was united in demanding that Russia pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions immediately.
Instead, Russia has bought itself more time. Mr Sarkozy also signaled that the EU would immediately renew talks on a new partnership deal with Moscow as soon as the withdrawal was complete - even if Russia does not rescind its unilateral recognition of independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway republics at the heart of the Georgian conflict. The US has warned that a failure to sanction Russia for that recognition risks legitimising the fact that Moscow has effectively redrawn the borders of a neigbouring state.
As expected, George W Bush, the US president, yesterday announced that a civilian nuclear pact with Russia had been suspended. While the move is largely symbolic, it is intended to show that there is no "business as usual" with Russia.
Russia meanwhile said it would send a heavily-armed nuclear cruiser to the Caribbean for joint-naval exercises with Venezuela - the first such manoeuvres since the Cold War. The exercises appear to be a direct response to the deployment of US warships in the Black Sea, ostensibly to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia. The mission ended yesterday.
Under the new Sarkozy-Medvedev agreement, intended to clarify a six-point peace accord signed in August, Russian troops will withdraw from the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti and dismantle other checkpoints erected close to Abkhazia within seven days. Moscow has also agreed to pull its forces out of a self-declared buffer zone around Akhazia.
If Russia does fulfill its commitments, Mr Sarkozy is likely to claim that the European Union's cautious approach to the crisis in the Caucasus has been vindicated.
"If all happens as indicated, this will have proved a momentous moment," Mr Sarkozy told reporters.
Mr Medvedev predicted that European countries would recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia in time. Yet so far the Kremlin has been unable to persuade even its friends to back its policy in the Caucasus.
Belarus, its closest ally, yesterday deferred a decision on recognition with President Alexander Lukashenko also appearing to backtrack on an offer to allow Russia to station nuclear missiles on his territory.
Since being involved in a dispute over energy prices with Russia last year, Mr Lukashenko has pursued a contrarian foreign policy, alternately seeking to improve relations with the West before reconciling again with Moscow.

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EU Ministers Call for Georgia-Russia Investigation

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VOA New

European Union foreign ministers meeting Saturday in France called for a European observer mission to be dispatched to Georgia, and for an international inquiry into last month's conflict in Georgia. For VOA, Lisa Bryant has more from Paris.
Mr. Kouchner said it was critical to know exactly what took place in Georgia - including how many people died in the fighting and who started the conflict. Georgia and Russia have been trading accusations over each other's behavior last month, including allegations each side committed ethnic cleansing.
Ministers from the 27-member European Union also agreed that an EU observer mission should be deployed to Georgia as rapidly as possible.
British Foreign Minister David Miliband said it was key that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France - the current E.U. president -- make the case for such an E.U. mission when he holds talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow Monday.
"The international presence obviously involves OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe)," Miliband said. "There's a U.N. question but I would have thought that it's very much in Russia's interest to show that it wants to engage with the European Union.
Mr. Sarkozy will try to assess whether Russia is complying with a peace plan France brokered last month. On Saturday, the European security body OSCE said Russia was allowing its observers to move freely in Georgia.

Russia Plans to Support Iran on its Nuclear Program and War Game with Venezuela

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MerriNews.com

RUSSIA PLANS to help Iran in its nuclear enrichment programme in response to the US assistance for re-arming Georgia under the veil of their so-called 'humanitarian aid'. Such an action from Moscow's side will heighten the ongoing political crisis in the Caucasus and Central Asian region as well.
According to a reliable source close to the Russian military, Moscow did not tolerate the American influence in the Central Asian region. The arrival of US naval ships with humanitarian aid to the Georgian port, 'Poti' in the last week, which is also partly held by the Russian armed forces, has irked Kremlin. Apart from that, the US also tried to increase its influence over Ukraine and Azerbaijan, thereby creating extra pressure over Kremlin.
The hostilities between Russia and Georgia ended at least two weeks ago. Since then, the United States has been trying to place the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces in the region and sending naval ships to the area with some 'emergency supplies'. Even, the Bush administration also promised lumpsum amounts in order to rebuild Georgian military forces. The same was expressed by Dick Chenney, the US vice president during his tour to Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan in the last week.

The Hindu

Russia and Venezuela will hold joint naval war games in what could be a Russian response to a NATO naval build-up in the Black Sea.
Four warships and 1,000 marines from Russia's Pacific Fleet would take part in joint manoeuvres with the Venezuelan Navy on November 10-14, Russian news agencies reported quoting the Venezuelan naval command. It would be for the first time the Russian Navy would participate in war games in South America.
Russian warships would be visiting Venezuela "to take part in naval training and to strengthen friendly ties between the two countries," said the Venezuelan Navy on Sunday.

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Georgia-Russia Conflict Changes The Energy Equation

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2008

Officials at the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline announced last week that the pipeline is fully functional and work has started to refill it. But in the weeks since the pipeline stopped working due to a fire along the Turkish section, much has changed along the pipeline's route due to the Georgian-Russian conflict.
There are fears that the conflict between Russia and Georgia may threaten existing and planned Caucasus energy routes seen by the West as vital supply corridors that avoid Russian territory.
Russia's military campaign this month in Georgia was a reminder that there is always a risk in running energy supply routes through this volatile part of the world -- a fact that is hitting home with potential investors in planned Caucasus natural-gas or oil pipelines.
When the conflict started on August 8, concerns immediately were raised about the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which pumps nearly 1 million barrels of oil per day from Azerbaijan to Turkey's Mediterranean coast, where most of the supply is then shipped to Europe. Georgian officials reported several times during the conflict that Russian warplanes had tried but failed to bomb the pipeline.
However, Russian forces did destroy one key bridge on a Georgian railway line, disrupting oil exports to Georgia's Black Sea ports.
Pierre Noel, an energy expert at the European Council, points out the strategic difference for Russia between the two export routes. The Russians, Noel says, "always want people to believe they have a limited agenda, so they bombed the railway that brings Azeri oil to Georgia, and BP has been forced to stop its shipments of Azeri oil to Georgia by rail because the bridge has been bombed. But they wouldn't bomb a pipeline which is not directly linked to supplying Georgia." That, Noel says, would give the West justification to accuse Russia of aggression against the West or the region beyond Georgia itself.
"I think they wanted to create the strong perception that they were dealing with a limited set of problems, which are...Georgia-centered. Bombing BTC would have been too open an aggression, an act unrelated to the issue at hand," Noel says.
Jennifer DeLay of the "FSU Oil and Gas Monitor," a publication of the Edinburgh-based Newsbase Group, says Russia didn't need to damage the pipeline to show who's in charge in the Caucasus. "The pipeline itself was not bombed, of course, but the bombing did come awfully close," DeLay says. "My personal belief is that the Russians have put themselves into the position to be able to have some measure of control over the pipeline even if they have not hit it directly."
[..]"You can make the point that Russia has always met its contractual commitments, that it's been an extremely reliable supplier at least to Western Europe over the past four decades, which is true," Noel says. "But at the same time the political perception is something else and now the political perception is that Russia is not a reliable supplier, [or] at least it's a politically problematic supplier.... This will again increase the legitimacy of energy policies aimed at substituting away from gas, not necessarily only from Russian gas but from gas itself."
Still, it may not come to that. DeLay of the "FSU Oil and Gas Monitor" says Europe and Gazprom simply need each other too much. "Gazprom needs Europe as much as Europe needs Gazprom -- more, in fact. I believe that European gas sales account currently for about 60 percent of Gazprom's total revenues. Losing that would hurt the company very much," DeLay says.
So Russia may have won a Pyrrhic victory in Georgia. Its dominance in the Caucasus is almost beyond question now, but its image is badly tattered.
As a concession to customers in Europe, the Kremlin may have to allow alternative pipelines to be built to avoid losing revenue from sales in the West. After all, Europe may now see diversifying away from natural gas as preferable to a future as a captive customer of Russian gas supplies.

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