Saturday, August 9, 2008

A war for oil? A thought on the Russo-Georgian war

When I see a blog with the name "Not a sheep", and the url notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com, well, I just have to click. It's like an OCD thing, or something.

It's a Brit blog with well thought out posts. This post on the "hidden" casus belli ...oil. Or control of how it's transported:

Lead paragraphs:

It's odd, when the US lead force invaded Iraq to rid the Country of Saddam Hussein the BBC was awash with "experts" and pundits explaining how this is all about oil. Yet when the Russians invade Georgia the word "oil" is not heard. Yet this invasion really is about oil.

In case you are not aware, Georgian oil can flow out of that country in two ways, either through Turkey and hence into Europe or through Russia. Putin wants to ensure that as much of the world's oil as possible flows through Russia's pipelines so he can have as much bargaining power and control over Europe's power supply. The Georgians know that their independence relies as much as anything on the continued use of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, a pipeline that connects the Caspian Sea's oilfields to Baku, then to Tbilisi and finally onto the Haydar Aliyev oil Terminal in the Turkish port of Ceyhan.


As I posted earlier, I see a harmonic of Nazi justifications for the Sudetenland invasion. "Not a goat" does me one better... He see similarities in the reactions to Russia's aggression:

I heard someone on Radio 4's Question Time last night saying that this invasion was all the West's fault (especially the Americans) for being so triumphalist at the ending of the Cold War and by humiliating Russia. These are very similar to the excuses that were made in the early 1930s for Nazi Germany; Germany was humiliated after the First World War by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and so it is understandable that they want to assert themselves and invade Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia etc.


As the saying in the blogosphere goes, "Read the whole thing"....

5 comments:

Tyler said...

Everything is about oil nowdays. I'm not sure what to think about Russia and Georgia. Putin has to die sometime...

Mark said...

Most ethnic Russians in Georgia are there because their ancestors were sent there in a sort of ethnic colonialism.

The Ruskies have enough oil of their own. "Not a sheep" thinks they also want to control the flow of other nation's oil... Add that to the Russians wanting to warm up their relations with Cuba again... just in time to 'help' the Cubans develop their off shore oil.

Eric said...

The neo-Soviets are doubling down on the wise bet that future conflicts will be over energy resources. Yet another reason to get the hell off of foreign oil and start drilling more here.

Not a sheep said...

Thanks for the heads-up, nice site you have here...

Mark said...

Thanks for the kind words.