Tag Archives: Russia

From Russia, with love

So, Team Obama has pulled another Christmas Day bomber hash-up.  Recall how, in the case of Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab, after a grand total of fifty minutes of interrogation by the law enforcement folks who could be scared up in Detroit on that holiday, he was allowed to lawyer up.

Flash forward to the news just in:  Within five days of rounding up ten of eleven individuals the FBI had under surveillance for ten years in connection with a KGB (sorry, the new name is FSB) covert influence operation, they are all being sent back to Mother Russia.  In that respect, the Obama administration actually handled the Abdulmuttalab’s case somewhat better; at last check, he’s still in federal custody – presumably, awaiting a prisoner exchange with al Qaeda.

No wait, al Qaeda doesn’t have any U.S. prisoners.  But then, it is not clear Russia has any U.S. spies in custody, either.

Instead, the letter submitted by the Justice Department late today to Judge Kimba Wood, who has presided over the Russian Ten’s brief prosecution and their confessions, says that – in exchange for repatriating them to the Motherland – the United States will get "four individuals who are incarcerated in Russia for alleged contact with Western intelligence agencies."

While the latter four have not been named at this writing, it seems as though the Obama Justice Department is not saying they actually were engaged in espionage.  Even if they were, it is not clear whether they were working for us.

This sort of deal calls to mind the so-called "New START" Treaty of which President Obama is so proud.  The world "lousy" comes to mind.  After all, both the "spy swap" and the recently concluded arms control negotiations seem to have turned Ronald Reagan’s successful strategy for winning the Cold War on its head:  Under Obama, it’s more like: "We lose, they win."

As a general rule, only the Israelis are foolish enough to reward bullies like Russian Prime Minister (and former KGB operative) Vladimir Putin for their kidnappings and other thuggery by exchanging four of "ours" for ten of theirs, to say nothing of one for hundreds.

Not only has the Obama administration once again compromised U.S. security interests by a) effectively foreclosing patient, exacting debriefs (and, no, the promised "extensive factual recitation with respect to the Defendants’ conduct is not necessarily the same thing) and b) getting had in its dealings with the Kremlin.  It has provided political cover for the Russians by allowing Putin et.al. to claim moral equivalence.  They spy, we spy; so, let’s call the whole thing off.

In this case as in so many others – notably, giving up a near-term European missile defense the Kremlin opposed, serially conceding to get Russian "cooperation on sanctions" on Iran and writing off the so-called "Near Abroad" (notwithstanding Hillary Clinton’s recent hearts-and-minds tour there), to say nothing of START – the latest capitulation stinks of an overweening desire to, as the DoJ letter to Judge Wood puts it, "further United States-Russian relations and to enhance the national security of the United States."

Clearly, this so-called "spy swap" will "further" the U.S. appeasement of Russia that passes for Team Obama’s "reset" of bilateral ties.  It is not self-evident, though, that it – any more than the other concessions made to this elusive end – will do anything to enhance the national security of this country.

 

National Security Policy Proceedings, vol. 1: Spring 2010

This is the inaugural issue of the Center for Security Policy’s National Security Policy Proceedings, a new quarterly journal.

From the Publisher’s Note:

In the hope of making the contributions of outstanding security policy practitioners more widely available, the Center is leased to offer a compilation of our transcripts of such remarks in this new product, National Security olicy Proceedings. In some cases, speakers have chosen to submit their remarks to Proceedings as original articles. Additionally, Proceedings includes book reviews of ecently published national security-themed books, reviewed by eminent scholars in the field.

These Proceedings provide the reader with authoritative, yet highly accessible, commentary on he most pressing security policy ssues of our time, covering the waterfront of foreign affairs, defense olicy, arms control, energy, economic and homeland security.

The contents also provide insights into the behind-the-scenes conversations that inform and often shape fficial decisions. As such, we hope they will become required reading not only for others in the public olicy community but for students and responsible citizens, who recognize that an informed electorate s vital to the functioning—and perhaps even the survival—of a republic like ours.

Order printed copies at Amazon.com for only $6.00

 

 

National Security Policy Proceedings

Vol. 1: Spring 2010

Order the book at Amazon
for $6.00 or click the
sections on the right
to preview an article.

FRANK J. GAFFNEY, JR.
Publisher’s Note

DOUGLAS J. FEITH
START the Debate

DAVID SATTER
Assessing the “Reset” in US-Russia Relations

WALID PHARES
9/11: Eight Years Later

ALLEN B. WEST
Define the Enemy: What It Takes to Win in Afghanistan

PAUL ROSENZWEIG
Preventing Terrorist Travel

GORDON G. CHANG
Rising China’s Fate
A review of Rising China and Its Postmodern Fate by Charles Horner

PAULA DeSUTTER
Time Bomb
A review of The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West by Dore Gold

ROBERT R. REILLY
Strong Horses
A review of The Strong Horse by Lee Smith

CHRISTINE BRIM
Worlds of Islam
A review of The World of Islam book series

 

Arsenal of roguery

Sixty years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced to the nation in one of his famous "fireside chats" that America must be "the great arsenal of democracy."  It was a visionary and, at the time, controversial declaration that a nation dead-set against becoming entangled in the war then-consuming Europe must nonetheless help arm democratic nations fighting for their survival.  This initiative proved critical to Britain’s defense in the run-up to Pearl Harbor, at which point the United States became decisively not just the Free World’s armory, but its savior.

Today, we find another country putting its formidable military-industrial complex in the service of others around the globe. The arsenal is Russia’s, the recipients are virtually without exception the world’s most dangerous enemies of freedom.  This practice is making a mockery of President Obama’s much-touted "reset" of relations with the Kremlin – including, notably, the new, bilateral START Treaty.  It also increases exponentially the dangers associated with his policy of "engaging" rogue states, a practice that is simply affording them time to buy ever-more-advanced and -deadly weapons from Moscow.

Consider just a few examples of the Arsenal for Roguery at work, and its implications for our security, and that of what’s left of the Free World:

  • Even as the President continues to claim that the Russians are willing to be more helpful in getting tougher UN sanctions on Iran, the Kremlin is allowing the nuclear reactor it previously sold Tehran to be brought on line.  It is pledging to complete the transfer of advanced S-300 air defense systems, which will greatly complicate – if not effectively preclude — aerial attacks by the Israelis or U.S. forces aimed at destroying that facility and others associated with the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
  • Russia is also selling the S-300 to Syria. This is important because the Syrians have justly been put on notice by Israel that they would be subjected to retaliatory strikes in the event Russian-designed (and perhaps -supplied?) Scud missiles transferred recently by Damascus to Hezbollah in Lebanon are used against the Jewish state.  Such Russian protection may embolden Syria to believe that it can unleash with impunity death and destruction on Israel (perhaps by using Scud-delivered biological or chemical weapons) via its terrorist proxies – and Iran’s.
  • The Russians have also been marketing to international customers a family of deadly sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missiles with air-, surface- and submarine-launched variants.  These Brahmos rocket/ramjet missiles were jointly developed with the Indians and can fly at up to 2.5 times the speed of sound.  The proliferation of such missiles constitutes a serious threat to American naval and other vessels given the difficulties of defending against a weapon with these flight characteristics.

 

  • Then, there is the up-to-$5 billion in arms sales that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claims to have concluded with our hemisphere’s most dangerous dictator, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.  What exactly is on offer is unclear.  But the purchase reportedly includes T-72 tanks and S-300 missiles.  This comes on top of Chavez’s earlier acquisitions of 100,000 Kalashnikov automatic rifles, helicopters, fighter jets and submarines. Evidently, a Russian nuclear reactor is also being promised.

But, not to worry.  According to the Associated Press, Putin declared during his most recent sales visit to Caracas earlier this month: "Our objective is to make the world more democratic, make it balanced and multi-polar.  The cooperation between Russia and Venezuela in this context has special importance."  Feel better?

If any further evidence were needed that the Russians are enabling through their arms sales a grave new threat to American interests and those of other freedom-loving peoples, there’s this:  The London Sunday Telegraph reported on the April 25th that Moscow was marketing a new "Club-K container missile system."  For just $10 million, one can acquire a launcher and four sea- or land-attack cruise missiles concealed in what otherwise appears to be a standard shipping container.

The newspaper reports that "Iran and Venezuela have already shown an interest in the Club-K…which could allow them to carry out pre-emptive strikes from behind an enemy’s missile defences."

As President Obama is fond of saying, let me be clear:  Vladimir Putin’s Russia – yes, he still runs the place – is cynically exploiting the U.S. administration’s fecklessness in blindly pursuing improved relations.  So far, this has gotten Moscow, among other things: the cancelation of a near-term deployment of U.S. missile defenses in Europe; American acquiescence to increasing Russian aggressiveness in reestablishing a sphere of influence in the "near-abroad"; and no objection to the Kremlin’s acquisition of a French amphibious assault ship well-suited for that purpose.

Worse yet, Russia has pledged it will abrogate the START accord should the United States improve "qualitatively or quantitatively" the sorts of missile defenses Moscow’s arms sales to rogue states (and perhaps others) are making ever-more-necessary.

History will show that the metastasizing danger of the Russian arsenal for roguery’s world-wide operations has been greatly compounded – if not fundamentally enabled – by the assiduous application of the Obama Doctrine:  "Embolden our enemies.  Undermine our allies. Diminish our country."  If the latter doctrine is not swiftly corrected, and the former not effectively thwarted, America and the rest of the Free World may soon find themselves confronting threats even greater than those at large when first we rose to the challenge of being the indispensable arsenal for democracy.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program "Secure Freedom Radio" heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 on WTNT 570 AM.

False START

President Obama announced last Thusday that he had concluded a follow-on to the 1989 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia.  He characterized the cuts that it would make in the two nations’ nuclear arsenals as a major step towards his goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.  In practice, however, the so-called “New START” accord will contribute primarily to the denuclearization of the United States and to making the world a more dangerous place.  Accordingly, it would be more accurate to call it “False START.”

The first thing to note about the Obama treaty is that it confers real advantages on the Russians.  For starters, the Kremlin will have to make essentially no cuts in the numbers of its deployed strategic launchers, whereas the United States will have to destroy several hundred of ours.

It is unclear at this writing whether such reductions by the U.S. will, as a practical matter, make it difficult – if not impossible – for America to preserve its strategic “Triad” of land- and sea-based ballistic missiles and long-range bombers.  If so, there could be serious implications for strategic stability as the confidence of friends and foes alike in the robustness of our deterrent declines markedly.

What is clear, though, is that we will be obliged to cut back our arsenal to match the lower levels that the Russians can afford to maintain at the moment.  The advisability of such a step would be debatable even if it produced a genuine equality between the two parties.

Unfortunately, the seeming equality thus established is deceptive in at least three respects:

First, the Russians are aggressively modernizing their strategic forces with both new missiles and warheads.  They claim that by 2015 roughly 80% of their long-range arsenal will have been upgraded – an activity we are subsidizing by paying to dismantle their old weapon systems, freeing up funds for Moscow’s modernization programs.

By contrast, the United States has not introduced a new nuclear weapon in over fifteen years.  Its missiles, submarines and bombers are, by and large, even older, with some dating back to the 1950s and ’60s.  Today, the Nation has no capability to produce new nuclear weapons and could not manufacture them in quantity for many years – the only nuclear power of whom that can be said.

Second, the Russians are reintroducing multiple, independently-targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) on their land-based ballistic missiles.  This step could enable a break-out capacity that would allow Moscow rapidly to deploy far more weapons than its forces are allowed to have under the new START treaty.  By contrast, the United States decided back in the 1980s that such a capability was “destabilizing”; it has systematically de-MIRVed its underground silo-launched intercontinental-range ballistic missiles ever since.

Third, the newly unveiled START accord fails to take into account or otherwise limit several thousand Russian “tactical” nuclear weapons.  The Kremlin has focused for twenty years on such low-yield devices; some with the explosive power of the Hiroshima weapon and fitted on submarine-launched cruise missiles are deployed off our coasts today.  While the administration says such armaments could be the subject of a future, bilateral treaty that makes still deeper reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear stocks, don’t count on it.  In any event, they will constitute a real, asymmetric advantage for Russia for many years to come.  [This is a particularly worrisome prospect to American allies in Europe who have long relied on America’s “extended deterrence” to counteract such threatening Kremlin capabilities.

Then, there is the matter of missile defense.  The Obama administration tried to finesse Russian insistence on including in the new accord language that would capture American defenses against missile attack by confining to the preamble an acknowledgement of a “relationship” between such systems and offensive forces.  The United States claims that, by its nature, such preambular language is not binding.  Yet, a Kremlin spokesman has already served notice that Moscow will feel free to abrogate the START follow-on treaty if it believes that U.S. missile defenses in Europe are a threat to its deterrent.

The biggest problem of all with the New START treaty, however, is that it is a product of President Obama’s fixation with “devaluing nuclear weapons” and ridding the world of them.  On these grounds, he refuses to take the steps necessary to modernize America’s deterrent.  Even though he professes that a nuclear-free globe will not be realized any time soon, he is condemning the nation to unilateral disarmament by allowing the steady and unavoidable obsolescence of the U.S. stockpile, and the dissipation of the workforce and infrastructure needed to maintain it, to continue unabated.

The acuteness of this obsolescence has reached a point where the directors of the nation’s nuclear laboratories have felt compelled to express strong concerns about the continued reliability of the arsenal.  Even before they did so, forty-one U.S. Senators wrote President Obama warning him that they would not support ratification of a follow-on START accord unless his budget explicitly funded a modernization program for our deterrent forces.  That number is more than enough to preclude the Senate advice and consent required by the Constitution.

Taken together, these factors ensure that the New START treaty will contribute to U.S. nuclear disarmament alright, but do nothing to advance the ostensible purpose of the exercise – namely, enhancing the security of this country or the world.  A False START indeed, and one that should be rejected by at least thirty-four United States Senators.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program Secure Freedom Radio heard in Washington at 9 p.m. weekdays on WTNT 570 AM.

Putin’s ‘do-over’

Twenty-six years ago this Fall, a titanic struggle played out in Europe.  The main protagonists were Ronald Reagan and the Western alliance he led on the one hand and Yuri Andropov’s KGB-led Soviet Union on the other.  It proved to be the beginning of the end of what Mr. Reagan properly called the "Evil Empire."  Today, one of Andropov’s agents, Vladimir Putin, is striving for a "do-over" – one which may have no-less-far-reaching implications.

In 1983, the issue was whether the NATO alliance would proceed with its agreed plan to deploy hundreds of Pershing II ballistic missiles and Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles in five Western European nations (collectively known as Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces or INF).  The allies had decided such deployments were necessary in the face of the Soviets’ massive deployment of their own INF missiles, which the West called SS-20s – formidable weapons armed with three nuclear warheads intended to intimidate and dominate Western Europe.

By 1983, the Kremlin had made the defeat of this plan its top priority.  The KGB mobilized massive demonstrations aimed at preventing the basing counties from proceeding with the associated construction and ultimately with the installation of the missiles.  The Soviets employed both carrots and sticks – seductive arms control negotiations and threats of Armaggedon – to divide the United States from its allies. 

That gambit was made both more urgent and much more difficult for the USSR’s leader Andropov, who had long headed his nation’s feared intelligence service and secret police, because of a decisive Reagan victory in the course of the previous year.  The American president had adamantly opposed the construction of a massive new Siberian gas pipeline on the grounds that it would clearly have made Western Europe dependent upon Soviet energy – and, therefore, susceptible to Moscow’s blackmail.  Despite the determination of European leaders (including his friend Margaret Thatcher) to provide the funding and technology for the so-called "second strand" pipeline, Mr. Reagan ultimately prevailed.

Strong U.S. presidential leadership and the steadiness of the Defense Department (in which I was privileged to serve at the time) under the leadership of Mr. Reagan’s Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger stymied Soviet attempts to divide and conquer.  Even though the American State Department and its counterparts in the basing countries frantically sought an arms control deal that would prevent the INF deployment while leaving in place some number of SS-20s, President Reagan insisted on "the Zero Option":  Unless the Soviets agreed verifiably to eliminate all of the latter, NATO would proceed to put in place its off-setting deterrent forces.

The Soviets ultimately agreed to the Zero Option – but only after the allies demonstrated that they would not be dissuaded, divided or defeated.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Mikhail Gorbachev came to power unable to counter or contend with the Reagan strategy for destroying the USSR (laid out in several presidential decision documents).  Gorbachev proceeded to try to make adjustments, both at home and abroad, to keep the USSR a going concern.  Fortunately, in the end, the Evil Empire and even the Soviet Union itself came a-cropper.

Flash forward to today.  The NATO allies have again agreed to provide for their collective defense, this time by deploying not hundreds of nuclear-armed missiles but a radar and ten unarmed anti-missile interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland, respectively.  This initiative has been made necessary and is sized minimally to contend with the emerging Iranian missile threat to Europe and the United States.

This time around, however, Andropov’s successor as the de facto master of the Kremlin, former KGB thug-turned president/prime minister of Russia Vladimir Putin, thinks he will be able to prevail over the Atlantic Alliance where his former boss did not.

And with good reason.  The United States is now led by a president who is– to put it charitably– no Ronald Reagan.  Barack Obama and his administration have been determined to "reset" relations with Moscow.  Toward that end, they have (among numerous other concessions) signaled a willingness to cashier the deployment in Eastern Europe of missile defenses that the Russians claim, preposterously, to find threatening.

In fact, the New York Times reported on Saturday that Team Obama is poised to look at alternatives – sea-based missile defenses or putting those or other anti-missile systems ashore someplace other than Poland and the Czech Republic.  Among the candidates said to be under consideration are Turkey, the Balkans or Israel.  Never mind that these alternatives pose their own problems, including security, stability and geographic appropriateness given the trajectories of missiles Iran might launch.

The Polish and Czech governments are understandably horrified at this transparent bid to accede to the Kremlin’s efforts to reestablish a sphere of influence in Europe.  Other Europeans (notably, the Germans) now heavily dependent on Russian-supplied natural gas – another dramatic reversal of Reagan’s time-tested policies – and therefore subject to oft-practiced Moscow’s energy blackmail, are happy to join Washington in appeasing Putin.

Should the United States indeed go that route, it will amount to much more than a strategically costly "do-over" of the INF fight.  It will make plain to all the emerging "Obama Doctrine" with its three ominous characteristics: abandoning our allies, emboldening our enemies and diminishing our country.  The upshot, in sharp contrast to the Reagan legacy of pursuing peace through strength, will assuredly be a far more dangerous world.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and the host of the nationally syndicated program Secure Freedom Radio heard in Washington on WTNT 570 at 9 p.m.

Russia is brazen, Europe weak

The future of Russia’s excursion in Georgia remains to be determined. But some conclusions can already be drawn:

Russian power is extraordinarily brutal in the post-Soviet era, as we have already seen in Chechnya. This brutality has been confirmed — although on a smaller scale — in the spectacle of the Russian army occupying a sovereign country, moving through it as it pleases, advancing and retreating at will, and casually destroying the military and civilian infrastructures of a young democracy as an astonished world watches. Today it is Georgia. Tomorrow will it be Ukraine? Or, in the name of the same solidarity with the supposedly persecuted Russian-speaking populations, will it be the Baltic countries? Or Poland?

The new Russia is indifferent to international protests, admonishments and warnings. The Cold War had its rules, its codes. It was a time when signs were carefully deciphered. There was a kind of half-warrior, half-pacifist hermeneutics in play, during which we spent our time reacting to what philosopher Michel Serres called "the signal fires and foghorns" of the adversary. In this new-look Cold War, there are no more signals. No more codes. Instead, Russia offers a permanently obscene gesture to "messages" we know will have absolutely no effect. Was it not at the same moment Condoleezza Rice was in Tbilisi that Vladimir Putin, with a cynicism and aplomb that would have been unthinkable in yesterday’s world, chose to advance his troops as far as Kaspi, only 30 kilometers from the capital?

Russia has no shame when it comes to twisting principles and ideals. It brandishes the "precedent" of Kosovo — as if there could be anything in common between the case of a Serbian province hounded, battered and broken by ethnic purification which lasted for decades, and the situation of Ossetia, victim of a "genocide" that, according to the latest news (a report by Human Rights Watch) consists of 47 deaths. And look how they turn to their profit — as well as that of the same Russian-speaking minorities they want to bring back into the bosom of the Empire — the argument of the "duty to intervene" that might justify the exactions, in Gori and elsewhere, of the Russian army and its militias. This is a fine, grand principle dear to the French foreign minister and a few others. How daring! Well, Mr. Putin dared, Mr. Putin thought about it and did it.

European — and in this instance French — diplomacy is weak. We expect a great democracy to condemn and sanction the aggressor, without nuance. But in effect the opposite was done. The party that was attacked was the one sanctioned. The weak, not the strong, was made to yield. Just as 15 years ago in Dayton, Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic was forced to sign, with a heavy heart, the agreement laying out the dismemberment of his country. Mikheil Saakhashvili, the Georgian president, was also forced to ratify a document that the Russians speak of as the "Medvedev document." Not a word in it mentions the territorial integrity of the country.

Then there are the famous "additional security clauses" acknowledging the Russian army’s right to be stationed there and to patrol, as scandalous in principle as they are vague in their modalities of application. Has the world turned upside down? This must be a dream.

Western public opinion fell with disconcerting facility for the thesis advanced — from the very first day — by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine. We know now that the Russian army had been hard at work on its war preparations since before Aug. 8. We know that it massed at the "border" between Georgia and Ossetia a considerable military and paramilitary logistical presence. We know the Russians had methodically repaired the railroad tracks that the troop-transport trains were to take, and we know that at least 150 tanks went through the Roky tunnel separating the two Ossetias the morning of Aug. 8. In other words, no one can ignore the fact that President Saakhashvili only decided to act when he no longer had a choice, and war had already come. In spite of this accumulation of facts that should have been blindingly obvious to all scrupulous, good-faith observers, many in the media rushed as one man toward the thesis of the Georgians as instigators, as irresponsible provocateurs of the war.

We must re-examine all of this. We must analyze in greater depth the mechanisms of a blindness that may, if we are not careful, perpetuate the Western "decline in courage" denounced in his time by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, but which we thought belonged to the past. Reason, if not honor, demands that we go to the rescue of Europe in Tbilisi.

Mr. Lévy’s new book, "Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against The New Barbarism," will be published next month by Random House. This piece was translated from the French by Sara Sugihara.

A Bear energy market

Along with a rapid military victory in Georgia, Vladimir Putin succeeded with another weapon in Russia’s effort to divide and conquer Europe: energy.

Despite claims of unity on the crisis in the Caucasus, energy is a clear dividing line on the Continent. Countries that have long-term gas partnerships with Russia — primarily the West Europeans — chose the "both sides are to blame" approach to the war in Georgia. Countries that are more eager to diversify their sources of energy supply away from Russia — most of the East and Central Europeans — evinced the necessary moral clarity about Moscow’s preplanned invasion.

We saw the same fault line at the NATO summit in April that failed to offer a membership action plan (MAP) to either Georgia or Ukraine, further emboldening Mr. Putin to provoke the Georgians into an unwinnable war. It is simply not possible for the European Union to be united in what Russia considers to be its "sphere of influence" unless the Kremlin’s gas leverage over the Continent is broken. Russia is Europe’s single largest supplier of natural gas. As there is no global market for gas, the construction of costly pipelines effectively locks consumers into lengthy contracts with producers. This means that Moscow can (and does) easily manipulate dependence into political and economic leverage.

Germany, for example, imports almost 40% of its gas from Russia — the most of any West European country — and plans to increase this figure to over 60% by 2020. Six East European countries are entirely dependent on Russia for their natural gas imports. Yet they are also the most vocal about the EU’s need to diversify away from Russia. That’s because they know Russia can turn off the taps in a second — as in Latvia in 2003, Lithuania in 2006 and the Czech Republic in 2008 — with little reaction from Brussels. Russia managed to divide the EU by being a reliable supplier to Western Europe, while continuing to treat Eastern Europe as its "backyard."

Despite Russia’s repeated use of energy as a political weapon in Eastern Europe, Western Europeans keep repeating the mantra that Russia has been a reliable supplier to "Europe." They also choose to ignore that natural-gas giant Gazprom serves as the Kremlin’s leading foreign-policy arm. The company is primarily state-owned, and many members of Gazprom’s leadership are current or former government officials. The Kremlin’s present occupant, Dmitry Medvedev, until recently was the chairman of Gazprom. His replacement there is former Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov.

The Russian plan is rather simple: Punish countries that refuse to come under its influence by building new gas pipelines that bypass them, while rewarding countries and political leaders that cooperate with Russia with lucrative energy deals. Maintaining a monopoly over the transport of Caspian gas to Europe is essential for Moscow to ensure that all those countries that have submitted to a Russian "partnership" will acquiesce to the return of the former Soviet space to the Kremlin’s control.

Mr. Putin has visited each of the relevant European countries to persuade them to join his energy projects. Nord Stream is one such example. When completed in 2011, that pipeline will connect Russia and Germany through the Baltic Sea, skirting Poland and the Baltic states.

One of the leaders of this politically divisive joint enterprise is Gerhard Schröder, who extended a €1 billion government credit guarantee to the pipeline project just prior to stepping down as German chancellor in 2005. Germany, and especially Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Mr. Schröder’s former chief of staff and like his old boss a Social-Democrat, opposed the MAP for Georgia and is reluctant to take a firm position toward Russia.

Just last week, while Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb was shuttling between Moscow and Tbilisi in his capacity as chairman of the OSCE, Nord Stream announced the hiring of former Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen.

Moscow also tried to hire former Italian Premier Romano Prodi as chairman of a second gas pipeline, South Stream. Mr. Prodi turned down the job, but his successor Silvio Berlusconi is a longtime Putin ally who supports designating South Stream as a "European project." Once officially accepted by Brussels, South Stream may even get EU funding. Not surprisingly, the Berlusconi government has reacted to the Russian invasion of Georgia with moral equivocation.

The future of South Stream — which will connect Russia and Bulgaria via the Black Sea, isolating Ukraine — will bear heavily on the prospects of a truly European project, the Nabucco pipeline.

Mr. Putin came up with South Stream to keep Nabucco from being built. Scheduled to be completed by 2013, Nabucco would transport Azerbaijani and Central Asian gas to Europe. The two pipelines would follow roughly the same route, ending in Austria, but Nabucco would bypass Russian control. So, over the past year Mr. Putin has cut bilateral deals with each country along the route, undermining Nabucco’s viability. Moscow has also been much more active than Europe in courting the Caspian rim countries that have the gas each pipeline needs. If South Stream is built first, it will pull all available Caspian gas supplies with it. Nabucco could still be built to carry Middle Eastern gas, but Russia will have ensured continued control over Caspian gas reaching Europe.

And because Nabucco is being privately funded, its investors would likely walk away if its gas sourcing is shaky. State-owned Gazprom, though, is willing to finance a project even if it isn’t commercially viable — so long as it supports the Kremlin’s strategic goals. No Nabucco means no gas diversification for East Europe, which will continue to be subjected to Russia’s power plays while Moscow caters to their West European brethren.

France took a Russia-first position at the NATO summit and, despite President Nicolas Sarkozy’s strong trans-Atlantic position, brokered a cease-fire between Russia and Georgia that was very much in the Kremlin’s interest. But Mr. Sarkozy now seems to have understood that he was played. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, too, is finally giving clear support for Georgia’s NATO membership as Russia’s occupation of the country is in its third week.

Only a united Europe could stop Russia from cutting bilateral deals that are advantageous for individual countries but disastrous for the EU as a whole. Only a united Europe could hold Gazprom accountable to transparency and competition rules, stopping the firm from dictating its terms and playing one EU country against the other.

The EU correctly points out that Russia needs European energy consumers just as much as Europe needs Russian energy suppliers. Moscow, though, has managed to turn this mutual dependence into one-sided leverage. It’s time to reverse this trend.

Ultimately, it all comes down to political will in Western Europe — and the longer Russian tanks remain in Georgia, the clearer it becomes that such will is lacking.

Ms. Baran is director of the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute.

Back in the USSR

As Russia continues to exhibit behavior reminiscent of the old Soviet Union — most immediately by apparently lying about its adherence to a European Union-brokered ceasefire in the state it has most recently invaded, democratic Georgia — Americans must formulate and implement appropriate responses. The object should be both to demonstrate solidarity with the victims of Russian aggression and to ensure that there are real costs to Moscow for reverting to form.

The following are among the steps that should be taken to add teeth to the symbolic gestures of humanitarian assistance and Secretary of State Rice’s visit to Tbilisi:

Reestablish the G-7: John McCain has long called for the removal of Russia from the so-called Group of Eight leading industrial nations. He’s long been right, but never more so than now when it is indisputably the case that Russia is neither a leading industrial nation nor a member in good standing of the world’s most powerful democracies. The Kremlin’s attack on freedom-loving Georgia is just the latest reminder that the Putin-Medvedev regime does not qualify for, and should no longer enjoy, the benefits of that elite group.

Georgia in NATO, Russia out. Germany’s past objections to Georgia’s entry into NATO — assuredly a product of the dangerous dependence on Russian energy flows cultivated in recent years by that country (among others in Europe) — must no longer stand. The West should sponsor under NATO’s patronage an alliance of freedom-loving nations from the Baltic to the Black Sea, shoring up its eastern flank and discouraging further Soviet-style aggression in the region.

While NATO is at it, the Kremlin should lose its privileged place at the table in Brussels. To do otherwise under present circumstances would be to mutate beyond recognition history’s most successful bulwark against totalitarian predations.

Forget about the WTO: Too many countries that do not play by the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization — including, notably mercantilist China and monopolist Saudi Arabia — have been allowed in, to the detriment of both the WTO and the liberal trading environment it is supposed to sponsor. Russia, with its thoroughly corrupt, oligarchic, and politicized business sector is a lousy candidate and should not have been considered eligible even before Moscow’s violence against Georgia. It should be out of the question now.

Keep Gazprom out of Alaska: Russia’s flagship energy-related state-owned enterprise (SOE), Gazprom, reportedly has designs on deposits in our 49th state. The company and its owners in the Kremlin should be told, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Divest from Russian SOEs: There are things that the private sector can do to help as well — like punishing Russia’s publicly traded state-owned enterprises in our markets. American investors need to be able to identify and liquidate their holdings in all Russian entities listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Ditto Kremlin-controlled enterprises and companies with access to U.S. exchanges via American depository receipts (ADRs) — devices that allow companies that list elsewhere to trade on our capital markets. Running down the value of stocks of SOEs like Gazprom and Lukoil, that amount to corporate power-projection instruments for the Kremlin, would significantly increase the costs to Moscow of its efforts to snuff democratic governments allied with the United States.

To this end, the SEC’s Office of Global Security Risk should ensure that investors understand that there are material risks associated with doing business with Russian state-owned enterprises. While Russia is not on the official U.S. list of state-sponsors of terrorism, its stocks should be regarded like those of countries who are, given the Kremlin’s conduct under Vladimir Putin. Lest we forget: such conduct includes, besides Russia’s rape of Georgia: equipping Iran with nuclear weapons-relevant reactors and advanced weapons to protect them from our airstrikes; arming our hemisphere’s most rabid anti-American, Hugo Chavez; helping prop up nuclear proliferator North Korea; and making simulated bombing runs on U.S. territory and naval groups.

The American people, if given a choice, will surely decline to invest hard-earned retirement funds and other savings in totalitarian systems dedicated to undermining their values and destroying their democratic way of life — a dedication Russia vividly displays in Georgia today. Should our government exhibit a similar determination to oppose such behavior in the aforementioned ways, the effect may not only be to prevent the snuffing of Georgian democracy. It could prevent similar Soviet-style behavior now in the offing in Ukraine and elsewhere in the formerly enslaved regions the Kremlin calls its “near-abroad.” A measure of Western determination now may even serve to discourage what seems otherwise certain to eventuate: a far more serious future threat elsewhere in the world from what remains Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Originally published in National Review

 

 

Russia vs. Georgia: Four painful lessons

Ethnic separatism once again has further destabilized world geopolitics, with the outbreak of military conflict between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia & Abkhazia; Russia also attacked Georgian targets in Abkhazia. While President Bush, out to lunch in China, watches swimming, basketball & baseball in Beijing, here is what one Georgian farmer told a British reporter: "Why won’t America and NATO help us? If they won’t help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?"

Four lessons come immediately to mind: (1) the risk minor powers pose to major-power relations; (2) the risk of excessive compartmentalization in policy; (3) the risk from grossly misplaced strategic focus; (4) the risk of making a fetish of democracy promotion–especially in the form of multi-ethnic states.

Minor-Power Risk: The August 1914 Factor. Major powers who do not carefully attend to their relations with minor-power allies may find themselves drawn into an unnecessary conflict with a rival major power.

Every State Department employee should be required to utter the following password each time upon entering Foggy Bottom HQ or any embassy or legation abroad: "August 1914." America understandably supports Georgia’s desire to join NATO, given that 77% of Georgians express friendship for America, and our support for Georgia’s democratic Rose Revolution is justified, the last thing we need is a war with Russia.  Minor powers have been hazardous not infrequently: think Vietnam for America and Afghanistan for the former Soviet Union..

Compartmentalization Risk: The Law of Unintended Consequences. Approaching strategic issues with tunnel vision invites unpleasant surprises from secondary and tertiary effects.

Foreseeable secondary and tertiary effects of policies should be kept firmly in mind. Publicly pushing for and supporting independence for Kosovo infuriated Russia, whose Balkan pet, Serbia, was humiliated. Serbia richly deserved the humiliation, but angering Russia was not worth any schadenfreude we may have felt due of Serbia’s frustration. We should have kept a far more restrained public diplomatic posture when the Kosovars did what we could not prevent them from doing, by declaring independence. Russia’s brutal re-annexation of Chechnya and suppression of Dagestan show how vital Mother Russia regards the Caucasus region, which is its warm water gateway in the south.

Focus Risk: The Perils of Inattention. Obsessive focus on intractable problems that there is little chance of solving and of marginal strategic value diverts attention from addressing more important, more soluble problems. Every minute that senior leaders spend on Problem A is time not available for Problems B through Z.

Wasting vast efforts and time on marginal problems leaves less space–much-needed–to work on central issues. Every nanosecond Secretary of State Rice has spent from the late 2006 Annapolis conference to date, on trying to broker a Palestinian accord has been wasted.   Palestinian rockets after Israel withdrew from Gaza three years ago, and the Hamas electoral win in early 2006 gave America a perfect pretext for leaving the Palestinians to fend for themselves vis-a-vis Israel, and telling our European allies that the Palestinians forfeited any right to special attention. We could have confined our efforts to mid-level diplomacy at most, plus the occasional obligatory public pieties about "a just and lasting peace" that are required by Mideast politics, and otherwise not committed so much time and prestige to an accord not only chimerical in prospect, but of far less significance that the situations with Russia arising out of Ukraine and Georgia. Our gracious and charming Secretary of State, a Russia specialist, should have known this and focused her attention accordingly. Instead we risk all sorts of conflict with Russia. Suppose Georgia pushes too far, and Russia occupies Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, and annexes Georgia by force? Will we go to war? Not if we can avoid it. But if Russia annexes Georgia, America would suffer a huge loss of prestige.

Had we actively, at the highest level, devoted as much energy to Ukraine, Georgia & Russia as we wasted on the Palestinians, it is not likely that the current violent flare-up would have come to pass.   Now, a settlement between Russia & Georgia ceding South Ossetia & Abkhazia, a pair of nuisances Georgia might better be rid of, is out of reach. Russian aggression cannot seem to be rewarded, lest Russia decide to pursue a more aggressive policy against Ukraine, its main target of its attempts to recover what Russia calls the "Near Abroad."

Fetish Risk: Mindless vs. Measured Promotion. Policies otherwise sound when pursued in moderation can easily become unsound when pursued to extremes.

Promoting democracy and a fixation on multi-ethnic states can undermine more pressing priorities, such as avoiding unnecessary wars. If ethnic groups wish to secede, as much as possible we should let them. Forcing them to live together is not worth American blood and treasure. There are literally dozens of potential conflicts. As for democracy, we should promote it cautiously, stressing that liberal democracy is the goal, not terrorist democracy under the likes of Hamas. The qualifying phrase in President Bush’s 2005 inaugural address–that promoting democracy is "the concentrated work of generations"–seems to have been tossed aside by the administration. This is a recipe for trouble, lots of it. There are 68 other breakaways waiting in the wings.

America has enough on its military and diplomatic plate, without allowing a situation like the Georgia mess to spin out of control, due to a combination of sloppy thinking, inattention, lack of focus and mindless preoccupations. We must restrain our minor ally, Georgia, and press them to temper their aspirations to those reasonably achievable; we must devote considerable high-level diplomatic energy to extinguishing the Caucasian flash-point.

The Bush Administrations needs to be reminded that our fundamental strategic interest here is clear: Avoid an unnecessary war with a revanchist Russia, on terms that don’t appear to reward Russian aggression. Not one nanosecond more should be wasted on the Palestinians; devote all that time to addressing Russia’s threat. Georgia must now be incorporated into NATO, as must Ukraine. NATO should convene immediately and incorporate Georgia and Ukraine as members. As a further sign of our seriousness we should send troops to Georgia, rather than pulling those now there out, drawing from troops now in Germany. Sending troops there would make war less likely, as the stakes would be made clear to Russia.

 

John C. Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at Discovery Institute, spent more than 22 years in the telephone industry. His work included communications law and national security. He is the author of "The Long War Ahead and the Short War Upon Us," and of the issues blog, "Letter From The Capitol."

 

Resurgence in need of restraint

By Jared Anderson

Russia’s gargantuan state-run gas company, Gazprom, has been touted as the driving force behind the country’s economic resurgence. The boundary between the state and the gas giant exists in name only, as numerous government officials, including Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, were high-ranking Gazprom executives before entering into politics. The company’s intimate relationship with the Kremlin has allowed it to experience tremendous financial success, perfectly evidenced by its 2008 revenues of an astounding $26.8 billion.[1] More importantly, though, is the fact that this single entity run by a single state now controls nearly a quarter of the world’s gas reserves, which not only guarantees Gazprom financial success, but also gives Russia the ability to use its gas-distributing arm as a political wedge.[2] And, if Russia’s track record is any indication, the country will utilize this strength for every possible benefit it may bring.Gazprom’s recent advocacy of the most ambitious natural gas pipeline ever proposed, South Stream, perfectly demonstrates Russia’s immense desire for dominance over the industry. Russia claims that such a pipeline would be squarely “aimed at strengthening the European energy security.” [3] However, the Nabucco pipeline, an alternative proposal endorsed by the United States that uses Caspian Sea gas and runs directly from Turkey to Europe, trumps South Stream in two essential regards: not only does Nabucco cost less than half the price of South Stream, but its capacity, at 31 billion cubic meters (bcm), is slightly larger than the Gazprom pipeline’s capacity of 30 bcm.[4] Therefore, the “energy security” argument is proven to be entirely unsubstantiated, as Nabucco provides greater gas capacity with the added benefit of increased financial flexibility for European countries. Further examination divulges the reality that this situation is much more than a traditional case of two companies marketing their respective proposals.

As the competition between the Nabucco and South Stream projects perfectly exemplifies, Gazprom can literally play by a different set of rules than its opponents. Nabucco’s investors are interested in the proposal because of the project’s financial potential, and therefore must be completely confident that there will be enough supply and demand for the pipeline in order for the plan to proceed. Any ambiguity in profit projections, then, decreases the willingness of investors to back the endeavor. Gazprom, on the other hand, can readily pursue projects that are not economically viable, as long as the Kremlin believes they will benefit Russia’s overall political goals. Specific to this case, Gazprom’s unique status has allowed it to make an aggressive push to completely dominate the European energy market through South Stream, as the company is able to virtually ignore any potential financial ramifications. Since Gazprom already supplies 25% of Europe’s natural gas, further infiltration into the region could very well wipe out its competition in the battle over this critical market, and ultimately give Russia undeniable political clout over a number of countries.[5]

Additionally, the relationship between the Kremlin and Gazprom allows Russia to wield incredible expertise in the natural gas sector. The company is fully aware that, unlike oil, the most critical aspect of natural gas distribution is not the resource itself, but rather the pipelines through which the gas is transported. The construction of South Stream will ensure that Russia has a guaranteed vehicle for gas distribution without any sort of expiration date. However, for these very reasons, some outsiders have speculated that the country has aggressively pushed South Stream in order to account for internal concerns over the country’s gas supply.

Indeed, a number of agencies have called into question the status of the Russian natural gas industry. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) recent report on Russia’s gas delivery raises concerns about both the country’s gas supply and its infrastructure.[6] The United States’ Energy Information Agency (EIA) echoes these ambiguities, citing the fact the Russia’s four largest gas fields have all recently experienced significant declines in production.[7]

While Russia’s notorious lack of transparency prevents further insight into the status of its natural gas resources, the completion of South Stream would render such questions irrelevant; for even in the event of declining production, Gazprom would still profit tremendously by leasing out the pipes to other countries. Thus, advocating South Stream ensures Russia has entrenched itself in a “win-win” situation of guaranteed dominance over European gas. As previously alluded to, tangible information about the nature of Gazprom’s business dealings is virtually non-existent. Particularly shrouded in secrecy is its policy of gas distribution through regional intermediaries.

For example, RosUkrEnergo, which supplies Gazprom’s gas to the strategically imperative Ukraine, is half-owned by two long-unidentified Ukrainian businessmen with alleged links to Russian organized crime. Former President Vladimir Putin’s 2004 attempts to confront such accusations by vehemently asserting that “we don’t know the identities of the hidden owners” perfectly summarizes the nature of Gazprom’s dealings.[8] The company not only signs multi-billion dollar contracts with enigmatic individuals, but has no system of accountability whatsoever. It is difficult to imagine that there would be any reason for such secrecy other than to cover up illegal activities, something that Gazprom could get away with quite effortlessly given its relationship with the Kremlin.

So, while the Kremlin and Gazprom amass record profits, the real financial loser is consistently shown to be the countries importing Russian gas. They are coerced by Russian “pipeline politics” into putting up with Gazprom’s questionable practices because they have no alternative gas suppliers. Thus, the argument that South Stream will benefit anyone besides Russia and its select contract holders becomes increasingly hard to make. To date, the company has shown very little convincing evidence of practicing fair and responsible business. Until it does, the European Union should make a stand to resist Gazprom’s aggression and actively pursue any opportunity to receive gas from non-Russian sources. Reexamination of Gazprom’s stated goals for South Stream in the context of both the company’s structure and recent history provides unsettling projections for the long-term future. For European nations, the extent of Russia’s propensity to use gas as a political weapon was fully realized on January 1, 2006, when Russia cut off its gas supplies to pro-Western Ukraine. This display of aggression was eerily similar to events that transpired during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) strategically cut off oil to nations supporting Israel.

With such precedent, the prospect of an OPEC-like cartel controlling the natural gas industry cannot be ignored, especially when Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Alexander Medvedev has been quoted as stating that "Gazprom is for the pursuit of dialogue which already exists in the framework of the gas forum which gathers together the most important gas exporters." [9]

While Gazprom executives deny having aspirations further than that of a “forum” when directly confronted, the company’s history of aggressive actions make such statements dubious. The European Union and the rest of the world cannot allow a cartel to be formed amongst leading national gas producers, as the creation of such a group would do nothing to prohibit the use of natural gas as a political weapon in the future.  OPEC’s dominance over the oil market has shown just how much power an alliance with control over a strategic resource can wield. All steps must be taken to ensure that natural gas does not succumb to the same fate, and the first step in doing this is to ensure fair, transparent competition.

Unfortunately, recent signs indicate that Russia’s brand of “pipeline politics” may very well be working better than the Kremlin expected. The country’s unwavering commitment to South Stream has raised questions among financiers about how to guarantee the constant flow of gas through the Nabucco pipeline. In response, Turkey has repeatedly suggested including Iran as part of the plan, due to its proven natural gas reserves of 974 trillion cubic feet (tcf), which trails only Russia for second most in the entire world.[10] Consideration of Iran as a Nabucco supplier places the United States in a unique quandary, as it is either forced to support Russia’s continued dominance of the natural gas market or an Iranian regime that has repeatedly defied calls to halt its nuclear program. Since Iran obviously poses the most imminent threat to worldwide security, the United States must, above all, ensure that Iran is not included in the supplying of the Nabucco line. However, maintaining staunch opposition to Iranian supply of Nabucco allows a number of underlying factors to potentially work in the United States’ favor.

Most notably, the Nabucco plan is set to be completed in stages, and experts calculate that Azerbaijan alone will be able to supply enough gas for the first phase.[11] In other words, Iranian gas is not necessary for the pipeline proposal to commence. During the first phase, other nations in the vicinity, such as Iraq, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, will have the opportunity to improve their respective infrastructures with the hope of being able to supply subsequent Nabucco stages by 2010 or 2011.[12] Finally, the time gap would theoretically allow relations to improve with Iran, and utilization of its gas supplies may very well be feasible at a later date.

Continued American support for the Nabucco pipeline in the interest of European energy diversity, then, is absolutely critical. Moreover, we must reinvigorate our relationship at the highest levels of government with Central Asian nations, including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkey, in an effort to push the Nabucco proposal. These countries, according to Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-IN), would welcome our diplomacy and are eagerly waiting to be freed from Russia’s shadow.[13] They have the gas to supply Europe’s needs, and with our backing, their infrastructures will improve over time. Further, we must not only work with these European and Asian countries, but also encourage them to work with each other.  Nothing short of a unified force will be capable of outmaneuvering Gazprom. Fortunately, there is historical precedent for virtually the same course of diplomacy, as U.S. support for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) projects of 2006 allowed the respective governments of Georgia and Azerbaijan to resist Russian influence and utilize their own resources. These pipeline projects were able to succeed despite the same questions over supply, commercial viability, and Russian influence. Since our intervention in 2006, the two countries have progressed dramatically towards greater sovereignty. Other Caspian nations must be encouraged to follow the example set by their neighbors.  As was the case with BTC and BTE projects of 2006, anything less than swift diplomatic action will condone Gazprom’s questionable practices and pave the way for the company to further increase its hegemony over the gas industry. Until Gazprom improves its transparency and ethics, such ascension simply cannot be allowed. However, Gazprom does not need to be sabotaged; Russia does not need to be attacked. Rather, fair competition must be held as the overarching standard, a criterion that Gazprom is not likely to excel at. The benefits of the Nabucco line, both political and economic, are strong enough to beat out Gazpron’s South Stream. U.S. support for the Nabucco line would not only ensure true European energy diversity through fair competition, but also prevent the consolidation of the natural gas industry for decades to come.

[1] Forbes.com article reporting Gazprom’s 2008 revenues of $26.8 billion  
[2] Radio Free Europe article concerning Gazprom’s recent investments and activities citing the statistic that Gazprom controls 25% of the world’s gas 
[3]  Gazprom’s official mission statements  
[4] Nabucco’s Official Website outlining the plans for the pipeline

 

[7] Energy Information Agency’s report on Russia, which states that Russia’s four largest gas fields declined by 12 bcm between 2005 and 2006  
[8] Roman Kupchinsky’s testimony during the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ June, 12th 2008 hearing, concerning the Kremlin’s ties to organized crime 
[9] Reuters UK article discussing Gazprom’s interest in OPEC-like group 
[10] Energy Information Agency’s report on Iran, which cites both Iran’s proven gas reserves of 974 tcf and its highly underdeveloped industry  
[11] Video of Zeyno Baran’s testimony during the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ June 12th, 2008 hearing 
[12] Transcript of Hungarian News Agency interview with Matt Bryza, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, entitled “Energy Issues in Europe” 

[13] Video of Senator Lugar’s testimony during the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ June 12th, 2008 hearing

 

 

 

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