-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Russian Gas Drives U.S. Policy John L. Perry Friday, June 1, 2001 Gov. Gray Davis is chasing the wrong scapegoat to blame for California's electricity crisis when he points to Texas energy suppliers. Try Russia's gas monopoly. Few Americans have even the foggiest idea of what a Russian company called Gazprom is, yet it plays an enormous potential role in all Americans' everyday lives. If that sounds like a bit of a stretch, consider these sobering realities that are receiving precious little prominence in the American establishment press but are blockbuster news in the media overseas: While most of the American mainstream news media was otherwise preoccupied, Russian President Valdimir Putin moved on Wednesday to seize political control of Gazprom. Often referred to in Russia as "a state within a state," Gazprom is that nation's gas monopoly, its largest and most influential commercial enterprise, providing, as Reuters news service put it recently, "the life blood of the country." With influence extending far beyond Russia's borders, Gazprom is the world's largest petroleum company, sitting on 23 percent of the planet's reserves and providing 25 percent of its total output, including most of the natural gas that's burned in Europe. With the Russian government already holding a 38 percent ownership of Gazprom, Putin exercised that leverage with the board to oust its longtime chief executive, Rem Vyakhirev, and replace him with one of his own closest loyalists. The New York Times had a cursory account buried back in its Business section. The Wall Street Journal found room for a few inches on its 13th page. The Washington Post tucked it away on Page 20. All treated it as an internal "reform" story. None explored its global geopolitical oil and energy significance. 'Corporate and Political Earthquake' But Reuters' Moscow correspondent Patrick Lannin termed it nothing less than "a corporate and political earthquake for Russia." Writing in Thursday's Times of London, Roger Boyles said this move "will define not only who runs the country, but also how and when the Kremlin extends its global reach." And Interfax news service reported that Aleksey Miller, the new man in charge, lost no time announcing grand goals for Gazprom: "Gas consumption in Europe will grow in the next 10 years, and Gazprom is ready to secure this growth on the basis of long-term contracts." This was taken in the international financial community as a welcome omen of Russia-wide economic reform, promised by Putin to encourage greater Western investment. But the geopolitical implications go far beyond that – indeed, to the substance of the evolving, volatile relations between Russia and the United States, with energy at the very core. Russia has been regarded ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union as an economic basket case whose only hope for rejuvenation lay in the sale of two commodities: arms and natural resources. Within just a few years, Russia has managed to drum up a brisk business selling off Soviet-era nuclear technology and conventional weapons of war, mostly to nations arraying themselves in opposition to the United States. Now, with his hand securely on the throttle of Gazprom's gigantic petroleum engine, Putin is in position to exert enormous political influence around the world – especially on such countries as the United States that rely on external sources of energy. Behind President Bush's newly formulated national energy program is a concerted effort to free the United States from its dependence on foreign oil. Most of that attention has been focused on heavy U.S. imports from Arab suppliers in the Middle East. Bush must now take Russia, with a reorganized Gazprom under Kremlin control, into account as well. As the London Times commented, "from Turkey to Turkmenistan, from Berlin to Baku, Gazprom is weaving a web of energy dependencies that sooner or later will boost Russian influence across the Continent." What This Means to You So what has all that to do with California energy problems and the possibility of those metastasizing into a nationwide energy crisis in the United States? Russia is now clearly staking its economic future on the sale of its immense gas reserves to energy-hungry consuming nations, beginning in Eastern and Western Europe. As foreign-policy analysts Tatyana Koshkaryova and Rustam Narzikulov, writing Tuesday in the Russian publication Gazeta, put it: "It is a widely shared opinion that Russia's prosperity depends on high world oil prices. "What geopolitical methods should be used to keep [those] prices high? "The first answer that comes to mind is that Russia should agitate political instability in the world's major oil-producing regions – the Middle East. "The country could aim, through geopolitical instruments, to constantly create a deficit of some type of raw material [oil] on international markets." That translates into higher prices for foreign oil going to California and the rest of the United States. A revitalized Gazprom with Putin playing the puppeteer has the capability of being just such a Russian geopolitical instrument. That is the Vladimir Putin whom George W. Bush will be facing when the two meet for the first time at their summit June 16 in Slovenia. Geopolitics of worldwide trade in oil will be the dominating, unwritten agenda regardless of what political parachute California's governor may be packing for himself. John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is senior editor for NewsMax.com. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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