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Tullaryx
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 Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:16 am Post subject: |
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| ViktorFan wrote: |
| I agree with what you wrote about Russia and the oil, Tull, that may be a reason. But don't you think that's the same reason for the US involvement there? Why do they support Saakashvili that much? Why does he have US-american advisers? If the oil and gas is the most important reason then it's for both sides. |
Most definitely. Like I said it's all about oil. Though most see Russia's growing use of its power in supplying Western Europe with natural gas (they currently supply Western Europe with 1/4 of all its natural gas) as worrisome at best for the West and a looming disaster at worst. Russia sees the Azerbaijan-to-Turkey pipelines as cutting into their monopoly of the Caspian oil and natural gas market. If they can control the flow of oil and gas from the Caspian region they can increase the amount of gas they supply Europe from its current 1/4 to a dominating 1/2 in less than a decade.
The pipelines going through Georgia currently runs very close to the South Ossetian border and the new ones being laid down by Western European firms will be close as well. By going into Georgia, Russia has given the Western European nations (the US gets little or negligable amount of gas or oil from the Caspian region) a message that they can continue building their pipelines to bypass Russia, but they won't be safe. Russia can sever those gas pipelines and put a hurt on natural gas shipments to Europe at any time. The past week or more of attacks by Russia into Georgia already included attacks on certain parts of the pipeline already completed though none severe enough to interrupt the flow of gas and oil into Turkey.
While the former Soviet Republics' worry about a resurgent Russia is more of about the 70 or more years of memories of occupation they do see that allying themselves with Western Europe is the lesser of two evils. And the need for a stable and freeflowing supply of natural gas into Western Europe is something they (Caspian Republics) can protect as long as the West protects them. Russia has been getting rich (well a small number of its people at least) off of natural gas sale to the West, yet a susbtantial amount of the gas and oil fields where these supplies are brought up from and refined for use come from non-Russian territories.
So, while humanitarian and political idealogies are factors in the current conflict it looks to be more of Russia and Western Europe w/ the US as a partner vying for control of a major regional energy supply route. In the end its about who controls the oil controls the power in Europe.
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Jowy Atreides
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Just thought I'd add something: Georgia's parliament decided to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States a few days ago, an organization intended to represents the interests of the ex-Soviet republics. In reality however, it's dominated by Russia, and the other countries are usually just pushed around. Russia has truly lost any leverage it may have over Georgia, and with the German Chancellor's comment that Georgia ought to join NATO while she was in Georgia, I think we'll see Georgia join the NATO as soon as it possibly can. |
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Tullaryx
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Jowy Atreides wrote: |
| Russia has truly lost any leverage it may have over Georgia, and with the German Chancellor's comment that Georgia ought to join NATO while she was in Georgia, I think we'll see Georgia join the NATO as soon as it possibly can. |
Well, join would be a misnomer. Unless, Western Europe and the US decides to pump billions upon billions of dollars into reconstructing and upgrading not just Georgia's infrastructure but its military then Georgia will most definitely not become a full member of NATO anytime soon. As I stated before they'll probably get membership evaluation status with promise of NATO extending its security umbrella over Georgia by way of Turkey and the Low Countries members.
If Georgia suddenly gets full member status then Azerbaijan and Armenia --- not to mention the other Pro-Western Caspian states --- will definitely demand to be given similar status. People have the misconception that the US and NATO are in a rush to bring in former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact members into the alliance sight unseen, but that's not the case. With Europe wanting to have more of an equal partnership with the US in how NATO is run there's been a movement to make sure that countries wanting to join the alliance can prove that it is economically and militarily viable. While NATO and the US will assist with an infusion of economic and military aid to potential members they still want to make sure said members can stand on their own and not rely on hand-outs.
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Jowy Atreides
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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Georgia and Ukraine have both been promised membership. Keep in mind that one of the original members of NATO was Iceland, a country that barely even has a military.
A natural plus of Georgian membership would be the potential for placing American bases there, under the guise of NATO. |
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Tullaryx
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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Now, now...Iceland is very important to NATO. It's been part of NATO since the beginning and holds one of the largest US air force bases outside of the US in Keflavik. Iceland also is part of the Greenland-Iceland-UK SOSUS undersea network of sensors which is a major line of defense for the US and NATO if and when a shooting war with Russia ever begins. Ukraine I can see getting full membership soon since their military is quite formidable for its size, but again Georgia will need a lot of help to get back to pre-Russian attacks before it can even continue to upgrade.
I can see Ukraine getting membership into NATO in 1-2 years time, but Georgia probably won't get full member status for at least 5 years minimum.
EDIT: though I would say that the Keflavik air base has been deactivated as of a couple years ago but the infrastructure to use it as a staging base of USAF interceptors is still in use and would minimize the re-mobilization of Keflavik as a forward base once again. But as part of of the GIUK Gap SOSUS system Iceland is still part of it and the most important leg of the line.
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Starslasher
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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I guess it doesn't need to be said, but Central Asia and the Caucasus region is the new Middle East. There is a lot of conflicts, authoritarian regimes and natural resources, mainly oil and natural gas. But to focus on the Caucasus region, I am wondering where Armenia would fit in, if it does at all? Of course, the main players in this conflict is Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey as well as the US and EU, but it seems that Armenia is left out. So i would assume that Yerevan won't play any role in the upcoming events?
Oh, and just out of curiosity, ViktorFan, why don't you link that interview in German, that you mentioned at the previous page. I'll see how BabelFish will work on it.
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Jowy Atreides
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:23 am Post subject: |
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Well, this implies that the "old" Middle East is over and done with, which isn't true. It's still as backwards and conservative as it's always been.
Armenia is on pretty friendly terms with Russia. Russia has a base near the border with Turkey, to deter Turkey from doing anything to Armenia.
How do Azerbaijan and Turkey play a role in this conflict? Turkey plays a role as a member of NATO, but not much else. |
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Vextor
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:00 am Post subject: |
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| Tullaryx wrote: |
| Now, now...Iceland is very important to NATO. |
How about Luxembourg then? That's one heck of a small country, and they probably have little strategic importance or military might (I think). Maybe you know something. |
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ViktorFan
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:57 am Post subject: |
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| Starslasher wrote: |
| Oh, and just out of curiosity, ViktorFan, why don't you link that interview in German, that you mentioned at the previous page. I'll see how BabelFish will work on it. |
Here it is:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,572496,00.html |
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Tullaryx
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Vextor wrote: |
How about Luxembourg then? That's one heck of a small country, and they probably have little strategic importance or military might (I think). Maybe you know something. |
Well, in terms of sheer size it's not very menacing, but it does have one of the biggest fleets of AWACs early-warning aircrafts outside of the US. All the planes are USAF manned but registered as Luxembourg aircrafts to go around sovereignty issues. The location of Luxembourg makes it an ideal base for these AWACs in case of a landwar against the Russians. It's close enough to Germany, Poland and Hungary that travel time for the AWACs to reach any combat zone won't use up too much fuel which means more loitering time overhead.
Luxembourg is also a founding member of NATO and has contributed a lot of money to finance some of NATO's operations. In proportion to the size of the country and the size of its military, Luxembourg would be second only to the US in providing monetary assistance to NATO.
As for Azerbaijan's role in the region well it only brings up and produces more gas and oil outside of the Siberian gas and oil fields in the region. There's been studies that during the Cold War if there was to be a shooting war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the Azerbaijan refineries would be taken out first to cripple the Soviet military and make the day-to-day lives of the Soviet population quite miserable and deadly if a bad winter sets in.
As a nation, Azerbaijan is very close to Turkey since it's one of its main trading partners and where most of the new pipelines being built that runs through Georgia ends up in.
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ViktorFan
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Tullaryx wrote: |
The location of Luxembourg makes it an ideal base for these AWACs in case of a landwar against the Russians. |
Are you sure about that, Tull? :o As far as I know there are two AWACS bases in Europe, one is Waddington (UK) with 7 planes and the other one is in Geilenkirchen (Germany) with 17 planes. I never heard there's a base in Luxembourg. |
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Vextor
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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Based on the wikipedia article on the military of Luxembourg--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Luxembourg
--it seems like they do in fact own 17 AWACS for NATO purposes, which are stationed at Geilenkirchen. Thus, they don't have a base of their own, but the aircrafts are registered to Luxembourg (although they have no air force of their own). I guess they basically shell out the cash. |
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Calvin
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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That's a common occurance within NATO as far as I'm aware. Its called "burden sharing," wherein two allied NATO countries will provide services to one another in some combined way, which creates closer relations and shared responsibility. Its pretty obvious in this case and if one looks you can see it in many different forms within NATO.
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Tullaryx
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Calvin wrote: |
| That's a common occurance within NATO as far as I'm aware. Its called "burden sharing," wherein two allied NATO countries will provide services to one another in some combined way, which creates closer relations and shared responsibility. Its pretty obvious in this case and if one looks you can see it in many different forms within NATO. |
Exactly. Most of the equipment used by the smaller NATO member countries are either on loan or on a lend-lease program from the US, the UK and/or Germany who comprise the three largest military forces within NATO. Some would say France but they've long since left NATO in terms of having its military forces fall under foreign command which would happen if their forces were part of NATO's military force.
As for new developments, it looks like Norway's government received a call from the Russian military ministry that says Russia will be severing all military ties with NATO. I'm all for cooperation and such but I never understood the reasoning to form a co-op partnership with Russia and NATO once the Cold War ended.
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Jowy Atreides
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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Turkey has the second-largest number of troops in NATO, actually.
Seems that the war is essentially over. Now we've just got to see what the repercussions will be. |
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