Oil 1 Peak Oil 21
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Foreign investment 2AC2. Foreign investment prevents economic collapse Foreign Affairs May 2007 - June 2007, “Containing Russia” Yuliya Tymoshenko The impending shortage means that Gazprom will not be able to increase gas supplies to Europe, at least in the short term -- something that European countries should be aware of and concerned about. This may explain why Gazprom abandoned its plan to send gas from the Shtokman field, in the Barents Sea, to the U.S. market as liquefied natural gas and diverted it to Europe instead. The decision, initially interpreted as a move intended to irk Washington, may actually have been a sign of desperation: sending Shtokman gas to Europe would free up Siberian output for domestic consumption. The problem, of course, is not a lack of gas -- Russia has 16 percent of the world's total known reserves -- but Gazprom's investment strategy. Over the past few years, the company has spent vigorously on everything but developing its reserves. It has built a pipeline to Turkey, taken over an oil company, invested in UESR, tried to gain footholds in European distribution markets, and become Russia's biggest media company. All this was done in the name of creating and sustaining a "national energy champion." Yet investment in Gazprom's core business was grossly inadequate. There is another problem facing Gazprom: the actual engineering costs of developing new gas fields in Russia. In the Shtokman gas field and on the Yamal Peninsula, in particular, the engineering costs, including the cost of transporting the output to Europe, are twice as high as for new gas fields in North Africa and the Middle East. The international gas market is already beginning to recognize this, and, over the long term, it could be enormously dangerous for Russia. Indeed, Russia may actually be putting itself out of the gas business, because high engineering costs for new projects in Russia are signaling to the market that Russia and Gazprom lack the capacity to develop these fields. Western companies could come in and do the job, but given the Kremlin's recent usurpation of Shell's investments on Sakhalin Island, these companies would be remiss in their fiduciary duties if they undertook such investments. The only way to avoid a crisis is to break Gazprom's monopoly on pipeline infrastructure and to license independent gas producers. Independent producers already account for 20 percent of domestic gas sales in Russia and are boosting their output. Further gains would require market-based incentives. Europe can help by explicitly linking its acceptance of Russia's WTO membership to Russia's ratification of the Energy Charter and its attendant Transit Protocol, which would guarantee access to Russian pipelines for Gazprom's competitors. Caspian turnCaspian 2AC1. US dependence on Russian oil leads to resource wars in the Caspian VOA Voice of America, December 24, 2007, “Experts Warn Russia Seeks Influence Over Vast Caspian Oil Reserves,” if you replace the V in VOA with a B, you get BOA, which is a type of snake http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-12/2007-12-24-voa38.cfm Rising oil prices, a resurgent Russia and continued turbulence in the Middle East have intensified competition for control of the vast oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea. The competition, involving big business and power politics, pits Russia against the West. At stake, some experts say, is world domination of the energy market. VOA's Brian Padden recently traveled to Azerbaijan and Germany, and has prepared a series of reports on the politics of oil. This story looks at transnational pipelines, and how they have become battlegrounds for influence and power. From an off-shore platform in the Caspian Sea, British Petroleum extracts oil from a reserve estimated to contain 5.4 billion barrels of oil. From there, it is piped directly to the Sangachal terminal, located just outside of Baku, the capital of the Central Asian country of Azerbaijan. From there, it takes a circuitous route, avoiding Russia, to reach energy hungry countries in Europe and Asia. A pipeline, with a capacity of one million barrels a day, transports the oil north to Tbilisi, Georgia, and then southwest to the Mediterranean port city of Ceyhan, Turkey. From there, tankers carry the oil around the world. The Caspian region now supplies only a portion of the oil the world consumes, but its vast untapped reserves are believed to rival those of Russia and Saudi Arabia. Alex Alexiev, an analyst with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, says the future development of this energy-rich region could change the balance of power in the world. "Whoever controls the tap of gas and oil really has tremendous economic power, and that does change the equation," said Alexiev. The West considered development of the Baku/Tbilisi/Ceyhan pipeline a victory. But, most of the Caspian region's oil and gas still travels through Russian pipelines, built before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the oil rich countries of central Asia were still ruled from Moscow. Turkmenistan recently signed an agreement to build a new pipeline to send its gas to Russia. Alexiev warns that an autocratic Russia, if it ever gained a monopoly on the region's energy supplies, would be able to impose its political will upon the world. "Russia does not want to operate on purely capitalistic principles, where commodities are sold, etceteras, strictly on the basis of profit. They want to use hydrocarbon resources for political purposes," he added. Construction of a planned Central Asia Oil Pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan, designed to bypass Russia, has been stalled because of continuing instability in the region. In 2006, Russia's government-run gas monopoly temporarily cut its gas flow to Ukraine and Belarus in a dispute over a sharp price increase, a move that was seen by many as politically motivated. That also sharply reduced deliveries to Europe, unnerving European leaders. For supporters of the Baku/Tbilisi/Ceyhan pipeline, these moves reinforced their views that a pipeline bypassing Russia was necessary. The Caspian region's oil reserves are key, as Russia and the West vie for influence in the region. Vugar Bayramov with the Center for Economic and Social Development in Baku, says Azerbaijan, which has vast oil reserves, has aligned itself firmly with the West, and supports the building of a second pipeline, called Nabucco. "West has real traditions, which I mean, big tradition, experience to make richer, to give more benefit, to neighbor or friend countries, but Russia doesn't have such experience," said Bayramov. A consortium of Western oil companies built the Baku/Tbilisi/Ceyhan pipeline at a time when Russia was economically weak. Alexander Rahr with the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, says high energy prices have made Russia richer and stronger, and anxious to re-establish its political standing in the world. "Russia is trying to become an energy superpower again," said Rahr. Rahr says Russia wants to monopolize the transport of oil and gas to Asian and European markets, in order to bolster its global ambitions. But, he says, the marketplace is too diverse to be controlled. "Russia exactly needs the Western markets to sell its oil and gas. And, it knows that, if it tries to threaten the markets, if it tries to weaken the West by using energy and gas as a weapon to push others into a kind of corner, it will lose this market and the benefits," he added. Caspian 2AC2. This energy competition is the most likely scenario for nuke war Steven J. Blank is the Douglas MacArthur Professor of Research at the U.S. Army War College and has been an Associate Professor of Russia/Soviet Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institutes 2000. “US Military Engagement with Trancaucasia and Central Asia,” Strategic Studies Institute, June, http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/welcome.htm. Russia’s drive for hegemony over the Transcaucasus and Central Asia therefore led those states and interested foreign powers to an equal and opposing reaction that has blunted the Russian drive. Baku, Erevan, Tashkent, Astana, and Tbilisi, to a greater or lesser degree, are seeking a Western counterbalance to Moscow, which the West, especially Ankara and Washington, are all too happy to provide.68 Central Asia has also turned to China, the United States, and Iran in energy and economics, is exploring forms of regional cooperation, and has begun to build its own national militaries to escape from Russia’s shadow. Apart from expanded trade and commercial relations and support for infrastructural projects beyond the energy and pipeline business, Turkey trains Azerbaijani troops and provides economic-political assistance to Georgia and Azerbaijan. Other Western powers, especially France and Great Britain, also display a rising regional profile. Washington’s burgeoning military-political-economic involvement seeks, inter alia, to demonstrate the U.S. ability to project military power even into this region or for that matter, into Ukraine where NATO recently held exercises that clearly originated as an anti-Russian scenario. Secretary of Defense William Cohen has discussed strengthening U.S.-Azerbaijani military cooperation and even training the Azerbaijani army, certainly alarming Armenia and Russia.69 And Washington is also training Georgia’s new Coast Guard. 70 However, Washington’s well-known ambivalence about committing force to Third World ethnopolitical conflicts suggests that U.S. military power will not be easily committed to saving its economic investment. But this ambivalence about committing forces and the dangerous situation, where Turkey is allied to Azerbaijan and Armenia is bound to Russia, create the potential for wider and more protracted regional conflicts among local forces. In that connection, Azerbaijan and Georgia’s growing efforts to secure NATO’s lasting involvement in the region, coupled with Russia’s determination to exclude other rivals, foster a polarization along very traditional lines.71 In 1993 Moscow even threatened World War III to deter Turkish intervention on behalf of Azerbaijan. Yet the new Russo-Armenian Treaty and Azeri-Turkish treaty suggest that Russia and Turkey could be dragged into a confrontation to rescue their allies from defeat. 72 Thus many of the conditions for conventional war or protracted ethnic conflict in which third parties intervene are present in the Transcaucasus. For example, many Third World conflicts generated by local structural factors have a great potential for unintended escalation. Big powers often feel obliged to rescue their lesser proteges and proxies. One or another big power may fail to grasp the other side’s stakes since interests here are not as clear as in Europe. Hence commitments involving the use of nuclear weapons to prevent a client’s defeat are not as well established or apparent. Clarity about the nature of the threat could prevent the kind of rapid and almost uncontrolled escalation we saw in 1993 when Turkish noises about intervening on behalf of Azerbaijan led Russian leaders to threaten a nuclear war in that case. 73 Precisely because Turkey is a NATO ally, Russian nuclear threats could trigger a potential nuclear blow (not a small possibility given the erratic nature of Russia’s declared nuclear strategies). The real threat of a Russian nuclear strike against Turkey to defend Moscow’s interests and forces in the Transcaucasus makes the danger of major war there higher than almost everywhere else. As Richard Betts has observed, The greatest danger lies in areas where (1) the potential for serious instability is high; (2) both superpowers perceive vital interests; (3) neither recognizes that the other’s perceived interest or commitment is as great as its own; (4) both have the capability to inject conventional forces; and, (5) neither has willing proxies capable of settling the situation.74 Russian perceptions of the Transcaspian’s criticality to its interests is tied to its continuing efforts to perpetuate and extend the vast disproportion in power it possesses relative to other CIS states. This power and resource disproportion between Russia and the smaller states of the Transcaspian region means that no natural equilibrium is possible there. Russia neither can be restrained nor will it accept restraint by any local institution or power in its pursuit of unilateral advantage and reintegration. 75 Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 9.54 Mb. Share with your friends:
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