Pirates shed some light on energy geopolitics

The ongoing stand-off between Somali pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter loaded with weaponry and US warships likely isn't going to end in a $20 million ransom like the pirates want. However, what's more interesting is what's on the ship, where it's going, and who it came from. What's on the ship, we know: "tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition." Where it's going, though, gets a bit more interesting:

Kenyan officials continued to maintain that the weapons aboard were part of a legitimate arms deal for the Kenyan military, even though several Western diplomats, Somali officials and the pirates themselves said the arms were part of a secret deal to funnel the weapons to southern Sudan.

The Kenyan government's insistence that the weapons are for its own use doesn't hold water: the Kenyan military is trained by Western forces, and has not received the training necessary to use Russian tanks (which the equipment onboard was), according to Voice of America. The southern region of Sudan, however, holds two distinctions that make it likely that that's where the weapons were heading: it was the site of the most deadly war since World War II, and has vast oil resources. The Second Sudanese Civil War raged for over twenty years, and though it officially ended in 2005, the fighting persists and the conflict could reignite at any time. The uneasy treaty stipulated that the South is to be autonomous until 2011, when a referendum on independence will take place.

Which brings us to last question: where did the weapons come from? According to the VOA article, southern Sudan receives weapons from both the US and Russia, though given that the US isn't going along with the Kenyan story about the destination of the weapons, it seems likely that the Russian weapons aboard the Ukrainian ship came instead from Russia. Given that they were destined for an oil-filled region brimming with instability, it seems likely that this is part of the Kremlin's broader plan to destabilize oil- and gas-producing regions in order to raise the price of energy and feed the Russian petrostate's need for high oil prices.

Cheap buses emphasize how much rail sucks

From Wired, an article about the increased popularity of bus travel, especially along the Northeast corridor. Bus companies like DC2NY run exclusive routes, offer perks like free wifi and beverages, all for fares much lower than either Amtrak or flying. DC2NY runs its eponymous service for $25 each way, and other services run much farther routes for even less money. The Northeast corridor is very well-traveled, and the fact that bus service – which can take up to twice as long as a train – can be so popular means that there's no reason that privatized rail shouldn't be able to compete at the same level. But a nationalized rail service? That's another story, apparently:

It's amazing how much money you can save, too. I'm headed to Washington DC soon, so I'm looking for some cheap transport. It's a quick flight from Boston, and while I knew that airfares were up, I had no idea how high they'd gone. A round trip flight is $397. The train isn't much better — a ride on Amtrak's Acela at $410, and even the slower, less sexy Northeast Regional is $211. Compare that to $163 on Greyhound, or better yet $50 on low-fare line GotoBus, and it's a no-brainer.

Ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia

Now that the war's over, you'd think that South Ossetia would calm down. Right? Wrong. According to reports by Human Rights Watch, relayed by Radio Free Europe, the South Ossetian government and Russian troops have been engaged in a systematic campaign to burn the houses of South Ossetia's sizable Georgia minority (which, before the war, made up one-third of South Ossetia's population).

"For a month we have observed the systematic destruction of houses in Georgian enclaves and villages in South Ossetia," says Tatyana Lokshina, a Russia researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW).

HRW has also released satellite images that show "widespread torching of ethnic Georgian villages" in the breakaway region.

The South Ossetian authorities don't deny what's going on, and de facto President Eduard Kokoity has implied that the ban on Georgians returning to their homes in South Ossetia is revenge for when Georgians supposedly did the same thing to South Ossetians after the wars in the early '90s.

In addition to expelling Georgians from their homes and then torching them, Georgian civilians have also faced torture, abuse, and "extrajudicial executions" in camps where they're being held.

"We have learned that hundreds of civilians from Georgia were detained in holding cells in South Ossetia. These included women and the elderly," HRW's Lokshina says. "We know that these people were held in inhuman conditions, crammed together in one space. They were practically not fed. They were forced to work. They cleaned streets. The men were forced to bury the corpses of Georgian soldiers."

According to a September 21 report posted on HRW's website, detained Georgian soldiers were punched, kicked, beaten with hammers, machine-gun butts, and metal rods, and were burned with cigarette lighters, starved, and threatened with execution. At least one soldier was executed with a shot in the back of the head and other detainees were forced to carry and bury his body.

"After fleeing our village, we spent a week hiding in the forest," Jemal Khetagashvili, a former civilian detainee, tells RFE/RL's Georgian Service. "But then the Ossetians found us and arrested us. We spent 10-12 days imprisoned in Tskhinvali. They forced us to work, to clean the streets and sidewalks."

The effects of a war in Iran

From Radio Free Europe, Robert Coalson writes about the incentives for Russia regarding sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program. He concludes that the threat of Iran to Russia is minimal, but notices a whole lot of incentives for Russia in a nuclear armed Iran, especially if it leads to war:

And that remote danger is made even more unlikely by repeated U.S. and Israeli declarations that a nuclear-armed Iran is "unacceptable." The refusal of the United States to pull the military option off the table means the worst-case scenario for Moscow, in the event talks fail, is not a mushroom cloud over Kuban but seeing Washington become bogged down in yet another military involvement with the inevitable further sapping of its strength and prestige. The facts that oil prices would also likely skyrocket under such a scenario and that Moscow would emerge as a "reliable energy partner" are probably also not causing Kremlin strategists to lose any sleep.

Unless Russia attempts to heat up the situation before the election, I think that the chances for war probably depend on who wins. If McCain wins, the Russians will believe (probably correctly) that McCain will rush into a war in Iran, and they will try to provoke him. If Obama wins, there's probably less of a chance that they'll try something like that, though I'm not sure that I think the chance is that much lower.

Nabucco: more off than on

In continuing with the Nabucco natural gas pipeline saga – from bad, to worse, to maybe a bit better) – the project is dealt another blow: this time by the Bulgarians, who have defected to the South Stream project, Russia's rival proposal for a gas pipeline. The point of Nabucco was for the EU to receive energy from the BTE pipeline which originated in the Caspian without going through Russia. The already existing length of pipeline, which originates in Baku, continues through Georgia, and terminates in Turkey, is what is throwing the Nabucco project into trouble. The conflict in Georgia raised the risk premium on the pipeline, which explains why countries in the Caspian are wavering on their promises to supply the various non-Russian pipelines and why the Nabucco extension is in jeopardy. This likely was an intended consequence of Russia's invasion of Georgia.

Let me tempt you away from Allah with...a free lunch!

China has often been accused of discrimination and persecution of its Muslim Uyghur minority (including once by me), and during the current holy month of Ramadan, come a slew of accusations, including this bizarre one from Radio Free Europe:

Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, are implementing a campaign to offer free lunches during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, when eating is proscribed until sundown.

The lunches are being offered in government departments to ethnic Uyghur and Han Chinese officials alike, employees said.

Uyghur exiles say that Chinese authorities have previously offered free lunches during Ramadan as a means of determining who is fasting.

And this isn't the only example of Ramadan-related mischief on behalf of the CCP:

Exiled Uyghur groups said Uyghur government cadres throughout Xinjiang had been forced to sign “letters of responsibility” promising to avoid fasting, evening prayers, or other religious activities.

Special groups have been set up in schools to educate Uyghur teachers and students not to fast, and to monitor their activities on pain of expulsion from school, the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress said in a statement signed by spokesman Dilxat Raxit.

Confusing Eurasian toponyms

Do you ever look at a map from a couple hundred years ago and think, "I thought that country was on the other side of Europe...?"

• Iberian Peninsula vs. Caucasian Iberia (modern day Georgia)
• Albania vs. Caucasian Albania (in present day Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan)
• Bulgaria vs. Volga Bulgaria (around present day Kazan) vs. Old Great Bulgaria (northeast of the Black Sea)
• Armenia vs. Kingdom of Armenia (from the South Caucasus to the Black Sea to Damascus) vs. Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (what is now southern Turkey)

Russia and the Middle East

I found this article on Stratfor about the geopolitics of the Middle East, and they have intelligence that Russia is beefing up its presence in the Middle East and likely looking to return to its prominent Cold War role in the Middle East. There's so much information in the article that I'll just quote a huge chunk of it:

With Israel sorting itself out internally and the neighboring Arabs lying in wait for the final outcome, this brief respite presents an opportunity for the Russians in the Middle East theater. Russia brought the world back into a Cold War paradigm with its August invasion of Georgia. The idea of a revived Cold War gained further traction in recent weeks when key Russian leaders emerged from the shadows and started popping up in places such as Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua to sit down with their old Latin American drinking buddies and discuss a slew of arms deals.

While the Russians appear to be paying a lot of attention to Latin America, the Middle East remains a viable playing ground for Russia to turn the screws on the West. In fact, Stratfor already has been getting indications that Russian intelligence officers are pouring into Beirut — a traditional Cold War battleground.

Of course, much has changed since the days of Soviet-sponsored chaos in the Middle East. Many of the Palestinian leftist leaders with whom the Soviets worked are either dead or retired. Groups have gone extinct. Alliances have shifted.

Nonetheless, the Russians still have a menu of options in getting back into the Middle East game. They will find no shortage of disaffected Palestinians who are sick of the current state of affairs and would be more than happy to have a foreign state sponsor. Former Marxist groups such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, after being beaten heavily in the past year by the Turks in northern Iraq, would likely jump at the opportunity to link up with their old Russian backers. Lebanon, which is now experiencing a higher-than-usual degree of communal volatility, has a range of factions for the Russians to choose from. And the list goes on.

Should the Russians decide that it is worth their while to incur the risk of provoking both Israel and Turkey, the Middle East is the next logical place for Moscow to ramp up covert activity. And the time to do so is now, while the Israelis are still distracted.

Turkey already sees the Russians coming. The Turks were extremely displeased to see Russia at war in the Caucasus, and they now are doing everything they can to keep the Russians as far away from the Middle East as possible. For this reason, Stratfor is hearing that the Turks are growing more and more insistent that the peace talks between Israel and Syria move forward — and quickly.

Syria, meanwhile, is in an interesting position. On the one hand, they can listen to their Turkish mediators and pursue an opening with the United States through a peace deal with Israel. On the other hand, they can choose to jump back into the Cold War game with the Russians and work against Western interests, taking all the risks that come with such a plan. In any case, the Syrians will have a lot of hard thinking to do over the next several weeks.

What the article didn't mention (though Stratfor has mentioned it before, as have Turkish journalists) is the suggestion that Russia might already have contracted out at least one operation with the PKK: the bombing of the BTC pipeline right before the South Ossetia war.

There's also no mention of Iran, though Russia's policy vis-à-vis Iran has been quite successful. It has enabled Iran to remain a minor pariah, just isolated enough to prevent the West from being willing to depend on Iran as a transit point of energy from the east, but not crazy enough to start any wars (though this would drive up energy prices and further bog down the US/Israel, which could be useful to Russia). This is significant because besides through Iran, the only other two ways to get energy from the east into Europe are through Russia and through the Caucasus. Russia obviously controls its own territory, and with the South Ossetia war, has successfully closed the Caucasus to Western energy pipelines (all three of them).

Russia, the Mexican drug wars, and 9/11

Stratfor has a great article (you need to search for the title in Google and access it through there to see the whole article) on Russia's propensity to reestablish contact with the Soviet Union's old proxy groups, and begin to assert itself abroad more. The article discusses here ways that Russia might try to meddle with the US in the Western hemisphere:

There is also a distinct possibility that through their relationship with the FARC, the Russians could gain entree to open a dialogue with some of the more radical elements of the Latin American drug trafficking organizations, including the hyperviolent Mexican cartels. Even Central American drug trafficking groups like Los Kaibiles, who began life strongly anti-communist, might be willing to accept weapons and funding from “democratic” Russians. Considering that Los Kaibiles are now quite mercenary, they also just might be willing to undertake specific attacks if their price point is met. Many Russian organized criminal groups are closely linked to the Kremlin and are a tool Putin and company are already using. These groups could be used to act as an interface with organized criminal groups elsewhere.

The most interesting possibility to me is Russia fanning the flames of Mexico's drug wars. If the killings started bleeding over more into the US, and the political pressure to seal up the border or even send troops into Mexico got too hot, I can see the US doing something that would isolate it internationally, and generally harm its ability to deal with Russia. A little odd that Stratfor never mentions that the problem could be dealt with in one fell swoop by legalizing the drugs that generate the black market profits that allow the violence to continue.

Though I was disappointed that the article failed to mention what could be Russia's biggest foray back into the Soviet-sponsored terrorism that marked the Cold War: Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda.

I think it's becoming more and more obvious that all of these people at Georgetown getting Security Studies degrees and studying al-Qaeda are on the absolute wrong track. The Cold War never ended for Russia – if al-Zawahiri is indeed under Soviet influence, it means that their contact with him after the collapse Soviet Union dates back as early as 1996. Though if al-Zawahiri is an FSB agent, he was probably a KGB agent too – it would explain perfectly why al-Zawahiri tried to get bin Laden and his number two at the time, Sheikh Azzam, to turn away from the Russians and focus on fighting the Americans. When he didn't get his way, he assassinated Azzam and became bin Laden's new second-in-command at the tail end of the '80s. This, unfortunately for the KGB, coincided with the turmoil of the collapse of the USSR, which explains the gap between when al-Zawahiri gained influence over bin Laden (right after the assassination) and when al-Zawahiri started really collaborating with bin Laden to commit attacks against the West rather than the Soviet Union and apostate Muslim countries (right after his release from "prison" in Russia in 1997).

T. Boone Pickens, pickin' your pocket

T. Boone Pickens is up to his rent-seeking mischief again. He's managed to capitalize on the green trend by advocating subsidies for his "green" projects. This includes a vast wind farm in Texas, which he's gone ahead with and now is lobbying to get the subsidies he needs for it to be profitable. Now he's up to it again in California, lobbying for the passage of Proposition 10 on the November ballot, which would grant $5 billion in subsidies for natural gas and alternative energy. Over half of the total would go to cars and trucks, and most of that would go to trucks and SUVs. Pickens is heavily invested in natural gas, and has a company that provides natural gas to government fleets. The subsidies go overwhelmingly to natural gas over other more efficient vehicles, like the Prius:

Consumer Federation of California executive director Richard Holober said most hybrid vehicles, which run on either electricity or gasoline, would not qualify for rebates under Proposition 10 except for the Toyota Prius, which gets the unusually high 45 miles per gallon.

"That will get you a $2,000 rebate," Holober said at a recent legislative hearing on the ballot measure. "A natural gas Honda Civic which is purely natural gas-fueled gets you at least a $10,000 rebate, even though the state of California's website rates them as identical in clean air standards and the Prius is much more energy-efficient."

"Clearly this is an attempt to distort the market for one particular product," he said

So, despite the fact that there are few natural gas filling stations in California, backers (i.e., Pickens and two other natural gas business) defend the emphasis on non-gasoline vehicles by saying that cars that don't run on any gas deserve a special place, ostensibly so as to "foster independence from foreign oil." This might be a valid suggestion if America were narrowing in on energy independence and we needed to just close that 2% gap that all of our cars were still using, but that's not where America is: we can't even stop growing our oil needs. Considering the far superior mileage that more efficient traditional and hybrid cars get, it seems ridiculous to say that they aren't more deserving than natural gas vehicles. (Obviously, I don't think any of them are deserving of subsidies, though I'd say that there are much bigger and badder subsidies and regulations relating to transportation, land use, and energy in place that need to be tackled first.)