Geo-strategic Imperatives, Grand Strategy, Strategy and Tactics

[russell jones]

Also, a lot of the time it can be related to democracy and rule of law as well. It isn't just per capita GDP and disposable income that changes the cost of labor markets but also labor laws, minimal wage and worker's rights, environmental policy, enforcement of laws, etc. The more accountable the government is to internal and external pressures the more these issues are going to play a part in the cost of manufacturing for export economies.

 

No doubt, I agree.

[christo-f]

Precluding any unforeseen obligations I should finally have time to write up the bit on Turkmenistan and the shifting dynamic in Central Asia tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Israel Unveils Drones Able to Hit Iran

http://HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/2010/02/22/WORLD/MIDDLEEAST/22MIDEAST.HTML?REF=WORLD

 

 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 21, 2010

TEL NOF AIR FORCE BASE, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Air Force on Sunday introduced a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and fly as far as the Persian Gulf, putting Iran within their range.

The new aircraft, called the Heron TP, has a wingspan of 86 feet, making it the size of a Boeing 737 jetliner and the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel’s military.

The commander of Israel’s Air Force, Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, said the aircraft “has the potential to be able to conduct new missions down the line as they become relevant.”

Israel’s military refused to disclose the size of the new fleet or whether it was designed for use against Iran.

Israel considers Iran an enemy because of its nuclear program, missiles and repeated threats.

Israel has hinted at the possibility of a military strike against Iran if world pressure does not halt the Iranian nuclear program, despite Iranian assertions that the program is for peaceful ends.

[MAR]

Yeah I saw that, Russia also put in an order for a bunch of Israeli UAV's to learn more about them. I wonder what that will mean as far as Iranian-Russian relations.

[christo-f]

Russia knows that if Israeli technology shows up in Iran as a result of tech transfer to Moscow that it will also end up very quickly in the hands of the Georgians and Baltics.

 

Iran is Russia's leverage, not their strategic patner/friend. Iran knows this too.

[e2ekillr]

BUMP

 

christo, may i ask you to include in your upcoming post on turkmenistan/energy a few words on this?

guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 March 2010 00.16 GMT

 

Turkey tonight recalled its ambassador to the US after a House of Representatives committee approved a resolution describing the massacre of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman empire during the first world war as genocide.

 

 

i interpret it as an attempt to disrupt the process of slowly improving relations between turkey and armenia (they signed an agreement). however, i dont get why the u.s. kinda shows turkey the middle-finger there. after all, turkey is one of the u.s.' strongest allies in the region, they control the bosporus and have a huge and quite capaple military. not to mention turkey's relevance in terms of energy supply.

[christo-f]

Ok, this won't be as detailed as I wanted it to be but it's late, I'm tired and I just want to get this done.

 

 

 

 

 

WHY TURKMENISTAN BELONGS TO RUSSIA and will for a long time yet.....

 

 

Basically, ever since the end of the Cold War/USSR Turkmenistan has always tried to have a policy of independence. It slowly pulled the Russians out of the military command structure and the bases out of the country. IT has joined the CIS but not the CSTO. It is not a member of the SCO but attends everyone of their meetings as an observer nation. It has also joined some airy fairy NATO thing called Partnership for Peace that sounds so fucking ridiculous I'm not even going to bother looking it up and it also has a security agreements with China, that are about as useful as the stupid NATO thing. Basically Trukmen has gone out of its way to try and balance itself between all the major forces in the region and the world. Turkmenistan has a huge amount of natural gas and at this point, I'm just going to straight post in some of my notes:

 

 

 

Turkmenistan is the only Central Asian state that is self-sufficient in both energy supplies and electricity production. The country currently produces 9.3 billion kilowatt-hours (Bkwh), with the potential of increasing production to approx 13 Bkwh with its current infrastructure. Since Turkmen uses less than 7 Bkwh, if it pushed production to capacity it could export more than half of its electricity to its neighbors. The country already exports electricity as well as natural gas and oil to neighboring Iran, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan. But those supplies go to certain isolated regions in those countries, just across the Turkmen border. Iran, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan do not have cross-country power grids that would allow Turkmenistan to expand its electricity supplies to these countries in any meaningful way, much less transit electricity to other states in the region.

 

 

Moscow has traditionally bought all of Turkmen's gas from them and then either used it themselves and sold their own gas to Europe for huge profit or just pushed Turkmen gas through Ukraine to Germany, etc. for a massive profit. When the recent financial crisis hit that was also paired with a mild winter, the demand for gas in Europe dropped and Russia couldn't sell so much energy to them. So Russia, instead of paying the fine incurred for not buying their agreed quota of gas from Turkmenistan, just closed their end of the pipeline..., turned the fucking tap off! Turkmen not being informed of this kept on pumping through until the pipe inevitably ruptured. Russia said, "Oh, there must be a fault in the pipe somewhere. No problem, we'll just wait for you to patch it up, we don't mind".

 

Turkmen got pissed, started drawing up plans to sell gas to Germany instead (through a non-existent transCaspian pipeline) and Russia started discussing removing their security guarantee from Turkmenistan in order to remind Ashgabat just who calls the fucking shots.

 

And that brings me to my point. Yes, China has recently completed their pipeline from Turkmen to China so they can buy 30bcmpa* and Turkmen is also selling another 8bcmpa to Iran. However, that pipeline that China has goes through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. All these states are highly accessible to Russia (Uzbek less so, but Kazakh very much so) and that pipeline is rather vulnerable to attacks from, oh, let's say "extremists"..., the same kind that blew up a few metro stops in Moscow today. The same ones that killed a bunch of cops in Xinjiang before the Olympics, etc.

 

Secondly, Turkmen has always been shit scared of Uzbekistan, being that they are landlocked and slicing off a little bit of Turkmen would change that situation for Tashkent quite nicely (also add that 12% of Turkmenistan, which is 400 000 people are ethnically Uzbek). So Russia has supplied an informal security guarantee via arms sales (2008 6 Smerch launchers to the tune of 70 million, probably the most memorable) and also helps them out with their internal "difficulties" from time to time, most recently with the Mary clan.

 

The Mary clan is the largest clan, population wise in Turkmenistan and the ruling party is not part of the Mary clan. There is an unspoken agreement in Turkmen that the ruling clan (forget their names right now) can keep the govt if the Mary clan can control the drugs trade, which comes up from Afghanistan, through Turkmen and Kazak, in to Russia and along to Europe and the rest of the world. However, if it goes through Russia, that means that Russia ultimately controls the drug trade and as an extension, the Mary clan's livelihood. That is one rather impressive lever that Russia has already inside Turkmen, control of the largest clan that also happens to be THE organised crime. Russia also has apparently a few troops in Turkmen. I can't find it on any book but they are there and people who know tell me a story, which can be checked if you really need it to be, of a recent little shitfight that happened on the streets of Ashgabat.

 

Basically there was a running gun battle in the streets of the capital between the Mary clan who were making their way to either beat the shit out of the govt for something or to actually take hold of power. The govt doesn't want to get in to a fight with the Mary's because it's either let them beat you while trying to minimise damage or fight them and eventually lose anyway. So Turkmen enlisted Russia's help and allowed the Russian soldiers to fight the battle for them. It was played out as a trade dispute with construction workers but that story is easier to poke holes in than a custard pie. I'm also told that Russia keeps a few soldiers in Turkmen as a deterrence against Uzbek taking a slice of the country (Russia and Uzbek don't always get along too well). If Uzbek comes through and a few Russian boys get offed in the process, Moscow will be obliged to do something about it.

 

So Russia not only showed the govt how vulnerable they were by having the Mary Clan threaten them but also showed them that the only thing standing in between the Mary's and an overthrowing of the govt is Russia.

 

Russia buys the most of Turkmen's exports, for the time being so it has economic levers over the country. Russia supplies military weapons (which also means training and replacement parts). Russia protects Turkmen from Uzbekistan. Russia protects the Turkmen government from its own people. And the most important, no one can protect Turkmenistan from Russia!!!!

 

 

And this is the most simple, straight forward and powerful reason as to why Russia still has total power over Turkmenistan; GEOGRAPHY.

 

Not only is it as flat as a fucking tack meaning you can drive a hindred tank regiments all the way from Moscow to Ashgabat, they also have a coastline that the Russian Caspian fleet can just pull up next to and blast the fucking shit out of! And who's going to give a fuck? America? Why the fuck would they care? They don't buy their oil or gas from Turkmen and they're already too busy trying to get the fuck out of Iran and Afghanistan to notice (just ask Georgia!). There's no way in red hell that the US would like to get involved in a war with Russia in a region too far for their air craft carriers to be useful, right were Russia can sit on their back porch and blast the US from their Stalin era rocking chairs! The US has much more important things to worry about right now, like health care, bank reform, having the Chinese Yuan revalued...., getting out of the two wars they're already in..., etc.

 

And what the fuck is China going to do, march the red army across the Hindu-Kush mountains, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to save fucking Turkmenistan? Not for the last Happy Meal toy in Guangzhou they fucking won't! Russia could do what ever the fuck they want in Turkmenistan and there ain't a soul on this planet that could stop them, regardless of who buys how much gas.

 

Russia also owns most of the energy infrastructure including distribution in, around and out of Turkmenistan so they can also decide where a lot of that gas goes. Not to mention that Russia's enemies in the Former Soviet Union still have a funny habit of committing suicide via a sniper's bullet from a window across the street.....

 

 

 

 

But that is not to say that things aren't changing. Yes, China is buying LOTS of gas from Turkmen and has plans to buy more soon. It could well get to the point that with Ashgabat filling Chinese and Iranian needs that there won't be enough to fulfill Russian demands. If Russia doesn't have it's energy sales to Europe they lose a critical political lever over their western neighbours. In that respect there will either have to be some method of accommodation arranged between China and Russia, which they would both MUCH prefer anyway or there will be friction.

 

BUT, once again, geography is on Russia's side. China's pipes are very vulnerable, Turkmenistan is Russia's back yard and China is a few countries and one of the largest and most rugged mountain ranges away.

 

 

 

So, I make the argument that no one has bought Turkmenistan and due to geography it will be a LONG time before anyone has more real influence over Ashgabat that Moscow does.

 

 

 

 

 

* billion cubic meters per annum

[christo-f]

Great thread Christo-f!

 

I understand that the US have provided aid and unofficially welcomed India into the nuclear club in order to provide a check against growing Chinese power. Can you summarise some of the other available resources the US has to maintain global hegemony? Particularly in relation to the CCP.

 

Next stop, and I believe Senator Schumer is answering part of this question for me with his new bill as I type my words....

[WORDISM45]

 

3) Russia read the editorial that was in the Chinese state owned Global Times today that basically said that China would never entertain sanctions because it has far too much of an interest in Iran and now Russia thinks that it can look cooperative while China vetoes any action in the UNSC (quite possible, to say the least)

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/31/china-supports-obama-iran-sanctions

[christo-f]

Correct, howver the sanctions have been changed from "crippling" sanctions to ones that are basically ineffectual.

 

So in essence the outcome is the same. China wants to look like it is moving on the matter because the US is pressuring Beijing to revalue the Yuan.

 

The Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili arrives in Beijing today to hold hands with Dai Bingguo, one of the chief policy makers. That illustrates how close China and Iran are playing on the matter.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63004520100401

[christo-f]

Holy Christ, look at Obama's tie in that Guardian article...

[WORDISM45]

can't a man wear mauve in the 21st century? ;)

[christo-f]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/31/china-supports-obama-iran-sanctions

 

An update on this. The two track sanctions are taking shape. Russia and China are moving toward backing pissweak sanctions as of the year 2026. The US is pushing forward with unilateral sanctions trying to starve Iran of gasoline (petrol for us traditionalists).

 

Lukoil (Russian) and Petronas (Malaysian) have announced that they have stopped shipping petrol to Iran. this is along with a number of other international oil producers and shipping companies. Petronas did so because they have interests pretty deeply tied to the US domestic end sale market and know they are vulnerable to pressure from Washington.

 

Iran is getting nervous and starting to talk like they will soon test a nuclear device. Iran talks a lot and a lot of it is for their own domestic interests. Obama recently released a new nuclear doctrine of no first strike and no strike on states that are not nuclear armed. However it was also clearly stated that this doctrine does not apply to DPRK and Iran as they are currently moving towards obtaining a nuclear capability.

 

If Iran does test a nuke device this is the justification they will give; "We didn't want to have nuclear arms but these unjustified threats from the US have forced us to defend ourselves".

 

Time will tell.

[Spitfire15]

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20100418/D9F5GIJO0.html

 

ZO NOE!

[WORDISM45]

Why do bans on petrol exports to Iran really effect the country? Doesn't it have more than enough oil for itself while still leaving huge ammounts for export? Do they have limited refining capabilities or something?

[christo-f]

Yep, very limited refining capacity.

 

They run on 48% reliance on gasoline (about 51% natgas) and it is heavily subsidised. The govt has toyed with lowering the subsidies and that results in angry people marching the streets. It's a bit of an Achilles heal for them.

[Spitfire15]

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20100422/D9F7R7D80.html

 

Those zany russians.