In his best-selling book The First Billion is the Hardest, T. Boone Pickens makes a point of singling out the many ways oil-producing countries such as Venezuela, Russia, and the OPEC cartel use their energy resources to exert undue influence over net importers such as China, India, Europe, and the U.S.
“In January 2009 Russia slashed natural gas shipments to the Ukraine and western Europe and completely cut off the Balkans and Turkey over a contract dispute. How did the European Union respond? By telling the Russians that their actions were “completely unacceptable.” Hell of a response. You think OPEC wouldn’t cut off our crude over a major disagreement? Hugo Chávez would do that in a heartbeat. Establishing a sustainable energy policy is not just an economic issue. It’s a security issue first and foremost.”
Last week, the former head of Poland’s security service described the present circumstances even more bluntly. When asked by The New York Times about Russia’s new Nord Stream pipeline, which travels more than 750 miles underwater directly from Russia to Germany and bypasses the former Soviet and satellite states, giving Russia a direct pipeline to Europe, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski said,
“Yesterday tanks. Today oil.”
The end result, according to The Times, is that “many security experts and Eastern European officials say Russia will be more likely to play pipeline politics with its neighbors.”
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