Registan.net has posted up a nine-page executive summary of a long report compiled by John Bumgarner of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit.  Steve LeVine at Oil and Glory talked with and analyzed the results...  which show that complicity with the government in the cyber attack on Georgia was highly likely, and, in fact, it could have been much, much worse (just as the Russian air strikes purposely bombed all around the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline without hitting it to prove the point.From Oil and Glory:Yet, the cyber attackers did not go in for the kill, Bumgarner told me -- they didn't attempt to cripple sites that could have caused chaos or injury, such as those linked to power stations or oil-delivery facilities, but merely those that could trigger comparative "inconvenience." "There was a political decision not to attack those critical infrastructures directly. They ...

Why would Turkey sign on to a massively expensive and redundant underwater pipeline that would eliminate the transit business at the lucrative but over-trafficked Bosporus Straits?  Because when it comes to Gazprom and Eni's South Stream, it is very different to say you support it than it is to actually build it.  Nabucco is likely to work, and looks like it will find the gas to fill capacity - but not before Ankara does everything possible to milk both sides for the maximum concessions.These editors at Zaman don't quite get the issue right, but there is enough perspective here to get an idea of the Turkish mentality on Russian energy politics (resentful of the perceived mistreatment ...

Given all the news this week of Russia and Italy's South Stream deal with Turkey in exchange for a nuclear power plant, I thought I would repost an article written by Robert Amsterdam last fall in Energy Risk on Turkey's political pipelines.

FROM OCT. 2008, ENERGY RISK:

Turkey's political pipelines

Turkey's strategic position at the crossroads of East and West has put it at the centre of a geopolitical tug of war, with energy supply a key driver. Robert Amsterdam examines the energy policies being brought to bear in the region

Turkey's role in global affairs is defined by its geostrategic importance as the bridge between Europe and the Near East. Following Russia's invasion and occupation of Georgia in August, which caused considerable energy supply jitters, Turkey was once again thrust into the spotlight as the European

...

Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and a long list of other former leaders of Eastern European states have penned an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama expressing their fears over what kinds of sacrifices to their sovereignty might come along with Washington's effort to improve relations with Russia.  Full text of the letter below from Gazeta Wyborcza, news coverage from Associated Press and Reuters.

An Open Letter to the Obama Administration from Central and Eastern Europe

by Valdas Adamkus, Martin Butora, Emil Constantinescu, Pavol Demes, Lubos Dobrovsky, Matyas Eorsi, Istvan Gyarmati, Vaclav Havel, Rastislav Kacer, Sandra Kalniete, Karel Schwarzenberg, Michal Kovac, Ivan Krastev, Alexander Kwasniewski, Mart Laar, Kadri Liik, Janos Martonyi. Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Adam Rotfeld, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Alexandr Vondra, Lech Walesa.

We have written this letter because, as Central and Eastern European (CEE) intellectuals and former policymakers,

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Right up there with swine achieving flight and hell freezing over, the probability that European bureaucrats would succeed in building the Nabucco natural gas pipeline was, at least up until a year ago, firmly placed in the realm of impossibility.How things change.  Though nothing is yet guaranteed, on Monday officials from the five transit countries signed a formal agreement in Ankara, Turkey to proceed with the project, injecting fresh optimism into the initiative which could shatter Gazprom's supply monopoly."It's one of those steps that moves Nabucco out of the possible column and into the probable column," one energy analyst told CNN.  "My own guess is roughly by the end of the year, it will be pretty clear that Nabucco will be built."...

One would think that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev would be pretty pleased to receive Vice President Dick Cheney's official delegation a few weeks ago - it was after all the highest ranking U.S. politician to ever visit the country. However that's not quite how it played out. Amid numerous reports that the meetings in Baku were cool if not cold, Aliyev additionally snubbed Cheney by not showing up to the airport to welcome him, and then immediately telephoned Medvedev right after their meeting to explain what the U.S. energy strategy is for the region. This made the mercurial vice president so angry that he apparently skipped town on a dinner to be held in his honor. The Russian press has been having a field day parading the "failure" of the Cheney delegation to hardball the Azeris into energy supply commitments ...

One would think that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev would be pretty pleased to receive Vice President Dick Cheney's official delegation a few weeks ago - it was after all the highest ranking U.S. politician to ever visit the country. However that's not quite how it played out. Amid numerous reports that the meetings in Baku were cool if not cold, Aliyev additionally snubbed Cheney by not showing up to the airport to welcome him, and then immediately telephoned Medvedev right after their meeting to explain what the U.S. energy strategy is for the region. This made the mercurial vice president so angry that he apparently skipped town on a dinner to be held in his honor. The Russian press has been having a field day parading the "failure" of the Cheney delegation to hardball the Azeris into energy supply commitments ...

The United States is confident that Georgia and Ukraine will become members of the NATO military alliance, a top US administration official stated earlier today. Russia's recognition of Georgian breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia has increased backing for Georgia and Ukraine's admission to the 26-member NATO alliance, stated the official, who wished to remain anonymous. These statements were made as US Vice President Dick Cheney held talks with Italian leaders. Cheney last week vowed Washington's backing for Baku, Tbilisi and Kiev during a tour of the region, and urged NATO to unite in order to ward off a return of "line-drawing" in Europe. He held weekend meetings with political and business leaders at a conference in Italy, including many of the top world oil executives. The official went on to state that the crisis in the former Soviet regions are "not just a US problem; all of Europe has a stake in ...

The Wall Street Journal is carrying a story on VP Dick Cheney's trip to the Black Sea to express support for Georgia and push for alternative pipeline projects such as Nabucco. "The Russians have demonstrated they can close that corridor through Georgia any time they want," said John Bolton, President Bush's former U.N. ambassador. U.S. officials reject that. "The Georgian energy corridor is safe," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew J. Bryza, one of Nabucco's major supporters, told an audience in Brussels Monday. He stressed that Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and the South Caucasus Gas Pipeline, which transports Azeri gas to Turkey, were unaffected by the fighting. Mr. Bryza also said European energy companies behind Nabucco and the Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline have told him they are determined to proceed with the two projects. "They haven't slowed down at all," he said. "They are anxious to line up gas supply contracts with ...

“Moscow's current economic dilemma is that the old sources of growth will soon be exhausted.” Law enforcement officers have raided the Moscow headquarters of mobile phone retailer Yevroset. Mechel, Russia’s biggest coking coal producer, is seeking approval to acquire indirect control of German metals trader HBL Holding. BP’s Baku-Supsa pipeline, which transports crude from Azerbaijan to Georgia's Black Sea coast, is "undamaged", but closed for security reasons.