The Nord Stream pipeline is back in the news this week, and unfortunately it's not main stream press reviews of Grigory Pasko's documentary.  The Financial Times was carrying a three-frame photo in its special Russia business pull-out section of Vladimir Putin walking by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at an energy summit giving him a high five, while the Andrew Kramer at the New York Times had the longer investigative piece, which is attracting a lot of attention.  One little detail I noticed in the Kramer piece:

But officials in Central and Eastern Europe fear that while profits from the pipeline, a joint venture between Gazprom and a trio of German and Dutch companies, will flow to Russian suppliers and German utilities, the long trod-upon countries once under the Soviet umbrella will become more vulnerable to energy blackmail.

Such tactics are hardly without precedent. A

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By Martin Hutchinson Contributing Editor Like it or not, with the invasion of Georgia, we have a new Cold War – as well as the profit opportunities that accompany such a conflict. International investors were able to make a lot of money during the “first” Cold War, so if any more politicians or TV commentators tell me they don’t want a return to those halcyon days, I shall scream. And since the situation in Georgia has effectively created a new Cold War status, it’s worth reviewing where the profit opportunities will be this time, and which countries the sensible, geo-strategically conscious investor will avoid – especially since Vladimir Putin looks a lot more dangerous than the sluggardly Leonid Brezhnev. Danger on the Inside You probably didn’t have much money in Georgia, Ukraine, or Kazakhstan, the three countries most immediately ...