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

...

First Russia extended their troops to the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, then there was a rebellion of a tank battalion, followed by the expulsion of two Canadian diplomats working for NATO.  Kind of like a tit-for-tat and tat in response to the ejection from NATO of two Russians accused of spying.  Moscow has blamed the Baltics for trying to upset the "reset button" deal with Washington, but it seems apparent that some of the hardline clans within the Russian leadership believe there is an opportunity to advance their interests in the Caucasus without any cost.  Observers like Pavel Felgenhauer believe that Georgia is on the brink of yet another war with Russia.  Judging by rhetoric, he may be prescient.  Today Georgia's envoy ...

It seems that when it comes to the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008, impartiality is very hard to come by.  A supposedly independent commission from the European Union is soon due to put out its report on who did what, but the German magazine Der Spiegel has already leaked the story - which points the blame principally on Georgia.  Naturally a lot of people don't like that conclusion.  Below is an excerpt from an interesting piece disputing both the Der Spiegel article and the commission's unreleased report, and later today we'll be putting up a video of some interviews commenting specifically on this blame game.TCS Daily:

The already embattled Georgian President Mikheil "Misha" Saakashvili's ill-fortunes don't seem to be improving. In late

...

Blogger Robert Farley reads the news about Russian nuclear warships being dispatched for exercises off the coast of Venezuela, and asks some interesting questions about exactly how effective this move might be in terms of prompting a desirable outcome from Washington: On this latter, am I wrong in thinking of this as a clumsy Russian effort to threaten the backyard of the United States, just as the United States can threaten the backyard of Russia? I have a longer post on this subject in the works, but I guess that I just don't quite understand this effort; the United States can do things in the near abroad that actually threaten Russia (rebuilding the Georgian military, pressing for Georgian/Ukranian entry to NATO, building bigger and better missile shields, etc.) while Russia can do things in Latin America that mildly annoy the United ...