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Razin

Sep 11 2006, 04:14 AM

this is the whole big section on Spiegel's website:

The Global Battle for Natural Resources

it is a selection of reports and analysis about what appanetly drives modern World's politics

its one of the earlier articles is about Chavez:

Ché Guevara with Oil

QUOTE

The Venezuelan president has certainly pulled no punches in cursing, slandering and humiliating the gringos to the north. He alternately refers to the US president as the "biggest terrorist on earth" and "an idiot." In Chávez's opinion, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's problem is her "fascist" orientation and that "she is sexually frustrated." {I think that is TRUE ! } He says that although he is certainly capable of helping out in that department, he isn't really interested.

In return, Rice has called the Venezuelan a "demagogue." {BUT - she didn't deny his suggested reason of her frustration !

} George W. Bush calls Chávez a godfather of terror. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld likens him to Adolf Hitler. And Pat Robertson, the Republican televangelist and a one-time potential candidate for the vice-presidency, has even openly suggested that the CIA "take him out." (In April 2002, he survived a coup attempt organized -- "probably with the help of the CIA," according to the US newsmagazine Newsweek -- by the upper class)

... During a visit to London, he insulted British Prime Minister Tony Blair by calling him "Bush's poodle." {how true ! }

Chávez, 51, threatens to cut off oil shipments to the superpower, suggests that he might annex a Caribbean island or two and even mentions the possibility of forging an "anti-imperialistic alliance" with the Iranians. {whahahahaha !

}

charismatic politician from Caracas is about the only public figure on earth so intent on goading the Bush administration.... Chávez is playing with fire at an uncomfortably close range. In fact, he's practically in the superpower's backyard, with his country separated from the US coastline by only about 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles) of ocean. He's also doing his best to stir up all of South America against the United States and pull the Latin world leftward. Still, Chavez is anything but a powerless caudillo or an insignificant backyard politician: He rules an important state that is practically swimming in oil. Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and, with the exception of Canada's oil sands, has the most important reserves in the Western Hemisphere.

Venezuela's president also happens to be handing out charity in the slums of major US cities. { there are SLUMS in he BEST country in the world?

and Bush can't arrange charity in them ? SHOCK AND AWE, Baby ! } During a cold snap around Christmas 2005, he offered heating oil from his own reserves at half price to the residents of low-income neighborhoods in Boston and New York, and he plans to do the same thing this coming winter. [b]Santa Chávez. {

}

Chávez TV, "Aló Presidente" program every Subday ... It would be extremely difficult to imagine George W. Bush hosting the same type of program, or German President Horst Köhler, for that matter...

Just as Bolívar brought together a large part of the continent against its Spanish occupiers around 1820, Chávez wants to create the same kind of unity against what he calls "threatening new occupation forces from Washington." He has managed to have Venezuela change its official name to "República Bolivariana de Venezuela." But that isn't enough for Chávez, who wants to transform all of Latin America into an anti-American realm a la Bolívar. (INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC: Upheaval in Latin America)

His instrument of domination is television and it's through TV that he rules the country -- with his personality show, for one, and with a media law that prescribes "social responsibility" and can degenerate into censorship at any time... {sounds familiar ? Pathriot Acts in the light of "war on terror", labeling any alternative opinions as "conspiracy theories" and therefore "terrorists" ?

}

$10 billion in social spending : The president has pumped at least an estimated $10 billion into social programs in the last two years. How much of that money went up in smoke, and how much was wasted on unsuccessful programs?
................
Chirinos : "I've spent a long time thinking about which current politician Hugo Chávez could possibly resemble. This sense of mission, this certainty dispelling all contradictions, this Biblical language with its division into God and Satan, absolute good and endless evil. I can only think of one man: George W. Bush." {what a surprise !

}

amazing - what OIL can do to people ! one clown like Bush - to invade countries

, while another clown like Chavez slander superpowers

!

but I agree that WAR for RESOURCES - not "war on terror" - is playing enreasingly big role in international politics ! "democracy", "freedom", "better wolrd" - all are inferior priorities , if at all !

Pro-Chavez graffitti: "A better world is possible, if it"s a socialist one."

Razin

Sep 11 2006, 04:39 AM

July 18, 2006
"Energy Security Will Be one of the Main Challenges of Foreign Policy"(Daniel Yergin, 59, has been known as the "Energy Pope" since the 1991 publication of his book "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power," which won him a Pulitzer Prize. The author and businessman is chairman and co- founder of an international energy consultancy.)

QUOTE

In a SPIEGEL interview, United States oil expert Daniel Yergin discusses fears of a global energy crisis, the growing confidence of oil-rich nations and changes in world politics caused by rising energy prices.

We are living in a different world now. You can see it everywhere in international relations: It was noteworthy that, after his visit to Washington, the Chinese president's next stop was Saudi Arabia. And the first state visit made by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah took him to Beijing. There is a significant re-orientation. The Russians are turning east to the Chinese -- to the Europeans' surprise. It always seemed to me that the relationship between Russia and China would shift from being based in Marx and Lenin to being based in oil and gas.
China seems to conduct its foreign policy for the sole purpose of covering its enormous energy needs....

This is not the first time the world has run out of oil. It is more like the fifth. Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of oil. We experienced similiar fears in the 1880s, at the end of World War I and II. And we ran out in the 1970s. People always underestimate the impact of technology. To give you an example: In the 1970s the frontier for offshore development was 200 meters, today it is 4,000 meters.... the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology ... The importers really need to think about how to manage the energy security question... we have to find a common vocabulary for energy security. This notion has a radically different meaning for different people. For Americans it is a geopolitical question. For the Europeans right now it is very much focused on the dependence on imported natural gas. The starting point for energy security today as it has always been is diversification of supplies and sources....

In a world of increasing interdependence, energy security will depend much on how countries manage their relations with one another. That is why energy security will be one of the main challenges of foreign policy in the years ahead. Oil and gas have always been political commodities. But right now, it is more political than it has been for years.

I think that's exactly what is going on in Iraq, Afgan and may be soon in Iran - Americans push their geopolitical agenda of energy security ! reminds me of one of recent articles where it was shown how all major conflicts of this and last centuries are related to Oil and energy resources.

Fit2BThaied

Sep 11 2006, 05:15 AM

I suspect that forward thinkers are not just buying up or stealing oil reserves. Water is a far more scare commodity, or soon it will be. Arable land is another. Control of communication.

Education is another. On December 31, 2000, I warned rich and liberal Venezuelans who opposed Chavez that unless they educated their poor people, Venezuela would have no jobs in another 40 years that the people could do. Little did I realize then, why the people were waging a general strike against Chavez.

Razin

Sep 11 2006, 05:29 AM

here is given quite convincing analysis about international politics developement since WWII till nowdays, and it says this era already started:

THE NEW COLD WAR
The Global Battle for Natural Resources
By Erich Follath

QUOTE

The global economy is booming, and experts predict it will stay healthy. But competition for natural resources will change the balance of power among the world's nations as a new age of conflicts over energy begins. In a new online series, SPIEGEL documents the global competition for dwindling supplies of natural resources.

... It's also an age in which international politics are increasingly determined by questions of energy security.

The point future historians will define as the start of this era is anyone's guess. Perhaps it'll be the day in May 2005 when the world's most expensive oil and natural gas pipeline was dedicated in a festive ceremony in the Azerbaijani capital Baku. That pipeline stretches from Azerbaijan through Georgia and ends at the Turkish port of Ceyhan -- a geographically remote and highly controversial project that was promoted by Washington in an effort to curb Iranian and Russian influence in the region.

Or it might be the day China secured resources for the next few decades in a $70 billion deal in Tehran.

Iran threatens to use oil as a weapon; Russia has already used natural gas as a political tool in its dealings with neighboring countries, and it can even shut off the natural gas spigot to Europe. Venezuela is toying with the idea of cutting off oil shipments to the United States, and terrorist organization al-Qaida recently tried, for the first time, to blow up Saudi Arabian oil facilities.

In a recently published study, experts from the investment bank Goldman Sachs and international political consultants from Washington, London and Singapore named international terror as the number two threat to the global economy. According to the report, only one issue poses a greater threat: raw material shortages and the related high price of oil. {well, that explains it all : } ... Bush said that America was "addicted to oil"

European Union Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner recently announced that the EU is making "the issue of energy security a key element of its foreign policy," a necessary shift that she attributes to recent "wake-up calls."

So why does this new cold war seem, in many respects, so much like the old one that followed World War II? What are the differences? Where and how has the emphasis shifted?
The first Cold War started with the bomb -- and with a dispute....Of course, for many others it was, in the words of author George Orwell, "a horribly stable world," one in which the ideological rivalry between the superpowers led to the formation of blocs, or clearly defined spheres of interest....

Both superpowers thought nothing of propping up "allies" unconditionally, even if they were brutal dictators on the "right" or on the "left." The US and the USSR never allowed themselves to be forced into a major direct confrontation. But large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America never enjoyed Western Europe's enduring peace. The biggest losers during this era were those living in underdeveloped regions, which the major powers selfishly used as battlegrounds -- and as suppliers of cheap energy...

Take, for example, America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. For decades Washington supplied the country's corrupt princes with the latest in modern weapons and fighter aircraft. In return for cheap fuel, America showered its supplier nations with billions. Hardly anyone was interested in whether the blessings of US currency ever reached the majority of people in these countries, or whether their rulers instead used the money to suppress democratic movements.

Despite the fact that an end to the Cold War was repeatedly proclaimed during the détente phases, it was only the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that brought real change...

The Cold War, the age of the permanent but generally manageable conflict, initially turned into a phase of "wild" peace. During this transitional period it became clear that the US model of democracy wasn't necessarily transferable, that the dangers to world peace had not evaporated, but simply shifted, and that major countries of the Third World could no longer be forced to act as proxies for anyone else.

Ultimately, however, "wild peace" in the wake of the Cold War -- the period between 1991 and 2001 -- was nothing but an interlude in which the actors on the world stage positioned themselves. Europe searched for its identity and possibly its own path ... Russia ... new alliances ... The US ... continued its military buildup -- to the point where the 2007 US military budget will equal the weapons expenditures of all other countries in the world combined.

From the wild peace to a new Cold War

Afghanistan wasn't a big enough prize for the White House. President Bush, and especially Vice President Richard Cheney and hawkish Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, used misinformation about supposed weapons of mass destruction to inflate support within the US population and an international "coalition of the willing" for launching a military campaign against Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Not many in Washington were concerned by the global community's refusal to sanction this step. The attacks of Sept. 11 had made Americans painfully aware of their physical vulnerability, as well as shining a spotlight on the unreliability of its partners and the potential hostility of an entire world region. After all, 15 of the 19 terrorists on the Sept. 11 aircraft were originally from Saudi Arabia, whose corrupt royal family had supported Bin Laden for many years.

Quagmire in Iraq

Bush's Iraq campaign was about toppling a dictator, America's strategic interests and its military bases, and the attempt to "implant" democracy in the Middle East. More than anything, though, it was a war for oil.

Iraq has enormous oil and natural gas reserves. And whoever controls the land on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers can exercise decisive influence over developments in this volatile region, sometimes dubbed the "world's gas station" because of its vast natural resources.

But it's been clear for months now that the campaign has failed. The US occupation force was not greeted with flowers and, as a result of its inability to provide even the most basic necessities, such as water and electricity, it is increasingly abhorred by the Iraqi people. Terror wrought by al-Qaida, which made Iraq its new center, has claimed more Iraqi victims than Americans.

Despite all appeals to stay the course, Baghdad will not be able to liberate itself from economic lethargy through oil exports anytime soon. Almost daily terror attacks against pipelines have reduced production even further. Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi already says that his country is descending into civil war. But US President Bush continues to believe in "victory" and that world has become "a safer place" since the Iraq invasion. {what a lunatic !

}

A clear majority of Americans now oppose the war, and many feel bitter about the negative image a country considered a democratic leader is currently projecting in the wake of scandals from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib. Throughout its history, the United States has alternated between periods of global intervention and domestic navel gazing {

}, and it could become increasingly introverted in the near future. A second military adventure, in Iran, for example, is highly unlikely to happen, partly because most Americans are apparently more concerned about a 50 percent increase in gasoline prices in the last 48 months than about a distant country's nuclear ambitions.

The big problems remain: the proliferation of nuclear weapons, radical Islamism and terrorism. No one knows how to prevent an Iranian president who -- at least verbally -- is committed to the destruction of Israel from building nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden has managed to establish, in large sections of predominantly Muslim and economically backward states, his Islamist worldview as a counterweight to a supposedly exploitive, "godless" Western society. Although al-Qaida's role as a tightly run terrorist organization has diminished, its comprehensive ideology of terror has spread throughout the world, making it more dangerous than ever before.

Only an improvement in living conditions -- including integration into globalized world trade under free, non-protectionist conditions and, in particular, personal opportunities for advancement -- can reduce the hold radical leaders have over people in these countries. This social change is the prerequisite for a civil society and, when it comes to democratic social interaction, is far more important than free elections, for example. It can only be achieved through the production, supply and equitable distribution of consumer goods, and it is based on the condition of undisturbed access to all types of natural resources, including fossil fuels, uranium and renewable energy.

A major problem has been pushed to the forefront. All major powers -- the United States, Europe, Russian and up-and-comers China and India -- have now made resource security a top priority political issue. They have devoted considerable efforts to building a network of pipelines across deserts and grasslands and beneath the oceans. As they court the custodians and owners of the resources, trickery, bribery and bargaining have become the order of the day. But in the foreseeable future, this battle is likely to be waged below the threshold of military conflict, which means the intermediate phase of "wild freedom" following the collapse of the Soviet Union has shifted to a different era: the New Cold War.

Underground treasures and earthly conflicts:
Global Oil and Gas Resources and Sources of conflict

interactive map

Razin

Sep 11 2006, 06:37 AM

furtjer amalysis of who the major players are / would be, and what possible moves they'll make and of course - what possible outcomes and their scenarios will be :

THE COMING CONFLICT
Natural Resources are Fuelling a New Cold War

Worldwide energy consumption

interactive map

QUOTE

Earth's population consumed 83 million barrels of oil per day last year. According to calculations by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Paris-based club of oil-importing states, the number will have climbed to above 90 million by 2010, and it will have reached about 115 million in 2030. The more fiercely fossil fuels blaze in ovens, burn in our engines and power generators, the faster a country can develop. US energy analyst Daniel Yergin has written that "petroleum remains the motive force of industrial society."

Even Western politicians, who normally like to present themselves as the defenders of human rights and pioneers of democratic liberties, aren't too fussy about who they do business with. Petroleum and natural gas discoveries draw attention to new international hot spots such as West Africa, Sudan, Venezuela or the region surrounding the Caspian Sea. They also bring unusual, previously unknown political stars onto the stage of world politics -- not all of them angelic, to put it mildly.

Take Azerbaijan's corrupt 44-year-old ruler Ilam Aliyev, for example. Under his rule, demonstrations are brutally put down. But there's not much that can be done without the strong man from Baku. The country he rules is the one where the world's most expensive oil and natural gas pipeline -- the construction costs were $3.6 billion dollars -- starts. The pipeline leads from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. It was inaugurated with plenty of pomp and circumstance and in the presence of the US energy secretary in May 2005. For political reasons, the great pipeline is one of Washington's pet projects -- it knocks the much-hated Iran and Russia out of the game.

Like the autocrat Aliyev, the bizarre 65- year- old dictator Saparmurad Niyazov -- who rules Turkmenistan, another country rich in resources -- is wooed by Americans, Europeans, Chinese and Russians. The man, who calls himself "Turkmenbashi" ("Father of all Turkmen"), is cultivating a bizarre cult of personality -- one that could even make North Korea's notoriously self-obsessed Kim Jong Il envious. He's ordered the erection of golden monuments bearing his likeness all over the country. His writings are taught in school and his people are even quizzed on those writing when they take a driving test. In the summer of 2005, the tyrant, who has opposition members tortured, organized a stately reception for John Abizaid, a delegate of the US government. Corporations didn't want to be outdone and created a favorable mood by presenting gifts. For example, Daimler Chrysler presented Niyazov with an expensively printed German translation of his political bible "Rushnama" ("Book of the Soul"). Turkmenbashi, who administers 90 percent of the revenue from natural gas exports in a fund that only he can access, gave thanks by handing out lucrative contracts....

In 2004, the People's Republic alone was responsible for a full 36 percent of the global rise in petroleum consumption. In 2002, China overtook Japan as the world's second-greatest oil consumer, topped only by the US. According to some estimates, the number of Chinese cars, motorcycles and mopeds will increase fivefold in the next 15 years -- and energy consumption will increase accordingly.

Russian President Vladimir Putin
and Chinese President Hu Jintao:
A petroleum pipeline for China?

On a global scale, however, the Chinese are comparably moderate in their fuel consumption. If the average Chinese person lived as excessively as a US citizen, he would consume thirteen times as much. The People's Republic would require more than 90 million barrels of petroleum every 24 hours -- more than is produced worldwide in a day at present. {scary !

} China has no alternative.

Washington and Beijing seem to be on a collision course -- two giant oil tankers approaching each other at full speed, without either one of them being willing to make even minimal changes to his direction, or even to his speed.

The White House is outraged because Beijing continues to help the aggressive Iranian President Ahamdinejad develop his missile production facilities. The Chinese leadership speaks of an entirely legal business transaction between two independent states and is highly upset that the US government imposed sanctions on five state-owned Chinese corporations in December for doing business with Iran. One of the corporations that the US punished is Catic, one of China's largest weapons producers.

The Chinese leadership surrounding President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is accusing the US administration of hypocrisy, and even of arbitrarily limiting the free trade whose praises the US is always singing. Last year, a planned takeover of the US oil company Unocal by China's CNOOC failed even though CNOOC's bid of $18.5 billion was the highest. Washington prevented the takeover, citing "national strategic interests."

Beijing is now trying to hit the Americans where it hurts -- mainly in the US's trade with the White House's traditional allies. China has signed long-term contracts on the shipment of natural gas and iron ore with Canberra and has surpassed the US to become Australia's second-largest export market. Asia's expansionist enthusiasts have bought themselves into energy projects in Canada as well, spending billions.

Almost 40 percent of Chinese direct investment is funnelld to Latin America -- and a lot of it goes to Africa too. President Hu and Prime Minister Wen have visited dozens of African states in recent years, closing business deals with many of them and trumping Washington in the process. According to Mikkal Herberg, a US specialist on economic development, a confrontation between the US and China over energy is inevitable.

In pursuing their relentless strategy of expansion, the self-confident Chinese are taking on Japan too.... Japanese aren't necessarily Putin's first choice.

As radical as Beijing's rhetoric towards Tokyo may be, and as hard-nosed as the Chinese act in their dealings with Washington -- when they're dealing with India, they become more gentle. On the official level, there is much talk of "common interests." Behind the scenes, however, Beijng is asserting its energy interests against those of Delhi as toughly as against anyone else.

Last summer, the China National Petroleum Corporation acquired the PetroKazakhstan corporation, based in Calgary. The total volume of the business transaction was more than $4 billion. An Indian consortium also made a bid for the corporation, which has access to resources in central Asia. Delhi also lost out on a deal signed early this year: the Beijing-based CNOOC bought $2.3 billion worth of shares in a private Nigerian oil company.

China ... proceeds regardless whether it is with dubious business partners.
In the short term the authoritarian state, with its system of state capitalism, is leading two to zero....

India's most important oil supplier is Saudi Arabia. India also entertains an intensive resource trade with Iran. And deal was closed with Myanmar for the construction of a pipeline. All three of the states that India is doing business with have extremely undemocratic governments. But the Singh administration seems willing to set aside old grievances with other states when it comes to resources. Serious talks about a natural gas pipeline through Pakistan are ongoing. Delhi's oil minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer, is even dreaming of an Asia-wide network of pipelines. In pursuing this project, he is striving for cooperation with India's great rival China.

.... In January, Aiyer and his Chinese counterpart signed an agreement on cooperation in the energy sector. The purpose of the agreement is to prevent a ruthless bidding war over petroleum resources.

Within a few hours, the Indians had learned how difficult it can be to cooperate trustingly with China on energy issues. The ink on the agreement had barely dried when it transpired that Beijing had secretly secured for itself the exclusive rights to lucrative natural gas reserves in Myanmar -- notwithstanding the fact that two Indian companies are formal co-proprietors of those reserves. In the eyes of the dragon, the elephant is a junior partner.

America sobers up

Will the US intervene directly in the competition between the aspirant superpowers China and India? Will Washington help Japan gain access to new energy sources? Will it take serious action to curb Russia's attempts to use oil and natural as instruments for exerting political pressure?

Everyone is looking in the US's direction -- and seeing a nation that is beginning to sober up after decades of wasteful energy consumption ...

When Bush first came into office in 2001, his administration didn't need to explain the importance of oil to anyone. Before becoming a politician, the president himself had made a career for himself in the management of the Texas oil company Harken -- thanks to connections made by his father, a man well-versed in the energy business with close ties to Saudi Arabia. Vice President Richard Cheney was once in charge of another Texas oil company, Halliburton. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, who became Secretary of State following Bush's re-election in 2004, once sat on the board of directors of the multinational oil corporation Chevron. Professionals like these know that most oil fields in Texas will never again yield as much oil as they once did, just as they know that the US's total oil production has sunk to the levels of the 1940s.

Invading Iraq

A strategy paper commissioned by the Bush administration and issued in May 2001 paints a sombre picture of the global energy situation, warning of the prospects for serious US energy deficits and energy dependence. The conclusion drawn is that questions related to "American energy supply security" should be given a high "priority" in US foreign policy. Soon after the paper was issued, Cheney formulated the same message in more precise terms: He warned that Saddam Hussein was striving for hegemony in the Gulf region and might succeed in bringing a substantial part of the world's energy reserves under his control. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the almost 3,000 victims who died in New York's World Trade Center and in the Pentagon then dramatically revealed the US's vulnerability.

Shortly before the US invasion of Iraq, Lawrence Lindsey, one of Bush's leading economic advisors, said that "the key issue is oil" and that "a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil." By and large, however, US politicians avoided making the obvious connection between a pre-emptive strike and resources...

... most of all, the US had what former CIA strategist Kenneth Pollack has called a "vital interest" in guaranteeing its energy supply and avoiding "possible blackmail" from hostile countries in the Persian Gulf. According to Pollack, only an idiot would fail to understand why Bush and company are in Iraq: "It's the oil, stupid!" {shock and awe, baby ! }

The left-hook from Latin America
Then, of course, there's that new troublemaker in the neighborhood, just four hours from Texas by plane, in South America, the US's backyard. He's making a name for himself as George W. Bush's opponent, and the control he wields over substantial amounts of oil permits him to subject the US president to more than the occasional pinprick.

Forbes magazine recently described Hugo Chavez, the 51-year-old president of Venezuela as "Oil's New Mr. Big."

Chavez: George W. Bush is the "greatest terrorist on earth."
{oh, how I'm inclined to agree with him !

}

The US is the main importer of Venezuelan oil; business is going smoothly; and the volume of business transactions is increasing. But the mutual dependence of Venezuela and the US is increasing too...

A new wind is blowing through Latin America {wow! this begins almost like Marx's Communism Manifesto: "ghost of Communism is wandering in Europe..." } -- it's coming from the left and lashing at the US president's face.... Large parts of the Latin American population are displaying a marked willingness to orient themselves in a new way. Latin Americans may have freed themselves from their brutal dictators during the 1980s and 1990s, but the increase in personal liberties and the democratic form of government didn't improve their material circumstances. On the contrary, the "structural adjustment" prescribed by Washington led to high unemployment and a growing split between the rich and the poor -- fertile ground for change.

The enemy to the south has started to worry US politicians.... If Venezuela cut off its oil supplies to the USA, oil prices would rise by at least 15 percent and cause considerable unrest, Washington's unofficial parliamentary report predicted in mid-June.

The rise and fall of nations will involve considerable power shifts during the coming years. The USA aren't likely to be the winners of the coming conflicts over natural resources.... Given the wealth of its energy resources, Russia will likely be among the global winners of the future...

A scenario for the future

The world in January 2012: More than a decade has passed since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The US had to exit Baghdad a long time ago. Iraq is being governed by a Shiite dictator following an Iraq war that the US lost in embarrassment. Iran has become a nuclear power. And the royal family has just been toppled in Saudia Arabia -- the fanatics who organized the putsch are calling the fundamentalist state "Islamajah."...

Then intelligence experts in London and Washington discover that the People's Republic of China is constructing a secret missile facility in the desert of the former Saudi kingdom. Beijing is obviously out to secure access to the oil fields and refineries for itself. The hawks in Washington have been waiting for just this type of escalation. They plan to use the ultimate weapon in order to decide the struggle for the world's most important resource reserves. It's 2012 and the world is heading for nuclear war.

It's a frighteningly good plot that unfolds in the new thriller "The Scorpion's Gate." What makes the book politically explosive, however, is its author: Richard Clarke worked as an advisor for the White House and the Pentagon for more than three decades. During the hours following the 9/11 attacks, Clarke was in charge of President Bush's crisis management team. In March 2003, the anti-terrorism expert resigned and became one of the harshest critics of the current US president and of the ideology of pre-emptive strikes proffered by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Clark has said that the Middle East scenario in his novel fairly accurately reflects scenarios of future developments that have been played out in the CIA.

good thing to know that Russia might be a winner in Global race for recources, while America - a looser ! just teasing

if seriously - all the prospects hint on more and more problems ahead - for all of us.

Razin

Sep 11 2006, 07:28 AM

and the Oscar goes to ....

"Kremlin Incorporated"
Reshaping the World Order with Russian Gas and Oil

Russia's deposits and pipelines

QUOTE

A seemingly endless desert of ice covers the Yamal Peninsula, which lies north of the Arctic Circle. Even the March sun fails to warm the air temperature above -20 degrees Celcius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit).... temperatures can drop to as low as -61 degrees Celsius.... {

} Yet as inhospitable a nook as Yamal may be, it is considered a "region of strategic interest" by Gazprom, the Russian energy giant. Below the peninsula's thick layers of snow and ice lie enormous reserves of natural gas. Measuring more than 10 billion cubic meters, they are Russia's largest reserves.... Gazprom, the giant corporation controlled by the Kremlin, which also now has former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on its payroll, wants to dramatically expand natural gas extraction on the Yamal Peninsula in the coming years. Eighty kilometers southeast of Yamal, in Yamburg in western Siberia and in nearby Novyy Urengoy, two Gazprom subsidiaries are already channeling 74 percent of their natural gas into the pipeline to Europe...

... state-owned Rosneft corporation .... made its initial public offering on the London and Moscow Stock Exchanges in time for the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg in mid-July. The purpose was clear: to mobilize capital for new investments in Siberia and in the far eastern regions of Russia. The IPO was coordinated with the Kremlin. And the move was meant to signal that Rosneft was open to doing business with the rest of the world and was designed to help the corporation achieve its goal of becoming one of the most important global players in the oil business.

But the Kremlin has no intention of surrendering its influence over the oil and gas business. Under Putin, the Russian government has expanded its stake in Gazprom to over 50 percent. In September 2005, the corporation -- whose chairman of the board Dimitry Medvedev is the Russian deputy prime minister -- purchased a controlling interest in the oil corporation Sibneft for $13 billion. With its acquisition of Yuganskneftegas, Rosneft, which controls Russia's largest oil reserves, catapulted itself to become the third-largest Russian oil company.

But neither Gazprom, with its 175 subsidiaries, nor Rosneft are particularly transparent by international standards.... Russia has "the richest bureaucracy in the world."

Putin considers it a personal achievement that Gazprom is now worth about $260 billion and ranks as the third-largest corporation worldwide in terms of market capitalization, after ExxonMobil and General Electric. The position Gazprom now holds in the international energy trade is "the result of concerted state activity," Putin said in his state of the nation address in May.

One result of this is that the corporation that controls the largest gas reserves in the world lacks funds for long-overdue investments.... What is more, the state is using Gazprom as a political instrument. For example, the energy corporation has to provide millions of Russians in small villages with gas for heating. The costs associated with the related pipelines run to $1 billion.... The burden of the corporation's social commitments is even weightier: The Russian price for natural gas has been fixed so low by the state that Gazprom makes a loss with its domestic sales. That's not likely to change soon, since the Kremlin is resolved to prevent impoverished Russian citizens taking to the streets to protest gas price hikes -- especially one year before the Duma elections scheduled for late 2007.

"With its steel pincers," Prochanov writes, "Gazprom could build a new kind of Russian geopolitical empire."
The oppositional Moscow weekly Novoye Vremya has found a name for the state-crafted power network of the Russian oil and gas industries: "Kremlin Incorporated" ...

The state-orchestrated oil deals are hardly more transparent. Insiders know the obscure business transactions often follow a three-part scheme. First an oil trading company purchases petroleum from an oil production company, paying only between a tenth and one-fifth of the market price. Then the trading company sells the petroleum to subsidiaries in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands or the Bermuda Islands, below the world market price. Finally these subsidiary companies offer the petroleum to Western customers at the standard international price.

In 2005, Gazprom was Russia's most important tax payer: It paid €14 billion ($18 billion) in taxes. But estimates by Moscow's central auditing authority suggest that the Russian state loses out on three to four billion US dollars in tax payments every year, due to the devious business transactions involving sunny tax havens....

Making the rich richer {the TRUE if not the ONLY meaning of capitalism !

}

True, the Russians sell roughly $500 million worth of oil every day, and this has caused the value of the ruble to rise. But the rest of the Russian export economy -- which is not particularly competitive anyhow -- suffers from this state of affairs.

Instead of benefiting the Russian economy, the oil boom has made Moscow's billionaires even richer. Their villa neighborhoods surround the city like a ring of lard. Ten of the 33 billionaires featured on the 2006 Forbes list got rich thanks to the oil business.

The economic boom doesn't benefit the majority of the Russian population. According to official figures, about 70 percent of Russians had a monthly income of less than €200 ($257) in 2004. Twenty-seven percent brought home less than €100 ($129) a month.

Worse yet, many citizens, especially in rural areas, still don't have access to natural gas -- and this in the country that has the largest natural gas reserves in the world. Countless villagers heat their homes with wood-burning stoves, just as in the 19th century.

If the country doesn't begin investing its revenue from the resource trade into the modernization of its economy, "then Russia will become the Nigeria of natural gas," warns Yuri Solosobov of the Institute for National Strategy in Moscow. The Nigerian state is widely seen as a prime example of how not to handle oil profits.

my understanding is : ex-KGB guys managed to secure national natural resources as well as the government itself. and they play accordingly: enrich themselves in the best traditions of Capitalism, dictate poilitics to neighbours as External politics and conduct swift mafia-style "razborki" (in English - "rambles" or "negotiations") with any out of line associates as INternal Politics !

and someone on this Forum tried to prove that Comunism failed !

nope, bros ! Capitalism never even been closely approched ! simply "muscled guys", "professionals", figured out it all : that it is much more profitable for themselves to play "Capitalism" !

and the whole transition has been made ....

Razin

Sep 11 2006, 08:29 AM

HOW MUCH LONGER?
The End of the Oil Era Looms

The end of fossil fuels

Significant worldwide deposits of natural resources

QUOTE

Oil, uranium, gold and platinum are more sought after than ever today. The search for natural resources is becoming increasingly difficult and prices are soaring. But future growth of the world economy depends on these natural resources -- and some will soon disappear forever.

Hubbert claimed that the exploitation of oil resources always follows the pattern of a bell curve: first it rises, then it flattens out, and finally it declines -- irreversibly. According to his calculations, the United States would soon reach the peak of the curve -- around about 1970, according to his estimate.

His prediction could hardly have been more accurate: In fact, it was in 1971 that the US's oil extraction reached its maximum level. Ever since then, oil production in the US has declined.

Hubbert's curve was discovered exactly 50 years ago and is still considered part of the basic knowledge of every geologist. The rise and fall of the curve presents a scientifically precise description of something everyone knows, just as everyone wants to deny it. Petroleum is a finite resource. The supply shrinks every day, every hour, every minute. Once the supply is used up, it's gone for good.

Other important energy sources -- natural gas, coal and uranium -- are subject to the same relentless process. They are constantly consumed, but never replaced.

The supply of metals and minerals isn't unlimited either, just as it isn't replaceable. Iron ore doesn't reproduce itself, and neither does gold -- none of these resources replace themselves. But how many people really think about how unique these resources are?

Every second, an average of about a thousand barrels of oil turns into smoke across the world. The average German consumes about 225 tons of coal in his life, along with 116 tons of petroleum, 40 tons of steel, 1.1 tons of copper and 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of sulphur. It's clear this can't go on forever -- even though it has already been going on for what seems like an eternity.

Humanity has consumed more resources since the end of the Second World War than during its entire previous history...

It's only since the "classic" resources have become so expensive that people are becoming aware of their importance again. No computer chip can be produced without silicon, no plastic product without petroleum, no catalytic converter without platinum or palladium. Digital technology and the information economy are both well and good -- but the economy still fundamentally depends on steel and cement, and it's driven by oil, gas and coal. But for how much longer?

The future of many industries depends on the answer to this question, as does the development of the world economy itself. Rising prices are usually an indicator that a commodity is growing scarce and that demand for it is rising. So does the rise of resource prices mean that supplies are running out? And if the answer is yes, then how much time remains before the supply will run out?

Dennis Meadows 1972 report ... results shocked the world.... The resources contained in the earth's crust would soon be used up and the scarcity of resources and foodstuffs would paralyze global economic growth -- that was the conclusion the scientists arrived at, and it was a bitter pill to swallow. An economy constantly oriented towards growth was bound to collapse as a result of natural resource supplies being exhausted, the scientists argued. Their report, published in book-form, sold more than 10 million copies and was translated into 29 languages -- but the economic collapse they predicted never happened. Nonetheless, there is an audience for apocalyptic predictions again.... Then there are the notorious optimists....

And yet there are serious answers to the central question: "How much longer?" They aren't easy or simple answers - they vary from one resource to another -- and they are far from conclusive. How long a resource will last isn't decided by fate. It depends on human action.

The most reliable predictions are those about petroleum supplies -- thanks to the discoveries of geologist Hubbert. The picture that is emerging is worrying even to the sober-minded observers at Germany's Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), which is based in Hanover. "We're closer to the peak of resource extraction than we would like," warns geologists Peter Gerling, an expert on fossil fuels.

The so-called "depletion mid-point" will be reached within the next 10 to 20 years, according to Gerling's most recent study. The depletion mid-point is the point at which half of the total quantity of petroleum has been used up.

Gerling is confident the results of his research are accurate. "The Earth has been explored in detail," he says, adding that the layer of the planet's crust that contains its roughly 600 petroleum sediments is known in some detail: "There won't be any major surprises." Gerling's matter-of-fact statement has dramatic implications. Once the depletion mid-point has been reached, the end of the petroleum age will begin.

From that point on, when global resource extraction reaches its maximum, a physical supply gap opens up for the first time in history. From then on, petroleum production declines, whereas demand is likely to continue to rise. There's no return to yesterday's heights, and what's worse: The peak is reached without warning.

A full 33 of the 48 largest petroleum-extracting nations have already reached or passed the peak....
The only thing that is certain is that Saudi Arabian production -- some 10 million barrels a day -- is currently close to capacity; there is little or no room for expansion...

... what is certain is that it is becoming more and more difficult, on a global level, to discover new sources of oil. For years now, oil consumption has exceeded the discovery of new oil sources. The last major oil field was discovered in 2000, in the Caspian Sea. Most new discoveries are minor, and the search for them now takes place in increasingly out-of-the-way regions such as the Arctic and the deep sea....

Natural gas is sure to be one of the answers. The volatile substance is becoming increasingly important in the mix of energy sources. Exxon's new chief executive, Rex Tillerson, describes natural gas as "economically and ecologically attractive." Only 18 percent of the suspected overall supply has been tapped. As with oil, the largest reserves lie in areas with a varying degree of political instability: in Russia, Iran {that means - Iran would be next after Iraq, and its nukes developement is NOT what concerns "Democracy champions" ?

} and Qatar. The three states dispose of 56 percent of the world's supply -- probably enough to last for several decades.

Though physical scarcity is not to be expected, political factors could certainly lead to a bottleneck. Russia recently demonstrated how acute that problem could become when it used natural gas as a weapon in its dispute over gas prices with Ukraine.

There is more leeway with coal, the most abundant fossil fuel. Coal supplies are more dispersed than oil or natural gas reserves. Large supplies can be found in the US, Russia, China and Australia. Scientists are certain that the supplies of black coal and brown coal (which provides less energy) could last for at least 100 years.

On the other hand, the consumption rate of uranium, the fourth of the great energy resources, has been almost twice as high as the extraction rate for several years. Electricity suppliers can still make use of back supplies in order to close the gap; in some cases, they also resort to uranium that has been reprocessed or taken from warheads left from the Cold War. But these reserves are dwindling faster than expected as a result of nuclear energy's return to popularity. China alone wants to build 25 to 30 new nuclear energy plants by 2020.

So it's relatively half-way clear how long supplies of oil, gas, coal and uranium -- the four raw materials of the energy industry -- will last.

Metals and minerals are another story. They seem to be available in virtually endless supply....

"There's no scarcity when it comes to metals," says Markus Wagner, BGR's expert on metallic raw materials. "We're still a long way from discovering all the reserves in the world."

Vast regions haven't been explored yet, including the entire continent of Antarctica. And unlike oil, with its Hubbert curve, the reserves of iron, nickel, silver and copper are so large that the overall quantity cannot be estimated even approximately.

And yet there is a bottleneck even here. It only came about during the past few years, and it has serious consequences for consumers. A handful of mining corporations now dominates the entire world market. They are dividing up the Earth between themselves and fixing the conditions of trade.... The mining corporations are becoming more and more powerful ... The market for precious metals is even more narrow ... The entire world is dependent on a handful of mining corporations. In the past, when the prices of raw materials were low, these corporations made little effort to expand their capacity. They didn't invest in new extraction technologies, refineries or pipelines. Now they can hardly keep up with demand.... How much effort mining corporations put into the search for new reserves is ultimately a question of prices.

Such mechanisms are characteristic of how things work in the world of raw materials. When copper, coal or crude oil become cheaper, the producers curb production until the quantities available on the market are so low that prices begin to rise again. The producers wait and then raise their capacity again. The supply expands, until it exceeds demand again -- and the cycle begins over again. It's a cycle that can last years, sometimes even decades.

... the recycling of precious metals becomes more important when prices rise. In the cases of iron, steel, copper, aluminum and zinc, a regular recycling economy has developed. In Germany, almost half the steel is already produced from secondary raw materials and junk. Some 240 of the average 535 kilograms (529 of 1,179 pounds) of steel that go into a car are already obtained through recycling.

Fossil fuels, unfortunately, will never benefit from recycling. And they are being burned up as quickly as ever...

That's why the world's hopes are ultimately pinned to renewable energy sources -- biomass (organic materials from gall to hay that can be converted into synthetic fuels), water power (which already plays the most significant role in the production of renewable energy) and geothermal energy (the use of the vast heat reserves at the Earth's core). Presently, these are merely potential alternatives. And they will probably continue to represent a mere potential for as long as consumers choose fossil fuels...

But regardless of who is right, crude oil will soon no longer be able to play the central role in the global energy mix that it plays today. BGR scientist Gerling says there are no doubts about that.

"We should have started taking this into account a long time ago," he says regretfully.

I guess - it would be enough for our lifetime ! so, as saying goes :

"eat, drink, be merry - after us let it be even Universal Flood !" (as in Biblical story)

or just invade

another country still with abundance of natural resources under some whateve silly excuse ! as some find it the simplest solution

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