Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global

After the fall of the USSR, NATO has been soul searching for something to do. It meandered mindlessly walking into entanglements in Kosovo and later Afghanistan, but the apparent reemergence of Russia seeking regional domination and using its energy resources is finally providing it with some life energy.

Some of us have been arguing all along to no avail for expansion of NATO and turning it into the club of free market democracies as well as those that are genuinely seeking capitalism. Yes, in the wake of the post USSR inertia, NATO has expanded its membership to countries of the Eastern Europe placing over them an aegis of the clause five of the NATO charter. But then came doldrums of where next? The US has been trying to push for further enlargement and taking on more responsibilities, but Europe has not been as keen, whether because it did not want or could not afford to take them on.

The last few years seem to be providing food for thought. The two most important security threats Europe is facing now are terrorism and energy supplies and European NATO members are beginning to wake up to these challenges. This week's NATO summit in Riga, Latvia promises to become if not a watershed, at least a first major step towards establishing NATO's role on both issues.

Implications and goals of NATO's involvement in Afghanistan are pretty clear: the first NATO operation outside of Europe, the largest ever NATO deployment, importance of =success in Afghanistan for the capitalist West are all self evident. What is much less evident is Europe's growing worry about Russia and its ability and willingness to use its energy resources to blackmail, dictate or retaliate on issues of foreign policy. Yes, the message is still brought up by a US Senator:

“The use of energy as an overt weapon is not a theoretical threat of the future; it is happening now,” Lugar had warned. Iran has threatened to shut off oil if sanctions are imposed because of its pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, Lugar noted, and Russia actually did halt energy deliveries to Ukraine in a short-term strong-arm attempt to achieve political goals. “NATO must determine what steps it is willing to take if ... another member state is threatened as Ukraine was,” Lugar said. And he listed a number of steps he said required urgent action.

Lugar's Senate Foreign Relations Committee just passed  S. 4014,

The goal of this bill is to reaffirm U.S. support for continued enlargement of NATO to democracies that are able and willing to meet the responsibilities of membership. Specifically, the legislation calls for the timely admission of Albania, Croatia, Georgia, and Macedonia to NATO and authorizes security assistance for these countries in Fiscal Year 2007. Each of these countries has clearly stated its desire to join NATO and is working hard to meet the specified requirements for membership. The bill also affirms that the U.S. stands ready to consider, and if all applicable criteria are satisfied, to support efforts by Ukraine to join NATO, should Ukraine decide that it wishes to meet the responsibilities of membership in the Alliance.

Kommersant immediately jumps to a conclusion that this is some big anti-Russian plot and Lugar might be expressing official Washington position. According to Kommersant, Lugar's message is quite simple - "energy war should be treated as a conventional war."

To burst Kommerant's bubble, Lugar's position goes way beyond simple anti-Russian stance - which is unfortunately the prism Russia looks at everything. The security framework Lugar is suggesting applies as much to Iran, OPEC and to Gasprom's plans of a future natural gas cartel. Let's after all, not forget, who started this round. It was not Lugar, it was Mr. Putin and his autocratic use of the energy spigot that created the situation.

Every action causes a reaction. Poland as the major protagonist of the Energy NATO is squarely Putin's own creation. Lugar's demarche is a reaction to Russia's attempts at blackmail of its neighbours. If Russia wants to use energy as a political lever, as a mechanism of exerting foreign policy influence, then it will have to accept that other countries and alliances like NATO will react to this appropriately.

Neither Kommersant no anyone else should be surprised that Lugar suggested NATO should look at potential memberships of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. What will that do? Look at the map, it will draw a straight line across the energy rich Central Asia, across the Caspian Sea, and then to Mediterranean Sea, to the Black Sea into Europe and elsewhere. Creating an energy supply along this line will undermine Russia's monopoly and would minimize effects of any attempts of energy blackmail whoever might be behind it.

Does this all cast any more light on the tempest in the teapot in Belarus?