Ill Winds From the East: Caucasus War & Energy Dependence

This blog already covers a wide range of subjects, and I don't want to stretch my analytical powers too thin by trying to comment on the South Ossetian situation.  Rather, I'd like to draw a parallel between America's flailing Mideast stance and the West's efforts to "do something!" in the face of the Russian vs. Georgian, ex-superpower vs. truncated statelet firefight in the Caucasus tinderbox.  Actually, Helena Cobban of "Just World News" says it best:

The "west" is hopelessly over-stretched, what with all its current commitments of troops in Iraq, a crisis-ridden Afghanistan, and (still) in the Balkans. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was most likely relying to a great extent on the NATO forces pulling his chestnuts out of the Ossetian fire if they should start to burn there. But NATO is in absolutely no position to do that. All the US could do to give him any concrete help was to gather up and return to his country the 2,000 Georgian troops who had previously part of their occupation coalition in Iraq. That airlift is happening right now. But it will do little to affect the balance on the ground in the Caucasus, while it will certainly cause considerable disruptions to the US project in Iraq.

Does anyone doubt that when NATO next addresses the matter of Georgian membership, already-hesitant NATO members will point out that - had Georgia gotten NATO membership as President George W. Bush wanted last April - it would be an Article V (an attack against a member state is an attack against all) NATO war with Russia that would be breaking out right now.  I just hope those American airlift planes ferrying Georgian troops home from Iraq don't have any run-ins with the Russian aviation now controlling Georgian skies.

It's not just the US that is in an uncomfortable position.  Europe, in particular the EU under the current French presidency, feels the need to "do something!" and has sent Foreign Minister and inventor of "humanitarian intervention" Bernard Kouchner on a peace-making mission.  Already, Russians and their allies have called attention to parallels between interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo (okay for the West) and Russian muscle-flexing in its Caucasus sphere of influence among its former satellite states.

Here's the link between America's Achilles heel in the Persian Gulf and Europe's weak spot on its Eastern borders: dependence on energy imports from, respectively, authoritarian Arab oil-rich regimes and a resurgent Russian natural gas monopoly.  What is Europe going to do? Stop exporting champagne to Russia's nouveau riche mafia?  Is General Motors going to stop selling Hummers to Saudi Arabia if it doesn't democratize?

To consider how things might have been otherwise, here's Thomas Friedman ("Flush With Energy") from Sunday's New York Times:

Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. In 1973, said [Danish Minister of Climate and Energy Connie] Hedegaard, “we got 99 percent of our energy from the Middle East. Today it is zero.”

Part of Denmark's solution has been wind energy. Friedman says: "Denmark today gets nearly 20 percent of its electricity from wind. America? About 1 percent."

France, under President Nicolas Sarkozy, has taken a number of steps towards securing more energy independence, or at least diversification.  France leads the world in nuclear energy electricity generation, though recent leaks might give leaders pause on expanding this sector.  Sarkozy's "Mediterranean Union" cannot have been launched without a thought to securing alternative North African natural gas supplies in light of the heavy Russian hand on its gas export spigot.

So what in the world was France's Conseil d'Etat (a kind of supreme court on constitutional matters) thinking when it essentially threw a monkey wrench into France's growing collection of high-tech windmills, which dot the high ground in Brittany (click on photo) and other windy areas? It decision on a "technicality" last week essentially ends wind power's privileged position, where small producers were guaranteed purchase of their output by the national utility, EDF.  Hopefully the Sarkozy environmental and energy czars will remedy the situation, which is not without its eco-strategic significance: every kilowatt produced by somebody's windmill is a kilowatt that does not rely on Russia's largess.

How about wind and US energy dependence (I won't say "independence," since my native country is so, so very far from that happy situation)? Read Thomas Friedman and weep: "Ditlev Engel, the president of Vestas — Denmark’s and the world’s biggest wind turbine company — told me that he simply can’t understand how the U.S. Congress could have just failed to extend the production tax credits for wind development in America.

Why should you care?

“We’ve had 35 new competitors coming out of China in the last 18 months,” said Engel, “and not one out of the U.S.”

Energy independence starts now, not tomorrow, and has a direct link to strategic influence.  Dependence, on the other hand, means that strategic options are limited by where the fuel for your fighter jets comes from.  Putting your money, so to speak, where your mouth is.  Otherwise, it's just dangerous bloviating, Mr. Vice President.