Niall Ferguson: Putin has a stake in Middle East instability
[Ferguson is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University.]
... To some listeners, [Vladimir] Putin's [recent] complaints were eerily reminiscent of the cold war. But as I looked around the conference hall, it struck me that his target audience was not necessarily American but rather more European and Middle Eastern. Like Michael Corleone, Putin aspires to be a businessman. His Russia is an energy empire, sitting on more than a quarter of the world's proven reserves of natural gas, 17% of its coal and 6% of its oil. For geographical reasons, the U.S. is not one of Russia's main customers. But two-fifths of Germany's natural-gas imports come from Russia--as do all of Iran's new nuclear reactors. When Putin mentioned energy prices, it was the Germans in the audience who took notes. And when he got onto nuclear proliferation, it was the Iranians who sat up.
The key point is that Russia's geopolitical power has become a function of the value of its energy exports. As Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin has pointed out, the energy crisis of the 1970s helped the Soviet economy--even as it hurt the West--by bathing the ailing Soviet system in petrodollars. But as oil prices slid below an average price of $20 per bbl. from 1986 to 1996, Russian power slid too. It's no coincidence that the price of oil touched $11 in Yeltsin's miserable last year.
You can be sure that this lesson of history has not been lost on Putin. The political implications of today's expensive oil are worth pondering. Quite simply, Russia is the only major power that has an interest in high energy prices. It is therefore the only major power with no interest in Middle Eastern stability.
That is why Russia poses America's biggest problem when it comes to stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. True, at Munich, Putin declared his commitment to nonproliferation. But the fact remains that it is the Russians who are building the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr and the Russians who have just won the contract to build an additional six such plants. Putin may have spoken at Munich of the "risk of global destabilization" emanating from the Middle East. In reality, nothing would suit him better.
Read entire article at Time Magazine
... To some listeners, [Vladimir] Putin's [recent] complaints were eerily reminiscent of the cold war. But as I looked around the conference hall, it struck me that his target audience was not necessarily American but rather more European and Middle Eastern. Like Michael Corleone, Putin aspires to be a businessman. His Russia is an energy empire, sitting on more than a quarter of the world's proven reserves of natural gas, 17% of its coal and 6% of its oil. For geographical reasons, the U.S. is not one of Russia's main customers. But two-fifths of Germany's natural-gas imports come from Russia--as do all of Iran's new nuclear reactors. When Putin mentioned energy prices, it was the Germans in the audience who took notes. And when he got onto nuclear proliferation, it was the Iranians who sat up.
The key point is that Russia's geopolitical power has become a function of the value of its energy exports. As Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin has pointed out, the energy crisis of the 1970s helped the Soviet economy--even as it hurt the West--by bathing the ailing Soviet system in petrodollars. But as oil prices slid below an average price of $20 per bbl. from 1986 to 1996, Russian power slid too. It's no coincidence that the price of oil touched $11 in Yeltsin's miserable last year.
You can be sure that this lesson of history has not been lost on Putin. The political implications of today's expensive oil are worth pondering. Quite simply, Russia is the only major power that has an interest in high energy prices. It is therefore the only major power with no interest in Middle Eastern stability.
That is why Russia poses America's biggest problem when it comes to stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. True, at Munich, Putin declared his commitment to nonproliferation. But the fact remains that it is the Russians who are building the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr and the Russians who have just won the contract to build an additional six such plants. Putin may have spoken at Munich of the "risk of global destabilization" emanating from the Middle East. In reality, nothing would suit him better.