Balkan trap

David Seaton's News Links
It is a cliché of geopolitics that the Americans play poker and the Russians play chess. Chess is by far the more subtle game of course, objectives have to be thought out several moves in advance, traps are laid and sprung on the unwary, pawns are sacrificed to waylay a queen.

I get the feeling that Vladimir Putin's Russia has decided to use the issue of Kosovar independence to humiliate NATO, the European Union and the United States in one master stroke and take full revenge for the humiliation that Yeltsin's impotent Russia received in 1999, when they were helpless to save Serbian unity from the attacks of US led NATO... and also to use Kosovo and Bosnia as trading chips in forcing the withdrawal of America's planned missile shield from Poland and the Czech republic.

Russia will veto any UN resolution granting Kosovo independence and they are upping the ante by equating the independence of Kosovo with the breaking up of Bosnia, by encouraging the independence of the Bosnian Serb, Republika Srpska. If this happens fighting could easily break out again in the Balkans and there would be little that the "west" could do about it.

At this moment the US armed forces are stretched to a breaking point in Iraq and the NATO countries cannot find the political will to send more troops in Afghanistan. It would be impossible for either to smother a new outbreak of fighting in the Balkans without abandoning Iraq and Afghanistan.

As to the European Union, although Britain and France would join the United States in supporting a unilateral declaration of Kosovar independence, Orthodox Greece is firmly opposed and would veto any EU support for it. Spain, with its Basque and Catalonian separatist movements is certainly against encouraging national "self-determination" movements of any kind anywhere, much less in Europe itself. Romania, Cyprus, Slovakia and Cyprus; all with separatist problems of their own would probably veto any EU declaration of Kosovar independence too. Certainly any attempt to strong arm all these countries into line would set the European back considerably.

Renewed fighting between Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnians and Kosovars would, of course, further aggravate the "war of civilizations" and give Bosnian Muslims further reasons to radicalize.

We are looking, in fact, at a rather perfect trap. DS

Again and Again in the Balkans - Editorial - New York Times
Abstract: The Albanians of Kosovo are woefully unprepared for the independence they demand. The European Commission reported recently that the Kosovo administration is plagued by graft, cronyism and organized crime. If that weren’t bad enough, Russia has thrown its weight behind the Serbs, and together they have goaded Bosnian Serbs into threatening to break up the Bosnian quasi-federation created by the Dayton accords should Kosovo become independent. This is the Balkan mess that the United States, Russia and the European Union confront when they next meet in the latest, and possibly last, round of talks with the Serbs and Kosovar Albanians. A unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, recognized by the United States and part of Europe but not by the United Nations, Russia or Serbia, would be unsatisfactory; a renewal of strife in Bosnia would be an outright disaster. READ IT ALL

Afghanistan: love us or we'll kill you

David Seaton's News Links
Afghanistan is also a failure. It means a failure for the USA, but also for NATO and the EU... the West. Future historians, probably future Chinese historians, will mark these times.

There is a simple lesson here, you cannot invade a country and stay there and then expect the people to love you and appreciate you. My basic text for knowing this is what the Spanish call their "War of Independence", the fight against Napoleon. Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

"Spain's liberation struggle marked one of the first national wars and was among the first modern, large-scale guerrilla conflicts, from which the English language borrowed the word Its success was in part decided by the exploits of Spanish guerrillas and the inability of Napoleon Bonaparte's large armies to pacify the people of Spain: French units in Spain, forced to guard their vulnerable supply lines, were always in danger of being cut off and overwhelmed by the partisans, and proved unable to stamp out the Spanish army."

In many ways this was a tragedy for Spain, because Napoleon brought with him the modernizing ideas of the Enlightenment, which paved the way for the scientific and industrial revolutions. In Italy, for example, where Napoleon ruled, is today's modern, industrial north and where he didn't rule -- like the ring on a bathtub -- is the backward Mezzogiorno.

Because they were the ideas of the foreign invader, the Spanish people came to hate those ideas and clinging to their version of the ancien regime set the scene for a disastrous 19th and early 20th century.

This what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. DS

We're losing in Afghanistan too - Los Angeles Times
Abstract: In reality, Afghanistan -- former Taliban stronghold, Al Qaeda haven and warlord-cum-heroin-smuggler finishing school -- feels more and more like Sept. 10, 2001, than a victory in the U.S. war on terrorism. The country is, plain and simple, a mess. Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies have quietly regained territory, rendering wide swaths of the country off-limits to U.S. and Afghan forces, international aid workers and even journalists. Violent attacks against Western interests are routine. Even Kabul, which the White House has held up as a postcard for what is possible in Afghanistan, has become so dangerous that foreign embassies are in states of lockdown, diplomats do not leave their offices, and venturing beyond security perimeters requires daylight-only travel, armored vehicles, Kevlar and armed escorts.(...) Consider that an American Embassy staffer going to the U.S. Agency for International Development office across the street is required to use an underground tunnel that links the two compounds. Even though the street is closed to all traffic other than official U.S. or U.N. vehicles and is patrolled and guarded by armored personnel carriers, tanks and Kalashnikov-carrying security personnel with a safety perimeter of several blocks, the risk from snipers, mortars or grenades is ever present.(...) By some measures, Afghanistan should be a feel-good story by now -- the Taliban is, officially at least, out of power, Al Qaeda has been chased to the wilds of the Afghan-Pakistani border and U.S. forces are on hand to consolidate and solidify a peaceful new order. But the truth is very different. By any measure, this remains a "hot" war with a well-armed, motivated and organized enemy. Village by village, tribe by tribe and province by province, Al Qaeda is coming back, enforcing a form of Islamic life and faith rooted in the 12th century, intimidating reformers, exacting revenge and funding itself with dollars from massive poppy cultivation and heroin smuggling. As Al Qaeda reestablishes itself, Osama bin Laden remains free to send video messages and serve as an ideological beacon to jihadis worldwide. READ IT ALL

Afghanistan for dummies

David Seaton's News Links

Michael Scheuer (Mr. Anonymous of "Hubris") has written an article detailing the "West's" ("West" is code for "white folks") failures in Afghanistan.

As Afghanistan hasn't much to do with oil and almost nothing to do with Israel, there was little interest or resources devoted in Washington to thinking about the problem, but although it is oil-less and does not jeopardize the Jewish state, the defeat in Afghanistan may be more far-reaching in its effects than the defeat in Iraq will ever be.

NATO as a symbol of the "West", (white folks) is being broken in Afghanistan and that may have much more historic significance than "losing" Iraq. There will always be access to oil for those with ready money, but after several hundred years of pale-skinned domination, finally breaking completely the mystic of the "White Man's Burden", will be the geopolitical equivalent of Global Warming. DS

Michael Scheuer: A catalogue of errors in Afghanistan - Asia Times
Abstract: Afghanistan is again being lost to the West, even as a coalition force of more than 5,000 troops launches a major spring offensive in the south of the country. The insurgency may drag on for many months or several years, but the tide has turned. Like Alexander's Greeks, the British and the Soviets before the US-led coalition, inferior Afghan insurgents have forced far superior Western military forces on to a path that leads toward evacuation. What has caused this scenario to occur repeatedly throughout history? In the most general sense, the defeat of Western forces in Afghanistan occurs repeatedly because the West has not developed an appreciation for the Afghans' toughness, patience, resourcefulness and pride in their history. Although foreign forces in Afghanistan are always more modern and better armed and trained, they are continuously ground down by the same kinds of small-scale but unrelenting hit-and-run attacks and ambushes, as well as by the country's impenetrable topography that allows the Afghans to retreat, hide, and attack another day. The new twist to this pattern faced by the Soviets and now by the US-led coalition is the safe haven the Afghans have found in Pakistan.(...) The latest episode in this historical tradition has several distinguishing characteristics. First, Western forces - while better armed and technologically superior - are far too few in number. Today's Western force totals about 40,000 troops. After subtracting support troops and North Atlantic Treaty Organization contingents that are restricted to non-combat, reconstruction roles - building schools, digging wells, repairing irrigation systems - the actual combat force that can be fielded on any given day is far smaller, and yet has the task of controlling a country the size of Texas that is home to some of the highest mountains on Earth.(...) Western leaders in Afghanistan are also finding that many Afghans are not unhappy to see the Taliban returning. Much of the reason lies in the fact that the US-led coalition put the cart before the horse. Before the 2001 invasion, the Taliban regime was far from loved, but it was appreciated for the law-and-order regime it harshly enforced across most of Afghanistan. Although women had to stay home, few girls could go to school and the odd limb was chopped off for petty offenses, most rural Afghans could count on having security for themselves, their families and their farms and/or businesses. The coalition's victory shattered the Taliban's law-and-order regime and, instead of immediately installing a replacement - for which there were not enough troops in any event - coalition leaders moved on to elections, implementing women's rights and creating a parliament, while the bulk of rural Afghanistan returned to the anarchy of banditry and warlordism that had prevailed before the first Taliban era. Making matters worse was the fact that many of the actions the coalition did successfully undertake - especially elections and women's rights - added to the misery of rural Afghans by appearing to be attacks on millennia-old social, tribal and religious mores. As Afghans were faced with the reality of being in the thrall of criminals, and perceived their culture to be under attack, it is not surprising that the Taliban are finding at least a tepid welcome home. The third problem for the coalition is the amount of time it has spent in Afghanistan. Now in the sixth year of occupation, Western leaders are confronted not only by a stronger-than-2001 enemy, but also by the resurgent insularity and anti-foreign inclinations of the Afghan people. READ IT ALL

The Afghan countdown to spring

David Seaton's News Links
Given the attack on the Twin Towers, the invasion of Afghanistan was probably inevitable. NATO offered its full cooperation from the very first moment. It was ignored.

The Parisian newspaper Le Monde (not exactly "Stars and Stripes") headlined, "we are all Americans".

A historic opportunity to strengthen and deepen America's relationships with the rest of the world and especially its most traditional allies was lost.

If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a body had charged into Afghanistan and had "strung up" Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora and then had headed for home, it would have sent a clear message of strength and purpose that could have help stabilize the entire planet. It was a mission that was doable, but wasn't done.

Employing America's full strength in Afghanistan and empowering America's traditional allies were obviously the last things that the leadership in Washington wanted. For them, 9-11 was only an excuse to carry out quite another agenda, one that had been waiting for years to be executed. Who, what, why and what for, have become clear with the passing years.

Back in Afghanistan, what was at first universally seen and understood by the entire world as taking revenge for an unforgivable massacre, has by now degenerated into some exercise of "taking up the white man's burden" and the day for that sort of thing is over. White men just ain't what they used to be...

The "west" has worn out its welcome in Afghanistan and "the natives are restless." Warmed up imperialism is no longer anybody's plat de jour. Turning NATO into a universal enforcer for wealthy, pale faced, interests is a grotesque, non-starter.

So in fact, the greatest casualty of the war in Iraq, as far as the United States and its staunchest allies are concerned, is the war in Afghanistan. a We are witnessing an unnecessary humiliation and indignant final curtain for the greatest military alliance in history. The recriminations and search for the perpetrators of this viral disaster may shred the social fabric of America's elite for years to come. DS

Taliban offensive expected in spring - Los Angeles Times
Abstract: In coming weeks, winter will loosen its grip on Afghanistan. Senior NATO generals insist that their troops are well positioned to confront the Taliban offensive that is expected to follow. But some analysts, diplomats and other observers think the Western alliance, and the Afghan government it supports, has failed to use winter's relative lull in fighting to seize the initiative in advance of a new battle with the insurgents. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's forces in the south are being bolstered, but the influx of about 3,000 additional troops is privately described by field commanders as both tardy and considerably smaller than what they had hoped for. The reinforcements will come almost exclusively from the United States and Britain; troop commitments by other alliance members have failed to materialize. In some key districts, Taliban militants have reinfiltrated areas they were driven from months ago. Even before the start of any large-scale offensive, the insurgents are demonstrating an ability to capture territory, including their brazen seizure of the town of Musa Qala in Helmand province this month.(...) "They're hard-core — very determined, very disciplined. They know the ground and they know how to fight, and they know how to adapt to changing conditions," said Canadian army Capt. Piers Pappin, whose mud-walled, thatched-roof outpost in the desert west of Kandahar was repeatedly attacked by bands of insurgents, even during the supposed winter lull. Insurgent commandants have boasted that in coming months they will step up the use of crude yet lethal tactics such as suicide and roadside bombings, with which they can counter NATO troops' vastly superior firepower. Suicide attacks increased fivefold in 2006, and the use of remotely detonated devices nearly doubled from the previous year, according to U.S. military figures.(...) Heading into the next round of fighting, the dubious efficacy of the Afghan army is also a growing cause for concern. Coalition goals call for the force to expand to 80,000 troops by next year, but at this point, struggling with a high desertion rate, it is fielding about 20,000. Senior Western military officials put a positive face on the progress made in arming and training the force. But field-level allied officers who work closely with the Afghan troops privately predict that it will take many years to shape them into a professional army capable of confronting the insurgents on their own.(...) At least 100 Afghan civilians died last year at the hands of allied forces, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch, and Afghan rights groups put the figure many times higher. "Whenever they do something that is against our culture, people get angry, very angry," said Lt. Col. Sheehin Shah Kabandi, a regional Afghan army commander in Kandahar. "We remind them again and again: If you enter someone's house by breaking down his door, that man and all his relatives are your enemy forever." Local resentment is sometimes inflamed by what Western military officials see as an effort by Afghans to better their lot. In the Panjwayi district outside Kandahar, NATO troops for months have been bulldozing vineyards, arbors and orchards to build three wide roads radiating from their bases. (...) Civilian deaths have become a highly sensitive subject, particularly after Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly broke into tears late last year while imploring allied troops to be more careful. READ IT ALL

Putin hits the nail on the head

Mr Putin told senior security officials from around the world that nations were "witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations". "One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," he said, speaking through a translator. "This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law. "This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons." - BBC NEWS

David Seaton's News Links
It is interesting to read the accounts of Putin's speech in Germany. So far I have yet to find an article which mentions the simple fact that Putin's criticism of American foreign policy is a mainstream view in Europe and getting to be quite common in the United States itself. It is, in fact, the center of the position taken by both progressives and "realists" alike on the war in Iraq and the possibility of a war with Iran in the near future.

Probably the stony faces of many of the European leaders present can be explained by the fact that they hear the very same opinions that Putin expressed at the conference from their own families, when they are sitting around their dinner tables at home... certainly they hear them expressed in their parliaments and read them in their most respected opinion journals. By speaking so much common sense in such an important forum, with its attending media coverage, Putin has cut the ground out beneath many European conservatives as they try to re-sell the relationship with the USA to their skeptical voters at the same moment when the "CIA flights" scandal is growing daily more embarrassing.

Putin, by giving these views such a significant sounding board, has done a great service to all who are trying to stop another chapter in the neocon saga from being written in the blood of Iran's civilian population. DS

Getting whupped in Afghanistan

Pashtun tribal Zone, Afghanistan, 2004

NATO -- a transatlantic alliance -- is gambling its future in Afghanistan. The prestigious London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies' latest report minced no words: success or failure in a country where everyone from Alexander the Great to the British empire to the Soviet empire met defeat will determine whether NATO lives -- or withers. - Arnaud De Borchgrave - UPI

David Seaton's News Links
Looking into the eyes of this darling, little Pashtun, valley girl, I am reminded of an old traditional melody from the American southland, which goes, "I gotta knife, I gotta gun, cut yez if yuh stand, shoot yez if yuh run."

I certainly would not like to get on the wrong side of this little hellion and much, much less, get on the wrong side of her daddy. Betting the future of NATO on whupping this little girl's daddy and her cousins doesn't seem to me such an intelligent proposition.

Certainly to think that with a hodge-podge of NATO's odds and sods you are going to succeed where Alexander the Great and Queen Victoria failed is the height of hubris, which I think is the classical Greek word for "dumb asshole".

Sensible old, William Pfaff, the anti-Thomas Friedman, explains why NATO is going to lose the war in Afghanistan. I love this quote, "You might think the American political class and public is convinced that war is the road to national success, whereas the American experience of war, from the Korean ceasefire to the present day, proves the opposite. " Isn't it wonderful? DS

Afghanistan: Reenactment of Iraq and Vietnam - William Pfaff
Abstract: The Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan – “students of religion” – are a nationalist and populist movement of puritanical Islamic fundamentalism which grew up among the Pashtun tribal people of Northern Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan in the early 1960s’s. The Pashtun tribal group is some 40-million strong, and has successfully resisted foreign domination since the time of Alexander the Great.(...) The Taliban eventually ruled Afghanistan between 1996 to 2001, eventually ousted by American bombing when they defied an American ultimatum to hand over Osama bin Laden, leader of al Qaeda, following the 9/11 attacks. Now 35 thousand NATO troops with a UN mandate are fighting to prevent them from returning to the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan.(...) General Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, is uneasily looking on; he is an intelligent man who knows that there will be 40 million Pashtuns in his part of the world long after NATO and the Americans have left.(...) The Afghanistan intervention now is moving steadily towards failure for the same reasons that produced American failure, humiliation and national discredit in Vietnam and Iraq. Washington in this case is being unwisely supported by NATO and endorsed by the European Union. The three cases are alike in the following respect. The intervention has been launched against a phenomenon of local political and social origin, misidentified out of ideological bias and political ignorance as a threat to the United States and the West. In Afghanistan-Pakistan the Taliban is a nationalist and religious movement of indigenous origin and strictly local horizons, ambitions, and reach. Afghanistan under Taliban rule would to a westerner seem a very unpleasant place to live, as it was before. However that would seem a problem for the Afghans themselves to settle. In Vietnam the target was the national Communist movement, fundamentally an upheaval against foreign domination, originally French and subsequently American. In Iraq the local phenomenon was an Arab nationalist dictatorship controlling immense oil reserves, originally supported by the United States (through the period of the 1980-1990 Iraq-Iran war). It was subsequently identified by the senior George Bush administration as a threat to American and Israeli interests in the region, the former mainly commercial and the latter security interests. In all three cases the United States’ objective was not simple military victory but to change the political nature of the society so as to make it a liberal democracy. A cynical observer would say that Washington wanted to turn each into a client state, but this was not entirely true. The United States wanted, as it always wants, a conversion of hearts. It nonetheless has become a profoundly militaristic nation, which it never was before 1941. It now conceives of international relations primarily in terms of military coercion and war. The Bush administration budget that has just gone to Congress would devote a higher percentage of national expenditure to war and war preparations than in any year since the Korean war 55 years ago: higher than during the Vietnam war, or the cold war. You might think the American political class and public is convinced that war is the road to national success, whereas the American experience of war, from the Korean ceasefire to the present day, proves the opposite. Vietnam was a decade of disaster, leaving the U.S. divided and weakened. U.S. Caribbean and Central American interventions (the Dominican Republic, the Bay of Pigs, Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua) made the country look overwrought and ridiculous. The Iraq intervention now is collapsing into horror. Is it necessary to repeat this in Afghanistan? READ IT ALL

Afghan heroin: a unique price/quality proposition

David Seaton's News Links

If a newsman really wanted to know how the war in Afghanistan was going, all he or she would have to do is follow the retail/street price of heroin in their hometown. That simple. All the questions are there. Why do Americans consume so much heroin. How does it get through the NATO surveillance of Afghanistan? What is the USA really doing in Afghanistan anyway? And on and on. DS

Afghan heroin's surge poses danger in U.S. - Los Angeles Times
Abstract: Supplies of highly potent Afghan heroin in the United States are growing so fast that the pure white powder is rapidly overtaking lower-quality Mexican heroin, prompting fears of increased addiction and overdoses. Heroin-related deaths in Los Angeles County soared from 13Publish7 in 2002 to 239 in 2005, a jump of nearly 75% in three years, a period when other factors contributing to overdose deaths remained unchanged, experts said. The jump in deaths was especially prevalent among users older than 40, who lack the resilience to recover from an overdose of unexpectedly strong heroin, according to a study by the county's Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology. "The rise of heroin from Afghanistan is our biggest rising threat in the fight against narcotics," said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. "We are seeing more seizures and more overdoses." According to a Drug Enforcement Administration report obtained by The Times, Afghanistan's poppy fields have become the fastest-growing source of heroin in the United States. Its share of the U.S. market doubled from 7% in 2001, the year U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban, to 14% in 2004, the latest year studied. Another DEA report, released in October, said the 14% actually could be significantly higher. Poppy production in Afghanistan jumped significantly after the 2001 U.S. invasion destabilized an already shaky economy, leading farmers to turn to the opium market to survive. READ IT ALL

In Afghan Fields the Poppies blow...

David Seaton's News Links

Billie Holiday used to sing in her heroin ravaged voice, "Papa may have and mama may have, but God bless the child that's got his own." Afghans are proverbially obsessed with independence and drugs are providing Afghanistan with the liquidity that makes them independent of the strings attached to the "donations" of the "international community"... The drug business, capos, warlords, sicarios, pushers and junkies: now there is a real "international community"! Of course the United States besides consuming astronomical quantities of the stuff, is at "war" with drugs and would like to eradicate the opium poppy, however the soldiers on the ground urge caution. The military who are up to their necks in the shoit (that's Irish for shit) trying frantically to keep the wheels from falling off the entire contraption, fear that reducing the Afghans to total indingency would handicap Nato in its struggle for the Afghan's "hearts and minds" The Afghans with a fine eye for the main chance are naturally now beginning to make their own security arrangements. DS
Abstract from WP: Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday. In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year -- for a total of 5,644 metric tons -- the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent. White House drug policy chief John Walters called the news "disappointing."(...) "They have their own capability to inflict damage, to make sure that the roads and the passages stay open and they get to where they want to go, whether it's through Pakistan, Iran, up through Russia and all the known trade routes. So this is a very violent cartel," Jones said. "They are buying their protection by funding other organizations, from criminal gangs to tribes, to inciting any kind of resistance to keep the government off of their back." Any disruption of the drug trade has enormous implications for Afghanistan's economic and political stability. Although its relative strength in the overall economy has diminished as other sectors have expanded in recent years, narcotics is a $2.6 billion-a-year industry that this year provided more than a third of the country's gross domestic product. Farmers who cultivate opium poppies receive only a small percentage of the profits, but U.S. officials estimate the crop provides up to 12 times as much income per acre as conventional farming, and there is violent local resistance to eradication. "It's almost the devil's own problem," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told Congress last month. "Right now the issue is stability. . . . Going in there in itself and attacking the drug trade actually feeds the instability that you want to overcome." "Attacking the problem directly in terms of the drug trade . . . would undermine the attempt to gain popular support in the region," agreed Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. "There's a real conflict, I think." READ IT ALL

Gasputin? Nato fears Russian plans for ‘gas Opec’ - Financial Times

David Seaton's News Links
Gasputin? All the multicolored "Springs" have led to this. Hardly a day goes by without some editorialist somewhere wagging his finger at Putin, but all the scolding in the world isn't going to change the facts... It will take a great deal of global warming before the European winters stop being cold. Algeria seems to see the "synergies" too. The good news? Thanks to the Chinese the price of eiderdown quilts is coming down. DS

Abstract: Nato advisers have warned the military alliance that it needs to guard against any attempt by Russia to set up an “Opec for gas” that would strengthen Moscow’s leverage over Europe. A confidential study by Nato economics experts, sent to the ambassadors of its 26 member states last week, warned that Russia may be seeking to build a gas cartel including Algeria, Qatar, Libya, the countries of Central Asia and perhaps Iran. The study, by Nato’s economics committee, said Russia was seeking to use energy policy to pursue political ends, particularly in dealings with neighbours such as Georgia and Ukraine. On Monday night, Dmitry Peskov, deputy Kremlin spokesman, insisted there was “no substance at all” to the suggestion that Russia was seeking a gas cartel. “I think the authors of such an idea simply fail to understand our thesis about energy security,” he said. “Our main thesis is interdependence of producers and consumers. Only a madman could think that Russia would start to blackmail Europe using gas, because we depend to the same extent on European customers.” Although there is disagreement over whether Russia could create any such cartel, the report highlights the deepening tensions between Western Europe and Moscow over energy security.(...) yesterday, EU foreign ministers failed to agree a line on Russian energy, with Poland continuing to seek a tougher stance in future talks with Moscow. Last month, before an EU summit with Russia, Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, highlighted a Russian deal with Algeria, which he said stopped Algeria selling majority stakes in gas projects to foreign investors. “We are witnessing some form of mutual agreement as Russia and Algeria restrain investment,” said one industry analyst. READ ALL