US SEEKS TO OFFSET RUSSIAN ENERGY DOMINANCE
by Kerry Sheridan

Agence France Presse
August 29, 2008 Friday 1:58 AM GMT

Washington will seek to boost alliances and offset Russian energy
dominance when Vice President Dick Cheney visits Georgia, Azerbaijan
and Ukraine next week, a White House official said Thursday.

In light of rising tensions with Russia over its conflict with
Georgia, Cheney’s trip is part diplomatic mission, part effort to
boost alternate pipeline routes that would reduce Europe’s dependence
on Russian oil and gas.

Cheney’s tour, which includes a security conference in Italy and
talks with Turkish leaders, also comes as Washington mulls scrapping
a US-Russia civilian nuclear cooperation pact, while France has warned
of possible EU sanctions over Moscow’s actions in Georgia.

The vice president aims to send "a clear and simple message that the
United States has a deep and abiding interest in the well being and
security of this part of the world," said his assistant for national
security affairs, John Hannah.

The visit, parts of which were planned before the outbreak of
hostilities between Georgia and Russia on August 8, marks the first
time Cheney will set foot in either Tbilisi or Baku, Hannah said.

However, the trip has "clearly taken on increasing importance," he
added, after Russia’s nod this week to the independence of breakaway
regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a move which drew international
scorn.

"Russia’s actions in recent weeks have clearly cast grave doubts on
its intentions, its purposes," Hannah said. "They merit and demand
a unified response from the free world."

President George W. Bush’s decision to dispatch Cheney for talks
to include discussions on advancing NATO membership for Ukraine and
Georgia, is the clearest sign yet of US concern that its strategic
interests in the region — especially in oil — could be at serious
risk.

The strategic Black Sea region is the common thread in these former
Soviet republics, and where major powers have played out power
struggles ever since oil was found around the Caspian Sea in the
early 20th century.

An administration official said Russia’s military action in Georgia
has given fresh urgency to the planned Nabucco pipeline, which would
bring natural gas from Turkey to Austria.

"The level of confidence and trust that people have in Russia’s overall
reliability has been put in serious question by what’s happened,"
the official said on condition of anonymity.

"The United States has had a priority for quite some time in trying
to lead an effort to encourage this diversification of energy
infrastructure and pipelines and supplies, particularly to Europe,
of gas," he said.

"These recent events … reinforce the sense that that basic strategy
is important and critical, and one that has to be pursued, if anything,
with greater energy by us and by our European partners."

The official also pointed to comments by British Foreign Secretary
David Miliband, who in Ukraine on Wednesday highlighted the need to
"re-balance the energy relationship between Russia and Europe."

"We need diverse, secure and resilient gas supplies. Europe needs to
act as one when dealing with third parties like Russia," Miliband said.

Another key oil pipeline is the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) which passes
from Turkey through Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. An attack in
Turkey in early August claimed by the Kurdish rebel PKK underscored
the vulnerability of the BTC line.

"The transit route through Georgia previously thought to be relatively
secure and reliable is now seen as vulnerable and threatened by
regional hostilities," said Edward Chow, of the Center for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS).

US oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips also have major
stakes in Caspian sea oilfields, Chow noted.

With its broad opening on the Black Sea, Ukraine is a key strategic
US ally in the region, and Russia’s main concern, according to Stephen
Larrabee of the Rand Corporation.

"Georgia’s entry into NATO wouldn’t have major strategic consequences
for Russia. Ukraine, on the other hand, is a very different matter,"
Larrabee added.

If Ukraine joins NATO, Russia would not only be forced to remove its
ships based in Crimea; it also would see dashed its hopes of founding
a Slavic union with Ukraine and Belarus, he said.

What’s more, Russian and Ukrainian defense industries are closely
linked. Crimea, a peninsula attached to Ukraine in 1954 under Nikita
Kruschev, is two-thirds Russian speaking.