Du skal se dokumentaren om Stuxnet

Omkring år 2010 løb Irans atomprogram ind i mystiske problemer: Dels blev flere af deres atomfysikere snigmyrdet, dels brød centrifugerne på deres anlæg til forarbejdning af uran sammen. Problemerne viste sig at skyldes ondsindet software, der af Symantec fik navnet Stuxnet.

Stod Israel bag? Stod USA bag? Hvordan kunne det lade sig gøre at inficere det topsikre anlæg? Og ikke mindst: Hvad betyder alt dette for vores fremtidige opfattelse af it-sikkerhed og krigsførelse i cyberspace?

I understand the difference in destruction is dramatic, but this has the whiff of August 1945. Somebody just used a new weapon, and this weapon will not be put back into the box.

Ikke blot udpensler dokumentaren Zero Days mange flere detaljer, end jeg havde turdet håbe på, - som ganske vist til syvende og sidst hænger på anonyme kilder - den ender også med at underbygge en opfordring om at få en Genevekonvention for cyberkrig. Og det er da flot klaret, når man tænker på, det er en hel film om én computer-orm.

When you shut down a country's power grid, it doesn't just pop back up, you know. It's more like humpty-dumpty... And if all the king's men can't turn the lights back on or filter the water for weeks, then lots of people die. And something we can do to others, they can do to us too. Is that something that we should keep quiet? Or should we talk about it?

Jeg giver ikke filmen topkarakterer. Dertil er der for mange klip med kilder, der ikke vil udtale sig, og for uspændende formidling om selve softwaren. Men filmen er sindsygt væsentlig og absolut et must see, hvis man vil hævde at vide noget som helst om Irans atomprogram eller cyberwarfare.

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Surprise: Few wars are primarily about oil

The Washington Post recently published Oil wars: Why nations aren’t battling over resources by Emily Meierding. Does this article remove the entire foundation of this blog and the book I made of it?

Pointing at "invasion costs, occupation costs, international costs and investment costs", Emily Meierding says oil wars are just not worth fighting. With reference to The Falklands War (1982), The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), the Kuwait war (1990) and other wars, she argues these historical examples were about national pride, territory and Saddam Hussein's survival respectively. Similar alternative explanations for other wars.

So, why am I bookmarking this article? And why didn't I immediately delete my blog and forget about this whole thing?

Firstly, I have always bookmarked the opposing point of view. Go through my history of hundreds of ecowar bookmarks, and you will find plenty. Also see the beginning of chapter 4 (pages 74-) and the Objections part of chapter 6 (pages 123-) of my book, Ecowar - Natural Resources and Conflict.

Secondly, although Emily Meierding's headline says "nations aren't battling over resources", I don't think she really proves this statement in her text. What she does convincingly argue, is that in the cases she mentions, oil wasn't the primary causes of the conflict. To get academic about it, for each war one should list its causes and rate them in primary, secondary and even tertiary. I am guilty of having more or less skipped this discipline. But that doesn't mean conflicts with natural resources as their secondary causes aren't resource conflicts at all. For a very brief discussion of this, see the first chapter of my book or look up the works of some of the leading scholars.

What is also interesting about Emily Meierding's article, is how the discussion has gone full circle. When I first set out researching, claiming most wars were resource wars was taboo. While I wrote up the book, that changed (pages 126-128). Apparently, now it is quite main stream to associate natural resources with conflict. And what have we: An up and coming scholar seeking to prove things to be the other way around. Isn't that what we all want to achieve?

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How Much Gas Is Left? See with new visualization at Information is Beautiful

The basics:

• The world uses 2.6 trillion cubic metres a year, we have 187.9 trillion cubic metres left. 187.9 divided by 2.6 gives 72.3 but the graphic says there's only 63 years left assuming constant consumption. Assuming a constant growth in consumption by 2% there's supposed to be 42 years left.
• The top three biggest reserves are in Russia, Quatar and Iran (~53% total). The most production and consumption is in USA and Russia (~38% total production, ~35% total consumption).
• In comparison, assuming constant growths in consumption of oil (1%) and coal (4%) we have 38 and 44 years left of these resources respectively.

What is really interesting, though, is that General Electrics and BP are mentioned at the bottom of the page. Have the big corporations finally given up pretending infinite supplies of natural resources?

Sachs, Brown et al comment on Egypt, Tunesia etc

January and February of 2011 have seen the people of Tunisia and Egypt in unprecedented protests. While it seems the overwhelming sentiment of the people in the streets are for less repression and corruption, more freedom and democracy Western commentators have mentioned the danger of radical Muslim influences. Fortunately, this weekend a few voices of reason were allowed some space.

"This isn't just about the Muslim Brotherhood and it isn't just about politics. [...] This is about hunger, about poverty, about food production about a change of world economy. [...] The demographic change is very significant [...poor African states already heavily reliant on food imports because of weak farming sectors] cannot afford to live on imports of grains at world prices, and those prices are going to remain high and unstable [...] It's perfectly understandable how this spark went off, although it's not simple to predict when it's going to happen [...] This is a global ecological phenomenon, of rising world populations, increasing climate unsustainability and pushing up against the barriers of food productivity in many places. [...] My rule of thumb is the dry lands are the most combustible part of the world, all of the Sahel to the Horn of Africa, across the Red Sea to Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. This is all one vast ecological zone of extraordinary stress, with a lot of war in it already. [...] This is one large swathe of 10,000 miles of potential instability"
- Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute

"Many governments are suffering from demographic fatigue, unable to cope with the steady shrinkage in cropland and freshwater supply per person or to build schools fast enough for the swelling ranks of children."
- Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute

"Countries with very youthful age structures have an elevated likelihood of experiencing a civil conflict."
- Richard Cincotta, US demographer

Sources: AFP / Food, demography are invisible drivers in Egypt uprising, Reuters / INTERVIEW-Arab protests show hunger threat to world-economist.

Read "Crude World" by Peter Maass

News about the oil business, campaigns against it's foul play, news about pollution incidents, academic studies dealing with the many implications of the importance of oil and similar reports are not infrequent. Quite a few entries at this present blog deals with oil. But how about a first hand account of visits to the oil business hotspots of the world? From an acknowledged journalist with a critical approach and an open mind. About 220 pages telling the stories of the people living from or in the shadow of oil extraction... that's Crude World.


Chances are you'll gobble it up like a SUV does gasoline but there's plenty in its ten creatively titled chapters to digest more thoroughly. Scarcity, introducing with the stories of a poster-boy whistleblower from inside the number one consuming nation, USA; Plunder, about the disturbingly overlooked textbook case of Equatorial Guinea; Rot, taking us down the polluted rivers of the Niger Delta; Contamination, continues with stories from the misery of the Ecuadorean jungle; Fear, dives into the psychology of the oil business and the ignorance and innocence of its workers; Greed, is composed of a handful of stories about the callousness of the oil business even when operating inside the West; Desire, is a bit of the impossible to ignore story of the Gulf Wars; Alienation, has the perhaps most scary story of the ghost country called Saudi Arabia; Empire, is a peek below the surface of the apparently feel-good story of Russia; and Mirage ends off the book with a similarly critical look at the naive story of the Boliviarians in Venezuela.

Around the world indeed. Plenty of facts but served in dishes of true stories. Warmly recommended.

Can't help quoting a few good quotes about the US relation to the Middle East:

“Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
- US President Jimmy Carter, 1980

“Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to US national security. The United States remains committed to defending its vital interests in the region, if necessary through the use of military force, against any power with interests inimical to our own.”
- US President George Bush in “National Security Directive 54”

“Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.”
- Dick Cheney, August 2002

Democracy Now! interviewed Peter Maass during the BP oil "spill" in the Mexican Gulf:


Also, he's talking for hours on YouTube! About the book in general...



...about Russia...



...about Nigeria...



...about Iraq...



...and about related subjects in many more recordings.

Regarding the Iraq War... was it about oil then? To Maass it turns out it's not whether the war was about oil - it's how it was about oil.

It is that time of the year when...

...some group, country or person cease the opportunity to call for stronger environmental protection during conflict. This year Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggest the UN adopt a convention to ban destruction of forests or pollution to reduce the pressure on the environment and natural resources. The occasion is, of course, International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.


The time of the year when I note the Geneva Conventions already does address the environment:

Methods or means of warfare that are intended or may be expected to case widespread, long-term and severe damage to the environment are prohibited.
- (Protocol I, Art. 35, Sec. 3)

Attacks against crops, livestock and agricultural areas needed for food production for the civilian population are prohibited. [...] Attacks against civilian drinking water installation and irrigation works are prohibited.
- ( Protocol I, Art. 54 , Sec. 2)

(Quotes from genevaconventions.org)

But should the convention be stricter? Should it be more often enforced? Yes.

Japanese oil tanker hit by suicide bomber in Strait of Hormuz

The United Arab Emirates said Friday that a Japanese oil tanker was hit by an explosives-laden dinghy in the Persian Gulf in what would be the first attack in the strategic waterway where millions of barrels of oil are transported each day.

The report — which came days after an al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility for attacking the vessel — raised fears about the vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for many petroleum exporting countries.

Sources: UAE: Japanese tanker attacked in Persian Gulf, Japanese oil tanker hit by terrorist bomb, say inspectors, Al-Qaeda-Linked Group Claims Suicide Bombing Attack on Mitsui Oil Tanker.

The Last Oil Shock

The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man  by David Strahan had been on my wishlist at Amazon for about two years when I found it at a library sale for 2 euros.

It has an official website, as well as a two minutes video trailer:

Rather than a review, below is a selection of quotes from its extensive sources.

Quotes from the Preface

"I don't like the thought that oil production will peak and decline any more than I like the thought that I am going to die. But both are facts."
- Jean Laherrere, former oil explorer for Total

"[We face a] major historical discontinuity, by which I mean civilization itself is under threat."
- Colin Campbell, formerly working with BP, Texaco and others

Quotes from chapter 1: Sources in Washington

This is the chapter you must desperately avoid reading if you cling onto one of the usual excuses for attacking Saddam's Iraq. Full of interesting details, below is just a few choice quotes in chronological order:
January 26, 1998 PNAC sends a letter to President Bill Clinton:

[...] if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.

Signed by, among others, Donald Rumsfeld.

Louis Christian, an independent oil repository cartographer, was hired to chart Iraq in year 1998. Via the US Geological Survey but for who and what exactly?

"It seems to me the most likely suspect would be somebody high up in the administration that had a virtually unlimited budget that they don't have to itemize. Most likely the CIA or Pentagon."

November 1999 Dick Cheney gave a speech at Institute of Petroleum:

"[Demand is growing but production is declining so] where is the oil going to come from? [...] the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow [because of] US-imposed economic sanctions."

When George W. Bush took office with Cheney, Rumsfeld and other neo-cons Louis Christian's map was discussed at one of the very first meetings held. The Cheney Energy Task Force "melded" or "conflated" the "capture of new and existing oil and gas fields" with "policies towards rogue states" - which was revealed by Judicial Watch.

"We were acutely conscious of the fact that Saddam had carved up all the oil exploration deals and contracts with big non-US and non-UK multinationals."
- Carne Ross, former British in UN

That is the deals that would settle if sanctions were lifted and the run-down Iraqi oil sector hadn't damaged its oil fields before that.

The Iraq war happened. Colonel Gaddafi of Libya got the message, publicly 'renounced' weapons of mass destructions and took the unique step of offering 15 contracts for oil exploration to foreign companies, 11 of which were given to US firms.

Chapters 2 and 3 deals with peak oil itself. But mostly just experts admitting it's on its way. David Strahan isn't just one rogue journalist with a crazy idea; the other day - by coincidence - I saw this short video about peak oil:

Quotes from chapter 4: Long fuse, short fuse

Chapter four discusses which of the two oil issues - climate change and peak oil - is the biggest. It begins with an interesting anecdote: 16th of February 2005 Greenpeace decided to celebrate the Kyoto Treaty by setting off rape alarms attached to helium balloons inside the International Petroleum Exchange in London and raising a banner saying "Climate Change Kills. Stop Pushing Oil" outside. However, the traders reacted with fierce violence:

"They just went wild. They were trying so hard to hit us they fell over one another. "
- Greenpeace activist

"[Having a metal bookcase pulled down my head] wasn't great but it made a kind of barrier between us and them."
- Greenpeace director, Stephen Tindal

Stock exchange traders reacting to environmentalists with violence - just like fishermen, miners and lumberjacks.

The chapter ends with a former Greenpeace chief scientist's agreement with one of the postulates of the book - that the last oil shock will be a crisis every bit as profound as climate change:

"They're both problems that threaten the future as we know it, so I wouldn't like to draw a distinction. They certainly have different length fuses, but they're both large weapons of mass destruction. [...] Yes, of course, absolutely [peak oil has the shortest fuse]. If we were sensible, logical, joined-up thinkers, which we're not [we'd concentrate on peak oil]."
 - Jeremy Legget, geologist, author and more

The finer details

David Strahan then spends about 130 pages chronicling the many curious influences oil has on world society, the many small signs the oil hegemony is cracking up and the futility of attempts to do something about it.

Chapter 5, page 115 the US unemployment rate is linked to (correlated, explained) the oil price. And just consider what other things unemployment is linked to.

"There are good reasons why oil shocks hurt. When the oil sheikhs gets more of the world's money, someone has to end up with less. Profits drop, firms begin to go out of business, people lose their jobs."
 - Professor Andrew Oswald, Warwick University

Chapter 7, which is about OPEC and how it is lying about the volume of its resources, page 170 and onwards the fragile position of the Saudi Arabian monarchy is discussed (emphasis in bold added by me):

It's not hard to see why Saudi Arabia might want to exaggerate the scale of its oil resources; the position of its royal family demands it. For decades the fundamental contradiction of Saudi Arabian society has been that a population that largely adheres to Wahabism, the most puritanical, fundamentalist and xenophobic sect of Islam, is ruled by a royal family that is venal, bloated and Westward-leaning. The absolute monarchy has only managed to survive because its control of the oil has allowed it to buy American protection, and to bribe its own people. [...] Saudi Arabia's revenue from oil exports, which account for three-quarters of its income, collapsed [by 80% from 1980 to 2004...] half the population is under twenty-one, and the unemployment is thought to be as high as 25 per cent. There are frequent acts of terrorism and attacks on the security forces [...] The house of Saud has every reason to be terrified that it will soon go the way of the Shah of Iran. In these circumstances the royal family needs American protection more than ever before. 

Saudi Arabia's security pact with America was famously sealed when Roosevelt met Ibn Saud on his way back from the Yalta conference in 1945. Saudi oil production was negligible at the time, but US officials had already concluded that Saudi reserves constituted 'a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in human history'. Although the meeting on board a US warship in the Suez Canal went unminuted, it is widely thought the two reached an understanding that has apparently survived to this day: America would guarantee the security of Saudi Arabia - and in effect the house of Saud - and in return the Saudis would guarantee US access to their vast reserves. In any event, successive US presidents have behaved as if that was the arrangement, providing the Saudis with billions of dollars in arms for both national defense and internal security. And Bush the Elder took America into the first Gulf War explicitly on that basis, declaring 'the sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital interest to the United States'.

There is no meaningful way to do an 'Ecowar excerpt' of chapter 8, Interesting Times, because it's relevant in its entirety. Continuing where chapter 7 left off it begins with the story of a half-botched and mis-reported Al-Qaeda attack on a Saudi oil field then detailing the complex geopolitics surrounding Mid East oil, Chinese influence especially. However, here is one of the more disturbing quotes, one that reminds us why it's a good thing Obama is in the White House:

"From the Bush administration's point of view, there is only one obvious and immediate way to alter this unappetizing landscape [ie of Iran-China deals] - by inducing 'regime change' in Iran and replacing the existing leadership with one far friendlier to US strategic interests."
- Professor and author Michael Klare

Or how about this one, page 182:

The world has never seen a problem like [peak oil]. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal, coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.

OK, what internet crackpot said that? The US Department of Energy did in its Peaking of World Oil Production report. The chapter continues with many details of the economic battle already having raged for years. At times it's a bit eerie as some of its year 2006 predictions resemble what we are beginning to see in 2010, ie in the house prizing bubble that isn't exactly re-inflating.

Like the rest of the book chapter 9, Memo to Mr Wicks, is themed around one of the major dichotomies, conflicts or scandals in the subject. In this case the discrepancy between some of the ridicule the author received while researching the book and some of the most grave expert warnings. Like the one from the US Army Corps of Engineers:

Oil production is approaching its peak; low growth in availability can be expected for the next 5 to 10 years. As worldwide petroleum production peaks, geopolitics and market economics will cause even more significant price increases and security risks.

Finally the two last chapters are comprised of recommendations for politicians and people respectively. I'll leave those with a recommendation of the book - but no, one of his recommendations isn't "suicide by oil".

Update on the Iraqi oil law - and "alien scientists"

Since my choice of quotes focussed on the Iraq "liberation" it's only fair to finish with a video clip about the Iraqi oil law.

I also came across this next one more typical of the "YouTube underground":

Zeitgeist & the eco-military

I watched a movie called Zeitgeist Addendum yesterday after months of having had it recommended from people. I recommend it: Download the DVD from the project website for free or watch it on YouTube. Here's some notes and comments...

It starts out criticizing elements of the economic system - boring to many by definition but perhaps a little more interesting here in the financial crisis? - and moves on (about 21 minutes into the movie) to discuss examples of how financial tools are preferred by the West (the US) before using the military to gain cheap access to 3rd world natural resources. It's essentially John Perkins, former NSA associate, talking about the topics of his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man [Official site | Wikipedia | Google Books].

This video is the 10 last minutes of John Perkins talking:



What he says about Iraq:

"Iraq, actually, is a perfect example of the way the whole system works. We economic hitmen are the first line of defense: We go in, we try to corrupt the government and get them to accept these huge loans which we then use as leverage to basically own them. If we fail [...] then the second line of defense is we send in the jackals. The jackals either overthrow governments or they assassinate. And once that happens then a new government comes in and they'll toe the line because the new president will know what will happen if he doesn't. In the case of Iraq both of those things failed [...] so, in '91 we send in the troops and we take out the Iraqi military [...assuming] Saddam is gonna come around. [...] So the economic hitmen go back in in the 90ies... without success. If they'd had success he'd still be running the country, we'd be selling him all the fighter jets he'd want [...] the jackals couldn't take him out again [either] so we sent in the military once again and this time they did the complete job [...] in the process creating for ourselves some very, very lucrative reconstruction deals."

Very much not surprising. But nice to hear from an insider. His conclusion makes me think of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire. Regarding Iraq specifically, we've had some hard-to-believe right wing postulates that the war-for-oil theory is left wing propaganda pointing at non-US (yet Western) companies getting many contracts. First of all, it really doesn't matter as long as these companies supply for the (so called "free") world market. Second, recently U.S. Companies Join Race on Iraqi Oil Bonanza.

Towards the end the movie sums up in some more philosophical discussions (including some hippie stuff). Some of it is undeniable Ecowar cornerstones.

"The most important issue at hand is the intelligent management of the earth's resources. [...] Our true problems in life are technical, not political. [...] Society today is backwards. With politicians constantly talking about protection and security rather than creation, unity and progress. The US alone now spends about 500,000,000,000 dollars annually on defense. That is enough to send every high school senior in America to a four year college. In the 1940ies the Manhattan Project produced the first true weapon of mass destruction. This programme employed 130,000 people at an extreme financial cost. Imagine what our life would be like today if that group of scientists, in stead of working on a way of killing people, worked on a way to create a self-sustaining, abundant world. [...] It is time to unleash something much more powerful: weapons of mass creation."

Of course, just like America is addicted to oil (George W. Bush's own words) it's also addicted to war. At least, shutting down the military would be a mega-shock to the financial system. That is why I enjoyed it very much when in Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capital series the US military is literally battling climate change. Also a topic discussed in the new copy of Ode Magazine: Jim Channon: Mobilizing the military to clean up the earth.

The true battle in the future is not between nations; it’s about repairing the damage we’re doing to our planet. [...] the army must set about reforesting the Earth, planting billions of trees and cleaning up the fresh water reserves. [...] The Marines will protect and restore the dying coral reefs and coastal wetlands while the Air Force monitors carbon emissions, ozone depletion and air pollution. [...] The Navy, Channon says, should be tasked with measuring rising ocean temperatures and melting polar ice as well as policing illegal dumping and overfishing of the seas. [...] siphon excess water from the oceans and channel it into the desert basins of the planet to create enormous salt water lakes [...] transport thousands of refugees from the Pacific Islands to these areas, where they may tend giant new fishponds

These quotes are the visions of retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon - who's portrayed by Jeff Bridges in The Men Who Stare at Goats which appears to be a lot more fun than Zeitgeist Addendum.

Fighting for fossils: the al-Fakkah oil field and West Virginian mountain tops

The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) has just ended at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. Even while world leaders were discussing how to curb demand for fossil energy the fight for control of supply of them continued unabated.

On the Iran-Iraq border the two countries are moving troops around to impress each other. On Friday the 18th, when COP15 was scheduled to end, Iraq accused Iran of seizing the al-Fakkah oil well on disputed border territory. Saturday they sent troops. Early December Iraq signed contracts with Royal Dutch Shell and Petronas for the development of the 1.5 billion barrel oil field. (Iraq accuses Iran of seizing oil well near border, Iraq sends forces to oil well seized by Iran, Baghdad reclaims oil facility at al-Fakkah)

Although (technically) not in this conflict, the US army is worrying a great deal about it (Mullen: "Clock Now Running" on Iran).

At home the Americans are divided in the question about how far to go in the pursuit of their own fossil resources. Is removing mountain tops for coal going too far? Much too far, says environmentalists. A group called Climate Ground Zero has arranged more than 20 protests in which more than 100 activists have been arrested.

"Mountaintop-removal mining blasts away our souls, blasts away our communities, the souls of the workers who are doing the work and our cultural and natural heritage."
- Rev. Robin Blakeman, West Virginia minister and environmental activist.

"Treehuggers", says the miners. The mine operator, Massey Energy, equates being anti-coal with being anti-American. July 2009 I posted a YouTube video of miners harassing environmentalists (Workers of polluting and nature exploiting industries in violent attacks against environmentalists).

"Look out violence is coming your way. There is a group ready as we speak to eliminate the threat."
- "Superhippieslayer", anonymous online miner

"There's a possibility it might not be safe to live in the Coal River Valley"
- Chuck Nelson, activist and former underground miner

(Fear of violence grows in mountaintop mining fight, Religion shaping mountain-top removal debate in Appalachia coal country)


World Gas Prices by Don Hankins

(This article was cross-posted at TH!NK ABOUT IT.)

Indian analysis: "USA might have benefited a great deal from its [lost] war in Afghanistan"

What hits Russian interests most is that if the Caucasian route materialises, the US would have consolidated its military presence in South Caucasus on a long-term basis. Ever since the conflict in the Caucasus in August, the US has maintained a continuous naval presence in the Black Sea, with regular port calls in Georgia. The indications are that the US is planning a carefully calibrated ground presence in Georgia as well. Talks are in the final stages for a US-Georgia Security and Military Agreement. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza visited Tbilisi for consultations in this regard.

Another dramatic fallout is that the proposed land route covering Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan can also be easily converted into an energy corridor and become a Caspian oil and gas corridor bypassing Russia. Such a corridor has been a long-cherished dream for Washington. Furthermore, European countries will feel the imperative to agree to the US demand that the transit countries for the energy corridor are granted NATO protection in one form or the other. That, in turn, leads to NATO's expansion into the Caucasus and Central Asia.