Bob,
A long version below.
Charles
>>> "Bob Malecki" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/14/99 01:19AM >>>
George writes...
Hi,
Some people on this list talk about American imperialism advancing its interests by
attacking Serbia. However nobody on the list it would seem to me as clearly explained
how those interests are being served by this attack. Neither has it been clearly
explained why and how British, German and French imperialists are also being advance
by conducting this air war.
Perhaps somebody will explain this to me and others.
George, Charlie sent a quote to the list today which is the short version..
"
The aims and scope of Germany's drive east were summed up by the Chair of
The East Committee, the industrial group promoting business in the East:
"it is our natural market...[I]n the end this market will perhaps bring us
to the same position we were in before World War I. Why not?" (28)"
This is a forward on Yugoslavia.
Charles Brown
((((((((((((((((((((((
Analysis from another list
X says:
I dropped the bit about E. Europe transport, of which
the Danube is important, "Corridor VII", because I
found no evidence some weeks ago when I conducted
searches based narrowly on the Danube and oil. Later,
on a rather different course of investigation on
something I thought totally different, while rearching
trade on another major world commodity, cotton, whose
historical significance is perhaps as great as oil, a
quite abundant trove of evidence regarding the
expansion of European trading interests and its
connections to trade routes in E Euroep and central
asia. There are 8 other identified TENS corridors
besides the Corridors IV (and overland route basically
through Eastern Europe and the Danubian valley,
starting from German) and VII (the Danube). When you
are following two separate lines of inquiry and they
both lead, unexpectedly, to similar points, it is
worth reopening the hypothesis.
The argument that because the Danube is blocked today
by military actions, that the longer term goal of
opening secure trade routes to Asia/Black Sea is not in
the background as an objective, does not hold water.
That's tantamount to saying that control of the Suez
was not a goal of Israel France and England in 1956
because the canal was shut during hostilities. Not
worthy of intelligent argument. Sometimes you need to
break an omelet to make eggs. In fact a Serb political
economist argues
http://www.diplomacy.cg.yu/doc13.htm (Dr. Predrag
Simic, in Belgrade), in a document written before the
current hostilities, that the Yugoslavian situation has
been a major impediment to the development of Southern
Europe generally.
Nor do I see much difference between the argument
advanced, that there are a whole series of development
objectives centered around transportaiton (rail, roads,
water routes & ports) and communication (fiber optics
and telecommunications) and the thesis which you
grudingly admitted, i.e., that there could be some kind
of "dominate Europe" objective.
In fact, what I have put out is that the whole
transportation system of Europe has been the object of
major bureacratic initiatives since at least 1993. In
addition, the TRACECA stuff has been featured not only
on the front page of the NYT but has been the object of
formal announcements made at the White House, with
constellations of Caucasus leadership in attendance.
So yes, Madeline Albright would be aware of TRACECA
(that's the Euro-asian routes) and TENS (the Euro
routes of various stripes, two of which feed directly
into the Black Sea, and one of which crosses the
Balkans on an east-west basis, corridor VIII), and it
would be a factor in her thinking. How heavily it
figures relative to other considerations I have no way
of knowing, although I do have a friend in the
international oil (Princeton Ph.D., until recenlty
owner-publisher of Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, which
he sold, former Asst Sec'y of Energy under Carter, and
currently an oil trader) with whom I hope to have a
discussion in the near future and learn more. He's
rather blunt about when he thinks something is a crock
of shit so he would have let me know, methinks. It
would also be a factor in French thinking insofar as
they have been playing a significnat investment role in
the South side of the Caspian.
You are of course free to mock, but I frankly find such
condescension, in the light of the information dumped
by me on to the list for all to peruse, and against a
background of mega-mergers (among the largest in
capitalist corporate history, but I don't know if that
holds, inflation-adjusted) among oil interests that are
heavily involved in the Caucasus and Russia, to be a
poor reflection on your judgment.
On a tangent: it is also very interesting, and possibly
relevant, that Sergei Stephasin has been put forward
as Russian PM. The basic Russian oil strategy has been
to try to substitute North-South routes for the "silk
route" east-west routes, which includes A) the "Blue
Stream" trans-Black Sea gas pipeline to Turkey, the
Russian effort to "head off" or compete with competing
lines from Turkmenistan and B) the Baku-Novorossisk
route through Checnnya and C) established export routes
north from the east Caspian (not just for oil). Oil
MUST flow through Chechnya if the Russian routes are to
have a chance against the east-west routes, and there
is a major report due out by Shell on a Kaz.-Baku
east-west pipeline across the Caspian. But at
precisely the time when the Russians should be trying
to demonstrate that they can "deliver" Caspian area oil
via Russian-favored routes, the Chechens have been
repeatedly shutting down the major pipeline. Stephasin
is known to be a "Chechen hard liner." In short, it
would be a coup if the Russians could show that "their
routes" were the ones that worked whereas the
alternatives are blocked by hassles with Kurds, with
Turkey, and so on. Incidentally, I have read reports
that the Russians are maintaining hospitals for Turkish
Kurds wounded in battle outside Moscow. China is also
trying to invest $5b in Kazakhstan, which border is, in
an effort to direct energy flows in its direction.
This is obviously a rather different orientation than
the European favored trans-Caspian export routes,
leading from Azerb. through Georgia and thence either
to Turkey (Ceyhan) or to various other Black Sea
destinations, esp. Bulgaria, Urkraine, and Romania.
In short, China and Russia both have substantial
material (as well as general policy, with regard to
their own minority ethnicities and the right to oppress
them without interference) stakes in keeping obstacles
in the path of east-west oriented development.
The interconnectedness of such events is, I confess,
always speculative, and by its nature nothing can be
proved until (and only if) documents are made
available, which won't be for some time. So in trying
to answer your jibes seriously I labor at a
disadvantage. Nonetheless, may I point out that in
WWII (and actually even earlier, in the British
imperial 19th c period similar kinds of thinking
prevailed) it was considered deadly serious that the
invasion of North Africa was a threat to British
control of Iraq and Iran; and that Hitler actually
considered the thrust to Stalingrad as one part (AFrica
being the other) of a giant pincer movement designed to
encircle much of the world's energy resources. Such a
large view of geography has prevailed in the past and
is even more relevant in an era when pipelines are
longer, truly continental entities (as in the US and
Russia) and when bombing runs for the Balkans leave on
an almost daily basis from the American mid-west. I
hope you won't insipidly impute to me the view that
Serbia had such ambitions. Of course it did not. As I
have reapeatedly said, Serbia's sin is that its
political leadership is in the way.
It is certainly not too much to suggest that there are
people who think geostrategically today, by which I
mean, not in terms of a "giant pincer movement" a la
Hitler, but the development of a major west-east axis
that would cause much of the trade currently routed
through Russia to go directly to Europe by a variety of
routes. I don't simply suggest it. These people are
in govt and they've got a web site advertising that
thinking to the whole world; they've been in the front
pages of the major media and aon the steps of the White
House; I've put it out for anyone to look at, and the
"scholar's response" is mockery?
The basic "materialist thesis" is not shut, but clearly
an open matter on the strength of information publicly
available. Having had occasion to compare public
documentation with closed political documentation for
the oil diplomacy of the pre-WWII period, I can say
that there is a prima facie case that this thesis
should not be dismissed: the abundance of material
providing background, showing concern at high level, is
exactly the kind of thing which indicates that there is
probably even more going on non-publicly.... Moreover, you refuse to acknowledge
that the thesis I first advanced has been supported by
a significant increase in documentation from a variety
of sources. Your arguments at this point amount, in
the face of stronger evidence, to the assertion that
there is no connection between major capitalist
commodity markets, the routes on which they trade, and
the capitalist propensity to warfare: which of course,
would qualify you as an American political scientist.
Prof. X
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