Reaction to Riga

Senator Lugar keynoted the German Marshall Fund's conference on Monday, November 27, 2006 in Riga, Latvia, in advance of the NATO Summit.

In his speech, Senator Lugar said, "the most likely source of armed conflict in the European theater and the surrounding regions will be energy scarcity and manipulation."

Below are excerpts from news articles written about Senator Lugar's speech...

NATO eyes greater role in energy security
REUTERS
Mon 27 Nov 2006 6:58 AM ET
By Mark John

RIGA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - NATO leaders will study at a summit starting on Tuesday whether the alliance should take more action to avert potential threats to energy supplies, for example by mounting patrols of key shipping lanes.

The talks in the Latvian capital Riga, the first NATO summit on former Soviet soil, come amid Western concerns that Russia is exploiting its vast energy wealth to gain political influence over import-dependent countries in Europe.

"Energy security is a NATO-relevant subject," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told Reuters in an interview ahead of the Riga summit.

"I hope heads of state and government will ask us in the North Atlantic Council to define the added value that NATO could bring in the discussion on energy security," he said of the alliance's main policy-forming council.

While energy security has always in theory been a concern of the 57-year-old alliance, the issue has gained prominence since Moscow last winter briefly cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in a pricing row.

Recent unrest in Nigeria and sabotage in Iraq have highlighted the vulnerability of energy supplies, and security analysts warn that terrorist groups could inflict damage on Western economies with attacks on oil or other facilities.

NATO's top commander of operations, U.S. General James Jones, has said he sees a potential role for the alliance in protecting key shipping lanes such as those around the Black Sea and oil supply routes from Africa to Europe.

While Washington is open to discussion, a number of European nations are wary about entrusting the alliance with security tasks which they consider are national responsibilities, such as the protection of pipelines.

MUTUAL AID

A policy document to be discussed in Riga setting out key threats to NATO allies over the next 10-15 years lists "the disruption of the flow of vital resources" among them, according to a copy obtained by Reuters, but goes no further for now.

U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Dick Lugar will open a conference on the sidelines of the Riga summit on Monday with a strong call on NATO to vow to come to the aid of any ally facing a threat to its energy supplies.

"NATO must determine what steps it is willing to take if Poland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia or another member state is threatened as Ukraine was," Lugar will tell a conference organised by the German Marshall Fund think-tank.

"This does not mean that attempts to manipulate energy for international political gain would require a NATO military response ... NATO leaders should develop a strategy that includes the re-supply of a victim of an aggressive energy suspension."

Lugar called on NATO nations to examine how they would be able to shift fuel supplies to a nation under threat at short notice, for example by identifying alternatives to existing pipelines or developing alternative energy sources.

The two-day NATO summit is due to focus on the NATO-led security operation in Afghanistan on Tuesday, with discussion of energy security and other proposals to revamp the alliance on Wednesday.

U.S. senator urges use of NATO defense clause for energy
International Herald Tribune
By Judy Dempsey
Tuesday, November 28, 2006

In what could lead to a radical re-examination of NATO's defense doctrine, a leading U.S. senator has called on the alliance to come to the aid of any member whose energy sources are threatened by using the organization's Article 5 mutual defense clause.

Senator Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told a gathering of security experts here that any NATO member whose energy sources are cut off by force should be able to rely on assistance from the alliance.

The proposal has received a cautious welcome from the countries of Eastern Europe, which are the most vulnerable to energy shortages because of their heavy dependence on Russia.

"Article 5 of the NATO charter identified an attack on one member as an attack on all. It was also designed to prevent coercion of a NATO member by a non-member state," Lugar said in an address to a conference organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

"We should recognize that there is little ultimate difference between a member being forced to submit to coercion because of an energy cutoff and a member facing a military blockade or other military demonstration on its borders," Lugar said.

Poland had already taken the lead in the 26-member alliance in calling on NATO to play a greater role in energy security.

Following Russia's decision last January to cut its gas deliveries to Ukraine over a price dispute and then an accord between Germany and Russia to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea that will bypass Poland, Warsaw has tried to rally support from NATO and the European Union to protect countries dependent on Russia for their energy.

Lithuania has also faced shortages since Russia stopped sending oil to its refinery after an oil pipeline was damaged several months ago. Instead of appealing to NATO, Lithuania has asked the EU to raise the issue with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Lugar said that NATO must determine what steps it would take "if Poland, Latvia or another member state is threatened as Ukraine was." He added that because "an attack using energy as a weapon can devastate a nation's economy and yield hundreds or even thousands of casualties, the alliance must avow that defending against such attacks is an Article 5 commitment."

Some East European countries are concerned that any new interpretation of Article 5 could actually weaken it rather than strengthen it.

"When it comes to energy security, there should be solidarity in the European context," said Marek Prawda, Poland's ambassador to Germany.

"Mutual assistance is necessary but I would be careful at linking it directly to Article 5."

Poland's conservative government, a staunch supporter of the alliance, is already concerned that NATO could be weakened if it established closer ties with Australia, New Zealand and Japan - countries that have been involved in NATO-led peacekeeping missions.

Czech security experts agreed with Lugar that NATO should play a greater role in energy security, but they were skeptical about its ability to provide assistance.

"I would like NATO to deal with energy issues but not to deal with it with tanks. If you open up the legal meaning of Article 5, we may lose more than we gain," said Jiri Schneider, director of the Program of Atlantic Security Studies in Prague. "The question is if NATO can provide something. Has it the capacity to develop energy pipelines or organize airlifts for energy?"

Lugar said NATO could respond in several ways. "It should develop a strategy that includes the re-supply of a victim of an aggressive energy suspension," he said. "Alternatives to existing pipeline routes must be identified and financial and political support for the development of alternative energy sources is crucial." Lugar has made energy security one of his main foreign policy concerns.

Peter Balazs, an economics professor and director of EU strategy at the Central European University in Budapest, said Article 5 was about mutual defense. "It means dangers and conflict. The EU would be a more appropriate institution to deal with this issue," Balazs said. West European governments have tended to look to the EU rather than NATO in dealing with the issue of energy security.

A reluctant alliance
THE GUARDIAN/ UK
Martin Woollacott
November 29, 2006 04:45 PM

The Nato summit in Riga has managed to wheedle a few additional soldiers for Afghanistan out of reluctant member states and to persuade others to agree in principle to deploy their men from more peacable parts of that country to combat zones, although only in emergencies. Given the urgency with which the case for more troops has been presented by Nato officials, including the British commander of Nato forces in the field, General David Richards, this is a minimal response, and it may not be enough to prevent the slide into disaster of which Richards has warned. It is difficult now to recall the mood in 2001 and 2002, when Nato countries were falling over themselves to offer troops to fight with the Americans in Afghanistan and when the Americans, regarding European soldiers as potential nuisances who might complicate the battlefield, turned most of them down.

Nato's problem now in Afghanistan, and a main cause of the more general malaise from which the alliance suffers, is mainly the result of a widespread loss of confidence in the military instrument. That in turn is a consequence of Iraq, which is testing to the point of destruction the idea that western soldiers are any kind of solution to the crises of distant societies, as well as the idea that terrorism can be effectively confronted by conventional expeditionary forces.

In Afghanistan, commanders like Richards have repeatedly stressed that that the military effort must be flanked by a greatly enhanced programme of civil aid and reconstruction. Yet the Nato members who are so reluctant to come up with troops, particularly troops who might actually have to fight, are not much more enthusiastic about putting additional effort into improved civil programmes. The evidence begins to suggest that their heart is no longer in it. Some states are certainly ready to let a handful of members take most of the strain. At the same time, no country wants Afghanistan to become a failed state or a base for terrorism again. Hence the strange mixture of determination and footdragging which Nato member states, to different degrees, display.

Nato's relevance is also being questioned because of the west's shifting relationship with Russia, which it was originally created to contain. Of what use are armoured formations and advanced fighter aircraft against Moscow's energy manoeuvres, and in what way do they help maintain liberal and democratic ideas in Vladimir Putin's Russia? Senator Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, floated a proposal at Riga to change Nato doctrine to make energy blackmail an issue on which the alliance would be obliged to take action. What kind of Nato action is, however, difficult to envisage. Little Montenegro, for instance, wants to join the alliance, and got some encouragement at Riga, but Russia's economic stake in that country is growing and could be thrown in the scale against Nato membership.

Just as Nato's relevance to the western relationship with Russia is unclear, so, for some members, it does not provide a clear answer to the difficulties of the European relationship with the United States either. Riga had been intended to be a transforming summit, reconfiguring Nato for the 21st century.

Plans to speed up the formation of a Nato rapid response force, for greater compatibility between Nato armed forces, and for Nato agreements with countries in other regions, like Japan and Australia, are proceeding slowly for many reasons. But, among them is the fear that such improved collective capacities would be treated by the United States as a resource for its global purposes, rather than for those on which the alliance as a whole had genuinely agreed.

RADIO FREE EUROPE
World: NATO Prepares For Energy Wars
December 6, 2006
By Roman Kupchinsky

PRAGUE, December 5, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- During the recent NATO summit in Riga, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar urged the alliance to declare that an energy boycott of any member be seen as an act of coercion against all members of the alliance and one that requires a collective response.

U.S. Senator Richard Lugar urged NATO to update its charter. "We are used to thinking in terms of conventional warfare between nations, but energy could become the weapon of choice for those who possess it," he said.

Lugar warned the opening session of the NATO meeting that "it may seem to be a less lethal weapon than military force, but a natural-gas shutdown to a European country in the middle of winter could cause death and economic loss on the scale of a military attack."

Ukraine Cutoff

The senator used Russia's brief cutoff of gas to Ukraine in January as an example of the dangers that could lurk ahead.

"The Ukrainian economy and military could have been crippled without a shot being fired, and the dangers and losses to several NATO member nations would have mounted significantly," Lugar said.

The day before pressure was reduced in the pipeline that supplied Ukraine (and Europe) with natural gas, NTV, which is controlled by the state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom, aired long news segments showing Gazprom technicians preparing for the cutoff. The scenes, which were aired globally, resembled a wartime propaganda operation.

Such a tactic could have been Russia's way of showing that it was not prepared to help subsidize a pro-Western, pro-NATO, Ukrainian government and would limit its energy subsidies only to pro-Russian leaders in the former Soviet republics.

U.S. Senator Richard Lugar in Riga (epa) It could also have been a warning to the West to stop its support for "colored revolutions," as seen in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004.

Lugar's words at the NATO summit did not go unnoticed in Moscow. Mikhail Margelov, the chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, told Interfax, "The participants in the summit took great interest in the current problems of energy security, which would seem like a warning of the pressure NATO intends to exert on relations [with Russia] with regard to energy resources."

Old Tactic

Energy cutoffs have been used as a geopolitical tactic before. For instance, in July 1941, the United States declared a de facto oil boycott on imperial Japan by freezing all of its financial assets in the United States, which were then being used to pay for oil purchases.

Three days later, Japan launched an invasion to grab Royal Shell Petroleum's southern Indonesian oil fields.

The United States at that time supplied Japan with 80 percent of its oil and, had the oil boycott been proclaimed years earlier, critics have said that the devastating war in the Pacific might have been avoided.

A more recent example is the OPEC oil embargo of the United States in 1973, which, in the words of Henry Kissinger, the architect of U.S. foreign policy at the time,"altered irrevocably the world as it had grown up in the postwar period."

Israel's expected victory over Egypt and Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War angered the Arab states. When the United States announced a $2.2 billion emergency aid package to Israel in October 1973, Saudi Arabia responded by announcing it would cut off all shipments of oil to the United States. The other Arab oil producers followed suit.

Daniel Yergin, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the petroleum industry, "The Prize," quoted Kissinger as saying the decision to use oil as a weapon was "political blackmail."

No Act Of War

Despite the economic damage and disruptions caused by the embargo, the United States never officially regarded it as an act of war by OPEC.

It was, however, the beginning of a new era for world oil. Yergin points out that most Western leaders knew "precious little" about international economics and quotes Kissinger telling aides" "Don't talk to me about barrels of oil. They might as well be bottles of Coca Cola."

Most world leaders would know the difference these days and are painfully aware of the importance energy plays in international politics.

Options?

But the question remains as to what exactly an organization like NATO can do. Had Ukraine been a member of NATO at the time of the brief Russian gas embargo, would the alliance have been able to protect it from economic damage?

And could NATO hold sway over Russia to prevent such an embargo and how would it replace Ukraine's needs for Russian and Turkmen gas with that from another supplier?

Political strategists will likely be busy trying to find the answers to those questions.