The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) has been
completed. At one time this would have been reckoned a victory for US foreign
policy but now given that Ankara has pivoted toward Moscow and Baku is not as
solidly in the US column... there's nothing to celebrate.
For Europe this story represents a frustration, a point of
angst... It brings to them a necessary gas supply but gives both Ankara and
Moscow influence with regard to Southern Europe and even the Mediterranean in
the form of Italy... an Italy plagued by instability and the Salvini led Lega
Party.
Salvini who dominated the coalition government with the Five
Star Movement (M5S) made a bid for total control earlier in 2019 but was out-maneuvered
and is now the leader of the opposition. But he hasn't given up. Appealing to
the party's right-wing base, Lega is once again openly talking about Italy
breaking with the Euro. This combined with energy concerns will undoubtedly
mean that Brussels and the powers that be in Europe (and America) are casting a
wary eye on Italian politics. Western currencies and control of energy have
been a key plank of Atlanticist power for decades. The SCO leading powers
(Russia and China) would challenge this. From BRICS to new trade zones and
China's OBOR project, the West is worried and this is no small factor in the
ramping up of aggression vis-à-vis Russia and China. While the world watched the
silly antics at the recent NATO summit, Stoltenberg spelled out its agenda...
Great Powers Conflict, the West vs. Beijing and Moscow. Trump and now Macron
aren't fully on board, at least with the framing of the narrative and these
internal tensions have many worried.
The rise of Right-wing, anti-EU and anti-Atlantic parties
puts the grand strategy in danger and thus the tug-of-war political
machinations we've been watching in places like Ukraine and Georgia are
spreading. The new Slovak president Caputova is not cut from the same cloth as
the rest of her V4 compatriots. A friend to Brussels, her ascendancy marked a
victory for the forces opposed to Orban and Poland's PiS. At the NATO summit
she was being fawned over and it's not just because she's fairly young and
somewhat attractive. This is all part of the game, the power struggle that has
developed within NATO itself.
All of these things have to be taken into consideration when
attempting to understand a story about gas pipelines and Southern Europe. Europe
is dependent on Russian gas but a pro-Western Turkey provided a buffer, a
controlling mechanism for negotiations. But now with Turkey's loyalty and
agenda thrown into a state of uncertainty and with instability brewing within
Europe's underbelly... things could get interesting. Over the next few winters,
the energy watchers, politicos and strategic thinkers will be watching winter
temperatures and the gas supply.
And the antagonism between Europe and Ankara continues to
grow. France, probably more than any other European nation has retained an
antagonistic relationship with Turkey. Blocking its entry into the EU and
attacking it on other economic and cultural fronts, the tensions were all too
clear when Erdogan shot off at Macron and told him to get his own brain death checked into, a somewhat
undiplomatic retort to Macron's comments on NATO. The comment wasn't just about
Erdogan's commitment to NATO but was part of the larger Ankara-Paris
antagonism.
The Trump administration continues to push for a different
solution, one that will cut out both Russia and Turkey. They want Europe to
purchase US Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) that will be shipped across the
Atlantic and then re-converted to gas for use in heating homes etc. Some in
Europe, like outgoing EC president Jean-Claude Juncker have supported this,
while France seems resistant and in fact has supported Russian gas projects and
seems willing to help China build a larger LNG infrastructure. Chinese LNG
wouldn't necessarily be coming to Europe but the move is less than appreciated
by the rival United States. And you can be sure if the door opens and it's
economically feasible, China would be more than happy to ship gas to Europe.
Macron (it would seem) is part of the faction that sees
American LNG sales as little more than a new means of manipulation and control
on the part of Washington. Macron who continues to push for European
independence, even to the point of straining his relationship with Angela
Merkel, doesn't believe the answers to Europe's troubles are found in
Washington. Macron was almost a lone voice of dissent at the NATO summit,
pushing instead for NATO to find its mission and raison d'être not in Stoltenberg's
agenda of combating Beijing and Moscow (Great Power Conflicts) but in
continuing and expanding the War on Terror. This proves convenient as Macron is
battling a domestic political insurgency which he desperately wants to
discredit and crack down on, and additionally France has been for the past
decade pursuing a series of Neo-Colonial-type wars in North Africa centered on
Mali.
In addition to pushing Europe into a LNG deal with
Washington, the US Deep State also continues to pursue avenues of regime-change
within Turkey. If Erdogan could be ousted and Turkey 'flipped' once more into
the Atlantic camp... then Ankara could be used to not only block Moscow but it
could also be used (to its own hurt) to push the Balkan nations into looking
elsewhere for gas supply... namely the United States. US satraps are frequently
called upon to fall upon their own swords and to embrace economic and financial
policies which harm their own economies. The pliable political class is
compensated of course but the 'game' is to make sure the society isn't pushed
to the breaking point, leading to violence and insurrection. This has happened
more than once.
The US has gradually lost control of Turkey over the past two
decades. Erdogan's AKP has largely eradicated the mechanisms of US control and
Washington's last desperate bid in the 2016 coup failed miserably. I'm sure
there are still schemes in the works but they (apart from inflicting economic
pain) don't have a lot of tools to work with right now. The US could reverse
decades of policy and start openly backing the PKK but Turkey's military is not
Syria's. It would be a bloodbath and this time Western media would cover it,
unlike its abdication during the war of the 1980's and 1990's. It would create
a further crisis within NATO and I'm sure the planners and plotters see no
end-game, no way to use such an insurgency to replace Erdogan. Such a conflict
would quickly turn into a proxy war like we saw in Syria but much worse... and
with a country that touches the borders of the EU. Washington is not likely to
find support for that project.
So once again, while the Turkey-Azeri-Southern Europe gas
project would have been celebrated a decade ago, the dawn of the third decade
of the 21st century marks a different time... a time of tension and
uncertainty to be sure. Europe is divided and the future is uncertain. The
optimism of the 1990's is clearly dead and buried.
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