The energy weapon

At a conference on democracy in Vinlius, Lithuania in early May 2006, the Vice-President of the USA, Dick Cheney, made an uncompromising attack on the rulers of Russia, not only because of their democratic back-sliding, but because of Russia’s use of its oil and gas reserves as “tools of intimidation or blackmail” against neighbouring countries. Many independent observers felt that this return to Cold War rhetoric (one should never underestimate the appeal of nostalgia) was particularly ill-judged, coming as it did from an unpopular US administration which not only maintains clandestine detention facilities under unsavoury regimes in the world, but has also shown its readiness to invade a sovereign state for the sake of its vast oil reserves.

WN