Moscow transforms real-world game of RISK

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) project, completed in 2005, entailed tremendous commercial risk because the three participants were involved in violent struggles with neighbours or internal separatist groups, and the pipeline would be vulnerable to sabotage. Under the agreement with BP, each country was to provide security within its borders and be responsible for losses should the pipeline be shut down as a result of political violence.

It was part of the United States’ effort to reduce Russia’s dominance of the region’s booming oil trade, and by doing so to encourage the development of independent-minded states on its rival’s southern flank.
Now, with its invasion of Georgia, Moscow has dramatically transformed the real-world game of Risk that is being played out in the region.

For more than a decade, Russia watched while the U.S. and Europe played the new “great game” of energy geopolitics in its own backyard. It was 10 years ago this weekend that Russia plunged into financial crisis by devaluing the ruble and defaulting on its mounting debt.

With the Georgian invasion, the Kremlin has sent notice that it now controls the Risk board. And that it is willing to use its armed forces to back up what it regards as its national interest in neighbouring states.

Globe and Mail