Washington’s nightmare

F William Engdahl’s THE EMERGING RUSSIAN GIANT, Part 2

Ironically, the aggressive Washington foreign policy of the era of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld since 2001 has done more to nurture the one strategic combination in Eurasia most dreaded by
Washington political realists such as Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski, namely
a strategic military and economic cooperation on a deep, long-term basis between two former Cold War foes, China and President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

With Sudan and the Middle East under increasing pressure from the United States, Sino-Russian energy cooperation has moved to the top of China’s foreign-policy agenda. At the end of this month, Russia and China will meet again in Moscow to discuss further energy cooperation.
In terms of overall standard of living, mortality and economic prosperity, Russia today is not a world-class power. In terms of energy, it is a colossus. In terms of landmass, it is still the single largest nation in the world. It has vast territory and vast natural resources, and it has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, the energy source currently the focus of major global power plays. In addition, it is the only power with the military capability to match that of the United States, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and consequent deterioration of the Russian military.

Russia has more than 130,000 oil wells and some 2,000 identified oil and gas deposits, of which at least 900 are not being exploited. Oil reserves have been estimated at 150 billion barrels, similar perhaps to Iraq. They could be far larger but have not yet been exploited because of the difficulty of drilling in some remote Arctic regions. Oil prices above US$60 a barrel begin to make it economic to explore in those remote regions.

Asia Times