UKRAINE: GEOPOLITICS

FTW: Cold War crisis in Ukraine

Control of oil, key Grand Chessboard 'pivot' at stake by Larry Chin

November 26, 2004—The bitterly disputed Ukrainian presidential election, and the crisis that is exploding in the wake of the contested outcome, has reignited the Cold War and a new round of East-West conflict over control of Eurasian/Caspian/Black Sea energy.

Against the backdrop of Peak Oil (also check energy-related coverage in From The Wilderness), this conflict could well decide the geo-resource direction of the planet itself.

Amidst reports of election irregularities, Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovych, who supports stronger ties with Russia, declared himself the winner over pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchekno, in defiance of shrill and aggressive opposition and open threats from the West and the Bush administration.

Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives has served as a blueprint for world dictatorship, and an incriminating predictor of post-9/11 world conflict. Against today's explosive headlines, Brzezinski's words are, once again, nightmarishly relevant:

"Geopolitical pivots are the states whose importance is derived not from their power and motivation but rather from their sensitive location and from the consequences of their potentially vulnerable condition for the behavior of geostrategic players. Most often, geopolitical pivots are determined by their geography, which in some cases gives them a special role in either defining access to important areas or in denying resources to a significant player [my emphasis-LC]."

"Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Turkey and Iran play the role of critically important geopolitical pivots . . .