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<DIV class=timestamp><FONT size=3>October 25, 2006</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=kicker><NYT_KICKER><FONT size=3>Op-Ed
Columnist</NYT_KICKER></FONT></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" "><FONT size=3>The Really Cold War
</NYT_HEADLINE></FONT></H1><NYT_BYLINE version="1.0" type=" ">
<DIV class=byline><FONT size=3>By </FONT><A
title="More Articles by Thomas L. Friedman"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><FONT
color=#000066 size=3>THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN</FONT></A></DIV></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody>
<P><FONT size=3>Berlin</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>The Berlin Wall fell almost 17 years ago. At the time, the
future seemed clear: The fall of the wall would unleash an unstoppable tide of
free markets and free people — and for about 15 years it did just that. Today,
though, when you stand where the Berlin Wall once stood and look east, you see a
countertide coming your way. It is a black tide of petro-authoritarianism
emanating from Russia, and it is blunting the Berlin Wall tide of free markets
and free people.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>Why? Russia is a classic example of what I like to call “the
First Law of Petropolitics,” which posits that the price of oil and the pace of
freedom operate in an inverse relationship in petrolist states — states with
weak institutions and a high dependence on oil for their G.D.P. As the price of
oil goes down, the pace of freedom goes up. The day the Soviet Union collapsed
the price of oil was near $16 a barrel. And as the price of oil goes up the pace
of freedom goes down. Today, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, flush with
surging oil and gas profits, is crushing domestic opponents, renationalizing
major energy companies, throwing out Western human rights groups and generally
making himself the big man on campus in Europe.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>When Europeans tell you that they fear a new “cold war,” this
time they really are talking about the temperature — and the fear that Russia,
if it wanted to turn off the gas, could make Europeans very cold. About 40
percent of Europe’s natural gas imports come from Russia, and that is expected
to grow to 70 percent by 2030.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>With prices high, Russia has gone from the sick man of Europe to
the boss man. Russia is a having a much bigger impact on Western Europe “with
gas pipelines than it ever had with SS-20” long-range nuclear missiles, remarked
the German foreign-policy expert Josef Joffe, author of the smart book
“Überpower: The Imperial Temptation of America.” </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>“Ten years ago we thought Russia was out of it,” Mr. Joffe said.
“We knew it was going to come back. But suddenly, out of the blue, with the rise
in oil prices, it is back on stage, and this time it’s much more skillful. The
image we have of Russia is [the port of] Murmansk, where the Russian fleet is
rotting — but power comes in many forms.” And the most popular form today is oil
and gas. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>Goodbye NATO, hello Citgo.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>The other day, the BBC quoted a senior “E.U. insider” as saying
of European Union leaders: “You know what happens when they get in the same room
with Putin?” They all prostrate themselves “and say, ‘I love you, Vladimir.’ ”
The BBC was reporting about a tense summit meeting last Friday in the Finnish
town of Lahti. E.U. leaders reportedly beseeched Mr. Putin to honor contracts
with Western oil companies, as well as to ease his crackdown on press freedoms,
on human rights groups in Russia and on Georgia, and to investigate the murder
of a crusading Russian journalist. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>What the E.U. wants, a senior German official explained, is to
be able to invest in more Russian oil and gas drilling projects and pipelines
upstream, so that Russian and E.U. energy interests will be so intertwined
Russia will never consider turning off the gas. Mr. Putin wants Gazprom, the
giant Russian gas company, to be able to buy into more downstream consumer
operations in Europe. That way Russia could dominate the industry from its
oilfields all the way to the gas meters of Berlin and Brussels. Right now, the
two sides are in a standoff. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>“We cannot allow energy to divide Europe as communism once did,”
José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, told The Financial
Times. But it is.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>In fairness to Mr. Putin, turnabout is fair play. After the
Soviet Union collapsed and Russia was enfeebled, the U.S. and the E.U. crammed
NATO expansion down his throat. He’s now using petro-power to push back. “Russia
is very different from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia,” remarked Clemens Wergin, an
editorial writer at the German daily Der Tagesspiegel. Russia has nukes <SPAN
class=italic>and</SPAN> oil, he noted, and therefore has the potential to play a
much more domineering geopolitical role in Europe.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=3>German officials don’t really think Russia is about to turn off
the gas if it doesn’t get its way on some issue. After all, it never did that
during the old cold war, and Russia today is much more dependent on Western
markets. But still, centuries of uneasy relations between Europe and Russia make
German officials queasy about how dependent they’ve grown on the Kremlin to heat
their homes and offices. Queasy or not, one thing they know for sure: Russia is
back. The gas man cometh. </FONT></P></DIV></NYT_TEXT>
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