Gates & Gazprom
I am keeping an open mind on Robert Gates. Score one in his favor today: he emphasized Europe’s vulnerability to energy blackmail, and noted that (ahem) Reagan had warned the Europeans about relying on Russian gas oh so many years ago (a point I made in my July World Energy piece on Gazprom.) Pace one of my earlier Russia posts, he averred that the Russians (I would say the Russian government) were humiliated by the loss of their empire, and are thirsting to matter as a world power again. Like I said before, with all of Russia’s other pressing problems, this is so sad.