TWO VICTORIES AND ONE DEFEAT?

North Stram, South Stream,AMD

Северный поток,Южный поток ,НПРО

North Stream, South Stream, Difesa antimissile

North Stream, South Stream, Défence anti-ballistique

North Stream, South Stream, Anti-ballistisches 

Abwehr

Our assumption that presently there is no event which does not imply at the same time both Western and Eastern Europe is confirmed by the fact that things affecting the mutual interrelationships between the two parts of Europe are so numerous, that it is impossible to maintain updated information about all of them. This week, we have experienced three of these events, which show this growing interrelationship.

1. North Stream

Gazprom has  started supplying technological gas via Nord Stream last week, with customer supplies planned for October -November 2011.

­Speaking at a United Russia conference in Cherepovets, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the first phase of the pipeline, which will carry gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea bed, is already complete.
The 1,220 kilometre Nord Stream pipeline will deliver gas directly from Russia’s Vyborg  to Germany’s Greifswald  across the  Baltic Sea, with the two lines of the system each able to ship 27.5 bcm a year. Completion of the second line in, Autumn 2012, will increase gas supplies to Europe to 55 bcm a year, with Gazprom having already signed long term contracts on gas deliveries with several EU countries including Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Great Britain.

Nord Stream (former names: North Transgas and North European Gas Pipeline;Северный поток (Severnyy potok), Nordeuropäische Gasleitung) is an offshore natural gas pipeline from Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald in Germany. It is owned and oprated by Nord Stream AG. The name occasionally has a wider meaning, including the feeding onshore pipeline in Russia, and further connections in Western Europe.

The project, which was promoted by the government of Russia and agreed to by Gerhard Schröder's government of Germany, was seen as controversial for various reasons, including increasing European energy dependence on Russia and potential environmental damage.

The project includes two parallel lines. The first line of the pipeline was laid by May 2011 and it is  operational . The second line to be laid in 2011–2012. It is the longest sub-sea pipeline in the world surpassing the Langeled pipeline.

2.South Stream 

Bloomberg informs that: 

"Electricite de France SA and BASF SE joined OAO Gazprom's planned South Stream natural-gas export pipeline to raise the project's appeal as the European Union promotes a rival project to cut dependence on Russian fuel.

EDF and BASF's Wintershall unit each gained 15 percent stakes in the pipeline, to be built across the Black Sea, under an agreement signed today in Sochi, Russia. Eni SpA's share will drop to 20 percent, and Gazprom will retain 50 percent."

"The arrangement again confirms the pan-European nature of this major energy infrastructure project," the South Stream venture said today in a statement.

Russia seeks to deliver as much as 63 billion cubic meters of gas a year via South Stream, the country's second direct link to the EU, bypassing Ukraine and other transit nations. The EU, which relies on Gazprom for about a quarter of its gas, backs the Nabucco project from the Caspian region.

South Stream will run 900 kilometers (560 miles) under the sea to the Balkans and may cost 15.5 billion euros ($21.4 billion), including the onshore section in southern and central Europe. Gazprom aims to start supplies by the end of 2015.(Bloomberg, 16 September)

The new pipelines are not in conflict with other prospective projects, like Nabucco, which is parallel to South Stream, but goes by land, over Turkey. For this reason, the suspect of an excessive dependence of Europe from Russian gas supplies results not to be well grounded. In fact, Europe has, and still will have, several alternatives for the supply of gas. By the way, a large quantity of gas comes to Europe from north Africa and the Middle East, whose future, in the next few years, is not easy to forecast.

3.AMD

According to Russia Today (14 September), "NATO plans for a phased deployment of a European anti-missile defense system are moving forward, with Turkey and Romania having signed deals to host crucial elements of the system.
The US and Turkey signed a memorandum on Wednesday on the deployment of an American radar station in the east of the country as part of the NATO-backed missile defense system (AMD).

The AN/TPY-2 THAAD radar will be deployed in the southeastern Turkish province of Malatya by the end of the year. It will later become part of the anti-ballistic missile system which the US and NATO are building to protect Europe, pposedly from missile attacks by rogue states.

The news comes just a day after Romania agreed to a deal with Washington under which land-based SM3 interceptor missiles and over 100 military personnel will be based on Romanian soil. The deal also includes the deployment of American Navy cruisers with naval versions of the interceptors along the Romanian coast.

The project has caused concern in Russia, which believes the system may be targeted against its nuclear deterrence capabilities. Washington refused to build a joint Russian-NATO anti-missile system to protect Russia, as suggested by Moscow."

According to Wikipedia,"Previously, a controversial initiative existed for placing GMD missile defense installations in Eastern Europe, namely in Poland and Czech Republic. As a result of strong Russian opposition, the plan has been abandoned in favor of Aegis-class missile defense based in the Black Sea and eventually in Romania.

In February 2007, the US started formal negotiations with Poland and Czech Republic concerning placement of a site of Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System.The announced objective was to protect most of Europe from long-range missile strikes from IranPublic opinion in both countries opposed: 57% of Poles disagreed, while 21% supported the plans; in Czech Republic it was 67% versus 15%. More than 130,000 Czechs signed a petition for a referendum about the base, which is by far the largest citizen initiative (Ne základnám - No to Bases) since the Velvet Revolution.

The Ustka-Wicko base of the Polish Army was mentioned as a possible site of 10 American interceptor missiles. Russia objected; its suspension of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe may be related. Putin warned of a possible new Cold War. Russia threatened to place short-range nuclear missiles on its border with NATO if the United States refused to abandon the plan.

A radar and tracking system site placement was agreed with the Czech Republic. After long negotiations, on August 20 2008, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski signed in Warsaw the "Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Poland Concerning the Deployment of Ground-Based Ballistic Missile Defense Interceptors in the Territory of the Republic of Poland",a deal that would implement the missile defense system in Polish territory. Russia warned Poland that it is exposing itself to attack—even a nuclear one—by accepting U.S. missile interceptors on its soil. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn the deputy chief of staff of Russia's armed forces said "Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent".

In September 2009, President Barack Obama announced that plans for missile defense sites in East Europe would be scrapped in favor of systems located on US Navy warships On September 18, 2009, Russian Prime Minister Putin decided to welcome Obama's plans for stationing American Aegis defense warships in the Black Sea.The deployment occurred the same month, consisting of warships equipped with the Aegis RIM-161 SM-3 missile system, which complements the Patriot missile systems already deployed by American units.

On February 4, 2010, Romania agreed to host the SM-3 missiles starting in 2015."

According to Marc Champion, Gregory L. White and Nathan Hodge "The U.S. said it can use data collected from a high-powered missile-defense radar in Turkey to help defend Israel or other non-European allies, which risks sparking a public backlash in Turkey. Turkey on Wednesday signed an agreement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to station a high-powered U.S. radar site on its territory, part of a missile-defense system to protect NATO allies from the threat of long-range rockets from Iran.

The deal was a culmination of months of negotiations that included a string of public demands from Turkey, including that real-time data from the so-called X-Band radar not be shared with Israel.

The deal assures NATO member Turkey that its territory will be fully covered by the defense system, as it had sought. It will also improve its status in NATO, and ensure it has influence over NATO missile-defense decisions and closer ties with the U.S., officials said.

But the U.S.'s refusal to rule out data-sharing with Israel risks adding strain to already-frayed relations, as Turkish politicians move to distance themselves from the Jewish state. Washington has been alarmed by the sharp deterioration in relations between Turkey and Israel, two of the U.S.'s most important allies in the Mideast region."(Wall Street Journal, 14 September)

According to Russian specialists, albeit Russia maintains its reserves,the way in which  the Obama administration is presently implementing the project is not so dangerous as anticipated before, because the system is really so low profile that it cannot constitute a danger for Russia for the next seven years.The problem that we see is that this projects creates barriers and disagreements between Europeans, because States like Poland, Romania and Turkey may decide autonomously so crucial questions without even consulting with other European States. What is the opposite of whichever European Foreign and Defence policy.