Noticia del 2007
Russia Wants a Rail Link to North America
The proposed tunnel would be twice as long as the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France. But it's not a new idea: Czar Nicholas II first raised the prospect of a Bering Strait rail link in 1905, 38 years after his
grandfather sold Alaska to America for $7.2 million. World War I -- and the Russian Revolution -- put the project on ice, however.
Tunneling Under the Bering Strait: Russia Wants a Rail Link to North America - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News
Auuchh!!! debió de doler mucho al OSO saber que hicieron semejante regalo a US por $7.2 millones y algo me dice que lo querran de vuelta. ¡¡Santa Rita, Rita, lo que se
da no se quita aunque sabemos que a veces mortifica!!
Y por otro lado:
Whereas U.S. Caspian policy is intended to increase the world-wide supply of natural resources, not to direct specific Caspian resources to the United States, Caspian resources, particularly natural gas, should be even more important to Europe than to the United States. The huge natural gas resources that can be found in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and the Western Caspian are critical, because they can ultimately lessen Europe’s over-dependence on Russian gas. As EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs recently pointed out in a Wall Street Journal interview, Kazakhstan by 2015 could be producing 20% more gas in a year than consumed by all of Germany. Also, the region is the only one apart from the Persian Gulf where oil production is likely to increase over the next decades.
One need only look at a map of the greater Caspian region, which stretches from Turkey to Kazakhstan, to realize its huge geopolitical and economic importance. The United States’ strong interest in the Caspian dates to the break-up of the Soviet Union. Virtually overnight eight new independent states came into existence in an area rich with natural resources: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. The principal component of U.S. policy was to help these new states develop as stable independent countries that would ultimately become market democracies in an uncertain part of the World. Now, several years later, democratization in most of these countries has been slow, but these countries to date have maintained their independence, which many predicted would be impossible.
In addition, the United States believed and still believes that the development of natural resources in the region should provide an alternative source of oil and gas at a time when South Asia and the Middle East are becoming increasingly unstable and demand is soaring from India and China. The U.S. has wanted to make sure that these resources be available for development by American companies as well as business interests from friendly countries; that Turkey, because of its own historical roots, become more involved in the region to help insure the independence of these new countries; and that multiple routes of access be developed for resources to be exported from the region. The U.S. position was and still is that Russia should not have a monopoly on pipelines transporting Caspian resources, and that no pipelines should go through Iran thereby subjecting these new resources to the whims of a dangerous government.
This is evidence that the U.S. never had an “anti-Russia” policy in the Caspian. But the U.S. has insisted that the sovereignty of new states in the region be respected and that those states have the ability to freely export their resources.
The sticks
On the US side, there was less pressure to
build a pipeline through Iran, but some companies would have clearly preferred this alternative. The U.S. position was that it was unclear that an Iranian route would be less expensive than the BTC pipeline, but that, in any event, a pipeline through Iran would be a violation of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA). U.S. officials argued that a pipeline through Iran would be foolhardy for both geopolitical and commercial reasons. Why would companies want to take the commercial risk of transporting oil through Iran? How could the U.S. grant a waiver under ILSA that would subject new sources of oil to the whims of an Iranian Government? Even though some in Europe still believe that pipelines through or from Iran are still viable, recent history makes it clear that U.S. policy regarding transit through Iran was absolutely correct. Western European countries, particularly Britain and France, voiced concerns about U.S. Caspian policy regarding the American role in encouraging a specific route, as well as its policy towards Iran. French and British officials in private meetings took the position, similar to several companies, that the U.S. should not let politics interfere with commercial decisions. A high-level official at Whitehall said to a group of American officials that “Tony Blair may be Prime Minister, but we are all “Thatcherites”. The view that commercial and political issues are not related would appear to be rather naïve, if not cynical. How can commercial decisions be made without considering Turkey’s views on transit through the Bosporus? How can commercial decisions be made with respect to building a pipeline through Iran without considering the “politics” whether domestically or in Iran? Recent events have made perfectly clear that constructing a pipeline through Iran would have been foolhardy and dangerous.
In addition, U.S. government agencies, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and Export-Import Bank provided financing and, in the case of OPIC, political risk insurance for the project. Funding in the form of
loans was also made available by the World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
A third area where the United States played a constructive role was in working closely with the leadership and other officials of the three transit countries; Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.
The New Great Game: Opportunities for Trans-Atlantic Cooperation in the Caspian Region - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News