The Instapundit strikes again, uncritically linking to polemic yellow blogs (perhaps a pleonasm: think yellow journalism) spouting off about Russian energy politics, getting the picture exactly wrong about the Caucasus, and either using weak single sources or (most egregiously) no sources at all. “Read the whole thing?” Only if you don’t want to know what’s really going on in Caspian energy politics.
First up is a terrible post from Newsbusters, an idea that may be redundant unless you’re Fred Thompson. Reporting on the EU meeting in Samara, in which Russia and the EU officials came to quite vehemently disagree over the nature of both Russia’s conduct toward its domestic political foes (i.e. Gary Kasparov in chains), but also its bullying of smaller border states, Noel Sheppard can’t help but see some form of global warming alarmism. Because, truly, the story isn’t that Europe is feverishly pursuing a greener energy policy so that it will not be as dependent on an unreliable Russia for its energy, but that it’s all just a big liberal conspiracy by “the media” (which media, pray tell?) to make us forget that Russia is economically expansionist and increasingly aggressive.
Yikes. About 90% of that post could be replaced by “I won’t reprint someone else’s work interspersed with ‘gee, this confirms all my biases’ because I trust you to read the one story I linked to.” Alas. Using a diversity of analysis and sources on the complex geopolitical underpinnings of Russia’s gas games seems beyond the Newsbusters’ crowd, which approaches the world with the same preset meta-narrative of which they routinely accuse “the media” (far from “required reading,” as Sheppard claims, the linked study was rather shallow and not very rigorous). So if all you do is read Instapundit’s links to Newsbusters, you’re stuck with long stretches of blockquoted, unsourced bullet lists that do a terrible job of examining the economic underpinnings of environmental policies, dealing with the management of externalities in public goods like clean air, and the geopolitical implications of Russia snatching up all of Eastern Europe’s energy infrastructure. Because the media hates you, natch.
Reynolds’ other link is some guy who says the only two routes for Caspian gas are Russia and Iran, and that the Caucasus is so unstable and violent it could never be a reliable conduit (oh yes, Transdniestria is scary!). This flies in the face of the actual energy infrastructure in place, in which both Baku and Tblisi serve as major energy hubs for Europe and Turkey. And the implication that Russia has a hand in souring Turkey’s EU ascension talks, while pleasing to instinctive Russophobes, is, unlike its shenanigans with Georgia and Ukraine’s gas supplies, completely untrue and unsupportable—it is mere rumor and wishful thinking. Turkey is having problems with the EU for Turkish reasons (torture, Islamism, the Kurds, Cyprus) that have little or nothing to do with Russia.
Furthermore, there are a series of stable, reliable pipes leading through the Caucasus that avoid the actually troublesome areas required for the Novorossiysk route (like Chechnya and Ingushetia)—the BTC Pipeline (map, above) foremost among them. If Azerbaijan and Georgia are the Russia-controlled hellholes that blogger claims them to be (what, did he only visit or hear about Abkhazia?), then the BTC Pipeline should not be functioning as well as it does, apart from the Russian network. No one here is saying Georgia is a perfect place—far from it in fact. But to write it off as some seething hotbed of clan violence is just ignorant.
Oh, and the thought that Russia fears teaming up with Iran is idiotic. Even ignoring their years of collaboration in arms sales and nuclear proliferation, Russia and Iran were openly planning a natural gas cartel to create a world market price for LNG just the other month. Perhaps a bit of research on the topic would have shown how this kind of fact-free assumption-based “analysis” falls dreadfully short of a proper, contextualized picture of the situation. (Ironically perhaps, yesterday Instapundit retracts an earlier, erroneous story about the CPA in Iraq, and links to a blogger complaining about people doing improper Google research before starting a “blog swarm”—we’ll see if he does this topic a similar courtesy.)
One thing neither of these bloggers mention is the behavior of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. In short, Russia has been aggressively courting their collaboration, and I would suspect offering extremely favorable pricing schemes among other concessions to make sure it can control Europe’s supply of natural gas. Combined with the talks between Moscow and Tehran (and Caracas) on the formation of a OGEC, the worrying of Europe, the aggressive and arrogant behavior of Moscow, and the hollowness of fears about an Iran route (especially given the warm relations between Moscow and Tehran), a far more worrisome picture emerges about Russia’s plans in the Caspian basin: a systematic attempt to control Europe through heating, and a deliberate freezing out of western interests east of the Caspian.
The United States in this is nowhere to be found, as well (I have written on the subject here and here). In short, we don’t care, and don’t seem to treat the situation with the urgency it should warrant. Meanwhile, Europe is increasingly kept warm at the pleasure of Moscow.
But the failings of American policy in Eurasia are not the point of this post (and are far too numerous to recount with brevity, though browsing our archives will offer a bit of background). No, the point here is why does Instapundit, who commands a reputation far beyond his abilities, think these stereotype-laden polemics count as serious or worthy analysis? I mean, are they his friends or something? Maybe not—like most things at his blog these days, it is almost unbearably asinine. No wonder I stopped reading him a long while ago.
But Aren’t Blogs Better? –Nathan
I am not as down on Instapundit as Josh is; I actually read Reynolds fairly regularly. However, I do so more because he collects interesting links on science and technology than for his links on politics and foreign affairs. I do have to fault him for the links he features on foreign issues though, because especially when it comes to the the former Soviet bloc, he draws attention to agenda driven news organizations and bloggers. Fine, but I thought one of our favorite claims as bloggers is that we can do better than the legacy media.
Part of the blogosphere is doing a superb job of promoting intelligent, informed discussion of Central Asia. Sue Sypko discussed this a while ago.
Are we all journalists? Maybe not. But are we playing an important role in the dissemination of information about Central Asia at a time when its role in international politics is growing? Definitely.
Sadly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, a the lion’s share of the blogosphere and blog consumers is not paying attention. Fine. People have limited time and attention, and I’m not whining that everyone should start reading Registan.net. I just find it interesting that the new media elite and those surrounding them are reproducing the shortcomings of the old media they love to criticize. Take, for example, Pajamas Media and my former relationship with them. I was under the impression that Registan.net was signed to the original group of 70 blogs offered exclusive contracts and signing bonuses because it provided unique, high-quality content that PJM wanted access to. A big part of the ethos was that amateurs could band together and provide information and perspectives not found in traditional media. Instead, it turned out to be just another shrill, partisan website featuring the work of second-rate intellectuals and, for the most part, like-minded bloggers.
Deficiencies in the blogosphere are not as important as deficiencies in the media. My initial inspiration for starting Registan.net was inaccurate media coverage of Central Asia. Though there is unfortunately less coverage now than when I started blogging, I find it to have improved. In the blogosphere though, the diminished discussion of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia is just as bad as ever. Part of me wants to throw up my hands and say, “What’re you gonna do?” But another part of me is bothered by this and thinks perhaps those of us inclined to do so should spend a bit more time combating inaccuracies about this region in at least some of the widely read blogs. Though mass media are consumed by a far larger audience, blogs tend to be read by more politically active, wealthier, better-educated audience — the type of folks who, in general, are most likely to be able to influence policy. The last thing we need is for these folks to get a load of silly impressions from bloggers who come off as knowing that they’re talking about.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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