Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies
Monday, 12 November 2007, 2:00pm–Tuesday, 13 November 2007, 6:00pm
Kellogg Center, 15th floor International Affairs Building
Third Colloquium
The Pipeline Race to India and Pakistan - Is the so-called Peace Pipeline from Iran Prospective Reality or Wishful Thinking? Is the Turkmenistan Route Still an Option?
The 2006/2008 series of colloquia titled “Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies” hosted by Harriman Institute examines five (5) transnational gas and oil pipeline systems in or linked to the Eurasian space. After two colloquia in spring and fall 2006, the third colloquium entitled “Eurasia versus Iran in supplying energy to Pakistan and India via gas pipelines” will take place at Columbia on November 12 and 13, 2007.
India’s growing population clearly needs increased energy to maintain the country’s rapid economic growth. With Iran and Turkmenistan as possible energy suppliers a host of questions arise. Can Iran, a country with which India has historical cultural ties starting with the immigration of the Parsi over a thousand years ago,, be a peaceful and reliable supplier of gas at a time when it continues to challenge and defy the world with its questionable nuclear program and also remains an obstacle in and to the Middle East peace process? Can Turkmenistan, with its turbulent post-Soviet history, be a creditable supplier of gas? And how would such a pipeline reach Pakistan and India? Through Iran? Through Afghanistan, which has yet to find peace and may yet find itself in a new civil war? Can Pakistan and India trust and rely on each other, as well as Iran and/or Turkmenistan, to share a common energy pipeline? In short, can a gas pipeline, which requires parties to work together, create inevitable dependencies and deep ties, be a bridge to peace in a part of the world that has been struggling to find peace for well over 50 years.
Specifically, two pipeline projects are the centre of discussion, both politically delicate, economically promising , and associated with enormous security concerns.
The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline (IPIP), first proposed in 1994 and today even called the “peace pipeline”, would hold tremendous economic and political advantages for all three countries and ideally, hopefully stabilize the region. But this pipeline is strongly opposed by the United States. The US sees Iran, a country identified by President Bush as a member of the Axis of Evil, not part of the solution to a Middle East peace, let alone a durable peace, but as part of the problem. In fact the US has for many years (indirectly) imposed world-wide restrictions on investment in the Iranian energy sector.
The US supports the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline (TAP) despite Turkmenistan’s repressive non-democratic regime and notwithstanding that the gas has to be pumped through Afghanistan, the home of a resurgent warring Taliban. Russia, which has locked up Turkmen gas through profitable contracts, obviously has no interest in Turkmenistan having an outlet for its gas that bypasses Russian territory.
India and Pakistan continue to consider their options as they pursue their own and common interests in both projects. The advantages to India are obvious - a rapidly growing economy needs to lock up energy supplies. Pakistan would also lock up energy supplies and benefit from transit fees. Both countries would enhance and strengthen their energy security through these pipelines. But as noted, at what cost.
The aspirations and actions of all the players involved in or concerned about these projects are of pivotal importance to the geopolitical development in the Eurasian and South Asian space, as well as in the world, for years to come. The political, economic and strategic requirements and impact of these pipeline projects will be the subject of this major colloquium. What are the possible routes, the costs? How will these projects impact the Central/South Asian region? What does the international community have to expect from pipeline based alliances? Can the US see these pipelines as opportunities and a way to peace?
American, European and Asian experts and public figures will present and discuss the multiple impact of these energy routes from Turkmenistan and Iran to Pakistan and India, their challenges and implications and will give their views on whether pipelines, which require nations to work together, can be a hidden road to peace.
Date: November 12-13, 2007
Location: Kellogg Center, Columbia University, School for International and Public Affairs, Room 1501, 420 West 118th St., New York, 10027 NY
For more information please contact Professor Jenik Radon at jr2218@columbia.edu or Jasmine Henz at jh2698@columbia.edu .
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Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies
Friday, 01 December 2006, 9:30am–5:30pm
Kellogg Center, 15th floor International Affairs Building
Second Colloquium:
Day 2 of a Two-Day Conference
Eurasian Pipelines and East Asia: A Path to Integration or A Marriage of Convenience?
The 2006/2007 series of colloquia titled “Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies“ hosted by Harriman Institute examines five transnational gas and oil pipeline systems in the Eurasian space.
The second colloquium entitled “Eurasian Pipelines and East Asia: A Path to Integration or A Marriage of Convenience?” on November 30 and December 1, 2006 will bring together American as well as international experts and public figures from a number of nations, including China, Japan, Central Asia and Russia. They will examine the Russian and Kazakh pipelines to the Far East, namely China, Japan, and Korea as well as their political, economic and social impact in the respective regions as well as in the world.
Concurrent to the conference a photo exhibition of pictures of the Lake Baikal region by William Brumfield will be shown.
The event is co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute as well as the Center of Energy and Marine Transportation and Public Policy, Columbia University.
This colloquium will be chaired by Professor Jenik Radon.
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- Conference Program
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- Jeremy Maxie - "The New Eurasian Energy Architecture: Will Russia Deliver?"
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- Keun-Wook Paik - "Sino-Russian Oil and Gas Pipelines - The Reality and Implications"
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- Lifan Li - "National Energy Securityand Sino-Russia-Kazakh-Japan Energy Interaction"
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- Tim Gould - " The Energy Charter Treaty - Can it Make a Contribution in East Asia and Eurasia?"
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- Juergen Braeuer - "When Pipelines Become Targets"
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- Gary Cook - "The Siberian Far East Asia Oil Pipeline - Connecting Russian Oil Fields with China and the Pacific"
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- Dimitry Lisitsyn - "Oil Extraction and Sustainable Development on Sakhalin: A Local NGO Perspective"
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- Richard Ericson - "Eurasian Pipelines - A Gordian Knot for Russia and Kazakhstan?"
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- Ailuna Utegenova - "Eurasian Pipelines - The Political and Economic Gordian Knot for Russia and Kazakhstan"
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- Sergei Shapkhaev - "Eurasian Pipelines: A Path to Integration or Degradation?
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Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies
Thursday, 30 November 2006, 2:00pm–Friday, 01 December 2006, 6:45pm
Kellogg Center, 15th floor International Affairs Building
Second Colloquium:
Day 1 of a Two-Day Conference
Eurasian Pipelines and East Asia: A Path to Integration or A Marriage of Convenience?
The 2006/2007 series of colloquia titled “Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies“ hosted by Harriman Institute examines five transnational gas and oil pipeline systems in the Eurasian space.
The second colloquium entitled “Eurasian Pipelines and East Asia: A Path to Integration or A Marriage of Convenience?” on November 30 and December 1, 2006 will bring together American as well as international experts and public figures from a number of nations, including China, Japan, Central Asia and Russia. They will examine the Russian and Kazakh pipelines to the Far East, namely China, Japan, and Korea as well as their political, economic and social impact in the respective regions as well as in the world.
Concurrent to the conference a photo exhibition of pictures of the Lake Baikal region by William Brumfield will be shown.
The event is co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute as well as the Center of Energy and Marine Transportation and Public Policy, Columbia University.
This colloquium will be chaired by Professor Jenik Radon.
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- Conference Program
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- Stephen Blank - "Can East Asia Dare to Tie Its Energy Security to Russia and Kazakhstan?"
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- Tatsuo Masuda - "Energy Security Ties Between East Asia and Central Asia - Power Games or Partnership?"
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- Nicolas Dutreix - "Cooperating with Nature - Going Beyond What is Done"
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Eurasian Pipelines – Road to Peace, Development and Interdependencies
Monday, 10 April 2006, 9:00am–6:00pm
Kellogg Center 15th floor International Affairs Building
First Colloquium:
Transgas Pipeline – Ostseepipeline/NEGP revisited
This colloquium will be chaired by Professor Jenik Radon.
Since the 21st century will be politically and economically dominated by securing energy resources, new alliances and rivalries are being formed that would have been inconceivable a few decades ago, especially in Eurasia. It thus becomes necessary to look at the existing and future energy supply and transportation systems in order to understand the reason for these alliances, certain international deals, the political motives and how the world’s energy distribution during the next decades will develop.
Transnational oil or gas pipelines are still the main transportation device for long-distance energy deliveries. The question arises whether these pipelines have the potential to function as “peace pipelines” or whether the interdependencies they create actually foster tensions and disagreements. Can energy transportation grids and pipelines lines have the effect of deescalating or overcoming political conflicts among transit and producing countries? Or do they create their own conflicts?
The colloquia will start by focusing on the historic German-Soviet and on the proposed German-Russian gas pipeline projects, especially appropriate in light of the recent events between Ukraine and Russia concerning gas deliveries through the existing pipeline system. The first colloquium will explore the opportunities and challenges of the two pipelines and international representatives from the world of politics and economics as well as public figures will come together to discuss the old Transgas pipeline, the very recently announced NEGP project, and their impact on the two countries and Europe in the past, present and future.
The first colloquium’s sessions will include:
• Transgas (1970) from the U.S.S.R. through Czechoslovakia to Waidhaus, West-Germany – Political Folly or Diplomatic Genius - The Road to East-West Détente and Integration?
• Energy Security vs. Political Dependence – A Trade Off?
• Baltic Sea Pipeline (2010) from Vyborg, Russia, to Greifswald, Germany – An Economic and Political Partnership?
• Baltic Sea Pipeline: A Blind Partnership? Has Democracy, Human Rights and a Free Market Been Forgotten?
For further information contact Professor Jenik Radon, jr2218@Columbia.edu
This event is co-sponsored by the East Central European Center
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