In the postwar history of the Federal Republic, German Chancellors tend to disappear once they pursue political goals that deviate from the Washington
global agenda too much. In the case of Gerhard Schroeder, it involved
two unforgiveable “sins.” The first was his open opposition to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
The second, far more serious strategically, was
his negotiations with Russia’s
Putin to bring a major new natural gas pipeline directly from Russia, bypassing then-hostile Poland, to Germany. Today the first
section of that Nord Stream gas pipeline has reached the
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern coastal town of Lubmin
on the Baltic Sea, making Lubmin into a geopolitical pivot for Europe
and Russia.

Gerhard Schroeder in effect owed his job to the quiet but influential backing of US President Bill
Clinton who, according to our German SPD sources, demanded that a
Schroeder Red-Green coalition, if elected, support a US-NATO war against
Serbia
in 1999. Washington
wanted to end the era of Helmut Kohl. By 2005, however, Schroeder was
far too “German” for Washington,
and, reportedly, the Bush Administration turned its considerable
attention to backing a successor.

His last act as Chancellor was to approve a giant gas pipeline from Russia’s port of Vyborg near the Finnish border to Lubmin, called Nord Stream. On leaving
office, Schroeder became chairman of Nord Stream AG, a joint venture
between Russia’s
state-owned Gazprom and German companies E.ON-Ruhrgas and
BASF-Wintershall. He also increased his public critique of US foreign policies, accusing US-client
state Georgia of
initiating the 2008 war against South Ossetia.

In 2006 Poland’s neo-conservative Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, a close Washington ally,
compared the Nord Stream consortium to the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact. Since
the collapse of the Soviet Union Washington policy has been to
cultivate Poland as a
wedge to block closer Russian-German economic and political
cooperation, including the decision to station US missile defense and
now Patriot missiles in Poland,
aimed at Russia.

This month, despite ferocious political opposition from Poland and other countries, Schroeder’s Nord Stream project completed its first major goal when the
first of two pipeline strings reached land at Lubmin, exactly on
schedule. When the second string is landed later this month and the
pipeline begins operation in late 2011, it will be the world’s biggest
subsea gas pipeline, carrying 55 billion cubic metres of gas throughout Europe each year. The subsea route goes through
the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones of Finland, Sweden,
Denmark and Germany, avoiding Poland and the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

From Lubmin, which will be a transfer station, the OPAL pipeline will go 470 kilometers through Saxony to the Czech
border. Other western pipeline routes will deliver Russian gas via
existing pipe to Holland, France and to the UK, significantly increasing the energy
links between the EU and Russia,
a development not greeted in Washington.
France’s GDF Suez,
formerly Gaz de France, just bought a 9% share in Nord Stream AG and Holland’s gas infrastructure company N.V.
Nederlandse Gasunie has 9%, giving the project broad EU participation, a
major geopolitical accomplishment for the Putin-Medvedev government in
face of strong US
opposition. Nord Stream now has long-term gas supply agreements to
supply gas to Denmark,
the UK, France, Netherlands
and Belgium as well
as Germany.

North and South Energy Streams

Gazprom is also advancing a second major gas pipeline project, South Stream, to bring gas from Russia’s south coast under the Black Sea to Bulgaria,
eventually ending up in Italy. On July 7, the Bulgarian government
agreed after long negotiations to participate in the South Stream
Gazprom project.

South Stream gas pipeline will transport Russian gas to western Europe, bypassing Ukraine,
where Washington
in recent years has expended considerable effort to push the country
into an anti-Russian pro-NATO position. As a remnant from the Soviet era
when the economies of the two countries operated as an integrated
entity, most Russian gas pipelines transited Ukraine to the west,
leaving Moscow highly vulnerable when a US-backed “Orange Revolution” in
January 2005 brought Washington’s candidate, Viktor Yushchenko to power
on a pro-NATO anti-Moscow platform. Recent elections there have eased
tensions between Moscow and Kiev considerably as the new President,Viktor
Yanukovych, has moved Ukraine
to a more neutral stance between Moscow and NATO, keeping ties to both.
The offshore part of the South Stream gas pipeline, jointly operated by Russia's Gazprom and Italy's ENI, will run from Russia's mainland under the Black Sea to the Bulgarian coast. Under the new
agreement with Bulgaria,
pre-existing gas pipelines through Bulgaria will be used for
the transit.

Washington has put major pressure on EU countries as well as Turkey to build an alternative to Russia’s
South Stream gas line, called Nabucco, that would eliminate Russia.
To date Nabucco has little backing in the EU and insufficient sources
of gas to fill the pipeline.

Completion of South Stream would weld a major geopolitical bond between the countries of the EU, Central Europe and Russia,
something that would represent for Washington a geopolitical nightmare. US policy since World War II has been to
dominate western Europe first by fanning the Cold War with the Soviet
Union, and after 1990, by extending NATO eastwards to the borders of Russia.
An increasingly independent western Europe turning east rather than
across the Atlantic, could spell a major defeat for continued US
“sole Superpower” domination.

So, unwittingly, the lovely seaside resort town of Lubmin in northeastern Germany de facto has become a major pivot of the
geopolitical drama between Washington and Eurasia whether its citizens
realize or not.