RUSSIA AND THE INDEPENDENT HEARTLAND - The Revenge of Geography - page 133

relations with Russia. In other words, Ukraine's own religious geography illustrates the
country's role as a borderland between Central and Eastern Europe. Zbigniew Brzezinski
writes that without Ukraine, Russia can still be an empire, but a “predominantly Asian”
one, drawn further into conflicts with Caucasian and Central Asian states. But with Ukraine
back under Russian domination, Russia adds 46 million people to its own Western-oriented
demography, and suddenly challenges Europe, even as it is integrated into it. In this case,
according to Brzezinski, Poland, also coveted by Russia, would become the “geopolitical
pivot” determining the fate of Central and Eastern Europe and, therefore, of the European
Union itself. 44 The struggle between Russia and Europe, and in particular between Russia
and Germany-France, goes on, as it has since the Napoleonic Wars, with the fate of coun-
tries like Poland and Romania hanging in the balance. Communism may have collapsed,
but Europeans still need natural gas from Russia, 80 percent of which comes via Ukraine. 45
The victory in the Cold War changed much, to be sure, but it did not altogether mitigate
the facts of geography. And a resurgent Russia, writes Australian intelligence analyst Paul
Dibb, might be willing to “contemplate disruption in order to create strategic space.” 46 As
the 2008 invasion of Georgia showed, Putin's Russia is not a status quo power.
Ukraine, under severe pressure from Russia, has agreed to extend the lease of Russia's
Black Sea Fleet base in return for lower natural gas prices, even as the Kremlin tries to put
Ukraine's network of gas pipelines under its control. (Ukraine is also dependent on Rus-
sia for much of its trade.) Not all pipeline geography in Eurasia works in Russia's favor,
though. There are the pipelines that bring Central Asian hydrocarbons to China. Pipelines
bring Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea oil across Georgia to the Black Sea and via Turkey to the
Mediterranean, thus avoiding Russia. There is also a plan for a natural gas pipeline from the
Caspian across the southern Caucasus and Turkey, through the Balkans, to Central Europe,
which also avoids Russia. Meanwhile, though, Russia is planning its own gas pipeline
southward under the Black Sea to Turkey, and another westward under the Black Sea to
Bulgaria. Turkmenistan, on the far side of the Caspian, exports its natural gas through Rus-
sia. Thus, even with diverse energy supplies, Europe—especially Eastern Europe and the
Balkans—will still be dependent on Russia to a significant degree. The future of Europe,
as in the past, hinges in Mackinderesque fashion to a significant extent on developments to
the east.
Russia has other levers, too: a powerful naval base lodged between Lithuania and Poland
on the Baltic Sea; the presence of large Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic States,
Caucasus, and Central Asia; a pro-Russian Armenia; a Georgia that is threatened by the
pro-Russian breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; missile test sites and an
air base in Kazakhstan; an air base in Kyrgyzstan in range of Afghanistan, China, and the
Indian Subcontinent; and a Tajikistan that permits Russian troops to patrol its border with
Afghanistan. Moreover, it was a Russian-orchestrated media campaign and economic pres-