Wars over gas access to Europe are going to be critical in the future as a part of Germany’s preparations for a Third World War. In order to run her war machine and drawing on the lessons of World Wars I and II, in order for Germany to successfully defeat Russia, she has to secure a consistent, reliable source of petroleum in order to drive her war machine. While there are oil fields in Hungary, Romania, and of the Norwegian coast, Germany will seize these as in the past but will not have enough oil to run her operations. What she will do is what she has done in the past, which is to march across Ukraine to the oil sands of Baku and attempt to seize them and those around the Turanian Basin of the Caspian Sea in Russia. Russia also knows this, and she will fight viciously to defend them as she needs the oil and she knows that if Germany captures them, it is a matter of time before Russia’s war machine will stop. This is why World War II was not won in the West or by the West, but at the Battle of Stalingrad because that decided who would control the Volga basin as it is the gateway to the Caucasus and the Caspian.
Germany knows that she cannot win without oil access to that area, which is why she has embarked on a massive quest of building with US, Turkish, and Israeli help railways and pipelines all throughout the Middle East, especially in Turkey and around the Caspian Sea. This is in order to prevent Russia from shutting down the gas and making it such a close network that Russia either cannot shut down or would politically be unable to shut down the lines in the event of a war.
While most of the lines go through Turkey and are attempting to go through Ukraine, the first agreement for the largest line yet was signed to be laid through Israel, going under the Mediterranean to Greece at the southern tip of Albania where it connects with the TurkStream pipeline before crossing the Adriatic Sea to Italy:
Following two years of negotiations, Israel has signed an agreement with Italy, Greece, and Cyprus to lay the longest gas pipeline in history, Israel’s Channel 2 reported Saturday night.
The pipeline will traverse a distance of 1,242 miles and lie at a depth of between 1.8-to-3 miles. It will provide gas to Europe from Israel’s offshore fields.
The EastMed Pipeline Project is projected to begin in a few months’ time, starting about 170 km off Cyprus’ southern coast and reaching Otranto, Italy via Crete and the Greek mainland.
Up to 20 billion cubic meters of gas is expected to flow to Europe annually, thereby diversifying its supply of this energy source, which is now heavily dependent on Russia
In 2014 Moscow threatened to cut natural gas deliveries over a dispute with the Ukraine, and actually did stop the flow temporarily in 2009.
The pipeline could be more than a direct boost to Israel’s economy, Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water Resources Yuval Steinitz told Hadashot TV.
‘A counterweight to Arab power’
“For decades, we have complained about the Arab influence in Europe due to oil and gas. The export of gas to Europe will moderate this influence to a certain extent and be a counterweight to Arab power,” he explained.
The agreement has been some two years in the works, with the four countries’ energy czars signing a memorandum of understanding regarding the pipeline in December 2017. It is considered a technically difficult project to complete not only because of the depth of the undersea route, but also because it will have to pass through a volcanic area in the ocean bottom between Cyprus and Greece. (source, source)
This pipeline has not been constructed yet, but the fact that an agreement has been signed is a serious thing given the geopolitical context.
One may thing that such a pipeline would anger Turkey, for Turkey is currently the main non-Russian gas supplier to Europe. However, one should also note that Erdogan has close ties to Israel, for in spite of his rhetoric, it was the US, Germany, and by extension Israel which built the Turkish military and economy to what it is as a part of Operation Gladio. While there may be differences, one must view it through the same lens as German-Turkish relations- not matter what they say, they have been friends for centuries and there is nothing to say that they are going to stop being friend. Given Erdogan’s connections to Israel, it would be interesting to know what influence he has had on the pipeline, especially pertaining to any financial gain he may reap from it.
To this it is of note that the company mentioned in the story is Genie Energy, a company based in Israel with former CIA head James Woolsey and infamous banker Jacob Rothschild. Genie Energy has been involved in a number of scandals, including drilling for oil in the Golan Heights as well as engaging in “oil troubleshooting” in North Korea.
When one considers that the war in Syria has been going on for years and was started by the US, and how Syria lays between American-controlled oil fields in Iraq and Israel, and how Syria for years was planning on building a pipeline to Iran, and the desire to control the oil, one must wonder if this is part of a larger plan to isolate not just Russia, but Iran as well in preparation to seize their oil fields around the Persian Gulf.
One cannot be sure, as they are many details yet to emerge.
However, what one can confirm was that during the First World War, there was a tremendous amount of fighting in Albania as well as in that region near Greece. Because of the critical necessity of oil for Germany, expect that area around Naples, Corfu, and southern Albania to be a hotbed of fighting again, this time over the oil lines, both leading up to and in a coming conflict.