ARTICLE: The Great Pipeline Opera, BY DANIEL FREIFELD, Foreign Policy, SEPT. / OCT. 2009

This article, which is good, is a perfect example of the semantic inflation regarding the word "war." We are told that "some call it a war"--this political fight within Europe over whether it should rely on Russia for energy or not. What are the instruments of this "war"? Mostly cushy consulting jobs for former European political leaders. But it is most certainly a "war" nonetheless! It is with this sort of semantic inflation that we are convinced--day-in and day-out by "security experts" that the world is most definitely a more dangerous place--perhaps constituting the most dangerous time in human history! It is just silly. What if we were told "some call it an orgy"? Would we freak out over the implied sexuality? Calling it the most "sexed up period in human history"? This is nothing more than the goofy battle of headlines. "Look! See this dangerous thing I've uncovered!" There are no military build-ups. There is no real chance for conflict. There are no casualties. This is politics, macho-ed up for public consumption by "security experts" determined to signal their professional worth. Insecurity experts would be a more apt title. Here's the thing to remember about this "war": as non-associated gas (meaning gas not found in conjunction with oil) is increasingly found around the world and new, non-traditional means of accessing gas are developed (check out all the media stories on the Marcellus Shale Gas in the U.S. dramatically improving our long-term supply prospects), the notion of an "OPEC of gas" running our planet is almost already overtaken by events. As usual, the experts stoke up our fears just prior to the point of great, real-world deflation. So yes, plenty of stories of kickbacks and theft to wade through, and yes, Russian calculations of pipelines will enter into some of their truly nasty efforts (like Georgia, an actual "war"(!!) that raged on for days and killed hundreds of people . . . well, ALMOST a thousand people were killed!), but no, there will not be a future chock full of resource wars. Gas is plentiful. It's everywhere. It's subject to all sorts of extraction methods. But it's not subject to oligopolistic control with Putin in charge of everything. I know, it sucks when things work out. (Thanks: Michael Griffin)