It has of late become almost conventional wisdom that the People’s Republic of China is in every way getting the better of the U.S., whether by developing new military technologies, or educating its young people to compete in the information-age economy, or working with ostensibly private companies to gain global influence, or conducting foreign policy through investment in infrastructure. While there is some truth to these claims, Robert Silverman notes that America has in the past succeeded in directing its economic might to achieve tangible results that benefit both itself and its allies. He gives as an example the BTC pipeline, which brings oil from Azerbaijan, via Georgia, to Turkey, and the more recent natural-gas pipeline that runs alongside it:
BTC is one of most impressive engineering feats and diplomatic achievements of the late 20th century. This pipeline has kept the economic interests and foreign-policy alignment of both Azerbaijan and Georgia linked to the West, and it offers other ongoing strategic benefits for U.S. interests. Through BTC, both Turkey and Israel have access to important energy resources outside of the control of Russia or Iran. At the time of its construction, the pipeline strengthened Turkey as an energy hub, helping to diversify oil and gas away from Russia, already then seen as a problem.
Moreover, argues Silverman, America has a chance to replicate this success through the East Mediterranean natural-gas consortium, which includes Israel, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, and other nearby countries:
If [Washington] had adopted the BTC approach—a creative U.S. government team under professional diplomatic leadership that stays on the job even as political administrations change and that knows our technical and economic agencies as well as diplomatic practices—then we might have solved the complex intergovernmental, technical, and commercial issues by now and provided Europe with a significant new source of gas (and brought our East Med allies closer together). Even the more modest plan currently envisioned, of pumping Israeli offshore natural gas via a northern Sinai pipeline to Egypt, and from there to Europe in liquified form, will only work in a timely fashion with high-profile U.S. leadership.
If the likely result of failure to invest in Eastern Med natural gas means that Europe relies even more heavily for years on dirtier sources such as oil and coal and remains dependent on Russian or Qatari gas, then such a policy doesn’t serve anyone.
Read more on Jerusalem Strategic Tribune: https://jstribune.com/silverman-the-american-way-of-belt-and-roads-projects/