Nearing Midnight: The Russian Bear Has Gas

By Todd Strandberg - http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html

In recent years, Russia has made huge progress building back its economic and military strength. One indication of this new vitality is a recent announcement to resume nuclear submarine patrols in the southern seas after a hiatus of more than twenty years.

Moscow plans to send Borei-class submarines designed to carry 16 long-range nuclear missiles─to the southern hemisphere. Russia has also put many of its nuclear bombers back on patrol. In February, two Russian bombers made news by circling the US island of Guam in a "highly unusual" move that demonstrated President Vladimir Putin's growing strategic assertiveness toward America.

In March, President Vladimir Putin made the decision to deploy a naval unit in the Mediterranean Sea on a permanent basis at the Tardus Naval Port in Syria. The Kermlin leaders acquired the Tardus Naval Port in 1971 without any real purpose for it. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lacked the funds to develop the base.

Knowing that Syria is undergoing a civil war, Tardus would seem to be an unwise investment. Moscow has made plenty of bad bets in the Middle East. It supported Saddam Hussein and lost billions in the wake of the first Gulf War. It backed Gaddafi's regime and cost Russia construction contracts, and its investments in Libyan gas and oil to the tune of $10 billion. The Russians were even taken to the cleaners in Cypress when billions were lost in that nation's banking collapse.

Putin's willingness to stand with Bashar Al-Assad may be the result of yet another investment gamble. Since Assad is wildly hated for his brutality against his own people, Moscow has lost prestige with many moderate Arab states. Putin has remained loyal to Assad because the alliance fits in his master plan to control the natural gas market across Europe.

Russia already controls a quarter of the natural gas consumed in the European Union. In July 2011, Iran, Iraq, and Syria agreed to build a gas pipeline from the South Pars gas field in Iran to Lebanon and across the Mediterranean to Europe. The pipeline that would be managed by Russia's Gazprom would carry 110 million cubic meters of gas.

One of the obstacles of a Gog invasion of Israel has long been the nation of Turkey. Russian warships would have to pass through straits in Turkey in order to reach the Mediterranean. Since Moscow supplies sixty percent of Turkey's natural gas, Ankara may find it hard to ignore this amount of leverage. The fact that Turkey now has an Islamic leaning government makes its neutrality or assistance in a conflict all the more likely.

Natural gas may be the key reason why Russia attacks Israel. In 2010, 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas was discovered just off Israel's northern coast. The Jewish state is now working to develop those fields. Of course, it would be a devastating blow to Putin's plans to monopolize natural gas if Israel became a major supplier of gas to Europe. The "evil thought" and the "spoil" of the Ezekiel 38 Gog passage may be Putin─deciding that he wants to control it all.

"Thus saith the Lord GOD; it shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil?" (Ezekiel 38:10-13a).