{"id":37918,"date":"2018-09-18T06:31:15","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T11:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37918"},"modified":"2018-09-18T06:31:15","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T11:31:15","slug":"us-energy-secretary-visits-moscow-threats-and-accusations-used-as-foreign-policy-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37918","title":{"rendered":"US Energy Secretary Visits Moscow: Threats and Accusations Used as Foreign-Policy Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"<header><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive\" title=\"US Energy Secretary Visits Moscow: Threats and Accusations Used as Foreign-Policy Tools\" src=\"https:\/\/www.strategic-culture.org\/images\/news\/2018\/09\/18\/or-41413.jpg\" alt=\"US Energy Secretary Visits Moscow: Threats and Accusations Used as Foreign-Policy Tools\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.strategic-culture.org\/news\/2018\/09\/18\/us-energy-secretary-visits-moscow-threats-accusations-used-as-foreign-policy-tools.html\">US Energy Secretary Visits Moscow: Threats and Accusations Used as Foreign-Policy Tools<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<p>US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ztak5U-3o6Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ztak5U-3o6Q\">visited<\/a>\u00a0Moscow Sept. 11-13 to hold talks with\u00a0Russia\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov and Energy Minister Alexander Novak. After discussing a wide range of problems, the parties agreed to restart the dormant US-Russia Energy Working Group to address issues of common interest and disagreements. It was emphasized that the two energy superpowers should maintain their points of contact in order to ensure the stability of the world\u2019s energy markets. That\u2019s good, but the visit also confirmed the fact that intimidation and accusations remain the main foreign policy tools all top US officials keep at the ready.<\/p>\n<p>The secretary reiterated the administration&#8217;s opposition to the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas project. He confirmed during the press conference that Washington would impose sanctions against the Russian-German pipeline in order to minimize Europe\u2019s dependence on Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>Rick Perry expressed his\u00a0\u201cdisappointment and concern\u201d about \u201cRussia\u2019s continued attempts to infiltrate the American electric grid.\u201d He did not specify precisely what his accusations were based on. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.us-cert.gov\/ncas\/alerts\/TA18-074A\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/www.us-cert.gov\/ncas\/alerts\/TA18-074A\">FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint report<\/a>\u00a0in March, which said, \u201cSince at least March 2016, Russian government cyber actors\u2026 targeted government entities and multiple US critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report did not contain meaningful evidence. The conclusions were for the most part unsubstantiated. It offered the opinions of experts but was not convincing enough to be followed by a statement coming from the White House officially blaming Moscow. The paper used the term \u201cinfiltration,\u201d not \u201cattack.\u201d Indeed, the accusations boiled down to allegations of evil intent, but not hostile acts, as nothing was destroyed and no one was killed.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US Energy Secretary Visits Moscow: Threats and Accusations Used as Foreign-Policy Tools US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry\u00a0visited\u00a0Moscow Sept. 11-13 to hold talks with\u00a0Russia\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov and Energy Minister Alexander Novak. After discussing a wide range of problems, the parties agreed to restart the dormant US-Russia Energy Working [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[17219,19390,326,542,18975,21661,694,8203,827,865],"class_list":["post-37918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-anton-siluanov","tag-arkady-savitsky","tag-foreign-policy","tag-moscow","tag-nord-stream-2","tag-rick-perry","tag-russia","tag-strategic-culture-foundation","tag-united-states","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37919,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37918\/revisions\/37919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}