Welcome to Follow the Pipelines! Our pipeline trackers will help you get a handle on some of the major conflicts in today’s world.

We have launched this website in the belief that following some of the world’s most famous pipelines gives you a better handle on understanding some of the world’s most vexing conflicts. Today, two months after Hamas launched its brutal attack on Israel, Netanyahu’s genocidal response prompted me to write a piece on the oil, gas, and pipeline connection to the Israel-Gaza war. You can find it on whowhatwhy.org and counterpunch.org the week of December 12. I will post the entire article undere the Middle East tab soon. [Apologies for glitches]

Meanwhile, our other recent postings are about Ukraine.

The sabotage of the Nordstream I and II pipelines on September 27, 2022 is evidence of the Great Game for Oil and Gas on steroids. For months the world speculated as to who was responsible, until investigative journalist Sy Hersh tried to put that speculation to rest by accusing the U.S. Navy of conducting a secret underwater operation that “remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nordstream pipelines” [Nordstream I and Nordstream II each consist of two parallel pipelines]. The controversy continues to this day.

Go to the Ukraine tab to read other analyses before the Hersh piece came out. Pepe Escobar, a master analyst of “pipeline politics” has posted an indepth analysis of “cui bono” from the sabotage. You might be suprised over his conclusion.

Please bear with us as we add new features and more entries in the coming weeks, many updating the endless pipeline wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa as chronicled (with maps) by Charlotte Dennett and other pipeline trackers in her newly released paperback, Follow the Pipelines: Uncovering the Mystery of a Lost Spy and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil.

We began posting on the website after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and the first response from the US and NATO was to get Germany to close down the newly-completed Nordstream II pipeline (See Europe tab.) Then, in September, just before the pipeline sabotage occurred, we wrote: “Competition for gas supplies – and supply routes — in Europe has the entire world on edge as the war in Ukraine enters its seventh month. Are we on the precipice of World War III?  See this article about the Nordstream II pipeline by pipeline tracker John Foster, a Canadian economist and author of Oil and World Politics. Pipeline Politics Hits Multipolar Realities: Nord Stream 2 and the Ukraine Crisis – CounterPunch.org.

If you are worried about the huge Zaporizhzhia plant –the largest in Europe with six reactors — check out this article by Dennett in an interview with nuclear expert Harvey Wasserman warning of more dangers. Nukes, Pipelines, War in Ukraine – LA Progressive.

A more recent article describing the war in Ukraine possibly becoming the Mother of All Energy Wars, see :

Want to see another example of pipeline politics? Check out how they play out in Afghanistan and Gaza. [Note the credit to this May, 2021 article refers to the hardcover edition of Dennett’s book, titled The Crash of Flight 3804. The paperback edition has the new title, Follow the Pipelines]