Washington sought Russian understanding and participation in the route, but the U.S. troops in Afghanistan - the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a cargo route that crosses Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

currently has an alternative staging ground to serve U.S. But the unusually dramatic pipeline saga of the 1990s and the early 2000s stands out as a rare American diplomatic triumph. The post-Soviet years have been rocky for U.S. The Arco deal went through, and so did the 1,000-mile-long pipeline - in 2006, a flow of 1 million barrels of sweet, light Azeri crude surged through the Baku-Ceyhan line and onto the world market. foreign policy aim of the time - the construction of another, truly big pipeline from Baku to the Mediterranean Sea. oil company Arco, Browne announced an effective quid pro quo: If BP could acquire Arco, he would get behind a major U.S. Four years later, BP CEO John Browne went further. Notwithstanding the size of the planned pipeline, it would break Russia’s stranglehold on the so-called ‘Stans. The momentous part was that, until then, Russia held an absolute monopoly on oil and gas exports from the Caspian Sea. In 1995, a Western-led oil consortium holding a contract to drill a supergiant field in offshore Azerbaijan announced a momentous decision: It would build a small export pipeline from the capital of Baku to the West that would entirely bypass Russia. Notwithstanding the size of the planned pipeline, it would break Russia's stranglehold on the so-called ‘Stans.

The quest daniel yergin