It’s amazing what being rich in resources can do to a nation’s ego. A “have” nation can start to bully other smaller nations, make unusually audacious demands—all because it has something the rest of the world wants.

No, this isn’t a story about the United States. And it isn’t about oil-rich Iran and its nuclear program. This is a story about Russia.

Through its state-owned gas giant, Gazprom, Russia supplies a quarter of the European Union’s natural gas, including a third of Germany’s. Of course, much of these resources—by geographic necessity—travel through a series of pipelines in Eastern Europe, nations once under the influence of Mother Russia.

It would be logical that any country transporting its goods across another country would pay the middleman for hosting the transaction. Thus, Gazprom has been giving countries like Ukraine heavily discounted gas, offsetting the price against any such fees.

Not for long, though, Gazprom now says. The company has demanded that a new contract be signed requiring Ukraine to pay “appropriate market rates” for the gas—what translates into a three-fold increase that Gazprom says is “overdue and justified” (bbc News, December 13).

If Ukraine doesn’t agree? Well, Russia will simply cut off its gas supplies. Kiev, accusing Russia of economic blackmail, insists that Russia is trying to punish Ukraine for drifting out of its sphere of influence. (Remember last year’s Orange Revolution and the election drama of late 2004? The upshot is, Ukraine moved closer to the West—even began eyeing EU membership.)

Gazprom has also stressed that other Eastern bloc nations like Moldova and Romania should start paying world-market prices.

But wouldn’t cutting off Ukraine, and perhaps any other states that don’t oblige, disconnect a great deal of Europe’s supply? Perhaps temporarily. A new pipeline is now under construction, however, that would connect Russia directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea.

This deal would be another way to bully former Soviet satellites that are now looking West and joining the EU.

Russia still wields tremendous influence over its former satellites—especially when it can starve them of resources and not jeopardize any other clients. But ultimately, this strategy may backfire: Instead of bringing these states back into the fold of Mother Russia, it may actually drive them into the arms of a seemingly more democratic, capitalistic Europe.

Russia’s rising influence is, in fact, cause for concern in Europe, as we have reported before. This growing dominance will actually be a major catalyst causing Europe to put aside its bureaucratic bickerings and form a more cohesive union—one that can stand up to a bullying Russia.

This sequence of events would have catastrophic consequences. On two other occasions when Europe and Russia were truly strong enough to check each other, our planet was plunged into devastating world war.