Pepe Escobar

Escobar's concept of "Pipelineistan" refers to the network of oil and gas pipelines in crucial geopolitical regions, especially Central Asia.

[12] This has been cited by a faculty member at the USAF Air War College (2003),[13] researchers at Stanford University (2012),[14] and in the 2006 book Alms for Jihad.

[15] "Pipelineistan" is a term coined by Escobar to describe "the vast network of oil and gas pipelines that crisscross the potential imperial battlefields of the planet," particularly in Central Asia.

[16][17] Articles by Escobar about his "Pipelineistan" theory, many first published in TomDispatch, were re-published in Al Jazeera,[18] Grist,[19] Mother Jones,[20] and The Nation.

[21][22] Escobar argued in a 2009 article published by CBS News that running energy pipelines from the energy-rich nations near the Caspian Sea would let Europe be less dependent on the natural gas that it currently gets from Russia, and would potentially help the West rely less on OPEC.

Escobar wrote that "The New Great Game of the twenty-first century is always over energy and it's taking place on an immense chessboard called Eurasia".

[26] According to Arnaud De Borchgrave, during the 2011 Libyan Civil War Escobar wrote a piece "uncovering" the background of Abdelhakim Belhaj, whose military leadership against Gaddafi was being aided by NATO, had trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

[30][31][non-primary source needed] In 2020, the GEC stated that both the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) and Global Research, two online journals where Escobar's work has appeared, acted as Russian propaganda sites.

In 2022, Escobar said that US president Biden was a puppet of Hillary Clinton and the US establishment, who are motivated by Russophobia and aim to sever the link between Russia and the European economy.