What Next in Russia?

_{written originally for The Huffingon Post}

Vice President Joe Biden's Munich speech a few weeks ago talked about "resetting" relations with Russia. So does this augur a whole new moment in Russo-American relations? Are we on the cusp of a major international perestroika after years of worsening relations with Russia?

We fiction writers have recently put Russia back into its role as a novelist's favorite fierce antagonist. Recent offerings like Daniel Silva's Moscow Rules, Ted Bell's Tsar, and my own Pipeline reassign Russia its place of concern for political leaders, intelligence agencies and military planners. It would be a pity for them to take all that away.

That Russia provides good book material is no surprise. The non-fiction Russia uses natural resources for coercion. It militarily overwhelms a small neighbor. Crushes domestic dissension through physical or psychological intimidation. It suffers from near-obsessive mistrust of foreigners' intentions. Oligarchs and Kremlin bureaucrats are locked in a maze of corruption, mafia and violence.

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First 100 days: Turn down the rhetoric on Russia

After an eighteen year sabbatical, we fiction writers have recently put Russia back foursquare into its role as a novelist’s favorite fierce antagonist.  For decades, thrillers were dominated by the threatening Soviet imagery spun by John Le Carré, Tom Clancy and Frederick Forsythe.  Now, recent offerings like Daniel Silva’s “Moscow Rules”, Ted Bell’s “Tsar”, and my own “Pipeline” again reassign Russia its place of concern for political leaders, intelligence agencies and military planners.

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Anybody want to talk about Latin America?

Like many administrations before, President Barack Obama’s government will come into power with the best intentions towards our hemispheric neighbors in Latin America.   But, as before, urgencies in the Middle East, Russia and trans-Atlantic relations will relegate Latin America to the diplomatic backburner. 

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William Morrow editors have a conversation with Peter Schechter

Q: Certain fictional elements of PIPELINE came to pass in real life after you completed writing the book (increased evidence of an expansionist Russia, the political ascendency of a female from Alaska, etc).  Do you keep a crystal ball on your writing desk?

A: A crystal ball with lady luck dressed as a genie in it! Seriously, I think that the political consulting I’ve been doing for twenty years has a lot to do with it.  Advising politicians, reading polls, talking to analysts about pitfalls and dangers has given me good antennae to foresee the issues just over the horizon.  To smell the problems around the corner.  To predict the pitfalls and opportunities coming next week, next month or next year.  The first book was about the spread of weapons of mass destruction just before that issue hit the front pages.  Now Pipeline highlights the subjects that are sure to dominate the coming years.  Natural gas as the energy of the future – just ask Boone Pickens.  Russia’s dominance of our headlines.  And the geostrategic choices forced on us by a crippling dependency on foreign energy.

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Why I chose to write.

A lot of people ask me why I write.  Don’t I have enough to do with running a fifty person political consulting firm in Washington?   Doesn’t the board of directors of a six restaurant company keep me busy enough?  Isn’t co-owning an Israeli winery exciting enough?  And a farm with sixty goats, three donkeys, three llamas and two horses; isn’t that sufficiently “extra-curricular”?

The answer is yes to all of the above.  I live a wonderful, exciting life.

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La Victoria de Barack Obama - Published in El Espectador

Irónicamente, Obama podría tener más éxito en sacar un voto positivo en el Congreso para el TLC con Colombia. Artículo escrito por Peter Schechter, asesor internacional en comunicaciones y política
Como dicen ustedes, los colombianos, fue crónica de una victoria anunciada, pero no por eso menos histórica. Tal y como indicaban todas las encuestas tomadas en las últimas semanas antes de las elecciones norteamericanas, Barack Obama obtuvo una victoria abrumadora sobre John McCain. Como en todo cambio político, hubo algunos factores que empujaron y otros que jalaron hacía un resultado contundente.

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A Thriller is a Political Consultant’s Dream

As the United States election winds up, blogs, pundits and analysts are alive with last-minute analysis of the inner workings of the McCain or Obama campaigns.  I have been on both winning and losing campaigns and I can tell you from clear experience that the last five days are killers.  The candidates are tired.  The campaigns are limping.  Often the message is jumbled.  The attack lines raw.  The surrogates unclear.

I thought the other day that what is most interesting about writing a political novel is that the fiction is the Freudian, psychoanalytical response to the frustrations of a political consultant.  

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Pipeline – my second novel

Pipeline – my second novel – is to be published in March 09.  It is a thriller about America’s energy addiction to foreign sources and a nightmare scenario of our country depending on Russia for natural gas. 

It begins with hellish scenes in California due to statewide blackouts from severe natural gas shortages.  Everything is affected – from streetlights to electric fences surrounding maximum security prisons.  An increasingly desperate US president, inheriting thirty years of America’s energy policy paralysis, now looks toward Russia’s abundant natural gas reserves as a possible solution to America’s long-term needs.  But attempts to lure Russia’s gas to America goes awry as the President discovers that he has been unwittingly swept up and blackmailed by the dark, nationalist powers in control of Russia’s energy sector.

In short, it’s about natural gas, a resurgent Russia, energy dependency and Alaska (and a beautiful Alaskan woman CIA director!).  I guess I got a couple of those subjects right as I was writing a year ago.

We enter a new era in 09.  A New Year, new President, new economic lows to rise from and new leadership vacuums to fill.  Few issues are as important to get right as the energy issue.  It is the long term structural problem which affects our pocket books, our geo-politics and, of course, our planet.

A Little Help from My Friends - Published in Capitol File Magazine, Fall 2008

Every recent US president has a favorite foreign friend.  

Ronald Reagan yucked it up with Helmut Kohl, the roly-poly German chancellor whose hard-line oversaw the Berlin Wall’s destruction and Germany’s reunification.  Who can forget Bill Clinton’s roaring laughter with Boris Yeltsin and his hip, new-left friendship with Britain’s Tony Blair.  George Bush inherited – and deepened -- the Blair friendship as their post-September 11th administrations mutated from mere governments to full-fledged causes.  President Bush admirably became one of the first presidents to befriend an Asian leader; remember the Nashville country music tour our President organized for Japan’s Junichiro Koizumi’s swan song U.S. visit.

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