BAKU, Azerbaijan — In this large Caspian city on the edge of Europe and Asia the problems of the Western world — shaky banks, financial upheavals, struggles with terrorism — seem far away.
But in fact Baku is emerging as a new nerve center, a key location in the global pattern of security and economic stability. Of course, Baku has played this role before. Back in the middle of the 19th century it emerged as the center of the dawning world oil industry, well before the American oil industry grew up. A century and a half of ruthless oil exploitation shows up in an oil-smeared landscape and derelict rigs.
Now oil and gas, as well as vital supply lines to Western Europe and the wider world, are once again the issue, although in a different and more crucial way.
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