The increased confrontation between the United States and Russia since late 2006 requires a deeper understanding of why, according to American strategists from Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski to their current students, Russia is the prize in the game for world power. A prize even more important than China. This work is an attempt to reveal the key significance of today's Russia to everyone who is trying to comprehend the obscure trends of world politics. The analysis of the events around Iraq and Afghanistan and the wave of “color revolutions” in the post-Soviet space is preceded by an assessment of the geopolitical and historical context of these events. The author carefully traces the role of oil as a pillar of Anglo-American power in the last century and shows that it is not oil itself that is important, but the control it gives real political power. The Cold War of the last century was the best vehicle for this, as fear of the Soviet threat successfully isolated Russia and consolidated the dominance of Britain and the United States through the possession of resources. This book traces the role of oil as a pillar of Anglo-American power from the second half of the 19th century. But the keynote is not oil itself, but the geopolitical control over it that gives political power.