US fracking could give Putin fuel for thought

9:18pm, Fri 21 Mar 2014 Russia agrees for security monitors to go to Ukraine - last updated Sat 22 Mar 2014 Fracking's supporters believe as America becomes the world's biggest producer of natural gas it can rival and even supplant Russia. Photo: Reuters/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

The Stars and Stripes flutter over the shaded porches of clapper board homes.

Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania could be Anytown, USA. It is by any measure an unlikely front line in what some see as a looming Cold War.

They call the hills round here the Endless Mountains.

No one knows how big are the supplies of shale gas hidden beneath, but supporters of the controversial fracking industry here believe they could be America's most potent weapon in the stand-off with Russia.

The theory is seductive. As America becomes the world's biggest producer of natural gas it can rival and even supplant Russia.

Moscow derives huge income and influence from the energy on which Europe is dependent.

But what is a source of Russian power could also be a source of Russian vulnerability.

Some even draw a lesson from history.

Just as the nuclear arms race in the 1980s bankrupted the old Soviet Union, so America's dash for gas could eventually cripple Putin's Russia.

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US fracking could give Putin fuel for thought