The New Great Game

[Armen]

EurasiaNet Organization

Feb 4 2004

 

REEXAMINING OLD CONCEPTS ABOUT THE CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

Igor Torbakov: 2/04/04

A EurasiaNet Essay

 

The growing economic rivalry between the United States and Russia for

influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia is prompting policy-makers

to turn to century-old notions for guidance as they develop responses

to geopolitical developments. One such idea, advanced by a prominent

player in the so-called Great Game of the late 19th and early 20th

centuries, holds that the Eurasia region is the "geographic pivot of

history."

 

The so-called "heartland" theory was first advanced in January 1904

lecture delivered by Sir Halford Mackinder, then the director of the

London School of Economics and one of the most prominent British

geographers of the era. In his lecture, Mackinder asserted that the

ability to efficiently administer the Eurasian heartland would give

the controlling state decisive influence over the global development

agenda. Concurrently, maintaining stability in the Eurasian heartland

would go a long way towards determining global security conditions,

Mackinder argued.

 

At the time that Mackinder developed the heartland theory, Russia

stood on the verge of completing Trans-Siberian railroad. To

Mackinder, world history was essentially the story of an eternal

struggle between what he called the "seaman" and the "landman." The

emergence of railroads, he argued, allowed land powers to be almost

as mobile as naval powers. By using "interior lines," the state

occupying the "central position" on the so-called Eurasian island

could project power more rapidly than could naval powers, such as

Britain.

 

For Mackinder, a staunch supporter of the British imperial system,

the `heartland' concept was designed to help London defend its

interests against Russian expansionism. "The balance of power," he

noted in his 1904 lecture, is now "in favor of the pivot state [i.e.

Russia]." As such, he said, Britain's paramount strategic task at the

outset of the 20th century was to prevent Russia from gaining access

to the coast of Persia.

 

Later, following the Russia's collapse during World War I, Mackinder

urged that London pursue policies that would prevent Bolshevik

authorities from consolidating their grip over the outer reaches of

the empire. Accordingly, Mackinder wanted the West to promote the

independence of countries including Ukraine and other Central

European countries, along with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. At

the time, the British government did not follow Mackinder's advice,

and the Bolsheviks eventually managed to restore control over most of

the lands controlled by their Romanov predecessors.

 

Over subsequent decades, strategic challenges have shifted and

modernization has drastically changed the way a country can project

its power. Yet, Mackinder's basic ideas about the Eurasian heartland

remain pertinent. The heartland thesis helped provide the

intellectual groundwork for Western policy towards Soviet

expansionism, especially in the formulation of the US Cold War-era

containment policy. Following the 1991 Soviet collapse, Mackinder's

concepts influenced Western efforts to promote "geopolitical

pluralism" in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

 

In a somewhat paradoxical twist, Mackinder's geopolitical thinking

also appears to have left a deep imprint on his ideological

opponents. For example, a Russian "Eurasianist School" -- which urged

Eurasian unity under Russian leadership -- emerged in émigré circles

in the 1920s and borrowed extensively from Mackinder's ideas. [For

additional information on the Russian Eurasianist School see the

EurasiaNet archive].

 

At the outset of the 21st century, the heartland thesis continues to

contain lessons for political scientists. Economic and political

developments over the past decade, including the September 11

terrorist tragedy, have served to dramatically increase the Eurasian

region's profile. Islamic radicalism, taking advantage of the

region's largely stagnant economic conditions, have established a

strong presence in the region, which is now viewed by both Russian

and the West as the fulcrum of the struggle against global terrorism.

At the same time, the regional security picture is growing

increasingly complex, with Pakistan in possession of nuclear weapons,

and Iran striving to develop its nuclear capabilities. [For

background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

 

The Eurasian heartland is also the scene of an intensifying economic

struggle, driven in large part by a desire to control the region's

abundant energy reserves. [For background see the Eurasia Insight

archive]. The United States, Russia and China all have extensive

interests in the region. [For additional information see the Eurasia

Insight archive].

 

Some experts view the regional economic rivalry as a new Great Game,

drawing a rough comparison to the competition a century ago between

the British and Russian empires for control over Central Asia - a

struggle in which Mackinder himself took an active part.

 

"In this rerun of the first great game -- the 19th-century imperial

rivalry between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia -- players once

again position themselves to control the heart of the Eurasian

landmass," argues Lutz Kleveman, the author of a recently published

book The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia.

 

Today, instead of Britain, the United States is leading the Western

effort to limit the revival of Russian influence in Central Asia and

the Caucasus. To help project its power, Washington has established

military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, while US military

advisors are in Georgia helping to retrain Georgian military

personnel.

 

Mackinder's ideas influenced the post-Cold War thesis -- developed by

prominent American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski -- which

called for the maintenance of "geopolitical pluralism" in the

post-Soviet space. This concept has served as the corner-stone of

both the Clinton and Bush administration's policies towards the newly

independent states of Central Eurasia.

 

Meanwhile, Brzezinski's opposite numbers in Russia, drawing upon

classic Eurasianist thinking, are calling for Russia to develop a

special Eurasian strategy. In their recent book, Geopolitics and

Political Geography, V.A. Kolosov and N.S. Mironenko, contend that

Russia must develop a "geopolitical code" or strategy that would

foster volunteer "economic, cultural, and communication integration"

within the former Soviet region. Kamaludin Gadzhiyev's study,

Introduction to Geopolitics, also argues for both economic and

politico-military "integration of the former Soviet space."

 

Moscow's efforts to create a core economic group among CIS states

underscores the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin is

striving to put the Eurasianist concepts into practice. Those efforts

have hit snags, however, as most CIS remain wary Russia's

heavy-handed leadership style. [For additional information see the

Eurasia Insight archive].

 

Heading into the future, the new Great Game easily can take

unexpected twists, driven more by social factors in the Eurasian

heartland than by economic considerations. For example, Central Asian

states, especially Uzbekistan, are experiencing tremendous social

pressures, fueled by poverty and the lack of opportunity. [For

background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. At the same time,

regional governments are responding by tightening control, instead of

addressing the root causes of discontent. As a result, Islamic

radical ideas, spread by groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir, are finding a

broader audience in Central Asia. In turn, there appears to be no

shortage of recruits for international terrorist organizations, many

of which are linked to Islamic radicalism.

 

The possible spread of instability in the Eurasian heartland

threatens the interests of both Russia and the West. A deterioration

of regional security conditions would exert growing pressure on

Moscow and Washington to cooperate, rather than compete in the

region. Already, the United States and Russia profess to be allies in

the campaign against terrorism. Yet the actions of both countries in

recent years, most notably the Bush administration's precipitous

attack on Iraq, belie all such talk about an alliance.

 

Mackinder, in an essay published in the journal Foreign Affairs in

1943, raised the possibility that the West and Russia could one day

develop into genuine partners. Writing in the midst of World War II,

Mackinder indicated that cooperation between Russia and the West

would probably be needed to prevent Germany from ever again posing a

threat to the global order. Were he living today, some scholars

believe Mackinder would urge cooperation to contain the largest

current threat to the world order: global terrorism.

[Armen]

OIL AND THE NEW 'GREAT GAME'

 

The Nation (New York)

February 16, 2004

 

By Lutz Kleveman

 

About a year ago I visited the US air base in Bagram, some thirty

miles north of the Afghan capital of Kabul. A US Army public affairs

officer, a friendly Texan, gave me a tour of the sprawling camp, set

up after the ouster of the Taliban in December 2001. It was a clear

day, and one Chinook helicopter after the other took off to transport

combat troops into the nearby mountains. As we walked past the endless

rows of tents and men in desert camouflage uniforms, I spotted a

wooden pole carrying two makeshift street signs. They read "Exxon

Street" and "Petro Boulevard." Slightly embarrassed, the PA officer

explained, "This is the fuel handlers' workplace. The signs are

obviously a joke, a sort of irony."

 

As I am sure it was. It just seemed an uncanny sight, as I was

researching the potential links between the "war on terror" and

American oil interests in Central Asia. I had already traveled

thousands of miles from the Caucasus peaks across the Caspian Sea and

the Central Asian plains all the way down to the Afghan Hindu Kush. On

that journey I met with and interviewed warlords, diplomats,

politicians, generals and oil bosses. They are all players in a

geostrategic struggle that has become increasingly intertwined with

the war on terror: the new "Great Game."

 

In this rerun of the first "Great Game," the nineteenth-century

imperial rivalry between the British Empire and czarist Russia,

powerful players once again position themselves to control the heart

of the Eurasian landmass, left in a post-Soviet power vacuum. Today

the United States has taken over the leading role from the

British. Along with the ever-present Russians, new regional powers

such as China, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan have entered the arena, and

transnational oil corporations are also pursuing their own interests

in a brash, Wild East style.

 

Since September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration has undertaken a

massive military buildup in Central Asia, deploying thousands of US

troops not only in Afghanistan but also in the newly independent

republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia. These first US combat

troops on former Soviet territory have dramatically altered the

geostrategic power equations in the region, with Washington trying to

seal the cold war victory against Russia, contain Chinese influence

and tighten the noose around Iran. Most important, however, the Bush

Administration is using the "war on terror" to further American energy

interests in Central Asia. The bad news is that this dramatic

geopolitical gamble involving thuggish dictators and corrupt Saudi oil

sheiks is likely to produce only more terrorists, jeopardizing

America's prospects of defeating the forces responsible for the

September 11 attacks.

 

The main spoils in today's Great Game are the Caspian energy reserves,

principally oil and gas. On its shores, and at the bottom of the

Caspian Sea, lie the world's biggest untapped fossil fuel resources.

Estimates range from 85 to 219 billion barrels of crude, worth up to

$4 trillion. According to the US Energy Department, Azerbaijan and

Kazakhstan alone could sit on more than 110 billion barrels, more than

three times the US reserves. Oil giants such as ExxonMobil,

ChevronTexaco and British Petroleum have already invested more than

$30 billion in new production facilities.

 

The aggressive US pursuit of oil interests in the Caspian did not

start with the Bush Administration but during the Clinton years, with

the Democratic President personally conducting oil and pipeline

diplomacy with Caspian leaders. Despite Clinton's failure to reduce

the Russian influence in the region decisively, American industry

leaders were impressed. "I cannot think of a time when we have had a

region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as

the Caspian," declared Dick Cheney in 1998 in a speech to oil

industrialists in Washington. Cheney was then still CEO of the

oil-services giant Halliburton. In May 2001 Cheney, now US Vice

President, recommended in the Administration's seminal National Energy

Policy report that "the President make energy security a priority of

our trade and foreign policy," singling out the Caspian Basin as a

"rapidly growing new area of supply." Keen to outdo Clinton's oil

record, the Bush Administration took the new Great Game into its

second round.

 

With potential oil production of up to 4.7 million barrels per day by

2010, the Caspian region has become crucial to the US policy of

"diversifying energy supply." The other major supplier is the oil-rich

Gulf of Guinea, where both the Clinton and the Bush administrations

have vigorously developed US oil interests and strengthened ties with

corrupt West African regimes. The strategy of supply diversification,

originally designed after the 1973 oil shock, is designed to wean

America off its dependence on the Arab-dominated OPEC cartel, which

has been using its near-monopoly position as pawn and leverage against

industrialized countries. As global oil consumption keeps surging and

many oil wells outside the Middle East are nearing depletion, OPEC is

in the long run going to expand its share of the world market even

further. At the same time, the United States will have to import more

than two-thirds of its total energy needs by 2020, mostly from the

volatile Middle East.

 

Many people in Washington are particularly uncomfortable with the

growing power of Saudi Arabia, whose terror ties have been exposed

since the September 11 terror attacks. As the recent bombings in

Riyadh have shown, there is a growing risk that radical Islamist

groups will topple the corrupt Saud dynasty, only to then stop the

flow of oil to "infidels." The consequences of 8 million barrels of

oil-10 percent of global production-disappearing from the world

markets overnight would be disastrous. Even without any such

anti-Western revolution, the Saudi petrol is already, as it were,

ideologically contaminated. To stave off political turmoil, the regime

in Riyadh funds the radical Islamic Wahhabi sect, many of whose

preachers call for terror against Americans around the world.

 

To get out of its Faustian pact with Saudi Arabia, the United States

has tried to reduce its dependence on Saudi oil sheiks by seeking to

secure access to other sources. Central Asia, however, is no less

volatile than the Middle East, and oil politics are only making

matters worse: Fierce conflicts have broken out over pipeline routes

from the landlocked Caspian region to high-seaports. Russia, still

regarding itself as the imperial overlord of its former colonies,

promotes pipeline routes across its territory, notably Chechnya, in

the North Caucasus. China, the increasingly oil-dependent waking giant

in the region, wants to build eastbound pipelines from Kazakhstan.

Iran is offering its pipeline network for exports via the Persian

Gulf.

 

By contrast, both the Clinton and Bush administrations have championed

two pipelines that would circumvent both Russia and Iran. One of them,

first planned by the US oil company Unocal in the mid-1990s, would run

from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the Pakistani port of Gwadar

on the Indian Ocean. Several months after the US-led overthrow of the

Taliban regime, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a former Unocal

adviser, signed a treaty with Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf and

the Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov to authorize construction of a

$3.2 billion gas pipeline through the Herat-Kandahar corridor in

Afghanistan, with a projected capacity of about 1 trillion cubic feet

of gas per year. A feasibility study is under way, and a parallel

pipeline for oil is also planned for a later stage. So far, however,

continuing warlordism in Afghanistan has prevented any private

investor from coming forward.

 

Construction has already begun on a gigantic, $3.6 billion oil

pipeline from Azerbaijan's capital of Baku via neighboring Georgia to

Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. British Petroleum Amoco, its

main operator, has invested billions in oil-rich Azerbaijan and can

count on firm political support from the Bush Administration, which

stationed about 500 elite troops in war-torn Georgia in May

2002. Controversial for environmental and social reasons, as it is

unlikely to alleviate poverty in the notoriously corrupt transit

countries, the pipeline project also perpetuates instability in the

South Caucasus. With thousands of Russian troops still stationed in

Georgia and Armenia, Moscow has for years sought to deter Western

pipeline investors by fomenting bloody ethnic conflicts near the

pipeline route, in the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Artsax in

Azerbaijan and in the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia, South

Ossetia and Ajaria.

 

Washington's Great Game opponents in Moscow and Beijing resent the

dramatically growing US influence in their strategic backyard. Worried

that the American presence might encourage internal unrest in its

Central Asian province of Xinjiang-whose Turkic and Muslim population,

the Uighurs, are striving for more autonomy-China has recently held

joint military exercises with Kyrgyzstan.

 

The Russian government initially tolerated the American intrusion into

its former empire, hoping Washington would in turn ignore Russian

atrocities in Chechnya. However, for the Kremlin, the much-hyped "new

strategic partnership" against terror between the Kremlin and the

White House has always been little more than a tactical and temporary

marriage of convenience to allow Russia's battered economy to recover

with the help of capital from Western companies. The US presence in

Russia's backyard is becoming ever more assertive, but it is

unthinkable for the majority of the Russian establishment to

permanently cede its hegemonic claims on Central Asia.

 

One man who is quite frank about this is Viktor Kalyuzhny, the Russian

deputy foreign minister and President Vladimir Putin's special envoy

to the Caspian region, whom I interviewed in Moscow last year. "We

have a saying in Russia," he told me. "If you have guests in the house

there are two times when you are happy. One is when they arrive, and

one is when they leave again." To make sure that I got the message,

Kalyuzhny added, "Guests should know that it is impolite to stay for

too long."

 

Unfazed by such Russian sensitivities, American troops in Central Asia

seem to be there to stay. Two years ago, when I visited the new US air

base in Kyrgyzstan, I was struck by the massive commitment the

Pentagon had made. With the help of dozens of excavators, bulldozers

and cranes, a pioneer unit was busy erecting a new hangar for F/A-18

Hornet fighter jets. Brawny pioneers in desert camouflage were

setting up hundreds of "Harvest Falcon" and "Force Provider" tents for

nearly 3,000 soldiers. I asked their commander, a wiry brigadier

general, if and when the troops would ever leave Kyrgyzstan. "There is

no time limit," he replied. "We will pull out only when all Al Qaeda

cells have been eradicated."

 

Today, the troops are still there and many tents have been replaced by

concrete buildings. Increasingly annoyed, Russian Defense Minister

Sergei Ivanov has repeatedly demanded that the Americans pull out

within two years. Significantly, President Putin has signed new

security pacts with the Central Asian rulers and last October

personally opened a new Russian military base in Kyrgyzstan. It is the

first base Moscow has set up outside Russia's borders since the end of

the cold war. Equipped with fighter jets, it lies only twenty miles

away from the US air base.

 

Besides raising the specter of interstate conflict, the Bush

Administration's energy imperialism jeopardizes the few successes in

the war on terror. That is because the resentment US policies cause

in Central Asia makes it easier for Al Qaeda-like organizations to

recruit new fighters. They hate America because in its search for

antiterrorist allies in the new Great Game, the Bush Administration

has wooed some of the region's most brutal autocrats, including

Azerbaijan's Heydar Aliyev, Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev and

Pakistan's Musharraf.

 

The most tyrannical of Washington's new allies is Islom Karimov, the

ex-Communist dictator of Uzbekistan, who allowed US troops to set up a

large and permanent military base on Uzbek soil during the Afghan

campaign in late 2001. Ever since, the Bush Administration has turned

a blind eye to the Karimov regime's brutal suppression of opposition

and Islamic groups. "Such people must be shot in the head. If

necessary, I will shoot them myself," Karimov once famously told his

rubber-stamp Parliament.

 

Although the US State Department acknowledges that Uzbek security

forces use "torture as a routine investigation technique," Washington

last year gave the Karimov regime $500 million in aid and rent

payments for the US air base in Khanabad. Though Uzbek Muslims can be

arrested simply for wearing a long beard, the State Department also

quietly removed Uzbekistan from its annual list of countries where

freedom of religion is under threat.

 

In the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, I once met 20-year-old Ahmad, who

declined to give his family name out of fear of reprisal. Over a cup

of tea the young man told me that he had just been released from

prison, after serving a three-year sentence for allegedly belonging to

an Islamic terrorist organization. "The guards beat me every day,"

Ahmad said, his eyes cast down. "It was awful, but I never stopped

praying to Allah."

 

The group the Muslim belonged to was a religious Sufi order that, he

insisted, had nothing to do with terrorists such as the Islamic

Movement of Uzbekistan, which is blamed for several deadly attacks in

the late 1990s. "But maybe in the future my brothers and I have to

defend ourselves and fight," he told me. I asked Ahmad how he felt

about the arrival of American antiterror troops in Uzbekistan. "They

only make things worse. They don't help us, the people, but only the

government. I hate America."

 

What makes a man a terrorist? On my travels, I met countless angry

young men who, with nothing to lose but their seemingly valueless

lives, were prepared to fight for whatever radical Islamic leaders

told them was worth the fight. As in the Middle East, lack of

democracy is one of the root causes of terrorism in Central Asia: The

young men's anger is primarily directed against their own corrupt and

despotic regimes. As Washington shores up these rulers, their

disgusted subjects increasingly embrace militant Islam and virulent

anti-Americanism.

 

Recent events in Azerbaijan are perfect examples of how this

works. Whenever I travel to the capital of Baku, I am impressed with

the new glittery office buildings in the city center and the many

flashy Mercedes cars on the streets. Smart biznizmeny and their wives

stroll past expensive boutiques, wearing Versace and Cartier

jewelry. They are the few winners of the oil boom. Just ten miles out

of Baku, however, in the desolate suburb of Sumgait, about 50,000

people live in abject poverty. Many are refugees who fled the war

between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Artsax enclave in

the early 1990s.

 

All of Sumgait's fourteen Soviet-era factories have been shut down,

leaving everybody jobless. There is little electricity or running

water. One man, who eked out a living with his wife and several

children and grandchildren in a single room of a shabby highrise

block, told me, "What oil boom? Our president's family and the oil

companies put all the money into their pockets."

 

Azerbaijan is known as "BP country," as the company wields a budget of

$15 billion to be invested off the Azeri coast over the coming

years. "If we pulled out of Baku," a former BP spokesman once told me,

"the country would collapse overnight." So Big Oil's interests had to

be taken into account when Azerbaijan's late ruler, Heydar Aliyev,

feeling that his death was nigh, rigged the presidential elections

last October to pass on his crown to his playboy son Ilham. This

establishment of the first dynasty in the former Soviet Union

triggered popular protests in the capital that were brutally put down

by Aliyev's security forces. They arrested hundreds of opposition

members and killed at least two people.

 

The next day, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage officially

congratulated the new baby dictator on his "strong showing." Armitage

is also a former board member of the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce

in Washington, set up in 1995 to promote US companies' interests in

Azerbaijan's multibillion-dollar oil industry. Democracy versus

stability for oil investments-few Azeris will forget what side the US

government took.

 

It need not be that way. The US-supported overthrow in November of

strongman Eduard Shevardnadze in neighboring Georgia, a linchpin

country for the pipeline export of Caspian oil and gas, showed that

protecting strategic energy interests can, however accidentally, go

hand in hand with promoting democracy. To be sure, the Bush

Administration's motives for dropping Shevardnadze had less to do with

a sudden pro-democracy epiphany than with hard-nosed realpolitik:

Washington's longtime pet ally-who had secured nearly $100 million in

annual US aid for Georgia, which is more per capita than any other

country except Israel-could no longer provide stability in Georgia and

had recently allowed Russian companies to buy up most of the country's

energy sector, which increased Moscow's clout on this crucial Great

Game battleground at Washington's expense.

 

While it is too early to tell how things in Georgia will play out, one

general lesson appears clear: The September 11 attacks have shown that

the US government can no longer afford to be indifferent toward how

badly dictators in the Middle East and Central Asia treat their

people, as long as they keep the oil flowing. American dealings with

Saudi Arabia have become a fatal affair. President Bush acknowledged

as much in recent speeches calling on Saudi Arabia to start democratic

reforms to dry up the breeding ground for terrorism.

 

In Central Asia, however, the current US policy of aiding tyrants

repeats the very same mistakes that gave rise to bin Ladenism in the

1980s and '90s. Most Central Asians believe that US antiterror troops

are stationed in their region mainly to secure American oil

interests. I lost count of how many Azeris, Uzbeks, Afghans and Iraqis

I met during my travels who told me that "it's all about oil." Right

or wrong, this distrust of the US government's motives is one of the

key factors in the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. The presence

of US troops on their soil motivates angry Muslim men to sign up with

Al Qaeda-like terror groups. However terribly they suffered under

Saddam Hussein, few Iraqis today believe that America would have sent

its young men and women to the region if there were only strawberry

fields to protect.

 

With or without military force, there are obvious limits to any US

government's ability to nudge autocratic petrostate regimes toward

democratic reform-especially as long as America is becoming ever more

dependent on oil imports. An addict is hardly able to force his pusher

to change his criminal activities. In the United States, 4 percent of

the world's population consumes one-fourth of the world's energy. One

out of every seven barrels of oil produced in the world is burned on

American highways. This is not quite a position that allows us to tell

Arab oil sheiks and Central Asian despots, "If you don't stop churning

out angry young men, we won't do business with you anymore."

 

For the common people in all oil-producing countries (except Norway

and Britain), oil wealth has been more of a curse than a blessing,

leading to corruption, political instability, economic decline,

environmental degradation, coups and often bloody civil wars. This is

why oil is known as the "devil's tears." Today, however, the local

people's problems are America's too, because it has become clear since

the September 11 attacks how the politics of oil contribute to the

rise of radical Islamic terrorism.

 

So, while the war on terror may not be all about oil, certainly in one

sense it should be about just that. A bold policy to reduce the

addiction to oil would be the most powerful weapon to win the epic

struggle against terrorism. In the short term, this means saving

energy through more efficient technologies, necessary anyway to slow

the greenhouse effect and global warming. The Bush Administration's

old-style energy policies of yet more fossil-fuel production and waste

continue in the wrong direction. It is time to realize that more

gas-guzzling Hummers on US highways only lead to more Humvees (and

American soldiers) near oilfields. What is urgently needed instead-for

security reasons-is a sustainable alternative energy policy.

 

Ultimately, no matter how cleverly the United States plays its cards

in the new Great Game in Central Asia and no matter how many military

forces are deployed to protect oilfields and pipelines, the oil

infrastructure may prove too vulnerable to terrorist attacks to

guarantee a stable supply. The Caspian region may be the next big gas

station, but, as in the Middle East, there are already a lot of men

running around throwing matches.

 

[sidebar]

 

'[The Americans] don't help us, the people, but only the government. I

hate America.' - A young Uzbek Muslim

 

[sidebar]

 

In Central Asia, the current US policy of aiding tyrants repeats the

same mistakes that gave rise to bin Ladenism in the 1980s and '90s.

 

[Author Affiliation]

 

Lutz Kleveman (lutz@kleveman.com) is the author of "The New Great Game:

Blood and Oil in Central Asia"

(Atlantic Books, www.newgreatgame.com).

[Sasun]

Interesting articles, keep them coming

[alpha]

Interesting article about Russia's role in NIS. Russia does not have the economic potential to be a world power, so it's using overt ways in dealing with autocratic regims.

 

http://www.gateway2russia.com/st/art_213470.php

 

The Rape of Eurasia

 

The former Soviet Union is once again the central sphere for Russian foreign policy.

Oleg Khrabry

 

Putin’s notorious siloviki who have thrown Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of the oil company YUKOS, into an investigatory detention center, had a far greater effect on Russo-American relations than Moscow’s resistance to the war in Iraq and alliance with Germany and France against Washington.

Today, as presidential election campaigns have begun in both the US and Russia, the infamous friendship between the two presidents, when one was always claiming to “see into the soul” of the other, has degenerated into a shallow acquaintance of two extremely preoccupied and self-absorbed executives who talk on the phone from time to time, scolding each other for breaking some unwritten rule of business ethics. That’s all that Vladimir Putin, on the eve of March presidential elections in Russia, and George Bush, on the eve of November presidential elections in the US, really need right now.

For Bush, friendship with Putin became just as big of a problem as the current American economic crisis, the guerilla war in Iraq, or the defects of the new health care bill. Problems in his relationship with Bush, on the other hand, will not hurt Putin’s chances at reelection one bit and could even improve them in a certain sense.

After Khodorkovsky’s arrest and the routine Duma elections, it has become clear that relations between the US and Russia will no longer be as they were. Certainty and an element of predictability have emerged. America realized that Russia represented a “new Byzantium” with a strong authoritarian government. The Russian establishment saw in Russia’s strategic ally a wily double-crosser, who was not only taking over Moscow’s tradition spheres of influence abroad, but also pushing for “regime change” in the NIS right under Moscow’s nose. Each country’s pragmatic understanding of its own goals will form the basis for US-Russian foreign relations for the entire coming year and beyond.

The end of big brother Russia

One of the main results of the past year, dominated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, was the contraction of the sphere of Russian foreign policy’s actual influence in the NIS. Russia was ready to play the role of equal partner with America, but exclusively wanted to play the role of “big brother” with the NIS republics. As Russia has ceased to be big, it has also ceased to be a brother. As Russia has ceased to be on equal footing, it has also ceased to be a partner. American and EU behavior in this extremely delicate web of interrelationships in the NIS region reminds one of a bumblebee that tears a web to shreds without even bothering to get entangled in it.

The division of spheres of influence between Russia, America, and the EU will never be complete, but last year reinforced trends in the political definition of the main client states. The “Slavic autocrats” fell into Russia’s sphere of influence, while America got the “Oriental despots.” Washington’s choice of clientele is determined by several common-sense notions. First of all, the US would like to secure its military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Secondly, it would like to secure the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline scheduled to be completed by late 2005. Hence the Americans have cultivated client relations with the Aliev clan that crushed all political opposition in Azerbaijan last year and with Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan. Karimov, a captive to world cotton prices, became an American client immediately after 9-11. The current relations between Uzbekistan and the US are as stable as America’s alliance with Saudi Arabia once was before that fateful day in September. Washington is pushing for strong, “Saudi-style” ties with all the leaders of the former Soviet republics. And this is the main challenge facing Russian foreign policy today.

The logic behind choosing NIS clients is simple: who isn’t with the Americans is with the Russians. Moscow has powerful means of influencing its prodigal sons, Ukraine and Belarus, and is currently considering how to solve the issues of political power there as painlessly as possible. In Kiev, Russia is trying with all its might to get Leonid Kuchma to hand over power to his successor without a scandal. In Minsk, Russia is wracking its brains about how to get rid of the main obstacle to a Russia-Belarus union, Alexander Lukashenko. Their rapprochement with Russia occurred in part thanks to their conflict with the US. By drifting away from Washington, they logically fell into Moscow’s open arms.

In the absence of a powerful and effective political apparatus capable of increasing Russia’s influence in the NIS step by step, Moscow’s most potent tool is energy. RAO EES Rossiya owns energy assets in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, controls 80% of the energy market in Armenia, which will soon start exporting electricity to Azerbaijan, and has gained almost complete control of the Georgian market, one of the key reasons Washington became disenchanted with Eduard Shevardnadze. At the same time, the “velvet revolution” in Tbilisi orchestrated by American diplomats proves that control over an impoverished country’s energy system by RAO EES or Gazprom is not the deciding factor defining its political orientation.

Moscow’s options are nonetheless limited by “reverse dependence,” as relations with the “father of all the Turkmens,” Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan made extremely clear. The problem is that Turkmen natural gas, like oil from Kazakhstan, could be used to fill up the pipeline system bypassing Russia that the British and American investors are currently building. Spurred by the appearance of future problems with filling the above mentioned pipelines, Moscow and Ashgabat signed a 25-year agreement in April of last year. Turkmenistan is required by this agreement to sell Russia up to 70 billion cubic meters of natural gas by 2007, for which Russia will pay around $44 per thousand cubic meters.

However, Moscow immediately found itself in a political trap, a captive of commercial profit and geopolitics. Right after the agreement was signed, Niyazov outlawed double citizenship, forcing the Russian ethnic minority to make the difficult choice between abandoning Turkmenistan or breaking ties with Russia for once and for all. Despite unprecedented pressure on Turkmenbashi, the problem remains unsolved to this day. Moscow cannot achieve its goal of overthrowing the Turkmen despot due to Russia’s standoff with America in the NIS region. In Turkmenistan, a country without even the inklings of a civil society and ready at any moment to run to Washington for protection from Russian attacks, a country shored up by promises to pump its gas into their political pipeline, traditional methods of political pressure just don’t work.

Between the tigers and the dragon

Because Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East are supposed to turn into alternative sources of energy for the Asian Pacific Rim and the American West Coast, the crisis in the government’s relationship with the business community was sparked in part by the Kremlin’s geopolitical reasoning. Moscow has an innate fear of its rapidly growing neighbor, China, capable of economically devouring and even potentially snatching away border regions in the Russian Far East. This encroachment could pose an actual threat due to the dramatic decline in population east of the Urals.

Last year, several standing controversies were laid bare, not only between Russia and China, but also between China and Japan, both vying for economic domination of the region. The reason behind the antagonism was access to Russian energy resources. The Kremlin and YUKOS could not agree on the final terminus of the Siberian collecting main. Apparently, during his official visit to Russia in May of last year, PRC president Hu Jintao signed a joint communiqué with Putin regarding the construction of the Angarsk-Daqing pipeline (1,400 miles long costing $2.5 billion). At the same time, the Chinese National Oil Corporation signed a 20-year, $150-billion agreement with YUKOS. The Russian oil giant agreed to transport fuel to China by rail until the necessary pipeline was built. However, to all outward appearances, the Kremlin decided to put the project on the back burner, seeing it as a tactical move, while Mikhail Khodorkovsky began to lobby extensively for the Chinese route.

All parties knew very well that even earlier, in January 2003, when Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi made an official visit to Moscow, he also signed a Joint Action Plan with Putin, which designated the export pipeline to Nakhodka and the Sea of Japan as the top priority. In response to Beijing’s diplomatic steps in May, the Japanese, who previously linked all investment in Russia to the issue of the Kuril Islands, expressed their willingness to invest $5 billion directly in Eastern Siberian oil development, $7.5 billion in construction of the export pipeline, and $1 billion in accompanying social and economic programs in the Primorsky Territory should the oil pipeline be built at Nakhodka. No one has ever offered Russia investments amounting to $13.5 billion before. The far eastern route is both longer and more expensive than the Chinese route, but it would be more than just a pipe through the taiga. It would be a powerful economic integration stimulus for all of Siberia and the Russian Far East. However, Khodorkovsky could not comprehend why “all this baloney” started and began to lobby hard for the Chinese project. Clearly, this did not decide the fate of the oligarch and YUKOS, but his dispute over the pipelines was a real and very serious conflict with the Russian government, in which the former, if victorious, would get uninterrupted oil “straight from the well.” Moscow for its part put these projects in a broader context of geopolitical reasoning. At the center of this reasoning was the desire to draw economically depressed regions into active economic activity, even at the cost of immediate economic gain. Khodorkovsky’s arrest did not bring an end to this conflict, but the Chinese lost their main lobbyist. Obviously, fears of the “yellow peril” gained the upper hand in Russian foreign policy. The subtle game of the Japanese which played on these subconscious fears and the history of Sino-Soviet relations also played a role. Every person should decide for himself how justified these fears are, but in an interview Khodorkovsky inadvertently confirmed their validity, stating, “The Chinese hinted to me that you can only hit a dragon on the tail with a stick while it’s sleeping. We are running up with our club and smashing the dragon on the tail. The dragon hasn’t noticed yet. And I really don’t want it to finally notice.”

Dangerous liaisons

The more Russia trades with a certain country, the more political problems arise in their relations: this amusing tendency has long been apparent in Russian foreign policy. Russia’s main trading partners last year were the EU (35.9% of Russian trade), the NIS (17.5%), and the APEC countries (an average of 13%), of which the leaders were China, the US, and Japan. By comparison, Russia’s trade with India, which had the least number of political disputes with Russia, barely reached $1.2 billion, not even one percent, mostly due to close defense industry ties. In other words, areas of increased economic interest always become areas of increased political conflict. This is particularly true of Russia’s relations with the EU and China.

Last year was one of the most contentious in relations between Moscow and Brussels. The political interests of the expanding EU came into sharp conflict with Russia’s interests. Moscow was extremely annoyed by the EU’s tough new visa regime and more difficult transit procedures for Kaliningrad residents. It was annoyed by the EU’s refusal to admit Russia into the WTO (The EU set unacceptable conditions, one of which was that Russian domestic prices for energy should correspond to European prices). It was annoyed by the EU’s harsh criticism of the war in the Caucasus, by the slowdown in trade ties with the NIS due to EU expansion, by the EU’s strong reaction to the YUKOS Affair, and so on.

Moscow ran into an iron curtain where it expected a breakthrough. The stronger and more total the Russian president’s power becomes inside Russia, the more vulnerable this power seems in the international arena. Russian political universalism, in which many have seen an increasingly forceful Eurasianism, is the result of a painful compromise between the domestic goals of the Russian government and its desire to be part of the Western world. For now, many Westerners see the Russian establishment’s wavering between outlaw nations, the Arab monarchies, American patrons, Italian lawyers, and French and German Americo-phobics as a demonstration of inconsistency or even a lack of principles. In fact, this soul searching has resulted in Russia rethinking of its new role in the post-Soviet region, which we simply have no right to lose.

[Armen]

Moscow Times

July 28 2004

 

Great Game Over

 

By Ian Bremmer and Nikolas Gvosdev

 

The new great game is over -- it ended in a draw. Russia failed in

its attempt to monopolize the Caspian region's energy transportation

links; the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, in

particular, ensures that not all Caspian oil will cross Russian

territory on its way west. On the other hand, exclusive transport of

Central Asia's gas reserves remains in the control of Gazprom, and,

as in Soviet times, will continue to pass through Russian-controlled

routes.

 

Moscow cannot prevent limited U.S. inroads into Central Asia, but

given the traditional dependence of Central Asian governments on

Moscow, Russia will remain a heavyweight regional player for the

foreseeable future.

 

There is nothing further to be gained by either side from

geopolitical gamesmanship, but there is much to be won through

partnership.

 

Given the United States' current range of security commitments around

the world, it is more vital than ever that Washington diversify its

energy supplies. Russia too has much to gain from a cooperative

relationship with the West in the exploration, exploitation and

transport of Caspian-area energy reserves.

 

The foolish zero-sum notion that there are a certain number of

barrels of oil in the region to be fought over by the regional powers

is dangerously shortsighted, particularly at a time when the world's

hunger for energy is growing so quickly and ever more pipelines and

export routes are needed to get supplies to market. The United

States, EU, China, Russia and other Caspian states should view the

Caspian area as a single integrated energy marketplace. Together they

should begin a comprehensive Eurasian energy dialogue that will bring

together the major outside investors -- especially the United States

and EU -- with the region's key actors, especially Russia, Azerbaijan

and Kazakhstan.

 

One element of this dialogue should be economic -- helping to direct

investment where it can bring the most effective return. Joint

projects that combine the skills, resources and assets of Western,

Asian and Russian firms can bring online energy deposits that would

otherwise remain in the ground.

 

Another part of the dialogue should center on those challenges to

regional security that threaten new investment. Chechen insurgents

would very much like to produce a wider war across an area of

southern Russia vitally important to the transport of Caspian energy

products. The threat of violent Islamic extremism has led to

crackdowns by the authoritarian Central Asian regimes.

 

Governments must also battle the influence of organized crime if they

are to attract investment in energy projects. Porous borders,

smuggling and the drug trade, in particular, threaten the social and

political stability necessary to establish a long-term international

energy investment project.

 

Yet opportunities for real U.S.-Russian security cooperation in

Central Asia are not being exploited. In Kyrgyzstan, both the United

States and Russia maintain military bases and both ostensibly serve

the same purpose -- to prevent the spillover of Islamist terrorism

into Central Asia. Yet U.S. and Russian forces have no mechanism for

joint action, not even the ability to communicate by cellphone.

 

Creating a joint U.S.-Russian base under the aegis of a NATO-Russia

partnership, a proposal Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev has publicly

endorsed, could lay the basis for practical cooperation that could

then be extended, both to the countries in which Russia enjoys the

dominant foreign influence (such as Armenia) and those seeking

greater integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions (such as Georgia,

Uzbekistan or even Azerbaijan).

 

Russian and Western intelligence-gathering capacities complement one

another. Russia continues to have the most effective network of

contacts in Eurasia.

 

First steps have already been taken in coordinating intelligence

collection, marrying Russia's considerable human intelligence

capabilities with American technological capacity. Russia and Western

governments should create a new security organization, grounded in

the NATO-Russia Council, which would develop joint institutions for

joint security challenges.

 

The United States and Russia have already produced some positive-sum

security interactions, in helping to resolve Georgian President

Mikheil Saakashvili's standoff with Aslan Abashidze, for example.

Fears have risen in Russia and in Armenia recently that the added

revenue produced in Azerbaijan by increased hydrocarbon production

and transport could finance a new round of violence over the disputed

region of Nagorny Artsax. Joint operations in Bosnia and Kosovo --

in which Russian and NATO forces collaborated in peacekeeping for the

first time -- provide a precedent for extending such cooperation to

potential trouble spots where instability threatens both Russian and

Western interests.

 

There are few areas where a Russian-Western partnership can realize

more mutually beneficial economic, political, and security goals than

in Central Asia.

 

Successful partnerships there will encourage useful Russian-Western

partnerships elsewhere, as in the construction of new Siberian

pipelines to the Pacific.

 

Missing the opportunities such a partnership might provide will

threaten the stability of a region vitally important to both the war

on terrorism and the development of future sources of energy.

 

 

Ian Bremmer is president of the Eurasia Group and a senior fellow at

the World Policy Institute. Nikolas Gvosdev is executive editor of

The National Interest. They contributed this comment to The Moscow

Times.

[vava]

Thanks Armen. Good thread

[Armen]

Well, Vava jan, the authors of the last article basically say that the "New Great Game (and my nice thread) is Over". I think that the most interesting part of the Game is still to come. I wonder what would Sir Rudyard Kipling say now. As far as I can see the Game is gonna be arround until oil is arround.

[Armen]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FH06Ag02.html

 

http://www.atimes.com

 

Central Asia

The clandestine Soviet Union

By Victor Yasmann

 

Nationalist revanchism has been gaining momentum in recent years among various political groups in Russia and has been greeted with some sympathy from the Kremlin. In the past, this sentiment has taken the form of open calls for the restoration of the Soviet Union, but recently a more provocative set of ideas have been making the rounds in Russia.

 

Maksim Kalashnikov, author of The Broken Sword of Empire (1998) and Battle for the Heavens (2000) - books that glorified Soviet militarism and earned him the moniker "Russia's Tom Clancy" - gave new impetus to the revanchist movement with the 2003 publication of Forward to the USSR-2, a book that is subtitled The National Idea or the Direction of the Main Offensive. Kalashnikov's real name is Vladimir Kucherenko, and he is a former deputy editor of the online magazine Stringer and a journalist for Rossiiskaya gazeta. Forward to the USSR-2 has gone through several editions over the past 18 months and its popularity has become widespread.

Kalashnikov's vision of USSR-2 is a version of an unrealized scenario for the reform of the Soviet Union that dates back to the early 1980s and that is attributed to then KGB director Yurii Andropov. It was later popularized by the nationalist ideologue Aleksandr Prokhanov. "In 1980, the United States had a nightmare in which it saw the transformation of the USSR, a country with a clumsy socialist economy, into the smart, aggressive, and strong-willed super corporation Red Star," reads the cover blurb to Forward to the USSR-2. "It might have emerged as a creature never before seen in history, combining the most advanced Soviet defense technologies with billions of gas dollars and the incredible might of the Soviet secret services. The United States did everything in its power to make sure this scenario never materialized, but can we realize it now?"

 

Kalashnikov, who has rejected Western models of economic development for Russia, answers a definite "yes" to this question. Those who advocate Western liberal economics, Kalashnikov writes, argue that if Russia follows their policies the country will reach Western living standards within a few decades. "However, under the conditions of globalization, we do not have this much time," Kalashnikov writes.

 

Kalashnikov, however, also rejects calls for the restoration of the former Soviet system, describing the Soviet Union as "the country of the party's miasma ... Nationalizing Russia's old-fashioned and obsolete industry as the Communists suggest is absolute stupidity," he writes.

 

Likewise, Kalashnikov rejects economic-development models such as those pursued by China, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brazil, Mexico or Pakistan. He argues that Russia cannot become a cheap producer of consumer goods because it does not have a cheap labor force, inexpensive and accessible natural resources, or convenient means of transporting manufactured goods to world markets. He notes that Russian workers must pay as much on utilities and other costs associated with surviving in Russia's harsh climate as workers in the countries mentioned above earn each year. This fact alone is enough to make Russian goods non-competitive on international markets.

 

Kalashnikov also argues that basing the Russian economy on the export of mineral resources is shortsighted. He repeats the arguments that noted military economist Andrei Parshev put forward in his 2000 book Why Russia Is Not America. In that book, Parshev argued that once the Soviet-built economic and transportation infrastructure is exhausted, the extraction of Russia natural resources will become forbiddingly expensive.

 

The only way for Russia to thrive is through the dream of USSR-2, Kalashnikov argues, urging the country to adopt several innovative development strategies that he calls "miracles".

 

Kalashnikov's first miracle is financial. He argues that it is stupid to use oil revenues to create a stabilization fund to repay the debts racked up by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and former Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Instead, Russia should sue the West to demand the return of gold deposited in Western banks by the czarist government during World War I. Kalashnikov argues that Russia must make such cases before the years 2014-17 or the government's claims will expire.

 

Next, Kalashnikov calls for an ideological miracle. He says the state must put forward an ideology that will be broadly attractive and will help the country avoid "suicidal clashes" with China and Islam. Such an ideology must help the country develop previously unthinkable alliances, such as with Saudi Arabia, he writes.

 

The next step, Kalashnikov argues, is an "ethnopsychological" miracle. He writes that the new state cannot be created with the current mentality of the Russian people, who he says are "ignorant not only of national ideals, but even of their own self-interests ... Therefore, it is necessary to create a new nation from the remnants of the Russian people, a new race that possesses the novel psychological quality of seeing itself as 'a nation of super-creators and geniuses'," Kalashnikov writes, echoing classic Nazi-style rhetoric.

 

The centerpiece of Kalashnikov's project is the "organizational" wonder. He proposes creating a clandestine state behind the facade of the Russian Federation, a country he sees as "incurably ill and destined to perish". He describes the clandestine state as "a network that combines the features of a party, an army, a secret service, the mafia, a church, and a business community ... This kind of networked brotherhood should exist alongside the official Russian state, never openly warring with it," Kalashnikov writes. "The brotherhood should form a strategic union with the Russian president."

 

Kalashnikov argues that such a parallel state will be able to act where the official state cannot. Utilizing its covert status, it will be able to operate wherever there are Russian communities - in Belarus, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and even Europe and the United States. One of the first tasks of this secret state will be to regain control over financial resources controlled by the oligarchs and, more broadly, by the entire class of "new Russians". "Using psychological and other special methods, we will turn them into zombies, obedient to the will of the secret state and investing their money where the state tells them to," Kalashnikov writes in the foreword to Forward to the USSR-2.

 

"Superficially, nothing will change and the current business community, with its assets in Russia and abroad, will continue to operate," Kalashnikov writes, "but in reality, control over financial flows will be recaptured by the secret state. In this way, we will avoid accusations of violating civil and property rights and other such nonsense. There will be no mass arrests, no demonstrative transfers of confiscated money into state funds." He writes that it is sufficient to apply pressure successfully to one or two oligarchs in order to bring all of them into submission.

 

Leaving no doubt as to whom he has in mind, Kalashnikov writes in his latest book, Ride the Lightning (2003), about an oligarch named Samuil Modorkovskii and a company called Sokos, clear allusions to embattled oil giant Yukos and its former chief executive officer, Mikhail Khodorkovskii. Kalashnikov describes Modorkovskii as smart and energetic, but as someone who sees no future for Russia and who is looking to transfer the money gained from exploiting Russia's oil to the West. "Coercion and levers of fear should be used" against such people, Kalashnikov writes, seeming to justify the campaign against Khodorkovskii that was about to unfold. "God himself allows us to fight them with sophistication and acute cruelty."

 

As for geographic expansion, Kalashnikov argues that it should not be necessary to repeat the experience of the Soviet Union. USSR-2 will be a "federal empire" and the states of the South Caucasus, Ukraine and, especially, the Central Asian republics can enter the new USSR with their own sovereignty, legislation and currencies intact. "We should tell our former southern republics that friendship with the United States will bring them no good," Kalashnikov writes. He said that while the United States criticizes these countries for corruption and human-rights violations, Russia will not demand any liberalization and will not intervene into their internal affairs.

 

Instead, Russia will build military bases "that will defend both your and our security", Kalashnikov writes. Russia will build nuclear power plants and desalinization plants "for which you can pay with gold and uranium". In return Russia will ask little - "equal status" for ethnic Russians, unfettered access for "our imperial television channels", and a role for Russian capital in the exploration for and exploitation of local natural resources.

 

It remains uncertain exactly how influential Kalashnikov's books and ideas actually are in Russia's corridors of power. But it cannot be denied that many, many pages from his books echo the most frightening headlines in contemporary Russian news reports. Many scenes in his books seem like the latest breaking news from Moscow.

 

Victor J Yasmann is a senior regional analyst with RFE/RL Online and specializes in Russian and Central Eurasian affairs, foreign policy, and international security. He holds a master of arts in economics from the Kharkiv Engineering Economic Institute and joined RFE/RL as a Soviet affairs analyst in 1984.

[Armen]

http://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=2658

 

CENTRAL ASIA - CAUCASUS ANALYST

Wednesday / September 08, 2004

 

RUMSFELD AND THE CAUCASUS:

AMERICA’S DEEPENING INVOLVEMENT IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS CONFLICTS

 

Stephen Blank

 

Even without terrorism, there would be more than enough reason to fear that the South Caucasus might erupt in violent conflict and endanger the interests of all those powers who have significant interests there. Turkey seeks to internationalize the peacekeeping contingents now operating in the South Caucasus and Russian observers fear that NATO is gearing up to intervene in the Georgian-South Ossetian crisis. Recently, the man in the middle of Washington’s watchful solicitude for American interests has been Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In meetings in Washington with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and in Baku with President Ilham Aliyev, Rumsfeld has sought to reinforce and secure Washington's position and interests in the South Caucasus.

 

BACKGROUND: U.S. interests in the South Caucasus include thanking both Georgia and Azerbaijan, the only Muslim country with forces in Iraq, for their support of the U.S. invasion there. But much more is at stake than expressions of gratitude. Rumsfeld clearly aims to strengthen the U.S. military programs to train and equip the Georgian Army, which evidently were extended owing to his conversations with Saakashvili, and to defend Azerbaijan’s coastline. These programs provide the basis for future bilateral or multilateral cooperation of these armies with the U.S. military or with NATO. They are also the centerpiece of any hope for reform of Georgia’s defense structures, a prerequisite for realizing the regime’s great goal of inclusion in NATO.

Rumsfeld’s discussions with Saakashvili undoubtedly worked out the modalities of continuing this program and ensuring its funding. Rumsfeld and his colleagues at the State Department also evidently were instrumental in persuading Georgia to resume work on the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which had been stopped due to environmental concerns. Work was only resumed after high-ranking State Department officials personally vouched for its environmental security and steps were taken to allay Georgian concerns. But it is also possible that the threat of the suspension of the pipeline’s construction was used to induce the United States to support Georgia’s position in the dispute with Russia over South Ossetia. Undoubtedly this crisis also lay at the center of Rumsfeld's discussions.

While Colin Powell called for mediation of the crisis, both Tbilisi and Moscow regularly appear to be acting in ways that alternate provocation and moderation, and not always in well thought out ways. On both sides, there has been plenty of bellicose rhetoric, coupled with local acts of violence and covert Russian attempts at violence or support for separatists that were, as is almost always the case, found out, which only inflamed matters further.

 

IMPLICATIONS: Georgia is already spending millions that it can ill afford on weapons. Whether this spending is for defense against Russian or Russian-supported forces or is intended to threaten separatists, it appears that only through Washington's facilitation of negotiation is a peaceful resolution possible. This fact underscores the centrality of the U.S. presence in the area to the preservation of peace and America’s beneficial impact upon the habitually tense Russo-Georgian relationship. But secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell’s intervention also underscores the need for Moscow and Tbilisi to avoid provocative and poorly conceived actions that may play well at home but lead to an irretrievable tragedy for all parties. And, in fact, we cannot count on either actor to avoid the temptation to score quick or cheap points that only escalate tensions further.

Azerbaijan also presents problems for Washington, not least because of the stalemated war with Armenia over Nagorno-Artsax which shows no sign of coming closer to political resolution even as Aliyev’s government ratchets up the belligerent rhetoric and play to the large refugee population in Azerbaijan. Increasing numbers of people in Baku feel that despite all the help it has given Washington, America has not helped provide an answer to the problem. This view overlooks the fact that without a decent army of its own Azerbaijan cannot compel Armenia to yield, and goes hand in hand with the dangerous stimulation of belligerent rhetoric that the Aliyev government has fostered. But at the same time both Iran and Russia oppose extension of Baku’s military collaboration with Washington and if America cannot help Azerbaijan with Armenia, Aliyev may feel he has no choice but to turn to those two countries for help. After all, both also dispose of formidable means of inciting internal unrest inside Azerbaijan and have not shrunk from doing so in the past. That potential leverage is obviously another reason for Aliyev to harken to them rather than Washington. Certainly Iran has in the past tried not just to restrict and curtail America’s military presence but also to incite agitation for an Islamic regime there. Moscow has played at coups against the governments in Baku that have ruled since 1991, including that of Aliyev’s late father, Heydar Aliyev, and remains the nearest great power even if some analysts charge that a subterranean Irano-Russian rivalry is taking place and that Tehran believes that Russia is in long-term retreat.

Undoubtedly Aliyev and his government seek the kind of assistance that Washington has given Georgia in defending its sovereignty against Russia as well as more tangible assistance against Armenia. But failing to get it, Aliyev has turned to Russia, China, and Pakistan for support. Islamabad has previously promised defense cooperation, i.e. arms sales and training for Azeri officers. China also provides such training and has improved its defense and energy profile in Azerbaijan by also buying into Azeri oil projects.

Thus Rumsfeld apparently hurriedly included Azerbaijan in his itinerary of trips to Oman, Afghanistan, Russia, and Ukraine. Rumsfeld’s talks with Aliyev ostensibly revolved around issues of defense or security cooperation between Baku and Washington, which may also include a potential base for U.S. forces down the road. But there is good reason to believe that pressure is also building upon Washington to launch an initiative to unblock the frozen status quo regarding Nagorno-Artsax. Washington may be the only capital that has the means to launch such an initiative and the credibility to see it through, but that is by no means a foregone conclusion. Neither is the success of any American initiative to be taken for granted because there are so many factors and actors who might act individually or conspire to frustrate any American initiative.

 

CONCLUSIONS: All signs of growing U.S. involvement as a critical actor and security manager for the area indicate the depth of America’s interests, and involvement in the South Caucasus and the fact that this involvement could lead to further entanglements, if not causes for estrangement, with Tehran, Moscow and other capitals. Now that Washington has become a legitimate security manager for the South Caucasus, if not the premier foreign player there, it must reckon with all the dimensions of this region’s security dilemmas and agendas.

Nobody should think that these can be anything other than long-term and protracted responsibilities. Rumsfeld’s visit, not the first he made to this area, will probably not be the last made by him or by future Secretaries of Defense and State. Washington is in the Caucasus to stay, but it is not clear whether it can do better than all those who have tried in the past to master the region and who would gladly try to supplant it today.

 

AUTHOR’S BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013. The views expressed here do not represent those of the US Army, Defense Department, or the US Government.

Edited September 12, 2004 by ArmenSarg

[Armen]

Armat, what do you think about the article above? Check out who the author is.

 

Edit: second sentence

Edited September 12, 2004 by ArmenSarg

[skhara]

AMERICA’S DEEPENING INVOLVEMENT IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS CONFLICTS

 

This worries me. Anyone else?