Excellent read: Catalysts of conflict in Central Asia
On the very outside, it can mean the breakup of Russia and China.
It was never about terrorism. Terrorism is only one aspect of the bigger picture. Bush is pushing for a world war and China and Russia will fight. They have no choice, they are under attack.
In the wind-swept, remote Turkmen town of Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea, on an obscure leafy street, an unpretentious shed stands with a plaque announcing the place where the commissar extraordinary for the Caucasus of the Bolshevik Party, Stepan Shaumyan, friend and long-time comrade of Vladimir Lenin, George Plekhanov and Julius Martov, was trapped by British interventionist troops the night before his execution in the nearby desert in the early hours of September 20, 1918, along with 25 other Bolsheviks. The 26 "Baku commissars" had a special place in the pantheon of heroes of the Russian revolution.
The objective of the British expedition, headed by Major General Wilfred Malleson of the Military Intelligence branch of the Indian Army, was to seize the great oil fields in Baku (Azerbaijan) ahead of Enver Pasha's advancing Turkish troops (Army of Islam) or the Kaiser's German troops - and to block a Bolshevik consolidation in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Of course, the "maximalist" agenda was a partition of Russia between Germany and Britain - similar to the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 between Britain and France dividing the Ottoman territories in the Middle East. Leopold Amery (who advised British prime minister Lloyd George) proposed that Japan (which was in control of Manchuria and part of eastern Siberia) and the United States should also be invited to associate themselves in the enterprise of occupying the vast lands from the Urals to Siberia.
Therefore, there was some degree of historical poignancy in the ceremony in Baku last week signifying the formal opening of the 1,700 kilometer, US$3.6 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC) running from the Caspian Sea via Georgia to Turkey's eastern Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. The BTC is the first-ever trunk route for Caspian oil bypassing Russian territory.
It is, predictably, an American enterprise. In the fullness of time, BTC will have a capacity to transport 1 million barrels of oil per day. Considering that the world's daily consumption of oil is soon expected to touch 90 million barrels per day, BTC's contribution to the oil market at its optimal best five or six years hence may appear negligible. BTC's immense geopolitical significance by far exceeds its impact on the oil market. With BTC, the geopolitics of the Caucasus and Central Asia are shifting to a new level.
Looking back, the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 had little to do with the real world of Georgian politics or the global democracy crusade of the George W Bush administration. Eduard Shevardnadze, who was overthrown in that revolution, was a democratic hero for the Americans. Georgia became the third-largest recipient of American aid after Israel and Egypt. But Shevardnadze, who kept up old links with Moscow dating back to his 30-year career in the KGB, the Soviet state security ministry, had to go as a new leadership was needed in Tbilisi that was exclusively, unreservedly oriented to the US. Tbilisi could be a caravanserai of the Silk Road leading from China as it leaps across to Europe - indeed, terribly important real estate.
BTC's passage through Georgia had met with popular resistance. It was projected that pipeline companies would employ 70,000 Georgians. But in the event, not more than 250 people will be hired in Georgia. (About 45% of Georgia's population is unemployed.) Whole communities were uprooted along the pipeline's route. Georgia will get $50 million as an annual transit fee (which is not a small amount for Tbilisi, with its budget under $1 billion), but unanswerable questions arise regarding damage to the environment, including renowned regions such as Borjomi, Kharagauli National Park (abode of the endangered Caucasian leopard and some 1,600 unique plant species) or the unstable Caucasian mountains perennially vulnerable to landslides. The pipeline makes 1,500 river crossings.
The saga leaps out of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The US has so far spent $64 million to train Georgians in "anti-terrorism" tactics for safeguarding the pipeline and has earmarked another $100 million for training and equipping a Caspian Guard that will protect American oil facilities and key assets. This despite the question marks about BTC's economic viability: Azeri oil wells are depleting and Kazakhstan is yet to commit its oil for BTC.
Why should the US go to this trouble? Clearly, oil and gas do not provide a complete answer. US experts estimate that proven recoverable oil resources in the Caspian Sea work out to anywhere between 10 billion to 32 billion barrels with possible reserves up to 233 billion barrels. All the oil and gas in the Caspian Sea put together might account for only 4% of world supplies.
So, what is the brouhaha about BTC? It is now becoming clear that the US is keenly seeking three military-cum-air bases in Azerbaijan (Kurdamir, Nasosnaya and Guyullah). That was the mission undertaken by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on his low-key visit to Baku on April 12. All eyes are on Baku. Moscow and Tehran are watching: would Baku enter into a Faustian deal with Washington? Of course, the phenomenon of "Velvet Revolution" is a real-time asset to US regional diplomacy. But what complicates the equation is that there is a three-way split in the Azeri polity - the Aliyev regime, a secular opposition and a steadily expanding Islamist opposition. A "Velvet Revolution" in Baku may prove to be indecisive, or worse still, it may boomerang, like in Kyrgyzstan.
Tehran apprehends that any US bases in Azerbaijan would imply an American arc of encirclement of Iran. Iran negotiated a defense agreement with Azerbaijan in April so that neither side would allow its territory to be used against the other. Tehran has proposed a convention for building confidence among Caspian littoral states as a step toward collective security of the region and preventing a foreign military presence altogether. Russia and Kazakhstan favor the idea. Iran has since shown interest in forming a "rapid reaction force" with Russia in the Caspian. But as long as differences persist among littoral states regarding the legal status of the Caspian Sea, collective security remains a difficult idea, while potentials for conflict arise, which, in turn, become a pretext for American involvement.
Russian military analysts have warned that Washington aims at creating a US-Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey alliance in the region and hopes to rope in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as well - and that radars installed in any American bases in Azerbaijan or Georgia could cover Russia's industrial regions in the south of the Urals, which play a vital role in Russia's overall defenses. Russian President Vladimir Putin chose the eve of BTC's opening to convey that "I do not want troops of third countries to be deployed in Georgia after our withdrawal. This would threaten our security and the Georgian partners should understand it ... Nothing requires the immediate or rapid withdrawal of our troops. The Russian side believes that the pressure from the Georgian side is unsubstantiated."
The point is Caucasus is a region of "frozen conflicts" - Georgia-Ossetia; Ossetia-Ingush; Georgia-Abkhazia; Chechnya; the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict; ethnic conflicts involving migrant Armenian communities in Kuban and Stavropol territories; divided nationalities of Lezghinians, Ossetians and Avars; persecuted Meskhetian Turks; Armenia-Turkey, and so on. It takes no effort to stir up the pot. Moreover, Russia itself is a Caucasian state as 10 of its federal regions are located in North Caucasus. The territory of North Caucasus is actually bigger than Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia put together.
Suffice it to say that any US military bases along the peripheries of Russia's North Caucasus regions would hold profound implications for Russia's security. (Interestingly, the pro-Chechen lobby group in Washington, the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, includes such luminaries of neo-conservatism as Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Midge Decter, Frank Gafney, Bruce Jackson, Michael Ledeen and James Woolsey.)
Furthermore, the American move to secure bases in Azerbaijan coincides with the renewed efforts lately by Moscow, Tehran and Baku to collaborate on a North-South transportation corridor linking Russia and Iran via Azerbaijan that could provide Russia access to the Gulf, Middle East and South Asia. American policies throughout the 20th century worked hard to deny Russia such access. (The Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907 had much the same thrust - that imperial Russia would stay off Persia and "the frontiers of Afghanistan and Balochistan".)
It comes as no wonder, therefore, that the doyen of Russian orientalists (and former prime minister), Yevgeni Primakov said last week, "Russia seeks stronger ties with its Chinese neighbor ... Russia-China rapprochement is particularly essential in view of some negative phenomena and processes in international affairs. Such processes include the US's stated course toward 'exporting' democracy to countries it deems it is lacking. Washington's plans to support some Islamic movements are no less alarming. The US's contacts with 'Muslim brothers' seeking to change power by unconstitutional methods ... aggravate the situation in some countries close to the Russian and Chinese borders. Therefore, consultations between Russia and China and a common position in favor of stable regional and global situation are becoming more and more important."
The struggle in the Caucasus and Central Asia is quintessentially a resumption of the struggle 90 years ago in which the Baku commissars laid down their lives. With the consolidation of the Russian revolution by the early 1920s, with the deepening economic crisis in Europe in the 1920s and the phenomenal rise of fascism, priorities had changed and the struggle with Russia had petered off. The "foreign devils" packed their bags and left inner Asia. Then came the world war, the Soviet Union's emergence as a superpower, the revolution in China and the 50-year Cold War.
With the dismemberment of the Soviet state, and the weakening of Russia, the struggle in inner Asia is resuming. The BTC's opening is a defining moment. At a minimum, the struggle is over control of the Caucasus and Central Asia. On the very outside, it can mean the breakup of Russia and China. Primakov put it succinctly when he identified "China's rapid economic growth and Russia's economic consolidation ... [and] accent on the political means of ensuring China's territorial integrity" as Moscow's regional priorities.
The forthcoming foreign ministers meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Friday and Saturday and the summit meeting in Astana on July 5-6 will be momentous. Central Asian security has deteriorated since SCO leaders last met in Tashkent in June 2004.
Acting president of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev told the Russian daily Kommersant last week that a new military base would be opened in Osh in the Ferghana Valley either under the auspices of the Collective Security Treaty Organization or SCO in addition to the Russian base in Kant. Felix Kulov, Kyrgyz leader in the forefront of the Tulip Revolution, added: "There should be a Russian presence in the Osh area ... we want to work in concert and Russia should agree to it, because it is advantageous to Russia ... Russia is traditionally our best friend and one cannot change friends."
The SCO has a lot to ponder over.
M K Bhadrakumar is a former Indian career diplomat who has served in Islamabad, Kabul, Tashkent and Moscow.
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