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Catalysts of conflict in Central
Asia
By M K Bhadrakumar
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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Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
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