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3 Russia draws Europe into its
orbit By M K Bhadrakumar
On May 9, the Chinese People's Daily
admitted, "If we look at US-Russian relations
closely, it is clear that we are standing at the
edge of a new cold war." It was an assessment long
in coming.
Chinese commentaries in recent
months have tended to view the growing tension in
Russia's relations with the United States as the
inevitable manifestation of the "pulls and pushes"
of a complex, but in essence interlocking,
relationship of cooperation and competition, where
each side is optimally realizing its
interests.
But the
thinking has changed. The People's Daily
commented, "As the Russian economy grows stronger,
the US simply cannot sit back and relax. It must
continue to contain the nation to prevent it from
rising again. By deploying its national missile
defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic,
Washington is no doubt targeting Russia ... the
likelihood of a new arms race will increase
dramatically ... the possibility of another cold
war does exist."
Curiously, the commentary
appeared on the day that Russian President
Vladimir Putin set out on a crucial mission to
Central Asia, a vast region bordering China, which
increasingly resembles the Maginot Line of the new
cold war. Fresh trenches are being dug; new
fortifications erected overnight; vantage points
are occupied without ceremony. Russian media
quoted a Kyrgyz secret-service agent as saying
that the US has been quietly stockpiling low-grade
uranium-tipped weapons at its airbase in Manas for
use in any military operation against Iran.
Putin's visit to Kazakhstan and
Turkmenistan on May 9-12 resulted in a dramatic
agreement over a trilateral deal involving the
three countries: to build a pipeline along the
Caspian Sea coast for transporting Turkmen gas to
the European market via Kazakhstan and Russia.
The pipeline is expected to be operational
by 2009, and is estimated to carry 30 billion
cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually.
Simultaneously, the presidents of Russia,
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan also announced an
agreement involving Uzbekistan, revamping the
entire Soviet-era pipeline grid connecting Central
Asia to Western markets via Russia to enhance its
capacity to 90bcm annually in anticipation of
increased exports of gas by the Central Asian
countries.
Putin's visit was about energy
cooperation - Russia and Kazakhstan also agreed on
a joint uranium-enrichment venture and discussed
cooperation in nuclear power generation - but its
political and strategic implications are equally
far-reaching. Its outcome constitutes a great
strategic setback for the United States' obsessive
campaign in recent years to secure oil and gas
from the Caspian and Central Asian region that
would be independent of Russian control.
With 40-odd weeks remaining in his
presidency, Putin has categorically established
that Russia's intention is to stage a comeback in
Central Asia, which he underscored as a priority
seven years ago soon after taking over power in
the Kremlin. Arguably, what must have lent a sense
of urgency to Moscow's diplomacy was the arc of
encirclement that the US began putting around
Russia.
The reverberations of last week's
development are already being felt in European
capitals. The "old-new" Europe divide surfaced at
a European Union foreign ministers' meeting on
Monday in Brussels as leaders bitterly debated a
common policy toward Russia. Poland and Germany
aimed pointed barbs against each other.
US
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at a meeting
of the International Energy Agency in Paris on
Monday that the Russian-Turkmen-Kazakh gas
pipeline deal is "not good for Europe". But Bodman
sidestepped the harsh reality that US energy
diplomacy, too, must now painstakingly claw its
way back from Square 1. And not only that.
Tehran will have sensed by now - just as
it is about to sit down for negotiations with the
US over Iraq - that it has virtually become the
last frontier in the energy war. Europe's
remaining hope of diversifying its energy sources
(away from Russian supplies) will significantly
depend on its access to Iran's gas reserves.
Not by coincidence, the secretary general
of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO), Nikolai Bordyuzha, seized the moment in
Moscow on Monday to make a startling suggestion
that Iran could become a member of the CSTO. In
yet another sign of the new cold war, Bordyuzha
also announced the CSTO's intention to have a
common air-defense system and create a large
military contingent. (The CSTO's current members
are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Russia and Uzbekistan.)
If the
CSTO is so forthcoming toward Iran, can the
Eurasian Economic Community and the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) lag behind? More
important, with a consolidation of Russian
influence over the energy-producing countries of
the Central Asian region, is Moscow finally moving
toward the "SCO energy club"? The annual SCO
summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in a few weeks
should provide some interesting answers. (The
SCO's members are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran has
observer status.)
To be sure, Putin's
visit to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan last week
heralded a profound shift in the co-relation of
forces in the Caspian and Central Asia. This shift
is discernible from many angles.
First and
foremost, it is becoming clear that with the
transition of power in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, its
policy of "positive neutrality" under the late
president Saparmurat Niyazov is giving way to one
of rejoining the Central Asian fold. That means
Putin's 2002 proposal for a "gas exporters'
alliance" comprising Russia, Turkmenistan,
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan may be taking a giant
leap forward.
Thus Russia's transit
monopoly through the so-called Central Asia-Center
Pipeline, known officially as the Single Export
Channel, will remain firmly in place for the
foreseeable future. Thereby, Central Asian states'
gas reserves are, in effect, amalgamated with
Russia's into a single pool that will be marketed
under Russia's physical and commercial control.
Turkmenistan, which has a potential
capability of exporting 100bcm of gas annually,
was crucial to the realization of Moscow's idea of
the "gas exporters' alliance" - which was why the
"Great Game" over Turkmen energy policies in the
post-Niyazov era became so absorbing in recent
months.
Second, Turkmenistan was the key
to the success of the EU-US plan of developing a
gas pipeline from the Caspian to South Caucasus
and then to Turkey and Europe - a negotiating
process that dates to the Bill Clinton
administration's 1998 initiative for a East-West
Energy Transport Corridor. A key component of this
was to be an Aktau-Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil-export
route stretching from Kazakhstan all the way to
the eastern Mediterranean.
Moreover, the
EU and the US had counted on Kazakhstan (with an
anticipated export potential of 40bcm) to link up
with Turkmenistan in the trans-Caspian gas
pipeline to make it economically viable. But last
week's deal locks up the bulk of Turkmenistan's
gas production via Russia. In turn, Turkmenistan's
pledge to Russia to handle the bulk of its gas
exports puts paid to
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