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2 US
breathes life into a new cold war By M K Bhadrakumar
There might have
been a difference of opinion between the classical
Greek dramatist Aeschylus and British romantic
poet Percy Bysshe Shelley regarding the
circumstances of the release of the Titan god
Prometheus from captivity: whether it followed
reconciliation with Jupiter, as the classicist
thought, or a rebellion, as the romantic insisted.
In either case, Prometheus was "unbound".
The exact circumstances of the endgame in
Iraq and Afghanistan will remain a moot point, but
the outcome is certain to be that the United
States, which like Prometheus was chained to a
mountain where he was daily punished by Jupiter's
eagle and underwent immense suffering, is being
"released" to normal life.
For Prometheus,
it came as an existential moment and when
Hercules came to unbind him,
he was so relieved at the freedom "long
desired/And long delayed" that he pledged to his
love that they "will sit and talk of time and
change/As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves
unchanged".
The United States, too, is
re-emerging "unchanged". There is a flurry of
activity as if making up for lost time -
"unilateralist" military intervention in Libya;
deployment of a F-16 squadron in Poland;
establishment of military bases in Romania;
resuscitation of the George W Bush era plans for
deployment of a US missile defense system in
Central Europe; revival of the entente
cordiale among "new Europeans"; threatened
"humanitarian intervention" in Syria; renewed talk
of military action against Iran; a push for a
long-term military presence in Iraq and
Afghanistan; revving up of the expansion of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into
Central Asia; violation of the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of Pakistan; the threat of
"regime change" in Sri Lanka; and last weekend the
announcement of the deployment of light combat
ships in Singapore.
All this has happened
within a 100-day period. It was almost inevitable
that the Caspian great game would be revived, too.
After the unexplained hibernation in the period
since the exit of the Bush presidency in the
beginning of 2009, Richard Morningstar, the US's
special envoy for Eurasian energy, has returned to
the arena.
If his testimony at the hearing
conducted by the US House Committee on Foreign
Affairs last week had one single message, it was
that the US's Eurasian energy strategy remained
"unchanged" in its core agenda, namely, to
challenge Russia's potential to use its vast
reserves as an energy exporter to re-emerge as a
big power on the world stage.
Cold War
rhetoric surfaces The geopolitical agenda
of the US's Eurasian energy strategy was spelt out
with characteristic bluntness at the same
congressional hearing by noted Russia expert Ariel
Cohen. There may be nothing strikingly new,
arguably, in Cohen's thesis about Russia's
"expansionist agenda" reflected in its energy
policies, but nonetheless it merits reiteration by
way of providing the backdrop to Morningstar's
testimony. He was constrained by the norms of
diplomatic practice to hold back on direct
criticism of Russia, with which the Barack Obama
administration is engaged in a "reset" at the
moment:
The Kremlin views energy as a tool to pursue
an assertive foreign policy.
Europe's level of dependence on Russia for
energy is unacceptably high.
Russia's attempts to exclude the US from
Central Asian and Caspian energy markets.
Russia is using energy to "re-engage" India,
Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin
America.
Russia forces neighboring countries to direct
their energy exports via its pipeline system.
The absence of a "rule of law" blocks Western
companies' entry into Russia's energy sector.
Russia remains disinterested in developing
energy ties with the US.
Cohen candidly
spelt out the geopolitics. One, European demand
for energy is projected to grow further and it
could lead to greater dependence on energy from
Russia, which has serious implications for
Moscow's ties with Europe.
The point is,
the US apprehends that Moscow will exploit the
growing energy ties to stabilize its relationship
with the countries of Western Europe, and that
could weaken the spirit of Euro-Atlanticism and
incrementally loosen the US's trans-Atlantic
leadership.
Two, Germany has taken a
strategic decision to abandon nuclear energy and
to instead increase its energy imports from
Russia. From the US viewpoint, steadily growing
Russo-German ties have not only a historical
resonance of great significance for European
security but they could eventually weaken European
unity and the underpinnings of NATO itself, which
the US commands as its principal instrument for
the pursuit of its global strategies.
Three, Russia is aspiring to graduate from
the role of energy exporter to Europe to
participation in the continent's energy
distribution system and retail trade as well.
Europe may eventually "face tough choices between
the cost and stability of their energy supply, and
siding with the US on key issues".
Conversely, Cohen anticipates, "As oil
prices rise, it is safe to expect Russia's
cockiness to return." What is this "cockiness"
about? In geopolitical terms, it means a more
assertive Russia in global politics. Cohen
mentioned India more than once as a worrisome
prospect for the US.
Chalk circles in
South Asia In essence, countries like
India, where the US hopes to become entrenched as
a strategic partner, may choose to be autonomous
or "non-aligned" if Russia succeeds in developing
stronger energy ties with them. With regard to
India, in particular, the implications are
far-reaching since the US's Asia-Pacific strategy
and its containment policy toward China would
become seriously debilitated if New Delhi opted
out.
Interestingly, Cohen brings in Syria
in this context. He claimed that Russia was
"seeking to re-engage in a centuries-old balance
of power in the Middle East" and Syria - like
India in the Asia-Pacific - is pivotal, which is
the reason why Moscow is rebuilding naval bases in
Tartus and Ladakiye and is "supplying modern
weapons" to it - like it does with India.
Four, Russia is fostering the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) as an exclusive
preserve to keep out the US, especially in the
grouping's energy club. The SCO comprises China,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan.
The US is getting frantic that
the SCO is gearing up to admit India and Pakistan
as full members and Afghanistan as an observer. So
far, the US had banked on the reservations of
Russia and China over the SCO membership claims of
Pakistan and India respectively, but the rethink
in Moscow and Beijing on this score has set alarm
bells ringing in Washington.
Moscow is
outflanking the US by rapidly building up ties
with Pakistan. A crucial vector in this
accelerating relationship is energy cooperation.
Moscow has begun discussing with Pakistan the nuts
and bolts of its participation in the TAPI
(Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas
pipeline project.
The countries are
restoring their air links; they have held two
summit-level meetings within a year; and begun
closely coordinating their approach to the
stabilization of Afghanistan (which is integral to
the execution of TAPI). Incidentally, Russia's
special representative on Afghanistan Zamir
Kabulov (the Kremlin's ace hand on Afghanistan)
visited Islamabad last week for in-depth
consultations.
The thrust of the Russian
approach is to augment Pakistan's strategic
autonomy so that it can withstand Washington's
bullying. And Moscow estimates that Pakistan is
keen to reciprocate. As a prominent South Asian
scholar in Moscow, Andrey Volodin, wrote last
week, "[Pakistan President] Asif Zardari's visit
to Russia has shown that Pakistan is actively
diversifying its foreign economic ties and foreign
policy. This attitude is welcomed by Pakistan's
main all-weather ally, China, which is pursuing a
policy of 'soft reverse containment' of America in
Asia, including Pakistan."
No more a
Turkmen pipedream Thus, the
Russian-Chinese initiative to induct Pakistan and
India as full SCO members holds out the prospect
of dealing a devastating blow to the US's strategy
to get "embedded" in Asia. The underpinning of a
regional energy grid tapping into Turkmenistan's
energy reserves gives a profound character to the
matrix.
The fact is that the US all along
paid lip-service to the TAPI, but its real
interest has been in the so-called Southern
Corridor for transporting Turkmen energy to
Western Europe so that Russian dominance of the
European market would be whittled down.
Russia is killing two birds
with one stone. By diverting Turkmen gas to the
huge energy guzzlers of South Asia - India is
potentially one of the world's two or three
biggest consumers of energy in the coming decades
- Moscow is on the one hand undercutting the US's
Eurasian energy strategy to evacuate the gas to
Europe, while at the same time retaining its
pre-eminent footing on the European energy market
from being challenged by the Turkmen gas.
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