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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Parvin DARABADI
D.Sc. (Hist.), Professor at the Department of International Relations, Baku State University
(Baku, Azerbaijan).
SEA POWER IN CAUCASIAN GEOPOLITICS: PAST AND PRESENT
Abstract
The author relies on theoretical con structs of the classics of geopolitics to trace how sea power has affected Caucasian geopolitics in the last three centuries. He identifies the main stages in the struggle of the Great Powers for control over the Black Sea-Caucasian-Caspian geopolitical expanse in the 18th-19th centuries and during World Wars I and II. He concludes that the presence of real sea power strong enough to control the Black Sea and the
Caspian Caucasian coast, especially in times of crises, was one of the main factors in the geopolitical struggle over the Caucasus. The author pays particular attention to the naval games now underway in the Caspian and the Black Sea and points out that only sustainable west (Black Sea)-east (the Caspian) naval envelopment will permit the main geopolitical players in rivalry on the world arena today to gain complete geostrategic control over the Caucasus.
Introduction
The Sea Power conception American Admiral Alfred Mahan formulated at the turn of the 20th century as one of the fundamental laws of classical geopolitics includes three key components: the navy (N) + merchant marine (MM) + naval bases (NB); he theoretically substantiated the decisive role of sea power in the fates of countries and peoples, as well as entire regions and continents.1
Its military-strategic value was fully confirmed during World War I (1914-1918) and especially World War II (1939-1945), which shook the world in the first half of the 20th century. During the Cold War, which went on unabated for 40 years (1947-1991), the West finally defeated the Soviet Union with the help of the anaconda strategy. However, the sea power concept is still viable in the 21st century: military-technical progress has turned the navy into a decisive factor of geopolitical rivalry over redivision of the world.
Halford Mackinder, one of the classics of geopolitics of the first half of the 20th century, wrote in his The Geographical Pivot of History published in 1904 that the region which he called the Land of Five Seas (squeezed between the Caspian, Black, Mediterranean, and Red seas and the Persian Gulf) was of geopolitical functional importance. In the early 20th century, the British geographer predicted that "the Caucasus and Caspian should be considered as elements of a broader policy."2
1 See: Yu.V. Tikhonravov, Geopolitika, Biznes-shkola Intel-Sintez Co. Ltd, Moscow, 1998, p. 100.
2 Quoted from: F. Vielmini, "The Influence of Mackinder's Theory on Current U.S. Deployment in Eurasia: Problems and Perspectives," Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4 (34), 2005, p. 60.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Throughout the last three centuries, the historical destinies of the Caucasus were and remain intimately connected with the geopolitical processes unfolding in three adjacent seas—the Black, Azov, and Caspian. It is not surprising that Karl Haushofer, classic of German geopolitics, included the Caucasus in the world map of "fighting zones along continents' borders" together with the "historical zones of struggle" (the Bosporus, Gibraltar, and Suez zone, as well as other conflict-prone zones of the first half of the 20th century) in which sea power was one of the key military-strategic factors.3
Confrontation among the Sea Powers of the Great Powers in the Black Sea-Caucasian-Caspian Expanse in the 18th-20th Centuries
The Black Sea-Caucasian-Caspian expanse acquired special geopolitical importance as one of the key targets of international rivalry in the 18th century. This was when the region transformed from an arena of uncompromising geopolitical contest in the Middle East to become an orbit into which Russia, Britain, and France, along with the Ottoman Empire and Persia, became increasingly drawn. It was also a time when the sea power factor came to the fore in the geopolitical games Russia and Britain were playing in the Caucasus as absolutely indispensable for control over this part of the world.
On the whole, the fact that Peter the Great created a military-naval toehold in the Caspian—the results of his Persian campaign of 1722-1723 when the Russian army captured Derbent, Baku, and the Caspian Iranian coast—meant that the Russian emperor nurtured ambitious plans of marching on India. Together with many other rulers, he obviously fell victim to the so-called Indian syndrome. At the same time, the Russian Empire did not let other traditional geopolitical goals out of its sight: hoisting the Orthodox banner over Constantinople and gaining access to the "warm seas."
It was under Peter the Great that the Russian state revised its foreign policy priorities: it moved away from its domestic worries to formulate new typically imperial geopolitical tasks in the north— in the Baltic and in the south—in the Black and Azov seas, the Caucasus, and the Caspian.
The foundations of Russia's imperial policies of the 18th-19th centuries were laid down under Peter the Great; this was the time that it formulated its geopolitical goals in the new, southerly direction4 unattainable without complete control over the Caucasus and the Black, Azov, and Caspian sea basins.
After squeezing Britain, its main rival, out of the Caspian basin in the first decades of the 18th century, Russia consolidated its position in the region. Throughout the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire, another actor involved in the geopolitical games around the Caspian, was too busy fighting Russia in the Black Sea basin and the Balkans to realize its ambitions in the Caucasus.
In the 18th century, the Black Sea basin became a source of very serious conflicts in European politics. Struggle over the Black Sea was one of the central elements of the rivalry between the Ottoman and Russian empires in the 18th century. In the 19th century, France and Britain joined the fracas. Russia defeated Turkey in several wars: it relied on its powerful Black Sea Navy built up by Catherine the Great to celebrate several strategically important victories. Under the Treaty of Ku-chuk-Kainaiji of 1774, which ended the war of 1768-1774, Russia gained an outlet to the Black Sea.
3 See: K. Haushofer, "Granitsy v ikh geograficheskom i politicheskom znachenii" (Grenzen in ihrer geographischen und politischen Bedeutung)," in: O geopolitike, Mysl Publishers, Moscow, 2001, p. 127.
4 See: E.V. Anisimov, "Petr I: rozhdenie imperii," Voprosy istorii, No. 7, 1989, p. 20.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Control over the Crimea and the newly-founded navy base in Sevastopol were two gains of immense military-strategic importance. In 1783, Russia laid the foundation of its Black Sea Navy, which proved its value in the Russo-Turkish wars of 1787-1791 and 1806-1812.
Meanwhile, the early 19th century marked another stage in the struggle between Russia and Britain for military and strategic control over the Central Caucasus and the Caspian and Black Sea basins. During the Russo-Persian wars of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828, the Russian Caspian military flotilla, the only real sea power in the Caspian, played an important role (along with the land forces) in establishing Russian control over the western and southern Caspian coasts.
After advancing to the western and southwestern Caspian coasts, Russia acquired a considerable military-strategic advantage and a toehold from which it could move further southward; these gains sealed the Caspian off to keep Britain away from the Central Caucasus and Central Asia. It is not surprising that, when readying for the war against Persia, Alexander I paid special attention to the western Caspian area and Baku as the best Caspian port. The imperial rescript of 12 September, 1801 addressed to Lieutenant-General Knorring, who commanded the troops in the Caucasus, pointed out that this port and the entire western stretch of the Caspian coast should be occupied in order to facilitate deliveries to the Russian troops in the Central Caucasus "from Astrakhan by sea rather than by the very difficult route across the Caucasian mountains."5
Russia's military achievements in the Central Caucasus and Caspian were registered by the Gulistan (1813) and Turkmanchay (1828) treaties, which granted Russia the exclusive right to station its military fleet in the Caspian. The consequence of this cannot be overestimated.6
In this way, Russia secured one of its most ambitious aims: unrivalled domination in the Caucasus and on the western coast of the world's largest inland sea.
After the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-1829, Russia advanced to the eastern Black Sea coast. Under the Peace Treaty of Adrianople of 1829, Russia acquired the Caucasian Black Sea coast (up to the areas north of Batum).
Russia lost the Crimean War of 1853-1856 under the pressure of the numerically and, most important, technically superior British-French-Turkish Navy, which used steamships; Sevastopol, its main Black Sea naval base, collapsed.7
Later, in 1877-1878 during another successful war on Turkey, Russia captured Batum and finally established its domination in the eastern part of the Black Sea.
In the 20th century, the Caucasus became one of the major geostrategic centers that played an important role in both world wars and in the military-political developments in the Middle East.
Early in the 20th century, Russia and the Ottoman Empire were equally aware of the military-strategic importance of the Black Sea. It was the defeats of their Black Sea navies during World War I that accelerated their disintegration.
In 1918-1920, when Soviet Russia and the Entente opposed one another in the Caucasian theater, the naval war in the Black and Caspian seas played an important role; in 1918 the Black Sea Navy was sunk, which allowed the Allies to establish their control over the Caucasian Black Sea coast and occupy Batum.
In fact, control over the Central Caucasus and the oil reserves of Baku and the Caspian were one of Britain's traditional priorities in the Middle East and perfectly fitted its main geopolitical conception related to Eurasia. In 1919, Halford Mackinder, who represented the British command in the South of Russia, insisted that his country should "secure a position in the Caspian Sea."8
On the whole, Lord Curzon's well-known geopolitical plan envisaged a chain of buffer states stretching from India's northern borders to the Mediterranean to protect the "jewel of the British
5 P.G. Butkov, Materialy dlia novoy istorii Kavkaza s 1722 po 1803 gg., Part II, St. Petersburg, 1869, p. 504.
6 See: Pod stiagom Rossii: Sbornik arkhivnykh dokumentov, Russkaya kniga, Moscow, 1992, p. 318.
7 See: "Rossia-Turtsia. Russko-Turetskie voyny XVII-XIXvv.," available at [allturkey.narod.ru/turkharb.htm].
8 Quoted from: F. Vielmini, op. cit.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
crown" and facilitate communication between the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.9 This would have made the Caspian, which occupied a special place in the Russian Empire's military-strategic plans, the central link in the chain.10 It stands to reason that generals Dunsterville and Malleson, who headed military expeditions, were ordered to occupy Anzali, Baku, and Krasnovodsk (now Turkmen-bashi) and capture the Caspian Navy.11
This would have given the Brits a chance to establish their complete domination over the Caspian with ensuing military-strategic advantages.
Meanwhile, during 1918 and 1919, the Soviet government and the Navy commanders were feverishly building up Russia's naval capabilities in the Caspian,12 which allowed the Soviet Navy to carry out several successful operations and landings in the Caspian. On 28 April, 1920, the vanguard units of the 11th Red Army occupied Baku, known as the "eastern naval gates of the Central Caucasus;" several days later, on 1 May, ships of the Volga-Caspian Flotilla entered Baku Bay; on 18 May, Soviet troops captured Anzali after a successful landing operation. The British were pushed back into Iran, while the Caspian once more became a "Russian lake."
Early in July 1920, the British had to pull out of Batum, the western military naval gates of the Central Caucasus; in November 1920, Armenia became Soviet; in February 1921, Soviet power was established in Georgia.
Soviet Russia, which relied on its armed forces—the Red Army and the Navy, established control over the Central Caucasus and its main Black Sea and Caspian ports.
During World War II, directives of the German OKW (particularly Directive No. 45 of 23 July, 1942, which was a continuation of Operation Braunschweig) entrusted Army Group A with the task of capturing Stalingrad and later Astrakhan, one of the largest Caspian ports, as well as of capturing the Caucasus, the Grozny and Baku oil areas in particular, in Operation Edelweiss. As soon as the main mobile forces of Army Group A had moved far enough into the Caucasus, the 11th Army of Erich Manstein, after capturing Sevastopol, was expected to navigate, with the direct support of the German naval forces, the Kerch Strait to occupy the eastern (Caucasian) coast.
The German naval forces had to fight the Soviet Black Sea Fleet on the Caucasian coast, as well as take measures to use in the Caspian "light ships of the naval forces to fight at the enemy's marine communications (oil transports and communication with the Anglo-Saxons in Iran)."13 The Germans had to rely on naval forces because the Luftwaffe was unable to fully cope with the task owing to the fairly effective Soviet air defenses and the operations of the Caspian Flotilla.
On the whole, after severing the Astrakhan-Baku Caspian communication line, the Germans
tried,
■ first, to weaken the defenses of the Caspian ports,
■ second, to interfere with large-scale transportation of oil and oil products from Baku to Astrakhan and Krasnovodsk and,
■ third, to cut down deliveries from the Persian Gulf across Iran and the Caspian of large batches of weapons and foodstuffs under the lend-lease agreement.
Meanwhile, from the very beginning, the Caspian Flotilla successfully coped with its task of,
■ first, preventing enemy landings and penetration of enemy naval forces into the Caspian;
9 See: Ya.L. Mikhaylov, "K voprosu o podgotovke angliyskoy interventsii v Azerbaidzhane v 1919 godu," Izvestia AN Azerb. SSR. Seria istorii, filosofii i prava, No. 2, 1979, p. 32.
10 See: The Times, 29 September, 1918; S.V. Lavrov, "Politika Anglii na Kavkaze i Sredney Azii v 1917-1921 godakh," Voprosy istorii, No. 5, 1979, p. 83.
11 See: L.I. Miroshnikov, Angliyskaia ekspansiia v Irane. 1914-1920 gody, Moscow, 1961, pp. 114-115.
12 See: Voennye moriaki v borbe za vlast Sovetov v Baku i Prikaspii, Elm Publishers, Baku, 1971, p. 355.
13 V.I. Dashichev, Bankrotstvo strategii germanskogo fashizma. Istoricheskie ocherki. Dokumenty i materialy, Vol. 2, Moscow 1973, p. 327.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
■ second, protecting marine communications and transportation of oil and oil products in particular and lend-lease deliveries;
■ and, third, guarding the coast and the main Caspian ports, particularly Baku.14
In August 1941, the Flotilla played an important role in moving Soviet landing forces to the Iranian Caspian coast; this was the first large-scale landing operation of the Red Army and the Navy during the war.15
On the whole, fighting in the Caspian was very specific: in the absence of an enemy fleet, the Flotilla had to rebuff the Luftwaffe, which tried (and never completely succeeded) to disrupt communications using bombs and bottom mines.
Events were much more dramatic in the Black Sea, its important features being as follows: limited size, which made it easier to deploy naval operational forces and organize their interaction; the central location of the Crimean Peninsula, which made it possible to use its military bases and airfields; deep waters (with the exception of the sea's shallower northwestern part); poorly indented coastline; small distances between the ports of the western coast; and fairly favorable meteorological and navigational-hydrographic conditions, which permitted all-year-round operations of all naval forces.
The German command expected to destroy or at least incapacitate the main forces of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet from the air and block off the rest in the bases in order to capture them from land.
In the event of war, the Black Sea Fleet, in turn, would have to launch active mine-laying and submarine operations to keep the enemy out of the Black Sea and prevent landings of German troops and movement of enemy troops and military cargoes to the ports of Rumania and Bulgaria (Germany's allies) and neutral Turkey. It would also have to cooperate with the offensive operations of the maritime flank of land forces and guard the Soviet marine communications.16 The Soviet Azov Flotilla was to operate in close communication with the land forces of the Red Army, maintain marine communications, and prevent enemy landings.
By the beginning of the war there was a ramified system of naval bases (Sevastopol as the main base and the bases in Odessa, Nikolaev, Novorossiysk, Batumi, and Poti) with one bad flaw, which aggravated the situation as soon as the war began: there were no strongpoints along the poorly indented Caucasian coast. The failures of the first months taught the Soviet command to use the already functioning and set up new naval strongpoints in the Caucasus.17 In 1941-1942, the hardest period of war, the Black Sea Navy was actively involved, together with land forces, in defending Odessa and especially Sevastopol. Germany started the war without a Black Sea fleet of its own in the expectation of using the Rumanian fleet deployed in Constanta and Sulina, which was by far inferior to the Soviet Navy.
In 1941, the Azov Flotilla, in turn, joined forces with the land troops and the Black Sea naval forces to thwart the OKW plans to force the Kerch Strait, as well the Germans' initial plans to use the troops that had already moved into the Crimea to launch offensive operations on Tuapse and Novorossiysk. Enemy naval communication and transportation of military cargoes to the troops that had reached the Azov coast were effectively disrupted: transportation means left moored in the Azov ports were destroyed, mines were laid on a large scale, and port and military equipment was damaged to prevent its use by the enemy. To relieve the German pressure on the Caucasus, the ships of the Azov Flotilla were removed to the Black Sea.18
14 See: N. Kadurin, "Zashchita Kaspiyskoy flotiliey morskikh perevozok," Voenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, No. 4, 1978, pp. 43-44.
15 See: N.A. Aliev, Voenno-morskaia istoria Azerbaidzhana, Elm Publishers, Baku, 2002, p. 194.
16 See: "Chernomorsky flot SSSR v Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyne," available at [otvoyna.ru/chfsssr.htm].
17 See: Ibidem.
18 See: S.G. Gorshkov, Na iuzhnom primorskom flange, Voenizdat, Moscow, 1989, available at [http:// militera.lib.ru/h/gorshkov_sg/index.html].
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
In 1941-1942, the Soviet navy and army held Novorossiysk and Poti, two large naval bases of immense strategic importance on the Black Sea coast. This kept Turkey away from the war in the Caucasus: it had planned to join the Germans as soon as the Soviet Union was defeated at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus.
During the next couple of years, in 1942 and 1943, the German command strengthened its Black Sea naval group and started using the occupied airfields in the Crimea and the Northern Caucasus; the Soviet Black Sea Navy was weakened by considerable losses in the previous period of fierce fighting; both sides cut back their air forces involved in naval operations.19
In 1942-1943, the Black Sea Navy and the Azov Flotilla were involved in the battle of the Caucasus. Submarines from Batumi and Poti covered distances of 600 miles to disrupt enemy communications, while surface ships, aviation, and Marine Corps were fighting for Novorossiysk and at Tuapse. Several successful landings, at Novorossiysk in particular, helped the Soviet Army defend the Northern Caucasus and, later, drive the enemy away from the Caucasian Black Sea coast. By 1944, the Soviet Navy had restored its control over the Black Sea.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and Turkey (which controlled the Black Sea Straits and protected NATO's southern flank) built up their naval capabilities in the Black Sea.
Naval Games in the Caspian and the Black Sea Today
In 1991, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the new independent states in the post-Soviet expanse radically changed the military-strategic situation in the Black Sea and Caspian basins. Today, there are many more world and regional rivals operating in the area; there is also any number of hitherto unknown problems created by the rapidly changing geopolitical situation in the Greater Middle East.
Demilitarization of the Caspian region and delimitation of the water area are two extremely important problems directly related to the region's present and future. The fairly sharp disagreements among several of the Caspian states on the delimitation issue are whipping up an arms race; all the Caspian states are busy setting up new naval infrastructures,20 which is destabilizing the situation with very unpredictable repercussions.
Russia's direct military presence in the Caspian was reflected in the Fundamentals of Policy of the Russian Federation in the Military Naval Sphere until the Year 2010, which the RF president enacted by his decree of 4 March, 2000. It stresses that the country needs a qualitatively new navy as an important military-political component indispensable for "the freedom of action of the RF in the Black and Caspian seas."21
From the very beginning of his first presidential term Vladimir Putin worked toward augmenting Russia's geopolitical role in the Caspian, which Russian experts dubbed Putin's "strategic Caspian initiative."22 Russia's role and place in the region, the principles on which it is prepared to cooperate with its Caspian neighbors, and the main landmarks have been clarified.
19 See: "Chernomorsky flot SSSR v Velikoy Otechestvennoy voyne."
20 See: R.F. Mamedov, Mezhdunarodno-pravovoy status Kaspiyskogo moria: vchera, segodnia, zavtra, Azerneshr, Baku, 2006, p. 367.
21 Morskoy sbornik, No. 4, 2006, p. 8.
22 A. Magomedov, "The Struggle for Caspian Oil and Caspian Transit: Geopolitical Regional Dimensions," Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (31), 2005, p. 89.
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The failure of the Ashghabad Summit of the Heads of the Caspian States in April 2002 gave Russia an opportunity to demonstrate its naval capabilities. The next day, President Putin ordered for large-scale naval military exercises to be conducted in August 2002 to demonstrate to the Caspian states that Russia is still the strongest naval power in the region even if it is relatively weak economically; its military might can be described as considerable even in the international context.
It should be said that the naval exercises in the Caspian had no precedence either in Soviet or in recent Russian history. Units of the North Caucasian Military District, the 4th Army of the Air Force, and warships of the Caspian Flotilla (60 ships of various classes, 30 aircraft and helicopters, and about 10 thousand servicemen) cooperated with units of the Navy and Air Force of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan; Iran and Turkmenistan, two other littoral states, declined Russia's invitation.
The August 2002 large-scale military exercises demonstrated that Russia is still the dominant military-political force in the Caspian. Recently Russia has further strengthened its Caspian Flotilla.
Tehran regarded the 2002 naval exercises as a warning to the U.S. and NATO, which obviously want to gain a toehold in the region, rather than to Iran. The Iranian military started talking about "pooling efforts to keep third countries out of the region."23
Late in September 2004, Iran reciprocated with "maneuvers by the Iranian Navy's Fourth District forces at the Bandar-e-Anzali port in Caspian waters near the coast of the Gilan Province (northeast of the country)."24 On the whole, in recent years, "the IRI has deployed a full-fledged squadron in its sector of the Caspian, the core of which is made up of missile carrying, antisubmarine, and amphibious assault ships, as well as minesweepers, PT boats, and naval aviation."25
The Foreign Ministry of Turkmenistan issued a special statement to point out that, as a neutral state, the country "does not take part and will not take part in any military exercises in the Caspian either as a participant or observer."26 Meanwhile, in 2002-2003 Turkmenistan started building up its naval forces in the Caspian.27
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, likewise, began pouring considerable efforts into their naval forces.
Early in the 21st century, the events of 9/11 in particular urged the United States and NATO to spread their military and political control to geostrategically important regions under the plausible pretext of a "counterterrorist struggle." The Greater Middle East (North Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, that is, a vast geopolitical area stretching from Morocco to Pakistan) was the pivot of these efforts.28
In 2003, while America was drawing up a plan for military action against Iran, the Pentagon drafted a plan to set up a Caspian Guard and a system of military bases in the Caspian basin to ensure security.29 The program envisaged integrated control in the air, at sea, and along the ground borders of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The plan also included special units and the police to promptly respond to terrorist attacks on oil pipelines and to other extreme situations in the Caspian countries30; "it was intended to invest $135 million in the next six years in the Caspian Guard (two brigades set up to guard the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline)."31 The Caspian Guard was planned as
23 Izvestia, 12 August, 2002.
24 R. Mamedov, "Military-Political Activity in the Caspian in the Post-Soviet Period (Legal Aspects)," Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4 (46), 2007, p. 83.
25 Ibidem.
26 Kommersant, 12 August, 2002.
27 See: R. Orudzhev, "Turkmenbashi razvorachivaet gonku vooruzheniy. Nagnetanie situatsii v regione budet pro-dolzhatsia," Ekho (Baku), 30 November, 2004.
28 See: Ekho, 28 February, 2004.
29 Ekho, 14 April, 2005.
30 See: Ibidem.
31 A. Magomedov, "The Conflict in South Ossetia and the Frontiers of Struggle for the Greater Caspian's Energy Resources," Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 2 (56), 2009, p. 39.
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"an international military grouping comprising 120,000 servicemen from Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey."32
At congress hearings, General James Jones, Commander, United States European Command (COMUSEUCOM), testified to the fact that Washington had made immense progress in 2004 toward developing and implementing the Caspian Guard project.33 Since 2005, the United States has never abandoned its efforts to implement the Caspian Guard project in Azerbaijan.
Convinced that Washington's intention to establish its military presence in the Caspian region threatened their defense interests, Moscow and Tehran were very negative about it.
In 2003, however, Russia initiated a five-side Caspian naval cooperation task group (CASFORE) patterned on BLACKSEAFOR in the Black Sea comprising of fleets of the Caspian countries. The project was never implemented because some of the littoral states found it hard to trust their neighbors.
The Caspian states' concern that their territories might be used by third countries in the event of large-scale conflicts was registered in the Final Document of the Second Summit of the Caspian States signed in Tehran on 16 October, 2007. The document summed up Vladimir Putin's comment saying that "under no circumstances should the littoral states allow the use of their territories by other countries to launch aggression or other military action against any of the member states."34
The viewpoints of the littoral states, however, are not identical. Russia is convinced that demilitarization of the Caspian can hardly be justified in the present conditions, however it is against excessive military potential of any of the Caspian states.
It has become obvious that further militarization and the region's vague legal status can potentially lead to military-political conflicts among the littoral states; this makes regional security mechanisms imperative. The question is whether all the Caspian states want demilitarization? And can the five littoral states achieve an agreement on delimitation of the Caspian water area? In the final analysis, demilitarization will deprive the states of their naval forces, which will leave the coastal areas undefended.
In the Black Sea area, the Soviet Union, a superpower of the Cold War period, insisted that the sea should be closed to warships of all countries except those of the littoral states. At that time, the Black Sea coast belonged to the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Treaty Organization allies (Rumania and Bulgaria), Turkey, a NATO member integrated into the Western world, being the only exception. This made the Black Sea, geographically a semi-closed sea, a sealed-off sea.
The geopolitical and geostrategic balance in the region collapsed together with the Soviet Union. Bulgaria and Rumania, members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and former socialist countries, joined the European Union and NATO. Ukraine and Georgia, which look toward the West, became littoral states. Russia, on the other hand, divided the Black Sea Fleet with Ukraine and lost Sevastopol, its Black Sea naval base. Its geopolitical domination in the Black Sea came to an end; its naval might was considerably weakened.
Today, the geopolitical situation in the Black Sea area is obviously conflict-prone with no obvious way out of the trap. In the post-Soviet decades, the Black Sea basin, a fairly peaceful Cold War geopolitical periphery, developed into a crossroads of vehement contradictions and geopolitical rivalry. It gradually became a seat of conflict and multisided competition among the littoral states, as well as among the European and world powers. In August 2008, the geopolitical tension reached its peak: the Russian-Georgian conflict brought the American and Russian fleets dangerously close.35
32 R. Mamedov, "Military-Political Activity...," p. 84.
33 See: M. Chernov, "Kaspiyskoe more stanet amerikanskim," RBC daily: ПОЛИТИКА, available at [http://www. rbcdaily.ru/policy/index.shtml. 2005/04/14/201377/], 30 April, 2005.
34 Quoted from: A. Lukoianov, "The Tehran Summit, or the Russian President's Visit to Iran," Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (49), 2008, p. 73.
35 See: A. Yazkova, "Mesto i rol Ukrainy v Chernomorskom regione," in: Materialy kruglogo stola Tsentra Ra-zumkova: "Chernomorskiy region: evoliutsia geopoliticheskogo izmereniia," 13 January, 2012, Natsionalnaya bezopas-nost i oborona, No. 4-5, 2011, pp. 122-123, available at [blackseanews.net/tag/].
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On the whole, for many years Washington preferred to follow the Cold War strategies to squeeze Russia out of the Black Sea geopolitical expanse. Today, the numerous domestic and international conflicts are doing nothing to defuse the geopolitical tension; this means that external forces, the U.S. and NATO in particular, might move in to pursue their geostrategic aims. The world economic crisis and the developments in the Arab Mediterranean countries (tied to the European Union by numerous historical and economic threads, the reason why it intends to extend much stronger support to them) have slowed down the talks on European integration of the post-Soviet littoral states.36
In the last twenty years, the Black Sea region has degenerated into an area of investment risks, obsolete infrastructure, domestic and interstate armed conflicts, inefficient regional organizations and regimes, drug trafficking, illegal migration, personal and state insecurity, inefficient power consumption, ecological threats, and low level of integration into globalization.37
Recently, the geostrategic value of the Black Sea region has been increased by the region's geographic proximity to the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
In the second decade of the 21st century, it has become absolutely clear that the region is an arena of geopolitical rivalry among three key international actors: the European Union (brought into the region by Bulgaria and Rumania) with economic interests; Russia with its traditional interests in the Black Sea-Caucasian-Caspian geopolitical expanse; and Turkey, which is building up its naval presence in the sea and its influence in the Central Caucasus. The Justice and Development Party, which came to power in Turkey in 2002, is seeking more independence on the international scene, which is confirmed by its obvious desire to increase its military-political presence in the Black Sea.
Recent modernization transformed the main Turkish naval base in Geljuk into an operational strategic hub in the Black Sea even though Ankara is carefully avoiding military-political and military-technical complications with Moscow, Brussels, and Washington. It seems that Turkey intends to rely on the 1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits and its constantly strengthening navy to increase its influence in the Black Sea littoral states in an effort to push Russia away from the sea's northern shores and the Central Caucasus using all the means—economic, political and diplomatic—at its disposal.38
The Russian Federation has acquired a special role in the Black Sea basin, where it obviously intends to compete with the European Union. This differs greatly from Russia's position in the Baltic, where Moscow has accepted Western approaches to the regional problems and acts as one of the EU partners.39 NATO and the United States as its main partner are not alien to efforts to play more important roles in the Black Sea, as was demonstrated, albeit unsuccessfully, in August 2008.
Today, the EU relies on different formats in the region: the Black Sea Synergy Initiative (2008), the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (since 2008), the Eastern Partnership (2009), the Black Sea Forum (2006), and the European Neighborhood Policy for Partnership and Dialog (2004).40
Today, there are different security formats and mechanisms functioning in the Black Sea, the most important of them being the Document on Confidence and Security Building Measures in the Naval Field in the Black Sea signed in 2002 by all the littoral states and the BLACKSEAFOR agree-
' See: A. Yazkova, op. cit.
36
37 See: Chernomorskiy region: geopoliticheskaia dilemma ili vysokoprioritetnoeprostranstvo? Round table analytical materials, Odessa, 25 May, 2011. The Round Table was held within the framework of the Kiev Security Forum and prepared by the Otkroy Ukrainu Foundation, Kiev, 2011, available at [blackseanews.net/tag/].
38 See: M. Irinin, "Mezhdu dvumia farvaterami. Turtsiia sozdaet flot budushchego dlia gospodstva v Chernom more," available at [blackseanews.net/tag/], 3 November, 2010; F. Ozbay, "Chernomorskiy faktor v Turetsko-rossiiskikh otnosheniiakh," available at [blackseanews.net/tag/], 29 January, 2011.
39 See: Chernomorskiy region: geopoliticheskaia dilemma ili vysokoprioritetnoe prostranstvo?
40 See: Ibidem.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
ment they signed in 2001. In August 2008, however, they failed to prevent or cut short the developments in the sea; they obviously cannot guarantee security in future. At that time, the Russian Black Sea Fleet (considerably weakened because it had been divided with Ukraine) was very active on the Georgian coast, which revealed the true state of affairs in this theater.
Today, the interests of the four main geopolitical players—the EU and its neighborhood policy, the U.S., which is seeking access to the Eurasian geopolitical expanse, the Russian Federation, which went over to the strategic defense, and Turkey with regional interests of its own—have crossed in the Black Sea. The events of recent decades have shown that their geopolitical interests are not identical, which means that in the event of another crisis the military-political situation in the Central Caucasus might spread across the entire region.
Conclusion
The events of the last three decades in the Black Sea area and the Caspian demonstrated that the presence of real sea power strong enough to control the Black Sea and the Caspian Caucasian coast in times of crises was one of the main factors in the geopolitical struggle for the Caucasus, while geos-trategic control over the Caucasus depends on sustainable west (Black Sea)-east (the Caspian) naval envelopment.
On the whole, the Black Sea-Caucasus-Caspian geopolitical expanse interpreted within classical geopolitics as "'Land' (the Russian Empire-Soviet Union-Russia) should become part of the sphere of continental influence. 'Sea' (the U.S., NATO) should serve as a toehold for further expansion inland with the aim of establishing its geostrategic and geo-economic domination over Eurasia."41
This explains why the region has been and remains an arena of latent and even open geopolitical confrontation and fierce rivalry among the Western powers (the U.S., UK, and Germany), on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, which makes the people living on these shores hostages of the potential developments. There is an obvious correlation between the outburst of ethnopolitical and ethnote-rritorial conflicts in the Caucasus and another round of bitter geopolitical rivalry of the Great Powers in the region. This has been confirmed by all sorts of conflicts in the Caucasus in the early 20th and early 21st centuries.
So far, the latent crises in the Caspian and the Black Sea have not acquired a military-political dimension; however the dramatic developments in the Greater Middle East will inevitably affect the Caucasus. The stiff geopolitical rivalry between the emerging geostrategic centers (with active involvement of sea power) might turn the vast Black Sea-Caucasian-Caspian area into one of the main fronts of the theater of war in the Atlantic-Eurasian geopolitical confrontation of the 21st century against the background of the rapidly deteriorating military-political situation in the Greater Middle East.
41 I. Dobaev, A. Dugin, "Geopolitical Transformations in the Caucasian-Caspian Region," Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 5 (35), 2005, p. 75.
