CC BY
148
Parvin DARABADI
D.Sc. (Hist.), Professor at the Chair of International Relations, Baku State University (Baku, Azerbaijan).
THE CASPIAN REGION IN THE INTERNATIONAL GEOPOLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE EARLY 21ST CENTURY
Abstract
The author investigates the main international-geopolitical and geoeconom-ic issues of the first decade of the 21st century related to the Caspian region. He analyzes the positions of the major geopolitical players, that is, the world and regional powers involved in the region (Russia, the
United States, the European Union, Turkey, Iran, and China). He makes an attempt to look into the region’s geopolitical and geo-economic future and surmise the impact that regional developments might have on the geopolitical situation in the Greater Middle East.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
In the post-Soviet period, the Caspian region has gradually been gaining geopolitical and ge-oeconomic weight. It is no longer seen as closed and static, but as an element of dynamic global geopolitical interaction. At the same time, however, it can be described as a fragment or a center of tension in the system of the current worldwide geopolitical processes.
In the early 21st century, the number of countries with geopolitical and geoeconomic interests of their own in the Caspian increased substantially, which has inevitably affected the entire region. The combination of the region’s geographic location and the increasing value of its energy resources
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
has made the Caucasus and the Caspian even more important for world, and European, security.1 It comes as no surprise that in 1997 Xavier Solana, speaking in Baku, deemed it necessary to point out that Europe would never achieve security while the Caucasian countries remained outside its security system.2
France, Germany, China, Japan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and several other countries are already involved in the region’s political and economic sphere, where they have joined the traditional geopolitical players—Russia, the U.S., U.K., Turkey, and Iran. This has inevitably complicated the situation; their relations are determined, among other things, by their desire to control the fuel and energy resources and transportation means.
In the 1990s, the Caspian (located in geopolitical terms in the very center of the post-Soviet expanse) became part of the new Big Game played according to the classical geopolitical rules.
The Caucasian “Knot:” A Multi-Move Geopolitical Game
The Contract of the Century signed in Baku on 20 September, 1994 relating to the offshore oilfields of Azerbaijan started the ball rolling: the Caucasian and coastal states were gradually drawn into the geopolitical game the world and regional powers were playing on the Caspian chessboard, with Russia and the West being the two main players.
Armenia, Russia’s traditional outpost in the region, has been and remains an important strategic factor in the Caspian. Russia regards it as the main base from which it can check the pressure applied by NATO and Turkey, which wish to penetrate the region. Some Russian experts predict that Armenia “is doomed to an eternal alliance with Russia”3 and state that “the traditional Russian vector dominates Armenia’s geopolitical code.”4
Armenia, in turn, is doing a balancing trick in an effort to cooperate with Russia and integrate with the West.5 In recent years, Erevan, with Moscow’s consent and Washington’s active support, has been normalizing its relations with Turkey. On 11 October, 2009, the two countries signed Arme-nian-Turkish protocols in Zurich which testify, among other things, to Ankara’s desire to be more actively involved in the Caucasus.
Georgia, the only Caucasian country with a Black Sea coastline, is equally important for Russia and the West; moreover, it is crossed by trans-Caucasian transportation routes (railways and highways), as well as recently built oil and gas main pipelines.
In the fall of 2008, Georgia, the pro-Western orientation of which had become even more obvious after the Rose Revolution of 2003, discontinued its purely formal CIS membership.
In the post-Soviet period, Russia used the Abkhazians and Ossets to put pressure on Georgia to force it to drop its NATO-related plans; in fact, Moscow knew only too well that Georgia, which had associated its future with the West, was an important link in the chain along which Western influence was reaching Central Asia through Turkey and Azerbaijan.
It comes as no surprise that Russia had no qualms about applying most harsh measures against Georgia: introducing a visa regime and trade embargo, followed by the “accidental” bombing of bor-
1 See: F. Coene, NATO i Yuzhny Kavkaz, The Caucasian Institute of Peace, Democracy and Development, Tbilisi,
2003, p. 13.
2 Quoted from: F. Coene, op. cit., p. 16.
3 K.S. Hajiev, Geopolitika Kavkaza, Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia Publishers, Moscow, 2001, p. 314.
4 V.A. Dergachev, Geopolitika, IUNITI-DANA, Moscow, 2004, p. 354.
5 See: S. Tatikian, “Euro-Atlantic Integration Trends of the South Caucasian States,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4 (40), 2006, p. 109.
der areas, etc. In August 2008, when NATO membership for Georgia had become too real, Russia resorted to the use of force, which separated Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. In the fall of the same year, Georgia left the CIS.
Russia, in turn, first expanded the sphere of its influence on the Black Sea; second, it drew the line on NATO’s expansion to the East and the Caucasus; and third, these events revealed that the West’s position in the Caucasus was weak. The 2008 developments threw the contradictions inside the EU and between “old Europe” and the United States into bolder relief. The latter limited itself to all sorts of statements of concern and highly ineffective diplomatic moves. Finally, the other Soviet successor-states (outside NATO) received a clear and stern signal that their persistent desire to join NATO might cause a war and that they might lose parts of their territories.6
On the other hand, the 2008 August crisis allowed Turkey to step up its involvement in the Caucasus: it moved forward with the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform for five Caucasian states: Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. At the same time, Ankara resumed its efforts (cut short in 1993) to improve its relations with Erevan. Turkey obviously intends to capitalize on the Caucasian crisis to fortify its position and upgrade its status as a regional power center. Russia, in turn, tends to support the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform initiative if Iran is included in the project (which would limit America’s and the European Union’s influence in the region).7
The Geopolitical Processes in the Caspian: The Iranian Factor
Iran, a regional power of the continental type and an anti-American, anti-Atlantic, and geopolitically active country, is working toward having greater influence in the region, where its interests coincide, in many respects, with those of Russia. The West is unlikely to manage to keep Iran away from the Caspian projects: for geographical reasons, it is one of the key geopolitical links for the newly independent states of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Iran, and Armenia for that matter, is Russia’s main strategic partner, which checks NATO’s eastward expansion.
It is extremely important for Tehran to prevent the pro-Western forces able to block its access to the strategically and economically important region from exerting any greater influence. On the other hand, its greater influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia will strengthen Iran’s regional status and force the West to take it into account on the international arena. In its Caspian policy, Tehran is placing its stakes on Russia as a real force which stands opposed to the Western onslaught.8
While supporting, as a matter of principle, international cooperation in the Caspian region (up to and including its energy and biological resources), Iran is dead set against the non-regional countries’ military presence. At the same time, under certain circumstances, its own interests might destabilize the situation; this applies, first and foremost, to the legal status of the Caspian Sea controversy. At first, Iran’s position was very close to Russia’s: the sea and its resources should be treated as the coastal states’ common property without borders and sectors. Later, however, in an effort to profit from the Soviet Union’s disintegration, Tehran claimed a greater share of the Cas-
6 See: L. Tchantouridze, “It Does Not Take a Prophet: War and Peace in the Caucasus,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (55), 2009, pp. 11-12; K. Kakachia, “The Russo-Georgian Five-Day War: The Price To Be Paid and Its Unintended Consequences,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (55), 2009, pp. 14-15.
7 See: A. Skakov, “The August Crisis in the Caucasus and its Consequences,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (55), 2009, p. 33.
8 See: Arye Gut, “Geopoliticheskie realii Iuzhnogo Kavkaza,” available at [1.news.az], 16 March, 2009.
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pian: instead of the original 13 percent (accepted by most of the coastal states), it wanted 20 percent of the water area.
Meanwhile, in May 2003, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan divided among themselves 64 percent of the sea’s northern part (Kazakhstan received 27 percent; Russia, 19 percent, and Azerbaijan, 18 percent). Iran and Turkmenistan were invited to divide the remaining 36 percent between themselves.9
On the whole, the special position of Tehran and Ashgabad is keeping the Caspian status issue in an impasse. The interests of Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan clash in the sea’s southern, and oil-rich, part. Despite the two decades of fairly intensive talks among the three capitals, the issue’s conflict potential has not yet been exhausted.
The energy transportation routes are another sphere in which the interests of Iran and Russia clash to a certain extent. Iran is inviting the Caspian states (Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in particular) to move part of their exports across its territory using the functioning infrastructure (ports, terminals, and oil refineries in the Persian Gulf). Under another option, the country’s north will receive energy resources from the Caspian region, while Iran will sell, in their name, the same amounts of energy resources it mines on its territory. This would undermine Russia’s role in the region. The United States is very open about its position: it believes that Iran plans to “interfere, in the future, in the free movement of energy resources in the world.”10
Despite the fact that neither Iran nor Russia has considerable oil resources in their sectors of the Caspian, in the past few decades, the consecutive U.S. administrations (of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama) have been stepping up their pressure. It is no wonder that the two countries moved closer on several important issues related to the Caspian and prevention of Western domination there in particular.
Iran’s nuclear program and its continued implementation might provoke the West (the U.S. and Israel in particular) into taking inappropriate steps, which will upset the present military-political situation in the Greater Middle East. Its loud geopolitical echo will reverberate in Iran and Russia, to say nothing of the other Caspian states.
Turkey’s Geopolitical Maneuvering: Looking into the Future
Turkey stands apart from the geopolitical actors with key roles to play in the Greater Middle East and which are directly influencing the geopolitical shifts in the post-Soviet expanse, particularly in the Caucasus. In 1991, the new post-Soviet geopolitical configuration in the Caucasus and Central Asia gave Turkey a real chance to strengthen its geopolitical influence in both regions.
In the new geopolitical context, Turkey exploited its special geostrategic position of a country situated both in Europe and Asia, as well as its ties with the Euro-Atlantic military-political structures and the ideology of a highly Europeanized and modernized, yet traditionally Muslim country.
In the new century, it is working hard to adjust its foreign policy in the Caucasus and the Caspian to step up its relations with Russia and Iran, in the energy sphere among other things.
It should be said that, on the whole, Turkey, just as Iran, has no adequate military-political and economic instruments to ensure its domination in the Caspian and elbow Russia and the West out of the region.
9 See: A. Lukoianov, “The Tehran Summit, Or the Russian President’s Visit to Iran,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (49), 2008, p. 70.
10 KASPIYSKIY UZEL (Geopoliticheskiy kontext “aktsii vozmezdia SShA v Afghanistane), No. 2 (425), 8 January, 2002, available at [http://www.zavtra.ru/cgi/veil/data/zavtra/02/425/31.html].
China’s Caspian Plans
In the last two decades, China has become much more interested in the Caspian than before, mainly because Beijing, first, fears American geopolitical control over the region which will bring the U.S. dangerously close to its own borders and, second, because in the last few years the country has been importing much more oil and oil products than before. Beijing is obviously out to confirm its access, at least partial, to the Caspian oil and gas reserves as part of its general task of ensuring its energy security.
China has its own serious geoeconomic and geopolitical interests in the region, which means that it will step up its involvement, especially in the eastern part of the Caspian region. Its cooperation with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan is intended to expand the raw-material base of the Chinese fuel and energy sector. America’s involvement in Central Asia might upset these plans; this explains China’s revived interest in Russia’s energy resources. In the new century, China insists on active cooperation with Russia and the Central Asian states both on a bilateral basis and within the SCO.11
America in the Caspian: Moving Toward a Real Geopolitical Presence
In the last two decades, the Caspian has acquired tremendous geopolitical importance for the West, the United States in particular. By the mid-1990s, the U.S., still deprived of a pretext for active involvement in the post-Soviet expanse, identified three favorites—Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan—and formulated a geopolitical goal—erect a barrier to the spread of Russia’s influence in three key directions: to the Balkans (Ukraine); the Caucasus (Azerbaijan); and Central Asia (Kazakhstan).12
On 1 October, 1998, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova were included in the responsibility zone of the United States European Command (EUCOM). “As long ago as 1999, the Pentagon recognized the increasing geostrategic importance of the Caspian region by reassigning senior command authority over American forces in Central Asia from the Pacific Command to the Central Command... This move was described by Michael Klare as ‘a rare alteration of military geography.’”13
In the course of Operation Enduring Freedom launched on 7 October, 2001 when the counterterrorist coalition occupied Afghanistan, the Pentagon acquired permission to use military bases and airfields in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan; American military contingents were deployed at some of them. Washington also intensified its military contacts with the Caucasian countries.
The people in Washington regard Caspian oil as an additional source to be used if the deliveries from the Persian Gulf are endangered. America’s interests in Central Asia and the Caspian are heated by its desire to preserve its influence on the allies, the European Union and Japan. More than that: the United States wants to separate the Central Asian countries from Russia and, finally, to remove them from the zone of Russia’s influence, thus depriving it of a chance of challenging America in the future.
11 See: M.Z. Syzdykov, “Geopoliticheskie kollizii Tsentral’noy Azii: evolutsia interesov vneshnikh sil i voprosy bezopasnosty regiona,” available at [http://www.postsoviet.ru/page.php?pid=59].
12 See: A.N. Utkin, Amerikanskaia strategia dlia XXI veka, Logos, Moscow, 2000, p. 105.
13 Quoted from: A. Ibrahim, “Evolving United States Policy toward the Caspian Region: A Delicate Balance,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4 (46), 2007, pp. 41-42.
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The mounting influence of the United States in Central Asia, which became especially prominent after 9/11 and the counterterrorist operation in Afghanistan, gave Washington geopolitical advantages over China, Iran, Southwest and Southern Asia, to say nothing of Russia. Washington’s strategy in Eurasia aims to link Central Asia to the “geographic belt” composed of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan with the help of the so-called Islamic fundamentalism and extremism factor.14 This can hardly be done without drawing in the Caspian countries, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan in particular.
The European Union in the Caspian Region: Quenching the “Energy Thirst”
Unlike the United States, the European Union is pursuing mainly economic interests in the Caspian. It is seeking energy security for the 21st century; oil and gas from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan will decrease, to a great extent, Europe’s dependence on Mid-Eastern and Russian oil. The EU core countries are also seeking to preserve and develop their own oil industry with the help of their oil companies working on rich oil fields outside their own territories.
In 2004, after another EU eastward expansion, the three Caucasian countries were included in the group of 17 countries involved in the cooperation programs with the European Union. In October 2006, the European Union signed new Partnership and Cooperation Agreements with them as part of the European Neighborhood Policy, the Action Plan within which was tailored to meet the interests of each of the Caucasian states.
Russia in the Caspian: Face to Face with the Geopolitical Realities of the 21st Century
For at least two reasons Russia cannot but be concerned with the recent developments in the region. On the one hand, in the 1990s, it was not quite sure of its interests in this part of the postSoviet expanse, which allowed the West to penetrate some of the Caspian countries and become entrenched there. On the other, its considerably weakened economic potential did not allow the Kremlin to effectively defend its geopolitical and geoeconomic interests there.15 In fact, Russia’s Caucasian border was pushed back to the early 19th century; in Central Asia, to the mid-19th century. Its geopolitical expanse in these regions shrank, which cost Russia its role as key geopolitical center in the Caspian.
Under Yeltsin, when Russia was not certain either of its domestic or foreign policy priorities, its Caspian policy, likewise, was sporadic and inconsistent. The Kremlin refused to pay attention to the region’s specifics and the interests of the Caspian states. In the 1990s, Moscow, after finding itself bogged down in Chechnia (previously used as the main export route for Caspian oil and the place where the oil pipelines from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan met), had complicated its position in the Northern Caucasus even more.
See: Rossiyskie strategicheskie issledovania. Ezhegodnik, Logos, Moscow, 2002, p. 104.
14
15 See: S. Zhiltsov, “Russia in the Caspian,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4 (28), 2004, pp. 56-57.
Late in 1994, when Moscow moved to the active phase of the war, the link between the Chechen events and the pipeline rivalry came to the fore. It became obvious that Russia might lose its geopolitical foothold in the region; the geostrategic consequences of this were likewise obvious.
On the whole, “at that time Russia lacked a synthetic, future-oriented, national position on the Caspian.”16
Under Vladimir Putin, Russian diplomacy acquired pragmatism and consistency; the foreign policy doctrine of the Russian Federation revealed a trend toward flexible coalitions: long-term alliances with any state were avoided for the sake of stable bilateral and multilateral relations in the postSoviet expanse fitted to meet specific geopolitical and geoeconomic objectives.
The official visits of President Putin and, later, President Medvedev to the Caspian countries over the past ten years demonstrated that Russia was seeking normal relations with all the Caspian states. The visits produced several important political and economic agreements.
Under Putin, Russia fortified its position in the Caspian and was more actively involved in the struggle for regional resources.
Military Games in the Caspian
Demilitarization of the Caspian region can be described as one of the pivotal issues of the present and future. So far, the coastal states, which are building up their naval capabilities, are doing nothing good for the region: they are merely destabilizing the situation with unpredictable consequences.
On 22-23 March, 2001, at the London Caspian Oil and Gas Summit, Russia voiced its concern over international terrorism and extremism, as well as the regional and local conflicts which, it insisted, threatened the region and explained its presence, including military presence, there.17
The first few years of the new century, however, made the U.S. and NATO step up their involvement in the geostrategically important regions: under the pretext of “fighting international terrorism,” they established their military-political control there. Washington’s geostrategic plan known as the Greater Middle East (expected to bring together Northern Africa, the Near and Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia) served as the centerpiece of these efforts.
In 2003, the Pentagon offered the Caspian Guard project, a by-product of its plans of military action against Iran. It suggested that Special Forces should be set up together with military bases in the region to ensure security in the Caspian basin.18 These units were expected to promptly respond to emergencies, up to and including terrorist threats against the oil facilities.19
Moscow and Tehran are unanimous in their negative response to Washington’s intention to move its military presence to the Caspian as threatening their defense interests in the region.
In 2003, Russia, in turn, formulated its initiative of a five-sided Caspian naval group for operational cooperation (CASFOR) patterned after BLACKSEAFOR. It was devised as an operational military group based on the fleets of the Caspian states. Some of the coastal states, however, refused to be involved.
The conflict-prone situation in the Caspian has not yet developed into a crisis. However, the stiff rivalry between the budding geostrategic centers might turn the region into an important theater of war, part of the Atlantic-Eurasian geopolitical confrontation of the 21st century.
16 Iu.G. Bargesov, Kaspiy v mezhdunarodnom prave i mirovoy politike, IMEMO RAN, Moscow, 1998, p. 64.
17 See: A.Iu. Urnov, “Geopoliticheskie problemy Kaspia. Vystuplenie na summite po problemam kaspiyskoy nefti i gaza. London, 22-23 marta 2001,” Bulletin Ispol’zovanie i okhrana prirodnykh resursov v Rossii, No. 3-4, 2001, pp. 8-9.
18 See: Ekho (Baku), 14 April, 2005.
19 Ibidem.
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The Region’s Geopolitical Future: A Problem of Multiple Unknowns
A new world order is being born in the geopolitical struggle unfolding in Central Eurasia: control over it means control over the Black Sea-Caucasian-Caspian geopolitical expanse, Central Asia, and the Greater Middle East with the ensuing geostrategic advantages.
Zbigniew Brzezinski is very open about the geostrategic and geoeconomic goals of the West in the richest oil and gas regions of the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the Caspian: “Since reliable access to reasonably priced energy is vitally important to the world’s three economically most dynamic regions—North America, Europe and East Asia—strategic domination over the area, even if cloaked by cooperative arrangements (italics mine.—P.D.), would be a globally decisive hegemonic asset.”20
On the whole, the United States’ interests are not limited to the local natural riches: Washington also seeks to prevent Russia’s domination in this geopolitical expanse. Russia should not be allowed to fortify its position there; in fact, America wants a situation in which none of the powers could claim control there, while the West would enjoy unlimited access to its financial and economic sphere. At the same time, for the sake of preserving stability (otherwise, military-political repercussions might become unpredictable), Russia should not be driven away altogether.
From the military-strategic point of view, “the powerful and exclusive U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf region and the effective U.S. monopoly of significant long-range warfare capabilities give America a very considerable margin for unilateral policymaking,” writes Brzezinski. And further: “It is difficult to envisage how the United States alone could force Iran into a basic reorientation.” After all, adds he, “Iran is a nation with an impressive imperial history and with a sense of its own national worth” to say nothing about its 70-million strong population.21 Washington relies on the international situation created by the counterterrorist operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to enlarge its direct and indirect (through NATO) presence in the post-Soviet expanse. In fact, the United States has launched the Anaconda geopolitical strategy, which bore fruit during the Cold War.
On the other hand, in the 21st century, the West is obviously working on a vast geopolitical salient stretching from the Baltics across the Black Sea to the Caspian and further on to Central Asia.
The Caspian in the Global Geo-economic Processes
Today, when global economic actors have penetrated the Caspian, it has not merely preserved its weight in world economy, but has also attracted much more global attention to its natural riches and generated many more purposeful global efforts to incorporate it into the vast geo-economic projects.
The developments of the turn of the 21st century and the mounting importance of energy resources in world politics forced the world to revise some of the traditional approaches to the Middle East. The book Energy Superbowl published by the Nixon Center describes the area between the Volga mouth and Oman as a strategic “energy ellipse” to which the oil fields of Iran and the Middle
20 Z. Brzezinski, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, First Edition, Basic Books, New York,
2004, pp. 71-72.
21 Ibid., pp. 72-73.
East as a whole stretch. It contains two thirds of the world’s explored oil reserves and 40 percent of the proven reserves of natural gas.22 In this context, the Caspian basin and the Gulf look like a single whole.
This means that huge oil and gas resources have determined the balance of geopolitical forces in the Caspian. According to Russian experts, the region contains over 25 billion tons of oil (out of the world’s total 150 billion)23; other Russian experts insist that the Caspian basin contains from 15 to 20 billion tons, or no more that 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves; Russia possesses 6 to 10 percent; and the Middle East, 60 percent. OPEC experts estimated the Caspian reserves at no more than 23 billion tons.24
The West believes that Caspian oil will be important for Europe as an alternative to Gulf oil if and when oil production in the North Sea dwindles.25 According to certain sources, only Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan have over 100 billion barrels of oil. This means that the Caspian as an oil-rich region comes third after the Gulf and Siberia.26
The U.S. Department of Energy regards the Caspian basin as an area with the world’s largest undeveloped hydrocarbon reserves; the explored reserves are estimated at between 17 and 33 billion barrels of oil and about 232 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The region’s potential reserves might be as much as 200 billion barrels of oil and up to 350 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.27
Independent experts offer the following assessments for individual countries. By the first quarter of 2007, the proven oil reserves of Azerbaijan were quoted at 7 billion barrels; Kazakhstan, 30 billion barrels; Turkmenistan, 600 million; Iran, over 136 billion, while Saudi Arabia has over 262 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.28
The Caspian region stands a good chance of becoming one of Europe’s key gas suppliers, which is described as an important geoeconomic factor. According to BP experts, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan together possess 5.85 trillion cu m of gas.29 The potential of the Caspian states is confirmed by the volumes of natural gas reserves (35 to 40 trillion cu m, or 26 percent of the world’s total). This means that they possess three times more gas than the proven reserves of Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, and Libya put together.30
According to expert assessments, an adequate infrastructure that would make it possible to fully tap the Caspian’s potential and extract and move the local oil and gas to the world markets will cost some $200 billion.31
This makes the Caspian one of the world’s key centers of geoeconomic power. Stephen Blank has offered the following comment: “U.S. and Russian companies remain the major players in the
22 See: A. Magomedov, “The Struggle for Caspian Oil and Caspian Transit: Geopolitical Regional Dimensions,”
Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (31), 2005, p. 82.
23 See: Krasnaya zvezda, 5 October, 2000; Morskoy sbornik, No. 7, 1997, p. 22.
24 See: G. Starchenkov, “Caspian Oil in the Regional Economic and World Political Contexts,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 1 (37), 2006, pp. 8, 13.
25 See: S. Kushkumbaev, Vliiainie energoresursov na nekotorye aspekty vnutrenney i vneshey politiki Kazakh-stana,” Tsentral’naia Azia i Kavkaz, No. 1, 1998, p. 41.
26 See: New York Times, 17 February, 1998.
27 See: Novoe vremia, 15 January, 2004; Implementation of US Policy on Caspian Sea Oil Exports. US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 8 July 1998. Washington: GPO, 1998, pp. 9-24; O. Matthews, “The Next Move is Check,” Newsweek, 8 April, 2002, pp. 44-45.
28 See: Zerkalo (Baku), 26 May, 2007.
29 See: “BP World Energy Outlook. Statistical Review of World Energy 2008,” available at [http://www.bp.com/ liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAG-ING/local_assets/downloads/pdf/gas_table_of_proved_natural_gas_reserves_2008.pdf].
30 See: D. Preyger, V. Omelchenko, “Caspian Dilemma: How to Deliver Blue Fuel to the European Market,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 3 (33), 2005, p. 122.
31 See: B. Litera, “Oil and Gas in the Caspian: Current Situation and Future Prospects,” The Caucasus & Globalization, Vol. 1 (2), 2007, p. 44.
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contest to develop and export energy resources in Central Asia and the Caspian basin. However, Chinese and Indian entities have become increasingly competitive in recent years.”32
The Americans, on the whole, do not exclude stiff competition between the combined potential of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the OPEC countries some time in the future.33 Back in the mid-1990s, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker predicted that in the 21st century, “Caspian oil may eventually be as important to the industrialized world as Middle East oil is today.”34
Since that time, globalization has merely heated up the political and commercial rivalry over the Caspian energy resources; Russia has beenjoined there by the world power centers represented by the United States, the European Union, China, and the Greater Middle East countries.
Legal delimitation of the Caspian is attracting a lot of attention and has already started latent and open rivalry not merely among the coastal states, but also among the world and some of the regional powers. This avid interest and stiff rkvalry are not fortuitous: from the geoeconomic point of view, involvement in developing the Caspian oil and gas resources and the routes to the world markets hinges on the delimitation issue.
Caspian Oil and Gas Pipelines: Geo-economic Aspects
Its geographic location is gradually turning the Caucasus into a link formed by the transcontinental communication system of the future (Nabucco and other projects). Indeed, no really efficient system of trans-Eurasian communications can bypass the Caucasus. At the same time, the huge energy resources need an efficient pipeline system to move them to the world markets.35
The following geoeconomic systems will appear in the foreseeable future: the horizontal ones which will go to the West (the Caspian-Black Sea-the Mediterranean-Atlantic) and to the East (the Caspian-China-the APR), while the vertical ones will go to the South (the Caspian-the Persian Gulf and the Caspian-the Indian Ocean). Combined with the functioning oil and gas main pipelines and those being laid (Baku-Supsa, Baku-Novorossiisk, Tengiz-Novorossiisk, Korpeje-Kurdkuy, Baku-Ceyhan, etc.), this new system will bring the Caspian’s resources to the world market and help the Caspian states integrate into the new globalizing energy system of our planet.
The Contract of the Century signed in the fall of2004 launched considerable geopolitical changes in the Caucasus and partly in the Caspian region and put the transportation routes issue on the agenda. The Russia military elite described that as “one of Russia’s most acute geopolitical problems” and was obviously concerned about the prospect that “it will be resolved by British-American oil companies that are gradually but surely moving toward transnational control over the Caspian natural resources.”36 Seen from Moscow, the West, which signed the Contract of the Century, has acquired certain geopolitical advantages and made the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main pipeline possible. It was believed, first, that the West would fortify its economic position in geopolitical regions highly important for Russia; second, that it would promote horizontal consolidation of the Central Asian and Caucasian states around the new and connected communication lines, thus depriving Russia of control over them; third, the related in-
32 St. Blank, “Central Asia’s Energy Game Intensifies,” EurasiaNet, 2 September, 2005.
33 See: “O dolgovremennoy strategii SShA v Kaspiyskom regione,” Zhurnal teorii i praktiki Evraziystva, No. 22,
2003.
34
35 See: J. Eyvazov, Bezopasnost’ Kavkaza i stabilnost’ razvitia Azerbaijanskoy Respubliki, Nurlan, Baku, 2004,
1 Quoted from: Geopolitics of Resource Wars, ed. by Philippe de Billon, Frank Cass, 2005, p. 146.
p. 133.
36 Morskoy sbonik, No. 7, 1997, p. 23.
vestments would consolidate the still fragile statehoods of the Soviet successor states; and, fourth, they would acquire a powerful economic and military political alliance in counterbalance to Russia.37
It should be said that all other transportation alternatives—Russia-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan-the Indian Ocean and Western Kazakhstan-the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of China—will draw new actors into the Caspian Big Game (China, Pakistan, and Japan, to name but a few) and bring Caspian oil and gas to the APR markets.
The BTC pipeline commissioned on 25 May, 2005 was of double—geopolitical and geoeco-nomic—importance. First, Azeri oil reached Turkey via Georgia; potentially, all Caspian oil will be moved to the West by this route; and second, Russia’s position in the Caspian was undermined.
In the spring of2007, Russia picked up the West’s “geo-economic gauntlet”: it actively promoted alternative gas pipelines in the Caspian’s eastern sector. In May 2007, during his six-day visit to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, President Putin signed an agreement on a Caspian gas pipeline “in the direction of Russia.” Russia was obviously parrying what the United States and the European Union were doing to remove the Central Asian countries from the Russian sphere of influence by laying pipelines outside its territory.
The West responded with the idea of a trans-Caspian gas pipeline laid on the sea-bottom and intended to join Turkmenistan to the planned Nabucco gas pipeline system in the near future.
It must be admitted that monopolized transportation of Caspian oil and gas is translated into geopolitical control over the entire region. This explains why the West sees unhindered access to the Caucasian and Central Asian oil and gas resources for American and West European companies as one of its geoeconomic priorities to decrease its dependence on Mid-Eastern oil and lower the world fuel prices.
The European Union, in turn, looks at the Caspian both as a strategically important source of energy resources and a foothold to be used to move to the Central Asian and Iranian energy resources.
The TRACECA and the INOGATE projects faithfully reflect the European approach to the region and its future. In fact, the pipeline system can be used as part of the EU’s enlargement strategy.
In the 1990s, the United States and the European Union attached special importance to the East-West Eurasian corridor. In 1995, the European Union put a project for the Venice-South Italy-Poti-Batumi-Tbilisi-Erevan-Baku-Turkmenbashi-Bishkek transportation route on the table, which repeated, to a great extent, the Great Silk Road of antiquity.38
The North-South transportation corridor officially opened in St. Petersburg in mid-2002 is intended to link Russia’s North and the north of Europe via the Caspian basin with the Gulf countries, India, and Pakistan. According to Russian experts, this route is three times shorter than the one via the Suez and is, therefore, 30 to 40 percent cheaper.39
China has stepped up its involvement in the Caspian because its, the world’s second largest, economy needs the rapidly growing amounts of energy resources, oil and gas in particular. Inside the country, the Great Pipeline of China project, a gigantic gas pipeline system which will receive fuel from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, is seen as part of the energy security strategy.40
C o n c l u s i o n
In the emerging world order when the tallassocratic West represented by the United States, its unrivaled leader, has finally approached a total geopolitical victory over the tellurocratic East, the
37 See: Vneshniaia politika i bezopasnost’ sovremennoy Rossii (1991-1998), a reading-book, Vol. 1, Mezhdunarod-nye otnoshenia Publishers, Moscow, 1999, p. 19.
38 See: Rossia i Zakavkazie: realii nezavisimosti i novoe partnerstvo, ZAO Finstatinform, Moscow, 2000, p. 44.
39 See: E. Bragina, “Kaspiy v rezhime globalizatsii,” Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, No. 12, 2003, p. 117.
40 See: M. Barbasov, “An Oil Pipeline to China: An Element of Struggle for Caspian Resources,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4 (28), 2004, p. 106.
Atlantists are concentrating on their main aim: to prevent Russia’s domination in Central Eurasia and the resource-rich Caspian region as its part. This put the region on a par with the Balkans and the Middle East, two geopolitical centers of the turn of the 21st century, and intensified the rivalry not only between Russia and the United States (NATO), but also between Turkey and Iran, two regional powers.
The problem of moving the Caspian resources to the world markets (which has acquired special importance in the last decade) has been commented on as follows: “The geography which geopolitical thought is dealing with is not physical geography of landmass and seas; it is a geography of communications ofworld trade and world war. History has taught us that trade communications at the world crossing points may acquire military and strategic importance: trade routes turn into war paths.”41 This makes the strategically important oil and gas pipelines and transportation routes stretching in all directions from the Caspian region (especially to the West and the East) the “geopolitical and geoeco-nomic weapons” of the 21st century.
On the whole, the accelerating geostrategic rivalry over one of the most desirable “geopolitical and geoeconomic prizes” of the 21st century—the Caspian region—might change the geopolitical landscape of the Greater Middle East.
41 V. Maksimenko, “Central Asia and the Caucasus: Geopolitical Entity Explained,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 3, 2000, p. 61.
Paata LEIASHVILI
D.Sc. (Econ.), Professor, Economic Theory Chair, the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
(Tbilisi, Georgia).
ALGORITHMS OF DEMOCRATIZATION IN A TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY (A CASE STUDY OF GEORGIA)
Abstract
The author relies on Georgia’s experience to demonstrate the specifics of-the democratic changes in the post-totalitarian countries and concludes that
a combination of democratic and authoritarian administrative methods is inevitable at the early stages of democratic changes.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The Soviet Union’s disintegration created newly independent states, all of them being in an identical position from the legal point of view. Over the course of time, however, after nearly twenty
