Moscow making Central Asia its
own By M K Bhadrakumar
When President Vladimir Putin in his State
of the Union speech last year called the collapse
of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical
catastrophe of the 20th century", cold warriors on
both sides of the Atlantic pounced on the
statement as fresh evidence of Russia's imperial
ambitions.
Very few were prepared to
accept Putin's statement at face value - a
powerful articulation of an incontrovertible fact
from the
Russian point of view. The
fact remains that half a million Soviet citizens
perished during the painful transition, and 50
million people were displaced. Last week, on the
anniversary of the August 19 coup that led to the
disbandment of the Soviet Union, public opinion in
Russia looked back at the events 15 years ago as a
crude power struggle devoid of any high
principles.
Today, even former Soviet
president Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledges, "Things
certainly needed to change, but we did not need to
destroy that which had been built by previous
generations ... The dissolution of a country that
was not only powerful but which, during
perestroika [restructuring], demonstrated
that it was peaceful and that it accepted the
basic principles of democracy, would be a
tragedy."
It is no mere coincidence that
Putin chose last week for hosting an "informal"
summit at the Russian leader's summer residence in
the Black Sea resort of Sochi, heralding a
qualitatively new stage in the integration
processes at work in the post-Soviet space. Of
course, the participants - the leaders of the
six-member Eurasian Economic Community (EEC)
comprising Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as well as
of Armenia and Ukraine attending as "observers" -
clearly realized that the Soviet Union lay buried
in the heap of history and was irretrievable.
Equally, they sensed that a chapter of
post-Soviet history was quietly closing and a new
one commencing. None in Sochi was talking about
any revival of the Soviet Union, but to quote a
Russian political observer, those present at the
Black Sea resort also couldn't overlook anymore
that "it's not easy to go it alone, and it's worth
remembering the past".
The process of
winding down the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) is almost complete. As Putin said
last year during a visit to Yerevan, Armenia, the
CIS had served its purpose of facilitating the
divorce among the post-Soviet states. The Sochi
summit indicates that out of the debris of the
plethora of CIS mechanisms, Russia is singling out
just two forums for carrying forward the impulses
of integration in the period ahead: the EEC and
the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO).
In a way, EEC and CSTO are
mutually reinforcing. The Russian thinking seems
to be that the CSTO will in effect be transformed
into the politico-military wing of the EEC. At
Sochi, Putin touched on this when he said, "You
cannot advance the economy without first ensuring
security."
Uzbekistan's decision early
this year to join the EEC and its subsequent
decision to return to the fold of the CSTO have
given a significant boost to the integration
processes that Russia has been seeking. What is
taking place, in essence, is that the post-Soviet
states that have been tacitly encouraged by
Washington to apply "breaking mechanisms" on the
path of the integration processes so as to subvert
the CIS from within - principally, Georgia,
Moldova and Azerbaijan - are being quietly
sidelined, while the others are preparing to move
forward.
Ukraine falls in a category by
itself. In fact, a significant point about the
Sochi summit was the presence of Ukraine's
pro-Russia prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich. To
be sure, there is a hint somewhere that with the
collapse of the "orange" coalition in Kiev, Russia
hopes to involve Ukraine in deeper integration,
and Yanukovich himself may have meaningfully
scheduled his first visit to Russia after assuming
office this month to coincide with the EEC summit
in Sochi.
The most far-reaching outcome of
the Sochi summit would be to implement on a
priority basis a long-standing objective to set up
a customs union of the EEC member countries.
Speaking at a press conference after the summit,
Putin announced that steps would be taken within
the next three months to put in place the legal
foundation for establishing a customs union. The
indications are that realistically speaking, the
modalities of establishment of the customs union
will be complete by the second half of 2008.
According to Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev, by November, the customs union will
have taken place comprising Russia, Kazakhstan and
Belarus, while the other EEC members may join in
the next 18-month period or so. It is a dramatic
gain for Russia to have reached such a high level
of integration with Kazakhstan. The Moscow-Astana
axis potentially forms a formidable core within
the post-Soviet space. Russia has in effect
rebuffed the US strategy of making inroads into
its ties with Kazakhstan.
Astana has been
a frequent destination for US dignitaries in the
recent months, including Vice President Dick
Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Energy Secretary Sam Boden. A visit by Nazarbayev
to the US is in the cards. Of late, US officials
have openly singled out Kazakhstan for flattering,
fulsome praise in the hope of playing on Astana's
perceived vanities as a geopolitical fulcrum.
Furthermore, Russia has hit back at the US
for the latter's delaying tactic apropos its
membership in the World Trade Organization by
getting the Sochi summit to agree that the
integration within the EEC and the accession of
its members to the WTO should be harmonized until
the establishment of the customs union. In real
terms, Russia is counting on the customs union
being assigned the role of an alternative to the
WTO.
Putin emphasized this point at the
Sochi summit. He said the ambitions of the EEC
member countries to join the WTO should be
coordinated with regional integration plans. "Our
intentions to deepen cooperation within the
framework of the EEC, including the setting up of
a customs union, should be clearly and precisely
coordinated with the pace and details of WTO
accession by each of our countries," Putin added.
What this means is that apart from
harmonizing their customs legislation within the
EEC, the member countries are obliged to bring
their legislation in line with WTO requirements if
they are to join the organization. Moscow has, at
the very least, thwarted any US design to isolate
Russia's regional integration plans by means of
stalling its WTO membership. On the outer side,
Russia is placing itself in a privileged position
in Central Asia that the US will find impossible
to breach.
Eyes on the energy market
However, it is the common energy market in
Central Asia taking shape within the ambit of the
EEC that will alter the region's geopolitics in
the immediate term. The EEC summit deliberated on
the formation of a hydropower consortium, which is
crucial for Central Asia.
The proposal was
so sensitive that the summit kept this part of its
deliberations confidential. Obviously,
sensitivities cut across different levels. First,
there is an acute "water problem" in Central Asia
insofar as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan account for
about 80% of the region's water resources, while
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the main users.
In the absence of the Soviet-era common
economic system, the apportioning of water
resources and, more important, the maintenance and
use of water resources (and the financial outlay
for sustaining the same) pose problems.
In
spring, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan receive an
excess flow of water from the Pamir glaciers and
need to get rid of this, whereas the farms and
cotton fields in Uzbekistan and Uzbekistan need
more water in summer, during which the catchment
facilities also need to store water for the normal
operation of power plants in winter.
The
EEC seems to have taken the first steps in the
direction of evolving a technologically and
economically powerful system for addressing the
interconnected problems of water distribution and
the development of hydropower infrastructure for
the region. From the details available, Russia has
suggested the creation of a hydropower consortium
financed by the Eurasian Bank of Russia and
Kazakhstan.
Significantly, the Russian
proposal has appeared at a time when the US has
waded into the region with its so-called "Great
Central Asia" policy in recent months. The US
strategy aims at its "re-entry" into the Central
Asian region after severe setbacks to its
diplomacy in the period under the cumulative
weight of the clumsily executed "Tulip Revolution"
in Kyrgyzstan in March last year and the abortive
uprising in Andizhan in the Ferghana Valley two
months thereafter.
The new US strategy
professes a "cooperative partnership for
development" of Central Asia that will have the
United States in the lead, the five Central Asian
states and Afghanistan co-opted as the principal
members, and South Asia (India and Pakistan) roped
in as robust participants.
The main thrust
of the strategy is to take the US grip over
Afghanistan as a strategic opportunity or "bridge"
for promoting optional and flexible cooperation in
security, democracy, economy, transport and
energy, and make up a new geopolitical compass by
combining Central Asia with South Asia.
Washington's new policy brief first surfaced last
October when the State Department reorganized its
South Asia Bureau and expanded it to include the
Central Asian countries.
The new strategy
was fleshed out in great detail during a
congressional hearing on April 25-26 in
Washington. In June, virtually in the run-up to
the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), Washington organized an
international conference at Istanbul called
"Electricity Beyond Borders" for discussing energy
cooperation between Central Asia and South Asia.
The Central Asian representatives who participated
were sensitized at the conference that a viable
alternative to the SCO was indeed available for
them for advancing the impulses of regional
cooperation.
The US strategy must be seen
against the backdrop of the unprecedented
expansion of US influence in South Asia in the
period post-September 11, 2001, especially in
India. Washington is evidently counting on New
Delhi and Kabul as its critical partners in the
"Great Central Asia" policy. Afghanistan is
geographically an important channel connecting
Central Asia with South Asia. As regards India,
Washington has been focusing on New Delhi as its
key strategic ally in South Asia and as a
counterweight to China.
The "Great Central
Asia" policy plays on New Delhi's manifest
aspiration (with indifferent results so far)
through the past 15 years to be an effective
participant as a great power in the affairs of
Central Asia.
Furthermore, Washington is
counting on New Delhi's keenness to secure energy
supplies from Central Asia and is playing on the
atavistic fears in sections of Indian opinion as
regards China's rapidly expanding influence in
Central Asia. Equally, Washington is acutely
conscious that today like at no time before, there
is also a willingness in New Delhi to bend Indian
foreign policy orientations to "harmonize" with
the United States' geostrategies.
In the
case of the "Great Central Asia" policy, in the
event of it succeeding, Washington could also
derive immense satisfaction that India's
traditionally friendly relations with Russia and
its increasingly cordial ties with China would
inevitably come under immense strain. The fact
remains that Central Asia lies in the first circle
of security interests for both Russia and China,
and these two countries cannot be expected to take
lying down any US ingresses into their strategic
back yard.
The indications are that New
Delhi (in contrast with Islamabad, which is
somehow still persisting with its policy of
forging ever closer links with the SCO) is
seriously considering the opportunities offered by
the US policy toward Central Asia. India was the
only participant to keep a low-key representation
at the SCO summit in June. Lately, India initiated
some fence-mending with Uzbekistan, a key country
in Central Asia with which the US has had profound
difficulties in the recent period.
Moreover, New Delhi just hosted a visit by
Emomali Rakhmonov, president of Tajikistan, which
is fast emerging as a new theater of the Great
Game - a country that is being assiduously courted
by Washington and encouraged to place distance in
its relations with Russia. (Indeed, a major item
during Rakhmonov's visit devolved on Indian
participation in Tajikistan's hydropower
projects.)
Obviously, in geopolitical
terms, the United States' "Great Central Asia"
policy aims at crafting the sinews of cooperation
in the areas of energy, transportation and
infrastructure construction with a view to
bringing the region out of the current orbit of
Russian-Chinese influence within the SCO framework
and to forge cooperative relations between the
region and South Asia. Washington calculates that
the policy will inevitably break the long-term
Russian influence over Central Asia, disintegrate
the cohesion of the SCO and, inevitably, catapult
the US as the dominant power on the new template
of Central Asia and South Asia.
Both China
and Russia can be expected to counter the United
States' "Great Central Asia" policy. The People's
Daily concluded an unusually lengthy and detailed
commentary on the subject recently with the
following assessment:
Magnificent as it appears, the
"Greater Central Asia" strategy will have to
face some practical problems in its
implementation. For historical and cultural
reasons, Central Asian and South Asian countries
lack a basic sense of [mutual] identification
and experience in in-depth cooperation. The
mutual trust between India and Pakistan is not
enough for implementing large-scale,
cross-border infrastructure projects.
Afghanistan is the most critical "pawn"
in the US strategy. But currently, the US and
the Afghan government exercise very little
control over the situation in Afghanistan ...
The "Great Central Asia" policy strategy
visualizes most major transport infrastructure
and pipelines passing through Afghanistan. The
risks are too high.
An important part of
the US strategy is to export the energy from
Central Asia to South Asia. However, the total
energy reserves and the current exploitation
capacity in the Central Asian region are quite
limited. A large part of it is under control of
Russia. To export energy to the South Asian
countries will inevitably cause conflict with
Russia.
The EEC summit's energy
initiative, especially the decision on forming a
hydropower consortium, will no doubt be seen in
Washington as aimed at frustrating the "Great
Central Asia" strategy. Actually, it may be an
accurate reading of the emerging equations. The
EEC decision, if it carries momentum, ensures a
watery grave for the desperate US attempts to make
a forceful comeback in the geopolitics of Central
Asia.
From available details, the Sochi
summit has moved in the direction of bringing the
issues of water-sharing and hydropower generation
within the framework of EEC cooperation. A
wide-ranging plan was apparently discussed at
Sochi to manage the region's water resources.
(Russia itself possesses one-quarter of the
world's freshwater resources.)
The
Eurasian hydropower consortium will summarily kick
Washington out of the arena of Central Asia's
regional cooperation with the Chinese, Pakistani
and Indian markets. Coupled with the formidable
Russian presence in the Central Asian region's
oil-and-gas sector, the consortium idea can be
expected to give massive geopolitical momentum to
Moscow's policy.
The influential daily
newspaper of the Russian armed forces, Krasnaya
Zvezda, recently wrote:
Over the past 12-18 months, Russia
has gone on the offensive in Central Asia ...
Our country is making a comeback to the region
but it's coming back as a reliable economic
partner, not as a politically dominating force.
As economists describe, banks are better than
tanks ... But "tanks" should not be overlooked
either. Russia remains the leading supplier of
arms and military hardware to Central Asian
countries, much of it at concessional prices.
The overwhelming majority of the officer corps
is trained in Russia.
Moreover, there
are the CSTO and the SCO ... In other words,
Central Asian states are still within the orbit
of Russia's political, military-political and
economic influence. And Russia must not stop
here; it needs to continue building up its
influence in all areas of activity.
One
reason to do this is for minimizing the
possibility of any further American military
facilities being established in Central Asia, no
matter what they are called - be it "training
centers" for military personnel, points for
monitoring drug-trafficking from Afghanistan or
anything else. For, one way or the other, they
would be military facilities controlled by the
US or NATO - our traditional geopolitical
rivals.
It is highly significant that
Russia is assertively charting new frontiers in
regional energy cooperation in Central Asia,
confident in the knowledge that Moscow and Beijing
are nowhere near facing a clash of interests in
this sphere. China's support of the Russian stance
on energy security at last month's Group of Eight
summit in St Petersburg apart, the contours of
Beijing's perspective give satisfaction to Moscow.
Liu Jianfei, a leading professor at the
International Strategic Research Center of China's
Central Communist Party School, recently
identified the principal elements in the Chinese
thinking on energy security. He acknowledged that
although energy security is treated as a part of
non-traditional issues in the global agenda, there
was no denying that it would affect the
"traditional military, security and influence in
international relations". Liu illustrated this
point by saying that energy security was at the
bottom of the Iran nuclear issue.
Liu took
an indirect swipe at the US for applying its
reflexes of "traditional realism" to criticize
"some developing countries' increasing energy
demand". He said the specter of "energy threat"
was a contrived one based on the premise that only
the developed industrial countries were "the only
eligible countries to consume energy on the Earth.
It's irrational to ensure one's own supply by
limiting the demand of other countries."
Liu cautioned that such a self-serving
approach to energy security would "easily trigger
conflicts and undermine world peace". Almost
echoing Moscow's stance, Liu concluded that the
important point was not to divide the existing
energy market for securing the "vested interests"
of developed countries, but "how to make a bigger
cake, how to develop new energy sources and
improve energy efficiency, and how to maintain a
sustainable energy development".
M K
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years,
with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan
(1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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