Caspian Sea Oil- [From A.G.Frank]

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                 ANDRE  GUNDER  FRANK

         1601 SW  83rd Avenue, Miami, FL.  33155 USA
      Tel: 1-305-266  0311   Fax:  1-305  266 0799
                E-Mail :  franka@fiu.edu
   Web/Home Page:  http://csf.colorado.edu/archive/agfrank
    



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 14:51:34 -0500 (EST)
From: Andre Gunder Frank <franka@fiu.edu>
To: franka@fiu.edu
Subject: Caspian Sea Oil- Still the Great Game 


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    CASPIAN SEA OIL - STILL THE GREAT GAME FOR CENTRAL EURASIA: 
                         
                        by Andre Gunder Frank     
  
                          A Review Essay of 

OIL AND GEOPOLITICS IN THE CASPIAN SEA REGION  Edited by Michael
P. Croissant and Bulent Aras, Foreword  by Patrick Clawson. Westport,
Conn. & London: Praeger 1999, xx & 305 pp. $ ??

A book with a foreword by Pat Clawson of the National Defense University
and editor of ORBIS, and dedicated to Ronald Reagan and Target Ozxal,
announces its U.S. far-right wing  political pedigree literally up
front. However the book is chock full of information, alas most already
well known to anyone even remotely familiar with the problematique under
review; but it also offers some incisive analysis. The twelve contributed
chapters by  fourteen authors and  coauthors are divided into three parts
dedicated to examining and analyzing the general history and mutual
background of the Caspian Sea region; to the five littoral states of
Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran, Kazakstan, and Turkmenistan; and to three
'external' interested states,  the United States, Turkey, and
Georgia. Nonetheless,  the review by each author goes well beyond the
nominative boundaries assigned to him or her and trespasses over into the
topics, territories and their relations assigned to other authors. Quite
properly so, in view of the mutually complex real-life interrelations in
the Caspian Sea Basin, so that no topic or state could be adequately
understood in itself other that in relation to the others. Indeed, 
we are witnessing the contemporary continuation of the nineteenth century  
"Great Game" for the control of Central Eurasia. However, the oil
connection also reaches well beyond  Caspian Sea and must  make this
book pertinent also to readers of this journal.

Clawson already explicitly, indeed brutally,  lays out the groundwork in
his two page foreword: The Caspian Sea region is a world-class oil area
with complex econo- and geo-strategic conflicts of interest and
corresponding competing policies among surrounding states and the West,
particularly  the United States.  The issues are not only the oil per se,
including its low price at the time of publication,  but also the  related
conflicts of interest over pipeline routes and the U.S. intent to deny
them to Russia and Iran. The rule of law, democracy  and human rights come
in at the tail end. 

Chapter 1 by Bulent Gokay traces the history of Caspian Basin oil,
beginning with that of Baku 2,500 years ago. He quotes from reports about
the Baku region by travellers, including Marco Polo, who visited the area
between 915 A.D. and  1684 A.D. Then he reviews more recent Russian and
Soviet interests and activities there. Chapter 2 by  Cynthia and Michael
Croissant examines the 'legal status' of the Caspian Sea, whose
interpretations are used  by each littoral state in attempts to legitimate
its own economic interests and political claims. The claim that the
Caspian is an inland 'lake' is advanced by Russia and Iran, because under
international law it would  support the common rights of the  littoral
states, among whom these two  big ones would be more equal than
others. The smaller states argue that the Caspian is a 'sea,' under which
the same international law would divide the area into national 'sectors'
that would result in more equal access and rights to all. The United
States supports this interpretation, because it would limit access to its
Russian and Iranian enemies. Chapter 3 by Jenifer DeLay examines the
confused tangle of existing and proposed pipelines, which is far too
complex to summarize here. Suffice it to say that each state seeks to
maximize the length of pipeline that would pass through or goes to its
territory and to deny the same to its competitors. Again the United States
is intent on avoiding pipeline routes through Russia and Iran. Therefore
towards the West, they would have to pass through alternative routes in
Turkey and competing ones in Azerbaijian, Armenia and Georgia. They have
intense national and political, including armed, conflicts among each
other and rival  supporting alliances with Russia. For the time being,
these conflicts render pipeline planning and construction more than
problematical for everybody concerned, again including the West and
particularly the U.S. The government of the latter favours a route through
Turkey to its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, about which the  private oil
companies have reservations - unless they receive massive public subsidies
- because this route  would be the most expensive to build. Since the
publication of this book, agreement has nonetheless been reached on this
option, presumably including such unrevealed public subsidies by the
U.S. and Turkey. 

So as not to put all pipeline eggs into one basket route, before this
agreement and perhaps still, there has been serious consideration also of
various  routes through the Black Sea. Since Russia wants more oil to pass
through its own ports on this Sea, which the West seeks to prevent, and
Turkey does not want the danger of oil spills next to Istanbul on the
Bosporous, the idea is to ship it or even to  pipe it under the sea to the
Western shores of the Black Sea. The countries there provide  a local
market for oil, and  pipelines would also extend to West European
consumers. Interestingly, one of these possible routes would pass through
or near Kosovo, which converts it into an area of particular geo-economic
and geo-political interest to the West, whose policies  are examined
further on in the book and this review. Since its publication of course
NATO waged war there, purportedly for 'humanitarian' reasons that
supposedly are unrelated to these strategic oil considerations, which we
examine below.  But, as Stephen Blank notes in his chapter on the United
States to which we return below, the region has been the place where
empires meet the natural limits of their power since Alexander the Great.

Two other alternative or additional routes and related political interests
deserve  mention: One is China, which wants oil, especially from
Kazakstan, to flow eastward to meet its growing needs. The other, as a
look at the map will reveal, are southward  routes to ports on the Indian
Ocean that would pass through Afghan and Pakistani territory. What this
book takes no account of [other than elliptically in the chapter on Iran]
is how this geography is the basis of what otherwise would seem
strange: US support of the fundamentalist Muslim Taliban government in
Afghanistan to offer stability for routing a pipeline through its
territory,  and  opposition to the same by also fundamentalist Iran, which
wants the oil routes for itself. Indeed, its idea is a 'swap'  arrangement
by which Iran would consume this oil in its oil-poor northern part
including Teheran and replace it to foreign buyers with equivalent oil
from its  production in the Persian Gulf area, which is relatively distant
from its northern centers of population. The last chapter in this section
by Levent Hekimoglu poses the question whether more oil would be a hazard
to the region's environment or whether the oil income could be used to
preserve and even partly to restore the environment that was seriously
debilitated during the Soviet era. The answer is again economic and
depends on the price of oil. The lower it is, the less the exploration,
drilling, production and transport; but also  the less the use of its
income for environmental care.  The greater the price of oil, the greater
also is at least the possibility to use oil and transport revenues also
for environmentally friendly purposes.

The  five chapters of Part 2 examine each of the five littoral
states.  Each offers a plethora of information and some analysis, not only
on each state but also on relations with  neighbouring ones and the
West; but they are too detailed to summarize here.
Of greatest interest among them are the chapters on Russia and Iran. Both
have vital   interests in oil and gas from the region and in pipelines
from Baku and Azerbaijan generally.  The latter has tried to accommodate
some interests of both, but increasingly has  fomented closer relations
also with the U.S., as this chapter points out, while a later one examines
the U.S. strategic embrace of Azerbaijan.  Indeed, much of the chapter on
Russia is devoted to countries other than Russia and their relations with
Russia.  The now Central Asian republics, several governed by people whose
political careers in Soviet times elevated them to local governors within
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, of course were also economically
tied to and dependent on and indeed beneficiaries of supplies  of oil to
but  subsidies from the Soviet economy. Many of these ties have
necessarily remained so, but now without the Russian subsidies. For
instance, also the vast development of  Kazak cotton production - at
enormous  local environmental costs, such as the almost halving of the
extent of the Aral Sea and of the livelihood of the people around - was
destined almost exclusively to supply the Soviet textile industry. On the
other hand, the local supply of industrial commodities was also dependent
on imports from the Soviet Union. For the newly 'independent' republics,
many of these economic ties have had to remain. For Russia and the often
large Russian population - in  Kazakstan  40 percent of its total
population that are concentrated in the North -, substantial interchange
is still essential, although of course relatively so less for the large
Russia economy and moreso for these much these smaller economies of the
Central Asian and circum Caspian Sea economies. So their governments are
now trying to diversify their economic relations with others wide and
near, and also to forge some kind of common market among the latter, but
their common commodity production leaves little possibilities for any
division of labor. 

For Russia, the problem is essentially two or three fold. First, Russia
has the most cost-effective existing and potential pipe line routes, which
already gives it a critical role in the region and beyond.  Russia also
has its own demand for oil - despite being a major producer and the
world's single largest exporter - and a quite pragmatic policy  to ensure
and promote both, although that also is related to Russia's larger
geo-political interests in the region and in the world. The latter of
course also involves the West in general and first the U.S., Turkey and
China in particular, which in turn seek  to enhance their own and to deny
Russia as much economic and political clout as possible. 

In response thereto, there are  three major schools of thought and policy
in Russia: One is the 'Western' oriented one that seeks some cohabitation
with the West within the structured rivalry, which also has  not really
ebbed despite the end of the Cold War. The second is the 'Asiatic,'
'Oriental,' or 'Eurasian' one that looks eastward, but also southward to
the Caspian and beyond. The tension between  the two Russian projections
has been a constant of its politics at least since the time of Peter the
Great. The third school has a leg in both camps and the various factions
and alliances within them; and it promotes a pragmatic resolution between
the other two, including policy with regard to  Caspian Sea problems. More
pragmatic even is Moscow's domestic oil policy and practice, which seeks
to maximize production [that has  precipitously  declined recently],
revenues, and largely unsuccessful attempts to keep the West out of its
oily backyard.  The author's conclusion is that Russian "economic
interests are thus achieving  precedence over political ones" [p.150],
which is however disputed by the author of another chapter, as we will see
below. 

The same conclusion may be drawn from Nader Entessar's chapter about Iran
and its policy toward its immediate neighbours, neighbouring oil producing
states, and also Western Europe and the U.S. Iran's bargaining chip
including with  the U.S. that   is trying to put and keep Iran out of
business, is that other than the existing Russian pipelines, Iran offers
the most cost-effective oil transport and swap options for Caspian basin
oil for the world market. That underlies  the closer relations between
Iran and Turkmenistan and Kazakstan. But Iran today has fifteen
neighbouring states, and even all possible oil pragmatism is unable to
accommodate them all at the same time.  The chapter on Turkey by Bulent
Aras and George Foster offers little that is new or interesting. Turkey
welcomed the independence of the new CIS states and sought to replace as
much old Russian  and prevent as much new Iranian influence as
possible. Shared Turkic languages and Islamic religion turned out to be
the less effective, and the prospects for Turkish capital investment and
American support  more useful instruments of Turkish policy. That  has of
course been to get as much oil and particularly gas from the Caspian Sea
Basin to supply  its own increasing need and as much pipeline revenue
through the Trans-Caucasus region as possible. That also includes  of
course support for construction of the Baku to Ceyhan pipeline, through
which oil is to be  funnelled from a catchment area that  also extends to
Turkmenistan and Kazakstan on the other side of the Caspian Sea over which
the oil would be shipped or under which the oil would be piped to
Baku. Unfortunately for Ankara, astride the Turkish part of this route sit
the Turkish Kurds, whose rebellion Ankara therefore seeks to quash also
for that reason among others.

By far the most interesting chapter is that on the United States, by
Stephen Blank who has done enough of his homework to bring along multiple
strategic [in more senses than one] quotations from the horse's mouth in
Washington and at NATO headquarters.  The background of it all is of
course the ongoing American competition with Russia, now also with the
regions under review, among which "the Transcaspian has become perhaps the
most important area of direct Western-Russian contention
today" [250]. Therefore, the author argues, that the new geo-economic
competition cannot be separated out from the old but still ongoing
geo-political one.

Therefore also, although "Washington is now becoming the arbiter or leader
of virtually every interstate and international issue in the area" [254]
and indeed also "the main center of international adjudication and
influence for local issues" [255],  in the face of the Russian bear  old
style gun-boat diplomacy is too dangerous and is now replaced by its
"functional equivalent ... peace operations"  [256]. Washington is
pursuing these with  intense "actual policy making on a daily basis
throughout the executive branch" [253] in Washington and by a myriad of
"Partnership for Peace" programs of which the Strategic Research
Development Report 5-96 of the [U.S] Center for Naval Warfare Studies
reports on 

        activities of these forces that provide dominant battlespace
        knowledge necessary to shape regional security
        environments. Multinational excersizes, port visits,
        staff-to-staff coordination - all designed to increase force inter-
        operability and access to regional military facilities - along with
        intelligence and surveillance  operations.... [So] forward deployed
        forces are backed up by those which can surge for rapid
        reenforcement and can be in place in seven to thirty days [256-257] 

-- all as a 'partnership for peace" in Orwellian double-speak,
obviously. Indeed, U.S. local diplomats and the Clinton administration now
regard the Transcapian as a 'backup' for Middle East oil supplies and some
insist that the U.S. "take the lead in pacifying the entire
area" including by the possible overthrow of  inconveniently not
sufficiently cooperative  governments [258]. The policy and praxis of
common military exercises also includes distant Kazakstan. All this and
more "reflects a major shift in U.S. policy toward Cental Asia
... coordinated by the National Security Council," as the author quotes
from the hawkish U.S. JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION MONITOR.  The Security
Council's former head and then already super anti-Soviet Russian hawk,
Zbigniew Brzezinsky, now promotes a modernized Mackinder heartland vision
of a grand U.S. led anti-Russian coalition of Europe,Turkey, Iran, and
China as well as Central Asia [253].

This is where the NATO  connection comes in.  Former U.S. Secretaries of
State and of Defense Christopher and Perry stated in 1997 that  "the
danger to security ... is not primarily potential aggression  to their
collective [NATO]  territory, but threats to their collective interests
beyond their territory....To deal with such threats alliance members need
to have a way to rapidly form military coalitions that can accomplish
goals beyond NATO territory" [252]. Note that this was two years before
"humanitarian" NATO aid to 'out of area' Kosovo. Also, U.S. Central Asia
experts  met at NATO headquarters and discussed extensive U.S. interests
in Caspian basin energy deposits. Not to be outdone, Javier Solana, the
former Defense Minister in the 'Socialist' Party government of Spain,
become Secretary-General of NATO  also during its war against Jugoslavia,
and now promoted to czar of European Union [EU] foreign policy,
pronounced himself at a Washington conference on NATO enlargement to say
that Europe cannot be fully secure without bringing the Caucasus into its
security zone [250].  U.S. Ambassador Nathan Nimitz agrees: "PAX NATO is
the only logical regime to maintain security in the traditional
sense... [and] must recognize a need for expansion of its stabilizing
influence in adjacent areas, particularly in Southeastern Europe, the
Black Sea region (in concert of course with the regional powers...) and in
the Arabian/Persian Gulf. The United States must continue to play the
major role in this security system" [252].  This statement is not only a
guide to policy making in Washington and NATO headquarters in
Brussels. The  policy is in fact already being   implemented on the ground
in that the  U.S. has been assiduously using economic,diplomatic and
military carrots to engage more and more 'regional powers' to play
assigned roles in this 'concert' under its own regional direction. These
countries include  especially  Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan on the
western wing to distant Tajukistan and Kazakstan on the eastern one of
this American and NATO PfP concert hall. All of these states, whether in
the oil business or not, happen to be former Soviet republics on the
underbelly of Russia.
 
All this was written and begun to be implemented  already in 1997 and
earlier. well before the NATO  war against Jugoslavia that was allegedly
fought to defend 'human rights in Kosovo,' which along with the  new NATO
'out of area' south-eastward projection toward the oil producing countries
can now be better seen in the light of the above considerations.  Indeed,
"NATO's  regional involvement, especially through PfP [referring to the
above mentioned "Partnership for Peace"] is intensifying on a yearly
basis. Military excersizes also already in 1997 were supposed to show that
"U.S. and NATO forces could be deployed anywhere" [266]. "The obvious
implication of current policy is that NATO, under U.S. leadership, will
become an international policeman and hegemon in the Transcaspian and
define the limits of Russian participation in the region's expected oil
boom" [267]. Now  the precedent of "humanitarian defense of human
rights" in Kosovo also embellishes the "Partnership for Peace" in the
Caspian Sea Basin, where it alone  might otherwise  not evoke enough
popular political support from the folks back home.  So now in Orwellian
language again, not only "War is Peace," but now it also is highly
"humanitarian." Preferably that is also placed under a mantle of
'legitimation' by United Nations, as now is the NATO military occupation
of Kosovo after the war ended. But if that is not available to make war
itself, as it was not against Jugoslavia, then 'legitimation'  may at
least sought by the agreement of the "International Community," whose
states [mis]represent at most 15 percent of humanity, but whose  bombs
spoke so eloquently in 1999 over Jugoslavia. Where will they fall next -
yet farther south-east ? 

"It is highly unlikely that Russia will accept such a position 'lying
down'," writes Blank,   especially in its own  Caucasian and Caspian
underbelly.  Thus, he outlines four main reasons why he regards this
U.S. policy not only misguided but also counterproductive:

1. Structural conditions. Military forces will be deployed in the guise of
the now sanctioned 'peacekeepers' or 'peace enforcers,' as Kosovo has
begun to confirm since he wrote. But that can mean also overextending
these forces beyond domestic acceptance. [Contrary to the propaganda, NATO
bombs did NOT bring Milosevic to heel and ground troops would have been
necessary, had not Russia  eventually withdrawn its support from
Milosevic, which is what really obliged him to accept Western terms that
by then were far less than those for which it had gone to war]. But what
if Russia no more plays along at all? U.S. policy and praxis over
Jugoslavia and in formerly Soviet Central Asia and the Caspian Sea area
has already shifted the Russian political center of gravity towards
sharpened nationalism and a renewedly increase in the influence of the
military. Yet, already before that, Blank wrote that "Russia will
resolutely contest the United States' expanded presence" [263], which can
drive Russia into the arms of China and India as "Kosovo" already did,
even if it does not threaten a Third World War, as it well may.
 
2. This U.S. policy also drives Russia to cooperate with Iran, which is
certainly not in the interest of current  American policy. 3. "It is
impossible to discern any strategic context for the Clinton
administration's Russia policy...[which] only enhance Russia's sense of
regional threat and propensity to reply in kind, while not preventing it
from doing so" [262]. 4. For all the power at the disposal of the U.S.,
Washington "remains singularly unable to use such instruments to obtain a
comprehensive and insightful understanding of regional trends and their
implications" [262]. Kuwait, Somalia, and Iraq - since then also Kosovo -
"suggest that this is a structural failing of U.S. policy" [262]. 

Thus, the U.S. is enlarging its commitment absentmindedly, Blank writes,
in the contemporary continuation  of the nineteenth century "Great Game"
in Central Eurasia -- with still the same major players, excepting the
replacement of erstwhile Great Britain by the United States. Equally so in
Southwest Asia, that in Eurocentric terminology was in colonial times
miscalled the "Near East"  [near to whom?] and  now in neo-colonial ones
the "Middle East" [between where and where?]. Therefore again, the
information and analysis in  this book on Central Asia and the oil
producing Caspian Sea Basin must also be of interest to those concerned
with West Asia and North Africa.