Caspian Oil, the USSR Break Up & Western Intentions

Dear Comrades,
             This morning I mailed to you a summary of a document "Russia: 
Key to the International Situation" - for a Conference in Moscow this 
October.  In the summary I wrote:  
<< But even before the chaos of world depression, imperialism seems to be 
heading into a fight over the Caspian and central Asian oil and gas 
resources, not just with Russia, but with China too. >> 
             Below is an excellent article (written in the last week or 
two) 
I discovered later today (it’s on the website mentioned) which is very 
close 
to my own understanding of this question: of the reason for the Nato 
bombing 
of, and now military base in Yugoslavia; and of rivalry between the US and 
EU 
too.
              I just wish the author and his comrades in the ICFI knew how 
to 
work with others in an anti-sectarian manner and carry out united front 
work 
and international solidarity in the way Lenin or Trotsky would if they were 
around today. It oculd be said we all have our strengths and weaknesses, 
but 
this is not good enough when it comes to a genuine rediscovery of 
consistent 
revolutionary Marxism as a living science of today.

Regards,  Steve Myers.

________________________________________


World Socialist Web Site
www.wsws.org

THE STRUGGLE FOR CASPIAN OIL, THE CRISIS IN RUSSIA AND THE BREAK-UP OF THE 
COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES
By Patrick Richter

As NATO troops occupy Kosovo and the media is busy justifying the bombing of
Yugoslavia, new struggles are developing away from the front lines which
could lead to much greater military conflagrations. Such conflicts are
taking place on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the source
of the world's largest untapped reserves of oil and gas and a
region where Russian influence has declined dramatically.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 8, 1991, the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was founded, consisting of Russia,
White Russia and the Ukraine. On December 21 of the same year a further
eight former Soviet republics joined the CIS-the states of Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenia
and Uzbekistan. The Commonwealth was founded in Alma Ata,
the former capital of Kazakhstan. In 1993 the Caucasus republic of
Georgia also joined the union.

Russian power was the cement which held the CIS together. However the
economic, political and military weakening of Russia has brought into the
open the centrifugal forces which had led to the dissolution of the Soviet
Union in the first place and have marked the CIS from its very beginning.
Two events have accelerated this process: the financial crisis in Russia
of August 1998 and the political humiliation of Russia by NATO
in the war against Yugoslavia.

At the beginning of the 1990s Russia was able, with its powerful military
apparatus, to exert its influence over various political conflicts taking
place within the former Soviet republics. By stationing troops Russia was
able to ensure a temporary status quo between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh; in Georgia it supported the Abkhazia
separatist movement; in Tajikistan it maintained the weak pro-Moscow puppet
government of Imomali Rokhmonov against the Islamic opposition (UTO); in
Moldova it backed the Russian separatist Transnistria republic.

More recently Moscow's military grip over these republics has weakened,
while new conflicts have arisen and old ones have reemerged. This
development is bound up with Russia's own decline and the fact that
the Central Asian and Caucasus regions have developed relations
in other directions.

Overall internal trade between the CIS states has fallen by two-thirds since
1991. The percentage of foreign trade has declined from 78 percent in 1991
to 24 percent today. Trade of White Russia, the Ukraine, Moldova
and Kazakhstan with Russia is down between 40 and 60 percent;
between Russia and the Caucasus republics of Georgia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan trade has fallen by an average of 23 percent; between
Russia and the rest of the Central Asian republics (Turkmenia,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) the decline on
average is 13 percent. While the Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are striving
to develop close links with the European Union, the Central Asian
republics and Azerbaijan aim to develop relations with Turkey,
Iran and China.

This process has intensified considerably since last year's financial crisis
in Russia. Up to that point Russia, as the most stable of the CIS economies,
was able to artificially maintain links to the republics by buying products
which were uncompetitive on the world market and making available
non-repayable credits.

Since the August crisis, however, Russia has been "transformed from a centre
of gravitation to a source of economic tremors. The main concern of all its
former partners has been to put sufficient distance between themselves and
Russia", according to Yuri Shishkov, deputy chairman of the Institute for
World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Science.
"All of the integration programmes within the framework of CIS are a thing
of the past", he wrote in the weekly Obshaya Gazeta of May 13-19, 1999.

The atmosphere between Russia and the "partner countries" has cooled
considerably. Whereas a chorus of "hope and optimism" greeted the founding
of the CIS, today it is regarded as a "listless organisation", whose
authority
is not taken seriously by any of the member countries. Kyrgyzstan, for
example, recently joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in open defiance
of the customs regulations drawn up by five of the CIS member countries.
Turkmenia, which was formerly only able to offer its gas to the world market
via Russian pipelines and with a Russian subsidy, now delivers through Iran
and is gradually breaking all its relations with Russia. Train connections
and travel without a visa between Moscow and the Turkmenian capital,
Ashkhabad, have been stopped.

The most significant organisation to emerge as a challenger to Russian
influence is the union of states known as GUAM, formed in 1998 by Georgia,
the Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. In April 1999 the union was extended to
include Uzbekistan (after which the organization's name was changed to
GUUAM). From its outset the proclaimed aim of the alliance was the revival
of the "Silk Road".

This point was first made by the Georgian president and former foreign
minister of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, Edward Shevardnadze. At an
Asian Pacific Economic Community (APEC) forum in 1994 he called for the
integration of the Central Asian and Caucasus states into the world market
with the aid of a trans-European Caucasus/Pacific communications system.

The heart of this system is a transport route for Azeri oil which
circumvents Russia and its spheres of influence. The trans-
Caucasian states of Azerbaijan and Georgia would become
key elements in a transport system linking Asia and Europe
and controlling the passage of goods by road and rail. Such a system
would be highly attractive to investors. The first projects involved in this
system, such as the construction of a highway from the north Turkish
industrial town of Samsun to the Georgian port of Batumi, are being built
or-as with the oil pipeline between the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and the
Georgian Black Sea port of Supsa-are already finished.

The European Union, which partly financed this latter project, seeks as well
to participate in an oil transport route between Poti and Ilytshovsk. This
will secure a direct route for Azerbaijani oil to the states of western and
southeastern Europe fully independent of Russia. Instead of the existing
route from Grosny to Novorossik in Russia, it is to be transported by rail
from Baku to the Georgian port of Poti and then transported by ship to the
Ukrainian port of Odessa Ilytshovsk.

Ukraine and neighbouring Moldova are making their own oil pipeline available
to the Czech and Slovakian republics and Rumania, and then to Western Europe
and the Balkans. By so doing they can free themselves altogether from
Russian oil interests and grab their own share of business. Talks are
being held with Turkmenia over oil and gas pipelines through the
Caspian Sea over Baku, and further on to Georgia and Turkey.

A major problem, however, is the existence of ethnic conflicts in these
countries. Up until now these antagonisms were utilised by Russia to
maintain its control and hinder the efforts of these states to free
themselves from Moscow's grip. But with Russia's decline the
GUUAM states are more and more openly opposing Moscow and
seeking the support of the United States in order
to assert their own interests.

Uzbekistan's entry into the GUUAM alliance took place in Washington during
the festivities to mark the fiftieth anniversary of NATO, which were
boycotted by Russia in protest over the bombing of Yugoslavia. For their
part the presidents of the GUUAM states made clear their unqualified
support for the actions of the US and NATO.

Moreover, since the beginning of the year joint military maneuvers by the
Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Georgia have been taking place for the first time
without the participation of Russia. The maneuvers were conducted as defence
exercises for the newly opened oil routes. Immediately after the CIS summit
in Moscow last April, these countries asserted their de facto withdrawal
from the treaty of Tashkent, agreed in 1992 between the CIS states
with the aim of creating a "joint defence framework".

The United States has warmly approved the aims of GUUAM. As early as 1997
the US Congress passed a resolution declaring the Caspian and
Caucasus region to be a "zone of vital American interests". At the end
of April this year Clinton's special envoy for energy diplomacy,
R. Morningstar, outlined American interests in a number of points:
1) independence, sovereignty and welfare in these countries to
be secured through the imposition of economic and
political reforms; 2) reducing the danger of regional conflict through
the involvement of the states in international economic collaboration; 3)
strengthening the energy security of the USA and its allies with the help of
the countries of the Caspian region and; 4) expanding the opportunities for
American corporations.

An especially aggressive role is being played by oil-rich Azerbaijan, where
American petroleum concerns are responsible for more than 50 percent of oil
investment. Its president, Heydar Aliyev, has repeatedly boasted that "the
great possibilities for the deepening and broadening of economic and
military  collaboration with the USA and NATO have been fully
exploited". Intense efforts have been made to establish an American,
Turkish or NATO base as a counterpart to Armenia (which is supported
by Russia) on the territory of the former Soviet air defence base
"Nasosnaya", located 45 km north of Baku.

The US, which is evidently prepared to impose its interests in the region by
means of military force, sent a working group of American officers under the
leadership of General Charles Box on a special mission to the area.
According to the Russian weekly Vyek (century), they examined
the possibilities of stationing NATO troops "for the strengthening
of security and stability in the Caucasus."

It was more than empty words when Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar Abiyev
called for "a peace intervention by NATO" in connection with renewed
fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. He had already offered NATO the
use of Azeri air installations for the Alliance's operations in Yugoslavia.

Europe is also well aware of the significance of the region. NATO General
Secretary Javier Solanas, who has visited the region twice in the past two
years, stated, "Europe cannot be totally secure as long as the Caucasus
states remain outside the borders of European security."

Russian influence and CIS stability are also under threat from the Islamic
side. Because of the decline in Moscow's authority, President Rachmonov of
Tajikistan was forced to make further concessions to the Islamistic United
Tajik Opposition (UTO), which has controlled half of the shattered country
since the end of the five-year civil war in 1997. The opposition has close
relations to the Afghan Taliban militia, and in the latest conflict
opposition leader Nuri received four additional ministerial posts in the
coalition government that was formed after the civil war.

Uzbekistan, where a third of the population belongs to the ethnic Tadchikis
minority, fears for its future amid growing pressure from Tajikistan and an
increase in incidents on its short border with Afghanistan. Were Russia to
desert its neighbour Tajikistan, and the latter to fall into the hands of
the Islamists, Uzbekistan would hardly be in a position to defend
its borders. This is why Uzbekistan President Karimov is seeking
to secure his rule with the help of the US and GUUAM.

The only CIS state to maintain unconditional loyalty to Russia is White
Russia [Belarussia] , whose economy has hit rock bottom. During
the Soviet era White Russia was closely integrated into the
Russian economy and was  known as the Russian "tool-shop".
Today its economy is totally uncompetitive on the world market,
and its output has declined to less than 30 percent of the level in 1989.

Those seeking to determine the source of future military conflicts should
follow the flow of oil and gold. The ethnic conflicts encountered along the
way could well serve as the trigger for new NATO interventions.
END