Steve LeVine has spent the last few weeks seeing what some ripple-effects of the Georgian war were in the rest of Central Asia. He has a nice essay up at Business Week:
Even before the Georgia mini-war, Russia was playing for keeps in the region. Starting in the 1990s, Russia often got its way by manipulating its oil and natural gas pipelines, which, despite the West’s efforts, still dominate Caspian output. Russian pipelines ship more than 85% of the 6.3 million barrels of oil exported daily from the former Soviet Union. In its struggles with the republics, Russia has turned its spigots off and on repeatedly. In 1993, for instance, Moscow shut off Turkmenistan’s gas exports to the West, forcing the Turkmen to sell at a lower price to Ukraine.
Kazakhstan has been the biggest prize of all. It didn’t look that way in the Soviet Union’s last days, when the flow of money from Moscow slowed considerably, and Kazakhstan had to take out a loan to feed its cattle. It had Tengiz, with at least 9 billion barrels of reserves, plus 13 billion-barrel Kashagan, the largest oil discovery anywhere in 40 years. Yet it was still hard to picture how a territory lacking a single private office building, in which the biggest business was importing Coke and whiskey, would become a petro-state.
It’s pretty interesting to read, in part because this is his old beat and he knows it very well, but mostly because the geopolitical implications are fascinating. Blog-friend Christian has already discussed some of the strategic implications of Russia squeezing a potential northern supply route for Afghanistan (we followed up with some more discussion here). But Afghanistan is not the West’s only strategic interest in the region.
I think Steve is right to be cautious in speculating about concessions the West would have to make the get a non-Russian route for Kashagan oil and Azeri gas. In short, the West has zero leverage, and now that they’ve shown they’ll use their military, the cards are down: Russia will go to war for its interests.
But perhaps pessimism is not the only possible emotion. At a meeting on September 9, Azerbaijani Industry and Energy Minister Natiq Aliyev reiterated his support for the Nabucco pipeline. The project does, however, still lack any definite buy-in on the part of Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan. And until that materializes, especially with Azerbaijan’s natural gas under threat by a thirsty Gazprom, it is too early to do more than discuss likelihoods.
This situation does, however, stress yet again the absolute strategic necessity of Central Asia to the West. Which is a pity it’s been so undermined at the American budget table.
Previously:
Outfoxing Russia… Sort of
Selling Out
Diversifying Caspian Gas
Debating Nordstream
Let’s Talk About Russia’s Pipes
Russia’s Move-Making
After the Wrecking Ships
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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Perhaps mildly off-topic, but brief: Filmmaker Dodge Billingsley gave a lecture at BYU in February 2008 that offers a sketch of the recent history of Georgia and its three breakaway regions, as seen by an American who has some first-hand knowledge of the Caucusus. The 48-minute video of the lecture Abkhazia: Untold War Story gives a good, sometimes tragically prescient background to the August 2008 war. He recently wrote a short opinion piece for National Review, here.
That is one of the reasons USA should strongly back up Georgia. I mean the pipeline business.
Actually, I think that the best solution for any oil company working in the Caspian region and all Caspian countries would be good relations between USA and Iran and building a pipeline through Iran to Persian Gulf. Of course it would give the Persian Gulf some additional importance but it would put the whole insecure Caucasus or Russia pipeline issue aside.
On topic: Those oiltrains in the video at the article sure looked like a target-rich enviroment to me. And as Russia proved by their almost bombing of the pipeline, all the alternatives are too. Quite simply, they control the acess to the Caspian oil. Its interesting to see how *ideological* the whole analysis of the US has become post 9/11, when faced with such sober facts as this. The republicans are holistic in their approach to reality. Its scary.
Off topic: is it just me, or did the United States of Americs just go to war with Pakistan?
On topic: Those oiltrains in the video at the article sure looked like a target-rich enviroment to me. And as Russia proved by their almost bombing of the pipeline, all the alternatives are too. Quite simply, they control the acess to the Caspian oil. Its interesting to see how *ideological* the whole analysis of the US has become post 9/11, when faced with such sober facts as this. The republicans are holistic in their approach to reality. Its scary.
Off topic: is it just me, or did the United States of Americs just go to war with Pakistan?