This is a highly instructive point. Such unanticipated utility
is not limited to the Central Command. The entire security system
of three interrelated strategic zones, it turns out, also serves purposes
other than containing Soviet power. It has provided a security context
without which Western economic interdependence and unprecedented prosperity
could not have emerged even if there had been no Soviet threat. A
large community of states has gathered within this system to create
numerous organizations for economic and political cooperation, such as
the IMF, the World Bank, the European Union, ASEAN; created bilateral links
throughout East Asia, and complex balancing arrangements in the Middle
East and the Persian Gulf region. Let me again emphasize that without this
security structure, such cooperative endeavors would have been impossible.
In other words, the disappearance of the Soviet threat has not rendered
obsolete the US-led security system created to contain it. On the contrary,
it remains extraordinarily important for other purposes not so clearly
appreciated. The popular impression that the end of the Cold War has removed
the need for US leadership in these three strategic zones is dangerously
wrong. In some ways it has become more important precisely because the
Soviet Union has collapsed. That is certainly true in the Transcaucasus
and Central Asia.
Ironically, most of the countries in the former Soviet empire understand
this far better than we do. They do not want us to dismantle our
three zone security system. They want to share in its benefits, benefits
they were denied throughout the Cold War. This is precisely why the new
states of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia are knocking at our door.
Why should we entertain their demands? Because we and they share
huge mutual interests, interests arising from three sets of realities.
First, the oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian Sea basin approach
the size of those in the Persian Gulf. Given the added demands for energy
caused by the rapidly growing economies of China, Indian, and other late
developing states, the importance of these additional reserves is obvious.
Second, political and military conditions in the Transcaucasus and
Central Asia present obstacles to bringing this energy to the global market.
Third, both regions are the object of outside states competing for
influence there. Not only Russia, but also China, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan,
and Saudi Arabia, are competitively engaged, often in nonconstructive ways.
Also, some of the problems in the Persian Gulf region and Afghanistan are
refracted into Central Asia and the Transcaucasus.
If we and our allies cannot manage the second and third sets of realities,
we will forego the benefits of the first set of realities. Bringing the
oil and gas to market will be sporadic, if not impossible, and far more
costly. At the same time, the resulting political instabilities may turn
both regions into a cauldron of civil wars and political violence, inevitably
drawing in the surrounding states. We already have this pattern in the
Persian Gulf region, requiring US military involvement, and we could hardly
stand by politically, even if we did so militarily, if conflicts entangle
Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and some of the Arab states in the
Transcaucasus or Central Asia.
From the larger perspective of the three interrelated strategic zones
of US engagement during the Cold War, we can see that the Transcaucasus
and Central Asia have become a large extension of the third zone, involving
not only Europe and East Asia but also Russia, China, and others as well.
This calls to mind the 19th century “Great Game” played over this region
between British and Russian Empires. There is, indeed, a new “great
game” emerging, but the analogies with the old game are not the best guides
to understanding the new one. In the 19th century, British and Russian
interests in the area were more imagined than real. Today the interests
are real and the number of players is larger.
Let me list a few of the clashing interests to make the case more illuminating
and to suggest some appropriate US policies for dealing with them.
First, the fate of Russian democracy will in part hinge on developments
in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Reactionary political circles in Russia
are determined to restore Moscow’s hegemony over its lost colonies.
Russian border troops, military bases, and intelligence links are their
means, and the false flag of so-called “peace-making” operations is their
banner. At the same time, Russian oil companies are struggling to
monopolize all of the export routes for oil and gas from the Caspian Sea
basin.
Russian liberal reform circles do not support all of these policies
because they realize the deadly implications for Russia’s political and
economic development. If the neo-imperialists succeed, nascent Russian
democracy cannot survive. Empire and democracy are incompatible, especially
in Russia.
Two policy implications are obvious. First, blocking Russian neo-imperialism
objectively promotes democracy and market reforms in Russia. If we want
to see a democratic Russia, therefore, we have a strong strategic interest
in maintaining the independence of all eight states in this new strategic
zone. At the same time, if we want to avoid a Russian monopoly over the
export of Azeri and Kazak oil and Turkmen gas, allowing these states to
keep most of the profits from truly competitive global market prices, we
have a strong interest in seeing multiple pipelines; some not transiting
Russian territory at all.
A second clash of interests may well arise between Russia and
China in Central Asia. China’s western province of Xinjiang is inhabited
by Muslim peoples, including some Kazaks and Kyrgyz. Accordingly, Chinese
diplomatic activity in Central Asia has begun to grow. This should
not necessarily disturb US interests. China seeks stability, not a revision
of its borders with Central Asia.
A third clash of interests, involves Turkey and Russia, especially
in Azerbaijan, but also in Central Asia. The Azeri language and all the
Central Asia languages but Tajik are of Turkic root, giving them a cultural
connection to Turkey. Thus, in 1992 Turkey became highly active diplomatically
in the entire zone, and although it was generally well received, the leaders
of these states showed a stronger preference for US and European connections.
As a NATO ally, Turkey is an important partner for US and European influence
in both regions. US policy has devoted too little attention to this opportunity.
President Ozal, before he died, worked out the basis for a rapprochement
with President Ter-Petrossian of Armenia, but Russian agents and Diaspora
Armenians from the Middle East blocked it. US efforts to restore this endeavor
should be pursued. It will be much harder to succeed today, however, because
Armenia is now wrapped in the embrace of the Russian army and intelligence
services which want the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to continue and hostile
relations with Turkish to remain permanent. The sad losers in this outcome
are the Armenian people.
A fourth clash of interests, could arise from Iranian policy toward
both regions. I say “could” because Iran has been surprisingly correct
in most of its diplomacy in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus. Expected
to encourage Islamic radicalism there, Teheran has not done so in
any conspicuous way. Rather Saudi Arabia has been the strongest backer
of an Islamic cultural and political resurgence, providing vast sums of
money covertly to Islamic community leaders throughout both regions. Iran
is nervous about Azerbaijan, of course, because of its own large Azeri
minority. Potentially it could clash with Turkey over its support
to the Baku regime. Yet both Turkey and Iran have been extremely cautious
about avoiding such a conflict.
A fifth clash in both regions has been expected from an emergence of
Islamic radicalism opposing the secular regimes in the six Muslim countries.
Certainly an Islamic cultural and religious revival is in progress, but
it need not become radical. Some Russian and Central Asian political leaders
loudly warn of this threat, exaggerating the reality mainly to frighten
the West into accepting Russian hegemony over the region. Actually, the
secularization legacy of the Soviet period works against such radicalism.
Yet oppressive policies by Russian military and local political leaders
may well create it. And the Saudis will provide it with financial
resources. These are the real sources of danger, not the inherent nature
of Islam. The flag of Islam is the only political banner left for
disenfranchised political opposition. The proper US policy for avoiding
this kind radicalism in both regions is not to focus on it per se but rather
to focus on reducing the sources that provoke it.
The main objective of an overall strategy should be to keep all eight
states in these regions independent, stable, and at peace. We have an opportunity
to achieve this because most of them want US and other Western involvement.
They desperately seek openings to the Western economies and the political
ties that will cement them. This opportunity will not last forever.
The most obvious way to exploit it is to provide several oil and gas export
routes out of the Caspian Basin countries to the global energy markets.
The obstacles, of course, are numerous. US relations with Iran
stand in the way. No near-term rapprochement with Iran is probable, but
the United States should take as a long-term goal the creation of an opening
to Iran. We have very good reasons to contain Iran today, but the
price is higher than sometimes recognized. It promotes an unnatural alliance
between Moscow and Teheran as well as between Teheran and Beijing. It blocks
an obvious route for a pipeline into Central Asia and Azerbaijan.
Alternative routes through Afghanistan and Pakistan and through Georgia,
Armenia, and Turkey are certainly possibilities that should be pursued
as a number of US oil companies are doing.
Pipelines through Russia are not a bad thing if they are not the only
ones. In fact, they can be a good thing in combination with others, and
if Russia were wholly excluded, that would merely incite Moscow to make
trouble. Russia must be included and encouraged to play a more constructive
role in both regions. Some Russian leaders recognize this and will be constructive
if their reactionary opponents in Moscow fail in their neo-imperialist
aims.
Other policies must also be part of a US strategy for these regions.
The Partnership for Peace program ,is an example, of a surprisingly successful
one. Through 1993, the Clinton administration was either passive or downright
negative toward several Central Asian states as well as toward Azerbaijan
and Georgia. In the last year or so, that has changed noticeably for the
better, but there is still much room for a more active public diplomacy
toward these countries as well as several other initiatives. Most
important is to create a presence and level of interest that makes Russia,
China, Iran, and Turkey fully aware that we recognize our objective strategic
interests in the both regions.
Let me end by reemphasizing the linking and interconnected role that
the Transcaucasus and Central Asia now have between Europe and East Asia
in our post-Cold War security system. Neither Europe nor our allies
in East Asia can defend our mutual interests in these regions. If we fail
to take the lead in heading off the kinds of conflicts and crises that
are already looming there, that will eventually exacerbate our relations
with Europe and possibly Northeast Asia. And it will encourage the
worst kind of political developments in Russia. This linkage, or interconnectedness,
gives the Transcaucasus and Central Asia a strategic importance to the
United States and its allies that we overlook at huge risk.
To put it another way, the fruits accruing from ending the Cold War
are far from fully harvested. To ignore the Transcaucasus and Central Asia
could mean that a large part of that harvest will never be gathered.