CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CASPIAN: A NEW STAGE IN THE GREAT ENERGY GAME

Abstract

The events that took place early in September 2006 can be described as the starting point of a new round of the Great Game for control over the Central Asian and Caspian gas resources. The near monopoly domination of Russia and Gazprom in this part of the world is becoming a thing of the past. China, which signed contracts on the delivery of over 100 bcm of gas with Russia and the Central Asian countries, has moved to the fore, thus tipping the balance of forces. The fact that the huge contractual amounts have not yet been confirmed either by available resources or by adequate transportation facilities testifies that the countries involved are working toward new and more acceptable rules on the market that is just taking shape.   The rivalry over the energy sources of Central Asia and the Caspian is rooted in the 19th century when Britain and Russia were locked in the so-called Great Game over the region. Early in the 20th century, the Caspian supplied the world with half the oil it consumed; this was where the huge wealth of the Nobels and Rockefellers originated. When the Soviet Union left the stage, Western companies pushed in with the intention to control the natural resources of the newly independent Central Asian and Caspian states. In Asia, too, the giants—China, India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea—stepped up their involvement in the process. Russia, which lost some of its influence in the 1990s, has been building up its presence in the last few years. Analysts and political observers have already tagged the rivalry over energy resources and pipelines as “a new round of the Great Game of the 19th century.”

Today, America, Russia, China, Japan, and India are interested in the region for several reasons: its favorable geographic location and its potential as a West-East and North-South communication corridor; the world’s growing demand for energy fuels, in which the region is rich, as well as the counter-terrorist struggle.

In the final analysis, however, the present active involvement of the world’s largest countries in Central Asia and the Caspian, which manifests itself in different forms (diplomatic, military, economic, etc.), is explained by nothing more than the key political reality: the exacerbating rivalry over raw materials, particularly energy fuels.

The oil crisis taught the oil importers that they need an uninterrupted flow of oil from the oil wells to the consumer; they also learned that oil should come from different sources in sufficient quantities to exclude the possibility of “energy blackmail.