EVOLVING UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD THE CASPIAN REGION: A DELICATE BALANCE
Abstract
Historically, the United States had almost no involvement in the Caspian Sea region, which was so remote both in geographical and cultural terms that the U.S. government was barely aware of its existence. The 19th century “Great Game” of power politicking between Russia and Great Britain over the region took place before the United States had emerged as a world power, and it had at best a marginal role in this episode. Even when the United States became a major power, it focused its attention on the western hemisphere and events in its own backyard.
The same could not be said of the actions of Russia in Manchuria at the time, and United States involvement in the Manchurian dispute brought the realization home to the Americans that in future Russia would be its major rival on the world stage.1 Even at times in the following century when the two powers cooperated, such as during World War II, their alliance was based more on strategic needs than on deep-seated conviction. The wartime military cooperation soon gave way to the Cold War, which lasted for most of the rest of the 20th century and affected most corners of the globe. The Caspian region was heavily dominated by Russia, with most of its territories comprising Soviet Republics. American activity there was nonexistent.
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Russia occupied Japanese-dominated Manchuria in 1901, an action which contributed to the outbreak of theRusso-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The U.S. President,Theodore Roosevelt, mediated at the postwar peace confer-ence between Russia and the victorious Japanese, held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The 1953 coup in Iran that toppled the government of Mohammad Mossadegh and installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was orchestrated by the CIA and British intel-ligence. Oil exploitation in Iran had been controlled by a British company, which took the vast bulk of profits from this resource. Mossadegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in 1951, a factor that contributed to the coup.
See: A. Jaffe, “U.S. Policy Towards the Caspian Region: Can the Wish-list Be Realized?” The Security of the Caspian Region: SIPRI, 6 January, 2000, p. 1.
A. Cohen, “U.S. Policy in the Caucasus and Cen-tral Asia: Building a New ‘Silk Road’ to Economic Pros-perity,” Background paper 1132, The Heritage Founda-tion, 24 July, 1997.
The aims of this program, enshrined in a formal Congressional Act in 1993, were to facilitate the safeguarding and elimination of nuclear and other weapons in the former Soviet Union, and to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
See: A. Jaffe, op. cit., pp. 1-2.
Ibid., p. 3.
A. Cohen, op. cit.
Ibidem.
For more detail, see: F.W. Hays, “US Congress and the Caspian,” available at [http://www.ourworld.compusrve.com/
OMEPAGES/USAZERB/333.htm].
The two countries have been at loggerheads over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988.
See: F.W. Hays, op. cit.
Opening Statement of Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chair, Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia Hear-ing: “U.S. Security Concerns in Central Asia,” 26 October, 2005.
Ibidem.
State Department Advisory, 29 April, 2005.
Other estimates of oil reserves were much lower than Cohen’s (see note 17). According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “The Caspian Sea is developing into a significant oil and gas exporting area, and the Caucasus is a potentially major world oil transit center. Proven oil reserves for the entire Caspian region are estimated at 17-44 billion barrels, compara-ble to proven reserves in the North Sea (around 15-17 billion barrels). Natural gas reserves are larger, accounting for almost two-thirds of the region’s total hydrocarbon reserves proved possible.”
Ch.H. Fairbanks, Jr., “Ten Years after the Soviet Breakup: Disillusionment in the Caucasus and Central Asia,”Journal of Democracy, Vol. 12, No. 4, 2001.
To quote the department’s website: “In almost any direction, Caspian region export pipelines may be subjected to regional conflicts… Numerous ethnic and religious groups reside in the Caspian Sea region, and continuing conflicts pose threats to both existing pipelines and those under construction. …Afghanistan remains scarred and unstable after years of war. Negotiations to resolve the Azerbaijan-Armenia war … have yet to make significant progress. Separatist conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Ajaria in Georgia flared in the mid-1990s … Russia’s war with Chechnya has devastated the region around Groznyy in southern Russia, and the September 2004 terrorist massacre in Beslan underlines the tenuous political situation in the Caspian region. The most significant problem with the Caspian Sea’s oil and natural gas resourc-es is the lack of an agreement among the five littoral states.”
For a summary of these issues, see [www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspenv.html].
B. Shaffer, “U.S. Policy Toward the Caspian Region: Recommendations for the Bush Administration,” available at [www.ksg.edu/bcsia/sdi]. The executive summary is reproduced in Kazakhstan News Bulletin, Vol. 3, No. 2, 3, Septem-ber 2001.
U.S. Congress, 105th Congress, Second Session, Committee on International Relations, Hearing, U.S. Interests in the Central Asian Republics, 12 February, 1998, available at [http:/commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa48119.00/
fa48119_0.HTM].
Ibidem.
See: Ibidem.
Testimony by Richard L. Morningstar, Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for Caspian Basin’s Energy Diplomacy, before the Senate Subcommittee on International Economic Policy, Exports and Trade Promotion, 3 March,1999, available at [http://www.treemedia.com/efrlibrary/library/morningstar.html].
Ibidem.
Ibidem; Statement of Robert W. Gee, Assistant Secretary of State for Policy and International Affairs, Department of Energy.
Ibidem.
A. Cohen, op. cit.
See: M.T. Klare, “The New Geography of Conflict,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 3, May-June 2001.
The United States currently has military bases in Kyrgyzstan, but it was ordered out of its Uzbekistan base in 2005.
The U.S. has officially denied persistent rumors that it wishes to open a military base in Azerbaijan, and Azerba-ijani President Ilham Aliev is quoted as having said in December 2005: “I have said this before, and I repeat: ‘Azerbaijan will not host American military bases on its territory,’” available at [www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/
av091205ru.shtml].
The logic was that: “Development of Iran’s oil and gas industry and pipelines from the Caspian Basin south through Iran will seriously undercut the development of east-west infrastructure, and give Iran improper leverage over the econo-mies of Caucasian and Central Asian States. Moreover, from an energy security point of view, it makes no sense to move yet more energy resources through the Persian Gulf, a potential major hot spot or chokepoint. From an economic standpoint,Iran competes with Turkmenistan for the lucrative Turkish gas market. Turkmenistan could provide the gas to build the pipeline, only to see itself displaced ultimately by Iran’s own gas exports” (“Hearing on U.S. Interests in the Central Asian Republics,” House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Committee on International Relations, Wash-ington, DC, available at [http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa48119.000/hfa48119_0f.ht]).
Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress CRS Issue Brief for Congress, Order Code IB93033,
Iran: Current Developments and U.S. Policy,” Updated 25 July, 2003, Kenneth Katzman Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division.
Statement of Frederick Starr, Chairman of Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, before the Senate Subcommittee on International Economic Policy,Exports and Trade Promotion, 3 March, 1999, available at [commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa48119.000/
fa48119_0.HTM].
Ibidem.
I. Berman, U.S. Foreign Policy Challenges Posed by Iran, Briefing before the House International Relations Com-mittee Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, 18 October, 2005.
Ibidem.
St. Sestanovich, L. Feinstein, Russia’s Wrong Direction: What the United States Can and Should Do, Report of an Independent Task Force, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), 2006.
See: Ibidem.
Ibidem.
Ibidem.
Prepared Statement, Subcommittee on Europe and Emerging Threats, “Hearing on Developments in U.S.-Russia Relations,” 9 March, 2005, by Eugene B. Rumer, Senior Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, available at [http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/109/rum030905.htm].
The foreign policy approach of the Bush regime, or the so-called “Bush Doctrine” was outlined by President George Bush in a speech at West Point on 1 June, 2002, available at [www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html].
For an up-to-date summary of stated U.S. goals and activities in the region, see: [www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rm/2006/
htm].
In which a number of protesting civilians, alleged by the government to be Islamic extremists, were machine-gunned by Uzbeki troops. The Tashkent government puts the death toll at 187, but other reports say it was much higher.
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