THE STRUGGLE FOR CASPIAN OIL AND CASPIAN TRANSIT: GEOPOLITICAL REGIONAL DIMENSIONS 1

Abstract

In the 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell apart, the Caspian emerged as a center of oil-related rivalry, the victory in which would bring influence and domination over a territory that Moscow regarded as an outskirt of its empire. This corner of Eurasia became the crossroads of political interests of global and regional powers. This very fact revived the old phrase, “The Great Game,” that Kipling used to describe the Russian-British rivalry in Central Asia in the 19th century. Abused by political observers, the phrase added mystical and emotional dimensions to the Caspian issue. I believe that the analogy is an important one because the focus of the struggle (oil and gas) is found inside the region. The Caspian Basin, which has come to be described as the energy treasure-trove of the 21st century, is one of those places on the planet that is very hard to penetrate. Kipling demonstrated great perspicacity when he said that the country to win the railway race would be the winner in the Great Game. In the latter half of the 19th century, the time when the Russian and British empires clashed in Central Asia, it was control over the communication routes that decided Russia’s victory and Britain’s retreat. The Trans-Caspian railway completed in 1888 was Russia’s main geopolitical instrument in the region, creating new trade routes to replace the old ones which in the past connected Persia, Khiva, Bukhara, and Turkestan to European Russia. 2 This cost the British their markets and stemmed British expansion on the continent.

 History is repeating itself at the turn of the 21st century: the region’s future depends on oil and gas pipelines which bring energy fuels to the foreign markets. Caspian geography and metaphysics have made the transit issue the key to interpreting the meaning of the rapid changes unfolding in the Caspian-Black Sea area. Communications make geographic location meaningful; transportation lines revive the resources and the fact of possessing them. Today, local political interests and trends in outside influences are largely determined by potential export oil pipelines. Back in the 1990s, it became abundantly clear that outside influences would betray themselves in a specific way depending on the oil export routes (to the north, south, east or west). Enormous finances, as well as the inflated ambitions and egoisms of the largest oil companies, political leaders, and ruling groups are aligning themselves along the pipelines. The above should not be taken to mean that the oil pipelines serve as magic axes of sorts for the Caspian policies at all levels. It was the transit factor, however, that changed the region from a relatively stable Eurasian resource periphery into a busy geopolitical crossroads. More complex and more differentiated political considerations and factors set the Caspian and its resources in motion.