Eurasia experienced many conflicts, wars and traumas during 20th century. Two world wars, and then Cold War was the main issues in this geography that caused a differentiation between perceptions to be created on two sides of Berlin Wall.
Western Europe with the US and the USSR were representing two different sides in political and economic terms. However, when we came in 1980s the leaders of the Soviet Union died one after another and then Gorbachev had to take over a country with problematic mechanisms that prevent system to operate due to corruption, war going on in Afghanistan and old fashioned infrastructure that fail to modernize itself in parallel to the necessities of the time.
His liberalization reforms perestroika and glasnost were not enough or suitable to prevent the demise of the Union in 1991. However, collapse of a gigantic system like the USSR has brought new challenges and new actors, fifteen new states to the world politics. These challenges were liberalization of these countries in political and economic sense to be able to adapt new rules of the system and building up new states and nations in this period. Fukuyama describes this period as “the end of history as such: the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” The question of whether western liberal democracy as a concept succeeded to be the only valid form of human government in Post-Soviet geography does not have a single answer, even after seven teen years of time. May be we can discuss this issue further in another article. However, what proved to be right is that the power politics in the region still is the reality of this geography.
This thesis has different reflections in different sub-regions of Post-Communist geography. There is not only one classification of these sub-regions, but my main interest is on Caspian region here.
As Waltz argues even though one may find anarchy, self help or power balancing as the concepts belongs only for a specific period of political history, it seems to me that in different tones these are useful for a better understanding of conflict of interest in Caspian region. This conflict finds its basis in regional and international level and mainly security issues and economic interests are dominant factors in this conflict among its actors.
So many, analogies have been made to define this race in the region by scholars of the region as the Grand Chessboard, or the New Great Game.
As can be understood from the rhetoric “the Great Game” concept is not something just appeared in Post-Communist period. Its roots can be found in the 19th century to describe the struggle between two imperial powers, Russia and United Kingdom in Central Asia. The main issue here is that Russia had become the dominant power in the geography and was perceived as a threat by British diplomats for their East India Company, which was one of the main sources of wealth for the Kingdom and operating in India. Thus, struggle between these two powers can be described as the territorial control in this geography to protect their interests and described as the Great Game.
In the beginning of 20th century, Sir Halford Mackinder brought a new dimension to this discussion. He claimed that railway networks shifted balance of power and undermined the dominance of naval powers, such as Britain and accessibility of landmasses brings new advantages. He further claimed that,
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland,
Who rules Heartland commands the World Island,
Who rules the World Island, controls the world.
In fact, this geography was one of the main concerns during World War II, which became one of the ultimate targets of Nazi Germany to reach oil reserves, to make their mechanized forces to continue to operate. However, it became an isolated region during Soviet sovereignty.
May be because of this isolation or failing to integrate to the world system, this thesis might have proved to be wrong during Cold-War. Even though it was the USSR controlling Central Asia, it could not stop the dissolution of the Union. May be it was changing systems and new technologies that caused this thesis to be approved. Although railroads are still important means of transportation, with airplanes, satellites and other innovations, region’s strategic importance is not similar to conditions of the beginning of 20th century. In addition to this, all these transformations in systems have changed the tradition of war, which is something similar to the introduction of cannon. As known castles lost their importance, defense strategies have changed and feudal lords had to leave their places to strong emperors or kings.
However, even today it is hard to ignore the importance of the Heartland. The reason of scholars and experts of the region defining the situation as the New Great Game can be explained with ongoing struggle for dominance in the region. However, the actors and reasons have changed when compared with 19th century. After 9/11 the US opened new military bases in the region to be able to successful in its fight against ‘terrorism’. Moreover, thanks to the power vacuum and need for financial resources of Caspian countries, not only new states like the US, China, Iran, Turkey and the EU, but also many transnational companies appeared in the region as the new actors of this game. Hopes of finding rich and new oil and gas resources and integration of these countries to the world system are main matter of concern, as well as political interests.
Even though Russia seemed to get weaker in this geography, due to its financial and political problems, it has become one of the main actors once again in the Game during Putin’s term in the office. He succeeded to sign new agreements with the leaders of Central Asian countries in security and economic issues. One of the most striking agreements is energy and pipeline agreement between Russia and Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. All these three countries agreed to sell oil and gas to Russia and a new gas pipeline between Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia will be built to be able to transfer the gas of which its amount would increase step by step in the future.
On the other hand, China and the West are also trying to be the actors of this energy issue with new pipeline projects and agreements. However, some of these projects can be accomplished to be finalized and some of them stay as frozen ones or even failed. Before discussing all these reasons I would like to say that all these political struggles into an extent can be too exaggerated by the experts. Since, this struggle is not something sui generis only for this geography. The US, Chinese and European countries draws a pro-active profile in Africa and the Middle East. In this framework, they are making long term agreements to be able to turn the route of energy resources to their direction. One of the main reasons of this is that all these are growing and dynamic economies and they have increasing needs for raw materials and mainly oil and natural gas. When analyzed closer, the reality that energy politics cannot be designed for short term would be understood. Two pillars of energy issue can be indicated as diversity of resources as well as finding reliable, sustainable and affordable ones for long term consumption. To be able to secure your energy supply you have to follow a pro-active policy, if your energy resources are not enough to feed your needs. Moreover, as can be seen in Russian case, controlling energy and its routes would represent an advantage for a country.
The main argument here is that the struggle or the game continues among its players. In geographic sense Caspian Basin is one of the main fields of the game. However, the ones who succeed to understand the rules and system changes stand in the game while the others who cannot make necessary transformations in their instruments turns into passive players or get eliminated.
Hasan Selim OZERTEM
Eurasian Expert and Editor of USAK Energy Review newsletter
For your comments:
hozertem@gmail.com
