EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Russia Struggles to Counterbalance Rising US Influence in Caucasus

EURASIA INSIGHT

RUSSIA STRUGGLES TO COUNTERBALANCE RISING US INFLUENCE IN CAUCASUS
Igor Torbakov 4/08/02

The rapid increase in US strategic influence in the Caucasus has alarmed Russian policy planners. Moscow is keen to take steps to shore up its eroding position in the region. However, Russian officials have limited options with which to counter US moves while at the same time maintaining cordial relations with Washington.

The most prominent US moves in the Caucasus are the decision to dispatch military advisors to Georgia and a March 29 State Department announcement on the lifting of an arms embargo imposed on Armenia and Azerbaijan. Both actions have the potential to tilt the military establishments of all three Caucasus nations away from Russia and towards NATO.

"The appearance of the American troops in the Transcaucasus might raise hopes not only in Tbilisi but also in Yerevan and Baku," argues Aleksander Khramchishin, the head of the analytical department at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis. Russian strategists are concerned that, ultimately, Washington might indeed promote the resolution of the region’s numerous conflicts - including Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia - and thus introduce stability and ensure security in the troubled former borderland of the Russian empire. Under such a scenario, the United States would emerge as the principal guarantor of peace and prosperity in the Caucasus whereas Russia, in Khramchishin’s words, "would be left out in the cold."

The recent security summit of the Caucasus Four in Sochi, some commentators believe, was a Russian gambit to regain the strategic initiative in the region. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archives].

Local political analysts notice a pronounced change in Russia’s attitude, which was first displayed during the Sochi talks. Moscow appears to be ready to cast aside its usual divide-and-rule principle and opt instead for the building of a genuine collective security system in the South Caucasus.

Faced with America’s aggressive diplomacy in the Caucasus, "Russia - possibly for the first time! - shows it is willing to respect the interests of Georgia and Azerbaijan - in particular, in the resolution of the numerous regional conflicts," point out the analysts at the Baku-based Profile think-tank. "In exchange, Russia would like to receive guarantees that the expanding military cooperation between those states and Washington will not lead to the establishment of a long-term US military presence in the South Caucasus."

It remains to be seen how the new Russian diplomatic tone will resonate in Caucasus capitals. Azerbaijan and Georgia have generally welcomed the rise of the US profile in the region. Armenia is far more cautious about the American presence. And the geopolitical situation is prone to sudden shifts. The US presence may have raised bilateral cooperation hopes between Washington and the respective Caucasus nations, but it also has helped produced additional friction among the three countries - especially between Armenia and Georgia.

It was the Bush administration’s decision in late February to send US military advisors to Georgia that seriously rattled the bulk of Russia’s political class. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archives]. Since then, the US and its NATO allies have rapidly moved to strengthen their strategic foothold. On March 21, a group of NATO experts arrived in Tbilisi to inspect Vaziani military base, which Russian troops vacated only last July and which will host alliance-sponsored military exercises in June. According to Iraklii Batkuashvili, the Georgian defense ministry’s special liaison officer in charge of cooperation with NATO, "15 countries - both the NATO members and partners including Armenia and Azerbaijan - have already expressed their desire to take part in the exercises."

These military exercises will most likely deal, among other tasks, with the protection of the energy transit networks in the Caucasus, the regional analysts say. At the international conference "Oil, Gas, and Georgia’s Energy Industry" which was recently held in Tbilisi, the American participants hinted that, if need be, the US and NATO would protect the oil and gas pipelines - both the ones that already operate in the region and those that have yet to be built, including the so-called Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route.

"Having stated its readiness to maintain American military presence in Georgia, Washington actually sent a signal to the world’s largest investors saying their interests in the South Caucasus would be protected," the Georgian political scientist R. Klimiashvili told the Rossiiskaya Biznes-Gazeta newspaper.

According to reports in the Georgian press, the experts from the United States, Western Europe and Turkey participating in Tbilisi energy conference were unanimous in that "Georgia had acquired the strategic function of a transit country."

The potential ability of the United States to serve as protector of the Baku-Ceyhan route could harm Russia’s oil and gas profit possibilities. Russian and US experts have long bickered over the issue of the transit routes for Caspian oil. "We want the oil pipelines to run mainly across our territory; the Americans would prefer to maximally diversify the routes lest they find themselves dependent on some one in terms of energy deliveries," points out Vyacheslav Nikonov, the president of the Politika Foundation think-tank, in a recent commentary published by the Russian newspaper Trud.

"Obviously, military presence [in the South Caucasus] will help the United States to achieve this. The Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, so much disliked by our politicians, will inevitably be built," adds Nikonov.

As if to confirm the conclusion of the Moscow analyst, Valekh Alekperov, the head of the Foreign Investments Department of Azerbaijan’s state oil company Socar, told journalists in Baku on April 5 that the sponsor group to build the Baku-Ceyhan oil export pipeline has secured approval of the project and pledges of funding from international financial organizations.

Like Georgia, Azerbaijan has reacted favorably to growing US involvement in the region. According to a report by Azerbaijani newspaper Sarq, "some [Azerbaijanis] believe that the US troops’ arrival in the region will cause a positive turn in the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict."

This change of attitude in Baku cannot fail to make Moscow nervous. Azerbaijan is likely to get "a more than substantial support from the US and NATO to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh problem," points out the Moscow periodical Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye. "It is obvious that this [problem] cannot be resolved by the OSCE. Official Baku [finds] a way out of the Karabakh blind alley only with Washington and Brussels."

Washington appears intent on increasing military cooperation with Baku. In late March, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Eurasia Policy, Mira Ricardel, visited Baku to explore strategic cooperation options. Ricardel and Azerbaijani officials agreed that the two countries would work together to ensure maritime security, to maintain constant control over the air space and support stability in the region. Before leaving the country, Ricardel said US-Azerbaijan military cooperation had entered a "new stage," according to a report by the Turan news agency. Ricardel also added that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld pins "great hope" on the Caucasus states - Azerbaijan in particular.

Perhaps just as worrisome to Russia as the introduction of US military advisors to Georgia is the American decision to lift the arms-sales ban on Azerbaijan and Armenia. In the words of State Department spokesman Philip Reeker, the embargo was lifted because of "positive developments" involving the two countries. The weapons ban was imposed in 1993 as a result of the Karabakh conflict.

Commenting on this development to Turan, former Azerbaijani presidential advisor Vafa Quluzada suggested that Armenia’s possible transition to US arms could help hasten Russia’s departure from the region. Such a development, Quluzada believes, would promote a settlement of the Karabakh conflict. Armenia - which is surrounded by two traditional enemies, Azerbaijan and Turkey - has long maintained a special relationship with Russia. Quluzada suggested that it would take a significant amount of aid to get Armenia to downgrade its relations with Russia.

Still, the prospect of Yerevan’s drifting away from its "historic alliance" with Moscow is one of the Russian leadership’s major geopolitical concerns. Armenian defense minister Serzh Sarkisian’s visit to Washington in mid-March, and especially his statement about the necessity to accelerate Armenian-American military cooperation, have raised alarm bells in Moscow.

"The future forms and scope [of such cooperation] were not agreed upon in advance with Russia, which, in accordance with the 1997 Treaty on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, took up an obligation to protect Armenia from aggression," notes the Moscow-based Caucasus analyst Vladimir Ilyin. He described it as "strange" that Washington expressed a desire to help improve Armenia’s air defense. Since April 1999, says Ilyin, Armenia has been a member of the Joint CIS Air Defense System, and its air space is protected by Russia’s missile systems and fighter jets.

At a closed session of Armenian parliament on April 4, Sarkisian and Armenian foreign minister Vartan Oskanian spoke in favor of further changes in what they call Armenia’s "complementary foreign policy." These shifts, the politicians said, prompted primarily by changes in the international situation in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, entail greater emphasis on defense and security cooperation with NATO, and with the US in particular, in order to preclude Armenia’s regional isolation and balance its close military cooperation with Russia.

Oskanian said Armenia would also seek "closer contacts" with Georgia and try to speed up the dialogue with Ankara. "Armenia will try to make every effort to achieve a positive change in relations with Turkey because the Turkish factor is acquiring more and more importance in the South Caucasus region," the minister stressed.

In recent months, Armenian-Georgian relations have been marked by tension. The two countries have sparred over the rights of ethnic Armenians living in Georgia. Armenian officials have also expressed concern that the presence of US military advisors in Georgia could prompt Tbilisi to resort to force in an attempt to resolve the Abkhazia issue. Yerevan worries that the resumption of fighting in Abkhazia could spark a chain reaction that leads to renewed fighting in Karabakh.

In a television interview April 4, Georgian Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze sought to downplay bilateral tension. Burjanadze noted that "Georgia and Azerbaijan have opted for a relatively more Western orientation than Armenia."

"I am confident that every country of our region realizes perfectly well that a confrontation of these vectors must be ruled out because it is not in the interest of any of these countries," Burjanadze said.

Editor�s Note: Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1988-1997; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 1995, and a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York, 2000. He is now based in Istanbul, Turkey.

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