EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - GUUAM's Loss is Russia's Gain

EURASIA INSIGHT

GUUAM’S LOSS IS RUSSIA’S GAIN
Igor Torbakov 4/18/01

GUUAM, the geopolitical bloc that groups Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova, is reeling, and appears close to expiring. Participating nations appear to lack the political will to give the project a definitive shape. A GUUAM Parliamentary Conference, originally scheduled for January 2001 in Baku, has yet to convene. Meanwhile, a summit of GUUAM heads of state, slated for early March in Kiev, has been postponed indefinitely, reportedly at the request of Azerbaijan and Moldova. The inability of the participant states to work out a strategic framework for the organization represents a significant geopolitical gain for Russia, which stands to remain a largely unchallenged regional political and economic force.

GUUAM’s organizational delays have been largely attributed to a "crowded working schedule" of Azerbaijani President Heidar Aliyev, who is struggling to find a political arrangement with Armenia on Nagorno-Karabakh’s status. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archives]. Another factor reportedly has been the parliamentary elections in Moldova. However, a deeper reason for GUUAM’s developmental difficulties is likely connected to persistent Russian opposition to the project.

In 1997, the leaders of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova (Uzbekistan joined the group later, in April 1999) met in Strasbourg, under the auspices of the Council of Europe, and decided to form a new organization with the stated aims of counterbalancing Russia’s political dominance in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and lessening members’ energy dependence on Russia by securing alternative sources of oil and gas deliveries.

As stated in an analytic memo penned by Sergei Pirozhkov and Boris Parakhonsky � two strategists of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council � two desires governed the emergence of GUUAM: "The striving of the newly independent states to get rid of the �elder brother’s’ over-lordship" and "the striving of these nations to use their advantageous geographic location, especially with regard to the forming of new energy transit routes leading from Europe to the East� to actively participate in the large-scale integration processes along the Europe-Caucasus-Central Asia line." [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archives].

The matter is that these goals, no less important now than they were at the time of GUUAM’s founding, are extremely difficult to attain under current circumstances, which throws the very existence of GUUAM into question. To understand why it is so one has to look at the policies of the three major players in the Black Sea-Caspian region: Russia, Turkey and the United States.

It goes without saying that Russia is the country least interested in the flourishing of GUUAM. From the very outset Moscow politicians viewed this grouping as inimical to Russian national interests. GUUAM additionally represents a potential challenge to Moscow’s own efforts at organizing an economic bloc of states, the Eurasian Economic Union.

Russian officials also perceive GUUAM as a potential political danger. Russia’s Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov once bluntly called GUUAM a "political organization tending to grow into a military-political one." In a recent article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper Vladimir Aksyonov, first deputy chairman of the Central Council of the Union Public Chamber (a quasi-parliament of the pseudo-union state of Russia and Belarus) labeled GUUAM a "main anti-Russian geopolitical construct."

At the same time it should be noted that Moscow, by changing its tactics in dealing with "near abroad" states, has managed to neutralize GUUAM as a potential counterweight within the CIS. Russia’s new foreign policy doctrine -- unveiled in July 2000 � called for a shift in emphasis, stressing bilateral relations with CIS countries, in contrast to the numerous but mostly fruitless multilateral summits that were popular during Yeltsin era. "Practical relations with each [member of the CIS] should be built mindful of the reciprocal openness and readiness to duly take into account the interests of the Russian Federation," assert the authors of the strategic policy blueprint.

This trend was confirmed by the recent pronouncements of Sergei Ivanov, the newly appointed head of Russia’s defense ministry. He told a security conference in Munich that Russia had conducted "a review of the main directions" of its CIS policies "brought about by the realization that accelerated development of the Commonwealth into a fully fledged international association is not possible in the near future". Instead, Russia would pursue its interests "first of all through the development of bilateral relations with CIS countries." In dealing with Moscow one on one, however, GUUAM seems to be not of much use. In the new format of relationship, Moscow does not want its negotiating partners to coordinate their positions and come out against Russia as a "united front."

Turkey is not a big friend of GUUAM either. Their interests clash over the issue of the transport routes of Caspian oil. Ankara is obviously interested in the realization of the Baku-Ceyhan project. Ukraine, for its part, is lobbying the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Ukraine-Poland route. Thus, writes the influential Kiev weekly Zerkalo Nedeli, "to a certain extent Ankara is the competitor of Kiev as far as the strengthening of GUUAM and transporting of energy carriers are concerned."

It would seem that the United States is whole-heartedly supportive of GUUAM. It is no secret that the American main strategic objective in Eurasia is the preservation of "geopolitical pluralism in the post-Soviet space." On the other hand, by throwing its entire weight behind the Baku-Ceyhan route, Washington is effectively undermining GUUAM’s economic and political raison d’�tre, at least from Ukraine’s point of view. "The US appears to realize the advantages of the existence of several transport routes for Caspian oil. Yet in reality it fully backs the Baku-Ceyhan project. Such an exclusive support is Washington’s mistake," points out the RAND analyst Olga Olicker in the paper titled "Ukraine and the Caspian Region."

Being unable to collectively oppose Moscow’s pressure, and facing serious obstacles in obtaining alternative sources of energy, the GUUAM countries seem to be slowly losing interest in this potentially promising geopolitical project.

Editor�s Note: Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist 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 a Regional Exchange Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, 1995; Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1988-1997; and Kiev correspondent for the Paris-based weekly Russkaya mysl, 1998-2000.

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