World Politics Review
Sept 7 2008
Azerbaijan Becomes Object of Russian-Western Rivalry
Richard Weitz | 07 Sep 2008
World Politics Review Exclusive
Although widespread fighting in Georgia has ceased, the war’s
diplomatic repercussions continue to ripple throughout the region. One
major concern in Washington is that Russia’s successful military
intervention in Georgia will intimidate other former Soviet republics
to, if not bandwagon with Moscow, at least distance themselves from
the United States to avoid antagonizing a newly belligerent Russia.
It is therefore no accident, as Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin
likes to say, that U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney visited
Azerbaijan last week. Cheney travelled to Baku even before arriving in
Georgia and Ukraine, whose governments have been engaged in more acute
confrontations with Moscow. Nor is it a coincidence that the White
House chose Cheney — an anti-Russian hardliner with deep experience
in the energy industry — to make the trip.
Upon his arrival, Cheney reaffirmed that, "President Bush has sent me
here with a clear and simple message for the people of Azerbaijan and
the entire region: the United States has a deep and abiding interest
in your well-being and security."
After meeting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Cheney underscored
Washington’s priorities: "Energy security is essential to us all and
the matter is becoming increasingly urgent." Deliberately excluding
Russia from this east-west energy partnership, Cheney continued:
"Together with the nations of Europe, including Turkey, we must work
with Azerbaijan and other countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia
on additional routes for energy exports that ensure the free flow of
resources." Cheney also met with Robert Dastmalchi, Chevron’s country
manager for Azerbaijan, and William Schrader, president of the British
Petroleum’s venture in the country.
Since gaining independence after the disintegration of the Soviet
Union, Azerbaijani leaders have been eager to cultivate good
commercial relations with Western countries to avoid excessive
dependence on Moscow. The government has depicted Azerbaijan as a core
east-west transit country, especially for connecting Caspian oil and
natural gas supplies to European energy consumers eager to reduce
their dependence on pipelines that either traverse Russian Federation
territory or are controlled by Russian energy firms.
Most prominently, the 1,100-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which
is already in operation, moves approximately 1 million barrels of
crude oil a day from the Caspian shore through Georgia and Azerbaijan
and onto Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, from which it is dispersed to
multiple consumer countries.
The Georgian War occurred at a time when Azerbaijan was engaged in
detailed discussions about possible trans-Caspian undersea energy
pipelines that would extend from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Even
without these additional sources, Azerbaijan can meet a considerable
share of European demand for natural gas from its own estimated stock
of some 70 trillion cubic feet.
European energy managers intend for Azerbaijani gas to fill the
planned 2,000-mile Nabucco pipeline, which would run from Azerbaijan
across Georgia towards Turkey and then on to Austria’s Baumgarten via
Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. Construction was planned to begin in
2010, with the first gas flowing around 2013. Even before the Georgian
War, however, support for continuing the project was weakening due to
its rising costs. The war will now likely cause potential Western
investors in the pipeline to worry about its increased political risks
as well as expected financial costs.
U.S. policymakers support these east-west pipelines because they
provide energy to America’s European allies, revenue to several former
Soviet republics, and help keep oil and gas flows away from Iran,
which Washington aims to isolate, and Russia, whose government has
used energy as a weapon of influence against other countries.
Yet, factors besides the perceived U.S. defeat in the recent Georgian
War will also weaken Cheney’s efforts to realign Baku further
westward. For over a decade, Azerbaijani leaders have been careful to
balance relations with the United States and other NATO countries with
a desire to sustain good ties with Russia. Unlike Georgia and Ukraine,
for instance, the Azerbaijani government is not formally seeking NATO
membership.
Azerbaijanis also continue to lobby Moscow to pressure Armenia to
withdraw its troops from Azerbaijani territory occupied during the
1992-94 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Ideally, they also hope to enlist
Russian support for a peace settlement that would restore Azerbaijani
authority in Nagorno-Karabakh, which legally is part of Azerbaijan but
is inhabited primarily by ethnic Armenians, many of whom hope to merge
with the Republic of Armenia.
For a fleeting moment last year, it looked as if Azerbaijan could be
the focal point of a possible Russian-American security
reconciliation. At the June 2007 G-8 summit in Germany, Putin
unexpectedly offered to provide the United States with access to data
on Iranian missile developments from the Russian-leased Gabala radar
station in Azerbaijan in return for Washington’s freezing its planned
deployments of ballistic missile defense systems in Poland and the
Czech Republic, a move many Russians denounced as
threatening. American officials quickly dismissed the gambit,
unwilling to trust Moscow to provide unimpeded data from the radar,
which American strategists considered technically inadequate in any
case. The Gabala option has since faded as a possible basis for
achieving a Russian-American missile defense compromise.
The Georgian War has now forced Azerbaijani policy makers to reassess
their relationships with Russia and the West. Azerbaijan has become a
clear object of rivalry between a resurgent Russia and an
energy-hungry block of Western democracies. The Russian government’s
decision to so forcefully back the seccessionists in the two breakaway
regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, has led some Azeris to
fear that Moscow might provide similar support for the separatists in
the region of Nargano-Karaback if Baku aligns too closely with the
West. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reportedly called Aliyev
during Cheney’s visit, thereby underscoring that Moscow was watching
his moves closely regardless of the topic of their conversation.
Azerbaijani officials have been responsive to Russian
concerns. Throughout the escalating conflict between Russia and
Georgia this year, Azerbaijani leaders were careful to refrain from
criticizing Moscow or its local allies in the separatist
regions. After the fighting errupted, the State Oil Company of
Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) began diverting oil exports to Europe from
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan to pipelines that pass through Russia rather than
Georgia. Russia’s state-controlled natural-gas monopoly, Gazprom, has
offered to buy all of Azerbaijan’s gas exports at market prices. These
rates are likely higher than those sought by European firms in their
proposed long-term contracts, which would not even yield Azerbaijan
much revenue until the still-uncertain Nabucco pipeline opens.
On Sept. 4, 2008, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs warned that
EU governments need to intensify their efforts to secure gas for
Nabucco, as well as accelerate the pipeline’s construction, in light
of recent developments. "Our objective of diversifying our sources and
routes is even more important after the events in Georgia," Piebalgs
told reporters in Brussels. "We need more political engagement to
remove all the obstacles to Nabucco to bring gas from the Caspian
basin to the EU."
Before Cheney’s arrival, U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne Derse
characterized the trip as seeking to underscore Americans’ support for
the "Euro-Atlantic integration aspirations" of Azerbaijan as well as
Georgia and Ukraine. "Many in the region are afraid now that these
actions [by Russia] are directed not only against Georgia, but against
all of those who have democratic aspirations."
Although Cheney presumably tried to reassure President Aliyev about
continued American interest in Azerbaijan’s security, the war in
Georgia has demonstrated that U.S. backing would not include military
support against Russia. In addition, Azerbaijani leaders are
undoubtedly aware that Cheney and the Bush administration will soon
leave office, rendering the future nature of the American presence in
the former Soviet states uncertain. In contrast, the newly resurgent
Russian military looks set to reinforce its position in the South
Caucasus for years to come.
Richard Weitz is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a World
Politics Review contributing editor.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
