Author: Tambiyan Samvel

AZG Armenian Daily #172, 09/09/2006
Exhibition
ARMENIAN GOODS TO BE EXHIBITED IN CANADA
On September 10-11, first time ever Armenian goods
will be presented at the Ethic Food-2006 exhibition in
Toronto. The Armenian pavilion will display more than
50 trademarks including canned food, juices, wines,
teas etc. The pavilion opened by the efforts of the
Artizan Food Incorporation and the center for
Development of Agrobusiness has an aim to help in
presenting the Armenian goods to Canadian market.
Artizan Food Incorporation informs that the Armenian
trademarks will be presented to 22 thousand potential
buyers.
By Ara Martirosian

Azerbaijan, Ukraine to set up Council of presidents of two states
by: Sevindzh Abdullayeva, Viktor Shulman
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 7, 2006 Thursday 04:01 PM EST
BAKU, September 7 — Azerbaijan and Ukraine decided to create a council
of presidents for resolving important issues in the interaction of
the two countries.
“In the near future, the Council of Presidents will work out
a strategic plan, which will include the most crucial issues of
bilateral cooperation,” Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko told
a news conference in Baku on Thursday.
After the top level talks, the presidents of Ukraine and Azerbaijan,
Viktor Yushchenko and Ilham Aliyev, signed a joint declaration,
which contained the decision on the Council of Presidents.
The declaration expressed “the high level of bilateral relations
and intention of the two countries to strengthen their cooperation
further,” Aliyev said.
On the whole, a package of seven documents was signed after the
Azerbaijani-Ukrainian talks. Among them are intergovernmental
agreements on cooperation in the sphere of environmental protection
and in joint international cargo haulage.
The sides also signed an agreement on long-term cooperation between
the Azerbaijani state-owned oil company and Ukrainian national joint
venture “Naftogaz Ukrainy”, as well as agreements on interaction in
the spheres of plants’ protection, radiation safety, and training
of diplomats.
During the talks, the sides discussed cooperation in defense
technologies, interaction within the framework of GUAM (the regional
organization that unites Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova),
and ways for settling the protracted conflict in the much-troubled
Armenian-populated region of Karabakh.
According to Yushchenko, Ukraine is ready to assist the peacemaking
process.
On Friday, the Ukrainian president plans to visit Sangachal oil
terminal, located 40 kilometres southward off Baku. Oil from the
Azerbaijani Caspian deposits is pumped to the terminal, from where it
is transported to international markets via the territories of Russia,
Georgia and Turkey.

OPPOSITION STRUGGLES FOR AMERICAN MONEY
Lragir.am
08 Sept 06
A real race has started in the opposition of Armenia for the 6.5
million dollars of the U.S. Department of State they are likely to
provide for holding a fair parliamentary election in Armenia in 2007.
After Arshak Sadoyan the leader of the National Democratic Party
Shavarsh Kocharyan announces about the project on control over
elections. However, if Sadoyan’s project cost 2.5 million U.S.
dollars, on September 8 Kocharyan announced at the Pastark Club that
his model of control costs 4 million U.S. dollars.
It seems, however, that the money is hard to get, since the Americans
are reluctant to fund a project, which does not have the approval of
the entire opposition. Like Sadoyan, Kocharyan also complains that
the other forces of the opposition cannot come together over his
project. Kocharyan believes that the project is not only good and
worth approving but also singular.
“For us it is not important who proposed it is important if it is
pro-active, well-thought. Let them propose something else, we will
consider it, but there is no other proposal. This is the problem.
There are words, calls, but there are no documents, mechanisms,
approaches,” says Shavarsh Kocharyan.

NKR PRESIDENT CONGRATULATES “CILICIA” SAILING VESSELS CREW ON OCCASION OF HISTORIC NAVIGATION
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Sept 07 2006
STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 7, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. NKR President
Arkadi Ghukasian congratulated “Cilicia” Armenian sailing vessel crew
which finished its sailing. The telegram, submitted to Noyan Tapan
by the NKR President’s Acting Press Sectretary, particularly, reads
the following: “I whole-heartedly congratulate you on the occasion
of finishing the realy historic sailing.
You accomplished a real feat in the name of Armenia and Artsakh, in
the name of the Armenian people. Your “Cilicia” sailing vessel which
has become legendary, on the mast of which the flag of the Republic
of Nagorno Karabakh was also waving, overcoming in two years 15
thousand sea miles and stopping in 63 ports of 26 countries of Europe
and Mediterranean Sea basin, became the symbol of kindness and peace
characteristical for our people from old ages. Owing to your patriotic
mission, the Old world got to better know ideas and values professed
by us, history and culture of our world-spread people, and, of course,
the truth about the national-liberating struggle of Artsakh. It is
deeply symbolic that the end of the navigation coincided with the 15th
anniversary of proclaiming the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh. Even
our ill-wishers had to accept your contribution in the affair of
propaganda of the Armenian people’s interests. Artsakh attentively
looked after your navigation, worried about you and admired your
courage. You personify the Armenian people’s valour and valiance. You
are real heroes.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW UNION CALLS FOR CONFRONTING “CHALLENGES THROWN DOWN TO COUNTRY AND PEOPLE” WITH UNITED FRONT
Noyan Tapan
Sept 07 2006
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 7, NOYAN TAPAN. The Presidium of the Constitutional
Law Union made a statement in connection with the fact of the September
6 attack upon the editor of the party’s official body, the Iravunk
newspaper, Hovhannes Galajian, characterizing it as “terrorism” and
strictly condemned the position of using violence and falsehood as
the main method of solving issues. “The ruling elite formed on the
basis of the mafia-clan system as a result of periodically falsified
elections, exhausting itself as a body exercising state power, having
a presentiment of its coming agony and completely giving itself to
the mania of its own reproduction, became the main source of danger
for the people. Public murders and violence in the country have
become everyday phenomenon. Not only well-known people, but also
common citizens become victims of violence,” the Constitutional
Law Union declared. As the party affirmed, the murder of Shahen
Hovasapian, Chief of the Investigation Department of the State Tax
Service attached to RA government, among them was not the first
and will hardly be the last one, until a legal power is established
in the country.” In the party’s opinion, irrespective of the fact,
whether the grave crimes are committed “by state order” or because
of arbitrariness and poisonous atmosphere of protectionism, it’s
the high-ranking officials holding not their place who are to blame
for this.” The party expresses deep condolences to all victims of
violence generated by the system. Declaring about their inflexibility
and resolution to complete the victorious act, the Constitutional
Law Union calls on all citizens of the country, all state officials
and politicians having preserved their dignity with a united front
“to confront the challenge thrown down to the people by the criminal
element.” To recap, yesterday in the evening editor of the Iravunk
weekly Hovhannes Galajian was beaten when leaving the house, as he
affirmed, by two skin-head youngsters. The editor is sure that the
attack is connected with his professional activity.

EP CASTS ARMENIAN SHADOW OVER TURKEY’S EU BID
The New Anatolian, Turkey
Sept 6 2006
The European Parliament late Monday approved a sharply critical report
on Turkey, calling on Ankara to recognize the Armenian genocide claims
before becoming a member of the European Union.
The report entitled “Turkey’s Progress Towards Accession,” which was
prepared by EP Committee on Foreign Affairs Rapporteur and MEP Camiel
Eurlings, was approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee with some
amendments which made it harsher towards Turkey than it had been. It
also criticized a number of issues, including Cyprus, a slowdown in
the EU reform process, the situation in the southeast, problems with
religious minorities, cultural rights and civilian-military relations.
The report, which was approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee,
isn’t binding but plays a role in making recommendations for Turkey
and will be put to a vote by the EP’s full 732-member assembly during
Sept. 25-28 meetings.
Taking note of a Turkish proposal to set up a bilateral committee of
experts to deal with controversial past incidents and of Armenia’s
position on the proposal, the report urged the Turkish and Armenian
governments to continue their process of reconciliation leading to a
mutually acceptable proposal and asked Turkey to take the necessary
steps, without any preconditions, to establish diplomatic and good
neighborly relations with Armenia and open their land border as soon
as possible.
It also claimed that Turkey committed “genocide against the Pontic
Greeks and Assyrians.”
EU rebukes Ankara on pace of reforms
In Eurlings’ report, EU lawmakers sharply criticized Turkey over its
slow pace of reforms and warned that failure to make progress on the
Cyprus dispute risks bringing entry negotiations to a halt.
Turkey’s reservations about opening its airports and harbors to the
Greek Cypriots will have serious implications for the EU process and
could even bring it to a halt, warned the draft report, calling on
Turkey to take steps towards the recognition of the Greek Cypriot
administration during its accession process. It also raised the idea
of an early withdrawal of forces from the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus (TRNC). It also called on the European Council to renew efforts
to implement trade regulations with Northern Cyprus.
Report urges progress in human rights
The toughly worded report also called on Ankara to take steps towards
making progress on freedom of expression and raised concerns about the
country’s treatment of religious minorities, the Kurdish population
and women.
Noting that certain progress has been made in women’s rights after
the revised Turkish Penal Code (TCK) came into force last year,
the report however then stressed that a lack of respect for women’s
rights in Turkey remains a matter of serious concern.
The EP report also urged Ankara to take concrete steps to remove
obstacles facing religious minorities related to, in particular,
their legal status, the training of clergy, and their property rights,
and called for an immediate stop to all seizures and selling off of
property belonging to religious communities by the Turkish authorities
and the immediate reopening of the Greek Orthodox Halki seminary and
public use of the “ecclesiastical title of the ‘ecumenical’ patriarch.”
It also called for the protection and recognition of Alevis, including
the recognition of cemevis as religious centers, and for all religious
education to be voluntary and not cover just the Sunni branch of Islam.
Taking into consideration the amendment requests of MEPs Joost
Lagendijk and Cem Ozdemir, the report also called on Ankara to find
a solution to the headscarf ban in universities.
Solidarity with Turkey in fighting terror
The EP also condemned a resurgence of violence in the southeast by
the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and stressed that there
can never be an excuse for violence against Turkish citizens in any
part of the country. The report also expressed solidarity with Turkey
in fighting terrorism.
The report severely condemned May’s killing of a Council of State
judge, expressing concern over the low level of security offered to
judges by the police despite clear and public threats, and called on
the government to rectify the situation.

DOING BUSINESS IN RUSSIA HARDLY GETTING EASIER – WORLD BANK
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
September 6, 2006 Wednesday 5:50 PM MSK
Russia has hardly improved in the past year as far as the conditions
for doing business are concerned, the World Bank and International
Financial Corporation (IFC) said in their latest report on Doing
Business 2007: How to Reform.
This is the fourth in a series of annual reports investigating the
regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it.
Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations
and the protection of property rights that can be compared across
175 economies – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – and over time.
Russia ranked 96th – one place below Bosnia & Herzegovina but one
above Ethiopia – according to an assessment of business conditions
conducted between January 2005 and April 2006.
Russian ranked 79th in last year’s survey of 155 countries, but
another 20 countries were included for the first time this year. The
method for calculating four of the indicators was also adjusted,
and Russia’s ranking among this year’s 175 countries would have been
97th last year, Simeon Dyankov, one of the report’s main authors,
told a press conference.
In other words, Russia moved up just one place this year.
Dyankov said the pace of reforms conducive to business had slowed in
the last two years, although there had been some improvements.
The unified social tax has been lowered and Russia has scrapped the tax
on securities transactions, the duty on the use of the words “Russia”
and “Russian Federation” and the tax on timber. Russia ranks 98th as
far as tax payments are concerned, Dyankov said.
It is also easier to start a business up. The requirement to register
a company stamp had been abolished, and the number of hoops had
been reduced from eight to seven. It now takes 28 days to register a
business, compared with 33 in the past, and the cost of registering
a business in per capita terms had gone down from 5% to 2.7%. This
catapulted Russia to 33rd out of the 175 countries for starting
up businesses.
The law on joint stock companies has been amended to give better
protection to minority shareholders, who now have the right to
challenge management decisions in court, for example.
“This is potentially a very important change but it will not be
possible to assess its full impact until the next survey,” Dyankov
said.
If these changes are put into practice, shareholder protection in
Russia will be comparable with that of Britain and the United States,
and Russia’s ranking will go up, Dyankov said.
The report said that export and import operations and licensing are
the areas most in need of reform in Russia. Russia is ranked 143rd
and 163rd respectively here.
It costs $2,240 to dispatch one standard container from Moscow to
Frankfurt, and that does not include transport costs, but just $335
to send one from China to Frankfurt. It can take 39 days to complete
the paperwork and other procedures necessary to ship a container from
Russia, but 18 days from China.
Russia ranks among the top ten countries in terms of the high cost
of licenses and the length of time it takes to obtain them. It takes
as many as 22 procedures and 531 days and the equivalent of 275.3%
of per capita income to get a construction license in Russia, compared
with 18 windows, 69 days and 16% in the United States.
The report also said that Russia needed to make is easier to obtain
credits. Russia is near the bottom in 159th place in this respect.
Russia had the best terms for doing business among the BRIC countries
(Brazil, Russia, India and China) last year, but this year’s
front-runner is China, up from 108th to 93rd in the overall rankings.
China also ranked among the top ten countries in terms of the
implementation of reforms.
Georgia was the leader in terms of reforms, rising from 112th to 37th
in the overall rankings. Of all the CIS countries, only Armenia,
in 34th place, provides more business freedom. Russia also lags
behind Kazakhstan, which rose to 63rd from 82nd, and Kyrgyzstan,
up from 104th to 90th.
Belarus was 129th, Ukraine 128th, Tajikistan 133rd and Uzbekistan
147th.
Singapore topped the overall ranking this year, up from 2nd last year,
while New Zealand fell from 1st to 2nd and the United States remained
in 3rd place.
The Democratic Republic of Congo was again last.

EURASIA: THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF PIPELINES
Imran Khan
Eurasian Home Analytical Resource, Russia
Sept 6 2006
Political Research Officer at the Australian High Commission,
Islamabad, Pakistan
The end of the Cold War was epochal: A half-century of polarization
passed, leading to a new geopolitical maneuvering in Eurasia.
Imminently, the ‘end of a history’ was the beginning of another.
Energy pipelines now have a new influence on history, one of the
core variables of post-Cold War geopolitics. As ‘economic lifelines,’
pipelines determine the contours of international politics anew.
Consequently, this has culminated into a new paradigm in the
geopolitical history of Eurasia-the new geopolitics of pipelines.
Notwithstanding the shift in variables, the geopolitical landscape is
constant, and Central Asia is at its core. The region has promising
potential for energy supplies, and due to its geographic isolation,
it straddles the crossroads of Europe and Asia.
Boarding the lifeblood of the mechanized, modern scale economy,
energy pipelines are roadmaps to development-energy being the recipe
for growth, wealth and survival. Political scientists, economists,
strategists and lobbyists proclaim pipelines the missing link to
building peace or denounce them as the fault lines of waging wars.
This newsletter highlights two different scenarios-war or peace,
cooperation or contention, coordination or confrontation. What factors
render pipelines geopolitical forces? How do pipelines affect the
geopolitical parameters of Eurasia? How does the new geopolitics
affect the intricate balance of war and peace? And how do pipelines
lure states into cooperation or catalyze them into confrontation?
The New Geopolitics of Pipelines
In 1878, Bari’s Construction Company constructed the
Balakhany-Cherny-Gorod pipeline network between the twin
towns of the then-rudimentary Russian oil industry-Baku and
Grozny-for the Nobel Brothers Company. It was the first pipeline
network ever built in Eurasia. It was a saga of intrigues,
corruption and kickbacks involving government, labor forces,
lobbying groups and investing companies with interests at stake
[ lt.asp?LANG=EN]. The
pipeline gambit coincided with the imperial war of wits and wills
between Tsarist Russia and Great Britain – the Great Game – over trade
routes and turf. Arthur Connolly, an officer in the Bengal cavalry
and an avid chess player, coined the terminology in his Narrative of
an Overland Journey to the North of India in 1835.
Rudyard Kipling, a veteran great gamer, adopted the phrase in his
novel Kim in 1904.
The geopolitics of pipelines entered its second phase, when Churchill’s
‘Iron Curtain’ that had polarized the communist East and capitalist
West was raised in December 1991, following the changing of the guard
at the Kremlin. The geopolitics of pipelines began anew with the end of
the Soviet Union, referred to as the New Great Game thereafter. Ahmad
Rashid, in an interview with Steve Curwood, explicated:
‘In the last ten years, since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
there has been what I call a new great game between Russia, the
United States, China, Iran, the European companies, for control
of the new oil and gas resources that have been discovered in
the Caspian Sea and in the Caucuses and Central Asia. Now, this,
you know, it’s a two-pronged game, basically, between trying to
buy up oil fields and gas fields and also, of course, deciding
on what routes this energy can be exported. Because Central Asia
is totally landlocked, distances are huge, and the U.S. strategy
has been essentially to keep, new oil pipelines should not be
built through Russia and they should not be built through Iran.’
[ anpipe.htm]
The typology has become a cliche, depicting historical determinism
and eluding the real nature and scope of neo-geopolitics. It is
actually a watchword of the ongoing new geopolitics in and around
Central Asia. The great game analogy, whatever, is derogatory,
rendering the new geopolitics, that is, part of the overall power
politics in Eurasia. Notwithstanding, several variances and versions
of the great game have been reproduced and constructed: As ‘minor
game’, ‘little game’, ‘end game’ and even refuted as ‘not underway’
[Kathleen A. Collins and William C. Wohlforth, ‘Central Asia: Defying
‘Great Game’ Expectations,’ Strategic Asia 2003-04: Fragility and
Crisis, Eds. Richard J. Ellings, Aaron L. Friedberg and Michael
Wills, September 2003. Daniel L. Smith, Central Asia: A New Great
Game? Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), Washington, June 1996]. This
is however a replay of the epic quest of pipelines for energy security
and service once took place in the Caucasian-Caspian hinterland,
that is, the new geopolitics of pipelines.
To begin with, geopolitics is a ‘spatial phenomenon,’ fusing geography
with power politics. To Rudolf Kjellen, a Swedish geo-strategic genius,
it is ‘a political process of states’ territorial expansion.’ Peter
Taylor defines it as ‘a competitive pursuit of territory, resources
and geographical advantage’ [Mehdi P.
Amineh,’Towards Rethinking Geopolitics,’ Central
Eurasian Studies Review (CESR), theCentral Eurasian
Studies Society, vol. 3, no. 1, winter 2004
_1.html#Amineh].
Geopolitics thereby is a quest for power beyond a state’s borders,
i.e. the building of an empire. The new geopolitics is dynamic,
relating geography, geology, geo-economics and above all, politics
and geo-strategy, manifested in building-and-banning pipelines.
Focusing on energy or other aspects of power politics, the new
geopolitics is a prolongation of the geopolitics of energy, being
dubbed ‘energy imperialism.’ Thus, it can also be defined as new
energy imperialism that is an epic pursuit of petroleum-gas, profit,
power and prestige-the grand prize.
Given the power package at hand, routing pipelines turned into a
geopolitical fixation, inducing gruesome power suction in Eurasia. By
nature, the new geopolitics is seamless and fluid. It is non-zero
sum, too: In which a single power or player cannot take home all the
‘marbles.’ No single power can get a best end of the deal partially.
Every one maneuvers to secure a disproportionate share of the prize,
notwithstanding what means and measures they improvise-legislative
methods of monopoly, prohibitory regulations, regime changes, joint
ventures, economics sanctions, commercial aloofness, or pipeline
wars. A pipeline is not the sole end in neo-geopolitics but rather the
means to several ends. Thus, it is a great gambit for energy security,
economic development and power outreach.
Foremost, pipelines provide ‘sufficient, reliable and affordable’
energy. [Mark Malloch Brown, ‘Energizing Development,’ Global Energy
Report: Energy and Sustainable Development, First Magazine, 2002].
Transportation via pipelines is swift, persistent and frequent,
except in case of disruptions in times of war and acts of terrorism,
contrary to railway-and-road trunks or naval ships. Also, pipelines
establish an end-to-end supply line, imminently resulting in economic
integration: The consumer is depends upon the producer for energy
and the producer depends upon consumer for encashment of hydrocarbons.
The ‘mutual gain, mutual loss’ principle promises energy security
in the long run. Frequency of movement is another aspect of
pipeline-based energy transmission, and there is always the chance of
disruption, particularly in Eurasia. In addition, pipelining energy
is economically feasible, technologically possible, technically
preferable, logistically efficient and commercially cost-effective.
Dmitry Mendelejev, a Russian engineer and profounder of the pipeline
as an energy transportation agent, pontificated pipelines to be the
most feasible and reliable medium for supplying crude oil over long
swathes and stretches of territory. Pipeline infrastructure develops
and delivers energy from regions to countries that would otherwise
remain rather inaccessible both commercially and technically. However
the first ever pipeline snaked in America, appreciating the idea:
‘It was necessary, and even urgent, to put pipes and transport
through those pipes crude to vessels or refineries situated on
the sea.’ ‘It looks as if the Americans had overheard the idea:
they ran the pipes and built refineries not near the wells,
but where there were marketplaces, sales, and trade routes,’
Mendelejev responded. Russia too followed the American footsteps,
stretching out a network of pipelines across Eurasia by the late
1970s [ ?LANG=EN]. By
delivering energy resources, pipelines drive economic growth. Energy
is the incubator of economic development, source of peace and
prosperity. ‘There is no development without energy and without energy
there is poverty, resentment and frustration-a fertile breeding
ground for violence and extremism,’ asserts Mohamed ElBaradei,
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
[ 8_2006.html].
Efficient, sufficient and inexpensive energy supply is an essential
part of civilized living.
Furthermore, pipeline routing expands a state’s reach, access and
influence; it can curtail or contain without marching armies or
mobilizing force-although basing armies and waging proxy wars
along pipeline routes is a recurrent phenomenon. A pipeline
is actually a steel-cobbled cobweb, giving leverage on the
one end over the economy on the other, a stake in politics
and monopoly control over energy resources and flow-lines
[ x.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=99].
Dmitry Mendelejev, well ahead of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford
John MacKinder, propounded in 1863 that pipeline means to neutralize
geographic inaccessibility and narrow down physical isolation.
Pipelines cohere with the MacKinderite and Mahanite modules of
offsetting geographic immobility, spearheading a new transportation
system. Halford John MacKinder’s Heartland theory and Alfred Thayer
Mahan’s Rimland theory expounded two different approaches for
greater mobility-basically two different approaches to the conquest
of the world and the supremacy of world powers. The former emphasized
railways, the overland transportation, as the key to commanding Eurasia
and the world’s oceans. The latter proposed the navy as the means to
control over the world’s landmass. So are pipelines. Being the mode of
energy transportation, steel-gilded pipelines are stretchable across
landmass, across waterways, even both-overland, inland or underwater.
This factor is prominent in Eurasia, providing a foundation for
global leadership and command economy. ‘Eurasia is the center of
the world and he who controls Eurasia controls the world,’ contends
Zbigniew Brzezinski. [Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books,
New York, 1997]. At the crossroads of Eurasia, Central Asia is the
hinterland – essentially the chessboard – upon which the struggle
for Eurasian primacy continues to be played. And pipelines are the
gateways to landlocked Central Asia. Therefore, besides other things,
pipelines draw contours of geopolitics anew, constituting fault lines
of war and peace, cooperation and confrontation.
Central Asia is central to the new geopolitics, constituting ‘the
pivot’ or ‘the heartland’ of the Eurasian mainland: Partly for its
geology, partly for its geography. The wealth of energy accounts for
about 116 billion barrels (Bbbl) oil reserves: Kazakhstan, 50-Bbbl;
Turkmenistan, 34-Bbbl; Uzbekistan, 32-Bbbl. Natural gas reserves
are 484 trillion cubic feet (tcf) with 202-tcf proven and 232-tcf
possible reserves. (Kyrgyz and Tajik energy reserves are nominal
and commercially not viable). With this stock of energy reserves,
a geopolitical, geo-economic rush occurred to explore, expropriate
and export oil and gas throughout the world. The energy reserves of
Central Asia must be transported through pipelines, since they would
otherwise remain geographically stranded in a part of the world that
has no seashores and waterways. This is why neo-geopolitics quickly
started at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Moreover, the cast of actors is multiple. There are the geographic
bridgeheads or transit states like Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia and
Afghanistan that intermediate the energy poor and rich regions;
the geopolitical pivots such as Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, China,
Russia, Japan, the US, the EU and Britain that have the prowess and
will of pipeline and energy supremacy; then there are the pawns and
peripheries that complicate the geopolitics through shifting sides
and balances. These are non-state actors, ranging from national and
multinational companies to ethnic-nationalist separatist groups,
autonomous regions, warlords, drug barons and terrorist outfits.
For the stranded energy reserves of Central Asia, the perceivable
ramifications of the new geopolitics are twofold-atavistic and
optimistic. Evading tangible outcome, geopolitics may result in a
‘no war, no peace’ situation. ‘The result is stalemate,’ laments
Thomas R. Stauffer in his article Caspian Fantasy: the Economics
of Political Pipelines in The Brown Journal of World Affairs in
Summer-Fall 2000. ‘Much or most of the oil and gas from the Caspian
basin [Central Asia] may well remain orphaned for the foreseeable
future.’ Provided the nature of the geopolitics, deadlock is the most
likely scenario, continuing the status quo, allowing these natural
reserves to remain stagnant and delaying energy transportation from
Central Asia. Multiplication of pipelines is the second likely prospect
of geopolitics, increasing energy transportation manifold.
The competition that would result might open up the stranded wealth
of natural reserves to international markets and investors.
The New Geopolitics: Cooperation or Confrontation, War or Peace?
As the geopolitics of energy has been a great determinant of world
history and even civilizations, the new geopolitics of pipelines has
had a great influence on the geopolitical dispensation of Eurasia,
Central Asia in particular. These cross-border, crosscutting
transportation networks have spurred two divergent geopolitical
paradigms: There is either cooperation leading to lasting peace, or
confrontation culminating in war. The two paradigms are based upon
on a clash of interests. The succeeding paragraphs of the newsletter
describe the new geopolitics as a source of war and peace.
Endorsing Aristotle’s conception of politics as a social act
with an equal distribution of resources and social processes in
an amicable settlement of dispute, the constructivist, liberal
political economists argue that the new geopolitics is a source of
cooperative-plus-competitive distribution of energy. As pipelines are
built in cooperation, states and multinational companies collaborate
on pipeline projects to transit energy resources to their economies.
As energy security is an act in coherence, states coordinate policies
and plans to execute pipelines and related energy development
projects. Pipelines thus stand for the collective security of energy,
because these are multilateral delivery systems and transportation
agents built in coherence of varying interests of various stackers. A
pipeline network links together producer and consumer (and often
transit states that intermediate the two ends) with multinational
corporations in an energy development consortium, consequently evolving
a pipeline-based energy economy-the energy-revenue fix.
Founded on legal contracts and political conventions and financed
jointly, pluralist liberalists assert that pipeline projects are the
bedrocks of cooperation.
Emphasizing the pervasiveness of economics in political calculations,
the constructivist theorists second high politics (a fusion of military
and security issues) to low politics (a confluence of politics and
economics with other social considerations). Based on collective
security and mutual gain, pipeline economy orients state relations from
conflict to cordiality: ‘Every sale made and every deal reached across
international borders entails a resolution of conflict of interests,’
contends Joshua S. Goldstein in International Relations. The element
of mutual gain overrides individual gain in pipelining energy, thereby
putting economic nationalism on the backburner. The ‘modicum of trust
and confidence’ required in building pipelines harmonizes and pacifies
the dynamics of interstate relations as permanent confidence building
measures. These energy development infrastructures are geopolitical
‘overlays,’ encouraging resolution of border disputes, strengthening
security regime along and across the route.
The Principles of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill is a valuable
reference for explaining pipeline routing and the pipelining of energy
as factors that can pacify politics: ‘Commerce is rapidly rendering
war obsolete, by strengthening and multiplying the personal interests
which act in natural opposition to it . . .. The great extent and rapid
increase of international trade . . . [is] the principal guarantee
of the peace of the world’ [Cited in Robert A.
Manning’s Asian Energy Factor]. The European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC) of 1951 is a notable precedent of commerce and
trade as politically integrative forces, which set the stage for the
once-warring states to confederate in the European Union. Pipelines
can also boost regionalism, relegating outmoded, primal conflicts.
This could also be so for the pan-Eurasian energy corridors and
blocs. The new geopolitics is thus an aberration rather than a
continuation of history.
The energy axis created forms a ‘security complex’ based on collective
energy security. Impending energy insecurity and the potential for
economic depression as energy resources reach their peak, states
jointly pursue energy security projects-and accomplish the security
margins of energy. Identifying national interests and concerns
reduces the likelihood of confrontation, thereby consolidating the
security regime: A regime in which the security of pipelines, taking
off energy from wellhead to threshold, is a primary objective. A
coordinated security mechanism and strategy consequently becomes the
cornerstone of a pipeline-based security nexus, interfacing Central,
Southern and Western Asia with the Far East, Eastern and Central
Europe, Caucasus and Siberia. Besides exercising the niceties
and nuances of diplomacy, the collective energy security concept
harmonizes instruments of military security to neutralize plots of
terrorism. Military coordination is a result of the insecurity of
the pipeline network and energy chokepoints. This vulnerability and
exposure to disruptions helps refine multilateral security mechanisms,
culminating in greater peace and security.
Contradicting the pluralist-liberalist assumption that pipelines and
energy development projects include cooperation for confrontation and
discredit Realpolitik, realist-rationalists consider energy resources
as strategic raw materials inseparable from the overall national
security scheme that simmer conflicts and catalyze wars. Therefore,
pipelines are geopolitical curses rather than cures.
New geopolitics primarily manifests the clash of interests rather
than the compatibility of interests. The rationale: The state
is a self-seeking, rational entity that desires maximum national
security and strength. Energy security is no exception. Pipelines
are conduits of energy security, nonetheless energy imperialism. As
asserted by Jean Radvanyi: ‘The struggle over transport routes
is linked to the struggle over the exploitation of resources’
[ ]. Therefore, energy security
cannot be collective or mutual and is the salient identification
of economic nationalism, pitting state against state. In other
words, every unit of energy security exacerbates one unit of energy
insecurity. Energy is the single greatest multiplier of state power.
States marshal conflicting attempts to appropriate the larger share,
if not the whole, of energy resources; rather than complying with
compatriots’ energy interests, the power package that pipelines endow
can lead to energy and pipeline wars. In this sense, energy security
comes through marginalizing the competitor. So cooperation over energy
security is transitory, placing states in a geopolitical gridlock in
the long run.
Retrospectively, pipelines are corridors of powers-a geopolitical
ambition of every state-enlarging the outward boundaries of state.
Pipelines are alternatives to the MacKinderite module of prevailing in
Eurasia and overpowering the sea powers. The rising, restless powers
clash and collide over pipelines for geopolitical ascendancy.
This factor is quite prevalent in Eurasia with a number of states
that seek to become regional powerhouses in a consolidating
command-and-control over the new ‘economic lifelines’ and lifeblood.
Furthermore, wars arising of causes other than energy or pipelines
are modified in their conduct and continuity by the control of energy
flow lines, the pipelines. Eurasia is replete with such causes. The
mega continent is a crucible, with a plethora of ethnic enclaves,
drug barons, political localism, disruptive nationalism, state and
trans-state terrorism, border disputes and resource wars. Hence,
pipelines only intensify these struggles, because players in the
new geopolitics manipulate these channels to their pipeline gambits
either as peacemakers, peacekeepers, war makers or war brokers, or
by stationing their armies along the pipeline pathways. Examples of
this are found in Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Caspian Sea
demarcation deadlock, Xingjian, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Balochistan.
In a state that has a wealth of natural resources, democratic
institutions can falter and dictatorship can flourish, allowing
dictators to consolidate power, destroy opposition, contravene laws
and disparage liberties. Corruption and erosion of institutions is
another result of the energy windfall coming forth with pipelines.
The whirlwind of wealth in the republics that inherited the pipeline
after the fall of the Soviet Union, where the Stalin-style personality
cult reigns, means compromising and complicating efforts to produce
more stable, peaceful, open and democratic governments and a new
world order. The new geopolitics culminates in a geopolitical paradox
with two poles. At one end, the energy producing states (CARs,
Russia and Azerbaijan) contend to keep the old ways going through
bribing, funding and fudging opposition into compromise. The energy
consuming states (EU countries, China and Japan) tolerated this in
order to keep the energy flowing into their burgeoning economies,
bartering democracy with dictatorship. At the other end, states
(US and Britain) plan regime changes and court color revolutions to
pave the pipeline pathways in the governance of poor, dissension-rich
Eurasian republics-Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
Pipelining energy means tendering peace and trapping security.
The idealist’s pretension of pipelines as security ‘overlays’ is,
therefore, superfluous. These can rather prove to be the geopolitical
fault lines, escalating crises of a local nature into regional wars.
On the other hand, it could encourage polarization, increasing
volatility in South and Central Asia with a fluid political character.
The Bottom Line: Recommendations
Deadlock is out of question over the wealth of natural resources.
Energy security is symbiotic, constituting co-dependency between the
energy gusher and guzzler, creating an energy-revenue fix.
Consequently, pipelines are imminent for securing and servicing
energy supplies. Otherwise, these natural resources will remain
stranded, or only partially developed. First-generation pipelines,
including the CPC oil pipeline, East-West Kazakhstan-China pipeline,
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Turkmenistan-Iran pipeline are
in place or will be accomplished by 2007. The second generation of
pipelines, essentially natural gas pipelines, will become feasible
as soon as gas markets mature, energy demand pressure piles up and
the prices trajectory tips up.
However, the bottom line is that new geopolitics is a continuation
of power politics, precisely energy imperialism, by means other than
sheer war and sheer peace, intertwining proxy wars and peacekeeping.
It is a geopolitical pretension, a process orchestrated to secure
maximum energy security. The more contentious and conflagrant
the process becomes, the greater the chance of pipeline wars and
fissures. On the other hand, the more coherent and peaceful the
process remains, peace and stability increases with every pipeline,
rendering pipeline projects in peacemaking and confidence building.
New geopolitics has the potential of flattening the world by resolving
inter-and intrastate disputes, as well as inflating disputes into wars.
The constructivist liberalists view pipelines as conduits of peace and
cooperation. The realist rationalists, antithetically, see pipelines
as geopolitical corridors of powers. Prospecting peace in pipelines is
like playing the giddy goat. Peace in pipelines is a chimera. Peace
is not a byproduct of new geopolitics-the push and pull for pipeline
and power-but the result of a committed, well-intended peace process.
The new geopolitics is about collective security of energy rather
than containment of some states and appeasement of others. Such
a geopolitical paradox would generate wars and sustain disputes,
banning peace and confidence to consolidate.
Diplomacy and detente should become part and parcel of the new
geopolitical grand strategy co-opting intrigues and interventions,
conflating competition and cooperation, implying geopolitical consensus
rather contention. The new geopolitics can thence produce confidence
and reduce contentions.
Crisis management strategies should be evolved, managing disputes
from escalating into wars, culminating into a settlement of disputes.
To this end, the existing multilateral institutions such as the OECD,
ECO, SCO, EU, ASEAN and others should be vitalized for orienting
new geopolitics to containing wars from continuing the fractious and
fluid geopolitical paradigm.
Nevertheless, investment in pipeline projects should be conditioned
to economic liberalization, political reformation, institutional
democratization and constitutional liberalization in the chaotic and
corrupt developing economies. This would create real conditions for
peace. Otherwise, war will remain suspended on the horizon.
Finally, to optimize energy security, it should be made collective
and co-dependent. Containment policies will stir counter strategies,
damning geopolitical accommodation. Therefore, states should appease
to contemporaries’ energy security to increase their own energy
security. Changing or isolating regimes will only elongate the axis
of wars and wrangles.
Imran Khan is a Political Research Officer at the Australian High
Commission, Islamabad, Pakistan, and is a M. Phil Research Officer at
the Area Study Center (Russia, China & Central Asia), Peshawar. The
author has been Lecturer in International Relations and Politics at
Qurtuba University of Science and Information Technology, Peshawar,
and Associate Editor of The Dialogue-a quarterly journal. He has also
been associated with Future Events News Service (FENS).

ANOTHER TRAINLOAD OF EQUIPMENT FROM 62ND BASE LEAVES GEORGIA FOR RUSSIA
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Military Newswire
September 5, 2006 Tuesday 11:27 AM MSK
Another train, the 17th one, carrying arms, ammunition and other
hardware of the 62nd military base deployed in Akhalkalaki, Georgia,
has left for Russia.
“It started today from the Tsalka railroad station. The train is
heading to Russia and carries twelve communication vehicles, as well
ammunition and other equipment,” a representative of the command of
the 62nd base told Interfax-AVN on Tuesday, adding that a total of 19
military echelons with equipment from the 62nd base will go to Russia.
Earlier, Colonel Vladimir Kuparadze, deputy commander of the Russian
military force in the South Caucasus, told Interfax-AVN that 179
pieces of armament and hardware and 217 tonnes of other materiel have
been shipped from Batumi to the base in Gyumri, Armenia, since the
beginning of the year. Another 190 pieces of armaments and hardware
and 738 tonnes of other cargoes have been withdrawn from Akhalkalaki.
“The plan is to withdraw 358 pieces of armaments and military hardware
and over 1,671 tonnes of other equipment from Akhalkalaki to Russia
in 2006,” he said.
Russian military bases should be withdrawn from Georgia during 2008
under a Russian-Georgian agreement.

TO LOVE AND HONOUR … THE LEAFS
Toronto Star, Canada
Sept 4 2006
ACC employees, hockey fans have dream wedding
Everything was blue and white, even the ring
NASREEN GULAMHUSEIN STAFF REPORTER
Years before she met her husband, Sandi Joseph knew her wedding would
be blue and white. Blue and white for the Toronto Maple Leafs, that is.
Yesterday at centre ice (without the ice, although Joseph would have
preferred it to be there), her dream came true. She married Kevin
Kandaharian at the Air Canada Centre, where the couple met five years
ago and still work part-time.
“I worked as an usher of a section and he worked the ice-cream stand
outside my section,” Joseph, 31, said.
“We are both diehard Maple Leaf fans, so we hit it off right away.”
One year later, Kandaharian went on a hockey road trip through western
Canada, following the Maple Leafs from Calgary to Edmonton, and on
to Vancouver.
“Sandi was the only one crazy enough to do it with me,” Kandaharian,
25, said.
“We went as friends and came back as more.”
The wedding ceremony was simple: Blue-and-white bows adorned the
fold-out chairs, and a blue carpet stood in for the church aisle.
The priest, Kandaharian’s grandfather, married the happy couple as
they stood on a large carpet bearing the Maple Leafs logo, flanked
by a wedding party decked out in blue and white.
“There has never been a wedding of this magnitude held at the ACC
before,” Joseph said of the 250 people in attendance.
Poetic vows were exchanged in English and a prayer read in Armenian,
Kandaharian’s first language.
Family members – some wearing Leaf jerseys, others in blue-and-white
evening gowns and ties – held hands and wiped tear-filled eyes.
“The groom may kiss the bride,” the priest announced at the end of
the ceremony, and the crowd erupted into applause.
More than half the guests raised Maple Leaf flags and towels into
the air and waved them, as though they were at a hockey game. A lone
voice yelled “Go Leafs Go!” as a young boy loudly sounded a horn.
As the grinning couple walked down the aisle, the blue-and-white
crystals in Joseph’s dress shimmered, as did the blue-and-white
wedding ring on her hand.
“I told Kevin I had to have sapphires,” she said, laughing. “The
sapphires were more important to me than the diamonds.”
Kandaharian proposed to Joseph at the Hockey Hall of Fame last year
and surprised her with a ring tucked in one of the display cases
among hockey memorabilia.
“I saw the ring…. It didn’t click, so I walked away. Only when he
dropped onto one knee did I clue in – that was my ring.”
The newly married couple’s blue-and-white wedding reception included
a Maple Leaf-shaped cake topped with a bride and groom wearing Leaf
jerseys, and blue-and-white centrepieces and place cards.
“By getting married at the ACC,” the bride said, “hopefully we brought
the team some luck this year.”