Global Politician
Global Politician
Uzbekistan and America's Future Conflicts
Angelique van Engelen - 7/31/2005
As of next year, Central Asia will have come fully online to Western energy markets, as twin oil and gas pipelines linking the Caspian sea to Turkey will begin to deliver. By this time, the world will likely finally understand that US foreign policy, known to be energy focused, is intent on more than just bringing Iraq to its knees. This weekend's decision by the leadership of Uzbekizstan, just hours ahead of a key meeting with US officials, to ask US forces to leave its Karsy Khanabad airbase -dubbed K2- might be a turning point however.
The US opened military bases in Uzbekistan and neighboring Kyrgyzstan, both bordering on China, in 2001. But the agreements were rather makeshift and the parties involved hardly trust each other. In the wake of the massacre by Uzbek government forces, the situation between the US and the regime in Uzbekistan have been especially jittery. US top officials did whatever they could to avoid Islam Karimov's regime to change its mind on the US troops' presence, including a shameful attempt to block UN action calling for an official investigation into the massacre. To no avail however. The deal -a collaboration of sorts- is off now. US troops are packing their bags.
If this is a precursor to future developments, we can expect to see some more diplomatic manoevering soon. Most of the arrangements for US troop deployment in Central Asian countries have been forged under rather strenuous circumstances that could start to act up at moments way less painful than for instance a massacre. Elections will do just fine too. The recently forged access to a base in Azerbaijan, situated next to that monstrous Iran, was reportedly subject to some heavy coercing. Discussions between the US secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and officials replacing the country's president Ilham Aliyev, publicly might have passed for negotiations but are said to be a first hand example of the very bullying that the US officials accuse Russia and China of in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
If the efforts to gain greater access to the countries in the region and, more importantly, their hinterlands China and Iran, had largely escaped the world's notice, the process has received a serious setback for the US with this Uzbek decision, however sad the motivation. Recent events however do shed more insight over the priorities Washington has.
The last five years' worth of practical efforts on the part of the US to become involved in Central Asia show quite clearly just how self centered and immoral many moves are. And as the region's USD3 billion flagship energy project -the Baku, Tblisi, Ceyhan pipeline- hits the limelight, it is likely details of the exact role Washington intends to play in the region will be measured out more public.
Ever since the region's oil wealth was discovered, US policymakers have been working hard to be in on the party. They won a key strategic concession by getting the countries through which this 'East-West energy transit corridor' would run (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan) to exclude Iran and Russia. The US efforts have been near as intense as the host countries' work laying out the pipeline. But now the US role might turn a lot more controversial, not least because the military aspect attached to it starting to be questioned in ways that have real tangible impact. If a country like Uzbekistan can tell the US to get lost, who guarantees the others won't follow soon?
The writing is on the wall in this respect. Countries in the region are increasinly linking the deals for the US army to be stationed on their bases to the situation in Afghanistan. After this war is over, the Asian countries are less likely to welcome US troops, however sorded the reasons and however good a blackmailing case the US might use to barge in nevertheless.
In the past, the US State Department has gained access to these countries saying the war on terror was the mission, but the soldiers sent to the region had received training that was focused more or less on energy however. It appeared soon later that the troop deployment was part of the US' intended fight to 'decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars'. This has mostly escaped the world's notice because most of the jostling for access took place as the War or Terror took off, yet there are strategic Washington documents simply spelling out these 'by-goals', the most outspoken of which are those of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a controversial organization the members of which dominate the echelons of power in Washington.
It cannot be denied that the importance of the region is key to goals stated by many US foreign policy documents. The allegations are perhaps not so far off, that US agents might have been involved in the revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and that US infiltrants might have been instrumental in the events spiralling out of control in Kyrgyzstan, the region's last country to witness such a highly uncharacteristic event which commentators still hesitate to describe as a revolution.
So far, events have accumulated in Central Asia rather silently, but last weekend's Uzbek announcement shows that this might be over. Earlier in the week, Kyrgyzstan, which hosts the spearhead for the Shanghai Cooperative Organization's (SCO) rapid reaction forces in Kant, also spoke out uncharacteristically sharp in this respect. High ranking US officials were forced to be somewhat honest about their agenda, responding to the Kyrgyzstani demand that Washington set a clear date for troop departures from its soil as well as from Uzbekistan. The claim was countered by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff and Air Force General Richard Myers who accused China and Russia -interestingly- of 'trying to bully' those Central Asian countries that host US troops.
He also conceded that the US could help bring 'security and stability' to Central Asia. Words that are often heard now and that seem to have become the new standard sound byte, replacing lines on Afghanistan. Shortly afterwards, an official at the Pentagon followed up on the comments, saying the US did not necessarily see the bases in these two countries as critical, and that it has built up enough flexibility to get along without access to the countries' bases. He put a brave face on it. The two countries are incremental for the US ground plans to deter what it conceives as Chinese military treats.
The former Russian base in Uzbekistan that the US is asked to vacate is, at 1,500 capacity, one of the largest the US has access to in the region. The Kyrgyzstan air base in Manas, also known as the Peter J. Ganci base (after the New York City fireman who died in the World Trade Center), is even bigger, at 2,000 capacity. Sources report that extensive infrastructure has been built, including a central power plant, a hospital and two industrial-size kitchens. The flexibility that is quoted by US officials likely amounts to the concessions they negotiated with the regime in Kazakhstan, who conceded they could use their bases for landing and taking off as well as its presence in Tadjikistan, also not half as attractive as the Uzbeki and Kyrgyzstani situations.
The accusations by the US who says Russia and China are bullying these two countries into submission are interpreted by observers as a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The access to Azerbaijan -not part of the SCO- is also enshrowded in mystery that doesn't appear to be much good. Though U.S. officials deny that their forces are already stationed in Azerbaijan, they concede that the country is vital for future US bases in the region. The intelligence monitor Stratfor reported this April that some U.S. troops and materiel are already in the country, and more forces and aircraft will be deployed there later this year. Citing 'multiple sources' both official and unofficial, the report indicates that both U.S. troops and aircraft have arrived. The report claims that Azerbaijani government sources have confirmed there is an agreement between Baku and Washington on locating U.S. "temporarily deployed mobile forces", a deal struck at the Baku airport by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's and the Azerbaijani Prime Minister Artur Rasizade and Defense Minister Safar Abiyev -- acting on behalf of Aliyev. The latter was -conveniently- out of the country at the time. Apparently Rumsfeld and Aliyev missed each other by hours.
"Sources said that Rumsfeld, not satisfied with Baku's initial agreement, pressured the officials to set a quick fixed date to begin major deployments of U.S. forces to Azerbaijan", according to the Stratfor report. The country is said to be strategic to the US in case it decides to attack Iran. Plans for such an event are being researched in depth by Washington, among others by the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which has been asked to draw up concrete, short term contingency plans, to involve "a large-scale air assault employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons", reports Counterpunch columnist Gary Leupp, in an article entitled 'Is Iran being set up?' Answering in the confirmative, he warns that the consequences of such action would be disastrous for all the goodwill the US is building up in Iraq currently. "Do they even realize that southern Iraq and Iran constitute the heartland of historical Shiism, and that an attack on Iran will negate any goodwill among Shiites U.S. forces have acquired in Iraq?", he wonders.
Officials do not confirm reports that Azerbaijani bases are at this point utilized by the US army, but at the same time they do not deny that Iran is not on the hotlist for possible military action. And where else to attack from but from a base in the region? An officially commissioned study by the Washington based Iran Policy Committee (IPC) recommends a regime change in Iran is desirable to -in the study's wording- 'recall the nuclear time clock that is ticking down as Iran drives to reach nuclear weapons capability'.
What exactly would have made the Azerbaijani leadership agree to US troops renting former Russian bases on its soil might not be everyone's guess. The current leader Ilham Aliyev who took over from his father after controversial elections in 2003, could easily be toppled in the same fashion as his colleagues in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, which saw popular uprisings that many say was spurred on if not incited by US agents. This might explain the Azerbaijani regime's preference to delay the major U.S. forces' arrival -- or at least the formal announcement of it -- until after the elections this November. "The current government would be accused of election fraud and treated accordingly by the West and Western-encouraged opposition", according to the Stratfor analysis. Officially, Aliyev is said to favor a pluralistic foreign policy, having resolved differences with Russia over its troops in a base in Qabala, northwest of Baku. It is believed that President Putin has tentatively allowed US troops can be stationed there, but that he demands to say in the loop on the issue.
Apart from the direct tension between Washington, Moscow and some of the Central Asian countries, other countries in the world are decidedly negative on the US strategy of setting up camp everywhere it sees fit, even though much of the disconsent has hardly come to the surface because of the way the access to Central Asia has been couched in the official spoken rhetoric. The first and foremost reason the Americans cite for their necessary presence is the situation in Afghanistan, but slowly it is now becoming clear that the long-term vision consists of guaranteed access to energy resources and countering the 'strength of the Chinese army' in the region. Which amounts, in real factual terms to its membership of the SCO with Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The countries have been holding joint exercises for three years.
China is currently surrounded by a whole chain of major military bases hosting US troops in Central Asia, as well as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Vietnam. China is not known to be vying superpower status to the extent that it wishes to dominate the world militarily. The same cannot be said of the US regime. The extent of the US army buildup in Asia today is not really comparable to the international deployment of US troops during the cold war, but it has been termed an elaborated, more sophisticated, new, flexible defense infrastructure for intervening in-or initiating- "hot wars" from the Middle East to the Caucasus to East Asia. The fear that's making US policy makers shivver with regards to China is only exacerbated or feeding off Chinese army asperations to be modern, flexible and high tech.
Donald Rumsfeld on a recent Asian trip confirmed the notion entirely, saying simply China was becoming too powerful for the liking of the Pentagon. No further qualification of the danger. A recent Pentagon report on Chinese military strength underlines that simple growth and sophistication of an army is somehow immediately seen as equal to a threat, without this necessarily having to be the case. It states that China is expanding its missile capabilities in Asia and the Pacific, improving its army's capability 'to project power' and is upgrading its military technology. Whatever the US leadership is saying about the Chinese, most comments are geared to the end that China is an increasing threat, even though the country never singles the US out as an enemy. The phrase of the pot calling the kettle black might yet again have acquired new meaning.
"China has three priorities: economic growth, economic growth, economic growth," according to Kenneth Courtis, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs in Asia. A recent document drawn up by the US-China Security Review Commission simply underlines this. The document, drawn up by a panel of Washington insiders and business people, is decisive proof that the only reason the Americans are going about their business in the region is to ensure the continuation of their hegemony worldwide and will utilize every trick in the school book to achieve their ends. Even if in recent decades the official line has been to encourage the process of capitalism in China, Washington is not pleased with the impressive accomplishments at all now. Beijing is now seen as a growing threat, both economically and militarily. What Washington is focusing on in its treatment of China will grow from criticism of human rights, limited religious freedom into more potent issues such as an alleged failure to stamp out illegal sales of nuclear materials and missile-related technology to countries accused of sponsoring terrorism. The usual.
The report however also mentions highly illustrative 'motivators' that are more difficult to classify as offensive under international law stipulations. What the authors really have a problem with though is the fact that China is 'challenging the US in the manufacturing of airframes, computers and aeronautical guidance systems'. Why? They are markets America once dominated. America’s growing reliance on high quality, low-price Chinese imports eventually might "undermine the US defense industrial base," it is furthermore asserted. China has a leg up on the US in trade, as it has managed to gain access to more than US$14 billion, worth of investments raised in US capital markets. This is believed to be the main source of the Chinese initiative to modernize its military and growing its influence in South-East Asia 'at the expense of the US'. The commissioners even feel threatened by the lure of the Chinese market for international business and cite this as an aggravating factor for the massive US$ 87 billion US-China trade imbalance.
Whatever the pretext Washington decides to come up with for a possible next country to attack, the material is in the making, testimony this report. There is tons of other stuff, which shows that the US is not going to be abating this line. The key document underpinning US international policy, the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, clearly states the overall goal; "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in the hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the United States". This is a rather factual betrayal of all its allies. The US simply states here it will never be able to be friendly with any power outside that might live up to the very principals it is preaching whilst going its destructive course.
"This [...] has come as an unpleasant surprise to those who swallowed the idea that economic globalisation was being accompanied by the emergence of forms of ‘global governance’ that would overcome the centuries-old struggle for supremacy among the Great Powers", says Dipak Basu, a columnist at People's Democracy. Lesser left wing observers agree on this point.
In future it will be hard to convince the domestic US population of the merits of any ventures akin to the war against Iraq. Hard, but not impossible. The past five years have shown that it is possible that you can use means that are inconceivably hard faced and void of all logic to launch a war. Even though the reasons that were cited for going to war on Iraq are by many Americans seen as failing to come close to reality, they have been documented. Current new reports on Iran, China and other countries show eery resemblance to this planning.
The idea that that the US should be in control of the resources and territories of Central Asia was launched in the early 1970s. In his book The Grand Chessboard, Zbignew Brzezinski, who used to be an advisor to Rockefeller and president Carter launches this idea, stating as a reason the enormous concentration of oil and gas reserves. In describing the best way to go about this, Brzezinski's book reads like a document issuing favorable advise on the war in Iraq. He says that a "truly massive and widely perceived external threat? is needed to incline the US public into a supportive mood for engagement in international war. Even though he wrote the book eight years ago, and even though the US public has felt betrayed by its rulers since, this thinking is still not eradicated at all.
There is little the rest of the world can do, apart from object and exercising international law and staving off the US dominance over key areas within the UN. Europeans do not like the cowboy style military strategy abroad, but even if European officials would call Washington to justify its bases, at this point the US would hardly care. The war against Iraq has shown this repeatedly. General closeness between European nations and the US, the product of years long cooperation, is however often taken for granted at points that benefit the US. Recently, Europeans did not blink an eyelid when they saw the US block a UN effort to call Uzbek leaders to question for the atrocities they commanded in Andijan where over 700 protestors died at the hands of government troops. The reason? Fear that the US access to the country's air force bases would be compromised. The EU line is that it's desired that international forces are present in the country to make sure human rights are honored.
It somewhat subjects its ties with Russia to such demands. The Russian-German-French troika or the EU-3 which has been close to Moscow, and which dominated the foreign affairs of the EU over the past decade, might well be on its last legs however. The Troika's motivating factor for involving Russia actively in the not so distant past has been to throw up a counterweight to the US on the international political stage. If Europeans are planning to make themselves heard on the world stage at any time in the future, it is still very likely they will individually or collectively seek Russia out all the more.
Russia meanwhile has reacted as if stung by a bee. It increased its efforts in the region, in the wake of three revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. President Putin is now more active than at any point in his tenure in getting the Russian army to assert its influence in its former republics. He has, among other things, overseen the conversion of Russia's military deployments in Tajikistan into a permanent base, only just beating the Americans to it. The Central Asian regimes still in place are remarkably loyal to Moscow, not only because of their mutual history, but also because they do not wish to undergo the same fate as the previous regimes of Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and believe that Moscow can protect them.
Analysts say that the wider populations broadly support independence from both the West and Moscow, even though the societal make up and the domestic economies of these countries is recognized as fragile. A decisive factor is that the US influence is accompanied by economic incentives which are likely more attractive than what Russia offers in return. Kazakhstan, the largest of the Asian states and an active NATO partner, where US oil firms are well represented, is leading the way in favoring large Western investments over politics favoring the U.S. to leave neighboring countries. The reimbursements the US pays the countries do make a considerable difference to their national accounts. Georgia, for instance, was recently paid USD64 million as part of a two-year "train and equip" mission, in which US Special Forces trained a 2,000 strong antiterrorist force that patrols the Pankisi Gorge, which is where Chechen rebels and AI Qaeda fighters hide out. This easily outstrips the country's annual income from overseas workers and tourism. The company building the barracks and other facilities for the US trainers is Kellogg Brown & Root division of Halliburton industries, the former business of US vice president Dick Cheney, which is building plenty of other facilities in this region, as well as in Iraq.
Moral issues aside, the question of whether the US really needs to maintain a foreign strategy centered on energy is an issue the experts disagree about. Some analysts believe that the day will come that the rationale for maintaining a military presence in conjunction with energy needs will be abandoned because it will prove too costly. So far, this does not seem to be the opinion of US policy makers; the current US' worldwide presence outside resembles a specialist energy map of the globe. Aside from Central Asia, there are not many countries where US troops are stationed that do not have energy resources crucial to the US. They include Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Djibouti, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen and India.
A country like Azerbaijan, where the Americans are positioning their troops literally next to the pipeline for the time being serves the purpose of defending energy interests quite credibly, even though the ultimate importance that the East West Energy Transit Corridor has on international markets is debatable. This is not so much because of the absolute amount of oil that it will pour onto world markets from this project, but more because of growing scarcety that determines developments in the world oil supply scene. At 1 million barrels per day, the project's initial impact will be most drastic, because it will account for 25% of all new oil supply, and 1.3% of global supply, putting it on a par with Iraq. By comparison, Saudi Arabia produces an estimated 9.8%. Not exactly earth shattering numbers, yet the deliberations concerning energy supply are largely argued in terms of demand that is rapidly outstripping supply. This way, any new project being launched can easily be termed vital, even if the US is in reality maintaining the base in case it needs it to attack Iran.
The two factors coincide quite happily. Oil market predictions have always tended to influence US war rhetoric. And from the reports that are currently drawn up, it is clear that the extremist, paranoid component to the reasoning has not diminished at all. What's worse, analysts believe that any threat to US access to energy is not necessarily going to have to be as extreme as Saddam Hussein's regime purported possession of weapons of mass destruction for the US to take action.
"Significant price impacts in the global oil market are caused by modest marginal changes; the unanticipated one or two million barrels of oil per day of American and Chinese demand have helped to push prices up and keep them at elevated levels over the last several years", one analyst points out, saying this kind of data alone is likely enough reason for the US to base rather strategic decisions on. Other indicators also state that the US has become more extreme than ever in securing its energy needs. For one, ordinary US citizens stating their views on forums tend to baffle Europeans saying their government is right at invading other countries for the purpose of securing energy access. The general criticism is that the US hardly lives up to efforts made by others to combat the negative side effects of the consumerism propelling this urge. The US' refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol is rather assymmetric to the vehemence with which energy resources are appropriated.
Even though some Central Asian countries have shown a welcoming attitude to foreign troops and are keen to work in NATO structures, it does not automatically mean that their leaders are necessarily consistently pro West. The sea change in Uzbekistan might underline this. Central Asian countries generally view the West as the most effective ally in their efforts to build fully independent states, but the strength of their current pro-Western policies varies. Often this has a lot to do with internal issues. Azerbaijan showed just how fickle things are still only this last year, when it effectively cancelled a NATO exercise of the alliance in September, not hiding its displeasure at the plan's inclusion of Armenian soldiers. Azerbaijan for the last decade has strongly contested Armenia's occupation of the region which is dominated by Armenians, and it is likely going to be key in Azerbaijani NATO negotiations. Recently, assistant Secretary-General for Defence Planning and Operations John Colston visited Baku and reported that "Special reports will be prepared soon, which will identify the main directions of cooperation between the alliance and Azerbaijan. It is expected Azerbaijan is ready to join the alliance 2006. The issue of Nagorno Karabakh is likely key here. But the country has a history of making sea changes. At the moment, Azerbaijan is a member of the Russian-invented Commonwealth of International States too, even though it rejected this in the early 1990s. The membership includes the Treaty on Collective Security, and an agreement on economic cooperation.
Many countries in the regions have NATO applications that might translate into membership this year or next. Some are quite far into the process, notably Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Moldova. These five countries are united in GUAAM, an organization modeled on NATO's Conventional Forces in Europe, which was launched in 1996. The countries declared their commitment to becoming more independent from Russia in their defense policies, pooling their diplomatic resources in order to to oppose Russian troop deployment in or near their countries. The main reason for the pact was to create more security through collaboration from possible destabilizing action Russia might undertake against these countries. All countries except Azerbaijan are dependent on supplies of oil and gas either from or through Russia. Azerbaijan's oil and gas exports that are not directed at Turkey go either through Russia or through countries that Russia is in a position to destabilize. Russia is known to employ tactics like suspending the supplies or redirecting export routes to manipulate the foreign and domestic policies of the former Soviet Republics at an absolute whim.
The true independence that most Central Asian countries are after will likely materialize as its mineral wealth gets monetized. Georgia for instance stands to gain an income from transit tariffs of $50-60 million per year of the oil pipeline that runs through its territory. What's more, the pipeline will likely provide an economic snowball effect. In a few years, the country might be seen as more stable than ever, which will improve Georgia's investment climate for other projects. This in turn will likely lead to greater independent foreign policy too. Hopefully, the countries will exhibit an appetite for unauthoritarian forms of democracy that yield a liberty that will prove to be simply incorruptible by outside powers.
Angelique van Engelen is a former Middle East correspondent and currently runs a writing agency http://www.contentclix.com. She also participates in a writing ring http://clixyplays.blogspot.com/
Uzbekistan and America's Future Conflicts
Angelique van Engelen - 7/31/2005
As of next year, Central Asia will have come fully online to Western energy markets, as twin oil and gas pipelines linking the Caspian sea to Turkey will begin to deliver. By this time, the world will likely finally understand that US foreign policy, known to be energy focused, is intent on more than just bringing Iraq to its knees. This weekend's decision by the leadership of Uzbekizstan, just hours ahead of a key meeting with US officials, to ask US forces to leave its Karsy Khanabad airbase -dubbed K2- might be a turning point however.
The US opened military bases in Uzbekistan and neighboring Kyrgyzstan, both bordering on China, in 2001. But the agreements were rather makeshift and the parties involved hardly trust each other. In the wake of the massacre by Uzbek government forces, the situation between the US and the regime in Uzbekistan have been especially jittery. US top officials did whatever they could to avoid Islam Karimov's regime to change its mind on the US troops' presence, including a shameful attempt to block UN action calling for an official investigation into the massacre. To no avail however. The deal -a collaboration of sorts- is off now. US troops are packing their bags.
If this is a precursor to future developments, we can expect to see some more diplomatic manoevering soon. Most of the arrangements for US troop deployment in Central Asian countries have been forged under rather strenuous circumstances that could start to act up at moments way less painful than for instance a massacre. Elections will do just fine too. The recently forged access to a base in Azerbaijan, situated next to that monstrous Iran, was reportedly subject to some heavy coercing. Discussions between the US secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and officials replacing the country's president Ilham Aliyev, publicly might have passed for negotiations but are said to be a first hand example of the very bullying that the US officials accuse Russia and China of in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
If the efforts to gain greater access to the countries in the region and, more importantly, their hinterlands China and Iran, had largely escaped the world's notice, the process has received a serious setback for the US with this Uzbek decision, however sad the motivation. Recent events however do shed more insight over the priorities Washington has.
The last five years' worth of practical efforts on the part of the US to become involved in Central Asia show quite clearly just how self centered and immoral many moves are. And as the region's USD3 billion flagship energy project -the Baku, Tblisi, Ceyhan pipeline- hits the limelight, it is likely details of the exact role Washington intends to play in the region will be measured out more public.
Ever since the region's oil wealth was discovered, US policymakers have been working hard to be in on the party. They won a key strategic concession by getting the countries through which this 'East-West energy transit corridor' would run (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan) to exclude Iran and Russia. The US efforts have been near as intense as the host countries' work laying out the pipeline. But now the US role might turn a lot more controversial, not least because the military aspect attached to it starting to be questioned in ways that have real tangible impact. If a country like Uzbekistan can tell the US to get lost, who guarantees the others won't follow soon?
The writing is on the wall in this respect. Countries in the region are increasinly linking the deals for the US army to be stationed on their bases to the situation in Afghanistan. After this war is over, the Asian countries are less likely to welcome US troops, however sorded the reasons and however good a blackmailing case the US might use to barge in nevertheless.
In the past, the US State Department has gained access to these countries saying the war on terror was the mission, but the soldiers sent to the region had received training that was focused more or less on energy however. It appeared soon later that the troop deployment was part of the US' intended fight to 'decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars'. This has mostly escaped the world's notice because most of the jostling for access took place as the War or Terror took off, yet there are strategic Washington documents simply spelling out these 'by-goals', the most outspoken of which are those of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a controversial organization the members of which dominate the echelons of power in Washington.
It cannot be denied that the importance of the region is key to goals stated by many US foreign policy documents. The allegations are perhaps not so far off, that US agents might have been involved in the revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and that US infiltrants might have been instrumental in the events spiralling out of control in Kyrgyzstan, the region's last country to witness such a highly uncharacteristic event which commentators still hesitate to describe as a revolution.
So far, events have accumulated in Central Asia rather silently, but last weekend's Uzbek announcement shows that this might be over. Earlier in the week, Kyrgyzstan, which hosts the spearhead for the Shanghai Cooperative Organization's (SCO) rapid reaction forces in Kant, also spoke out uncharacteristically sharp in this respect. High ranking US officials were forced to be somewhat honest about their agenda, responding to the Kyrgyzstani demand that Washington set a clear date for troop departures from its soil as well as from Uzbekistan. The claim was countered by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff and Air Force General Richard Myers who accused China and Russia -interestingly- of 'trying to bully' those Central Asian countries that host US troops.
He also conceded that the US could help bring 'security and stability' to Central Asia. Words that are often heard now and that seem to have become the new standard sound byte, replacing lines on Afghanistan. Shortly afterwards, an official at the Pentagon followed up on the comments, saying the US did not necessarily see the bases in these two countries as critical, and that it has built up enough flexibility to get along without access to the countries' bases. He put a brave face on it. The two countries are incremental for the US ground plans to deter what it conceives as Chinese military treats.
The former Russian base in Uzbekistan that the US is asked to vacate is, at 1,500 capacity, one of the largest the US has access to in the region. The Kyrgyzstan air base in Manas, also known as the Peter J. Ganci base (after the New York City fireman who died in the World Trade Center), is even bigger, at 2,000 capacity. Sources report that extensive infrastructure has been built, including a central power plant, a hospital and two industrial-size kitchens. The flexibility that is quoted by US officials likely amounts to the concessions they negotiated with the regime in Kazakhstan, who conceded they could use their bases for landing and taking off as well as its presence in Tadjikistan, also not half as attractive as the Uzbeki and Kyrgyzstani situations.
The accusations by the US who says Russia and China are bullying these two countries into submission are interpreted by observers as a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The access to Azerbaijan -not part of the SCO- is also enshrowded in mystery that doesn't appear to be much good. Though U.S. officials deny that their forces are already stationed in Azerbaijan, they concede that the country is vital for future US bases in the region. The intelligence monitor Stratfor reported this April that some U.S. troops and materiel are already in the country, and more forces and aircraft will be deployed there later this year. Citing 'multiple sources' both official and unofficial, the report indicates that both U.S. troops and aircraft have arrived. The report claims that Azerbaijani government sources have confirmed there is an agreement between Baku and Washington on locating U.S. "temporarily deployed mobile forces", a deal struck at the Baku airport by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's and the Azerbaijani Prime Minister Artur Rasizade and Defense Minister Safar Abiyev -- acting on behalf of Aliyev. The latter was -conveniently- out of the country at the time. Apparently Rumsfeld and Aliyev missed each other by hours.
"Sources said that Rumsfeld, not satisfied with Baku's initial agreement, pressured the officials to set a quick fixed date to begin major deployments of U.S. forces to Azerbaijan", according to the Stratfor report. The country is said to be strategic to the US in case it decides to attack Iran. Plans for such an event are being researched in depth by Washington, among others by the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which has been asked to draw up concrete, short term contingency plans, to involve "a large-scale air assault employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons", reports Counterpunch columnist Gary Leupp, in an article entitled 'Is Iran being set up?' Answering in the confirmative, he warns that the consequences of such action would be disastrous for all the goodwill the US is building up in Iraq currently. "Do they even realize that southern Iraq and Iran constitute the heartland of historical Shiism, and that an attack on Iran will negate any goodwill among Shiites U.S. forces have acquired in Iraq?", he wonders.
Officials do not confirm reports that Azerbaijani bases are at this point utilized by the US army, but at the same time they do not deny that Iran is not on the hotlist for possible military action. And where else to attack from but from a base in the region? An officially commissioned study by the Washington based Iran Policy Committee (IPC) recommends a regime change in Iran is desirable to -in the study's wording- 'recall the nuclear time clock that is ticking down as Iran drives to reach nuclear weapons capability'.
What exactly would have made the Azerbaijani leadership agree to US troops renting former Russian bases on its soil might not be everyone's guess. The current leader Ilham Aliyev who took over from his father after controversial elections in 2003, could easily be toppled in the same fashion as his colleagues in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, which saw popular uprisings that many say was spurred on if not incited by US agents. This might explain the Azerbaijani regime's preference to delay the major U.S. forces' arrival -- or at least the formal announcement of it -- until after the elections this November. "The current government would be accused of election fraud and treated accordingly by the West and Western-encouraged opposition", according to the Stratfor analysis. Officially, Aliyev is said to favor a pluralistic foreign policy, having resolved differences with Russia over its troops in a base in Qabala, northwest of Baku. It is believed that President Putin has tentatively allowed US troops can be stationed there, but that he demands to say in the loop on the issue.
Apart from the direct tension between Washington, Moscow and some of the Central Asian countries, other countries in the world are decidedly negative on the US strategy of setting up camp everywhere it sees fit, even though much of the disconsent has hardly come to the surface because of the way the access to Central Asia has been couched in the official spoken rhetoric. The first and foremost reason the Americans cite for their necessary presence is the situation in Afghanistan, but slowly it is now becoming clear that the long-term vision consists of guaranteed access to energy resources and countering the 'strength of the Chinese army' in the region. Which amounts, in real factual terms to its membership of the SCO with Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The countries have been holding joint exercises for three years.
China is currently surrounded by a whole chain of major military bases hosting US troops in Central Asia, as well as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Vietnam. China is not known to be vying superpower status to the extent that it wishes to dominate the world militarily. The same cannot be said of the US regime. The extent of the US army buildup in Asia today is not really comparable to the international deployment of US troops during the cold war, but it has been termed an elaborated, more sophisticated, new, flexible defense infrastructure for intervening in-or initiating- "hot wars" from the Middle East to the Caucasus to East Asia. The fear that's making US policy makers shivver with regards to China is only exacerbated or feeding off Chinese army asperations to be modern, flexible and high tech.
Donald Rumsfeld on a recent Asian trip confirmed the notion entirely, saying simply China was becoming too powerful for the liking of the Pentagon. No further qualification of the danger. A recent Pentagon report on Chinese military strength underlines that simple growth and sophistication of an army is somehow immediately seen as equal to a threat, without this necessarily having to be the case. It states that China is expanding its missile capabilities in Asia and the Pacific, improving its army's capability 'to project power' and is upgrading its military technology. Whatever the US leadership is saying about the Chinese, most comments are geared to the end that China is an increasing threat, even though the country never singles the US out as an enemy. The phrase of the pot calling the kettle black might yet again have acquired new meaning.
"China has three priorities: economic growth, economic growth, economic growth," according to Kenneth Courtis, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs in Asia. A recent document drawn up by the US-China Security Review Commission simply underlines this. The document, drawn up by a panel of Washington insiders and business people, is decisive proof that the only reason the Americans are going about their business in the region is to ensure the continuation of their hegemony worldwide and will utilize every trick in the school book to achieve their ends. Even if in recent decades the official line has been to encourage the process of capitalism in China, Washington is not pleased with the impressive accomplishments at all now. Beijing is now seen as a growing threat, both economically and militarily. What Washington is focusing on in its treatment of China will grow from criticism of human rights, limited religious freedom into more potent issues such as an alleged failure to stamp out illegal sales of nuclear materials and missile-related technology to countries accused of sponsoring terrorism. The usual.
The report however also mentions highly illustrative 'motivators' that are more difficult to classify as offensive under international law stipulations. What the authors really have a problem with though is the fact that China is 'challenging the US in the manufacturing of airframes, computers and aeronautical guidance systems'. Why? They are markets America once dominated. America’s growing reliance on high quality, low-price Chinese imports eventually might "undermine the US defense industrial base," it is furthermore asserted. China has a leg up on the US in trade, as it has managed to gain access to more than US$14 billion, worth of investments raised in US capital markets. This is believed to be the main source of the Chinese initiative to modernize its military and growing its influence in South-East Asia 'at the expense of the US'. The commissioners even feel threatened by the lure of the Chinese market for international business and cite this as an aggravating factor for the massive US$ 87 billion US-China trade imbalance.
Whatever the pretext Washington decides to come up with for a possible next country to attack, the material is in the making, testimony this report. There is tons of other stuff, which shows that the US is not going to be abating this line. The key document underpinning US international policy, the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, clearly states the overall goal; "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in the hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the United States". This is a rather factual betrayal of all its allies. The US simply states here it will never be able to be friendly with any power outside that might live up to the very principals it is preaching whilst going its destructive course.
"This [...] has come as an unpleasant surprise to those who swallowed the idea that economic globalisation was being accompanied by the emergence of forms of ‘global governance’ that would overcome the centuries-old struggle for supremacy among the Great Powers", says Dipak Basu, a columnist at People's Democracy. Lesser left wing observers agree on this point.
In future it will be hard to convince the domestic US population of the merits of any ventures akin to the war against Iraq. Hard, but not impossible. The past five years have shown that it is possible that you can use means that are inconceivably hard faced and void of all logic to launch a war. Even though the reasons that were cited for going to war on Iraq are by many Americans seen as failing to come close to reality, they have been documented. Current new reports on Iran, China and other countries show eery resemblance to this planning.
The idea that that the US should be in control of the resources and territories of Central Asia was launched in the early 1970s. In his book The Grand Chessboard, Zbignew Brzezinski, who used to be an advisor to Rockefeller and president Carter launches this idea, stating as a reason the enormous concentration of oil and gas reserves. In describing the best way to go about this, Brzezinski's book reads like a document issuing favorable advise on the war in Iraq. He says that a "truly massive and widely perceived external threat? is needed to incline the US public into a supportive mood for engagement in international war. Even though he wrote the book eight years ago, and even though the US public has felt betrayed by its rulers since, this thinking is still not eradicated at all.
There is little the rest of the world can do, apart from object and exercising international law and staving off the US dominance over key areas within the UN. Europeans do not like the cowboy style military strategy abroad, but even if European officials would call Washington to justify its bases, at this point the US would hardly care. The war against Iraq has shown this repeatedly. General closeness between European nations and the US, the product of years long cooperation, is however often taken for granted at points that benefit the US. Recently, Europeans did not blink an eyelid when they saw the US block a UN effort to call Uzbek leaders to question for the atrocities they commanded in Andijan where over 700 protestors died at the hands of government troops. The reason? Fear that the US access to the country's air force bases would be compromised. The EU line is that it's desired that international forces are present in the country to make sure human rights are honored.
It somewhat subjects its ties with Russia to such demands. The Russian-German-French troika or the EU-3 which has been close to Moscow, and which dominated the foreign affairs of the EU over the past decade, might well be on its last legs however. The Troika's motivating factor for involving Russia actively in the not so distant past has been to throw up a counterweight to the US on the international political stage. If Europeans are planning to make themselves heard on the world stage at any time in the future, it is still very likely they will individually or collectively seek Russia out all the more.
Russia meanwhile has reacted as if stung by a bee. It increased its efforts in the region, in the wake of three revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. President Putin is now more active than at any point in his tenure in getting the Russian army to assert its influence in its former republics. He has, among other things, overseen the conversion of Russia's military deployments in Tajikistan into a permanent base, only just beating the Americans to it. The Central Asian regimes still in place are remarkably loyal to Moscow, not only because of their mutual history, but also because they do not wish to undergo the same fate as the previous regimes of Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and believe that Moscow can protect them.
Analysts say that the wider populations broadly support independence from both the West and Moscow, even though the societal make up and the domestic economies of these countries is recognized as fragile. A decisive factor is that the US influence is accompanied by economic incentives which are likely more attractive than what Russia offers in return. Kazakhstan, the largest of the Asian states and an active NATO partner, where US oil firms are well represented, is leading the way in favoring large Western investments over politics favoring the U.S. to leave neighboring countries. The reimbursements the US pays the countries do make a considerable difference to their national accounts. Georgia, for instance, was recently paid USD64 million as part of a two-year "train and equip" mission, in which US Special Forces trained a 2,000 strong antiterrorist force that patrols the Pankisi Gorge, which is where Chechen rebels and AI Qaeda fighters hide out. This easily outstrips the country's annual income from overseas workers and tourism. The company building the barracks and other facilities for the US trainers is Kellogg Brown & Root division of Halliburton industries, the former business of US vice president Dick Cheney, which is building plenty of other facilities in this region, as well as in Iraq.
Moral issues aside, the question of whether the US really needs to maintain a foreign strategy centered on energy is an issue the experts disagree about. Some analysts believe that the day will come that the rationale for maintaining a military presence in conjunction with energy needs will be abandoned because it will prove too costly. So far, this does not seem to be the opinion of US policy makers; the current US' worldwide presence outside resembles a specialist energy map of the globe. Aside from Central Asia, there are not many countries where US troops are stationed that do not have energy resources crucial to the US. They include Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Djibouti, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen and India.
A country like Azerbaijan, where the Americans are positioning their troops literally next to the pipeline for the time being serves the purpose of defending energy interests quite credibly, even though the ultimate importance that the East West Energy Transit Corridor has on international markets is debatable. This is not so much because of the absolute amount of oil that it will pour onto world markets from this project, but more because of growing scarcety that determines developments in the world oil supply scene. At 1 million barrels per day, the project's initial impact will be most drastic, because it will account for 25% of all new oil supply, and 1.3% of global supply, putting it on a par with Iraq. By comparison, Saudi Arabia produces an estimated 9.8%. Not exactly earth shattering numbers, yet the deliberations concerning energy supply are largely argued in terms of demand that is rapidly outstripping supply. This way, any new project being launched can easily be termed vital, even if the US is in reality maintaining the base in case it needs it to attack Iran.
The two factors coincide quite happily. Oil market predictions have always tended to influence US war rhetoric. And from the reports that are currently drawn up, it is clear that the extremist, paranoid component to the reasoning has not diminished at all. What's worse, analysts believe that any threat to US access to energy is not necessarily going to have to be as extreme as Saddam Hussein's regime purported possession of weapons of mass destruction for the US to take action.
"Significant price impacts in the global oil market are caused by modest marginal changes; the unanticipated one or two million barrels of oil per day of American and Chinese demand have helped to push prices up and keep them at elevated levels over the last several years", one analyst points out, saying this kind of data alone is likely enough reason for the US to base rather strategic decisions on. Other indicators also state that the US has become more extreme than ever in securing its energy needs. For one, ordinary US citizens stating their views on forums tend to baffle Europeans saying their government is right at invading other countries for the purpose of securing energy access. The general criticism is that the US hardly lives up to efforts made by others to combat the negative side effects of the consumerism propelling this urge. The US' refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol is rather assymmetric to the vehemence with which energy resources are appropriated.
Even though some Central Asian countries have shown a welcoming attitude to foreign troops and are keen to work in NATO structures, it does not automatically mean that their leaders are necessarily consistently pro West. The sea change in Uzbekistan might underline this. Central Asian countries generally view the West as the most effective ally in their efforts to build fully independent states, but the strength of their current pro-Western policies varies. Often this has a lot to do with internal issues. Azerbaijan showed just how fickle things are still only this last year, when it effectively cancelled a NATO exercise of the alliance in September, not hiding its displeasure at the plan's inclusion of Armenian soldiers. Azerbaijan for the last decade has strongly contested Armenia's occupation of the region which is dominated by Armenians, and it is likely going to be key in Azerbaijani NATO negotiations. Recently, assistant Secretary-General for Defence Planning and Operations John Colston visited Baku and reported that "Special reports will be prepared soon, which will identify the main directions of cooperation between the alliance and Azerbaijan. It is expected Azerbaijan is ready to join the alliance 2006. The issue of Nagorno Karabakh is likely key here. But the country has a history of making sea changes. At the moment, Azerbaijan is a member of the Russian-invented Commonwealth of International States too, even though it rejected this in the early 1990s. The membership includes the Treaty on Collective Security, and an agreement on economic cooperation.
Many countries in the regions have NATO applications that might translate into membership this year or next. Some are quite far into the process, notably Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Moldova. These five countries are united in GUAAM, an organization modeled on NATO's Conventional Forces in Europe, which was launched in 1996. The countries declared their commitment to becoming more independent from Russia in their defense policies, pooling their diplomatic resources in order to to oppose Russian troop deployment in or near their countries. The main reason for the pact was to create more security through collaboration from possible destabilizing action Russia might undertake against these countries. All countries except Azerbaijan are dependent on supplies of oil and gas either from or through Russia. Azerbaijan's oil and gas exports that are not directed at Turkey go either through Russia or through countries that Russia is in a position to destabilize. Russia is known to employ tactics like suspending the supplies or redirecting export routes to manipulate the foreign and domestic policies of the former Soviet Republics at an absolute whim.
The true independence that most Central Asian countries are after will likely materialize as its mineral wealth gets monetized. Georgia for instance stands to gain an income from transit tariffs of $50-60 million per year of the oil pipeline that runs through its territory. What's more, the pipeline will likely provide an economic snowball effect. In a few years, the country might be seen as more stable than ever, which will improve Georgia's investment climate for other projects. This in turn will likely lead to greater independent foreign policy too. Hopefully, the countries will exhibit an appetite for unauthoritarian forms of democracy that yield a liberty that will prove to be simply incorruptible by outside powers.
Angelique van Engelen is a former Middle East correspondent and currently runs a writing agency http://www.contentclix.com. She also participates in a writing ring http://clixyplays.blogspot.com/
posted by Marcel at 9:32 AM
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