Institute for Advanced Strategic

and Political Studies

IASPS Research Papers in Strategy

The Southern Eurasian Great Game

By Paul Michael Wihbey

Introduction

            Why would a Russia that lacks almost everything be making a major effort to influence, and possibly even to dominate southern Eurasia?  At the threshold of the 21^st century, the Russian people are hungry.[1]  Their life expectancy continues to decline.  Deaths exceed births by ever increasing margins.[2]  The people’s willingness to support adventures abroad is even lower than the single digit approval ratings of the country’s major politicians.[3]  It is difficult to imagine that anything Russia might gain in southwest Eurasia could significantly improve the terrible conditions into which the country has sunk since the Soviet collapse.  And yet it is undeniable that under Yevgeny Primakov–first as foreign minister and then as prime minister–Russia is mounting precisely such an effort in the region, with major consequences for U.S.  interests, as well as for countries like Israel and Turkey.

            As one looks closer, however, factors come into view that, if they do not explain Russia’s interest to our satisfaction, may at least explain why the interest seems satisfactory to some Russians.  Russia's major hard currency earner, oil exports, has been devastated by the slump in world oil prices.  Much would be easier for the Russian state if oil prices were double the current $10-12 /bl. range.  The Russian state would have oil-generated revenues equal to or greater than the $22 billion budget for 1999.[4]  More important, Russia’s ruling oligarchy would have uncountable billions to spend, since their personal wealth is tightly woven around the only serious sector of the economy–energy.[5]  Consider also that for a set of leaders who grew up as the managers of an empire and who have been humiliated by NATO expansion, energy is the only path to even imagining a restoration of national pride and stature.  As for empire, southern Eurasia is the only one of Russia’s frontier zones where any sort of recouping of the Soviet imperial borders, never mind expansion, is conceivable–the others having been stabilized by treaty with countries now more vigorous than Russia.

            Stretching southward 2,500 miles from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the shores of the Levant, and 2,000 miles from the northern reaches of the Caspian to the deserts of the Arabian peninsula, the southern Eurasian landmass is unevenly and diversely populated with some of the world’s least productive economies.  But it also contains most of the worlds proven oil reserves.  Thousands of Russian technicians and advisers of various kinds, the residue of Soviet Russia's bid for world domination, are still to be found throughout most of the region.  Here alone, Russians are mostly welcome.  More than ever, southern Eurasia is dependent on Russian military hardware, missile components, and nuclear reactors.  Moreover, the instability, violence and conflict that have characterized the newly independent republics that used to form the Soviet southern tier (much of it instigated by Moscow itself) have led Moscow to hope that it might be able to control these new states.  But of course Moscow cannot hope to achieve this without also somehow corralling the states of the Gulf, and especially, Iran, whose location offers the former Soviet republics access to the sea and the world.  If, however, Russia can do that, it could conceivably put together a new pact of oil-producing countries that might regulate the market with mere pronouncements, much as OPEC was once able to do.  The vastness of this task has not deterred Mr. Primakov.  Rather it seems to be inspiring him.

The Mainstream of Russian Foreign Policy

                Russia’s interest in an anti-Western foreign policy in southern Eurasia is not, as some have suggested, merely a special “Primakov doctrine,” the brainchild of Yevgeny Primakov.  Instead, it is an ordinary manifestation of the foreign policy that former Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev once warned that the Russian Establishment would embrace, namely an anti-Western, policy modeled on the old Soviet Union.[6]  There seems to be a consensus in the Russian Establishment that such a policy can be managed in southern Eurasia.  

            On August 20, 1997, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, on whom the West placed so many hopes, warned in televised remarks to the Russian Security Council that an American initiative threatened to turn the oil-rich region of the Caspian into a U.S. sphere of influence.  Yeltsin then instructed the Russian Foreign Ministry along with the intelligence service (Federal Security Service) as follows:

A settlement for the region must respond to the interests of our national security, we have a right to count on understanding on this point from the international community, and this is the task of Russia's Foreign Ministry.

Nothing less than the "the integrity of Russia is at stake."[7]  The man who wrote Yeltsin’s remarks, Yevgeny Primakov,[8] is arguably Russia's most powerful foreign minister since Molotov.  He is a former chief of the KGB, a leading architect of Soviet Middle East policy, and epicenter of overlapping networks of contacts and cronies in the Byzantine group of business, military and political bosses who rule post-Soviet Russia.[9]  Unlike many of his colleagues, however, Primakov seems willing to act on the desire, commonly expressed in the Russian Establishment, to reclaim for Russia the status of great power.  Like most, though not all members of his class, Primakov understands Russian greatness not as traditional Russians did.  He thinks of greatness in Soviet terms, as the capacity to rival the United States.[10]

            Moscow's intellectual design for shifting the world’s balance of power away from the United States has become known as the Primakov Doctrine.[11]  Among the most significant of this doctrine’s tenets are:

1.      Russia must be a superpower.  To make it one, Moscow must reassert as much control as possible over as much as possible of the Former Soviet Union (FSU).  Violence and destabilization are useful for reintegrating the Caucasus and Central Asia into a new and Greater Russia.

2.      America or American surrogates, like Turkey, must be prevented from exercising influence anywhere in the Former Soviet Union. 

3.      Several states or regions must emerge to compete for influence with the United States.

4.      In Europe, the Middle East, India, China, indeed everywhere, accuse the United States of acting hegemonically, and invite everyone to stand up against this. 

5.      Undermine the ability of the U.S. for power projection and conflict resolution in Kosovo, the Gulf and the Straits of Taiwan by diplomatically supporting Serbia, Iraq, Iran and China

6.      Wherever possible, promote the multilateralization of any global problem.  This prevents unilateral American action and permits the diplomatic assertion of Russian interests.

7.      The West can be intimidated into subsidizing Russian expansion, economic development and hi-tech acquisition. 

            Although none of these principles of policy are going to help the Russian people overcome their present misery, Primakov’s politics are identifiable as neo-Soviet.

            Primakov has economized Russia’s efforts in foreign policy by putting up only verbal opposition to the United States in most regions.  Under Primakov, Russia has reluctantly acquiesced to NATO expansion in central Europe.  Primakov has secured the Sino-Russian boundaries through a host of bilateral military and energy arrangements.[12]  He has even built up China’s strength by selling it some of Russia’s most advanced weapons.  Thus, Primakov has freed Russia to concentrate on the energy-laden prize of southern Eurasia.

Caspian Dream

            Ever since the creation of the Soviet state, Kremlin managers treated the Caucasus and Central Asia as little more than backwaters.  Even the vaunted oil fields of Baku remained underexplored and underdeveloped until well after the fall of the Soviet Union.  However, with the subsequent opening of the markets in the FSU, Western oil companies with advanced technologies for offshore exploration and drilling began to make startling finds of recoverable oil deposits.  A 1997 State Department report stated that the Caspian basin could hold 178 billion barrels of oil, second only to the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.[13]  Even if this estimate were halved, Caspian oil would still approximate that of Iran or Kuwait.  If to this one adds the region’s abundant gas supplies, the littoral states of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Iran stand to receive some $2 trillion in revenue.  Not all hopes have been fulfilled.[14]  But enough have for the world’s major governments to consider how control of the energy from the region would affect the balance of power.

            Russian elites already had incentives and possibilities for creating a “southern tier” of alliances with anti-American states such as Iran, Iraq and Syria.  But the vision of vast wealth and power from the Caspian, coupled with the goading realization that wealthy, truly independent states on their doorstep would diminish and shame them, led these elites to place a major effort to control the region.  The geopolitical consequences of success are obvious:

1)        Since success breeds success, Russia’s consolidation of power over Caspian energy would lead Saudi Arabia, even without the overthrow of the royal family, to cleanse itself of U.S. troops (something which the Saudis are already considering),[15] and share in the higher prices and profits secured by a new, more powerful oil cartel.  The concomitant reduction of U.S.  naval forces and erosion of U.S.  power projection in the Gulf would add honor to gain. 

2)        If Caspian pipeline routes were to run wholly within a Russian sphere of influence, from the Syrian port of Latakia on the Mediterranean, to the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf and northwards to Siberia and the Chinese hinterland, Moscow would control the bulk of oil and natural gas flowing to the world’s principal oil consumers.[16]

3)        Under such conditions, Russia could more easily coerce larger subsides from the funding programs of consuming states, as well as the IMF and the EU.[17]

4)        Again, under such conditions, Russia would find it easy to bring enough pressure to cause Turkey, Israel, as well as Saudi Arabia to dispense with their American allies.[18]

5)        Privileged access to the lucrative arms and reconstruction markets of Iran and Iraq, and other parts of the Gulf, would result in even greater flows of revenue to the Russian treasury.[19] 

6)        Just as important, Russia would be in a position to force the end of any American effort to limit the military power of Iran and Iraq.  This would give Moscow some very willing and fearsome pawns. 

7)        A Russian navy rebuilt with petrodollars extracted from Western consumers would use access to the warm water ports of the Gulf to secure control of the region.  And it would indeed be necessary to secure control, because a friendly Iran would be essential to the scheme, and Iran might well decide the scheme is not in its interest.

Making it Happen

            To pursue a set of goals that would have been ambitious for czars and commissars possessed of far greater resources, Primakov’s Russia has worked on three principal fronts: Make sure that no pipelines are built that bypass Russian controlled territory, coerce former Soviet republics into cooperation, and deepen an extraordinarily subtle, important, and fragile relationship with Iran.  Let’s consider these points.

            Regarding pipelines, Russian public statements are unequivocal:  Caspian oil must flow to the Black Sea port of Novorossisk.  “No route is cheaper, safer, and more effective for transporting Azerbaijan oil than the Russian route.  It is a 100% chance that most of the oil would go via Russia.”[20] 

            To this end Boris Nemtsov and Yevgeny Primakov concluded agreements for a 930 mile pipeline from Kazakhstan and Baku via Chechnya that will begin operating in 1999, eventually reaching a capacity of 1.4 million barrels per day, and yielding Russia a total of some $23 billion.  Russia has also begun a new, 176-mile bypass of Chechnya through North Ossetia of an older pipeline to the Black Sea.  These agreements were made possible by Russia’s military capacity to coerce the Chechyns into security and political arrangements acceptable to Russia.  As stated by Chechyn President Maskhadov on August 9, 1998,

Chechnya is ready to have a single economic and defense space, and to coordinate its diplomatic activity with Russia.  We are even ready to agree to build our relations with the outside world, with foreign states, upon consultations with Russia."[21]

            Lastly, three distinct routes vie for the prize of being selected as the Main Export Pipeline (MEP) for Azeri oil to export markets: Baku to Novororssisk via Russia; south Caspian to the deep-sea Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas via Iran, and; Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey, via Georgia.  With the Iranian option an unlikely choice because of the Iranian regime’s hostility to the West (more on this below) the competition is between Russia and Turkey.  Although a decision has not yet been made, dramatically declining oil prices and shrinking margins have made Western

investors in the Ceyhan project risk-averse.  The perceived ability of the Russians to destabilize the region has added to the risk of Ceyhan. 

            The probability that the Russian route would be selected for the MEP was intimated by the U.S.  special advisor to Stephen Sestanovic Ambassador-at-Large for the CIS.

There will not be any commitment to Baku-Ceyhan in 1998.  There is just no way.  It would be crazy for AOIC to commit itself firmly to Baku-Ceyhan that soon, with so much uncertainty in the region.[22]

U.S. Transportation Secretary Fredrico Pena underscored American reticence when he told a Moscow news conference:  "The United States government isn't going to pay for those pipelines.  These decisions will be made by the business community."[23]  But of course Russia is working with non-economic means to affect economic decisions.

            The matter of controlling former Soviet republics concerns Russia’s sphere of influence.  Like that of any great power, the sphere of influence is consummated only when Russian troops are invited to station themselves in the host country.  Although Azerbaijan has been a CIS member since 1993, it has resisted efforts at placing Russian troops on its soil.  Indeed the Azeris have sought to promote the Main Export Pipeline through Georgia and Turkey precisely to forestall further pressure to succumb to Russian influence.  Azerbaijan is indeed regarded by the Kremlin as being within the Russian zone of influence and various methods of statecraft have been employed by Primakov to retrieve what Russia considers its own territories and turn back the threat of U.S. involvement in the Caspian Basin.

            According to several reports, Russia has transferred as many as 32 SCUD-B missiles and launchers to Azerbaijan’s neighbor and enemy, Armenia.  With a range of nearly 200 miles, they can target Baku and surrounding oil fields.  Between $1-2 billion in Russian arms are now under Armenian control including T-72 main battle tanks.[24]  The Azeris claim that there are up to 40,000 Russian troops in Armenia.  Given its Russian training and equipment, the Armenian military possesses sufficient strength to launch a major ground attack that would likely overcome Azeri defenses.  The Armenian military build-up is big enough to unsettle even Turkey.  Turkish and Russian forces engaged each other along the Turkish-Armenian border in 1993.[25] Russia’s objective is to make little Armenia so threatening that Azerbaijan will be compelled to ask for Russian troops – just as Georgia was forced to seek Russia’s protection against a Russian-generated threat from little Abkhazia.

            By generating increased tensions in the Caucasus, Primakov’s Russia bolsters its demands that the United States accede to changes in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, which places limits on Russian troop levels east of the Urals.  The Russians argue that they need more troops than the treaty allows in order to pacify Azerbaijan as part of a regional settlement.  It may well be that Primakov will ask Washington to use its good offices with Baku to facilitate such an endeavor.  And the United States may well be convinced to help convince the Azeris that they should buy peace from the same Russia that is waging various forms of warfare against it.

            In fact the Azeris have been trying to buy accommodation with Russia for something less than permission to station troops.  In early July 1997, on an official visit to the Russian capital, Azeri President Aliyev brokered several large production sharing deals with Russian oil companies including LUKoil (Russia's largest) and Russia's state oil company Rosneft, to develop Azeri oil fields.[26]  But Russia keeps on pressing for more.

            Should Primakov succeed in his gambit, Russia’s most powerful military forces, far outclassing those indigenous to southern Eurasia, will most likely be deployed astride the dividing line between the oil fields of the Caucasus and those of northern Iraq, Iran and the Gulf.  The U.S. government estimates current Russian troop levels in Georgia and Armenia at 14,000 and 12-15,000 respectively.  Accords with those two countries provide Russia with three ground bases in Armenia and four ground and one naval base in Georgia.[27]  U.S. naval forces in the Gulf, powerful as they are, cannot hope to project their power through this Russian screen to come to the assistance of any Azeri, Turkmeni, or Kazakh leaders who might seek U.S. support in a quarrel with Moscow.

            Finally the all-important matter of dealing with Iran is the key to the success or failure of the Russian plan.  Were Iran to be allied with Western maritime powers, as it was in the days of the Shah, Western ground and air forces could reach to the shores of the Caspian itself, and to the border of Azerbaijan.  Moreover, were the Main Export Pipeline to run from the southern Caspian shore to the Persian Gulf, every nation that borders on the Caspian could send its products to world markets regardless of Russian wishes.  But, so long as Iran is anti-Western and aligned with Russia, Caspian nations must pay more attention to Russian wishes and count less on Western help. 

            Despite the significant cultural differences and regional rivalries that would seem to dictate inimical relations between Tehran and Moscow, a confluence of forces and events have brought the two countries to the verge of a strategic relationship.  Nothing better exemplified the cozy state of affairs than a February 1998 joint press conference in Moscow, with Primakov and Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, who said,

The political will exists between the leadership of our countries to increase mutual cooperation in the economic and political fields and on the international stage.[28]

            Both countries oppose American and the Turkish influences in Caucasus and Central Asia.  Iran has supported Russia’s basic position with regard to the development of the energy resources of the Caspian Sea, namely joint development by the five littoral states.  In practice, joint development means that Russia, which has little Caspian energy, would have a say in the disposition of the resources of more richly endowed countries.  Why Russia is happy with this arrangement is clear.  But why, against all the classic teachings of statecraft, would Iran want to foster the hegemony of its huge neighbor over its smaller neighbors?

            The answers are not wholly satisfactory.  With some 6-12 million Azeris living in Iran, a Russian dominated/controlled Azerbaijan would lessen the perceived drive of Azeri separatists in Iran to link up with their kinfolk in Azerbaijan.  On the other hand, Iranians remember that when the Soviet Union was strong, Moscow used the Azeri minority in Iran as a fifth column.  The main reason why many Iranians are willing to collaborate with the Russians is a reflexive hatred of the United States.  A top policy advisor to Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei said, "The U.S. oil companies' presence in the Caspian Sea is aimed at paving the ground for the U.S military presence in this sensitive oil rich region."[29]  This of course neglects the fact that Russia is also present in the region, and since it lives there it can curtail Iranian independence far more than America ever could.

            Russia masks its inherent threat to Iranian independence by selling Iran ballistic missile components, with a nuclear program, and with advanced military equipment like the kilo-class submarine.  Some in Iran argue loudly that this equipment is making Iran into a major regional power.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  This equipment is good for only one purpose: frightening the Americans and Israelis with the possibility of terror-type attacks.  Even armed with nuclear weapons, the Iranian missile force could not be part of a successful military campaign against a European country, much less the United States.  Nor can that force prevent America from occupying Iran: America is incapable of desiring such a thing.  Indeed, the only country in the world that might possibly ever occupy Iran is Russia–which would wipe out Iran’s missiles in a flash prior to any invasion.  But Iran’s possession of missiles and nukes succeeds fully in alienating America from Iran.  This of course is Russia’s purpose in selling them in the first place.

            Russia is also making money in Iran.  Increasing trade between the countries particularly in the energy sector was highlighted by two Iranian-Russian agreements in April 1998 for a joint drilling project in Iran's continental shelf and direct investment by the Gazprom energy giant in the joint development of Iranian gas fields in the Persian Gulf.  Trade will be further enhanced through the building of a new $1.5 billion merchant port complex on the Caspian Sea in southern Russia.  Russia and Iran intend to form a joint venture to complete port construction and establish a ferry link between the two countries.  It seems that Moscow has sold the Iranians on the prospect that both would use their dominance over the lesser energy-producing states of the region to purchase their energy products at below world market prices and then sell them high to the consuming nations of Europe and Asia.  This would also provide opportunity to extort political concessions from countries such as Turkey who may come to rely on lucrative transit revenues.  The Iranians, it seems, have forgotten the end and moral of Aesop’s Fable:  “The Lion’s Share: lesser animals having helped the lion with a kill on promise of a share, they find he takes it all proclaiming:  You may share in the labors of the great, but not in their reward.”

Beyond Iran

            Just as the achievement of Russia’s objective of substantial hegemony over the Caspian would be much facilitated by keeping Iran firmly within Russia’s sphere of influence, the achievement of Russia’s objectives in Iran would itself be facilitated by establishing a looser, more diversified sphere of influence in the Middle East as a whole.

            Regardless of regime, Russians have always considered the Middle East as adjacent, and have believed that they had rightful, important roles to play there.  The czars saw themselves as protectors and eventual restorers of Christianity.  Communists saw themselves as leaders of the region’s emancipation from Western imperialism.  Post-Communists seem to have adopted a strictly geopolitical rationalization for their interest.  In a series of articles in the influential London-based Al-Hayat, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Posvalyuk, sketched current Russian strategic thinking: Russia would sponsor its own security architecture for the Middle East:

Russia is a big power that shoulders a responsibility for security in this volatile and geographically close area.  It is not a remote area that makes it possible for us to disregard the political games that take place in it.  It is an area close to our southern borders.  The effects of what happens there are clearly felt in our political life, including our domestic life.…Russia is increasingly interested in becoming one of the guarantors of security and stability in the Gulf area….The fundamental point is that someone is placing obstacles in Russia 's way in the Gulf….Some may have to pack up and make room for others–not only because Russia sincerely wants to strengthen its position in and relations with the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council but also because those states themselves are showing increasing interest in Russia.[30]

            In short, we are here, we are big, and the only kind of security that will exist in the region will be the kind of which we approve. 

            How has Russian diplomacy gone about asserting Russia’s claim to a loose sphere of influence?  On Sept 23, 1997, while President Yeltsin in Egypt was blaming Israel for failure to make peace in the region, Yevgeny Primakov, speaking to the UN General Assembly, drove home the point that the world should really blame Israel’s ally, the United States:

In the present-day world, no country should hold a monopoly on any conflict resolution effort.  This fully applies to the longest standing conflict in the Middle East where the settlement process has been stalemated.  Broad-based international efforts are needed to undo the tight Middle East knot.  It takes two hands to applaud.[31]

            The ensuing months would see Russian pronouncements, diplomatic initiatives, and bilateral arrangements aimed at restoring much of the Middle East to a Russian zone of influence.  Not only would Primakov tour the region and proclaim a formal Russian doctrine for Middle East peace and stability.  On two separate occasions he outmaneuvered the United States and saved a provocative Saddam Hussein from American military attacks.[32]  In the process, he successfully altered the nature of the UN sanctions regime in Saddam's favor, increased Russian prestige, diminished America’s regional stature, and laid the groundwork of a new geopolitical landscape in the region that could accomplish for the Kremlin what a half-century of Soviet planning could never accomplish:  to significantly reduce or eliminate the American presence in the Middle East without engagement by Russian military forces.

            By offering recognition of a Palestinian state, Primakov served notice to both Washington and Jerusalem that Russia would prevent peace until it was included in regional security arrangements as a senior partner.  Said Primakov:

Russia still supports the Palestinian people with its need for justice until the existence of their independent state.  Russia will work on all tracks and if an independent Palestinian state is established, Russia will be the first state to recognize it.[33]

            Russia gave substance to its implied threat to destabilize the region when Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Posvalyuk, touring with Primakov, said that Russia had gained agreement from the Lebanese government to include Russian troops in international units which would be deployed in southern Lebanon upon an full withdrawal of Israeli forces in Lebanon.[34]

            Having obviously pressed to get its troops into one critical situation, Russia could well press to get them into another–say an independent Palestinian state.  While that frightens some, it heartens others.

            Along with the diplomatic stick, Primakov also wielded a mixed bunch of carrots.  Prior to his return to Moscow, he proposed the adoption of a 12-point Code of peace and security in the Middle East which defined the Middle East area of security to include Iran, Turkey, North Africa, the Arab countries of the Gulf, and Iraq, emphasizing economic development, international law and peaceful means of conflict resolution.[35]  Of course, what are carrots to some are sticks to others.  When Israel’s Defense Minister Mordechai presented Primakov with intelligence on Russian aid for Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program, Primakov’s bald faced response, "...the nuclear aid was all for research or peaceful civilian purposes to generate energy, "highlighted the fact that Russia was going to do whatever it wanted, and that it would exact a price for its good offices – without which there might be unpleasant consequences.[36]

            In the aftermath of his survey of Middle East capitals, Primakov focused on building relations with Syria and Iraq, the twin pillars of its Middle East strategy.  Both countries suffer from severe economic distress.  The Iraqi economy is war-ravaged and the Syrian economy, which relies heavily on export earnings from the sale of 350,000 b/d of oil, is being jolted by the collapse of oil prices and subsequent loss of traditional oil-based subsidies from Iran and Saudi Arabia.[37]  Both countries are severely indebted to Moscow; Iraq owes $7 billion and Damascus $10-l2 billion.  Moscow has no economic goods to give.  But it can sharpen conflicts, send arms, and lend its power–or at least what others perceive as such.  Russian Justice Minister Sergei Stephasin articulated Moscow’s strategy toward Syria;

The two countries were strategic partners in the past, Moscow is aware who the principal adversary is, and also believes that the resumption of our special relationship is extremely important in the present circumstances.[38]

            In other words, let them eat conflict!  In February 1998 Russia and Syria agreed to hold the first meeting of a joint commission to develop economic and military cooperation.  Since then, Syria has agreed to a $3 billion arms deal with Russia that would include the acquisition of Mig-29 and SU-27 aircraft; the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system; and a modernization program for Syria's T-72 main battle tanks.[39]  Moscow seems ready to reschedule Syria’s old debt while new debt accrues.  The only payment that Moscow really seems to care about is the use of Syrian port facilities, and enhancing Syria’s nuclear and missile programs.  The involvement of Russian companies in the Syrian energy sector also seems to involve returns in political rather than monetary coin.  All this is quite close to old Soviet practice.

            Just as revealing has been the rapid development of Russian-Iraqi ties.  Until Primakov became foreign minister, Russia deferred to the United States’ policy of containing Iraq.  Primakov, however, has not only engineered a complete reversal of Russian policy, but has effectively put an end to the U.S.-driven UN inspections regime, while substantially loosening the sanctions against Saddam.  At the height of 1998’s armed confrontations between the U.S.  and Saddam over unrestricted UN access to all Iraqi weapons inspection sites, the Russian deputy foreign minister was in Baghdad providing Saddam with tactical advice and support.[40]   Russia also stripped from the U.S. all but one of the European allies who had formed the backbone of the Gulf War coalition.  Thus, the Clinton Administration succumbed to a deal that changed the composition of the inspection teams to include Russian appointees, protected the sanctity of Presidential palace sites, and doubled Iraqi oil production to 2 m/b/d.  Primakov boasted:

That's what Russia's achieved.  Without any use of weapons, without a show of force, it was achieved through diplomatic means.  I consider this a great success if Russian diplomacy; recognized by all, absolutely, a great success of President Yeltsin.[41]

            Not incidentally, the Russian economy is poised to reap significant dividends because, with the lifting of sanctions, Russian companies have received lucrative contracts to develop Iraqi oil fields and to manage a national reconstruction program worth $22 billion.

The Anti-American focus

            Russia’s diplomatic effort is all the more remarkable because it involves organizing cooperation between countries with basic enmities.  The ancient rivalries between Iraq and Syria, Iraq and Iran, now embittered by two decades of ideological, sectarian and political competition, by embargo, by war and vitriolic name-calling, have engendered in U.S. policy makers the dogma that these countries cannot possibly work together against American interests.  Nevertheless, under Russian leadership, all three states have reversed years of mutual distrust and suspicion.  They are actively cooperating on issues ranging from formal exchange visits to cooperative economic ventures, statements of common purpose against U.S.  and allied interests.  Several noteworthy examples include:

·        The announced reopening of the long-disused Kirkuk-Banias pipeline to export Iraqi oil through Syria.  Following rapidly upon the opening of their borders for trade and commerce in November 1997, both Syria and Iraq exchanged several official visits at the ministerial level.  Ever since, they have cooperated on regional security.  In April, 1998, Iraqi Justice Minister Maliki met with Syrian President Asad to convey Iraqi appreciation over Syria's declared opposition against U.S.  military action following the Iraqi refusal to allow UNCSOM to search presidential sites.

·        Iraq joined Syria in warning Turkey against building any additional dams to control the flow of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.  Damascus and Baghdad claim that such dams violate the rights of countries downstream.  Iraq and Syria already had three powerful reasons for hating Turkey: The Turks are non-Arab oppressors of Arabs, the Turks are allied with the Americans, and the Turks are allied with Israel.  Now they have a fourth: The Turks are shutting off their water.

·        In 1998, for the first time since 1980, Saddam Hussein welcomed Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims to Iraq’s Shi’ite holy sites of Najaf and Karbala.  In an August 8, 1998 speech aimed at the Iranian government, the Iraqi dictator extended an offer of improved bilateral relations and a formal termination of the state of conflict between the two countries.

If some quarters in Iran abandoned what is not praiseworthy of the past, they will see and find that the Arabs, including Iraq, have abandoned this and left behind a long time ago.  They will also find every righteous, beneficial cooperation from the Arabs, first and foremost from Iraq.[42]

This was preceded in April by the release of 6,000 POWs from both countries and the establishment of joint committees dealing with humanitarian and trade issues.  For its part, Iran has been helping Iraq–at a price to smuggle crude oil out and imports in past UN sanctions through coastal shipping.  Again, Russia has facilitated the arrangements. 

            The emergence of a Damascus-Baghdad-Teheran axis was given credence by recent reports detailing Syrian initiatives with Baghdad to create an anti-U.S. alliance system in the region.  They included mechanisms for Syrian military support for Iraq in the event of a military confrontation with the United States; intelligence sharing; joint-action against Turkish forces in northern Iraq; economic cooperation and; reunification of the Iraqi and Syrian Baathist political parties.  The importance of the proposed rapprochement was such that Asad reportedly met in secret with Saddam Hussein to formulate a common strategy.[43]

            Given Syria's long-standing strategic alliance with Iran and its overt coordination with Tehran on regional security issues ranging from material support of Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah to joint production of SCUD-C missiles, it is highly unlikely that the Syrian initiative would have taken place without the blessing of Tehran.  Indeed, the positive outcome in the recent flowering of bilateral relations between the two former Baath antagonists has only served to justify a similar entente between Iran and Iraq.  This ought to become more apparent over the next several months.  This matches Yassir Arafat's July 1997 appeal for the creation of anti-Israel eastern Front consisting of Syria, Iraq and Iran.[44]  The leadership of these three states seems intent upon the creation of a new bloc whose primary goal is to alter the regional balance of power by reducing the influence of the United States and its local allies.

Apart from their common antipathy to America, all three authoritarian regimes share common security objectives including force modernization, strategic weaponry development, and support of terrorism.  Taken separately, each objective, if attained, provides each regime with the means for its own maintenance, regional power projection, and a credible defensive deterrence.  However, if assembled under a coherent alliance structure, the combined capabilities of this new anti-American bloc would pose a serious threat against any of America's three strongest allies in the area, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.  Not only will the combined military forces of these powers be considerable.[45]  Their unity will cause a mortal threat to the weak regimes of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and of course to a deeply divided Israel.  Nor would the United States be immune from this new regional coalition, increasingly armed with missiles that the United States cannot counter.

The Russian Nexus

            Countering the United States, Turkey, and Israel is a tall order for countries as impoverished as Iran, Iraq, and Syria, especially after the sharp fall in oil prices in the 1990s.  Indeed, these countries would hardly imagine this goal, much less pursue it, without inspiration and assistance form Moscow.  We cannot here discuss in detail the means by which Russian foreign policy has inspired and assisted Iran, Iraq, and Syria into acting as the outer perimeter of its Caspian Sea strategy.  We must limit ourselves to some notes on how Russia has worked in Iran.

            Moscow’s ability to inspire and assist are a matter of reaping the fruits of seeds planted long ago.  Recall that the revolution that overthrew the Shah was financed substantially by the Soviet Union, that its foot soldiers were Soviet trained PLO fighters, and that the Revolutionary radio was broadcast from Baku, in then Soviet Azerbaijan.  Iran's current ruler, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is, like several other top officials of the Islamic Republic, a graduate of the Soviet Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.  A disciple of the command economy, Khamenei repeatedly rebuffed the efforts of former President Rafsanjani and his successor, Khatami, to liberalize Iran’s foreign trade.  Rather, Khamenei has oriented Iranian trade (as well as Iranian politics) far more toward the Soviet Union than even the Ayatollah Khomeini. 

            One reason why the pro-Russian faction in Iran’s leadership continues to prevail is that Russia is providing the expertise, materiel and personnel required to assist Iran to build nuclear plants and WMD delivery systems.  They claim this proves that Russia favors Iran’s greatness, glory, and modernization while America wants to see Iran poor, backward, and corrupt.  At a May 1998 meeting of the Iranian Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeb and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adomov, both countries signaled that the completion of the $850 million Russian-built light-water Bushehr reactor on the Gulf coast would lead to other similar projects despite the objections of the United States and Israel.  Aghazadeh accused the United States of using double standards to isolate Iran while helping Israel arm itself with nuclear weapons.  He indicated an Iranian desire to acquire a Russian research reactor that could help improve Iran's nuclear know-how, to train staff and profit from Russia's general expertise in the nuclear field.[46]

            When Iranians read that Americans, Israelis, and Europeans are afraid of their new missiles, they thank Moscow.  When problems arose with the accuracy of the North Korean Nodong/Shihab-3 intermediate range (800 mile) ballistic missile project, the Iranians turned to Moscow for assistance.  The Russians provided the high-grade alloys needed to keep the missile light yet strong; a wind tunnel and special equipment for vital testing procedures; the technology to design asymmetrical warheads with improved capability to evade antimissile defense systems, and the warhead technology to carry biological weapons.  The Shihab-4, embodying the technology of the Soviet SS-4 and SS-25, is supposed to be a space launch vehicle, and therefore will have intercontinental range, and could be operational by the year 2000.[47]

            The Russians continue to inculcate Russian doctrine, procedures, and perspectives upon a new class of national leaders by offering training to military, technical, and security.  Large numbers of Iranians are being taught rocket construction and flight theory at missile research and development centers near Moscow.[48]  One of the training sites is reported to be the Baltic State Technical University in St. Petersburg with an affiliated research center in Tehran.  Prior to the break-up of the Soviet Union, the technical university was known as the Military Mechanical Institutelimeni Ustinova and was the major training center for military and civilian experts in the Soviet Union's rocket and space forces.[49]

            The willingness of the Ayatollah Khamenei and his pro-Russian associates to confide the supervision of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (the Pasdaran), as well as of the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs, to an estimated 15,000 Russian advisors is anything but uncontroversial in Iran.  Nor is the fact that the pro-Russian faction has lowered Iranian ambitions in Central Asia and directed those ambitions southwards to the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula uncontroversial.  Nevertheless Iran is increasingly behaving as a Russian surrogate because of the confluence of economic pressures, a Moscow-trained leadership cadre, and a Russian foreign policy team that is making the most of its opportunities. 

Target America

            Official Washington seems to regard Russian security calculations in Southern Eurasia as disjointed, ad hoc and self-defeating:

Moscow will be preoccupied with its internal economic and political turmoil and, to a lesser extent, with maintaining its domination of the former Soviet Union.  This will be made more difficult by the deterioration of the Russian armed forces and the steadfast resistance from the new states in the Commonwealth of Independent States.[50]

The official U.S. government view is that Russian policy in the Caucasus is reflects cultural traits and imperial nostalgia rather than a geopolitical campaign.  Similarly, the ongoing transfer of advanced Russian ballistic missile components and technologies to Iran, as well as the leasing of Iraqi concessions to Russian oil companies, are viewed as straightforward bilateral commercial arrangements with little or no strategic significance beyond the actual threat posed by the missiles themselves.[51]

            Thus the architect of U.S. relations with Russia, Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbot has pursued a policy of benign (or reckless) neglect.  Talbot’s judgment seems to be that were the U.S. actively to oppose Russia policy in Southern Eurasia and the Middle East the U.S. would thereby become responsible for the rise of leaders more anti-Western and more authoritarian than Mr. Primakov.[52]  In fact however, greater anti-Westernism and authoritarianism might well be the result of the success rather than of the failure of Mr. Primakov’s policy in southern Eurasia.  Hence current U.S. policy might well contribute to consequences that the Russian people themselves would rue as much as the rest of the world. 

            The U.S. government is awakening all too slowly to this possibility.  American oil companies hungry for new reserves and for an alternative to the politically volatile oil-rich Persian Gulf have vigorously sought U.S. government support against Russian machinations in the Caspian basin.  By 1993, the Caspian basin showed so much promise that by the next year the 7-nation, 11-company consortium known as the Azerbaijan International Operating Consortium (AOIC) was working in partnership with the Azeri government to explore and develop the south Caspian Sea.[53]  By 1997, U.S. oil companies had already spent $8 billion on the project.  Over 17 billion barrels in proven reserves were discovered, an amount equal to that of the North Sea.  Similar finds in the north Caspian Sea by a different set of companies have yielded 10 billion barrels of proven reserves.  In 1998 the Clinton Administration began to pay some attention.  In a reversal of American declaratory policy, Strobe Talbot in the best tradition of the Reagan Administration, warned Moscow that its attempt to expand control over the Caucasus and Caspian regions would not be tolerated:

There are plenty of questions about how Moscow will handle its relations with other members of the CIS If Russia tries to make “commonwealth” into a euphemism for infringements on the independence of its neighbors, then the CIS will deserve to join that other set of initials, U.S.SR, on the ash heap of history.[54]

            Talbot’s challenge was in no small measure prompted by a series of stinging critiques by prominent politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, policy experts and business leaders who for reasons ranging from the commercial to the strategic, sought to reverse the Administration's posture toward Russia, in general, and the Caucasus-Caspian region, in particular.  Labeled as an episodic engagement, the Administration's lethargic response to Russian obstructionism and subterfuge in the Caspian basin came under severe attack.  Speaking to the potential payoff to the West of an oil flow of 2 to 3 mb/d, former Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd said:

Russian pressure is palpable across the board.  Russian interests would like to control the oil resource of their former territories, and to grip the flow of oil being exported through future pipelines.  It is certainly not in our interest for such resources to be controlled by Russian factions.  It would not be in the interest of a competitive energy market, or in the interest of the stability of revenues or independent decision-making by the states of the region, or for the American strategic position in the region.[55]

Former Reagan Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger wrote,

...Russia is making a concerted bid to achieve a strategic victory of its own.  Dominance of the energy resources in the Caspian Sea region.  If Moscow succeeds, its victory could prove more significant than the West's success in enlarging NATO.[56]

            It is clear enough that Russia is making a major move from a position of great weakness, and that perhaps, its greatest asset as it seeks to dominate southwest Eurasia is the de facto acquiescence of the United States.  But this acquiescence is indeed American policy:  Support for the Saudi royal family as well as the minor Gulf oil sheikdoms, the sale of big ticket items to these states, and the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Although a review of this policy is reserved for subsequent studies, we must note here that it is being pursued despite a revolutionary change in the world’s oil picture, and that it is being pursued despite the fact that it is obviously giving Russia a major opportunity to counter American interests based on exploiting the vulnerabilities of regimes such as the Saudi, the Syrian and the Iranian, as panic set is in with the end of the oil era.  Just as important, for the sake of this approach the U.S. is de-emphasizing its relationship with those states and combinations of states (Israel especially and the Turks) which have a long term prospect of countering the power of the states that Russia is attempting to marshal – especially as the balance of the world’s energy supplies shifts to other regions.

The U.S. government is quite conscious of this geographic shift, and seems to be of two minds about whether to design its forces for intervention into the heart of southern Eurasia, or for long term containment of whatever problems might come from it.  As a consequence, of course, it is truly prepared for neither.  So, instead of a policy worthy of the name, the U.S. repeats the old mantra:  prosperous oil regimes, booming markets, and a peace dividends for the Jordanians and the Arabs of the West Bank.  It is not to be wondered at that the Russians are so brash and, apparently, so confident in American policy of acquiescence.

If the U.S. is going to reap anything but troubles from southern Eurasia, it would have to awaken to the importance of its natural allies in the region, Turkey and Israel, and do at least the following five things:

1)      Make sure that multiple pipelines are built, and that one of them leads from Baku to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.  This alone would remove a powerful Russian pressure point.  Of course, making sure of this would require giving the oil companies a subsidy to build a facility whose cost cannot be fully justified economically.  But indeed the cost can be justified strategically.  And strategy is the government’s business.

2)      Prevent the Russian-Iranian entente from flowering into a strategic alliance.  This is the tallest of orders for a foreign policy apparatus that sees Iran as a congerie of more or less mad Mullahs.  In fact, as Russia has shown, it is entirely possible to deal with the Islamic republic on a thoroughly secular basis.  The U.S. has a more appealing geopolitical–and obviously economic, case to put to the Iranians.  It should try.

3)      Ensure a role for Turkey in the important pipeline contests and in the Turkic states of Central Asia.  Upon getting out of bed, American policy makers should recite to themselves:  ”Turkey is the most important country in Eurasia.” Every dollar spent defending and building up Turkish power in the region is likely to save many times that in American blood and treasure.  By virtue of its location, history, and ethnicity Turkey can counterbalance Russia in ways that America can never do.  The U.S. ought to use its considerable leverage with Armenia and Azerbaijan to conclude a normalization of relations between the two countries, thereby facilitating a strategic land bridge between the Caspian and the Mediterranean.

4)      A U.S. supported alliance system anchored on Turkey, Israel and Jordan offering the benefits of market democracy and collective security would amplify the desire of the conflicting southern Caucasus states to reach accommodation and reject the embraces of Russian clients.  Stop pushing Israel into positions of military vulnerability, especially vis a vis Russian clients like Syria.  Do everything to encourage Israel’s alliance with Turkey.  Cease interventionist gambits in Israel’s domestic political affairs. 

5)      Deny the Russians forward deployment of troops on the southern rim of the Caucasus whose radial arc would be 500 miles or less to the oil fields of Iraq and the Gulf.  Here again, the U.S. would have to deter Russia with our current economic leverage.  If we secure the economic independence of the former Soviet republics that border the Caspian, if we strengthen Turkey and neutralize Iran, if we roll back Saddam and cow Asad, we should have no trouble maintaining our alliances in the Persian Gulf.  In that case, Russia would have no reason to try deploying troops on the southern rim of the Caspian.

NOTES