Moscow Times
July 28 2004

Great Game Over

By Ian Bremmer and Nikolas Gvosdev

The new great game is over — it ended in a draw. Russia failed in
its attempt to monopolize the Caspian region’s energy transportation
links; the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, in
particular, ensures that not all Caspian oil will cross Russian
territory on its way west. On the other hand, exclusive transport of
Central Asia’s gas reserves remains in the control of Gazprom, and,
as in Soviet times, will continue to pass through Russian-controlled
routes.

Moscow cannot prevent limited U.S. inroads into Central Asia, but
given the traditional dependence of Central Asian governments on
Moscow, Russia will remain a heavyweight regional player for the
foreseeable future.

There is nothing further to be gained by either side from
geopolitical gamesmanship, but there is much to be won through
partnership.

Given the United States’ current range of security commitments around
the world, it is more vital than ever that Washington diversify its
energy supplies. Russia too has much to gain from a cooperative
relationship with the West in the exploration, exploitation and
transport of Caspian-area energy reserves.

The foolish zero-sum notion that there are a certain number of
barrels of oil in the region to be fought over by the regional powers
is dangerously shortsighted, particularly at a time when the world’s
hunger for energy is growing so quickly and ever more pipelines and
export routes are needed to get supplies to market. The United
States, EU, China, Russia and other Caspian states should view the
Caspian area as a single integrated energy marketplace. Together they
should begin a comprehensive Eurasian energy dialogue that will bring
together the major outside investors — especially the United States
and EU — with the region’s key actors, especially Russia, Azerbaijan
and Kazakhstan.

One element of this dialogue should be economic — helping to direct
investment where it can bring the most effective return. Joint
projects that combine the skills, resources and assets of Western,
Asian and Russian firms can bring online energy deposits that would
otherwise remain in the ground.

Another part of the dialogue should center on those challenges to
regional security that threaten new investment. Chechen insurgents
would very much like to produce a wider war across an area of
southern Russia vitally important to the transport of Caspian energy
products. The threat of violent Islamic extremism has led to
crackdowns by the authoritarian Central Asian regimes.

Governments must also battle the influence of organized crime if they
are to attract investment in energy projects. Porous borders,
smuggling and the drug trade, in particular, threaten the social and
political stability necessary to establish a long-term international
energy investment project.

Yet opportunities for real U.S.-Russian security cooperation in
Central Asia are not being exploited. In Kyrgyzstan, both the United
States and Russia maintain military bases and both ostensibly serve
the same purpose — to prevent the spillover of Islamist terrorism
into Central Asia. Yet U.S. and Russian forces have no mechanism for
joint action, not even the ability to communicate by cellphone.

Creating a joint U.S.-Russian base under the aegis of a NATO-Russia
partnership, a proposal Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev has publicly
endorsed, could lay the basis for practical cooperation that could
then be extended, both to the countries in which Russia enjoys the
dominant foreign influence (such as Armenia) and those seeking
greater integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions (such as Georgia,
Uzbekistan or even Azerbaijan).

Russian and Western intelligence-gathering capacities complement one
another. Russia continues to have the most effective network of
contacts in Eurasia.

First steps have already been taken in coordinating intelligence
collection, marrying Russia’s considerable human intelligence
capabilities with American technological capacity. Russia and Western
governments should create a new security organization, grounded in
the NATO-Russia Council, which would develop joint institutions for
joint security challenges.

The United States and Russia have already produced some positive-sum
security interactions, in helping to resolve Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili’s standoff with Aslan Abashidze, for example.
Fears have risen in Russia and in Armenia recently that the added
revenue produced in Azerbaijan by increased hydrocarbon production
and transport could finance a new round of violence over the disputed
region of Nagorny Karabakh. Joint operations in Bosnia and Kosovo —
in which Russian and NATO forces collaborated in peacekeeping for the
first time — provide a precedent for extending such cooperation to
potential trouble spots where instability threatens both Russian and
Western interests.

There are few areas where a Russian-Western partnership can realize
more mutually beneficial economic, political, and security goals than
in Central Asia.

Successful partnerships there will encourage useful Russian-Western
partnerships elsewhere, as in the construction of new Siberian
pipelines to the Pacific.

Missing the opportunities such a partnership might provide will
threaten the stability of a region vitally important to both the war
on terrorism and the development of future sources of energy.

Ian Bremmer is president of the Eurasia Group and a senior fellow at
the World Policy Institute. Nikolas Gvosdev is executive editor of
The National Interest. They contributed this comment to The Moscow
Times.