The International Herald Tribune, France
April 4, 2008 Friday

Win-win in the Caspian: NATO

by Borut Grgic and Alexandros Petersen – The New York Times Media
Group

When NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer first assumed his
position, he made it clear that NATO’s mission in the 21st century
would be to ”project stability where it matters.”

This week’s NATO summit in Bucharest is testing the alliance’s
ability to do just that. Aside from Membership Action Plans for
Georgia and Ukraine, the future vision of the alliance is quietly
being defined.

If it is to be outward-looking, NATO’s future focus should be the
greater Caspian region. Situated between NATO’s two current areas of
operation, Europe and Afghanistan, the Caspian region’s uncertain
states, frozen conflicts and under-capacity militaries see much of
the drug, arms and human trafficking heading toward the West.

Tajikistan’s porous border is a gateway to the Caspian, Russia and
Europe for Afghan heroin, while Georgia’s breakaway province of South
Ossetia has seen several attempts to smuggle uranium, among many
other nefarious goods.

NATO training of Georgia’s army, modest professionalization programs
in Kazakhstan and NATO-induced security reforms in Armenia and
Azerbaijan are welcome, but not nearly enough.

NATO not only has a strategic interest, but a great opportunity to
provide security guarantees to resolve protracted, problematic
disputes in Europe’s new neighborhood.

A security umbrella could go a long way in resolving the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Azerbaijan, allowing for cooperation and
final delineation of water and resources in the Caspian Sea and
dampening border disagreements among Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan. The security of Europe and the success of the mission in
Afghanistan depend on greater involvement by NATO in the Caspian.

The stability, good governance and peace experienced by Europe today,
while largely credited to the European Union, would not have been
possible without the security provided by NATO – security that
benefits Europe as well as Russia. For all of Moscow’s protests about
NATO expansion and U.S. missile defenses, Russia is probably least
threatened from the West than ever in its history.

It is for this reason that the old canard standing in the way of NATO
activity in the Caspian does not hold water. Moscow’s objection to
NATO activities in what it calls its ”near abroad” can be roughly
attributed to three factors: residual fear of the formerly
anti-Soviet alliance; the sense that the West should not be involved
in an area that Russia sees as within its orbit; and the notion that
Russia’s greatness as a nation is zero-sum – that increasing NATO
decreases Russia. All of these are based on emotion .

The fact is that Russian interests in its Caspian coincide with those
of NATO in a number of key areas. Both view the scourge of
large-scale drug-running and transnational trafficking as a national
security priority. Russia’s simmering Northern Caucasus region would
be the first to benefit from resolution to frozen conflicts in
Azerbaijan and Georgia, which would greatly reduce opportunities for
black market arms sales, rebel sanctuaries and money laundering.

The professionalization of armed forces in Armenia, Kazakhstan and
even Tajikistan would allow Russian planners to stop wringing their
hands about having to be a protective ”big brother” to those
states.

In the Caspian Sea itself, Russia stands to gain enormously from
reduced tensions and final delineation, which would allow it to
develop its energy resources and Caspian trade .

Why have these synergies not been realized so far? Russia’s emotional
resistance has not helped.

But NATO itself has done a terrible job of selling the benefits it
creates. Georgia and Ukraine are a case in point. Russia’s objections
to their integration into Euro-Atlantic structures have mostly to do
with reaction to the anti-Russian policies of their governments. But
NATO capitals have not made it clear that a path to eventual NATO
membership will do the most to dampen anti-Russian sentiments among
the Georgian and Ukrainian populations.

If it is stability and predictability that Russia wants in its
Caspian ”near abroad,” then NATO is its partner.

A Caspian region in limbo will present security problems for Europe,
Russia and the United States by virtue of interests in the region’s
energy and in the neighboring greater Middle East.

While it could improve its public-relations, NATO’s record of
”projecting stability where it matters” stands. Alliance members,
Russia and the countries of the Caspian all stand to benefit if
pragmatism prevailed. This will require more NATO involvement in the
Caspian, not less. That’s the choice the allies should make in
Bucharest.

*

Borut Grgic is chairman and Alexandros Petersen is program director
of the Caspian Europe Center of the Institute for Strategic Studies
in Brussels, whose objective is to increase Europe’s presence in the
Caspian region.