NEWS ANALYSIS: New moves on the Caucasus chessboard (04/25/99)

NEWS ANALYSIS: New moves on the Caucasus chessboard

by Paul Goble
RFE/RL Newsline

Several recent developments in the southern Caucasus may fundamentally change power relationships, not only in that region, but also across a much larger portion of the world. Precisely because of that possibility, some of the players both within the region and beyond appear to be positioning themselves to respond with new moves.

On April 17, leaders from the Caucasus and Central Asia marked the opening of a 515-mile pipeline that will carry oil from the Caspian basin to the West. The same day, Ukraine, Georgia and Bulgaria signed a treaty creating a new Black Sea rail ferry route. Both of these moves, which have been widely welcomed in the West, will allow the countries of this region to reach Europe without passing through either Russia or Iran.

Together, these moves on the chessboard of the Caucasus may come to transform the geopolitical environment of both this region and Eurasia as a whole. As one senior Azerbaijani official put it, these steps mean "the world to us," giving Baku "direct access to the West" and thus allowing it to free itself from Russia "after 200 years."

Indeed, if both this pipeline and ferry arrangement work out, Russian leverage over these countries will decline still further. And, as if to underline the decline in Russian power there, approximately 100 soldiers from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine last week held four-day military maneuvers at Krtsanisi, just east of Tbilisi, Georgia.

While the number of troops involved was small, such a joint exercise highlights the continuing decay of the Russian-backed Commonwealth of Independent States as the chief security organization of the post-Soviet region. And it gives new content to GUAM, an organization that includes Moldova as well as the three countries that took part in the maneuvers.

Indeed, many Russian officials are likely to view the exercise as a direct challenge to Moscow, particularly because it came on the heels of a decision by several CIS states not to continue to participate in the CIS defense agreement. Even more, officials in other countries in this region are certain to be following this exercise as a test of what may now be possible for them as well.

But precisely because so much is at stake, not only for these countries but for others as well, several states have moved some pieces on this chessboard also. On April 14, Russia and Iran signed an agreement to cooperate in the exploitation of oil and gas resources in the region, a direct response to the new Azerbaijan-Georgian pipeline.

Russian Oil Minister Sergei Generalov and his Iranian counterpart, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, initialed an accord that will expand the already large degree of cooperation between the two states from which many in the Caspian basin seek to become more independent.

Whether this accord will give the two states more opportunities to counter the new east-west corridor in the southern Caucasus remains to be seen. But on April 14, Moscow took another step designed to defend or even expand its influence there.

In Yerevan to mark Armenia's expanded participation in CIS air defense, Gen. Anatolii Kornukov, the commander of the Russian Federation air force, announced that Moscow will send more fighter jets to its military base in that Caucasus country.

Gen. Kornukov went out of his way to say that this new build-up is in no way a threat to Azerbaijan, with which Armenia has been locked in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh for more than a decade. But few in Baku or elsewhere are likely to see this latest Russian move as anything but precisely that.

Indeed, when Moscow recently deployed advanced S-300 missiles and MiG-29 fighters to Armenia, Azerbaijanis from President Heidar Aliev on down protested that move as inherently destabilizing. They are almost certain to raise their voices again now that Moscow has introduced still more weaponry into Armenia, a country with which the Russian Federation maintains extremely close ties.

Such moves and countermoves serve as a reminder, not only of how complicated this region remains and how much is at stake for how many people, but also of how difficult it is for any of the participants in this geopolitical game to make a move that the other side cannot quickly move to counter. Thus, neither side is likely to be able to move into an endgame anytime soon.

Paul Goble is the publisher of RFE/RL Newsline.

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