The Caspian Pandora's Box
Recently, the Egyptian writer and political analyst Hassan Tahsin has stated view on the Caspian Sea.
His article was published in Saudi Gazette. He recalled that for almost 100 years, the countries of Central Asia were kept out of the arena of world politics as they were part of the Soviet Union, and after the disintegration of the USSR the situation changed: they became independent nations. The analyst enumerates Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. According to him, these countries have become the focus of the economic superpowers. The reason of keen geopolitical interest of the strong of this world became their strategic location between the East and the West. The West is also very interested in their resources: large reserves of oil and natural gas under the Caspian Sea.
The analyst believes that the USA’s military campaign against the terrorism had two aims: 1) to destroy Al-Qaeda; 2) to topple the Taliban regime. According to the writer, the USA achieved both of its purposes in Afghanistan. None the less “it is adamant on maintaining a permanent presence in the region”. Washington has fixed a date for withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, but it continues to work to achieve its strategic interests. What kind of interests are they? 1) Americans want to contain the nuclear race between India and Pakistan. 2) They don’t want to have nuclear Iran. 3) Another purpose of the White House is to neutralize Russia. This purpose is achieved through so-called partnership between Washington and Moscow, aimed at the creation of an international alliance to fight terrorism. Such alliance may put an end to Russian-Iranian military cooperation, the writer believes. 4) The permanent presence of the USA in the region and its alliance with the Central Asia’s countries will act as a limiting factor on China. 5) At last, the USA seeks to obtain a significant share of the newly discovered Caspian Sea oil. Its reserves may exceed 250 billion barrels. And this is in addition to large quantities of natural gas, as the analyst notes. Thus, there are two strategic aspects – the military one and economic one. They prove intentions of the Americans to keep the permanent presence in the region. The economic issue is tied to the oil and gas wealth of the Caspian Sea: America isn’t going to depend entirely on the GCC countries for its oil supplies. And the military presence of Washington in some countries of Central Asia necessitates direct exchange of interests with them. That’s why the USA will invest into oil as a price of their military presence. So, the Caspian Sea is a new geopolitical battleground.
