The Moscow Times - May 28, 2004
By Kim Iskyan
Tug of War
Before I left Moscow for the Caucasus a few years ago with plans
to dabble in journalism, a friend with experience throughout the
Caspian field begged of me: "Please promise me you'll never
use the words 'Great Game' in a Caspian story." The term
had become a geopolitical cliche, he said, thanks to journalists
who spent one week in the region spouting off the usual blather
about how ironic it is that the 19th-century battles between Russia
and Great Britain for control over Central Asia are being replayed
-- before buying a carpet or two and going home.
Clearly, Lutz Kleveman, author of "The New Great Game: Blood
and Oil in Central Asia," is in flagrant violation of my
friend's rule. But Kleveman, a journalist, should arguably receive
a pass, as he moves well beyond the tired formulas that plague
coverage of Central Asia and the Caucasus (or the entire former
Soviet Union, for that matter) to effectively assess the contradictory
and nuanced forces that shape the region.
Foremost among these forces for Kleveman is oil, the "devil's
tears." Taking the reader through a wide swath of the Caspian
area, Kleveman creates context with easily digestible historical
overviews (mercifully light on the Great Game analogies); discussions
with local oligarchs, power players and politicians; and dusty,
dangerous treks to the Caspian to kick its soft underbelly of
oil. Along the way, Kleveman underscores the many compromises
that the developed world -- and the United States, in particular
-- has made in the name of oil or one of its auxiliary ends: cozying
up to the strong-arm antics of Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, ignoring
the catastrophe of Chechnya, and looking the other way as Nursultan
Nazarbayev rewrites the book on corruption in cahoots with American
oil companies, to name just a few.
Meanwhile, Kleveman suggests that the answer could be found in
Iran, if only handled the right way. A Persian pipeline would
be a significant improvement on the current options -- Russia,
the South Caucasus, Afghanistan, all of which have been the subject
of endless political machinations -- as it would be shorter, cheaper
and safer. But these are pipe dreams, he admits, given present
perceptions of the United States. "The Americans and their
double standards: We Iranians have a more open democracy than
any of the Arab sheikhdoms with whom the Americans are aligned!"
complains a newspaper editor in Tehran whom Kleveman interviews.
Itar-Tass
And all for what? According to the U.S. Energy Department, the
Caspian Sea region has roughly 3 percent of the proven global
oil reserves and 4 percent of natural gas reserves. Kleveman estimates
that the Caspian could provide between 5 percent and 8 percent
of total global oil production by 2015. That might sound like
small beer, but it's not: Fresh, marginal oil supplies can have
a disproportionate influence, in part by cutting into the ability
of oil cartel OPEC, which controls the majority of global oil
production, to affect prices. With stability still elusive in
the Middle East, energy resource diversification -- even if it's
only a few percent here and there -- has become a geopolitical
mantra for oil and gas importers. And China's voracious, ever-escalating
demand for energy exerts an unrelenting upward pressure on prices,
leading to stiff competition for oil assets.
The timing of Kleveman's travels was in some ways highly fortuitous,
as he was on the front lines of the post-Sept. 11, 2001, surge
of interest in Central Asia and the Caspian -- parts of the world
that, just five years earlier, had barely registered on the global
geopolitical radar screen. But as the United States invaded Iraq
in March 2003, elevating the fight for access to fossil fuels
to a whole new level by coupling it with the struggle against
terrorism, Kleveman was just dotting the i's of his final draft;
consequently, Iraq is accorded only a hastily written epilogue.
But Kleveman's insistence on the primacy of oil politics was,
if anything, further strengthened by subsequent events -- particularly
the emerging bankruptcy of claims that the war had been predicated
on uncovering Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Indeed, fossil fuels are important. But, at the end of the day,
the war on terror is about more than energy imperialism. Kleveman's
suggestion that oil politics dictate every last dimension of economic,
geopolitical and human endeavor in the region is, perhaps, a bit
of an exaggeration, even with Big Oil in the White House.
Thomas Dunne Books
Land Beyond the River: The Untold Story of Central Asia
By Monica Whitlock
Thomas Dunne Books
304 Pages. $27.95
In "Land Beyond the River: The Untold Story of Central Asia,"
Monica Whitlock, who has reported from the region for the BBC
for much of the past 12 years, takes a very different approach
to describing the forces that shaped Central Asia. While Kleveman's
book is equal parts travelogue, contemporary history and political
analysis, Whitlock builds from the ground up, tracing the "Zelig"-like
progression of a few generations of two colorful Central Asian
families through the turmoil and travails of 20th-century Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan and Afghanistan to show the impact of the region's
various struggles on the individual. Later, shifting into reportorial
territory that seems more stylistically familiar to her, Whitlock
describes the Russian involvement in Afghanistan and the post-Soviet
evolution of the region, particularly of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Also in contrast to Kleveman, neither oil nor the Great Game
figures much into Whitlock's vision. Her primary interest is in
the history of Russian involvement in the region, rather than
on the global geopolitical tug of war that currently characterizes
the area. The region she portrays is one that has always been
at the periphery, with change evolving very slowly -- and, even
then, only at the (frequently extraordinarily brutal) whim of
the Soviet Union. Arguably, the Soviet Union's role as key agent
of external change is now being assumed by the United States and
friends, in view of the recent invasion of Afghanistan and the
close relationship that has developed between the United States
and Uzbekistan.
The enduring irony of all this is that, for much of Russia (and
for Moscow in particular), Central Asia and the Caucasus remain
on the far fringes of relevance. Much as U.S. policy toward Mexico
is far more important to Mexico than it is to the United States,
the relationship between Russia and the Caspian area remains highly
unequal to this day.
Whitlock helps explain how the Caspian area became such a mess,
while Kleveman takes confusion and borderline anarchy as his point
of departure. But both books share an underlying message: that
the United States is the latest on the laundry list of countries
with imperial designs, albeit of different stripes, on the region
-- and that, if history is any guide, the odds are heavily stacked
against sustainable success.
Kim Iskyan is a freelance journalist based in Armenia.
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