Oil pipeline completed: a sign of rising great power rivalry in Central Asia

Oil pipeline completed: a sign of rising great power rivalry in Central Asia
By Peter Symonds31 May 2005



As far as Washington is concerned, the pipeline’s projected economic benefits are just one element of a more far-reaching plan. The BTC is a convenient lever for the US to extend its political influence and to buttress its military presence in Central Asia to the detriment of its rivals—particularly Russia and China. The Bush administration has already used its “war on terrorism” to establish military bases for the first time in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Now the US is using “pipeline security” as the pretext for forging closer military ties with Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Speculation that the US is seeking to base troops in Azerbaijan was heightened by last month’s visit to Baku by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In congressional testimony earlier this year, US commander in Europe General James Jones declared that the US was interested in creating a special “Caspian guard” to protect the BTC. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that the US plans to spend $100 million on such a force, including the establishment of a command centre in Baku. Concerned over Russian opposition, Azerbaijan has to date been reluctant to commit itself.
Russian hostility to Washington’s growing intrusion into Central Asia was spelled out by Mikhail Margelov, head of the international affairs committee of the country’s parliamentary upper house. “Russia’s attitude to proposals made by some politicians that this task [pipeline security] should actually be delegated to the United States, is firmly negative. Russia will always oppose the presence of any foreign military contingents within the countries of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States],” he commented.
Konstantin Kosachyov, a State Duma parliamentarian, pointed to Washington’s geopolitical ambitions, stating: “It is absolutely obvious that this project was born for political rather than economic reasons in order to create a stable alternative for transferring Caspian energy resources to the West bypassing Russia and some other states, such as Iran.” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for international energy cooperation, Igor Yusufov, was due to attend the BTC opening ceremony but excused himself at the last minute on the grounds of illness.
The completion of the pipeline is just the first stage in what will certainly be sharpening rivalry in Central Asia for control of the region’s largely untapped resources. The Caspian Sea basin is currently estimated to contain eight percent of the world’s oil reserves as well as having huge natural gas reserves. A gas pipeline following the same route is due to be completed next year. An agreement was signed in March 2005 between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to build a pipeline across the Caspian Sea connecting the Kashagan offshore oil field in Kazakhstan to Baku and thus the BTC.
This latter deal highlights the logic of the newly completed BTC pipeline. Unable to fully utilise the BTC’s capacity simply from oilfields in Azerbaijan, the BP consortium, with the backing of Washington, is compelled to seek oil from Kazakhstan and other Central Asian sources, intensifying competition and potentially leading to political and military conflict.