The new Cold War on energy resources — and the Russian roulette
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Ali KÜLEBİ
The growth of the world economy despite hikes in oil prices, the uncontrollable development of China, and the increasingly graying future of Western countries has been revealing new balances in politics nowadays. Especially, natural resources as the most important reason of wars directly affects international relations.
Deprived of natural resources and colonies, Europe has come to a standstill today. As a country richer in natural resources the United States either foments local wars or invades countries one by one through its “new imperialism” in order to dominate the world and guarantee its wealth for at least another 50 years.
Natural resources are indeed the key to world politics. While the Russian Federation tries to keep the oil and natural gas of the Central Asian Turkish Republics under its control, the United States tries to open them to international seas. Therefore, while the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline started despite rigid Russian, China signed a treaty worth $70 billion with Tehran, which would provide a guarantee for the next 10 years.
For Turkey, the BTC paved the way for a more important project, the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline, which would transfer oil to a prior opponent of the BTC, i.e., Russia, and also to the Mediterranean and even to the Red Sea over Israel. The fact that an Indian company joined the Turkish and Italian partners of this project, with a share of 12.5 percent, last December shows that Russian oil will gradually be opened up to world markets by various means. Nowadays, for Americans — who did not favor the Russian partnership with Turkey on the black Sea issue last year — the idea of building new pipelines over Turkey seems increasingly important. This could truly make Turkey an energy corridor in the future. With a possible Trans-Caucasus line, opening Central Asian and especially Turkmen and Uzbek gas to international seas will be added to the equation.

Russia and unexpected reactions:
All of these point to a new “cold war” over energy resources. No wonder that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his speech at the 43rd Security Conference in Munich last February, sharply criticized the United States, saying that it went beyond the limits almost in every issue. This should be seen in the context of expanding American influence in the Black Sea region and Central Asia.
The United States, which became firmly established in Afghanistan and more effective in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, is following a sort of containment policy against Russia. At least, Russians feel so. In this new “cold war” the Caspian region is very important, as well as the Islamic Republic of Iran. Probably Putin's harsh reaction to the United States was an early response to U.S. ambitions over Iran. The additional aircraft carrier sent to the Gulf, along with news that another aircraft carrier may join it, and the deployed Patriot missiles are probably signs of an attack on Iran soon.
What annoys Putin is not only the possibility of being surrounded over Iran. The Russians raise the question: To whom the anti-missile systems that the United States wants to deploy in Eastern Europe, Poland and the Czech Republic directed against? “If these anti-missiles systems are against Iran, why not deploy them in Turkey or in the Caucasus,” the Russians ask. In addition, they conclude, “The United States has hostile ambitions against us.” The improvement of the anti-missile systems in Alaska and the transfer of the most advanced radar systems working in X-wave band settled in the Hawaii Sea that controls most of Siberia and China, are another reason which probably annoys Putin even more.
There are some other troubles for the Russian Federation in the military field. Due to Iraq, the U.S. defense budget expanded to over $600 billion, doubling the total defense budgets of Russia, all the EU members and China added together. Besides, the new U.S. defense concept includes arbitrary invasions breaching international law. The other thing that apparently annoys Russia is that in the last five years, their relations with NATO has always worked against them. The Russians say, “Politically, we have always given, but nothing has turned back, where are the guarantees that NATO ensured us with when the Eastern Bloc collapsed?”
Therefore, along with Putin's remarks about the United States, comments by other Russian deputies without any further effort to soften his tough-worded speech, such as “Russia has a continuous and historical role in world politics, therefore, it has right to a voice” has raised the question whether the old swords have been drawn again. There are also some comments that Putin's recent rebuke is an old Soviet tactic seeking to widen the rift between allies, i.e. the Americans and the Europeans.

Russia, NATO and Europe:
Even though the Soviet threat that led to the establishment of NATO disappeared, the transformation of the USSR in to the Russian Federation seems not to have been completed yet. Despite its increased economic relations and cooperation with the West, Russia is not keen on joining the West and taking a part in the Trans-Atlantic system. In the domestic sphere, Putin has regulated the private sector with economic measures not in conformity with the Western system. Moreover, in the last two years, while threatening to cut off oil and natural gas supplies to the ex-Soviet republics, Putin follows a restrictive policy on these republics, and thus troubles the West. Besides, a major reason that makes most EU members feel insecure over energy supplies is Putin's use of energy as a weapon.
Having taken the Soviet Union's wreckage, Putin came to power at a bad time. Taking control of the country in a short time through tough discipline, he used two instruments: increasing oil prices and components of the ex-Soviet state system that had pledged their alliance to Moscow. The expectations that the old members of the armed forces, the police and the KGB for a show of strength, in line with their Russian nationalism, might have led Putin to give such a sharp reaction at Munich. In other words, the Russian nomenclature might have thought that it is the time to threaten the West.

Turkey should take advantage:
However, one cannot argue that the West totally has lost its guard. Although the Russian economy has relaxed and its GNP is about to exceed that of France, Russia does not have a stable economic, military or a political structure. With no industry to compete with world industry and technology, the Russian economy depends almost entirely on oil, and, it does not have a sufficient military power, except its nuclear and ballistic missiles. Although domestic politics performs well thanks to the cooperation between the police and the armed forces, the outward expansion of the last 15 years has now created a sensitive and vulnerable structure. The internal forces that support stability in Russia may intend to make Putin the president one more time by changing the rules. Perhaps Putin has made this pleasing anti-Western stance precisely to take the lead again.
Although Western countries, and especially the United States, seem not to take Putin's last rebuke seriously, they rebuke the Russian tactic for confusing the West. As a response to the Russian move of creating a controversy among them, they say, “The United States, didn't win the Cold War against the USSR alone, it won as the Atlantic Alliance.”
These are of course significant facts for Turkish foreign policy. Having established cooperation with Russia over the Black Sea issue, which has troubled the United States, Turkey should use Putin's containment syndrome and its possible consequences in its relations with the United States — and especially on issues relating to northern Iraq, Kirkuk and Cyprus.