Moshe Gammer - The Caspian Region: A Re-Emerging Region

First published 2004 by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.

2004 Moshe Gammer for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors their contribution

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The Caspian Region

The Caspian Region: Existing and Proposed Pipelines

Central Asia: Chinese Territorial Claims in the 1970s

Azerbaijan and Iran

The Sea of Aral Water Basin

Central Asia: Ethnic Division

Kyrgyzstan: Administrative Division

Kazakhstan: Administrative Division

Turkmenistan: Administrative Division

Uzbekistan: Administrative Division

Most of the work on this volume was done during my stay at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in FebruaryAugust 2000. I am grateful to Professor Reuven Amitai and Dr Michal Biran, the conveners of the study group, for inviting me and to both the institute and its staff Liba Maimon, Shani Feldman, Smadar Danziger, Dalia Avieli, Anette Orelle and Avi Aleharar for their efficient and immediate help on any matter.

In the 1990s, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, new states, most of them Muslim, emerged in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Furthermore, these new states of the southern belt of the ex-USSR soon proved to be both oil-rich and a central part in a strip of conflict and instability stretching from Central Europe to the Far East. This is strongly reminiscent of the 1950s, when a new area the Middle East emerged, containing a dozen or so of independent states, most of them Muslim. More importantly, being already a major source of oil for the West the new area became also a zone of conflict.

In both cases a need has thus arisen for information on the new area. Indeed, there is a growing number of publications journalistic, academic and popular alike describing, analysing and forecasting what has increasingly been referred to as the Caspian Region. This collection, being part of that wave of publications, has two aims:

The first question that comes to mind is the validity of the term Caspian Region. Here again some parallels can be drawn with the Middle East:

The second question, connected to the first, is who should be included in this new region. While obviously it cannot be limited to the littoral states such an absurdity would run contrary to any logic, be it geographical, economic, strategic or other practically all experts tend to include in it only ex-Soviet areas, mainly Central Asia and the Caucasus (both inside and outside the Russian Federation; RF) and sometimes also the RF. However, does not logic demand also the inclusion of Iran? After all, it is a littoral and a regional power influencing the region. Afghanistan is in many respects hydrologic, ethnic, and so on part of Central Asia. Why should it not be included as well? Turkey looks, perhaps, a less obvious candidate to be part of this region but there are many reasons for its inclusion. Apart from strategic, economic and other considerations, historically Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia were for ten centuries parts of a distinct entity within the Islamic civilisation.

The third question is the general belief that the Caspian Region will be a geopolitical centre of the XXI century. This is based mainly, though not exclusively, on the assumption that the regions oil and gas reserves are of great potential importance to world economy.

The fourth question is what has become by now almost an axiom that the dissolution of the USSR has placed the area in the focus of competition (if not full-blown struggle) among regional and world powers. Indeed, there has been plenty of talk of a new Great Game being played out in this region. In this context two widely accepted views in particular need re-examination.

The first is that Russia has lost its dominant position in this region. This view seems to rest on the belief that the USSR collapsed as a result of the Cold War and that the RF, as its successor is therefore a One can, however, argue convincingly that the dissolution not collapse of the USSR had nothing to do with the Cold War. On the contrary, the dissolution of the USSR may be seen as a tool used by Yeltsin in his power struggle with Gorbachev.

The second is that Turkey and Iran are not only two regional powers struggling for influence in the new region, but they offer diametrically opposed models for the future development of its states. Turkey is portrayed as the good guy, a Muslim country that successfully adopted the Western secular, democratic, market economy-oriented model and therefore an example to be imitated by the new Muslim states of this region. Iran, on the other hand, is described as the aggressive villain attempting to spread its Islamic revolution to these new states. While in reality competition is but one side of the coin of Turco-Iranian relations, both deem it in their interests not to reject this description.