BACKGROUND: The Caspian Sea is a hotly contested, albeit enclosed sea. In 2001, Iran threatened Azerbaijani oil platforms and has since then often lambasted Kazakhstan’s energy platforms. Russia has retaliated since then by holding extensive maneuvers and by building up its Caspian Flotilla. Russia has also seen fit to emphasize Azerbaijan’s economic vulnerability by stalling resolution of the question of letting Azerbaijani ships pass through the Volga-Don canal that connects the Caspian to the world’s waterways. Meanwhile Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have also concluded agreements on the disposition of the waters of the Caspian Sea. But Iran has refused to accept those agreements and Turkmenistan has hesitated to accept them, fearing that agreement would place it within a Russian-led security framework that contradicts its self-proclaimed neutrality. Recognizing these threats, Kazakhstan has acted to build up its own navy despite Russian opposition. Turkmenistan too may be trying to enhance its military capabilities by purchasing arms from Ukraine in return for energy shipments. Turkey and possibly Israel are selling Azerbaijan weapons and helping train its military personnel although it remains unclear if naval weapons are involved in these transactions. Finally America has allocated about $100 Million to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan through Operation Caspian Guard to help them enhance their capabilities for monitoring and surveillance in the Caspian Sea, to defend their energy platforms and conduct counter-proliferation activities although no bases or American forces will be involved other than to help train local forces. These plans also include upgrading the littoral states’ radars and overall naval surveillance capabilities. But since then, the Russian media has reacted hysterically, as if the U.S. military was coming to occupy those waters even though no U.S. forces other than trainers have been deployed. All these manifestations of foreign interests and regional independence in defense and security affairs alarm Moscow. Russia clearly intends to be the sole power capable of providing security in and around the Caspian shores except its southern Iranian one. Indeed it demands a veto power over other CIS members’ defense ties to the West. Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Ivanov stated (wrongly, since not all are members) that “The countries of the region are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). And [if the countries of the region are] making a decision about hosting new bases on their territory, they should take into account the interests of Russia and coordinate this decision with our country.” Similarly, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov threatened supposedly ‘disloyal’ governments in the CIS with the use of “every conceivable economic pressure tactics”.

IMPLICATIONS: Russia fully intends to dominate the Caspian by virtue of its buildup and qualitative modernization of its Caspian Flotilla, and its accompanying naval infrastructure, the only fleet to actually increase since 1991. And as the Chechen war now engulfs the entire North Caucasus, Putin and Ivanov have announced plans to increase both the number and quality of Russia’s naval and land forces in the Caspian area. Thus they also have upgraded the number and scope of Russian and multilateral exercises among littoral states in the Caspian. From August 16-18, 2005 Russian, Belarussian KGB, Kazakhstani, and Ukrainian forces conducted anti-terrorist exercises in and around the Kazakh city of Aktau and the Caspian coast. The exercises’ formal purpose was to demonstrate the capabilities of the CIS’ Counter-Terrorism Center working in tandem with Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee and Emergencies Ministry. In the exercise scenario, terrorists would seize an administrative building at an international seaport and an oil tanker with its crew, and demand an end to the negotiations among the littoral states about the division of the Caspian Sea, signifying those talks’ importance to Moscow. After the exercises, Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia’s FSB, singled out the Kazakh organizations for special praise and professed great satisfaction with the exercise. But obviously the purposes behind them far transcended the importance of coordinating CIS anti-terrorist activities. Enhancing those capabilities is an important part of the participants’ interests, especially as Kazakhstan claims to have evidence of terrorist threats against its energy platforms and pipelines. So this is clearly an effort to maintain and improve their capabilities as well as part of Russia’s overall program of greatly intensified exercises, often in cooperation with other countries’ militaries, especially in Central Asia and generally under the auspices of an anti-terrorist rubric. Second, the perception of threats, even where they do not exist, from foreign presence and domestic terrorists, has led the Russian government not only to attempt to dominate the Caspian as the sole major power there but also to forestall the development of independent Azerbaijani, Kazakhstani, or Turkmenistani capabilities or of U.S. military presence there. Third, Russia wants to enhance its CIS organization, the CSTO, so that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which it regards as largely a Chinese initiative, does not have the sole prerogative of helping Central Asian states to defend themselves. Therefore, taken in the context of Russia\'s local military and naval buildup, the exercises of August 2005 must be seen as part of a policy aiming to minimize the development of independent Central Asian defense structures, exclude foreign military forces from the area, improve and enhance Russia’s capacity for conducting anti-terrorist and other missions with local forces, and justify its claim to be the sole regional security manager. While undoubtedly Central Asia faces terrorist threats, a full understanding of these exercises shows that the militarization of the entire Central Asian area continues apace and that the so called new Great Game now has a significant naval or maritime dimension to go with the rivalry over energy access and access to local air bases. Russia has also moved strongly to include the other littoral states. Moscow has advocated that Iran join this organization and Tehran has apparently assented to this invitation. Iran’s fears about the proximity of U.S. military forces are no less intense and this may explain its support for the proposal. Lavrov duly indicated that CASFOR would be used to prevent proliferation of sensitive materials usable in nuclear weapons. Given continuous Russian proliferation to Iran, this somewhat absurd statement gives the game away. Lavrov also traveled to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to strengthen Russia’s regional position in the Caspian. He secured President Saparmurad Niyazov’s assent not to build foreign military bases without first notifying Russia, a key aim of Russian foreign policy, as demanded by Ivanov. Lavrov also successfully narrowed the gaps between Ashgabat’s and Moscow’s views on Caspian delimitation and won support for the banning of foreign flights over Turkmenistan’s airspace continuing WMD components and missiles. Lavrov also invited Turkmen officials to a working group meeting on this future CASFOR to include military contingents from all the littoral states.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite the spread of the Chechen war into the North Caucasus, Moscow’s real concerns are not terrorists. Rather, it is the possibility of an American military presence in the Caspian and the littoral states’ ensuing defense sovereignty, e.g. Operation Caspian Guard, that has galvanized Russian officialdom. More recently, the United States led a security workshop and exercise against a thinly veiled Iranian scenario. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have opposed Russian plans for a Caspian naval force because they would prefer to have the Caspian Sea entirely demilitarized which Russia opposes. Furthermore, Kazakhstan sees no need for such a naval task force which would clearly suppress its own efforts to defend its coastal assets, which Russia has long opposed. Failing that outcome, the two states have had no choice but to accept the U.S. assistance. What really is at stake here is the ability of the littoral states to defend themselves, not just against terrorist threats – which have yet to materialize in the Caspian but could occur – or proliferation, but also against potential Russian and Iranian threats to their energy platforms or independence. Thus the Great Game in Central Asia now has a new dimension: it has now gone to sea.

AUTHOR’S BIO:Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA. The views expressed here do not represent those of the US Army, Defense Department, or the U.S. Government.