PART II
War and Globalization
CHAPTER V
War and the Hidden Agenda
Conquest of Oil Reserves and Pipeline
Routes
merica’s New War” consists in extending the global market system
while opening up new “economic frontiers” for US corporate capital.
More specifically, the US-led military invasion— in close liaison
with Britain—responds to the interests of the Anglo-American oil
giants, in alliance with America’s “Big Five” weapons producers:
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General
Dynamics.
The “Anglo-American axis” in defense and foreign policy is the
driving force behind the military operations in Central Asia and
Middle East. This rapprochement between London and Washington is
consistent with the integration of British and American business
interests in the areas of banking, oil and the defense industry. The
merger of British Petroleum (BP) and the American Oil Company
(AMOCO) into the world’s largest oil conglomerate has a direct
bearing on the pattern of Anglo-American relations and the close
relationship between the US President and the British Prime
Minister. In the wake of the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, Britain’s giant
weapons producer, British Aerospace Systems (BAES), was fully
integrated into the US system of defense procurement.
The Planning of War
In fact, the planning of America’s New War has been in the
“pipeline” for at least three years prior to the tragic events of
September 11. At the outset of the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, the
“enlargement” of the Western military alliance was proclaimed with
the acceptance by NATO of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic
into its fold. This enlargement was directed against Yugoslavia and
Russia.
In April 1999, barely a month into the bombing of Yugoslavia, the
Clinton administration announced the planned extension of NATO’s
dominion into the heartland of the former Soviet Union.
TEXT BOX 5.1
Military Action against Afghanistan
“A former Pakistani Foreign Secretary [Mr. Naik] was
told by senior American officials [during a UN-sponsored
international contact group meeting on Afghanistan in
mid-July 2001] that military action against Afghanistan
would go ahead by the middle of October [2001] …. The
wider objective, according to Mr. Naik, would be to
topple the Taliban regime …. Mr. Naik was told that
Washington would launch its operation from bases in
Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in
place. Bin Laden would [be] ‘killed or captured’.
“He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in
the operation … Mr. Naik was told that if the military
action went ahead, it would take place before the snows
started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October
at the latest. He said that he was in no doubt that
after the World Trade Center bombings, this pre-existing
US plan had been built upon and would be implemented
within two or three weeks. And he said it was doubtful
that Washington would drop its plan even if bin Laden
were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.”1 |
Coinciding with the ceremony of NATO’s 50th anniversary, the heads
of state from Georgia, the Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and
Moldava were in attendance in the plush decorum of the Andrew Mellon
Auditorium in Washington.
They had been invited to NATO’s three
day celebration to sign GUUAM (Georgia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan and Moldava). GUUAM is a regional military alliance which
lies strategically at the hub of the Caspian oil and gas wealth,
“with Moldava and the Ukraine offering [pipeline] export routes to
the West”.2 Georgia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan immediately announced
that they would be leaving the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS)’ “security union”, which defines the framework of military
cooperation between the former Soviet republics, as well their links
to Moscow.
The formation of GUUAM (under NATO’s umbrella and financed by
Western military aid) was intent upon further fracturing the CIS.
The Cold War, although officially over, had not yet reached its
climax. The members of this new pro-NATO political grouping were not
only supportive of the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, they had also
agreed to “low level military cooperation” with NATO, while
insisting that “the group is not a military alliance directed
against any third party, namely Moscow”.3
Dominated by Anglo-American oil
interests, the formation of GUUAM ultimately purports to exclude
Russia from the oil and gas deposits in the Caspian area, as well as
isolating Moscow politically.
Militarization of the Eurasian Corridor
Just five days before the bombing of Yugoslavia (19 March 1999), the
US Congress adopted the Silk Road Strategy Act, which defined
America’s broad economic and strategic interests in a region
extending from the Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Silk Road
Strategy (SRS) outlines a framework for the development of America’s
business empire along an extensive geographical corridor:
The ancient Silk Road, once the
economic lifeline of Central Asia and the South Caucasus,
traversed much of the territory now within the countries of
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan …. One hundred years
ago, Central Asia was the arena for a great game played by
Czarist Russia, Colonial Britain, Napoleon’s France, and the
Persian and the Ottoman Empires. Allegiances meant little during
this struggle for empire building, where no single empire could
gain the upper hand.
One hundred years later, the
collapse of the Soviet Union has unleashed a new great game,
where the interests of the East India Trading Company have been
replaced by those of Unocal and Total [oil companies], and many
other organizations and firms. Today [we are seeing] the
interests of a new contestant in this new great game, the United
States. The five [former Soviet republics] which make up Central
Asia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan … are anxious to establish relations with the United
States. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan possess large reserves of
oil and natural gas, both on-shore and off-shore in the Caspian
Sea, which they urgently seek to exploit. Uzbekistan [also] has
oil and gas reserves.4
Under the SRS, US foreign policy
consists in undermining and eventually destabilizing its competitors
in the oil business including Russia, Iran and China:
Stated US policy goals regarding
energy resources in this region include fostering the
independence of the States and their ties to the West; breaking
Russia’s monopoly over oil and gas transport routes; promoting
Western energy security through diversified suppliers;
encouraging the construction of east-west pipelines that do not
transit [through] Iran; and denying Iran dangerous leverage over
the Central Asian economies ….
Central Asia would seem to offer
significant new investment opportunities for a broad range of
American companies which, in turn, will serve as a valuable
stimulus to the economic development of the region. Japan,
Turkey, Iran, Western Europe, and China are all pursuing
economic development opportunities and challenging Russian
dominance in the region. It is essential that US policymakers
understand the stakes involved in Central Asia as we seek to
craft a policy that serves the interests of the United States
and US busi-ness.5
While the SRS sets the stage for
incorporating the former Soviet republics into America’s business
empire, the GUUAM military alliance defines “cooperation” in the
area of defense, including the stationing of US troops in the former
Soviet republics. Under GUUAM auspices, the US has established a
military base in Uzbekistan, which was used as a launch pad for its
October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.
The Silk Road Strategy Act points to the establishment under
Washington’s protection—i.e., explicitly directed against Moscow— of
“strong political, economic, and security ties among countries of
the South Caucasus and Central Asia” .
Also, under the guidance of the US Government, working closely with
the IMF and the World Bank, these former Soviet Republics are to
establish:
… open market economies and open democratic systems in the countries
of the South Caucasus and Central Asia [which] will provide positive
incentives for international private investment, increased trade,
and other forms of commercial interactions.6
Backed by US military might, the SRS is to open up a vast
geographical region to US corporations and financial institutions.
The stated purpose is “to promote political and economic
liberalization” including the adoption of “free market reforms”
under IMF-World Bank-WTO supervision.
In a region extending from the Black Sea to the Chinese border, the
objective of the SRS is to instate a US-controlled “free trade area”
composed of eight former Soviet republics. This extensive
corridor—which until recently was largely within Moscow’s economic
and geopolitical orbit—will eventually transform the entire region
into a patchwork of American protectorates.
The SRS not only constitutes a continuation of US foreign policy of
the Cold War era, but it also designates Israel as America’s
“partner” in the Silk Road corridor:
Many of the countries of the South
Caucasus have secular Muslim governments that are seeking closer
alliance with the United States and that have active and cordial
diplomatic relations with Israel.7
Oil Politics
Afghanistan is, in many regards, strategic. It not only borders the
“Silk Road Corridor” linking the Caucasus to China’s Western border,
it is also at the hub of five nuclear powers: China, Russia, India,
Pakistan and Kazakhstan. While the bombing of Afghanistan was still
ongoing, an interim “government”—designated by the “international
community”—was installed in Kabul on the Bosnia-Kosovo model. The
underlying objective, of course, is to militarize Afghanistan with a
permanent presence of “peacekeeping troops”. Afghanistan is at the
strategic crossroads of the Eurasian oil pipeline and transport
routes. It also constitutes a potential land-bridge for the
southbound oil pipeline from the former Soviet republic of
Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea across Pakistan, which had initially
been negotiated by Unocal with the Taliban government. (For further
details see Chapter VI.)
The former Soviet republics of Central Asia—Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
and especially “the new Kuwait”, Kazakhstan—have vast oil and gas
reserves. But Russia has refused to allow the US to extract it
through Russian pipelines and Iran is considered a dangerous route.
That left Afghanistan. The US oil company Chevron—where Mr. Bush’s
National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was a director
throughout the 1990s—is deeply involved in Kazakhstan. In 1995,
another US company, Unocal (formerly Union Oil Company of
California), signed a contract to export $8 billion worth of natural
gas through a $3 billion pipeline which would go from Turkmenistan
through Afghanistan to Pakistan.8
The oil and natural gas reserves of “the Eurasian Corridor” are
substantial, at least of the same size of those in the Persian
Gulf.9
The region of the South Caucasus and Central Asia could produce oil
and gas in sufficient quantities to reduce the dependence of the
United States on energy from the volatile Persian Gulf region.
United States foreign policy and international assistance should be
narrowly targeted to support the economic and political independence
as well as democracy building, free market policies, human rights
and regional economic integration of the countries of the South
Caucasus and Central Asia.10
“Political and military conditions” in
the region (meaning Russia’s presence and influence) have been
viewed by both the Clinton and Bush administrations as:
… presenting obstacles to bringing
this energy to the global market. … Both regions are the object
of outside states competing for influence there. Not only
Russia, but also China, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
are competitively engaged, often in non-constructive ways. … If
we [the US] and our allies cannot manage the second and third
sets of realities, we will forego the benefits of the first set
of realities. Bringing the oil and gas to market will be
sporadic, if not impossible, and far more costly.
At the same time, the resulting
political instabilities may turn both regions into a cauldron of
civil wars and political violence, inevitably drawing in the
surrounding states. We already have this pattern in the Persian
Gulf region, requiring US military involvement, and we could
hardly stand by politically, even if we did so militarily, if
conflicts entangle Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and
some of the Arab states in the Trans-caucasus or Central Asia.11
In other words, the successful
implementation of the SRS requires the concurrent “militarization”
of the Eurasian corridor as a means to securing control over
extensive oil and gas reserves, as well as “protecting” the pipeline
routes on behalf of the Anglo-American oil companies.
“[A] successful international oil
regime is a combination of economic, political and military
arrangements to support oil production and transportation to
markets.”12
In the words of a (former) CIA “policy
analyst”:
Whoever has control over certain
kinds of pipelines and certain kinds of investments in the
region does have a certain amount of geopolitical clout. Such
clout is something of a commodity itself, even if the physical
control of the oil is not. For much of the Third World, this is
a newer way of thinking about resources; it’s no longer the old
story of Hitler’s Germany trying to get to the Caucasus and use
the oil for its own purposes in World War II.13
Under the SRS Act, Washington commits
itself to “fostering stability in this region, which is vulnerable
to political and economic pressures from the South, North and East,”
suggesting that “the threat to stability” is not only from Moscow
(to the North) but also from China (to the East) and Iran and Iraq
(to the South). The SRS is also intended to prevent the former
Soviet republics from developing economic, political and defense
ties with China, Iran, Turkey and Iraq.
Covert Operations on Behalf of the Oil
Giants
Under the Bush administration, the US oil giants have gained direct
access to the planning of military and intelligence operations on
their behalf. This has been achieved through the powerful Texas oil
lobby, resulting in the appointment of (former) oil company
executives to key defense and foreign policy positions:
President George W. Bush’s family has been running oil companies
since 1950.
Vice President Dick Cheney spent the
late ‘90s as CEO of Haliburton, the world’s largest oil services
company. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice sat on the board
of Chevron, which graced a tanker with her name. Commerce Secretary
Donald Evans was the CEO of Tom Brown Inc.—a natural gas company
with fields in Texas, Colorado and Wyoming—for more than a decade.
The links don’t end with personnel.
The bin Laden family and other members
of Saudi Arabia’s oil-wealthy elite have contributed mightily to
several Bush family ventures, even as the American energy industry
helped put Bush in office. Of the top 10 lifetime contributors to
George W.’s war chests, six either come from the oil business or
have ties to it.14
Protecting Multiple Pipelines
In the context of GUUAM and the SRS, Washington has encouraged the
formation of pro-US client states strategically located along oil
pipeline routes. The latter are to be “protected” by NATO under
GUUAM and various other military cooperation agreements. The hidden
agenda is to eventually cut the Russians off altogether from the
Caspian oil and gas fields.
The oil giants are vying for control over the oil reserves of
Azerbaijan, as well as strategic pipeline routes out of the Azeri
capital Baku on the Caspian coast.
A pro-US regime was installed in Azerbaijan under President Heydar
Aliyevich Aliyev in 1993. In the military coup which brought him to
power, Aliyev—a former KGB official and Communist party politburo
member—was allied to Suret Husseinov, leader of the Jadovov clan.
In 1994 “the Contract of the Century”, involving the development of
the Charyg oil fields near Baku, was signed with the Western oil
consortium led by BP-Amoco. The Aliyev clan was in control of SOCAR,
the State Oil Company, which has entered into joint ventures with
the oil conglomerates. In addition to the links of the Azeri State
to narcotics, there is evidence of a profitable black-market trade
in raw materials, including trade of copper, nickel and other
metals.
Western financial institutions, including the World Bank, had been
actively involved in opening up the Azeri oil and gas fields to
Western transnationals. Generous money payoffs had been channeled to
politicians and state officials. The criminalization of the Azeri
State had largely facilitated the entry of foreign capital:
Azerbaijan’s leaders are wined and
dined on oil company expense accounts, while 600,000 Azeris
still live in the most horrendous conditions ….The snake oil
companies act as agents of their countries ’foreign policies and
try to obtain commercial favors from Azeri leaders, who are
ready to sell Azerbaijan’s resources cheaply and for personal
gains … . Over $6 billion in contract “signing bonuses” were
paid to the Aliyev regime in Baku—by far more than all aid and
investments in Georgia and Armenia combined—yet Azeris still
live in refugee camps, worse off than even Georgians and
Armenians.15
With a view to weakening Moscow’s
control over Caspian oil, several alternative pipeline routes had
been envisaged. The Baku-Supsa pipeline—inaugurated in 1999 during
the War in Yugoslavia and protected militarily by GUUAM—totally
bypasses Russian territory. The oil is transported by pipeline from
Baku to the Georgian port of Supsa, where it is shipped by tanker to
the Pivdenny terminal near Odessa in the Ukraine. Both Georgia and
the Ukraine are part of the GUUAM military alliance.
This Pivdenny terminal has been financed—in agreement with the
(neo-fascist) government of President Leonid Kuchma—by Western
loans. From there, the oil can be transported by pipeline
“connecting to the already existing southern branch of the Druzhba
pipeline, which runs through Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech
Republic”.16
NATO enlargement, announced shortly before the inauguration of the
Baku-Supsa route, also ensures the protection of the connecting
pipeline routes which transit through Hungarian and Czech territory.
In other words, the entire pipeline route out of the Caspian sea
basin transits through countries which are under the protection of
the Western military alliance.
Chechnya at the Crossroads of Strategic
Pipelines
Russia’s Soviet era pipeline linked the Azeri port of Baku on the
Southern tip of the Caspian Sea, via Grozny, to Tikhoretsk. This
pipeline route, controlled by the Russian state, terminates at
Novorossiysk, and Chechnya is located at the crossroads of this
strategic pipeline route.
During the Soviet era, Novorossiysk was the terminal for both the
Kazakh and Azeri pipelines. Since the end of the Cold War and the
opening up of the Caspian oil fields to foreign capital, Washington
has incorporated the Ukraine and Georgia into its sphere of
influence. Their membership in the GUUAM military alliance is
crucial to Western pipeline plans, which are intent upon bypassing
the Novorossiysk terminal, as well as shunting Moscow’s influence
over the pipelines crossing its own territory.
In the immediate wake of the Cold War, Washington encouraged the
secession of Chechnya from the Russian Federation by providing
covert support to the two main rebel factions. As discussed in
Chapter II, the Islamic insurgencies in Chechnya were supported by
Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda and Pakistan’s ISI.
In 1994, Moscow went to war in order to protect its strategic
pipeline route threatened by Chechen rebels. In August 1999 the
pipeline was temporarily put out of order when the Chechen rebel
army invaded Dagestan, triggering the Kremlin’s decision to send
federal troops into Chechnya.
The evidence suggests that the CIA was behind the Chechen rebels,
using Pakistan’s ISI as a “go-between”. Washington’s “hidden agenda”
consisted in weakening the control of the Russian oil companies and
the Russian state over the pipeline routes through Chechnya and
Dagestan. Ultimately, Washington’s objective is to separate Dagestan
and Chechnya from the Russian Federation, thereby bringing a large
part of the territory between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea
under the “protection” of the Western military alliance.
Under this scenario, Russia would be excluded from the Caspian Sea.
All the existing as well as future pipeline routes and transport
corridors between the Caspian and Black Seas would be in the hands
of the Anglo-American oil giants. The covert operations led by
Pakistan’s ISI in support of the Chechen rebels once again serve the
interests of the Anglo-American oil giants.
The BP-Amoco Consortium
Shouldered by BP-Amoco, a US client government had been installed in
Azerbaijan. President Aliyev has established himself by distributing
power to various members of his family. In Azerbaijan, a modest $8
billion investment is estimated to yield profits of more than $40
billion to Western oil companies.17 BP-Amoco was particularly
anxious to shunt competing bids from Russia’s Lukoil.
The Anglo-American consortium led by
BP-Amoco also included Unocal, McDermott and Pennzoil, together with
Turkey’s TPAO. Unocal was also the main player in the pipeline
project across Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea. (See Chapter VI.)
The BP-Amoco consortium owns 60 per cent of the shares in the
Azerbaijani International Operating Corporation (AIOC). In 1997, in
a separate venture, Vice President Al Gore was instrumental in the
signing of a major oil deal with SOCAR allowing Chevron (now allied
with Texaco) to acquire control over vast oil reserves in the
southern Caspian Sea.18
Chevron is also involved in the Northern
Caspian region of Kazakhstan through its joint venture
Tengizchevroil. In other words, prior to the 2000 Presidential
elections, both George W. Bush and Al Gore, the two opposing
candidates, had already made commitments to competing oil
conglomerates in the Caspian Sea basin.
Europe versus Anglo-America -The Clash
of Competing Oil Interests
The Anglo-American oil giants, supported by US military might, are
directly competing with Europe’s oil giant Total-Fina-Elf—
associated with Italy’s ENI, which is a big player in Kazakhstan’s
wealthy North East Caspian Kashagan oil fields. The stakes are high:
Kashagan is reported to have deposits “so large as to even surpass
the size of the North Sea oil reserves”.19
The competing EU-based consortium, however, lacks a significant
stake and leverage in the main pipeline routes out of the Caspian
Sea basin and back (via the Black Sea and through the Balkans) to
Western Europe. The key pipeline corridor projects are largely in
the hands of their Anglo-American rivals.
The Franco-Belgian consortium Total-Fina-Elf, in partnership with
Italy’s ENI, also has sizeable investments in Iran. Total had
established, together with Russia’s Gazprom and Malaysia’s Petronas,
a joint venture with the National Iranian Oil company (NIOC).
Predictably, Washington has, on several occasions, attempted to
break France’s deal with Tehran on the grounds that it openly
contravened the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.
What this suggests is that Europe’s largest oil conglomerate,
dominated by French and Italian oil interests in association with
their Iranian and Russian partners, are potentially on a collision
course with the dominant Anglo-American oil consortia, which in turn
are backed by Washington.
Russia’s Oil Transnationals
Russia’s major oil groups, while establishing strong ties to the
Franco-Italian consortium, have, nonetheless, also entered into
joint ventures with the Anglo-American groups.
While Russia’s oil companies are supported by the Russian state and
military against Western encroachment, several of Russia’s major oil
giants (including Lukoil and the State-owned company Rosneft) are
participating in the Anglo-American pipeline projects as junior
partners.
The Anglo-American oil companies are intent upon eventually taking
over the Russian oil companies and excluding Russia from the Caspian
Sea basin. At the same time, the Anglo-American groups are clashing
with the Franco-Italian consortium, which in turn has ties to
Russian and Iranian oil interests.
The militarization of the Eurasian corridor is an integral part of
Washington’s foreign policy agenda. In this regard, America’s quest
to control the Eurasian pipeline corridors on behalf of the
Anglo-American oil giants is not only directed against Russia, it is
also intended to weaken competing European oil interests in the
Transcaucasus and Central Asia.
Notes
1. George Arney, “US planned attack
on Taliban”, BBC, 18 September 2001.
2. Financial Times, London, 6 May 1999, p. 2.
3. Ibid.
4. US Congress, Hearing On US Interests In The Central Asian
Republics, House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Asia and
the Pacific, Committee on International Relations, Washington,
DC,
http://commdocs.house.gov/commit-tees/intlrel/hfa48119.000/hfa48119_0f.htm,
Washington DC, 12 February 1998.
5. Ibid.
6. US Congress, Silk Road Strategy Act, 106th Congress, 1st
Session, S. 579, “To amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to
target assistance to support the economic and political
independence of the countries of the South Caucasus and Central
Asia”, US Senate, Washington DC, March 10, 1999.
7. Ibid.
8. Lara Marlowe, “US efforts to make peace summed up by ‘oil’”,
Irish Times, 19 November 2001.
9. Lt.-Gen. William E. Odom, USA, Ret, “US Policy Toward Central
Asia and the South Caucasus”, Caspian Crossroads Magazine,
Volume 3, Issue No.1, Summer 1997.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Robert V. Baryiski, “The Caspian Oil Regime: Military
Dimensions”, Caspian Crossroads Magazine, Volume 1, Issue No. 2,
Spring 1995.
13. Graham Fuller, “Geopolitical Dynamics of the Caspian
Region”, Caspian Crossroads Magazine, Volume 3, Issue No.2, Fall
1997
14. Damien Caveli, “The United States of Oil”, Salon.com, 19
November 2001.
15. The Great Game. Aliyev.com,
http://www.aliyev.com/aliyev/fact_07.htm, 9 January 2000.
16. Bohdan Klid, Ukraine’s Plans to Transport Caspian Sea and
Middle East Oil to Europe, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian
Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, undated. See also
Energy Information Administration at
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/russpip.html
17. See Richard Hottelet, “Tangled Web of an Oil Pipeline” The
Christian Science Monitor, 1 May 1998.
18. PR News Wire, 1 August 1997.
19. Richard Giragosian, “Massive Kashagan Oil Strike Renews
Geopolitical Offensive In Caspian”, The Analyst, Central
Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze
School of Advanced International Studies, 7 June, 2000.
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