Russia’s Oil Grab

By Caspar W. Weinberger and Peter Schweizer
New York Times, 09 May 1997

As the West celebrates the apparent expansion of NATO into Central Europe, Russia is making a concerted bid to achieve a strategic victory of its own: dominance of the energy resources in the Caspian Sea region. If Moscow succeeds, its victory could prove more significant than the West’s success in enlarging NATO.

The stakes in the Caspian are enormous. There are reportedly up to 200 billion barrels of oil and natural gas in the region. Azerbaijan alone could produce as much as two million barrels a day by 2010.

Open access to the Caspian is critical if the United States is to diversify its energy sources and reduce its dangerous reliance on Middle Eastern supplies. Oil in the Caspian region is now channeled principally through pipelines to Russian Black Sea ports, and Moscow wants to keep it that way, because that means it controls the flow.

At the center of the new Great Game is Moscow’s effort to put the squeeze on Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim state whose President, Heydar Aliyev, once a member of the Soviet Politburo, welcomes Western investment. Over the past few years Russia has tried to push Azerbaijan to allow Russian military bases and to join the Commonwealth of Independent States, the confederation of former Soviet republics. At the same time, Russia has given critical military aid to neighboring Armenia, allowing it to occupy 20 percent of Azerbaijan.

Most disturbing is the admission by Aman Tuleyev, a Russian Government minister, that more than $1 billion in arms were shipped illegally to Armenia, apparently to be used against Azerbaijan. The Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that Armenian military experts were trained in the use of advanced rocket systems last year at a Russian missile range.

The Kremlin is also pressuring the United States to modify a new section of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which sets limits on troop levels. Russia wants to place more troops in the southern tier.

Moscow has struck a strategic bargain with Iran, the other player in this drama. Iran stands to lose enormously if oil is allowed to flow freely from the Caspian. Russia has provided Teheran with nuclear-related technologies, missile components and other advanced equipment. In June 1996, Russia and Iran issued a joint statement: “Iran and Russia should cooperate with regional states to prevent the presence of [United States] power in the Caspian Sea.”

Iran sees the Azerbaijanis as a threat because they may provoke separatist sentiment among its large ethnic Azeri population. Azerbaijan, for its part, has pointedly denied Iran entry into the consortium of countries invited to develop oil in the Caspian Sea. The Aliyev Government has also resisted Iranian demands that it terminate friendly relations with Israel.

If Russia and Iran succeed in their designs on the Caspian, they will have potential leverage over Western economies, which will be left to rely on the unstable Persian Gulf region for oil.

But American policy has thus far failed to reflect the strategic interests we have in the region. Armenia, which has welcomed Russian troops, has received more aid from the United States per capita than any nation but Israel. And after lobbying by Armenian-Americans, Congress made it illegal to give direct American assistance to Azerbaijan.

The Clinton Administration needs to encourage closer relations with Azerbaijan and persuade Congress to change its priorities on aid. Our long-term security interests are at stake.