Great game moves south

[Crvena zvezda]

The Great Game moves south
By Zorawar Daulet Singh

Over the past year, the northwestern frontiers of the South Asian subcontinent have emerged as a vital theater for geopolitical competition renascent of earlier eras. This episode includes the three great powers of the contemporary system - the United States, Russia and China, the latter two exploiting their vital positions in the Eurasian geopolitical landscape.

The patterns of the game cannot be discerned without a critical evaluation of the foreign-policy interests of the three protagonists and other regional powers in the region. What follows is a reflection of how the game has now decisively moved south and thereby likely to influence the "look West" policies of New Delhi and Islamabad.

In the winter of 2001, Afghanistan became the target of a spectacular air and ground assault by the United States, laying the foundations for a gradual strategy whose rationale was beyond just the annihilation of al-Qaeda. In February 2002, then secretary of state Colin Powell told Congress that the US "will have a continuing interest and presence in Central Asia of a kind that we could not have dreamed of before".

Now fast-forward to spring 2005, and the US has established an array of military bases in the heart of Central Asia, poised to crush the historic Russian hold over the region.

By the summer of 2005, it had became apparent to Moscow that the US was hardly planning a limited military deployment and what in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, appeared to be a legitimate response to terror networks was now expanding into a more traditional realpolitik strategy. Counterbalancing was inevitable.

The turning point came in July 2005, when the Russian Foreign Ministry classified US forces as "non-regional", and declared that such a military presence in the region must be rolled back. Similar calls to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US bases in Central Asia were voiced by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Moscow's and Beijing's (more discreet) intentions were henceforth made explicit.

The first manifestation of Russian resurgence in Central Asia came with a defensive alliance with Uzbekistan, militarily the most important of the five Central Asian republics, in November 2005, thus making it Russia's largest strategic bridgehead in Central Asia. Shortly after, most of the other Central Asian states followed suit and made a strategic choice to re-establish contacts with an invigorated Kremlin. Recently, there are indications that Washington's last remaining airbase in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, itself a few kilometers away from Russia's expanding Kant airbase, may be asked to exit altogether.

Suffice it so say, with the specter of US-sponsored "color revolutions" having receded, and the drive to augment a permanent US military presence north of Afghanistan not only checked but dramatically rolled back, there was a change of tactics in Washington.

In February 2006, the State Department reorganized its South Asia Division and included the five Central Asian states in its jurisdiction. The formal strategy was articulated in speeches by assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher in the spring of 2006. In what was termed the "Greater Central Asia" strategy, Washington would henceforth refocus its diplomatic attention to steer the region southward, dangling the energy issue to open Central Asian hydrocarbons to energy-deficit South Asia, and promising to provide India and Pakistan a channel for influence into Central Asia.

This tactical retreat into South Asia was predicated on the stabilization of Afghanistan, which given its location would be the pivotal link in connecting South and Central Asia. Naturally, the seminal "de-hyphenation" of US engagement with India and Pakistan whereby it achieved the historically unattainable - stable relations with both states - and arguably the enduring success of the post-September 11 US diplomacy in South Asia made such a strategy conceivable in the first place.

Anticipating that the SCO too was vying for South Asia's attention, the US timing and motive were clear - introducing another option for India and Pakistan to participate in the affairs of Central Asia, and thus nip any regional realignment in the bud.

In essence, the new US strategy is based on "multilateralism", with the US playing the role of a midwife between Central and South Asia, of which Afghanistan is the core. Yet transformation of Afghanistan from its historic buffer status toward that of a "bridge" has not been shared as an overwhelming goal by other regional actors, especially since the corollary of an open-ended US military-strategic presence in Afghanistan would impinge on the security interests of all the surrounding actors - Iran, Russia, China and Pakistan. India may be the only exception.

Russian consolidation
The extensive Russian pipeline infrastructure that transports Central Asian gas exclusively via Russia into Europe ensures that the area is integrated into the wider Russian energy strategy, and any instability or reorientation in Central Asia will directly impinge on Gazprom's export strategy.

A number of hydrocarbon deals since early 2000, and reaffirmed more recently between Moscow and the Central Asian republics, implies that even if the US does accomplish the formidable objective of creating a vibrant Afghanistan, regional surplus reserves are simply insufficient to meet South Asian demand, thus making a pipeline financially infeasible.

For instance, Russia is projected to purchase 85% of Turkmenistan's gas exports (50 billion cubic meters, or bcm) in 2008. The remainder is to be pumped into northern Iran. A Russian-Turkmen agreement valid until 2028 implies that there is little gas available for other markets. Thus the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline is truly a pipe dream.

As for Kazakhstan, the other hydrocarbon oasis, the most recent statement by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev after a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last week underscores the robust strategic pull of Moscow: "Kazakhstan is completely committed to transporting most, if not all, of its oil (and gas) across Russian territory." (In 2006, Kazakhstan exported 80% - 42 million tons - of its total oil exports via Russian pipelines.)

This was followed by a landmark trilateral pipeline deal in Turkmenbashi, under which 20-30bcm of gas annually would flow from Turkmenistan along the Caspian Sea shore via Kazakhstan into the Russian pipeline network beginning 2012. Finally, according to a joint declaration, which included Uzbek President Islom Karimov, the Soviet-era Central Asia-Center pipeline network is expected to be upgraded.

There are indications now that Russia and Afghanistan are reviving contacts, first signaled in February when Moscow reopened its embassy in Kabul. Russia's decision to settle Afghanistan's Soviet-era debt issue, possibly in lieu of the participation of Russian companies in Afghan reconstruction, is significant.

In March, Moscow through the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization held extensive meetings with Kabul and offered military-technical and civilian cooperation, and according to Moscow the Afghan government has itself requested that Russia renew deliveries of arms and equipment, which were discontinued in 2005.

Iran looks east
There is perhaps an inverse linkage between the export of Iranian gas to South Asia and the pace of physical connectivity between Central and South Asia. And given that Central Asian hydrocarbons are destined to flow primarily northward (and a portion eastward), Iranian hydrocarbons have become a significant and natural choice for South Asian markets.

Gazprom's recent reiteration of seeking to participate in the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline alters the entire dimension of the project and frees it from the political baggage associated with Western financial options. Two recent developments are worth noting on the future prospects of the IPI project.

First, Gazprom expressed the possibility of extending the pipeline into China, which implies a convergence of interests among all regional actors. Second, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's recent visit to Pakistan, the first by a Russian premier in 38 years, is also instructive, especially since his delegation included officials from Gazprom.

Iran's links with Central Asia too have renewed recently. A defense agreement between Iran and Tajikistan early this month, presumably with Russian acquiescence, underscores future patterns of collaboration between Central Asia and Iran, both having substantial bilateral relations with Russia. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon also called for Iran's full membership in the SCO. Kyrgyzstan too has expressed interest in intensifying bilateral relations with Iran.

A divided South Asia
India's traditional policy vis-a-vis Afghanistan was based on the geostrategic logic of denying Pakistan its "strategic depth" and thereby dividing the military attention of Islamabad from exclusively focusing on the Indo-Pakistani border. In the nuclear dimension, such a policy based on a conventional "pincer movement" loses much of its viability.

India-Pakistan relations hold the key to any inter-regional geo-economic collaboration, including the IPI project. And nothing short of an India-Pakistan entente would enable transnational integration to occur, even one that circumvents Afghanistan. While the rapprochement between New Delhi and Islamabad is proceeding apace, and there is immense geostrategic logic for an entente today, we are yet to witness the political stability and will on both sides unequivocally to bury the hatchet.

India-Pakistan relations, then, assume a significance beyond simply a bilateral dimension. Indeed, arguably none of the major powers - the US, Russia, China - would be averse to an enduring India-Pakistan rapprochement, given the primacy of geo-economic interests of all actors.

Similarly, for India to elevate its peripheral influence in Central Asia toward a more multifaceted engagement would be augmented by a partnership with Pakistan. Indeed, Russia would not be averse to South Asian nations taking a proactive stance in Central Asian affairs, and indeed may even encourage the filling of any vacuum by its strategic partners.

The Afghanistan poser
Can US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces succeed in stabilizing Afghanistan? At what cost?

Without this piece of real estate, any notions of linking Central with South Asia are absurd. Importantly, the complex US-Pakistan collaboration and Pakistan's pivotal role in augmenting current US-NATO operations provide it with sufficient leverage that it is unlikely to be abandoned any time soon by the United States, despite the recent political flux in Pakistani politics.

Anatol Lieven of the New America Foundation was perhaps a rare exception in Western commentary when he recently argued against the pattern of exclusively focusing on Afghanistan at the expense of wider US regional interests. He noted that "defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan is indeed a secondary issue. Of far greater long-term importance is the survival of Pakistan as a state, and its development as a successful modern society and economy."

Such reasoning may well be instructive for future patterns in US policy, since it is perhaps unlikely that the US would pursue a tactical annihilation of the Taliban if that came at the strategic cost of radically destabilizing Pakistan. This dilemma is nonetheless exacerbated by increasing evidence of Pakistan's resurgent leverage in Afghan affairs, primarily through the elements of the so-called "moderate Taliban".

Until the US abandons, in the words of Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, the "unrealistic goal of rapid centralization in a still-feudal society that has never been centralized" will Afghanistan settle toward a modicum of normalization. The Pashtun-based Taliban are gradually being viewed by tribal Afghans as a relatively stabilizing force, after indiscriminate use of air power has further alienated these groups.

"Success" for the US in Afghanistan would then appear to stem logically from reconciling the contradictions of the surge in Pashtun nationalism as it is manifested through the resurgence of the Taliban with the overt US reliance on remnants of the Northern Alliance. Reconciling these ethnic groups with the US-friendly Northern Alliance through a grand coalition in Kabul is perhaps the only feasible path to stability in Afghanistan.

And China ...
Thus the game for all practical purposes has shifted south from its erstwhile imperial theater into Afghanistan, and perhaps into Pakistan. And it is China that is the major competitor with the US for influence. To discern Chinese interests in Pakistan in a post-post-Cold War age and in the context of accelerating Sino-Indian rapprochement requires an evaluation of China's "southwest corridor to the sea" strategy.

The decision by Beijing to enhance the development of its western regions, especially Xinjiang, is the starting point. But there is a multidimensional rationale. China's rapidly growing geo-economic links - energy, trade, investment - with East Africa, West Asia, and the Persian Gulf suggest a strategic need to gain secure uninterrupted access to these regions.

The vulnerability of Chinese energy and vital raw-materials imports in Indian Ocean sea lanes is well recognized. Thus a land route transport West Asian hydrocarbons through Pakistan into China eliminates the possibility of naval interdiction and enhances Beijing's energy security.

In addition, a 1,500km corridor would also enable direct transport of East African commodities vital for industrialization of Xinjiang, situated 3,500km from China's east coast. The linkage is two-way. The economic rejuvenation of western China would then imply an outlet for Chinese exports into imports-dependent Pakistan and wealthy markets in the Persian Gulf.

China's assistance to Pakistan to establish and modernize its transportation infrastructure from Kashgar through the Trans-Karakoram Highway to the deepsea port at Gwadar is the initial manifestation of an envisaged geo-economic trail, perhaps no less dramatic than the historical silk routes across Central Asia.

With Pakistan offering to provide China "a window to the sea", the envisaged US-sponsored opening of Afghanistan holds little interest for China, which is able to pursue a shorter route to the Arabian Sea.

The next 'Great Game'
The United States today is facing an uphill task in shaping regional politics, as all the relevant actors are reluctant to accept the US role of a geopolitical arbitrator. The once intricately poised US advance northward in the aftermath of September 11 has become a defensive tactical retreat to steer Afghanistan toward an uncertain fate.

Remarks in February by Evan A Feigenbaum, US deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, perhaps reflect best America's belated acknowledgement of geopolitical reverses in the north:
We reject the notion, once again so fashionable, that Central Asia is merely an arena for outside powers to compete for influence. Central Asians are not the objects of our struggles with others. They are the very focus of our policy. And if Central Asians themselves are the focus of our policy, then we have every incentive to help them tap economic opportunity in every direction on the compass: west, east, north, and south. In short, our policy is not "anti" anyone. Nor is it focused in any single geographic direction to the exclusion of any other.
A far cry indeed from the late 1990s and early 2000s, when pipeline blueprints were drafted solely on exclusive US-led plans for evacuation of Central Asian hydrocarbons. Feigenbaum went on:
We are not talking about severing the region from other long-standing ties. And how could we, anyway? An existing - and extensive - network of pipelines, power lines, railroads and highways to Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States countries provides the current backbone of Central Asian trade and commerce.
Putin's latest Central Asian tour is perhaps the final nail in the coffin. Well, that "Great Game" is indeed over! In the US geostrategic calculus, South Asia has evolved from a possible bridgehead into a vital theater for geopolitical influence in its own right.

The emerging trend to watch out for is how the now-transformed "defensive" strategic posture of the United States in Afghanistan and Pakistan will shape out. Given its substantial investment in blood and money, the US is likely to try to consolidate its leverage over South Asia, and especially over Pakistan, and hope to retain a long-term strategic foothold to ensure that a countervailing presence to growing Chinese influence in South Asia in general and Pakistan in particular is preserved.

Should New Delhi be worried?

Zorawar Daulet Singh, who holds a master's degree in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, is an international-relations and strategic-affairs analyst based in New Delhi. E-mail: zorawar.dauletsingh@gmail.com.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IE18Df01.html