The Greater Caspian Project 23

EDITORIAL

RUSSIA BETWEEN ECONOMIC CRISISAND GEOSTRATEGIC PROJECTIONSGIANCARLO ELIA VALORI

CAN AMERICA EVER MATCH RUSSIAN CYBER INNOVATION?LAURA GARRIDO

THE POSSIBLE FUTURE OF AMERICAN-IRANIAN-SAUDI TRIANGULATIONDR. MATTHEW CROSSTON

TRANSCAUCASIAN SEPARATISMPROF. DR. VLADISLAV B. SOTIROVIC

NORTH KOREA & INDONESIA AS ‘MENTORS’ FOR IRANSTEPHEN SARTY

GREAT POWER JOCKEYING IN THE CASPIANKEVIN AUGUSTINE

SCO SECURITY AGENDAS ANDTRANSNATIONAL POLICINGDR. MATTHEW CROSSTON & ANONYMOUS

PAKISTAN’S URGE FOR NATIONAL & ENERGY SECURITYBAHAUDDIN FOIZEE

NATURAL GAS AND THE ‘LESSER’ CASPIANSHOW NEW PLAYERS MIGHT BE GOOD FOR EVERYONETROY BAXTER

TURKEY’S CURRENT WISHESGIANCARLO ELIA VALORI

KAZAKHSTAN’S SNAP ELECTIONAFFIRM NAZARBAYEV’S POWER IN UNCERTAIN ENVIRONMENTSSAMANTHA M. BRLETICH

IS CAUCASUS THE NEXT SYRIA?DON’T FORGET OSCEALEKSANDRA KRSTIC

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THE grEaTEr CaSPIaN PrOJECTBI-WEEKLY DIgITaL EDITION

www.moderndiplomacy.eu [email protected]

Dimitris GiannakopoulosModern Diplomacy, Editor-in-chief

Dr. matthew CrosstonThe Caspian Project, Director

authors

“The society that

separates its scholars from

its warriors will have its

thinking done by cowards

and its fighting by fools”

Thucydides

www.moderndiplomacy.eu

nstability comes in many forms: economic, polit-ical, social, cultural, religious, ethnic. Unfortu-nately, the greater Caspian region has and doesexperience these various forms of instability in

one degree or another across many of its states. But oneof the lesser appreciated aspects of domestic, regional,and international turmoil is how often the kernels of op-portunity and progress can reside simultaneously withinthese seeds of discord and conflict. Issue No. 23 of theGCP examines this fascinating phenomenon in earnest.What our devoted readers will discover is how instabilityin and of itself does not need to be immutable: oppor-tunities of leadership, achievement, and positive changedo exist and can blossom, even in areas we currentlyconsider to be hopelessly opaque and convoluted. Inmany cases it is just a matter of perception and wherethe relevant actors are willing to focus their energies, aswell as the under-emphasized essentiality of not beingafraid of change and not being enslaved to the statusquo.

Thus it is with this issue we try to re-veal these hidden opportunities whilestill seriously analyzing such troublingconcerns as separatism, economic cri-sis, geostrategic manipulation of nat-ural resources, theocratic evolution,cyber innovation, and transnationalpolicing. We are by no means here atthe GCP and our parent group ModernDiplomacy pie-in-the-sky-Ivory-Towernaïve scholars: we know that in all ofthese issues, across all of these cases,when the pendulum swings more tothe end of crisis, then the end result isunfortunately untold human sufferingand sacrifice. But despite this we stillforce our readers to recognize that it isindeed a pendulum and not a com-pass: the direction it presently pointsdoes not have to be a fixed geograph-ical consideration, but is rather a dy-namic process that can move and shiftto something more positively power-ful. It may only be a hope, in somecases perhaps even an unrealistic one.But hope is never a bad thing, espe-cially in our GCP world of diplomacy,geopolitics, and international security.

ANALYZING THE PENDULUMOF CRISIS

AND OPPORTUNITY

Prof. Dr. Matthew Crosston

MD Advisory Board Vice-Chairman, Director, The Caspian Project

I

THE GREATER CASPIAN PROJECT 22

s Lev Tolstoj maintained "There is noth-ing stronger than those two: patienceand time". These are two of the mostcharacteristic traits of the soul and psy-

chology of the Russian people. On the other hand,if you follow Sun Tzu’ strategic guidelines, whoeverhas time masters also space.The fact of getting accustomed to suffering and sac-rifice have always been typical of the Russian peo-ple who, as Vladimir Putin said by quoting Gogol,"have the sharp word which comes from the bot-tom of the heart."

A

RUSSIA BETWEENECONOMIC CRISIS

AND GEOSTRATEGICPROJECTIONS

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

GIANCARLO ELIA VALORI

Advisory Board Co-chair Honoris Causa

Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist andbusinessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and nationalorders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs andeconomics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking Univer-sity, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University inNew York.

Today this is perhaps the most rational way of ana-lyzing the state of the Russian economy and its newgeopolitics, which started with the Russian armedforces’ engagement in Syria in favor of Bashar elAssad and against the very complex system of localand international jihad.

The slow but relentless increase in oil prices, organ-ized by the oil and gas futures market during thecurrent different, albeit parallel, crises in Iran andSaudi Arabia, is already an important sign of renais-sance for the Russian Federation’s economy.

Furthermore, after the recent Doha summit of April16, all oil market analysts predict that the oil barrelprices will increase rapidly throughout the secondhalf of 2016 while investors, however, still cautiouslymaintain short term positions.This is the result of a mix of factors such as the slow,but stable, global economic recovery and theplanned decrease of oil extraction as a result of thedecisions recently taken in Doha. Certainly theDoha Summit failed because of the tension be-tween Iran and Saudi Arabia, but all the latest OPECprojections point to a gradual increase in oil pricesper barrel, although there are no explicit messagesto that effect by the Vienna cartel.Hence Russia’s accounts are stable and are boundto improve, despite the severity of its recent eco-nomic crisis.

Since the beginning of 2016, inflation has beenfalling as a result of lower consumption.In March 2016, however, the Russian prices in-creased by 7.3% as against the previous year, afteran 8.1% rise in February. Anyway the Russian con-sumer prices are below market forecasts, whichpointed to 7.5%. Moreover the current rate of Russ-ian inflation is the lowest of the last two years.Thus inflation has absorbed the ruble devaluation,by also allowing further monetary easing margins.Nevertheless the decrease of disposable incomewas over 5% in 2015, with rapidly falling wages andan obvious massive impoverishment. However, theshare of the Russian population living below thepoverty line is already limited compared to the dataof previous years. Russian poverty grew from 3.1million needy people to 19.2 in 2015, the highestrate ever since 2006, and is now partially on thewane.


Again last year wages and salaries fell by 2.6% onaverage, while the Russian Stock Exchange index(MICEX) grew by 7.9% according to the 2015 data.Nevertheless all Western analysts maintain that theworst is over for the Russian economy. All Russianmacroeconomic data and statistics point to a sig-nificant growth of exports throughout the secondhalf of 2016, while the strategic link between thegrowth of the Iranian economy, after the JCPOA sig-nature, and the increase in Russian oil and non-oilexports, makes us think that Russia used its militaryforces in Syria well, also at domestic geoeconomiclevel.

In all likelihood, the rational solution taken by theRussian government was the increase in oil and gastaxes decided in 2014.This 15% increase in the oiland gas taxes allowed to reduce the tax burden onother Russian productive sectors, more oriented tothe internal market and, in the future, to exports.

Another Russian rational decision was to make theruble fluctuate, so as to save on currency reservesand better absorb the downward shock of oil prices.Hence more rubles for oil and gas units exported,with a longer duration of the reserve fund. All whilethe public deficit, already low by current Westernstandards, can be easily covered by the issue of gov-ernment debt securities for the domestic capitalmarket.Basically the Russian economic crisis, which hadbeen planned to "file Russian strategic nails" is nowover and the Russians’ infinite patience mentionedby Tolstoj will do the rest.After the sanctions imposed on the Russian Feder-ation in 2014 and the drop in oil prices, which havedelayed recovery, also the World Bank has predicteda slow improvement of Russia’s economy. Hence, atimid growth which, according to US analysts, willbe based particularly on the fiscal and monetarypolicies of President Putin’s elite.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

Moreover, despite persisting sanctions, the RussianFederation is using the weak ruble to expand non-oil exports, which are already rising especially afterthe agreements between Russia and China and be-tween Russia and the Eurasian Customs Union.However, which is the link between the Russian eco-nomic adjustment underway and its current and fu-ture geopolitics? Perhaps the key factor lies in thecreation of a new political and military entity,namely the Russian National Guard, recently estab-lished by President Putin. In principle, it is themerger of various pre-existing armed structuresand units. As many as 170,000 soldiers from thetroops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs; an unre-ported amount of staff coming from the Ministry forEmergency Situations; 40,000 operational units ofthe OMON police forces, specialized in managingand suppressing riots; 5,500 officials of the SOBRrapid- reaction forces, in addition to the OperationalReaction Forces and Aviation of the Ministry for In-ternal Affairs, selected by its Special DesignationCenter, including the Zubr, Rys and Iastreb SpecialForces units.

In the latter case we speak of at least 800 militarymen available for the new structure. Therefore thetotal number of the National Guard military staff willrange between 250,000 and 300,000 units. TheGuard’s tasks and functions will be managing andpreventing problems of public order, combatingterrorism and taking actions against "extremist"groups, namely the Chechen gangs and the futureprotesters in the future "orange revolutions" almostcertainly planned by the West against Russia.Then, the Guard will be responsible for homelanddefense and security; the protection of State struc-tures and special internal and foreign transport; theprotection of the assets and companies of Russian

citizens and organizations approved by the Govern-ment; the support to border troops, that are tradi-tionally an integral part of the Russian IntelligenceServices; the fight against arms trafficking; the com-mand of all National Guard troops and finally theprotection of men and means of the Guard itself.

Hence the whole internal security will be entrustedto the National Guard and this will obviously relievethe Russian internal and foreign Intelligence Serv-ices of a whole range of traditional and routinetasks.

President Putin wants a more geostrategic intelli-gence, less overburden with public order tasks, andthis is a lesson we should learn also in Italy and inthe West. Some people think that President Putinwants to create a "personal army", but the RussianPresident’s power is such that it is thought that hedoes not certainly need this new Guard only tostrengthen his personal power, which is already per-vasive and without any credible internal opposition.Conversely, in all likelihood, with this new militaryorganization, President Putin wants to avoid the co-alescence of two dangers he sees looming over theRussian Federation’s near future.

These dangers are the imported jihad and the se-quence of the various orange revolutions which,even combined with Islamist terrorism, could desta-bilize Russia permanently and make it viable for thefinancial and strategic interests of the West.

Probably President Putin is convinced that theUnited States and some US allies may make Russiapay a very high price for its ongoing engagementin Syria and the Middle East, which is the real gamechanger of contemporary geopolitics.


Not to mention the fact that, by opening its Syrian-Mediterranean front, the Russian Federation knocksout and bypasses the whole military network thatNATO and the United States are placing along theRussian Federation’s land borders, from Estonia toPoland and the Czech Republic, up to Romania.Certainly Putin thinks that this is a challenge whichis worth a slow and relentless internal destabiliza-tion of the Russian society and politics.This would also explain the "free hand" given by theRussian leader to the internal Services with the cre-ation of the new Guard.Hence the Services would now find it much easierto take actions to face external and internal threatsto the Russian Federation’s political (and economic)system.The designated Head of the new National Guard isGeneral Viktor Zolotov, former Head of the Presi-dent’s Security Service.A man certainly trusted by Putin and a great intelli-gence expert.Zolotov was born in 1964 and is a member of theRussian Security Council, an advisory body to thePresident, reformed in 1996, which meets at leastonce a month and coordinates the Russian Federa-tion’ security, in close cooperation with the Services’leadership.In the past he was the bodyguard of AnatolySobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg, who pro-tected President’s Putin first steps in the very com-plex post-Soviet era.Member of the KGB "active reserve", as Putin, Zolo-tov was given up for dead several times but, asoften happens in the great Russian intelligencegame, he is obviously alive and "operational."

In the 2000 "siloviki war" (the siloviki are the formerKGB members), which was a war between somegroups of agents of the old Services and the innercircle of the already powerful Putin, Zolotov stoodwith the losers, the men of Viktor Cherkesov againstthe siloviki Nikolai Patrushev and Igor Sechin.Zolotov was later "forgiven" by Putin, as the Generalnever made public his positions of "liberal siloviki"who supported Dimitri Medvedev as Putin’ succes-sor in 2008.Later Zolotov took command of the forces of theMinistry for Internal Affairs, now led by GeneralRagozhin, who has fewer ties with President Putin,while the President of the Judo Federation of St. Pe-tersburg, a longtime friend of President Putin, whois a well-known judoka, has been appointed Headof the Military Police.Zolotov’s appointment is also an action of PresidentPutin who intends to bring peace to the vast com-munity of the siloviki, a highly fragmented group asearly as his return to the Presidency in 2012.The fight between the former KGB agents regardspower, the relationship with the economy and,above all, the struggle for the succession to VladimirPutin.And this will be the new scenario for which the Na-tional Guard seems to be already prepared, al-though Vladimir Putin has recently indicated thathe is likely to run again in the next presidential elec-tion.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

n February 2015, James Clapper, the Direc-tor of National Intelligence in the UnitedStates, announced that the appraisal ofRussian cyber capability and intention had

been elevated, pushing Russia to the number onespot on the list of countries which pose a majorcyber-threat to the United States.

China held the number one spot for years becauseof the frequency of attacks on the United States.However, China’s cyberattacks were financially andeconomically motivated espionage rather than out-right physical infrastructure attacks. Also, eventhough China’s cyberattacks were more frequent, itis believed Russia has more capabilities but has sim-ply chosen not to use them all yet. Clapper alsostated that Russian cyber saboteurs, spies, andthieves are widening their attacks against vulnera-ble American internet infrastructure, which chipsaway at US wealth and security over time.

I Clapper’s intelligence assessment details how Russ-ian cyber actors are creating new ways to remotelyhack into industrial control systems that run electri-cal power grids, urban mass-transit systems, air-traf-fic control networks, and oil and gas pipelines.According to private-sector cyber security experts,these actors have been able to successfully compro-mise the product supply chains of three control sys-tem vendors so customers unknowinglydownloaded exploitative malware directly from thevendors’ websites along with routine software up-dates. Russia is seen as an unregulated area as wellas a safe haven for the development and spread ofmalicious codes around the world.According to sen-ior Russian military officials, its Ministry of Defenseis establishing its own cyber command that will beresponsible for conducting offensive cyber activi-ties, such as propaganda operations and insertingmalware into enemy command and control sys-tems.


CAN AMERICA EVER MATCH RUSSIAN CYBER INNOVATION?

LAURA GARRIDO

Laura Garrido is currently finishing her Master’sdegree in the International Security and

Intelligence Studies Program at BellevueUniversity in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.

Her primary research interests cover thepost-Soviet space and the fight

against radical Islamism.

A specialized branch for computer network opera-tions is also being established by Russia’s armedforces. This is the consequence of a national securitylegacy, as Russia was one of the first nations tomove assertively into the cyber sphere. In 1998,long before most nations even began thinkingabout cyber-security, the Kremlin established “Di-rectorate K” to begin operations to monitor and de-fend against hackers and spammers. However, inrecent years, Directorate K has taken on a more of-fensive role in the digital sphere.

Russia has been cyber-attacking the United Statesfor several years. In 1999, it was discovered that theMoonlight Maze virus had been stealing informa-tion from the Department of Defense, Departmentof Energy, NASA, and military contractors for twoyears. In early 2015, Russia hackers were able to ac-cess an unclassified server of the US Department ofState. Through this they were able to penetrate sen-sitive areas of the White House computer systemand access information such as the real-time non-public details of President Barack Obama’s schedule.The FBI, the Secret Service, and United States intel-ligence community overall are all involved in inves-tigating the breach and say that it was one of themost sophisticated attacks ever launched againstAmerican governmental computer systems.

Russia was also able to hack into systems at the Pen-tagon in July 2015. The sophisticated cyberattackaffected nearly 4,000 federal employees when itshut down the Pentagon’s unclassified email systemfor the Joint Staff for nearly two weeks. The attackwas carried out through the use of encrypted ac-counts on social media and officials at the Depart-ment of Defense stated that the attack involved“new and unseen approaches into the network.For-tunately, only unclassified accounts and emailswere involved so no classified information was ac-cessed or taken from the network.

These cyberattack threats from Russia are a majorconcern for the United States because they under-mine United States economic competitiveness andits fundamental belief in maintaining the secrecy ofnational security information. As of now, a “cyber ar-mageddon” is not a high risk, but low to moderate-level attacks over time could pose serious financialsecurity risks to the United States. In the US alone,international hacking has cost, on average, between25 billion to 100 billion dollars annually. In 2008,cyber espionage, including industrial espionage, in-tellectual property theft, and theft of trade secretscaused the loss of more than one trillion dollarsworldwide, with Russia always being cited as one ofthe main perpetrators. Russia’s tactics of usingcyber-attacks to block any and all communicationsfrom within a nation-state and its ever increasing in-novative capabilities could have a significant nega-tive impact on United States’ security and interests.What the real question seems to be is not so muchcan Russia be stopped but does the United Stateshave the talent pool to create similar cadres capableof matching the same innovation emerging fromRussia. Classified information and state secretsaside, the jury on that question, quite frankly, re-mains out.

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newsstand.moderndiplomacy.eu

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orgive the presumptuousness of thinking amere American Intelligence Studies professoris able to give a few lessons about innovativegeostrategy to a foreign state, but sometimes

it takes eyes on the outside, far away from the forest, tobe able to see unique young saplings that have the po-tential to grow into great redwoods, even though theymay currently be completely ignored.I believe this is just such the case today when we lookat the global position of Iran as it considers the manydifferent paths and perspectives moving forward afterthe JCPOA. If I am being honest, so far the outlook ap-pears less-than-rosy, as the same old-same old seems tobe dominating. For the sake of the greatest future of Iranand a more peaceful global community, status quo or-thodoxy should be discarded.

F

ThE gREATER CAsPIAN PROJECT 23

SPYMKRPCEMKR

ThE POssIbLE FUTURE

OF AMERICAN-IRANIAN-sAUDI TRIANgULATION

DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON

Advisory Board Vice-Chairman, Caspian Project Director

Matthew Crosston is Professor of Political Science,Director of the International Security and IntelligenceStudies Program, and the Miller Chairat Bellevue University

Dear Iran ,

Sometimes it must seem utterly comedic trying tonavigate the relationship waters with the West.Since the signing of the JCPOA there have been halfa dozen accusations from EACH side protesting howthe spirit if not the letter of the accord has beenbreached. America, for its part, seems to exhibitsomething akin to ‘signer’s remorse,’ more obsessedabout finding areas to critique the Islamic Republicrather than emphasizing how to work successfullywithin this new and exciting dialogue. Iran, for itspart, feels strain from all sides, inside and out: inter-nally, the domestic authorities want to tightly man-age and maximize the success to be gained out ofthe accord in a competent and non-chaotic way(without any major political change); externally,many different foreign sides not-so-secretly hopethe accord becomes the actual undoing of the gov-ernment, a facilitator of local unrest and creator ofa new regime, exorcising for America at least theghosts of 1979.And thus, the frustrating banality of politics: over-determined to make the status quo immutable.American worries about not trusting Iran are ascommon and inane as Iranian worries about nottrusting the United States. The JCPOA could andshould be a spur for new thinking and new engage-ment. So far, on that note, it has been basically irrel-evant. It is perhaps even understandable why thatis so: Iran sees the greatest capitalization of the ac-cord to be about increasing its economic stabilityand prosperity. It no doubt will do just that. But itcould also do so much more. But that will requireboth sides, American and Iranian, to be willing tosee the future in a more innovative geostrategiclight and be less enslaved to the old orthodoxywhere the two simply must remain adversaries.

It does not have to be that way. In fact, if people oneither side could take a moment to step back andbreathe, then the INEVITABILITY of this transforma-tion would be more apparent. Yes, I said ‘inevitabil-ity’ and meant it: a new day will come. The only realquestion is will the leaders in Washington andTehran take advantage of it?

One of the biggest relationship elephants in termsof making such change between Iran and Americais Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the ‘special’ relationship be-tween the US and Saudi royal family now goes backdecades. While both sides have always emphasizedthe strategic defense aspects of the relationship -how the Saudis have been a de facto ‘silent affirmer’of American interests in the region, the Islamic part-ner Americans can work with - this has come with asteep cost: the political development of Saudi soci-ety, the evolution of its governmental system andemergence of civil liberties and citizen rights hasbeen, to put it kindly, abysmally glacial. While manymilitary figures would characterize this as a neces-sary evil to maintain a major power Islamic partnerin the area, the true reality is that this moral turpi-tude is better explained by the economic energydependence from which America has been unableto wean itself away and which the Saudis have bril-liantly maintained and managed.

Until now. And this is where the biggest opportu-nity sits hidden for Iran. America has finally man-aged to position itself to where it is at least realisticto see a near future where it is not overly dependenton foreign fossil fuels. This means the ‘special’ rela-tionship with Saudi Arabia is inevitably going to un-dergo great change. Trust me.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

When the day comes that the United States nolonger sees Saudi Arabia as an essential lynchpin infeeding the energy needs that power its global eco-nomic primacy, then the very next day will mark therewriting of the Saudi-American relationship. SaudiArabia seems to recognize this better than most:just observe some of its more self-injurious oil pric-ing decisions over the last several years and mostrecent declarations about the country’s need topush away from natural resource dependency andbe more economically ‘diverse.’ So what will you do,Iran, when this comes to pass? Do you see this forthe immense opportunity that it is or have you beenignoring it, determined to remain stuck in a statusquo where America remains the so-called ‘GreatSatan’ while you remain the hub of a supposed ‘axisof evil?’ Rightly or wrongly, the responsibility to cre-ate that new future with America rests on yourshoulders. But will you take it?

As America moves off away from this foreign eco-nomic energy dependence, a political and diplo-matic vacuum will emerge in the Islamic world. Whois going to fill it? Who will be the next great Islamicpartner for America? Who can be? There are few true contenders. Honestly, there reallyhave been only two: Iran and Saudi Arabia. Politicalrelevance, military capability, economic potential,and cultural influence have always made you twothe natural rivals for regional hegemony and Amer-ican attention. One only need look at the situationin Yemen to understand how much this is true anddangerous when mismanaged. The unique eco-nomic relationship between Saudi Arabia andAmerica in the post-Cold War basically shut you out,Iran, and your resentment over that fact (along withthe endless sanctions) did not exactly encourageyour best or most innovative behavior to enactchange.

ThE gREATER CAsPIAN PROJECT 23

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

That same reality has also powered an Americanblindness to certain disturbing behaviors from theSaudi side, whether that be reckless suppressiondomestically, clumsy maneuvers against civilianareas in Yemen, or the Faustian bribing of local rad-ical extremists that basically meant the Kingdom defacto exported terrorism abroad in order to keepgreater calm at home. But as I said, those days arethe old orthodoxy. Maintaining it is egregiouslyshort-sighted and a bit bull-headed. This is of coursehow most governments in the world tend to initiallybehave even when a new, better path appears be-fore them. Oh how we rely on our status quo. Canyou do differently, Iran, or are you just as much aslave to it as everyone else?

I am not naïve. I know that the only way an initiativefrom you, Iran, would be received more promisinglyfrom the United States is if you worried just a littlebit less about political change within your own bor-ders. It is a disconcerting prospect, most assuredly.On the one hand, you have China as an example ofhow change can be embraced and fostered withouttremendous political upheaval. While the UnitedStates criticizes that pace of change, that is justAmerica being America. Sometimes it cannot getout of its own way. But on the other hand, you havewhat was once the Soviet Union, an example ofwhat happens when change dictates to a staterather than the other way around. You probably sur-mise: if we cannot guarantee the Chinese path forourselves, we cannot risk the Soviet one. It is adamnable conundrum, no doubt.

But your great progress and positive change on theglobal stage can only come through such risks, byendeavoring to navigate through such conundrumsand emerge on the other side. Your current path,where you think you can maximize the JCPOA whilemaintaining an adversarial relationship with theUnited States (and thus, consequently, guarantee-ing American resistance to your very progress), isuntenable. More importantly, it’s unnecessary. Sohere I sit, in the odd position of suggesting how two‘enemies’ should actually look beyond their respec-tive noses to see how much better off each will beas partners moving forward. Many assume thatthose of us within Intelligence Studies deal only insubterfuge, in deceit and deception. ‘Spymakers’cannot be trusted, after all. But that is Hollywoodhyperbole, where the real world suddenly thinks itis a mirror reflecting the fake world of Bond andBourne. In truth, the best form of Intelligence Stud-ies is simply gaining new insights from informationand thus opening up new pathways to inflict LESSdamage, not more. In the end, our mission is not tocreate chaos but curtail it. An American-Iranianpartnership would be the best curtailing.

And so, Supreme Leader, if a ‘spymaker’ can be apeacemaker without contradiction or hypocrisy,then why can’t Iran be a partner to America? It can.It should. Seize the opportunity.

t the very beginning of April 2016 thearmed conflict between the Armenianand the Azerbaijani militaries wasshortly renewed over the disputed ter-

ritory of Nagorno-Karabakh – an autonomousprovince within Azerbaijan but in fact under directmilitary control by Armenia.

This event once again opened the question of thelegitimacy of similar self-proclaimed independencecases around the world and international(non)recognition of such de facto quasi- and client-states (Transnistria, North Cyprus, Abkhazia, SouthOssetia, West Sahara, South Sudan, East Timor…).However, from the European perspective, threecases from the Caucasus (Nagorno-Karabakh, Abk-hazia and South Ossetia) have to be firstly analysedin comparison with the Balkan case of Kosovo.

A A DOMINO EFFECT

After February 2008 when Kosovo Albanian-domi-nated parliament proclaimed Kosovo independ-ence (without organizing a referenda) with obviousU.S. diplomatic support (unilateral recognition) withexplanation that Kosovo case is unique in the World(i.e., it will be not repeated again) one can ask thequestion: is the problem of southern Serbianprovince of Kosovo really unique and surely unre-peatable in some other parts of the world as U.S. ad-ministration was trying to convince the rest of theinternational community?Consequences of recognition of Kosovo independ-ence by one (smaller) part of the international com-munity are already (and going to be in the future)visible primarily in the Caucasus because of the verysimilar problems and situation in these two regions.

PROF. DR. VLADISLAV B. SOTIROVIC

Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, LithuaniaFaculty of Politics and ManagementInstitute of Political Sciencewww.sotirovic.eu vladislav[at]sotirovic.eu

THE gREATER CAsPIAN PROJECT 23

TRANSCAUCASIANSEPARATISM

KOsOvO BOOMERANg

At the Caucasus (where around 50 different ethno-linguistic groups are living together) self-pro-claimed independence already was done byAbkhazia and South Ossetia during their wars of1991−1993 against the central authorities of Geor-gia but up to the mid-2008 both of these two sepa-ratist regions from Georgia were not internationallyrecognized by any state in the world. The region ofNagorno-Karabakh, which proclaimed its own inde-pendence in 1991 from Azerbaijan with a full mili-tary and political support by Armenia, was also notrecognized before Kosovo independence. We haveto remember that separatist movements in the Cau-casus in the 1990s occurred at the time when Slove-nia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovinaproclaimed their own independence from Yu-goslavia and have been soon recognized as the in-dependent states and even became acceptedmembers of the Council of Europe and the UnitedNations.

However, only several months after self-proclaimedindependence of Kosovo on February 17th, 2008 awave of recognition of three Caucasus separatiststates started as a classic example of a domino ef-fect policy in the international relations. It has to benoticed that the experts from the German Ministryof Foreign Affairs expressed even in 2007 their realfear that in the case of U.S. and E.U. unilateral recog-nition of Kosovo independence the same unilateraldiplomatic act could be implied by Russia (andother countries) by recognition of Abkhazia andSouth Ossetia as a matter of diplomatic compensa-tion and as result of domino effect in the interna-tional relations. It is also known and from officialO.S.C.E. sources that the Russian delegates in thispan-European security organization have been con-stantly warning before 2008 the West that such sce-nario is quite possible, but with one peculiarity:from 2007 they stopped to mention a possibility ofRussian recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh’s self-proclaimed independence in 1991. It was mostprobably for the reason that Moscow did not wantto spoil good relations with Azerbaijan – a countrywith huge reserves of natural gas and oil.

KOSOVO

Kosovo is the Balkan region which became duringthe last 150 years contested land between the Serband Albanian nationalisms. The region (for the SerbsKosovo and Metochia, for the Albanians Kosova orKosovë), however, has different historical and na-tional-cultural importance for these two nations.For the Serbs, Kosovo is the “cradle of Serbia”– a cen-tral and pivotal land in regard to their statehoodand national identity as before the Ottoman occu-pation of Serbia in the mid-15th century it was ex-actly Kosovo to be administrative, political, cultural,religious and economic centre of the medieval Ser-bia.

However, differently to the Serb case, for the Alba-nians this region was all the time of the marginal im-portance concerning their national identity andparticularly statehood. That became the crucial rea-son why the Great European Powers did not includeKosovo into the newly (and for the first time in his-tory) self-proclaimed the independent state of Al-bania (on November 28th, 1912) but recognizedKosovo as an integral part of Serbia after the BalkanWars 1912−1913.

Kosovo was the birthplace of Serbia as the powerfulstate but also and the place were Serbia lost its realindependence to the Ottoman Turks after the Battleof Kosovo on June 28th, 1389. Contrary, the regionmeans simply nothing for the Albanian statehood,but it became a birthplace of the Albanian territorialnationalism as it was the town of Prizren in Kosovowhere in June 1878 the (First Albanian) PrizrenLeague declared a Greater (Islamic) Albania as anautonomous province within the Ottoman Empirecomposed by Albania itself, Kosovo, the West Mace-donia, the East Montenegro and the North-WestGreece. This megalomania project, nevertheless, leftup today to be for all kinds of the Albanian chauvin-istic nationalists as the cornerstone of their politicalideology of a Greater and ethnically pure (Islamic)Albania. This process of purification of Kosovo onboth ethnic and confessional bases started by theMuslim Albanians immediately after the PrizrenLeague session in 1878 and was continued duringthe WWII within the borders of Mussolini’s createdGreater Albania when up to 20.000 Cristian Serbswere killed in the region followed by at least100.000 expelled Serbs.

The Albanian terror against the Serbs was legalizedby the Yugoslav authorities at the time of Kosovo’svery broad autonomy (in fact independence) from1974 to 1989 but it received a form of genocide

on Serbs and all other non-Albanians from the timeof the N.A.T.O.’s occupation of Kosovo in June 1999up today (the British, U.S., German, Italian andFrench military forces occupied a different sectorsof Kosovo). As a consequence, the ethnic Albanianstoday compose 97% of Kosovo’s population com-pared with only 2% in 1455 (according to the firstOttoman census). On the other hand, Kosovo’s Al-banians were politically oppressed by the Serb-ledregimes during the interwar time (1919−1941), firsttwo decades after the WWII and during the govern-ment of Slobodan Milosevic in the years of1989−1998. However, for the matter of comparison,the Serb oppression had as a single aim just to pre-vent territorial separation of Kosovo from the restof Serbia while the Albanian terror was inspired bymuch serious national goal: to ethnically cleanKosovo as a part of a Greater Albania.


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SOUTH OSSETIA

On the first glance it can be said that the OrthodoxSouth Ossetians are equally separatist as the MuslimKosovo Albanians. However, the South Ossetiansare having sympathies towards the Serbs (not be-cause both of them are the Orthodox) but not to-wards, as we could expect, separatist KosovoAlbanians. The real reason of such sympathies aresimilar legal state rights applied by both the Serbsin Kosovo and the South Ossetians – the only Euro-pean nation in the Caucasus.Historically, South Ossetia (like Abkhazia) was neverintegral part of sovereign Georgian state, differentlywith Kosovo in its historical relations with Serbia asKosovo was not only integral, but culturally and po-litically the most important and even administra-tively central region of the medieval Serbian statetill 1455 when Kosovo became occupied by the Ot-tomans and a such away separated from the rest ofSerbia. Shortly, Kosovo before the Ottoman occu-pation was historical, political, administrative, cul-tural and church centre of Serbia populated before1700 exclusively by the Serbs (the Albanians cameto Kosovo from Albania after 1700).

However, in comparison with Kosovo-Serbia rela-tion case, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were neverof any kind of centres of any kind of Georgian stateas all the time they have been provincial (occupied)regions of Georgia even populated by different eth-nolinguistic groups. Moreover, Georgia itself wasnever before entered Russia at the very beginningof the 19th century strongly and definitely unitedstate territory, also differently to Serbia which up toits lost independence in 1459 was profoundlyunited with Kosovo as its national and state centre.

Also, differently with Georgia, Serbia by herself andRussian military and diplomatic support regainedher state de facto independence during the SerbianRevolution of 1804−1815 against the Ottoman Em-pire while Georgia was waiting to regain its ownstate independence for the time of self-destructionof the U.S.S.R. in 1991. It has to be noticed that thepresent day territory of Georgia entered Russia inparts – segment by segment. Ossetia as united ter-ritory (not divided into Northern and Southern astoday situation is) became voluntarily part of theRussian Empire in 1774. The Russian EmpressCatherin the Great (1762−1796), in order to besurely convinced that the Ossetians are really inde-pendent, before incorporation of this province intothe Russian Empire sent a special commissionwhich informed St. Petersburg that “the Ossetiansare free people subordinated to no one” (whatmeans not under any kind of the Georgian rule orsubordination!).

Georgia itself became part of Russian Empire in1804 (27 years later then Ossetia) being before thatfrom 1783 a protectorate of the Russian Empire. Thisfact is the most important argument used by theSouth Ossetians in their dispute with the Georgianauthorities. Differently to the Ossetians, Kosovo Al-banians such argument do not have in relation tothe Serbs. In is known that the Albanians started tosettle themselves at the region of Kosovo from thepresent-day Northern Albania only after the FirstSerbian Great Migration from the region in 1689. Itshould be said as well that, according to severalByzantine and Arab sources, the Balkan Albaniansare originating from the Caucasus Albania.

In the other words, the Caucasus Albanians left inthe 9th century their homeland (Dagestan andAzerbaijan) and have been settled by the Arabs inthe West Sicily and the South Italy which they leftin 1043 and came to the Balkans (to the present-dayCentral Albania). It means that the Albanians are notauthentic Balkan people differently to the Serbswho are most probably one of the oldest Balkan na-tions (the aboriginal Balkan Illyrians).

Georgia declared its independence during the Russ-ian Civil War in 1918, but became occupied by theBolshevik Red Army in 1921. Georgia joined theU.S.S.R. next year as a part of the Transcaucasian So-viet Republic together with Armenia and Azerbai-jan. However, Georgia became a separate SovietRepublic in 1936 like Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thesouthern part of Ossetia (together with Abkhazia)was given to be administered by Georgia by deci-sion of three Georgian Communists – Joseph Vissar-ionovich Stalin (Jughashvili), Sergei Ordzonikidzeand Avelj Enukindze.

Nevertheless, between two parts of Ossetia (Northand South) never was a state border before1994.The people of South Ossetia on the referen-dum upon destiny of the U.S.S.R. on March 17th,1991 voted for existence of Soviet Union (like theSerbs upon Yugoslavia, but and Kosovo Albanianson illegal referendum to become independent fromSerbia like Georgians from the U.S.S.R.) that was amonth before Georgia became independent fromthe USSR. The referendum on March 17th, 1991 wasorganized two months after the Georgian armystarted the war against South Ossetia in which tillSeptember of the same year 86 Ossetian villageshave been burned. It is calculated that more than1.000 Ossetians lost their lives and around 12.000Ossetians emigrated from the South to the NorthOssetia. This is the point of similarity with expelledaround 250.000 Serbs from Kosovo by the AlbanianKosovo Liberation Army after the NATO peace-keeping troops entered this province in June 1999and legalized Muslim Albanian terror over the Chris-tian Serbs and other non-Albanians.

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An Independence of the Republic of South Ossetiawas proclaimed on May 29th, 1992. However, thislegal act has not been understood as a “separatist”because at that time Georgia was not recognized byno one state in the world as an independent oneand Georgia was not a member of the United Na-tions. Oppositely to the South Ossetian case,Kosovo Albanian unilateral independence procla-mation on February 18th, 2008 cannot be treatedby the international community as a legal one (atleast without a direct permission by Belgrade) asKosovo by the international law and agreements isstill an integral part of Serbia. Moreover, Serbia (dif-ferently from Georgia in May 1992) is internationallyrecognized independent state and a member of theUnited Nations. This is and common point of simi-larity between the Ossetians and the Serbs: both ofthem are fighting against separation of one part ofnational body and land from the motherland (Os-setia and Serbia).

ABKHAZIA

Abkhazia is a Caucasian province that was a part ofthe ex-USSR in the form of an Autonomous SovietRepublic within the Soviet Republic of Georgia.However, in comparison with Kosovo status as anAutonomous Province within Serbia from 1974 to1989, Abkhazia did not reach even half of the rightsand power as Kosovo had: President, Assembly, po-lice forces, Academy of Science and Arts, Constitu-tion (in direct opposition to the Constitution ofSerbia) and even Territorial Defence forces (in factthe provincial army). Nevertheless, in April 1991Abkhazia became a part of the self-proclaimed in-dependent state of the Republic of Georgia, againstthe will of both the Abkhazian population of the Is-lamic denomination (at that time 18% out of allAbkhazian inhabitants) and Abkhazian Russian-speakers (14%).

Subsequently, at least one third of Abkhazian pop-ulation opposed its integration into the independ-ent Georgia in 1991. The conflict with Georgiancentral authorities started when the troops of theMuslim volunteers from neighbouring territories,but mainly from Chechnya, helped the local Abk-hazian Muslims in their struggle against Tbilisi se-curity forces. Georgia at that time was alreadyinvolved into the civil war against the Ossetian sep-aratists and for that reason seriously weakened. Asa result of the conflict with the Abkhazian sepa-ratists, Tbilisi, which lost all control over Abkhazia,was finally forced to accept to be militarily defeatedand therefore compelled to start political negotia-tions on extensive autonomy status of Abkhaziawithin sovereign Georgia. Ultimately, the negotia-tions between the Abkhazian government andGeorgia became futile, and a very fragile peace wasachieved under the civil supervision of the UN ob-servers and the Russian military troops as a guaran-tor of the peace-treaty implementation.

Georgia was obviously week to recover politicalcontrol over the separatist republic of Abkhazia inthe 1990s. The President Eduard Shevardnadze wasultimately only able to restore some order withinGeorgia which was at that time under de facto Russ-ian protection and therefore with implicit political-military assistance by Russia. As a consequence,Shevardnadze signed an agreement with Russia onallowance of 20.000 Russian military troops to bepresent in two Georgian separatist republics along-side with the Russian right to use Georgia’s BlackSea port of Poti.The economic background of suchpro-Russian policy by Shevardnadze is understoodfrom the fact that at that time Georgia was in des-perate need of direct Russian economic assistancethat is quite visible from the very fact that in 1994Georgia’s GDP declined to only 25% of its pre-inde-pendence level.


As a direct Russian economic and financial help,Georgia’s economy became soon stabilized withcontrolled inflation and state spending reigned in. Nevertheless, it was clear that Georgia can maintainat least a formal authority over both South Ossetiaand Abkhazia only being within the Russian sphereof influence in the region of Transcaucasia. Anychange of the side would bring and de facto sepa-ration of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Tbil-isi what in fact happened in reality in 2008 due to(irrational) pro-American policy by MikhailSaakashvili – a leader of 2003 Georgian colouredrevolution (the Rose Revolution) which finally re-moved Shevardnadze from power but six years laterand Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia.

INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNING ANDSEPARATIST MOVEMENTS

The main argument for the western politicians uponKosovo independence in 2008, as an “unique case”of Kosovo situation, is the fact that according to “Ku-manovo Agreement” between Serbia and theN.A.T.O. signed on June 10th, 1999, and the U.N.Resolution 1244 (following this agreement), Kosovowas put under the U.N. protectorate with imposedinternational system of governing and security.However, such “argument” does not work in thecase of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as the Ossetiansand Abkhazians are governing their lands by them-selves and much more successfully in comparisonwith “internationally” (i.e. the N.A.T.O.) protectedKosovo.

It was quite visible in March 2004 when interna-tional organizations and military troops could not(i.e. did not want to) protect ethnic Serbs in Kosovofrom violent attacks organized by the local Albani-ans when during three days (March 17−19th) 4,000Serbs exiled, more than 800 Serbian houses are seton fire followed by 35 destroyed or severely dam-aged Serbian Orthodox churches and cultural mon-uments.

The “2004 March Pogrom” revealed the real situa-tion in the region of Kosovo – a region which hadto be under the effective protection by the interna-tional community. The position of the South Osse-tians in the independent Georgia from 1991 toAugust 2008 could be compared with position ofthe Serbs in Kosovo after June 1999.

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Differently with Kosovo case after June 1999, oreven after February 2008, South Ossetia, Abkhaziaand Transnistria showed much more political-legalbases to be recognized as the independent statesas they showed real ability to govern themselves byonly themselves but not by the international organ-izations as it is in the case of Kosovo. They alsoproved much more democracy and respect forhuman and minority rights in comparison with theAlbanian-ruled Kosovo Republic which is in facttransformed into the Islamic State of Kosovo(Kosovo I.S.I.L.).

NAGORNO-KARABAKH

The region of Nagorno-Karabakh is the most con-tested conflict-area in Trancaucasia during the lastthree decades. It became a part of Azerbaijan withan autonomous status in 1936 within the SovietUnion but not a part of Armenian Socialist Republicestablished as such also in 1936 as one of 15 social-ist republics of the U.S.S.R. During the whole timeof the existence of the Soviet Union there were ten-sions between Azerbaijan and Armenia over en-clave (province) of Nagorno-Karabakh which was atthe Soviet time populated by Islamic Azeri majorityand the Christian Orthodox Armenian minority.However, the enclave was historically with majorityof the Armenian population but due to the Islamicterror the Christian Armenians became a minorityon their own land what happen as the same withthe Christian Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo in relationsto the Muslim Albanians. For the Armenians,Nagorno-Karabakh enclave was unjustifiably sepa-rated from Armenia by the Soviet authorities andincluded into Azerbaijan in order to keep good po-litical relations with neighbouring Turkey.

The Serbs, similarly to the Armenians in regard toNagorno-Karabakh, were complaining about thesame practice with regard to Kosovo status from1974 to 1989 when the “cradle of Serbia” was prac-tically teared off from the rest of the motherlandand granted actual independence from Serbia hav-ing much stronger relations with the neighbouringAlbania than with Serbia.

The frictions between Armenia and Azerbaijan overNagorno-Karabakh ultimately led to the openbloody war mostly within the enclave which startedin 1989 when the central Soviet authorities alreadyhave been in the process of collapsing. The war ledin 1993 to the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and some strategic territory of Azerbaijan.Consequently, Armenia became cut off from Azer-baijani oil supplies and as naturally being devoid ofmineral resources or fertile soil Armenian economycollapsed in the mid-1990s.

For instance, Armenian GDP had fallen to 33% of its1990 level followed by the inflation of 4000%. Nat-urally, as politically supported by Moscow, the Ar-menian economy became mostly oriented towardRussia: for instance, 60% of Armenia’s export wentto the Russian market. Up today, Armenia was notdirectly attacked by Turkey exactly for the reasonthat it is politically but also and militarily protectedby Russia whose armed forces are located on theterritory of Armenia nearby Turkey’s border.

There are several similarities but also and great dis-similarities between conflicts upon Nagorno-Karabakh in Transcaucasia and Kosovo at theBalkans.


In both cases the international commu-nity is dealing with autonomy of com-pact national minority who is making amajority on the land in question and al-ready having its own national independ-ent state which is bordering thiscontested territory. Both Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and Kosovo Albani-ans do not want to accept any othersolution except separation and interna-tionally recognized independence. Bothconflicts are in fact continuations of oldhistoric struggles between two differentcivilizations: the Muslim Turkish and theChristian Byzantine. In both conflicts theinternational organizations are includedas the mediators. Some of them are the same -France, U.S.A. and Russia as members of both Con-tact Groups for ex-Yugoslavia and Minsk Groupunder the O.S.C.E. umbrella for Azerbaijan. Both Ser-bia and Azerbaijan have been against that theirproblem-cases (Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh)would be proclaimed by some kind of the “interna-tional community” (the U.N., the E.U., the O.S.C.E.,etc.) as the “unique” cases as it would be (as theKosovo Albanians already proved on February 18th,2008) a green light to the Albanian and the Armen-ian separatists to secede their territories from Serbiaand Azerbaijan without permission given by Bel-grade and Baku.

However, there are and significant differences be-tween Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh cases.Kosovo is internal conflict within Serbia (which isafter June 1999 internationalized) but in the case ofNagorno-Karabakh we have to speak about exter-nal military aggression (by Armenia). In differenceto Armenia in relation to Nagorno-Karabakh, Alba-nia formally never accepted any legal act in whichKosovo was called as integral part of state territoryof Albania (with historical exception during the Sec-ond World War when Kosovo, the East Montenegroand the West Macedonia have been included intoMussolini’s sponsored and protected “Greater Alba-nia”).

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Delegation from Albania did not take any participa-tion in the talks and negotiations upon the “final”status of Kosovo between Pristina and Belgrade in2007, while Armenia has official status of “interestedside” in the conflict concerning Nagorno-Karabakh.However, the Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakhsuch status still did not obtain. Official regular armyof Albania never was involved in Kosovo conflict(differently from great number of volunteers fromAlbania), while Armenia’s army (i.e. from the state ofArmenia) was directly involved in the military oper-ations in Nagorno-Karabakh from the very begin-ning of the conflict, but officially part of theindependent state of Azerbaijan. As a result, Arme-nia occupied 1/5 of Azerbaijani territory and the vic-tims of ethnic cleansing are primarily the Azeri asmore than one million of them are being displacedas a result of the hostilities.

Differently to the case of Nagorno-Karabakh’s con-flict, in which the main victims became a formermajority population (the Muslim Azeri), in Kosovocase the principal victims of the war are the Chris-tian Serbs as a minority population of the province.

Nevertheless, differently from Kosovo case, weakerAzerbaijani side did not apply to the N.A.T.O. for themilitary help, but a weaker Albanian side did it dur-ing the Kosovo conflict in 1998−1999 and only dueto the N.A.T.O.’s military intervention on the Alban-ian side and direct military occupation of Kosovoafter the war it was possible for the Albanians tocommit almost a full scale of the ethnic cleansingof the province during the first five years after thewar (up to the end of March 2004).


CONCLUSIONS

It can be concluded that the Albanian unilaterallyproclaimed Kosovo independence in February 2008is not at all “unique” case in the world without directconsequences to similar separatist cases followingthe “domino effect” (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, SouthSudan...). That is the real reason why, for instance,the government of Cyprus is not supporting“Kosovo Albanian rights to self-determination” asthe next “unique” case can be easily northern (Turk-ish) part of Cyprus which is by the way already rec-ognized by the Republic of Turkey and under defacto Ankara’s protection. Or even the better exam-ple: the Spanish government does not want to rec-ognize Kosovo independence for the very “Catalan”reason as a domino effect of separatism can be eas-ily spilled over to the Iberian Peninsula.

There are around 200 territorial-national separatistmovements around the world for whom the case ofKosovo “precedent” is going to serve as the bestmoral and legal foundation for their own independ-ence. Subsequently, the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized by now by three non-U.N.’smember states according to Kosovo’s pattern:Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Furthermore, in 2012 (four years after Kosovo’s in-dependence proclamation), a member of Uruguay’sforeign relations committee stated that his countrycould recognize Nagorno-Karabakh’s independ-ence and the Parliament of New South Wales (Aus-tralia) called upon the Australian government torecognize Nagorno-Karabakh. Two other Transcau-casian separatist republics of Abkhazia and SouthOssetia became like Nagorno-Karabakh recognizedafter Kosovo’s independence proclamation in 2008by several states and quasi-states: Russia, Nicaragua,Venezuela, Nauru, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Repub-lic, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Tuvalu, Vanuatuand Abkhazia and South Ossetia (each other).

In sum, Kosovo’s independence proclamation inFebruary 2008 became in fact not “precedent” as theU.S.’s and the E.U.’s administration declared: it be-came rather a boomerang example of “domino ef-fect” in the international relations. The case ofCrimea in 2014 was in this respect quite clear: theCrimean popular self-determination rights to sepa-rate peninsula from Ukraine and to become part ofRussia were at least formally founded on the samerights used by Kosovo’s Albanians (as majority in theprovince) to proclaim the state independence fromSerbia.

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NORTH KOREA & INDONESIA AS ‘MENTORS’ FOR IRAN

STEPHEN SARTY

Stephen Sarty is a graduate student in the InternationalSecurity and Intelligence Studies program at BellevueUniversity in Omaha, NE, USA. He is a former U.S. Marineand has lived and worked in the Middle East forthe last 23 years.

ince the revolution, Iranian politics have progressedthrough a number of phases, becoming progressivelymore splintered as time passes, where the question ofwhich identity for the nation - whether to continue as

a purely Islamic theocratic state or to move towards a more openIslamic Democratic Republic - plays out.Internally, many of Iran’s political factions believe strongly thatthe future of the state is in deepening Iran’s relations with the out-side world and drastically improving its own economy. In that re-gard, if one were to take a more holistic view in determining whatlessons Iran could learn from other nations with regards to theirvarious approaches to the same questions, one can certainly drawinteresting conclusions from countries like North Korea and In-donesia to see how their experiences have helped or hurt theircountries.

Inside Iran one of the two main political factions are the ‘Princi-palists.’ This group represents Iranian Conservatives and is moreclosely aligned with the Ayatollah and his revolutionary ideol-ogy.While they may not like the comparison, this side of Iranianpolitics tends to prefer an Iran modeled very much in the mold ofNorth Korea. Isolationist and defiant to the greater global world,they oppose such things as the recent nuclear accord and movestoward a more modern lifestyle, combining this with a deep mis-trust of the West’s intensions. In North Korea, we see a countrythat has taken an extreme stance in both its internal and externalrelations. In exploring its internal politics we see a country where,while its leaders enjoy complete control over the nation’s popu-lace, its people live in absolute poverty, the economy is largelynon-existent and in shambles, and the only real means of survivalseems to rest on the fact that it possesses a nuclear arsenal and iswilling to convince the world it might act irrationally with it.

S


On the surface Iran and North Korea have a numberof similarities: both regimes were born out of revo-lutions that were largely founded on anti-imperialistsentiments; both regimes have consistently usedthe United States as a scapegoat for their own eco-nomic woes; and both find the development of anuclear program, whether for peaceful or militarymeans, at odds with the international communityand the source of crippling international denounce-ment and sanctions. Finally, both are topped bynon-democratic leaders, with the Ayatollah firmlyentrenched as the Supreme Leader of Iran and KimJong-un standing as North Korea’s cult of personal-ity. It is this approach to the nuclear issue within theglobal community that Iran could look towardsNorth Korea to understand the seriousness of po-tential consequences if it is unable to find a solutionamenable to all. While both nations have multiplelayers of political and military leadership beneaththem, the two Supreme Leaders share a commonrole in being the final word throughout all of theirnations’ foreign and domestic policies.

North Korea, similar to the discussions Iran is cur-rently engaged in, came to an agreement on whatthe international community felt were acceptableterms with regards to its nuclear program. Adher-ence to the terms of this agreement would havebrought in much needed fuel, food, and financialassistance, creating a major positive impact on thehealth and well-being of its citizenry. Unfortunately,North Korea’s adherence to the agreement wasshort-lived and its hardships have worsened. Cut offfrom the outside world, North Korea has experi-enced such severe hardships that some estimateshorrifyingly claim up to 15 percent of its populationhas perished during the most recent economicdownturn.

These shortages have caused the nation to attemptto erratically leverage its nuclear position to basi-cally ‘extort’ aid. And so continues the never-endingcycle that causes outside nations to be alarmed atthe increasing instability and react by attemptingto tighten the diplomatic/economic noose in an ef-fort to displace the NK leadership. With the passageof the JCPOA, Iran stands at a precipice similar towhere North Korea once stood: abide by the termsof the agreement and move back into the fold ofthe international community or depart from theterms and sink deeper into the political and eco-nomic abyss. It is sincerely hoped that Iran willprove to be less irrational and less petulant com-pared to North Korea in reacting to such pressures.The main difference in Iran that could prevent thiscomparison scenario from continuing in a negativelight is the existence of identifiable groups withinboth the main population and elite levels of gov-ernment that provide a contrary voice and have thepower to effect change. It is this voice of potentialgrassroots pragmatism that has been effectively si-lenced within North Korea and possibly has thepower to force Iran’s more dogmatic leadership tomove along a different trajectory, thus preventingthe nation from falling into the same despair asNorth Korea.

In contrast to North Korea, Indonesia, with theworld’s largest Muslim community, provides an ex-cellent example of how a democratic nation andIslam can peacefully co-exist within the global en-vironment. For decades Islamic political pressuresboiled in Indonesia as we currently see in manyMiddle Eastern nations today. These forces werekept largely in check by President Suharto’s militaryregime until the nation, long tired of authoritarianrule, forced Suharto to resign.

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We see some of these same pressures today withinIran as large segments of the population disagreewith the powers Khamenei wields over the govern-ment and look to effect at least quasi-democraticchange.

While many worry that Islam and democracy willnever be allowed to co-exist in Iran, we have seenthis as an unfounded worry inside Indonesia. Whilethe majority of Indonesians are Muslim, the state it-self is not considered theocratic. As in Indonesia, wesee in Iran a populace that is supportive of such fun-damental principles as the freedom of political par-ties, inclusive suffrage, freedom of the press, and anumber of other civil rights normally associatedwith mature consolidated democracies. With an in-crease in religious and cultural plurality within Iran,the stage could soon be set for a more inclusiveform of government similar to the Indonesian path.

Such a successful outcome, however, would requirea political disengagement of the current religiousleadership that currently sits atop Iran’s powerstructures. That may well be unattainable at thismoment but it is certainly not outside the realm ofpossibility in the future, through either peaceful ornon-peaceful means. Economic hardships com-bined with Persian nationalism could well forceIran’s leadership to effect change within the state inorder to ensure its own political survival, even if ata lessened capacity. Once that door is opened, whoknows how swift and dramatic potential changescould be? Peaceful and progressive revolutionsaimed at JOINING more tightly to the global com-munity are less noticeable and far harder to predictthan strident ideological movements bent on sep-arating further from the international stage. Iran hasalready had this latter revolution. Now it is time tohope that the former is on the visible horizon.


Kevin Augustine

Kevin Augustine is a graduate student in the Interna-tional Security and Intelligence Studies Program atBellevue University in Omaha, NE, USA.

GREAT POWER JOCKEYING IN THECASPIANThe GeoGraphical

lynchpin

Russia is one of three states running interferenceagainst American objectives in Eurasia, the othertwo being Iran and China. Russia poses the biggestthreat against American objectives in the regiondue mainly to a supposed historical security imper-ative to control the Eurasian landmass. However,this explanation doesn’t fully fit the evidence. Russiadoes not act the way it does based on centuries-oldhabits. Instead the strategy lies in the much newerhabit of senior Russian policymakers who belongedto the all-Union elite before 1991 and have the ten-dency to see the post-Soviet Eurasian states asthough they were still Soviet Socialist Republics,that is, still largely geopolitically beholden to thepower of Russia.Probably the biggest and often most overlooked re-gion in Eurasia is the Caspian Sea. If the U.S is tohave a grand strategy to deal with Russia and anemboldened Iran, policymakers in Washington can-not ignore the Caspian region for the sake of con-venience. The Caspian Sea is important for manyreasons and beyond a doubt Russia and Iran are thetwo biggest actors in the region.Furthermore, Chinahas invested heavily in a number of infrastructureprojects in Central Asia and Moscow is keeping aclose eye on Beijing’s motives in the region andviews Beijing as a potential competitor for influencein the region in the same way Russia sees Iran.

bigniew Brzezinkski defined “Eurasia” asone of the most important geopoliticalconcepts. He observed, “Ever since thecontinents started interacting politically,

some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been thecenter of world power. A power that dominates“Eurasia” would control two of the world’s threemost advanced and economically productive re-gions. A mere glance at the map also suggests thatcontrol over “Eurasia” would almost automaticallyentail Africa’s subordination, rendering the WesternHemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheralto the world’s central continent. About 75 per centof the world’s people live in “Eurasia”, and most ofthe world’s physical wealth is there as well, both inits enterprises and underneath its soil. “Eurasia” ac-counts for about three-fourths of the world’s knownenergy resources.” In the Western sense, when political scientists talkabout “Eurasia”, they generally mean Russia. Russiahas been marginalized at the edge of a Western-dominated political and economic system and in re-cent years has begun to stress a geopolitics thatputs Russia at the center of a number of axes: Euro-pean-Asian, Christian-Muslim-Buddhist, Mediter-ranean-Indian, Slavic-Turkic, and so on. A strategytowards Eurasia is paramount in deterring any Russ-ian aggression in Eurasia.

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The GreaTer caSpian proJecT 23

For the most part the actions of these three “quasi-adversarial” states are individualistic. The goals ofMoscow in the Caspian today and for the foresee-able future are the following: marginalize Westerninfluence in the region; integrate the countries inthe region into Russian-backed organizations; dis-courage outside investment in Turkmenistan, Azer-baijan, and Kazakhstan that could facilitate the flowof oil and gas to Western markets by bypassing Rus-sia; increase economic activity with the otherCaspian states; and maintain regional hegemonyover Iran. Iran is less active here than it is elsewherein the Middle East but Tehran is not idle in terms ofactivity in the Caspian region. Tehran’s policy to-ward the region relies on three things: more finan-cial resources; less dependency on Russia; and moreconfidence on the international stage. Now thatIran and the U.S. have reached a compromise on anuclear deal in Vienna, Iran will have the resourcesto increase its influence in the Caspian region. Alsothis will mean less dependency on Russia for sup-port, undermining Russia’s interest in the region.

Without a doubt, Russia has a more visible presencein the Caspian region. Russia has the strongest navyand military activity in Caspian waters tends to re-flect its strength. Russia participates in virtuallyevery military drill and operation there and muchof the equipment used is made by Moscow. Thestrategic importance and hydrocarbon interest ofthe Caspian Sea brings all nations involved intosemi-tense conflict with each other. As the interestof the countries involved diverge, so too do theirnaval strategies. Caspian Sea states can and will leadto imminent conflict but the states will also alwaystry to maintain stability as best they can becausethey understand that instability could invite exter-nal intervention-something none of them want.

MoDernDiploMacy.eU

They are Russian partners, but partners with a tingeof rivalry and tension.

The United States has four primary goals in theCaspian region: assisting the Caspian in becominga stable and secure transit and production zone forenergy resources; checking Russian and Iranianmeddling in the region so the countries in the re-gion are stable, sovereign, and self-governing;keeping radical Islam out; and resolving the frozenconflicts in the region because Moscow exerts mostof its influence through these conflicts.

However, even with these interests, U.S. engage-ment in the region remains minimal. Due to theproximity of the Caspian Sea, out of the five Caspianlittoral states of Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turk-menistan, and Kazakhstan, it is easy to see how theregional powers of Iran and Russia are able to exertsignificant influence in the region. Even Turkey, whois not a Caspian littoral country, is able to exert sig-nificant influence. What are China’s motives in theregion and how do they compare to those of Iranand Russia?

China is always looking for new economic and en-ergy opportunities and that is the main motivationbehind its presence in the region. However, as thecountry becomes increasingly embedded in theCaspian region, the U.S. can expect Beijing to exertconsiderable influence in the future. Beijing is in-vesting billions of dollars in projects, not only to up-grade and modernize rail networks, pipelines, androads, but also to encourage cultural exchanges-allwith the goal of maximizing Chinese influence inthe region. Iran, Russia, and China, in their quest fordominance in the region, are increasingly margin-alizing Western influence.

Luke Coffey, an expert from the Heritage Founda-tion, offers a list of steps that America can take tosafeguard its political, economic and security inter-ests in the region. He states the U.S. should:

show a more visible presence in the regionsupport a peaceful and speedy resolution ofCaspian Sea ownershipstrike a balance between promoting humanrights and safeguarding other U.S. strategic interestsOffer political support for the construction of the TAPIOffer political support for the construction of theTrans-Caspian Gas Pipeline and the Southern GasCorridor projectencourage Caspian countries to diversify their economiesencourage countries in the region to stay awayfrom Russian-dominated organizationsPromote economic freedom in the regionengage more with AzerbaijanHelp regional countries to improve their security and defense capabilitiesCounter the rise of Islamist extremist in the regionMonitor the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia’s close ties with RussiaDiscourage Europe from becoming dependenton Iranian oil and gasProvide military and security assistance to all deserving allies in the region

As implied, Russia and Iran have the most influencein the region. Beijing, in its quest for economic andenergy opportunities in the region, will soon haveconsiderable influence in the region given its grow-ing status in the world. Russia and Iran have differ-ent priorities but both share the same goal ofreducing the influence of the West. The Caspian re-gion has been, is, and will continue to be an area ofgeopolitical importance and competition. If the U.S.is to have a grand strategy to deal with a resurgentRussia and an emboldened Iran and to improve Eu-rope’s energy security, policymakers in Washingtonmust recognize that the geographical lynchpin ofthis future hinges in the Caspian.

The GreaTer caSpian proJecT 23

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON

Advisory Board Vice-Chairman, Caspian Project Director

Matthew Crosston is Professor of Political Sci-ence, Director of the International Security andIntelligence Studies Program, and the MillerChair at Bellevue University

ANONYMOUS

Anonymous is currently a graduate student in Interna-tional Security and Intelligence Studies at Bellevue University and works within the US governmental system.The opinions expressed are strictly personal and do notreflect a formal endorsement of or by the United States’government and/or Intelligence Community.

ooperation between the nations of theSCO on terrorism, separatism, and ex-tremism can be viewed as progressivelypositive. Russia and China taking the

lead across general Central Asian cooperation hasbeen critical in keeping terrorism and extremismfrom creating safe havens throughout the region.

China and Russia establishing consensus and agree-ing to tackle drug trafficking, financing, and onlinerecruitment in the expansive fight against terrorismand extremism is a big step towards containing theproblem regionally.

In addition, the SCO’s broader cooperation withAfghanistan, Mongolia, Iran, India, Belarus, SriLanka, and Turkey, creates a stronger regional com-mitment framework against terrorism and extrem-ism. The SCO’s RATS (Regional Anti-terrorismStructure) teams work with the aforementioned

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tHE gREAtER CASPIAN PROJECt 23

PROGRESSIVE POSITIVITY

SCO SECURItY AgENDAS

AND tRANSNAtIONAL POLICINg

DR. MATTHEW CROSSTON & ANONYMOUS

states to train military and intelligence services tomonitor terrorism. This will create a more uniformedapproach to stop transnational financing and re-cruiting. To the member states, the SCO is “a politicalcommitment of Russia and China to the interna-tional fight against terrorism where the West has to-tally abdicated this task.” This includes the fight inSyria and Iraq where RATS’ objectives are to stopDAESH expansion.

Beyond Afghanistan and DAESH expansion, Chinais anxious to prevent the infiltration of foreign ter-rorist, extremist, and separatist groups in the restiveXinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in its North-western territory. The area has long had its ownhomegrown violent separatists who jeopardize thesecurity of the Chinese state, according to the rulingregime. Xinjiang, which was first incorporated intoChina in 1949, shares borders with other SCO mem-bers - Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.

The population of Xinjiang is predominantly Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs that share strong histori-cal, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious ties withthe Uighurs residing in these other Central Asiancountries. Separatist militants such as the EasternTurkistan Islamic Movement and the Turkistan Is-lamic Party are known to be operating partly fromthese neighboring countries and have committedterrorist acts in their fight for an independent stateor at least autonomous territory.

These terrorist activities peaked at the end of the1990s / beginning of the 2000s, coinciding, asHansen points out, with the rise of the Taliban andAl-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Thus, for China, security inthis region is extremely important and the partner-ships with the Central Asian states through the SCOallow cooperative security initiatives to target ex-tremism and terrorism that directly impact Chinesenational interests and agendas without necessarilytaking excessive criticism from the internationalcommunity for unilateral initiatives.

Security is also Russia’s primary focus for the SCO.Any breakdown of security in Central Asia would di-rectly threaten Russian national security perceptionin general terms because of the approximately fivemillion ethnic Russians who live in the region. Russ-ian is still the common second language of most ofthe region’s populations and the countries in theSCO have generally maintained a cooperative andnon-provocative attitude toward Russia. Most obvi-ously, they have all provided use of military facilitiesand troops to Russia when necessary. Central Asiais also one of the only areas that Russia does not yethave to compete with so-called “infiltration” by theEU and NATO.

For Russia, the SCO plays a supplementary and con-solidating role in the region in which its national se-curity interests largely go unchallenged. Pairingwith China also reduces what could have been a po-tentially adversarial dynamic, as China seeks to gaineconomic growth by tapping into the vast energyresources across Central Asia. As noted by Reevesand many other academics, the SCO RATS also al-lows Russia to less bombastically counter US andNATO influence in the region. In 2005, the SCO wasable to collectively lean on Western powers to set afinal timeline for cessation of their temporary use ofmilitary bases in Central Asia as a launching pad foroperations in Afghanistan. They also called for thewithdrawal of troops from SCO members’ territories.Ultimately, Uzbekistan terminated the US military’srights while Kyrgyzstan only allowed the US militaryto stay after drastically renegotiating the rent for itsbase.For other member states the SCO’s anti-radicalismpolicy provides additional support and strength totheir own local security measures, with the final de-lineation of their borders with China and Russia sta-bilizing some disagreements at home. The CentralAsian states have always been acutely aware of theirprecarious position between two major powers,with yet another distant American power com-monly initiating contact because of its own securityagendas within the region. The SCO, therefore, pro-vides Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajik-istan some ability to balance Russia and China offof each other and carve out some maneuverabilityand space with the United States. Ostensibly, thetraining and enforcement of counterintelligenceoperations against terrorism, local insurgency, anddrug trafficking has helped keep internal instabilityat bay.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

Many of the members have always been concernedthat the unrest in Afghanistan could spill over theirborders, especially into places such as the FerganaValley. These areas have often shown increases inextremist Islamic movements, such as the IslamistHizb ut-Tahrir (HT). The Fergana Valley is artificiallysplit between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistanand Central Asian militaries and intelligence agen-cies have routinely performed poorly in combattingsuch movements as individual states. RATS providesbetter communication channels and more efficientstrategic coordination to combat groups like the HT,in addition to much needed security services train-ing, that was simply not available before the SCO.Many of the SCO observer states face similar issuesat home with drug trafficking, terrorists, extremists,and separatists, and want to be included more for-mally in the SCO to benefit from these exercises,training, and transnational policing efforts. India,Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan all have their ownfights domestically and on shared borders.

All of them have interest in the economic and secu-rity advantages of being linked to the SCO. Irancould gain further critical economic and militarytrade that has long been blocked by economicsanctions by the West. India and Pakistan have goodrelations with the West but seek to have better po-litical relationships with Central Asian powers andneed help combatting border infringement, terror-ism, and insurgency in order to find the regional ter-ritorial stability their countries need. Ultimately,what can be seen over the past decade is an inter-national organization that was often criticized forits lack of seriousness and gravity is slowly butsurely evolving across several measures and withinmultiple layers of connective interactivity to be anIO of note.


esides its suffocation from the ongoing internalinsurgencies in Waziristan, Baluchistan and otherareas, Pakistan is also suffocating in terms of itsforeign relations. Pakistan is already facing an un-

pleasant situation regarding Saudi-Iran rivalry.Saudi Arabia, along with its fellow Arab-Sunni states, is usingits sunni brand in order to rally the sunnis around the worldbehind its back against its rival Iran. On the other side, Iranis playing the same game by using the card of shia-ism inpulling the shias around the world towards its cause of por-traying Saudi Arabia an evil power. While Pakistan is tradi-tionally allied with Saudi Arabia, its need for national securityand energy security has been pushing Pakistan into chang-ing its foreign policy by moving away from ‘all-out influence’of Saudi Arabia and taking a more lenient approach with re-gard to Iran. In other words, Pakistan has been attemptingto draw a balance between its relations with Saudi Arabiaand its relations with Iran.

B

BAHAUDDIN FOIZEE

Primarily a legal practitioner, teaches law at Dhaka Centrefor Law & Economics, a University of London law graduate,regularly writes columns on international affairs

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

PAKISTAN’S URGE FOR NATIONAL

& ENERGY SECURITY

TRADITIONAL PAKISTAN-SAUDI RELATIONS

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are decades old friends.Saudi Arabia was at Pakistan’s side whenever Pak-istan needed a warm friend. Saudi Arabia stood be-side Pakistan in Pakistan’s effort to counter its archrival India’s major moves, including Pakistan’s nu-clear race against India. Saudi Arabia has been liter-ally showering ‘economically weak Pakistan’ withbillions of dollars in financial aid.

A protocol was signed between Pakistan and SaudiArabia in 1982 following Saudi Arabia’s request formilitary manpower assistance. Pakistani militarypresence in Saudi Arabia continues till the day, pro-viding Saudi Arabia support against internal and ex-ternal regional threats. Naeem Khan, Pakistan'sformer ambassador to Saudi Arabia, stated that Pak-istan considers Saudi Arabia's security as a "personalmatter".

Saudi Arabia needs Pakistan by its side in order togeopolitically counter Iran for three reasons: (i) Pak-istan is a nuclear-armed state; (ii) Pakistan is a strongand big-in-size military power; and, (iii) Pakistan,with a Sunni majority population, is Shia majorityIran’s next door neighbour. On the other hand, Pak-istan needs Saudi Arabia by its side for several rea-sons, but the most important ones are: (i) SaudiArabia showers Pakistan with economic aid (funds,resources, etc), and (ii) Saudi Arabia provides aid fora large portion of Pakistan’s military spending.


TRADITIONAL PAKISTAN-IRAN RELATIONS

Pakistan and Iran could not maintain a good rela-tionship between themselves after 1979, when theaccession of the Shia-clerics into the driving-powerof Iran made the surrounding Sunni neighboursprovoked against the newly formed Iranian regime.Pakistan and the Arabian-Gulf Sunni states’ relationswith Iran deteriorated drastically. During the lastfew years of cold-war period, Iran was more inclinedto the Soviet Union, whereas Pakistan and the Gulfstates were actively helping the West (led by theU.S.) to curtail Soviet influence in the Central Asia,especially in Afghanistan.

From that period on, the successive Pakistaniregimes and the Iranian regimes mostly maintaineddistance between themselves. Pakistan’s increasingalignment with Saudi Arabia made the Pakistan-Iranrelations worse. For decades, Saudi Arabia has beenproviding Pakistan with military funding and eco-nomic aid in return for nuclear-armed Pakistan’s as-surance of staying aligned with Saudi Arabia andalso in order to help Saudi Arabia militarily when-ever it requires.

IRAN’S POSITION AFTER THE IRAN NUCLEARDEAL

Iran is a country having land access to multiple re-gions and access to multiple water ways. Borderswith South Asia, Central Asia, the Arab region andEurope, and coastlines with the Caspian Sea, PersianGulf, Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean make Iran anideal location for commercial and geostrategic pur-poses. Iran, despite having these advantages, hadbeen suffering economically because of the sanc-tions imposed on it by the international communityfor decades. These sanctions on Iran have helpedthe Arabian-Gulf Sunni states, especially Saudi Ara-bia, to remain as the major oil exporter in the worldwithout any annoyance.

However, it seems that the developing incidents inthis regard are tempting the equation of the regionto change altogether. The Iran nuclear Deal wassigned, and started to be implemented, by and be-tween Iran and five permanent members of the UNSecurity Council along with Germany on the mosttalked-about geopolitically important Iranian nu-clear programme. Under this deal, internationaleconomic sanctions against Iran have alreadystarted to be lifted one by one.

The lifting of the international sanctions means thatIran’s economy would be, in a matter of years, com-peting shoulder to shoulder with that of Saudi Ara-bia, which is Iran’s major rival in all aspects. With abooming economy, Iran would want not only tostrengthen its military might, but also to increase itspolitical influence over the region and the globe, es-pecially over the Muslim world.

PAKISTAN’S IMPROVING RELATIONS WITHIRAN

Through Chinese led Silk Route Economic Belt (OneBelt One Route) initiative, Shanghai Cooperation Or-ganization, Asian Infrastructural Investment Bankand other mechanisms, Pakistan and Iran alongwith China, India and Russia have been actively try-ing to establish a political, security and economicsystem for cooperation in order to avoid all sorts ofprobable conflicts among these countries, most ofwhich have, or previously had, volatile relationswith one another.

Both Iran and Pakistan know well that China-Pak-istan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is part ofChina’s initiative to revive the ancient Silk Route, hasthe potential to transform the economies of Pak-istan and, if accommodated, of Iran, India andAfghanistan. CPEC is most likely to bring peace andprosperity not only in Pakistan’s conflict-tornBaluchistan, but also in the Pakistan’s neighbour-hood – South Asia and Central Asia.

Pakistan is now concentrating on neutralizing allthe insurgencies inside its territory and on shapingup a business friendly Pakistan. Pakistan’s economyis likely to become huge because of the Silk RouteEconomic Belt initiative led by China.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

Pakistan will soon, therefore, need huge supply offuel-energy in order to fuel its economy; and Iran,after withdrawal of economic sanctions, is now ableto supply the energy that Pakistan requires. FromPakistan’s recent moves, it seems that Pakistan is tookeen to import oil and gas from Iran in order toenjoy easily accessible energy-supply-destinationas Iran is Pakistan’s next door neighbour. That iswhy, Pakistan seems to be moving away from thetraditional ‘all-out influence’ of its decades old allySaudi Arabia and trying to balance between rela-tions with Saudi Arabia and relations with Iran.

Pakistan is already facing an unpleasant situationregarding Saudi-Iran rivalry, particularly in respectto Saudi led coalition’s war on Yemen’s Houthi mili-tants. Saudi Arabia asked Pakistan for supportingthe coalitions’ war through sending ground-troopsto fight the Houthis in Yemen. Pakistan respondedby asking Saudi Arabia to excuse it for not involvingin the Yemeni war. But Pakistan assured Saudi Ara-bia that it would do anything and everything pos-sible to counter any “direct” threat to Saudi Arabia’ssovereignty. In short, Pakistan denied Saudi Arabia’srequest to send its own troops to fight a war side byside with Saudi Arabia, disregarding Saudi Arabia’sheavy investments in Pakistan and Saudi’s backingof Pakistan for decades in its dispute with India.

OBSERVATIONS

Pakistan knows very well that sending troops toYemen would invite Iranian attempts to destabilisePakistan internally as Iran may take advantage ofthe facts that (i) more than 20 percent of Pakistan’stotal population are shia and (ii) Iran is Pakistan’snext door neighbour. And India, Pakistan’s arch rival,would not fall short of using such a destabilized sit-uation to its advantage — Pakistan is aware of thistoo. Moreover, an army (Pakistan army) that is al-ready waging an internal war against the militantsinside its territory cannot afford to lend its troops tofight a foreign war.

Pakistan is substantially moving away from the Westbloc to the East & South bloc.

While Pakistan previously had good relations withthe U.S., Saudi Arabia and China, it had awful rela-tions with Russia, former Soviet Union, India andIran. However, shifts in its balance of foreign rela-tions have been taking place. Pakistan seems to bemoving away from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in itsattempt to coming closer to China and Iran. EvenRussia’s relation with Pakistan is improving gradu-ally. Whether good or bad, this shifts in foreign re-lations put Pakistan into image crisis in two ways.First, it shows that Pakistan never remains a friend(or foe) forever. Secondly, such shifts in foreign re-lations show that Pakistan lacks the capacity and ca-pability to shape and design a single foreign policyfor itself. Every changing government in Pakistan,civilian or not, engages with a foreign policy whichis different from that of its predecessor.


nergy: what was once a largely single-re-source/two-state controlled industry has givenway to other resources of significance. In turn,this has also given rise to other states as major

players in the arena. Given the increased need for energyamong states, there has been greater collaboration andcooperation among states with regards to energy re-sources.This is well exemplified by the US’ early and continued en-ergy relationship with Saudi Arabia following World WarII. Saudi Arabia may have drastically different security andhuman rights priorities than the US, and yet they bothhave been longtime energy partners that rely on one an-other heavily. Relationships of this nature have grown infrequency since then and as a result the Caspian regionhas emerged as a major player in energy security geopol-itics.

E

TROY BAXTER

Troy Baxter is currently a Master’s Student in Belle-vue University’s International Security and Intelli-gence Studies Program in Omaha, Nebraska. Hereceived his Honours Degree in Criminal Justice andPublic Policy from the University of Guelph in On-tario, Canada in 2013.

ModerNdiPloMaCy.eU

NATURAL GAS AND THE ‘LESSER’ CASPIANSHow New Players MigHt be good for everyoNe

Oil production and export from the region has pri-marily gone through Russia (or the USSR) through-out history. Caspian states, however, havediscovered that they are home to some of thelargest natural gas reserves in the world and noware looking to bypass Russia entirely to export it tothe European Union (EU). This is significant for tworeasons: first, it would shrink Russia’s impact as acontroller of energy resources worldwide, especiallyin the EU. Second, it would drastically raise Kaza-khstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan’s profiles overenergy resources and security.

Russia’s historical dominance over the Caspian re-gion gave it significant control over the global en-ergy market.

tHe greater CasPiaN ProJeCt 23

By and large oil has been, and for the most part stillis, associated with energy security. So long as a na-tion has access to an amount of oil commensuratewith its needs, it is energy secure. However, a newplayer in the energy resource arena has begun toemerge: natural gas. Though natural gas has beenaround forever, it has taken on a position of impor-tance in the struggle for energy security only re-cently. Natural gas can be used for everything fromheating, cooking, and electricity generation. In factit has many of the same applications as oil. TheCaspian region is starting to exploit this resource.The region is one of the oldest oil-producing areasin the world and, though it continues to play a sig-nificant role in oil production, the control of energyin the region has begun to shift largely as a result ofnatural gas

It is estimated that 17 percent of the world’s oilcomes from the Caspian (primarily Iran and Russia)and it is largely responsible for providing the EUwith energy security. The shift away from Russia byother Caspian states, however, erodes Russia’s stran-glehold on energy resources in the region and givesway to exciting new players and geopolitics.Caspian states have already begun to break awayfrom Russia in their bid to export natural gas to theEU. The process has been underway since the dis-solution of the USSR, with concrete realization inthe late 1990’s. But ultimately it was always hin-dered due to strong opposition, largely from Russiaand Iran, which vehemently opposed the any inde-pendent Caspian projects from the other littorals.In the mid-2000s, once the Russia-Ukraine gas dis-pute began in earnest, the project began to gainmore traction. There was a shift in allegiance be-tween the littoral nations and renewed interest inthe project sprang back to life. Since then, massiveheadway has continued to be made, largely to thedismay of Russia and Iran.

The Russia-Ukraine dispute can truly be seen as thepoint when the lesser Caspian littorals decided toseparate themselves from Russia as far as energy re-source export is concerned. This is not to say theyhave separated themselves completely, as there isstill collaboration on energy resources in the area.However, the dispute has led to Russia and Iranbeing excluded from the southern gas corridor proj-ect, which is expected to become fully operationalby 2020 and supply much of the EU with naturalgas. This is a boon financially for the nations in-volved, but perhaps more importantly, it creates amajor geopolitical shift for those lesser littorals inthe Caspian.

States such as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kaza-khstan, who have historically had decidedly smallerstakes in the energy sector, stand to gain significanttraction by building and remaining in control of thiscorridor without major Iranian or Russian influ-ence/interference. This can only serve to strengthentheir diplomatic ties with the EU while simultane-ously weakening Russia’s and elevating their statusas legitimate players in energy geopolitics. Russiaand Iran have opposed the pipeline repeatedly,with Russia playing a far more active and vocal rolein the opposition than Iran. Throughout the lastdecade and a half, Russia has thrown virtually everypiece of oppositional ammunition at the construc-tion of the pipeline. Its two primary tactics havebeen to oppose it environmentally and by way ofold treaties.

The treaty option has been the strongest opposi-tional tool used. Specifically, Russia has been usingthe treaties signed by Iran and the Soviet Union in1921 and 1940 to threaten the other Caspian states.They have pointed out that the treaties are still ineffect and that without support for the pipelinefrom all littoral states, any construction in theCaspian Sea would be illegal. There is some dis-agreement over whether these treaties still hold anylegal bearing today. Next, Russia leveraged the en-vironment in an attempt to oppose the project. Ac-cording to Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry,pipelines along the Caspian Sea floor would be en-vironmentally unacceptable. Aside from the factthat anytime a pipeline is placed in a body of waterit has some environmental risk, this was clearly anattempt by Russia to try and generate internationalopposition to the pipeline.

ModerNdiPloMaCy.eU

This is of course somewhat ironic given Russia usessimilar environmentally-concerning pipeline routes.Evidently none of these attempts have had much ofan impact on the project overall as it is still well un-derway. There is no doubt that Russia and Iran spentsuch a considerable amount of time opposing thepipeline due to the fact they knew its constructionset a bad precedent for their continued dominancein the local energy sector. If former Soviet states canbreak away from Russia economically, then perhapsthey can break away in yet other ways in the future.The more these lesser littoral Caspian statesstrengthen diplomatic bonds with Western-leaningnations, the less reliant they are on Russia. The fur-ther Russia is from controlling larger amounts of en-ergy, the weaker its position in terms of geopolitics,something it considers anathema to its interna-tional security profile and agenda.

Moving forward, the lesser Caspians will gain sig-nificant respect and authority in their developmentand control over future energy. This alters thegeopolitical arena enough that other states aroundthe globe need to take notice, though this aware-ness so far has been slow. It allows the Caspian,minus Russia and Iran, to be yet another optionwhen it comes to building diplomatic ties and se-curing access to energy now and in the future. De-spite the fact that the amount of natural gas theyplan on moving may not radically alter the geopo-litical arena overnight, there is opportunity to moveenough in the future that could make a major im-pact. More importantly, this gives the EU a secondoption for energy procurement, which increases itsenergy security and also gives it the option toslowly cut ties with other ‘problematic’ providerslike Russia.

Perhaps the most interesting point of this entire de-velopment is Russia’s complete lack of desire to doanything but threaten verbally and act diplomati-cally. To date the nation has not taken any physicalaction to impede the pipeline and it has also con-tinued to maintain trade and economic ties with thelesser Caspian nations it is protesting against. De-spite having divergent views on the pipeline andactively attempting to impede it diplomatically,Russia seems unwilling to militarize the situation,something that deserves at least begrudging re-spect and acknowledgement. Perhaps this is a po-tential sign of building diplomacy over militarysolutions, which would be a global plus for the en-tire international community. If Iran and Russia re-alize they must recognize challenges to their energydominance with only a need to work with otherCaspian nations, even though they do not com-pletely agree with them, then a critical future regionof the globe has a chance to remain stable and atpeace. In this case, maybe the entrance of new play-ers into the arena doesn’t have to signal the start ofa new bloodbath or new geopolitical tension.

tHe greater CasPiaN ProJeCt 23

s early as January 11, 2016, even though wecame to know it only in March, King Abdullah ofJordan stated in Washington that Turkey was de-liberately exporting Islamic terrorists in Europe,

after having "produced" them in Syria and on its national ter-ritory. On that occasion the Jordanian king was not receivedby the US President, Barack Obama, but he clearly reaffirmedTurkey's commitment to support Daesh/Isis both in Syria andin Iraq, as well as to export Islamist terrorism in Europe. Hedid so before an audience of influential US senators and jour-nalists. According to the Jordanian king, Turkey wants an "Is-lamist and radical" solution for the whole Middle East region.Hence, not only on the basis of the statements made by theHashemite king, the Turkish issue is the real keystone of theanti-jihadist strategy in the Greater Middle East. On the otherhand, Turkey itself has long been the major supplier ofweapons and weapon systems to Daesh/Isis.

A

TURKEY’S CURRENTWISHES

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

GIANCARLO ELIA VALORI

Advisory Board Co-chair Honoris Causa

Professor Giancarlo Elia Valori is an eminent Italian economist andbusinessman. He holds prestigious academic distinctions and nationalorders. Mr Valori has lectured on international affairs andeconomics at the world’s leading universities such as Peking Univer-

sity, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Yeshiva University inNew York.

machine-gunners, hand grenades and various tac-tical communication tools.Moreover, at least ac-cording to the well-informed Russian militaryintelligence sources, Turkey has supplied Daesh/Isiswith 2,500 tons of ammonium nitrate, 450 tons ofpotassium nitrate, 75 tons of aluminium powder,large quantities of sodium nitrate, glycerine and ni-tric acid.

As is well-known, they are all primary componentsof explosives. The funds provided to Besar appar-ently come from private financers, but actually be-long to MIT special accounts.

Again in 2015, the NGO Yilikter organized over 25convoys inside Syria, funded by Turkish, Middle Eastand European accounts managed in Turkey by theKuveyt Turk and Vakif banks.


Turkey acts in particular through non-governmen-tal organizations (NGOs), which are all controlled bythe intelligence services MIT - and supplies are de-livered by land or via the Euphrates river, by care-fully mixing real humanitarian aid with weapons.One of these NGOs is the Besar Foundation, led bya MIT man, D. Sanli, that in 2015 arranged over 50convoys to supply weapons and victuals to the Turk-men jihadists of Bayirbukac and Kiziltepe, about 250kilometres away from Damascus, either alone orjointly with another Turkish NGO, the Yilikter Foun-dation for Human Rights and Freedom.The supplieswere delivered through some checkpoints alongthe Turkish-Syrian border or, as already said,through waterways, particularly the Euphratesriver.Over the past two months, the weapons sentby Turkey to ISIS have been mainly TOW anti-tankmissiles, RPG-7 mortars, several 7.62 mm M-60

One of the Turkish NGOs involved in operations de-signed to support Daesh/Isis is IHH, the "Foundationfor the Defence of Human Rights and FundamentalFreedoms", explicitly backed by the Turkish govern-ment. Since the beginning of hostilities in Syria, in 2011,IHH has sent to Syria 7,500 vehicles with weapons"hidden" and mixed with traditional military aid.IHH receives funds from the Turkish State and fromseveral private financers, that pass through theusual Ziraat and Vakif banks. With a view to supply-ing weapons to ISIS, the Turkish secret agents man-age the military depots in the border towns ofBukulmez and Sansarin, from which they take theweapons to be hidden and mixed with humanitar-ian aid.Usually the Turkish weapons for Isis transit throughthe border crossing of Cilvegoezu, 530 kilometressouth-east of Ankara.

The Turkish intelligence services support not onlythe "Turkmen" jihadists operating along the West-ern border - who, inter alia, are responsible for theshooting down of the Russian Sukhoi-24 aircraftand the rescue helicopter last January - but alsoJabhat al Sham, the "Levant Front", a jihadist groupoperating in the area of Aleppo, as well as the manyother political and military movements whichquickly come in and out of the large rassemblementof the Al Nusra Front, namely Al Qaeda Syrian “sec-tion". The Turkish private business companies linkedto the government buy the goods produced in theFree Trade Zone of Mersin, along the Turkish South-ern coast and ship them to ISIS.With a view to avoid-ing border problems, the military productsintended for Daesh/Isis are sent to companies reg-istered in Jordan or in Iraq, with documents bearingthe wording "transit through the Syrian Arab Re-public" instead of the name of the receiver.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

The Turkish customs offices concerned are in An-talya, Gaziantep and Mersin. Later the goods in-tended for the "Caliphate" transit through thecrossings of Cilvegoezu and Oencuepnar up toreaching the areas controlled by Isis.Hence Presi-dent Erdogan’s project is clear: through Isis he plansto balkanize Iraq, Syria, the Lebanon and the wholeregion up to the Caucasus, so as to project the Turk-ish power from Anatolia’s border up to CentralAsia.It is the old Panturanic Islamist/neo-Ottomantemptation, which resumes backwards the route ofthe Turkish tribes arriving from Western Siberia upto the Mediterranean.

Obviously this implies denying any autonomy tothe Kurds, whom the Turkish press called "the Turksof the mountains."Furthermore, it is worth addingthat this is a perspective totally alien to the strategyof NATO, of which Turkey is the Member State hav-ing the second largest Armed Forces after theUnited States.What does the NATO Secretary Gen-eral - the young Norwegian Social Democrat leaderStoltenberg, appointed to that post in 2014 – haveto say on this matter?Born in 1969, can he remem-ber when the German Social Democrat HelmutSchmidt "froze" – jointly with the conservativeFrench President Giscard d'Estaing - the Italian mil-itary posts within NATO, in the phase in which theItalian Communist Party (PCI) was entering the gov-ernment coalition?Does he think that the "sword jihad" is just a way to"topple Assad’s tyrannical regime" in Syria and bringthere the famous two-party parliamentary democ-racy, which is so fashionable in the West?Or dothose who support the "Caliphate" think that the ji-hadists will easily obey Turkey’s orders or the ordersof the other countries supporting them, afterachieving their success on the ground?

Therefore, for Turkey, the goals to be reached bysupporting Daesh/Isis, are those of a direct inter-vention on the Syrian territory, with the possible es-tablishment of a large "Sunni district" as an areasubjugated to Turkey.Moreover, Turkey does not re-ally want the great anti-Iranian area that Saudi Ara-bia plans to create in the Middle East, or at least itwishes it only as part of its pan-Turkish projectstretching from the Mediterranean to Central Asiaup to Xingkiang, the Turkmen region inside Com-munist China.Nor does the Turkish governmentwant to fully adhere to the Saudi geopolitics in theregion, which would force it to submit to Saudi Ara-bia, thus taking it away from the European Unionand the United States.

Hence Turkey’s use of Daesh/Isis implies the idea ofa "controlled fire" in Syria and Iraq, that Turkeyhopes it can target both against the Kurds and to-wards Iran’s future expansion area, which would befinally blocked by the collapse of AlawiteSyria.Therefore, currently the Turkish governmentoperates to maintain its leadership in the regionand create a corridor towards Central Asia, as wellas conquer the Sunni area north of the Al Saud’sworld and influence both the United States and thefaint-hearted and foolish European Union.Nor doesTurkey want to entirely relinquish its own relationswith the United States, despite the scarce use al-lowed of the Incirlik air base for anti-Isis operationsand the Turkish army’s merely cosmetic actionsagainst Al Baghdadi’s Caliphate.

Furthermore, controlling and manipulating migra-tion flows to the EU enables Turkey to open andclose the EU “valves” both for a future EU member-ship and as a financial and political blackmailagainst EU institutions.


Moreover, President Erdogan’s support to ISIS al-lows to support the Islamist electoral faction withinthe ruling party, namely AKP, against the still wide"secular" areas and mindful of Ataturk, the elec-torate and the Turkish ruling classes.The trial against Ergenekon, the neo-coupist andsecularist military network, ended in 2013 with theconviction of 275 people, including the Chief ofStaff, Ilker Basbug, and the leader of the socialist"Patriotic Party", Dogu Perincek.Obviously if an Independent Kurdish State werefounded in Syria and Iraq, the mass of Kurds inTurkey would feel entitled to follow suit.The Kurds account for 10% of the total Turkish pop-ulation, and they are almost all spread throughoutthe Eastern provinces, in close contact with theirSyrian compatriots.

Hence Turkey maintains contacts with the UnitedStates (and not with the Atlantic Alliance, in whichit is scarcely interested), which is a traditional ally ofthe Kurdish groups in Syria (that now sympathizemore with Russia), so as to avoid the United Statespushing for an Independent Kurdish State – and inthat case Turkey could still use its good relationswith Isis, as a sort of blackmail.Moreover, Turkey is worried about the crisis inUkraine and the Black Sea, which is one of its pri-mary strategic points.

If tension mounted in that region, Turkey would befaced with two negative scenarios: the Russian (andRumanian) power projection onto the Black Sea andthe possibility for Russia to hold in check both theTurkish territory and its trade routes eastwards,which are key to Turkey’s Panturanic strategy.Nor does Turkey wish to completely turn againstRussia, from which it receives most of its oil and gassupplies which, however, are bound to double by2020 as to oil and to quadruplicate as to natural gas.And, indeed, the only rational source of supply isthe Russian region, which will certainly make itsweight felt and its voice heard if Turkey used the ji-hadist lever even further in the Syrian crisis.Should the European Union be able to think strate-gically, these could be the issues at stake in the Syr-ian-Iraqi region.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

he Kazakhstan snap Parliamentary elec-tions were held on 20 March 2016. Thesnap elections were called amidst eco-nomic turmoil and fears that the Kaza-

khstan government would lose voter and publicconfidence because of the economic situation inKazakhstan. The elections will solidify autocraticPresident Nursultan Nazarbayev’s rule over thecountry and make it appear that he has the unwa-vering support of the people of Kazakhstan. Re-ports of crackdown of dissent suggest otherwise.The crackdowns, aimed at political dissidents andnon-conformists to President Nazarbayev’s policies,is a way to control civil unrest and silence criticswhich is a longstanding criticism of the NazarbayevAdministration.The elections did not generate sig-nificant differences in the country’s political land-scape which has remained relatively unchangedsince Nazarbayev gained power in 1989.

T Arguably, the elections are part of Nazarbayev’s at-tempts to make Kazakhstan appear as a democraticcountry and are part of “managed democracy.” Theelections are being held against the backdrop of afailing economy, fluctuating tenge, low oil revenueprices and the oil market crash, political dissent, andNazarbayev’s need to be reaffirmed by the peopleof Kazakhstan. The election will also show regionalcountries that Kazakhstan handle economic prob-lems and is a reliable partner. Nazarbayev’s victorywas predictable and negative implications stem-ming from a minor Parliamentary mix-up are non-existent.

A Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) mis-sion monitored the elections. Kazakhstan’s pastelections have fallen short of international stan-dards citing lack of competitive candidates and cor-ruption.

SAMANTHA M. BRLETICH

Samantha M. Brletich is a researcher and writer specializing inCentral Asia and governance, security, terrorism, and devel-opment issues. She possesses a Master’s in Peace OperationsPolicy from George Mason University in Virginia, UnitedStates. She works with the virtual think tank Modern Diplo-macy specializing in Central Asia and diplomatic trends. Herwork has appeared in multiple publications focused on diplo-macy and Central Asia respectively. She is currently an em-ployee of the U.S. Federal Government.


KAZAKHSTAN’S SNAP ELECTION

As many as 234 candidates from the following sixparties vied for 98 available parliament seats: theruling Nur Otan party and the Party of PresidentNursultan Nazarbayev (127 candidates), Ak Zhol (35candidates), Auyl (19 candidates), the CommunistPeople's Party of Kazakhstan (22 candidates), theNationwide Social Democratic Party (23 candidates)and the Birlik party (eight candidates). Over 1,000candidates are running for seats in the lower Parlia-ment. Not much has changed as the other partiesplatforms do not vary that greatly. Political partiesare prohibited from forming blocks.According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, theresults of the March 20, 2016, parliamentary elec-tions show, “that three parties will have seats in theMajlis[:]Nur-Otan got 82.15 percent of the vote; AkZhol, 7.18 percent; and the Communist People'sParty of Kazakhstan took 7.14 percent.”

These results are similar to the 2012 Parliamentaryelections which highlights the lack of political vari-ety and true democracy in the country. The elec-tions were hailed a success by regionalorganizations, the SCO and the CIS. The ODIHR didnot agree as Kazakhstan has a long way to go to ful-fill its democratic agreement.International observers were not surprised at the re-sults. As early voting commenced on Sunday, theKazakh Central Election Committee, stated that theelections were transparent. The OSCE have beenheavily involved as “the OSCE/ODIHR Election Ob-servation Mission opened in Astana on17 February,with an11 member core team and 28 long-term-observers deployed throughout the country.”Whether or not the elections will expedite the re-forms or guarantee implementation, the economycontinues to slow.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

If Nur Otan retains its majority in Kazakhstan’s Par-liament, the speed of implementation would not beeffected. The snap elections directly are not beingheld to give the government a mandate on “100steps.” The legitimacy of “100 steps” is derived fromthe President and support from Parliament and theoverall willingness to reform Kazakhstan. Fifty-ninelaws have already entered into force citing informa-tion from the Astana Times.

The snap elections center on economic recoveryand political change. The snap elections are sup-ported by the Majlis, and the miners and metallur-gists to allow for “further implementation ofreforms,” under Plan of the Nation (or “100 Steps”)and to “understand how we work in a new way,what laws should be adopted to meet the require-ments of a market economy,” according to theKazakh BNews news portal. The Head of the Assem-bly of Peoples of Kazakhstan (APK) stated electionswill benefit the country politically and economi-cally. Kazakhstan’s People’s Democratic PatrioticParty, known as “Aul” Party, also supports the snapelections. Support from Aul makes the electionsand the decision not so one-sided appear pluralis-tic. The Astana Times, published astonishing, butnot surprising, poll results about voting in a newMajlis and reforms: “92 percent of citizens believethe early elections make the public more confidentthe new reforms will be implemented.” Other pollresults are similar.

Recently, on 12 January 2016, protests were held inAstana against the Kazakh Bank and the fallingtenge. In response, the Kazakh government offeredpowdered mare’s milk on the global market which“can generate product worth $1 billion (a year)” tomitigate declining global oil prices.

Another recent incident was the firing of the Sover-eign Wealth Fund manager, Berik Otemurat, statedKazakhstan’s National Oil Fund would run out in thenext six or seven years. The National Oil Fund, oftenused as an emergency fund, has fallen 17% from$77 billion since August 2014 and the governmentis withdrawing about according to the Wall StreetJournal. The tenge strengthened slightly in Febru-ary after the currency declined after the govern-ment began to float the currency and the countryis still experiencing weakened GDP growth. By mid-March the tenge has recovered by 10%.

Two activists in Kazakhstan, Serizkhan Mambetalinand Ermek Narymbaev, were convicted and sent toprison for two and three years respectively for Face-book posts “inciting national discord” (Article 174 ofthe Criminal Code) and the “authorities claimed theclips amounted to a ‘serious crime against peaceand security of humankind’ ” according to HumanRights Watch. The two men were arrested in Octo-ber 2015 and their trial began 9 December 2015. Athird activist, Bolatbek Blyalov, has movement re-stricted for three years and cannot “[change] hisplace of residence or work, or [spend] time in publicareas during his time off.” The punishment for thethree activists violates many of Kazakhstan’s inter-national commitments.

On 22 February, the head of the Union of Journalistsof Kazakhstan National Press Club, SeitkazyMatayev, was arrested on charges of corruption—accused of tax evasion and embezzlement of funds.According to TengrinNews, “the state anti-corrup-tion agency said Matayev was detained along withhis son Aset Matayev who heads the private KazTAGnews agency.” Seitkazy Matayev was PresidentNazarbayev’s press secretary from 1991 to 1993.


MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

The Committee on Protecting Journalists reportedthat the Mateyevs sent statements to Adil Soz (alocal press group) indicated harassment by city andstate authorities began in January 2016.

There was also a recent protest in Almaty on 18March 2016 about the incarceration of activist Yer-mek Narymbayev, one of the facebook activists,jailed for incitement ethnic strife (Kazakhstan Crim-inate Code Article 174).

Kazakhstan repeatedly has fallen short of commit-ments for democratic reforms (particularly pressfreedoms) and instead has strengthenedNazarbayev’s soft authoritarianism. Edward Schatzcategorizes Kazakhstan as a soft authoritarianregime that engages in managed information and“[discourages] opposition and [encourages] pro-regime authorities.” Information management, ac-cording to Schatz, is not only through media, but bystaging “many events to convey information dra-matically.” Nazarbayev has a history of staging po-litical events. Applying this notion to snap elections,Kazakhstan’s citizens know of the economic trou-bles. Snap elections are unnecessary to highlightthe problem and snap elections give the impressionthe government is actively handling the problemand that political change is imminent.

Kazakhstan does consider itself a democracy andwhether or not Kazakhstan’s democracy meets in-ternational standards will be revealed once institu-tions are strengthened. The Kazakhstan-basedAstana Times calls the 20 March elections the firststep towards returning “to the levels of growth andprosperity we experienced.” Constitutional reformsmay give more power to the lower house, redistrib-uting more power from the strong Presidential sys-tem the country now has (in theory).

Poor economic conditions are simple a pretext forsquashing dissent and reducing political opposi-tion. The poor economic conditions should beviewed as an opportunity to engage andstrengthen civil society, establish dialogue betweenthe government and non-governmental organiza-tions, strengthen financial institutions, and explorealternatives in the energy sector.

The crash of the commodities and oil markets pres-ents Kazakhstan a unique opportunity to diversifyits economy. The elections also present the oppor-tunity to implement electoral reform as Nazarbayevhas not picked a successor which greatly increasespolitical instability and the possible formation of apower vacuum.Kazakhstan during its time as the Chair for the Or-ganization for Security and Cooperation in Europehas failed to live up to its democratic obligations.The early Presidential elections of April 2015showed that democratic reforms have yet to mate-rialize. However, failure of democratization (all-en-compassing to include media and political rights)and constant criticism has not stopped Kazakhstanfrom taking on the role of an international mediatoron many high-profile conflicts—Iran and Syria—and from becoming a reliable and cooperative eco-nomic, trade, and security partners to its neighbors.

Kazakhstan’s slow rise on the stage fuel autocraticbehaviors.Kazakhstan’s elections, while varied, reflect Kaza-khstan’s wavering commitment to democracy andlack of party pluralism. Snap elections and earlyPresidential elections provide an opportunity forKazakhstan to slowly implement electoral reformsand most importantly media reforms. Kazakhstan’sElection Law is weak as it does provide for equalparty distribution and fails to provide a concreteand non-ambiguous criteria for campaign finance.

he recent all-shoot out in Azerbaijan be-tween the ethnic Armenians and Azer-baijani forces brought yet anotherround of casualties, psychological trau-

mas and property destructions. Sudden and severeas it was, the event sent its shock waves all over Cau-casus and well beyond.Is Caucasus receiving the ‘residual heat’ from theboiling MENA? Is this a next Syria? Is a grand accom-modation pacific scenario possible? Or will it bemore realistic that the South Caucasus ends up vio-lently torn apart by the grand compensation thataffects all from Afghanistan up to the EU-Turkeydeal?

Most observes would fully agree that for such(frozen) conflicts like this between Azerbaijan andArmenia, mediation and dialogue across the con-flict cycle have no alternative.

T Further on, most would agree that the OSCE (Orga-nization for Security and Cooperation in Europe)with its Minsk Group remains both the best suitedFORA as well as the only international body man-dated for the resolution of the conflict.However,one cannot escape the feeling that despite morethan 20 years of negotiations, this conflict remainsunresolved. What is the extent of the OSCE failureto effectively utilize existing conflict resolution andpost-conflict rehabilitation tools?

The very mandate of the Co-Chairmen of the OSCEMinsk Group is based on CSCE Budapest Summitdocument of 1994, which tasks them to conductspeedy negotiations for the conclusion of a politicalagreement on the cessation of the armed conflict,the implementation of which will eliminate majorconsequences of the conflict and permit the con-vening of the Minsk Conference.

AleksAndrA krstic

Aleksandra Krstić, studied in Belgrade (Political Science) and in Moscow (Plekhanov’s IBS). Currently, a post-doctoral researcher at the Kent University in Brussels (Intl. Relations).Specialist for the MENA-Balkans frozen and controlled conflicts.


IS CAUCASUSTHE NEXT SYRIA?

DON’t fORgEt OSCE

In Budapest, the participating States have recon-firmed their commitment to the relevant Resolu-tions of the United Nations Security Council andunderlined that the co-Chairmen should be guidedin all their negotiating efforts by the OSCE princi-ples and agreed mandate, and should be account-able to its Chairmanship and the PermanentCouncil (PC).

Nevertheless, as it emerged from this sudden erup-tion of violence in the region in late March/earlyApril of 2016, the OSCE and its Minsk Group havebeen side-stepped from the settlement process.Why?Over the years, the role of the OSCE and its partici-pating States, including those that are members ofthe Minsk Group, has been limited to extending for-mal support to the activities of the Co-chairmen.

It gradually led to change the conflict resolutionprocess into conflict containment activities as re-flected in artificial and out-of-mandate prioritiza-tion of tasks of the co-Chairmen to focus onprevention of escalation rather than lasting solu-tion, and interference with the activities of other in-ternational organizations wishing to contribute tothe true and comprehensive settlement of the con-flict. In parallel, one may observe rather selectiveapproaches by some OSCE Member States and re-gional groupings to the principles with regard tothe protracted conflicts in the OSCE area.As an ending result, the Organization as such lostits control over the process. Such a lack of controlover the activities led to negligence to inherent bal-ance and inter-linkage between the principles ofthe most fundamental Security structure of Europeachieved ever – the Helsinki Final Act.

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

It is rather dangerous and counterproductive toequalize the principles of non-use of force againstthe territorial integrity of political independence ofthe States, territorial integrity and equal rights andself-determination of peoples, which some publiclypresent as a basis for a settlement. Misinterpreta-tion is evident even in naming of these principles.These voices claim that there is no hierarchy amongthe above mentioned principles and that these el-ements should be observed and applied independ-ently of each other. In fact, such a voluntaryinterpretation of the principles is in direct contra-diction to the letter and very spirit of the HelsinkiDecalogue and its Final Act, which in seven out often principles places strong emphasis on the neces-sity to fully respect internationally recognized bor-ders of states and their territorial integrity againstany attempt of forceful acquisition of territories orchange of borders, and (one-sided) application ofself-determination.

Such a deviation from the agreed character of theprinciples unfortunately provided Armenia with acard blanche to justify its territorial claims againstAzerbaijan, consolidate the status-quo and madethe process of settlement dependent on whims ofthe Armenian side.Several FORAs (incl. the OSCE mechanisms) openlyclaim that they have no responsibility for the con-flict resolution, and that the parties need to demon-strate political will and to make necessarycompromises (‘no way to exert pressure on thesides’ and ‘we can only be a communication channelbetween the two conflicting parties’ lines of usualrhetoric).In the meantime, Armenia keeps holding a pre-mium over the internationally recognized territoriesof Azerbaijan, which it continues to occupy.

Clearly, that ‘process’ is far away from OSCE princi-ples and commitments, and will dangerously back-fire elsewhere in Europe.Unless we want another Syria, and yet Europe en-tirely enveloped by the insecure neighbourhood allthe way from Mediterranean to Caucasus, we needa tremendous progress in the settlement of the con-flict. Over last years, most of conflict resolution-po-tent initiatives have been blocked in the OSCE.Discussion on the conflict has been turned into ataboo within the OSCE, even when the informal dis-cussions are in question – and so, not only whenCaucasus was in case.


MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

If we want to revive this particular process and re-turn it from a de facto conflict containment back ontrack to the conflict resolution process, the follow-ing steps for Caucasus are needed:

to unblock and fully revitalize the OSCE MinskGroup, and intensify the efforts towards earliest pa-cific solution of the conflict, especially by using thebest services from the member countries willing toconstructively solve the problem;

serious attempt of the Osce to re-establish thedialogue at the level of the communities affectedby the conflict is more than essential stabilizer. It isan indispensable instrument for any confidencebuilding measure. To it related as complementary isthe exchange of data on the missing persons, amechanism foreseen in a tripartite approach by theFrench, Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents latelast year. It should be coupled and further enhancedby variety of the P2P programs that could bring Ar-menians and Azerbaijanis all profiles, ages and ori-gins together;

items above surely presuppose the relaxation oftensions and renunciation of usage of military effec-tives as a means of conflict resolution. Both Armeniaand Azerbaijan (either at different occasions, alsothrough their top diplomats at the OSCE Vienna,ambassador Arman Kirakossian and ambassadorGalib Israfilov) signalled their wishes and efforts tomove beyond this status quo. That is in line with allstatements of the UN and OSCE in past 20 years.Surely, the best way to shake this status quo of con-tainment back on track to the lasting solution, is toeliminate the military factor;

regrettably, the only military factor remaining inthe region in/around Nagorno Karabakh is the pres-ence of the Armenian troops – something thatsurely does not service Armenian community thereon a long run! (Min how much Serbs harmed theirown community in Kosovo by their rigid militarystance.) If, as currently as of now, Armenian Govern-ment is serious of the danger and incidents alongthe Line of Contact they should withdraw theirtroops. If so, people could at least feel safer in thoseterritories, halt the massive migratory wave, andplan their own future viably;

And finally, a pacific, orderly and balanced re-inte-gration of the currently occupied territories backinto the Azerbaijani political, legal, social and eco-nomic system – that serves ethnic Armenians on along run the most. It will shield them from an oth-erwise lost demographic battle.

This would be the best way to reinvigorate theOSCE’s relevance in mediation efforts and create anenvironment in which the OSCE as an organizationcan play a meaningful role applying its existingtools – all for the lasting benefits of the peoples andnations of Caucasus. The OSCE area should be whatis meant to be – the area of security and stability.Stubbornness and irrational pride should never bean obstacle to this higher end.

“The strong do what they have to doand the weak acceptwhat they haveto accept”

Thucydides

www.moderndiplomacy.eu

The Greater Caspian Project 23

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