Analytical Articles

In November 2010, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced that Georgia renounced using force to recover its occupied territories in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  He further advocated resumption of dialogue with Russia and stated that Georgia would accept Russian membership in the World Trade Organization if Georgian border guards were posted in these territories, thereby recognizing Georgia’s sovereignty there. Saakashvili also urged the West to help foster a normalization of relations with Russia. Saakashvili here clearly took heed of long-standing Western and U.S. diplomatic representations to Georgia and in fact accepted one of Moscow’s prime demands, namely the renunciation of force. Yet Moscow responded predictably, saying it had nothing to say to Georgia.

As the security situation has worsened in the Northern Caucasus over the past several years, Russian political pundits have taken to theorizing as to what sort of state might emerge there should Moscow become unwilling – or perhaps unable – to maintain its suzerainty in the region. It might be assumed that any economic strategy embraced by this new state would be defined by the political viewpoint of its leadership. When it comes to formulating economic strategy, however, it would seem that Moscow bureaucrats, local pro-Moscow elites and public representatives of the rebel movement in the region are reading from the same manuals.

On December 21, 2010, Turkmenistan’s authorities suspended the license of the local branch of Russia’s major mobile service company Mobile TeleSystems (MTS). The sudden refusal of the authorities to renew or prolong the company’s license led to a major dispute between the Ministry of Communications of Turkmenistan and MTS. The suspension of the service also generated nationwide frustration and live queues of thousands of people across the country trying to quickly switch from MTS to the state owned Altyn Asyr (Golden Age) mobile service provider.

For almost a decade, India has been actively yet unsuccessfully seeking to establish a military foothold in Tajikistan, where it helped renovate the Ayni air base. The facility has long been on the radar screens of many powers, including the U.S., Russia, and France. For India, as a rapidly emerging power, the facility is particularly symbolic as it could be its first military base outside its national borders. Yet Tajikistan recently announced it was only negotiating with Russia on the use of the facility. Tajikistan’s security and economic cooperation with Russia and China and Dushanbe’s own balancing act among great powers have thus far thwarted Indian military ambitions in Central Asia.

After over fifteen years on the drawing-boards, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project was approved by the four countries’ leaders, meeting in Ashgabat in December. While the intergovernmental agreement naturally depends upon follow-on negotiations to be realized, it is anticipated that sales and purchase agreements will be signed at another four-way meeting that could take place as early as April 2011. The success of such a project would continue diversification of Turkmenistan’s gas export directions, provide needed resources to gas-hungry Pakistan and India, and not least give Afghanistan a keystone development project upon which to build economic reconstruction.

The leaders of the various ethno-republics in the Northern Caucasus rely on different personalities to represent their political interests at the federal level. Presidential aides Sergei Naryshkin and Vladislav Surkov represent the leaders of Ingushetia and Chechnya respectively. Meanwhile, the embattled leader of Dagestan, Magomedsalam Magomedov, is represented by Suleiman Kerimov, a billionaire oligarch who represents Dagestan in Russia’s upper house of parliament. Kerimov’s influence is such that it would be difficult for the Kremlin to interfere in Dagestan’s political system without first coordinating with him.

The opening of the International Uranium Enrichment Center in Angarsk, Russia in early December 2010 was a milestone in Kazakhstan’s efforts to pursue a parallel policy of promoting peaceful nuclear energy while opposing nuclear arms proliferation. Kazakhstan’s state-controlled nuclear complex, Kazatomprom, was a co-founder of the fuel bank concept along with Russia.  Kazatomprom is likely to be a major beneficiary of the IAEA and western sponsored nuclear fuel bank idea, given that Kazatomprom has grown in just over a decade from its beginnings as a disorganized collection of inefficient and unprofitable Soviet-era mines and factories to become the world’s largest producer of uranium ore for nuclear power reactors.   

Over the past six years, Kyrgyzstan has lived through two forceful regime changes – one in March 2005 and another April 2010. Both times, the reconfiguration of political power required Kyrgyz citizens to adapt to a new reality and try to cope with the dual feelings of optimism after unpopular dictators were ousted and uncertainty about the new leaders. Kyrgyzstan’s complex and volatile criminal underworld needed to adapt to the new political conditions as well, in order to ensure continuity of the vast shadow economy and maintain their influence over government officials. The state-crime dynamics have therefore been changing rapidly during 2005-2011.

On November 24, 2010, the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR announced the discovery of the largest gas field in Azerbaijan after the Caspian giant Shah Deniz deposit. This offshore field is named Umid, meaning “Hope”. President Ilham Aliyev met with the management of the company on that day and expressed his hope that the gas field would ultimately prove to contain more gas than the initial estimates had suggested. If current calculations hold, Azerbaijan will be considering new gas exports far beyond those currently supplied to regional and European markets.

In early January 2010, the Kremlin decided to unify the North Caucasian autonomous republics of the Russian Federation with that of the Stavropol region, still mostly populated by ethnic Russians. The plan was a bureaucratic design by the Kremlin that supposedly would increase the ethnic/social cohesiveness of the region and the country and promote economic development in the region. This merger has received a strong response among locals who demanded that the Stavropol region remain a separate entity. This seemingly indicates the rise of what could be called “Russian separatism,” based on an ideology which is remarkably similar to that held by many Russians on the eve of the collapse of the USSR.