Statecraft. Margaret Thatcher
terrorism across frontiers.*
Three months later, in the wake of the attacks on New York and Washington, the Central Asia region acquired a sharply increased significance. In order to launch campaigns against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, while seeking to minimise potentially destabilising operations from Pakistan, the US sought the cooperation of the states bordering Afghanistan to the north. The governments of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan agreed, the former with particular enthusiasm, to welcome US bases. Kazakhstan also allowed the US to use its air space. The Uzbeks and Tajiks had their own special reasons to cooperate against the Taliban. But, as the dominant power in the region, it was Russia’s support for US aims that was crucial in overcoming local fears and hesitations. (I shall examine later the implications of this for US–Russian relations in the longer term.)
Central Asia is also of strategic importance for economic reasons. It possesses great reserves of oil, natural gas, gold, silver, uranium and other valuable natural resources. Oil and gas, though, are the most important. It has been estimated that Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan together with Azerbaijan have oil reserves larger than those of Iran and Iraq. The known gas reserves of Turkmenistan alone are twice as large as those of the North Sea. Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oilfield is one of the world’s biggest. And by some accounts its Kashagan field, discovered in early 2001, is bigger still.
Oil and gas are equally crucial to the affairs of that ethnic tinderbox, the Caucasus – not just because of Azerbaijan’s reserves but because of the need for pipelines to exploit the fabulous energy wealth of the whole Caspian region. Russia is determined to maintain control over this oil and has engaged in this new ‘Great Game’ as vigorously as it did the old. It has sought to ensure that Azerbaijan and the Central Asian Republics use Russian oil- and gas-pipelines from the Caspian to its Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.* Russia has shown in recent years that it can cause a great deal of trouble in pursuit of its perceived interests. In a region where convoluted conspiracies and counter-intuitive theories thrive one should be careful about ascribing particular actions to particular actors. But it seems clear that Russia backed the overthrow of the first post-Soviet President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in January 1992; and that it then supported a separatist revolt in Abkhazia in order to drive Georgia into the CIS, where it could keep it under firmer control. Similarly, in Azerbaijan in 1993 the upright, pro-Western democrat President Abulfaz Elchibey, who wanted to agree with a Western consortium a contract for the exploitation of Azeri oil – thus excluding the Russians – was immediately put under huge Russian pressure. Russia cut off Azerbaijan’s oil exports and used Armenia to increase the long-standing difficulties over Nagorno-Karabakh. Finally, when all else failed, Mr Elchibey was dislodged in a coup and the former Soviet Politburo member Haidar Aliev was installed in his place. And when Mr Aliev proved more recalcitrant than the Russians expected they backed two attempted coups against him.
The past results of Russian policy are easy to see, and they have been wholly destructive. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia remain in a state of disorder, corruption and political decay. And the vast wealth of the Caspian is still not being properly used. The West has to try to ensure that law-based, stable states are developed in the region; that customers for oil and gas are not deprived of a vital alternative source to those of the Middle East; and that there is a sensible accommodation with Russian interests. For its part, Russia will need to accept that although both Central Asia and the Caucasus fall within its traditional sphere of interest, that sphere cannot be exclusive if these regions are to prosper. And it is in Russia’s own interest that they should.
Coping with tensions in the Northern Caucasus is a still more difficult matter, for of course the region actually lies within the frontiers of the Russian Federation. The non-Russian peoples there have endured a miserable history, and they can hardly be expected to thank Russia for it. That is especially true of Chechnya.
In Stalin’s deportation of 1944 some two hundred thousand Chechens lost their lives. When the USSR collapsed and the ‘sovereign’ republics of the Southern Caucasus escaped, the Chechens like the other non-Russian peoples who found themselves in the new Russian Federation were denied their freedom. They rebelled and declared independence.
In 1994 the Russians moved to repress the revolt. The Kremlin and the Russian armed forces were determined to demonstrate to other ethnic groups tempted to break away that their action would not be tolerated. The Russian campaign was also motivated by the desire to keep control of the vital oil pipeline which ran through Chechnya. As is well-known, this first campaign led to disaster from which only the charisma and negotiating skills of General Alexandr Lebed extracted the humiliated Russian forces.
Russia’s second campaign against Chechnya in 1999 had similar motives. But it was far better prepared, the number of Russian troops involved was much larger, and – measured against the objective of crushing Chechnya – it was quickly successful. It was clearly intended as a showcase for Russia’s military might. Even the well-documented brutality against civilians was intended to teach Russia’s enemies a lesson. The message was that in spite of the West’s edging Russia aside in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East and in the Balkans, Moscow was in charge of its own backyard.
The second Chechen campaign was waged with the enthusiastic support of the Russian people – and this is highly significant.* Of course, it is possible to argue that Russians were given a one-sided view of the conflict by their media. And it is certainly true that the Chechens played into Russian hands when its Islamic fanatics broke into neighbouring Russian Dagestan. But what aroused Russian nationalism was desire for revenge after a series of bombs in the late summer of 1999 left over three hundred Muscovites dead.
To this day no convincing evidence of Chechen involvement has been produced. But the Chechen campaign turned an almost unknown Prime Minister Putin into an overwhelmingly popular President Putin in the space of eight months. It also left a city desolate, thousands of civilians dead and a tide of pitiful homeless, hopeless refugees.
Russia’s treatment of Chechnya has been inexcusable. But it is not inexplicable, especially given the fact that – whoever planted the bombs in 1999 – the Chechens have, over the last three years, become increasingly involved in terrorism. Ominous developments have been hijackings, suicide bombings, attacks on civilian installations and growing ties with Islamic terrorists, including Osama bin Laden. None of this, though, provides a justification for Russia’s refusal to respect the wishes and interests of the Chechen population. Most Chechens are far from being Islamic fanatics: it is national, not religious, grievances that matter most to them. Before 11 September the Russian people had started again to be weary of the brutal campaigns aimed at crushing Chechen resistance. Prosecution of the wider war against terrorism must not now become an excuse for the Russian authorities to renew their attempts to wipe out the Chechen nation. Otherwise Moscow will become the terrorists’ main recruiting sergeant in the Caucasus.
We have to speak the truth clearly about Russia’s behaviour: in Chechnya it has been unacceptable
We must make it clear that, while respecting the interests of a great power, we reject any right for Moscow to destabilise other countries of the former Soviet Union
The Baltic states should be brought into NATO, as they desire, at the right time
The West has important interests at stake in Ukraine (which borders NATO) and in the Central Asian and South Caucasian republics (which contain huge reserves of oil and gas which both we and Russia need to have developed); all these states should receive our attention and support – political, technical and economic
We must continue to cooperate with Russia in resisting Islamist extremism in Central Asia.
DOING BUSINESS WITH MR PUTIN?
President Putin’s personality and background have been the subject of a large amount of speculation and debate ever since it appeared certain that he would be master of the Kremlin. We know the basic facts; the difficulty is to be sure of what to make of them. Vladimir Putin fulfilled his childhood