[A-List] Analysis: US Hegemony Vs Russia's Resurgent Military Might

[Rick Rozoff]

http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=030620

The Navhind Times (India)
March 6, 2004


Russia’s Resurgent Military Might 
by Daulat Singh 

-Analysts said it was the largest Russian nuclear
forces manoeuvres in two decades imitating an all-out
nuclear war. They come at a moment of fresh strains in
Russia’s relations with the US over Washington’s plans
to enlarge its foothold in the former Soviet
Republics.
-Russia, which is both a huge oil consumer and the
world’s second-largest exporter, is bound to be a key
player on both sides of the coming search for a new
global energy order. American military deployments in
the past few years illustrate a growing preoccupation
with this problem, as US troops shift eastward, away
from their old Cold War bases in Western Europe to new
staging grounds inside, or within the reach of the
great petroleum-rich arc that stretches through
Central and West Asia [Middle East] to the Persian
Gulf.
-It’s estimated that by 2050, more than 80 per cent of
the world’s petroleum extraction will be concentrated
in this arc. The Caspian/Persian Gulf region may have
800 billion barrels of oil, and an equivalent quantity
of natural gas. Two American continents and Europe
combined have about 160 billion barrels, which will be
exhausted within two decades.
-Permanent US bases are to be built in Bulgaria and
Romania on the Black Sea, as well as in Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Negotiations are
underway to station a rapid deployment unit of
American Special Forces in Azerbaijan to protect the
Caspian oilfields and the long US-sponsored pipeline
that will snake from Baku, through the unstable
Caucuses, to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast of
Turkey.
-Will American hegemony clash with the interests of
other regional powers? Russia’s answer is already in.
The deepening struggle between Moscow and Washington
for influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus spells
trouble between these two powers in future.




Whether it is a pre-presidential election gimmick or
really testing the defensive and offensive readiness,
the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, launched
large-scale war games in the second week of February
involving the nuclear triad and conventional forces in
what was believed to be a massive demonstration of
Russia’s resurgent military might.

The strategic forces exercise included test-firing of
several land-based intercontinental nuclear missiles,
one submarine-borne ballistic missile, and several
aircraft-borne long-range cruise missiles. The
exercise ended with the launch of a Kosmos-series
military satellite from the Plisetsk cosmodrome on
February 18.

Analysts said it was the largest Russian nuclear
forces manoeuvres in two decades imitating an all-out
nuclear war. They come at a moment of fresh strains in
Russia’s relations with the US over Washington’s plans
to enlarge its foothold in the former Soviet
Republics. Nuclear and conventional forces will try
out new methods of “confronting military threats and
national security challenges”, Gen Baluyevsky said.
Apart from that, the war games were also intended to
check the ability of conventional forces to move
troops and hardware over large distances.

There are many strategic and economic reasons to
believe that energy security is likely to be the holy
grail of the next century, as a growing number of
industrialised countries compete, and perhaps, go to
war over the shrinking pie of global hydrocarbon
supplies.

Nowadays, the US quest to diversify its oil and gas
resources away from the Persian Gulf dominates the
headlines. But not far behind, rapidly developing
countries such as India and China are outstripping
their existing energy arrangements and beginning to
worry about their vulnerabilities to geopolitical
shifts, terrorism and the vagaries of the marketplace.

Russia, which is both a huge oil consumer and the
world’s second-largest exporter, is bound to be a key
player on both sides of the coming search for a new
global energy order. American military deployments in
the past few years illustrate a growing preoccupation
with this problem, as US troops shift eastward, away
from their old Cold War bases in Western Europe to new
staging grounds inside, or within the reach of the
great petroleum-rich arc that stretches through
Central and West Asia to the Persian Gulf.

It’s estimated that by 2050, more than 80 per cent of
the world’s petroleum extraction will be concentrated
in this arc. The Caspian/Persian Gulf region may have
800 billion barrels of oil, and an equivalent quantity
of natural gas. Two American continents and Europe
combined have about 160 billion barrels, which will be
exhausted within two decades. No wonder, the focus of
American power and the global community’s concerns are
on the move.

Permanent US bases are to be built in Bulgaria and
Romania on the Black Sea, as well as in Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Negotiations are
underway to station a rapid deployment unit of
American Special Forces in Azerbaijan to protect the
Caspian oilfields and the long US-sponsored pipeline
that will snake from Baku, through the unstable
Caucuses, to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast of
Turkey.

Another project that’s bound to reappear, if stability
ever comes to Afghanistan, is the trans-Afghanistan
Pipeline (TAP), which would carry Central Asian oil
and gas to warm water ports in Pakistan, thus,
completing the Russian isolation and its existing
pipeline network from future development of Caspian
petroleum.

Of course, much of this is taking place under the
auspices of the war on terrorism. But no large or
permanent US deployments are planned to help bring
stability to the civil war zones of Africa, or even
the turbulent little republic of Haiti — so close to
America’s own shores — because, we must assume, they
have no oil.

Will the measures being taken by the US ensure energy
security for the world, or will they bring long-term
instability that would worsen the situation? Will
American hegemony clash with the interests of other
regional powers? Russia’s answer is already in. The
deepening struggle between Moscow and Washington for
influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus spells
trouble between these two powers in future.

A critical question concerns how India and China will
behave in the coming decades as their own needs
multiply. India, already the world’s fifth largest
energy market, has an appetite that is growing by
about 6 per cent annually. China currently accounts
for 1 per cent of global energy production, but 7 per
cent of consumption. At current rates, China will be
the world’s second largest energy market after the US
within two decades.

These countries may choose to move strategically close
to the US. It’s possible that open global petroleum
markets — even if policed by the American armed forces
— may prove to be the best and the fairest way of
distributing scarce oil and gas supplies in future.
But if the US intervention in Iraq and other parts of
the oil-belt fails, or stirs up greater instability,
India and China may become the first victims of
constricting energy supplies and soaring prices.

Russia should now be factored into the equation.
Russia is the biggest arms supplier to India and
China, but it also supplies civilian nuclear
technology — the best existing alternative to fossil
fuels — to both the countries. With five per cent of
the world’s oil reserves, Russia produces 10 per cent
of current global output but consumes only 4 per cent.
The greater part of Russia’s petroleum is concentrated
in Siberia and the Far East, a geographical fact that
invites the construction of southbound pipelines into
the industrial heartlands of China and India.

Already, India’s largest single foreign investment is
a $ 1.3 billion stake by ONGC-Videsh in the vast
Sakhalin gas-fields on Russia’s Pacific frontier. Far
greater possibilities beckon. Peace and security in
Asia over the coming decades may not need the Pax
Americana, with its legions of high-tech troops, but
just more co-operation between the three giants,
India, Russia and China.




 


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