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Religious strife. Ethnic hatreds going back for centuries. Islamic fundamentalism. Ancient despotism and strongmen. Great-power politicking. And the lifeblood of an energy-hungry world.
Since 1997, when the US attracted attention by indicating that it might not object to a Kazakh, Turkmen and Chinese natural gas pipeline through Iran, and conflicts developed in earnest between the various Caspian Sea states regarding offshore drilling and the proceeds therefrom, the Caspian region has emerged as the fuel pool of the 21st century. Consider that the Caspian Basin - still not fully explored - has estimated reserves of 200-300 billion barrels of oil and oil equivalents (basically natural gas). Only Saudi Arabia has anything close to that: proven reserves of 262 billion barrels, which means she may or may not have much more than that. Iraq has 110 billion, the United Arab Emirates has 97 billion and Kuwait has 95 billion. Iran is in the middle: a Caspian player, but also possessing 93 billion barrels' worth of proven reserves elsewhere. Perhaps the most important number of all: Russia, sans Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan...48 billion barrels. Two-thirds that of Venezuela. Big, powerful country, soldiery downsizing from a war of sorts, with a nice set of huge oil pools not too far away...in fact, which the big, powerful country used to include and has some plausible claim to include: such was Iraq in 1990. Azerbaijan and Armenia are going at it with their own version of mutual ethnic cleansing, which for whatever reason wholly unknown to me is eclipsed by events in Kosovo and nearby as I write this. Who says we only care about conflicts in oil-producing regions? We don't seem to care at all about the fate of one of our future principal oil suppliers. Well, we don't seem to, anyway. I can assure you that Big Brother Russia cares a lot. Russia wants to get the right hands on the oil spigot in and around Baku, and she wants to get the bountiful products to market, which means getting them across the Caucasus to the Black Sea, where they can be shipped worldwide. This takes the oil across Georgia, which is fighting a civil war with its own Abkhaz minority, as well as Chechnya, which is effectively independent for the moment, and going Muslim fundamentalist. Neither Georgia nor Chechnya produce much in the way of energy, but their territory is essential for transporting it to the Black Sea.
The copyright of the article Russia and the Caspian: The New Middle East. Part I in a series in Russian Politics is owned by . Permission to republish Russia and the Caspian: The New Middle East. Part I in a series in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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