[Peace-discuss] Strategic and economic objectives, not anti-Islamization, drives U.S. policy (II)

[C. G. Estabrook]

"War Without Borders":
Washington Intensifies Push Into Central Asia
By Rick Rozoff
Global Research, January 30, 2011

A recent editorial on the website of Voice of America reflected on last year 
being one in which the United States solidified relations with the five former 
Soviet republics in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, 
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

One or more of the five nations border Afghanistan, Russia, China and Iran and 
several more than one of the latter. Kazakhstan, for example, adjoins China and 
Russia.

The U.S. and Britain, with the support of the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization, invaded Afghanistan and fanned out into Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and 
Uzbekistan in October of 2001, less than four months after Russia, China, 
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan founded the Shanghai 
Cooperation Organization (SCO) to foster expanding economic, security, 
transportation and energy cooperation and integration in and through Central 
Asia. In 2005 India, Iran and Pakistan joined the SCO as observers and Afghan 
President Hamid Karzai has attended its last five annual heads of state summits. 
[1]

Now the U.S. and the NATO have over 150,000 troops planted directly south of 
three Central Asian nations.

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are also on the Caspian Sea, a reservoir of oil and 
natural gas whose dimensions have only been accurately determined in the past 
twenty years and where American companies are active in hydrocarbon projects.

After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Pentagon and its NATO allies 
deployed military forces to, in addition to Soviet-constructed air bases in 
Afghanistan, bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The first two 
countries border China.

As of last March the U.S. military confirmed that a monthly average of 50,000 
American and NATO troops passed through Kyrgyzstan's Transit Center at Manas as 
part of the war in Afghanistan. Also last year, U.S. officials mentioned 
building new military training centers in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The Voice of America feature mentioned above cited a speech by U.S. Assistant 
Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Jr., who two 
years ago succeeded Richard Boucher in that role.

The State Department's Blake delivered a speech at the James A. Baker III 
Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas entitled "The 
Obama Administration' s Priorities in South and Central Asia."

Shorn of superfluous banter and obligatory diplomatese, his address accentuated 
American geopolitical designs in an area which Blake highlighted as being of 
vitally important interest to Washington:

"Central Asia lies at a critical strategic crossroads, bordering Afghanistan, 
China, Russia and Iran, which is why the United States wants to continue to 
expand our engagement and our cooperation with this critical region." [2]

In furtherance of U.S. designs in an area that not only abuts the four nations 
named, but if controlled by the U.S. would prevent regional cooperation between 
them except insofar as it is mediated by an outside power, Washington, Blake 
listed the three priorities for the region as being to:

Support international efforts in Afghanistan

Build a strategic partnership with India

Develop more durable and stable relations with the Central Asian countries

He commented after the above itemization: "After describing these priorities at 
greater length, I will then focus on energy resources in Central Asia, which I 
imagine is of particular interest in Houston," where ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil 
Company and Halliburton' s Energy Services Group have their headquarters.

The State Department assistant secretary also emphasized the role of the 
recently activated Northern Distribution Network (NDN) in moving supplies, 
military equipment and troops to the Afghan war front from the west, promoting 
the concept that "The NDN increasingly offers the people of the Central Asian 
countries the opportunity to sell goods and services to NATO troops in 
Afghanistan, and we hope it can help catalyze greater trade and economic 
cooperation between Afghanistan and Central Asia."

The U.S. has assiduously worked to ensure that Chinese, Russian and Iranian 
influence in Central Asia and Afghanistan is blocked and instead promotes the 
economic, transportation and security integration of the region through the 
Pentagon-NATO Northern Distribution Network. The U.S. and NATO intend the NDN to 
supplant the SCO as the engine of economic and security integration in Central 
Asia. To date eleven of the fifteen former federal republics of the Soviet Union 
- all except for Armenia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine - have been incorporated 
into the NDN grid originating in the Baltic and Black Seas.

Washington is also exploiting Afghanistan and Central Asia to attain an even 
larger prize. Again according to Blake, "South Asia, with India as its thriving 
anchor, is a region of growing strategic and commercial importance to the United 
States in the critical Indian Ocean area.

"In total, the region is home to over two billion people - roughly one fourth of 
the world’s population."

He elaborated further on the main strategic objective of the wider Afghan war 
when he stated that "projects with India in Afghanistan mark a small but 
important part of a significant new global development - the emergence of a 
global strategic partnership between India and the United States," as "by 2025 
India is expected to become the 3rd largest economy in the world, behind the 
United States and China."

"Secretary Clinton and other Cabinet officials will also travel to India this 
spring for the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue, which oversees the entire spectrum 
of our cooperation. "

Blake also reminded his audience of an initiative instituted last year and 
conducted under his jurisdiction: Annual Bilateral Consultations (ABCs) with all 
five Central Asian countries. In his Houston speech he stated, "I look forward 
to starting the second round of ABCs with Uzbekistan next month in Tashkent."

Blake's boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visited Uzbekistan last month 
- the first secretary of state to do since Colin Powell's trip there in December 
of 2001 - as well as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbek President Islam 
Karimov just returned from Brussels where NATO had invited him to visit its 
headquarters and meet with Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. While in the 
Belgian capital he also met with European Commission President Jose Manuel 
Barossa and Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger. Uzbekistan, though poor in 
oil supplies, is one of the largest producers of natural gas in the former 
Soviet Union.

Uzbekistan is, like its neighbors, assuming greater significance for the 
U.S.-NATO war effort in South Asia: "The airport at the Uzbek city of Navoi has 
emerged as a key cog in the Northern Distribution Network, a web of Central 
Asian rail, road and air links that funnels supplies to US and NATO troops in 
Afghanistan. Most of the NDN supplies bound for Afghanistan flow through the 
railway junction at Termez, at the Uzbek-Afghan border." [3] German troops are 
based in Termez and across the border in Afghanistan' s Kunduz province.

While Clinton was in Kyrgyzstan she, seemingly without even the suggestion of a 
formal agreement to the effect, assumed the extension of U.S. rights to the air 
base there, stating "Washington would examine again in 2014 whether it needed 
the Manas base."

"Clinton said Manas was the central transit point for troops from 49 countries 
going into Afghanistan. " [4]

Her subordinate Blake's speech at Rice University also included discussion of 
the strategic role of Central Asia in regards to hydrocarbon extraction and 
transport. He claimed that the biggest and richest of the Central Asian states, 
Kazakhstan, "will account for one of the largest increases in non-OPEC supply to 
the global market in the next 10-15 years as its oil production doubles to reach 
3 million barrels a day by 2020." The U.S. and its EU and NATO allies have long 
planned the shipping of Kazakh oil and natural gas westward to the South 
Caucasus and thence to Europe, both bypassing and replacing Russia as Europe's 
main supplier of hydrocarbons.

Western projects include the Nabucco natural gas pipeline and building a 
pipeline under the Caspian Sea to bring Kazakh oil to Azerbaijan where it would 
be transported via the Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (Azerbaijan- Georgia-Turkey) 
pipeline with a connection to an Odessa-Brody- Plock-Gdansk branch running from 
Ukraine to Poland's Baltic Sea coast and from there to the rest of Europe.

That is, the Western-initiated Southern Corridor versus Russia's South Stream 
natural gas pipeline to the Black Sea and the Balkans.

In 2009 Richard Morningstar, the State Department's Special Envoy for Eurasian 
Energy, spoke in the Czech Republic at an EU summit called Southern Corridor-New 
Silk Road, and asserted: "President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton share 
your support for the Southern Corridor and consider Eurasian energy issues to be 
of the highest importance."

His State Department colleague Blake also said last week: "Though often 
overlooked as an energy source, Uzbekistan has substantial hydrocarbon reserves 
of its own and produces about as much natural gas as Turkmenistan. Located at 
the heart of Central Asia, much of the region’s infrastructure – roads, 
railroads, transmission lines, and pipelines - goes through Uzbekistan, offering 
it a unique opportunity to expand its exports with little investment in new 
infrastructure. "

The energy project that attracted the attention of Blake most, however, was the 
agreement concluded on December 11 of last year for the TAPI (Turkmenistan- 
Afghanistan- Pakistan- India) natural gas pipeline to run from the Caspian Sea 
littoral nation that gives the acronym its first letter to India, which was the 
death sentence for a competing "peace pipeline" from Iran to Pakistan, from 
there to India and onward to China - the $7 billion, 1,430-mile Iran-Pakistan- 
India gas (IPI) pipeline - that had been years in the planning but was opposed 
by Washington, which backed the earlier TAP (Turkmenistan- Afghanistan- 
Pakistan) and later the TAPI alternative.

The pipeline is extend over 10,000 miles and deliver 33 billion cubic meters of 
natural gas annually.

After mentioning that "The country’s substantial natural resources may make 
Turkmenistan one of the top five countries worldwide in terms of gas reserves" 
which have "attracted the attention of many countries interested in securing 
Turkmen gas for various pipeline projects," Blake announced that "The U.S. has 
welcomed renewed interest in TAPI." In fact it has been the prime mover behind 
the project through its influence in the Asian Development Bank, which is 
underwriting the pipeline's construction.

Turkmenistan' s President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov "almost single-handedly 
resurrected the Turkmenistan- Afghanistan- Pakistan- India pipeline, which if 
successful will finally link the resources in Central Asia with the markets of 
the south," Blake added.

In the middle of this month Afghan President Karzai and Indian President 
Pratibha Devisingh Patil sent letters to their Turkmen counterpart "express[ing] 
confidence that the gas pipeline TAPI (Turkmenistan- Afghanistan- Pakistan- 
India) will be implemented soon." [5]

Shortly afterward Berdimukhamedov met with European Commission President Jose 
Manuel Barroso, who also met with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on the 
same trip and subsequently with Uzbek President Karimov in Brussels, in the 
Turkmen capital and announced that his government is prepared to replicate the 
TAPI project by shipping Caspian natural gas to Europe with "construction of a 
pipeline under the Caspian Sea [and] transportation of natural gas across the 
Caspian Sea on specialized ships, tankers." [6] Turkmenistan will then link up 
with the Southern Energy Corridor (including the Nabucco gas pipeline) to bring 
Caspian and Middle Eastern, including Iraqi, natural gas to Europe.

Until now Turkmenistan' s natural gas deals had been primarily with Russia, 
China and Iran. Both Russia and China have expressed interest in participating 
in the TAPI pipeline, but the U.S. will ensure that doesn't occur. "Washington’s 
vital interest in TAPI includes having an alternative route for Central Asian 
gas that will bypass the Russian pipelines' network."

In addition, "India has objected to any Chinese firm or consortium being given 
contracts related to the building of the Turkmenistan- Afghanistan- Pakistan- 
India (TAPI) gas pipeline." [7]

"The U.S. has supported TAPI – and Turkmen efforts to keep Russia off the 
project – as a way to break Russia’s and China’s monopoly on exporting Caspian 
Basin energy to the rest of the world." [8]

It was observed years ago by past Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for 
European and Eurasian Affairs and all-around former Soviet space hand Matthew 
Bryza, now the incoming U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, that the transportation 
corridor the U.S. and its Western allies developed in the 1990s to ship energy 
to the west was used to transport troops and equipment to the east starting with 
the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. What the U.S. and NATO have for years called 
the New Silk Road, which is in truth an arms and energy transit route.

Until recently, however, Turkmenistan had remained comparatively uninvolved in 
the transit going both ways. It is the only Central Asian nation not to join the 
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty 
Organization (which also includes Armenia and Belarus as member states.)

Journalist Deirdre Tynan has provided valuable information on the degree to 
which Turkmenistan has been surreptitiously incorporated into the U.S. and NATO 
greater Afghan war structure. Two years ago she disclosed that Turkmenistan has 
been "quietly developing into a major transport hub" for the Northern 
Distribution Network to deliver supplies to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Tynan also revealed:

"The Pentagon has confirmed a small contingent of US military personnel now 
operates in Ashgabat [the capital] to assist refueling operations.

"The United States has a deal in place that allows for the landing and refueling 
of transport planes at Ashgabat airport, according to the US Department of 
Defense. NATO is also seeking to open a land corridor for supplies destined for 
troops in Afghanistan. ..."

She also quoted a spokesman for the Defense Department stating, "The United 
States has a small Air Force team, normally around seven airmen, who assist US 
aircraft who refuel at Ashgabat Airport...." [9]

In a recent article the author wrote:

"Despite its long-avowed status as a neutral nation, Turkmenistan is playing an 
important supporting role for US and NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan. 
Washington and Ashgabat are both keen to keep Turkmenistan’s strategic role 
low-key, especially the financial aspects of cooperation. "

The country has supplied fuel for American and NATO troops in Afghanistan, 
"delivered free of all duties and taxes."

"Fuel is exempt from local duties and taxes due to Turkmenistan’s and 
Azerbaijan’s participation in the NATO Partnership for Peace program....Similar 
arrangements are in place in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.. ..US 
military aircraft have been using Turkmen airspace and facilities since at a 
least 2002, and Ashgabat is a hub for operations involving C-5 and C-17 
transport planes."

A spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) told Tynan the 
following:

“It is DLA’s understanding that both Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are partners in 
the NATO Partnership for Peace. As partners, they agree to abide by the terms of 
the NATO status of forces agreement, which provides in relevant part that NATO 
member countries shall make special arrangements for fuel, oil and lubricants 
for use by another member countries military and civilian personnel to be 
delivered free of all duties and taxes.” [10]

Tajikistan, with China to its east and Afghanistan to its southwest, has hosted 
a French air force contingent of at least 200 personnel, C-160 transport 
aircraft and Mirage multirole fourth-generation jet fighters since early 2002.

Last week the nation's state-run railroad disclosed that in 2010 "In keeping 
with the agreements signed by the Tajik government, republican railroads 
delivered over 160 tonnes of commercial cargo, which was later taken by motor 
transport to Afghanistan for NATO needs." [11]

In 2007 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers financed the construction of a bridge 
across the Panj River connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

On January 17 U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central 
Asian Affairs Susan Elliott was in Kyrgyzstan to arrange for resuming bilateral 
consultations, which were suspended last year after the second violent overthrow 
of the government in five years occurred. [12]

The following week Kazakh Secretary of State Kanat Saudabayev visited 
Washington, D.C. for two days. Before meeting with his counterpart Secretary of 
State Clinton, he met with Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, 
ConocoPhillips Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Mulva and Halliburton 
Energy Services Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David Lesar.

Clinton and Saudabayev stressed "the importance of timely implementation of the 
agreements" between President Barack Obama and Kazakhstan's President Nursultan 
Nazarbayev on the sidelines of last April's Global Summit on Nuclear Safety in 
Washington. Accords that, according to Senior Director of Russian and Eurasian 
Affairs at the National Security Council Michael McFaul, "will allow troops to 
fly directly from the United States over the North Pole to the region." [13] 
U.S. and British troops led NATO Partnership for Peace training exercises, 
codenamed Steppe Eagle 2010, in Kazakhstan last August and afterwards Kazakhstan 
assigned military personnel to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in 
Afghanistan.

As Washington and NATO consolidate military-to- military relations with the five 
nations of Central Asia, the majority of both Shanghai Cooperation Organization 
and Collective Security Treaty Organization members will be shifted from the 
Russian and Chinese to the U.S. column.

Indian analyst and former diplomat M K Bhadrakumar wrote an article a month 
after NATO's summit in Lisbon in November in which he stated that "the alliance 
is well on the way to transforming into a global political-military role" and 
"NATO is by far today the most powerful military and political alliance in the 
world."

He added: "The various partnership programs of NATO in Central Asia and the Gulf 
Cooperation Council and the Mediterranean regions can be viewed as part of the 
overall approach to take recourse to other states or groups of states to promote 
the Euro-Atlantic interests globally."

"From a seemingly reluctant arrival in Afghanistan seven years ago in an 
'out-of-area' operation as part of the UN-mandated ISAF (International Security 
Assistance Force), with a limited mandate, NATO is suo moto stepping out of the 
ISAF, deepening its presence and recasting its role and activities on a 
long-term basis."

"It is within the realm of possibility that NATO would at a future date deploy 
components of the US missile defense system in Afghanistan. Ostensibly directed 
against the nearby 'rogue states,' the missile defense system will challenge the 
Chinese strategic capability."

The current geopolitical reality in Central and South Asia "is very much linked 
to NATO's future role in Afghanistan. US strategy toward an Afghan settlement 
visualizes the future role for NATO as the provider of security to the Silk Road 
that transports the multi-trillion dollar mineral wealth in Central Asia to the 
world market via the Pakistani port of Gwadar."

"The resuscitation of the Silk Road project to construct an oil and gas pipeline 
connecting Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (the TAPI pipeline) 
will need to be seen as much more than a template of regional cooperation.

"The pipeline signifies a breakthrough in the longstanding Western efforts to 
access the fabulous mineral wealth of the Caspian and Central Asian region. 
Washington has been the patron saint of the TAPI concept since the early-1990s 
when the Taliban was conceived as its Afghan charioteer."

"On the map, the TAPI pipeline deceptively shows India as its final destination. 
What is overlooked, however, is that the route can be easily extended to the 
Pakistani port of Gwadar and connected with European markets, which is the 
ultimate objective.

"The onus is on each of the transit countries to secure the pipeline. Part of 
the Afghan stretch will be buried underground as a safeguard against attacks and 
local communities will be paid to guard it. But then, it goes without saying 
that Kabul will expect NATO to provide security cover, which, in turn, 
necessitates long-term Western military presence in Afghanistan.

"In sum, TAPI is the finished product of the US invasion of Afghanistan. It 
consolidates NATO's political and military presence in the strategic high 
plateau that overlooks Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan and China. TAPI provides a 
perfect setting for the alliance's future projection of military power for 
'crisis management' in Central Asia." [14]

Immediately after the signing of the TAPI agreement in the capital of 
Turkmenistan by the presidents of that country and Afghanistan and Pakistan as 
well as Indian's energy minister, the government of Hamid Karzai announced that 
7,000 Afghan troops - the army is being trained by the NATO Training Mission - 
Afghanistan - would be deployed to guard the pipeline. [15]

Since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, Central Asia 
(with the Caspian Sea Basin on its western flank) has been the chessboard on 
which intensified international strategic positioning has occurred. It may be 
transformed into a battleground of conflicting 21st century geopolitical interests.


Notes

1) The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Prospects For A Multipolar World
Stop NATO, May 21, 2009
http://rickrozoff. wordpress. com/2009/ 08/29/150
2) Robert O. Blake, Jr., The Obama Administration' s Priorities in South
and Central Asia
U.S. State Department, January 19, 2011
http://www.state. gov/p/sca/ rls/rmks/ rmks/155002. htm
3) Deirdre Tynan, Uzbekistan: Karimov’s Visit to Brussels was NATO’s idea
EurasiaNet, January 20, 2011
4) Reuters, December 2, 2010
5) Trend News Agency, January 13, 2011
6) Trend News Agency, January 15, 2011
7) Hindustan Times, January 17, 2011
8) Central Asia Newswire, January 26, 2011
9) EurasiaNet, July 8, 2009
10) Deirdre Tynan, Turkmenistan: Ashgabat Playing Key US/NATO Support Role
In Afghan War
EurasiaNet, January 10, 2011
http://www.eurasian et.org/node/ 62683
11) Interfax-Military, January 20, 2011
12) Kyrgyzstan And The Battle For Central Asia
Stop NATO, April 7, 2010
http://rickrozoff. wordpress. com/2010/ 04/08/kyrgyzstan -and-the- battle-for- 
central-asia
13) Kazakhstan: U.S., NATO Seek Military Outpost Between Russia And China
Stop NATO, April 14, 2010
http://rickrozoff. wordpress. com/2010/ 04/15/kazakhstan -u-s-nato- 
seek-military- outpost-between- russia-and- china
14) M K Bhadrakumar, NATO weaves South Asian web
Asia Times, December 23, 2010
http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ South_Asia/ LL23Df05. html
15) NATO Trains Afghan Army To Guard Asian Pipeline
Stop NATO, December 19, 2010
http://rickrozoff. wordpress. com/2010/ 12/19/nato- trains-afghan- 
army-to-guard- asian-pipeline

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23012