Both China and Pakistan are getting ready for an economic boom that will include transit trade to Central Asia. The Pakistan Army’s National Logistics Cell, which has a near monopoly, will handle this freight traffic all the way up to Kazakhstan and Xinjiang. There is money to be made. Thus development of both Gwadar and control of Gilgit and Baltistan are interlinked and the Pak Army will gain financially from both. In fact, it is going to be a financial bonanza for the already huge corporate interests of the Pak Army.
Also read: The Great Game: 21st Century Version-I
The Chinese are also going to construct 12 new highways into Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan as part of their plans to extend eastwards along the old Silk Route into Europe and access to warm waters. The longest one will stretch 1,680 kilometers from Urumqi, capital of the autonomous region, to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, Iran’s Mashhad, Turkey’s Istanbul and finally reach Europe. The road will be completed before 2010.
“¦development of both Gwadar and control of Gilgit and Baltistan are interlinked and the Pak Army will gain financially from both. In fact, it is going to be a financial bonanza for the already huge corporate interests of the Pak Army.
There is a problem though that is more intrinsic to the Central Asian republics are constructed than to any external factors. It is the problem of abundance in the three oil and gas producing countries—Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan accompanied by distorted and uneven growth as well as unstable undiversified economies leading to corruption and wasteful/fanciful schemes that are counterproductive. Political instability is inbuilt in autocratic systems. Despite these problems the Europeans and the Chinese have been looking at Central Asia for their energy requirements. Oil flows to China are still dependent on Russia and there is not enough gas potentially available in Central Asia that would change European dependence on Russia.
The fear in the West also is that long-term bilateral arrangements would knock out the spot market mechanism at the New York and London stock exchanges, while also undermining the production sharing arrangements that had benefited western oil conglomerates. The Russians are back in business and US advances have been halted. Putin gets no popularity points in Washington for this but he does in Moscow, which is important.
Also read: The Great Game: 21st Century Version-II
The new version of the Great Game includes trying to ratchet the fear of a rising Shia Iran among Sunni Arabs to create a Shia-Sunni schism. The danger is that this will merely succeed in generating anger in West Asia that will give birth to more Al Qaeda and its variants. Vali Nasr, a professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California, says that violent anti-Shiism was the domain of radical pro Al-Qaeda clerics, websites and armed groups in the Arab world and Pakistan. Sectarianism — especially among Sunnis — was a driver for radical jehadi ideology.
India, whose buoyant economy has a 70 per cent dependency on imported fossil fuels and weaponry for its security, is disadvantaged as it has neither the deep pockets of the Chinese and the Americans, the military power of the Russians and the Americans and nor the single-mindedness of the Chinese or the Russians.
Former American National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has warned that if the US remains bogged down in Iraq it would inevitably lead to a conflict with Iran and the rest of the Islamic world. Unless the Americans and the Iranians engage in dialogue, there is a very real danger that we are marching towards an unimaginable disaster fought with tactical nuclear weapons. There is already speculation about the likely date of attack but when US Air Force tankers move to remote air bases to refuel B-2 bombers then it will be time for the world to take cover.
Although the US is still the primary global economic, military and technological power, American actions have given room for others to walk into the space being yielded. Obviously, US ability, or perhaps willingness to reconstruct as it did immediately after world war II, no longer matches its ability to deconstruct. The second is the rise of Russia — Vladimir Putin’s speech at the last Munich security conference was like a punch in the Western solar plexus where he spoke of “one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master” and the dangers of this situation. This was evidence of an angered Russia on the rebound. Not for nothing does Putin have a 70-80 per cent approval rating in his own country. His speech was not in isolation but comes after the Russian economy with its vast energy resources has shown signs of revival.
Putin followed this with a visit to Saudi Arabia that has the potential to be as epochal as Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. Not many years ago, the Saudis had been enthusiastic members of an alliance that sponsored and financed a jehad against the god-less Soviets. During his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar, Putin spoke of a ‘GAS OPEC’, offered military assistance to Saudi Arabia as well as nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and Jordan. A GAS OPEC may still be some years away and is only a concept but the very thought of such a cartel has sent shivers down the Western spine as this would leave the producers of gas as the controllers of prices and production and not the consumers.
The third is the continued strong showing of China as an economic and military power on the rise. Russia and China have been moving closer to each other in the last two years as relations between the US and Russia began to sour. The border issue between China and Russia having been settled; there have been military exercises and increased Russian arms and energy sale commitments. China has made important gains in Africa, where it is likely to be in contention with the US just as it may be partly in cooperation and partly in competition with Russia in the energy rich Eurasian and West Asian regions. Meanwhile, China seeks to strengthen its position in Asia seeking but not admitting to eventually wanting to replace the US as the primary power in the continent.
Ironically, the American decline began, unnoticed, soon after the end of the Cold War. It seems that the American military-industrial complex, dependent on the profits of war and insecurity, was horrified that peace seemed to have broken out. Most of the American establishment went hunting for new enemies and they thought it best to go for the Russian jugular. Thus, instead of helping the Russians to recover from years of communism, the opposite happened. This only proved the prediction that Washington and Moscow would always have competed for global dominance regardless of ideology.
There is need to capitalise on the soft power of our IT industry, the talent of our young population and the ability of our engineers to handle infrastructure and petro-chemical projects.
After the Warsaw Pact was beguiled into disbanding, NATO quickly moved into Poland and the three Baltic republics. Ukraine and Georgia were sought to be brought under US influence through sponsored multi-coloured democracy revolutions. When the US wanted temporary bases in Central Asia to fight the war on terror in Afghanistan, Putin agreed only to find that these were becoming permanent US facilities in Russia’s own backyard. Anti-missile defence systems are now located in Poland and the Czech republic and new US air bases in Bulgaria and Romania. The Western oil conglomerates encouraged Russian oil and gas to break free of Russian government control. But under Putin this has been largely reversed and the Russians are using energy as a strategic weapon to reposition themselves much in the same way that the west has used largesse, sanctions and technology alternatively to extract concessions or force a favourable decision. Today we see a resurgent Russia challenging the US.
In the context of dwindling fossil fuel supplies and rising demands, he who controls not just the production but also the supply and has discovered substitutes, will rule the world. India, whose buoyant economy has a 70 per cent dependency on imported fossil fuels and weaponry for its security, is disadvantaged as it has neither the deep pockets of the Chinese and the Americans, the military power of the Russians and the Americans and nor the single-mindedness of the Chinese or the Russians. The jostling for vantage positions to control energy resources in the years ahead is going to be ruthless and urgent. This will largely determine each country’s future in this century.
As the Great Game intensifies, there is need to reposition and reorient our strategies. There has to be an Indian version of the CNN-BBC-AL JAZEERA kind of voice in India’s extended neighbourhood.
There is need to find alternative sources of energy, to utilise renewable resources and to conserve what we have. There is enough wind and solar resource available in India that would allow for fuller, determined and systematic use of this natural and replaceable resource. None of this will reduce our dependence on imports from a volatile and unstable region.
There is need, also, to capitalise on the soft power of our IT industry, the talent of our young population and the ability of our engineers to handle infrastructure and petro-chemical projects. India must seek to have a higher profile in the West Asia-Eurasia region.
Also read: India-Iran Defence Cooperation
Nevertheless, no country can have pretensions to being a major power if it is so completely dependent on external sources for energy to run its industry and turn its wheels, or imported weaponry and armament to defend itself.
Self reliance is not only required, it is the difference between survival at low levels and success at high levels.
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