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15 April 2010 By Rick Rozoff On April 11, the day before the two-day Nuclear
Security Summit held in Washington, DC, U.S. President
Barack Obama met with his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan
Nazarbayev and their deliberations resulted in the
U.S. obtaining the right to fly troops and military
equipment over (and later directly into) the territory
of Kazakhstan for the escalating war in Afghanistan. Michael McFaul, Special Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs and senior director of
Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the United States
National Security Council, “told reporters in a
conference call that the agreement will allow troops
to fly directly from the United States over the North
Pole to the region.” McFaul directly stated, “This will save money; it
will save time in terms of moving our troops and
supplies needed into the theater.” The Washington Post
cited other White House officials claiming “Sunday’s
meeting between Obama and Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev was the turning point,” [1] an allusion to
the advance it signified over the last agreement on
military transport for the Afghan war signed between
the two countries in January, which permitted the
transport of only non-lethal American military
supplies and equipment across the country by rail. The government of Kazakhstan has also allowed
limited flights containing non-lethal military cargo
over its territory, but that entailed a lengthy and
circuitous route from the eastern United States to
Europe and over the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan,
ultimately headed to the Manas Transit Center in
Kyrgyzstan, which is currently in jeopardy after the
overthrow of the government in that nation on April 7.
However, now “Kazakhstan has agreed to let the
United States fly troops and weapons over its
territory, a deal that opens a direct and faster route
over the North Pole for American forces and lethal
equipment headed to Afghanistan.” [2] The new arrangement will also substitute for a
previous one under which U.S. military cargo planes
flew combat troops and materiel to the Ramstein Air
Base in Germany, from there to air bases in Kuwait and
other destinations in the Persian Gulf, circumventing
Iran which forbids American military overflights, and
then either directly into the Bagram Air Base in
Afghanistan or to Pakistan. The second option often
entails using treacherous land routes subject to
regular attacks by militants on the Pakistani side of
the border. The Pentagon has also been working on a sea and
land route beginning at the Georgian Black Sea port of
Poti and from there to fellow Caucasus nation
Azerbaijan and that country’s Caspian Sea neighbors
Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, conspicuously
circumventing Russia, as do the oil and natural gas
pipelines the West has promoted to transport
hydrocarbons in the opposite direction, from
Kazakhstan to the Black Sea. “The new route over the North Pole to Bagram Air
Base, the military’s main air hub in Afghanistan, will
allow troops to fly direct from the United States in a
little more than 12 hours.” [3] The Air Force Times detailed that “Flying over
Russia and Kazakhstan means Air Force cargo jets could
fly from Alaska to Afghanistan without refueling, U.S.
Transportation Command officials have said. Chartered
passenger jets could leave from Chicago and fly over
the North Pole to deliver troops.” [4] Colonel Jon Chicky, a faculty member at the
National Defense University, said of the new transport
route, “Just look at a map, it’s a lot easier to go
over the polar ice cap than all the way across the
Atlantic and Europe.” [5] U.S. military planes would necessarily have to fly
over Russia from the North Pole to reach Kazakhstan,
but there is no information that Russia has approved
such overflights. Sunday’s deal is the latest in a steady and
expanding series of moves by the Pentagon and the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization to establish a
permanent military outpost in Kazakhstan, the most
critically important spot on the earth for the West to
monitor its two main potential challengers and to hold
joint Russian-Chinese initiatives like the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization [6] in check (if not to tear
the heart out of them). Kazakhstan is a member of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) along
with Russia and five other former Soviet states. In
terms of land mass it is the second largest member of
the CSTO and the third most populous behind Russia and
Uzbekistan. The geopolitical significance of the country in
general has not escaped the U.S. since the day the
Soviet Union was fragmented into its fifteen federal
republics in 1991 and has been an even greater
cynosure of Washington’s attention since Barack Obama
was elected president on November 4, 2008. And with good reason. Kazakhstan borders
Kyrgyzstan, the most vital transit country for the war
in Afghanistan, where according to U.S. Central
Command 50,000 U.S. troops passed through on their way
to and from Afghanistan last month alone. [7] It also borders Uzbekistan, which evicted U.S.
military forces in 2005, and fellow Caspian Sea nation
Turkmenistan, a country in transition since the death
of President Saparmurat Niyazov in 2006 and until now
the only state from the Balkans to Central Asia not
pulled into the Pentagon’s and NATO’s greater Afghan
war network. Kazakhstan has a 950-mile (1,533-kilometer) border
with China and a 4,030-mile (6,846-kilometer) one with
Russia, the longest continuous border between any two
nations in the world. It is the second largest nation
in terms of territory to emerge from the Soviet Union
next to Russia and the ninth biggest in the world. As stated during a visit to the country by then
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in June
of 2009, it is “a nation almost the size of the whole
of western Europe and bordering Russia and China [and]
is also part of all the economic and military
alliances of its two powerful neighbours, including
the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO).” [8] Kazakhstan has projected oil reserves of 100-110
billion barrels, which if realized will be the third
largest in the world. Its projected natural gas
reserves are as high as 5 trillion cubic meters. It possesses the world’s largest reserves of
uranium, barite, lead and tungsten, and last year
became the world’s leading uranium producer. In
addition, the Central Asian nation has the second
largest reserves of chromite, silver, and zinc, the
third largest of manganese, and substantial if not yet
reliably established deposits of copper, gold and iron
ore. [9] The country has the largest economy in Central Asia
and more energy reserves than the other four nations
there combined. It is also home to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the
world’s first and largest space launch facility, from
which the first manned space flight was launched in
1961. It is currently managed by the Russian Federal
Space Agency and the Russian Space Forces under a
lease with the Kazakh government. Should Kazakhstan
shift further into the U.S. and NATO orbit that
arrangement will be subject to change. In appreciation of its geostrategic location and
role, Kazakhstan was brought into NATO’s
counterintuitively-named Partnership for Peace (PfP)
program in 1994 and the bloc’s 50-nation (28 full
member and 22 PfP states) Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council. In 2003 the U.S. Defense Department signed a
five-year Military Cooperation Plan with the country,
the only nation in the region the Pentagon has such a
program with, which included “such important
directions of cooperation as the development of the
peacekeeping potential of the Kazakh Armed Forces,
improvement of the Kazakhstan system of military
education and mutual participation in trainings.”
Kazakh troops were deployed to Iraq in the same year. Over 300 Kazakh officers have been sent for
training to U.S. military institutions, including the
West Point Military Academy and the National Defense
University, as part of the agreement As the Kazakh news source from which the above
information originated reported in January of 2009,
“Realization of the first Plan successfully ended in
2008. In February 2008 a 2008-2012 Cooperation Plan
was signed. Kazakh-American cooperation in defense and
security has achieved significant results within
implementation of the first plan.” [10] Before that, “Kazakhstan signed two agreements
supporting U.S. and NATO military operations in
Afghanistan, within the framework of the Enduring
Freedom plan, on December 15, 2001, and on June 10,
2002,” [11] which were formally ratified by the
nation’s senate in late 2008. In December of 2008 the Jamestown Foundation, a
U.S. think tank concentrating on the former Soviet
Union, featured an analysis of “the renewed focus by
American President-elect Barack Obama on Central Asia,
particularly Kazakhstan,” which is worth quoting from
at some length. The nation even then, sixteen months ago, was being
prepared for a larger, even preeminent, role in
expanding U.S. war plans for South Asia in light of
“Obama’s pledge to raise the American contingent in
Afghanistan to 20,000 [as] the U.S. forces will not be
able to rely entirely on Manas airfield in
Kyrgyzstan.” More importantly, “by expanding their military
presence in Central Asia, the United States and NATO
forces are determined to squeeze Russia and China out
of the oil-rich and strategically important region. “This strategy also corresponds to the U.S.-backed
plan of creating a Greater Central Asia extending from
Afghanistan, through the Central Asian states, to the
Middle East.” Specifically, by ratifying the previously-mentioned
military agreements, “allowing U.S. and NATO coalition
forces to use Almaty airport as an emergency airfield
for fighter planes flying on missions to Afghanistan,”
the Kazakh Senate provided the U.S. “an opportunity to
watch and gather intelligence on Chinese nuclear
facilities….” [12] “It appears that for Kazakhstan, NATO, and the
United States, the backup airfield will be a symbol of
military cooperation between the West and Central
Asia….” [13] The month after that feature appeared, Indian
political analyst M. K. Bhadrakumar wrote a column
which featured these observations: “The US is working on the idea of ferrying cargo
for Afghanistan via the Black Sea to the port of Poti
in Georgia and then dispatching it through the
territories of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan. A branch line could also go from Georgia
via Azerbaijan to the Turkmen-Afghan border. “The project, if it materializes, will be a
geopolitical coup – the biggest ever that Washington
would have swung in post-Soviet Central Asia and the
Caucasus. At one stroke, the US will be tying up
military cooperation at the bilateral level with
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. “Furthermore, the US will be effectively drawing
these countries closer into NATO’s partnership
programs.” “Besides, The US will have virtually dealt a blow
to the Russia-led Collective Security Treat
Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO).” “[T]he proposed land route covering Georgia,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan can also be
easily converted into an energy corridor and become a
Caspian oil and gas corridor bypassing Russia. “Such a corridor has been a long-cherished dream
for Washington. Furthermore, European countries will
feel the imperative to agree to the US demand that the
transit countries for the energy corridor are granted
NATO protection in one form or the other. That, in
turn, leads to NATO’s expansion into the Caucasus and
Central Asia. “The time may not be far off before they begin to
sense that the ‘war on terror is providing a
convenient rubric under which the US is incrementally
securing for itself a permanent abode in the highlands
of the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs, Central Asian
steppes and the Caucasus that form the strategic hub
overlooking Russia, China, India and Iran.” [14] Bhadrakumar’s contentions had been verified before
the fact as it were in June of 2008 when then U.S.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian
Affairs Matthew Bryza delivered an address in
Washington, DC called “Invigorating the U.S.-Turkey
Strategic Partnership,” which contained the following
comments: “Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev and Kazakh
President Nursultan Nazarbayev welcomed international
investors to help develop the Caspian Basin’s mammoth
oil and gas reserves. Then-Turkish President Suleyman
Demirel worked with these leaders, and with Georgian
President Eduard Shevardnadze, to develop a
revitalized concept of the Great Silk Road in the
version of an East-West Corridor of oil and natural
gas pipelines.” “The East-West Corridor we had been building from
Turkey and the Black Sea through Georgia and
Azerbaijan and across the Caspian became the strategic
air corridor, and the lifeline, into Afghanistan
allowing the United States and our coalition partners
to conduct Operation Enduring Freedom.”[15] If the former Indian diplomat asserted that the
military corridor from the Black Sea to Afghanistan
could be transformed into a strategic energy route
running in the opposite direction, the State
Department’s Bryza had already revealed that under the
guise of solely oil and natural gas projects the U.S.
and its NATO allies had long in advance of the
so-called global war on terror created the
infrastructure required to move troops and equipment
from Europe to Central and South Asia. In November of 2008 U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel
Bodman was in the capital of Azerbaijan, on the
eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, and said eleven
days after the election of Barack Obama that “the
incoming Obama administration will maintain an
interest in Caspian Sea energy resources. “It is my firm belief that this effort and this
region of the world will also be a priority for the
next administration.” [16] To give an indication of how far-reaching U.S.
plans are for a trans-Eurasian
(Caspian-to-Black-to-Baltic Seas) energy strategy to
drive Russia out of the European market, Bodman’s
comments were delivered at an energy summit attended
by the presidents and other leading officials of host
nation Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia,
Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine. At the same time “the state energy firms of
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan agreed [on November 14] to
begin shipping Kazakh oil across the Caspian Sea from
2013. “The deal follows up on a 2006 deal for Kazakhstan
to partake in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline
project, a pipeline that bypasses Russia to transfer
oil from Azerbaijan, through Georgia, to Turkey.” [17] The month before Washington’s Special Envoy for
European Affairs and Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy
C. Boyden Gray, speaking of the Nabucco natural gas
project, spoke in a vein similar to Bodman’s in
stating “a deal may soon be sealed allowing natural
gas from ex-Soviet nations to reach western Europe
bypassing Russian territory.” [18] The following January, after the change in U.S.
presidential administrations, U.S. ambassador to
Kazakhstan Richard Hoagland stated that “President
Barack Obama’s administration will adhere to policies
to develop alternative energy routes from Central
Asia,” and “I am quite confident that Obama’s
administration will adhere to several
alternative-routes policies for hydrocarbons
transportation.”[19] Shortly afterward the same American envoy promoted
the long-nurtured U.S. ambition to construct an oil
pipeline under the Caspian Sea to transport Kazakh oil
to Azerbaijan and connect with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
pipeline into Europe, a project fiercely opposed by
fellow Caspian nations Iran and Russia for both
environmental and economic reasons. In February of last year Hoagland said: “The U.S.
government backs the so-called Kazakh Caspian
transport system which calls for supplying crude oil
from Eskene in Kurik [in Kazakhstan, the beginning of
an Eskene-Kurik-Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan route] via a
pipeline and onwards to Baku via tankers….We think the
Trans-Caspian pipeline is technically and economically
more advantageous than providing supplies via tankers.
It is also politically well-grounded.” [20] It was announced in April of 2009 that Barack Obama
would be the first American president to visit
Kazakhstan, relations with which he described as
“strategic.” The plan didn’t materialize, but may now
after the further warming of relations between the two
nations. [21] On June 24-25 of last year NATO held its third-ever
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Security Forum in
the Kazakh capital of Astana, the first conducted
outside Europe and on former Soviet space. It focused
on “discussions of Afghanistan, Central Asia and the
Caucasus and energy security.” [22] Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer presided
over the event and said, “My presence here today means
that cooperation between NATO and Kazakhstan is
deepening.” [23] Kazakhstan is the only Central Asian
nation with a NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan. “Today, Kazakhstan is NATO’s most active Partner in
the Central Asian region. We have also achieved solid
progress in defence and military co-operation,
particularly in enhancing the ability of our military
forces to work together,” Scheffer added. [24] The Kazinform news agency conducted an interview
with Scheffer after the forum, a gathering in which
“NATO [was] seeking to deepen cooperation with its
partner countries in Central Asia – Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan,”
and the Alliance’s chief’s comments included: “I do believe that both Kazakhstan and NATO
influence each other. Kazakhstan’s position as an
energy supplier and the political role of your
president play an important role in different areas
and international organizations active in this region. “I’ve just come back from the Palace of the
President. We did not only discuss the Central Asian
region but the Middle East region as well.” [25] In August U.S. Ambassador Hoagland met with Kazakh
Defense Minister Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, and the Kazakh
Defense Ministry later issued a statement that said in
part: “Speaking about interaction in defense and
security, it is necessary to stress the importance of
the five-year cooperation plan. Operations are
successfully conducted in peacekeeping, training,
technical assistance and development of military
education. “During the meeting Kazakh Defense Minister
Dzhaksybekov paid special attention to the increased
number of actions of the plan of military contacts
directed to developing Kazbrig, the study of the
advanced experience and organization of the U.S army,
as well as the exchange of experience. “Opportunity for training of teachers of our
military institutions in the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point is new and a very promising trend. During
the training they can familiarize [themselves] with
advanced methods of teaching and various training
programs.” [26] KAZBRIG is “an airborne assault battalion…for
deployment in NATO-led peace support operations”
provided by Kazakhstan. [27] In the same month General David Petraeus, head of
U.S. Central Command, visited Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
and Uzbekistan to enlist support for the war in
Afghanistan, at the time particularly for the transit
of non-lethal military freight. There was speculation
that Petraeus was also soliciting troop contributions. Four months before, NATO’s Special Representative
for the South Caucasus and Central Asia and Deputy
Assistant Secretary General for Security Cooperation
and Partnership Robert Simmons, the individual most
responsible for extending NATO bases and troop
presence from the Balkans to the Chinese border, [28]
was quoted saying “NATO is awaiting a decision from
Kazakhstan on dispatching a peacekeeping contingent to
Afghanistan.” [29] He made that statement while addressing Kazakh
journalists at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “Simmons
said Kazakh peacekeepers could be sent to Afghanistan
and appropriate documents had been developed by NATO
and passed to Kazakhstan.” [30] In September Simmons was in Kazakhstan where he
“discussed the further In September U.S. Ambassador Richard Hoagland
reiterated the request. While giving a speech at the
opening ceremony of the Steppe Eagle-2009 military
training exercise which included “1,300 servicemen
from Kazakhstan, the UK, and the U.S.” and “100 units
of combat and special equipment and military transport
aircraft” to “check the coordination of Kazbrig units
and NATO forces in peacekeeping operations,” he
“offered to Kazakhstan to take part in the
peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.” [32] In the same month NATO held its first military
exercise in Central Asia, ZHETYSU 2009, in Kazakhstan.
A six-day disaster response exercise, it included 500
Kazakh and an equal amount of NATO and non-Kazakh
Partnership for Peace forces. In early October French President Nicolas Sarkozy
visited the capital of Kazakhstan, which took over the
chairmanship of the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) this year, and signed a
bilateral military agreement which allows “France to
use Kazakh territory and airspace to supply its 3,070
troops deployed in Afghanistan.” “Paris’s unique relationship with Astana might help
secure a policy objective long pursued by Washington
and London. This relates to convincing Astana to
operationally deploy peacekeepers from its
peacekeeping brigade (KAZBRIG) to support the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in
Afghanistan. “U.S. and U.K. military cooperation with Kazakhstan
since 2003 has focused, among other key goals, on
developing the country’s peace support operations (PSO)
capabilities, in line with its NATO Partnership for
Peace (PfP) goals….” [33] As part of what was described as a strategic
partnership, “The military transit deal had been under
discussion for two years and covers both air transit
and train transit of French military personnel and
equipment via Kazakhstan, according to a French
Foreign Ministry spokesman. He said train traffic
could then go through neighboring Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan where France already has a military
presence.” [34] To again illustrate that the NATO corridor from the
Black Sea to Central Asia runs in both directions: “Kazakhstan also awarded a consortium of French
companies a deal to take part in building a crucial $2
billion oil pipeline linking the vast Kashagan field
to the Caspian. Energy supplies through the route will
be transported across the inland sea by tanker to
Azerbaijan and pumped by pipeline westward to Europe,
circumventing Russia….Other commercial accords
included an agreement to create a joint venture
between the two countries’ state-owned nuclear power
companies to produce and market fuel for nuclear power
plants.” [35] Only days earlier it was reported that the
governments of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan had announced
further plans for oil transit arrangements between the
two countries: “Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest oil
producer, already ships some of its output by tankers
across the Caspian to Baku, where it is fed into the
Baku-Ceyhan and Baku-Supsa pipelines….Kazakhstan plans
to double oil output to 150 million tonnes a year
within the next decade, largely by starting production
at Kashagan, the world’s biggest oil find in the last
30 years.” [36] Earlier in the year the Kazakh Defense Ministry
“asked Israel to help it modernize its military and
produce weapons that comply with NATO standards.” [37]
In July Israeli President Shimon Peres became first
high-ranking official of his nation to visit
Kazakhstan as well as Azerbaijan. He led a delegation
that included Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas
Buchris and “some 60 representatives of
military-industrial companies.” [38] At the time the Jerusalem Post reported that
“Kazakhstan’s commitment to purchase satellite and
surveillance technology from Israel reflects the
growing role of Israeli defense industries in the
country.” [39] The preceding year it was reported that “Jerusalem
[has been] supporting the massive Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan,
or BTC, pipeline that opened its taps across the south
Caucasus in 2006. “The Jewish state also embraced ambitious plans to
one day build underwater pipelines beneath the Caspian
that would tap into the oil reserves of Kazakhstan and
natural-gas fields of Turkmenistan – purportedly the
world’s second largest – and deliver them westward
along those same BTC pipelines.” The newspaper account
added, “the U.S.-led NATO military alliance considers
it a top priority, with many of its members frantic
about ‘energy security.’” [40] In mid-October NATO military observers inspected an
airfield at the Almaty International Airport in the
former Kazakh capital to familiarize themselves with
ground assault and airborne units and military
aircraft. [41] It is the base that will receive direct
military flights from the U.S. in the future. At the beginning of this year NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in acknowledging the
transit agreement with Kazakhstan for the war in
Afghanistan that will involve 150,000 U.S. and NATO
troops by August said: “I am…pleased to announce the finalisation of an
agreement with Kazakhstan that will allow the transit
of supplies for NATO and Partner forces. I thank the
Kazakh Government for coming to this agreement with
us. This allows supplies for our forces to start
moving from Europe to Afghanistan, beginning in the
coming days, complementing the very important transit
route through Pakistan. [42] Slightly over two months later the Pentagon would
obtain the right to fly troops and military equipment
over Kazakhstan via the Arctic Circle. If developments proceed in the manner they are
headed, the Afghan war will secure for the Pentagon
and NATO a bulwark in the heart of Eurasia and a
permanent military presence in a country bordering
almost 5,000 miles of Russian and Chinese territory,
far broader in scope than comparable plans for
Mongolia. [43] 1) Washington Post, April 12, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../150 7) Associated Press, April 8, 2010 http://aboutkazakhstan.com/Kazakhstan_Overview.shtml 10) Kazinform, January 14, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../mr-simmons-mission-nato-bases-from-balkans-to-chinese-border 29) EurasiaNet, April 24, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia |
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