Second, the idea that Russia may be able to force the creation of a
new main pipeline to the Russian port of Novorossiisk is simply
ludicrous. Given price, quantity and the security situation in
Chechnya and Dagestan, Western oil consortia are not going to invest
in any such thing, and Russia certainly is not able to. Now that it
controls northern Chechnya, Russia may be able to restore the
existing, limited oil link to Novorossiisk, but that is all. Finally,
so long as there remains a possibility that a U.S.-Iran détente will
allow the construction of a much shorter and cheaper pipeline via
Iran to the Gulf, the oil companies would be profoundly foolish to
invest heavily in other routes.

Equally important, much of the discussion about Central Asia in the
United States has centered on the threat of renewed Russian hegemony,
whereas what the experience of Chechnya proves is that Russia,
although often brutal, is a great deal weaker than was assumed in the
early 1990s. Chechnya provides a searing example of the dangers of
state collapse, anarchy and growing Islamist radicalism that
currently beset the Caspian region. For if one aspect of the
disasters that have befallen Chechnya has been the cynicism,
incompetence and chauvinism of the Yeltsin regime, another has been
the disappearance of the institutions and culture of a modern state
in the territory. This fate may yet await other territories in the
region, as its various post-Soviet regimes prove incapable of
carrying out effective reforms and overcoming the enormous social,
political and economic problems confronting them.

I say this with the deepest regret. During their last war, I came
greatly to like and admire the Chechens (one reviewer accused me of
being in love with them), and to sympathize with what they have had
to endure. While the Russian campaign of terror bombing has its
international--and, indeed, recent Western--precedents, that does not
make it any the less deplorable. One can only hope that the Kremlin
will not be led into another lunatic and morally criminal attempt to
conquer the whole of that state. For this would likely lead to a
scale of devastation and suffering exceeding even that of the war of
1994-96, which played such a disastrous role in fomenting banditry
and extremism in the region.

Nevertheless, it must also be recognized that these tendencies were
already present in Chechnya before 1994. They stemmed from economic
collapse; from an anarchical social tradition; and, above all, from
the fact that, while the Chechen national revolutions of 1991
destroyed the old Soviet structures, the Chechens have proved
incapable of creating effective state institutions of their own.
Instead, as in Afghanistan after the fall of the communist regime
there, the resulting vacuum has been filled by a rule representing a
mixture of traditional social codes and warlords, against the
backdrop of the growing power of radical Islamists supported by or
even directed from the Middle East. Terrorism by these Islamist
revolutionaries has already become a serious threat in Russia,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and in recent months has spread into
Kyrgyzstan.

It is, of course, not impossible that the recent bombings in Moscow
were executed by forces close to the Yeltsin regime in an effort to
create an excuse for the declaration of a state of emergency. This
seems counterintuitive, however, given what we know of the background
of the Saudi-born leader of the radical Islamist forces in Chechnya,
Khattab, and the terrorist record of such groups elsewhere. If such
people were willing to kill hundreds of innocent Africans (including
Muslims) in attacks on U.S. embassies, why should they have hesitated
to kill Russian civilians? All one can say with certainty is that if
dark forces in Moscow were looking for "cover" for a terror campaign,
the presence of Khattab and his men in Chechnya, and their incursion
into Dagestan in August, gave all the "cover" anyone could possibly
have desired.

Irrelevant and Dangerous

As a number of states in the region increasingly confront the
possibility of Chechen-style collapse, it is essential that the
United States face the fact that it is neither strong enough, nor
indeed interested enough, to contribute seriously to Central Asian
stability. U.S. and Western assistance can be very useful where local
leaders and conditions genuinely favor reform, as in Georgia; but in
Central Asia, programs like NATO's Partnership for Peace are wildly
irrelevant to the actual threats facing the region. They are also
dangerous, for they provide regimes with the impression of a U.S.
commitment that simply does not exist, while at the same time
thoroughly alarming and irritating Russia.

Many advocates of stronger U.S. engagement in the region argue that
the United States should in effect substitute an increased military
commitment and even the deployment of U.S. forces for economic growth
and political stability. Stephen Blank suggests that, "NATO, under
U.S. leadership, will now move closer to becoming an international
policeman and hegemon in the Transcaspian and define the limits of
Russian participation in the region's oil boom." If this were to
happen, it would be a truly catastrophic error. But it almost
certainly is not going to happen, given the profound opposition to
any such move by the Europeans, the U.S. Congress and the Pentagon.
What could well transpire, however, is that irresponsible statements
by U.S. officials may persuade Russia, Iran and the Caspian states
that such a military commitment is indeed forthcoming.

Then, too, Washington's turning a blind eye to Turkish human rights
abuses, and its sponsorship of the expansion of Turkish influence in
the region, have probably done more than anything else to convince
Russians that American rhetoric about human rights is hypocritical,
and that the United States is implacably hostile to Russian
interests. If the United States possessed vital interests in the
Caspian region, and were prepared to secure them with determination,
there would then be a case for saying to hell with Russian opinion;
in the absence of those conditions, many aspects of existing policy
seem like unnecessary and even frivolous provocations. This applies
most clearly to guuam, the U.S.-sponsored anti-Russian pact linking
Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova. Given the
internal conditions of most of these states and their limited
capacity to aid one another, the most appropriate comment on them
seems to be a variant of the old gibe about the Nonaligned Movement:
"ten drowning men holding on to each other."

If the United States is to contribute to general stability in the
region, that end will be achieved not through a policy of trying to
"roll back" or "contain" Russian and Iranian influence, but rather by
trying to engage these states in the pursuit of common interests. In
this context, it is vital to understand that even before the
massacres of Afghan Shiites by the Taliban last year brought
Afghanistan and Iran to the brink of war, Tehran was strongly hostile
to the growth of Sunni radicalism in the region. Portrayals of Iran
as standing behind the radical Islamists in the former Soviet Union
are in fact desperately wide of the mark--especially as Iran now
regards Russia as a quasi-ally against Turkey, Azerbaijan and the
United States, and would certainly not wish to witness Russian power
in the Caucasus being undermined by the Islamists. Further, the fact
that Iran is by definition a Shiite state, whereas (outside
Azerbaijan) the vast majority of Central Asians are Sunnis, places
very strict limits on the potential for Iranian dominance. As for
Iran-backed Shiite terrorism, except in the limited and very special
case of Hizballah in Lebanon, it ceased several years ago.

If U.S. policymakers could free themselves from the admittedly bitter
legacy of past relations with Iran, they would recognize that the
rise of radical Sunni terrorism creates a shared vital interest with
Tehran, one that will endure irrespective of whether its government
is a relatively liberal one or a theocracy. Indeed, for historical
and religious reasons dating back more than 1,300 years, hostility to
the Taliban and their like is even stronger among the conservative
Shiite leadership and its supporters than among Iran's liberals.
During last year's Iranian-Afghan crisis, for example, the force that
pressed hardest for military action against the Taliban was not the
Iranian Army but the conservative Revolutionary Guard.

Not Our Sonuvabitches

U.S. policy toward the Caspian states reflects two widespread
failings. The first is that it continually looks to "democracy" as a
panacea for the region's ills. The second is that it ignores the
effects of America's policies on the behavior of these states. This
may be morally convenient, but it leads to repeated missed
opportunities to influence them in a moderate and conservative
direction. The issue of future U.S. strategies in this region
therefore raises some fundamental questions concerning both the
conduct and the philosophy of U.S. foreign policy in general; above
all, to what degree the United States is or should be a "satisfied"
and conservative power, and to what degree an "unsatisfied" one,
pursuing a revolutionary program of political and economic change,
and an aggressive expansion of American influence at the expense of
other powers.

Essay Types: Essay