West traps Russia in its own backyard

The Great Game is picking up momentum. The sharp fall in oil prices has complicated Russia’s economic recovery, which in turn would disrupt the dynamics of the integration processes under Moscow’s leadership – political, military and economic – in the post-Soviet space.

US diplomats are scouring the region for chance to drive wedges

in the ties between Moscow and the regional capitals. Tajikistan, one of Russia’s staunchest allies, has distinctly warmed up to the US. Uzbekistan is once again ducking, which suggests it is open to the highest bidder. But Turkmenistan could be the jewel in the crown of the US’s regional diplomacy.
A concerted US effort has begun to somehow detach Ashgabat from the Russian sphere of influence and thereby kill the prospects of Russia’s plans for laying new gas pipelines for the European market. Alongside, there is also a determined bid to develop a northern supply route to Afghanistan via the Caucasus and the Caspian that would bypass Russia. While Russian cooperation is welcome, the US will not want its vulnerability in Afghanistan to be exploited for a reciprocal accommodation of Russian interests in Europe.

As of now, Moscow is keeping cool. Any excitement would only play into the hands of the hardliners in Washington. It reacted calmly in early April in the face of the attempt to stage a “color revolution” in Moldova to replace the democratically elected government friendly toward Moscow. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cautioned that the US and Russia should not “force” former Soviet republics to choose between an alliance with Washington or Moscow, nor should there be any “hidden agendas” in US-Russia relations. “It is inadmissible to try to place a false choice before them [former Soviet republics], either you are with us or against us. Otherwise, this will lead to a whole struggle for spheres of influence,” Lavrov pointed out.

Attention at the moment is on the so-called Cooperative Longbow 09/Cooperative Lancer military exercise that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) proposes to hold from May 6 through June 1 in Georgia. The drill aims to improve “interoperability” between NATO and its partner countries. But, clearly, the US choreographed the initiative as a reiteration of the West’s security commitments to the Georgian regime. In the event, the US had a hard time persuading its NATO partners to participate. Germany and France, which are opposed to NATO needlessly provoking Russia, declined.

A NATO military exercise in the highly combustible security environment in the Caucasus is indeed controversial. Russia sees it as a “back-door” attempt by Washington to involve NATO with Georgia’s security and as a creeping expansion by the alliance into the Caucasus. Indeed, the geopolitical consequences of the conflict last August are yet to be assimilated.

Asia Times