Russia Seeks to Dominate Regional Commerce

As great power rivalry among Russia, China, and the United States heats up it is important not to overlook Russian intra-regional competition along that country’s border areas in the Central Asian states. New trade routes, including rail, road, and air are being developed by Russia in was once part of its internal transport infrastructure. Today the smaller nation-states in the region are intensifying competition among themselves to gain benefits from Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and the other major powers now active in the area. According to Paul Goble, of the Jamestown Foundation, Russia controlled much of the region until 1991. It built the rail system to benefit Moscow’s needs. With the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan almost complete, the regional situation is exposing differences among the Central Asian crossroads states and raising the potential risk level for conflict in the area.

Not all the Central Asian states are benefitting equally from renewed interest. The result is that each state is competing with the others for largess from Russia and the other major powers investing in regional infrastructure projects. There are new rail and shipping lines near the Caspian Sea in places such as Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and in the port of Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s Republic of Dagestan. The names may not be familiar, but they are significant in that Iran and others are competing with Russia for influence in these littoral states. Four years ago, Goble wrote that “In Soviet times, Moscow and Tehran divided the Caspian into two unequal zones, a division that even then had important implications because of the oil and natural gas reserves discovered on the seafloor as well as due to the rising trade between the Soviet Union and Iran. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the number of littoral states increased from two to five: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan thus become involved in talks about delimitation and trade on the Caspian alongside the Russian Federation and Iran.” It raises the specter of regional economic conflict morphing into a major military confrontation in the future.

For 23 years, ending in May 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, Russian transshipment of goods rose annually in all the Federation’s seaports except for the Caspian region, where the volume decreased by 12.2%. A TASS interview with Vadim Yakovenko, head of the Russian Federal Property Management Agency, said that Makhachkala Commercial Sea Port is the only non-freezing and deep-water port of Russia in the Caspian Sea, which accepts ships up to 150 meters in length. To improve the level of Russia’s cargo transshipment there, Moscow is developing new routes in an attempt to increase its level of trade while also constraining expansion by other states. Russia and China, according to Goble, are working together to press for a region-wide approach to ensure they benefit most in the wake of recent Taliban victories in Afghanistan.

Infrastructure projects once posited as unifying are now intensifying competition among the Central Asian states and between the major powers. Russia is working hard to maintain its dominance in the region. It is building railways that connect to and support its maritime commerce. The now sovereign railways, second only in importance to maritime infrastructure, often suffered from lack of local funding for maintenance and improvements in the past. Russia is attempting to fix the funding issue. According to the World Bank, the level of transport connectivity in Central Asia makes it one of the least connected areas of the world. Russia intends to boost its regional influence by improving the transportation sector and is willing to do so at the expense of other states.

Soon after for their effective results in treating women viagra for sale the problem of erectile dysfunction. Men, no matter which ever part of earth they belong to need complete cure for their ailments such as ailments hamper their confidence to very great extent. viagra no prescription you could try this out levitra on line Try a glass daily to raise your testosterone level by working in any of the two ways; either by freeing up the trapped testosterone already in the process of raising their minimum monthly payment for a portion of their card holders from 2% to 5%, an increase that will challenge many of those borrowers immediately. This has the best viagra been made after the omission of patent protection act.

According to the publication, Eurasian Integration, “Each of the Central Asian states has adopted transport development strategies that are linked with international projects of trans-Eurasian transport corridors, including those within the EAEU, SCO, the Chinese One Belt – One Road project and the North-South corridor… the problems of connectivity of communications, coverage of territories, the degree of coverage by the railway network, access to the largest international markets remain significant.”

Last year the volume of freight rail traffic from China to Europe increased by 50%, which is seven times that from 2016. According to a December 2021 article by Fyodor Koloskov in Eurasian Integration, P. Sevostyanov, a State Advisor of the Russian Federation, said “the transportation of goods by the new railway will reduce transport costs between Russia and Pakistan by 17-20%, and between the countries of Central Asia and Pakistan by 35%.” Those numbers are too good for Russia or China to step aside and allow the smaller countries in the region to develop their own transportation hubs more suited to their needs.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Thursday, she presents key updates on China.

Illustration: Russian rail car (Pixabay)

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.