(This is Part 5 in a series. Go back to Part 4.)
This principle, which explains so much about geopolitics in the past, applies very well to the present geopolitical situation also.
As discussed earlier, the world is in process of dividing into a world with the U.S. and a few allies on one side and a Eurasian Alliance on the other. And as we shall see, this bipolar world is coming into being at least partly over strategic resources.
There is an arc stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea Basin and then to the South China Sea. It is sometimes called the "Arc of Instability" or the "Strategic Triangle" because it contains the world's most important resources of fossil fuel and at the same time is politically and militarily unstable.
The first of these, the Persian Gulf, is notorious for its instability. Just for openers we could mention the War in Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and escalating anti-U.S. passions in the Muslim world.
Mix in to this sulphurous brew the fact that the Persian Gulf contains two-thirds of the world's oil reserves and we have a recipe for grave ongoing conflict.
Let's pass to the top of the arc and the Caspian Basin, which consists of countries surrounding the Caspian Sea such as Russia, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
This area is now considered by geologists to contain the world's second largest reserves of petroleum. This fact has only come to light in the last few years, and naturally, the Caspian Basin has become an area of much greater potential conflict.
Both Russia and the U.S. are steadily increasing their presence in the region—diplomatically, economically and militarily. In effect, most of the countries of the Caspian Basin have become surrogates in a rising (renewed) conflict between the United States and Russia.
For instance, as part of its actions since 9/11 the U.S. has quietly established a number of military bases within the Caspian Basin. These bases are about projecting force in the region, yes. But underneath that is the vital strategic necessity of protecting oil fields and pipelines—existing or proposed—flowing from the landlocked Caspian Sea outward towards the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean.
Similarly, the Russians are busy establishing an increasing presence in the region, through trade agreements in the economics sphere, exchanges of high-level delegations in the political sphere, and military aid and support.
For example, Russia has signed mutual security compacts with most of the nations in the Caspian region. It has established a joint naval command at Astrakhan with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. It has also established an integrated air defense system with Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and so on.
Russia's primary objective in all this is to ensure that a major portion of the energy from the Caspian Basin flows through existing Russian pipelines to the Black Sea and then to Europe.
The United States, on the other hand, wants to see that pipelines from the Caspian Basin flow on routes that avoid Russia and Iran; the U.S., therefore, is pushing for pipelines that flow from the Caspian Sea to Georgia and Turkey, nations that are more receptive to U.S. interests.
Both sides see control of the energy flowing from the Caspian Sea Basin as vital to their long-term strategic interests. This conflict is very intense but still mostly off the radar screen of the global public. However, it is so significant that it has been called the Second Cold War.
The third part of the Strategic Arc mentioned previously is the South China Sea. Again, very significant oil and gas deposits have been discovered in the area. Moreover, oil and LNG tankers traverse this area on their way from the Persian Gulf to the Phillipines, Japan, South Korea, etc.
A goodly portion of the developing conflict in the area concerns the Spratly archipilago, a large but seemingly unimportant chain of tiny reefs and islands in the South China Sea. Why is it that China, Vietnam, the Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia and so on are disputing so intensely over these tiny islands?
The matter becomes clearer when we understand that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea allows nations that border on an ocean or sea to claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extending out 200 miles from land.
Thus, the conflict over the seemingly insignificant Spratly Islands (over a dozen military "incidents" since 1988) is at bottom a contest about who will control oil and gas rights in the energy-rich South China Sea.
As discussed before, the geopolitical world is morphing from a unipolar globe (with the U.S. at its center) into a
bipolar world with two centers of power—the U.S. and a few allies on the one hand, and on the other a coalescing
Eurasian Alliance—perceived as a counterweight to an over-muscular U.S.—with the EU, Russia and the nations of East Asia at its strategic core.
This increasing precipitation into a bipolar world will take place primarily along the fault lines of the Strategic Arc stretching from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea—an area which just happens to contain the vast majority of the world's energy reserves.
—jim sloman, 12.24.04 for Mar 9
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