By Mamuka Tsereteli 
CEPA
February 9, 2024
 

A US strategy for the Black Sea is long overdue. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the involvement of the US, Europe, Iran, and North Korea, have created new geopolitical realities around the area.

While a broad range of political, maritime, economic, and energy security issues have increased the need for clarity in the US approach, one particular recent development is urgent and needs answers.

Russia’s Black Sea fleet has taken a beating from Ukraine. In all, 15 warships have been sunk and 12 damaged in the past two years, most recently the missile corvette Ivanovets on January 31.

That has forced Russia to look for harbors further east, such as Novorossiysk and Tuapse. But there is no safety from Ukrainian aerial and maritime drones there either, as indicated by a January 28 strike on the latter port’s oil refinery.

Recognizing the risk, Russia plans to reactivate a small Soviet-era military facility in Ochamchire in Abkhazia, a Georgian region illegally occupied by Russia. Currently, Ochamchire is a base for Russian FSB patrol boats and is not capable of harboring large naval vessels.

The decision has significant implications for Georgia and its Black Sea-Caspian neighbors, threatening the viability of important trade routes.

Here, some context is necessary. Georgia’s Black Sea ports are in close proximity to Ochamchire and are already serving as connecting links between Europe and wider areas of Central Asia, which includes a range of countries stretching from the South Caucasus to China’s western Xinjiang region.

Ochamchire is also fairly close to the potential point of entry for the planned subsea power cable connecting South Caucasus sources of green energy to the European Union (EU) countries of Romania and Hungary.

This strategic role of the Eastern Black Sea is frequently missing from EU and US policy documents.

Non-EU littoral states are not included in the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), for example. At the same time, the Black Sea ports of Georgia and the so-called “Middle Corridor,” linking the South Caucasus to Central Asia, provide Europe with access to vast resources of energy, metals, coal, cotton, and other goods, as well as to growing markets in an emerging region.

This latter role is particularly important; for Central and Eastern European states, saddled with a decades-long dependency on Russian resources and Russia-linked infrastructure, the South Caucasus and Central Asia can serve as a major potential alternative. This importance may only grow with the post-war development and reconstruction of Ukraine that will follow the current war.

The Middle Corridor, running between Kazakhstan and Georgian Black Sea ports and the Mediterranean ports of Turkey, allows Central Asian states to bypass the geopolitically unstable Russian route.

Some of the claims for this route are overblown. It’s unlikely it will become a major corridor connecting China and Europe. There are significant geographic, political, economic, and governance issues associated with this, meaning it will be unable to match maritime, or other land-based transportation options between China and the EU.

At the same time, the Middle Corridor is extremely important for the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

According to multiple studies, (see World Bank study, EBRD) the transshipment potential of the Middle Corridor between Europe and Asia via the Caspian Sea will continue to grow and play an increasingly important role between the growing economies of Central Asia/South Caucasus and EU and Mediterranean markets. This will require a combination of investment and efficiency measures and more vigorous intra-regional coordination.

The only suitable outlet for this route is Georgia; the other countries are landlocked and need to transit neighboring states to reach open seas and markets.

But the absence of firm security guarantees from NATO or other military allies also makes Georgia and its Black Sea ports vulnerable.

Russia’s willingness to use military force and gray zone attacks in the Black Sea increases political risk. One way to mitigate this is to engage as many countries as possible in trade and transit via Georgia. Once Georgian ports are important to others, such as Turkey, China, India, and the Gulf States, the pressure for peace can balance potential threats.

Georgia also needs to develop naval defense capabilities with drones and air defense systems and rebuild civil defense and military reserve systems to create at least a basic level of deterrent to Russian aggression.

The US Black Sea Strategy should incorporate support for the free flow of goods and mineral resources between Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

But most importantly, it should include a pathway to the development of the Black Sea security system for all littoral states, including Georgia, regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine. This is a vital American strategic interest, with implications beyond the Black Sea region.
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mamuka Tsereteli, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council/Central Asia-Caucasus Institute

Published in Staff Publications

By Dr. Mamuka Tsereteli

July 12, 2023

American Foreign Policy Council Insights

Last year, more than a million people left Russia, marking what is likely the largest yearly emigration in recorded history. By way of comparison, emigration from Russia between 1917 and 1922, following the Bolshevik Revolution and the country’s ensuing civil war, totaled 1.5 million over half-a-decade. Fear of conscription into the Kremlin’s “special military operation” against Ukraine was a principal driver for last year’s exodus. The result has been a major outflow of younger and well-educated people in high-value industries– with significant long-term implications for both Russia’s economy and its society.

THE SHAPE OF THE EXODUS

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there have been two major waves of emigration. The first took place mostly during March 2022, and included wider segments of Russian society: from those who disapproved of the war to those who had pragmatic reasons, like jobs related to Western companies which they did not want to lose, to a larger group that was afraid they would be called upon to serve in Ukraine. The second, which started after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s September 2022 announcement of a “partial mobilization” to beef up Russia’s military ranks, was more targeted in nature and made up predominantly of those seeking to avoid the draft. 

According to a recent study of the first wave of migrants, the average age was 32 – notably younger than the average age of the general Russian population (46). Among migrants, 86 percent held higher education degrees, as compared to a 27 percent average within the Russian population. Moreover, 27 percent of them could afford to buy car, compared to only 4 percent of ordinary Russians, suggesting that those migrants had better than average incomes while in Russia. Specifically, according to the Russian government, about 10 percent of the overall IT workforce (approximately 100,000) left the country in 2022, and have not returned.

Where have these immigrants headed? Russia's non-EU neighbor states have been the primary destinations. While the numbers are, by their nature, imprecise, the majority of those who have emigrated to date appear to have settled in Kazakhstan, Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia. Smaller numbers, meanwhile, have migrated to the EU, Israel, Kyrgyzstan and the U.S., as well as places like Serbia, Mongolia, and Argentina.

Notably, this trend has created a strong countercurrent. Finland, the Baltic states and Poland all enacted visa bans on Russian citizens in September 2022, while the EU as a whole has instituted restrictions on entry to Russians. 

RISKS AND REWARDS

The out-migration outlined above will have a lasting impact on the Russian economy for years to come. Even before the start of Putin’s war, the national economy was facing an acute labor shortage as a result of long-term demographic trends, as well as a “brain drain” of skilled workers which has plagued the country since the 1990s. Now, the war-driven migration of educated Russians is making matters much, much worse. 

This wave of migration will also have important and lasting impacts on the host countries where these Russians settle. On a positive note, they bring with them money and skills, thus contributing to local economies. But, since they tend to be wealthier than the majority of local populations, these migrants will invariably increase demand on local markets, thereby affecting prices. They have also caused serious pressure on real estate markets in host countries. Local labor trends are being affected, too; since not all of these migrants have jobs with Western companies, and they do not rank as the wealthiest Russians (those with unlimited financial resources), they gradually will need to find jobs in their host countries, increasing pressure on already uneasy labor markets in the process.

At the same time, these migrants bring with them both immediate and longer-term risks. First off, most of those who left Russia following the invasion of Ukraine did not do so because of their political convictions, or disagreements with the policies of President Putin. Rather, the great majority were escaping mobilization, and are merely draft dodgers. In other words, these Russians still rank as patriots, and so raise a real political concern. If allowed to integrate in the new host nations, these migrants will gradually gain electoral power, eventually impacting both domestic and international priorities, particularly in countries with small populations and narrow, contested elections, such as Armenia and Georgia.  

Secondly, some of these migrants can be expected to already have connections with Russian security agencies, or to become targets of Russian recruitment in the future. After all, most will interact with their fellow Russian migrants, and some are already building lives, businesses and communities in host countries. Russia’s security services will have great interest in penetrating those communities, both to monitor the state of the opposition to the current regime in Moscow, and in order to manipulate local opinion. These communities could also easily become cells for espionage operations or instruments for Russian soft power projection down the road.

These are real and tangible threats which require sustained attention from the national security apparats of countries that are hosting Russian migrants now or will do so in the future. Moreover, the size of this potential problem could grow precipitously, depending on what course the Ukraine war takes – and the methods the Putin regime resorts to – in the weeks and months ahead. 

Mamuka Tsereteli is Senior Fellow for Eurasia at the American Foreign Policy Council, and a Senior Fellow at AFPC’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

Published in Staff Publications

Join the spring 2023 Rumsfeld Foundation's Central Asia, Mongolia, the Caucasus and Afghanistan (CAMCA) fellows for a presentation on the regional economic and political implications of Russia's war in Ukraine. Speakers will examine various strategies to better protect their sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and improve conditions for further economic development. Register for this in-person event to discuss these issues and learn why the U.S. should support the CAMCA countries in this challenging international environment.

Moderator: S. Frederick Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at theAmerican Foreign Policy Council

When: Tuesday April 25, 2023 - 3:00-4:30 PM EST

Where: American Foreign Policy Council, 509 C Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.?subject=CAMCA%20Forum%20Registration">Register via email

 

Published in Forums & Events
Thursday, 30 March 2023 16:51

Promise and Peril in the Caucasus

By Svante Cornell

March 30, 2023

https://www.afpc.org/publications/articles/promise-and-peril-in-the-caucasus

Screen Shot 2023-03-30 at 1.05.27 PM

 

On January 27th, a gunman entered Azerbaijan’s embassy in Tehran, Iran, killed the embassy security officer and wounded two others. The episode received only fleeting coverage in the international media. In the wake of the incident, Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, openly accused “some of the branches of the Iranian establishment” of being responsible for the attack, and Baku promptly evacuated its embassy staff and dependents. It was a clear sign of the frictions between Azerbaijan and its not-so-friendly neighbor, Iran. 

To be sure, relations between the two countries had deteriorated sharply since the fall of 2020, when Azerbaijan, using mainly Turkish and Israeli weaponry, succeeded in taking back territories long occupied by regional rival Armenia. In that conflict, Iran had played a distinctly unhelpful role, seeking to stall Azerbaijan’s military advances and providing covert support for Armenia. But the incident itself, as well as its fallout, is indicative of a larger realignment of power politics now underway in Eurasia – one with immense implications for U.S. interests. 

Over the past two years, regional events have highlighted the importance of the Caucasus, the narrow isthmus between Iran and Russia that connects Europe to Central Asia through the Black and Caspian seas. America’s ill-conceived withdrawal from Afghanistan shut down hopes that landlocked Central Asian states would be able to open transport routes through that country, thereby connecting to the Indian subcontinent and the Indian ocean. Then, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine abruptly shut down the land transport corridor linking China to Europe through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus. Suddenly, the only land route linking China and Central Asia to Europe is the one that passes through the Caucasus.

But while America has paid increasing attention to Central Asia in recent years – Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the region in February – it has all but ignored the three countries of the Caucasus. This, in spite of the region’s growing importance in relation to Central Asia, and to the countering of Iran.

Indeed, the Caucasus is a region where alignments don’t fit easily into preconceived notions. Iran has supported Christian Armenia against Muslim Azerbaijan, largely because up to a third of Iran’s own population consists of Turkic-speaking Azerbaijanis, whom Iran fears may seek to separate and join up with their northern brethren. Conversely, Israel has developed strong relations with Azerbaijan, capitalizing on the staunchly secular nature of Azerbaijani society and its government’s efforts to promote inter-religious harmony. Israeli drone technology, for instance, was critical to Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 war.

Turkey’s shift has been dramatic, too. A decade ago, Islamist impulses led the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to pursue an accommodation with Iran while expanding the country’s stature in the Middle East. Turkey’s support for political Islam, in turn, led to the collapse of its relations with Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But the war in Syria put Turkey and Iran on a collision course, while changing domestic politics over the past half decade have led Istanbul to adopt a foreign and security policy heavily influenced by the nationalist (rather than Islamist) preferences.

As a result, Turkey has mended fences with Arab nations and with Israel – a process that has been facilitated by Azerbaijan, which managed to keep excellent relations with both Jerusalem and Ankara throughout. More important, from an American perspective, is the fact that Ankara has emerged as the strongest regional counterweight to Iran. Last December, the Turkish defense minister supervised joint military exercises along the Azerbaijani border with Iran, responding to drills that Tehran had organized only weeks prior in which Iranian forces practiced an invasion of Azerbaijan. Turkey and Azerbaijan now have a defense pact – something that has enabled Baku to speak up against Tehran in ways that were unthinkable a year ago.

Then there is Armenia. While Turkey and Azerbaijan are joining forces with Israel to counter Tehran, Yerevan finds itself stuck in an entente with both Tehran and Moscow dating back to the 1990s. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has making noises about escaping Russia’s orbit of late, launching overtures to the U.S. and the European Union. But Russian influence in Armenia’s national security bureaucracy remains strong, as does Russian ownership of critical infrastructure in the country. More worrying is the fact that Armenia appears to have played a critical role in Iran’s transfer of drones and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine. 

In the middle of it all is Georgia, previously America’s closest partner in the region. But in recent years, Georgia’s government – now under the control of a shadowy tycoon who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s – has become increasingly skeptical of the West.

America’s national security bureaucracy separates the Caucasus and the Middle East into different bureaus, with Central Asia in yet another office. This is part of the reason the U.S. has failed to respond to the ways in which the regional politics of these regions intertwine. In view of the challenges posed by Russia and Iran, however, Washington’s confusion is no longer tenable. It is in America’s interest to encourage Turkey’s emergence as a counterweight to Iran, and to nurture the growing alignment between Ankara, Baku and Jerusalem. The U.S. also needs to work to recover its influence in Georgia, as well as to reinforce the efforts it began in late 2022 to bring about a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. All of the above, however, requires a much stronger American commitment to the security and stability of the countries of the Caucasus.

Svante E. Cornell is the Director of AFPC’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

 

Click here to download publication PDF

Published in Staff Publications

CACI Webinar: The Growing Role of the S. Caucasus in European Energy Security

Join our experts for a webinar discussing growing energy collaboration between the South Caucasus and Europe. They will provide a status update on growing supply of natural gas from Azerbaijan to several EU member countries, as well as on the prospect for energy transit from Central Asia and the potential for green energy supply by submarine power line under the Black Sea connecting Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary. 

Panelists:

  • Prof. Brenda ShafferU.S. Naval Postgraduate School
  • Dr. Mamuka Tsereteli, Senior Fellow for Eurasia, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council 

Moderator:

Dr. Svante Cornell, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council

WHEN: Monday, March 6, 2023, 10:00-11:00 AM EST 

 

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