2 January 2008 | 10:22 | Globe and Mail
By Doug
Saunders
The struggle between East and West is set to envelop the
entire region during the coming year If, in the coming year, you
find yourself relaxing on the beach in the Bulgarian resort of Bourgas on
Europe's little-noticed east coast, you may soon realize that you are in the
centre of one of the world's most lavish and portentous conflicts, one that
involves a dozen countries and the nuclear powers of the Cold War and is likely
to produce explosions in 2008.
Look up the coast, just to the north, and you
will see U.S. bombers and surveillance planes taking off in increasing numbers
from Bulgarian and Romanian seaside bases as the U.S. and NATO militaries shift
their major installations from Germany to locations along the formerly communist
Black Sea coast.
In 2008, a year after the European Union added Bulgaria and
Romania, two former Warsaw Pact nations, to its membership, NATO will make its
most aggressive bids to win over the rest of the region. The North Atlantic
Treaty Organization's annual conference will be held near the sea in Romania,
and the most explosive item on the agenda will be the proposed membership of
Georgia – a Black Sea country that, if it joins, will expand the territory of
this Cold War military alliance to the deep interior of the former Soviet
Union.
Moscow is already reacting with anger to the expanding presence of
NATO on these shores, which had previously been entirely within Russia's sphere
of influence (only Turkey has traditionally been a NATO member). Half a dozen
“frozen conflicts” in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova appear ready to
erupt into full-scale secession wars in the coming year; in every case, the
militant movements appear to have Russian backing.
For the 100 million people
who live around the shores of the Black Sea, 2008 may well feel like a return to
the Cold War. This time, though, it's not clear which side any nation, any
region or any people are on: Like South America or Southeast Asia during that
previous Washington-Moscow standoff, the Black Sea region has become an
endlessly contested ground, subject to shifting influences as money and weapons
are dumped into unsuspecting populations.
In recent years, that conflict has
played itself out most visibly in Ukraine, whose elections have been dramatic
showdowns between Russian-supported forces and Western-backed democracy
movements. This year ended with pro-Western Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who
took office on Dec. 18, accusing Moscow of actively funding the opposition's
parties.
The struggle between East and West is about to envelop the entire
Black Sea region during the coming year, often with military
implications.
The sparring is likely to begin as early as Saturday, when
Georgia's five million citizens go to the polls in a presidential election and a
referendum on the country's proposed NATO membership. The vote was called after
weeks of violent mass demonstrations in November against pro-American president
Mikheil Saakashvili. The demonstrations, which Mr. Saakashvili and a number of
outside organizations say were backed by Russia, were met with brutal police
repression. Georgia, like Ukraine, appears to be divided in half between voters
who support the European Union and NATO and those who prefer a return to
Moscow's influence.
But there are even deeper divisions in Georgia, and in a
number of its Black Sea neighbours. Breakaway regions, which hope to form their
own nations – usually because their people are more loyal to Russia – have seen
low-level conflicts fraught with occasional bombings and acts of violence for
years. In 2008, any one of them could become full-scale war.
Georgia's
troubled regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have become increasingly violent
in recent months, their independence movements staging bolder attacks against
government facilities. Neighbouring Azerbaijan has had growing frictions in its
region of Nagorno-Karabakh. And on the other side of the Black Sea, the Moldovan
breakaway region of Transnistria, which is loyal to Russia, has seen increasing
tensions.
These landlocked slivers of Black Sea real estate could well become
conflict zones this year, for reasons rooted in another landlocked country that
lies closer to the Adriatic Sea. In late January or early February, the Serbian
province of Kosovo is likely to declare independence, an act that is backed by
the European Union and the United States.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
has warned that if Serbia, a Slavic-speaking country, loses its disputed
Albanian-majority province to Western influences, it will have a hard time
guaranteeing the integrity of Georgia and Moldova. Many observers see this as a
thinly veiled threat: If Kosovo goes, then so goes Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria. Some observers already say that arms are
flowing into these breakaway regions.
“The chance of some kind of armed
flare-up in at least one of those conflict zones in the coming year is
disturbingly high,” says Thomas de Waal, an expert on the Caucasus at the
Institute for War and Peace Reporting. “The consequences could be
catastrophic.”
Why are Brussels, Washington and Moscow devoting so much time,
money and armaments to a stretch of shoreline that has previously languished in
uneasy obscurity? Some of it has to do with geography: Georgia, Turkey, Armenia
and Azerbaijan sit near the border of Iran, and there is a strong desire to have
a Western-loyal buffer of nations and defence installations surrounding this
constant site of conflict.
Another reason might become visible if you sit
long enough on the beach in Bourgas.
Further out to sea, you might spot
Russian ships laying an enormous undersea pipeline, known as South Stream, that
will carry billions of cubic metres of natural gas from Russia, across the
900-kilometre width of the Black Sea to Bulgaria, and on to energy-hungry
Western Europe.
And just behind you, running up the Bulgarian shore, will be
the tail end of South Stream's Western-funded competitor, known as Nabucco,
which carries equally enormous amounts of gas from Iran and Central Asia through
Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey before it supplies Europe. These
pipelines, carrying Europe's Russian fuel supply and its hard-fought Iranian
alternative, provide the economic backdrop for this set of emerging
conflicts.
Europe is enormously reliant on Russian gas and oil to heat its
homes – some countries, such as Germany and Italy, are so completely dependent
that they would face an immediate crisis if the pipelines from Russia were
curtailed. (This occurred briefly in 2006, during a dispute between Russia and
Belarus over pipeline rights, and caused a sizable shock.) As a result, the
supplies of petroleum and gas from the Adriatic Sea through Azerbaijan and from
Iran are considered vital. (This is an important reason why the EU has been
reluctant to participate fully in sanctions against Iran over alleged nuclear
weapons activity.)
So much of this dispute – though not all of it, as some
would suggest – is rooted in the West's need for energy security. If non-Russian
sources of fuel are to be securely provided, then the loyalty of the countries
to the east, south and west of the Black Sea is vital. From Moscow's
perspective, if its continued dominance is to be maintained (and good prices
upheld for its supplies), then pipelines will need to pass through the west,
north and east of the Black Sea.
Some countries, notably Bulgaria and
Romania, stand to benefit either way: Both Adriatic-Iranian oil pipelines and
Russia's new pipes will enter Europe through their impoverished territory.
As
you relax on the beige sands of Bourgas – an increasingly popular vacation
getaway for both Central Europeans and for Russians – these rising tensions
might be visible along the shoreline and across the water. But they're likely to
seem especially bizarre when you return to your hotel, which is almost certain
to have EU flags flying on its awning – and to be owned by Russian
tycoons.
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