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US Energy Policy in the Caspian Sea
US foreign policy toward energy resources in the region during the Bush years—
particularly the negotiations and success in establishing the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan oil
pipeline—set much of the tone for how US diplomats began to conceive their role
in the region. Specifically, the framework encouraged the use of energy diplomacy
as a means of bolstering the sovereignty and independence of countries in the
region. According to many commentators, including Alexander Cooly, this became
the established modus operandi of the administration. In the professor’s view;
The Tbilisi-Ceyhan became this kind of symbol of encapsulating all [the policy’s success];
how you have private companies working with US energy diplomats to negotiate a deal that
by-passed countries into a different energy network. (Author’s interview with Alexander
Cooly 2017)
As a transnational power, the United States has been present in the region for
many years since the fall of the Soviet Union, but during the Bush era it made its
presence a priority. The Caspian Sea’s oil and gas resources led the United States to
consider its economic and strategic future vis-à-vis energy as lying in the region. US
foreign policymakers were excited by the prospect of depoliticized, reliable energy
supplies accessible to the public and private sectors, based on predictions of needs,
resources, and reserves, which could simultaneously decrease dependence on the
Persian Gulf and other parts of the world (Taheri and Farahmand 2014:145).
The strategy of the United States combined these economic requirements with
wider strategic and political goals. After all, the geopolitical goals of the US in the
Caspian region, for one, have never been entirely limited to economic concerns. In
1995, former “US secretary of state James Baker,” publicly announced that the
transfer of oil from the Caspian Sea was a geopolitical issue, not necessarily an
economic or technical one, stating that “this oil will not make it to world markets
without geopolitical solutions.”
The US thus dreamed up ways to take an unrivaled position in the region. In fact,
in the opinion of US politicians, this was just as desirable on the part of none other
than Central Asian and Caspian states themselves, given they were caught between
the remnants of a dissolving empire in the north, and unruly, fundamentalist regimes
in the south, both sides of which had a strong tendency to exert political pressure
beyond their borders. Combined with the fact of these regions’ general hostility to
US interests, the Caspian was viewed as a region worth securing and bolstering
politically, with economic rewards to boot (Taheri and Farahmand 2014:145).
Unsurprisingly, this soon led to tension between the two dominant transregional
powers; The United States and Russia, thereby transforming the Caspian region into
a political battlefield, with the former aiming to dislodge the natural historic influence of the formers, and oil being a key factor in the development of relations aimed
at furthering this dislodgement (Taheri and Farahmand 2014:145).
For the US, the issue of energy resource in the Caspian region acquired unique
importance from the beginning of the 2000s. US administrations had approached
the region with some caution after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the revival
George W. Bush Energy Policy
US Energy Policy in the Caspian Sea
US foreign policy toward energy resources in the region during the Bush years—
particularly the negotiations and success in establishing the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan oil
pipeline—set much of the tone for how US diplomats began to conceive their role
in the region. Specifically, the framework encouraged the use of energy diplomacy
as a means of bolstering the sovereignty and independence of countries in the
region. According to many commentators, including Alexander Cooly, this became
the established modus operandi of the administration. In the professor’s view;
The Tbilisi-Ceyhan became this kind of symbol of encapsulating all [the policy’s success];
how you have private companies working with US energy diplomats to negotiate a deal that
by-passed countries into a different energy network. (Author’s interview with Alexander
Cooly 2017)
As a transnational power, the United States has been present in the region for
many years since the fall of the Soviet Union, but during the Bush era it made its
presence a priority. The Caspian Sea’s oil and gas resources led the United States to
consider its economic and strategic future vis-à-vis energy as lying in the region. US
foreign policymakers were excited by the prospect of depoliticized, reliable energy
supplies accessible to the public and private sectors, based on predictions of needs,
resources, and reserves, which could simultaneously decrease dependence on the
Persian Gulf and other parts of the world (Taheri and Farahmand 2014:145).
The strategy of the United States combined these economic requirements with
wider strategic and political goals. After all, the geopolitical goals of the US in the
Caspian region, for one, have never been entirely limited to economic concerns. In
1995, former “US secretary of state James Baker,” publicly announced that the
transfer of oil from the Caspian Sea was a geopolitical issue, not necessarily an
economic or technical one, stating that “this oil will not make it to world markets
without geopolitical solutions.”
The US thus dreamed up ways to take an unrivaled position in the region. In fact,
in the opinion of US politicians, this was just as desirable on the part of none other
than Central Asian and Caspian states themselves, given they were caught between
the remnants of a dissolving empire in the north, and unruly, fundamentalist regimes
in the south, both sides of which had a strong tendency to exert political pressure
beyond their borders. Combined with the fact of these regions’ general hostility to
US interests, the Caspian was viewed as a region worth securing and bolstering
politically, with economic rewards to boot (Taheri and Farahmand 2014:145).
Unsurprisingly, this soon led to tension between the two dominant transregional
powers; The United States and Russia, thereby transforming the Caspian region into
a political battlefield, with the former aiming to dislodge the natural historic influence of the formers, and oil being a key factor in the development of relations aimed
at furthering this dislodgement (Taheri and Farahmand 2014:145).
For the US, the issue of energy resource in the Caspian region acquired unique
importance from the beginning of the 2000s. US administrations had approached
the region with some caution after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the revival
George W. Bush Energy Policy