Central Asia as model for security in Black Sea region

More than a year after the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia, the Black Sea region remains fundamentally unstable. NATO continues to face a dilemma. Allowing Georgia and Ukraine to join would endanger both the credibility of NATO as a collective security organization and the relationship with Russia.

But remaining passive is also not an attractive solution; NATO’s security interests in the Black Sea region are too great. Not only is regional stability at stake, but also the relationship between the West and Russia. So far thinking in terms of NATO expansion versus Russian expansion has dominated thinking about the geopolitical future of the region. It is high time to move beyond such Cold War-era thinking and to stabilize the relationship between Russia and the West. Turkey, as both a NATO member state and a key actor in the Black Sea region has a special interest in contributing to greater regional stability. This would also enhance the country’s profile as a pivotal actor between Russia and the West, and between Asia and Europe. In particular, Turkey can take the lead in constructing a new security mechanism that benefits from Central Asia’s experience with regional security.

At the end of the Cold War, China’s relations with Russia were no more stable than those between the West and Russia. And yet today, China finds itself in a fundamentally more secure position in regard to Russia than Europe does. There is no special historical friendship between the Russians and the Chinese, and like Europe, China is in need of Russian energy. What then, makes the difference? China’s leaders understand that their country and Russia are mutually dependent, and they have built their security policy on this. China’s sense of insecurity vis-à-vis Russia is mirrored by Russia’s feelings of insecurity towards China. And while China needs Russian energy resources, Russia needs China’s energy market. The key to Sino-Russian security relations is their joint approach towards Central Asia. Both Beijing and Moscow consider stability in Central Asia of crucial importance, and the Central Asians themselves wish to be independent from both of their giant neighbors. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, whose membership includes Russia, China, and most Central Asian states, provides vital security assurances to all countries involved.

During the 1990s Moscow and Beijing agreed to reduce troops along their mutual borders. Next they agreed to solve their border disputes, a difficult process that was completed only a few months ago. In 1996, the third step was to establish the so-called Shanghai Five, aimed at strengthening military trust in the mutual border regions. In 2001, the Shanghai Five was transformed into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The SCO provides its member states a platform to address the main regional issues that are of mutual concern: ethnic separatism and energy. From this task with a limited regional focus the SCO derives its main strategic importance: it stabilizes Sino-Russian relations at the overall level. Mutual fears of the other’s expansion into Central Asia are greatly reduced, while the independence of the small Central Asian states is preserved.

The existing Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation lacks the power to deal with the main regional security issues. A new Black Sea Security Cooperation Organisation could be created to deal with regional security issues, in particular territorial disputes and transnational energy relations. Its membership would comprise all Black Sea littoral states, as well as the European Union and the United States. Consequently both Russia and nearly all member states of NATO would be involved. The new organization would be modeled after the SCO only in the very loose sense that it stabilizes a region where the strategic interests of great powers converge. Its functioning and aims would need to be tailored specifically to the region. China succeeded in stabilizing its security relationship with Russia after the Cold War by jointly managing stability in Central Asia. The West, too, should be prepared to work with Moscow to bring stability in those regions where it has overlapping strategic interests with Russia. Turkey is well-positioned to take the lead in building a firm regional security structure.

* Frans-Paul van der Putten is Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, Netherlands.