International Affairs: Southern Caucasus in NATO Plans

International Affairs:
A Russian Journal
Vol. 44, No. 6/December 1998–January 1999

Southern Caucasus in NATO Plans

By S. Cherniavskii _*

The NATO countries are turning their increasing attention to the Southern Caucasus as the oil giants are competing fiercely over the energy resources of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, and the strategic pipelines planned to by-pass Russia. The question which of the routes will become the main one for the Caspian oil transport is emerging as the linchpin around which the foreign policies of Azerbaijan, Georgia, the United States, Turkey, and Iran are rotating.

Being aware of Russia’s inability to pour money into the Transcaucasus her rivals stake on their economic infiltration. They are pressing under the banner of free competition and a formal rejection of the idea of “the spheres of influence” negotiated in advance.

In fact, the Transcaucasus is turning into the US “sphere of strategic interests.” On 30 April, 1998, speaking at the congressional hearings Stephen Sestanovich, the State Department special envoy for the newly independent states, said that “the United States have always been and remain a confirmed enemy of the spheres of influence on the post-Soviet territory.” Translated into human language this means that the American side rejects the historical and geographical priorities on the former Soviet territory. In this specific case the statement means the battle between the US and Russia over the Caucasus. Washington is seeking the role of an arbiter in the region and employs the oil factor and the conflict settlement processes to reach this aim.

Americans insist that the Transcaucasian states should not be left outside NATO; they do not prevent Turkey to extend the ideas of pan-Turkism to the Russian Northern Caucasus. What is more, they are supporting the Turkish claims to the role of the regional superpower.

The Russian interests in the Southern Caucasus are realized in a complex situation and under painful circumstances. Having acquired their political independence Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia came to grips with serious domestic problems of the ethnic and confessional nature. There are self-proclaimed “states” on the territories of both Georgia and Azerbaijan. The smoldering conflicts in Nagorny Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, sharp ethnic conflicts, and the problems encountered on the road to the market are objectively pushing the political leaders of the Caucasian states to look for new allies who, they believe, will help them strengthen their national sovereignties.

Azerbaijan and Georgia are disenchanted with the CIS peacekeeping potentials. They are actively seeking closer military and political contacts with NATO, are counting on its assistance in having back the territories seized from them and in dealing with the refugee problem.

Baku and Tbilisi welcome NATO’s growing interest in the Southern Caucasus as a region strategically important for the Alliance’s energy security. They are calling on Russia “to accept the irreversible nature of European integration with NATO as the basic element of the military-political structure of European security in the twenty-first century.” At all sorts of NATO forums Azerbaijan and Georgia are going out of their way to prove that they are an inalienable elements of new Europe. They are resolved to leave no stone unturned to play a more active role in the European integration processes. They remind that their geographic location and the historical ties “have predetermined their role of a link on the Euro-Asian space.”

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The framework document the Caucasian states signed with NATO in 1994 “Partnership for Peace” (PFP) and later individual partnership programs form the legal basis of their relationships with the North Atlantic Alliance. Azerbaijan presents the greatest interest for NATO explained by its economic potential, the territory, and population strength. It has an army of 50 thousand and 7 thousand of borderguards. Their combat readiness is limited by a sharp financial deficit. Any further progress depends on oil exports that is expected to bring money to better finance the defense budget.

According to the press the 1997 Azerbaijan’s defense budget was 357.8 billion manats (11 percent of the budget expenditures and 2.5 percent of GDP). The planned figure for 1998 was 463.1 billion manats ($116 million) or 12 percent of the state budget and 3 percent of GDP. There is no defense industry in Azerbaijan to speak of: two aviation repair centers and a coups of plants producing components for radio-electronic devices and missiles.

The republic is following its own independent course of military development; Turkey is its major foreign partner. Over 450 Azerbaijanian military men are studying 20-odd military professions in Turkish military educational establishments. Over 70 Turkish officers are working in the Azerbaijanian army on a permanent basis. They are training servicemen of the land forces. The Azerbaijanian interests in the Partnership for Peace program are limited mainly by cooperation in peacekeeping; managing crisis situations; exchange of information in the field of conventional arms control; compatibility with the NATO standards of the national air-defense systems and air traffic control; NATO’s aid in organizing systems of evacuation in case of natural calamities; increase of the country’s own potentials to take part in the program (including training of experts in all major fields of the Partnership for Peace, and foreign language training for the political and military staffs.) To take part in partnership events and in training peacekeeping exercises (sanctioned only by the UN or OSCE) Azerbaijan has to despatch an armored infantry company up to 130 people, a detachment of civil defense (up to 30 people), medical service detachments, two MI–8 helicopters, and provide a center to train accession to the national services of control over the air traffic according to the “acting international and domestic rules” when NATO aircraft cross the Azerbaijanian territory. In 1997, Azerbaijan took part in two training exercises under the PFP program: medical detachments participated in peacekeeping operations (July, Sweden) and compiling operation plans using computer technology (October, the Netherlands).

According to the individual program of cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan is regularly represented at the alliance’s training sessions and planning conferences: Cooperative Bear–98 in Great Britain, CMH–98 on crisis management in Brussels, Cooperative Best Effort–98 in Macedonia, Cooperative K–98 in Naples, Cooperative Determination–98 in Izmir, Olympia–98 in Athens and in the multinational training exercises Cooperative Zenith–98 in the US at the Davis-Montan air base in Arizona on 6–16 May, 1998, and others.

Azerbaijanians attend study courses and seminars within the PFP program: the courses for staff officers on peacekeeping operations, courses on conventional armaments control in Germany, and the courses “Management Possibilities in Critical Situations” conducted in Germany on 4–8 May, 1998. The country is prepared to cooperate with NATO in other fields as well: Baku favors closer ties with the NATO Committee on Pipeline Protection, the parliament suggested cooperation with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. On 12 June, 1998 speaking in Brussels at the meeting of CEAP S. Abiev, Defense Minister of Azerbaijan, called on the NATO members to pay more attention to Azerbaijan (as compared with Georgia and Armenia). He argued that “Azerbaijan’s relations with NATO are more advanced as compared with those of its neighbors. The priorities connected with Azerbaijan should be realized in NATO’s policies in the region.”

The defense minister emphasized that his country was proceeding from the real risks and menaces to its interests and said that it needed a special partnership with NATO. Translated into bilateral agreements it would become an element of the system of NATO–Azerbaijanian relationships.

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Georgia is the second important NATO partner in the Southern Caucasus. Georgian Armed Forces comprise the regular army and the national guard (26.2 thousand people in 1996), and 4.5 thousand of border guards (5.2 thousand in 1996). The military budget allows the country no technical modernization of the armed forces. Georgia depends on foreign aid in this respect. In 1997, the official defense budget of Georgia was 78.9 million lari ($1 = 1.3 lari), which was about 10 percent of the budget expenditures. Out of this sum 13.7 million lari were allocated for the border guards and 765 thousand lari, for military R&D. Judging by press reports Georgia planned to spend on the military purposes 69.7 million lari in 1998, that is, about 7 percent of the budget and 1.9 percent of GDP.

The Georgian defense industry is based on an aviation plant in Tbilisi which is still producing a small number of SU–25. It can go on like this only with Russian and Ukrainian cooperation. There are also plants producing spare parts for armored vehicles and a tank repair industrial enterprise. Besides, Georgia has boatbuilding facilities.

The Georgian leaders are seeking more independence in military and military-technological cooperation and is actively looking for new partners abroad on a bilateral basis and within the NATO programs, PFP in the first place. Within the latter, Georgia is prepared to set up an air-defense system adapted to the NATO technical requirements, let the alliance use its airfields, testing grounds, and sea ports. On the Transcaucasian scale the number of objects Georgia is prepared to offer the alliance within PFP is considerable: military airfields in Kopintari (16 km to the south-west from Kutaisi) and Manreuli (26 km away from Tbilisi); the retooled sea port in Poti, two training grounds (at the armored vehicle and tank companies), one of them in Iagludjan (30 km away from Tbilisi).

NATO got a special service company to be used in peacekeeping, rescue and humanitarian operations and a pioneer platoon which is waiting to be created and equipped.

The Georgian side would like to go beyond the standard tasks resolved within PFP (aid in setting up modern air-defense, consultations on the political and strategic side of defense, etc) to use the NATO experience gained in Bosnia to apply it to the Abkhazian conflict. NATO readily agrees but does not hasten to translate these plans into life.

Georgia does not tire to repeat that it is not seeking the NATO membership yet it never loses an opportunity to describe the PFP program as a good school for future members. It is openly willing to participate in elaborating the military-political framework of the future NATO peacekeeping operations and is, in fact, favoring the alliance’s expansion. The US and Turkey are especially interested in joint military operations with Georgia.

The US is planning to station one of the two US military frigates in the NATO Navy in one of the Georgian ports; a US transport squadron will be stationed in central Georgia. Turkey has taken into account Georgia’s obvious financial problems and is helping to build up the Georgian army and the Navy by allocating a considerable amount of free aid. Last June Turkey gave Georgia a grant of $5.5 million for one year to retool the military objects, to buy and upgrade communication means, and to build a training center for the Georgian Military Academy. Late in June Turkey financed joint naval exercise Caucasian Amazonia–98 to train joint escorting and isolating vessels threatening oil transportation. The exercise took place near Poti and Batumi, two ports with oil terminals from which early Tenghiz oil is being sent to Europe.

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Armenia has a limited role to play in the NATO programs probably because, for one thing, it is closely cooperating with Russia in the military field at various levels. This is reflected in the 1997 Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation signed in Moscow, which includes a proposition on mutual guarantees and aid in case one of the parties is involved in an armed conflict. According to open sources Russian military presence in Armenia is purely symbolic: a brigade of air defense and a MIG–23 squadron designed to defend the air space, both not being assault forces. There are plans to replace them with ZRK S–300 and fighter planes of a new generation (SU–27, MIG–29, etc.). There is also the 103rd Russian military base located 8 km away from the Turkey frontier. It is regarded as a guarantee of Armenian sovereignty and safety of the CIS southern borders. The Defense Ministry of Russia points out that Russia’s military and technical cooperation with Armenia is developing both on the bilateral level and within the CIS which makes the Commonwealth stronger and adds to its stability.

According to official information the Armenian armed forces are 38 thousand strong; there are also 3 thousand of border guards. Combat readiness is high enough. According to the published figures, the Armenian defense budget in 1997 was 30.5 million drams (about $61 million), which corresponds to 20 percent of the state expenditures and 4.6 percent of GDP. The press reported that for 1998 the planned defense budget was 33.3 billion drams, or 15 percent of the state expenditures and 4.7 percent of planned GDP. Defense industry is poorly developed and produces only parts for radio-electronics used in aviation and shipbuilding.

As a rule the Armenians refrain from any initiatives of their own at the working meetings of CEAP. They merely react to the Azerbaijanian delegation’s contributions especially if they are related to Nagorny Karabakh. Armenia has allocated a single rescue civil defense battalion to take part in the PFP events; if needed it is prepared to let use the national training military center for partnership events. In June 1998 the Armenian military contingent took part in the Prometheus–98 maneuvers conducted within the PFP program in northern Greece.

The individual partnership program is limited by training three senior officers of the command and control system; liaison officers are accredited at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels and the Coordinating PFP unit in Mons; a group of military observers is undergoing training.

The individual partnership program is concentrated on extraordinary civilian planning which includes, mainly, exchange of information on crisis management, the system of democratic control over the armed forces, and cooperation in directing air traffic.

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Russia cannot remain indifferent to the nature of relationships of the young Caucasian states with their NATO partners. She is naturally concerned over the statements that the area along her southern borders is announced a sphere of somebody’s strategic interests. The problem of Caspian oil and gas transport to Turkey is dominated by political rather than economic considerations. This cannot but cause anxiety in Russia which is all the more justified because these plans obviously aim at bypassing Russia and weaken her positions in the region. At the briefing on 7 July, 1998 the Foreign Ministry of Russia paid special attention to the idea suggested by C. Bir, a Turkish general, to set up “special peacekeeping forces” for the Caucasus within the PFP program and make them navy formations in the Black Sea. This was interpreted as an intention to extend NATO’s sphere of influence to the Caucasus, outside the North Atlantic Treaty. This has nothing to do with the problem of stabilizing the situation there and the specific tasks of peaceful settlement of the raging conflicts.

On 10 July, 1998 Colonel General L. Ivashov, Head of the Main Administration of International Military Cooperation, the Defense Ministry, criticized at a press conference NATO’s intentions to strengthen the military elements of the bloc’s southern flank saying that the situation in the Transcaucasus “caused anxiety and was dangerous.”

In this context the “Fundamentals (Conception) of the State Policy in Military Development up to the Year 2005” signed by the President of Russia in August were well timed. The document emphasizes that in all cases when “decisive and uncompromising actions” are required of Russia she will defend her statehood with all, including military, means.

In October 1998 Tbilisi will host a NATO seminar on the problems of regional cooperation in the Caucasus in the field of security. The preliminary agenda includes mainly military-economic problems: conversion of the defense industry, defense budgets, retraining of the servicemen transferred to reserves; scientific and economic cooperation in the defense sphere; extraordinary civilian planning, military cooperation in the systems of material and technical supply; storaging weapons and ammunition. The seminar will probably discuss regional cooperation of the armed forces and will sum up the joint efforts of the Caucasian states and NATO in the last four years.

We are convinced that it is important for NATO to understand that Russia is not prejudiced against constructive cooperation between the NATO members and the Caucasian countries. The young states should pursue a course towards peace and stability which they prefer. It is equally important to take account of Russia’s geopolitical interests; it is important to prevent the instincts of the Cold War and the habit to treat Russia as a rival from revival. We, on our part, are prepared to develop friendly relations with Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia as independent and sovereign states.

Endnotes

*: Stanislav Cherniavski is the section head of the Fourth Department of the CIS Countries at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and a candidate of historical sciences. Back.