The break-up of the Soviet Union released enormous resources that had been denied to Western transnational corporations for decades.
In the early years of the 20th century, oil from the Russian Caucuses
accounted for nearly half of all oil produced in the world. The oil
district of Grozny was, next to Baku, the most important Russian oil area
before the revolution and by 1915 accounted for about 18% of Russian oil
production. The oil fields at Baku provided almost all the remainder.
More than half the investment in Russian oil came from abroad. Before
World War I, the total investment in the Russian oil industry was $214
million, $130 million of that represented foreign capital. Great Britain
was particularly active in Russia, providing more than 60% of the foreign
capital.
In the former Soviet Union, Grozny oil was at one time quite important,
accounting for one-third of national production in 1932. In the
post-Soviet era the importance of Grozny oil for the Russian economy has
diminished greatly but its importance as a regional producer increased.
Over the years, Grozny became a key oil pipeline crossroads, oil refining
centre and also a juncture for natural gas from fields in Russia and
Central Asia.
The vast oil fields of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and in the
North Caucasus of Russia have always been a target for invasion. It was to
secure unimpeded access to these riches, as much as for the symbolic
associations with the city's name, that Hitler threw division after
division at Stalingrad in World War II.
Access to these newly available resources is an enormous boon for Western
imperialism. The US is determined not to have to rely on the unstable
Middle East for supplies. However, as recent events in Venezuela, now one
of the largest national suppliers of oil to the USA, have shown, nowhere
is truly safe.
Prising open the oil fields grouped beneath and around the Caspian Sea
have been a key strategic target of the US in the past decade. BP Amoco,
Texaco, Mobil, Chevron and other US and foreign companies have already
spent over a billion dollars on developing the Caspian oil resources. They
are drawing on a whole spectrum of Cold War foreign policy figures from
the US and Britain to cash in on the region.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser under President
Carter and a key figure in securing initial US support for the Afghan
mujahidin, is a consultant to Amoco.
James Baker, a former US Secretary of State, runs a law practice in
Houston doing business for the oil companies, where he is able to use his
friendship with his former Soviet counterpart Edward Shevardnadze, and now president of Georgia.
Former US National Security Adviser, Brent Scowcroft, advises Pennzoil and the multinational Azerbaijan consortium. Dick Cheney, President Bush's
Secretary of Defence, is now chief executive of Halliburton of Houston,
the world's largest oilfield services company.
Azerbaijan is also a favourite destination for the British oil companies
such as Monument and Ramco. Timothy Eggar, who as British Energy Minister led a delegation to Baku in 1994, is now chief executive of Monument Oil, while former Foreign Minister Malcolm Rifkind sits on the board of Ramco.
In October 1997, Le Monde Diplomatique wrote: "The negotiation of oil
contracts enabled Washington to show a direct interest in the region. The
US government sees it as an extra source of energy, should Persian Gulf
oil be threatened. It also wants to detach the former Soviet republics
from Russia both economically and politically, so as to make the formation
of a Moscow-led union impossible. In an article published in the spring,
former [US] Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger wrote that if Moscow
succeeded in dominating the Caspian, it would achieve a greater victory than the expansion of NATO would be for the West."
US policy therefore has both a tactical economic aspect and a longer-term
strategy to further weaken Russia.
The most crucial question for oil supply though is the route chosen for
delivery. Unlike the Persian Gulf, none of the oil producing states of
Caucasus offer the possibility of shipment to the West by tanker, since
the Caspian Sea is essentially a huge inland lake. The alternative is the
construction of a super pipeline from Central Asia to either the
Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf.

For several years, two rival pipeline projects have been mooted. US
corporations Amoco, Exxon, Pennzoil and Unocal lead the Azerbaijan
International Oil Consortium (AIOC), comprising Chechnya's neighbour,
Azerbaijan, and 11 Western companies. Its aim is to construct a pipeline
to carry Azeri oil from the Caspian seabed. US petroleum concerns are
currently responsible for more than 50% of oil investment in Azerbaijan.
The government of Azerbaijan is possibly the most pro-US in the region,
offering its territory for US military bases and seeking integration into
Nato through 'big brother', Turkey.
Meanwhile, the Russians put together a Caspian Pipeline Consortium to run
a pipeline from the Tengiz fields of Kazakhstan across Russia to the port
of Novorossisk on the Black Sea and to link this with a pipeline extending
northwest from Baku.
However, to do this the pipeline from Baku would have to run through
either Chechnya, which has been virtually inoperable because of the
renewed conflict, or neighbouring Dagestan, itself the target of several
Chechen mujahidin incursions in August 1999.
The US government insisted from the outset that the pipeline, expected to
carry one million barrels per day, run from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku,
to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. The shortest route to Turkey
leads through Armenia. But Azerbaijan and Armenia broke off all relations
after a brutal war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. This route
does, however, pass through Chechnya's other near neighbour, Georgia,
despite the fact that this detour is double the cost of a shorter path
between Azerbaijan and Iran. Washington's aim is to ensure that oil
supplies are free from Russian and Iranian influence.
The Istanbul Protocol, signed late last year during the OSCE conference in
the Turkish city, is a significant victory for the plans of the US and
Turkey. The New York Times of November 19 1999 bluntly described it as
"one of President Clinton's cherished foreign policy projects, a pipeline
that would assure Western control over the potentially vast oil and
natural gas reserves".
While US Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, enthused: "This is a major
foreign policy victory. It is a strategic agreement that advances
America's national interest."
Inevitably, many Russians believe that destabilisation in the Caucasus
represents a Western plot to monopolise energy resources in the region.
While this has a certain simplistic aspect to it, ignoring as it does the
other complex factors, it nonetheless expresses a certain truth. The
expansion of Western imperialist influence eastward demands the further
break-up of Russia and the wresting of her rich energy resources from her
grasp, piece by piece.