A playground for influence
The Black Sea region is once again becoming an arena attracting large powers to invest and develop. However, the growing interest among the various powers also leads to a higher risk of conflict and confrontation, something that this region is already known for, historically.
Hellenes referred to the Black Sea as Póntos Áxeinos which derives from the ancient Persian word axšaina used to describe objects of dark colour. The Black Sea region has, historically speaking, been an arena of confrontation between different nations. It has witnessed the glorious rise of empires as well as their crushing defeats. During the heyday of the Ottoman Empire, the Black Sea was referred to as an “Ottoman Lake”. European states have also been historically involved in the disputes over the region.
August 26, 2019 -
Leo Sikharulidze
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Hot TopicsIssue 5 2019Magazine
Photo: olesya41 (CC - pixabay.com)
As Boris Toucas, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, wrote: “The Bloody 1853-1856 Crimean War between the Ottoman Empire and Russia left hundreds of thousands dead. France and Britain sided with the Ottomans during the conflict, as they feared Russia’s growing strength would result in Russia’s hegemonic position in the region”. The war between Georgia and Russia in 2008 and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 have brought back the Black Sea region to the forefront of the international political agenda.
As Chris Miller, the author of Putinomics, has argued: “There are three main reasons to look at the Black Sea as a coherent region, rather than merely as a medium-sized body of water: security, energy and European and Eurasian integration”. The fact is the Black Sea is increasingly becoming an epicentre for the clash of interests between the major powers, and at the same time it creates the basis for possible co-operation among them. Paradoxically, the growing importance of the Black Sea region also serves as the catalyst for the challenges which might arise due to the conflicting interests of international actors in the region. Security and energy, in the context of Black Sea, are of increasing interest to Iran and China – one being a traditional player in the region with the latter being a newcomer.
Economics and geopolitics
An integral part of the reasoning behind Chinese foreign policy regarding the Black Sea region is economic in nature since China and its “peaceful rise” is impossible to imagine without the Belt and Road Initiative – a cross-continental project aimed at creating new trade routes between China and Europe. The numbers do not lie and the financial muscle serving as the backbone for Chinese expansion in the region is substantial. Calling it the “project of the century”, China announced its Belt and Road initiative in 2013 with a promise to invest 150 billion US dollars each year. For Georgia, the prospect of providing a significant number of jobs in a country with an unemployment rate of 12.7 per cent was understandably attractive. It joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – which was set up to help finance the Chinese-led project – in 2016 and signed an agreement where the bank will provide 114 million dollars to build a new highway.
Looking at the broader picture, especially from a geopolitical point of view, China joined the cohort of major powers rediscovering the economic and strategic value of the Black Sea region. This has led to some concern from the United States. US-based companies have been one of the lead investors in building the Anaklia deep-sea port, the largest infrastructure investment project in Georgian history. The port is seen not only as a means to complement the Chinese project, but also as a way to compete with them. In June of this year, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, during a joint statement to the press with Georgia’s Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze, said: “I communicated our hope that Georgia completes the port project. The project and others will enhance Georgia’s relationship with free economies and prevent Georgia from falling prey to Russian or Chinese economic influence. Those pretended friends do not have Georgia’s best interests at heart.”Considering the ongoing trade war between China and the US, it is no surprise that the two global powers are in an open competition and it seems that Georgia may be one of their fields to compete in.
Regional players
Unlike the US or China, Iran has been a regional player in the Caucasus and Black Sea region since the early days of civilisation – when Iran was still officially known as the Persian Empire. The international isolation of Iran since its Islamic revolution in 1979, however, has put some degree of constraint on its capacities to fully engage in the region. The 2015 nuclear deal (from which the US withdrew under President Donald Trump) gave Iran some economic freedom and reports indicated that Tehran saw Georgia as a possible trade corridor between the Black and Persian Seas.Like China, Iran’s primary motivation in the region is economic. It has declared it aims to bolster its own transit potential and to deepen its newly re-established trade relations with Europe.
During the 1990s, when the collective West and China were more or less uninvolved in the South Caucasus, Iran was undertaking diplomatic effort to safeguard its potential economic interest in the Black Sea. As Nika Chitadze from the International Black Sea University wrote in 2012: “after restoration of the national independence, in 1995, former President of Iran Hasemi Rafsanjani visited Georgia with a three-day visit, when after the meeting with the former President of Georgia he travelled to West Georgia to observe the functioning of Batumi and Poti ports at the Black Sea coast. After the visit, Rafsanjani has pointed out the importance of those ports for the economy of Iran.”
A major constraining factor for Iran, in order to be more actively engaged economically in Georgia, is political. Georgia’s main strategic partner, the US, understandably cripples any initiative aimed at the development of bilateral relations between Georgia and Iran; and considering the latest developments between the two states, it is less likely that any further positive economic or political development will take place in the foreseeable future.
Within the context of these power dynamics, the global interest in the Black Sea will only increase. Turkey and Russia, both traditional regional actors, also play a major role. However they lack the financial resources to directly challenge the interests of America or China. What Russia lacks in financial resources is compensated by its military presence in the region; more importantly, one should underline the fact that its military presence is not limited within its borders. In all of the unresolved conflicts in the Black Sea region, there is a Russian military presence, either as an occupational force or a “peacekeeping” force; Russia therefore possesses substantial assets in order to reinforce its geopolitical agenda. Russia is also the only major player that would potentially benefit from the cancellation of any new project in the Black Sea, as the status quo is far more suitable to the Russian Federation than the new players such as China.
Setting a precedent
As for the Turkish factor, relations between Georgia and Turkey have been cordial. Turkey is the only neighbour state of Georgia where the border demarcation is agreed upon. Meanwhile, military co-operation has been one of the fundamental components of co-operation between Georgia and Turkey. A recent report from the Turkish Centre for Strategic Research notes that Turkey and Georgia have signed several military agreements and that the “Turkish army has made contributions to modernising the Georgian Army”. Therefore the initial stages of co-operation between Georgia and Turkey have been focused on security. The successful development of security co-operation has, in turn, translated into greater collaboration within the energy sector. The same report indicates that “three projects deserve special attention: The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan crude oil pipeline project; The Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline project; and the Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku Railway project”. These projects serve obvious economic purposes, but they also set a precedent of Georgia hosting internationally vital economic projects in the Black Sea region which could encourage more international actors to co-operate with and invest in Georgia.
Nevertheless, the Black Sea represents a growing region of interest – first and foremost due to its economic and security potential. However, along with the security-related potential, which regional or global powers find in it, paradoxically, security is also a major constraining factor for development. The number of unresolved conflicts in the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea is the most obvious indicator. Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, for example, are all involved in conflicts which pose a threat to any project potentially undertaken in the Black Sea region. The dynamics of the region and its potential to become a reliable global trade route is wholly dependent on the management of these conflicts. One could argue that the elevation of the Black Sea in economic terms would only serve as a positive in relation to the conflicts present in the countries bordering the Black Sea.
Leo Sikharulidze is a research fellow at the Georgian Strategic Analysis Center. He has previously worked at Georgia’s ministry of defence, ministry of foreign affairs and the NATO Defence College.
