GUUAM Behind the Scenes: Under Moscow’s Watchful Eye?
On January 25, the GUUAM defense ministers were supposed to conduct talks in the framework of the CIS heads of the state summit in Moscow. At least, its high probability was discussed in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, after it became clear that the meeting of the military leaders of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova slated for January 28 in Tbilisi will not be held.
Even on the eve of the CIS summit none of the military structures providing foreign policy contacts for Oleksandr Kuzmuk dared to either verify or deny the information that the Ukrainian Defense Minister decided to discuss GUUAM’s prospects with his colleagues in Moscow, the capital of the country which represents the main source of the problems that trouble that body. Then it became known that Kuzmuk set off to Moscow.
As we know, the GUUAM members are united by a joint, albeit officially unstated idea — to provide future transit of Caspian oil bypassing Russia and thus to get rid of the Russian energy noose, which is most urgent, first of all, for Ukraine. However, if Azerbaijan has oil, and this oil is exported via neighboring Georgia, Ukraine has to perpetually justify and validate its relationship to the alluring Caspian fossil fuels. Finally, in 1998 Ukrainian generals publicized the idea of creating a joint battalion with Georgia. Later on, it is announced that this will be a joint project involving the military of all GUUAM members (less Uzbekistan) in order to protect the pipelines transporting Caspian oil. A month later, Geydar Aliyev once again stresses the desirability of creating an international military unit for that purpose. And the GUUAM defense ministers meeting was supposed to add some specific content to such prospects. However, now the plans of the GUUAM generals are time and again corrected by other realities — with an explicit Russian emphasis. Thus, as they joke, the GUUAM meeting in Tbilisi was not held through the position of the Moldovan military, which after consultations with Moscow refused to go to Georgia. Incidentally, such was also the case in January 1999, when the Moldovans for some reason did not come to Baku for the first meeting of the GUAM defense ministers.
The generals in Kyiv are now also not that eager to make resounding statements about military initiatives within GUUAM. For it is not quite clear how the Ukrainian and Russian statesmen will cope with energy debts. If Ukraine has to pay with stock in its oil refining enterprises or to share control over pipelines in Ukraine, there will be little sense in sending the Ukrainian military to the Transcaucasus. Why should we guard someone else’s pipe, if we failed to safeguard our own? On the other hand, in its new national security concept Moscow clearly stated that Russia is concerned with attempts to weaken its positions in the Transcaucasus. Analysts in Kyiv are inclined to see this as a warning to the foreign policy landmarks of Georgia and Azerbaijan — Ukraine’s chief partners in GUUAM. What is more important: to increase efforts to strengthen GUUAM, anticipating help from the US, or not to irritate Russia?
When such dilemmas arise, Kyiv usually takes a time-out. Thus when last week an information agency, referring to a source in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, reported that this time the meeting of the GUUAM military leaders will be held in Moscow, unofficially, it did not surprise anyone. If Ukrainian top officials and generals now prefer not to mention their anti-CIS creation, this may be interpreted as a sign that Ukraine is now fully satisfied with an unofficial GUUAM, whose quiet plans can be discussed in a whisper anywhere, even behind CIS curtains.
