February 1, 2011 - No. 12
Battle of Stalingrad
Historic Soviet Victory Inspired the
World
![](../images2011/Historical/Soviets/StalingradMemorialComplexMamayevHill-01.jpg) ![](../images2011/Historical/Soviets/StalingradMemorialComplexMamayevHill-03.jpg)
Images from the
Historical Memorial Complex to the Heroes of the Stalingrad Battle,
located at Mamayev Hill,
in Volgograd (the
present-day name of Stalingrad). Overlooking the main part of the city,
Mamayev Hill was the
main chain in the system
of defence of the Stalingrad front. It also turned out to be the key
position in the
fight for the banks of
the Volga River where fierce battles took place during the last months
of 1942.
(mamayevhill.volgadmin.ru)
Battle of Stalingrad
• Historic Soviet Victory Inspired the World
• Turning Point
of the Second World War - Dougal MacDonald
"War Without Borders"
• Washington Intensifies Push into Central Asia
- Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO
Battle of Stalingrad
Historic Soviet Victory Inspired the World
Few events
captured the imagination of the peoples of
the world like
the Battle of Stalingrad. The times were very dark. Even before the
war, treachery was the name of the game, epitomized by the sellout of
the peoples by the British and French governments and those of other
alleged champions of freedom
and democracy. But the treachery neither began nor ended with Munich.
It extended to every field of life as the Nazis infiltrated the
ministries of foreign governments, their industries and strategic areas
of interest. By making the Balkan countries dependent on their system
of frozen credits, they set the stage for the
takeover of those countries when the time was right. Then began the
dark years of the Nazi onslaught as one country after another became
their prey, with all the attendant crimes against humanity and
atrocities intended to break the human spirit. The peoples of the
Soviet Union who had been preparing for the onslaught fought back.
Together with them fought the
partisans of all
of occupied Europe, in whose ranks it was the communists who shone the
brightest. The courage of their convictions provided the Resistance
with its ability to prevail against the greatest odds. Along
with them we also find the armies of the Allies and other heroic
peoples such as the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and other peoples of
Asia, including the Indians who died in large numbers fighting Tojo in
the Allied armies of their colonial masters. We also find many Arab
peoples,
Africans and all the peoples caught in the maelstrom of the
anti-fascist war.
![](../images2011/Historical/Soviets/19430202-USSRStalingradVictoryDay-02.jpg)
A Soviet
soldier
raises a red flag in victory on
February 2,
1943 in Stalingrad |
This February 2 marks the 68th anniversary of the
stellar Soviet
victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. This battle took its place in the
annals of history for turning the tide of the great
anti-fascist war in favour of the peoples and won the admiration and
profound gratitude of the peoples
the world over.
On this occasion, TML is publishing an
article "The Battle of Stalingrad -- Turning Point of the Second World
War," by Dougal MacDonald.
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Battle of Stalingrad
Turning Point of the Second World War
- Dougal MacDonald -
![](../images2011/Historical/Soviets/19421100-BattleofStalingrad-06.jpg)
Left: Soviet forces
on the offensive from an area north of Stalingrad, late November 1942
as
part of
Operation Uranus. Right: Soviet soldiers at the Red October Steel
Factory.
The turning point of the Second World War was the
historic Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, which ended on
February 2, 1943. Four months before the victory, in October 1942, the
Nazi armies stood barely 120 kilometres from Moscow, had broken into
Stalingrad, and had entered the foothills of the
Caucasus. The Soviet Union faced 257 enemy divisions of 10,000-15,000
troops each, of which 207 were German. But even in those dire days, the
Soviet army and people, led by Stalin, found the strength to check the
enemy and deal an answering blow. Soon they turned the tide. The Soviet
troops went over to
the offensive and inflicted new, powerful blows on the Germans, first
at Stalingrad, then at Kursk.
The Battle of Stalingrad began on July 22, 1942, with
heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe. The ground attack was led by the
German 6th Army and the German 4th Panzer (tank) Army, backed up by
Romanian, Italian, Hungarian, and Croatian troops. Bitter fighting
raged for every inch of every street,
factory, house, basement, and staircase. The Soviets had converted
apartment blocks, factories, warehouses, homes, and office buildings
into strongholds bristling with machine guns, anti-tank rifles,
mortars, mines, barbed wire, snipers, and small units of submachine
gunners and grenadiers prepared for house-to-house
combat. After three months of slow advance, the Germans finally reached
the river banks of the ruined city. Nevertheless, the fighting
continued as fiercely as ever. The battles for the Red October Steel
Factory, the Dzerzhinsky tractor factory and the Barrikady gun factory
became world-famous.
On November 19, 1942, the Red Army unleashed their
counter-offensive, Operation Uranus. The attacking Soviet units
shattered the Romanian units which held the northern flank of the
German 6th Army. On November 20, a second Soviet offensive attacked
points south of Stalingrad held by Romanian forces,
overrunning the enemy positions almost immediately. Soviet forces then
raced west in a pincer movement and met two days later near Kalach,
sealing the ring around Stalingrad. About 290,000 German and Romanian
troops were now surrounded inside the cauldron. Soviet forces
consolidated their positions around
Stalingrad, and fierce fighting to shrink the pocket began. The Germans
suffered huge losses in men and equipment but Hitler ordered them not
to surrender. Finally, on January 31, German Field Marshal Friedrich
Paulus and his staff surrendered. Three days later, on February 2,
1943, the remaining German troops
surrendered. After the battle was over, 147,200 bodies of killed German
officers and men and 46,700 bodies of killed Soviet officers and men
were found and buried.
![](../images2011/Historical/Soviets/Stalingrad02.jpg)
![](../images2011/Historical/Soviets/Stalingrad04.jpg)
Images of Red Army forces
at the Battle of Stalingrad.
In a February 23, 1943, speech, U.S. General Douglas
McArthur declared: "[Never] have I observed such effective resistance
to the heaviest blows of a hitherto undefeated enemy, followed by a
smashing counterattack which is driving the enemy back to his own land.
The scale and grandeur of the effort mark
it as the greatest military achievement in all history." Hailing the
huge contribution of the Soviet army and people to the defeat of
fascism, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt stated in speech on July 28,
1943: "The world has never seen greater devotion, determination, and
self sacrifice, than have been displayed by
the Russian people and their armies under the leadership of Marshall
Joseph Stalin." The U.S. newsmagazine, Time, had already
declared Stalin their "Man of the Year, 1942" on January 4, 1943, in an
article entitled, "Joseph Stalin: Die But Do Not Retreat."
![](../images2011/Historical/Soviets/Stalingrad10.jpg)
Wreckage of a downed German fighter in Stalingrad.
|
Stalingrad, which signified the decline of the
German-fascist army, was soon followed by the Battle of Kursk, which
ended on August 23, 1943 in the rout of the two main groups of the
attacking
German-fascist troops, and in Soviet troops passing over to a
counter-offensive, which subsequently turned into the powerful
Red Army summer offensive. The battle of Kursk was the last attempt of
the Germans to carry out a big summer offensive and, in the event of
its success, to recoup their losses. The Red Army not only repulsed the
German offensive, but itself passed over to the offensive and, by a
series of consecutive blows, in
the course of the summer period hurled the German-fascist troops back
beyond the Dnieper.
After Stalingrad and Kursk, the Red Army never let the
initiative out of its hands. Throughout the summer of 1943, its blows
became harder and harder, its military mastery grew with every month.
The Soviet troops won big victories, and inflicted one defeat after
another on the German troops. The German Hitlerites
were driven steadily backward until the final demise of the Third Reich
in Berlin on May 9, 1945. On that day, the anti-fascist forces of the
world with the Soviet Union and communists of all lands at the head of
the Resistance Movement declared victory over the Hitlerite Nazis who
had to acknowledge defeat and
declare unconditional surrender.
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"War Without Borders"
Washington Intensifies Push into Central Asia
- Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, January 29,
2011 -
A recent editorial on the website of Voice of America
reflected on last year being one in which the United States solidified
relations with the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia:
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
One or more of the five nations border Afghanistan,
Russia, China and Iran and several more than one of the latter.
Kazakhstan, for example, adjoins China and Russia.
The U.S. and Britain, with the support of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, invaded Afghanistan and fanned out into
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in October of 2001, less than
four months after Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan founded the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) to foster expanding economic, security,
transportation and energy cooperation and integration in and through
Central Asia. In 2005 India, Iran and Pakistan joined the SCO as
observers and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has attended its last five
annual heads of state summits.[1]
Now the U.S. and the NATO have over 150,000 troops
planted directly south of three Central Asian nations.
![](../images2011/Asia/Central_Asia-1.png)
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are also on the Caspian Sea,
a reservoir of oil and natural gas whose dimensions have only been
accurately determined in the past twenty years and where American
companies are active in hydrocarbon projects.
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Pentagon and
its NATO allies deployed military forces to, in addition to
Soviet-constructed air bases in Afghanistan, bases in Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The first two countries border China.
As of last March the U.S. military confirmed that a
monthly average of 50,000 American and NATO troops passed through
Kyrgyzstan's Transit Center at Manas as part of the war in Afghanistan.
Also last year, U.S. officials mentioned building new military training
centers in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The Voice of America feature mentioned above cited a
speech by U.S. Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs
Robert O. Blake, Jr., who two years ago succeeded Richard Boucher in
that role.
The State Department's Blake delivered a speech at the
James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in
Houston, Texas entitled "The Obama Administration' s Priorities in
South and Central Asia."
Shorn of superfluous banter and obligatory diplomatese,
his address accentuated American geopolitical designs in an area which
Blake highlighted as being of vitally important interest to Washington:
"Central Asia lies at a critical strategic crossroads,
bordering Afghanistan, China, Russia and Iran, which is why the United
States wants to continue to expand our engagement and our cooperation
with this critical region."[2]
In furtherance of U.S. designs in an area that not only
abuts the four nations named, but if controlled by the U.S. would
prevent regional cooperation between them except insofar as it is
mediated by an outside power, Washington, Blake listed the three
priorities for the region as being to:
- Support international efforts in Afghanistan
- Build a strategic partnership with India
- Develop more durable and stable relations with the
Central Asian countries
He commented after the above itemization: "After
describing these priorities at greater length, I will then focus on
energy resources in Central Asia, which I imagine is of particular
interest in Houston," where ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil Company and
Halliburton' s Energy Services Group have their headquarters.
The State Department assistant secretary also emphasized
the role of the recently activated Northern Distribution Network (NDN)
in moving supplies, military equipment and troops to the Afghan war
front from the west, promoting the concept that "The NDN increasingly
offers the people of the Central Asian
countries the opportunity to sell goods and services to NATO troops in
Afghanistan, and we hope it can help catalyze greater trade and
economic cooperation between Afghanistan and Central Asia."
The U.S. has assiduously worked to ensure that Chinese,
Russian and Iranian influence in Central Asia and Afghanistan is
blocked and instead promotes the economic, transportation and security
integration of the region through the Pentagon-NATO Northern
Distribution Network. The U.S. and NATO intend
the NDN to supplant the SCO as the engine of economic and security
integration in Central Asia. To date eleven of the fifteen former
federal republics of the Soviet Union -- all except for Armenia,
Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine -- have been incorporated into the NDN
grid
originating in the Baltic and Black Seas.
Washington is also exploiting Afghanistan and Central
Asia to attain an even larger prize. Again according to Blake, "South
Asia, with India as its thriving anchor, is a region of growing
strategic and commercial importance to the United States in the
critical Indian Ocean area.
"In total, the region is home to over two billion people
-- roughly one fourth of the world's population."
He elaborated further on the main strategic objective of
the wider Afghan war when he stated that "projects with India in
Afghanistan mark a small but important part of a significant new global
development -- the emergence of a global strategic partnership between
India and the United States," as "by 2025 India
is expected to become the 3rd largest economy in the world, behind the
United States and China."
"Secretary Clinton and other Cabinet officials will also
travel to India this spring for the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue,
which oversees the entire spectrum of our cooperation. "
Blake also reminded his audience of an initiative
instituted last year and conducted under his jurisdiction: Annual
Bilateral Consultations (ABCs) with all five Central Asian countries.
In his Houston speech he stated, "I look forward to starting the second
round of ABCs with Uzbekistan next month in Tashkent."
Blake's boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
visited Uzbekistan last month -- the first secretary of state to do
so since Colin Powell's trip there in December of 2001 -- as well as
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbek President Islam Karimov just
returned from Brussels where NATO had invited him to visit
its headquarters and meet with Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
While in the Belgian capital he also met with European Commission
President José Manuel Barossa and Energy Commissioner
Günther
Oettinger. Uzbekistan, though poor in oil supplies, is one of the
largest producers of natural gas in the
former Soviet Union.
Uzbekistan is, like its neighbors, assuming greater
significance for the U.S.-NATO war effort in South Asia: "The airport
at the Uzbek city of Navoi has emerged as a key cog in the Northern
Distribution Network, a web of Central Asian rail, road and air links
that funnels supplies to U.S. and NATO troops in
Afghanistan. Most of the NDN supplies bound for Afghanistan flow
through the railway junction at Termez, at the Uzbek-Afghan border."[3] German troops are based in Termez and
across
the
border in Afghanistan' s Kunduz province.
While Clinton was in Kyrgyzstan she, seemingly without
even the suggestion of a formal agreement to the effect, assumed the
extension of U.S. rights to the air base there, stating "Washington
would examine again in 2014 whether it needed the Manas base."
"Clinton said Manas was the central transit point for
troops from 49 countries going into Afghanistan."[4]
Her subordinate Blake's speech at Rice University also
included discussion of the strategic role of Central Asia in regards to
hydrocarbon extraction and transport. He claimed that the biggest and
richest of the Central Asian states, Kazakhstan, "will account for one
of the largest increases in non-OPEC supply
to the global market in the next 10-15 years as its oil production
doubles to reach 3 million barrels a day by 2020." The U.S. and its EU
and NATO allies have long planned the shipping of Kazakh oil and
natural gas westward to the South Caucasus and thence to Europe, both
bypassing and replacing Russia as Europe's
main supplier of hydrocarbons.
Western projects include the Nabucco natural gas
pipeline and building a pipeline under the Caspian Sea to bring Kazakh
oil to Azerbaijan where it would be transported via the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey) pipeline with a
connection to an
Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk branch running from
Ukraine to Poland's Baltic Sea coast and from there to the rest of
Europe.
That is, the Western-initiated Southern Corridor versus
Russia's South Stream natural gas pipeline to the Black Sea and the
Balkans.
In 2009 Richard Morningstar, the State Department's
Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, spoke in the Czech Republic at an EU
summit called Southern Corridor-New Silk Road, and asserted: "President
Obama and Secretary of State Clinton share your support for the
Southern Corridor and consider Eurasian
energy issues to be of the highest importance."
His State Department colleague Blake also said last
week: "Though often overlooked as an energy source, Uzbekistan has
substantial hydrocarbon reserves of its own and produces about as much
natural gas as Turkmenistan. Located at the heart of Central Asia, much
of the region's infrastructure -- roads, railroads,
transmission lines, and pipelines -- goes through Uzbekistan, offering
it a unique opportunity to expand its exports with little investment in
new infrastructure."
The
energy project that attracted the attention of Blake
most, however, was the agreement concluded on December 11 of last year
for the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) natural gas
pipeline to run from the Caspian Sea littoral nation that gives the
acronym its first letter to India, which was
the death sentence for a competing "peace pipeline" from Iran to
Pakistan, from there to India and onward to China -- the $7 billion,
1,430-mile Iran-Pakistan-India gas (IPI) pipeline -- that had been
years in the planning but was opposed by Washington, which backed the
earlier TAP (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan) and later the TAPI
alternative.
The pipeline is to extend over 10,000 miles and deliver
33
billion cubic meters of natural gas annually.
After mentioning that "The country's substantial natural
resources may make Turkmenistan one of the top five countries worldwide
in terms of gas reserves" which have "attracted the attention of many
countries interested in securing Turkmen gas for various pipeline
projects," Blake announced that "The U.S.
has welcomed renewed interest in TAPI." In fact it has been the prime
mover behind the project through its influence in the Asian Development
Bank, which is underwriting the pipeline's construction.
Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov
"almost single-handedly resurrected the
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which if successful
will finally link the
resources in Central Asia with the markets of the south," Blake added.
In the middle of this month Afghan President Karzai and
Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil sent letters to their Turkmen
counterpart "express[ing]confidence that the gas pipeline TAPI
(Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) will be implemented soon."[5]
Shortly afterward Berdimukhamedov met with European
Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who also met with
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on the same trip and subsequently
with Uzbek President Karimov in Brussels, in the Turkmen capital and
announced that his government is prepared to
replicate the TAPI project by shipping Caspian natural gas to Europe
with "construction of a pipeline under the Caspian Sea
[and] transportation of natural gas across the Caspian Sea on
specialized ships, tankers."[6] Turkmenistan
will
then
link
up
with
the
Southern
Energy
Corridor
(including
the
Nabucco
gas
pipeline)
to
bring
Caspian
and Middle Eastern,
including Iraqi, natural gas to Europe.
Until now Turkmenistan' s natural gas deals had been
primarily with Russia, China and Iran. Both Russia and China have
expressed interest in participating in the TAPI pipeline, but the U.S.
will ensure that doesn't occur. "Washington's vital interest in TAPI
includes having an alternative route for Central Asian
gas that will bypass the Russian pipelines' network."
In addition, "India has objected to any Chinese firm or
consortium being given contracts related to the building of the
Turkmenistan- Afghanistan- Pakistan- India (TAPI) gas pipeline."[7]
"The U.S. has supported TAPI -- and Turkmen efforts to
keep Russia off the project -- as a way to break Russia's and China's
monopoly on exporting Caspian Basin energy to the rest of the world."[8]
It was observed years ago by past Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and all-around
former Soviet space hand Matthew Bryza, now the incoming U.S.
ambassador to Azerbaijan, that the transportation corridor the U.S. and
its Western allies developed in the 1990s to ship energy
to the west was used to transport troops and equipment to the east
starting with the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. What the U.S. and NATO
have for years called the New Silk Road, which is in truth an arms and
energy transit route.
Until recently, however, Turkmenistan had remained
comparatively uninvolved in the transit going both ways. It is the only
Central Asian nation not to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (which also
includes Armenia and Belarus as member
states.)
Journalist Deirdre Tynan has provided valuable
information on the degree to which Turkmenistan has been
surreptitiously incorporated into the U.S. and NATO greater Afghan war
structure. Two years ago she disclosed that Turkmenistan has been
"quietly developing into a major transport hub" for the Northern
Distribution Network to deliver supplies to U.S. and NATO forces in
Afghanistan.
Tynan also revealed:
"The Pentagon has confirmed a small contingent of U.S.
military personnel now operates in Ashgabat [the capital] to assist
refueling operations.
"The United States has a deal in place that allows for
the landing and refueling of transport planes at Ashgabat airport,
according to the U.S. Department of Defense. NATO is also seeking to
open
a land corridor for supplies destined for troops in Afghanistan. ..."
She also quoted a spokesman for the Defense Department
stating, "The United States has a small Air Force team, normally around
seven airmen, who assist U.S. aircraft who refuel at Ashgabat
Airport...."[9]
In a recent article the author wrote:
"Despite its long-avowed status as a neutral nation,
Turkmenistan is playing an important supporting role for U.S. and NATO
forces fighting in Afghanistan. Washington and Ashgabat are both keen
to keep Turkmenistan's strategic role low-key, especially the financial
aspects of cooperation."
The country has supplied fuel for American and NATO
troops in Afghanistan, "delivered free of all duties and taxes."
"Fuel is exempt from local duties and taxes due to
Turkmenistan's and Azerbaijan's participation in the NATO Partnership
for Peace program....Similar arrangements are in place in Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan and Tajikistan... U.S. military aircraft have been using
Turkmen airspace and facilities since at least 2002,
and Ashgabat is a hub for operations involving C-5 and C-17 transport
planes."
A spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Defense Logistics
Agency (DLA) told Tynan the following:
"It is DLA's understanding that both Turkmenistan and
Azerbaijan are partners in the NATO Partnership for Peace. As partners,
they agree to abide by the terms of the NATO status of forces
agreement, which provides in relevant part that NATO member countries
shall make special arrangements for fuel, oil
and lubricants for use by another member countries military and
civilian personnel to be delivered free of all duties and taxes."[10]
Tajikistan, with China to its east and Afghanistan to
its southwest, has hosted a French air force contingent of at least 200
personnel, C-160 transport aircraft and Mirage multirole
fourth-generation jet fighters since early 2002.
Last week the nation's state-run railroad disclosed that
in 2010 "In keeping with the agreements signed by the Tajik government,
republican railroads delivered over 160 tonnes of commercial cargo,
which was later taken by motor transport to Afghanistan for NATO
needs."[11]
In 2007 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers financed the
construction of a bridge across the Panj River connecting Tajikistan
and Afghanistan.
On January 17 U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
for South and Central Asian Affairs Susan Elliott was in Kyrgyzstan to
arrange for resuming bilateral consultations, which were suspended last
year after the second violent overthrow of the government in five years
occurred.[12]
The following week Kazakh Secretary of State Kanat
Saudabayev visited Washington, D.C. for two days. Before meeting with
his counterpart Secretary of State Clinton, he met with Colin Powell,
Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, ConocoPhillips Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer James Mulva and
Halliburton Energy Services Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David
Lesar.
Clinton and Saudabayev stressed "the importance of
timely implementation of the agreements" between President Barack Obama
and Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev on the sidelines of
last April's Global Summit on Nuclear Safety in Washington. Accords
that, according to Senior Director of Russian
and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council Michael McFaul,
"will allow troops to fly directly from the United States over the
North Pole to the region."[13] U.S.
and British
troops led NATO Partnership for Peace training exercises, codenamed
Steppe Eagle 2010, in Kazakhstan last
August and afterwards Kazakhstan assigned military personnel to NATO's
International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
As Washington and NATO consolidate military-to-military
relations with the five nations of Central Asia, the majority of both
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Collective Security Treaty
Organization members will be shifted from the Russian and Chinese to
the U.S. column.
Indian analyst and former diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar
wrote
an article a month after NATO's summit in Lisbon in November in which
he stated that "the alliance is well on the way to transforming into a
global political-military role" and "NATO is by far today the most
powerful military and political alliance
in the world."
He added: "The various partnership programs of NATO in
Central Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Mediterranean
regions can be viewed as part of the overall approach to take recourse
to other states or groups of states to promote the Euro-Atlantic
interests globally."
"From a seemingly reluctant arrival in Afghanistan seven
years ago in an 'out-of-area' operation as part of the UN-mandated ISAF
(International Security Assistance Force), with a limited mandate, NATO
is suo moto stepping out of
the ISAF, deepening its presence and
recasting its role and activities on a long-term
basis."
"It is within the realm of possibility that NATO would
at a future date deploy components of the U.S. missile defense system
in
Afghanistan. Ostensibly directed against the nearby 'rogue states,' the
missile defense system will challenge the Chinese strategic capability."
The current geopolitical reality in Central and South
Asia "is very much linked to NATO's future role in Afghanistan. U.S.
strategy toward an Afghan settlement visualizes the future role for
NATO as the provider of security to the Silk Road that transports the
multi-trillion dollar mineral wealth in Central Asia
to the world market via the Pakistani port of Gwadar."
"The resuscitation of the Silk Road project to construct
an oil and gas pipeline connecting Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan
and India (the TAPI pipeline) will need to be seen as much more than a
template of regional cooperation.
"The pipeline signifies a breakthrough in the
longstanding Western efforts to access the fabulous mineral wealth of
the Caspian and Central Asian region. Washington has been the patron
saint of the TAPI concept since the early-1990s when the Taliban was
conceived as its Afghan charioteer."
"On the map, the TAPI pipeline deceptively shows India
as its final destination. What is overlooked, however, is that the
route can be easily extended to the Pakistani port of Gwadar and
connected with European markets, which is the ultimate objective.
"The onus is on each of the transit countries to secure
the pipeline. Part of the Afghan stretch will be buried underground as
a safeguard against attacks and local communities will be paid to guard
it. But then, it goes without saying that Kabul will expect NATO to
provide security cover, which, in turn, necessitates
long-term Western military presence in Afghanistan.
"In sum, TAPI is the finished product of the U.S.
invasion
of Afghanistan. It consolidates NATO's political and military presence
in the strategic high plateau that overlooks Russia, Iran, India,
Pakistan and China. TAPI provides a perfect setting for the alliance's
future projection of military power for 'crisis management'
in Central Asia."[14]
Immediately after the signing of the TAPI agreement in
the capital of Turkmenistan by the presidents of that country and
Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as Indian's energy minister, the
government of Hamid Karzai announced that 7,000 Afghan troops -- the
army is being trained by the NATO Training Mission -- Afghanistan --
would be deployed to guard the pipeline.[15]
Since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the
Soviet Union, Central Asia (with the Caspian Sea Basin on its western
flank) has been the chessboard on which intensified international
strategic positioning has occurred. It may be transformed into a
battleground of conflicting 21st century geopolitical interests.
Notes
1. The Shanghai Cooperation
Organization: Prospects For
A Multipolar World, Stop NATO, May 21, 2009
2. Robert O. Blake, Jr., The Obama
Administration's
Priorities in South and Central Asia, U.S. State Department, January
19,
2011
3. Deirdre Tynan, Uzbekistan: Karimov's
Visit to
Brussels was NATO's idea, EurasiaNet, January 20, 2011
4. Reuters, December 2, 2010
5. Trend News Agency, January 13, 2011
6. Trend News Agency, January 15, 2011
7. Hindustan
Times, January 17, 2011
8. Central Asia Newswire, January 26, 2011
9. EurasiaNet, July 8, 2009
10. Deirdre Tynan, Turkmenistan: Ashgabat
Playing Key U.S./NATO Support Role in Afghan War, EurasiaNet, January
10, 2011
11. Interfax-Military, January 20, 2011
12. Kyrgyzstan And The Battle For Central
Asia, Stop
NATO, April 7, 2010
13. Kazakhstan: U.S., NATO Seek Military
Outpost Between
Russia And China, Stop NATO, April 14, 2010
14. M.K. Bhadrakumar, NATO weaves South
Asian web, Asia
Times, December 23, 2010
15. NATO Trains Afghan Army To Guard
Asian Pipeline,
Stop NATO, December 19, 2010
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