Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia

Invited Speech to the Plenary Session "Caspian Sea Resources", Monaco Summit on Energy (Crans Montana Forum in Monaco sponsored by UNIDO). [Material from this speech was incorporated into the 1999 Global Governance article, "Cooperative Energy Security in the Caspian Region: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Development?"

First published in Central Asia - Caucasus Analyst, vol. 2, no. 4 (16 February 2000): 3-4. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

SUMMARY: President Islam Karimov's reelection in Uzbekistan has been followed by his statement that a program of economic liberalization and privatization will now be introduced in the country. Currency controls on the Uzbek som and its less than full convertibility, have been the greatest roadblocks to the overall development of the Central Asian trading block, called the Central Asian Union, that includes Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. If barriers including bilateral trade tariffs can be overcome, the Central Asian Union holds the greatest potential to reanimate regional trade throughout the Central Asian region.

First published in Foreign Policy in Focus, December 2000, pp. 1-2. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

It is difficult to say what any new administration's policy will be by the end of the president's term of office. However, there are some clear indications of the broad outlines of U.S. policy toward Russia under the Bush administration as it prepares to take office. This policy will not seek to present a cooperative image of the relationship, as has been so under the outgoing administration. Instead it will have a more overtly "realist" or "realpolitik" approach and will concentrate in the first instance upon European security and controlling arms proliferation.

Ukraine's positioning makes it a natural bridge between East and West. A wise U.S. foreign policy would be one that is sensitive to Ukraine's function as a bridge between Russia and the Western military alliance.

First published in Foreign Policy in Focus, March 2001, pp. 1-2. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

The GUAM formation (Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-Moldova) had its origin in the 1996 round of talks implementing the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. The four countries found they had a common opposition to the stationing of Russian weapons on their territory. GUAM became GUUAM when Uzbekistan joined in April 1999. According to recent reports, the GUUAM countries intend, in spring 2001, to institutionalize their cooperation by forming a permanent international organization. This organization will have its own secretariat (probably in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine) and a small number of ancillary bodies but will have principally a coordinative function with no supranational authority. In response to this prospect, three schools of thought regarding GUUAM have begun to appear in Western, principally U.S., commentary and analysis.

First published in Central Asia - Caucasus Analyst 3, no. 14 (4 July 2001): 5-6. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

SUMMARY: Only days before the Putin-Bush meeting in Ljubljana, an even more significant meeting took place in Shanghai between Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, within the framework of the mechanism known until recently as the "Shanghai Five" or "Shanghai Forum". At the Shanghai meeting, Uzbekistan was welcomed as the institution's sixth full member. Documents were adopted bearing the titles, "Declaration of the Establishment of the 'Shanghai Cooperation Organization'" and the "Shanghai Covenant on the Suppression of Terrorism, Separatism and [Religious] Extremism". The name-change signals a move to establish a formal structure with a permanent secretariat in Shanghai, and to promote multilateral interministerial cooperation across a wide range of issue areas. It also signals, if one takes Beijing at its word, the incipient coalescence of a Sino-Russocentric geopolitical bloc in Asia. China's vision for such a bloc is to countervail any strategic vision that puts the United States at the forefront of twenty-first century global politics.

First published in Foreign Policy in Focus, September 2001, pp. 1-2. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

Toward the end of President Bush's September 24[, 2001] statement about freezing terrorists' assets, one finds the overlooked but no less remarkable assertion that the U.S. is "working closely with the United Nations, the EU and through the G− 7/G−8 structure to limit the ability of terrorist organizations to take advantage of the international financial systems."

First published in Foreign Policy in Focus, 28 October 2001, pp. 1-4.
Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

[Summary of the history of the conflict from the 19th century, the role of the United States, proposed solutions and an evaluation of prospects for the conflict's settlement.]

First published in Foreign Policy in Focus, 11 November 2001, pp. 1-2. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

Just when it looked the Central Asian countries were facing the growing joint political hegemony of Russia and China in the region, the events of September 11 opened the door to an increased and indefinite-term U.S. military presence.

Excerpt from Voice of America report by Luis Ramirez, "Politics of Oil Dominate Shanghai Summit" (16 June 2006):

Analysts say the United States has reason to watch closely for signs of anti-American sentiments at the SCO. Robert Cutler, a senior research fellow at Carleton University in Canada, says the underlying purpose of the organization is for Russia and China to assert their influence in Central Asia. He says this is especially true of China, with its bid to secure energy resources.

"Harmonizing EEC-CMEA Relations: Never the Twain Shall Meet?," International Affairs 63, no. 2 (Spring 1987): 259-70.

This article reviews Soviet perspectives on the European Economic Community (as the European Union was then called) in the early 1970s and then covers subsequent developments between the two European blocs later in that decade and through the early and mid-1980s. This review culminates in an assessment, consecutively, of the legal, economic, and political aspects of EEC–CMEA relations as these stood in early 1987. The article then establishes four possibilities for future relations between the organizations and evaluates these possibilities. It concludes with an attempt to see into the more distant future. Key Eurocrats in Brussels aver that this analysis strongly influenced EEC policy towards East Central Europe in the late 1980s, while the Soviet empire in East Europe was dissolving but the USSR had not yet begun to disintegrate. It includes 23 explanatory and bibliographical notes incorporating sources and studies in English, French, Russian, and Polish.

First published in Asia Time OnLine, 28 February 2007. Copyright © Robert M. Cutler.

A significant indicator of Turkmenistan's future diplomatic and economic course is whether new President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov will undertake a rapprochement with Azerbaijan.