Federico Bordonaro

Tra la fine degli anni novanta e l’inizio del secolo, Mosca appariva in difficoltà su tutte le scacchiere geopolitiche: Balcani, Europa orientale, Caucaso, Asia centrale. Ma aveva in mano due carte decisive: l’energia e la tecnologia militare. L’uso sapiente — ancorché brutale — di tali carte ha permesso a Putin di riguadagnare rapidamente terreno nei confronti degli Stati Uniti, e di emergere come una potenza imprescindibile nei nuovi scenari internazionali.

Per quanto riguarda la strategia energetica di Mosca, segnalo due eccellenti articoli apparsi oggi su Asia Times Online. Il primo è di W. Joseph Stroupe:

A circle defining international energy security is now being drawn. The artist is Russia, which is steadily pulling into this circle all the resource-rich corporate states around the globe. These countries have a profound political affinity for one another and a simultaneous collective disdain, and even a hatred, for US-led unipolar dominance. The multinational oil companies of the West are being marginalized as a direct result.

Il secondo è di M K Bhadrakumar:

ccording to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, by November, the customs union will have taken place comprising Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, while the other EEC members may join in the next 18-month period or so. It is a dramatic gain for Russia to have reached such a high level of integration with Kazakhstan. The Moscow-Astana axis potentially forms a formidable core within the post-Soviet space. Russia has in effect rebuffed the US strategy of making inroads into its ties with Kazakhstan.

Astana has been a frequent destination for US dignitaries in the recent months, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Energy Secretary Sam Boden. A visit by Nazarbayev to the US is in the cards. Of late, US officials have openly singled out Kazakhstan for flattering, fulsome praise in the hope of playing on Astana’s perceived vanities as a geopolitical fulcrum.

Furthermore, Russia has hit back at the US for the latter’s delaying tactic apropos its membership in the World Trade Organization by getting the Sochi summit to agree that the integration within the EEC and the accession of its members to the WTO should be harmonized until the establishment of the customs union. In real terms, Russia is counting on the customs union being assigned the role of an alternative to the WTO.