Jeffrey Mankoff: “The USA won’t completely turn its back on the South Caucasus”

Interview by Vestnik Kavkaza
 
In the beginning of 2013 Director and Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Jeffrey Mankoff presented the report “The USA and Central Asia after 2014.” He believes that withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan can lead to possible conflicts in the region; so, a special security treaty between NATO, Russia, and the countries of the region should be developed. Recently Jeffrey Mankoff has visited Baku and told Vestnik Kavkaza about his impressions.

-    How did you like your trip there? And how do you think it was useful?

-    I liked it. I think, it was useful in the sense that it was a good opportuniy to hear from azeri officials to get their perspective on what the main foreign policy changes the country faces are, and how the Azerbaijan’s relationship with the United States can help to solve those problems.

-    What role does Azerbaijan play today in American foreign policy?

-    It’s important for a couple of reasons. Probably the two biggest are Europe’s energy security the fact that Azerbaijan is a supplier of oil and gas to Europe. And in the long run that role will likely to become more important, I think.

And secondly, the role that Azerbaijan plays, let’s say, as a secular Muslim state in the important part of the world. And here you can point to the Azerbaijans relatiojnships with Israel, the role that it’s playing in which the US is a part to pressure Iran over its nuclear program and in general to try and contain threats of radicalism and other sparks of instability coming from that part of the world.

-    What role the South Caucasus play in the US-Russian relations. For example, are these US-Azeri conferences viewed as a threat to Russian interests in the region?

-    I think that in the last year maybe a little more Azerbaijan was trying to push a more, we can call it a multivector foreign policy, including trying to patch up the relationship with Russia, which had been difficult for some time. I think there are still concerns in Russia that Azerbaijan has kind of prowestern outposts, that it’s not interested in joining the customs union or in a political-economic integration with Russia. At the same time, I think, the potential to serve as a source of tension between Russia and the United States is less now than it was in recent years. That it’s been with a caveat, assuming that, a conflict in Nogorny Karabakh either remains frozen or moves towards a resolution which is mutually acceptable for Moscow and Washington.

-    If we look at the South Caucasus would you say that this region is becoming again more and more interesting for the United States and Russia? After the war in Georgia interest faded.

-    I think the United States were in a moment of greater introspection partially related to withdrawal first from Iraq and then moving towards the withdrawal from Afghanistan and also as a result of economic difficulties in this country. And what I think that means is that in the grand scheme of things the US envolvement and engagements with a lot of these countries, icluding in the post-Soviet region in the short and intermediate terms going to be extensive, perhaps, than it was in the past. So, you have there still things that are important in a relationships and I don’t think that the US is going to completely turn its back on the South Caucasus. But at the same time, I think, that the engagement we are going to see will be a little bit more cautious, is going to be less overtly directed at, let’s say containting the Russian influence and it’s going to be more secondary, perhaps.

-    Was it your first visit to Azerbaijan and what are your impressions from the country?

-    It was clear that there are a lot of developments in Baku, and there have been a lot of constructions, a lot of them were still going on. So, it’s clear that economically Baku itself is doing pretty well. I heard some people who have been there 7 to 8 years ago saying how different the city looked from what it was like. There was a lot of development that is taking place. I think, that there are concerns about how equitably the fruits of that development are being distributed, how much of it is making its way out of Baku to some more rural parts of the country. But certainly you can see in Baku itself that the infrastructure, the physical part of the city looks good, quite clean. There are a lot of new buildings; there is a lot of construction going on.