Welcome to the Caspian Daily, where you will find the 10 most important things you need to know on Caspian Sea Region. We appreciate ideas, reports, news and interesting articles. Send along to Caspian[at]moderndiplomacy.eu or on Twitter: @DGiannakopoulos
1At least since 9/11 and arguably for two decades before that, two propositions have informed U.S. policy in the Mideast. The first is that U.S. interests there are best served by the United States establishing a position of unquestioned preeminence. The second is that military might, wielded unilaterally if necessary, holds the key to maintaining that dominant position. Call it the Big Enchilada policy, with attitude. As implemented, however, that approach has yielded almost uniformly unfavorable results. Iraq and Afghanistan provide exhibits A and B, of course. But Libya, Somalia and Yemen don’t look much better. Even so, some hawkish types argue that trying a little harder militarily will produce better outcomes. Their ranks include a platoon of Republican presidential candidates vowing if elected to get tough on the ayatollahs, Andrew J. Bacevich for the Los Angeles Times.
2India Opens Gateway to Central Asian Gas Riches After Iran Deal. With U.S. sanctions easing, India is racing to build a port in Iran that will get around the fact that its land access to energy-rich former Soviet republics in Central Asia has been blocked by China and its ally Pakistan.“We’re seeing the latest manifestation of the Great Game in Central Asia, and India is the new player,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “It’s had its eyes on Central Asia for a long time.” While the world focuses on what Iran’s opening means for Israel and Arab nations, the ramifications are also critical for Asia. Closer Iran-India ties would allow New Delhi’s leaders to secure cheaper energy imports to bolster economic growth and reduce the influence of both China and Pakistan in the region. Natalie Obiko Pearson for Bloomberg.
3Turkmenistan’s government-owned TurkmenGaz will lead a consortium of the national oil companies of the four nations that will build and operate the ambitious Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, the petroleum ministry said without clarifying whether foreign private companies can still participate in the $7.6 billion project.
4Kazakhstan will establish an energy efficiency fund, which will become a tool for supporting energy service companies by allocating them credits and loans on preferential terms, said Albert Rau, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Investment and Development Minister.”Currently, works on the establishment of an energy efficiency fund are already being conducted together with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program,” he said. “This will give additional impetus for the development of this sector in Kazakhstan. In this regard, we should follow the example of Europe, in particular Germany, which has made significant progress in the field of energy saving.” According to the “100 concrete steps” plan voiced by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, one of the important directions of Kazakhstan’s industrial development is the reduction of energy intensity in the gross domestic product of the country.
5A sophisticated cyber-attack on an email network at the Pentagon affected 4,000 military and civilian personnel working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the network was shut down for two weeks. It was a so-called spear-phishing attack in which people are tricked into opening bogus emails which then infect the network.US officials did not say whether the attack has been linked to individuals or the Russian government but said it was “sophisticated.”One official said: “It was a spear-phishing attack traced to that country (Russia),” Another told NBC News: “It was clearly the work of a state actor.” No classified information was obtained but the Pentagon decided to shut the email system down.
6S-400 Triumf missile defense systems have entered service in the Russian Armed Forces on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the head of the Defense Ministry’s press service for the Eastern Military District said Friday.“The S-300 missile defense systems that were deployed earlier reliably defended the airspace for over a quarter of a century. The capabilities of the new technology will allow for the detection of air targets at more than 600 kilometers away and are several times better than the military efficiency of anti-air defense of foreign states,” Roman Martov said. The S-400 Triumf (SA-21 Growler) is a Russia’s next-generation anti-aircraft weapon system, carrying three different types of missiles capable of destroying aerial targets at short-to-extremely long range.
7A Business Incubation Center at Mingachevir Tech Park will be created before the end of this year, says executive director of the High Tech Park Seymur Agayev. Currently, the general plan of progress for selected areas and the very structure of the Mingachevir Tech Park is under development, he said.“There are a number of measures concerning the activities of the Mingachevir technology park that will be adopted, and the business incubator is one of them. We are developing a comprehensive program that will at once launch the activity of the Tech Park. In addition, discussions are underway with potential investors and members,” Agayev said.
8Will Vladimir Putin save Russia’s ailing firms, like EkoNiva, Rosneft, Gazprom? Including the money in the sovereign wealth funds, the government has $US358 billion in foreign currency reserves and gold. So why not put some to work aiding businesses? One problem is that some banks and companies are poorly managed and deserve to go under, says Bernie Sucher, a longtime US investor in Russia who serves on the board of Moscow-based UFG Asset Management. Bailing them out only delays the day of reckoning, he says. That’s what happened in the 2008 financial crisis in Russia, when “the government sprayed liquidity all over the economy”, he says. “The big miss in 2008 was the failure to use the crisis to pursue deep structural reforms.” Carol Matlack for Sydney Morning Herald.
9Kazakhstan government has revised the decree that made many popular resorts a special border zone requiring special passes. Foreigners will no longer have to obtain permits to visit them. It greatly widened the strip of nearborder land considered a special zone not supposed to be visited by foreigners without obtaining a prior permit from the local authorities. A lot of popular destinations, including Big Almaty Lake, Medeo high altitude skating rink, Shymbulak skiing resort, Lake Alakol, Kolsay Lakes and Charyn Canyon ended up in that zone.
10An agreement to build “Wind Parks” in the vicinities of the Iranian city of Khaf has been reached. According to the agreement, the project will be implemented by LLC “Azalternativenerji”. The project will be implemented within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding, which was held in Baku in October 2014.
