Πηγή: Cyprus Mail
By Peter Apps
Oct 11 2011
WITH AN emerging power testing its strength, valuable resources in the balance and a weakened West struggling to exert influence, the dispute between Turkey and Cyprus over gas drilling may be a sign of wider things to come.
In Southeast Asia, the Arctic, and perhaps also Africa and Latin America, disputed maritime boundaries may become flashpoints as rising scarcity of energy and other resources coincide with a shift in the geopolitical balance of power.
The United States and other Western powers, their relative influence waning, may have to play a subtle diplomatic game to ensure conflict is avoided and important relationships are not jeopardised.
"What we're seeing here is theatrics," says Thomas Barnett, US-based chief strategist for political risk consultancy Wikistrat. "The trick here is to manage it."
In the short term, the Cyprus dispute has produced what increasingly looks like one of the most complex naval and political face-offs in the Mediterranean in years.
Western diplomats have watched with alarm as Turkey has sent naval vessels to escort an exploration vessel into waters it believes belong to Turkish-backed northern Cyprus. That move appeared to be a retaliation for drilling by US company Noble Energy in waters internationally recognised as belonging to the Cypriot government.
Defence sources in the region said Turkey had dispatched a corvette and a frigate to accompany its exploration vessel, the Piri Reis, which had last week come within a distance of 10 km of the offshore plot claimed by Greek Cypriots to drill for gas.
Adding to the mix was a Russian ship, US vessels on patrol west of Cyprus and the presence of unspecified Israeli defence assets. Israel controls a vast offshore prospect close to the Greek Cypriot drill.
US reconnaissance planes circled the rig on at least two occasions, they said. "The presence of the US aircraft was probably a message that they will safeguard US interests," a defence source in the region said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Britain, Turkey and Greece became guarantor powers of Cyprus's unity when the island won independence of Britain in 1960. But Britain was unable to prevent partition of the island 14 years later when Turkish troops invaded in response to a short-lived coup by Greek Cypriots aimed at union with Greece.
Britain retains military bases on the island, that once stamped its power in the eastern Mediterranean; but London's influence has eroded, while others appear to shape events.
The gas issue has become a bone of contention between Turkey and Israel, whose long-term alliance has frayed since Israel's military campaign against Gaza in 2008/9.
Israel is drilling nearby in its Leviathan gasfield, described as one of the largest offshore fields of its type found worldwide in the past decade.
"This is a big deal, said Nikolas Gvosdev, professor of National Security studies at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island. "With overlapping territorial disputes and with warships escorted oil drilling vessels, the prospects of a clash increase... This puts the US in a very delicate position, between its long-standing alliance with Israel and its NATO commitments to Turkey."
With any naval activities largely taking place offshore and out of sight, knowing exactly what is happening is almost impossible. But in nearby Greece, struggling under its own debt crisis and massive austerity measures but with its own history of confrontation with Turkey, there is already talk that the rising crisis means any defence cuts should be put to one side.
Cyprus too faces financial and domestic problems, its banking system heavily exposed to Greece and ruling coalition struggling amid disagreements over reunification talks.
An explosion of seized Iranian munitions bound for Syria in July at the naval base at which they were being stored also heavily damaged the island's largest power station, leading to sporadic power cuts and local political recriminations.
"There's definitely a declining West story here," said David Lea, Western Europe analyst at Control Risks. "The Americans and also the British have much less influence and are much less able to act... Both Greece and Cyprus have a vested interest in having some kind of foreign policy distraction from their financial problems at home."
But Turkey's relative rise is at least as important as Western decline, most observers say. With European Union membership no longer on the cards and strong economic growth increasing his bargaining power, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has increasingly sought to position the country as an independent force in the Middle East and wider world.
The latter part of that description could equally be applied to a number of other emerging powers, not least China.
Beijing has been involved in a growing number of face-offs with neighbours in recent years over mineral and fishing rights, most recently Vietnam. Outside analysts say these are often originally spurred as much by private actors -- fishing boats or exploration vessels -- as deliberate policy, but again offer a podium on which Beijing can showcase its growing clout.
Other areas to watch, analysts say, might include Russia's growing assertiveness in the Arctic and perhaps Argentinian interest in the British-controlled Falklands, particularly in the event of energy discoveries there. Increased energy discoveries of Africa's coastline could also spark disputes.
But fears of a new era of "resource wars", Wikistrat's Barnett says, might still be overblown.
In the long run, he said a more assertive Turkey could prove a positive for both the US and Israel, acting as a regional counterweight to Iran and Saudi Arabia, and that the important thing was to manage its rise.
"My instinct is that this is a storm in a tea cup," Barnett says of the Cyprus dispute. "You could make comparisons from this to what we are seeing in the South China Sea (and) in both cases the ultimate answer is probably the same -- some kind of shared corporation agreement... It might sound a long way off now, but it should happen with time."
The need for the West, he said, was to learn to reach out subtly and diplomatically to emerging powers like Turkey as Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger did with China in the 1970s, soothing egos and helping nudge them towards co-operation.
Not everyone is so confident outright bloodshed will always be avoided. With the financial crisis aftermath and rise of new powers producing what analyst Ian Bremmer calls a rudderless "G-zero" world with much less leadership and international agreement, the risk of miscalculation remains.
"Absent the US acting as an effective global policeman and with global institutions not reflecting the existing balance of power, we get local security arrangements... cobbled together," said Bremmer, president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. "That takes time -- and frequently isn't as effective -- which gets you more conflict."
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