Energy Geopolitics and Pipeline Diplomacy in Central Asia: India’s Interests and Policy Options

Abstract

The global energy scenario is undergoing a tectonic shift in recent times. While energy security has been emerging as one of the cornerstones of the foreign policy of major countries, a new geological survey has the promise of new discoveries and reserves untapped. One such epic new frontier of the world geological survey has been the post-Soviet Central Asia consisting of five “Stans” of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, along with the Caspian Sea region. Sitting on huge untapped hydrocarbon potentials, the Central Asian geographical entity in recent years has offered enormous opportunity and appeal for countries adjacent to the region and far beyond. That is perhaps the reason that even after the disintegration of the USSR, the geopolitical importance of Central Asia has never waned down, instead it emerged as a grand chessboard for regional and extra-regional players for the immense opportunities it offered for the energy-crunch countries as potentially new and non-OPEC source of oil and natural gas. In the quest for energy security and diversity of supply sources by energy consumers, the heartland has witnessed a new great game in the scramble for resources. This accentuated struggle for oil and energy in the region has further led to aggressive foreign policy formulations and strategic calculation by countries such as the United States, China, the European Union, Japan, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, and India, to which many now call “the New Great Game” for not just controlling but administering energy resources of the region. The bottom line of the New Great Game, unlike the previous version, is essentially played out around petropolitics and pipeline diplomacy. To support the scramble for energy in Central Asia and the aggressive petropolitics and pipeline diplomacy by major powers, the study adopts the peak oil theory of Club of Rome thesis to understand the global tectonic shift of energy frontiers. Further, this article attempts to examine the position of India in Central Asia and its policy initiatives in the epic quest for oil and energy in the traditional bastion of Russia and the new grand chessboard of China and the United States.