Uzbekistan

The United States is the world’s biggest consumer and importer of oil. But the Chinese economic juggernaut is fast catching up with the US as an oil importer and is projected to have more cars than the US by the year 2020. The competition between the two countries for new sources of oil is going to be intense. With crude oil prices closing in on an all-time high of $ 100 a barrel this week and expected to breach that barrier within the next few days, the US’s interest in getting a hammerlock on Central Asia’s vast oil and gas reserves is likely to become greater than ever before.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is holding a four-day meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, starting Friday. While the summit will doubtless end with the usual flurry of statements emphasizing peace and prosperity for member states, the gathering will be most notable for what is absent from the declarations, a vision of what the grouping actually entails, particularly as regards energy exports.

Even as Russo-American tensions smolder from Eastern Europe and Central Asia to the Arctic seabed, the secretary of state is denying the onset of a renewed Cold War. Yet, unmistakable signals of a counter-balancing effort by Russia and China were sent last month through the largest-ever war games of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (S.C.O.), a six-nation anti-United States alliance.

But if the middle space [Russia and the former Soviet Union] rebuffs the West [the European Union and America], becomes an assertive single entity, and either gains control over the South [Middle East] or forms an alliance with the major Eastern actor [China], then America’s primacy in Eurasia shrinks dramatically. The same would be the case if the two major Eastern players were somehow to unite. Finally, any ejection of America by its Western partners [the Franco-German entente] from its perch on the western periphery [Europe] would automatically spell the end of America’s participation in the game on the Eurasian chessboard, even though that would probably also mean the eventual subordination of the western extremity to a revived player occupying the middle space [e.g. Russia].” -Zbigniew Brzezinski (The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, 1997)

To be optimally and comprehensively geared for security planning and preparedness in a rapidly globalizing context, Nepal must initiate friendships and cooperation across the board, whether it is with the SCO, NATO, the Shangri-La Dialogue or whatever.

Preparations have been completed for next month's joint anti-terrorist exercise by Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states. The exercise, called "Peace Mission 2007," is the biggest military exercise in the organization's history. All six SCO members -- China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- will take part.