Paul Goble
Fairborn, September 21 – Stimulated by a World Bank projection that the sale of water will bring more than a trillion US dollars in annual profit worldwide a decade from now to those involved in that industry, Moscow is considering developing plans to revive the diversion of Siberian river water to southern Russia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia and possibly China.
Under Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet plans to divert Siberian river waters to Central Asia were killed by Russian nationalists who saw this gigantist project as a threat to the Russian land. Under Vladimir Putin, renewed plans to do so were killed by Russian ecologists who warned of its negative consequences to the environment more generally.
But now as water shortages spread outward from Central Asia, the idea is attracting attention again and appears to be gaining traction because of the enormous profits that such a scheme might bring to its organizers, according to an analysis of the most recent moves by Aleksandr Bakhtutov (www.islamnews.ru/news-26720.html).
Earlier this year, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed resuscitating the river diversion plans that had been vetoed in 1986 and 2002, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev indicated that he was prepared to reconsider “certain former ideas” which were rejected at the time.
Medvedev’s comments have had an impact on discussions about Russia’s water strategy, Bakhtutov says, most significantly leading those preparing it to argue that Moscow must make plans not just out to 2020 as originally required but to 2030 or even 2050. And in that time frame, diverting some of the flow of the Siberian rivers to the south makes sense.
In addition to the humanitarian and security aspects of this issue, Bakhtutov continues, Moscow has been struck by World Bank projections that “the annual profit of private organizations involved in the administration of water resources can achieve by 2020 about a trillion dollars a year.”
“In this sense,” the analyst argues, “the project of diverting part of the flow of Siberian river can represent a serious interest for foreign and Russian businessmen who could receive their share of this market.” In short, what political will could not achieve in the past, the profit motive may in the future.
Kamil Kanteyev, a specialist on water use, says that officials in Penza oblast “completely support the initiative of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev about the diversion of part of the flow of the Siberian rivers to the southern regions of Russia and Kazakhstan where a water deficit has taken shape.” Such a project “will not represent any harm” to Siberia, he said.
According to Kanteyev, Bakhtutov says, past plans to divert Siberian river water were killed by people who knew little about the water problems of the country but used this issue for their own political purposes. Indeed, he says, they reduced the whole idea to a cliché rather than considering it rationally and scientifically.
Now that the private sector is involved as well, Kanteyev continues, there is a growing recognition that “without water resources, the southern regions of Russia and the countries of Central Asia do not have any perspectives for development. They will simply dry up altogether. Thus, life itself makes the realization of this project a necessity.”
In the near future, Kanteyev sys, “water will become more expensive than oil.” That is because there are alternative to oil but there are no alternatives to water. Russia is “water rich” and thus can “rationally use its national wealth” to promote its interests and its profits. And it should be prepared to do so.
Not only can Moscow rely on assistance from the private sector, but the situation in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan is so dire that the governments of those Central Asian states as well as that of Kazakhstan can be counted on to provide some of the funding for river diversion, thus lowering the costs of the project to Russia itself.
Once again, “the diversion that would not die” has resurfaced. And despite the arguments of Kanteyev, the opponents of this enormous and enormously expensive project have not disappeared. But they now face a new obstacle to blocking it: the profits those behind it expect to make from a privatized diversion effort.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Presidential Plenipotentiaries Have a Horizontal Role, Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Fairborn, September 21 – The presidential plenipotentiary system, set up by Vladimir Putin to rein in regional leaders in order to construct his “power vertical,” has achieved that goal, a Russian analyst says, but its leaders now have the chance to transform Russia’s media environment and thereby acquire a new and possibly powerful role regionally and in Moscow.
In an analysis on the Nizhny Novgorod section of APN.ru, Aleksandr Prudnik suggests that because this initial goal was achieved, “for the ruling elite, the political need for the plenipotentiaries no longer exists. And there is a risk that at some point, they will simply be eliminated” (www.apn-nn.ru/541124.html).
That indeed may have been the intention of Moscow and the expectation of Russians around the country, he continues, many of whom view these administrative structures not “as real subjects of state construction but simply as the latest bureaucratic arrangements” Moscow had made for its own purposes.
But as often happens, Prudnik argues, the plenipotentiaries and the federal districts they head have in some cases taken on a life of their own, one that Moscow may not have expected and may not even want. And there is even the possibility that they may play an even larger role in the future.
For most Russians, the analyst suggests, what happens in Moscow is “much closer” to them than what happens in a neighboring subject of the federation even if it is in the same federal district, a reflection of the fact that “in Russia as a whole all relations, including in the communications sphere, are “constructed vertically and concentrated in Moscow.”
That intensifies the lack of “horizontal ties among people and among institutions of civil society.” But the plenipotentiaries and the federal districts they held are moving, sometimes intentionally and sometimes despite their intentions to change that, because they need to improve communications among the federal subjects within their administrative responsibility.
This is already happening at the level of the bureaucracy, but it is increasingly affecting the media sphere as well. And there are many more opportunities, Prudnik argues, including the establishment of “a common information space, a space for the exchange of ideas and information within the federal districts.”
Among them are the creation of federal district television networks “where will work journalists from all the regions and where information about that district will predominate.” That would become “an instrument for the initial formation of horizontal ties.” Similarly, the creation of district newspapers and even Internet portals would promote such connections.
In some federal districts – the North Caucasus one, in particular – the plenipotentiary recognizes that the development of such an information space is a precondition to the fulfillment of the tasks Moscow has laid upon it and him, but in others, this recognition does not yet appear to have affected policy.
Obviously, given that the existence of eight federal districts could be a real threat to central control, Moscow is likely to be leery of any serious moves in the direction that Prudnik suggests. But equally obviously, both the district leaders and some in Moscow will see this consolidation as necessary.
And that makes Prudnik’s essay important because it calls attention to a new area of conflict, one often below the radar screen of most at the center, between the centralizing impulses of Moscow and the administrative and political requirements of institutions set up to limit the power of the regions and republics.
Fairborn, September 21 – The presidential plenipotentiary system, set up by Vladimir Putin to rein in regional leaders in order to construct his “power vertical,” has achieved that goal, a Russian analyst says, but its leaders now have the chance to transform Russia’s media environment and thereby acquire a new and possibly powerful role regionally and in Moscow.
In an analysis on the Nizhny Novgorod section of APN.ru, Aleksandr Prudnik suggests that because this initial goal was achieved, “for the ruling elite, the political need for the plenipotentiaries no longer exists. And there is a risk that at some point, they will simply be eliminated” (www.apn-nn.ru/541124.html).
That indeed may have been the intention of Moscow and the expectation of Russians around the country, he continues, many of whom view these administrative structures not “as real subjects of state construction but simply as the latest bureaucratic arrangements” Moscow had made for its own purposes.
But as often happens, Prudnik argues, the plenipotentiaries and the federal districts they head have in some cases taken on a life of their own, one that Moscow may not have expected and may not even want. And there is even the possibility that they may play an even larger role in the future.
For most Russians, the analyst suggests, what happens in Moscow is “much closer” to them than what happens in a neighboring subject of the federation even if it is in the same federal district, a reflection of the fact that “in Russia as a whole all relations, including in the communications sphere, are “constructed vertically and concentrated in Moscow.”
That intensifies the lack of “horizontal ties among people and among institutions of civil society.” But the plenipotentiaries and the federal districts they held are moving, sometimes intentionally and sometimes despite their intentions to change that, because they need to improve communications among the federal subjects within their administrative responsibility.
This is already happening at the level of the bureaucracy, but it is increasingly affecting the media sphere as well. And there are many more opportunities, Prudnik argues, including the establishment of “a common information space, a space for the exchange of ideas and information within the federal districts.”
Among them are the creation of federal district television networks “where will work journalists from all the regions and where information about that district will predominate.” That would become “an instrument for the initial formation of horizontal ties.” Similarly, the creation of district newspapers and even Internet portals would promote such connections.
In some federal districts – the North Caucasus one, in particular – the plenipotentiary recognizes that the development of such an information space is a precondition to the fulfillment of the tasks Moscow has laid upon it and him, but in others, this recognition does not yet appear to have affected policy.
Obviously, given that the existence of eight federal districts could be a real threat to central control, Moscow is likely to be leery of any serious moves in the direction that Prudnik suggests. But equally obviously, both the district leaders and some in Moscow will see this consolidation as necessary.
And that makes Prudnik’s essay important because it calls attention to a new area of conflict, one often below the radar screen of most at the center, between the centralizing impulses of Moscow and the administrative and political requirements of institutions set up to limit the power of the regions and republics.
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