The US Grand Strategy and the Eurasian Heartland in the Twenty-First Century (Essay Sample)

The US Grand Strategy and the Eurasian Heartland in the Twenty-First Century
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The US Grand Strategy and the Eurasian Heartland in the Twenty-First Century
Introduction
After the turn of the 18th Century, Asia became a Great Game stage that opposed the Russian Empire and British Empire in their struggle for regional supremacy. While both had immense economic interests, this competition was fueled by their geopolitical concerns. Imperial Russian adopted an expansionist policy towards South that was fought fiercely by British Empire in protecting India’s sovereign interests (Edwards, 2003). The Eurasian Heartland became the stage where this competition occurred. The Soviet Union collapse in 1991 created a strategic vacuum. This prompted an inevitable race among great powers such as China, Russian, and the U.S. in fulfilling the then-existing gap. Central Asia became an arena where this competition to command regional influence was fought. This competition among great powers is the New Great Game. It involved the competition between the English and Russian Empires of the 19th Century. However, the current competition is compounded by complex geopolitical situation in Central Asia. An avalanche of other factors ought to be considered to understand the regional dynamics fully (Hart, 2004).
This paper is an in depth analysis of the American grand strategy as well as the increasing importance of Caspian region and its environment, the Eurasian Heartland. This essay will delve into the geo-strategic dimensions of Eurasian Heartland in relation to the US grand strategy in the 21st century. Further, it will seek to assess the trends and patterns in the contemporary global competitive environment. In addition, this paper will explain and indentify tensions that exist between achieving social and economic outcomes. It will further demonstrate evaluative awareness regarding ethical issues involved within the international business circle. It will seek to develop a rigorous, theoretical, and analytical frameworks used in the operations of global business environment. Lastly, this paper will communicate and investigate critical awareness of cultural, social, economic, and political factors that influence global business operations.
Conceptual Framework
According to the offensive realist conceptual approach, great powers always look for opportunities that can help them attain more power for them to feel more secure. Great world powers have an inclination towards power maximization. The offensive realist conceptual framework is instrumental in comprehension of the American foreign policy especially in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks (Huntley, 2004). The main purpose of the American grand strategy is global hegemony and primacy. Global powers would want to have a piece of Eurasian Heartland’s huge energy resources. Moreover, dangerous and growing radical Islamism encumbers this region. The US, China, and Russia engage in huge regional conflicts in Central Asia especially the Caspian region even after the Cold War. According to the neo-realist theory, states struggle amongst themselves to keep and gain power in a scenario characterized by mistrust and fear.
Offensive realism contends that states’ ultimate goal is the achievement of hegemonic position within international order. Until states become world hegemony, they constantly seek to increase power. Offensive realism is based on the postulation that systems are anarchic and every country has military capabilities. Moreover, it is hard to know the intentions of other countries. Offensive realism is based on Hans Morgenthau’s conception that states seek self-determination and survival (Hentz, 2004). The U.S and other great powers are considered strategic calculators or rational actors. The post-September 11 U.S foreign policy conforms to their prognostications for offensive realism arguments.
The middle range approach of geopolitics is premised on an assortment of principles and statements devised in the explanation of a phenomena and facts. In geopolitics, the middle range theory seeks to utilize experience in making predictions about a future geopolitical phenomenon. The explanatory statements are predicated on methodological analysis and accepted principles. It is based on experience and not practice (Hart, 2004). Central Asia has inherent geographical significance. Normally, regions endowed with natural resources present great powers with an avenue to fight supremacy battles. The Eurasian Heartland, just like other oil-rich areas provide the U.S and other global powers with a good geopolitical hotspot from where they can engage in their aggressive competition.
Energy Security
The American grand strategy is a permutation of peacetime and wartime strategies. The Caspian region as well as its hinterland is the Eurasian Heartland. This region has innumerable geo-strategic dimensions far beyond the wide rich and non-OPEC hydrocarbon reserves that are primarily untapped especially in Kazakhstan (Andrei, 2008). The wartime strategy is elucidated in the US-led Iraq war while the peacetime strategy enunciated by the support of the costly Baku-Tblis-Ceyhan(BTC) in order to the region’s unexploited oil reserves into the American-controlled oil industry and energy market. Attainment of structural powers is important for global great powers to succeed in political control. In most modern economies, oil is the lifeblood (Hart, 2004).
The American grand strategy is tailor-made to ensure that the U.S controls this vital natural resource through either peacetime or wartime strategies or even both. Primarily, energy security is a global concern. In the 1970s, there were international oil supplies disruptions. These disruptions fashioned the formulation of foreign policy. As confidence was restored in the global oil supplies diminished these concerns especially in the 1990s. In the 21st Century, the question of energy security came to the fore again (Dalby, 2006). With the social and regional disorder that perturbed Middle East coupled with global terrorism, the oil supply chain was disrupted. This was coupled with the ensuing conflicts especially in other oil producing countries such as Venezuela and Nigeria. This further contributed in the furtherance of the worsening of the oil security concern. In a bid to enhance energy supply and reliability, oil accessibility at a fairer price. Gas and oil consuming countries try as much as possible to diversify supplying sources, which assures competing and alternative sources in minimizing and preventing possible oil disruption.
The Eurasian Heartland surrounds Caspian Sea. It is not a ‘war on terror’ target. Political control over Eurasian Heartland’s hydrocarbon resources as well as their transportation routes is of innumerable geo-strategic dimensions surpassing energy considerations. According to the U.S policy-makers, the Eurasian Heartland’s geo-strategic dimensions are not only restricted to the energy security question. It has great implications on the U.S grand strategy in the 21st Century. The U.S has to control the region’s energy resources politically especially Kazakh oil and check its potential challengers on its grand strategy like Russia and China. The U.S grand strategy in the 21st Century entails the use of peacetime and wartime strategies. It is important to politically control Kazakh oil reserves (Lieber, 2005).
The U.S led offensives in Iraq and Afghanistan are manifestations of offensive realism. The post-Cold War world order reaction by the U.S has shaped global order. There exists a correlation between great powers’ aggressive behavior and survival instincts. Great powers react aggressively not due to the inner drive but survival odds maximization. For the U.S, 90% of the oil resources are imported. This means that the price, security, and flow of oil is of fundamental importance to the U.S. Despite the Eurasian Heartland’s economic and political instabilities, the oil resources, that are untapped, remain the cheapest oil source globally. It amounts to almost two-thirds of the entire globe’s lingering oil resources (Miller, 2012). The U.S government intervention is Middle East is central in oil supply all over the world markets. Under the authoritarian rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraq pursued a national development policy where state institutions were to acquire full control especially over oil extraction, production, as well as sale.
State control yields less efficiency in oil exploration, refinement, and extraction. State-owned oil corporations fail to divulge their worth and their exploration and production numbers. They become state secrets. According to U.S policymakers, Iraqi oil reserves were extremely too valuable and too large to be abandoned in the hands of the Iraqi’s state-owned oil corporations. A regime change was thus inevitable (Edwards, 2003). Democratic imperialism is anchored on the U.S grand strategy. Iraq has the globe’s second largest oil reserves second to Saudi Arabia. There has been growing insecurity in Middle East. Moreover, there has been need to bypass the OPEC countries. This has generated immense interest in new-fangled oil producing regions such as Eurasia Heartland and West Africa. In 2008, Caspian Sea produced 48,000 million oil reserves barrels, which constitute 3.8% of the entire world share (Miller, 2012). This has facilitated energy supply diversification.
The U.S Grand Strategy
To Paul Kennedy, a grand strategy is one that includes both peacetime and wartime objectives. A good grand strategy can attain seek to use war to get peace. The...