A large part of these funds are designed to boost US positions in Central Asian and Caucasian states at Russia’s expense, it says. However, neither Moscow nor Washington pay heed to the independent Central Asian states, each of which has its own national interests that strongly differ from those of the two world powers, it suggests. The following are excerpts from an article entitled "The budget of ’the implacable friendship’: In the coming year, the USA will focus tightly on Russia and the Central Asian countries" published in Delovaya Nedelya on 28 December 2007; subheadings as published:

According to tradition, by the end of the calendar year, US senators and congressmen pass verdict on financial expenditures for funding the US government in the next year.

Thus, figures for a number of state expenditures, which are of great importance to the future of the USA, have now been announced on Capitol Hill.

This includes expenditures on defence, conducting two long-dragging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and on scientific research to reduce the USA’s dependence on fossil fuel.

The US legislators did not fail to focus on the countries of the former USSR, which remain a very important area of US interests, despite the change of key priorities of the White House in international affairs.

US$400m for the entire CIS

The programme for financing the activities of the US State Department on the territory of what is called the post-Soviet space is of particular interest. The head of the US State Department, Condoleezza Rice herself, and her close aides, have repeatedly emphasized that the CIS countries are as important to Washington as before and that the USA is not planning to stop intensifying its influence on them at all.

This has been confirmed by the US budget adopted for 2008. In it, the US State Department has been allocated 400m dollars to work in the countries of the post-Soviet space. A considerable part of this sum will go to strengthening US positions in these countries, though in Russia these funds have already been called "financing counteraction against Moscow on CIS territory and fighting with Russia for fossil fuel supplies from Central Asia bypassing it [Russia]".

On what is this money to be spent? It should first of all be noted that US$400 million is simply a miserable sum compared to those which have been allocated to Iraq and Afghanistan, including aid to the Palestinian Authority and for concluding peace treaties between Israel and its closest neighbours (these will be the key issues of US foreign policy in the forthcoming year).

Of this sum, the USA decided to spend about US$20 million in 2008 on the settlement of conflicts around Abkhazia and the Nagorno-Kharabakh Region (South Ossetia and Trans-Dniestria Region two more crisis spots in the post-Soviet space are not mentioned in the document at all). A total of US$10 million are planned for human rights issues, building civil society and restoration work on the territory of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan and North Ossetia in Russia.

It is very surprising, but the State Department is also planning to protect wildlife and forests in the Russian Far East, for which about half a million dollars will be allocated from the US Treasury in 2008. Along with wildlife and forest protection in Russia, the US Senate has clearly put forward for the State Department a number of other tasks, more "friendly" for Russia, towards which Moscow is extremely ambivalent. Although a US magazine, Time, has just named Russian President Vladimir Putin "man of the year", it is no secret what senior officials in Washington think about him and his policies.

Although the Senate document begins on a positive note: "We attach huge importance to relations between Russia and the USA and express great interest of the USA that Russia develops as a stable, prospering, market economy and democratic state"), one can assess the true value of all the efforts that the US leadership will undertake next year "for the demise" of its "implacable partners".

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for which considerable funding is allocated, will be the key organization for this work in the post-Soviet space. The USA will also continue financing the Moscow School of Political Studies, which, in the opinion of US State Department officials, has done much for the "democratic training" of young Russian politicians for "fair rule of their own country."

The financing of what is called the fund for civic studies and development in Russia will also continue, which mainly deals with "reshaping" scientific knowledge in the former Soviet Union where it previously dealt with weapons development.

On the whole, approximately US$220 million of the whole sum allocated to the CIS countries will go to financing democratic processes in Russia.

The US Senate is said to have demanded the State Department open a diplomatic post at the US embassy in Moscow to deal with human rights issues in Russia; these Russian organizations will have little impact on political processes in Russia.

Energy’s turn will come, too

Of course, the issue of the political education of citizens on the territory of the former USSR holds an important place in programmes, but it is far from being the only theme to be followed by the US State Department next year. Work with each specific CIS country will be important, both in promoting democracy and promoting more loyal relations with US business interests. In this respect, the issue of ensuring uninterrupted fossil fuel supplies via alternative channels to the world market will be one of the key areas for the USA in 2008.

No wonder, then, that US cooperation programmes will pay particular attention to the Central Asian states (particularly to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) and to Azerbaijan and Georgia. As US senators have already advised their diplomats in the State Department, the most "implacable friend" of the USA, Russia, is allegedly making attempts to keep for itself all the energy lines and to manipulate energy supplies from the countries of Central Asia to Eastern Europe.

It is for precisely this reason that the "vigilant" US senators are calling on the State Department to give full diplomatic support to the development of alternative energy sources and fossil fuel transportation routes beyond Russia’s control. This means that next year the USA will actively counteract the Caspian Gas Pipeline project which has just been signed by the Russian and Kazakh presidents as well as a Turkmen minister and the idea of the joint development of these same Caspian Sea energy resources by the CIS countries without the participation of major US and Western companies.

I note that, at the same time, the US State Department already possessed several million dollars for this effort, when grants were allocated for drawing up feasibility studies of two energy supply routes from Central Asia that bypassed Russian territory.
This money was spent on feasibility studies of the trans-Caspian gas pipeline, through which gas might arrive in Europe from Central Asia, and also on an alternative oil pipeline on the Caspian seabed to deliver Kazakh oil from the [western Kazakh] Kashagan oilfield to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

Simultaneously, Moscow believed (unsurprisingly) that all this money the USA is planning to channel to the Central Asian region, will "work" there exclusively against the Russian interests (but not for US interests at all). Thus, the Russian officials have already seen "Washington’s hand" in Gazprom now having to buy gas from Turkmenistan for US$150 per 1,000 cu. m, beginning in the second half of next year. At the same time, for some strange reason, without prompting from outside, Moscow does not pay heed to the desire of the Turkmen leadership which will be the desire of Kazakhstan in the future - to receive more for its energy exports.

"We have true love until the coffin. But, anyway, let them first lie in it"

This is exactly how a US senator sarcastically reacted to the current state of relations between the USA and Russia.

Russian officials believe everything that is being done by the USA in the post-Soviet space is anti-Russian.

Russia is particularly sensitive to any US programmes aimed at working in the "Russian underbelly", that is, the CIS countries. When it comes to Central Asia, there is a counterweight to US "expansion" from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community and many others. However, neither Russia nor the USA want to understand anything about Central Asia, no matter how many dollars and whatever programmes they might implement.

Independent states, each of which has its own national interests that sometimes strongly differ from the positions of Moscow and Washington, have been living and developing there [Central Asia] for 16 years. Although Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev or Turkmen leader [Gurbanguly] Berdimuhamedow are accused of either extremely pro-Russian or pro-US positions, they pursue policy exclusively in the interests of their own countries and peoples, and do not obey the instructions of foreign politicians.

Now one can boldly say that after assessing the sums of money from the USA for work in Central Asia, Russia will also make attempts to step up its activities in the region, and to save face in terms of funds.

In these circumstances what is to be done by Central Asian countries, particularly Kazakhstan, which is branded by Moscow and the USA as the most "charming and attractive" political "baby" in the region, sitting on oil and gas? Well, it probably has to continue to do what other Central Asian countries have so far been doing with great success, that is, to "milk" both outsiders and at the same time do its best to prevent a situation where "implacable friends/partners" in Moscow and Washington will finally fall out because of another oil pipeline or new prices for 1,000 cu.m. of natural gas.