Joshua Frost from Registan writes in TCS Daily that, following the death of the all powerful Turkmenbashi, next month’s presidential election offers a shining opportunity to bring the country’s ÄnowÅ more dynamic political elite into America’s sphere of influence. After all, Turkmenistan is an incredibly strategic important country. To cite a few examples that he gives, it lies between both Iran and Afghanistan, not to mention on top of 260 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Not to mention that Turkmenbashi’s repression may lead to a surge of interest in radical Islam in the country, there are at least three good reasons why the United States needs to be interested.

Joshua explains why this gas is so important in the context of the Russian energy near-monopoly, and how a pro-America Turkmenistan can alter the geopolitical landscape of the region:

Russian energy monopoly Gazprom recently elected to cut off former Soviet states from its gas shipments unless they yield to 400% rate increases. Most recently, Belarus refused and shut down oil shipments to Europe, causing a minor panic as Germany and Poland had to run off their strategic reserves. Across the EU, legislators are wondering at their over-reliance on Russia energy.

In response to its own Gazprom crisis last year, Ukraine has decided to stop importing oil from Russia and go entirely with Central Asian sources — mostly Turkmen and Kazakh. Both the Duma and President Putin singled out Ukraine President Yushchenko over his “turning away” from the Kremlin and toward America. His country was, in essence, punished for not being sufficiently pro-Moscow.

A big part of the reason Gazprom could get away with all this thuggery was that it had established a favorable working relationship with Turkmenbashi. Though Turkmeni gas still flows through the Russian gas pipeline system (through the massive Central Asia-Center pipeline), it is much cheaper than Russian gas????????about $65 per 1000 cubic meters compared to Russia’s $230. That being said, most former Soviet states negotiated with Gazprom to buy a blend????????in Ukraine’s case, a $95 blend of mostly Turkmeni gas. Put differently, Russia can re-sell Turkmeni gas at a comfy profit, allowing it to partially subsidize its own energy while overcharging for what comes from Turkmenistan. Breaking this relationship would radically reshape energy politics across the Former Soviet Union, as Russia would have to compete on its own terms, and Turkmeni gas could price Gazprom out of several markets.

A pro-America Turkmenistan would be a boon to both American interests as well as to the interests of the Turmeni people. In this day and age, American influence has yielded democratic reforms in the long-term, while Russian influence has harbored entrenched statism. The problem, however, is not one of wishful thinking but of geography. Central and Eastern Europe, while close to Russia, were easily able to integrate into western political institutions due to their European proximity. Turkmenistan, on the other hand, is in an all-around bad neighborhood. This ultimately limits America’s ability to influence and negotiate with the Turkmeni government.

The biggest problem in such a consideration is made apparent in the article itself. While Turkmenbashi transported the country’s natural gas through Russia’s pipelines into Europe, I would say that such a move is more by design than by choice. Russia owns basically all of the pipelines in the entire region now, so Turkmenbashi really has no choice but to do so. At the price that the Turkmeni government sells its gas for, as stated by Joshua, it could easily beat down Russian gas in any market situation; yet the Russian monopoly on pipelines nullifies this.

With such mounting Russian leverage, it would appear impossible that anything could bring Turkmenistan into America’s fold. Incentives are key here, but few exist. Take a look though at the following image of existing and proposed pipelines for the region. What do you see?

The newly inaugurated BTC pipeline runs through the Caspian, completely cutting Russia out of the equation. A proposed pipeline runs right from Turkmenistan in order to hook up with the BTC line. Turkmen gas could then flow as far as Ankara, in which another pipeline would have to be built from Turkey through the rest of the European Union. In essence, such a pipeline system, if protected from Russian financial and political interests, would serve as an alternative to the Russian strangehold on natural gas that currently exists, allowing for Turkmen gas to reach Western markets at its lower price. Russia has already foreseen this threat and is already trying to prevent such an occurrence.

As I already said, incentives must be offered in order for this to happen. The United States should not act alone in this, especially given the dire energy security situation for Europe.

My proposal, therefore, is to approach the problem with a much greater institution. Given that the process is two-fold — the pipeline from Turkeminstan to the BTC line as well as from Turkey to the EU — it is imperative to work on both so that the end-result is achieved. In order to do this it would be much easier to use NATO rather than the EU as the appropriate institution. First of all, Turkey is already a member, so diplomatically it casts a different light around the situation than does the contentious situation over Turkey’s possible EU membership. Second, NATO is a security organization that has been discussing a large overhaul to include energy security. Its unified approach and institutions are appropriate for undertaking the task while EU institutions are not yet fully developed in this regard and are ineffective in blazing a future path.

What NATO must then do is take the lead in developing the proposed pipelines. In Turkmeni government, odious as it is, will have to be worked with, possibly with billions of dollars thrown in its direction to support such a project. Nobody in their right mind thinks that Turkmenistan will become a democracy anytime soon, so avoiding this issue on moral grounds is an error in stupidity. Surely, if such a task is undertaken, it would have the secondary effect of liberalizing the Turkmen economy and hopefully even send shockwaves through Russia’s own authoritarian regime. Turkey will be a lot easier to work with under NATO, making the second half of a new pipeline much easier to create.

Unfortunately, for Russia, the belief will come about again that it is once again NATO versus them; the continuation of a historic battle. Fortunately, the Kremlin’s perception of such a situation is meaningless because it already perceives things that way. Breaking its monopoly on energy transportation lines will do monders in breaking President Putin’s power in Russian politics, help bring Western influences into Turkmenistan, and restore the balance of energy security for Western European countries.