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Central Asia's great base
race
By Stephen Blank
Anyone
examining contemporary security issues in Central Asia
and the Caucasus quickly comes to the conclusion that
security has become increasingly militarized. This
growth of military power, influence and ambition is
taking place in many ways, but a key theme is the
scramble by major foreign powers for military bases in
the strategically vital region.
The search for
bases preceded the September 11 terrorist attacks in the
United States, but since then the rush for foreign bases
has accelerated. Indeed, it has become a focal point of
the many international rivalries that now dot these
areas. And it appears likely to divide the region into
rival proxies for the major military powers.
Given the enormous potential for conflict
inherent throughout the former Soviet Union, this can
only be a dangerous trend. While the forces at these
bases may or may not perform combat operations, they are
visible tokens of the foreign state's influence, and
equally important, support for the host regime. Foreign
states seek bases to project their influence as well as
military power, and weak host states want them to
increase domestic support against challengers and to
obtain tangible protection from powerful patrons.
Although many new bases are US installations,
acquired after September 11, this scramble for military
toeholds is not a uniquely American phenomenon. Russia's
base in Kyrgyzstan at Kant is officially an air base and
the spearhead for the Shanghai Cooperative
Organization's (SCO's) rapid reaction forces. But since
Russia is not fighting anyone in Central Asia and cannot
spare troops to defend this base's perimeter, it looks
more like an attempt to show the flag and counter the
American presence. It also appears to be an effort to
influence Kyrgyzstan's domestic politics, after the US
refused in 2002 to lend its support to President Askar
Akayev, who was suppressing democratic and opposition
movements in his country. The US has a major base at
Manas, not far from Kant, which can hold thousands of
troops. According to some reports, for every aircraft
landing the Americans have to pay US$7,000. In addition,
the rent of the base and use of various facilities bring
in extra revenues - all of which in another way help
perpetuate Akayev's regime.
Russia, meanwhile,
is bringing pressure to bear to convert its previous
military deployments in Tajikistan into a permanent
base. What is most interesting here is that the
Russo-American struggle for bases is becoming an
ever-more open struggle over rival spheres of influence
or efforts to deny such to the other side.
Russia pressures states to oppose US
bases
Quite recently, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and
Georgia, almost certainly due to Russian pressure,
announced their opposition to permanent US bases in
their territory, once the "war against terrorism" is
over. Indeed, Kyrgyzstan's government reversed its
earlier stand on bases - that the US could stay as long
as necessary.
This struggle over bases has grown
as the US has embarked on a global restructuring of its
basing system. This impending reordering has clearly
triggered Moscow's defensive and imperial reflexes. Due
to Washington's changed perception of contemporary
strategic realities, there is good reason to believe the
US is seeking some form of regularized access to, if not
permanent basing rights, in at least some of the
post-Soviet republics.
While the US has not
publicly disclosed where it would seek bases, Moscow's
alarm is evident in numerous statements by high-ranking
officials, including President Vladimir Putin and
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. All have clearly opposed
any US military presence in the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS), beyond the existing network of
bases and agreements about overflights and logistical
access.
There is a crucial difference, however,
between US and Russian ideas of bases in the region.
Though it opposes America's asserted right to bases in
the Caucasus or Central Asia at the request of state
governments, Russia does not hesitate to declare that
its own bases are permanent, nor does it hesitate to
impose those bases despite local opposition.
Notwithstanding its genuine and vital interests
in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Moscow has refused to
vacate its bases in Moldova and Georgia, as stipulated
by its participation in its 1999 agreements with the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE). Its intransigence in this regard raises
questions about what exactly Moscow hopes to achieve by
imposing permanent bases on states when it cannot
sustain expeditionary forces of any quality abroad.
Russian ambassadors' statements to CIS
governments also reveal an imperialist mentality that
evidently seeks to perpetuate a closed bloc in the CIS
and to abridge host governments' sovereign freedom to
make decisions on foreign bases on their own
territories. Moscow's ambassador to Azerbaijan, Andrei
Ryabov, said he was "provoked" by US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld's recent visit to Baku, the capital of
Azerbaijan, for discussions of US troop deployments
there at Azerbaijan's request and Pentagon offers of
military assistance to Azerbaijan.
'Nyet' to
the US in the Caspian
"There has not been and
there will not be any kind of American presence in the
Caspian," Ryabov declared. "We will not allow it, they
have nothing to guard here." He also said that foreign
military forces would prolong - not help to resolve -
the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. That conflict has been
frozen in place, and Armenia has so far prevailed,
largely because of a billion dollars worth of Russian
arms transfers. Ryabov also argued that "positioning
foreign military bases in the territory of other
sovereign counties should be considered a partial
seizure of those countries' independence."
While
the Russian envoy lamented what he called the negative
consequences of US military bases in an independent
country, he made no mention of Russia's large military
presence in Georgia and Armenia. Nor did he mention the
Russian troops stationed in Moldova.
The US has
said it wants to deploy mobile troops in the region to
ensure the security of the oil and gas pipelines that
run through Azerbaijan and Georgia. Ryabov responded:
"To ensure security of oil and gas pipelines by use of
foreign military troops is beyond world practice.
Azerbaijan has the potential to secure the pipelines
itself." As for the US troops maintaining peace in the
Caspian basin, the Russian ambassador emphasized that
the outside military presence would adversely affect
Azerbaijan's relations with neighboring Iran and Russia.
He appeared to assert Moscow's right to veto Baku's
foreign and defense policies and Russia's right to an
exclusive and closed sphere of influence in the
Caucasus.
This Russian-American struggle is only
one aspect of the great power interest in Central Asia.
China's accession to the 2001 SCO treaty stipulates its
membership in a collective security organization,
thereby legalizing for the first time the projection of
Chinese troops beyond China's borders - if one of the
other signatories requests its support. And China has
now instituted joint maneuvers with Kyrgyzstan
separately and collectively with the other members of
SCO, further extending its power projection
capabilities.
India has now disclosed that it
has acquired an air base in Tajikistan. Once Pakistan
closed its air space during the crisis generated by
terrorist attacks in India in late 2001, India
negotiated base rights with Tajikistan. While little is
known about this base, it is believed to be at the
operational level and therefore could be used to counter
Central Asian insurgents or Pakistan, or to support a
friendly government.
This probably will not be
India's last base, and it probably will not remain a
small one. Certainly it appears to spearhead New Delhi's
deepening involvement in Central Asian defense. India is
also trying to create an anti-terrorist organization
involving Tajikistan and presumably other Central Asian
states, thus justifying conversion of the base to
permanent use.
And so the rivalries of the great
powers, Russia and America, India and Pakistan - and
China as well - now fully embrace Central Asia. There is
a distinct possibility that the former Soviet Union will
be divided into staging grounds for rival blocs that
ultimately are enmeshed in conflicts triggered by or for
their proxies with another great power - or its proxies.
Since most of these foreign military
installations are air bases, ground forces to defend
them will eventually appear. The specific locations of
these bases in the Caucasus and Central Asia and China's
recent maneuvers with Kyrgyzstan's armed forces reliably
suggest where the major powers think Central Asian
governments are in trouble and how they will "help"
them.
These bases, however, are by no means the
only ways in which the states of the former Soviet Union
have undergone a progressive militarization. Add the
influx of weapons, the drug trade, the rise of terrorism
and the pervasive misrule in these states, and it is
easy to see that the combustible elements that can
explode into conflict are gradually being assembled and
readied for use.
Georgia has just undergone a
peaceful revolution, or at least its initial stages. It
could easily go bad. If another regime falls in the
former Soviet south, there are no guarantees that it
will be a peaceful transfer of power and that stability
will be maintained.
This is a volatile region,
made more so by unstable governments and by Russian and
US competition for military power. It would be folly to
predict that the great powers with their powerful
objectives will renounce the economic, political and
strategic goals over which they are now contending so
intensely - and decide to start cooperating.
Stephen Blank is an analyst of
international security affairs, residing in Harrisburg,
Pa.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Ltd.
All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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