In comparison with the last meeting
between US President George W Bush and Russian
President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on May 8, their
summit meeting in Washington on September 16-17
will take place in a much less controversial
atmosphere.
Bush's visit to Moscow in May
was preceded by his "summit" with the leaders of
the three Baltic republics and a "town meeting" in
Tbilisi, Georgia - intended to display that the US
was in the company of "great partners", as Bush
put it, in advancing its so-called "Freedom
Movement" on the territory of the former Soviet
republics. Bush's swing through the Baltics and
the Caucasus was filled with lofty rhetoric on
universal human-striving for freedom, and calls
for "color revolutions".
While addressing
the crowd in Tbilisi's Freedom Square on May 10,
Bush said that Georgia's "Rose revolution" in
December 2003 served as an example for other
countries in the former Soviet Union and beyond.
He said, "In the recent months, the world has
marvelled at hopeful changes
taking place from Baghdad to Beirut to Bishkek".
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili
went further and told Bush: "We are all
responsible for spreading democracy throughout the
world, starting with Belarus, whose people deserve
freedom. We stood beside the people of Ukraine,
and we will stand beside others, starting with
North Korea and Cuba. This is support for
democracy. Georgia will be America's main partner
in spreading democracy across the former Soviet
Union and the Middle East. That is our offer to
you, Mr President."
The rhetoric prompted
even a hardened Kremlinologist like former US
national security advisor in the Jimmy Carter
administration, Zbiegnew Brzezinski, to conclude:
"The United States is supporting and de facto
promoting geopolitical pluralism in the space of
the [former] Soviet Union ... I think we're seeing
with Mr Putin the final gasp of the Soviet era.
The Soviet system is dead, and the Soviet Union
has disintegrated. But the Soviet elite still
dominates Moscow politically, and through Moscow
it dominates Russia ... [but] there can be no Cold
War because Russia is in no position to wage
either a hot or a cold war with America."
Today, barely four months later, much of
this rhetoric may sound hilarious. There has been
a phenomenal shift since May across the
post-Soviet space, especially Central Asia. Putin
may have mildly called attention to it by having a
"summit" meeting of his own prior to his
Washington visit.
On September 4-5, the
newly elected president of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek
Bakiyev, paid a visit to Moscow. Without doubt,
the decision by Bakiyev, the popular Kyrgyz leader
who led the "color revolution" in Bishkek in
March, to choose Moscow for his first visit abroad
carried a message of its own. It did not come as a
surprise, though. The fact of the matter is that
despite all the Western rhetoric about the
revolution, it was clear to discernible minds that
Askar Akayev's removal from power would actually
pave the way for increased Russian influence in
Bishkek. At no point in the recent years,
arguably, has the Bishkek leadership been so
critically dependent on Moscow's support and
goodwill.
On the other hand, American
prestige in Bishkek has plummeted (as indeed in
the Central Asian region as a whole). Some Russian
commentators have suggested that the continuance
of the US military base in Manas itself now
depends on Russia's acquiescence. For the Kyrgyz
government, clearly, the Manas base is a source of
revenue. What the US pays by way of rent for the
Manas facility is a measly amount, and indeed it
is only a fraction of the US$100 million Kyrgyz
nationals working in Russia alone remit home
annually, but it is substantial enough for
Bishkek. (During the four-year period since 2001
when Manas base was leased to the US military,
Washington paid to Bishkek $28 million by way of
rent and take-off and landing fees for US
aircraft.)
Having said that, it is
unlikely that Moscow will unduly pressure Bishkek
with regard to Kyrgyz-US relations. So long as
Washington learns to live with the ground reality
that Russia has legitimate interests in its
neighboring regions, Russia will let the three-way
equation between Moscow, Bishkek and Washington
(leaving out Beijing) remain as is. Moscow would
even prefer that Washington remain engaged in
Kyrgyzstan, given the uncertainties in the Kyrgyz
situation. The Kyrgyz economy needs all the help
it can get from abroad, and Russia realizes that
the situation is critical. Also, there cannot but
be an element of uneasiness in Moscow about
rivalries within the coalition in power in
Bishkek. Kyrgyzstan needs time to recover from the
volatility caused by the "Tulip revolution".
From what Putin on Monday in Moscow
reportedly told to a group of Western experts and
media analysts specializing on Russia, the core
elements of Russian thinking toward Central Asia
can be discerned. Firstly, Putin said, Russia has
no imperial ambitions in the region, but Russia
does have interests and these have to be taken
into account. In other words, Russia is not
competing in the region in zero-sum terms with the
West, but will not hesitate to do what it takes
for retaining its influence.
Secondly,
Russia does not countenance the Western attempts
at effecting "regime changes". Russia has no
favorites among Central Asian political elites and
Russia can live with changes in leadership
provided they take place through legal and
constitutional processes. Thirdly, Russia cannot
afford to subsidize the Central Asian economies.
As Putin said, "Any attempt to become an empire
would create a huge burden on [Russia's] economy,
politics and ideology."
Finally, Putin
made it clear that Russia would not like a
situation to develop pitting it against the West
in adversarial terms in the affairs of the Central
Asian region. Russia is averse to jeopardizing its
relations with the West on account of developments
in the post-Soviet space. An unnamed "high-ranking
Kremlin source" was widely quoted by the Russian
media recently to the effect that: "The goal [of
Russian policy] is to establish civilized
relations between Moscow and the United States and
the European Union on the post-Soviet space. ...
Actually, a lawless battle is running in the
post-Soviet space. Russia would like to set up
laws, seeking rules for a civilized game."
Putin repeated his proposal that he hoped
to bring up cooperation in the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) space as an agenda item
in the G-8 (group of nations) deliberations. But
at the same time, Putin reiterated that Russia
knew the region better than any Western power and
"we want our opinion to be taken into account."
That "opinion", he implied, placed high priority
on regional stability and orderly transition.
In immediate terms, therefore, the present
"equilibrium" in Central Asia will remain
predicated on the US attitude toward the
forthcoming elections in November and December in
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. It appears highly
unlikely that after the searing experiences in
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Washington will choose
to unfurl the banner of "color revolutions" in
Central Asia or the Caucasus. (The unraveling of
the "Orange revolution" in Ukraine and the trends
toward authoritarianism and cronyism in Georgia
are new factors.)
Indications are there is
realization in Washington that US regional policy
in Central Asia finds itself in a cul-de-sac. Dr
Ariel Cohen, the noted Russia expert in the US
Heritage Foundation, wrote recently that 2005
turned out to be "a rough year for US diplomacy in
Central Asia" and senior US State Department
officials privately admit that the balance of
power "in Eurasia is shifting against the United
States". Cohen said, "The recent diplomatic
setbacks are forcing policymakers to reconsider
Washington's geopolitical strategy in Central
Asia." In his view, "US experts' faulty
geopolitical analysis" misled the policy makers.
He identified four major misconceptions in
the US thinking that would have contributed to the
derailment of American diplomacy. First,
"Washington political analysts" took a complacent
view of the real prospects of growth of
substantive strategic ties between China and
Russia. They reasoned that in the ultimate
analysis, China-Russia strategic ties remained
precluded by the importance of China's expansive
economic relations with the United States. And,
equally so, they estimated that Russia's
preference would be to seek stronger ties with the
United States so as to counterbalance the growing
Chinese power in Central Asia.
Washington,
thus, felt confident that it could press ahead
with a regional policy seeking unilateral
advantages in Central Asia with the minimum risk
of inviting a joint or coordinated response from
Beijing and Moscow.
Second, American
experts plainly underestimated how the West's
triumphalism over the "color revolutions" was
perceived by Chinese and Russian political elites.
Cohen felt that the regime change in Georgia,
Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan "alarmed Chinese and
Russian leaders".
Washington took time
realizing this, and by then the damage was done -
Beijing and Moscow had drawn closer than at any
time in several decades. Similarly, according to
Cohen, there was insufficient awareness among the
American specialists regarding the archetypal fear
of Islamic extremism in Central Asia.
But,
these geopolitical factors apart, the US paid a
heavy price for attempting to effect regime change
in the region without due regard of the region's
traditions and culture. On different occasions,
American propaganda denigrated the Central Asian
leaders, including their family members at a
personal level. Certainly, such rudeness would not
go down well in the Orient, especially among the
proud people of the Steppes.
And all the
king's horses and all the king's men could not
wipe out the pervasive belief in the region that
the US agencies engineered the mayhem in Bishkek
in March and the bloody uprising in Andizhan in
May. Now, when the trial of the Andizhan militants
gets under way shortly, there will be renewed
attention on US regional policy. Tashkent has
shown no signs yet of taking note of Washington's
olive branches for letting bygones be bygones.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for
over 29 years, with postings including India's
ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey
(1998-2001).
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