Page 2 of 3 SCO is primed and ready to fire
By M K Bhadrakumar
Bordyuzha elaborated that the United States' Central Asia strategy aims at
driving a "geopolitical wedge" between regional states on the one hand and
Russia and the CSTO on the other. He said Washington is attempting to reorient
the Central Asian states toward the US "in a new format encompassing, besides
the Central Asian states, Afghanistan, Pakistan and, in the future, India".
Indeed, recently Russia has all but blunted NATO's Central Asia strategy. In
retrospect, NATO underestimated its capacity to gatecrash into a region where
Russia's traditional influence is
overwhelming and where Moscow is determined to keep things that way no matter
what it takes.
Over the past two years, Moscow has rapidly built up the CSTO as a bulwark
against NATO in Central Asia. Some Russian commentators have forecast that the
CSTO is destined to become a Warsaw Pact. Be that as it may, almost in direct
proportion to Moscow's emphasis on the CSTO, there has been a rallying by the
Central Asian countries under the CSTO, especially by Kazakhstan, which was a
prime "target" identified by NATO. Uzbekistan's entry into the CSTO has
significantly consolidated the reach of the organization over the Central Asian
region.
Sino-Russian convergence
Clearly, China appreciates that the contradictions and struggles between Russia
and Western powers in the post-Cold War years are at a defining moment. Writing
in the People's Daily recently, Wang Baofu, deputy director of the Institute of
Strategic Studies affiliated to the elite Chinese National Defense University,
said, "This move of Russia's [suspension of the CFE] indicated firstly its
reluctance to make any additional unilateral compromises on the major issue of
national security ... and, secondly, its unwillingness to sit idle and remain
indifferent as the US is attempting to deploy an anti-missile system in Eastern
Europe in a bid to seriously affect the Russia-US strategic balance."
Wang noted that Russia's security concerns are bound to multiply in the
prevailing scenario of "disequilibrium", where the US is "bent on seizing or
using Europe to beef up its strategic superiority over Russia". Again, a
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on July 19 "took note of Russia's statement
[on the CFE] and its security concern". The spokesman added that the US
deployment of its anti-ballistic-missile system will "undermine the current
international strategic balance and stability. It is not conducive to regional
security and mutual trust between countries."
Meanwhile, Chinese commentators have estimated that "Russia lately seems to be
toughening up its diplomatic posture" and is "hardening its attitude" toward
the West. The bottom line in the various Chinese assessments is that Moscow's
"hard-nosed stance" aims at putting Russia on an equal footing with Western
powers.
All the same, in relation to Central Asia (and Afghanistan), China has shared
concerns with Russia, especially on two aspects. First, China also harbors
misgivings about NATO's designs toward Central Asia. China remains appreciative
of Russian efforts to keep NATO out of Central Asia. To quote a recent People's
Daily commentary, "Knowing by heart the strategic importance of Central Asia,
NATO has spared no efforts in recent years to push forward relations with the
countries in this region. But it is by no means an easy job for NATO to gain a
footing, given the overwhelming traditional influence of Russia in this region,
which the US and Europe can never hope to equal.
"By focusing on hammering out the CSTO, Russia has displayed a strong sense of
opposition against NATO. Now, the low relations between Russia and NATO have
added difficulty to the latter's implementation of its Central Asia strategy."
China's interests coincide with the Russian approach of bolstering the CSTO's
reach in Central Asia. The CSTO-SCO nexus reinforces Russian efforts in
"containing" NATO to the southwestern fringes of Eurasia. Chinese interests are
well served by these Russian efforts.
Second, it is becoming increasingly evident that both Russia and China have
been thinking hard on the concept of Central Asia. The point is, it is
unrealistic for Russia and China (and for the SCO) to deal with the processes
that are going on in the Central Asian region without taking into consideration
the developments in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. As a Russian commentator
recently wrote in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Central Asia's southern neighbors
(Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan) hold "much greater significance for Tajikistan
than the squabbling within Kazakhstan's elite".
Arguably, the SCO is feeling the compulsion already to visualize that Central
Asia as a distinct community has more to do with history - its ancient,
medieval and Soviet history - than with pressing contemporary realities. The
SCO has to come to terms with the reality that even though Central and South
Asia used to belong to different geopolitical templates until quite recently,
this is no longer so, especially after September 11, 2001, provided the US the
opportunity to establish a long-term presence in Afghanistan and to gain a
significant leap in its relations with the Central Asian states.
After consolidating its presence in Afghanistan, US policy toward Central Asia
has shifted gears. Through different, flexible modes of cooperation in the
fields of security, transportation and energy as well as through continued
efforts to bring about "regime change" in the region, the US hopes to remodel
the region.
Meanwhile, the continuous expansion of US influence in South Asia has come
handy in this effort, as Afghanistan is a vital link that can connect Central
Asia with South Asia. Washington has of late taken greater interest in South
Asian regional cooperation by seeking observer status in SAARC, the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation that includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan. It would seem that
Washington has met with some degree of success already in persuading India to
cool down its earlier passion toward the SCO.
Iran seeks out SCO
The SCO is increasingly bound to feel the need to evolve its own "Greater
Central Asia" strategy, which also includes Iran and Afghanistan, and to some
extent even Pakistan.
This may already be happening, and may be reflected in different directions at
the SCO summit in Bishkek. First, Iran is making a determined bid to secure
full membership of the SCO. Tehran submitted its formal application to the host
country Kyrgyzstan in April. In the usual course, such a formal move would have
taken place on the basis of prior consultations with the SCO member states.
Conceivably, a consensus is slowly developing within the SCO, if not already,
on the issue of Iran's membership.
Significantly, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mahdi Safari last week revealed
that President Mahmud Ahmadinejad would attend the SCO summit. Safari has since
visited Beijing, where he met, among others, with Li Hui, China's deputy
foreign minister in charge of East Europe, Central Asia and the SCO.
From Beijing, Safari headed for Moscow. Admittedly, Russian-Iranian relations
are currently going through a rough patch over Russia's delay in completing the
Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Indeed, Russia has "politicized" the issue
and is unlikely to dispatch nuclear fuel for Bushehr as long as the Iran
nuclear file remains open. Despite the chill in Russian-US relations,
Washington and Moscow have always closed ranks on issues affecting the
preservation of the "nuclear club".
Besides, Russia has a great deal to gain by exploiting the agreement on civil
nuclear cooperation with the US, signed on the sidelines of the "lobster
summit" between Presidents George W Bush and Vladimir Putin on July 2, which is
a major concession by Washington, allowing Russia to set up facilities for
reprocessing spent nuclear fuel of US origin on commercial terms - a highly
lucrative business indeed. In immediate terms, Washington's concession has
opened the way for Russia to reprocess the spent fuel of US origin from South
Korea and Taiwan.
But at the same time, the fracas over Bushehr in a curious way gives Russia the
handle to stall any further move by the US in the United Nations Security
Council to push for a new sanctions resolution against Iran for not stopping
its uranium-enrichment program. Moscow-based commentators have highlighted the
current visit by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to the Arak
heavy-water plant in Iran as a "real breakthrough" and as evidence that
"Iranians are ready to give the IAEA exhaustive answers".
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