NATO seeks out new Afghan supply routes
By Roger N McDermott
LONDON - On December 9, in an interview with Vremya Novostei in Moscow,
ambassador Robert Simmons, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
secretary general's special advisor on Central Asia and the South Caucasus,
confirmed that NATO is currently discussing possible transit routes to
Afghanistan with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Ukraine (the latter two
representing a much longer overland supply route).
NATO needs to activate additional supply routes into Afghanistan since its
route through Pakistan has been attacked by militants. "Aside from the
Pakistani route, emphasis is made on the route we agreed on with the Russian
delegation in Bucharest. In fact, we are now working on analogous agreements
with the
governments of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Ukraine. It will allow for
freight traffic to the international contingent in Afghanistan via Russia and
these countries," Simmons explained.
Ahead of president-elect Barack Obama's widely anticipated re-concentration on
Afghanistan in the spring of 2009 - additional US military forces are expected
to be deployed there while Washington will likely increase pressure on its
European allies to contribute more - once again Central Asia is moving to the
center stage in US planning.
Obama's administration will face severe testing in its effort to re-energize
the "war on terror" by focusing on defeating the Taliban and finally pacifying
Afghanistan. Wider challenges in this campaign will be presented in fostering a
multilateral security approach that gets away from the misjudgments of the
George W Bush years. These revolve around bringing Russia on board and
maximizing cooperation opportunities between NATO and its Eurasian partners.
Obama must overcome reservations amongst European countries, reluctant to
deploy additional troops in Afghanistan, and unlock the potential dividends of
widening out anti-terrorist security cooperation to be more inclusive and
multilateral. Prospects for developing security cooperation in Central Asia
between the various interested multilateral bodies (the Collective Security
Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), NATO
and the European Union (EU)) are limited by a number of factors and challenges.
These range from the geopolitical rivalries between these organizations to the
internal balancing of interests. Differences in approach, emphasis, interests
and aims, coupled with a lack of mutual understanding and misinterpretations of
actions or initiatives undertaken by one particular organization, all tend to
militate against such cooperative dynamics. During the Bush years, these
divisions became more acute.
In the current political climate, cooperative steps will only be tentative, not
large scale, initially aimed at building dialogue, promoting understanding and
building confidence and trust.
Uzbekistan: Calling for dialogue on Afghanistan
At NATO's Bucharest summit, April 2-4, Uzbekistan President Islom Karimov made
an offer of practical support to the alliance in its stabilization efforts in
Afghanistan. Karimov's speech offered several initiatives to NATO in the areas
of defense, security, ecological and humanitarian matters.
A key factor in this initiative was the suggestion of revitalizing the 6+2
mechanism which fell into disuse in 2001 (which brought together
representatives of states bordering Afghanistan, plus Russia and the United
States), transforming this into a 6+3 role to include NATO. Karimov placed a
crucial caveat on such cooperation, saying, "At the same time, the sovereign
interests in maintaining the security and legislation of our country must be
observed."
The Bush administration failed to recognize that this is an important condition
for cooperation, both at the bilateral and multilateral levels, as countries
within Central Asia have experienced the tendency for Western strategic
engagement in the region to be tied closely to the pursuit of political agendas
or in securing some "return" on the security assistance provided to the host
country.
Also, at the NATO summit, Russia signed a land transit corridor agreement with
NATO, which also envisages similar humanitarian support to assist in the
stabilization of Afghanistan. These initiatives from Russia and Uzbekistan
point the way towards finding common interests with Western states,
multilateral organizations and those to which the Central Asian countries
belong (CSTO/SCO).
Achieving any progress in such areas, building on such initiatives and clear
interest in practical cooperation, will take a commitment to dialogue from all
sides, and this is precisely the door that has opened for the alliance through
Karimov's offer to NATO. It is this commitment to dialogue and
cooperation-building that Obama promises to pursue, including a willingness to
open unconditional dialogue with Iran.
Challenges for consensus-building
There are also limits of a political nature which could arise from the Central
Asian states themselves, as some Western observers argue that any efforts to
engage in NATO-CSTO dialogue raise the interests of Russia in the region, and
automatically subordinates these states to Russian policy.
Equally, planning staffs often suffer from institutional inertia, react slowly
to subtle changes in international relations, and, in the West in particular,
use networks of experts that often reinforce their preconceived ideas. Western
multilateral bodies are unsure about the nature of the SCO, and its rapid
evolution into security areas leads some Western analysts to claim the SCO is
emerging as a military bloc. Such misconceptions, coupled with concerns in
Washington on the observer status of Iran and its possible future membership in
the SCO, make any possibility of cooperation with that group fraught with
politically sensitive issues.
One area in which all of these multilateral structures commonly agree is
crucial for the promotion of stability in Central Asia is border security.
Various bilateral and multilateral initiatives are currently in place, though
with limited degrees of success. Border security, intelligence and customs
bodies often operate blind in their efforts to combat drug trafficking. For
example, the absence of drones to monitor border areas, or even access to
Google Earth, which easily reveals routes being used to smuggle materials and
people across rivers and through mountain trails, guarantees the continued
supply of narcotics from Afghanistan transiting through the region. The
introduction of sophisticated technology such as drones would prove too
controversial, unless there was broad consensus reached at a multilateral
level; in this specific task there would have to be participation by liaison
officers representing NATO, CSTO and the SCO.
Of course, border security also remains limited in its scope for improvement
owing to corruption, complacency or even complicity among the security agencies
in the smuggling process. This can only change by formulating assistance
policies that focus on more than simply providing frontline help through
training and the provision of technical equipment. It must be systemic, with
the political will of the leadership of the host nation to oversee the
successful implementation of time-phased programs.
NATO as a key multilateral body
NATO's experiences from sending small Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP)
teams into the host country to assist in assessing the implementation of agreed
plans to enhance capacities could serve as a model for something potentially
much more successful.
One weakness of the IPAP arrangements stems from how difficult it is in
practical terms to independently assess or inspect how far certain features of
the program are progressing. There are cases where the NATO IPAP teams report
back to NATO headquarters with a positive assessment, which simply does not
reflect reality on the ground. Georgia proved to be a case in point. Such
arrangements can prove potentially controversial, attracting suspicion
elsewhere in Central Asia, or amongst the host country's CSTO or SCO partners.
New arrangements could be developed, whereby such teams operate under the
consensual authority of various multilateral bodies, which has the advantage of
building trust and defusing tensions or sending the wrong signals to third
parties as a result of security assistance programs.
Disaster response and emergency planning are areas that may yield greater
multilateral cooperation, with determined political will on the part of each of
the key multilateral bodies. What could become more consensual between these
organizations would be the creation of small teams of consultants that work in
a country, along with the local Ministry of Emergency Situations, but with the
approval and representation of experts or consultants from NATO, EU, CSTO and
the SCO; targeting capacity enhancement in a manner as non-controversial and
politically desensitized as possible.
Intelligence efforts
Within the NATO alliance a multilateral intelligence-sharing mechanism exists,
known as AC-46. This is used as a way of sharing sensitive information among
alliance members that is deemed of relevance, rather than particularly
significant to one member state. Of course, it is limited by the fact that
intelligence agencies often wish to preserve their best intelligence for
national interests, as well as problems with maintaining the classified status
of the information once shared on such a wide scale.
Similarly, there are critics of the CIS Anti-terrorist Center in Moscow and the
SCO Regional Anti-terrorist Structure in Tashkent in terms of whether these
apparatus are capable of sharing genuinely time-sensitive information of direct
relevance to the security agencies tasked with countering terrorist threats. In
this context, open source intelligence centers should be established, allowing
greater access to regional and international expertise and analysis, operating
alongside the headquarters of multilateral organizations.
Into this complex mixture of multilateral organizations and their various
dynamics, a new factor may be added; Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is
actively garnering support within Europe to create a new European security
architecture that will exclude the United States but include Russia (unlike
NATO). Washington's answer lies in subtle maneuvers.
Obama's administration will learn that the key to promoting strong and
effective multilateral security cooperation between NATO and its Eurasian
partners depends on Washington's relations with Moscow. But warmer bilateral
relations with Russia should not be viewed as an alternative to fostering
genuine multilateral approaches, which may serve to undercut those in Moscow
whose rhetoric centers around raising the "Americans are coming" illusion. It's
time to re-energize the multilateral approach.
Roger N McDermott is an honorary senior fellow, Department of Politics
and International Relations, University of Kent Canterbury (UK) specializing in
defense and security issues in Russia, Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
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