Page 2 of
2 US risks
chaos on 'new Silk Road' By
Fabrizio Vielmini
But the tension remains,
together with the concrete possibility that the
CARs once again will become an arena of
competition between Russia and the West. At the
CSTO summit last year, Russia obtained from its
partners an agreement according to which a foreign
military presence in the states of the CSTO is
possible only with the consent of all the members.
Formally a victory for Moscow, the document
presents a loophole that, by way of different
denomination (for example, "center" instead of
base), a republic could circumvent this condition.
[29] Such a case has already happened, with the US
base in Kyrgyzstan in 2009 unleashing tensions
that eventually contributed to the change of the
regime in Bishkek.
The point is that the
Central Asian regimes consider the security
confrontation between
Russia and the West (and China as well) first as a
possibility of income for their national budgets
and then as a strategy to balance each player's
influence.
The resulting latent tension
affects as well the efficiency of drug-trafficking
prevention, considering that Moscow is trying to
stop the US implementing autonomous initiatives.
[30] In the end, Russia seems to be waiting for a
NATO depletion, so as to have it to accept a
security pact with the CSTO, an arrangement Moscow
has been proposing since at least the mid-2000s.
China and the SCO To China, the
SCO means preserving Central Asia's value as a
"strategic rear" for economic expansion and access
to energy resources. Accordingly, the Chinese tend
to dismiss the security dimension while supporting
Afghan reconciliation to secure its investments
for infrastructure and mineral exploitation.
Ideally, China would like to see a neutral
Afghanistan after the American pull-out, so the US
maneuvers to gain additional military footholds in
the region are assessed as a threat to its
national interests. [31] At the same time, Beijing
is disturbed by Moscow's confrontation with
Washington, which it fears may also eventually
result in the strengthening of India. Moscow and
Beijing have different priorities also in
assessing security threats, the Chinese being much
less concerned with narco-traffic. They
increasingly compete for Central Asian assets,
thereby paving he way for the US to exploit their
cleavages to reorient the CARs toward the south.
This explains why in 11 years the SCO has
never established a consequential mechanism for
the development strategy needed to overcome the
Afghan tragedy. [32]
The SCO also has a
structural flaw in its capacity to broker
negotiations for Afghan reconciliation, as the
Taliban would hardly accept Russia and China as
mediators, at least not without the direct
involvement of Pakistan and Iran. [33] Moreover,
Tashkent, for a number of Afghan players even more
disliked than Moscow and Beijing over its support
for the "6+3" diplomatic initiative, is also
detrimental to the SCO's political unity. [34]
Also, enforcing a blockade against Tajikistan, the
Uzbek regime is frustrating the potential of
closer cooperation with Iran.
On the other
hand, Moscow has also tried to activate a
quadripartite format with Tajikistan, Pakistan and
Afghanistan in what seems just another attempt at
exclusive positions to the detriment of common
solutions. [35]
In the end, both Russia
and China prefer to give the central role for the
post-2014 phase to the United Nations.
Nevertheless, they are interested in maintaining
the SCO, where nearly all the countries
surrounding Afghanistan are either members or
observers, as a positive political platform for
the resolution of conflict and an instrument for
stability, also with the anti-terrorist capacities
developed with the organization.
Afghanistan after 2014: The larger
picture The US retreat from the control of
Afghanistan's security is set to accelerate a
number of tensions all across surrounding regions
and countries. This is even more probable given
that, as most regional experts are convinced, the
US is at the same time establishing a long-term
military presence in Central Asia.
The
parallel escalation of the confrontation with Iran
worsens security and stability in the region as
well as in the neighboring Caspian and Caucasus
theaters, as Tehran is prevented from playing a
positive role. Moscow and Beijing are also pushed
to seek opportunities to counter the Western
strategy instead of constructively engage.
The conjuncture is further complicated by
the spreading of Sunni radical organizations whose
traditional sponsors in the Arab monarchies are
regrouping against China and Russia as supporters
of Tehran. [36]
But more generally,
Central Asia is immersed in an indefinite
conjuncture, where each step of all the regional
powers is necessarily ambiguous for fear of the
advantages of the other, as this situation
concerns as well Pakistan, pushed toward China and
Russia, while India consolidates its association
with the US regional strategy in an opposing axis
stretching up to Israel. As Barnett Rubin observed
a decade ago, Afghanistan continues to be a mirror
of the status of world politics, as the crossroads
of all its tensions and a field for manipulation
from the side of its major powers. [37]
Facing this perspective, the only
possibility of mitigating the negative tendencies
would be to remove the factor that so far has been
intrinsic of the United States' approach in the
region: the will to exclude some of the key
players that surround it. This has prevented major
players from acting in a constructive way toward
Afghan problems.
In this context, the SCO
possesses a potential geopolitical significance,
but to express it, the organization should revise
its institutional mechanism, including giving
Pakistan and Iran full membership. From such a
platform, the SCO could create with the US, NATO
and India the framework for a negotiated peace
between the Afghan parties including all actors -
internal and external - of the conflict. The
emerging Afghanistan should have a neutral status
under UN auspices.
For such an
architecture to work there is a need for NATO to
start a long-lasting and far-reaching regional
collaboration with Russia in trying to avoid
destabilizing processes that are in any case
contrary to the main interests of the two sides.
[38]
Well-founded Russian suspicious
toward Western security involvement in the CARs
should be removed. In this regard, especially from
the side of the Europeans, an effort should made
to establish a common NATO-CSTO concept for the
reform of the security structures of the CARs. The
West should cease approaching them mainly through
the security sector and consider instead their
potential as agents of development vis-a-vis their
southern neighbors in the framework of
educational, medical and other people-to-people
activities [39] that can be supported by the
European Union in coordination with Russia.
The alternative to this is a whole region
sinking into chaos, with militant activity
spreading beyond Afghanistan to affect neighboring
regions.
Notes: 1.
Central Asia and the Transition in Afghanistan: A
Majority Staff Report Prepared for the Use of the
Committee
on Foreign Relations, United States Senate,
112th Congress, 1st Session, Dec 19, '11. 2.
The main ones being the Central Asia-South Asia
electricity scheme and the
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI)
pipeline project. 3. Muhammad Tahir,
"Washington's Silk Road Dream", Aug 1, '11. 4.
Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United
States and the Failure of Nation Building in
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia,
Viking Press, New York, 2008, page 484. 5.
Robert D Blackwill, "Plan B in Afghanistan: Why a
De Facto Partition Is the Least Bad Option",
Foreign Affairs, No 1, Jan/Feb '11. 6. M K
Bhadrakumar, US's
post-2014 Afghan agenda falters, Asia Times
Online, Nov 4, '11. 7. Conference "Security and
Cooperation in the Heart of Asia", Istanbul, Nov
2, '11. See Karl F Inderfurth and Amer S Latif,
"India and Afghanistan: Positioning for
Withdrawal", US-India Insight, Nov '11. 8. The
NDN nowadays delivers 75% of the ground cargo
needed by NATO troops in Afghanistan. 9. Last
year, as part of an "adjustment in regional
orientation", US special forces in Afghanistan
were realigned to focus on the CARs, even
obtaining permits to enter their territories on a
"case-by-case" basis when conducting
counterterrorism operations. Deirdre Tynan, "US
Special Forces' Operations in Central Asia Keeping
Islamic Militants in Check", Eurasianet, Mar 15,
'11. 10. D Juldasev, Afganistan
- licnaja vojna Islama Karimova, Mar 20,
'12. 11. Fozil Mashrab, Western
countries scramble for Afghan exits, Asia
Times Online, Mar 23, '12. 12. In 2011, CACI
was worth US$4.1 million, principally to seek to
establish vetted units and build counter-narcotics
task forces in the CARs. 13. As the key player
in the scheme, Uzbekistan has raised transit
tariffs by 1.5 times, a fact that has been met
with irritation by NATO partners (France in
particular). Regis Gente, Le
casse-tete du retrait d'Afghanistan, May 6,
'12. 14. Paul Quinn-Judge, "Conventional
Security Risks to Central Asia: A Summary
Overview", China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol
8, No 2, 2010, pages 53-63. 15. Rossiiskaya
Gazeta, Apr 25, '12. 16. Despite a reduction
due to a disease in opium-poppy plants,
Afghanistan continues to host the bulk - some
123,000 hectares of 195,700 hectares globally - of
world opium cultivation. United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2011,
page 9. 17. Ravil Kusainov, one of the leaders
of the Soldiers of the Caliphate, has declared in
an interview that his organization consists of
nationals from different countries (by his name,
he should be himself a Tatar). He called on his
supporters of different national origins "to
draw lessons from the Arab Spring and get rid of
their governments", Nov '10. 18. Dina B
Malyseva, "Central'noaziatskij uzel mirovoj
politiki", IMEMO RAN, Moscow, 2010. 19. "ICG,
Tajikistan: The Changing Insurgent Threats", Asia
Report, No 205, May 24, 2011. 20. Visible by
the way it stalls negotiations over the status of
the 201st Military Base after 2014. Alexander
Sodiqov, "CSTO Agreement on Foreign Bases
Frustrates Tajikistan's Ambitions", Eurasia Daily
Monitor, Vol 9, No 10, Jan 16, '12. 21. Umida
Hashimova, "Uzbekistan Considers the Strategic
Implications of NATO's Drawdown in Afghanistan",
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 8, No 210, Nov 14,
'11. 22. V Panfilova, "Turkmenija vyhodit v
Juznuju Aziju", Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Apr 16,
'12. 23. Interview with experts of the
Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies, Almaty,
Mar 30, '12. 24. Fabrizio Vielmini, "Il
Kazakistan si scopre instabile", limesonline, Jan
20, '12; Farkhad Sharip, "Militants Escalate
Terrorist Attacks in Kazakhstan", Eurasia Daily
Monitor, Vol 8, No 211, Nov 15, '11. 25. The
issue was raised directly in the pre-electoral
foreign-policy manifesto of Vladimir Putin: "In
announcing his departure from this country in
2014, the Americans are building there and in
neighboring states military bases, without a clear
mandate, objectives and timing of their operation.
We are, of course, not satisfied." Vladimir Putin,
"Rossija i menjauscijsja mir", Moskovskie novosti,
Feb 27, '12. 26. See I J Jurgens (ed), "ODKB:
otvetstvennaya bezopasnost'", Institut
sovremennogo razvitija, Moscow, Aug '11, page
66. 27. Erica Marat, "SCO's Tipping Point in
Central Asia", Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 8, No
116, Jun 16, '11. 28. As reported in the
national press, spreading of jihadist ideas and
methods from Afghanistan took place via Kazakhstan
into the Astrakhan region and the Caucasus. V
Myasnikov, "V Kazahstane vyrosli sobstvennye
terroristy", Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, Nov
18, '11. 29. A Gorbatov, ODKB
izgonjaet amerikanskie bazy: prikryli dver', no
scel' ostavili?, Dec 28, '11. 30. Richard
Solash, "Russia Said to Block US Drug Plan amid
Wariness over Central Asian Influence", RFE/RL,
Feb 17, '12. 31. E Ivashchenko, "Ekspert: Kitaj
dolžen usilit' svoe vlijanie v Afganistane dlja
zascity svoih investitsii", Ferghana.ru, Nov 30,
'11. 32. Tat'yana Sinicina, "Afghan test for
SCO", New Eastern Outlook, Mar 25, '12. 33. K L
Syroezkin (ed), "Central'naja Azija: faktory
nestabil'nosti, vnesnie vyzovy i ugrozy", KISI,
Almaty, 2011. 34. This collective endeavor
unites the six countries bordering Afghanistan
plus Russia and the US under a UN umbrella,
initiated during the negotiations between the
Northern Alliance and the Taliban from 1999 to
2001. 35. Vladimir Socor, "Quadripartite Summit on
Afghanistan Falls Short of Russian Expectations",
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 8, No 162, Sep 6,
'11. 36. E Satanovskij, "Ot Atlantiki do
Afganistana - prostranstvo iduscih i buduscih
voin", Voenno-Promydslennyj Kur'ier, No 1 (418),
Jan 11, '12. 37. Barnett R Rubin, The
Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and
Collapse in the International System, Yale UP,
New Haven and London, 2002. 38. Claudio
Bertolotti, "Il ruolo delle potenze regionali
sulla politica di sicurezza dell'Afghanistan
nell'era post-NATO", Ce- MiSS, 2011. 39.
Marlene Laruelle, "Involving Central Asia in
Afghanistan's Future - What Can Europe Do?", EUCAM
(Europe-Central Asia Monitoring) Policy Brief, No
20, Aug '11.
Fabrizio
Vielmini is a journalist and political
scientist.
This article was
originally published by the Institute for
International Political Studies websiteISPIonline(pdf file).
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