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Central Asia Shuns U.S. Hegemony
1700 GMT, 000428

U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s recent tour of Central Asia capped off a strategy initiated two months ago. The United States is no longer adhering to the illusion that it can maintain an active foreign policy in Central Asia. Now in Albright’s aftermath Central Asia is returning the favor. In adjusting to new geopolitical realities created by an American withdrawal, Central Asia’s weak states will find they are even more susceptible to outside influences.

Albright’s tour followed two themes: criticism for the lack of democracy and a focus on security issues. Central Asia’s leaders care little about the former, and the United States can do little to assist them with the latter. Albright’s offers of aid – a total of $10 million for the three states she visited – are insufficient to even dent the rising problems of economic dislocation and rising militarism that besiege the countries. The United States has even given up on Kyrgyzstan, the region’s most democratic and pro-Western state, by cutting Albright’s visit short in order to focus on Kazakstan and Uzbekistan, the two larger – and more geo-politically significant – countries.

This does not mean the United States wants to cut Central Asia adrift, simply that it has no choice. Washington would love to bring the region into a Western orbit. Vast natural gas and oil reserves combined with the region’s strategic position as the underbelly of Russia and the back door to China would make the region very useful. However, the area is too remote from U.S. assets, and too politically and economically backward for Washington to invest the necessary resources.

The Central Asian states viewed U.S. involvement in the region as a positive influence simply because the United States was several thousand miles away and could not significantly interfere in their day-to-day existence. Now, Central Asia is firmly in the role of a regional buffer zone with few options between China, Iran and historically dominant Russia. But the methods in which these states approach the region vary significantly.

Russia views Central Asia as a former colony to reassert control over. Moscow therefore emphasizes the threat that all the Central Asia governments fear – Islamic extremism – and presents itself as the only regional force that can help them deal with it. Unsurprisingly, all of the Central Asian states bar Turkmenistan participated in this month’s Russia-led Southern Shield 2000 exercise.

Iran sees the states as distant cultural cousins and an economic opportunity; Iran is offering Kazakstan and Turkmenistan its territory for petroleum export routes. China perceives the region as a breeding ground for political chaos. It hopes to bolster the region’s militaries to allow them to ward off extremists. China may desire access to the region’s – especially Kazakstan’s – resources, but since China’s Uighur minority shares ethnic ties with the peoples of Central Asia, it has no desire to control the region, and thus expose itself to Central Asia’s chronic instability.

Now that the United States isn’t even pretending to be able to provide flimsy security guarantees, Central Asian leaders are rapidly readjusting their policies to match this new reality.

Neither the Uzbek nor Turkmen presidents attending the annual Turkic summit – a forum U.S. ally Turkey sponsors – in Baku earlier this month.

Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev immediately began to distance himself from the United States. He publicly snubbed Albright within days of her departure by ordering the country’s few independent media outlets to closely follow the government line or risk closure. When the United States criticized the action he retorted, “We will not hitch up our trousers to run after the United States.” He also referred to Iran as an anchor of stability in the region and a prospective energy partner. China even stepped in to supply a small amount of concrete military assistance to the beleaguered Kazak army.

Traditionally neutral Turkmenistan is moving closer to Russia via a proposed gas deal with Gazprom, while keeping the possibility of a line to Iran alive as well. Militarily weak Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are edging even closer to Russia in security matters.

Even in energy matters, the Central Asian states are dealing the United States repeated failures. U.S. energy advisor John Wolfe testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Baku-Ceyhan oil export pipeline, the cornerstone of U.S. economic policy in the region would probably not be constructed on schedule.

Even with these changes, however, Central Asian states remain locked between the three regional powers with little room for maneuver. Only Uzbekistan, holding the core of the region, has any hope of enlarging its power base, and then only at the expense of its Central Asian neighbors. Uzbek President Islam Karimov is also experiencing a diplomatic warming with the most important regional power – Russia. Russia’s Chechnya campaign dovetails nicely with Karimov’s repeated crackdowns on Islamic militants. Karimov’s strategy of labeling all opposition forces Islamic militants allows him to crack down on domestic opposition and rope in support from Uzbekistan’s neighbors and Russia – all countries concerned about Afghan spillover.

Doubly landlocked Uzbekistan is also the only state with the bulk to weather foreign policy squalls. All the others have low populations and border powerful regional actors. Without the United States to use as a counterbalance, they are even more vulnerable to foreign intervention. The best they can hope for is benign neglect, yet between stationing troops in Tajikistan and reaching for gas deals with Turkmenistan Russia seems to have no desire to just let them lie.

Albright’s visit marked the end of the end of substantial American influence in Central Asia. Now the region’s leaders are charting their own courses in a rebalanced environment. Russia, due to size and proximity, will play an increasingly dominant role. But with U.S. aid no longer a possibility, Central Asia will look less and less democratic, and more and more like a fractured buffer zone.

IGOR,
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IGOR - COWARDLY GOY WITH URINE STAINED PANTS

Have I not ordered you from making big boring posts.
You will STOP these idiotic posts of yours and concentrate on getting a job, instead of living off the Canadian taxpayer.

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FUUCK OFF BERNSWEIN

FUUCK OFF BERNSWEIN

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FUUCK OFF BERNSWEIN