SOURCE: LIGNET
Russian President Vladimir Putin (3rd from right) meets with heads of state of members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an organization of former Soviet states, in Moscow on December 19, 2012. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
As the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014, Western influence in Central Asia is on the verge of a major decline. Regional supply routes – developed since 2001 for the war in Afghanistan – have boosted Western influence in the region, but will soon lose their importance. Russia, which has so far judged that ISAF’s campaign in Afghanistan mostly supports its security interests, is preparing to fill a Central Asian power vacuum that looks set to emerge in 2014.
Russia has signed a series of major military assistance packages with Central Asian states, including a $1.1 billion military assistance package to Kyrgyzstan in November. China is also enhancing its presence in the region with major energy and resource projects. However, the U.S. is likely to judge that these developments do not pose a major threat to its national interests, and may even support some of its objectives in the region.
Background
Since 2001, ISAF members – particularly the United States – have relied on the cooperation of Central Asian states to prosecute the campaign in Afghanistan. As Undersecretary of Defense Ashton Carter noted in 2009, “Next to Antarctica, Afghanistan is probably the most incommodious place, from a logistics point of view, to be trying to fight a war.”
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have allowed their territory to be used as important ISAF logistical supply nodes, known as the Northern Distribution Network. Approximately 40 percent of all NATO supplies to the ISAF force in Afghanistan pass through this network. The importance of these supply routes has significantly boosted the Western diplomatic and military presence in the region.
Over the last decade, Russia has recognized the threat from ungoverned spaces in Afghanistan, and has therefore not treated the West’s presence in Central and South Asia as a complete threat to its interests. Russia’s calculation is that ISAF operations have kept in check narcotics smuggling from Afghanistan and the spread of radical Islam into former Soviet states in Central Asia and Russia’s Caucasus region.
Russian officials judge that without ISAF in Afghanistan, the burden on Russia from these threats would increase. Indeed, as late as March 2012 Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, urged ISAF to remain in Afghanistan until Afghan security forces have reached full capability, and poppy cultivation has been effectively constrained.
At the same time, however, while Russia welcomed U.S. and NATO forces expending their resources to quell instability in Afghanistan, it has tried to undermine any American or NATO military presence in former Soviet states in Central Asia and has worked especially hard to prevent any permanent American military base in the region.
But with the ISAF withdrawal in 2014, the relative geopolitical stability generated by ISAF and Russia’s overlapping interests is being thrown into a state of flux. Russia, and increasingly China, are expanding their influence in the region as the ISAF presence is being drawn down.
Las month, Russia signed a $1.1 billion military aid package with Kyrgyzstan and announced $200 million of assistance to upgrade Tajikistan’s air defense system. The Tajik government has extended the lease on Russia’s base in Dushanbe until 2024 in exchange for military training and a deal that allows better access to the Russian labor market for Tajik citizens. On December 13, the Kyrgyz parliament ratified a 15-year extension to the lease of the Russian airbase in the country in exchange for a $489 million debt settlement and energy infrastructure upgrades.
In addition to the traditional military balancing act in Central Asia, there is a parallel struggle for influence in the region revolving around energy and resources. While China has not competed for basing rights, it has become a competitor for Central Asian energy and resources. In 2006, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CPNC) became the only firm to obtain the rights to an onshore natural gas field in Turkmenistan by promising to move rapidly toward monetization of the field. A 1,100-mile pipeline was completed three years later. In 2011, CNPC built on this success by winning a major oil tender in Afghanistan.
By contrast, the U.S. has recently experienced volatile relations with Central Asian states. In 2005, the U.S. was evicted from the Karshi-Khanabad Air Base (K2) in Uzbekistan, likely due to U.S. and Western criticism of President Islam Karimov’s repressive regime – and in particular the “Andijan” massacre of civilians by Uzbek soldiers that year.
In 2011, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, agreed that no future foreign military bases could be opened on CSTO territory without the agreement of all member states. Earlier this month, the newly-elected President of Kyrgyzstan publicized a decision that the U.S. could not use the country’s Manas base after 2014 and said U.S. troops would leave the country in 2014.
The West also lags behind in energy and resources competition in Central Asia. For over 20 years, the West has been trying to secure energy in Central Asia and reduce Russian influence, but with little success. Europe and the United States are promoting a pipeline that would connect Turkmenistan to South Asia and its ports via Afghanistan known as TAPI, and a gas line across the Caspian Sea connecting Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan and on to Turkey and Europe (known as Nabucco West). Both projects have suffered major obstacles and neither is deemed practical in commercial terms, according to Steve Levine of the University of Montana.
It is not all bad news for geostrategic prospects in Central Asia for the United States and Europe after the 2014 ISAF withdrawal from Afghanistan. Uzbekistan has suspended its membership of the CSTO, which is paving the way for possible U.S. bases in Uzbekistan in the future. Tajikistan has also continued to court the U.S. in spite of its membership of the CSTO. Even though new Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has repeatedly ruled out U.S. use of the U.S. Manas base beyond 2014, Nicholas Redman of the International Institute of Strategic Studies assessed last July that “the prospect of Kyrgyzstan seeking a way to keep the U.S. air base at Manas open beyond 2014 can’t be ruled out.”
Furthermore, according to 2009 International Energy Agency calculations, while Chinese involvement in Caspian energy sectors is growing rapidly, it only stands at 7 percent of total Central Asia oil and gas production, whereas other international oil companies, which are mostly Western, have a share of 38 percent. Alexandros Petersen of the European Energy Security Initiative believes that as the Russian and Chinese share increases, it may meet resistance from Central Asian powers that remain fearful of too large a role by regional hegemons following their experience of the Soviet Union’s iron grip. As one Turkmen official puts it, “we do not want to be dependent on anyone. We set our energy policy as an independent, neutral state.”
Analysis
After a long and difficult war in Afghanistan, the U.S. may decide that a loss of influence in the region is a price worth paying for the 2014 withdrawal. Moreover, the U.S. under President Obama appears to be refocusing its attention on the Asia-Pacific under Mr Obama’s “Asia Pivot” policy where he judges U.S. interests are of greater importance.
In addition, analysts such as Steve Levine argue that Russian and Chinese presence in Central Asia may be a help rather than a hindrance. As Russian support for the war in Afghanistan has shown, the U.S. and Russia both have an interest in stable governance and regional security in Central Asia and Afghanistan. The development of a post-2014 balance of power where Russia bears more of the burden therefore may not be a bad thing for the U.S.
As for China, U.S. policy-makers have interpreted Beijing’s advances into Central Asia as having a double strategic purpose: gaining access to energy resources while also countering Western and Russian influence. Again, some senior strategists believe this may not necessarily represent a major threat to U.S. interests and counters Russian efforts to dominate Central Asian energy production, especially natural gas.
Moreover, if Russian and Chinese engagement enables the creation of prosperous, stable and secure Central and South Asian countries, they may help prevent a spill-over of instability and possible terrorist havens that could occur in Afghanistan if the elected government cannot defend against efforts by the Taliban to take over the country after international forces withdraw in 2014.
U.S. interests in Central Asian energy will remain limited to securing energy for its European and Asian allies, but its interest in pursuing this goal will probably diminish after 2014 as Washington focuses on other regional problems. Europe, however, will retain a keen interest in securing access to Central Asian gas and finding ways of shipping it to Europe with pipelines that do not go through Russia to reduce Moscow’s ability to use its gas exports to Europe as a weapon to influence European economic and security policies.
Russia’s increasing influence in Central Asia after international forces withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014 will probably bolster its efforts to counter such pipelines to maintain economic leverage over Europe and political influence with Central Asian states.
China will continue to play an offsetting role here because Chinese negotiators have shown that they are able to come up with quicker and more lucrative deals for Central Asian energy producers to ship gas to China. Pipelines to China are also harder for Russia to block for geographic and political reasons.
Conclusion
As the ISAF withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 approaches, U.S. and European military and diplomatic influence in Central Asia will decline. Russia and China are already preparing to fill a regional power vacuum that will emerge. However, this does not represent a significant threat to post-2014 U.S. or European interests because this shift could help prevent any spread of instability should the Afghan government collapse after 2014. There still will be a competition for Central Asia gas between Europe, Russia, and China, and Russia probably will increase its ability to best Europe in this competition as U.S. and European political influence drops in Central Asia after 2014.
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