FROM INTERNAL TO EXTERNAL: CHALLENGES AGAINST U.S.’S CENTRAL ASIAN POLICY
Abstract
With the 9/11 event as the baseline, America’s awareness of the strategic importance of Central Asia and the latter’s weight in the U.S. global strategy was greatly changed. According to Charles Manes, the 9/11 terrorist attack enabled the U.S. to “discover Central Asia.”1 This attack has straightened out the uncertainty due to confusion within the U.S. Government about the importance of the Central Asian area to the U.S. and enabled the U.S. to suddenly realize the important advantage of the five Central Asian nations in the global geopolitical pat tern. However, the sympathy of the Central Asian nations, Russia and China for the U.S. on the terrorist attack and the warm help from the Central Asian nations to U.S.’s Taliban attacks in Afghanistan and to the U.S. military actions against alQa‘eda, facilitated the U.S. army in Central Asia to gain the Manas Air Base and the Karshi Khanabad Airport (also called K2 Base). This symbolized a turning point for the U.S. to access the Central Asian area in one stroke. By stationing in Central Asia, the U.S. became a remarkably important power in Central Asia and nearby.
In terms of strategy, the U.S. is very far away from Central Asia. However, judging from the undergoing Afghanistan Action of Antiterrorism and the U.S. military bases in Central Asia, the five Central Asian nations have actually fallen into the U.S. “New Frontier” category.2 This was the first time for the U.S. to observe and influence the Central Asian situation so closely. Surprisingly, the happening of the Kyrgyz “Tulip Revolution” in March 2005 and the Uzbekistan Andijan event in May of the same year interrupted the accelerating the U.S. influence in Central Asia. Although the U.S. kept its Manas Air Base in the end, Kyrgyzstan failed to observe the Kyrgyzstan-American Goodwill Policy after the “Tulip Revolution” and it vacillated on the U.S. stationing issue, which remained a headache to the U.S.3 The development of the Andijan event further led the U.S. to realize the complexity of the Central Asian situation. After the Andijan event, the U.S. Government required the Karimov Government to allow the international commission of inquiry to stand firm on the independence, which forced the U.S. army to withdraw from the Karshi Khanabad Airport on 21 November, 2005. The withdrawal of the U.S. army from Uzbekistan symbolized a great setback of the Central Asian policy
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References
Ch. Manes, “America Discovers Central Asia,” For-eign Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 2, March/April 2003, pp. 120-132.
See: Maj. V. de Kytspotter, The Very Great Game?The U.S. New Frontier in Central Asia, A Research Paper Presented to the Geneva Centre for Security Policy 18th International Training Course, February 2004, p. 6.
See: J. Nichol, Central Asia: Regional Develop-ments and Implications for U.S. Interests, CRS Report Or-der Code RL30294, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.,Updated 26 April, 2007, pp. 34, 35.
See: St.J. Blank, “Strategic Surprise? Central Asia in 2006,” The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 4,No. 2, May 2006, pp. 109-130.
See: T. Clancy et al., Battle Ready, G.P. Putnam’s & Sons, New York, 2004, pp. 323-324.
See: St.J. Blank, U.S. Interests in Central Asia and the Challenges to Them, Strategic Studies Institute, March 2007,p. 19, available at [http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=758].
See: J. Nichol, Central Asia: Regional Developments and Implications for U.S. Interests, CRS Report Order Code IB93108, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 10 December, 2004, CRS-20.
See: St.J. Blank, U.S. Interests in Central Asia and the Challenges to Them, pp. 18-22. It is important to note that it was the U.S. Congress that established new legislative conditions on aid to Uzbekistan (tied to human rights), which led to the curtailment of some aid.
S.F. Starr, A “Greater Central Asia Partnership” for Afghanistan and Its Neighbors, Central Asia-Caucasus Insti-tute and Silk Road Studies Program, Washington, D.C., 2005, p. 21.
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S.F. Starr, op. cit., p. 11.
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See: R. Weitz, op. cit., p.164. Perhaps there is more potential for dialogue with the Shanghai Cooperation Organ-ization than with the CSTO.
See: Maj. V. de Kytspotter, op. cit.
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According to Graham Fuller, former Vice-chairman of the U.S. National Security Council, the so-called “Failed States” are those “suffering from breakdown in national authority and legal norm and lost of control on governments by the Central Government, resulting in increasing anarchy, law disorder and crimes” (G. Fuller, The Future of Political Islam,Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003, p. 76).
J. Nichol, Central Asia: Regional Developments and Implications for U.S. Interests, CRS Report Order Code RL33458, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Update 12 May, 2006.
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See: V. Naumkin, op. cit., pp. 138-139; F. Hill, K. Jones, op. cit., p. 122.
See: J. Nichol, Central Asia: Regional Developments and Implications for U.S. Interests, CRS Report Order Code RL30294, Washington, D.C., CRS-44, 46.
R. Weitz, op. cit., pp. 157-158; St.J. Blank, U.S. Interests in Central Asia and the Challenges to Them, pp. 5-15.
See: V. Paramonov, A. Strokov, “Structural Interdependence of Russia and Central Asia in the Oil and Gas Sec-tors,” Conflict Studies Research Centre Central Asia Series 07/ 16E, Defense Academy of the United Kingdom, June 2007, p. 1.
The Treaty on the Establishment of the Eurasian Economic Community was signed by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in 2000. The declaration made on 28 February, 2003 rendered such a wish: the organization wish to use energy resources rationally and create a common fuel and resources complex with the joint efforts of its member states on the basis of improving the operational effectiveness of the energy resources systems in all nations, promoting the devel-opment of the facilities for the transportation of energy resources between its member states and creating good conditions to improve the export of energy resources to the international energy resources market.
The prototype of this organization was a customs union founded by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in January 1994 and joined in by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan afterwards. As a regional forum, this organization made some progress in its initial years in terms of the reduction of the tariffs between its members and the elimination of trade barriers. In June 1998,it was renamed as CAEC. When its member states put more and more topics for discussion in the organization, its va-lidity went down gradually. When Karimov (President of Uzbekistan) insisted, the organization was renamed again as CACO in 2001.
See: V. Naumkin, op. cit., pp. 135-136.
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Casualty data as of 22 May, 2007, available at [http://www.icasualties.org/oef/].
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See: Ibid., p. 93.
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See the speech by Gates on the Bishkek Press Conference when visiting the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, available at [http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3979].
2005 The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2006 World Drug Report, Vol. 1, June 2006.
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According to the UNODC statistics, by 2002, drug addicts in Central Asian nations had amounted to 0.365-0.432 million people. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Drugs Situation in the Regions Neighboring Afghanistan and the Response of the ODCC, October 2002, p. 25.
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See: M.G. Weinbaum, “Afghanistan and Its Neighbors: An Ever Dangerous Neighborhood,” Special Report 162,United Sates Institute of Peace, Washington D.C., June 2006, p. 8.
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