STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FOREIGN MILITARY PRESENCE IN CENTRAL ASIA
Abstract
At all times, armed forces have dominated and still dominate the development of statehood: they protect the fundamental interests of states—sovereignty and territorial integrity—and their capabilities are widely used as an effective instrument for implementing foreign policy, determining, along with the economy and ideology, a state’s impact on world politics.
Armed forces have retained their adequacy amid the current globalization trends when traditional (military) threats are retreating, states’ security interests are growing increasingly interdependent, and the principle of their in-divisibility is being widely recognized, while the world has acquired alternative forces and means to ensure security, etc. Today, however, military spending is constantly climbing, while the “responsibility zone”/ “geography of functioning "of armed forces outside their state borders is widening. The national interests of the sovereign entities of world politics suggested by the very nature of international relations and security threats presuppose a wider network of military bases overseas.
The foreign military presence is directly connected with events and processes that reverberate across the world and which, at different periods in human history, have been the driving force behind progress. In the past, in the 17th-20th centuries, military bases in foreign countries were set up by colonial powers or by the great powers locked in the ideologically driven Cold War.1 Early in the 21st century, this trend survived because of transnational threats (mainly from inter-national terrorism and the proliferation of WMD), as well as due to the struggle for strategic resources.
Here I will analyze the foreign military bases that appeared in Central Asia along with the “global war against terrorism” and the prospects for new military facilities in conjunction with the interests of the Central Asian states.
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At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had military facilities in nineteen countries of the world staffed by about 600 thousand military (see: Military Bas-es, available at [http://www.scribd.com/doc/38859923/5-Warfare-or-Welfare-Complete-VersionEng]); the United Stated deployed over 1,500 military bases and facilities in the territories of its 32 allies manned by 514 thousand serv-icemen (see: Diplomaticheskiy slovar, ed. by A.A. Gro-myko, A.G. Kovalev, P.P. Sevostyanov, and S.L. Tikhvin-sky, Vol. 1, Nauka Publishers, Moscow, 1985, p. 7).
See: Politicheskaia entsiklopedia, in two volumes, Project head G.Yu. Semigin, Vol. 1, Mysl Publishers, Moscow,2000, p. 89.
China is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with no military bases outside its territory; there is information, however, that Beijing has a military base in Burma (see: Military Bases).
Ibidem.
Direct payments amounted to $122,862 million, of which the government got $60 million; the Manas airport, about$22 million; the intermediaries, $38.6 million; the land rented outside the airport cost the U.S. $66.5 thousand and human-itarian aid, $2.3 million. Oncosts (the American military’s shopping, their visits to museums, etc.) amounted to $1.16 mil-lion (see: V. Panfilova, “Manas nadolgo ostanetsia amerikanskim. SShA gotoviat voyska k perebroske iz Afghanistana v Tsentralnuiu Aziu,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 9 June, 2011).
[http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html]; these ideas found their way into two U.S. National Security Strategies of the George W. Bush Administration of 2002 and 2006 and laid the political and legal foundation of the preemptive strike concept in the national security policies of members of international community.
U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs, “U.S. Outlines Realignment of Military Forces,”16 August, 2004, available at [http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2004/Aug/17-437847.html] (quoted from: Z. Lachowski,
Foreign Military Bases in Eurasia,” SIPRI Policy Paper, Stockholm, No. 18, 2007, p. 13).
U.S. National Security Strategy, available at [http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/index.html].
See: Z. Lachowski, op. cit., p. 10.
D. Malysheva, “Central Asia and the Central Caucasus: Regional Security in the New World Order,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 2 (26), 2004, p. 50.
In 2002, Turkmenistan, a neutral country, also signed an Agreement on the use of its air space by U.S. military transportation aviation and the international airport in Ashghabat as a refueling base. In April 2008, at the NATO/CEAP summit, President Berdymukhammedov announced that his country was ready to open training centers for NATO peace-keepers and allot space to NATO depots and supply bases (see: “Turkmenia rasshiriaet sotrudnichestvo s NATO,” Nezavi-simaia gazeta, 13 May, 2008). There is information that a small contingent of maintenance personnel has already been sta-tioned in the country (see: A. Bohr, Central Asia: Responding to the Multi-Vectoring Game, available at [http://www.
hathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Americas/us0510_bohr.pdf]).
As members of the counterterrorist coalition, France and Germany also have limited military contingents in the region: in Uzbekistan (Germany) and Tajikistan (France). According to the Foreign Ministry of Tajikistan about 200 French military, six Mirage aircraft, and four military transport aircraft are stationed at Dushanbe airport (see: L. Gevorgian, “Tajik-sko-frantsuzskie ucheniia—eto message Talibam,” 28 May, 2011, available at [http://www.centrasia.ru/
ewsA.php?st=1306560600]).
“Senat Uzbekistana vyskazalsia za vyvod kontingenta SShA s bazy v Khanabade,” available at [www.dw-world.de/
w/article/0,,1692645,00.html].
See: O. Bozh’eva, “Voennye ministry NATO zachastili v Sredniuiu Aziu. Shef Pentagona khochet sokhranit bazu ‘Manas’,” Moskovskiy komsomolets, 14 March, 2012.
Z. Lachowski, op. cit., p. 3
See: V. Panfilova, “Kirgiziia stanovitsia aziatskim avianostsem,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 20 February, 2006. Accord-ing to A. Knyazev, “at the turn of 2005 Kyrgyzstan and the United States were engaged in fairly intensive talks. The Ameri-can side tried to wrench an agreement on stationing E-3A aircraft of the AWAKS type and on regular reconnaissance flights along the Chinese border” (A.A. Knyazev, Gosudarstvenny perevorot 25 marta 2005 g. v Kirgizii, Bishkek, 2007, p. 128).
See: X. Guangcheng, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the Fight against Terrorism, Extremism, and Separatism,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 4 (16), 2002, p. 19.
See: U.S. National Security Strategy.
The Syrian port of Tartus is Russia’s only military base outside the old Soviet Union (see: “Syria and Russia,” The Economist, 14 January, 2012, p. 50).
Under the 1995 agreement, the complex was transferred to the Russian Federation for 20 years.
Russia rents the Qabala radar station, with the radius of 6,000 km, for $7 million a year (see: N.N. Efimov, Poli-tiko-pravovye aspekty natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossii, KomKniga, Moscow, 2006, p. 188).
[http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2010russia_military_doctrine.pdf].
See: N. Bordyuzha, “CSTO: Efficient Counteraction Tool against Modern Challenges and Threats,” Internation-al Affairs, No. 1-2, 2007.
The legal status of the military base in Kant is determined by the Agreement on the Status of the Military of the Armed Forces of the RF in Kyrgyzstan of 22 September, 2003 signed for 15 years with the possibility of extending it for another five years on the sides’ mutual agreement.
See: E. Bokoshev, “Voennye bazy Rossii v Tsentralnoy Azii—ugroza destabilizatsii regiona,” available at [http://en.
aspianweekly.org/main-subjects/others/turkish-world/3750-2011-03-04-11-12-07.html].
See: The Law on Ratification of the Protocol to the Agreement between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Russian Federation on the Procedure for Using Russian Military Facilities in the Territory of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Status of the Military of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the Kyrgyz Republic.
K. DeYoung, “Clinton: Afghans ‘Have More Work To Do’,” The New York Times, 5 December, 2011.
See: Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, available at [http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/2012.06.01u.s.-afghanistanspasignedtext.pdf].
“Vremya SShA proshlo. Els-glava razvedki Pakistana Asad Durrani o voyne, kotoruiu vedut Washington s Islam-abadom,” Rossiskaya gazeta, 16 November, 2011.
In particular, the U.S. Central Command’s counter-narcotics fund intended to pour over $40m into building training compounds in Kyrgyzstan’s Osh and Tajikistan’s Karatog, plus a canine training facility and helicopter hangar near Almaty in Kazakhstan (see: A. Shustov, “SShA ukhodiat iz Afghanistana v Tsentralnuiu Aziu,” 25 June, 2011, available at [http:/
www.fondsk.ru/news/2011/06/25/usa-uhodjat-iz-afganistana-v-centralnuju-aziju.html]).
See: “Rossiysky voenny faktor v Oshe: ‘za’ i ‘protiv.’ Obshchestvenny rating,” available at [http://www. centrasia.
u/newsA.php?st=1117410360].
“V Uzbekistane ne vidiat neobkhodimosti v razmeshchenii na iuge Kyrgyzstana dopolnitelnogo kontingenta ros-siiskikh vooruzhennykh sil,” available at [http://www.uzinform.com/ru/news/20090804/01762.html].
A. Shustov, op. cit.
See: V. Panfilova, “Tajikistan vystavil Rossii schet. Dushanbe i Moskva torguiutsia iz-za aerodroma Aini,” Neza-visimaia gazeta, 28 October, 2008.
See: A. Sodiqov, “India’s Intensified Interest in Tajikistan Driven by Pursuit of Airbase and Uranium,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Washington D.C., Vol. 11, No. 17, 16 September, 2009, p. 17.
See: R. Muzalevsky, “India Fails to Gain a Military Foothold in Tajikistan,” available at [http://www.
acianalyst.org/?q=node/5485].
See: A. Sodiqov, op. cit., pp. 16-17.
According to Director of the Federal Drug Control Service Victor Ivanov, about 60% of the heroin produced in Afghanistan arrives in Russia from Tajikistan (see: A. Sodiqov, “‘Jamestown’: Moskva shantazhiruet Dushanbe, chtoby vernutsia k afganskoy granitse,” 16 August, 2011, available at [http://tjknews.ru/3255]).
According to the Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan on the Legal Status of the Border Guards of the Russian Federation Stationed in the Territory of the Republic of Tajikistan, the Task Group of the Federal Border Guard Service protected the state border with China and Afghanistan. The group was set up in October 1992; its numerical strength was 14.5 thousand (see: R. Burnashev, I. Chernykh, “The Armed Forces of the Republic of Tajikistan,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 6 (18), 2002, p. 102).
In 2004, for example, Russia announced that it had invested $2 billion in the Tajik economy, mainly in construc-tion of the Rogun hydroelectric power station. There was, however, a political tag attached: a controlling interest in the Rogun power station and the right to use the Aini airbase.
See: “B. Gryzlov prigrozil zapretit trudovuiu migratsiiu v Rossiu grazhdan Tadzhikistana,” available at [http://
jknews.co/?p=4875]. According to certain sources, nearly one-and-a-half million Tajik guest workers (one quarter of the country’s able-bodied population) send back over 40% of the republic’s GDP in remittances.
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