STRUCTURAL FACTORS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REGIONAL SECURITY SYSTEMS (A POST-SOVIET CENTRAL EURASIA CASE STUDY)
Abstract
Anyone wishing to identify the regularities according to which regional security systems function and develop should first find out the main factor of their functioning and development. It must be said that, at all times, ethnic and religious contacts, economic interests, ideology, political survival, and rivalry over influence remain important determinants in interstate relations. At the same time, the present level of diversity and interdependence in the international political system makes it hard to identify a limited number of factors that apply to all cases; we should also bear in mind that each region has its own specific phenomena.
Here I will try to assess the relations among states from the viewpoint of corresponding regional political structures and, taking the regions of post-Soviet Central Eurasia as an example, identify the degree to which political structure affects the regional security system. To do this, I will rely on the theoretical-methodological instruments of neorealism and the theory of regional security complexes (TRSC).
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Here I rely on the Central Eurasia and Central Europe conception formulated by Eldar Ismailov, according to which Central Eurasia consists of three post-Soviet regions: Central Europe—Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine; the Central Caucasus—Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia; and Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (for more detail, see: E.M. Ismailov, “Central Eurasia: Its Geopolitical Function in the 21st Century,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 2 (50), 2008, pp. 7-29).
See: K.N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, McGraw-Hill, Boston, 1979, pp. 91-92.
See: Ibid., p. 92.
The concept of the regional security complex was first formulated in 1983 by Barry Buzan in: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 1983. This work, as well as its second edition (B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, Second Edition, Lynne Rienner Publishers Boulder, Colorado, 1991), offered the classical approach to the security complex conception. In later works written by Buzan together with other authors (B. Buzan, O. Wæver, J. de Wilde, Security. A New Framework for Analysis, Lynne Rienner Publishers Boulder, London, 1998; B. Buzan, O. Wæver, Regions and Powers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003), an attempt was made to go beyond the limits of the classical conception of the security complex. To remedy the main disparities between their present approach and the classical conception of the security complex (concentration on the military and political spheres of interstate relations and insufficient attention to the non-state actors, the conduct of which creates additional vectors of intersectoral interdependence), the authors postulated two types of security complexes—homogeneous and heterogeneous—as well as the securitization conception.
B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, p. 211; B. Buzan, O. Wæver, J. de Wilde, op. cit., p. 13.
See: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, p. 106.
When assessing the sociopolitical development of contemporary states, Buzan and Wæver have identified three types/levels—pre-modern states (low development level of inner sociopolitical cohesion and state organization, weak governmental control over the territory and population); modern states (strong governmental control of society; limited openness, the sanctity of sovereignty and independence and its attributes, including territory and borders, placing the stakes on self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and national identity); and postmodern states with relatively moderate sanctity of sovereignty, independence and national identity, economic, political and cultural openness to the world (for more detail, see: B. Buzan, O. Wæver, op. cit., pp. 23-24).
On the whole, the strength and weakness concepts are fairly abstract and too relative to provide a criterion of their assessment for all cases. What may be considered as a strength in one state could be felt as a weakness in another. This relativity rests on the objectively different development levels of states and regional interstate systems. The types of postmodern and modern states differ greatly. For example, in a postmodern state, decentralization of power and federalization are no longer its weaknesses, but rather a condition of domestic policy which feeds dynamic and balanced economic growth and, therefore, the state’s inner strength. The same phenomena in a modern state might breed, at least in the short term, political fragmentation and separatism and, by the same token, make it weaker and more vulnerable. This means that Buzan’s criterion looks somewhat oversimplified when applied to the postmodern standards; however, when applied to the states of Central Eurasia as the key one, it mainly fits their current social, political, economic, and cultural structure.
The table in the next section of this article supplies economic and military parameters that are indispensable for assessing states’ relative strength/weakness: GDP, per capita GDP, GDP growth rates, military budget, the size of military forces and the main type of military hardware.
See: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, p. 97.
See: Ibidem.
See: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, p. 190.
The “asymmetry” and “symmetry” parameters are used along with others to assess the stabilizing effect of economic interdependence between states (see: R.O. Keohane, J. Nye, Power and Interdependence, Third Edition, Longman, Boston, 2001, p. 157).
Waltz treats the anarchic nature of the structure of the international political system (its maturity levels, in particular) as universalist, that is, he does not distinguish between the maturity levels of anarchy and the specifics of the impact of different maturity levels on the way states behave.
See: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear. An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, pp. 174-181.
See: A. Wendt, “Constructing International Politics,” International Security, Vol. 20, Issue 1, Summer 1995, p. 81.
For more detail, see: J. Eyvazov, “Some Aspects of the Theory of Regional Security Complexes as Applied to Studies of the Political System in the Post-Soviet Space,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, Vol. 12, Issue 2, 2011, pp. 17-24; J. Eyvazov, “Central Eurasia through the Prism of Security: A Regional System or a Sub-System?” The Caucasus & Globalization, Vol. 5, Issue 1-2, 2011, pp. 6-15.
Some authors have investigated the links between ethnopolitical conflicts in the post-Soviet Caucasus and the region’s structural instability (see, for example: N. MacFarlane, “The Structure of Instability in the Caucasus,” Internationale Politik und Geselschaft—International Politics and Society, No. 4, 1995, p. 385; R. Sokolsky, T. Charlick-Paley, NATO and Caspian Security. A Mission Too Far? Rand Corporation, Washington, 1999, pp. 9, 13-14; S.E. Cornell, Small Nations and Great Powers. A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus, Curzon Press, U.K., 2001, p. 52).
Russia is part of the PSM along with the Central Eurasian RSCs. The term “exogenous” as applied to Russia’s impact on these RSCs should take into account their interconnection in the unified PSM structure.
In 2009, ethnic Russians in Estonia comprised about 26% of the total population; in 1989, on the eve of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, Russians made up 30% of the population. The figures for Latvia are about 30% in 2009 and 34% in 1989; and about 6% in 2009 and 9.4% in 1989 in Lithuania.
The northern part of Tajikistan (Khujand, formerly the Leninabad region) with a predominantly Uzbek population was much more advanced economically (during Soviet power) than the rest of the republic. This part of Tajikistan was ethnically and economically closer to Uzbekistan. Under Soviet power, the republic was ruled mainly by people from Khujand. In post-Soviet times, the South tried to remove people from the North from their commanding posts. Along with other reasons, this contributed to the confrontation in the republic. In fact, the advent to power of Imomali Rakhmon, who was from Kulob, meant that the Khujand groups suffered a political defeat (see: K. Martin, “Dobro pozhalovat v Leninabadskuiu Respubliku?” Tsentralnaia Azia, No. 10, 1997; Ch. Fairbanks, C.R. Nelson, S.F. Starr, K. Weisbrode, Strategic Assessment of Central Eurasia, The Atlantic Council of the United States, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C., 2001, pp. 14, 21).
See: L. Jonson, “Russian Policy and Tajikistan,” Central Asia, No. 8, 1997, available at [http://www.ca-c.org/dataeng/st_03_jonson.shtml].
This was when Uzbekistan left the CSTO and joined GUAM (1999).
This brings to mind the situation in Georgia in the early 1990s.
In October 2004, the Russian 201st motor rifle division deployed in Tajikistan was transformed into a military base.
. The Ukrainian authorities tried to detach Ukrainian Orthodoxy from Russia to play down the impact of the Russian Orthodox Church and increase the religious distance between Ukraine and Russia by setting up a single local Orthodox Church. President Yushchenko spoke in June 2008 during the celebration of the 1020th anniversary of the introduction of Christianity into Russia about the necessity of setting up a single local Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
In the post-Soviet period, Belarus has been much more oriented toward Russia than the other Soviet successor states. It is a member of all the major Kremlin-initiated post-Soviet reintegration alliances—the CIS, the CSTO, the Union State of Russia and Belarus, the EurAsEC, the Customs Union, and the Common Economic Space.
During the presidential election in Armenia, the bulk of the protesting electorate supported Levon Ter-Petrossian, who wanted integration with the West, less dependence on the Russian Federation, and better relations with neighbors. According to the official figures, he gained 21.5% of the votes against 52.8% gained by Serzh Sargsyan, who represented the ruling party. The opposition accused the country’s leaders of falsifications and started mass protest actions; about 10 people died in the armed clashes; a state of emergency was introduced.
See, for example: H. Tchlingirian, “Nagorno-Karabagh: Transition and the Elite,” Central Asian Survey, No. 18 (4), 1999, p. 445.
There are informal military units on the occupied Azeri lands presented as “self-defense forces of Nagorno-Karabakh”: there are about 18,000 people, 316 tanks, 324 infantry fighting and armored vehicles, and 322 guns. They should be regarded as part of Armenia’s real military capabilities.
According to the official statistics, in 2009 the share of Azerbaijan’s oil and gas industry was 44.8% (see: Azerbaijan in Figures 2010, State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan, available at [http://www.azstat.org/publications/azfigures/2010/en/010.shtml]).
According to certain sources, the proven natural gas reserves in Turkmenistan amount to 4.3% of the world’s total; Uzbekistan’s share is 0.9% (figures at the end of 2009) (see: BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2010, p. 22, available at [http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2010_downloads/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2010.pdf]).
Hydropower engineering is the main energy source in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, although its export is less profitable than the export of oil and gas.
Sunni Islam is the predominant confession in all five states; they are all populated by Turks (with the exception of Tajikistan).
See: R. Burnashev, “Regional Security in Central Asia: Military Aspects,” in: Central Asia. A Gathering Storm? ed. by B. Rumer, M.E. Sharpe, 2002, p. 157.
The fact that radical religious groups penetrate Uzbekistan from Tajikistan remains one of the main bones of contention in the two countries’ bilateral relations.
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