CENTRAL ASIA AS A SECURITY COMPLEX: THEORY AND PRACTICE
Abstract
The academic community is aware of three hypostases of Central Asia: (1) a geographical region; (2) a political entity; and (3) a civilizational expanse—each with its own limits. As a geographical region, Central Asia is limited by “natural borders” (mountains, rivers, the steppe, and the sea); as a political entity, it is contained within the state borders of the new political units; and as a civilizational expanse, it is described as the local peoples’ cultural and/or ethnolinguistic community, that is, by civilizational factors.
The idea of Central Asia as the space in which four post-Soviet Central Asian republics and Kazakhstan are situated is the region’s most frequently used, not to say dominating, political description. Central Asia as a political entity is a target of academic studies in its own right and an inalienable part of the foreign policy strategies of the key members of the international community.
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Together with the geopolitical factors, the civilizational factors were laid in the foundation of the Greater Central Asia conception (see: F.S. Starr, “A ‘Greater Central Asia Partnership’ for Afghanistan and Its Neighbors,” Silk Road Paper, Washington, D.C., March 2005; idem, “In Defense of Greater Central Asia,” Policy Paper, Washington, D.C., September 2008).
See: Central Asia and the Caucasus after the Soviet Union: Domestic and International Dynamics, ed. by M. Mesbahi, University Press of Florida, Florida, 1994; Central Asia in Transition: Dilemmas of Political and Economic Development, ed. by Boris Rumer, M.E. Sharpe, New York, London, 1996; U.T Kasenov, Bezopasnost Tsentralnoy Azii: globalnye, regionalnye i natsionalnye problemy, Kaynar University Press, Almaty, 1998; O. Roy, The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations, New York University Press, New York, 2000; Central Asian Security: The New International Context, ed. by R. Allison, L. Jonson, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Brookings Institution Press, London, Washington, D.C., 2001; P. Necati, Boundary Issues in Central Asia, Transnational Publishers, New York, 2002; R.M. Alimov, Tsentralnaia Azia: obshchnost interesov, Shark, Tashkent, 2005; A.A. Kazantsev, Bolshaia igra” s neizvetsnymi pravilami: mirovaia politika i Tsentralnaia Azia, MGIMO-Universitet, Moscow, 2008, etc.
The European Union formulated its Central Asia strategy: European Union and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership (2007); the 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States of America contains the South and Central Asia section; Washington instituted the post of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs. Russia’s National Security Strategy treats cooperation with the Central Asian states as a priority. The European Union, NATO, France, the U.S., and other countries and organizations created the post of coordinator for the Southern Caucasus and Central Asia.
B. Buzan, O. Wæver, Regions and Powers. The Structure of International Security, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 43-44.
Ibid., p. 48.
See: B. Buzan, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 1983; 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.
B. Buzan, O. Wæver, op. cit., p. xvii.
B. Buzan, op. cit., p. 106.
See: B. Buzan, O. Wæver, op. cit., p. xvi.
B. Buzan, O. Wæver, J. de Wilde, Security. A New Framework for Analysis, Lynne Rienner Publishers Boulder, London, 1998, p. 201; B. Buzan, O. Wæver, op. cit., p. 44.
B. Buzan, O. Wæver, op. cit., p. 4.
See: Ibid., p. xvi.
Ibid., p. 48.
Ibid., p. 29.
H. Starr, “Territory, Proximity, and Spatiality: The Geography of International Conflict,” International Studies Review, Vol. 7, 2005, p. 397.
B. Buzan, op. cit., p. 190.
B. Buzan, O. Wæver, op. cit., p. 48.
Ibid., p. 423.
See: Ibid., pp. 423-424.
Ibid., p. 397.
B. Buzan, O. Wæver, J. de Wilde, op. cit., p. 46.
See: A.P. Lukin, “Teoriia kompleksov regionalnoy bezopasnosti i Vostochnaya Azia,” Oikumena, No. 2, 2011, p. 18.
See: A. Priego, “Pakistan mezhdu regionalnymi kompleksami bezopasnosti Tsentralnoy i Iuzhnoy Azii,” available at [http://www.ca-c.org/journal/2008-06-rus/06.shtml].
See: J. Eyvazov, “Central Eurasia through the Prism of Security: A Regional System or a Subsystem?” The Caucasus & Globalization, Vol. 5, Issue 1-2, 2011.
See: F.F. Tolipov, Bolshaia strategiia Uzbekistana v kontekste geopoliticheskoy i ideologicheskoy transformatsii Tsentralnoy Azii, Fan Publishers, Tashkent, 2005, p. 46; Central Asian Security: The New International Context; Sh. Tadj-bakhsh, “Central Asia and Afghanistan: Insulation on the Silk Road, Between Eurasia and the Heart of Asia,” PRIO Paper, Oslo, PRIO, 2012, available at [http://www.prio.no/Research-and-Publications/Publication/?oid=3287917].
See: Sh. Tadjbakhsh, op. cit., pp. 4-5.
The terrorists who invaded Kyrgyzstan in 1999 demanded a corridor; they wanted to reach Uzbekistan to fight against its constitutional order and territorial integrity. In this way, they camouflaged their true aim: control over the Osh-Khorog drug trafficking route and the Sary-Tash hub on the borders of China, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan (see: U. Botobekov, Situatsiia v Ferganskoy doline: religiozny ekstremism, oborot narkotikov,” in: Mnogomernye granitsy Tsentralnoy Azii, ed. by M.B. Olcott, A. Malashenko, Moscow Carnegie Center, Gendalf, Moscow, 2000, p. 52).
Significantly, China was also involved in the Batken events: it used its military transport aviation to deliver weapons to the Kyrgyz military and cooperated, on a free basis, with the border guards of the Batken Region (see: O.A. Moldaliev, Sovremennye vyzovy bezopasnosti Kyrgyzstana i Tsentralnoy Azii, Bishkek, 2001, pp. 30-31).
Joint Statement of the Participants of the Almaty Summit, 3 July, 1998.
I.I. Bobokulov, Mezhdunarodno-pravovye aspekty regionalnoy bezopasnosti: voprosy teorii i praktiki, University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Tashkent, 2010, p. 34.
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas is a specific region of Pakistan at the border with Afghanistan inhabited by Pashtun tribes.
The Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China.
V. Korgun, “Afghanistan—glavny nerv Tsentralnoy Azii,” available at [http://www.centrasia.Ru/newsA.php4?st=1087426800].
See: B. Buzan, O. Wæver, Regions and Powers, p. 41.
See: Ibid., p. 41.
The emerging security system in the region was intended, after all, to oppose the contemporary threats generated by Afghanistan. Domestic instability in Afghanistan was one of the main reasons why the CIS Collective Security Treaty (1992) was signed in Tashkent (in 2003, it was transformed into the Collective Security Treaty Organization; in 1997, the Contact Group “6 + 2” was formed; in 2005, the Contact SCO-Afghanistan Group was set up; later, in 2012, an anti-drug SCO strategy was formulated).
See: B. Buzan, O. Wæver, op. cit., p. 53.
For more detail, see: Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, ed. by K.W. Deutsch, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1957; Security Communities, ed. by E. Adler, M. Barnett, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.
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