Keeping Central Asia stable

Abstract

Contrary to optimistic assessments on the stabilising impact of the US troop deployment in Central Asia, the long‐term prospects for regional stability are far from certain. The American entry into Central Asia has complicated the geostrategic dynamics of the region and engaged the three great powers and regional players in intense rivalry for influence and leverage. If there was ever a ‘Great Game’ at play in the post‐Soviet era, it is now. The convergence of the great powers on Central Asia was justified in terms of anti‐terrorism. The toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan may have secured its northern neighbours from an imminent threat, but the direct involvement of US forces in Central Asia is not likely to contribute to regional stability in the long run.

Notes

Shahram Akbarzadeh is in the School of Political & Social Inquiry, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Email: [email protected].

Washington Post, 1 July 2002.

Nancy Lubin, Calming the Ferghana Valley, New York: Century Foundation Press, 1999, pp 47–48.

Shahram Akbarzadeh, ‘Why did nationalism fail in Tajikistan?’, Europe–Asia Studies (formerly Soviet Studies), 48 (7), 1996, pp1105–1129.

‘EU relations with Kazakhstan, current political and economic situation’, at http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/kazakhstan/intro/index.htm.

Lubin et al, Calming the Ferghana Valley, p 60.

Ibid, p 65.

International Crisis Group, Central Asia: A Last Chance for Change, Central Asia Briefing, Osh/Brussels, 29 April 2003, p 5.

Uzbekistan received US$297.84 million in assistance, while the rest attracted significantly less: Kazakhstan, $95.93 million; Kyrgyzstan, $114.98 million; Tajikistan, $162.55 million, Turkmenistan, $21.03 million. See ‘US Government assistance to and cooperative activities with Eurasia—FY 2002’, released by the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, US Department of State, January 2003, at http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rpt/23601.htm.

International Crisis Group, Central Asia, p 7.

Richard Pomfret & Kathryn Anderson, ‘Economic development strategies in Central Asia since 1991’, Asian Studies Review, 25, (2), 2001, p 193.

For a detailed study of IMU's involvement in drug trafficking see Svante E Cornell, The Nexus of Narcotics, Conflict and Radical Islam in Central Asia, Caspian Brief No 24, Stockholm: Cornell Caspian Consulting, June 2002.

Marcus Bensmann, ‘IMU in retreat’, Institute of War and Peace Reporting, 21 July 2002.

Armen Khanbayan & Mikhail Khodarenok, ‘Pered geostrategicheskoi razvilkoi. Tashkent vinuzhden lavirovat' mezhdu Rossiei i zapodom’, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 15 April 2002. Other reports suggested that members of the IMU were trying to cross the Afghan–Tajik border to regroup in their former stronghold in eastern Tajikistan. ‘Local villagers told IWPR that they have seen armed men arriving in their area since as far back as November and December 2001’. Marcus Bensmann, ‘IMU in retreat’.

Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002, p 120.

International Crisis Group, Radical Islam in Central Asia: Responding to Hizb ut‐Tahrir, ICG Asia Report No 58, Osh/Brussels, 30 June 2003, p 17.

Bruce Pannier, ‘Central Asia: governments react to uncertain threat from Hizb ut‐Tahrir’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 30 May 2002.

See report of documents discovered by US journalists in an IMU camp in Afghanistan; and International Crisis Group, Radical Islam in Central Asia, p 24.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 9 October 2001.

RFE/RL Newsline, 12 October 2001.

Andranik Migranian, ‘Konets Rossii?’, Svobodnaya Mysl', 7, 2002, p 7.

BBC News, ‘Russia “not worried” by US deployment’, 13 February 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1817458.stm.

Federal News Service, The Official Kremlin International News Broadcast, 8 May 2002.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 5 December 2002.

Konstantin Siroezhkin, ‘Geopoliticheskii endshpiel’, Kontinent, 15–21 January 2003.

Sean Yom, ‘Power politics in Central Asia’, Foreign Policy in Focus, 26 July 2002.

In a joint statement issued in Dushanbe, July 2000 the Shanghai Five member states pledged to combat ‘national separatism, international terrorism, religious extremism, as well as weapon‐trafficking, drug‐trafficking and illegal immigration’. People's Daily, 6 July 2000.

For a comprehensive account of the SCO, see Pete Lentini, ‘The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Central Asia’, in Marika Vicziany, Pete Lentini & David Wright‐Neville (eds), Regional Security in the Asia Pacific: 9/11 and After, Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 2004, pp 130–150.

Agence France Presse, 7 June 2002. A year later the SCO decided to move the planned anti‐terrorist centre to Tashkent. No reason was given for this decision, but it is likely to have been designed to tie Uzbekistan more closely with Russia and China and counter Tashkent's partnership with the USA. See Washington Post, 23 September 2003.

Agence France Presse, 7 August 2003.

Inter Press Service, 8 January 2002.

In January 2002, for example, the Indian Minister for External Affairs, Dinesh Singh, in a meeting with the Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji condemned US hegemony in the region, and said that India would not tolerate such behaviour. ‘Premier Zhu Rongji meets Indian Minister of External Affairs Dinesh Singh’, 15 January 2002, at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/23639.html.

Boris Rumer, ‘The powers in Central Asia’, Survival, 44 (3), 2002, p 65.

Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe Newsline, 31 January 2001. It was interesting to note that IMU fighters were escorted by Russian guards, who made no attempt to arrest them.

Rashid, Jihad, p 170.

G Bukharvaeva, ‘Local communities uprooted’, Institute of War and Peace Reporting, 19 August 2000.

RIA Novosti, 14 December 2002.

Pauline Jones Luong & Erika Weinthal, ‘New friends, new fears in Central Asia’, Foreign Affairs, 81 (2), 2002, p 61.

International Crisis Group, Central Asia, p 3.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shahram Akbarzadeh

Shahram Akbarzadeh is in the School of Political & Social Inquiry, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Email: [email protected].