The Unanticipated Utility of U.S. Security Structures: Avoiding Cold War II in Central Asia

Abstract

After the demise of bipolarity there are at least two significant impediments in creating a more secure, cooperative and prosperous global system. One involves miscalculations in the West, while the other rests with a fundamental misunderstanding in Moscow and Beijing regarding the nature of success inherent in liberal democracies and market economics. Development is a long-term process and Western attempts at achieving overnight results require near political suicide from entrenched elites. A policy that requires irrationality on the part of decision makers in the developing world is prone to suboptimal outcomes. Moreover, leaders in the former Soviet Union and Beijing misunderstand two of the most important aspects of long-term Western success: secure intellectual property rights creating the incentives for innovation, creativity and technical change, and the mitigation of the effects of the security dilemma by creating security structures that complement rather than compete with one another. The article analyzes these issues from a geopolitical perspective and assesses their impact on potential policy options.

Notes

1. In terms of the concept of “operationalized pivots,” the term “operationalized” signifies, within this context, that ideas, in order to be of a useful nature need to be transformed from the abstract and made manifest in empirical reality as a pragmatic commodity. For instance, the dual concepts of liberty and limited government were transformed from the abstract and “operationalized” by America's founding fathers by creating the governmental structures and processes of checks and balances and the separation of powers. “Pivot” is a point in time and space that provides traction and, if required by changing circumstances, an adjustment mechanism allowing for a changing of direction of movement or direction of perspective. The adjustment capacity of the U.S. Constitution allows such flexibility as it flexes and pivots to the changing needs of the people of the United States—all within the parameters of the principles embedded in the document.

2. William E. Odom, “US policy toward Central Asia and the South Caucasus,” 〈http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/usazerb/3ll.htm〉

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Frances Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (NY: Harper Perennial, 1993).

6. PRC analysts refer to Central Asia as the strategic rear front or zhanlue houfang. Only when this area is secure will China be able to move forward toward Taiwan “the main strategic objective” or “zhanlue zhuzheng.”

7. NATO's first Secretary General Lord Ismay, quote repeated in Die Welt, May 18, 2001, p. 5.

8. Joint Declaration, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Astana, Kazakhstan, 5 July 2005, reported in Baku Today, 〈http://www.baku.today.net/view/.php?d=1397〉 from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

9. Robert Simmons, Deputy Assistant Secretary General, NATO, speech at KIMEP, Almaty, Kazakhstan, October 4, 2005.

10. Similarly, World War I and the follow-on World War II were conflicts unresolved in comprehensive settlement.

11. Nicholas J. Spykman, The Geography of Peace (New York, NY: Harcourt and Brace, 1944). For more on Spykman and his links to Halford Mackinder (heartland theory of Eurasia) and George Kennan, see Michael P. Gerace, “Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment and After,” Comparative Strategy, 10 (October–December 1991), 347–64.

12. Caspian Sea Library, 〈http://www.treemedia.com/cfrlibrary/library/geopolitics/brzezinski.html〉. Charts 1, 2, and 3 are derived from information presented in Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, New York: Basic Books, 1997.

13. George F. Kennan (anonymous article signed by 'X'), “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs, July 1947.

14. Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security vol. 18, no. 2 (Fall 1993), 50.

15. For an astute discussion regarding the concept of ‘constrainment’ as opposed to ‘containment’ of the People's Republic of China, see Gerald Segal, “East Asia and the ‘Constrainment’ of China,” International Security vol. 20, no. 4 (Spring, 1996), 107–135.

16. “Intricacies of U.S. Foreign Policy,” Presidential Studies Quarterly vol. 26, no. 4, Fall 1996: 919

17. Howard Wiarda, Political Development in Emerging Nations: Is There Still a Third World? (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thomson, 2004), p. 35.

18. See Robert M. Solow, “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics vol. 70, no. 1 (February 1956), 65–94; Paul M.Romer, “Endogenous Technical Change, Journal of Political Economy vol. 98, no. 5 (October 1990), pt. II, S71–S102; Robert J. Barro and Jong-Wha Lee, “Sources of Economic Growth,” Carnegie-Rochester Conference on Public Policy (June 1994), 1–44; and Robert J. Barro, Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1998), p. 3–47.

19. Robert Gilpin, US Power and the Multinational Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1975), p. 41.

20. Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973).

21. Thomas M. Magstadt, Understanding Politics, 6th ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2003), p. 225.

22. Robert Gilpin, US Power and the Multinational Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1975), p. 41.

23. Wiarda (2004), 85.

24. Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, and Daniel Brumberg, eds., Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. xi–xiii.

25. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Hilton Root, “The Economic Logic of Autocracy,” The National Interest, no. 68 (Summer 2002), 28–29.

26. Jean Grugel, Democratization (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p. 63.

27. id., p. 63.

28. Anna Matveeva, “Democratization, Legitimacy, and Political Change in Central Asia,” International Affairs, [RIIA], vol. 75, no. 1 (January 1999): 24.

29. Kassymzhomart Tokaev, Meeting the Challenge: Memoirs by Kazakhstan's Foreign Minister (New York: Global Scholarly Publications, 2004), p. 295.

30. Gregory Gleason, “Inter-State Cooperation in Central Asia from the CIS to the Shanghai Forum,” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 53, no. 7, 2001: 1088.

31. Lyle Goldstein, “China in the New Central Asia: The Fen (RMB) is Mightier than the Sword,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Winter 2005: 18.

32. People's Daily, June 15, 2001 〈http://english.peopledaily.com.cn〉

33. RIA Novosti, “SCO Summit Kicks Off in Kazakhstan,” July 7, 2005 〈http://en.rian.ru/world/20050705/40843877.html〉

34. Xu Tao, “SCO Pushes for Regional Cooperation,” China Daily, July 10, 2005,〈http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-07/08/content-458303.htm〉

35. Putin quoted in “SCO Calls for Deadline on U.S. Presence in Central Asia,” Baku Today, July 5, 2005, 〈http://www.bakutoday.net/view.php?d=13927〉

36. Daniel Kimmage, “Central Asia: SCO—Shoring Up the Post-Soviet Union Status Quo,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 8, 2005.

37. Peter Hays Gries, “Tears of Rage: Chinese Nationalist Reactions to the Belgrade Embassy Bombing,” The China Journal, no. 46 (July 2001): 25–43.

38. Stephen Blank, “China's Defeats in Central Asia,” Central Asia Caucasus Analyst, August 14, 2002, in Lyle Goldstein, “China in the New Central Asia,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Winter 2005.

39. Vladimir Volkov and Peter Schwarz, “NATO's Bombing of Belgrade Changes the Political Balance of Forces in Moscow,” 13 April 1999, World Socialist, 〈http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/apr1999/russ-a13.shtml〉

40. Yi Feng, “Democracy, Political Stability and Economic Growth,” British Journal of Political Science, vol. 27, no. 3 (July 1997): 391–418. See also Robert J. Barro, Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1998).

41. Testimony, 5 April 1995, in The Future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): Subcommittee Hearing on Airland Forces, Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senate, 104th Congress, first session, 5 April 1995 (Washington, DC, 1996), p. 5.

42. One concept with particular import is the ‘Greater Central Asia Partnership for Cooperation and Development (GCAP). See S. Fredrick Starr, “A Partnership for Central Asia,” Foreign Affairs vol. 84, no. 4, July-August 2005: 164–178.

43. Brzezinski, 1998.