Changing security threat perceptions in Central Asia

Abstract

This article discusses the current process of securitisation in Central Asia and identifies its convoluted and faulty nature as a factor impeding collective security action in the region. It uses the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) as an explanatory tool and posits that security discourse in — and about — the five former Soviet republics is dominated by geopolitical grand strategy on the one hand and by particularist concerns about lack of democracy or transnational threats on the other. Issues of conventional security involving two or more states, such as territorial disputes or resource management, are pushed aside and rarely securitised at the official level. The article outlines conceptual and institutional reasons for this bias, and argues that unless inter-state tensions are properly analysed, debated and addressed, the prospects for security and stability in the region will remain grim.

Abstract

Notes

1. One recent example of this article of faith came from the US Secretary of State: ‘History also teaches us that true stability and true security are only found in democratic regimes. And no calculation of short-term interest should tempt us to undermine this basic conviction. America will encourage all of our friends in Central Asia to undertake democratic reforms’ (Rice 2005). The White House has since been taken to task by certain academics for not exercising US ‘unilateral hegemonic power’ enough to ‘sincerely expand the principles of freedom, liberty, prosperity, dignity, and justice’ in the region (Crosston 2007: 340).

2. Former US Republican Congressman and 1996 vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp has been an ardent advocate of this idea for a few years now. Chollet and Goldgeier (2005) offer a detailed examination and criticism of the putative new Marshall Plan.

3. A sociological survey in Southern Kazakhstan yielded typical results: only 14.6 percent of those polled believed that the government must accelerate democratic processes in order to maintain stability. By comparison, ‘educating our youth better’ scored 52.2 percent, and ‘raising combat preparedness of our rmy’ 46.7 percent (COMCON-2 2001).

4. In the words of Islam Karimov (1998: 14.), ‘it is erroneous to analyse an internal conflict in any isolated state, and the interrelation between that state and its neighbours, as unrelated phenomena’. His Kazakhstani colleague has been particularly vociferous in advocating a regional approach to security dilemmas, reflected in his voluminous writings on the Central Asian core of the pan-Eurasian security system (see, for instance, Nazarbaev 1996: 78–85, 102–118).

5. It appears that, while Central Asians are not too perturbed by lack of democracy or the creeping imperialism of great powers, tense and unfriendly borders generated clear and present problems for the majority of the population. In a 2004 public opinion survey organised by the World Bank, almost 60 percent of the respondents said that borders had a negative or very negative impact on their access to family members, friends or business associates (cited in UNDP 2005: 63).

6. Bakiev had to resign in September 2006 after the SNB organised an unsuccessful provocation against an opposition leader, planting heroin in his baggage. Rahat Aliev and the KNB are reported to have been involved in the assassination of a potential presidential candidate, Altynbek Sarsynbaev, in February 2006. President Nazarbaev has changed the KNB leadership in the wake of this.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kirill Nourzhanov

Dr Kirill Nourzhanov holds a PhD from the Australian National University and a Master of Arts from the Moscow State University. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies (the Middle East & Central Asia) at the ANU. In 2000–2002, Dr Nourzhanov acted as an international adviser to the governments of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in the field of public administration reform.