Central Asian Regional Security Complex: The Impact of Russian and US Policies

Abstract

This paper aims to reveal the impact made by the Russian and US policies on the Central Asian regional security complex (RSC) in the 1990s and 2000s. It traces the evolution of post-Soviet Central Asia from a proto-complex to a fully fledged RSC, analysing major security trends and discovering the consolidation of the RSC's boundary, polarity and social construction. The analysis has not shown much divergence in the way US and Russian policies have influenced the Central Asian RSC. It is argued that Moscow and Washington have made a significant impact on the consolidation of the RSC's boundaries, with the effects of US and Russian policies on its polarity and social construction being rather limited.

About the Author

Evgeny F. Troitskiy is Professor at the Department of World Politics of Tomsk State University (TSU), Russian Federation. He is Doctor of History and holds a PhD in general history and a Diploma with Honours in international relations from TSU. He is the author of Central Asia in International System, 1992–2010 (LAP Lambert, 2012; in Russian) and US Policy in Central Asia, 1992–2004 (TSU Press, 2005; in Russian) as well as of a number of contributions to collective volumes and articles on international politics in the post-Soviet space.

Notes

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2. Birthe Hansen, Unipolarity and the Middle East (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000), p. 9.

3. See Louis Cantori and Steven Spiegel, The International Politics of Regions: A Comparative Approach (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970); Bruce Russett, International Regions and the International System: A Study in Political Ecology (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1967); Werner Feld and Gavin Boyd (eds), Comparative Regional Systems: West and East Europe, North America, the Middle East and Developing Countries (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980).

4. Schulz et al., op. cit., p. 14.

5. The “New Middle East” framework was proposed by Daniel Pipes, “The Event of Our Era: Former Soviet Muslim Republics Change the Middle East”, in Michael Mandelbaum (ed.), Central Asia and the World (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994), pp. 47–93.

6. Barry Buzan, Ole Waever and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lienne Rienner, 1998), p. 12.

7. Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 53.

8. Ibid., pp. 55–62.

9. American scholars David Lake and Patrick Morgan developed a version of the RSC theory which proceeds from a different definition of a RSC and allows RSCs to overlap. See David Lake and Patrick Morgan (eds), Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). For the criticism of Lake and Morgan's version, see Buzan and Waever, op. cit., pp. 78–82.

10. Buzan and Waever, op. cit., pp. 483–485.

11. Buzan et al., op. cit., p. 137.

12. Buzan and Waever, op. cit., pp. 423–429, 483–487.

13. Lake and Morgan, op. cit., pp. 219–244.

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23. Dogovor o druzhbe i sotrudnichestve mezhdu Rossiiskoi Federatsiei i Turkmenistanom [Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation between the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan], 31 July 1992, available: <http://russia.bestpravo.ru/fed1992/data02/tex12543.htm>.

24. Nezavisimaya gazeta (Moscow), 4 February 1999.

25. See Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 151–152, 176–177.

26. Ustav Organizatsii Dogovora o Kollektivnoi Bezopasnosti [Statute of the Collective Security Treaty Organization], 7 October 2002, available: <http://www.odkb-csto.org/documents/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=124>, accessed 15 September 2014.

27. Laura Kennedy, Podderzhka nezavisimosti stran Tsentralnoi Azii—vazhnaya tsel amerikanskoi politiki [Support of Central Asian Countries' Independence is an Important Goal of American Policy], August 1997, available: <http://www.ca-c.org/journal/08_1997/st_15_kennedi.shtml>, accessed 15 September 2014.

28. The Silk Road Strategy Act, US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Report Together with Minority Views, 11 May 1999, available: <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/T?&report=sr045&dbname+106&>.

29. See Strategic Assessment of Central Eurasia (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council of the United States, Central Asia–Caucasus Institute, 2001), p. 95; Anatol Lieven, “The (Not So) Great Game”, National Interest (Winter 1999–2000), p. 79.

30. See S. Frederick Starr, “Making Eurasia Stable”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 75, No. 1 (1996), p. 81.

31. Nezavisimaya gazeta (Moscow), 7 December 2000.

32. See Jim Nichol, Central Asia's New States: Political Developments and Implications for US Interests, 11 December 2002, available: <http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/16175.pdf>.

33. Kontseptsiya vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii [The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation], 12 February 2013, available: <http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/6D84DDEDEDBF7DA644257B160051BF7F>.

34. Ibid.

35. Kommersant (Moscow), 25 December 2013.

36. See Evgeny Troitskiy, “The Turmoil in Kyrgyzstan: A Challenge to Russian Foreign Policy”, UI Occasional Paper No. 8 (Stockholm, 2012).

37. The CSTO Press Service, Press Release, 10 December 2010, available: <http://www.dkb.gov.ru/year/_ten_month_twelve/e.htm>.

38. See Dmitry Medvedev's interview to The Wall Street Journal, 18 June 2010, available: <http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcipts/464>.

39. Dogovor o soyuznicheskih otnosheniyah mezhdu Rossiiskoi Federatsiei i Respublikoi Uzvekistan [Treaty on Allied Relationships between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Uzbekistan], 14 November 2005, available: <http://council.gov.ru/files/journlsf/item/20081126141210.pdf>.

40. Elizabeth Jones, Statement to the Subcommittee on Central Asia and South Caucasus of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 13 December 2001, available: <http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2001/11299.htm>.

41. See John Daly, Kurt Meppen, Vladimir Socor and S. Frederick Starr, Anatomy of a Crisis: US–Uzbekistan Relations, 2001–2006 (Washington, DC: Central Asia–Caucasus Institute, 2006).

42. See S. Frederick Starr, A “Greater Central Asia Partnership” for Afghanistan and its Neighbors (Washington, DC: Central Asia–Caucasus Institute, 2005); Richard Boucher, U.S. Policy in Central Asia: Balancing Priorities (Part II), 26 April 2006, available: <http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rm/2006/65292.htm>, accessed 15 September 2014.

43. George Krol, Testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs, 15 December 2009, available: <http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/KrolTestimony091215a1.pdf>.

44. See Robert Blake, The Obama Administration's Policy on South Asia. Address at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 9 September 2009, available: <http://www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/rmks/2009/index.htm>.

45. US Department of State, Secretary Clinton Co-Chairs the New Silk Road Ministerial Meeting, 23 September 2011, available: <http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2011/09/23/secretary-clinton-co-chairs-new-silk-road-ministerial-meeting>.

46. United States–Uzbekistan Declaration on the Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Framework, 12 March 2002, available: <http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/8736.htm>, accessed 15 September 2014.

47. Condoleezza Rice, Remarks at Eurasian National University, Astana, 13 October 2005, available: <http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/54913.htm>.

48. B. Lynn Pascoe, Security, Stability, Prosperity: Engaging the Eurasian Front-line States, 20 September 2002, available: <http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2002/13639.htm>, accessed15 September 2014.

49. The crisis in US–Russian relations over the Ukrainian developments might accelerate the new rapprochement between Washington and Tashkent. Characteristically, in May 2014, Karimov stated that the ISAF withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of the year would be premature and the NATO regional bureau was opened in Tashkent.

50. China's economic gains in Central Asia open the possibility of a Central Asian RSC transforming into a subcomplex of the East Asian RSC but this scenario has to be considered separately.