NATO IN SKULL-CAPS
by Ivan Gordeyev

WPS Agency
What the Papers Say Weekly Review (Russia)
September 15, 2008 Monday
Russia

RUSSIA IS OUT TO STRENGTHEN ITS MILITARY PRESENCE IN CENTRAL ASIA;
Reanimating the idea of an international army group in Central Asia,
Russia is out to strengthen military presence in the region.

The war in the Caucasus seems to have reanimated the idea of an
international army group in the Central Asian region. "We will
form an army group comprising units of five regular armies as an
instrument of political deterrent," CIS Collective Security Treaty
Organization Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha said in Moscow. "The
matter concerns four Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) and Russia."

Fast response collective forces will become an element of the future
army group. According to Bordyuzha, armies of the CIS Collective
Security Treaty Organization require a political decision of their
national leaders to start discussing composition of the future group.

The CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization comprises
Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan. Belarus and Armenia are unlikely to want involvement in
Central Asia. First, it will be expensive. Second, neither has any
particular interests in this region.

As for Kyrgyzstan, it has Russian and US military bases on its
territory nowadays. Its own regular army meanwhile is in a sorry
state, that it Kyrgyzstan is unlikely to be of any help to the
future international army group. From the military standpoint, that
is. Uzbekistan had an US AF base on its territory too (in Khabanad,
not far from the border with Afghanistan) but this cooperation ended
after May 2005 when all of the West including the United States was
horrified at how brutally the Uzbek regime had crushed protests in
Andijan. In any event, Islam Karimov is unlikely to advance military
cooperation with Russia beyond the degree that leaves his own hands
pretty much untied in Uzbekistan. In Tajikistan, the Russian 201st
Motorized Infantry Division is a guarantor of relative stability. It
was this division that helped the locals to put an end to the civil
war in the 1990s. As for the Tajik state itself, its own military
resources are practically non-existent.

The situation with Kazakhstan is the least understandable. The best
advanced in all of Central Asia, this country does not have a border
with Afghanistan. Unlike Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan,
it has never has any problems with domestic Islamic extremism. Also
importantly, Kazakhstan is the least economically dependant of all
Central Asian on Russia. (On the other hand, population of its northern
regions is predominantly Russian.) All of that leads to the conclusion
that President Nursultan Nazarbayev is not going to be exactly happy
with an international army group on the territory of his country.

In a word, reanimation of the idea of the international army group
of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization in Central Asia
exposes Moscow’s eagerness to increase its military presence in the
countries of the region. Minus Turkmenistan, a country that remains
neutral and refuses to join all and any international structures.