KYRGYZSTAN AND RUSSIAN RESURGENCE
Lauren Goodrich
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13 April 2010
This past week saw another key success in Russia’s resurgence in former
Soviet territory when pro-Russian forces took control of Kyrgyzstan.
The Kyrgyz revolution was quick and intense. Within 24 hours, protests
that had been simmering for months spun into countrywide riots as
the president fled and a replacement government took control.
The manner in which every piece necessary to exchange one government
for another fell into place in such a short period discredits arguments
that this was a spontaneous uprising of the people in response to
unsatisfactory economic conditions. Instead, this revolution appears
prearranged.
A prearranged revolution
Opposition forces in Kyrgyzstan have long held protests, especially
since the Tulip Revolution in 2005 that brought recently ousted
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to power. But various opposition groupings
never were capable of pulling off such a full revolution – until
Russia became involved.
In the weeks before the revolution, select Kyrgyz opposition members
visited Moscow to meet with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
STRATFOR sources in Kyrgyzstan reported the pervasive, noticeable
presence of Russia’s Federal Security Service on the ground during
the crisis, and Moscow readied 150 elite Russian paratroopers the day
after the revolution to fly into Russian bases in Kyrgyzstan. As the
dust began to settle, Russia endorsed the still-coalescing government.
There are quite a few reasons why Russia would target a country nearly
600 miles from its borders (and nearly 1,900 miles from capital
to capital), though Kyrgyzstan itself is not much of a prize. The
country has no economy or strategic resources to speak of and is
highly dependent on all its neighbors for foodstuffs and energy. But
it does have a valuable geographic location.
Central Asia largely comprises a massive steppe of more than a
million square miles, making the region easy to invade. The one major
geographic feature other than the steppe are the Tien Shan mountains,
a range that divides Central Asia from South Asia and China. Nestled
within these mountains is the Fergana Valley, home to most of Central
Asia’s population due to its arable land and the protection afforded
by the mountains. The Fergana Valley is the core of Central Asia.
To prevent this core from consolidating into the power center of
the region, the Soviets sliced up the Fergana Valley between three
countries. Uzbekistan holds the valley floor, Tajikistan the entrance
to the valley and Kyrgyzstan the highlands surrounding the valley.
Kyrgyzstan lacks the economically valuable parts of the valley,
but it does benefit from encircling it. Control of Kyrgyzstan equals
control of the valley, and hence of Central Asia’s core.
Moreover, the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek is only 120 miles from
Kazakhstan’s largest city (and historic and economic capital), Almaty.
The Kyrgyz location in the Tien Shan also gives Kyrgyzstan the
ability to monitor Chinese moves in the region. And its highlands
also overlook China’s Tarim Basin, part of the contentious Xinjiang
Uighur Autonomous Region.
Given its strategic location, control of Kyrgyzstan offers the ability
to pressure Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China. Kyrgyzstan
is thus a critical piece in Russia’s overall plan to resurge into
its former Soviet sphere.
The Russian resurgence
Russia’s resurgence is a function of its extreme geographic
vulnerability. Russia lacks definable geographic barriers between it
and other regional powers. The Russian core is the swath of land from
Moscow down into the breadbasket of the Volga region. In medieval
days, this area was known as Muscovy. It has no rivers, oceans or
mountains demarcating its borders. Its only real domestic defenses
are its inhospitable weather and dense forests. This led to a history
of endless invasions, including depredations by everyone from Mongol
hordes to Teutonic knights to the Nazis.
To counter this inherent indefensibility, Russia historically has
adopted the principle of expansion. Russia thus has continually sought
to expand far enough to anchor its power in a definable geographic
barrier – like a mountain chain – or to expand far enough to create
a buffer between itself and other regional powers. This objective
of expansion has been the key to Russia’s national security and its
ability to survive. Each Russian leader has understood this. Ivan the
Terrible expanded southwest into the Ukrainian marshlands, Catherine
the Great into the Central Asian steppe and the Tien Shan and the
Soviet Union into much of Eastern and Central Europe.
Russia’s expansion has been in four strategic directions. The first is
to the north and northeast to hold the protection offered by the Ural
Mountains. This strategy is more of a "just-in-case" expansion. Thus,
in the event Moscow should ever fall, Russia can take refuge in the
Urals and prepare for a future resurgence. Stalin used this strategy
in World War II when he relocated many of Russia’s industrial towns
to Ural territory to protect them from the Nazi invasion.
The second is to the west toward the Carpathians and across the North
European Plain. Holding the land up to the Carpathians – traditionally
including Ukraine, Moldova and parts of Romania – creates an anchor
in Europe with which to protect Russia from the southwest. Meanwhile,
the North European Plain is the one of the most indefensible routes
into Russia, offering Russia no buffer. Russia’s objective has been
to penetrate as deep into the plain as possible, making the sheer
distance needed to travel across it toward Russia a challenge for
potential invaders.
The third direction is south to the Caucasus. This involves holding
both the Greater and Lesser Caucasus mountain ranges, creating a tough
geographic barrier between Russia and regional powers Turkey and Iran.
It also means controlling Russia’s Muslim regions (like Chechnya,
Ingushetia and Dagestan), as well as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The fourth is to the east and southeast into Siberia and Central Asia.
The Tien Shan mountains are the only geographic barrier between
the Russian core and Asia; the Central Asian steppe is, as its name
implies, flat until it hits Kyrgyzstan’s mountains.
With the exception of the North European Plain, Russia’s expansion
strategy focuses on the importance of mountains – the Carpathians,
the Caucasus and Tien Shan – as geographic barriers. Holding the land
up to these definable barriers is part of Russia’s greater strategy,
without which Russia is vulnerable and weak.
The Russia of the Soviet era attained these goals. It held the lands
up to these mountain barriers and controlled the North European
Plain all the way to the West German border. But its hold on these
anchors faltered with the fall of the Soviet Union. This collapse
began when Moscow lost control over the fourteen other states of the
Soviet Union. The Soviet disintegration did not guarantee, of course,
that Russia would not re-emerge in another form. The West – and the
United States in particular – thus saw the end of the Cold War as an
opportunity to ensure that Russia would never re-emerge as the great
Eurasian hegemon.
To do this, the United States began poaching among the states between
Russia and its geographic barriers, taking them out of the Russian
sphere in a process that ultimately would see Russian influence
contained inside the borders of Russia proper. To this end, Washington
sought to expand its influence in the countries surrounding Russia.
This began with the expansion of the U.S. military club, NATO, into
the Baltic states in 2004. This literally put the West on Russia’s
doorstep (at their nearest point, the Baltics are less than 100 miles
from St. Petersburg) on one of Russia’s weakest points on the North
European Plain.
Washington next encouraged pro-American and pro-Western democratic
movements in the former Soviet republics. These were the so-called
"color revolutions," which began in Georgia in 2003 and moved on to
Ukraine in 2004 and Kyrgyzstan in 2005. This amputated Russia’s three
mountain anchors.
The Orange Revolution in Ukraine proved a breaking point in
U.S.-Russian relations, however. At that point, Moscow recognized that
the United States was seeking to cripple Russia permanently. After
Ukraine turned orange, Russia began to organize a response.
The window of opportunity
Russia received a golden opportunity to push back on U.S. influence in
the former Soviet republics and redefine the region thanks to the U.S.
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the crisis with Iran. Its focus
on the Islamic world has left Washington with a limited ability to
continue picking away at the former Soviet space or to counter any
Russian responses to Western influence. Moscow knows Washington won’t
stay fixated on the Islamic world for much longer, which is why Russia
has accelerated its efforts to reverse Western influence in the former
Soviet sphere and guarantee Russian national security.
In the past few years, Russia has worked to roll back Western influence
in the former Soviet sphere country by country. Moscow has scored
a number of major successes in 2010. In January, Moscow signed a
customs union agreement to economically reintegrate Russia with
Kazakhstan and Belarus. Also in January, a pro-Russian government
was elected in Ukraine. And now, a pro-Russian government has taken
power in Kyrgyzstan.
The last of these countries is an important milestone for Moscow,
given that Russia does not even border Kyrgyzstan. This indicates
Moscow must be secure in its control of territory from the Russian
core across the Central Asian Steppe.
As it seeks to roll back Western influence, Russia has tested a handful
of tools in each of the former Soviet republics. These have included
political pressure, social instability, economic weight, energy
connections, security services and direct military intervention. Thus
far, the pressure brought on by its energy connections – as seen in
Ukraine and Lithuania – has proved most useful. Russia has used the
cutoffs of supplies to hurt the countries and garner a reaction from
Europe against these states. The use of direct military intervention
– as seen in Georgia – also has proved successful, with Russia now
holding a third of that country’s land.
Political pressure in Belarus and Kazakhstan has pushed the countries
into signing the aforementioned customs union. And now with Kyrgyzstan,
Russia has proved willing to take a page from the U.S.
playbook and spark a revolution along the lines of the pro-Western
color revolutions. Russian strategy has been tailor-made for each
country, taking into account their differences to put them into
Moscow’s pocket – or at least make them more pragmatic toward Russia.
Thus far, Russia has nearly returned to its mountain anchors on each
side, though it has yet to sew up the North European Plain. And this
leaves a much stronger Russia for the United States to contend with
when Washington does return its gaze to Eurasia.