KAZAKHSTAN QUESTIONS U.S. MILITARY ROLE IN CENTRAL ASIA
By Roger McDermott
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
The Jamestown Foundation
Aug 17 2005
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Kazakhstan’s delicate foreign policy, predicated upon balancing
its relations among China, Russia, and the United States, has come
under increased pressure both from its involvement in the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the growing tendency within the
region to question the long-term strategic role of the U.S. military
in Central Asia. The SCO’s request that Washington set a deadline
for its military presence in the region has exposed Astana’s foreign
policy paradigm to a severe test. Equally, senior and well-placed
Kazakhstani analysts have raised objections to the need for a sustained
U.S. military presence in the region and praised President Nursultan
Nazarbayev’s efforts to avoid basing American forces in Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan has developed a close bilateral defense relationship with
the U.S. and deepened its commitment to NATO’s Partnership for Peace
(PfP). Its open demonstration of supporting the war on terror has
been shown by steadfast adherence to the deployment of elements of
its peacekeeping unit (KAZBAT) in Iraq. There are no tangible signs
that Astana is considering backtracking on any of these steps; it has
no need to do so. Nevertheless, Kazakhstan’s support for the SCO’s
call for the U.S. to think in terms of a timetable for getting out of
Central Asia has been explained by reference to pressure from China
and Russia. General Richard Myers, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs
of Staff, has reportedly interpreted the position of the Central
Asian members of the SCO in precisely this manner.
However, the Kazakhstani media has presented an alternative
interpretation. According to Delovaya nedelya, the driving force behind
Astana’s strategic choice in favor of the SCO is rooted in its fear
of the potential spread of “color revolutions.” Such fears predispose
the Nazarbayev regime to open a more constructive dialogue on the
region’s future with Beijing and Moscow. Simultaneously, the same
article argues the existence of the link between Britain’s support
for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the recent London bombings,
pointing to the level of risk to Kazakh security taken in its current
deployment of KAZBAT in Iraq. Such articles are not anti-American,
as they also offer the other side of Kazakhstan’s dilemma: falling
hostage to China and Russia (Delovaya nedelya, July 22).
Bolat Sultanov, director of Kazakhstan’s Institute for Strategic
Studies under the Kazakh president, has gone much further in his
opposition to any continued American military presence in Central
Asia. He objects that it undermines Russian and Chinese security.
Convinced that the United States must withdraw its military personnel,
he argues that the spirit of the SCO is contravened by the presence
of foreign military bases. “I am categorically against the presence
of the military bases in Central Asia because any military base is
an occupation base. By the way, I cannot understand Central Asian
countries’ euphoria about the military bases. Everywhere there
are military bases people are demanding that the bases be pulled
out. Look at Europe, South Korea, and Japan,” explained Sultanov
(Interfax-Kazakhstan, August 10). Sultanov’s position is not entirely
new, having previously postulated such ideas, but what is unclear is
the role and influence his open and public hostility towards the U.S.
military presence will have on domestic public opinion and, perhaps
more significantly, within the Nazarbayev regime itself.
Kazakhstan is also observing the difficulties relating to the
issues emerging from the U.S. military deployment in Central Asia.
Uzbekistan’s decision to terminate its agreement with the U.S.
concerning Karshi-Khanabad has had implications for the renegotiation
of the bilateral agreement with Kyrgyzstan regarding the Ganci base
in Bishkek; already plans are being mooted about elements of the
Karshi-Khanabad deployment being relocated to Ganci. These agreements,
as important as they are, now seem a little shakier than they once did,
especially when compared to the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO). On August 11, Bishkek ratified the CSTO agreement on the joint
use of military infrastructure facilities in member countries. In
this context, the deployment of elements of the Russian Air Force at
Kant now appears more durable. Armenia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan had
already ratified the agreement (Interfax, August 11).
Other multilateral organizations, such as NATO and the OSCE, are also
doing much to improve security structures in the region, which benefits
Kazakhstan. Its emerging defense relationship with the United States
has resulted in clear advances in its process of military reform
and the preparedness of its security forces to cope with terrorist
activity. Kazakhstan will continue to attach importance to its links
with Washington, seeing training and education and other forms of
security assistance as a vital part of improving its own anti-terrorist
capabilities. But at the strategic level, it is unlikely to seek to
favor any one of the great powers at the expense of the others. Astana
is now displaying interest in multilateral organizations including the
CSTO and SCO, since the latter serves as a forum through which Beijing
is involved, as well as enhancing its cooperation with NATO. It may
be possible to defuse tension over the U.S. military involvement in
Central Asia by promoting more practical multilateral cooperation,
among NATO, the CSTO, and SCO. Any approach that gives the impression
of the United States dealing on its own with individual countries in
the region at the possible expense of China and Russia will be doomed
to failure.