The failure of the CSTO to intervene in Kyrgyzstan last June to stop ethnic violence that followed the ouster of President Bakiyev in April demonstrated the breakdown of the existing regional security institutions in Central Asia. As a result, the overhaul of the regional security system, of which Russia is a linchpin, is likely to become an important issue for discussion between Central Asian states, particularly between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. While it is too early to outline the contours of the new security arrangements, it is clear that Central Asian states will aim at reducing regional security dependence on Russia and favor closer cooperation with the West.
BACKGROUND: Ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan that broke out between local Kyrgyz and Uzbeks last June demonstrated the inadequacy of Central Asia’s security arrangements anchored on Russia. The two regional security organizations, the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty (CSTO) Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which China is a member, proved unable or unwilling – or both – to intervene in Kyrgyzstan to stabilize its southern region despite the repeated requests of the Kyrgyz interim government. Russia turned down similar requests to intervene on a bilateral basis.
While Russia’s reluctance to act unilaterally could be explained by the haunting memories of putting down similar clashes almost twenty years ago to the date, the inaction of the CSTO and SCO was baffling. Both organizations invoked the absence of foreign aggression as justification for the lack of any military and security assistance to Kyrgyzstan. The argument is problematic for at least three reasons. First, the CSTO had no problem intervening in the Tajik civil war of 1992-1997, when, in the absence of foreign aggression, member states (notably Russia) stationed their troops on the Tajik-Afghan border to prevent the fighters of the United Tajik Opposition from entering their country from Afghanistan. Second, the CSTO and SCO charters list among their goals strengthening regional security and stability through joint activities (Articles 3 and 8 of CSTO’s Charter) and joint counteraction against “terrorism, separatism and extremism in all their manifestations” (Article 1 of SCO’s Charter). The Charters do not reference the conduct of the ‘joint activities’ or the attainment of the above goals to foreign aggression. The CSTO’s inaction was particularly surprising given the existence of its Collective Rapid Reaction Force established in February 2009, which conducted its second exercise two months prior to the Osh events.
Third, the 2010 ethnic conflict in Kyrgyzstan was fraught with a broader regional conflict: unlike in June 1990, violence in Osh amounted to ethnic cleansing of Kyrgyzstani Uzbeks. Thus, when tens of thousands of Uzbek refugees fled the country and shared their accounts of what happened in Osh, it was the restraint of Uzbekistan, both of its Government and its citizens, that prevented violence in Osh from spiraling into a regional conflict as the CSTO and SCO stood by.
IMPLICATIONS: Understandably, the failure of the two regional organizations, the CSTO in particular, to act in Kyrgyzstan generated frustration and blunt criticism on the part of the interim government of Kyrgyzstan and various political actors. Its most important ramification, however, was the realization by the Central Asian elites that the Russia-centered regional security architecture was no longer working and that they had to take the matter of providing regional security in their own hands.
To that effect, Kazakhstan moved to bring in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), not exactly Moscow's favorite, to help stabilize southern Kyrgyzstan. Using its position as the 2010 Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Kazakhstan initiated the dispatch of a police force drawn primarily from Western Europe to act as peacekeepers in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Despite its subsequent failure due to the opposition of the Osh regional government, this bold step was important for two reasons. First, the West was invited to participate directly in a regional security operation for the first time. Second, Astana sent a clear signal to Moscow that regardless of the latter’s desire to minimize Western presence in the region, Kazakhstan wanted more of it.
For sure, the desire among regional states to reduce security dependence on Russia by developing close cooperation with the West was evident before the Osh events. It started in 2001 with the active support of the operation “Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, above all by allowing the U.S. and NATO military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Since then, Uzbekistan has determinedly pursued, albeit not always successfully, closer security cooperation with the West. Kazakhstan has supported the U.S. war in Iraq by sending a field engineer battalion there. In September 2009, to Moscow’s displeasure, Kazakhstan hosted NATO’s first military exercise in Central Asia.
What makes the situation different now is that Kazakhstan, long considered to be one of Russia’s closest allies, has come to a similar vision of the new regional security architecture – one that would be based on reduced security dependence on Russia and closer security cooperation with the West. Given the importance of security issues for Uzbekistan, this similarity creates an opening for close cooperation between the two regional leaders, which has so far eluded them.
Whether such cooperation develops depends, of course, on the future of the CSTO. Presently, it looks as if the CSTO is turning into an empty shell. Russia, its main donor, has slashed its CSTO budget by a factor of more than 15, from RUB 7.7 billion in 2010 to 0.5 billion in 2011. As for the SCO, it is difficult to imagine that it will pick up where the CSTO left off.
CONCLUSIONS: For many Central Asians, the failure of the CSTO and SCO to intervene in Kyrgyzstan to stop ethnic violence signaled the need for an overhaul of the existing regional security architecture. The central idea is to reduce security dependence on Russia and foster closer cooperation with and involvement of the West in regional security institutions. The road to new security arrangements in Central Asia will be long and challenging. Yet, security is a concern for all Central Asian states and they all will benefit from new regional security architecture. Should they succeed in devising it, the door to the long-overdue regional integration may finally be open, which in turn may set the stage for the creation of the Union of the Central Asian States proposed by President Nazarbayev in 2007. For that to happen, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan should work together in designing new regional security institutions. The U.S. and the West should support Central Asians in their quest for new security architecture in the region. Such support will guarantee the independence of Central Asian states and contribute to stability in a volatile region. Both are important for the West, particularly given the uncertainty about the situation in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the U.S. and NATO troops planned to begin later this year.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Sergei Gretsky is Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown University.