Analytical Articles

Last week, Kazakhstan's parliament passed a law granting President Nursultan Nazarbayev lifetime powers and privileges, including access to future presidents, immunity from criminal prosecution, and influence over domestic and foreign policy. The statute is unlikely to affect the political landscape of Kazakhstan in the short-term as the 60-year-old leader is eligible to run for re-election in 2006. But it is clear that the leader intends to exert control even after he relinquishes power and will likely handpick a successor. If this oil-rich country can succeed with a credible economic program - one that will improve the standard of living for average Kazakhs and appease the political opposition - the country will likely remain stable in the long term.

A rapid-fire series of recent events draw attention to a reconfiguration of regional interests in Central Asia. Kazakhstan and Turkey were the only countries to stay away from the recent ECO summit in Teheran, using the time instead to have the Turkish foreign minister visit Astana. The presidents of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have created a border commission to demarcate their frontier. And Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have begun security talks. All this comes following recent visits to Central Asia by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

On June 28, 2000, the Joint United Nations Program on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic was released declaring that the spread of HIV/AIDS in China is rampant and has become an extremely severe problem in Xinjiang, China's most northwestern region. The ethnic unrest of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang against Chinese rule has recently gained the attention of the international media. However, the Chinese government has done so little to inform the Uyghur population about China’s AIDS epidemic and the methods to prevent it. Most Uyghurs are not even aware of AIDS or its deadly impact.

An intriguing trend has slowly begun to emerge within the republics of Central Asia. The republics are increasingly turning towards Iran at the expense of Russian influence in the region. The republics may in the future find themselves at the mercy of the character of relations among and between Russia, Iranian, and China. That is to say, if relations between Moscow, Beijing, and Teheran sour, Central Asia may likely be the venue of increased outside interference, meddling, and threats as their larger neighbors struggle to find their respective places in the world.

The current war in Chechnya, only the most recent stage in a decade-long conflict over Chechnya’s status, displays notable differences in comparison with the other 1994-96 armed stage of the conflict. The first war was primarily ethnic and national in character whereas the current war has a substantially more pronounced religious character. As the Chechens legitimize their war effort in increasingly Islamic terms, they find it easier to earn foreign financial support. More importantly, increasing numbers of Muslims are finding their way to Chechnya with the goal of fighting the jihad against Russia. Besides denying the Russians a decisive victory in the war, these outside Muslim fighters have substantially increased the risk for a contagion and diffusion of the conflict.

Putin's Russia is actively testing the reliability of China and the Central Asian states to counter Afghanistan's support of Islamic militants. Moscow's recent threats to bomb Afghan territory may be part of a new, larger diplomatic effort to test the reliability and responses of the evolving strategic framework of regional partnership against terrorism and drugs. Putin is breaking with the past in terms of rhetoric and action. A Russian strike against the Taliban would challenge neighbors and alliances alike, would invite China to intervene, make the Central Asian states more authoritarian, and challenge the West to fight terrorism on Russia’s and China's behalf.

In a series of public statements last month including a May 17 seminar at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS, Andrei Urnov, head of the Caspian Sea working group of the Russian Foreign Ministry, suggested a new approach to the demarcation of national sectors in the Caspian Sea. His announcement followed a decision by the Security Council of the Russian Federation to re-activate Russian policy in the region through sea-bed delineation for the purpose of subsoil use which may thus signal a qualitatively new development in the stalled negotiations over the legal regime of the Caspian Sea.

On May 25, Pakistan's Chief Executive General Pervaiz Musharraf for the first time explicitly articulated Pakistan's reasons for its continued backing of the Taliban. He stated that in view of the demographic and geographic pattern of Afghanistan's majority ethnic Pashtuns, it is in Pakistan’s national interest and national security interest to support the predominantly Pashtun Taliban regime. Musharraf's public enunciation of an ethnically biased policy towards Afghanistan elicited widespread criticism from the Northern Alliance opposing the Taliban and ex-King Zahir Shah and should further antagonize Russia, Iran and the Central Asian Republics as such a policy makes no accommodation to the national security interests of these neighbors.

With the recent announcement of the discovery of a new enormous offshore oil deposit in the Caspian Sea, a renewed geopolitical offensive is on course to upset the delicate political landscape of the region. The reengagement of both regional and global powers in a struggle for control over the energy resources and their outlets is set against a fragile backdrop of new presidents in Turkey and Russia, new governments in Georgia and Armenia, and internal political tension in Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabagh. Seen in this light, it seems apparent that the new "Great Game," and all of its rival players, will return to the geopolitical arena, posing the question of whether this new Caspian oil offers promise or peril to the region.

Iran has the potential to become a major political force, a power broker and an economic power in the Caspian Sea basin. Iran’s control of the Persian Gulf and its control of Caspian Sea oil pipelines could enormously add to its economic and geopolitical prominence. But this potential is currently mired in the complexities of Iran’s domestic politics and its international isolation. The key to any breakthrough is progress toward reforms at home and mending ties with the West. While maintaining ties with Russia, the country is slowly but deliberately moving toward accommodation with the West, particularly the United States. The pace and scope of these developments will eventually determine the level of Iran’s short-term and long-term impact on the region.