Analytical Articles

The French government’s decision to sell several Mistral-class amphibious warships to Russia has aroused concerns, especially in Georgia and the Baltic states, that the Russian Navy will use the vessels to intimidate or even invade its neighbors. Yet, the ship would add little to Russia’s already substantial military advantage over these countries. The real problem with the sale is two-fold. First, it could help revitalize Russian military shipbuilding. Second, the transaction could divide NATO members, weakening their leverage with Moscow.

Throughout the 1990s, the uranium riches of Central Asia and the existence of nuclear weapons were mentioned only in the context of the denuclearization program that followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union. While international attention is focused mainly on oil and gas, the region is poised to rediscover its uranium resources and the potentially important role to be played by nuclear power in an area with a chronic deficit of energy. The exponential growth of nuclear power worldwide, and especially in Asia, draws attention to Kazakhstan, which seeks to exploit its potential.

Kazakhstan looks set to continue the implementation of a strategy designed to reclaim its national influence in the decision-making over the scale and pace of industrial expansion in significant natural resource development projects. Having achieved such an outcome over several years as regards the restructuring of the consortium that develops the offshore Kashagan oil (and associated gas) deposit, Kazakh government officials last month initiated moves that could bring about a similar result as regards the Karachaganak natural gas deposit.

On March 23-24, President Kurmanbek Bakiev initiated a national civil forum in Kyrgyzstan through the Kurultai of Consent, a traditional form of public gathering, which coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Tulip Revolution. On March 17, the opposition held an alternative Kurultai on the eighth anniversary of the “Aksy- events”, when six people were killed during antigovernment manifestations. The two events signify an emerging type of interaction between government and opposition and a struggle for improving their public legitimacy, a resource clearly lacking for both sides.

The U.S. has started to formulate and implement more comprehensive policies for Central Asia. The deepening involvement in the war in Afghanistan is the principal, but not sole cause for this policy initiative. Russia’s attempts to impose its hegemony upon Central Asia and oblige the U.S. to recognize it have triggered a reaction in Washington. Likewise, China’s completion of the pipeline to Turkmenistan and major investment projects in Central Asia forced the U.S. to devise new ways to enhance its energy and economic profile there as well. As a result, in early 2010, we now see the elements of a new and stronger policy initiative towards Central Asia.

The Turkish-Armenian protocols signed last year in Zurich raised concerns that the perspective of Georgia’s decreased significance as a transit country for Armenia may boost nationalist demands around the Armenian minority in Georgia and cause new instability. While the protocols may not materialize in the foreseeable future, thus never inducing visible change in Yerevan’s policies, developments observed since the activation of Turkish-Armenian negotiations suggest that in case of full normalization Yerevan may attempt more assertive policies to uphold the cultural rights of Armenians in Georgia, without supporting their political demands and calls for autonomy.

Dmitry Rogozhin, Russian representative to NATO, and General Boris Gromov, a general who fought in Afghanistan, recently published an open letter about NATO in The New York Times. NATO was presented as an alliance lacking a will to fight, where especially the Europeans members were ready to cut and run in Afghanistan. They concluded this would be a great disaster and that the West should remember that the USSR had defended “Western civilization” at large in Afghanistan. Still, the U.S. should not expect much cooperation from Russia. A considerable segment of the Russian elite continues to be quite suspicious of U.S. intentions and its general ability to pursue realistic policies in Afghanistan.

The U.S.-Kyrgyz negotiations on opening a military center in Batken have raised controversial security and geopolitical considerations that might become momentous for the Fergana Valley and Kyrgyzstan’s multi-vector foreign policy. Kyrgyzstan entertains legitimate concerns about its poorly protected borders that have seen activities of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and drug trafficking networks extending from Central Asia to Europe. But amidst intensified water and border disputes, competition of great powers, an enhanced ability of the Central Asian states to influence regional dynamics, U.S. plans to withdraw from Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan’s own unstable domestic position, the center might well spur militarization of the region.

In recent days, energy diplomats on both the Azerbaijani and Turkish sides have revealed that an agreement in principle over the price that Turkey will pay for Shah Deniz gas from Azerbaijan has been reached. However, there are several ongoing sets of simultaneous negotiations over Shah Deniz, also taking place in the context of larger implicit bargaining games over other the Caspian Sea basin deposits of natural gas and indeed the geo-economics of their supply to Europe over the next several decades. These subtleties must be unpacked in order to understand the wide-ranging significance of even seemingly small agreements.

The opening of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline in December 2009 has focused deserved attention on China’s growing presence in Central Asia, particularly in the energy field. But the larger story transcends China and is really about the growing connections between Central Asia and East Asian  countries in general, not just China.  In this context, South Korea’s reinvigorated moves to consummate energy and infrastructure contracts with Central Asian producers are particularly revealing.  Following President Lee Myung-Bak’s visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 2009, there has been a series of acquisitions and search for assets by Korean companies.