Author: paulyih
Date: 04-03-09 11:26
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0296ad00-1fe7-11de-a1df-00144feabdc0.html
Privileged position // Financial Times
By Charles Clover, Daniel Dombey and Isabel Gorst
Published: April 3 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 3 2009 03:00
In the shadow of the Tian Shan mountain range of central Asia, members of the US 376th Air Expeditionary Wing are on a charm offensive. During the last few weeks they have welcomed local students to their base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, sent a 10-piece rock and roll band to orphanages and schools in nearby villages and paid visits to children's hospitals in Bishkek, the capital.
It looks, however, as if their efforts have come too late. In February, the Kyrgyz government gave the US 180 days to leave Manas, which serves as the chief hub for air supplies for the war in Afghanistan.
Most believe Bishkek's closure of the base is happening at the behest of the Kremlin, although a Russian foreign ministry official insists it is a "coincidence" that the decision came after Russia offered the cash-strapped former Soviet republic a $2bn (£1.4bn, €1.5bn) loan. The move nevertheless means Moscow, which will take over Manas, is firmly re-established as the dominant force in central Asia, which it ruled until the break-up of the Soviet empire in 1991. The US, whose exit from Kyrgyzstan follows a similar expulsion from Uzbekistan in 2006, seems about to be forced out of the region.
Even as Washington-Moscow ties improve under the administration of President Barack Obama, central Asia remains a shadowy sparring ground between the two sides, with Russia pushing back US influence.
This week, US-Russian co-operation hailed by Mr Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the London summit focused on "pushing the reset button" in their relations, which had deteriorated under the last US administration. But lurking in the background were disagreements on issues such as missile defence in central Europe as well as perhaps the most sensitive topic of all - Russia's relations with the now sovereign states that were once parts of the USSR. On this subject, the leaders were virtually silent.
That territory has become a giant test of wills between the two sides, a new version of the 19th-century "Great Game" between Russia and Britain. At stake are military bases, oil and gas supplies and rival models of government in an area whose strategic significance is highlighted by the war in Afghanistan and western Europe's growing energy dependence.
"During my tenure as the Russia expert on the National Security Council staff under President [George W.] Bush, no issue did more to poison the overall relationship and the situation only grew worse after my departure," says Thomas Graham, who worked at the White House in 2002-07. The issue is so divisive because it cuts to the core of each country's identity, he adds.
"Russia's ability to project power and influence into this region . . . confirms in its own eyes its standing as a great power, for what do great powers do if not radiate influence into surrounding regions?" asks Mr Graham. For the US the region has become "the primary testing ground of America's ability to fulfil in the post-cold war world what American elites sees as their historical mission - the promotion of democracy and free markets".
The playing field of the new Great Game is vast, stretching from the borders of China to those of Poland and including dysfunctional democracies such as Ukraine, petro-autocracies like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and ethnic tinderboxes, among them Georgia and Armenia. Central Asia's reserves of hydrocarbons are a highly strategic prize, making control of pipeline routes to the west critical. Most important for many strategic thinkers, though, the continued sovereignty of this group of unstable countries is a check on what many believe to be a resurgent Russia's taste for empire.
At present, almost every sign shows Russia winning back the ground it lost in the decade and a half after 1991. The high water mark of US influence in the former Soviet Union was in the middle of this decade, when American military bases were ensconced in the region, Nato expanded to include the three Baltic former Soviet republics in 2004 and the so-called "colour revolutions" in Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004) installed pro-western governments in place of Moscow-oriented ones. But since then the US has looked on as the Ukraine's Orange Revolution collapsed into infighting, as Moscow beat Georgia in a war last August, humiliated Kiev in a confrontation over gas supplies in January and prepared to take the Pentagon's place in Manas.
As geopolitical influence is first and foremost about dependence, the global credit crisis has added a new dimension to the contest. For countries in dire financial straits such as Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, Russia has appeared indispensable, with the power to save or ruin nations.
Seemingly as part of an effort to secure the loyalty of its former subjects, Moscow has offered them billions of dollars in bilateral loans and is setting up an emergency fund to lend billions more to countries within the Eurasian Economic Community, a formerly dormant organisation that comprises six former Soviet republics including Russia. It is set to have much greater flexibility than either the International Monetary Fund, which imposes conditions on its lending, or the European Union, which is preoccupied by the impact of the crisis on its own member states.
Tair Mansurov, chairman of the EEC, says the emergency fund is intended to have $10bn in member contributions, including $7bn from Russia, and be operable within two to three months.
Even after having spent many more billions on bailing out failing financial and industrial groups and propping up the rouble, Russia still has a war chest of roughly $385bn, the third largest foreign reserves in the world, and not many controls on how it is spent.
"Russia is trying to use the crisis as an opportunity to buy up a few countries," jokes Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "These countries are in deeper holes than Russia is. In these circumstances, a little buck could go a long way."
In effect, the Kremlin is putting its money where its mouth is, following Mr Medvedev's articulation last August of Moscow's bid for regional hegemony in the wake of the Georgia war. During a television interview in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, he said Russia, "like other countries in the world, has regions where it has its privileged interests" and added that the region included, but was not limited to, many of Russia's neighbours. His announcement was taken by most analysts as the assertion of a "sphere of influence" inside which Russia wielded ultimate control over everything from military alliances to oilfields to the electoral process.
Mr Medvedev's formula was the first time Russia has spoken in such terms since Boris Yeltsin signed the Belovezh accords breaking up the union and encouraged the newly independent republics to "take as much sovereignty as they can swallow".
That thinking is clearly in the past, though analysts say that there is a limit to what the Russians can achieve. "They have more money to throw around, it's true, and they are more self-confident and more assertive," says Dimitri Simes, head of the Nixon Center in Washington. "But there is a big difference between trying to play a role in their neighbourhood and trying to re-create the Soviet Union . . . I don't see any willingness from these countries to surrender sovereignty."
Mr Trenin says Russia is telling its neighbours that there are clear rules. "Number one: you can't join a military alliance with an outside power. Number two: do not deploy third-party military forces without Russia's consent. Number three: do not move third-party military forces through your country without Russia's consent."
Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, admits Mr Medvedev's formula "has frightened so many people" but denies it means either a 19th-century-style sphere of influence or a 20th-century superstate. In his office in the ziggurat-like foreign ministry building that towers over Moscow, Mr Lavrov says in an interview: "We have special interests going deep into centuries in these countries and they have the same deep interests in the Russian Federation, economically [and] from the point of view of humanitarian needs of the population." He adds: "Our relations with these countries could be described as privileged relations - the word that has frightened so many people but which reflects only that it is a privileged partnership."
Nevertheless, the Russian vision of a "privileged partnership" evidently leaves little space for the US in central Asia. Moscow initially gave its blessing for the US bases in the region as a sign of solidarity after the attacks of September 11 2001 but withdrew its support amid suspicions that the US had sponsored the revolutions that ushered in western-leaning leaders in Ukraine and Georgia.
Significantly, Uzbekistan's decision to evict the US from the base at Khanabad came at a meeting in 2006 of the Shanghai Co-operation Council, a security grouping that includes Russia and China, which has also taken an interest in the region, mainly for its hydrocarbons. The council is widely regarded as a tool to reduce Washington's influence in central Asia.
The prospective closure of Manas is still more significant for US ambitions. Although Russia is offering the use of its territory and that of other central Asian states as a land route to supply non-lethal goods to Nato troops in Afghanistan, Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent Russian defence analyst, says shutting Manas would "sabotage" US plans in Afghanistan and allow Russia to negotiate from a position of strength. "Russia is proposing a very sinister but realpolitik deal: 'Let's cut the cake. If not, you are on your own in Afghanistan.' "
The US opposes any such sphere of influence. "It will remain our view that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances," said Joe Biden, US vice-president, in the Obama administration's most high-profile speech to date on Russia policy. Washington is unlik-ely to remain passive about the region in the longer term, US diplomats warn.
All the same, Russian analysts see Moscow winning the next few rounds of the Great Game - they predict the eventual departure of the US-backed governments in Georgia and Ukraine. Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili faces mounting opposition to his rule in the wake of the disastrous August war, which he is accused of starting. Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's pro-western president, has a 3 per cent approval rating and is unlikely to win re-election in January.
The departure of Mr Saakashvili and Mr Yushchenko would pave the way for less US-focused regimes and teach other regional heads of state a lesson - that Washington's favour cannot protect them. Central Asian autocrats such as Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov would be likely to take note and act accordingly.
While the US still has much to play for in the former Soviet Union, the odds against Washington are high. If its recent behaviour is anything to go by, Russia believes it has a winning hand.
The 'Great Game'
With a "carbine in one hand, a whip in the other", explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky rode into central Asia in the 1870s to become Russia's best-known player of the "Great Game", a duel for influence.
Given its name by Rudyard Kipling, the game set UK officers against rivals such as Przhevalsky, who criss-crossed the mountains and steppes of Eurasia bidding for the favour of the emirs, satraps and khans who controlled the terrain.
Przhevalsky tried to win over the Dalai Lama with 23 camels bearing gold, strawberry jam and pictures of St Petersburg actresses. Britain bid with arms and titles bestowed by Queen Victoria. The game never really stopped although players and parameters have changed.
Presidents who head an array of restive republics
Belarus Run by Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus is Russia's buffer against Europe and a gas transit route to the west. It won a $1.5bn loan last year after agreeing to sell part of its pipeline system to Gazprom and share an air defence system with Russia.
Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who swept to power in 2004 after the 'rose revolution' that Moscow suspects was USsponsored, has steered a prowestern course. Less popular since the war with Russia, when Georgia lost Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev has carefully balanced his foreign policy, sharing out oil contracts among Russia, the west and China. The country prospered while oil prices were high and international credit was cheap but is now looking to China and Russia for support.
Kyrgyzstan Under Kurmanbek Bakiyev, elected in 2006 in the chaotic aftermath of the 'tulip revolution' that toppled the former leader, there has been a rise in corruption and harassment of the opposition and independent media and an increase in Russian influence.
Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon initially formed a coalition government with the opposition, but has since sidelined his political opponents. Russia maintains a Sovietera infantry base in Tajikistan and is the country's closest strategic and trading partner.
Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has pledged to introduce democracy.
Turkmenistan has drawn closer to Russia, its main trading partner and the only large outlet for its natural gas, although a pipeline to China is being built.
Ukraine Elected on a prowestern agenda, Viktor Yushchenko challenged the Kremlin by backing Georgia in the 2008 war but was humiliated in a confrontation over gas. Ukraine, whose economy is near collapse, uses Russia for leverage with the west.
Uzbekistan After the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001, Islam Karimov allowed the US to use an Uzbek military base until western nations criticised a police crackdown on an uprising in 2006.
A defence pact was signed with Russia shortly afterwards.
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I welcome the new geopolitical position of the Russians.
It is not favoring any "ism" or any "nation" , much less "race" or whatever.,
The world has to have a well balanced of ideology as well as the military muscle and financial leverage.
In view of the latest collapse of the Financial System -- basically I have seen the robber barons of the days of former Colonial and money laundering power of the English had passed onto the US and the same arrogance in knowing how these financial "elites" had abused their power .. which now have since given rise of the others ..
Also, the abuse of h uman rights that the Americans had so ever championing in and around the world has now "slapping themselves" by the presence of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
The new global Order has to have a moral base with the equilibrium of both finance and yes -- military power. No longer will anyone nation holds the full deck of cards, or the excess of 700 war bases and at the same time preaching false humanity .
The double face of the Americans has to be challenged by all . The Dr. Jackyl and Mr. Hyde -- the two faces of goodness and evil of the Americans have to be "slapped" by all, by the consciences of all. No longer the double talk in preaching human rights and democracy on the one hand, why militarily and with moral error to have invaded Iraq and before that, to have funded juntas in South America, to have supported all the world renown dictators and murders from Iran to Indonesia will be omitted --- no human history can be doing that and still allow a "phony" world power to march around the globe pretending to be such "human power". I hope be that Obama or any other Americans will also be joining the combat of the past and current American hypocrisy -- The former information tool of the CIA, today's Internet are the best tool as we do , expose global lies, hypocrisy and crimes daily .. And I still wish to see the invaders, the killers of innocent Iraqis will go to Hague, or to be hung in public --- I will say yes, Let Fallujah be dismembering the sinners and the abuser of Iraq ... That won't trouble me at all .
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