Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 4 | Eurasia A New World Order? page 4

Ties That Still Bind
Russia’s newly found prosperity and assertiveness in dealings with its neighbors help conceal one other fact: Russia’s neighborhood, most of which is comprised of the new Eurasia, is the only part of the world where Russia still can act as the heavy. In Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, let alone Latin America, Russia’s role is marginal at best. On the one hand, it is yet another sign of the depth of its retreat. On the other hand, it is testimony to the fact that Russia still holds considerable sway over its neighborhood.

Beyond energy and transport, it retains a good deal of soft power over the new Eurasia. Although Russian has lost its mandatory place in the life of the former Soviet states, it remains the lingua franca and is likely to continue for a considerable period of time. For the elites and the educated classes English will serve as the language connecting them to much of the outside world. But for the common folk, Russian has yet to lose its importance.

Many of the new Eurasia’s elites are still the product of the Soviet Russian-dominated education system. Many have attended universities in Russia, sent children to study there and have been deeply immersed in Russian life and culture. This connection is likely to fade with time, but only slowly, as generational change takes hold in the region’s political and cultural elites.

In recent years, Russia’s economic growth has created a vast market for exports from the new Eurasia, of which many would not have found a market elsewhere. For example, Georgia’s agricultural commodities are unlikely to find a significant market outside of Russia, which has traditionally looked to its southern neighbors to deliver fruit and vegetable crops that are difficult to cultivate in Russia’s harsh climate.

Russia’s economic growth combined with its demographic decline has created an insatiable appetite for migrant labor. This, in turn, has led to a mutual dependency between Russia and the states of the new Eurasia. The former, lacking its own manpower, has come to rely on foreign workers. The latter sends hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars in remittances back home, where Russian-generated revenues represent a major building block of economic welfare and political stability. In Moldova, for example, remittances from Russia represent 30 percent of GDP, while in Georgia, this figure is approximately 25 percent of GDP.⁹ Through its regime of visa-free travel, Russia thus holds considerable sway over its former colonies, but it can cut off the flow of labor to its internal market only at its own peril.

Recently, Russia has acquired yet another cachet vis-à-vis some of its neighbors. In contrast with the U.S. policy of democracy promotion, Russia has sought to forge relationships with its former colonies regardless of their internal conditions. It has thus pursued its own form of realpolitik, emerging as a counterweight to the U.S. and potentially the last refuge of rulers fleeing from unrest in their own countries.

For example, Kyrgyzstan’s former president Askar Akayev, swept from power by mass protests in March 2005 after a fraudulent election, found refuge in Moscow. Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov, criticized repeatedly by U.S. and European officials for human rights violations, sought and received political backing from Russia. His family was reported to have acquired real estate and business interests in Moscow. Banned from travel to Europe and the United States, Karimov is likely to view Moscow as his safe haven in case of a domestic emergency.

Whether or not Russia will stand up to this alleged commitment or play the ultimate realpolitik card and renege on it in pursuit of a more attractive bargain remains to be seen. However, for the time being Russia’s nonjudgmental approach to its neighbors represents a powerful card in dealing with regimes that feel threatened by U.S. pursuit of its democracy objectives.

U.S. Policy in Eurasia—A Matter of Shifting Emphasis
Emphasis on democracy promotion is but the latest in a series of priorities of U.S. policy in the new Eurasia. The earliest and most urgent priority for U.S. policy was preventing “loose nukes” or securing the Soviet Union’s nuclear patrimony, major portions of which were deployed in Kazakhstan. Securing and removing weapons, components and materials left over from the Soviet Union’s vast WMD complex scattered all over Eurasia was the task that trumped all others; some of the programs that began immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union continue to the present day.

Beyond that, U.S. policy in the new Eurasia focused on two priorities: securing the independence of its new states, primarily from Russian encroachment, and promoting political and economic reforms. To that end, the United States had committed considerable funds. During the first decade of its independence, U.S. aid to Kazakhstan was approximately $1 billion; Uzbekistan, $600 million; Kyrgyzstan, $725 million. To be sure, support for, or insistence on democratic reforms was an important element of U.S. engagement throughout the new Eurasia, but not the absolute priority.

Throughout the 1990s, no issue on the U.S. policy agenda in the new Eurasia attracted as much publicity as the issue of oil, gas and export pipelines. Important oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan became the subject of intense interest on the part of U.S. and other international energy companies. U.S. officials sought to leverage the region’s hydrocarbon wealth to generate economic growth, promote economic reforms and secure the new Eurasian states’ unfettered access to global markets with the help of carefully chosen export pipeline routes. These would have to bypass Russia, which already controlled the region’s existing transportation links, and Iran, which was targeted by U.S. sanctions.

The American government’s active involvement in issues relating to Eurasian energy production and pipelines overshadowed other aspects of U.S. policy—support for reforms throughout the region, humanitarian relief and diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the so-called “frozen” conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
However, none of these pursuits, with the exception of “loose nukes,” qualified the new Eurasia for the top tier of U.S. foreign policy concerns. This lack of major interests was reflected in the 1997 speech by then-Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, already mentioned in the preceding pages. The speech made it clear that the United States was not interested in becoming the region’s security manager. It would be content if the region remained free of great power domination.

With pipelines taking longer to build than originally expected, oil cheap—below $20 bbl—and democratic and market reforms slow to bear fruit, Central Asia’s importance for the United States steadily declined until the fateful date of September 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the military campaign against the Taliban turned the new Eurasia and especially Central Asia into the frontline states in the new U.S. war—the war on terror.

The two bases established—with Russian acquiescence10—by the United States in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan played an important role in securing access for U.S. forces during the military campaign in Afghanistan. With U.S. bases came renewed U.S. interest in the region, as well as security assistance and a further push to promote political and economic reforms.

These reforms came to be viewed in a different light than before 9/11. The reform agenda was undoubtedly a major component of U.S. policy in the new Eurasia throughout the 1990s. However, it was pursued largely as charity, an obligation that the U.S. took upon itself to help the former Soviet states overcome their legacy. As such, the reform agenda lacked the urgency it acquired after 9/11, when failure to implement po-litical and econo-mic reforms triggered concerns about radicalization of local pop-ulations and even the specter of state failure in the new Eurasia, as well as comparisons with Taliban-era Afghanistan. The reform agenda thus acquired new ur-gency and signi-ficance for U.S. security interests; without reforms, policymakers felt, the countries the U.S. was relying on in the near term as the frontline states and partners in the war on terror would become problem states in the long run.¹¹

However, to local entrenched elites, as well as many observers in Russia, U.S. insistence on political reforms appeared dangerous and fraught with the prospect of destabilization. The U.S. was perceived throughout the new Eurasia as not merely supporting, but encouraging the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan.

It was also widely noted throughout the region that in all three instances, rulers overthrown by these revolutions were hardly inimical to the United States. Georgia’s Eduard Shevardnadze had long been a welcome guest in Washington; Ukraine’s Leonid Kuchma had pursued the course of integration into NATO; and Kyrgyzstan’s Askar Akayev had earned the reputation as one of the most, if not the most, tolerant ruler in Central Asia. In a region imbued with the spirit of realpolitik, U.S. rationale behind support for democracy was neither welcome nor well understood.

This tension between U.S. policy priorities on the one hand, and the interests of local elites on the other, led to renewed competition between the U.S. and Russia for influence throughout the new Eurasia. Having acquiesced to U.S. military deployments in Central Asia in the aftermath of 9/11, Russia grew increasingly suspicious of U.S. methods and motives with their heavy emphasis on democracy promotion.

For the entrenched rulers of the new Eurasia, Russian opposition to U.S. democracy promotion provided an opportunity to snub the United States. Beyond that, it is not clear how much Russia can do for the region. As was mentioned in the preceding pages, Moscow’s ability to manage the security affairs of the new Eurasia and provide resources for long-term sustainable development is very much in doubt.

In the near term, however, Russia presents an alternative as a strategic partner for some of the new Eurasia’s most entrenched and retrograde regimes. Nobody knows how long this partnership can last. Some of Moscow’s off again-on again partners are already feeling used. It is a matter of public record, for example, that Russia takes advantage of Central Asia’s land-locked gas producers and sells their gas to Ukraine for a fraction of what it charges clients in Europe for Russian gas.

None of this makes the task for U.S. policy in the new Eurasia any easier. The ability of the U.S. to promote reforms in these remote—and after fifteen years of independence, still poorly understood—countries is inherently limited. Uzbekistan, long the closest U.S. ally in the war on terror, as well as one of the most reform-resistant states in the new Eurasia, is a case in point. Uzbek military and security personnel put down a disturbance in the city of Andijon in May 2005. Hundreds of civilians reportedly died, though exact numbers and circumstances remain unknown because Uzbekistan’s leaders refused demands for independent investigation. U.S. condemnation of the massacre was swift and resolute, leading to a rapid decline in relations between the United States and Uzbekistan—until then its staunchest ally in the region. In July 2005, Uzbek authorities asked the United States to leave the base it had used since 2001. U.S. personnel were gone from the base before the end of 2005.

By contrast, Russia and China endorsed the actions of the Uzbek government. Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov was accorded red carpet treatment when he visited Beijing and Moscow recently. Russia has signed a treaty of partnership with Uzbekistan and offered to expand military cooperation with it.

Few analysts inside or outside of Russia would argue that Russia has the resources and the vision to act as the pillar of stability in Uzbekistan beyond ambitious declarations and limited assistance. At the same time just as few analysts would deny that Russia has major interests and considerable influence in the new Eurasia. None of which offers a clear answer to the question facing U.S. policy in the new Eurasia: “What is to be done?” How to safeguard the region against itself?

Next page: Current U.S. policy in the new Eurasia puts democracy promotion at the
top of the list.

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⁹ The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was dissolved in 1956, leaving a total of 15.

¹⁰ The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was dissolved in 1956, leaving a total of 15.

¹¹ The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was dissolved in 1956, leaving a total of 15.