Strategic Asia 2006-07: Trade, Interdependence, and Security

Trade, Energy, and Security in the Central Asian Arena

executive summary This chapter examines whether the economic structures, socio-political conditions, resources, and trade patterns of Central Asia are likely to generate significant regional or international conflict in the coming decade. main argument: • The energy, mineral, and human resources of the five post-Soviet Central Asian states have spurred economic and political strategies that protect these states from outside intervention and that tend to keep the region from major upsets. • Being too weak to assure their own security, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan must pursue conciliatory foreign policies. By contrast, the presence of exportable staples of oil, natural gas, coal, gold, or cotton has allowed Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to adopt more assertive policies vis- à-vis their regional neighbors. • Russia’s predominant influence in the region is unlikely to be challenged forcefully by any outside power. While instability within each of these authoritarian regimes could result in violence, outside powers besides Russia are unlikely to step in to restore order. policy implications: • The U.S. need not fear that any other power may “lock up” Central Asian energy resources. Increased supplies to China or Russia will help to moderate world prices somewhat. • To limit the flow of narcotics, arms, human trafficking, and would-be terrorists across Central Asia, cooperation with China and Russia is a promising possibility for the U.S., one that will require openness about the limited intentions of the U.S. and both imagination and coordination with the Central Asian governments themselves. • While possibilities for the U.S. to obtain mutually beneficial security agreements with individual states in the region do exist, none of these states is likely to become a long-term, reliable ally of NATO, of the U.S., or of any other great power. Central Asia Trade, Energy, and Security in the Central Asian Arena Dina R. Spechler and Martin C. Spechler Despite their remote location and underdeveloped economies, the five post-Soviet republics of Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan—have attracted the attention of the United States, Russia, China, and other Eurasian states. First, all five states have unexploited energy resources at a time when most kinds of fuels have become much more expensive. Second, the concern of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a rising economic and military power, about separatism amongst the country’s Muslim-Turkic populations has drawn the PRC into the Central Asian arena. Russia and the United States also have a strong interest in containing Islamic extremism on the edge of Central Asia—not to mention reducing trafficking of narcotics, arms, and human beings.1 Even though all three governments endorse such cooperative goals, these great powers—and some adversaries—suspect one another of trying to gain advantages. A portion of the elites in Russia, China, and even the United States still think in terms of great power rivalry. The “great game” is, however, an outdated metaphor for the behavior of the major powers in this portion of the world. 1 An estimated one-third of Afghan drug exports go through Central Asia. Despite increased seizures, much heroin shows up in Russia, Berlin, and New York City. On the way, thousands of Central Asians are corrupted, addicted, and often infected with HIV/AIDS. See “In Afghanistan, Heroin Trade Soars Despite U.S. Aid,” The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2006, A1. Dina R. Spechler (PhD, Harvard University) is Associate Professor, Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, specializing in the study of Russian and U.S. foreign policy. She can be reached at . Martin C. Spechler (PhD, Harvard University) is Professor of Economics, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and faculty affiliate of the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center, Indiana University. He can be reached at . The authors wish to thank Pearl Kim and Avi Spechler for research assistance. 206 • Strategic Asia 2006–07 All the newly independent Central Asian states are “super-presidential” authoritarian regimes with unclear procedures for succession to the present leadership.2 Any future instability would be a threat to the energy supplies and security cooperation outside powers wish to have in the Central Asian arena. Were one of these Muslim-majority states to fail and fall into disorder, jihadist forces might exploit the situation, using the unstable states as a base from which to threaten states outside the area, as occurred in Afghanistan prior to September 11, 2001. In the meantime, however, individual Central Asian states have gained enough...