Russian Presence and Ideology
The main priority for Russia’s policies in Central Asia has been to preserve and strengthen the Russian presence and influence in the region. The same is true for its policies toward certain other parts of the former Soviet Union—Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, and perhaps Armenia, although the remaining former Soviet republics have gone their own way so irreversibly that even the most ardent would-be restorers of the Soviet Union realize that there is little they would be able to do now. These ideas of “presence” and “influence” should be considered as being distinct from each other. “Presence” reflects Russia’s desire to remain involved in Central Asia and take part in the affairs of the Central Asian region. This could be called an attempt to reconstruct history, that is to say, to restore a former common space and pursue neo-imperialist plans. However, recapturing the past will not be possible, if only because none of the former republics would now be willing to give up its independence. Furthermore, Russia has neither the strength nor the means to incorporate any of them into its own fold, which would imply, apart from anything else, that the already very fragile system of international relations would again need to be reorganized.
Russia has long since abandoned any real imperialist ideology, and its sporadic aggressive outbursts are intended to express disapproval of the behavior of its now foreign neighbors rather than claims on their territory. Still, Central Asian leaders at times worry about Russia’s intentions in the region. Commenting on the Russian and Belarusian plans to form a union state in the late 1990s, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said that “establishing a union of this sort is the strategic objective of strong-state communists and national patriots, who want to then use the Russia-Belarus union to make Ukraine join as well, and then use this so-called ‘Slavic union’ as a base for dictating their will to the other sovereign states in the post-Soviet space.”1
Influence and presence are not the same thing. Presence exists or does not exist. Influence is mobile. It can strengthen and weaken. Russia’s policy toward its former Soviet neighbors can be seen only in the context of influence. Thus, Moscow and the other outside actors in the region are all on a level playing field.
It is common in Russia to use the term “near abroad” to refer to the country’s neighbors. The “near abroad” in modern Russian parlance means the same thing as the post-Soviet space, a term that would perhaps best be abandoned as a description of Russia’s nearest neighbors, especially because Finland and Mongolia, for example, are not covered by the term, although, in contrast to Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Uzbekistan, they share a border with Russia. “The post-Soviet space, for all the contradictions in the processes under way there, does not meet the criteria that would make it possible to define it as transnational political space.”2 A good example of the arbitrary nature of the post-Soviet space concept is the Commonwealth of Independent States. The CIS was created for the purpose of achieving a “civilized divorce” and cannot be used as an instrument for integrating the former Soviet republics. As a political institution, the CIS has become an “optional” presidents’ club, which each is free to leave for any reason whatsoever, most commonly to pursue a multivectored foreign policy and establish alternative foreign ties. It could be said that the CIS continues to exist only because it really does not bother anyone. Its existence depends entirely on Russia, which is not in a position now to be either leader or even arbitrator in the post-Soviet space. Moscow does not issue orders; more often, it tries to persuade its neighbors.
At the same time, however, “the examples of military intervention in Abkhazia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, and Transnistria have made some Central Asians fear that Russia may provoke conflict in order to put pressure on the newly independent states.”3 Fear of Russian intervention became especially strong after the five-day Russian-Georgian war in 2008. Rumors of impending conflict between Russia and Ukraine over the Black Sea Fleet’s base spread in late 2008. For a brief time, there was even talk that Russia and Kazakhstan could potentially clash over discrimination against the Russian population in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, made a statement shortly after the Russian-Georgian war in which he declared that the principle of territorial integrity is recognized by the entire international community. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has damaged Russia’s influence. Both parties in the conflict are members of the CIS and continue military technical cooperation with Russia. Russia is faced with the same situation in Central Asia, where it has ceased to be the leader in resolving key issues such as water resource distribution and, as the events in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 showed, it cannot act alone to ensure security and stability in the region.
Central Asia, like the other former Soviet republics, is a new space made up of previously unknown states with which the Russian Federation, also new in its existence as a separate state, is in the process of building relations. In terms of economic, diplomatic, and demographic weight, Russia is the successor to the Soviet Union only in an increasingly formal sense. A new Russian identity is starting to take shape and is still in a state of crisis. In its new and weakened form, Russia cannot be a presence in Central Asia, although it still has enough potential to have an influence in the region.
As throughout the former Soviet area, Russia has been fighting in Central Asia not only to protect its influence, but also for this influence to be recognized, which is equally important for building relations with the rest of the world, especially China and the United States. Most political theorists acknowledge, in particular, that Russia has “a key political role to play.”4 This is just as important for Russia as its economic and political interests. Recognition of Russia’s interests and the legitimacy of its claims are directly connected to the country’s image abroad. Russia has gone from being a superpower to becoming no more than an oil and gas appendage for Europe, and soon for China as well; it has dropped to the rank of a second-rate science and technology power, and it has lost its influence in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and other places, all of which makes a positive international image all the more valuable for the country. Russia’s elite may lose influence at home unless the country can maintain an image of strength and authority abroad. It is not by chance that when Vladimir Putin came to power, he became so attentive to the issue of Russia’s image abroad. Speaking on the topic of Russia’s negative post-Soviet image, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, then Putin’s special representative in relations with the European Union, said, “The national image is a serious undertaking that will require a lot more than just one-off services from information agencies to fix.”5
Important as it is, image needs to be based upon a solid foundation and material support of some kind. A negative economic, social, and political climate cannot form the basis for building a respectable international image. Out of 178 countries, Russia is currently ranked 65 on the human development index, 136 in the peacefulness ranking (the war against Georgia had an impact there), 75 on the social development index, 71 for attractiveness of life, 111 for the quality of its roads, and, finally, 172 on the “happiness index.”6
Most people in Central Asia probably have little idea of these rankings, and in any case, their own countries’ rankings are probably no higher than Russia’s, and indeed are more likely even lower. Whatever the case, Russia is not seen in the region as a success story, all the more so as migrant workers returning home have little flattering to say about life there. The Eurasian Monitor project, however, offers some interesting figures: 49 percent of the Russian population say they are happy with their lives and 45 percent are not happy, while in Kazakhstan the figures are 72 percent happy and 27 percent not happy.7
New Role Models
Russia today cannot fulfill the civilizing mission it played in the mid-nineteenth century. Today’s models for Central Asia are the West on the one hand and the Muslim world on the other, but even their influence and attractiveness are only relative and cannot be imitated to the letter. The attractiveness of the West derives from its prosperity, quality of life, and advanced technology, while Islamic tradition offers a chance to form an identity as part of a great civilization based upon principles of social justice, morality, ethics, and an ideal state and social order. Belonging to the Islamic civilization is compensation for Western superiority and helps to overcome the “little brother” complex that developed in Central Asia with regard to the Russians over the decades of Soviet rule and was transferred to its relations with the United States and Europe after the Soviet collapse.
Russia has no place in this dichotomy. It cannot position itself as a great power, and it has ceased to be the West’s equal in the global political arena. Unlike the Islamic world, it cannot challenge the West (or take up the West’s challenge), and it has not been able to propose an original alternative development path. True, Russia retains a relatively central place in the policies of the Central Asian countries. But it does not represent an ideal for these countries and is not the model they would choose to emulate as they strive to achieve success in everything from economic reform to developing civil and cultural value systems.
Like the other players in the region, Russia is faced with the question of whether to treat all of Central Asia as a single region. The very notion of “Central Asia” increasingly appears as a relic of the past, which, although certainly rooted in history and geography, is far from homogeneous and covers very different cultural and political environments: “There is no ‘Central Asia’ or other common territorial entity.”8 The culture and way of life of nomadic peoples, for example, differed greatly from that of the settled peoples of the Ferghana Valley; independent states have emerged and vanished. The only thing that really unites today’s Central Asia is its almost continuous “colonial past” as a region that was repeatedly invaded by powerful neighbors who tried to keep its lands under their control. It became part of the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century and remained a part of the Soviet Union after the Russian Empire fell. Since Soviet political terminology was unable to find a suitable common definition for the whole region, Soviet textbooks and historical works referred to “Central Asia and Kazakhstan.”
More than twenty years after the Soviet collapse, Central Asia can be spoken of only as a conglomerate of independent countries, each in the process of forming its own national interests and foreign policy priorities. There are practically no consolidated regional interests. Instead, there is talk of restoring the “Silk Road”; the need to resolve the water resource issue, which is important for all countries in the region; and the common threats that each country is essentially fighting on its own. Relations among the countries remain tense and periodically worsen as problems occur.
Since the borders between the countries are neither stable nor clearly defined, local conflicts flare up from time to time. A section of Uzbekistan’s border with Tajikistan and Kazakhstan has been sown with land mines for many years. In 2000, Turkmenistan opened 21 new border checkpoints in the Tashauz and Lebap districts on its border with Uzbekistan and increased the number of border guards by 500.9 At about the same time, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan deployed new border guard units along their common border. The situation has been exacerbated by the interethnic tension that erupted in a bloody conflict in 2010 between the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz of southern Kyrgyzstan, after which Uzbekistan closed its side of the border for eighteen months.
The latent instability in Central Asia, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia, and the unresolved Transnistria issue can all be seen as part of the aftermath of the Soviet collapse.
Common Interests
Of course, some circumstances bring the Central Asian countries together whether they like it or not, for example, the “threat from the south” (growing Islamic radicalism). Nevertheless, these circumstances have not contributed to political integration despite the numerous official declarations and international conferences and seminars devoted to such threats. Turkmenistan, for example, had been prepared to cooperate with Afghanistan no matter who was in power there. Without waiting for the situation there to stabilize, Ashgabat (with the support of foreign businesses) initiated construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. Incidentally, this project could be seen as providing indirect evidence that Turkmenistan had considered this a more reliable route than transit via Russia. In Tajikistan, one hears ever more frequently that the Afghan threat will not last forever, and that sooner or later the time will come to develop economic relations with Afghanistan.10 The situation in Afghanistan has had no noticeable impact on Kazakhstan, where the talk of the foreign threat from the south has been essentially rhetorical in nature. Tashkent is probably most wary about developments in Afghanistan, considering the links that exist between local radicals from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Taliban. At the regional level, there have been no appreciable independent efforts to counter Islamic radicalism. Most of the activity in this area has relied upon outside actors, chiefly Russia and the United States.
This lack of common regional interests has been reflected in the inability of the Central Asian countries to form regional organizations without needing to rely on outside participation. “Dependence on the center [that is, on Moscow] has given way to independence from both the center and from each other.”11 The Central Asian countries “clearly lack the strength to establish regional organizations that would fully meet their interests.”12 In the absence of mutual interests, selfishness has prevailed, and the countries hesitate to sacrifice their national interests for the sake of the common regional good. “It does not seem possible that between the Central Asian Republics a full integration will form in the near future,” said Turkish analyst Esra Hatipoglu.13 Tajik researcher Rashid Abdullo noted that the Central Asian countries “are only at the start of the road toward becoming national states” and pessimistically concluded that “it will be a good many years yet before they reach the point of carrying out any European-style integration.”14
Over the past twenty years, any attempt to establish a new organization has always resulted in internal disagreements being brought out into the open and in leadership battles being set off. In 1998, Kazakh scholar Sanat Kushkumbayev wrote that “integration in Central Asia would depend, above all, on the positions of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.”15
In August 1991, just before the Soviet Union collapsed, the leaders of the then Soviet Central Asian republics and Kazakhstan signed an agreement to establish a regional consultative council, and in 1993, based on the Uzbek-Kazakh agreement on measures to intensify economic integration over the period 1994–2000, made an attempt to organize interregional cooperation. These efforts gave rise to the Central Asian Union, which lasted until 1998. In 1997, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan signed a trilateral Agreement on Eternal Friendship, and in 2002, they signed an agreement setting up the Central Asian Cooperation Organization, which fell apart after the 2005 revolution in Kyrgyzstan without anyone really even noticing.
One would think that Moscow would have found it easier to preserve its influence in the region by playing on the contradictions among the former Soviet republics. However, the likelihood that they could be united under the aegis of Russia or that regional organizations could be established under Russian leadership has been steadily diminishing.
Bilateral Ties
It would be a mistake to regard Russian policy in Central Asia as a unified whole. It is based primarily on bilateral ties, and although on the whole relations with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have been good enough, Russia has had its differences and even periodic conflict in its relations with the other countries and is therefore forced to approach each country individually.
According to Anna Matveeva, the Kremlin’s Central Asian policy is more a reflection of “pragmatic opportunism” than “an attempt to revive the shared space.”16 This opinion is only partially valid, since this “pragmatic opportunism” is interlaced with ideological considerations. Another view has it that “Russia’s policy toward the members of the CIS did not really evolve. It was characterized by bluster and a lack of realism. Russia came up with one harebrained scheme after another.”17
Be that as it may, Russia will not be able to completely turn its back on the ideological residue of its Central Asia policy anytime soon, even though that complicates relations with the countries of the region. The main ideological precept here is a more or less veiled notion of the specific nature of the post-Soviet space and hence the privileged role that Russia has been called upon to play there. This view has two components: a veiled “post-Sovietism” and a Eurasian vision. In a presidential decree of September 14, 1995, then president Boris Yeltsin called reintegration of the post-Soviet space around Russia “a top foreign policy priority.”18 This was clearly a sincere statement from the Kremlin on the future of the former Soviet territories. This view was never again formulated in such direct terms, especially after outside players became more active and Russia simply did not have the strength to form the core of any newly reintegrated parts of the former Soviet Union.
The stratagem, however, continued as a policy vector and ideological component, albeit in truncated form. It was ultimately modified and became part of a more neutral neo-Eurasian vision, which sought principally to provide the cultural and philosophical justification for Russia to take the lead in Eurasia. Marlene Laruelle called it “a new pragmatic formulation of ‘Sovietism,’ a substitute for the global explanatory schemes of Marxism-Leninism....