Central Asian Security Trends: Views from Europe and Russia

Abstract

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) publications enjoy full academic freedom, provided they do not disclose classified information, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresent official U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them to offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.FOREWORDPresident Barack Obama has outlined a comprehensive strategy for the war in Afghanistan, which is now the central front of our campaign against Islamic terrorism. That strategy strongly connects our prosecution of that war to our policy in Pakistan and internal developments there as a necessary condition of victory. But it has also provided for a new logistics road through Central Asia. In this monograph, Dr. Blank argues that a winning strategy in Afghanistan depends, as well, upon the systematic leveraging of the opportunity provided by that road and a new coordinated nonmilitary approach to Central Asia. That approach would rely heavily on improved coordination at home and the more effective leveraging of our superior economic power in Central Asia to help stabilize that region so that it provides a secure rear to Afghanistan. In this fashion, we would help Central Asia meet the challenges of extremism, of economic decline due to the global economic crisis, and thus of political stability in states that are likely to be challenged by the confluence of those trends.This monograph therefore contributes directly to the debate on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Central Asia and duly represents a part of the Strategic Studies Institute's continuing efforts to participate in and help shape that debate over U.S. strategy and policy. The topic could not be more timely, and we hope that it will influence those ongoing debates about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Central Asia.Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.DirectorStrategic Studies InstituteINTRODUCTIONOn January 25-26, 2010, SSI organized a conference entitled, Contemporary Issues in International Security, at the Finnish embassy in Washington, DC. This was the second in what we hoped will be annual conferences bringing together U.S., European, and Russian scholars and experts to discuss such issues in an open forum. The importance of such regular dialogues among experts is well known, and the benefits of these discussions are considerable. Just as we published the papers of the 2008 conference in 2009 (Stephen J. Blank, ed., Prospects for U.S.-Russian Security Cooperation, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2009), we are doing so now. However, in this case, we are publishing the papers on a panel-by-panel basis.The papers collected in this volume pertain to Central Asia. Indeed, they offer us two foreign views of the strategic situation evolving there-a Russian and a French analysis. For obvious reasons: the war in Afghanistan, proximity to major global actors, large energy holdings, and for less obvious reason, i.e., the possibility that domestic instability in one or more of these states could spread to other Muslim states as we now see in the Arab revolutions of 2011, Central Asia is an increasingly important and interesting strategic region. As such, it merits sustained critical attention and analysis of the sort we are presenting here and that we have presented in the past. We also intend to continue doing so in the future. Yet for all of Central Asia's growing importance, it is a hard area to grasp analytically. To nonspecialists, it is likely to be something of a terra incognita, an unknown region, whose landmarks impart a sense of unfamiliarity, even unease, to those coming from the outside to try and understand it. …