Ukraine’s shadow on Central Asian steppes
Russia is increasingly left with no choice but to ‘declassify’ the privileged information in its possession regarding the western intelligence operation that forced the power grab in Kiev. It is extraordinary that Russia handed over to the UN Security Council the information with the request to hold an impartial international investigation.
Of course, any such move for impartial investigation will be vetoed by the United States. Russia knows it, too, but then, there is also an information war going on today regarding the situation around Ukraine and from Moscow’s point of view, as tensions keep rising, it has become imperative to expose the US’ narrative to be sheer baloney.
Clearly, Poland and Lithuania would not have ventured into the operation to train extremists to overthrow Yanukovich without getting the green signal from Washington. That is to say, Russia is putting on the horseshoe table at the UN the intelligence regarding a Holy Grail that belongs to the White House.
This is deadly serious stuff because it casts President Barack Obama in an altogether new light as a ‘cold warrior’ himself, whereas the American official propaganda would have us believe that the president is a helpless statesman largely acting under domestic political compulsions.
What emerges on balance is that there is no way the US-Russia tattered ties can be mended during the remaining period of Obama’s presidency. Equally, there is no way Russia is going to let down its guard about the US intelligence activities in its ‘near abroad’.
Thus, it cannot be business as usual in Afghanistan and Central Asia, which used to be an important template of the so-called US-Russia reset. Lest it is forgotten, President Vladimir Putin played a key role in establishing the American military bases in the Central Asian region in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Again, up until now, Russia took an ambivalent position on the establishment of military bases in Afghanistan by the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But all this will give way to a sense of great wariness about the implications of long-term, open-ended western military presence in the region.
Indeed, the Obama administration’s pretence that the US will be doing a favor for the Afghan people and regional stability — and especially to contain the India-Pakistan turf war in the Hindu Kush — by keeping long-term military presence in the region will henceforth be taken by Moscow with more than a mere pinch of salt.
Washington’s male fide intentions over Ukraine should alert Moscow to the great potential for the CIA to use Afghan soil to bring about ‘regime change’ in Central Asia and to foment trouble in North Caucasus.
In fact, the recent attack on the border guards of Turkmenistan from elements of obscure origin from Afghanistan is a harbinger of what to expect. Of course, the blame got to be put on the Taliban (although Ashgabat is keeping its thoughts to itself over the incident in which three Turkmen guards were killed.)
But why should the Taliban attack Turkmenistan and annoy Ashgabat, which used to be the one and only genuinely friendly Central Asian capital that uniquely maintained good rapport with Kabul even during the Taliban rule in the late 1990s?
Put differently, someone seems to be making out a good case to convince Ashgabat (whose foreign policy is riveted on the principle of ‘positive neutrality’) that Turkmenistan does need some help from the US and NATO as a provider of security.
By coincidence, the March 1 incident on the Turkmen-Afghan border comes amidst reports that the US intelligence is keenly looking for facilities in Central Asia for supporting the drone aircraft’s surveillance operations.
To be sure, Central Asian regimes will be keenly watching the developments unfolding in Ukraine. They would know in the light of the intelligence reports that Moscow has ‘declassified’ that the bell tolls for them as well. Symptomatic of the latent fears in the region is the decision by Dushanbe to block the broadcast by the US government-funded Radio Liberty & Free Europe.
A curious twist to the current ‘color revolution’ in Ukraine is that the US intelligence organized the ultra-nationalists as the foot soldiers to stage the coup. It so happens that the post-Soviet regimes in Central Asia, especially Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, have also encouraged (for a variety of reasons) nationalist sentiments to take root in their society and it may come to haunt them if foreign powers co-opt the ultra-nationalists as has happened in Ukraine.
The events in Ukraine underscore the ease with which bottled up popular resentments can be exploited by foreign powers to push for ‘regime change’. On the surface, the Central Asian region remains calm but almost all the elements that made Ukraine into a volcano waiting to erupt are existent there.
The beefing up of the Russian military presence in Central Asia, therefore, has a huge geopolitical backdrop. The Russian thinking has hitherto been that Russia on one side and the US and the NATO on the other side would have a congruence of interests to minimize, if not eliminate, the instability factors affecting the security and stability of Central Asia and Afghanistan.
However, as Ukraine developments unfold, there is bound to be a paradigm shift. Suffice to say, it will be too risky for the Kremlin to contemplate the US and NATO as benign partners anymore. It cannot be lost on Moscow that the author of the famous book, The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski is today openly talking about NATO mobilization, “deploying forces in Central Europe so we are in a position to respond if war should break out and spread.”
Ambassador Bhadrakumar already showed that both India and China support Russia.