The hasty withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the rise to power of the Taliban riveted the world’s attention to Central Asia. The world press is discussing the new balance of power of the leading powers in the region; and how climate change can exacerbate border conflicts.
The Jamestown Foundation: Familiar Chinese Policy Now Is Used Afghanistan
The Washington-based think tank The Jamestown Foundation writes about China’s “familiar” Central Asian policy now being applied in Afghanistan.
Recently, China has stepped up ties with the Taliban (a terrorist organization banned in Central Asia. – Ed.), offering investment in the economy and international recognition in exchange for regional stability. On July 28, 2021, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the key founders of the Taliban, led a delegation to Beijing. The agenda of Baradar’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quite clear: China has asked the Taliban to completely sever ties with the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan, which China considers a terrorist organization, whose goal is to take the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) out of the control of the authorities in Beijing. The Taliban delegation assured that Afghanistan will not provide a shelter for this group, as the Taliban hopes to develop friendly relations with China and expects investments from China to rebuild the country.
It is noted that it is too early to say whether the Taliban will be able to fulfill their part of the deal. The Taliban will be a difficult partner for China. There remains considerable uncertainty about what kind of Islamic ideology the Taliban leadership will pursue, and how this will affect foreign policy – especially with regard to its Central Asian neighbors.
In the long term, Afghanistan is in an ideal geographic position to benefit from China’s Belt and Road project, located between Central Asia and South Asia and potentially providing a channel for a landlocked country to the oceans of South Asia. Chinese companies are expected to be interested in plans to rebuild Afghanistan and provide connectivity. As China is determined to seek security guarantees on Xinjiang issues, future Afghan political elites will also be vulnerable to China’s open pockets.
Legendary bridge between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan
The American newspaper The New York Times writes about the famous bridge between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, through which the US allies, the Afghan military, left their country, as the Soviet Union once did. According to the author, the bridge has a frightening Orwellian name – “Friendship Bridge”, and has a legendary history of wars in Afghanistan.
In August 2021, the bridge across the Amu Darya River between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan became the backdrop for a turning point in the fighting. In a chaotic retreat from the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghan pro-government soldiers rushed to the bridge, fleeing on the opposite Uzbek bank. The scene reflected a landmark moment 32 years ago, at the end of the failed Soviet war in Afghanistan, when the bridge provided the last exit from the country for the defeated Soviet Army.
The name of the bridge has always had an ominous connotation, since the Soviet Union built the Friendship Bridge in 1982 to facilitate the supply of its army fighting in Afghanistan. The full name is Uzbekistan-Afghanistan Friendship Bridge. The American military, like the Soviet Army before that, for years sent tankers with jet fuel and helicopters through the crossing.
Uzbekistan has planned to extend the railroad, which currently only reaches Mazar-i-Sharif, to Kabul and neighboring Pakistan. The work was planned to begin in September and is now postponed indefinitely.
Eurasia Review: US should refocus attention on Central Asia
The American analytical resource Eurasia Review writes that it is time for the American authorities to reorient their attention to Central Asia because of the new reality in Afghanistan, and there are four things for this.
First, the US needs a new strategy for Central Asia. In February 2020, the Trump administration unveiled a new strategy for Central Asia. The document especially emphasizes the role of Afghanistan in the region. Two of the six “political objectives” were directly related to Afghanistan: “Expand and maintain stability in Afghanistan” and “Promote connectivity between Central Asia and Afghanistan”. While the strategy was well received at the time, current events make it obsolete. According to the author of the article, there is an urgent need for a strategy that reflects the new reality in the region.
Read also: US Policy in Central Asia under the Joseph Biden Administration
Second, it’s time for the first US officials to visit the region. None of the US presidents have ever visited Central Asia and it is time to change that. Meanwhile, a good way to easily and symbolically begin the renewal of engagement is to conduct several visits from senior US officials. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are two natural partners in the region, and the United States must maintain pragmatic relations with these two countries based on strategic and regional common interests.
Third, the United States needs to strengthen bilateral military and security relations with willing countries in the region. While it would be beneficial for the United States to reopen a military base in Central Asia, the likelihood that this will happen anytime soon. Instead, the US should take steps to restore confidence and focus on rebuilding bilateral relations with the Central Asian states. Then it is possible that sometime in the future circumstances will develop under which an American base will re-open in the region.
Finally, the US should not ignore the South Caucasus. The geography of Eurasia shows that getting into and out of Central Asia is not easy. When it comes to accessing the region, Pakistan is not always a reliable partner. Iran, China and Russia are obviously not options for the US either when it comes to accessing Central Asia. There remains a very small narrow corridor from Turkey through Georgia and Azerbaijan. So if Washington is serious about becoming more involved in Central Asia, the US should engage more with the South Caucasus countries.
The legacy of Russia and America in Afghanistan
The American think tank The Brookings Institution writes in an article that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the triumph of the Taliban create a serious security problem for Russia. Moscow expected the Afghanistan issue to be discussed at a meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in June, but Biden sharply cut the agenda, so the issue was touched on briefly.
Moscow’s worldview has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, from a defensive stance shaped by the Chechen wars to a more revisionist stance, exemplified by the annexation of Crimea. In the first case, cooperation with the United States focused on countering terrorist threats was possible and even desirable; in the latter case, confrontation with the West is the dominant feature, with the need to exploit any failure of US policy.
The withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan is recognized (and condemned) as a major setback. But the problem for Russia is that this does not bring any rewards, and the emerging security “black hole” does not fit into the confrontational perspective and even contradicts it. In the early 1990s, Russia was ready to ensure peace in Central Asia, and in the early 2000s, it was ready to cooperate with the United States in rebuilding Afghanistan; but at present Moscow cannot reconcile its hegemonic ambitions with depleted power resources. Blaming the United States for an unfolding catastrophe in Afghanistan will not help counter the new risks. But Moscow is reluctant to grasp the implications of this disaster – the need to limit expansionism, from Syria to the Arctic, and take Central Asia seriously.
Taliban victory disrupts geopolitics in Central Asia
The Jamestown Foundation, an analytical publication, notes that the sudden victory of the Taliban amid the final withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan has increased fears in Central Asia about the threat this movement poses to them. This has sparked discussions in Central Asian capitals about how they should respond – both in terms of their own domestic policies and in terms of the alliances they have with others. All countries in the region recognize that the external threat of a Taliban-led Afghanistan means they must put aside some of their traditional conflicts with each other and focus instead on a shared security issue.
At the same time, what happened in Afghanistan prompted external powers such as Russia and China to strengthen their current positions in some countries of the region and, interestingly, to use the current crisis to expand security cooperation with Turkmenistan, which has been reluctant to cooperate with them in the past.
In this rapidly changing situation, both Moscow and Beijing are interested in stability; but their larger goals may lead to divisions in the future. At the very least, their differences in goals and approaches are likely to be exploited by the governments of Central Asia themselves, including Turkmenistan.
The two most important external actors also assess the nature of the Taliban threat to Central Asia and how best to respond. China fears that the Taliban could threaten its trade routes through Central Asia and provoke further Muslim resistance to Beijing’s repressive actions in Xinjiang.
Russia, for its part, moved on to modernizing its bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, held military exercises with its four Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) allies (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), and provided additional assistance in ensuring border security. Russia has made it clear that it will use the CSTO as the main instrument for organizing the defense of Central Asia against any threat from the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
However, Moscow’s approach suffers from two limiting factors. On the one hand, Russia is almost exclusively focused on having the military capability to withstand a direct Taliban invasion of the region. The latter are unlikely to carry out any such attack – not only because it will provoke a retaliatory measure from Russia, but also because the Taliban are much more likely to participate in guerrilla warfare in the border regions and rely on sympathizers, who are already abundant throughout Central Asia.
On the other hand, Moscow’s dependence on the CSTO highlights a serious problem: Turkmenistan, which shares a 700-kilometer border with Afghanistan, is not a member. The country is known for its long-standing desire to remain neutral in everything – its main newspaper is called Neutral Turkmenistan – and it has sought to maintain good relations with both the Taliban and the now-fallen Afghan government. It is unlikely that the Russian government will change its focus from a military priority; but it is increasingly clear that Moscow would like to see Turkmenistan become more involved in regional cooperation efforts and even abandon its neutrality and become a member of the Russian-led CSTO.
Tajikistan does not recognize Afghan Taliban government
The online magazine The Diplomat writes that Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, after talks with the Pakistani Foreign Minister, stressed the need to create an inclusive Afghan government, especially with the participation of ethnic Tajiks.
Tajiks are believed to be the second largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, accounting for about 25 percent of the population, after the Pashtuns, with whom they have long struggled for power in the country. Ethnic Tajiks were at the center of resistance to both the Soviet Union and the predominantly Pashtun Taliban (although the Northern Alliance was multi-ethnic); Ahmad Shah Massoud of the Panjshir Valley was Tajik, as were a number of later Afghan politicians, including Amrullah Saleh and Abdullah Abdullah (who is considered by many to be Tajik, although he is a Pashtun by his father’s side). Saleh, who was Afghanistan’s vice president before the flight of President Ashraf Ghani earlier in August month, has joined Masood’s son Ahmad Masood in the Panjshir Valley in pledging to resist Taliban rule.
Earlier, some Indian media reported that the resistance movement in Panjshir received “military equipment, weapons and other supplies by helicopter from Tajikistan.” The Tajik Foreign Ministry denied these reports.
Taliban leaders met with Afghan leaders, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah. Their inclusion, even if only cosmetic, may satisfy Dushanbe for now. However, it is worth noting that the President of Tajikistan is no stranger to putting up with the opposition, bringing them into the government, and then getting rid of them at a convenient time.
Does Climate Change Affect the Exacerbation of Border Conflicts in Central Asia?
Bellingcat, an international network of investigative journalists, in a piece entitled “Does Climate Change Affect Exacerbation of Border Conflicts in Central Asia? What Satellite Images Say” writes that one of the reasons for the latest border conflict between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan may be climate change, which has dramatically increased the value of water and fertile land. Climatic data indicate that precipitation has decreased in the years leading up to the impacts, soil temperatures have decreased and vegetation health has deteriorated.
The researchers analyzed and correlated satellite images. Analysis of Landsat 8, Sentinel 2 images, as well as data from other remote sensors. Open source imagery alone cannot shed light on these complex dynamics. And yet, starting in 2019, satellite data show that farmers in the region not only have to manage less irrigation water, but also adapt to lower soil temperatures. This could have led to near-record low yields in 2020, which in turn could have raised concerns about the 2021 harvest.
As greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic factors continue to reshape the Earth’s climate, threatening crop loss and increasing drought, the historic divisions over control of dwindling resources take on new urgency. In these circumstances, the slightest provocation, such as the installation of surveillance cameras, can lead to a conflict that will shake the entire region.