Russia's Sphere of Influence Continues to Shrink

[onedomino]

The LA Times article below is about the incompetence of Russian foreign policy. The topic is the loss of influence in states of the former Soviet Union.

Russia Fumbles, and Former Sphere of Influence Deflates
Moscow has all but lost a hold on ex-Soviet states by underestimating the populace, analysts say.
By Kim Murphy
Times Staff Writer
March 26, 2005

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russia26mar26,0,6084870.story?coll=la-home-headlines (probably requires registration)

MOSCOW — The revolt in Kyrgyzstan that toppled Russia's strongest ally in Central Asia was the result of the latest in what analysts say is an astonishing and painful series of diplomatic missteps by Moscow.

Three largely nonviolent revolutions over the last 16 months have all but eliminated Moscow's attempt to dominate the former Soviet states that were once part of its unquestioned empire. (we'll see about that)

The sudden collapse of Kyrgyz President Askar A. Akayev's regime, after the overthrow of governments in Georgia and Ukraine, highlights the fundamental frailty of corrupt, unpopular post-Soviet regimes across the region — most seriously, potentially, in Russia itself. (Here's to hoping that Putin's cutbacks on democracy, capitalism, and press freedom in Russia backfire and he is deposed.)

As a result, the once-formidable power wielded by the Kremlin in the three former Soviet capitals has given way to an increasingly influential diplomatic role for the United States and Europe — in part, analysts say, because of Russia's failure to successfully manage foreign policy in a region it has declared vital to its own strategic interests.

"The entire world has now seen that Russia is powerless and incapable of doing anything. And next time, no one will even think about resorting to Russia's mediation services and patronage," said Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin. "Everyone understands that the big lion is dead, and should not be feared."

Georgia's state minister for Euro-Atlantic integration, Giorgi Baramidze, said Russia was locked in the imperial policies of the 19th century czarist era, and had been unable to adapt to the economic, democratic and pragmatic alliances that now characterize state-to-state relations.

"Over all these years, Russia has failed to realize that all the empires collapsed in the last century, while Russia stubbornly continues to pretend that its empire is still alive," he said. "Russia is isolating itself from its own neighbors, and it is doing this with its own hands."

There is wide agreement that Russia could have prevented the sudden and chaotic disintegration of Akayev's government, either by stepping forward to support him or by brokering an orderly transition of power. But it did neither, apparently believing Akayev's assurances that the situation was under control.

"The only possible explanation for what happened is the gross, systemic miscalculation of the situation…. All of us have erred in believing in the general passiveness of the masses, and that authoritarianism will continue to prevail on the territory of the former USSR, no matter what," said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.

"The developments in Kyrgyzstan vividly demonstrate how wrong we were. They also demonstrate how rotten, unviable and brittle these regimes are," Malashenko said. "What happened in Bishkek shows that all the post-Soviet regimes are literally colossi with feet of clay — the slightest turmoil in their societies is enough to make these regimes crumble."

Suddenly, governments from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in Central Asia to Belarus and Moldova on Europe's borders appear vulnerable to public rage, which has fueled increasingly muscular movements that have overturned questionable election results in Georgia, Ukraine and now Kyrgyzstan.

Even Russia, where there has been talk of amending the constitution to extend Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's control past its legal mandate ending in 2008 (Just like in Syrian controlled Lebanon; how appropriate.), seems suddenly vulnerable, although it has a massive security apparatus and broad new controls on democratic structures designed in part to prevent such a scenario.

"There is no doubt that as a result of all the latest revolutions around Russia, a transition of power in Russia is starting to look more and more probable," said former democratic legislator Irina Khakamada, who unsuccessfully ran against Putin in 2004.

"The Russian people have already seen that it is possible to fight the government, and win," she said.

The resonance of the ebullient protesters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's capital, was apparent Friday in Belarus, where nearly 1,000 pro-democracy demonstrators marched near the palace of President Alexander Lukashenko, a tough, Soviet-style ruler who last year sponsored what observers termed a falsified referendum to extend his stay in office.

Police quickly cracked down on the protest and arrested the leaders, threatening them with up to three years in prison. (Long dead Soviets would be proud. See this Kathianne thread: http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19178)

"Needless to say, the latest developments in Kyrgyzstan have strongly influenced public sentiments in Belarus," Vladimir Kobets, a coordinator of the Zubr opposition youth group, said in a telephone interview. "Demonstrators thought: 'Well, maybe our day will come too, maybe it has already come?' You could read this hope in many people's eyes today."

Russia's former partner states in the Soviet Union have in many cases clung to power with the aid of Kremlin formulas of limits on opposition parties, controls on mass media and manipulation of elections, managing public dissent through the powerful security organizations that succeeded the Soviet KGB.

The Bush administration and private U.S. foundations have funded dozens of pro-democracy organizations across the former Soviet Union, groups that many post-Soviet leaders see as a threat. Such groups have helped catalyze activism in populations that no longer are willing to tolerate the increasing poverty and corruption that have plagued most of the republics that succeeded the Soviet Union.

After being caught off guard by the "Rose Revolution" that toppled former Georgian president Eduard A. Shevardnadze in November 2003, Russia actively promoted Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma's chosen successor in last year's presidential elections there.

The strategy backfired when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians protested allegedly falsified election results and swept the opposition into power. Stung by the international condemnation for what was seen as Russia's improper and ultimately counterproductive interference in Ukraine, the Kremlin apparently was determined to lie low this month during Kyrgyz parliament elections.

The Kremlin even invited Kyrgyz opposition leaders to Moscow before the first round of balloting in February, countering previous criticism that it had failed to forge alliances among opposition leaders in Georgia and Ukraine.

But as protests over the allegedly skewed balloting mounted and the opposition took control of most of southern Kyrgyzstan last week, Russia failed to recognize the threat to stability and act accordingly, critics said.

The result, they said, was that Russia allowed Kyrgyzstan to become dangerously unstable, and lost any chance of assuring that opposition leaders friendly to Russia would dominate the contest for power after the transition.

Nikolay Bordyuzha, secretary-general of the regional military alliance Russia shares with Kyrgyzstan, said Akayev had assured Russia, even when half his country was under the control of protesters, that "the situation was not acute enough" to warrant military help.

"He felt strong enough himself, and thought his team was strong enough, too, to keep the situation within the constitutional domain," Bordyuzha told Russian state television.

"Three days ago, Moscow was quite capable of saving the Akayev regime, it was quite capable of mediating the intra-Kyrgyz negotiations, given the fact that the opposition was ready to negotiate, and did not have any anti-Russian sentiments. Today, it is too late," said Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

"Moscow displayed fantastic and unimaginable unprofessionalism."

"Putin could have visited Kyrgyzstan in the midst of the events, he could have addressed both sides and called upon them to sit down at the negotiating table with Moscow," said Belkovsky, the analyst with Kremlin ties. "But Russia never used these powerful weapons."

Russian diplomats appear to be unconvinced that it is too late. Russian parliamentarians, perhaps accompanied by national security director Igor Ivanov, are scheduled to go to Kyrgyzstan within a few days to try to broker an agreement on an interim government and new elections.

"There is a threat that if Russia doesn't take a proactive stance, the Americans could well snatch the political initiative out of Russia's hands," said Alexander Khinshtein, a parliament Security Committee member who left for Bishkek on Friday.

"And it is absolutely clear that once the U.S. manages to establish control in this Central Asian republic and turns it into a U.S. protectorate, Russia will immediately find that the gate to Central Asia is locked for Russia," he said.

Bishkek City skyline (capital of Kyrgyzstan)

 

[onedomino]

Will this airbase remain in US control after the new election slated for 26 June? Probably. The following article is somewhat dated but it discusses Manas Air Field, an American airbase near the borders of Afghanistan and China.

U.S. Bases Overseas Show New Strategy
By Michael Mainville
July 26, 2004

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040726-us-bases.htm

MANAS AIR FIELD, Kyrgyzstan -- As he supervised a crew of mechanics working on a C-130 Hercules supply plane, U.S. Air Force Capt. Dale Linafelter marveled at finding himself at a dusty, long-abandoned bomber base in what was once the Soviet Union.

"I'd never even heard of Kyrgyzstan," Linafelter said.

The captain has got a lot company.

Manas Air Field near the capital of Kyrgyzstan now hosts more than 1,150 U.S. servicemen, the largest American military presence in Central Asia outside Afghanistan.

Yet "some of them still don't know where they are," joked Lt. Col. Stan Giles, the base chaplain. "You know, there's an old saying: 'War is God's way of teaching geography to Americans.' "

More geography lessons are on the way.

In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon is planning the greatest shake-up in America's overseas military deployments since the end of the second World War.

Gone are the days of massive bases in places like Germany, Japan and South Korea that look like small U.S. towns. Replacing them will be a global network of what Pentagon planners call "lily pads" -- small forward bases in remote, dangerous corners of the world that can act as jumping-off points when crises arise.

Bases like the one at Manas Air Field, Kyrgyzstan.

"This marks a new epoch in American force posturing," said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a Washington clearinghouse for strategic intelligence. "It's one of only a half-dozen similar reposturings since the American Revolution. It's a very significant change."

On July 13, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, Andy Hoehn, said in Washington that defense officials will present their redeployment proposals to President Bush within several weeks. Hoehn said he expects the changes to start taking effect in late 2005 or early 2006.

The strategy, experts say, is to position U.S. forces along an "arc of instability" that runs through the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and southern Asia. It is in these parts of the world --generally poor, insular and unstable --that military planners see the major future threats to U.S. interests.

The Pentagon believes that spreading U.S. forces through a large number of small, flexible bases within this arc would better position them to strike faster at remote hot spots. The U.S. military presence in these areas also could act as a stabilizing factor, preventing them from becoming hot spots in the first place.

"We don't know exactly where the next threat will be. It could be Iran, North Korea, China or other parts of the world. This redeployment is designed to allow us to quickly respond to any of those challenges," Pike said.

The U.S. military presence in Kyrgyzstan --a mountainous Muslim country bordering Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China --provides a glimpse of what is to come.

U.S. bases abroad cannot be named after individuals, but unofficially this facility is known as the Peter J. Ganci base, after a New York fire chief killed when the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Unlike the big garrison bases that have traditionally housed more than 80 percent of U.S. forces overseas, the Manas air base is small, simple and largely isolated from the surrounding community. There are no families, schools, fast-food chains or department stores.

Contact with local villagers and access to the nearby capital city of Bishkek are strictly limited. Postings rarely last longer than three or four months and accommodations consist of eight-man tents.

Initially set up as a temporary staging ground for incursions into neighboring Afghanistan, today the base serves primarily as a strategic airlift hub and launching area for air refueling missions -- exactly the kind of "lily pad" Pentagon planners envisage for other parts of the world.

About 10 flights a day depart from Manas -- either C-130 Hercules planes ferrying troops and supplies to bases in Afghanistan or KC-135 Stratotankers refueling American planes over Afghan airspace.

Whether the base is having the kind of stabilizing effect military planners are hoping for still isn't clear.

Kyrgyz officials credit the presence of U.S. forces with helping deter attacks from Islamic fundamentalists based in the Ferghana Valley, which straddles Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

One extremist group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is believed to be responsible for a string of attacks that left 47 people dead in Uzbekistan in April, launched incursions into Kyrgyzstan in 1999 and 2000 that the Kyrgyz military repelled only after taking heavy casualties.

"There haven't been any incursions since we got here," said Capt. Jason Decker, public affairs officer for the Manas base. "It's not why we're here, but we're happy to make it a more stable world."

Still, radical Islamic groups have condemned the Kyrgyz government for cooperating with the Americans, and in April four men were jailed for plotting to blow up the base. Two other attacks were averted over the past year, Decker said. Earlier this month, the Kyrgyz government also arrested six people, including four government employees, for allegedly spying for Islamic extremists abroad.

The presence of U.S. forces also has increased tensions between Central Asian countries and their former imperial master, Russia. Disliking American troops in its backyard, Moscow has pressured Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan --all of which now host U.S. forces --to ask them to leave.

Last year, the Kremlin convinced the Kyrgyz government to allow the Russian Air Force to set up its own base less than 70 miles from Manas. The Kant base marked the first foreign deployment of Russian forces abroad since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is home to Su-27 fighter planes, Su-25 ground-attack aircraft and Mi-8 helicopters, which conduct training exercises in Kyrgyz airspace. Decker said there has been no contact between American and Russian forces.

For ordinary Kyrgyz, the presence of the American base is less of a political issue than an economic one, said a senior Western official who has spent the past seven years in Bishkek.

In poverty-stricken Kyrgyzstan, the presence of even a relatively small number of American troops can have an enormous impact. The base employs more than 500 locals, paying them up to 10 times the average monthly wage of about $100. The base is pumping about $156,000 a day into the local economy and last year accounted for 5 percent of Kyrgyzstan's entire gross domestic product.

"The general attitude among people here is that they'll take it for what it's worth" the Western official said. "The advent of the American base has actually helped to create something of a middle class in Bishkek."

There are no signs that U.S. forces might abandon Manas any time soon. In fact, the Air Force is spending $60 million this year to replace the base tents with more permanent buildings constructed from shipping containers.

"This is not any kind of indication of moving to a permanent base," Decker insisted. "On the other hand, we're not leaving tomorrow. Our mission is going on until the global war on terrorism is done, until the Kyrgyz government doesn't want us here or until America decides to send us home."