Having feared the US entry into Afghanistan, some in Russia now fear the United States’ exit will make it a bigger target for Islamic militants.
For the last decade, Russian policymakers have watched in alarm as the United States, as part of its war effort in Afghanistan, has made strategic inroads into the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Washington has set up military bases and built relationships with the countries that Russia considers its sphere of influence, including Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
But now, the Kremlin is facing something potentially more dangerous than the Americans coming to Central Asia: the Americans leaving Central Asia.
The United States announced this summer that it intends to start pulling its troops out of Afghanistan in 2014. What sort of government develops in Afghanistan after that is unclear, but it will almost certainly include elements of the Taliban that are now fighting US forces. That could provide a bridgehead for radical Islamist groups to move northward, into the ex-Soviet Central Asian republics and possibly to Russia itself. Indeed, over the last month, Russian officials have been openly discussing this threat.
‘We aren’t on the verge of solving the problems in Afghanistan, but on the worsening of them, and quite a qualitatively different situation in the Central Asian region, especially after 2014,’ said Nikolai Bordyuzha, former chief of the Russian border service and now secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-led group that aims to form a political-military bloc to increase security in the former Soviet Union. ‘The prognosis is clear: Afghanistan will remain a base for organizing terrorist and extremist activities, we feel.’
‘Russia should expect the activation of militant activity on the borders of Central Asia after the withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq and Afghanistan…Threats can now come creeping to our southern borders,’ said Col.-Gen. Vladimir Chirkin, commander of Russia’s Central Military District.
‘We don’t want NATO to go and leave us to face the jackals of war after stirring up the anthill. Immediately after the NATO withdrawal, they will expand towards Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and it will become our problem then,’ said Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro.
Irina Zvyagelskaya, vice president of Russia's Centre for Strategic and Political Studies and senior scholar of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies, agrees with such sentiments. ‘There were a lot of people here who said the US being in Afghanistan was against Russian interests. Now the same people are saying, “how dare they leave Afghanistan,”’ she says.
Before the United States war in Afghanistan began in 2001, Islamist groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan maintained a low but persistent profile in several Central Asian states. An apparent assassination attempt on Uzbekistan’s president, Islam Karimov, killed 16 people in 1999, and in 2004, attacks on the United States and Israeli embassies in Tashkent killed four Uzbekistani security guards.
There have been no such attacks in recent years, however, and a major reason is because the United States’ war in Afghanistan has drawn jihadists from around the region. The number of Uzbeks, Tajiks and other Central Asians now fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan is unknown, but a US departure would free them up to return to the fight in the former Soviet republics, says Georgi Engelhardt, a Moscow-based expert on political Islam in Russia.
Photo Credit: ISAF Media
View as Single Page
Reddit
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
Technorati
Yahoo
Google
Plurk
No fixed address
We need to go to war to draw them in, they wanted to draw us in, the point being if we had had the tempo that we have now back after the first WTC bombing, 9/11 would never have happened. The situation is more manageable now, so the missions can be re-tasked.
So we will sent up a small foot print base in a Central Asian country to conduct operations inside Afghanistan, long range special forces, drones, air power against al-Qaida, terrorists. So Russia need not worry, small foot print, no terror vacuum.
observer
If the US troops really leave Afghanistan that will pose a problem for Russia eventually. There won’t be a buffer anymore between Central Asia/Russia and Taliban/AQ run Afghanistan that will act like a beacon for Islamists from all over the world including Central Asia to congregate, train and then return in their native lands to cause havoc.
The US needs to maintain strategic base in the Northern Alliance controlled areas, perhaps with CIA and special operations troops. They can act as advisers to the NA fighters who would inevitably have to face the Taliban onslaught like it was pre-9/11 period. In addition the US should also maintain some fighter planes in such bases that can act provide aerial support to NA fighters. Essentially Pakistan/Southern Afghanistan would need to be contained by a combination of NA fighters aided by limited US troops and aircraft, India and Russia would need to provide arms and training to the NA troops along with medical support. Eventually the economy in NA controlled areas need to be bolstered now that it is determined that Afghanistan has substantial mineral resources. Mining by the US, Indian and Russian companies are possibilities, however evacuating such mineral is a problem given the prickly situation between the US and Iran. India can perhaps cut some deals with Iran if the US is willing to look the other way whereby Iran gets a say in Afghan matters, the US cuts some slack on the Iranians (as long as they don’t try to whole hog on nuclear front) and in return Iran assists NA efforts, allows roads and shipping through Iranian ports. Such a scenario allows the US to deny China hegemony over Afghanistan (and eventually Central Asia) along with options to discourage future Chinese use of Pakistani Gawadar port etc with relatively minor long term troops commitment.
stoicheion
Why will the US withdrawal from the ’stan be seen as a defeat? Or a Taliban victory? The USA ALWAYS withdraws. Why should Afghanistan be any different?
We withdrew from the Mexico, France, Morroco, etc. When the USA withdrew from the Philippines it wasn’t seen as a defeat. Afghanistan shouldn’t be seen as a defeat either.
There is no reason for the USA to have troops in the ’stan. AQ and the Taliban have been defeated as a military force. Nothing left except a few murderous thugs and some drug lords. The ‘gani’s can deal with thenm, as they have been doing for thousands of years.
The future of anti terrorist efforts will be the drone campaign. Why go through the expence and danger of putting troops on the ground when some teenage boy sitting in an air conditioned building on the other side of the world can press a button and blow a terrorists to small bloody chunks?
Muslims want war? Muslims will get war. American style war.
ozivan
@stoicheion. The USA ALWAYS withdraws.
Except in Vietnam where US was defeated, the US never withdraws completely from any country where they had any major engagement. On the contrary, the US have a habit of continuing to maintain a few military bases and presence.
Philippines was different as Subic & Clark airbase was rendered useless by Mt Pinatubo volcanic eruptions happening co-incidentally with Filipino’s public opinion against the US over President Marcos.
Grant
If Russia was really worried, then perhaps they should have considered that four or five years ago. In any case I’m skeptical of claims that a Taliban victory will mean the end of the current authoritarian governments in Central Asia. There may be some threat but it seems unlikely that the Taliban could really export it out of Afghanistan, especially when they’ll be facing an Afghan government backed financially by India and the U.S for some time.
mike flynn
well, russia had its turn, then USA. surely the fanatic jihadists will soon give china ample cause to take its turn standing on the neck of islamic violence. it will never be choked off. but if the big boys are willing to draw fire, at least it will be concentrated.
yang zi
In 10 years, Muslim population will be 2.2 billion! The world population growth is and will be in major part from Muslim population. I have no bias against Muslims, but I don’t want to convert, and I don’t want to be an infidel.
So it is critical to have a moderate and progressive Muslim world.
Grant
Far too many people seem to assume that the Muslim world acts a unified group. History does not support that assumption. Once you get past the early days of the Caliphate there is considerable autonomy and difference of opinion among Muslims.
For a more modern example the secular, left-wing pan-Arab ideas were very popular throughout northern Africa and the Middle East until the late 1960s, but it turned into rather little collective action and it didn’t take long for internal rivalries to split the Middle East apart along nation-state lines.
For an example a bit later and more interesting to the current population, while the approval of groups like Al Qaeda might have occasionally gotten past 50% in some nations*, Al Qaeda does not seem to have ever had a large number of active (or temporary) members and certainly nothing even close to 1% of the Muslim population.
Lastly, to be worried about the global opinion of Muslims ignores the fact that the Muslims in the Philippines are rather different from the Muslims of Kyrgyzstan and they in turn don’t have that much in common with the Muslims of Somalia. Not even getting into the Shia/Sunni split or the impact of the Soviet Union or Western colonialism it seems to me that being worried about the global Muslim population would be about the same as getting worried about the global Christian population while ignoring the strong differences between France and the U.S or Poland and South Africa. From a political, sociological, historical and psychological perspective it doesn’t make much sense.
yang zi
All good points. China has 100 million Muslims, they are different from all the Muslims you mentioned.
The development, or awakening of Muslim population will change your analysis. Islam is an intensely exclusive religion. Expect to see Muslim scholars to emerge from Arab Spring and Turkey. these scholars will have popular thoughts and narratives explain the story of Islam, its value, its divinity, and its bright future. To understand the power, just look at Mecca. Christians doesn’t have a rally point like Mecca.
it only takes one Terry Jones to sharpen the divisions and radicalize populations.
tyron
For your comfort and peace of mind, there is no missionary in Islam. No forced conversion. Just read History 101; look at Baghdad in 10th century where imam, priest and rabbi could come together and discuss. There are and there has always been Christian, Jewish, Buddhist etc. minorities in Muslim lands. What were those Buddhist statues in Afghanistan that were sadly demolished by a bunch of idiots that had been supported and trained militarily by the US and ideologically by the Saudi Arabia, US’s closest ally and a thriving dictatorship that is poised to drown the Arab Spring with full US support? So, rest assured, unlike the experience of many East Asian, African and Latin American nations, you will not need to bother to think about a priest coming with a Bible in one hand, giving away the Bible and taking away the land and resources. Don’t confuse one with another. Peace.
Octavio
Fact: Baghdad in the 10th century had many Jews… not anymore. Muslim countries around the world have purged Jews and other religions. Fact: the Buddhist statues were built before Islam spread to what is now Afghanistan. Are there Buddhist in Afghanistan now? The answer is NO!! Islam has push them out so you can not say that they coexisted.
MostJustWantPeace
Actually, they might not want to mess with all the big boys, since their weapons has to come from somewhere, and one of the big boys has to lightly condone the movement of these arms in order for them to be well-armed. If they want to mess with China, Pakistan might just cut them off.