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YaleGlobal Online is a publication of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. The magazine explores the implications of…

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Putin Seeks Greater Influence in Central Asia

Russia has revamped its Central Asia policy in recent months with a major outreach to Pakistan and stepping forward as a power broker in Afghanistan, its former stomping grounds. With the help of its newfound strategic partner, China, Russia intends to checkmate the United States’ regional pre-eminence. But the maneuvering has also brought Moscow in opposition to New Delhi with which it has traditionally shared robust ties. Any new power equation in the region will have long-term implications.

Since the 1960s, Russia has been a close partner of India in Central Asia. This relationship has stood the test of time even as global power equation changed after the end of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the high point of the relationship was the signing of the 1971 Indo–Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation, which signaled a decisive shift away from the West in response to an emerging U.S.-Pakistan-China axis in Central Asia. Though not an explicit military alliance, this treaty was a sharp departure from India’s professed policy of non-alignment, and New Delhi emerged as a close partner of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The treaty, in effect, created a deterrent against any form of U.S.-Pakistan-China detente and rendered India increasingly dependent on the Soviet Union for defense capabilities.

The relationship’s economic dimension was never strong, and the fall of the Berlin Wall exposed the foundations of Indo-Russian ties to new vulnerabilities. Russia’s position as India’s defense supplier of choice has increasingly come under pressure since the 1990s, when the West opened to India. Still, Russia and India continued to recognize the need for each other. India, the world’s top defense importer, is overseeing an upgrade of its mostly Soviet-era military equipment. Russia is the world’s second largest arms exporter, following the United States. In 2016, India and Russia signed major defense deals worth billions of dollars, including pacts for five S-400 Triumf air defense systems, four stealth frigates and a joint venture to manufacture Kamov-226T light utility helicopters in India.

India is a challenging market for U.S. defense exporters, and Russia has traditionally been willing to go along with “made in India” policies promoting indigenous production. For its defense matrix, India cannot afford to marginalize Russia as it still is the only country selling critical strategic technologies to India.

In recent years, India has grown concerned about Russia’s growing closeness to China and especially the overtures to Pakistan. Vladimir Putin, intent on viewing Central Asia through the prism of Russia’s geopolitical competition with the West, may have decided that the time was right to tilt towards Pakistan. U.S.-Pakistan ties may have hit their nadir and the new U.S. administration, expressing isolationist tendencies, remains consumed by multiple domestic crises.

The global arms market has become more difficult for Russia to navigate, with China deciding to produce its own weapons rather than procuring them from Russia. Moscow needs new buyers. Related: What Gold Can Tell You About Oil Prices

Moscow and Islamabad held their first joint military exercise in September 2016 and their first bilateral consultation on regional issues in December. Russia lifted an arms embargo against Pakistan in 2014 and will send four Mi-35M attack helicopters this year. Russian troops participated in this year’s Pakistan Day military parade. And the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor linking Xinjiang to the Pakistani port of Gwadar could be merged with the Russia-backed Eurasian Economic Union.

But causing real consternation in New Delhi is Moscow’s decision to side with China in ensuring that Pakistan does not get isolated globally. At the 2016 BRICS summit in Goa, Russia did not back India’s demand to name two Pakistan-based terror groups as perpetrators of terrorism against India, thereby shielding Pakistan from censure.

This shift in Russian stance is also evident in the role that it envisions for itself in Afghanistan, coming almost four decades after the 1979 Soviet invasion of the country. Russia hosted a February six-nation conference in Moscow on Afghanistan’s future with participation from India, Iran, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan. This was Russia’s second initiative after the first trilateral conference in December, including only China and Pakistan.

The December conference agreed upon “a flexible approach to remove certain [Taliban] figures from [United Nations] sanctions lists as part of efforts to foster a peaceful dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban movement.” The three states underscored their concern “about the rising activity in the country [Afghanistan] of extremist groups, including the Afghan branch of IS [the Islamic State]” and underlined that the Taliban is a necessary bulwark in the global fight against the Islamic State. Kabul and other partners like New Delhi were surprised, while the Taliban was ecstatic. "It is joyous to see that the regional countries have also understood that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is a political and military force,” noted a statement issued on the Taliban’s behalf. “The proposal forwarded in the Moscow tripartite of delisting members of the Islamic Emirate is a positive step forward in bringing peace and security to Afghanistan.”

Russia faced flak for not inviting Afghanistan to the December conference. The U.S.-backed Afghan government had registered a strong protest after its exclusion, underlining that, regardless of participants’ intentions, excluding Kabul would not help stabilize the country.

So, Moscow was more careful for the February meeting, broadening outreach by inviting India, Iran, Afghanistan and most regional stakeholders while pointedly excluding the United States and NATO. It was left to Afghanistan to underscore U.S. centrality in the country’s unfolding dynamic and to push for inclusion of the United States as one of its most important partners to “end war and usher in sustainable peace in Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan also took on Pakistan at the conference when it underlined the need to “effect a change in the behavior of certain state actors” to end the violence that has reached record levels in the last year. Afghanistan also strongly pushed back against the “good Taliban, bad Taliban” discourse being championed by Russia, China and Pakistan. The Afghan representative at the talks, M. Ashraf Haidari, argued: “the key challenge to the process remains a policy selectivity by some to distinguish between good and bad terrorists, even though terrorism is a common threat that confronts the whole region, where if one of us doesn’t stand firm against it, others’ counterterrorism efforts will not bear the results we all seek.” Related: These Fundamentals Point To Higher Oil Prices

Of course, New Delhi welcomed that stance, arguing that Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation efforts should be facilitated by “friends and well-wishers of Afghanistan.” Targeting Pakistan, India also reiterated that denying “safe havens or sanctuaries to any terrorist group or individual in countries of our region,” remains central for the long-term stability of Afghanistan.

Russia is now planning to host another round of talks on the conflict in Afghanistan on April 14. 12 countries, including the United States and five Central Asian nations, have been invited to attend. Ahead of this meeting, Pakistan recently brought together seven top Taliban leaders in Islamabad to cajole them for the peace talks.

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Moscow has established itself as the leading power broker in the conflict-ridden country, since most NATO forces withdrew in 2014 and where 8,400 American soldiers remain. NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti, recently warned that he had “seen the influence of Russia of late - increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban."

Russia, in concert with China, challenges U.S. strategic priorities on multiple fronts, and regional theaters like Central Asia are likely to face the brunt of this geopolitical competition, putting older relationships under strain even as new ones take shape. The new Great Game for Central Asia has only just begun.

By Harsh V. Pant via YaleGlobal Online

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  • Douglas Houck on April 07 2017 said:
    One of the better geopolitical articles I've read here. Thanks.

    Not sure if the Eurasian countries see it in the West's terms of competition as stated by the authors. I don't think they care that much about the West. They see it more as using their own approach to how they want to interact with each other. They don't like the West's system and would prefer to be left alone, but it's not like they won't interact with, or want to dominate the West.

    Will be interesting to see where India fits in, especially with China.
  • Old Blue on April 11 2017 said:
    The central Asian countries are very well aware that there is geopolitical maneuvering going on here. Afghanistan is well aware of its status as a pawn in this new "Great Game" in Asia.

    Pakistan is well aware that the only Afghan government to officially recognize the Durand Line as the permanent border with Pakistan was the Taliban regime.

    It is dismissive to believe that Pakistan and India aren't interested in the competition between Russia, China and the West, particularly the United States. Their viewpoints, and desire for alliances, are certainly based on their own self-interest. History, as viewed from their perspective, plays a key role. They do not desire to be "left alone." As the author pointed out, part of this strategy was based upon preventing Pakistan from being isolated politically. Both Pakistan and India have interests in the outcomes in Afghanistan. Of these three, only Pakistan wishes to see the Taliban return to power.

    For their parts, Russia and China both seek to leverage one end or the other of the political perpetual motion machine that is the never-ending conflict between India and Pakistan. Both share a common goal in wishing to see the influence of NATO and the U.S. diminished in Central Asia. Bear in mind, however, that China has a significant stake in the establishment of security in Afghanistan; the Aynak copper deposit.

    Exploiting the Aynak mine will require more than security in Logar Province, though. It will require the construction of a promised rail link to China to transport the copper ore. China has a dilemma; would a reinstated Taliban government honor an agreement made by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan?

    Is China hedging their bet by playing along with Russia and Pakistan in hopes of a hybrid solution that leaves Afghanistan a slightly altered Islamic Republic, and not quite an emirate? Perhaps. But that is a risky game to play with billions on the line. China may not stand resolutely with Russia on any potential outcome that leaves their copper contract in any sort of doubt.

    China and India view each other as markets and as competitors. The competition is economic, political and military. Remember that China and India have fought over competing territorial claims in the past 50 years, and that some areas are still disputed. Each wants access to the enormous market the other represents, while minimizing competition economically.

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