EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Russia Hopes to Stem Revolutionary Tide in CIS by Strengthening Ties with Kazakhstan

EURASIA INSIGHT

RUSSIA HOPES TO STEM REVOLUTIONARY TIDE IN CIS BY STRENGTHENING TIES WITH KAZAKHSTAN
Igor Torbakov 2/23/05
A EurasiaNet Commentary

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Russia is bolstering strategic relations with Kazakhstan in an attempt to keep alive Moscow’s dream of establishing a Eurasian economic and political union of former Soviet republics. Many political analysts in Moscow, however, believe that in the wake of revolutionary developments in Georgia and Ukraine, the Eurasian union concept is no longer viable.

Two meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakhstani counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev last January underscored the two leaders’ growing concern with what the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has characterized "the third wave of liberation." The popular protests that forced incumbent governments from power in Georgia and Ukraine over the past 16 months directly challenge the notion of "managed democracy" espoused by Putin, Nazarbayev and other CIS leaders. The bloodless revolutions have dealt an additional blow to Russia, as both Georgia and Ukraine have shifted their geopolitical orientation away from Moscow toward the West. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Moscow has long viewed Ukraine and Kazakhstan as the two key members of its pet integrationist project, known as the Single Economic Space (SES). [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In the wake of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Kyiv’s interest in the SES has evaporated. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Ukraine’s new president, Viktor Yushchenko, has made European Union membership his country’s ultimate strategic goal. Symptomatically, immediately after Yushchenko’s inauguration, Georgia’s foreign minister Salome Zourabichvili noted that "a new important factor is emerging in European politics -- a democratic axis of Tbilisi-Kyiv, or even Tbilisi-Kyiv-Warsaw."

Given Ukraine’s shift, politicians and pundits in Moscow appear resigned to the fact that the SES will never be realized as originally envisioned. Some Russian analysts � including the Moscow Carnegie Center’s Alexei Malashenko -- believe that the SES, if it survives at all, will serve primarily as a vehicle for promoting Russian-Kazakhstani cooperation.

Such cooperation is of "tremendous importance," Malashenko said in an interview published by the official Rossiiskaya Gazeta. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution has elevated Kazakhstan to the position of Moscow’s key CIS ally, he added. Kazakhstani observers appear to be infused with a similar spirit of cooperation. Makbat Stanov, the president of the Institute of Development of Kazakhstan, called on Russia and Kazakhstan to "work out a coordinated strategy of action toward [post-revolutionary] Ukraine," in a commentary posted on the Kreml.ru website.

Over the longer term, stronger bilateral ties with Russia may help Kazakhstan balance China’s rising political and economic power, thus enabling Astana to maintain what Kazakhstani officials describe as a multi-vectored foreign policy. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Russia, meanwhile, is interested in preventing the further erosion of its influence in what has traditionally been its sphere of influence.

The more immediate political concern, however, is what Russian analyst Alexei Makarkin calls the "export of revolutionary technologies." Both Nazarbayev and Putin appear to view recent developments in Georgia and Ukraine as a foreign-sponsored effort designed to upset the established order in the region. Significantly, Kazakhstani experts don’t exclude the possibility that Georgian/Ukrainian-style revolutionary fervor could spread to Central Asia.

Kyrgyzstan, which will be holding parliamentary elections on February 27, is widely considered by regional analysts to be the Central Asian state most vulnerable to revolutionary pressure. Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev has himself acknowledged his country’s vulnerability by repeatedly expressing alarm about a "velvet revolution scenario." In comments published February 19 by the Russian newspaper Kommersant, Akayev claimed that "hundreds of spin doctors" who helped bring about regime-change in Georgia and Ukraine, have arrived in Kyrgyzstan to ply their propagandistic trade before and after the country’s parliamentary election. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Stanov, the Kazakhstani expert, suggested that if anything resembling the Ukrainian developments happens in any Central Asian nation, upheaval could easily spread "to all countries of the region no matter where they are located � close to or far away from the [revolutionary] epicenter."

These concerns are clearly shared in the Kremlin. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in mid-January, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov asserted that for Moscow, interest in CIS countries, including its defense and security aspect, "is a [strategic] priority." That’s why, he warned, Russia will "react very sharply to the export of revolutions to the CIS countries."

A few analysts draw comparisons between the Kremlin’s present-day support for ex-communist rulers in the Caucasus and Central Asia and Russia’s conservative policies within the framework of the monarchist Holy Alliance in the first half of the 19th century. Back then, Russia also tried to prevent the spread of the "revolutionary plague [of 1848]" and dispatched troops to Central Europe to quell local revolts. But this type of political conservatism, notes one commentary posted on the Gazeta.ru website, commits Russia now, as it did in the past, to supporting regimes that are inherently unstable and apt to collapse sooner or later.

Editor�s Note: Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC; a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York; and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. He is now based in Istanbul, Turkey.

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