Afghanistan

Armenia's announcement this month that it was tripling its troop commitment to Afghanistan raised some eyebrows. It has no NATO aspirations, and has largely thrown in its strategic lot with Russia, as evidenced by the agreement it recently signed allowing a large, decades-long Russian military presence in the country.

But the newest trend in Eurasian geopolitics is multi-vectored foreign policy (i.e., trying to balance relations between various big powers rather than becoming dependent on a single one), pioneered by Kazakhstan but now increasingly deliberately employed across the region. And that means that even faithfully pro-Moscow states like Armenia have to hedge their bets a little. Thus, Armenia's contribution of two extra platoons (81 soldiers) to help guard the airport in Mazar-e-Sharif, bringing its troop contribution to a total of about 130. As Deputy Defense Minister David Tonoyan told Mediamax:

First of all, this step is based on Armenia's interests in accordance with the multi-layer and initiative foreign policy of our country, and demonstrates our particular place in the world order after the "cold war".

And he played down suggestions that cooperating with NATO in Afghanistan was somehow incompatible with Armenia's membership in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, emphasizing the CSTO's cooperation with ISAF in Afghanistan:

When Washington's "it" think tank, the Center for a New American Security, published a report (pdf) today called "Beyond Afghanistan: A Regional Security Strategy for South and Central Asia," I dug in, expecting some serious discussion of the Northern Distribution Network, the instability in Tajikistan, the possibility of a "New Silk Road" and so on. But instead, the ex-Soviet states were almost entirely ignored in this "regional strategy." The report focuses on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, calling Afghanistan's other neighbors "influential but ultimately less vital actors." The short section on Central Asia was written, probably tellingly, by an intern.

As far as it goes, that's probably a correct assessment. Afghanistan is obviously central to the U.S.'s interests in the region now, Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan is clearly a huge issue, and Pakistan's relationship with India is the key to untangling that. By comparison, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, to say nothing of the other Central Asian states, are secondary players (though many boosters, for example Fred Starr, argue otherwise). On twitter, one of the report's authors, Andrew Exum, defended the de-emphasis of Central Asia: "The key question is how much of a *priority* should CA be for policy-makers given other, competing priorities." And it's hard to argue with that.

Remember when everyone from this blog to the Taliban was making a big deal of the news that Kazakhstan was sending some troops to Afghanistan? Well, that may have been a bit premature. It turns out that the Kazakh contingent will number... four:

"Under the agreement signed by Kazakhstan and NATO, the republic is going to send four servicemen to work at the ISAF headquarters in Afghanistan ... which means that we are not sending a contingent of the military forces, but we are joining in the international effort to help the Afghan government and parliament to ensure security and restore the peaceful life in this country," he [Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Askar Abdrakhmanov] said.

Those four, my colleague Joanna Lillis reports, include "two military analysts, one epidemiologist and one logistics expert." That's six less servicemembers than Luxembourg has deployed, and the same number as Iceland, which doesn't even have a military.

The Taliban, in their statement, bragged that "the dispatch of a few hundred troops will not change the fate of the invaders who are already on their way to defeat. Nor they will turn the defeat into victory." And if a few hundred troops wouldn't turn the tide, four desk jockeys certainly won't.

Kazakhstan's decision to send troops to Afghanistan has elicited a quick rebuke from the Taliban, which warns that the deployment "will leave a long-term negative impact on relations between Afghanistan and Kazakhstan and the region."

The statement accuses Kazakhstan of kowtowing to Washington:

[I]t seems from the abrupt and impetuous decision of Kazakhstan that rulers of that country have shown impetuosity and hastiness in taking the decision. They have focused on protection of American interests instead of taking into account the aspirations of their people and the regional interests.

And it calls Kazakhstan ungrateful for the Afghan jihadis' role in ensuring its independence:

Kazakhstan obtained its liberation and got an identity after the collapse of the former Soviet Union at the hands of the Afghan people. In a way, they ( must) remain obliged to the blessing of the Afghan Jihad and struggle. Still, if they have opted to take part in the war of the illegitimate occupation of Afghanistan, it will be their historical perfidy and an act of impetuosity politically.

Kazakhstan apparently has decided to send a contingent of troops to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, several news agencies have reported. From Reuters:

An unspecified number of Kazakh soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan on six-month missions with the International Security Assistance Force, in line with a bill passed by the lower house of parliament. The document did not say when the first Kazakh contingent would be going.

The government of Kazakhstan appears to not be trying to make a big splash with the news. The parliament's press service mentions the news only at the bottom of a very long account of yesterday's doings in the lower house of parliament (in Russian):

And today, the Chamber heard the report of the Vice-Minister of Defense Aset Kurmangaliyeva with Majlis member Ualikhan Kalizhanova, and voted to adopt the draft of the law "On Ratification of the Agreement in the form of an exchange of notes between Kazakhstan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to participate in the activities of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan." The bill was approved.

It would be worthwhile to know whether the soldiers being sent are those of the U.S.-backed KAZBRIG peacekeeping brigade. KAZBRIG has gotten off to a slower start than intended, so this would be a sign that at least some small part of the brigade is ready for overseas deployment.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has played a variety of roles in the ten years of its existence -- a proto-military alliance, a counterbalance to U.S. presence in Central Asia, an instrument for cracking down on dissidents across borders. The organization, it seems, is still finding its identity, and is still the subject of a lot of curiosity and suspicion. The Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted an event today discussing where it's headed. Some takeaways:

-- While the focus of the SCO so far has been on security, it is trending toward a more economic orientation or, as one of the speakers, Alexander Cooley, put it, "a regional goods provider." Cooley suggested that could include using the SCO as a mechanism for providing Russian and Chinese technical aid, in a model comparable to the US Agency for International Development, to poorer SCO members like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; using the organization as a clearinghouse for large-scale investments in strategic infrastructure projects in Central Asia; or to use it to manage the various oil and natural gas pipelines from Central Asia to China on issues from security to pricing.

Turkey has said it would be willing to host an office for the Taliban, in the hopes that would help advance a peace process ending the war in Afghanistan. From the AP:

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that he talked last month about hosting a Taliban office with Burhanuddin Rabbani, a visiting former president of Afghanistan who leads a peace council set up by the Afghan government to work toward a political solution.

“We discussed in detail their request to (establish) such an office and said that we are ready to do everything possible for this process,” Davutoglu said Monday on a trip to Hungary. “If there is such a demand, Turkey will help with full capacity.”

Officials from Afghanistan had previously talked about such a possibility, but Turkey has been publicly silent on the issue until now. Having such an office in a non-neighboring country would obviously make it much easier to come to a political settlement of the war in Afghanistan (and presumably would reduce the chances of dealing with fake Taliban leaders).

In a report (pdf) last month (flagged by the AP), the Century Foundation said some Taliban members were interested:

Turkey has hosted joint "urban warfare" exercises with troops from Afghanistan and Pakistan, comprising sniper and anti-tank units from the three countries. A video, apparently from the exercise:

The number of troops was small -- apparently 128 -- but the meaning of the exercise was more political than operational. Turkey has long been NATO's point of contact for relations with Pakistan, and Washington and Brussels have been trying to get Turkey to help build relations between the militaries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. So this exercise -- agreed upon at a summit between the three countries in December -- is a step in that direction. From the Pakistan military press service:

It is pertinent to mention here that this is the first time that a Trilateral Exercise among the three countries is being conducted on the Turkish soil .It will play a pivotal role in cementing close military ties between the countries in the realm of combating the menace of terrorism and extremism being spearheaded by the inimical forces.

The "most important" interest for the U.S. in Central Asia is the support of those countries for the war in Afghanistan, a top U.S. diplomat said yesterday. Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, testified before a Congressional committee, and in his written testimony (pdf) highlighted the Afghanistan connection:

The President’s Fiscal 2012 budget request includes a 6% decrease in funding for the region compared to budgeted levels for Central Asia in FY 2010. This decrease reflects our commitment to a lean, strategically targeted budget that will advance our interests in Central Asia. The most important of these is the support of Central Asian states for international efforts in Afghanistan.

Blake highlighted what the various Central Asian countries are doing to help the effort in Afghanistan, including Kazakhstan's scholarships for Afghan students, Uzbekistan's and Turkmenistan's provision of electricity to northern Afghanistan, and of course the Northern Distribution Network and Manas air base.