The Bug Pit
Over the weekend, a meeting of OSCE foreign ministers in Almaty agreed to send a small multinational police "advisory group" to southern Kyrgyzstan to help maintain the fragile peace there:
The agreement said the group would comprise 52 police officers with the possibility to send an additional 50 officers at a later stage. The group would be in Kyrgyzstan for four months, with a possibility to extend as needed and agreed.
A few months ago the U.S. and Uzbekistan started talking about increasing their military cooperation, like U.S. training of Uzbek soldiers, and that seems to have started. Recall that most of this cooperation was halted as a result of Uzbekistan's poor human rights record (and before the U.S.
... for a NATO exercise:
Turkish representatives will take part in military and humanitarian trainings of NATO to be held in September of this year in Armenia.
The CSTO joint air defense initiative appears to be bearing some fruit, with Russian air defense radars in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan getting an upgrade, Russian media report:
Information on Turkmenistan's military modernization program remains hard to come by, but IWPR has a report including some local analysis:
One effect of proclaiming neutrality and remaining outside regional security blocs was that no significant new arms purchases were made until Berdymuhammedov came to power. As a result, existing equipment became increasingly obsolescent.
From Regimental Combat Team-2, 1st Marine Division Public Affairs:
BAKWA, Afghanistan – Although Christmas is only five months away, the soldiers of Company B, 31st Georgina Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 2, spread hope and good cheer while patrolling through the village streets of Bakwa, delivering stuffed animals, schools supplies and radios to local Afghans.
Manas fuel suppliers remain a mystery while Pentagon appears to still favor them
This is getting interesting: Congressional investigators are accusing Red Star and Mina, the now-notorious companies that supplied fuel to U.S. forces in Kyrgyzstan, of stonewalling them, in particular by not telling who owns the company, reports the Wall Street Journal:
Russia "seeks a controlling stake" in the most significant piece of Kyrgyzstan's defense industry, the Dastan torpedo plant, which produces the VA-111 Shkval, reports Bloomberg, citing Kommersant, citing a Russian foreign ministry source.
The notion that the Northern Distribution Network will turn in to a "modern Silk Road" appears to be gaining momentum among U.S. policymakers. First General Petraeus is behind it, now top State Department officials, like Robert Blake, the assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs, are talking it up: