Projects/CentralAsiaSources/ChinaFar East/ KaplanChinaAfghanistan
Robert L. Canfield
A region that might be called Greater Central Asia has been gaining in strategic importance in the new global geopolitics,[1] a process that Beissinger (2002:1)[2] describes as “one of the pivotal transformations of the twentieth century.”[3] The term “great game” – first coined by Lt. (later Captain) Arthur Connoly of the Sixth Bengal Native Light Cavalry and immortalized in Kipling’s masterpiece Kim ‒ invokes the nineteenth century struggles for hegemony in Central Asia between (mainly) the Russians, who were pressing eastward into the region, and the British in India, who were trying to secure their northwestern frontier, which they deemed vulnerable to invasion from Central Asia. Their “game” conjoined the grand schemes of empire with the personal intrigues of local actors who could divert them for their own parochial ends, producing outcomes no one could foresee.
A NEW REGIONAL CONFIGURATION
The use of the term “great game” by contemporary observers[4] may seem appealing in evoking images of the intrigue, mystery, and subterfuge encountered by Russian and British adventurers into what was then “forbidden land.” But use of the term can mask critical realities in the twenty-first century. It is risky to impose the clichés of a storied past upon situations in the contemporary world (Stroehlein 2009), for the Central Asia of the present differs radically from that of even the recent past. The several countries of Greater Central Asia ‒ that is, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China’s westernmost province, Xinjiang, along with the adjacent countries to the south, viz. Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. These countries have been drawn into more direct and immediate contact as infrastructural improvements have been introduced in the last half-century, but especially since the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Recently highways have been resurfaced and extended (e.g., from Kyrgyzstan to China[5]); air traffic facilities have been improved and air service expanded (e.g., direct services between Ashgabat and Beijing on Turkmen Airlines[6]); rail lines have been extended (e.g., between China and Kazakhstan; Alaomulki 2001:8-10); satellite telephony has been introduced (notably in Afghanistan)[7]; and deep sea ports have been built at Gwadar, Pakistan, and Chah Bahar, Iran.[8] Increasingly new possibilities are opening up for economic, social, and political interaction among the peoples of Greater Central Asia. Lands that were once forbidding and mysterious, separating the great population centers of Eurasia, are now corridors of economic and social interconnection among these populations (Garret, Rahr, and Watanabe 2000; Kleveman 2003; Canfield 2008).
The integrative effect of these improvements has brought the Soviet successor states and the neighboring countries of South Asia and the Middle East together into a region of strategic importance. It is now useful to speak of “Greater Central Asia”[9] as a zone where interdependencies are sufficiently intense and strategic issues sufficiently vital to prompt political and economic planners to track affairs in the region as a whole. Rajan Menon has explicitly made the case for seeing this constellation of countries as a single region:
The convention of defining Central Asia as a grouping of five states [the practice during the Soviet period] is of diminishing value for effective policy making and sound strategic analysis. A seamless web connects Central Asia proper, the South Caucasus, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and China’s Xinjiang province. Thinking in terms of a “greater Central Asia” captures the bigger picture and reflects how forces from one part of this extended region radiate across borders to other parts. Thus, an axiom of both policymaking and analysis should be that the consequences of a major change in one part of greater Central Asia will affect its other parts, often quickly and dramatically and through multiple networks (Menon 2003: 200-201).
THE RACE TO DEVELOP INFRASTRUCTURE
Owing to its rich natural resources, this region has become the focus of intense development activities. The richest concentrations of hydrocarbons in Central Asia lie in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan (the latter is now believed to have the world’s second largest gas reserves). Those in the Caucasus are well known and already being developed. And the gas and oil reserves of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, which are as yet undetermined, may turn out to be substantial as well. Moreover, exploitable deposits of many other vital minerals exist in the region (Figure 0.1). [10]
Many countries have been racing to establish links to Central Asia, currently to participate in the construction of pipelines into the newly accessible gas and oil fields, activities that entail political and military posturing as well as diplomatic maneuvering, for pipelines “signify and embody alliances and cooperation” and establish “axes for the international projection of influence” (Cutler 2007: 110).[11]
In the current context, many routes from production sites to consumers are possible. Russia was not the preferred route of export for the Central Asian republics when they became independent in the 1990s. Nor for the Americans
and other western powers, who tried to ensure that pipelines from Central Asia were diverted away from Russia, to minimize possibilities of interdiction. The
Figure 0.1: Resources and Products of Greater Central Asia *
| Northern States | Natural Resources | Agricultural Products | Industries (non-agricultural) |
|
Kazakhstan |
major deposits of petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron ore, manganese, chrome ore, nickel, cobalt, copper, molybdenum, lead, zinc, bauxite, gold, uranium | grain (mostly spring wheat), cotton; livestock | tractors and other agricultural machinery, electric motors, construction materials |
|
Turkmenistan |
petroleum, natural gas, coal, sulfur, salt | Cotton, grain; livestock | natural gas, oil, petroleum products, textiles, food processing |
|
Uzbekistan |
natural gas, petroleum, coal, gold, uranium, silver, copper, lead and zinc, tungsten, molybdenum | Cotton, vegetables, fruits, grain; livestock | textiles, food processing, machine building, metallurgy, natural gas, chemicals |
|
Tajikistan |
hydropower, some petroleum, uranium, mercury, brown coal, lead, zinc, antimony, tungsten, silver, gold | Cotton, grain, fruits, grapes, vegetables; cattle, sheep, goats | aluminum, zinc, lead, chemicals and fertilizers, cement, vegetable oil, metal-cutting machine tools, refrigerators and freezers |
|
Kyrgyzstan |
abundant hydropower; significant deposits of gold and rare earth metals; locally exploitable coal, oil, and natural gas; other deposits of nepheline, mercury, bismuth, lead, and zinc | tobacco, cotton, potatoes, vegetables, grapes, fruits and berries; sheep, goats, cattle, wool | small machinery, textiles, food processing, cement, shoes, sawn logs, refrigerators, furniture, electric motors, gold, rare earth metals |
| Southern
States |
Natural Resources | Agricultural Products | Industries (non-agricultural |
|
Iran |
petroleum, natural gas, coal, chromium, copper, iron ore, lead, manganese, zinc, sulfur | Wheat, rice, other grains, sugar beets, fruits, nuts, cotton; dairy products, wool; caviar | petrochemicals, textiles, cement and other construction materials, food processing (particularly sugar refining and vegetable oil production), metal fabricating, armaments |
|
Afghanistan |
natural gas, petroleum, coal, copper, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, zinc, iron ore, salt, precious and semiprecious stones | Opium, wheat, fruits, nuts, wool, mutton, sheepskins, lambskins | small-scale production of textiles, soap, furniture, shoes, fertilizer, cement; handwoven carpets; natural gas, coal, copper |
|
Pakistan |
natural gas, limited petroleum, poor quality coal, iron ore, copper, salt, limestone | Cotton, wheat, rice, sugarcane, fruits, vegetables; milk, beef, mutton, eggs | textiles and apparel, food processing, pharmaceuticals, construction materials, paper products, fertilizer, shrimp |
* Source: Index Mundi: http://www.indexmundi.com/
Americans also opposed the construction of pipelines through Iran, seeing Iran as an adversary ever since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 (Klare 2002: 90). Owing to American involvement, the 1700 km pipeline from Baku servicing Europe, which was completed in 2005, successfully avoided both Russia and Iran, passing through Tbilisi to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea. The Americans also have favored the establishment of a Transcaspian link of Kazakhstan’s giant off-shore Kashagan field into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.[12] But these routes are more expensive than the shorter ones through Russia and Iran (which would connect to the Persian Gulf; Naughten 2008: 431). In May, 2007, pointedly rejecting American and European proposals, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia jointly announced that they will cooperate in building a gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan and Russia.[13] Nabucco, a six-company consortium sponsored by the EU, has plans to begin construction of a 3300 km pipeline from the Caspian Basin via Turkey to Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia and western Hungary. Russian-owned Gazprom has responded to Nabucco’s project with a proposal to build a pipeline from Russia under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and thence to central Europe. It is possible that both lines could be built, given the large expected demand in Europe.[14]
In this race Russia has a certain advantage because the infrastructure inherited (but aging) from the Soviet period converges on the Russian metropole. Blessed with the world’s largest gas supplies, the second largest coal reserves, and eighth largest oil supplies, Russia is already the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and the second largest exporter of oil.[15] Moreover, it is strategically located as a natural route of export for the Central Asian republics. And its intermediate position between two broad energy consuming populations, European and Chinese, could eventually endow Russia with even more effective leverage.
But China is also a major player in the competition for access to Central Asia’s fossil fuels. Already the second largest consumer of oil in the world, and, with a growth rate of over 8% before the world economic decline introduced new uncertainties, China was expected to surpass U.S. consumption within a few years, a the pace that is likely to resume as soon as a general recovery develops. The Chinese have won permission to develop several oil fields in Uzbekistan (Atal 2005), and they have already completed a 1000-kilometer oil pipeline from Atasu, Kazakhstan, into Xinjiang that will deliver up to 200,000 barrels of oil per day (Kazakhstan-China oil 2006). They are building a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan that will be operational in 2009 (Naughten 2008: 433). Their largest state-owned oil company has acquired PetroKazakhstan, one of Kazakhstan’s major energy producers (Blank 2006), and they have initiated talks about constructing a natural gas pipeline all the way from Kazakhstan to Shanghai (Appelbaum 2005). At the same time they have established close ties with Iran, now their second largest oil supplier, for which they provide military assistance and nuclear expertise (Djalili and Kellner 2006). And in March, 2009, the two countries announced a $3.2 billion deal in which China will help develop the South Pars field, a huge cavity beneath the Persian Gulf that geologists believe is the world’s largest gas reservoir. China is Afghanistan’s largest investor, building highways to Iran and developing the giant copper mine at Aynak. Their aggressive advance into the region reflects an ambition vision to establish a “new Silk Road of modern railways and highways as a vehicle to project Chinese wealth and influence far westward, not only through Central Asia, but to Iran and the Middle East,” a project that will reshape power relations in Eurasia (Munro 1994: 235).
India has no less a requirement for energy, its demand being expected to rise more than three-fold by 2020. Having lost out to the Chinese in the bidding for PetroKazakhstan, the Indian government has turned to Iran and Turkmenistan. In 2005 the Indians signed a 25-year agreement with Iran to obtain 5 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually, and they plan to develop two Iranian oil fields. In another deal they have acquired rights to develop a portion of Iran’s North Pars gas field. By 2010 they will be importing about 60 million standard cubic meters of Iranian gas per day. And they have an interest in a plan to run a 1,750 mile natural gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan (which the Americans oppose; Kripalani 2004).[16] They have also arranged to buy five to six million tons of oil from Azerbaijan annually.[17] Like so many other countries, the Indian government has an interest in the projected natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan and Pakistan whenever it can be built.
Pakistan is in the race too. As soon as the former Soviet republics became independent Pakistan offered them economic assistance and credits – for instance, a loan of 55 million US dollars to Tajikistan in 1992, to build a hydro-electric power station (Lounev and Shirokov 1998). And like the other countries already mentioned Pakistan has a desperate interest in the projected Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan pipeline, as it would garner transit fees as well as gas for its own uses (Cutler 2007: 122). As mentioned above, the port for this pipeline has already been built at Gwadar. The conditions that compel Pakistan and India to cooperate in the transport of fuel are intensifying, but their long-running quarrel over Kashmir has so far defied every effort at resolution (Atal 2005).
Also joining in the race for Central Asian energy is Japan, the world’s second largest economy. As the Japanese import almost all their crude oil from the Middle East, their need for diverse energy sources is dire. They have invested in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and in 2004 they inked a $2 billion deal to develop Iran’s massive Azadegan oilfield. Like so many other nations, Japan looks forward to the time when oil and gas can be exported through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the port of Gwadar, a plan that cannot advance as long as these countries are insecure.[18] Japan may be at a disadvantage in Central Asia, as it has an insignificant military force, but its large cash reserves give it leverage over the long run.[19]
The South Koreans likewise have an interest in Central Asia, as they have to import 97% of their energy; and they have been active: already 320,000 Koreans live in the region. Korea and Uzbekistan have established a 50-50 joint oil exploration venture in Uzbekistan and a joint project to mine molybdenum and tungsten.[20] Indeed, the Koreans are pursuing other mineral resources in the region. They have bought copper mines and a smelting plant in Kazakhstan (Alaolmulki 2001: 8-10), and the governments of Korea and Uzbekistan have agreed on several other cooperative projects. In 2008 they signed a $400 million deal for Korea to purchase 2600 tonnes of uranium between 2010 and 2016, an amount that will supply about 9% of South Korea’s annual demand for uranium. Already Korea has 20 nuclear reactors, which provide 40% of their electricity, and three more are in construction.
THE OTHER ISSUE: INSURGENCY
Any list of the reasons for the intense interest of the world in Greater Central Asia must include the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which worry many countries but especially their neighbors. Most of these insurgencies claim to be fighting an Islamic holy war against the corrupting influences of non-Muslim societies. But some of these groups were for many years actively recruited, trained, and equipped by the Pakistani intelligence service in order to produce a supply of willing troops for the struggle against India over Kashmir. While the government of Afghanistan has been weak for generations – ever since the Communist coup d’état of April, 1978 ‒ the weaknesses of the Pakistani state were less evident until 2008 and 2009. Until that time the Pakistani military had been solely concerned with the threat of India. But by summer 2009 a specifically home-grown insurgency, the Pakistani Taliban, was challenging the army; the threat to the nation was now too blatant to ignore. The Taliban and Al Qaeda, ensconced in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, have united and been reinforced by experienced fighters from Iraq, fresh volunteers from the Arab Middle East, Uzbek dissidents fleeing the repressions of President Islam Karimov, and Uyghur nationalists avoiding Chinese repressions in Xinjiang. Together these fighters have created a loosely interlinked set of forces that threaten the stability of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. While some of them are attacking Afghan, American, and NATO troops in Afghanistan, others are fighting their Pakistani sponsors.[21]
As long as insurgent groups can threaten infrastructural construction in Afghanistan and Pakistan the other nations interested in this region will delay producing the pipelines, highways, and railroads that are crucial for long term stability and economic prosperity. In the mean time, however, China and India have been establishing positions on the Indian Ocean that will eventually connect with transport facilities from Central Asia – the Chinese at the Pakistani port of Gwadar (to become, among other things, the port for the projected hydrocarbon pipelines from Turkmenistan), the Indians at the Iranian port of Chah Bahar (to be a port for overland shipping into landlocked Afghanistan).[22]
THE UNRULINESS OF EVENTS
Critical as these international struggles are for the course of affairs, however, they are not alone in shaping the course of affairs in such a strategic region. Regions have “special unities embedded in numerous larger and wider units,” each of which may be “long-lasting but ultimately changing,” and at different rates (Fragner 2001). It is imperative, therefore, that affairs in Greater Central Asia be tracked on many levels, national and local; and in many contexts, official and informal. Proper examination of affairs in this region need to focus on processes of change in specific situations in local contexts as well as the strategic policies of the world powers in the region. We need to know the perspectives and concerns of various sorts of people, many of whom have narrower horizons and more immediate concerns than those of the world’s strategic planners. Such folks, acting from particular positions, with parochial interests and agendas, make sense of situations and events in their own terms, deploying familiar strategies in ways they see fit. They become aware of broad trends as the profiles of opportunity for them open or foreclose according to their fields of vision. When circumstances shift abruptly and the certainties of the past lose their salience ‒ as has been taking place in Greater Central Asia ‒ folks make new agreements tentatively, to be terminated when necessary. So, from the point of view of individuals and local groups caught up in the flow of such a fluid history, relationships can be provisional, alliances fragile and transitory, and economic and political opportunities availed or ignored in respect to local understandings and the resources at hand (Monsutti 2005; Closson 2005).
This fluidity in relations and alliances introduces many uncertainties that defy the human ability to foresee. Local, national and regional affairs have a life of their own and confound the predictions of experts. Especially, it would seem, in this region. Even though, for example, in the 1960s and 1970s, Iran was being studied by many social scientists, scarcely anyone anticipated the cataclysmic explosion of 1978-1979 that installed an entirely new Islamic order – indeed, how many “experts” predicted the new explosion of popular resistance in Iran? The quiet implosion of the Soviet Union was “indisputably one of the most astonishing geopolitical events of the century” (Fuller 1994:19).[23] The general collapse of order in Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew was pretty much unforeseen, and especially the ferocious battle for Kabul (1992-1996). Scarcely anyone expected the Tajiks and Uzbeks to seize and hold the capital city, as they did in 1992, instead of the Pushtuns who had always done so before. And virtually no one dreamed that an unknown loosely assembled Islamist group, the Taliban, would rise out of the refugee camps to dominate most of Afghanistan by 1998.
In such an unruly social world the course of events cannot be predicted, but whatever transpires in this region, it is safe to presume that ordinary folks, with their particular perspectives and interests, can have a significant impact as well as the choices of the powerful leaders in the world’s capital cities. As Olcott (1994:45) puts it, the “masses” exert “a kind of mute but implacable pressure” on the course of events. Sometimes the pressure is more than “mute,” as demonstrated by recent events in Iran. Because abrupt shifts in the course of affairs can be driven by unforeseen events, it is crucial to have studies of local and national as well as regional processes so as to identify, as some have said. more precisely “the root causes of particular conflicts” among these peoples (Garret, Rahr, and Watanabe 2000:2, 77). Still others, pleading for area studies generally but with the Middle East and Central Asia in mind, have complained that at a time when “globalization demands greater knowledge of the world than ever before, scholars today have less in-depth, committed knowledge than they did in the past.” There is now an even greater need, they say, for “deep study” of “the empirical and conceptual problems” of specific communities (Mirsepassi, Basu and Weaver 2003).[24]
If we are to understand the course of affairs in this strategic region we need for more studies of such issues as government repression and the affects it has on the conditions and reactions of local communities, as the grounds of social coalition in local communities, the perspectives that inform their responses to the course of events, the devices of mutual support by which they cope with the ongoing challenges they face, and the informal grounds of authority and influence that those communities recognize.
That is, many “games,” local and regional, are being played among the diverse peoples in this strategic part of the world, some of them engaging the strategic choices of state leaders, others more local and parochial, driven by the exigencies that concern local social coalitions. If we are to grasp the course of events in this region we must take note of the many sorts of games being played on many levels in this contemporary world.
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[1] I acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of Sarah Kendzior and Sami Siddiq in producing this text, and the advice and comments of Gabriele Rasuly-Palaczek on an earlier draft. I also express appreciation for the assistance of JoAnn Urban for production assistance on this and all the chapters of this book.
[2] Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union Beissinger sees the event as essentially driven by internal dynamics; he discounts the impact of the Afghanistan war on public opinion within the Soviet Union and of other movements on the periphery of the empire, such as the Solidarity movement in Poland. We believe, to the contrary, that these events, once in motion, accelerated the collapse by inspiring other nationalist groups in the system.
[3] See also Garret, Rahr, and Watanabe (2000). Das (2004) believes that Central Asia will eventually overtake Europe in importance.
[4] For example, Bhadrakumar (2006); Weitz (2006).
[5] Plans were drafted for the construction of roads, connecting the Central Asian states to South Asia via Pakistan’s Karakorum highway, although the earthquake of 2005 will no doubt slow down the project (Kashghar-Gilgit Bus Service 2006).
[6] Turkmen State Airlines (2004). Turkmen government sources claimed that over half of the available seats for the inaugural flight on August 4, 2005, were purchased several months in advance (Turkmen State Airlines 2005).
[7] The World (2003). An email notice from Muhammad Ghazi Jamakzai, Executive Assistant to the Minister, Ministry of Communications, entitled “Afghanistan and United States extend Bilateral Communications Cooperation,” indicates that “three and half years ago we had a limited access to telephone only in a few provinces, but now we have more than one million subscribers of digital and cellular phones in all provinces of Afghanistan. … [and that ] all 34 provinces [are connected] with the Capital through phone, internet, Fax and video Conference. … [W]e have already connected more than fifty districts through phone, net, Fax and video Conference and in every month we activate twenty districts, and hope to connect all districts till the end of this year” (contact@moc.gov.af). (accessed March 16, 2006)
[8] Gwadar Deep Seaport (2007); Starr (2005); Chah Bahar (n.d.).
[9] Canfield 1992; Belokrenitsky (1994). For a list of publications that used this term before 2008 see “Vital Concerns for the World,” http://rcanfield.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-region-of-greater-central-asia-from.html.
[10] On Uzbekistan see Uzbekistan: Military (n.d.); On Turkmenistan, see Turkmenistan Gas (2008); on Afghanistan see Kliment (2006).
[11] The 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia, during which flows were briefly interrupted, demonstrated how crucial the pipelines in the Caucasus are to the Russian government (Mouawad 2008).
[12] The 1,760-kilometer Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was constructed to supply the needs of Europe. Eventually able to carry as much a 75 million tons of oil a year, it is projected to bring to Azerbaijan as much as $160 billion in revenue by 2030, a dramatic infusion of wealth that could transform the Caucasus (Abbasov and Ismailova 2005; Howden and Thornton 2005).
[13] Russia Clinches (2007).
[14] Update 1-U.S. Throws Weight (2008).
[15] Russia (2008).
[16] On May 24, 2009 Iran and Pakistan announced an agreement to build a 2,100-kilometer long pipeline from Iran’s South Pars gas field into Pakistan — at an estimated $7.5 billion. India so far has no part in the deal (Pannier 2009).
[17] Besides the deals made with the Central Asian, the Indians have sought crude oil from Israel’s Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline as well as natural gas from Qatar (Blank 2005a).
[18] Moreover, the Japanese are pursuing Central Asian uranium, another source of energy over which there is growing interest. Uranium prices are climbing as China and India are stepping up construction of nuclear power plants, and some nations in the west, including the United States, are revisiting the question of nuclear power as an energy source (Uranium 2009).
[19] Masaki (2006).
[20] Won-sup (2007); South Korea Scouts (2008); Prime Minister Han (2008).
[21] This topic is so large and the course of events so fluid that adequate attention cannot be given to it here. For more on the Taliban and guidance to the literature see Crews and Tarzi, 2008. On the Pakistan’s cultivation of Islamist organizations see Zahab and Roy (2004); Abbas (2005); Rashid (2008); Ali (2008); Usher 2009).
[22] Chah-Bahar (n.d.).
[23] As far as I know, the only person to hint at the Soviet collapse was the Afghan Professor Gholam Ali Ayeen (1367 A.H.), who pointed out as early as 1986 that the great empires of the past had collapsed when a few military reverses tarnished their image of invincibility; he was suggesting that the Afghanistan resistance movement, which was at that time embarrassing the Red Army, might actually undermine the Soviet Union’s apparent invincibility, with potentially momentous implications.
[24] David Kilcullen (2009) has argued that to deal with insurgencies an army needs to absorb the culture of the societies within which they subsist.