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New Friends, New Fears in Central Asia

Pauline Jones Luong and Erika Weinthal
March/April 2002
Summary -- 

To wage its war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration needed Uzbekistan's help -- and promised a lot to get it. But Washington must not let this short-term marriage of convenience give Uzbekistan long-term regional hegemony. The Uzbek regime's authoritarianism fosters Islamic extremism, which in turn exacerbates tensions among Central Asia's unstable governments. Only a multilateral approach can handle the region's many problems.

Pauline Jones Luong is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University and the author of Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Power, Perceptions, and Pacts. Erika Weinthal is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University and the author of State Making and Environmental Cooperation: Linking Domestic Politics and International Politics in Central Asia.

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MAKING NEW FRIENDS

Since the states of Central Asia broke free from the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991, U.S. policy toward the region has been focused on promoting political and economic stability among Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Clinton administration sought to achieve this goal by fostering regional cooperation, relying on multilateral institutions such as NATO's Partnership for Peace and the Central Asian Economic Community (CAEC). Some critics, however, argued instead for a realpolitik-based approach to stability that would promote Uzbekistan as a regional hegemon. This latter vision has now become reality, because the United States has needed Uzbek bases and transit links to wage the war on terrorism in neighboring Afghanistan. But the Bush administration should proceed with caution: its wartime ally may well worsen the very problems Washington needs to tackle.

To wage its war on al Qaeda and the Taliban, the United States has enlisted the support of Uzbekistan and its authoritarian ruler, Islam Karimov. This new relationship involves a direct exchange of strategic resources. Uzbekistan, which has the best transport facilities, air bases, and military capabilities in the region, has allowed the United States to station troops, airplanes, and helicopters at an Uzbek air base and to use Uzbek territory to launch offensive strikes on Afghanistan. The United States, in return, promptly inserted into the emergency appropriations bill passed by Congress in September 2001 a $25 million grant to Uzbekistan for weapons and other military purchases. Then, in January, Washington announced that Uzbekistan will receive $100 million of the $4 billion Congress has allocated for fighting terrorism. That aid is supposed to eventually extend beyond military and security purposes to help Karimov's government resuscitate its economy, which has been strangled by drought, falling cotton prices, and the lowest level of foreign investment per capita in Central Asia.

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