OxBlog

# Posted 1:03 AM by Patrick Belton

NEXT YEAR IN TASHKENT: Stephen Blank of the Army War College has this interesting short piece in SAIS's Caucasus/Central Asia Analyst. More and more analysts of the former Soviet Union are speculating about the involvement of Russian intelligence in November's attempted coup against Turkmenistan's President Niyazov. Russia has apparently been making ample use of U.S. and world involvement with Iraq to push Russian air bases into Central Asia, and the U.S. military presence out. This nostalgia-informed enterprise, which has so far seen participation of the military, diplomatic, and intelligence services, is not in the U.S.'s interests, nor the region's, nor Russia's. Drug cartels and domestic oil interests are pushing Russia's efforts in the region on their government contacts to serve their own interests, but Russia has neither the economic nor the military capability to sustain a Warsaw-type security domination over Central Asia. The likely outcome will be instead to create further pockets of anarchy in the region, while stealing away Russian resources which could better be deployed in the furtherance of longer-term Russian interests.

The header, by the way, is only the first in a series of bad Pesach allusions to come.... The rhythms of this beautiful holiday have a way of resounding in your head.

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