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Tajikistan: Reconsidering Russia
Stratfor Today » August 29, 2008 | 2104 GMT
MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty Images
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev (R) and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon on June 8Summary
Russia and Tajikistan agreed Aug. 29 to expand Russia’s military presence at Tajikistan’s Gissar airport. Though it appeared that Tajikistan was moving toward the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan now appears to be reconsidering.
Analysis
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Following talks between Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon on Aug. 29, the two countries have agreed to expand Russia’s military presence at Tajikistan’s Gissar airport. Both countries already use this location, though Russia has nominal forces there.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan had been steadily moving toward opening relations with the United States and capping Russia’s influence in the country. Now that Russia has proven that it is ready to fight for control over its former states, however, Tajikistan is reconsidering who it needs to be looking toward for security.
Tajikistan lost the lottery geographically. This was partially because of former Soviet leader Josef Stalin, who intentionally sabotaged the futures of the Central Asian states by redrawing the maps so the region’s densest population centers — which lie in an area called the Fergana Valley — would be split among three states: Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Though Tajikistan controls the access to the valley, it is separated from the rest of Tajikistan by two mountain ranges. This has left the country fractured and weak internally.
(click map to enlarge)
Adding to the internal fractures, Tajikistan is surrounded by other impoverished and highly unstable states. Tajikistan also has a perennial territorial dispute with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and shares an 800-mile border with Afghanistan. Tajikistan does share a border with the political and economic powerhouse China, though their shared border is the region where Beijing is concerned and reacting to militancy flowing from Central Asia to China. For its part, Iran has kept a close relationship with the ethnically Persian Tajik, injecting a certain amount of religiosity not normally seen in Central Asia.
Rakhmon has ruled Tajikistan with an iron fist since the fall of the Soviet Union. He uses all the techniques and skills the world would expect from a post-Soviet apparatchik, though he does this to balance the warlords who run most of the country. Legally, the desperately poor country survives on its aluminum (which Russia controls) and cotton exports (which are in decline). The main wealth of the country is from drug smuggling, however, both grown domestically and imported from Afghanistan. Afghan drug lords regularly cross the borders, though Russian forces are supposedly stationed there to prevent such activity.
It is precisely Tajikistan’s geographic position and fragility that has Moscow and Washington playing tug-of-war for control of the Central Asian state. The United States has two motives for pushing into Tajikistan. It is a good base for the Americans to get into Afghanistan, especially since Uzbekistan kicked the United States out of the Karshi-Khanabad base in 2005. Tajikistan also stands in the way of Russian influence rolling south or Chinese influence rolling west through Central Asia.
Moscow’s plans are very similar to Washington’s, in that Russia wants to ensure that it has control over its southern flank of former Soviet states. Also, Tajikistan is a good base should Russia choose to ever meddle in Afghanistan again, something that terrifies the United States. Unsurprisingly, it is more difficult for Russia to exert influence in the Central Asian states that it does not border. At present, Russia has an air base in Nurek and controls parts of the Dushanbe airport. Russia also has thousands of border patrolmen in the country.
Despite all this, Tajikistan seemed to be leaning more toward the United States starting in 2005, when Uzbekistan evicted the U.S. military. Dushanbe had held intensive discussions with Washington about allowing the United States to use either Tajikistan’s airport in the capital or the bases in Kurgan-Tyube or Kulyab. Soon afterward, Tajikistan raised the rent on the Russian bases as well, against Moscow’s wishes. A tipping point in U.S. relations for Tajikistan appeared to be approaching.
Tajikistan was looking for a new security guarantor mainly because Moscow had started to become increasingly meddlesome in the country’s drug trade. Washington had shown little interest in controlling or stopping the Tajik drug trade, while stemming the flow of drugs from Afghanistan to Tajikistan before they reach Russia is a national security matter for Moscow. This is largely because the volume of drugs moving through Russia not only is creating a pool of addicts now estimated to exceed 6 million — something the government is highly concerned about given Russia’s demographic issues. Russian organized crime has also pushed for more control over the drug trade inside Tajikistan instead of just controlling the trade once it reaches Russia or Europe.
The Tajik government became increasingly split over fears that choosing Washington could lead to a security and political crisis. The United States had shown little interest in the domestic security of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan when unrest broke out in those countries despite U.S. bases in both, so many in Tajikistan feared the U.S. push for regime change in the region could target Rakhmon and his allies.
It was this split that has delayed the United States from taking the Tajik proposal. Now the tide has turned between Russia and the United States after the Russian military action in Georgia. And Moscow and all the former Soviet states that had been flirting with Washington are rethinking their position.
Dushanbe knows that Russia holds most of the cards in the region compared to the United States. Russia already has a military presence in Tajikistan, and controls much of its security, especially on its borders. Russia could cut or severely hamper the drug trade through Tajikistan. Russia has been one of the only countries heavily investing in aluminum, one of Tajikistan’s only other resources. Russia has been investing in the country’s energy infrastructure. And Russia holds the strings to half of the government.
It would therefore be fairly easy for Russia to destabilize Tajikistan via economic, political or security levers. And this is something Dushanbe seems to recognize, prompting Tajikistan to allow its former master once again to call the shots.
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