THE NEW GREAT GAME

Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
Guerillas Without Guns/Chapter 7
Posted 5/9/07

Russia’s response to the assault on its European periphery states in 2003-2004 demonstrates two unique and related historical patterns. The first is Russia’s split personality, straddling the arguably imaginary line that separates Europe from Asia. Russian thinkers have tackled the issue of Asian vs. European identity for centuries. Peter the great tried to settle this in 1703 by founding St. Petersburg and tying Russia into Europe’s affairs, but during the Great Game with England over Central Asia in the 1800s again European vs. Eastern/Asian/other became the paradigm. Since the Bolsheviks moved the capitol back to Moscow, and more so since the collapse of the USSR, Russia's European aspirations have been lessened in favor of a centralizing view that looks south and east as well as west.

The other key factor is Russia’s tactic of withdrawal when threatened, as they did when Napoleon invaded. Moscow was abandoned and burnt to the ground, leaving nothing for the French army, most of whom died in the attempt to get back home ahead of winter. When things get rough on the European front, Russians pull back to the east, relying on the continental vastness of their Eurasian territory to wait out the crisis.

2004-05 was such a time, and indeed Russia’s power focus has to a remarkable degree shifted east as ambitions in Europe slid into political obscurity. It’s not so much that the Kremlin has abandoned its plans for Europe as that it is diversifying its holdings and making contingency plans for an uncertain future there. So Putin’s Moscow started taking greater interest in increasing control over its former Central Asian holdings; the independent but cooperative nations of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and to a much lesser extent ‘neutral” Turkmenistan.

The Central Asian Republics seemed relatively safe from the Orange Revolution type of tactic. In Europe there is the EU, NATO, and a long history of Democratic institutions and mindsets. But these landlocked Muslim-dominated nations, resource-rich but impoverished and still run largely on Soviet habits and older memories, lie in an area still jointly dominated by “great power rivals” Russia and China. Central Asia is a long way from Brussels – and so as the democratic bridgehead struggled to cross the last spans of Europe, this was the Bulkhead of Russia’s Eurasian power outside its own borders.

The area also represents the heart of “the Grand Chessboard” of Eurasia as portrayed by Zbigniew Brzezinski. He describes this region as the “Eurasian Balkans,” encompassing the Caucasian and Central Asian flanks of the former USSR plus Iran and Afghanistan. Compared to the European Balkans, “the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize,” at twenty times the size and presenting an enormous zone of instability “astride the inevitably emerging transportation network meant to link [Eurasia’s] western and eastern extremities.” [1] Thus as in times ancient, the region was to be the crossroads of Eurasia, host to a 21st Century Silk Road as Unocal called it – pipelines, fiber optic cable, superhighways, all facilitating further globalization of a previously under-tapped region.

There was more than transport at stake though; Central Asia straddles the Himalayan foothills, producing a tectonic cornucopia of mineral wealth, including tin, gold, and platinum in large quantities. And to a world increasingly thirsty for oil and natural gas, Central Asia has stood out for one key reason – the energy reserves of the Caspian Sea; Fortunes and political careers were made and broken in what Ahmed Rashid in 1997 dubbed “the New Great Game.” After 9/11 we found that the prize was not as big as originally thought, (and hence the war was not about that). But by mid-2006, world oil prices climbed from a pre-9/11 baseline of about $25 a barrel to well over $70 a barrel, US News and World Report noted in their September 11 2006 issue “the stakes have suddenly shot up,” and interest is now as intense as ever. [2]
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Next: From Shanghai with Love: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Sources:
[1] Brzezinski. "The Grand Chessboard." 1997. Page 124.
[2] Fang, Bay. “The Great Energy Game.” US News and World Report. Vol 141, no. 9. September 11 2006. p 60-62.

HOPES OF REFORM SHOT DEAD/SCO'S CONTROLLED BURN

Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
Guerillas Without guns/Chapter VII
Posted 5/9/07

Following the ambiguous “Tulip Revolution” of March 2005, Kurmanbek Bakiev was confirmed the second President since independence with an election on July 10. He received an astounding 89% return of the vote (turnout 53%), partly based on his new political alliance with opposition leader Felix Kulov, released from prison with all charges dropped and soon appointed Prime Minister as agreed to before the election. Bakiyev was inaugurated on August 14, and the old parliament agreed to dissolve, and all seemed in order: another successful Color Revolution.

President-elect Bakiyev meets with Rumsfeld, Bishkek, July 2005

On April 14 Defense Secretary Rumsfeld met the acting President Bakiev, who assured the Americans that they could keep using the Ganci Air Base. [1] For Washington the status quo was thus largely maintained, though the new government was not strongly embraced. Something went wrong with the Tulip revolution - The violence in Osh and Jalal-abad should have been a clue. The government was thereafter locked in widespread power struggles and accusations of corruption and even murder. Parliament went on to reject some of the more reform-minded and Western-oriented among the opposition, including Roza Otunbayeva, one of the driving forces behind the early, more “legitimate” phase of the Tulip Revolution. [2]

One “legitimate” opposition leader that did make it into the new government, though he didn’t stay long, was Azimbek Beknazarov, whose 2002 jailing had led to the bloody protests that caused Bakiyev to resign as PM and join the opposition. President Bakiyev rewarded Beknazarov with the post of Prosecutor General, and IWPR explained that the new PG aggressively launched a series of investigations into corruption and criminal activity by Akayev era officials, including a former Central Electoral Commission chief, the head of the Kyrgyz National Bank, and former-PM Nikolai Tanaev. On September 19th, Beknazarov finally got parliament to strip the immunity normally accorded to one of its members - Aydar Akayev, recently-elected son of the ex-president – to allow corruption charges against him to proceed. Later on the same day, President Bakiev dismissed Beknazarov, officially for improper procedures in another investigation. [3]

Other powers behind Akayev’s ouster, like Bamayan Erkinbayev, a ‘controversial businessman’ [ie - mafia-connected] also took power. Once accused of being behind deadly gun battles over control of a local marketplace, Erkinbayev was also a popular politician who entertained presidential ambitions. But he stepped aside for the Bakiev-Kulov coalition, and reportedly helped to organize the southern ‘protests’ which eventually brought them to power. Afterwards he was rewarded with a seat in parliament and the chairmanship of the national Olympic Committee The BBC noted the wide concern that the new influence of “shady businessmen like Mr. Erkinbayev is one of the most worrying trends of the past year.” [4]

Erkinbayev was only in government a few months before he was killed by gunmen on September 22, in an incident widely attributed to his business dealings. [5] Worse, this was only one of at least seven leading and controversial politicians shot dead in various incidents between June 2005 and May 2006. Among them was new MP Tynychbek Akmatbayev, head of parliament’s Committee on Law Enforcement, but reportedly connected to organized crime and embroiled in a long-running feud with new PM Felix Kulov. During an October visit to a prison near Bishkek to calm an uprising there, Akmatbayev and his entourage were somehow engulfed by the rebellion and he was shot dead in the chaos. [6] There were rumors that Kulov had been involved in engineering Akmatbayev’s killing, as Byzantine as such a plot would have been.

After his bother’s death, Ryspek Akmatbayev’s, himself widely thought of as a major mafia kingpin, was asked if his family feud with Kulov could lead to bloodshed. Ryspek responded “nobody [else] needs to suffer […] I suggest that we meet man to man. I will kick his ass, and that will be that.” [7] And he was working his way up, in April 2006 winning a special election to represent his home district in parliament, [8] though he was unable to take up his seat immediately because of pending murder charges against him. [9] His election prompted international condemnation from the West and even Russia expressed concern about the possible “criminalization” of Kyrgyz politics. [10] That noise didn’t last long though - Ryspek himself was reportedly shot dead as he left a Bishkek Mosque on Wednesday May 10. Akmatbayev’s aides carried his body away before police could investigate. The city police chief told the media “I can see spent gun cartridges and blood, but no bodies.” [11]

On the political front, there was some improvement in the political and civil sphere, as noted in the west: Freedom House upgraded the country from “Not Free” to “Partly Free” in 2006 based on “the continuing permissive environment for the promotion of civil liberties and political rights.” They noted a “mixed” record, including increased media freedom and local elections in December 2005 went off “with only ‘rough irregularities.” [12] But despite these “positive steps forward,” the good news was far outweighed by the bad; continued financial hardships across the country fed a deepening sense of dispirited frustration, by BBC reports. [13] Of course the government remained upbeat and established a new national holiday marking the anniversary of the Tulip Revolution, which president Bakiyev described as “the triumph of justice.” To mark the first anniversary, the new government threw a nationwide party on March 24, but BBC News released an article explaining that the “so called” tulip revolution was in fact “no revolution:”

“Many residents of this poor Central Asia republic are still not in the mood for a party. ‘There was never a time in the history of Kyrgyzstan when the confidence of the people in their government was so low,’ said Edil Baisalov of the Bishkek-based NGO, the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society. An international think tank, the International Crisis Group, has gone further, labeling the nation a ‘faltering state.’” [14]

From early on Bakiyev was supported by government-sponsored youth groups; RFE/RL reported in July 2005 on a youth team headquartered in Gorky Square, Central Bishkek. They operated from a yurt (a traditional nomadic tent) stocked with music equipment, national costumes, and T-shirts and baseball caps printed with slogans like “We are for Bakiev!” [15] Their support proved needed as the president’s popularity took a nose-dive in the wake of Beknazarov's dismissal and Erkinbayev's assassination. Bakiev’s approval rates reached their lowest point on September 24, when thousands of protesters took to the streets of Jalalabad to again demand a president’s resignation. [16] Hinting at the methods of the “Tulip Revolution,” another RFE/RL piece from November warned of “the frightening prospect of a rent-a-mob free-for-all” which could lead to many ends, “including an authoritarian drive to reestablish order.” [17]

The Tulip revolution was first lumped in with the Orange and Rose Revolutions, and taken as another victory for the West. But it didn’t work quite right – the protests weren’t properly done, all the bloodshed was discouraging, and the reforms have not come. It seems the West’s Tulip Revolution was hijacked from within via Erkinbayev et al, paid off by the new government first with the ballot then the bullet to wash its hands of once useful but now embarrassing criminal benefactors. There may well have been behind-the-scenes Akayev/Bakiyev deals to stage the president’s flight to Russia to complete the drama. I sense Russia’s or China’s complicity in this episode, and it certainly would serve their interest. It would allow the SCO leaders to publicly take yet another “hit” and exaggerate the perceived extent of the color revolution campaign. This would justify their own counter-measures – which would come within weeks - while causing no real lasting change. A SCO-planned upheaval would preempt any real pro-West color revolution, as it were preventing a forest fire with a controlled burn.
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Next: The SCO Holdouts: Kazakhstan, Tajikistan

Sources:
[1]

RUSSIA’S GRIP ON KYRGYZSTAN

CAPTAIN ASKAR AKAYEV AT THE HELM, MUTINY BREWING
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/Guerillas Without Guns
Written mid-2006, posted 4/5/07

It certainly did not go unnoticed that these arrangements totally bypassed Russian and Tajik offers and seem designed to undermine the SCO by skirting recognition of the bloc in favor of nation-to-nation deals. This backdrop of a quiet American military presence in the former Soviet Space held for the next three years as the revolutions unfolded in Georgia and Ukraine and resentments grew sharper. The next move in America’s campaign came soon after Ukraine – perhaps too soon and too far east. In Kyrgyzstan, the US basing agreement was followed by an attempt – if tentative - at a Ukraine-style revolution there, a bold stab into a stronghold of loyalty to mother Russia.

The former SSR is nestled in the Himalayan foothills, sharing convoluted borders with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and China’s western frontier. Despite a total lack of Caspian Sea hydrocarbons, Kyrgyzstan is an energy exporter, with hydro-electric stations fueled by raging mountain runoff promising enough power to attract substantial American investment. Political scientist Igor Ryabov summed up “Turkmenistan has gas, Kazakhstan has oil, and Kyrgyzstan has its water.” [1]

The dramatic peaks of the Tien Shan mountains also divide the country into numerous regions and remote valleys. The most important general split for the study at hand is between the poorer south (dominated by the Ferghana Valley with its restive Muslim majorities), and a well-developed north (dominated by the Capital, Bishkek). Nationwide the population of about five million is about half Kyrgyz and 20 percent Russian, [2] 75% Muslim and with an average per capita GDP of $1600. [3] Kyrgyzstan has grappled with forging a united sense of nationhood since independence, but has often failed; ethnic clashes in the south during the 1990s killed hundreds of people. [4]
The local Russian population holds great sway in the capital, and in May 2000 Russian was declared an official state language, given equal in status with Kyrgyz. Bishkek is also home to a Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, which trains political elites in the Russian tongue and is financed by the Russian government. [5] Bishkek and the north, closer to Russia in more ways than one, ruled the scene as it had under the old Soviet system. Askar Akayev, while born in the South (Jalal-Abad), rose to leadership among the Soviet-era elite. A mathematician and physicist by education who wrote his doctoral thesis on holographic systems of information storage, he was appointed in 1990 to the new post of President of the more autonomous republic. [6] Akayev held his position in Bishkek after independence and for over a decade past that. In a country racked by mafia crime and corruption, the president earned a reputation as a crusader against the opium smuggling criminal networks. Yet the situation has remained chaotic and unstable; Bishkek has seen more than its share of mafia-connected political assassinations, and the voters had had more than enough.

The US basing agreements had upset the status quo - Russia and China sought to reaffirm their prerogatives in the region, and a year later, in October 2002, Kyrgyzstan and China’s People’s Liberation Army staged their first-ever joint military exercise to co-ordinate their response to terrorism. Carried out along the common border, these were the first bilateral anti-terror exercise conducted by SCO members. [7]

But it was Russia that really rushed in to bolster Eurasian power. At the same time as the exercise with China, Moscow’s Anti-Terrorism Center decided to open in Bishkek its first regional division outside of Russia. Putin announced the idea of the Bishkek branch as “countering the threats from the south” - Islamist militants and opium flowing from American-occupied Afghanistan. [8] This was followed in November [9] and December [10] 2002 by joint Kyrgyz-Russian announcements on the dangers of terrorism and the importance of unity against it.

Two days after Christmas, an explosion at Bishkek’s main market killed seven people and injured scores. The very same day but a thousand miles away, a truck bomb detonated at the government’s headquarters in Chechnya, killing fifty and wounding hundreds. The immediate impression was of synchronized acts of terrorism aimed at Russia and its allies, and suspects linked to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan were later arrested, tried and convicted. [11] But early reports had described a container of fireworks at the market going off, detonating a gas tank in a freak accident, an account still reported as fact in a few spots. [12] Some western media outlets seem to buy the Kyrgyz version of events, and even tie the terrorists in to an alleged plot against America. [13] But otherwise the western media remains vague or ignores the episode altogether. The BBC’s timeline simply calls it an explosion, and a State Dept. chronology of every Islamist terrorist attack includes the 12-27 blast in Chechnya, but not the one in Kyrgyzstan. Either way, the synchronicity of the blasts helped tie Russia and Kyrgyzstan together on the counter-terror front just two months after the decision was made to set up the Bishkek center to that very end.

Russian military assembled at the Kant air base, Kyrgyzstan, in 2004.

A year later, Russia again marked its territory, this time on the military front, throwing a new wrinkle into the great game with Uncle Sam. In early October 2003, Putin announced the opening of a new Russian air base at Kant, near Bishkek. This was the first air base outside of Russia’s borders since the end of the Cold War, hosting Russian Air Forces as part of the CSTO’s Collective Rapid Deployment Forces. [14] The Kant base was about eighteen miles from the Americans’ Ganci base, which had been in operation for two years. A BBC correspondent traveled for the opening of the new base and to see both it and the existing American one. He joked a bit about conditions at Ganci but slammed the vibe at Kant, where it:

“wasn't so much efficient and mechanical as a bit cloak and dagger. The base was shabby and broken-down. Scruffy conscripts were wiping the jets down with filthy rags. […] Security men in overcoats strode to and fro. I felt like I was on the set of a James Bond movie, witness to some clandestine […] chess moves in an international power play.” [15]

President Putin arrived for the dedication, declared the base open, watched an air show, and addressed the media. The BBC reporter asked Putin “are you just opening this base because the Americans have one here?” “We're partners with the Americans,” Putin responded. “I'm sure we'll co-operate.” With that he closed the press conference and walked away. [16]

An agreement was reached in May 2004 by which soldiers at Kant would receive the same status as the diplomatic mission’s technical staff, making them effectively immune to criminal prosecution in Kyrgyzstan. [17] Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Askar Aitmatov visited Moscow in mid-February 2005 and immediately announced two decisions; to send more Russian military equipment and weaponry to the Kant air base, and to deny the U.S. request to deploy AWACS reconnaissance planes at Ganci air base. Aitmatov said on the 14th that a decision was made that an AWACS deployment would not fit the mission of Ganci “which is to provide support to the operation in Afghanistan,” not to spy on Russia and other SCO signatories. [18] So the government there seemed to have sided with the Russians, encouraging a slow growth of their capabilities there while curtailing or at least limiting the Americans’.

Sources:
[1] Arutunyan, Anna. “Geopolitics at Heart of Kyrgyzstan Unrest.” MosNews. March 23 2005 http://www.mosnews.com/interview/2005/03/23/kyrgyz.shtml
[2], [5] Olcott, Martha Brill. “Regional study on Human Development and Human Rights – Central Asia.” Human development background report 2000. United Nations Development Program. Accessed May 22 2006 at: http://hdr.undp.org/docs/publications/background_papers/Olcott2000.html
[3] Kyrgyzstan: Almanac Facts. Acc June 24 2005 at: http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/kyrgyzstan/index.shtml
[4] “Kyrgyz Leader Akayev Defies Protests, Rules out Force.” MosNews. March 23 2005. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/03/23/kyrgyz.shtml
[6] “Askar Akayev.” Wikipedia. Last modified September 22 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askar_Akayev
[7] “Twelve Military exercises: A chronology.” China Daily. August 19 2005.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/19/content_470467.htm
[8] Socor, Vladimir “CIS Antiterrorism Center: Marking Time in Moscow, Refocusing on Bishkek.” Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. Washington D.C. November 3, 2002. Accessed April 10 2006 at: http://www.iasps.org/strategic/socor10.htm
[9] Burke, Justin. “CIS antiterrorist centre in Kyrgyzstan ensures unity and cooperation.” Eurasianet.org. December 18, 2002. Accessed April 10, 2006 at: http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/kyrgyzstan/hypermail/200212/0029.shtml
[10] Text of report by Kyrgyz Radio first programme, Bishkek, December 19 in Russian 1500 gmt http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/kyrgyzstan/hypermail/200212/0037.shtml
[11] http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/kyrgyzstan/hypermail/200307/0060.shtml
[12] http://www.securisk.com/alerts/alertdisplay2.asp?Country=KYRGYZSTAN
[13] Baker, Peter. “A Confessed Bomber's Trail of Terror: Uzbek Details Life With Islamic Radicals, Turn Back to Violence.” Washington Post Foreign Service. Thursday, September 18, 2003; Page A01
[14], [17] “Russian Military in Kyrgyzstan Granted Diplomatic Immunity.” MosNews. May 11 2004. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/05/11/kyrgyz.shtml
[15], [16] Grammaticas, Damian. “Military rivalry in Kyrgyzstan.” BBC News, Bishkek, October 25 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3211825.stm
[18] Saidazimova, Gulnoza. “Kyrgyzstan: Is Bishkek Moving Toward Russia Ahead of Elections?” RFE/RL via EurasiaNet. February 15 2005.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp021505.shtml

FROM SHANGHAI WITH LOVE

THE SCO BEFORE AND AFTER 9/11
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / Guerillas Without Guns

Western access to the "Eurasian Balkans" of Central Asia relied on the post-Cold War dissolution of Soviet power that opened the area to outside influence – and such a situation was not necessarily permanent. Brzezinski noted in 1997 early fears of a new convergence of native Eurasian power: “if the middle space [Russia and former USSR] rebuffs the West, becomes an assertive single entity, and either gains control over the South [Central Asia] or forms an alliance with the major Eastern actor [China], then America's primacy in Eurasia shrinks dramatically.” Indeed, the seeds for all these possibilities were already sown as he wrote the words.

Perhaps the most interesting of these started as the quaint-sounding “Shanghai Five” organizations that was formed in 1996 with signatory nations China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. With official languages of Russian and Chinese, they worked to resolve border and disarmament disputes between themselves, apparently a regional house-cleaning in preparation for a more muscular campaign.

In their sixth annual meeting, June 2001 in Shanghai, sixth member Uzbekistan was admitted and the group re-named itself the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), with stated aims of fighting ethnic and religious militancy and promoting trade and foreign investment. Gradually in the years since then, the SCO also came to be seen as an alternative to US power in Central Asia; by the middle of 2005 its platform was broad enough to entice Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan, and India to sign on as observer states and consider joining (see map). Obviously the possibility of membership for any of these states is loaded with deep implications for the existing world system, a hope for many and a fear for others that has underpinned events in Eurasia in the years since.
Shanghai Cooperation Organization: member states and observer states. Note the total domination of Eurasia this could lead to.
From the beginning, the member governments of the SCO had been focused on collective security, counter-terrorism work, and anti-narcotics operations. They thus shared a concern over the lawless state in the Taliban’s Afghanistan, rife with civil war and oozing out a steady stream of Islamic fundamentalism, trained terrorists, and opium. The training camps attributed widely to bin Laden’s al Qaeda were primarily meant to usher in Islamist governments in regional states and areas like Xinjiang, Chechnya, and Uzbekistan, so this was clearly a paramount regional concern. The Taliban’s prime sponsor, Pakistan, was nowhere near the SCO at the time, but India, Iran, and Russia had all teamed up to support the Northern Alliance against the Taliban however they could. The Alliance was offered safe haven in Tajikistan to bolster its position on Afghanistan’s northern fringe. After 9/11 and the commencement of Washington’s “War on Terror,” the SCO issued a sort of ‘told-you-so’ statement on January 7 2002:

“As close neighbors of Afghanistan we had for an extended time been directly subjected to the terrorist and narco threats emanating from its territory long before the events of September 11 and had repeatedly warned the international community of the danger posed by those threats. That was why the SCO member states became actively involved in the anti-terrorist coalition and took measures to further intensify the SCO's work on the anti-terrorist front.” [3]

Sources:
[1] Brzezinski. "The Grand Chessboard." 1997. Page 124.
[2] Fang, Bay. “The Great Energy Game.” US News and World Report. Vol 141, no. 9. September 11 2006. p 60-62.
[3] Joint Statement by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Beijing, January 7, 2002) Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. http://www.shaps.hawaii.edu/fp/russia/sco_3_20020107.html

INTERNATIONAL ORDER, TERROR OF 7/7, THE FIRST EVICTION

Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / Guerillas Without Guns
2/20/07

The Eurasian powers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, faced with the runaway stream of pro-West revolutions, made their most serious counter-moves in July 2005. The offensive was heralded by a joint Russo-Chinese statement on “the international order of the 21st Century” signed by Presidents Hu and Putin, on June 1 in Moscow. [1] Putin summed up “the declaration reflects our understanding of the diversity of civilization, and makes a call not to impose models and standards through force or the threat to use force.” [2] The declaration announced a new vision of a multi-polar world order as seen in the emergence of the SCO, which was set to hold a major summit four days later.

On July 5, three weeks after the Andijan massacre, the Defense Ministers of the signatory countries met in the Kazakh capital of Astana to plot their next moves towards that international order. Australian news reporter Emma Griffiths, who attended, explained how the leaders of “the Shanghai six […] condemn the west for supporting political changes in former soviet republics,” and stated their general objection to what they called “monopolizing or dominating international affairs,” a statement she described as “a thinly-veiled attack on the US.” [3] Even more thinly veiled was their firm request for a timetable for U.S. bases to leave Central Asia; it was time for Washington to precisely define “temporary,” and let the regional powers know when they should expect to start running security there themselves. [4] Russian political analyst Georgy Arbatov stated of this decision:

“For the first time some common political positions beside cooperation against terrorism were expressed, primarily by addressing the question to the United States about how long American military bases are planned to remain in central Asia. That means that China, Central Asian states and Russia are not willing to contemplate American military presence in central Asia as a permanent factor for the indefinite future. This presence was associated with the operation in Afghanistan, with the operation in Iraq. Those two operations are not yet finalized, but some timeframe is an interesting issue for the countries of the region and certainly they do not want Americans to stay forever.” [5]

July 5 was also the first summit to host the four newly-agreed observer states Iran, India and Pakistan (Mongolia had already been involved), and thus represented what PINR called “a one-two punch to Washington's ambitions in Central Asia” and “the most forceful challenge to U.S. interests in Central Asia since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.” [6]

But the SCO summit was of course eclipsed in Western minds by the higher profile G8 summit of the world’s top eight leaders in Scotland, and by the higher-yet profile of the terrorist attack that came in its midst. Presidents Hu and Putin had probably planned a follow-up lecture on “international order” and overstaying welcomes for their G8 partners, with that gathering in Tony Blair’s UK commencing only one day after their people had reached their verdict in Astana. But the 7-7 London rail bombing on the second day of that summit cast a long shadow over the proceedings with three near-simultaneous explosions on the underground rail lines at 8:50 am followed by a bus blast in Tavistock Square at 9:47. Hundreds were injured, many gravely, 52 people plus the four suicide bombers were killed and the Capital city of the country hosting the world’s eight most powerful leaders was shut down for much of the day.

No matter the full truth behind the incident, a perceived, successful al Qaeda attack with over fifty killed in the European capital of the Anglo-American Alliance would do nothing but strengthen their resolve to stay in Iraq and in Central Asia (especially considering the alleged Pakistani Madrassah link to the attack), and make Russia’s and China’s geopolitical nitpicking un-cool by again demonstrating why the bases are there. The 7/7 attack gave all the G8 World Leaders a chance to reiterate their commitment to the cause; Putin himself expressed his condolences over the attacks and called on all countries to remain united in the “fight against international terrorism,” to which America’s Central Asian bases were of course also dedicated. [7]

So Putin and Hu just skipped out on the diplomacy and went ahead with what many see as their plans for the development of the SCO into the “NATO of the East.” It has a long way to go, but member states seem to be cooperating on the grand strategy issues. Uzbekistan had preceded the July ultimatum with an announcement on June 16 that night flights into and out of Karshi-Khanabad were to be banned. [8] Tashkent also placed limits on daytime landings of C-17s and other heavy transport aircraft, allegedly because the planes were damaging the runway. [9] It also served as a reminder that the Uzbek authorities still called the shots at K2, but the Americans simply worked around the issue, re-routing heavy cargo flights through Ganci in Kyrgyzstan and shifting its search-and-rescue flights to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.[10]

After the SCO summit Uzbek officials went further, entirely renouncing the agreement allowing US forces to use the base. On July 29, just days after Rumsfeld’s tour around Uzbekistan, Tashkent delivered a diplomatic note to the US Embassy, giving US military authorities six months to shut down Camp Stronghold Freedom and vacate K2. [11] Ariel Cohen, the Heritage Foundation’s Russia expert, fumed in an article published August 18: “In the post- 9/11 era, this is the first time that a U.S. ally has not only abandoned the battlefield—as Spain did in Iraq—but also shown American servicemen the door. After years of complaining that the United States has not done enough to counter terrorist threats, Karimov did what his Islamist foes have demanded all along: He demanded an end to the American “infidel” presence in Uzbekistan.” [12]

On August 26, Uzbekistan's Senate voted to back Karimov, affirming it was time for the Yankees to leave. [13] In late September State’s Daniel Fried came to Tashkent and coldly confirmed that Washington would comply. “We intend to leave it without further discussion,” Fried said. “We respect this request by the government of Uzbekistan.” On November 21 the US military closed the base for good, and the Russian news agency Interfax reported that the last US military plane left the base after a short ceremony. [14]

In testimony before Congress in late October, Fried had said he recently met with Karimov and reiterated Washington's call for an independent inquiry into the Andijan matter. “We will continue to urge the government of Uzbekistan to reverse its current path and to embrace reform as the only way to achieve long-term stability,” he testified. [15] Karimov did not change course, and in November signed an agreement on closer military cooperation with Russia. [16]