Yezhednevnyy Zhurnal , Russia
Aug 22 2011
Who Needs the Bulky and Unreliable ODKB?
by Arkadiy Dubnov
[translated from Russian]
The informal summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(ODKB) [CSTO] that took place a week ago in Astana confirmed once
again that suspicions of the military-political impotence of this
organization that was created ten years ago for strengthening the
security of its members remain in force. In addition, hopes are
diminishing for its recovery from this infirmity.
Little is known about the results of the meeting in the Kazakh
capital. Or to be more exact, basically nothing. In any case,
officially. However, that is what was promised, especially when
several days before the start of the summit, it was learned that
Uzbekistani President Islom Karimov would not be coming to Astana.
With no explanations. But I think they are understood. He is not a
young man, they say, not very healthy, and will not fly with no
apparent need.
Offended most of all by his senior colleague was Aleksandr Lukashenka,
who presides over the CSTO this year. After flying from Astana on a
visit to Qatar, where he was promised the loans so very important for
his country, and not yet having cooled down from the stresses of
Astana, the Batka told journalists that it was time to exclude from
the CSTO “countries that do not wish to cooperate fully under the
treaty”.
CSTO General Secretary Nikolay Bordyuzha even had to intervene,
assuming the defence of Islom Karimov. “This summit was informal, and
it was the right of the head of every state to go to it or not. I hope
very much that the president of Uzbekistan will participate in the
CSTO summit in Moscow. There is no discussion here about imposing any
sanctions,” the Russian general corrected the Batka.
Aleksandr Grigoryevich apparently forgot how two years ago, in June
2009, he himself refused to go to Moscow; moreover, to an official
CSTO summit, which caused a hullabaloo among the allies, for he was
supposed to accept the chairmanship of the organization. The Batka did
not conceal the reason for his behaviour – the “milk” conflict with
Moscow. A package of documents on the creation of the CSTO’s
Collective Rapid Reaction Forces (KSOR) was signed at that summit, but
Lukashenka signed the documents only in October 2009, when the “milk”
problems were solved.
Thus, it was already clear back then that participation in the
military preparations of the CSTO was not Minsk’s main priority. It is
known that the creation of this organization was initiated by Moscow
in the beginning of the 2000s, when it was discovered that even
Russia’s close partners in the CIS dared to make independent decisions
affecting the overall defence space. This was the case in Kyrgyzstan
when it decided to accept the proposal of Washington, which had
started a military operation in Afghanistan, to locate an American Air
Force base in Bishkek.
Ten years later, when the United States announced it would withdraw
its troops from Afghanistan by 2014, it became extremely fashionable
to talk about Central Asia ending up defenceless before the threat of
terrorism. Thus came the CSTO’s hour in the limelight. Who if not it
would stand with its chest in the way of the terrible, bearded
Talebans, who were only waiting for the Americans to leave Afghanistan
in order to rush in and conquer the Fergana Valley and beyond into the
steppes of Kazakhstan. Only the idle in the ranks of political
analysts and experts did not muse about the terrible future of Central
Asia, which would stand shoulder to shoulder with the Taleban, who
would return to power in Afghanistan. The Collective Forces would have
to make Tashkent and Dushanbe, Bishkek and Astana safe from the
approaching threat.
But look what strangeness was revealed in particular at the same
informal CSTO summit in Astana. The author learned from informed
sources that not one of the leaders of Central Asia insisted on the
speedy formation of the KDOR by the end of this year with the
insistence that Lukashenka did. In addition, he even proposed
stationing some of the subunits formed by this time in his own t
erritory. This looked extremely surprising, for that same Batka always
backed away from turning the CSTO into a military bloc.
Therefore, Lukashenka’s proposal could be interpreted in only one way:
the Batka is afraid of the spread of the revolutionary threat into
Belarus and is trying to forestall it by stationing the KSOR with
himself. Should there be a growing internal threat to his regime, it
would be possible to serve it up as a foreign threat and use the
Collective Forces. It seems that Lukashenka’s idea did not arouse much
enthusiasm in the circle of his colleagues. In addition, Armenian
President Serzh Sargsian reproached the Belarusian President for the
fact that Minsk did not oppose Azerbaijan’s initiative to move the
resolution of the Karabakh conflict from the OSCE level to the review
of the UN Security Council.
In such a situation, the question is reasonable, who of Minsk’s allies
in the CSTO is ready to send his soldiers to defend the Batka’s
regime? There certainly will be no Armenian lads there; they have
enough of the Karabakh front. The heads of the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and
Kyrgyz will not send their soldiers to the West unless they put on the
uniforms of Gastarbeiters… Exactly as the Batka himself always
resisted sending his own youths to serve far off in the East, to the
Afghan borders of his Central Asian allies in the CSTO.
But it is an interesting question why Tashkent and Dushanbe are not in
a hurry to call for the CSTO’s help in defence from the evil Talebans.
The answer to it was given, in particular, at the summit in Astana by
Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbaeva, who was sceptical about the
assessment of the organization’s effectiveness. According to the
author’s information, she did not even cite the sorrowful experience
of the tragic events in Kyrgyzstan’s South in June of last year, when
after her call for help, the CSTO took so long thinking about it that
there was no longer anyone to rescue from the interethnic bloodbath…
Now Bishkek asserts with pride that they managed with their own forces
to stop the tragedy when the number of victims had reached 500
persons.
In the exact same way Tashkent and Dushanbe are getting ready to repel
possible “Afghan” threats with their own forces. The resource of the
republics is in the use of buffer zones on the north of Afghanistan,
which are populated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks. In regard to
activating the KSOR, then all of this is still limited by the need for
a large number of agreements between the CSTO member-countries, the
achievement of which is blocked by that same Uzbekistan that the Batka
so railed against.
Tashkent – and various experts have said this more than once – is in
no hurry to ensure a consensus on decisions concerning the use of the
KSOR should a threat of a domestic nature arise in any of the CSTO
member-countries, fearing that these forces may be used in the
interests of the enemies of the ruling regime. In addition, one must
always remember the tense relations between Tashkent and Dushanbe,
about the still-mined sectors of the borders between these CSTO
allies, and about the deep level of distrust and suspicion between the
leaders of these neighbouring states.
And there is one other factor of no small importance that limits the
use of the KSOR in the Central Asian theatre of military operations –
this is the distrust of the ruling elites of the region’s countries in
Moscow’s true intentions. The Kremlin is still suspected of
imperialist ambitions and of striving in one way or another to restore
its lost control over the post-Soviet space, even if only to hinder
the growth of American influence in the region.
In these circumstances, the capitals of Central Asia have learned to
balance Moscow’s and Washington’s interests to their much greater
advantage, seeing in this guarantees for their own regimes. The CSTO
is a guarantee mechanism that is as much awkward as it is virtual. In
other words, it is unreliable.