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89CENTRAL ASIA IN FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITIES OF RUSSIA: HISTORY AND CURRENT STATUS
K.P. Kurylev
RUDN University, Moscow, Russia
Abstract. The region of Central Asia is traditionally assigned an important place in Russia's foreign policy strategy. Considering the vast areas of the Russian state, maintaining security and controlling long borders has always been an uneasy and responsible foreign policy task. In this regard, it was very important for the Russian leadership to find the most favorable geopolitical locations, which, on the one hand, made it possible to contain external threats and, on the other hand, to spread their own influence. One of such outposts of Russia's geopolitical influence was and remains the Central Asian region.
Considering a wide range of issues on the geopolitical agenda, the author reveals the main foreign policy priorities in Russia's policy towards the states of Central Asia. The methodological basis for this was the methods of political analysis and historical evaluation.
Key words: Russia, Central Asia, Eurasia, geopolitics, resources, economics.
ЦЕНТРАЛЬНАЯ АЗИЯ
ВО ВНЕШНЕПОЛИТИЧЕСКИХ ПРИОРИТЕТАХ РОССИИ: ИСТОРИЯ И СОВРЕМЕННОЕ СОСТОЯНИЕ
К.П. Курылев
Российский университет дружбы народов, Москва, Россия
Аннотация. Региону Центральной Азии отводится традиционно важное место во внешнеполитической стратегии России. Учитывая огромные площади российского государства, поддерживать безопасность и контролировать протяженные границы всегда было непростой и ответственной внешнеполитической задачей. В этой связи для российского руководства очень важным было найти наиболее выгодные с точки зрения геополитического положения очаги, которые с одной стороны позволяли сдерживать внешние угрозы, а с другой
заниматься распространением собственного влияния. Одним из таких форпостов геополитического влияния России был и остается регион Центральной Азии.
Рассматривая целый комплекс вопросов геополитической повестки, автор выявляет основные внешнеполитические приоритеты в политике России в отношении государств Центральной Азии. методологической основой для этого послужили методы политического анализа и исторической оценки.
Ключевые слова: Россия, Центральная Азия, Евразия, геополитика, ресурсы, экономика.
Central Asia has always been and still remains one of the most important world geopolitical regions, the stability of which ensures the security of the whole Eurasia. After the collapse of the USSR and the sover-eignization of the new republics, the region of Central Asia faces the great strategic and geopolitical alterations in the field of both national and regional security. In the context of intensification of globalization, aggravation of the energy resources struggle, a radical change of the military-political situation and balance of forces, appearance and stepping-up of several the world policy actors in the Central Asian region, its role and significance in the early 21th century has been steadily increasing.
Being in the very heart of Eurasia between the actors of the giant Eurasian triangle: Russia in the North, China in the SouthEast and the Islamic Iran-Afghan-Pakistani area in the South, the Central Asian region occupies a vast territory in amount of about 4 million sq. km (17.8% of the total area of the CIS) [Malysheva 2010: P. 6]. Such a geo-strategic location turns Central Asia into one of the most important world geopolitical regions, the stability of which ensures the security of the whole continent. Having no access to the global ocean, this region can be regarded as a «gate» in the strategically important regions of Eurasia. So, having control over their approaches, Central Asia is able, in many ways, to have an impact on the geopolitical balance of forces in the whole Eurasian space.
As a result, this region very often appears in the center of many geopolitical constructions, such as the theory of X. Mackinder, which defines Central Asia as the Eurasian «Heartland», or American the «Greater Middle East» and the «Great Central Asia» geopolitical projects, or the Chinese idea of «Western region», which has existed for more than two thousand years, or the project on creation of the «Great Turan», supported by the Pan-Turkism ideologists, or the idea of «Great Iran». The Russian geopolitical school also places special emphasis on this region. For example, A.E. Snesarev, a classic of geopolitics, specified «Central Asia» as «the key to world politics».1
For the states of Central Asia such a situation has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is their location on the crossroads of trade routes between the North and South, East and West, between Europe and the Asia-Pacific Region. Such a central position has in many respects determined the interest and even the rivalry for regional influence of the world and regional powers: Russia, the USA, China and the EU. In addition to them the geopolitical competition in the region is supported by Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the others. As the disadvantage of such situation for the Central Asian countries can be regarded the vulnerability of the region, which depends in many respects from China in the East, from the such troubled Islamic states as Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan in the South and South-West. Hence, the region has turned into a sort of periphery, which lies outside the world political processes and economic flows. At the same time, each of the Central Asian countries seeks to capture the full benefits from its geopolitical position and tries to take advantage of the careful attention of the world community for the solution of its economic, social and other problems.
The gaining of independence revealed a previously not so visible geostrategic problem of geographical isolation. The Central Asian region is in the very center of Eurasia. It is surrounded by the giant Eurasian triangle:
1 Mikhaylov L. Russian Factor in Central Asia. URL address: // http://www.intertrends.ru/seven/013.htm. Access on 01.02.2011
Russia in the North, China in the South-East and the Islamic Iran-Afghan-Pakistani area in the South. The total length of the borders between Central Asia (CA) and Afghanistan is 2087 km, CA and Iran - 992 km, CA and China - 2805 km, CA and Russia - 6846 km. As the region has no access to the seas, it lays special emphasis on the transport corridors (back to the «silk road») and the major rivers. The southern borders of Central Asia are largely blocked by the zone of tension, as well as by the natural obstacles (mountain area); that is why the connection of this region with the world is mainly carried out through the Northern (Russia) and the Western (Russia, the South Caucasus through the Caspian Sea) borders. An important aspect in the geopolitical role of the region is the Caspian Sea: Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have access to it and Uzbekistan employs it for its transport systems.
One of the most important geopolitical factors of the region is its rich mineral resource potential, which causes the interest of the world's states. The explored oil and gas reserves of the region are approximately 2.7% and 7% of the world's proven oil and gas reserves respectively. Kazakhstan possesses about 25% of the world's uranium reserves and 8% of the world's production (4th place). In the sphere of uranium mining Uzbekistan takes the 5th place in the world and in the sphere of definition of reserves - the 7th place. Central Asia is a real storehouse of gold and other precious, basic and rare-earth metals. Uzbekistan as well ranks 4 on the world's gold resources and 7 on its production. Kazakhstan is inside the top ten of the gold reserves leaders; it heads the world list in the sphere of explored reserves of zinc, tungsten and barite, takes the 2nd place on reserves of silver, lead and chromite's, the 3rd -on copper, manganese and fluorite, the fourth - on molybdenum. It possesses 8% of the world's reserves of iron ore and 3.6% of the world's reserves of coal. Natural resources of Turkmenistan are as well rich. Uzbekistan ranks 6 in the list of world's productions of cotton-fiber and the 2nd - in its export.
The geopolitical situation around Central Asia has been significantly transformed over the last 20 years. The world policy actors, tak-
ing into account their interest in Central Asia, form a kind of parallelogram of forces, made-up of Russia, China, the Islamic world and the West states. However, the ratio of the impact of each of these states on the region during its independent development has been significantly varying. For a variety of reasons, the real geopolitical muscle and capabilities of an active policy making of nearly all the interested «centers of force» have dynamically altered.
Many of the geopolitical problems between the regional states are based on the economic reasons and the intention to capture the full benefits of their geo-strategic position. In this regard, Russia faces a vital task of working-out its own concept of realization of its strategic interests in Central Asia. The neighborhood between this region and instable Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the other countries of inner Asia, which create an arc of unrest, makes cooperation with the region a most important element of the global, regional and national security of Russia and China.
One can divide the evolution of the Russian interest in this region into several stages for convenience: 1991-1993, 1993-1995, 1995-2000., 2000. - September 11, 2001. September 11, 2001. - 2005, 2005-2008, from 2008 up to the present time.
The first stage - 1991-1993. - is characterized by the gradual formation of the interest of the world's leading forces in Central Asia. In fact, in this period the region was «Terra Incognita» for most of them, except the Russian Federation. One of the main reasons for this was the lack of a holistic systematic conception about countries of the region and their economic potential and uncertainty about the geopolitical prospects of Central Asia. As a result, a policy of the third countries was mostly indirect; their interests in this region were in a formative stage.
In this period Russia severely damped its interest in Central Asia as it regarded the Western vector of foreign policy as its priority. Such an approach was caused by the dominant «romantic» foreign policy strategy of the then-government of Russia, which was based on the opinion that Russia had historically been an integral part of Europe and the West would support its aspiration for integra-
tion into the European structures. Within the frame of this paradigm Russia almost did not take into strategic consideration the other post-Soviet countries.
After the collapse of the USSR Russia's leaders sought to distance themselves from the affairs and processes of this region and possibly to cease payment of grants in aid. It was expected, that transition to market economy would demonstrate the Central Asian republics that it was Russia, who rendered assistance to them contrary to their ideas, which appeared in virtue of complexity of the Soviet prices and granting system. As a result, the then politicians expected Russia's returning as a policy-maker in Central Asia, but under the new and more favourable terms. The Russian authorities also assumed that the shared transport infrastructure would ensure Russia's key position in the economy of Central Asia. As it turned out afterwards, the expectations of the Russian political elite proved to be wrong.
Thus, at this stage Russia abandoned an idea to become the center of integration processes in the post-Soviet space. Thereby Russia's geopolitical control over this important geographic area was weakened. All former republics of the USSR, including the Central Asian countries, got political liberty and were not slow to take maximum advantage of it.
The second stage - 1993-1995. - is characterized by the crystallization of interests of the major outside forces in Central Asia. The geopolitical role of this region was increasing. It assumed more and more significant importance in various geopolitical projects. Such a trend was caused by mainly two global factors: 1) geo-strategic position of Central Asia in the center of the important geopolitical triangle of Russia, China and the Islamic world; 2) natural resource endowment of the region. Since 1993 these two factors have been the main indicators of the activation of external forces in Central Asia.
In the 1993-1995 Russia was engrossed in the solution of numerous internal problems. Its policy in the post-Soviet area, including Central Asia, was rather inert. Russia's separate actions, aimed at the revival of cooperation between the former Soviet republics within the CIS, were made rather by inertia,
than from the geopolitical prospects. The interests of Moscow in Central Asia in that period were limited by the inter-Tajik peace settlement and slow development of trade-economic cooperation with the regional countries.
From there, the centrifugal trends in the post-Soviet space were increasing. High priority of the relations with the West in the policy of practically all the post-Soviet states became apparent. The Central Asian republics were no exception.
In the third stage - 1995-2000. - the external stakeholders started a «Great Game» in the region. By this time the world leaders have already rather clearly formulated their own geopolitical interests after the collapse of the bipolar system of foreign relations.
A new understanding of Russian interests in Central Asia, as well as in the whole territory of the CIS, appeared in the mid of 90s. As a result, on 14 September 1995 the President of the Russian Federation B. Yeltsin issued a decree, which described the importance of the integration of the post-Soviet space centered at Russia as the most important foreign policy priority. Besides, the decree emphasized the existence of Russia's vital interests in the area of economy, defense, security and protection of rights of the Russians in the CIS. 2
Nevertheless, in this period Russia was still dealing mainly with its internal problems. It is obvious, that Moscow apprehended a danger of a policy, carried out by its geopolitical rivals. So much more that it concerned the post-Soviet space - the zone of vital interests of Russia. However, all Moscow's attempts to counter the growing Western influence in the CIS-countries with its policy were random and ill-considered. Moreover, some of Russia's actions deepened the process of
2 The Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on the Strategic Course Between the Russian Federation and the CIS States (in ed. The Decree of the President of the Russian Federation N 1010, 31.08.2005) URL address: // http://www.mid.ru/ns-os-
ndoc.nsf/0e9272befa34209743256c630042d1aa/4e3d2 3b880479224c325707a00310fad?0penDocument. Access on 01.09.2010.
the geopolitical division of the post-Soviet space.
0n the whole, in this period Russia still didn't have any clear political strategy either on an international scale, or in the framework of the CIS. Its response to geopolitical changes in the world had a contradictory character. For example, in 1996 Moscow signed the Founding act on cooperation with NAT0, expecting to stop NAT0 expansion to the East, but in 1999 it severed all the ties with NAT0 in connection with the military operation in Kosovo. Russia's policy in the CIS, including the countries of Central Asia, was similarly impetuous. In fact before the events in Batken in the summer of 1999, Russia did not express noticeable interest in the region. Moscow displayed activity only from time to time, for example, in 1998 because of the danger of escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan. The outcome of such actions became the forming an alliance between Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
The fourth stage - 2000. - September 11, 2001. - is marked by the conflict of interests of Russia and the USA. The reasons for this were: 1) political regime change in Russia and the USA, that put an end to the «Yeltsin's» and «Clinton's» epochs, which were defined by the cyclical and inconsequent character; 2) confirmation of the forecasts about availability of oil in the Caspian Sea; 3) increasing of security threats in Central Asia, connected with the activity of extremists and growth of drug traffic. In the course of the 2000 year the political situation in Central Asia and the surrounded area underwent a number of crises, which were publicly perceived as full-scale threat to stability in the region. The most acute situation was an armed invasion of militants of the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in the southern regions of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. This was followed by a successful offensive of the Taliban on the Northern Alliance commands.
These factors became the main determinants of the alteration of geopolitical configuration in Central Asia. Radical change of Russia's policy towards the Central Asian republics took place only after V.V. Putin's accession to the presidency in 2000, which fur-
thered a new style of Russian foreign policy. At the first stage its outstanding feature in contrast with the political style of the B. Yeltsin's period was aiming at principles and good organization. This concerned also the Central Asian direction. On June 28, 2000 the government approved Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation. This document regarded the relations with the post-Soviet states as one of the main regional priorities and in the context of national security. Moreover, the Concept stated that the collective efforts for the settlement of the conflicts in the CIS and the cooperation in the military-political sphere and the sphere of security, especially in the fight against terrorism and extremism would be of great significance. The necessity of economic cooperation with the CIS countries was also described as priority; the Concept directly mentioned the problem of division of the Caspian Sea.3 That was a very positive step, aimed at the improvement of foreign policy. At the same time, the principles, fixed in the adopted documents, were too general in nature.
So, Russia's practical steps were aimed at the recovering of its geopolitical influence in the post-Soviet space, including the intensification of its policy in Central Asia. At this stage Russia purposefully took steps towards strengthening its influence in the region. For this purpose, its methods were in the area of the considered pragmatic approach. Moscow's policy built upon the use of the difficulties of some of the Central Asian countries in their safety ensuring, as well as upon the development of such a regional situation, that would make them be tightly bound to Russia. It used the situation in Afghanistan as the main external regulator of its relations with the Central Asian republics. At this stage, the Russia's influence in the sphere of security of the regional states became almost monopoly. In fact, Moscow managed to drive all its rivals out of this important area of geopolitical influence.
3 The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation (10.07.2000). URL address: // http://www.mid.ru/Bl.nsf/arh/19DCF61BEFED611343 25699C003B5FA3?QpenDocument Access on 01.09. 2010.
Another important factor of Russia's policy was intention to have all the Central Asian transport routes passing across its territory. This was aimed at the capability to export Russia's energy resources to the West while providing energy supply for domestic resource demands from Central Asia. This would allow not only realizing a profit on export of energy resources, but also getting an important lever of pressure on the Central Asian states.
In fact Russia was attempting to reintegrate the post-Soviet space. An outstanding feature of its policy in Central Asia at this stage was an endeavor to cover the whole region, without specific priorities.
The fifth stage - September 11, 2001. -2004. - is directly associated with the terrorist attack on the United States and the beginning of the asymmetric or the global war against international terrorism.
The anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan and the stationing of Western troops in the region of the traditional influence of Russia and China have allowed Washington to significantly strengthen its position in the region.
The US' actions under the slogan of unity of all the world states against international terrorism, including in Central Asia, demonstrated American interests convincingly, aimed at the strengthening of economic positions in this region, organizing of necessary communications there, consolidation of all the new regional independent states, forming a regional economic and military-political alliance as opposed to Russia and China, and seizing them from this part of the Eurasian space in the long view.
Strengthening of the US positions made again actual the policy of multi-export of hydrocarbons from the Caspian region and ensuring of safe control over their access to the world markets. In particular, significant progress in the issue of the implementation of strategically important project of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline took place in this very period.
Military presence in Central Asia allowed the US to tackle such geopolitical tasks, as influence the world's third oil-gas field of the Big Caspian Sea; isolation of Iran; influenc-
ing on the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China; strengthening of control over Afghanistan; supporting Pakistan; ensuring of control over nuclear confrontation in the Hindustan.
An unexpected change of the geopolitical configuration in Central Asia without doubt became an issue for concern for the other major actors. One the most important trends of this period manifested itself in the obvious cohesion policy between Russia and China, based on the related assessments of the situation in the region. Along with the intensification of bilateral contacts, the both states radically enhanced their interaction within a framework of the SCO.
The Central Asian countries could have regarded this period as a rather controversial one. On the one hand, for the first time during the short period of their independent development the Central Asian states became an object of international regard, what turned the regional status of the political periphery into one of strategic area. On the other hand, for the first time they faced a dilemma, associated with the foreign policy vector of development and the involvement in the system of regional security, which was forming under the aegis of the various «centers of power».
The sixth stage - 2004-2008. - is characterized by a kind of balance of interests of external forces and relative stabilization of the situation in Central Asia. Within this period the main event was the failure of the US strategy of «color revolutions», which, in fact, were aimed at strengthening of the American positions in the region by the political regime change in the Central Asian states.
The seventh stage (2008- till present). After coming to power in 2008, the third President of Russia D.A. Medvedev sustained the foreign policy course of his predecessor V.V. Putin. He declared the development of cooperation with the CIS countries, including the states of the Central-Asian region, as a foreign policy priority of Russia. This was pursuant to the two fundamental documents of Russia's foreign policy - "The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation" (2008) and "The National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020" (2009).
In the section IV «the Regional priorities» of "The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation" (2008) the special emphasis is placed on the following Russia's interests: making progress towards the partnership between Russia and the CIS states in the sphere of security, including collaborative efforts against such threats as international terrorism, extremism, drug traffic, transnational crime and illegal migration; prevention of destabili-zation of Central Asia; development of cooperation in humanitarian sphere in the framework of the CIS; support of the compatriots living in the CIS, as well as ensuring their educational, linguistic, social, labor, humanitarian and other rights and freedoms. Besides, according to this document, Russia has other interests in the Central-Asian region: further strengthening and development of the Eur-AsEC and the CSTO. As for the Caspian region, Russia is interested in the strengthening of cooperation of the Caspian states, as well in support of the SCO initiatives on establishing of partnership with the integration organizations in the Asia-Pacific region.4
The section II («the Modern world and Russia») of "The National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020" (2009) also sets out the following priorities of Russia: the development of integration in the CIS space in the framework of such structures as the CIS, CSTO, EurAsEC; the strengthening of partnership in the Central Asian region having used the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.5
It is also important to notice such basic document as «The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation» (2010), which emphasizes the following priorities: formation of collective forces and strengthening of the system of collective security within the CSTO; coordination of efforts of the SCO states in the
4 The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation (12. 07. 2008). URL address: //
http ://archive.kremlin. ru/text/docs/2008/07/204108.sht ml. Access on 12. 07. 2008.
5 National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020 (12.05.2009). URL address: // http://archive.kremlin.ru/text/docs/2009/05/216229.sht ml. Access on 12.05.2009.
interests of countering the new military threats.6
Central Asia is considered by Russia as an important area of its geopolitical interests, the stability of which determines the national security of Russia itself. Summarizing the main modern trends in Central Asia in the light of Russia's interests, one can nominally distinguish two types of events and threats. The first type includes traditional threats, which have been developing in the region for a long time: terrorism, the growth of drug trafficking; economic and political stagnation of some regimes; continuing internal conflicts and tension in the relations between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. All they are lasting in nature and will emerge in the short term in one form or another. The second type includes the new challenges, which are related to the regime change in Kyrgyzstan, an inter-ethnic conflict and the threat of further desta-bilization in this country. They can also include tactic alterations of the radical Islamic organizations concerning the support of the poor; the further economic development of Kazakhstan, especially in comparison with the other regional states; emerging role of China. In order to resist the security threats in Central Asia, Russia could coordinate its actions with the West, as they still have common interests in this area.
This region is important for Russia from viewpoint of geopolitics as well. Strengthening Russia's positions in Central Asia will allow it to make use of the geopolitical potential of this region for solution of practical and high-status problems of our state. The establishment of Russian military bases in the region excellently provides evidence of Russia's geopolitical interests. By highlighting the military presence, Russia tries to minimize financial expenses and to solidify in the region.
Russia is also interested in the maintenance of economic ties with the republics, as there are vital communications, natural re-
6 The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (5. 02. 2010). URL address: //
http://news.kremlin.ru/ref notes/461. Доступ 5. 02. 2010.
sources and oil and gas pipelines in this region.
Now, Russia's economic interests are mainly connected either with import of Central Asian natural resources, or with export of goods and services in these countries. There is still lack of realization of Russia's interests in the sphere of entrepreneurial business directly in the regional countries; this would favor their mutual economic cooperation and strengthening of Russian positions in the CIS southern flank. This demonstrates that Russia's current interests in these republics dominate over the long-term ones.
Russia's target is the consolidating its historically leading role in the energy markets of the Central Asian countries. Here Russia can make use of its advantage: the weakness of the new states and their dependence on the Russian transport system.
Central Asian gas takes on enormous importance in the energy balance of Russia. Now it is required by the Russian company «Gazprom», in order to ensure contract fuel supplies to Europe. The Russian holding is increasing total imports of gas from Central Asia year after year, despite its rise in price. Without having choice of lever of pressure on the regional countries, Russia first of all makes them dependent on its transport capacities. Whether Russia intends to maintain its interests in Central Asia, the regional countries, having huge hydrocarbon endowment, are seeking to distance themselves from the Russian influence by having the opportunity to diversify the supplies. Their efforts are as well caused by the interest of the EU and China in the import of oil and gas from Central Asia. The EU ambition to establish an import channel from Central Asia bypassing Russia is supported by the USA, who are seeking to take the region under their economic and political protectorate and carry out policy of ousting Russia from the energy projects.
The primary purpose of Moscow at the present stage is the necessity of resistance to various destructive ideologies that propagate formation of a Caliphate, the «Great Turan», etc. together with the Central Asian states. From viewpoint of Russia's interests such ideas are very undesirable, because they can
be unpredictable for the political development of Central Asia and allow the rapprochement with their radical accomplices abroad on the anti-Russian ground. Moreover, they pose a potential threat to Russia's territorial subjects by supporting of separatist movements in our state.
Concerning the long-term interests of Russia, one should mention its intention to maintain this region within the post-Soviet area while the gradual strengthening of the centripetal forces and the weakening of centrifugal forces. In this case the important factors would be prevention of attempts of some external actors to efface the boundaries between Central Asia, the Asia-Pacific Region and the Islamic world, which were defined in the interest of the Russian Empire and the USSR, as well as Russia's becoming a mediator between the Central Asian countries and Europe.
The interests of Russia in the sphere of transport and economy include maintenance of the important role of the Northern route as the channel of all types of rough materials midstream in Europe, and also track laying for goods delivery from Siberia and Far East to Asia, because such transportations are very time-consuming and unprofitable. The priorities of Russia in the cultural-ideological field are: ensuring the role of the Russian language, saving the common cultural values, support of the common information space, including by means of broadcasting of Russian channels and promotion of Russian-language Internet resources. In this area Russia is also interested in being a mediator in access to the global culture.
Besides the regional uncertainty and instability in some areas, which impede Russia's effective long-term strategy formulation, the implementation of its interests in the southern flank of the CIS is hindered by the aspirations of the USA and Europe to oust Russia from the region. The Western strategists and ideologists are concerned about Russia's active strengthening of positions, as this, in their opinion, obstructs establishment of the Western strategic domination. So, the Europeans are trying to seize the initiative and act as a regional arbiter, for example, by sending a special representative there or by the
peacekeeping after the ethnic riots in the southern Kyrgyzstan by the agency of the EU police contingent.
NATO military presence in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, deep in the rear of Russia, was a challenge to Russia's interests and became a serious blow to its prestige. As a result, Moscow increases efforts to establish the organization of collective security, which would serve the interests of Russia as well as of the whole region. In general, cooperation with Russia is more profitable for the Central Asian countries than cooperation with the other international actors. Moscow is well aware of the fact, that it has much more obligations to the former Soviet republics in comparison with the US and the EU. It is Russia, who is interested in the transformation of Eurasia into one of the most influential centers of world politics; the other actors seem to regard the Eurasian space only as a source of energy and one of the theatres of operations against international terrorism [Zvyagelskaya 2009: 286]
Furtherance of Russia's interests depends also on the factor of attitude of the native population. Thus, according to the opinion polls, 67% of the Kazakhstan nationals have a positive attitude towards Russia, about 50% are not against the Russia-Kazakhstan Union; 74% of the residents of Kyrgyzstan regard Russia as a friendly state, 72% consider a possibility of the Union with it; the majority of the respondents (89%) in Tajikistan qualify Russia as a friendly state, 73% of the Tajiks aim at the alliance with Russia; 78% of the Uzbekistan's residents also consider Russia as a friendly state, 65% of the respondents have a positive stance on the integration with Russia.7 After the apparent reduction of Russia's influence on a substantial part of the postSoviet space, Central Asia remains the friendliest region and the heritage of the Russian culture, as in Soviet times, has an impact on the living and views of the majority of the citizens of these states.
Thus, Central Asia possesses not only the rich raw-material base, but also an advanta-
7 WCIOM. «Friends» and «enemies» of Russia in the post-Soviet space. URL address // http://wciom.ru/index.php?id=268&uid=11043. Access on 26. 11. 2008.
geous strategic position. Due to the unique location of the region at the confluence of the Eurasian geopolitical intercourses, it can be regarded as one of the main elements of security of the former Soviet Union and, in general, allocated as a certain component of stability in Eurasia.
This region is objectively included in the traditional sphere of Russian vital interests and our country still retains here the leverage of significant influence.
After the apparent reduction of Russia's influence on a substantial part of the postSoviet space, Central Asia remains the friendliest region and the heritage of Russian culture, as in Soviet times, has an impact on the living and views of the majority of the citizens of these states. Today we realize that our interdependence is far more, than it was in early 1990s. Besides, since the Soviet period the Central Asian states and Russia have established the close economic links, which make the realization of the joint economic projects in the new conditions possible.
The key objectives and interests of Russia in Central Asia are: extension of the political and economic contacting with the states of Central Asia; development of humanitarian cooperation; intensification of integration with the Central Asian countries within the framework of such international organizations, as the SCO, CSTQ, EurAsEC; upholding of economic interests in the region; development of energy cooperation with the states of Central Asia; countering the security threats and risks of religious extremism; prevention of drug traffic; protection of rights of the Russians, living in the region.
More obvious becomes the fact that the Central Asian region is an important foundation for the revival of the power and strategic influence of Russia in the world.
By the carrying out a policy in the region of Central Asia, Russia needs to take into account its geopolitical and geo-economic location, which should be carefully and comprehensively considered.
The presence in the Central Asian region, which is traditionally regarded by Moscow as a strategic base against external threats and as a sphere of its influence, gives Russia the capability to control the transport communica-
tions almost of the whole Eurasia. In its turn this allows Russia to exercise influence upon the States of the continent, and gain access to the rich natural resources of the region.
The relations between Russia and the states of Central Asia as well as Russia's positions in this region are significantly influenced by the conflict and intersection of interests of Russia on the one hand and the US, China, EU countries, Turkey, Iran and India on the other hand. Most of these states continue the policy of ousting Russia from the region, while ignoring the opinion of the Russian leaders on the most important issues. Being exercised about the increasing influence of several states in the southern CIS, Russia, considering its vital geostrategic and geopolitical interests, seeks to expand and strengthen its relations with the Central Asian region.
The essential factor of protection of Russia's interests in Central Asia is an intensification of the study of the Russian language and the formation of a positive information field, aimed at the integration and reducing the influence of the other regional and extraregional actors in the media space of Central Asia. As it is, Russia still possesses the considerable political weight in this region for the successful upholding of its interests.
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About the author: Kurylev Konstantin P. - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Theory and History of International Relations, RUDN University (email: [email protected]).
БИБЛИОГАФИЧЕКИЙ СПИСОК
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Сведения об авторе: Курылев Константин Петрович - доктор исторических наук, профессор кафедры теории и истории международных отношений РУДН (email: [email protected]).
