Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s network of clients is growing stronger, to the detriment of the country’s population. Kurmanbek has streamlined his power by removing a number of ministries and parliamentary structures, essentially giving himself more power vis-à-vis the bureaucracy. On October 19, Prime Minister Igor Chudinov resigned and Kurmabenk ordered parliament to support his replacement, Daniyar Usenov, who had previously served as the chief of the presidential staff. Family members run the security services. Maksim is also one of the country’s wealthiest entrepreneurs. Now with control of Russia’s $2 billion in credit, and with a governmental regime firmly under his father’s rule, he has nearly no limits on what he can do.

Let’s hope he spends at least some of the money increasing Kyrgyzstan’s domestic capacity for electricity production so as to avoid having gas supplies turned off by Uzbekistan. Currently, Kyrgyzstan is heavily in debt to Uzbekistan and on September 22nd, suspended gas supplies to some cities in the Ferghana Valley. On September 24th, Kyrgyzstan’s government announced plans to ration electricity this winter. With few checks and balances in place, the Kyrgyz people will likely have another difficult winter ahead.

Almost all the fossil fuels will be sourced from Kazakhstan. Russia currently controls the export of approximately 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil and with Kazakh oil production set to dramatically increase, Russia will continue to control their export market. According to the Jamestown Foundation, currently operating fields are approaching peak capacity and the world-class Kashagan offshore field will be coming on stream within the next decade.

While this is well and good for the three men pictured below, one would hope that Kazakhstan will figure a way out of being a subject in other people’s plan’s, rather than just choosing what is expedient.

No major agreements were signed, because they likely wouldn’t be honored internationally anyway without Iran, but an important message was sent. As Iran is having major domestic unrest and is focused on that for an extended period of time, the post-Soviet states can gather and show a united front. The 4 countries want to have the Caspian designated a sea, for each side to control its own coast rather than divide the resources equally, which Iran, having the shortest coastline, would rather have. Domestic unrest is foreign opportunity.

However, the summit is really just a show of unity. Turkmenistan has claimed gas fields that Azerbaijan disputes, and is taking them to court over it. Russia wants to maintain a monopoly on transporting Central Asian gas and therefore opposes laying pipelines across the Caspian. So with all these crisscrossing interests and oppositions, progress will be slow and posturing frequent.

Turkmenistan has a Coast Guard made up of leftovers from the Soviet Union. For the new base, they will acquire a missile-launching ship and cutters.

The announcement of the base is likely a reaction to Azerbaijan’s move in July to develop oil fields in the Caspian. The Caspian Sea is the site of disputes for all the shoreline states involved. But the major pipeline that Europe wants built, Nabucco, which would transport Turkmen gas through Azerbaijan, makes this an obstacle in Europe’s path to energy source diversification, while it assures Russia of dominance in Europe’s energy markets.

However, this could all turn around as Turkmenistan isn’t happy with Russia either after they blew up a pipeline in Turkmenistan, allegedly an accident.

First of all, the Taliban is rooted in the Pashtun ethnic group. Second of all, the vast majority of the population adheres to secularism and forms of Islam less concerned with the letter of the law.

But that doesn’t stop the Central Asian and Russian governments from using fears of a Taliban insurgency to keep themselves in power. Russia has secured for itself a base in Kyrgyzstan partly relying on that excuse. President Bakiyev trumped up the concerns on his way to re-election. Eight militants were recently killed in the Kyrgyz part of the Ferghana Valley. Security forces say they were foreign-trained terrorists, but there is no way to independently confirm that.

Government corruption, government-controlled drug trafficking and the lack of freedoms are much more likely to increase fundamentalism than the Taliban or anything else foreign. However, the small but real threat of terrorism is too useful to the status quo to actually rout out of the region.

And this is what Uzbekistan, and more distantly Belarus, is objecting to. According to a statementpublished by the Uzbek Foreign Ministry’s Jahon news agency, a second base in Kyrgyzstan could aggravate ethnic tensions (Osh has a significant Uzbek population) and provoke terrorism. Uzbekistan has long been trying to assert its own regional influence, and a significant increase in Russian military presence will be another obstacle to Uzbek influence over its neighbors.

It is hard to write this post because the conclusion was so incredibly foregone. I can’t express feelings of dissapointment, because I doubt that a change in leadership would do much. As I have expressed before, Kyrgyzstan lacks the requisite institutions to make democracy work, not a lack of leadership.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had urged Nazarbaev not to sign the law into effect. Miklos Haraszti, OSCE’s Representative on Freedom of the Media, criticized the legislation as contrary to both OSCE and international standards. Kazakhstan is set to chair OSCE in 2010-a decision that has been criticized by groups such as Human Rights Watch ever since the decision was made by OSCE’s council in 2007. Watchdog organizations have repeatedly questioned Kazakhstan’s ability to lead and uphold OSCE’s commitment to human and civic rights and the passing of this new internet law only reaffirms the apprehension.

Kazakhstan’s relationship with the internet is complex, with attempts to strengthen internet usage and boost the Kazakh telecommunications sector coexisting with efforts to monitor and suppress online content. Nazarbaev has been openly ambitious in regard to development of the Kazakh IT sector, which in the past decade has become the clear frontrunner and main internet service provider in Central Asia. That being said, online access is still accessible only to a minority, and Kazakh citizens living outside of major cities are well beyond the reach of the internet. Also, long before the enactment of the recent internet law plenty of legislation was already in place placing limitations on internet content (and aiding in the encouragement of self-censorship). More than 300 legislative acts exist that control information and telecommunications in Kazakhstan in one way or another. Although a few competitors do exist, Kazakhtelecom effectively holds a monopoly in the country and exerts an extraordinary amount of control. Traffic of all first-tier ISPs go through Kazakhtelecom’s channels, permitting an easy, centralized way to filter content. Furthermore, since Kazakhtelecom is the main provider of internet in countries like Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan it censors content for its Central Asian neighbors as well.

In 2008, livejournal.com was blocked, with Kazakhtelecom denying any role in the matter. Oddly enough, the Russian-language version of the site, livejournal.ru (which also happens to be the most popular blogsite in Russia), remained accessible. Speculation on behalf of media outlets such as The Moscow Times was that the block had to do with Nazarbaev’s former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev, who has openly criticized (and blogged about) the Nazarbaev government. Other websites such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have been blocked since last year.

Hiro succeeds in presenting colorful anecdotes along with facts and how historical contingencies have created the present. Central Asia is simply one of the most fascinating places in the world, and even as an academic, I learned many little details that academic historians typically excise in order to appear more serious.

In general, I wish there was not such a stark divide between ‘popular’ and academic works of history and politics. My criticisms of Hiro’s work could extend to most other popular books, and frankly, Hiro does a better job than most others do. He does not give in to orientalizing or caricuturizing the people, making it seem like some sort of demented DisneyLand. He is sympathetic towards the region’s people, who have lost so much in the 20th century, and yet he paints a fair portrait of the gains as well.

Unfortunately, like many popular works, he does not integrate academic works as much as he could have. There have been a few truly remarkable works on the region in the last ten or so years, and he does not seem to have consulted them as much as he should have. He makes a few problematic word choices, such as describing nomads as “marauding”, when they actually had fixed patterns of movement or the region in pre-Soviet times as “feudal” when there was no ownership of peasant labor. He shouldn’t have called the Uzbek masses “Islamist”, but rather explained they want any alternative to the status quo of mass corruption and state perpetrated violence. His analysis of the Jadids is simplistic to the point of inaccuracy, which a cursory reading of Khalid’s The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform would have prevented. Hiro could have brought to light some of the academic debates on the region and not made it seem so cut and dry, as if no competing interpretations existed.

However, although the small chapter on the region’s history is fraught with
simplifications, the chapters devoted to current politics are strong. He is
detailed and deftly illustrates his points with his personal experiences.
Unfortunately, writing a book on the constantly changing region is difficult. He concludes his work by arguing that the closing of Manas for US troops shows that “Russia was back in the saddle as the Big Brother of Central Asia (414)”. Ooops, actually, it shows that Bakiyev is firmly in the saddle of Kyrgyzstan, playing two powers against each other for profit. Overall, I would recommend  Inside Central Asia to someone who needs to know what has been going on in Central Asia since the 1980’s. I would just suggest they read the news as well.

Perhaps the question to be asked in this case is if the recent reversal is a symptom of pragmatic negotiating on behalf of President Obama or whether it is the Kremlin dangling a carrot in front of Washington.  I am inclined to choose the  latter as it is generally Russia that is ready to engage in realpolitik, willing to swap that which ranks lower on its agenda in order to preserve its greater interests. However, there are some signs that the Obama administration is engaging in some bottom line decisionmaking of its own when it comes to keeping a base open in Kyrgyzstan. Journalists have made light of the fact that in keeping Manas Air Base open, the U.S. is effectively engaging in dealmaking with an authoritarian government accused of human rights abuses.

Obama’s visit with Putin and Medvedev should help clarify the trajectory of US-Russia relations over the course of the next year. Whether or not both countries are really willing to play a little game of give-and-take with each other remains to be seen. Whether an event such as the recent one in Kyrgyzstan was a move by Washington or Moscow is not entirely clear. One thing is certain, however, and that is that a chess game is in play.