How Putin can confuse Biden’s plans for post-Afghanistan

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The twin questions of how to continue to fight terrorists and protect Afghans who worked with American forces after the American withdrawal became more pressing Friday, as the last American troops left Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan’s largest military base and the epicenter of the American war. There for nearly two decades. As of Tuesday, the US military has completed 90 percent of the withdrawal, according to US Central Command.

The proposal was on the agenda Thursday, when Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met at the State Department with his counterparts from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the two most likely of the six Central Asian nations that US military planners are eyeing for the plan, according to an A. Congressional source. Both are on the border with Afghanistan and would allow faster access to the country than current US bases in the Middle East and aircraft carriers hundreds of miles away in the Persian Gulf.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also met with Tajikistan’s foreign minister on Friday. Meanwhile, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special representative for Afghanistan, traveled to those countries in May. Readings from Friday’s Blinken meetings did not mention the proposal, but indicated that officials agreed that ending the conflict in Afghanistan would benefit the region.

This would not be the first time that the United States has deployed forces in Central Asia in support of the Afghan war. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US military used two bases, one each in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, for Afghanistan operations. The two bases were later closed amid turmoil and pressure from the Kremlin, which increasingly views the US presence in the region with suspicion.

But the possibility of concluding such an agreement with one of the Central Asian countries is now unlikely given the tense state of the relationship between Washington and Moscow, which is at one of the lowest levels since the Cold War. Many of these countries depend on Russia – and to some extent China – for exports as well as military equipment and training. Experts say that the countries of the former Soviet republic need the tacit consent of Moscow to deploy US forces on their territory.

“Russia considers the region of Central Asian nations its area of ​​influence — and it does not welcome others, particularly the United States, in those areas,” said retired Gen. David Petraeus, who commanded forces in Afghanistan under former President Barack Obama. .

Even without a presence in Central Asia, the US has a capacity on the horizon to assist the Afghan military, said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, referring to US Navy bases and ships in the Gulf.

“There is no piece of land that we cannot strike if we do not want to,” he said.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment for this article.

The Central Asian countries’ relationship with Russia makes it difficult to ask them to host the thousands of Afghan translators and others who assisted US forces during the war. Russia does not require visas for any of the three countries being considered for this effort — Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan — so Moscow will have to add border controls for security, said Timur Umarov, a research advisor at the Carnegie Center in Moscow. Moreover, the deteriorating economic situation and the latest wave of the pandemic mean that countries are unlikely to agree to accept additional immigrants.

The discussions, though, are an “encouraging development,” said Representative Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a former Green Beret member who is one of a number of lawmakers pressing Biden to evacuate Afghan interpreters.

“I am pleased that the Biden administration is exploring all options,” Waltz told Politico, adding that sending refugees to Guam is another option. “Time is running out with the Taliban on the march.”

When it comes to stationing US forces, Russia will not take the idea kindly. Take Tajikistan, for example, which is one of five countries that share a border with Afghanistan. Umarov said that while Dushanbe has a history of working with the United States, including allowing US military aircraft to refuel at the country’s airports after the September 11 attacks, relations with Washington today are frosty. President Imam Ali Rahmon, a controversial figure in power since the early 1990s, has never visited the United States.

Meanwhile, the Tajik economy is highly dependent on Russia and China. Remittances of Tajik citizens working in Russia accounted for more than 20% of GDP in 2020; Chinese loans account for more than 20 percent of GDP and more than half of all external borrowing.

On the military front, Tajikistan is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of select ex-Soviet states, and already hosts a Russian military base on its territory. China is also building a point on the border with Afghanistan.

Umarov said that Russia and China today have every reason to block any move to deploy US forces in Tajikistan, or any other country in Central Asia. Twenty years ago, after the 9/11 attacks, Moscow, Beijing and Washington shared many of their concerns about terrorism emanating from Afghanistan. But now this threat has receded, and the competition between the three powers has intensified. He said Russia, in particular, sees US efforts in Afghanistan as another way to undermine Moscow’s influence.

“There is an understanding between Moscow and Beijing on this issue,” Umarov said. “Central Asia will not risk its long-term relations with Russia and China to help the United States.”

While both Russia and China see a risk to regional stability from a US and NATO withdrawal, they also see “opportunities to take advantage of the security vacuum and position themselves as regional power brokers,” Jeffrey Mankoff, a fellow at the National Defense University, wrote and Cyrus Newlin, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a recent commentary for War on the Rocks.

Among Afghanistan’s remaining neighbors – China, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – the options for a US troop presence are limited. China and Iran are not two countries. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, closed the door last week in no uncertain terms about the possibility of US troops being deployed in the country.

Meanwhile, isolationist Turkmenistan, which Umarov called “the North Korea of ​​Central Asia,” has shown no interest in cooperating with the United States on the conflict in Afghanistan. Moreover, it is more dependent on Beijing economically than its neighbors, selling more than 80 percent of its total exports to China and sharing a gas pipeline with the country.

Experts say that Uzbekistan is the most promising country that has a border with Afghanistan. Tashkent is less dependent on Russia and China economically than other countries, is not part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and does not host any foreign military bases. Meanwhile, the president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has revived relations with the United States and even recently visited Washington.

Uzbekistan also has a history of harboring US forces. From 2001 to 2005, former President Islam Karimov leased the Karchi Khanabad air base to the Americans, and from 2013 to 2016, Tashkent was the home of the NATO Liaison Officer in Central Asia.

But Umarov said that the prospect of hosting US forces in Uzbekistan after the withdrawal would likely be met with stiff resistance from both Moscow and Beijing, as well as from the Uzbek community, which views any intervention in the Afghan conflict negatively.

Any agreement to create a US base would require a change in Uzbek law. He said that according to the current statute, Uzbekistan cannot host any foreign military base on its territory.

Umarov said that Uzbekistan realizes by observing decades of failed US and Soviet attempts to solve the problem of Afghanistan that “there is no military solution to the Afghan crisis.”

Even if Uzbekistan agreed to host US forces, Petraeus said, the government would likely place restrictions on how Washington could use the base, for example restricting operations to unarmed aircraft. He added that another issue is the additional expenditures for Washington to build the necessary infrastructure.

The Biden administration could look further, for example, at Kyrgyzstan, which does not share a border with Afghanistan but has a history of hosting US forces. But Umarov said Kyrgyzstan, like Tajikistan, relies heavily on remittances from migrant workers in Russia and owes it to China. Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan is also part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and maintains a Russian military base on its territory.

The United States deployed troops to the transit center of Manas after 9/11, but Kyrgyzstan closed the base in 2014 — around the same time Russia invaded Crimea and tensions with the West soared — due to pressure from Moscow.

Umarov said the biggest problem for Washington is the political turmoil in the country. Kyrgyzstan has experienced three revolutions in the past fifteen years. If the state of unpredictability continues, the Pentagon may not be able to guarantee the security of US forces on the country’s soil.

In the meantime, Kazakhstan is a less acceptable option. The country is sandwiched between Russia and China, one of Moscow’s closest allies and one of Beijing’s largest economic partners in the region. Meanwhile, its distance from Afghanistan – the two countries do not share a border – makes it a less than ideal location for US forces at home and abroad.

To some extent, Washington may be able to benefit from sanctions relief and international recognition in exchange for a deal, for example helping Uzbekistan achieve its goal of becoming part of the World Trade Organization.

But in general, the only way for the Biden administration to conclude a deal for a base of American forces in one of the Central Asian countries is to prove to them that “the financial and political benefits of this cooperation will outweigh the inevitable losses suffered by the Central Asian countries. It will inevitably continue as a result of the disapproval of Russia and Beijing.”

He continued, “Central Asia cannot be considered a priority in the foreign policy of the United States.” “At the moment, Central Asia understands that the United States is not ready to act as a counterweight to Russia and China in the region, but it needs Central Asia for short-term interests.”

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