Reformulated in July 2011, the idea promotes free trade and regional development joining the potential of the Central Asia Republics (CARs) with those of South Asia and the Middle East, especially through the construction of communication networks and, especially, energy infrastructure. [2]
However, to affect regional stability positively, the US strategy should have implied a parallel harmonization of the customs policies and border practices among the states of the region. Quite the opposite, regional political institutions are fragile and stand in the way of the new corridors becoming a sound reality. [3]
The CARs' authoritarian regimes have resisted regional coordination, while the US has failed to establish a minimal state structure and internal reconciliation in Afghanistan. [4] The most probable result will be that the US will focus its remaining forces on northern and western non-Pashtun provinces of Afghanistan (mainly Tajiks and Uzbeks), a solution wished for by senior figures in the US diplomatic establishment. [5] However, this leaves the prospect of the rest of the country returning to being a geopolitical black hole.
The above scenario stems as well from the US misfortune of failing to define a regional political framework for its project. This emerged once before, in the mechanism modeled on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe that the US tried to propose for Turkey at the end of 2011. Washington could in such a framework capitalize on increased ties with India. [6]
However, the Asian players, among which Iran is prevented by sanctions to be fully engaged, refused to agree to be encapsulated in a mechanism that was decided from outside. [7] The reluctance of the major Eurasian powers to engage with Washington is also because in its regional enterprise the latter is even more concentrated on advancing the security component in its cooperation with the CARs.
Indeed, if a "silk road" has taken form, it has actually been in the traffic of military items along the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a logistical scheme introduced in 2009 after the deterioration of relations with Pakistan. [8]
Building on this effort, Washington has striven to expand its military basing rights in an attempt to maintain a key player position in the region even after the withdrawal of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces. [9]
In the past few months, the US has deployed an unprecedented diplomatic campaign to consolidate military-to-military relations with the five former Soviet Central Asian Republics, which reached its peak in the visit of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last February to Kyrgyzstan - where the US is adamant in its will to maintain after 2014 the Manas Transit Center - and Uzbekistan, which has seen the removal of any restrictions (already symbolic in their nature) on military aid. [10]
In addition to transit and other fees paid to each CAR for transporting equipment out of Afghanistan on the NDN, the US and British governments have dangled the prospect of donating some of their military equipment to their armies. [11]
It should also be mentioned that Washington pursues its engagement with the CAR security sectors by building up their anti-drug capacities. Last year, the US launched the Central Asia Counter-narcotics Initiative (CACI). In this framework, even more resources are poured into the security sector in addition to the millions of dollars that are provided to each CAR on a bilateral basis. [12]
Also last year, through its Drug Enforcement Administration, the United States allocated US$14 million to the region. Another $101 million came from the Pentagon. In fiscal year 2010, the US spent an estimated $69 million on counter-narcotics efforts in Central Asia.
The threats from Afghanistan
The increased Western attention has a major impact for the CARs as it excites the appetites and ambition of their regimes, [13] while the growing attention to the security sector creates a regional trend to militarization. What is more, the local regimes are prone to consider the Western presence only as a financial support and a guarantee to the status quo. [14] This has a considerable impact on their internal political dynamics, characterized by the challenge of radical Islamist opposition to the post-Soviet elites. Unable to deal with them in normal terms, the latter have pushed the Islamists - among whom stands out the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) - to regroup and make Afghan regions a redeployment ground for insurgence activities.
The US intervention disarticulated these groups for some years but they have been on the rise again since it has lost its grip on the situation. Moreover, the rising importance of the NDN for the logistics of NATO's war effort has encouraged the IMU to reorganize its bases in northern Afghanistan. The departure of coalition forces from Afghanistan will likely exacerbate this trend, leaving areas out of control and susceptible of being used as a springboard for armed groups' incursions into Central Asia and China. As reported by Russian media, in the first three months of this year several detachments of gunmen were detected crossing into Tajikistan and establishing military bases near the Afghan border. [15]
Drug trafficking from Afghanistan, the largest world supplier of heroin and other drugs that transit through the states of Central Asia, [16] further feeds these degenerative trends. As a result, an economy of drugs has been consolidated in Central Asia, entrenching itself in the local administrations. This accounts for the absence of effective response given that considerable sectors of the governments in both Russia and the CARs are involved in drug trafficking.
Central Asia is particularly exposed to the combined threats of insurgents and traffickers because of its current geo-strategic configuration. Threats are naturally international given the precarious character of the national boundaries, large sections of which are not demarcated, are guarded by poor security forces and stretch along harsh mountainous terrains. Moreover, borders cut across ethnic communities, and these links are used by traffickers and terrorist groups to spread around the region. This is a sensitive point also because the Atlantic strategy of redeployment toward northern Afghanistan and the CARs is likely to shift the burden of the conflict on to the trans-border ethnic communities of Tajiks and Uzbeks.
These problems reach their peak in the Ferghana Valley, a space left divided by the Soviet demise among Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the three republics that are most at risk of state collapse. The three countries have proved unable to settle any of the many trans-border problems affecting the life of half of the regional population, who live concentrated in the valley and have been increasingly subject to Islamization. The opposition groups benefit from interstate disputes as well as the degeneration of their political systems. Against this background, the Islamists can present themselves as the only political alternative to the existent state of things. Also, the international conjuncture of the "Arab Spring" inspires new recruits willing to overthrow the corrupt governments. [17] Although many Islamists profess non-violence, at least some of them can be radicalized by way of increased contacts with Afghanistan. [18]
With the largest and most porous border with Afghanistan (1,200 kilometers), as well as being the poorest and most fragile of the CARs, [19] Tajikistan is deeply concerned by the scenarios opened by NATO's retreat. Here, Afghanistan's turmoil has already resulted in five years of civil war with Islamist opposition groups. Trans-border ethnic links (Tajiks are the second-largest group in Afghanistan) create the probability of waves of refugees hitting the fragile stability of the country. Even if flare-ups of violence are on the rise, the regime of President Emomalii Rahmon seems more concerned with assuring its leverage vis-a-vis the Russian presence in the country. [20] The Tajik case shows that the increased Western attention to local administrations is boosting their self-confidence externally as well as toward internal Islamic groups.
This trend, which is increasing the discontent among disaffected youth, is clearly visible also in Uzbekistan. Even being the most problematic of the capitals in the region, Tashkent has continued to be the largest recipient of foreign security assistance as well. The Uzbek regime has used this support to put pressure on its internal dissidents, [21] as well as on its neighbors, especially Tajikistan, against which it has applied an economic blockade that has frustrated Western plans for regional trade recovery.
On the other hand, with the largest security forces in the region, Uzbekistan may consider itself able to protect its borders from the worsening situation in Afghanistan. Moreover, it could also attempt to expand its influence in the north of Afghanistan, especially if this area becomes the focus of the remaining Atlantic forces.
Kyrgyzstan, a state that has collapsed twice in five years, shows the dynamics waiting to happen elsewhere in the region. The ephemeral rule of law of a failing state provides an easy transit route for traffickers and is a highly conducive terrain for extremist groups. The 2010 anti-Uzbek pogroms in southern Kyrgyzstan left that large community (700,000) exasperated with the national authorities, and a breeding ground for volunteers in insurgency. As the main US basing point in the region, Kyrgyzstan is traversed by serious geopolitical tensions. In 2010 and 2011, a wave of terror attacks took place.
Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have a somewhat different perspective on developments in Afghanistan.
While it remains one of the most isolated nations on Earth, hardly an asset in the plans to improve the regional economic outlook, Turkmenistan, the only CAR not part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, can boost its own neutrality by mediating between Afghan warring parties. Before 2001, it was the only country in the region able to maintain relations with the Taliban, so it might believe it will be able to find a modus vivendi with whatever political reconfiguration emerges in the neighboring country.
Thus Turkmens consider Afghanistan an opportunity. Last April, Ashgabat signed with Islamabad an agreement for the start of the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. However, a signature in itself means little in the history of a project under discussion for 16 years. And in the swinging strategic environment of the region, Turkmenistan, which shares a large border (744km) with Afghanistan and has connections with NATO, could become a target of attacks.
Kazakhstan stands out as the most balanced diplomatic player in the region. Economically successful, it is able to deploy resources to assist Afghanistan through multilateral/international programs and projects - notably in providing education to some 1,000 Afghan students. Astana strives to maintain a neutral position with respect to the US military strategy given its conflicting character with the Russian-sponsored integration projects in the region, for which Kazakhstan represents a fundamental element. But it risks as well remaining caught between the increasing pressure from both sides. [23] Moreover, the dynamic of the past months showed that even secular Kazakhstan can become a target for Islamists' attacks. [24]
The Russian position
After having supported the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, Russia has become increasingly adverse to the Western military presence in the region, [25] considered as pretext to implement a far-reaching geopolitical agenda in opposition to its regional strategy. This aim at establishing supremacy in the security realm through a multilateral frameworks with the CARs: the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The bloc is in the process of revising its capacities further to tackle the potential threats from Afghanistan. It has established an effectively multilateral Collective Rapid Reaction Force, which is active in training exercises aimed at the prevention of possible incursions from Afghanistan as well as possible internal popular uprisings.
The CSTO foresees assisting Afghan security forces with training and equipment maintenance, but it excludes any direct deployment on the Afghan territory. [26] The CSTO faces the risk of not being at the height of Moscow ambitions. Indeed, when in 2010 the government of Kyrgyzstan called on Russia to intervene in stopping the inter-ethnic unrest in its southern regions, the CSTO failed to be effective. [27]
Accordingly, Russia cannot wish for an overwhelming US defeat and precipitous exit. As a matter of fact, Russian territory is invested by the spillover of the Afghan threats, as is happening in Central Asia. [28]
But the tension remains, together with the concrete possibility that the CARs once again will become an arena of competition between Russia and the West. At the CSTO summit last year, Russia obtained from its partners an agreement according to which a foreign military presence in the states of the CSTO is possible only with the consent of all the members. Formally a victory for Moscow, the document presents a loophole that, by way of different denomination (for example, "center" instead of base), a republic could circumvent this condition. [29] Such a case has already happened, with the US base in Kyrgyzstan in 2009 unleashing tensions that eventually contributed to the change of the regime in Bishkek.
The point is that the Central Asian regimes consider the security confrontation between Russia and the West (and China as well) first as a possibility of income for their national budgets and then as a strategy to balance each player's influence.
The resulting latent tension affects as well the efficiency of drug-trafficking prevention, considering that Moscow is trying to stop the US implementing autonomous initiatives. [30] In the end, Russia seems to be waiting for a NATO depletion, so as to have it to accept a security pact with the CSTO, an arrangement Moscow has been proposing since at least the mid-2000s.
China and the SCO
To China, the SCO means preserving Central Asia's value as a "strategic rear" for economic expansion and access to energy resources. Accordingly, the Chinese tend to dismiss the security dimension while supporting Afghan reconciliation to secure its investments for infrastructure and mineral exploitation.
Ideally, China would like to see a neutral Afghanistan after the American pull-out, so the US maneuvers to gain additional military footholds in the region are assessed as a threat to its national interests. [31] At the same time, Beijing is disturbed by Moscow's confrontation with Washington, which it fears may also eventually result in the strengthening of India. Moscow and Beijing have different priorities also in assessing security threats, the Chinese being much less concerned with narco-traffic. They increasingly compete for Central Asian assets, thereby paving he way for the US to exploit their cleavages to reorient the CARs toward the south.
This explains why in 11 years the SCO has never established a consequential mechanism for the development strategy needed to overcome the Afghan tragedy. [32]
The SCO also has a structural flaw in its capacity to broker negotiations for Afghan reconciliation, as the Taliban would hardly accept Russia and China as mediators, at least not without the direct involvement of Pakistan and Iran. [33] Moreover, Tashkent, for a number of Afghan players even more disliked than Moscow and Beijing over its support for the "6+3" diplomatic initiative, is also detrimental to the SCO's political unity. [34] Also, enforcing a blockade against Tajikistan, the Uzbek regime is frustrating the potential of closer cooperation with Iran.
On the other hand, Moscow has also tried to activate a quadripartite format with Tajikistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan in what seems just another attempt at exclusive positions to the detriment of common solutions. [35]
In the end, both Russia and China prefer to give the central role for the post-2014 phase to the United Nations. Nevertheless, they are interested in maintaining the SCO, where nearly all the countries surrounding Afghanistan are either members or observers, as a positive political platform for the resolution of conflict and an instrument for stability, also with the anti-terrorist capacities developed with the organization.
Afghanistan after 2014: The larger picture
The US retreat from the control of Afghanistan's security is set to accelerate a number of tensions all across surrounding regions and countries. This is even more probable given that, as most regional experts are convinced, the US is at the same time establishing a long-term military presence in Central Asia.
The parallel escalation of the confrontation with Iran worsens security and stability in the region as well as in the neighboring Caspian and Caucasus theaters, as Tehran is prevented from playing a positive role. Moscow and Beijing are also pushed to seek opportunities to counter the Western strategy instead of constructively engage.
The conjuncture is further complicated by the spreading of Sunni radical organizations whose traditional sponsors in the Arab monarchies are regrouping against China and Russia as supporters of Tehran. [36]
But more generally, Central Asia is immersed in an indefinite conjuncture, where each step of all the regional powers is necessarily ambiguous for fear of the advantages of the other, as this situation concerns as well Pakistan, pushed toward China and Russia, while India consolidates its association with the US regional strategy in an opposing axis stretching up to Israel. As Barnett Rubin observed a decade ago, Afghanistan continues to be a mirror of the status of world politics, as the crossroads of all its tensions and a field for manipulation from the side of its major powers. [37]
Facing this perspective, the only possibility of mitigating the negative tendencies would be to remove the factor that so far has been intrinsic of the United States' approach in the region: the will to exclude some of the key players that surround it. This has prevented major players from acting in a constructive way toward Afghan problems.
In this context, the SCO possesses a potential geopolitical significance, but to express it, the organization should revise its institutional mechanism, including giving Pakistan and Iran full membership. From such a platform, the SCO could create with the US, NATO and India the framework for a negotiated peace between the Afghan parties including all actors - internal and external - of the conflict. The emerging Afghanistan should have a neutral status under UN auspices.
For such an architecture to work there is a need for NATO to start a long-lasting and far-reaching regional collaboration with Russia in trying to avoid destabilizing processes that are in any case contrary to the main interests of the two sides. [38]
Well-founded Russian suspicious toward Western security involvement in the CARs should be removed. In this regard, especially from the side of the Europeans, an effort should made to establish a common NATO-CSTO concept for the reform of the security structures of the CARs. The West should cease approaching them mainly through the security sector and consider instead their potential as agents of development vis-a-vis their southern neighbors in the framework of educational, medical and other people-to-people activities [39] that can be supported by the European Union in coordination with Russia.
The alternative to this is a whole region sinking into chaos, with militant activity spreading beyond Afghanistan to affect neighboring regions.
Notes:
1. Central Asia and the Transition in Afghanistan: A Majority Staff Report Prepared for the Use of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 112th Congress, 1st Session, Dec 19, '11.
2. The main ones being the Central Asia-South Asia electricity scheme and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project.
3. Muhammad Tahir, "Washington's Silk Road Dream", Aug 1, '11.
4. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, Viking Press, New York, 2008, page 484.
5. Robert D Blackwill, "Plan B in Afghanistan: Why a De Facto Partition Is the Least Bad Option", Foreign Affairs, No 1, Jan/Feb '11.
6. M K Bhadrakumar, US's post-2014 Afghan agenda falters, Asia Times Online, Nov 4, '11.
7. Conference "Security and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia", Istanbul, Nov 2, '11. See Karl F Inderfurth and Amer S Latif, "India and Afghanistan: Positioning for Withdrawal", US-India Insight, Nov '11.
8. The NDN nowadays delivers 75% of the ground cargo needed by NATO troops in Afghanistan.
9. Last year, as part of an "adjustment in regional orientation", US special forces in Afghanistan were realigned to focus on the CARs, even obtaining permits to enter their territories on a "case-by-case" basis when conducting counterterrorism operations. Deirdre Tynan, "US Special Forces' Operations in Central Asia Keeping Islamic Militants in Check", Eurasianet, Mar 15, '11.
10. D Juldasev, Afganistan - licnaja vojna Islama Karimova, Mar 20, '12.
11. Fozil Mashrab, Western countries scramble for Afghan exits, Asia Times Online, Mar 23, '12.
12. In 2011, CACI was worth US$4.1 million, principally to seek to establish vetted units and build counter-narcotics task forces in the CARs.
13. As the key player in the scheme, Uzbekistan has raised transit tariffs by 1.5 times, a fact that has been met with irritation by NATO partners (France in particular). Regis Gente, Le casse-tete du retrait d'Afghanistan, May 6, '12.
14. Paul Quinn-Judge, "Conventional Security Risks to Central Asia: A Summary Overview", China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol 8, No 2, 2010, pages 53-63.
15. Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Apr 25, '12.
16. Despite a reduction due to a disease in opium-poppy plants, Afghanistan continues to host the bulk - some 123,000 hectares of 195,700 hectares globally - of world opium cultivation. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2011, page 9.
17. Ravil Kusainov, one of the leaders of the Soldiers of the Caliphate, has declared in an interview that his organization consists of nationals from different countries (by his name, he should be himself a Tatar). He called on his supporters of different national origins "to draw lessons from the Arab Spring and get rid of their governments", Nov '10.
18. Dina B Malyseva, "Central'noaziatskij uzel mirovoj politiki", IMEMO RAN, Moscow, 2010.
19. "ICG, Tajikistan: The Changing Insurgent Threats", Asia Report, No 205, May 24, 2011.
20. Visible by the way it stalls negotiations over the status of the 201st Military Base after 2014. Alexander Sodiqov, "CSTO Agreement on Foreign Bases Frustrates Tajikistan's Ambitions", Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 9, No 10, Jan 16, '12.
21. Umida Hashimova, "Uzbekistan Considers the Strategic Implications of NATO's Drawdown in Afghanistan", Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 8, No 210, Nov 14, '11.
22. V Panfilova, "Turkmenija vyhodit v Juznuju Aziju", Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Apr 16, '12.
23. Interview with experts of the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies, Almaty, Mar 30, '12.
24. Fabrizio Vielmini, "Il Kazakistan si scopre instabile", limesonline, Jan 20, '12; Farkhad Sharip, "Militants Escalate Terrorist Attacks in Kazakhstan", Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 8, No 211, Nov 15, '11.
25. The issue was raised directly in the pre-electoral foreign-policy manifesto of Vladimir Putin: "In announcing his departure from this country in 2014, the Americans are building there and in neighboring states military bases, without a clear mandate, objectives and timing of their operation. We are, of course, not satisfied." Vladimir Putin, "Rossija i menjauscijsja mir", Moskovskie novosti, Feb 27, '12.
26. See I J Jurgens (ed), "ODKB: otvetstvennaya bezopasnost'", Institut sovremennogo razvitija, Moscow, Aug '11, page 66.
27. Erica Marat, "SCO's Tipping Point in Central Asia", Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 8, No 116, Jun 16, '11.
28. As reported in the national press, spreading of jihadist ideas and methods from Afghanistan took place via Kazakhstan into the Astrakhan region and the Caucasus. V Myasnikov, "V Kazahstane vyrosli sobstvennye terroristy", Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, Nov 18, '11.
29. A Gorbatov, ODKB izgonjaet amerikanskie bazy: prikryli dver', no scel' ostavili?, Dec 28, '11.
30. Richard Solash, "Russia Said to Block US Drug Plan amid Wariness over Central Asian Influence", RFE/RL, Feb 17, '12.
31. E Ivashchenko, "Ekspert: Kitaj dolžen usilit' svoe vlijanie v Afganistane dlja zascity svoih investitsii", Ferghana.ru, Nov 30, '11.
32. Tat'yana Sinicina, "Afghan test for SCO", New Eastern Outlook, Mar 25, '12.
33. K L Syroezkin (ed), "Central'naja Azija: faktory nestabil'nosti, vnesnie vyzovy i ugrozy", KISI, Almaty, 2011.
34. This collective endeavor unites the six countries bordering Afghanistan plus Russia and the US under a UN umbrella, initiated during the negotiations between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban from 1999 to 2001. 35. Vladimir Socor, "Quadripartite Summit on Afghanistan Falls Short of Russian Expectations", Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol 8, No 162, Sep 6, '11.
36. E Satanovskij, "Ot Atlantiki do Afganistana - prostranstvo iduscih i buduscih voin", Voenno-Promydslennyj Kur'ier, No 1 (418), Jan 11, '12.
37. Barnett R Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, Yale UP, New Haven and London, 2002.
38. Claudio Bertolotti, "Il ruolo delle potenze regionali sulla politica di sicurezza dell'Afghanistan nell'era post-NATO", Ce- MiSS, 2011.
39. Marlene Laruelle, "Involving Central Asia in Afghanistan's Future - What Can Europe Do?", EUCAM (Europe-Central Asia Monitoring) Policy Brief, No 20, Aug '11.
Fabrizio Vielmini
The rapacious and insatiable global US juggernaut is on the prowl again!
Having wreaked death, devastation and misery on the peoples of Greater Middle East Region (GMER-Iraq), South Central Asian Region (SCAR-Afghanistan, Pakistan), North Africa (Tunisia, Libya, Egypt), the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen), the Mediterranean (Syria) and still keeping the Persian Gulf sub-region (Iran) on tenterhooks, it has now set its sights on the Asia Pacific Region (APR).
Its ambitions and intentions to “contain and manage the rise of China” could not have been starker!
Leon Panetta has declared USA’s intent to “shift pivot or rebalance” to the APR by deploying 60 percent of its naval assets, thereby 2020 - a major paradigm shift from the GMER/SCAR to the APR - with menacing geopolitical and strategic connotations.
While it indicates its geopolitical orientations for the future, it also questions its capabilities to project power simultaneously in multiple theatres of war.
The US was generally expected to fight and win at least two-and-a-half Major Regional Conflicts (MRCs) simultaneously - meaning thereby that it could fight and win two major and one minor conflict in different theatres of war at the same time.
Some analysts now degrade that capability to about one-and-a-half MRC, for a myriad of reasons.
Would this mean that the US does not foresee fighting a major war elsewhere (other than the APR) in the world circa 2020 and beyond?
Is it by choice or a genuine limitation?The US sees China’s emerging economic military power as a major threat to its global and national aspirations, and thus feels compelled to “contain and manage its rise.”
It has made the preliminary geopolitical and strategic moves to manoeuvre into an advantageous position in the APR.
It is reconfirming existing alliances and forging new ones. It can count upon known old allies such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia (US troops are to be based in the northern territories), Singapore etc, while hoping to co-opt others like the ASEAN, the South Pacific Islands, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and ominously India!
India’s importance lies in not only keeping the Chinese distracted in the Himalayas, but also let the US and its allies exploit the strategic advantages its military assets and facilities at the Nicobar and Andaman Islands provide.
Furthermore, the Indian Peninsula jutting out so prominently into the Indian Ocean allows great strategic oversight on all global East-West trade/SLOCs.
The two major likely areas of conflict in the APR (apart from Taiwan) are the South China Sea and the Malacca Straits.
The South China Sea issue is gaining momentum with many regional countries, including China laying claims to the Spratly Islands archipelago and its mineral/fossil riches.
The Malacca Straits (as opposed to the Lombok, Makassar and Mindoro Straits and the Sibutu Passage) provide the most economic Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs).
All the countries or economies of the APR thus have a compulsion to keep it open and navigable at all times.
And the only naval power with the wherewithal to decisively control the Malacca Straits and other SLOCs - is the US!
Could the South China Sea issue then become the flashpoint to initiate a war with China to stunt its rapid growth into a global rival of the US? Could the blockade of the SLOCs through the Malacca Straits (and others) be the leverage that could force China to submit to US demands or hegemony?
The USA’s strategic moves do indicate an emerging crescent of containment around China. It ranges from Afghanistan in the west to Arunachal Pradesh on the Sino-India border in the Himalayas in the centre and onto the Pacific Ocean in the east where the US and its allies are present with their formidable militaries.China is reacting to counter this ominous and blatant attempt to hem it in and circumscribe its strategic space for manoeuvre.
It seeks credible alternatives.Geopolitically, it must garner succour and support from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which must be expanded immediately to include Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and India as full members. Such a move may deter India from joining the US camp too eagerly!
Further, an assertive and proactive SCO in the SCAR/AfPak region could help nullify pressure on the Chinese western flank to a great extent. Its ‘String of Pearls Strategy’ is designed to find viable alternatives to the Malacca Straits and to seek a presence in the Indian Ocean.
It must translate its proactive interests in Pakistan (Gwadar), Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar etc into tangible counter moves.
It must also launch a massive diplomatic initiative and particularly engage ASEAN, regional countries and India to forestall their joining cause with the US.
Geo-economically, Pakistan is indispensable to the Chinese. Together they could develop the North-South trade corridor linking Xinjiang province in western China to Pakistani ports on the Arabian Sea.
China’s presence in Gwadar will bring it close to Iran and the Hormuz Straits. An extension of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline to China, an oil pipeline running parallel to it and a railway line along the Karakoram Highway (KKH) would provide viable and practical (though partial) alternatives to the SLOCs/Malacca Straits.
The Chinese already have an oil pipeline coming in from Kazakhstan into western China.
Geo-strategically, with China sitting at Gwadar/Straits of Hormuz (a strategic vulnerability for the US and its allies), it could project power and gain an even more devastating leverage over the US and its allies than they would have at the Malacca Straits!
When push comes to shove, this would give it a priceless and overwhelming bargaining, and negotiating advantage over the US and it hapless allies! A possible China-Pakistan-Iran nexus (SCO-?) could actually be a geopolitical and strategic game changer in the emerging scenario!
Furthermore, Pakistan could keep the bulk of Indian forces tied to its borders and thus obviate meaningful hostilities against China in the Arunachal Pradesh region!
It makes for a great game of chess at the global level.
One only hopes that the US understands the regional and global ramifications of its shenanigans in the APR.World beware!
Inram Malik
The writer is a retired brigadier and a former defence attaché to Australia and New Zealand.Email: im_k@hotmail.com
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/columns/09-Sep-2012/usa-managing-china-s-rise
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