Kyrgyzstan to kick US out

Looks like its advantage Russia in Central Asia.

Two interesting bits of news have come out of the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan in the past few days - the first is that they, and five other former members of the Soviet Union are joining Russia in putting together a regional rapid reaction military force, the other news is that the Kyrgyz are taking steps to evict the United States from an airbase we currently lease in their country. Manas airbase provides support for US/NATO forces operating in Afghanistan, serving as a transportation hub and a base for refueling aircraft.

But the Kyrgyz have apparently decided that they've had enough of the American presence on their soil and are taking steps to evict the US forces. Some - like Fox News' "Beltway Boys" are painting this as another case of Russia bullying their neighbors. Really though Russia just made the Kyrgyz a better offer - roughly $2 billion package of foreign aid and debt relief.

And the US military helped to make themselves unwanted guests - in 2005 a US guard at Manas shot and killed an unarmed Kyrgyz civilian. The details of the shooting are sketchy and won't ever become any more clear since the military’s reaction to the shooting was to bundle up the soldier involved and spirit him out of the country, much to the ire of the Kyrgyz government which at least wanted a full explanation of the incident.

Then there's the matter of that newly announced security force. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has turned the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), until now a non-descript regional security forum, into a rapid reaction military force. Six Asian nations that were once all part of the Soviet Union (including Kyrgyzstan), will contribute troops to the force, which will be built around a core of Russian paratroopers. The CSTO group will serve as an anti-terror, anti-crime regional security and military force that will also be able to quickly provide aid in response to natural disasters (the region is prone to earthquakes as well as harsh winter weather).

Some regional observers say though that Kyrgyzstan decided to accept Russia's offer to join CSTO after deciding that NATO was just too ineffective to provide similar services.

So what makes Kyrgyzstan's decision to end the US lease at their airbase important? Two things:

First it potentially closes off part of the “Northern Route” into Afghanistan. Most off the supplies used by the US/NATO military forces in Afghanistan come into the country by way of Pakistan. But Pakistan seems to be getting more unstable by the day, not to mention that NATO is doing a terrible job of protecting their own supply convoys, which are attacked on a very regular basis. So with a planned surge in troops coming in 2009, getting men and material into Afghanistan is vitally important. Not having Manas makes that job a good deal harder.

Second, the decisions to join CSTO and kick the US out seems to, for now, move Kyrgyzstan back into the Russian sphere of influence and that's important because of the vast reserves of natural gas buried under the sands of Central Asia. The whole drama last month surrounding the pipeline dispute between Russia and Ukraine that caused shortages through a wide swath of Europe show how closely tied energy supplies are to national security. Russia desperately wants to secure the natural gas reserves of Central Asia to keep the local governments from selling them to a proposed European pipeline project (a.k.a. “Nabucco”). The European consortium backing Nabucco has already struggled to find the billions of dollars in financing it will take to build the pipeline, a task that will only get more difficult if it seems like there’s no gas for the pipeline to pump in the first place. By building ties to the former Soviet Rebublics in Central Asia based on foreign aid and security makes it less likely they’d sell their natural gas to a European syndicate and more likely they would to Russia and their rival pipeline project “South Stream” (which conveniently bypasses Russia’s gas nemesis, Ukraine).

The Kyrgyz government said that their decision to end the US lease on Manas is final, though the American side still holds out hope that they might change their mind…They don’t call it the Great Game* for nothing.

*The term ‘Great Game’ was originally used to describe the strategic struggle in the 19th century between Czarist Russia and the British Empire for control over Central Asia.