The terrorist attacks on New York City on September 11 have had far-reaching and unintended consequences for the global community, some of which will only gradually make themselves apparent. The new US military presence in Uzbekistan is one more sign of how the dominant geopolitical paradigms of the last half of the twentieth century are no longer operative. The Cold War and its aftermath, the post-Cold War period, are at an end.

The “War on Terrorism” launched by the US may not define the new paradigm that will emerge, but it will certainly have an impact upon it, redefining the fates of nations, such as those in Central Asia that bear neither direct nor indirect responsibility for the heinous attacks on the US. The successes and failures of this campaign will influence the way in which seemingly isolated bits of the world will fit together. In this context it no longer makes sense to look at the states of Central Asia as “postcommunist” or “newly independent.” Rather, they are five countries, some of them weaker than others, but each of them possessing an increasingly unique identity.

These are also countries with keen rivalries, especially between the Soviet-era communist leaders who still dominate the region’s potentially wealthiest or most powerful states-Saparmurad Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi, or head Turkmen; Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan; and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan. While the Turkmen president Niyazov has not been particularly successful in either advancing his international stature or even selling the country’s vast gas reserves, the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have become fierce competitors, each vying to be the most powerful figure in the region.

Until recently, it looked like Nazarbayev was winning. Kazakhstan’s vast land and offshore oil deposits were attracting international investment, and this, combined with the leadership’s partial embrace of economic reform made it appear as if the country was about to take off economically. With aspirations to be a global actor of consequence, Nazarbayev had long touted Kazakhstan as a bridge between Europe and Asia, and Pope John Paul II’s decision to visit Kazakhstan’s new capital of Astana (formerly Aqmola) as his sole stop on his first trip to the region, in late September 2001, seemed partial confirmation of this.

The inadvertent impact of an accidental ally

By contrast, the Uzbeks were having great difficulty in advancing their claim to be the so-called heart of Central Asia. The Uzbeks share borders with all four Central Asian states and have a large diaspora population in each as well. Limited economic reforms, combined with difficulties in repatriating profits from a country that lacked a convertible currency, meant that Uzbekistan was attracting far less foreign investment than Kazakhstan and, in general, was failing to capitalize on its geographic advantage by becoming a regional market. In fact, the region was failing to coalesce. Fearing the infiltration of Islamic elements, Karimov closed off the Uzbek borders and cracked down hard on any sort of potential political opponents at home.

However, the arrival of the US in the region, searching for a way to avenge the loss of nearly 4,000 civilian lives, when the twin towers of the World Trade Center were brought down, not to mention the vulnerability that was demonstrated by the successful attack on the Pentagon, may give Karimov another chance to right his economic and political mistakes. We do not yet know how much and what forms of US assistance have been promised to the government in Tashkent, but at a minimum it seems likely to include a marked increase in US military assistance to Uzbekistan. This assistance will probably suffice to change the strategic balance in the region and make Tashkent’s goal of becoming the region’s preeminent military power within the next decade a realistic one.

The new great game redefined

The events of September 11 have accelerated changes that were already occurring in the security relationships within Central Asia. Particularly since Vladimir Putin came to power, the Russians have been trying to improve their relations with the various Central Asian states. In the case of Uzbekistan this has meant Moscow’s grudging acceptance of Tashkent’s reluctance to be part of the collective-security arrangements sponsored by the Commonwealth of Independent States. For its part, the Uzbek government has been content to maintain good bilateral relationships with the Russians. As for the others, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan all maintain a collective-security relationship with Russia, while Turkmenistan pursues a policy of “positive neutrality.”

At the same time, the US Department of Defense (DOD) has been cozying up to the Central Asian states for the past decade, in efforts that are wholly separate from the Western drive to secure access to Caspian oil reserves. The DOD has forged very good military-to-military relationships with several of the states of the region over the last several years under the auspices of NATO’s Partnership for Peace, and none better than those with Uzbekistan, which has virtually no fossil fuel reserves slated for Western development. Initially, most of these efforts were multilateral ones, focused largely on CENTRASBAT (Central Asian Peacekeeping Battalion), a plan for a regional military coordination that the US took the lead in sponsoring. At the same time, the DOD and the US intelligence community more generally have developed a direct bilateral relationship with the Uzbeks, one that was strengthened after CIA chief George Tenet traveled to the region in 2000. Even so, a large US military presence so close to Russia’s borders would have been difficult to predict a few months ago, and although Russia has calmly acquiesced to it at the moment, what Moscow’s future attitude will be is more difficult to predict.

If the US moves on from Afghanistan, to make the “rogue” states-as they are known formally-of Iraq, Syria, or Libya its target, alliances in the Middle East, which have been in place more than a half century, will be irrevocably shaken. The fallout from such actions would likely be felt throughout Western Europe, as well, and might lead to a fundamental redefinition of the nature of the NATO alliance. Additionally, such broad offensive action would almost certainly alter the improving US-Russian relationship for the worse, as the Russians have close commercial ties with some of these states. The Russians also would take advantage of any rift within the Western alliance to try to improve their bilateral and multilateral relationships with the major states of Europe.

However, if further battlegrounds in the war on terror are chosen by the US largely in concert with its major allies and with Russia, then the US-Russian relationship is likely to continue to improve, as will Russian-European relations. In fact, the idea of Russia eventually joining NATO would no longer seem as strange as it did a mere six weeks ago, and plans for a prolonged period of transition designed to result ultimately in Russian admission would make the offer of NATO membership to the former Soviet republics in the Baltic seem less irritating and confrontational to Moscow. This would especially be the case if the US promises to moderate other policies the Russians find objectionable, such as the national missile-defense scheme or unilateral withdrawal from START II and some other international treaties.

It is in this context that we have to look at the US’s new relationship with Central Asia, and what it means for the geopolitics of the region. It is still too early to predict how long the US will stay in Uzbekistan, not to mention whether America will extend its reach still deeper into Central Asia. Much depends on how the ground war evolves in Afghanistan, and whether the US military presence is able to make way for a UN-sponsored military action. If there is no international military presence in the region, the US may choose to remain as a permanent military presence. In this scenario, Uzbekistan could play the same role for the US that Pakistan did during the years of the Cold War. Even if America fully withdraws, the military balance within Central Asia will probably change, since the US seems certain to offer Uzbekistan long-term military assistance as part compensation for serving as a gateway for the country’s military engagement in South Asia.

Whatever happens, Uzbekistan will continue to distance itself militarily from Russia, something which will not leave Russian president Vladimir Putin pleased, but the degree of his displeasure will in part be modulated by the nature of the evolving relationship between Russia and NATO. After all, a future US military base in Uzbekistan will not seem nearly as troubling to the Russian leader if Moscow itself is preparing for eventual NATO membership.

The Russian leader is also cognizant of an implicit quid pro quo involving the US: that Washington’s use of Uzbekistan as a launch site from which to protect US strategic interests also frees up Moscow to do the same in Chechnya, and quite possibly in Georgia as well. This will only partly appease Russian displeasure at being reduced to second-class status in its own backyard, but it will allow Russia to pursue its self-defined strategic interests. One such interest is speeding up development of Russia’s own vast oil and gas reserves, which is only possible if there is greater cooperation with the major Western oil companies.

The US presence in Central Asia is of less potential concern to China, which, like Russia, has a security relationship with Uzbekistan through membership in the six-nation Shanghai Forum. China clearly benefits from the US removal of Osama bin Laden and his multinational terrorist network, as Uighur separatists and other Chinese Muslim dissidents are sure to find it harder to receive arms and improve their terrorist skills as a result. China’s interest in defining the security relationships of the former Soviet republics is quite long-term, and for now it is enough for the leadership to advance China’s economic interests in the region and ensure that none of Beijing’s enemies can take refuge there.

Karimov’s second chance

While the strategic interests of the great powers on Central Asia’s borders need not be strongly affected by the US foray into the region, Uzbekistan’s neighbors will certainly feel their future security compromised by the almost inevitable increase in Uzbek military capacity likely to result. President Karimov has long believed that it is Uzbekistan’s destiny to dominate the region. Neighboring leaders have long viewed the statue of Tamerlane, which the Uzbek leader had erected in a downtown square, as an indirect warning to them. Now they fear that US weapons will fuel Uzbek ambitions.

But as the current situation in Afghanistan shows, security voids are as dangerous as the actions of bullies. Karimov’s neighbors fear the ripple effect from potential domestic disturbances within Uzbekistan as much as they do the consequences of any future Uzbek aggression. At the same time, there is much disagreement between the Central Asians and Western observers as to what constitutes the preconditions of public order in the region.

Certainly, Karimov believes that a strong security force is the key, and that it must be used to wipe out existing and potential enemies, which in his mind would include all devout Muslims who reject the right of the secular Uzbek state to define the parameters of their faith. This includes the power to name the clerics who will lead their congregations.

Most of Central Asia’s leaders endorse all, or nearly all, of Karimov’s strategy, although they do not pursue it as ruthlessly or as vigorously. The Hizb ut Tahrir party, part of a worldwide movement to restore an Islamic caliphate as the only “righteous” government for Muslims, is outlawed in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan as well as Uzbekistan. Although the adherents of this movement do not endorse the seizure of power through violence, their aims are seen as definitely seditious, and their cause is equated with that of the violent Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, whose members have been linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.

Most Western observers feel that this strategy is a very risky one because repression, in the absence of widespread economic and political reforms, simply creates an unending source of new recruits for religious and other extremist organizations. This is especially true in a country like Uzbekistan, where over half of the population is under the age of 21, and most of these people live in the countryside where educational and economic opportunities are diminishing.

Few political leaders are given a chance to right their decision-making wrongs, but President Karimov may well have come by one, given his willingness to host the American troops. Uzbekistan discontinued its macrostabilization program in 1996, but now the IMF and World Bank may be willing to reengage with the Uzbeks on more generous terms. The Uzbek president will be making a grave mistake if he fails to take advantage of this opportunity, for Uzbekistan’s once-powerful Soviet-era economic elite is also growing more restive with time, as they look with envy at how friends and relatives in neighboring countries have been able to use the economic opportunities provided by the reform process to accumulate personal fortunes. If the dissatisfaction of this group is not addressed, then they could make common cause with the country’s Islamist elements, particularly if they were to perceive Karimov to be faltering. Given Karimov’s success in obliterating any independent secular movements in the country, there will basically be no other force for the elite to ally with. We have already seen a similar pattern in Iran, in the late 1970s, which helped facilitate Ayatollah Khomeini’s seizure of power.

Uzbekistan’s Islamic heritage

Uzbekistan’s Islamic heritage is quite different from that of Iran; for one thing its population follows the Sunni tradition and not the Shiite one. But Uzbekistan’s long history is intimately connected with religion, and with the struggles of Sunni Muslims to define their relationship to the basic teachings of their faith. Islamic fundamentalists have contested the power of Islamic conservatives here for hundreds of years, well before the Russians gave any thought to even trying to capture this territory. The nature of the struggle changed over time, depending upon who represented the religious establishment locally, and what sort of global trends existed among Islamic fundamentalists.

During the Soviet period this struggle was muted but did not disappear, and today’s religious activists derive directly from those active in Uzbekistan on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. As with so many other Muslim countries, Uzbekistan’s religious revival has a regional component and centers in the country’s Ferghana Valley, which also juts into Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and plays a decisive role in the religious life of these two countries as well.

As a Soviet-era ruler, Karimov is still strongly influenced by the social-engineering approach to religion, and social evolution more generally, that predominated among the elite out of which he has emerged. In addition, the Uzbek president comes from a different part of the country (Samarkand) and was raised in a Soviet orphanage, so he had little experience with the type of traditional society that dominated in his part of the country. Most who are close to Karimov also came from secular Soviet families and similarly view religion with suspicion.

So there is a temptation to underestimate the staying power of Islamic groups in Uzbekistan, and it would be a bad turn of events if the US inadvertently bought into the current Uzbek strategy. For public order to prevail in Uzbekistan, eventually there will have to be some limited power sharing with the Islamic elements, and, at minimum, the community of Muslim believers must again be permitted to be largely self-governing, as they were at the beginning of the 1990s.

Central Asia’s shifting sands

If Uzbekistan’s government does show more tolerance toward Islam, embraces economic reform, and receives increased military assistance from the US, it will be one country that will certainly gain from the tragic events of September. Of course, Karimov’s gamble could fail. He might refuse to reform, or he might permit some economic reform but then refuse to let economically empowered elites have increased opportunities for political participation. In this case, it is highly likely that someday his population will turn on him, and Uzbekistan’s support for the US would become another potential weapon in their arsenal.

This is especially true if the US withdraws from Afghanistan in a way that leaves that country further disordered, for then it will only be a matter of time before Uzbek opposition groups again find easy refuge there. The failure to address adequately the reconstruction tasks in Afghanistan could also quickly destabilize the already fragile government in Tajikistan, and even the somewhat stronger one in Kyrgyzstan. Both states would suffer from the growth in the opium and heroin trade that chaos in Afghanistan would stimulate.

Whatever the endgame in Afghanistan, the geopolitical situation in Central Asia is likely to change, either subtly or not so subtly, depending upon whether peace prevails in Uzbekistan. Disorder in Uzbekistan threatens all of its neighbors. If economic reform were now to succeed in Uzbekistan the country would be both well armed and able to dominate easily the economies of the weaker states of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. And although both would seek support from Russia, beyond continuing to secure the Tajik-Afghan border, the Russians are likely to offer little else to these two small states, as they add very little to the commercial empire the Russians are trying to build.

The Uzbeks pose less risk to the Kazakhs. The move of the Kazakh capital to the center of the country, from Almaty to Astana, was largely designed to make a statement to the Russians. It has the additional effect of insulating the Kazakh government from any spillover effects originating on their southern borders with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan’s most valuable assets are in the north and the west, far from these borders.

The rise of Uzbekistan will not make the Kazakh leaders more submissive. It is far more likely to leave them angry and feisty, more determined than ever to turn their country into a global actor of some consequence. Uzbekistan lacks the diverse and rich resource base that gives Kazakhstan some potential economic clout. The Uzbeks have cotton and gold; they can produce foodstuffs and have enough oil and gas to meet their own needs and to ship into southern Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. But with the exception of cotton, none of these assets are valuable worldwide.

By contrast, Kazakhstan’s oil and gas deposits are significant, as are its reserves of a number of strategic metals. Landlocked Kazakhstan cannot stand alone, but if its plans can be made to coincide with those of Russia, whose assets are even more significant, the two countries can both prosper in a way that could show little concern for developments to the south. It is one of the great ironies of globalization that New York and Washington are at greater risk from Afghanistan-based terror groups than nearby Almaty and Astana