Kyrgyz Airbase and the New Russo-US Nexus

Russia is seen as sending conflicting signals to the new US administration. While offering to help Washington in Afghanistan, it has managed to deliver a blow via Kyrgyzstan’s decision to close the US air base at Manas near Bishkek.

The Kyrgyz President Kurman Bakiyev denies that the decision is influenced by Moscow, thus refuting its linkage with the assistance of a $2 billion loan from Russia. However, it is being viewed as one that favours Moscow — that had been displeased with US military presence and its activities at aiding coloured revolutions in some Central Asian states, besides curtailing Russian influence in the region.

Bakiyev stressed that the decision was taken in view of Kyrgyzstan’s grievances against the US for low economic compensation in return of the use of the airbase — despite repeated requests over the past eight years — as well as the row over the killing of a Kyrgyz national by an American serviceman. The annual, renewable US-Kyrgyz agreement drawn in July 2006 required the US to pay $17.4 million yearly for the use of the airbase. Closure of the airbase, after being voted by the Kyrgyz Parliament sometimes this month, implicates a strategic rethink for the US plans for Afghanistan. The Manas base, a vital airbase that was used for refuelling of planes and as a transit point for the coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan, has been a ‘vital’ platform for Washington since 2001. Ideally located at a distance of only one-and-a-half hours from Afghanistan, it became the primary point of US logistical coordination in Central Asia after Uzbekistan asked the US to leave its base, Karshi Khanabad (K2) in 2005, over a dispute on human rights issues.

With its main land-based supply routes from Pakistan under threat from militants, which face periodic disruptions, the US was already exploring other options. With the closure of Manas, which the Kyrgyz government termed as ‘final’ and not up for a bargain, Washington would be required to speed up its quest for opening another vital base in Central Asia.

Even as Bakiyev announced the decision, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has pledged “full-fledged” cooperation with the US to stabilise Afghanistan. Paradox, indeed. Clearly, Russia meant to play a more active role in Afghanistan as the new US contingency centres on additional US troops for Afghanistan. Russian-US relations reached a diplomatic low last year over the war in Georgia amidst other major concerns; these centre on the possible expansion of Nato to include Georgia and Ukraine and on the establishment of the US Missile Defense Shield system installations in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russian overtures to the US to stabilise Afghanistan would naturally be part of a broader calculus of a strident Russian foreign policy that has clearly defined its priorities and national security interests, one that defies an assertive US role, especially in its proximate region.