Central Asian Bedfellows

U.S. history has two days that will live in infamy — Dec. 7 and Sept. 11. After each attack, the United States found itself fighting in Asia, a more difficult place for it to project power than Europe.

For purely logistical reasons, Washington rents the Manas air base, which is only 20 kilometers fr om the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. The United States is not seeking to win any hearts and minds, but there are some sensitivities involved. Named for the country’s national hero, the Manas base was originally built by the Soviets, and its flight school’s graduates include Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Because other routes, such as the Khyber Pass on the Afghan-Pakistani border, are frequently attacked by the Taliban, Manas bears quite heavy traffic in troops and materiel, especially fuel. In March, 50,000 troops were moved through the base and 12.5 million gallons of jet fuel were pumped. The corruption around the sale of fuel to NATO stank to high heaven and was one of the reasons for the April 7 revolt.

Kyrgyzstan is the only country in the world that has both U.S. and Russian bases on its soil. Russia does not welcome the intrusion of any outside power onto its “turf,” especially the power that defeated it during the Cold War. In 2009, Russia made brazen attempts to squeeze NATO out of the Manas base, thwarted only by the greed of then-President Kurmanbek Bakiyev who, in classic Central Asian style, played the two powers off each other.

Russian support of the current revolution has gained it significant influence in Bishkek. Stephen Blank, a professor at the U.S. Army War College, said, “American tenure in Manas now truly depends on Moscow, not Bishkek.” Russia also controls U.S. flights over its territory to Manas. (In a similar development, Washington will depend on Moscow for travel to the space station for at least five years after the upcoming end of the shuttle program, though apparently the astronauts of both countries get along famously well.)

In a recently leaked memo, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that the United States has no thought-through plan for dealing with a nuclear Iran. But does it have one in Afghanistan where the pullout date is clearer than the goals on which that pullout depends?

Unlike the United States, which really has only one reason for being in Kyrgyzstan, Russia has many. For Moscow, Kyrgyzstan is a stronghold and a lookout on the western border with China, wh ere Beijing feels the least secure because of its restive Tibetans and Uighurs. Also, as nuclear weapons become less important, the principles of conventional warfare reassert themselves. Once again, mountains and distance matter.

Moreover, Russia has been assiduously winning back much of what it lost in the color revolutions. Ukraine is now leaning toward Moscow, which scored a major victory by securing a new 25-year lease for its Black Sea fleet. Georgia lost face and territory in the war of August 2009. And Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution has now been overthrown, a clear victory for Moscow.

But Russia cannot really have any overarching foreign policy because it is still in the process of defining itself. It can’t know what it wants until it knows who it is. Resurgence, revanchism and “winning back” what it lost have more to do with psychology than strategy.

Both purposeful and adrift, Russian and U.S. foreign policies could soon collide in Kyrgyzstan. It’s one thing to get along in outer space, but in Central Asia it’s another matter entirely.

Richard Lourie is author of “The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin” and “Sakharov: A Biography.”