Central Asian Countries Divided in Their Responses to Threats from Afghanistan

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, January 9 – Two of the three Central Asian states adjoining Afghanistan – Tajikistanand Uzbekistan – have recently increased their border defenses, while the third – Turkmenistan – is counting on its neutrality to protect it from ethnic or Islamist threat coming from the territory of their neighbor now that the US-led coalition there is leaving.

 

            Tajikistan, which shares the longest border with Afghanistan of the three (1370 kilometers) and members of its titular nationality are to be found on both sides of the border, announced this week that it is creating a special military area to prevent  against any cross-border attacks (rus.ozodi.org/content/article/26781112.html).

 

            Uzbekistan, which has the shortest border with Afghanistan of the three (137 kilometers) but which also has co-ethnics in that country, has announced a series of measures to counter what it says is the increasing activity of armed formations and drug traders in northern Afghanistan (gundogar.org/?022500000000000000011062015010000#15394).

 

            The most important of these measures, it appears, is the putting in place of a new system of communication among guard posts along the border. As a result, if one is threatened, others can come to its aid without having to call in additional military or security forces. That move supplements its river defense forces which are already in place.

 

            According to the Afghanistan Analysts Network, which Gundogar.org cites, Uzbekistan’s section of the border “is the best-defended part of the border of the post-Soviet countries with that state.”

 

            The situation in Turkmenistan is less clear, information about that country always being more difficult to glean than in the case of the other two. But it seems clear that it is significantly less well-prepared than Uzbekistan or Tajikistan to counter any threats coming from Afghanistan along the 744 kilometer border it shares with it.

 

According to an analysis on the Centrasia.ru portal, Tajikistan benefits from having Russian troops on its territory, Uzbekistan has a relatively effective military and security service, but Turkmenistan has a military which is hardly worthy of the name and may not be able to fulfill its most pressing tasks (centrasia.ru/news.php?st=1420446000).              Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov hopes that his policy of neutrality and cooperation with the Taliban and Turkmen ethnic groups in Afghanistan will allow him to proceed without having to find out. But other Turkmens are increasingly worried that that the Taliban may use Turkmenistan’s neutrality against it and seek to seize its gas fields.              Because Turkmenistan does not have the military alliance with a major power as Tajikistan does or the military and security apparatus of Uzbekistan, they have pressed for an expansion of the military and succeeded in getting Ashgabat to agree to hiring some professional soldiers.               Given high unemployment, many Turkmens are interested in the income that such service might provide. But the quality of military life is so bad – Turkmens routinely refer to their army as “a prison,” some report – that draft avoidance and resistance is rife, making it unclear whether even the appearance of professional sergeants will be sufficient to resist any incursion.