January, 2002

US Strategy in Central Asia: the Status Quo and Future Anticipations

Hussein Ma'loum

The events of 11 September provided the United States with an ideal opportunity to reformulate strategic balances worldwide, especially in Central Asia, a region of strategic importance as it separates China and Europe. Central Asian states had started not only to get rid of the shackles of US hegemony but to begin establishing relations with each other as well as with nearby states, a matter which would decrease the dependency of the states of Eastern Europe on the United States. This trend is crystallised in the calls from China and Russia since the 1990s to build a multipolar world. An important manifestation of this trend is the failure of the United States and its allies to pass the draft for intelligent sanctions against Iraq as a result of Russia's veto threat.

The growing independence of the states of Central Asia has led the US administration to review its vision regarding its desired world order. Both the military campaign against Afghanistan and the international campaign to combat terrorism have diverted attention away from the US military campaign in Central Asia. The strategic dimensions of this campaign include gaining control over the Caspian Sea and over nuclear and military relations between the Asian powers. The United States now also has the opportunity to attempt to confine other regional and international powers that it perceives as future competitors or which constitute an obstacle to its endeavours to impose a unipolar world order.

Washington considers the Taliban movement as one of the major threats to its interests, a position once filled by Iran and Iraq. The United States believes that in order to maintain its position as the world's sole superpower it needs to contain China and Iran, get close to India and destroy Afghanistan. For this reason, the US administration is sparing no effort to create a new wave of regional and international conflict in Afghanistan and indeed throughout Central Asia. This also explains the US strategy of containment, based on the confinement of competitors' powers or putting them under threat. The United States succeeded in this strategy with Iran and Iraq, which represented major threats to its oil interests in the Gulf region.

If this was the case in the Gulf region, could the United States do the same in Central Asia? And if the United States can succeed with Pakistan and India, can it do the same with Russia and China? The answers to these questions will be provided in the coming era; especially with the possibilities of a future cold war in Central Asia.