Friday, February 06, 2009

Rants about the Base closing and other changes


Kyrgyzstan Says Its Closing the Base

At its heart, its a Russian geo-political power grab. I believe that Kyrgyzstan originally gave the US the base for next to nothing, they were not so keen on Russia which was weak and not generous during Yeltsin years. But there was no real payoff for the Kyrgyz and Russia got some muscle back.

Kyrgyzstan also had a change of leadership, from a more pro-West dude (though decreasingly so as time went on) to a more Russo-phile (basically the president looks likt a lap dog when he shakes hands with Medvedev or Putin. He has the look in his eyes that he is void of all thought except "Oh, boy, this is great!")

So Russia wants us out of their "near abroad." The President here seems to be much more comfortable with Russia than with us and we have not given them much of a reason to keep us around. That said, most anything in Kyrgyzstan can be bought for the right price, so if we offered a lot of money we could probably keep the base. That would make us look petty though so our pride will probably result in a strategic loss/moral victory (a very hollow one).

That strategic loss, however, was pretty much impending on account of our poor handling of the relationship.

I wouldn't be surprised if we arrange something like a reduction or a transformation of the base. So that it still can transport personell and non-lethal equipment but has a roof on permanent personel living there and no air-mission out of the base. that would probably be fine with Russia (especially since right now both sides are trying to warm relations and renegociate START and draw down the missle-shield/nuclear redeployment thing).

Basically though, russia slowly built up influence and attained a stragetic advantage in Kyrgyzstan that we can't easily undo. Just shows how much we suck at subtle relations. Really we should have intelligence out the wazoo on Kyrgyzstan, we have a base here and the gov is easily bought and sold. but we don't really invest in that sort of thing until there is a calamity, (and its already too late).
As of today, the parliament delayed the official vote. Still lots of time to negotiate new a new price.



A post-soviet trans-national military force?
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/02/04/russia.collective.military/index.html

another probably unworkable treaty for International Relations people to write papers about.

I've come see how many leaders who were Soviet-raised here love to decree things and use high flyin rhetoric. Actually building institutional capacity and compromise, way less fun and so much more work. It's just like politics anywhere, but with an extra 3 tablespoons of disfunction and minus 2 cups of capacity.