foir_3880

FOI-R--3880--SE
Summary
The aim of this report is to provide perspectives from Afghanistan, Central Asia,
China and Russia about future regional security in Central Asia in the light of the
withdrawal of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and
to discuss its implications. The study deals with some long term security factors
as of mid-2013. It will therefore not deal with the implications of Russia’s
aggression against Ukraine 2014 and how it may affect Russia and how it
interacts with Central Asia and the world.
This report has four main conclusions. First, in the spring 2014 as ISAF is
gradually withdrawing, the security situation in Afghanistan is generally seen as
deteriorating. Western security interest in adjacent Central Asia, hitherto a
support area for operations in Afghanistan, will diminish. Increasing instability in
Afghanistan may affect Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). Second, the region will be left to itself and to
remaining external actors – Russia, China and Afghanistan, all with limited
abilities to influence security. The Central Asian states’ low capabilities and
current or latent instability create an emerging security vacuum in the region.
Third, the most important Afghanistan-related security challenge for Central
Asia, and the world, is the drugs trade. It affects public health, spreads HIV and
increases the influence of organised crime and breeds corruption at all levels.
Another important challenge for the region is militant Islamism, often linked to
small groups that can act as destabilisation multipliers able to exploit current
tensions. Islamism is also a long-term political challenge to the region’s regimes.
Fourth, today’s level of regional cooperation is not enough to handle the region’s
security challenges. Capabilities and trust are missing. The outside world –
international organisations such as the UN or the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), or powers such as Russia or China – will play a
key role in any multilateral security cooperation.
The perspectives of Afghanistan’s Central Asian northern neighbours vary.
Turkmenistan, a weak state that has tried to isolate itself from Afghanistan,
remains very vulnerable to influences from its south-eastern neighbour.
Uzbekistan has tighter control over its border with Afghanistan than
Turkmenistan, but also sees opportunities in Afghanistan. Tajikistan, the central
country in the Afghanistan – Central Asia nexus, is closest to Afghanistan
geographically, culturally and linguistically. For a weak vulnerable state as
Tajikistan, security requires a secure Afghanistan.
How can Central Asia handle the two main Afghanistan related security
challenges, drugs trade and militant Islamism In addition, there are many other
security challenges, such as porous borders, weak states, pervasive corruption,
latent ethnic, as well as territorial and resource conflicts. The effects of the drugs
trade are a problem, that is too big for Central Asia’s states to handle, both
6