Smashing Greater Central Asia
Editor’s Note:This is originally a series of three articles compiled as one from writer’s blog Therearenosunglasses’s Weblog
By: Peter Chamberlin
After ten years of raging warfare in Afghanistan, watching the fight slowly ooze across the invisible Durand Line into Pakistan, we have the right to wonder whether the war is any closer to ending today? It is perfectly reasonable to suspect that if we were allowed to know the truth we would understand that the American government has no plans to end the war in the near future. Trying to make sense of relentless Western news reports on the disaster of the impending American “withdrawal from Afghanistan,” even though other reports reveal that super-bases have been constructed, leaveing most observers completely bewildered about whether the Afgan war is ending or expanding. The only thing that is obvious is that there is to be no “withdrawal” from Afghanistan, at least not from the northern half of the country (SEE: Plan B In Afghanistan).
If it was true that US forces were planning to eventually leave Afghanistan, then CENTCOM would not be allocating $100 million to build a Special Forces base in Mazar i-Sharif. This is to be a massive, permanent structure, intended to serve as a Special Forces operations center for many years to come. The majority of analysts who have focused upon this SOCOM facility, have drawn the conclusion that this and the other super-bases are intended to provide protection to the pipelines which are planned, in addition to providing Green Berets and Navy Seals to send on night raids into Pakistan. My own research into the subject reveals something far more sinister than just the intentional prolonging of the occupation of Afghanistan.
From the bid solicitations which are cited below, the US Army has big plans for Central Asia, most of them are scheduled to take place after the official Afghan withdrawal date of 2014. Ongoing military construction contracts are proof of military intent. CENTCOM has just awarded KBR a contract for $3.8 billion for constructing unspecified new facilities in an “area of responsibility” which encompasses the following countries:
Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
This contract (which is supplemented by the other contracts given below) is something known as a MATOC contract (Multiple Award Task Order Contract). To initiate this major omnibus contract, ninety-nine security-cleared companies were solicited to participate in the contract program, which is scheduled to continue until the year 2016. The majority of these ninety-nine companies specialized in wartime construction, but many of them had exotic specialties, ranging from electronic prototype construction, to aerial drone manufacturing and operations, to private security contractors specializing in “irregular warfare.” There were even a couple of them dealing with “directed energy weaponry,” in addition to one image consultant.
From this list of approved, experienced contractors fourteen construction contractors were selected to form a pool of ready bidders to bid on each project as it reached approval stage. Somehow, since the solicitation was announced, KBR has apparently eliminated the competition, winning the whole construction contract. It was also announced that five electronic contractors would form a bidding pool for the component manufacturing, maintenance and operations of the experimental prototype network. It may turn out, that the electronics are handled like the building, SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) may have landed the entire package. (It does seem strange that both contract winners have been charged with wrongdoing on previous contracts.) SAIC has also been awarded another separate contract which is a companion to this big operation:
SAIC, Tetra Tech Joint Venture Gets Criminal Justice Program Support (CJPS) Contract
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) (NYSE:SAI) and Tetra Tech, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTEK) announced that their joint venture, Integrated Justice Systems International, LLC (IJSI), has been awarded a contract to render worldwide civilian police and criminal justice assistance to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). The total contract limit for this multiple-award, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract is worth $10 billion, consisting one base year and four option years.
To compete for task orders to supply INL with program management, criminal justice, and life and mission support to countries emerging from conflict or otherwise facing instability challenges the abovementioned joint venture was chosen.
IJSI shall render technical assistance, training, logistics and infrastructure services to support the Department of State’s efforts to strengthen criminal justice systems in select partner countries under this new contract. IJSI is one of six teams that can compete for task orders under the contract.
Chuck Zang, SAIC senior vice president and business unit general manager explained that our joint venture renders the experience required for successful international criminal justice training and worldwide logistics. He added that SAIC has critical experience supporting the U.S. government’s overseas law enforcement initiatives; including antiterrorism training and technical assistance and that they expect to support this important effort, and using their expertise to help ensure stability and safety through professional criminal justice entities, and training personnel to ensure modernization of their programs.
Washington’s New Foxy Plan To Sneak Into the Central Asian Hen House
“Counternarcotics officials in Washington have unveiled a plan to help combat the flow of drugs from Afghanistan, through Central Asia, and into Russia…The plan, still in draft form, is known as “The Central Asian Counternarcotics Initiative” (CACI). It envisions the establishment of counternarcotics task forces in the five Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — which would communicate with similar existing units in Afghanistan and Russia…The seven groups would share sensitive information, improve coordination on joint and cross-border operations, and help build cases against wanted or arrested traffickers…for the Russian Federation ‘it is a means by which they can link into the efforts both in the source country, Afghanistan, and transit countries, the Central Asian five, in a way that they currently cannot do.’”
According to other advertised contracts, whatever work is in the pipeline for KBR, the operation will involve major investments in a prototype experimental electronic network. The official government website for the General Services Administration is soliciting contract bids for work for the Quick Reaction and Battle Command Support Division (QR&BCSD), which does everything from surveillance, to Special Forces missions, to conducting “irregular warfare,” to running aerial drones.
ENGINEERING, INSTALLATION/INTEGRATION, TECHNOLOGY INSERTION AND LOGISTICAL SUPPORT TO THE QUICK REACTION & BATTLE COMMAND SUPPORT DIVISION (QR&BCSD)
Solicitation Number: 4QDS21110084
Agency: General Services Administration
Office: Federal Acquisition Service (FAS)
Location: Assisted Acquisition Services Division (4QFA)
This contract is also for unspecified work in the following countries, covering the same projected timeframe (contracts to be completed by 2016):
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Dubai, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.
In narrowing the list down, we can rule-out the construction of these new facilities in Afghanistan or Pakistan, since such assets are already deployed there. Under a new plan unveiled Thursday, the Defense Dept. said that it is preparing to treat cyberspace as another “operational domain.” In this domain, China has been identified as America’s primary “cyber-enemy.” That should shrink the list, ruling-out the Middle Eastern, African and European countries, as the battlefield for any new net-centric operations, leaving only “the Stans” as the planned construction sites. Whatever the US military has planned for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan will definitely be net-centric, in a big way. It is unlikely that the host governments will be apprised of any special operations which are outside the parameters of fighting narco-terrorism.
It is important at this point that we examine the “Quick Reaction Forces,” so that we may understand how they will be used. We have already summarized what they do (everything from surveillance, to Special Forces missions, to running aerial drones), but we now need to take a closer look at what those jobs entail, comparing that to the specific technicians being sought for the jobs.
The government is soliciting private contractors with experience in combat zones, to build a private electronics network to be used by US Special Forces in the same Central Asian countries. Again, the work conditions and terms given for these job listings matches the MATOC contract solicitation.
Getting back to the Quick Reaction contract notice, there is a more detailed pdfincluded, which really fleshes-out exactly what is being sought. The following national organizations will be connected with the planned tasks:
“The Afghanistan training efforts include the Border Mentoring Task Force, DEA SCIF, Counter Narcotics Academy and the Border Services Communications training. Other programs requiring C4ISR training include the Kyrgyzstan Information Sharing Communications System, Turkmenistan State Border Service Communications, and Tajikistan Intra-Agency Communications System Training.”
The purpose of these secret and semi-secret operations will be to establish American military dominance over the energy-laden CIS states. Contrary to popular opinion, these dangerous covert measures are not necessarily just to enable American oil companies to “steal the oil,” but are more likely intended to simply give American blackmailers the opportunity to assert similar control of the Asian oil and gas pipelines which Russia has over European gas lines. American military penetration of Central Asia will give US leaders the power to shut-down China, as well as India and Pakistan, whenever the new pipelines become operational. This military penetration is being hotly pursued on all fronts.
As a first step to obtaining veto power over energy to China, the US Army is creating for SOCOM the first “big network” of sensors and communication media (net-centric combat system), tied directly into the Global Information Grid (GIG).
This is what “full-spectrum dominance” (the battlefield of the future) looks like. This is not speculation; it is a fact, taken directly from the General Services website.
The following job descriptions are copied from the Quick Reaction pdf:
Performance Work Statement (PWS) summarizes the jobs that this private network will perform for SOCOM:
engineering, integration, technology insertion, installation, testing, logistical,
material acquisition and other support activities as required in support of a variety of
C4ISR technology insertion and support projects.
Research and Development
• Technology Insertion, Systems Integration
• Engineering and Technical Documentation Support
• Software/Hardware Engineering
• Systems Engineering Support
• Engineering Contingencies
• Test and Evaluation
• Logistics Support
• Business Operations Support
Provide In-Country C4ISR experts to station/deploy into USCENTCOM and
other countries to perform C4ISR and Counter Narcotics communication
systems quality assurance tasks, witness testing, and assist in training
events., NIU firing and training range management, and provide
liaison/coordination between customer nations, embassies and C2D. The
C2D Counter Narcotics Program Coordinators shall report back to CENTCOM
HQ,
C4ISR stands for Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. MASINT is “measurement and signals intelligence” obtained from air-dropped or ground-placed sensors, which measure and report movement on the ground or in the sky to the Special Forces network.
Under cover of joint operations with host governments, pursuing narco-terrorists, or interdicting drugs or arms traffickers, American air support will be secretly mapping terrain and acquiring GPS coordinates, as they air-drop MASINT sensors across the countryside.
US-contracted construction companies will erect permanent border control and other security facilities. These facilities will be in addition to Special Forces training centers, like the one in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, and the new one being built in Qaratogh, Tajikistan. Both of these facilities will belong to the host governments, but they will also be providing space for US technicians to occupy, as they monitor and coordinate efforts within the country, bringing those governments in line with the the other six national groups participating in the CACI initiative.
Into these fledgling counter-terror/counter-narcotics networks, American and British Special Forces trainers will be inserted, serving as instructors in the new state-of-the-art centers. From these operational centers, “training missions” will be dispatched into the surrounding hills, facilitating the emplacement of ground-installed sensors, some of which have a battery life of six months or more.
In Central Asia, we will be hunting the IMU terrorists (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is the new “al-Qaeda”
, as the means to permanently entrench American power in the region. The claim that “targets have been identified” from the alleged bin Laden raid is a complete fabrication, since the new enemies (those who are willing to take-up arms against American occupiers) have not as yet been identified. Whenever the time for killing begins, the victims will all be identified as “militants” by the complicit Western media, after they demonstrate their willingness to take-up arms and resist the encroaching Empire. For now, they remain simple folks facing a low-level invasion, who have not yet made the conscious personal decisions to resist. This is the real nature of a war against terrorism, it is based on an erroneous definition of “terrorism.” Civilians who resist invasion are classified as “terrorists.” Identifying them for later elimination is a primary objective of the opening (“tickling”
phase of the war.
The wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan have both been co-opted to this greater mission, allowing both wars to fester and stalemate until the new, greater war in Central Asia could be brought online. By “online,” I mean that preliminary groundwork could be laid, even as the destabilization programs were being guided to fruition. From the Tajik civil war, to the early colored revolutions and riots which have been engineered on the former Soviet real estate, to the more recent upheavals in Kyrghzstan and in China’s western regions. Social tensions in the region have been slowly percolated to the current boiling point, closely approximating the conditions arranged for the “Arab spring” movements. Destabilization is the primary weapon in “limited warfare” doctrine.
Afghan drugs have also served as another primary weapon in the CIA/Pentagon psywar destabilization program, their movement across borders and their corrupting influence have laid the foundations for joint counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics efforts from Afghanistan to Russia and beyond, anywhere that American-enabled opioids flow. In order to fight all the problems associated with these drugs and other fallout of America’s failed Afghan war plan, partnerships have been formed with US and NATO forces, making these governments all partners in plans for their own destruction and servitude. As a direct result of these partnerships, the doors have flung wide-open for a full-scale US military penetration of all of the “Stans,” and that planned penetration is getting underway.
In a strange twist of dictatorships striving to save their fledgling democracies from an Imperial penetration and net-centric psywar operations, governments which have found themselves under attack, have been turning to censorship of the Internet, as a last line of defense. In the past twenty-four hours three major Central Asian news websites have been taken-down by unknown entities in major cyber-attacks (Chronicles of Turkmenistan, NewsCentralAsia and Avesta.Tj).
In a mystifying arrogance that leaves decent folks grasping for the proper words to describe what we are witnessing, the American administration has revealed to the world that it has some unwritten right to take actions meant to undermine any government that tries to protect itself against the intensive, organized assault.
“The United States is funding the development of new technologies to circumvent unwanted controls, sponsoring training programs for Internet activists, and launching diplomatic initiatives to build “a global coalition of governments committed to advancing Internet freedom.”
The New York Times reports that the US State Department will have spent upwards of $70 million on “shadow networks” which would allow protesters to communicate even if powers that be pull the traditional plug — so far, it’s spent at least $50 million on a independent cell phone network for Afghanistan, and given a $2 million grant to members of the New America Foundation creating the “internet in a suitcase” pictured above. It’s a batch of mesh networking equipment designed to be spirited into a country to set up a private network.”
It is the nature of psywar (psychological warfare) that each small operation builds upon the previous operations, in a kind of inverted pyramidal edifice, where all building blocks rest upon one original faulty foundation stone. In the case of the global war on terror (GWOT), everything rests upon the American definition of the word “terrorism.”
In the grand psyop, war is perpetuated and sometimes escalated, but it is never ended. In order to accomplish the perpetuation of persistent warfare, American forces are never allowed to obtain anything approximating ultimate victory. In the scheme labeled “asymmetric warfare,” the impossible becomes an everyday occurrence. The flea is portrayed as the equal to the wolf pack. Small, poorly armed militant groups like the Taliban, somehow manage to hold-off and sometimes defeat the world’s most powerful military, even with its overwhelming air superiority. Even in mountainous terrain, where there are vast distances between targets, the overaccommodating Western media paints a misleading picture of militants who are armed with RPGs and AK-47s, surviving against military forces which operate under the principle of “full-spectrum dominance.”
Maintaining the illusion is the key to maintaining perpetual war. The psywar is far more important than the real war. The war against minds has more far-reaching effects than the war against the flesh. With one bullet, or one-hundred bullets, you can kill one man (or several), but with the right combination of words you can destroy or disable the minds of hundreds, even thousands of men. This is the reason why the US Army maintains 40 psychological warfare reserve units. Even the most deadly arm of the American military, the Special Forces divisions rely upon psyop battalions to prepare their battles for them. Full-spectrum cyber-warfare brings every resource to bear upon making the enemy think whatever you want them to think. In the case of the global terror war, America’s real intentions are hidden behind a façade of ineptitude and near-incompetence, while the most sophisticated warfighting system ever dreamed-up by the minds of martial man have concentrated on overcoming the minds of the world.
They do this by creating the contradictory impression that our military is more concerned with perpetuating our enemies than in defeating them. We fight against “militant Islamists,” even while our every action is cued towards increasing the number of militants. American policies of staging overwhelming punitive attacks upon our adversaries, knowing that countless numbers of Muslim males will rush forward in reaction, seeking vengeance for murdered family members, increases the resistance, instead of decreasing it. A policy which focuses upon provocation aims to drive the insurgencies. It is little wonder that so many researchers draw the conclusion that the CIA and military intelligence are behind the militant/terrorist groups, if not in actual deeds, then in intentions. This “intelligence-driven war” is a perpetual motion machine.
By driving the “Islamic” militant groups, wherever policy-makers wish to go, the doors are opened wide to US and NATO forces. The staged mock “killing of bin Laden” has set the next stage in the grand Pentagon psywar, a massive “manhunt” deep into Central Asia. World opinion is now pre-primed to expect US Special Forces kill teams to pursue Osama’s alleged associates wherever they can be spotted in CENTCOM’s area of operations.
The “killing of bin Laden” scam is being augmented by further US government machinations, which are centered around circumstances arising from the “failing” Afghan war–drugs and gun-running, narco-terrorism, regional instability. Under the pretense of assisting local governments deal with this Afghan-related chaos (through American and NATO support in improving national technological capabilities, especially in tightening border security), inroads are made into each of the targeted states military and police forces, justifying intensive penetration of the countryside under peaceful “aid” programs.
The American construction of massive bases in foreign countries (often against the will of the host governments) is one of those “national security” issues that our “free press” normally chooses to avoid. Despite claims that media in Western democracies are free to report on whatever they want, the corporate-owned press chooses to avoid stories of outright government duplicity, such as the contradictions inherent in the base construction issue. America is not so generous that it builds multi- million military bases with the intention to simply give them away as soon as they are completed. The tracks which have been left, confirm to us all, that the Afghan war is not slated to end in 2014, it is instead, going to be shifted into interior Central Asia. There is not yet any reason for world opinion to accept that major shifting of forces, but reasons (or at least excuses) are being created to shift those opinions, by means of the problems being cooked-up in the boiling pot of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While the world’s attention will remain riveted to potential military actions in Pakistan and the Persian Gulf, the real war will erupt elsewhere, seemingly out of nowhere.
Representatives from all of the secret agencies of the Stans, except for Turkmenistan, have come together in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to identify a common threat in Central Asia, emanating from a non-existent terrorist underground (SEE: Secret services say about the presence in Central Asia, domestic extremist underground). This consensus on a common invisible enemy sets the stage for the coming creation of a Central Asian rapid reaction force (which is to be used primarily for crushing political dissent), without defining the author of that budding force. Will it be Western-oriented or Russian in composition, or will there be two competing forces?
The sudden appearance of “Islamist terrorists” inKazakhstanseems like a sure sign of outside intervention, but is it really? It is doubtful that many of the terrorist attacks which have happened in the past and have been blamed on shadowy, previously unheard of terrorist outfits, have really been the work of religious extremists. The exceptionally high military skills which have been exhibited in most of these rare guerilla attacks (Fedayeen) is proof that most of the terrorist attacks have been the work of military professionals. There is presently no way to know for certain whether the terrorism in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in Central Asia has been by real militants, or has been the work of intelligence agencies or military contractors, (mercenaries), or possibly commando actions by Special Forces soldiers.
Whoever bombed the railroad bridge in Uzbekistanrecently, destroying the concrete bridge supports, were clearly professionals, just like those demolition teams who disabled Russian hydroelectric dams last year. It would be accurate to think ofCentral Asia as a secret battlefield, where attacks and counterattacks have been taking place beyond the eyes and ears of civilization for several years. It is only now, since our attention has been diverted to the former Soviet empire that observers have started to take notice of the secret shenanigans.
When it comes to news reports out of the CIS countries, or any of the closed societies of Asia orAfrica(where the legitimate media does not go), we can never be sure if any of them are true. Who can be sure that reported terrorist attacks even happen at all?
If a believable world-wide terrorist organization can be created practically out of thin air, then how many real terrorists does it really take to create a popular perception of a growing terrorist menace? With its “al-Qaeda” project, the CIA has perfected its mastery of a process for creating pseudo-terrorists and weaving terrorist legends around them. Since the official start of the terror war, we have demonstrated our mastery of this black art to the world. Even though our leaders and the national media like to claim that we are locked in a deadly terrorist war with this Islamist organization, secret services in the know understand that “al-Qaeda” is merely a phantom outfit, existing only on paper, to be called forth whenever US inroads are needed anywhere in the world.
Every functioning spy agency knows by now that a few terrorist legends have been blended together to create the impression of a widespread terrorist internationale, to serveAmerica’s secret plans. The only real connection between “al-CIA-da”-linked terrorist groups anywhere is the common denominator of the CIA hand, or the CIA-created al Qaeda brand-name. The CIA has turned mass-murder into an art form, creating a prototype of roving gangs of militants, mercenaries, or hired criminal thugs, who provide cover stories for any missions to terrorize the local populations or to attack designated targets. Anyone who has been paying attention would have learned of our skills and adapted them towards their own ends by now, simply by plugging into the lively “al-Qaeda” mythology for themselves.
Which government is behind the alleged “Islamists” of Central Asia–American, or copycat competitors? Did Kazakh President Nazarbayev manufacture his own “Islamists,” in order to justify a wave of political repression, just as Bakiyev allegedly raised the specter of Mullah Abdullo and the IMU to provide cover for ethnic rioting that was unleashed in theOsh region in southernKyrgyzstan? Did Uzbek President Islam Karimov claim that unseen “terrorists” blew that railroad bridge to cover his feud withTajikistan? Or, were all of these faceless terrorists (some of them operating under the name of unheard of militant outfits) real, working for meddling outside powers? That is the nature of a covert war environment—nobody knows what to believe, so everybody is suspect. Such an environment is created with the intention of fostering suspicious paranoia among real resistance forces. It is part of the divide and conquer strategy.
This is what is happening all overCentral Asia. InUzbekistan, phantom “terrorists” have allegedly blown-up a railroad bridge, not on the main rail line being used to supply NATO, but on a side route which only servicesTajikistan. This rail blockage comes after months of sporadic service, because of an ongoing railroad war of attrition with Uzbek President Karimov, over the Rogun Dam issue. InTajikistanitself recently, the government has revived the memory of Mullah Abdullo and bands of phantom Islamists, to cover up government repression of religious dissidents. If a group ever existed anywhere, it remains forever useful to deceitful individuals who want to invoke the image of killer Islamists to cover their own tracks.
The term “militant Islamist” describes a particular, rare type of individual, one who follows a deviant version of Islam, and is highly trained in the military arts. The people who are usually blamed for isolated terrorist attacks have been religious students, who have somehow become radicalized and motivated to take-up arms, allegedly in defense of their faith. It takes outside intervention to train and arm these new militants, after they have gone through religious indoctrination. Somebody has to provide the military hardware they rely on. Every terrorist group has such backers or sponsors. Identifying the state terrorist backer is even more difficult than identifying secret terrorists.
The struggle to dominateEurasiahas evolved past the original Cold War scenario, producing a new form of warfare. World War III has been reduced to a media war, with the East/West coalitions striving in the shadows to influence popular perceptions and thereby alter reality. War reporting is a thing of the past, having been replaced by national “news,” which is usually delivered weeks, after the events have passed.
In a psywar, it is often impossible to tell which side is benefitting from the violence, or which side is responsible for it. It is sometimes even harder to know whether the event is intentional, or simply coincidence. It is sometimes possible after the event has passed to understand which side has gained advantages from the violent terrorist incident, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. This is why hard analysis of the many ongoing international confrontations has us all looking backwards, in order to anticipate what the future may hold (perhaps this explains the prevailing paranoia in the conspiracy research community). InCentral Asiawe see traces left behind from many, widely dispersed terrorist events, forming an evidence trail that unlocks secret events from the past, giving us insight into the forces that will be destabilizing the CIS countries in the future.
All the players in the Central Asian psywar have adapted their games to the new realities. Everyone is now singing the same tune, expressing the same fear of future “Islamists” and narco-terrorists who might be migrating outward fromAfghanistanafter 2014. Both East and West claim to offer protection and order in the face of this common terrorist threat. There is an unspoken consensus on the true nature of these Islamist terrorists and an understanding that the real terrorist threat comes from those who protect the narco-terrorists and their deadly products. The real terrorists are those government forces which have banded together in secret to manufacture “radical Islam” and to push it onto unsuspecting Muslim populations.
The beliefs promoted by every radical Islamist outfit are the same—someone has insulted God and must die—it then falls to the true believer to become a self-appointed executioner for God. It is the Islamists of tomorrow, who represent the real danger which Central Asian governments prepare for today. Militant groups, led by such individuals are the only real military threat that could possibly endanger Central Asian governments in the near future.
Both East and West are now selling military solutions to meet future CIS needs. TheUSis relying on its “Partnership for Peace” relationships to gain an inside track to sell its proposed secret military solution. So far, this approach has paid-off with Western inroads made in border control, drug control and counter-terrorism programs in all of the Stans. It remains to be seen whether US diplomats can turn this into actual partnerships with separate governments. That decision will depend upon the American aid program offered and the level of confidence in American security.
Russiais has been taking a different approach to the anticipated security problems of the region, according to the Russian press. They are developing a strategy and war-gaming on it, to deal with an unspecific type of threat which is somewhere between militant Islamists and any “Arab spring” type of movement which might arise in the immediate future. The most obvious problem that is developing with both Eastern and Western strategies, is that all of the solutions are being developed piecemeal, out of separate components, based on separate treaties and security organizations that often don’t match-up. It is making it difficult to synchronize commitments already made by the separate states with developing plans to enhance security. Some governments belong to both East and West security organizations, meaning that they might belong to the same drug control regime, but be on different sides of the counter-terrorism issue.
Russian security solutions are being practiced with individual governments in the region, to develop a common concept of fighting future Islamist terror and popular uprisings. Kazakhstanparticipated in September’s Center-2011 Caspian exercises. Tajikistan has been named in next year’s Peace Mission-2012 exercise, which has been reportedly focused on the same missions inTajikistan’s mountainous terrain.
Sept. 9-26, the Russian army, joined byKazakhstan,TajikistanandKyrgyzstan, deployed 12,000 troops in a huge combined military exercise code-named Center-2011 which reportedly simulated an Iranian attack on Caspian oil fields. Two videos from those war games below:
учения ЦЕНТР-2011.mp4, posted with vodpod
Сюжет “Центр 2011″, posted with vodpod
The Center-2011 Caspian war games were very significant because of the specific missions which were reported by the Russian press to have been practiced there. One practice mission was securing an undefinedCaspian Sea oil terminal from a military assault by approximately 70 aircraft from an unnamed air force, coming from the south. The games reportedly involved defendingKazakhstan’s Caspian Mangustanskoy field being developed by ExxonMobil in the northern Caspian. The map released to the press, which had been used in the exercise, looked remarkably like the Turkmen Cheleken Contract Area just south of there,Turkmenistan’s Caspian cash cow. See the similarities between the two graphics below:
In addition to the similarity of the two sites, the size of the Turkmen Air Force and the 70 operational fighter aircraft reported in the Center-2011 story are nearly the same. CouldRussiaandKazakhstanhave actually been practicing taking control of the Cheleken facility, but reported to the Russian press the Kazakh scenario?
The following report appeared in Eurasia.org on Nov. 22, Would Russia Go To War Over The Trans-Caspian Pipeline? Did this reporter’s speculation strike a nerve inTurkmenistan? Putin’sRussia has been very assertive since the Georgian war demonstratedRussia’s resolve to hold on to its special possessions in this vital region. The conflict that has been brewing withTurkmenistan may dwarf the Georgian actions. Disagreements with the Turkmen government have precipitated a media war, with Berdymukhamedov’s stubborn rejection of anything associated withRussia looking like a mutiny, a rebellion against Putin’s dreamed of Eurasian alliance.
The final straw forRussiamay have been Berdymukhamedov’s open promises to sign-on to the European trans-Caspian pipeline projects, which would have cost Gazprom andRussiaenormous losses of gas profits. This was unacceptable. The Turkmen President had to be made to understand exactly what he stood to lose by threateningRussia’s economic lifeline.
The day after the Caspian war story ran, Turkmen President Berdymukhamedov was in China, where he signed 14 agreements, among them, an agreement to double Turkmenestan’s pipeline exports to China (SEE: Turkmen in Gas Accord With China ).
He also signed 13 more bilateral agreements with Hu Jintao on securing loans for oil and gas equipment, collaborating on internal affairs, police training, anti-terrorism etc. The full range of the agreements is not yet known, but police and anti-terrorist training forTurkmenistan had already been contracted from theUS and NATO. It is unknown what effect the Chinese agreement will have upon such commitments already made to either NATO orRussia.
This new Chinadeal effectively sealed the fate of both European dream projects, Nabucco and the trans-Caspian project, in addition to negating a resumption of high Russian export levels. Turkmenistancould no longer promise such high production levels, no matter what they had previously claimed. In reality, Turkmenistanhas not yet managed to produce meet the halfway point in the projected 32 billion cubic meters a year required to fill that first pipeline. It may take an extended development period to consistently produce enough Turkmen gas for a second Chinese pipeline. There will be no available Turkmen gas to send to Europe, despite the rosy predictions made by the government and their British advisers (SEE: Turkmenistan: Ashgabat Energy-Reserve Controversy Continues to Flare ).
President Berdymukhamedov recently stated that the U.S. “has been and remains one of the strategic vectors of its foreign policy (SEE: Turkmenistan Hosts Meeting To Develop Action Plan For Implementing UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy; US and Turkmenistan to continue combating illegal narcotics). It is not often mentioned in the Western media, but the US has also been using the airport in Ashgabat for refueling aircraft, as well as the airport town of Mary and at least one other airport in the country, even though the northern distribution network land routes bypassTurkmenistan.
From all available evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that there will be no Turkmen participation in anything Russiahas planned. The same cannot be said of Tajikistan, where the201st motorized division of the Russian Army maintains its only base in the region, overriding any smaller issues like the recent Russian pilot arrest. The Tajik media has reported thatTajikistan has signed-on to next year’s SCO war games with the 201st, to develop a rapid reaction force.
This new military exercise inCentral Asiashows that Russian forces are honing their new Rapid Reaction Force, to be operational by the time of the American Afghan withdrawal in 2014. The coming Peace Mission-2012 represents the natural progression of the training acquired in the Center-2011 (“Центр-2011″
Caspian war game exercise, which was conducted in September. We can expect to see more of these war games in the future, as Russian forces develop the concept of a quick reaction battalion, to intercept narco-terrorists, or to free villages overrun by unnamed forces.
Turkmenistanhas already invited NATO/US forces to help it in counter-terrorist, counter-narcotics, border control and policing efforts, even though the Turkmen leadership boasts loud and often about its “neutrality.”
Even though Uzbekistan is helping the US conduct its NDN (northern distribution network) enterprise in exchange for military aid and help with image modification, the Karimov government refuses to participate in any regional solution that has been put forth by either the US or Russia, even scuttling the US Istanbul agreement on Afghanistan.
Karimov will not support any security scenario that omits the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RAT), which is based in Tashkent. A parallel law enforcement structure is being created there, to expedite terrorism suspects in the US model of operation. Moscow’s coalition building has so far been unable to overcome Karimov’s distrust of Putin, in order to bring him onboard, even though the SCO structure has been officially linked to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) andUzbekistan is a member.
Karimov refuses to join in any collective security force andBelarusis leading a push to haveUzbekistanexpelled from the CSTO, unless it joins the security arrangement. This prevailing anti-Russian sentiment more or less ensures that no conceivable security arrangement will include all the national governments, creating a dangerous scenario where the CIS governments choose-up sides and take-up arms in opposition to each other. It may work out that the separate organizations can come together over the real threats and remain divided over the manufactured points of contention.
The new message emerging from the Russian press reports and manipulations of that news is that Putin is trying to pull together all of the remnants of theSoviet Unionthat he can influence, in his Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Laying the economic groundwork for the massive organization effort, the Customs Union is the first stage of that planned reunion. War games to secure the resources of the member states suggest thatRussiaand its allies are prepared to use military force to hold onto assets. Widespread attacks by “Islamists” who suddenly emerge out of nowhere, or out of retirement, forcing recalcitrant governments to seek military assistance, suggest that the Kremlin may be giving them a nudge.
Against the temptation to side with Russiaover concerns about Islamists and revolutions, the Americans have also deployed their own, perhaps more attractive, economic/military package of incentives. In addition to the incessantly advertised Silk Road incentive package we have the promise of such things as the free military surplus weapons, Special Forces training centers and modern border control technology (SEE: Smashing Greater Central Asia –Part One).
Border control enhancement in the Central Asian states is one area of Western penetration into the national security structure of all of the Stan governments. The EUand the UN build and remodel border control facilities for the individual governments to run, while the US and NATO provide the expertise and technical means to control borders in the face of determined smugglers and terrorists, who are hell-bent on conducting their deadly trade across normally porous borders.
In the war to “Smash Greater Central Asia,” the great game is being played-out as a massive psywar, with both sides using the same covert tactics to produce opposite results. The secret war is on, for the hearts and souls of individual nations and individual tribes, who are looking for economic roads out of the remnants of the massive Gulag state and the crumbling industrial base that has been left in its wake. An interesting, though often overlooked, fact about the former Soviet empire is the wreckage that has been left behind in the crumbling infrastructure of roads, factories, pipelines, water and electrical transmission systems. All of these former life-giving arteries of the Soviet industrial state have been milked of their usefulness to the economically starved CIS countries, having surpassed their expiration dates and started to crumble. Repairing these systems may be more difficult and more costly than simply replacing them with brand new systems.
All of the former communist satellite countries are looking to the community of nations for help in overcoming these obstacles to economic growth, no matter whether that help is offered by the Western democracies or by a Gazprom-energized Russian economic union. The objective of the psywar against these CIS countries is to gain the loyalties of the individual governments in a bidding war for the least costly solutions available to the Center. The importance of co-opting each government means that those nations which cannot be tricked into giving their loyalty will be bought, if possible, if not, then the military option remains open.
The issue of “human rights” is overlooked by Western diplomats when they are trying to legitimize their interaction with the dictatorships of Central Asia, such as Islam Karimov, but it becomes a weapon when it comes to other, less vital governments. Human rights becomes a useful issue for bashing unfriendly dictatorships. It has been used too often in this hypocritical manner to be very effective any more. The two-faced method for deploying the human rights issue serves to delegitimize the idea of democratic rights for all, which must form the foundation of any democracy movement. In September, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commended Karimov for “progress” on human rights and traveled to Tashkent in October to thank the dictator in person for his cooperation. In Turkmenistan, Berdimuhamedov no longer feels obligated to listen to the comments of the West on human rights.
We have worn-out our welcome inCentral Asia, before we really got our foot in the door. It is a bad idea to squander all of your good will, especially at the same time that you are wearing out your economic appeal. Interfering in the internal Russian electoral process is also not a good example to set if you plan to encourage dictatorships to be more lenient on human rights. If you cannot get your foot in the door and you cannot even gain observer status, your plans may be left out in the cold as well. The ultimate solution forCentral Asiamay be whatever defense Russian leaders can organize to stop US State Dept. and CIA subversion. The governments siding withRussiamay have already figured that out.
