Russia Taking Over US’ Central Asia

FULL ARTICLE HERE The political game is all about having leverage. Russia, currently, is doing all it can to gain leverage against the American presence in Central Asia. This is a vital time to do so because the new US President has not yet established himself as a hardliner and has not made any bold foreign policy moves. The Bush administration fought hard on every level to keep anyone else from meddling in Washington’s affairs in the region. The US provided a lot of support for numerous former Soviet republics in Central Asia in order to secure their political dominance in the region.

One of the most important reasons for having friendly nations in Central Asia, especially Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, was because they provided vital supply bases for US operations in Afghanistan. The majority of US personnel, ordnance, and supplies were channeled through the US Air Force base in Kyrgyzstan. Now, however, the United States has lost that base and Moscow has acted upon an opportunity to provide a counterweight to US policies abroad.

First, Kyrgyzstan stated that the US base that was virtually sold to Russia for $2 billion can be used to still transport humanitarian supplies to US forces in Afghanistan. However, it means that Washington will have to find another base to use for directing supplies to their forces fighting the Taliban. The strategic advantage of the base in Kyrgyzstan was that it was only 1,5 hours of flight time away from the US airfield in Bagram.

Second, Moscow recently offered NATO the opportunity to use their Air Force to transport supplies to US forces in Afghanistan, since they were close to Afghanistan and it would take the burden off NATO to maintain active bases in the region. For Russia this means a lesser NATO and American presence in the region. It also gives Moscow an opportunity to control the flow of supplies intended for the war in Afghanistan. This is the most important factor in the ordeal over Central Asia, having leverage against American policies abroad. If NATO agrees to use the Russian Air Force to bring …CONTINUE READING HERE