Principles in the Pipeline: Managing Transatlantic Values and Interests in Central Asia

by ALEXANDER COOLEY

The West’s Central Asian Dilemmas
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Throughout the 1990s the Central Asian states remained a low foreign policy priority for the United States and Europe. It was not until the next decade that the Euro-Atlantic community developed compelling security and commercial interests in the region. After 9/11 the Central Asian states hosted coalition military bases and became important security partners for operations in Afghanistan.

The rising price of oil and gas, coupled with a renewed western concern about its energy security, made the development and export of Central Asian production a much more pressing commercial and strategic priority for Brussels and Washington than it was in the 1990s. A region that was effectively ignored for over a decade has now become a vital area of transatlantic interest.

Unfortunately, this new period of transatlantic engagement has not been accompanied by positive changes in the quality of Central Asia’s democratic development and internal governance. Mired in post-Soviet legacies of patronage politics, strong presidencies with authoritarian powers, endemic corruption and widespread poverty, the Central Asian states, unlike many of their post-communist counterparts, have failed to make meaningful progress in enacting political and economic liberalization. In fact, while pursuing these new strategic interests the West’s credibility as an agent of political reform has been undercut by a series of mis-steps and concessions made to Central Asia’s authoritarian regimes.

Managing the balance between promoting the interests and the values of the transatlantic community has been rendered all the more difficult by the fact that its most effective mechanisms for encouraging institutional change are not available for engaging with this region. Since the Central Asian states are not, and almost certainly will never be, candidates for membership in the European Union or NATO, they do not have to enact the necessary institutional changes and conditional reforms that helped to transform their post-communist counterparts in East and Central Europe, the Balkans and the Black Sea region. The United States and Europe have not collaborated to formulate a common Central Asian strategy, nor have they advanced a strong common response to the floundering role in the region of international organizations such as the OSCE. The trend of developments has indeed taken quite the opposite direction: many western international and non-governmental organizations that have emphasized a values-based agenda have been criticized and even driven from the region by Central Asian governments that are keen to limit outside interference in their domestic affairs. Supported by Russia’s resurgence and criticism of the West, the Central Asian states have recast the West’s values agenda as a political threat.

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Published in International Affairs 84: 6, 2008