Hey look, Abu Muqawama just realized that we might have a deal to use Uzbekistan’s territory to resupply Afghanistan. This is, of course, OLD NEWS, and not something that just cropped up because Bakiyev decided to try to scare more money out of the U.S.
Stratfor at least has good maps.
Given that AM’s blog has written a lot about other overland resupply routes for Afghanistan due to the unreliability of the Khyber pass… where did he expect these supplies to come from? Uzbekistan is the only Central Asian country with a reasonably high-capacity border crossing across the Amu Darya, at least in the sense that it doesn’t force you into the Pamirs in Tajikistan. Turkmenistan is so unreliable, it would be foolish to plan a route through that country. Uzbekistan was our only real choice.
Then again, the U.S. warming its relations with Uzbekistan are not, contra the AP, some new thing that just materialized this week, but the ongoing result of months of negotiations. In March of 2008, Nathan was noting the opening of the Termez airbase to NATO countries for resupply; in April, again of 2008, I noted that this opening was good, but also not indicative of any seachange in U.S. policy in the area, since Karimov-American relations follow a fairly predicable warming-and-cooling pattern.
It is worth noting, too, that the deal with Uzbekistan would really involve opening the rail lines to Termez—a development with its own challenges, to say the least. But in the midst of all this, just how likely is it that the Kyrgyz will shutter Manas to the U.S.? Anara Yusupova noters that the situation there is not iron-clad, either:
“A great deal of time will pass from the announcement that the air base is to be withdrawn and the point when that actually happens in practice,” Temir Sariev, head of the opposition party Ak Shumkar told the Bishkek Press Club. “Anything could happen during that time, and new circumstances might arise.”
He concluded, “It’s too early to say the American air base is about to be removed from Kyrgystan in the near future. That’s all the more true given that this isn’t the first time Kurmanbek Bakiev has made a statement of this kind.”
Exactly. In fact, I’ve lost count of the number of times Bakiyev threatened to close down the base. So maybe we could all start breathing and take a few steps back, yes? The hyperventilating over supply routes is a bit premature.
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It looks like this time they’re for serious.
However it does seem like KG stretched out the process by threatening, then going back, then threatening, in order to give the US/NATO time to set up alternatives. Not a coincidence that this very week agreements are finally getting signed with Uzbekistan and Dushanbe has suddenly agreed to allow more flights.
I started a retort to this post here, but it turned a bit of an unwieldy and lumpy essay, so I just posted it at my blog:
http://ekspeditsya.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/manas-manas-my-kingdom-for-a-manas/
If bored by the text, there are some funny animal pics to look at.
So my dad pointed out something to me today. Look at the map above. Now try to locate where Bishkek and Kabul are on that map. Now imagine flying in from Europe somewhere… doesn’t it seem like Kabul is just as close, if not closer, to Europe than Bishkek? That’s especially true if our planes have been forced to fly over the Caucuses countries.
So if it’s not a distance thing, do we need Manas because Kabul doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure/space to support these additional cargo & refuelling planes?
If that’s the case, then what about this novel idea: build an airbase somewhere in northern Afghanistan. Say, near Mazar-i-sharif. That way we wouldn’t have to rely on either brutal dictatorships (Uzbekistan) or extortionist governments (Kyrgyzstan). Constructing it would boost the local economy. And after the war is finished the Afghans could even convert it into a spiffy airport. If we would have started building an airbase there in 2002 it’d be long complete by now.
So are the Russian’s right? Is the whole super-secret real purpose of the Manas airbase simply to blunt Russian influence in Central Asia?
Brian, I’m not sure what you’re talking about- flying the distance from Bishkek to Kabul in the European direction wouldn’t even take you out of Iran.
That’s my point, Bishkek is not in the European direction.
In fact it’s further way from Europe than Kabul is. For example, let’s say that NATO cargo planes start at the US base in Turkey (because they weren’t allowed to overfly Russia). Here’s the approximate distances:
Ankara to Bishkek 3463km
Ankara to Kabul 3251km
So clearly the base is not a refuelling point on the way from/to Europe.
I suspect it has something to do with the infrastructure of and around the base. But still, I’m thinking why they couldn’t have improved the existing airbase in Mazar-i-sharif or something.
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