Photo from Valentyn Reznichenko, Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Region Military Administration
Russia has been a particularly bad neighbor for over a decade. Three examples immediately come to mind: Russia’s Georgia war in 2008, its annexation of Crimea and intervention in the Donbas in 2014 and, most important to the purpose of this post, last year’s invasion of Ukraine. For the life of me I cannot understand why Putin undertook this disastrous war which will radically affect the demographic decline of the country for generations to come. Putin seeks to be remembered as Peter the Great is, but historians of the future might more accurately compare his reign to Ivan the Terrible.
While the entire planet watches with baited breath every battle in the Ukraine war, geopolitical tensions are at a breaking point in its backyard in Central Asia. Further, the proxy war between the West and Russia has exposed the weaknesses of the Russian military as well as the inability of the United States to hold together an effective sanctions regime against Moscow. “What is more – and what goes well beyond the usual Western concept of ‘great power competition’ – is the rise of over a hundred actors of different caliber in many parts of the world that have refused to support the US, and its allies, on the Russia sanctions and have maintained or even expanded their trade and other relations with Moscow,” writes Dmitri Trenin in Modern Diplomacy. And let’s not even talk about the dangerous tensions in the thickening US-China rivalry, or the alarming United Nations vote (see image below) that saw a myriad of countries — including South Africa (!) — vote neutral on condemning Russia in the Ukraine War.
(image via FT)
Yes, much of the global south is on the side of Ukraine. But the margin, to be frank, is a little too close for comfort, particularly in a global proxy war pitting authoritarianism against democracies that ought to be a no-brainer. Regional — rather than ideological — interests reign in Latin America with regards to the Ukraine War. “It has had limited impact on access to energy and food security in Latin America,” notes Eduardo Porter in Bloomberg Opinion. “People in the region ‘don’t have a dog in that fight,’ said José Miguel Vivanco, former head of the Americas at Human Rights Watch now at the Council on Foreign Relations.” And the aforementioned South Africa, which remains neutral on the Ukraine War, is enjoying its new powers as a full member of BRICS with its old friend in the war against apartheid, Russia. The West’s perennial neglect of Africa appears, after a fashion, to be coming home to roost. The final die, however, is not yet cast in the complicated US-Africa relationship.
But back to Russia’s — and the Ukraine’s — backyard: Central Asia; the subject of this post.
We cannot fail to note the Azerbaijan and Armenia border dispute. Moscow’s absence has allowed the EU to emerge as the dominant player and power broker in that all-but-forgotten conflict. When was the last time you read about the Azerbaijan and Armenia border dispute in even the New York Times?
The South Caucasus region is rife with instability — and Turkey is taking advantage of the power vacuum — as the Russian military is bogged down in the Ukraine. “Ankara has openly backed Azerbaijan in the conflict with Armenia (a Russian client) over Nagorno-Karabakh,” writes Stefan Wolff in The Conversation. “Turkish control over key pipeline infrastructure, such as the trans-Anatolian gas pipeline which connects Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz region with the European trans-Adriatic Pipeline at the Greek-Turkish border, provides a critical alternative to oil and gas – either from Russia or transiting through Russia.” Also —the United States has taken advantage of Moscow’s “distraction” in the Ukraine to fill the void in Central Asia. And so, of course, has China, which is rapidly becoming the Senior Partner in the Sino-Russian strategic partnership. In fine, Turkey, the United States and China are all trying to fill the the power vacuum left by Russia in parts of Central Asia.
And then there are the smaller regional conflagrations in the Ukraine theater’s backyard that are still ongoing that barely get a mention in the media. Witness: Moldova, rife with intrigue, always mentioned as Putin’s next potential target, preparing for … something. The temperature is hot along the Belarusian border with Ukraine, to be sure. And Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who is essentially a vassal of the Kremlin, recently visited Iran, suggesting a strengthening of bonds between Putin and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran, of course, has been supplying drones to Russia since 2022. And on Saturday, Iranian state media announced that a finalized deal to buy advanced Su-35 fighter planes from Russia. So there’s that.
Of Lukashenka’s roving diplomacy, US Department of State Spokesman Ned Price said at a press briefing yesterday:
MR PRICE: So first, on Lukashenka’s visit to Iran, we see this as, in some ways, an extension of the deepening relationship between Iran and Russia. We’ve been – had no shortage over the past year of sharing our concern of the deepening relationship between Iran and Russia. We’ve talked about it in terms of the security assistance that those – that Iran is providing Russia, and vice versa, and we’ve also made the point that, in what Lukashenka has offered to Russia, he has essentially ceded his sovereignty to the Kremlin, to Russia.
And so now, with Lukashenka in Iran, in some ways you can see that as an extension of the deepening partnership between Iran and Russia. But it’s something we’re watching very closely. These are two birds of a feather, and oftentimes they do flock together.
While all of this takes place in Russia’s backyard (and more not mentioned), it must be noted here that the United States is very much engaged in this proxy war. Modern Diplomacy gives us its most pessimistic take on this full fledged proxy war, now that Moscow has suspended its participation in the 2010 START treaty:
Hopefully, the credible threat of complete annihilation – the heart of nuclear deterrence – will still protect us from the very worst outcome, but the changes wrought by the Ukraine war on the global strategic landscape during its first year are indeed massive. Strategic deregulation between Moscow and Washington has already been highlighted. In practice, this will mean that each party will be free to build, structure, and deploy its strategic forces as it sees fit, and rely on its own so-called national technical means – such as spy satellites and other forms of intelligence – as the prime source of information about the other. It is natural to expect that under such circumstances both parties would have a powerful incentive to engage in worst-case-scenario planning.
Such as in the case of drone collisions in the Crimea?
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