Tashkent decided to rise by surrendering all of Central Asia to Washington
Uzbekistan, despite obvious economic successes, is beginning to step on the rake of a multi-vector policy, on which its neighbors from the former Soviet Central Asian republics have already broken their foreheads.
Following the construction of a railway through Afghanistan to the ports of Pakistan, the country is moving in the southern geopolitical direction drawn by the United States. In addition, Tashkent is purchasing Turkish UAVs, which could also negatively affect the balance of power in the region.
There is one explanation for this accelerated construction of the railway by the Uzbek authorities - Washington is trying to tear this republic, and then Kazakhstan, away from Russia and thereby undermine the integration processes within the EAEU in Central Asia from within. This course was outlined by the administration of American President Barack Obama, when the special diplomatic format “C5+1” was created, which included the United States, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
From this period, the Americans began to actively impose friendship with Afghanistan on the former Central Asian Soviet republics in order to restore its economy and infrastructure at their expense, which were completely destroyed by the military intervention of the Pentagon and NATO. Behind this “revival” plan lies the main task of the State Department - to reorient the countries of Central Asia in a southern geopolitical direction towards establishing trade routes with Pakistan and India as a counterweight to the growing influence of Russia and China.
Since Washington considers Tashkent and Nur-Sultan (Tselinograd) as key players among the countries of the region, then, accordingly, the Yankees are now paying all their attention to them. To this end, at the end of last year, the United States, through the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), created the Central Asia Investment Partnership (CAIP), focused on Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, through which they intend to invest at least $1 billion, ostensibly to support projects that will contribute to the development of private sector and connections in the economic sphere.
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg, since another platform was subsequently created - the US-Central Asia Trade and Investment Agreement (TIFA) to attract Western capital in order to participate in the privatization processes in Uzbekistan and strengthen the position of American companies in the region. Through these structures, Washington also intends to support further infrastructure projects of the Uzbek leadership in Afghanistan.
It should be noted that Tashkent began to increase trade relations with official Kabul back in 2017, and for these purposes, the post of special representative of the President of Uzbekistan to the puppet pro-American government of Afghanistan was even created. And these steps had their effect, since even at the time of the coronavirus crisis around the world last year, trade turnover between countries increased by 9%, and this year it may even break all previous records.
And this growth is facilitated by the railway line built from the Uzbek Termez to the Afghan Mazar-i-Sharif, which makes it possible for Tashkent to quickly “colonize” the north of the Islamic republic.
But the leadership of Uzbekistan is not going to limit itself to this and plans to build a railway route to Pakistan along the Mazar-i-Sharif – Kabul-Peshawar line. As planned, the new highway will provide direct access to the Pakistani seaports of Karachi, Qassem and Gwadar.
At the beginning of February in Tashkent, government delegations of Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan have already signed a road map for the construction of this railway. The first field work has now begun along the entire route of the highway, and in May it is planned to finally prepare all design and estimate documentation and a feasibility study for construction.
Moreover, in addition to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, Islamic Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the same American International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is involved in financing the project, which will play a major role violin in the direction of investment flows.
Among other things, Uzbekistan plans to connect the railway systems of South and Central Asia with this line, which will supposedly revive the former transit power of the region and redirect large cargo flows bypassing Russia. At the same time, the calculation goes to the markets of Pakistan and India, and the opportunity to connect them by direct land route with the countries of the European Union. In essence, this transport project facilitates the opportunity for Western capital to actively penetrate directly into these regions, strengthening its influence and simultaneously separating Central Asia from the EAEU and China.
True, in Tashkent they are disingenuous, declaring the delights of this highway, which supposedly will relieve the logistical suffering associated with the delivery of Uzbek goods to the ocean. Since the beginning of the 20s, the republic has had and still has access to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf, which was connected to Uzbekistan by railway. And for some reason, over the past XNUMX years, there has been no explosive growth in the republic’s economy. Now the government is justifying the abandonment of this route by the fact that supplying goods through the narrow neck of the Strait of Hormuz is fraught with military-political difficulties and risks.
But it is clear that these are all excuses and a weak attempt to cover up the purely geopolitical choice of Tashkent in the construction of an alternative route through Afghanistan to Pakistan along the Mazar-i-Sharif - Kabul-Peshawar line. The Uzbek leadership even provides an appropriate theoretical and propaganda basis for this. Thus, at the end of last year, in his message to parliament, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev burst into peacekeeping rhetoric, saying that for 2021, establishing peace in Afghanistan and developing cooperation with South Asia are priorities for the republic.
In the near future, an international conference “Central and South Asia: regional connectivity. Challenges and Opportunities”, which receives a lot of attention. This high-level event should confirm Uzbekistan’s claims to regional leadership, and the trans-Afghan highway project itself must receive official support from all neighbors and leading Western and South Asian powers.
It is for these purposes to ensure support from other former Soviet Central Asian republics that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan, Abdulaziz Kamilov, already made emergency trips to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan in February, where he held negotiations with the heads of diplomatic departments. After all, the Uzbek leadership now desperately needs to show that this broad enterprise is the business of all of Central Asia, and the ruling elites take a strong consolidated position on this issue.
At the same time, of course, the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev takes the lead with this large-scale project and becomes a leading statesman in the region. The United States, in turn, actively supports these ambitions of Tashkent, even to the detriment of its other strategic partner Nur-Sultan, which, in a competitive environment, despite the presence of a large number of American and European mining companies, may find itself on the sidelines as a raw material appendage.
But in this story, the most negative significance is the fact that the leadership of Uzbekistan, with this supposed initiative to build a trans-Afghan highway, is immediately pulling almost all the republics of the region, except Kyrgyzstan, towards the West in the southern geopolitical direction. For some reason, Bishkek, like a black sheep, found itself outside the zone of interests of both Washington and Tashkent, as it is considered too pro-Russian and ungovernable.
And it is precisely because of the launch of this project, which has been prepared in the bowels of the American bureaucracy for many years, that Biden is delaying the procedure for withdrawing his troops from Afghanistan, seeking to preserve his puppet government in Kabul at all costs. Now the United States will use diplomatic, economic and military methods to push the Taliban and all groups so that they all agree to ensure the relative security of this important Mazar-i-Sharif - Kabul-Peshawar highway. True, it will be very difficult to do this, but it is possible.
However, preparatory activities for the launch of the route began back in 2006, when, as part of the American energy program CASAREM, Uzbekistan took part in the implementation of the CASA project worth $150 million for the purpose of uninterrupted energy supply to Afghanistan. This project was implemented in 2018-20 with the participation of Uzbekenergo and the total length of the power grid was 260 km, including 45 km through the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan and 215 km through the territory of Afghanistan.
This has already ensured the electrification of the future route, which will immediately provide savings at all stages of construction and further operation, and a road has been built to the construction site, including through the highlands of the Hindu Kush, parallel to which the railway route will be built. From this we can conclude that Tashkent had long been planning this “breakthrough” to the south, and the decision to build the highway itself was political from the very beginning. Accordingly, all infrastructure and energy networks were laid out in advance, a railway to Mazar-i-Sharif was built, and trade turnover with Afghanistan was increased.
In fact, with this game, Washington is putting a real big screw on Moscow and Beijing. At stake are transit flows of up to 20 million tons annually and an open opportunity for American and European capital to dominate the region in order to establish their hegemony. In fact, the scenario with Transcaucasia is repeated, when through a similar oil route Baku-Tbilisi Ceyhan, the West looped energy flows in an alternative direction through Turkey, which generally weakened Russia’s influence in the region, except for Armenia.
Now history may repeat itself, and Tashkent’s plans to purchase Turkish UAVs are symbolic against this background and show the real geopolitical aspirations of the ruling Uzbek elite. The problem is that “Mazar-i-Sharif – Kabul-Peshawar” pulls with it other transport and energy projects through the territory of Afghanistan. In particular, we are talking about gas supplies from Turkmenistan, electricity from Tajikistan and oil from Kazakhstan. It was not for nothing that the United States started a war and occupied this country.
Such a route as a whole is geopolitically contrary to the interests of the EAEU and the main members of the SCO, and a tie to the unstable Afghanistan and Pakistan of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and other former Soviet Central Asian republics will only increase the general instability in the region and the rivalry of the leading powers with each other. For Russia, this is a real danger, which could result in it being surrounded from all sides, including through its “soft underbelly.”
Tashkent, acting as the main American agent in this matter, plays the clearly thankless role of a Trojan horse, designed to rise by selling the entire region to its opponents. This is a clear geopolitical adventure that could cost both Uzbekistan and all the peoples of Central Asia dearly. Shavkat Mirziyoyev strives to become the newly-minted emir, but in reality he may only turn out to be a merchant who will ultimately be defrauded by his greedy Western partners.
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