Tuesday 1 November 2016

Russia's Pacific Strategy





Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest move in his continuing mission to circle is proverbial wagons and develop Russia’s national security and improve its international military capabilities is causing whispers of unease in the international community. For it appears that Russia is making a significant play for control over the North Pacific.

Earlier in the year Russia announced plans to build a new Pacific naval base in the middle of the disputed Kuril Island chain north of Japan. Utilising the pre-existing Japanese structures from World War II on Matua Island, Russia is set to turn the disputed territories into a significant base for the Russian military, with all reports indicating it will become the Russian Navy’s most eastern outpost.

Currently home to several military installations and 20, 000 inhabitants, the Kuril Islands have in recent years been given an overhaul by Russia with significant investment in the economy to renew the islands. Recently, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced that significant upgrades to the pre-existing military structures on the archipelago will be occurring over the next three to four years with an initial investment of 700 units of military equipment and weaponry being supplied in this year alone.

According to a Col. Gen. Sergey Surovkin, Commander of the Russian eastern military district, the Russian Far East, and in particular the Kuril Islands, are now considered vitally important for Russia’s national security and Russia will be now undertaking "unprecedented measures to develop military infrastructure in the area".

“Over the period to 2016 all major objects – more than 150 of them – on the islands of Iturup and Kunashir will be completed. Those will be modern fully autonomous military settlements with a developed social infrastructure,” said Col. Gen. Sergey Surovikin.

The upgrades also include the reorganization of the 18th Division and supplying it with upgraded weapons systems, assigning a tank battalion on a permanent basis, and installing the Pantsyr, Tor, and Buk missile Air Defense systems. There will also be infrastructure for the S-400 missiles to be deployed there in times of crisis. The air component of the islands’ garrison will include Ka-52K naval attack helicopters originally ordered for the Mistral ships, which will be based on the Kamchatka Peninsula and deploy to the islands on a rotational basis. The garrison will also include batteries of land-based anti-ship missiles, including the Bal and Bastion systems; the latter will be armed with supersonic Oniks missiles.

Surovkin also noted that developing this “eastern outpost of Russia, particularly Sakhalin Island and the Kuril islands provides unconditional guarantees of security and the territorial integrity of our country," he said.

Contested Territory

The only issue with this plan is that the Kuril Islands are at the heart of one of the Pacific’s longest running territorial disputes. Russia and Japan originally divided the islands between themselves in 1855, with Russia taking the northern islands closest to its mainland territory and Japan the southern islands.

After the Russo-Japanese war in 1904-5 the Japanese took over the southern half of the island of Sakhalin and it was not until World War II that the whole chain of the Kuril Islands were annexed by the Soviet Union and in 1947 all Japanese inhabitants of the islands were repatriated to Japan.

Japan has, since this time, disputed Russia’s sovereignty over the four most southern islands in the chain; Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai rocks. Putin stated last month that Russia does “not trade territories”. But he also noted that “concluding a peace treaty with Japan is certainly a key issue and we would like to find a solution to this problem together with our Japanese friends.”

Strategically Important

There is no doubt that the Kuril Islands are strategically important for Russia. Firstly, from an operational point of view, collectively the chain of islands form a barrier that separates the Pacific Ocean from the Sea of Okhotsk where a large segment of the Russian Pacific Fleet are stationed on the Kamchatka Peninsula at or around Avacha Bay.

Included in this is the Pacific based submarine fleet which are a cornerstone of the Russian Pacific naval operations. Relinquishing control over the archipelago’s southern region to Japan would effectively hinder the manoeuvrability of the fleet and cause bottle necks during operations.

The loss of the islands would also create a significant threat to Russian national security thanks to the recent Japanese militarisation of a whole belt of Islands that stretch 1400 km from the Japanese mainland towards Taiwan. As part of the United States’ ‘Asia Pivot’ strategy, America and Japan are currently in the process of quietly deploying missile defense systems throughout Japan and South Korea which, given the current diplomatic relations between Russia and the Unites States, would pose a considerable threat.

Finally the islands are a platform for Russia to render defensive strikes against imminent threats or assistance to allies like China in territorial disputes with Japan, the US, and Philippines over the status of China’s new South China Sea islands.

China or Russia

A solution to the dispute may not be far off. The recent diplomatic difficulties with China in the Pacific and its growing expansionism has Japan worried. According to Vasily Kashin, senior research fellow at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Japan wants to be the counterbalance to Russia’s relationship with China.

“Both Russia and Japan are interested in bilateral cooperation. Russia needs Japan's help in modernizing its economy and Japan does not want Russia to be too close to China," he stated noting that Moscow and Tokyo already seem to have started working on a compromise to the Kuril issue.

Is Uzbekistan Heading For a Clan Revolution




As Central Asian leaders continue to observe the fallout from the sudden death of Islam Karimov. The premature demise of one of Central Asia’s long standing political players has created a significant power vacuum within the state.

The fallout from this vacuum has the potential to go three ways. Firstly, Uzbekistan could collapse into political turmoil as the three largest regional clans from Samarkand, Tashkent and Ferghana, compete to consolidate and expand their power structures. The resulting infighting will destabilise the Uzbek state and society leading to regional diasporas and potentially the rise of terrorism.

Another path open to Uzbekistan is that its new leader will walk the country out of its current stagnancy and seize the opportunity to economically and politically move beyond the hardships characterised by Karimov’s 25 year rule. However, given that civil strife is an anathema in most Central Asian nations it is likely that Uzbekistan will just get a new hand on the wheel and everything will continue as normal.

Clan Struggle

Nevertheless the power vacuum created by Karimov’s death will create significant ripples in Uzbekistan’s political landscape. Thanks to Islam Karimov’s iron grip on the Presidency, Uzbekistan’s regional clans have often been an obscured part of Uzbekistan’s political landscape. They are a real and imminent danger to the stability of this nation. Currently the country is divided among 7 clans. If you want to check out the geographical locations of the clans follow the link on  Stratfor.



While the seven clans are divide along provincial lines it is the larger three, Samarkand, Ferghana and Tashkent that are most likely to initiate clan conflict. The smaller regional clans of Jizzakh, Khorezm, Karakalpak and Kashkadarya are more subjugated to the larger clans and tend to keep their focus on their own regions. While these alliances are currently holding, it would take little for these pacts to become destabilised.

Islam Karimov, like the Soviets before him, kept the destabilising jostling of the clans at bay by rigidly sticking with a system of balancing the clans’ power throughout his rule. Aided by his own lack of clan, thanks to his orphancy, Karimov was considered an outsider and as such could sit above the disputes due to his lack of regional ties.

However, Karimov was not immune to the clans’ disfavour. In 1999, for example, several car bombs were set off in Tashkent after his removal of one of Taskent clan’s political elites from the Interior Ministry (MVD). Likewise in 2004, the Interior Ministry (MVD) and the National Security Council or SNB (formerly the KGB), which are linked respectively to the Samarkand and Tashkent clans, appeared to have a turf dispute with bombs exploding across Tashkent and Bukhara.

A Time for Stability or Subversion?

So far there has been little turmoil in Uzbekistan since Karimov death. The succession of Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev, the long-time Prime Minister, to the position of Interim President has experienced no issues.

This is despite the fact that legally the Interim President should have been the Senate Chairman Nigmatilla Yuldashev. Presumably this is because Mirziyoyev is a member of the Samarkand clan and is supported by Tashkent heavy weight, Rustum Inoyatov, the head of the SNB.

According to EurasiaNet.org, Uzbek Journalist Elparid Hadjayev admitted that this transition was not surprising.

“I think that Nigmatilla Yuldashev would have felt very uncomfortable in the position of interim president. He is not a popular figure [and] most people in the country don’t know him. Clearly that is why they picked a person that is in control of the situation in the country,” said Hadjayev.

Furthermore, Mirziyoyev is a logical choice because of his foreign affairs record as Prime Minister and his close ties to Russia.

International Pressure


The importance of international players in Uzbekistan’s presidential contest cannot be understated. Russia and China both see the value in promoting a friendly face into the contest. Russia, for example, has recently wished for more pro-Russian leadership in Tashkent. In the past five years Uzbekistan has been keeping Russia at arm’s length, by holding off from joining with Russia’s plans to establish a Eurasian Union and its 2012 rejection of the Russia led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).

China is likewise concerned about the presidential transition but for differing reasons. A Karimov led Uzbekistan was a linchpin in China’s Silk Road Initiative and China has invested heavily in infrastructure in the country. Currently China uses Uzbekistan as a key gateway to the LNG suppliers in the west with three main China-Central Asia Natural Gas Pipelines traversing the entirety of Uzbekistan, and a fourth under construction. Furthermore, Uzbekistan supplies resource hungry China with gas, gold and uranium. So it is hardly surprising that Beijing has sought to upgrade its diplomatic ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Cloudy with a Chance for Revolution
While the transition to an Interim President has been smooth and considerate of the country’s need for economic stability, the next few months have the potential to be very tumultuous.

In Uzbekistan the constitution decrees an election to elect a new president must be held 3 months from now. It is during this period that rivalries will explode as political elites and their clans jockey for the greatest piece of the political and economic pie. The current incarceration in a mental institution of President Karimov’s daughter Gulnara Karimova, the Harvard educated one time billionaire and groomed successor to his presidential throne, by Interim President Mirziyoyev is just the first shot of the Mirziyoyev campaign to secure power.

Then there is Mirziyoyev’s rivalry with Rustam Asimov, the deputy Prime Minister and former close confident of Islam Karimov. Previously a trusted advisor to President Karimov, Asimov has in the past few months been slowly removed from the inner circle of power by Mirziyoyev and SNB Head Inoyatov.

The direction this rivalry will take is not clear. Certainly if Mirziyoyev decides to hold onto power by any means possible the prospect of a colour revolution, like those of the Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in the 2000’s is not out of the question.

Added into this volatile situation is the involvement of China and Russia who each have a different agenda in Uzbekistan. China, according to several analysts, are desperately unsure about Mirziyoyev and the security of their assets in Uzbekistan. If they refuse to do business with him and the Samarkand clan due to his volatile reputation there is a significant risk that separate clans could utilise this as a means to make their own grab for power.

Russia meanwhile is an old hand at playing one clan of against another to get what they want. During the days of the Soviet Union Russian authorities would regularly make power sharing arrangements with differing Uzbek clans, often supporting Samarkand over Tashkent or vice versa to manipulate their hold over the country. If Russia views China as interfering with its own economic and security plans for Uzbekistan, it will support another clan in their quest for political power.

A rivalry between Russia and China’s differing needs played out in the Uzbek theatre will increase clan rivalries as each group will view the economic and political advantages of garnering international support for their rise to power as paramount. If Mirziyoyev refuses to call the elections and the clans will turn violent, this will destabilise not just Uzbekistan but China and Central Asia politically and economically as well.