The Creation of a Sphere of Influence: Russia and Central Asia
| Date | 01 December 1994 |
| Published date | 01 December 1994 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209404900404 |
| Author | Stephen Page |
| Subject Matter | Article |
STEPHEN
PAGE
The
creation of
a
sphere
of
influence:
Russia
and
Central
Asia
The
disintegration
of
the
USSR
in
December
1991,
and
the
ear-
lier
abandonment
of
Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism
as
a
prism
through
which
to
look at
the
world,
left
Russian
leaders
with
several
unique
problems,
not
the
least
of
which
was
how
to
regard
and
deal
with
the
new
states
which
had
formerly
been
Russia's
co-republics
in
the
USSR.
This
was
of
course
part of
the
much
larger
problem
of
how
to
identify
(or
create)
a
Weltan-
schauung,
a
consensus
among
political
6lites,
acceptable
to
a
broad
range
of
society,
about
Russia's
national
interests
which
would
permit
the
definition
of
a
coherent
set
of
foreign
policies.
In
the
first
flush
of
enthusiasm,
this
did
not
appear
to
be
par-
ticularly
difficult.
The
liberal
democrats
seemed
to
be
firmly
in
charge;
Boris
Yeltsin
and
his
foreign
minister,
Andrei
Kozyrev,
proclaimed the
need
for
Russia
to take
its
place
among the
'civilized
nations
of
the
earth'
and
left
no
doubt
that
this
meant
concentrating on
integration
with
Western
economic institu-
tions
and
'partnership'
with
the
United
States
and European
industrialized
democracies., When
pressed
to
articulate
the
principles
of
Russian
foreign
policy,
Kozyrev
stressed
developing
democracy
and
a
free
market
economy,
ensuring
stability
and
territorial
integrity,
and
co-operating
with
the
West
on
security,
human
rights,
and
economic
issues.
This
thinking
created
a
multi-tiered foreign
policy,
in
which
the
members
of
the
new
Commonwealth
of
Independent
States
Professor
of
Political Science,
Queen's
University,
Kingston,
Ontario.
i
J. Checkel,
'Russian
foreign
policy:
back
to
the
future?'
RFE/RL
Research
Report
i(16
October
1992),
19.
International
Journal
XLIX
AUTUMN
1994
SPHERE
OF
INFLUENCE
IN
CENTRAL
ASIA
789
(cis)
occupied
a
secondary
tier;
they
became
the
'near
abroad,'
accepted
(at
least
formally)
as
independent
neighbours
but
taken
for
granted
as
not
quite
foreign. These
were states
in
which
Russia
had
very
tangible
interests.
Their
economies
were
inextricably
linked
to
the
old
centre and
now
to Russia,
provid-
ing
raw
materials,
manufactured
goods, markets,
and
access to
the
rest
of
the
world;
it
was
quickly
evident
that
the
disintegra-
tion
of
the
USSR'S
centralized
economy
would
accentuate
the
pain
of
the
transition
to
market.2
In
security
terms,
their
terri-
tories
had
constituted the
USSR'S
frontiers;
the
new
Russia
had
no
border
defences
and
considered
it
natural
to
be
vitally
con-
cerned
about
the
condition
of
its
neighbours'
defences.
In
addi-
tion,
in
most
of
these
states
the
ruling
6lites
had
not
been
replaced;
however
nationalist
they
may
recently
have
become,
the
Russian
6lites
were
comfortable
dealing
with
them.
On
this
secondary tier,
Moscow's
attention
was
directed
first
to
Ukraine
and
Belarus,
and
next
for
security
reasons
to
the
Caucasus.
The
new
states
of
Central
Asia
(Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan,
Turkmenistan,
and
Tajikistan)
had
to
force
themselves
on
Mos-
cow;
it
was
the
Kazakh
president,
Nursultan
Nazarbaev,
who
insisted
in
December
1991
that
the
cis
should
go
beyond
a
Slavic
union
to
include
all
members
of
the
former
Soviet
Union
which
wished
to
join.
Criticism
of
the
'Atlanticist'
foreign
policy
of
the
liberal
democrats
was
immediate.
Much
of
it stemmed from uneasiness
or
outright
anger
over
the
loss
of
superpower
status
in the
world,
compounded
by
the
loss
of
empire.
Territories
which
had
been
part
of
a
single
state
for
decades,
if
not
centuries,
were
now
independent
and
seeking
the
support
and
help
of
tradi-
tional
enemies,
as
indeed
was
Russia,
in
what
appeared
to
many
to
be an
unholy
scramble
for economic
assistance.
An
article
in
Moskovskie
novosti
worried
that
'we
are
no
longer
1/6
of
the
earth's
surface
...
But
we
continue
to
carry within
ourselves
1/6
of
the
globe
...
It
is
a
scale
we
have
become
accustomed
to.'
2
When
Uzbekistan
tried
to
sell
its
raw
cotton
on
the
world
market
in
1992,
Russian
textile
mills
were
quickly
reduced
to working
at
25-per-cent
capacity.
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