Giving Is Not Talking
One should not hope that Condoleezza Rice will talk a lot about the democracy during her first trip to the post-Soviet Asia. The words in Astana, Bishkek and Dushanbe would be rather pleasant, understandable and attractive for the local leadership. They will hear from American guest about the economy, trade, US aid, and joint fight with terrorism. The Secretary of State would diplomatically try to avoid the democracy’s issues. The question is why? After she became the US Secretary of State less than a year ago, her department already has shown itself as fearless partisan of democracy in other world regions like Latin America and Middle East. The signal from the Washington to those local leaders was direct and precise: it is necessary to reject semi-authoritarian forms of the rule and to start political reforms. However, we won’t hear the same message in not so democratic Central Asia from Condoleezza Rice’s mouth. Did the US got scared for its military bases and decided to step on its own principles?
The conclusion that Americans got scared of something would be naïf and strange. Such drastic difference in American approaches to the different regions has its rational explanation. In the Middle East and in Latin America nobody dictates to the United States the rules of the games. Russia left these regions some time ago.
However, the post-Soviet space is totally different place. Here, Moscow is ready to play the tug of war with Washington. That makes it more difficult for the US to achieve its goal. However, nobody is saying that Washington is ready to ditch its principles here – it just has to be more resourceful.
This visit of State Secretary Rice should be included in the diplomatic lessons' books. From one side, by ignoring Tashkent, the US clearly is showing it did not refuse from the democratization demands. As a result, the Uzbek neighbors are starting to feel the same emotions as the players of “The Weakest Link” game, where this link is happened to be Uzbekistan of Islam Karimov. His example should become a lesson for the neighbors. For other countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – the US prepared not the stick but the carrot. It looks like Washington decided to implement, and successfully too, old colonial principle “divide and rule” for the Asian part of CIS.
Thus, hidden rivalry of Moscow and Washington in the Central Asian is narrowing down to one question –whose carrot is sweeter? Who can give more to these republics? Can we pay higher than America price for the Central Asian military bases and mineral resources? It is unlikely. It means that US will get what it wants even without much ado about the democracy. The main thing is to do more than to talk. It is also better to give than to talk.
Sergey Strokan, columnist
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 11, 2005
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