Matrioshka hegemony? Multi-levelled hegemonic competition and security in post-Soviet Central Asia

Review of International Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 151-173

  Deyermond, Ruth ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 67749135360     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210509008365     Document Type: Article

References (105)

1. On the 'Great Game', see, for example, Amy Myers Jaffe and Robert A. Manning, 'The Myth of the Caspian "Great Game": the Real Geopolitics of Energy', Survival, 40:4 (Winter 1998-99), pp. 112-31;
2. and Stephen Blank, 'The United States and Central Asia', in Roy Allison and Lena Jonson (eds), Central Asian Security: The New International Context (Washington, DC and London: Brookings Institution and RIIA, 2001), pp. 127-51.
3. On post-9/11 Russia-US rapprochement, see, for example, Oksana Antonenko, 'Putin's Gamble', Survival, 43:4 (Winter 2001/02), pp. 49-60;
4. Sarah E. Mendelson, 'U.S.-Russian Military Relations: Between friend and foe', The Washington Quarterly, 25:1 (Winter 2002), pp. 161-72;
5. Aleksandr Iurin, 'Russia and U.S.: Partners, no matter what', International Affairs (Moscow), 49:2 (2003), pp. 40-5;
6. Roy Allison, 'Strategic Reassertion in Russia's Central Asia Policy', International Affairs, 80:2 (2004), pp. 277-93;
7. Lena Jonson, Vladimir Putin and Central Asia; the Shaping of Russian Foreign Policy (London & New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004);
8. and Mikhail Troitskiy, Institutionalizing U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Central Eurasia, Kennan Institute Occasional paper 293 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, 2006). The optimistic view of post-9/11 cooperation between Russia and the USA in Central Asia cannot account either for the complexities of the regional security picture or for the now overtly competitive nature of Russian-US security interactions in the region, as analysts are increasingly recognising. The 'Great Game' model relies on drawing a parallel with a single, nineteenth century case, which is neither analytically nor methodologically satisfactory.
9. The applicability of a model of multi-levelled hegemonic interaction to regions outside Central Asia is beyond the scope of this article. The interaction of China, India, and the USA in South and East Asia is another possible case.
10. Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
11. Robert Jervis, 'The Remaking of a Unipolar World', The Washington Quarterly, 29:3 (Summer 2006), pp. 7-19, 14.
12. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 116n;
13. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence, 3rd edn (New York: Longman, 2001), p. 44;
14. Christopher Layne 'The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The coming end of the United States' unipolar moment', International Security, 31:2 (Fall 2006), pp. 7-41, 12.
15. Layne 'The Unipolar Illusion', p. 11.
16. Joseph S. Nye Jr, 'The American National Interest and Global Public Goods', International Affairs, 78:2 (2002), pp. 233-44;
17. Jervis, 'The Remaking of a Unipolar World', especially p. 13. Nye comments that 'some in the current foreign policy debates look at the US preponderance in power and see a modern empire. For example, self styled "neo-Reaganites"advocate a foreign policy of "benign American hegemony"' (p. 235). Nye also refers to this group as 'the hegemonists' (p. 238);
18. his reference to 'aspiring hegemons in key regions' (p. 241) implies a different understanding of hegemony.
19. For a rather different understanding of hegemony, although one that also conflates hegemony and empire, see David Wilkinson, 'Unipolarity Without Hegemony' (1999) pp. 141-72.
20. Jakob Grygiel, 'Imperial Allies', Orbis (Spring 2006), pp. 209-21, 210.
21. For a summary of the key aspects of the debate, see Michael Cox, 'The New Liberal Empire in the Twenty-First Century', Irish Studies in International Affairs, 12 (2001), pp. 39-56.
22. For pre-9/11 discussions see, for example, Bruce Cronin, 'The Paradox of Hegemony: America's ambiguous relationship with the United Nations', European Journal of International Relations, 7:1 (2001), pp. 103-29;
23. Richard Ned Lebow and Robert Kelly, ' Thucydides and Hegemony: Athens and the United States', Review of International Studies, 27 (2001), pp. 593-609;
24. G. John Ikenberry, 'Getting Hegemony Right - analysis of the United States as a "hyperpower"nation', The National Interest (Spring, 2001);
25. Fareed Zakaria, 'The Challenges of American Hegemony: Then and now' International Journal, 54:1 (Winter 1998-9), pp. 9-27;
26. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2001). Post 9/11 considerations of US hegemony include Barry R. Posen, 'Command of the Commons: The military foundation of US hegemony', International Security, 28:1 (Summer 2003), pp. 5-46;
27. Michael Cox, 'American Power Before and After 11 September: Dizzy with Success?', International Affairs, 78:2 (2002), pp. 245-59;
28. Anatol Lieven, 'The Secret Policeman's Ball: The United States, Russia and the international order after 11 September', International Affairs, 78:2 (2002), pp. 261-76;
29. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, 'American Primacy in Perspective', Foreign Affairs, 81:4 (July/August 2002), pp. 20-33;
30. Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American Power, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002);
31. and Robert Jervis 'The Remaking of a Unipolar World', The Washington Quarterly 29:3 (Summer 2006), pp. 7-19.
32. See, for example, Stephen M. Walt, 'Taming American Power', Foreign Affairs (September/October 2005), and Layne 'The Unipolar Illusion'.
33. Michael Cox, 'Is the United States in decline - again? An essay', International Affairs, 83:4 (July 2007), pp. 643-53
34. and M. J. Williams, 'The Empire Writes Back (to Michael Cox)', International Affiairs, 83:5 (September 2007), pp. 945-50.
35. Examples include Posen 'Command of the Commons' and Jervis, 'The Remaking of a Unipolar World'.
36. See, for example, Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander, 'Waiting for Balancing: Why the world is not pushing back', International Security, 30:1 (Summer 2005), pp. 109-39.
37. Layne, 'The Unipolar Illusion'. Layne argues that the development of a European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy is an example of this form of emergent challenge to US hegemony.
38. T. V. Paul, 'Soft Balancing in the Age of US Primacy', International Security, 30:1 (Summer 2005), pp. 46-71, 47.
39. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, 'Hard Times for Soft Balancing', International Security, 30:1 (Summer 2005), pp. 72-108;
40. Robert Pape, 'Soft Balancing Against the United States', International Security, 30:1 (Summer 2005), pp. 7-45.
41. For one approach to the issue of regional hegemony and regional disagreements, see David R. Mares, 'Middle Powers Under regional Hegemony: To challenge or acquiesce in hegemonic enforcement', International Studies Quarterly, 32 (1988) pp. 453-71. John Mearsheimer considers the condition of regional hegemony, but his focus is on its extra-regional consequences (on the relations between hegemons in different regions rather than on the relations between states within a region), while his bar for global hegemony is set so high that he is led to conclude that 'there has never been a global hegemon and there is not likely to be one anytime soon' (Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, p. 41). Other analysts, with a more flexible interpretation of the concept of global hegemony, take a different view.
42. On the requirements for superpower status, see Regions and Powers, p. 34;
43. for mention of regional hegemony as a possible condition see, for example, p. 58 and the brief discussion of Uzbekistan in their discussion of Central Asia. This article parts company with Buzan and Wæver's theory in its primary focus on the issue of hegemony, rather than on regionality. Clearly, it also takes a different view about the boundaries and linkages of the sub-region of Central Asia - post-EU and NATO enlargement, it no longer seems appropriate to consider the Central Asian states as part of the same region as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, but not China.
44. Thomas Pedersen, 'Cooperative hegemony: Power, ideas and institutions in regional integration', Review of International Studies, 28 (2002), pp. 677-96.
45. On the impact of extra-regional power considerations, see pp. 689-90.
46. Gilpin, War and Change, p. 187.
47. This explanation is also advanced by Robert Powell, 'Stability and the Distribution of Power', World Politics, 48 (January 1996), pp. 239-67.
48. Lena Jonson also identifies Gilpin's analysis of hegemonic competition as a possible starting point for thinking about Russian responses to the US presence in Central Asia, although her consideration of this is necessarily limited in consequence of her focus on Russian foreign policy, rather than the impact of hegemony on regional security policy more generally (Jonson, Vladimir Putin, pp. 3-4 and 174-5).
49. Gilpin, War and Change, p. 239.
50. Similarly to Buzan and Wæver's 'sub-complex' category, I use the term 'sub-regional hegemon' to designate a hegemon existing in a distinct area of a broader region. In this context, Russia is a regional hegemon in the area of the former Soviet Union, excluding the Baltic States; Uzbekistan has been widely identified as a state with aspirations to hegemony within part of this region, post-Soviet Central Asia. Post-Soviet Central Asia can also usefully be understood as a sub-region of a wider Central Eurasia where China is generally identified as an emergent regional hegemon.
51. This term echoes the concept of 'matrioshka nationalism', developed to describe the emergent nationalisms arising from the break-up of the complex national-federal structure of the USSR. See Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds), Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
52. See, in particular, the 2004 International Affairs issue (80:3) on regionalism in Central Eurasia, especially Roy Allison, 'Regionalism, Regional Structures and Security Management in Central Asia', pp. 463-83.
53. See, for example, Sherman W. Garnett, Alexander Rahr, and Koji Watanabe, The New Central Asia: In search of stability; a report to the Trilateral Commission (New York: Trilateral Commission, 2000);
54. and Allison, 'Strategic Reassertion'.
55. Steven J. Main, James Sherr, and Mark A. Smith, The Pattern of Russian Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Conflict Studies Research Centre Occasional Brief 101 (December 2003), p. 1.
56. See, for example, Irina Zviagelskaia, The Russian Policy Debate on Central Asia (London: RIIA, 1995).
57. Robin Bhatty and Rachel Bronson note, however, that the Russian position in Central Asia - and in particular the Russian position relative to 'external' actors - improved in the late 1990s, as the threat posed by the Taliban encouraged a closer security relationship with Russia, 'NATO's Mixed Signals in the Caucasus and Central Asia', Survival, 42:3 (Autumn 2000), pp. 129-45, 133.
58. A point noted by, for example, Zviagelskaia, The Russian Policy Debate, and Lena Jonson, 'Russia and Central Asia', in Allison and Jonson (eds), Central Asian Security, pp. 95-126.
59. Aid to Uzbekistan increased by $234m in this period, by $113m to Tajikistan and by $49m to Kazakhstan according to US State Department figures: .
60. Speaking in Chicago in August 2004, he remarked that given the frequency with which 'I seem to find myself in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - maybe if you changed the name of Chicago to Chicagostan I could get here more often', .
61. See, for example, Itar-Tass, January 21 2002, in FBIS-SOV-2002-0121. In February 2004, Donald Rumsfeld signed a bilateral agreement that included a $12 million assistance package for the Kazakh armed forces and plans for military exercises and base refurbishment. American Forces Information Service News, 25 February 2004, .
62. See, for example, Cory Welt, 'Hoping on Kazakhstan: U.S. Engagement in Central Asia', CSIS Commentary, 27 September 2006.
63. Jean-Christoph Peuch, 'Kyrgyz-US base talks end inconclusively', RFE/RL, 2 June 2006.
64. On Uzbekistan's potential for, and aspirations to, regional hegemony, see, for example, Anthony Hyman, 'Moving out of Moscow's Orbit: The outlook for Central Asia', International Affairs, 69:2 (1993), pp. 289-304;
65. Gregory Gleason, The Central Asian States: Discovering independence (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), especially his section on 'Tides of Uzbek hegemony' in Chapter 5;
66. Lena Jonson, 'Russia and Central Asia';
67. Dan Burghart, 'In the Tracks of Tamerlane: Central Asia's path to the twenty-first century', European Security, 11:3 (Autumn 2002), pp. 1-19;
68. and Annette Bohr, 'Regionalism in Central Asia: New geopolitics, old order', International Affairs, 80:3 (2004), pp. 485-502.
69. As Martha Brill Olcott notes, for example, the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand were not, historically, predominantly Uzbek, but were incorporated into the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. 'Nation Building in Central Asia' in Roman Szporluk (ed.), National Identity and Ethnicity in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 208-29, p. 212.
70. Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century (Richmond: Curzon, 1997), p. 138.
71. Eugene Rumer, 'The U.S. Interests and Role in Central Asia after K2', The Washington Quarterly, 29:3 (Summer 2006), pp. 141-54, 152;
72. B. Lynn Pascoe, 'Uzbekistan: the key to success in Central Asia?', testimony before the Subcommittee on Central Asia, House International Relations Committee, 15 June 2004, .
73. See, for example, B. Lynn Pascoe, 'Uzbekistan': 'Uzbekistan inevitably assumes a key role in our policy towards the region. It occupies a core position in Central Asia [. . .] It is the guardian of a centuries-long tradition of enlightened Islamic scholarship and culture, and it boasts the largest and most effective military [. . .].' This assessment by the US administration is also noted (with reservations) in Central Asia in US Strategy, pp. 63-4. The paper argues that a stable Uzbekistan ('with strong, functional rule of law structures') would be a partner for the USA in ensuring regional stability (p. iv).
74. Jonson, Vladimir Putin, p. 46, pp. 54-6.
75. Karimov, Uzbekistan, pp. 29-30.
76. . On Uzbekistan's desire to strengthen ties with the USA in order to restrict Russia's position in the region, see for example Martha Brill Olcott, Central Asia's Second Chance (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), pp. 176-80.
77. RIA Novosti, 14 November 2005.
78. Itar-Tass, 2 June 2004, in FBIS-SOV-2004-0602; Interfax, 16 June 2004.
79. In March 2007, Mikhail Fradkov was reported to have denied that talks on an airbase had taken place, and 'certainly not with reference to any particular location' - a clear indication that such talks had taken place, at least in general terms. Roger McDermott, 'Russia Reclaiming Central Asia as Sphere of Influence', Jamestown Foundation Eurasia Daily Monitor, 13 March 2007.
80. On signs of possible Sino-Russian security competition, see Stephen Blank, 'China, Kazakh Energy and Russia: An unlikely mènage à trois', The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, 3:3 (November 2005), pp. 99-109, and Rosemary Foot, 'Chinese Strategies in a US-Hegemonic Global Order: Accommodating and hedging', International Affairs, 82:1 (2006), pp. 77-94.
81. See, for example, comments by Donald Rumsfeld ('Rumsfeld Encourages Transparency, Cooperation for China's Future', American Forces Press Service, 19 October 2005).
82. On the development of Russia-China relations in twenty-first century, and their connection to developments in US policy, see for example, David Kerr, 'The Sino-Russian Partnership and US Policy towards North Korea: From hegemony to concert in Northeast Asia' International Studies Quarterly, 49:3 (2005), pp. 411-37,
83. and Peter Ferdinand, 'Sunset, Sunrise: China and Russia construct a new relationship', International Affairs, 83:5 (2007), pp. 841-67.
84. See, for example, Peter Hayes Gries, 'China Eyes the Hegemon', Orbis (Summer 2005), pp. 401-12;
85. Jeanne L. Wilson, Strategic Partners: Russian-Chinese Relations in the Post-Soviet Era (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 182;
86. and Aaron L. Friedberg, 'The Future of U.S.-China Relations: Is conflict inevitable?' International Security, 30:2 (Fall 2005), pp. 7-45.
87. See Hayes Gries, 'China Eyes the Hegemon' and Foot, 'Chinese Strategies' for different views on this issue.
88. On Kazakhstan's relationship to these states, see Robert Legvold (ed.), Thinking Strategically: The Major Powers, Kazakhstan and the Central Asian Nexus (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press for American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2003).
89. The US government have designated Kazakhstan a 'strategic partner'. A joint statement released by the US and Kazakh presidents in late 2006 stressed Kazakhstan's 'leadership in regional integration efforts', one of many indications that, after the collapse of relations with Uzbekistan, the US government is attempting to position Kazakhstan in the sub-regional hegemonic role that it recognised Uzbekistan as occupying before mid-2005. (Joanna Lillis, 'Kazakhstani leaders call US visit a success', Eurasianet, 3 October 2006.)
90. Buzan and Wæver argue, in fact, that a reorientation of Uzbek policy in 2000 suggests that Uzbekistan had concluded that 'achieving a subregional position of hegemony was most likely by cooperating with Russia' (Regions and Powers, p. 426). Although the events of the following year suggest that this was, at most, a short term strategy, a similar conclusion could be drawn, as I argue here, from the radical shift in Uzbek policy towards the USA and Russia in 2005.
91. This would seem to support Pedersen's observation that 'a regional big power confronted with what is regarded as a hostile extra-regional power, may rationally choose to share power with its neighbours as part of, or as the price for, a power-aggregation strategy'. (Pedersen, 'Cooperative Hegemony', p. 690.)
92. Total US assistance for the Caucasus and Central Asian regions for 2002 was $958 million,
93. On the dangers of the US promotion of Uzbekistan's hegemonic aspirations, see Pauline Jones Luong and Erika Weinthal, 'New Friends, New Fears in Central Asia', Foreign Affairs, March/April
94. and Charles William Maynes, 'America Discovers Central Asia' Foreign Affairs, March/April 2003. In contrast, Laurence A. Jarvik, for example, argues that 'the establishment of a US base in Uzbekistan restrained the Uzbek military from the temptations of regional adventurism and effectively reduced conflict with neighbouring countries'. 'Uzbekistan: A modernizing society', Orbis (Spring 2005), pp. 261-74, 261.
95. See, for example, Pavel K. Baev, 'Turning Counter-terrorism into Counter-Revolution: Russia focuses on Kazakhstan and engages Turkmenistan', European Security, 15:1, pp. 3-22.
96. Islam Karimov, 'Po puti bezopasnosti i stabil'nosty v regione' ('On the path to security and stability in the region'), 5 July 2005,
97. Allison, 'Regionalism', p. 478.
98. Robert Gilpin, War and Change, pp. 191-3.
99. On the Russian response as evidence of a shift away from competition, see, for example, Antonenko, 'Putin's Gamble', p. 54.
100. Allison, 'Strategic Reassertion', p. 287.
101. Ibid., p. 289.
102. Itar-Tass, 4 June 2004; Roger McDermott, 'Tajik Military Weary of NATO', Jamestown Foundation Eurasia Daily Monitor, 4 April 2006.
103. Interfax, 4 June 2004.
104. Lieven, 'The Secret Policemen's Ball', p. 254.