For almost a decade, India has been actively yet unsuccessfully seeking to establish a military foothold in Tajikistan, where it helped renovate the Ayni air base. The facility has long been on the radar screens of many powers, including the U.S., Russia, and France. For India, as a rapidly emerging power, the facility is particularly symbolic as it could be its first military base outside its national borders. Yet Tajikistan recently announced it was only negotiating with Russia on the use of the facility. Tajikistan’s security and economic cooperation with Russia and China and Dushanbe’s own balancing act among great powers have thus far thwarted Indian military ambitions in Central Asia.

BACKGROUND: The Soviet Union used the air base at Ayni, located 15 kilometers from Dushanbe, for military operations in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but after its collapse a few years later, the base has remained idle. India started revamping the base after the trilateral defense agreement with Russia and Tajikistan in 2002 – one year after the 9/11 terror attacks brought the U.S. military directly to Central Asia for the first time in history. After the US$ 70 million renovation, which involved an extension of the runway and the construction of hangars and an air traffic control tower, Indian personnel allegedly left the base.

New Delhi planned to station a squadron of its Mi17 helicopters and some MiG29 fighter aircraft at the base. India has the world’s fourth largest air force, after the U.S., Russia, and China, with more than a thousand planes in its arsenal. The base in its “extended neighborhood” could provide India with a strategic depth in the energy-rich Central Asia, where it is facing strategic rivalry from China and Pakistan. It could also serve as a platform for anti-terrorist and counter-Jihadist operations in Afghanistan and the broader region. In the 1990’s, Tajikistan and India supported the Northern Alliance against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Until 2002 New Delhi also operated a medical facility at Farkhor nearby the Tajik-Afghan border, providing treatment to members of the Northern Alliance.

Yet India is failing to secure the Ayni air base, vied over by France, Russia, and reportedly even the U.S., which seeks to open military training centers in Tajikistan. The Tajik government has recently announced that Moscow, not New Delhi or Washington, is the only country considered for use of the base. “We are in talks over the Ayni airfield only with Russia”, the Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi stated, adding that “such talks are not being held with any other party”. The visit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Armed Forces, Vijay Kumar Singh, to Tajikistan last November was probably intended to change the mood in Dushanbe, but failed to produce a breakthrough. 

Tajikistan is a member of the Russia and China-led security groupings in Central Asia: the CSTO and SCO. The country also hosts the largest overseas Russian military base numbering about 6,000 personnel. The air component of this base is reportedly deployed in Kyrgyzstan. Dushanbe further entertains close relations with culturally akin Iran and Afghanistan, while cultivating bilateral and multilateral ties with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia. An Indian military presence could infuriate Pakistan, Iran, Russia, and China – key economic and security actors for impoverished and fragile Tajikistan.

This is not to say that Tajikistan is reluctant to balance the interests of various powers to secure favors. Nor is Dushanbe willing to overlook the policy failures of neighboring Kyrgyzstan – the world’s only country hosting military bases of both Russia and the U.S. and the only country in the region to experience two government overthrows in a decade. In the case of Ayni, Tajikistan has been seeking to extract rent money from Russia for the use of the base as it has been negotiating with India. Moscow, which operates existing bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan for free, appears apprehensive to the idea.

IMPLICATIONS: The issue of payment has long delayed the decision on the status of the base, even contributing to strained Tajik-Russian relations in early 2009 when Dushanbe, amidst the global financial crisis, needed Russian support for its Rogun dam project viewed by downstream Uzbekistan as threatening to its economic security. The recent statement on the base comes in the context of improving relations between Russia and Tajikistan. Moscow and Dushanbe are allegedly negotiating the return of Russian border troops to the Tajik-Afghan border to address growing drug and terrorism threats as NATO scales down its operations in Afghanistan.

Tajikistan is currently facing grave economic and security conditions, especially in the Rasht Valley, which empowers Islamic opposition and terrorist groups supposedly supported by the Taliban, IMU, and Al-Qaida. In 2009, Tajikistan thus initiated the creation of the anti-drug Quartet comprising Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan to address regional security issues. The four countries also consider participating in the CASA-1000 project, a half-billion dollar trade and energy scheme seeking to bring Central Asian electricity to South Asian markets, and a transport project linking Tajikistan and Pakistan via the Wakhan corridor in northeastern Afghanistan that would provide landlocked Tajikistan with access to Pakistani ports and Pakistan with access to markets in Central Asia and Russia.

India lacks significant security and economic ties with Tajikistan to support its military strategy in Central Asia. The trade turnover with Tajikistan hit just US$ 30 million in 2009, with India investing a mere US$ 720,000 in 2008. Indian companies also invested US$ 17 million in the modernization of the Varzob-1 power station and US$ 5 million in the construction of a hotel. Plans exist to invest US$ 16 million in the construction of a cement plant and US$ 12 million for the development of gas fields. This contrasts with a trade turnover at US$ 1.2 billion with Russia in 2008 and over US$ 600 million with China in 2009, as well as Russian and Chinese investments at around US$ 170 million and US$ 25 million respectively in 2008 and 2010. Russia also invested about US$ 600 million in the Sangtuda-1 power station. Tajikistan is purportedly planning to secure around US$ 1 billion from China.

India is also perceived by Pakistan, Russia, Iran, and China as tilting toward the U.S. in the attempt to contain them, which may well be affecting India’s military maneuvers in Central Asia negatively. Tajikistan’s neighbors clearly fear the geopolitical implications of bringing a new military player to the region. Besides, Dushanbe itself is not interested in becoming either the battleground of the strategic rivalry between India and Pakistan, a platform for Islamist forces, or the focal point of competition between China and Russia.

CONCLUSIONS: The air base negotiations and India’s likely failure to secure the base – at least for the time being – implies that, first, Russia still plays the predominant security role in the region. Second, the absence of an Indian military foothold will diminish New Delhi’s ability to influence the security dynamics in Afghanistan and the broader region. Third, without a significant economic presence, India will unlikely be able to project its military power in and from Central Asia any time soon, though lingering negotiations may still present it with a second chance. Finally, the air base talks clearly show Tajikistan’s interest in balancing regional powers to secure financial and political support as it sees convenient.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Roman Muzalevsky writes on Eurasian affairs and security for the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, DC. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .