Secretary Panetta visited Kyrgyzstan on March 13 to solidify that Bishkek honors its commitment to the agreement to host the U.S. military’s Transit Center at Manas International Airport outside Bishkek. The agreement lasts through mid-2014, though U.S. forces will need the base at least through the end of that year. Previous negotiations have been volatile, though each has ended in the U.S. paying a significantly higher price in exchange for business continuing as usual. Yet, given Moscow’s interest in avoiding a haphazard U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan, there is reason to believe that agreements over the Manas base will be extended as long as needed.

BACKGROUND: The U.S. Air Base at Manas was established in December, 2001, to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan. Since then, Manas has become the U.S. military’s primary point of transit for U.S. troops deploying to and from Afghanistan. What was once an ad hoc agreement between a purposeful U.S. military and an eager new partner with its own fears of Islamic insurgency has become an object of mutual dependence.

As relations with Pakistan have soured and its land border with Afghanistan closed, Manas has become a featured element of the increasingly important Northern Distribution Network, which supplies the U.S.-led coalition through Central Asia. The Pentagon reported about 580,000 troop movements through the facility in 2011. Tankers operating out of Manas also refuel jet fighters supporting U.S. ground troops in Afghanistan. The base has increasingly become a political football, as rival domestic and foreign political factions have attempted to use the installation to gain leverage over the U.S. and the sitting Kyrgyz government.

Following a dispute over the terms of extension for the base in 2009, then-President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiev announced that the base would be closed. As the announcement was made during a visit to Moscow, where Bakiev was offered US$ 2 billion in loans and another US$ 150 million in grants from the Russian government, the deal appeared to be a quid pro quo. Coming in the midst of the Obama Administration’s ‘reset’ policy with Russia; the apparent Russian diplomatic coup was met with bitter accusations from the Pentagon. While Russia, through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, had long pressed for the closure of the base, Russian President Medvedev denied any role in Bakiev’s decision. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Robert Gates accused Moscow of trying to ‘have it both ways’ on Afghanistan, supporting the U.S. mission there while simultaneously trying to undermine its supply line.

While this crisis ended in the U.S. signing a new agreement to extend the lease at a higher rent, the U.S. hold on the facility has remained tenuous ever since. Besides the higher payments, the only change on the ground was the name: Manas Air Base became the Transit Center at Manas.

IMPLICATIONS: The interim government that replaced Bakiev in early 2010 initially agreed to maintain previous agreements regarding the base. Soon afterward, alleged links between an opaque fuel supplier to the base and the Bakiev family led to further outcry and calls to shutter the base. A new deal to supply fuel through a Kyrgyz-Russian consortium led by Gazprom diffused the situation. It is unclear how prices have been affected by the shift to the new suppliers.

Incidents involving U.S. servicemen over 10 years of operations have fueled public disapproval for the base in Kyrgyzstan. A U.S. Kyrgyz-flag carrier and a U.S. Air Force jet collided on the runway in 2006, though none were injured. At least two deadly road accidents have been tied to the base. A fuel truck driver citizen of Kyrgyzstan was shot by a U.S. serviceman in 2006, allegedly after threatening a guard with a knife.

Those documented incidents have fed more scurrilous accusations and rumors among the local population. Local and Russian news media have accused U.S. aircraft of dumping fuel on nearby villages, preparing to stage an attack on Iran from the base, and trafficking Afghan heroin on Air Force cargo planes, to name a few common ones. Despite lacking any evidence for these charges, the rumors are widely believed on their face by the public. Meanwhile, the opacity of the US$ 60 million annual rent payments and up to US$ 200 million in fuel sales have led to more reasoned speculation that the base enriches Kyrgyzstan’s elites, but not the people. Opposition politicians have continually hammered the sitting government on the issue through three successive governments.

Despite public discontent, Kyrgyzstan’s sitting leaders have never managed to refuse the cash Manas generates. In an attempt to placate the public, Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev cited the rather unlikely scenario that the airport might be attacked in the event of a U.S.-Iran conflict as reason for shuttering the base when the current contract ends in mid-2014. Never mind that the Iran situation could well come to a head well before that date. With the Obama Administration currently envisioning major troop movements out of Afghanistan throughout 2014, losing Manas mid-year would be a major blow to the U.S. military’s logistical infrastructure.

U.S. officials traveling with Panetta suggested they already see room for an extension of U.S. activity at the base. At times, Atambayev has appeared to suggest that the base should close after 2014. He has also insisted that the facility become a civilian logistics center, and part of his vision of Kyrgyzstan as a Central Asian trade hub. His position creates the obvious opening for a ‘rebranding’ of the Transit Center yet again, perhaps by calling it a ‘logistics center’, employing greater use of unmarked charter aircraft, and disassembling some of the military’s semi-permanent structures on site.

Media outlets and experts in Kyrgyzstan see history repeating itself. They report on a predictable cycle of negotiations which have ended successfully for the U.S. in the past - demands are made, rental fees increase, and the base continues to operate.

Even if a deal were preliminarily made, the Atambayev administration might refrain from announcing anything before consolidating its political position. Spring brings political unrest to Kyrgyzstan on nearly annual basis. This winter saw his major political opponents based in the south of the country consolidate into a more formal alliance. These forces openly reject the legitimacy of Atambayev’s regime in Bishkek.

On the international front, Atambayev’s February trip to Moscow was portrayed by Russian media as an abject failure. He appeared to threaten the closure of Russia’s air base at Kant, east of Bishkek, over US$ 15 million in unpaid rent. Russian officials were miffed, considering Kyrgyzstan’s debt to Moscow for previous government loans. Atambayev will want to be on the same page with Moscow before risking its ire again.

According to the Defense Department’s press release, Panetta stressed that the base had only one purpose: to support operations in Afghanistan. The U.S. is determined to convince Kyrgyzstan, as well as its SCO partners Russia and China, that it has no interest maintaining the base beyond the end of the Afghanistan mission. Panetta clearly understands the implicit limits of Bishkek’s sovereignty on military issues.

CONCLUSIONS: For over a decade, the Pentagon has gotten the military agreements it needs from Kyrgyzstan. Despite new presidents in Bishkek, Washington, and ostensibly in Moscow, there is little evidence to suggest that the U.S. will not get an extension for the installation, perhaps with some cosmetic changes to placate Kyrgyzstan’s domestic politics.

Perhaps the most stabilizing aspect of the current base arrangement is Gazprom’s direct, profitable participation in the operation. Money siphoned off in the process of collecting rent and supplying fuel has guaranteed the support of Bishkek elites in the past. Now, Gazprom has its own skin in the game as well.

As Gates suggested in 2009, there appears to exist an influential faction within the Kremlin that desperately wants stability in Afghanistan. This faction has nightmares of a precipitous U.S. exit from a crumbling Afghanistan, triggering a power vacuum that would engulf its northern neighbors. While Moscow has nagged Washington about vacating its sphere of influence, as push comes to shove and the final drawdown approaches, interests may again align to give U.S. forces what it needs from Kyrgyzstan. For a price, of course.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Myles G. Smith is an analyst and consultant based in Central Asia.