BACKGROUND: Since the establishment of the CIS in 1991 the Eurasian countries have struggled to solve problems of regional cooperation while maintaining national sovereignty. The Soviet collapse severed long-standing ties in trade, transportation, energy, communication, and investment. The division of the physical infrastructure among the post-Soviet states took place relatively quickly. The Alma-Ata Declaration which formalized the Soviet break-up proclaimed that the post-Soviet states would seek to maintain the “single economic space” of the Soviet Union. But a physical infrastructure will only function when there is a corresponding and compatible “soft infrastructure” of norms, standards, rules and regulations. Maintaining a compatible soft infrastructure in the post-independence period proved to be a challenging task. Soon after independence new national frameworks of tariffs, taxes, product standards, and shipping documentation emerged. Rail lines, shipping lines, and truck routes came under the control of national authorities. Oil and gas pipelines, electric power grids, and water ways came under national control. Procedures for currency convertibility and inter-bank settlement operations were taken over by national authorities. The Eurasian countries took steps to protect their domestic markets, but they often did so at the expense of their neighbors. Frequently, their neighbors retaliated by implementing yet more restrictive administrative measures, hampering trade, transport, communication and investment. This dynamic produced a complicated patchwork of administrative obstacles to trade and cooperation. Even as these results of the Soviet break-up emerged, political leaders struggled to reverse the dynamics of disintegration. Political leaders shuttled from meeting to meeting, championed the goals of cooperation, proclaimed breakthroughs in regional mutual understanding, signed compacts and treaties, and announced new policies and procedures that were designed to spur new forms of cooperation. Despite proclamations and treaties, however, actual improvement inn state-to-state cooperation proved an elusive goal. The list of formal cooperation agreements speaks volumes. It may be read as an indication of how hard the post-Soviet states have tried to create cooperative economic and political relationships, but it may also be viewed as a testimony to how unsuccessful those efforts have been. The list includes the CIS itself; the CIS Collective Security Treaty; the Central Asian Union; the Black Sea Forum; the 4 Power Customs Union; the Belarus-Russian Union; the Minsk Group; the Central Asian Trio; the Caucasus Four; the Caspian Five; the Shanghai Six; the Conference on Confidence Building, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the Central Asian Cooperation Organization.

IMPLICATIONS: The Central Asian states have occupied a particular niche in the post-Soviet efforts to create a common economic space. Dissatisfied by the failure of agreements sponsored by Moscow, the Central Asian states began promoting their own formulas for regional cooperation within the Central Asian region. Their goal was to put an end to the paternalism and manipulation of Moscow’s image as the “elder brother” and create the basis for greater policy coordination within Central Asia. After a meeting at the Kyrgyzstan resort town of Cholpan Ata in April 1994, Central Asian heads of state announced that they would form a regional compact within Central Asia. In July of 1994 the Central Asian heads of state met in Almaty to announce a package of Central Asian cooperation agreements. The partnership eventually acquired the name of the Central Asian Economic Union. In January 2001 the group adopted the name Central Asian Economic Forum. In February 2002 the group renamed itself the Central Asian Economic Cooperation Organization. Although cooperation in customs, tariffs, trade, transport and other forms of regional cooperation did not live up to expectations, the group did continue to meet regularly for over a decade. Throughout this period, Russia was conspicuously absent from the deliberations, neither playing a role as an interested party nor as an observer. The announcement in late May 2004 by the Central Asian heads of state in Astana Kazakhstan that Russia had been admitted as a member of the Central Asian Cooperation Organization came as a surprise to outside observers. The admission of Russia as a member of the organization constitutes a reversal for Russia’s role in Central Asian affairs. Russia’s renewed role in Central Asia is largely a product of Russia’s new southern policy carried out under the auspices of the Eurasian Economic Community, the Evrazes. While the Evrazes was originally created and brought into being in June 2001 as a policy-harmonizing, economic cooperation organization for the entire post-Soviet space, its evolution has acquired three particular features. First, in geostrategic respects, it has become heavily oriented toward the Caucasus and Central Asia. Second, in functional respects, it has become much broader than a special purpose economic organization and has begun to acquire a leading role in broader diplomatic activities ranging from investment policy to military policies. Third, Russia has sought to adapt the Evrazes to the objective of compensating for American inroads in the Central Asian region.

CONCLUSIONS: The return of Russia as a major participant in Central Asian regional discussions is a reflection of the Central Asian countries’ efforts to signal Washington that the disputes of the immediate post-collapse period are now being resolved. The Central Asian leaders are sensitive to international criticism over human rights violations, the lack of a public mandate from free and fair elections, and the inability to solve regional conflicts over trade, transport, water and energy disputes. Reinvigorating partnership with Russia is apt to bring them less criticism than relationships with the West. Russia’s gas, oil, electric and banking sectors are rapidly expanding thanks to Russia’s oil-driven economic growth. These are all sectors of key importance to the Central Asian states.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Gregory Gleason is Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of New Mexico.