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Hello. Thank you for joining us. We are proud to welcome you to our special series, Migration, brought to you by Brill, where we talk about creating a more inclusive world by revamping border policies in this rapidly changing global scenario. On your host, Lee Jungrico.
Forming part of the largest migration corridor in the world, both before and after the Soviet era, Central Asia has always been an intriguing study for scholars of international relations. To understand the role of foreign influences on regional stability and human security in Central Asia, we're speaking with Andre Garrets. He's a historian and professor of international studies and global politics at Leiden University. His article is Central Asia Under Brussels and Moscow's Eyes.
Prospects and realities. Andre, thank you so much for sitting down with us. Yeah, sure. So you know that as Central Asia balances its foreign policy options, it's tilting east, especially towards China.
What does that mean for Russia and the EU? Yeah, indeed. The Central Asian states, all five of the Central Asian states, former part of the Soviet Union, of course, they try to balance their foreign policy options, or as we put it, they try to develop multi-factor strategies. And their opportunities are expanding, which is essentially the result of the fact that China is ever more involved in the area.
And it takes the place to a certain extent, at least, of that old Hadjumamam in the region, which is Moscow. Now, both the EU, which is also present there, obviously, and the Russian Federation, they're trying to adapt their strategies to this changed geopolitical environment, especially the EU, perhaps Russia, a bit less so. But Russia is an interesting, the Russian presence in Central Asia is an interesting, or has an interesting history, of course, because Russia was the region's former overlord. And it's ties with Central Asia go back, well, basically to Russian imperial and to Soviet Communist past.
And Russia is still very much involved in the area as a sort of a traditional, sort of old-fashioned great power. It's politically present, it's present in the military sphere, and in the economic sphere, particularly as far as the Russia's economic position is concerned in the energy department, the energy sphere. It's the region's major arms supplier, more so, of course, than the EU, but also more so than China. And it's trying to rebuild its relations with the five Central Asian states, and rebuilding it and trying to push it into a format of a range of new organizations, relatively new organizations.
Two need to be mentioned in the security sphere, that is the CSTO, which is the collective security treaty organization, which is sort of a NATO, a NATO by them, on their Russian supervision. And it includes a number of former Soviet states, including a few Central Asian states. And the CSTO, as we call it, recently intervened in Kazakhstan. The listeners may remember that late last year, there were riots in Kazakhstan, which were mostly inspired by the deteriorating living standards.
And they spread rapidly, and in the end they were repressed, not so much by the Kazakh authorities, but by an armed contingent of troops, actually, that came from the collective security treaty organization, mostly Russian troops, but also troops from other former post-Soviet countries. And there is another international security organization active in the region, and that's the so-called Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is actually not an alliance, but a cooperative military organization, or most obviously a member, but not just the Russian Federation, also China. So it's sort of a global counterpart to NATO, if you like. I mean, it's not as deeply organized as NATO is, but still.
And the final organization which needs to be mentioned, which Russia has introduced into the area, is the so-called Eurasian economic union, which again is sort of a Russian EU, but much less, developed much less sophisticated, but still an international organization that aims to bind together the Russian Federation and the countries of Central Asia. So that's mostly how Russia responds to the growing, sorry, to the changing geopolitical situation there. So you described Russia's influence there, their imperial history, their defense cooperation, and not only extends, can you just sketch out for me a bit more what the EU influences, if any, right now in Central Asia, because that seems less clear. Yeah, well, you, of course, this is totally different actor.
I mean, you in a way, sort of a post-mother and economic actor, mostly, obviously European integration, also has a political dimension, but essentially it's still a economic great power, and not a military great power or a security, a policy great power, while Russia is a rather traditional, one could almost argue, 19th century great power. So two very different actors. But EU is not irrelevant in Central Asia, as the EU is not irrelevant in most other parts of the world, and that is because of its economic ties with the region. And they are two-fold, economic ties in the traditional sense of traits, ties, and investment links.
But the EU is also an important actor in Central Asia in terms of development aid. As a matter of fact, it's still the most important in terms of the size of its trade relations, the most important external actor in the area. So in terms of traits, it's more important than China, and it's more important than the Russian Federation. In terms of investment, the picture is different.
It's not the EU, which is the most important external actor present in Central Asia, but it's actually China, mostly of course through its Bell and Rov initiative. China has a very aggressive investment policy, as most of us know, particularly in the global South, so in the less developed world. So EU is present there, not in the security sphere, not really in the political sphere, but mostly in the economic and in the development sphere. And from that presence, from the economic and development presence, of course, it gets a sort of power, quasi-power perhaps also influenced domestic developments in the region.
Although experience tells us, as a matter of fact, the experience of the last 30 years, that is the timeframe of independence of the Central Asian states, because before that date they were appointed to Soviet Union. The EU is very much linked to the area to Central Asian, so the linkage is there, but the leverage is definitely less. So that actually brings me to one of my other questions that is going to ask is, how much leverage does the EU have in Central Asian? What is its marketing power right now?
Yeah, that's a difficult question. Well, the question is not difficult, but given the answer is more complex than it looks like. So in international relations, we more or less tend to believe that linkage in any way makes leverage possible. In the Central Asian case, due to these 30 years of permanent authoritarianism, one could come to the conclusion that despite the presence of the EU, since the late 1980s, the early 1990s, despite all the development assistance, despite all the traits, despite the investments that the EU realized in the area, the countries didn't really change.
They were authoritarian back then in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and they still very much authoritarian now. It's not really part of the world where democratization really gained much influence. There's one exception, perhaps among the Central Asian states, that's good to stand, which has a somewhat more mixed history than the other four Central Asian states, has been more democratic to a certain extent, but at the very same time, it's also the most unstable country in the area. So that's the flip side of its somewhat more democratic, somewhat more impressive democratic record.
But if you look critically at how the EU has been active in Eastern Europe, then you have to come to the conclusion, despite all the linkage, the pro-democracy leverage has always been very, very limited. So the EU has never been able to translate its economic presence into real political influence. So speaking of that political influence, can you talk about how the EU has adjusted its strategy when it comes to promoting democracy in Central Asia? Obviously, you touched on some of the challenges that are linked with that already.
Yeah. What one can see when it reads EU documents about the area, that there is a sort of a change in discourse, but also in strategy. There's a sort of a redefinition, if you like, of EU priorities. The reason is that the priority switch the EU has formulated for Central Asia are difficult to realize, let's say simultaneously, because it's both development and its stability and its democratization.
Now, if you look at the most recent documents of European Union with regards to Central Asia, you see that the EU has re-prioritized its major goals and its major ambitions. So basically, ask the question, not just the question, what is desirable, but also what is feasible. And as I read it, I would argue that EU now has somewhat broader and more inclusive notion of what security is. And of what development is, it's not just about human rights, but it's also about human security, which is a much broader, more inclusive notion of security.
It's a combination of education, health, rule of law, development, so much wider human security than just democratic governance. Good governance and international stability are still mentioned among the aims and the goals of the European Union. But human rights, for example, have been pushed aside to a certain extent at least. There's more focus now on good governance and less on human rights.
And also the notion of resilience is very much present in recent EU documents. As it is present in practically all EU strategy papers which deal with the environment of the European Union, so the Eastern environment and the Southern environment. So generally, we see a sort of a switch to sort of move away from liberal human rights to more inclusive ideas about human development, human security and good governance. And that's also observable in Central Asia, at least it's observable in documents, EU documents about Central Asia.
Now, the question of course is you can make your ambitions more inclusive, you can make a more broader, but do they become more realizable, more realistic? And every makes would be seen because even if you have not just democracy and human rights about good governance and rule of law and even let's say fair and development, so we can only prepare development that all requires political change. That's not a fundamental difference with human rights or human rights or democracy as your major policy goes. Also rule of law and also good governance require political change.
And it still remains the question, where are the five states and Central Asia unwilling to enter that trajectory of political change? And if they don't, then I think the capabilities, the means, the resources that EU has to force them to do so are very, very limited. So I'm curious, as the EU analyzes some of those priorities, as it looks at human rights, do you think the EU finds it advantageous to establish democracy or to foster democracy in Central Asia? I feel like that has been a bit of a cynical question that the US has posited over the last several decades.
Yeah, now both the US and EU have always struggled a bit with, let's say, two major ambitions when it comes to Central Asia, that security on the one hand and human rights on the other. And for the United States, if you want to put it a bit black and white, for the United States, security has always been more important, obviously, with regard to an 9-11 military campaign or the wars in Afghanistan. And Central Asia was an important partner, even for the United States. It had a couple of military bases there, not anymore.
So for the United States, in general, I would argue Central Asia has become a less important area. For the EU, it's slightly different because the EU imports energy, oil and gas, mostly oil from Central Asia, mostly from Kazakhstan, probably the most powerful Central Asian country. Is the EU interested in democracy promotion? I mean, really interested in democracy promotion?
Probably the answer is yes. But democracy promotion has always been one goal, one ambition among many others. And the reason why I believe that despite the fact that it is only one goal among many others, the EU is sincere in aiming to promote democracy is because there is this belief among Europeans and among Americans that, you know, the promotion of democracy or the democratization of other countries is in our interest, is in our own interest, obviously the interests of those other countries and as citizens, but also in our interest, because democratization leads to stability, democratization leads to security. Democresies do not fight each other.
So the further democratization of an area such as Central Asia may eventually lead to more international stability. And that's in the interests of the United States, but more particularly in the interests of Europe, obviously. Not that we border Central Asia, but it's closer to the European Union than it is to the United States. And obviously, as you mentioned, the US U.S.
U.S. bases there, not anymore. How do you think that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is going to affect that power shift between the EU and Russia?
Yeah, well, it might be a bit too early to tell, so to speak, given that Western powers withdrew from Afghanistan less than half a year ago. But most probably it will strengthen the tendencies that I already mentioned is this move away towards China, as a matter of fact. China is very increasingly important actor in the area, also in security terms, and maybe not necessarily in international security terms, so in terms of armaments and military development and stuff like that. But most certainly in terms of domestic security.
China is very much involved in building what starts to look like modern dictatorships in Central Asia. And there's of course a very strong element of like-mindedness between the authoritarian regimes in Central Asia and China as well as Russia. So the fact that the United States had left the area partially linked to the withdrawal from Afghanistan will, as I see it at least, will most probably lead to a strengthening and emphasizing, if you like, of the switch eastwards with all of the Central Asian states are currently going through. That's Andrei Garrett's.
His article is Central Asia under Brussels and Moscow's eyes, prospects and realities. Thank you again. You're welcome. You are listening to the Humanities Matter podcast.
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