Russia’s 21st Century Interests in Afghanistan

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K A T H R Y N S T O N E R

Russia’s 21st Century Interests in Afghanistan

Resetting the Bear Trap

A BS T RA C T

The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has long-term geostrategic interests in

Afghanistan: stability, economic development, and curbing narcotics flowing into

Central Asia and thence to Russia. Moscow is in the difficult position of not wanting

American forces to stay in Afghanistan but also not wanting the drawdown of forces

to leave behind chaos.

KE YW O RD S : Russia, Afghanistan, Central Asia, security, development

S E C T I O N 1 : I N T R O D U C T I O N

The contemporary Russian Federation, under President Vladimir Putin, has

security and economic interests in Afghanistan that will endure far beyond

the drawdown of American-led coalition forces. These concerns stem from

Russia’s long history of war and trade in Central Asia and Afghanistan in theImperial and then the Soviet periods, ending most recently with the Soviet

Union’s own terrible war in Afghanistan from 1979–89. Since the invasion of

Afghanistan by the U.S. in the fall of 2001, Russia has engaged less directly

with military operations, but it has helped the U.S. establish the Northern

Transportation Route and then acted as a guarantor of access for NATO

forces to key military bases in Central Asia.

Russia has not acted out of benevolence. The Russian government has

a primary interest in stability in Afghanistan, a supporting interest in economicdevelopment, and a strong interest in limiting narcotics trafficking out of

Afghanistan into Central Asia and then into Russia. Finally, as demonstrated

K AT HR YN STONER is Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Affairs at

Stanford University, Faculty Director of the Susan Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy

Studies, and teaches in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.,

U.S.A. Email: .

Asian Survey , Vol. 55, Number 2, pp. 398–419. ISSN 0004-4687 , electronic ISSN 1533-838 X.© 2015 by

the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission

to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and

Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp.DOI: 10.1525/AS.2015.55.2. 398.

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by its 2014 seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and its support of pro-Russian

separatists in eastern Ukraine, Russia is concerned with furthering its geo-

strategic power in the international system. It intends in particular to ensure

that the U.S. does not make further incursions into areas that Russian leaders

consider to be their country’s traditional spheres of influence, including Cen-

tral Asia and Afghanistan.

Since 2001, and the initial invasion of Afghanistan by NATO forces led by

the U.S., Russia has had to pursue a careful balancing act with its Afghan

policy. On the one hand, the memory of its decade-long war, which killed

thousands of Russian soldiers and ultimately became a defeat for the Soviet

army, means that Russian leaders do not want to become overly burdened with responsibility for Afghanistan following the 2014 pullout. On the other

hand, however, Russia does not want instability in Afghanistan to spread to

its Central Asian neighbors, nor does it want an increase in the heroin trade

out of Afghanistan into Russia itself.1

This paper begins in Section 2 with a brief overview of Russia’s tangled

history in Afghanistan from the 19th century through the Soviet invasion in

1979 and troop pullout under Gorbachev in 1989. Section 3 turns to Russia’s

key interests following the U.S. pullout in 2014, and the instruments it hasused to pursue them. Section 4 explains Russia’s interactions with the Central

Asian states that border Afghanistan, as well as its interactions with China

and the U.S. over Afghanistan since 2001. Section 5 concludes with an

examination of Russia’s options in Afghanistan following the NATO troop

pullout.

S E C T I ON 2 : R U S S IA ’ S T R O U BL E D H I S T OR Y I N A F G HA N I ST A N

Russia’s involvement in what is now Afghanistan began in the 19th century in

what became known as the ‘‘Great Game’’ with Britain over control of

Central Asia. (The term was later popularized by the Rudyard Kipling novel,

Kim, published in 1909).2 As Alex Cooley notes, ‘‘In the original Great Game,

British officials perceived the expanding Russian empire, which seemed to be

1. Stephen Blank, ‘‘Russia: Anti-Drug Trafficking Light Goes on in the Kremlin, but It’s Low

Wattage,’’ February 4, 2013, Eurasianet, , accessed June 23,

2014.

2. Alexander Cooley, Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest in Central Asia

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 3.

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insatiably annexing large swaths of the Caucasus and Central Asia, as a threat

to India’s northern entry points, access to the Indian Ocean, and even the

prized British colony itself.’’3 Britain became embroiled in two wars in

Afghanistan, first disastrously in 1838, and then more successfully in 1878,

when it responded to the Russian empire’s takeover of two Central Asian

khanates.

Stalin re-drew the empire’s internal boundaries in the 1920s and 1930s,

ultimately creating five new republics of the Soviet Union that now comprise

five new independent states, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmen-

istan, and Tajikistan. The establishment of these new republics within the

Soviet Union linked the geostrategic interests of the Soviet empire even morefirmly to Afghanistan than during the Russian imperial period prior to the

revolution of 1917 . Stalin’s pencil lines were thick, and ran rather haphazardly

through nomadic tribal lands, resulting in a random regrouping of ethnicities

such as the Uzbek, Tajik, and Turkmen herders who were imperfectly in-

ducted into the Soviet experiment (see map in Figure 1). The borders estab-

lished between the three southern Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan,

Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan and Afghanistan ensured an enduring geostra-

tegic interest for the Soviet state through its collapse in 1991. Tajiks, for example, form the second largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, and practice

Sunni Islam. Uzbeks are the fourth largest ethnicity, and populate the coun-

try’s northern border areas near what is now Uzbekistan. Finally, Turkmens

are a smaller, but still significant ethnicity in northern Afghanistan. The secu-

rity of the borders between these republics and northern Afghanistan was

a constant concern for the Soviet state. Soviet leaders were wary of radical

Islam making its way into Central Asia and beyond into other Moslem-

dominated regions of the Soviet Union, including what was then the Russian

Republic and is now the Russian Federation.

As a result of the ongoing security concern related to ethnic and religious

politics in Central Asia, and because Marxism-Leninism promoted propaga-

tion of the Soviet model of government worldwide, the Soviet Union dabbled

in Afghan politics prior to its invasion. During the latter part of the reign of

the country’s last king, Zahir Shah (in the late 1960s and early 1970s), for

example, Afghanistan purchased arms from the Soviet Union, and the Sovietsbuilt large infrastructure projects in Afghanistan including the Salang Tunnel

3. Ibid., p. 3.

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and Bagram Airfield.4 In the 1970s, Afghanistan became increasingly unstable

as the power struggle between the communist and Islamic movements blos-

somed. Mohammed Daoud, whose 1973 coup overthrew the monarchy,

thereafter ruled through a dictatorship and enhanced the state’s involvementin the Afghan economy. Daoud was eventually overthrown and killed in

April 1978 by the Afghan Communist Party, called the People’s Democratic

Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), in a coup known as the ‘‘April Revolution.’’

But by September 1979, the attempts by other leaders to impose radical

socialism spurred another rebellion by Afghanistan’s Islamic parties.

In an effort to save Afghanistan’s socialist government, Leonid Brezhnev,

then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, sent in

Soviet troops in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to prevent further gains by Islamic militias (mujahedin). Soviet troop levels eventually reached 120,000

figure 1. Map of Afghan Ethnicities

SOURCE : 2003 National Geographic Society, , adapted by Amber Wilhelm, CRS Graphics, in Kenneth Katzman, ‘‘Afghanistan: Post-Taliban

Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy’’ (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, April 2013).

4. Katzman, ‘‘Afghanistan,’’ p. 2.

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(in comparison, U.S.-led forces at their peak in 2010 numbered about

150,000), and despite the full blown war that developed over a decade,

the Afghan conflict proved to be a complete disaster for the Soviet Union.5

By the time Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, agreed

to the Geneva Accords on April 14, 1988, that required a complete withdrawal

from Afghanistan (completed on February 15, 1989), the Soviet army had

suffered over 13,000 casualties. The Soviet military left in its wake the weak

Najibullah government, and Afghanistan slid quickly back into chaos until

the Taliban takeover in 1996 .

The Soviet casualty rate, second only to that in World War Two, and the

number of maimed Soviet conscripts returning from Afghanistan, affected alllevels of Soviet society: most families had at least one member in the con-

scripted military serving in Afghanistan. The Afghan war became known as

the ‘‘Soviet Union’s Vietnam’’—a prolonged conflict that erased and maimed

a generation of Soviet men in a war against an elusive enemy that even the

mighty Soviet military failed to vanquish. Once-healthy young men returned

to their hometowns across the Soviet Union as severely disabled veterans,

often left to beg on the streets to survive. Indeed, the staggering losses in

Afghanistan led in part to the Gorbachev reform efforts in the mid- to late1980s known as Perestroika. The military had failed miserably, and the

citizenry was losing faith in the Party and the communist state. The economy

could no longer afford such military campaigns.

The Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s also gave rise to an

‘‘Afghan Syndrome’’ in Russian foreign policy today: Russia’s contemporary

leaders know all too well the difficulty of the Afghan terrain and the hardiness

of Afghan fighters. The searing memories of the Afghan experience have

contributed to the Russian tendency to avoid deep, direct involvement there

since 2001. This is observable in the low level of aid, the insignificant number

of Russian troops or advisors in Afghanistan since the invasion, and a deter-

mined desire to stay on the periphery of the conflict. Russia, too, has had its

share of economic ups and downs since 2001, and this has also undoubtedly

contributed to President Putin’s desire to let the U.S. and NATO take the

lead in dealing with Afghanistan.

5. See M. Gareev, ‘‘Afghanskaia problema—tri goda bez sovetskikh voysk’’ [The Afghan prob-

lem: Three years without Soviet troops], Mezhdunarodnaia Zhizn [International Affairs], no. 2

(1992), for an overview of the Soviet invasion and pullout.

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Still, Russia has worked on the periphery in Afghanistan since the Soviet

collapse in December 1991. For example, on September 13, following the

unsuccessful coup attempt against Gorbachev by members of his own Polit-

buro a few weeks earlier, and as the Soviet Union crumbled that autumn

under the relentless political pressure of Russia’s president, Boris Yeltsin,

Moscow and Washington agreed jointly to cut off further military aid to all

Afghan combatants. Neither side stuck to this agreement, and it is well

known that Russia, with Iran and India, provided a modest amount of funds

to the Northern Alliance (again addressing the security concern with Central

Asian borders) until the assassination of the key insurgent political and

military leader Ahmad Shah Massoud on September 9, 2001.6

Aid of any sort to any movement in Afghanistan was among the lowest

priorities of the Soviet Russian state at this point in its history, given that the

Soviet Union itself (and the Russian state that emerged from its ruins) was in

deep financial and political crisis. The eventual collapse occurred on Decem-

ber 25, 1991. Russia took over as the international successor state of the Soviet

empire, although the empire itself, of course, disintegrated into 15 indepen-

dent new countries. Among these were the five new Central Asian states of

Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Russia’scontinuing interest in Afghanistan following the collapse of the Taliban in

2001 stems primarily from its enduring security and economic interests in

these countries, and also a renewed interest in reestablishing itself as a global

power in opposition to the U.S. and a rising China.7

Vladimir Putin is a realist. In his March 18, 2014, address to the Russian

Parliament over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin defended the action,

asserting that ‘‘Russia . . . like other countries . . . has its own national interests

that need to be taken into account and respected.’’ Further justifying Russian

actions in Ukraine (after listing grievances like NATO expansion, and the

bombing of Belgrade in 1999), Putin complained in the same speech: ‘‘And

then, they hit Afghanistan, Iraq and frankly violated the UN Security Coun-

cil resolution on Libya . . . when they started bombing it too.’’ Expressing

what most clearly currently drives Russian foreign policy, he asserted that ‘‘we

6. Katzman, ‘‘Afghanistan,’’ p. 7 .

7. For a clear statement of Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy concerns and goals, see his article

‘‘Rossiya na rubezhe tishyacheletnie’’ [Russia on the edge of the millennium], in Nezavisimaya

Gazeta, December 31, 1999, at , accessed

June 24, 2014.


http://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.htmlhttp://www.ng.ru/politics/1999-12-30/4_millenium.html


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by fighters trained in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda. In its long internal war with the

Moslem-dominated republic of Chechnya, Russia has battled al-Qaeda-trained

foreign fighters from camps in Afghanistan seeking combat experience.

Distinct from U.S. interests, however, Russia is particularly concerned not

only that religious fundamentalism is contained but that Afghanistan’s ethnic

conflicts do not spread northward into Central Asia, particularly to Turkmen-

istan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan but also to politically unstable Kyrgyzstan,

which borders China. As noted earlier, the Russian empire first established

Russian influence in Central Asia in the 19th century, and under a reviving

Russian economy, President Putin has sought to re-establish traditional influ-

ence in this area. In part, this is a result of the security interest Russia has inestablishing a buffer zone between the Russian heartland and various Islamic

insurgencies in southern Central Asia and Afghanistan. But Russia is also

concerned with guiding and to some degree controlling the oil and gas riches

of Central Asian states, as well as pipelines running through Central Asia. The

goal is for the fossil fuels industries in these countries to support the Russian oil

and gas sector, rather than compete with it on world markets.9

Russia is not much concerned with the ideology of the current or future

Afghan government. Issues of democracy, equality for women, or ethnicminorities are not a central concern of Russian policy. Indeed, even a theoc-

racy would not particularly worry Russian foreign policy makers, as long as it

is not anti-Russian and does not encourage expansion of radical Islam. Con-

temporary Russian leaders cooperate where they need to with the Islamic

Republic of Iran, for example.

The instruments the Russian leadership has used to enhance Afghan secu-

rity and political stability have been indirect. This is in part because Russia

has had its own internal political instabilities to deal with since the turn of the

millennium but also because of understandable Afghan sensitivity to Russian

‘‘boots on the ground.’’ As a result, Russia has provided indirect support to

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces by facilitating the

Northern Supply Network (NSN) that allows U.S./NATO forces to resupply

troops and equipment through Russia into Central Asia to Afghanistan. This

route has proved a better alternative to the unreliable southern route through

Pakistan. Indeed, the NSN, also known as the Northern Distribution Net- work (NDN), runs on train tracks through Moscow itself! Kenneth Katzman

9. See Cooley, Great Games, Local Rules .



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reports that ‘‘[a]bout half of all ground cargo for U.S. forces in Afghanistan

now flows through the Northern Distribution Network, and the United

States is emphasizing this network as relations with Pakistan remain strained,

although the costs to ship goods through the route are far greater than the

Pakistan route.’’10

General Paul Selva, the chief of U.S. Transportation Command, the entity

that operates the NDN, in his testimony to the U.S. Senate on March 14,

2014, noted that even as the U.S. draws down its forces, ‘‘ . . . about 20% of

the subsistence cargoes move through that network . . . ’’11 Anna Mulrine,

writing in the Christian Science Monitor, notes that in the context of the

Spring 2014 Ukraine crisis, U.S. military officials were concerned that Russia would cut off the NDN, which was clearly still an important transit network

for U.S. forces. Mulrine asserts, ‘‘Today [March 6 , 2014], roughly 40% of the

supplies for U.S. troops in Afghanistan moves through the NDN, including

food, water and building materials.’’12 Russia has also allowed use of its

airspace to resupply foreign troops in Afghanistan, as well as Ulyanovsk Air-

base, on the Volga River in Central Russia. It has also acted (somewhat

dishonestly) as a broker between Kyrgyzstan and the U.S. in the use of the

Manas Airbase in Kyrgystan for U.S. troops staging missions in Afghanistan(this is discussed in Section 4 below).13

Until 2005, Russian border guards also patrolled the frontier between

Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and foreign officials have raised the possibility

of reinstituting this patrol function following the pullout in 2014.14 Indeed, in

preparation for the pullout Russia has developed stronger bilateral ties with

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in particular, and has become increasingly respon-

sible for their border security.

Moreover, Russia has avoided its own direct military interventions into

Afghanistan. With the exception of aid in narcotics trafficking, it has not

supplied troops to the conflict, and is unlikely to do so after 2014.


11. See Eurasianet.org/node/68140 site, accessed on June 24, 2014.

12. See , accessed on June 24, 2014.

13. Cooley provides a good description of U.S./Russian competition of the Manas airbase in Great

Games, Local Rules, pp. 120–27 .

14. Amie Ferris Rotman, ‘‘Fearing Afghan Instability, Russia Mulls Border Troops,’’ Reuters,

May 17 , 2013.

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Establishing Afghan Economic Stability and Investment

The issue of Afghanistan’s economic development is really secondary to

Russia’s security interest, but it is related and not inconsequential. Russianpolicy makers clearly understand that if Afghanistan is to stabilize, it must

wean itself off foreign aid, develop a favorable investment climate, and

become integrated into regional trade regimes. In 2007 , for example, Russia

wrote off a US$11 billion Soviet-era Afghan debt. In 2010, Afghan President

Hamid Karzai visited Moscow, which led to the signing of the bilateral

Russian-Afghan Agreement on Trade and Cooperation. Unsurprisingly,

though, Russian exports dominate trade relations. Ekaterina Stepanova

reports that while trade had increased between the two countries 12 timesin comparison with 2004, it was still only US$ 984. 9 million in 2011. Russia

accounts for 7 .6 % of Afghanistan’s trade (following Iran’s 8.2%) and sends

primarily oil and gas products and sawtimber to Afghanistan. The latter

accounts for 0.12% of Russian trade and exports raisins, potatoes, and a few

turbo jet engines.15 Russia has pledged some economic assistance to Afghan-

istan following the 2014 ISAF/NATO pullout, but its main aid contribution

is technical expertise on Soviet-built Afghan factories.

Russia’s direct aid to Afghanistan between 2002–12 was relatively low. Of

27 non-U.S. donors that gave over US$100 million, Russia ranks 22nd with

total aid of US$150 million. Given the importance of Russian security regard-

ing Afghanistan, the net aid flow is abysmal. In comparison, China gave $255

million in the same period, and Japan gave US$13.1 million.16 More signif-

icant, reflecting Russian Foreign Ministry comments in June 2010 regarding

the need to boost aid levels, Moscow is planning to invest $1 billion to

develop electrical power stations and other types of power infrastructure.There are also planned projects to help develop Afghan railroad and trans-

portation infrastructure, as well as construction and mining. These projects

are primarily still in the planning process, however. Katzman notes,

‘‘Included in those investments [is] implementation of an agreement, reached

during a Karzai visit to Moscow on January 22, 2011, for Russia to resume

long dormant Soviet occupation-era projects such as expanding the Salang

Tunnel connecting the Panjshir Valley to Kabul, hydroelectric facilities in

15. Ekaterina Stepanova, ‘‘Russia’s Concerns Relating to Afghanistan,’’ Barcelona, CIDOB

[Barcelona Center for International Affairs], Policy Research Report, June 2013, p. 5.


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Kabul and Baghlan Provinces, a customs terminal, and a university in

Kabul.’’17

Overall, Russian economic aid and investment have been relatively modest

considering the country’s geostrategic position relative to Afghanistan. This

could be because Russia was undergoing major economic change in the past

decade, but it is also likely a product of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan

and a pervasive skepticism regarding the efficacy of direct political or eco-

nomic involvement.

Preventing Afghan Heroin from Reaching Russia

Russia also has a deep concern that heroin from poppies grown in Afghan-

istan does not find its way into its own territory, although efforts to block the

traffic have been complicated and not terribly successful. In part this is

because state actors have not been unified on the matter. Poorly paid border

guards may have enabled the flow of heroin in exchange for bribes, for

example. According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),

as of 2011, about one-third of Afghan-exported heroin ran through Central

Asia.18 This disproportionately affected Russia, which became the largestmarket for Afghan opiates in the latter 2000s. The U.N., for example, reports

that 70 tons of heroin were trafficked to Russia, three times more than the

U.S. and Canada combined, making Russia the biggest market for Afghan

heroin.19 There is a growing Russian HIV/AIDS epidemic that is fueled by

heroin injection. In an effort to combat the influx, Russian officials have set

up ‘‘quadrilateral summits’’ that also include Pakistan, Afghanistan, and

Tajikistan; they focus on counter-narcotics and anti-smuggling. Russian

anti-narcotics police have occasionally participated in raids inside Afghani-

stan, but the Afghan government is very sensitive to any sort of Russian

presence and Russia has had to tread carefully.20

Although Afghan heroin trafficking is almost as important a concern to

Moscow as is internal Afghan stability, Russia’s instruments for combating

the problem are weak, and the political will of Russian leaders has vacillated.

The best that Russia can do in the wake of the pullout is to try to strengthen

17. Ibid., p. 55.

18. UNODC, ‘‘Drug Report’’ (New York: UNODC, 2011).

19. Ibid., pp. 72–73; and see also UNODC 2010 report with identical title.

20. Stepanova, ‘‘Russia’s Concerns Relating to Afghanistan,’’ p. 6 .

408 A S I A N S U R V E Y 5 5 : 2


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When the initial U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began in 2001, Russia’s

economy was just recovering from a decade of post-communist recession

and 70 years of communist mismanagement before that. Oil prices were

rising, and Russian gross domestic product (GDP) per capita had jumped

into the positive, and would continue to grow through 2008 at roughly 8%

year on year. Vladimir Putin became Russia’s second post-communist pres-

ident following the surprise resignation of Boris Yeltsin on December 31,

1999. Putin was the first foreign leader to express condolences and support

to President Bush following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and

Washington. He also cancelled Russian military exercises shortly after 9/11 so

as not to provoke or alarm the Americans as they prepared to invade Afghan-istan later that fall.23 Russia supported the U.N. security resolution creating

ISAF, although Russia itself did not join the force.

Russian/U.S. relations were at their best since the mid-1990s in this period.

Indeed, Angela Stent reports that Putin called George Bush on September 9,

2001, to report Massoud’s murder and warned that it could indicate the start of

a broader terrorist campaign out of Afghanistan.24 Putin had also become

convinced, correctly as it turned out, that fighters out of Afghanistan had been

supporting Chechen separatists in the North Caucasus region of Russia. In1996 , for example, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the former Egyptian doctor who

became Osama Bin Laden’s right hand man in al-Qaeda, had been caught

and jailed by the Russian military in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan in

the south of Russia. Al-Zawahiri had been with a group of fighters from

Afghanistan who were en route to Chechnya to train and give advice to sep-

aratist fighters. Stent notes that the Russians relayed the news of al-Zawahiri’s

arrest to the U.S., but the latter was not particularly concerned, because the

incursion had been into Russia, and the U.S. was engaged in Kosovo at the

time. Al-Zawahiri was eventually released, and evidently went back to Afghan-

istan to assist in planning the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on

September 11, 2001.25

In the decade since 9/11, Russian-American relations deteriorated, revived,

and then deteriorated again. Russia’s interest and involvement in Afghanistan

should be understood within the broader U.S./Russian bilateral relationship.

23. Angela Stent, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 64.

24. Ibid., p. 62.

25. Ibid., p. 47 .

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Three patterns are distinguishable: (1) initial cooperation in the ‘‘war on

terror’’ immediately following September 11; (2) rising suspicion during

2005–10 regarding U.S. intentions in Central Asia, with Russia obstructing

rather than cooperating in the Afghan conflict; and ( 3) from roughly 2011

onward, growing Russian fears of a security vacuum post-2014 and renewed

but grudging, relatively modest cooperation.

When he rose to power in Russia, Putin found himself instantly embroiled

in a renewed conflict with the separatist province, Chechnya, in the volatile

South Caucasus region. Putin inherited the Chechen conflict from Yeltsin,

who had invaded initially in 1996 following terrorist attacks by Chechen

separatists in the heart of Russia. The Russian military became bogged downand suffered heavy losses as Chechen militants, with the help of foreign

fighters (some trained in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda), adopted guerrilla-style

tactics for which poorly trained and terribly equipped Russian conscripts

were ill prepared.26 Yeltsin made a patchwork peace with increasingly radi-

calized Islamic Chechen leaders, but this fragile agreement broke down as

Chechen militants began attacking targets outside of the restive republic

itself.

One such attack in August 1999 prompted Putin (then prime minister) tosend Russian forces back to Chechnya, but this time with greater resolve, and

out of the sight of the Russian public, since the media was banned from

covering the conflict. The Taliban government in Afghanistan was the only

one in the world to recognize Chechen independence from Russia. In Octo-

ber 2002, about 40 Chechen rebel fighters took over the Dubrovka Theater

in central Moscow and held about 800 people hostage. The rebels demanded

recognition of Chechen independence and the end of the second Chechen

war. The terrorists displayed banners around the theater with radical Islamic

slogans written in Arabic (not actually spoken in Chechnya), signaling the

influence of foreign fighters within the Chechen independence movement. In

the end, after nearly three days of failed negotiations, the Russian authorities

pumped in fentanyl gas, killing 130 of the hostages and allegedly all of the

terrorists. Despite the fact that these deaths might have been prevented had

the Russian authorities revealed exactly what the gas was and provided an

antidote to it, President Bush agreed to blame the civilian deaths on the

26. John B. Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict (New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1998).



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rebels. Both the U.S. and Russia agreed that military force was required to

defeat terrorism. As Stent notes, ‘‘[I]ndeed, the U.S. concept was used to

justify Russia’s own campaign in Chechnya.’’27 Igor Ivanov, Russia’s foreign

minister from 1998–2004, explained the nature of the immediate post 9/11

relationship with the U.S.: ‘‘We wanted an anti-terrorist international coali-

tion like the anti-Nazi coalition. This would be the basis for a new world

order.’’28

By 2004, Chechnya had been largely tamed, but the republic remains

a dangerous place to live, and the danger of Islamic radicalism persists there

as well as in neighboring Dagestan, where Chechen rebels have fled since the

end of the hottest part of the last Chechen conflict. Indeed, the February 27 ,2015, murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, just steps from the

Kremlin, was blamed on Chechen gunmen, although their relation to the

insurgency as opposed to Chechnya’s all-powerful, Moscow-appointed pres-

ident, is unclear. Moreover, Russia has been concerned that U.S. forces do

not pull out of Afghanistan too hastily, spurring a power vacuum and the

resurgence of Islamic militancy that could spread north. Russia at various

times even pushed for a U.N. Security Council resolution to ensure that some

troops stay in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 deadline.29 At the same time, thePutin administration has been very wary of U.S. intentions globally, and its

new foreign policy is focused on ‘‘stopping the U.S.’’ essentially everywhere it

can.30

This shift in Russia’s policy from cooperating on the defeat of the Taliban

and sharing intelligence in the ‘‘war on terror’’ became evident in 2004–05.

Russia became increasingly concerned about American’s global power inten-

tions. In part, Russia’s growing discomfort was fueled by the ‘‘color revolu-

tions’’ in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Georgia, and, in 2005,

Kyrgyzstan. In the view of the U.S. and other NATO countries, all 15 former

republics of the Soviet Union, including Russia itself, became independent

countries upon the 1991 Soviet collapse. Russia, however, still viewed these

countries as being within its ‘‘traditional sphere of influence.’’ Therefore,

when popular uprisings emerged in Georgia in 2003 and then Ukraine in

27. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, p. 71.

28. Igor Ivanov, as cited in Stent, ibid., p. 69.


30. Author’s conversation with Russian foreign policy expert who wished to remain anonymous,

Valdai International Discussion Club, Lake Valdai, Russia, September 18, 2013.

412 A S I A N S U R V E Y 5 5 : 2


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2004 against corrupt governments in stolen elections, the U.S. and European

countries came out on the side of the protesters in what became known as the

Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and, later,

the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. Russian leaders cringed at the sight of

thousands of people on the streets of Tbilisi and Kiev demanding greater

freedom and more-accountable government. Some actors within the Russian

government even accused the U.S. of inciting popular revolt in both Georgia

and Ukraine to install governments more amenable to the U.S.

The Russians also feared that such uprisings could also occur within Russia

itself. As Stent notes, ‘‘Precisely because the political system in the post-Soviet

states resembled that of Russia, the Kremlin felt threatened by these revolu-tions.’’31 Following the Orange Revolution, Putin created organizations like

‘‘Nashi’’ (Ours), a youth group funded by the Kremlin that used some of the

same aggressive, though non-violent, tactics that university students had used

in leading the Orange Revolution. This was meant as a bulwark against the

rise of a color revolution-style movement in Russia. Nashi, however, used

these tactics to harass and discredit the British ambassador to Russia (by

effectively flash-mobbing him with aggressive anti-British protesters, for

example), and members of opposition parties in Parliament, while tirelessly defending Putin.

In the years that followed, Russia became less democratic, with Putin

cracking down further on Russian civil society by instituting tough registra-

tion requirements for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the

Ministry of Justice that require them to document all of their activities.

Putin’s government also introduced costly and lengthy financial reporting

requirements, and effectively prohibited the funding of Russian NGOs by

foreign sources. He used a law that would publicly declare those NGOs that

did receive funding from abroad to be ‘‘foreign agents’’ (inostraniie agentie ),

a term with traitorous connotations.

Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, and Moscow’s subsequent

support for Ukrainian separatists in eastern Ukraine, was done in the name of

defending ethnic Russians in the near abroad, and also reasserting Russian

power in its ‘‘historical sphere of influence.’’

The U.S. under President Bush from 2001

–03

or so presented Americaninterests as being in lockstep with Russia’s—to defeat the Taliban and Islamic

31. Stent, The Limits of Partnership, p. 101.



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terrorism more generally. But by about 2005, Russian policy makers had

become increasingly nervous about Bush’s ‘‘Freedom Agenda’’ as a policy

promoting democracy aimed at Russia’s periphery and perhaps at Russia

itself. It was at about the same time that the Bush administration began to

pursue anti-ballistic-missile bases in Eastern Europe that further fueled Rus-

sia’s concerns about U.S. foreign policy incursions into another sphere of

Russian ‘‘traditional’’ interest. Despite American assurances that these sys-

tems were not designed to protect against Russian missiles, the Russian

foreign policy and defense establishments simply could not be convinced

otherwise. Indeed, by 2011, Moscow threatened to withdraw its cooperation

on the NDN in response to the American missile defense program. ThatMarch, the latter was scrapped.32

The Russian war with Georgia in 2008 also cast a shadow on Russian

cooperation with the U.S. in Afghanistan. Washington condemned the Rus-

sian invasion, and U.S. Senator and presidential candidate John McCain

infamously declared in August: ‘‘We are all Georgians!’’ American presiden-

tial candidate Barack Obama was initially hesitant to condemn the invasion

but eventually also backed the Georgian side, much to Russia’s surprise and

disgust. The U.S. and NATO, however, could do little to prevent Russia from ‘‘defending’’ Russian citizens in the Georgian regions of North Ossetia

and Abkhazia other than strongly condemn the incursion. Even this, how-

ever, fueled Russia’s suspicion that the U.S. was determined to foil Russia’s

influence within the former Soviet Union. Many Russian policy makers

became ever more suspicious of U.S. intentions in Central Asia; many Rus-

sian officials began to believe that the U.S. was not going to leave Central Asia

and could use Afghanistan as a further excuse to erode Russian influence.33

This concern evolved into direct Russian involvement in the U.S. loss in

2005 of the Karshi-Khanabad (or K 2) Airbase in Uzbekistan and the near loss

of the Manas Airbase in Kyrgyzstan. Both were important in staging troops

and supplies going into Afghanistan, especially as Pakistan became a less

reliable U.S. partner. The K 2 base closure came on the heels of the U.S.

condemnation of Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s May 2005 crackdown on

demonstrators in the city of Andijon, where between 300 and 1,500 were

32. Ibid., p. 229. Note though that State Department officials are adamant that the end of the

anti-missile program was not done to appease Russia.

33. Ibid., p. 98.

414 A S I A N S U R V E Y 5 5 : 2


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killed by government troops. Karimov refused to submit to an international

commission of inquiry proposed by the U.S. and EU. Russia stood by

Karimov’s claim that he was defending Uzbekistan from extremism. By July,

Karimov announced that the U.S. should leave the K 2 base. Later that year,

Russia and Uzbekistan signed a ‘‘Treaty of Friendship.’’

In 2009, the then president of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, used the

K 2 incident to play the U.S. against Russia in an attempt to get the best deal

for himself and his country. Manas Airbase had become the main transit

point for NATO troops and supplies after the K 2 closure. In February,

shortly after Obama’s inauguration, Bakiyev announced that the base would

be closed. Later the same day, Moscow offered a $2 billion loan to Kyrgyz-stan. It looked as though Bakiyev had effectively been paid by Russia to close

the U.S. base. American officials managed to renegotiate the base contract,

and by June, Bakiyev had extracted an agreement for three times the original

rent, reversing the closure. Bakiyev was ousted in 2010 as president of Kyr-

gyzstan in a popular uprising and fled the country, and there is speculation of

Russian involvement. There were also accusations that his family directly

benefited from contracts at Manas.34

Despite these clashes over the U.S. presence in Central Asia, with Moscow playing the role of ‘‘spoiler,’’ Russia by 2011 had returned to cooperation with

the U.S. and NATO with respect to Afghanistan. The hallmark of this coop-

eration was the opening that year of the NDN. The Russians’ interest in

stability in Afghanistan trumped its fears of the U.S. establishing a permanent

presence in Central Asia. Indeed, Russian policy makers have openly expressed

fear of what will happen after the U.S. pullout, including Nikolai Bordyuzha,

former chief of the Russian border service: ‘‘We aren’t on the verge of solving

the problems in Afghanistan, but on the worsening of them, and seeing quite

a qualitatively different situation in the Central Asian region, especially after

2014. The prognosis is clear: Afghanistan will remain a base for organizing

terrorist and extremist activities, we feel.’’35 Bordyuzha was echoing comments

by Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, who noted in 2011: ‘‘We

don’t want NATO to go and leave us to face the jackals of war after stirring up

the anthill. Immediately after the NATO withdrawal, they will expand towards

34. See ibid., pp. 236 – 37 on the Menas case; and Cooley, Great Games, Local Rules .

35. Joshua Kucera, ‘‘Why Russia Fears the U.S. Afghan Plan,’’ The Diplomat, October 18, 2011, at

, accessed Decem-

ber 15, 2013.


http://thediplomat.com/2011/10/why-russia-fears-us-afghan-plan/?allpages=yeshttp://thediplomat.com/2011/10/why-russia-fears-us-afghan-plan/?allpages=yeshttp://thediplomat.com/2011/10/why-russia-fears-us-afghan-plan/?allpages=yeshttp://thediplomat.com/2011/10/why-russia-fears-us-afghan-plan/?allpages=yeshttp://thediplomat.com/2011/10/why-russia-fears-us-afghan-plan/?allpages=yeshttp://thediplomat.com/2011/10/why-russia-fears-us-afghan-plan/?allpages=yeshttp://thediplomat.com/2011/10/why-russia-fears-us-afghan-plan/?allpages=yeshttp://thediplomat.com/2011/10/why-russia-fears-us-afghan-plan/?allpages=yes


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Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and it will become our problem then.’’36 In partic-

ular, Rogozin feared the resurgence of Islamic terrorism in both states, a threat

that is possibly overplayed for the sake of maintaining authoritarian regimes

there that are nonetheless friendly to a Russian presence on their borders.

As a result, Russia has walked a fine line with the U.S. on Afghanistan in

the past five or so years. On the one hand, Russia supports the withdrawal,

since it signals that the U.S. does not want to maintain a large troop presence

in Central Asia and Afghanistan indefinitely. But, on the other hand, Russia’s

leadership gradually has become more engaged in Afghanistan, with the goal

of ensuring its leverage there while limiting the potential U.S. threat to

Russian interests. By far the biggest threat to Russia coming out of Afghan-istan in the last 10 or so years has been opium. Indeed, before the U.S.-led

war, Russia did not have a significant heroin problem. The Taliban, for all of

its other problems, was good at keeping a lid on opium production. The

Americans, however, have been less willing to eradicate poppy production

when poor farmers have few other sources of income. It is possible, therefore,

that a new Taliban government would do a better job in dealing with this

Russian problem if it curtailed opium production.

Russia has tried to use what few avenues of influence it has on Afghanistan.Some of these have included supporting President Karzai as relations between

him and the U.S. deteriorated, especially after the 2009 Afghanistan presi-

dential elections.37 Russia established a new diplomatic mission in Kabul in

December 2001 and has maintained it over the past decade. The center of

Russian foreign policy toward Afghanistan has become Zamir Kabulov, Rus-

sia’s special representative on Afghanistan, appointed in March 2011. Kabu-

lov’s job is to coordinate all aspects of Russia’s policy in Afghanistan with

Russia’s Foreign Ministry.38

Russia and China in Afghanistan

As Andrew Scobell’s paper in this special issue also notes, China is the other

major player that concerns Russia in and around Afghanistan. As with the

36. Ibid.

37. Menkiszak, ‘‘Russia’s Afghan Problem,’’ p. 23.

38. See Zamir Kabulov, ‘‘Leaving Afghanistan the United States Wants to Strengthen Its Presence

in the Asia Pacific,’’ Security Index: A Russian Journal on International Security 19:1 (2013), pp. 5–11,

DOI: 10.1080/19934270.2013.7571.

416 A S I A N S U R V E Y 5 5 : 2


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U.S., Russia’s interactions with China are closely linked with its security and

trade relations in Central Asia. In the Chinese case, though, Russia sees itself

also competing for trade, yet positioned as a potential ally on at least some

issues in opposition to the U.S. Russia’s Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu

explained in a recent meeting that ‘‘the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is

our strategic partner. We have ongoing exchanges of personnel and training.

We market weapons to them because we are not afraid of them.’’39

Still, Russia has struggled with China’s positions in meetings of the

Beijing-led SCO, formed in 2001 to facilitate collective security in Central

Asia with China and Russia. The SCO ‘‘rejects Western hegemony and

values, while claiming to promote ‘a new type of international relations’.’’40

Notably, in 2008 China pointedly refused to condone Russia’s recognition of

North Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent following the Russian-Georgian

conflict. This led the Central Asian members of the SCO to take a stand

against Moscow in similarly denying recognition to these republics of Geor-

gia. Without China acting as buffer, however, it is unlikely that the Central

Asian states would have dared to oppose Moscow in this regard. The SCO is

not a vehicle for promoting Chinese interests in Afghanistan. Russia is,

however, in competition with China over mineral contracts there, and mostimportant, in influence over Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Russia’s interactions with the U.S. regarding Afghanistan are most heavily

influenced by its interests in and influence over Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,

Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. These countries, in turn, were pivotal actors in

U.S. efforts to expand the NDN supply route. Because of the airbase at

Manas, Kyrgyzstan was crucial to the U.S. ability to fly troops and supplies

in and out of Afghanistan, although its post-2014 role is unclear. By agree-

ment, the U.S. military vacated the base in June 2014. Katzman also notes

that ‘‘[t]hese [Central Asian] states are also becoming crucial to the New Silk

Road (NSR) strategy that seeks to help Afghanistan become a trade cross-

roads between South and Central Asia—a strategy that could net Kabul

substantial income.’’41

39. Sergei Shoigu meeting, attended by the author; discussion was between Shoigu and members

of the Valdai International Discussion Club, Lake Valdai, Russian Federation, September 19, 2013

[hereafter, Shoigu meeting].

40. Cooley, Great Games, Local Rules, p. 5.




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S E C T I ON 5 : C O N CL U S I ON : R U S SI A N S T R A TE G Y B E Y ON D

T H E P U L L OU T

As the pullout deadline approached in 2014, Russia became increasingly critical of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. While expressing gratitude

‘‘for the job they have done,’’ Russian leaders were very concerned that a hasty

pullout would leave a variety of threats within Afghanistan, and that these

would threaten regional stability more generally. Among these, cited by

Shoigu, were the weapons left behind, undertrained and disloyal police, and

the revival of the Taliban. In his view, prior to the spring 2014 presidential

elections in Afghanistan, ‘‘when more than 50 percent of polling stations are

controlled by the Taliban, how free and fair will elections be?’’42 Russia openly and happily supported the Northern Alliance prior to 2001. Shoigu

insisted in 2014 that ‘‘it would be fine to have another Massoud, but unfor-

tunately, there is no such opportunity.’’43

As a result, in the interest of stability in Afghanistan, Russia has expressed

willingness to see moderate rank and file Taliban included in any future

government. Russian leaders point to the fact that heroin trafficking was less

under the Taliban than in the past five years under the U.S./NATO coalition.

Russia has also openly discussed the possibility of putting additional troops in

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as well as re-equipping those countries’ armies to

provide a defensive zone in Central Asia against Afghan radical or narcotics

incursions into the Russian heartland.

Russian policy in Afghanistan is at a crossroads, with worsening relations

with the West looming against the background of the Russian-Ukrainian

conflict. The ideal Russian scenario in Afghanistan would have been for

President Karzai to stay in power and a government of national reconciliationto be formed with moderate Taliban. This scenario, however, has failed, and

Russia will have to deal with Afghanistan without Karzai. As a result, Russia is

faced with choosing between two alternative paths: First, reverting to its

policy of the 1990s and supporting a reconfiguration of the Northern Alliance

to reinstitute a northern buffer zone protecting Central Asian allies from

incursions; or second, seeking cooperation with the new Afghanistan president,

Ashraf Ghani, and perhaps a moderate Taliban, in running Afghanistan. The

latter strategy could have the advantage of reducing narcotics trafficking, but it

42. Shoigu meeting.

43. Ibid.

418 A S I A N S U R V E Y 5 5 : 2


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risks allowing Afghanistan to again become a haven for radical Islamic terror-

ists. Russia has already suffered the results of the latter, and is unlikely to risk

a revival of the Chechen conflict or spark new pockets of radicalism in other

parts of the south Caucasus.

A third option would be to continue some degree of cooperation with

Western forces in creating a protective zone around Central Asia, but this

might bring about a counterbalancing strategy on the part of China, which

would not fit with Russia’s strategy. Russia’s renewed conflict with the West

in the wake of its support of Ukrainian separatists in Eastern Ukraine in 2014

[to the time of writing] and its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, how-

ever, seriously undermine any further prospects of cooperation with the Weston creating a buffer zone.

There are few reliable indications of which path Russia is likely to choose.

One can discern elements of each scenario in Russian statements and actions

in Afghanistan. Russian leaders want to reassert their country’s prominence

in foreign policy, especially in the wake of the September 2013 agreement

with the U.S. on Syria’s chemical weapons and the 2014 upheaval in Ukraine.

In many ways, Russia is resurgent internationally. It has emerged from the

ashes of the Soviet Union not as the superpower it was, but as a formidableregional power that cannot be discounted. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia

demands the respect of the international community. Although the country

can no longer rely on pure brute force and military strength in pursuing its

interests, it has the diplomatic and strategic ability to act as facilitator or

spoiler in many parts of the world.

Its policy choices in Afghanistan since 2001 have been determined by

Russia’s gradual return to prominence in international affairs, and the endur-

ing interests it has in the lands around its southern borders. It wants influ-

ence, but not ownership, in Central Asia, and ultimately in Afghanistan. For

this reason, Russia has preferred to operate on the periphery of the most

recent strife there, using the leverage it has in Central Asia in particular to

protect its own security interests. Russia has much to lose and little to gain by

doing much more. For this reason, Russian policy makers are in the awkward

position of not having wanted the Americans to come to Central Asia—but

now, not wanting them to leave. The Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the1980s left a firm imprint on the memories of Russian policymakers, who have

no interest in being trapped again in a war they can neither afford nor win.



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R e p r o d u c e d w i t h p e r m i s s i o n o f t h e c o p y r i g h t o w n e r . F u r t h e r u n a u t h o r i z e d r e p r o d u c t i o n i s

p r o h i b i t e d w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n o r i n a c c o r d a n c e w i t h t h e U . S . C o p y r i g h t A c t o f 1 9 7 6

C o p y r i g h t o f A s i a n S u r v e y i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a P r e s s a n d i t s c o n t e n t

m a y n o t b e c o p i e d o r e m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e c o p y r i g h t

h o l d e r ' s e x p r e s s w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a i l a r t i c l e s f o r

i n d i v i d u a l u s e .

Russia’s 21st Century Interests in Afghanistan

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