Paul Goble
Staunton, Nov. 10 – Despite being Tajikistan’s largest trading partner, having more than a million Tajiks working in Russia, and having a military base on that republic’s territory, Moscow does not have the influence it wants in Dushanbe either in advancing Russia’s economic concerns or protecting the region from neighboring Afghanistan, Sergey Konovalov says.
Instead, the Tajik authorities regularly block Russian economic projects and go their own way geopolitically, insisting on a multi-vector foreign policy rather than falling in line behind Russia’s security goals, according to the Moscow political analyst (ng.ru/vision/2021-11-10/100_2111101035.html).
His article in Nezavisimaya gazeta is a rare expression of Russian frustration that despite all that it does, it cannot count on lockstep behavior from its allies but instead must deal with their increasingly independent-minded rulers. And it is a message to others that they have many opportunities for influence even where Russia appears to enjoy overwhelming advantages.
In part, Konovalov says, this situation has arisen because of “the inconsistency of the Russian authorities.” Unlike China which has used Dushanbe’s debt to it to open the country to Chinese firms, Russia has not. It continues to extend credits and promise a beautiful future for Russian companies there but doesn’t use its obvious leverage to help them.
And the United States, even though its trade balance with Tajikistan represents less than one percent of that Central Asian country’s purchases and sales, has sought to create a military base there. Moscow is completely opposed to that, but the situation is still open, the analyst says. Dushanbe has kept its own counsel as far as its plans in that regard are concerned.
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