Turkmenistan Desperately Trying to Put Its Military Forces in Order

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, May 16 – Faced with growing threats from neighboring Afghanistan and religious militants within its own population and having an army that is rated the least combat-ready of any in Central Asia, Turkmenistan is desperately trying to correct the situation by working overtime to get more men in the military and to fight corruption there.

 

            But because the situation has been neglected for so long and because the problems are so serious, some military observers say that even the radical steps Ashgabat has adopted in recent weeks may prove to be too little too late and that the country will have to seek outside assistance or be overrun by Islamist radicals.

 

            While some of this coverage in Russian sources may be intended to force Turkmenistan to drop its constitutionally-mandated neutrality and seek aid from Russia or some other power, the situation is clearly so dire now that the future of Turkmenistan as an independent state is at risk.

 

            And were it to be taken over by Islamists from Afghanistan, it would immediately become a place des armes for the spread of ISIS-type radicalism deeper into the four other countries of Central Asia, with unpredictable consequences for neighboring regions including China’s Xinjiang and Russia’s Middle Volga as well.

 

            According to the Global Firepower rating, Turkmenistan’s military ranks 90^th among the countries of the world, far behind the US, Russia and China which rank first, second and third, but also below Uzbekistan (54^th), Kazakhstan (66^th), Kyrgyzstan (78^th), and Tajikistan (81^st) (centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1431581400).

 

            In a commentary on the Centrasia.ru portal yesterday, military observer Boris Grigoryev discusses why this is so and what Ashgabat, having ignored the military dimension of national security so long, is currently trying to do about it (centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1431700200).

 

Today, Turkmenistan’s armed forces “are simply a crowd of people who are poorly disciplined, poorly instructed and mired in corruption, who have out-of-date military equipment but who are dressed in uniforms,” Grigoryev says.  Indeed, the prestige of the army has fallen so low that Turkmens are now willing to pay up to 10,000 US dollars to avoid service.

 

            Despite widespread poverty, many Turkmens are able to come up with enough money to bribe their way out of service, and consequently, Ashgabat has been unable to staff its units adequately or build the military beyond a current level of 45,000 to 50,000 draftees and professionals.

 

             For the first 20 years of independence, Grigoryev says, Ashgabat ignored this problem and its implications, but now, faced with threats from Afghanistan and within its own population, the authorities there are taking steps like eliminating military faculties in universities that many have used to avoid service, increasing the length of service for those with higher education, extending the draft age to 30, and increasing required service from two to three years.

 

In addition, the government has boosted pay to 860 US dollars a month for those willing to sign on for five years of service in border regions and given them apartments, and it has begun to mobilize retired officers and having them return to service in critical locations.

 

But these methods have not been enough, Grigoryev says, and now Ashgabat has begun examining all those who were excused from military service nominally on health grounds.  According to some reports, he continues, approximately 80 percent of those deferred on that basis are in fact healthy but bribed their way out of service.

 

            Ashgabat is also seeking to cut back on the high levels of corruption within the military, including illegal arrangements in which officers purchase billets as far away from the Afghan border as they can for as much as 7,000 US dollars or better positions nearer the border for 2,000 US dollars.

 

            And the Turkmenistan government is also seeking to combat the spread of radical Islamist ideas within the ranks of its army.  Not long ago, Grigoryev reports, officials arrested four draftees who were guarding a key hydro-electric station for their religious activities and contacts with Islamists in Turkey.

 

‘Geopolitical Conquests will Not Save National Pride’ of Russians, Moscow Scholars Say

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, May 15 – The pride the people feel in their country consists of two elements: a cognitively processed one in which individuals assess the actual past and present of their nation and a normative one which is imposed from above by governments and others to support their policies, according to two Moscow scholars.

 

            The first, Margarita Fabrikant and Vladimir Magun of the Higher School of Economics say, tends to be stable over time while the latter fluctuates widely and can be maintained at a high level only by constant effort (hse.ru/data/2015/04/28/1098372529/62SOC2015.pdf and opec.ru/data/2015/05/14/1234034208/АК-МС-Фабр-магун-доклад.pdf).

 

            On the basis of a multi-national survey, they note that “Russia has a lower level of rational pride than one would expect from a country with a similar level of economic development,” a reflection they suggest of its “historical experience of competition with more developed countries.”

 

            And as a result, “’special’ measures such as for example the activation of geopolitical agendas in order to strengthen the pride of the population in their country” are often used but may prove “counterproductive,” undermining the very possibility of the development of cognitively processed national pride.

 

            Fabrikant and Magun present their finds in a report entitled “Grounded and Normative Dimensions of National Pride in Comparative Perspective,” a paper based on a survey carried out a decade ago of 45,993 people in 36 countries and regions, including 2383 from Russia, the largest national subsample.

 

            The two scholars explain their methodology in the following way: “The survey participants estimated their overall level of national pride by responding to the direct one-item question and, separately, they estimated pride of each of ten specific achievements of their countries in various domains.

 

“Factor analysis of these ten items,” they say, “yielded two dimensions of domain-based national pride, one of them being the factor of general pride of various country achievements and the other reflects the inverse relations between the prides of elitist and mass achievements of the nation.

 

“Cognitively processed national pride measured by the domain-based estimates have been affected by objective country achievements and by the level of standards which the achievements are compared against. The normatively imposed national pride measured by direct one-item question has been influenced by the country level of religiosity that indicates the individual willingness to accept normative messages from the state uncritically.”

 

And they conclude, “rational national pride requires some objective grounds to believe in a nation’s perfection [while] normative national pride is not so strongly related to objective achievements and therefore can be more easily manipulated. The practical implication of this difference stems from the fact that in their search for objectively grounded national pride people would be eager to foster country achievements and their maintenance of normatively imposed pride requires in many cases just reliably protected wishful thinking.”

 

According to Fabrikant and Magun, “the more successful economically a country is, the greater degree is expressed among its population rational pride; and as a rule, rational pride in such countries dominates” normatively imposed pride. With regard to the latter kind of pride, they note, the actual achievements of the country “do not play a similar role.”

 

            The cognitive national pride of Russians is lower than one would expect, while “the level of normative national pride is higher,” and was so even before the massive propaganda effort of the last several years.  Such pride, they say, “correlates not only with religiosity but also with a low level of education.”

 

            As a result, “normative pride to a great degree is subject to manipulation” given that people are prepared to “accept any positive information about the achievements of their country” as laid out by the authorities without reflecting upon what the real achievements and shortcomings of their country are.

 

            In presenting this report now, Fabrikant offered some data about trends in Russian national pride over more recently.  Russians remain proud of their history, sport, literature and art, she said, but now, they much more often cite such normative sources as pride in their country’s armed forces and its political influence in the world (opec.ru/1826026.html).

Russian Government Confirms Degradation of Russian Health Care Since Putin Invaded Ukraine

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, May 15 – When Russians complain that their health care has deteriorated in recent years, the defenders of Vladimir Putin east and west typically dismiss such cries of despair as “anecdotal.”  But they won’t be able to adopt the same strategy with new data published by the Russian State Statistical Committee (Rosstat).

 

            Those data show, as Olga Solovyeva reports in today’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” that over the past three years, the share of Russians who are not satisfied with the quality of Russian medical institutions has increased by 30 percent and the fraction who do not consider that they can get effective care in them by 22 percent (ng.ru/economics/2015-05-15/4_rosstat.html).

 

            Rosstat reports that the length of time Russians have to wait for necessary hospitalization has doubled, that the share of those who cannot get treatment had all has increased, and that public trust in the country’s medical facilities has declined significantly.  These trends, Solovyeva says, “confirm” what others have said about Putin’s “optimization” efforts.

 

            And over the same period, Rosstat reports, the number of Russians who think that the only way to get necessary treatment now is to pay for it has doubled, a trend that hits Russians who are already suffering from their country’s economic problems and that represents one of the most serious costs of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.

 

            As Yana Vlasova, the vice president of the All-Russian Union of Patients Groups, points out, “not optimization,” not even when it is the result of efforts to balance the budget while paying for a war, “can be justified if as a result, it lowers the quality and accessibility of medical help” to the population, exactly what has happened since Putin invaded Ukraine.

 

            Tragically, these reductions have led to an increase in the death rate among Russians. But instead of changing course, Russian officials up to and including Putin have adopted a fallback position, one that suggests the increasing number of deaths among Russians is in fact an indication of the success of Kremlin policies to increase life expectancy.

 

            Yesterday, the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” journalist reports, Tatyana Yakovleva, a deputy health minister, made exactly that argument in her efforts to put the best face on the new figures, suggesting that because Moscow has succeeded in increasing life expectancies, there are now more people over 70 and thus more deaths.

 

            Unfortunately, her conclusions are shared by Vladimir Putin, Solovyeva reports. Recently, the Kremlin leader said that “the increase in life expectancy has changed the structure of the population. The fraction of citizens of advanced age has increased. It is natural that elderly people will depart from life much more often than younger ones do.”

 

            That is not a conclusion those whose friends and relatives have died because they could no longer gain access to necessary medical treatment are likely to find entirely reassuring or comforting.

Why Do Samara Activists Really Want to Ban Production of ‘The Producers’?

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, May 15 – Russian activists in Samara are seeking to have the authorities there ban a production of Mel Brooks’ satire “The Producers” because it contains within it what they call the “fascist and homosexual play, ‘Springtime for Hitler,’” which they insists “mocks” the great victory of the Russian people.

 

Such a lack of appreciation of what the play and the play within the play actually do is perhaps not surprising, given the lack of a sense of humor among such fanatics.  But the Russian authorities may have an even more compelling reason for banning this play than the one outlined by the two Russian nationalist groups.

 

And it is this: as anyone who has actually read of seen the play or movie of the same title knows, the real story of “The Producers” is not about promoting Hitler but about how two producers seek but ultimately fail to exploit a loophole in the law to corruptly enrich themselves. That story cuts far too close to the bone of the Putin power vertical today.

 

            The Union of the Peoples of Samara Oblast and the Samara branch of the Russian National Center have appealed to the oblast’s culture minister and procurator to take action to block this play by preventing the expenditure of budgetary funds on it (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2015/05/15/popytka_glumleniya_nad_velikim_podvigom_nashego_naroda_ne_dolzhna_ostatsya_beznakazannoj/).

 

            “In these holy and celebratory days for every citizen and patriot that have preceded the celebration of the anniversary of the Great Victory, we with anger have learned from the media that the Samara Drama Theater using budget funds is preparing to put on the play “The Producers” (“Springtime for Hitler”), the two groups say.

 

            Moreover, they continue, “according to information openly available on the web, rehearsals for the musical in which fascism and Nazism are presented in such a harmless light as phenomena capable of winning the sympathy of society have been taking place” and in which “propaganda of homosexuality and non-traditional sex relations is carried out.”

 

            “All this ugliness is being financed out of the budget of Samara oblast, including money for a contract with Paolo Landi, the director who has come from abroad.  We consider this impermissible and appeal to you with a request to check these facts,” the appeal continues because such actions “must not remain unpunished.”

 

Armenia Creates a Muslim Muftiate and Names Imam Trained in Iran to Head It

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, May 14 – In a step that might seem absurd given the composition of Armenia’s population but that appears likely to send shockwaves through the Caucasus and perhaps further, the Assembly of Muslims of Armenia has created the position of mufti for the republic and named Arsen Safaryan, a graduate of an Iranian seminary in Qum, to head it.

 

            There are three reasons for thinking that this move may have far more consequences than a first glance might suggest.  First, the Assembly of Muslims of Armenia explicitly views the new muftiate as the supervisory body for Muslims not only in Armenia but in occupied Karabakh, a further challenge to the restoration of Azerbaijani sovereignty there.

 

Second, this move challenges the Baku-based Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of the Caucasus led by Allakhshukyur Pashazade, who claims to supervise Shiites across the former Soviet space, given that Armenian Muslims say the Soviet-era holdover’s religious training is “doubtful” (caucasreview.com/2015/05/izbran-muftij-armenii-i-nagornogo-karabaha/).

 

And third, this move gives Iran an opening to expand its influence among Shiia not only in the post-Soviet space, also a direct challenge to Azerbaijan, but also among the nearly 400,000 Armenian Muslims (the Hemshins) living in the Middle East and Europe and also among the Yezidis who vastly outnumber the Shiia in Armenia.

 

Prior to the Armenian-Azerbaijani war, there were thousands of Azerbaijani Muslims in Armenia, but most of them have fled, and Muslims there, most of whom are ethnically Armenian, number only about 1,000 people in all; and there is only one working mosque. In addition, there are Muslim Kurds and the Yezidis, a group some but not all count as Islamic.

 

            Even if one adds the population of Nagorno-Karabakh to this group, the number of Muslims is still small: Although they formed more than a quarter of the population of the autonomy prior to the start of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war in 1988, Muslims there number only a few hundred there now.

 

            The small size of the Muslim community in Armenia and Armenian-controlled areas of Azerbaijan thus strongly suggests that the creation of a Yerevan muftiate is more about foreign than domestic policy and may advance Iranian interests even more than Armenian ones, undermining  the Baku MSD and giving Iran another channel to spread its influence.

 

 

Andizhan Massacre a Decade Later – A Tragedy that Continues to Metastisize

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, May 13 – Ten years ago today, the Uzbek security services opened fire with automatic weapons on a demonstration in Andizhan, killing more than 500, arresting more than 200 and driving another 500 into emigration, first into Kyrgyzstan and then into Europe, Australia and the United States.

 

            Tashkent continues to insist and some governments and observers to accept that it was facing an Islamist insurgency and thus was fully justified in using force to put it down, a position all independent investigations have shown to be so exaggerated that it constitutes an outright falsification -- unless one believes that any actions by Muslims are by definition extremist.

 

                (For background on what actually happened in Andizhan, see the 2005 OSCE report at fergananews.com/archive/2015/13may/oscereport13may.pdf; for its continuing and spreading fallout, see the numerous reports listed at fergananews.com/andijan-2005 and amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/eur_62_1086_2015_uzbekistantorture_fullreport.pdf.)

 

            But the failure of the international community to challenge the official Uzbek explanation of what happened ten years ago in Andizhan not only has allowed Islam Karimov to increase repression at home and spread fear among Uzbek refugees abroad but also has contributed to the growth of real Islamist groups like ISIS across Central Asia.

 

            That is because the extremists can plausibly and convincingly argue that there is no possibility for dialogue with regimes like Karimov’s and the only way forward is to use violence, a view that those who went into the streets in Andizhan ten years ago did not have but that an increasing number of people in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia now do.

 

            And thus those who are prepared to support authoritarian actions taken in the name of stability not only are harming the human rights of those who live under such regimes or are within the reach of their diplomatic representations abroad but also are doing more to spread Islamist radicalism and instability than ISIS or its allies could ever achieve on their own.       

 

                Those are some of the conclusions suggested by Alisher Ilkhamov, an Uzbek émigré in London and the author of one of the most comprehensive early reports on the Andizhan violence (fergananews.com/archive/2015/13may/akromiyailkhamovinabashin.pdf), in a comment to Fergana.com timed to coincide with this anniversary (fergananews.com/articles/8532).

 

            Ilkhamov says that he remains convinced that neither Akram Yuldashev nor the community around him were extremists, as the Uzbek authorities have insisted. Their doctrines were and remain directed to the gradual transformation of society rather than to the establishment of an Islamic state or khalifate.

 

            He suggests that most of the people involved have views that resemble European social democracy, although Ilkhamov points out that the teachings of the group stress socialism more than democracy.  He adds that there is even “a definite resemblance” between this group and the Mormons.

 

            The stress on gradualism reflects the repressive nature of the Uzbek state, he suggests, and the stress on social issues reflects the anger many of those who were involved with the Andizhan events feel about the massive corruption that they and other Uzbeks encounter in their daily lives.

 

            Ilkhamov cites with approval the conclusions of Sarah Chayses’ new book, “Thieves of State: Why Corruptin Threatens Global Security” (NY: Norton, 2015) and in particular the entire chapter she devotes to the way in which corruption played a key role in the Andizhan protests of 2005, prompting Tashkent to defend itself by accusing the group of Islamist extremism.

 

            Those who remain in Andizhan and in Uzbekistan more generally are victims of Karimov’s corrupt and repressive regime. Many are afraid to speak out lest they be subject to persecution.  But tragically, even those who have fled abroad have not been able to entirely escape the long arm of Tashkent.

 

                Some who fled have become more political at least to the extent of issuing reports and cooperating with other Uzbeks (fergananews.com/archive/2015/13may/bahtiyormuhtarov.pdf). But many who want to return home or who have relatives there have been effectively depoliticized out of fears that anything they say could have consequences for their relatives and friends at home.

 

            Immediately after the Andizhan massacre, “Uzbek embassies and special services began active work, acting according to the principle of carrots and sticks to seek to neutralize the influence” of those who had been involved in the protests and who then fled abroad, Ilkhamov writes.

 

            Tashkent has had some success. In the US, it managed to get 53 people to agree to return, providing them with money and tickets. But this effort was clouded by the fact that two who did so died in mysterious circumstancfes just before leaving, many who went could not find work, and some were sent to prison.  Seventeen of this group then fled to Kazakhstan.

 

           

As in 1939, Kremlin Said Mulling ‘Preventive Occupation’ of the Baltic States

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, May 12 – People of decency and good will around the world have been horrified by Vladimir Putin’s defense this week of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which made Hitler and Stalin allies, opened the way to World War II, and allowed the Soviet Union to occupy Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, portions of Poland and Bessarabia for half a century.

 

            But they should be even more horrified by the fact that some near the Kremlin are once again thinking about “a preventive occupation” of the Baltic countries, a step that, as Kseniya Kirillova points out today, could trigger the collapse of the West or a third world war (nr2.ru/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/Rossiya-gotovitsya-okkupirovat-strany-Baltii-96466.html).

 

            Moreover, and just as in 1939, they should be disturbed by Moscow’s duplicity and cynicism about such a move, one nominally taken in the name of improving Russia’s defense capability but in fact threatened in order to advance Russian imperialism and to disorder and confuse the Western powers.

 

            In her commentary, Kirillova does two things: First, she points to a recent article by Moscow commentator Rostislav Ishchenko calling for a “preventive” strike against the Baltic littoral in order to block what he sees as a threat from NATO; and second, she interviews former RISI analyst Aleksandr Sytin on why Ishchenko’s words are more than the ravings of one man.

 

            According to Ishechenko, Moscow has a compelling interest in a preventive occupation of at least portions of the Baltic countries in order to counter NATO, an interest he says exists even if there is no such threat, because such a move would allow for “the preservation of the line of ‘the virtual front’” (newsbalt.ru/analytics/2015/04/iskupitelnyy-vykup/).

 

            Specifically, he writes, “a preventive strike with the goal of liquidating the Baltic place des armes could become necessary from a military point of view not because someone might expect an attack from this direction but in order to preserve the line of the front (even virtual), to extend a land corridor to the blockaded group of forces in Kaliningrad, and to free up forces for actions in other, more important directions.”

 

            Not taking such actions in a timely manner – and Ishchenko helpfully provides a map showing just what Russian forces should seek to seize – could, he suggests, prove “fatal in the indefinite situation” the world now finds itself in. Indeed, he argues, “the rapid [Russian] occupation of the Baltics could become the best choice” among those available.

 

            Ishchenko suggests, as Kirillova puts it, that “the main goal of this operation would be not ‘the defense’ of [Russia’s] borders from imagined enemies but the occasion for the beginning of a trade with Europe about the shift of borders and spheres of influence in which of course the sovereignty of other countries and the will of the peoples living in them are not and cannot be taken into consideration.”

 

            As Ishchenko puts it, “a lightning-like occupation of the Baltics would put the European Union in a situation when the restoration of the status quo could be ach9ieved only by means of negotiations.” That is because Paris and Berlin could not “fight” for the Baltic countries if they no longer existed.

 

            It would be comforting to think that Ishchenko’s article is simply one more example of the absurdities that often surface in countries during times of stress, and undoubtedly many people in the EU and the US will dismiss his notions as nothing more than that.  But to do so would be a serious mistake.

 

            Aleksandr Sytin, a former analyst for Russia’s SVR intelligence service and more recently for the now infamous Russian Institute for Strategic Research, argues that Ishchenko is speaking for more than himself and that his article is intended simultaneously to test the waters of public opinion and expand the limits of what people consider permissible.

 

            He told Kirillova that Sytin now works closely with Russia Today and other Kremlin media outlets and that he and others so connected put out ideas Moscow wants to see spread through the population so that the regime can act nominally in the name of “’the will of the people’” even though the source of the ideas is the Kremlin itself.

 

            According to Sytin, “Ishchenko’s declarations entirely and completely reflect the foreign policy course of present-day Russia and in particular its striving to become a world center of power and to restore the configuration of the world as it was in 1945, and also to ‘save’ the peoples at a minimum of Eastern Europe and ideally all European peoples from the ‘pernicious influence’ of the US by using the existing contradictions between them and the EU’s weakness.”

 

            Sytin said that, despite proposals like Ishchenko’s, he is certain that the Kremlin does not really want to get into a military confrontation with Europe and NATO. Instead, it hopes for a compromise, one in which the West will make even more concessions to Moscow in order to avoid such a conflict.

 

“The more quickly the West recognizes that the era of a ‘good’ agreeable Russia is now in the past the better,” Sytin argued, and he insisted that  “the Kremlin’s current aggressiveness is creating a danger much greater than that which came from ‘the evil empire’ operating under the name USSR.”