How the Russian Military is Preparing for Central Asia's Potential Future Instability

The most recent issue of the Moscow Defense Brief has an interesting article by Maksim Shepovalenko on “Russian Preparations for Reduced Foreign Military Presence in Afghanstan.” It starts with the usual line on how the Taliban could spread instability to Central Asia if it came to power after the coming withdrawal of ISAF, which is an argument that I and others have found to be exaggerated at times. The threat of Islamist infiltration of Central Asia is often used by Central Asian and Russian governing elites to justify their security policies in the region, whereas most Islamist groups in the region are now far more focused on developments in Afghanistan itself and in parts of Pakistan. Islamist groups external to the region are primarily focused on fighting in Syria and, to a lesser extent, Iraq. So the greater threat to Central Asia comes from internal instability, such as the violent protests that have regularly shaken Kyrgyzstan in recent years, conflicts among the Central Asian states (as highlighted by the recent border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), and the possibility of fighting resulting from a succession crisis in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan. But although it doesn’t say anything new on the nature of the threat facing Central Asia, the MDB article does gets interesting once it starts to talk about the capabilities of Russian forces in or near Central Asia.

link.