BACKGROUND: On October 5, Ambassador Robert Simmons, Special Representative of the NATO Secretary-General for the Caucasus and Central Asia, held forthright talks with Army General Mukhtar Altynbayev, Kazakhstan’s Defence Minister, exploring options on how best to deepen the level of Kazakhstan’s existing PfP cooperation, aimed at promoting regional security and modernising the Kazakhstani armed forces. The Kazakhstani MoD plans to create a regional center based on its Peacekeeping Battalion (KAZBAT) to train bomb disposal experts for possible future service in international peace support operations. Simmons mooted the idea of utilizing the PfP Planning and Review Process (PARP) project to include setting up a team by 2007 to react to disasters, including those that resulted from the use of weapons of mass destruction or major terrorist incidents. Bolat Utemuratov, Secretary of the Kazakhstani Security Council, believes that an individual partnership plan (IPAP), which provides for entering a higher and efficient level of cooperation with NATO, will be ready by the end of 2005. This plan will only succeed if it is suitably tailored to address Kazakhstan’s security needs, and assists with its key military reform plans. Altynbayev also hopes to secure access to NATO’s trust funds to organize professional retraining for its servicemen after their retirement from the army. NATO has also announced that it has appointed Tugay Tuncer as its special representative on communication and cooperation with Central Asian countries. He will be based between Astana and Almaty, liaising with the Kazakhstani and other regional governments. By choosing Kazakhstan, NATO planners had to calculate the risk of triggering Kazakh-Uzbek regional rivalry, but given the security environment after the events in Andijan, NATO decided to ride out the storm from Tashkent. Uzbekistan’s reaction to the decision was predictably hostile; but if it wants repair the damage it has undoubtedly suffered to its international reputation, it may in time lay aside such reservations.

IMPLICATIONS: Such practical cooperation initiatives, and plans to make PfP more user friendly for Kazakhstan, signals a window of opportunity for the Alliance. The ongoing deployment of elements of KAZBAT in Iraq, despite open domestic hostility to the involvement of Kazakhstani servicemen there, demonstrates the potential for Kazakhstan to supply future niche capabilities in Alliance operations. That would be of interest to Kazakhstan, since unlike its deployment in Iraq, such operations would have a greater multilateral and legal basis; less controversial options would suit the regime, as well as assuaging possible criticism from its traditional allies of being pro-American. Recent presidential speeches emanating from Astana have placed a high premium on Kazakhstan’s relations with Russia, China and the U.S. while also referring to developing ties with the EU. President Nursultan Nazarbayev values bilateral relations with Russia to such an extent that he will clearly be most careful about public statements on cooperation with NATO. In order to secure the future success of NATO’s PfP cooperation plans with Kazakhstan, determined political will on Nazarbayev’s part must remain forthcoming. Should Nazarbayev waver in the face of Russian and Chinese disapproval, the whole process could be undermined. On October 11, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev, addressing an international conference entitled “Strategy ‘Kazakhstan-2030’ in action” in Astana said that Kazakhstan would remain a reliable U.S. partner in fighting terrorism. Equally, Tokayev stressed that Kazakhstan will continue to do everything in its power to attract American investment in the country. Political analysts in Kazakhstan considered the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Central Asia on October 12-13 a part of Washington’s efforts to reinvigorate its strategic influence within the region. America’s influence has been waning, not least since the Central Asian states recently moved closer to Russia in their pursuit of enhanced security, and the general picture worsened as a result of the deterioration in U.S.–Uzbek relations since Andijan. In this environment, Kazakhstan seems ideally situated to benefit from these factors. But rather than prioritizing bilateral security assistance from the U.S. and focusing on the U.S. as a key strategic partner, Nazarbayev’s regime has chosen to avoid the backlash such a policy may bring from Russia and China, by quietly and consistently focusing on deepening ties with NATO.

CONCLUSIONS: The ratification of the agreement between NATO and Kazakhstan, which paves the way for greater levels of defense and security cooperation, may appear a small step, however it is nonetheless a highly significant one. Many Kazakhstani political statements since 9/11 have promised deeper relations with NATO, but all too often serious attempts to work out the practicalities of this stance have been severely hampered by the legislative restrictions in sharing sensitive security information with foreign powers. The committee on international affairs, defence and security of the parliament\'s Majlis (the lower chamber) now decided that the law on state secrets also provides for giving information that is regarded as a state secret to those foreign countries with which international agreements have been signed. Since NATO is a multilateral security body and cannot be considered as a foreign country, the law does not apply to information requested by NATO within the PfP program. But it is a breakthrough that after many years a way around this problem has been found, opening up the prospect of Kazakhstan’s PfP participation becoming a real engine of change. The timing is also interesting, since Astana may regard the recent problems suffered by Uzbekistan as providing an opportunity to eclipse its regional rival. NATO must be cautious not to inadvertently promote such rivalry, but also to avoid specifically concentrating on the issue of improving Kazakhstan’s defense forces; attention must be given to developing a regional component to NATO’s involvement in Central Asia. The idea of developing a regional center based on KAZBAT, for instance, is one that could be furthered by NATO’s assistance, cultivating carefully the participation in such regional centers of servicemen from all other Central Asian states. If these initiatives get off the ground, Tashkent will have to calculate the risk in isolating itself from regional security plans. Kazakhstan will also remain cautious and require much reassurance that the Alliance is not simply functioning as an umbrella for U.S. strategic advancement in the region. All this, of course, will be scrutinized in Beijing and Moscow. By ratifying this security agreement, the initiative has been placed in the hands of NATO: it is now up to Brussels to follow through with meaningful dialogue with the Kazakhstani security structures and conflate its programs accordingly.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Roger N. McDermott is an honorary senior research associate, department of politics and international relations, University of Kent at Canterbury (UK). He is also the editor (together with Anne C. Aldis) of Russian Military Reform 1992-2002, London/Portland: Frank Cass, 2003.