BACKGROUND: While it is true that Georgia’s Rose Revolution of November, 2003 inspired opposition groups in Central Asia, it is more accurate to say that it really was the stimulus provided by Ukraine’s orange revolution of November-December, 2004 that galvanized sufficient domestic opposition in Kyrgyzstan to then overthrow the Akayev regime. While the Kyrgyz revolution was triggered by the Akayev regime’s efforts to steal the election and continue looting the country on behalf of Akayev’s family and cronies; it clearly was stimulated by two related and converging trends. One of them was Ukraine’s orange revolution, and the second was the revulsion felt at home against a corrupt regime that systematically threatened to use force to keep itself in power. While much of what transpired in Kyrgyzstan was reported abroad, it is not commonly known that a decisive factor in the revolution was the refusal of Akayev’s own guards and military to respond to his and his government\'s orders to use force. We now know of the systematic efforts not just to steal the election but also to threaten and even use force to make sure the results came out as intended. Similarly in Ukraine we now know that the refusal of the SBU – Ukraine’s Secret Service – to use force, as the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior wished to do, played a key role in assuring the success of that revolution. Thus in these two revolutions the refusal by members of the regime’s armed forces to act on those governments. behalf played a critical role in ensuring the unimpeded action of the revolutionaries. Thus one key indicator to look for in subsequent potential crises is the the critical question in all revolutions, control over the use of force. Similarly toleration of what is called civil society was also instrumental in allowing opponents to coalesce quickly once the crisis broke out. And these are lessons that Kyrgyzstan’s neighbors have quickly grasped. They are certainly tightening up their instruments of repression and devising new ways to forestall mass or elite unrest or their expression. For example, as of May 2005, recent reports show that Tajikistan has intensified its measures of repression against potential opposition. Russia’s FSB wants to take control of the internet to prevent or at least monitor electronic communication among opponents of the regime, and Uzbekistan is tearing up the center of Tashkent, undoubtedly with an eye to preventing mass demonstrations and of giving soldiers, either of the Army or from other units, the opportunity to hold the city against demonstrators. Thus Islam Karimov repeats the actions of Napoleon III who redesigned Paris under the supervision of Baron Haussmann, not least to prevent uprisings like those of 1789, 1830, and 1848. Kazakstan, economically the most advantaged state in Central Asia, has announced a broad program of socio-economic reforms and development to provide the equivalent of a Singaporean like cradle to grave welfare state or an approximation of it and to forestall unrest based on the immiseration of vast swathes of the population while the regime lives in ostentatious luxury. This hardly means the Nazarbayev regime is renouncing corruption. Rather it seeks to reform from above while preserving its privileges. Even so, since there will be elections there in 2006, a tough political struggle is likely to break out there.

IMPLICATIONS: There have also been major international repercussions of Kyrgyzstan’s “Tulip Revolution”. Ever since Georgia’s revolution, Russian and neighboring commentators have blamed it all on the United States and on NGOs, particularly those funded by George Soros’ Open Society Institute. This is a typical response of frightened conservatives and reactionaries dating back to the French Revolution. And it is no more accurate now than it was then. While America has supported the new governments, it hardly organized these revolutions. But the crash of Russian and Chinese policies in Central Asia which are firmly wedded to the support of corrupt status quo governments has had a sobering effect in both Moscow and Beijing. On the one hand, in both capitals it has led to renewed outcries that America is waging an political and ideological campaign of exporting democracy against them to encircle, weaken, isolate, or even break them up. Pundits echoing this line see these revolutions as essentially Soviet-like operations, so-called refined operations of the special services, not popular uprisings, thereby signifying their own blindness. But on the other hand, these revolutions have also shown the inutility of their own security organizations. China had a rude shock in that the Shanghai Cooperative Organization played absolutely no role in Kyrgyzstan and president Akayev turned for a time to Russia, not China, for help. Yet Russia proved to be as weak a reed upon which to rely as did China. Thus Russia, according to many reports, is casting around for a new, more workable and reliable approach to Central Asia and the CIS as a whole. China, for its part, seems to have concluded that it has no choice but to rely not so much on multilateral fora, but on adopting the Primakovian idea of a strategic triangle with India that it embraced when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao traveled to New Delhi in April, 2005. It should be remembered that this gambit aimed to solidify Russia\'s position in Asia and in Central Asia by leveraging Moscow’s relations with Asia’s two giants, and to thereby restrain American global power. Beijing certainly wants no trouble with India while there is rising tension with Taiwan and Japan, and it certainly wants to find ways to restrain both democratic revolutions in Central Asia and U.S. global power. While India and the other two states all oppose Islamic terrorism, it is not clear what else they have in common in Central Asia. Meanwhile India and China’s rivalry over energy sources, and influence in South and Southeast Asia will probably continue, albeit in much more moderated fashion. Beijing will also continue trying to subordinate Russian policies to its preferences thus turning the triangle idea upon the head of its originators.

CONCLUSIONS: In other words, the Kyrgyz revolution has stimulated a number of political processes in and around Central Asia that bear the most careful scrutiny. This creates a need to examine not just domestic politics in Central Asian countries but the entire series of issues dealing with control over the armed forces, both the regular forces and those of the political and regular police. Second, upcoming succession and election struggles will probably become more intense and there is reason to assume that, especially in the case of the former, they do not lead to violence. After all, it was only by luck that violence was averted in both Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Even in Georgia, President Saakashvili repeatedly warned about the possibility of assassination attempts and coups in late 2003. Finally, the international politics of the Great Game have assumed an ideological coloration owing to the struggle over democratization in Central Asia. Consequently, relations among the major players here are again in flux and will be for some time.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA. The views expressed here do not represent those of the US Army, Defense Department, or the U.S. Government.