Kazakstan Steers Clear of US-Russian Arms Race

Recent Russian missile tests conducted in Kazakstan have raised concerns over whether the country is being drawn too deep into the escalating arms race between Moscow and Washington.



The Russians used the leased Sary-Shagan firing range, near Lake Balkhash in eastern Kazakstan, to launch anti-ballistic missiles, ABMs, in tests conducted on October 11 and 30. A spokesman said the testing was intended to show whether the current A-135 weapons systems deployed around Moscow could have their service life extended.



ABM systems, which are designed to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic missiles and thus neutralise the nuclear threat posed by a potential enemy, are central to the growing defence race between the United States and Russia.



They were banned by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the idea being that countries would be less prepared to launch nuclear missiles if they had no means of defending themselves from a counter-strike.



But as relations between Washington and President Vladimir Putin’s Russia have grown frostier, ABMs have crept back into both countries’ arsenals.



In 2001, Washington declared that it was withdrawing from the ABM Treaty. President George Bush justified the move by arguing that his country needed to develop ways of countering “future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks”.



His explanation that America’s new missile defence programme was a shield rather than a sword failed to convince the Kremlin, which is sceptical of claims that America is mainly worried about the threat of missile attack from Iran.



Russia declared that if America went ahead, Moscow would prepare its own “asymmetric response”, including the deployment of advanced missile systems.



In spite of this warning, the US pushed ahead and in June, Prague gave the go-ahead for ABM radar systems to be installed in the Czech Republic – formerly part of the Warsaw Pact.



When news broke of the Czech decision, Russia announced that it would withdraw from another treaty, governing conventional forces in Europe, and that it would activate projects to modify existing ABM systems and make new equipment operational.



However, Russia’s capacity to conduct missile tests on its own territory remains limited, so Kazakstan has been drawn into Moscow’s strategic calculations.



The Sary-Shagan testing ground was set up by the Soviet military in the late 1950s in the vast steppes near Lake Balkhash, and was used for missile launches throughout the Cold War.



After Kazakstan became a separate country in 1991, it let Russia use its military and space facilities under lease arrangements.



The ABM launches pose a dilemma for Kazakstan’s leadership, which retains close ties with Russia but does not want to be drawn into an arms race of which it is not part.



Kazakstan is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, CSTO, a grouping of former Soviet states which obliges members to respond jointly to external threats.



At the same time, Kazakstan has sought good relations with the West. This week, the country was awarded the accolade of chairing the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.



It is also a participant in NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme, and the alliance’s special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, Robert Simmons, has offered help with creating a naval fleet to patrol the Kazak sector of the inland Caspian Sea.



In steering a path between Russia and the West, the Kazak leadership is unlikely to want to get caught up in their bilateral disputes.



Many analysts in Kazakstan downplay fears that an arms race between the US and Russia will have an adverse affect on their country’s relations with either power.



“That the US and Russia are reaching a new stage in the arms race is not a secret any more,” political scientist Dosym Satpaev told IWPR.



Satpaev maintained that the decision to continue leasing Sary-Shagan to Moscow was reached independently by the authorities in Astana and was not a result of Russian pressure.



He noted that Kazakstan had a history of preserving warm relationships with states that are locked in dispute with one another, citing Georgia and Russia as one obvious example.



“Despite the savage confrontation between Russia and Georgia, and despite being a partner of Moscow on many issues, Kazakstan has simultaneously developed close economic and political contacts with Tbilisi,” he said.



The analyst noted that the Kazak authorities had pursued a similar policy towards Russia and China, as the latter shows increasing interest in Central Asia, Moscow’s traditional sphere of influence.



Satpaev views Kazakstan as an independent player, positioning itself strategically between the West, Russia and China, while at the same time retaining its special relationship with Moscow on defence matters.



“The European Union and the US are very well aware of the military ties between Kazakstan and Russia as part of the CSTO,” he said. “Astana does not reject defence cooperation with other states, either, including the US and China.”



The concept of Kazakstan as an independent force was underlined in April, when President Nursultan Nazarbayev reaffirmed his country’s determination to pursue a “multi-vectored” foreign policy.



Speaking just after the government had just released a key statement on its military priorities, the president declared, “Our cooperation with the US never runs counter to Russian interests, [and] when we work together with Russia or China, we will never go against Europe.”



Oleg Sidorov, a political scientist, says this means Russian missile tests at Sary-Shagan will not have much impact on Astana’s relations with the West.



“It is obvious that this demonstration [missile test] will not affect Kazakstan,” he said, “except perhaps for the [foreign] intelligence services who will want to know more details.”



This view is shared by Eduard Poletaev, editor of the Mir Yevrasii magazine. Renewed testing, he said, has long been on the agenda. “This is necessary, if only to verify that old weapons are intact and to try out new ones.”



He said Russia was forced to ask Kazakstan to allow it to conduct missile tests because it had failed to build its own test sites in the 1990s as a result of the economic crisis it then faced. Moscow is now developing its own testing ranges, but for now it is still easier for it to use the old Soviet facilities.



Poletaev dismissed the idea that Russia was treating Kazakstan as a vassal state, arguing that Astana can – and has in the past – put pressure on Russia on the use of Sary-Shagan and other test sites. He recalled the regular rows of the 1990s about Russian non-payment of the lease, and the Kazak threat to end Russian launches after a Proton rocket crashed in 1999 after taking off from the Baikonor space site.



Many of the analysts interviewed by IWPR believe Kazakstan is trying with some success to keep its cooperation with Russia to a strictly-defined framework of agreed activities.



“The Sary-Shagan site is being used by Russia on a contractual basis that stipulates the range of activities that can be carried out on that territory,” said Sidorov. “If Moscow uses the leased territory for purposes other than those stipulated in the contract, the matter would be raised by Astana.”



But while most commentators are upbeat about Kazakstan’s success in avoiding entanglement in US-Russian disputes, not everyone shares this optimism.



Discussing the risk that Kazakstan could become caught up in the row, a political scientist who asked to remain anonymous said, “We can’t exclude the possibility.”



“I disagree with those who say that Kazakstan will remain only a separate third party – the owner of the Sary-Shagan range – but uninvolved,” he continued.



“If Russia continues to anger the West, Kazakstan may face an ultimatum [from the West] – either us or Russia – in which case Astana will have to decide its priorities. Then the policy of ‘double flirtation’ will have to come to an end.”