INTR13-304 & INTR71/72-304, The Department of International Relations, SHSS, Bond University, Queensland, Australia 

When people make meaningful statements about the future, this can be based on a wide range of factors. In general, such statements, when they are not merely guessing, tend to be based on one or more of the following: -

This means that the way we look at and predict the future has already had a large impact on the options open to us. In a sense, we have already begun to colonise the future by the way we look at it and think about our options(Giddens 1991). This means that different theories or world-order models will radically affect contingency planning, the allocation of resources, as well as national policies.

Today, we will look at a simple scenario options, as well as looking at some key issues which will affect the future of Eurasia as a whole. As we have seen, although there is some kind of Eurasia process (Dawisha & Parrott 1994) underway, beginning to link this vast area. However, Eurasia is not yet an integrated region institutionally, nor even a super-region which is fully integrated into the global economy. This means, likewise, that any notion of a 'fourth region', linking the previously unstable areas of Eurasia and the Middle East is also very unlikely, in spite of the benefits of the creation of a next block during the next century (see Hanna 1993).

Rather, Eurasia has begun to emerge as an ongoing security complex, whereby problems in one country to sub-region readily spill across national boundaries into adjacent regions (Buzan 1983). Buzan argues that 'a security complex is defined as a group of states whose primary security concerns link together sufficiently closely that their national securities cannot realistically be considered apart from one another . . . Security complexes emphasise the interdependence of rivalry as well as that of shared interests' (Buzan in Ayoob 1999). This means that transboundary effects, e.g. refugees, legal and illegal migration, organised crime networks, smuggling of drugs and arms, money laundering, international terrorism, transnational ethnic and political affiliations, and regional environmental problems tend to be shared problems that no one country can effectively deal with. On this basis, these problems in the end might only be effectively dealt with by the emergence of a strong sense of regional cooperation, and in the long term perhaps by the emergence of a genuine 'regional society' (for this terminology, see Ayoob 1999). At present, none of the regional groupings, whether the CIS, the ECO, or the SCO can act as the effective basis, or even the leading agency, for such regional cooperation.

On this basis, 'hot spots' of conflict have had much wider implications at the regional. Tajikistan's civil war through the mid-1990s was a fearful example for all of Central Asia, Muslim militants in Uzbekistan (the IMU) were able to threaten nearby states, while ongoing problems in Afghanistan have serious implications for Central Asia, Russia, and South Asia (see lectures 4 and 10). Through 2003, changing power relations in Iraq have serious implications for Jordan, Iran, Turkey, Russia and for the future of the UN Security Council and US-European relations. Already, the Iraq intervention has caused new alignments: even as Turkey has begun to cooperate to a greater degree with the U.S. coalitions through April 2003, but it has also sought to enter into dialogue with Iran about the future of the region and the impact of the Kurdish role in the war against Iraq. At the same time, North Korea's effort to force another round of direct negotiations with the US has increased tensions in Northeast Asia as a whole, and may force Japan to rethink its security agenda (for earlier moves towards a more engaged foreign affairs and security policy for Japan, see Furuoka 2002; Singh 2002). On this basis, Eurasia as a whole looks far from stable. These issues have an impact on all adjacent regions, and on global politics itself.

These immediate problems may rest on deeper economic, social, and development gaps, based on an incomplete and troubled interaction with the global system. Problems with this incomplete globalisation include: -

1. It leaves a large segment of the world in relative poverty, which might correlate with the growth of radical political or religious movements, with civil wars, drug and other forms of smuggling, and for local conflicts which could spill over into adjacent regions. It now seems, for example, that about 55% of Armenians can be considered poor or impoverished (Khachatrian 2001), indicating worsening conditions in some areas, not improvements, since independence. There may well be a nexus between this relative poverty and a search towards alternative solutions politically, e.g. the recent trend for militant organisations to become a region-wide movements: -

As the armies of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan brace for a third summer of fighting against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), there are indications that the insurgency is broadening its appeal. Pressed by declining economic conditions and political repression, young men from across Central Asia are joining the ranks of the IMU. This trend suggests that the IMU is gradually developing into a pan-Central Asian movement. (Rashid 2001)

2. A sustained period of poverty and political turmoil can lead to refugee and migration flows, as well as greater flows of legal and illegal migrants into the first world. This has already been seen with sustained refugee and labour flows out of Tajikistan, and more recently out of Afghanistan, even to remote countries such as Indonesia and Australia, a trend deepened through late 2001 and early 2002.
3. Likewise, if the region is not properly integrated into regional and international political life and organisations, it could lead to local foci of power which are not always positive, e.g. the basis of the fear of undue Pakistani, Turkish, Iranian or Russian influence in the region. This might also correlate with continued border and ethnic disturbances in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the Xinjiang region of China. Continued instability in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan can also not be ruled out, including the possible shifting of opium growing into suitable areas of Central Asia (see lectures 4 and 10).
4. Central Asia and Siberia have large 'planetary reserves' of oil, gas and strategic minerals. In the future 10-50 years these will become even more significant, and in some scenarios could lead to intensified competition or even resource wars of the future (see Klare 2002). Failure to ensure an open political and economic environment could therefore impact on the world economy, as well as exacerbate local conflicts over access to these resources. Here certain basic structural and diplomatic needs have not been achieved, e.g. there is no balanced vision of oil pipelines out of Central Asia meeting regional needs, nor yet complete agreement on the legal status and environmental management of the resources of the Caspian Sea (see Raczka 2000)., in spite of progress on this issue among most parties through 2002.
5. Eurasia is indeed a heartland. It is adjacent to East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Western & Central Europe. Instability in this heartland, whether in Russia or Central Asia, would be of immediate and deep concern to any adjacent state, and indeed to all the great powers of the world. Thus Japan, China, Germany, France, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, Turkey, and the U.S. are all keen to see a stable,. cooperative Russian Federation and a stable Central Asia. Some efforts at stabilisation have begun, e.g. the Shanghai Five embracing China, Russia and three of the Central Asian states (now called the Shanghai Co-operative Organisation or SCO, see Mamadshoyev 2000). Likewise, recent moves have begun to attempts to stabilise Georgia, in part through enhanced cooperation with Europe and NATO. This interconnectedness has been seen most clearly in Afghanistan, where through 2001-2002 instability, war and reconstruction has drawn in much of the region in different ways, including all of Central Asia, Pakistan, and even Turkey, who provided the new commander of international forces (the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF) in Kabul, as well as a contingent of 1,000 troops (Dymond 2002). Nonetheless, much will need to done to guarantee the reconstruction of Afghanistan so that it become a viable democratic state, while the management and reconstruction of Iraq may be even more challenging (both politically and economically).
6. If Eurasian nations remain poor and weak, they will also continue to represent other kinds of low level security threats. Aside from refugees and organised crime issues, these include the inability to pay for environmentally clean industries, to clean up nuclear waste from the past (affecting the Sea of Japan, Russian industrial areas near Norway, as well as large sections of central Russia and Kazakhstan), limits in the ability to ensure the secure storage of nuclear material, the tendency to repair and then run old nuclear power stations, inability to sustain clean waters in the Aral, Caspian and Black Seas, and the inability to control border movement into adjacent regions. In the worst case, the Eurasian heartland could be an environmental and health time-bomb that begins to seriously affect adjacent regions in Europe and Asia, as well as affecting world climate through impact on regional the atmosphere and Arctic region as a whole. There would also be flow-on health effects, effects that have already been serious enough for the engagement of World Health Organisation (WHO) programs in the region of the Aral Sea. Wars, of course, have created straight forward humanitarian and health crises that need immediate funding: through late March 2003, the WHO estimated that Iraq need $325 million of emergency 'immediate health, nutrition, water and sanitation needs of the most vulnerable populations', within a larger humanitarian package targeted initially at $2.1 billion (WHO 2003a)
7. Extreme political and religious reactions, whether reversion to authoritarian political parties or the spread of militant religious groups, could also result from continued marginalisation and poverty. Even small regional crises, such as the demand for a separate Chechen state, can embroil great powers such as Russia in long, drawn out disputes (see Cornell 1997). Though the region as a whole has retained some stability, there are signs of poor governance in some CIS states, intensified religious tensions in Central Asia, and a painful path for Iran as it begins slow internal reform, operating both under external western pressures and resistance from clerical conservatives within the country.

For all these reasons, the future of Eurasia remains of pressing concern to many global major international actors. However, the awareness of many of these regions remains minimal in many news media and in popular imagination. In some ways, major players such as the UN, the US, EU and groups such as the G8 can only play a strong role in the region as citizen groups, electorates, interest groups become more aware of the region as a whole and its significance. Long term engagement of Britain, Germany, the EU, and the US in the reconstruction of Afghanistan will in part be based on ongoing public awareness of Afghanistan to the entire region and its future stability. In this, Afghanistan provides a major test case for ability of the international community not just to intervene, but actually help reconstruct a peaceful order in Eurasia as a whole. The question of who should be the guiding agency for reconstructing Iraq, whether a UN-based group or a US-guided administration, will also be an important question for these players, determining relative degrees of influence in the region over the next decade. Likewise, though international agencies such as the OSCE, the IMF, the World Bank, UNESCO, and the World Health Organisation have been involved in reducing the severity of particular problems, this is far from a comprehensive program of stabilisation for the region as whole. Neither has a solid model of functional differentiation among organisations, nor subsidiarity (levels of organisation and task management) among stabilisation programs been well established. If not truly anarchic, this system still does not look like an emerging international community at either the regional or global levels.

What has become clear is that major states in the region are trying to manage political, economic and social crisis. Russia and Afghanistan, both in their own ways, have had to content with serious internal problems. Most of the Central Asian states are trying to promote economic stability to avoid future political crises internally. Any scenario must take into account these issues. Key levers can help access the state of play in Eurasia and think rationally about possible outcomes:

• The type of globalisation processes impacting on Eurasia as a whole. Are parts excluded? Is the process uneven (as in Russia)? Does it create new winners and losers in the international system? For example, though Uzbekistan may have key advantages of nearby states, development within the country has been very uneven, excluding agricultural sectors (see lecture 4). Likewise, excessive international support for Uzbekistan as a main player might also increase its role as a local hegemon, thereby destabilising nearby smaller states (see Luong & Weinthal 2002).
• What type of nationalism is developing in Eurasia? Is it narrow and ethnically-based, or does it create an independent tier of civil identity? Is this nationalism a valid step towards genuine democratic participation, or will it support authoritarian state structures? For example, can Kazakhstan construct a 'Kazakhstani' national identity that reaches past being an ethnic Kazakh verses and ethnic Russian living within the country (see lecture 3; see further Tolipov 2001). Will Afghanistan find a shared national identity that can undermine the local, ethnic and warlord affiliations that hvae undermined the country for decades?
• The borders drawn on the map have now largely been accepted by the main players of the region. Thus the China-Russia border has been established after agreements made in 1996. Most of the border disputes with Russia were resolved by 1997, and by 1999 almost the entire log of conflicting claims, stretching over 4,300 kilometres and including 2,444 riverine islands, were resolved (Zhao 1999). The borders of Central Asian states were at least formally accepted in the Alma-Ata agreement, (Shevtsova 1992, p11). Nonetheless, local identity often slides across these neat border lines, e.g. the complex mixing of Uzbek, Kazakh, Tajik and Kyrgyz groups throughout Central Asia, the presence of Uzbek, Tajik and other minorities in Afghanistan, and Russian groups found throughout the region of Central Asia but especially in northern Kazakhstan. Put another way, it may take a long time for these nationalities to stabilise internally, and then be able to accept minorities and others in a more open form of national identity (see Fukuyama 1995). We can draw interesting parallels with parts of East Europe, e.g. in Western sections of Belarus, where Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Jewish, Polesian and other identities have failed to coalesce completely into a clear cut or non-contentious form of national identity (Applebaum 1994). Here, the lack of unequivocal history can sometimes be a benefit, it allows one to imagine different, new, and perhaps better futures (Applebaum 1994), but such aspirations may clash with the expectations of other groups, or may not be coherent and sustainable (Anderson 1991).
• To what degree have regional structures developed in Eurasia? Which states can gain from membership in regional organisations? Do new organisations need to be created? As we have seen, no single organisation embraces the region, and the patchwork of existing and proposed organisations is only very loosely coordinated, e.g. the proposed EAU, the newer EAEU, and the existing ECO.
• What kind of leverage do individual states have on the international system, e.g. through fora such as the UN, G8, the OSCE, or other organisations? In relative terms, there is a clear division between superpower and greater powers (probably the US, EU, Russia and China), and a host of medium and small powers that will need to 'chain' themselves in some way with 'great power agendas', or else risk being isolated or ignored.
• Is there a balance among the key powers in the region that can sustain a stable status-quo, or do key changes need to take place to create a stable and just Eurasian region? Until recently, a clear Russian-China strategic hegemony of the region was being established (see Arbatov 1999), but this was effectively counterbalanced by European and U.S. influences through 2001-2002. In 2003, we see once again changing power balances, with Russia, France and Germany very critical of the US and British role in an early invasion of Iraq. It is not yet clear how these changing balances will influence regional engagement strategies in the post-war period. At the broader level, this make force a rethink of commitments to Afghanistan, could put pressure on the NATO alliance, and also force Russia to rethink its strategic viewpoint. It must be noted that any stable power balance must also be based on stable perceptions of the capabilities, motivations, and viewpoints of each of the major actors within the regional system.
• If no clear-cut balance of power exists, can institution-building create organisations that help provide security for the entire region, whether by extending existing structures (OSCE, CIS, NATO), or by re-conceptualising the relations among states within Eurasia? If security cannot be developed in an ongoing rigorous way, is it enough to rely on different coalitions of interest to govern this turbulent region?

At present, it seems that there are several key problems that need to be addressed if the Eurasian process is to have a positive local and international outcome. These key issues include: -

• Democratic deficit, with most nations within the region having a democratic process that is undermined by strong Presidential powers, and a tendency to prevent opposition parties from being truly being truly competitive. This tendency has now even being seen in Kyrgyzstan, in part due to real security concerns. Ironically, this lack of true democracy has bolster opposition groups as well as groups willing to use political violence (e.g. in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan).
• Lack of overlapping and stabilised governance by states, regional groupings, and international agencies. At present, this lack of stable governance is also deepened by either institutional gaps (no strong EAU or Eurasian Economic Union, EAEU), or competition as new regional grouping are formed and only invested in to a small degree (e.g. ECO and the GUUAM group, comprising Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, see Torbakov 2001).
• Incomplete transition, whereby even after a decade of change, many of the countries remain relatively poor, with privatisation and the market economy not yet providing the engines for sustainable development. Countries such as Uzbekistan, for example, have unbalanced development that has allowed pockets of rural poverty to remain, while Kyrgyzstan remains highly dependent on overseas aid and loans. At the same time, though market forces have developed to some degree, several states (e.g. Russia) retain oligarchic interests and have a strong invisible economy partly controlled by organised crime. Part of this incomplete transition also includes the environmental disasters that have been left by the Soviet system, but are now being compounded by a rush for export resources to help bolster the economies of newly independent states.
• The changing balance of power in the region, where once Russia was the true hegemon, has now led to a 'failing hegemon' scenario with new forces at play. Fear of hegemonic return has also limited the CIS as a truly inclusive diplomatic and security organisation. At present, Chinese and Russian engagement are partly balanced by EU and US interests, but no stable landscape of power has emerged. Here, there is a need to ensure not only strong engagement strategies, but also smooth, slow disengagement procedures. This is where key institutions embracing the region need to be built to moderate a possible future clash of interests.
• In the absence of strong regional governance and a transparent balance of power, over the last decade the region has been managed on the interventionist model: humanitarian, political and military intervention is engaged in an ad hoc way to contain or utilise the latest 'hot spot'. This tends to lead to external interests being heavily engaged for short periods of time, but not necessarily in a context of wider regional or international support. In the worst case scenario, there is the risk that proxy conflicts could once again return to Eurasia. It is clear, then, that there needs to be an urgent, cooperative return to nation and region building in Greater Central Asia and Eurasia as a whole.

As we have seen, new moves through the late 1990s have begun to coordinate both Europe-Asia trade and relations (through the ASEM process), and the U.S. and EU did begin a new round of engagement in Afghanistan and to a lesser degree Central Asia (through 2001-2002). The question remains, however, whether this will be part of long-term stabilisation of the Eurasian zone, thereby ensuring greater stability throughout Europe and Asia, as well as promoting higher levels of global prosperity (through access to new resources and deepened markets) and supporting better regional governance. If so, in the long run Eurasia will be a source of civilisational stability and an opportunity for heightened international cooperation. A failure in the Eurasian process however, will set limits on Europe's eastern frontier as a peaceful zone, and undermine East Asian efforts to boost prosperity in a zone stretching from Mongolia down to Tibet and Yunnan. Likewise, regional stability will not be aided by the current round of war in Middle East, nor by a messy reconstruction process for Iraq, or the prospects of future interventions against Iran or North Korea. To build deep resilience in Eurasia, a concerned effort by the regional players and the international community will need to be made over the next two decades. Planning for this needs to commence immediately.