KAZAKHSTAN: THE CENTRAL ASIAN PIVOT

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 ASTANA 000376

SIPDIS

STATE FOR P, S/P, SCA/CEN, EUR/RUS, S/SRAP
FROM AMBASSADOR RICHARD HOAGLAND

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/03/2029
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM RS AF KZ
SUBJECT: KAZAKHSTAN: THE CENTRAL ASIAN PIVOT

REF: A. ASTANA 0372

B. MOSCOW 0456

C. ASTANA 0319

D. MOSCOW 0220

E. TASHKENT 0160

Classified By: Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland: 1.4 (B),(D)


1. (C) SUMMARY: We have enormous equities at play in
Afghanistan, Russia, and China. Kazakhstan in particular,
and Central Asia more widely, has a pivotal role to play in
securing our national interests. With the advent of a new
Administration, we need to take hold of the opportunities in
a far more effective and high-level fashion than we have
before. Kazakhstan is a reliable partner that is looking for
a wider leadership role. We should harness this, especially
in relation to Afghanistan.


2. (C) SUMMARY CONTINUED: To understand Kazakhstan's
potential role as a strategic diplomatic partner for this
effort, we will need to look accurately at reality as it
exists. Though authoritarian, Kazakhstan is a
proto-democracy whose on-the-ground reality is different from
the simplistic caricatures of Central Asia. While a limited
number of elements of the government have bought Russian
anti-U.S. propaganda, by and large Kazakhstan is
well-balanced and wants especially to play a role in Central
Asia's modern and stable development. It is important to
remember that Kazakhstan, as the OSCE's 2010
Chairman-in-Office, will play a pivotal role between Putin's
Moscow and the OSCE's Western values. We need to engage
Kazakhstan's top leadership now. END SUMMARY.

COOPERATION ON AFGHANISTAN


3. (C) President Nazarbayev and some of his closest advisers
and ministers have made it clear to me that they care deeply
about achieving stability in Afghanistan, precisely because
it is in their own national interest to do so. In 2008,
Kazakhstan provided $3 million for reconstruction and
humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, and intends to
continue to do so at about the same level in 2009, budget
permitting. (COMMENT: By our standards, $3 million is mere
pocket change. But for a country that has never had an
institutionalized foreign assistance program, the amount is
significant. END COMMENT.) The pro-American Deputy Minister
of Defense Sembinov, with President Nazarbayev's blessing,
just completed a successful trip to Kabul to consult with the
U.S. Embassy, U.S. military leadership, and the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) leadership. President
Nazarbayev is willing to send Kazakhstani staff officers to
the ISAF headquarters in Kabul and, possibly later,
non-combat military support to Afghanistan, as it did for
five-plus years in Iraq. Within seven weeks after first
contact by U.S. TRANSCOM, Kazakhstan agreed to participate in
the Northern Distribution Network for Afghanistan, without
any great drama.


4. (C) Bottom line: Kazakhstan is on board with us
vis-a-vis Afghanistan, and would welcome further suggestions
from us how to move forward. We have a relatively wide open
door for further engagement with Kazakhstan on Afghanistan.

A NEO-SOVIET "SILK CURTAIN"?


5. (C) Astana has a special relationship with Moscow that we
recognize and do not dispute. However, it is important to
understand that because Kazakhstan is relatively rich and
sophisticated it is not overly beholden to Russia, despite
this "special relationship."


6. (C) Russia, however, sees it differently. Since the end
of 2001, Russia has consistently asserted its "sphere of
influence" in Central Asia. From 2004, once Putin
consolidated his "vertical of power" domestically, he turned

ASTANA 00000376 002 OF 004


his government's attention to the Near Abroad, especially to
Central Asia. The United States rolled its eyes at Russia's
creation of a number of Moscow-dominated regional
organizations like the Cooperative Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) and others as feckless, vodka-swilling
talk-shops devised and led by the Kremlin. These
Moscow-controlled organizations can make decisions and issue
policy statements only if there is a full consensus among all
members. As a result, no individual CSTO member can agree to
the establishment of a foreign military presence on its
territory without Moscow's consent. While the former Red
Army might not threaten the independent states of Central
Asia, Kremlin ideologues and their lawyers have worked
mightily to erect a neo-Soviet "Silk Curtain" around Central
Asia, with the goal of making the five Central Asian states
Cold War-style satellites of Russia.

HOWEVER


7. (C) However, there is an important saving grace. The
Central Asian states, over the last two decades, have become
quite fond of their own independence and sovereignty. And
each has clearly distinguished itself from the others. It's
important to admit they fight among themselves, and some of
the presidents detest each other (viz., Uzbekistan's Karimov
and Tajikistan's Rahmon) and refuse to consider regional
cooperation. Arguably, Nazarbayev has emerged as the elder
statesman of the region and has good relations with all )
except, of course, Karimov. We should work to build an
increasingly productive and reliable partnership with
Kazakhstan, based on mutual interests and mutual respect.


8. (C) Precisely because Astana wants strong relations with
both Moscow and Washington (as well as with Beijing),
U.S.-Russia "competition unsettles Kazakhstan's leadership,
and thus they have a powerful interest in supporting
cooperation between Moscow and Washington. We need to be
mindful of this fact. Indeed, the Astana leadership, in many
different ways in recent weeks, has told me it is willing to
play a constructive role to help bring Moscow and Washington
back to a reasonable level of cooperation and collaboration.
In mid-January, President Nazarbayev told U.S. CDR CENTCOM
General Petraeus that the United States needs to listen
closely to Russia -- and Kazakhstan is willing to help. On
February 26, Presidental Adviser Yertysbayev told me
Kazakhstan "should and can" play this role. Foreign Minister
Tazhin has repeatedly told me Kazakhstan is well-positioned
to play this role and is ready to do so. But it needs to
hear from us.


9. (C) Bottom line: Kazakhstan is willing to use
Nazarbayev's close and easy relations with Moscow to try to
increase stability in the region, including in Afghanistan.
To what degree he could fundamentally influence Putin's and
the siloviki's worst instincts would, of course, be open to
question. At the very least, we need to work hard to widen
Kazakhstan's role as a contributor to stability in
Afghanistan, strengthen Kazakhstan's own ability to withstand
Russian pressure, and work with Astana to advance our issues
throughout Central Asia.

AN IMPORTANT CONSTRAINT


10. (S) Kazakhstan's "multi-vector" foreign policy is
successful, and a number of key ministers and presidential
advisers are outward looking internationalists who engage
well with the United States. However, the Committee for
National Security (KNB),the successor to the Soviet-era KGB,
is a problem. The general consensus is that KNB Chairman
Shabdarbayev leans strongly toward Russia and cooperates
closely with Russia's intelligence services, sometimes to our
detriment. Further, the United States is not in the KNB's
good graces because we have steadfastly, and correctly,
refused to be drawn into the feud-to-the-death between
President Nazarbayev and his exiled-in-Austria former

ASTANA 00000376 003 OF 004


son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev. Despite the real problems this
has caused in our bilateral relationship, I have seen
evidence that President Nazarbayev, when he judges that it is
in Kazakhstan's national interest, tends to side with the
angels -- because he cares about his relationship with the
United States, as well as building an international image as
a statesman.

ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE


11. (C) I recommend that Washington engage fully with Astana
1) to support our own goals in Afghanistan, and 2) to signal
clearly to the international community -- including Moscow,
Beijing, Brussels, and other capitals -- that, even if we
leave Manas in Kyrgyzstan, we are certainly not leaving
Central Asia and certainly do not accept Russia's "privileged
sphere of influence" that would make the Central Asian states
satellites of the Kremlin.


12. (C) A strong signal of our intentions would be to invite
President Nazarbayev to Washington. Even more significant
would be a visit, even if brief, by President Obama to
Astana. Quite frankly, that would be a political earthquake
in the region. Likewise, a visit soonest by Secretary
Clinton -- ideally in conjunction with stops in Moscow and
Kabul -- would be a powerful sign that the United States is
reordering its intentions and priorities in Central Asia for
the benefit of our policy in Afghanistan.

BACKGROUND


13. (U) Since its independence, Kazakhstan has implemented
three fundamental decisions that have made it worthy of
closer attention.


14. (SBU) First, almost from the beginning, Kazakhstan has
achieved serious economic and financial reforms that, before
the current global economic crisis, placed it on a par with
the countries of Central Europe, and led to about $11 billion
in U.S. direct foreign investment, including at least $8
billion in the oil and gas sector, especially by Chevron,
ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips. Other major U.S.
corporations are also present in Kazakhstan, like General
Electric and Proctor & Gamble. By the middle of the next
decade, Kazakhstan will become one of the world's top-10 oil
exporters, and its natural gas potential is equally
impressive and could help diminish the Russian Gazprom
monopoly in Eurasia. Kazakhstan has also witnessed the
emergence of a real economic middle class -- not just in the
political capital of Astana and the financial/cultural
capital of Almaty, but also in regional capitals across this
vast country, the geographical size of Western Europe.


15. (SBU) Second, from the beginning of its independence in
1991 when it was a Soviet-heritage nuclear-weapons state,
Kazakhstan renounced its nuclear status and has become a
steadfastly reliable partner with the United States in the
battle against the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, both nuclear and biological.


16. (SBU) Third, since its independence, Kazakhstan has
understood the need to develop its human capital. The
government implemented its "Bolashak (Future) Program" that
has continued, even in the most parlous economic times, to
send its young people abroad for full university educations,
mostly in the West. Today, more that 4,500 young
Kazakhstanis have completed their higher-education degrees
under this program, and many thousands more have done so with
their own resources. The results are visible every day in
both the private and public sectors, where sophisticated,
English-speaking, bright young people are increasingly
playing constructive roles. The government itself promotes
these globally-oriented young people into surprisingly
powerful roles. Some key ministers and advisers, especially
in the economic sector, are in their mid-30s.

ASTANA 00000376 004 OF 004




17. (C) Though still authoritarian, Kazakhstan impresses me
because civil society is relatively free to organize and
operate, and regularly engages the government, sometimes
influencing government decisions and draft legislation --
even if civil society doesn't always win its maximalist
positions. The government has established and supports a
number of civil-society organizations with a wide variety of
opinion, from squawking government parrots to outspokenly
shrill opposition voices, all within the same
government-approved organization. Remarkably, the Prime
Minister has established his own Internet blog that welcomes,
across the full spectrum of political opinion, citizen
comment; and he has instructed all other ministers to do
likewise. Grass-roots democracy is alive, and I would judge
even growing, in Kazakhstan. For a more in-depth view of
political Kazakhstan, see reftel A.
HOAGLAND