Opening Pandora's Box: Ethnicity and Central Asian Militaries
Authored by LTC Dianne L. Smith.
October 01, 1998
70 Pages
Brief Synopsis
The author examines whether ethnic consciousness affects military service and the specific roles played by ethnic groups within the armed forces, or if military institutions affect ethnicity. The Soviets used military service as a tool to break down ethnicity and create a "New Soviet Man." They failed. Do Central Asian armed forces break down ethnic divisions and serve as a vehicle for social integration or do they reinforce ethnic consciousness within minorities and therefore sharpen ethnic polarization? Ethnicity tore the Soviet Union apart. Can the Central Asian states avoid that fate? Will their military forces help or hinder that process? Can the U.S. armed forces, which have a well-merited reputation for managing diversity, provide a role model to help promote stability in this increasingly important, energy rich, region?
Summary
Race. Ethnicity. Religion. The decade following the collapse of the Soviet bloc has not witnessed the creation of a New World Order, but a New World Disorder in which conflicts involving race, ethnicity, and religion have resulted in the deaths of over one million people. Breaking the constraints of totalitarianism has opened a Pandora’s Box around the world. Early fears that the Central Asian states also would fall victim to ethnic hatred have so far largely proved false. But Central Asia is a region of great wealth and great instability—more so following recent victories by Afghanistan’s radical Taliban which shares a religious and ethnic heritage with many of its northern neighbors.
Ethnicity is defined as the basis for groups whose membership is determined by ties of kinship, language, religion, race, or culture. Supposedly the Central Asian states are ethnic creations, named after the “titular” majority, e.g., Kazakhs in Kazakhstan. But that is a false illusion. Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan did not exist prior to the drawing of Soviet republican boundaries. Their independence in 1991 was just as artificial—the result of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the birth of sovereign states from internal Soviet administrative boundaries. As a result, each was faced with the immediate tasks of identifying its national identity and nation-building.
This study examines the impact of ethnicity on the armed forces of the Central Asian states by first summarizing the ethnic composition of the five new republics, then examining the legacy of Soviet ethnic policy upon Central Asia. It then considers ways in which different newly-independent states have created their military institutions and handled the issue of ethnicity within their armed forces. Finally, it examines the possible role the United States can play in assisting the armed forces of Central Asia to learn how to manage diversity and thus promote stability in this energy rich, but inherently unstable, region.
The “nation-states” of Central Asia suffer from the dysfunction that occurs when territorial and ethnic boundaries do not coincide. All five republics are the artificial creations of Soviet cartographers who deliberately cut across nationalities to generate ethnic tensions, to make each republic a sort of Matreshka-doll with minorities inside minorities inside minorities—all dependent on Moscow. Thus, the new republics created with the breakup of the Soviet Union reflect the tension between nation-building and self-determination—between making do with the hand dealt you and trying to reshuffle the deck.
“Making do” means trying to create viable armed forces from the remnants of Soviet forces stationed within the boundaries at independence. “Making do” means trying to create a professional officer corps to reflect the titular nationality for which the state was named (e.g., Uzbeks in Uzbekistan) when the officer corps inherited at independence was not just “predominantly” Slavic, but uniformly Slavic. “Making do” means overcoming the Soviet heritage of ethnic stereotype and discrimination and the hatreds fostered during outbreaks of violence in the waning days of empire. “Making do” means trying to identify a historical military heritage to build upon. “Making do” means trying to recruit, train, house, feed, and field armed forces with Soviet leftovers. “Making do” means trying to suceed at ethnic integration when a richer, more centralized, and more powerful Soviet Union failed.
But the Central Asian states do not necessarily have to “make do” on their own. This region is becoming increasingly more important to the United States, both in terms of access to its energy and mineral resources and in securing stability in a central core around which regional powers such as Russia, China, Iran, and Turkey (and destabilizing regimes such as the Taliban) jockey for position. Alleviating ethnic tensions within the armed forces of the Central Asian states and helping them manage diversity, therefore, is of great importance to the United States. The U.S. armed forces, by providing a successful model for that process and engaging these forces during their formulative period, can promote regional stability.
Ethnic politics may yet tear apart the Central Asian republics as it has many of their neighbors (and the Soviet Union). Whether the Central Asian states can prevent ethnicity from shaping or distorting their armed forces will be a key indicator of their ability to manage diversity within society as a whole. Whether the Central Asian states can ultimately use the military as a force for social integration will reveal their ability to create tools to shape their own future.
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