Centrasbat: Central Asian Joint Operations
The following is a list of articles collected about joint operations held between the United States and several Central Asian countries.
A comment follows that summarizes the current status of
the Centrasbat project.
On September 15, [1997] 500 U.S. troops
parachuted into southern Kazakstan along with 40 Kazak, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek
soldiers from the Central Asia Battalion. The paratroopers boarded planes in Fort Bragg, NC
for the 7,700 mile non-stop flight, the longest military expeditionary flight
in history. A total of 1,329 soldiers — including forces from Russia, Turkey,
Georgia, and Latvia — took part in the week-long peacekeeping exercises led by
the United States.
General John Sheehan, commander in chief of
the U.S. Atlantic Command, said the message the United States is trying to send
is "that the Central Asian republics live in stability." He added
that if the United Nations ever decides to authorize a "peace support
operation" involving Central Asian forces, "then the United States is
ready to stand beside them and participate." Russian General Vitalii
Sokolov said similar exercises "must be held as often as possible."
by the Center for Political and Strategic
Studies
U.S. Troops Could Fight
Within Russia
Unprecedented: 500 U.S. paratroops jumping
out of their aircraft over Kazakstan, a remote fragment of the old Soviet
empire.
The 19-hour, nonstop, three mid-air refuelings trip was more than just pulling off a nifty feat for
its own sake. "It is a dramatic demonstration of U.S. interests in the
region," said senior Pentagon official Catherine Kelleher.
"Interests" is a diplomatic term of art. Kuwait was a U.S. interest.
It means that the United States now feels it has a definable stake in Central
Asia. Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are believed to sit on vast reserves
of oil, natural gas and minerals.
The exercise is a dry run of a multinational
peace-keeping operation but with a
combat element: the need to quell renegade separatist forces backed by outside
powers. In any actual intervention, we would be partners with the Russians who
have a very great interest in the stability of these former Soviet republics.
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
US Plays High-Stakes War Games in Kazakstan
SHYMKENT, Kazakstan--
The
US military, underscoring Washington's growing interest in ensuring the
stability of oil-rich Central Asia, projected its power into the heart of the former
Soviet Union yesterday with a large-scale military exercise in Kazakstan.
Five
hundred troops of the 82nd Airborne Division flew 19 hours and 7,700 miles to join a week-long joint exercise with
40 airborne troops from three Central Asian States and soldiers from Russia and
Turkey. The exercise is remarkable for its location in Kazakstan, a huge
republic that until recently was part of the Soviet empire, and for including
troops from America's former archenemy, Russia, in a US-led operation. Russia
and Turkey each conducted separate, 40-soldier parachute drops yesterday. Small
contingents from the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Latvia are also
taking part.
The
operation is yielding dramatic evidence of how US power is rising and Russian
power waning in Central Asia, which has long been in Moscow's sphere of
influence. US economic interests in the region are expected to grow: Central
Asia contains huge oil deposits, and Russian companies have joined some
projects being led by major US oil companies.
One
gloating US soldier said the Russians had to accept the new US role "or
get out." Some Russians have indeed been unsettled. A group of 25 people
demonstrated against the exercise outside the US Embassy in Kazakstan on Sunday.
But
the representative of the Russian defense ministry, Commander Alexander
Mikhailov, articulated what senior US officers say is a new spirit of
participation apparent in the past two months. "The world has
changed," said Commander Mikhailov, once the deputy captain of a
nuclear-attack submarine. " We are no longer enemies. Nobody dictated any
conditions to us. Their opinion and our opinion is the same: to
cooperate."
The
three sometimes-feuding Central Asian states of Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and the
Kyrgyz Republic are working together
in the exercise, known as Centrasbat '97. The incoming troops are acting out a
scenario of supporting the one-year-old, 500-strong Central Asia Battalion
against "dissident elements." But the main purpose is to teach the
three countries how to work with other nations' militaries, including standard
North Atlantic Treaty Organization commands--to deal with troops who speak other
languages and have different map-reading techniques and conflicting ways of
giving orders. The Central Asia Battalion consists of a company from each of
Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.
While
the talk is of new cooperation between former Cold War foes, diplomats didn't
dispute that the exercise also is meant to warn potential rival countries to
the south: China, Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist Taliban militia and the
Islamic Republic of Iran. " If they choose to take the message that this
is our capacity for force projection, so be it," said one American
diplomat.
"The
message, I guess, is that there is no nation on the face of the earth that we
cannot get to," said US Marine Corps Gen. John J. Sheehan, the 57-year-old
outgoing chief of the US Atlantic Command. The
US troops flew from Fort Bragg, N.C.
by Hugh Pope, Staff Reporter of the Wall
Street Journal
By word of mouth, I’ve heard that these exercises continued for several years. The US goal is to promote stability in the region by getting the countries to work together. Traditionally however, the countries involved are very competitive and the exercises began to seem more of a competition to show how good the militaries from each country had become and what they could do independently. For this reason, these exercises are seen as unsuccessful by US leaders and may be discontinued.
