What Does a New Power in Washington Mean for Central Asia?

After eight years of benign neglect, perfunctory photo-ops, and questionable military donations, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has passed decision-making on U.S. relations with Central Asia into the hands of Donald Trump. For Obama – as with every president since the fall of the Soviet Union – Central Asia has been something of an afterthought. This reality is, of course, not necessarily surprising. Not only has Central Asia enjoyed something approaching stability over the past quarter-century, especially in comparison to the Middle East, but no region enjoys – or suffers, depending on your perspective – the combined attentions of both Russia and China to such a degree as Central Asia.

Indeed, in projecting relations between the United States and Central Asia under a Trump administration, there’s a real possibility that Washington may finally be able to rethink its stale, stagnant policy in the region. To that end, there are a few near-certainties, and a few intriguing possibilities, that will come with Trump’s oversight of U.S. relations with Central Asia – along with one likelihood that will undercut the region’s pro-democracy advocates at the knees.

At the least, it seems a fair bet the Trump administration will sweep away the cobwebs of the Washington’s comatose New Silk Road Initiative. Originally speared by, of all people, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the New Silk Road Initiative has proven a limp attempt at a policy. None of the program’s large-scale infrastructure projects – including the CASA-1000 electricity program or the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline – are close to coming to fruition. If anything, the New Silk Road Initiative has simply existed as an excuse for the United States to forego formulating a full-scale policy for the region. Trump, with his clear willingness to discard almost anything and everything indicative of Obama’s legacy, will likely toss the New Silk Road Initiative into the dustbin toward which it’s long been headed.

What, if anything, will the United States implement instead of the New Silk Road Initiative? At this point, the likeliest candidate for replacement is: absolutely nothing. The new president prefers to tack toward some form of neo-realist, Great Power theory of international relations, allowing others – in this case, Moscow – to have their putative sphere of influence. Despite Trump’s apparent willingness to increase American bombing campaigns abroad, there’s little reason to believe, at this point, that any such aggression will be directed toward Central Asian actors. Rather, the United States under Trump may well wash its hands of attempting to expand relations with Central Asian states altogether. (Aside from potential kleptocratic deals with like-minded oligarchs, that is.)

Thus far, the region’s autocrats appear at least relatively elated with Trump’s probable policies. There’s little likelihood Trump will make any effort to reinforce American commitments to human rights in the region, either diplomatically or via prerequisites for expanding military supplies to regional governments. As Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev recently said, Trump’s decision not to “spread American values across the whole globe” is a “very important thing.” Indeed, the region’s pro-democracy contingents may well be witnessing the disappearance of their most substantial supporter. Trump has made clear his disdain for the American democratization efforts abroad – and there’s little reason to think Central Asia will be any different. As the United States retrenches, Central Asia’s democrats will lose one of their largest backers, and any flares of protest will, with Washington retreating from its focus on democratized rights, likely be met with an even greater array of force from local governments.

There’s another reason, too, why regional leaders seem pleased with Trump’s election. Under Trump, regional governments will likely no longer be forced to balance between Moscow and Washington, as we’ve seen since the imposition of the mutual sanctions regimes in 2014. If Trump, as seems likely, follows through on lifting sanctions aimed at Russia, there’s every chance Moscow will relax its pressure against Central Asian members of the Eurasian Economic Union – Kazakhstan, most especially – to follow its sanctions regime against the West.

There is an outside possibility, however, that United States actually maintains – and potentially increases – its interests in Central Asia, albeit from a different perspective than that under Obama. With the selection of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, Washington may well reorient its regional interests to, as we saw in the 1990s, outright energy investment. Tillerson’s selection actually presents the intriguing possibility that the region’s energy travails, especially in Turkmenistan, have suddenly caught the attention of the White House.

Of course, that’s an outside possibility, and likely an overly optimistic scenario. If anything, a Trump administration will simply accelerate Washington’s policy of regional neglect – potentially flipping it from benign to something darker, at least for the region’s democratizing dissidents. While the United States will continue to maintain nominal interests in Central Asia, it will almost certainly hand off any regional stewardship to Moscow. (But not, given Trump’s outspoken animus, Beijing.)

While regional autocrats may initially welcome declining U.S. interest in human rights, such celebration may not last long. After all, Moscow has displayed a clear willingness to redraw post-Soviet borders as it likes. With the United States retrenching from the picture, the likelihood that Russia treats Central Asian governments as co-equals declines apace – and the likelihood that, someday in the near future, we see Moscow redrawing state lines in Central Asia creeps up that much further.