Word: nato
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...this is a matter of principle for Russia, it is stupid politics.' ALEXEI MALASHENKO, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on reports that former Soviet republic Kyrgyzstan plans to close a U.S. military base, potentially jeopardizing NATO supply lines to Afghanistan...
...badly needs Russia's help in Afghanistan, and Moscow can't afford to let the NATO mission there fail for the sake of Russia's own security. But Russia will extract a geopolitical price for its cooperation - and the resulting bargaining process could be lucrative for those caught in between. That's the message of Tuesday's bombshell dropped by Kyrgyzstan: President Kurmanbek Bakiyev ordered the U.S. to close down an air base in his tiny central Asian country that is used to provide key air support for NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan...
...Kyrgyz leader's announcement came on the same day that militants in Pakistan blew up a key Khyber Pass bridge, cutting NATO's main supply line into Afghanistan and highlighting its vulnerability. Of course, Bakiyev happened to be standing alongside Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at a Moscow news conference when he served notice on the U.S. to vacate the Manas air base. Moscow, in fact, had just promised to give Bakiyev a vital $2 billion economic bailout package. Russia's motivations, and its intentions, are ambiguous. (See pictures of NATO's vulnerable Pakistani supply route...
...Obama Administration to scale back U.S. plans to deploy a missile-interceptor system on Russia's doorstep in Poland and the Czech Republic; it also expects the new team in Washington to abandon the Bush Administration's effort to press reluctant European allies to admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. But Russia also has a direct interest in the outcome in Afghanistan. Moscow has made clear that a NATO failure in Afghanistan would be a disaster for Moscow, because a Taliban victory would spur an Islamist challenge all along Russia's southern flank. Better to have NATO stop the jihadists...
...while Russia can't afford for NATO to fail in Afghanistan, it would not be comfortable seeing the U.S. prevail, boosting its position in Moscow's traditional central Asian backyard - where the increasingly competitive geopolitics of energy supplies has ignited a new "great game" battle for influence between the rival powers. While it needs the Taliban to lose, Moscow doesn't necessarily want NATO to win, as such. Instead, it needs the outcome to strengthen Russia's own strategic position in its former Soviet sphere of influence. The Russians have made no secret of their desire to have a greater...