The demonstratively cordial visit of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov to Moscow in early February 2008 underscored the seemingly unstoppable growth of Russia’s influence in Central Asia since mid-2005. The quality of this influence, however, gives ground for concern even among those Western experts who do not readily subscribe to the notion of Russia’s inherent predilection to malignant imperialism. An illustration to these concerns could be seen in the fact that Karimov traveled to Moscow soon after orchestrating his own re-election for the third term and found it opportune to express regret that President Vladimir Putin had not taken his advice to do the same, opting instead for installing Dmitri Medvedev as successor.
Putin’s regime might appear more ‘enlightened’ that Karimov’s despotic rule but the fundamental compatibility between the two post-Soviet political systems is unmistakable, and the decision of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) not to send observers to the March 2008 presidential elections in Russia constitutes a clear testimony of that.
It is very easy to see a straight clash between this authoritarian Entente Cordiale and the US commitment to spreading democracy in the world, which includes a wholehearted support to the so-called ‘colored revolutions’. It does not, however, follow from this empirical evidence that the US and Russian interests in Central Asia are strictly confrontational, as it is sometimes argued in Washington and very often – in Moscow.
