The chill returns
U.S. military presence in Kyrgyzstan is worrying its Cold-War foes


Marcus Warren
The Daily Telegraph

Dario Lopez-Miles, The Associated Press


Kyrgyzstan has granted the United States freedom to roam within a 4.8-kilometre radius near the Afghan border.


MANAS, Kyrgyzstan - The world's new Pax Americana has few outposts more exotic than Kyrgyzstan, a mere decade ago part of the Soviet Union but now, in one of the most astonishing strategic shifts since the Sept. 11 attacks, a Western stronghold secured and defended by U.S. military might.

Lifting gear, concertina wire and Humvee vehicles, the advance guard of the U.S. garrison, have already been deployed at the main civilian airport in this tiny country occupying an obscure corner of Central Asia.

Later this month, French Mirage ground attack planes and U.S. Marine Corps FA-18 Hornets will join them as part of a strike force for use in Afghanistan.

The activity is a source of growing unease for neighbouring Russia and China.

About 3,000 foreign troops will be resident at the Manas air base by spring, but U.S. soldiers are already making their presence felt -- in military parlance "establishing a footprint" -- in the surrounding tumbledown settlements.

The post-Soviet era can have yielded few sights odder than armed U.S. troops, in the desert camouflage ordered by the Pentagon for use in Operation Enduring Freedom, tramping through the snowbound Kyrgyz village of Polevoye.

"We are just walking through," Staff Sergeant Doug Austin, the patrol leader, told bemused villagers through a local woman interpreter speaking Russian. "We want to make friends and meet the neighbours. We don't want you to be afraid of us."

"They are big and bad," giggled Ivan Tinikov, a cheeky 13-year-old, imitating a machine-gun. "Will they be doing any shooting?"

To enhance the surreal quality of the scene in an area that for years was a closed zone to the West, the patrol included a British officer from the RAF Regiment, in khaki rather than tan fatigues. He approved of U.S. efforts to fraternize with the local people.

"Getting out and talking to people is something new for them," Squadron Leader Andrew Jones. said.

"Normally they lock a base down and draw a line around it, saying they will shoot if it is crossed."

The only threat encountered by this patrol was a volley of snowballs from children. The U.S. soldiers handed out candies to the boys and girls, one each.

The Kyrgyz authorities have granted their foreign guests freedom to roam as they please within a 4.8-kilometre radius.

Apart from the U.S. planes already dwarfing Russian-made passenger jets on the tarmac, the patrols have to safeguard a 14-hectare tent city soon to be home to troops from a dozen countries as different as South Korea, Poland and Norway. But security here is relatively relaxed.

For the 400 U.S. troops already in place, the tour of duty is beginning to drag.

A handwritten sign at the gates identified the base as "Camp Punxsutawney," a tribute to the home of the U.S. equivalent of Wiarton Willie.

How much longer they and their comrades-in-arms will stay is a matter of anxious speculation in Russia, nervous at the United States' increasingly forceful presence in an oil-rich region it regards as its backyard.

Even supporters of President Vladimir Putin's alliance with the West against Islamic terror point to the fact Russia recently closed bases in Cuba and Vietnam, while the U.S. military deploys on former Soviet territory.

China, too, has a right to feel uneasy.

Its border with this mountainous country of fewer than five million is 320 kilometres away. It is far closer to Manas airport than is Afghanistan.

"There is one great power in this region that can oppose the U.S.," said Alexander Kim, a Kyrgyz military expert. "I don't think that this base is connected to strategic planes to the south as much as to China."

The U.S. build-up is one of the most remarkable signs of the changing world order since the end of the Cold War.

Kyrgyzstan, with neighbouring Tajikistan, was a part of the Soviet Union that wanted independence least of all.

Economically impoverished, it was more than happy to be in Russia's sphere of influence -- until the events of last fall put it on the front line in the war against terrorism.

Foreign troops will soon make up at least a quarter of the military manpower on Kyrgyz soil and Kyrgyz officials are enthusiastic about the deployment.

They hope it will deter Islamic guerrillas who have clashed with security forces in recent years, and boost the debt-ridden economy.

Critics of the Kyrgyz government fear the United States has given it carte blanche to repress opposition in return for backing the war.

The choice of Manas -- agreed on after the fighting in Afghanistan passed its peak -- was a "nuts-and-bolts" decision, dictated by its excellent state of maintenance, the Americans insist.

"This is not a permanent operation but a temporary one," said Col Bill Montgomery, the U.S. air force officer in charge of setting up the base.

"But we will be here for as long as it takes. We are planning on an extended stay."

His words will be scant comfort for Moscow and Beijing.