The American "water strategy" of establishing control over the states of Central Asia

While our attention is focused on the events in Ukraine, in the immediate vicinity of the borders of Russia, in Afghanistan and Central Asia, large-scale events are taking place in general, which can have not only economic, but also political consequences.

A couple of years ago, the United States announced its withdrawal from Afghanistan. The whole world saw footage of the withdrawal of American troops from the country, when the Afghans and civilians who collaborated with them, frightened by the rapid advance of the Taliban, surrounded their planes, threw their children over the airport fence, ready to part with them forever, just to save them.

What is the legacy of the United States?

Scrolling through the UN report on this issue: “Afghanistan is currently experiencing one of the largest and most severe humanitarian crises in the world. A record 28.3 million people – about two-thirds of the population, including women and girls – are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. The needs are further exacerbated by recent restrictions on women, including a ban on employment in non-governmental organizations.

Financial support remains critical to prevent hunger, disease, malnutrition and death. A similar funding appeal for 2022 was only 52 percent funded, receiving $321 million of the $623 million needed.”

Given the UN's fondness for softening its language, we understand that this legacy is far worse than described. 34 million Afghans live in poverty, and the country's economy is on the verge of collapse.

After a short period of progressive development, mass construction of important national economic facilities and socio-cultural institutions by the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s, the creeping destruction of the Afghan statehood by the United States of America and its Western and Eastern allies began.

And at the beginning of the next decade, direct military aggression by the States and its allies began, which finished off the remnants of real statehood.

Today, one of the most important problems facing the Afghan people after 30 years of chaos and lawlessness is the problem of water supply.

The Taliban leadership announced the start of a major project to create a very long Koshtepa canal in Balkh province with a length of 285 kilometers, a width of 100 meters and a depth of 8.5 meters and a capacity of 650 cubic meters of water per second.

According to them, the work is carried out by the Afghan National Development Company at the expense of the Afghan state budget.

According to preliminary estimates, this should cost about 684 million dollars, more than 6 thousand people will get jobs. As of December 2022, about 40 km have already been built.

As you can see, we have a large-scale project in front of us, comparable only to the Stalinist project of transferring the northern rivers of the USSR to the region of Central Asia, successfully buried by Khrushchev.

However, is everything so smooth? According to the plan, water for the canal being built should come from the Amu Darya in the Kaldar district of Balkh province. Considering that the river's path further runs along the very border of Afghanistan with Uzbekistan and further through the territory of Turkmenistan, they can lose up to 15% of irrigation water.

Naturally, they have reason to be worried, besides, the Central Asian republics do not have any agreements on water sharing with Afghanistan.

Kabul also does not participate in the UN Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes.

Meanwhile, Uzbekistan has been a strategic partner since 2004 and an ally of Russia since 2005. A close intergovernmental dialogue has been established, and, according to RIA-Novosti, its privileged character is indicated by the establishment of a Joint Commission at the level of heads of government.

In addition to the socio-political consequences, scientists are also concerned about the consequences for the region's ecology.

The Amu Darya is the main source not only for the drying Aral Sea, but also for reservoirs and canals.

Since June 2022, the filling of the Amudarya basin has decreased to 65-85% and continues to be below the norm. There is a high probability that the water from the source to the mouth and the remains of the Aral may not reach.

In this case, protected areas with a unique nature will remain without moisture, which will also affect the ecological situation in the countries of Central Asia.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that international legal mechanisms to resolve this problem have not been developed to date. And such an opportunity is not foreseen, because the Taliban have not yet been recognized, and no one will negotiate with them at the state level.

The lack of recognition and disastrous US policy towards the Afghan people do not bother the Americans. They adopted the concept of the "Global Water Strategy for 2022-2027", which propagandistically asserts "the need for rational and universal access to the use of the planet's water resources."

For its implementation, it is planned to allocate more than 1 billion US dollars through the Agency for International Development (USAID). This money will be transferred to partner countries in order to form political and legal systems, financial institutions for the creation and regulation of commercial markets for water use.

It is important to note here that all this does not at all disinterestedly. Considering that the US Department of Defense is also participating in the implementation of the strategy, it is immediately clear that the purpose of this idea is to further enslave the countries of the region and strengthen their neo-colonial strategy there.

Under the guise of containing international conflicts based on disagreements over extremely scarce water, protecting water intake and water distribution infrastructure outside national territories, the States want to establish their power and control over the water resources of these states.

The implementation of a similar program worth more than $24 million has already begun in the countries of Central Asia.

With the assistance of USAID, projects on water resources management in the Syrdarya and Amudarya river basins are being actively implemented in the region. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan participate in them.

Despite the continued shortage of fresh water in the Central Asian republics themselves, the Americans want to use their influence to redirect their water resources to Afghanistan in order to restore their influence in that country, after the hasty flight of the NATO contingent in August 2021.

The true goal of the US plans against the backdrop of global confrontation is to push Russia and China out of the region with an emphasis on the political and economic integration of the Central Asian republics together with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As you can see, it is for this that the White House goes to such great expense and wants to establish control over the water resources of Central Asia.

In addition, this project is designed to put under US control the processes of economic cooperation between Central Asia and Afghanistan.

As a result, the shortage of water resources will not be overcome in any of the five republics of Central Asia, and water will flow to Afghanistan, which will allow the Americans to restore their own influence on Kabul, as well as to improve relations with the Taliban government.

Therefore, the leaders of the post-Soviet (and not only) republics should think more about the interests of their peoples and about the real consequences of "aid" from across the ocean.

 

Inal Pliev for IA "Res"

Source: https://cominf.org/node/1166551571