In former Soviet Central Asia, the U.S. State Department signed a military transit agreement with Kazakhstan and the Defense Department a cooperation agreement with Uzbekistan in the past two weeks. The U.S. and NATO conduct ongoing operations out of bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and, though not publicly acknowledged, Turkmenistan. Earlier this year reports surfaced of plans for the Pentagon to construct new multi-million-dollar training bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The U.S. and NATO are also expanding military exercises, deployments and facilities in the Arctic Ocean in concert against their only rival in the region, Russia. [12]
In return for the steadily advancing deployment of U.S. military personnel and infrastructure to Russia's borders, the Medvedev administration is expanding its accommodation of Pentagon and NATO operations in Central and South Asia by providing ever-broader transit and overflight rights for U.S. and NATO troops and equipment headed to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Last week the U.S. secured a port in Lithuania as the latest transit hub for NATO's Northern Distribution Network to bring supplies and equipment by rail across Russia for the war in Afghanistan. Estonia and Latvia already supply docking facilities for goods coming to the Baltic Sea.
Two years ago Russia granted Germany permission to transit military equipment bound for the German military base in Termez, Uzbekistan and northern Afghanistan. Several years before Russian passengers were forced off a train to provide seats for German troops. German troops in Russia.
After assigning its first troops to NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan recently, on November 12 Kazakhstan signed an agreement with the U.S. that allows American military aircraft to fly across the North Pole and over Kazakhstan to supply U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Kazakhstan is a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and along with Russia and China a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It also shares borders with China and Russia. [13]
Last August U.S. and British troops led a NATO military exercise, Steppe Eagle 2010, in the country.
The new agreement permits the U.S. to send weapons over Kazakh airspace for the first time.
Between the Arctic Ocean and Kazakhstan lies Russia, which had to - and did - agree to the Pentagon flying military aircraft over its territory.
"The new arrangement will also substitute for a previous one under which U.S. military cargo planes flew combat troops and materiel to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where they refueled, and from there to air bases in Kuwait and other destinations in the Persian Gulf, circumventing Iran which forbids American military overflights, and then either directly into the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or to Pakistan." [14] Or from Germany over Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus to the Caspian Sea and western Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan, where cargo was transshipped across Tajikistan to Afghanistan. The Northern Distribution Network also includes sea-land-sea shipments through the South Caucasus: Georgia and Azerbaijan on the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, respectively. Decidedly circuitous - and expensive - routes.
Flying over Russia and Kazakhstan allows U.S. military transport planes to go directly from Alaska to Afghanistan without refueling.
"The new route over the North Pole to Bagram Air Base, the military's main air hub in Afghanistan, will allow troops to fly direct from the United States in a little more than 12 hours." [15]
Last April Michael McFaul, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and senior director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the United States National Security Council, said the agreement would also "allow troops to fly directly from the United States over the North Pole to the region" in addition to supplies and equipment. "This will save money; it will save time in terms of moving our troops and supplies needed into the theater." [16]
Additionally, "Chartered passenger jets could leave from Chicago and fly over the North Pole to deliver troops." [17]
Presidents Obama and Medvedev prepared the way for the recent agreement in a verbal commitment on polar overflights in the summer of 2009. "The White House said at the time that the accord would set the stage for 4,500 polar-route flights a year over Russia and Kazakhstan, saving the U.S. government $133 million annually in fuel, maintenance and other transportation costs." [18]
The Obama administration has approved a $708 billion defense budget for next year - the largest in constant dollars since 1946 and over $2,300 for every man, woman and child in the United States - and Russia is kind enough to save it $133 million on the war in Afghanistan. The Medvedev government is even more obliging considering that two of three armed groups the U.S. and NATO are laying waste to Afghanistan in the name of fighting are those of Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who Washington - and its then-CIA deputy director, now defense secretary Robert Gates - funded and armed to kill young Russian and other Soviet conscripts in the 1980s.
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