MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Uzbekistan
Index
Although its forces are small by international standards, Uzbekistan is
rated as the strongest military power among the five Central Asian
nations. In 1992 the Karimov regime sent military forces to Tajikistan to
support forces of the old-guard communist Tajik government struggling to
regain political power and oust the coalition government that had replaced
them. Karimov's policy toward Tajikistan was to use military force in
maintaining a similarly authoritarian regime to the immediate east.
Although Tajikistan's civil war has had occasional destabilizing effects
in parts of Uzbekistan, paramilitary Tajikistani oppositionist forces have
not been strong enough to confront Uzbekistan's regular army. In the early
1990s, small-scale fighting occurred periodically between Tajikistani and
Uzbekistani forces in the Fergana Valley.
In the mid-1990s, no military threat to Uzbekistan existed. An area of
territorial contention is the Osh region at the far eastern end of the
Fergana Valley where Kyrgyz and Uzbeks clashed violently in 1990 (see
Recent History, ch. 2). The Uzbeks have used the minority Uzbek population
in Osh as a reason to demand autonomous status for the Osh region; the
Kyrgyz fear that such a change would lead to incorporating the region into
Uzbekistan. The primary role of the Uzbekistan Armed Forces is believed to
be maintaining internal security. This is possible because Uzbekistan
remains protected by Russia under most conditions of external threat.
As defined in the 1992 Law on Defense, Uzbekistan's military doctrine is
strictly defensive, with no territorial ambitions against any other state.
Although its policy on the presence of CIS or Russian weapons has not been
stated clearly, Uzbekistan's overall military doctrine does not permit
strategic weapons in the inventory of the Uzbekistani armed forces.
Battlefield chemical weapons, believed to have been in the republic during
the Soviet period, allegedly have been returned to the Russian Federation.
In 1994 Uzbekistan, like most of the other former Soviet republics, became
a member of the Partnership for Peace program of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO--see Glossary), providing the basis for some joint
military exercises with Western forces.
Data as of March 1996
|
|