President Bush released his proposed budget for the 2008 fiscal year today, and the Office of Management and Budget has plenty of information on the president’s spending priorities. I would summarize Joshua Kucera’s EurasiaNet article on how Central Asia fares in the budget as “it gets hosed.”
Afghanistan sees a boost in aid, part of which is an increase in anti-drug programs that our own Joshua Foust points out are a wast of money most recently here. Pakistan would see an increase in aid of nearly $300 million to a total of $785 million. That is nearly 30 times what Kyrgyzstan receives under the budget, 28 times what Tajikistan is slated for, and about 135 times what Turkmenistan would receive. As Martha Brill Olcott, whom Kucera interviewed for his story, points out, decreases or tiny increases in already meager aid amounts to Central Asian states certainly will do nothing to stop the slide in US influence in the region.
One part of the president’s proposed budget that really highlights the administration’s abandonment of a decent Central Asia policy is its funding of foreign broadcasts. The president’s international budget priorities document (PDF) says the following in the section on “spreading hope and freedom around the world.”
Winning the war of ideas: Promoting democracy and countering violent extremism through improving the world’s understanding of the United States and improving our understanding of the world is a critical component of the Global War on Terror. The President’s Budget funds broad outreach to developing and oppressed countries around the world through international broadcasting, exchanges, and public diplomacy.
Toward that end, the president proposed $668 million for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which the BBG informs the public is a 3.8% increase from FY2007. But, the administration is prioritizing things like broadcasts to Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea in addition to the more expected increases to Arabic and Persian broadcasting. To pay for these increases, broadcasting to certain parts of the world will suffer cuts. The losers in Central Asia are Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Under the proposed budget, Voice of America broadcasts in Uzbek would be axed while RFE/RL broadcasting in Kazakh would be reduced.
None of this is set in stone. Congress must first approve the budget. Senators Brownback and McCain, both of whom are running for president, have been occasional advocates for more attention to Central Asia while Representative Smith has been one of the most vocal members of the House on US policy toward Central Asia. One can hope that they will try to keep the administration from pushing Central Asia to the wayside.
But before getting anyone’s hope up, consider the following.
The 2008 Budget is the first developed under a new foreign assistance framework which improves accountability, transparency, and strategic coherence of U.S. foreign aid.
The one bit of “strategic coherence” that one can clearly draw out from the president’s proposed aid to Central Asia is that the White House cannot be bothered to worry about a policy for the region. So, even with more aid, one should not expect the administration to follow through with diplomacy.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.