Former US and Kazakh presidents, Donald Trump and Nursultan Nazarbayev, at the joint press statements during Nazarbayev's visit to Washington D.C. in 2018. Screenshot from the video “President Trump Participates in Joint Press Statements with President Nursultan Nazarbayev” from the Trump White House Archived YouTube channel. Fair use.

In June, George Krol, a former US ambassador to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, shared his memories of working in these two Central Asian countries, emphasizing his interactions with these states’ first presidents. In the memoir titled “A tale of two first presidents: Islam Karimov and Nursultan Nazarbayev” Krol recounts his conversations with the late Uzbek president Islam Karimov, during which he felt like a “psychiatrist” with Karimov “at times regretting some actions he had done in the past but also explaining his rationale.”

With regards to the former Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Krol describes him as a “natural and practiced charmer, especially with foreigners,” a trait that helped him click with the former US president Donald Trump during their meeting, so much so that Trump jokingly offered Nazarbayev a place on his team.

Krol’s essay was published as part of an initiative launched by Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Within its framework, American diplomats who worked in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan recall their memories of working in the region, after these countries gained independence in 1991 following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The memoirs provide a sneak peek into the personalities of Central Asian presidents and animosities between them, help make sense of the US’s shifting policy interests, and explain reasons for success and failure behind major energy and infrastructure projects in the region.

Peaceful transition, nuclear arms, and air bases

Alarmed by the violent aftermath of Yugoslavia’s disintegration, Central Asian states’ peaceful transition to statehood, sovereignty, and territorial integrity was one of the US’s priorities in the early 1990s. Former US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (1994–1997), Eileen Malloy, in her memoir titled “Kyrgyzstan in time of hunger,” explains how this approach wielded tailored assistance programs for each country, which, in the case of Kyrgyzstan, required stabilizing economy and fostering democratic growth.

In parallel, the US engaged with Kazakhstan in nuclear non-proliferation talks, which resulted in Kazakhstan relinquishing its nuclear arms arsenal in return for investment into extracting and exporting its vast natural oil resources. The memoirs also retell how the US-led “War on terror,” which started with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, turned Central Asia from a diplomatic backwater to a strategically important region by offering transit routes and air bases for the US military.

Former US ambassador to Tajikistan (2001–2003) Franklin Huddle’s memoir, titled “9/11: The American discovery of Tajikistan,” offers a detailed account of the negotiation process that secured US an air base in Tajikistan. He shares awkwardness that followed after the US abandoned these plans in favor of maintaining air bases in the neighboring Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan instead.

Successful bridge and failed pipeline

This backtracking on commitments required the US to undertake actions to right the ship and resulted in the construction of the Tajik–Afghan Bridge over the Pyanj river, which was unveiled in 2007. Huddle reveals that he suggested this idea to then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield. In the conversation with Huddle, Rumsfield admitted that the US “owed one to them [Tajikistan],” asked him what it could offer to make up for the diplomatic debacle, and simply nodded after learning the estimated cost (USD 10 million) for the bridge.

Former US ambassador to Turkmenistan (1998–2001), Steven Mann’s memoir titled “In the court of Turkmenbashi” explains why the promising Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline, which envisioned exporting Turkmen gas to Europe via the bed of the Caspian Sea, and then Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, fell through despite having a lot of potential. Mann reveals that the late Niyazov demanded USD 5 billion, which was lowered to USD 3 billion, before the consortium built the pipeline and started exporting gas, and insisted on the revenue from exports being deposited to the government accounts first and then be distributed among the consortium members.

This pair of unrealistic demands expectedly chased away the investors. However, Niyazov stuck by them and later told Mann: “If I had built that pipeline, Russia would have cut off my economy. I needed that money to take care of my people if Russia boycotted us.” Mann acknowledges that the pipeline would indeed undermine Russia’s influence over Turkmenistan. He also attributes Niyazov’s hatred for the late Azeri president Heydar Aliyev as another reason for the failure, since building and maintaining such a pipeline required constant and healthy political dialogue between these leaders.

A fool, physicist, and lover of ornate addresses

Personal relations between Central Asian leaders is another interesting aspect revealed in the memoirs. A recurring theme in them is Karimov’s loathsome attitude and lack of respect towards his regional colleagues. For example, in his memoir titled “Negotiating with Karimov,” former US Ambassador to Uzbekistan (1997–2000) Joseph Pressel shares that Karimov preferred “to discuss his Central Asian peers” over other topics with Pressel and abundantly made it known that “he did not like any of them” and was “particularly scornful of Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan, whom he called a fool, and Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan, of whom he said that he was not even a politician, ‘only a physicist,’” since Akayev was a scientist by training.

Similarly, in his memoir, Krol shares a story of how Karimov took a jab at the Tajik president Emomali Rahmon during their first meeting. When he addressed Karimov with “Your most noble and excellent excellency,” Karimov suddenly stopped him and told him to never address him that way again, instructing to “save this type of fancy greeting for the likes of the Tajik (President) Rahmon,” because he “loves this sort of ornate address.”

Krol also remembers Karimov’s meeting with the former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during which Clinton suggested Karimov to take on the regional leadership role, a request Karimov declined and used it to take a shot at Nazarbayev by saying that the US should offer this to him, since Nazarbayev “LOVES being called a leader.”

In Central Asia, history books are mostly churned out either by the state propaganda machines or presidential memoirs. This results in the politically expedient account of history and endless glorification of the former and current political leaders. In this context, the US diplomats’ memoirs offer a unique, frank, and fresh take on the history of the region. They reveal political, economic, and social challenges these countries faced at the onset of their indepedence, how they sought to address them, and what role US played in these processes whiles pursuing its own interests.