It isn’t Armenia, sure, but the status of American military bases in the neighborhood certainly is topical.

The New York Times did a Q&A on these bases today.

The United States maintains two bases in Central Asia, one each in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, for its postwar operations in Afghanistan. A regional group led by Russia and China has pressured the United States to remove its forces from Central Asia. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in response to recent political tension over the issue with leaders in both Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, traveled to Central Asia July 25 to discuss the U.S. military’s arrangements in the region. The United States says the bases are necessary for its efforts in Afghanistan and claims it does not intend to have a permanent presence in the region.

What are the United States’ goals in the region?

Primarily to uproot the Taliban and other terrorists, administration officials say. But there are other issues of concern, including stemming the flow of drugs, illicit nuclear material, and small arms illicitly crossing borders. The region is also rich in energy resources, and the United States has supported a new oil pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan, Turkey. This has led some to charge that the United States is really after the region’s oil. “[Washington is] killing two birds with one stone,” fighting terrorists while securing energy sources, says Lutz Kleveman, author of The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia. Others say the U.S. presence in Central Asia is aimed more at curbing the influence of Moscow in the region. “A fundamental objective of the U.S. government is to prevent any neo-imperial revival in Eurasia,” says Stephen J. Blank (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/people.cfm?authorID=21), an expert on Central Asia at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute.

Central Asian leaders themselves increasingly accuse Washington of seeking a permanent presence in the region for reasons unrelated to its war on terrorism. At the SCO’s July 5 summit, Uzbek President Islam Karimov, whose government is widely accused of corruption and human-rights abuses, said Washington has “far-reaching geopolitical plans, the final aim of which is to change the balance of power and dominate the Central Asian region.” U.S. officials dispute this claim. “We have no territorial designs,” General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters July 14.

What happens if U.S. forces are asked to leave the region?

It’s unclear. One option, says Robert Legvold of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, is for Washington to begin looking for alternative bases in other Central Asian states, like Georgia or Azerbaijan, although Rumsfeld said earlier in July “we’re not at that point.” Another option, hinted at by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz in a 2002 New York Times interview, is to withdraw the bulk of U.S. troops but maintain facilities in the region to “send a message to everybody, including important countries like Uzbekistan, that [ U.S. forces] have a capacity to come back in and will come back in.” General Odom says U.S. bases in the region are no longer needed for the Afghan campaign. “I wouldn’t risk a lot staying in the region. We don’t have to put a lot of air power over Afghanistan,” which would require the services of Central Asian bases, he says.