... as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Their own scale and demographics make absorption and full integration with Russia and Central Asia impossible. At the same time, there are historically strong and fundamental ties between this region and such Central Asian countries as Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. Afghanistan itself is a clear dividing line between East and West, North and South, underpinned by its mountainous topography and complex ethnic composition. An important common task for Russia and the Central Asian states may be to maintain relative ...
... traditional sphere of influence. Central Asia appears to be no less decisive than Belarus or Nagorno-Karabakh in this sense.
Alexander Yermakov:
Challenges to Eurasian Security in the Coming Decade
After the Soviet collapse, Russia has been involved in the Central Asian political disorder first-hand. During the 1990s, a violent civil war struck Tajikistan, while the beginning of the new century started with the US military intervention in Afghanistan. Later on, new ethnic tensions mounted in the Fergana Valley, two revolutions erupted in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan was shocked by the Andjan massacre and by the rise of the Islamic Movement.
A series of issues concerning Russia’s economic stability ...
The Working Group on the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations’ Report
Central Asia stands out as a comparatively “nontoxic” region where there are limited, but not insignificant, opportunities for U.S.-Russia collaboration both bilaterally and within multilateral frameworks: in the space industry, civil security, job-creation ...
... format? It has been since 2001 that the USA was deeply involved in the regional affairs in terms of anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan and the creation of Northern Distribution Network. The U.S. and Uzbekistan were in close cooperation on Afghan issue, Kyrgyzstan was hosting Manas Air Base that closed only in 2014, and Tajikistan hosted the Ainy facility. USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, is actively operating in Central Asia, and the U.S. is one of the major donors in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. has been implementing the New Silk Road initiative ...
