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Editor's Note
Nicklas Norling
Among the many significant developments in the wider Central Asian region (incl. Afghanistan) in the past half year, there are two parallel forces at play which promise to have profound implications for regional stability. Most important is perhaps the inclusion of Afghanistan as a central component in the U.S.-Russia “reset”. Both countries have also stepped up their activities in Afghanistan. While the U.S. is sending an additional 50.000 troops to the country, Russia has boosted humanitarian aid, political contacts, and investments in Afghanistan (...)
Why Does China Have No Business in Central Asia?
Martin C. Spechler
Although China is very active in trying to secure energy and some other raw materials from Central Asia, there is no significant organized private business activity in any of the five post-Soviet countries there. This reflects both a lack of commercially attractive articles for exchange and the domination of state trading on both sides of the border. "Staple globalism" in Central Asia does not look to Asia; China is not yet developing foreign business capabilities (...)
The Militarization of the Caspian Sea: “Great Games” and “Small Games” Over the Caspian Fleets
Marlène Laruelle and Sébastien Peyrouse
The militarization of the Caspian sea has considerably increased in the last few years since the post-Soviet states decided to establish their own military naval infrastructure. In a few years from now, new national military fleets, in particular those of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, will position themselves on the regional chessboard. This militarization is supposed to respond to several objectives: the possible perpetration of terrorist attacks on oil rigs and tankers; the protection of commercial ships crossing the sea; the struggle against poaching sturgeon; and the management of emergency climatic situations (...)
When the Bear Confronts the Crescent: Russia and the Jihadist Issue
Didier Chaudet
Central Eurasia has been an important battlefield for jihadists (i.e. violent Islamists) during the last thirty years. The Russian approach to this challenge is of great importance for the stability of the whole area. Indeed, Russia is historically as much a “Muslim” state as a Great Power with a strong influence on its Muslim-populated neighbors. Political and diplomatic choices made in Moscow have a direct impact on the evolution of the fight against violent political Islam in Central Eurasia. It seems that within its borders as well as in the whole area, the Kremlin does not fully comprehend the jihadist issues it confronts (...)
Restoring India's Silk Route Links with South and Central Asia across Kashmir: Challenges and Opportunities
Mushtaq A. Kaw
The Indian sub-continent was historically linked to Central Asia through two major overland corridors, one across Kabul, Afghanistan, in the South and another through Kashmir in the North. The trans-Kashmir corridor, with diverse sub-corridors, was symbolic of relative peace, prosperity, cross-cultural and ideological fertilization and human security until late 1940s. Unfortunately, it ruptured in 1947 with the division of the Indian sub-continent into India and Pakistan, and was further affected by the Indo-Chinese and Indo-Pakistan wars in the 1960s and 1970s. India’s overland connections with her northern neighborhood came to a standstill to the detriment of its diverse socio-cultural and politico-economic interests (...)
Organized Crime in Central Asia: A Threat Assessment
Saltanat Berdikeeva
The threat of organized crime in Central Asia emerged most clearly in Kyrgyzstan in the wake of the 2005 power change. Despite its surfacing from the shadow, organized crime in Kyrgyzstan has existed before 2005, while much of its context and many of its elements are replicated in the criminal underworld of its neighboring countries, albeit to differing degrees. A confluence of negative factors, such as autocracy, “institutionalized” crime, widespread corruption, deteriorating quality of life, inadequate law enforcement capabilities, and a lack of the rule of law, has created fertile grounds for the growth of organized crime in Central Asia (...)
