Central Asia 16 - PONARS Eurasia

The International Community’s Elusive Search for Common Ground in Central Asia

At a closed-door, high-level gathering in Paris in 2008, the United Nations’ special representative to Afghanistan urged ministers from Eurasia, the Middle East, and South Asia to jointly tackle common…

The Logic of Kyrgyzstan’s Base Policy

Kyrgyzstan’s February 2009 decision to close the U.S. military base at the country’s Manas airfield caught many by surprise. The decision was not preceded by domestic debate about a possible…

The Kyrgyz Crisis and the Political Logic of Central Asia’s Weak Regional Security Organizations

For the second time in five years, political events in Kyrgyzstan shook the Central Asia region and caught the international community off-guard. In early April 2010, a few sporadic protests…

China’s Challenges in Central Asia: Fallout from the Georgian War, the Financial Crisis, and the Xinjiang Riots

In the past year, China’s Central Asia policy has weathered several external and internal shocks, which have proven to be interconnected in unexpected ways. Although some differences emerged between China…

Tajikistan’s New Trade: Cross-border Commerce and the China-Afghanistan Link

The official Tajik narrative on cross-border relations with Afghanistan focuses on security concerns, namely the spread of drug trafficking and Islamic militancy. Presenting these threats as entirely external in origin…

Three Perspectives on Political Islam in Central Asia

This memo explores political Islam in Central Asia from three perspectives: that of (1) U.S. government analysts; (2) Central Asian government leaders; and (3) everyday Central Asian Muslims. Drawing on…

Prospects for Islamic Radicalism and Violent Extremism in the North Caucasus and Central Asia

The decision by leaders of the armed separatist movement in Chechnya in the late 1990s to embrace a radical Islamic agenda raised concerns that Islamic terrorist groups would seek to…

Convergence in Post-Soviet Political Systems?: A Comparative Analysis of Russian, Kazakh, and Ukrainian Parliamentary Elections

Next year will mark twenty years since the first more or less free and fair elections were held in the USSR in March 1989. Since then, numerous elections have been…

Energizing the Western Response to Democratic Setbacks in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia

The most recent elections in the three states of the South Caucasus and in Kyrgyzstan have all represented strong setbacks for the development of democracy. While the specific situations are…

The Perennial Partnership: The Global Economic Crisis and Russian-Kazakh Relations

Making up nearly 90 percent of the total area of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Russia and Kazakhstan are also two of the ten largest states in the world.…

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Central Asia