PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Baltic States Are Also Worried About Russia

    View
  • International Society Must Act in the Wake of Russia’s Failed Opposition

    View
  • The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Did Russia Put Its Geopolitical Glasses Back On? It Never Took Them Off in the First Place

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика
  • PONARS Eurasia

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

  • July 23, 2012
  • George Gavrilis

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 security challenges and identify achievable projects to assist Afghanistan and improve the security of the broader region. Officials from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan enthusiastically proposed a series of win-win projects and resolved to work together to fight the drug trade, share intelligence to combat terrorism, and build roads, rails, pipelines, and bridges to Afghanistan.

After the conference, Central Asian officials did a unilateral about-face. The Uzbek ambassador publically complained about Afghanistan’s “narco-aggression.” Tajik officials expressed continued willingness to help Afghanistan so long as that meant that the international community would fund bridges, electric grids, dams, and roads in Tajikistan. Since the Paris gathering, Afghanistan has further deteriorated and the Central Asian states are arguably no more and no less cooperative when it comes to so-called “win-win” regional projects.

A good look at such regional initiatives demonstrates modest returns on donor investment. Indeed, these returns are overshadowed by Central Asian governments’ resilient resistance to cooperating with one another even in the face of mutual security threats. The particular interests of Central Asian regimes largely drive how security assistance is absorbed, channeled, and used. Officials in Central Asian capitals have managed to secure funding and participate in hot-button regional security initiatives while maintaining mistrust and severe cooperation deficits with one another.

It is time for international stakeholders to rethink their approach to security assistance to Central Asia. This policy memo briefly discusses the status and stakes behind internationally-sponsored initiatives in Central Asia on counter-terrorism, trafficking, and Afghanistan’s recovery and proposes ways to retool policy for more effective results. It suggests ways to better coordinate and implement international security assistance. More importantly, it argues that security-sector aid should be diverted to the Central Asian governments most likely to put it to good use. […]

More (PDF)

Memo #:
137
Series:
2
PDF:
pepm_137.pdf
PDF URL:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/ponars/pepm_137.pdf
George Gavrilis
Website | + posts
Independent Consultant
Links

Personal Website
Expertise

International Relations, Boundaries, Higher Education, Oral History, Middle East, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Turkey
  • George Gavrilis
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/george-gavrilis/
    Are Eurasian Conflicts Really All That Eurasian? Lessons for Scholars and Policymakers
  • George Gavrilis
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/george-gavrilis/
    The Cold War, Post-Cold War, and the Academy: Policy Recommendations from an Oral History of Russian and Eurasian Studies
  • George Gavrilis
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/george-gavrilis/
    Hot-Button Central Asian Border Issues
  • George Gavrilis
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/george-gavrilis/
    Границы Средней Азии: Следующие двадцать пять лет
Related Topics
  • Afghanistan
  • Central Asia
  • Gavrilis
  • Middle East
  • Tajikistan
  • United States
Previous Article
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

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

  • July 23, 2012
  • Serghei Golunov
View
Next Article
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика
  • PONARS Eurasia

An Interactive Planning Approach to Shaping U.S.-Russia Relations

  • July 23, 2012
  • Dmitry Gorenburg
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

The Limits of Authoritarian Learning: Deconstructing Kazakhstan’s 2022 Coup Attempt

  • Azamat Junisbai
  • May 20, 2022
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

The Expanding Russian Cossack Movement: A Social Base for Putinism

  • Richard Arnold
  • May 18, 2022
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Is Putin’s Popularity (Still) Real? A Cautionary Note on Using List Experiments to Measure Popularity in Authoritarian Regimes

  • Timothy Frye, Scott Gehlbach, Kyle L. Marquardt and Ora John Reuter
  • May 3, 2022
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Russia’s Right-Wing Reactions to the War

  • Katharina Bluhm and Mihai Varga
  • April 28, 2022
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Time to Question Russia’s Imperial Innocence

  • Botakoz Kassymbekova and Erica Marat
  • April 27, 2022
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Witnessing Ukraine, Watersheds in the Balkans

  • Veljko Milonjic
  • April 25, 2022
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Similarities Stain the Kremlin’s Warfare on Chechens and Ukrainians

  • Marat Iliyasov and Yoshiko Herrera
  • April 24, 2022
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Rebuilding Ukraine: Pre-War Trends and Post-War Priorities Should Inform the Process

  • Ralph Clem and Erik Herron
  • April 18, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.