ENERGY SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF POST-NIYAZOV TURKMENISTAN
By Christopher Boucek (1/10/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: On December 21, it was announced that President-for-life Niyazov had died during the night. Many observers nevertheless believe the announcement was delayed for some time until succession issues were worked out. The creation of the State Security Council to oversee the transition; the immediate appointment of Deputy Prime Minister Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to be acting president; the abrupt investigation and subsequent arrest of the constitutionally mandated successor Khalk Mazhles Speaker Ovezgeldy Atayev; and the sudden organization of large scale commemoration events all suggest prior coordination and that Niyazov may actually have died some time earlier.TURKMENISTAN\'S SUCCESSION: WELCOME TO BERDYMUHAMMEDOV\'S WORLD
By Slavomir Horak (1/10/2007 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: On December 21, 2006, Turkmenistan woke up to a very strange morning. The first and life president, who had been able to decide about the fate of any Turkmenistani, was no more. His nation was as abandoned as an orphan after the earthquake that devastated Ashgabat in 1948 “much like Niyazov himself, in other words.RUSSIAN INVESTMENTS IN ARMENIA: THEIR ECONOMIC BACKGROUND AND POSSIBLE POLITICAL IMPACT
By Haroutiun Khachatrian (12/13/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Russia is the largest source country of investments in the economy of Armenia, (US$405 million between 1996 and 2005) which is significant for this small country. As a result, a significant part of the country’s economic assets are controlled by Russians, both by the government and state-owned companies, and by private Russian companies. The bulk of the former group of assets came from the 2002 debt-for-equity swap, whereby Armenia repaid its US$97 million dollar debt to Russia accumulated during the crisis of 1990s.NEEDED: A U.S. BLACK SEA STRATEGY
By Ariel Cohen and Conway Irwin (12/13/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The Wider Black Sea region is a patchwork of overlapping political areas and spheres of influence. Bulgaria and Romania are NATO members and soon-to-be EU members. Ukraine is caught between the West and Russia.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.