MOSCOW AWAITS A TURN OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TIDE
By Pavel K. Baev (6/1/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The chain reaction of spectacular and mostly non-violent ‘revolutions’ started in late 2003 in Georgia when the attempt of the Shevardnadze regime to manipulate elections backfired with such a force that the unpopular president had to step down. Russia had no sympathy whatsoever to Shevardnadze but the new government was certainly far worse from its point of view and the method of regime change through street power was deeply disturbing. In only a few months, the next crisis ripened when Georgia’s new president Mikhail Saakashvili challenged Aslan Abashidze, the autocratic ruler of Ajaria, and forced him out through demonstrations in Batumi backed by a show of military force.IS THE SALAFI-JIHADIST WAY STILL AN OBSTACLE TO RUSSIA IN CHECHNYA?
By Murad Batal al-Shishani (5/18/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Abu Zaid or Abu Omar Al-Kuwaiti, his real name Ahmad Nasser Eid Abdullah Al-Fajri Al-Azimi, was not the only Kuwaiti who joined the Jihad in Chechnya. Many young people from the Persian Gulf went there, and Al-Azimi was one of a group of Kuwaitis with similar biographies. Their journeys started in Afghanistan, Bosnia Herzegovina and then Chechnya.BUSH VISITS GEORGIA TO SUPPORT “THE BEACON OF LIBERTY”
By Khatuna Salukvadze (5/18/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND:Arriving to Tbilisi after attending a Russian military parade in the Red Square, George W. Bush appeared notably relaxed as he tried to tune in to Georgian fiery folk dances. The country gave him an impressive welcome as 150,000 Georgians gathered in Tbilisi’s Freedom Square to listen to the U.KYRGYZSTAN’S ”REVOLUTION”: POPPIES OR TULIPS?
By Svante Cornell and Niklas Swanström (5/18/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: In areas badly affected by organized crime and especially the drug trade, a process has unfolded that is best described as the criminalization of states. Two focal points of this phenomenon can be identified: the Andean region and Central America on the one hand, and the Central/South Asian region on the other. As is well known by now, the Colombian cocaine cartels managed to exert an increasing influence on the country’s politics in the early 1990s, to the extent of financing a successful Presidential election campaign.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.