The Eurasian Union Flunks Its Stress Test
By Stephen Blank
April 27, 2020, the CACI Analyst
Crises are often telling indicators of an institution’s fitness. The Coronavirus pandemic is currently putting governments and regional institutions like the EU under profoundly challenging stress tests. Another such regional institution is the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which Russian President Vladimir Putin and its champions have claimed is organized along the lines of the EU. Whatever the EU’s successes or failures, it is clear that the EEU has failed to display even a semblance of the EU’s cohesion. Moscow has simply disregarded the interests of its partners and pursued a sharply unilateralist policy that seriously complicated if not threatened its partners’ economies, particularly in Central Asia.
Armenia Seeks Re-Energized Ties with Georgia
By Natalia Konarzewska
April 15, 2020, the CACI Analyst
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited Georgia on March 3-4 to discuss bilateral relations and held several high-profile meetings with top politicians including his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Gakharia and president Salome Zurabishvili. This is Pashinyan’s third visit to Georgia since he assumed office in 2018, following a peaceful power shift ousting the previous unpopular regime. His government has made a broader effort to reinvigorate ties with Georgia. Despite fundamentally different geopolitical outlooks and various challenges, Tbilisi and Yerevan have maintained good neighborly relations based on political pragmatism. Yet their partnership still has room for improvement.
Iran's COVID-19 and Pakistan's Vulnerability
By Umair Jamal
April 13, 2020, the CACI Analyst
Pakistan’s Corona virus cases have doubled over the past few days after hundreds of pilgrims returning from Iran tested positive. In response to the Pakistani government’s attempt to impose a lockdown on thousands of Shias at the Iran-Pakistan border, the community has vowed to start a mass movement against the state. Pakistan’s Iran border has become its single biggest security threat with regional and global implications. Given that Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state with a weakening economy, a weak health care system, a controversial regional security policy and a blooming militant landscape, the region and the world at large should follow developments in the country closely.
Central Asia Nervously Awaits Withdrawal of Foreign Militaries from Afghanistan
By John C. K. Daly
April 8, 2020, the CACI Analyst
After 18 months of negotiations, the U.S. and the Taliban signed their bilateral landmark “peace agreement” in Doha on February 29, alongside representatives from more than 30 nations. Afghanistan’s northern neighboring post-Soviet states, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, are concerned whether Afghanistan’s post-ceasefire instability will intensify and subsequently spill across the borders after foreign military missions withdraw. If the unrest roiling Afghanistan erupts into open military confrontation following the departure of foreign military forces, the question is whether the three nations alone can mount an acceptable response, particularly Turkmenistan whose international neutrality stance is recognized by the United Nations.
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.