New Vistas for Trans-Caspian Projects
By Stephen Blank
December 10, 2019, the CACI Analyst
The Caspian Convention of August 2018 represented a major step forward in demarcating the Caspian Sea and the rights of littoral states. It also regenerated thinking about large-scale projects to integrate the Caspian basin with European, Chinese, and South Asian markets. This agreement was part of a larger contemporary trend involving China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Russia’s North-South project through Iran and Central Asia to India. However, it will take years of multilateral economic, technological, and political efforts to implement these visions and despite the optimistic dreams fostered by the Caspian convention, there will be many disappointments on the road to realizing them.
History Repeats Itself: Uzbekistan's New Eurasian Gamble
By Farkhod Tolipov
November 22, 2019, the CACI Analyst
During an official visit to Tashkent on October 2, 2019, the Speaker of the Federal Council of the Russian Federation, Valentina Matvienko, stated that Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev had decided to resolve the question of Uzbekistan’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). If Tashkent actually decides to join, this will be the most dramatic and fateful geopolitical turn in Uzbekistan’s post-Soviet history, since it will signify the transformation of a non-Eurasian country to an Eurasian one. This is, indeed, a moment of truth for Uzbekistan and its foreign policy since it will require public support and a clear explanation of the country’s national interests.
Kazakhstan's President Visits China Amid Troubles at Home
By Natalia Konarzewska
November 12, 2019, the CACI Analyst
On September 11-12, Kazakhstan’s new President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev paid his first official visit to China, aiming to upgrade bilateral ties and generate more Chinese investment in the country. Yet the official rosy picture of flourishing bilateral relations is clouded by the plight of ethnic Kazakhs inhabiting China’s Xinjiang region and the social and environmental concerns surrounding Chinese investments in Kazakhstan. For the past several years, China’s economic clout in the country has been growing but social attitudes towards China have simultaneously deteriorated rapidly, resulting in a rise of anti-Chinese sentiment and protests – the latest taking place in Kazakhstan’s major cities in early September. Moreover, Kazakhstan is undergoing a political transition process which makes the country even more vulnerable to the strong influence of its eastern neighbor.
Emerging North Caucasus Civil Society Presents New Challenges for Authorities
By Neil Hauer
November 8, 2019, the CACI Analyst
The summer of 2019 saw a crackdown on civil society across the North Caucasus. Ingushetia experienced the most severe repressions, with more than 30 individuals still detained, but Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria experienced arrests as well. The proximate causes of the crackdown varied among the three republics, but all reflected the fact that a region-wide civil society has flourished since the near-end of the former Islamist insurgency. Authorities are evidently unprepared to deal with this new challenge, and forceful measures against their new, nonviolent opponents have proven ineffective at best.
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.