BACKGROUND: After 1991 India was jolted economically and politically into forging a coherent strategy for Central Asia. Indian analysts and officials began to discern not just the Islamic extremist threat orchestrated by Pakistan\'s ISI that could lead, and has since heightened the upsurge of separatist violence in Kashmir, but also perceived an increased sense that China and Pakistan were seeking enhanced influence in Central Asia to \'encircle\' India politically, strategically, and economically. The separatist and terrorist threat that steadily grew in 2000-2002 forcefully brought these dangers to India\'s attention even before September 11. But the crisis with Pakistan that began at the end of 2001 was an even more forceful warning. After the terrorist attacks on India\'s Parliament and in Kashmir, India closed its air space to Pakistan, and the latter retaliated. This action effectively diverted all Indian aerial and overland transport to Central Asia and exposed the dangers of potential isolation from that region, a danger that grew in intensity as India\'s need for additional energy supplies became more obvious. India reacted by being among the first and largest supporters of the Karzai-led government in Afghanistan, dominated by its old allies in the northern alliance, to eliminate the possibility of Pakistani supremacy there. It then negotiated an Indian air base in Tajikistan that allowed it to overcome many of the obstacles placed in its way by Pakistan, and has since worked to augment its power projection capabilities and military influence there by selling weapons to local governments. In a related development, India has used its good relations with the Northern Alliance to open consulates in Jalalabad and Qandahar, just across the Pakistani border, which have apparently been involved in activities unusual to regular consulates, and are clearly intended to counterbalance Pakistan. IMPLICATIONS: While little is known about the air base in Tajikistan, it is reportedly operational and could therefore be used against either Central Asian insurgents, in support of a friendly government, or against Pakistan. This base epitomizes the foreign projection of military power, especially air bases, into Central Asia - often to signify support for Central Asia\'s beleaguered governments. Since most of these bases are air bases, ground forces to defend them will also eventually appear. Moreover, given that India has to fly over the Arabian sea and Iran to reach Central Asia by air, Uzbekistan must be involved in this project and at least approve of it, so that Indian planes can traverse its air space to and from India. There is hence reason to suspect a quid pro quo. India\'s security relationship with Uzbekistan, based on a common antipathy to Islamic radicalism and terrorism, not differentiated by either, is rapidly growing and has clearly deepened since 2001. India is even buying an Ilysuhin-76 from Uzbekistan upon which it apparently intends to mount an Israeli PHALCON, an AWACS-like system to provide reconnaissance capabilities over Central Asia and Pakistan. Indian scholars see India and Uzbekistan as natural allies, who perceive each other as such, as they confront similar threats of Islamic extremism, terrorism, insurgency, separatism, and drugs. Uzbekistan has steadily widened its security discussions with India to include intelligence sharing, military and paramilitary training and joint working groups against terrorism. Thus the Indian base in Tajikistan may not be the last Indian base or remain small. Nor is it inconceivable that it will be the spearhead of India\'s deepening involvement in Central Asian defense. India\'s increased ability and willingness to sell weapons to Central Asian governments similarly parallels Pakistan\'s analogous capability, as both are entering the international arms market to find new export markets and keep defense plants open. India is also likely to provide training and assistance to Central Asian militaries - which Turkey, Russia, China, and the United States already do - and also find in them willing buyers of its weapons, especially those made jointly with Russia. But India has even broader objectives. Because it competes with China in the small arms market and also seeks to penetrate into Southeast Asia and Central Asia, where China seeks to expand its influence, India must compete with China on price and quality in the same categories of weapons. India sells small arms, ammunition, patrol ships, light field guns, trucks, trucks, and aircraft parts to Southeast Asia at reduced prices and with better equipment. Furthermore, over the next decade, India intends to produce weapons system China cannot produce, including an indigenously designed air defense ship, basically a small aircraft carrier. Through subsidies, loans, and higher technology, New Delhi hopes to supplant China as a major regional arms supplier. It can also take advantage of underlying concerns within Southeast Asia regarding China, touting Indian weapons systems as free from the risks of being swallowed by an aggressive China in the future. Also in this strategic context, India\'s leasing of nuclear strategic bombers and nuclear submarines from Russia are aimed as much as a regional great power role as against Pakistan, irritating China. CONCLUSIONS: India\'s activities in Central Asia emulate Moscow, Washington, Ankara, and Beijing, but New Delhi has only begun to display its military instruments of power. As long as security threats remain and Pakistan seeks to obstruct India or use this area as a \'strategic hinterland\' against it, India\'s projection of all forms of military power will likely grow. But that also means Central Asia\'s full entanglement, somewhat against its will, in the Subcontinent\'s security agenda. While economics is at least as important as strategy and defense security to India and Central Asia; we cannot be certain that Central Asia will escape direct involvement in future South Asian crises, or that South Asia can escape involvement in future Central Asian crises. In addition, India\'s increased activity is likely to further strengthen the Chinese-Pakistani alliance. Thus one post-September 11 trend has been to further complicate the already tangled geostrategic situation in both Central and South Asia. And no one knows how to, and no one apparently wants to, unravel those complexities. AUTHOR BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013. The views expressed here do not represent those of the U.S. Army. Defense Department, or the U.S. Government.