A FEDERATED AFGHANISTAN?
By S. Frederick Starr (11/7/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BAKGROUND: Like all its neighbors, including Iran and Pakistan, Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic land. Pashtuns are the largest group and Tajiks a distant second, followed by Hazaras, Uzbeks, and Turkmens. Obviously, any government that is to be legitimate must be organized in such a way as to assure fair representation for all.
THE TURKMEN CHALLENGE
By Stephen Blank (7/3/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Since independence in 1991, Niyazov has ruled Turkmenistan with an iron hand and through a suffocating and omnipresent cult of personality. This dictatorship, evidently far worse than the preceding generation of Soviet rule, has brought Turkmenistan to the brink of disaster and also apparently triggered substantial, if not yet overt, mass and elite disaffection. There is a virtual absence of civil society, and if reports by dissidents are true, there also is a high degree of likelihood of a failing state in the event of a transfer of power.THE NORTH – SOUTH TRANSPORT CORRIDOR
By Regine A. Spector (7/3/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Existing organizations that promote regional infrastructure and transit routes in Central Asia such as the EU’s TRACECA project and the GUUAM organization have excluded Iran or Russia. In response, these two countries have since the late 1990s sought to create alternative transport routes by restoring Soviet era ties and developing port and rail infrastructure. Two years ago, Russia, Iran and India signed an agreement in St.CENTRAL ASIA BEYOND NAMANGANI
By Ariel Cohen (11/21/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: On November 19, Northern Alliance commander Abdurrashid Dostum (an ethnic Uzbek) announced that Juma Namangani, the legendary head of the IMU, was killed in heavy fighting around the Northern Afghani city of Kunduz. Until the fall of 2001, the IMU represented the most dangerous military challenge to the secular regime of the Uzbek president Islam Karimov, and to other Central Asian states like Kyrgyzstan. In 1999, under Namangani's leadership, the IMU allegedly conducted terrorist acts in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, and in 1999 and 2000 repeatedly infiltrated the mountainous areas of southern Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
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Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.
Analysis Svante E. Cornell, "Promise and Peril in the Caucasus," AFPC Insights, March 30, 2023.
Oped S. Frederick Starr, Putin's War In Ukraine and the Crimean War), 19fourtyfive, January 2, 2023
Oped S. Frederick Starr, Russia Needs Its Own Charles de Gaulle, Foreign Policy, July 21, 2022.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Rethinking Greater Central Asia: American and Western Stakes in the Region and How to Advance Them, June 2022
Oped Svante E. Cornell & Albert Barro, With referendum, Kazakh President pushes for reforms, Euractiv, June 3, 2022.
Oped Svante E. Cornell Russia's Southern Neighbors Take a Stand, The Hill, May 6, 2022.
Silk Road Paper Johan Engvall, Between Bandits and Bureaucrats: 30 Years of Parliamentary Development in Kyrgyzstan, January 2022.
Oped Svante E. Cornell, No, The War in Ukraine is not about NATO, The Hill, March 9, 2022.
Analysis Svante E. Cornell, Kazakhstan’s Crisis Calls for a Central Asia Policy Reboot, The National Interest, January 34, 2022.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, Strong and Unique: Three Decades of U.S.-Kazakhstan Partnership, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, December 2021.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, S. Frederick Starr & Albert Barro, Political and Economic Reforms in Kazakhstan Under President Tokayev, November 2021.