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.
THE SHATTERING OF THE SINO-RUSSIAN ENTENTE OVER THE SHAPE OF CENTRAL ASIA?
By Robert M. Cutler (11/21/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Uzbekistan is a weathervane of Central Asian geopolitics. In 1995, as part of its recurrent diplomatic competition with Kazakhstan, the country won designation as a ‘strategic partner’ of the United States. After Kazakhstan was granted the same honor a few years later, Uzbekistan replied by joining the GUAM (Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-Moldova) entente, turning it into GUUAM.
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Joint Center Publications
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Modernization and Regional Cooperation in Central Asia: A New Spring, November 2018.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, ed., Uzbekistan’s New Face, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Article Svante E. Cornell, “Turkish-Saudi Rivalry: Behind the Khashoggi Affair,” The American Interest, November 6, 2018.
Article Mamuka Tsereteli, “Landmark Caspian Deal Could Pave Way for Long-Stalled Energy Projects,” World Politics Review, September 2018.
Article Halil Karaveli, “The Myth of Erdoğan’s Power,” Foreign Affairs, August 2018.
Book Halil Karaveli, Why Turkey is Authoritarian, London: Pluto Press, 2018.
Article Svante E. Cornell, “Erbakan, Kısakürek and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018.
Article S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, “Uzbekistan: A New Model for Reform in the Muslim World,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, May 12, 2018.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, Religion and the Secular State in Kazakhstan, April 2018.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, The Long Game on the Silk Road: US and EU Strategy for Central Asia and the Caucasus, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Article Svante E. Cornell, “Central Asia: Where Did Islamic Radicalization Go?,” Religion, Conflict and Stability in the Former Soviet Union, eds Katya Migacheva and Bryan Frederick, Arlington, VA: RAND Corporation, 2018.