HYPER-TERRORISM VS. HYPER-POWER: COMING TO TERMS WITH ASYMMETRY
By Maria Sultan (12/5/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Asymmetry of firepower has always been both a goal in itself and a method of war for powerful states, who have felt the desire to have a leading edge over their adversaries’ capacity to fight. However, the logic of the use of asymmetry of power in itself understandably leads to an asymmetric response by the weaker party. The most obvious examples of different actors turning to fight such asymmetric wars, from the American perspective, is the Viet Cong, which in the early stages of the conflict was repeatedly defeated by overwhelming US power, but turned it into an eventual success due to its use of asymmetric methods of war, making use of terrain, local population, ambushes, i.
ECOLOGICAL SECURITY: AN URGENT NECESSITY FOR CENTRAL ASIA
By Jyldyz Sydygalieva (12/5/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: During the Soviet era, the Kyrgyz Republic was a major source of uranium for both military and industrial purposes. There are approximately 130 sites in Kyrgyzstan containing about 620 million cubic meters of waste products that were buried during the Soviet time, mostly from the mining industry. About half of these sites contain waste from nuclear production - an industry that most Kyrgyz citizens were not aware had existed within their territory because it was kept a secret by the Soviet authorities.
GOVERNMENT CRISIS IN KAZAKHSTAN: WARM-UP FOR THE SUCCESSION TO NAZARBAEV?
By Robert M. Cutler (12/5/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: After Kazakhstan unwillingly obtained its independence upon the disintegration of the Soviet regime, Nazarbaev tacitly proclaimed war against the bloated state bureaucracy he inherited, which also constituted a potential opposition power base. After the first post-Soviet parliament was elected in 1994, on the basis of the country's first post-Soviet constitution, lobbies and alliances began to emerge between parliamentary groupings on the one hand, and the lower and middle ranks of the ministerial structures on the other. Nazarbaev engineered the parliament's dissolution in 1994 when, on the basis of an accusation of electoral fraud by an anti-Nazarbaev candidate in a single electoral district, the Constitutional Court ruled the entire parliament to be illegal.
ARMENIA AND CASPIAN OIL PIPELINES
By Tigran Martirosyan (8/29/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Armenia’s geographic location as a potential transit center between the energy-rich Caspian states and western markets lends it strategic importance to world energy markets, and poses unique challenges to the goal of energy security in the region. As some countries in the Caspian region expand their oil and gas production and international export of these products, Armenia appears to be well situated to take advantage of these developments. Indeed, participating in the expanding network of oil and gas export is important, as the nation seeks to strengthen its own economy and political presence in the region.
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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.