THE "BLUE STREAM" GAS PROJECT: NOT A PIPE-DREAM ANYMORE
By Robert M. Cutler (8/1/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: In mid-December 1997 the Turkish prime minister then in office, Mesut Yilmaz, signed an agreement with the erstwhile Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to build the so-called "Blue Stream" natural gas pipeline. Turkish press reports this spring led state prosecutors to examine the process by which the contract for construction of the Turkish segment was awarded, allegedly without tender. Political pressure forced the resignation, on April 26, of Cumhur Ersumer, the energy minister and a member of the Motherland Party, two days after the indictment on charges of corruption of fifteen government officials who, according to press reports, named Ersumer in connection with the probe.
ENDING POPPY GROWING IN AFGHANISTAN: IMPLICATIONS FOR TAJIKISTAN
By Ambassador Grant Smith (8/1/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Opium production in Afghanistan surged at the end of the 1990s, rising to 4600 tons in 1999, or 75 per cent of the world’s total, according to UNDCP estimates. This dramatically increased output was able to reach European markets not only through traditional routes via Pakistan and Iran, but also through the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, especially Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. In 1995, the flow through Tajikistan was in the form of opium, most of which went from the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan through the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan to Osh, in Kyrgyzstan.
RUSSIA AND CHECHNYA: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
By Miriam Lanskoy (8/1/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The war reached a stalemate months ago. The Russian armed forces can't crush the Chechen resistance and, so far, the Chechens have failed to force the Russians to withdraw from the republic. Even if the events of August 1996 repeat themselves, and the Russian military withdraws, Russia again may avoid an outright recognition of Chechnya's independence.
AFGHANISTAN: THE MAKING OF A QUAGMIRE?
By Stephen Blank (12/5/2001 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Of the making of international quagmires there seems to be no end. Afghanistan is only the latest example where governments have failed or disintegrated due to their own belligerence, leaving the international community no choice but to reconstitute public order lest humanitarian disaster and war endlessly ravage it. As in many other previous cases, Afghanistan’s prognosis, despite the undoubted progress of the Bonn conference on establishing a future government, is guarded.
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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.