Karzai and Obama: Renewing a Marriage or Managing a Divorce?
Richard Weitz (01/23/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)
At their January 11 meeting, Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai pledged renewed cooperation as they transition the lead role in the Afghan War to the Kabul government. But many in Washington and beyond also saw this affair as an attempt to manage, if not a divorce, than at least a separation, as to the two leaders and their countries move off in different directions.
ASTANA AND TASHKENT SPEARHEAD MOVE TO A NEW SECURITY ARCHITECTURE FOR CENTRAL ASIA
By Sergei Gretsky (12/12/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The flurry of regional diplomatic activity in recent months has demonstrated that Central Asia’s two main states, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, are finally taking concrete steps in response to the failure of regional security institutions in Central Asia, and in the direction of working jointly to assume greater responsibility for their own security and reduce security dependence on Russia. The closer alignment between Tashkent and Astana is a novel and crucial development in Central Asian security affairs.
BACKGROUND: Two factors have had a major impact on the way in Central Asian elites approach the issue of regional security.
TURKMENISTAN TO LAUNCH LARGE SCALE PRIVATIZATION
By Jan Šír (12/12/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Turkmenistan has officially announced a large scale privatization of state owned industries to be launched beginning of next year. In November 2012, the Turkmen leadership approved a strategic document entitled State Program for Privatization of Enterprises and Objects of State Property in Turkmenistan for 2013-2016, outlining the government’s privatization goals. The program is a major step forward in an attempt to create a genuine private sector in the country.
SYRIAN CIRCASSIANS UNLIKELY TO REPATRIATE TO THE NORTH CAUCASUS
By Emil Souleimanov (12/12/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)
As the civil war in Syria rages on, members of non-Arab minorities of this Middle Eastern country, notably Armenians, Kurds, Druze, and Circassians feel themselves increasingly caught in the crossfire and forced to take sides. Seeking to escape the bloody armed conflict between the supporters of the Assad regime and various factions of the anti-Assad opposition, Armenians have moved in relatively large numbers to their historical homeland, whereas Circassians have experienced problems in their efforts to repatriate to their native areas of the North Caucasus.
BACKGROUND: The Circassian – or Adyghe as Circassian peoples call themselves – Diaspora in what is now the Syrian Arab Republic was largely established in the second half of the 19th century.
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Analysis Niklas Swanström and Leah Oppenheimer, "Invisible Ink: Looking for the Lost Trade between China, Russia, and Central Asia", ISDP Policy Brief, 13 March 2013. 
New Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr with Adib Farhadi, Finish the Job: Jump-Start the Afghan Economy, December 2012.
Conference Report Cheryl Benard, Eli Sugarman, and Holly Rehm, Cultural Heritage vs. Mining on the New Silk Road? Finding Technical Solutions for Mes Aynak and Beyond (in cooperation with the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage) December 2012.
Article Svante E. Cornell, "The 'Afghanization of the North Caucasus: Causes and Implications of a Changing Conflict", in Stephen Blank, ed., Russia's Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2012.