131030Analyst.pdf

By Richard Weitz (the 30/10/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

NATO’s inability to commit to a definite role in Afghanistan beyond 2014, along with perceived strategic setbacks in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, are reinforcing the narrative promoted by the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Iran, and to a lesser extent Russia and China, that a war-weary West is abandoning Eurasia. Urgent measures are needed during the next months to reverse this perception before it gains irreversible momentum. The perception is already leading regional players to hedge against the expected consequences of a diminished NATO role. NATO needs to reaffirm and clarify its commitment to Afghanistan and Eurasia.

By Bakhtiyar Aslanov (the 30/10/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Since the 1994 cease-fire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, negotiations between the parties have been overseen by the OSCE Minsk Group without any particular success towards peaceful solution. After the deadlock in peace negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2011, Azerbaijan and Armenia both accelerated their stockpiling of arms and intensified their public rhetoric of preparing for a new war.

131016Analyst.pdf

By Richard Weitz (the 16/10/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Central Asia and South Caucasus governments welcomed the decision of the Nobel Prize Committee to award the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) its annual peace prize. They also supported Syria’s formal accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Russian-U.S. agreement and subsequent UN Security Council Resolution that establishes a framework for eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons (CW) arsenal. While the Central Asia and South Caucasus states' experiences with eliminating the consequences of the Soviet nuclear weapons activities on their territory is well known, they have also had to manage the effects of the massive Soviet-era CW infrastructure that persists even to this day.