After Afghanistan: What is the future of U.S. policy in Central Asia?
By Stephen Blank
October 6, 2021, the CACI Analyst
The U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan should force American policymakers to rethink America’s position and goals in Central Asia. For years U.S. policy in Central Asia was subordinated to the goal of winning the war even though Washington never fashioned either a satisfactory definition of what winning meant or an Afghan government capable of standing on its own and acquiring the legitimacy and capacity it needed to survive. Despite a more regionally inclusive white paper by the Trump Administration, neither it nor its successor have been able to overcome the primacy of military factors in regional policy and the insufficiency of economic and political means to conduct a truly robust regional policy in Central Asia.
Many Challenges Await Pashinyan after Landslide Victory
By Natalia Konarzewska
October 1, 2021, the CACI Analyst
Armenia’s incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his Civil Contract party won by an overwhelming margin in snap elections on June 20. Pashinyan confirmed his strong mandate despite his government’s responsibility for the defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and its limited success in handling pressing issues such as the return of Armenian prisoners of war and the border conflict with Azerbaijan. Post-war Armenia faces a large number of serious challenges and to tackle them Pashinyan and his team will have to downplay its populist rhetoric in favor of improved governance.
Can Pakistan Offer the U.S. Military Bases to Target Islamic State in Afghanistan?
By Umair Jamal
September 20, 2021, the CACI Analyst
After the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence agencies are seeking ways to maintain its intelligence-gathering and counterterrorism presence in the region. One of few options is Pakistan, which has previously provided U.S. intelligence agencies with bases for counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond. After the recent attack by Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) at Kabul Airport that killed scores of U.S. soldiers and Taliban fighters, Pakistan may open its airspace for U.S. counterterrorism operations against ISKP in Afghanistan. However, for any such deal to become possible, Pakistan would want the U.S. to only target the ISKP after getting the nod from the Taliban – Islamabad’s longtime allies and the new rulers of Afghanistan.
Kazakhstan, Distancing from Russia, Courts Ethnic Russians
By Dmitry Shlapentokh
September 13, 2021, the CACI Analyst
Kazakhstan is undergoing several contradictory processes that superficially seem disconnected. Relations between Astana and Moscow have worsened visibly, despite the fact that both countries are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Influential Russian Duma deputy Viacheslav Nikonov has insisted that Kazakhstan is actually an artificial state created by the Soviet regime. According to Nikonov, the northern part of the country, with a large number of ethnic Russians and/or Russian-speakers, is actually part of Siberia and was an unlawfully given to Kazakhstan. Kazakh authorities rejected these statements and arrested Ermek Taichibekov, an ethnic Kazakh intellectual who has advocated close ties with Russia. Simultaneously, while increasingly hostile to Russia, members of the Kazakh political elite have sought to forge a reconciliatory message, wrapped in historical allusions, to Kazakhstan’s Russians in support of their peaceful assimilation.
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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.