By Johan Engvall

March 22, 2018, the CACI Analyst

Something is stirring in Central Asia. The past two weeks have seen a flurry of bilateral and multilateral get-togethers, starting on March 9, when Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev arrived with great fanfare in Dushanbe for the first state visit of a president of Uzbekistan to Tajikistan since 2000. Less than a week later, on March 15, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well as the speaker of Turkmenistan’s parliament gathered in Astana for the first exclusively regional “summit” in almost a decade. What do these meetings, each producing several intriguing bilateral and multilateral agreements and statements, mean for the prospects of Central Asian countries finally embarking upon a path of development through cooperation?

 By Sudha Ramachandran

March 13, 2018, the CACI Analyst

Afghanistan has seen a bloody start of the New Year. In January, the Taliban and the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) – Khorasan is the old name for Afghanistan and surrounding areas – carried out four major attacks on high-profile targets in Kabul. With competition between the two intensifying and each trying to outdo the other in the magnitude of the terror they unleash, violent attacks in the Afghan capital can be expected to increase this year. Public confidence in the Afghan government has hit rock bottom.

 By John C. K. Daly

March 9, 2018, the CACI Analyst

In December 2017 during a meeting in Beijing between Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan and Afghan Defense Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami, China’s Central Military Commission vice chairman Xu Qiliang stated that China would build a military facility in Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province to “strengthen pragmatic cooperation in areas of military exchange and anti-terrorism and safeguard the security of the two countries and the region, making contributions to the development of China-Afghanistan strategic partnership of cooperation.” China’s main motive is to interdict the flow of Uyghur militants to and from Xinjiang, yet the initiative potentially has wider implications for Afghanistan and the region. 

 By Emil A. Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev

February 26, 2018, the CACI Analyst

In 2017, protest activity has grown across the North Caucasus, just as in Russia’s other regions, as shown in a recent report by the Committee of Civil Initiatives (CCI). Socio-economic factors have shaped this trend throughout Russia’s regions, yet in the multi-ethnic North Caucasus these are coupled with a sense of nationalism-driven political discrimination and exclusion. On the eve of the forthcoming Football Championship in Russia, and as war-hardened veterans are returning from Syria to their homeland, this trend may contribute to a worsening security situation in Russia.

 By Richard Weitz

February 22, 2018, the CACI Analyst

Preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has been a priority for Uzbek-U.S. and Kazak-U.S. relations for decades. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are surrounded by nuclear weapons states and lie at the crossroads of potential WMD trafficking routes. As the U.S. struggles to keep North Korea and Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, deny WMDs from terrorists and other actors, and sustain a major security presence in Central Asia, partnering with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan against WMDs offers low-cost, high-yield opportunities.