China's Peacemaking Between Pakistan and Afghanistan
By Sudha Ramachandran
September 7, 2017, the CACI Analyst
With its shuttle diplomacy between Pakistan and Afghanistan to ease tensions between the two neighbors, China has expanded its peacemaking role in the Afghan conflict. Successful peacemaking is vital for ensuring stability in the region, which in turn is needed to secure the future of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It will require Beijing to move beyond offering Kabul and Islamabad economic incentives to address the core issue underlying Afghanistan-Pakistan estrangement: alleged support to acts of terror directed against each other. Given its own strong interests in undertaking peacemaking, can China be an honest broker?
What Drives Russo-Pakistan Relations and Where Are They Going?
By Stephen Blank
August 29, 2017, the CACI Analyst
Inexplicably, Russia’s rapprochement with Pakistan over the last several years has received little or no attention in the West. It raises several vital questions about Russian policy in Central and South Asia as well as Russia’s approach to terrorism and to India and China. Since Moscow now advertises itself as a partner to the West in a new phase of the war on terrorism, its relationship to Pakistan and thus to the anti-terrorist war in Afghanistan possesses is highly relevant. Yet this relationship remains an unduly neglected issue in the analysis of Russian foreign policy.
Has the SCO Solved its Expansion Dilemmas?
By Richard Weitz
August 3, 2017, the CACI Analyst
The June Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Astana marked the SCO’s first membership expansion since its creation in 2001. By finally ending this logjam, the SCO has raised expectations of continued enlargement and increased geopolitical weight. However, major obstacles to further growth persist; meanwhile, more members deepen the mutual tensions and rivalries within the institution.
The Belt and Road Initiative and China's Xinjiang Dilemma: “Connectivity” Versus Control?
By Michael Clarke
July 20, 2017, the CACI Analyst
President Xi Jinping’s ambitious “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) seeks to make China the hub of trans-Eurasian economic connectivity by linking the Chinese economy with the major continental and maritime zones of the Eurasian continent through both physical and financial infrastructure. President Xi has proclaimed that BRI will “benefit people across the whole world” as it will be based on the “Silk Road spirit” of “peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness”. This rhetoric may be enhancing Beijing’s diplomatic position but it is one that rings hollow in China’s own Eurasian frontiers such as Xinjiang where BRI is coinciding with the imposition of new forms of political and social control.
India’s and Pakistan’s Memberships Diminishes SCO’s Ability to Compete with NATO
By Naveed Ahmad
July 18, 2017, the CACI Analyst
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit admitted India and Pakistan as full members on June 9; and now represents 40 percent of the human population and 20 percent of the global GDP. Russia and China have traditionally used the forum to promote a collective approach to countering NATO policies and advances. Though originally instituted to address separatism, terrorism and drug trafficking, the admission of India and Pakistan may drastically change the character of the grouping. China and Pakistan differ with India on key issues that the SCO aims to achieve. The trio has bitter geographical disputes while differing over the definition of terrorism. Against this backdrop, what kind of challenge can the SCO pose to NATO?
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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.