Description - Central Eurasia - Prize or Quicksand? by Kenneth Weisbrode
The states of the former Soviet South - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - as well as Afghanistan, remain mired in a post-Soviet limbo ten years after the empire's formal dissolution. While there has yet been no war among major powers over the spoils of empire, instability is rife throughout the region, while several conflicts - the most notable being the civil wars in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the Caucasus - continue to cast a spell over regional stability. How much does this matter to the outside world? Do countries like the US have a stake in this region? How much are they to blame for its current condition? This paper argues that the major powers, chief among them the US, have played a central role in fomenting a logic of regional rivalry that has prevented Central Eurasia from developing the critical foundations of co-operation that are necessary to produce the kind of post-Soviet stability one finds in Europe.
While the paper does not dismiss the many internal causes of instability, it chooses to focus on the significance of the region to outside powers and the role those powers have played, both on the ground and in the symbolic realm. It does so by tracing the involvement of major powers in three particularly rich areas of instability - Karabakh, Ferghana and Afghanistan. Each case illustrates divergences between rhetorical policy and actual interests, and shows how the former have hindered the latter. Instability in Central Eurasia has had relatively modest effects on the overall relations among China, Iran, Russia, the US and other major powers like India, Pakistan and Turkey, but this may not last. This paper urges upon the major powers an earnest reassessment of collective interests in this region, before neglectful governments transform small-scale problems into far more serious ones.
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