The country remains at risk of the falling prey to the kinds of economic and social problems that are characteristic of oil and gas rich economies. The Kazakh government has created a National Fund which now has billions of dollars of oil and gas revenue (its primary source of funds) available for investment to insure that the country diversifies its economy. The Kazakhs have also begun depending upon “foreign” labor (from elsewhere in Central Asia) to do low-paying unskilled and semi-skilled jobs, as Kazakh citizens don’t want to take them. But if the development of Kazakhstan’s oil and gas structure goes forward reasonable close to projected, and the government successfully uses some of the income streams to create a diversified economy, there should be enough economic opportunity to employ the Kazakh population as well as some of the excess population in the region.

Uzbekistan
In recent years Uzbek authorities have proved more amenable to regional trade initiatives, from CAREC as well as from EurAsEC which the Uzbeks joined in
2006, but these initiatives have still only had a minimal impact on the development of trade across borders by small and medium size enterprises which require the development of a more vibrant regional market in order to prosper. There has been more progress in the development of trade of large-scale enterprises, as will as the development of new joint-ventures in Uzbekistan’s energy sector. Russia and China are both playing a much greater role in this sector than they did even a few years ago.

Uzbekistan is becoming more of a traditional society. As a result there is a much bigger public role for Islam than was previously the case, and there is also a rebirth of the use of the Uzbek language and a rediscovery of many historical figures (in religion, culture and in politics, who had literally disappeared off the pages of history in the Soviet period.

Not all the embracing of traditionalism comes from positive incentives. There has been a kind of circular effect of government policy — the government kept a cotton-based modified planned economy in order to try and maintain the social welfare net for the overwhelmingly rural and youthful population. But absent a strong private sector, with the tax base that this could provide, the state has found it hard to maintain the social welfare net especially as it penetrates in to the countryside. So that education standards among women in general and the rural youth in particular are declining, creating an environment in which a twenty-first century version of traditional Uzbek society is developing.

Kyrgyzstan
Economic reform brought hardship to many Kyrgyz, although poverty alleviation projects combined with the creation of a private agricultural as well as small and medium size business sector have improved the living standards of much of the population in recent years, although not nearly to the point that their expectations defined as sufficient progress.

In many ways Kyrgyzstan is a giant village, with a population a fifth the size of Uzbekistan and about a third that of Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan has developed a strong participatory culture, which is often focused on street demonstrations, a fractious parliament, and an outspoken (albeit oftentimes ineffective opposition). This has led to a perception outside of the country that Kyrgyzstan is certain to someday split, given the economic and social differences between north and south. Some Kyrgyz politicians are pressing for the country to move its capital south as a means to prevent this. In a world in which the economic might of Uzbekistan was more formidable than that of Kyrgyzstan the risk of secession would be more than a hypothetical possibility.

Tajikistan
Tajikistan has used its “Persian” identity as an important defining characteristic of its foreign policy. Tajikistan’s population is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, with a Shi’a minority population that is Ismaili and receives large amounts of development aid from the Aga Khan Foundation.

This rhetoric, as well as the fact that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan fought with Tajik Islamists during the civil war in the early 1990s, and continued to have small camps for armed fighters on Tajik territory throughout the late 1990s, is one reason why Tajik-Uzbek relations have been strained for most of the period of independence, with some dozen or so civilian deaths (and lots of lost livestock) on the Tajik side caused by the Uzbek government’s decision to mine parts of the border. Relations between the two states have improved somewhat, although there is not normal trade or commerce across these borders. But at the same time the fact that Tajikistan is much smaller than Uzbekistan, and that it has yet to completely rebuild its much smaller economy from devastating civil war that they suffered means that there is no prospect of the Tajiks making a serious attempt to translate their national dreams into some sort of policy to try and reclaim their “lost” national territory. Nor have the Tajiks even made any effort to try and get international recognition of their claims. They remain much more at the level of national myth-making than national policy.

Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan is the only Central Asian state that has not joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, given that this would have been contrary to President Saparmurad Niyazov’s foreign policy doctrine of “positive neutrality,” a doctrine that was very hard to figure out what it entailed. The Turkmen did join some international organizations, but not others, and did not participate formally in any military alliances.

Over the past fifteen years Turkmenistan’s major economic partner has been Russia, which has been the main purchaser of Turkmenistan’s gas, or the transit agent for their gas. The relationship has been quite a difficult one, but with the exception of a relatively small pipeline through Iran (designed to serve the internal Iranian market) Turkmenistan has lacked other potential export routes. The signing of an agreement with China for the construction of a new major gas pipeline across Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan has dramatically changed the Turkmen bargaining position with Russia, and the new government of Turkmenistan is also considering a US and EU backed proposal for an undersea gas pipeline in the Caspian Sea.

In general, President Gurbanguly Berdimukhammedov seems quite interested in increasing Turkmenistan’s engagement with the international community, and it seems likely that “positive neutrality” will be abandoned in deed if not in formal fact.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate