The most striking thing about this year is that Central Asia's leaders have shown their skills in successfully merging old with new.

One party rule has returned to the region; Kazakhstan's Nur Otan party was the only one to make it "past the post" with the required seven percent minimum in the August 2007 Majlis elections. Kazakhstan, though, has been accepted as a proto-European country as the Kazakhs got the OSCE chairmanship that they so strongly lobbied for, and only a year later -- 2010 -- than they sought; they also promised to not change the basic institutions of the organization, including ODIHR.

Old leaders have gotten new leases on political life, while a "new generation" leader has developed what appear to be sturdy political roots. The Kazakh constitution has been modified to allow Nursultan Nazarbayev to continue to run for office should he choose to when his current term expires in 2012, while Islam Karimov has offered his own unstated interpretation of the Uzbek constitution. He simply declared his candidacy and faces certain victory on December 23.

Turkmenistan's president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is proving much more of a political master than many anticipated. Not only has he held onto power, but he traveled to New York and Brussels basically to announce that Turkmenistan was reopened for international business. But just when U.S. and EU energy experts were getting their hopes up that Turkmen gas might be shipped more directly to market under the Caspian, he signed a new gas deal with Russia, albeit a much better one than the Turkmen have ever been offered before, so the threat of competition was of clear benefit to Ashgabat.

The Kyrgyz proved themselves regional champions in fusing old and new. There were lots of political demonstrations, something that has become rather a constant in national political life. They wrote a new constitution, then changed it before it was even introduced, not once, but twice, and then later on went back to an older version of the constitution anyway. They passed a new election law, held pre-term elections, with real slippage of international standards in part because of the rapidity with which everything was carried out. Then when only the pro-presidential party (Ak Zhol) passed the dual barriers of 7 percent and .5 percent in each region, the courts dropped the latter restriction. Change is such a fixture of Kyrgyz political life it is hard to know if it is old or new.

The leaders of the region have remained political masters, finding ways to adjust to new situations that leave their powers largely in tact, and often getting the international community to accept what they do, and simply smile at their eccentricities, rather than press hard for meaningful political change. But the real test of the old generation's skills will come when the voting-age populations of these countries are dominated by a new generation. And the time when this will start to occur is coming soon.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

The most striking thing about this year is that Central Asia's leaders have shown their skills in successfully merging old with new.

One party rule has returned to the region; Kazakhstan's Nur Otan party was the only one to make it "past the post" with the required seven percent minimum in the August 2007 Majlis elections. Kazakhstan, though, has been accepted as a proto-European country as the Kazakhs got the OSCE chairmanship that they so strongly lobbied for, and only a year later -- 2010 -- than they sought; they also promised to not change the basic institutions of the organization, including ODIHR.

Old leaders have gotten new leases on political life, while a "new generation" leader has developed what appear to be sturdy political roots. The Kazakh constitution has been modified to allow Nursultan Nazarbayev to continue to run for office should he choose to when his current term expires in 2012, while Islam Karimov has offered his own unstated interpretation of the Uzbek constitution. He simply declared his candidacy and faces certain victory on December 23.

Turkmenistan's president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is proving much more of a political master than many anticipated. Not only has he held onto power, but he traveled to New York and Brussels basically to announce that Turkmenistan was reopened for international business. But just when U.S. and EU energy experts were getting their hopes up that Turkmen gas might be shipped more directly to market under the Caspian, he signed a new gas deal with Russia, albeit a much better one than the Turkmen have ever been offered before, so the threat of competition was of clear benefit to Ashgabat.

The Kyrgyz proved themselves regional champions in fusing old and new. There were lots of political demonstrations, something that has become rather a constant in national political life. They wrote a new constitution, then changed it before it was even introduced, not once, but twice, and then later on went back to an older version of the constitution anyway. They passed a new election law, held pre-term elections, with real slippage of international standards in part because of the rapidity with which everything was carried out. Then when only the pro-presidential party (Ak Zhol) passed the dual barriers of 7 percent and .5 percent in each region, the courts dropped the latter restriction. Change is such a fixture of Kyrgyz political life it is hard to know if it is old or new.

The leaders of the region have remained political masters, finding ways to adjust to new situations that leave their powers largely in tact, and often getting the international community to accept what they do, and simply smile at their eccentricities, rather than press hard for meaningful political change. But the real test of the old generation's skills will come when the voting-age populations of these countries are dominated by a new generation. And the time when this will start to occur is coming soon.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

The most striking thing about this year is that Central Asia's leaders have shown their skills in successfully merging old with new.

One party rule has returned to the region; Kazakhstan's Nur Otan party was the only one to make it "past the post" with the required seven percent minimum in the August 2007 Majlis elections. Kazakhstan, though, has been accepted as a proto-European country as the Kazakhs got the OSCE chairmanship that they so strongly lobbied for, and only a year later -- 2010 -- than they sought; they also promised to not change the basic institutions of the organization, including ODIHR.

Old leaders have gotten new leases on political life, while a "new generation" leader has developed what appear to be sturdy political roots. The Kazakh constitution has been modified to allow Nursultan Nazarbayev to continue to run for office should he choose to when his current term expires in 2012, while Islam Karimov has offered his own unstated interpretation of the Uzbek constitution. He simply declared his candidacy and faces certain victory on December 23.

Turkmenistan's president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is proving much more of a political master than many anticipated. Not only has he held onto power, but he traveled to New York and Brussels basically to announce that Turkmenistan was reopened for international business. But just when U.S. and EU energy experts were getting their hopes up that Turkmen gas might be shipped more directly to market under the Caspian, he signed a new gas deal with Russia, albeit a much better one than the Turkmen have ever been offered before, so the threat of competition was of clear benefit to Ashgabat.

The Kyrgyz proved themselves regional champions in fusing old and new. There were lots of political demonstrations, something that has become rather a constant in national political life. They wrote a new constitution, then changed it before it was even introduced, not once, but twice, and then later on went back to an older version of the constitution anyway. They passed a new election law, held pre-term elections, with real slippage of international standards in part because of the rapidity with which everything was carried out. Then when only the pro-presidential party (Ak Zhol) passed the dual barriers of 7 percent and .5 percent in each region, the courts dropped the latter restriction. Change is such a fixture of Kyrgyz political life it is hard to know if it is old or new.

The leaders of the region have remained political masters, finding ways to adjust to new situations that leave their powers largely in tact, and often getting the international community to accept what they do, and simply smile at their eccentricities, rather than press hard for meaningful political change. But the real test of the old generation's skills will come when the voting-age populations of these countries are dominated by a new generation. And the time when this will start to occur is coming soon.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

Paper was originally prepared for the First Asia-Euro International Academic Forum on "The New Silk Road and a Harmonious World"

The last fifteen years have seen extraordinary changes along the New Silk Road. Each of the five Central Asian states have passed through a challenging transition period, with each now forging a unique international presence. The new face of Central Asia remains yet to be carved. Over the last four or five years some of these countries have turned into much more self-assertive actors, while others have begun what might turn out to be long and difficult transition periods. Worse yet, the challenges of transition are still to be confronted by the rest of the states in the region, as they are still ruled by Soviet era figures. All of this underscores the importance of developing a satisfactory regional cooperation mechanism.

Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan has become a self-confident actor in the Central Asian region, and beyond. In less than twenty years they have developed a foreign service whose representatives now span the globe, and represent their government with the highest level of professionalism. This feat is all the more admirable in that the country inherited only a small albeit very talented number of professional diplomats, including the current General Secretary of the SCO, H.E. Bulat Nurgaliev, and long-time Kazakh Foreign Minister Kassymzhomart Tokaev. Kazakhstan is also developing a unique national identity, based in part on the cultural values that ethnic Kazakhs attribute to their nomadic heritage, and in part based on the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional nature of the mosaic of the 100 or more nationalities that live in the country.

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

Paper was originally prepared for the First Asia-Euro International Academic Forum on "The New Silk Road and a Harmonious World"

The last fifteen years have seen extraordinary changes along the New Silk Road. Each of the five Central Asian states have passed through a challenging transition period, with each now forging a unique international presence. The new face of Central Asia remains yet to be carved. Over the last four or five years some of these countries have turned into much more self-assertive actors, while others have begun what might turn out to be long and difficult transition periods. Worse yet, the challenges of transition are still to be confronted by the rest of the states in the region, as they are still ruled by Soviet era figures. All of this underscores the importance of developing a satisfactory regional cooperation mechanism.

Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan has become a self-confident actor in the Central Asian region, and beyond. In less than twenty years they have developed a foreign service whose representatives now span the globe, and represent their government with the highest level of professionalism. This feat is all the more admirable in that the country inherited only a small albeit very talented number of professional diplomats, including the current General Secretary of the SCO, H.E. Bulat Nurgaliev, and long-time Kazakh Foreign Minister Kassymzhomart Tokaev. Kazakhstan is also developing a unique national identity, based in part on the cultural values that ethnic Kazakhs attribute to their nomadic heritage, and in part based on the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional nature of the mosaic of the 100 or more nationalities that live in the country.

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

Paper was originally prepared for the First Asia-Euro International Academic Forum on "The New Silk Road and a Harmonious World"

The last fifteen years have seen extraordinary changes along the New Silk Road. Each of the five Central Asian states have passed through a challenging transition period, with each now forging a unique international presence. The new face of Central Asia remains yet to be carved. Over the last four or five years some of these countries have turned into much more self-assertive actors, while others have begun what might turn out to be long and difficult transition periods. Worse yet, the challenges of transition are still to be confronted by the rest of the states in the region, as they are still ruled by Soviet era figures. All of this underscores the importance of developing a satisfactory regional cooperation mechanism.

Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan has become a self-confident actor in the Central Asian region, and beyond. In less than twenty years they have developed a foreign service whose representatives now span the globe, and represent their government with the highest level of professionalism. This feat is all the more admirable in that the country inherited only a small albeit very talented number of professional diplomats, including the current General Secretary of the SCO, H.E. Bulat Nurgaliev, and long-time Kazakh Foreign Minister Kassymzhomart Tokaev. Kazakhstan is also developing a unique national identity, based in part on the cultural values that ethnic Kazakhs attribute to their nomadic heritage, and in part based on the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional nature of the mosaic of the 100 or more nationalities that live in the country.

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

This system has partially evolved since independence, with states negotiating annual water quotas on a multilateral and bilateral basis. Moreover in recent years there has been an effort made in these bilateral negotiations to negotiate gas and hyrdroelectric power simultaneously (with Uzbekistan providing gas, for both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and receiving hydroelectric power in return. But the current patterns of water usage, having to balance water for irrigation with the needs of hydroelectric power generation leaves upstream producers short of electricity themselves in winter. The energy shortages are particularly acute in Tajikistan.

But since the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the attention has been on the creation of new sources of hydroelectric power in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in part to spur economic recovery in Afghanistan, but also to spur economic recovery in these states themselves. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have received competing proposals for projects from the any number of international players, including Russia, the US, Iran and China, and there are even competing proposals from various entrepreneurs within some of these countries.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization seeks to expand upon its early mission to include a much degree of economic cooperation, in trade, and most notably in the critical energy sector. Energy makes a key contribution to the economy of every state in the region, some through oil and gas, others through the prospect of hydro-electric power, and the region's energy potential defines much of its interest for the broader international community.

Much of the attention paid to Central Asia is tied to fossil fuels in particular, and less attention to hydroelectric power. While the Shanghai Cooperation Organization may come to play a useful role in the fossil fuel sector

Not to diminish the role that the SCO can play in this sector it cannot change geography. Unfortunately this is at the core of many of the thorniest conflicts in this region about the transport of oil and gas. As this land-locked region is dependent upon getting its oil and gas to port and that gives certain states commercial advantages over others. And although SCO can provide a forum for discussion of disputes, which will serve as a form of confidence building, it is hard for me to believe that it can be an impartial forum for regulating the conflicting commercial interests of the various member states, precisely because the various commercial interests are in fact conflicting.

Even for the SCO to be an effective source of discussion for common problems in the fossil fuel area, and for facilitating cross border trade in this sector, membership in the organization would have to be increased. Even if Turkmenistan joins and Iran and Afghanistan go from observers to full members, and Azerbaijan would need to be invited into the organization as well, for their can be no serious discussion about the Caspian without Azerbaijan's participation, and Turkey would need some sort of presence, even if only as an observer.

This would change the nature of the organization and would, in my opinion at least, have a substantially negative impact on its potential effectiveness, making it into a smaller and much less effective OPEC.

However the SCO does not need an expanded membership to play a major role in the area of water management and hydro-electric power. Here too, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan's presence, at least as observers would be optimal, but there is no need for an otherwise expanded membership to consider these questions.

While the SCO has been focusing on three particular security risks---terrorism, extremism and secession---the greatest risks facing the Central Asian states may well lie with a far more tradition risk, the competition for water resources. As this paper argues, the various states in the region have matured considerably over the last half decade, and each is now more capable than ever of managing a highly nuanced and successful foreign policy. Now, in distinction to early periods, a highly complex issue such as regional water management is no longer beyond the reach of the states in the region, and the SCO may well prove to be an appropriate forum to make progress with it, freeing all the states in the region to develop their energy potential in an atmosphere or cooperation and harmony.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

This system has partially evolved since independence, with states negotiating annual water quotas on a multilateral and bilateral basis. Moreover in recent years there has been an effort made in these bilateral negotiations to negotiate gas and hyrdroelectric power simultaneously (with Uzbekistan providing gas, for both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and receiving hydroelectric power in return. But the current patterns of water usage, having to balance water for irrigation with the needs of hydroelectric power generation leaves upstream producers short of electricity themselves in winter. The energy shortages are particularly acute in Tajikistan.

But since the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the attention has been on the creation of new sources of hydroelectric power in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in part to spur economic recovery in Afghanistan, but also to spur economic recovery in these states themselves. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have received competing proposals for projects from the any number of international players, including Russia, the US, Iran and China, and there are even competing proposals from various entrepreneurs within some of these countries.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization seeks to expand upon its early mission to include a much degree of economic cooperation, in trade, and most notably in the critical energy sector. Energy makes a key contribution to the economy of every state in the region, some through oil and gas, others through the prospect of hydro-electric power, and the region's energy potential defines much of its interest for the broader international community.

Much of the attention paid to Central Asia is tied to fossil fuels in particular, and less attention to hydroelectric power. While the Shanghai Cooperation Organization may come to play a useful role in the fossil fuel sector

Not to diminish the role that the SCO can play in this sector it cannot change geography. Unfortunately this is at the core of many of the thorniest conflicts in this region about the transport of oil and gas. As this land-locked region is dependent upon getting its oil and gas to port and that gives certain states commercial advantages over others. And although SCO can provide a forum for discussion of disputes, which will serve as a form of confidence building, it is hard for me to believe that it can be an impartial forum for regulating the conflicting commercial interests of the various member states, precisely because the various commercial interests are in fact conflicting.

Even for the SCO to be an effective source of discussion for common problems in the fossil fuel area, and for facilitating cross border trade in this sector, membership in the organization would have to be increased. Even if Turkmenistan joins and Iran and Afghanistan go from observers to full members, and Azerbaijan would need to be invited into the organization as well, for their can be no serious discussion about the Caspian without Azerbaijan's participation, and Turkey would need some sort of presence, even if only as an observer.

This would change the nature of the organization and would, in my opinion at least, have a substantially negative impact on its potential effectiveness, making it into a smaller and much less effective OPEC.

However the SCO does not need an expanded membership to play a major role in the area of water management and hydro-electric power. Here too, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan's presence, at least as observers would be optimal, but there is no need for an otherwise expanded membership to consider these questions.

While the SCO has been focusing on three particular security risks---terrorism, extremism and secession---the greatest risks facing the Central Asian states may well lie with a far more tradition risk, the competition for water resources. As this paper argues, the various states in the region have matured considerably over the last half decade, and each is now more capable than ever of managing a highly nuanced and successful foreign policy. Now, in distinction to early periods, a highly complex issue such as regional water management is no longer beyond the reach of the states in the region, and the SCO may well prove to be an appropriate forum to make progress with it, freeing all the states in the region to develop their energy potential in an atmosphere or cooperation and harmony.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

This system has partially evolved since independence, with states negotiating annual water quotas on a multilateral and bilateral basis. Moreover in recent years there has been an effort made in these bilateral negotiations to negotiate gas and hyrdroelectric power simultaneously (with Uzbekistan providing gas, for both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and receiving hydroelectric power in return. But the current patterns of water usage, having to balance water for irrigation with the needs of hydroelectric power generation leaves upstream producers short of electricity themselves in winter. The energy shortages are particularly acute in Tajikistan.

But since the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the attention has been on the creation of new sources of hydroelectric power in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in part to spur economic recovery in Afghanistan, but also to spur economic recovery in these states themselves. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have received competing proposals for projects from the any number of international players, including Russia, the US, Iran and China, and there are even competing proposals from various entrepreneurs within some of these countries.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization seeks to expand upon its early mission to include a much degree of economic cooperation, in trade, and most notably in the critical energy sector. Energy makes a key contribution to the economy of every state in the region, some through oil and gas, others through the prospect of hydro-electric power, and the region's energy potential defines much of its interest for the broader international community.

Much of the attention paid to Central Asia is tied to fossil fuels in particular, and less attention to hydroelectric power. While the Shanghai Cooperation Organization may come to play a useful role in the fossil fuel sector

Not to diminish the role that the SCO can play in this sector it cannot change geography. Unfortunately this is at the core of many of the thorniest conflicts in this region about the transport of oil and gas. As this land-locked region is dependent upon getting its oil and gas to port and that gives certain states commercial advantages over others. And although SCO can provide a forum for discussion of disputes, which will serve as a form of confidence building, it is hard for me to believe that it can be an impartial forum for regulating the conflicting commercial interests of the various member states, precisely because the various commercial interests are in fact conflicting.

Even for the SCO to be an effective source of discussion for common problems in the fossil fuel area, and for facilitating cross border trade in this sector, membership in the organization would have to be increased. Even if Turkmenistan joins and Iran and Afghanistan go from observers to full members, and Azerbaijan would need to be invited into the organization as well, for their can be no serious discussion about the Caspian without Azerbaijan's participation, and Turkey would need some sort of presence, even if only as an observer.

This would change the nature of the organization and would, in my opinion at least, have a substantially negative impact on its potential effectiveness, making it into a smaller and much less effective OPEC.

However the SCO does not need an expanded membership to play a major role in the area of water management and hydro-electric power. Here too, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan's presence, at least as observers would be optimal, but there is no need for an otherwise expanded membership to consider these questions.

While the SCO has been focusing on three particular security risks---terrorism, extremism and secession---the greatest risks facing the Central Asian states may well lie with a far more tradition risk, the competition for water resources. As this paper argues, the various states in the region have matured considerably over the last half decade, and each is now more capable than ever of managing a highly nuanced and successful foreign policy. Now, in distinction to early periods, a highly complex issue such as regional water management is no longer beyond the reach of the states in the region, and the SCO may well prove to be an appropriate forum to make progress with it, freeing all the states in the region to develop their energy potential in an atmosphere or cooperation and harmony.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

Find original article in The Moscow Times here

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is having a kind of coming out party in New York this week, ending the self-imposed semi-isolation into which late former President Saparmurat Niyazov plunged Turkmenistan and its top leadership.

The youthful Turkmen president has a busy schedule ahead of him. In addition to having met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday, he will address the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday; he is sure to be sought after by senior European diplomats attending the annual meeting. In addition, he will give a speech before an audience at Columbia University and at a smaller meeting organized by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk advisory and consulting firm.

The United States and the Europeans are eager to convince the Turkmen president that they are ideal partners for cooperation in the energy sphere, that they can bring the most modern technology available into upstream production and can teach the Turkmen how to best protect their national interests through maximizing the sanctity of contracts. In addition, the U.S. hosts and their European partners hope to provide Berdymukhammedov with a reliable transportation alternative to Russia's and China's in the form of a new gas pipeline that goes under the Caspian Sea and connects with the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline.

Turkmenistan didn't join many things, opting to pass up membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, made up of Russia and eight other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Ashgabat also minimized its military cooperation with NATO countries, although in the spirit of positive neutrality, Niyazov did work in a limited fashion with NATO, and Turkmenistan remained a member of the CIS.

Since taking over nine months ago, Berdymukhammedov has been courted from all sides. He has also worked hard to keep his options open, balancing tripartite summit meetings with President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in which the new Caspian coastal pipeline was broached. In addition, more than a dozen high-level receptions were held in Ashgabat and in Washington, many of which focused on prospects for technical cooperation in all sectors of the economy.

Berdymukhammedov has also had an active spring and summer of travel before his New York trip. His first trip was to Saudi Arabia to show loyalty to his country's Islamic faith, which had been sullied somewhat by Niyazov's assertion that the "Rukhnama," or "Book of the Soul" that he supposedly authored, was a more central source of Turkmen spirituality than the Quran. Trips to China, Iran and Moscow were devoted to more temporal themes, giving the Turkmen president a better framework to judge what he hears in New York this week, what his ministers will bring back from Washington and Houston and what he himself will learn in his upcoming trip to Brussels.

Soon, though, the Turkmen leader will either need to make some difficult choices or undertake a difficult juggling act to keep all sides satisfied because two deadlines are fast approaching. Ashgabat and Moscow must reach a pricing agreement for the purchase of Turkmen gas for 2009 and beyond, and Beijing must figure out if there is, in fact, enough gas available to warrant the construction of a new gas pipeline to China.

No one really knows whether Turkmenistan will be able to satisfy both Russian and Chinese energy needs, not to mention U.S. and European. Ashgabat may choose to serve the European market directly, bypassing Russia via the Caspian Sea or, perhaps in the future, via Iran. It also unknown whether there is enough Turkmen gas available to make these pipelines commercially attractive.

These choices require a kind of professionalism in Turkmenistan's oil and gas sector that has been lacking in recent years.Turkmenistan needs an independent audit of its reserves -- if only to improve the quality of the government's own strategic thinking. It also needs to introduce a transparent legal environment that is attractive to foreign investment, while, at the same time, protects the interests of the state. Foreign investors need to be protected against the possible whims of a future Turkmen government, and the Turkmen people need to be protected against disruptions to their income stream by a future leader who might decide that the country was cheated by the greed or the ignorance of his predecessor.

The United States and Europe are probably correct: Without receiving technical assistance from the West -- whether from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank or the U.S. Agency for International Development -- the Turkmens are unlikely to maximize their current favorable negotiating environment. Expertise and knowledge transfer help developing countries make economically rational decisions.

This does not mean, however, that Turkmenistan will cancel its plans of transporting its gas through Russia, even if Western firms invest in upstream production. Rosneft and Gazprom have, to varying degrees, both included Western know-how into their corporate decision-making structures, as have numerous prominent privately held Russian firms in the resource-extraction sector.

Knowledgeable and self-confident governments make for more reliable partners. Therefore, it is in best interests of Russia and China -- and the United States and Europe as well -- that Berdymukhammedov come away from his first trans-Atlantic trip with a lot of new ideas.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

This comment first appeared in The Moscow Times

Find original article in The Moscow Times here

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is having a kind of coming out party in New York this week, ending the self-imposed semi-isolation into which late former President Saparmurat Niyazov plunged Turkmenistan and its top leadership.

The youthful Turkmen president has a busy schedule ahead of him. In addition to having met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday, he will address the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday; he is sure to be sought after by senior European diplomats attending the annual meeting. In addition, he will give a speech before an audience at Columbia University and at a smaller meeting organized by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk advisory and consulting firm.

The United States and the Europeans are eager to convince the Turkmen president that they are ideal partners for cooperation in the energy sphere, that they can bring the most modern technology available into upstream production and can teach the Turkmen how to best protect their national interests through maximizing the sanctity of contracts. In addition, the U.S. hosts and their European partners hope to provide Berdymukhammedov with a reliable transportation alternative to Russia's and China's in the form of a new gas pipeline that goes under the Caspian Sea and connects with the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline.

Turkmenistan didn't join many things, opting to pass up membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, made up of Russia and eight other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Ashgabat also minimized its military cooperation with NATO countries, although in the spirit of positive neutrality, Niyazov did work in a limited fashion with NATO, and Turkmenistan remained a member of the CIS.

Since taking over nine months ago, Berdymukhammedov has been courted from all sides. He has also worked hard to keep his options open, balancing tripartite summit meetings with President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in which the new Caspian coastal pipeline was broached. In addition, more than a dozen high-level receptions were held in Ashgabat and in Washington, many of which focused on prospects for technical cooperation in all sectors of the economy.

Berdymukhammedov has also had an active spring and summer of travel before his New York trip. His first trip was to Saudi Arabia to show loyalty to his country's Islamic faith, which had been sullied somewhat by Niyazov's assertion that the "Rukhnama," or "Book of the Soul" that he supposedly authored, was a more central source of Turkmen spirituality than the Quran. Trips to China, Iran and Moscow were devoted to more temporal themes, giving the Turkmen president a better framework to judge what he hears in New York this week, what his ministers will bring back from Washington and Houston and what he himself will learn in his upcoming trip to Brussels.

Soon, though, the Turkmen leader will either need to make some difficult choices or undertake a difficult juggling act to keep all sides satisfied because two deadlines are fast approaching. Ashgabat and Moscow must reach a pricing agreement for the purchase of Turkmen gas for 2009 and beyond, and Beijing must figure out if there is, in fact, enough gas available to warrant the construction of a new gas pipeline to China.

No one really knows whether Turkmenistan will be able to satisfy both Russian and Chinese energy needs, not to mention U.S. and European. Ashgabat may choose to serve the European market directly, bypassing Russia via the Caspian Sea or, perhaps in the future, via Iran. It also unknown whether there is enough Turkmen gas available to make these pipelines commercially attractive.

These choices require a kind of professionalism in Turkmenistan's oil and gas sector that has been lacking in recent years.Turkmenistan needs an independent audit of its reserves -- if only to improve the quality of the government's own strategic thinking. It also needs to introduce a transparent legal environment that is attractive to foreign investment, while, at the same time, protects the interests of the state. Foreign investors need to be protected against the possible whims of a future Turkmen government, and the Turkmen people need to be protected against disruptions to their income stream by a future leader who might decide that the country was cheated by the greed or the ignorance of his predecessor.

The United States and Europe are probably correct: Without receiving technical assistance from the West -- whether from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank or the U.S. Agency for International Development -- the Turkmens are unlikely to maximize their current favorable negotiating environment. Expertise and knowledge transfer help developing countries make economically rational decisions.

This does not mean, however, that Turkmenistan will cancel its plans of transporting its gas through Russia, even if Western firms invest in upstream production. Rosneft and Gazprom have, to varying degrees, both included Western know-how into their corporate decision-making structures, as have numerous prominent privately held Russian firms in the resource-extraction sector.

Knowledgeable and self-confident governments make for more reliable partners. Therefore, it is in best interests of Russia and China -- and the United States and Europe as well -- that Berdymukhammedov come away from his first trans-Atlantic trip with a lot of new ideas.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

This comment first appeared in The Moscow Times

Find original article in The Moscow Times here

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is having a kind of coming out party in New York this week, ending the self-imposed semi-isolation into which late former President Saparmurat Niyazov plunged Turkmenistan and its top leadership.

The youthful Turkmen president has a busy schedule ahead of him. In addition to having met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday, he will address the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday; he is sure to be sought after by senior European diplomats attending the annual meeting. In addition, he will give a speech before an audience at Columbia University and at a smaller meeting organized by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk advisory and consulting firm.

The United States and the Europeans are eager to convince the Turkmen president that they are ideal partners for cooperation in the energy sphere, that they can bring the most modern technology available into upstream production and can teach the Turkmen how to best protect their national interests through maximizing the sanctity of contracts. In addition, the U.S. hosts and their European partners hope to provide Berdymukhammedov with a reliable transportation alternative to Russia's and China's in the form of a new gas pipeline that goes under the Caspian Sea and connects with the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline.

Turkmenistan didn't join many things, opting to pass up membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, made up of Russia and eight other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Ashgabat also minimized its military cooperation with NATO countries, although in the spirit of positive neutrality, Niyazov did work in a limited fashion with NATO, and Turkmenistan remained a member of the CIS.

Since taking over nine months ago, Berdymukhammedov has been courted from all sides. He has also worked hard to keep his options open, balancing tripartite summit meetings with President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in which the new Caspian coastal pipeline was broached. In addition, more than a dozen high-level receptions were held in Ashgabat and in Washington, many of which focused on prospects for technical cooperation in all sectors of the economy.

Berdymukhammedov has also had an active spring and summer of travel before his New York trip. His first trip was to Saudi Arabia to show loyalty to his country's Islamic faith, which had been sullied somewhat by Niyazov's assertion that the "Rukhnama," or "Book of the Soul" that he supposedly authored, was a more central source of Turkmen spirituality than the Quran. Trips to China, Iran and Moscow were devoted to more temporal themes, giving the Turkmen president a better framework to judge what he hears in New York this week, what his ministers will bring back from Washington and Houston and what he himself will learn in his upcoming trip to Brussels.

Soon, though, the Turkmen leader will either need to make some difficult choices or undertake a difficult juggling act to keep all sides satisfied because two deadlines are fast approaching. Ashgabat and Moscow must reach a pricing agreement for the purchase of Turkmen gas for 2009 and beyond, and Beijing must figure out if there is, in fact, enough gas available to warrant the construction of a new gas pipeline to China.

No one really knows whether Turkmenistan will be able to satisfy both Russian and Chinese energy needs, not to mention U.S. and European. Ashgabat may choose to serve the European market directly, bypassing Russia via the Caspian Sea or, perhaps in the future, via Iran. It also unknown whether there is enough Turkmen gas available to make these pipelines commercially attractive.

These choices require a kind of professionalism in Turkmenistan's oil and gas sector that has been lacking in recent years.Turkmenistan needs an independent audit of its reserves -- if only to improve the quality of the government's own strategic thinking. It also needs to introduce a transparent legal environment that is attractive to foreign investment, while, at the same time, protects the interests of the state. Foreign investors need to be protected against the possible whims of a future Turkmen government, and the Turkmen people need to be protected against disruptions to their income stream by a future leader who might decide that the country was cheated by the greed or the ignorance of his predecessor.

The United States and Europe are probably correct: Without receiving technical assistance from the West -- whether from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank or the U.S. Agency for International Development -- the Turkmens are unlikely to maximize their current favorable negotiating environment. Expertise and knowledge transfer help developing countries make economically rational decisions.

This does not mean, however, that Turkmenistan will cancel its plans of transporting its gas through Russia, even if Western firms invest in upstream production. Rosneft and Gazprom have, to varying degrees, both included Western know-how into their corporate decision-making structures, as have numerous prominent privately held Russian firms in the resource-extraction sector.

Knowledgeable and self-confident governments make for more reliable partners. Therefore, it is in best interests of Russia and China -- and the United States and Europe as well -- that Berdymukhammedov come away from his first trans-Atlantic trip with a lot of new ideas.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

This comment first appeared in The Moscow Times

Over the past sixteen years, the international community has gone from seeing the independence of the Central Asian states as primarily a source of security threats to an area that is potentially a real strategic prize, despite the proximity of the region to Afghanistan and that country's seemingly endless civil war and internal confusion.

Much of the change in perceptions comes from the increased knowledge of the region's energy reserves. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have enough oil and gas to become serious swing providers, especially for states that are now dependent upon shipments from Russia or those who would like to decrease their dependence upon Persian Gulf suppliers.

The changes in the international community's assessment of the importance of the Central Asian states are also partly the result of a significantly altered global security environment after September 11, 2001. The U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq shook up of the status quo in much of the broader Middle East, including Iran and Turkey. It also led to a worsening of relations between Russia and both the U.S. and Europe, where most countries (the U.K. excluded) initially opposed the U.S.-led invasion, but who have subsequently refrained from public criticism of the ongoing war effort. In this environment, the Central Asian states appear less fragile than in their first years after independence, especially given the added importance of their oil and gas reserves.

However, excluding efforts in the commercial sector, the international community's engagement in Central Asia has been in fits and starts, with limited resources offered to help the Central Asians tackle the serious challenges the region faces. This is unfortunate, as the area continues to harbor serious long-term security risks. Many of these relate to the incomplete nature of both economic reform and political institution-building, which has resulted in a buildup of unsolved problems in each of the Central Asian countries.

From the very first days of independence, Central Asia's leaders looked with to the U.S. with the hope that Washington would somehow take to their cause in a fashion roughly analogous to its embrace of the politically transformed states of the former Warsaw Pact. Although they recognized that they would, by necessity of their shared geography (and their landlocked nature), maintain close ties to Russia, each leader wanted to develop a unique international face for his country.

No longer do the Central Asian states view themselves as sharing an extensive list of security goals with the U.S. or NATO countries. From the Central Asian perspective, Russia's ambitions appear containable for now - especially since continued U.S. and E.U. pressure is likely to keep Moscow paying commercially competitive prices for Central Asian gas and China's potential hegemonic behavior seems a long way off. Most importantly, both Russia and China share the Central Asian leaders' sense of what is and what is not good statecraft, and do not accuse them of advancing policies which create the very security risks that all agree must be alleviated. This is in contrast to Western criticism of strong-handed techniques on the part of Central Asian security establishments that, Western governments claim, only aggravates the security problems they mean to alleviate.

It is for this reason that four of the five Central Asian countries are active members of the Moscow-sponsored Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Only Turkmenistan, due to its avowed doctrine of "positive neutrality," is not a member, although this too could change as Niyazov's successor reconsiders the country's foreign policy stance. The CSTO states have also increased their security cooperation under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), engaging in joint military exercises of unprecedented scale in the summer of 2007 that focused on recapturing a small city from the control of Islamic terrorists.

The U.S. continues to have an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, although there is growing public pressure for its removal--some of this likely coming with instigation from various political elements in Russia. The Germans, meanwhile, were able to remain in Uzbekistan even after the U.S. was asked to leave and NATO forces have some limited basing facilities in Tajikistan as well.

However, the heyday of U.S. military influence in the region, and likely that of NATO as well, does seem to have passed for the foreseeable future. This may result in lessened access to Western authorities for the purposes of intervention and even in order to give timely and useful advice regarding whatever security threats the region may find itself confronting.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

Over the past sixteen years, the international community has gone from seeing the independence of the Central Asian states as primarily a source of security threats to an area that is potentially a real strategic prize, despite the proximity of the region to Afghanistan and that country's seemingly endless civil war and internal confusion.

Much of the change in perceptions comes from the increased knowledge of the region's energy reserves. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have enough oil and gas to become serious swing providers, especially for states that are now dependent upon shipments from Russia or those who would like to decrease their dependence upon Persian Gulf suppliers.

The changes in the international community's assessment of the importance of the Central Asian states are also partly the result of a significantly altered global security environment after September 11, 2001. The U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq shook up of the status quo in much of the broader Middle East, including Iran and Turkey. It also led to a worsening of relations between Russia and both the U.S. and Europe, where most countries (the U.K. excluded) initially opposed the U.S.-led invasion, but who have subsequently refrained from public criticism of the ongoing war effort. In this environment, the Central Asian states appear less fragile than in their first years after independence, especially given the added importance of their oil and gas reserves.

However, excluding efforts in the commercial sector, the international community's engagement in Central Asia has been in fits and starts, with limited resources offered to help the Central Asians tackle the serious challenges the region faces. This is unfortunate, as the area continues to harbor serious long-term security risks. Many of these relate to the incomplete nature of both economic reform and political institution-building, which has resulted in a buildup of unsolved problems in each of the Central Asian countries.

From the very first days of independence, Central Asia's leaders looked with to the U.S. with the hope that Washington would somehow take to their cause in a fashion roughly analogous to its embrace of the politically transformed states of the former Warsaw Pact. Although they recognized that they would, by necessity of their shared geography (and their landlocked nature), maintain close ties to Russia, each leader wanted to develop a unique international face for his country.

No longer do the Central Asian states view themselves as sharing an extensive list of security goals with the U.S. or NATO countries. From the Central Asian perspective, Russia's ambitions appear containable for now - especially since continued U.S. and E.U. pressure is likely to keep Moscow paying commercially competitive prices for Central Asian gas and China's potential hegemonic behavior seems a long way off. Most importantly, both Russia and China share the Central Asian leaders' sense of what is and what is not good statecraft, and do not accuse them of advancing policies which create the very security risks that all agree must be alleviated. This is in contrast to Western criticism of strong-handed techniques on the part of Central Asian security establishments that, Western governments claim, only aggravates the security problems they mean to alleviate.

It is for this reason that four of the five Central Asian countries are active members of the Moscow-sponsored Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Only Turkmenistan, due to its avowed doctrine of "positive neutrality," is not a member, although this too could change as Niyazov's successor reconsiders the country's foreign policy stance. The CSTO states have also increased their security cooperation under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), engaging in joint military exercises of unprecedented scale in the summer of 2007 that focused on recapturing a small city from the control of Islamic terrorists.

The U.S. continues to have an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, although there is growing public pressure for its removal--some of this likely coming with instigation from various political elements in Russia. The Germans, meanwhile, were able to remain in Uzbekistan even after the U.S. was asked to leave and NATO forces have some limited basing facilities in Tajikistan as well.

However, the heyday of U.S. military influence in the region, and likely that of NATO as well, does seem to have passed for the foreseeable future. This may result in lessened access to Western authorities for the purposes of intervention and even in order to give timely and useful advice regarding whatever security threats the region may find itself confronting.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate

Over the past sixteen years, the international community has gone from seeing the independence of the Central Asian states as primarily a source of security threats to an area that is potentially a real strategic prize, despite the proximity of the region to Afghanistan and that country's seemingly endless civil war and internal confusion.

Much of the change in perceptions comes from the increased knowledge of the region's energy reserves. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have enough oil and gas to become serious swing providers, especially for states that are now dependent upon shipments from Russia or those who would like to decrease their dependence upon Persian Gulf suppliers.

The changes in the international community's assessment of the importance of the Central Asian states are also partly the result of a significantly altered global security environment after September 11, 2001. The U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq shook up of the status quo in much of the broader Middle East, including Iran and Turkey. It also led to a worsening of relations between Russia and both the U.S. and Europe, where most countries (the U.K. excluded) initially opposed the U.S.-led invasion, but who have subsequently refrained from public criticism of the ongoing war effort. In this environment, the Central Asian states appear less fragile than in their first years after independence, especially given the added importance of their oil and gas reserves.

However, excluding efforts in the commercial sector, the international community's engagement in Central Asia has been in fits and starts, with limited resources offered to help the Central Asians tackle the serious challenges the region faces. This is unfortunate, as the area continues to harbor serious long-term security risks. Many of these relate to the incomplete nature of both economic reform and political institution-building, which has resulted in a buildup of unsolved problems in each of the Central Asian countries.

From the very first days of independence, Central Asia's leaders looked with to the U.S. with the hope that Washington would somehow take to their cause in a fashion roughly analogous to its embrace of the politically transformed states of the former Warsaw Pact. Although they recognized that they would, by necessity of their shared geography (and their landlocked nature), maintain close ties to Russia, each leader wanted to develop a unique international face for his country.

No longer do the Central Asian states view themselves as sharing an extensive list of security goals with the U.S. or NATO countries. From the Central Asian perspective, Russia's ambitions appear containable for now - especially since continued U.S. and E.U. pressure is likely to keep Moscow paying commercially competitive prices for Central Asian gas and China's potential hegemonic behavior seems a long way off. Most importantly, both Russia and China share the Central Asian leaders' sense of what is and what is not good statecraft, and do not accuse them of advancing policies which create the very security risks that all agree must be alleviated. This is in contrast to Western criticism of strong-handed techniques on the part of Central Asian security establishments that, Western governments claim, only aggravates the security problems they mean to alleviate.

It is for this reason that four of the five Central Asian countries are active members of the Moscow-sponsored Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Only Turkmenistan, due to its avowed doctrine of "positive neutrality," is not a member, although this too could change as Niyazov's successor reconsiders the country's foreign policy stance. The CSTO states have also increased their security cooperation under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), engaging in joint military exercises of unprecedented scale in the summer of 2007 that focused on recapturing a small city from the control of Islamic terrorists.

The U.S. continues to have an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, although there is growing public pressure for its removal--some of this likely coming with instigation from various political elements in Russia. The Germans, meanwhile, were able to remain in Uzbekistan even after the U.S. was asked to leave and NATO forces have some limited basing facilities in Tajikistan as well.

However, the heyday of U.S. military influence in the region, and likely that of NATO as well, does seem to have passed for the foreseeable future. This may result in lessened access to Western authorities for the purposes of intervention and even in order to give timely and useful advice regarding whatever security threats the region may find itself confronting.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate