Central Asia's Second ChanceA leading authority on Central Asia offers a sweeping review of the region's path from independence to the post-9/11 world. The first decade of Central Asian independence was disappointing for those who envisioned a straightforward transition from Soviet republics to independent states with market economies and democratic political systems. Leaders excused political failures by pointing to security risks, including the presence of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. The situation changed dramatically after 9/11, when the camps were largely destroyed and the United States introduced a military presence. More importantly the international community engaged with these states to give them a "second chance" to address social and economic problems. But neither the aid-givers nor the recipients were willing to approach problems in new ways. Now, terrorists groups are once again making their presence felt and some states may be becoming global security risks. This book explores how the region squandered its second chance and what might happen next. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 76
... potential strategic partners.7 But in the end there was too little to be gained in Washington from a close public partnership with remote Uzbekistan for any substantial sea change in relations to occur. New Chance for Reform In and of ...
... potential conflicts that their intimate geography and shared Soviet history continue to create . At the same time , for all the complaints about the arbitrariness of national boundaries and all the talk of the relative “ newness ” of ...
... potential rivals or , worse yet , as enemies . This has been particularly true after the rise of the IMU in the late 1990s . Discussions on free trade were overshadowed by the introduction of policies of armed protectionism , stimulated ...
... potentially rapa- cious neighbors, with whom they shared ill-defined borders and to whom they were still economically linked. It soon became clear that most of these early fears were exaggerated. Tajikistan's devastating civil war was ...
... potential political stakeholders in the new Central Asian states . There were no property owners with vested economic interests to deal with , and these presidents ' only serious political rivals were former colleagues from the ...