Central Asia News and Analysis Archive

Consisting of five Soviet successor states, Central Asia lies at the heart of the Eurasian landmass. Major trade routes running through the region bringing with them new ideas, religions, and peoples back and forth from Europe and Asia. During the Soviet period, Central Asia was essentially isolated from the rest of the world. Since independence, each of the region’s new governments have sought to re-engage the world in unique ways. Untapped natural resources like oil, gas, and precious metals as well as the region’s importance to international security as Afghanistan’s northern neighbors have attracted the attention of major powers and international organizations.

At Registan, Central Asia is our obsession. Registan.net was founded to shine a light on the region for western audiences and to add context to media reporting. In our nearly ten years of publishing news and analysis on the region, we have amassed an archive of thousands of items discussing the region’s people, cultures, religions, politics, and foreign policies. All of our contributors who cover Central Asia have lived or traveled extensively in the region and most speak one or more of the languages used in the region.

In addition to publishing a widely read and recognized weblog on Central Asia, Registan offers research, analysis, and training services tailored to your individual needs. For more information on how we can help you and your organization better understand the region.

It Takes a Global Village to Raise a Region

by Mitchell Polman
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The Center for Strategic and International Studies held a speakers’ panel this week to discuss a recent report they produced last month entitled “The United States and Central Asia after 2014”, by CSIS Deputy Director and Fellow Jeffrey Mankoff. Basically speaking, given that the U.S. is withdrawing from Afghanistan the question for U.S. policymakers is [...]

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A lazy, ridiculous slur

by Joshua Foust

Washington Free Beacon writer Adam Kredo thinks I’m somehow connected to Chuck Hagel and Chevron and Kazakhstan and… oh well, just read it. When Kazakhstan’s riot police slaughtered dozens of striking oil field workers last year, Atlantic Council affiliate Joshua Foust rushed to discredit the reports. Foust, a member of the Atlantic Council’s Young Atlanticist [...]

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So, Uzbekistan, How Deep Does the Rabbit Hole Go?

by Myles G. Smith

Cynicism will only take you so far. Except in Central Asia, where it can take you basically anywhere. EurasiaNet has published the highly publishable speculation of local media outlets that the government and Central Bank of Uzbekistan is using a series of ‘improvements’ and ‘simplifications’ (their words) to the foreign exchange market, customs regulations, and the bank [...]

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Advocating for a Better Central Asia

by Nathan Hamm
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When I saw that OSI had published a policy brief arguing that “the degree to which the United States holds countries in Eurasia publicly accountable for respecting human rights and democracy depends on each country’s relative strategic importance to the United States, not the human rights conditions in each country,” I anticipated writing a long [...]

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Why is Twitter censoring the Islamic Jihad Union?

by Sarah Kendzior

Today on Twitter I was followed by a new account called SodiqlarInfo. This was the Twitter account for the Islamic Jihad Union, a terrorist group originally based out of Uzbekistan who operate the website Sodiqlar. (In Uzbek, sodiq means one who is faithful or devout; -lar is plural.) I thought this was interesting, so I [...]

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Post-2014 Terrorist Threat in Central Asia: Keeping it Real

by Guest
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Contributed by Nathan Barrick Is there a terrorist threat to Central Asia after the ISAF drawdown in Afghanistan in 2014? In recent publications, the warnings range from an imminent FATA-like region of militant-dominated, ungoverned space in the Ferghana Valley to the “these are not the terrorists you’re looking for” Jedi mind trick “2014 Central Asia [...]

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The Risk of an Interventionist Uzbekistan

by Nathan Hamm

One concern I have heard in various forms regarding post-Karimov succession in Uzbekistan is that an unresolved plan for transition to a new leader could cause the country to erupt in chaos. I count that as a fairly low risk. As I argued during my talk in Seattle last weekend and in recent interviews with [...]

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Central Asia in 2013: What Not to Look For

by Myles G. Smith

Change seems to come slowly to Central Asia. January is the time of year that people like us brashly predict the developments that will reshape country X and fundamentally alter the course of world events. If we worked at Stratfor, we’d even be paid to have the brass to do so. I think we’ve gotten [...]

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Finding Meaning on an Astana Beach

by Nathan Hamm

Update: After this was published, Mr. Hwang reached out to me. We had a very good exchange, and he clearly grasps the issues facing Kazakhstan better than I assumed. More importantly, he discussed ways in which his work in Kazakhstan does illustrate the importance of making connections. He said that the participants of the programs [...]

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Central Asia 2014: The Terror

by Nathan Hamm

Yesterday, Eurasia Daily Monitor carried a “[x] in Central Asia after NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan” story, the kind of reporting and analysis that is sure to be a fixture in all Central Asia focused publications throughout this year. This particular story deals with militant groups threatening to return to Central Asia after NATO’s withdrawal. Should [...]

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