Just in case any of you heard about that study from the Moscow State Institute for International Relations that ranked Kyrgyzstan second-to-last on its “Statehood” Index—i.e. the states most or least likely to survive on their own—suffice to say it’s probably bunk. Kyrgyzstan is far from a failed state, and placing it in the realm of Afghanistan or Chad (or Somalia or neighboring Tajikistan) is more than a bit unfair. I would of course need to see their methodology to say for certain, but I daresay this conclusion was driven by an ideological agenda, and not any kind of reliable or objective factors.
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Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor.
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I saw the headline on the story at IWPR and was going to comment on it. Then I read it, realized how silly it was, and let it go.
In all likelihood, you had the more mature response.
Given that it’s a Russian study – I wonder how high up the list Russia itself came…
It seems to me that Russian is strengthening its hand in Central Asia, as it has been for some time. So, if we think ahead to any more political disturbances in Kyrgyzstan, which could easily come in the spring, this could be a move toward justifying Russian intervention.
What do you think?