Central Asia

Guest Post: China is the power of the future in Central Asia

by Joshua Foust
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I’ve bee pushing back against the idea, advocated most eloquently by Alexandros Petersen and Rafaello Pantucci, that China will take over the future of Central Asia. This is a response, an argument that China really is the future of Central Asia. *** By Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen China has always been a bashful power. [...]

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The Necessary Role of Entrepreneuship in Central Asia

by Joshua Foust

I recently had the great pleasure of sitting with two Bill Maynes Fellows at the Eurasia Foundation. Both of them, woman leaders in the small business communities of Belarus and Tajikistan, are inspiring and really impressive people to learn from. Their stories have dovetailed nicely with my own research into the role that supporting and [...]

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FLASH: PC Kazakhstan Closing

by Michael Hancock-Parmer

This is not verified or official, but from a source (a volunteer in Kazakhstan) who has been informed that following a conference next week (on Thanksgiving) in Almaty, the Peace Corps staff in Kazakhstan will begin processing the exit of Peace Corps Volunteers from Kazakhstan. Why? Why now? This is likely either the result of [...]

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How Not to Correct a Narrative

by Joshua Foust
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OSH, Kyrgyzstan — Two Beijing scholars wrote an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that Russia is concerned with China’s expansive economic activity in Central Asia. In describing a “series of high-level deals” between Chinese and Russian state-owned corporations, they argue: While cordial, an unspoken undertone to the meetings was Russian concern about growing [...]

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The Brilliant, Unworkable Idea of the New Silk Road

by Joshua Foust

ISTANBUL — Turkey seems as good a place as any to ponder the latest grand policy idea for Central Asia filtering out of the U.S. government. Parag Khanna ably sums up the current zeitgeist for the “New Silk Road,” as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Fred Starr, and others are calling it: In many respects, [...]

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Why Uzbekistan should be left alone

by Michael Hancock-Parmer

Just to show there isn’t a monolithic thing called Registan, I thought I would voice my opinion. I think of Afghanistan as being separated from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan by a 700-foot tall magical wall of ice. This ice wall represents the historical trajectory of the 19th and 20th centuries that took two locales connected [...]

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Energy, mining and private sector development in Central and South Asia

by Joshua Foust

Over at my day job, I recorded a podcast with Mary Louise Vitelli, a legal advisor to the Governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and various Central Asian countries. She and I spoke about issues relating to energy development, mining, and how geopolitics can help us understand regional issues. Audio of our conversation, which lasted about 20 [...]

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On Developing a Regional Framework for Central Asia

by Joshua Foust

Alexander Golts wants a more activist America operating in Central Asia: Moreover, Moscow should propose that the United States and NATO take direct responsibility for what will happen in Central Asia even after they have withdrawn all of their troops from Afghanistan. The Kremlin must soberly accept the fact that Russia and Central Asian countries [...]

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The Necessity of Language Education

by Joshua Foust

Sad news from Washington’s budget battles: National Resource Centers, so designated by the Education Department to teach foreign languages and culture at universities around the country, lost 47 percent of their budget for fiscal year 2011 in the last-minute deal to avert a government shutdown in April — a surprise to observers who had not [...]

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Catching up on Central Asia’s Nostalgic Anti-Democracy

by Joshua Foust

The Associated Press looks up to see the Former Soviet Union not all that democratic. Most of it is pretty anodyne, so let’s look at what they say about Central Asia: Ukraine, where massive protests in 2004 ushered in a reformist Western-leaning pro-NATO government, almost immediately devolved into factional jealousies that effectively paralyzed the country. [...]

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