Central Eurasia Prize or Quicksand? Contending Views of Instability in Karabakh, Ferghana and Afghanistan

The states of the former Soviet South - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - as well asAfghanistan, remain mired in a post-Soviet limbo ten years after the empire'sformal dissolution. While there has yet been no war among major powers over thespoils of empire, instability is rife throughout the region, while severalconflicts - the most notable being the civil wars in Afghanistan, Tajikistan andthe Caucasus - continue to cast a spell over regional stability. How much doesthis matter to the outside world? Do countries like the US have a stake in thisregion? How much are they to blame for its current condition?This paper argues that the major powers, chief among them the US, have played acentral role in fomenting a logic of regional rivalry that has prevented CentralEurasia from developing the critical foundations of co-operation that arenecessary to produce the kind of post-Soviet stability one finds in Europe.While the paper does not dismiss the many internal causes of instability, itchooses to focus on the significance of the region to outside powers and therole those powers have played, both on the ground and in the symbolic realm. Itdoes so by tracing the involvement of major powers in three particularly richareas of instability - Karabakh, Ferghana and Afghanistan. Each case illustratesdivergences between rhetorical policy and actual interests, and shows how theformer have hindered the latter.Instability in Central Eurasia has had relatively modest effects on the overallrelations among China, Iran, Russia, the US and other major powers like India,Pakistan and Turkey, but this may not last. This paper urges upon the majorpowers an earnest reassessment of collective interests in this region, beforeneglectful governments transform small-scale problems into far more seriousones.Weisbrode, Kenneth is the author of 'Central Eurasia Prize or Quicksand? Contending Views of Instability in Karabakh, Ferghana and Afghanistan' with ISBN 9780198510703 and ISBN 0198510705.