Central Asia Archive

Perhaps the most surprising feature of the protracted crisis in Kyrgyzstan is what has not happened: Neither of Eurasia’s two preeminent regional security institutions, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), have coordinated a military intervention in that country. The mass protests, deaths, and refugee crisis involving perhaps 1 million people has represented one of the most acute challenges to Eurasian stability in the history of either organization, both of which were founded almost a decade ago. In mid-June 2010, the Kyrgyz interim authorities even directly appealed for Russian military intervention on their behalf, but […]

When Roza Otunbayeva came to power at the head of the Kyrgyz interim government in April, she knew that the road ahead was going to be tough. Her program of constitutional reform, new elections, and a jump-start for the country’s stagnating economy would have been difficult even in less uncertain times. But since the spring, Otunbayeva has been faced with a spate of riots, murders, violent clashes and burning villages in the south of the country, culminating in the flight of an estimated 400,000 Uzbeks and the death of more than 2,000 Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in violent riots over the […]

A Congressional report, released Monday, detailing how taxpayer money is going into the pockets of Afghan warlords in return for protecting NATO truck convoys has drawn attention to an immense logistical problem in Afghanistan that gets only intermittent attention: resupplying NATO forces in the conflict. Hopefully the House will broaden its investigation to take in the broader issue of the cost and security of the resupply lines themselves. The high cost of providing American and other allied troops with everything from ammunition to condoms is a key reason why keeping a soldier on the ground there costs almost double what […]

Seen from Washington’s perspective, the current ethnic clashes in the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh are yet another example of the risks of doing business in a very dangerous neighborhood. True, the U.S.-run Manas airbase, a vital supply hub for NATO forces in Afghanistan, is a long way from the current conflict. (Manas is in the north, near the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek.) But with President Barack Obama’s build-up of 30,000 additional troops for Afghanistan currently pouring into Manas en route to deployment, any threat to the base would create a logistical nightmare. The ethnic clashes between Kyrgyzs and Uzbeks […]

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has become commonplace to write of a new “Great Game” in Central Asia, pitting Russia, China, and NATO countries led by the U.S in a race for influence and access to the region’s energy and other resources. But despite all the worries about the potential for international conflict, the distinctive feature of the current crisis in Kyrgyzstan is the reluctance of all the major powers to intervene there. The riots in southern Kyrgyzstan, which first broke out Thursday, have now left hundreds of dead and thousands of injured, according to the latest […]