Central Asians have no intention to roll back their ties with their large neighbors, but seek rather to balance them with ties with the West... America now has before it what may be the last, best chance to prevent the region from being dominated by autocratic outsiders.
CACI chairman S. Frederick Starr discusses the resurgence of Imperial Russia with the American Purpose magazine
Even as their government prepares them for the shock of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, most Russians continue to endorse Putin’s imperial dream.
The meetings by heads of state in Issyk-Kul and Tashkent earlier this summer showed clearly that America’s abrupt departure from Afghanistan last year and its long-term neglect of Central Asia did not mark the end of history. Quite the contrary.
Whoever emerges from the inevitable turmoil in Russia, he, she, or they will have to address the open wound that Putin’s Ukraine gambit has opened in the Russian polity itself.