Publications

Jaap Polak walks gingerly these days, leaning on a cane or holding the rail as he climbs the stairs to his second-floor room at The Sparhawk, a comfortable waterfront resort in the southern Maine town of Ogunquit. That's where, for more than half a century, he and his wife, Ina Soep, have spent a few weeks in August -- and that's where I first got to know this couple and learned their remarkable story.

Tucked away in what is colloquially known as the “post-Soviet space,” the tiny, landlocked Central Asian republic of Tajikistan seems like an unlikely strategic prize. Yet a potentially significant geopolitical tug of war is brewing there between the United States and Russia. The stakes of this unfolding contest are high and involve continued Western access to Central Asia and, quite possibly, the political future of at least part of the region.