Publications

The dream of the “Trump Route” in the Caucasus will remain unfulfilled without further connectivity to Central Asia. 

On February 24 Vladimir Putin began the fifth year of his disastrous war against Ukraine. It has sacrificed a million men killed or wounded in order to gain a fragile hold on only a fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

This essay by Dr. S. Frederick Starr was written for the meeting of the World Society for the Study, Preservation, and Popularization of the Culture of Uzbekistan, a body that has brought together Uzbek-sourced manuscripts from all the world’s museums. It has sent teams to the US, France, Germany, Turkey, and Japan, and has vastly expanded the known body of manuscripts from Central Asia, publishing them online and in print editions of superior quality. Dr. Starr has been a trustee since its founding in 2017.

A change in Russia’s government is more likely to take place than conventional wisdom allows.

Today’s Central Asian reformers are picking up and reviving neglected approaches to politics and society that Islam’s Golden Age turned its back on a millennium ago. They do so as Muslim believers or at least as officials respectful of Islam.