Abstract
Building on its August 2017 South Asia Strategy, the Trump Administration, in February 2020, unveiled a new Central Asia Strategy. Similar to the important roles performed by India and Pakistan to foster peace in and greater connectivity with Afghanistan, the countries of Central Asia—namely, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—are also poised to make significant contributions in these areas as the United States transitions in Afghanistan following the signing, on February 29, 2020, of its historic deal with the Taliban movement. In this chapter, the authors explore key political, economic, and other aspects of the recent past and potential further support the Central Asian Republics can offer to increase stability and prosperity in Afghanistan, within the broader context of Great Power competition involving the United States, Russia, China, and other major countries.
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Notes
- 1.
Humayun Hamidzada is a nonresident fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, and director of the Afghanistan Peace Research Project at the York University Centre for Asian Research, Toronto. Richard Ponzio is director of the Stimson Center’s Just Security 2020 Program. From 2010 to 2014, he was a senior adviser to the Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. Department of State. They wish to thank the United States Institute of Peace for granting permission to update an earlier version of their August 2019 USIP Special Report, “Central Asia’s Growing Role in Building Peace and Regional Connectivity with Afghanistan”, for this chapter.
- 2.
Widespread opium cultivation and trafficking is also known to support corrupt Afghan government officials and local militia commanders supported by the Afghan government.
- 3.
See strategies presented at the fifth (March 2012, Dushanbe), sixth (September 2015, Kabul), and seventh (November 2017, Ashgabat) editions of the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (visit: https://recca.af/).
- 4.
Note: The five Central Asian Republics were founding members in 1997 and Afghanistan joined in 2005.
- 5.
Note: The five Central Asian Republics were founding members and Turkmenistan co-leads, along with Azerbaijan and Afghanistan, the regional infrastructure technical working group.
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Hamidzada, H., Ponzio, R. (2021). Central Asia, Great Power Competition, and Achieving Peace in Afghanistan. In: Farhadi, A., Masys, A.J. (eds) The Great Power Competition Volume 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64473-4_4
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