The Caucasus after the War 

Recent events signify profound changes in the Caucasus. Georgia has held a contested election; meanwhile, on November 10th, a cease-fire agreement ended weeks of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan that claimed over a thousand lives and saw Azerbaijan restore control over vast swaths of land. A new status quo has been reached, Russian peacekeepers are now deployed in the area and Turkey has emerged as a force in the Caucasus. Where does the region go from here? What are the implications for U.S. and European policy? 

Prominent regional and international speakers joined CACI experts in a discussion on the implications of a Nagorno-Karabakh peace treaty and how the conflict has already reshaped the security situation for the countries of the Southern Caucasus and the wider region.

Moderator: 

Svante E. Cornell, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute 

Speakers:

- Glen Howard, President, Jamestown Foundation

- Ambassador Tedo Japaridze, Former Ambassador of Georgia to the United States, Canada, and Mexico

- Suat Kiniklioglu, Former Turkish Parliamentarian and Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Security and Developmental Policy

- Sergey Markedonov, Leading Researcher at the Institute of International Studies at MGIMO-University

 

The event was live-streamed on the CACI Facebook page and is now available on our Youtube Channel

 
Published in Forums & Events

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In lieu of our in-person annual gathering, the CAMCA Regional Forum organizers  are hosting a virtual e-CAMCA Week.

The June 2020 CAMCA Forum, to be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, was postponed until June 2021. In its place, CACI and the Rumsfeld Foundation organized the e-CAMCA week of online events and publication. Find recordings of the e-CAMCA Week virtual events held over June 15th-19th at the CAMCA Forum YouTube Channel, as well a variety of original #CAMCAweek publications and resources for our CAMCA Forum community at www.camcaforum.org,. 

 

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CAMCA 2020 pic 2 

CAMCA 2020 part 3

E-CAMCA WEEK PUBLICATIONS

The Value of CAMCA 

A joint statement on the value of the CAMCA Regional Forum by three distinguished regional representatives: Amb. Tedo Japaridze, Sen. Sodyq Safoev and Amb. Hafiz Pashayev

Welcome Letter

Letter from Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

 and Dr. S  Frederick Starr for

e-CAMCA Week 2020 participants

Meet CAMCA Entrepreneurs

View features of some successful regional entrepreneurs from our CAMCA Network

"Caucasus & Central Asia Post COVID-19" Series- Volume I

The Strasbourg Policy Centre's Series brings together statesmen and scholars that reflect on how the current pandemic affects the economy and power distribution in the region bridging the Atlantic and the Pacific economies

Digital Transformation in the CAMCA Region

A jointly authored article by two CAMCA Network members - Mariam Lashkhi, Deputy Chairperson of Georgia’s Innovation & Technology Agency, and Talant Sultanov, Co-Founder of the Internet Society-Kyrgyz Chapter

Post COVID-19: Challeges & Opportunities for the Region

A comprehensive collection of brief commentaries on the short and long-term impacts – economic, political and social – of the COVID-19 pandemic on the CAMCA region.  Contributors to this unique publication include more than 20 experts and professionals from over 10 countries representing think tanks, business, academia, government and more.  Read these wide-ranging perspectives, including insights directly from the region, curated for our CAMCA Forum community.

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Click here to sign up for CACI Forum mailing list

Published in Forums & Events
Monday, 15 June 2020 00:00

e-CAMCA Week 2020

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In lieu of our in-person annual gathering, the CAMCA Regional Forum organizers  are hosting a virtual e-CAMCA Week.

From June 15th-19th we will be hosting a daily live speaker session or panel, as well as releasing a variety of original content and helpful resources, for our CAMCA Forum community. We’ve pulled together a terrific collection of experts from across sectors, including members of the CAMCA Network, that will be delivering the latest on what you need to know about the region during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.  

Live video events will take place at 10 AM EST daily from June 16th-19th .

TUNE IN HERE  to our Facebook page for live video events (full agenda below) and

SUBSCRIBE BELOW to receive the aforementioned release

VIEW THE FULL AGENDA DETAILS HERE

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CAMCA 2020 pic 2 

CAMCA 2020 part 3

E-CAMCA WEEK PUBLICATIONS

The Value of CAMCA 

A joint statement on the value of the CAMCA Regional Forum by three distinguished regional representatives: Amb. Tedo Japaridze, Sen. Sodyq Safoev and Amb. Hafiz Pashayev

Welcome Letter

Letter from Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

 and Dr. S  Frederick Starr for

e-CAMCA Week 2020 participants

Meet CAMCA Entrepreneurs

View features of some successful regional entrepreneurs from our CAMCA Network

"Caucasus & Central Asia Post COVID-19" Series- Volume I

The Strasbourg Policy Centre's Series brings together statesmen and scholars that reflect on how the current pandemic affects the economy and power distribution in the region bridging the Atlantic and the Pacific economies

Digital Transformation in the CAMCA Region

A jointly authored article by two CAMCA Network members - Mariam Lashkhi, Deputy Chairperson of Georgia’s Innovation & Technology Agency, and Talant Sultanov, Co-Founder of the Internet Society-Kyrgyz Chapter

Post COVID-19: Challeges & Opportunities for the Region

A comprehensive collection of brief commentaries on the short and long-term impacts – economic, political and social – of the COVID-19 pandemic on the CAMCA region.  Contributors to this unique publication include more than 20 experts and professionals from over 10 countries representing think tanks, business, academia, government and more.  Read these wide-ranging perspectives, including insights directly from the region, curated for our CAMCA Forum community.

Screen Shot 2020-06-17 at 9.36.51 AM

Click here to sign up for CACI Forum mailing list

Published in Forums & Events

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

January 27, 2020

Svante E. Cornell and Brenda Shaffer

FDDSetting policies toward territories involved in protracted conflicts poses an ongoing challenge for governments, companies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Since there are multiple zones of disputed territories and occupation around the globe, setting policy toward one conflict raises the question of whether similar policies will be enacted toward others. Where different policies are implemented, the question arises: On what principle or toward what goal are the differences based?

Recently, for example, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided goods entering the European Union that are produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank must be clearly designated as such. At the same time, however, neither the ECJ nor the European Union have enacted similar policies on goods from other zones of occupation, such as Nagorno-Karabakh or Abkhazia. The U.S. administration swiftly criticized the ECJ decision as discriminatory since it only applies to Israel. Yet, at the same time, U.S. customs policy on goods imports from other territories is also inconsistent: U.S. Customs and Border Protection has explicit guidelines that goods imported from the West Bank must be labelled as such, while goods that enter the United States from other occupied zones, such as Nagorno-Karabakh, encounter no customs interference.

Territorial conflicts have existed throughout history. But the establishment of the United Nations, whose core principles include the inviolability of borders and the inadmissibility of the use of force to change them, led to the proliferation of protracted conflicts. Previously, sustained control over territory led to eventual acceptance of the prevailing power’s claims to sovereignty. Today, the United Nations prevents recognition of such claims but remains largely incapable of influencing the status quo, leaving territories in an enduring twilight zone. Such territories include, but are not limited to: Crimea, Donbas, Northern Cyprus, the West Bank, Kashmir, The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, and Western Sahara.

The problem is not simply that the United Nations, United States, European Union, private corporations, and NGOs act in a highly inconsistent manner. It is that their policies are selective and often reveal biases that underscore deeper problems in the international system. For example, Russia occupies territories the United States and European Union recognize as parts of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, yet Crimea is the only Russian-occupied territory subject to Western sanctions. By contrast, products from Russian-controlled Transnistria enter the United States as products of Moldova, and the European Union allows Transnistria to enjoy the benefits of a trade agreement with Moldova. The United States and European Union demand specific labeling of goods produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and prohibit them from being labeled Israeli products. Yet products from Nagorno-Karabakh – which the United States and European Union recognize as part of Azerbaijan – freely enter Western markets labeled as products of Armenia.

Today, several occupying powers try to mask their control by setting up proxy regimes, such as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) or similar entities in Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh. While these proxies do not secure international recognition, the fiction of their autonomy benefits the occupier. By contrast, countries that acknowledge their direct role in a territorial dispute tend to face greater external pressure than those that exercise control by proxy.

Some territorial disputes have prompted the forced expulsion or wartime flight of the pre-conflict population. A related issue is the extent to which the occupier has allowed or encouraged its own citizens to become settlers. While one might expect the international system to hold less favorable policies toward occupiers that drive out residents and build settlements, this is not the case. Armenia expelled the Azerbaijani population of Nagorno-Karabakh, yet the United States and European Union have been very lenient toward Armenia. They have also been lenient toward Morocco, which built a 1,700-mile long barrier to protect settled areas of Western Sahara and imported hundreds of thousands of settlers there. Against this backdrop, the constant pressure to limit Israeli settlement in the West Bank is the exception, not the rule.

This pressure is even more difficult to grasp given that Israel’s settlement projects in the West Bank consist of newly built houses. In most other conflict zones, such as Northern Cyprus and Nagorno-Karabakh, settlers gained access to the homes of former residents.

This study aims to provide decision makers in government as well as in the private sector with the means to recognize double standards. Such standards not only create confusion and reveal biases, but also constitute a business and legal risk. New guidelines for making consistent policy choices are therefore sorely needed.

An Increasingly Polarized Georgia: What Should America Do?

Georgia has entered an election year with an extremely polarized political environment. In 2019, the ruling Georgian Dream party promised and advertised a move to a proportional electoral system with a zero threshold for parliamentary representation. Its reversal of this decision in November caused significant political turmoil, and led  a significant pro-Western fraction to leave the ruling party. The otherwise fractured opposition is now consolidated in its demand for electoral reforms, putting the legitimacy of the election process in question. At several earlier times, the U.S. has taken a role to assist Georgia in difficult times like this. Could it do so again? Should it?  

Speakers:

Michael Carpenter, Managing Director, Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement

Ambassador Richard Miles, Former US Ambassador to Georgia

Anthony C. Bowyer, Europe & Eurasia Advisor, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)

Moderator: Svante Cornell, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at AFPC

Where: American Foreign Policy Council: 509 C Street NE, Washington, DC 20002

When: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 from 2:00 - 3:45 pm

Scroll down to watch the event.

Published in Forums & Events

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News

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    Friday, 03 November 2023 18:30

    Whether Russian President Vladimir Putin dies in office, is ousted in a palace coup, or relinquishes power for some unforeseen reason, the United States and its allies would face a radically different Russia with the Kremlin under new management. The geopolitical stakes mean that policymakers would be negligent not to plan for the consequences of a post-Putin Russia. On November 2, 2023, CACI Chairman S. Frederick Starr joined a panel organized by the Hudson Institute’s Center on Europe and Eurasia for a discussion on how US and allied policymakers can prepare for a Russia after Putin.

    Click here to watch on YouTube or scroll down to watch the full panel discussion.

  • Central Asia Diplomats Call for Closer Ties With US
    Monday, 26 June 2023 00:00

    REPRINTED with permission from Voice of America News
    By Navbahor Imamova

    WASHINGTON -- U.S.-based diplomats from Central Asia, a region long dominated by Russia and more recently China, say they are eager for more engagement with the United States.

    Many American foreign policy experts agree that a more robust relationship would be mutually beneficial, though U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations express deep concerns about human rights and authoritarian rule in the five countries: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

    Michael Delaney, a former U.S. trade official, argued in favor of greater engagement this week at a webinar organized by the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce.

    He noted that three of the five republics are World Trade Organization members and the other two are in the accession process — a goal actively encouraged by the U.S. government.

    "I've always believed that this is a geographically disadvantaged area. There are relatively small national economies," he said. But, he said, collectively the region represents a potentially more connected market, about 80 million people.

    Key issues

    In this virtual gathering, all five Central Asian ambassadors to Washington expressed eagerness to work on issues the U.S. has long pushed for, such as water and energy sustainability, security cooperation, environmental protection and climate, and connectivity.

    Kazakhstan's Ambassador Yerzhan Ashikbayev said that despite all factors, the United States does not want to leave the field to China, its global competitor, which actively invests in the region.

    "Recent visit by 20 companies to Kazakhstan as a part of certified U.S. trade mission, including technology giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google, but also other partners like Boeing, have shown a growing interest," Ashikbayev said.

    The Kazakh diplomat described a "synergy" of economies and diplomatic efforts. All Central Asian states are committed to dialogue, trade and multilateralism, he said. "As we are witnessing the return of the divisive bloc mentalities almost unseen for 30 years, it's in our best interest to prevent Central Asia from turning into another battleground of global powers."

    During his first tour of Central Asia earlier this year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, meeting separately with the foreign ministers of all five countries.

    That was deeply appreciated, said Meret Orazov, Turkmenistan's longtime ambassador, who also praised the regular bilateral consultations the U.S. holds with these countries.

    Uzbek Ambassador Furqat Sidiqov sees the U.S. as an important partner, with "long-standing friendship and cooperation which have only grown stronger over the years."

    "The U.S. has played a significant role in promoting dialogue and cooperation among the Central Asian nations through initiatives such as the C5+1," he said, referring to a diplomatic platform comprising Washington and the region's five governments.

    "This is where we address common concerns and enhance integration," said Sidiqov. "We encourage the U.S. to bolster this mechanism."

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    'Possibility of positive change'

    Fred Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington, ardently advocates for the U.S. to adopt closer political, economic and people-to-people ties with the region.

    In a recent paper, he wrote that among dozens of officials, diplomats, entrepreneurs, experts, journalists and civil society leaders interviewed in Central Asia, "even those most critical of American positions saw the possibility of positive change and … all acknowledged that the need for change is on both sides, theirs as well as ours."

    This is the only region that doesn't have its own organization, said Starr, arguing that the U.S. could support this effort. "We have not done so, probably because we think that this is somehow going to interfere with their relations with their other big neighbors, the north and east, but it's not going to. It's not against anyone."

    "Easy to do, low cost, very big outcome," he added, also underscoring that "there is a feeling the U.S. should be much more attentive to security."

    "Japan, the European Union, Russia, China, their top leaders have visited. … No U.S. president has ever set foot in Central Asia," he said. He added that regional officials are left to wonder, "Are we so insignificant that they can't take the time to visit?"

    Starr urges U.S. President Joe Biden to convene the C5+1 in New York during the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly in September. "This would not be a big drain on the president's time, but it would be symbolically extremely important," he said. "All of them want this to happen."

    Read at VOA News

  • Read CACI Chairman S. Frederick Starr's recent interview on the resurgence of Imperial Russia with The American Purpose
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    Jeffrey Gedmin: Do we have a Putin problem or a Russia problem today?

    S. Frederick Starr: We have a Putin problem because we have a Russia problem. Bluntly, the mass of Russians are passive and easily manipulated—down to the moment they aren’t. Two decades ago they made a deal with Vladimir Putin, as they have done with many of his predecessors: You give us a basic income, prospects for a better future, and a country we can take pride in, and we will give you a free hand. This is the same formula for autocracy that prevailed in Soviet times, and, before that, under the czars. The difference is that this time Russia’s leader—Putin—and his entourage have adopted a bizarre and dangerous ideology, “Eurasianism,” that empowers them to expand Russian power at will over the entire former territory of the USSR and even beyond. It is a grand and awful vision that puffs up ruler and ruled alike.

    What do most Russians think of this deal? It leaves them bereft of the normal rights of citizenship but free from its day-to-day responsibilities. So instead of debating, voting, and demonstrating, Russians store up their frustrations and then release them in elemental, often destructive, and usually futile acts of rebellion. This “Russia problem” leaves the prospect of change in Russia today in the hands of alienated members of Putin’s immediate entourage, many of whom share his vision of Russia’s destiny and are anyway subject to Putin’s ample levers for control. Thus, our “Putin problem” arises from our “Russia problem.”

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