Central Asia in the Energy Transition
Svante E. Cornell and Brenda Shaffer
December 4, 2024.
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The United States, Europe, the United Nations and more are promoting a top-down energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, which shows no signs of emergence. Under this scenario, Europe and the global market are likely to maintain demand for the energy riches of Central Asia for many decades to come. The gas market of Central Asia itself requires additional gas volumes as well. In order to lower carbon emissions and air pollution and improve public health in Central Asia, the ideal policy in the region is increased access to natural gas that can replace the widespread burning of biomass and lump coal. Current European policies promote expanding electrification and is leading to a new look at nuclear energy. Accordingly, the uranium deposits of Central Asia have become of high commercial and geopolitical interest.
Russia’s Grip on Georgia: Will the Oligarch’s Attempt to Move Georgia Away from the West Succeed?
Arabs, Turks and Persians: Geopolitics and Ideology in the Greater Middle East
by Svante E. Cornell
AFPC Press/Armin Lear, 2025
Link to Amazon and Kindle Edition
Link to Table of Contents and Introduction
Link to Chapter 7, "Iran's Arc of Domination"
Link to Chapter 12, "The Failure of Islamism in Turkey Reshuffles the Region"
For decades, the Greater Middle East has been a leading challenge to American foreign policy. This vast region - ranging from North Africa in the west to Afghanistan in the east, and from the borders of Central Asia down to the Horn of Africa in the south - has been a cauldron of turmoil that has affected not just American interests, but generated threats to the American homeland.
The multitude of challenges in this region has led to some confusion. What should be the focus of U.S. policy in the Greater Middle East?
This book explores this state of affairs and its implications by delving deeper into how the current geopolitics of the Greater Middle East came to be. A first few chapters look back to the history of the region and the historic rivalries among Turks, Arabs and Persians up to the end of the Cold War. The book then examines the main current power centers of the region - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It then turns to the geopolitical competition among them in recent years, starting with Iran's efforts to build an "Arc of Domination" across the region.
The book covers the advance of Islamists following the Arab Upheavals, the civil war among the Sunnis from 2013 to 2018, America's pendulum swings with regard to Iran policy, and the reshuffle of the region following Turkey's turn in a more nationalist direction. Finally, the book ends with an attempt to draw out implications for America's approach to the geopolitics of the Greater Middle East.
SVANTE E. CORNELL is Research Director of the American Foreign Policy Council's Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington D.C., and a co-founder of the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm, Sweden. Cornell was educated at the Middle East Technical University and Uppsala University. He formerly served as Associate Professor at Uppsala University and at Johns Hopkins-University-SAIS, and is also a Policy Advisor with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences.
Greater Central Asia as a Component of U.S. Global Strategy
By S. Frederick Starr
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program
Silk Road Paper
October 2024
Introduction
What should be the United States’ strategy towards Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the region of Greater Central Asia (GCA) as a whole? Should it even have one? Unlike most other world regions, these lands did not figure in US policy until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Though the new Baltic states entered Washington’s field of vision in that year, in those cases the Department of State could recall and build upon America’s relations with independent Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania during the inter-war decades. For the US Government after 1991, GCA was defined less as sovereign states than as a group of “former Soviet republics” that continued to be perceived mainly through a Russian lens, if at all.
Over the first generation after 1991 US policy focused on developing electoral systems, market economies, anti-narcotics programs, individual and minority rights, gender equality, and civil society institutions to support them. Congress itself defined these priorities and charged the Department of State to monitor progress in each area and to issue detailed country-by-country annual reports on progress or regression. The development of programs in each area and the compilation of data for the reports effectively preempted many other areas of potential US concern. Indeed, it led to the neglect of such significant issues as intra-regional relations, the place of these countries in global geopolitics, security in all its dimensions, and, above all, their relevance to America’s core interests. On none of these issues did Congress demand annual written reports.
This is not to say that Washington completely neglected security issues in GCA. To its credit, it worked with the new governments to suppress the narcotics trade. However, instead of addressing other US-GCA core security issues directly, it outsourced them to NATO and its Partnership for Peace Program (PfP). During the pre-9/11 years, PfP programs in the Caucasus and Central Asia produced substantial results, including officer training at the U.S. Army’s program in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and the Centrasbat, a combined battalion drawn from four Central Asian armies. But all these declined after 9/11 as America focused its attention on Afghanistan.
Today this picture has dramatically changed, and the changes all arise from developments outside the former Soviet states. First came America’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which brought important consequences. As the U.S. withdrew, new forces—above all China but also Russia and the Gulf States—moved in. Also, America’s pullout undercut the region’s champions of moderate Islam and reimposed a harsh Islamist regime in their midst. And, finally, because Central Asians have always considered Afghanistan as an essential part of their region and not just an inconvenient neighbor, they judged the abrupt U.S. pullout as a body blow to the region as a whole. Now the scene was dominated not by the U.S. but by China and Russia competing with each other. Both powers presented themselves as the new bulwarks of GCA security, and reduced the U.S. to a subordinate role.
While all this was going on, the expansion of China’s navy and of both Chinese and European commercial shipping called into question the overriding importance of transcontinental railroad lines and hence of GCA countries. Taken together, these developments marginalized the concerns and assumptions upon which earlier US strategy towards GCA had been based. With Afghanistan no longer a top priority, American officials refocused their attention on Beijing, Moscow, Ukraine, Israel, and Iran, in the process, increasing the psychological distance between Washington and the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
It did not help that no U.S. president had ever visited Central Asia or the Caucasus. This left the initiative on most issues to the GCA leaders themselves. Thus, it was Kazakhstan and not the State Department that proposed to the U.S. government to establish the C5+1 meetings. It was also thanks to pressure from regional leaders that the White House arranged for a first-ever (but brief) meeting between Central Asian presidents and the President of the United States, which took place in September 2023 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. By comparison, over the previous year Messrs. Putin and Xi Jinping had both met with the regional presidents half a dozen times. Hoping against hope, the Central Asian leaders hailed the C5+1 meeting as a fresh start in their relations with Washington. Washington has done little to validate this
Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach
By Laura Linderman
As Georgia approaches parliamentary elections in October 2024, the South Caucasus state stands at a pivotal juncture. The growing authoritarian tendencies of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party threaten to derail the nation’s democratic progress, and its aspirations for Euro-Atlantic integration. In this critical moment, the United States needs to act decisively by leveraging congressional measures to support Georgia’s democratic institutions and counter authoritarian influences there.
The problem is acute, because GD appears increasingly willing to resort to drastic measures to maintain its grip on power. Recently, the party openly indicated that it would call for a ban on the country’s political opposition if it gains a constitutional majority in the upcoming elections.
Georgia’s ruling party has reason to be concerned. Credible international polling by Edison Research suggests that GD is poised for a significant decline in vote share. Those figures reflect growing discontent among the Georgian populace, likely fueled by the government’s authoritarian measures and its failure to address critical economic and social issues. This contrasts sharply with less credible polling by GORBI, which claims GD is set to achieve an unrealistic majority—numbers that GD has never achieved, even at its height in 2012. The credibility of GORBI’s polling is further undermined by the significant public unrest and mass protests in the wake of the country’s passage of a controversial foreign agent law, which has only intensified public dissatisfaction.
It’s no wonder, then, that GD is contemplating potentially drastic political measures to prop up its authority. But its proposal signals a dangerous erosion of democratic norms, and highlights the need for international scrutiny and action, because the implications are profound – both for Georgia’s internal stability and for its international relationships, particularly with the United States and European Union.
Fortunately, Congressional remedies exist. Both the MEGOBARI Act in the House and the Senate’s Georgian People’s Act represent a bipartisan effort to address recent democratic backsliding in Georgia. They aim to impose financial sanctions on individuals undermining democratic processes and human rights, holding accountable those who threaten Georgia’s democratic future. Cumulatively, this legislation underscores the U.S. commitment to supporting the Georgian people, who overwhelmingly support Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration, and to countering malign influences, particularly from Russia. The both Acts’ power lies not only in punitive measures, but also in their potential to influence Georgia’s future trajectory by making it clear that the international community will not tolerate the erosion of democratic values.
The MEGOBARI Act, in particular, provides comprehensive incentives for the U.S. to strengthen Georgia’s democratic institutions based on real progress and reform. These incentives include negotiating a more robust trade agreement, enhancing exchanges and a streamlined visa regime, developing a comprehensive economic and modernization package, providing defense equipment and support, and offering a security assurance framework similar to the Ukraine G7 agreement. These positive incentives are essential to show both the Georgian government and its people that a commitment to democracy and reform will bring tangible benefits.
As Georgia faces the potential for electoral fraud and post-election unrest, this legislation (and its companion in the Senate) offers a critical toolkit for the U.S. to support Georgia’s democratic aspirations. Through them, the U.S. can help ensure a fair electoral process and counter external threats to Georgia’s sovereignty. Ultimately, congressional action should be about empowering Georgians to seize this moment and chart a course toward a more democratic and prosperous future. Washington’s role is to provide the necessary support and tools necessary for Georgia to succeed.
The stakes are high, because the upcoming elections in Georgia represent not just a domestic political contest, but a defining moment for the country’s future. The international community, led by the United States, needs to be vigilant and proactive in ensuring that this future is democratic, prosperous, and aligned with the values that the Georgian people have repeatedly affirmed.
Laura Linderman is Senior Fellow and Program Manager at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of the American Foreign Policy Council
