[VIDEO POSTED] CACI Online Forum: America's New Strategy for Central Asia: Is it Happening? With Lisa Curtis, Senior Director, National Security Council
America's New Strategy for Central Asia: Is it Happening?
In February 2020, the U.S. released a new Strategy for Central Asia, subtitled “Advancing Sovereignty and Economic Prosperity.” Since then, the world has changed. How is this Strategy being implemented? This Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Forum discussion will focus on the concrete steps to implement America’s Strategy towards Central Asia.
Our guest speaker Lisa Curtis, Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, The White House, discussed initiatives undertaken as part of the new strategy.
This discussion was Moderated by: S. Frederick Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.
When: Friday, October 16, 2020 at 10am EDT
The event was live-streamed on the CACI Facebook page and is now availabile on Youtube.
Discovering Opportunities in the Pandemic? Four Economic Response Scenarios for Central Asia
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program
Silk Road Paper
July 2020
The COVID-19 crisis represents not only an
unprecedented economic disruption but also an opportunity for Central Asia. A specific economic policy response may trigger either game-changing reforms that can facilitate the development of full-fledged market institutions or lead to a protracted crisis that would jeopardize almost 30-year long market economy transition progress. As it is rather unclear where the recovery pendulum will make its final swing, the current situation provides fruitful soil for various assumptions. This paper proposes and examines four scenarios of economic response strategies for the region as a whole, and for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in particular, that result in unique development trajectories. The paper employs the foresight methodology to build four scenarios related to the situation after the lockdown is fully lifted. The scenarios serve the purpose of helping decision makers to embark on informed decisions while shaping anti-crisis measures and better understand causality mechanisms behind their policy choices.
Scenario 1 (Protectionist Autarky): Stability upheld, limited reforms, increased role of the state and protectionism.
Scenario 2 (Impactful Diversification): Increased social support, augmented role of the private sector, comprehensive diversification and enhanced regionalization.
Scenario 3 (Inertial Asymmetry): Selective support measures, inequality-conducive, restricted diversification and limited reforms, “business-as-usual” commodity market, growing regionalization.
Scenario 4 (Unleashed Bazaar): Major institutional reforms, FDI-oriented economic openness, leapfrogging from stagnant to advanced emerging markets.
[Video Posted] CACI Online Forum: Kazakhstan Beyond Headlines: One Year of Mr. Tokayev's Presidency
Kazakhstan Beyond Headlines: One Year of Mr. Tokayev's Presidency
Speakers:
H.E. Yerzhan Ashikbayev, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan
Ambassador Bolat Nurgaliyev, Deputy Chairman of Foreign Policy Research Institute
Introduction by:
S. Frederick Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at AFPC
Moderator:
Svante Cornell, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
When: Wednesday, July 8, 2020 at 10am EDT
The event was live-streamed on our Facebook page and is now available on Youtube.
CACI and the Rumsfeld Foundation hosted e-CAMCA Week 2020
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,.
E-CAMCA WEEK PUBLICATIONS
Welcome Letter
Letter from Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
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
Digital Transformation in the CAMCA Region
Post COVID-19: Challeges & Opportunities for the Region
CACI releases Silk Road Papers on State and Religion in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan
Religion and the Secular State in Central Asia: The Examples of Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan
This event marked the publication of two Silk Road Papers on the state-religion relationships in Central Asia, a study of Kyrgyzstan by Johan Engvall and one on Turkmenistan by Victoria Clement. This forms part of the ongoing research effort on secular governance, religion and politics at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, and follows the publication of studies on Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Johan Engvall’s study of Kyrgyzstan’s experience is timely given that country’s experience, starting with a more permissive atmosphere that subsequently aligned itself with policies in the rest of the region. Victoria Clement’s study of Turkmenistan is the first treatment of the subject to appear in print, and sheds light on the similarities of Turkmenistan’s approach with the rest of Central Asia as well as its specificities.
Speakers:
Victoria Clement, Eurasia Regional Analyst, Center For Advanced Operational Culture Learning, Marine Corps University
Johan Engvall, Senior Research Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute
Moderator: Svante E. Cornell, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at AFPC
When: Monday, June 15, 2020 at 10am EDT
The Event was live-streamed on our Facebook page and is available on our YouTube page and here.
News
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Read CACI Chairman S. Frederick Starr's recent interview on the resurgence of Imperial Russia with The American Purpose
Why Russians Support the War: Jeffrey Gedmin interviews S. Frederick Starr on the resurgence of Imperial Russia.
The American Purpose, May 23, 2023
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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CACI director Svante Cornell's interviewed on the 'John Batchelor Show' podcast regarding Turkey's 2023 presidential election
Listen to CACI director Svante Cornell's recent interview on the 'John Batchelor Show' podcast regarding Turkey's 2023 presidential election. Click here!
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New Article Series on Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus
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CACI Initiative on Religion and the Secular State in Central Asia and the Caucasus
In 2016, the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program launched an initiative on documenting the interrelationship of religion and the secular state in the region. This initiative departed from the fact that little systematic reserch had been undertaken on the subject thus far. While there was and remains much commentary and criticism of religious policy in the region, there was no comprehensive analysis available on the interrelationship of religion and the state in any regional state, let alone the region as a whole. The result of this initiative has been the publication of six Silk Road Papers studying the matter in regional states, with more to come. In addition, work is ongoing on a volume putting the regional situation in the context of the Muslim world as a whole.
Case Studies
Each study below can be freely downloaded in PDF format.
Azerbaijan's Formula: Secular Governance and Civil Nationhood
By Svante E. Cornell, Halil Karaveli, and Boris Ajeganov
November 2016
Religion and the Secular State in Kazakhstan
By Svante E. Cornell, S. Frederick Starr and Julian Tucker
April 2018
Religion and the Secular State in Uzbekistan
Svante E. Cornell and Jacob Zenn
June 2018
Religion and the Secular State in Kyrgyzstan
Johan Engvall
June 2020
Religion and the Secular State in Turkmenistan
Victoria Clement
June 2020Articles and Analyses
Svante E. Cornell, "Religion and the State in Central Asia," in Ilan Berman, ed., Wars of Ideas: Theology, Interpretation and Power in the Muslim World, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.
Svante E. Cornell, "Central Asia: Where Did Islamic Radicalization Go?" in Religion, Conflict and Stability in the Former Soviet Union, eds. Katya Migacheva and Bryan Frederick, Arlington, VA: RAND Corporation, 2018.