The Bolshevik government achieved two goals by dividing up the territory of Central Asia into various national republics—it undermined the Pan-Turkic aspirations of the jadids, and it helped break the anti-Soviet basmachi movement by refocusing the attention of the local population on national construction, according... MORE

On June 22, the World Bank approved $12 million in additional financing for Tajikistan for a project creating temporary employment in rural districts (clearing irrigation and drainage canals). This financing is a specific effort to assist the country in tackling the impact of falling remittances... MORE

With more and more former members of the Caucasus Emirate pledging allegiance to the “caliphate” of the Islamic State, the situation in the North Caucasus may destabilize further. What is happening is not the disbanding of one rebel organization and its replacement with a more... MORE

The specter of a spill-over of violence from Afghanistan continues to haunt Tajikistan. According to the narrative being put forward by the Russian and Tajikistani governments, the Taliban is strengthening its position in northern Afghanistan and its forces are on the verge of invading Tajikistan.... MORE

The Embassy of the Russian Federation in Uzbekistan has announced that between April 27 and May 8, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945, embassy staff would distribute free “ribbons of St.... MORE

The government of Tajikistan has long sustained a shaky narrative purporting that Central Asia is in imminent danger of being overrun by militant forces. Long menaced by the specter of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the government has more recently added a new group... MORE

On March 1, Tajikistan held parliamentary elections. The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) officially received less than 2 percent of the votes cast and lost its only two seats in the 63-member parliament (BBC Tajik, March 17). While Tajikistan has never had an election... MORE

The threat of Islamist radicalism in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia has been a topic of debate among the analyst community for many years, especially following the 9/11 attacks in the United States. In recent months, interest in the topic has surged again,... MORE

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s efforts to build the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB)—a network of transportation infrastructure across Eurasia—are unlikely to drive a step change in China’s energy trade with and investment in Central Asia. This is not only because of the already robust energy... MORE

Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the “Silk Road Economic Belt” in a “historic” speech at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan in the week before the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Kyrgyzstan in September 2013. The initiative was viewed by the rest of the region mostly... MORE