The Long Game on the Silk Road: US and EU Strategy for Central Asia and the Caucasus

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This book argues that American and European policies toward Central Asia and the Caucasus suffer from both conceptual and structural impediments. It traces the framework of Western policies to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, which resulted in the stovepiping of relations into political, economic, and democracy categories and in often uncoordinated or contradictory policies. While the authors embrace the goal of promoting human rights and democracy, they argue that the antagonistic methods adopted to advance this goal have proven counter-productive. They propose that Western governments work with the regional states rather than on or against them; and that instead of focusing directly on political systems, policies should focus on developing the quality of governance and help build institutions that will be building blocks of rule of law and democracy in the long term. The authors also argue that Western leaders have largely failed to grasp the significance of this region, relegated it to a subordinate status and thus damaging western interests. The development of sovereign, economically strong, and effectively self-governing states in the Caucasus and Central Asia is an important goal in its own right; the book stresses the importance of a region where the development and preservation of secular statehood could become a model for the entire Muslim world.

Author Bio

S. FREDERICK STARR is Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Center whose components are affiliated, respectively, with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington D.C. and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. The Founding Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Starr is a Distinguished Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. His research focuses on issues of social and economic development in Central Asia, particularly the salience of continental transport and trade. Starr was educated at Yale, Cambridge and Princeton. He was founding director of the Kennan Institute and is a former President of Oberlin College and the Aspen Institute. He contributed to the establishment of the University of Central Asia, of the Nazarbayev University, and of the ADA University in Baku. He is the author or editor of some twenty- two books and 180 articles, and the recipient of five honorary degrees. SVANTE E. CORNELL is Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center. Cornell was educated at the Middle East Technical University and Uppsala University. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Security and Development in Stockholm, Sweden, and a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. He previously taught political science and Eurasian affairs at the University of Uppsala and at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS. He focuses on national security, regional politics, and conflict management issues in the Caucasus, as well as in Turkey, Southwest and Central Asia. He is the author or editor of eight books and some 100 articles.