The Kazakh Prime Minister has compared the economic situation to wartime and told his cabinet that the “government will be ruling the economy manually”. He warned that “wartime regulations” may be a necessary step. Obviously, this is a bad sign. Four of the sixteen laid-off oil workers who are on a hunger strike have been […]
Every day I get emailed all the press briefings from the US State Department and yesterday, I found this in my inbox: The State Department has put up bounties of several million dollars, under the Rewards for Justice program, for three men with connections to Al Qaeda, Abu Yahya al-Libi, Baitullah Mehsud, and Sirajuddin Haqqani. […]
Ugh. That is the only word that really sums up the feelings of frustration regarding the latest report from unnamed American government officials detailing support given to the Taliban by Pakistani military intelligence officials. The US officials, which of course were not named because this information is supposedly not to become public, stated that Pakistan’s […]
The Kazakh government may not be able to continue the bailout of its biggest domestic bank, BTA, if any of its creditors ask for early repayment. The bank holds $12 million in foreign debt and will likely need to restructure it. So far, $2 billion in bailout funds has been injected into BTA In Uzbekistan, […]
Recent US policy in Afghanistan has involved a surge of troops, drone attacks, and now even a surge in these, but what about a diplomacy and civilian surge? Well, it looks like it may be here. President Obama is supposed to approve of a long, ongoing review of Afghanistan policy in the next week and […]
The US may be allowed to return to the Uzbek base of Karshi-Khanabad (K2) soon. They were evicted in 2005 after the massacre in Andijon in May and consequent international criticism. In recent weeks, Washington has spoken with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan about the possibility of a base, even after arguing that a base was not […]
The New York Times published an Op-Ed Chart detailing several key aspects of the stability and growth of both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts from 2005, 2007, and 2009. The numbers for Iraq are looking amazingly improved, where as Afghanistan is facing smaller scale, but troubling downturns. All the Afghan indicators are on the rise […]
The people of Central Asia are celebrating the Persian New Year, Narouz, marked on the vernal equinox each year. The holiday is celebrated from India to China to parts of Europe, among the Turkic, Iranian and Kurdish peoples, along with a few others. Under the Soviet Union, the holiday was officially banned as it was […]
Murmansk and Boston, united for centuries by bitter arctic weather, alcoholism and vitamin D deficiency, grew even closer this week when my beloved hometown, once familiar mainly to Tom Clancy readers and WWII afficionados (nuclear icebreaker base, allied convoys), hosted a major political insurrection. It all started when Sergei Subbotin, the deputy governor, stood for […]
As this blog has been reporting, some countries have a lot of water and other countries do not have enough. In a more perfect world, normal forces of supply and demand would render the former a producer and the latter a consumer. But as arguably the most valuable resource in the world, water is an […]
Alright, I’m pretty sure I’ve got you confused already by the title. Let me explain. Much has been leaked that the upcoming Obama policy plan for Afghanistan will take a ‘minimalist‘ approach to the crucial, yet troubling security situation in South Asia. In other words, Obama may downplay talk and attempts to create a democratic […]
Good news for both states as building begins for a railroad to carry non-lethal NATO supplies through Russia to Afghanistan. Radio Liberty reports that “The cost of building the 146-kilometer link is estimated at $131 million.” Let’s hope the building continues at a reasonable pace and leads to development on both sides of the border. Tajikistan’s […]
Last night I led my local Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decision discussion group on the Afghanistan/Pakistan conflict. My presentation largely stemmed from FPA’s Great Decision article written by Afghan expert and US government consultant on Afghanistan, Barnett R. Rubin, and an accompanying video debating the key issues of the conflict. I strongly recommend getting the […]
The Council on Foreign Relations today published an interview with Pavel Felgenhauer, the outspoken Putin opponent and astute defence analyst with Anna Politkovskaya’s old paper Novaya Gazeta, about all the main geopolitical questions facing Russia today. The most interesting part of this was his assertion that Russia believes that the US missile shield in Eastern […]
Gordon, a scholar at the Brookings Institute, has been appointed as assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, though he has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. EurasiaNet reports that this is a political appointment as Gordon is a close associate of Obama’s with little experience in the former Soviet Union. Apparently, this […]