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Rich in energy supplies and strategically located, the five countries of Central Asia attract attention from the Middle East, China, Russia and the United States. How will international competition for energy supplies affect each country? What are U.S. interests in the region? Answering these questions returns John Clark of Provocate to a previous incarnation as specialist in Central European and Eurasian political economy. 

When: Wednesday May 16 — talk 11-12, lunch 12:00-12:45

Where: North United Methodist Church, N. Meridian St. at 38th St. Indianapolis

This is part of the Mid-North Shepherd Center’s Great decisions series. Questions? Contact 317-924-0959 or mnscenter@aol.com. The talk is free and open to the public, but you should stay for lunch and it will cost you a few dollars.

Let’s hear Clark explain his Central Asian background: 

“September 10 2001 I was in charge of a project for the UN Development Program called A Strategy of Preventive Development for Kazakhstan. Basically, we were trying to anticipate every crisis that resource-rich and democracy-poor country might experience, and design an economic development strategy that would prevent those crises from erupting. ‘No Afghanistans in Kazakhstan!’ was my motto. Wow, that project changed a lot the next day! Within a matter of months, the US military had deposed the Taliban in Afghanistan, apparently defanged al Qaeda in the region, and was nestled comfortably in military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan … all with the active or tacit cooperation of its regional rivals such as Russia and China. A UN official said to me, half sarcastically: ‘It looks like America has conquered Central Asia.’ ‘No,’ I replied, paraphrasing Ben Franklin’s response to news that the British had conquered Philadelphia, ‘Central Asia has conquered America.’”

Clark is famed for his “more than total recall,” so it’s questionable whether he actually uttered this witticism at the time … but the point is valid. Plugging our collective nose as we cooperated with Uzbek despot Karimov seems to have led to the US outsourcing our nastiest interrogation jobs to highly-skilled Uzbek torturers, damaging our moral standing in the eyes of our European friends. And our all too half hearted support for democratic opposition in the region led the Uzbeks to break off cooperation, and now we find ourselves jostling with Russia and China for influence. A new “Great Game” is under way, and the US is playing at a great disadvantage.

Know before you go … About the “New Great Game”

The New Great Game is a term first popularized by Pakistani journalist Ahmad Rashid, who noted parallels between the original Great Game between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for strategic supremacy in Central Asia in the 19th and early 20th century, and the new friction in the same region between Russia and the United States. The New Great Game is in fact  bigger, including competition between China, Germany and the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States to secure reliable long-term sources of petroleum and natural gas through the construction of oil pipelines in the post-Soviet nations of Central Asia. British and Russian involvement in the region go back to 19th century Great Game, while the United States is a late-comer, dating back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. As a response to Soviet unilateralism in Afghanistan, the American government funded the Afghan Mujahideen including Osama Bin Laden until the Red Army withdrew in 1989. The situation is complicated today by the mutual desire of the major powers, most of all the United States, to establish military bases in Central Asia for counter-terrorism. The Shanghai Cooperation , a security organization headed by China and Russia, issued a statement in 2005 calling on the U.S. to establish a timetable for withdrawal of the U.S. military presence in Central Asia.

For more information after the event …

Kazakhstan beyond Borat!  

China jostles with the US, Russia, and Iran to support dictators friendly to its energy and security needs.

Edil Baisalov, leader of Kyrgyzstan’s democratic opposition and the 2005 “Tulip Revolution,” is seeing his support from the American government clipped. Is it because the US military fears losing its bases? 

“Turkmenbashi,” the comically meglomanaical dictator of Turkmenistan, died in December. What has changed for that unfortunate country? 

Central Asian Voices provides a forum for critical discussion of the region. Transitions Online is another excellent source ofcritical analysis.

Background about different rounds of the Great Game. 

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