A Partnership for Central Asia

S. Frederick Starr

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005

Article preview: first 500 of 4,555 words total.

Summary:  U.S. engagement with Afghanistan has brought all of Central Asia to a turning point, but flagging interest and uncoordinated policies risk undermining recent gains. To seize the opportunity for progress in a vital region, Washington should form a Greater Central Asia Partnership for Cooperation and Development.

S. Frederick Starr is Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

ATTENTION DEFICIT?

Despite near-constant warnings of imminent chaos, Afghanistan has come a long way since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Security has improved markedly, and the economy has stabilized. A national assembly has ratified an impressive constitution, and presidential elections were held. If progress continues, the reconstruction of Afghanistan will mark a significant victory in the war on terrorism. If it flags, the recent gains will start to erode.

Central Asia as a whole is also at a turning point. Following September 11, 2001, Washington entered into new understandings with every government in the region; all saw Afghanistan as a security threat and thus were eager to help. But whether Washington's present interest in the region will turn into a sustained commitment to Afghanistan and its neighbors is still unclear. Already, members of Congress are pushing to reduce U.S. assistance to Afghanistan, arguing that the principal U.S. objective there -- the destruction of the Taliban -- has been achieved. Many Central Asian leaders are beginning to hedge their bets, assuming that U.S. attention will soon shift elsewhere.

What few U.S. policymakers have recognized is that recent progress in Afghanistan has created a remarkable opportunity -- not only for Afghanistan but for the rest of Central Asia as well. The United States now has the chance to help transform Afghanistan and the entire region into a zone of secure sovereignties sharing viable market economies, enjoying secular and open systems of government, and maintaining positive relations with the United States. The means to achieve this goal will be the establishment of a Greater Central Asia Partnership for Cooperation and Development (GCAP), a regionwide forum for the planning, coordination, and implementation of an array of U.S. programs.

The GCAP would signal the United States' recognition of its long-term interests in Central Asia. It would also reflect the fact that peace and development are best advanced by recognizing greater Central Asia as a single region linked by common interests and common needs. The emergence of this zone would have important benefits for both the region itself and the United States, rolling back the forces of extremism and serving as an attractive model for developing Muslim societies elsewhere.

The key to development in the region is trade, which in turn requires improvements in transport. The economies of Afghanistan and its neighbors will never flourish in isolation; many are still dominated by subsistence agriculture, and none has much industry. But their geographical position -- at the crossroads of the Middle East and eastern Asia, of Europe and southern Asia -- would enable them to reap great benefits from increases in trade.

In fact, trade flourished here for 2,500 years, until the Soviet Union's southern border sliced the region in two. U.S. action has now made it possible to reopen these trade channels. Regionwide trade would enable Afghan farmers to get their legal produce to world markets, create jobs, and provide revenue to the central government; for other Central Asian countries, it would lead ...

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