The dynamics of the new great game in Muslim Central Asia

Central Asian Survey

Volumn 13, Issue 4, 1994, Pages 525-539

  Ahrari, M E ^a  

^a Armed Forces Staff College   (United States)

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EID: 84937307841     PISSN: 02634937     EISSN: 14653354     Source Type: Trade Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02634939408400881     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. Even though Azerbaijan is part of Transcaucasus region, in this study it is treated as one of the Central Asian states.
2. Michael T. Clare discusses geoeconomic and geostrategic objectives in his ‘Policing the Gulf—and the world’, Nation, 16 October 1990, pp 401–405.
3. Edward N. Luttwak also discusses these concepts in his ‘From geo-politics to geo-economics’, National Interest, Summer 1990, pp 17–23.
4. For a brief overview of the Iranian interests in Central Asia see ‘Iran’s relations with the southern members of the Commonwealth of Independent States’. Background Brief (Foreign &Commonwealth Office, London, March 1992), pp 1–5.
5. A similar point on the transitory nature of Uzbekistan’s personality is made by Donald S. Carlisle. He writes: ‘ …personal self-identification as Uzbek and the phenomenon of Uzbek nationalism are incomplete and still in the process of formation…’
6. Making a more general point about the entire Central Asia along the same line, he notes: ‘At best, the region should be viewed as in transition politically, caught somewhere between tradition and modernity.’ ‘Uzbekistan and the Uzbeks’, Problems of Communism, September-October 1991, pp 23–44.
7. For instance, the Iranian economic activities, according to one report, included: a proposal to build a railway from Ashkhabad to northern Iran and then to the Persian Gulf; a gas pipeline from Tajikistan to Pakistan; a joint Iranian-Azerbaijan venture for oil exploration in the Caspian Sea; and the replacement of the Russian specialists with Iranians in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas industry. Commonwealth of Independent States and the Middle East (CIS &ME), a monthly summary and news analysis of the CIS and East European Press, Vol XVII, No 4, 1992, p 1. Hereafter will be referred to as CIS &ME.
8. CIS &ME, Vol XVII, No 5, 1992, p 23.
9. Cherif J. Cordahi, ‘Central Asia emerges into the Muslim world’, Middle East International (MEI), 3 April 1992, p 16.
10. George Mirsky, a Russian scholar, calls the Central Asia Soviet Third World ‘Central Asia’s Emergence’, Current History, October 1992, pp 334–338.
11. CIS &ME, Vol XVII, No 3, 1992, p 15.
12. For a critical analysis of the US policy in Central Asia see Shirin Hunter, ‘The Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union: policy challenges for the United States’, The Washington Quarterly, Summer 1992, pp 57–71.
13. For different views on Turan see Jacob M. Landau, Pan-Turkism in Turkey—A Study of Irredentism (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1981).
14. ‘Turkey extends a helping hand’, World Press Review, July 1992, pp 12–13.
15. For a discussion of Ankara’s steps to calm the fears of its neighbours see Gareth M. Winrow, ‘A stabilizing influence in a fragile Commonwealth?: Turkey and the former USSR’, Paper delivered at the 33rd Annual Convention on the International Studies Association, Atlanta, GA, 31 March-4 April 1992.
16. CIS &ME, Vol XVII, No 2, 1992, p 20.
17. CIS &ME, No 2, pp 8–9.
18. For details see CIS &ME, No 5, p 3.
19. CIS &ME, No 2, p 9.
20. CIS &ME, XVII, 1992, No 5, p 4, and No 6, pp 13–14.
21. CIS &ME, XVII, 1992, No 4, p 11.
22. The evidence on this issue is somewhat mixed. Even though the Turkish officials have continued to insist on the secular nature of their country, they have been no less shy in emphasizing in Central Asia that Turkey is also a Muslim country. By so doing, they cannot be described as explicitly sympthasizing with pan-Islamism; but at the same time, they are not exactly dissociating themselves from it either.
23. Quoted in ‘Borders and alignments begin to change in Central Asia’, Defence &Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, July-August 1992, pp 14–16.
24. I am not saying that proportional disparity based on size and on industrial development of various states of the CIS also means an ‘unbalanced’ approach to economic investment.