CENTRAL ASIA - WHERE POWER, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS COLLIDE -
CENTRAL ASIA - WHERE POWER, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS COLLIDE -

Summary/Abstract: The author writes about the growing interest in Central Asian countries’ increasingly important resources, location and allegiances and about how this interest has played out. First, she mentions that Central Asia is continuously recognised as an important stakeholder in the Caspian energy game, a conduit to Chinese energy security, a playground of Russian power politics, and a transit area for criminal activity and religious fervour that is played out to its extreme in Afghanistan. Then, she points out that the heightened importance of the region in the post-9/11 environment has created an altered reality; however, one in which the fundamental games have not changed, merely the ways in which they are played. Although the immediate impact of this slight twist in context is not obvious, there is a danger that in building an economic house of cards, Central Asia will be in a position to affect regional instability more directly. She concludes by writing that as long as the US, Russia and China continue to play geo-economic games in the region, there will remain a semblance of stability. It is in their interests to ensure that this is the case.

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